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| The
road to the first
Bulawayo
: Tshaka’s footsteps
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| Hatred can be the driving force in a person’s life,
but it is a two – edged sword that can lead to
the greatest determination in a person or it can also
lead to a person’s downfall.
For Tshaka, the great Zulu
King, hatred for his father became the driving force to
succeed against all odds. His young life was marred by
criticism , hostility and rejection. His father
Senzangakhona, a chief of the Zulu clan met Tshaka’s
mother Nandi while she was bathing. He boldly asked for
amahlay’ endlela, a Zulu tradition where sexual
tension was released among the unmarried without any
conception resulting. Though for Nandi this was not the
case. She found herself pregnant, out of wedlock and
rejected with the unborn child by Senzangakhona. |
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| Initially Senzangakhona refused that the child was
his (the first rejection), and consequently when the
child was born it was called, Shaka (also called Tshaka). The first six
years of Tshaka’s life were in a kraal where his
unhappy mother was the third wife. When Tshaka had been
careless and let a kid get eaten whilst out herding
goats, Senzangakhona sent him and Nandi away from the
kraal (the second rejection). Thus Shaka's views on
life were formed and strengthened at an early age. |
| At Elangeni his mother's homestead Tshaka became the
laughing stock of his peers due to his mother's
estrangement, his little ears and small genital organ.
This ridicule from his peers taught Tshaka to fight and
drove him to excel in every field he took part in,
especially physical sports e.g. stick fighting. It is said
that Tshaka was a head taller than boys his age, maybe due
to the fact that royalty can not be suppressed
irrespective of a situation.
Nandi was a source of encouragement and praise, she
believed that her son would one day be a great chief and
thus from her Tshaka learnt to be confident and to
appreciate all those who had been kind to him and his
mother. He grew up to be a tough unrelenting man in his
opinions and yet also an emotional man who was moved by
his mother's tears.
As
part of Dingiswayo's regiment, Tshaka outshone all his
peers:
¨ He designed a new shorter spear compared to
the one that was being used and hence it was lighter and
easy to carry
¨ He introduced close proximity man to man
fighting and
¨ The bull and its horns formation of
fighting, such was Tshaka's intelligence.
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With the introduction of man to man fighting Tshaka also
excelled here and came to be known as Nodumehlezi.
Dingiswayo and Tshaka's principles concerning war were as
day and night ( e.g. in the case of Zwide king of the
Ndwandwe tribe, Dingiswayo would defeat him, capture him
and his tribe, then try to befriend Zwide and his tribe to
teach them a lesson or two, and then release them. Tshaka
thought this a sign of weakness and believed that
Zwide had to be killed and his tribe, then the
women, children and cattle incorporated into
Dingiswayo's tribe whilst the men would join the regiments
thus building a stronger regiment). In the end Dingiswayo
prevailed, though later he had to eat his words
because Zwide mobilized other tribes to try to over throw
him.
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Because of Tshaka's wish to succeed his father as the next Zulu
King, he decided not to get married and have children to
avoid the power wrangles and divisions that could arise
due to the urge of being in the driver's seat. This
greatly moved Nandi to tears who had anticipated being a
grandmother and already favored Pampata as the would be
daughter-in-law. Pampata was a nobody, though she had
believed in Tshaka, stood by him and also shared
Nandi’s foresight that one day he would be great
(Which African woman doesn't believe that one day her
man will be great? I wonder!). She was one of the
important women in Tshaka's life viz Nandi, Pampata and
Nomcoba (Tshaka’s sister), in that order.
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| Dingiswayo
greatly favored Tshaka as the next Zulu king and
acquired charms to enforce this wish. He wanted to be
friends with the next Zulu king whose intellectual and
physical prowess he had witnessed. When Senzangakhona
died , Sigujana Tshaka's younger half - brother,
became the next Zulu king. This did not go down well
with Tshaka who was the eldest and hence the appropriate
heir to the throne. Sigujana was killed and Tshaka was
made the new and rightful Zulu king. Still thinking of
the wrongs that he suffered at childhood, Tshaka named
his new capital kwa
Bulawayo
( the place of the killing /slaughter) and one should
stop think whose slaughter Tshaka was premeditating
except of those who had once crossed him and his mother,
and truly his capital became the place of slaughter and
all people bore the brunt of Tshaka's anger to all the
past wrongs done to him and his mother. It is at this
stage that Bulawayo became the capital of Southern
Africa as Shaka reigned over
the region. The first Bulawayo has some historic resemblance to Lobengula's
Bulawayo |
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| Related
Articles: |
| Shaka
(Tshaka):
King of the Zulu |
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