Igama elithi Thembu lisuselwa esithenjini, lapho umuntu eganwe khona ngamakhosikazi amaningi. Kusengathi nesizwe saBathembu savela kanjalo. Isizwe saBathembu singesinye sezinsika zakwaZulu.

A certain Thembu chieftain - it may have been Mangqiyima himself - as was most chieftains' wont, got himself somehow entangled, amorously, with his `tribal sister', daughter of a clansman named Mabaso. The upshot was, he had to marry her, despite the exogamous law forbidding. To put things legally straight, the Mabasos now proclaimed themselves an entirely separate clan, into which any Thembu chief might henceforth marry at will.

The particular marital venture in point turned out a miserable failure - the bride presented her lord with nothing but a bunch of girls, a commodity in the production of which no self-respecting Nguni progenitor ever prides himself. Mabaso, the girl's father, was equal to the occasion. When next his daughter's days were come that she should be delivered, he made a point of being personally on the spot to superintend arrangements. As before, a wretched (sic) girl was born. Now, Mabaso had taken the precaution to bring along with him a long bundle (Zulu: iNyanda; Locative: eNyandeni) of grass, ostensibly for the thatching of a hut in the kraal. But inside the bundle he had secretly concealed an infant boy, opportunely filched (sic) elsewhere. Being informed of betimes of his daughter's misadventure (sic), he promptly extracted the boy from the bundle (eNyandeni) and deftly slipped it alongside the infant girl just born, thereafter proceeding to announce to the family with obvious pride that at last his daughter had presented them with what they wanted, a son and heir, one of a pair of twins. The boy was later christened Mvelase; and from him was descended that section of the Thembu clan, the house of Gazi, which, on the migration of the other section coastwards, had remained up-country, and was generally referred to as abakwaMvelase owavela eNyandeni.