A closer look
When Shaka took control of the Zulu kingdom in 1816, warfare in Southern Africa consisted mostly of throwing flimsy spears from a safe distance and yelling insults. Shaka found this pathetic. He utterly reformed the military by forcing his "impi" regiments to fight barefoot to build calluses, allowing them to sprint across thorn bushes without flinching. More importantly, he snapped the long throwing spears in half, inventing the "iklwa"—a brutal, short-range stabbing weapon named after the horrific sound it made when sucked out of a human ribcage. It turned ritualized skirmishes into mechanized slaughter.
