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From the House of Moyo Netombo — the Heart that never stopped beating —To our beloved House of Hungwe — Maokomavi, Shiri isina shura nomunhu —Written this Independence Season, 15 April 2026

Maita zvenyu. Maita Shiri. Maita Hungwe.

Children of the Fish Eagle — you who were carved in soapstone before the world knew what stone walls meant — I write to you this day with tears that are not of mourning, but of completion.

The Bird has come home.

Let every young Hungwe stop what they are doing and understand what this moment means. Let them pull their chairs close, because this letter carries the weight of centuries, and the lightness of liberation all at once.First — Who You Are. Remember This.

Young one, before you can celebrate, you must know what was taken. And before you can understand what was taken, you must know who you are.

You are Hungwe. You are Shiri Maokomavi — the African Fish Eagle, the soaring one, the bird that does not simply fly but commands the sky. Your totem is not decoration. It is not a family nickname. It is a cosmological appointment.

Ziendanomudenga — you are the one who travels to the heavens. When your ancestors carved your bird in grey-green soapstone and placed it atop stone columns at the great city of Zimbabwe — built without mortar, without foreign instruction, with nothing but genius and will — they were not making art. They were making a declaration. They were saying: we are the people through whom the divine speaks to this earth. We are the bridge between the sky and the soil.

Pasi yakatya ndove — even the earth feared the droppings of your bird. That is the authority encoded in your blood. Not arrogance. Authority. There is a difference, and your ancestors knew it well.

The Hungwe totem is among the oldest in the land between the Zambezi and the Limpopo — this sacred corridor that the world now calls Zimbabwe. Your people trace their roots through the Zambezi Valley, through ancient Mozambique, into the heart of Masvingo, Gutu, Shurugwi. You were here when Mapungubwe rose. You were here when Great Zimbabwe stood at its tallest. The soapstone birds that stood on those columns — Chapungu — were your spiritual emblem made physical. They were your ancestors looking down from on high, watching over the living.

Then — What Was Stolen

Now, young Hungwe, know this history without flinching.

In the late 1800s, a British explorer arrived at Great Zimbabwe. The colonial world had already decided — without evidence, without logic, only with the arrogance of those who cannot imagine Africans building great things — that Great Zimbabwe could not have been built by your people. They said it was Phoenician, Arab, foreign. They could not accept that Hungwe hands carved those soapstone birds. That Hungwe feet walked those stone passages.

That explorer ripped Chapungu — your sacred bird — from the pedestal where it had stood for centuries. He sold it to Cecil John Rhodes, the architect of dispossession across Southern Africa, the man who built a empire on stolen land, stolen labour, and stolen heritage.

Chapungu ended up at Rhodes’ Cape Town estate, displayed like a trophy, while your ancestors’ graves nearby were dug up — their bones taken as so-called “scientific specimens”, placed in museum drawers as if they were curiosities rather than kings and mothers and elders deserving of rest.

116 years. That is how long one of your ancestors sat in a museum drawer in Cape Town. Not honoured. Catalogued.

Nearly 140 years. That is how long Chapungu sat in exile, far from the stone columns, far from the hum of your ancestral voices.

To every young Hungwe who ever felt a heaviness they could not name — now you have a name for part of it. When the bird of your house is in exile, something in the lineage knows.

Now — The Circle Closes

But today — today, my beloved Hungwe — the Bird is home.On the 15th of April 2026, South Africa’s Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture stood in Cape Town and returned Chapungu — the last looted soapstone Zimbabwe Bird — along with the ancestral human remains, back to Zimbabwe. Eight coffins draped in the Zimbabwean flag were present. The bones of your people, finally, finally, coming home to rest.

And I must tell you: this did not happen by accident. This did not happen because the powerful suddenly grew a conscience. This happened because our children — your children, my children, the children of all our houses — have been working. Researchers, advocates, diplomats, artists, historians, mothers who told the old stories at night, grandmothers who refused to let the praise names die, fathers who drove hours to show their children Great Zimbabwe. Decades of pressure. Decades of insistence. Decades of refusing to accept that what was taken could simply stay taken.

This is your Independence Day, Hungwe.

Not just of a political flag — but of the soul.

From the House of Moyo Netombo — What We Bring to This Moment

Now you may ask — why does the House of Moyo Netombo write to you?

Young one, understand the architecture of the totem system our ancestors designed. It is not a collection of separate families each in their own corner. It is an ecosystem. Each house has a role. Each house, a gift.

