NO TORTURE OF 'LITTLE DRUMMER BOYS' (OR ANYONE ELSE) AT ISANDLWANA

Natal Witness 10th April 1879
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Hooey from Mr. Aylward.
It goes against the evidence supplied by three survivors, by 20 of those in Chelmsford's returning Reconnaissance and by 9 of those in the burial parties.

Quote "It goes against the evidence supplied by three survivors, by 20 of those in Chelmsford's returning Reconnaissance and by 9 of those in the burial parties."

I must admit Julian I've always had problems with your theory about the Zulus torturing their victims.
I've read your studies in your booklets and the problems I have are

1/ The three survivors first.  I'm assuming you are including Granger's account in these three. His comment about drummer boys is so out of place in the actual letter it makes little sense.
With all the noise, horror, panic and terror going on at the time how were the sceams of the drummer boys differentiated by the survivors from all the other screams, yells and noise of battle?

2/ The men in Chelmsford's reconnasiance force. Well many of them would never have experienced anything like the conditions they slept through that night.
They returned to camp in the dark, slept amongst all the horror with nerves on edge, had very little to eat or drink  and then had the long trudge back to RD. No doubt comments and observations were made throughout the column to try and make sense of it all which then appear in the multiple accounts. This then makes them hearsay.
For example you quote Sullivan's (D Company) letter to his mother about drummer boys. This was written on the 3rd February, 12 days after when he had time to sit and talk to others.
Drummer boys are mentioned when you quote Lieut H Hillier NNC in Vol IV p67 but I can't find in the footnotes when he wrote the letter. How long was it after the event?

Did some actually see the camp in daylight? I agree with you here, I believe they did.

When I was there in 2019 I went to the battlefield in the early hours on the 23rd January and there was plenty of early morning light to make out definitive detail in the landscape.
Now put yourself in the shoes of one of the rear guard who had time to view the scene.
With the Zulus stabbing their victims multiple times and disembowling them, the dead oxen, horses, dogs and everything else it must have been a scene of pure hell.
Bodies would have been heaped up, hanging out of wagons were they had been killed and no doubt in the kitchen area would be slaughterd lifestock some hanging on hooks. Which incidently amongst the naked disembolwed bodies could have looked like small mutilated human bodies. (Strange Sullivan saw them in the area used to kill the camps meat)
To the average British soldier and volunteer  the bodies would appear mutilated. Never mind the disembowling, men would have received mutiple cuts and slash marks as they were fighting.


3/ And as for those 9 from the burial parties. How long had the bodies been lying out in the open?
And, from an evidential point of view, you can't then pin what they found down to any 'torture' during the battle. Though many Zulus would have been fearful of returning to the scene because of the spirits of the dead, we know some did and who knows what they did to the corpses between the time of the battle and the time of the arrival of the first burial detail. Because of the time differential, pinning the blame on the Zulus who fought during the battle about torture using evidence from the burial parties is worhtless as evidence and holds no weight.

And just stepping back for a moment  from the grisly details one has to ask, if true, why did the Zulus torture the drummer boys and how did they know they were drummer boys?
I know Boy is a 'rank' in the army and many would have appeared as young adults so, to the average Zulu, would not have looked any diferent to any other soldier. Some would have looked more childlike which could explain the ones the witnessess saw.

Now torture is usely used to obtain information. Why not torture the officers? Why the drummer boys? (And as I said how would the Zulus know who a drummer boy was?)

If not to obtain information then it must have been for sadistic pleasure? So why not torture the soldiers as well? Why do none of the accounts say they saw officers hanging on meat hooks? Why was it just 'the little drummer boys'. It all smacks of stories to tug at the heart strings of those reading the accounts and to concentrate the desire for revenge and retribution.

And..... if torture was the norm for the Zulus  why were there no accounts of 'tortured' victims found at Intombe?
Weatherly's son died at Hlobane but you don't hear of tortured mutilation stories coming from that battlefield. The PI was not mutilated and tortured.
Cotterill and Scott Douglas were not mutilated and tortured. M+C were not tortured.

Now there are nasty horrible people in all armys and no doubt some of the warriors would have been exceptionally savage during the battle, removing body parts for magic rituals and the like. Perhaps if a British soldier wounded a Zulu before the Zulu got the better of him the kill would have been exceptionally brutal and savage in retribution.
But Zulus standing around either during (highly unlikely) or after the battle (when there was loot and plunder to be had) 'torturing' their victims. Sorry but no.

My opinion is that the sheer horror of what was seen by those few that morning of the 23rd, the mixing up of bloody entrails and body parts was seen by the survivors as the result of horrific, blood thirsty, mutilation and torture rather than just how the Zulus fought.
Kate

Julian,

I share your opinion of Alfred Aloysius Aylward a.k.a. Murphy, a.k.a Rivers, a.k.a. O'Brien, a.k.a. Nelson. A convicted member of the Fenian Brotherhood. A convicted criminal in South Africa for shooting another prospector. The leader of the Black Flag Rebellion and a self-appointed advocate of Boer rights.  A known liar and deceiver who had faked his own demise to avoid justice.  It is a pity he was acquitted of the charge of treason following the Black Flag Rebellion which obviously involved Colonel Richard Glyn and the 1st/24th.

In my opinion Aylward had his own agenda in the way he reported the conflict with the Zulu in the Natal Witness.  As an editor he was not without bias, he was fervently anti-British and a known agitator.

JY

John
Interesting information about Aylward but looking back at the newspaper copy this article comes from I can't find any definitive proof that it was written by him. It may well have been I can't prove otherwise but it is not signed and is seperate from all the articles around it.
The article is not particularly damning against the British apart from the statement about the Zulus defending their homes but then others were making similar comments at the time and if anything it appears to be trying to re assure those who have lost loved ones that their death was not a gruesome one.
Also I don't think Julian was commenting on Aylward's (if it is him) general political views but more on the fact that he is contradicting his theory about torture at iSandlwana.
Kate

Kate,

Aylward might not have written the item himself, but in his role as editor he was ultimately responsible for the newspaper’s content.  I will Anglicise Julian’s phrase - and concur the article is nonsense.

