Zulu Masculinities, Warrior Culture and Stick Fighting: Reassessing Male Violence and Virtue in South Africa

Abstract

Zulu soldiers are renowned for decimating a British army at the Battle of Isandlwana in 1879. This military victory not only entrenched a legacy of merciless conquest long attributed to King Shaka, but also sensationalised the idea that Zulu men are natural-born killers. We reassess this stereotype by scrutinising the ‘Shakan’ version of martial culture and its reputed links to the formative encounters of Zulu men. One such experience involved boyhood exploits in stick fighting, a mostly rural sport associated with fearsome warriors and masculine aggression in South Africa. Using a gendered framework, we identify the customary obligations and homosocial allegiances shaping hierarchies of patriarchy which regulated stick fighting in a regional hotbed of competition, the Thukela Valley of KwaZulu-Natal. Focusing on a century of dramatic transformations (early 1800s to early 1900s), we examine overlooked vernacular expressions of stick fighting that reinforced the importance of self-mastery and ‘honour’, metaphors of manhood that bolstered kinship obligations during social turmoil. We also highlight the sport's sometimes unforgiving outcomes, including ruthless retribution and painful ostracism, which combined with encroaching forces of white domination to change rules of engagement and propel young men from their traditional upbringing into labour migrancy. However, the ethos of stick fighting – namely learning restraint – remained vital to the socialisation of boys.

Notes

^*We dedicate this article to the memory of the late Glenn Cowley, a champion of scholars, publishers and ideas. We thank Mike Mkhulu Kirkwood and Dingani Nkunzi Mthethwa for their early interventions and deft editing. Others contributed valuable expertise and support, namely Johnny Clegg, Malcolm Draper, the late Monica Fairall, Sipho Mchunu, the late Richard Nxumalo, the late Felix Nzama, Betsy Schmidt, and John Wright. Finally, we express our gratitude to the National Research Foundation for financial support and the anonymous readers and editorial board of JSAS for their incisive criticisms.

¹ P. Alegi, Laduma! Soccer, Politics and Society in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004), p. 9.

² M.R. Mahoney, ‘The Zulu Kingdom as a Genocidal and Post-genocidal Society, c. 1810 to the Present', Journal of Genocide Research, 5, 2 (June 2003), pp. 251–68. This study promotes the idea that the early Zulu state eradicated rival chiefdoms.

³ G. Kynoch, ‘Urban Violence in Colonial Africa: A Case for South African Exceptionalism’, Journal of Southern African Studies [JSAS], 34, 3 (September 2008), pp. 640–41. Also see A. Altbeker, A Country at War with Itself: South Africa's Crisis of Crime (Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball, 2007) for more on violent crime in post-apartheid South Africa.

⁴ S. Marks, ‘Patriotism, Patriarchy and Purity: Natal and the Politics of Zulu Ethnic Consciousness’, in L. Vail (ed.), The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1989), pp. 215–40; N. Cope, ‘The Zulu Petit Bourgeoisie and Zulu Nationalism in the 1920s: Origins of Inkatha’, JSAS, 16, 3 (September 1990), pp. 433–35. Marks and Cope drew on E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 211–62.

⁵ H. Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine: An Ethnography of Health and Disease in Nyuswa-Zulu Thought and Practice (London, Academic Press, 1977), pp. 77–89.

⁶ M. Mchunu, ‘Culture Change, Zulu Masculinity and Intergenerational Conflict in the Context of Civil War in Pietermaritzburg (1987–1991)’, in T. Shefer, K. Ratele, A. Strebel, N. Shabalala, and R. Buikema (eds), From Boys to Men: Social Constructions of Masculinity in Contemporary Society (Cape Town, University of Cape Town Press, 2007), pp. 225–40.

⁷ B. Carton, Blood from Your Children: The Colonial Origins of Generational Conflict in South Africa (Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 2000); T. McClendon, Genders and Generations Apart: Labor Tenants and Customary Law in Segregation-Era South Africa, 1920s to 1940s (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2002).

⁸ J. Iliffe, Honour in African History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 1.

