l6o KATIVES OF AFRICA IN THE i6tII CEXTUKV. 



• 



called the other members of the party and ordered them to 

 remove the patients immediately, "because," said he, "the 

 i^atives did not want to see any people dying there, as the sun 

 would be angry with them, and would not allow the rain to fall 

 on the earth, and so there would be no fruit nor means of sub- 

 sistence for the whole year." " They said sc," adds Diogo de 

 Couto, " because they believed that the Portuguese are sons of 

 the sun, as tliey arc white and fair" (I\'. p. 122). The same 

 superstition reigned at Inhaca, where the Portuguese had to 

 bury their dead secretly, in the same way when Paolo de Lima 

 and others d'ed in ]\fanhica. the Natives did not allow them to 

 be buried in their ground ; their graves had to be dug near the 

 river. This is one of the most curious taboos of these tribes. 

 They believe that Heaven (rather than the sun) is offended if 

 any one dying an unnatural death is buried in dry ground. Jt 

 would be more correct to say : If an3-one dies having not been 

 lawfully incorporated with the tribe by special rites: children 

 dying^ laefore the ceremony of "tying the cotton string" (see 

 \'ol. I., p. 54). twins, and also strangers, as they may bear this 

 objectionable character which irritates Heaven and brings the 

 malediction on the land. 



Thus tiie great taboos are not a new thing amongst our 

 tribes. The same can be said of the sexual taboos and of the 

 taboos of death. Natives of the Northern part of Natal hearing 

 from the Portuguese that the cross they wore was such a sacred 

 thing, kissed it as they saw the White people do, and asked 

 them afterwards if they were allowed to have relations with their 

 wives after they had received this holy sign. This is quite in 

 keeping with the sexual tabcos of Native initiation (V. 65). 

 Lavanha reports that, at the death of a member of a kraal, they 

 all break their huts into pieces and build in another place, 

 believing that when one of the neighbours oi relatives has died, 

 everything will go wrong in the village (V. 21). This is the 

 great law consequent to the tabco of death still observed in our 

 days. 



If the taboo superstitions were the saiue as to-day amongst 

 the Natives of South Africa, their niai^^ic seems to have been also 

 quite similar. Divination is practised amongst the Gamba 

 people by casting lots with small shells stuck at the back with 

 the wax of black" wasps, and this consultation takes place in cases 

 of disease and death. The Thonga-Shangaan of cur days also 

 use shells for the purpose, shells mixed with astragalus bones 

 and various stones; certainly the systeiu Is the same. However, 

 divination by the examination of the intestines of fowls and mice 

 which Fernandez reports as common amongst the Gamba is no 

 longer resorted to in these tribes, as far as I know. 



Smelling out witches was of common occurrence. All the 

 practice*^ of witchcraft were known, and the accused were tried by 

 the " uiondjo" ordeal (called motro), vb., by drinking a poison- 

 ous drug. I find, however, no traces of the exorcism of so-called 

 jiossessed persons by drum-beating in our documents. Tlie 



