KRELI AND HIS KAFIRS.
At the time in which I am writing this chapter Kreli and his sons
suppose themselves to be at war with the Queen of England. The Governor
of the Gape Colony, who has been so far troubled in his serenity as to
have felt it expedient to live away from his house for the last three or
four months near to the scene of action, supposes probably that he has
been called upon to put down a most unpleasant Kafir disturbance. He
will hardly dignify the affair with the name of a war. When in Ireland
the Fenians were put down by the police without direct military
interference we felt that there had been a disagreeable row,--but
certainly not a civil war, because the soldiers had not been employed.
And yet we should hardly have been comfortable while the row was going
on had we not known that there were soldiers at hand in Ireland. For
some months it was much the same with Kreli and his rebellious Kafirs.
In South Africa there was comfort in feeling that there were one or two
regiments near the Kei River,--at head quarters, with a General and
Commissaries and Colonels at King Williamstown, where the Governor is
also stationed, and that there were soldiers also at East London, on the
coast, ready for an emergency should the emergency come. But the
fighting up to that time had been done by policemen and
volunteers,--and it was hoped that it might be so to the end. Towards
the close of November 1877 the end was thought to have almost come;
though there were even then those who believed that when we had subdued
the Galekas who are Kreli’s peculiar people, the Gaikas would rise
against us. They are Sandilli’s people and live on this, or the western,
side of the Kei territory, round about King Williamstown in what we call
British Kafraria. Many hundreds of them are working for wages within the
boundaries of what was formerly their own territory. I cannot but think
that had the Gaikas intended to take part with their Transkeian brethren
they would not have waited till Kreli and his Galekas had been so nearly
beaten. But now we know that an ending to this trouble so happy as that
which was at first anticipated has not been quite accomplished. British
troops have entered the territory on the other side of the Kei, and are
at present probably engaged in putting down some remnant of the Galekas.
There is nothing more puzzling in South Africa than the genealogy and
nomenclature of the Kafir tribes, and nothing, perhaps, less interesting
to English readers. In the first place the authorities differ much as to
what is a Kafir. In a book now before me on Kafir Laws and Customs,
written by various hands and published in 1858 by Colonel Maclean who
was Governor of British Kafraria, we are told that “The general
designation of Kafraria has been given to the whole territory extending
from the Great Fish River to Delagoa Bay.” This would include Natal and
all Zululand. But if there be one native doctrine more stoutly
enunciated in and about Natal than another, it is that the Zulus and
Kafirs are a different people. The same passage, however, goes on to say
that, properly speaking, that territory only should be included which is
occupied by the Amaxosa and Abatembu tribes, the Amampondo and the
Amazulu being--different. An English reader must be requested to reject
as surplusage for his purpose the two first syllables in all these
native names when they take the shape of Ama or Aba or Amam. They are
decorous, classical, and correct as from Kafir scholars, but are simply
troublesome among simple people who only want to know a little. The Amam
Pondos, so called from one Pondo a former chief, are familiarly called
Pondos. The Aba Tembus,--from Tembu a chief thirteen or fourteen chiefs
back from the present head of the tribe,--are Tembus. They have been
also nick-named Tambookies, an appellation which they themselves do not
acknowledge, but which has become common in all Kafir dissertations. The
Amaxosas, who among the Kafirs are certainly the great people of all, in
the same way are Xosas, from Xosa a chief eleven chiefs back from Kreli.
But these Xosas, having been divided, have taken other names,--among
which the two principal are the Galekas of which Kreli is king, from
Galeka Kreli’s great-grandfather; and the Gaikas, of which Sandilli is
chief,--from Gaika, Sandilli’s father. But the student may encounter
further difficulty here as he will find this latter name learnedly
written as Ngqika, and not uncommonly spelt as Ghika. The spelling I
have adopted is perhaps a little more classical than the latter and
certainly less pernicious than the former.
