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FREDERICK HALE (ed.), Norwegian Missionaries in Natal and Zululand selected correspondence, 1844-1900. Van Riebeeck Society second series 27, Cape Town: National Book Printers, 1997, 222 pp., ISBN 0 9584112 3 9.
Studies in Zulu history are numerous, not a few of sound academic quality. Of a reasonably late date in English the following may be enumerated (in alphabetical order): E. H. Brookes, and C. de B. Webb, A History of Natal (1965), J. Guy, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom, (1994), J. Laband, Rope of Sand (1995), D. R. Morris, The Washing of the Spears (1965), and B. Roberts, The Zulu Kings (1974). O. G. Myklebust, writing in Norwegian, has produced two excellent volumes on Bishop H. P. S. Schroeder, the first and outstanding Norwegian missionary to the Zulu. Schroeder has, rightly, also captured Hale's attention. Hale's volume on Norwegian missionaries in Natal and Zululand 1844-1900 may well find a place in the list of qualified mission-orientated Zulu studies, not because he offers altogether new insights but chiefly because of the fashion in which he presents the correspondence which is the main body of his book. His volume is demanding-and exciting!
Very wisely Hale has devoted six pages to a preface in which he defines the purpose of selecting, editing and translating Norwegian missionary correspondence into English from the genesis of mission endeavours among the Zulu in 1844 to 1900, by which year mission work was firmly established. He lists four ambitions, motivating and expanding on them. (1) Making available a portion of extensive archival material which owing to linguistic barriers, has not been given the academic attention it deserves. (2) With the exception of Myklebust's two volumes on Schreuder, only less scholarly books and fragments of a detailed general history of Norwegian missions among the Zulu have appeared, chiefly in Norwegian and devoted mainly to the Norwegian Missionary Society (NMS). Non-Lutheran Norwegian efforts have hitherto been paid little or no attention. Hence Hale includes material from the Free East Africa Mission (FEAM), founded in 1889. (3) In his selection of missionary correspondence Hale shows how different mission organisations promoted local leadership, how the results of differing forms of evangelisation affected missionaries' zeal and how Zulu responded to missionary proclamation of the Gospel, a...