NATIVE LIFE IN
EAST AFRICA
[Illustration: _The Author_]
NATIVE LIFE IN EAST AFRICA
THE RESULTS OF AN ETHNOLOGICAL RESEARCH EXPEDITION
BY
DR. KARL WEULE
DIRECTOR OF THE LEIPZIG
ETHNOGRAPHICAL MUSEUM AND PROFESSOR AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG
TRANSLATED BY
ALICE WERNER
NEW YORK
D APPLETON AND COMPANY
1909
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION xi
I. OUTWARD BOUND 1
II. THE UNEXPECTED 16
III. APPRENTICESHIP 26
IV. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE INTERIOR 45
V. LOOKING ROUND 65
VI. NATIVE LIFE SEEN FROM THE INSIDE 77
VII. MY CARAVAN ON THE SOUTHWARD MARCH 104
VIII. AT MATOLA’S 134
IX. AMONG THE YAOS 155
X. FURTHER RESULTS 190
XI. TO THE ROVUMA 203
XII. UNYAGO EVERYWHERE 230
XIII. THE HARVEST OF KNOWLEDGE 243
XIV. FURTHER RESEARCHES 278
XV. LAST DAYS AT NEWALA 318
XVI. THE ROVUMA ONCE MORE 332
XVII. ACHIEVEMENT 352
XVIII. MY RETURN TO THE COAST 393
XIX. FROM LINDI TO TANGA 408
XX. RETROSPECT 413
INDEX 423
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
CAPE GUARDAFUI 1
DAR ES SALAM HARBOUR 2
NATIVE DANCE AT DAR ES SALAM 3
STREET IN NATIVE QUARTER, DAR ES SALAM 4
MAP OF THE MAIN CARAVAN ROAD 9
COURTYARD AT DAR ES SALAM 10
IN THE EUROPEAN QUARTER, DAR ES SALAM 12
LINDI BAY 16
THE SS. “RUFIJI” 18
VIEW NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE LUKULEDI ABOVE LINDI 19
LINDI ROADSTEAD 24
ARAB DHOW 25
CHAIN-GANG 26
WOMEN’S DANCE AT DAR ES SALAM 27
SELIMAN MAMBA 29
YAO WOMEN AT MTUA 33
GIRLS FROM LINDI 35
RUINED TOWER, LINDI 38
UNDER THE PALMS 40
THE LIKWATA DANCE 45
MAKUA WOMEN FROM THE LUKULEDI VALLEY 47
A MAN OF THE MWERA TRIBE AND A YAO 48
RUINS OF NYANGAO MISSION STATION 50
A MWERA WOMAN 56
YOUNG MAN OF THE MWERA TRIBE 56
MWERA WOMAN WITH PIN IN LOWER LIP 57
ROAD THROUGH THE BUSH IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CHINGULUNGULU 59
MOUNTAINS NEAR MASASI 65
THE INSULAR MOUNTAIN OF MASASI 67
OUR ASCENT OF MTANDI MOUNTAIN 72
MNYASA HUNTER WITH DOG 77
THROUGH THE BUSH ON A COLLECTING EXCURSION 79
READY FOR MARCHING (MASASI) 81
CAMP AT MASASI 83
INTERIOR OF A NATIVE HUT IN THE ROVUMA VALLEY 85
DOVECOTE AND GRANARY 92
RAT TRAP 96
TRAP FOR ANTELOPES 98
TRAP FOR GUINEA-FOWL 99
TRAP FOR LARGE GAME 99
MY CARAVAN ON THE MARCH 104
YAO HOMESTEAD AT CHINGULUNGULU 105
THE YAO CHIEF MATOLA 108
NAKAAM, A YAO CHIEF 109
INTERIOR OF A COMPOUND AT MWITI 110
CAMP AT MWITI 112
SHUTTER WITH INLAID SWASTIKA IN NAKAAM’S HOUSE AT MWITI 114
YAO HUT 115
ELDERLY MAKONDE WOMAN IN GALA DRESS 121
GROUND PLAN OF ZUZA’S HUT 128
ZUZA’S COUCH AND FIREPLACE 129
YAO WOMEN WITH NOSE-STUDS 130
INFANT’S GRAVE 132
MATOLA’S COMPOUND 134
BEER-DRINKING 136
WATAMBWE WOMAN DECORATED WITH NUMEROUS KELOIDS 141
MANUAL CHRONOLOGY, “THAT HAPPENED WHEN I WAS SO HIGH” 145
OUR CAMP AT CHINGULUNGULU 149
WATER-HOLES AT CHINGULUNGULU 151
MAKONDE WOMEN FROM MAHUTA 153
TWO MAKUA MOTHERS 157
A FRIENDLY CHAT 158
WOMAN POUNDING AT THE MORTAR 165
MONKEYS ATTACKING A PLANTATION 168
THE BLIND BARD SULILA OUTSIDE THE BOMA AT MASASI 171
YAO DANCE AT CHINGULUNGULU 178
“BUSH SCHOOL” IN THE PORI, NEAR CHINGULUNGULU 179
A YAO DRESSED FOR THE MASEWE DANCE 181
MASEWE DANCE OF THE YAOS AT MTUA 182
FRESCO ON THE WALL OF A HUT AT AKUNDONDE’S 185
HERD OF ELEPHANTS 190
VILLAGE OF THE NGONI CHIEF MAKACHU 193
GRAVE OF THE YAO CHIEF MALUCHIRO, AT MWITI 194
KINDLING FIRE BY FRICTION 196
MY COMPANION, NILS KNUDSEN 199
FISH-DRYING ON THE ROVUMA 202
TWO MATAMBWE MOTHERS FROM THE ROVUMA 205
TYPICAL HUT IN THE ROVUMA VALLEY 208
DESERTED BUILDINGS, LUISENFELDE MINE 210
UNYAGO BOYS PLAYING ON FLUTES OUTSIDE THE NDAGALA AT AKUNDONDE’S 211
LIKWIKWI, THE BIRD OF ILL OMEN 212
LISAKASA IN THE FOREST NEAR AKUNDONDE’S 213
YAO GRAVES AT AKUNDONDE’S 214
NDAGALA (CIRCUMCISION-LODGE) IN THE FOREST NEAR AKUNDONDE’S 216
LAUGHING BEAUTIES 220
GIRLS’ UNYAGO AT THE MAKONDE HAMLET OF NIUCHI 221
GIRL’S UNYAGO AT THE MATAMBWE VILLAGE OF MANGUPA. I 226
GIRLS’ UNYAGO AT THE MATAMBWE VILLAGE OF MANGUPA. II 227
OLD MEDULA LIGHTING HIS PIPE 228
OUR CAMP AT NEWALA 231
THE AUTHOR IN WINTER COSTUME AT NEWALA 232
MAKONDE MASKS 236
MAKONDE STILT-DANCER 237
THE NJOROWE DANCE AT NEWALA 238
MAKONDE WOMEN GOING TO DRAW WATER 243
TWO NEWALA SAVANTS 245
DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI 249
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER” 251
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR MAHUTA 256
USUAL METHOD OF CLOSING HUT-DOOR 261
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO 262
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY 263
THE ANCESTRESS OF THE MAKONDE 266
BRAZIER 267
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASAI 269
MAKUA WOMAN MAKING A POT 270
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA 275
MAKUA WOMEN 278
WOMAN CARRYING A BABY ON HER BACK 283
THREE MAKUA VEGETARIANS 284
USE OF THE THROWING STICK 286
THROWING WITH THE SLING 287
SPINNING A TOP 288
IKOMA DANCE AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, ACHIKOMU 289
XYLOPHONE (MGOROMONDO) 290
PLAYING THE NATURA 291
NATURA (FRICTION-DRUM) 291
USING THE NATIVE TELEPHONE 292
and
293
NATIVE TELEPHONE 293
MAKONDE CHILDREN 295
MASEWE DANCE OF THE MAKUAS IN THE BOMA AT NEWALA 296
KAKALE PROCESSION ON THE LAST DAY OF THE UNYAGO 298
MASKED DANCE AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI 303
WOMAN OF THE MAKONDE TRIBE 305
AN OFFERING TO THE SPIRITS 324
LANDSCAPE ON THE ROVUMA 325
TREES IN THE BURYING-GROUND AT NEWALA 327
KNOTTED STRING SERVING AS CALENDAR 329
MY ESCORT HALTED AT HENDERERA’S VILLAGE IN THE MAKONDE HIGHLANDS 334
NATIVE SUFFERING FROM THE UBUBA DISEASE 337
MAJALIWA, SAIDI, AND MAKACHU 338
FOREST RUINED BY NATIVES NEAR NCHICHIRA, ROVUMA VALLEY 343
MATAMBWE FISHERMAN CATCHING A TURTLE, WHICH A WATER-SNAKE IS
TRYING TO SEIZE 347
PILE-DWELLING ON THE ROVUMA, NEAR NCHICHIRA 350
THE WALI OF MAHUTA 353
MOTHER AND CHILD 355
TWO-STORIED HOUSES AT NCHICHIRA ON THE ROVUMA 357
MAKONDE GIRL WITH LIP PIERCED FOR PELELE AND ULCERATED 358
PSEUDO-SURGERY. MAKONDE WOMAN WITH TORN LIP ARTIFICIALLY JOINED 359
MAKONDE KELOIDS 360
MATAMBWE AND MAKUA WOMEN WITH KELOIDS 361
MAKUA WOMAN WITH KELOIDS ON BACK 362
MAKUA WOMEN WITH KELOIDS 363
MAKONDE WOMEN WITH ELABORATE KELOIDS 364
AFRICAN ART: CARVED POWDER, SNUFF, AND CHARM-BOXES FROM THE
MAKONDE HIGHLANDS 365
MAKONDE MAN WITH KELOID PATTERNS 365
