The Banyai,
Evidently Touched By Our Distress, Allowed Us To Proceed.
Through a
man we left on an island a little below Mpende's, we subsequently
learned that poor Monaheng had fled thither, and had been murdered by
the headman for no reason except that he was defenceless.
This
headman had since become odious to his countrymen, and had been put
to death by them.
On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal village, which is
upwards of a mile from the river. The ruins of a mud wall showed
that a rude attempt had been made to imitate the Portuguese style of
building. We established ourselves under a stately wild fig-tree,
round whose trunk witchcraft medicine had been tied, to protect from
thieves the honey of the wild bees, which had their hive in one of
the limbs. This is a common device. The charm, or the medicine, is
purchased of the dice doctors, and consists of a strip of palm-leaf
smeared with something, and adorned with a few bits of grass, wood,
or roots. It is tied round the tree, and is believed to have the
power of inflicting disease and death on the thief who climbs over
it. Superstition is thus not without its uses in certain states of
society; it prevents many crimes and misdemeanours, which would occur
but for the salutary fear that it produces.
Pangola arrived, tipsy and talkative. - "We are friends, we are great
friends; I have brought you a basket of green maize - here it is!" We
thanked him, and handed him two fathoms of cotton cloth, four times
the market-value of his present.
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