Chaka 6 csillagozás

But the sufferings […] were unknown in the olden days when the people were still settled upon the land. The nations were living in peace, each one in its own original territory where it had been from the day that Nkulunkulu, the Great-Great One, caused the people to emerge from a bed of reeds.

4. oldal

Chaka once again splashed himself vigorously with the water, and at once the water of that wide river billowed and then levelled off. Then it swelled higher and higher till he was sure it was going to cover him, and he walked towards the bank. No sooner was he there than a warm wind began to blow with amazing force. The reeds on the banks of the river swayed violently to and fro, and shook in a mad frenzy; and just as suddenly as they began, they quickly stopped moving and were dead still, and they stood erect just as if no wind had ever blown. […] While Chaka was looking over there in the deep where the water was rippling, he saw the huge head of an enormous snake suddenly break surface and appear right here next to him. Its ears were very long like those of a hare, but in shape they resembled those of a field-mouse; its eyes were large, green orbs, and it was more fearsome than we can say.

22. oldal

But if you should need me urgently when that day is still far away, go to the river before the sun comes up, or for that matter at any time when you are confronted with danger, cut a reed from the river, peel off its covering, and then go into the water and bathe, after which you must stroke that reed with that same medicine, partly submerge it in water and call me in a whisper, speaking softly into the reed, saying, „Isanusi”, thereafter throw it into the middle of the river. You are to do all these things with you eyes shut. I will hear that I am wanted urgently.

44. oldal

I see that you do not crave for kingship only, you also long to be renowned to the very ends of the earth, to gather so much fame that when your deeds are told, they will sound like fairy tales; that is another thing which you yearn for, just like kingship.

46. oldal

He was a man of middle years, with just the first tinge of grey, and because of the many pouches he carried, as well as the porcupine quills and monkey skins on his body, and long tassels of unkempt hair, Chaka knew at once that he was a doctor.

37. oldal

There was a tree in Bokone in those days which always stood all by itself in the plain, especially in deserts. It was said that before a person could cut it, he had to be strengthened with medicines, and then only could he go to it, because if he cut it without having strengthened himself, he would die at once. It was said that, when a person chopped it, it cried like a goat, and, besides, its sap was red like human blood. The person chopping it had to be naked, totally nude. It was a tree of witchcraft, because if a person placed it on the windward side of someone's house, all the people in that house would die. It was kept in the veld like the medicine for healing fractures. It was generally believed that once that tree had a section of it removed, it withered immediately, its life force going away with the medicine that had been taken from it.

43. oldal