Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
Creator for lessening the pain of death. Turning round to relieve myself
of the weight, as he had one paw on the back of my head, I saw his eyes
directed to Mebalwe, who was trying to shoot him at a distance of ten
or fifteen yards. His gun, a flint one, missed fire in both barrels; the
lion immediately left me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another
man, whose life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a
buffalo, attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He
left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that moment the
bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down dead. The whole
was the work of a few moments, and must have been his paroxysms of
dying rage. In order to take out the charm from him, the Bakatla on the
following day made a huge bonfire over the carcass, which was declared
to be that of the largest lion they had ever seen. Besides crunching the
bone into splinters, he left eleven teeth wounds on the upper part of my
arm.
A wound from this animal's tooth resembles a gun-shot wound; it is
generally followed by a great deal of sloughing and discharge, and pains
are felt in the part periodically ever afterward. I had on a tartan
jacket on the occasion, and I believe that it wiped off all the virus
from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two companions in this
affray have both suffered from the peculiar pains, while I have escaped
with only the inconvenience of a false joint in my limb. The man whose
shoulder was wounded showed me his wound actually burst forth afresh on
the same month of the following year. This curious point deserves the
attention of inquirers.
The different Bechuana tribes are named after certain animals, showing
probably that in former times they were addicted to animal-worship like
the ancient Egyptians. The term Bakatla means "they of the monkey";
Bakuena, "they of the alligator"; Batlapi, "they of the fish": each
tribe having a superstitious dread of the animal after which it is
called. They also use the word "bina", to dance, in reference to the
custom of thus naming themselves, so that, when you wish to ascertain
what tribe they belong to, you say, "What do you dance?" It would seem
as if that had been a part of the worship of old. A tribe never eats the
animal which is its namesake, using the term "ila", hate or dread, in
reference to killing it. We find traces of many ancient tribes in the
country in individual members of those now extinct, as the Batau, "they
of the lion"; the Banoga, "they of the serpent"; though no such tribes
now exist. The use of the personal pronoun they, Ba-Ma, Wa, Va or Ova,
Am-Ki, &c., prevails very extensively in the names of tribes in Africa.
A single individual is indicated by the terms Mo or Le. Thus Mokwain is
a single person of the Bakwain tribe, and Lekoa is a single white man or
Englishman--Makoa being Englishmen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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