THE GREAT INGOMBOCO
After this there was quiet until the Feast of the First-fruits was
ended. But few people were killed at this feast, though there was a
great _Ingomboco_, or witch-hunt, and many were smelt out by the
witch-doctors as working magic against the king. Now things had come to
this pass in Zululand—that the whole people cowered before the
witch-doctors. No man might sleep safe, for none knew but that on the
morrow he would be touched by the wand of an _Isanusi_, as we name a
finder of witches, and led away to his death. For awhile Chaka said
nothing, and so long as the doctors smelt out those only whom he wished
to get rid of—and they were many—he was well pleased. But when they
began to work for their own ends, and to do those to death whom he did
not desire to kill, he grew angry. Yet the custom of the land was that
he whom the witch-doctor touched must die, he and all his house;
therefore the king was in a cleft stick, for he scarcely dared to save
even those whom he loved. One night I came to doctor him, for he was
sick in his mind. On that very day there had been an _Ingomboco_, and
five of the bravest captains of the army had been smelt out by the
_Abangoma_, the witch-finders, together with many others. All had been
destroyed, and men had been sent to kill the wives and children of the
dead. Now Chaka was very angry at this slaying, and opened his heart to
me.
“The witch-doctors rule in Zululand, and not I, Mopo, son of Makedama,”
he said to me. “Where, then, is it to end? Shall I myself be smelt out
and slain? These _Isanusis_ are too strong for me; they lie upon the
land like the shadow of night. Tell me, how may I be free of them?”
“Those who walk the Bridge of Spears, O king, fall off into Nowhere,” I
answered darkly; “even witch-doctors cannot keep a footing on that
bridge. Has not a witch-doctor a heart that can cease to beat? Has he
not blood that can be made to flow?”
Chaka looked at me strangely. “Thou art a bold man who darest to speak
thus to me, Mopo,” he said. “Dost thou not know that it is sacrilege to
touch an _Isanusi?_”
“I speak that which is in the king’s mind,” I answered. “Hearken, O
king! It is indeed sacrilege to touch a true _Isanusi_, but what if the
_Isanusi_ be a liar? What if he smell out falsely, bringing those to
death who are innocent of evil? Is it then sacrilege to bring him to
that end which he has given to many another? Say, O king!”
“Good words!” answered Chaka. “Now tell me, son of Makedama, how may
this matter be put to proof?”
Then I leaned forward, whispering into the ear of the Black One, and he
nodded heavily.
Thus I spoke then, because I, too, saw the evil of the _Isanusis_, I
who knew their secrets. Also, I feared for my own life and for the
lives of all those who were dear to me. For they hated me as one
instructed in their magic, one who had the seeing eye and the hearing
ear.
One morning thereafter a new thing came to pass in the royal kraal, for
the king himself ran out, crying aloud to all people to come and see
the evil that had been worked upon him by a wizard. They came together
and saw this. On the door-posts of the gateway of the _Intunkulu_, the
house of the king, were great smears of blood. The knees of men strong
in the battle trembled when they saw it; women wailed aloud as they
wail over the dead; they wailed because of the horror of the omen.
“Who has done this thing?” cried Chaka in a terrible voice. “Who has
dared to bewitch the king and to strike blood upon his house?”
There was no answer, and Chaka spoke again. “This is no little matter,”
he said, “to be washed away with the blood of one or two and be
forgotten. The man who wrought it shall not die alone or travel with a
few to the world of spirits. All his tribe shall go with him, down to
the baby in his hut and cattle in his kraal! Let messengers go out east
and west, and north and south, and summon the witch-doctors from every
quarter! Let them summon the captains from every regiment and the
headmen from every kraal! On the tenth day from now the circle of the
_Ingomboco_ must be set, and there shall be such a smelling out of
wizards and of witches as has not been known in Zululand!”
