Naletale

Naletale is a stone-built centre of the Khami tradition, celebrated for the variety of patterns worked into its walls. Chevron, chequer and herringbone designs are laid in carefully fitted courses without mortar. The enclosure stands among a group of royal places on the Zimbabwean plateau, close to the related centres of Zinjanja and Danamombe.

In the late seventeenth century Changamire Dombo's Rozvi power expanded into the former lands of Butua. Rozvi rulers resided at Danamombe and neighbouring stone-walled centres, including Naletale, whose architecture continued an older tradition. These royal residences remained part of the Rozvi political landscape until the Nguni invasions of the 1830s. The elaborate masonry marked places associated with authority while the communities around them cultivated the land and kept cattle.