King Shaka Zulu

Of all the great men who rose to prominence in the old Zulu kingdom, King Shaka kaSenzangakhona remains perhaps the most talked about and the least understood. The image perpetuated of him in the European world was shaped during his lifetime by a handful of white adventurers, whose letters and memoirs deliberately blackened Shaka's reputation for their own ends, and did lasting damage to his name. After the triumph of colonialism, white historians justified their control over the Zulu Kingdom by using that image to damn as cruel and corrupt the independent political systems they had displaced.

Yet among African groups, too, Shaka was the subject of fervent mythologising, cast either in the mould of a heroic warrior of almost classical proportions, or as a ruthless tyrant and oppressor. Shaka has come down to us as a glowering stereotype, frozen in time on the misty hill-sides of a long-vanished Zululand, clutching his fabled stabbing spear and great hide war-shield, the very embodiment of every European concept of the ultimate African warrior-king.

Yet Shaka's legacy cannot be denied, for he stamped his character on a political and military system which survived him by more than fifty years, and influenced our perception of his people into modern times. More than any other single individual, he gave shape to the Zulu kingdom.

Shaka was born in 1787. His father was Senzangakhona kaJama, chief of the Zulu people, who lived in the Mkhumbane valley, south of the White Mfolozi river. Shaka's mother, Nandi, was betrothed to his father at the time she fell pregnant, but not yet married. When she first reported this fact, Zulu elders indignantly dismissed her claims, suggesting instead that she was suffering from an intestinal parasite, a stomach beetle called 'ishaka'. When her son was born, she ruefully named him Shaka in recollection of this insult.

Shaka was born into a culture in crisis. The political economy of modern Zululand was unsettled by European trade initiatives emanating from the Portuguese enclave at Delagoa Bay, while the close of the eighteenth century was characterised by a decade of drought and famine. As a result, friction had broken out between the various chiefdoms, and two stronger, militarily robust groupings had emerged - the Ndwandwe of Chief Zwide kaLanga, north of the White Mfolozi, and the Mthethwa of Chief Dingiswayo kaJobe, along the lower Mhlatuze. Both groups had broughter weaker chiefdoms under their control, and indeed the Zulu gave their allegiance to Chief Dingiswayo.

Queen Nandi was apparently a difficult woman to live with, and her marriage to Senzangakhona did not last. She was expelled from the Zulu people, and she and her son took refuge among the Mthethwa. When Shaka grew old enough, he joined the amabutho - the part-time national service regiments - of Chief Dingiswayo.

Here Shaka came into his own. He was apparently an aggressive young man who found outlet for a lot of pent-up frustrations in fighting. Dingiswayo did not scruple to use force when his diplomacy required it, but warfare at this stage was not very destructive. Both sides were armed with cow-hide shields and light throwing spears, and one would usually give way before casualties became too heavy.

Shaka, however, considered such a half-hearted approach to warfare ridiculous. It is often said that he invented a broad-bladed stabbing spear designed for close-quarter fighting. This is not strictly true; the idea is a myth dreamed up by a white author fascinated by the parallels with King Arthur's legendary sword, Excaliber. Nevertheless, Shaka certainly did prefer a particular type of weapon, with a long, heavy blade; he called it ikwa, after the name it made on being withdrawn from a deep body thrust.

Shaka soon caught Dingiswayo's eye as a warrior, so much so that when Senzangakhona died in 1816, Dingiswayo set him up as the new Chief of the Zulu, in preference to the legitimate heir. Thereafter, things happened quickly for Shaka. Astute, aggressive and ruthless, Shaka soon came to dominate local political rivalries. Zwide attempted to counter Mthethwa influence along the upper Mfolozi by attacking Shaka; Shaka beat him off. Then Zwide attacked Dingiswayo, and overcame him by supernatural means, only to find that Shaka took advantage of the ensuing chaos among the Mthethwa to seize control of their confederation.