So the messengers went out to do the bidding of the king, taking the
names of those who should be summoned from the lips of the indunas, and
day by day people flocked up to the gates of the royal kraal, and,
creeping on their knees before the majesty of the king, praised him
aloud. But he vouchsafed an answer to none. One noble only he caused to
be killed, because he carried in his hand a stick of the royal red
wood, which Chaka himself had given him in bygone years.[1]
[1] This beautiful wood is known in Natal as “red ivory.”—ED.
On the last night before the forming of the _Ingomboco_, the
witch-doctors, male and female, entered the kraal. There were a hundred
and a half of them, and they were made hideous and terrible with the
white bones of men, with bladders of fish and of oxen, with fat of
wizards, and with skins of snakes. They walked in silence till they
came in front of the _Intunkulu_, the royal house; then they stopped
and sang this song for the king to hear:—
We have come, O king, we have come from the caves and the rocks and the
swamps,
To wash in the blood of the slain;
We have gathered our host from the air as vultures are gathered in war
When they scent the blood of the slain.
We come not alone, O king: with each Wise One there passes a ghost,
Who hisses the name of the doomed.
We come not alone, for we are the sons and Indunas of Death,
And he guides our feet to the doomed.
Red rises the moon o’er the plain, red sinks the sun in the west,
Look, wizards, and bid them farewell!
We count you by hundreds, you who cried for a curse on the king.
Ha! soon shall we bid _you_ farewell!
Then they were silent, and went in silence to the place appointed for
them, there to pass the night in mutterings and magic. But those who
were gathered together shivered with fear when they heard their words,
for they knew well that many a man would be switched with the gnu’s
tail before the sun sank once more. And I, too, trembled, for my heart
was full of fear. Ah! my father, those were evil days to live in when
Chaka ruled, and death met us at every turn! Then no man might call his
life his own, or that of his wife or child, or anything. All were the
king’s, and what war spared that the witch-doctors took.
The morning dawned heavily, and before it was well light the heralds
were out summoning all to the king’s _Ingomboco_. Men came by hundreds,
carrying short sticks only—for to be seen armed was death—and seated
themselves in the great circle before the gates of the royal house. Oh!
their looks were sad, and they had little stomach for eating that
morning, they who were food for death. They seated themselves; then
round them on the outside of the circle gathered knots of warriors,
chosen men, great and fierce, armed with kerries only. These were the
slayers.
When all was ready, the king came out, followed by his indunas and by
me. As he appeared, wrapped in the kaross of tiger-skins and towering a
head higher than any man there, all the multitude—and it was many as
the game on the hills—cast themselves to earth, and from every lip
sharp and sudden went up the royal salute of _Bayéte_. But Chaka took
no note; his brow was cloudy as a mountain-top. He cast one glance at
the people and one at the slayers, and wherever his eye fell men turned
grey with fear. Then he stalked on, and sat himself upon a stool to the
north of the great ring looking toward the open space.
For awhile there was silence; then from the gates of the women’s
quarters came a band of maidens arrayed in their beaded
dancing-dresses, and carrying green branches in their hands. As they
came, they clapped their hands and sang softly:—
We are the heralds of the king’s feast. Ai! Ai!
Vultures shall eat it. Ah! Ah!
It is good—it is good to die for the king!
They ceased, and ranged themselves in a body behind us. Then Chaka held
up his hand, and there was a patter of running feet. Presently from
behind the royal huts appeared the great company of the _Abangoma_, the
witch-doctors—men to the right and women to the left. In the left hand
of each was the tail of a vilderbeeste, in the right a bundle of
assegais and a little shield. They were awful to see, and the bones
about them rattled as they ran, the bladders and the snake-skins
floated in the air behind them, their faces shone with the fat of
anointing, their eyes started like the eyes of fishes, and their lips
twitched hungrily as they glared round the death-ring. Ha! ha! little
did those evil children guess who should be the slayers and who should
be the slain before that sun sank!
On they came, like a grey company of the dead. On they came in silence
broken only by the patter of their feet and the dry rattling of their
bony necklets, till they stood in long ranks before the Black One.
