I have to be honest with you. I opened the file
for today's deep dive and my first reaction was
Well, honestly just confusion I mean I'm looking
at what appears to be a very standard very dry
entry for a geographical location Yeah, it it
really doesn't look like much at first glance.
Does it? Not at all. It basically looks like
census data. I mean, we're looking at a place
called Gala Masamola. I see population statistics
from 2011. I see rainfall patterns. I see a list
of local schools. It feels like we're about to
discuss municipal zoning laws in rural South
Africa or something. So why exactly is this on
our desk? Because that dry municipal exterior
is actually exactly why this is so fascinating.
You look at it and you think you're just looking
at a map, right? Yeah. But the source material
we're analyzing today, which is essentially a
community edited history. is arguing that the
map is a lie. Way to lie. Or at the very least,
a crime scene. If you actually read the text,
like really read the passionate, almost angry
paragraphs tucked between those population stats,
you realize this isn't just an encyclopedia entry.
It's a manifesto. We aren't just talking about
a village here. We are talking about a 12th century
royal assassination. We're talking about a conspiracy
involving six brothers. Well, a red wedding style
betrayal and a colonial coup that happened roughly
600 years later. OK, well, you definitely have
my attention now. I saw the name Gamma Samola
and just assumed it was named after a founder
or a local mountain or something. But you're
saying there is an actual battle over that name.
A battle that has been raging for 800 years.
The source material explicitly claims that the
history of this community has been distorted.
And the person writing this isn't just trying
to correct a date or a typo. They're actively
trying to restore a stolen kingdom. So our mission
today is to essentially figure out what actually
happened. Exactly. We need to peel back the layers.
We need to understand who the Baotou people are,
what happened in that royal bedroom in the 1200s,
and how allegedly at least Dutch settlers in
the 19th century got involved in a tribal succession
crisis. All right, let's start with the basics
then. I'm looking at the map. Where exactly are
we in the world? We are in South Africa, specifically
the Limpopo province. But to give you a better
sense of place, this is about 180 kilometers
northeast of Pretoria. Or Tishwan. We're talking
about the Sikakun district. And for listeners
who aren't familiar with South African geography,
paint the picture a bit. Are we talking city
desert mountains? Think rugged, beautiful, harsh
terrain. This is the Bushveld. It's ancient mountains,
granite rocks, thorny acacia trees. It's the
kind of landscape that just feels permanent.
The community itself is significant. It has about
150 ,000 people as of the last major count. It's
almost entirely black African and northern Sotho
-speaking. Okay, so very solid established community.
But the source material takes us way back, right?
Long before there was a South Africa or a Limpopo
province. Right. We have to go back to the origins
of the Batao clan. The text traces their lineage
all the way back to the Swazi people. And there's
a migration story involved here. There always
is. The source describes a massive movement north
to Lake Crissy, which is locally known as Siokotibang,
and eventually to the Mogwina River. Which is
known today as the Crocodile River, right? Precisely.
And this is where we hit our first major plot
point. The Batao didn't just pass through this
area. The source says they established themselves
at the Mogwina River and lived there for a period
of 200 years. 200 years. I want to just pause
on that for a second because it's so easy to
gloss over big numbers. In modern history, 200
years is the entire history of some nations.
I mean, the United States has only been a proper
country for a little bit longer than that. It
is a massive amount of time. So when the source
says they live there in relative peace and stability
for two centuries, that implies a golden age,
doesn't it? That's generations of culture and
law and agriculture and identity being built
up without major conflict. It absolutely suggests
a highly organized society. You just don't get
200 years of peace by accident. The source credits
this era to the founding king, King Mukwena II.
He was the firstborn son of King Madeljane II.
And because of him, the area was known as Gawena
from the late 1200s. Okay, so listener note that
name, Ga Mukwena, named after the eldest son.
But the place we are looking at today on the
map is called Ga Masamala. And that discrepancy
is the engine of this entire story. Masamala
was not the first son. He was the fifth. So how
do we get from the first son to the fifth son?
I'm guessing the whole peace and stability thing
didn't last forever. No, it did not. It ended
in blood. The source gives us a very detailed
account of the family dynamic of King Mataljain
II. He had six sons, and the birth order is crucial
here. Walk me through the lineup. Okay, so first
born is Mokwena, second is Saloni, third is Mogeshola,
fourth is Fala, fifth is Masamola, and the sixth,
the absolute youngest, was a boy named Foto.
Six sons. That is a lot of potential heirs and,
quite frankly, a lot of potential rivalry. And
according to the oral history preserved in this
text, the rivalry turned into a full -blown conspiracy.
The brothers, or at least most of them, decided
that it was time for the king to die. I mean,
that's patricide. Regicide and patricide. The
plan was brutal in its simplicity, but it was
also incredibly cowardly. They conspired to kill
their father in his resting place. But here is
the catch. They didn't want any single brother
to bear the guilt alone. They wanted collective
responsibility, like a blood pact. So they all
agreed to just stab him together. That was the
plan on paper. But there was a twist, a deception
within the deception. The older brothers tricked
the youngest one, Foto. Tricked him how? The
source says they deliberately blunted their spears.
