[8] The original Nehanda was considered to be Nyamhita, the daughter of the first Monomutapa Mutota, who was living in the escarpment north of Guruve in about 1430.

[9] Charwe Nyakasikana was born in 1840, in what is today called the Chishawasha District located in Central Mashonaland.

Shayachimwe, founded the Hwata dynasty in the upper Mazowe valley in the late eighteenth century.

In Chidamba's village lived Charwe Nyakasikana, who was considered to be the female incarnation of the oracle spirit Nehanda.

[13] As medium of the spirit Nehanda, Nyakasikana made oracular pronouncements and performed traditional ceremonies that were thought to ensure rain and good crops.

[14] Spirit mediums at first promoted good relations between the Zezuru people and early European settlers.

As white settlement increased in the land, according to sources Nehanda initially welcomed them by the pioneers and counseled her followers to be friendly towards them.

However, relationships became strained when the settlers started imposing taxes on the Matabele and conscripting them for various labor projects.

Due to the cultural beliefs of the local people, the leading roles behind the rebellion were three spirit mediums.

They had brought the locusts and the rinderpest, and to crown it all the owners of the cattle which had died were not allowed to eat the meat of the carcasses, which had to be burned or buried.

[15] After the end of the rebellion in 1897, Nyakasikana was captured and charged with the murder of Native Commissioner Henry Hawkins Pollard in 1896.

[19] In May 2021, a statue of Mbuya Nehanda was unveiled in Zimbabwe's capital city Harare along Julias Nyerere Way, where the road meets Samora Machel Avenue.