Unlike some I am not an apologist for either side in the Zulu War, I have no doubt that atrocities were committed on both sides.  Who now can truly say what happened to those unfortunate enough to fall into either sides’ hands?  I have previously debated the ages of the Boy soldiers at iSandlwana, so I shy away from the use of the phrase Drummer Boys.

Could there have been instances of mutilations beyond those normally considered as ritualistic?  My answer to that is yes, but the butchery was not solely limited to the Zulu.  Just my thoughts.

JY

John
I am no apologist either and think human nature has a dark side no matter what the nationality.
In this instance the article here is  merely acting as a catalyst to discuss a theory put forward by Julian in one of his study booklets which I have issues with and to examine what he regards as good evidence. Above he makes a broad sweeping statement concerning the number of 'witnessess' to the torture which needs to be examined further.
If it was not common practise for the Zulus to torture and sadistically mutilate their victims (and I don't think it was) then the newspaper article can not just be written off as 'nonsense'
In all that mutilated horror and carnage how on earth anyone could differentiate between who had been sadistically tortured and those killed in battle is beyond me. I do then wonder why 56 pages of a 91 page booklet, which goes into such depth as examining light levels, are used to prove the Zulus did torture and sadistically mutilate their victims.
I agree with you about the use of the phrase 'drummer boys' but only use it above as the surviviors/witnesses did and to examine why they did.
Kate

Hi Kate
There is of course that wonderful weekend pastime of the Zulu of Impalement on the fence posts through the 'bottom' into the body and then the equally pleasurable sport of trying to estimate how long the participants would take to give of their mortal soul. The mobile spin of was the practice of sharpening rods when the kraal fences werent available and driving the odd one or two along the poop shoot. I dont suppose the practice, at iSandlwana, of removing the Jaw Bone with beard in tact was after or before death, its open to speculation.
If it took to long and the watchers got bored there was always the alternate of hanging onto their feet to hasten the end.
I doubt there was ever a nation that didnt at some point allow themselves to descend into barbarism, even its only to force whole swathes of the population to watch the Oscars or read "Harry the Unready's" expose of his tortured life growing up in such appalling conditions.

Completely agree Frank. Some of the 'smelling out' ceremonys committed by the isangomas in the royal homestead were horrific  and yes all cultures have lent themselves to barbarism over the ages but was it common practise for the warriors to commit such acts after a battle and did they do it at iSandlwana?
Thats the question here.

Kate,

I don’t think it was commonplace, but I have no doubt that instances of dismemberment and defilement of the living and the dead took place given the period of time that the Zulu were the masters of the battlefield. I tend think of procurement of material for muti as an example.

JY

hiya Kate.
Fully agree with your comments but with the blood lust up high, there's actually a comment about that, it would be a very brave man/woman/they/them (with apologies to Sam Smith) to deny it could have taken place. I would believe the Zulu custom of stabbing bodies as they ran past (can't remember the phrase) could seem to indicate a body having been slashed to pieces. To western eyes that would be totally alien. but one man's poison etc. I remember a Japanese chap once ridiculing the western habit of sneezing into a piece of cloth and folding it neatly and keeping safe in a pocket. like life, it's all subjective. have a great weekend. frank

John, yes not the norm but possibly the exception.
frank

I think it was called hlomula Frank were multiple stab wounds were given to a worthwhile foe by several warriors.
Such as the Prince Imperial. I'm sure it didn't need 17 (or was it 18) stab wounds to kill him.
Have a lovley weekend too Frank

Kate re your post of yesterday at 7.16,

I’m answering here for both Fred and myself.

3 survivors – Dorehill, Evans and Granger.
Granger’s letter: there are many things out of place in the letter.  That’s the nature of a letter. You can’t delete, go back and re-type.  He heard what he heard and saw what he saw.  Someone had to pass by at that moment.  It’s noticeable that all three were mounted, from the same part of the field, and left at about the same time.  It makes lots of cross-referenced sense.

20 men in the Reconnaissance
They saw what they saw not in the dark but in the dawn light.  Many of them were from the rearguard – the last men off the field – including a 24th officer who noted that the boys were recognized by his men.

“No doubt…accounts”
This is persuader-language usage, designed to make the reader fall in with the writer’s point of view and to add weight to an argument without having any real substance.  It’s straight out of the Open University’s Arts foundation course A1 which teaches undergrads what to beware of when reading history.  

“This then makes them hearsay”
Definition of ‘hearsay’ – “information received from other people which cannot be substantiated; rumour”.  None of the 20’s testimonies fall into this category.  They did not receive information from other people.  They did not repeat rumours.  They reported what they saw.  Forum members are generally very astute; they know the difference between first-hand evidence and hearsay.

Sullivan
It was light enough for him to be able to identify the immediate camp surroundings.  As you know writing materials were not easy to come by for the ORs.  It is not surprising the letter is dated 12 days. Look at the chronological dates of letters in fn. 103 vol V – they cluster around the beginning of the month.

Hillier
His letter was undated.  He did not refer to “drummer boys”; he did refer to “the little band boys”.

Seen in daylight?
They say they saw the camp in the early morning daylight.

“slaughtered livestock…could have looked like disembowelled bodies”
Apart from the fact that cows don’t wear uniforms, I don’t go along with the notion that a soldier might have mistaken a side of beef for a little band boy. “Would have”, “could have” – who says so?

“Strange…meat”
More persuader-language.  And the area where they used to kill the camp’s meat would be where you’d find butcher’s hooks hanging up.  None of the 20 said that what they saw COULD have looked like small bodies.  As Weallens said, they recognized them as the regt.’s boy soldiers. One of them even named one.

“To the average British soldier…the bodies would appear mutilated.”  
Yet more persuader-language.  “Would” - who says they would?

9 men in the burial parties
“And as for those…”  Same again.  All bar one of these witnesses came from the 21st May expedition and were quite specific about the circumstances in which the bodies were found.  They were not making generalizations.

