“I have not left any calamity more hurtful to man than woman.” Table-talk of Mohammad.
One
“Yes, my father; for although your years are many less than mine, did you not protect me, even as a father, when these dogs of Fingo policemen would have made me guilty over the chopping down of that white iron-wood tree? I will now tell you the tale of Gweva, the son of Mehlo, which we yesterday spoke of when resting in the big forest during the hunt. Here, boy, bring fuel for the fire, for the night is cold and the tale is long. Fetch also the last pot of that beer which was brewed seven days ago. The new beer has not yet worked, and it tastes like water from a muddy puddle. Fetch also the large calabash spoon; then clear out, and come not near unless you are called.
“There is one subject, my father, upon which you and I will never agree, namely women. You tell me that the women of your race are wiser than those of mine. This is no doubt true in the same sense as that you, a European, are wiser than I, a Kafir; but experience teaches me that women are just women, whatever be their colour, and that men should be their masters. Where it is otherwise, trouble always follows. I grant you that some women are wiser and better than most men; your great Queen, for instance. Her I used to hear of when I was a boy, and I still hear of her now that my head is white. She must be strong and wise. Then, who has not heard of Gubèlè the wife of Umjoli, the cowardly chief of the Abasekunene, who, when her husband fled before Tshaka, remained behind with half of the tribe, and slew so many Zulus that men sang of her that she piled up the gateways of her kraal with Zulu heads to prevent the cattle from coming out.
“But such women, my father, are really men, and besides, one does not meet them, one only hears of them. I speak of the women one sees and knows and who become the mothers of our children, and I say that he who is their master, and holds them for his profit and pleasure, for the bringing forth of sons to fight for the chief (I forgot for the moment that we are under Government) and daughters for whom ‘lobola’ (dowry) cattle will be sent to his kraal, is wise, whilst he who sets his heart on one woman only, and desires her above all else, suffers from a madness that often leads to ruin.
“Hear then the tale of Gweva, the son of Mehlo, which tends to prove the truth of my judgment in this matter. I will relate it, so far as I can, in the words of my grandfather Nqokomisa, who told it to me many years ago; he being at the time a man extremely old, also blind and deaf, and bereft of the use of every member except the tongue.
“You have heard of our ‘great chief’ ’Ngwanya, whose body lies in the deep pool in the Tina river just below the drift where the wagons cross. They tied him to a green iron-wood log and sunk him in the water so that no enemy could obtain his bones wherewith to work magic against the tribe. Every year are cast into the pool slaughtered oxen and new bowls of beer as offerings. You may have noticed that no woman of the Pondomisi ever lifts her skin skirt, no matter how high the water is, in crossing the Tina.
“Well, in the days of ’Ngwanya, we Pondomisi occupied the whole of the country between the Dedesi, at the source of the Umzimvubu, and the Umtata. We were then a large tribe, and we feared no enemy. When we rose against the English in the last war, we should have regained our position had not our chief Umhlonhlo offended the ‘imishologu’ by killing his magistrate treacherously. Then an evil spirit put it into the minds of some of us to attack the Fingoes of the Tsitsa, who thereupon became our enemies instead of our allies, as had been arranged. When Makaula and his Bacas slaughtered us in the Tina valley the ‘imishologu’ had turned their faces from us, and we knew it.
“’Ngwanya was old when his father died, and was the father of many sons and daughters. The eldest daughter of his ‘great house’ was Nomasaba, and it is of the madness caused by her, which fell upon Gweva, the son of Mehlo, that I am about to tell.
“Mehlo was the younger brother of ’Ngwanya. He was killed in a battle with the Tembus, on the Bazaya Mountain. He was a young man of great courage, and his death was so much lamented that his uncle, who had been to him as a father, found his hair grow grey with grief. Mehlo had only one wife—he had only been married a few months before his death. The wife was, according to custom, taken into ’Ngwanya’s household, and when, half a year afterwards, she gave birth to a boy, it was said that his name should be ‘Gwevu,’ which means ‘grey.’ Soon afterwards she died, and the boy was formally adopted into ’Ngwanya’s ‘great house.’ Once he was gored by a grey ox, and thereupon the witch-doctors said that his name was an unlucky one, so they changed it to ‘Gweva,’ which means ‘one who spies about.’