Zulu Kingdom Research Articles

State Formation in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Subsequent Rise of the Zulu Kingdom in the 1820s

State Formation in Kwa-Zulu Natal and the Subsequent Rise of the Zulu Kingdom in the 1820s

From sankofa, tu, shosholoza to Ubuntu and umoja: a five-stage historical timeline of the philosophy of Africa and implications for education, research and practice

There is no comprehensive history of Africa’s philosophy for reasons including colonisation and neo-colonisation that resulted in its philosophy’ neglect and under-studying compared to Eastern, Middle-Eastern and Western philosophies. In this article, the timeline of Africa’s philosophy has been divided into five stages – sankofa, tu, shosholoza, Ubuntu and umoja. Sankofa is a stage where less is known, although, by looking at the history of the different groups of Black Africans – the Bantu, Kush, Nile-Sahara, San, Khoi Khoi, Hadza, Sandawe, Mbenga, Mbuti and Twa – we learn that they had related values centred around the family, community, society, environment and spirituality, and probably lived in proximity. The tu stage was characterised by the expansion of their communities and new languages that named Africa’s philosophy differently but closely. The shosholoza stage involved resisting the colonisation of Africa’s philosophy on and off the continent. The fourth stage is Ubuntu, the current stage where the noun Ubuntu has become prominent as the name of the philosophy for reasons including the resilience of the Zulu Kingdom from whose Nguni/Ngoni language the noun derives from. The final stage is umoja, the stage of renaissance and African-centredness. At this stage, Ubuntu is becoming the dominant worldview for Africa. From this history, among other things, we learn that Ubuntu did not start recently, Africa is not philosophyless and that Ubuntu cannot be attributed to Bantu people alone but all Black Africa. This history contributes to a better education for Africa where scientists, researchers, teachers, social workers, development workers, even security people, politicians and business people – become African-centred, all working for an Africa whose knowledge, innovations and capabilities compete with the rest of the world on an equal footing. It is recommended that the history of Africa’s philosophy and the philosophy itself be embedded in all levels of ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ education and this will be more useful if all stages, from sankofa to umoja are included. Knowledge of Africa’s philosophy would make education, research and practice more appropriate to Africa, especially in the fields of social work and development where colonial knowledge, values and practices have been dominant.
 How to reference using ASWNet style:
 Mugumbate, R. (2023). From sankofa, tu, shosholoza to Ubuntu and umoja: a five-stage historical timeline of the philosophy of Africa and implications for education, research and practice. African Journal of Social Work, 13(3), 167-178. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajsw.v13i3.5
 Visit journal website: https://ajsw.africasocialwork.net

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

Harp, Siyasi Liderlik ve Devlet Oluşumu: Zulu Krallığı

The origin and evolution of the 19th-century Zulu Kingdom are used to examine two competing state formation theories: Robert Carneiro’s circumscription theory and Elman Service’s theory of institutionalized leadership. Both theories partly clarify Zulu political developments. Carneiro’s theory explains the origin and territorial expansion of the Zulu empire, while Service’s theory can account for the beginning differentiation of political roles in the Zulu state. Two alternative explanations of the causes of Zulu state formation are discussed to integrate the diverging theoretical perspectives of Carneiro and Service. First, the role of the Zulu King, Shaka, should be considered politically relevant only inasmuch as Shaka’s wars of conquest were instrumental for the unification of the Zulu Kingdom. Second, further developments in Zulu politics involved limited structural change from dispersed tribes to a unified military state. The analysis of political formations, including their origin and further transformation, should not be conducted in unilinear evolutionary terms, but from a multidimensional processual perspective.

Reconnaissance survey of Zulu kingdom period amakhanda in the emaKhosini Basin, South Africa

ABSTRACT The archaeology of the Zulu kingdom in southeastern South Africa has recently seen renewed interest after a long dormancy. Most of what we know about the kingdom comes from oral tradition and historical records. Archaeological research has been limited to the excavation of battlefields, the preserved primary residences of three kings and limited non-systematic survey. Beyond the battlefields and king’s capitals there is considerable opportunity for archaeology to provide evidence that complements written records and oral traditions and that informs us about questions where these records are incomplete, vague or silent. Against the historical record, archaeological research can establish a more secure understanding of settlement pattern, settlement organisation, ecology and landscape use, economics, the nature of non-élite lifeways and how the network of relations amongst social groups and strata that comprised the kingdom’s populace was materialised. The ‘heartland’ of the Zulu kingdom, the emaKhosini Basin, has long been considered an area of high archaeological potential for understanding settlement and society during the nineteenth century AD. Here, we report the results of a reconnaissance survey aimed at relocating reported sites, evaluating their size and layout and establishing their potential for further detailed, systematic survey and excavation in preparation for future long-term work in the emaKhosini.

