The Zulu Culture - Research Paper Example

Anthropology Research Paper on Zulu Culture of the and Number Research Paper on Zulu Culture Introduction The Zulu are the largest ethnic group in South Africa; they are “a pastoral people in the southern end of the eastern cattle area of Africa” (Hatcher, 1999, p.285). Their main mode of subsistence is by pastoralism or the domestication of animals. Zulus make their livelihood from the products they derive from livestock such as sheep, goats, camels, alpaca, reindeer, and cattle. Thus, pastoralists depend on herding animals for their survival. The cycle of the livestock forms the key determinant of pastoralists’ daily and seasonal lives (Nowak & Laird, 2010). Among the Zulu and some other pastoral cultures, agriculture forms a supplement to developing animal products (Nowak & Laird, 2010). However, Gluckman (1963, p.81), argues that although “the Zulu, Tswana, Ankoke, Kavirondo, and Nuer are grouped as pastoral-agriculturalists”, complex patterns emerge from an interweaving of their ecological setting, the distribution of their settlements, division of labor, and other factors that form their culture. The Zulu utilise their animals not only for their own subsistence, but also in social and ritual occasions. Similar to the Masai of Kenya, although there is emphasis on music, dancing, elaborate beadwork, and oral narratives, there is little significance for the visual arts in the Zulu culture (Hatcher, 1999). Livestock represent wealth and prestige; they are exchanged as a part of marital gift-giving, and are used for settling disputes, as well as for ceremonial sacrifices. The community develops close emotional attachments to their livestock, and rarely slaughter their animals for food. Due to a lack of storage facilities and preservation techniques, pastoralists such as the Zulu have a reciporcal system of distributing the animals they butcher to other members of the group for immediate consumption (Nowak & Laird, 2010). Pastoralism as the primary mode of subsistence impacts several dimensions of cultural behavior among the Zulus. Thesis Statement: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the pastoral mode of subsistence impacts different aspects of the cultural behavior of the Zulu tribe of Africa. In this context, their beliefs and values, gender relations, and political organization will be examined. Beliefs and Values of the Zulu Tribe The ancestor cult of the Zulus is based on the lineage and kinship system distinguishing Zulu life. Ritual sacrifices form an inherent part of ceremonial rites among the tribe. Lambert (1993) attributes sacrifice to its origins in the ritualisation of the palaeolithic hunt. The contradictory features regarding people deeply attached to their animals is that there is no trace of guilt or anxiety at ritual killings among the Zulus. The author states that in both Zulu as well as ancient Greek sacrifices, misleading emotional factors are imbued, which may actually be absent from individual sacrifices. Hence, “explanations offered in terms of origins or formative antecedents are fraught with speculative problems and throw no light on the motivation for sacrifice” (Lambert, 1993, p.293) of livestock. The African cosmological understanding of life, death, and creation include the relationship of humankind with nature and the natural phenomena as their core issues (Monteiro-Ferreira, 2005). According to Asante (1998, p.89), “the organizing principle of human society, the creative spirit of phenomena, and the eternal order of the universe” is Ma’at, which depicted the basic principle of creation as the equilibrium of opposites, the universe being regulated by the force of the perfectly established energy. Through the tradition of the oral narrative passed on from one generation to the next, these cosmological and ethical concepts were recreated to symbolize the spirit of the ancestors, which were considered very significant by the Zulus. Thus, Unkulunkulu is the ancient concept of a first human being who created all things, including humans, nature, animals and other elements, and gave them to humankind to use. This creator was unlike a Supreme God since he died, and hence has less influence on their lives, than the spirit of the ancestors whom they can locate in time (Monteiro-Ferreira, 2005). Thus, the Zulus are ancestor venerators, worshipping their forefathers in ceremonial events. Gender Relations among the Zulu The Zulus culture is highly patriarchal in nature, with older married men being accorded the highest status, followed by younger married men; while women were assigned a lower status in the society. Earlier works such as those by Jeff Guy give insights into the women’s conditions in Zulu society. First, men appropriated women’s productive and reproductive powers, as the fundamental economic transaction. All forms of political and social organisation were