Izinyembezi — tears
Visible sign of grief and disturbance
Izinyembezi, tears, are rendered at the face as a visible sign of grief, mourning, pain, or spiritual disturbance. This is the least metaphysically committed point in the system: it records a bodily expression named in the brief, not a fifth soul part or a universal Zulu doctrine.
Point 4 of 5 in Zulu / Nguni Body-Spirit Complex
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Harriet Ngubane, Body and Mind in Zulu Medicine (scholarly_modern)
The ethnography's attention to bodily signs, illness, affect, and interpretation supports tears as an observed sign; it does not enumerate inyembezi as an independent soul substance.
Axel-Ivar Berglund, Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism (scholarly_modern)
Berglund's symbolic approach supports treating visible bodily signs as relationally meaningful while avoiding a rigid anatomical taxonomy.