Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

David Livingstone

• Publisher: pubOne.info
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9782819923015
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. or, Journeys and Researches in South Africa.

Chapter 1.

The Bakwain Country— Study of the Language— Native Ideas regarding Comets— Mabotsa Station— A Lion Encounter— Virus of the Teeth of Lions— Names of the Bechuana Tribes— Sechele— His Ancestors— Obtains the Chieftainship— His Marriage and Government— The Kotla— First public Religious Services— Sechele's Questions— He Learns to Read— Novel mode for Converting his Tribe— Surprise at their Indifference— Polygamy— Baptism of Sechele— Opposition of the Natives— Purchase Land at Chonuane— Relations with the People— Their Intelligence— Prolonged Drought— Consequent Trials— Rain-medicine— God's Word blamed— Native Reasoning— Rain-maker— Dispute between Rain Doctor and Medical Doctor— The Hunting Hopo— Salt or animal Food a necessary of Life— Duties of a Missionary.

The general instructions I received from the Directors of the London Missionary Society led me, as soon as I reached Kuruman or Lattakoo, then, as it is now, their farthest inland station from the Cape, to turn my attention to the north. Without waiting longer at Kuruman than was necessary to recruit the oxen, which were pretty well tired by the long journey from Algoa Bay, I proceeded, in company with another missionary, to the Bakuena or Bakwain country, and found Sechele, with his tribe, located at Shokuane. We shortly after retraced our steps to Kuruman; but as the objects in view were by no means to be attained by a temporary excursion of this sort, I determined to make a fresh start into the interior as soon as possible. Accordingly, after resting three months at Kuruman, which is a kind of head station in the country, I returned to a spot about fifteen miles south of Shokuane, called Lepelole (now Litubaruba). Here, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of the language, I cut myself off from all European society for about six months, and gained by this ordeal an insight into the habits, ways of thinking, laws, and language of that section of the Bechuanas called Bakwains, which has proved of incalculable advantage in my intercourse with them ever since.

In this second journey to Lepelole— so called from a cavern of that name— I began preparations for a settlement, by making a canal to irrigate gardens, from a stream then flowing copiously, but now quite dry. When these preparations were well advanced, I went northward to visit the Bakaa and Bamangwato, and the Makalaka, living between 22 Degrees and 23 Degrees south latitude. The Bakaa Mountains had been visited before by a trader, who, with his people, all perished from fever. In going round the northern part of these basaltic hills near Letloche I was only ten days distant from the lower part of the Zouga, which passed by the same name as Lake Ngami; * and I might then (in 1842) have discovered that lake, had discovery alone been my object. Most part of this journey beyond Shokuane was performed on foot, in consequence of the draught oxen having become sick. Some of my companions who had recently joined us, and did not know that I understood a little of their speech, were overheard by me discussing my appearance and powers: “He is not strong; he is quite slim, and only appears stout because he puts himself into those bags (trowsers); he will soon knock up. ” This caused my Highland blood to rise, and made me despise the fatigue of keeping them all at the top of their speed for days together, and until I heard them expressing proper opinions of my pedestrian powers.

* Several words in the African languages begin with the ringing sound

heard in the end of the word “comING”. If the reader puts an 'i'

to the beginning of the name of the lake, as Ingami,

and then sounds the 'i' as little as possible, he will have

the correct pronunciation. The Spanish n [ny] is employed

to denote this sound, and Ngami is spelt nyami— naka means a tusk,

nyaka a doctor. Every vowel is sounded in all native words,

and the emphasis in pronunciation is put upon the penultimate.

Returning to Kuruman, in order to bring my luggage to our proposed settlement, I was followed by the news that the tribe of Bakwains, who had shown themselves so friendly toward me, had been driven from Lepelole by the Barolongs, so that my prospects for the time of forming a settlement there were at an end. One of those periodical outbreaks of war, which seem to have occurred from time immemorial, for the possession of cattle, had burst forth in the land, and had so changed the relations of the tribes to each other, that I was obliged to set out anew to look for a suitable locality for a mission station.