“pinning the blame on the Zulus who fought during the battle about torture using evidence from burial parties”.
Your words.  Not ours.  Three eye-witnesses from the battle saw the events they described re the boys.  They did not mention torture.  Their accounts were borne out by those who occupied the same ground a matter of hours later and by those who buried the dead.  

“Why did the Zulus torture the drummer boys”
We made no reference to drummer boys.  Nowhere have we written that the Zulus tortured drummer boys. We went to great lengths to ensure a distinction was made between drummers and boys.
That said, nowhere have we written that the Zulus tortured the boys.  We did report what the witnesses saw.  An horrific death certainly, cruel even, but not necessarily one involving torture.

“How did [the Zulus] know they were drummer boys”
The Zulus had no idea who they were.  The soldiers who found them recognized them as Boys.

Torture
I have not applied the word ‘torture’ to the boys’ deaths.  You used it. Both in the title of the thread and in the post.  Theirs was an horrific death but they were not necessarily tortured as far as can be gleaned.  As I wrote on p.78 Vol V:“Ultimately, nothing can be deduced…regarding the Zulus at Isandhlwana being guilty of large-scale barbaric practices but it might be inferred that British soldiers (including its ‘child soldiers’) were in fact the victims of isolated, spontaneous acts of cruelty.  That is not surprising considering the vast numbers of Zulu warriors present at the battle.  After all, sadists have existed in all the world’s armies.”  
As you well know, there are rotten apples in every organization and military and quasi-military institutions like the army and the police provide opportunities to behave inappropriately and get away with it.  Among ‘un-Civilized’ societies from 150 years ago, without a rule of law and the trappings of Christian morality, this is even more the case. It isn’t only British soldiers that are guilty of what would be called today ‘war crimes’, especially so before such a term existed.
Fred and I were very careful re the section in the Granger essay vol V on the Band Boys.  We knew it could be controversial.  Other historians had pooh-poohed the stories of the boys’ deaths, albeit using highly selective evidence to argue their case.  In the end, in the face of such a significant body of evidence across the board – officer/NCO/OR – regulars/police/colonials/volunteers – survivor/reconnaissance/burial parties – we decided that no serious historian could dismiss it.  Consequently we determined that we would provide ONLY concrete, first-hand primary evidence, without bias, at face value, and leave it others to make their deductions. By way of response you have ONLY offered generalizations, ‘would have’, ‘must have’ speculation, and dubious in the extreme persuader-language.
A few days ago when you presented Jones the policeman who had abused an under-age child did anyone try to refute it or deny it?  No.  It was immediately accepted and the man identified.  At Isandhlwana we are faced with another ‘crime’ (by modern standards).  Why are you so keen to refute it?

Kate re your post today at 8.42,

“broad sweeping statement concerning the number of 'witnesses' to the torture”
There was nothing broad or sweeping about it.  There are 3 eye-witness survivors to the boys’ fate, 20 from the Reconnaissance, and 9 from the burial party.  By all means examine the statements further.  They are all identified in fns. 103-105 of the essay.

“It was not common practice for the Zulus to torture and sadistically mutilate their victims”
We agree.  It was not.  BUT there will always be the exception.  This may indeed be the case with the boys’ deaths.
The newspaper article is typical of Aylward’s anti-British stance.  “A legitimate incident of war”?  Really?  I am not one who believe the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children but I don’t believe in denying the ‘sin’ ever took place.

"In all that mutilated horror and carnage how on earth anyone could differentiate between who had been sadistically tortured and those killed in battle is beyond me"
Where in the Granger essay is it stated that we believed in an outbreak of mass hysteria thousands or even hundreds of Zulus sadistically engaged in torture?
Isolated incidents, yes.  Post-battle mutilations, yes.  What you’re suggesting, no.

"I do then wonder why 56 pages of a 91 page booklet, which goes into such depth as examining light levels, are used to prove the Zulus did torture and sadistically mutilate their victims."
You are now referring to The Wrecked Camp essay in vol IV by Fred and myself.  
To answer your question let me quote our own words:
“Soldiers’ letters home are replete with tales of atrocities, torture and mutilations they claimed to have witnessed on the battlefield.  Much has been written dismissing these claims as hearsay, rumour, fantasy, or wild exaggeration, arguing that it was impossible to see anything clearly during that dark night.
Lieut. Maxwell…stated positively that no-one could have discerned the carnage in the camp on the morning of their departure:
‘We fell in without sound of bugle just as the first glimpse of daylight was showing and were all out of camp on the road to Rorke’s Drift before objects could be distinctly seen.  I mention this because on the way I heard some terrible stories about mutilated bodies.  These were invented for the occasion, as it was impossible for those who told these yarns to have distinguished anything in the night, it being exceptionally dark.’
With those few lines Maxwell dismissed the numerous reports of abuse…committed by the Zulus at Isandhlwana.  However it behoves the serious historian to ask the question exactly what, contrary to Maxwell’s claims, Chelmsford’s troops were able to see of the devastated camp between their return to camp and their departure the next morning.
The answer to this question is fundamental.  If the horrors of the battlefield were not visible, the accusations of atrocities committed by the Zulus would in large part collapse but, if visible, they would be reinforced and soldiers’ testimonies would then warrant a critical examination and a sober assessment in the light of all the evidence.”
Consequently we were obliged to see what the light was like at the times soldiers claimed to have seen the ‘horrors of the camp’.  Setting aside night-time visits, we found that not all the troops left before the sun rose and that a significant number in the rearguard remained in the full light of day.
We then proceeded to examine what it was these men actually reported seeing.
Again, I’ll fall back on our own words:
“Although it is possible that descriptions of ‘atrocities’ were exaggerated or passed on second-hand, it is clear that Lieut. Maxwell’s allegations that “terrible stories about mutilated bodies” were “yarns” and that “it was impossible…to have distinguished anything in the night, it being exceptionally dark”, cited at the beginning of this essay, are not supported by the evidence.  An overwhelming number of witnesses, including staff officers, officers from Maxwell’s own battalion, and, albeit inadvertently, by Lord Chelmsford himself, as well as the scientific evidence, show that from 4.24 (at least, if not earlier) the battlefield could be clearly seen with the naked eye with no need for lanterns and such like.
Therefore, modern historians’ decisions to dismiss all mention of mutilations, atrocities, and torture at Isandhlwana as hearsay, rumour, scaremongering, exaggeration, ‘contemporary mythology’, and Chinese whispers, to disregard evidence which does not complement preconceived notions based on Chelmsford’s arrival and departure in total darkness, and, especially, to ignore the rearguard’s eye-witness observations in broad daylight are, to a fault, wrong.
“…[T]o keep clear of all the misconceptions which abound in historical epistemology we have to make a firm distinction between history as ‘the bodies of knowledge about the past produced by historians’, and ‘the past’ as ‘everything which actually happened, whether known, or written, about by historians or not’.”

