closely bound up with their occult belief in witchcraft;
they are chiefly made of wood, but sometimes neat
little ones of bone are found, a set of which I afterwards
obtained.
On the evening of the new moon they will seat
themselves in a circle, and the village witch doctor
GOURDS FOR BALING WATER
will go round, tossing each man’s set of dollasses in
the air, and by the way they turn up he will divine
the fortune of the individual for the month that is to
come.
There are many odds and ends of interest scattered
about a Makalanga village ; there is the drum, from
two to four feet in height, covered with zebra or
other skin, platted baskets for straining beer, and
long-handled gourds, with queer diagonal patterns in
black done upon them, which serve as ladles. Most
of their domestic implements are made of wood—
wooden pestles and wooden mortars 'for crushing
grain, wooden spoons and wooden platters often
decorated with pretty zigzag patterns. Natural
objects, too, are largely used for personal ornaments.
Anklets and necklaces are made out of mimosa pods ;
WOODEN BOWL
' WOODEN MOBTAB WOODEN POBBIDGE BOWL
necklaces, really quite pretty to look upon, are constructed
out of chicken bones ; birds’ claws and beaks,
and the seeds of various plants, are constantly employed
for the same purpose. Grass is neatly woven
into chaplets, and a Makalanga is never satisfied unless
he has a strange bird’s feather stuck jauntily in
his woolly locks.
Never shah I forget the view from the summit of
Inyamanda Rock over the country ruled over by the
chief Matipi; the horizon is cut by countless odd