Zulu

Hundreds of refugees today huddled in churches and schools in Natal province after at least 25 people died in savage fighting among Zulus armed with guns and knives, authorities said. Local reporters described the Edendale area of the southeastern province as a "valley of death" following the battle between rival groups for control of several villages. Bodies were seen lying in village streets and on hillsides in the rugged countryside. Police and hospital officials also said at least 21 people died and 32 were critically injured in two days of bloody clashes around Edendale.

What's good enough for Nelson Mandela is good enough for Pennsauken. While district officials don't require their invited performers to have played before presidents, they certainly couldn't turn down an offer by Thuli Dumakude, a Zulu singer, dancer and performer, to come to its eight elementary schools to share her program of cultural music and customs of South Africa. And the powerful voice that rang out for Mandela at his 75th birthday party and inauguration lost none of its magic for Pennsauken school children yesterday.

THE RICH VOCAL HARMONIES of South African a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo fill the Wilson Concert Hall at Glassboro State College. The group, which gained national recognition in 1986 for singing on Paul Simon's "Graceland" album, performed South African and Zulu folk songs Sunday as part of the college's Black History Month observance.

Kanya (left), who made her public debut at the Philadelphia Zoo yesterday, relaxes while her half siblings, Kolwa and Tandi (right), ham it up. Kanya is only the second white lion cub born in the Western Hemisphere. Her name means bright or shining in Zulu.

Here's the Penn Museum's top 10 list of don't-miss items from its old and new African galleries: Pende mask: Masks tell stories. The pende mask from the Democratic Republic of Congo warns of supernatural penalties for misbehavior, including the appearance of facial paralysis. Zulu love letter: Instead of writing notes, Zulu women wore a code of shapes and colors pinned to their clothing. Nkisi N'kondi: A true must-see, the dozens of nails in this statue symbolize offerings made in return for spiritual aid. Royal ancestral head: This solid bronze sculpture is an altar piece from Benin.

TOKYO 7 SICKENED AFTER TV DRINKING BOUT Seven Japanese women were rushed to the hospital with alcohol poisoning after a drinking bout recorded for a television variety show, a spokesman for the TV network said today. Ten women, ages 21 to 44, were downing whiskey, beer or wine yesterday in a variety-show contest called "Drinking Battle Royal. " They had to finish each glass in under three minutes and take a five- to 10-minute break before the next one. MADRAS, INDIA 110 DIE IN 3-VEHICLE ACCIDENT At least 110 peole were killed in southern India yesterday when three vehicles burst into flames after an oil truck trying to overtake a tractor- trailer collided with a bus. The Press Trust of India news agency said 23 other people were hospitalized following the accident 30 miles south of Madras.

After a song that included the lyrics, "Many dead, tonight it could be you," Ladysmith Black Mambazo sang one called "Rejoice. " This juxtaposition, definitely one that was planned, underlined the resiliency of the human spirit that has surfaced again and again in the creative music of South Africa. Last night, at a packed Grand Opera House, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the nine-piece, all-male a cappella choir, tried, as it has for about 25 years, to capture some of this spirit and release it to its audience.

Black factional war spread to South Africa's biggest township today when Zulu migrant workers chanting battle cries attacked a Soweto railway station, triggering battles in which at least four people died. Police tear gassed the hundreds of combatants at Inkanzane station. Officers were assaulted with gunfire and firebombs, police Col. Tienie Halgryn said. He said at least two people were killed and 41 injured in the fighting after five days of conflict in other townships around Johannesburg that has cost at least 143 lives.

Long barred from elections, denied the rights of citizenship and their political organs shut down, banned and silenced, South Africa's blacks will begin voting April 26. Two outcomes seem sure from this overdue exercise in majority rule. One, the pigment of the nation's leadership will change. Two, the likely new president will be Nelson Mandela, the heroic stalwart of the African National Congress, who served a prison term longer than many of the angry, young blacks who today find him insufficiently vengeful.

If it hadn't been for Paul Simon, we might not know about mbanqanga. Simon's groundbreaking Graceland album unleashed to Western ears the hard- driving rhythms and South African pop vocals, better known as township jive. Now, the man who created the vocal style more than three decades ago is making his first Philadelphia appearance. Simon "Mahlathini" Nkabinde stars at the New Arch Street Empire club, 720 Arch St., tonight at 10 with his female back-up, the Mahotella Queens and the Makgona Tsohle band.

