The Oral Tradition of the Origin of the Surname Bhamala (Bamala)

I was told an oral account concerning the origins of the surname Bhamala, also rendered Bamala, in Zimbabwe. According to the tradition, the story dates back to the early twentieth century and is associated with the town of Gwanda in present-day Matabeleland South. According to the account, an Indian man owned a workshop in Gwanda and, at one point, recruited a local man to work as a security guard. As was customary at the time, the prospective employee was asked to bring his National Registration Certificate the following morning. Registration documents were reportedly kept by employers during the period of employment, while employees were issued employment cards for everyday use. The following morning, the prospective security guard returned with the requested document and reportedly said in "Chilapalapa" (Fanikalo): “Mina buyile nalo situpa kamina.” — meaning approximately, “I have brought my ID Certificate.” The National Registration Certificate had acquired the colloquial Ndebele name situpa, apparently associated with the thumbprint required for identification. In Ndebele, isitupa refers to the thumb, literally the “fifth finger.” To this day it is called "isitupa" in Ndebele and "chitupa" in Shona. The story continues that when the Indian employer heard the word situpa, he jokingly connected it with something familiar from his homeland. According to the oral tradition, he teased the man by saying, in effect: “You have a stupa, so you are Bhamala (Bamala).” The nickname is said to have stuck. The second part of the joke: According to local elders, however, the explanation does not end with the word situpa. When asked today about the meaning of Bhamala, some elders associate the name with the scalp, or more specifically with a bald or exposed part of the head. This explanation appears to form part of the visual humour behind the original story. The security guard was said to have had a bald or closely shaven head. To the employer, the smooth, rounded appearance of the man's head could be humorously compared with the dome of a stupa. Thus, the joke supposedly had two connected meanings: the man had a situpa as his identification document, and he also had a “stupa” on his head, and the place that has a stupa in reality is Bhamala. The story therefore links the man's nickname to three ideas: the Ndebele word situpa for the identification document; the visual resemblance between a bald, rounded head and a stupa dome; and Bhamala, the name of a place in present-day Pakistan associated with a famous Buddhist stupa. A stupa typically has a large, rounded, smooth, hemispherical dome. The dome is known as the anda in Sanskrit and Pali, a word literally associated with an egg or rounded form. Its shape can readily provide the basis for a humorous comparison with a bald or smoothly rounded human head. The oral tradition further maintains that joking comparisons between a bald man's head and a dome or stupa were familiar forms of humour in South Asian communities. Within this interpretation, the employer was not necessarily saying that Bhamala itself meant “bald.” Rather, he was making a wordplay involving a man who had a situpa, whose head resembled a stupa, and a place called Bhamala that has a stupa. If he had a stupa — he was indeed Bhamala. From nickname to surname: The final part of the tradition concerns how the nickname supposedly became a family surname. It is said that, during that period, the Registrar General's registration practices allowed people to be recorded under names or aliases by which they were commonly known. Consequently, the nickname Bhamala/Bamala, which had originally been attached to the security guard, is said to have been recorded as the surname of his descendants. In this way, according to the oral account, a humorous nickname arising from a combination of language, appearance and cultural association eventually became a hereditary surname. It is important to distinguish this account as oral tradition or family/local history rather than established documentary etymology. The story explains the surname through a sequence of remembered events: situpa—the Ndebele term associated with the identification document; the man's bald, rounded head being humorously compared with a stupa; and Bhamala, a place in Pakistan associated with a notable stupa. The tradition therefore does not necessarily claim that Bhamala is a Hindi or Urdu word meaning “bald.” Rather, the name is presented as a place-name that became part of a cross-cultural joke. The supposed humour lay in the association of the man's situpa, his “stupa-like” bald head, and Bhamala—the place back in the employer's homeland associated with a stupa. Whether every detail of the story can be historically verified is a separate question. Nevertheless, as an item of oral history, the account provides an interesting explanation of how a personal nickname may have passed into a family surname through the interaction of Ndebele language, South Asian cultural imagery, colonial-era employment practices, and local naming customs.