Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa

D >> David Livingstone >> Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa


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,"
&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. She has since become greatly altered, I hear, for the
better; but again and again have I seen Sechele send her out of church
to put her gown on, and away she would go with her lips shot out, the
very picture of unutterable disgust at his new-fangled notions.

When he at last applied for baptism, I simply asked him how he, having
the Bible in his hand, and able to read it, thought he ought to act. He
went home, gave each of his superfluous wives new clothing, and all his
own goods, which they had been accustomed to keep in their huts for him,
and sent them to their parents with an intimation that he had no fault
to find with them, but that in parting with them he wished to follow
the will of God. On the day on which he and his children were baptized,
great numbers came to see the ceremony. Some thought, from a stupid
calumny circulated by enemies to Christianity in the south, that the
converts would be made to drink an infusion of "dead men's brains",
and were astonished to find that water only was used at baptism. Seeing
several of the old men actually in tears during the service, I asked
them afterward the cause of their weeping; they were crying to see their
father, as the Scotch remark over a case of suicide, "SO FAR LEFT TO
HIMSELF". They seemed to think that I had thrown the glamour over him,
and that he had become mine. Here commenced an opposition which we had
not previously experienced. All the friends of the divorced wives became
the opponents of our religion. The attendance at school and church
diminished to very few besides the chief's own family. They all treated
us still with respectful kindness, but to Sechele himself they said
things which, as he often remarked, had they ventured on in former
times, would have cost them their lives. It was trying, after all we had
done, to see our labors so little appreciated; but we had sown the good
seed, and have no doubt but it will yet spring up, though we may not
live to see the fruits.

Leaving this sketch of the chief, I proceed to give an equally rapid one
of our dealing with his people, the Bakena, or Bakwains. A small piece
of land, sufficient for a garden, was purchased when we first went to
live with them, though that was scarcely necessary in a country where
the idea of buying land was quite new. It was expected that a request
for a suitable spot would have been made, and that we should have
proceeded to occupy it as any other member of the tribe would. But we
explained to them that we wished to avoid any cause of future dispute
when land had become more valuable; or when a foolish chief began to
reign, and we had erected large or expensive buildings, he might wish
to claim the whole. These reasons were considered satisfactory. About 5
Pounds worth of goods were given for a piece of land, and an arrangement
was come to that a similar piece should be allotted to any other
missionary, at any other place to which the tribe might remove. The
particulars of the sale sounded strangely in the ears of the tribe, but
were nevertheless readily agreed to.

In our relations with this people we were simply strangers exercising
no authority or control whatever. Our influence depended entirely on
persuasion; and having taught them by kind conversation as well as by
public instruction, I expected them to do what their own sense of right
and wrong dictated. We never wished them to do right merely because it
would be pleasing to us, nor thought ourselves to blame when they did
wrong, although we were quite aware of the absurd idea to that effect.
We saw that our teaching did good to the general mind of the people by
bringing new and better motives into play. Five instances are positively
known to me in which, by our influence on public opinion, war was
prevented; and where, in individual cases, we failed, the people did
no worse than they did before we came into the country. In general they
were slow, like all the African people hereafter to be described, in
coming to a decision on religious subjects; but in questions affecting
their worldly affairs they were keenly alive to their own interests.
They might be called stupid in matters which had not come within the
sphere of their observation, but in other things they showed more
intelligence than is to be met with in our own uneducated peasantry.
They are remarkably accurate in their knowledge of cattle, sheep, and
goats, knowing exactly the kind of pasturage suited to each; and
they select with great judgment the varieties of soil best suited to
different kinds of grain. They are also familiar with the habits of wild
animals, and in general are well up in the maxims which embody their
ideas of political wisdom.

The place where we first settled with the Bakwains is called Chonuane,
and it happened to be visited, during the first year of our residence
there, by one of those droughts which occur from time to time in even
the most favored districts of Africa.

