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Updated: May 15, 2025
I prayed to my Ehlose, to the spirit that watches me ay, and I even dared to pray to the Umkulunkulu, the great soul of the world, who moves through the heavens and the earth unseen and unheard. And thus I prayed, that I might yet live to kill Chaka as he had killed those who were dear to me.
Again she spoke: "The star travels whither it is thrown by the hand of the Umkulunkulu, the Master of men; the spear finds the heart to which it is appointed. Read you the omen as you will. I have spoken, but ye will not understand. That which shall be, shall be." She bent her head, and turned her ear towards the ground as though to hearken.
He told of the question of the King, how he had asked the Inkosazana whether he should fall upon the Boers or let them be; of how she had searched the Heavens with her eyes; of how the meteor had travelled before them, and burst over the kraal, Umgugundhlovu, that star which she said was thrown by the hand of the Great-Great, the Umkulunkulu, and of how she had sworn that she also heard the feet of a people travelling over plain and mountain, and saw the rivers behind them running red with blood.
But at last there comes an end, and we die and go hence, none know where, but perhaps where we go the evil may change to the good, and those who were dear to each other on the earth may become yet dearer in the heavens; for I believe that man is not born to perish altogether, but is rather gathered again to the Umkulunkulu who sent him on his journeyings.
Ay, and they slew six hundred of them did they slay yonder in Weenen, the land of weeping. Say, my father, why does the Umkulunkulu who sits in the Heavens above allow such things to be done on the earth beneath? I have heard the preaching of the white men, and they say that they know all about Him that His names are Power and Mercy and Love.
They stood before the figure of the woman, the Princess of the Heavens, to whom the Umkulunkulu has given it to watch over the people of the Zulu, and cried aloud, "Hail, Inkosazana-y-Zulu! Hail!" Then she, the Inkosazana, pointed with the rod of ivory to the gates of ivory; but still they stood before her, not moving.
The exact spiritual position held in the Zulu mind by the Umkulunkulu, the Old Old, the Great Great, the Lord of Heavens, is a more vexed question, and for its proper consideration the reader must be referred to Bishop Callaway's work, the "Religious System of the Amazulu."
Briefly, Umkulunkulu's character seems to vary from the idea of an ancestral spirit, or the spirit of an ancestor, to that of a god. In the case of an able and highly intelligent person like the Mopo of this story, the ideal would probably not be a low one; therefore he is made to speak of Umkulunkulu as the Great Spirit, or God.
There was a strong contrast between the flippant tone of the Portugoose and the grave voice which answered him. 'The Keeper of the Snake will open the holy place, and bring forth the Isetembiso sami. As the leader of my people, I will assume the collar of Umkulunkulu in the name of our God and the spirits of the great dead.
He told them, and they believed him, that he was the Umkulunkulu, the incarnated spirit of Prester John. He told them that he was there to lead the African race to conquest and empire. Ay, and he told them more: for he has, or says he has, the Great Snake itself, the necklet of Prester John. Neither of us spoke; we were too occupied with fitting this news into our chain of knowledge.
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