THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESIES - A Zulu Legend E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

ISSN: 2397-9607 Issue 456 In this 456th issue of the Baba Indaba’s Children's Stories series, Baba Indaba narrates the Zulu Legend "The Boy Chaka Prophesises”. ONCE, UPON A TIME, a long, long time ago and far, far away, in KwaZulu – which means the Home of the Zulu, an old story teller named Zweete, also known as Mopo, and with doctor retold the story of when he first met the boy Chaka, who was later to become the most powerful of all the Zulu Kings. Mopo was born of the Langeni tribe, which means People of the Sun. This was time before the Zulus were a people, one evening, when I was still little, standing as high as a man’s elbow only, I went out with my mother below the cattle kraal (enclosure) to see the cows driven in. My mother was very fond of these cows, and there was one with a white face that would follow her about. She carried my little sister Baleka riding on her hip; Baleka was a baby then. We walked till we met the lads driving in the cows. Presently we saw a woman walking towards us across the plain. She walked like one who is tired. On her back was a bundle of mats, and she led by the hand a boy of about my own age, but bigger and stronger than I was. We waited a long while, till at last the woman came up to us and sank down on the veldt (plain), for she was very weary. We saw by the way her hair was dressed that she was not of our tribe. After greeting each other, my mother asked, “How are you named?—and what is your people?” asked my mother. “My name is Unandi: I am the wife of Senzangacona, of the Zulu tribe,” said the stranger. Now there had been war between our people and the Zulu people, and Senzangacona had killed some of our warriors and taken many of our cattle. So, when my mother heard the speech of Unandi she sprang up in anger. “You dare to come here and ask me for food and shelter, wife of a dog of a Zulu!” she cried; “begone, or I will call the girls to whip you out of our country.” But then the boy spoke with vehemence that belied his size. What did he say and what  happened next you ask…? Well it happened as it has been written. But where did the go and where did they end up. To find the answers to these questions, and others you may have, you will have to download and read this story to find out! INCLUDES LINKS TO DOWNLOAD 8 FREE BABA INDABA STORIES Baba Indaba is a fictitious Zulu storyteller who narrates children's stories from around the world. Baba Indaba translates as "Father of Stories". Each issue also has a "WHERE IN THE WORLD - LOOK IT UP" section, where young readers are challenged to look up a place on a map somewhere in the world. The place, town or city is relevant to the story. HINT - use Google maps. BUY ANY of the 450+ BABA INDABA CHILDREN’S STORIES at https://goo.gl/LXNM 10% of the profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities. =========== KEYWORDS/TAGS: Baba Indaba, Children’s stories, Childrens, Folklore, Fairy, Folk, Tales, bedtime story, legends, storyteller, fables, moral tales, myths, happiness, laughter, , assegai, Baleka, beautiful, blood, bones, cattle, Chaka, children, cow, cows, died, Dingaan, evil, father, gave, Ghost, gourd, grass, heart, Impi, king, kraal, Langeni, Mopo, Mountain, Nada, regiment, run, Shaka, Senzangacona, Spear, Sun People, Tshaka, travel, Umslopogaas, Unandi, veldt, vultures, water, white-faced, wife, world, Zulu, general

Leseprobe

THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESISES

A Zulu Legend

Baba Indaba Children’s Stories

Published By

Abela Publishing, London

2018

THE BOY CHAKA PROPHESISES

Typographical arrangement of this edition

©Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format

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Abela Publishing,

London, United Kingdom

2018

Baba Indaba Children’s Stories

ISSN 2397-9607

Issue 456

Email:

[email protected]

Website:

Baba Indaba’s Children’s Stories

An Introduction to Baba Indaba

Baba Indaba, pronounced Baaba Indaaba, lived in Africa a long-long time ago. Indeed, this story was first told by Baba Indaba to the British settlers over 250 years ago in a place on the South East Coast of Africa called Zululand, which is now in a country now called South Africa.

In turn the British settlers wrote these stories down and they were brought back to England on sailing ships. From England they were in turn spread to all corners of the old British Empire, and then to the world.

