ACHIEVEMENT
MAHUTA, November 8, 1906.
Now for the dessert to my feast of research. If all its components have
not been equally appetising, yet several of the courses have been
good—some of them, indeed, very good—and there have been many dainty
tit-bits; while the dessert is quite in character with the whole:—no
further tax on the digestive powers, but a pleasant, gradual transition
to the after-dinner cigar, the coffee and bitters. Thus has Mahuta, so
far, appeared to me.
How ceremonious, to begin with, was our reception! It is true that all
Africans have the finest manners, whether they have already assumed the
white _kanzu_ of the Coast men, or walk about in the scanty loincloth of
primitive man. It has always been a matter of course, at every place I
have visited in this country, for the elders of the village to come out
to meet me and pay their respects. But Abdallah bin Malim, Wali of
Mahuta, surpasses them all in the accurate formality with which he
greeted me. It is not for nothing that he holds the highest position in
this district; and we were disposed to feel ashamed of our stained and
shabby khaki suits, and our generally dusty and dilapidated condition,
when the Wali, dressed in the long, black, embroidered coat of the Coast
Arab, and carrying a silver-mounted sword in his hand, met us long
before we reached Mahuta.
Our quarters, too, looked very promising. Having squeezed ourselves into
the _boma_ through an incredibly narrow gap in the palisade, we were
struck with admiration. The enclosure is nearly twice the size of all
others we have seen; and a wide avenue of rubber-trees and Mauritius
aloes runs across it from one gate to the other. The dwellings are
placed in orderly arrangement on either side of this avenue. The sight
of the solidly-built rest-house made it easy for me to dispense with the
Professor’s house out by the ravine. Before long our tents had been
pitched in the open space, while the carriers and soldiers distributed
themselves, according to custom, among the various huts and rooms of the
people inhabiting the _boma_. We were scarcely settled when Abdallah
thought fit to call on us. Being still in his festive garments, he
seemed to feel justified in claiming Knudsen’s long chair for himself. I
was busy bathing my left foot, which I sprained on board the
_Prinzregent_, and which has given me an immense amount of pain and
discomfort throughout the last few months. Abdallah’s voice was loud and
not melodious; he talked unceasingly, and expectorated all over the
place with a freedom and marksmanship which might have been envied by
the proverbial Yankee. Notwithstanding my ingrained respect for
government officials, regardless of colour, I was compelled at last, in
the interests of self-preservation, to get Knudsen to call the Wali’s
attention to the unseemliness of his behaviour;—why, not even the
_washenzi_—the pagans of the bush—would do thus in the presence of the
_Bwana Mkubwa_. The hint took immediate effect.
[Illustration: THE WALI OF MAHUTA]
It is now eight a.m., the sun is already tolerably high—at this season
it is quite vertical over Mahuta at noon—and the two Europeans are
enjoying the delicious morning air. The air of Mahuta would make it an
admirable health-resort, no troublesome heat or uncomfortable cold, no
mist and no gale, but excellent drinking-water hard by at the edge of
the plateau, a clean _baraza_ and plenty of fowls—what can heart desire
more? We are just enjoying our morning cigars, when we hear a strange
noise. Is it distant thunder? or are the Makonde making war on us?
Nearer and nearer it comes, and as the rolling, rhythmic sound grows
louder, we begin to perceive that it is approaching from several
different directions at once, from the east, the west, and seemingly
from the north as well. We soon recognise it as the sound of drums
mingled with singing. Coming out from under the roof and between the
tents, we see the people already pouring in through the narrow gates in
an apparently endless procession.
Already the black masses have met in the midst of the spacious _boma_,
but fresh throngs are streaming in from both sides; the avenue is
full,—the black, surging sea spreads out beyond it into the lateral
enclosures, the drums thunder, the voices screech, _luluta_, and
sing,—coloured flags, looking more like flowered handkerchiefs than
anything else, float from long poles above the heads of the crowd, and
the whole is over-arched by the sky with its radiant sunshine and
innumerable flocks of fleecy cloudlets. The picture is certainly unique
of its kind, and well-fitted in its wild beauty to tempt the brush of a
Breughel.