⁹ J. Cobbing, ‘The Evolution of the Ndebele Amabutho’, Journal of African History [JAH], 15, 4 (October 1974), pp. 607–31; J. Wright and C. Hamilton, ‘Traditions and Transformations: The Phongolo-Mzimkhulu Region in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, in A. Duminy and B. Guest (eds), Natal and Zululand from Earliest Times to 1910: A New History (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1989), pp. 49–82.

¹⁰ Carton, Blood from Your Children, pp. 38–39. Isibuko sikaba appears in oral and written records: Testimony of Mgidlana, 5 June 1921, file 56, notebooks, James Stuart Papers, Killie Campbell Library, Durban; Annexure A, Deyi v. Mbuzikazi, 1 July 1897, SNA Minute Papers, 1/1/278 1962/97, 1/SNA, Pietermaritzburg Archives Repository (PAR). The more contemporary phrase for isibuko sikababa is isithombe sikababa.

¹¹ R.W. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University Press, 1987); R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2005, 2^nd edn).

¹² R.W. Connell, The Men and the Boys (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001); M. Kimmel, The Gendered Society (New York, Oxford University Press, 2000); J. McKay, M.A. Messner and D. Sabo (eds), Masculinities, Gender Relations, and Sport (Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage, 2000); J.W. Messerschmidt, ‘Becoming “Real Men”: Adolescent Masculinity Challenges and Sexual Violence’, Men and Masculinities, 2, 3 (January 2000), pp. 286–307; R. Gilbert and P. Gilbert, Masculinity Goes to School (London, Routledge, 1998).

¹³ Testimony of Ndukwana, 11 September 1903, in C. De B. Webb and J. Wright (eds), The James Stuart Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples, Volume 4 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1986), p. 378. This volume is part of The James Stuart Archive of Recorded Oral Evidence Relating to the History of the Zulu and Neighbouring Peoples (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1976–2001, 5 Volumes), hereafter referred to as James Stuart Archive. Nguni stick-making rituals: J. Tropp, Natures of Colonial Change: Environmental Relations in the Making of the Transkei (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2006), pp. 128–29.

¹⁴ R. Morrell, “‘Of Boys and Men”: Masculinity and Gender in Southern African Studies’, JSAS, 24, 4 (December 1998), p. 616; K. Shear, ‘“Taken as Boys”: The Politics of Black Police Employment and Experience in Early Twentieth-century South Africa’, in L. Lindsay and S. Miescher (eds), Men and Masculinities in Modern Africa (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2003), pp. 109–27.

¹⁵ R. Martin, ‘British Images of the Zulu, c. 1820–1879’ (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1982), pp. 166 & 333–34; D. Wylie, Savage Delight: White Myths of Shaka (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2000).

¹⁶ J. Cobbing, ‘The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolombo’, JAH, 29, 3 (November 1988), pp. 487–519. Other critical mfecane studies: C. Hamilton (ed.), The Mfecane Aftermath: Reconstructive Debates in Southern African History (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1995).

¹⁷ E. Eldredge, ‘Sources of Conflict in Southern Africa, c. 1800–1830: The “Mfecane” Reconsidered’, JAH, 33, 1 (March 1992), pp. 1–35.

¹⁸ J. Wright, ‘The Dynamics of Power and Conflict in the Thukela-Mzimkhulu Region in the Late 18^th and Early 19^th Centuries: A Critical Reconstruction’ (PhD Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1989); J. Wright, ‘Political Mythology and the Making of Natal's Mfecane’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 23, 2 (1989), pp. 272–91. See also D. Wylie, Myths of Iron: Shaka in History (Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006).

¹⁹ Hamilton, ‘Ideology, Oral Traditions and the Struggle for Power’ (MA Thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, 1985), pp. 260 & 317; Wright and Hamilton, ‘Traditions and Transformations’, pp. 70–73. C. Hamilton, Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 42–71.

²⁰ Testimony of Madikane, 27 May 1905, James Stuart Archive, Volume 2, p. 55.

²¹ Hamilton, ‘Ideology’, pp. 422–23. Some enlisted young women gave auxiliary support to male regiments: S. Ndlovu, ‘A Reassessment of Women's Power in the Zulu Kingdom’, in B. Carton, J. Laband and J. Sithole (eds), Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present (New York, Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 111–21.

