|
Mandela familyThe Mandela family is a Xhosa royal family in South Africa. Its most prominent member was Nelson Mandela, who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999.
HistoryThe Mandelas are direct descendants of the AmaHala clan, the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of AbaThembu,[1] as a result, their leader has traditionally had a hereditary claim to both membership of the Thembu king's privy council and the chieftaincy of the town of Mvezo that is subject to his authority. The family was started in the 18th century, when King Ngubengcuka of the married and left a son named Mandela, the first of the direct line to bear the name.[2][3] Prince Mandela was a son of a woman that belonged to the Ixhiba House , a ritually inferior house when compared to other ranks, and therefore his cadet branch of the dynasty was deemed to be morganatic.[4] Due to this, in lieu of having a place in the line of succession, he and his heirs were recognized as privy councillors thereafter.[5][6][7] The prince's own son, Gadla Henry Mphakanyiswa Mandela, was later also given the title of the chief of Mvezo by his relative, the king of Thembuland, as a further marker of the family's eminence. After being lost in the Apartheid era, this chieftaincy has since been restored to the Mandelas. During the title's abeyance, the claim to it passed to Chief Mandela's son Nelson, who would never inherit it. Following his renunciation of it in order to become active in the anti-Apartheid movement, it would later pass to his sons Thembekile and Makgatho, and following their own early deaths, to Makgatho's son Mandla. Chief Mandla Mandela would ultimately succeed to the title in 2007 following its restoration.[8] Prominent members
Other members
References
Bibliography
|
||||||||||||||||||||
