King Shaka, the Diviners and Colonialism

The often-told tale of Zulu King Shaka and his diviners may tell us more about colonial religion and politics in the nineteenth century than it does about Zulu religion and politics. The tale unfolds in various nineteenth-century books, popular and contemporary histories, and in oral traditions. Writers have frequently portrayed it as a key point in King Shaka’s leadership, most especially E A Ritter in the 1950s, some 100 years after the earliest accounts. King Shaka is said to have secretly sprinkled blood in the doorway of his isigodlo (pl. izigodlo, the king’s private enclosure consisting of the huts of his women and children), then ‘innocently’ proclaimed it to be an evil omen, and called on his diviners to ‘smell out’, or reveal, the culprit/s. Most of the numerous references to the tale explain it as a test devised by Shaka to expose diviners as frauds. This chapter examines various accounts of the story, including similar tales relating to other chiefs, and highlights discrepancies between them. The main players are usually Shaka and the diviners, and they are wholly African. The chapter also adds other dimensions, notably the colonial role in manufacturing some of these accounts, and the significance of the relationship between African politics and religion. The tale of Shaka and the diviners is a wonderful example of a perhaps questionable moment in history taking on a life of its own. The story is now a firmly entrenched in numerous books, from fiction to the academic. South African literary scholar Dan Wylie even found reference to it in the 1975 Guinness Book of Records, having achieved the dubious status of ‘the greatest “smelling-out” recorded in African history’. Where the tale came from is a mystery, despite various claims for its authenticity. When Ritter grabbed the story from H Rider Haggard, he breathed further life into it by claiming it was an authentic oral tradition. Many subsequent authors felt little need to question that, and seemed to honour fiction by reproducing the tale with or without reference to Ritter. It became a spider’s web of links with new threads emerging from time to time. It is one of a bank of dramatic tales about the legendary King Shaka, and that it made its way into the Guinness Book of Records is truly remarkable. The death toll (said to be 300), number of true diviners, type of animal blood, and the number of conspirators all vary depending on who is relaying the story, and when. Captain R J Garden (45th British regiment) wrote what may be the earliest recorded reference to the story, some time between 1851 and 1854, though we do not know his source: