KHAME’S MAGIC.
The accompanying illustration depicts a scene that occurred in Shoshong, in 1866. King Sekhomo was so jealous of the exceeding popularity of his son Khame, that he determined to kill him. For this purpose he secretly engaged some moloi to go by night and enact their deadliest enchantments in front of Khame’s house. Awakened by the gleam of a fire just beyond his enclosure, Khame crept out and stood quietly surveying the preparations. One of the performers of the mysteries happening to look round, and catching the sight of Khame’s face in the glare, gave a loud cry of surprise; this so startled his companions that they took to their heels. The young man came forward, smashed up all the magic apparatus, threw it as so much lumber on the fire, which he stopped carefully to extinguish, and the next morning, to the chagrin of the king and the discomfiture of the moloi, made his appearance in the kotla as well and hearty as ever.
In conformity with the rest of their character, the moloi have a singular antipathy to rain; they claim the ability to ward it off by burning a fresh green bough, with a suitable incantation, and maintain that they can frighten away the clouds by the mystic use of their guns. In every possible way they lay themselves out to thwart the proceedings of the recognized rain-doctors.
Perhaps the avocation of the linyakas and their chief representative which is really the most important, is the invocation of rain. In protracted periods of drought, when there seems a probability of the accustomed public incantations turning out a failure, recourse is had to linyakas who reside in more rainy districts, the Malokwanas, from the right bank of the central Limpopo, being always ready to put in an appearance in consideration of an adequate present of cattle.
But in ordinary seasons the task is entrusted to the native linyakas, who in the early spring, either alone or accompanied by a few volunteers, betake themselves to a fertile plot of ground selected as appropriate for the purpose, and proceed “tsimo ea pula,” i.e. to dig the rain-field. In the four corners of the field the men plant a number of seeds of maize, gourds, or water-melons, over which the linyakas have repeated their incantations, and then the women commence the work of digging the soil. The day of the ceremonial is the occasion of a general holiday, the women not going on with their labour till the following morning.
From that day forward the people are forbidden to gather the young branches of trees, especially those of the warten-bichi, which is regarded with veneration by the Bechuanas. But as soon as the kaffir-corn is ripe, the men, with the linyaka at their head, and provided with hatchets and knives, assemble at the kotla, and proceed to cut some branches from the sacred acacia; with these they first repair the royal cattle-kraal adjoining the kotla, and then make good any defects in their other enclosures. To carry a bough of the Acacia detinens round a village at mid-day before harvest would be regarded as a great calamity to the tribe.
During harvest-time all fruits, ostrich-feathers, and ivory must be brought into the town from the woods covered up. If it has rained in the night, and continues to rain in the morning, no one works in the fields that day for fear of disturbing the rain, and inducing it to stop. When the wet weather has fairly set in, or as the Bechuanas conceive, when the doctors have brought on the rain, the linyakas have to continue their operation, so as to ensure that the downpour may be of long duration.
For this purpose they are accustomed to resort occasionally by themselves, but much more frequently in company with their pupils and the owners of the land, to some isolated spot away among the hills, where they whistle, shout, mumble their formulæ, and light fires on the ledges of the rocks, into which from time to time they throw handfuls of their magic compounds.
When at any time the efforts of the linyakas seem unavailing, the fault is supposed not to lie with them, but with certain of the community who must have committed some undetected breach of the laws. Suspicion more often than not falls upon widows or widowers, who are presumed to have omitted some of the purifications prescribed for their condition; they are accordingly sentenced to undergo a public purifying, and the linyakas are paid to erect grass-huts outside the town, where the accused are obliged to reside for an indefinite time, their hair being all shorn from their heads, and whence they are not permitted to depart to their homes until they are pronounced thoroughly cleansed.