Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/53

Rh and discourteous act. Seeing the smoke, Bidi and his men returned and asked why they had fired the bush without them, and so insultingly broken the custom of the country. The Kimpanza people asked him who he was, and what could he do, and they twitted him with having his nephew taken away by the white man. No sooner did Bidi hear this taunt than he ordered his men to fire on the others. There was a fight, but no one was killed. The Kimpanza people told the King, and the King gave them permission to fight Tulante Bidi, and told them to go and get the ridge pole of Bidi's house. To take the ridge pole of the chief's house against whom you are fighting is like gaining the standard in an English battle. This they tried, but failed, to do.

Several towns joined each side. About that time the writer was itinerating in the country south of Tulante's town, and on his way back to his mission station he crossed the brow of a hill, from whence he saw one of the fights. The opponents were about 60 to 70 yards apart, hidden behind trees etc. One would load, run out and fire his gun, and return to cover, then another did the same, and, although the writer watched the fight for nearly an hour, no one was either wounded or killed on either side, and it would have been surprising if they had been. The guns carry only from 30 to 40 yards with any effect, but they are fired at 60 or 70 yards distance. Also, as the butt of the gun is not held against the shoulder to steady it while taking aim, but held against the palm of the hand, or not held against anything at all, it has free play, and the kick of the gun sends the slug anywhere but in a straight line.

The fighting lasted some weeks, and then a man on Tulante Bidi's side was killed, and the fight stopped. The man killed was a slave, and his owner said: "How is it my slave was killed, and no one else; surely he was bewitched." He accused Bidi of bewitching him, and