DIVISION OF LABOR — HOW LAND IS PREPARED FOR SEED — CLEARING THE LAND AND BREAKING UP THE GROUND — EXHAUSTIVE SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURE — CROPS CULTIVATED BY KAFFIRS — THE STAFF OF LIFE — WATCH-TOWERS AND THEIR USES — KEEPING OFF THE BIRDS — ENEMIES OF THE CORN-FIELD — THE CHACMA AND ITS DEPREDATIONS — THE BABIANA ROOT — USES OF THE CHACMA — THE HIPPOPOTAMUS AND ITS DESTRUCTIVE POWERS — THE ELEPHANT — SINGULAR PLAN OF TERRIFYING IT — ANTELOPES, BUFFALOES, AND WILD SWINE — ELABORATE FORTIFICATION — BIRD KILLING — THE LOCUST — CURIOUS KAFFIR LEGEND — FRUITS CULTIVATED BY THE KAFFIR — FORAGE FOR CATTLE — BURNING THE BUSH AND ITS RESULTS.
As by the chase the Kaffirs obtain the greater part of their animal food, so by agriculture they procure the chief part of their vegetable nourishment. The task of providing food is divided between the two sexes, the women not being permitted to take part in the hunt, nor to meddle with the cows, while the men will not contaminate their warrior hands with the touch of an agricultural implement. They have no objection to use edge-tools, such as the axe, and will cut down the trees and brushwood which may be in the way of cultivation; but they will not carry a single stick off the ground, nor help the women to dig or clear the soil.
When a new kraal is built, the inhabitants look out for a convenient spot in the immediate neighborhood, where they may cultivate the various plants that form the staple of South African produce. As a general rule, ground is of two kinds, namely, bush and open ground, the former being the more fertile, and the latter requiring less trouble in clearing. The experienced agriculturist invariably prefers the former, although it costs him a little more labor at first, and although the latter is rather more inviting at first sight. This favorable impression soon vanishes upon a closer inspection, for, as a general rule, where it is not sandy, it is baked so hard by the sun that a plough would have no chance against it, and even the heavy picks with which the women work cannot make an impression without much labor. Moreover, it requires much more water than is supplied from natural sources, and, even when well moistened, is not very remarkable for its fertility. Bush land is of a far better quality, and is prepared for agriculture as follows:—
The men set to work with their little axes, and chop down all the underwood and small trees, leaving the women to drag the fallen branches out of the space intended for the field or garden. Large trees they cannot fell with their imperfect instruments, and so they are obliged to content themselves with cutting off as many branches as possible, and then bringing the tree down by means of fire. The small trees and branches that are felled are generally arranged round the garden, so as to form a defence against the numerous enemies which assail the crops. The task of building this fence belongs to the men, and when they have completed it their part of the work is done, and they leave the rest to the women.
Furnished with the heavy and clumsy hoe, the woman breaks up the ground by sheer manual labor, and manages, in her curious fashion, to combine digging and sowing in one operation. Besides her pick, laid over her shoulder, and possibly a baby slung on her back, she carries to the field a large basket of seed balanced on her head. When she arrives at the scene of her labors, she begins by scattering the seed broadcast over the ground, and then pecks up the earth with her hoe to a depth of some three or four inches. The larger roots and grass tufts are then picked out by hand and removed, but the smaller are not considered worthy of special attention. This constitutes the operation of sowing, and in a wonderfully short time a mixed crop of corn and weeds shoots up. When both are about a month old, the ground is again hoed, and the weeds are then pulled up and destroyed. Owing to the very imperfect mode of cultivation, the soil produces uncertain results, the corn coming up thickly and rankly in some spots, while in others not a blade of corn has made its appearance. When the Kaffir chooses the open ground for his garden, he does not always trouble himself to build a fence, but contents himself with marking out and sowing a patch of ground, trusting to good fortune that it may not be devastated by the numerous foes with which a Kaffir’s garden is sure to be infested.
The Kaffir seems to have very little idea of artificial irrigation, and none at all of renovating the ground by manure. Irrigation he leaves to the natural showers, and, beyond paying a professional “rain-maker” to charm the clouds for him, he takes little, if any, trouble about this important branch of agriculture. As to manuring soil, he is totally ignorant of such a proceeding, although the herds of cattle which are kept in every kraal would enable him to render his cultivated land marvellously fertile. The fact is, land is so plentiful that when one patch of it is exhausted he leaves it, and goes to another; and for this reason, abandoned gardens are very common, their position being marked out by remnants of the fence which encircled them, and by the surviving maize or pumpkin plants which have contrived to maintain an unassisted existence.