Awhile they stood thus, then suddenly every one of them thrust forward
the little shield in his hand, and with a single voice they cried,
“Hail, Father!”
“Hail, my children!” answered Chaka.
“What seekest thou, Father?” they cried again. “Blood?”
“The blood of the guilty,” he answered.
They turned and spoke each to each; the company of the men spoke to the
company of the women.
“The Lion of the Zulu seeks blood.”
“He shall be fed!” screamed the women.
“The Lion of the Zulu smells blood.”
“He shall see it!” screamed the women.
“His eyes search out the wizards.”
“He shall count their dead!” screamed the women.
“Peace!” cried Chaka. “Waste not the hours in talk, but to the work.
Hearken! Wizards have bewitched me! Wizards have dared to smite blood
upon the gateways of the king. Dig in the burrows of the earth and find
them, ye rats! Fly through the paths of the air and find them, ye
vultures! Smell at the gates of the people and name them, ye jackals!
ye hunters in the night! Drag them from the caves if they be hidden,
from the distance if they be fled, from the graves if they be dead. To
the work! to the work! Show them to me truly, and your gifts shall be
great; and for them, if they be a nation, they shall be slain. Now
begin. Begin by companies of ten, for you are many, and all must be
finished ere the sun sink.”
“It shall be finished, Father,” they answered.
Then ten of the women stood forward, and at their head was the most
famous witch-doctress of that day—an aged woman named Nobela, a woman
to whose eyes the darkness was no evil, whose scent was keen as a
dog’s, who heard the voices of the dead as they cried in the night, and
spoke truly of what she heard. All the other _Isanusis_, male and
female, sat down in a half-moon facing the king, but this woman drew
forward, and with her came nine of her sisterhood. They turned east and
west, north and south, searching the heavens; they turned east and
west, north and south, searching the earth; they turned east and west,
north and south, searching the hearts of men. Then they crept round and
round the great ring like cats; then they threw themselves upon the
earth and smelt it. And all the time there was silence, silence deep as
midnight, and in it men hearkened to the beating of their hearts; only
now and again the vultures shrieked in the trees.
At length Nobela spoke:—
“Do you smell him, sisters?”
“We smell him,” they answered.
“Does he sit in the east, sisters?”
“He sits in the east,” they answered.
“Is he the son of a stranger, sisters?”
“He is the son of a stranger.”
Then they crept nearer, crept on their hands and knees, till they were
within ten paces of where I sat among the indunas near to the king. The
indunas looked on each other and grew grey with fear; and for me, my
father, my knees were loosened and my marrow turned to water in my
bones. For I knew well who was that son of a stranger of whom they
spoke. It was I, my father, I who was about to be smelt out; and if I
was smelt out I should be killed with all my house, for the king’s oath
would scarcely avail me against the witch-doctors. I looked at the
fierce faces of the _Isanusis_ before me, as they crept, crept like
snakes. I glanced behind and saw the slayers grasping their kerries for
the deed of death, and I say I felt like one for whom the bitterness is
overpast. Then I remembered the words which the king and I had
whispered together of the cause for which this _Ingomboco_ was set, and
hope crept back to me like the first gleam of the dawn upon a stormy
night. Still I did not hope overmuch, for it well might happen that the
king had but set a trap to catch me.
Now they were quite near and halted.
“Have we dreamed falsely, sisters?” asked Nobela, the aged.
“What we dreamed in the night we see in the day,” they answered.
“Shall I whisper his name in your ears, sisters?”
They lifted their heads from the ground like snakes and nodded, and as
they nodded the necklets of bones rattled on their skinny necks. Then
they drew their heads to a circle, and Nobela thrust hers into the
centre of the circle and said a word.
“Ha! ha!” they laughed, “we hear you! His is the name. Let him be named
by it in the face of Heaven, him and all his house; then let him hear
no other name forever!”
