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Khambula Zulu Burial Pit
Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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Greetings to all

I am presently busy with some reading of the aftermath of the battle of Khambula -- specifically any info on the process and procedure of the gathering and burial of the Zulu dead.

I have been given the following references to follow up .........

"Kingdom in Crisis" pp 164

"Kingdom and Colony" pp 100

"Rope of Sand" pp 276

However a perusal of the footnotes / references seem to indicate that there are only one or two actual eye witness accounts on which the writings of these events are based ?

Schermbruckers report in the South African Catholic Magazine

The next day the 30th of March was devoted to the burial of the dead. It was a ghastly ditch , 200 feet long , some 20 feet broad and 10 feet deep which received wagon load after wagon load of the bravest warriors of a brave people. Full military honours were accorded them as batch after batch , closely packed they were deposited in a soldiers grave. Nine hundred and seventy bodies were picked up around the camp and fort , of which not less than 350 had fallen close to the fort and in the trenches ; several hundred corpses were lying about within a radius of one mile from the camp , and the track of the fleeing enemy , for seven miles was literally strewn with the bodies of those killed in pursuit.

and
the correspondent of the Natal Colonist ( an early Natal Newspaper )

Does anyone know of any other eye witness reports of how many burial pits there were ? ( Only one or more ? )
and
Where they were located ?

I am aware of the controversy with Snook -- but this does not seem to throw up any info on the actual burial pit / s ?

References to other material , suggestions , hints etc much appreciated.
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Khambula Zulu Burial Pit (2 )
Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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To further update my first post

From "Kingdom in Crisis" pp 164 - 169


Compared with these low figures the official British estimation put the Zulu losses at nearly 2,000. Captain Woodgate reported 785 Zulu dead ( some horribly mutilated by shell-fire ) collected in the two days following the battle(73) , though the work continued for some days more , and further bodies were brought in. The Zulu corpses were buried 750m outside the British lines in large pits , described as being 60 m long , 6 m broad , and 3 m deep. Wagon load after wagon load of bodies were deposited in them. (74). Yet the Zulu dead were collected only within a 2 km radius around the camp , and because the Zulu had done their best to keep under cover when assaulting the camp fewer dead were found in its proximity than the British had anticipated.

Laband uses three sources for these observations
War Office Narrative p 81
Schermbrucker ( relevant passage quoted above )
Natal Colonist 24 April 1879: Kambula Correspondent , 2 April 1879.

As we note above Schermbrucker only mentions ONE pit ?

Could someone with definitive information ( I do not yet have copies of the War Office Narrative or the Natal Colonist to hand , although I hope to find a copy of the Natal Colonist shortly ) comment.

Thanks
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
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Chris

The three works you mention by Laband are all the same account, using virtually the same words, as you have no doubt noticed. However, his footnotes cite quite a few references which, by the look of it, might come from more than just one or two eyewitness sources - but not a large number, obviously.

Page 81 of the Narrative provides an account of Kambula but definitely does not mention the burial of Zulu dead, only estimating their total losses. The reports and correspondence in the various Natal papers ( not just the Colonist) provide graphic details on the battle, the pursuit, the merciless slaughter of hundreds of helpless fugitives up to 8 or 9 miles from camp until it was too dark to see, each correspondent exulting in the comprehensive revenge for the day before and for Isandlwana. The burials at the camp are described, the carting in of hundreds from as far as two miles out & the stench for days, as well as the mutilated condition of the 800 or so interred - but not a clue as to how many trenches were dug or mass graves made. Norris Newman also provided a contemporary account of the aftermath and estimated the toll of dead - but no comment on the graves. (Incidentally, the several different accounts by participants in the pursuit surely exonerates young Snook from exaggeration or fiction, even if he was only relying on hearsay from the mounted men who knew. True to character, Wood wriggled off the hook on that one too and Parliament accepted his word over that of Snook or the ABS - you'll find quite a lot of material on that affair, including the Parliamentary debates, in Archives of Zululand, Vol 5, pp327-334).

Laband has clearly trawled as many sources (I'm assuming you've seen all his footnotes in these three works?) as one might expect to exist (although the Schermbrucker & Woodgate accounts seem extremely - suspiciously? - similar) for his own accounts but it isn't impossible that another account somewhere might just provide a clue. The best chance may be to identify an eyewitness at the site in the months or early years after the battle. There will be fewer of these than the many descriptions of Isandlwana in the 1880s, but you never know.

Wood, Bigge, the Empress, Mitford, Mrs Yelverton ("Lady Avonmore"), Leyland and possibly Buller were all there within a year or so of the battle, three of them for the second time. Ian Knight records the 1880 pilgrimage, including the Kambula sojourn, but there is no mention of the dimensions of the mass grave(s) unfortunately. Leyland, A Holiday in South Africa (1882) went close to the site in 1881 but not, I think, a proper visit. Lady Avonmore spent several days hanging around there in the cold of 1880 but no specific description is given in the account by Brian Roberts (Ladies of the Veld, 1965) of her trip. Mitford was there in 1882 and, on pp211-215, does give a bit of a description which may well prove useful to you. After a detailed description of the battlefield three years after the event, and all the debris lying around, he mentions the ground below the British cemetery & memorial:

Further down the slope, three or four dark spots of a different growth show the places of the sepulture of the Zulu dead, who were buried in hundreds after the battle.