Four or five gardens are often to be seen round a kraal, each situated so as to suit some particular plant. Various kinds of crops are cultivated by the Kaffirs, the principal being maize, millet, pumpkins, and a kind of spurious sugar-cane in great use throughout Southern Africa, and popularly known by the name of “sweet reed.” The two former constitute, however, the necessaries of life, the latter belonging rather to the class of luxuries. The maize, or, as it is popularly called when the pods are severed from the stem, “mealies,” is the very staff of life to a Kaffir, as it is from the mealies that is made the thick porridge on which the Kaffir chiefly lives. If an European hire a Kaffir, whether as guide, servant, or hunter, he is obliged to supply him with a stipulated quantity of food, of which the maize forms the chief ingredient. Indeed, so long as the native of Southern Africa can get plenty of porridge and sour milk, he is perfectly satisfied with his lot. When ripe, the ears of maize are removed from the stem, the leafy envelope is stripped off, and they are hung in pairs over sticks until they are dry enough to be taken to the storehouse.
A watch-tower is generally constructed in these gardens, especially if they are of considerable size. The tower is useful for two reasons: it enables the watcher to see to a considerable distance, and acts as a protection against the wild boars and other enemies which are apt to devastate the gardens, especially if they are not guarded by a fence, or if the fence should be damaged. If the spot be unfenced, a guard is kept on it day and night, but a properly defended garden needs no night watchers except in one or two weeks of the year. The watch-tower is very simply made. Four stout poles are fixed firmly in the ground, and a number of smaller poles are lashed to their tops, so as to make a flat platform. A small hut is built on part of the platform as a protection against the weather, so that the inmate can watch the field while ensconced in the hut, and, if any furred or feathered robbers come within its precincts, can run out on the platform and frighten them away by shouts and waving of arms. The space between the platform and ground is wattled on three sides, leaving the fourth open. The object of this wattling is twofold. In the first place, the structure is rendered more secure; and in the second, the inmate of the tower can make a fire and cook food without being inconvenienced by the wind.
The task of the fields is committed to the women and young girls, the men thinking such duties beneath them. In order to keep off the birds from the newly sprouted corn blades, or from the just ripening grain, a very ingenious device is employed. A great number of tall, slender posts are stuck at intervals all over the piece of land, and strings made of bark are led from pole to pole, all the ends being brought to the top of the watch-tower, where they are firmly tied. As soon as a flock of birds alight on the field, the girl in charge of the tower pulls the strings violently, which sets them all vibrating up and down, and so the birds are frightened, and fly away to another spot. A system almost identical with this is employed both in the Chinese and Japanese empires, and the complicated arrangement of poles and strings, and the central watch-tower, is a favorite subject for illustration in the rude but graphic prints which both nations produce with such fertility.
The enemies of the cornfield are innumerable. There are, in the first place, hosts of winged foes, little birds and insects, which cannot be prohibited from entering, and can only be driven away when they have entered. Then there are certain members of the monkey tribes, notably the baboons, or chacmas, which care very little more for a fence than do the birds, and which, if they find climbing the fence too troublesome, can generally insinuate themselves through its interstices. This cunning and active animal is at times too clever even for the Kaffir, and will succeed in stealing unobserved into his garden, and carrying off the choicest of the crops. Whatever a man will eat a chacma will eat, and the creature knows as well as the man when the crops are in the best order. Whether the garden contain maize, millet, pumpkins, sweet reed, or fruits, the chacma is sure to select the best; and even when the animals are detected, and chased out of the garden, it is very annoying to the proprietor to see them go off with a quantity of spoil, besides the amount which they have eaten.
The ordinary food of the chacma is a plant called Babiana, from the use which the baboons make of it. It is a subterranean root, which has the property of being always full of watery juice in the dryest weather, so that it is of incalculable value to travellers who have not a large supply of water with them, or who find that the regular fountains are dried up. Many Kaffirs keep tame chacmas which they have captured when very young, and which have scarcely seen any of their kind. These animals are very useful to the Kaffirs, for, if they come upon a plant or a fruit which they do not know, they offer it to the baboon; and if he eats it, they know that it is suitable for human consumption.
On their journeys the same animal is very useful in discovering water, or, at all events, the babiana roots, which supply a modicum of moisture to the system, and serve to support life until water is reached. Under these circumstances, the baboon takes the lead of the party, being attached to a long rope, and allowed to run about as it likes. When it comes to a root of babiana, it is held back until the precious vegetable can be taken entire out of the ground, but, in order to stimulate the animal to further exertions, it is allowed to eat a root now and then. The search for water is conducted in a similar manner. The wretched baboon is intentionally kept without drink until it is half mad with thirst, and is then led by a cord as before mentioned. It proceeds with great caution, standing occasionally on its hind legs to sniff the breeze, and looking at and smelling every tuft of grass. By what signs the animal is guided no one can even conjecture; but if water is in the neighborhood the baboon is sure to find it. So, although this animal is an inveterate foe of the field and garden, it is not without its uses to man when its energies are rightly directed.
