ОH, LOVE: African Passions, Dark-Style

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We have a fairly clear understanding of how intimate feelings influence the politics of the monarchies and dictatorships we are more or less accustomed to. Often enough, a monarch’s mistress becomes a more significant center of influence than the cabinet of ministers, and no one is surprised — it’s just the way of the world. But what happens in simpler power structures, such as African monarchies? Well, it depends on the specific circumstances. It can turn out like it did in Southern Africa around the time of the French Revolution — not quite the same in appearance, but essentially identical.

THUS HE WAS BORN

ne of the fairly noble chiefs of the Mthethwa tribe of the Nguni people, the leader of the Zulu clan («Sky») named Senzangakhona, was once wandering about his Africa and came upon a pond where a pleasant local woman was bathing in a typical African bathing costume — that is, without one. And morals in Africa were simpler than ours: the right of a couple to immediately proceed to uku-hlobonga («diversions along the way») was recognized by the moral code of the builders of tribalism.

Uku-hlobonga was rather uninhibited sex, but it did not imply conception; how such wonders were achieved was clear to everyone, yet in the heat of passion, a couple could still get carried away. Which is exactly what happened to Senzangakhona and the young woman named Nandi. Usually even that could be settled with three cows, but the suitor was far too noble…

Senzangakhona’s kin, understandably, reacted without enthusiasm to admitting some Nandi from a pond into their ranks and even declared that no offspring was to be expected — it was simply that a beetle had lodged itself in Nandi’s body. But soon Nandi arrived with her relatives at Senzangakhona’s kraal (that is, village), a child in her arms — here, they said, is your beetle, take it. And so he was named Beetle — in the local language, Shaka. At the time, this name did not seem frightening at all…

A HARD CHILDHOOD

Senzangakhona took Nandi into his harem as a third wife; later, they had a daughter as well, and for seven years, they lived quietly, though tension kept building. The culprit turned out to be the boy — he failed to keep track of a sheep or a goat, and it was eaten by a leopard. The father’s reaction was utterly unpredictable: he drove Nandi and Shaka not only out of the house but out of the kraal as well. They had to seek shelter with neighbors. And the capable, well-developed, and physically strong boy found himself an obvious outcast among peers who perfectly understood that if a father refused to support him, then he was nobody and nothing, even if he was stronger and smarter than all the others individually. Such boys are hounded as a pack — attacked by a crowd and struck from behind.

There was another small detail that made little Shaka’s life harder, precisely because he lived in Africa rather than in Europe, where boys his age wear trousers or underpants. African children are not entitled to such luxury, and important details of their male anatomy hang in plain sight. And in young Shaka’s case this detail for quite a long time was noticeably smaller than that of his playmates. You can imagine how many opportunities this provided for bullying and humiliation. By the way, there was one person who never mocked Shaka for this — the friend of his sister Pampata. She never blamed the boy for the absence of paternal protection, nor for his big ears, nor for the size of that all-important detail.

AN INVINCIBLE WARRIOR

By the time Zulu came of age, around the age of fifteen, Shaka had become a true strongman and a handsome young man; everything had grown remarkably well, including what had once been the subject of mockery (and here Pampata had not been mistaken!). He personally killed a leopard that had attacked the herd and, as a reward from the supreme chief of the Mthethwa, Dingiswayo, received his first milking cow. It was time to join the Zulu army, and Shaka was more than willing.

The Zulu army was mainly armed with assegais — heavy throwing spears that could also be used for fencing. The tactics were as simple as could be: they threw assegais at one another (it was not difficult to dodge), then fenced with the same assegais, covering themselves with shields, until one of the armies broke and ran.

Shaka fought differently. He did not throw his heavy, powerful assegai at all. He closed in hand-to-hand, hooked the opponent’s shield from the left with his own, and struck the exposed side. He pursued the enemy barefoot, which proved faster than wearing primitive Zulu footwear, almost always catching up and striking the unprotected back.

