In a famous incident, not long after he became chief of the Zulus, Shaka had to deal with some evil omens. A hammerhead crane flew over Shaka’s kraal; then a porcupine wandered into it; then a crow perched on a fence and began to utter human words. These omens necessitated summoning a team of witch doctors, headed by a woman called Nobela, who indicated the identity of witches by hitting them with the gnu tails the team carried. Not so different from the fly whisk of the Tiv. The parallels with the Tiv didn’t stop there. The Zulus were lined up and Nobela and her associates began “smelling out” the witches who had brought on the evil omens. They picked on prosperous people. One had grown rich through frugality. Another had put cattle manure on his lands as fertilizer, producing a bountiful harvest much greater than his neighbors’. Yet another was a fine stock breeder who had picked the best bulls and taken great care of his stock and as a result had seen a prodigious expansion of his herds. But taking down the rich was not enough. Nobela was after the politically powerful too. She started by “smelling” two of Shaka’s trusted lieutenants, Mdlaka and Mgobozi. Anticipating this move, Shaka told them to stand next to him and claim sanctuary if they were accused of being witches. According to eyewitness accounts:
With a hideous cackle, imitating the hyena’s demoniacal laugh all five jumped up simultaneously. With lightening speed Nobela struck right and left with her gnu-tail and jumped over Mdlaka’s and Mgobozi’s shoulders, while each of her immediate assistants also struck the man in front of her and vaulted high over his head.
But Shaka wasn’t putting up with this. After all, he was the most powerful person in Zululand, intent on exercising his naked will to power; he might be the next one to be smelled out. He granted Mdlaka and Mgobozi sanctuary and charged Nobela with falsely accusing them of being witches, decreeing that two of the witch doctors must die in compensation. He made them throw divining bones to identify which two should be chosen. This led to panic between the witch doctors, who appealed to Shaka to protect them. He agreed on the stipulation that they “cheat me no more, for on that day you will fail to find sanctuary anywhere.” From that day on, any “smelling out” had to be confirmed by Shaka. He broke the witch doctors’ power. He also banished every rainmaker. It was all part of creating a state. Any part of the cage of norms that stood in his way had to be taken apart.
The longevity of the institutions that Shaka built is best illustrated by the current population of the Zulus. Starting from a clan of possibly 2,000 people in 1816, there are now between 10 and 11 million people who identify themselves as Zulu in South Africa (out of a population of 57 million) and they dominate the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The “Zulu” had originally been the descendants of a single man, but are now a massive society including millions of people who are completely unrelated genetically to the original Zulu.
The Red-Mouthed Gun
For thousands of years, people spread out from Asia onto the great swath of Polynesian islands. Among the last to be colonized was the Hawaiian archipelago, probably in about 800 CE. Though all the Polynesian islands started with the same culture, religion, language, technology, and political and economic institutions, they gradually diverged as different innovations arose and stuck. Ancestral Polynesian societies, as reconstructed by archaeologists and historical ethnographers, were not that different from the types of kinship-based societies that we saw in pre-Shaka Zululand; they were small-scale chieftaincies organized around kinship, and as usual their suite of norms had evolved to manage conflict and stop would-be strongmen.
By the time the first outsider, Captain James Cook, stumbled on the Hawaiian Islands in January 1778, this traditional system had already started to break down. The islands were by now organized around three competing proto-states, already beyond the stage of pristine state formation. Even though land was not held as private property and its use and control rights were vested in kin groups and lineages, chiefs had already laid claim to all the land. The people who grew the staple crops of taro and sago had access to the land only because the chiefs gave it to them in exchange for tribute and labor services. The historian David Malo, one of the first Hawaiians to receive a Western education and become literate early in the nineteenth century, recorded:
The condition of the common people was that of subjection to the chiefs, compelled to do their heavy tasks, burdened and oppressed, some even to death. The life of the people was one of patient endurance, of yielding to the chiefs to purchase their favor … It was from the common people, however, that the chiefs received their food and their apparel for men and women, also their houses and many other things. When the chiefs went forth to war some of the commoners also went out to fight on the same side with them … It was the makaainanas also who did all the work on the land; yet all they produced from the soil belonged to the chiefs; and the power to expel a man from the land and rob him of his possessions lay with the chief.
The makaainanas were the ordinary people, the vast mass of society.
The three proto-states in Hawaii at this time were in O‘ahu, Maui, and the “big island” of Hawaii itself ruled by chief Kalani‘ōpu‘u (see Map 6). Cook first visited the island of Kaua‘i, part of O‘ahu. He returned later in the year for more exploration and mapping with his two ships, the Discovery and the Resolution. He landed on Maui, then moved farther east and met Kalani‘ōpu‘u, who was then engaged in a battle to take control of Maui. Kalani‘ōpu‘u came aboard Cook’s ship with his nephew Kamehameha, one of the leaders of his army. Cook then set sail for Hawaii and anchored on the western side of the island. There he was again visited by Kalani‘ōpu‘u and Kamehameha, who saw for the first time something marvelous—the power of firearms. In the photography section we reproduce a painting by John Webber, an artist who accompanied Captain Cook, showing the arrival of Kalani‘ōpu‘u in his war boats. These were on display on February 14, when Cook was killed after leading a shore party trying to recover a cutter, a small boat, which had been stolen from his flagship the previous night.
Map 6. The Hawaiian Islands and the Puna Coast
After the departure of the Discovery and the Resolution, the aging Kalani‘ōpu‘u decided to bequeath his kingdom to one of his sons, but he put Kamehameha in charge of the God of War, which was a significant honor. The two young men quickly fell out. They met in battle in 1782 and Kamehameha won. In the succession struggle that ensued, one of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s brothers declared an independent polity on the eastern side of Hawaii, while another one of Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s sons declared independence for the south. It was now a three-way fight for who would control the big island.
The outcome would be determined by an edge that Kamehameha acquired. He’d seen the power of gunpowder weapons. From this point onward, all Hawaiian chiefs tried to acquire such weapons via trade. But having them was one thing, knowing how to use them was another. Help arrived for Kamehameha first in the shape of Isaac Davis. Davis was a sailor on the schooner Fair American, which visited Hawaii in early 1790. It became becalmed off the western coast and was attacked by a local chief who harbored resentments against a previous ship. Only Davis survived the attack, and he was taken under Kamehameha’s protection. Meanwhile another ship, the Eleanor, was dropping anchor in the same place where Cook had died. The boatswain was an Englishman called John Young. He came ashore and was detained by Kamehameha’s men. Both Davis and Young were treated royally and became trusted advisers. Even better, they knew how to maintain and use firearms. Kamehameha now had his edge.