Zulu Culture

Zulu Culture

Introduction

The Zulus are an ethnic group African more than ten million people who live mainly in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa, but also found in small amounts in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. Their language originally derived from the Bantu, although more recently the subgroup Nguni . The Zulu Kingdom played a role in the history of South Africa during the nineteenth century. Under the regime of apartheid this village was classified as second class citizens, being discriminated against. Today is the largest ethnic group in the country and have equal rights.

The idea of a single Zulu homeland was in many ways a modern concept. Though Zulu royalty had existed since the 18th century, many Zulu did not view the monarchy as representing all of the Zulu people. Furthermore, only about half of the South African Zulu population lived in KwaZulu. During the 1970s, however, the controlling faction of KwaZulu, led by the Bantustan's chief minister, Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi (1928-), initiated a campaign to unite the Zulu people. Viewed largely as an effort to strengthen Buthelezi and his cultural movement, Inkatha, at the expense of his main opponent, the African National Congress (ANC), the promotion of Zulu nationalism met with mixed results. Uninspired by Buthelezi's glorification of past Zulu rulers, many Zulu eschewed Inkatha and remained loyal to the ANC. During the 1980s thousands of people died as a result of conflict between the two Zulu factions. The conflict spread to Johannesburg in the 1990s, as Inkatha transformed into the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), a political party created to compete in South Africa's first racially-inclusive elections. In the early 1990s the IFP's Zulu members fought with the Xhosa, who were viewed as the principal ethnic group within the ANC. With the end of apartheid, in 1994, KwaZulu rejoined the Natal province, forming a new province named KwaZulu-Natal. In the elections of 1994 the IFP gained control of that province's government, marking their only significant electoral victory. In the following years, however, the ANC continued to garner support from a large segment of the Zulu population. At the beginning of the 21st century the ANC, which controlled the national government, moved closer to gaining power over the province named after the Zulu (Ngwane, 1997).

Origins

According to oral tradition, the Zulu people are considered a descendant of a legendary leader of the Zulu bakua to Bantu (People of the Land of Zulu). Originally a minor clan, founded around 1709 by Zulu kaNtombhela . In the Zulu language, Zulu means heaven or sky. By the eighteenth century and traded with the Portuguese in Delagoa Bay. The first important leader was Senzangakona between 1787 and 1816, who integrated all Zulu clans into a single political and administrative entity to 1807. It is considered the founder of the Zulu nation the leader Dingiswayo , son of Jobe, who's 1807 to 1818 was head of the Confederation Mtetwa. Numerous small tribes annexed and united the 30 tribes Zulus, while the English colonists faced advancing from Natal ...