Chiefdoms on the margins of the Zulu Kingdom: A case study of Nzama and Ngubane chieftaincies in Kranskop, Umvoti, from the 1820s to 1870s

Chiefdoms on the margins of the Zulu Kingdom: A case study of Nzama and Ngubane chieftaincies in Kranskop, Umvoti, from the 1820s to 1870s

“The Empire that Shaka Zulu was Unable to Bring About”: Ethnicizing Sovereignty in Apartheid South Africa, 1959–1970

Abstract Arrangements of sovereignty in Africa fundamentally shifted during the era of decolonization, temporarily bringing about political possibilities beyond empire or nation-state. The apartheid state drew on this “federal moment” and attempted to save white minority rule by creating ethnically defined self-governing “homelands,” or bantustans, that could be fashioned as “independent” nation-states within a Southern African confederation. This article examines the ethnicization of sovereignty in the planning of KwaZulu, a bantustan for Zulu people. Rather than solely focusing on the central state, it explores how bureaucrats, royal family members, and other African leaders made claims to the boundaries of ethnicity and the proper arrangements of power. Initially, the government assumed that the Zulu homeland could be built atop the former Zulu kingdom. The planned bantustan, however, included both territory and populations that never recognized the Zulu monarchy before colonialism. As Zulu royal allies advocated for an expansive bantustan under a re-empowered monarchy, ethnologists and other bureaucrats clashed over the geographic limits of Zuluness and the relationship between the Zulu king and Africans across the Natal province. As the government retreated from its plan to empower the monarchy, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, an influential royal cousin, used competing historical claims to marginalize the royal house and position himself as the rightful hereditary leader of both the future bantustan and the Zulu kingdom. Ideas of a Zulu ethnic sovereignty that would shape the late apartheid period and democratic transition, I argue, initially emerged through these contingent struggles in the 1960s over territory, populations, and authority.

The Scientific Imagination in South Africa: 1700 to the Present by William Beinart and Saul Dubow

Reviewed by: The Scientific Imagination in South Africa: 1700 to the Present by William Beinart and Saul Dubow Mueni wa Muiu Beinart, William, and Saul Dubow. The Scientific Imagination in South Africa: 1700 to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. It is not often that one comes across a volume that traces the history of science in South Africa from 1700 to the present. Especially one that also highlights the role of science in governing South Africa from colonialism to the postapartheid period. Power is displayed throughout this period as South Africa is cataloged and recorded. Relations between the colonialists and the indigenous people are unequal, because the settlers have the power to research, catalog, and record all aspects of life in South Africa, which the indigenous people cannot do to the Europeans. Toward that end, physical conquest is both intellectual and ideological. How South Africa is known informs the types of methods used for domination and oppression of the indigenous communities, such as anthropological studies that present the indigenous people as "lazy" and "warlike." White supremacy also influenced relations and methods used to exterminate the Khoi and San people. In this sense, the Bible, book, and gun played critical roles in the making of South Africa. This volume is divided into seven chapters. The first one introduces the reader to scientific imagination and local knowledge of the Cape in the eighteenth century. The reader learns about the role of scientists, from identifying South Africa's animals, diseases, plants, and governance systems to setting up a department of health and a sewage system. Accounts by travelers such as John Barrow and Martin Lichtenstein reflected their beliefs about the local people as well as the methods used to govern. For Barrow, British colonialism was more "enlightened" than that of the Dutch. He also believed that slavery in the Cape was unnecessary, since it encouraged laziness among the colonialists. Most items gathered in South Africa, from animals to plants, were shipped to Dutch laboratories and later to British ones. This science dehumanized the African woman, as the case of Sara Baartman illustrates. Scientists from Holland and Britain [End Page 217] influenced the development of science in South Africa. Most of South Africa's scientists also joined various esteemed organizations in South Africa, such as the Royal Geographic Society, as well as prestigious academic institutions in Europe and the United States. In chapter 2, the authors examine the role of science in the creation of colonial institutions and governance. Once they replaced the Dutch, the British introduced their own versions of colonial institutions. Changes in law and in the currency used were introduced to make governance more efficient. The first chief justice, whose expertise was Roman-Dutch Law, was appointed in 1812. The court system was extended to cover more areas. New medical and scientific institutions were also introduced. Indigenous knowledge was also changing, with the Zulu Kingdom using new military weapons and innovations in fighting such as amabutho (regiments). Science also informed agriculture and the mining sector, as discussed in chapter 3. Indigenous populations fought against the colonial encroachment, but between the 1870s and the 1890s the remaining independent kingdoms were conquered once Britain imported soldiers to fight using new military weapons. These populations were integrated in the four settler states based on white supremacy and inequality: Cape, Natal, Orange Free State, and the South African Republic (Transvaal). Africans were pushed into overcrowded reserves where cleanliness implied racial cleansing. Science informed the progress of the Anglo–Boer War (1899), which resulted from Britain's imperialist greed to control the mining sector. Africans (20,000) and Afrikaners (28,000) were forced into concentration camps, where initially the British refused to vaccinate them against typhoid and measles. British "methods of barbarism" resulted in immense suffering. The authors note that the cause of typhoid had been identified by 1880 as a bacterium that was transmitted through water and contaminated food. The war also introduced the plague in South Africa, which affected most African reserves. American engineers played a critical role in the mining sector. Science also informed governance once the Union of South Africa was created in 1910 as a white settler state...

