The boys when working well will in a day do about as much work as a quarter of the same number of English labourers. They are inclined to be industrious when the Baba is in sight, but they immediately drop down on their haunches with knees up the moment his back is turned. This is a moral certainty. Then singing ceases, for when working they are always singing. Any excuse for a passing diversion is immediately seized upon. On the shout of inyoga (snake) they drop their tools at once, seize their knobkerries and jump into the jungle heedless for the time being of thorns and creepers. In respect of snakes they are not cowards. Inside the bush a perfect pandemonium is going on which never ceases till either the snake, generally a python or a black mamba, has been slain or has escaped into some pile of ancient blocks.
Another day, after a brief absence from the temple, I found about forty women and girls from Mogabe’s kraal had arrived in the temple to watch their sons, brothers, and sweethearts at work. This they frequently do. The boys on this occasion, believing Baba to be further off than he really was, were chasing the dusky Cleopatras up and down the parallel passages, in and out of the enclosures, and dodging them round the base of the Sacred Cone. One burly Junoesque, bead-and-bangle-bedecked mother was having a most delirious and frantic ride round the temple courts in our only wheelbarrow, which is an iron one. As the barrow bumped along at full tilt against the stones it would each time shake her up terribly. The shrieking, screaming, and laughter of the girls and the yelling of the boys made the temple ring with a noise sufficient to make the priests of the ancient Phallic cult whirl in their graves with horror. But—Baba! and in thirty seconds the boys were all hard at work with most pious looks on their faces, and singing a well-known mission hymn. These great, fine-grown, frank-looking fellows, with their enviable ivories and provokingly pleasant smiles, are far worse than little children to manage. Their characters are perfectly riddled with frivolity, and their minds astonishingly mercurial. Every incident they notice is to them humorous, even the preservation work at the ruins is regarded by them as a sheer waste of time. Not one of them if he tried hard could keep silence for two minutes together. He must either talk, laugh, sing, whistle, or perform some absurd antic. Their utter guilelessness and naïve simplicity are in many respects both surprising and entertaining. To blame them before their fellows kills what little spirit they possess for work, while praise, even though barely merited, will cause them to redouble their efforts. To be in the slightest degree friendly or familiar with them is to completely destroy one’s influence over them; the granting them any favour is regarded by them as an undoubted sign of the donor’s weakness, and of the virtue of gratitude they are absolutely destitute.
One wonders at the dual character which each possesses. In some respects a Makalanga is more moral than many a European, while in others the depth of his immorality cannot be plumbed. In some matters they are as pure-minded as Adam and Eve in the Garden, and know not that they are naked. In their hands their women’s virtue is safe. But contact with the “educated native,” especially a Cape Kafir, before their minds are prepared to receive even the most elementary education, works on them untold mischief.
But the boys may be divided into two classes, one industrious and honest, the other lazy and thieving. These diverse characteristics appear to run in separate families. M’Komo stole Mrs. Theodore Bent’s honey. Three of his nephews in my employ stole meat, sugar, tobacco, or anything else in the kya (hut) they took a fancy to. Another nephew proved to be a veritable Iago in a moocha (a small leathern apron worn by men), and was always making mischief, not only among the boys, but also between the boys and the Baba. Of course these members of this family, notwithstanding its exalted connections, were warned off the camp, and are not allowed to be seen visiting it. Brothers of unsatisfactory boys are never taken on the works, but should there be any vacancy at the end of a month, and the supply of labour is greater than our demand, the places are offered to the brothers of trustworthy boys, and these always prove a great success.
But to return to the Temple. About eleven o’clock the kya boy arrives with half a dozen wee picaninnies carrying kettle, tea-pot, etc. The kya boy comes in for an amount of chaff from the gang. They call him a “Moccaranga shentilman,” because, for two hours in the morning and for the same time in the afternoon, he can lala (rest), seeing that he starts work at 5.30 a.m. and is not free till about 8 p.m. Further, he has perquisites in the shape of meat, tobacco, and tips from visitors, and also in a diluted form acts as a sort of baas (master). But the kya boy takes all the chaff in good part, and gives back quite as much as he receives. The picaninnies, armed with bows and arrows, indulge in target practice, and make it ruinous to stick up lunch biscuits at forty paces.