I cannot paint, but what is the good of having some thirty dark slides,
well provided with plates? But, then, which way is one to turn in this
superabundance of subjects? Here is an enormous circle of men, women,
and children; six mighty drums are thundering away at a frantic pace,
and in perfect time, as if moved by some invisible force; the whole vast
assembly move arms and legs, mouths and hands as one person. Outside
this huge ring is another circle of slender young girls just budding
into womanhood. Their _ntungululu_ vibrates through the air in shrillest
treble, while their palms, raised high in the air, clap in time with the
evolutions of the other performers. “Oh! I see,—the _likwata_”—the stock
of human ideas is very limited, after all. Turning away in
disappointment, we see in the background, occupying half of one side of
the _boma_, two lines of sharpshooters, exercising under fire, in a
truly African way. The native scorns to take cover, he is a fatalist—if
he is hit, well—_Inshallah!_ This is brought out very strikingly in the
_majimaji_ dance, the mimic representation of the late insurrection. The
black attacking line charges at a run, regardless of even the uncanny
“rack-rack” of the “_Boom-boom_”—those infernal machines out of which
the Wadachi—the accursed Germans—can fire a thousand bullets a minute.
In vain—not even the strong _dawa_ of Hongo, the great war-doctor, can
protect them from destruction. The enemy is already surging up—how can
the _majimaji_ stand against him? Instinctively the whole line falls
back before the sharp bayonets of the _askari_, as far as the dimensions
of the “battle-field” will permit, and then, howling their war-song,
they charge again. This goes on for hours.
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD]
I have done what I can with camera and cinematograph, and now my stock
of plates is exhausted, and so am I. Meanwhile the sun has climbed to
the zenith;—five hundred natives are standing and lounging about, tired,
hungry and thirsty, under the shadeless rubber-trees, while we, for our
part, are called by the cooks to soup, chicken and omelette with
bananas.
Abdallah meant well in summoning this enormous host of natives, but from
the first I saw that it was useless to have so many at once. After a
time the _wali_, too, understood this, and sent once more for the
village headmen from far and near, addressing them somewhat as
follows:—“To-morrow morning you, Nyamba”—or as the case might be—“are to
come at eight and bring the people of your village, and they are to
bring _midimu_ and _mitete_ (dancing-masks and snuff-boxes) as many as
they have, and all the other things that you use in the house and in the
_shamba_ and in the bush,—for the white man likes these things and will
pay you for them in pice and rupees. And the day after to-morrow,”—he
turns to the next man, “you must come with your people and bring all the
things I have just told you.” The headman, to show that he has
understood, salutes with his hand to his cap, the next one follows, and
so on in order.
The new plan is a complete success. In the morning I have time to
photograph the people individually, to take cinematograph films of
dances and games, make photographic records, and so on. The middle of
the day is spent in studying the endless variety of keloid patterns in
vogue among the population here, and the afternoon devoted to bargaining
with the men for their household and other implements, ornaments,
weapons, etc.
[Illustration: TWO-STORIED HOUSES AT NCHICHIRA ON THE ROVUMA]
[Illustration: MAKONDE GIRL WITH LIP PIERCED FOR _PELELE_ AND ULCERATED]
And the women! Closely huddled together, their heads all, as if in
obedience to one impulse, inclined forward and downward, a band of
thirty or forty Makonde women stand in a corner of the _boma_ at Mahuta.
