Shembe, Prophet Isaiah

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0102 MS 380453
Held at	: School of Oriental and African Studies   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Archives/home.html ›
Full title	: Shembe, Prophet Isaiah
Date(s)	: c1932
Level of description	: Collection (fonds)
Extent	: 3 volumes
Name of creator(s)	: Shembe | Isaiah | 1870-1935 | Zulu religious leader

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The Nazareth Baptist Church was founded by Isaiah Shembe, the Zulu religious leader and healer, in Natal in 1910. The amaNazarites are the oldest African independent church in South Africa. For further information see A Vilakazi, Shembe: the revitalization of African Society (1986).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Photocopies of three manuscript notebooks containing chronicles of the Nazareth Baptist Church, written c1932, ranging from accounts of miraculous events to the day to day life of the Church in Inanda, letters to dissident priests and accounts of church finances.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
Zulu

System of arrangement:

Conditions governing access:

Unrestricted.

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented by Dr Elizabeth Gunner in 1986.

Allied Materials

Related material:

The School of Oriental and African Studies holds a file containing photocopies of correspondence of Londa N Shembe (Isaiah Shembe's son) with Professor Bengt Sundkler, 1975 (Ref: MS 249203), and a typescript of the Rev John Langaliba Dube's 'Shembe - a Biography', translated into English by M Yengwa, 1976 (Ref: MS 380082).

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Rachel Kemsley as part of the RSLP AIM25 project. Sources: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/books/shembe/s-index.html
http://www.gospelcom.net/dacb/stories/southafrica/shembe_isiah.html

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
May 2002