Isibongo · isiNdebele (Southern Ndebele)
Mahlangu (Southern)
- PeopleamaNdebele (Southern)
- Grouping Ndzundza house - royal surname
- Surnames recorded Mahlangu
- Places recorded Mpumalanga, Roossenekal, Weltevrede, Nebo, Stofberg, Gauteng
- Branch Southern
Your Family's Praise Belongs Here
This clan has a praise. It is not on this page yet, and that is our doing, not anything about your family or the praise itself. If the people at home still say it, you can put the true one here.
Why It Is Not Here Yet
The rendering that was read: iAfrika (community directory, uncredited contributors), iAfrika - isiNdebele section, category 'Umlando neenanazelo' (history and clan praises), including Umlando wamaNdebel…, 2025 (post dates), iafrika.org — https://iafrika.org/nr/category/umlando-neenanazelo/ (Iinanazelo zakwa Mahlangu (Mgwezani); opening lines only - the Mgwezani sub-lineage set)
A praise belongs to the families who recite it, not to whoever wrote it down. A isiNdebele (Southern Ndebele)-speaking family that still holds this one holds the better version of it, and can put that version on this page.
Also Spelled
Mahlangu (Southern) is also written Mahlangu, Ntobela and Mgwezani.
Spellings differ between families, between records and between countries. Wozekhaya keeps the name as each source wrote it rather than settling on one form.
Written down by families and by the people who recorded them.
About This Record
What Was Written Down
Van Vuuren records Mahlangu as the ruling clan of the Ndzundza, with the royal lineage named as Mgwezane Mahlangu. SAHO explains the surname historically: the Ndzundza ruling family had been called Mdungwa until Sindeni's son Mahlangu took the chieftainship in about the mid-eighteenth century, after which the family carried his name. iAfrika's isiNdebele directory records separate praise sets for sixteen Mahlangu sub-lineages (Ntobela, Ndimande, Sirudla, Maridili, Bhorholo, Goda, Kotheni, Qongo, Bongwe, Magobholi, Mgwezani, Gembe, Bungela, Sombili, Lamula, Dima), most of them named after kings in the Ndzundza succession. King Magodongo was killed by Mzilikazi's forces in the 1820s; Nyabela led the 1882-83 resistance against the ZAR and was imprisoned; the dispersal that followed scattered the Ndzundza as farm labour. Recorded from the sources named on this entry; the wording here is Sibaya's own.
Families Tell This Differently
Families who carry this name tell parts of it differently. Each way it has been told is below.
Where This Comes From
- Written down by
-
- iAfrika (community directory, uncredited contributors), iAfrika - isiNdebele section, category 'Umlando neenanazelo' (history and clan praises), including Umlando wamaNdebel…, 2025 (post dates), iafrika.org — https://iafrika.org/nr/category/umlando-neenanazelo/
- iAfrika (community directory, uncredited contributors), iAfrika - isiNdebele section, category 'Umlando neenanazelo' (history and clan praises), including Umlando wamaNdebel…, 2025 (post dates), iafrika.org — https://iafrika.org/nr/category/umlando-neenanazelo/ (Iinanazelo zakwa Mahlangu (Mgwezani)
- South African History Online, The Ndebele in history (article A-0063369; project researched by Franco Frescura), 2011 (updated 2026), South African History Online — https://sahistory.org.za/article/ndebele-history
- Chris J. van Vuuren, Ndebele (Encyclopedia of World Cultures, vol. 9, Africa and the Middle East), 1995, G. K. Hall / Macmillan; read via encyclopedia.com — https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ndebele-0
- iAfrika (community directory, uncredited contributors), iAfrika - isiNdebele section, category 'Umlando neenanazelo' (history and clan praises), including Umlando wamaNdebel…, 2025 (post dates), iafrika.org — https://iafrika.org/nr/category/umlando-neenanazelo/ (Iinanazelo zakwa Mahlangu (Mgwezani); opening lines only - the Mgwezani sub-lineage set)
Are You Mahlangu (Southern)?
Put your name on the launch list.
Tell Me When It Opens Send This To Your Family
We write to you about Wozekhaya, and nothing else.
If Your Family Holds More Of This
A family saying its own iinanazelo / iibongo knows them better than any directory does. If yours has more than what is on this page, it belongs here.
This is also how this clan's praise gets onto the page. Your family's own words are yours to give.