The recent Pretoria high court challenge to Misuzulu’s kingship has thrust the Zulu royal household into the spotlight and unearths a complex web of historical, cultural, political and economic dynamics.

The Zulu monarchy, once favoured by British colonial administrators as a chief supervisor of restless natives in the Natal Colony, is now in crisis. This was after the defeat of the Zulu empire in 1879 as part of its imperial victories over African polities and the Boere republics which culminated in the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910...

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