Several instances of this were related to me. When he moved from the Barotse to Sesheke he was unable, on account of the tsetse-fly in the neighbourhood, to bring his cattle with him; some large herds belonging to one of the chieftains aroused his envy, and the owner was soon a doomed man. He was brought to judgment and condemned, but evacuating the poison, he escaped; he was brought to trial again with the same result; the third time he was not permitted to get off, but his body, by private orders, was exposed to the fire till he was dead. On another occasion, after I left Sesheke, the wife of the chief Mokoro was sentenced to death; the poison test declared her innocent, but the executioner informed her that he was commissioned by the king to burn her alive next day all the same. To avoid her fate the wretched woman flung herself into the river, where a huge crocodile seized her and mangled her body frightfully before carrying it to the bottom.
But to resume my account of the victim in the wood. When the clamour around him ceased a little, and the accusers grew tired of reviling him, the two old doctors came forward and twisted him round and round, to make the poison, as they said, work itself into his system. They then made him resume his old position on the scaffold, where all the hubbub of the sympathizers and enemies was again renewed, the impatience of both parties continually increasing till they saw whether the poison would act as an emetic or a narcotic. Their curiosity was not set at rest for half an hour, when the man at last fell senseless to the ground. This was the signal for the executioner’s deputies to proceed to business; without losing an instant they pounced upon the body and carried it off to the fire already kindled; it was in vain for wife or friends to protest; the poor wretch’s head was held over the flames until the face was half-burned away, and he was choked. A quantity of brushwood was then added, and the body, as rapidly as possible, was consumed in the bonfire. The relations, uttering loud lamentations, began to return homewards, but they were careful to suppress all their wailing on reaching the town, lest their tokens of grief should excite the king’s anger, and provoke him to further barbarities.
During this reign of terror many who thought themselves likely to come under suspicion tried to leave the country, and some even committed suicide to avoid coming under the royal sentence. Runaways who were caught were either assegaied by their pursuers, or brought back to Sepopo for execution; if any of them were interceded for either by an important chief or by any of the white men, it was very likely that the application would be received with a very gracious acquiescence, but the chances were that a few days afterwards he would be again accused and convicted afresh.
In cases of theft neither the king nor any of his officials will punish a man except upon his own confession, or upon the evidence of a number of witnesses. No pains are ever taken by the authorities to discover or apprehend a thief; they simply say to a complainant, “Bring your man here, and then we can deal with him.”
I have already mentioned that two respited criminals acted as scavengers at the royal residence. These men had always to be up and to complete their work before any one was stirring; and occasionally they had to remove corpses out of the thoroughfares, as Sepopo regarded all dead bodies, except those of his own people at the court, merely as offal, and gave orders that they should be treated as other rubbish.
It is only giving the Marutse people fair credit for their medical knowledge to say that it is certainly in advance of that of other South African tribes; on this superior knowledge the physicians in the secret council have devised their sorceries in such a way as to gain for themselves a kind of awe from the common people; their acquaintance with the medicinal or poisonous properties of many plants is such as might enable them to be of universal service, were they not actuated by the desire to maintain their hold upon the ignorant by the old routine of magic. Apart, however, from this, I found that they quite understood the treatment of dysentery, fever, coughs, colds, wounds, and snake-bites, although their remedies were always accompanied by mysterious ceremonies to inspire the faith which, perhaps, after all, contributed very largely to the cure. As with the Bechuanas, bleeding was quite a common operation; it was performed with metal, horn, or bone lancets upon the temples, cheeks, arms, breast, and shoulders, the blood being drawn out by bone suckers; it was adopted in cases of neuralgia to relieve any local pain, and was supposed to reduce inflammation in any of the neighbouring organs. Plants of which the medicinal qualities had been ascertained were dried and used in powder and decoctions, or sometimes they were burnt and reduced to charcoal. The animal substances employed for medicine were bone-dust, scales of the pangolin, and the glandular secretions and excrements of certain mammalia. In one respect the Mabunda doctors differed from the Bechuanas, in having no external indication to mark their profession, unless their extreme old age might be interpreted as a badge of their calling.
The prevalence of superstition is no doubt the principal and most serious obstacle to the intellectual development of the Marutse-Mabunda tribes. It was the awe with which his subjects regarded him that enabled Sepopo, in spite of his atrocities, so long to maintain his power over them; the aged doctors that he kept about him never failed to inculcate the most superstitious notions upon the people, and the influence they exercised was very largely increased by the manifest efficacy of many of the remedies they used; there was no room left to question the sacredness of the person of the sovereign.
It would be absolutely impossible to enumerate all the charms that are employed, and I will only pause to recapitulate a few of them.
At the commencement of a war, after the completion of a new town, or in any season of general calamity, certain portions of the human body, removed during life, are deposited in special places in vessels designed for the purpose.
Bracelets and chestbands made of buffalo fat are supposed to keep off various disorders, and to act as a protection in cases of pursuit.