Then he sent some of his men with forty [[70]]cattle to take his daughter to a distant country, where she was to remain far away from him. They did as they were told, and built huts in that place to live in. After they had been there a long time, they found that the cows which the chief sent with them were giving more milk than they could consume, so they poured what was left in a hole in the ground. To their amazement, the milk rose, and rose, and rose, higher and still higher, till at last it stood up out of the ground like a great overhanging rock. They called the girl to see this wonderful thing that was happening. In her curiosity she went close to the precipice, when it fell down on her, and, as the milk ran over her, all her ugly blotched skin disappeared, and she was again beautiful as at first.
Soon afterwards a young chief who was passing by saw the girl, and fell in love with her. He thought she was the daughter of one of the men who were there to protect her, but when he made inquiries they told him she was the daughter of their chief. Then he went to her father, and some of the men went also to tell how the milk had cured the girl. The young chief had very many cattle, which he [[71]]offered to her father. So the old chief agreed to let him marry the girl, and she became his great wife, and was loved by him very dearly. [[72]]
[1] Words without meaning, but used to express contempt, being merely a repetition of the sound ngci. [↑]
THE STORY OF SIMBUKUMBUKWANA.
There was a man whose wife had no children, so that he was much dissatisfied. At last he went to a wise woman (Igqirakazi) and asked her to help him in this matter. She said: “You must bring me a fat calf that I may get its tallow to use with my medicine” (or charms—the Kaffir word is Imifizi). The man went home and selected a calf without horns or tail, which he took to the wise woman. She said: “Your wife will have a son who will have no arms and no legs, as this calf has no horns and no tail.” She told him, further, that he was not to inform any one of this.
The man returned to his home and told his friends what was to happen. Not long after this his wife bore a child, but it was a daughter [[73]]and had arms and legs. The man would not own that child, he said it was not his. He beat his wife, and commanded her to take the child away and leave it to perish. Then he went to the wise woman, and told her what had taken place. The wise woman said: “It was because you did not obey my command about keeping this matter to yourself, but your wife will yet have a son without arms and without legs.”
It was so. His wife bore another child, which was a boy without arms and without legs, therefore he was called Simbukumbukwana. He began to speak on the day of his birth. During this time the girl that was first born was growing up in the valley where her mother left her; she lived in a hole in an ant-heap, and ate honey, and “nongwes,” and gum.