Gwai · sheep
Gwai is the totem of the Gwai clan, whose poem, printed in the Mitupo 2025 collection as Gwai Gumbi, praises the hwai, the sheep. Sources differ on the animal, though: a Shona dictionary calls Gwai the totem of those who keep away from the tortoise (kamba). The clan is greeted as Gumbi, Mukuruvambwa, Chuma and Gora.
The Gwai poem opens by thanking the clan as Mukuruvambwa and as Moyo ndizvo, with wealth beyond counting, and says it had its chieftaincy taken by Mabvakure. Of the sheep it says only this: if it cries, the firstborn dies, and if you eat it, you lose your teeth. It calls the clan the children of Mbarure, Chigondo, Nyamhunga and Gora, and greets it at Goromonzi, Mharamasimbe, Manyewe, Baramhanya, Mburwi, Mhondoro, Mashayamombe's and Doworo.
Its closing lines share the cattle list of the Moyo poems, the hide slept on, the horn made a gonamombe, the dung smeared on the floors, and it ends on Sahayi and Changamire, names of the Moyo Moyondizvo poem. A Shona dictionary gives Chuma as a Gwai praise name, as the poem does.
Gwai mutupo wedzinza raGwai, rinorumbidza hwai mudetembo raro. Detembo rinoti hwai ikachema kunofa dangwe, ukaidya unopera mazino. Vanorumbidzwa seMukuruvambwa, Gumbi, Chuma naGora. Duramazwi rinoti Gwai mutupo wevaera kamba.
The sources disagree. The Gwai poem praises the hwai, the sheep, and says that eating it costs you your teeth. A Shona dictionary calls Gwai the totem of those who keep away from the tortoise (kamba). A study note on totems lists gwayi among Shona totems without saying which animal it is.
The Gwai poem thanks its clan as Moyo ndizvo and ends on Sahayi and Changamire, names found in the Moyo Moyondizvo poem. None of the sources used here explains the link.
Gwai Gwai.
Traditionally, people of the same mutupo and chidawo do not marry: they are counted as one family. Between different Gwai clans some families allow it, often after a ceremony that cuts the kinship (kucheka ukama).
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