And suddenly they sprang up and rushed towards me, Nobela, the aged
_Isanusi_, at their head. They leaped at me, pointing to me with the
tails of the vilderbeestes in their hands. Then Nobela switched me in
the face with the tail of the beast, and cried aloud:—
“Greeting, Mopo, son of Makedama! Thou art the man who smotest blood on
the door-posts of the king to bewitch the king. Let thy house be
stamped flat!”
I saw her come, I felt the blow on my face as a man feels in a dream. I
heard the feet of the slayers as they bounded forward to hale me to the
dreadful death, but my tongue clave to the roof of my mouth—I could not
say a word. I glanced at the king, and, as I did so, I thought that I
heard him mutter: “Near the mark, not in it.”
Then he held up his spear, and all was silence. The slayers stopped in
their stride, the witch-doctors stood with outstretched arms, the world
of men was as though it had been frozen into sleep.
“Hold!” he said. “Stand aside, son of Makedama, who art named an
evildoer! Stand aside, thou, Nobela, and those with thee who have named
him evildoer! What? Shall I be satisfied with the life of one dog?
Smell on, ye vultures, company by company, smell on! For the day the
labour, at night the feast!”
So I rose, astonished, and stood on one side. The witch-doctresses also
stood on one side, wonderstruck, since no such smelling out as this had
been seen in the land. For till this hour, when a man was swept with
the gnu’s tail of the _Isanusi_ that was the instant of his death. Why,
then, men asked in their hearts, was the death delayed? The
witch-doctors asked it also, and looked to the king for light, as men
look to a thunder-cloud for the flash. But from the Black One there
came no word.
So we stood on one side, and a second party of the _Isanusi_ women
began their rites. As the others had done, so they did, and yet they
worked otherwise, for this is the fashion of the _Isanusis_, that no
two of them smell out in the same way. And this party swept the faces
of certain of the king’s councillors, naming them guilty of the
witch-work.
“Stand ye on one side!” said the king to those who had been smelt out;
“and ye who have hunted out their wickedness, stand ye with those who
named Mopo, son of Makedama. It well may be that all are guilty.”
So these stood on one side also, and a third party took up the tale.
And they named certain of the great generals, and were in turn bidden
to stand on one side together with those whom they had named.
So it went on through all the day. Company by company the women doomed
their victims, till there were no more left in their number, and were
commanded to stand aside together with those whom they had doomed. Then
the male _Isanusis_ began, and I could see well that by this time their
hearts were fearful, for they smelt a snare. Yet the king’s bidding
must be done, and though their magic failed them here, victims must be
found. So they smelt out this man and that man till we were a great
company of the doomed, who sat in silence on the ground looking at each
other with sad eyes and watching the sun, which we deemed our last,
climb slowly down the sky. And ever as the day waned those who were
left untried of the witch-doctors grew madder and more fierce. They
leaped into the air, they ground their teeth, and rolled upon the
ground. They drew forth snakes and devoured them alive, they shrieked
out to the spirits and called upon the names of ancient kings.
At length it drew on to evening, and the last company of the
witch-doctors did their work, smelling out some of the keepers of the
_Emposeni_, the house of the women. But there was one man of their
company, a young man and a tall, who held back and took no share in the
work, but stood by himself in the centre of the great circle, fixing
his eyes on the heavens.
And when this company had been ordered to stand aside also together
with those whom they had smelt out, the king called aloud to the last
of the witch-doctors, asking him of his name and tribe, and why he
alone did not do his office.
“My name is Indabazimbi, the son of Arpi, O king,” he answered, “and I
am of the tribe of the Maquilisini. Does the king bid me to smell out
him of whom the spirits have spoken to me as the worker of this deed?”
“I bid thee,” said the king.
Then the young man Indabazimbi stepped straight forward across the
ring, making no cries or gestures, but as one who walks from his gate
to the cattle kraal, and suddenly he struck the king in the face with
the tail in his hand, saying, “I smell out the _Heavens above me!_”[2]
[2] A Zulu title for the king.—ED.
