By Carolyn Hamilton
ISBN-10: 0674874455
ISBN-13: 9780674874459
ISBN-10: 0674874463
ISBN-13: 9780674874466
Since his assassination in 1828, King Shaka Zulu--founder of the robust Zulu nation and chief of the military that just about toppled British colonial rule in South Africa--has made his empire in renowned imaginations all through Africa and the West. Shaka is this day the hero of Zulu nationalism, the center-piece of Inkatha ideology, a demon of apartheid, the namesake of a South African subject matter park, even the topic of an incredible television film.
Terrific Majestyexplores the explanations for the efficiency of Shaka's picture, studying the methods it has replaced over time--from colonial legend, via Africanist idealization, to trendy cultural icon. This learn means that "tradition" can't be freely invented, both by means of eu observers who recorded it or via next African ideologues. there are specific ancient limits and constraints that function at the actions of invention and mind's eye and provides many of the photos of Shaka their strength. those insights are illustrated with subtlety and authority in a chain of hugely unique analyses.
Terrific Majesty is an outstanding paintings whose targeted contribution lies within the methodological classes it provides; specifically its subtle rehabilitation of colonial assets for the precolonial interval, in the course of the demonstration that colonial texts have been seriously formed by way of indigenous African discourse. With its sensitivity to contemporary severe experiences, the publication also will have a much broader resonance within the fields of historical past, anthropology, cultural reviews, and post-colonial literature.
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Additional info for Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention
Sample text
Within the field of literature distinctions exist between the poetry, drama, and novels produced by scholars—La Mort de Chaka, or Emperor Shaka the Great—and the nineteenth-century praise poems of Shaka or even the popular 1980s television series Shaka Zulu. Each of these distinctions demands critical reassessment. Writings on Zulu nationalism emphasize the way in which the image of Shaka is manipulated to suit current political ends. Such manipulations clearly resonate with popularly held views of Shaka, as expressed in the Shaka chest and other forms.
The notion of the West’s construction of the Other loses sight of the historiographies of the people labeled “Other,” and the ways in which they have shaped the “West’s” knowledge of those communities. 92 Their words were not reflected in pristine form in colonial discourse, and it may not now be possible to recover their voices, but the sediments and influences of their speech can be discerned. In some cases, this study shows, colonial researchers succeeded in recording “hidden transcripts,”93 having access to views opposed to those of the Zulu rulers.
The distinction between histories and sources is present in most historical reconstructions of Shakan times. Histories are understood to be the work of academytrained professionals, while in the category “sources” are included the oral accounts of Zulu speakers and their neighbors alongside the writings of early travelers, traders, and officials. While it is obvious that professional historians tackle the reconstruction of the past in a very different way from oral historians, unquestioning acceptance of this division ignores what is similar or comparable in their work.
Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical Invention by Carolyn Hamilton
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