Adventure Magazine Cover — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

In Kaffir Kraals right-hand side, and left standing there all night long. His mandate is obeyed: Next morning it is discovered that the dish of kaffir-corn is empty; therefore, a spirit must have eaten the food up. But the question foremost in the mother’s mind is whether it was an evil spirit or a good one who ate up the kaffir-corn. By the strange process of thought that the native mothers have, she arrives at the conclusion that it must be one of the spiteful three ever- present evil spirits—“‘Tikolose,” ‘‘Mpun- dulu” and “‘Ipo Hili.” Some one in the household is sent post- haste to summon the witch-doctor that he may come and protect the child from the witches. It being daylight he does not come himself, but sends his wmfazi (wife) to minister to the new-born babe, for it is beneath the dignity of a great wmtakati to show himself during the day unless it be that the king is unwell. In that case this indisposition is made into a gala occasion, for the witch-doctor brings out quite a few tricks from his fur bag. But to return to the mother with child, and the coming of the umfazi we gira (the wife of the witch-doctor). The heavy dew of the night has hardly been dried up by the morning sun, the herds of cattle are just beginning to blend into the far distance on the veld, when a single form darkens the doorway for a second or two. It enters the hut, and one is able to make out the features and say whether it is a man or woman. It happens that the visitor is a woman; in fact, the witch-doctor’s wife, which is an honor for the other sex, because women are generally held in scorn among the natives and held in super-scorn by those of the Black Art—as it is understood women do not have the wonderful ‘‘mind’’ that the males have. This is the native idea pure and simple. As the light strikes on the face of the woman, one is able to make out the fea- tures, which are boldly cast but not strik- ingly so, except the chin, which is heavy and thrust forward. She sits herself down beside the mother and without ceremony takes the nestling babe away from its mother’s arms. She gives the infant a violent shake. The little one whimpers at this kind of treatment, but happens to look into those mystic eyes and stops whimper- ing. More shakes and the child is ab- solutely docile. Al II “ THE umfazt we qora turns the child apy over on its little stomach and from ad the depths of a fur bag that she has brought with her, she takes out a sharp- pointed bone and scratches four deep cuts up and down the child’s back, first below the left shoulder blade. Into these cuts she rubs ‘‘protecting powder” which will pro- tect the child from witches and witchcraft all through life’s journey. The medicine is made out of the following ingredients: some hairs of a baboon, a native berry, the dried fat of a recently killed ox and mud from the zdinga. During this very painful operation the new-born babe has struggled, kicked and tried to scream, but has failed in every way, as the left hand of the powerful wife of the witch- doctor has pressed the little body down hard on the earth floor until the little one breathes in gasps and with great difficulty. The mother sits by uttering not a sound, but a look into her face shows that she is suffering as much as the infant. At last the witch-doctor’s wife is through, and the weight of that heavy hand is taken off. The poor mite writhes and yells in its agony. The witch-wife smiles blandly all the while, remarking that the protecting medicines are working. An hour more of this, and the woman takes her leave. The African sun has already dried the dew on the long grass and as a symbol of this higher power working within, the day- old babe tries to smile through his tears, despite the pain that has been inflicted on his tender little body. Life, painful and earnest, has already begun for him, and as always where the guiding light of knowledge has not penetrated, the woman and the child suffer most. The air is filled with the continual buzzing of the sharp-biting flies. The mother takes up the child, puts it on her back with its feet astraddle of her hips, binds it tightly to her with ba-yz (bark cloth) made out of the inner bark of the tree, stoops down and gets her kalabaus, and placing it on her head, she goes out of the hut, on her way to the river for some water about five miles away. With the hard and burning earth under foot and the terrific torrid scorching flood of a near midday sun beating down on both of them, she covers the head of the babe to protect it from the sun. As to her own feet, Conn Clooolkks (© iin