While acting as district surgeon at Verulam under Dr. Blaine’s magistracy, my connection with the government, as a matter of course, enabled me to gain an insight into native customs, with which I should not otherwise have had the opportunity of becoming acquainted. I had further the good fortune of being associated in these matters with a gentleman who thoroughly understood the Kafir language and character, and whose ability has since been recognized by his promotion to an important magistracy by the Natal government. I allude to Mr. J. C. C. Chadwick, then clerk to the resident magistrate at Verulam, Victoria County. This gentleman published in 1879 some commentaries on native laws, customs and usages,^[7] which are very interesting.

There are many customs among the Zulus of Natal which are known only to the natives themselves or to those who have given great study to the subject. Some—among others Mr. F. B. Fynney, who now occupies an important official position under the Natal government, but whom I knew as a sugar planter on the coast—think that the Zulus must have had at one time an intimate connection with the Hebrew nation, as many of their customs are decidedly similar to those practiced by the Jews, to whom possibly they may have been in bondage in the past ages. Amongst the usages to which Mr. Fynney draws particular attention in support of this opinion, is the custom which the maidens follow of proceeding annually to the hills to mourn or wail, thus reminding one forcibly of Jephthah’s daughter. That they have a distinct religious trust, and acknowledge both the existence of a supreme being, who created all things, and who is endowed with infinite power, and that they also believe in another world and a hereafter, he has no doubt. One thing is certain—they are exceptionally superstitious, believe in signs, omens and supernatural agencies. Nothing, in fact, according to them, happens by chance. They even offer sacrifices to propitiate a supreme deity, whom not having seen, they yet believe. Then, too, they have their “lesser gods,” the spirits of their deceased ancestors; they have their conscience, their sense of right and wrong, and their laws and customs to regulate their social life. There is no denying the fact that a broad idea of a supreme divinity circulates among them, and, as the Right Rev. Henry Calloway, Bishop of St. John’s, who has devoted great study to the subject, says: “The existence of the religious instincts in the natives, of those germs of religious truth—which, among Christian people with a divine revelation, have been developed into so glorious a religion—is evident from the readiness with which, under proper teaching, they accept the fact of the creating power continued to be manifested in Providence; and that that creating power is our Father in heaven.”

The Rev. Dr. Lindley as well, after forty years’ experience among the natives of South Africa, always expressed to me his belief in the easy and gradual improvability of the native when not exposed to the contaminating influence of the low white colonist, and to the coarse materialism presented to him to copy.

While I was district surgeon the customs of the natives interested me very much, and I will mention those which most attracted my notice. Ukulobola, or the practice of giving cattle to the father or guardian of a girl or widow, on her marriage, by her husband, is one of the oldest laws among the natives of South Africa. Looking at the practice from an Englishman’s point of view, it is tantamount to the purchase and sale of women, but it does not bear the same construction in the native mind, for it is by them considered as compensation for the loss of a daughter’s services at an age when, by her usefulness and affection, she might give some return for the care and attention which she received in childhood. Moreover, the girl glories in it as a proof of her worth, while the man himself would not value a wife who cost nothing. The intended son-in-law, when engaged to a girl, generally begins to pay the necessary cattle in instalments, and as he has to run the risk of their dying, their sickness and death very often delay the marriage. If an engagement is broken off the suitor gets back all the cattle he may have paid on account; again, if a wife die without issue the husband can claim the cattle he has paid, or the father must give him another girl instead; but if the husband die while the wife is still young, a younger brother takes the wife, or she returns home, and the husband’s estate receives back the cattle, supposing the wife has borne no children.

