ZULU WAR DANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1925, Page 4

ZULU WAR DANCE

A CHIEF CURBS BOLDNESS. (<•;. Ward Price in the - Daily Mail.”' DURBAN. The war dance of the Zulus on the green hillside of Eshowe tZuliilandi was as Fiii” a barbaric spectacle as the whole world could show. Flic Zulu is the N( urn Prussian. From his very birth lie is enrolled in a regiment. and though the nation is now unaniK'd, it keeps it- military traditions unbroken. Two thousand warriors, naked except for a leather girdle or lain cloth of leopard skill, danced their homage to the Prince. In hues ol -Kill a breast they advanced slowly upon him, (hauling in unison a low. hoarse hat tie song, and every few heats springing li.nvard with a stamp so perfectly timed that the simultaneous thud literally shook the ground. First to one side, then to the other, they swung their oval shields ol piebald hide, flashing them suddenly into alignment like the front rank ol a Roman legion. Right and left they thrust sticks, which represented the now forbidden assegai, hissing savagely through their teeth, as the symbolised stah went home. ZULU MAIDENS’ CRIES.

Behind them in equally close phalanx marched as many Zulu maidens, their shapely brown bodies naked too, tor an inch-wide girdle of blue and while heads was their only dress. As the warriors stamped and threatened, this rearguard of girls urged them on with shrill songs and handchipping. until at length, in an impetuous, trenzied rush, leaping, crouching and hounding into the air, brandishing sticks and shields with their ostrich leather headdresses (lancing wildly, their hoarse voices yelling and their savage eyes (lashing, the whole black avalanche charged desperately up the slope at the Prime silting in his chair oil the open turf and halted with upraised weapons within only one yard ol him. 8:i well did they stimulate the last degree of blood-lust that one gasped for a second, in the belief that they had got nut of hand. Their chid was so shocked at the boldness ot lii.s own tribesmen that lie dashed in among those who had approached nearest the Prince and drove them ofl with violent whacks ami thrusts of his stall. TRIBAL MORALITY.

When the lighting liven gave way to the girls and 100 young women, coineIv as natives go, lined up before Die Prince, entirely unperturbed hv the fact 11 in i their whole costumes suru'- | v measured three square inches, somebody murmuied, not inaptly, " Folic if. on t! ■ Veldt.” But in Zululand. if not in Paris, nudity and mno conce go together. So moral are the Zulus that until they came under British authority the birth of an illegitimate child among thorn meant the doa 11 1 penalty for both parents.