Stirring scenes in savage lands

by James Greenwood

“When a chief feels his dissolution approaching, he calls his sons to his bedside and gives them his benediction, which consists solely in wishing them an abundance of the good things of this world. The eldest son of the chief’s favourite wife succeeds his father; and as soon as the obsequies are over he quits the desolate spot, remaining absent for years. At last, however, he returns, and immediately proceeds to his parent’s grave, where he kneels down, and in a whispering voice tells the deceased that he is there with his family and the cattle that he gave him. He then prays for a long life; also that his herds may thrive and multiply: and, in short, that he may obtain all those things that are dear to a savage. This duty being performed, he constructs a kraal on the identical spot where once the ancestral camp stood; even the huts and the fireplaces are placed as near as possible in their former position.

“The flesh of the first animal slaughtered here is cooked in a particular vessel; and when ready the chief hands a portion of it to every one present. An image consisting of two pieces of wood, supposed to represent, the household deity, or rather the deified parent, is then produced and moistened in the platter of each individual. The chief then takes the image, and after affixing a piece of meat to the upper end of it, he plants it in the ground on the identical spot where the parent was accustomed to sacrifice. The first pail of milk produced from the cattle is also taken to the grave; a small quantity is also poured over the ground, and a blessing asked on the remainder.

Among the Koossas, a tribe of South African natives, as soon as they perceive a sick man near his end, he is carried from his hut to some solitary spot beneath the shade of a tree. A fire is then made, and a vessel and water set near him. Only the husband or wife, or some near relation, remains with him. If he appear dying, water is thrown over his head, in hopes of its reviving him; but should this fail, and it becomes apparent that death is approaching, he is left by everybody but his wife; or should the sick person be a woman, then it is her husband alone who stays with her. The relations, however, do not retire to their homes; they gather at a distance, and from time to time the dying person’s nurse calls out and lets them know how matters are progressing, till comes the final announcement “he is dead.” When all is over, the dead man’s relatives proceed to the nearest stream, and, having purified themselves, return home.

The wife, however, who must pay the last duties to her husband, cannot do this. She leaves the body, about which no one is any longer solicitous, to become a prey to beasts and birds, and goes with a firebrand taken from the fire that had been kindled near the dying man, to some other solitary place, where she again makes a fire, and though it should rain ever so hard, she must not suffer it to be extinguished. In the night she comes secretly to the hut where she had lived with her husband, and burns it, and then returns back to her solitude, where she must remain a month entirely secluded from the world, and living the whole time on roots and berries. When this period of solitary mourning has expired, she divests herself of her clothes, which she destroys, bathes, lacerates her breasts and her arms with a sharp stone, and having made her a long petticoat of rushes returns at sunset to the kraal.

At her desire a youth of the tribe brings her a lighted firebrand, and exactly on the spot where her husband’s hut formerly stood she builds a fire; some one of her tribe then brings her some new milk, with which she rinses her mouth, and she is then acknowledged as completely purified, and is received once more among her relations and friends. Singularly enough, however, the cow from which the milk is drawn is, on the contrary, rendered impure, and though not killed, is neglected entirely and left to die a natural death. The day following the widow’s return an ox is killed, and after feasting on its flesh, the skin is given to her to make her a new mantle. Immediately after this her sisters-in-law assist her in building a new hut, and she is completely reinstated in social life.

A widower has nearly the same mourning ceremonies to observe, only with this difference, that his seclusion lasts but half a month. He then throws his garments away and prepares himself a new garment from the skin of an ox. He takes besides the hair the tail of the ox, with which he makes himself a necklace and wears it as long as it will last. If a person dies suddenly the whole colony will shift, judging that no further luck will attend them if they stay, and the body of the suddenly defunct is allowed to remain exactly as it fell, and with the hut for its sepulchre. If, however, the individual suddenly dying is a young child, impurity is supposed to attach only to the hut in which it died, and which is either pulled down or closed up for ever.

It is only the chiefs and their wives who are buried. They are left to die in their huts; the corpse is then wrapped in the folds of their mantle and a grave is dug in the cattle-fold. After the earth is thrown in some of the oxen are driven into the fold and remain there, so that the earth is entirely trodden down and indistinguishable from the rest. The oxen are then driven out; but they by this process become sacred oxen, and must by no man be slain for his eating.

The widows of the deceased have all the household utensils which they and their husbands had used together; and after remaining three days in solitude purify themselves according to the usual manner. They then each kill an ox, and each makes herself a new mantle of its hide. The kraal is then entirely deserted by the tribe and is never chosen as a building site, even though it be highly eligible and the horde in search of a site is entirely unknown to that belonging to which the chief died. A chief whose wife dies has the same ceremonies to observe as any other man, excepting that with him the time of mourning is only three days. The place where the wife of a chief is buried is forsaken in the same manner as in the case of the chief himself.

The Koossas have no priests or religious ceremonies, and consequently but few traditions. They know of no power superior to that with which ordinary mortals are invested except that professed by enchanters, which are of two sorts—good and bad; the former being the more powerful and able to frustrate the designs of the latter, provided that he be called on in time and the transaction be made worth his while. The Koossan enchanters are, as a rule, old women—poor wretches who, doubtless, finding themselves past labour and objects of contempt and impatience among their tribe, avail themselves of their long experience of the weaknesses and superstitions of those by whom they are surrounded, and boldly set up as witches as the most certain means of gaining not only the goodwill of the people but also their awe and respect.

Should a Koossan find himself at what he has reason to suspect to be death’s door, he sends for an enchantress. The “magic woman,” after hearing his case—never mind what it may be—proceeds to cure him; she makes some pellets of cow-dung, and laying them in rows and circles upon the man’s stomach, chants certain mysterious airs and dances and skips about him; after a while she will make a sudden dart at her patient and hold up to her audience a snake or a lizard, which the said audience is to infer was at that moment, through her force of magic, extracted from the seat of the patient’s ailment. If the sick man should die the excuse is that the appointed time of life had expired and that “there was no recovering spilled water,” or else she puts a bold face on the matter and declares that at least two evil enchanters were working against her, and that against such odds success was hopeless. In his dealings with these enchanters, however, the Koossan has this substantial security that no stone will be left unturned to effect his cure—the fee is agreed on beforehand and posted with a friend; should the patient grow well the friend delivers the ox, or whatever the fee may consist of, to the doctress; if the patient should die, or after a reasonable time find himself no better for the old lady’s services, he fetches home his ox and there is an end to the matter.