Zulu

Zulu

Introduction    

The Zulu people inhabit the KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa. The culture has an ancient history that dates back to many centuries. It was a developed tribe that had complex systems in social organization, economic organization, beliefs and values, and gender relations. The Zululand is fertile and hence the primary mode of subsistence for the Zulu is emerging agriculture. They grow foods such as yams, corn, millet, vegetables, and millet that are only enough for their own consumption. In addition, the Zulu people raise cattle as an economic activity where they get milk and meat. Men play the dominant role in the Zulu culture with women being domestic workers. This paper will mainly focus on Zulu being emerging agriculturalists and how this affects other factors in their lifestyle such as economic organization, beliefs and values, kinship, social organization, sickness and healing, and gender relations.

Economic Organization

The economic and the labor patterns of the Zulu culture are based on agriculture. The wealth of the families is determined by the number of properties possessed by men who are the sole bread winners of their families. Cattle are the main domestic animals and the main source of nutrition for the Zulu and those with many cattle are considered to be wealthy. Cattle are the main source of food as people get milk and meat from them (Ngwane, 1997). They are also used for trade where people sell them and use the proceeds to buy other substitute commodities. Cattle are also used in the payment of bride price and for sacrificing to the ancestors. Cow hides are treated to make clothing for the Zulu people. The system of cattle rearing was adopted when the Zulu culture was established but the families have been changing to modern styles.

Zulu have small gardens where they practice small-scale subsistence farming. In the gardens they plant vegetables, tubers, grains, and fruits for food. Planting is done in the rainy season while pit-holes are dug under cattle kraal during winter to store grains. The staple food for Zulu is maize that can be cooked or prepared in various forms. Legumes, porridge, sour milk, grains, vegetables, and tubers form the Zulu diet. During special occasions such as weddings, burials, and births, traditional sorghum beer and beef are used.

Kinship

The members of the Zulu culture practice a kinship system where they are governed by a king. In the past the king had the responsibility to distribute land to the Zulu people. Previously the Zulu culture had traditional housing methods where the homes were circular and surrounded by tamboti wood to keep off animals and insects. A chief called ‘Induna’ was in charge of ‘umuzi’ homesteads that consisted of 800 homes (Gleimius, Mthimunye, & Sibanyoni, 2003) The King remains as the head of the Zulu community and is responsible for the restoration and safeguarding of the Zulu culture. The Zulu Kingdom continues through inheritance with the eldest son from the King’s family taking up the leadership if the king dies or is unable to rule due to sickness. In the current setup, little protection is needed around the homes since there are fewer wild animals than in the past.

 

 

Beliefs and Values

The Zulu believe that when people die they become spirits that move in the atmosphere in different forms. All misfortunes are associated to evil spirits that are said to be revenging by punishing people. In the Zulu culture, it is believed that the dead have the ability to see and hear what the living people cannot (Ngwane, 1997).  In order to appease the spirits, cattle are offered as sacrifices. Nowadays, Christianity is also practiced along the Zulu religion.

Sickness and Healing

The dead ancestors are believed to solve family problems. One of the main problems attended by the ancestors is healing the sick. In the Zulu culture, there are medicine-women called Sangomas who have the powers to speak to the dead ancestors for the sick. The ancestors may request for a goat to be sacrificed before they perform the healing (Gleimius, Mthimunye, & Sibanyoni, 2003). In other instances, the Sangomas use dry bones to determine the cause of the illness after which they use traditional herbs to accelerate the healing process.

Gender Relations

Although men are traditionally the head of families, they often have too many wives and children to provide for. This challenges the men as they are at times not able to provide enough food for their families. As a result, the wives are forced by situations to leave their families in search of field work where they use the earnings to buy extra food or clothing. Men are in charge of the planting of crops while women look after them and are involved in the harvesting process.

In this culture, more attention is paid to the boys since they inherit their fathers’ kingdoms and carry on the family name. The eldest son for the king is the heir of the kingdom and hence he is groomed when still young in preparation for the kingdom. It is the desire to have boys that makes the Zulu culture to have a strong belief for the polygamous family (Chidester, 2008). To maintain respect among the different age groups in the Zulu community, the Zulu avoid eye contact with elders regardless of gender, age or blood relationship.

Traditional gender roles are significant in the Zulu culture. Girls are referred to as maidens in reference to their responsibilities. Men are referred to as warriors to embrace the stereotype of confidence and inheritance (Jolles & Jolles, 2000).  Men are also supposed to protect their families against intruders or during wars. This requires men to be brave, respectful, and strong-willed. As the head of families, men are the main decision makers for their wives and children. As a sign of respect for their families, men take of their hats while in their homes.

Children from both genders are raised together and are taught to have family values and responsibilities at a tender age. The women are responsible of training their children on the importance of house chores and self-discipline. When the children reach maturity age, traditional circumcision ceremonies are held for celebration.