²² J. Guy, ‘Gender Oppression in Southern Africa's Precapitalist Societies’, in C. Walker (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town, David Philip, 1990), pp. 33–47. See also S. Hanretta, ‘Women, Marginality and the Zulu State: Women's Institutions and Power in the Early Nineteenth Century’, JAH, 39, 3 (November 1998), pp. 389–415.

²³ S. Taylor, Shaka's Children: A History of the Zulu People (London, Harper Collins, 1994). Critiques of ‘Zulu violence’ playing to stereotype: L. Segal, ‘The Human Face of Violence: Hostel Dwellers Speak’, JSAS, 18, 1 (March 1992), pp. 191–92 & 199–202.

²⁴ Impi means war, but in the 1980s the term was a synonym for Zulu nationalists who killed opponents of Inkatha.

²⁵ Weekly Mail, 30 August – 5 September 1991; Taylor, Shaka's Children, pp. 356–70.

²⁶ G. Hamilton and G. Maré, An Appetite for Power: Buthelezi's Inkatha and South Africa (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1987).

²⁷ R. Morrell and L. Ouzgane, ‘African Masculinities: An Introduction’, in L. Ouzgane and R. Morrell (eds), African Masculinities: Men in Africa from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York, Palgrave, 2005), pp. 5–9; H. Bradford, ‘Women, Gender, and Colonialism’, JAH, 37, 3 (November 1996), pp. 351–70.

²⁸ Marks, ‘Patriotism, Patriarchy and Purity’; Cope, ‘The Zulu Petit Bourgeoisie’.

²⁹ P. La Hausse de la Louvière, Restless Identities: Signatures of Nationalism, Zulu Ethnicity and History in the Lives of Petros Lamula (c. 1881–1948) and Lymon Maling (1889–c. 1936) (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2001), pp. 6–7.

³⁰ W. Beinart, ‘Political and Collective Violence in South African Historiography’, JSAS, 18, 3 (September 1992), pp. 457 & 485.

³¹ C. Campbell, ‘Learning to Kill? Masculinity, the Family and Violence in Natal’, JSAS, 18, 3, (September 1992), pp. 614–28.

³² The body of literature is large. Some examples are: T. Dunbar Moodie and V. Ndatshe, Going For Gold: Men, Mines and Migration (Berkley, University of California Press, 1994); C. Glaser, Bo-Tsotsi: The Youth Gangs of Soweto, 1935–1976 (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2000); G. Kynoch, We Are Fighting the World: A History of the Marashea Gangs in South Africa, 1947–1999 (Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 2005).

³³ T. Waetjen and G. Maré, “‘Men amongst Men”: Masculinity and Zulu Nationalism in the 1980s’, in R. Morrell (ed.), Changing Men in Southern Africa (London, Zed Press, 2001), pp. 200–201 & 205; T. Waetjen, Workers and Warriors: Masculinity and the Struggle for Nation in South Africa (Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 2004).

³⁴ P. La Hausse de la Louvière, ‘The Message of the Warriors: The ICU, the Labouring Poor and the Making of a Popular Political Culture in Durban, 1925–1930’, in P. Bonner, I. Hofmeyr, D. James, and T. Lodge (eds), Holding Their Ground: Class, Locality and Culture in 19 ^th and 20 ^th Century South Africa (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1989), 19–58; T. Waetjen and G. Maré, ‘Warriors and Workers: Inkatha's Politics of Masculinity in the 1980s’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 17, 2 (1999), pp. 197–216; T. Xaba, ‘Masculinity and its Malcontents: The Confrontation between “Struggle Masculinity” and “Post-Struggle” Masculinity (1990–1997)’, in Morrell (ed.), Changing Men, pp. 105–24. Other studies exploring (rural–urban) African masculinities outside KwaZulu-Natal: P. Delius, A Lion Amongst Cattle: Reconstruction and Resistance in the Northern Transvaal (Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 1997); A. Mager, ‘Youth Organisations and the Construction of Masculine Identities in the Ciskei and Transkei, 1945–1960’, JSAS, 24, 4 (December 1998), pp. 653–67.

