Chapter XVII: Satu and his People go to War

Satu as the insulted party makes the first move--He sends an embassy to
Dimbula--He asks for an apology or offers a bullet--The apology is
refused, but the bullet is accepted--The witch-doctor makes a new
charm--Mode of fighting--The ridge-pole of chief’s house is
captured--Dimbula sues for peace with a white goat--Pays homage to
Satu--Blood brotherhood is made.

The hunting season had ended, and Dimbula had neither come to pay homage to Satu, nor sent an apology for the insults he had heaped on him. Dimbula’s attitude, his insolence, his breaking the bush-burning custom, and “What would Satu do?” were the general topics of conversation on the markets and around the evening fires. The people belonging to both towns swaggered, boasted of their prowess, and insulted each other whenever they met. There was no hope either of Dimbula humbling himself, or of Satu relinquishing his claims to homage, or at least his rights to courteous treatment.

As Satu was the aggrieved party he was consequently the one to make the first move. Bakula and another lad were chosen to carry a message and a bullet to Dimbula’s town.

It was with much nervous trepidation that they went on their errand. On arriving at the town they found the chief and his head men engaged in a drinking bout. Bakula delivered his message: “Would Dimbula apologize for his insults and pay homage to Satu as a noble of high rank, or would he accept of the bullet Satu had sent him?” Bakula and his comrade then withdrew out of hearing while the men consulted about the answer that should be returned.

When the messengers were recalled, Dimbula said: “We will accept the bullet, as we never intend either to apologize or to pay homage to Satu. Tell him,” angrily boasted the excited chief, “that I can let him have fifty kegs of gunpowder if he is short of it,” and then followed a string of abusive epithets that I do not care to place on record. The two lads were glad eventually to find themselves outside the town in safety; and, on reaching home, delivered their message faithfully to the waiting people.

Upon the return of the messengers Satu sent to call in all the neighbouring chiefs, except Dimbula, and on their arrival he laid clearly before them the reasons of his quarrel with Dimbula, and his wish to fight him. After full consideration of the matter the chiefs gave their consent to the fight taking place; and thereupon Satu killed a pig and distributed it among the chiefs. The acceptance of this pig’s flesh assured their neutrality, and was a proof of their consent. It was now the business of the chiefs to see that no one went to the assistance of either of the towns at war; and thus Satu had gained an open field, and feared no interference while he was fighting his enemy.

The next thing to be done was to send for the _nganga_ who made the war charms. On his arrival Satu and all the men who were to take part in the fighting assembled to greet and fête him, for their success, and perhaps their lives, depended on his good-humour and his care in making their charms. They told the _nganga_ that they were willing to pay for the most powerful charms he could make.

The “medicine man” took a frog and killed it, then he procured some twigs from three different trees--the “lembanzau,” the “lolo,” and the “mfilu”; these four things were carefully burnt together, and the ashes made into a paste by the addition of some water. A little of this paste was put into a large number of snail shells, one of which was given as a charm to each fighting man. Then the men walked round one of the above trees, and on returning to the town some palm-wine was mixed with the paste remaining in the saucepan, and all drank of it. After each one had drunk a little of this mess, the _nganga_ took the saucepan down to the road that led to Dimbula’s town, and placed it right in the middle of the path. Each man had then to jump over the pot, and if one had stumbled or touched the pot with his foot while jumping he would not have been allowed to go to the fight. The coming war was a popular one, so every man jumped carefully and lifted his feet well when he came to the saucepan.

The twigs used in making this charm were from “strong medicine trees,” and the frog was put in the mixture because they had noticed that the frog’s heart pulsates, or, as they say, “lives,” for some time after it is taken from the body. This tenacity of life was what the fighters needed.

Early next morning the warriors assembled in front of the chief’s home, and he served out the powder to them. Then the _nganga_ came with a bowl of palm-wine, and dipping his fingers in the wine touched the lips of the fighters three times with the front and back of his fingers, and told them not to look back, nor enter a house, but go right away to the fight. This he did each morning during the war, for this charm put them under a spell that removed all possibility of harm or danger. And the warriors being now secured from bullets, knives, etc., went off in high spirits to the fight.

The lads, girls and women who were not permitted to go to the fight brought out their most powerful fetish, and placing it in the middle of a cleared space, danced round it, and as they circled about the ugly image they sang: “You fetish, you must kill any one who is bewitching our fighting men.” Hour after hour, through all the long morning and afternoon they assiduously danced and repeated their wearisome and monotonous injunction to their fetish.

Meanwhile, Satu led his men towards his insulter’s town; but in a valley that skirted the hill upon which his enemy’s town was built he saw Dimbula and his followers drawn up in fighting array. They were arranged in a long line behind trees, stones, ants’ nests, hillocks and any other cover they could find. Satu took his men to within sixty yards of the enemy, and then spread them in a long line. Abusive expressions of defiance were hurled at each other, each side ridiculing the bravery of the other, and asking if they had enough powder for the fight.

When they became tired of shouting, they began to fire their guns at one another across the open bush. One man would load, run out and fire his gun, and return to cover; then another did the same, and sometimes there was simply a flash in the pan and no report at all. Through the whole of the day they fired at one another in this desultory manner, and not a single person on either side was hit. Their guns carried only about thirty yards with any effect, but they generally fired at a distance of about fifty yards. Again, as the butts of their guns were not pressed against their shoulders to steady them while taking aim, but held against the palms of the hands, or against nothing at all, they had free play, and the kick of the guns sent the slugs anywhere but in a straight line. In fact Tumbu, a lad, one day was standing well up the hill some distance above the combatants when a spent slug struck him on the leg, scratching the skin. You see it was not steady, calm aiming that caused a bullet to go straight; but the concoction the “medicine man” put in their charms, and if the bullets went in any direction but the right one it was not their fault, but their charms were not properly compounded, or their enemies had more powerful “medicine.”