Up to a moment ago they were chattering for all they were worth—then the
strange white man in the yellow coat came up, and all were immediately
quiet as mice, only the twenty or thirty babies on their backs
continuing to snore or yell, according to circumstances, as before. I
have long since found the right way to deal with women—at the first
small joke the shyness takes its departure, heads are raised and the
right frame of mind is easily produced. It is, indeed, highly necessary
to produce this result by some means; there is so much to examine in
these heads and bodies. Only the laughter going on all round them
induces each to let the white man look at her closely, perhaps even
touch her. Soon, however, the rumour spreads, that the stranger is a man
of wealth—of inexhaustible riches—he has whole sacks and cases full of
pice, and his servant has orders to pay over bright coin to every native
woman who does what he asks her. Friends and acquaintances from other
villages have said so, and surely it must be true. My experience up to
this point had shown me so much in the way of queer manifestations of
human vanity, that I thought there could be no more surprises in store
for me. But I was mistaken—fresh wonders awaited me in the depths of the
Makonde bush. In truth, it seems to me a miracle that these tender lips
can sustain such huge masses of heavy wood, a hand-breadth in diameter
and three fingers thick. The wood is daily whitened with
carefully-washed _kaolin_. The process by which the hole in the lip is
gradually brought to this enormous size has already been described. The
initial operation is performed by the girl’s maternal uncle. Her mother
sees that the hole is kept open and enlarged, and the day when the first
solid plug is inserted is kept as a family festival. The husband cuts a
new _pelele_ for his wife when required, each a size larger than the
last, and every time he has occasion to go to the bush he brings some of
the fine white clay she uses for bleaching the wood. The young woman
before me has a good husband, as her name Ngukimachi implies, signifying
that she has no need to deceive him as other wives do theirs. But he
knows, too, how well she looks in her _pelele_—it stands straight out, a
pleasure to see, and when she laughs, her teeth flash out magnificently
behind it. How ugly compared with her are those old women yonder! They
have lost their teeth, and when with one trembling hand they carry the
lump of porridge, taken from the heap before them, to their mouths, it
is dreadful to see the food vanish into a dark cavern, when the other
hand has carefully lifted up the _pelele_.
The next two women are greatly to be pitied. Both are young, one a girl,
the other a young wife, but they are always sad, and well they may be,
for the adornment of the _pelele_ is denied them. No matter how much
_dawa_ their mothers and uncles have put on their lips, the wound has
only become worse. In the elder, the front of the lip is quite eaten
away by the ulceration, so that, with her large white teeth showing
through in the middle, her mouth is like that of Sungura, the hare.
Their looks are not improved, and even the white man, with his big box
of medicines, can do nothing to cure them. No wonder they are sad.
[Illustration: PSEUDO-SURGERY. MAKONDE WOMAN WITH TORN LIP ARTIFICIALLY
JOINED]
Alitengiri, too, yonder, looks serious. Death has been a frequent
visitor to her house of late; indeed, she has lost so many of her
relations that her _shamba_ cannot be cultivated. She used to be very
lively, and chattered away so quickly that the eye could scarcely follow
the motion of her _pelele_, which was a very fine one, so large that her
lip could scarcely support it. Now she looks greatly changed—is she ill?
or has the _pelele_ shrunk? But that is impossible. Let us ask what is
the matter. She does not answer—not a word can be got out of her. But I
soon observe what is wrong; her lip must have given way and she has
mended it,—I had already noticed the strip of blue stuff pasted over
it—and now she dare not speak or laugh, for fear of opening the wound
afresh.
There is no doubt that the largest _peleles_ to be found in the whole
southern territory are those worn by the women of Mahuta and its
neighbourhood. Blocks of seven and seven and a half centimetres in
diameter and three to five centimetres in thickness are not uncommon.
With the black or white discs, the size of half-a-crown, worn in the
lobes of the ears which are stretched in a similar manner to the lip,
this gleaming white ornament makes up a triad of decorations which as a
whole is surely unique. They are not enough, however, for the Makonde
woman,—her face and the greater part of her body are covered with
_keloids_, which, at first sight, seem to present an astonishing variety
of patterns. On examination, however, their component elements prove to
be surprisingly few. The present-day native gives to these elements such
names as _thitopole_ (“a pigeon-trap”), _chikorombwe_ (“a
fish-spear”),[68] _ceka_, etc. The first of these patterns is a curve,
which might stand for the bent twig of a pigeon-trap; the _chikorombwe_
is more like a fir-tree; the _teka_ is a _chitopole_ with a central
axis. Whether these patterns have any real relation to the bird-trap or
the fish-spear, I cannot say, for the natives do not know; but one thing
is certain, none of them can nowadays be considered as a genuine tribal
mark. The novice is inclined to look on them as such, till taught
better, as I was in a most compendious way by old Makachu. This
venerable man is covered all over with the same sort of pattern as those
displayed by the women, though some of his are much the worse for wear.