Multi-Histories:

In this paper, I examine select graphic novels that narrativise intersecting histories by artists who possess distinct social positionalities and subjectivities. The first is Luke W Molver’s two-part graphic novel about King Shaka, Shaka Rising: A Legend of the Warrior Prince (2017) and King Shaka: Zulu Legend (2019). This epic illustrates King Shaka’s rise to power and his unmatched conquering pursuits that helped form the Zulu Kingdom. The second case study is Zinhle (Zhi) Zulu’s – hereafter Zhi Zulu – part-historical, part-futuristic graphic novel The Spiritual Adventures of Nandipha: Protector of the Zulu Kingdom (2019), which visually narrates the story of Nandipha, a superhero whose identity is inspired by King Shaka’s mother, Nandipha, and the influential women in Zhi Zulu’s life. I am specifically interested in how the positionalities of these two comic artists – Molver, a white man, on the one hand and on the other, Zhi Zulu, a black woman – influence their artistic approach, narrative arc, content selection, stylistics and overall treatment of indigenous Zulu histories. Using the notion of pluri- or multi-histories, I argue that these distinct but convergent comic book explorations of the interlinked lives of King Shaka and Nandipha are poignant artistic exemplars of how indigenous histories should always be retold in the plural.

Neglected Archive: Museum Collections of Locally Forged Hoes as Evidence of Contributions by Women to the Agricultural Economy of the Phongolo-Mzimkhulu Region Prior to the Twentieth Century

A 2018 survey conducted in eight KwaZulu-Natal museums determined that field-hoes, called amageja in Zulu, constitute less than one-fifth of locally forged metallurgical items in those archives, while the rest are weapons. Crucially, only two displays related to either Iron Age history or the Zulu Kingdom in the museums that were evaluated provide contextual information on field-hoes. In this article I contend that gender-based divisions of labour in nineteenth-century African communities of this region have affected attitudes towards the tools they used. As groups of objects are generally assembled within collections in relation to other categories, Bourdieu suggested that the value of an artefact can only be established after investigation of the ‘history of the procedure of canonisation and hierarchisation’ of any particular object type. Investigating the place of amageja in museums, this research considers the largely overlooked cultural and economic significance of such items, including evidence of attitudes towards agriculture preserved in oral testimony from African sources and Zulu-language idioms. The article argues that museum collections of hoes form a neglected archive of ‘hoe cultivation’, or subsistence crop production based on the use of manual implements, within the Phongolo-Mzimkhulu geographic region that roughly approximates to the modern territory of KwaZulu-Natal.

