The Transvaal Advertiser of November 24 1883 reported thus on Mampuru II’s execution

THE hauntingly beautiful whirring of dinaka broke the early morning silence of Mamone, a slumberous village dotted with hillocks formed of clusters of boulders that protrude from the landscape like giant anthills.

In the crowded lapa of the Bapedi Marota Mamone royal homestead located at the base of one of these spectacular rocky hills, an elderly woman in a bright yellow dress pounded on a cowhide drum.

Dudum dum dudum dum dum! Dudum dum dudum dum dum!

Around her forming a vibrating and electrified semi-circle, men stomped the ground in sync to the drum, blowing furiously on their flute like pipes.

Wheeeee wheeee! Wheeeeee wheeeeee! Wheeeeee wheeeee wheeeee!

Another man, his head covered in a hat fashioned from the soft, beautiful skin of a jackal moved around like a spirit medium, blowing on a rusted brass trumpet.

The Transvaal Advertiser of November 24 1883 reported thus on Mampuru II’s execution:

‘The Executive Council of this state having decided that the sentence of death pronounced upon the kaffir Chief Mampuru at the last Criminal Sessions of the High Court for murder and rebellion should be carried out, the execution took place on Thursday morning of 22 November.

‘Generally the dread sentence of the law is carried out within the precincts of the gaol, but, for some reason or other, it was resolved to vary the practice in the case of Mampuru, and the gallows was erected on the western side of the gaol, within the enclosure … some 260 white persons took advantage of the opportunity of witnessing a public execution furnished to them by the Executive … these men of education and standing in society … turned out early in the morning to behold a scene that, under any circumstances, is most repulsive and horrible.

‘The Government … enforced the attendance of the kaffir prisoners, who had been more or less compatriots of Mampuru; and they were compelled to witness the death agonies of the Chief. It may be mentioned that the Government did not consider it necessary to provide the condemned prisoner with a shirt, and he was hanged in all his nakedness.’

The New York Times of December 19 1886 painted a gory and barbaric scene of Mampuru II’s demise.

‘Mampuru was led naked to the jail yard in the presence of 200 whites. The first rope used broke when the trap was sprung and Mampuru fell into a pit below. He was dragged out, however, and another attempt to hang him was successful.’

Pretoria Central Prison, where Mampuru II was imprisoned was renamed in his honour by the ANC government in 2013 and is now known as Kgoši Mampuru Management Centre.

Mamone, the seat of the Bapedi Marota Mamone falls under the Sekhukhune District Municipality, renamed in honour of Mampuru II’s bitter rival.