Among The Bechuanas I Have Been
Obliged To Reprove The Women For Making A Hobgoblin Of The White Man,
And Telling Their Children That They Would Send For Him To Bite Them.
Having passed the Loembwe, we were in a more open country,
with every few hours a small valley, through which ran a little rill
in the middle of a bog.
These were always difficult to pass,
and being numerous, kept the lower part of the person constantly wet.
At different points in our course we came upon votive offerings to the Barimo.
These usually consisted of food; and every deserted village
still contained the idols and little sheds with pots of medicine in them.
One afternoon we passed a small frame house with the head of an ox in it as
an object of worship. The dreary uniformity of gloomy forests and open flats
must have a depressing influence on the minds of the people.
Some villages appear more superstitious than others, if we may judge
from the greater number of idols they contain.
Only on one occasion did we witness a specimen of quarreling.
An old woman, standing by our camp, continued to belabor
a good-looking young man for hours with her tongue. Irritated at last,
he uttered some words of impatience, when another man sprang at him,
exclaiming, "How dare you curse my `Mama'?" They caught each other,
and a sort of pushing, dragging wrestling-match ensued.
The old woman who had been the cause of the affray wished us to interfere,
and the combatants themselves hoped as much; but we, preferring to
remain neutral, allowed them to fight it out.
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