The fighting had lasted some ten days when it was noticed by Satu’s party that their enemy’s firing was neither so frequent nor so loud, an evident proof that Dimbula’s boasted supply of gunpowder was running short.

It was now that a slave belonging to one of Satu’s head men ran forward in reckless bravado to fire at the enemy, and was himself struck by a bullet in the stomach. A fight with knives and clubbed guns took place over the fallen man.

Dimbula’s men wanted to secure the body, and Satu’s men resisted the attempt for the following reason: If the corpse fell into the hands of the enemy they would cut off the head, and soak it in water until the skull was freed of all flesh. Then the victor would either put it in a prominent place on a pole as a reproach to the conquered, or he would use it as a drinking-cup. The spirit of a man thus mutilated haunts and kills by witchcraft, not the man who slew him, but the members of his own family. Thus, on the one hand they fight to preserve the body intact so as not to have the vengeance of the spirit falling on them as a family; and on the other hand they fight to mutilate the enemy’s body so that his family may be done to death by the angry spirit. Hence the fight now raged over the body of the fallen man.

But Satu’s men were too strong, and, at really close quarters, too brave[62] to give way to the insulter of their popular chief, and after a short, sharp scuffle, in which several were wounded on both sides, Dimbula’s men took to their heels and bolted towards their town, shouting loudly to the women and children to fly to the forest.

Footnote 62:

See note 50, p. 357.

Satu, calling his men about him, gave chase up the hill and into the town, simply to find it deserted. They raided the houses, taking the little treasures that had been overlooked in the hurried flight of their owners, gathered fowls, goats and pigs, and drove them off to their town; but before leaving they pulled out the ridge-pole of Dimbula’s house, and carried it away in triumph--for to take the ridge-pole of a chief’s house against whom you are fighting is like capturing a royal standard in an English battle.

Satu and his fighters returned with their loot in great jubilation; but on arriving in their town their victorious ardour was somewhat damped by hearing that the slave had died from his wound, and several others had severe cuts and gashes gained in the _mêlée_ over the fallen man. The owner of the slave was very much annoyed at the destruction of his property, and said: “How is it my slave was killed and no one else? Surely he was bewitched!” He accused Satu of bewitching him, and the chief would have had to take the ordeal to clear himself of the charge; but the slain man was a slave, and no free man or chief ever takes the ordeal on account of a slave. Satu, however, soothed the vexed man by promising to make Dimbula pay for the slave, or give another in his place.

Next morning Satu led his men out again; but no sooner had they begun to fire than Dimbula’s voice could be heard shouting: “Luve! luve! luve!” or “Peace! peace! peace!”

Instantly upon hearing this cry for peace all fighting, according to custom, must cease; consequently Satu told his men to stop firing. Then a small company of men coming across the valley could be seen, the foremost of whom was Dimbula, and behind him came a neighbouring chief carrying on his shoulders a _white_ goat. Dimbula took the _white_ goat, and kneeling in front of Satu, said: “I do not want any more fighting, and in token of my submission I offer you this _white_ goat.”

Satu accepted the goat, and said: “I am glad to receive your _white_ goat of submission; but I cannot promise you a lasting peace until you have: First, paid homage to me as a noble of rank; secondly, compensated my head man for a slave killed in the fight; and lastly, paid one hundred kegs of gunpowder and fifty pieces of cloth to compensate us.”

Dimbula begged for better terms, and pleaded poverty, stating truly that he had not the powder and cloth. All the swaggering arrogance of the bully had gone out of his tone and demeanour as he cringed on the ground before his conqueror; and as he crouched there he was seen in his true character--a coward.

To him Satu replied: “The homage you can pay now while you are kneeling before me; the slave you can also repay at once to my head man, for I know you have slaves; and for the rest you can hand over one of your brothers and two of your nephews for me to hold in pawn until you have paid the agreed price. This is fair, and I have only one mouth.”

Dimbula knew that it would be waste of time to plead further, and in his heart he was surprised that the conditions were so generous; so swallowing his pride he paid homage to his victor as _N gudi a nkama Katendi_. He then called one of his slaves and offered him to Satu’s head man, who, being satisfied with his healthy appearance, accepted him with alacrity. He then called his young brother and two nephews, and, promising to redeem them as soon as possible, put their hands in Satu’s, thus completing the conditions of peace.

In the meantime, a _nganga_ was called who came with some stalks, leaves and palm-wine. He pressed the juice out of the stalks into the wine, and well mixing them he dipped the leaves in the liquid, touched the chiefs with the leaves and sprinkled the rest of the mixture indiscriminately over the fighters and people of both sides. Thus peace was established. To ensure this peace for all time, so far as these two men were concerned, the _nganga_ let a little blood from them, and gave each to drink the blood taken from the other; then two needles were solemnly buried and the whilom enemies became henceforth staunch friends and blood brothers.

Down somewhere in Dimbula’s cruel, bullying, arrogant nature was a soft place for his nephews and brother, for at once he began to trade, nor did he rest until he had gained sufficient to redeem his relatives by taking the hundred kegs of powder, the fifty pieces of cloth, and the necessary three _white_ goats to cleanse them from all taint of slavery. Besides, he was eager to reinstate himself with the neighbouring chiefs, among whom he had lost his position as a defeated man too poor to meet the terms of peace. And Satu, as a proof of his increasing friendship for Dimbula, gave him back the ridge-pole that had been torn from his house.