Adventure Magazine Cover — page 100: what you’re looking at

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

94 The king made his way to the kraal fol- lowed by his retinue of princes, councilors and others. Kos the witch-doctor looked about with a. satisfied smile on his dirty and withered old face, and then in a grunt- ing voice said: “Ooyi! Ooyil Ooyil’” call- ing to his baboon. The ape came on a side gallop out of the dark and stopped by Kos’ side. Kos got op his broad back, facing toward the tail, locked his feet under its belly and got hold of the stumpy tail, gave it a slight thrust and as they went at a rock- ing-horse gallop down the hill he chanted the riding song: Ma ndoy, ma ndoy. U Pala Kuhle I ndorun ye hla Skaff se mini ngum vungulo Skaff se bu — - mandy Ma ndov ma U Pala Kuhle u Pala Kuhle. (You gallop softly, I will go down. The bread of the morning—its only a crum, The bread of the night is the best Ma ndoy, ma ndoy, You gallop so well.) And the sound died away in the night. Iil *% KOS rode the baboon right into his cave home. He got off the ape’s *"* back and gave it a push. The ape lumbered over to a certain corner where there was a native-made basket. It put its paw into it and brought a ripe yellow prickly pear, a commodity that baboons are very fond of in their wild state, making a tembu r “home brew” out of the prickly pears with a celerity and strange humanness. The simian peeled the prickly pear in the same way that the natives do, holding the pear with the left hand and running the right thumb or plowing it all the way up to the top or crown, thus breaking the skin. The meat was exposed; the ape inserted both thumbs under the core, at the same time skinning the jacket of the pear; and, raising the whole thing to its mouth, bit it off with its large, horse-like teeth and in- stead of swallowing the fruit it slid it with its tongue to its right pouch in its cheek. The left pouch was treated in the same way with the following pear, and other pears went to fill up both pouches until the basket was empty, after which the ape growleda Adventure little while looking for something else to store away, and, not finding anything more, lay down and went to sleep. Kos meanwhile had raked the fire until the live coals were exposed, and then, put- ting his feet and knees together, folded his arms around them and rested his chin on the top of his knees and gazed into the fire. The morning light struggled through the cracks in the rude door; the boy stirred and finally awoke, coaxed the fire to a small crackling blaze and from somewhere in the cave brought some ears of corn. These he roasted; Kos came to with his eyes wide open. The boy pushed a half-roasted cob toward him. Kos shook his head and remarked— “Andi funt nto” (Idon’t want anything). With that he got up, got his sleeping- mat, unrolled it and laid it on the floor, got his bayi (covering), laid himself on the mat, and, covering himself even to his head, was instantly asleep. When the sun was about half-way toward midday Kos awoke, rubbed his eyes briskly, and, chewing the sleeping feeling out of his mouth, looked around until he got his mind adjusted. The boy had long since left to look after the cattle; the baboon was still asleep and snoring thunderously. Kos picked up a stick and drew a rude drawing of a hawk, that being the name that he had adopted when he became a witch-doctor. = IT WILL not be amiss here to give {Oss He brief biography of Kos and how he ee! came to bea witch-doctor. An out- line of Kos’ life will in general give an idea as to how most witch-doctors come to fol- low the craft that they do. Kos experienced the same hardships and trails that fall to the lot of a native boy. abnormal in the civilized sense—began to show itself when he was about six or seven years of age. For when looking after the krall’s large herd of cattle he would, as soon as he was out of sight of the kraal, unearth a hunting-dagger and wear it amongst the other boys. This was a terrible breach of the rules that are made for Ama Nkwnkwe (young boys); but because of his strong personality the other boys never dared to tell on him. Furthermore, when it came to his turn to go and water the herd he generally took such a long time in doing it that his CORNICGLOOO© <S) _His abnormality—most witch-doctors are . (C@)