BEAUTY AND PRIDE

Among the Zulus, killing an enemy requires a ritual: a warrior must «wipe the axe», that is, enter into intimate relations with a woman, who in this case has no right to refuse. Everyone agrees that Shaka «wiped the axe» precisely with Pampata, and there was not even a hint of resistance on her part. He did the same after killing the Mad Giant — a bandit, robber, and murderer — whom an entire army had been unable to deal with. Shaka was promoted in rank and given the honorary nickname Sigidi («thousand»).

When the war with the neighboring Ndwandwe tribe began, Shaka commanded a regiment. The enemy chief Zwide was quite a piece of work; in all of Africa, only Barmaley was worse, and his malicious mother Ntombazi decorated her son’s hut with the dried heads of defeated chiefs. But they were no match for Dingiswayo — Zwide was defeated and taken prisoner.

Shaka advised killing the scoundrel together with his sadistic mother and incorporating his tribe, since they shared the same language. But the overly kind Dingiswayo limited himself to a fine of two thousand cows. A share of them was allocated as a reward to Shaka, and he, knowing that Pampata had purchased various amulets with the value of her jewelry — amulets meant to bring luck in war — compensated her for these expenses many times over.

CHIEF OF THE ZULU CLAN

Dingiswayo reconciled Shaka with his father, and when the latter soon died, Shaka became the rightful chief of the Zulu clan. He immediately ordered the killing of his own uncle, the one who had instructed that Nandi be told there was simply a beetle lodged in her, Chaka. And in the kraal where he had lived with his mother after their expulsion, he carried out a bloody purge. Everyone who had in any way offended him or Nandi was divided into two groups, and he declared that the first was less guilty and therefore would be beaten to death with clubs, but only after the second group had died a horrific death (they would be impaled), so that the first would be grateful not to suffer. He also set about reforming the clan’s army — sending them to trample down thickets of thorny plants. Anyone who hesitated even slightly was killed on the spot by the executioners. Six were finished off, and the rest were left with their feet torn and bleeding.

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SUPREME CHIEF

Soon a terrible misfortune befell Dingiswayo — he was captured by Zwide. African legends explain this by the witchcraft of Ntombazi, while we would rather suspect a dishonorable violation of guarantees of inviolability during negotiations; but the fact remains: Zwide executed Dingiswayo, and the malicious Ntombazi decorated yet another corner of her house with his head. This was a mistake — Shaka attacked Zwide suddenly and mercilessly.

True, Zwide managed to escape, but he could no longer harm Shaka. As for the captive Ntombazi, Shaka treated her with outward mercy — he locked her in her own hut, ordering that she be fed to excess, but settled a hyena-companion with her, instructing that the hyena be given no food. The hyena fed itself — by the time Shaka took pity on Ntombazi and allowed her hut to be set on fire, the hyena had practically eaten both of her legs.

After such a rout of his enemies, Shaka became the only candidate for the position of supreme chief following Dingiswayo’s death, although everyone understood that his rule would be harsh. And so it proved. All men from twenty to forty were mobilized into the army; women were also mobilized into special units. Marriage in the army was forbidden; moreover, sex was prohibited, except for brief days of celebration after major victories. The punishment for any offense was death; as an act of mercy, it was carried out without torture.

Shaka also changed his personal life, beginning to make use of his rather large harem. Before that he asked Pampata whether she objected, and she replied that she would only be glad if Shaka were well. By the way, Shaka indulged in harem pleasures while strictly ensuring that he had no children. He feared that his own son might seek to overthrow him. Nandi, who dreamed of grandchildren, grieved greatly, but here Shaka was unyielding.