My wife, Sally, and I had taken many volunteer adventure trips since our retirement in 2004, but we knew that 12 weeks in South Africa was going to be special, working with disadvantaged kids; touring an exotic country; and taking a real safari. We braced ourselves for the long trip, and we were weary but happy to finally arrive by overnight train in Port Elizabeth, our home for the next month. We soon met Mama Gladys, inspiration, founder, and mother to 30-plus kids at the Door of Hope Orphanage.

Here's the Penn Museum's top 10 list of don't-miss items from its old and new African galleries: Pende mask: Masks tell stories. The pende mask from the Democratic Republic of Congo warns of supernatural penalties for misbehavior, including the appearance of facial paralysis. Zulu love letter: Instead of writing notes, Zulu women wore a code of shapes and colors pinned to their clothing. Nkisi N'kondi: A true must-see, the dozens of nails in this statue symbolize offerings made in return for spiritual aid. Royal ancestral head: This solid bronze sculpture is an altar piece from Benin.

Brighten the corner Where you are Where you are. Three hundred of us held hands and sang this sweet, simple song. The woman holding my left hand, her face smooth and brown as a sculpture under her headwrap, showed me how to do the steps that everyone in the congregation already knew. When she murmured, "You got it," I was pleased beyond saying. The thrilling two-hour concert combined the choirs of the Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church and its sister church in South Africa, the JL Zwane Presbyterian Church.

It's been 20 years now since the South African a cappella group Ladysmith Black Mambazo collaborated with Paul Simon, causing a sensation and creating controversy. More important, it's been 16 years since Nelson Mandela was freed, and Mambazo has continued to preach a spirit of national pride and reconciliation to audiences the world over. Toward the end of Friday's McCarter Theater show in Princeton, when the seven-man group raised its fists in the air and sang "Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika," the South African national anthem, the spiritual and musical energy was palpable among the sold-out crowd.

THE KINFOLK of Appalachia may have been able to block a reality-show redo of "The Beverly Hillbillies," but the kinderfolk of the Amish have not been so fortunate with UPN's new reality series, "Amish in the City. " The controversial show will premiere with a two-hour episode July 28. "Amish in the City" will follow the stories of five Amish young adults during the coming-of-age experience "rumspringa" (from the Pennsylvania Dutch word, meaning "running wild") in a show we'll describe as "rumspringa" meets "The Real World.

Graceland rises out of South Africa's stark plains like a five-story Victorian grain elevator. It's got a cowboy bar, a Cajun restaurant, and an Early American hotel where the doorman speaks Zulu and is dressed like Uncle Sam. So what if the Graceland Hotel Casino and Country Club doesn't immediately evoke images of Elvis? This is how America looks through a South African prism, all wacky and weird like some sort of drug-induced slide show. "A lot of South Africans have never been to America, so when they come here, they get to experience a bit of the spirit of America," said David Tshenye, the doorman wearing the red-white-and-blue top hat. "Howdy, partner!"

In a nation where sports were historically divided along racial lines, soccer has long been the bastion of blackpeople. So, it is no surprise that the South African team is best known by its affectionate Zulu nickname, Bafana Bafana . . . "the boys. " But for nearly three decades until 1992, South Africa was banned from international play because of apartheid. Since then, with the encouragement of enthusiastic fans, among them President Nelson Mandela, Bafana Bafana have developed into one of the strongest teams in Africa, winning one African championship in the '90s and finishing second once.

"Didn't think enough people maybe heard 'em the first time. " - Rocker Jonathan Richman, on why he re-recorded several of his old songs for his latest disc, "Surrender to Jonathan" So you're a 13-year-old guy and you're on a road trip and the topless dancers have just begun to perform . . . And then you remember the gentleman standing next to you, likewise admiring the young lovelies, is your father. Daaad! It can't be easy for Britain's young Prince Harry, touring southern Africa this week with his pop, Prince Charles.

I've seen enough field hockey in the last week to last a lifetime. I didn't even know men played field hockey until South Africa Broadcasting Corp. began its coverage of the Atlanta Games. But South Africa has one of the 12 men's teams contending for Olympic gold, and suddenly the players of an obscure sport have become national television stars. It's one of the charming aspects of SABC's Olympic coverage that sets it apart from American broadcasts. South Africans get to see the Olympics in their raw, unedited form.

The Zulu royal palace here is a four-bedroom, one-story brick house with a gullied gravel driveway, a chicken coop out back and a large bare spot on the lawn where cars are parked. It is regal only by comparison with the dwellings that surround it: a vast slum of sheet metal shacks and simple houses, a township called KwaMashu where blacks were relocated from nearby Durban during the apartheid era. Inside the palace, the walls are bare and the furnishings are few. Two police officers with Belgian assault rifles watch a soap opera.