ABSTRACT
Shaka, the founder of the Zulu empire, was the driving force behind a massive upheaval in the ethnographical map of southern Africa in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The theme of qualifying tests develops in relation to the cult of the ancestors: at the site of his ritual ablutions a river of dark waters, the adolescent Shaka receives the blessing of the Powers Below, through the agency of the Lord of the Deep Waters. People are witnessing a true rite of magical possession: Mofolo describes Shaka as driven forward by an inner force unknown to him and which gave him no rest. Transcribed by Mofolo in Sotho country, which suffered from Shaka's designs of conquest, the myth is also intended to provide an explanation for what the author calls the lifaqanes, or various calamities for which Shaka is made responsible.
