Periodically, the older age grades were summoned to the kraals of sub-chieftains, or inDunas, for consultations, assignments, and an induction ceremony that marked their transition from boys to full-fledged adults and warriors, the ukuButbwa. Youths were organised into age groups, with each cohort responsible for certain duties and tribal ceremonies. This was an age grade tradition common among many of the Bantu peoples of the continent's southern region. These innovations in turn drew upon existing tribal customs, such as the iNtanga. Genesis of the impi The Zulu impi is popularly identified with the ascent of, ruler of the relatively small Zulu tribe before its explosion across the landscape of southern Africa, but its earliest shape as a purposeful instrument of statecraft lies in the innovations of the chieftain, according to some historians (Morris 1965). They were systematised radically by the Zulu king, who was then only the exiled illegitimate son of king, but already showing much prowess as a general in the army of king in the Mthethwa- war in the early 1810s. Its beginnings lie far back in historic tribal warfare customs, when groups of armed men called impis battled. However, in English it is often used to refer to a Zulu regiment, which is called an ibutho in Zulu. Impi is a word for any armed body of men.

Its highest development took place under Shaka, initiator of several important organizational, weapons and tactical innovations. The impi was a military formation that transformed the face of southern Africa, on into East and central Africa.

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