eBusiness Weekly
Tawanda Musarurwa
The Matobo Hills — approximately 40 kilometres south of Bulawayo — offer some unusually majestic scenic views, but more than that they are a rich historical focal point.
The hills cover about 320 000 hectares and scientists believe that they have been eroded from an exposed granite batholith said to be over 3 000 million years old (ok, I’m not a scientist or a mathematician but 3 000 million years seems like a lot).
The exfoliation of the granite rock from that far back has resulted in hump-backed domes that are scattered across the whole area.
Another distinctive feature of these hills are the crenellated ridges, often triumphed over by astonishing balancing rock formations that have been formed by erosion along regular fault lines in the rock.
The hills were named “Amatobo” meaning the “bald-headed ones” by the Ndebele King Mzilikazi; later this was corrupted to “Matopo” by white settlers.
It is also this interplay between the indigenous peoples and the early European settlers that makes this place an interesting historical place.
The Matobo Hills are indeed at the centre of much of Zimbabwe’s history and pre-history.
Historically, the hills were the setting of the infamous meeting between Cecil John Rhodes — the pioneer of the Rhodesian state — and Ndebele leaders in 1896.
I have always been an enthusiastic student of history. There is something intriguing and mentally enriching about discovering something you didn’t know about your past. Firstly, it defines part of who you are, and secondly it can give you pointers as to your future.
But actually visiting a historical site offers so much more.
Zimbabwe is speckled with numerous historical sites if you want to brush up on your bookish historical facts.
Most history after all is documented, but some of it remains frozen in time.
Being present at a historical site — following the same paths, breathing the same air (same trees and all) and just being in the same environs as the people of old — offers you the unique opportunity to close your eyes and travel back in time as it were to experience history as it unfolded.
And so we discovered when we visited the burial site of Cecil John Rhodes.
Rhodes and his close lieutenants are buried at “Malindidzimu” or “World’s View” (whichever you like).
Long before the early white settlers had “discovered” it (these people seemed to have a knack of “discovering” other people’s properties), the natives called this particular hill “Malindidzimu”, meaning “hill of the spirits”, showing that the locals had long drawn spiritual significance from the site.
The grave site lies within the environs of the Matobo National Park, and falls under the direct jurisdiction of the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe.
For a Zimbabwean this is not the most glorious of histories, but it is part of who we are. The “Rhodes phase” is a segment of a puzzle that makes up the picture of Zimbabwe.
When you actually stand at the summit of the Malindidzimu or World’s View, it’s little wonder the natives called it hill of the spirits because the wind blows in such a way as to speak to you . . . you can almost hear voices as the wind blows from all directions to converge at the summit. It’s a really calming experience.
Little wonder too, Rhodes chose to call it World’s View because from the summit you can catch astoundingly far-reaching views of the surrounding areas, extending hundreds of kilometres in all directions.
