Where did Harare come from?

I have always been fascinated by the history and origins of things. Haven’t you ever wondered where our city and town names came from? Thanks to a weekend spent with the old folk, I learnt there was so much more to these names. Of course I had to Google to make sure and what do you know, my folks hadn’t gotten their oral tradition wrong at all.

So where did Harare come from? Well, apparently, Harare is a corruption of Haarari (He never sleeps/one who never sleeps). This was the name given to the Zezuru Chief of this north eastern part of Zimbabwe. His name was Chief Neharawa (sometimes called Harawa/Harava) and he had his base at the Harare Kopje.

I’ve discovered there are about two theories as to why Chief Neharawa was called Haarari. The first is that apparently the chief became ill and for a long time did not sleep. So the locals would ask, “how is the chief?” and those closer to him would sadly respond, “aaaaa mambo haarari”, meaning “the king never sleeps”. The second is that it is said Chief Neharawa claimed that no foe could ever ambush or sneak upon him because ‘he never slept’.

So how did the capital become Harare? At first Harare was the name of the country’s oldest township – Mbare. Mbare was established in 1907 and was then known as Harare Township, located near the city cemetery, sewage works and abattoir.

After researching about Harare I obviously wondered about Bulawayo ey, it being the country’s second largest city. As the story goes, the city was founded by the Ndebele king – Lobengula who settled in modern day Zimbabwe around the 1840s. So the name Bulawayo comes from the Ndebele word KoBulawayo which means “a place where he is being killed”. It is thought that at the time of the settling, there was a civil war as some opposed Lobengula as the legitimate heir to Mzilikazi, hence “where he (the prince) is being killed.

I also found out Kadoma was called Gatooma in the Rhodesian era. You know how the settlers were like, if they couldn’t pronounce a word, they would make do with what they were able to, lol. And surprisingly, Chegutu was Hartley. Apparently, it was named after some farmer.

Interesting heritage there don’t you think?