It is not the historian’s job to be popular and politically-correct, it is his duty to record the facts as then stated and evident truths.

Well Julian it seems like you have written a great deal and said very little.
You have treated my post as you treat many of your academic studies by removing and then examining several lines at a time thus taking them out of context and arriving at the wrong conclusions. And in doing so have excluded the basic concept of common sense when looking at human nature.
I agree, I have made some assumptions in my posts above, and these are based on common sense, my own extensive knowledge of the Anglo Zulu War and 31 years of dealing with witnesses and taking their statements.
I'm sure when my post is read in total it will make sense to those who read it.
I'm not going to respond to each of your bullet points above as some are just patronising and many don't make any sense at all. I know what hearsay means. I'm not 5 years old. Nor am I trying to win anyone over, I'm just putting my point of view across, so I'm not sure what all that paranoid nonsense about persuader language is all about.
In fact looking at some of the language you use I'm not sure why your two responses are so confrontational?  

I will therefore expand upon the three points above relating to your use of witnesses to prove your theory   :-

1/ You say that the three survivors were all in that part of the field and left at the same time. How do you know? Also there is a real possibility that they could have got together afterwards and, in an attempt to get their head round what they saw in all the confusion, have written a similar thing. This happens a lot Julian with multiple witnessess who have witnessed an horrific incident. And I will state it again. How on earth could they have accuratley describe and understand who was doing what to who amongst all that horror and chaos when their prime concern must have been saving their own skin. Its common sense.
Once again I am using real life experience rather than just armchair Open University academic skills.

2/ Regarding the 20 men from Chelmsford's column you have made your own assumptions with some rather sweeping statements to back up your opinions such as :-
"They did not receive information from other people. They did not repeat rumours. They reported what they saw".
How do you know? That is a HUGE assumption on your part Julian and one you cannot prove or back up. (By the way Sullivan was 24th Regiment so would not have been in the rearguard).
So you are saying not a single one of those 20 men listened to rumour or received information from other people? Really?

And regarding the butchered bodies. Many of the bodies were stripped naked. I thought you would have known that so what is this all about:-
"Apart from the fact that cows don’t wear uniforms, I don’t go along with the notion that a soldier might have mistaken a side of beef for a little band boy. “Would have”, “could have” – who says so?"
Well you are saying they wouldn't. "Wouldn't have", "Couldn't have" - who says so?"
People were beheaded during the action and a headless disembowled torso could resemble a butchered piece of live stock to an untrained eye.

3/ You haven't answered my question about the relevance of the 9 witnesses from the burial party.
Anything could have happened to those bodies between the end of the battle and the arrival of the first burial party so you cannot use their testimony as evidence.
A little scenario to prove my point:-
Barrister "In relation to the crime of theft my client is being accused of, is it possible officer that because Mr Smith's body was lying in a public place for such a long length of time that anyone could have taken his wallet?"
" Yes that is possible"
"No further questions M'lud" 
Do you see Julian?

Regarding use of the word torture I first used it  because it is in the newspaper aricle above and I then tied this in with your use of the word in your studies booklet in your summing up. (See above) and in relation to the Jones newspaper article I've got no idea why you even brought this up. I  posted it, as I have with hundreds of other articles, because I thought it might be useful for those carrying out their own research. If you read it you will see I made no comment to prove either  for or against Jones's crime. You've completely lost me with this one.  
And where is the evidence of such atrocities in other AZW battles. You didn't answer that at all.

And so, to sum up, in relation to the theory  did the Zulus  commit "mutilations, atrocities, and torture at Isandhlwana" (your words)
You write
Why are you so keen to refute it?
I would say
Why are you so keen to prove it?

It is not the historian’s job to be popular and politically-correct, it is her duty to record the facts as then stated and evident truths.
Kate

In trying to respond to long posts like yours of 7.16, to avoid lengthy confusing answers I try to take the salient argument of each point and respond to it. I tried to answer all your points as best I could. They are above if you care to read them.
Under the circumstances and given your angry tone I see little point in continuing to debate this issue so will make no further posts on this thread.

If anyone on this site thinks that torture, to some degree, didn't happen on the battlefield of iSandlwana, well, you will be sadly very, very wrong, deluded even. It happens, period, wrong or right. There are numerous statements which support the theory. And, if there were no statements whatsoever to look back on, believe me, it would've happened, especially at iSandlwana. This battle, when fought at close quarters would have been savagery beyond comprehension. Unbelievable brutality. Imagine the frustration of the Zulu warriors trying to get at the 'hedge' of bayonets, or any other organised resistance, at the hated white invaders, seeing their comrades mowed down by rifle fire, seeing their comrades being spitted in the throat, head, eyes, legs, chest, the screams of the wounded, the blood, the shouts of desperate men. If some of the warriors managed to drag out a wounded soldier from a resisting situation I bet they would've liked to inflict as much pain as possible. There are some very bad men in all armies of the world, again, period. Past and present, and will always be the case, unfortunately. There are very bad men in today's police force, fire brigade, whatever, in all walks of life.

TORTURE:

There is some evidence that torture was used. Tomasson, Adjutant of Baker's horse
later wrote:

" ...... worse than all, the body of the poor prisoner, tied to a sort of stake,
was tortured and mutilated in a fearful manner. This sight is not calculated
to animate one with a spirit of mercy and threats loud and deep are uttered on the perpetrators."

