Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1893-11-17

Fortunate demands for gratuities dis
count the lazZaroni of Naples. These
practices are characteristic of all,
from the highest to the lowest
lndunas of the most elevated rank
attach no idea of shame to the act of
stealing, nor Is it beneath the dignity
of member of the Kings council to
spend hours day after day in begging
from white man camp. They look
upon the white man solely AS con-
neutrality-suspicious. of desirable articles,
which can be begged or stolen from
him without scruple or loss of self
respect. Their conversation in his
tent consists mainly of entreaties that
he will do himself the honor of con-
ferring upon them guns, or jam, or
his hat, or his boots, or anything that
is his. If he neglects to watch them
shortly after their departure some
thing or other will surely be missing
it may be spoons, or few knives, or
small ak, or a jar of preserves, or
some other little keepsake of the kind.
In the whole Matabele Nation there
is said to be ''only one man who does
not beg OF the white man, and that one
is the King. But then there is little
that he can want. He has such num-
bers of cattle that many of them die
yearly of old age; his people keep
him well supplied with corn and beer
the subject tribes who own his rule
send him tribute in ivory, skins, and
articles of native manufacture; every
white man who enters the country
brings him presents of guns, blankets,
powder, champagne, while from the
conoessionaires to whom he has grant
ed mining rights he receives good,
round sum in English sovereigns, paid
to him at each new moon. He has
troops of slaves Whatever skilled
labor he may require for matching,
painting, gun mending. and the like
is supplied generally for nothing by
the white men who live in the coun-
try. Whenever he needs cloth or
beads for the replenlshment of the
wardrobes of his eighty odd wives he
sends down an order, and generally Il
large one, to tho traders ut the store,
who cannot well refuse to supply him.
1t appears that the King does some
times pay for the goods which he has
ordered, but never until long while
after he has received them, and the
life Of the white trader In Matabeland
is described as anything but prosper
GUS and satisfactory.
The military system of the Nation Is
still much the same as that OF the Zu-
lus, from whom the Matabcle are de-
scended. When the king wishes to
raise q new regiment he calls out a
number of the young men. Certain
lands are allotted to them. Flocks
and herds are given them, which the
regiment keep up for its own benefit.
The regiment builds its own kraal, has
its own induna, and lives there under
his command till such time rs its
members, having seen sufficient serv-
ice, ARE given their head rings by the
King, allowed to marry and to retire
into the reserve and live anywhere
they please Till the soldiers get their
head-rings they are known AS matjaka,
or young braves" After they have
got them they are madodu, or men.
One of the most general supereti-
tons is ali earnest belief in witches
and witchcraft. This is part of the re-
ligion OF tho Matabele and the prac-
tice of smelling out" the witches and
the attendant massacre of the latter
has caused much trouble to the English
authorities in African stations. Nor
Is it only the accused man who suffers.
His wives, his relations, his slaves, and
sometimes his cattle are on occasions
slaug htered with him. The terror of
witchcraft which prompts these mas
sacres applies generally to all agencies
which the natives do not understand
and over which they have no control.
But, curiously, while they fear the
spells of their own people, they do not
apparently entertain any fear that the
white men will bewitch them. 1t is
said that the Matabele are beginning
to recognize the superior efficiency Of
the white mans medicine, and that
his usually gratuitous practice seri-
ously interferes with that of the old
established herb doctors who expect
to be feed.
The King himself does what little
rain dootoring the climate requires,
and on one occasion ordered the cessa-
ton of revolver practice in the Euro
pean settlers camp lest the sound Of
the guns should brighten the rain away
when he was engaged in his incanta-
tions. The "magic broth" which the
witch doctors brew is still sometimes
sprinkled on the trees and the Kings
kraal and wagons, and even on the
royal person of the King himself, in
time of war in order to preserve them
from evil influences and to make the
bullets of the enemp miss fire.
1t is wonderful how this Nation,
small rs it is, has managed to make its
name dreaded from the borders of
British Bechuanalsnd right up to the
Zambesi, and from the lake to the
country claimed by the Portuguese.
For the Matabele Nation in itself is in
significant. OF the inhabitants of
Natalie proper IA strip of country
about 100 miles long by fifty broad,
which would include all tho kraals of
the Matabelo as distinguished from
their subject races, the Makalaka and
Mashona), two out of every three are
slaves In the very heart of the Mata-
belle kingdom there are two slaves to
every one of the dominant race. If
the slaves were to rise any day, had
they only pluck, they might almost
beat their oppressors, even if they
had go other arms than the hoes with
which they till the Matabele corn
fields.