rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic - Zulu atrocities against the drummer boys?

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 3:35 am

Okay, I apologize if this was asked before and I couldn't find it (I did try the search function) but one infamous topic I find mentioned ever so often is the subject of the 24th's drummer boys. I hear a wide range of tabloid-worthy stories from their being hung up on meathooks to their being force-fed their genitalia to their being raped and then force-fed their genitalia... Just wondering if this was all 'imperial propaganda' or if at least part of it was true - and the reasons behind that for the Zulu? I know that they had a reasonable reason for the 'savage disembowelings' they perpetuated on the soldiers of the Queen but what's the story of the drummers?

Many thanks,

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:47 am

Tom
I don't know if he's still on this forum but Glen Wade did a discussion paper on the drummer boys of Isandlwana. I thought perhaps this would have been in the pot pourri of the main page but couldn't find it. I have a copy but I wouldn't like to send it without his permission.

Dawn

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:59 am

If Glen's interested, it'd be good to put it into the Pot Pourri section?

Peter

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:30 am

Tom

Opinion is really divided on this one. I have discussed it with Ian Knight who is not a big supporter of the tale. I, on the other hand, and I can make no claim to be right, think something of the sort did happen - which is why I included a reference to it in HCMDB.

There is even an issue around the presence at Isandlwana of 'boy' drummers in the sense of young teenagers. I am inclined to think that what has happened is that some of the boys were recorded at the reconstructed nominal rolls, (both battalions lost their 'orderly rooms' - i.e.. their official papers, in the sacking of the camp), not as 'boy' but as private. Don't know why or how that would happen - but I think it did. My reason for this, is that there is a clearcut source reference (and from memory more than one) which states that the Bandmaster of the 2/24th secured permission to stay behind at Isandlwana and kept behind three 'boys' of the band. Yet if you check the nominal rolls you won't be able to identify three 2nd Bn 'boys' who were killed at Isandlwana - as they assuredly must have been.

So whilst the victim of the wagon 'atrocity' - (and I think you have wandered into a little bit of hyberbole with some of your variations on the theme - there being no source evidence to support some of the ghastlier goings on that you mention) - is commonly described as a drummer, he might actually have been a boy bandsman. I say 'he' but some of the sources use the plural in vaguely mentioning some kind of 'atrocity' involving boys.

Ian K when I discussed it with him last was inclined to regard it as a camp-fire tale. This is certainly a possibility.

When I looked at it though, I formed the view that the references were just a little too emphatic, and that, on the balance of probability the story of a boy being hung upside down from a wagon wheel, was more likely to be true than untrue. Whether there was a meathook involved is anybody's guess - it sounds a bit implausible. My view is that he probably had his throat cut.

It's one of those things that until some empahtic reference pops out of an attic somewhere, you can really toss a coin on.

I haven't read Glenn Wade's paper on this though, but would love to do so. Glenn are you out there?

Regards

Mike

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 1:30 pm

Hi all

Yes I'm still here, not a fraction as much as I used to be due to A Levels etc but yep, I did do a brief paper on this last year. I'm afraid that the actual copy went with my old PC which was infected with a nasty virus of some sort. It was published in an issue of the 1879 Group's quarterly newsletter 'The Assegai'. My basic opinion was and is that some young men holidng the position of 'Boy' as well as other youngsters such as Peter Shepherd's servant, met a nasty death at the hands of some sadistic individuals in the Zulu force at Isandlwana. I had based this on an account by Trooper T.H. Makin of the KDGs, Sam Jones of the NMR and I think, Trooper Symons of the NMP or NC who said he discovered some men bound up with Valise straps, suggesting, in his view, that torture had taken place. The whole genitals and buggery thing, I don't know from where that has stemmed, but I am quite sure that is nonsense, athough it certainly isn't impossible. There were in excess of 20,000 Zulus at Isandlwana and you can be assured that in a force of that scale, there are certain to be sick and twisted souls. I do recall that Keith Smith also published a very comprehensive paper on this subject too, I would have also thought this would have been in the Pot Pourri section? Dawn, if you have a copy of my paper, could you please e-mail it to me, I would like to amend it and then once I have, I'll send it to Alan for the Pot Pourri section, if that's still OK mate?

All the best

Glenn

(If I'm the mate, it's OK by me. Alan)

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:49 pm

From ye olde forum:-

4th December 2003 Drummer Boys - the myth becomes reality.
By John Young
Rather than have this lost by posting it in the discussion of last month relating to drummer boys, I thought it best to start a new post on it.

I know some of you may have seen the text before, as I have previously posted it in an effort to bring it to the attention of those believe this was a 'myth'.

Trooper Thomas Henry Makin, 1st (King's) Dragoon Guards, left a journal of the events he witnessed in the course of the campaign. Hopefully his eyewitness comments relating to the drummer boys will be accepted as the truth, rather than modern authors attempting to mislead their readers that the story is untrue.

