![[ Picture ]](shaka.gif)
Before you stands a man of considerable height, close to 2 meters. His build is thin, but his athletic body bulges with long, ropey muscles. His teeth are very white, particularly compared to his extremely dark ebony skin. He is rather handsome, though like all nearby, hairless and naked.
Reorganizing the Zulu into a military clan, he soon had made them into a force unchallenged in Southern African kingdoms. Conquering tribe after tribe, he assimilated all his conquests into the Zulu nation, making it swell with numbers and power, but also provoking huge displacement of refuges. To this day the dispersal of peoples caused by Shaka is known as the mefecani, the great dispersal, responsible for spreading the Southern African tribes as far away as Mozambique.
Although he maintained a good relationship with the Europeans in Africa, including the South African government, he was hated by other Africans, including his own people, who suffered under his long, cruel and brutal rule of constant war.
After 10 years of unrelenting warfare that placed incredible strains on the Zulu nation, Shaka, always psychologically unstable and obsessively worried about being replaced by an heir, finally snapped into derangement after the death of his mother in 1828. He was murdered within a year by his half-brother, who succeeded him as ruler.
Shaka was a great warrior, tactically, strategically, and physically. He specialized in guerilla warfare with poorly equipped troops.
Shaka could read and write, and was well taught.
Like most African tribesmen of his time period who spent long time periods on the move and at war, he could survive in the wild, build shelter, find food etc.