Zulus

I know nothing about Zulus. In the late 1970s, I had a chance to get the autograph of a Minnesota Kicks soccer player, Ace Ntsoelengoe. See here. He was from South Africa, and I didn’t actually care about his autograph, but I wanted to chat with him. I asked him to pronounce his last name, which he did. His name was always anglicized by television announcers to Netsolenkway, but he seemed to pronounce it as oonzolengu. But I also asked him about a former teammate, whom someone had told me had a click in his name. I wanted to hear Ace pronounce the click, which he did. He then said that that player was a Zulu. And he gave me a meaningful look.

Exactly what I was supposed to infer from that look mystifies me. I have no idea what he was getting at. And it’s too late to ask him about it now because he died a number of years ago. Anyway, I bring it up because of the recent troubles in South Africa, which seem to involve Zulus. Maybe some day I will learn what Ace was getting at.

Comments

[Charles N. Steele]

I don’t have an answer. But maybe this is one of those things where we hope we never find out.