YAO WOMEN WITH KELOIDS 366
THE LITOTWE 367
“BWANA PUFESA” (THE PROFESSOR) 368
WANGONI WOMEN AT NCHICHIRA 369
TWO NATIVES 370
THE BUSH COUNTRY AND ITS FAUNA 372
MAKONDE WOMAN IN HOLIDAY ATTIRE 375
MAKONDE HAMLET NEAR MAHUTA 377
A DIABOLO PLAYER ON THE MAKONDE PLATEAU 378
DIABOLO 379
ASKARI IN FATIGUE DRESS 382
WANDUWANDU’S GRAVE 397
GREAT NGOMA DANCE IN THE BOMA AT MAHUTA 403
MY ESCORT CLEANING THEIR TEETH 405
ENTERING THE RED SEA 408
THE AUTHOR IN BUSH COSTUME 410
Translator’s Introduction
The greater thoroughness and system with which anthropology and the
kindred sciences have been cultivated in Germany than in this country,
has been repeatedly brought home to us; but in nothing is it more
apparent than in the difficulty of finding equivalents for quite
elementary technical terms. The distinction between ethnology and
ethnography, indeed, is pretty generally recognized, and is explained in
works as popular in scope as Professor Keane’s _Ethnology_ and _Man Past
and Present_. But _Vōlkerkunde_, which includes both these sciences and
some others besides, is something which certainly cannot be translated
by its etymological equivalent “folklore;” and, though the word
“prehistoric” is perfectly familiar, we have no such noun as
“prehistory,” far less a professorship of the same in any university.
These remarks are suggested by the fact that Dr. Weule, whose
experiences in East Africa are here presented to the English reader, is
“Professor of _Vōlkerkunde und Urgeschichte_” at Leipzig, besides being
Director of the Ethnographical Museum in the same city.
Dr. Karl Weule, whose name is less well known in England than in his own
country, has in the past devoted himself rather to geography than to
ethnography proper. He was a pupil and friend of the late Friedrich
Ratzel, whose _History of Mankind_ was translated into English some
years ago, and whose _Politische Geographie_ gave a new direction to the
study of that science in its more immediate relation to the historical
development of mankind, or what is now called “anthropogeography.” It
was Ratzel, too, who suggested to Dr. Helmolt the idea of his
_Weltgeschichte_, a comprehensive history of the world, built up out of
detached monographs, including three by Dr. Weule, on the historical
importance of the three great oceans. (Only one of these appears in the
English edition, with introduction by Professor Bryce, published in
1901). Dr. Weule returned to the same subject in his _History of
Geography and Exploration_ (_Geschichte der Erdkenntnis und der
geographischen Forschung_) and a detached essay, _Das Meer und die
Naturvōlker_ (both published in 1904), with various other monographs of
a similar character.
After completing his university studies at Göttingen and Leipzig, Dr.
Weule resided from 1891 to 1899 at Berlin, first as a member of the
Richthofen Seminary, where his work was more purely geographical, and
afterwards as assistant in the African and Oceanian section of the
Ethnological Museum. In 1899 he was appointed to the Assistant
Directorship of the Leipzig Museum, and at the same time to the chair
which he still occupies at that University; and, seven years later, he
was entrusted with the research expedition described in the following
pages, where its scope and objects are set forth with sufficient
clearness to render further reference in this place unnecessary. After
his return he was promoted to the appointment he now holds at the
Leipzig Museum.
His residence in Africa lasted a little over six months, and the record
before us shows that he made good use of his time. Several features in
his narrative have the merit of novelty, at least as far as the general
reader is concerned; for though the cinematograph and phonograph have
been made use of for some time past in the service of anthropology, yet
we do not remember to have seen the results of the latter figuring to
any great extent in a work of this sort, though Sir Harry Johnston has
reproduced one phonographic record of a native air in his _Uganda
Protectorate_. (It is very unfortunate that so many of Dr. Weule’s
cinematograph films proved a disappointment; this instrument is proving
one of the most valuable adjuncts to exploration, especially in the case
of tribes whose peculiar customs are rapidly passing away before the
advance of civilization). Another point which imparts great freshness to
Dr. Weule’s work is the happy inspiration which led him to collect
native drawings; the sketches by his carriers and especially the
portrait of the author himself on p. 368 are decided contributions to
the gaiety of nations, and strike out a line unworked, so far as I am
aware, by previous travellers. It is a matter of deep and lasting regret
to me, personally, that I ever parted with a similar gem of art, picked
up at Blantyre, and presumably representing a European engaged in
inspecting his coffee plantation.
This whole question of native African art is very interesting. Properly
speaking, nothing in the way of indigenous graphic art is known to exist
in Africa, outside Egypt and Abyssinia, (if indeed it can be called
indigenous in the latter case), except the rock paintings of the
Bushmen, which, as is well known, have in some cases attained real
excellence. (The best published reproductions up to the present date are
contained in the late G. W. Stow’s _Native Races of South Africa_.) In
South Africa wherever Bantu natives have executed any paintings beyond
the simplest geometrical patterns, they are found to have learnt the art
from Bushmen. The natives on Mount Mlanje (Nyasaland) decorate their
huts with paintings of animals, but these have not yet been sufficiently
examined to pronounce on their quality; and, on the other hand, many
things render it probable that there is a strong Bushman element in the
population of Mlanje (at least in the indigenous Anyanja, who have been
only partly displaced by the Yaos). Dr. Weule states that this kind of
“fresco” decoration is very common on the Makonde Plateau, but considers
that it is entirely on the same level as the drawings of his
carriers—_i.e._, that it shows no artistic aptitude or tradition, and
merely consists of scrawls such as those with which innate depravity
impels every untaught human being to deface any convenient blank space.
