388 HISTORY AND CUSTOMS OF THE .MAKARANGA. 



they then set the pile on fire and awaited developments. As 

 nothing resulted on that day, they retired to sleep. On the fol- 

 lowing morning the voice of Mwari greeted them from the tree, 

 and told them that as a punishment for what they had attempted 

 they should cease to be a nation, and would be plagued in various 

 ways for many years to come. First of all, he said : " The locusts 

 will come ana destroy your crops; then shall come a people 

 wearing a different kind of dress to what you have been accus- 

 tomed, and calling themselves Masw^azwi. After this will come a 

 people called the Madzwiti {i.e., Matabele), who will destroy 

 your villages and despoil you of your wives and herds, and you 

 shall cease to be a nation. After this shall come a race of people 

 who have no knees, a stiff-legged people, who cannot sit down 

 cross-legged in the usual native manner, but must always sit on 

 logs of trees with their legs stuck out in front of them. These 

 peoples shall occupy your country for many years, but in my own 

 time I will take pity on you, and drive them out by means of the 

 Mai^aiiga-hiitari " (Men in Armour). 



Everything that was foretold came true : First came the 

 locusts, which destroyed the crops. After this came the first two 

 Swazwi who had ever been seen in Rhodesia — they were quite 

 young men, hardly more than boys, and were probably scouts of 

 the main body ; they were captured bv the Warozwi and taken to 

 Mambo. To him they explained that they were of a tribe called 

 Maswazwi, and were merely wandering about seeing the country. 

 After consultation with his councillors, Mambo decreed that one 

 of the Swazwi should be killed, and the other should be allowed 

 to return home ; but to deter his tribe from coming to Rhodesia, 

 his hands, nose, ears and lips were cut off, and one eye was put 

 out : the other eye was left him, otherwise he would have been 

 unable to find his way. In course of time the main body of the 

 Swazwis arrived, and fought with the Warozwi for a number of 

 years. Eventually came the jNlatabele. or Madzwiti. as they are 

 called, who swept the Mrozwi nation out of existence, and then in 

 turn came the " Whitemen," who in their turn drove out the 

 Madzwiti, the Europeans being the stift'-legged people — i.e., 

 they wore trousers and sat on chairs. 



The one part of the prophecy remaining to be fulfilled is 

 that referring to the " Maganga-hutari." The belief that this 

 mysterious person will come and evict us from the country is 

 gradually dying out as the years go on, and nowadays the ques- 

 tion as to whether and when the Europeans will leave the count'-y 

 is more an object of interesting" discussion than a fixed article of 

 faith, as it used to be. 



The cause of the Rebellion amongst the Makaranga in 189(1- 

 97 was due to statements made by the various Mondoro priests 

 of Mwari that the time had arrived when the prophecy would be 

 fulfilled— the Men-in-armour were coming, and only awaited the 

 rising of the natives to make their appearance. Had it not been 

 4or this belief being so firmly planted in their mind's, the Maka- 

 ranga would never have rebelled, as they are essentially a race of 

 husbandmen, and fighting is foreign to all their ideas and habits. 



