Though there is some evidence connecting Charwe to the rising -- e.g., two women were sent to her house for refuge after the fighting broke out on June 18 -- it is so limited that, according to Beach, it is unsubstantial and cannot prove her association with beginning of the Rising. Instead, the (male) Kaguvi medium, who was far more responsible for the Ndebele/Shona rising than the Nehanda spirit medium, sacrificed Charwe to the British as payment for the rising -- a practice both common and acceptable in precolonial Shona society.
Nehanda's reputation was made partly because of her response to her guilt. Even when sentenced to death, she refused to admit guilt or convert to Christianity. In front of her accusers, she began to dance, sing, shout, laugh. Until the last moment, until faced with the noose, she struggled. She refused to give in to these men who judged and sentenced her.
No matter what her role was or was not in the Rising, Nehanda, or Charwe, showed the spirit of resistance until the moment of her death.
For further reading:
D. N. Beach. "An Innocent Woman, Unjustly Accused? Charwe, Medium of the Nehanda Mhondoro Spirit, and the 1896-97 Central Shona Rising Zimbabwe." History in Africa: A Journal of Method 25 (1998): 27-54.
Terence Ranger. Revolt in Southern Rhodesia 1896-7: a Study in African Resistance. London, 1967.
Elizabeth Schmidt. Peasants, Traders, and Wives: Shona Women in the History of Zimbabwe, 1870-1939. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1992.
