Swazi of Eswatini and the Kingdom of the Two Rulers

In the hills and lowveld of the far southeast of Africa lies Eswatini, once called Swaziland, one of the continent’s last traditional kingdoms and the home of the Swazi. Ruled to this day by a king of the Dlamini line alongside the queen mother, the nation was forged in the age of the Zulu and gathers each year for the great rituals of the Incwala and the reed dance, ceremonies that bind a whole people to their crown.

This account follows the Swazi from their Nguni beginnings and the building of their kingdom under the early Dlamini kings, through their dual monarchy, their homesteads, their sacred kingship, and the ceremonies and crafts that mark them, to the winning of independence and the modern kingdom of Eswatini. It ends with the Swazi of today, a small and proud nation keeping its ancient monarchy alive in a changing world.

The People of the King in the East
emaSwati, liSwati, and the Name of the Nation
SiSwati, the Tongue of the Kingdom
The Hills and Lowveld of Eswatini
The Ngwenyama, the Ndlovukati, and the Dual Kingship
The Homestead, the Age Regiments, and the Ties of Kin
The Ancestors, Mvelinchanti, and the Sacred Kingship
The Reed Dance, the Warrior, and the Ways of the People
The Weavers, the Beaders, and the Carvers of the Kingdom
Maize, the Grain, and the Table of the Swazi
The Incwala, the Umhlanga, and the Great Rites
From Sobhuza to the Kingdom of Eswatini
The Swazi in Modern Eswatini

The People of the King in the East

In the hills and valleys of the far east of southern Africa, between the high mountains and the coastal lowlands, lives one of the continent’s proudest small nations, the Swazi. Their kingdom, once called Swaziland and now Eswatini, is one of the last of Africa’s traditional monarchies, ruled to this day by a king of the Dlamini line. To be Swazi is to belong to that kingdom and to the royal house at its heart.

The Swazi are a Nguni people, kin in speech and custom to the Zulu and the Xhosa, and their forebears were part of the great southward movement of Nguni-speaking farmers down the eastern side of the continent. The ruling Dlamini clan traces its own coming from the north, moving down the coast and then inland over several generations before settling the land that would become their kingdom.

The nation as it is known today was forged in the early nineteenth century, in the same turbulent age that saw the rise of the Zulu. Under strong kings the Dlamini gathered together not only their own followers but many other clans, some Nguni and some Sotho, whom they absorbed into a single people. The Swazi nation is thus a weaving together of many groups under one crown.

This act of gathering gave the Swazi a distinctive character, a nation built around a royal house and held together by loyalty to the king rather than by descent from a single ancestor. The clans that make up the nation are ranked by how early they joined the Dlamini, and the whole is bound together by the great national rituals that centre on the person of the king.

emaSwati, liSwati, and the Name of the Nation

The people call themselves emaSwati in their own language, a single person being a liSwati, and their tongue is siSwati. The name is drawn from Mswati, a great king of the early nineteenth century under whom the nation took much of its lasting shape, so that the people are, in a sense, the people of Mswati. From this the English forms Swazi and Swaziland were made.

For most of the modern era the kingdom was known to the world as Swaziland, the land of the Swazi, a name given in the colonial age and kept at independence. In 2018 the king announced that the country would return to an older, indigenous name, Eswatini, meaning the land of the Swazi in siSwati, setting aside the half-English form for one wholly of the people’s own tongue.

The change of the country’s name did not change the name of the people, who remain the Swazi, or emaSwati in their own speech. The royal clan, the Dlamini, gives its name to the ruling house, and so common is it that a great many Swazi bear it, whether of the royal line or of clans long tied to it. The clan name is a mark of belonging within the nation.

That the nation should be named for a king rather than a common ancestor is fitting, for the Swazi are above all a people defined by their monarchy. The king, his mother, and the rituals that surround them stand at the centre of what it means to be Swazi, and the very name of the people carries the memory of the ruler who bound them into one.

SiSwati, the Tongue of the Kingdom

The Swazi speak siSwati, a Nguni language closely akin to Zulu and, a little more distantly, to Xhosa. So near is it to Zulu that speakers of the two can follow one another with ease, and some have called them dialects of a single tongue, though the Swazi hold siSwati to be a language in its own right, distinct in sound and in many words. It carries the clicks and the noun classes common to its family.

SiSwati is the language of daily life throughout Eswatini, spoken in the home, the market, and the fields, and it is also spoken by a large number of Swazi who live across the border in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. In the kingdom it stands as an official language beside English, which serves for government, business, and the higher reaches of education.

