In recorded interviews, the author, an official with the National Colonial Civil Service, assembled a collection of notes on the traditions and customs of the Zulu and neighbouring peoples.

This multi-volume series is an indispensable research tool for scholars working on the history and ethnography of the Zulu kingdom and ne3ighbouring states. James Stuart was an official in the Natal colonial civil service in the 1890's and early years of the twentieth century. In meticulously recorded interviews with hundred or informants, the great majority of them Africans, he assembled a vast and unique collection of notes on the traditions and customs of the Zulu and neighbouring peoples. Volume 5 contains statements from another 40 of the informants whom Stuart interviewed in the first quarter of the 20th century. The James Stuart Archive Volume v, by the late Colin Webb and by John Wright was awarded the Text Award by the African Studies Association in 2003.