The single specimen reproduced in his book is not precisely calculated
to refute his theory, yet it is no rougher than some of the cruder
Bushmen drawings (which show every conceivable degree of skill and
finish); and, if the daubs in question are merely the product of the
universal _gamin_ instinct, surely, huts having clay walls would
everywhere be adorned with animal-paintings, which is by no means the
case.
The comparative value of Dr. Weule’s various results must be left to the
judgment of experts; but it seems safe to assume that he was most
successful in what may be called the outside part of his task: in
forming a collection and in describing what is visible and tangible in
the life and customs of the people. That he should have failed to
penetrate their inner life is scarcely surprising. What does surprise
one is that he should have expected to do so at such exceedingly short
notice. His disappointment in this respect at Masasi, and subsequently
at Chingulungulu, is calculated to provoke a smile, if not “from the
sinful,” at least from the veteran in African experience. The greater
his experience the more is the inquirer inclined to hesitate before
putting direct questions even when they cannot be described as
“leading”; but Dr. Weule seems to have recognized no other mode of
investigation. The wonder is that the elders, officially convened by
tuck of drum from village after village and set down to be pumped till
both parties were heartily weary of the process, should have told him
anything at all—as they undoubtedly did, and much of it, to judge from
internal evidence, correct enough. The most sympathetic of travellers
does not always find it easy to satisfy his thirst for knowledge, and
Dr. Weule’s methods, on his own showing, were frequently such that I
prefer to withhold any comment.
Dr. Weule devoted a considerable amount of time to the study of the
languages spoken in the districts he visited, viz., Makua, Yao, and
Makonde; but he does not appear to have published any linguistic
documents beyond the songs, etc., given in the present volume. It is not
clear whether he was aware of any work previously done in this
direction, but he certainly speaks as though he were the first to reduce
these idioms to writing, though abundant materials exist in print for
the study of Yao, and the late Bishop Maples published a grammatical
sketch of Makua which is excellent as far as it goes, not to mention the
more recent work of Professor Meinhof. It is also extremely strange
that, while insisting on the close relationship between the different
languages of the Makonde Plateau, he should have overlooked the curious
cleavage between Makua,—which has peculiarities directly connecting it
with the distant Sechuana and Sesuto—and its neighbours.
Though the scene of Dr. Weule’s labours was repeatedly visited by
Europeans, even before the German occupation, not much has been written
about it in this country outside the publications of the Universities’
Mission. Livingstone ascended the Rovuma in 1862, to within thirty miles
of Ngomano at the Lujende junction; his farthest point being apparently
a little higher up than the camp occupied by Dr. Weule in August, 1906.
He had hoped to find a navigable waterway to the immediate vicinity of
Lake Nyasa; and, in fact, some natives told him that the Rovuma came out
of the Lake; but the rapids and rocks made it impossible to take the
boats beyond the island of Nyamatolo, which, though not marked on Dr.
Weule’s map, must be somewhere near the mouth of the Bangala. Most of
the names given by Livingstone are difficult to identify on recent maps;
but this is not surprising, as native villages are usually known by the
name of the chief or headman for the time being. It is true that some of
these names are more or less permanent, being official or hereditary
designations assumed by every successive functionary; but the population
has shifted so much during the last forty years that the old names have
been forgotten or transferred to other sites. Thus Mr. H. E. O’Neill, in
1882, found the Yao chief Chimsaka living in the eastern part of the
Mavia Plateau a little east of 40° E, having been driven from his former
place on the Upper Rovuma, more than two hundred miles to the west, by a
raid of the Mangoni (Angoni or Maviti).
The country is still inhabited, as it was in Livingstone’s time, by the
Makonde, Makua, and Matambwe tribes, with the Wamwera to the north in
the hinterland of Lindi, and the Mavia (Mabiha) south of the Rovuma, but
they have moved about a good deal within its limits, while the Yaos have
penetrated it from the west. The raids of the Angoni or Maviti have also
played a great part in these changes. Dr. Weule, as we shall see, made
careful inquiries on the subject of these tribal migrations, and the
information given to him fits in fairly well with what others have
obtained from the Yaos in the Shire Highlands and the Angoni to the west
of Lake Nyasa.
Livingstone returned to this region on his last journey, when he landed
at Mikindani Bay (March 24, 1866) with those unfortunate camels and
buffaloes whose sufferings on the jungle-march made his diary such
painful reading. The choice of camels for transport in this country was
certainly a mistake; but a greater mistake—and one which he bitterly
regretted—was made in the choice of the men who drove the camels.
On this occasion, Livingstone followed the Rovuma by land as far as
Mtarika’s (the old village about the Lujende confluence, near Chimsaka’s
former abode, not the Mtarika’s which will be found marked in Dr.
Weule’s map on the Lujende itself), and struck south-westward in the
direction of the Lake, which he reached, near the mouth of the Mtsinje,
on the 8th of August. The route followed some years previously by Dr.
Roscher, who made his way from Kilwa to Lake Nyasa, sighting it November
24, 1859, a few weeks after its discovery by Livingstone, lies somewhat
to the north-west of the country dealt with in this book, and nowhere
touches the scene of Dr. Weule’s travels.
In 1875, the late Bishop Steere followed in Livingstone’s tracks,
starting from Lindi on the first of November, and reaching Mwembe
(Mataka’s village) in a little over five weeks. This was the first of a
series of remarkable journeys accomplished by members of the
Universities’ Mission, of which we need here only mention, that of the
Rev. W. P. (now Archdeacon) Johnson and the late Rev. C. A. Janson in
1882. The station of Masasi was founded in 1876, and that of Newala in
1882; the buildings of the former were nearly all destroyed in the
“Majimaji” rising of 1906, shortly before Dr. Weule’s visit, and are
only now in process of reconstruction.
The Rovuma valley was further explored in 1882, by the late Joseph
Thomson, whom the Sultan of Zanzibar had commissioned to examine its
mineral resources, with a view to ascertaining if workable coal-seams
existed. His report was, on the whole, unfavourable, though a French
engineer, M. D’Angelvy, subsequently (in 1884) despatched on a similar
errand, came to a different conclusion. The Livingstone expedition had
found coal near Lake Chidia, in 1862; but up to the present day it has
not been utilized.
Mr. H. E. O’Neill, when British Consul at Mozambique, did a great deal
of exploring, in an unobtrusive way, between the coast and Lake Nyasa,
and, in 1882 examined the country inland from Tungi Bay, and south of
the Rovuma, being the first European to penetrate the Mavia Plateau and
come in contact with that tribe who enjoyed among their neighbours the
reputation of being “so fierce and inhospitable that no one dares to
pass through their country.” This exclusiveness Mr. O’Neill found to be
largely if not entirely the result of the persecution the Mavia had
undergone at the hands of stronger tribes, particularly the Yaos,
incited by coast slavetraders. They were unwilling to guide him to their
villages, and took him there by night so that he might be the less
likely to find his way there a second time; but, “when once their
natural suspicions were allayed and confidence established, they were
hospitable and generous, and showed neither distrust nor reserve.
