I am a little behind myself, but a couple of weeks ago, was the Umhlanga Festival (or the Reed Dance), this is a festival for all the kingdom’s maidens (women who are less than 21 and haven’t had any children). It goes on for about 4 days, starting on a Thursday, with all the maidens who want to participate being transported to the festival location near the royal enclave in the back of open trucks, which is a bit of an odd sight in the first place. On the Friday the maidens are told where they are to collect reeds, they aim to collect the longest reeds they can. The Saturday is a day of preparation and then on Sunday all the maidens present their reeds to the Queen Mother. This is accompanied by a lot of singing and dancing. The reeds will then be used to repair the royal enclave. The culmination of the festival is on the Monday when all the maidens dance for the king.
It is quite an impressive sight, all the maidens sing and dance in groups with other girls in their community. They move around the stadium field singing and dancing. They are all singing different songs at the same time, so it is quite a cacophony of different sounds and sights. They all were different forms of colourful traditional wear. Later in the afternoon the King arrives with his warriors also in traditional dress and after they have watched the dancing for some time they go down into the field to dance and inspect all the maidens and if the king wants he can pick a new wife…. to add to the 13 he currently has!
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