Peter Quantrill.

Warning- The following post does describe some unpleasant descriptions for those who would rather not read them.
Conscious of being accused of putting statements out on the forum without data to back them up here are some interesting figures to consider when looking at this issue. I will break it down into two posts as it is rather long.

Part 1
I am using the numbers provided above by Julian in his first post on this thread. I am aware there are other possible witnesses whose evidence can be discounted as prima facie evidence.
The information below is from my own research and Julian Whybra’s studies volume IV and V
As the column moved off from iSandlwana in the early hours of the 23rd January William Drummond described its formation thus (approximate numbers shown in brackets): -
Front
Imperial Mounted Infantry and general staff                                        (100 men)
Natal Carbineers                                                                                   (30 men)
Buffalo Border Guard (BBG)                                                                  (13 men combined with Newcastle Rifles)
Newcastle Rifles (NMR)
Artillery                                                                                             (49 men 4 guns and limbers)
Infantry                                                                                             (551 men)
Native Contingent                                                                             (NC) (1650)
Natal Mounted Police                                                                         (NMP) (80 men)

(Lieut. Banister of H company (and two others) stated there were 3 companies of infantry acting as rear-guard This would place them between the end of the Native Contingent and NMP. Perhaps the other two companies were C and D companies which would explain the three witnesses in each. However, I think this theory is incorrect and that like Harford and Hamilton Browne these officers are mistaken. With limited ammunition and the 4 guns at the front why would Chelmsford split his firepower by having 1600 unreliable NNC between them. I believe when they talk of being the ‘rear-guard’ they refer to being at the rear of the 24th companies not the column)

The men were formed up in fours rather than line so the column would have been shorter.
Note how close the infantry is to the front of the column and, with the largest contingent behind them, means they would have left the wrecked camp earlier when the light levels were poorer and disitinctive details harder to ascertain. Also worth considering is that the whole column would not have been formed completely to the east of the Nek. There would have been many men westward of it on the otherside who would have had no vision of the devestation in the camp area.

Now if we look at the numbers of survivors/witness accounts of those who spoke of extreme cases of alleged mutilation and torture to the younger ranks (Drummer/band/Trumpeter boys etc) against the total number of men present.

1/ Survivors of the battle approximately                  250-450
Number who witnessed acts of torture                    3
2/ Lord Chelmsford’s Column                                  2473
Number of witnesses                                              20
3/ Burial Parties                                                      200
Number of witnesses                                              9

(I don’t know the exact total amount of those present in the various different burial parties who attended the battlefield over the following months and so have given a very conservative estimate of 200. If anyone has a more exact number, I would be grateful to see it.)
Also, I am not sure how many survivors left accounts. Perhaps if Neil Thornton or Michael Dennigan see this post, they can help me out here with data from there up and coming two volumes of survivors’ accounts.

So, to sum up
Total numbers involved during or after the battle     2995 to 3155
Number of claimed reliable survivors/witnesses        32                 (and remember 9 of these from the burial party cannot be used for reasons explained above)

That’s 1% of those involved claimed to have witnessed something above and beyond the normal battlefield casualties. This is a pitifully small amount when we consider the sort of horrendous acts that are supposed to have taken place.

Now if we look once more in a little more detail at those witness accounts using the same three categories: -
Survivors
1/ Granger, Dorehill and Evans. Desperate to save their own skins amongst the screams, smoke, gunfire and clash of arms one has to be dubious of their interpretation of what they actually saw and very mindful of what was happening around them at the time and also their state of mind afterwards when they sat down and tried to make sense of what they had seen. And there were only three of them who saw such acts which does seem odd bearing in mind what they claim to have witnessed. (Granger’s account was first published in Alan Gardner’s biography ‘Rifle and Spear with the Zulu’ and can be found on page 155)
Witnesses
2/ Of the 20 witnesses in Lord Chelmsford’s Column 15 were from the infantry who would have left when light levels were much poorer and the two artillery and NMR’s witnesses would have left even earlier. Various NMP accounts who were in the rear talk of the light levels rising enough for them to view the battlefield which would mean it was not as visible as the infantry moved out. This would mean the NMP would have had the best view of the field yet strangely we have only one witness to these atrocities.

Newcastle Mounted Rifles 1 Samuel B Jones
Artillery 1 Corporal James Smith
Infantry in company’s
B 1   .......R. Wilson
C 3 .........Alfred Kelly, John McNally, Edward Leon
D 3 .........George Stainsby, Daniel Sullivan, Henry Berry
E 2 ..........Lieut. Williams, T. Bray
F 2 ..........William Meredith, Corporal F Williams
H 1 ..........John James
90th 1 .....J.H. Keeling
N/k 2 .......James Waddington, Albert Bridgeman
Native Contingent 1 Commandant Rupert Lonsdale
Natal Mounted Police 2 TPR W.M. Cuming,
Sweeney (?)

end of part 1

Part 2
Now if we look at the statements of those above in more detail that relate to these atrocities, we will see a pattern starting to emerge which gives credence to bodies being mistaken for livestock carcases used to feed the camp. It is worth remembering when the battle took place and the very real possibility that he camp cooks were preparing the dinner for the men.

1/ Dorehill.
Granger’s account is dubious for reason explained in earlier posts.
Edward Evans Imperial Mounted Infantry.

2/ Newcastle Mounted Rifles Samuel B Jones “hung up by butcher hooks” statement made in 1929 and look how close he was to the front of the column when considering light levels.