³⁵ Morrell, ‘Of Boys and Men’, p. 620. Alegi's Laduma! stands out as an exception.

³⁶ Such social principles of combative male sports are discussed in Connell, Gender and Power, p. 85.

³⁷ A.T. Bryant, A Zulu–English Dictionary (Pietermaritzburg, P. Davis & Sons, 1905), pp. 40 & 86; C. Roberts, The Zulu-Kafir Language (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1909, 3^rd edn), p. 154. See also C. Roberts, The Zulu-Kafir Language Simplified for Beginners (London, Wesleyan Missionary Society, 1880). Ukubiya also means to defend (biyela) ‘fenced’ entities such as homesteads.

³⁸ R.C.A. Samuelson, Long, Long Ago (Durban, Knox, 1929), p. 373.

³⁹ Testimony of Ndukwana, 14 October 1900, James Stuart Archive, Volume 4, p. 294.

⁴⁰ Most analyses of cadet training in the Zulu army assume that recruits already honed homicidal impulses at a young age: D. Morris, Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879 (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1965), pp. 32–3; A. McBride, The Zulu War (Oxford, Osprey, 1976), pp. 1, 5 & 12.

⁴¹ Recent studies of ‘African leisure’ explore collective notions of sport: E. Akyeampong and C. Ambler, ‘Leisure in African History: An Introduction’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 35, 1 (2002), pp. 1–16; L. Fair, Pastimes and Politics: Culture, Community, and Identity in Post-Abolition Urban Zanzibar, 1890–1945 (Athens, OH, Ohio University Press, 2001); C. Badenhorst and C. Mather, ‘Tribal Recreation and Recreating Tribalism: Culture, Leisure and Social Control on South Africa's Gold Mines, 1940–1950’, JSAS, 23, 3 (September 1997), pp. 473–89.

⁴² Definitions of sport as collective ‘play or frolic with others’: C. Doke, D. Malcolm, J. Sikakana, and B. Vilakazi, English-Zulu Dictionary, (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1958), p. 264; P. La Hausse de la Louvière, ‘“The Cows of Nongoloza”: Youth, Crime and Amalaita Gangs in Durban, 1900–1936’, JSAS, 16, 1 (March 1990), pp. 86–87.

⁴³ Testimony of Mpatshana, 25 May 1912, James Stuart Archive, Volume 3, pp. 306–7.

⁴⁴ C. Doke and B. Vilakazi, Zulu-English Dictionary (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1953), p. 281; testimony of Ndabazezwe, 23 June 1921, James Stuart Archive, Volume 4, 184, 194. See also izingwadi, an insult linked to the (singular hlonipha) word umakoti, meaning bride: Testimony of Mkando, 20 August 1902, James Stuart Archive, Volume 3, 184–85. When a suitor courted, he could confront a male rival with the phrase, uyingwadi (‘you are the reject’): Author interviews: F. Nzama, 15 March 1993; M. Cele, 24 December 1997, Makhabeleni, Natal (KZN).

⁴⁵ Author interviews: R. Nxumalo, 19 November 1992, 23 December 2002, Makhabeleni; S. Ntuli, 20 February 1993, Nkandla; KwaZulu (KZN); personal communication with D. Mthethwa, 6 April 2006, Washington, DC, USA; personal communication with J. Clegg, 7 April 2011, Hanover, NH, USA. Metaphorical praise for the stick as a symbol of lineage obligation and personal bravery has long been a part of umemulo ritual. See, for example, umemulo prayers for female initiates, in T. Magwaza, ‘“So that I will be a Marriageable Girl”: Umemulo in Contemporary Zulu Society’, in Carton, Laband and Sithole (eds), Zulu Identities, pp. 490–91.

⁴⁶ Bryant, A Zulu–English Dictionary, p. 595.

⁴⁷ M. Hunter, Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender and Rights in South Africa (Pietermaritzburg, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2010), pp. 51 & 220. By the age of AIDS, isoka lamanyala had become synonymous with lethal illnesses linked to HIV.

