Word: kraal
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Coetzee's taut style proves effective in describing the arid beauty of the veldt: "The kraal walls ramble for miles up and down the hillside. Nothing grows here: the earth has been trampled flat and killed forever, he does not know how: it has a stained, unhealthy, yellow look...
...Swaziland. The autocratic but mild-mannered Sobhuza ruled his small, landlocked southern African nation of 550,000 by balancing observance of his country's ancient traditions with gradual introduction of modern technologies. A man of simple tastes, he shunned his two royal palaces, preferring to live at his kraal of mud huts and to sleep outdoors on warm nights on a reed mat. He is survived by more than 100 wives and an estimated 500 children...
...share common grazing land for their prized livestock. Having inherited that position of respect, he now rotates cattle guard among the families, collects taxes, presides over quarrels, grants divorces and mediates disputes. He is entitled to eight acres of land, two more than the six other members of his kraal (family group...
...their mores and lifestyle, the Afrikaners?particularly in the countryside?are as authentically tribal in outlook as Zulus living in a homeland kraal. Afrikaner society is a rigid one, held together by language (Dutch-based), faith (a fundamentalist form of Calvinism) and a sense of special mission created by their hard history. Even in the large cities, Afrikaners tend to mix uneasily with English-speaking whites. In the country, they are a law and a people unto themselves. The family structure is strong and disciplined; Afrikaner youth are far less likely than their Anglo counterparts to smoke or drink. Sunday...
...black villagers are beaten, tortured or murdered by guerrillas if they refuse to help the cause, jailed and sometimes hanged by Rhodesian government forces if they do. Earlier this month, a 15-man security-force patrol tracked a team of guerrillas through the Ndanga Tribal Trust Land to Dabwe Kraal. When darkness fell, the troops climbed over a fence and heard the guerrillas addressing a crowd of villagers. The two sides exchanged fire before the guerrillas slipped away. The dead and wounded lay on the ground for nine hours before help arrived. When evacuation forces finally showed up, they found...