The Internal Affairs Department was responsible for every aspect of stock management except for the control of disease, and even here we supplied the veterinary department with help.
Dip tanks were constructed at strategic sites throughout the communal lands, and every district had one or more cattle sale pens. The districts in Matabeleland where the tribal economy was based almost wholly on livestock, had up to five sales pens each. Dipping took place weekly during the summer and fortnightly during the winter. Sometimes it had to cease altogether through lack of water. Internal Affairs field staff, originally called dip supervisors but later called field assistants, built the dip tanks and supervised the dipping which was under the direct control of a dip attendant living nearby. The dip attendant recorded the numbers of each owners' herd weekly, entering births, deaths and sales in his register and on the owner's dip card.
For many years the dip tanks were charged with an arsenical solution but the ticks gradually built up a resistance to arsenic and we had to change to more expensive phosphatic fluids.
Originally, each district ran its own dip tank fund with its own books of account and banking account. Each cattle owner paid one shilling per annum per beast dip fees, out of which was paid the total cost of running the service, including the purchase of dip fluid, pumps, motor-vehicles and all wages and salaries. Strangely enough we were able to balance our books on this nominal fee.
We also ran a separate district cattle marketing account,which was funded by a marketing levy paid by the buyers.
About 1950 government decided that it would be beneficial to combine all district dip tank and cattle marketing funds into one Salisbury based fund. We in Matabeleland were opposed to this because we had large numbers of cattle and made a profit on our funds which we used for development such as roads and water supplies, whereas Mashonaland districts with their smaller numbers (of smaller cattle on which the Matabele looked down) struggled to make ends meet. We did not want to subsidize them. Nevertheless, as is inevitable, Head Office won and each district closed its books down and sent the resulting cheque to the new overall controlling body which was called the Native Development Fund (later African Development Fund and now District Development Fund. I wrote out the Belingwe District's cheque for over £11 000, in real terms by far the largest cheque I was ever to write.
Inevitably, costs rose and over the years dip fees increased to 1/6d, then 2/=, then 3/=, then 5/= and ended up at one dollar before dip fees were abolished as a politically conciliatory gesture around 1980. Ever since then, then total cost of dipping the communal herd of nearly 3 million cattle, has been borne by the tax payer. With the increase in dip fees there arose a phenomenon known as the "ghost herd". Nothing to do with that country-western ballad "Ghost Riders in the Sky" but an accumulation of unregistered cattle never brought to the dip tanks and so not included in the dip fee register, and thus not paid for. Some owners, though convinced of the benefit of dipping their cattle, but unwilling to pay the increased fees, used to alternate their herd, bringing some one week and others the next week. Others never brought some of their cattle at all. This practise resulted in a loss of revenue but more important, allowed certain species of ticks to complete that portion of their life-cycle that they spent on the cattle, completely negating the whole purpose of dipping and allowing a new generation of ticks to survive.
The ghost herds were tackled in various ways but the most effective was to saturate the area served by one dip tank with dipping staff from other areas and district assistants who waited until all the herds were on their way to the dip tank, and then swooped on the remaining cattle found in the kraals and in the grazing areas, marked them and then demanded an explanation from the owners who were fined if their excuse did not hold water. Spotter planes were even used in some areas.
The weekly dipping was a great social event not only for the owners but also for the cattle and provided a grand opportunity for the bulls to sow their wild oats.
Cattle sales were held at regular intervals. In the old days there was no control over the marketing of cattle, butchers and speculators used to roam the communal lands with a bag of money and some herders, buying from whoever wanted to sell.
In 1947 the Native Cattle Marketing Act was promulgated, changing the whole scene and prohibiting any purchase of cattle, except between tribesmen, in any other way except at an organised cattle sale. There was provision for exceptions in certain cases such as when a beast broke a leg and a buyer went with his truck, shot the unfortunate beast and brought the carcass away.
The District Commissioner's staff then built cattle sales pens out of local timber, with a scale house in which buyers, officials and sellers went about their business. From the start, a "weight and grade" system operated. Guaranteed prices were fixed by government and were identical to the prices paid by the Cold Storage Commission to commercial farmers, except that a levy and a marketing charge were deducted at source. To avoid the inevitable haggling that would have arisen, a system of quotas was worked out in Head Office whereby every buyer was rated on his application, based on past performance. The District Commissioner then had the task of calculating the number of cattle each buyer could buy from each of the several grades. When, as sometimes happened, there were more buyers than cattle in a particular grade, the wisdom and judgement of Solomon had to be applied, but the shouts, hand waving and cries of unfair treatment were a regular feature. In those days the District Commissioner and staff were in charge of the whole procedure, except the initial veterinary inspection carried out by the animal health inspector of the Veterinary Department. The dip supervisor, invariably a seasoned cattle man, would grade each beast into pens for good average quality, fair average quality, compound, inferior and young stock and a count would be made.
The Cold Storage Commission would get the lion's share as they were the residual buyer and guaranteed to buy everything on offer except those rejects so poor that they were not expected to be able to walk to their destination, and the balance would be apportioned amongst the remaining buyers. The grader then moved to the scale and the cattle were driven from one graded pen at a time, and weighed. The weight was found on a chart for the particular grade and the appropriate price read out, usually by the District Commissioner's clerk. The buyer had no option but to accept but the seller could refuse, and often did so. Each buyer was in charge of his own stock of money, and with several buyers present, they had to change places regularly when their turn came. The deal having been concluded, the beast was branded and driven to the buyer's pen. After the sale, they were counted and only when all were satisfied were they allowed to be removed.
