By Veldt and Kopje

by W. C. Scully

A week afterwards the rain came in exactly the manner predicted by Umgwadhla. Early in the afternoon a great crudded cloud of snowy whiteness towered high over the north-western mountains, and then, drawing other clouds in its train and on its flanks, swept over Pondoland in the teeth of a raging gale. (In South Africa thunderstorms almost invariably advance against the wind.) Then with lightnings and thunderings the long-sealed fountains of the sky burst open, and every kloof and donga became a roaring river. Umgwadhla was cursed with fervour and fury throughout the length and breadth of the land. He, the wicked sorcerer, had kept the clouds away by means of his evil arts; now, directly he had taken his departure, the rain-bearers, no longer bridled, had hurried down with their life-giving stores. On the first clear day another “rain-doctor” came before the Chief and claimed to have, by means of his potent incantations, counteracted the evil spells cast by Umgwadhla. This man was looked upon as the saviour of his tribe. Umquikela killed a large ox in his honour, and sent him home with gifts of value.

Umgwadhla had been only two days at Umzimkulu when the rain, which happened to be general, fell. He felt that the rain-spirits, in whose service his life had been spent, had treated him very unfairly. Why could not the rain have fallen a week sooner? He hated to think of the future; the contrast between the wealthy and influential position he had hitherto enjoyed, and an obscure and poverty-stricken existence as an alien suspected of the deadliest of all crimes, among the Amabaca and Hlangweni, which now awaited him, was painful in the extreme. Soon, however, a bright idea struck him, and, being a man of considerable force and character, this he determined to carry into effect. He knew that the course he resolved upon involved large risks, but these he felt it worth while to take. As soon as ever the weather cleared he started on a return journey to Qaukeni.

Early one morning a few days later Umgwadhla, accompanied by a few influential friends, whom he had taken into his confidence, appeared before Umquikela, who happened just then to be moderately sober. The Chief was giving audience before the gate of his cattle kraal to a number of visitors. Umgwadhla strode boldly among the people assembled, who maintained an ominous silence, and saluted his master. Before anyone had time to recover from the astonishment felt at his temerity in thus, as it were, putting his head into the lion’s mouth, the “rain-doctor” spake—

“O Chief, I greet you on thus coming to claim my reward for having caused the rain to fall over the length and breadth of the vast territory that owns your sway.

“Rumour has told me that during my absence, in obedience to orders from the ‘imishologu’ (ancestral spirits), evil men have said that by spells did I prevent the rain from falling, and that only when I was no longer in the land to work evil, were the clouds able to revisit Pondoland.

“Hear now the truth, O Chief, and judge:

“On the night before the day on which I declared that rain should fall, the ‘imishologu’ revealed to me in a vision a dreadful secret. There dwells, I was told, a powerful wizard in the land of the Ambaca, who, by means of his medicines, drives back the rain-clouds when these are called up by the spells of your servant. This is done in revenge for that your illustrious father Faku slew Ncapayi, the Great Chief of the Ambaca, in battle. Seek, said the ‘imishologu,’ the root of a certain plant that grows in the depths of the forest; eat of it, and then go forth without fear to the Baca country. Find there the hut of the wizard; before it stands a high milkwood-tree and bound in the branches thereof is the skull of a baboon with the dried tail of a fish in its teeth, facing the land that is ruled by ‘the young locust.’” (The word ‘Umquikela’ means ‘young locust.’) “Remove the skull, and within a day the rivers of Umquikela will be roaring to the sea.

“Here, O Chief, is the baboon’s skull.” (Here Umgwadhla produced the article from under his kaross.) “Touch it not for fear of evil; ye who have not been doctored against poison; more especially touch not the fish’s tail, which has been soaked in very direful medicines by the Baca Magician.”

Umgwadhla was reinstated in all his honours, powers, and privileges, and his influence became very much greater than it had previously been. A song was composed in his honour by the most celebrated of the tribal bards, and sung at a great feast held at the “Great Place” to celebrate the breaking up of the drought. He lived long and amassed much wealth, and he never again failed to produce rain at the due season. His supplanter retired into obscurity, but this did not save him from an evil fate. When Umgwadhla died, in extreme old age, the supplanter was “smelt out” and put to death on suspicion of having bewitched him. The unhappy pretender was taken to the top of the Taba’nkulu Mountain and placed standing, blindfolded, on the crest of the “Wizard’s Rock”—a high cliff just to the left of the footpath leading to “Flagstaff” where it crosses the top of the mountain. The executioner then struck him with a heavy club on the side of the head, and he fell among the rocks at the foot of the krantz. His bones, mingled with those of many others, may yet be seen by the curious.

Rainmaking is a profitable profession, but it takes a man of genius to carry it on successfully.