VI 'WHAT USE IS SHE?' 105 



nearer he was horrified to find that the body was 

 that of an old woman, and that she was aHve. On 

 remonstrating with the men who were dragging the 

 poor creature along, and taxing them with their in- 

 humanity, they seemed quite hurt, and said, " Why, 

 what use is she ? She's an old slave, and altogether 

 past work, and we are going to give her to the 

 hyaenas." They accordingly dragged her down to 

 the valley below Bulawayo and tied her to a tree. 

 My friend had followed and watched them, and that 

 evening, as soon as it was dusk, he and a trader 

 named Grant — who was murdered in Mashunaland 

 by the natives during the rising of 1896 — went 

 down to her with a stretcher, and cutting the thongs 

 that bound her to the tree, carried her up to Mandy's 

 hut, where, however, she died during the night. 



I do not wish it to be understood that the custom 

 of tying old and worn-out slaves to trees, whilst still 

 alive, to be devoured by hyaenas, was very common, 

 but it cannot have been very unusual either, as 

 Mandy told me that many natives looked on with 

 absolute indifference whilst the old woman whose 

 fate I have described was dragged past them ; so 

 the hyaenas must have got many a good feed in 

 this way, especially round the larger towns. But 

 the native custom which was most advantageous 

 to these animals was the practice of smelling out 

 witches. In Matabeleland, in the time of Umziligazi 

 and his son Lo Bengula, people were continually 

 being tried and convicted of witchcraft, and very 

 often not only was the actual witch, man or woman, 

 killed, but their families as well, sometimes even 

 all their relations, as in the case of Lotchi, head 

 Enduna of the town of Induba, who was put to 

 death in 1888, and the number of whose wives, 

 children, and other relations who were killed with 

 him amounted to seventy. When the evidence had 

 been heard the king pronounced the sentence, 