I asked him why he was thus decorated, expecting to receive a long
dissertation on tribal marks and similar institutions, and was somewhat
taken aback when he merely said “_Ninapenda_”—(“Because I like it so”).
[Illustration: MAKONDE KELOIDS]
This, in fact, seems to be the sole reason for the _keloid_ decoration
being applied at all, as well as for the choice of pattern in each
individual case. At Newala, at Nchichira, and now, at Mahuta, I have
photographed, or at least inspected several hundred persons with the
result, so far as I can come to any conclusion at present, that it is
impossible to discover from any of the patterns the nationality of the
wearer. Each of these figures has been chosen on the same principle of
“_ninapenda_.”
[Illustration: MATAMBWE AND MAKUA WOMAN, WITH KELOIDS]
It is not to be denied that there are fashions even in this form of
ornament. A new pattern is introduced from somewhere,—it finds
acceptance, first with one mother, then with another, and so quickly
spreads through a whole generation, who, of course, have to wear it
through life, so that, in fact, it might be considered a sort of badge.
Perhaps in former times the tribes in this part of the country placed a
higher value on the art; but it is no longer possible to prove that this
was so, and, in fact, the custom seems to be passing away under modern
influences. It is a great amusement, not only to myself, but to the
other parties concerned, when I suddenly ask a man or youth to take off
his shirt and show me his _torso_. Elderly men have a perfect menagerie
of antelopes, snakes, frogs, tortoises and other creatures, together
with _chikorombwe_, _chitopole_ and _teka_ adorning their broad chests,
while the rising generation can show little or nothing. The latter no
longer think the fashion “good form”; they have their eye on the coast
and its civilization, and if they scarify themselves at all, are content
with the two vertical cuts on the temples in vogue among the Swahili.
The Yaos and the Wangoni of Nchichira have already pretty generally
adopted these cuts, and other tribes will go on doing so in an
increasing degree, year by year.
[Illustration: MAKUA WOMAN WITH KELOIDS ON BACK]
The patterns are cut by a professional—a _fundi_, who makes numerous
small incisions, rubs in some sort of powder, and cuts the same place
again and again till the skin heals in a raised scar.
It is essential that the director of an ethnographical museum should be
a good man of business, even in Europe; but the same man, if he would
collect successfully in Africa, must be more acute, patient, and
unscrupulous in bargaining than any Armenian. I have already had
occasion to mention the unexpected difficulties met with in this
direction, and need not, therefore, express my feelings now, but the
Makonde are certainly not disposed to make my task an easy one. The
black crowd is moving up in close order.
“Well, what have you got?” asks the collector affably enough. By way of
answer a worn-out wooden spoon is put into his hand, probably fished out
of the rubbish-heap, as being quite good enough for the _mzungu_.
“_Mshenzi!_—you heathen! You may just take your treasure back again. Let
me see what else you have. Where is your mask?”
“I have none, sir?”
“Oh! indeed—then I will give you time to look for it. Come back
to-morrow, and mind you bring your _mdimu_, and don’t forget your
snuff-boxes.”
[Illustration: MAKUA WOMEN WITH KELOIDS]
This scene would be repeated a dozen times or more in the course of an
afternoon; in some cases the penitential pilgrimage was efficacious, in
others the men never turned up again. Since noticing this we have
adopted a different procedure, and now simply render the village headman
responsible for the production of the articles. This makes matters quite
easy, and every evening, Knudsen, the boys, and the more intelligent of
the carriers have their hands full making the inventory and packing the
day’s purchases.
