Adventures in Swaziland: The Story of a South African Boer

by Owen Rowe O'Neil

What we discovered made me realize the wisdom of the government, which had recently passed strict laws against the witch-doctors. For a time L'Tunga regarded our curiosity as a great impertinence and did everything possible to prevent our getting more information than was readily available. Finally, one night, he grew confidential and told us why the government had set its foot down on his brothers of the craft. He did this chiefly because Dr. Sugden and I had shown him that we were "white witch-doctors" and thus had established a sort of fraternity among fellow practitioners.

"The bad witch-doctors caused all the trouble," he said, "and it was their own fault that the government made laws against them. None of the doctors in my 'lodge' were guilty of these offenses, but we have to suffer with the rest. Like you white doctors, I cure the sick and drive out evil spirits."

I had not claimed to drive out spirits, but I am not sure that Sugden had not made such a statement. He always did things in a thorough manner and L'Tunga might have misunderstood him when he told him what healers we were.

"The trouble began a little while ago," the witch-doctor went on," when a number of strange doctors came among us. They were from the gold country to the west and they had many queer tales to tell. They told our people that they were fools to work for the white men and that they ought to rise up and drive them out of the country.

"I do not know where they received their learning, but they said that our people were as good as the white men and told them that they were fools to let white men govern them. Our people listened and became much excited. They talked of making war and there was much unrest. The warriors began to gather, and the Boers and other white men sent messengers and spies to find out what was going on.

"However, these strange witch-doctors talked too much and made too many promises. Soon they began to tell our people that they need not grow any more corn nor breed any more cattle. They promised that there would be a great rain of corn and that millions of cows would come into the country for any one who wanted them. The people were convinced and sat about in idleness, waiting for the free food. The end of this was that there was much hunger in our land and many of the people starved to death.

"I went about when these strange witch-doctors told these lies and warned our people that starvation would come. But they scoffed at me and would not even bow to my most sacred charms. They said I belonged to the old order and that the new witch-doctors were the only ones worth following. For some time—too long a time—I had no honor and it was not until starvation came that the people again listened to me.

"Then the government learned of all these things and sent food to the people, so that not so many died. Some of the strange witch-doctors were caught and killed, but most of them escaped.

"Making starvation was not the only crime they did. So foolish were the people that they believed in them and for a time would do anything they said. Some of the doctors told them to commit murders and sold them charms that were to prevent them from getting caught. A number of killings took place and many women were stolen. When the murderers were caught and brought to court, they told how the doctors had advised them to kill and even named the number of cows they had paid for the charms that were supposed to protect them. When the government heard of this they became very angry and passed laws against witch-doctors."

L'Tunga was full of this invasion of Swaziland by these strange witch-doctors and told us stories about it for several hours. One was as amusing as it was illuminating. It seemed that two young indunas had a difference of opinion over a woman. They both tried to buy her and bid against each other, so that the successful one had to pay three or four times her market value. This hurt the purchaser's feelings, while the loser was angry because he had been outbid. The result was that the latter went to one of the witch-doctors and bought a charm to protect him while he unostentatiously murdered his rival. At about the same time the other induna bought a charm from another of these witch-doctors and started out to slay his enemy. Before they could meet the two witch-doctors compared notes and decided it would be a bad thing for them if there was a killing. The doctor whose charm proved valueless would lose prestige in the villages he was plundering. So they agreed to prevent bloodshed, and did so by proving that the woman in question was bewitched and thus only fit to serve them! One of them took her, and the indunas decided to forget their differences. However, when the crash came, after the starvation episode, they hunted up these witch-doctors and promptly killed them.