Indeed, they seemed to me to be a particularly simple-minded, harmless
folk.” Men, as well as women, wear the pelele, or lip ring, as mentioned
by Dr. Weule, who never came across the Mavia for himself. Of their
wearing their hair in pig-tails, Mr. O’Neill says nothing—in fact,
beyond the pelele, there was little to distinguish them from
neighbouring tribes, and he was disposed to consider them a branch of
the Makonde. His description of their villages hidden away in the thorny
jungle and approached by circuitous paths recalls what Dr. Weule says as
to the difficulty of finding the Makonde settlements without a guide. In
the course of this journey Mr. O’Neill discovered Lake Lidede, and at
one point of his march he looked down on the Rovuma Valley from the edge
of the Mavia Plateau at almost the same point as that where Dr. Weule
saw it from the opposite escarpment, as described on pp. 343–4. It is
interesting to compare the two accounts:—Mr. O’Neill’s is to be found in
the Proceedings of the R.G.S. for 1882, p. 30.
Mr. J. T. Last, starting from Lindi on the 28th of October, 1885, made
his way overland to Blantyre, _via_ Newala, Ngomano and the Lujende
Valley, in eleven weeks. He remarks on the “desolation of the country
which was formerly well populated, as the sites of the old villages
show; but now there is not a house to be seen”—through the raids of the
Magwangara and others. Lions were as numerous as they appear to have
been in 1906, and for a similar reason. One of Mr. Last’s carriers was
dragged out of the grass shelter where the men were sleeping, thus
affording an almost exact parallel to the incident related by Dr. Weule
on pp. 394–8.
At this time the country was under the nominal rule of the Sultan of
Zanzibar, who stationed his officials at some of the places near the
coast and exercised a somewhat intermittent and uncertain authority over
the chiefs in the interior. By the treaty of 1890 the whole of the
mainland as far back as Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, between the
Rovuma on the south, and the Umba River on the north, was handed over to
Germany, while the protectorate over what remained of the Sultan’s
dominions (viz., the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba) was taken over by
the British Government.
It seems improbable that this immense territory can ever be colonised by
Germans in the same way in which Canada and Australia have been
colonised by ourselves. There are few if any parts where German peasants
and workmen could expect to live, labour, and bring up families. So far
as the country has been settled at all, it is on the plantation system:
European capitalists cultivating large tracts of land by means of native
labour. Some coffee plantations in Usambara are, we understand,
flourishing fairly well, though not producing wealth beyond the dreams
of avarice; but the system, if it is to be extended to the whole
territory, does not augur well for the future. It is not a healthy one
for employer or employed; it always tends in the direction of forced
labour and more or less disguised slavery; and, in the end, to the
creation of a miserable and degraded proletariat. Much more satisfactory
is the method to which Dr. Weule extends a somewhat qualified approval
(though there can be no doubt that it has his sympathies) of securing to
the native his own small holding and buying his produce from him, as has
been done, to some extent, with the best results, in our own Gold Coast
Colony. Dr. Weule remarks, somewhat naively, that a wholesale
immigration from Germany would be interfered with if the native “claimed
the best parts of his own country for himself.” But surely a _ver
sacrum_ of the kind contemplated is unthinkable in the case of East
Africa.
It is possible that the reader may be somewhat perplexed by Dr. Weule’s
estimate—or estimates—of the native character. The recurring
contradictions apparent in various parts of his book arise from the plan
on which it is written. In the original edition, the traveller’s
narrative takes the form of letters addressed to his wife and friends
from the successive stages of his journey. This form has been dispensed
with (beyond the dates at the head of each chapter) in translation,[1]
because the personal allusions, in a foreign dress, rather detract from
than add to the interest of the narrative, and all the more so, as they
are not, in a sense, genuine, but have been added, _après coup_, to
impart an air of verisimilitude to the letters. The latter, in fact,
were not written from the places at which they are dated, but were put
into shape after the author’s return to Europe, from notes made on the
spot, together with extracts from actual letters, not printed as a
whole. This material, in order not to sacrifice the freshness of first
impressions, has been used very much as it stood, and it will be noticed
that, in many cases, the observations made at different places correct
and qualify one another.
I am glad to find that Dr. Weule stands up for the native in respect of
the old accusation of laziness. He shows that the people of the Makonde
Plateau, at any rate, work pretty hard (in some points, as in their
water-carrying, unnecessarily hard) for a living. He also defends them
against the charge of improvidence, making it quite plain that they take
infinite pains in storing their seed-corn for next season, and that, if
they do not save more of their crops against a year of famine, instead
of making the surplus into beer, it is because they have, under present
circumstances, absolutely no means of keeping them. It is true that, in
one passage, he seems to depreciate the industry of native women, by
comparison with the work done by German maid-servants and farmers’
wives. But he forgets to make allowance for the difference of
climate—and, perhaps, one may be permitted to doubt whether any human
being really ought to work as hard as most German women do in town or
country.
On the whole, Dr. Weule is kindly disposed towards the native. He does
not seem entirely to have escaped the danger deprecated on p. 41—at
least it strikes one that some of the (doubtless not unmerited)
castigations bestowed in the course of his pages might have been
dispensed with by the exercise of a little more patience and tact; but
he remained throughout on the best of terms with his carriers, and
appears to have parted from Moritz, Kibwana and Omari, in spite of the
trials to which they had subjected him in the exercise of their several
functions, with no ill-feeling on either side. More than once he bears
testimony to the uniform good manners of the people whose villages he
visited, and to their homely virtues—their unfailing cheerfulness, their
family affection, and their respect for parents. At the same time, he
relates various incidents calculated to leave a less pleasant
impression, though it must be remembered that the proportion they bear
to the whole of native life is probably less than that borne by the
criminal cases reported in our newspapers to the daily life and conduct
of our population in general. Dr. Weule’s stay in Africa was surely long
enough for him to see that the Bantu native is not in general
bloodthirsty or ferocious; that, on the contrary, when not maddened by
terror or resentment, he is gentle, reasonable, and even somewhat
lacking in vindictiveness compared with other races. Yet, in the
scientific report on the expedition (a publication several times alluded
to in the course of the work before us) the author is, it seems to me,
guilty of a grave injustice.
The reader will note that, on his return to the coast (see pp. 27–9), he
spent some time in studying the records of the Criminal Court at Lindi,
though he does not here tell us anything about the results of his
examination. Now these records certainly afford valuable material for
the study of social conditions; but they should be used with
discrimination. Dr. Weule does not give what is of the very first
importance, the number of criminal cases and their proportion to the
population, especially as the serious cases, which are brought for trial
to Lindi, represent the whole of an extensive province. But he mentions
two atrocities as a proof of the ignorance shown by certain German
newspapers, which “during the last two years have thought it necessary
to insist, over and over again, on the noble traits in the negro
character,” and of the “predominance of low instincts in those sons of
untamed nature” who have “an innate disposition to violence.” One of the
cases in question was that of a woman who killed her own mother by a
blow with the pestle used for pounding corn. But it is hardly fair to
place this murder on the same footing as a crime committed out of mere
brutal passion: the woman’s children had died, and she believed her
mother to have caused their death by witchcraft. We know what horrible
cruelties this belief has induced people not otherwise depraved to
commit: an instance occurred only twelve or thirteen years ago, no
further off than Clonmel. The other case, which is certainly revolting
enough, was the revenge of a husband on a guilty wife. But both of them
together prove absolutely nothing without information which would enable
us to see whether they are to be regarded as exceptional, or as in any
sense typical. The other incident given by way of proving that violence
and brutality are “in the blood” of the native, is that of an
unfortunate woman who, unsuspiciously passing through the bush, fell in
with a band of _unyago_ boys, and was by them seized and put into a
slave-stick “out of mere mischief and enjoyment of violence.” The
comment on this is that, unless the woman had been a stranger from a
distance (who, under ordinary circumstances would not be very likely to
travel alone), she must have known that there was an _unyago_ in the
neighbourhood, that if she traversed the bush in that direction she
would do so at her peril, and that her trespassing on the forbidden
ground was an act of the grossest impropriety combined with sacrilege.