They turned the tips or ground them down so they
wouldn't penetrate deep. But for Foto, they left
his spear razor sharp. Wow. That is psychological
warfare right there. It's chilling, isn't it?
So they basically set him up. They all go into
the room. They all make the motion of stabbing
the king. But because their spears are blunt,
they only cause bruising or really minor wounds.
Foto thinking he is just doing exactly what his
older brothers are doing, strikes with a sharp
weapon. He ends up delivering the fatal blow.
And in the morning. In the morning, the brothers
inspect the weapons. And of course, only Foto's
spear is covered in blood. And the brothers just
completely turn on him. Immediately. The text
literally says they cried aloud hysterically
with painful voices. They performed this massive
show of grief. They pointed at the bloody spear
and said, look, Foto has killed our father. That
is the perfect crime. I mean, they get the king
dead, which is what they wanted all along. But
they also remove a competitor for the throne
by completely framing him. And they destroy his
reputation forever. The source says Foto was
despised and rejected by the people. He became
an absolute pariah. You know, when you read history
books, you usually just get dates and maybe battle
locations. You so rarely get this level of specific
narrative detail. The blunt spears the fake crying.
It genuinely feels like a movie script. Well,
that is the power of oral history. And this is
actually a really important point for us to dig
into. How do we know this happened in the 1200s?
There were no court stenographers hanging around.
Right. It's not like there's a police report
filed in 1250 that we can pull up. Exactly. But
there is something much more durable than paper.
Language. The source explicitly cites idioms,
actual sayings, people still use in that region
today that were born directly from this murder.
Give me an example. One of them is matobjain
ob baleil ketswala. Which means what exactly?
Roughly, it translates to being killed by your
own kin or birth killed matobjain. It's a saying
you would use today when someone very close to
you betrays you. So every time someone uses that
phrase in the modern day, they are essentially
referencing that exact murder from the 1200s.
Exactly. It's an archive that lives in the mouth.
Another one is, It means I nurtured a tree and
when it grew, it pierced me. Referring to the
father raising the sons who eventually killed
him. Right. That is incredibly poignant. It's
like the trauma of that specific night was so
deep, it permanently altered the language of
the people. And it serves as a cultural warning.
Don't trust those closest to you. But this is
exactly where our detective work has to get a
little more skeptical. How so? We have this dramatic
story of the brothers killing the king. But the
source material, this supposedly neutral entry,
has a very specific agenda. Did you notice the
contradiction regarding the eldest son, Maquena?
Now that you mention it, yes. At first it says
the brothers conspired. But then later, it goes
completely out of its way to say Moquena, the
firstborn, was innocent. It's a very sharp pivot
in the text. It explicitly says, originally,
when King Mataljain II was murdered, his firstborn
son, Moquena, did not participate in the plot.
It really clarifies that only the younger brothers
conspired. Why does that matter so much, though?
Why the sudden need to clear Moquena's name hundreds
of years later? Think about the legitimacy of
the throne. If Moquena killed his father, he's
a usurper. He has blood on his hands. But if
he was completely innocent, if he was asleep
or away or just refused to participate, then
he remains the rightful pure heir. The source
is fighting very hard to establish Mokwina's
moral superiority. Because the source believes
the current rulers, the Masamola line, are illegitimate.
Precisely. The source argues that Masamola, the
fifth son, and his descendants were never kings.
They were essentially middle management. The
text claims they were made chiefs by King Mukwina
as a token of brotherhood, but they were supposed
to remain firmly under his authority. So the
argument is Mukwina is the true king and Masamala
is just a younger brother who got a promotion
he didn't really deserve. Correct. But here is
the core problem with that argument. We are looking
at a modern map and the map doesn't say Ga Makwena.
It clearly says Ga Masamola. So if Makwena was
the rightful king and there were 200 years of
peace under his name, what happened? We have
a massive time jump here in the narrative. We
go from the medieval era to suddenly the late
19th century. Where is the middle of the movie?
That missing middle is often where oral history
gets hazy. But the source becomes laser focused
again the second we hit the 1880s. And this is
where the story shifts from a family tragedy
to a straight up political thriller. This is
the part that involves the Dutch. Yes. The source
introduces a totally new cast of characters.
President Paul Kruger and a man named Bolterus
Dull. Dull as in Dullstrom. That's a really popular
tourist town in that area today. Known for trout
fishing and pancakes. The very same. The source
details how Paul Kruger encouraged Dutch immigration
to the South African Republic in the 1880s. A
company was set up under Wolters Dull to bring
settlers over, and they arrived between 1884
and 1887. OK, so you have European settlers arriving
in the Mpumalanga Highlands. How on earth does
that connect to a centuries -old tribal feud
between the descendants of Mokwiana and Massimila?
