The Van Buren press., 1896-08-29
TIE MATEBELE BUGABoo.
No Man Ever Saw Him, Bct lie Gets ri
Ills Priests Want.


Ills Priests Want.
The following is an extract from 4
private letter lately received from a
veung Englishman who was farming
at Matabeleland at the time of the out
break:
"The Makukukapane and Matoppo
Hill district, where the rising COM
menced, form a very difficult country.
The natives living in the hills there
were always a nuisance to Lo Ben, ard
when the columns came in they would
not fight for him. The company never
Gisarmed these men or took their cat
lie. They have been a great trouble
ever since, and the native commissioner
could never go out that way without
six or eight police with him, and was
constantly getting fired on. Twice
il was announced that Il large patrol
with big guns and MaXims was going to
knock them into shape and clear the
Hills, but it never came off.
"In the Matoppo hills, in cave in
llraal of his own, dwells the M'limo, Il
Makaklaka god, and though the Ma
tabele heartily despised these people.
their slaves, they feared their god very
much, though many professed to dis
believe in him. He was always a thorn
in the flesh to old Lo Ben, and to Mozeli
katie before him.
"There is not, believe, any such per-
swindle, run by a circle of men who
wear their hair long and call them
selves his sons. No one, white or black.
has ever seen the M'limo. The methad
of procedure is that the sons go round
the people and drum up presents for the
god to insure good crops, etc. These
presents, or offerings, are placed in the
mouth of the cave and-disappear. lie
IS consulted from the mouth of the cave,
and whether it is a whispering gallery
or ventriloquism is used no one knows;
but the niggers are immensely i'm,
pressed by receiving answers from an
apparently empty cave. Ever since
the occupation of this country by us
the natives have attributed all their
ills to us. They said we brought the
iocusts, regardless of the fact that they
were here two years before, and so ON,
but what rolled them most was the
drought and consequent famine for two
years past. They said we stopped the
rain by shooting the crocodiles. The
M'limo then, who is at the bottom of
the rising, had an easy task. He toll
the people that when the white menis
blood was shed the rain would Gomez
shat Lo Ben was alive and coming with
an impi from the north, and that he had
made spell which would turn all the
white mems bullets into water He took
advantage, too, of the eclipse of the
moon a short time back, saying he had
done it as sign TO them, as also he had
brought the rinderpest; but for some
obscure reason he forbade the people
TO loot. The rising was planned for the
18th of March, the day of the full moon.
rhe plan was simplicity itself Every
5ligger was to rise and murder his
master in the night; but the plan was
spoiled by the murder of native police
man, causing the district | named be
fore to rise prematurely. Curiously
enough, on the Goth the rain came at
last in deluges. The natives are grun,-
bling terribly about the M'limo not
having kept his contract about the
bullets turning into water, and he re-
plies that they spoiled his spell by loot
ting when he told them not TO do so."-
ST. James Gazette.