This text was first written for the occasion of my fiftieth birthday party which was held at Zingela in December
1996 with a group of close friends. The theme of the weekend and the birthday dinner was “The Colonial Peoples of
Africa”, and all who were there dressed in costumes appropriate to the theme. The text of “The Legend of Sacrificial
Rock” was laminated to form the underside of a dinner placemat on which the menu for the meal was printed.
-Bruce
In an Umghosho on a remote part of Zingela near to the waters of the restless and mysterious Thukela River lies a flat-topped rock around which is woven the legend and fabric of a hermit inyanga (traditional healer) whose name the local tribesmen mentioned only in hushed whispers, with the awe and reverence befitting the one they call Noshigi.
Noshigi practised his calling by collecting the raw materials with which he and the other inyangas would serve the local people—materials like the bark, roots and leaves of inaccessible plants and trees. Most precious was the ingredient that he used to make his fertility cream: the fat of a python. He would melt this fat atop his flat-topped rock, the heat generated by the fire he made around its base. The quality of Noshigi’s fat was well-known and, as the demand increased, so the pythons of the area became more scarce. Folklore tells us that as the pythons diminished in numbers, several small children from the surrounding villages began disappearing while gathering water or while playing in the dense bush that is so much a part of the nature of the countryside. Bone fragments, remarkably similar to those of humans, were later found around and in the vicinity of what became known as Sacrificial Rock. It wasn’t long before the villagers turned their suspicions to Noshigi, the reclusive inyanga, and he was soon arrested by the commandant of the local police station—as much for his own safety as to appease the suspicions of the local tribes.
His time behind bars was, however, short-lived. Known to have the whitest teeth in all of Zululand, the local Zulu maidens were now able to visit him and gaze upon him, mesmerised by his brilliant teeth—equal only in brilliance to the stars that adorned the bushveld sky. This steady stream of maidens soon became too much for the police commandant, and, in the absence of anyone who would speak against him, Noshigi was released.
Noshigi still lives in these parts, but the supply of python fat is limited, and the children never wander far from their villages. Sacrificial Rock lies on a footpath used by the local people and cannot easily be bypassed. The parents of the children who pass that way are known to prick their fingers with the thorn of the Acacia and deposit a small drop of blood on the rock to appease the spirit of the python and protect their families from Noshigi—the inyanga with the whitest teeth of all.