It will help in our search for the head that went missing 128 years ago, says Judge Ephraim Makgoba

Memorial lecture for the legendary warrior king Mamphoku Makgoba

The Village Voice

Limpopo Judge President Ephraim Makgoba has hailed the King Makgoba Memorial Lecture to take place at Magoebaskloof Hotel on Friday 9 June 2023 at 17hrs.

The event is jointly organised by King Mokopa 111 Makgoba and the Makgoba Dynasty to remember the life of King Mamphoku Makgoba who died 128 years ago when he was killed for resisting the occupation of his land.

The king who ruled in the Makgoebaskloof area was killed by Swazi mercenaries who cut of his head and sent it to Pretoria to show it to the Boer leaders who had sent them.

The mercenaries were later rewarded after using his head to prove they had killed him.

Up to today the head is still missing and the Makgobas have not given up the search.

The memorial lecture cum gala dinner will also look at the state of the kingdom.

After the king was killed on June 3 1895, the apartheid government forcibly removed people from ancestral land and transported them and dumped them in faraway areas such as Hammanskraal.

The Makgoba royal family is now in the Polokwane Local Municipality where they have had their senior traditional leadership restored by the Lebowa government.

The community was also successful in the restitution application after some of their farms has been returned to them.

But with his people scattered, King Makgoba is not able to function like a true king.

Some of his farms are fallow and the kingdom is not getting anything from most of the farms operating in the kingdom’s domain.

One of the people who have given the memorial lecture thumbs up is Judge Makgoba.

He said as an elder in the family his role is to advice the king.

He says of the memorial lecture: “It will help us to make noise about the missing head, and hopefully our story will reach more people to the extent that the head is found. The memorial lecture will teach young people about history, and not only our history but the history of black people.”