The Valley of the Kings

Because I’m quite bossy I dictated my requirements for the celebration of our tenth wedding anniversary. Stephen duly complied. 

I wanted to go and explore my (unacknowledged and barely documented) family history at Rorke’s Drift, dip into some Isandlwana lore and then bask in luxury at a private game lodge for two days. 

This was a fact finding mission, one where I felt I was single handedly correcting history because it was only in Ian Knight’s 2010 book ‘Zulu Rising’ that the Stockil family get acknowledged as the missing link between the original owner of the farm, Jim Rorke and the Swedish missionary, Otto De Witte who owned Rorkes Drift at the time of the battle. We lived there for some three years before we could smell what the rock was cooking and got the hell out of dodge. We left a few months before the battle to settle in Winterton where we have been ever since.

My family traded with King Cetshwayo and he in fact gave us our clan name - uMjangwan which means ‘young one’. Which would have been appropriate as William Stockil and his step father traded with the Zulu nation at a time when I would imagine (with my limited maths skills) that William would have still been a teenager. The Stockils hunted for ivory for the King. Once these trading ties and relationships had been forged with the Zulu people and the property at Rorkes Drift (a frontier Natal property nestled on the banks of the Buffalo River - which was the boundary line to Zululand) had become available due to the tragic suicide of Rorke my family bought the farm. Rorke had died due to an alcoholic fuelled rage because of a lack in gin. It was at this time that my great great grandfather William had just eloped with the lovely Hannah and so Rorkes Drift was to be the new home of the newly weds. 

When I look at Rorkes Drift today I can only begin to imagine the grit of my ancestors and understand why one might suffer from mental illness and suicidal rage should the gin run out. It must have been a difficult, lonely place to live. My great great uncle Frank was born in that little house. I think of that young Hannah, who would die young, and wonder how challenging life must have been for her. A young thing living in the relative comfort of Durban with her family who ran away from it all to live on frontier country. She was a plucky one. 

When my family - who had the interesting vantage of being both British but with strong ties to the Zulu nation - could see that the ultimatum presented to the Zulu King from the British, which ultimately supported the general colonial ideology of the time, would be disastrous they warned Natal of who they would be up against. There are letters printed in The Witness written by my great great great grandmother warning the British. (Another plucky Stockil woman). But no one listened, the Zulu nation rightfully did not disband their army, and on the day of the dead moon two battles were fought - one in the very birth place of my ancestors- and these battles, their outcomes and their ghosts would continue to haunt the people of South Africa today.

For those of you interested in history and who have as yet to stand in the shade of the sphinx of Isandlwana a trip to this remote part of KwaZulu-Natal is in order. I am not going to relay the details of both battles. What I do want to do is talk about how profoundly some of the stories affected me.

I have no doubt that when the British returned to bury their dead some FOUR months after the battle of Isandlwana (after the hottest period in the South African calendar) they must have been horrified to discover that some soldiers had had their throats cut and had then been disembowled with the gall sucked from their insides. Imagine the news reaching England where thousands of families were sitting in their little wet English villages imagining their disembowled sons baking in the African son. It is the stuff of nightmares. And those who did survive would be plagued by PTSD which would sometimes ultimately lead to suicide. 

I have no doubt that the early historians would have carved out a picture of the savage, of a people so primitive and grotesque that they would defile a dead body. 

But then our Zulu guide, a man whose grandfather and great grandfather fought in these battles, explained to us - the men who were disembowled had fought courageously. When it became clear that they were going to lose their commander began to shake each soldier’s hand. The Zulu warriors recognised this ritual with reverence and stopped in order to give the men time to say goodbye to each other before completing the task they had been given. As an ultimate sign of their respect for the now slain British soldiers the Zulu warriors opened up their bodies in order to set their spirits free and they drank their gall in order to imbibe their courage for it was believed that courage was found in the gall. 

The narrative shifts the moment we allow for a bigger more inclusive picture to emerge. This is just one of many heart rending moments from both these battles where humans become humans again because we take the time to understand why they did what they did.

I literally wept when our guide told us the story of when the Zulus discovered the body of Durnford after the battle. This was a man who had taught some of them to read and write and whose brave Basotho soldiers, who called  him Ubaba, did not want to leave his side when defeat was clear.  When the Zulus discovered the dead moustached soldier on the battlefield afterward they gave him the highest honour they could, they covered his body with a pure white shield. 

Unfortunately the shame that clouds the renegade Zulu impis who chose to defy their King’s orders, cross the Buffalo river and dip their spears into the blood of wounded and ill at Rorkes Drift has meant that the Rorkes Drift narrative remains a largely British one. The echoes of this defiance are still very loud today and as far as I know no Zulu royalty has ever been part of a ceremony to commemorate that final part of the battle. Isandlwana is a battle worthy of recognition where the wisdom, discipline, military genius and utter courage of the Zulu nation continues to be celebrated. Rorkes Drift remains covered in shame and many of the humiliated soldiers of that battle threw themselves in front of the guns of the British at the Battle of Ulundi to find redemption and peace at last. One wonders of their spirits were set free.

And again, in my very limited understanding of it, the current disorder of the Zulu royal family has its links to this moment in Zulu history. I am sure, as with most families, the complications are deep and wide but we cannot deny how history definitely still holds it’s sway in the present for all of us.

On leaving the battlefields and heading down towards Mkhuze Stephen and I took a short cut somewhere between Melmoth and Ulundi. The moment we descended into the valley I could feel something shift inside me. What lay ahead was a large, perfect tract of land with rolling hills and valleys. The grass was perfect for grazing and, as a beef farmer’s daughter, I literally couldn’t think of a more perfect place to live. And yet not a soul was to be found. No homesteads, no cattle, no one. And I could feel the sacredness. I had no idea where I was. We were just bumbling along a dirt road trying to shorten our trip.

And then the signs started to appear. Signs indicating the graves of Zulu kings. Countless Zulu kings. We were in possibly one of the most sacred and spiritual Zulu places. And I felt it before I knew it. 

And I felt that same feeling at Isandlwana where the bones of the British soldiers lie exposed in their shallow graves after the recent rains. And as I imagined the defeated Zulu regiments dragging their dead behind them on their shields from Rorkes Drift. And poor Rorke himself desperate that his servants bring him back his demon drink from Ladysmith and his utter devastation when they didn’t. And I could hear the labour cries of young Hannah from that small little house, whose walls were sealed to give the newly weds privacy. The cries of my ancestor being born, a line of plucky woman to follow.

I do not believe that we should allow the ancestors the sway that some cultures do. But I do believe that if we do not listen to all their stories - the victors and the victims (who change constantly in the history books) then we cannot possibly hope to be a more inclusive and compassionate country. When we acknowledge that the disenfranchised are the descendants of warriors, when we admit that some of the land we call ours cannot ever be truly considered ours, when we consider the anguish (both physical and psychological) of those who went before us and the repercussions of their bad choices, then we can finally weave a narrative for all our futures, together.

Our ancestors are not kings, they are people who made mistakes and who were great. Who practiced both discipline and rebellion. Who were lonely and who sacrificed everything for love. But they belong to us, they are a part of us. Let us tell their stories lest we should repeat some of them. And most importantly of all, let us listen to the stories of others. And then perhaps our spirits can be freed.