One or the other of the company has long already started on his way home with fellow citizens. Another, however, wants to try his luck longer in the foreign county and only a fraction of the earlier travelling companions prepare themselves for their return journey together. But what a difference between a man setting out to work and one returning! Outwardly he has become a completely different person. While on the way there, his travel baggage was very light and simple, he is now heavily loaded with riches.
His knapsack still has the longish form it originally needed to accomodate the barrel of a gun because in his home country, only one who possessed a gun could lay claim to the name: manna, ‘man’, otherwise he exposed himself to the danger of being scolded as a ‘woman’, mosadi.
Until not too long ago, it was permissible to sell guns to the coloureds [blacks] at the diamond fields; however, in the ZAR it was first totally prohibited for coloureds to import guns.
Therefore they were simply smuggled in dismantled form, packed away under things. Although this smuggling was generally known, the government did not have enough power to seriously act against it. This trade is now generally prohibited, but I have been assured that many guns are nevertheless still sold to the coloureds on the diamond fields. Unscrupulous hawkers come to the Kaffirs and advise them to come into their shop undetected at night, where they are offered the desired guns to buy. Not only this, but they are also advised to bring diamonds at such time, which are bought from them in secrecy.
Because of the smuggling of guns, or also, because their tribe had during their absence become engaged in war with the government, their journeys home were fraught with other mishaps and difficulties. They often had to make long detours, to pass through areas where there were still few or no white settlers. Thus one day, a company of 22 returning Bassuto of Sekukuni, a chief, who at that time was engaged in war with the government, but has now been conquered, arrived at my place.10 When they left the diamond fields, they numbered 26. Because of the war, they had made a great detour to the west of the country. Only 22 arrived here; 4 had succumbed to thirst.
For three days, they had not found a drop of water in the scorching heat of the sun; on the fourth day, they dispersed to look for some again. By evening, they had found water, but four of the seekers were missing, for whom they looked in vain the whole next day and who were given up as having died of thirst.
The way home of he who travels along a straight road is now far more pleasant than the way there. The clothes, the many blankets and money protect him better from cold and hunger. His acquired cattle, which he drives in front of him, refresh his soul, his purchased dog is his hope, as he is to be of great use to him later on the hunt. If the sun burns too hot by day, the carrying of his burden is much lighter by night, even the cattle also walk better, when they have rested during the heat of the sun. The stars, which are already known to the Mossuto from his home country, are his guide at parting and crossways and, despite the burden and hindrances, he arrives in his home country in no more days than he needed for his journey there [to the diamond fields].
The cow is probably the first item on which the eyes rest of those to whom the returning one comes home and, after it has been thoroughly gazed at, it is time to greet their loved ones. If granted the opportunity, after the welcome, to witness the unpacking of the riches of a thrifty worker, we would see before our eyes the glitter and glory unfold for the Mossuto, which entices the hopeful bystanders and young men to also embark quite soon on such a working journey.
Among the things we find, as mentioned above, the gun, further gunpowder, lead, [explosive] caps, an American axe, some sleeping blankets, a dress, trousers, colourful shirts, a hat; maybe a pair of shoes, a white or quite colourful umbrella and other bagatelles. The remaining money we most probably don’t get to see.
After this feast for the eyes, the returning one unfortunately has to consider the country’s father, the chief of the tribe. The latter must be greeted and the grace would be withdrawn from him who would not appear or appeared with empty hands. It is an old, long-known law that ‘from someone who has brought two head of cattle, one must be given to the chief; if it is a cow, the first calf born lawfully belongs to the royal cattle kraal’. From the earned money, at least one pound sterling has to flow into the treasury of the king, even of the bagatelles the worker has earned, one part is to serve to satisfy the greed of the chief or still to help to increase it. Just how many diamonds, which have been appropriated by the workers unlawfully and were then given to the chief, to find favour from the same and may now be in the hands of such rulers who had formerly put capital punishment on theft, can easily be deduced from the following incident.
When Sekukuni was captured during the attack on the capital city by the British and assistant troops, so many diamonds were found with him, that a six-to-eight-inch-high vessel, whose thickness was not disclosed to me, however, was filled, which had all been brought to him at his wish by the workers from the diamond fields.
When it was said, however, that the Mossuto became a completely different person in the diamond fields, even his new name was reminiscent thereof; there he had acquired another one, because to the In the turbulent and dangerous nineteenth-century world, the major incentive to travelling from the interior to the Cape was to buy guns, which were relatively cheap and available – especially at the diamond fields.
Figure 3.2
Artist unrecorded Southern Africa c. Nineteenth century
Spoons with handles carved in the shape of flintlock rifles Wood poker work 35 × 11.2 cm and 33.3 × 11.9 × 12 cm
Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)
Figure 3.3
Artist unrecorded, Southern Africa Knife with sheath carved in the shape of a rifle c. Nineteenth century
Wood poker work 82.7 × 10.5 × 2.5 cm
Standard Bank African Art Collection (Wits Art Museum)
European, who was not knowledgeable about the language of the Bassuto, the foreign name of the Mossuto with mostly three or also more syllables, was strange, incomprehensible and therefore also difficult to pronounce. The otherwise meaningful Nakedi e fsietsche leschaka (skunk has swept out the cattle kraal) has simply changed into a ‘Booi’ = Boy; a Mamonyamakoba (the mother of the mother of Koba, the chief of the village) becomes a ‘Jak’ or ‘Jim’; a Ngoanaoatutumda (the child who shivers) has been made an ‘April’ or ‘September’.
In order for all not to become Boois, Jaks, Jims and so that they can be distinguished, extraordinary names are given to others: ‘Be greeted, Diamond!’ one of my people addressed another one who had come to us. ‘Oh, yes!’ came the reply of Diamond, but who immediately posed the question: ‘Where is Woolbag?’ Diamond would hardly have acquired his name due to his inner contents, while the name of Woolbag could possibly have originated from the clumsiness or ineptitude of its bearer. However, all returning ones are pleased when they receive another name in addition to their former name, by which they are called by the whites.
He who has become a ‘man’ through the acquired gun, now aims to get a wife; to this end, the cow and also the money are to serve him. The price for a wife is up to ten head of cattle. Originally every piece should be a head of cattle, but these days any piece, which is to make up the total, is accepted, even if the beast is only a goat or a sheep. In the land of expensive wives, the money of a suitor also has to be produced and cattle bought with it, or the journey to the diamond fields has to be undertaken anew, if he does not want to die unmarried.
Even believing family fathers often go to work to provide for the maintenance