Chirombowe · buffalo
Chirombowe is the name under which the Mitupo 2025 collection prints the poem of a buffalo clan: the animal is the nyati, and a Shona dictionary gives Chirombowe itself as another word for Changamire. The clan is Chirombowe Nyati, greeted as Nyati, Shonga and Zvigarambabvu, the child of Muswere.
The poem thanks the clan as Nyati and Shonga, Zvigarambabvu and the child of Muswere, and greets it at Museso, Minanga, Mhinha, Masendeke, Homwe and Ungwe, linking it with Makoni. Much of it is about food. The clan will not eat the meat of the back and prefers the chityu cut; it slaughters cattle and counts eating goat as poverty; and its offerings to the ancestors are made with a basket of rice. It also remembers Derere of Ungwe, who does not eat derere, okra.
Chirombowe Nyati mutupo wevanhu vanoera nyati. Vanorumbidzwa seShonga naZvigarambabvu, mwana waMuswere. Detembo ravo rinoti havadyi nyama yomusana, vanoda yechityu, uye vanobaya mombe. Vanoteketera midzimu nedengu romupunga.
The buffalo (nyati). The Mitupo 2025 collection prints this clan's poem in a section it heads Chirombowe and Nyati, and a study note on totems lists nyati, the buffalo, among the totem animals.
A Shona dictionary gives Chirombowe as another word for Changamire. None of the sources used here explains how the name came to the buffalo clan.
Their poem says they will not eat the meat of the back and prefer the chityu cut, and it counts eating goat as poverty.
Chirombowe Nyati.
Traditionally, people of the same mutupo and chidawo do not marry: they are counted as one family. Between different Chirombowe clans some families allow it, often after a ceremony that cuts the kinship (kucheka ukama).
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