page_title: Shaka
section_title: In Zulu culture
hierarchical_section_title: Shaka / In Zulu culture
caption_attribution_description: English: Reception of the Zooloos for Chaka Nathaniel Isaacs. Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa. Descriptive of the Zoolus, their manners, customs, with a sketch of Natal. E. Churton Publishers. 1836
context_page_description: Shaka kaSenzangakhona, also known as Shaka Zulu, was the King of the Zulu Kingdom from 1816 to 1828. He was one of the most influential monarchs of the Zulu Kingdom.
  Shaka was born in the lunar month of uNtulikazi in the year of 1787 near present-day Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal Province, the son of the Zulu chief Senzangakhona. Spurned as an illegitimate son, Shaka spent his childhood in his mother's settlements, where he was initiated into an ibutho lempi, serving as a warrior under Dingiswayo.
  Shaka further refined the ibutho military system and, with the Mthethwa empire's support over the next several years, forged alliances with his smaller neighbours to counter the growing threat from Ndwandwe raids from the north. The initial Zulu maneuvers were primarily defensive, as Shaka preferred to apply pressure diplomatically, with an occasional strategic assassination. His reforms of local society built on existing structures. Although he preferred social and propagandistic political methods, he also engaged in a number of battles.
  He was ultimately assassinated by his half brothers Dingane and Mhlangana.
context_section_description: The figure of Shaka still sparks interest among not only the contemporary Zulu but many worldwide who have encountered the tribe and its history. The current tendency appears to be to lionise him; popular film and other media have certainly contributed to his appeal. Certain aspects of traditional Zulu culture still revere the dead monarch, as the typical praise song below attests. The praise song is one of the most widely used poetic forms in Africa, applying not only to spirits but to men, animals, plants and even towns.
  Other Zulu sources are sometimes critical of Shaka, and numerous negative images abound in Zulu oral history. When Shaka's mother Nandi died for example, the monarch ordered a massive outpouring of grief including mass executions, forbidding the planting of crops or the use of milk, and the killing of all pregnant women and their husbands. Oral sources record that in this period of devastation, a singular Zulu, a man named Gala, eventually stood up to Shaka and objected to these measures, pointing out that Nandi was not the first person to die in Zululand. Taken aback by such candid talk, the Zulu king is supposed to have called off the destructive edicts, rewarding the blunt teller-of-truths with a gift of cattle.
  The figure of Shaka thus remains an ambiguous one in African oral tradition, defying simplistic depictions of the Zulu king as a heroic, protean nation builder on one hand, or a depraved monster on the other. This ambiguity continues to lend the image of Shaka its continued power and influence, almost two centuries after his death.
caption: A muster and dance of Zulu regiments at Shaka's kraal, as recorded by European visitors to his kingdom, c. 1827
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