A Good Deal Of Beating Is Required To Bring Them Up
To The Required Excellency In Different Matters, So That, When They Return
From The Close Seclusion In Which They Are Kept, They Have Generally
A Number Of Scars To Show On Their Backs.
These bands or regiments,
named mepato in the plural and mopato in the singular,
receive particular appellations; as, the
Matsatsi - the suns;
the Mabusa - the rulers; equivalent to our Coldstreams or Enniskillens;
and, though living in different parts of the town, they turn out at the call,
and act under the chief's son as their commander. They recognize a sort
of equality and partial communism ever afterward, and address each other
by the title of molekane or comrade. In cases of offence against their rules,
as eating alone when any of their comrades are within call,
or in cases of cowardice or dereliction of duty, they may strike one another,
or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an older band;
and when three or four companies have been made, the oldest
no longer takes the field in time of war, but remains as a guard
over the women and children. When a fugitive comes to a tribe, he is directed
to the mopato analogous to that to which in his own tribe he belongs,
and does duty as a member. No one of the natives knows how old he is.
If asked his age, he answers by putting another question,
"Does a man remember when he was born?" Age is reckoned by
the number of mepato they have seen pass through the formulae of admission.
When they see four or five mepato younger than themselves,
they are no longer obliged to bear arms.
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