C- Company ......... Leon refers to them being like sheep and Macnally refers to them being hanged by their heels to the Commissary scales and wagon wheels. He also describes the flesh being stripped off them and arms cut off. So, upside down with no skin or arms?
What else could that look like?
D- Company ......... Stainsby states they were hung up and quartered alive. He would have no way of knowing this as he wasn’t present so this is worthless as evidence.  Sullivan “the little boys were hung up and quartered where we used to kill our meat” Berry was Imperial Mounted Infantry who were the first to leave so would have experienced very poor levels of light.
E- Company ......... Lieut. Williams only talks of recognising the bandsmen and makes no mention of atrocities. Bray talks of the corpses being stripped naked hung up and disembowelled.
F- Company ........ Meredith “hung up and quartered like sheep” Williams “hung up and quartered”
Similar language here that suggests they may have talked to one another about what they saw.
H- Company ........ James “Two little drummer boys were hung up by the hooks of weights that were used to weigh the meat on”
90th Keeling ........two little boys whom they had tied up to a pole, cut their heads off then cut their sides open”
With mutilated torsos and no heads what could this resemble?
N/k – Bridgeman “...dead bodies black and white, all naked, cut all to pieces, legs off, arms off. Boys hung by hooks to the butchers’ stall”.  
So naked disembowelled torsos. What could these look like?

Lonsdale – “band boys stuck on camp meat hooks”
Lieut. Hilliers account is undated so we are not sure how much later he wrote it and what external influences have played upon him such as speaking to other survivors or reading local newspapers.
He does say “…hanging from the waggons on the hooks that our butchers use for hanging sheep onto the waggons”

For reasons discussed earlier the 9 from the burial party cannot be used as viable witnesses due to the amount of time between the end of the battle and their attendance. The bodies could have been tampered with by any number of people during that time.

Now if these multiple hanging corpses are young soldiers from the band, we have to ask ourselves, bearing in mind where they were seen, were the band all killed in some gallant last stand in the camp kitchen area hence being near the hooks used by the camp butchers or were they carried by the Zulus from various different parts of the battlefield to the hooks before being hung? If it is the latter this would mean the Zulus knew who the bandsmen were and made an effort to drag or carry them to the area where the hooks were before impaling them. This seems highly unlikely.

I have posted the above for forum members to make up their own mind but in my opinion if such atrocities were commonplace and torture was a common practise used by Zulu warriors then why were there not more witnesses to the atrocities in relation to the total number of men present.

Also, as the vast majority of the witnesses were infantry who would have left earlier when light levels were lower their ability to accurately describe what they were seeing would have been greatly diminished leading to inaccurate descriptions when they sat down to write their letters.
I also find it odd that none of the Imperial officers who survived mentioned seeing anything. After all I would have thought it would have been in their interest to show the ferocity of what they were  fleeing from.

To the best of my knowledge, as I have stated in earlier posts in this thread, there are no accounts of mutilations and torture on other battlefields in the AZW and when soldiers’ bodies were found such as Cotter and Scott Douglas they were not horribly mutilated.

So, to sum up and this is only my opinion based on my own research.

Question - Were there individual acts of atrocities outside of the usual superstitious Zulu practises carried out by a small number of warriors at iSandlwana?
Answer - Yes. As has been pointed out on numerous occasions there are rotten eggs in every basket and the Zulu army defending its homeland against an aggressive invader would have been no different. If we then believe every account of the 32 witnesses above (even though it is obvious many are describing the same scene) that would mean at the most 32 atrocities of torture and mutilation above and beyond that expected in a savage battle were carried out. With between 5 and 10,000 warriors streaming through the camp at the time that could explain those rotten eggs.

Question - Was mutilation and torture above and beyond superstitious ritual a common practise within the Zulu Army?
Answer - No.

And that takes me nicely back to the first post in this thread, the newspaper article from the Natal Witness and my agreement with its initial content.
Kate

Kate
Just a minor point.
There are a number of reports, Zulu and others, of tins etc being smashed open to get to the contents, millet spilt etc. This does suggest there was a certain hunger in the impi. With that thought would some juicy lumps of lamb and beef be left behind, still on the hooks. Sounds strange.

Cheers

As a second comment Maorie Brown met up with Major Black. Brown had enough light to recognise his dead dogs and also Pullein, this before meeting up with Black. This is a two edged comment in that it would suggest that Black and his men were part of the rear guard and it was light enough to see detail. But if they could see that level of detail, would they not have seen the 'boys on the hooks'? Your point on where those hooks were is pertinent, for Brown to have ridden to his tented area, to the North of the camp, he would quite logically rode past the kitchen area. Considering his penchant for blood and guts and drama in his scibbles it again would be strange for him to have overlooked such a gift.
"Besluiteloos"

No one is saying that atrocities or torture was a common practice amongst the Zulu warriors. But, like I've already stated, at iSandlwana, most definitely. What did some of the Zulus do to some of the Border Horse at Hlobane? They chucked them off the cliff face! Was that not some kind of torture? Prolonged suffering as you're heading downwards to your death is certainly some kind of torture. Couldn't they have speared them or clubbed them all? Some, yes, but others, not. And we really don't know for sure what they did to some that must of been captured alive.

Kate,

But of course 10th April 1879 pre-dates the 3rd July 1879, and you had access the documented evidence of a witness, Captain Howard Hutton, Paymaster of the Frontier Light Horse, to what he saw on the morning of 4th July 1879.  On pages 135-6 Hutton uses the expressions torture & torturing as well as shamefully mutilated.  

I appreciate Hutton is only referring to two casualties sustained in Buller’s reconnaissance of 3rd July 1879, both of whom were possibly taken alive.  In fact Hutton - an old soldier who had previously witnessed the antics of the Maori in New Zealand -  makes deliberate mention of some of the wounds being made to one of the men pre-mortem.

I will leave you, and others, to draw your own conclusions as to how the phrase shamefully mutilated is interpreted.  Rather than disturb those of a delicate nature I would refer you to Archibald Forbes’ account dated 5th July 1879, which is quoted in Moodie’s Zulu War.  Read those bodily defilements that Forbes witnessed and chose to record in his despatch, and perhaps, just perhaps, your view might be swayed.

JY

Not commenting on any post.
BUT...point of information: Hillier, a member of LC's Reconnaissance did not take part in the battle of Isandhlwana and was not a survivor. I don't know why he is mentioned in the survivors' category.
Dorehill did, was, and should be.

Nicely altered.