But though, as above stated, one of the authors of the book from which I
have quoted has eliminated the Pondos as well as the Zulus from the
Kafirs, thus leaving the descendants of Xosa and of Tembu to claim the
name between them, I find in the same book a genealogical table,
compiled by another author who includes the Pondos among the Kafirs, and
derives the Galekas, Ghikas, Pondos, and Tembus from one common ancestor
whom he calls Zwidi, who was fifteen chiefs back from Kreli, and whom we
may be justified in regarding as the very Adam of the Kafir race since
we have no information of any Kafir before him.
The Galekas, the Pondos, and Tembus will be found in the map in their
proper places on the eastern side of the Kei River; and, as being on the
eastern side of the Kei River, they were not British subjects when this
chapter was written. When the reader shall have this book in his hand
they may probably have been annexed. The Gaikas, I am afraid he will not
find on the map. As they have been British subjects for the last
twenty-five years the spaces in the map of the country in which they
live have been wanted for such European names as Frankfort and King
Williamstown. Those however whom I have named are the real
Kafirs,--living near the Kei whether on one side of the river or the
other. The sharp-eyed investigating reader will also find a people
called Bomvana, on the sea coast, north of the Galekas. They are a
sub-tribe, under Kreli, who have a sub-chief, one Moni, and Moni and the
Bomvanas seem to have been troubled in their mind, not wishing to wage
war against the Queen of England, and yet fearing to disobey the
behests of their Great Chief Kreli.
It will thus be seen that the Kafirs do not occupy very much land in
South Africa, though their name has become better known than that of any
South African tribe,--and though every black Native is in familiar
language called a Kafir. The reason has been that the two tribes, the
Gaikas and the Galekas, have given us infinitely more trouble than any
other. Sandilli with his Gaikas have long been subjected, though they
have never been regarded as quiet subjects, such as are the Basutos and
the Fingos. There has ever been a dread, as there was notably in 1876,
that they would rise and rebel. The alarmists since this present affair
of Kreli commenced have never ceased to declare that the Gaikas would
surely be up in arms against us. But, as a tribe, they have not done so
yet,--partly perhaps because their Chief Sandilli is usually drunk. The
Galekas, however, have never been made subject to us.
But the Galekas and Kreli were conquered in the last Kafir war, and the
tribe had been more than decimated by the madness of the people who in
1857 had destroyed their own cattle and their own corn in obedience to a
wonderful prophecy. I have told the story before in one of the early
chapters of my first volume. Kreli had then been driven with his people
across the river Bashee to the North,--where those Bomvanas now are; and
his own territory had remained for a period vacant. Then arose a
question as to what should be done with the land, and Sir Philip
Wodehouse, who was then Governor of the Cape Colony, proposed that it
should be given out in farms to Europeans. But at that moment economy
and protection for the Natives were the two virtues shining most
brightly at the Colonial Office, and, as such occupation was thought to
require the presence of troops for its security, the Secretary of the
day ordered that Kreli should be allowed to return. Kreli was badly off
for land and for means of living across the Bashee, and was very urgent
in requesting permission to come back. If he might come back and reign
in a portion of his old land he would be a good neighbour. He was
allowed to come back;--and as a Savage has not kept his word badly till
this unfortunate affair occurred.
Among the printed papers which I have at hand as to this rebellion one
of the last is the following government notice;--
“KING WILLIAMSTOWN, CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.
“_13th November, 1877._
“Applications will be received by the Honourable the Commissioner
of Crown Lands and Public Works for grants of Land in the
Westernmost portion of Galekaland, formerly known as Kreli’s
country, between the Cogha and Kei Rivers, from those willing to
settle in that country. The condition of the grants,--which will be
limited in size to 300 acres,--include immediate settlement and
bonâ fide occupation, and may be ascertained----&c. &c.”
Thus, in 1877, we are again attempting to do that which was recommended
twenty years before. On this occasion I presume that no sanction from
the Colonial Office at home was needed, as at the date of the notice
such sanction could hardly have been received. This is a matter which I
do not profess to understand, but the present Governor of the Cape
Colony,--who in this war acts as High Commissioner and in that capacity
is not responsible to his Ministers,--is certainly not the man to take
such a step without proper authority. I hope we are not counting our
chickens before they are hatched. I feel little doubt myself but that
the hatching will at last be complete.
