SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES

Evening Star, Issue 21286, 15 December 1932, Page 13

SOUTH AFRICAN NATIVES

CUSTOMS IN THE BIBLE The customs and practices here described belonging to the tribes living in the region of the Kei River, in the eastern half of the Cape Province (writes Canon Cyrill Wyche, in the ‘ Sydney Morning Herald,’). These are Yosa, including Gealeka, Gqika, and Tembu. The European • calls all natives in general Kaffirs, a word held in contempt, being an Arabic one that means an unbeliever. It is not surprising that a native will read his Bible in a way that astonishes his employer. The fact is that the Old Testament contains an account of customs still belonging to the native. Not only a custom practised at large—e.g., polygamy—but the laws and usages attached to the custom. The Old Testament in Xosa language can make plain much that has no meaning whatever to a European. ' The Hebrew word translated “ judgment ” in the English authorised version is translated “ Siko ’’ in Xosa, which means “ custom.” Over and over again we read judgment where it cannot possibly mean the result of a case at law or a visitation by the Almighty by plague and the like. They were to “walk in His judgments.” Or, “if a man do that which is lawful and right,” says the A.V., because the Hebrew phrase “judgment and righteousness” in Ezekiel has no meaning in English. It has a great deal to the Xosa, where he reads ngokw r esiko nangobulungisa, according to custom and by uprightness. Custom means the unwritten law of a people, a practice that has obtained for ages as the experience of a people taught them. No wonder we find the word judgment so often in English, for our word custom has not the force to us that it has to the Kaffir. In the early days we read that Jacob served Laban; fell in love with the younger daughter Rachel, undeserved seven years for her. This to Xosa is lobola, or the paying of a dowry (ikazi) for a wife. Note the language used in Genesis xxix.: “Jacob said to Laban give me my wife. . . . Laban gathered all the men of that place and made a feast.” But Laban gave him Leah instead, for giving the younger before the elder “ must not be so done with us.” And notice the feast to all the men, not the women. Jacob lobolas again, and is given Rachel. Further, Zilpah is given with Leah and Bilhah with Rachel. These become secondary wives. The birth of twelve sons and one daughter is then recorded in order. But when Jacob gives the blessing the order is quite different. For in chapter xlix. all Leah’s children are mentioned first, then those of the secondary wife of her house before those of the left-hand house (Rachel’s). No blessing on nor mention of the daughter. These, says Xosa, are are siko to-day. Or in chapter xxxi., when the husband tells the wives that he must leave their father, “ Rachel and Leah answered,’ saying that they had no inheritance in their father’s house, “ for lie hath sold us and hath quite devoured also our money,” meaning, says Xosa, that the increase which should have been to their respective houses by the service (lobola) of Jacob has not been given to them. It is one of the groat advantages to the woman that she has in the custom of lobola, a custom which is in disfavour with Europeans. _ but is in reality of immense value, in spite of some difficulties which are attendant on the practice. POSITION OF WOMEN. Women appear to occupy a very inferior position amongst natives, just as thev do in the Bible. This, though, is the' case when English ways alone are considered Whenever a woman by her abilities, or position, or both, is outstanding, her position is doubly powerful. A man’s mother is of greater authority to him than his wife. So in the Old Testament. “The king’s mother ” will be mentioned before “ the king’s wife,” in recounting tlvo household. It has been so for unknown centuries. Jael, the wife of Heber, the Kcnito, is praised in the song of De-

