latter being another of Mehlomakulu's names): Lihlongo has killed
Sondaba."
This somehow suggests "Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor,
etc."
The Hlubis managed to escape to a fairly strong position on the western
bank of the Caledon River, before being overtaken by the pursuing
Matabele. The latter came up just at nightfall. They were hungry and
tired, but they nevertheless attacked without delay. There were a
number of Hlubis in their ranks, but these at once deserted to
Mehlomakulu's side. Then the Matabele fell back for a few hundred yards
and halted. The Hlubi deserters told Mehlomakulu that the enemy would
most probably make a night attack, so the Hlubi chief, with the pick of
his force, stole quietly back and took up a position in some broken
ground, which the enemy, if they attacked, would have to cross.
They had not long to wait--the whole Matabele impi advanced stealthily
towards the Hlubi encampment, but it fell into the ambush and was cut to
pieces. Next morning the battle-field was found to be thickly strewn
with the shields and spears which had been thrown away in the flight.
The shields were piled together and burnt; the spears proved a welcome
and much-needed addition to the Hlubi armament.
Then the following song was composed in honour of the victorious
chief:--
The words are:--
"Spotted leopard, come out so that we can see you."
The next song also dates from this occasion:--
The words are:--
"Run off with your plunder, Chief!--Houti ma-e-a."
The concluding portion is rather obscure; in fact, it has been found
quite impracticable to trace its meaning. Possibly--and this is a
suggestion on the part of a very old native,--it represents an attempt
to reproduce the lowing of the looted cattle when being driven off.
With varying fortune Mehlomakulu waged a war which lasted for about
eight years with the Amangwane, as well as with the different
expeditions which Tshaka sent against him and Matiwane. It was a
curious situation--the Hlubis and the Amangwane locked in a deadly
struggle with each other, and being attacked, together or in detail,
from time to time by Tshaka. It does not appear that the notion of
combining against the common enemy ever suggested itself to either the
Hlubi or the 'Mangwane chief.
After a successful raid against Matiwane's cattle, the following song
was composed:--
The words are:--
"The Chief is pregnant with the number of cattle he has taken.--Ho, ho,
ho, aha; ho, oho, ho, ho!"
At one period of their wanderings the Hlubis were driven into the
mountainous, inhospitable country that lies near the source of the
Orange River. The following song is connected with this episode:--
The words of this song are:--
"The Orange River: It is far away: It flows: The Orange River: I see the
mountains of the Zulus."
What follows is the last of the Hlubi series:--
Its words are:--
"Ho, ho!--We call to the chief. He is as great as the ocean."
Within a few years of the flight of the Hlubis, the Baca tribe was
driven from its home, on and about the present site of Maritzburg,
Natal. The reigning chief was Madikane. Around his memory hangs an
accretion of many legends. There is some ground for thinking that
Madikane's mother was an European, possibly a waif from one or other of
the vessels which are known to have been wrecked on the east coast of
Southern Africa toward the end of the last century. The words of one of
the songs composed in his honour run somewhat as follows:--
"'Mngcangane (one of Madikane's names) is an animal,--
Ho!--What shall we do with him?
There is no chief who can conquer a white chief,--
Hi!--What shall we do with him?"
These words clearly indicate the peculiarity of Madikane's appearance,
as well as that he was light of colour. The air to which these words
are sung does not merit reproduction.
All authorities agree that Madikane was of great stature, that he was
light in colour, and that his hair and beard were long. It was his
habit to carry his snuff-spoon stuck in the hair of his chest. One of
the writers has examined a number of his male descendants, and found
about one in every four with traces of hair on the chest. It is, it may
be stated, very unusual to find any hair on the body of a Bantu.
Madikane placed himself at the head of his own shattered tribe, together
with the fugitives from some forty-four broken clans, and led them
southward. He was killed on December 19th, 1824, in a combined attack
made by the Tembus and Gcalekas, and on the next day there was a total
eclipse of the sun.
