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The Life Story of King Shaka and Gender Tensions in the Zulu State*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Daphna Golan
Daphna Golan*
Affiliation:
Hebrew University
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Extract

Hundreds of poems, novels, plays, and films have been devoted to Shaka, the king of the Zulu. His life story has been created anew each generation, and his image has changed over the years. For many whites he represents barbarism; for many blacks both within and outside South Africa, he has become a symbol of power. The ways in which Shaka has been portrayed reveal trends of thought and ideological influences prevailing in each period. They record the shifts in white conceptions of blacks in South Africa, and some of the developments in black consciousness.

In this study I suggest that the core of the king's biography, the very basic life story which most historians accept, is but an invention. Shaka's biography closely resembles that of other African leaders such as Sundiata and Mbegha, and of biblical heroes, such as Joseph or Moses. These similarities to stories about other heroes point to the mythic character of the narrative and raise the possibility of investigating the various Shaka stories as symbolic representations of alternative world views, rather than as records of past times.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 17 , January 1990 , pp. 95 - 111
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1990

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Shula Marks for her helpful comments and suggestions on earier versions of this paper. Part of the research upon which this article is based was carried out under a travel grant from The Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Jerusalem. The paper was presented at the methodology seminar of the African Studies Department of the Hebrew University. I would like to thank all the participants for their comments especially Steve Kaplan, Michel Abitbol and Naomi Chazan.

References

Notes

1. Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985), 89.Google Scholar

2. Ritter, E. A., Shaka Zulu (London, 1955)Google Scholar, Becker, Peter, Path of Blood (London, 1962)Google Scholar, Gluckman, Max, “The Individual in a Social Framework: The Rise of King Shaka of Zululand,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 1 (1974), 113–44.Google Scholar

3. Fynn, , in Bird, J., The Annals of Natal, (Pietermaritzburg, 1888), 97.Google Scholar

4. Ritter, , Shaka Zulu, 313.Google Scholar Ritter relies on R. R. R. Dhlomo, uShaka.

5. Holden, W. C., The Past and Future of the Kaffir Races (London, 1866), 41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Raglan, Lord, The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama (New York, 1936).Google Scholar

7. The twenty-two characteristics of the life of a hero according to Raglan are: mother is royal virgin; father is a king; father related to mother; unusual conception; hero reputed to be son of god; attempt (usually by father) to kill hero; hero spirited away; reared by foster parents in a far country; no details of childhood; goes to future kingdom; is victor over king, giant, or wild beast; marries a princess; becomes king; for a time he reigns; he prescribes laws; later, he loses favor with gods or subjects; driven from throne; meets with mysterious death; often at the top of a hill; his children, if any, do not succeed him; his body is not buried; nevertheless, he has one or more holy sepulchers.

8. Webb, C. de B. and Wright, J. B., The James Stuart Archives (Pietermaritzburg, 1976), 5/1:177 (interview with Jantshi).Google Scholar

9. John Argyle has pointed out the similarities in the traditions of origin of Shaka and Dingiswayo. However, he has done so to suggest that the stories arose to justify the usurpation of power by outsiders. Like other South African anthropologists fascinated by Zulu history, Argyle uses his innovative point of view to argue against the historicity of the story. His main concern is to prove that the ‘new school’ is not right in assuming that changes in Zulu society arose from within. See Argyle, , “Who Were Dingiswayo and Shaka? Individual Origins and Political Transformations” in The Societies of Southern Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries (London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, 19 February 1979).Google Scholar

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11. Gluckman counted at least fifteen commoners whom Shaka made into chiefs. Gluckman attempted to study the system according to which chiefs were nominated by Shaka, and realized that merit was the main factor for nomination. Gluckman, , “The Rise of the Zulu Empire” (unpublished manuscript), 102–05.Google Scholar Bryant writes about chiefs which were chosen from non-Zulu clans. See Bryant, A. T., Olden Times, 409, 491, 622, 625.Google Scholar

12. This cliché was used to describe the cruelty of many African kings. See for example, Blier, R., “Dahomey's King Adandozan: Socio-Political Factors in the Labeling of a Deviant King,” paper presented at the ASA conference, Denver, November 1987.Google Scholar

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15. Freud's studies of both the Oedipus and the Moses myths are well-known, as is Lévi-Strauss' structural account of the Oedipus myth. Both scholars attempt to discern the normative message rather than historical data in the myth.

16. Huston, , “The Matrix of War,” 131–36.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 131.

18. Fynn, , Diary, 30.Google Scholar

19. Shepstone, , “Early history of the Zulu race” in Bird, , Annals of Natal, 1:161.Google Scholar

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21. See Cope, A. T., ed., Izibongo Zulu Praise-Poems (London, 1968), 170.Google Scholar

22. The izibongo were collected by J. Stuart. The translations are by T. Cope in ibid., 172-74.

23. A fascinating example can be found in Binsbergen, Wim Van “Likota Iya Bankoya: Memory, Myth and History,” Cahiers d'études africaines, (1987), 359–92.Google Scholar Van Wimsbergen notes that he had translated and explained the long text of the myth (100,000 characters) without realizing that the chiefs it described were female. As he explained (363): “I read the historical accounts of precolonial rulers in the way any Nkoya reader would: assuming that also those rulers whose gender was not emphatically stated would of course be male, just like their modern heirs.” It was only years later, when he was invited to a conference on the Position of Women in the Early State, that he reread the text and “this tissue of contemporary male bias was suddenly rended and the text began to yield to its full ‘feminist’ message.”

24. Gluckman, , “Kinship and Marriage Among the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia and the Zulu of Natal” in Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. and Forde, C. D., eds., African Systems of Kinship and Marriage (London, 1950).Google Scholar

25. Ibid., 192.

26. Ibid., 180.

27. See for example Morris, D., The Washing of the Spears (New York, 1969), 283–85.Google Scholar

28. One can claim that between the years that Guy was studying (the 1860s) and the 1930s there was a major reinforcement of patriarchy due to the introduction of ‘customary law’ by the colonial government. Martin Chanock claims that such a process took place in Northern Rhodesia, arguing that ‘customary law’ was perhaps the most effective way by which African men could exert power in the colonial polity. Chanock, , “Making Customary Law: Men, Women, and Courts in Colonial Northern Rhodesia” in Hay, M. J. and Wright, M., African Women and the Law: Historical Perspectives (Boston, 1982).Google Scholar Further study may reveal if such a drastic change was taking place in the course of colonialism. In that case Gluckman's study of ‘traditional’ marriage systems becomes even less relevant to precolonial Zulu society.

29. Guy, , “Analyzing Pre-Capitalist Societies in Southern Africa,” Journal of Southern African Studies, 14 (1987), 18–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Law, R. C. C., “The Heritage of Oduduwa,” JAH, 14 (1973).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. In my “Les mécanismes de la formation étatique chez les Oyo,” unpub. DEA thesis (Paris: EHESS, 1982).

32. Fynn, , Diary, 12.Google Scholar

33. Vansina, , Oral Tradition as History, 19–20.Google Scholar

34. Vansina claims that the account of Shaka is probably the example which points to the fastest transformation of an account known to him. He agrees that it is probably due to the revolutionary changes that were taking place in Zululand that the tradition was changed so fast. Personal communications, 1 November 1986.

35. Kunene, R., “An Analytic Survey of Zulu Poetry” (MA thesis, University of Natal, 1962), 97.Google Scholar

36. Shepstone, T., “Early History,” 161.Google Scholar

37. See, for example, Kunene, M., Emperor Shaka the Great (London, 1981).Google Scholar