King Misuzulu ka-Zwelithini. Picture: Gallo Images/Sunday Times/Sandile Ndlovu
King Misuzulu KaZwelithini has now taken the throne after a bitter battle for the Zulu crown.
After entering the royal kraal on Saturday, and performing the necessary rituals, Misuzulu came out fully dressed as king.
He was joined by a handful of royal elders.
King Misuzulu was then wrapped with leopard skin by royal family elder, Prince Philemon Zulu, according to IOL.
After performing the ceremony of entering the kraal, Misuzulu was publicly announced as king by Zulu royal family elders.
Misuzulu’s coronation came despite an urgent interdict by Queen Sibongile Dlamini-Zulu’s daughters – Princesses Ntandoyenkosi Zulu and Ntombizosuthu Zulu-Duma.
They claimed that the will of their late father, King Goodwill Zwelithini, had been forged.
The princesses were seeking to halt King Misuzulu entering the kraal.
Queen Sibongile Dlamini, the late king’s first wife, has backed her son Prince Simakade Zulu as the rightful heir.
ALSO READ: King Misuzulu’s coronation: Urgent application underway to halt ceremony
Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, however, said Misuzulu “is already on the throne” and added that this cannot be reversed.
Buthelezi said the entering the kraal ceremony was not to install the king. Instead, it’s an “important moment of expressing loyalty” to the king.
Thousands of people gathered at the Zulu royal palace on Saturday for the coronation.
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Men and women in colourful traditional outfits assembled outside the marble palace on the hills of Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal.
Lines of Zulu warriors, known as amaButho, and holding spears and shields, marched into the palace grounds. Women sang and danced.
ALSO READ: King Misuzulu hunts a lion ahead of the entering the kraal ritual
Speaking to The Citizen, a cultural expert at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Dr Gugu Mazibuko, explained the meaning of the ritual.
Mazibuko said this ceremony is the most important part of becoming a Zulu king. It will introduce the king to the ancestors as the successor of the late King Goodwill Zwelethini.
“When the queen mother was buried, the king was announced, so all the other rituals and customs are the ones necessary for the king already on the throne,” said Mazibuko.
Mazibuko said a king is born, not made.
King Misuzulu is the legally recognised king of the Zulu monarchy as he is the first born of Zwelithini and late queen Mantfombi Dlamini-Zulu.
NOW READ: Explainer: The meaning of the entering the kraal ritual in Zulu culture
Additional reporting by AFP
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