In 1819 Zwide mounted a serious invasion of Zulu territory, which Shaka met with scorched-earth tactics. He retired before the Ndwandwe army, luring them deeper and deeper into Zulu territory, until at last, exhausted and hungry, they began to retreat. Then he attacked them as they struggled across the upper reaches of the Mhlatuze valley, near modern Eshowe. After a brutal battle in which Zulu and Ndwandwe corpses are said to have piled up thickly on top of one another, the Ndwandwe broke. Shaka followed his victory with a rapid sweep through Ndwandwe territory which destroyed all traces of resistance. King Zwide and many of his supporters fled; those who remained accepted Shaka's authority.

The defeat of the Ndwandwe marks the true beginning of the Zulu kingdom. Shaka moved out of the Mfolozi valley, and established a magnificent new royal residence, kwaBulawayo, on the misty-blue hills above the Mhlatuze valley. A number of similar royal homesteads - known as amakhanda, 'heads' (of royal authority) - were built around his kingdom, and served as centres of administration, and regimental barracks. Shaka followed Dingiswayo's practise of recruiting amabutho according to common age rather than local loyalties, a fact which prevented them serving as centres of political opposition, and kept the nation's most useful resource - manpower - directly under his control.

Shaka has often been portrayed as a ruthless psychopath and despot. Whilst this is clearly not true - he was openly affectionate to his female relatives, for example, he supported his father's sons, despite the fact that they posed a political threat, and had many friends among his warriors - he was undoubtedly a ruthless leader who knew the value of terror as a tool of state-craft. He imposed a whole new state superstructure over his conglomerate kingdom, made up as it was of chiefdoms with very different aims and aspirations; and he could not have done it by relying on diplomacy alone. Political enemies were often executed on jumped-up charges - usually of witchcraft - while dissident groups were regularly purged.

Much of what we know about Shaka comes from the accounts of the first white adventurers, who established a settlement at Port Natal - modern-day Durban - in 1824. Predominantly British, they thrived under Shaka's protection, hunting for ivory, and trading with the Zulu kingdom. In return, they created in their writings the image of Shaka as a bloodthirsty despot which has lingered to this day, seeking to blacken his reputation as a means of justifying their own less reputable activities.

By 1827, Shaka held central Zululand - between the Black uMfolozi river in the north, and the Thukela in the south - firmly under his control. Beyond that, his influence was patchy, and he certainly looked to extend his control further south. He moved his capital to kwaDukuza - modern-day Stanger - and sent his armies raiding into southern Natal. While some chiefdoms nearer the Thukela accepted his authority, others retired to natural strongholds to resist him, while yet others simply abandoned their traditional lands to move out of his way. The Zulu kingdom grew extraordinarily rich on cattle captured during this period of almost constant military activity.

By 1828, however, the signs are Shaka was losing his grip on his kingdom. He survived one assassination attempt, and used the death of his mother as an excuse to purge internal opposition. An attempt to open up diplomatic communications with the British at the Cape proved an embarrassing failure. Then, on 24 September 1828, he fell victim to a palace coup, orchestrated by his brothers Dingane and Mhlangana - the only ones willing to challenge the awesome aura Shaka had created around himself. They took advantage of a rare lapse in security to pounce on him as he received an envoy from the amaMpondo people, and stabbed him to death.

As he died, a popular legend has it that he prophesied that his successors would lose his kingdom, 'for the land will see white men come'.

Shaka's body lies buried in the centre of modern Stanger, and every year Zulu nationalists converge to honour his memory. He remains a potent symbol of national pride, the symbol of a by-gone age of vigour, power, and independence. Stories about him have passed into folk-lore, and he is either seen as a hero of epic proportions, or a tyrant in the manner of Hitler or Pol Pot. In truth, he was probably none of these things, though there are elements of all of them about him. He was certainly a remarkable man; a political visionary, an inventive military commander, an astute political survivor. It is perhaps fitting that even his praises judge him in terms of the stabbing spear which, if he didn't invent, he certainly used to devastating effect.