The Baca women and children were all either killed or captured. Many of
them wore ivory armlets, which had been put on when they were children,
and which, consequently, could not be drawn off. For the sake of the
ivory, the savage victors cut the hands off the unfortunate creatures
and turned them abroad to die. Some few managed to make their way back,
for over a hundred miles, to the valley of the Umzimvubu River--one of
the former sojourning places of the tribe--and lived for many years.
The last of these died only about eight years ago.
The eclipse on the following day was taken as a tremendous portent. All
the fighting men were called up to the great places of the Tembu and
Gcaleka chiefs, respectively, for the purpose of being doctored. The
Bacas, in their flight, came upon an immense number of Tembu women and
children who were proceeding, with cattle, with the intention of
occupying an uninhabited piece of country under the Drakensberg Range.
These the Bacas captured and took away, so as to rehabilitate themselves
for their losses, domestic and other.
The following is the tribal war-song of the Baca tribe. It is a tune
held in great veneration, and is never used except upon important
occasions. Sung in slow, stately unison by a number of men on the
war-path, it has an indescribably impressive effect:--
This song is apparently of great antiquity. Its words have quite lost
their meaning. They are simply:--
"Eye ya how, eye ya yow yow yow."
Tradition relates that when Madikane was a boy he disappeared
mysteriously. The witch-doctors told his father Kalimetsh not to be
uneasy, as the boy would come back. After an absence of eight months he
returned, saying that he had been in the forest learning the magical use
of roots. He called to his uncle and two of his brothers, and they
accompanied him to the place of his secret sojourn, driving with them a
black ox. When they arrived at the specified spot the ox was
slaughtered. Portions of the meat were then spread about for the use of
the "imishologu," or ancestral spirits, and then the tribal song was
sung. After this the young man asked the others what they would like to
be "doctored" for. The uncle suffered from a dread of being poisoned,
and asked to be so doctored that poison should have no effect on him.
The others asked to be so doctored as to become great fighting chiefs.
At the annual "incubi," or "feast of the first-fruits," which is held by
the Bacas--when the chief rushes out of his hut after being doctored,
and flings an assegai towards the rising sun--the tribal song is sung in
full chorus by the assembled lieges.
Each individual chief adopts a song composed specially in his honour,
and which is ever afterwards associated with him. In Madikane's song
there is an undertone of sadness, as well as a finish, which, in view of
the fact that his mother was probably a white woman, might almost lead
one to think that it had a civilised source. Possibly it may be a sort
of reflection of some melody of her childhood which the mother had been
heard singing. It is as follows:--
These are the words:
"An assegai thrown among the Zulus, plays. You are a young animal to
the Zulus."
Madikane's peculiar appearance is apparently again referred to in the
foregoing.
The next is the song which was dedicated to the present chief, Makaula,
upon his accession:
The words are:--
"All the chiefs opposed Makaula by name; they said he would never be a
chief. He is the youngest of all the chiefs. Orange River" (with the
last syllable repeated several times).
Makaula succeeded to the chieftainship when quite a boy, upon the death
of his father, 'Ncapai, who was killed in a war with the Pondos in 1845.
The mention of the Orange River has reference to the fact of the Bacas
having wandered to its inhospitable source after being driven southward
before the spears of Tshaka.
The two airs next following are danced to by the Bacas:--
The following air is common among all the tribes between the Shangaan
country, north of Delagoa Bay, and Pondoland:--
The three last examples given are songs heard by one of the writers
among the Tongas and Shangaans:--
In their songs the Bantu have never got beyond a few words set to a tune
of a few bars, these being sung with monotonous repetition. In spite of
their monotony, the songs have a wild charm which is all their own. The
Kaffirs are as loyal to their chiefs as were the Scottish Highlanders of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Probably among no other
people in the world is the sentiment of loyalty so strong. In each of
these simple melodies a treasured story lies embalmed and fragrant. Up
to the present the habiliments of civilisation sit but ill upon the
savages of South Africa, whose waning ideals are clustered around the
leafless tree of ancestry as a swarm of belated bees cluster over the
portals of a ruined nest. In singing their songs the natives
reconstruct the departed glories of the grand old "houses" which have,
as they themselves say, "withered," for a few fleeting and pathetic
moments.
End of Project Gutenberg's By Veldt and Kopje, by William Charles Scully