If the gardens or fields should happen to be near the river side, there is no worse foe for them than the hippopotamus, which is only too glad to exchange its ordinary food for the rich banquet which it finds in cultivated grounds. If a single hippopotamus should once succeed in getting into a garden, a terrible destruction to the crop takes place. In the first place, the animal can consume an almost illimitable amount of green food: and when it gets among such dainties as cornfields and pumpkin patches, it indulges its appetite inordinately. Moreover, it damages more than it eats, as its broad feet and short thick legs trample their way through the crops. The track of any large animal would be injurious to a standing crop, but that of the hippopotamus is doubly so, because the legs of either side are so wide apart that the animal makes a double track, one being made with the feet of the right side, and the other with those of the left.
Against these heavy and voracious foes, a fence would be of little avail, as the hippopotamus could force its way through the barrier without injury, thanks to its thick hide. The owner of the field therefore encloses it within a tolerably deep ditch, and furthermore defends the ditch by pointed stakes: so that, if a hippopotamus did happen to fall into the trench, it would never come out again alive. A similar defence is sometimes made against the inroads of the elephants. Those animals do not often take it into their heads to attack a garden in the vicinity of human habitations; but when they do so, it is hardly possible to stop them, except by such an obstacle as a ditch. Even the ordinary protection of a fence and the vicinity of human habitations is worthless, when a number of elephants choose to make an inroad upon some field; and, unless the whole population turns out of the kraal and uses all means at their command, the animals will carry out their plans. The elephant always chooses the night for his marauding expeditions, so that the defenders of the crops have double disadvantages to contend against. One weapon which they use against the elephant is a very singular one. They have an idea that the animal is terrified at the shrill cry of an infant, and as soon as elephants approach a kraal, all the children are whipped, in hopes that the elephants may be dismayed at the universal clamor, and leave the spot.
Antelopes of various kinds are exceedingly fond of the young corn blades, and, if the field be without a fence, are sure to come in numbers, and nibble every green shoot down to the very ground. Near the bush the buffalo is scarcely less injurious, and more dangerous to meddle with; and even the porcupine is capable of working much damage. The wild swine, however, are perhaps the worst, because the most constant invaders, of the garden. Even a fence is useless against them, unless it be perfect throughout its length, for the pigs can force themselves through a wonderfully small aperture, owing to their wedge-shaped head, while their thick and tough skins enable them to push their way through thorns and spikes without suffering any damage.
The “pigs,” as the wild swine are popularly called, always come from the bush; and when several kraals are built near a bush, the chiefs of each kraal agree to make a fence from one to the other, so as to shut out the pigs from all the cultivated land. This fence is a very useful edifice, but, at the same time, has a very ludicrous aspect to an European. The reader has already been told that the Kaffir cannot draw a straight line, much less build a straight fence; and the consequence is, that the builders continually find that the fence is assuming the form of a segment of a circle in one direction, and then try to correct the error by making a segment of a circle in the opposite direction, thus making the fence very much larger than is necessary, and giving themselves a vast amount of needless trouble.
As to the winged enemies of the garden, many modes of killing them or driving them away are employed. One method for frightening birds has already been described, and is tolerably useful when the corn is young and green; but when it is ripe, the birds are much too busy to be deterred by such flimsy devices, and continue to eat the corn in spite of the shaking strings. Under such circumstances, war is declared against the birds, and a number of Kaffirs surround the enclosure, each being furnished with a number of knob-kerries. A stone is then flung into the corn for the purpose of startling the birds, and as they rise in a dense flock, a shower of kerries is rained upon them from every side. As every missile is sure to go into the flock, and as each Kaffir contrives to hurl four or five before the birds can get out of range, it may be imagined that the slaughter is very great. Tchaka, who was not above directing the minutiæ of domestic life, as well as of leading armies, subsidizing nations, and legislating for an empire, ordered that the birds should be continually attacked throughout his dominions; and, though he did not succeed in killing them all, yet he thinned their numbers so greatly, that during the latter years of his life the graminivorous birds had become scarce instead of invading the fields in vast flocks.
