Zulu Heritage between Institutionalized Commemoration and Tourist Attraction

This article engages critically with an aspect of the flourishing post-apartheid heritage sector in South Africa, shaped by the confluence of conservation objectives, political agendas, and tourism development strategies. It focuses on a number of memorials and new heritage sites in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) that officially commemorate and celebrate Zulu cultural heritage. Rural KZN is home to a complex, rapidly transforming society caught between a global trend toward Westernization and official policies or community forces that promote indigenous Africanist values. This is also a society characterized by the coexistence, or more often fusion, of Christian beliefs on the one hand and traditionalist ancestral beliefs and associated ritual practices on the other.

This article investigates how such cross-cultural influences affecting rural populations in KZN are reflected in the symbolic realm of monuments and memorials honoring the dead. The article first focuses on the recent trend toward the upgrading of burial sites of important clan leaders or members of the Zulu royal house; it then considers the new Spirit of eMakhosini monument, which is meant to draw attention to the eMakhosini Valley as the “Cradle of the Zulu nation” where many early kings lie buried. This monument initiative will be discussed critically in the context of the emergent cultural heritage tourism industry. Lastly, a few new battlefield memorials commemorating the previously unrepresented Zulu victims of the respective battles will be considered, pointing out how the designing artists attempt to fuse a Western, Eurocentric concept with local imagery and Afrocentric references. On the whole, the commemorative objects discussed in this article represent a shift towards modernity and commodification and reflect the values of a hybrid, transforming society.