The White Hecatomb Part 8

Near the end of the first year her baby,--"Little Tobe,"--was born, and then for a time she was perfectly happy. The baby came just at the end of spring. During the previous four months she had not been expected to work, and she had a nice long rest to look forward to before the hoeing of the maize and millet-fields would commence.

Sikulume was a man whom every one found it easy to get on with, and he made in every respect a capital husband. He was kind to his wives, and they were very fond of him. He was rich, and the skin bags and calabashes at his kraal were full of milk. Winter and summer, food was plentiful, work was easy, and the three wives were not jealous of each other. Truly, Madilenda's lines were cast in comparatively pleasant places.

Sikulume's kraal was situated in a deep valley through which one of the tributaries of the Kenira river runs. He was a Hlubi Kafir. Living in one of the territories administered by the Government of the Cape Colony, he had nothing to fear from the rapacity of the chief, or the malice of the witch-doctor.

Little Tobe grew rapidly both in stature and intelligence. His father was fond and proud of him, and his mother not only thought, but knew him to be the finest baby in the world. She fastened charms around his neck, the seeds of the "rhiza" to keep away convulsions, and a piece of "mooti" or medicinal wood as a preventive against illness generally.

Besides these, Madilenda's father gave her the tooth of a leopard, which she hung next to the "mooti" for the purpose of making her boy brave.

Mamagobatyana, the "great wife," was very clever as a maker of mats.

She used to send her daughters down to the banks of the Kenira river in the autumn, before the gra.s.s-fires swept over the country, to collect green rushes--of which they brought back great bundles. Of these rushes she would construct mats which, for excellence of workmans.h.i.+p, were renowned throughout the district. As soon as she had three or four mats completed she would take them up to the trader at the Mandilini, and dispose of them, obtaining sugar, bright-coloured handkerchiefs, bra.s.s ornaments, and beads in exchange.

One day, when little Tobe was about a year old, Mamagobatyana returned from the trader's, laden with treasures. She had carried up and disposed of an unusually large number of mats, and with the proceeds had purchased, amongst other things, twelve yards of print of a particularly striking pattern and hue. With this she meant to have a dress made.

She had never yet worn such a garment, but a woman from a mission station, who was visiting her relations at a neighbouring kraal, was wearing a dress made of similar material. This woman was of about Mamagobatyana's age and build, and the sight of her dress had kindled in Mamagobatyana's soul a strong desire to possess a similar garment. Thus when she saw the material at the trader's she at once purchased sufficient for her purpose. The other woman happened to be in the shop at the same time, and she agreed to cut out and make the dress for a reasonable remuneration. Mamagobatyana, however, was so proud of her purchase that she could not bear to relinquish the material to the modiste before exhibiting it to Madilenda and Nozika, so she tied it up in a bundle, placed it under her arm, and bore it away in triumph to her kraal.

The day was cold, and most of the people were indoors warming their hands at the little fires lit in the centre of the different huts.

Around these fires men, women, and children crouched on their hams, keeping their heads as low as possible, so as to be out of the upper stratum of thick smoke, which was sharply defined from the lower zone, about a yard thick, of quite clear air. When you enter a Kafir hut in which there is a fire, you must always keep your head low, or else you will be stifled. The greener the wood that happens to be burning is, the denser the smoke and the thicker the smoke-zone will be. Sometimes in damp weather you may have to lie down on the ground to get a breath of clear air, and from within three inches of the tip of the nose through which you are breathing comfortably, you may watch the sharply-defined and undulating under-surface of an opaque cloud of acrid, stinging smoke.

At the kraal of a polygamous Kafir each wife has her own particular hut, which is, in a very real sense, her castle, and the door of which she can shut against all except her husband; and even against him sometimes.

When, however, the wives of a family live on fairly good terms mutually, they often exchange visits, and enjoy a considerable amount of reciprocal friendly intercourse.

On the occasion when Mamagobatyana returned to her kraal, proud in the possession of the twelve yards of print, she found no fire lit in her own hut, her children having gone to the hut of Madilenda, where they were sitting playing with little Tobe. She therefore decided to remain in Madilendas hut, and there dry her damp blanket and exhibit her purchases, whilst a fire was being lit by her daughters in her own dwelling.

