Case file · Folklore / legend
Callaway records the Amazulu
From 1868 the missionary Henry Callaway published The Religious System of the Amazulu, Zulu speakers' own accounts of ancestors, divination, healers and spirits, in Zulu with English translation.
1868 CE · -30.17, 30.07 · status: account
The account
Working at Springvale mission in Natal, Callaway wrote down testimony on the amatongo (ancestral spirits), the calling of diviners, dreams and possession. It remains one of the earliest and fullest records of Zulu belief, including beings such as the small, dangerous water spirits later known as the tokoloshe.
The sceptical view
Callaway's informants were often converts, and his framing as a missionary shaped what he asked and recorded.