Moyo — we are the heart. Moyo is the Shona word for heart, and that is our totem, our very emblem. We do not consume the heart of any animal because the heart is sacred — it is the central point that controls life and death. The Moyo people, particularly the Rozvi and Netombo lineages, are counted among the earliest Bantu builders of this land — the Venevenyika, the first people of the land between the great rivers. We built with Hungwe. We ruled alongside Hungwe. Our dynasties intertwined through the great eras — the Great Zimbabwe state, the Mutapa state, the Rozvi state. We know what it is to build, and we know what it is to lose.

Netombo is not merely a sub-name. Netombo speaks to legacy, to what is carried forward, to what is entrusted across generations. I, Tete Getty, carry that name as a responsibility — to speak when speech is required, to witness when witnessing matters, and today, to send this message across to the House that carries the Bird of Zimbabwe in its very identity.

The Moyo is the beating drum. The Hungwe is the soaring messenger that carries that drum’s sound to the heavens and back. Without the Hungwe carrying it upward, the ancestors do not hear us. Without the Moyo beating steadily below, the Hungwe has nowhere to return to.

The circuit between earth and sky — between the living and the ancestral — depends on both our houses.

And children, hear me: the hum between us and our ancestors beats again today. The bird that was taken — the very totem through which your lineage declared its authority over the sky — is back on its pedestal. The ancestors who were taken from their graves and catalogued in colonial museums are being returned to earth. The silence that colonialism tried to make permanent has been broken.

To Every Hungwe Son and Daughter — Rise

Whether you are in Gutu or Harare, in London or Toronto, in Johannesburg or New York — you are being called home today. Not geographically, though that matters too. Called home spiritually. Called home in identity.

If you did not know what Hungwe meant before today, now you do. If you did not know what was stolen, now you know. If you did not know why the elders’ eyes grew bright when they called out Maokomavi, now you understand — they were not just greeting you. They were activating you. They were reminding your blood of what it carries.

Vaira shiri nebanga hazvionani — the one who hunts a bird with a knife, an impossible feat — speaks to the extraordinary courage in your line. That courage did not die during colonialism. It went underground, like a river that disappears into rock and re-emerges miles later, unchanged, determined, alive.You are the re-emergence.

VaChifambanokudenga — those who walk in the heavens — this is who you are. Not a metaphor. A calling. Your house was chosen, across generations, to be the bridge between this world and the ancestral realm. Great Zimbabwe was not just a city. It was a spiritual technology, and your bird was placed at its highest points for a reason. Where the Hungwe flies, the prayers of the people follow.So rise, Hungwe. Not in pride that puffs out and collapses. Rise in the way that bird rises — with full wingspread, knowing the thermal currents, reading the sky, circling higher without effort because this is what you were made to do.

The Call Across Every House

To all our children of all totems who read these words — Shumba, Nzou, Mhofu, Dziva, Gumbo, Tsoko, Soko, Tembo, Gwai — look at what has happened and see your own stories reflected. Every stolen artefact is someone’s Chapungu. Every desecrated grave is someone’s ancestor. The restoration of Hungwe’s bird is a sign that the tide of restitution is turning, and it turns for all of us.The work of our many children — the researchers who documented the thefts, the diplomats who made the calls, the artists who kept the imagery alive, the educators who told the truth to young people, the grandmothers who sang the praise names into the next generation — all of it has bent toward this day.

This is independence.

Not the flag.

Not the ceremony.

The return of what was sacred.

The rest of what was disturbed.

The name spoken aloud in full.

Closing — From the Heart to the Sky

Maita Hungwe yangu yiyi.

Shiri isina shura nomunhu.

Mwana waChasura.

VaChifambanokudenga.

Shiri chena, tarirai kwadzinobva.

The bird that was stolen is now home.

The bones that were taken are coming home.

The hum that was interrupted is restored.

And from the House of Moyo Netombo — the heart that never stopped, even when silence was demanded of us — we beat today in celebration of you.

The circle is complete.

Aiwa zvaonekwa Maokomavi.

Zvaitwa. Zvaitwa. Zvaitwa.

With reverence for all who came before, and fire for all who come after —Tete Getty, Moyo Netombo, Direct Descendant of Changamire Dombo I, —April 2026

“There is no tribe called Shona. I am San, Khoi, Torwa, Rozvi, Moyo, Netombo, Manyika — each with their own name, their own history, their own authority. Know yours.“