⁴⁸ Though rarely, Zulu girls could (stick) spar, particularly when they herded for a patriarch with no sons to tend his livestock. During the Zulu kingdom, young women also learned martial skills in the few female amabutho with combat roles. See Ndlovu, ‘A Reassessment’, pp. 112–13.

⁴⁹ Our conceptual understanding of female legitimisation of ‘hegemonic’ masculinities, including martial masculinities, is informed by recent empirically-grounded, theoretical gender research: K. Talbot and M. Quayle, ‘The Perils of Being a Nice Guy: Contextual Variation in Five Young Women's Constructions of Acceptable Hegemonic and Alternative Masculinities’, Men and Masculinities, 13, 1 (2010), pp. 1–24.

⁵⁰ Author interviews: R. Nxumalo, 19 November 1992; S. Ntuli, 20 February 1993; personal communication with D. Mthethwa, 6 April 2006; Testimony of Mpatshana and Nsuze, 31 May 1912, James Stuart Archive, Volume 3, pp. 325–26.

⁵¹ Author interviews: R. Nxumalo, 19 November 1992; S. Ntuli, 20 February 1993; personal communication with D. Mthethwa, 6 April 2006. A stick fighter's ukugiya sometimes evoked the force a young man displayed with his bare hands when he chopped the hardest bone of a slaughtered cow, the jaw (elifuphi). J. Clegg, ‘The Social Construction of Zulu Masculinity—Stick-fighting, the Giya and the Dance’ (Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, 2004); J. Clegg, ‘“Ukubuyisa Isidumbu—Bringing Back the Body”: An Examination into the Ideology of Vengeance in the Msinga and Mpofana Rural Locations, 1882–1944’, in P. Bonner (ed.), Working Papers in Southern African Studies, Volume 2 (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1981), pp. 165–81; J. Clegg, ‘Towards an Understanding of African Dance: The Zulu Isishameni Style’, in A. Tracey (ed.), Papers Presented at the Second Symposium on Ethnomusicology (Rhodes University, 1982), p. 8; Regina versus Mamfona and Others, 27 October 1897, 1177/97, Stanger Minute Papers, 1/5/1/4, 1/SGR, Durban Archives Repository (DAR). The scholarship on praising is now quite well developed. A milestone work of analysis is E. Gunner and M. Gwala, Musho! Zulu Popular Praises (Lansing, Michigan State University Press, 1991).

⁵² Mager, ‘Youth Organisations’; Morrell, ‘Of Boys and Men’. See also M. Messner and D. Sabo (eds), Sport, Men and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives (Champaign, University of Illinois Press, 1990).

⁵³ S. Heald, Manhood and Morality: Sex, Violence and Ritual in Gisu Society (New York, Routledge, 1999), p. 4. See also A. Jackson, ‘War, Violence and Peace in Africa’, JSAS, 34, 4 (December 2008), p. 974.

⁵⁴ G. Whitelaw, ‘A Brief Archaeology of Precolonial Farming in KwaZulu-Natal’, in Carton, Laband and Sithole (eds), Zulu Identities, pp. 47–61; J. Guy, ‘Analysing Pre-capitalist Societies in Southern Africa’, JSAS, 14, 1 (October 1987), pp. 18–37.

⁵⁵ Such codes of discipline extended beyond Zululand to Lesotho and the eastern Cape: J. Guy and M. Thabane, ‘The Ma-Rashea: A Participant's Perspective’, in B. Bozzoli (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives (Johannesburg, Ravan Press, 1987), p. 455; P. Mayer and I. Mayer, ‘Self-Organization of the Red Xhosa’, in P. Mayer (ed.), Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology (London, Tavistock, 1970), pp. 159–74; Moodie and Ndatshe, Going For Gold, pp. 180–210.

⁵⁶ Wright and Hamilton, ‘Traditions and Transformations’; D. Hedges, ‘Trade and Politics in Southern Mozambique and Zululand, c. 1750–1830’ (PhD Thesis, University of London, 1978), pp. 208–14.

