You Wait Till You See The Clouds Come,
Then You Use Your Medicines, And Take The Credit Which Belongs To God Only.
R. D. I use my medicines, and you employ yours; we are both doctors,
and doctors are not deceivers.
You give a patient medicine. Sometimes God
is pleased to heal him by means of your medicine; sometimes not - he dies.
When he is cured, you take the credit of what God does. I do the same.
Sometimes God grants us rain, sometimes not. When he does,
we take the credit of the charm. When a patient dies,
you don't give up trust in your medicine, neither do I when rain fails.
If you wish me to leave off my medicines, why continue your own?
M. D. I give medicine to living creatures within my reach, and can see
the effects, though no cure follows; you pretend to charm the clouds,
which are so far above us that your medicines never reach them.
The clouds usually lie in one direction, and your smoke goes in another.
God alone can command the clouds. Only try and wait patiently;
God will give us rain without your medicines.
R. D. Mahala-ma-kapa-a-a!! Well, I always thought white men were wise
till this morning. Who ever thought of making trial of starvation?
Is death pleasant, then?
M. D. Could you make it rain on one spot and not on another?
R. D. I wouldn't think of trying. I like to see the whole country green,
and all the people glad; the women clapping their hands,
and giving me their ornaments for thankfulness, and lullilooing for joy.
M. D. I think you deceive both them and yourself.
R. D. Well, then, there is a pair of us (meaning both are rogues).
The above is only a specimen of their way of reasoning, in which,
when the language is well understood, they are perceived to be
remarkably acute. These arguments are generally known,
and I never succeeded in convincing a single individual of their fallacy,
though I tried to do so in every way I could think of. Their faith
in medicines as charms is unbounded. The general effect of argument
is to produce the impression that you are not anxious for rain at all;
and it is very undesirable to allow the idea to spread
that you do not take a generous interest in their welfare.
An angry opponent of rain-making in a tribe would be looked upon
as were some Greek merchants in England during the Russian war.
The conduct of the people during this long-continued drought
was remarkably good. The women parted with most of their ornaments
to purchase corn from more fortunate tribes. The children scoured the country
in search of the numerous bulbs and roots which can sustain life,
and the men engaged in hunting. Very great numbers of the large game,
buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, tsessebes, kamas or hartebeests,
kokongs or gnus, pallahs, rhinoceroses, etc., congregated at some fountains
near Kolobeng, and the trap called "hopo" was constructed,
in the lands adjacent, for their destruction. The hopo consists of two hedges
in the form of the letter V, which are very high and thick near the angle.
Instead of the hedges being joined there, they are made to form a lane
of about fifty yards in length, at the extremity of which a pit is formed,
six or eight feet deep, and about twelve or fifteen in breadth and length.
Trunks of trees are laid across the margins of the pit, and more especially
over that nearest the lane where the animals are expected to leap in,
and over that farthest from the lane where it is supposed
they will attempt to escape after they are in. The trees form
an overlapping border, and render escape almost impossible.
The whole is carefully decked with short green rushes, making the pit
like a concealed pitfall. As the hedges are frequently about a mile long,
and about as much apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circle
three or four miles round the country adjacent to the opening,
and gradually closing up, are almost sure to inclose a large body of game.
Driving it up with shouts to the narrow part of the hopo,
men secreted there throw their javelins into the affrighted herds,
and on the animals rush to the opening presented at the converging hedges,
and into the pit, till that is full of a living mass. Some escape by running
over the others, as a Smithfield market-dog does over the sheep's backs.
It is a frightful scene. The men, wild with excitement,
spear the lovely animals with mad delight; others of the poor creatures,
borne down by the weight of their dead and dying companions,
every now and then make the whole mass heave in their smothering agonies.
The Bakwains often killed between sixty and seventy head of large game
at the different hopos in a single week; and as every one, both rich and poor,
partook of the prey, the meat counteracted the bad effects
of an exclusively vegetable diet. When the poor, who had no salt,
were forced to live entirely on roots, they were often troubled
with indigestion. Such cases we had frequent opportunities of seeing
at other times, for, the district being destitute of salt,
the rich alone could afford to buy it. The native doctors,
aware of the cause of the malady, usually prescribed some of that ingredient
with their medicines. The doctors themselves had none, so the poor
resorted to us for aid. We took the hint, and henceforth cured the disease
by giving a teaspoonful of salt, minus the other remedies.
Either milk or meat had the same effect, though not so rapidly as salt.
Long afterward, when I was myself deprived of salt for four months,
at two distinct periods, I felt no desire for that condiment,
but I was plagued by very great longing for the above articles of food.
This continued as long as I was confined to an exclusively vegetable diet,
and when I procured a meal of flesh, though boiled in
perfectly fresh rain-water, it tasted as pleasantly saltish
as if slightly impregnated with the condiment.
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