Their law of inheritance is a study in itself. A Natal Kafir looks upon any money or goods he may acquire as valuable only as a means of acquiring cattle, by possession of which he may obtain wives. Land they do not claim individually, and they set value on it only as the common right of their tribe. The head man of a kraal is a patriarch indeed, and is responsible for the good behavior of the members of it. If he has a son who is married, that son cannot, during his father’s lifetime, say which of his wives shall be his Ikohlo (right-hand wife), or which his Iquadi (left-hand wife), but his father, after due consideration, chooses them for him, and when once appointed neither their position nor that of their children can be altered, however badly they may behave. The Inkosikazi is the wife of the greatest rank, her hut is placed in the centre opposite the gateway of the kraal, and her eldest son is heir. The hut of the right-hand wife is placed to the right side, that of the left-hand wife to the left of that of the “inkosikazi,” and of course they occupy the next position to that of the chief wife. If male issue fail the chief wife, the eldest son of the “ikohlo,” or right-hand wife, can only succeed to the chieftainship in event of male issue failing all the wives of the left-hand side. The head of the kraal is entitled to receive all the earnings of his sons or daughters, but he is expected to start his sons in life, or in other words, to find their marriage portion. The following diagram shows the position of the chief huts in a kraal:

Generally when the head of a kraal dies, the heir leaves the kraal to the chief wife and to the “iquadi,” his younger brothers remaining, and if any of his father’s widows are young enough, his uncles or some other man is appointed to raise up seed to his (the heir’s) house. This custom is called Ukungena, but is now modified by allowing the widow, if she chooses, to marry some other man; if so, however, the new husband must pay a marriage consideration to the estate of the deceased husband.

The chase, too, has its rules, as also has the Umkosi, or dance of first fruits, a festival before the celebration of which, at the chief’s kraal, the first fruits of the season cannot be eaten. A large bull is killed by the young warriors of the tribe, which is skinned, cut up, and cooked, when the doctors first eat a portion, and then the chief does likewise, but in doing so spits out some in the direction of the country of each of his enemies, or rather of each independent government situated around him; for instance, Cetywayo, the King of the Zulus, used to spit toward Natal, the Transvaal, and the Swazi country, and utter the names of the Governor of Natal, the Administrator of the Transvaal, and the King of the Swazies, a custom equivalent to our drinking confusion to all the Queen’s enemies and singing:

The flesh after this is all cut up, thrown into the air, and all the men, like hungry dogs, scramble to catch the pieces.

Next day the chief and all the men of the tribe dance in the kraal, when, adjourning to a neighboring stream, the chief bathes, the ceremony of “Umkosi” is finished, and the tribe can partake of the first fruits of the season.

I may also mention the Inteyezi, or the sprinkling of warriors with a decoction of herbs and roots to make them fierce and brave, the eating of Insomyama, or the choicest meat, which, being consumed only in the house of the head of the family, at once establishes the superiority of the house, and consequently is very important evidence in trying cases of disputed inheritance. Then again there is the penalty of damages in the shape of an ox, which every man must pay who applies to another the defamatory term Umtagati^[8] or to a girl of Isiropo,^[9] and, further, there is the difference between the English and native laws of evidence, which, as I am not a lawyer, I will discreetly pass over.

The intimate acquaintance I made, however, with the customs of the native doctors (I suppose on account of its connection with my own profession) many a time afforded me food for contemplation and discussion.

It may not be out of the way here for me to mention the different recognized kinds of doctors (izinyanga): 1st, the wizard or diviner (inyanga gokubula); 2d, the rain doctor; 3d, the lightning and hail doctor; 4th, the medicine doctor (inyanga yokwelapa).

