The great native wars of the sixteenth century, which you can read about in the Portuguese historians, were not for territory but for leadership, and mainly for the possession of this fetich.

Anyhow, we know that the Zulus brought it down with them.

They called it Ndhlondhlo, which means the Great Snake, but I don't suppose that it was any kind of snake.

The snake was their totem, and they would naturally call their most sacred possession after it.
'Now I will tell you a thing that few know.

You have heard of Tchaka.
He was a sort of black Napoleon early in the last century, and he made the Zulus the paramount power in South Africa, slaughtering about two million souls to accomplish it.