THE GREAT INGOMBOCO
After this there was quiet until the Feast of the First-fruits was ended. But few people were killed at these feast, though there was a great Ingomboco, or witch-hunt, and many were smelt out by the witch-doctors as working magic against the king. Now things had come to this pass in Zululand--that the whole people cowered before the witch-doctors. No man might sleep safe, for none knew but that on the morrow he would be touched by the wand of an Isanusi, as we name a finder of witches, and led away to his death. For awhile Chaka said nothing, and so long as the doctors smelt out those only whom he wished to get rid of--and they were many--he was well pleased. But when they began to work for their own ends, and to do those to death whom he did not desire to kill, he grew angry. Yet the custom of the land was that he whom the witch-doctor touched must die, he and all his house;therefore the king was in a cleft stick, for he scarcely dared to save even those whom he loved. One night I came to doctor him, for he was sick in his mind. On that very day there had been an Ingomboco, and five of the bravest captains of the army had been smelt out by the Abangoma, the witch-finders, together with many others. All had been destroyed, and men had been sent to kill the wives and children of the dead. Now Chaka was very angry at this slaying, and opened his heart to me.
"The witch-doctors rule in Zululand, and not I, Mopo, son of Makedama," he said to me. "Where, then, is it to end? Shall I myself be smelt out and slain? These Isanusis are too strong for me; they lie upon the land like the shadow of night. Tell me, how may I be free of them?""Those who walk the Bridge of Spears, O king, fall off into Nowhere,"I answered darkly; "even witch-doctors cannot keep a footing on that bridge. Has not a witch-doctor a heart that can cease to beat? Has he not blood that can be made to flow?"Chaka looked at me strangely. "Thou art a bold man who darest to speak thus to me, Mopo," he said. "Dost thou not know that it is sacrilege to touch an Isanusi?""I speak that which is in the king's mind," I answered. "Hearken, Oking! It is indeed sacrilege to touch a true Isanusi, but what if the Isanusi be a liar? What if he smell out falsely, bringing those to death who are innocent of evil? Is it then sacrilege to bring him to that end which he has given to many another? Say, O king!""Good words!" answered Chaka. "Now tell me, son of Makedama, how may this matter be put to proof?"Then I leaned forward, whispering into the ear of the Black One, and he nodded heavily.
Thus I spoke then, because I, too, saw the evil of the Isanusis, I who knew their secrets. Also, I feared for my own life and for the lives of all those who were dear to me. For they hated me as one instructed in their magic, one who had the seeing eye and the hearing ear.
One morning thereafter a new thing came to pass in the royal kraal, for the king himself ran out, crying aloud to all people to come and see the evil that had been worked upon him by a wizard. They came together and saw this. On the door-posts of the gateway of the Intunkulu, the house of the king, were great smears of blood. The knees of men strong in the battle trembled when they saw it; women wailed aloud as they wail over the dead; they wailed because of the horror of the omen.
"Who has done this thing?" cried Chaka in a terrible voice. "Who has dared to bewitch the king and to strike blood upon his house?"There was no answer, and Chaka spoke again. "This is no little matter," he said, "to be washed away with the blood of one or two and be forgotten. The man who wrought it shall not die alone or travel with a few to the world of spirits. All his tribe shall go with him, down to the baby in his hut and cattle in his kraal! Let messengers go out east and west, and north and south, and summon the witch-doctors from every quarter! Let them summon the captains from every regiment and the headmen from every kraal! On the tenth day from now the circle of the Ingomboco must be set, and there shall be such a smelling out of wizards and of witches as has not been known in Zululand!"So the messengers went out to do the bidding of the king, taking the names of those who should be summoned from the lips of the indunas, and day by day people flocked up to the gates of the royal kraal, and, creeping on their knees before the majesty of the king, praised him aloud. But he vouchsafed an answer to none. One noble only he caused to be killed, because he carried in his hand a stick of the royal red wood, which Chaka himself had given him in bygone years.[1]
[1] This beautiful wood is known in Natal as "red ivory."--ED.
On the last night before the forming of the Ingomboco, the witch-doctors, male and female, entered the kraal. There were a hundred and a half of them, and they were made hideous and terrible with the white bones of men, with bladders of fish and of oxen, with fat of wizards, and with skins of snakes. They walked in silence till they came in front of the Intunkulu, the royal house; then they stopped and sang this song for the king to hear:--We have come, O king, we have come from the caves and the rocks and the swamps, To wash in the blood of the slain;We have gathered our host from the air as vultures are gathered in war.
When they scent the blood of the slain.
We come not alone, O king: with each Wise One there passes a ghost, Who hisses the name of the doomed.
We come not alone, for we are the sons and Indunas of Death, And he guides our feet to the doomed.
Red rises the moon o'er the plain, red sinks the sun in the west, Look, wizards, and bid them farewell!
We count you by hundreds, you who cried for a curse on the king.
Ha! soon shall we bid YOU farewell!