Bantu Folk Lore (Medical and General)Hewat, Matthew L.
Science
Bantu Folk Lore (Medical and General)
Hewat, Matthew L.
Pondo (African people); Traditional medicine -- South Africa; Xhosa (African people); Zulu (African people)
A number of youths from the same kraal are done at the same time, and
during the healing process are set apart from their fellows in a
locality some distance from the kraals, where they must provide for
themselves in every way. They are then called “Abakweta” and keep many
restrictions and observances, which I do not propose to describe here,
suffice it to say that when the soreness passes off, they are allowed
unlimited licence, and as a consequence the rite has very much
degenerated into an unthinkably immoral custom. Free love with the
Abakweta not being considered improper amongst the young women and
“Intonyane.”
CONCLUSION.
The foregoing pages prove, I think, to us that the Kaffir races, as
represented by their “Amagqira,” possess no mean amount of knowledge of
disease and its treatment, and their extensive use of herbs show in an
astonishing degree, the valuable information which the tribes possess
of the therapeutic actions and uses of the vegetable kingdom as it
exists in those parts of the country which they inhabit.
FINIS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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