The belief in the gift or power of RAIN-MAKING is one of the most
deeply-rooted articles of faith in this country. The chief Sechele was
himself a noted rain-doctor, and believed in it implicitly. He has often
assured me that he found it more difficult to give up his faith in that
than in any thing else which Christianity required him to abjure. I
pointed out to him that the only feasible way of watering the gardens
was to select some good, never-failing river, make a canal, and irrigate
the adjacent lands. This suggestion was immediately adopted, and soon
the whole tribe was on the move to the Kolobeng, a stream about forty
miles distant. The experiment succeeded admirably during the first
year. The Bakwains made the canal and dam in exchange for my labor in
assisting to build a square house for their chief. They also built their
own school under my superintendence. Our house at the River Kolobeng,
which gave a name to the settlement, was the third which I had reared
with my own hands. A native smith taught me to weld iron; and having
improved by scraps of information in that line from Mr. Moffat, and also
in carpentering and gardening, I was becoming handy at almost any trade,
besides doctoring and preaching; and as my wife could make candles,
soap, and clothes, we came nearly up to what may be considered as
indispensable in the accomplishments of a missionary family in Central
Africa, namely, the husband to be a jack-of-all-trades without doors,
and the wife a maid-of-all-work within. But in our second year again no
rain fell. In the third the same extraordinary drought followed. Indeed,
not ten inches of water fell during these two years, and the Kolobeng
ran dry; so many fish were killed that the hyaenas from the whole
country round collected to the feast, and were unable to finish the
putrid masses. A large old alligator, which had never been known to
commit any depredations, was found left high and dry in the mud among
the victims. The fourth year was equally unpropitious, the fall of rain
being insufficient to bring the grain to maturity. Nothing could be more
trying. We dug down in the bed of the river deeper and deeper as the
water receded, striving to get a little to keep the fruit-trees alive
for better times, but in vain. Needles lying out of doors for months did
not rust; and a mixture of sulphuric acid and water, used in a galvanic
battery, parted with all its water to the air, instead of imbibing more
from it, as it would have done in England. The leaves of indigenous
trees were all drooping, soft, and shriveled, though not dead; and those
of the mimosae were closed at midday, the same as they are at night.
In the midst of this dreary drought, it was wonderful to see those tiny
creatures, the ants, running about with their accustomed vivacity. I put
the bulb of a thermometer three inches under the soil, in the sun, at
midday, and found the mercury to stand at 132 Deg. to 134 Deg.; and if
certain kinds of beetles were placed on the surface, they ran about
a few seconds and expired. But this broiling heat only augmented the
activity of the long-legged black ants: they never tire; their organs of
motion seem endowed with the same power as is ascribed by physiologists
to the muscles of the human heart, by which that part of the frame never
becomes fatigued, and which may be imparted to all our bodily organs in
that higher sphere to which we fondly hope to rise. Where do these
ants get their moisture? Our house was built on a hard ferruginous
conglomerate, in order to be out of the way of the white ant, but they
came in despite the precaution; and not only were they, in this sultry
weather, able individually to moisten soil to the consistency of mortar
for the formation of galleries, which, in their way of working, is done
by night (so that they are screened from the observation of birds by day
in passing and repassing toward any vegetable matter they may wish to
devour), but, when their inner chambers were laid open, these were also
surprisingly humid. Yet there was no dew, and, the house being placed on
a rock, they could have no subterranean passage to the bed of the river,
which ran about three hundred yards below the hill. Can it be that they
have the power of combining the oxygen and hydrogen of their vegetable
food by vital force so as to form water?*

* When we come to Angola, I shall describe an insect there
which distills several pints of water every night.

Rain, however, would not fall. The Bakwains believed that I had bound
Sechele with some magic spell, and I received deputations, in the
evenings, of the old counselors, entreating me to allow him to make only
a few showers: "The corn will die if you refuse, and we shall become
scattered. Only let him make rain this once, and we shall all, men,
women, and children, come to the school, and sing and pray as long as
you please." It was in vain to protest that I wished Sechele to act just
according to his own ideas of what was right, as he found the law laid
down in the Bible, and it was distressing to appear hard-hearted to
them. The clouds often collected promisingly over us, and rolling
thunder seemed to portend refreshing showers, but next morning the
sun would rise in a clear, cloudless sky; indeed, even these lowering
appearances were less frequent by far than days of sunshine are in
London.