This country well repays the collector, though East Africa is considered
a rather dull ethnographical area compared with the Congo basin, North
Kamerun, and some other parts of West Africa. It is true that one must
not be very exacting as to the artistic quality of weapons and
implements produced by these tribes. I was all the more surprised to
find among the specimens of wood-carving, collected in my district, some
veritable little gems. The dancing-masks are for the most part mere
conventional representations of human faces (those of women being
distinguished by the _pelele_ and ear-ornaments), or of animal heads. A
few specimens in my collection are supposed to be portraits of
celebrities—some heroes of the late insurrection, a young girl famous
for her beauty, and sundry others, but on the whole, it cannot be denied
that they are very roughly executed. Of a somewhat higher type are the
statues of the Ancestress alluded to in a previous chapter. They leave,
it is true, a great deal to be desired on the score of anatomical
knowledge and harmony of proportions, but, on the other hand, some of
these figures are, so far as I know, the only ones from Africa in which
the feet have been worked out in detail.
[Illustration: MAKONDE WOMEN WITH ELABORATE KELOIDS]
But it is above all the _mitete_, the little wooden boxes in which the
people keep their snuff, their medicines, and sometimes their
gunpowder—which show real taste and a style and execution which can pass
muster even from our point of view. The ornamentation which the elder
generation of men carry about on their skins in the form of _keloids_ is
applied to the lids of these boxes. Some of them take the shape of heads
of animals: various kinds of monkeys, the gnu, the bush-buck, and other
antelopes, but oftenest the _litotwe_. This is a creature of all others
likely to catch the artist’s eye and tempt him to reproduce it. It is a
large rat, about the size of a rabbit, and with a head which, by its
shape, suggests that of the elephant, or at least the ant-eater, the
snout terminating in a long delicate proboscis. At Chingulungulu Salim
Matola caught one of these creatures for me, but it escaped before I had
time to sketch more than its head.
[Illustration: AFRICAN ART. CARVED POWDER, SNUFF AND CHARM-BOXES FROM
THE MAKONDE HIGHLANDS]
[Illustration: MAKONDE MAN WITH KELOID PATTERNS]
Human heads, too, are found among these carvings, and are executed with
the same skill in technique. Most of them have the hair dressed in a
long pig-tail, and the face still more cicatrized than the Makonde;
these, I learn, represent members of the Mavia tribe. I cannot discover
whether they are the work of local artists, or of the Mavia themselves.
The vendors either give no answer at all when asked or say, as all
natives do when ignorant of the origin of an article, “_mshenzi_,” that
is to say, “some unknown person away at the back of the bush.” However,
this does not affect our critical judgment.
In the practice of one kind of art the Makonde seem to be deficient. As
has been my custom elsewhere, I occupy all my spare time in long walks,
in order to observe the natives in their own homes. This, however, is
not so easy as it was in other places. I think it would be possible to
walk over the whole Makonde plateau without finding a single settlement,
so closely are the little hamlets hidden away in the bush. But we have
here an ideal guide, Ningachi, the teacher, whose name means, “What do
you think?” Ningachi is a very decent, honest man, but thinking, in
spite of his name, does not appear to be his strong point. Indeed, he
has but little time for thought, being my courier and interpreter, and
in that capacity kept busy from morning to night. He has even made
himself useful by walking enormous distances to fetch plump young fowls
for our table.
[Illustration: YAO WOMEN WITH KELOIDS]
Under Ningachi’s guidance we inspected more than one Makonde village.
They are picturesque—not even envy can gainsay that; but not one of the
wretched, airy, round huts, in which the generations of these people
dream away their dim lives is comfortable even according to the modest
standard of the native. They are not even plastered with clay, in the
usual fashion, and this of itself makes fresco decoration impossible. In
one sense this fact is a relief to me, when I think of the miles I have
tramped at other times, on hearing of beautifully painted houses in such
or such a village. Painted they were, but the beauty was a matter of
taste. We do not admire the scrawls of our children, and just
such—clumsy, rudimentary, utterly devoid of perspective—are these
beginnings of native art. In fact, wherever artistically untrained man
gives way to the universal instinct of scribbling over all accessible
surfaces, whether blank walls or smooth rocks, the result is very much
the same, whether produced by the European tramp or street-boy, or by my
Wangoni and Makua.
