Timeline

Sekuru Chigamba’s mother, Cenizia Mushongahande, is born.

Sekuru Chigamba’s father, Chigamba Tavasika, is born.

Sekuru Chigamba is born on January 3rd in Mushongahande Village, Guruve.

Chief Bepura and his people are forcibly relocated to Chief Chipuriro’s area by the British colonial government.

Sekuru Chigamba moves to Morton Farm, where his father works as a cook. Here, he meets a karimba player named Kachonda and learns to play…

Sekuru Chigamba returns from Morton Farm to live with his paternal grandmother Manungwa Chinzodzi in Chigamba Village.

Chigamba Village is sold to British settler, becoming a commercial farm; Sekuru Chigamba’s family is relocated to the other side of the Mavare River.

Sekuru Chigamba’s family has a good harvest following the 1947 drought.

Sekuru Chigamba’s father Chigamba Tavasika returns to the village after many years of working at Morton Farm.

Sekuru Chigamba begins Sub-Standard A at Ruvinga School, a Salvation Army school near Mushongahande village. He will proceed to Saint Nicholas, an Anglican school, for…

Sekuru Chigamba begins working as a laborer in Gadzema, where he also begins Standard Four at a farm school.

Sekuru Chigamba completes Standard Five at a farm school near Gadzema.

Sekuru Chigamba moves to colonial Salisbury, where he begins working for Albert Amato, a Jewish refugee from Rhodes Island.

Prime Minister Ian Smith declares Rhodesia’s independence from Britain, inciting an armed liberation struggle for majority rule.

Sekuru Chigamba acquires his first mbira dzavadzimu and starts teaching himself to play, with assistance from a senior mbira player named VaMukwani.

Sekuru Chigamba meets Sekuru Gora and begins playing mavembe tuning mbira.

Sekuru Chigamba and his wife acquire a house in the Zororo area of Highfield township, the first residential neighborhood for black families in the capital…

Sekuru Chigamba’s father Chigamba Tavasika dies, leading Sekuru Chigamba to compose his first mbira song, “Mutenda Mambo,” in his father’s honor.

Johanne, medium of the Nhova founding ancestral spirit Chingoo, is killed in the liberation war in Sekuru Chigamba’s home region of Guruve.

Sekuru Chigamba’s son Shame Chigamba is murdered in Highfield.

Zimbabwe achieves independence.

A multi-year drought strikes the newly independent Zimbabwe.

Sekuru Chigamba begins playing mbira intensively at post-war reconciliation ceremonies organized by Mutumwa, a religious leader of the Johane Masowe Nyenyedzi Nomwe sect.

The Chigamba family’s situation begins to improve as Sekuru Chigamba continues making mbira and begins selling them abroad, through the assistance of Erica Azim.

The Chigamba family ensemble, then called Young Zimbabweans, has an importance performance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Harare, leading directly to…

The Young Zimbabweans tour Canada and the United Kingdom, their first major international engagements.

Sekuru Chigamba works with ethnomusicologist Lucy Duran and BBC producer Tessa Watts on a programme called “Talking Drum,” featuring music from Nyanehwe Village, Rushinga.

Sekuru Chigamba resumes playing the guitar while on tour in the United States.