The White Hecatomb, and Other Stories

by W. C. Scully

“Well, I will tell you of some, but not of the strongest. There are many things which can be used as charms, and some work quite differently from others. Some are of use only to a young man, and some to one who is old. There is the ‘duba’ (wild garlic: Tulbaghia alliacea) which is pounded up with fat and clay, and kept in the tip of a goat’s horn. If a young man touch a young woman with this it will make her think of him night and day, until the ‘umdhlemnyana’ (a kind of hysteria) seizes her. This will never leave her unless he releases her, or she can steal the charm from where he has to keep it, wrapped in a skin, in the roof of his dwelling. Then there is the ‘insonga ’mazwe’ (literally ‘turner’ or ‘wrapper up’ of words—Commelyna speciosa—a little blue, furry flower, with bright yellow anthers). If a young man bathes, and then rubs himself all over with this, his words become so wise and sweet to the ear, that no woman can deny him anything. Besides, there is that stuff which can be bought at the big stores, ‘zamlandela’ (camphor; literally ‘that which leads,’ or ‘induces’). If a young man rub his hands with this, and he touch a girl on the cheeks, she will dream of him whether she be asleep or awake. There are other things; roots and flowers which, if placed by a man in the water-pool at which the girls drink, or in which they bathe in hot weather, will have such an effect that their fathers and brothers will want to shed blood. Then there is another flower which, if broken up and scattered on a path along which a woman walks, will make her follow the man who scattered it wheresoever he leads her. It was in this way I was charmed and led away to Umzimkulu, where I dwelt for a year.

“Lamla came to dwell in our neighbourhood nearly two years after I had married old Palelo. He was a young man of Umzimkulu. He had been obliged to flee for a time from there on account of having broken the law. He was related to some people of a kraal near ours, and with them he stayed. He was a very big man and a strong dancer, and was nearly always laughing.

“Old Palelo had many sons and daughters, and as he was rich, there was plenty of feasting at our kraal. Lamla often visited my hut and seemed to be very fond of talking to Palelo about old times, and about the deeds my husband had done in his youth. The two would often sit over the fire, far into the night, and I used to lie on my mat, my head covered with a kaross, listening. There was a little hole in the kaross, and through this I used to watch Lamla, who always sat with his face towards me. I do not know how it was, but somehow that part of the kaross with the hole in it was always just in front of my eyes. It was strange to see how fond old Palelo was of Lamla; I think it was because Lamla listened to him so quietly, and just let him talk.

“Lamla said very little to me on these occasions, but we used often to meet when I went down to the pool to fetch water, or to the millet-field to hoe. I did not altogether like meeting him alone, because the way in which he talked and went on annoyed me. It was not so much his words as his ways that made me angry. Whenever we were alone he mimicked old Palelo—his walk, his voice, his way of taking snuff—everything. Although I could not keep from laughing, I did not like Lamla to go on like this. He said he meant to make himself so like Palelo that none would be able to tell one from the other, and that he came to practise before me, so that I could tell him how he was getting on.

“Sometimes he would tell me about what a lot of girls were in love with him at Umzimkulu, and when I told him to go back to them and not trouble me any more, he said he had got so fond of Palelo that he could not bear to think of departing. Occasionally he would come down to the field where I was hoeing, and if it were a hot day would make me sit with him under a tree, chewing ‘imfe’ (sweet reed), and listening while he blew music on the ‘ugwalo’ (a musical instrument formed of a single string attached to a quill, and stretched along a stick), or talking nonsense.

“One day as I was returning from the pool carrying a pot of water, I met Lamla coming out of the bush with a lot of yellow flowers in his hands. I inquired as to what he was going to do with these, and he said he was going to do some ‘doctoring.’ ‘Who, then, is sick?’ I asked. ‘I am,’ he replied. I laughed at this, because at the dance the day before he had tired all the others out. ‘Do you know what sickness these are to cure?’ he asked, looking at me very hard. ‘No,’ said I, ‘unless it be the sickness that makes people think they are not themselves; that is the only sickness you have got.’ ‘Why, you are almost as good as a doctor yourself,’ he replied; then he laughed and went away.

“Next morning I saw some little bits of yellow stuff on the ground just outside my hut, and also strewn along the pathway leading to the millet-field. I picked a piece up, and found it to be very like a portion of a flower such as Lamla had been carrying when I met him coming out of the bush. I soon picked up a whole flower. This, without considering what I was doing, I stuck into the carrying-hole of my left ear. Then it suddenly seemed as if something began to sing inside me, and I felt very happy, but rather frightened.

“On that day I could not work. I felt as if quite changed in every way. I could not forget the yellow flowers, or Lamla. I just stuck my hoe into the ground and went to the spot under the big tree where he and I used to sit. It was very hot, so I lay down and soon fell fast asleep.

“I had a strange dream. I thought that Lamla came to me with a lot of yellow flowers tied around his head in the way the Pondos tie the ‘imvani’ (wild asparagus) when they want rain to fall. I thought he kept changing into old Palelo, and then back into himself again, and that I was running away from him and at the same time feeling sorry that he could not catch me. Just as I thought he had caught me, I woke up suddenly, and there he stood.

“I got such a fright that I screamed out and then began to weep. Lamla sat down next to me. I told him to leave me alone, but he would not, so I jumped up and ran away home.