based on the derivation of surplus labor from women in the homes. Consequently, women in Zulu society were oppressed. However, women were also placed at the “very source of power within that society: agricultural production” (Hanrietta, 1998, p.391), in the pastoral-agricultural milieu. Secondly, women were considered as ‘outsiders’. In the exogamous Zulu society, all prospective wives were from other social, economic, and ritual groups, from their husbands. The major economic transaction in Zulu society was through the exchange of women, as daughters, along with cattle as bride-wealth or lobola. This exchange was conducted between the male heads of households, from the family of birth to that of marriage. “Women’s position as outsiders in the homestead affected the power dynamics between themselves and their husbands in several ways” (Hanrietta, 1998, p.391). A source of power and security for a woman were her connections with her own lineage, outside her husband’s family, which protected her from the power her husband could exercise over her. More significantly, particularly among high-ranking families, a wife’s lineage connections could help her to resolve succession disputes, in addition to her own status in relation to other wives in the household. Further, “a woman’s power as advocate for her son could, and did, threaten a husband’s control over the reproduction of the homestead” (Hanrietta, 1998, p.391). To circumvent these potential dangers, a range of ritual rites and requirements had to be fulfilled, among a new wife and her in-laws, and a husband and his in-laws. According to the study conducted by Magwaza (2001, p.25) on Zulu women, using questionnaires, interviews and observations, “even in an extremely partriarchal system, such as the Zulu society, where gender ideologies succeed in restricting women’s freedom of expression”, the women developed techniques to address the constraints imposed upon them. The main element in Zulu women’s situation is the ‘ideological necessity of having a man or being married” (Magwaza, 2001, p.25). Zulu women, though from rural backgrounds and lacking in education, are not passive about their conditions. They utilize their dress in different manners, to both communicate their obedience to traditionally ascribed status, and to convey their displeasure in a non-verbal mode of protest. This is exemplified among Zulu women from Camperdown and Ndwedwe regions, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. They used their dress codes in a variety of ways and contexts to protest against their progress towards their prospective status as married women (Magwaza, 2001). The Ukuqwanjiswa Kwempi or the doctoring of an army was the “most important ceremony among the Zulus, while they were still under their own rulers” (Samuelson, 1911, p.195). The natives of Zululand were considered as the bravest warriors among the colored races, and took pride in their readiness to fight for their king and country. The ceremony of the Ukuqwamba was usually conducted before the men left for war, and aimed to render the men both brave and invulnerable. Women were not allowed near the ceremonial area, and men or boys particularly deputed for the purpose, brought all food supplies and other requirements. The national war-doctor wearing war-paint addressed the army standing in a crescent formation. A “very wild black bull was brought in, seized by some warriors selected for the occasion, and held down by them” (Samuelson, 1911, p.196), and the doctor killed the animal using his axe, with a blow to the neck. The animal was roasted with various ingredients to enhance its powerful effects on the warriors, and fed to them. This was followed by the doctor sprinkling a liquid composed of different medicines on the army, for them to repel the enemy. The women-folk left behind performed their assigned roles. During the time of war, married women wore the upper edge of their skirt rolled inside instead of outward, around the hips. The young girls threw ashes around their bodies, as a sign of mourning, similar to the wearing of sack cloth and ashes among the Hebrews. The old women ran along the roads, sweeping with their brooms, in an action known as Ukutshaluza, symbolically indicating that the Zulu army would make a clean sweep of their enemies, and send them away in all directions. The women simmer a pot of roots with magical properties and other ingredients for several hours, and “all the women and children sit around the pot and dip their fingers in it, and lick off the mixture” (Samuelson, 1911, p.197). This was the ceremony of sucking or Ukucinda. This was followed by the slaughtering of a cow, after which the women swept and smeared the floors of their huts with cow-dung, and tidied them, to prepare for the return of the soldiers. Other preparations for the arrival of the warrior menfolk was to make beer and grind snuff, to