The mention of sketch-books suggests what will probably be my most
enduring monument in this country—if, indeed, the people here in the
south, or even my own men, preserve any recollection whatever of the
_Bwana picha_ (the man who takes photographs), once the expedition is
over. If they do so, I feel it will not be my unpronounceable name (my
Wanyamwezi once, and only once, succeeded in saying “Weure,” and on that
occasion laughed so consumedly, that I gave up all further attempts to
accustom them to this uncouth word), nor my title (_Bwana Pufesa_ = Herr
Professor) nor the magical character of my machines, which will keep my
memory green, but the many books of thick white paper in which they were
allowed to scribble to their heart’s content.
[Illustration: THE LITOTWE]
It was at Lindi that this artistic activity on the part of my native
friends first manifested itself in all its intensity. Barnabas
especially was indefatigable; every day, proud and yet anxious as to my
judgment, he brought me fresh masterpieces, only one of which is
reproduced in these pages, the herd of elephants on p. 190, but this
alone is quite sufficient to characterize the artist. Can we deny him a
certain power of perception? and is not the technique quite up to date?
It is true that the animals, taken separately, have with their short
legs a somewhat unfortunate likeness to the domestic pig, while their
heads suggest the chameleon; the upper line of the trunk is seen in
three of them behind the left tusk; and the _mtoto_, the baby elephant
on the right of the picture, has no body, leaving off just behind its
ears. But, nevertheless, the man not only knows something about
perspective, but knows how to apply it, and that by no means badly.
With all his artistic virtues, Barnabas has one failing. He is no
_mshenzi_, no raw unlettered savage of the bush, but an educated, even a
learned man. By birth a Makua, from a distant part of the interior, he
has passed all the examinations in the Government school at Lindi, and
now attends to the stamping of letters and the weighing of parcels in
the little post-office of that town. In his spare time he writes for the
Swahili paper _Kiongozi_, published at Tanga.
Barnabas, therefore, cannot be considered as a representative of
primitive art. But not one of those who have produced my other
specimens, whether carriers, soldiers or savages from the interior, has
ever had pencil and paper in hand before.
[Illustration: “BWANA PUFESA” (THE PROFESSOR). FROM A DRAWING BY ONE OF
MY ESCORT]
Marine subjects appear to be in high favour. My _askari_ Stamburi
(Stambuli, _i.e._, Constantinople) is a smart soldier while on duty, off
duty a Don Juan; and now he shows himself possessed of an unsuspected
gift for marine and animal painting. He is a landsman, born far inland
on the Upper Rovuma and has therefore succeeded better in depicting the
adventure of the Matambwe fisherman (p. 347) than he has with the Arab
_dau_ (p. 25). The latter is, indeed, drawn accurately enough; it has
just anchored; the sail is bent to the yard; both flag and rudder are
shown. We have in addition three paddles, floating above in the clouds.
These are intended, so the draughtsman tells me, for use if a calm comes
on. But what is that amidships? Has the vessel sprung a leak, or,
indeed, two? No—they are the two hatchways. Stamburi knows that such
openings exist on the ship and therefore it is his duty as an artist to
put them in. Having no knowledge of perspective, he simply turns them
round through an angle of ninety degrees, so as to bring them into full
view from the side. Genius recognizes no limitations.
[Illustration: WANGONI WOMEN AT NCHICHIRA]
[Illustration: TWO NATIVES. DRAWN BY PESA MBILI]
The Matambwe fisherman in the other picture has just anchored his boat
at the bend of the river, and then cast his line with the uncouth iron
hook. A few minutes after, he feels a jerk,—then, a mighty pull—a broad,
round object swings through the air and lies on the grass. The fisherman
is just letting the line run deliberately through his hand to draw the
booty up to him, when some monster, probably of unearthly origin, dashes
at his fine, large turtle. It is only a common snake, after all, though
an unusually large one, and the old man is not going to give up his
spoil so tamely, but is holding on to the line for all he is worth.
