Zulu influences?

[Doug Irvine]

I was wondering, since the Zulu war ended in 1879, if JtR might have been influenced by reports of Zulu depredations to the corpses of British soldiers.

- parts of slain enemies were sometimes taken and used in purification rituals;

- also, the Zulu used spears to make holes in the abdomens of their slain enemies; Europeans reacted with horror at these ‘mutilations’. The Zulu regarded the taking of a human life as an ‘awful’ act; the Zulu made the hole to ‘let the spirit of the dead person out’. Otherwise, they thought that the spirit would haunt and harm them (the idea of a trapped spirit probably arose from the bloating of corpses in the hot sun). After killing someone, the person was ritually impure and in great danger until purification and strengthening ceremonies could be performed.

[Grim]

Oh come on now these wild theories are starting to get ridiculous.

[Vingle]

Army surgeon - might explain ability to work on inards quickly.
Would the blade description match an amputation knife?

[The Grave Maurice]

Maybe. Of the wounds inflicted on Annie Chapman, Dr Phillips said: "They could have been done by such an instrument as a medical man used for post-mortem purposes, but the ordinary surgical cases might not contain such an instrument. Those used by the slaughtermen, well ground down, might have caused them."

[Mascara & Paranoia]

I doubt it. Though it depends on the length of the blade. Jack wouldn't have been able to tote a long knife with him and probably carried his in his jacket or trousers.

[Supe]

Doug,

Interesting that you should bring that up because in Ripperologist 100-part 2, which came our yesterday, in the history of Ripperologist section Eduardo Zinna mused in part:
I soon started to submit articles to Ripperologist: a brief analysis of Lewis Carroll’s chances as the Ripper, an essay on Robert Bloch and an article suggesting that the Ripper could have been a Zulu warrior or a veteran of the battle of Isandwlana – but keeping my tongue firmly in my cheek. I pinched the title of that article, Out of Africa, from Pliny the Elder and Isak Dinesen, and its first line from Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Don.

[Bob Hinton]

Zulu link

In my book 'From Hell' I put forward the idea that the weapon used was the head of an assegai. This came about from a strange knife I bought at an auction. It was very old, with a leaf blade, no quillions, a cord wrapped handle and a wooden plug like a cork stuck in the end.

I took it to an expert in bladed weapons and he explained that after the Zulu wars a lot of soldiers took assegais as souvenirs. They couldn't carry them in their luggage ( officers could) and so snapped the heads off.

When they got home they found that they made excellent knives, and would often wrap rawhide or cord around the socket to make a handle and plug the end with a cork or a piece of wood.

The one thing that was obvious about this knife was even after all this time it was as sharp as a razor.

[Sam Flynn]

I love the Xhosa/Zulu word for the short, stabbing spear that was used in conjunction with the assegai - it's called a "lxwa", named after the sucking noise made when the blade was withdrawn from the opponent's body. It's hard to convey the pronunciation of "lxwa" using English orthography, but this sound file will give you an idea.

[Captain Hook]

Out of Africa

Doug et al.

It's a bit late in the day for me to enter this discussion, but I only came across this thread a couple of days ago. I did indeed write an article for Ripperologist entitled Out of Africa where I suggested the Ripper might have been a veteran of the Zulu war. For what it may be worth, the article is available in Dissertations right here in the Casebook.

Cheers
Eduardo (aka Captain Hook)

[smezenen]

Did the British Army teach hand to hand fighting techniques back then? And If so what style or discipline did they teach?

[Cap'n Jack]

I don't believe the killer would have been a veteran of the Zulu Wars but I do believe he would have read about them in popular accounts of the time; and this may have influenced his motive, and method.

[Archaic]

Influences

I think it's reasonable to believe that whoever the Ripper was, as a boy, a youth, and a man he would have been exposed to a myriad of stories about Zulu, Indian, Turkish, and Native American fighting methods.

Victorian newspapers, magazines and books seemed to make a veritable cult out of reporting "Fiendish Massacres and Mutilations", and these usually focused in ghastly detail upon outrages committed against white women.

Who knows what sort of strange and bloody ideas such atrocities might have conjured in an already abnormal imagination? The man who grew up to be the Ripper might have been particularly drawn to this subject matter from childhood- and that's in addition to all the crime reports, murders, etc., he would have heard about.

Best regards, Archaic

[perrymason]

If the first 2 victims were killed for the reason the medical authorities who examined them thought,....then the killer could well have been influenced by the story of Burke and Hare rather than anything as exotic as Zulu Warriors. He could have been influenced by extreme poverty to become susceptible to being influenced by Burke and Hare, and with an acknowledged real incident regarding 1 of 2 Teaching Hospitals the previous year,....if the killer had taken uteri from both of the first 2 victims he could have had what amounts to be the equivalent today of some 3,000L Sterling.

For myself, I would never eliminate this possibility for the first 2 victims unless proven otherwise.

Of course I dont believe that the same man who killed those 2 killed many, or perhaps any, others....so the fact that the 3 remaining women were not killed for their uterus isnt a major issue to me. Burke and Hare shows us that many organs could be sold to students, ......perhaps the kidney that finds its way to Mr Lusk was obtained in that manner.....wouldnt it be ironic if the killer who took Kates kidney sold it to students who hoaxed a package from Jack?

All the best

[Trevor Marriott]

Wouldnt it be ironic if the students took the organs from the bodies whilst they were laying around waiting for the post mortems to be carried out !!!!!!!!

[Sam Flynn]

Wouldnt it be ironic if the students took the organs from the bodies whilst they were laying around waiting for the post mortems to be carried out !!!!!!!!

Indeed - and remarkable, too, Trevor. There were different mortuaries used in different murders, with different mortuary attendants working in each - few (if any) of whom were students.