The Many Ways of Being Human

1.13

The Zulu

A line of men moves through wet grass at sunrise, cattle-hide shields up, short stabbing spears, all in the same stride. Everyone knows who invented this: Shaka. But the popular picture rests on a few traders' pens, and one 1832 letter urges a colleague to make the chiefs as bloodthirsty as possible, so the real matter is what one man can change.