As for “delight in violence”—surely that, in one form or another, is an
inherent attribute of the “human boy” in every part of the world, above
all when he conceives himself to have a legitimate excuse?
The mention of the _unyago_ mysteries suggests a subject on which Dr.
Weule has obtained fuller information than any previous writer—at any
rate on this part of Africa. It is surprising that he should have been
able to secure so many photographs of the dances—especially those of the
women—but these only constitute the more public part of the ceremonial.
As to the instruction given to the younger generation, he does not seem
to have got beyond generalities except in the case of the two old men
who, when very drunk, began to dictate the actual formula in use, though
they did not get to the end of it. Whether any tribal traditions, any
myths, embodying the religious ideas of a far distant past, are handed
down along with such practical teaching about life as the elders are
able to give, does not appear—but from what we know about other tribes
it seems highly probable. Among the Anyanja (Wanyasa) of Lake Nyasa,
_e.g._, a story accounting for the origin of that lake is told. But
perhaps many of the Makonde and Makua traditions have by this time been
forgotten. It is evident that they have led a very unsettled life for
the past forty or fifty years, besides being decimated by the
slave-trade. (This circumstance, by the by, should always be remembered
in connection with Dr. Weule’s pictures of native life, which leave a
painfully squalid impression. I am far from wishing to idealize the
“state of nature”; but neither the Zulus, nor the Anyanja, nor the Yaos
of the Shire Highlands are so ignorant and careless of hygiene or so
neglectful of their babies as the poor women of Chingulungulu and Masasi
are represented by him to be.)
These “mysteries” are universal—or practically so—among the Bantu tribes
of Africa, and no doubt most others as well. Usually they are spoken of
as an unmixed evil, which Christian missionaries do all in their power
to combat, and some are not backward in calling out for the civil power
(in countries under British administration) to put them down. The
subject is a difficult and far-reaching one, and cannot adequately be
discussed here. My own conviction, which I only give for what it is
worth, is that it is a great mistake to interfere with an institution of
this sort, unless, perhaps, when the people themselves are ceasing to
believe in it, in which case there is danger of its becoming a mere
excuse for immorality. Otherwise, even the features which to our
feelings seem most revolting are entwined with beliefs rooted in a
conception of nature, which only the gradual advance of knowledge can
modify or overthrow. And we must remember that the problem which these
poor people have tried to solve in their own way is one which presses
hardly on civilized nations as well. Parents and teachers have
discovered the evil of keeping the young in ignorance, or leaving them
to discover for themselves the realities of life; but many of them
appear helplessly perplexed as to the best way of imparting that
instruction.
As regards missions, Dr. Weule has not very much to say, but I am sorry
to find that he cannot refrain from the cheap sneer about “Christianity
not suiting the native,” which seems to be fashionable in some quarters.
It seems to be a mere _obiter dictum_ on his part—perhaps unthinkingly
adopted from others—for he brings no arguments in support of his view,
beyond remarking that Islam suits the African much better, as it does
not interfere with his freedom. But some excuse may be found for those
who hold that view in the erroneous conceptions of Christianity which
have prompted various mistakes on the part of missionaries. It is quite
true that such or such a system of complicated doctrinal belief, the
product of long ages and a special environment, may not suit the
African. It is also true that, if Christianity means Europeanisation—if
it means that the African is to be made over into a bad imitation of an
Englishman or German—it is impossible that it should gain any real hold
on him. But it is no exaggeration to say that no people on earth are
more capable—many are not so capable—of appreciating and acting on the
spirit of the Gospel, of simple love and trust in the Eternal Goodness
and goodwill towards their fellow-men.
The question is a wide one, which cannot be fully discussed within these
limits. Missionaries have often made mistakes and acted injudiciously;
they have in some cases done serious harm, not from failure to act up to
their principles, but from error in those very principles and a fatal
fidelity to them. They may have interfered between chiefs and people,
and broken down customs better left alone, or may unwittingly have
encouraged the wrong sort of converts by welcoming all and sundry,
including fugitives from justice or people discontented with their home
surroundings for reasons quite unconnected with high spiritual
aspirations. Or again, they may incur blame for the deficiencies of
alleged converts who, after honouring the mission with their presence
for a time, depart (usually under a cloud) and victimise the first
European who can be induced to employ them.
But there is another side to the matter. A man—whether consciously a
follower of the Nietzschean doctrine or not—who thinks that “the lower
races” exist to supply him with labour on his own terms, is naturally
impatient of a religion which upholds the claims of the weak, and
recognizes the status of man as man. _Hinc illæ lacrymæ_, in a good many
cases. Honestly, I do not think this is Dr. Weule’s view. But I cannot
quite get rid of the suspicion that he was repeating what he had heard
from a planter, and that it was, in strict accuracy, the planter’s
convenience, and not the native, that Christianity failed to “suit.”
Anyone who has read a certain pamphlet by Dr. Oetker, or Herr von St.
Paul Illaire’s _Caveant Consules_, or Herr Woldemar Schütze’s _Schwarz
gegen Weiss_ will not think this remark too strong.
It would be deplorable, indeed, if those writers had to be taken as
typifying the spirit of German colonial administration in Africa, or
indeed anywhere else. But I do not think we have any right to suppose
that this is so. There has been, I think, too much militarism—and very
brutal militarism, in some cases—in that administration; but this is an
evil which appears to be diminishing. There is a tendency, perhaps, to
worry the native with over-minute government regulations, which, no
doubt, will as time goes on be corrected by experience. And there is no
lack of humane and able rulers who bring to their task the same
conscientious, patient labour which their countrymen have bestowed on
scientific research; who are trained for their posts with admirable care
and thoroughness, and grudge no amount of trouble to understand and do
justice to the people under their care. They shall in no wise lose their
reward.
A. WERNER.
[Illustration: CAPE GUARDAFUI]
Native Life in East Africa
CHAPTER I
OUTWARD BOUND
DAR ES SALAM, Whit-Sunday, 1906.
Six months ago it would not have entered my head in my wildest dreams
that I should spend my favourite festival, Whitsuntide, under the shade
of African palms. But it is the fact, nevertheless. I have now been two
days in the capital of German East Africa, a spot which may well
fascinate even older travellers than myself. Not that the scenery is
strikingly grand or majestic—on the contrary, lofty mountain-masses and
mighty rivers are conspicuous by their absence, and the wide expanse of
the open ocean contributes nothing directly to the picture, for Dar es
Salam lies inland and has no seaview worth mentioning. The charm of the
landscape lies rather in one of the happiest combinations of flashing
waters, bright foliage, and radiant sunshine that can be imagined.
The entrance to the harbour gives to the uninitiated no hint of the
beauty to come. A narrow channel, choked with coral reefs, and, by its
abrupt turns, making severe demands on the skill of the pilot, leads to
the central point of a shallow bay which seems to have no outlet.