Contextualizing the versification of genocide and gender violence in Zimbabwean poetry

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines the motifs of genocide and violence in Zimbabwean literature. For more articulation of ideas, it intersects both preoccupations of genocide and gender violence in the Zimbabwean ideological purview, particularly in selected poetry. The paper probes into disarm sensitivity the domain of genocide and violence as universal phenomena and underscores various levels of vitriolic and diatribe people sometimes face in their interactions in a society that is polarized by racial and ethnic violence. It valorizes genocide and sectarian violence as bodily configuration of destruction on the mental, economic, social and political psyche of the people in time and space. Contextualising different perspectives from the World war I to the World war II, the holocaust, the experiences of the peoples of Afghanistan, Congo, Algeria, together with the Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency and the Fulani Herdsmen’s usurpation of lands are some examples of violence which directly or indirectly facilitate genocide. Similarly, the genocide experience of Namibia and the destruction of the Zulu kingdom of South Africa have all contributed to diverse application of genocide phenomenon which lends axiomatic credence to the loss of sense of belongings; the loss of lives and social abuse; physical and mental destruction; economic polarization and inhuman dispositions frequently experienced by people of diverse races. The imposition of colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism at divergent epochs have consequently crippled people and made them incapacitated to meet the immediate yearnings of their dynamic societies. The painful experience of genocide in Burundi and Rwanda has degenerated into hate and perjury. However, based on all those reflections on genocide, this paper specifically examines genocide and violence within the framework of Zimbabwean landscape and poetry in order to demonstrate that ‘genocide has largely been visualized as a crime under international and national laws and has been criticized in all ramifications’. This paper is a response to how Zimbabwean people experience different categorizations of genocide and copious representations of these phenomena in poetry. It x-rays the human loss of lives, innate pogrom and psychological destructions ostensibly visualized by the people at different times before and after the independence of 1980. The paper showcases how Zimbabweans have not enjoyed the dividends of democracy, but rather experienced dejection in their lands leading to rejection and forceful migration to different countries. All poetry citations are to the collection of poetry entitled: (And Now the Poets Speak). This paper applies the genocide theory of ‘final solution’- a psychological tenet which was propounded by Sabby Sagall and enhanced by Susan Zyl to explain the trajectory of genocide and how this brings the framework of violence to an end in Zimbabwe and in Africa at large.

The provisioning of nineteenth century Zulu capitals, South Africa: Insights from strontium isotope analysis of cattle remains

This study examines animal provisioning at royal capitals in the Zulu Kingdom, the most powerful polity in south-eastern Africa during the nineteenth century (c. 1816–1879). Historical records indicate the royal family and its retainers at the king’s residence (royal amakhanda) were supported by the collection of surpluses from rural chiefdoms and special herds and crops worked by the army, while regiments were largely sustained by the homesteads from which they originated. It is implied that cattle were acquired through a combination of local production, tribute from allied chiefdoms, and plunder from raiding. In this paper, we present the first archaeological evidence for cattle mobility through Sr ratios (87Sr/86Sr) for 46 cattle teeth and one sheep/goat tooth from King Dingane’s capital at uMgungundlovu in the emaKhosini basin (1828–1839). Relative to a local biologically available strontium isotope framework we establish for the basin, the results show that over half the cattle were raised within the basin. Regional isotopic data indicate cattle were transferred from herd land to the west of the capital, by tribute or expropriation in the south of the kingdom, and raiding is suggested by cattle from areas controlled by the Swazi Kingdom to the north.

THE NORTHEASTERN FACTOR IN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY: REEVALUATING THE VOLUME OF THE SLAVE TRADE OUT OF DELAGOA BAY AND ITS IMPACT ON ITS HINTERLAND IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

AbstractThis article, largely on the basis of in-depth research in archives in Lisbon, provides an account of the trading systems linking Delagoa Bay to its southern hinterland. Within this framework we argue that the role of the slave trade has been previously underestimated. There is evidence that the booming demand for slaves in Brazil and on the Mascarene Islands hit this region with force. The scale of that trade is difficult to establish because it was, by and large, illicit and so not systematically recorded. There are indications of a significant trade prior to 1823 and a substantial one after that date. There is also evidence that northern Nguni groups, including the Zulu kingdom, were deeply involved in this trading system. The main sources of captives, however, were militarily weak societies, like the Tembe, which lived closer to the Bay.