Now, he is clearly not talking about individual graves - they were mass graves. Were there, therefore, three or four large trenches, or mass graves, at Kambula? He doesn't say the "dark spots" were large, but he knew how many were underneath them. I can't think what else he was describing. There, were, I think, three trenches at R/Drift (can't recall the dimensions) but with at least double the R/Drift number buried at Kambula, three or four would presumably not be unlikely.

Peter
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mike snook 2


Joined: 04 Jan 2006
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Oh that Snook....doh! I was wondering what on earth I'd done for a moment!

M
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Peter Ewart


Joined: 31 Aug 2005
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Must be in the blood, Mike - but unless you're of Devonian stock, you're probably in the clear on this one!

P.
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Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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Peter Ewart wrote:

Mitford was there in 1882 and, on pp211-215, does give a bit of a description which may well prove useful to you. After a detailed description of the battlefield three years after the event, and all the debris lying around, he mentions the ground below the British cemetery & memorial:

Further down the slope, three or four dark spots of a different growth show the places of the sepulture of the Zulu dead, who were buried in hundreds after the battle.

Now, he is clearly not talking about individual graves - they were mass graves. Were there, therefore, three or four large trenches, or mass graves, at Kambula? He doesn't say the "dark spots" were large, but he knew how many were underneath them. I can't think what else he was describing. There, were, I think, three trenches at R/Drift (can't recall the dimensions) but with at least double the R/Drift number buried at Kambula, three or four would presumably not be unlikely.

Peter

Hi Peter ,
Thanks so much for your very helpful info
I do have Ron and Peters "Red Book" which I have been working through -- but so far NO explicit specific detail

As I understand there was / is quite a bit of controversy as regards the burial pits at Rorke's Drift -- are they as shown , in the right place / s ?
( Another story for another day )

Would there have been any official need for official communication ( orders etc ) for a burial detail ?
IF so would this have needed to be recorded somewhere ?
Perhaps Mike -- as the official Military person could comment ?

Obviously some detailed official army record would be the first prize !
and
One wonders -- IF -- the "re-discovery" ( there are ways and means ) of these would lead to the same sort of controversy as at Rorke's Drift ?????

Is it better to not disturb the sleep of the brave and departed ?
( The possibilities have all the makings of a fascinating article in a learned Academic journal )
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Peter Quantrill
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Ron L. took the UK Guild of Battlefield Guides to Kambula during the month of February some five years or so ago. Specifically included was a search for a possible Zulu burial 'pit.' The search included looking for soil erosion , disturbance of growth patterns and dark spots etc. -- Nil return.
On page 198 in his book 'Blood on the Painted Mountain,' there is a diagram showing the battle, and marked at 'D' is "Rubbish Heap." It is here that the locals recovered artefacts that were subsequently offered to those visiting the battlefield.
Peter Quantrill
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Further to my last, Frank Emery, "The Red Soldier." Several primary source reports on Kambula.

Page 173: " We were all employed burying the dead yesterday and we were not finished by dark, pits [plural] being made three-quarters of the camp and the dead taken in carts."
Peter Quantrill
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Apologies: " Three quarters of a mile."
Khambula Zulu Burial Pit (4)
Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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Peter Quantrill wrote:

Apologies: " Three quarters of a mile."

Thanks Peter Q

North , South , East , West ? ( Home is best Smile )
From the original camp ( where monument plinth is now ) ?
From British small stone cemetery graveyard ?

The distance can however be used as a "buffer"

Will follow up on those links. ( Do have Emery )
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Khambula Zulu Burial Pit (5 )
Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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Peter Quantrill wrote:

Further to my last, Frank Emery, "The Red Soldier." Several primary source reports on Kambula.

Page 173: "We were all employed burying the dead yesterday and we were not finished by dark, pits [plural] being made three-quarters of the camp and the dead taken in carts."

Further along on page 176 Wood's letter to General Sir A Horsford

We have buried 785 close into our camp. I shot three men in succession with a soldiers Swinburne-Henry carbine , 250 yards sight. What is more we actually buried all three ... Tis all or most of it in my report.

Which report ?
Can it be found and read ?

