Zulu Research Articles

‘Humorous names, Verbal Weapon’

The Zulu people in South Africa are masterful composers of onomastic caricatures, both in the home and work environment. Names in African societies go beyond expressing the individual character of a person, they may also serve as Finnegan (1970:470) has pointed out, as a way of ‘working out tension’, or for their social function in ‘minimizing friction’ or even more importantly in the context of this paper, as a useful form ‘for providing a means of indirect comment when a direct one is not feasible’ (Finnegan 1970:470). Suzman (1994:268) makes the point that ‘Name giving provides an outlet for the regulation of social relations in the intense social interaction of small communities. It allows to communicate their feelings indirectly, without overt confrontation and possible conflict.’ Taking into consideration the collective consciousness of Southern African communities, this would certainly be a reason for the popularity of this humorous form of naming as a form of social control which serves to reinforce the social bonds between those who use them. In most cases the tension is relieved by the humour embedded within the name given, the humour obviously being appreciated and understood by the particular groups of mother tongue speakers of Zulu.

The Zulu Prophet Laduma Madela

The Zulu Prophet Laduma Madela

African Renaissance and the revitalization of the public sphere

The ideas expressed in this review were triggered by the African Renaissance symposium hosted by Sankofa Centre for the African Renaissance 26-29 March 1999. The Symposium was aimed amongst other things, to foster a cross fertilisation of ideas involving artists, poets, dancers, community leaders, the business community and intellectuals. Build-up to the symposium The climate to the symposium was built by predominantly traditional Zulu dance at the Durban Playhouse. This endeavour set the tone for the renewal of Kwa-Zulu-Natal, in particular, and the recovery of lost traditions of the Zulu people. This was manifested by the speeches which alluded to Shaka's era. Introduction Since Thabo Mbeki's speech am an African, African renaissance has proved to be a bizarre word in South African circles. This was shown by various gatherings held to promote this idea. When Sankofa made calls for this gathering, one took it be the continuation of the Johannesburg 1998 event, perhaps more inclusive than the intellectual and academic nature of the one held in Johannesburg. The inclusivity of the Symposium was evidenced by the presence of traditional poets, and dancers from rural areas, active participation of women from various sectors of the community. This prompted one to perceive the whole notion of the African renaissance as another kind of public sphere where the community participates. My conception of the notion of public sphere is inherited from Jurgen Habermas, who viewed the public sphere as that realm of social life where the exchange of information and views on questions of common can take place so that public opinion can be formed. It takes place, continues Habermas, when citizens gather as public bodies to discuss issues of the day, especially those of political concern (quoted in Dahlgren 1995:7). This results in collective decision-making. The presence of astute political leaders such as Thabo Mbeki, S'bu Ndebele and Jacob Zuma as political leaders, and, the presence of women qualifies this symposium to be a real political gathering. Central to the public sphere is the essence of talk--a symbol of participation which the idea of African renaissance seems to be all about. In this brief essay, I want to create a relationship between African Renaissance idea and the public sphere from the ideas gathered at the Sankofa symposium. Two trajectories of African renaissance What emerged during the symposium was the two trajectories of the concept of African renaissance. Though my focus will be the second trajectory, a brief look will be made to the first one and how it implicates the public sphere as a forum of interaction. 1. The first one essentially traditional, emerges out of the tone set the by the cultural function. This was advocated by the organisers of the event namely, Prof. P. Ntuli and Sbu' Ndebele. Throughout the symposium Ntuli emphasised the importance of colour black. `The return to the black gods. He asked the question: what is valuable in Africa that needs rebirth. According to him, African tools (technology). In this regard, the case of the Japanese was used as an example. In my view, Prof. Ntuli seems to ignore one thing: South Africa like the rest of Africa has many nationalities and cultures. As a result, it becomes difficult for one to talk about a homogenous African culture.. This is of course different from the Japanese situation- Japanese culture. Further more, culture is not static, but keeps on changing as it comes into contact with foreign external forces. While advocating for a pan-Africanist approach to African renaissance, Ntuli kept on quoting from European scholars, an irony on the side of the aspirant scholar advocating Africanism. This of course indicates that the definition of African renaissance cannot be bottled up in traditions and boundaries, but have to be understood as an interactive process. Ntuli's essentialist approach was confirmed by one of the commissions on Core courses for the African renaissance. …

