So Generally
Is The Duty Admitted, That One Of The Most Cogent Arguments For Polygamy
Is That A Respectable Man With Only One Wife Could Not Entertain Strangers
As He Ought.
This reason has especial weight where the women are
the chief cultivators of the soil, and have the control over the corn,
as at Kolobeng.
The poor, however, who have no friends, often suffer
much hunger, and the very kind attention Sebituane lavished on all such
was one of the reasons of his great popularity in the country.
The Makololo cultivate a large extent of land around their villages.
Those of them who are real Basutos still retain the habits of that tribe,
and may be seen going out with their wives with their hoes in hand -
a state of things never witnessed at Kolobeng, or among any other
Bechuana or Caffre tribe. The great chief Moshesh affords
an example to his people annually by not only taking the hoe in hand,
but working hard with it on certain public occasions.
His Basutos are of the same family with the Makololo to whom I refer.
The younger Makololo, who have been accustomed from their infancy
to lord it over the conquered Makalaka, have unfortunately no desire
to imitate the agricultural tastes of their fathers, and expect their subjects
to perform all the manual labor. They are the aristocracy of the country,
and once possessed almost unlimited power over their vassals.
Their privileges were, however, much abridged by Sebituane himself.
I have already mentioned that the tribes which Sebituane subjected
in this great country pass by the general name of Makalaka.
The Makololo were composed of a great number of other tribes,
as well as of these central negroes. The nucleus of the whole were Basuto,
who came with Sebituane from a comparatively cold and hilly region
in the south. When he conquered various tribes of the Bechuanas,
as Bakwains, Bangwaketze, Bamangwato, Batauana, etc., he incorporated
the young of these tribes into his own. Great mortality by fever
having taken place in the original stock, he wisely adopted
the same plan of absorption on a large scale with the Makalaka.
So we found him with even the sons of the chiefs of the Barotse
closely attached to his person; and they say to this day,
if any thing else but natural death had assailed their father,
every one of them would have laid down his life in his defense.
One reason for their strong affection was their emancipation
by the decree of Sebituane, "all are children of the chief."
The Makalaka cultivate the `Holcus sorghum', or dura, as the principal grain,
with maize, two kinds of beans, ground-nuts (`Arachis hypogoea'), pumpkins,
watermelons, and cucumbers. They depend for success entirely upon rain.
Those who live in the Barotse valley cultivate in addition the sugar-cane,
sweet potato, and manioc (`Jatropha manihot'). The climate there, however,
is warmer than at Linyanti, and the Makalaka increase
the fertility of their gardens by rude attempts at artificial irrigation.
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