Notes on N'gmniland. 
387 
bush grows to about 4 feet high and spreads out a good deal. It is, but 
for the thorns, something hke a diminutive " Mochaba." If you strip the 
bark off a red gum exudes. It has white thorns about 2^ inches long, and 
is to be found in many of the higher parts of the sandbelt. If you watch 
the leaves of this bush, grubs or caterpillars will be observed feeding on 
it ; these drop to the ground and bury themselves in the sand where they 
encase themselves in a kind of cocoon. The Mosarwa, during the winter 
months, digs under this thorn-bush and secures these cocoon-encased 
grubs. He then breaks the cocoon and extracts the grub, which is 
a small flattish grey-coloured grub about 3 millimetres long. He severs 
its head and dries the body in the sun. He then grinds to powder the 
dried grub bodies in a saucer-shaped bone, usually using a concave section 
of bone from the neck portion of the spinal column of a giraffe as the 
saucer, or mortar, and a stick of bone for a pestle. He next seeks out a 
''Monana" thorn-bush (Zizyiohus mttcronata), so well known to English 
colonists as the "wait-a-bit" thorn, and to the Boers as the ''haakdoorn,'^ 
which is very common in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, the Western 
Transvaal, and Bechuanaland, and which grows to a height of from 7 to 
16 feet. He now performs the second stage of his process in either of the 
following two ways, as may happen to be most convenient at the time. 
He either 
(1) Outs down the " Mofiana " bush and cuts oub a length of the trunk 
(which in the average-sized bush is about as thick as a man's arm) which 
he places on a fire with the end projecting. Under this projecting end he 
places the bone saucer containing the powdered grubs. The sap of the 
Moiiana " then oozes out at the end of the piece of trunk and drops into 
the saucer. Or else 
(2) He tears off the outer bark of the " Mohana " so as to get at the 
inner bark or skin ; a piece of the latter he tears off and chews in the 
mouth spitting it out into the saucer containing the powdered grub. 
He thoroughly stirs up and mixes the compound, then smears his bone 
or iron arrow-heads with the concoction, twice, letting it dry after each 
application, and after dusting on to it a few of the heads of the grubs (the 
latter for luck, one presumes). The concoction dries into a dark-brown 
crust. 
They state that this poison remains active for about two years. A 
Mosarwa can tell whether the poison on an arrow-head is still active or 
not by smelling it. An antelope, say an eland, hit with one of these 
poisoned arrows may perhaps travel 40 miles or even 70 miles before 
it dies, getting slower and weaker as it goes. On these occasions the 
Masarwa with their women and children, and all their household belong- 
ings (generally a pot and a few skins), move their residence and follow 
the spoor of the wounded animal until it finally drops and dies. The 