⁵⁷ After a decade or more of periodic service, veteran members of amabutho were demobilised on the king's order and allowed to wed with bridewealth cattle supplied from royal herds. This ilobolo gift established a powerful link between stick fighting, military service, and patriarchal standing: Alegi, Laduma!, pp. 9–10; P. Colenbrander, ‘The Zulu Kingdom, 1828–79’, in Duminy and Guest (eds), Natal and Zululand, pp. 96–109.

⁵⁸ Several ‘traumatic’ incidents involving deadly clashes between amabutho reinforced the need to maintain this defensive posture, with weapon-handling prohibitions that incorporated stick-fighting regulations. One of these traumatic incidents is detailed in: Testimony of Baleni, 14 May 1912, James Stuart Archive, Volume 1, pp. 31–32. See also Testimony of Mtshayankomo, 20 January 1922, James Stuart Archive, Volume 4, p. 133.

⁵⁹ Testimony of Mtshanyankomo, 11 January 1922, James Stuart Archive, Volume 4, p. 115; J. Stuart, uHlangakula (London, Longmans, Green, 1924), pp. 105–19.

⁶⁰ In rural Zulu life this criterion of bull-like strength is as well-recognised today as it was a century ago. The lithe contender could also inflict swift blows, a skill useful during the seizure of inkunzemnyama. Author interviews with R. Nxumalo, 19 November 1992; 23 December 2002; M. Cele, 24 December 1997; S. Ntuli, 20 February 1993; personal communication, author with J. Clegg, 6 January 2006, Makhabeleni; D. Mck. Malcolm, Broadcasts/ Talks on the Bantu, 292 (8), c. 1940s, Daniel Mck. Malcolm Papers, Killie Campbell Library, Durban. In the 1930s and 1940s, Malcolm visited rural Zulu communities as Natal Chief Inspector of Native Education. For a study of the symbolism of the male sporting body in South Africa with reference to Zulu warriors see: D. Booth and J. Nauright, ‘Sport, Embodiment and Race in South Africa’, in J. Nauright, A. Cobley and D. Wiggins (eds), Beyond Boundaries: Race and Ethnicity in Sport (Little Rock, AK, University of Arkansas Press, forthcoming).

⁶¹ Testimony of Mtshanyankomo, 11 January 1922, James Stuart Archive, Volume 4, p. 115; Stuart, uHlangakula. For scholarship on ngoma, see V. Erlmann, ‘“Horses in the Race Course”: The Domestication of Ingoma Dancing in South Africa, 1929–39’, Popular Music, 8, 3 (October 1989), pp. 259–73.

⁶² Testimony of Maxibana, 31 December 1913, James Stuart Archive, Volume 2, pp. 241–42; Colenbrander, ‘The Zulu Kingdom’, p. 104; author interview with M. Dube, 17 September. 1992, Thukela River Mouth, Natal (KZN).

⁶³ H. Tracey, Lalela Zulu: 100 Zulu Lyrics (Johannesburg, African Music Society, 1948), pp. 19, 94 & 114–15; Testimony of Mangati, 15 December 1920, James Stuart Archive, Volume 2, pp. 215–21.

⁶⁴ J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London, Longmans, 1979), pp. 41–50; R. Cope, Ploughshares of War: The Origins of the Anglo–Zulu War of 1879 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1999), pp. 236–41.

⁶⁵ H. Bartle Frere, ‘On the Laws Affecting the Relations Between Civilized and Savage Life, as Bearing on the Dealings of Colonists with Aborigines’, Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 11 (1882), p. 329 & 332–37; Cope, Ploughshares of War, pp. 236–41.

⁶⁶ J. Laband, Kingdom in Crisis: The Zulu Response to the British Invasion of 1879 (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1992), pp. 81–6; Guy, Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, pp. 54–61.

⁶⁷ J. Lambert, Betrayed Trust: Africans and the State in Colonial Natal (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1995), pp. 71–85, 90–97 & 123.

⁶⁸ E. Brookes and N. Hurwitz, Natal Regional Survey: The Native Reserves of Natal, Volume 7 (Cape Town, Oxford University Press, 1957); A. MacKinnon, ‘The Persistence of the Cattle Economy in Zululand, South Africa, c. 1900–50’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, 33, 1 (1999), pp. 98–136; C. Simkins, ‘Agricultural Production in the African Reserves of South Africa, 1918–1969’, JSAS, 7, 2 (April 1981), pp. 256–83.

