The religious practice shared across the Nguni peoples centres on the ancestors, the amadlozi or amathongo, who remain part of the household and are approached through the head of the family rather than through a separate priesthood. Cattle are central. The byre is where the ancestors are addressed, an animal slaughtered there is the ordinary means of communication with them, and the animals themselves are a form of wealth, of bridewealth and of relationship rather than simply of food. Above the ancestors stands uNkulunkulu, the great one, and the figure of uMvelinqangi, the first to emerge, with the sky and the rain also addressed.
Diviners, izangoma among the Zulu, are called to their work by the ancestors through illness or dream and are trained by an established practitioner over a long apprenticeship, and they are distinct from herbalists, izinyanga, who work with plants. The distinction between the two roles is one an outsider regularly collapses. All of this is practised now, in cities as well as in the countryside, alongside Christianity in many households, and the atlas describes it rather than presenting it as something that used to happen. The African independent churches of the region, among them the Zionist and Nazareth Baptist congregations, work with much of the same material inside a Christian frame, and the boundary between the two is drawn by the people concerned rather than by an observer.
Sources Zulu Thought-Patterns and SymbolismAxel-Ivar Berglund with Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African PeopleJean Comaroff