Henry Callaway’s The Religious System of the Amazulu

Record summary

Henry Callaway’s multi-part The Religious System of the Amazulu, published from 1868 onward, collected narratives concerning ancestors, diviners, spirits, dreams, omens, and sacred practice. It is a particularly identifiable nineteenth-century textual source for studying how anomalous experiences were categorized within Zulu religious worlds. The work can anchor comparisons across haunting and possession narratives, but its evidence is mediated through missionary interviews, translation, editorial selection, and Victorian assumptions. It documents traditions and testimonies rather than independently verifying supernatural entities.