⁶⁹ Testimony of Sisekelo, 13 April 1902, James Stuart Archive, Volume 5, p. 364; H. Bradford, A Taste of Freedom: The ICU in Rural South Africa, 1924–1930 (New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 1987), pp. 46–48.

⁷⁰ Circular, Under Secretary for Native Affairs, 1907, SNA 738/1907, I183/1907, Impendhle (Polela) Min. Papers, 3/1/3, 1/IPD, PAR; Telegram, Civil Commissioner, Eshowe, to Colonial Secretary, 1 April 1898, 705/1898, 1/1/280, 1/SNA, PAR; Minute Magistrate Umsinga, to Under Secretary for Native Affairs, 29 Dec. 1896, 117/1897, Weenen Minute Papers, 3/2/2, 1/WEN, PAR; Testimony of Maziyana, 25 April 1905, James Stuart Archive, Volume 2, p. 292.

⁷¹ Annual Report Magistrate Kranskop, 31 December 1898, KK1A/1899, Minute Papers Kranskop, 3/1/2, 1/KRK, PAR; Mvinjwa and 17 others versus Rex, 15 July 1903, 1/1/302; Court Statements, Official Witness Nyandeni Mvalase and Headman Lundayi, Umsinga, 28 November 1905, 3213/1905, 1/1/330; 1/SNA, PAR; Testimony of Mkando, 14 July 1905, James Stuart Archive, Volume 3, pp. 153 & 159–60.

⁷² Testimony of Seme, 14 May 1925, James Stuart Archive, Volume 5, p. 273; R. Rive and T. Couzens, Seme: The Founder of the ANC (Johannesburg, Skotaville, 1991), pp. 75–81

⁷³ Testimony of Seme, 18 May 1925, James Stuart Archive, Volume 5, pp. 275–76.

⁷⁴ Testimony of Seme, 18 May 1925, James Stuart Archive, Volume 5, pp. 271–72.

⁷⁵ P. Maylam, ‘The Changing Political Economy of the Region’, in R. Morrell (ed.), Political Economy and Identities in KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, Indicator Press, 1996), pp. 98–101. The typical ‘provider’ was a phantom in the reserves because he was in town job-seeking or working: M. Hunter, ‘Fathers without Amandla: Zulu-speaking Men and Fatherhood’, in L. Richter and R. Morrell (eds), Baba: Men and Fatherhood in South Africa (Pretoria, HSRC Press, 2006), pp. 99–107.

⁷⁶ Morrell, ‘Of Boys and Men’, p. 616.

⁷⁷ G. Vahed, ‘Control of African Leisure Time in Durban in the 1930s’, Journal of Natal and Zulu History, 18 (1998), pp. 67–123.

⁷⁸ V. Erlmann, ‘Horses in the Race Course’; La Hausse de la Louvière, ‘“The Cows of Nongoloza”’, pp. 79–111; T. Couzens, ‘Moralizing Leisure Time: The Transatlantic Connection and Black Johannesburg, 1918–1936’, in S. Marks and R. Rathbone (eds), Industrialisation and Social Change in South Africa (London, Longmans, 1982), pp. 314–37.

⁷⁹ La Hausse de la Louvière, ‘“The Cows of Nongoloza”’, pp. 88, 89–91 & 98. Needless to say, ngoma alarmed segregationists because it was seen as a practice of (amalaita) gangs that robbed whites: Erlmann, ‘Horses in the Race Course’, pp. 265 & 267.

⁸⁰ See the song ‘Esakithi isikhonkwane/ Sigudle umfula/ batshele, muntu omkhulu/Sigudle umfula’: Tracey, Lalela Zulu, pp. 12 & 92. See also L. Meintjes, ‘Shoot the Sergeant, Shatter the Mountain: The Production of Zulu Masculinity in Zulu Ngoma Song and Dance in Post-Apartheid South Africa’, Ethnomusicology Forum, 13, 2 (November 2004), p. 187.