In going north again, a comet blazed on our sight, exciting the wonder of every tribe we visited. That of 1816 had been followed by an irruption of the Matebele, the most cruel enemies the Bechuanas ever knew, and this they thought might portend something as bad, or it might only foreshadow the death of some great chief. On this subject of comets I knew little more than they did themselves, but I had that confidence in a kind, overruling Providence, which makes such a difference between Christians and both the ancient and modern heathen.

As some of the Bamangwato people had accompanied me to Kuruman, I was obliged to restore them and their goods to their chief Sekomi. This made a journey to the residence of that chief again necessary, and, for the first time, I performed a distance of some hundred miles on ox-back.

Returning toward Kuruman, I selected the beautiful valley of Mabotsa (lat. 25d 14' south, long. 26d 30'? ) as the site of a missionary station, and thither I removed in 1843. Here an occurrence took place concerning which I have frequently been questioned in England, and which, but for the importunities of friends, I meant to have kept in store to tell my children when in my dotage. The Bakatla of the village Mabotsa were much troubled by lions, which leaped into the cattle-pens by night, and destroyed their cows. They even attacked the herds in open day. This was so unusual an occurrence that the people believed that they were bewitched— “given, ” as they said, “into the power of the lions by a neighboring tribe. ” They went once to attack the animals, but, being rather a cowardly people compared to Bechuanas in general on such occasions, they returned without killing any.

It is well known that if one of a troop of lions is killed, the others take the hint and leave that part of the country. So, the next time the herds were attacked, I went with the people, in order to encourage them to rid themselves of the annoyance by destroying one of the marauders. We found the lions on a small hill about a quarter of a mile in length, and covered with trees. A circle of men was formed round it, and they gradually closed up, ascending pretty near to each other. Being down below on the plain with a native schoolmaster, named Mebalwe, a most excellent man, I saw one of the lions sitting on a piece of rock within the now closed circle of men. Mebalwe fired at him before I could, and the ball struck the rock on which the animal was sitting. He bit at the spot struck, as a dog does at a stick or stone thrown at him; then leaping away, broke through the opening circle and escaped unhurt. The men were afraid to attack him, perhaps on account of their belief in witchcraft. When the circle was re-formed, we saw two other lions in it; but we were afraid to fire lest we should strike the men, and they allowed the beasts to burst through also. If the Bakatla had acted according to the custom of the country, they would have speared the lions in their attempt to get out. Seeing we could not get them to kill one of the lions, we bent our footsteps toward the village; in going round the end of the hill, however, I saw one of the beasts sitting on a piece of rock as before, but this time he had a little bush in front. Being about thirty yards off, I took a good aim at his body through the bush, and fired both barrels into it. The men then called out, “He is shot, he is shot! ” Others cried, “He has been shot by another man too; let us go to him! ” I did not see any one else shoot at him, but I saw the lion's tail erected in anger behind the bush, and, turning to the people, said, “Stop a little, till I load again. ” When in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting, and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor feeling of terror, though quite conscious of all that was happening. It was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe, who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so, is a merciful provision by our benevolent 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, and 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.

I attached myself to the tribe called Bakuena or Bakwains, the chief of which, named Sechele, was then living with his people at a place called Shokuane. I was from the first struck by his intelligence, and by the marked manner in which we both felt drawn to each other. As this remarkable man has not only embraced Christianity, but expounds its doctrines to his people, I will here give a brief sketch of his career.

His great-grandfather Mochoasele was a great traveler, and the first that ever told the Bakwains of the existence of white men. In his father's lifetime two white travelers, whom I suppose to have been Dr. Cowan and Captain Donovan, passed through the country (in 1808), and, descending the River Limpopo, were, with their party, all cut off by fever. The rain-makers there, fearing lest their wagons might drive away the rain, ordered them to be thrown into the river. This is the true account of the end of that expedition, as related to me by the son of the chief at whose village they perished. He remembered, when a boy, eating part of one of the horses, and said it tasted like zebra's flesh. Thus they were not killed by the Bangwaketse, as reported, for they passed the Bakwains all well. The Bakwains were then rich in cattle; and as one of the many evidences of the desiccation of the country, streams are pointed out where thousands and thousands of cattle formerly drank, but in which water now never flows, and where a single herd could not find fluid for its support.