borah, as being “ blessed above women of the tent.” The Hebrew word “blessed” has a wider connotation than the English word, and it includes praise, conferring honour and respect. The story is well known, how fleeing from the battle, comes to the “tent.” Jael “ brings forth butter in a lordly dish,” and when her enemy sleeps kills him with a hammer and nail (Judges v., 25). I was reading this story once with my native preachers.* An old man began to praise Jael. The Xosa translation says she brought inquaka, i.e.. the curd- of the amasi, thick sour milk from the milk sack. He explained -that an enemy fleeing to the woman’s hut in itself was an offence. If, said he; she does not kill Sisera, her husband will kill her, and moreover she brought milk from the milk sack. This in itself is a heinous offence, for no woman dare touch the milk sack. She may get amasi from the calabash, but never break the custom which makes milk and the milk sank absolutely forbidden to women. Indeed the milk “tabu” is strong in the Old Testament, the only injunction which is laid down in three different places being the prohibition of seething a kid in its mother’s milk—i.e., says Xosa, fresh milk being used by a woman. The sacrificial rules have some illustrations among Bantu. Perhaps the strongest is in connection with the beast offered. The Xosa is a pastoralist before all else, agriculture being almost unknown. Mealies are called his staple food now, but in his own land it is the millet that he has grown for centuries, not maize which is a Portuguese grain brought in but a couple of centuries ago at most.- There is the custom of first fruits, and tlie festival of sowing and of the reaping, more or less common to all African peoples. But the cattle are not killed except there be an offering to be made of tribal significance. The initiation ceremony at the circumcision of youths, and the great dance, at, the initiation of girls, at weddings, at the sacrifice to be made in sickness, or at the passing through smoke of the new-born child, or hospitality of a special kind. In these cases, the blood of the beast killed as a sacrifice is carefully drained out and kept in bowls. In case of sickness one must be placed in the sick man’s hut. The blood must not be offered, with the sacrifice. The right, shoulder is separated with the big muscle attached, and this portion is taken to the family of the “ witch doctor,” who makes the offering. The fat, near the intestines and kidneys is specially burnt. All this, says Xosa, we find done in seven days according to your Bible. The unfortunate translation in our version, “ Peace offering,”, has made our ideas of actual sacrificial acts to be acts only to be done when “ peace ” had to be "made between the Deity and man. There are many passing references in the Bible to customs which the missionary will seize upon as being in accord with local “ custom.” The daughters of Zelophehad cam© to Moses in Canaan to ask for land to be an inheritance “ for our father had no son.” It was new for a woman to hold land, so we are told that a new law was made, and it “ was to be a statute of judgment.” Again, note that this is a siko of the tribe, and the place given to the woman. It always is so. AVhen the Government had to "deport a . chief in 1865, it was not the young chief of the Tembu, who was moved across the Kei, but Nonesi, his mother. A further illustration may be of interest. When King George V. came to the Throne the prayer for the Royal family was altered in the Prayer Book to read “our gracious Queen Mary, Alexandra the Queen mother, and "all the Royal family.” The Xosa were perturbed by this, and would not use . this order, but put the King’s mother first. LONG SILENCES. ■

It puzzles us that Job’s friends who came to mourn with him “sat down seven days and seven nights and none spake a word unto him.” This is an unusual time, but only because it is an unusual case and a great chief, says Xosa, wlmse custom this is to : day. It is not confined to chiefs. Friends will travel miles to a house of mourning, sitting down in silence for a long time after arrival, and when they do speak will make it ceremoniously. Many other customs in the Bible are very much to his mind. The children who mocked Elisha deserved condign punishment, itosa says, because Elisha had his head shaved in mourning for his master (which is the case), and children should not mock at a siko (custom). The Book of Psalms has much to say about “ judgments.” To some folk the Psalms must not be used in entirety, because of the imprecations. To Xosa this is no difficulty, because they are mbongi (praisings), and not necessarily statements of fact, and the imprecations (let his wife be a widow, etc.) simply the facts that must follow in certain conditions.

Here these notes must end. Much more can be written about the words used in translation of the Bible for a people whose delight is in the ancient days. Whatever be the date of the events recorded, or the date of their historian, the fact remains that customs of two thousand years ago are to be found persisting in Southern Africa. Who were five people to convey them, who shall tell? Jt is refreshing, though, to deal with a race to whom the old Bible is a joyous book.