VICTORY OVER THE SORCERERS

While consolidating his power, the newly minted chief encountered formidable rivals — the Zulu sorcerers. They kept everyone in fear by means of a gruesome procedure called «sniffing out,» which consisted of the sorcerers pulling whomever they wished out of the ranks of the army, accusing them of terrible designs, and immediately driving several sticks the length of a school ruler into their anus, then throwing them out into the field. One such procedure was initiated by Shaka himself — he announced that someone had splattered blood on the huts of the royal kraal. Shaka promised to punish the guilty far more fiercely than usual, but after the end of the «sniffing out», so for the time being its victims were not killed — they were awaiting the finale.

Two young sorcerers remained, who horrified everyone by declaring that the culprit was the sky («Zulu») — which is Shaka’s clan name; it was he who was being accused! At that point, Shaka proclaimed that only these two sorcerers were right, for it was he himself who had done it, in order to find out which of the sorcerers were killing innocent people in vain, and that those sorcerers themselves would now be killed, and precisely by those whom they had falsely accused. Such was this triumph of justice, knee-deep in blood…

THE DEATH OF NANDI

Meanwhile, Europeans arrived in Shaka’s dominions — the English. Shaka rather liked them, though he indulgently laughed at some of their peculiarities — for example, that for various crimes they lock people for a long time in a closed room (which is so cruel; it is more merciful simply to execute them), or at the English army (while the English reload their muskets, the Zulus will spear them with assegais). Shaka asked the whites an even more important question: could whites make gray hair turn black again? The English, with a clear conscience, replied that they could — meaning hair restorers — while Shaka meant the graying hair of his beloved mother. But there was no chance to test it — Nandi died.

Shaka was beside himself with grief. He screamed — and thousands around him screamed. Anyone who merely stopped screaming to drink water, or screamed as well but was disliked by someone, all risked being killed on the spot; for Shaka, it was enough to raise a finger. Stopping the sea of killings turned out not to be easy, but it was possible, and Pampata played a great role in this, toward whom Shaka never showed aggression at all. Yet Shaka did not calm down and imposed the harshest mourning. For a year it was forbidden to cultivate the land, to drink milk, and, of course, sex was prohibited.

Even Shaka’s guard became victims of the mourning. They were lined up naked, and the best female regiment (also unclothed) was brought out before them, lifting their legs high. Executioners immediately killed any guardsmen who showed even the slightest physiological reaction to the women. Only those survived who the women prompted: «Strike yourselves where we cannot strike ourselves».

AN EXPECTED END

The country was saved by a brave man named Gala. He came to the royal kraal and began shouting there that Shaka was destroying the country, that a chief must think not only of the dead but also of the living… Everyone was terribly surprised that Shaka did not order him killed immediately. Instead, he scolded his advisers for not saying the same earlier, and presented the courageous Gala with a herd of cows and allowed him to leave the army and marry. However, Shaka did not change at all — senseless cruelties and executions continued.

Pampata asked Shaka to be less merciless and indifferent to the lives of his tribespeople. But he was completely deaf to this — it was good at least that he did not dispose of her. He continued to go everywhere without guards. And when, in his own kraal, conspirators led by his own brother Dingane surrounded him with assegais in their hands, there was no one to come to his aid.

Dead, Shaka fell, and the conspirators rushed to flee — they feared even such a Shaka. Pampata, learning of this, came to Shaka’s body and all night drove hyenas away from it, and in the morning tried to hide in the kraal of her half-brother, but the killers caught up with her and slaughtered all the inhabitants. Pampata managed to stab herself with a small ceremonial spear, outliving Shaka by only a single day.

Such are African passions — could anything like this really happen in our lands? Why not? How many times fewer people did Shaka kill than Napoleon? I won’t even mention Hitler… Were witches burned at the stake, were sorcerers killed? What, haven’t you heard of the Most Holy Inquisition? And Pampata will not be left without an analogue either — recall Catherine, the only one who could calm the furious outbursts of Peter the Great. By the way, let us remember Pampata kindly — she sacrificed everything she could to the man she loved, demanding practically nothing in return. Perhaps all of this was in vain?

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