Mamagobatyana was stout and consequently had some difficulty in stooping; more especially after unwonted exercise. When, therefore, she entered the hut through the low doorway, she found her head surrounded by an atmosphere of pungent smoke arising from the combustion of damp sneeze-wood. This made her eyes smart excessively, and caused her to cough and gasp.

She sat down on the ground close to the fire, and handed the parcel containing the dress material to Madilenda, asking her to open it. This was soon done, and the material, in yard-length folds, was laid out for admiration on a clean mat at the other side of the fire.

Just then Mamagobatyana got another bad fit of coughing. Between her gasps she begged for a drink of water which Madilenda, after placing little Tobe on the ground, went to fetch in a cleft calabash.

Now, little Tobe was an extremely lively child, and was of an inquiring turn of mind. The thing of all others that had a special attraction for him was fire. Repeated burnings and many slaps had not abated this attraction. Whenever left to himself in the vicinity of a fire he would endeavour to seize one of the burning sticks and drag it away to play with. On two occasions he had narrowly avoided setting fire to the hut by this means. On the present occasion, no sooner had his mother left him to himself upon the ground, than he seized from the fire an attractive brand, one end of which was glowing charcoal, and turned to investigate the bright-coloured print which was close at hand.

Madilenda returned with the water, and saw, to her horror, that Tobe had laid the fire-stick on the print, six or seven folds of which had been already burnt through. She s.n.a.t.c.hed away the firebrand, and quenched the burning material with the water which she had brought for Mamagobatyana. The dress, of course, was completely ruined.

Mamagobatyana broke out into fierce lamentations and tears of rage. She refused to be comforted. In a few moments she went off to her own hut, muttering threats and calling little Tobe all the abusive names she could think of. Little Tobe, much to his astonishment, received from his mother a spanking more severe than any he had previously suffered.

_Two_.

About two months after the ruination of Mamagobatyana's dress by little Tobe, measles of a virulent type broke out among the native children, and nearly decimated the kraals. It was not so much the disease itself, as its after effects, that were so fatal. The children usually got over the measles easily enough, but they were allowed directly afterwards to run about naked, no matter how cold the weather might be. Inflammation of the lungs then often supervened, usually with a fatal result.

Little Tobe got the disease in the first instance in a very mild form, but just at the critical stage of convalescence, very cold, wet weather set in, and he soon developed a bad cough. Soon afterwards he began to pine, and lose his appet.i.te. His eyes became unnaturally large and bright, and he evidently suffered severely from pains in his poor little chest. Sometimes the cough nearly left him, but at the least recurrence of unfavourable weather another violent cold would ensue.

A "gqira" (native doctor) was sent for, and a goat killed for his entertainment. He made an infusion of ashes obtained from burnt roots of different sorts, frogs' feet, baboons' hair, lizards' tails, and other items included in his grotesque pharmacopoeia, and with this poor little Tobe was heavily dosed. He then hung some infallible charms tied up in a little skin bag around the invalid's neck by a string made of twisted hairs from the tail of the "ubulunga" [see Note] cow. Next morning, after promising a speedy recovery, he departed, taking a fat ox as his fee. But poor little Tobe became worse and worse; his legs and arms that had been so chubby were now mere skinny sticks, and his ribs were sharply defined under the dry, feverish skin of his thorax. When not coughing he wailed almost incessantly, and he hardly ever slept.

Madilenda grew very thin and hollow-eyed herself, and she went her weary way the picture of utter misery. Sikulume was very much distressed at the poor little boy's plight, and he sent to a distance for another "gqira," a most celebrated pract.i.tioner. Upon arriving at the kraal this one required a fat black ox to be killed, with the blood of which he sprinkled every member of Sikulume's family, poor little Tobe coming in for an extra share.

