“My son, my son. Why is he not here to hearken to my last words? Be a father to Songoza. Advise him. He is young and headstrong—perhaps the years may bring him wisdom. Bear with him for the sake of my people, to whom I have tried to be a father.”
“I will bear with a lot for your sake,” said the Magistrate. “Now good-bye, old friend. I know you are brave, and that you fear nothing for yourself. You will be all right—wherever you go to. I will try and influence Songoza for good, and I will protect your little son Gqomisa. Good-bye... old friend...”
The Sepulture
The old chief died next morning just as the day was breaking. Immediately after his death the women and most of the men left the hut and dispersed silently. No one was allowed to enter the hut in which the body lay, and all inquiries were answered with the statement, “The chief is very near death,” or “Our father is about to draw his last breath.” As day wore on a round pit, three feet in diameter and about six feet deep, was dug on a ridge which overhung the “great place.” Every one then knew that the chief was no more, but custom forbade the fact of his death to be acknowledged.
At the same time another excavation was being secretly dug deep in the heart of a large forest in an adjoining valley. This was the real grave. Among the more important Bantu clans the last resting-place of the chief is always kept a profound secret. The object of this is to prevent an enemy obtaining the bones and, by their means, working magic against the tribe.
In the middle of the night, the dead body, with the legs flexed and the knees bound up to the chin, was borne out of the hut by Dogolwana and three other old men. It was carried by means of two poles between which it was slung after the manner of a sedan chair. Avoiding the footpaths, they hurried the dead chief up the side of the mountain, and then plunged into the forest, stumbling over rocks and dead trees in their course. The hoarse bark of the bush-bucks challenging each other echoed across the ravine, the jackals yelled at the stars from the grassy hill-tops, and the brown owls moaned from the tall yellow-wood trees. Every now and then unseen forest creatures would rustle through the undergrowth, or a frightened loorie flutter away, breaking its bright plumage against the branches in the darkness. In the broken fringe of cliff over the river-way a leopard made a dash at a troop of sleeping baboons which, having heard the alarm-call of the sentinel, darted away and escaped with hoarse roarings.
When the bearers paused to rest, as they frequently did, the forest seemed full of awful whisperings. It contained the graves of the dead chief’s ancestors—secret places known to no living man. It seemed to the bearers as if the spirits of the dead were abroad in the rustling darkness, mustering to welcome a long-waited-for companion—a son and subject made peer by the patent of death.
They found the open grave. A pit had been sunk, and a large, dome-shaped excavation made in its side. Dogolwana had already been chosen for the awful but honourable task of entering this chamber after the body had been placed there, and finally disposing of the latter for its long rest. The Kafirs have the most intense horror of a dead body, and the man who enters the grave-chamber with a dead chief becomes a chief himself immediately upon emerging—so highly is the dead esteemed.
The body of Umsoala was placed on a mat, in a sitting posture, facing the “great place,” where the herd of black cattle that he had loved so well were kraaled every night. The left hand had been bound across the breast, with the open palm inwards. The right hand and arm had been allowed to stiffen in a flexed position, and in the hand a spear was placed, the handle resting on the ground and the blade pointing upwards. At his side were an earthen pot, a calabash, and a wooden pillow.
The face of the lateral excavation was then filled up with stones, the builders saying the while in low tones: “Watch over us.”