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Peter Ewart
Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
Posts: 1797 |
Location: Near Canterbury, Kent, England. |
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Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:58 pm |
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Alan
You wouldn't be floored by the Zulu names. Just mumble the unfamiliar (or unpronounceable!) Zulu terms to yourself and read on. As long as you grasp everything else, and recognise and remember the difficult words and their meanings each time you encounter them, it won't matter if your rendition of the Zulu words themselves is less than perfect - whose isn't? (Well, Keith & PBQ aren't bad but I'm sure most of us struggle and mis-pronounce many words).
As Keith has suggested, I'd recommend anything by Dan Wylie (published articles in journals as well as M o I) and Carolyn Hamilton (Terrific Majesty plus published papers) but, of the two, Wylie for the actual history of the Shaka period. Their bibliographies are also helpful. Stuart's JSA is indispensable for locating competing accounts by the Zulu of their own history. The 5 vols don't come cheap but are worth it. Or, before that, try Magema Fuze's The Black People & Whence They Came for the Shaka period among others. The main thing is to consign Ritter to the bin.
If whoever designed the iKlwa had seen a sword he might have thought of a short version of that, but who had seen one of those by, say, 1820? It might have seemed more obvious to shorten their own existing weapon if a shorter, stabbing weapon was required. As far as smithying skills were concerned, it seems there was certainly no problem there.
Peter
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Sawubona
Joined: 09 Nov 2005 |
Posts: 1179 |
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Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2012 3:41 am |
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I sometimes leap into these rather learned discussions with some trepidation, but here's my two bits anyway. Sword manufacture is something of an art for the smith involved, some of the cruder examples not withstanding (the "munitions grade" weapons of North-Eastern Africa come to mind as examples--the Kaskara and Shotels of the less than wealthy warriors). The steel has to be strong and somewhat flexible yet take and hold an edge and that's a combination of traits difficult to achieve. Then there are elements of design including balance and power without introducing too much weight. And is it a point sword like a rapier or an edge sword like a claymore? The latter is certainly a far easier weapon to produce, but the Zulu didn't use edge weapons-- they stabbed. Yadda, yadda, but my drift is that one can't just beat a proper sword out of any old lump of iron or steel.
An assegai resembles a weapon with which any Bantu (sorry) warrior would be familiar. After all, it's just an oddly designed throwing spear. Their hand to hand fighting tradition-- limited before Shaka's time-- was with stabbing weapons, not slashing weapons. If they wanted to swing something dangerous, they've always had the iwiza (knobkerrie).
I don't think the Zulu had the available ore or metallurgy to make a halfway decent sword nor would they have had any interest in using one if they did. And frankly, if one were to take away a legionnaire's lorica and pilum, I think a Zulu warrior would be more than his match on the sand in the Colosseum.
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