After speaking in the most slighting terms of the former doctor's treatment, he made a powder of the burnt bones of several kinds of snakes and birds. He then made small incisions with a sharpened stick across the chest, and around the neck, arms, and body of the patient, and into these rubbed the powder. After this he applied a plaster of fresh cow-dung to little Tobe's chest, and then wrapped him up in the skin of the black ox killed on the previous evening. Then he carried him out of the hut and laid him in the middle of the cattle kraal. This occurred at noon, and until sundown the "gqira" danced and chanted around his patient in the most violent and grotesque manner conceivable.

Just after sundown he fell down in a kind of fit, foaming at the mouth and yelling horribly, and then appeared to go off into a swoon. When he awoke from this he crawled over to where the poor little child was looking out from among his wraps with wondering eyes, inserted his hands between the folds of the skin, and drew forth a lizard about four inches in length. This he held up to view of the admiring and applauding crowd. Here was the cause of the malady, rid of which the child would at once mend. Madilenda wept tears of joy as she released little Tobe from his unsavoury durance.

The "gqira" left next morning with a reputation more firmly established than ever. He took with him two of Sikulume's best cattle.

For about a week after the function described the weather was mild and dry, and little Tobe really appeared to be somewhat better.

Unfortunately, however, the improvement did not last. A cold rain set in, and the cough became worse than ever. The mother then grew desperate; she loved the child so pa.s.sionately that the thought of the possibility of losing him maddened her. The idea that little Tobe had been bewitched had gradually developed in her mind. Among the uncivilised natives, illness, especially in the case of one who is young, is almost always attributed to witchcraft. Some enemy, by means of occult arts, has caused the disease, embodied in a snake, a lizard, or a toad, to enter the body of the sufferer during sleep. The unhappy mother strongly suspected Mamagobatyana of having committed some iniquity of this kind in revenge for the spoiling of her dress. She was confirmed in this idea by an old woman from a neighbouring kraal, who had a spite against Mamagobatyana, and who suggested to Madilenda what she had loner been thinking of. As a matter of fact, however, it had been for some little time whispered throughout the neighbourhood that Mamagobatyana had bewitched little Tobe.

Here and there among the Hlubi kraals are to be found the dwellings of Basuto waifs who have drifted over the Maluti and Drakensberg mountains to find a refuge from deserved punishment or despotic oppression. Among the natives an alien is often believed to be an adept in magic more effective than that practised by their own local tribal doctors, and the sorcery of the Basuto, being a.s.sociated with the awful, mysterious, and cloudy mountains of his (in parts) almost impenetrable land, is held to be very potent indeed.

Now, an old Basuto, named Lotuba, dwelt high up in the valley in which Sikulume's kraal was situated. Lotuba was famed far and near for his skill as a wizard. It was believed that he could reveal the secrets of the past as easily as he could foretell the future. His methods were quite different to those practised by the Hlubi witch-doctors, and consisted princ.i.p.ally of divining through the medium of the "dolossie"

bones. These are the metatarsal and metacarpal bones of sheep, goats, antelopes, and other animals, coloured variously. Lotuba would sit on a mat, gather up two or three dozen of these bones, shake them up together in the corner of his calfskin kaross, and then fling them down on the ground after the manner of dice. From the different combinations formed by the bones as they lay on the ground he would read the answer to any question put to him. It was usual for those consulting him to pay a goat as a fee in advance. In this manner he had acc.u.mulated considerable wealth.

One night Madilenda asked Sikulume to let her take a goat from his flock and drive it up to the kraal of Lotuba, whose advice as to little Tobe she wished to ask for. It happened, however, that Sikulume had reasons of his own for disliking the Basuto doctor, whose kraal, by permission of the chief, was built on what Sikulume considered to be by right his own particular run of pasturage, so he refused Madilenda's request, telling her rather roughly that he had had enough of doctors. Madilenda heard him in silence. She sat the whole night through, rocking little Tobe in her lap, and trying to soothe his cough.

It was now mid-winter, and when the frosty dawn glimmered faintly through the latticed door of the hut, the hapless mother arose, wrapped the suffering child warmly in a blanket, stole quietly out, and hurried up the rugged valley towards the dwelling of Lotuba. She had to walk but a little more than a mile, but the road was steep and stony, and she was weak from the effects of long-suffering anxiety and sleeplessness.