‘Devote the best years of their lives’: British Solutions to Natal's Defence Concerns in Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa

The annexation and establishment of Natal as a British colony by 1845 was an event defined by conflict and concerns for security in British Southern Africa. The threat of invasion from the nearby Zulu kingdom or the possibility of an indigenous uprising continued to cast a shadow over the growth and expansion of the colony during the following decades. In response, those living within the colony offered multiple solutions, both actual and theoretical, related to the protection and stability of this emerging colonial state, including white volunteer corps, mounted police, and even indigenous levies. This paper examines the debate that defined these proposed solutions from 1845 to the Anglo–Zulu War of 1879. Whether from within the colony itself or from other regions of the British Empire, the suggested solutions and the debate over security were illustrative of the concern about external and internal threats that permeated the European public consciousness of British Natal. Some residents of the colony offered their own military expertise (or lack thereof); others looked to the Afrikaner population as a model for control; and a small number, who did not even reside in the colony, expressed their readiness to ‘devote the best years of their lives’ to the security of the colony. Such willingness, along with the other solutions to the issue of colonial security in British Natal, sheds considerable light on the emergence of imperial power in nineteenth-century Southern Africa, and constitutes a valuable addition to the history of Natal, settler colonies more generally and the British Empire at large.

The organisation and layout of Zulu military homesteads (amakhanda)

ABSTRACTThe nineteenth century witnessed the spread and development of a number of northern Nguni kingdoms throughout southern Africa. Central to the success and stability of these kingdoms was the regimental system. A critical aspect of this system was the military settlements or amakhanda (singular ikhanda). These settlements provided housing to soldiers, but also acted as centres of royal authority. Due to the specific function and nature of these settlements, they had a settlement organisation and layout that differed from that of a family homestead (umuzi). This study identifies a number of differences that may enable archaeologists to distinguish between amakhanda and other settlements. An ikhanda was organised into four structural sections, each of which was used for very specific purposes: the central enclosure; regimental housing; the great isigodlo; and the isigodlo. Amakhanda represent a fundamental change that had occurred among the northern Nguni, a change that ultimately resulted in the formation of the Zulu kingdom and the reshaping of the socio-political organisation of southern Africa.

Climate, Conflict and Society: Changing Responses to Weather Extremes in Nineteenth Century Zululand

Abstract Changing climates affect human societies differently depending on societal structures, cultural perceptions and their relative vulnerability and resilience. In this study, we explore the complex relationship between climate, conflict and society in nineteenth century Zululand. The paper first reviews current debates surrounding the links between climatic change, societal transformation and the rise of the Zulu Kingdom from the late-eighteenth to early-nineteenth centuries. It then considers new empirical evidence relating to conflict and socio-economic changes at a local scale in Zululand from the early-mid-nineteenth century onwards, using a combination of unpublished archival materials written by missionaries and other observers, together with oral histories and traditions. Our analysis highlights how changing precipitation patterns, especially towards drier conditions, may have contributed to changes in societal responses, including dominant narratives about rain-control, the migration and dissolution of society, and conflicts and unrest. We suggest that temporal differences in these responses were contingent upon the role of leaders, power structures, and the willingness and ability of leaders to yield this power. The case of nineteenth century Zululand exemplifies the complexity of environment-society interactions, and strengthens the call for a thorough scrutiny of the narratives of social unrest in specific socio-cultural contexts.

‘Izwe la li nge namteto’: Reading Discourses on Authority Over Land in the James Stuart Archive

Evidence recorded by Natal colonial official James Stuart in conversations with a number of African interlocutors in the early twentieth century suggests that authority over land in the Zulu kingdom (1810s–1879) was not necessarily clearly defined and was subject to contestation. Among Stuart’s interlocutors the nature of this authority was taken up in complex and inconsistent discourses. The ambiguities in these discourses contrast sharply with the bald statements about authority over land in ‘Zulu’ society made by colonial administrators like Stuart and by early twentieth-century ethnographers. This paper will briefly assess the evidence in Stuart’s records while making the point that, to understand its implications, researchers need to examine the specific contexts in which Stuart and his interlocutors conversed, and the nature of the agendas which they brought to their discussions.

The creation of the Zulu kingdom, 1815-1828: War, Shaka, and the consolidation of power

No abstract available.

