Humba · wild pig
Humba is the wild pig or warthog, the gloss a study note on Shona totems gives, and its poem also greets the clan as Nguruve, the pig. It is kept by the Humba Nyanguru clan, children of Makombe and of Matope, praised as Chiunga, Chomera, Mutakurwa and Chitambanamatope.
The Humba poem names its ancestors more than its animal. It thanks Makombe as its forefather, calls the clan the child of Makombe, of Dukudza, of Gosa and Zunzangara and of Matope, and greets it at Barwe and Gwindingwi guru, at Nyadekese and by the Zambezi. Its pictures are homely and proud by turns: plastering the house with mud, a mouth like a dipper for drawing water, hoes that are there but given to the servants, and another people wiped out with bees. A Shona dictionary gives Gosa as a title of seniority in the royal house of those who keep Nguruve.
Humba mutupo wevanhu vanoera humba, inguruve yomusango. Detembo ravo rinovadaidza kuti vana vaMakombe navaMatope, richivakudza seChiunga, Chomera naMutakurwa. Rinovakwazisa kuBarwe nokuZambezi. Duramazwi rinoti Gosa izita roukuru muimba youshe yavaera Nguruve.
The wild pig or warthog. A study note on totems glosses humba that way, and a Shona dictionary describes humba as a wild pig that goes about at night eating crops, roots and wild fruit. The poem greets the clan as Nguruve, the pig, as well as Humba.
The poem thanks Makombe as its forefather and calls the clan his children. Bourdillon's study The Shona Peoples gives Makombe as the title of the rulers of the Barwe state, and the poem greets the clan at Barwe; none of the sources used here says which totem the Barwe rulers kept.
Humba Nyanguru.
Traditionally, people of the same mutupo and chidawo do not marry: they are counted as one family. Between different Humba clans some families allow it, often after a ceremony that cuts the kinship (kucheka ukama).
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