Though the disturbance has hardly been a war,--if a war, it would have
to be reckoned as the sixth Kafir war,--it may be well to say a few
words as to its commencement. To do so it will be necessary to bring
another tribe under the reader’s notice. These are the Fingos, who among
South African natives are the special friends of the Britisher,--having
precedence in this respect even of the Basutos. They appear to have been
originally,--as originally, at least, as we can trace them
back,--inhabitants of some portion of the country now called Natal, and
to have been driven by Chaka, the great King of the Zulus, down among
the Galekas. Here they were absolutely enslaved, and in the time of
Hintsa, the father of Kreli, were called the Kafirs’ dogs. Their
original name I do not know, but Fingo means a dog. After one of the
Kafir wars, in 1834, they were taken out from among the Galekas by
British authority, relieved from the condition of slavery, and settled
on locations which were given to them. They were first placed near the
coast between the Great Fish River and the Keiskamma; but many were
subsequently moved up to a district which they still occupy, across the
Kei, and close to their old masters the Galekas,--but on land which was
under British government and which became part of British Kafraria. Here
they have been as good as their old masters,--and as being special
occupants of British favour perhaps something better. They have been a
money-making people, possessing oxen and waggons, and going much ahead
of other Kafirs in the way of trade. And as they grew in prosperity, so
probably they grew in pride. They were still Fingos;--but not a Fingo
was any longer a Galeka’s dog,--which was a state of things not
agreeable to the Galekas. This too must have been the more intolerable
as the area given up to the Fingos in this locality comprised about
2,000 square miles, while that left to the Galekas was no more than
1,600: The Galekas living on this curtailed territory were about 66,600
souls, whereas only 50,000 Fingos drew their easier bread from the
larger region. In August last the row began by a quarrel between the
Galekas and the Fingos. There was a beer-drinking together on the
occasion of a Fingo wedding to which certain Galekas had been invited.
The guests misbehaved themselves, and the Fingos drove them away. Upon
that a body of armed Galekas returned, and a tribal war was started. But
the Fingos as being British subjects were not empowered to conduct a war
on their own account. It was necessary that we should fight for them or
that there should be no fighting. The Galekas were armed,--as they might
choose to arm themselves, or might be able; while the Fingos could only
possess such arms as we permitted them to use. It thus became necessary
that we should defend them.
When it came to this pass Kreli, the old Chief, is supposed to have been
urgent against any further fighting. Throughout his long life whatever
of misfortune he had suffered, had come from fighting with the English,
whatever of peace he had enjoyed had come from the good will of the
English. Nor do I think that the Galekas as a body were anxious for a
war with the English though they may have been ready enough to bully the
Fingos. They too had much to lose and nothing to gain. Ambition probably
sat lightly with them, and even hatred for the Fingos by that time must
nearly have worn itself out among the people. But the Chief had sons,
and there were other Princes of the blood royal. With such as they
ambition and revenge linger longer than with the mass. Quicquid delirunt
reges plectuntur Achivi. The Kafirs had to fight because royal blood
boiled high. The old King in his declining years was too weak to
restrain his own sons,--as have been other old Kings. Arms having been
taken up against the Fingos were maintained against the protectors of
the Fingos. It might be that after all the long prophesied day had now
come for driving the white men out of South Africa. Instead of that the
day has probably at last come for subjugating the hitherto unsubjugated
Kafirs.
I have before me all the details of the “war” as it has been carried on,
showing how in the first battle our one gun came to grief after having
been fired seven times, and how the Fingos ran away because the gun had
come to grief;--how in consequence of this five of our mounted
policemen and one officer were killed by the Galekas; how in the next
engagement the Fingos behaved much better,--so much better as to have
been thanked for their gallantry; and how from that time to this we have
driven poor old Kreli about, taking from him his cattle and his
country,--determined if possible to catch him but not having caught him
as yet. Colonial history will no doubt some day tell all this at length;
but in a work so light as mine my readers perhaps would not thank me for
more detailed circumstances.
