Chap. IY. 
A NATIVE PEOPHET. 
87 
‘^senoga”—one wlio holds intercourse with the gods. He pro¬ 
bably had a touch of insanity, for he was in the habit of retiring 
no one knew wliither, but perhaps into some cave, to remain in a 
h}^notic or mesmeric state until the moon was full. Then, re¬ 
turning to the tribe quite emaciated, he excited liimself, as others 
do who pretend to the prophetic afflatus, until he was in a state of 
ecstacy. These pretended propliets commence then: operations by 
violent action of the voluntary muscles. Stamping, leaping, and 
shouting in a pecidiarly violent manner, or beating the ground 
with a club, they induce a kind of fit, and wliile in it pretend that 
their utterances are unknown to themselves. Tlapane, pointing 
eastwards, said, “ There, Sebituane, I behold a fire: shun it; it is 
a fire which may scorch thee. The gods say, go not tliither.” 
Then, turning to the west, he said, I see a city and a nation of 
black men—men of the water; their cattle are red; tliine own 
tribe, Sebituane, is perislnng, and will be all consumed; thou wilt 
govern black men, and, when thy warriors have captured red cattle, 
let not the owners be killed; they are thy future tribe—they are 
thy city; let them be spared to cause thee to build. And thou, 
Kamosinii, thy village will perish utterly. If Mokari removes from 
that village he will perish first, and thou, Kamosinii, wilt be the 
last to die.” Concerning himself he added, The gods have 
caused other men to drmk water, but to me they have given 
bitter water of the chukuru (rliinoceros). They caU me away 
myself. I camiot stay much longer.” 
This vaticination, winch loses much in the translation, I have 
given rather fully, as it shows an observant mind. The policy re¬ 
commended wns wise, and the deaths of the senoga ” and of the 
two men he had named, added to the destruction of their village, 
having aU happened soon after, it is not wonderful that Sebituane 
followed implicitly the warning voice. The fii’e pointed to was 
evidently the Portuguese fire-arms, of which he must have heard. 
The black men referred to were the Barotse, or, as they term them¬ 
selves, Baloiana; and Sebituane spared theK chiefs, even though 
they attacked him first. He had ascended the Barotse valley, but 
was pursued by the Matebele, as Mosilikatse never could forgive 
liis former defeats. They came up the river in a very large body. 
Sebituane placed some goats on one of the large islands of the 
Zambesi, as a bait to the warriors, and some men in canoes to 
