Dzugudini is the founding ancestress of the Lobedu royal house. In the tradition of origin she was a daughter of the Karanga rulers of the Monomotapa country to the north, who, after bearing a child in circumstances the tradition treats as scandalous, fled southward carrying the sacred rain-medicines and beads given her by her mother. From her descended the chiefly line that eventually settled in the north-eastern Transvaal and, generations later, produced the rain-queens. Her name anchors the Lovedu claim to a northern, rain-owning ancestry, and the charms she is said to have carried remained the material warrant of royal rainmaking. Sources differ on the details of the scandal and on how many generations separate her from the historical dynasty.