The Assegai. Shaka's most often-quoted innovation is his introduction of the iKlwa, the short stabbing assegai. It did not replace entirely the throwing spear (um-Khonto) because the stabbing assegai was carried, more often than not, in addition to one or more throwing assegais.
According to legend, Shaka, having conceived the idea, induced his most trusted blacksmith, under cover of night, to forge a blade to his new specification. He altered the conventional shape and made the whole a much shorter and heavier weapon, unfit for throwing and only to be used in hand-to-hand fighting. A sorcerer supplied the human liver and fat with which the blade was fortified. Zulus believe the liver, not the heart, to be the seat of valour. Shaka then personally supervised the hafting of the blade into a shaft of his selection and to his specification.
Having tested the efficacy of the new weapon he collected all the throwing assegais, threw away the shafts, and sent the blades to every smithy he could reach to be turned into stabbing assegais.
Then he issued them to his troops and instructed them in their use and enjoined every warrior that he should take but one assegai, which was to be exhibited after the fight, stained by the blood of the enemy. Failure to do so meant death by impalement as a coward. The struggle could only be hand to hand, with only one conclusion: death or victory.
Delegorgue observed that "this new way of fighting, unknown to the neighbouring nations, and which seemed to speak of something desperate, facilitated Shaka's conquest to such a degree that in the twelve years of his reign he succeeded in destroying more than a million men, women, and children. This is the number estimated by Captain Jervis, who, during my stay in Natal (i.e., 1838 and following years) busied himself with the history of these people."(1)
Assegais as such, were a necessity of everyday life, being the only cutting implement the Zulus knew. The assegai blade was used as a knife for cutting, carving, and shaving. The assegai was indispensable in the slaughtering of cattle, for hunting, and fighting. As with the shields, so the Zulu vocabulary contains more than a dozen words to describe different kinds of assegais. The assegai is regarded as the symbol of order, law, and justice.
The blacksmiths were a respected and highly important guild in which the secrets of their trade were jealously guarded and handed down from father to son. Their services were much sought after, for only they could supply the weapons of war and the implements of peace such as the hoes with which to cultivate their gardens. They also knew how to smelt brass and forge it into ornaments. They knew where to mine the iron ore and how to smelt it in sandstone crucibles over charcoal fires, and how to construct the necessary bellows both for smelting and forging. Using stone hammers and stone anvils their workmanship with such primitive implements was admirable and taking circumstances into account they could hardly be surpassed in this art.
Their manufacture had the property of resisting damp without rusting. The blade of the assegai was made of soft iron, yet so excellently tempered, that it took a very sharp edge: so sharp, indeed, that it was used even for shaving the head.
The tang of the assegai was fitted into a hole burnt into one end of a suitable shaft, glued in with scilla sap and then bound with a plaited sleeve of wet fibre or strips of raw hide which contracted on drying. Instead of the foregoing method the tip of the tail of an ox, or that of a calf, was taken, a piece about four inches in length cut off, the skin drawn from it so as to form a tube and this tube was slipped over the joint. As in the case with the hide or fibre lashing, the tube contracted and a very firm fixture was achieved. The shaft usually had a bulbous thickening at the end to prevent it slipping through the hand on being withdrawn from a body, during which process the blade would cause the sucking sound which gave it its name: iKlwa.
