Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) -- Fiction; English fiction; Xhosa (African people) -- Fiction
Amani rose. He was the rain-maker, or witch doctor, of the tribe--one
of those wicked magicians of the country, who, taking advantage of the
Kafir belief in evil agency, manage, with extraordinary tact, to turn
the very changes of the elements to bad account. By his cunning and
audacity, he had made such predictions and revelations as had obtained
for him paramount ascendancy over his chief, and consequently the whole
tribe. Doda both despised and dreaded him. He had missed him lately
for several days. Amani was supposed to be in the retirement of the
hills, preparing charms and incantations for the ceremony they had
assembled to witness, the induction of the young warriors into their
calling. But Doda, who had his scouts ever on the watch, felt sure that
the wizard had made a hurried march to some secret place of meeting with
Brennard, who would have given him the last colonial news; and, armed
with this, he could easily forestall Amayeka and her white confederates,
since Amani could travel faster and by nearer paths than they could
traverse in a body, and with Zwartz, encumbered with their contraband
stores.
It was soon clear that such was the case.
Amani began his address by saying, that Umlala's eyes were open. Amani
himself had predicted mischief. He had told his chief that the great
white captains were coming to speak to them with guns; but as for the
red men they had now on the borders of the colony, _they_ could be
counted in a day, they were _not_ many. He called on the sons of Congo
to sound the war-cry from the highest mountain-top.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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