Page:Seven Years in South Africa v2.djvu/396

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Seven Years in South Africa.

sizes, pots and pans of baked or unbaked clay, generally covered with patterns and glazed, either supported by wooden legs or hung upon poles, and calabashes that were generally arranged under little roofs of their own. The closed receptacles were makenke baskets, tiny baskets made of palm-leaves, small calabashes in the shape of an hour-glass with wooden stoppers, horns of gazelles with the end plugged up, goats’ horns engraved all over, and the horns of the larger kinds of antelopes, such as harrisbocks and gemsbocks, neatly carved and in shape like powder-flasks. All of them were provided with straps by which they could be hung up. I also noticed some boxes that had been carefully carved out of wood, reeds, birds’ or animals’ bones, hippopotamus’ and elephants’ tusks, fruit-shells, and various sorts of claws; and there were bags made of skins, and even the intestines and the bladders of certain animals, while some were merely fragments of woollen cloth or cotton sewn together. The greatest care seemed to be bestowed on the preservation of every article of this character.

If it could be transferred to a European museum, Sepopo’s medicine-hut would be in itself a very remarkable and promiscuous ethnological collection; but, unfortunately, it is very difficult for any one to obtain objects of this sort at all, as the natives are extremely reluctant to part with the most trifling thing that is credited with the possession of magic properties.

Liquids, poured out in front of the entrance of a house or courtyard, are supposed to act as a spell upon the master or any one who may inadvertently step across the place while it is still damp. Illness,