The Zulus and Matabele: Warrior Nations

by Glen Lyndon Dodds

  Following the disintegration of Sikhunyana’s army, the greatest slaughter began for Shaka had given orders for all the Ndwandwe to be finished off, and thus women and children were likewise butchered. The Ndwandwe ceased to exist as a nation. But Sikhunyana was not among the thousands who perished. He fled and was to live on for many years in obscurity.

  The Death of Nandi

  Shaka had now effectively secured his northern border. Henceforth, he turned his attention southward, apparently focusing on events beyond Natal. His armies had already raided the kingdom of the Pondos some 200 miles away, bordering southern Natal. Beyond that mauled kingdom lay the territory of the Xhosa, who were in turn bordered to the south by subjects of King George IV living in Cape Colony across the Great Fish River. It has been suggested that with the encouragement of Port Natal whites, Shaka may have contemplated extending his authority southward and opening up direct contact with the British. What is certain is that in November 1826 he moved south across the Tugela River into Natal and established his principal residence near the sea at Dukuza.

  Within a year of founding the new capital, Shaka’s mother died. Hearing that she was ill, Shaka reportedly hastened to her homestead near Bulawayo. Fynn, who was present, relates that he was ordered to attend Nandi but realised that there was no hope of saving her. She had been struck down with dysentery and her life was ebbing away. Upon receiving word of her death, Shaka appeared before the hut in which her body lay, accompanied by his principal chiefs in war attire. After standing, head bowed on his shield and weeping quietly for about twenty minutes, he sighed heavily and began yelling which, Fynn relates, ‘fearfully contrasted with the silence that had hitherto prevailed’, whereupon the chiefs and people ‘to the number of about 15,000, commenced the most dismal and horrid lamentations.’

  But did Nandi indeed die of dysentery? James Stuart was told a different tale: Shaka had stabbed his mother in a fit of rage in the belief that she was harbouring a potential rival and, horrified by what he had done, bound up the wound. However, within days Nandi died after reports had been circulated that she was ill. Stuart also heard that Shaka was responsible for his mother’s death from a white informant, an early Natal settler called William Bazley, who related that Fynn himself had admitted as much to him in private. Given that Shaka’s mental state was evidently becoming increasingly troubled, it would be unwise to dismiss out of hand the reports that he might have struck down his mother, although the grief he displayed upon her death may nonetheless have been genuine.

  What is beyond doubt is that Nandi’s death resulted in a frenzied period of mourning, both on the part of those present at the homestead and thousands of Zulus who travelled to Bulawayo to mourn their king’s bereavement. Fear of incurring Shaka’s displeasure no doubt principally accounts for these displays of public sorrow. Deaths ensued, especially when some of those present began to attack one another. Indeed, Fynn says that the homestead and its vicinity witnessed a bloodbath in which no less than 7,000 people died. But his figures are frequently on the high side and this one is hard to credit. Nonetheless we hear from Zulu sources, such as Jantshi kaNongila, that many of the mourners perished during this emotionally charged period in which Shaka doubtless arranged for many enemies, real or imagined, to be killed.

  War and diplomacy

  Shaka proceeded to call a year-long period of national mourning, with certain prohibitions affecting aspects of daily life which were to be punishable by death if broken. In the event, some of the restrictions—such as one that forbade cultivation—were soon lifted. Shaka then held a purification ceremony at Dukuza to bring an end to the period of national grief.

  A southern campaign against frontier tribes soon followed. It has been suggested that it was largely if not entirely instigated by unscrupulous Port Natal settlers, who wished him to launch such attacks in the hope that it would lead to retaliation by the British authorities and so pave the way for a greater British say in the affairs of Natal, with themselves as beneficiaries. Shaka may have been persuaded that by subduing the blacks living between Zululand and Cape Colony, a treaty of friendship could be agreed with the British authorities at the Cape, one that would acknowledge his right to supremacy over the region’s native population. A Scottish member of the Port Natal community named Charles Maclean states that he was told by Shaka that he wished there would only be two great kings in the world, himself to rule the blacks and George IV to govern the Europeans. Fynn says that the impi was ordered not to progress further south than the territory of the Xhosa chief, Hintza, for Shaka wished to be on good terms with Cape Colony.