'...23rd [May] Left camp before it was light and crossed the Buffalo River into Zululand, our orders were to advance on the scene of the massacre of the 24th Foot on the ill fated 22nd of January 1879. After we passed through the Bashee Valley we stationed the remnant of the 24th Foot at Fugitives Drift, so that we should not be cut off in rear. We also posted vedettes on all the commanding heights, the guard against a surprise. After marching about 3 hours, we saw the mountain illuming in the distance. But before we arrived near, we could see signs of the fearful havoc they had played with our poor soldiers, for there were tents, waggons and all the items incidental to a scene of which we were to be the specators. The first we saw was a little drummer boy, his drum broken in, his head cut off and placed on his chest, his hands inserted between his ribs. We then came across the poor fellows laid in groups of 5 and 6, every one of which had been mulilated by those savages and all were laid naked, every article of clothing having been torn off them. We came across a large wooden structure like a double scaffold, where two other boys had been hung up by their hands to the hooks and as they had decomposed, their bodies had fallen to the ground where they lay, with no friendly hand to give them a decent burial. ...'

An extract from 'A Short Account of my Life' by T. H. Makin, published in 'The Journal of the Anglo-Zulu War Research Society' Vol. 5/2, 1997.

John Y.

As to any sexual act performed on the youths, I personally believe this was a modern writer's misintrepretation of the use of the expression black buggers used by one of the 2nd/24th.

John Y.

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 9:54 pm

Keith Smith has done extensive research on this subject, and has published a very good paper, which could also be made permanently available on this site,

Keith ?

Keith kindly sent me a copy, as I have a family interest in Victorian 'Drummer Boys'. A number of my family having enroled at very early ages as 'boys'. (My Gt Grandfather as an 11 yr old !, having lied about his age. He claimed to be 14, and was even of very slight build, but was still taken into service without question ! I guess everyone looked malnurished in those days !)
cheers,
Sean

Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2006 11:48 pm

Glenn

Yes, I still have it. Would you like to contact me via email (my email address in my profile) and I will send it to you.

To all,
Tom and I have been having some off-forum discussion during which I mentioned the possibility of the gathering of body parts for muti (sp?) or medicine. This is also a subject that causes some controversy on the forum. Knowing how muti is still used in modern times as well as in the past, I don't know that we can disregard this aspect. Although I am convined that it would have occured after death, if it did in fact occur. This would have left the bodies looking very much as if they had been mutilated and the traumatised soldiers who re-entered camp would have thought of torture. They would have been particulary upset over the boys as these they would have regarded as innocents and not part of the fighting force at all. Their sense of outrage would have been very high indeed and probably explains why the reports focus so much on the boys.

One thing is sure, this subject still causes debate and controversy even now and will do so forever, I reckon.

Dawn

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:53 am

indeed, which have the unfortunate habit of spreading and worstening with each retelling. My query actually stemmed from reading a scenario (I'm taking a look at many board game or miniature scenarios for Zulu Total War) where the writer said (in so many words) that the Zulus AS A MATTER OF POLICY **** and mutilated all the corpses at Isandhlwana.

I came across the Makin report from the old forums yesterday and yes it is pretty ghastly - I can imagine that in the Zulu Dawn remake they WILL show it this time (heaven knows what they will do to explain it, I shudder to think). However beheading or having theim tied to wagon wheels or grotesquely posed may be for any number of reasons - Dawn has suggested gathering muti for doctoring purposes or as Glen has hinted there may have been some rather fanatical fellows in the Zulu army, which is not limited to them at all (US Marines on Guadalcanal or Vietnam collected necklaces of Japanese teeth, some British snipers on the Western Front collected German ears - I really gotta re-read that book on Killing it has the examples) may have done nasty things to drummers or otherwise.

About the corpses being naked, there's no reason to think that the Zulus having ritually disemboweled the corpses simply took their clothes and weapons. (Osprey books and my model figures - okay sometimes not the most reliabe sources - both have Zulu snipers wearing British coats or accoutrements) As I mentioned off forum to Dawn these may have been latched on to by the army and the press like other perceived atrocities - which sometimes are simply a cultural affectation or the desperation of a people fighting for survival or independence - (Cawnpore Massacre, Afghan women with knives, Jehanne la Pucelle 'the witch' fighting in men's clothing, kamikazes, suicide bombers) - and these are thought of as 'barbaric'. For the soldiers in the field this would have steeled their hearts against the foe (that darn killing book comes to mind again - it has a very interesting chapter about how man - conditioned all his life that killing is sin and murder and basically wrong - must be reconditioned to kill, if only on command - and one basic way of doing that is dehumanizing the enemy. Got a weekend reading assignment!) and the fear of those UNSPEAKABLE THINGS happening to them would certainly have made a trickle more of adrenaline rush through their veins, nevermind the weight of a Martini-Henry with a bayonet or the donkey kick when it fires, just keep those sex-crazed man buggering dead-mutilating black savages away from me!

At least that's the impression I'm getting...

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 4:40 am

Stripping of the corpses would have come from the killer wanting to take something from his victim, this was usual in Zulu custom, and disemboweling we all know. But all this would have come as quite a shock to troops fighting for the first time against 'uncivilised' people. (uncivilised in their eyes, that is, and not aware of their beliefs and customs).

