In the initiation _schools, the teachers instilled respect for the elders, for
chiefly authority, and for established religious beliefs and rituals. As in
medieval Europe and other preindustrial societies, people sought super-
natural explanations for phenomena they could not account for in material
terms. 72 Ancestral spirits had powers over the material world. Dingaka,
religious specialists, established communication with the ancestral spirits
and invoked their support. In personal crises-illnesses,
bereavements,
domestic conflicts, material losses-individuals
would sacrifice sheep or
cattle to their ancestors. Alternatively,they might assume that a person had
caused their calamity. Hence the concept of witchcraft:
Evil was personified in myths of witchcraft: certain persons were believed to
have innate powers which they used directly, or through familiars-hyenas,
baboons, or the fabulous tikoloshe and lightning bird-to
injure their neigh-
bours; and other evilly disposed persons were thought to use poison. The
beliefs were rooted in nightmares and the awareness of anger, lust, and envy
in man. These realities were interpreted in material form-envy
became a
baboon sent by a poor man to suck dry the cows of his rich and stingy