The Covenant (81 page)

“I did.”

“While my cattle were dying?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have this dark evil in your heart?”

“I must have had it.” It was impossible for Ndela to doubt that he was guilty, for if the spirits of the clan had advised the diviner that he was the guilty one, it must be so.

“Why did you do it, knowing it was wrong?”

“So many flowers. The birds were singing.”

“So you sang too, while my cattle were dying?” Ndela had no explanation, so the chief growled, “Isn’t that true?”

“Yes, my Chief.”

“Then let there be judgment.” As he turned to consult his councillors, the men of the kraals moved closer while the women and children drew back.

“Ndela,” intoned the chief, “the ones who came before have pointed to you as the wizard.”

“Praise them!” cried the crowd, paying deference to the spirits that guarded this clan.

“What shall be done with him?”

“Death to the wizard!” cried the men, the women ululating their assent. So the chief delivered the sentence: “Let the lips that whistled, whistle no more. Let the tongue that pushed air, push no more. Let the ears that heard birds, hear no more. Let the eyes that were made drunk by the flowers, see no more. Let the wizard die.”

As soon as the words were out, the four warriors grabbed Ndela and rushed him toward the stout poles encircling the kraal, where the cattle languished. The screaming victim was hoisted up, his legs pulled apart, and with one downward thrust, impaled so that the sharp pole entered deep into his body.

Nxumalo, watching this without uttering a sound, wanted to run to the hideous scarecrow figure to mumble a farewell to his singing, loving father who had been so good to him, but any show of sympathy
for a wizard was forbidden. Later, the corpse, the pole and even the ground at its base would be burned, and the ashes thrown into the swiftest river so that nothing might remain.

Nxumalo could bear no resentment against the chief or the diviner, for they had merely carried out the customs of the clan. No one in the audience that day could have questioned the fairness of the judgment: the spirits had advised the diviner; she had exposed the guilty man; and he had been executed in the traditional manner.

Hundreds of intricate rules governed a Sixolobo from birth till death, and beyond. Unquestionably the spirits of past members of the clan existed; unquestionably there was a Lord-of-the-Sky who had placed all men on earth. No phase of life could be without regulation: a man’s hut must bear a certain relation to the chief’s; women must move only in certain areas; a child must watch carefully his attitude toward elders; a man must observe formalities when approaching a stranger’s kraal; and the treatment of cattle was minutely supervised. For any infringement of any of the rules, there was instant punishment, and death was obligatory for some fifty or sixty offenses, about the same number as applied in Europe at this time.

Deeply ingrained in a boy like Nxumalo were the beliefs that differentiated good and evil; these were notions which had come down from his earliest ancestors in Africa, observed by the Nxumalo of Great Zimbabwe, and brought by his descendants southward. These rules could be as petty as where cooking utensils were to be placed at night, or as grave as an accusation of wizardry, for which death by impaling was prescribed.

Nxumalo conceded that his father had been possessed by an evil spirit; he understood how Ndela could confess to a crime of which he had no knowledge; and he fully agreed that his father must die.

He had observed that the chief never killed for sport, or whimsically, nor did he exact cruel punishment or torture; he did only what tradition dictated must be done. He was a good man, burdened with duties and responsible for the lives of his thousand followers.

There existed, in this paradise tucked in between the mountains and the sea, some two hundred clans, many smaller than the Sixolobo, some larger, and the chief had to behave according to his status: imperious to the smaller clans, obsequious to those with more cattle, and most careful with any group that might raid the Sixolobo. Whatever decisions he made must be for the security of the clan, and chiefs
before him had learned that even the slightest infringement of law had best be dealt with immediately.

The diviner was subsidiary to the chief, but as the earthly communicant with spirits, she wielded immense power and at moments of crisis might even overrule the chief. But the majority of her days were spent treating cuts and bruises, or relieving headaches, or brewing concoctions to ensure the birth of a son. But if a wizard crept into the tribe, spreading evil, she must seek him out, and then medicines were of no avail: that wizard must be impaled and burned.

Nxumalo understood all this and felt no bitterness, but since he was a bright lad he understood one thing more: that when a boy’s father had been executed, the boy lived under a shadow. It was quite probable that one day the diviner would come for him. He had not the slightest idea as to what it would be that he would do wrong, but experience warned him that the son of a man who had been impaled ran a strong chance of repeating that prolonged death.

Caught in a conflict between obedience and self-preservation, he solved it in this manner: If I stay with the Sixolobo, I must do what the chief says, and I shall, but here the dark spirits are against me. So I shall run to a new tribe where I can start afresh, and give my allegiance to its king. He told no one of his decision, not even his mother, and before the moon showed midnight he was moving swiftly through the glorious valleys which led to the tribes of the south. To the west rose the forbidding peaks reaching eleven thousand feet into the sky, to the east swept the waters of the ocean.

He did not know where he was running to, but he was certain that there would be a welcome for a sturdy lad who showed promise of becoming a good warrior. But he wanted his new home to be at a safe distance from the Sixolobo, because he knew that if they ever found him fighting against them, he would receive a much harsher punishment than his father had suffered. Traitors were punished with four bamboo skewers.

He was headed for a river whose fame he had always known, the Umfolozi, which drained some of the most handsome land in Africa, tumbling out of the great mountains and running almost eastward to the sea. It marked a division between the tribes of the north and those to the south. It was not a massive river; few of the rivers of southern Africa compared to the great waterways of Europe or America, but it brought richness to all who lived along it, for its fields
yielded good crops and its banks were crowded with animals of all description.

