The God of the Matopo Hills: An Essay on the Mwari Cult in Rhodesia

M. L. Daneel's The God of the Matopo Hills, An Essay on the Mwari Cult in Rhodesia, published by Mouton in 1970, is a scholarly study of the Mwari religious tradition centered on the Matopo Hills of what is now Zimbabwe, examining its oracular shrines, its priesthood and its role in regional religious and political life. Daneel conducted direct fieldwork among Mwari practitioners and religious authorities. Its strength is that grounded, first hand engagement with a tradition whose oral and ritual character means it is documented in relatively few sustained scholarly studies. Its limit is its age and colonial-era context, published in 1970 while the country was still Rhodesia, so a claim about the Mwari cult's more recent history, including its role during and after Zimbabwe's independence, needs a more recent source alongside this foundational study.