Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/526

 2i6 A Recent Twin- Murder hi S. Africa.

Spencer Augustus Minchin, Esq., Crown Prosecutor of our Sovereign Lord the King for the Bechuanaland Protectorate, who prosecutes for and on behalf of His Majesty, presents and gives the Court to be informed :

That Chelelo and Banyatsan, adult native women, lately residing at Shashi, in the district of Serowe in the Northern district of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, are both and each, or one and other of them, guilty of the crime of murder, in that upon or about the 1 6th day of May, 1 92 1, and at Shashi afore- said, the accused did both or each or one or other of them, wrongfully, unlawfully and maliciously kill and murder twin male children, born of the said Banyatsan, about two days after the birth of the said male children.

Wherefore upon due proof and conviction thereof the said Crown Prosecutor prays the judgment of the Court against the said Chelelo and Banyatsan according to law.

(In order to follow the case more easily it may be noted that Chelelo is the mother of Banyatsan. The husband of Chelelo is named Mbaioa ; they lived at Sebina's Stadt. Mbaioa had a sister named Gabalene, who is involved in the case as we shall presently see.)

The first witness for the prosecution was Dr. Peter Donald Strachan, who reported the exhumation of the bodies of the twins as follows :

I am medical officer at Serowe. On Sept. 1 6th last I pro- ceeded to Sebina's Stadt. A grave was pointed out to me by a native woman. This was about a mile to the west of Haskin's store. This woman identified the grave as that of two infants. The bodies were exhumed in my presence. I found the remains of two infants ; there were two separate sets of bones. The decomposition was too far gone to certify the cause of death. (Reports in circulation had suggested boiling oil.) I formed the opinion that the bodies were of newly-born infants. No questions.

(The prosecution called for two witnesses ; one was a woman named Mayoka, the cousin of Chelelo, and the other Gabalene, mentioned above. To follow the case through the evasions of