They Are Not Known Beyond The Zambesi River.
This Was The Limit Of The Bechuana Progress North Too, Until Sebituane
Pushed His Conquests Farther.
2d. The Bakoni and Basuto division contains, in the south,
all those tribes which acknowledge Moshesh as their paramount
Chief.
Among them we find the Batau, the Baputi, Makolokue, etc.,
and some mountaineers on the range Maluti, who are believed,
by those who have carefully sifted the evidence, to have been at one time
guilty of cannibalism. This has been doubted, but their songs admit the fact
to this day, and they ascribe their having left off the odious practice
of entrapping human prey to Moshesh having given them cattle.
They are called Marimo and Mayabathu, men-eaters, by the rest of the Basuto,
who have various subdivisions, as Makatla, Bamakakana, Matlapatlapa, etc.
The Bakoni farther north than the Basuto are the Batlou, Baperi, Bapo,
and another tribe of Bakuena, Bamosetla, Bamapela or Balaka, Babiriri,
Bapiri, Bahukeng, Batlokua, Baakhahela, etc., etc.; the whole of which tribes
are favored with abundance of rain, and, being much attached to agriculture,
raise very large quantities of grain. It is on their industry
that the more distant Boers revel in slothful abundance,
and follow their slave-hunting and cattle-stealing propensities
quite beyond the range of English influence and law.
The Basuto under Moshesh are equally fond of cultivating the soil.
The chief labor of hoeing, driving away birds, reaping, and winnowing,
falls to the willing arms of the hard-working women; but as the men,
as well as their wives, as already stated, always work,
many have followed the advice of the missionaries, and now use plows and oxen
instead of the hoe.
3d. The Bakalahari, or western branch of the Bechuana family,
consists of Barolong, Bahurutse, Bakuena, Bangwaketse,
Bakaa, Bamangwato, Bakurutse, Batauana, Bamatlaro, and Batlapi.
Among the last the success of missionaries has been greatest.
They were an insignificant and filthy people when first discovered;
but, being nearest to the colony, they have had opportunities of trading;
and the long-continued peace they have enjoyed, through the influence
of religious teaching, has enabled them to amass great numbers of cattle.
The young, however, who do not realize their former degradation,
often consider their present superiority over the less-favored tribes
in the interior to be entirely owing to their own greater wisdom
and more intellectual development.
Chapter 11.
Departure from Linyanti for Sesheke - Level Country - Ant-hills -
Wild Date-trees - Appearance of our Attendants on the March -
The Chief's Guard - They attempt to ride on Ox-back -
Vast Herds of the new Antelopes, Leches, and Nakongs -
The native way of hunting them - Reception at the Villages -
Presents of Beer and Milk - Eating with the Hand -
The Chief provides the Oxen for Slaughter - Social Mode of Eating -
The Sugar-cane - Sekeletu's novel Test of Character -
Cleanliness of Makololo Huts - Their Construction and Appearance -
The Beds - Cross the Leeambye - Aspect of this part of the Country -
The small Antelope Tianyane unknown in the South - Hunting on foot -
An Eland.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 170 of 572
Words from 90788 to 91296
of 306638
