GHOULISH OUTRAGES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19932, 28 April 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

GHOULISH OUTRAGES.

DESECRATION OF GRAVES. TROUBLES WITH ZULUS, ARREST OF A NATIVE, •THREAT TO STORM GAOL. A very grave situation recently arose in ■tho Natal Zululand province of tho Union of South Africa. There are serious differences between tho colonists of European descent and tho native negroid people which might flame up just as they did in the years 1906 and 1907, when thousands of lives were lost in a long campaign and Dinuzulu, the then chief of tho Zulu people, was captured and deposed.

The disturbances have arisen in precisely the same area where tho Bambata rebellion of 1906 began, and the parties are the same, though at that time the natives' grievance was the payment of poll tax and tho resurge of the old Zulu fighting spirit which was expressed in the desire to " sweep tho white men back into the sea."

Reliter's correspondent at Durban, the Natal port, reported a few -weeks ago, that at Grey town, under the old Zulu border, natives had desecrated a number of white people's graves in the cemetery of tho little town, hacking down the tombstones and monuments.

Police dogs were laid on the trail, and a native was captured who had recently left prison after a conviction for desecrating white graves at Nkandhla, which is a small European village iu the area once dominated by the great Zulu tribes, under Ceshwevo and his predecessors, Dingana and Tshaka—the area of several of Sir Rider Haggard's romances. Attempt to Lynch Prisoner.

The native was taken to Greytown arid placed in the local gaol. A crowd of enraged Europeans became aware of his presence, and, armed with shot guns and pistols, prepared to storm the gaol, with the object of lynching the prisoner. By a ruse the native was smuggled away to Pietermaritzburg prison, some 70 miles away. Immediately following that, strong police reinforcements were sent, but meanwhilo the Europeans burnt down the office of the Greytown native labour organisation and publicly thrashed the secretary, a native. At a distance it is impossible to surmise the motives which have led to the trouble in Natal and Zululand, writes a special corespondent of The Sunday News, who lived in the disturbed area, but the affair has a strong resemblance to several recent troubles and to that one just over 20 years ago in which it was thought the eld Zulu fighting spirit was crushed. Practices of Witch Doctor. Desecration of graves has several times preceded troubles of this nature. The desire has been the ghoulish one of witch doctors to procuro " muti " or medicine with which to make their peculiar specifics either against bullets or for the purpose of inspiring their unfortunate dupea with bravery. It does not appear that this has been the motive in the present case. In 1906 and 1907 the witch doctors began by ordering the tribes to kill all white animals in their possession and to break all white articles of European manufacture in use nwthe kraals. > A young white civil servant, named . Veale was captured, killed, and medicine made from his remains which the " doctors " declared would render the warriors impervious to tiie white men's bullets. Also they filed past a pot of the unholy brew and dipped their assegao blades, so that they would fly with true and fatal aim. Sanguinary Engagements. Ther« was a night skirmish in the Impanza valley, in which a number of the Natal police, escorting white women into safety were killed, and others being wounded. The body of Sergeant Brown was afterwards mutilated and pegged out in the middle of the road by Bamata's men. The rebellion continued intermittently for the greater part of two years, and there were engagements in which as many as 600 Zulus perished. There is an old prophecy about the Zulu that once every 20 years the warriors will rise and fight. This is probably based on the fact that the Ceshweyo affair was preceded by a rising and followed by another just a little over 20 years later.