Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia: An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of RhodesiaHall, R. N. (Richard Nicklin)
History
Great Zimbabwe, Mashonaland, Rhodesia: An account of two years' examination work in 1902-4 on behalf of the government of Rhodesia
Hall, R. N. (Richard Nicklin)
Great Zimbabwe (Extinct city); Zimbabwe -- Antiquities
In 1891 he was encamped at Fern Spruit, south of Victoria, near which
point are some hills. His Mashona boy informed him that among these
hills could be heard by anyone going near them the sound of cattle
bellowing, girls talking and singing, and that up on the hills was
a pot full of beads, but the local natives were too much afraid of
venturing up there in search of the pot, as it would mean certain
death. He did not ascend the hills, but his drivers and leaders went
up, but heard and saw nothing unusual. Until 1899 he had quite
forgotten the incident, but in August of 1900 he happened to be near
these particular hills collecting labour for the Chamber of Mines, and
conversed with a chief living there. He asked the chief the native
name of the hills, and the chief told him about the pot containing the
beads. He further told him that long ago a native went out hunting
on the hills, and found the pot with the beads in. The chief’s story
was to the effect that the native seeing the pot wanted to take the
beads out, and putting his hand into the pot, the pot got hold of his
hands and he could not shake it off, and he was obliged to carry the
pot poised on his head with his hand still fixed inside it. When he
arrived at the kraal his people prevented him entering it, as he might
bring evil upon the tribe. He was consequently compelled to encamp on a
stream near the kraal until his hand dropped off. He was fed secretly
by some of his people. After his death, instead of being buried in the
usual way, they pushed him with long sticks into a cave.
The pot was left there for some considerable time afterwards, and it
was eventually discovered in another cave in the same hills, and was
regarded, and still is to this day, by the natives as a mystery, and
held in awe by them, and their belief was that if anyone approached the
cave he would die. If the pot changed its colours to dark red it meant
certain death.
After he had secured the pot the natives came from near and far to
see it. One old native then told him of another pot, made like a mare
zebra, and that the “female pot” contained beads that glittered, and
that the pot in his (Mr. Posselt’s) possession was the “male pot.” The
native was ignorant of what gold was. The two pots, so he stated, used
to travel by themselves from their cave to Fulachama, a distance of
eight miles, to obtain water from the stream where they drank, coming
and going so often as to make a path. This Kafir asked where the
“female pot” was, well knowing Mr. Posselt had not found it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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