Venda People - Social & Cultural Life

Social & Cultural Life

Trade, warfare and intermarriage with Tsonga, Lobedu, Zulu, Swazi and other people, have also left their imprints on Venda culture. The Venda were a protective people, many of whom still practiced polygamy and worshipped their families' ancestors.

Members of the different clans could, and did, live in any of the tribal territories, because the tribe was purely a political and territorial unit, consisting of people who chose to owe allegiance to a particular dynasty.

It was quite common to find a ruler attracting members of his own clan after his accession. There was no paramount chief each tribe was ruled by an independent chief, who had under him headmen, responsible for the government of districts within the tribal territory.

Most of the chiefs belonged to lineages of the same clan, which crossed the Limpopo River and controlled those whom they found living in the Zoutpansberg in the latter half of the 18th century. Thus there was an important social division in Venda society between commoners (vhasiwana) and the children of chiefs and their descendants (vhakololo).

In the Sibasa district (located in Limpopo) there were 12 Venda chiefs some were the descendants of brothers, who were the sons of a ruling chief but broke away and established independent chiefdoms elsewhere. There were a number of differences in the customs of the various clans, especially in religious ritual, but there were no distinct differences between the tribes.