Word: zulu
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Later in the week, other residents in Soweto formed their own vigilante groups to protect themselves. Police, at first delighted by the Zulu backlash, were belatedly ordered to move in and separate the black combatants. Police admitted killing 14 of the week's victims and wounding dozens of the others with small-size buckshot-a tactic ordered by Justice Minister Kruger to keep the death toll down...
Similarly, some whites exulted that the anti-white thrust of the black activists in Soweto had been blunted by the Zulu warriors. Others knew better. "Sooner or later they'll get back to confronting the white Establishment," observed a white businessman in Johannesburg. "When they do, it will be much worse than before. Right now the problem is tribal, but in the long run it's strictly racial." He concluded by citing the statistic that no white man in South Africa ever needs to be told: the country has 18 million blacks and only 4 million whites...
...Zulu tribe as it is known today dates from the early 17th century. Initially, they numbered no more than a hundred, but the clan grew, proudly calling themselves, after one of their chieftains, amaZulu-"People of the heavens." At that time, African tribal warfare was mostly a matter of threats and feints, and the major weapon was an unwieldy 6-ft. spear, thrown wildly through the air. The 19th century Zulu King Shaka adapted this long spear into a broad sword, the stabbing assegai...
...right and left horns of the buffalo, would begin encircling the foe. Then the main unit-the head-would sweep forward so that the Zulus could use their assegais in close combat. During the twelve years before he was assassinated by his brother in 1828, Shaka built a Zulu empire that extended over hundreds of thousands of square miles and contained some 2 million inhabitants...
...Shaka's successors could not hang onto it. First the Boers, then the British, gained control of Zulu territories. In 1879, after numerous disputes, the British army invaded Zululand. The Zulus fought back ferociously, and at the Battle of Isandhlwana some 10,000 Zulus wiped out 1,300 British and native soldiers in hand-to-hand fighting. The British, however, had the Gatling gun. They sacked the Zulu capital of Ulundi and divided the fallen empire into 13 quarreling kingdoms...