Zulu Village - Feb 15th

The Zulu are a proud people who dominated south-eastern Africa for hundreds of years. There was a Zulu Kingdom in the 1700s. The Zulu won a major battle resisting the British in the 1870s and were only finally defeated by the brutal use of the modern machine gun later used in WWI.

Zulu is one of the 11 official languages of South Africa and has the most native speakers. 5 of the other languages, including Xhosa that dominates the most southern part of Africa, are in the same language family. Speakers one of the 6 can more or less communicate with each other.

Primary schools in the area teach in Zulu and then English is taught in secondary schools.

We visited the Dumazulu cultural village, about a 90 minute bus ride inland from the port of Richards Bay. It is a Colonial Williamsburg for the Zulu heritage, with people in authentic costume re-creating the Zulu way of life.

Highlights included traditional stick-fighting that was used to train for war (kind of like medieval jousting) and a traditional wedding ceremony (the bride price was 11 cows).

Stick fighting:

Leader of the wedding ceremony:

Male warriors at the wedding ceremony: the groomsmen, if you will:

Women participants in the wedding ceremoney: the bridesmaids, if you will. A red hat indicates a married woman; black clothing indicates betrothed (only some of the 11 cows have been paid) and red clothing with one bare shoulder indicates a woman eligible for marriage.

Here is Joani with 2 of the performers:

Joani again. She kind of really got into it:

Tomorrow's port-of-call is Maputo in Mozambique. Then two days at sea as we head to Madagascar. I will post more Zulu Village pictures the at-sea days.