An auction system was adopted when it was seen how cumbersome and unsatisfactory the old system was, and all the sales pens were rebuilt by a team of specialists with steel poles and standardized sale houses. In the new system the cattle were penned according to the dip tank of origin, so that the sellers could easily be available, and the grading was done in a special grading bay just before the sale. Graders were trained and centrally employed, going from sale to sale throughout the country. The auctione er, who had placed a tender for his services, was responsible for bringing all the money for the sale and each beast was sold to the highest bidder. The upset price was once again determined by sale charts showing what the basic price was for each 10 lb division of weight, usually marked from 200 lbs to 1600 lbs in each grade. After the sale, the auctioneer prepared the usual bill of sale and the buyer paid him then and there.
The Cold Storage Commission was still the residual buyer and paid the basic price if there were no other bids. This system proved entirely satisfactory over the years, though complaints still continued to be heard that the communal area farmer was getting less for his cattle than the commercial farmer. The complainant usually forgot that stock from commercial farmers were in better condition than his, and that marketing charges and levy which accrued to the African Development Fund were deducted at source.
There were some truly enormous sales, especially in the Gwanda district where it was not uncommon for 1000 head of cattle to be sold in a day. The pace was very fast except for the odd incident where a beast got a long horn jammed in the sale pen, or fell in the pen. The whole structure sometimes had to be dismantled to release the stuck horn and all sorts of tricks were employed to get the fallen beast to rise, even, I regret to say, resorting to strenuous tail biting by the owner!
Cattle sale in one district were sometimes a three or four day programme, necessitating camping out at various sale pen resthouses, and great were the parties held to wash down the dust from parched throats. On one occasion a buyer who had set up his strecher in the back of his truck, fell into it somewhat under the influence, and his snores soon reverberated through the rest house next to which he was parked. Those inside decided that the noise would have to be muffled, and so we pushed his vehicle a few hundred metres down the road, to his complete mystification the following morning.
One well known old cattle sale character suffered from a somewhat weak bladder, and was wont to have beside his stretcher a 2 lb jam tin into which he would relieve his bladder during the night without getting out of bed. One memorable night the air was rent with lurid curses - it seems that some nasty practical joker has sabotaged his tin with several nail holes with the inevitable damp and uncomfortable result.
Vast sums of money were carried, the venues were well known and well-publicized, but never once before the start of the guerilla war, was a buyer ever ambushed or robbed. In common with most other services, however, cattle sales were abandoned during the war except for a few special sales which were heavily guarded by security forces.
An attempt was made from time to time to implement destocking operations but they were never very successful. With the African's deep-seated love for his cattle (his bank) destocking was political dynamite and it is probably this, together with the enforced movement of people from what was then known as "European land" or "Crown land" that gave the department a bad name in politically-concious circles. The destocking procedure worked on the basis of a proportionate cut being made on known holdings to bring the cattle figure for a particular area down to recommended figures. If a 25% cut was to be made in total numbers, those with from one to six cattle would not be affected but those with more would be expected to sell 25% of their herd and there were provisions in the regulations for fines if they did not do so. The figure down to which they had to destock was marked on their dip cards and they were given a set period of months in which to sell the surplus. Even if the exercise in one communal land worked, it meant in practise that the owner would not sell any cattle for a couple of years, accumulate a large calf crop - and back to square one.
From very early days the agriculturalists in the department of Native Agriculture, founded by Emory Alvord in about 1929, tried to improve the standards of indigenous cattle by the importation of better bulls. Some of these attempts were dismal failures - an exotic bull just did not thrive, or even survive in the harsh environment of a communal land, and nor did their offspring.
Introduction of the Afrikander type bull was more successful but the best of all were the better bulls from purely indigenous strains, and tribute must be paid to the pioneering efforts of Len Harvey who built up thriving herds of Tuli cattle, those lovely golden-dun humped beasts, and John Brownlee for his Nkone cattle, distinguishable by a white line down their backs. Breeding stations were established and bulls sold to approved farmers. In Mashonaland the black Mashona breed were encouraged.
Regrettably though, even with the success of the breeding stations, the effect on the national herd of the communal area cattle has been negligible, as under communal ranching conditions, there is no way that a progressive farmer can ensure that his neighbour's scrub bull does not have access to his cows.
Some of the older tribesmen had no idea of the criteria by which a beast was graded. I remember on one occasion a huge ox, nearly two metres at the shoulder with gigantic horns to match, was persuaded, with great difficulty because of its size and length of its horns to enter the scale platform enclosure. It was very old and was graded as inferior. When the price was announced its venerable owner shook his grey head in disgust and accepted the price reluctantly, with the plaintive cry "Hau, imali ilutshawana impondo zingaka" (Alas, what a little money for horns that size!)
Numerous efforts have also been made to introduce grazing management into the communal areas with little or no lasting success. There is an old established method of grazing control which is acceptable but is so basic and so difficult to control that it is largely ineffective. That is the prohibition of grazing, for obvious reasons, within the arable areas during the crop growing season. During this time, the cattle are grazing in the veld outside the fields. In the summer, when the crops are reaped, they are let in to finish off the crop residue and the grass growing between the fields leaving the veld to recover. But as there was no real control, and the veld could not recover anyhow in the dry season, all it meant in effect was that the cattle had a welcome change of diet during the months April to June, which kept them going but did nothing to the rest of the grazing area.
Throughout the country there are the rusting remains of fences, a bent standard here and there, the wire all pilfered, which bear testimony to the fact that no scheme, unless 100% accepted by all the people concerned and willingly put up with their own labour, will have any chance of success. Even then, someone might get tired of the regimen of paddocking and decide to cut the fence, which leads to a chain reaction. Even fences round the wetlands, the vleis which have been protected, sometimes at the peopl es' own request, have been allowed to deteriorate.