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Flora Fadzai Sibanda

ONE can only imagine the horror the Ndebele people woke up to sometime in 1896, during the First Umvukela, when bodies of their loved ones were found hanging from an amarula tree.

It became the norm that people were hanged on this tree near the inxwala ceremony ground.

It became a place of death with the gigantic amarula tree being the infamous hanging tree where the Ndebele were hanged as a form of punishment for defying the white Government and pushing other black people to fight against colonial rule.

About nine people are believed to have been taken outside Grey Prison at night, while everyone was still sleeping, and hanged on the tree.

To everyone’s anger, they were hanged just a few metres from the sacred lands where the king used to host his festival of fruits ceremonies.

Instead of making the Ndebele scared and retreat from fighting for their liberation, historians believe that was one of the first motivations the Ndebele people got to fight. They did not back down, instead were more eager to get justice for their families and friends who were hanged.

Decades later, the tree, situated along JMN Street between Connaught and Masotsha Ndlovu Avenue in Bulawayo, is still standing, looking healthier than most trees on the street and has grown to be one of the reminders of how our forefathers lost their lives so that we could enjoy independence today.

In 2021, Mr Stanley Nyamagodo, the assistant curator in historic buildings and Matopo Heritage Site at the Natural Museum of Zimbabwe said because the tree is very important in the history of Zimbabwe, it is regarded as a heritage monument and is protected by the laws of the country.

He said although they do not have the names of the people who were hanged and whether the nine that was recorded is the definite number, what they do know is that it must have been a cold morning for the Ndebele people who woke up in the morning and saw the first set of people hanged.

As if killing them near the sacred field was not enough, the whites went on to pose for pictures while standing under the tree, something which many Ndebele people saw as a taboo.

“I would love to believe whites had two motives when they hanged those people. One, they wanted to frighten the black people and make them back down from the First Umvukela, which we believe was already there.

They knew once they gave that as an example, black people would back down and forget about fighting for their liberation.

“The second reason could have been to devalue the sacred lands where the festival of fruits ceremony took place.

They knew the Ndebele respected their culture and were very good at preserving it. So, hanging people there was a way of showing them they did not care about their culture and to make the environment unclean because it was now filled with bad spirits,” said Mr Nyamagodo.

The curator said it is believed this angered the Ndebele people and could have pushed them into escalating the First Umvukela.
He said by posing with the dead bodies, the whites not only disrespected the Ndebele people but also disrespected the spirits of those who had died especially because they knew how important spirits and dead bodies of their loved ones were important in their culture.

Mr Nyamagodo said these acts can be seen as the first steps that the Ndebele people in this region took in looking for independence and making sure they got it.

“More than 100 years later, the tree is still standing. We are also surprised by how it has survived this long and it is still very strong and has some of the best leaves. What is also interesting about this particular tree now is how it is the only surviving indigenous tree in this street.

This makes one wonder why it was not cut down and replaced with an exotic tree. We have also asked ourselves how it has survived the bad weather conditions we sometimes get as a country,” said Mr Nyamagodo.

He said today, the tree serves as a reminder to all Ndebele people that they were a people who fought hard for the country and despite being threatened, they still made sure to fight for their spot and to regain their status.

He said the tree is also a reminder of why we should always be united and stand strong as a country because the tree has been standing strong and surviving everything which had a possibility of destroying it.

“To this day, we have tourists who come to the tree and view the tree because it is very important in the history of attaining our independence. We also have children from schools who come and are taught about the importance of the tree and why it is protected,” said Mr Nyamagodo.