Gazankulu Police Captain’s Epaulette. This is an extremely scarce item, as with all Gazankulu regalia.
Gazankulu was a bantustan in South Africa, intended by the apartheid government to be a semi-independent homeland for the Tsonga people. It was located in both the Northern Transvaal, now Limpopo province and Eastern Transvaal, now Mpumalanga province.
Gazankulu received self-rule from the central government in 1969, with its capital at Giyani. Gazankulu homeland officially starts at Elim Hospital, near Makhado, from Elim it then heads east towards the Levubu river valley, the villages of Valdezia and Bungeni being the two largest Tsonga settlements in the Levubu river valley, with a combined population of more than 50 000 people, according to the mid-2015 population statistics and stretched down up to the banks of the Sabie River near Skukuza in Hazyview in Mpumalanga. Total length of Gazankulu, from Elim Hospital to Hazyview, was 317 km long, which is a distance equivalent of travelling from Pretoria to Harrismith. The homeland consisted of the 'Mainland Gazankulu' which were Elim, Giyani and Malamulele, with 3 large exclaves, which were Bushbuckridge, Tzaneen and Phalaborwa.
Before the 1913 Land Act, Bushbuckridge, Phalaborwa and Tzaneen were not Tsonga exclaves, they were physically connected with other Tsongas of Elim, Giyani and Malamulele. The 1913 Land Act resulted in 3 large Tsonga exclaves, during the 1960s, Professor H.W.E Ntsanwisi fought unsuccessfully against the central government's unilateral land demarcations, which resulted in 3 large Tsonga exclaves. Despite Professor H.W.E Ntsanwisi's protests at unilateral land demarcations, the central government went ahead to create 3 large Tsonga exclaves, which the Tsonga people opposed unconditionally throughout the 1960s, 1970's and 1980's. Gazankulu shared borders with other black homelands, which were, Venda, Lebowa and Kangwane. These 3 other black homelands, like Gazankulu, also experienced land grabs and unfair land allocations from the central government.
