The Religious System of the Amazulu

What It's About

This book is a record of Zulu religious belief, gathered directly from Zulu narrators and presented in their own words, in Zulu with a facing English translation. Callaway divided the material into four parts: Unkulunkulu (the tradition of creation), Amatonga (ancestor worship), Izinyanga Zokubula (divination), and Abatakati (medical magic and witchcraft). Rather than summarising or interpreting, he transcribed oral testimony as it was given to him, with extensive notes comparing accounts and dialects.

Key Concepts

Central to the material is Unkulunkulu, the "Old-Old One" regarded as the first man and ancestral source of the Zulu people, along with the amadlozi (ancestor spirits) believed to guide and protect the living. The book also documents the izangoma and izinyanga - diviners and herbalist-doctors - and the beliefs surrounding witchcraft and misfortune. Because it preserves direct oral testimony rather than a missionary's summary of it, the book has been valued as an early and unusually faithful ethnographic source; the writer Elias Canetti later called it one of the essential documents of mankind.

About the Author

Henry Callaway (1817-1890) was an English missionary who trained first in surgery before being ordained in 1855. He settled among the Zulu at Springvale, Natal, where he learned the language and began recording native testimony on religion and custom. In 1873 he became the first missionary Bishop of St John's, Kaffraria, in South Africa, a post he held until ill health forced his resignation in 1886.