Most of these drawings represent incidents actually witnessed by the
artist, and the figures, whether of men or animals, are intended for
portraits of real individuals. Some, however, are purely _genre_
pictures, such as the woman pounding at the mortar under the eaves of
her hut (p. 165), and the mother with the baby on her hip (p. 345),
which are typical figures from everyday life, with no attempt at
portraiture. So, too, the two natives drawn by Pesa mbili are not
intended for anyone in particular. The fact is that, on the day when
this was executed, at Mahuta (October 21st), I had been chiefly occupied
with the study of keloids, and a number of men had been induced to
remove their garments and submit to my inspection. This stimulated the
headman, who was more intelligent than most of his companions, to
attempt the reproduction of two such figures.
The majority of the other drawings, not only represent actual incidents,
but are derived from the artist’s personal experience. The drawing of
the s.s. _Rufiji_ (p. 18), done from memory, far inland, by the Swahili
Bakari, has a huge shark in the foreground, because it is a reminiscence
of a voyage in that vessel, when he saw that particular shark at a
certain place which, no doubt, he could point out with unerring
accuracy. When the carrier, Juma, brought me his “Monkeys breaking into
a plantation” (p. 168), he accompanied it with this explanation—“But,
_Bwana Mkubwa_, that is my _shamba_, and I threw stones at the monkeys,
and drove them away; there were seven of them—great big ones.”
Of portraits in the strict sense, “_Bana Pufesa_” (the Professor), by
one of the soldiers (see p. 368) and the stilt-dancer on p. 237 by my
cook, Omari, both belong to the early days of the expedition, when I had
not yet lost the charm of novelty, and the Bondei man had only seen one
masquerader on stilts. Poor as Omari’s work is in other respects, he on
this occasion showed considerable courage in attempting to represent his
subject in full face, which a beginner very seldom ventures to do. That
my right eye should be seen wandering through space like a star, is not
surprising; that eye exists, and therefore it must appear in the
drawing.
A number of these drawings depict whole scenes from native life in the
district I have traversed. Here we have the chain-gang (p. 26), to the
number of seven men, marching slowly through the streets of Lindi, five
of the convicts with large tins on their heads, the last two without
loads. They are going to fill the bath in some European’s house, an
unpleasant task, because of the high ladder which has to be climbed, in
doing which the heavy chain drags uncomfortably at the back of the man’s
neck, but the soldier on guard behind is very strict, and there is no
shirking.
It is true that the large whip is not really part of his insignia, being
due merely to a stretch of the artist’s imagination, but he always
carries a loaded rifle, I am told, since a recent mutiny, in which the
guard was murdered. A _likwata_ dance (p. 45) appeals to us as a much
more cheerful subject, especially when the _Bwana picha_ is engaged in
conjuring the scene on to one of those remarkable glass plates which are
contained in his three-legged box, and on which all the black women are
white and their white _peleles_ jet black. The white man’s caravan, too,
is a tempting subject. How proudly the two boys, Moritz and Kibwana, are
carrying their master’s guns, while he, seated on his _nyumbu_, the old
mule, is just turning round to survey the procession behind him. The
Imperial flag flutters merrily in the morning breeze at the head of the
long line of carriers laden with the cases and boxes on which they are
beating time to the march with the sticks in their hands, all of them in
the highest spirits, true to the character of Pesa mbili’s friends from
distant Unyamwezi. (See p. 104.) Another pleasant subject is the hunt
commemorated by Salim Matola (p. 77). In the sportsman armed with a bow
the artist has depicted himself striding along after his dog, in hot
pursuit of a buffalo. Kwakaneyao, the brown dog, is a keen hunter by
nature—his name means that he will drive away every other dog who may
attempt to dispute the quarry with him. In spite of this, however, Salim
Matola, by way of taking an extra precaution, before starting, rubbed
his companion’s teeth with certain roots, and gave him a piece of the
last-killed bush-buck to eat. Thereupon Kwakaneyao rushed off into the
_pori_ like an arrow, so that his master could scarcely keep up with
him.
