Such a raft as this is much used in the chase of the hippopotamus. It looks like a mere mass of reeds floating down the stream, and does not alarm the wary animal as much as a boat would be likely to do. When the natives use the raft in pursuit of the hippopotamus, they always haul their canoes upon it, so that they are ready to be launched in pursuit of the buoy as soon as the animal is struck.
The same tribes use reeds if they wish to cross the river. They cut a quantity of them, and throw them into the river as if they were going to make a raft. They then twist up some of the reeds at each corner, so as to look like small posts, and connect these posts by means of sticks or long reeds, by way of bulwarks. In this primitive ferry-boat the man seats himself, and is able to carry as much luggage as he likes, the simple bulwarks preventing it from falling overboard.
It is rather a strange thing that a Makololo cannot be induced to plant the mango tree, the men having imbibed the notion from other tribes among whom they had been travelling. They are exceedingly fond of its fruit, as well they may be, it being excellent, and supplying the natives with food for several weeks, while it may be plucked in tolerable abundance during four months of the year. Yet all the trees are self-planted, the natives believing that any one who plants one of these trees will soon die. This superstition is prevalent throughout the whole of this part of Africa, the Batoka being almost the only tribe among whom it does not prevail.
The Makololo have contrived to make themselves victims to a wonderful number of superstitions. This is likely enough, seeing that they are essentially usurpers, having swept through a vast number of tribes, and settled themselves in the country of the vanquished. Now, there is nothing more contagious than superstition, and, in such a case, the superstitions of the conquered tribes are sure to be added to those of the victors.
The idea that certain persons can change themselves into the forms of animals prevails among them. One of these potent conjurers came to Dr. Livingstone’s party, and began to shake and tremble in every limb as he approached. The Makololo explained that the Pondoro, as these men are called, smelled the gunpowder, and, on account of his leonine habits, he was very much afraid of it. The interpreter was asked to offer the Pondoro a bribe of a cloth to change himself into a lion forthwith, but the man declined to give the message, through genuine fear that the transformation might really take place.
The Pondoro in question was really a clever man. He used to go off into the woods for a month at a time, during which period he was supposed to be a lion. His wife had built him a hut under the shade of a baobab tree, and used to bring him regular supplies of food and beer, his leonine appetite being supposed to be subsidiary to that which belonged to him as a human being. No one is allowed to enter this hut except the Pondoro and his wife, and not even the chief will venture so much as to rest his weapons against the baobab tree; and so strictly is this rule observed that the chief of the village wished to inflict a fine on some of Dr. Livingstone’s party, because they had placed their guns against the sacred hut.
Sometimes the Pondoro is believed to be hunting for the benefit of the village, catching and killing game as a lion, and then resuming his human form, and telling the people where the dead animal is lying. There is also among these tribes a belief that the spirits of departed chiefs enter the bodies of lions, and this belief may probably account for the fear which they feel when opposed to a lion, and their unwillingness to attack the animal. In Livingstone’s “Zambesi and its tributaries,” there is a passage which well illustrates the prevalence of this feeling.
“On one occasion, when we had shot a buffalo in the path beyond the Kapie, a hungry lion, attracted probably by the smell of the meat, came close to our camp, and roused up all hands by his roaring. Tuba Mokoro (the ‘Canoe-smasher’), imbued with the popular belief that the beast was a chief in disguise, scolded him roundly during his brief intervals of silence. ‘You a chief! Eh! You call yourself a chief, do you? What kind of a chief are you, to come sneaking about in the dark, trying to steal our buffalo-meat? Are you not ashamed of yourself? A pretty chief, truly! You are like the scavenger-beetle, and think of yourself only. You have not the heart of a chief; why don’t you kill your own beef? You must have a stone in your chest, and no heart at all, indeed.’”
The “Canoe-smasher” producing no effect by his impassioned outcry, the lion was addressed by another man named Malonga, the most sedate and taciturn of the party. “In his slow, quiet way he expostulated with him on the impropriety of such conduct to strangers who had never injured him. ‘We were travelling peaceably through the country back to our own chief. We never killed people, nor stole anything. The buffalo-meat was ours, not his, and it did not become a great chief like him to be prowling about in the dark, trying, like a hyæna, to steal the meat of strangers. He might go and hunt for himself, as there was plenty of game in the forest.’ The Pondoro being deaf to reason, and only roaring the louder, the men became angry, and threatened to send a ball through him if he did not go away. They snatched up their guns to shoot him, but he prudently kept in the dark, outside of the luminous circle made by our camp fires, and there they did not like to venture.”
Another superstition is very prevalent among these tribes. It is to the effect that every animal is specially affected by an appropriate medicine. Ordinary medicines are prepared by the regular witch-doctors, of whom there are plenty; but special medicines require special professionals. One man, for example, takes as his specialty the preparation of elephant medicine, and no hunter will go after the elephant without providing himself with some of the potent medicine. Another makes crocodile medicine, the use of which is to protect its owner from the crocodile. On one occasion, when the white man had shot a crocodile as it lay basking in the sun, the doctors came in wrath, and remonstrated with their visitors for shooting an animal which they looked upon as their special property. On another occasion, when a baited hook was laid for the crocodile, the doctors removed the bait, partly because it was a dog, and they preferred to eat it themselves, and partly because any diminution in the number of crocodiles would cause a corresponding loss of fees.