It Is An Ingenious Plan
For Attaching The Members Of The Tribe To The Chief's Family,
And For Imparting A
Discipline which renders the tribe easy of command.
On their return to the town from attendance on the ceremonies of
Initiation,
a prize is given to the lad who can run fastest, the article being placed
where all may see the winner run up to snatch it. They are then
considered men (banona, viri), and can sit among the elders in the kotla.
Formerly they were only boys (basimane, pueri). The first missionaries
set their faces against the boguera, on account of its connection
with heathenism, and the fact that the youths learned much evil,
and became disobedient to their parents. From the general success
of these men, it is perhaps better that younger missionaries
should tread in their footsteps; for so much evil may result
from breaking down the authority on which, to those who can not read,
the whole system of our influence appears to rest, that innovators
ought to be made to propose their new measures as the Locrians did new laws -
with ropes around their necks.
Probably the "boguera" was only a sanitary and political measure;
and there being no continuous chain of tribes practicing the rite
between the Arabs and the Bechuanas, or Caffres, and as it is not
a religious ceremony, it can scarcely be traced, as is often done,
to a Mohammedan source.
A somewhat analogous ceremony (boyale) takes place for young women,
and the protegees appear abroad drilled under the surveillance
of an old lady to the carrying of water. They are clad during the whole time
in a dress composed of ropes made of alternate pumpkin-seeds and bits of reed
strung together, and wound round the body in a figure-of-eight fashion.
They are inured in this way to bear fatigue, and carry large pots of water
under the guidance of the stern old hag. They have often scars
from bits of burning charcoal having been applied to the forearm,
which must have been done to test their power of bearing pain.
The Bamangwato hills are part of the range called Bakaa. The Bakaa tribe,
however, removed to Kolobeng, and is now joined to that of Sechele.
The range stands about 700 or 800 feet above the plains,
and is composed of great masses of black basalt. It is probably
part of the latest series of volcanic rocks in South Africa.
At the eastern end these hills have curious fungoid or cup-shaped hollows,
of a size which suggests the idea of craters. Within these
are masses of the rock crystallized in the columnar form of this formation.
The tops of the columns are quite distinct, of the hexagonal form,
like the bottom of the cells of a honeycomb, but they are not parted
from each other as in the Cave of Fingal. In many parts the lava-streams
may be recognized, for there the rock is rent and split in every direction,
but no soil is yet found in the interstices. When we were sitting
in the evening, after a hot day, it was quite common to hear
these masses of basalt split and fall among each other
with the peculiar ringing sound which makes people believe
that this rock contains much iron. Several large masses, in splitting thus
by the cold acting suddenly on parts expanded by the heat of the day,
have slipped down the sides of the hills, and, impinging against each other,
have formed cavities in which the Bakaa took refuge against their enemies.
The numerous chinks and crannies left by these huge fragments
made it quite impossible for their enemies to smoke them out,
as was done by the Boers to the people of Mankopane.
This mass of basalt, about six miles long, has tilted up the rocks on both
the east and west; these upheaved rocks are the ancient silurian schists
which formed the bottom of the great primaeval valley,
and, like all the recent volcanic rocks of this country,
have a hot fountain in their vicinity, namely, that of Serinane.
In passing through these hills on our way north we enter a pass
named Manakalongwe, or Unicorn's Pass. The unicorn here
is a large edible caterpillar, with an erect, horn-like tail.
The pass was also called Porapora (or gurgling of water),
from a stream having run through it. The scene must have been very different
in former times from what it is now. This is part of the River Mahalapi,
which so-called river scarcely merits the name, any more than
the meadows of Edinburgh deserve the title of North Loch.
These hills are the last we shall see for months. The country beyond
consisted of large patches of trap-covered tufa, having little
soil or vegetation except tufts of grass and wait-a-bit thorns,
in the midst of extensive sandy, grass-covered plains.
These yellow-colored, grassy plains, with moretloa and mahatla bushes,
form quite a characteristic feature of the country. The yellow or dun-color
prevails during a great part of the year. The Bakwain hills are an exception
to the usual flat surface, for they are covered with green trees
to their tops, and the valleys are often of the most lovely green.
The trees are larger too, and even the plains of the Bakwain country
contain trees instead of bushes. If you look north from the hills
we are now leaving, the country partakes of this latter character.
It appears as if it were a flat covered with a forest of ordinary-sized trees
from 20 to 30 feet high, but when you travel over it
they are not so closely planted but that a wagon with care may be
guided among them. The grass grows in tufts of the size of one's hat,
with bare soft sand between. Nowhere here have we an approach
to English lawns, or the pleasing appearance of English greensward.
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