Because English carries so much of official and commercial life, most educated Swazi command both tongues, using English for formal matters and siSwati for the intimate world of family and community. This division of labour between the two languages is common across the region, and it places some pressure on siSwati even as it remains firmly the language of the heart.

The language is rich in the praise poetry and the ceremonial speech that surround the monarchy, for the king and the great occasions of the nation are honoured in siSwati verse and song. The names of clans, the titles of office, and the words of the national rituals are all in siSwati, so that the tongue is bound up with the identity and the ceremonies of the Swazi nation.

Swazi women at the King's birthday — Swazi women at the King’s birthday

The Hills and Lowveld of Eswatini

The kingdom of Eswatini is a small land, one of the smallest in Africa, tucked between South Africa and Mozambique in the far southeast of the continent. Despite its size it holds a remarkable range of country, falling in broad steps from west to east, from the cool high mountains of the border, through the fertile middle hills, down to the hot lowveld plains and, at the eastern edge, the last low ridge before the coastal plain.

The high country of the west, the highveld, is cool and well watered, a land of mist and mountain grassland good for grazing and, in modern times, for great plantations of timber. The middle veld, lower and warmer, holds the best farmland and the densest population, and it is here that many of the homesteads and the royal places lie. The people have long farmed these fertile hills.

The lowveld to the east is hot and dry, a land of thornbush and open plain better suited to cattle and to game than to the plough, though irrigation has brought fields of sugar cane to its river valleys. This threefold land, packed into so small a space, gives the kingdom a great variety of climate and of life within a short journey from end to end.

Water runs through the kingdom in several rivers that cut down from the mountains toward the sea, and their valleys have shaped where people live and farm. Well watered by the standards of the region, green and hilly, Eswatini is a land of considerable beauty, and its people have held to it fiercely, keeping their small kingdom intact through an age when so many others were swallowed up.

The Ngwenyama, the Ndlovukati, and the Dual Kingship

At the head of the Swazi nation stands not one ruler but two, in a dual monarchy that is among the most distinctive features of Swazi life. The king bears the title Ngwenyama, the Lion, and his mother, or a woman who stands in her place, bears the title Ndlovukati, the She-Elephant. Together they rule, the king in matters of war and law, the queen mother as a check and a balance and the keeper of the rain.

This pairing of king and queen mother gave the old order a balance at its very summit, for the two held separate places and powers, each with a royal residence and each honoured in the rituals of the nation. The queen mother’s role was no mere formality, for she guarded certain of the sacred objects and stood as a counterweight to the king, and the two were meant to rule in concert.

Below the crown the nation was ordered into chiefdoms, each under a chief who held his land and people in trust from the king and answered to him. The chiefs allotted land to their followers, settled disputes, and gathered men for the king’s service, forming the links in a chain of authority that ran from the humblest homestead up to the Ngwenyama himself.

Binding the whole together were the age regiments, the emabutfo, into which the young men of the nation were formed. Drawn from every chiefdom and owing their loyalty directly to the king, these regiments served him in war, in labour, and in the great rituals, cutting across the ties of clan and chiefdom and binding the men of the nation to the crown. Through king, chief, and regiment the old Swazi state held firm.

The Homestead, the Age Regiments, and the Ties of Kin

The foundation of Swazi society is the homestead, the umuti, home to an extended family under the authority of its head. Within a fenced enclosure stand the houses of the man, his wife or wives, and their married sons, gathered around the cattle byre that lies at the heart of the homestead. The byre is not only a pen for the herd but a sacred place, where the ancestors are honoured and the dead of the family are buried.

Descent runs through the father’s line, and the patrilineage binds homesteads together into clans that share a name and a common origin. Marriage is made outside the clan and sealed with the gift of cattle, the lobola, given by the groom’s family to the bride’s, so that a marriage joins two lineages and the cattle bind them in a lasting tie. A man’s standing rests on his herd and his household.

Cutting across the ties of clan are the age regiments, into which the youth are gathered by the king. Young men and women are grouped by age, and these age-mates form bonds that last through life, serving the king together and standing by one another. Through the regiments the crown reaches past clan and chiefdom to touch every family in the land.

Respect for age and rank orders the whole of Swazi life. Elders are honoured, the king above all, and a careful etiquette governs how people speak and behave toward those set above them. Within this hierarchy the queen mother, the king’s own mother, and the senior women of the royal house hold real weight, so that women as well as men have their honoured place in the order of the nation.

