While acting as district surgeon at Verulam under Dr. Blaine’s magistracy, my connection with the government, as a matter of course, enabled me to gain an insight into native customs, with which I should not otherwise have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted. I had further the good fortune of being associated in these matters with a gentleman who thoroughly understood the Kafir language and character, and whose ability has since been recognized by his promotion to an important magistracy by the Natal government. I allude to Mr. J. C. C. Chadwick, then clerk to the resident magistrate at Verulam, Victoria County. This gentleman published in 1879 some commentaries on native laws, customs and usages,[[7]] which are very interesting.
There are many customs among the Zulus of Natal which are known only to the natives themselves or to those who have given great study to the subject. Some—among others Mr. F. B. Fynney, who now occupies an important official position under the Natal government, but whom I knew as a sugar planter on the coast—think that the Zulus must have had at one time an intimate connection with the Hebrew nation, as many of their customs are decidedly similar to those practiced by the Jews, to whom possibly they may have been in bondage in the past ages. Amongst the usages to which Mr. Fynney draws particular attention in support of this opinion, is the custom which the maidens follow of proceeding annually to the hills to mourn or wail, thus reminding one forcibly of Jephthah’s daughter. That they have a distinct religious trust, and acknowledge both the existence of a supreme being, who created all things, and who is endowed with infinite power, and that they also believe in another world and a hereafter, he has no doubt. One thing is certain—they are exceptionally superstitious, believe in signs, omens and supernatural agencies. Nothing, in fact, according to them, happens by chance. They even offer sacrifices to propitiate a supreme deity, whom not having seen, they yet believe. Then, too, they have their “lesser gods,” the spirits of their deceased ancestors; they have their conscience, their sense of right and wrong, and their laws and customs to regulate their social life. There is no denying the fact that a broad idea of a supreme divinity circulates among them, and, as the Right Rev. Henry Calloway, Bishop of St. John’s, who has devoted great study to the subject, says: “The existence of the religious instincts in the natives, of those germs of religious truth—which, among Christian people with a divine revelation, have been developed into so glorious a religion—is evident from the readiness with which, under proper teaching, they accept the fact of the creating power continued to be manifested in Providence; and that that creating power is our Father in heaven.”
The Rev. Dr. Lindley as well, after forty years’ experience among the natives of South Africa, always expressed to me his belief in the easy and gradual improvability of the native when not exposed to the contaminating influence of the low white colonist, and to the coarse materialism presented to him to copy.
While I was district surgeon the customs of the natives interested me very much, and I will mention those which most attracted my notice. Ukulobola, or the practice of giving cattle to the father or guardian of a girl or widow, on her marriage, by her husband, is one of the oldest laws among the natives of South Africa. Looking at the practice from an Englishman’s point of view, it is tantamount to the purchase and sale of women, but it does not bear the same construction in the native mind, for it is by them considered as compensation for the loss of a daughter’s services at an age when, by her usefulness and affection, she might give some return for the care and attention which she received in childhood. Moreover, the girl glories in it as a proof of her worth, while the man himself would not value a wife who cost nothing. The intended son-in-law, when engaged to a girl, generally begins to pay the necessary cattle in instalments, and as he has to run the risk of their dying, their sickness and death very often delay the marriage. If an engagement is broken off the suitor gets back all the cattle he may have paid on account; again, if a wife die without issue the husband can claim the cattle he has paid, or the father must give him another girl instead; but if the husband die while the wife is still young, a younger brother takes the wife, or she returns home, and the husband’s estate receives back the cattle, supposing the wife has borne no children.
Their law of inheritance is a study in itself. A Natal Kafir looks upon any money or goods he may acquire as valuable only as a means of acquiring cattle, by possession of which he may obtain wives. Land they do not claim individually, and they set value on it only as the common right of their tribe. The head man of a kraal is a patriarch indeed, and is responsible for the good behavior of the members of it. If he has a son who is married, that son cannot, during his father’s lifetime, say which of his wives shall be his Ikohlo (right-hand wife), or which his Iquadi (left-hand wife), but his father, after due consideration, chooses them for him, and when once appointed neither their position nor that of their children can be altered, however badly they may behave. The Inkosikazi is the wife of the greatest rank, her hut is placed in the centre opposite the gateway of the kraal, and her eldest son is heir. The hut of the right-hand wife is placed to the right side, that of the left-hand wife to the left of that of the “inkosikazi,” and of course they occupy the next position to that of the chief wife. If male issue fail the chief wife, the eldest son of the “ikohlo,” or right-hand wife, can only succeed to the chieftainship in event of male issue failing all the wives of the left-hand side. The head of the kraal is entitled to receive all the earnings of his sons or daughters, but he is expected to start his sons in life, or in other words, to find their marriage portion. The following diagram shows the position of the chief huts in a kraal:
Generally when the head of a kraal dies, the heir leaves the kraal to the chief wife and to the “iquadi,” his younger brothers remaining, and if any of his father’s widows are young enough, his uncles or some other man is appointed to raise up seed to his (the heir’s) house. This custom is called Ukungena, but is now modified by allowing the widow, if she chooses, to marry some other man; if so, however, the new husband must pay a marriage consideration to the estate of the deceased husband.
The chase, too, has its rules, as also has the Umkosi, or dance of first fruits, a festival before the celebration of which, at the chief’s kraal, the first fruits of the season cannot be eaten. A large bull is killed by the young warriors of the tribe, which is skinned, cut up, and cooked, when the doctors first eat a portion, and then the chief does likewise, but in doing so spits out some in the direction of the country of each of his enemies, or rather of each independent government situated around him; for instance, Cetywayo, the King of the Zulus, used to spit toward Natal, the Transvaal, and the Swazi country, and utter the names of the Governor of Natal, the Administrator of the Transvaal, and the King of the Swazies, a custom equivalent to our drinking confusion to all the Queen’s enemies and singing:
“Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks.”