AFRICANWARSAND WHITEINVADERS
who created a standing army composed of age regiments. The two king-
doms clashed repeatedly and with unprecedented ferocity. The outcome of
the crisis was shaped very largely by Shaka. The eldest son of Senzanga-
kona, the chief of the small Zulu chiefdom, 'Shaka was illegitimate, since
his father never married his mother, Nandi. Rejected by his father, Shaka
grew up among his mother's relatives. In Zulu tradition, he was "a tall man,
dark, with a large nose, and was ugly," and "he spoke with an impedi-
ment."30
When he was about twenty-two, Shaka joined the army of Dingiswayo,
king of the Mthethwa, where he acquired a reputation as a brave warrior
and a man of original ideas and became commander of his regiment. When
Senzangakona died in about 1816, Dingiswayo·helped Shaka succeed to
the Zulu chieftaincy over the heads of his numerous legitimate half-broth-
ers. Shaka then equipped the Zulu warriors with short stabbing spears in
addition to the traditional long spears and trained them to fight in close
combat. A year or two later, the Ndwandwe captured and killed Din-
giswayo. The Mthethwa kingdom then disintegrated and Shaka's Zulu
conquered and incorporated its chiefdoms. In 1818, the Zulu defeated the