"It wastes me more
Than were't my picture fashioned out of wax,
Stuck with a magic needle, and then buried
In some foul dunghill."
_The Duchess of Malfy_.
_One_.
For nearly two years after Madilenda came to the kraal of Sikulume as
his third wife, she was fairly happy, Mamagobatyana, the "great wife,"
was neither jealous nor exacting; she was fat and lazy, and took her
highest enjoyment in sleeping in the hot sunshine on the lee-side of the
hut. Nozika, the second wife, had apparently been selected by her
spouse for her muscle; she was extremely stupid and not particularly
well-favoured, but powerfully built, and equal to any amount of hard
work in the fields.
Madilenda was of a type somewhat uncommon among native women. She was
light in colour, with finely-formed features and very prominent eyes.
Her figure was the perfection of symmetry. According to European taste
she was very pretty indeed, but the ordinary native would have preferred
a woman somewhat larger built, and generally of a coarser type.
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 grass-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 workmanship, 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, brass
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 snatched 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 appetite. 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 practitioner. 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 passionately 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 associated 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 principally 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 accumulated
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 shells, and the brass
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 grass."
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.
_Three_.
Sikulume soon ascertained that Madilenda was at the kraal of Galonkulu,
and on the second day of her sojourn there he followed with the
intention of persuading her to return to her home. She confronted him
with blazing eyes and heaving breast, and bade him begone and never
again approach her. Galonkulu and all the others at his kraal were
fully persuaded of the guilt of Mamagobatyana, and they strongly
suspected Sikulume of complicity. He, conscious of his innocence, was
thunderstruck at the accusation, the foulest that can be made against a
native, and at once withdrew, filled with indignation.
Madilenda and little Tobe were given a hut to live in, and were provided
with milk and corn. The poor little child only lived for a week after
his removal. One morning, after a night of terrible coughing, he lay
very still in his mother's arms. Fearing to disturb him she sat still
until she became quite stiff. By and by he grew cold, and when she
moved her hand to reach for a blanket to cover him with, his head fell
back loosely. He had been dead for a long time whilst she thought he
was sleeping.
They dug a grave close to the kraal; a pit was first sunk to a depth of
about five feet, and then in the side a little chamber was excavated.
In this the emaciated little body, which had grown so long, was laid
facing the north. It was wrapped in white calico obtained from the
trader, and beneath it was a mat. The opening of the side-chamber was
then walled up, and the grave filled in. The desolate mother would sit
for hours on a stone next to the grave-cairn, and weep bitter tears.
The unhappy woman brooded day and night over her sorrow, and, as the
time for her confinement approached, she was filled with a fresh dread.
She had persuaded herself that Mamagobatyana and her husband had
bewitched her unborn child, and that it would die like little Tobe.
This delusion preyed upon her mind to such an extent that she became
almost insane. The people of the kraal feared and avoided her. They
still supplied her with food and left her in possession of the hut, but
otherwise neglected her completely. She took to lonely wanderings and
often talked to herself. Sikulume, wroth at the undeserved aspersion
cast upon him and his "great wife," did not again come near her, and
thus she ate her own heart out in grief, terror, and loneliness.
It was now September, and the spring rains set in with a cold deluge.
The Kenira river roared in flood through the rocky gorge below the
northern face of the Umgano Mountain.
One morning, the second after the rain had ceased, Madilenda wandered
down the valley she dwelt in, to where it joins the river, and then lay
down to rest in a sunny nook just below a rocky bluff. The
deep-thrilling murmur of the brown flood as it churned along in its
winding course soothed her, the warm sunshine brought a sensation of
physical comfort which to her weary and debilitated body had long been
unknown, and she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. When she awoke
it was late in the afternoon. She tried to rise, but found she was
unable to do so. A succession of sharp pains racked her. Her time had
come.
One advantage which women of the uncivilised races possess over their
European sisters is this, that for them the curse of Eve is lightened to
such an extent as to be hardly a curse at all. That ordeal which the
artificial life of our race through so many generations has made
pathological, is, with the majority of native women, a process so easy
that in normal instances little suffering and hardly any danger is
entailed. But in Madilenda's case mental agony and bodily fatigue
during the terrible months she had just lived through had lowered her
vitality to such an extent that she completely collapsed. The sun went
down on her ineffectual pangs; throughout the long, cold, winter's night
the stars swept over her anguish.
The sun arose and thawed the thick hoarfrost that had crusted over the
shrubs and the grass, and still she lay moaning between frequent swoons.
A troop of wild baboons came searching along the mountain-side, turning
over the stones in their pursuit of lizards and scorpions; the leader
looked at Madilenda where she lay, and darted aside with a startled
cough. A jackal slinking home to his burrow after a night of
depredation, crept close up to her, looked long and carefully, and then
hid amongst the stones near by, awaiting further developments. A
wandering vulture made a loop in its course and then swept upwards in a
widening circle. Soon afterwards, other vultures, that had read the
signal aright, came flocking up from all directions in increasing
numbers.
Late in the afternoon exhausted nature made a final effort, and the
child was born. The mother fainted immediately and then lay long
unconscious. When she again came to herself she turned with painful
difficulty and drew the child to her. It was cold and dead.
So the curse had fallen here as well, as she had expected. A wild
indignation surged up in Madilenda and conquered the weakness of death
that was stealing over her. The sky seemed to have turned black, and
the swirling river blood-red.
A shadow slid over her. She looked up and saw the sweeping vultures
which were now rapidly drawing in their spirals over where she lay. She
knew what that meant. One of them swooped so close that she felt the
wind of its wings, and heard the horrible skur-r-r-r of the pinions.
The bird alighted on a stone a few yards off, and began to preen the
vermin from its filthy feathers.
Drawing the dead child under her arm, Madilenda crept backwards on her
hands and knees in the direction of the river. From the ledge on which
she had been lying, a steep slope of about twenty yards, which ended in
an abrupt drop of a few feet where the water had undermined the bank,
led to the swirling torrent. Down this slope she slowly and painfully
crept. When she reached it, the undermined bank gave way under her, and
she dropped like a stone into the water. One dull splash, scarcely to
be heard over the growling of the flood, and Madilenda slept in the soft
and merciful arms of Death.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. When a native woman marries, her husband presents her with a
heifer, which is thereupon considered a sacred animal. It may never be
slaughtered, under any circumstances, and should it die untimely, such
is regarded as a token of evil fortune. The hairs of the tail are
thought to have peculiarly protective properties for members of the
"house," in respect of illness. This animal is known as the "ubulunga."