THE WHITE-FACED HUTS. Witchcraft in the Transkei

Hardback. A collection of criminal cases tried in the Transkeian Circuit Courts. It is in the courts that a spotlight is cast on the primitive African mind against a background of reality. Verbatim quotations from the evidence of witnesses and the accused, with their vernacular forms of expression, are more eloquent than any objective description of their life and thought could be, and are freely given in these pages with all the characteristic repetition and simplicities of speech. Witchcraft is a predominant theme because it was still a predominant influence. The cases reveal the casual brutality with which it was practised, usually on the nearest old woman when sickness befell a kraal. A mere word of suspicion was sometimes enough to have a fatal result. The sketch "The Three Crowns Mountain" (from the district of Queenstown), though not a case of witchcraft, shows how close a disposition to violence lies to the surface of book education and the veneer of European life. With 3 Illus. + Index. 146pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. Browned edges and eps, Vg. in sl. frayed nr. vg. dw.