Frank
That’s a really interesting and relevant point about the meat. According to the Narrative, No3 column was made up of 4709 men. We know that Dartnell took very few supplies out with him on the 21st for his 1600 men and that Chelmsford likewise took little in the way of provisions on the morning of the 22nd which would mean there was enough food in the camp to feed over 4500 men and that’s not including all the provisions brought by Durnford.
Along with  all the slaughtered trek oxen, food would not have been in short supply and no doubt some was left behind. You are right joints of meat would have been taken but, exhausted and loaded with shiny camp plunder, I would suggest many whole carcases were left.
Also a very good point about Browne.

Warrior3
Quote “No one is saying that atrocities or torture was a common practice amongst the Zulu warriors”
Can I refer you to the two studies in Julian Whybra’s study booklets numbers 4 and 5 extracts from which are in his earlier posts. (and I’m not on commission)

In relation to your comments about Hlobane can I ask which witness accounts you are using and who it was that actually saw  Zulus throwing bodies off Hlobane?

As you probably know the Zulu Kings did have locations, normally the top of a high cliff, where executions of convicted criminals were carried out.  In 2016 I went to Kwankatha which was Cetshwayo’s place of execution and it is a sheer cliff that drops into a river. Convicted criminals would be bludgeoned over the head with a heavy isiwa and the bodies hurled into the river below to be eaten by the crocodiles.
However, this was carried out on instructions of the King and was part of the Zulu legal system not its military one.

John
I had thought of him but didn’t bother mentioning Trooper Johan Adam Raubenheimer FLH who was captured on the 3rd of July. As we know it is claimed by other FLH that his screams were heard across the White Mfolozi that night and his mutilated body found the next day. However other people attached to that column such as Lieutenant Hotham and Bandsman Tuck of the 58th were kept awake that night by the sound of the amabutho being doctored for the coming battle. Tuck stated “Most of our men were awake all night owing to the yells of these savages” So there was a lot of shouting and screaming going on that night.
The main reason though for not mentioning him was that we do not know whose hands he was in when the alleged torture took place. Being so close to large homesteads, there would have been isangomas present as well as widows who had lost their husbands in earlier battles. Poor Raubenheimer would have been the perfect target for them to unleash their pent up anger and grief.
I will comment on Moodie in another post.

By the way does anyone have the name and account of a FLH trooper who heard this torture being committed?
Thanks
Kate

Kate,

Not a trooper in Frontier Light Horse, but an officer, the same officer I mentioned above Captain & Paymaster Howard Hutton heard what he refers to as torture.  I feel that as the actual ownership of his original journal is unknown, it would wrong for me to quote it chapter & verse, as it is not mine to impart.  Hutton was an experienced colonial soldier, having served in New Zealand against the Maori, and the previous campaigns of the Frontier Light Horse in Southern Africa.

JY

Thanks John
I looked in Moodie.
I'm assuming its the account of the 3 bodies found on the 4th July that you are refering to.
The way these bodies were found could be down to reasons I have explained earlier.
I've also spent a bit of time looking in other accounts and what is striking is the complete lack of any descriptions from other AZW participants describing acts of barbaric torture outside of the normal Zulu religous or magical practises.
Such lack of evidence does not necessarily mean it does not exist but using what we do have still leads me to agree with the original newspaper article.
Kate

Kate,

I will have to agree to disagree with you on your last remark.

What of the comment of Captain William Hugh Tomasson of Baker’s Horse, quoted by Peter Quantrill above, it is worthy of repetition in my opinion:
…worse than all, the body of the poor prisoner, tied to a sort of stake, was tortured and mutilated in a fearful manner. This sight is not calculated to animate one with a spirit of mercy and threats loud and deep are uttered on the perpetrators.

In my opinion the crux of the matter is that this man’s body had been found restrained to a stake.  What would cause the Zulu restrain a corpse in such a manner?

At the present time and before I proceed further, I am attempting to unravel the identity of the soldier that D’Arcy was attempting to rescue.  Alas all is not cut and dry as you might have thought when you attributed a name to him above.  I will say more when I am satisfied I have exhausted all of my leads.

JY

Morning John
Do you know where I can find Tomasson's full account so I can read his statement in context?

I've been doing some research in my own library into the Zulu practises for removing body parts and their significance in the society and have found the following:-

"This political support had a long history. According to Zulu oral tradition both African healers and umuthi (a very general term meaning medicines) played a critical role in the consolidation of powerful local chieftaincies and the emergance of the Zulu kingdom in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Umuthi referred to medicines that healed or destroyed the physical body, and also that which helped kings and chiefs to usurp political power from rivals and kin. Furthmore, the king depended on the strength of healers and their umuthi to guard and maintain his own physical and political health as well as that of the nation." ("Zulu Identities. Being Zulu Past and Present" editied by John Laband p314)

The passage above shows how important that umuthi was to the king and the Zulu nation.

The body parts that were used can be found on pages 170 and 171 of 'Anatomy of the Zulu Army' by Ian Knight. It is quite graphic so I won't print what it says as I don't want to upset anyone at their breakfast.
Worth reading though if you have a copy.

Seen with a 19th century Christian Victorian mindset the remains of a body after such parts had been removed could look like the person was tortured.

Hi Kate,

You will find the Tomasson quote in full commencing on pages 175 to 176 of With The Irregulars in the Transvaal and Zululand published in 1881, written by W. H. Tomasson, late Adjutant of Irregular Cavalry. Who would not believe what a future Chief Constable of Constabulary had to say?

Yes I have read the comments in The Anatomy of the Zulu Army…, as well as the article quoted in the footnotes Was Raubenheim [sic.] Tortured?.

Having done so I am still unconvinced, unlike you.

JY

Thanks for the heads up, I'd forgotten I had that on my bookshelf.
I've read it and really it doesn't change anything in my opinion.

The original theme of this thread was does the Zulu army torture its victims.
As I stated earlier, those captured on the 3rd of July most likely fell into the hands of the Zulu women and witch doctors who removed body parts and may have indeed tortured an infernal umlungu for all sorts of reasons.

But they are not the Zulu Army.
And besides this is just one example from a bloody six month campaign.
One would have thought there would have been more accounts if it was commonplace.
Kate

Kate,

On the contrary the Natal Witness does not mention the Zulu Army as you now imply it, it refers to Zulus.  Are not the izinanya or the women also Zulu?