On the 5th of October, when the affair was becoming serious, the
Governor of the Gape, who is also High Commissioner for the management
of the natives, issued a proclamation in which he sets forth Kreli’s
weakness or fault. “Kreli,” he says, “either had not the will or the
power to make his people keep the peace,” and again--“The Chief Kreli
having distinctly expressed his inability to punish his people, or to
prevent such outrages for the future, Commandant Griffith has been
directed to advance into Kreli’s country, to put down by force, if
necessary, all attempts to resist the authority of the British
Government or to molest its subjects, and to exact full reparation for
the injuries inflicted on British subjects by Kreli’s people.”
Read by the assistance of South African commentaries this means that
Kreli’s country is to be annexed, and for such reading the later
proclamation as to 300-acre farms adds an assured light. That it will be
much better so, no one doubts. Let the reader look at the map and he
cannot doubt. Can it be well that a corner, one little corner should be
kept for independent Kafirs,--not that Kafirs unable to live with the
British might run into it as do the American Indians into the Indian
Territory or the Maories of New Zealand into the King-County there;--but
that a single tribe may entertain dreams of independence and dreams of
hostility? Whether we have done well or ill by occupying South Africa, I
will not now stop to ask. But if ill, we can hardly salve our
consciences by that little corner. And yet that little corner has always
been the supposed focus of rebellion from which the scared colonist has
feared that war would come upon him. Of what real service can it be to
leave to the unchecked dominion of Kafir habits a tract of 1,600 square
miles when we have absorbed from the Natives a territory larger than all
British India. We have taken to ourselves in South Africa within this
century an extent of land which in area is the largest of all Her
Majesty’s dominions, and have been wont to tell ourselves that as
regards the Natives it is all right because we have left them their own
lands in Kafraria Proper. Let the Briton who consoles himself with this
thought,--and who would still so console himself,--look at the strip on
the map along the coast, an inch long perhaps and an inch deep; and then
let him measure across the continent from the mouth of the Orange River
to the mouth of the Tugela. It makes a Briton feel like the American who
would not swear to the two hundredth duck.
We have not caught Kreli yet. When we have, if we should catch him, I do
not in the least know what we shall do with him. There is a report which
I do not believe that the Governor has threatened him with Robben
Island. Robben Island is a forlorn isle lying off Capetown which has
been utilized for malefactors and lunatics. Langalibalele has a
comfortable farm house on the Gape Flats where he has a bottle of wine
and a bottle of beer allowed him a day,--and where he lives like a
second Napoleon at a second St. Helena. I trust that nothing of the kind
will be done with Kreli. There is an absurdity about it which is
irritating. It is as though we were playing at Indian princes among the
African black races. The man himself has not risen in life beyond the
taste for squatting in his hut with a dozen black wives around him and a
red blanket over his shoulders. Then we put him into a house where he
squats on a chair instead, and give him wine and beer and good clothes.
When we take the children of such a one and do something in the way of
educating them, then the expenditure of money is justified. Many
Kafirs,--many thousand Kafirs have risen above squatting in huts and red
blankets; but they are the men who have learned to work, as at the
Kimberley mine, and not the Chiefs. The only excuse for such treatment
as that which Langalibalele receives, which Kreli if caught would
probably receive, is that no one knows what else to propose. I am almost
inclined to think it better that Kreli should not be caught. Prisoners
of that nature are troublesome. What a blessing it was to France when
Marshal Bazaine escaped.
I was told before leaving the Cape that the trouble would probably not
cost above £50,000. So cheap a disturbance certainly should not be
called a war. The cattle taken would probably be worth the money;--and
then the 300-acre farms, if they are ever allotted, will it is presumed
be of some value. But now I fear that £50,000 will not pay half the
bill. There is no luxury on earth more expensive than the British
soldier.