⁸¹ Ngoma spinoffs with stick-fighting dimensions (such as the isishameni dance, for example) had links to martial competition: Clegg, ‘Towards an Understanding of African Dance’, pp. 8–14; personal communication with J. Clegg, 7 April 2011. Ngoma contests troubled Native Affairs officials and ‘enlightened Bantu’ (that is to say African Christians) critical of displaying too much ‘raw tribalism’: Erlmann, ‘Horses in the Race Course’, p. 268; Third Annual Natal Native Dancing Championships (Durban, A. Fishwick & Co., 1941). Ngoma could stir challenges to segregationist order. For example, at the end of one dance in the 1930s some competitors and black onlookers marched into a whites-only commercial zone of Durban and clashed with police: Correspondence, Chief Constable to Town Clerk, Durban, 11 October 1934, Durban Town Clerk, File 6, 467, DAR.

⁸² Umteteli wa Bantu, 2 March 1935; Erlmann, ‘Horses in the Race Course’, pp. 267–68.

⁸³ Third Annual Natal Native Dancing Championships.

⁸⁴ Clegg, ‘Ukubuyisa Isidumbu’, pp. 168–69 & 189; B. Carton, ‘Locusts Fall from the Sky: Manhood and Migrancy in KwaZulu’, in Morrell (ed.), Changing Men, pp. 136–38; A. Vilakazi, Zulu Transformations (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 1965), pp. 80–85. ‘Factional’ conflicts over resources: Minute Secretary for Native Affairs to Magistrate Kranskop, 29 January 1902; Statement Zikizwayo, Umvoti, 24 July 1902, 299/2902, 1/1/295, 1/SNA, PAR.

⁸⁵ The lifeguards' ability to use their bodies in protective and affirming ways enabled them to earn the respect and wages of a male provider; this accomplishment connected them, as well, to an earlier history of masculine (recreational) socialisation in which mastering the rigours of stick fighting was a necessary part of becoming a patriarch: C. Hemson, ‘Ukubekezela or Ukuzithemba: African Life Savers In Durban’, in Morrell (ed.), Changing Men, pp. 57–73.

⁸⁶ Author interviews with F. Nzama, 15 March 1993, M. Cele, 24 December 1997, and S. Ntuli, 20 February 1993; Carton, ‘Locusts Fall from the Sky’. A corroborating perspective of amashinga: M-H. Coetzee, ‘Zulu Stick Fighting: A Socio-Historical Overview’, InYo: Journal of Alternative Perspectives on the Martial Arts and Sciences (September 2002), available at http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_Coetzee_0902.htm, retrieved on 2 September 2011.

⁸⁷ Mager, ‘Youth Organisations’, pp. 663 & 666.

⁸⁸ In encouraging future enquiries we point to sources that offer leads, for example, ‘indecent assault’ and ‘seduction’ cases which magistrates attributed to weakening homestead patriarchy and ‘savage’ young men whose libidinous bloodlust had to be monitored at all times: Administrator of Native Law Criminal Record Book, 1898–1903, Mahlabathini Magistrate, 1/2/1/1, PAR; Report Secretary for Native Affairs, August 1900, 22, 1430/1900, 1/1/290; Statement of Ziboni, 25 October 1905, p. 5, 985/1905, 1/1/328; 1/SNA, PAR.

⁸⁹ S. Hautzinger, ‘Researching Men's Violence: Personal Reflections on Ethnographic Data’, Men and Masculinities, 6, 1 (July 2003), pp. 93–106.

⁹⁰ B. Carton, ‘Remaking Zulu Identity in the Era of Globalization’, Global Studies Review, 1, 1 (2005), pp. 7–8. See also B. Carton and M. Draper, ‘Bulls in the Boardroom: The Zulu Warrior Ethic and the Spirit of South African Capitalism’ as well as T. Waetjen and G. Maré, ‘Shaka's Aeroplane: The Take-off and Landing of Inkatha, Modern Nationalism and Royal Politics’, and B. Freund, ‘Zulu Identity in International Context’ all in Carton, Laband and Sithole (eds), Zulu Identities.