42 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
V. Sanctions on Authority and the Stability of the State
The king was bound to consider custom and his council. The Zulu king rarely called full meetings of the nation for discussion; he consulted their wishes through the chiefs. The people could not themselves criticize the king, but he might suffer if he disregarded their feelings entirely. The king was supposed to be just and generous and princes and chiefs were educated in, and conscious of, the tradition of good rule. The Zulu point to their history and show its lessons. Was not Shaka killed because he oppressed the people, so that Dingane did not fear to kill him ? In turn, many people supported Mpande against Dingane. Mpande, the just and generous king, ruled long I have been told that if a chief troubled his people, his family and indunas would poison him, but my informants could not give me a case in which this was done.
It required a long period of suffering before the people would turn against their rulers. Kings and chiefs were said to have many spies, and it was difficult to organize armed resistance to the king, though Zulu point out that all Shaka's spies did not save him from assassination. The king was backed with great force and a rebellion required that jealous chiefs and princes should unite. An early European visitor to Shaka records that his policy was to keep his chiefs at loggerheads with one another, and the Zulu admit this as a method of rule, pointing out that Government uses it to-day in dividing up Natal and Zululand into 300 chieftainships. Outside of the royal family there was no one who could hold together the nation and this was recognized by the chiefs.
The people depended for leadership against an oppressive ruler on their nearer political officers. The Zulu had no idea of any political organization other than hereditary chieftainship and their stage of social development did not conduce to the establishment of new types of regime. Their only reaction to bad rule was to depose the tyrant and put some one else in his place with similar powers, though individuals could escape from Zululand to other nations' protection; that is, the people could take advantage of the princes' and chiefs' intrigues for power and the latter in intriguing sought to win the backing of the people. The king's policy was therefore to prosecute any one who threatened to be able to take his place: he had to meet rivals, not revolutionaries.