James Frazer - The Golden Bough - A Study in Magic and Religion (Third Edition, Vol. 08 of 12)

A remarkable feature of the festival, as it is observed at [pg 066] the court of the Zulu king, is a dance performed by the king himself in a mantle of grass or, according to another account, of herbs and corn-leaves. This mantle is afterwards burnt and its ashes are scattered and trodden into the ground by cattle. 205 205 J. Shooter, The Kafirs of Natal (London, 1857), p. 27; N. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (London, 1836), ii. 293; Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 270, 271. Further, it is worthy of notice that the festival is described as a saturnalia, and we are told that “a great deal of noise and dancing goes on, and people are not supposed to be responsible for what they say or do.” 206 206 J. Macdonald, op. cit. p. 189. Thus, for example, among the Pondos the festival includes a period of license, during the continuance of which the chief abdicates his functions and any crime may be committed with impunity. The description of the Pondo festival comprises so many interesting features that I will reproduce it entire. “When a Pondo chief is to hold the feast of first-fruits, some of his people procure a ripe plant of the gourd family, pumpkin or calabash, from another tribe. This is cooked; the inside cleaned out, and the rind made ready for use as a vessel. It is then presented to the chief with much ceremony. The first-fruits are now brought forward, and a sacrifice, generally a young bull, is offered, after which the feast commences. The chief issues certain orders for the conduct of the proceedings, tastes the fruits which are served in the gourd-dish with which he has been presented, and then abdicates all his functions while the festival lasts. The cattle from all the neighbouring villages are collected in the vicinity, and now they are brought together, and the bulls incited to fight to determine which is to be king among them for the next year. The young people engage in games and dances, feats of strength and running. After these are over the whole community give themselves over to disorder, debauchery, and riot. In their bull-fights and games they but did honour to the powers of nature, and now, as they eat and drink, the same powers are honoured in another form and by other rites. There is no one in authority to keep order, and every man does what seems good in his [pg 067] own eyes. Should a man stab his neighbour he escapes all punishment, and so too with all other crimes against the person, property, and morality. People are even permitted to abuse the chief to his face, an offence which at any other time would meet with summary vengeance and an unceremonious dispatch to join the ancestors. While the feast continues, a deafening noise is kept up by drumming, shouting, hand-clapping, and every kind of instrument that can be made to emit sound. Men advance to the chief and explain their origin, and also the object they hold sacred, by imitating the sounds and movements of their most sacred animal. This is the person's totem. Others imitate the gurgling made by an enemy when stabbed in the throat. Those who adopt this latter emblem are known as ‘children of the spear.’ When the ceremonies, revels, and mummeries are ended, the chief repairs to his accustomed place, and sitting down there, by that act resumes his kingly functions. He calls the bravest of his braves before him, who is immediately clothed and decorated with skins of animals suggestive of courage and strategy. He performs a dance amid the frenzied shouting of the multitude, after which the chief declares the festival at an end and harvest commenced.” 207 207 Rev. J. Macdonald, Religion and Myth (London, 1893), pp. 136-138, from manuscript notes furnished by J. Sutton. Mr. Macdonald has described the custom more briefly in his Light in Africa , Second Edition (London, 1890), p. 189. Another writer, speaking of the Zulu festival of first-fruits as it was celebrated in the time of the ferocious despot Chaka, says that “at this period the chiefs are allowed to converse unreservedly with the king, speaking with great freedom, and in some measure to be dictatorial.” 208 208 N. Isaacs, Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa (London, 1836), ii. 292. Again, another traveller, who visited the Zulus in the reign of King Panda, tells us that “in spite of the practice of the most absolute despotism there are three days in the year when the nation in its turn has the right to call the king to a severe account for his acts. It is at the general assembly of the warriors, when the maize is ripe, that the lively discussions take place and the questions are put to which the king must answer at once in a manner satisfactory to the people. I have then seen [pg 068] simple warriors come leaping from the ranks, assume the style of fluent and excessively energetic orators, and not only confront the fiery glare of Panda, but even attack him before everybody, blame his acts, call them infamous and base, compel him to vindicate his conduct, and then refute his vindication by dissecting it and exposing its falsehood, finally proceeding to haughty threats and winding up the harangue with a gesture of contempt.” 209 209 A. Delegorgue, Voyage dans l'Afrique Australe (Paris, 1847), ii. 237. Such liberties taken with the despotic Zulu kings seem to point to a time when they too, like the Pondo chiefs, abdicated or were deposed during the festival. Perhaps we may even go a step further. We have seen that on this occasion the Zulu king dances in a mantle of grass or of herbs and corn-leaves, which is afterwards burnt and the ashes scattered and trodden into the ground. This custom seems clearly intended to promote the fertility of the earth, and in earlier times the same end may have been compassed by burning the king himself and dispersing his ashes; for we have seen that a Bechuana tribe, of the same Bantu stock as the Zulus, were wont to sacrifice a human victim for the good of the crops and to scatter his ashes over the ground. 210 210 Above, vol. i. p. 240. In this connexion it should be borne in mind that we have found independent evidence of a custom of putting the Zulu king to death whenever his bodily strength began to fail. 211 211 See The Dying God , pp. 36 sq. On the Zulu festival of first-fruits see also T. Arbousset et F. Daumas, Voyage d'Exploration au Nord-Est de la Colonie du Cap de Bonne Espérance (Paris, 1843), pp. 308 sq. ; G. Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas (Breslau, 1872), p. 143. Fritsch mentions that after executing a grotesque dance in the presence of the assembled multitude the king gives formal permission to eat of the new fruits by dashing a gourd or calabash to the ground. This ceremony of breaking the calabash is mentioned also by J. Shooter ( Kafirs of Natal , p. 27), L. Grout ( Zulu-land , p. 162), and Mr. Dudley Kidd ( The Essential Kafir , p. 271). According to this last writer the calabash is filled with boiled specimens of the new fruits, and the king sprinkles the people with the cooked food, frequently spitting it out on them. Mr. Grout tells us ( l. c. ) that at the ceremony a bull is killed and its gall drunk by the king and the people. In killing it the warriors must use nothing but their naked hands. The flesh of the bull is given to the boys to eat what they like and burn the rest; the men may not taste it. See L. Grout, op. cit. p. 161. According to Shooter, two bulls are killed; the first is black, the second of another colour. The boys who eat the beef of the black bull may not drink till the next morning, else the king would be defeated in war or visited with some personal misfortune. See Shooter, op. cit. pp. 26 sq. According to another account the sacrifice of the bull, performed by the warriors of a particular regiment with their bare hands, takes place several weeks before the festival of first-fruits, and “the strength of the bull is supposed to enter into the king, thereby prolonging his health and strength.” See D. Leslie, Among the Zulus and Amatongas 2 (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 91. For a general account of the Caffre festival of first-fruits, see Dudley Kidd, The Essential Kafir (London, 1904), pp. 270-272. [pg 069]