The natives, finding it irksome to sit and wait helplessly until God
gives them rain from heaven, entertain the more comfortable idea that
they can help themselves by a variety of preparations, such as
charcoal made of burned bats, inspissated renal deposit of the mountain
cony--'Hyrax capensis'--(which, by the way, is used, in the form of
pills, as a good antispasmodic, under the name of "stone-sweat"*), the
internal parts of different animals--as jackals' livers, baboons' and
lions' hearts, and hairy calculi from the bowels of old cows--serpents'
skins and vertebrae, and every kind of tuber, bulb, root, and plant
to be found in the country. Although you disbelieve their efficacy
in charming the clouds to pour out their refreshing treasures, yet,
conscious that civility is useful every where, you kindly state that
you think they are mistaken as to their power. The rain-doctor selects a
particular bulbous root, pounds it, and administers a cold infusion to
a sheep, which in five minutes afterward expires in convulsions. Part of
the same bulb is converted into smoke, and ascends toward the sky;
rain follows in a day or two. The inference is obvious. Were we as much
harassed by droughts, the logic would be irresistible in England in
1857.

* The name arises from its being always voided on one spot,
in the manner practiced by others of the rhinocerontine family;
and, by the action of the sun, it becomes a black, pitchy substance.

As the Bakwains believed that there must be some connection between
the presence of "God's Word" in their town and these successive and
distressing droughts, they looked with no good will at the church bell,
but still they invariably treated us with kindness and respect. I am not
aware of ever having had an enemy in the tribe. The only avowed cause of
dislike was expressed by a very influential and sensible man, the uncle
of Sechele. "We like you as well as if you had been born among us; you
are the only white man we can become familiar with (thoaela); but we
wish you to give up that everlasting preaching and praying; we can not
become familiar with that at all. You see we never get rain, while those
tribes who never pray as we do obtain abundance." This was a fact; and
we often saw it raining on the hills ten miles off, while it would not
look at us "even with one eye". If the Prince of the power of the air
had no hand in scorching us up, I fear I often gave him the credit of
doing so.

As for the rain-makers, they carried the sympathies of the people along
with them, and not without reason. With the following arguments they
were all acquainted, and in order to understand their force, we must
place ourselves in their position, and believe, as they do, that all
medicines act by a mysterious charm. The term for cure may be translated
"charm" ('alaha').

MEDICAL DOCTOR. Hail, friend! How very many medicines you have about you
this morning! Why, you have every medicine in the country here.

RAIN DOCTOR. Very true, my friend; and I ought; for the whole country
needs the rain which I am making.

M. D. So you really believe that you can command the clouds? I think
that can be done by God alone.

R. D. We both believe the very same thing. It is God that makes the
rain, but I pray to him by means of these medicines, and, the rain
coming, of course it is then mine. It was I who made it for the Bakwains
for many years, when they were at Shokuane; through my wisdom, too,
their women became fat and shining. Ask them; they will tell you the
same as I do.

M. D. But we are distinctly told in the parting words of our Savior that
we can pray to God acceptably in his name alone, and not by means of
medicines.

R. D. Truly! but God told us differently. He made black men first, and
did not love us as he did the white men. He made you beautiful, and gave
you clothing, and guns, and gunpowder, and horses, and wagons, and many
other things about which we know nothing. But toward us he had no heart.
He gave us nothing except the assegai, and cattle, and rain-making; and
he did not give us hearts like yours. We never love each other. Other
tribes place medicines about our country to prevent the rain, so that we
may be dispersed by hunger, and go to them, and augment their power. We
must dissolve their charms by our medicines. God has given us one little
thing, which you know nothing of. He has given us the knowledge of
certain medicines by which we can make rain. WE do not despise those
things which you possess, though we are ignorant of them. We don't
understand your book, yet we don't despise it. YOU ought not to despise
our little knowledge, though you are ignorant of it.

M. D. I don't despise what I am ignorant of; I only think you are
mistaken in saying that you have medicines which can influence the rain
at all.