Africa Travel Newsletters > The Zulu
1.
The Zulu - South Africa's People of HeavenThe Zulu are South Africa's
largest and most famous ethnic group. A people of pomp and full
of
character, they take great pride in their colourful martial history,
which played a big role in shaping southern Africa, -especially between
the
17th and 19th centuries.
The Zulu are very keen on their culture and ostentatiously celebrate their distinctiveness.
They
largely still live in their native
habitat -South Africa's Kwazulu
Natal province. During your
South Africa tour, you can also see the Zulu people
in Gauteng,
Mpumalanga and Free State provinces where considerable populations also thrive. All together the Zulu make up 24%
of the country's
population. Sparse populations of Zulu-speaking
communities also dwell in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Zulu has
about 10 million speakers and in
South Africa, and is one of country's
11 official languages.
The Zulu, or "people of heaven" have long
considered their KwaZulu
domiciles as a heaven on earth. They settled
here only in the 16th century, on lands originally inhabited by the San
Bushmen. Their ancestors, the
Nguni, had been pushing southwards from
the central Africa's Great Lakes region for at least three thousand
years.
The San hunter-gatherer
society was very sparing in its
demands on the land. The arrival of the Nguni, a people with numerous
cattle herds and great thirst for land, put the
Bushman under great
stress and severe disadvantage. The San however had great influence
over the Nguni, whose traditions and customs possess sturdy
strains of
the San culture, including the distinctive click consonants of the
spoken tongues.
As the Nguni increased in numbers they
split
into three main groups, which are today classified as the northern
Nguni -Zulu, the southern Nguni -Xhosa, and the Swati. The Zulu
derive
directly from a clan head of the Nguni named Zulu or "Heaven", who
established a territory bearing his own name or KwaZulu in the
Umfolozi
valley.
The Zulu were a fairly insignificant power, even among
the Nguni, until the arrival of Shaka Zulu. Shaka, born around
1787,
was first-born son to Chief Senzangakona, but was considered
illegitimate as he was born before his mother was properly married.
Shaka's name
derived from the subterfuge that his mother Nandi
initially used to explain the swelling of her belly in the first months
of her pregnancy. She
explained that she was infested with 'shaka' -an
intestinal beetle.
Though Zulu custom required that the eldest
son succeed the father in
office, and Shaka was indeed Senzangakona's
eldest son, he was not accepted as his father's heir. Mother and child
were ostracised, and eventually
exiled to Chief Dingiswayo's territory
of Mthethwa. Here Shaka was incorporated into warrior-hood. He proved
to be an outstanding student and
graduated into a fearless warrior.
Around 1812, on the death of his father, Shaka accepted Dingiswayo's
aid and, by arms, reclaimed his place as heir
to the Zulu throne.
Thus
did Shaka rise to be chief of his people by 1816. He was a man gifted
with great daring, cunning and imagination. He
repulsed numerous
attacks by the Ndwandwe- a rival and more militarily superior Nguni
people, and eventually forced the enemy to flee northwards.
Shaka
appreciated that the Ndwandwe would rise again unless he created
conditions to make it impossible.
Above all else a military
leader,
he devised such weaponry, battle tactics and training methods
that resulted in an unbeatable army among known enemies of the day.
Among the drastic
changes he implemented in his army, included the
abolition of male circumcision. He also replaced the long assegei spear
with the short iklwa that was
better suited for close combat.
He
created a standing army, derived from young Zulu's males under the age
of 40, who were not allowed to
marry while in service. By numerous
treacherous devices -war, assassination, deceit and intimidation - he
subdued smaller and larger clans, and
gathered all to his realm. Within
three years to 1819, the Zulu nation emerged as the largest and most
feared in the whole of southeastern Africa. And
Shaka, now King Shaka,
was sitting pretty as its head.
During Shaka's rule, Zulu lands
expanded in area more than one hundred fold, to reach
about 11,500 sq
miles. His success however caused unprecedented mayhem in the region,
and aroused bitter jealousy amongst rivals and compatriots. He
also
ruled with an iron fist and was such a tyrant as had never risen before
in this part of the world.
Shaka was done to death by
Dingane
-his half brother, in 1824. The Zulu kingdom survived him, but his
legacy was to be severely tested, later in the century in conflicts
with
new rivals - the British and Boers. Dingane's reign was
maintained by the flow of blood, as he sought to put away other royals
and those who had done
well under Shaka. His end came in 1838 after a
confrontation with Voortrekkers that resulted in defeat at the Battle
of Blood River. Dingane had agreed
to cede to the Boers the lands south
of the Tugela River to the Mzimvubu River, but thereafter relented and
had 100 of them killed.
Dingane's
successor was his half-brother
Mpande, who had been in alliance with the Voortrekkers at the Battle of
Blood River. The Boers settled in the lands they
had negotiated with
Dingane, but were evicted in 1842 after war with the British. The
British had all along been uncomfortable with the Boers proximity
to
the British settlement of Port Natal (now Durban). Mpande maintained
good relations with the victors.
Cetshwayo succeeded Mpande
after a
short succession struggle. The British were very keen to cut
down the Zulu nation to size, and they goaded Cetshwayo to war. The
Battle of Isandlwana
in January 1879 saw the Zulu emerge victorious.
But at the Battle of Ulundi, fought a few months later, the mighty Zulu
nation was defeated. This was
the first time since Shaka that the Zulu
had drunk from the bitter cup of defeat. The indigestion it caused
marked the beginning of the end of Zulu
grandeur.
Chief Bombatha
led their last organised uprising against European domination in 1906.
The rest of the 20th century, particularly
under Apartheid, was a
largely an unhappy period. But the Zulu kingdom maintained autonomy,
except for a short period between 1933 and 1948. They today
remain a
kingdom under the South African government, with King Goodwill
Zwelethini kaBhekuzulu as the current monarch.
The Zulu
have
vibrant traditions, and their everyday lives gracefully inter-twin old
and modern- in beliefs, arts, music, rites and rituals. The
traditional
religion is grounded on Nkulunkulu, the creator of all things. But
Nkulunkulu is a grand deity, who does not stoop to be involved
in
mortals' daily lives. For mundane day-to-day troubles, believers
consult with the spirits of the dead that watch over the living. To
interact
with the spirits, divinations are performed through a diviner,
seer or witchdoctor- Sangoma, who in most cases is a woman.
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