It is well that we should annex Kreli’s country;--but there is something
for the lovers of the picturesque to regret in that the Kafir should no
longer have a spot on which he can live quite in accordance with his own
habits, in which there shall be no one to bid him cover his nakedness.
Though by degrees the really independent part of Kafraria Proper has
dwindled down to so small dimensions, there has always been the feeling
that the unharassed unharnessed Kafir had still his own native wilds in
which to disport himself as he pleased, in which the Chief might rule
over his subjects, and in which the subjects might venerate their Chiefs
without the necessity of obeying any white man. On behalf of such lovers
of the picturesque it should be explained that in making the Kafirs
subject to Great Britain, Great Britain interferes but very little with
their habits of life. There is hardly any interference unless as an
introduction of wages among them may affect them. The Gaika who has been
subjugated has been allowed to marry as many wives as he could get as
freely as the hitherto unsubjugated Galeka. Unless he come into the
European towns breeches have not been imposed upon him, and indeed not
then with any rigorous hand. The subject Kafirs are indeed made to pay
hut tax,--10s. a hut in the Cape Colony and 14s. in Natal; but this is
collected with such ease as to justify me in saying that they are a
people not impatient of taxation. The popular idea seems to be that the
10s. demanded has to be got as soon as possible from some European
source,--by a week’s work, by the sale of a few fowls, or perhaps in
some less authorized manner. A sheep or two taken out of the nearest
white man’s flock will thoroughly indemnify the native for his tax.
But their habits of life remain the same, unless they be openly
renounced and changed by the adoption of Christianity; or until work
performed in the service of the white man gradually induces the workman
to imitate his employer. I think that the latter cause is by far the
more operative of the two. But even that must be slow, as a population
to be counted by millions can not be taught to work all at once.
A short catalogue of some of the most noticeable of the Kafir habits may
be interesting. I have taken my account of them from the papers
published under Colonel Maclean’s name. As polygamy is known to be the
habit of Kafirs, usages as to Kafir marriages come first in interest. A
Kafir always buys his wife, giving a certain number of cattle for her as
may be agreed upon between him and the lady’s father. These cattle go to
the father, or guardian, who has the privilege of selling the young
lady. A man therefore to have many wives must have many cattle,--or in
other words much wealth, the riches of a Kafir being always vested in
herds of oxen. Should a man have to repudiate his wife, and should he
show that he does so on good ground, he can recover the cattle he has
paid for her. Should a man die without children by a wife, the cattle
given for her may be recovered by his heirs. But should a woman leave
her husband before she had had a child, he may keep the cattle. Should
only one child have been born when the husband dies, and the woman be
still young and marriageable, a part of the cattle can be recovered. I
have known it to be stated,--in the House of Commons and
elsewhere,--that wives are bought and sold among the Kafirs. Such an
assertion gives a wrong idea of the custom. Wives are bought, but are
never sold. The girl is sold, that she may become a wife; but the
husband cannot sell her. The custom as it exists is sufficiently
repulsive. As the women are made to work,--made to do all the hard work
where European habits have not been partially introduced,--a wife of
course is valuable as a servant. To call them slaves is to give a false
representation of their position. A wife in England has to obey her
husband, but she is not his slave. The Kafir wife though she may hoe the
land while the husband only fights or searches for game, does not hold a
mean position in her husband’s hut. But the old are more wealthy than
the young, and therefore the old and rich buy up the wives, leaving no
wives for the young men,--with results which may easily be understood.
The practice is abominable,--but we shall not alter it by conceiving or
spreading false accounts of it. In regard to work it should be
understood that the men even in their own locations are learning to
become labourers and to spare the women. The earth used to be turned
only by the hoe, and the hoe was used by the women. Ploughs are now
quite common among the Kafirs, and the ploughing is done by men.
