Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/347

Rh is called "the right-hand wife". Her son has, as soon as he becomes of age, a considerable portion of the government assigned to him by immemorial custom, and this he retains while the heir is a minor. This elder brother has many opportunities of increasing his influence, and becoming a powerful or even dangerous rival to his younger brother, so it happens that there are numberless legends, chiefly of the marvellous order, but partly true no doubt, of the perfidy of the right-hand wife's son, and the sufferings and ultimate triumph of the true heir.

"Long ago, before our people were scattered", says the chronicler, "a chief living far north had many wives and children. He was a great warrior, and very rich in cattle. After returning from a great war he married the daughter of a powerful chief living where the sun sets, and made her his chief wife. She had one son, who was his heir. His right-hand wife said to her eldest son, 'Your brother is your father's heir. He is a child, and does not know anything. You are a man, and I bore you when your father was young; I was then his favourite wife, but he now despises me, and has not been to my hut for many moons. You are his son, and your brother, the son of that child, will make you his dog. I hate her and I hate her son, who is robbing you, my son, who eat the fruit of my garden, and for whom I grind corn and make beer. Why should my son be the dog of her son?'"

From that day the elder brother began, in Kaffir phrase, 'to steal the people's hearts". He went among them with a sorrowful and dejected air. He refused to take part in any national festivity or amusement, and even refused to speak to many of his old favourites and companions. When asked what was the matter, he always replied: "My heart is sore, I am going on a long journey, I am no chief, I have no people. These are all my brother's people we see. When he is old I shall be despised. I am a wanderer." People pitied one who had been so much among them, and whose Z 2