The Town Or Mound Of Santuru's Mother Was Shown To Me; This Was
The First Symptom Of An Altered State Of Feeling With Regard To The Female Sex
That I Had Observed.
There are few or no cases of women being elevated
to the headships of towns further south.
The Barotse also showed some
relics of their chief, which evinced a greater amount of the religious feeling
than I had ever known displayed among Bechuanas. His more recent capital,
Lilonda, built, too, on an artificial mound, is covered with
different kinds of trees, transplanted when young by himself.
They form a grove on the end of the mound, in which are to be seen
various instruments of iron just in the state he left them.
One looks like the guard of a basket-hilted sword; another has
an upright stem of the metal, on which are placed branches worked at the ends
into miniature axes, hoes, and spears; on these he was accustomed
to present offerings, according as he desired favors to be conferred in
undertaking hewing, agriculture, or fighting. The people still living there,
in charge of these articles, were supported by presents from the chief;
and the Makololo sometimes follow the example. This was the nearest approach
to a priesthood I met. When I asked them to part with one of these relics,
they replied, "Oh no, he refuses." "Who refuses?" "Santuru,"
was their reply, showing their belief in a future state of existence.
After explaining to them, as I always did when opportunity offered,
the nature of true worship, and praying with them in the simple form
which needs no offering from the worshiper except that of the heart,
and planting some fruit-tree seeds in the grove, we departed.
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