The Ancestors, Mvelinchanti, and the Sacred Kingship

The older faith of the Swazi centred, like that of their Nguni kin, on the ancestors. The spirits of the dead, the emadloti, were believed to watch over their living descendants, to bless those who honoured them and to send trouble on those who neglected them. Offerings of beer and the sacrifice of cattle at the byre, where the forebears lay buried, kept the bond between the living and the dead in good order.

Above the ancestors stood a distant creator, known as Mvelinchanti, the one who appeared first, the source of all things, yet remote and rarely approached directly. It was to the nearer ancestors that the everyday prayers were made, and among them the royal ancestors held a special power, for the welfare of the whole nation was bound to their goodwill and to the rites performed on their behalf.

The kingship itself was sacred, and the person of the king was hedged about with ritual and taboo. His health and strength were held to be tied to the health of the nation and the fertility of the land, and the great national ceremonies existed in large part to renew his power and to bind the people to him. The queen mother, keeper of the rain rites, shared in this sacred office.

Christianity came with the missionaries and struck deep, so that most Swazi today are Christian, many belonging to independent African churches that weave together the new faith and the old. Yet the ancestors have not been forgotten, and the sacred rituals of the kingship, above all the great Incwala, continue with the full support of the nation, so that old and new faith stand together in Swazi life.

The Reed Dance, the Warrior, and the Ways of the People

No custom is more famous among the Swazi than the Umhlanga, the reed dance, a great gathering of the unmarried young women of the nation. Each year they go out to cut tall reeds, carry them to the royal residence, and lay them before the queen mother to mend the windbreak of her home, and then dance before the king and the assembled nation in their thousands, clad in beadwork and finery. It is a spectacle of colour and of national pride.

The other great tradition is that of the warrior and the age regiment. Though the Swazi no longer make war, the emabutfo endure as the framework of the great ceremonies, and the men dance in warrior array, with shields, staves, and the plumes and skins of office, in the massed formations that once marched to battle. To dance in the regiments is to take one’s place in the body of the nation.

Beadwork clothes the body for these occasions and marks the stages of life, above all for women, whose aprons, collars, and ornaments show their age and standing. Traditional dress, the animal skins and cloths worn by men and the beaded finery of women, is worn with pride at the great gatherings, and the sight of a nation so arrayed is one of the enduring images of the kingdom.

Marriage, the honouring of the dead, and the passage to adulthood each have their proper forms, watched over by elders and marked by the giving of cattle and the brewing of beer. Through the reed dance, the regiments, and the beadwork, the Swazi keep alive a body of custom that binds every stage of life and every great occasion to the nation and its king.

The Weavers, the Beaders, and the Carvers of the Kingdom

The crafts of the Swazi meet the needs of daily life and adorn the great occasions of the nation. Beadwork is chief among them, the patient threading of tiny beads into the aprons, collars, and ornaments that clothe the body for ceremony and mark the stages of life. Worn above all by women, this beadwork carries meaning in its colours and patterns, and the finest pieces are treasured and handed down.

Weaving and the working of grass and reed give the household its baskets, mats, and grain stores. Women coil and plait the fibres of grass and palm into vessels for carrying, storing, and winnowing, and into the sleeping mats that furnish the home. The making of these things is women’s work, learned young and carried on through life, and the best of it is admired as much as it is used.

Men work in wood, hide, and metal. They carve bowls, stools, headrests, and the staves and knobbed sticks carried by every man, tan skins into the garments and shields of ceremony, and once forged the iron spears and hoes of war and field. The carved wooden headrest, on which a man laid his head to sleep, was a personal possession often finely made and long kept.

In modern times these crafts have found new life as the work of cooperatives and of the tourist trade, and Swazi candles, glass, and woven goods are sold well beyond the kingdom. Yet the older purpose endures, for the beadwork and the skins worn at the reed dance and the Incwala are made as they have long been made, and the crafts remain bound to the ceremonies that give the nation its shape.

Maize, the Grain, and the Table of the Swazi

The daily food of the Swazi, as across so much of the region, is built on maize. Ground into meal and boiled into a thick porridge, it fills the plate at nearly every meal, eaten with the hand and dipped into a relish that gives it savour. Before maize spread across the land, sorghum and millet were the grains of the fields, and they are grown still, above all for the brewing of beer.

The porridge is eaten with a relish of vegetables, beans, or meat. Wild greens gathered as a spinach, pumpkin and its leaves, groundnuts, and pulses of many kinds make up the everyday relish, while meat, chiefly beef from the herd, is the food of feasts and of welcome. A guest is honoured with the best the household can offer, and hospitality is a point of pride.