Probably Mogabe with his headmen will arrive to watch the boys working, and then I know what to expect. It is bound to come. After a long silence he remarks that he is glad to see the Baba. Another long silence, and then—“A Baba always gives presents to his children.” I assume a complete indifference to his remark. Mogabe is diplomatic, but his diplomacy is very thin. After a long pause he observes—“The Baba will make me a present of money.” I inform him I have none to give. Another long pause ensues, then, pointing to a hatchet, he remarks—“The Baba will give me this.” I explain that the hatchet is the property of the Chartered Company, and not mine to bestow. He fails to see the point of my statement, and bluntly says so. He pauses to consider what else he can ask for, and after a long cogitation says “Salt, Baba.” At last Mogabe is reasonable, and I instruct the kya boy to fetch him half a cup of salt. Mogabe is profuse in his thanks, and his speech is floreated with eulogies of the Baba.
Now my turn begins. Mogabe and the elders of his headmen have a sixty years’ knowledge of the ruins, and he is acquainted with everything that took place at Zimbabwe during the time of Chipfuno his brother, who was the previous Zimbabwe chief. Pointing to a gap in an obviously ancient wall which had been rudely filled in with blocks, I ask him who filled up the gap. After a long consultation with his headmen, he says that the Makalanga did it to keep in the cattle, for this part of the temple was used as a cattle kraal, and that was when Chipfuno was a young man. Another gap was filled up when Chipfuno was a young man. I then hand him over some pieces of pottery with geometrical patterns not at all crudely executed, which we have just unearthed, and ask him if the Makalanga made them. For ten minutes he and his headmen are closely examining the pottery, noting the quality of the clay, the correctness of the pattern, and the glaze on both sides. Yes, the Makalanga made it, but not the Makalanga who are now alive, nor their fathers’ fathers. The pottery was of Makalanga make, but meningi dara (very old). The assertion he emphasises by gesture, manifestly meaning a great age. Mogabe thus confirms the expert opinion of antiquarians that this class of pottery was made by the mediæval Makalanga. Mogabe comes to see us at every place we work at, and his opinion on “finds” belonging to recent generations of Makalanga may be taken, so old hands affirm, as perfectly reliable. The information so obtained is valuable both as to later walls and to articles found.
Sometimes the chiefs Baranazimba or Chenga arrive at the ruins, and an indaba (conference) as to “finds” and built-up entrances always takes place, but the weekly indaba with Mogabe always commences with the same old rigmarole. It is a sheer waste of time to discuss anything ancient with them, for since the new jail at Victoria has been built they all solemnly declare that the marungu[22] (white men) built the ruins for a “Tronk!” All their old poetic explanations as to the presence of the ruins, such as they were built “when stones were soft” or “when days were dark,” have now gone to the winds. The ruins were prisons!
But the kya boy has arrived with the salt, and Mogabe is happy. He wraps the salt up in the corner of his blanket, and is off to his kraal at once. When any marungu arrives in a Cape-cart at the camp Mogabe is down the side of his kopje a few minutes afterwards, and arrives there also. It is the same old story, only then the visitor is given his opportunity of demonstrating his liberality. “I am glad to see the Baba. A Baba always gives presents to his children.” Mogabe, like his fellows all over South Africa, is a born beggar, and yet he possesses seventy head of cattle, is rich in wives, grain, and labour, rules over a large area of country, receives a monthly allowance from the Government as chief, and a further allowance for warning unauthorised prospectors for ancient relics from the ruins.
Mogabe’s day has gone. Still, notwithstanding his true Kafir fawning nature, there is something about the aged chief one cannot help respecting. He is intelligent, and he looks it, and his face, if white, would be taken for that of an educated European, for, like most Makalanga, he has little or nothing negroid in his features. Before the advent of the Chartered Company he was constantly at war with his neighbours, sacking villages, kidnapping women and children, and generally murdering. His last fight was in November, 1892, when he engaged the Amangwa people, the battle taking place just outside the western wall of the Elliptical Temple. His own people seem to somewhat neglect him, except in some tribal arrangements and in affairs in which he represents the Native Department. Formerly it was the rule that he ate first and his people afterwards; now he comes into our camp at skoff-times and asks the boys for some of their rapoko, porridge, and if they should happen to be mindful of his presence they will pass him a handful, but sometimes he sits there unheeded. He has now sold, perhaps for a mere song, the famous necklace of Venetian beads which Bent failed to induce him to part with. But there is a look in his eyes that gives one the impression that the old man does not at all relish the benefits of civilisation, and that he is pining for a return of the good old days of blood-shedding.[23] Mogabe’s biography would be worth writing.