Locusts, the worst of the husbandman’s enemies, could not be extirpated, and, indeed, the task of even thinning their numbers appeared impracticable. The only plan that seems to have the least success is that of burning a large heap of grass, sticks, and leaves well to windward of the fields, as soon as the locusts are seen in the distance. These insects always fly with the wind, and when they find a tract of country covered with smoke, they would naturally pass on until they found a spot which was not defiled with smoke, and on which they might settle. It is said that locusts were not known in the Zulu territories until 1829, and that they were sent by the supernatural power of Sotshangana, a chief in the Delagoa district, whom Tchaka attacked, and by whom the Zulu warriors were defeated, as has already been mentioned on page 124. The whole story was told to Mr. Shooter, who narrates it in the following words:—
“When they had reached Sotshangana’s country, the Zulus were in great want of food, and a detachment of them coming to a deserted kraal, began, as usual, to search for it. In so doing, they discovered some large baskets, used for storing corn, and their hungry stomachs rejoiced at the prospect of a meal. But when a famished warrior impatiently removed the cover from one of them, out rushed a multitude of insects, and the anticipated feast flew about their ears. Astonishment seized the host, for they never beheld such an apparition before; every man asked his neighbor, but none could ‘tell its quality or name.’ One of their number at last threw some light on the mystery. He had seen the insects in Makazana’s country, and perhaps he told his wandering companions that they had been collected for food. But they soon learned this from the people of the kraal, who had only retired to escape the enemy, and whose voices were heard from a neighboring rock. In no case would the fugitives have been likely to spare their lungs, since they could rail and boast and threaten with impunity; but when they saw that their food was in danger, they lifted up their voices with desperate energy, and uttered the terrible threat that if the invaders ate their locusts, others should follow them home, and carry famine in their train. The Zulus were too hungry to heed the woe, or to be very discriminating in the choice of victuals, and the locusts were devoured. But when the army returned home, the scourge appeared, and the threatening was fulfilled.”
How locusts, the destroyers of food, are converted into food, and become a benefit instead of a curse to mankind, will be seen in the next chapter.
As to the fruits of this country, they are tolerably numerous, the most valued being the banana, which is sometimes called the royal fruit; a Kaffir monarch having laid claim to all bananas, and forced his subjects to allow him to take his choice before they touched the fruit themselves. In some favored districts the banana grows to a great size, a complete bunch being a heavy load for a man.
Next in importance to food for man is forage for cattle, and this is generally found in great abundance, so that the grazing of a herd costs their owner nothing but the trouble of driving his cattle to and from the grass land. In this, as in other hot countries, the grass grows with a rapidity and luxuriance that tends to make it too rank for cattle to eat. When it first springs up, it is green, sweet, and tender; but when it has reached a tolerable length it becomes so harsh that the cattle can hardly eat it. The Kaffir, therefore, adopts a plan by which he obtains as much fresh grass as he likes throughout the season.
When a patch of grass has been fed upon as long as it can furnish nourishment to the cattle, the Kaffir marks out another feeding-place. At night, when the cattle are safely penned within the kraal, the Kaffir goes out with a firebrand, and, when he has gone well to windward of the spot which he means to clear, he sets fire to the dry grass. At first, the flame creeps but slowly on, but it gradually increases both in speed and extent, and sweeps over the plain in obedience to the wind. On level ground, the fire marches in a tolerably straight line, and is of nearly uniform height, except when it happens to seize upon a clump of bushes, when it sends bright spires of flame far into the sky. But when it reaches the bush-clad hills, the spectacle becomes imposing. On rushes the mass of flame, climbing the hill with fearful strides, roaring like myriads of flags ruffled in the breeze, and devouring in its progress every particle of vegetation. Not an inhabitant of the bush or plain can withstand its progress, and the fire confers this benefit on the natives, that it destroys the snakes and the slow-moving reptiles, while the swifter antelopes are able to escape.
When the fire has done its work, the tract over which it has passed presents a most dismal spectacle, the whole soil being bare and black, and the only sign of former vegetation being an occasional stump of a tree which the flames had not entirely consumed. But, in a very short time, the wonderfully vigorous life of the herbage begins to assert itself, especially if a shower of rain should happen to fall. Delicate green blades show their slender points through the blackened covering, and in a short time the whole tract is covered with a mantle of uniform tender green. Nothing can be more beautiful than the fresh green of the young blades, as they are boldly contrasted with the deep black hue of the ground. The nearest approach to it is the singularly beautiful tint of our hedgerows in early spring—a tint as fleeting as it is lovely. The charred ashes of the burned grass form an admirable top-dressing to the new grass, which springs up with marvellous rapidity, and in a very short time affords pasture to the cattle. The Kaffir is, of course, careful not to burn too much at once; but by selecting different spots, and burning them in regular succession, he is able to give his beloved cows fresh pasturage throughout the year.