Shembe: a Zulu Church

One of the ceremonies Shembe initiated was a barefoot three-day pilgrimage to the Holy Mountain, Nhlangakazi. Shembe said the Word had led him to this low, flat-topped mountain, as it was the place God would communicate his instructions to his prophet, just as Moses had to climb Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. It might have been at Nhlangakazi (accounts vary) that Shembe was struck by lightning and while incapacitated, received divine visions that instructed him to go south.2019-08-0

Gender violence, poverty, migration, identity, xenophobia

Xoliswa had returned earlier from the nearby shebeen drunk, which was not unusual for her. Now, she needed to go to the toilet, which was a communal arrangement for hundreds of people from the neighbouring shacks. She had left her husband Justice and daughter P. asleep. It was several hours later that Justice was called to the toilets – Xoliswa was unconscious and bleeding profusely from head wounds likely inflicted with the gory rocks discarded alongside her. It was clear she had also been raped. The police and an ambulance were called, but in the hours-long wait, Xoliswa died. The ambulance crew refused to venture into the Zandspruit settlement and the policemen who came refused to treat her death as a murder until the pathologists had thus determined. In the meantime, the community had begun their own investigation and several witnesses directed them to a group of three men and a woman who had been drinking with Xoliswa earlier that night. The vigilantes soon found two of the three men who quickly confessed.Published versio