When moist and heavy winds blowing in from the south warned Nxumalo that he was approaching water, he concluded that he had come to the legendary Umfolozi, and he began to look for kraals to which he might report his presence, but there were none, and for two nights he patrolled the land well back from the river; on the third morning he came upon a group of nine boys his own age, naked like him and herding cattle.

With trepidation, but also a determination to protect himself regardless of what the boys attempted, he warily picked his way among the rocks guarding the pasture where the cattle grazed, and from a fair distance, prepared to announce himself. But at this moment the herders launched into a cruel game of throwing one of their younger companions into the center of a circle, while they kept a tough round tuber the size of a ball away from him, tripping him as he lunged for them and kicking him when he fell.

“Little penis!” they screamed at him. “Little penis! Can’t do anything!”

The boy in the center was himself not little; he was quite handsomely proportioned in all but his genitals, and probably able to handle any one of his eight tormentors taken alone; but when the entire group conspired against him, shouting words that wounded, he could only stand them off in a kind of blind rage.

His fury gave him added strength, and the incessant jibes about his penis drove him to extraordinary efforts; at one point he leaped high in the air, almost intercepted the ball, and did succeed in driving it off course and over the fingertips of his enemies. He, seeing its flight, was able to break through the circle of bullies and leap for it before any of them could change direction.

The ball rolled directly to Nxumalo’s feet, and when the abused lad reached it he found a stranger handing it to him. In this way Nxumalo, a voluntary outcast from the Sixolobo, met Shaka, an involuntary exile among the Langeni.

With Nxumalo as his ally and ready to defend him, Shaka, a twelve-year-old, moody, difficult boy, received less tormenting. True, the entire Langeni clan continued to make fun of his undersized penis, and there was no way this particular abuse could be halted, but whenever
rough play was involved, the newcomer and the moody one formed a resilient companionship. Yet, strangely, they were not friends, for Shaka would admit no one to that privileged position.

Yet he must have someone to talk with, and one night, his voice bursting with pride, he told Nxumalo, “I’m a Zulu.”

“What’s that?”

The tormented one could not mask his disgust at such ignorance: “Zulu will be the most powerful tribe along the Umfolozi.”

“In the north we haven’t heard of them.”

“Everyone will hear when I’m chief.”

“Chief! What are you doing herding cattle in this small tribe?”

“I was cast out of the Zulu. I’m son of their chief, and he banished me.” Then, with a bitterness Nxumalo had never witnessed before, Shaka unfolded his account of the intrigue which had driven him from the tiny, inconsequential tribe of the Zulu:

The simple sentence that Nxumalo uttered next would save his life on the day of retribution, but now it seemed only a gesture of decent friendship. He reached out, touched Shaka on the arm, and said, “Later it will grow bigger.”

“Will it?” the older boy cried impetuously.

“I’ve often seen it happen.” He had no authority for what he was saying, but he knew it must be said.

Shaka said nothing more, just sat there in the grass, pounding his fists against his knees.

Like any confused boy his age, Shaka had shaded the truth, so far as he was able to understand it. Senzangakhona, chief of the Zulu clan, had impregnated Nandi, a virgin of the Langeni. When the elders of the latter tribe heard of this shocking breach of tribal custom, they insisted that Senzangakhona do the proper thing and accept her as his third wife, which he did, but she proved more disagreeable than sand in the mouth. Her son was worse, and at the age of six allowed one of his father’s favorite animals to be slain, a mistake which precipitated banishment. Shaka was no longer a Zulu; he and his mother must take refuge in the kraals of the despised Langeni.

On the day they left, Senzangakhona was most pleased; they had given him nothing but trouble, and he recalled what his councillors had said that first day when Nandi claimed she was pregnant: “She had no baby in her. It’s only the intestinal insect they call iShaka.” The king agreed, and now watched with undisguised pleasure as his unwanted wife disappeared, taking her “insect” with her.

In 1802 famine swept the valley of the Umfolozi, the only time that men could remember when the richest of rivers betrayed her children, but now the lack of food was so critical that the chief of the Langeni began to drive unwanted persons out of his kraals, and among those who had to leave were Nandi, mother of Shaka, and her son, who was liked by no one in the clan. As they were departing southward, using a ford that crossed the river, the outcast boy Nxumalo overtook them, saying that it could not be long before he, too, would be forced out and asking permission to join them in their exile. Nandi, a powerful woman who wasted little effort in sentiment, said, “Stay behind.” But her son, remembering various behaviors of the younger boy, said, “Let him come.” And the exiles moved south.

In time they straggled into the lands of Dingiswayo, most important of the southern chiefs, and when he saw the two stalwart fellows he wanted them for his regiment: “You look like warriors. But can you fight?”

Long-shafted assegais were produced, but when Shaka hefted his he disliked its balance and demanded a replacement. “Why?” asked the chief, and brusquely Shaka said, “A warrior must have confidence.” And not until he had a spear he liked did he say, “I’m ready.”

Dingiswayo laughed at his impudence, saying to his attendants, “He looks like a warrior. He boasts like one. Now we’ll see if he can fight.”

Hearing this implied insult, Shaka pointed to a distant tree: “There is your enemy, Great Chief.” And with a short run he launched his assegai far and true, so that Dingiswayo laughed no more. “He fights like a warrior, too.” To the young man he said, “Welcome to my regiment.”

For the next years Shaka and Nxumalo shared a wild experience. As members of the region’s greatest regiment, the iziCwe, they helped fortify their tribe’s position, participating in the vast raids that kept the territory pacified and augmented. Nxumalo was content with his good fortune in gaining a position, however menial, in the land’s finest fighting unit, but Shaka was as disconsolate and irritable as ever: “There’s a better way to fight. There’s a much better way to organize a regiment than this. If they made me commander for one month …”