Chaka

Through Dutton’s translation, not only Europe became aware of, and benefited from, Mofolo’s masterpiece, but indeed Africa itself. We often lose sight of the fact that translations of this nature facilitate communication within Africa as well

When a person is said to have died, he is not dead, he is merely transformed, the breath of life having left this covering of flesh and migrated to another land which shines more gloriously than the sun, and he goes and lives there exactly as he had done before, as you yourself can indeed testify to some extent because you heard for yourself your own father’s voice when he spoke to you, and it was exactly as you had known it. He who has worked hard in this world will reap a rich harvest there; one who has done nothing here will receive nothing there, because everything a person does in this world the sun takes with it when it sets and carries it to that great land of the living whom you regard as dead, and refer to as the dead; and all these things will wait for him there, growing and increasing like cows which calve repeatedly. But the deeds of he who has worked little do not grow, but rather diminish and become less, just as it is with someone who has sown little, for the handful of sorghum which he obtains at harvest time is lost in the soil of the threshin

Bayede means he who stands between God and man,