Social Organization

The language spoken by the Zulu people is also referred to as Zulu. The language has its origin from the Bantu languages and combines words and sounds. In a conversation, the words are accompanied by clicking sound which is a main characteristic of the Zulu language. In the Zulu culture, the word Zulu means ‘heaven’ which has made the Zulu people to be nicknamed ‘the people of heaven.’

Marriage is an important aspect in the Zulu culture. Unmarried women are seen to be of little value since they cannot have children. Their value of marriage is emphasized by their disgrace for the women who get children out of wedlock. It is possible to identify single women in the Zulu culture because they are supposed to remain bare-breasted. The courtship process is complex as the girl is supposed to seduce the man by sending some colored beads through a friend (Jolles & Jolles, 2000).  The choice of color for the beads communicates the love message to the man. In the Zulu culture, color is symbolic. Red represents love, white is a sign of faithfulness, blue is for loyalty and loneliness, and black is a wish for marriage or a symbol of anger. During courtship, some grey-blue beads are used by a girl when she expects a response from a man.

When a man chooses a girl to marry, he pays the bride price or ’lobola’ to the girl’s parents. This is the compensation that a father gets for losing his daughter. The bride price can either be in cash or in form of cattle as it may be determined by the woman’s parents. It can be paid through installments that may continue even after the wedding until it is fully settled (Ngwane, 1997).   All the marriage preparations are done without involving the woman and she is only informed of the date to move in with the husband. In relation to this, a woman may not even be aware of how many other wives are married to her husband.

In the preliminaries of the marriage preparations, a virginity test is conducted by some experienced elderly women. The tension between the two families is usually high as they await the results of the test. If the results are positive, the girl is confirmed fit to be a Zulu wife. This is followed by celebrations where two heads of cattle are slaughtered and the two families exchange meat as a show of unity.

Wedding ceremonies are conducted at night when the moon is full and bright. The bride’s parents are not allowed to the wedding ceremonies to avoid sad emotions in this occasion. Celebrations may continue for more than two days and only end when the bride takes her sleeping mat and proceeds to her husband’s house.

Women participate in beading and clay-making where they make interesting artistic designs. During special occasions, beaded jewelry is worn by the young girls who participate in community celebrations. Women make clay pots for the holding of flowers and wooden trays for serving food. The traditional Zulu homes are built by the men for their wives (Martin, 1984).  The wives however assist in weaving the material for roofing and in preparing the solution used to apply on the floors. The plastering of the floors is done by women using a mixture of anthill soil and cow dung.

In the Zulu culture, the dressing code defines the status of the person in the society. Young unmarried girls wear beaded necklaces and short skirts that are heavily beaded. They are not supposed to cover their chests and walk around bare-chested. Married women wear black-pleated leather skirts that are decorated with beads (Gleimius, Mthimunye, & Sibanyoni, 2003). The Zulu men wear two stringed pieces of cowhide with one covering the front and the other covering the back. Little children stay naked with only some few bead strands tied around their waists.

Zulu music is used during celebrations for entertaining guests. The Zulu music involves vigorous dancing for portraying emotions. The music genres for the Zulu rhythms are the Maskanda and Mbaganga. In addition, the Zulu music is also used to reveal the ethnic identity of the Zulu culture.

One of the most important festivals in the Zulu culture is the annual Royal Reed Dance Festival that is referred to as Umkhosi wo Mhlanga. This festival is held in September where thousands of Zulu maidens participate in the ceremony. After the virginity test is done, the girls were guided by a royal princess to pick reeds from the river (Chidester, 2008). The first girl to return to the royal palace and present the king with the finest reed became the king’s youngest wife. Currently, the festival is only used as a celebration for the Zulu culture where the king also advocates for sexual morality and informs people on the dangers of HIV/AIDS.

The Zulu respect their history by holding celebrations on the Heritage Day every year in commemoration of King Shaka who is a legend in Zulu history. Shaka Zulu is considered to be among the greatest South Africans to have ever lived. The Zulu language has become common in South Africa with the emergent of some TV programs that use the language.

The traditional Zulu culture encourages people to survive on subsistence farming and casual labor as a source of their daily income. This was further enhanced by the apartheid racial policy that denied Zulu people access to modern education. Although the traditional Zulu lifestyle is on the decline, the Zulu people who lack basic education rely on casual jobs for survival. This culture will also remain one of the most stable cultures in history in terms of social organization and gender relations.

 

References

Chidester, D. (2008). Dreaming in the Contact Zone: Zulu Dreams, Visions, and Religion in         Nineteenth-Century South Africa. Journal of the America Academy of Religion, Vol. 76           (1), 27-53.

Gleimius, N., Mthimunye, E., & Sibanyoni, V. (2003). The Zulu of Africa. London: Lerner.

Jolles, F., & Jolles, S. (2000). Zulu ritual immunization in perspective. Journal of the          International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, Vol. 70 (2), 229-248.

Martin, H. (1984). The myth of the Zulu homestead: archeology and ethnography. Africa Journal, 54 (1), 65-79.

Ngwane, Z. (1997). Zulu. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group.

 

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