Postmodernism and the Reclaiming of Tradition

‘The history of the Zulu people is the history of myself’.1 In Africa, as elsewhere, the notion of tradition is bound up with the discourses of ethnicity and nationalism. Typically invoking pre-colonial identities as the basis of peoplehood, such narratives of common descent are imbued with a strong sense of ‘pastness’, orientating the modern self in traditional terms. Anderson explains this invocation of tradition as a feature of the inverted nature of ethnic narratives of common descent.2 More common are accounts which focus on the ‘loss of meaning’ brought about by modernisation and the psychic security offered by an idealised past. Recent theories look to supplant this sense of tradition as reaction with a sense of tradition as creation. One example is Lonsdale’s argument that the affirmation of ethnicity in post-colonial Africa, with its associated invention of tradition, must be seen in the context of internal debates over civic virtue as pre-colonial moral economies are re-structured by the state and capitalism.

The Impact of Early New England Missionaries on Women's Roles in Zulu Culture

As missionaries from New England made initial forays into Zululand and Natal in the 1830s, the Zulu people were in a state of considerable stress. Dingan had come to power in 1828 after participating in the assassination of his brother Shaka, the notorious warrior king whose conquests after 1816 brought people from dozens of clans and chieftanships into a Zulu state. Ecological crises caused by drought and competition for scarce resources contributed to Shaka's ability to exert unprecedented authority, as did the predatory incursions of European traders seeking ivory, skins, and slaves in various parts of southeast Africa. Expanding on a tradition of religious initiation and military ranking known as ambutho, Shaka crated a system of loyalty to the state that built on but also compromised the loyalties to particular clans commanded by lesser chiefs.

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and Sioux

The categorlal status of the possessive in zulu – a new perspective

Die doel van hierdie artikel is eerstens om die geldigheid van die tradisionele kategoriale status van die possessief in Zulu te ondersoek en te bevraagteken, en tweedens om 'n algehele nuwe perspektief op die konseptualisering van besit aan te bied deur die verskillende maniere waarop hierdie konsep uitgedruk kan word, in ag te neem. In die tradisionele grammatikale studies van Zulu word verskeie morfologiese, sintaktiese en semantiese kriteria gebruik om woordklasse te bepaal. Die klassifikasie van die sogenaamde possessiewe woordkategorie sal krities bespreek word en daar sal aangedui word dat hierdie soort klassifikasie groot tekortkominge het wat die basis van die tradisionele benadering bevraagteken. In hierdie artikel sal aangedui word dat 'n nuwe benadering vanuit 'n konseptuele standpunt, aan die lig bring dat die konsep besit nie tot 'n spesifieke woordkategorie gereduseer kan word nie. Dit kan inderdaad op verskillende wyses dew verskillende kategoriee (of konstruksies) uitgedruk word, waarvan ...

The new tribalism: hostels and violence

This paper explores the tragedy of the East Rand's hostel violence, that pitted hostels occupied by Zulu people against the adjacent townships. It argues that this must be understood within a broader context of migrant workers’ resistance against marginalisation. The paper traces two cycles of mobilisation at the Vosloorus hostels, one during the years between 1979 to 1982 and the other after 1986, which led directly to the violence of the 1990s. The discussion focuses on the crises in migrant communities’ cultural formations.

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux.

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux.

