THE SACRIFICE OF RECONCILIATION AMONGST THE 



BA-RONGA. 



By Rev. Henri A. Junod. 



When one studies the religion of the Bantu carefully, one finds 

 something- very striking in it. We are accustomed to consider 

 reUgion as the sister or rather as the mother of morality. The 

 system of Christianity combines these two departments of the 

 psychic Ufe in such a way that they are inseparable. A progress 

 in faith calls forth a progress in sanctity, because God for us is 

 the supreme Author of the moral law. Such is not the case at all 

 amongst Bantu Animists. Their gods, the spirits of their fore- 

 fathers, have very little to do with morality. They remain en- 

 tirely indifferent to the conduct of their descendants ; they do not 

 give them any reward for good behaviour nor do they nunish them 

 for ordinary bad actions. Only when a man becomes a kind of 

 Don Juan, keeps no restraint in his adulterous habits ,the Ba- 

 Ronga say that the gods will lead him into a dense forest and kill 

 him there. 



However, I have found in certain customs of the Ba-Ronga 

 some traces of an organic union between religion and morality ; 

 and, as I think we must welcome every ray of light amongst 

 darkness, I venture briefly to describe my little discovery. Strange 

 to say, I owe that discovery to a Christian song which is a fav- 

 ourite amongst our congregations and which was composed by 

 one of the older missionaries of the Swiss Mission many vears 

 ago. This song glorifies the work of the Holy Ghost and implores 

 Him, amongst other blessings, to hahlela madjieta. We 

 always took this expression as meaning : to take awav from the 

 heart bad feelings, feelings of anger, of rancour. Such is indeed 

 the usual signification of it. But on studying it more carefully 

 with the aid of good informants, I found behind it a good manv 

 notions which I had never met with before. 



There are two words to consider in this expression : Hahlela 

 is a verb, the verb hahla, to perform a sacramental act, such as a 

 sacrifice to the spirits. The suffix ela which is added to it is the 

 desinence of the applicative derivative and conveys the idea of : 

 *'in relation with, in favour of. " Hahlele madjieta mesins therefore : 

 to accomplish a sacramental act in relation with madjieta. But 

 what is madjieta? This is the plural of a noun of the class dij-ma, 

 djieta pi. madjieta. It is met with under this form in the Ronga 

 dialect of Delagoa Bay and becomes rieta pi. marieta in the 

 Northern clans of the Thonga or Shangaans. Djieta is the " oath 

 by imprecation " which one can pronounce under various circum- 

 stances. 



Suppose a man goes to baths in the lake of Rikatla ; there 

 he is stung by something. He runs out at once and shouts : " I 

 shall never again enter this lake, never, never, never"! This 



