Zulu King Proposes Renaming KwaZulu-Natal by Dropping the Portuguese Word 'Natal'
Zulu King Proposes Renaming KwaZulu-Natal by Dropping the Portuguese Word 'Natal'
Misuzulu kaZwelithini, the traditional leader of the largest South African ethnic group, made the call during his speech commemorating the Battle of Isandlwana. He said that he was going to launch a campaign to remove the "Natal" part because it is colonial in origin.
The European name stems from the 1497 expedition of the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who named what is now the Durban harbor "Nativity" in his mother tongue.
European settlers later used the root of the word when they established the Natalia Republic in 1839. This republic was later transformed into the Colony of Natal, which then became the Natal Province.
KwaZulu means "Land of the Zulus" and refers to the traditional Zulu kingdom established by King Shaka in 1816. The word was notoriously used during the apartheid era as the name of the semi-independent Zulu Bantustan territory. After segregation was abolished in South Africa, the Natal Province was merged with KwaZulu to create KwaZulu-Natal, uniting European and African naming traditions.
Prince Thulani Zulu, the Zulu king's spokesperson, supported the monarch's call for renaming, stressing that the majority of the province's population speaks Zulu as their native language and that the region's name should therefore be changed to a Zulu one.
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