The fact that he actually took notice of the burial of these three that he shot sounds something along the lines of a "trophy-hunter" ????
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mike snook 2


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Chris

If I understand you correctly, no, there would be no given necessity, during this era, (different now), in the aftermath of battle to formally record burial details in orders, save in so far as daily 'detail' for the following day might tell off A and B Companies, say, to carry out the duty. Such an order would nominate an officer in charge and state a time of parade, but would not typically record any other details. More likely though, if you are staying put in your defensive position, and are surrounded by enemy dead, is that the matter is dealt with as a here and now issue, with orders given orally: Colonel Smith make an immediate start and see to it that your battalion has the enemy dead underground by nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Over there by the foot of the koppie will do. That sort of thing. Such an event generally doesn't survive in the sources, save in so far as Pte Jones might write a letter home and say that he was involved in burying the enemy dead....and it was horrible, the ground was rock hard, there was a man with a bullet clean through his eyeball... bla bla but not generally the sort of thing that is of much use from your perspective. At Abu Klea in the Sudan, and notwithstanding the remarkable state of preservation of other graves and entrenchments etc, I was unable to detect any sign of the trench grave in which certain sources said the 60 or so British dead were buried. And this notwithstanding the good clue that it was just outside where the right face of the square had stood and its location being marked on the map which accompanied the official history. Not a sign. And not being a qualified archaeologist I wasn't prepared to go scratching about looking for clues.

Abu Klea notwithstanding one stands a much better chance of unearthing source references to friendly forces burials - references to a funeral service or such like. Even then this won't necessarily help that much with pinpoint locations. Today field burials of friendly and enemy alike would be charted with GPS of course.

Regards

Mike


Last edited by mike snook 2 on Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Peter Ewart


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Chris

Virtually every officer - if not every one - who served in the AZW was a trophy hunter. I have a collection of sundry references in my notes somewhere which itself is witness to the huge amount of items brought back by AZW officers and itemising who had what. However, Wood's reference to his shooting does not necessarily, I think, mean he was a trophy hunter as far as those three men are concerned. It is a very similar reference to - and perhaps has reminded you of? - Grenfell's own account, in his memoirs, of shooting a man at Ulundi, finding his skeleton a year or so later exactly where he looked for it , and popping the skull into his knapsack to take home. Participants such as Harness (RA) amassed a fair collection but ended up giving most of it away to others leaving for England before him. Smith (Rev) brought home some amazing stuff - but almost everyone seems to have collared something.

Wood made a number of reports on Kambula, including his "full" official report, as well as earlier preliminary correspondence. The early material was garbled by others such as Frere and the Natal papers and other intermediaries. Wood himself contrived to cover up Hlobane & conceal its seriousness in his Kambula "triumph." This was rumbled at the time by one or two in SA and in England but, during his lifetime he scotched things by writing about himself subsequently. See Huw M Jones, The Boiling Cauldron, for all this as well as the Natal papers for his confused reports and the London Gazette for what finally passed for his full report.

"Three quarters of a mile from the camp"? Presumably about three quarters of a mile from the front line or outer defences. Down the slope, as in Mitford's quote, but it would be helpful to know which way the long trenches were running! And the lack of noticeable clues by Ron's party, described by Peter, doesn't augur well. Try the same search at a different time of year, perhaps? No, I'd be very surprised if there was any record anywhere (offical military, that is) of the position of the mass graves. "Get your men (or "your African levies") to bury the dead and extend the search up to x number of yards or miles" is about all I'd expect. An accidental mention would be all you could hope for, I'd think.

The Natal press reports contained in The Red Book do contain plenty of graphic detail about the casualties and their gathering in and burial, but nothing which might provide a clue as to their exact whereabouts.

Peter
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Peter Ewart


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I see I was posting at the same time as Mike and appear to concur with his views on the (compared with today) rather rudimentary orders likely to have been given on the disposal of enemy dead.

P.
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Khambula Zulu Burial Pit (6 )
Chris


Joined: 01 Feb 2007
Posts: 180
Location: S.A.
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Peter Ewart wrote:

"Three quarters of a mile from the camp"? Presumably about three quarters of a mile from the front line or outer defences. Down the slope, as in Mitford's quote, but it would be helpful to know which way the long trenches were running! And the lack of noticeable clues by Ron's party, described by Peter, doesn't augur well. Try the same search at a different time of year, perhaps? No, I'd be very surprised if there was any record anywhere (offical military, that is) of the position of the mass graves. "Get your men (or "your African levies") to bury the dead and extend the search up to x number of yards or miles" is about all I'd expect. An accidental mention would be all you could hope for, I'd think.

The Natal press reports contained in The Red Book do contain plenty of graphic detail about the casualties and their gathering in and burial, but nothing which might provide a clue as to their exact whereabouts.

Peter

Thanks Peter and Mike for explanations

There are a number of academics looking at new technology as aids in the search for mass graves / burial sites. Primarily concerned with more modern events ( war strife genocide etc ) and there are enough of those about.

Here are links to a few websites to give you an introduction

http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/faculty/steadman.html

http://web.utk.edu/~anthrop/faculty/mundorff.html

http://www.geog.mcgill.ca/faculty/kalacska/

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/apr/14/body-of-evidence-ut-using-donated-corpses-in/

You can Google

" Use of Hyper spectral remote sensing in locating mass graves"

For Mike -- I am sure the MOD has a specialised Spatial / GIS / Remote Sensing department.
( although I am not seeing any UK academics working in this field ? )
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Khambula Zulu Burial Pit
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