Charwe was the medium for the spirit Nehanda, first female ancestor of the Shona, believed to have achieved power over the land through ritual incest with her brother. This understanding of the origins of her power may have been based on a belief in the symbolic connection between women's reproductive power and the production of the land. By breaking a sexual taboo, Nehanda and her brother created particularly fertile land.
The spirit of Nehanda was one of the more important spirits among the Shona, as both giver and taker of life. The Shona believed she made both rain and war. Her spirit frequently possessed a woman medium, and the Shona believed that Nehanda spoke directly through the medium.
After the Ndebele and Shona rose up against the British, Charwe as Nehanda achieved legendary status in Zimbabwe as a symbol of resistance to early colonial rule. The story that Nehanda was one of several spirit medium conspirators who orchestrated the war against the British became both history and myth. During the war that began in 1972 and lasted until 1979, the symbol of Nehanda was important for the guerrillas in their quest for liberation from white rule. In fact, spirit mediums also played a role in the 20th-century war -- a story for another time.
For 100 years, historians have largely accepted this popular version of the Nehanda story. But recently, an African historian named D.N. Beach questioned the validity of the Nehanda story. He argues that Charwe, the spirit medium for Nehanda, was an influential woman with a great deal of power in everyday life, but innocent of the charges brought against her by the British, just as she claimed. She was not responsible for the death of H. H. Pollard, the Native Commissioner whose murder resulted in her conviction and hanging. Nor, he argues, was she responsible, even partly, for the Ndebele/Shona rising. There was no conspiracy, no planned attack on the British that she was part of.
Instead, because she was already assumed guilty for Pollard's death before her trial, her part in instigating the struggle was also assumed. Rumors, alongside the accusation that the male spirit medium Kaguvi made against her, were strong enough evidence for the white settlers who judged her guilty. Historians built on these rumors and assumptions and the myth, according to Beach, was made. Today, Nehanda is a martyr and heroine.