When Sechele was still a boy, his father, also called Mochoasele, was murdered by his own people for taking to himself the wives of his rich under-chiefs. The children being spared, their friends invited Sebituane, the chief of the Makololo, who was then in those parts, to reinstate them in the chieftainship. Sebituane surrounded the town of the Bakwains by night; and just as it began to dawn, his herald proclaimed in a loud voice that he had come to revenge the death of Mochoasele. This was followed by Sebituane's people beating loudly on their shields all round the town. The panic was tremendous, and the rush like that from a theatre on fire, while the Makololo used their javelins on the terrified Bakwains with a dexterity which they alone can employ. Sebituane had given orders to his men to spare the sons of the chief; and one of them, meeting Sechele, put him in ward by giving him such a blow on the head with a club as to render him insensible. The usurper was put to death; and Sechele, reinstated in his chieftainship, felt much attached to Sebituane. The circumstances here noticed ultimately led me, as will be seen by-and-by, into the new, well-watered country to which this same Sebituane had preceded me by many years.

Sechele married the daughters of three of his under-chiefs, who had, on account of their blood relationship, stood by him in his adversity. This is one of the modes adopted for cementing the allegiance of a tribe. The government is patriarchal, each man being, by virtue of paternity, chief of his own children. They build their huts around his, and the greater the number of children, the more his importance increases. Hence children are esteemed one of the greatest blessings, and are always treated kindly. Near the centre of each circle of huts there is a spot called a “kotla”, with a fireplace; here they work, eat, or sit and gossip over the news of the day. A poor man attaches himself to the kotla of a rich one, and is considered a child of the latter. An under-chief has a number of these circles around his; and the collection of kotlas around the great one in the middle of the whole, that of the principal chief, constitutes the town. The circle of huts immediately around the kotla of the chief is composed of the huts of his wives and those of his blood relations. He attaches the under-chiefs to himself and his government by marrying, as Sechele did, their daughters, or inducing his brothers to do so. They are fond of the relationship to great families. If you meet a party of strangers, and the head man's relationship to some uncle of a certain chief is not at once proclaimed by his attendants, you may hear him whispering, “Tell him who I am. ” This usually involves a counting on the fingers of a part of his genealogical tree, and ends in the important announcement that the head of the party is half-cousin to some well-known ruler.

Sechele was thus seated in his chieftainship when I made his acquaintance. On the first occasion in which I ever attempted to hold a public religious service, he remarked that it was the custom of his nation, when any new subject was brought before them, to put questions on it; and he begged me to allow him to do the same in this case. On expressing my entire willingness to answer his questions, he inquired if my forefathers knew of a future judgment. I replied in the affirmative, and began to describe the scene of the “great white throne, and Him who shall sit on it, from whose face the heaven and earth shall flee away, ” and c. He said, “You startle me: these words make all my bones to shake; I have no more strength in me; but my forefathers were living at the same time yours were, and how is it that they did not send them word about these terrible things sooner? They all passed away into darkness without knowing whither they were going. ” I got out of the difficulty by explaining the geographical barriers in the North, and the gradual spread of knowledge from the South, to which we first had access by means of ships; and I expressed my belief that, as Christ had said, the whole world would yet be enlightened by the Gospel. Pointing to the great Kalahari desert, he said, “You never can cross that country to the tribes beyond; it is utterly impossible even for us black men, except in certain seasons, when more than the usual supply of rain falls, and an extraordinary growth of watermelons follows. Even we who know the country would certainly perish without them. ” Reasserting my belief in the words of Christ, we parted; and it will be seen farther on that Sechele himself assisted me in crossing that desert which had previously proved an insurmountable barrier to so many adventurers.

