vi 'NANSI IBEZA YAKO' 107 



late Mr. G. A. Philips once poisoned with strychnine 

 twenty-one of these animals round the old town of 

 Bulawayo in one night. 



I was never able to get a full account of the 

 proceedings at a trial for witchcraft in Matabele- 

 land, but from all I have heard they must have 

 been strangely similar to those trials for the same 

 alleged crime which were so common a few centuries 

 ago in England and Scotland. In recent times in 

 Matabeleland, just as in mediaeval times in England, 

 everybody, almost without exception, believed in 

 witchcraft, and there can be no doubt that in both 

 countries men and women existed who firmly 

 believed themselves to be possessed of the powers 

 ascribed to witches. One of the commonest accusa- 

 tions against men accused of witchcraft in Matabele- 

 land was that they had been seen riding a hyaena 

 at night, and on this account when one of these 

 animals was killed, it was looked upon as an unfeel- 

 ing joke to point to it and say to any native, " Nansi 

 ibeza yako " ("There lies your horse"). 



Although hyaenas eat large quantities of soft 

 meat when they get the chance, they can do very 

 well on a diet of little else than bones. When a 

 large animal is killed by lions, these purely car- 

 nivorous animals eat the greater part of the soft 

 meat, and then leave the carcase to the hyaenas, 

 which are pretty sure to be at hand. These latter 

 then scrunch up and swallow many of the bones. 

 So powerful are their jaws that they can break the 

 leg-bones of buffaloes and giraffes, the ends of 

 which they gnaw off after extracting the marrow. 



I once wounded a large hyaena as he ran out of 

 a patch of long orass, where he had been lying 

 asleep. After following on his blood spoor for a 

 few hundred yards, I came upon him lying under a 

 bush, evidently badly wounded. On the previous 

 day I had bought a very large-bladed assegai from 