There is no system of divorce; but a man may repudiate his wife with or
without reason, getting back the cattle or a part of them. A wife often
leaves her husband, through ill-usage or from jealousy,--in which case
the cattle remain with the husband and, if not as yet paid in full, can
be recovered. According to law not only the cattle agreed upon but the
progeny of the cattle can be recovered;--but it seldom happens that more
than the original number are obtained. When there is a separation the
children belong to the father.
When a man has many wives he elects one as his “great wife,”--who may
not improbably be the youngest and last married. The selection is
generally made in accordance with the rank of the woman. Her eldest son
is the heir. Then he makes a second choice of a “right hand
wife,”--whose eldest son is again the heir of some portion of the
property which during the father’s life has been set apart for the right
hand house. If he be rich he may provide for other children, but the
customs of his tribe do not expect him to do so. If he die without
having made such selections, his brothers or other relatives do it for
him.
A husband may beat his wife,--but not to death. If he do that he is
punished for murder,--by a fine. If he knock out her eye, or even her
tooth, he is fined by the Chief. The same law prevails between parents
and children as long as the child remains domiciled in the parents’
family. A father is responsible for all that his child does, and must
pay the fines inflicted for the child’s misdeeds;--unless he has
procured the outlawing of his child, which he can do if the child has
implicated him in many crimes and caused him to pay many fines. Near
relations of criminals must pay, when the criminals are unable to do so.
Kafir lands are not sold or permanently alienated. Any man may occupy
unoccupied land and no one but the Chief can disturb him. Should he quit
the land he has occupied, and another come upon it, he can recover the
use of the land he has once cultivated.
Murder is punished by a fine,--which seems to be of the same amount
whatever be the circumstances of the murder. The law makes no difference
between premeditated and unpremeditated murder,--the injury done being
considered rather than the criminality of the doer. A husband would be
fined for murder if he killed an adulteress, let the proof have been
ever so plain. Even for accidental homicide a Chief will occasionally
fine the perpetrator,--though in such case the law does not hold him to
be guilty. For adultery there is a fine of cattle, great or small in
accordance with the rank of the injured husband. Rape is fined, the
cattle going to the husband, if the woman be married. If a girl be
seduced, the seducer is fined,--perhaps three head of cattle. The young
man probably has not got three head of cattle. Then his older friends
pay for him. Among Kafir customs there are some which might find
approbation with a portion of our European communities. It cannot, at
any rate, be said that the Kafirs have a bloody code.
All theft is punished by a fine of cattle, the fine being moderated if
the property stolen be recovered. But the fine is great or small
according to the rank of the injured person. If a Chief have been robbed
general confiscation of every thing is the usual result of detection.
The fine is paid to the injured person. A Chief cannot be prosecuted for
theft by one of his own tribe. The children of Chiefs are permitted to
steal from people of their own tribe, and no action can be brought
against them. Should one be taken in the fact of so stealing and be
whipped, or beaten, all the property of the whipper or beater may be
confiscated by the Chief. There was a tribe some years ago in which
there were so many royal offshoots, that not a garden, not a goat was
safe. A general appeal was made to the paramount Chief and he decided
that the privilege should in future be confined to his own immediate
family.
For wilful injury a man has to pay the full amount of damage; but for
accidental injury he pays nothing. This seems to be unlike the general
Kafir theory of law. There is no fine for trespass; the idea being that
as all lands are necessarily and equally open, the absence of any
recovery on account of damage is equal to all. When fencing has become
common this idea will probably vanish. If cattle that are trespassing be
driven off and injured in the driving, fines can be recovered to the
amount of the damage done.
When illness comes a doctor is to be employed. Should death ensue
without a doctor a fine is imposed,--which goes to the Chief.
There are many religious rites and ceremonies and many laws as to
cleanness and uncleanness; but it would hardly interest the reader were
I to describe them at length. At the age of puberty, or what is so
considered among the Kafirs, both boys and girls go through certain
rites by which they are supposed to be introduced to manhood and
woman-hood. There is much in these ceremonies which is disgusting and
immoral, and it has been the anxious endeavours of missionaries to cause
their cessation. But such cessation can only come by the gradual
adoption of European manners. Where the Kafirs have lived in close
connexion with the Europeans many of these customs have already been
either mitigated or abandoned.
