The White-faced Huts. Witchcraft in the Transkei

(Johannesburg: Voortrekkerpers, 1969). 8vo; pictorial boards; pictorial dustwrapper (housed in removable protector); pp. 146, incl. index; some illustrations. Dustwrapper a bit rubbed and edgeworn, with old tape repairs; endpapers browned; some foxing. Good condition. " ... these sketches of criminal cases tried in the Transkeian Circuit Courts should be enlightening. 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 is still a predominant influence. The cases reveal the casual brutality with which it is practised, usually on the nearest old woman when sickness befalls a kraal. A mere word of suspicion is sometimes enough to have a fatal result. The sketch 'The Three Crowns Mountain' (from the district of Queenstown), though not a case of witchcraft, may show how close a disposition to violence lies to the surface of book education and the veneer of European life." .