Zululand 1887–1889: The Court of the Special Commissioners for Zululand and the Rule of Law

In the process of political transformation - as events currently unfolding in South Africa clearly show - there are many agencies of change. One of them is the judiciary. More than a century ago this was also true of the situation in Zululand. The present hope in South Africa is that all the agencies of change will contribute to the inauguration of a new South Africa of liberty and enhanced opportunity. The past experience of the Zulu people - as of other South Africans - is that judicial processes have contributed to conquest and subjugation. An example of this is to be found in the proceedings of the Court of the Special Commissioners for Zululand from November 1888 to April 1889.

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose like Smoke: The Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

The Dust Rose Like Smoke: The subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux

Zulu Bead Sculptors

Zulu Bead Sculptors

Some aspects of agreement with reference to Zulu

Die toepassing van klassifikasie-kriteria op Zulunaamwoorde soos utamatisi en ugwayi, wat tradisioneel as Klas 1a beskou word, lei tot 'n herindeling van hierdie naamwoorde in Klas 3a. Dit is verder nodig om 'n Klas 9a te onderskei aangesien sekere naamwoorde in Klas 9 soos ifonethiksi en ibhasi nie 'n nasaal, wat kenmerkend van hierdie naamwoordklas is, bevat nie. Voorts word daarop gewys dat drie verskillende dele van die naamwoordprefiks dien as basis vir die afleiding van die onderskeie kongruensiemorfeme. Laastens word aangevoer dat die demonstratiewe voornaamwoord en kwalifikatiewe/relatiewe partikel van die voile prefiks afgelei is en nie van die ware prefiks nie.

Zulu women's bow songs: ruminations on love

The existence of a tradition of bow-playing is recorded in some of the earlies written accounts of the Zulu people. Captain Gardiner in 1836 (pp. 104—5 and p1. 1) notes the presence of a gourd-resonated musical bow. It is not, however, clear which of the two Zulu gourd-resonated bows Gardiner encountered. He provides an illustration of a simple bow with undivided string and gourd resonator attached near the centre of the stave but does not note its name. the instrument would seem to be a cross between the Zulu ugubhu, a simple bow with undivided string, but with the gourd resonator attached near the lower end of the stave, and the Zulu umakhweyana, a simple bow with the gourd resonator attached near the centre of the stave, but in which the string is divided by means of a loop which is secured within the centrally-located resonator. Angas (1849:p. 111 and p1. 25) also seems to have confused the two instruments. Plate 25 is an illustration of a young man playing what appears to be the ugubhu (although the gourd resonator is situated higher up the stave than is usual), but the drawing in the text (p. 111) in explanation of plate 25 shows a young man playing the umakhweyana. Thus, while the ugubhu is generally regarded as the older and more authentically Zulu of the two instuments (the umakhweyana being thought to have been borrowed from the Tsonga of Mozambique around the turn of the nineteenth century), it is apparent that, from at least the time of the first documentation of the Zulu, both instruments were in current usage.

The conservation of nature: More than just human survival to the Zulu people

The Zulu language is particularly rich in its use of idioms related to the natural environment. A sample of these idioms is given and the relationship of environment to language is commented upon.

Child abuse among the Zulus: A people in cultural transition

Due to industrialization and Westernization the life-style of the Zulu people has undergone a rapid and radical change. This has led to a breakdown of the traditional culture and has not been replaced by an adequate social support structure. Consequently, the social ills of the First World abound and are compounded by persistent beliefs in witchcraft and the power of the ancestral spirits. The Zulu child has thus been exposed to a wide variety of abuses including sheer brutality, ongoing “minor” trauma, neglect, sexual and alcohol abuse. The extended family of yesteryear no longer exists to absorb the stresses and the nuclear family is frequently incomplete. Some contributions towards a solution are seen in (1) Appropriate education at every possible level; (2) Promoting formal and informal community support groups; (3) Screening mothers perinatally; (4) Developing and promoting an adoption service; and (5) Improving primary health care facilities.

Content and Context of Zulu Folk-Narratives

Content and Context of Zulu Folk-Narratives