some featuees of the religio]n^ of the 

 ba-ye:s^da. 



By Eey. H. a, JuNOi). 



Read July IT, 1!J20. 



I had the opportunity of spending- a fe\A weeks amongst 

 the Ba-Venda during the last summer. For a hmg time I had 

 wished to visit the Zoutpansberg mountains. 1 had heard of 

 marvellous ferns growing in splendid gorges, and I wanted 

 to pluck them and dry them for my herbarium. Full of 

 expectation, dreaming of botanical specimens new to science, 

 I reached the (xooldville Mission Station at the end of 

 January, with a lot of sheets of desiccating paper. But the 

 rain fell; it fell and fell again. The rivers were soon filled, 

 and filled to such a height that it Avas impossible to travel, 

 impossible to reach those picturesque hills which stood calmly 

 in the backgiound of the countiy in a provoking attitude, 

 most of the time hiding themselves in impenetrable clouds. 

 I had to renounce definitely the graceful ferns and the 

 gorgeous lilies, and, confined in the comfortable hut provided 

 by charming hosts, I turned my mind to another field of 

 studj', and called Shifaladzi. 



Shifaladzi is a Venda of the Balaudzi clan, a clan which 

 has its abode at the foot of the Lomondo Hill, a kind of big 

 volcanic cone, standing like a sentinel in front of the bio- 

 chain. He had become a Christian lately and has been baptized. 

 He has settled on the Presb^-terian Mission Station at Goold- 

 ville, and he was just the kind of man you want to get sure 

 and full information on the customs of the tribe : a grown- 

 up man, who has been a heathen up to the adult age, but 

 who is now sufficiently delivered from superstition to explain 

 the mysteries of his former life to a sympathetic inquirer. 

 An important point for me was that he knew the Thonga 

 lang'uage enough to understand my questions and to answer 

 them in a way comprehensible to me. Thus, instead of 

 colle<'ting ferns, I gathered ethnog'raphic data with the same 

 zeal which I intended to apply to botany; and I may say, 

 after all, the result was miich more satisfactory, as I always 

 thought documents on the primitive customs of humanity 

 greatly exceed in A'alue specimens of natural history ! 



The Ba-Venda are a very peculiar tribe, still little known 

 to ethnographical science. The Berlin missioiiaries, who 

 have been settled amongst them for nearly fifty years, have 

 studied it and know it Avell, but they have not yet published 

 a full account of its customs. One of them, the Rev. Beuster, 

 had gathered a great many notes on the subject, but he died 

 before having put them in order. His colleague, the Eev. 