In olden times the Zulu’s did not have computers, or iPhones, or paper, or even pens and pencils. So, someone was assigned to be the Wenxoxi Indaba (Wensosi Indaaba) – the Storyteller. It was his, or her, job to memorise all the tribe’s history, stories and folklore, which had been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. So, from the time he was a young boy, Baba Indaba had been apprenticed to the tribe’s Wenxoxi Indaba to learn the stories. Every day the Wenxoxi Indaba would narrate the stories and Baba Indaba would have to recite the story back to the Wenxoxi Indaba, word for word. In this manner he learned the stories of the Zulu nation.

In time the Wenxoxi Indaba grew old and when he could no longer see or hear, Baba Indaba became the next in a long line of Wenxoxi Indabas. So fond were the children of him that they continued to call him Baba Indaba – the Father of Stories.

When the British arrived in South Africa, he made it his job to also learn their stories. He did this by going to work at the docks at the Point in Port Natal at a place the Zulu people call Ethekwene (Eh-tek-weh-nee). Here he spoke to many sailors and ships captains. Captains of ships that sailed to the far reaches of the British Empire – Canada, Australia, India, Mauritius, the Caribbean and beyond.

He became so well known that ship’s crew would bring him a story every time they visited Port Natal. If they couldn’t, they would arrange to have someone bring it to him. This way his library of stories grew and grew until he was known far and wide as the keeper of stories – a true Wenxoxi Indaba of the world.

Baba Indaba believes the tale he is about to tell in this little book, and all the others he has learned, are the common property of Umntwana (Children) of every nation in the world - and so they are and have been ever since men and women began telling stories, thousands and thousands of years ago.

Location of KwaZulu-Natal (shaded in red)

Where in the World? Look it Up!

This next story was told to him by a sailor who hailed from the port of Umkomaas. Can you find Umkomaas on a map? What country is it in? What is the name of the river on which the port is situated?

The Boy Chaka Prophesises

A Zulu Legend

Umntwana Izwa! Children Listen!

A story, a story

Let it come, let it go

A story, a story

From long, long ago!

Umntwana, children, these are stories from a long, long time ago and far, far away, from an ancient African land which is closer to Antarctica than it is to London. In ancient times the magnificent empire of Monomotapa and the great stone city of Zimbabwe guarded it’s Northern borders assisted by the natural defences of the ancient Gariep river which flows westwards across the Savannah and the desert, while the Diphororo tša Meetse flows Eastwards through a more tropical landscape.

Far away to the West lies the ancient Æthiopian Ocean and to the East lies the equally ancient Mer de Zanguebar. To the South the land terminates in a cape when it meets the Mer de Cafres.

Its land mass contains the oldest desert in the world which stretches from the Moçâmedes Desert in the North, and runs South through the Sand Sea until it meets the Kalahari Desert. From there it stretches East until it reaches the Great Escarpment. Beyond that, further to the east the landscape climbs from open Savannah and the plains of the Highveld to the 2.2 mile-high / 11,616 feet, Maluti mountains, home to the Basotho and Amaswazi, before it descends to the tropical jungle and the Eastern coast. At its Southern-most point you will see all that remains of the now submerged Plains of Agulhas.

Today we know this land as South Africa.

ONCE, UPON A TIME, a long, long time ago and far, far away, a son asked his father to tell him the tale of the youth of Umslopogaas, holder of the iron Chieftainess, the axe Groan-maker, who was named Bulalio the Slaughterer, and of his love for Nada, the most beautiful of Zulu women.

The father replied, it is a long tale; but as he had plenty of time, and, if he lived to tell it, it shall be told.

Strengthen your heart, my son, for I have much to say that is sorrowful, and even now, when I think of Nada the tears creep through the horn that shuts out my old eyes from light.

Our story starts thus………

Do you know who I am? You do not know. You think that I am an old, old witch-doctor named Zweete. So men have thought for many years, but that is not my name. Few have known it, for I have kept it locked in my breast, lest, thought I live now under the law of the White Man, and the Great Queen (Victoria) is my chieftainess, an assegai still might find this heart did any know my name.

Look at this hand, my father—no, not that which is withered with fire; look on this right hand of mine. You see it, though I who am blind cannot. But still, within me, I see it as it was once. Ay! I see it red and strong—red with the blood of two kings. Listen, my father; bend your ear to me and listen.