The totem or distinguishing sign of the local tribe of Makalanga is moyo, the heart. Each tribe has its own totem, which may be the leg of a certain buck or some particular bird. Should a bird or an animal be the totem the tribe bearing that sign do not eat of the flesh of such bird or animal, nor will they kill them. A man of one totem must not marry a wife of a tribe bearing the same totem, but must seek one of a tribe of Makalanga having another totem. Thus, as they affirm, “Heart must not marry Heart, nor Lion marry Lion.” This rule enforced through past ages has no doubt tended to maintain and improve their physical condition, and accounts for their fine figures, splendid health and general freedom from illnesses, and the almost utter absence of deformity and lunacy. A tribe of the Baduma people also bears the totem of the heart. The sub-tribal totem of the local Barotse[29] is the lion. The lion, which is also the totem of the local Amangwa, only includes rapacious animals, such as wild cats, wild dogs, etc. Certain families in the same tribe or kraal have distinguishing signs, or what may be termed sub-totems. The totem system also prevailed amongst the early Semitic peoples prior to biblical times, and was later a feature of Hebrew history; for instance, “The Lion of the tribe of Judah.” The totem of the Ephraimites was a bull.
In addition to the animal or bird that may constitute the totem there are other animals and birds which they venerate, and will not kill, eat, or touch. The slaying of such creatures is regarded as a crime against the whole of the tribe. The spirits of dead ancestors, relatives, and chiefs are supposed to reside in such birds and animals. The principal bird of local reverence is the Harahurusei (Bird of God), which is the chapungo, a large and beautiful bird, quite black except its tail, which is red. The peculiarity of this bird is that it soars overhead exactly as does a bird of prey. The natives assert that the nest, eggs, or feathers of this bird have never been found by anyone, nor do they know on what food it lives. A native will not proceed on a journey if the chapungo appears in the air or settles on the ground in front of him, but will at once return home. Natives hail the bird and ask it for favours.
The local natives will not eat the following: Common grey hawk, black crow, owl, wolf, crocodile, snake, or wild dog. Some will not eat hippo or eland flesh. They will not kill the chapungo, owl, wild dog, heron, and certain small birds. But while these are the general practices of local Makalanga tribes, certain families in different tribes frequently have additional and special objects of veneration, and any one native may have some particular object for his own personal veneration. The tribal custom with regard to not partaking of the flesh of certain birds and animals is very strictly adhered to, even though natives starve. To touch such, living or dead, is a defilement, and the remains can only be moved by using sticks.
Of insects, they eat locusts, two kinds of cricket (mashu and zukumge), a caterpillar (masonya), a worm called mambene, and different kinds of ants, including shua and madjuro, but especially flying-ants. All these insects they consider dainties, and cook them in the soup-pot into which they dip each handful of rapoka porridge. The soup is made of fat, ground monkey-nuts, and many other ingredients.
The natives are known to draw certain star-pictures in the sky; for instance, Orion is made out to be “two pigs and a dog.” The three stars in the Belt form one of the principal subjects of children’s songs. They, of course, know the Morning and Evening Star, while the Pleiades in their rising and setting mark the sowing and reaping seasons. They evidently only see six stars in the latter, as they call them Tshimtanatu, which means anything containing six.
They believe the sun returns across the sky at night when everyone is sleeping, and that it travels from west to east ready to start over again at daybreak, but high up in the expanse of the heavens and hidden from sight by unseen clouds. They ridicule the idea of the earth being round.
Eclipses of the sun or moon foretell war or some other great calamity. They most usually say of them that the sun or moon is “rotten,” frequently that they are “sick.”
They generally believe that each moon dies, and that every new moon is new in the strict sense of the word. Some, however, think that it does not die altogether, but leaves a seed or germ, which in turn grows big and then small until only the seed is left. The rising and setting of the Pleiades, the new and full moon, are occasions of great rejoicings, dancing, and beer-drinking.
Sacrifices are still made by local natives. Formerly a large number of black oxen were killed at one sacrifice, but since the scourge of rinderpest visited Rhodesia goats have been substituted. The last sacrifice at Zimbabwe took place in February, 1904. The local natives sacrificed in the Elliptical Temple, but they have no settled point within the temple where they hold these ceremonies. The sacrifice was conducted during the prolonged drought then prevailing. The natives kept the ceremony private until after it was over, and the rain had arrived.
Makalanga of several tribes from near and far used to come to the Elliptical Temple for sacrifices, and these were offered up within the walls, but at different spots inside; while on several occasions the ceremony took place just outside the walls. Once every village had its own ceremony, and these took place in January, black bulls being offered for males and black cows for females.