Kraal

An illustration of a kraal near Bulawayo in the 19th century.
Building an African Kraal (July 1853, X, p.78)[1]
Zulu kraal near Umlazi, Natal

Kraal (also spelled craal or kraul) is an Afrikaans and Dutch word, also used in South African English, for an enclosure for cattle or other livestock, located within a Southern African settlement or village surrounded by a fence of thorn-bush branches, a palisade, mud wall, or other fencing, roughly circular in form. It is similar to a boma in eastern or central Africa.

In Curaçao, another Dutch colony, the enclosure was called "koraal" Which means coral and which in Papiamentu is translated "kura" (still in use today for any enclosed terrain, like a garden).

  1. ^ "Building an African Kraal". The Wesleyan Juvenile Offering: A Miscellany of Missionary Information for Young Persons. X. Wesleyan Missionary Society: 78. July 1853. Retrieved 29 February 2016.