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Dictatorships fail worse in those circumstances compared to systems where criticism is accepted.
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I must of read this in June 1974.
Gala the villager saved Shaka the Zulu king from destroying his nation – Historical articles and illustrationsHistorical articles and illustrations | Look and Learn
Gala the villager saved Shaka the Zulu king from destroying his nationPosted in Africa, Bravery, Historical articles, History, Royalty on Thursday, 23 February 2012
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This edited article about Africa originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 650 published on 29 June 1974.
Shaka the Zulu King and warrior
The smith and his apprentice carefully hammered out the heavy spear blade and then fitted it with a short shaft, working with the assured skill of craftsmen. Shaka, the young Zulu warrior who had ordered the weapon, squatted impassively before the fire, watching. In the shadows, a group of young men muttered to each other, partly amused, partly horrified at such a break in tribal tradition. Everyone knew that throwing spears had to be long-shafted and light. They had always been like that. Why should anyone want a change?
“What kind of Zulu is it that throws such an assegai? A child can see it will not fly true,” said one of them.
“It is not for throwing,” said Shaka, standing up and stretching himself to his height of six feet, three inches. He balanced his spear in his hand and challenged. “If any man thinks me a fool, let him strike me down as best he may.”
An assegai sped through the air, flung by one of the men. Contemptuously, Shaka sidestepped it. Then as his opponent rushed forward with a club, the huge Zulu hooked the left hand side of his ox-hide shield around his opponent’s shield and pulled. Taken totally by surprise, the man holding it was pulled round, too, leaving his left side exposed. Shaka’s heavy stabbing spear slid home.
“Nbadla!” Shaka boomed out his war cry triumphantly, while the other young men drew back from him in awe. Something very important had happened, although they were not quite sure what it was. But instinct told them that fighting in Zululand was not going to be quite the same again.
Shaka started his military career at about the same time that Napoleon’s came to an end at Waterloo. Neither man had ever heard of the other, yet they each had a surprising amount in common. Particularly they both had a genius for politics and war. Had Shaka been born in Europe, he, too, might well have altered the course of world affairs. As it was, he built the Zulu nation. And he would have destroyed it had it not been for the cold-blooded courage of a minor chieftain named Gala.
The new weapon Shaka had invented stood him in good stead. News of his victories and personal courage spread. When he was still only 29, he seized the throne.
It took him very little time to turn the Zulu people into a first-class fighting race, because he was absolutely ruthless, never moving without an escort of “slayers” whose job it was to kill anyone who displeased him in any way. If you were a warrior who could not run 50 miles a day, you died. If you showed anything less than suicidal courage in battle, you died. If you were unable to dance barefoot on a carpet of jungle thorns, the slayers would unhesitatingly murder you. It made life a living hell but it produced a formidable army in a very short time.
Probably, Shaka was a mad fanatic, but his cunning and total disregard for human life made him an effective leader. He was even prepared to learn all he could from the few white men he met. He had already increased his kingdom from 100 square miles to 100,000 when personal tragedy struck. His mother, Nandi, died.
Nandi was the only person whom Shaka had any affection for whatsoever, and on her death something seemed to snap in his mind. His madness, always there beneath the surface, came terrifyingly to the fore. What followed was unbelievable, but it was recorded by an Englishman named Fynn who was in the area at the time.
Urged on by their king’s grief, no less than 15,000 of his subjects gathered in the royal kraal and hysterically fought each other. The battles went on all day. A very few, among whom was Gala of the Biyela clan, kept in the background and waited for the madness to die down a little before they crept silently away.
Finally Nandi was buried, together with her hand maidens, and 12,000 warriors were ordered to guard her grave for a year. Then Shaka sent his impis or regiments, to punish everyone who had failed to be present at the funeral. Only after this additional vengeance did he announce his orders for mourning.
First of all, no crops were to be planted for the following year, and no milk was to be used. As the staple diet of the Zulus consisted of grain and milk curds, this order was little less than a sentence of national starvation.
Whole Zulu clans were ordered to gather round the royal kraal, together with all their cattle, so that the bellowing of the herds might add to the sound of general mourning. Even the cows were slaughtered so that their calves should share in the king’s sorrow at the loss of his mother.
The spate of insane retribution went on for two months, by which time total ruin faced the Zulu nation, and it was obvious that those men and women who had not been killed would certainly starve to death.
Staring at a fire-blackened village that had been destroyed in Shaka’s frenzy, Gala said quietly, “It is enough.”
His family stared at him in horror. Gala was a respected man among his people, but not particularly powerful. To challenge the king’s wishes at such a moment was to invite instant death.
“Someone must tell the Great Elephant. It shall be I,” said Gala. He dressed himself as a warrior, and, fully armed, made his way to the royal kraal. At the stipulated distance from the throne, he shouted that he had something to say.
Shaka nodded. “Speak,” he ordered.
Behind him, the slayers watched the newcomer, warily waiting for the signal to kill.
“Oh, King,” Gala shouted. “Shall we all die because your mother has died? You have destroyed your country. Your lands will be taken over by other kings, for your people will perish of famine. The fields are no longer weeded and the cows no longer milked. As for me, oh, King, I say that you should stuff a stone in your stomach, for this is not the first time anyone has died in Zululand!”
Stuff a stone in your stomach! This was the Zulu way of saying, “Pull yourself together.” There was a quivering gasp of horror from the onlookers, and the slayers took a grip on their clubs. That a man should dare to speak to the king in such a way was unthinkable, and Gala’s life seemed to be measured in seconds.
Suddenly, Shaka shook himself and then turned to his elders, saying quietly, “What use are you to me? You never dared, like Gala, to tell me to stuff a stone in my stomach.”
As if by magic, Shaka’s madness seemed to have passed. Probably in that moment, he had realised for the first time just what he had been doing to the nation he had built up with such care.
“Let all men know that crops are to be planted as usual,” he ordered. “Also milk may be drunk.”
“Yes, lord,” said an underling.
“And as for you.” Shaka’s eyes fastened on Gala. “There shall be a mighty gift of many cattle.”
Shaka’s grave lies somewhere beneath the tarmac of a road called Couper Street in the town of Sangar, in Natal. No one knows where |