  Indeed, just before the army departed, Shaka sent a diplomatic mission to the Cape. It was led by one of his most trusted izinduna, Sothobe kaMpangalala, and included two Port Natal settlers, James King and Nathaniel Isaacs. But the mission did not solely have a political dimension. We are told by both Fynn and Isaacs that Shaka was interested in obtaining a cosmetic hair ointment, Macassar oil, which Fynn had mentioned to him and which the king evidently believed had the power to restore lost youth.

  The envoys sailed from Port Natal in late April on board a crude schooner constructed by the settlers as a replacement for a brig that had been wrecked at the entrance to Port Natal’s harbour in 1825. It is sometimes maintained that the mission left shortly after the impi had set off on its campaign, but in fact Sothobe and his companions sailed before the warriors moved south.

  On 4 May the embassy arrived at the settlement of Port Elizabeth in Cape Colony and King sent word of his arrival to Cape Town. But things did not go smoothly. Instead of being allowed to proceed, the party was kept waiting at Port Elizabeth for three months during which a certain Major Josias Cloete, representing the governor of the colony, viewed the delegation with great suspicion and, believing the Zulus to be spies, subjected them to questioning. Furthermore he told Sothobe that King enjoyed no status with George IV or any other British authority. Finally, on 2 August, HMS Helicon arrived at Port Elizabeth from Cape Town bearing gifts for Shaka and official word that the authorities did not wish to receive the mission. King and his frustrated colleagues thus left for Port Natal.

  Meanwhile, Shaka’s warriors had struck. Shaka accompanied the impi as far as the Mzimkhulu River where he halted with a bodyguard and spent much of his time in the company of Fynn, who had property in the neighbourhood. At the Mzimkhulu, Shaka divided the impi. He sent part of it to attack the Pondos while the remainder were despatched against the Thembus, a tribe that lived inland of Pondo territory. The Pondos avoided conflict by sheltering in strongholds in difficult country, leaving the Zulus to destroy abandoned homesteads. However, when the Pondos emerged from their refuges they were struck by the Zulus who had re-entered their territory. Shaka’s warriors thus rounded up cattle and began retracing their steps on the long journey home. The other arm of the impi, likewise headed back with thousands of head of cattle after devastating the Thembus.

  Upon receiving word of the Zulu invasion into what the British deemed their sphere of influence, a small force under Major Dundas was sent across the frontier and drew blood on 20 July. In a heated encounter Dundas routed what he believed was part of the withdrawing Zulu army. It was not. The Zulus had already retired. The trounced natives were the Ngwane, the followers of a chief named Matiwane who had been ejected with his Nguni clan from the eastern foothills of the Drakensberg Mountains some years earlier by Shaka and had lived in the interior before moving southeast into the frontier region. A month later, on 26 August, a larger British force again encountered Matiwane and his followers and overwhelmed them, once more believing that they were Zulus.

  It was in late August that Shaka heard that the diplomatic mission had been a failure and examined the paltry gifts sent to him. To make things worse, Isaacs had forgotten to obtain Macassar oil. Shaka reacted angrily. Isaacs states that he feared for his own life: ‘I began to perceive that I stood on the brink of eternity .... I was inces
santly abused, and often threatened with immediate execution.’

  Meanwhile, instead of being allowed the customary rest period after the campaign, the army had been despatched to the north, primarily against Shoshangane, Zwide’s former general who had departed with a band of followers in the aftermath of Shaka’s destruction of Zwide’s kingdom south of the Pongola, and had carved out a kingdom of his own north of Delagoa Bay. Shaka’s tired warriors set off with little enthusiasm. Indeed, there was likely widespread dissatisfaction with the king. The lives of his subjects had always meant little to him. It was not unknown for him to have someone—or entire groups of people—executed for little or no reason and such deaths had become increasingly common. Fear of Shaka was pronounced and there can be no doubt that many of the warriors regarded their king as an extremely harsh and dangerous tyrant—a millstone around his people’s neck. The millstone was soon to be shattered: a conspiracy to kill Shaka was afoot.