JY

The article is clearly of a military nature and relates to the military events at the time.
It is clearly referring to the Zulu's involved in the action at iSandlwana.
Which would be the main part of the Zulu army.

Kate,

And what of the izinyana, or even the women, who were on the field of iSandlwana prior to the return of Chelmsford’s force, do we disregard them as well?

I would suggest Mr. Aylward is back-pedalling due to having to apologise for the publication of the gruesome deaths of the Natal Carbineers.  Which obviously caused some distress to at least one family member of the Carbineers, forcing a minimal apology from Aylward.

Also considered the date of publication of the Natal Witness article which you introduced the post with - 10th April, 1879. Prior to the return in force to iSandlwana to discover the remains on the battlefield.

If you will permit me a Kipling parody:
When you wounded and left on Zululand’s plains
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains.

Were there not instances during the Zulu War where that fatal step was taken, rather than fall into the hands of the Zulu?  I can certainly recall at least one account happening at Hlobane without dashing to any book for reference.  What sort of fear would cause a man to take his own life?  Dare I say it the fear of torture.

JY

We know the Zulu warriors were doctored before going into battle and then stabbed everything as they went through the camp. Dead was everything. I know the army had mat carriers with them but was not aware of women being present with the army at iSandlwana.
Yes there were kraal's around the battlefield but I doubt there would have been any civvies in them once the British arrived.

Do we have any witness accounts of women or izinyana on the battlefield during the time between the end of the battle and the arrival of Chelmsford?

You've actually raised a good point John because if the answer to my question above is yes then the 20 witnesses to the alleged torture that Julian puts forward from Chelmsford's column are also worthless as the corpses on the battlefield have been tampered with by non combatant third parties between the battle ending and the arrival of Chelmsford's column.
Thus the acts were not carried out by the Zulu army but by those who followed on afterwards.
Thanks John

Kate,

It is only today that you have introduced the phrase ‘Zulu Army’ rather than Aylward’s Zulus.

Given that were there were a number of women taken prisoner when Sihayo’s stronghold was stormed, why should we presume that womenfolk that resided in the region of iSandlwana in their homesteads - imizi - had been evacuated?

Unfortunately I did not record the story of the ululating women for posterity, when I heard it on the slopes of iSandlwana from a nonagenarian Zulu recounting his father’s part in the battle through his family’s oral history, translated through the aid of the late David Rattray. David would later recount the same oral history through The Day of the Dead Moon, may be we can simply dismiss this as David would always say he was a storyteller and not a historian. But to me it is not the first time I have heard recounted oral history that has subsequently been proven to be fact.

My understanding is that the amabutho who attacked the British and colonial forces at iSandlwana had not been doctored for the battle. Am I labouring under a misapprehension?

If any unfortunate wounded at iSandlwana were killed by any women or those practitioners of ritual medicine, were they not killed by Zulu? That my contention is contrary to your own, is in all honesty what the purpose of debate is all about. So, no I have not given credence to your beliefs, nor have I offered contradictory evidence to Julian’s findings either.

JY

Quote "Kate,It is only today that you have introduced the phrase ‘Zulu Army’ rather than Aylward’s Zulus.
John see my post"

John from my 10.22am post on the 22nd February:-

I have posted the above for forum members to make up their own mind but in my opinion if such atrocities were commonplace and torture was a common practise used by Zulu warriors then why were there not more witnesses to the atrocities in relation to the total number of men present.

Question - Was mutilation and torture above and beyond superstitious ritual a common practise within the Zulu Army?
Answer - No.

I would suggest those at Sihayo's were still present because they weren't really sure what was going to happen. The action of the 12th quickly put paid to any peaceful solution and word would have quickly spread of the Lord Chelmsford's aggressive intentions.

I thought the men were prepared for war before leaving Ulundi.
Kate

Kate,

Yes they were doctored at oNdini prior to leaving there, however, they were not ritually prepared - as they should have been - on the day of iSandlwana as there was no time to do so, given their discovery.

I am referring to your direct answers to me of today when regarding your use of ‘Zulu Army’ rather than your past posts.

Still unconvinced of Essex.

JY

Anyone who thinks that savage brutality, even torture, didn't happen is sadly mistaken. Human beings are cruel, vicious animals. That's the nature of our existence- as a Christian, it's one of the most important and difficult tenets of our faith. Countless atrocities can be attributed to western armies, even in modern ages. I can't dismiss the likelihood that the Zulus did perpetrate horrific acts of cruelty at iSandlwana.

My Lai and William Carey spring to mind.

Or the Katyn Forest, Srebrenica, or any one of several places in Ukraine recently.

Or what France did to England on the weekend

Frank,

There are not tears enough in England to mourn the loss.

JY

There was a sketch done by an officer (Crealock?) on the return of Chelmsford to iSandlwana from his wild goose chase to confront what he thought was the main zulu army.

The sketch shows men stripped of their clothing, staked out spread eagled, tied up, etc. This sketch has been published in various books on the Anglo-Zulu War, many people must be aware of the sketch I am speaking of. With the sketch showing these sort of things, it must convey to the viewer that torture and all sorts of ill treatment were carried out. Where there not some reports of the horrible condition of some of the men they found, looking like they had been subject to beatings or torture (including butchering), also the removal of beards complete with jaw, and tashes complete with top lip being removed by the zulu.

Even in the film zulu dawn it shows a bloke tied up against a post, with what appears to be some sort of torture or beating having been inflicted on the poor chap.

So to say that there was no torture, beatings or other forms of cruelty carried out at iSandlwana by the bloodthirsty zulu savages is (IMO) complete nonsense.

Welcome back Mr Cooper!

Cheers Pete.

And it is with grateful thanks to your goodself, and also Gary (90th), for getting intouch with you, that I am able to log in again after my old computer went down the pan.

Much obliged to you both for your help and assistance.

Best regards.

Martin.

Martin,

Times must have been bad if you’ve relied on Gary for IT support!

Nice to see you back in play!

JY