The wizard or witch doctor is a very cunning, shrewd fellow, and he must also be a doctor of medicine. The profession is not, however, confined to the male sex, for as many women as men are engaged in its mysteries; but to describe how the patients are gulled, and how the very secrets about which they consult the doctor he manages to ascertain from themselves, in what a professional manner they are duped, and how the doctor’s riches and reputation increase, would take up too much time. Rain doctors are supposed to have the power of causing rain to fall, and are appealed to after a long drought, but they are clever enough never to commence their incantations until indications of rain are discernible, and consequently they are always sure of success. Next come the lightning doctors, who dance around the kraals they have been summoned to defend, brandishing their assegais during the flashes and violence of the storm in a manner that suggests insanity to the European observer. Naturally they are more frequently successful than unsuccessful. The hail doctors, again, believe that by burning medicine while the hail is yet distant they diminish its power, and that when they leave their huts to command it to depart it will return whence it came. It must be understood that these doctors are not to be regarded as opponents of the heavens, but simply as mediators. Bishop Calloway says that many heathen have asked him to pray for rain, because he was one whose office it was Ukumelana nenkosi—to contend with God—and who was under the protection of heaven, and safe so long as he was observant of the laws of his office. Last, but not least, is the medicine doctor. Sickness, the natives believe, is always caused by an enemy, or by the will of the spirits of their departed ancestors or relatives who generally protect them from harm, but, who being sometimes angry, allow sickness to overtake them, or the machinations of their enemies to prevail. The doctor’s father and grandfather have generally been in the profession before him, and the secrets of the healing art have thus been handed down from generation to generation, though in some instances he is a self-taught man, who has picked up some knowledge of diseases, roots and herbs by observation and experience; but no faith, whatever, is reposed in a doctor or diviner who happens to be fat. The medicines employed are mostly innocent, but still many powerful drugs are included in their pharmacopœia, for instance, they use the male fern (inkomankoma, lastred felix mas) as a remedy for tape-worm, emetics by the gallon for slight ailments, and as correctives after their beer-drinking orgies, other medicaments so powerful that whole families, both black and white, have been carried off by their felonious administration; but their useful medicines are so mixed up with useless adulterations that in most cases it would be better for the patient to “throw physic to the dogs.” It used to be the case of “no cure, no pay;” for, according to their law, if the patients died, or did not recover until another medical man had been called in, the doctor got no payment; but in Natal, now, on first attendance the doctor requires a preliminary fee of ten shillings, nominally to buy medicine, but at the same time he stipulates for receiving a bullock in case of a cure being effected. As a rule they administer harmless drugs, thinking it safest to believe in the motto of “vis medicatrix naturæ,” for there is no doubt the majority are the most arrant quacks ever known. Some, who rank high in the profession, travel from place to place, and as the result of their skill and knowledge of human nature, return home after an absence of months, or it may be years, rich in the possession of large herds of cattle. The doctor of medicine is also often a witch doctor, and so combines in one a knowledge of the two branches of the profession.

A case^[10] occurred toward the end of 1866, in which I was engaged as government surgeon, which at the time created an immense sensation in Natal. It elucidates what I have just said of witch and medicine doctoring being often combined. I think the story of the tragedy will not be uninteresting to my readers.

Information was brought to the resident magistrate’s court at Verulam that a native had been severely assaulted in a location some miles away, and I was ordered by the resident magistrate, together with the clerk of the court, to proceed to the wounded man’s kraal and investigate the matter. Our path to the kraal, the home of the dying man, led through the passes of one of the wildest, most rugged and most picturesque regions to be found in the whole of Natal. Here, owing to the proximity of the sea, we found the vegetation clothing the rocky defile to be most luxuriantly dense and tropical. Tramping along the narrow Kafir path in order to reach our destination, we had to push aside fantastic wreaths of tangled convolvuli, force our way past festoons of monkey rope parasites and other climbers, and whilst avoiding the wild date tree on the one hand, had on the other to shun the prickly thorns of the crimson-fruited amatungulu. Our tardy progress scared the barking baboon in his rocky home, startled the chattering monkey from his lofty perch and the timid buck from his grassy lair, whilst the brilliant-plumaged uqualaquala and other feathered denizens of the bush flew away, alarmed at our approach. To describe the lovely, ever-changing scenery which broke upon our view is almost impossible; the majestic milk wood, the deadly euphorbia, the quaint Kafir boom, the spreading fan-palm, the aloe, cactus and wild banana, all lending their presence to produce an effect not easily to be effaced. Woe betide us, however, if we did not keep a sharp lookout for the deadly snakes coiled in the long grass at our feet, or for those which, hanging like green tendrils from the trees above, were ever ready to drop upon our heads.

On our arrival we found the man reported as seriously assaulted, whose name, by the way, was Umjaba, sitting quietly smoking bhang at the gate of his kraal, with a blanket round his shoulders, seemingly astonished at the excitement that he was creating.

On my asking him, through the court interpreter who accompanied us, what was the matter, he denied that any assault whatever had been committed on him, and as he neither showed me nor could I see any marks on his person, we returned to Verulam.