Now a great gasp of wonder went up from the multitude, and all looked
to see this fool killed by torture. But Chaka rose and laughed aloud.
“Thou hast said it,” he cried, “and thou alone! Listen, ye people! _I_
did the deed! _I_ smote blood upon the gateways of my kraal; with my
own hand I smote it, that I might learn who were the true doctors and
who were the false! Now it seems that in the land of the Zulu there is
one true doctor—this young man—and of the false, look at them and count
them, they are like the leaves. See! there they stand, and by them
stand those whom they have doomed—the innocent whom, with their wives
and children, they have doomed to the death of the dog. Now I ask you,
my people, what reward shall be given to them?”
Then a great roar went up from all the multitude, “Let them die, O
king!”
“Ay!” he answered. “Let them die as liars should!”
Now the _Isanusis_, men and women, screamed aloud in fear, and cried
for mercy, tearing themselves with their nails, for least of all things
did they desire to taste of their own medicine of death. But the king
only laughed the more.
“Hearken ye!” he said, pointing to the crowd of us who had been smelt
out. “Ye were doomed to death by these false prophets. Now glut
yourselves upon them. Slay them, my children! slay them all! wipe them
away! stamp them out!—all! all, save this young man!”
Then we bounded from the ground, for our hearts were fierce with hate
and with longing to avenge the terrors we had borne. The doomed slew
the doomers, while from the circle of the _Ingomboco_ a great roar of
laughter went up, for men rejoiced because the burden of the
witch-doctors had fallen from them.
At last it was done, and we drew back from the heap of the dead.
Nothing was heard there now—no more cries or prayers or curses. The
witch-finders travelled the path on which they had set the feet of
many. The king drew near to look. He came alone, and all who had done
his bidding bent their heads and crept past him, praising him as they
went. Only I stood still, covered, as I was with mire and filth, for I
did not fear to stand in the presence of the king. Chaka drew near, and
looked at the piled-up heaps of the slain and the cloud of dust that
yet hung over them.
“There they lie, Mopo,” he said. “There lie those who dared to prophesy
falsely to the king! That was a good word of thine, Mopo, which taught
me to set the snare for them; yet methought I saw thee start when
Nobela, queen of the witch-doctresses, switched death on thee. Well,
they are dead, and the land breathes more freely; and for the evil
which they have done, it is as yonder dust, that shall soon sink again
to earth and there be lost.”
Thus he spoke, then ceased—for lo! something moved beneath the cloud of
dust, something broke a way through the heap of the dead. Slowly it
forced its path, pushing the slain this way and that, till at length it
stood upon its feet and tottered towards us—a thing dreadful to look
on. The shape was the shape of an aged woman, and even through the
blood and mire I knew her. It was Nobela, she who had doomed me, she
whom but now I had smitten to earth, but who had come back from the
dead to curse me!
On she tottered, her apparel hanging round her in red rags, a hundred
wounds upon her face and form. I saw that she was dying, but life still
flickered in her, and the fire of hate burned in her snaky eyes.
“Hail, king!” she screamed.
“Peace, liar!” he answered; “thou art dead!”
“Not yet, king. I heard thy voice and the voice of yonder dog, whom I
would have given to the jackals, and I will not die till I have spoken.
I smelt him out this morning when I was alive; now that I am as one
already dead, I smell him out again. He shall bewitch thee with blood
indeed, Chaka—he and Unandi, thy mother, and Baleka, thy wife. Think of
my words when the assegai reddens before thee for the last time, king!
Farewell!” And she uttered a great cry and rolled upon the ground dead.
“The witch lies hard and dies hard,” said the king carelessly, and
turned upon his heel. But those words of dead Nobela remained fixed in
his memory, or so much of them as had been spoken of Unandi and Baleka.
There they remained like seeds in the earth, there they grew to bring
forth fruit in their season.
And thus ended the great _Ingomboco_ of Chaka, the greatest _Ingomboco_
that ever was held in Zululand.