a portrait of Shaka Zulu, made during his lifetime
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Shaka Zulu, extraordinary leader
"Great nation of Zulu,
You have shown courage against a superior enemy.
The nations that spoke of you with contempt are chilled by your songs.
Kings and princes shiver in their little thrones.
Enemies flee to hide in the mountain caves."
Shaka's words in 1818 after a victory over the Ndwandwe at the Mhalatuse River. Taken from Zulu epic poem, Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic (Unesco Collection of Representative Works. African Authors Series) , translated by Mazisi Kunene, drawing on a number of Zulu oral historians.
The
Difaqane
The young warrior Shaka became leader of the Zulus (the people
of the heavens) in 1816. An extraordinary leader, he quickly
built up his tribe until it was the most powerful in South
Africa. For nearly twenty years during the 1820s and 1830s
there was war and destruction in the central plateau. For the
Zulus it was the Mfecane, or "crushing." The
Zulus aggressively attacked and defeated other tribes in their
area.
Their
success was due to Shaka's military brilliance and ferocity.
He organized his society for warfare and developed an effective
style of fighting that involved the use of short stabbing spears.
As his power grew, he appears to have become mentally unstable.
He increasingly ordered the deaths of his men for no apparent
reason. Finally he was assassinated in 1828 by two of his half-brothers.
This
period of warfare between the tribes, the Difaqane, left the
Africans weaker than before and more vulnerable to continual
demand of the Europeans for more land.
H.F.
Fynn described the aftermath of one of Shaka's battles in
1824
"The
remnant of the enemy's army sought shelter in a nearby wood
from which they were soon driven. Then began the slaughter
of the women and children. They were all put to death....Early
next morning Shaka arrived and each regiment, previous to
its inspection by him, had picked out its 'cowards' and put
them to death. Many of these, no doubt forfeited their lives
because their chiefs were in fear that, if they did not condemn
some as being guilty, they would incur the resentment of
Shaka..." |
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