The Zulu kingdom was consolidated under Shaka in the early nineteenth century out of the smaller Nguni chiefdoms of what is now KwaZulu-Natal, during a period of upheaval across southern Africa. Eileen Krige's survey, compiled from earlier records and from fieldwork, describes the age regiment system, the marriage and cattle arrangements, and the royal ceremonies including the first fruits, at which the king was strengthened.
The kingdom defeated a British invasion force at Isandlwana in January 1879, the heaviest defeat inflicted on the British army by an African state, and was destroyed within six months. The monarchy survived as a traditional institution and continues, with its own succession disputes reaching the South African courts in recent years.
Christian missions arrived from the 1830s, and the most consequential religious development came from Zulu Christians rather than from missionaries. Bengt Sundkler's study of the independent churches describes the Zionist and Ethiopian movements, among them the Nazareth Baptist Church founded by Isaiah Shembe in 1910, which brought together Christian scripture, Zulu dress, dance and the ancestors, and which draws very large gatherings today. Those churches are not a compromise between two religions. They are a third thing that both of the others produced.