Moving Beyond Ethnic Framing: Political Differentiation in the Chiefdoms of the KwaZulu-Natal Region before 1830

In earlier work, we saw the making of social categories in the Zulu kingdom under Shaka, particularly those of ‘amantungwa’ and ‘amalala’, as an example of the development of embryonic ethnic groups. In the present article, we move on from our previous discussion in a number of ways. We reconsider the category of ‘amalala’, pushing back further against the categories of ethnicity that previously dominated socio-political analysis of pre-Shaka chiefdoms. For reasons that we argue out in the article, we now question the notion that groups of this kind were ‘ethnic’ in character. Rather, they constituted socio-political categories with identities that were moulded under specific historical circumstances from pre-existing notions about relationships between different ‘layerings’ of people in society. We go on to consider case-studies of political differentiation and social categorisation that took place in the KwaZulu-Natal region before the reign of Shaka. In making our arguments, we move away decisively from an approach that sees texts like those in the James Stuart Archive, one of our main sources of evidence, as bodies of recorded ‘oral traditions’. For our part, we see them as the products of conversations on the past between Stuart and his interlocutors that were rooted in particular moments of political life in what is now the KwaZulu-Natal area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We conclude with reflections on how understanding the ways in which groups were categorised in the era before the establishment of colonial rule has been obscured by the later entanglement of indigenous political ideas with imported discourses on tribe and ethnicity.

Women Power: A contribution to the role of African women during and after Anglo-Zulu conflicts of the 19th century and beyond

Little accounts has been documented on how Zulu women actively participated in traditional setting of the Zulu kingdom and their role during the Anglo- Zulu wars. Ndlovu (2009: 111) argued that academics tend to rely on late twentieth- century feminist analyses which informed by women's struggles in the industrial era to contest equality with men rather than the historical realities of balance interpretation of discourse in gender oppression.It has been a secret taboo that women's role during times of war and conflict were not accorded its rightful interpretation in historical discourse. Scholars do reflect on the above stereotype historical writings thought tradition that had brought this subject into historical debates that military participation was only coined to men or males. Mangena 1 (2008: 253) argued that by recognizing women role at equal footing with men as important narration in contemporary historiography, would tacitly endorsing the legitimacy of 'gender' as an issue in the terrain of social and political power between men and women. Then, this research will focus at producing data signifying women's role and influence during and after the wars. It also endeavors at recognizing their contributions and participation during the war times during the 19th Century and beyond.Mangena's article 'The Black Consciousness Philosophy and the Women's Question in South Africa: 1970-1980' contributed to Biko's Lives: Contesting the legacy of Biko. Contemporary Black History JournalThis paper delves at looking how Zulu women actively participated and extensive contributed in the ancient Anglo-Zulu conflicts and war of the 19th Century. Thus the paper will highlight women role vice versa with women oppression, the way in which both gender offered males and females similar equality to customary influence and power, in the Zulu kingdom. Emphasis will be on the women role during and after the conflict situation and women as age-regiments. One will not exclude their common role in the pre-colonial period as traditional healers.Women Role in the Precolonial EraIt is an undisputed fact that women and men were assigned specific tasks and duties within traditional Zulu society. Sifiso Ndlovu (2008: 111)'s article, from the book 'Zulu identities', stressed that women in the Zulu kingdom were recognized for their important contributions, to conflict and politics in the Zulu kingdom. Women were associated with cultivation, housekeeping, child rearing and thatching. Furthermore, women were also responsible for the hut thatching and the making of grass products. Mats done by women are for sleeping, sitting and eating on. Brewing tools, baskets, fowl nest and utensil pouches were also some of the material done by women.Closely link to Zulu tradition, indigenous home made beer (umqombothi) is prepared and brews by the women that are. As it is illustrated by the Zulu culture, traditional beer plays an important role in Zulu society and it is an essential part of all major rites, it is also important in everyday life, in parties and as offerings. The making of the traditional beer remains solely the responsibility of the women. During some important communal ceremonies, many of the cooking were not carried out by women but by men or king attendance / izinceku. The above shared responsibilities derailed the notion that men were exercising control over women, however, they were also participated and piloted warfare.In the late 19th century, women started to follow the men into labour market, seeking jobs on the mines and in the urban areas. This migrant system has moved men and women from the rural areas, disruption the traditional gender roles, resulting in rural women and the aged being forced to do tasks previously done by the men.Role of Zulu Women during the WarIt is important to stress that the historian and written sources did not positively portray the women's role during the Zulu war in totality and given recognition it deserved. …