As soon as he had an opportunity of learning, he set himself to read with such close application that, from being comparatively thin, the effect of having been fond of the chase, he became quite corpulent from want of exercise. Mr. Oswell gave him his first lesson in figures, and he acquired the alphabet on the first day of my residence at Chonuane. He was by no means an ordinary specimen of the people, for I never went into the town but I was pressed to hear him read some chapters of the Bible. Isaiah was a great favorite with him; and he was wont to use the same phrase nearly which the professor of Greek at Glasgow, Sir D. K. Sandford, once used respecting the Apostle Paul, when reading his speeches in the Acts: “He was a fine fellow, that Paul! ” “He was a fine man, that Isaiah; he knew how to speak. ” Sechele invariably offered me something to eat on every occasion of my visiting him.

Seeing me anxious that his people should believe the words of Christ, he once said, “Do you imagine these people will ever believe by your merely talking to them? I can make them do nothing except by thrashing them; and if you like, I shall call my head men, and with our litupa (whips of rhinoceros hide) we will soon make them all believe together. ” The idea of using entreaty and persuasion to subjects to become Christians— whose opinion on no other matter would he condescend to ask— was especially surprising to him. He considered that they ought only to be too happy to embrace Christianity at his command. During the space of two years and a half he continued to profess to his people his full conviction of the truth of Christianity; and in all discussions on the subject he took that side, acting at the same time in an upright manner in all the relations of life. He felt the difficulties of his situation long before I did, and often said, “Oh, I wish you had come to this country before I became entangled in the meshes of our customs! ” In fact, he could not get rid of his superfluous wives, without appearing to be ungrateful to their parents, who had done so much for him in his adversity.

In the hope that others would be induced to join him in his attachment to Christianity, he asked me to begin family worship with him in his house. I did so; and by-and-by was surprised to hear how well he conducted the prayer in his own simple and beautiful style, for he was quite a master of his own language. At this time we were suffering from the effects of a drought, which will be described further on, and none except his family, whom he ordered to attend, came near his meeting. “In former times, ” said he, “when a chief was fond of hunting, all his people got dogs, and became fond of hunting too. If he was fond of dancing or music, all showed a liking to these amusements too. If the chief loved beer, they all rejoiced in strong drink. But in this case it is different. I love the Word of God, and not one of my brethren will join me. ” One reason why we had no volunteer hypocrites was the hunger from drought, which was associated in their minds with the presence of Christian instruction; and hypocrisy is not prone to profess a creed which seems to insure an empty stomach.

Sechele continued to make a consistent profession for about three years; and perceiving at last some of the difficulties of his case, and also feeling compassion for the poor women, who were by far the best of our scholars, I had no desire that he should be in any hurry to make a full profession by baptism, and putting away all his wives but one. His principal wife, too, was about the most unlikely subject in the tribe ever to become any thing else than an out-and-out greasy disciple of the old school....

Table of contents

• MISSIONARY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES
• Also called, Travels and Researches in South Africa;
• MISSIONARY TRAVELS AND RESEARCHES IN SOUTH AFRICA;
• Dedication.
• Preface.
• Introduction.
• Chapter 1.
• Chapter 2.
• Chapter 3.
• Chapter 4.
• Chapter 5.
• Chapter 6.
• Chapter 7.
• Chapter 8.
• Chapter 9.
• Chapter 10.
• Chapter 11.
• Chapter 12.
• Chapter 13.
• Chapter 14.
• Chapter 15.
• Chapter 16.
• Chapter 17.
• Chapter 18.
• Chapter 19.
• Chapter 20.
• Chapter 21.
• Chapter 22.
• Chapter 23.
• Chapter 24.
• Chapter 25.
• Chapter 26.
• Chapter 27.
• Chapter 28.
• Chapter 29.
• Chapter 30.
• Chapter 31.
• Chapter 32.
• Appendix.—Latitudes and Longitudes of Positions.
• Appendix.—Book Review in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February, 1858.
• Copyright