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- 26 -being mas justified. 40) This is not surprisingsince most legal norms consist of rules to mhichthere are exceptions. Athough the killing of ahuman being is forbidden by law, there are in allsocieties instances where it i~ in fact permissibleto do so. A person may infact kill another in selfdefence,41) and in cases where a person who hascommitted ~uch crimes as treason, sedition, murder,culpable homicide, rape, robbery,fraud, forgery,etc" resists arrest and attempts to escape. 42)Such cases of justifiable homicide mere also foundin traditional Zululand. A homicide or murdererwho mas caught red-handed was himself killed.Al~oan adulterer caught in flagrante delicto ; a nocturualwizard found in one's home; a thief taken with stolencattle or found in the stock enclosure - all thesewere killed on the spot. 43)When a king died his private body guards were caught,their limbs broken up by force and their dead ordying bodies strewn into the grave in order to keepPt .the royal one company. These people were to be regardedas a "mat" on which the king was to lie. To performthis gruesome ceremony men of strong criminal reputation(ABATHAKATHI ABAKHULU) were requisitioned. Thesehardened criminals were thereafter banished todistant places and never re-admitted into society.44)40)41)42)43)44)(d) . KILLING FOR MEDICINE.Because the King had to be strong medically andmagically, he had to be fortified against his enemiesbythe strongest of medicines, i.e., parts of ahuman body. For doctoring the King in this way,BRYANT, A.T.: op.cit., p. 301Ex Parte Die Minister van Justisie: in S.V. VAN WYK,1967 (l) S.A. 488 (A)Criminal Procedure Act, No. 56 of 1955, Section 37(1)and (2)SCHAPERA, I::rip.cit., p. 210BRYANT,'A.T.: Olden Times in Zululand and Natal, LongmansGreen, Cape Town, 1929 p. 6827/••.••