The “Gqira” leaves next morning having established his reputation; taking as fees two of the best cattle. Result nil.
As the child got worse, the mother becomes convinced that someone has bewitched him, and goes to consult one of the wizards or witch doctors “Awamatambo,” who is believed to be able to foretell the future and reveal the secrets of the past, by the method known as throwing the “Indawuli” (Dutch, dolossi bones). These are the metatarsal or metacarpal bones of sheep and antelopes variously coloured. They are thrown, about a dozen, like dice; and the “Gqira” studies them and reads the answer.
His procedure is something thus:—Having [[37]]been paid his fee, a goat or something, he sits down with his kaross, throws the “Indawuli” and then proceeds.
First he recapitulates the disease and details of treatment that have been adopted, and then accuses someone of witchcraft, someone whom he has a spite against or whom he knows to be suspected. Says the child was charmed by the individual by means of magic medicines which he had burned, which drew the lizard and toad and snake, “Uhili, Icanti and Impundulu” to the mother’s hut and then the child sickened. He predicts his certain death: a self evident fact by this time and which soon takes place, resulting in much trouble in the king’s household and often bloodshed.
The story is told of a great witch doctor being called to cure a girl of Epilepsy, which was supposed to be “Umdhlemyana,” sickness caused by the casting of a love spell by a young man in the neighbourhood; also of an instance where a child accidently buried in a landslip alive, and heard crying is allowed to die unreleased, while witch doctors have cattle and then goats driven over the place to appease the “Imishologu” in whose custody the child was.
There is another form of “smelling out,” [[38]]a more fearful affair the “Umhlalho,” or in Zulu “Ingoboko.” This is a tribal affair, and is carried out in the following manner:
The chief agrees to the summoning of a great “Umhlalho,” a great public dance, to which selected tribes are invited, and must attend. The “Gqira,” the tribes being assembled, after various incantations and probably working himself or herself (for females often take to this profession) into a frenzy, will single out an individual, or even at times a whole tribe as a guilty party, by throwing ashes over them. This act being called “Ukunuka.” These parties may have been guilty of, say, causing sickness in the king’s household, making one of his wives miscarry, or, in the case of a tribe, having assisted in the escape of a fugitive.
Those proclaimed guilty at an “Umhlalho” by means of the “Ukunuka” (throwing ashes), the signs of being “smelled out,” are often summarily slaughtered or at least severely punished, often with horrible tortures.
It was an “Isanusi” called “Malakaza,” who was responsible, under the direction of Kreli, for the great “Cattle Slaughter of the Kaffirs in 1856,” by which, according to the Hon. Charles Brownlee, an undoubted authority, it is computed [[39]]that over 20,000 natives died of starvation and other diseases, and 30,000 were forced to seek relief in the Cape Colony.
An “Insanuse” goes through a regular course of initiation and education after the following methods:—