Rallying His Men, He Followed
And Recaptured The Whole.
A fresh attack was also repulsed,
and Sebituane thought of going farther down the Zambesi,
to the country of the white men.
He had an idea, whence imbibed
I never could learn, that if he had a cannon he might live in peace.
He had led a life of war, yet no one apparently desired peace
more than he did. A prophet induced him to turn his face again
to the westward. This man, by name Tlapane, was called a "senoga" -
one who holds intercourse with the gods. He probably had a touch of insanity,
for he was in the habit of retiring no one knew whither,
but perhaps into some cave, to remain in a hypnotic or mesmeric state
until the moon was full. Then, returning to the tribe quite emaciated,
he excited himself, as others do who pretend to the prophetic AFFLATUS,
until he was in a state of ecstasy. These pretended prophets
commence their operations by violent action of the voluntary muscles.
Stamping, leaping, and shouting in a peculiarly violent manner,
or beating the ground with a club, they induce a kind of fit,
and while in it pretend that their utterances are unknown to themselves.
Tlapane, pointing eastward, said, "There, Sebituane, I behold a fire:
shun it; it is a fire which may scorch thee. The gods say, go not thither."
Then, turning to the west, he said, "I see a city and a nation of black men -
men of the water; their cattle are red; thine own tribe, Sebituane,
is perishing, and will be all consumed; thou wilt govern black men,
and, when thy warriors have captured red cattle, let not the owners be killed;
they are thy future tribe - they are thy city; let them be spared
to cause thee to build. And thou, Ramosinii, thy village
will perish utterly. If Mokari removes from that village
he will perish first, and thou, Ramosinii, wilt be the last to die."
Concerning himself he added, "The gods have caused other men to drink water,
but to me they have given bitter water of the chukuru (rhinoceros).
They call me away myself. I can not stay much longer."
This vaticination, which loses much in the translation, I have given
rather fully, as it shows an observant mind. The policy recommended was wise,
and the deaths of the "senoga" and of the two men he had named,
added to the destruction of their village, having all happened soon after,
it is not wonderful that Sebituane followed implicitly the warning voice.
The fire pointed to was evidently the Portuguese fire-arms,
of which he must have heard. The black men referred to were the Barotse,
or, as they term themselves, Baloiana; and Sebituane spared their chiefs,
even though they attacked him first. He had ascended the Barotse valley,
but was pursued by the Matebele, as Mosilikatse never could forgive
his former defeats. They came up the river in a very large body.
Sebituane placed some goats on one of the large islands of the Zambesi
as a bait to the warriors, and some men in canoes to co-operate
in the manoeuvre.
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