II.
(Continued from p. 17).
THE peoples referred to at the conclusion of our last article lived in kraals, or groups of native mud-huts, which individually comprised two rooms with a fire made in the middle. Mats on the floor took the place of beds and chairs, the absence of the chair being due to the traditional custom that none but a headman or a chief must sit on a chair. The penalty under native rule for a breach of this unwritten law was death. This custom, however, was not the worst to uproot. Polygamy still held sway, and it was really the fear and conviction of the chiefs that they would have to return all their wives but one to their parents that made them so reluctant to sanction the entrance of the missionary.
Then, again, witchcraft had a tremendous power over them with which they were most unwilling to trifle. Most unfortunately for the natives it was formerly against the law in countries under British rule that these thieves, torturers, murderers of witch doctors be put to death, though, of course, British law prohibits witchcraft. Superstition, too, was not wanting. On one occasion when rain had been withheld for the considerable period of ten months a number of natives marched to the recently erected statue of Cecil Rhodes, and demanded that because it had not rained since the statue was erected it must be the cause of their plight, and consequently must be pulled down. Nor were their minds changed till after a prayer-meeting by over three hundred natives under Mr. Radasi and their chief had been held. The Most High was favourable to the land and that very night rain began to fall.
It might be mentioned, too, that when the people had gathered to the prayer-meeting a poisonous snake lay coiled in the church, but who would alter the position of the snake, a coiled snake being a sure sign of rain? Needless to say the snake had to be killed before the prayers were offered. Another custom which was, and still is, very common with the natives was that of beer-drinking in connection with the land-weeding. This happened on Sabbaths as well as on week days. The uncivilised natives would kill a sheep or goat, brew some beer, and invite their neighbours to assist them in weeding the land. The drinking of alcoholic beverages has always been, to the savage, an absolute necessity in order to the celebration of certain occasions. Men, women, and children alike share in the practice. Besides the occasion of the weeding of the land there is the special occasion of the setting free of a deceased chief’s widow. When a chief dies all the wives, except the one he first married, return to their former homes or re-marry, but the first wife continues to live with a piece of raw hide tied round her forehead in the same kraal. After a year there is a great beer drink lasting for days, and accompanied by many a dance, fight, and feast of goat’s flesh. Then the raw hide is cut from the head of the widow and later, when a snake is seen outside her hut she deserts the place believing that her husband’s spirit has returned in the form of a snake.
Another devilish custom practised is that of the manhood initiation ceremony of boys about the age of seventeen. At that stage their councillor puts them through some unmentionable ceremonies and then, in the seclusion of the bush, they are deemed to be “men.” This, though true of the Fingoes, is not, however, true of the Matabele. As to their beliefs they firmly believe that there is the God of Creation who is interested in such major matters as rain, famine, war, countries, and so on, but the poor creatures cannot believe that God has any personal interest in their individual lives. They are too insignificant for God to take any notice of.
They believe, too, that they have a soul that will continue to exist after their bodies have been parted from them, but they do not conceive of the soul going to heaven or to hell. It lives on in the place around them watching all they do and moreover, it has power to afflict them. In order to keep away evil spirits charms are worn, and should anyone have any bodily trouble they are informed by the witch-doctor that they have some evil spirits, and he forthwith makes numerous gashes in the skin to let the evil spirits escape. Through this belief in the abode of the spirits, we find the family name carried down like the customs, from generation to generation, in order to please the spirits and merit their favour.
As to sin, their beliefs in some respects resemble very closely those of the Roman Catholics. It is no sin to lie or steal, or kill, etc., unless such actions are done against their own clan or family. Again, when anyone was ill, and, to all appearances not likely to recover, the grave was dug. Should the person recover, a mouse was killed, dropped into the grave and duly buried. Such were the people and their beliefs in the earliest days at the mission station of Ingwenya.
It would be impossible for us to begin to enumerate the various difficulties with which our mission was, and is still, beset. One by one these may be looked at. The ignorance of the natives is a great help to the scourge of the famine. The presence of the locust helps nothing. None who have experienced them will readily forget the times when the Church and government of South Africa both dipped freely into their pockets to provide mealies for the starving natives.
Considering again, that the rainy season in that part of the world is from November to April, and that it occasionally happens that there are long spells of drought the water problem is no easy matter to settle. When Mr. Radasi arrived he found the water of the land bad, and in order to drink it with safety one had to endure thirst until some was boiled and then allowed to cool. There was water of a somewhat safer composition but it was six miles away in a tributary, and then the crocodiles had to be reckoned with. The first attempt to solve the problem was soon made, and a well sixty feet deep was dug, but alas! there was no water there. Later on, however, success was gained, and still later the Government sank a well at their own expense. This second well proved a double boon. In the first instance it drew the natives around the mission when their own water supply was scarce, and in the second when, a number of years afterwards, the mission well fell in it had to do service till another well was sunk with a casting inside it to prevent a repetition of the calamity. This time the well was dug seventy feet deep. Now-a-days the Mission can boast a fair supply of wells with a pump attached to one of them.
Another difficulty which confronted Mr. Radasi was the fact that his books and belongings were in Bulawayo, his lodgings were in Bembesi, and his brushwood church, thirty feet by fourteen was in Ingwenya. He had then to set to, and build his two-roomed house to which he later added what he called his kitchen. In this kitchen he himself resided whilst he set apart his house for the accommodation of the Rev. J. R. Mackay, the Church’s Deputy in 1909. To these buildings have been added in the course of the years stables for the mule and donkeys, huts for boarders, and a new church, thirty-eight feet by twenty-three, built of brick, stone, iron, wood, and dagga and a hospital. This church had an ant-proof course to prevent the white ant eating away the wood. There are also a number of huts bought after the Great War, a hospital, dispensary, and school. Adding on the schools, church buildings and houses, huts, etc., of at least, other twelve mission stations one gets some idea of the extent of the difficulty of the building question that has been so far solved. We have to remember, too, that there are boy and girl boarders at the mission at Ingwenya.
The act of travelling is no easy matter, even to-day, in an undeveloped quarter like Matabeleland, but in those days the roads that existed still had to be made. As we have already recorded Mr. Radasi’s first means of transport was by Cape cart. Clumsy and slow as it must have been this contrivance was able to make progress in the rainy season when it would have been impossible to ride the bicycle. Now-a-days the motor car has supplanted all these older forms of transit even in the mission field.
(To be continued).