RIPEN AT NOON

Subject: RIPEN AT NOON Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:21 am

Sorry for my absence guys but I had a major computer melt down in the form of a motherboard failure.
I was still on a DDR 2 system and I took this opportunity to move upwards to DDR 3. I also decided to go to Windows 7 even though I had been happy with Windows XP for ever.
Now, anyone who has moved to Windows 7 knows that it takes some learning and the first days the wife will hear shouts from the media room of "Why did I do this", as well as other un printable utterances.
I am at that stage and leaning, whilst the wife is gardening.

To get to the forum topic. In the movie, Dutchy the member of the Natal Mounted Police said that Cetchawayo had a female regiment called "Ripen at Noon".
Is this true and were they present at the battles?

Posts : 627 Join date : 2009-01-20 Age : 46

"The Vutwamini Maidens (Vutwamini means "Those who ripen at noon" - also the name of a luscious wild fruit) were a 3000 strong regiment of young maidens founded by Shaka in 1818. They wore a four inch wide fringed girdle made of dried fig leaves, along with a bracelet or two and sometimes a string of beads around the neck. That and their weapons, that's it. Daughters of chiefs, headmen or wealthy fathers wore, instead of the fig leaf girdle, a three-inch by two-inch patch of beads suspended by a string around the hips. More of a parade regiment than a true fighting unit, and they also carried out some support duties (scavenging and carrying goods captured when a village was wiped out."

Subject: Re: RIPEN AT NOON Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:47 pm

A good answer SAS, thanks.
I guess they had other er, ceremonial duties too.

When I visited the Zulu village from the cruise liner Oriana in Durban back in 2008, I noticed a curious thing. The women were bigger than the men. Even taller.
This shore excursion was called "One thousand hills" and went about eighty kms to a touristy village that also had crocodiles in ponds as well as lots of snakes in glass cages [that in fact I thought were too small for them to live a decent life.]
It was a very good tour and I still have a photo of a Zulu warrior sitting at the door of a thatched hut reading the Cape Times.
Perhaps most on this forum will know where that was.

Subject: Re: RIPEN AT NOON Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:21 am

Hi Aussie
The Valley of a Thousand Hills is a really lovely area. However a major tourist trap.

Regards

Subject: Re: RIPEN AT NOON Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:28 am

I can well imagine Springbok. But these places have to be chosen by P&O for virtual guaranteed passenger safety.
If there is ever any doubt they just don't go there.
It was a good show for tourists and it was of great interest to see the Zulus as they would have been at the time of Rorkes Drift.

Posts : 1862 Join date : 2009-03-25

Would this female regiment have been involved in the torcher of trooper Reubens (I think that was his name) on the night before the Battle of Ulundi. It was said Zulu women cut of his genitals and placed them in his mouth other psrts of his body was used to doctor the regiments before Battle.
Apologies for being graphic in the wording.

Subject: Ripen at Noon Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:14 pm

Hi 24th.
It was Trpr Rubenheim who was killed and ( Maybe ) tortured the day before Ulundi , No one knows for sure .
cheers 90th. Idea