Suddenly, however, the vessel glides past this central point into an
extraordinarily narrow channel, with steep green banks on either side,
which opens out, before the traveller has had time to recover from his
astonishment, into a wide, glittering expanse, covered with ships. That
is the famous bay of Dar es Salam. In presence of the obvious advantages
of this locality, one need not have lived for years in the country to
understand why the Germans should have been willing to give up the old
caravan emporium of Bagamoyo with its open roadstead for this splendid
harbour, and thus make the almost unknown native village of Dar es Salam
the principal place in the colony.[2]
[Illustration: DAR ES SALAM HARBOUR]
On the voyage out, I visited with much enjoyment both Mombasa and
Zanzibar, though unfortunately prevented by an accident (an injury to my
foot) from going ashore at the German port of Tanga. Of these two
English centres, Zanzibar represents the past, Mombasa the present, and
still more the future. It is true that Zanzibar has the advantage in its
situation on an island at a considerable distance from the mainland, an
advantage of which the mainland towns, however splendid their future
development, will never be able to deprive it, since their lines of
communication, both economic and intellectual, will always converge on
Zanzibar. But since the completion of the Uganda Railway, Mombasa forms
the real gateway to the interior, and will do so in an increasing
degree, as the economic development of Central Africa—now only in its
infancy—goes on. Whether our two great German railways—as yet only
projected—can ever recover the immense advantage gained by Mombasa, the
future will show. We must hope for the best.
[Illustration: NATIVE DANCE AT DAR ES SALAM]
Mombasa and Zanzibar interested me more from a historical than from a
political point of view. How little do our educated and even learned
circles know of the exploration and development, the varied political
fortunes of this corner of the earth on the western shore of the
Indian Ocean! Only specialists, indeed, can be expected to know that
this year is the jubilee of the French Admiral Guillain’s epoch-making
work, _Documents sur l’Histoire, la Géographie, et le Commerce de
l’Afrique Orientale_, but it is extremely distressing to find that our
countryman, Justus Strandes’ _Die Portugiesenzeit in Deutsch- und
Englisch-Ostafrika_ (1899) is not better known. Most of us think that
Eastern Equatorial Africa, considered as a field for colonization, is
as much virgin soil as Togo, Kamerun and German South-West Africa, or
the greater part of our possessions in the South Seas. How few of us
realise that, before us and before the English, the Arabs had, a
thousand years ago, shown the most brilliant capacity for gaining and
keeping colonies, and that after them the Portuguese, in connection
with and as a consequence of Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India round the
Cape of Good Hope in 1498, occupied an extensive strip of the long
coast, and maintained their hold on it for centuries? And yet these
events—these struggles for East Africa form one of the most
interesting chapters in the history of modern colonization. Here for
the first time the young European culture-element meets with an
Eastern opponent worthy of its steel. In fact that struggle for the
north-western shores of the Indian Ocean stands for nothing less than
the beginning of that far more serious struggle which the white race
has waged for the supremacy over the earth in general, and in which
they already seemed to be victorious, when, a few years ago, the
unexpected rise of Japan showed the fallacious nature of the belief so
long entertained, and perhaps also the opening of a new era.
[Illustration: STREET IN THE NATIVE QUARTER, DAR ES SALAM]
Anyone who does not travel merely for the sake of present impressions,
but is accustomed to see the past behind the phenomena of the moment,
and, like myself, leaves the area of European culture with the express
object of using his results to help in solving the great problem of
man’s intellectual evolution in all its details, will find in the voyage
to German East Africa a better opportunity for survey and retrospect
than in many other great routes of modern travel.
This is the case as soon as one has crossed the Alps. It is true that
even the very moderate speed of the Italian express gives one no chance
for anthropological studies. In order to observe the unmistakable
Teutonic strain in the population of Northern Italy, it would be
necessary to traverse the plain of Lombardy at one’s leisure. But
already in the Adige Valley, and still more as one advances through
Northern and Central Italy, the stratification of successive races seems
to me to be symbolized by the three strata of culture visible in the
fields: corn below, fruit-trees planted between it, and vines covering
them above. Just so the Lombards, Goths and other nations, superimposed
themselves on the ancient Italian and Etruscan stocks. On the long
journey from Modena to Naples, it is borne in upon one that the
Apennines are really the determining feature of the whole Italian
peninsula, and that the Romans were originally started on their career
of conquest by want of space in their own country. The only place which,
in May, 1906, produced an impression of spaciousness was the Bay of
Naples, of which we never had a clear view during our four or five days’
stay. A faint haze, caused by the volcanic dust remaining in the air
from the eruption of the previous month, veiled all the distances, while
the streets and houses, covered with a layer of ashes, appeared grey on
a grey background—a depressing and incongruous spectacle. The careless
indolence of the Neapolitans, which as a rule strikes the industrious
denizens of Central Europe as rather comical than offensive, requires
the clear sky and bright sunshine, celebrated by all travellers (but of
which we could see little or nothing), to set it off.
From our school-days we have been familiar with the fact that the
countries bordering the Mediterranean—the seats of ancient
civilisation—are now practically denuded of forests. Yet the landscape
of Southern Italy and Sicily seems to the traveller still more
unfamiliar than that of the northern and central districts; it is even
more treeless, and therefore sharper in contour than the Etruscan and
Roman Apennines and the Abruzzi. But the most striking feature to us
inhabitants of the North-German plain are the river-valleys opening into
the Strait of Messina, leading up by steep gradients into the interior
of the country. At this season they seem either to be quite dry or to
contain very little water, so that they are calculated to produce the
impression of broad highways. But how terrible must be the force with
which the mass of water collecting in the torrent-bed after heavy rains,
with no forest-soil to keep it back, rushes down these channels to the
sea! To the right and left of Reggio, opposite Messina, numbers of
sinuous ravines slope down to the coast, all piled high with débris and
crossed by bridges whose arches have the height and span of the loftiest
railway viaducts.
It is scarcely necessary to say anything about Port Said and the Suez
Canal. Entering the Red Sea, I entered at the same time a familiar
region—I might almost say, one which I have made peculiarly my own—it
having fallen to my share to write the monographs on the three oceans
included in Helmolt’s _Weltgeschichte_.[3] Of these monographs, that
dealing with the Atlantic seems, in the opinion of the general reader,
to be the most successful; but that on the Indian Ocean is undoubtedly
more interesting from the point of view of human history. In the first
place, this sea has this advantage over its eastern and western
neighbours, that its action on the races and peoples adjacent to it was
continued through a long period. The Pacific has historic peoples
(historic, that is to say, in the somewhat restricted and one-sided
sense in which we have hitherto used that term) on its north-western
margin, in eastern Asia; but the rest of its huge circumference has
remained dead and empty, historically speaking, almost up to the present
day. The Atlantic exactly reverses these conditions: its historical
density is limited to the north-eastern region, the west coast of
Africa, and the east coast of the Americas being (with the exception of
the United States) of the utmost insignificance from a historical point
of view.
