XOSA RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS. 419 



upon as a sort of deity, or superior 1)eing. among the Kaffirs. 

 There was something about a white man, as about a formally- 

 installed and doctored chief, which made him an object of awe. 

 This was called isi-tunsi, lit. his shadow ; and nesitunzi ( with a 

 shadow), meant awe-inspiring. The white man is still an object 

 of awe in out-of-the way places, and his name is used as a bogey 

 to frighten naughty children. 



The real objects of worship among the Xosas were the iml- 

 n\an\a, or izi-nyanya, the spirits of their departed ancestors, and 

 especially of their departed chiefs. The root of the word appears 

 in uku-nyanya, (to fear), and in the locative, cnyanyeni (in the 

 waste, in the void), and in u-nyanya, the supernatural vigour 

 displayed in the doctor's frenzied dance. Invocation of these 

 spirits and sacrifice to them were the main features of Kaffir 

 worship. They were invoked or implored, kiinga; the invocation 

 was isi-kungo. When a chief went to war, he was greeted, 

 iniinyanya mayiknkangelc (may the ancestral spirits look upon 

 thee with favour). One who was in league with these ancients 

 had great power for good and evil: nnazinyanya (he has the 

 ancients), they said. When a chief died his spirit was invoked: 

 u\c kunndawo ezipakamUeyo, senselelc! (thou hast gone to high 

 places, transact for us). At the time of the cattle-killing in 1857, 

 It was these ancestral spirits that Nongqause pretended to have 

 seen and to have received from them the message that proved so 

 fatal to her nation. It was l)y the iminyanya that the witch- 

 doctor was called to his profession. He was um-tya'ctiilufaj one 

 torn off from the community, as bark is stripped from the tree. 

 The ancestral spirits of ordinary heads of families i)erformed a 

 less exalted, though also important function. They were the house- 

 hold gods, imi-londekaya, the preservers and protectors of heartii 

 and home, the lares et pcnatcs of the Xosas. They sometime- 

 appeared about the huts or the cattlefold in the form of snakes — 

 inambezulu (the boomslang), and in-kzvakwa (the mole-snake) — 

 and these snakes were sacred, and must on no account be killed, 

 as any one of them might be the embodiment of a dejiarted 

 ancestor. 



While the iminyanya were, on the whole. friendl\- and benefi- 

 cial in their influence, there were also ghosts of deceased person-s,. 

 the imi-shologu, whose influence was hostile and maleficent. 

 Thev were also called jaifijiccla. or shades. They were tlie t.ric^i- 

 nators of accident, injury, calamity, and the senders of nightmares 

 and evil dreams, amu-shologu. Dread of meeting a ghost, (^r 

 seeing glimpses, ania-nakanibe, of the infernal often hindered 

 people from passing a place at night. The ghost of a ])erson who 

 had been murdered and his tongue cut out, uni-kolonjanc, so 

 that, as he walked about at night, he could only utter weird 

 sounds, " Male, maid" was especially dreaded. .Such evil .spirits 

 could, however, be exorcised or expelled, and the places which 

 they haunted purified by the burning of certain medicinal plants 

 by the doctor. Such exorcism was ukii-gqiira. 



