. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. 132 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM secret and mysterious but it may be intrinsically very simple. The ritual context of its revelation imbues a goma with its awesome quality. The wooden clappers, mewasa (Fig. 72), used by vyali girls to accompany their songs, are simply two flat pieces of wood carved to a point at one end and a handle at the other. No significance is attached to their manufacture but, once used, they acquire significance and they must be burnt at the end of the school. For the vy
. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. 132 ANNALS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN MUSEUM secret and mysterious but it may be intrinsically very simple. The ritual context of its revelation imbues a goma with its awesome quality. The wooden clappers, mewasa (Fig. 72), used by vyali girls to accompany their songs, are simply two flat pieces of wood carved to a point at one end and a handle at the other. No significance is attached to their manufacture but, once used, they acquire significance and they must be burnt at the end of the school. For the vyali initiation a row of debarked poles is set up in the khoro in a speciafly medicated furrow at the back of a carefully prepared platform, le- vhalelo la vyali, on which the initiates stand when singing. In front of this is the kholononi shrine, a circular mound of clay in which a river stone is embedded and in the centre of which is a forked, medicated pole of musoso wood {Termin- alia sericea, vaalboom) believed to have protective powers (Krige & Krige 1943: 136). The khord of the Queen's village (Fig. 73A) is surrounded by a paUsade of pointed or forked poles (Fig. 73B) that may only be used in the villages of chiefs or headmen. Headmen from all the districts are called up to provide poles for the Queen's khoro when it is renewed. In this way the khoro of the capital ex- presses the soHdarity of the chiefdom. The entrance to the khord is also the en- trance to the village and, as such, it is protected with posts of special wood (kherale or moludu) treated with medicines when they were set up. Beneath the threshold a medicated wand or a river stone is buried to neutralize or 'cool' any evil that may threaten the village. These measures are but a very small part of a complex scheme for protection of the Fig. 74. Carved khoro poles at the capital, Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