Whoever you are reading, Tom was half right, i.e. the mutilation of corpses - the disemboweling, but the other half, I don't think so. (Dare I say, end of story?!) I think you should examine your sources. Mike is reliable in what he says, so you should stick with that.

Dawn

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 7:25 am

Definitely! Some of those 'sources' well... they're of a slightly different breed I guess. Sometimes gamers, especially casual ones, don't really get into the period or they adapt things to fit their own bias. It's just a trifle disturbing to see how things can get exaggerated like that.

Many thanks everyone. We (Sundjata and I) do want to be responsible for the history we present to the public in our game modification and I'm really glad for everyone's helpful input!

Best wishes (and a happy weekend to all!)

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:22 am

Ah ha!

I knew there was something bothering me in the back of my mind that supported the genitalia removal stories. During the Zulu Civil War in the 1880s, the war-doctors of Zibhebhu kaMapitha took from the corpse an enemy 'His rectum, penis, bone of the right forearm (throwing arm), also the cartiledge from the bottom of the breast bone...the rectum is taken to cause fear by causing agitation in the stomach, and to bring on diarrhoea'.

In the same vein..

During the 1906 Rebellion, Sgt Brown of the NMP had removed from his body by Malaza, Bambatha's war-doctor, 'the left forearm, private parts, and upper lip bearing moustache'.

Both quotes are from Ian Knight's 'ZULU', 'The Butcher's Bill', page 100. In both cases, the battles of the wars previously mentioned were mere skirmishes in comparison with Isandlwana. If such precise and methodical mutilation is taking place in these actions, logic says that this is happening on a far greater scale on January 22nd. Tragically, we have to take on what Makin had to say when he arrived at the shattered camp in May, and that, like it or not, it is almost certain that some of these young men, as well as older men too, met some of the most grisly fates possible, and like Ron Lock and Peter Quantrill said on their 'Zulu Battlefield' video, 'There were no Geneva conventions at Isandlwana'

Glenn

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:00 pm

The 2/24th soldier referred to by John Young was Charles Mason, one of the Rorke's Drift defenders. Mason wrote a letter home from the Drift, dated 9th February, recounting events at Isandhlwana and Rorke's Drift.

One passage is as follows:
"There were 5 boys belonging to the Band, poor little fellows, they were left in camp, the black buggers got the boys and tied them up by the hands to the wagons and butchered them, cut their privates off and stuck them in their mouths."

I'm not aware of any other account that refers to "privates in mouth", which presumably was intended to be an insult. Since the British subsequently made every effort to recover or bury the dead, further opportunities would have been limited.

Can Mason's view be substantiated or is this a camp-fire tale?

Peter

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 3:12 pm

John

Haven't seen the Makin before so thank's for that. V. Interesting.

Peter

Have seen Mason before but discounted it as not primary material. That's obviously what Tom was referring to.

Tom

That's the reference but written by a RD defender who can't be taken as a defintive reference, as he had not been to Isandlwana and may well be reporting a camp fire rumour. That happens a lot when soldiers are in the field with nothing to do. So True or False? Dunno. Which means we have to think twice before accepting it as part of the history.

Generally

Careful as we go! Remember that both sides paid no heed to the enemy wounded in this war. What the mutineers did to the women and children at Cawnpore, and the circumrtances in which they did it, is in a completely different league to showing 'no quarter' to the fighting men, which is how both the British and the Zulus approached the AZW, and which we would be silly to pass moral judgements on at a range of 127 years. In terms of torture, I believe its pretty clear that these incidents under discussion are post-mortem mutilations and therefore not classifiable as torture. So best not to start that particular hare running.

Regards

Mike

Posted: Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:43 pm

Glenn

I'm not sure I'd describe the battles of the Civil War and the Bambatha Rebellion as "mere skirmishes" - even compared with Isandlwana.

Isandlwana - Zulus killed: 1500/2000? Could just be more - could also be less.

Msebe - Zulus killed: 1000/1500 (some estimates say more)
Tshaneni - Zulus killed: Simply unknown, but non-combatants alone (incl. women & children) numbered several hundred. Total figure never counted.
2nd Ulundi (oNdini) - Zulus killed: c600
Mome - Zulus killed: 700/800

Zulu casualties at Isandlwana were possibly higher than each of the above (and certainly higher when including both sides) but may have been lower than in one of them. These other battles were still very comparable and hardly to be dismissed as "mere skirmishes" - and certainly compare similarly with (or exceed) the other AZW battles (and all casualties in three of the four were from close combat, too).

As the four battles above were all one-sided (at least three ended as massacres) and the victors were left with the field in most of them, the opportunities for mutilation and "muti" were virtually unlimited, and at least the equal of Isandlwana, where the victors had sustained huge losses. Obviously, mutilations at Isandlwana were reported widely because Europeans were involved & suffered those mutilations - I suspect the usual mutilations & "muti" gathering at Msebe, 2nd Ulundi & Tshaneni equalled or exceeded in number those at Isandlwana.

Peter