Now the Indian Ocean formed the connecting link between these two
centres—the Mediterranean culture-circle in the west, and that of India
and Eastern Asia in the east,—at a time when both Atlantic and Pacific
were still empty and untraversed wastes of water. This, however, is
true, not of the whole Indian Ocean, but only as regards its northern
part, and in particular the two indentations running far inland in a
north-westerly direction, which we call the Red Sea and the Persian
Gulf. To-day, when we carry our railways across whole continents, and
even mountain ranges present no insuperable obstacles to our canals, we
imagine that masses of land as wide as the Isthmus of Suez or the much
greater extent of the “Syrian Porte”—the route between the Persian Gulf
and the Eastern Mediterranean—must have been absolute deterrents to the
sea-traffic of the ancients. In a sense, indeed, this was the case;
otherwise so many ancient rulers would not have attempted to anticipate
us in the construction of the Suez Canal. But where technical skill is
insufficient to overcome such impediments, and where at the same time
the demand for the treasures of the East is so enormous as it was in
classical and mediæval times, people adapt themselves to existing
conditions and make use of navigable water wherever it is to be found.
Only thus can be explained the uninterrupted navigation of the Red Sea
during a period of several thousand years, in spite of its dangerous
reefs and the prevailing winds, which are anything but favourable to
sailing vessels.
Only one period of repose—one might almost say, of enchanted sleep—has
fallen to the lot of the Red Sea. This was the time when Islam, just
awakened to the consciousness of its power, succeeded in laying its
heavy hand on the transition zone between West and East. With the
cutting of the Suez Canal, the last shadow of this ancient barrier has
disappeared, and the Red Sea and North Indian Ocean have regained at a
stroke, in fullest measure, their old place in the common life of
mankind.
The passengers on board our steamer, the _Prinzregent_, were chiefly
German and English; and at first a certain constraint was perceptible
between the members of the two nationalities, the latter of whom seemed
to be influenced by the dread and distrust expressed in numerous
publications of the last few years. Mr. William Le Queux’s _Invasion of
1910_ was the book most in demand in the ship’s library.
A more sociable state of things gradually came about during the latter
part of the voyage; and this largely through the agency of an
unpretending instrument forming part of my anthropological equipment.
One day, when we were nearing the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, partly in
order to relieve the tedium of the voyage, and partly in order to obtain
statistics of comparative strength, I produced my Collin’s dynamometer.
This is an oval piece of polished steel, small enough to be held flat in
the hand and compressed in a greater or less degree, according to the
amount of force expended, the pressure being registered by means of
cogged wheels acting on an index which in its turn moves a second index
on a dial-plate. On relaxing the pressure, the first index springs back
to its original position, while the second remains in the position it
has taken up and shows the weight in kilogrammes equivalent to the
pressure. The apparatus, really a medical one, is well adapted for
ascertaining the comparative strength of different races; but its more
immediate usefulness appears to lie in establishing cordial relations
between total strangers in the shortest possible time. On that
particular hot morning, I had scarcely begun testing my own strength,
when all the English male passengers gathered round me, scenting some
form of sport, which never fails to attract them, young or old. In the
subsequent peaceful rivalry between the two nations, I may remark that
our compatriots by no means came off worst; which may serve to show that
our German system of physical training is not so much to be despised as
has been recently suggested by many competent to judge, and by still
more who are not so competent.
In his general attitude on board ship, the present-day German does not,
so far as my observations go, contrast in the least unfavourably with
the more experienced voyagers of other nationalities. It is true that
almost every Englishman shows in his behaviour some trace of the
national assumption that the supremacy of the seas belongs to him by
right of birth. Our existence, however, is beginning to be
recognized—not out of any strong affection for “our German cousins,” but
as a simple matter of necessity. If, for comfort in travel, one must
have recourse to German ships; and when, at home and abroad, there is a
German merchant-fleet and a German navy to be reckoned with, the first
of which keeps up an assiduous competition, while the second is slowly
but steadily increasing, these things cannot fail to impress even the
less cultured members of the British nation. Only one thing is, and will
be for many years to come, calculated to make us ridiculous in the eyes
of Old England—and that is the Zanzibar Treaty. Never shall I forget the
looks of malicious triumph and the sarcastic condolences which greeted
us—the unfortunate contemporaries of the late Caprivi—when we came in
sight of Zanzibar. My friend Hiram Rhodes, of Liverpool, the
ever-smiling and universally popular, usually known as “the laughing
philosopher,” from his cheerful view of life, was not as a rule given to
sharp sayings, but with regard to the famous political transaction, I
distinctly remember to have heard him use the expression, “Children in
politics.” Caustic, but not undeserved! Another remark of his, after
viewing Dar es Salam: “That is the finest colony I have ever seen!”
served, it is true, as a touch of healing balm—but no amount of
conciliatory speeches will give us back Zanzibar!
[Illustration: MAP OF THE MAIN CARAVAN ROAD, WITH ITS PRINCIPAL
BRANCHES. DRAWN BY SABATELE, A MMAMBWE]
The object of the journey on which I have embarked may now be briefly
stated. Several decades since, and therefore before the beginning of our
colonial era, the Reichstag voted an annual grant of some 200,000 marks
for purposes of scientific research in Africa—purely in the interests of
knowledge and without any ulterior intentions from a narrowly
nationalist point of view. One might have expected that, after the
establishment of our settlements in Africa and the Pacific, this fund
would unhesitatingly have been devoted, wholly or in part, to the
systematic exploration and study of these colonies of ours. But this has
not been done, or only in a very uncertain and desultory manner—to the
great grief of German scientific circles, who, under these
circumstances, were forced to content themselves with the occasional
reports of civil and military officials supplemented by sporadic
research expeditions, official or private.
[Illustration: COURTYARD AT DAR ES SALAM—_Dolce far niente_]
It was not till the first Colonial Congress in 1902 that a more vigorous
agitation took place for the application of the African Fund on a large
scale to the systematic investigation of our dependencies. From
specialists in all branches of knowledge—geography and geology,
anthropology and ethnography, zoology and botany, linguistics,
comparative law, and the new science of comparative music—arose the same
cry, with the result that, three years later, at the second Colonial
Congress (October, 1905), we were in a position to state clearly the
most pressing problems and mark out the principal fields of research in
each subject. It might, however, have taken years to put the work in
hand, but for the “Committee for the Geographical Exploration of the
German Colonies,” and its energetic president, Dr. Hans Meyer, who
rescued the proceedings from their normal condition of endless
discussions, and translated them at one stroke into action. Dr. Jäger,
Herr Eduard Oehler, and myself are the living proofs of this (in our
country) unwonted rapidity of decision, being selected to carry out the
instructions of the Committee (which is affiliated to the Colonial
Office) and help to realise the long-cherished dream of German science.
The task of the two gentlemen I have mentioned is purely geographical,
consisting in the examination of the interesting volcanic area situated
between Kilimanjaro and the Victoria Nyanza, while I am commissioned to
bring some order into the chaos of our knowledge concerning the tribes
who occupy approximately the same region. It must be remembered that the
country surrounding Lakes Manyara and Eyasi, and extending to a
considerable distance south of them, swarms with tribes and peoples who,
in spite of the fact that our acquaintance with them dates more than
twenty years back, still present a variety of ethnological problems.
Among these tribes are the Wasandawi, whose language is known to contain
clicks like those of the Hottentots and Bushmen, and who are conjectured
to be the forgotten remnant of a primæval race going back to prehistoric
ages. The Wanege and Wakindiga, nomadic tribes in the vicinity of Lake
Eyasi, are said to be akin to them. In the whole mass of African
literature, a considerable part of which I have examined during my
twenty years’ study of this continent, the most amusing thing I ever
came across is the fact that our whole knowledge up to date of these
Wakindiga actually results from the accident that Captain Werther had a
field-glass in his hand at a given moment. This brilliant traveller, who
traversed the district in question twice (in 1893 and 1896), heard of
the existence of these people, but all that he saw of them was a distant
telescopic view of a few huts. As yet we know no more of them than their
bare name, conscientiously entered in every colonial or ethnological
publication that makes its appearance.
