By Veldt and Kopje Part 26

The following is the tribal war-song of the Baca tribe. It is a tune held in great veneration, and is never used except upon important occasions. Sung in slow, stately unison by a number of men on the war-path, it has an indescribably impressive effect:--

This song is apparently of great antiquity. Its words have quite lost their meaning. They are simply:--

"Eye ya how, eye ya yow yow yow."

Tradition relates that when Madikane was a boy he disappeared mysteriously. The witch-doctors told his father Kalimetsh not to be uneasy, as the boy would come back. After an absence of eight months he returned, saying that he had been in the forest learning the magical use of roots. He called to his uncle and two of his brothers, and they accompanied him to the place of his secret sojourn, driving with them a black ox. When they arrived at the specified spot the ox was slaughtered. Portions of the meat were then spread about for the use of the "imishologu," or ancestral spirits, and then the tribal song was sung. After this the young man asked the others what they would like to be "doctored" for. The uncle suffered from a dread of being poisoned, and asked to be so doctored that poison should have no effect on him.

The others asked to be so doctored as to become great fighting chiefs.

At the annual "incubi," or "feast of the first-fruits," which is held by the Bacas--when the chief rushes out of his hut after being doctored, and flings an a.s.segai towards the rising sun--the tribal song is sung in full chorus by the a.s.sembled lieges.

Each individual chief adopts a song composed specially in his honour, and which is ever afterwards a.s.sociated with him. In Madikane's song there is an undertone of sadness, as well as a finish, which, in view of the fact that his mother was probably a white woman, might almost lead one to think that it had a civilised source. Possibly it may be a sort of reflection of some melody of her childhood which the mother had been heard singing. It is as follows:--

These are the words:

"An a.s.segai thrown among the Zulus, plays. You are a young animal to the Zulus."

Madikane's peculiar appearance is apparently again referred to in the foregoing.

The next is the song which was dedicated to the present chief, Makaula, upon his accession:

The words are:--

"All the chiefs opposed Makaula by name; they said he would never be a chief. He is the youngest of all the chiefs. Orange River" (with the last syllable repeated several times).

Makaula succeeded to the chieftains.h.i.+p when quite a boy, upon the death of his father, 'Ncapai, who was killed in a war with the Pondos in 1845.

The mention of the Orange River has reference to the fact of the Bacas having wandered to its inhospitable source after being driven southward before the spears of Tshaka.

The two airs next following are danced to by the Bacas:--

The following air is common among all the tribes between the Shangaan country, north of Delagoa Bay, and Pondoland:--

The three last examples given are songs heard by one of the writers among the Tongas and Shangaans:--

In their songs the Bantu have never got beyond a few words set to a tune of a few bars, these being sung with monotonous repet.i.tion. In spite of their monotony, the songs have a wild charm which is all their own. The Kaffirs are as loyal to their chiefs as were the Scottish Highlanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Probably among no other people in the world is the sentiment of loyalty so strong. In each of these simple melodies a treasured story lies embalmed and fragrant. Up to the present the habiliments of civilisation sit but ill upon the savages of South Africa, whose waning ideals are cl.u.s.tered around the leafless tree of ancestry as a swarm of belated bees cl.u.s.ter over the portals of a ruined nest. In singing their songs the natives reconstruct the departed glories of the grand old "houses" which have, as they themselves say, "withered," for a few fleeting and pathetic moments.