SHAKA

Who was the real Shaka kaSenzangakhona? Despot? Illegitimate usurper? Moderniser? Skilled diplomat? Bloody tyrant? Any exploration of the history of the first king of the Zulu has to inevitably come to the conclusion that we’re not entirely sure. The history of Shaka has become so entwined with the motives of those who wished to make use of his tale. One source for the life of Shaka are notes taken by Western colonisers and traders, often looking to push the agenda of a savage African king or hoping to boost book sales through salacious accounts of atrocity after atrocity. Our other source is the oral history of the people themselves, often recorded many years after the event and sometimes quite clearly coloured by the people who succeeded Shaka, hoping to raise or diminish him depending on their own agenda.

So, is there anything about the life of Shaka we can be assured is true? Thankfully, yes. There’s enough detail scattered through all of these sources to see an image of a king emerge, albeit one packed with caveats and requiring some amount of scepticism. What we can certainly do is deflate and explain some of the myths around Shaka and, just as interestingly, explain why they exist. Shaka has become an icon, used to this day as a pillar of Zulu identity. His legend has value to people and that in itself is worth examination. Hopefully by the end of this you will have a better understanding of who Shaka really was and why other depictions of him have existed for the last 200 years.

BEFORE SHAKA

Shaka was born into a region dominated by clans, large and small, working on a kind of tributary system. When his father, Senzangakhona, was chief of the Zulu they were a lower level chiefdom situated in the valley of the White Mfolozi River, paying tribute to the Mthethwa to their southeast. The Mthethwa were one of three major chiefdoms to whom everyone else was paying tribute, the others being the Ngwane (later the Swazi) and the Ndwandwe. These three groups primarily all spoke Nguni and they vied with each other through the late-18th century into the beginning of the 19th century for control of the region nestled in