Next morning, however, news was brought to the magistracy that he was dead, and I was again ordered out to examine the body and report upon the circumstances. The facts which I gathered were as follows:

Two months before, somewhere about the end of the year 1866, a native doctor of the Amatonga tribe named Kongota, accompanied by a young native who carried his pack of medicines and charms, came to the kraal of an elderly native named Nokahlela, who resided in the Inanda division, not far from Verulam.

As is customary amongst natives, the doctor was well received and hospitably entertained by Nokahlela and his family, which consisted of several wives and children of all ages, from infants in arms to grown up sons and daughters.

It happened that shortly before the arrival of the doctor there had been a death in the family of one of the wives of either the head of the kraal or one of his sons. As is usual amongst the natives, the death was of course not attributed to natural causes, but was firmly believed to be attributable to the sorceries of some evil-disposed person, as I have mentioned above, generally termed an Umtagati, and Nokahlela and his family had some slight suspicion of a neighbor of theirs named Umjaba, with whom they had had some disagreement. All these facts and suspicions the wily doctor soon succeeded in finding out, and determined to turn to his own advantage.

About this time a child of Umjaba’s sickened and died, and the doctor, Kongota, who, if I recollect aright, had been called in to attend this child, ascertained that Umjaba was quite ready to suspect his neighbor Nokahlela of having brought about the infant’s death, and he therefore made it his business to encourage the suspicion. When he found that the suspicions he had encouraged were sufficiently strong, he boldly told Umjaba that they were well founded; in fact, that by the practice of his art and the power that he possessed of holding familiar intercourse with the spirits of the departed he had ascertained that it was an absolute fact that the child’s death was caused by the witchcraft of Nokahlela, and that if he wished to be revenged for the murder of his child he, Kongota, for a consideration could make that revenge easy to him. Having thus “sown the good seed,” he departed and returned to Nokahlela’s kraal.

Kongota then proceeded to fan Nokahlela’s suspicions as to the cause of the death of his wife, until he succeeded in convincing him that the death was caused by Umjaba, and having done so, he confirmed Nokahlela’s belief in the same manner as he had that of Umjaba. The two men were now both in the mood in which the doctor wished them to be—ready to undertake almost anything that promised revenge for the supposed injuries which each firmly believed that he had suffered at the hands of the other.

For the consideration of a fine young cow, Kongota promised to procure for Nokahlela the most complete satisfaction. Let us see how he fulfilled his promise. According to primitive native law, an “Umtagati” caught in the act of placing, during the night-time, at his intended victim’s kraal, charms or medicines with the supposed object of causing death or injury, could be seized and killed in the most cruel manner, viz., by being pierced with sharp-pointed sticks, without even the form of a trial. It was the gratification of treating his enemy in this manner that Kongota promised to Nokahlela.

In furtherance of his plan, he now returned to Umjaba and sold him for a head of cattle what he assured him was a most deadly charm. It looked like fine, bright gunpowder, and was in reality the seed of the wild spinach, and perfectly harmless. This he told him he had only to sprinkle at the door of each hut of his enemy in such a manner that no one could leave the huts without passing over it, and the death of every one of the inmates would result. Umjaba hesitated for some time, as he was afraid that he might be detected before he had effected his purpose, but on Kongota offering to accompany him on the midnight expedition he agreed to undertake it. The time was fixed and Kongota left him in order, as he said, to prepare the way for him to carry out his design. On the night following he promised to call for him and accompany him on his errand of mercy!

The doctor had now only to instruct his friend Nokahlela to receive his nocturnal visitor, and then to reap his reward. This was soon done; Nokahlela made the necessary preparations for giving Umjaba a proper and fitting reception, and the doctor returned to the kraal of his dupe at the appointed time. They were to start together about midnight. When the hour approached, Umjaba, who felt rather uneasy about the possible consequences of the enterprise, armed himself with an assegai and a knobkerrie, that he might be able to defend himself in case of necessity; but the doctor, not approving of these warlike preparations, and thinking no doubt that he might receive a stray thrust or blow himself when his treachery was discovered, assured him that such precautions were utterly needless, as he had so charmed the kraal that all its inmates were wrapped in the profoundest slumber, that not a dog would bark, or a cat mew, and stated, moreover, that it was contrary to all precedent to carry weapons when engaged on such an undertaking. Thus reassured, and seeing that the doctor carried no weapon, Umjaba sallied forth to his doom, preceded by his treacherous adviser. On arriving at the gate of the kraal the doctor entered first, and observing the young men of Nokahlela’s kraal lying on each side of the entrance, ready to seize upon their victim, he whispered to them that Umjaba was following him unarmed, and hurried on to a hut at the further side of the inclosure, which he quickly entered, and wherein he took care to remain until after the tragedy so soon to be enacted outside should be finished.

