Zulu religion 

Did the Zulu believe in a God. What was their religion.

Not sure they had a God as such. Their Religion was primarily concerned with ancestor worship.

The Zulus were certainly very receptive to the teachings of Christian missionaries and membership of formal Christian churches and many home-grown sects remains high to the present day. As far as I know, no vestiges of any structured Zulu religion were incorporated into their Christian beliefs.

Brett

Hi Brett, didn't this happen at a greater rate in the early 1880s after the Zulu War?

Hi impi

Missionaries in Africa often didn't wait for settlers to 'pacify' new territory. I recently came across a reference to Norwegian missionaries in Zululand in the 1850's. However, I think you are right about the expansion of their activities, and those of hunters and traders, after the Zulu War, when the Zulus were less likely to be aggressive towards intruders into their territory.

There are people who believe that missionaries were amongst the most damaging of the effects of Colonialism, since their teachings undermined traditional social structures, which had evolved to control the morals and behaviour of the indigenous peoples. Simply put, severe consequences for misbehaviour were replaced with prayers for forgiveness and a forgiving deity was preferable to retribution by a cross chieftain.

Regards
Brett

I am now wandering "off topic", but my previous post reminded me of the following:

AFRICAN CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
It is widely believed that people are inherently good and that they may be forced into committing criminal acts by factors beyond their control. Consequently, punishing criminals may infringe their “human rights”, especially if the punishment inconveniences them. While there is little that is good to be learnt from Africa today, the indigenous inhabitants of this continent managed to maintain orderly societies prior to the intervention of “civilising” Europeans in Colonial times.
In 1892, King Lobengula of the Matabele, one of President Mugabe’s predecessors in what is today Zimbabwe, had this to say about the punishment of criminals:
“You lock them up and you feed them, and you call that punishment! And after a time you let them out again and they commit more crimes, and you lock them up again, and again give them food. I could understand something of it if you didn’t feed them. But it appears that you keep locking them up and feeding them and letting them go again and they keep on doing wrong! What is it all for? It goes on forever, always the same! Truly the white man is quite mad! My people never trouble me twice!” (From: Through Mashonaland with Pick and Pen by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick.)

Brett

Well done Brett puts it all into a nutshell.
Again way of topic but a visiting Japanese businessman had much to say about the way western people blow their noses carefully into a little piece of cloth and then fold it with even more care and put it in their pockets so they can carry it around with them for the day.

Dont know what I was trying to say there but Im sure there is a moral in it some where.

"Who are these people who convert our bishops"

Brett Hendey wrote:

In 1892, King Lobengula of the Matabele, one of President Mugabe’s predecessors in what is today Zimbabwe, had this to say about the punishment of criminals:
“You lock them up and you feed them, and you call that punishment! And after a time you let them out again and they commit more crimes, and you lock them up again, and again give them food. I could understand something of it if you didn’t feed them. But it appears that you keep locking them up and feeding them and letting them go again and they keep on doing wrong! What is it all for? It goes on forever, always the same! Truly the white man is quite mad! My people never trouble me twice!"

LOL! Thanks Brett, I enjoyed that quote.
Can't say I am in agreement with those sentiments, but Lobengula - he has a point! LOL.

"First comes the trader, then the missionary, then the red soldier."
Words spoken in 1879 by King Cetshwayo kaMpande, when alluding to his Kingdom's war with the British