Incwadi Yami; or, twenty years' personal experience in South Africa

by J. W. Matthews

The flesh after this is all cut up, thrown into the air, and all the men, like hungry dogs, scramble to catch the pieces.

Next day the chief and all the men of the tribe dance in the kraal, when, adjourning to a neighboring stream, the chief bathes, the ceremony of “Umkosi” is finished, and the tribe can partake of the first fruits of the season.

I may also mention the Inteyezi, or the sprinkling of warriors with a decoction of herbs and roots to make them fierce and brave, the eating of Insomyama, or the choicest meat, which, being consumed only in the house of the head of the family, at once establishes the superiority of the house, and consequently is very important evidence in trying cases of disputed inheritance. Then again there is the penalty of damages in the shape of an ox, which every man must pay who applies to another the defamatory term Umtagati[^[8]] or to a girl of Isiropo,[^[9]] and, further, there is the difference between the English and native laws of evidence, which, as I am not a lawyer, I will discreetly pass over.

The intimate acquaintance I made, however, with the customs of the native doctors (I suppose on account of its connection with my own profession) many a time afforded me food for contemplation and discussion.

It may not be out of the way here for me to mention the different recognized kinds of doctors (izinyanga): 1st, the wizard or diviner (inyanga gokubula); 2d, the rain doctor; 3d, the lightning and hail doctor; 4th, the medicine doctor (inyanga yokwelapa).

ZULU “MASHERS.”

The wizard or witch doctor is a very cunning, shrewd fellow, and he must also be a doctor of medicine. The profession is not, however, confined to the male sex, for as many women as men are engaged in its mysteries; but to describe how the patients are gulled, and how the very secrets about which they consult the doctor he manages to ascertain from themselves, in what a professional manner they are duped, and how the doctor’s riches and reputation increase, would take up too much time. Rain doctors are supposed to have the power of causing rain to fall, and are appealed to after a long drought, but they are clever enough never to commence their incantations until indications of rain are discernible, and consequently they are always sure of success. Next come the lightning doctors, who dance around the kraals they have been summoned to defend, brandishing their assegais during the flashes and violence of the storm in a manner that suggests insanity to the European observer. Naturally they are more frequently successful than unsuccessful. The hail doctors, again, believe that by burning medicine while the hail is yet distant they diminish its power, and that when they leave their huts to command it to depart it will return whence it came. It must be understood that these doctors are not to be regarded as opponents of the heavens, but simply as mediators. Bishop Calloway says that many heathen have asked him to pray for rain, because he was one whose office it was Ukumelana nenkosi—to contend with God—and who was under the protection of heaven, and safe so long as he was observant of the laws of his office. Last, but not least, is the medicine doctor. Sickness, the natives believe, is always caused by an enemy, or by the will of the spirits of their departed ancestors or relatives who generally protect them from harm, but, who being sometimes angry, allow sickness to overtake them, or the machinations of their enemies to prevail. The doctor’s father and grandfather have generally been in the profession before him, and the secrets of the healing art have thus been handed down from generation to generation, though in some instances he is a self-taught man, who has picked up some knowledge of diseases, roots and herbs by observation and experience; but no faith, whatever, is reposed in a doctor or diviner who happens to be fat. The medicines employed are mostly innocent, but still many powerful drugs are included in their pharmacopœia, for instance, they use the male fern (inkomankoma, lastred felix mas) as a remedy for tape-worm, emetics by the gallon for slight ailments, and as correctives after their beer-drinking orgies, other medicaments so powerful that whole families, both black and white, have been carried off by their felonious administration; but their useful medicines are so mixed up with useless adulterations that in most cases it would be better for the patient to “throw physic to the dogs.” It used to be the case of “no cure, no pay;” for, according to their law, if the patients died, or did not recover until another medical man had been called in, the doctor got no payment; but in Natal, now, on first attendance the doctor requires a preliminary fee of ten shillings, nominally to buy medicine, but at the same time he stipulates for receiving a bullock in case of a cure being effected. As a rule they administer harmless drugs, thinking it safest to believe in the motto of “vis medicatrix naturæ,” for there is no doubt the majority are the most arrant quacks ever known. Some, who rank high in the profession, travel from place to place, and as the result of their skill and knowledge of human nature, return home after an absence of months, or it may be years, rich in the possession of large herds of cattle. The doctor of medicine is also often a witch doctor, and so combines in one a knowledge of the two branches of the profession.

A case[^[10]] occurred toward the end of 1866, in which I was engaged as government surgeon, which at the time created an immense sensation in Natal. It elucidates what I have just said of witch and medicine doctoring being often combined. I think the story of the tragedy will not be uninteresting to my readers.

Information was brought to the resident magistrate’s court at Verulam that a native had been severely assaulted in a location some miles away, and I was ordered by the resident magistrate, together with the clerk of the court, to proceed to the wounded man’s kraal and investigate the matter. Our path to the kraal, the home of the dying man, led through the passes of one of the wildest, most rugged and most picturesque regions to be found in the whole of Natal. Here, owing to the proximity of the sea, we found the vegetation clothing the rocky defile to be most luxuriantly dense and tropical. Tramping along the narrow Kafir path in order to reach our destination, we had to push aside fantastic wreaths of tangled convolvuli, force our way past festoons of monkey rope parasites and other climbers, and whilst avoiding the wild date tree on the one hand, had on the other to shun the prickly thorns of the crimson-fruited amatungulu. Our tardy progress scared the barking baboon in his rocky home, startled the chattering monkey from his lofty perch and the timid buck from his grassy lair, whilst the brilliant-plumaged uqualaquala and other feathered denizens of the bush flew away, alarmed at our approach. To describe the lovely, ever-changing scenery which broke upon our view is almost impossible; the majestic milk wood, the deadly euphorbia, the quaint Kafir boom, the spreading fan-palm, the aloe, cactus and wild banana, all lending their presence to produce an effect not easily to be effaced. Woe betide us, however, if we did not keep a sharp lookout for the deadly snakes coiled in the long grass at our feet, or for those which, hanging like green tendrils from the trees above, were ever ready to drop upon our heads.