Shaka fled into the wider world, which was divided between two Nguni kingdoms – Mthethwa led by King Dingiswayo and the Ndwandwe under King Zwide – who were already locked in a deadly rivalry that would explode into a broader conflict, the Mfecane – the Crushing. Aged twenty-two, Shaka joined King Dingiswayo of the Mthethwa, who, declaring ‘there should be one great king to exercise control over the little ones’, recognized the potential in the bastard prince and promoted him to commander; Shaka soon became known as Dingiswayo’s Hero. Together they plotted for Shaka to seize the Zulu chiefdom. In 1816, when his father visited, Shaka arranged the bewitchment, a powerful tool in Nguni society, that led to Senzangakona’s death. The king was succeeded by a younger son, Sigujana. Dingiswayo lent Shaka a regiment so that he was able to put Sigujana to death. His aunt Mnkabayi, acting as his regent, arranged his invitation to become nkosi of the small Zulu realm. Shaka danced the ukugiya, washed in the royal enclosure and then emerged to be hailed nkosi. But in 1818 Zwide attacked and killed Dingiswaya, telling Shaka, ‘Now I’ve removed your head, why don’t you just bring the whole body before me, or I’ll chuck the body into the River Thukela.’
‘The body had two heads like the great river snake Nkanyamba,’ replied Shaka. ‘You’re just too stupid to see the other one.’
Shaka expanded his own kingdom, training a new army using the methods he had developed with his patron: swift manoeuvring by intensively drilled regiments behind walls of shields, commanded by himself, to act like the horns of cattle in battles of envelopment. They used both the traditional long spear and the mace, but also a new short stabbing spear. They had no horses, which died after being bitten by the tsetse fly, and no rifles, which they disdained. Shaka demanded celibacy from his active troops, who were trained to fight barefoot, hardened by dancing on devil-thorns. Any disobedience was punished with death. Creating a hierarchical nation with his family at the top, and conquered nations further down, he fostered an esprit de corps in the Zulus, parading his amabutho – regiments – who danced in animal skins singing ‘You’re a wild animal! A leopard! A lion!’, believing they were the People of the Sky empowered by the gods and the spirits of ancestors. Witches could take control of a person by procuring snippets of the body, fingernails or hair or urine – so these had to be carefully disposed of. After battle, warriors risked contamination from their enemies, whose bodies were therefore disembowelled to cleanse the killer. No prisoners were taken. ‘Let no one remain alive,’ said Shaka, ‘not even a dog or a child on its mother’s back.’
In 1819, Shaka defeated King Zwide, who escaped to Mozambique.* The Zulu killed Zwide’s mother by sealing her in a hut with ravening hyenas.
Shaka moved on to new conquests. The king was not regarded as handsome – his head ‘peculiar’, his eyes red, with two prominent teeth and a way of laughing ‘outside his mouth’, his body unusually hirsute – and he was aware of it. ‘Though it’s said I’m in the habit of killing people, never will I kill you,’ he menacingly told a handsome warrior. ‘Were I to do so, Zulus would laugh at me, saying I’d killed you for being handsome and because I’m ugly.’ Later he ordered Europeans to bring him Macassar hair oil to dye his beard and hair black.
In his various capitals, he lived among hundreds of women – senior wives and his isigodlo of concubines, who styled their hair in topknots and wore short leather pleated skirts and carved ivory earplugs. Shaka ‘was a man of great feeling and used frequently from grief or excessive joy to burst into a crying fit’. He fathered no known children, though that may have been deliberate; those who got pregnant were ordered to abort or be killed. On most mornings, after being shaved, he came out and summoned his commanders and addressed the people. ‘Do you hear the king?’ shouted his courtiers.
‘Yes, Father!’ Healers (sangoma) and diviners (izangoma) were consulted to ‘smell out’ evil wizards: if they were clever, they divined Shaka’s wishes; but if they pointed out his favourites, he had the diviners killed. When he pointed with his staff saying, ‘Kill the wizards,’ the victims were dragged off to be impaled through their bowels and then smashed with a cudgel or had their necks broken, while women were strangled. ‘See vultures flying above,’ Shaka cried. ‘Wu! The birds of the king are hungry.’ He was said to have eviscerated a pregnant woman to ‘see how her child lay’ – stories that are told by more than one source and may have been true. The cruelties were becoming more capricious. His half-brothers Dingane and Mhlangana and his powerful aunt watched him closely. Even his mother Nandi, the Great She-Elephant (female monarch), questioned his excesses.
