The Social System of the Zulus

Abstract

FOR several reasons the Zulus were for long, to the British public, the typical and, notwithstanding the eccentricities of Bushmen and Hottentot, the best-known of the indigenous peoples of South Africa. Their highly organized society and their resistance to British arms, especially at Rorke's Drift in 1879, made a deep impression on the popular imagination. The high estimate of Zulu character to which this gave rise found confirmation in the fiction of Rider Haggard. Further knowledge of the number of distinct peoples to be found in South Africa and of their marked differences has not entirely obliterated the impression.

The Social System of the Zulus

By Eileen Jensen Krige. Pp. xix + 420 + 12 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., Ltd.; Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand, 1936.) 25s. net.