Umjaba had no sooner entered than he was seized and secured by Nokahlela and his sons (six in all) who took him outside the gate, and at once inflicted on him the usual punishment awarded to abatagati, driving the pointed sticks right up into his bowels. He was then carried back and placed on the ground near his own kraal, where he was found the next morning by his family. As I have said, information was given to the authorities, and according to instruction I made my first visit to the spot early next day, where we found Umjaba apparently quite sensible, but who obstinately refused to give any information that would throw any light upon the matter. On my second visit, as I have already mentioned, I found the hapless Umjaba a corpse. On making a post-mortem examination I discovered and removed three pointed sticks, each at least a foot in length, which had been driven through the lower part of his body, right into the bowels, out of view, and the agony of which, although it must have been almost insufferable, he had possessed the stoicism to conceal. Suspicion, however, fell upon the family of Nokahlela, and they were all arrested, together with the doctor, Kongota; when the servant of the doctor, who had himself taken no part in the affair, gave information against the others, which resulted in the conviction of Nokahlela, his five sons, and last, but not least, doctor Kongota himself, and they were all sentenced to death. The doctor, Nokahlela and his eldest son were hanged, and the others were imprisoned for a long term of years, the sentences of death passed upon them being commuted by the governor.

There was for a long time great difficulty in getting evidence in this case. This was caused by the doctor having administered a dose of the already-mentioned spinach seed to every one in Nokahlela’s kraal who knew anything about the matter, telling them after they had swallowed the medicine that if ever they opened their mouths to say anything to any of the authorities concerning what they knew, they would surely that moment die. This kept them all quiet for a long while, until the doctor’s servant, who perhaps from his familiarity with the doctor had less faith in the potency of his medicines, told the Induna^[11] of the magistrate’s court that he would tell if he were not afraid of dying. N-capai, the “induna,” assured him that he had nothing to fear from the doctor’s medicine, though he had everything to fear from the law if he concealed from the authorities anything with which he ought to acquaint them. He then made a clean breast of everything, and thus revealed the whole plot.

Umjaba, though he lived more than thirty hours after receiving these dreadful injuries, maintained silence to the last upon the whole matter. I suppose he considered that he had been rightly served for what he had attempted to do, and that there was no use in saying anything about the affair; but it always seemed to me a pity that Nokahlela and his eldest son suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as they were simply dupes in the hands of the doctor, and acted according to Kafir custom. The doctor justly met his fate.

This story in “real life” illustrates the power which witchcraft still exercises among the natives, and the vast field that yet lies open for the teaching of the missionary and the civilizing power of the white man.

During the six years I was in the Natal government service I had many other opportunities afforded me of observing the effects of native customs; but I will not tire my readers with more of these stories, as they serve but to further illustrate the effects of superstition ingrafted on ignorance.

Bishop Calloway, the greatest authority now living on the Zulu language, twenty years ago interested himself in collecting the “folk-lore” current among the Zulus, and endeavored to save from oblivion the popular traditions, religious legends and superstitions of that people, and “not to leave our children,” as he says, “to mourn, as our ancestors have left us, that the people have died away and the language become confined to a few mountain fastnesses or a few old men and women before we have gathered up what might be known of their past.” His collection of nursery tales (Izniganekwane) and the tradition of creation (Ukulunkulu) are exceedingly interesting to any student of “folk-lore” literature, the precision and exactness of the language showing that the Zulu is the highly elaborated language of a people at once superstitious, grave and clever, pastoral and agricultural; and also that the language is one in which thoughts and ideas on any subject can be clearly expressed.