ABSTRACT
This chapter shows the techniques of conquest and control observable in two main phases of Swazi history. Groups of Bantu-speaking people migrated into South-eastern Africa in the late fifteenth century. Leading one of the groups was Dlamini, a man of Embo Nguni stock, and founder of the royal clan of the Swazi. Sobhuza's people were immigrants with women and children in their midst, not an army on march, and with them they drove their most valuable possession, their cattle. Most of the migrants were Dlamini relatives with their wives, but there were also forerunners of many clans important at the present time: Matsebula, Hlophe, Thwala, and others, with genealogies extending beyond their amalgamation at Eshiselweni. The Dlamini clan far outnumbered any of the other clans, some of which had only one member—a refugee to the Swazi kingdom. Every clan had its history, and the combined history of all the clans gave the mandate of superiority to the Dlamini conquerors.