  At its heart were two of his half-brothers, Dingane and Mhlangana, both of whom were younger than Shaka and enjoyed the support of his powerful aunt, Mnkabayi, who is said to have encouraged them in order to avenge Nandi’s death. Another conspirator was Shaka’s body-servant, Mbhopa kaSithayi. As Shaka was becoming an increasingly mistrustful and capricious killer, the brothers may well have feared for their own safety and concluded that it was best to strike before they themselves were liquidated. Moreover, Zulu tradition has it that Dingane was motivated by a genuine desire to free the nation from Shaka’s bloody rule.

  Shaka had ordered Dingane and Mhlangana to take part in the northern campaign. But shortly after setting off, they feigned illness and returned to their own imizi near Dukuza. Then, with Mbhopa, they finalised plans to eliminate the king. On 24 September 1828, Shaka was assassinated by the conspirators at a small homestead in the vicinity of Dukuza. He tried to make his escape when the conspirators struck, but failed and was finished off near the gate of the residence. It is said that as he lay dying in a pool of blood he exclaimed words to the effect: ‘You will not rule when I am gone, for the land will see white people and locusts come.’

  Shaka’s life ended abruptly when he was only about 41 years of age. His career had been remarkable. He had risen from obscurity as the chief of a minor clan to become the most powerful black ruler in southern Africa, and had commenced the process of forging a Zulu national identity among the many Nguni-speaking clans that he had brought under his sway.

  He has often been described as ‘the Napoleon of Africa.’ This analogy is over-strained. Napoleon Bonaparte had an exceptional military mind: he operated on a far larger stage, commanding armies that sometimes numbered hundreds of thousands of men, and faced formidable coalitions of enemies determined to destroy him. Moreover, his intellectual abilities extended well beyond the military sphere. It is very doubtful that Shaka was in the same class. He is often said to have invented the ‘beast’s horns’ formation, but as has been seen, this is uncertain. Nor was he the first to use amabutho as regiments furnished with elaborate uniforms, for Fynn tells us that upon becoming chief of the Mthethwa, Shaka’s patron Dingiswayo had formed his amabutho into regiments subdivided into companies and had provided them with distinctive shields and elaborate uniforms. Furthermore, as mentioned, Shaka’s famous stabbing spear, the iklwa, may have been a refinement of a weapon already in use among the northern Nguni rather than a totally original innovation.

  Nevertheless, it would be wrong to be dismissive. Shaka did not achieve the power and status he enjoyed by accident. He had a good grasp of tactics and strategy, and may well have introduced a much greater degree of professionalism into northern Nguni warfare. Of him, Ian Knight comments:

  Shaka certainly developed fighting techniques to an unprecedented degree, and there is a wealth of stories concerning his prowess as a warrior: he may, indeed, have been one of the great military geniuses of his age.... Shaka taught his warriors to advance rapidly in tight formations and engage hand-to-hand, battering the enemy with large war-shields, then skewering their foes with the new spear as they were thrown off balance.

  And what of Shaka’s character? As noted, this is the subject of great controversy. A number of scholars argue that his demonic reputation is unjust, that his name has been deliberately blackened by Europeans to mask their alleged involvement in the slave trade and their occupation of land. There is undoubtedly an element of truth in this. For instance, some of what Nathaniel Isaacs has to say about the king has to be taken with a pinch of salt, for he advocated portraying Shaka in as bloodthirsty a manner as possible in order to captivate readers. But as Carolyn Hamilton has commented:

  Examination of the image of Shaka promoted by the Port Natal traders in the 1820s reveals that, with two highly specific exceptions which were not influential at the time, the traders’ presentation of Shaka was that of a benign patron. It was only in 1829, after the Zulu king’s death, that European representations began to include a range of ‘atrocity’ stories regarding Shaka.

