was chiefly rendered to the ghosts of the
chiefs, who retained in the spirit world the exceptional importance they
had held among the living; and it had much weight in maintaining loyalty
to a chief, because revolt against him was an insult to a powerful set
of ghosts. The ghost dwelt at the spot where the body was buried, and it
was therefore at the grave that the offerings, mostly of cakes and Kafir
beer, were made. Occasionally animals were killed, not so much by way of
sacrifice as for the sake of providing the ghost with a specially
precious kind of food, though the two ideas run close together in most
primitive worships.[10] Among the Matabili, for instance, there was once
a year a great feast in honour of the king's ancestors, who were
supposed to come and join in the mirth. It was also to the grave that
those who wished to call up the ghost by spells went to effect their
nefarious purpose, and the real place of interment of a great chief was
for this reason sometimes concealed, I found at Thaba Bosiyo, the famous
stronghold of the Basuto chief Moshesh, that his body had been secretly
removed from the place where he was buried to baffle the wizards, who
might try to use his ghost against the living. The ghost is, of course,
apt to be spiteful, that of an uncle (I was told) particularly so; and
if he is neglected he is extremely likely to bring some evil on the
family or tribe. Sometimes the spirit of an ancestor passes into an
animal, and by preference into that of a snake, not that it lives in the
snake, but that it assumes this form when it wishes to visit men. A
particular kind of green snake is revered by the Matabili for this
reason. And most, if not all, tribes had an animal which they deemed to
be of kin to them, and which they called their "_siboko_," a term
apparently corresponding to the totem of the North American Indians.
Creatures of this species they never killed, and some tribes took their
name from it. Thus the Ba-Taung are the people of the lion; the
Ba-Mangwato have the duyker antelope for their totem; and in the Basuto
_pitso_ (public meeting) an orator will begin by addressing his audience
as "sons of the crocodile." Of human sacrifices there seems to be no
trace. Men were killed for all possible reasons, but never as offerings.
And, indeed, to have so killed them would have been to treat the ghosts
as cannibals, a view foreign to native habits, for though human flesh
has been resorted to in tim