Cattle stand at the centre of Swazi wealth and are seldom killed for mere eating. A beast slaughtered for a wedding, a funeral, or a rite for the ancestors feeds the whole gathering, and the sharing of its meat binds the community together. Goats and chickens serve for smaller occasions, and the fertile hills yield a good store of maize, pumpkins, and other garden crops.

Sour milk, the curdled milk of the herd, is a valued food, eaten thick with porridge, and sorghum beer is the drink of hospitality and of ritual. Brewed by the women, the beer is poured for guests, shared at every gathering, and offered to the ancestors at the byre, so that among the Swazi food and drink join the living to one another and to the forebears who watch over them.

The Incwala, the Umhlanga, and the Great Rites

The greatest of all Swazi ceremonies is the Incwala, the ritual of kingship, held at the height of summer. Over several weeks it renews the strength of the king and, through him, of the whole nation, in a sequence of solemn rites in which sacred waters are gathered, a bull is taken by the young men, and the king, alone before his people, tastes the first fruits of the new season. No one but the king may eat the new harvest until the Incwala is done.

The Incwala is a rite of the deepest meaning, at once a first-fruits ceremony, a renewal of the sacred kingship, and a binding of the people to their ruler. Its songs are grave and ancient, sung only at this time, and its final day ends in the burning of the objects of the old year, so that the nation may begin the new one cleansed and renewed. It is the very heart of Swazi ritual life.

The other great gathering is the Umhlanga, the reed dance of the late winter, when the unmarried young women of the nation cut reeds for the queen mother’s home and dance before the king. A joyful and colourful occasion, it honours the queen mother, celebrates the young women of the land, and draws visitors from far and wide to see the massed dancers in their finery.

Beyond these two great national rituals the Swazi keep the rites of family and community, the weddings sealed with cattle, the funerals that speed the dead to the ancestors, and the passages of the young into adulthood. Together the national ceremonies and the family rites make a calendar of gatherings that binds the people to one another, to their ancestors, and to the crown.

From Sobhuza to the Kingdom of Eswatini

The Swazi nation was built in the early nineteenth century, in the same age of upheaval that saw the rise of the Zulu. Under the king Sobhuza the First, the Dlamini withdrew from the reach of the powerful Zulu to the south and settled the land that would become their kingdom, gathering many clans under their rule. His successor Mswati the Second, from whom the nation takes its name, extended and strengthened the young state.

As the century wore on, the kingdom faced growing pressure from Boer settlers to the west and from British power, and its independence was gradually eroded. In time the land came under British administration, and after the South African War the British held it as a protectorate, ruling through the Swazi monarchy while much of the best land passed into settler hands, a wound that would take generations to heal.

Through the colonial decades the monarchy endured, and under the long reign of King Sobhuza the Second the Swazi worked patiently to recover their land and to prepare for freedom. In 1968 the kingdom won its independence as Swaziland, one of the last of Africa’s traditional monarchies to take its place among the sovereign nations, with its king at its head.

Sobhuza the Second reigned for over sixty years, one of the longest reigns in recorded history, and was succeeded in time by his son, who rules today as Mswati the Third. In 2018 the king restored the old name Eswatini in place of Swaziland. The kingdom has kept its monarchy and its ceremonies intact into the modern age, though not without deep debate over the place of the crown in the life of the nation.

The Swazi in Modern Eswatini

Today the Swazi number well over a million within their kingdom, with many more across the border in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa. Eswatini remains one of the last absolute monarchies in the world, ruled by the Ngwenyama alongside the queen mother, and the great national rituals of the Incwala and the Umhlanga continue to draw the whole nation together each year in a way few other peoples can match.

Modern life has come to the kingdom in the shape of towns, schools, and a cash economy, and many Swazi work in the sugar estates, the timber plantations, the mines of neighbouring South Africa, and the offices of Mbabane and Manzini. Yet the homestead in the hills remains the anchor of family life, and the ties of clan and the pull of the ancestral ground stay strong even for those who live far away.

The kingdom faces hard challenges. It is a small and largely poor country, and it has suffered gravely from disease and from the strains of a changing world, while the place of the monarchy in a modern state is a matter of deep and sometimes bitter debate among the Swazi themselves. These are the questions that will shape the nation’s path in the years to come.

Through all of this the Swazi hold to their identity with evident pride. The reed dance and the Incwala, the siSwati tongue, the beadwork and the warrior array, and above all the ancient kingship remain the marks of who they are. One of Africa’s smallest and oldest kingdoms, Eswatini carries its traditions into the modern age with a tenacity that has kept the nation whole where so many others were undone.