From insinuations he proceeded to open accusations. After having kept himself secluded for a fortnight, he one day appeared in the public fold and proclaimed that he had at last discovered the cause of the drought. After keeping the audience in suspense for a short time, he suddenly broke forth, “Do you not see,” he asked, “when clouds cover us, that Hamilton and Moffat looked at them? Their white faces scare them away, and you can not expect rain so long as they are in the country.” This was a home stroke. The people became impatient, and poured forth their curses against the poor missionaries as the cause of all their sorrows. The bell, which was rung for public worship, they said, frightened the vapors; the prayers even came in for a share of the blame. “Don’t you,” said the chief one day rather fiercely to Mr. Moffat, “bow down in your houses, and pray and talk to something bad in the ground?”
But to shorten a long story: after exposing the missionaries to much risk and danger by his insinuations and accusations, the tables were turned in their favor. The rain-maker was now suspected; his gross impositions were unveiled, and he was about to pay the penalty of death—the well-merited reward for his scandalous conduct—when Mr. Moffat generously interfered, and, through his presence of mind and humanity, succeeded in saving the life of one who had so often threatened his own, and who would not have scrupled to take it, could he thereby have served his purpose. Death, however, soon overtook him, for he was eventually murdered among the Bauangketsi nation.
Mr. Moffat concludes his remarks on the career of this notable rain-maker by the following observation:
“It is a remarkable fact that a rain-maker never dies a natural death. I have known some, and heard of many, who had, by one means or other, fallen a prey to the fury of their disappointed employers; but, notwithstanding this, there was no want of successors. There is not one tribe whose people have not imbrued their hands in the blood of these impostors, whom they first adore, then curse, and lastly destroy.”
Polygamy exists to an almost unlimited extent. A man may have as many wives as he chooses, provided he can pay for such privilege the usual fees, which vary according to the wealth of the husband.
Like the Damaras, the Bechuanas practice circumcision. From an early age upward, even to manhood, the males are circumcised. Children, however, born of parents previously to their having been operated upon, can not inherit regal power. The ceremony being performed, the youth is anointed, and at once assumes the character, air, and dress of a man. He is also considered fit to carry arms.
The females have also their “religious” festival about the same age as the boys, and, for a certain period, are under the tuition of matrons, who indoctrinate them in all the duties of wives—passive obedience being especially inculcated. As a last ordeal, they are made to carry a piece of heated iron, in order to show that their hands are fit for labor. They are then lubricated with grease; the lower part of their hair is shaven off, and the remainder profusely bedaubed with a paste of butter and sebilo (dark, shining ochre). They now adopt the usual female dress. “Raised thus from comparative infancy to what they consider womanhood, they view themselves with as much complacency as if they were enrobed in the attire of a daughter of an Eastern potentate. They have reached nearly to a climax in their life, for they expect soon to be married; to be a mother they consider the chief end of a woman’s existence.”
The Bechuanas generally bury their dead. The ceremony of interment, &c., varies in different localities, and is influenced by the rank of the deceased; but the following is a fair specimen of the way in which these obsequies are managed.
On the approaching dissolution of a man, a skin or net is thrown over the body, which is held in a sitting posture, with the knees doubled up under the chin, until life is extinct. A grave is then dug—very frequently in the cattle-fold—six feet in depth, and about three in width, the interior being rubbed over with a certain large bulb. The body, having the head covered, is then conveyed through a hole made for the purpose in the house and the surrounding fence, and deposited in the grave in a sitting position, care being taken to put the face of the corpse against the north. “Portions of an ant-hill are placed about the feet, when the net which held the body is gradually withdrawn. As the grave is filled up, the earth is handed in with bowls, while two men stand in the hole to tread it down round the body, great care being taken to pick out every thing like a root or pebble. When the earth reaches the height of the mouth, a small twig or branch of an acacia is thrown in, and on the top of the head a few roots of grass are placed. The grave being nearly filled, another root of grass is fixed immediately over the head, part of which stands above ground. When this portion of the ceremony is over, the men and women stoop, and with their hands scrape on to the little mound the loose soil lying about. A large bowl of water, with an infusion of bulbs, is now brought, when the men and women wash their hands and the upper part of their feet, shouting ‘Pùla! pùla!’ (Rain! rain!) An old woman, probably a relative, will then bring the weapons of the deceased (bow, arrows, war-axe, and spears); also grain and garden-seeds of various kinds; and even the bone of an old pack-ox, with other things. They finally address the grave, saying, ‘These are all your articles.’ The things are then taken away, and bowls of water are poured on the grave, when all retire, the women wailing ‘Yo! yo! yo!’ with some doleful dirge, sorrowing without hope.”
“The ancients were of opinion that the face was always the index of the mind. Modern physiognomists have gone a step farther, pretending that a fine form, perfect in all its parts, can not contain a crooked or an imperfect mind.” Judging the mind of a Bechuana by such a rule, it would not be pronounced deficient in talent. Nor is it. But, though the Bechuanas are a very superior race of men, they frequently conceal cunning and duplicity under an open and dignified exterior. Any act, no matter how disgraceful, if attended with success, will make them perfectly happy. “The Bechuana character is frank and sociable, which, however, does not appear to rise from benevolence of disposition, so much as from a degree of etiquette, and habits arising from relationship and docility.” Like most barbarians, their political wisdom consists in duplicity and petty cunning, and their ordinary wars are merely predatory incursions upon weaker neighbors for the purpose of carrying off cattle with as little exposure as possible of their own lives.