When a child dies but little notice is taken of the circumstance. Among
adults, the dying man or woman, when known to be dying, is taken away to
die in a ditch. So at least the Rev. Mr. Dugmore says in one of the
papers from which I am quoting. When death has occurred the family
become unclean and unable to mix in society for a certain period. It
used to be the custom to cast the dead body forth to be devoured by
beasts, the privilege of burial being only accorded to the Chiefs. But
now all are buried under the ground, a hole being dug not far from the
hut. The funeral of a Chief is attended with many ceremonies, his arms
and ornaments being buried with him. Friends are appointed to watch by
the grave,--for longer or lesser periods according to the rank of the
deceased. If he have been a great Chief, the period is sometimes a year,
during which the watchers may do nothing but watch. These watchers,
however, become sacred when the watch is done. Cattle are folded upon
the grave which may never after be slaughtered;--nor can anything be
done with their increase till the last of the original cattle have died.
The grave of the Chief becomes a sanctuary at which an offender may
take refuge. The death of the Chief is made known to all other Chiefs
around,--who shave their heads and abstain for a time from the use of
milk. From all which it may be seen that a Kafir Chief is considered to
be a very big person.
Justice is administered by the Chief assisted by Councillors. The Chief,
however, is not absolutely bound by the advice of his Councillors. He is
compelled to some adhesion to justice or to the national laws by the
knowledge that his tribe will dwindle and depart from him if he gives
unbearable offence. Cases of gross injustice do occur;--but on the whole
the Kafir Chiefs have endeavoured to rule in accordance with Kafir
customs. A certain amount of arbitrary caprice the people have been
willing to endure;--but they have not been as long-suffering as the
Zulus under Dingaan,--nor as the Romans under Nero. Disobedience to a
Chief is punished by a fine;--but the crime has been unpopular in the
tribes, and though doubtless committed daily under the rose is one of
which a Kafir does not wish to have been thought guilty. The very
essence of Kafir customs and Kafir life is reverence for the Chief.
I cannot close this short catalogue of Kafir customs without alluding to
witch-doctors and rain-makers. Witch-doctoring is employed on two
occasions--1st, when a true but of course mistaken desire exists in a
kraal or family village to find out who is tormenting the community by
making some member or members of it ill,--and, 2nd, when some Chief has
a desire to get rid of a political enemy, or more probably to obtain the
cattle of a wealthy subject. In either case a priest is called in who
with many absurd ceremonies goes about the work of selecting or
“smelling out” a victim, whom of course he has in truth selected before
the ceremonies are commenced. In the former case, after much howling and
beating of drums, he names the unfortunate one, who is immediately
pounced upon and tormented almost to death; and at last forced, in his
own defence, to own to some kind of witchcraft. His cattle are seized
which go to the Chief,--and then after a while he is purified and put
upon his legs again, impoverished indeed, and perhaps crippled, but a
free man in regard to the Devil which is supposed to have been driven
out of him. In the second case the treatment is the same;--only that the
man whose wealth is desired, or whose political conduct has been
objectionable, does not often recover.
The rain-maker is used only in time of drought, when the Chief sends to
him desiring that he will make rain, and presenting him with a head of
cattle to assist him in the operation. The profession is a dangerous
one, as the Chief is wont to sacrifice the rain-maker himself if the
rain is postponed too long. It is the rain-maker’s trade to produce
acceptable excuses till the rain shall come in its natural course. It is
not expected till the bones of the ox shall have been burned after
sacrifice,--which may be about the third day. Then it may be asserted
that the beast was not good enough, or unfortunately of an unacceptable
colour; and there is some delay while a second beast comes. Then it is
alleged that there is manifestly a witch interfering, and the
witch-doctoring process takes place. It is bad luck indeed if rain do
not come by this time;--but, should it not come soon after the
witch-doctor’s victim has gone through his torments, then the rain-maker
is supposed to be an impostor, and he is at once drowned by order of the
Chief. Mr. Warner, from whose notes this account is taken, says that the
professional rain-maker was not often a long lived man.