Besides she was again _enceinte_; she expected the baby to be born in about two months. Slowly and painfully she climbed her way along the zigzag pathway, sitting down on a stone to rest every now and then.

When she reached Lotuba's kraal the sun had just risen. She did not approach the hut at once, but sat down to rest on the sunny side of the stone goat-enclosure. Here she found a spot sheltered from the keen breeze, so she laid little Tobe down gently upon the ground. The child, protected from the raw air by the thick blanket which was loosely laid over his head, slept soundly, being exhausted from the sufferings of the night.

Madilenda then proceeded to divest herself of all her ornaments. She removed her double bracelets and anklets of cowrie sh.e.l.ls, and the bra.s.s and copper bangles from her arms and legs. From her throat she untied the necklet of goats' teeth strung on twisted sinew. Around her waist was tied a small bundle; this she opened, and thus revealed two brightly-coloured cotton handkerchiefs and a small paper packet containing five silver sixpences and four three-penny pieces. The money had been given to her by her husband, coin by coin, out of the proceeds of the hides which she had from time to time carried up to the trader's and sold.

She spread out one of the handkerchiefs and wrapped the other articles loosely in it; then she lifted the child and walked up the slope to the witch-doctor's hut, in front of which she sat down and waited, trying at the same time to soothe the child, who was now awake, and who wailed pitifully in the intervals between the racking fits of coughing.

After a short time the door of the hut was opened, and Lotuba the witch-doctor appeared. He was an old man, with wizened features and small, bright eyes. His limbs were thin, and he walked with a stoop.

Lotuba stood, wrapped to the throat in a calfskin kaross, and looked intently at Madilenda, who returned his gaze. After a few moments he re-entered the hut, and beckoned to her to follow him. He seated himself on a mat just inside the door, and Madilenda knelt down, sitting on her heels, opposite him on the floor.

"Those who seek my advice," he said, "bring something as payment."

For answer Madilenda held out the little bundle tied in the handkerchief. Lotuba took this, opened it deliberately and examined the contents. Then he tied it up again and hung it to one of the wattles of the hut. Suspended from the central pole was a bag made of the skin of a red mountain cat. This Lotuba took down; then he emptied the "dolossie" bones which it contained into one of the corners of the kaross. Taking a double handful of the bones he flung them down with a sweeping throw on the bare, clay floor.

Bending over the bones with the appearance of one calculating deeply, he kept silence for some little time, and then began to speak in a droning, monotonous, sing-song voice:

"The wife of Sikulume comes in the early morning with her sick child.

She has held it to her breast for many days and nights. It eats not.

It gets thinner day by day. It coughs from the rising of the sun to the falling of the darkness, and again until day comes."

Here he gathered up the bones and again flung them to the ground.

"The delight of the child before it got sick, was to play with fire.

The 'imishologu' (ancestral spirits) meant the child to be one who would sport with danger."

Here he again gathered up the bones, waved them to and fro, and scattered them on the ground. Madilenda sat gazing with wide eyes. Her features were drawn and set. She held the child, which once more slept, tightly to her bosom. The witch-doctor continued:

"The 'great wife' of Sikulume had anger against the child in her heart.

She dreamt a dream which made her fearful. Then she went to the wise woman of the Vinyane, who told her that this child would overcome the sons of her house as the autumn fires overcome the gra.s.s."

Madilenda sat like a statue with eyes aflame. Lotuba threw the bones again, and continued:

"She told her husband of this, and he too feared for the sons of his 'great house'. In the night they talked over the matter, and they determined that the child should die, so they buried the magic medicines that draw the poison-lizard to the side of the sleeper, in the floor of the hut of the child's mother. Soon afterwards the child sickened. He will die before the coming of the spring rains, for no skill can save him."

Madilenda waited for no more. She arose, left the hut, and walked down along the pathway by which she had come, clasping little Tobe to her breaking heart.

After walking a few hundred yards she turned abruptly to the right and ran swiftly along another footpath which led over a saddle to the next valley, in which her brother, Galonkulu, dwelt.