NO TORTURE OF 'LITTLE DRUMMER BOYS' (OR ANYONE ELSE) AT ISANDLWANA

Martin
I think the drawing you are referring to is by Trooper W. Nelson of the Natal Mounted Police.
To the best of my knowledge it was first published in its un-edited form in Ian Knight's 'Zulu. Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift 22-23rd January 1879'. Windrow and Green. London 1992.
p103
Its evidential value is very,very limited as it is clear it was not drawn at the time but from memory. We don't know how long after it was drawn or what influences Trooper Nelson was subject to before drawing it.
Anyone who has been to the battlefield will know that the topographical features are all out of proportion.
Looking at the perspective  it looks like the artist is on a high point looking down at the nek but no high point exists in that location. Mahlabamkhosi is far too high and there are no mountains visible from the artist's view point looking west.  Bodies are shown as disembowled which was the Zulu custom and several have spears sticking in them which is not unusual.
There is one body that appears to have a spear in each hand but from such a crude drawing it is impossible to say any of the bodies have been tortured before they were killed.
There are no 'band boys' hanging from butchers hooks in the drawing and all of the bodies have heads and limbs still attached.

Remember that when the adrenaline is flowing, the Zulus stab everything - just everything. Men horses, mules, mealie sacks, cattle (which were extremly valuable to them) everything! The Prince Imperial story throws some light on that - one of the attacking party was a guy named Mnukwa, who was a member of the king's household - knowing that the king wanted prisoners, when Abel fell off his horse Mnukwa rushed forward and put his hand on him to claim him for the king - but as two warriors ran past they just stabbed Abel anyway.

That's what it's like - everyone stabs. The whole point about the hlomula custom is that you stab even a corpse as you go past because it binds you to the common experience, as part of the group that made the kill, even if you weren't first to stab.
I'm not sure where saying 'whoa, no, hang on a minute guys, let's just take a few minutes here, somebody find me a rope, I've got a member of the band here and we'll try something different ...' fits into that pattern.

Martin if you have a copy of Ian Knight's Anatomy of the Zulu Army can I suggest you read pages 170-171 which will explain the atrocities you refer to.

Hi John, and thanks for the heads up.

LOL! Yes, but it's thanks to Gary and Pete that I am able to log in again after this long absence.

Hope you are keeping well John, take care mate.

Hello Martin,

Glad to read that you are all sorted.

I’m all right, how about yourself?

JY

I don't have a copy of Ian Knight's 'Anatomy of the zulu army', but I have other books by Ian, and also other books by other writers, most of which I keep in my library, including 'Hill of the Sphinx', which I consider to be one of the best books written on the AZW, but there are others which I have got rid of.

No doubt there were some awful things happened at iSandlwana, and no doubt these awful things got added to by stories of terrible atrocities to make peoples blood curdle. However, we cannot dismiss all of these as being nothing more than rumours, stories of horror, tales to put the wind up folk, gossip mongering, or the over sensanionalising of the facts.

And don't forget that there is an old saying that says 'There is no smoke without fire'.

Hi JY
Martin was lucky , I needed to send n email or two to Pete , that I was able to manage , luckily it had nothing to do with Pics !

90th

Glad to see you are finally '' Back '' Martin !
90th

Thanks for posting the pictures 1879graves, much appreciated.

But was there not another sketch made that was very similar to that one? There is something at the back of my mind that keeps saying that an officer (was it Crealock????) who made a very similar sketch to the one you posted, or am I mistaken?

Anyway, thanks again for posting the pic's.

Hello John.

Yes, sorted out again after the old comp shut down for good.

Glad you are OK mate. I am not too bad now, thanks for asking, but I had a real scarer last May, I won't go into details, but it really did put the skids under me and knocked the wind out of my sails.

All the best mate.

Martin,

Glad to hear you’re on the mend.

Lt. Nathaniel Newnham-Davis, 2nd Battalion, 3rd (East Kent The Buffs) Regiment serving with No. 1 Squadron, Mounted Infantry is your man.  A facsimile of the sketch that he made on the spot appeared in The Illustrated London News.  I will dig out my I.L.N. and confirm the date of publication.  John North Crealock’s sketch of Chelmsford’s portion returning to iSandlwana was worked-up into a double-page spread but the bodies are not clear in the engraving.

JY

Hi Gary, and many thanks for all you did to help me out, and also many thanks to Pete for getting things sorted, I am very grateful to both you and Pete.

Thank you John.

I thought I remembered that Crealock had done a sketch, and now that you mention the Lt from the Buffs also making a sketch, something is telling me that I might have seen that sketch in a book or journal or even on line.

Thanks again John.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The facsimile of Newnham-Davis’ sketch, that he made on the spot.
Published on 8th March 1879

JY

Thanks for the picture John, much obliged.

I have seen it before, but cannot remember if it was in a book, a journal, an article in a magazine or something I have seen or read on line.

I don't want to put you to any trouble John, but do you have a copy of the Crealock sketch that you could post on the forum? It would be interesting to compare the sketches done by these chaps.

Thanks again John.

Martin,

Here’s the engraving based on Crealock’s sketch, also from the same issue of the I.L.N.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I have had to crop it as it is a double-page spread, so the legend to the engraving does not appear.

The sketch that the engraving is based on is held by the Museum of the Mercian Regiment, the descendant regiment of the 95th.

JY

Many thanks John, you are a gentleman.

I hope the members of the forum will forgive me as I am about to use a quote which contains what I consider to be a thoroughly repugnant word:
Had they attacked him again, they would have had an easy triumph. He had come to his last cartridge, and his grim resolve was, on firing it, to stab his comrade through the heart and then slay himself, that they might both escape the fiendish tortures and mutilations that Kafirs delight to deal out to a foeman taken alive. He was spared this dreadful necessity…

Oh, by-the-way the author of text that equally thoroughly repugnant one-time editor of the Natal Witness, Alfred Aylward.  Now there’s a surprise!

JY

I don't think that Gardner1879 actually realises what can happen in conflicts, past or present.
That's my last point on this subject.

warrior3 wrote:

I don't think that Gardner1879 actually realises what can happen in conflicts, past or present.
That's my last point on this subject.

I can assure you she does. She wears the same uniform I do, albeit on different continents.

That being said, I tend to side with Julian on this one. I can't readily dismiss the possibility that young British servicemen were hanged from meathooks, pre or post mortem unknown.

One thing that’s nagging at me is the statement from A Zulu Boy’s Recollections of the Zulu War published in Natalia December 1978. “At daylight we came back again, we saw some boys who had died in a tree, underneath it.  They were dressed in black clothes…”

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(John Young Collection)

Where is the tree?  Could it have been a misinterpretation?  Could the tree have been a man-made wooden construction not unlike the riem stretching construction at Rorke’s Drift?  Could it have possibly been a field butchery?

JY

And 'black' from discoloration by blood?