Editing Nandi (mother of Shaka) (section)

==Death==

Queen Nandi Bhebhe died of [[dysentery]] on October 10, 1827. Her grave can be found outside [[Eshowe]], off the old [[Empangeni]] road. The grave is marked ''Nandi''. On 11 March 2011 the Mhlongo Committee met at Eshowe with the Office of the KZN (kwaZulu-Natal) Premier and Amafa to finalise plans for Princess Nandi's grave near Eshowe. It was agreed that there would be an official opening day in May 2011 to present Queen Nandi Bhebhe's grave after the approval of the designs suggested by Mhlongo people. Queen Nandi Bhebhe was born into the Mhlongo people and for that reason it was also agreed that the name on the grave shall be "Princess Nandi Mhlongo, Mother of King Shaka". The Bhebhe and Mhlongo people of eLangeni are one people. The direct descendants of King Shaka's mother Nandi have expressed dissatisfaction with the state of her grave which has lain unattended for over 200 years.<ref>SABC Digital News (2018), Descendants of King Shaka's mother Nandi want her grave uplifted, available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjyMmWix-XA</ref> The [[Zulu royal family]] blames the government for this because according to them, the graves of prominent people are the responsibility of government. Amafa heritage which administers protected structures in the province will soon erect a sculpture symbolic of Nandi's status once the Mhlongo and the royal family have settled their differences.

Despite the hard times they endured together, or perhaps because of them, Shaka loved his mother almost to the point of [[worship]].<ref>[http://www.associatepublisher.com/e/n/na/nandi_(mother_of_shaka).htm Nandi]</ref>

According to Donald Morris, Shaka ordered that no crops should be planted during the following year of mourning, no milk (the basis of the Zulu diet at the time) was to be used, and any woman who became [[Pregnancy|pregnant]] was to be killed along with her husband. At least 7,000 people who were deemed to be insufficiently grief-stricken were executed, although the killing was not restricted to humans: cows were slaughtered so that their calves would know what losing a mother felt like.<ref>Morris, Donald R. (1994) [1965]. The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879. London: Pimlico. {{ISBN|978-0-7126-6105-8}}. P. 99</ref>

What Morris states comes from [[Henry Francis Fynn]]'s memory. Fynn's account has been disputed with some sources alleging that they were exaggerated since he may have had deeper motives.<ref>Daniel Alban Wylie (1995), White Writers and Shaka Zulu, Degree of Philosophy of Rhodes University.</ref> Fynn's earlier accounts were sometimes inaccurate and exaggerated which would become crucial to the growth of Zulu mythology. Many of the first white settlers were illiterate, with the exception of a few who controlled the written record. These writers have been accused of demonizing Shaka as a figure of inhuman qualities, a symbol of violence and terror, to obscure their own colonial agenda.<ref>[[Ian Knight (historian)|Ian Knight]] (2011), Zulu Rising: The Epic Story of iSandlwana and Rorke's Drift</ref><ref>Carolyn Anne Hamilton, (1992) The Character and Objects of Chaka': A Reconsideration of the Making of Shaka as 'Mfecane' Motor, The Journal of African History, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 37-63.</ref><ref>Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries (2005), Lessons on Leadership by Terror: Finding Shaka Zulu in the Attic</ref> [[Julian Cobbing]] also argues that these settlers' writers were anxious to create a myth which "cover up" colonial 19th-century slave raiding and general rapine across the sub-continent and justify the seizure of land.<ref>Julian Cobbing. "The Mfecane as Alibi: Thoughts on Dithakong and Mbolompo". Journal of African History, 29, 1988.</ref>