A Complex Adaptive Systems Analysis of Shaka Zulu and the Mfecane
of supporting livestock ( Brandy , 1977 ). These marginal pastures deteriorated from overgrazing , necessitating conflict over the remaining limited year-round grasslands ( Gump , 1988 , 1989 ). Heightened urgency to expand and defend good pasture was the result of the rigid gender roles in production that defined a man ’ s place in economic society in terms of cattle . Cattle formed a primary basis for exchange in Zulu society , especially in terms of the bride price for wives and daughters ( Wilson , 1977 ). The Nguni practice of establishing scattered homesteads to allow increasing herds , coupled with the common method of clearing land by burning , created a need to move on to new pastures , as overgrazing and drought stripped the land of its most useful products ( Eldredge , 2001 ; Guy , 1985 ; Wilson , 1977 ). The combination of increased population requiring migration in search of wider territory for pasture may have manifested as a cause of tribal migration before the late eighteenth – early nineteenth century period ( Perry , 1999 ).
Eldredge has criticized Guy ’ s thesis because herding was a less efficient use of arable land . She suggests that shifting to agriculture as the primary means of food production would compensate for any potential shortfall in herding . She suggests that the Nguni could have responded to deteriorating pastures by planting and raising more crops to meet the increased demand coupled with decreased yield from herding ( Eldredge , 2001 ). Eldredge fails to account for factors in the Nguni “ cultural personality ” rendering conversion of pasture to cropland less probable ( Willis , 1977 ). Such a clash of cultural values had already taken place in the area with the replacement of , rather than the juncture with , hunter-gatherers by those who practiced more efficient herding ( Smith , 1986 ).
Hall ( 1981 ) takes the deterioration through overgrazing concept and combines it with the population pressure theory and a severe drought to yield a strong combined impetus to seize and protect land reliable for food production , culminating in the devastating Madlathule famine , “… when we were obliged to eat grass ” ( Carlean , 1992 ; Gump , 1988 ; Webb & Wright , 1976 ).
Eldredge ( 1987 ) argues that , although the European slave trade had some impact on the succession of conflicts and migrations , a conjunction of demographic population pressure combined with environmental stress , especially that imposed by drought , caused the upheavals ( Wright , 2001b ). Nicholson noted that above average rainfall in Zululand during the period 1775 – 1779 , followed by reports of drought during the period 1790 – 1796 , likely resulted in severe population stress ( Nicholson , 1976 ). Similarly , she notes the existence of drought in 1804 in Griqualand and the Northeast Cape Colony and drought ended by “ major flooding ” in 1821 ( Nicholson , 1976 ). This drought naturally lessened food production bringing on competition for resources . Eldredge ( 2001 ) cites Amartya Sen for the proposition that the scarcity was largely a phenomenon of the lower classes , as the allocation of scarce foodstuffs would have discriminated against the lower segments of society .
Shula Marks sees a different cause for ecological deterioration interacting with increased population pressure . Marks argues that cultivation of maize resulted in a sharp increase in population as a consequence of the much more efficient production of foodstuffs compared with the traditional crops — two yields of maize per year in contrast to one , leaving questions of yield per plant aside ( Lea , 1977 ). The increased population , combined with the exhausted soil in the marginal farmlands
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