Another group of as yet insufficiently-defined tribes is represented by
the Wafiomi, Wairaku, Wawasi, Wamburu and Waburunge. All these are
suspected of being Hamites, and some of them have evolved remarkable
culture-conditions of their own. But, under the onrush of new
developments, they are in danger of losing their distinctive character
still more rapidly than other African peoples, and, if only for this
reason, systematic observations are needed before it is too late. The
same may be said of the Wataturu or Tatoga, who are undoubtedly to be
looked on as the remnant of a formerly numerous population. They are
said to speak a language related to Somali, but now live scattered over
so wide a territory that the danger of their being effaced by absorption
in other races is, if possible, still greater than in the case of the
others. The last of the tribes which specially concern me are the
Wanyaturu, Wairangi and Wambugwe. All of these belong to the great Bantu
group, but have, in consequence of their isolation, preserved certain
peculiarities of culture so faithfully that they too will be well worth
a visit.
[Illustration: IN THE EUROPEAN QUARTER, DAR ES SALAM]
With regard to the original home of the African race, this is a question
to which ethnologists have not hitherto devoted very much attention. The
Hamites, who occupy the north-eastern corner of the continent, are
supposed by all writers without exception to have come from Asia across
the Red Sea. Most authorities have been content with comparatively short
periods in estimating the date of this migration—indeed, the most recent
work on the subject, Captain Merker’s book on the Masai (whom, by the
bye, he claims as Semites) asserts that both date and route can be
accurately calculated, and places the former about 5,000 years ago.
Not only for these, moreover, but also for the great mass of the
population of Africa, the Sudanese and Bantu negroes, an original home
outside the continent is very generally assumed; and both these groups
are supposed to have penetrated to their present abodes from Asia,
either by way of the Isthmus of Suez, or across the Straits of Bab el
Mandeb.
This theory I had the pleasure of combating some years ago. There is
absolutely nothing to show that the ancestors of the present negro race
ever lived elsewhere than in the region which, in the main, they occupy
to-day. No branch of this large group can be shown to have possessed any
nautical skill worth mentioning; and none has ever ventured far out to
sea.
It may be said that no great knowledge of navigation was needed for
crossing the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, even if the migration did not take
place by way of the Isthmus. The problem, however, is by no means to be
solved in this simple fashion. Modern anthropology demands for human
evolution periods as long as for that of the higher animals. Diluvial
Man has long since been recognized by our most rigid orthodoxy; and
people would have to get used to Tertiary Man, even if the necessities
of the case did not make him an indispensable postulate. As the youth of
mankind recedes into early geological periods, the problem of
race-development is seen to require for its solution not merely
measurements of skull and skeleton, but the vigorous cooperation of
palæontology and historical geology. So far as I can judge, the sciences
in question will probably end by agreeing on three primitive races, the
white, black and yellow, each having its centre of development on one of
the old primitive continents. Such a continent in fact existed through
long geological ages in the Southern Hemisphere. A large fragment of it
is represented by modern Africa, smaller ones by Australia and the
archipelagoes of Indonesia and Papua. The distribution of the black race
from Senegambia in the west to Fiji in the east is thus explained in a
way that seems ridiculously easy.
To account for the great groups of _mixed races_, too, we must for the
future, in my opinion, have recourse to the geological changes of the
earth’s surface. Whence do we derive the Hamites? and what, after all,
do we understand by this term, which, curiously enough, denotes a zone
of peoples exactly filling up the geographical gap between the white and
black races? Furthermore, how are we to explain the so-called
Ural-Altaic race, that mass of peoples so difficult to define, occupying
the space between the primitive Mongol element in the East and the
Caucasian in the West? Does not, here too, the thought suggest itself
that the impulse to the development of both groups—the North African as
well as the North Asiatic—came from a long-continued contact between the
ancient primitive races which, according to the position of affairs,
_i.e._, judging by the geological changes which have taken place, both
in the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean, and in the east of
Northern Europe—was only rendered possible by the junction of the old
continents formerly separated by seas? In fact the land connection in
both these places is, geologically speaking, very recent.
To come back from dreary theory to cheerful reality, I may mention that
I have taken a few successful photographs of Cape Guardafui. From the
north this promontory does not look very imposing. The coast seems quite
near, but in reality we are five or six miles away from it, and at this
distance the cliffs, though nearly a thousand feet high, are reduced to
insignificance.
The view from the south is more impressive. Here, on our right, the
mountains rise in an almost vertical wall to a height of some 3,000
feet, and often look still higher, when their summits are lost in a
compact stratum of cloud. Yet the eye always turns back again and again
to the Cape itself. It does not indeed appear more lofty than it did
from the north, but from this side it presents, even to the least
imaginative observer, the shape known to all travellers as the “Sleeping
Lion.” I am not in general particularly impressed by the fancied
resemblances which as a rule give rise to the bestowal of similar
appellations, but here I was struck by the absolute verisimilitude of
this piece of natural sculpture. The mighty maned head lies low,
seemingly resting on the dark blue line of the Indian Ocean, the right
fore-paw drawn up close to it. But the royal beast’s eyes are closed,
and what a splendid piece of symbolism is thus lost to us! As it is, the
image presented to-day is a somewhat tame one. In old times, while the
lion was awake, he watched over the busy maritime traffic which the
later period of antiquity and the early Middle Ages kept up before his
eyes, when Phœnicians, Himyarites, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Persians
sailed eastward and southward, and the mediæval Chinese advanced from
the east as far as the Gulf of Aden, and even into the Red Sea. That was
a time when it was worth while to keep awake. Then came Islam and the
rule of the Turk—and, still later, the circumnavigation of the Cape
rendered the Egyptian and Syrian overland routes useless. The Red Sea
and the Persian Gulf sank into a stagnation that lasted for
centuries—and the Lion grew weary and fell asleep.
Even the enormous traffic brought by the opening of the Suez Canal has
not been sufficient to wake him; the world is ruled by _vis inertiæ_,
and a scant forty years is all too short a time for the sounds of life
to have penetrated his slumbers. For that, other means will be required.
There is an Italian captain on board, a splendid figure of a man, but
suffering sadly from the effects of spear-wounds received from the
Abyssinians at Adowa. I asked him the other day why his Government had
not placed a lighthouse on Cape Guardafui, which, as rulers of the
country they were surely bound to do. He acknowledged that this was so,
but pointed out that the attempt to carry out any such project would
involve a difficult and expensive campaign against the Somali, who would
by no means tamely submit to lose the profits of their trade as
wreckers.
No doubt the captain was right, but Italy cannot in the long run refuse
to comply with the international obligation of erecting a lighthouse on
this exposed spot, where even now may be seen the melancholy black hull
of a French steamer, which, coming up the coast on a dark night, took
the westerly turn too soon. But from the moment when this lighthouse
throws its rays for the first time over the waves of the Indian Ocean,
the Lion will awake, and feel that his time has come once more.
The monsoon is a welcome change, after the enervating atmosphere of the
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, but for any length of time its monotony
becomes tedious. Hence the loud rejoicing of passengers on sighting
Mombasa and Zanzibar and the speed with which they rush on shore at
those ports. At Dar es Salam the first freshness has worn off a little,
but the traveller nevertheless sets foot on dry land with an indefinable
feeling of relief.
[Illustration: LINDI BAY]