I did not myself visit the Transkeian territory, but in passing from
East London to Durban the small steamer which carried me ran so near the
land that I was enabled to see the coast scenery as well as though I
were in a rowing boat just off the shore. We could see the Kafirs
bathing and the cattle of the Kafirs roaming upon the hills. It is by
far the prettiest bit of coast belonging to South Africa. The gates of
St. John, as the rocks forming the mouth of the river are called, are
peculiarly lovely. When I was there the rebellion had not been
commenced, but even then I thought it a pity that English vessels should
not be able to run in among that lovely paradise of hills and rocks and
waters.
I insert here a table of the population of the Transkeian tribes, giving
the estimated numbers of the people and the supposed number of fighting
men which each tribe contains. They are all now regarded as Kafirs
except the inhabitants of Adam Kok’s Land and the district called the
Gatberg, who are people that have migrated from the west.
ESTIMATED POPULATION OF THE TRANSKEIAN TERRITORIES.
+---------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
| | Total | Fighting |
| | Population. | Men. |
+---------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
| Fingos | 45,000 | 7,000 |
| Idutywa Reserve | 17,000 | 3,000 |
| Emigrant Tembus | 40,000 | 7,000 |
| Tembus (Tembuland Proper) | 60,000 | 10,000 |
| Gatberg {Bastards, 1,000} | 6,000 | 1,000 |
| {Basutos, 5,000} | | |
| Griqualand East, or {including} | 40,000 | 7,000 |
| Adam Kok’s Land {the Bacas} | | |
| Galekas (Kreli) | 66,000 | 11,000 |
| Bomvanas (Moni) | 15,000 | 2,000 |
| Pondomisi | 12,000 | 2,000 |
| Pondos | 200,000 | 30,000 |
| | --------- | ------- |
| Total Transkei | 501,000 | 80,000 |
+---------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
The number of fighting men has been arrived at by taking one-sixth
of the total population.
The number here will be seen to amount to 500,000, whereas the Galekas
of whom alone we are speaking when we talk of the hostile Kafirs across
the Kei are not in this return given as being more than 66,000. It must
always be remembered that there has been no census taken of these tribes
and that many of these numbers are estimated by little more than guess
work. The Fingos and the mixed inhabitants of the district called the
Idutywa Reserve are already British subjects. The Tembus are not so
nominally; but are for the most part obedient to British magistrates who
live among them. The inhabitants of the Gatberg are natives who live
there because the place is vacant for them,--also with a British
magistrate. They certainly cannot be regarded as an independent tribe.
The Griquas of Adam Kok’s Land are bastard Hottentots who have been
moved west from one locality to another, and now inhabit a country which
used to be called No Man’s Land and which was probably cleared of its
old inhabitants by Chaka, the great Zulu king. They are British
subjects. Of the Galekas and Bomvanas I have said enough. The Pondomisi
are a small tribe of independent Kafirs among whom a British magistrate
lives. Then we come to the Pondos, the most numerous tribe of all,--so
much so that the reader will be inclined to say that, while the Pondos
remain independent, Kafraria cannot become English. But the Pondos are a
very much less notorious people than the Galekas,--and constitute a
tribe who will probably be willing to annex themselves when the Bomvanas
and Galekas are annexed. Their present condition is rather remarkable.
The person most dominant among them is one Mrs. Jenkins, the widow of a
missionary, who is said to rule them easily, pleasantly, and prudently.
Mrs. Jenkins, however, cannot live for ever. But it is thought that the
Pondos will of their own accord become British subjects even during the
reign of Mrs. Jenkins. The mouth of the St. John’s River is in the
country of the Pondos, and it would be greatly to the benefit of South
Eastern Africa generally that a harbour for the purposes of commerce
should be opened on that portion of the coast.