The Witch Doctor and other Rhodesian Studies Part 9

"Did you send that message to the servants of the white men, saying that they were not to work?"

"I sent my master's message."

"What are you doing to these children?"

"My master said they must come."

"What for?"

"I put my hands on them, as my master said. Lizizi said: 'Let the children come, the little children, and do not stop them.' And Lizizi said: 'You must work for six days, and on the seventh day you must not do anything.'"

So that was the explanation. It came to the Commissioner in a flash.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Sinyoro."

"You have worked for a white man?"

"Yes, I was with the Mission."

"I thought as much."

"Lizizi" was the nearest this native could get to Jesus. The poor old man was, it transpired, a little mad. He had lived with the missionaries for many years, and had recently asked permission to visit friends on the Zambesi. The head missionary had let him go. As he afterwards explained, he knew the man was a little mad, but quite harmless. They had christened him James--James Sinyoro.

However, James, it seemed, had been trying his prentice hand at missionary work, and had given orders based on the little he remembered of the Mission Bible teaching.

James Sinyoro returned to the Mission Station, and the district to its normal tranquillity.

MIRONDA--A WOMAN.

The Paramount Chief had many wives. A newly arrived missionary, determined to convert the great man, opened his attack by asking why he had so many wives. The answer was disconcerting: "For political reasons." This matter of the Chief's was a rock upon which all missionary endeavours foundered. The Chief must discard all his wives, save one. The Chief was determined to keep them all.

To another reformer he said: "Leave me alone. Do what you will with the children and young people. Leave me to myself. You have shown me that my beliefs are foolish. You have not proved to me that yours are any wiser."

A third good man, about to transfer his activities to other fields, offered to present the Chief with his bright bra.s.s bedstead provided he became a Christian.

"Let me see it," said the old heathen. The bed was produced. "I have a better one. I paid a trader ten head of cattle for it." So no bargain was struck.

I think there must have been some grounds for saying that he clung to his many wives "for political reasons," because they, or at any rate some of them, were more trouble to the Chief than they were perhaps worth.

There was Mavevana, for instance, who was large and fat and therefore very beautiful from a native point of view, but whose tongue was a constant source of strife without and within the harem.

I should explain that each wife had her own group of huts. These groups--there were seventeen of them--were surrounded by a high reed fence, strengthened by sharply-pointed poles. The harem was a village within a village. Outside the fence the common people lived.

Each woman had her slaves. A strong guard of fully-armed men patrolled the harem at night. Old Sikoro, the keeper of the harem, was about day and night.

Then there was Mironda. Poor Mironda, who later paid, as women do, be they white, black or yellow.

Mironda was rather nearer to yellow than to black. I think she had some European blood in her. One does not often see a native woman with hazel eyes nor with freckles; and besides, she was very tall and slim.

As a special mark of his good will the Chief once took me through his harem. That is how I first came to see Mironda.

The woman aroused my interest. When we entered her compound she glared at her lord and master as a caged beast does upon free men. She did not for a moment take her eyes off him. She never so much as glanced in my direction. Her eyes caught the light once and reflected it as do those of a cat, a tiger. Yes, that was it, she put me in mind of a caged tiger.

She clasped her hands continuously during our short stay. The click, click, click of her ivory bangles drew my attention to her hands. Her hands and her wrists were very small, her finger nails long and sharp. I noticed her hands particularly because she had solid ivory bangles on each arm from wrist to elbow. These bangles were very small and, as they were solid, could only pa.s.s over very small hands.

I saw this curious woman twice only: the second time was some years later.

As I have said before, old Sikoro was the keeper of the harem. I hated him instinctively the moment I first set eyes on him: I hated him more when I heard the whole story.

Sikoro had only one eye. In his youth he had had smallpox, which pitted his face remorselessly and destroyed one eye. He wore a soldier's red tunic, the colour dimmed with age and dirt. Perched on his head was a tall cone-shaped fur cap which he plucked off whenever he met a superior. He was always plucking it off, not because he was really inferior in the black man's social scale to all he so saluted; on the contrary, in view of his office, he was an important person; he was over polite because he chose to appear humble.

The man knew his power well: his occupation gave him the ear of the Chief. All realized this and were ready to show him the respect which was justly his due: Sikoro was before them in showing respect, which was unnecessary. Men did not understand this humbleness of his and feared him. Sikoro loved their fear.

The woman, Mironda, alone had no fear of him. She despised the man and did not try to hide it. She often refused to see him. It was only utter boredom that induced her to admit him to her compound at all. The truth is he was a great gossip and was the link between the harem and the outer world. Sikoro knew everything, was an authority on everything, and the first to hear all news.

Now this is what befell Mironda. I don't blame her; no one could. I consider her a victim of circ.u.mstances. The old, old story. A young and impulsive woman, an elderly, much married lord, a well-favoured young man. The long and the short of it is that Mironda was in the end divorced; but the manner of that divorce enrages me whenever I think of it.

One morning she was sitting on a mat in the shade thrown by the overhanging thatch of her hut. She was singing in a low voice and threading beads picked with the point of her needle from a wooden bowl held by a small girl slave.

The father of Mbututu Was killed on the sand bank Wei ye-i, wei i-ye, Wei ye-i, wei i-ye, The father of Mbututu Was killed on the sand bank Wei ye-i, etc.

The monotonous chant in a minor key was interrupted by someone scratching on the reed fence.

"Go," said Mironda to the child, "see who it is."

The child put down the bowl of beads and ran to the fold in the fence which formed the gate. She looked out. A glance was sufficient. She ran back past her mistress and into a far hut, muttering as she went "Ma--we! Ma--we! It is Sikoro!"

Mironda moved uneasily on her mat, then fell to fumbling nervously with the brightly-dyed bark patterns which ornamented it.

Sikoro slouched into the compound, removing his fur cap as he came. Just inside he knelt down and sat on his heels, placing his cap on the ground beside him. He arranged his voluminous skirts carefully round him and then clapped his hands very respectfully.

Mironda did not look at him. After a short interval Sikoro broke the silence.

"Good day to you, Morena."

"Yes, good day."

"And has the Chief's wife slept well?"

"She has."