Zulu religion centres on the ancestors, the amadlozi or amathongo, who remain members of the household and are addressed at the cattle byre, at the umsamo at the back of the dwelling, and at the graves. Axel-Ivar Berglund's study of Zulu thought sets out how completely the homestead is a religious space. The byre is where the ancestors are, the beast slaughtered for them is chosen and spoken to, and the arrangement of the homestead maps the relations between the living and the dead.
Above them stands uNkulunkulu, the first being and originator, who is not the object of a cult, and uMvelinqangi, the one who came first. The Lord of the Sky, and uNomkhubulwane with the girls' rites associated with her, belong to a separate register concerned with rain and with the fertility of the land.
Two specialists are distinguished and the distinction matters. The isangoma is called by the ancestors through an affliction diagnosed as a calling, trains under an established practitioner, and divines. The inyanga works with medicines and is trained as a craft. The atlas describes both offices and does not set out the initiation, which is not published here, and notes that both are living professions whose practitioners are registered under South African law.