fulfill their requirements. Political Organization in Zulu Culture In the political organization of Zulu culture, direct impact of mode of subsistence is absent; however, the homestead of the chief formed the basis for the political system. In the early nineteenth century, Zulus rose to power, as a unique example of contemporary Southern African process of state formation, which was the outcome of revolutionary social chanages. Kuper (1993) suggests that there the established forms of chieftancy in the region were reflected in the political system which was based on a “traditional, pan-Nguni homestead form of organization” (p.487). The Zulu homestead had a right and left section, each with its own identity and destiny. This opposing formation was included in the plan of ordinary homesteads and royal settlements alike. This formation was continued into the organization of regiments. “The homestead and its segments provided both the geographical and the structural nodes of the society” (Kuper, 1993, p.487). The developmental cycle of the homestead followed a predesigned pattern, producing a new composition of units in each generation. The points of segmentation were provided by the houses, each of which was allocated for one main wife and her designated heir. These houses depicted the outcome of marriages with people from outside the group, “whose leaders threw their weight behind particular factions in the political processes within the family” (Kuper, 1993, p.487). For example, the four satellite homesteads of a Zulu chief, split to yield new independent, homesteads of the chief, each serving “as an administrative centre for a ward of the chiefdom” (Kuper, 1993, p.479). The tendency for repeated fission is limited in practicality by migrations, demographic situations, or political circumstances. A counter process reinforces central control. Those appointed by the ruling chief include the existing homesteads and their satellites under their local control. Similar processes take place at the level of the Zulu state. “The king established royal towns across the country, each under a specific wife, to each of whom an administrative officer was allocated” (Kuper, 1993, p.479). Particular regiments used them as administrative centres and as military camps. The chief induna of a town emerging from the right-hand side of the capital was considered superior to the town drawn from the left-hand side. The same two-in-one structure has been identified in the regimental system of the Zulu exhibits. “Each district raised a part of the regiment, its iviyo, and these were often quartered locally, in the district capital, which therefore was home to several regimental divisions”, states Kuper (1993, p.479). Thus, the political organization in Zulu culture was based on the homestead pattern of development. Conclusion This paper has highlighted Zulu culture, based on its pastoral mode of subsistence. The research evidence indicates that different facets of cultural behavior of the Zulu tribe are impacted by its predominantly pastoral-agricultural mode of livelihood. Their beliefs and values, gender relations, and political organization were investigated. The findings demonstrate that the core beliefs and values related to ancestor worship, involve the ritual sacrifice of livestock as a key element. Gender relations are also associated with the lower status of women, who are also considered as ‘outsiders’ on the basis of their alliance from outside the group, and who are responsible for the agricultural production for the family. The political organization of Zulu society reflects the pattern of the homestead and its continued bisections, which are allocated to further chiefdoms. Although the political organization does not directly reflect the pastoral-agricultural mode of subsistence, it emphasizes on the military regiment formation. Thus, the main power rests with men, with women marginalised from the political system. It is concluded that the Zulu culture reveals the impact of its pastoral mode of subsistence, similar to several other tribes in Africa, who depend on their cattle and other animals for their livelihood and survival. It is essential for the government to aid the tribal people, towards education, better opportunities, development and progress. References Asante, M.K. (1998). The afrocentric idea. The United States of America: Temple University Press. Chanaiwa, D.S. (1980). The Zulu revolution: State formation in a pastoralist society. African Studies Review, 23(3), 1-20. Gluckman, M. (1963). Order and rebellion in tribal Africa: Collected essays, with an auto- biographical introduction. New York: Glencoe Press. Hanretta, S. (1998). Women, marginality and the Zulu state: Women’s institutions and power in the early nineteenth century. The Journal of African History, 39(3), 389-415. Harries, P. (1993). 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