How Shaka Zulu Changed the World by Radka Konkolova

Nature in almost every part of the world has been hiding some secrets. Every year the amount of them is decreasing, but there is still something unexplored by people from mature civilisations. For example few months age there scientists and travelers disovered a tribe somewhere in the African forests, where the members of the tribe haven’t ever seen people dressed in such „strange“ clothes. So travelers started immediately to look for some information about these people, their customs and culture.

But there were many similar cases during the long history. But sometimes they were uncovered too late. Anyway, scientists now can repare old bones or old equipment used by those people and can create a picture of people and the way of their living from hundreds or thousands years ago. I think this is very useful and interesting for many people and thanks that we can compare the life of people living here, in Europe with those in Africa living in the same epoch.

There is one very interesting story about the leader of one African tribe. He was brutal and fearless warrior as well as the symbol of African unity. His name was Shaka Zulu and it was he who created and led the tribe of Zulu’s who were inhabitants of South Africa in that time. His tactics was very similar to those known from ancient Sparta.

Because he was very cruel, he was able to manage and lead all members of that tribe. Thanks to him they became warriors. Their weapons were completely changed, they were more fixed, stronger and had got very sharp blade which replaced meantime used spears. Shaka Zulu taught them how to use those weapons and how to be successful in the battle. He was physically and strategically very strong. That was the reason why he decided to be a leader. So he manage new attck formations and a strict code of obedience. So every man in the tribe was a member of such a strong and big army of about 200,000 inhabitants. This tribe was even expanding very fast. All of these happened in the beginning of the 17th century. In 1828 Shaka Zulu was assassinated, but this wasn’t mean the end of his army.

Shaka started to fight and train troops because of new groups of people that had inhabited in the South Africa. It had been for example British, who had wanted to acquire that area for their crown. And because the interests of every group were usually the same, this led to very many battles and wars.

Becausse this group of people was very strong, fearless and cruel as well, there have been some cheap jokes about European missionaries being cooked up in big, bubbling pots. I would like to know wheter they have really been canibals...

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080715/sc_livescience/howshakazuluchangedtheworld;_ylt=ApCDpMHpXQpvY0z.CbDfvkMPLBIF

by Radka Konkolova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Lucia Adamova