The source makes a massive allegation here. It
claims that the name of the area was changed
from Gamaquena to Gama Semola only after, and
I quote, the settlers colluded with Masmela to
overthrow King Maquena. Collusion. That is a
very loaded word. It implies a conspiracy, a
coup d 'etat. But wait a minute. Let's pause
and just think about this critically for a second.
Why would the Dutch government or these random
settlers care which brother was in charge of
the batau? Why would they intervene in a local
succession dispute? That is the million -dollar
question. The source doesn't give us the meeting
minutes, obviously. But historically, colonial
powers very often used a strategy of divide and
rule. If the rightful King Makwena, in this case,
was strong, independent, or maybe resistant to
settler encroachment... Then it might be extremely
useful to replace him. Exactly. If you have a
younger brother line, like Masamola, who is ambitious,
perhaps a bit jealous of the older line and maybe
willing to cut a deal, you back him. You give
him the guns or the legitimacy or the legal recognition
from the new colonial state. So the working theory
is the settlers wanted a puppet or at least a
cooperative partner and Masamola was their guy.
That is the heavy implication. The source suggests
that the renaming of the land wasn't just some
clerical error by a cartographer. It was a reward.
The village became Ga Masamola because Masamola
won the political game with Dutch help. It really
changes how you look at the map, doesn't it?
Ga Masamola isn't just a name. It's a monument
to a coup. And Dahlstrom is a monument to the
man who organized those settlers. The source
points out that Dahlstrom is named after Vulturus
Dahl and the Crocodile River. But remember the
Batao call that river the Moguena River. So even
the river got renamed. Everything got renamed.
The geography itself was literally overwritten
by the winners of that 1880s conflict. This text
is incredibly bitter about that fact. I mean,
it's visceral. It literally says the history
of Batau was distorted and is still distorted.
It feels like the person writing this is shouting
from the rooftops to anyone who will listen.
It's an act of resistance. You really have to
understand for the official record, the census,
the municipality, the road signs you drive past
the war is over. It's Gamla Samola. It's official.
But for the person writing this text. The war
is very much still happening. They're using this
platform to try and undo the erasure of the Maquina
Line. It's amazing, actually. We usually think
of these reference sites as this neutral, boring,
encyclopedic space. But here it's an active battlefield.
It's a digital battlefield for an analog war.
And it seems like the geography still heavily
reflects those family fractures. The source mentions
that Gamasemula actually surrounds another village
called Gamahutha. Yes, Makutha was another brother.
The landscape is literally carved up by these
siblings. You can practically drive through the
family tree. I'm curious, though, does the Magrina
line still exist today or were they completely
wiped out from power during this collusion? They
do exist. In fact, if you look closely at the
government section of the info box in the source
material, it lists the current counselor as Kagoshi
Mukwena. Oh, wow. I completely missed that. So
Mukwena is currently in a position of leadership
right now. Yes. Kagoshi means king or chief.
So the lineage has absolutely survived. They
might not have the name on the main map, but
they seem to have retained some authority locally,
or perhaps they've managed to claw it back over
the years. That adds a whole new layer of tension
to the place. You have a town officially called
Gamasamola, but the local leader is a Mokwena.
That must make for some very interesting town
hall meetings. I can only imagine. It means the
dispute isn't just dusty history. It's daily
politics. It's about who actually sits at the
head of the table today. It really makes you
realize that history isn't something that just
happened and finished. It's something that people
are actively maintaining or actively fighting
over right now. Absolutely. And it brings up
the whole issue of authoritative sources. Think
about it. If you went to the South African government
archives, you'd probably find a formal document
from 1893 proclaiming the town of Dahlstrom and
officially recognizing Chief Massimola. That
is the written record. But the oral history,
the story of the blunted. spears the idioms about
betrayal that tells a completely different truth.
And usually we just trust the paper more than
the story. We do. We are heavily biased toward
the written word. We tend to think paper is fact
and stories are just myths. But in this case,
the paper was written by the very people who
allegedly colluded to change the regime. So which
one is the actual truth? That is a really heavy
question. It is. The source is basically asking
us to trust the memory of the people over the
maps of the settlers. We have covered so much
ground here today. We started with a sleepy -looking
village in Limpopo. We found a 12th century migration,
a golden age of peace, a fratricidal conspiracy
involving blunted... It's brutal, but I am so
glad we stopped to read this file. It's a reminder
that everyone's hometown has a ghost story. Indeed
it does. And sometimes that ghost is still fighting
for the throne. I want to leave you, the listener,
with that thought. Next time you look at a map,
or even your own address... Ask yourself, is
this the name of the hero or is this just the
name of the guy who had the sharper spear or
maybe the better political connections? A very
provocative thought. Thanks for diving deep with
us today. This was a really wild one. Always
a pleasure. We'll catch you on the next deep
dive.