Editorial note — UKUKALEL ’AMABELE (PRAYING FOR THE CORN)

Cf. an account of this custom (umtshopi) in Colenso’s Zulu Dictionary, p. 614. A similar observance, intended to avert disease, is described by Mrs. Hugh Lancaster Carbutt in the (South African) Folk-Lore Journal for January, 1880 (Vol. II., p. 12), as follows: “Among the charms to prevent sickness from visiting a kraal is the umkuba, or custom of the girls herding the cattle for a day. [Umkuba means “custom,” it is not the name of this particular rite.] No special season of the year is set apart for this custom. It is merely enacted when diseases are known to be prevalent. On such an occasion all the girls and unmarried women of a kraal rise early in the morning, dress themselves entirely in their brothers’ skins [i.e., skin kilts (umutsha)], and, taking their knobkerries and sticks, open the cattle-pen or kraal, and drive the cattle away from the vicinity of the homestead, none of these soi-disant herds returning home, or going near a kraal, until sunset, when they bring the cattle back. No one of the opposite sex dare go near the girls on this day, or speak to them.”—We have reproduced the passage in full, as the periodical which contains it is now very scarce. It should be noted that at ordinary times it would be contrary to custom—indeed, highly improper, if not sacrilegious—for any woman or girl to approach the cattle-kraal, to say nothing of herding the cattle. The idea is, no doubt, to compel the assistance of the Unseen by some flagrant outrage on decency, actual or threatened.—Ed.