  Yet rather than being mere invention by whites, Hamilton concludes that the stories ‘drew on images of Shaka already in place amongst the African communities of southern Africa.’

  In short, although Shaka was evidently capable of feelings of tenderness and affection, it is reasonable to conclude that he was essentially a harsh, brutal figure, to whom human life in general meant little. Baleka kaMpitikazi stated that people would be executed even though they had done nothing to warrant their fate, having ‘neither practised witchcraft, committed adultery, nor stolen.’ True, Baleka was a Qwabe, a people with little love for Shaka. Nonetheless, comparable points are made by others. Jantshi kaNongila, for instance, declared: ‘Very frequently did Shaka cause people to be put to death . . . . Amongst Shaka’s extraordinary acts was his causing a pregnant woman to be cut open in order to see what position the child took up in its mother’s womb. He did this more than once.’

  Other accounts concur. Maziyana kaMahlabeni related to Stuart a well remembered atrocity committed just before the king was assassinated: ‘Shaka cut open a number of women when their husbands were away on campaign in order to see how the child lay in the womb. That was one of the reasons why Dingane put Shaka to death. These women had done no wrong.’

  It is sometimes said that Shaka deliberately used terror as a policy, a means of inspiring awe in his subjects and maintaining an iron grip on his people. That there was a degree of calculation is highly likely. Nevertheless, over the years the killings seem to have become more whimsical, and as Leonard Thompson aptly comments, ‘as with other military despots, success eventually went to his head and undermined his sense of reality.’

  Shaka deserved his end.

  2. ‘KILL THE WIZARDS!’ — THE REIGN OF DINGANE

  ‘Certain it is, as far as human foresight can judge, that we shall speedily hear either of the massacre of the whole company of Boers, or of—what is scarcely less terrible—wars and bloodshed, of which there will be no end till either the Boers or the Zulu nation cease to be.’ Francis Owen

  As Mhlangana watched Shaka dying in a pool of blood from wounds partly inflicted by himself, he may well have envisaged a glorious future for himself as the next Zulu king. If so, he was mistaken. Within weeks he followed his brother to the grave. He was struck down by Dingane who eliminated him, aided and abetted by others, most notably Mnkabayi who wished to have Mhlangana out of the way so that Dingane could become king.

  Shortly after this, as 1828 drew to a close, the army Shaka had sent north began returning in dribs and drabs to find him dead. It was just as well. The campaign had been a disaster and the warriors expected a far from tranquil homecoming. After entering what is now Mozambique, they had endured disease and hunger. Moreover, their suffering had subsequently been compounded when Shoshangane gave them a bloody reception northeast of Delagoa Bay after launching a surprise night attack. Though the Zulu commander, Mdlaka kaNcidi, had managed to rally his men
and regroup, Shoshangane avoided further conflict and the dispirited Zulus thus begun heading home. Unexpectedly, they found Dingane in a generous mood, anxious to gain their acceptance. Fynn states that the warriors were thus treated with ‘liberality and kindness.’

  Fortunately for Dingane, the great men of the nation accepted him as their new ruler, and to secure his position he inaugurated his reign by behaving magnanimously. For instance, he allowed the regiments to freely consort with women and granted a number of the older amabutho permission to marry.

  Dingane was about 30 years old at the time of his accession and had kept a low profile during Shaka’s reign. He had participated on a number of campaigns (a chest wound was sustained while fighting against the Ngwane) but had a less warlike nature than his predecessor. Although powerfully built, he is said to have been shorter than Shaka, and was reportedly reluctant to laugh or smile for he was self-conscious about the small size of his teeth. He had a sensous disposition and an eye for fat young women with pretty faces: ‘women, luxury, and ease’ were uppermost on his mind states Isaacs. Dingane also had a more artistic disposition than Shaka—he had an inordinate love of objects—and great pageantry was a feature of his reign. Ceremonies and rituals were performed with unprecedented splendour and Dingane cut a dashing figure, though somewhat vitiated by increasing corpulence. According to Fynn, such ceremonies differed in another respect from those of Shaka’s time, for they acquired a ‘sedateness and formal regularity.’