[Illustration: THE BUSH COUNTRY AND ITS FAUNA. DRAWN BY SALIM MATOLA]
The same Salim Matola shows us this _pori_ with its characteristic
animals in another drawing which, sketchy as it is, reproduces the
character of the country with the utmost accuracy:—the scattered,
straggling trees, and the harsh, tall African grass between them,—the
dark green tree-snake in the tamarisk on the left, a hornbill on the
right, and in the background a small antelope. In short, this is in its
way a little masterpiece.
The Makua Isaki illustrates the superstitions of his tribe in the little
picture reproduced on p. 212. The comical little bird there depicted is
the ill-omened owl (_likwikwi_), which, crying night after night,
brought death to Marquardt’s little daughter. No native likes to see or
hear it.
The little sketch on p. 305 is a scene from Makonde life. _Mtudikaye_,
“the hospitable,” and her daughter Nantupuli, who has not yet found a
husband, though not for want of seeking, are taking their turn to fetch
water, as all the men are busy breaking up ground in the bush, and,
burdened with the carrying-poles and the great gourds, have just
accomplished the long, rough walk to the stream at the foot of the
plateau. The two banana-trees with their heavy bunches of fruit, mark
the place for drawing water: from the stepping stones in their shadow
one can get it much clearer than by standing on the trampled, muddy
bank.
Now we come to science. My men must have a marked topographical
instinct—otherwise it is difficult to explain the large number of maps
with which they have overwhelmed me. I have reproduced only one of these
(p. 9) the first, which quite took me by surprise. The author is
Sabatele, an unsophisticated child of nature from the far south-west of
our colony—the southern end of Lake Tanganyika. He produced it at Lindi,
quite in the early days of our expedition. It gave rise to a great
discussion, carried on with the aid of Pesa mbili, the headman and other
representatives of intelligence. In a quarter of an hour we succeeded in
identifying all the mysterious signs, and I discovered to my
astonishment that the orientation of this first cartographic attempt was
quite correct, and the topography only wrong as regards some of the
distances. Pointing to the curious object marked in my reproduction, I
received the unhesitating answer “_Mawo-panda_”—Kinyamwezi for Dar es
Salam. No. 2 is “_Lufu_”—the Ruvu of our maps, the large river always
crossed by Wanyamwezi carriers on the main caravan road. No. 3 is
explained as “_Mulokolo_”—that is to say, Morogoro, the present terminus
of the great central railway, which will put an end once for all to the
old caravan traffic of the Wanyamwezi and Wasukuma. The Wanyamwezi have
a difficulty in pronouncing “_r_” and usually substitute “_l_” for it.
The contrast between these sturdy fellows and the softness of their
speech is a curious one.
No. 4 is “Mgata,” the Makata plain between the Uluguru and the Rubeho
mountains, the whole of which is a swamp in the rainy season. “_Kirosa_”
is the sound which greets me when I point with my pencil to No. 5. “Of
course, where there is no ‘_r_’ they pronounce it,” I grumble to myself,
delighted all the time with the splendid trill produced; “therefore we
must set it down as _Kilosa_.” No. 6 is the “Balabala”—the caravan road
itself. No. 7 is “Mpapwa,” the old caravan centre, once the last halt on
the inland march before the dreaded Marenga Mkali, the great alkali
desert, and hostile Ugogo. Conversely, on the march down to the coast,
it meant deliverance from thirst and ill-treatment. Hesitatingly I place
my pencil on No. 8, which according to the drawing, must mean a stream
of some sort, though I know of none in that neighbourhood. In fact, the
name Mutiwe, which Sabatele now mentions, is quite unknown to me; it is
only on consulting the special map that I discover it, flowing past
Kilimatinde—N.B., when it contains water, which, needless to remark, is
not always the case. It must have impressed itself on Sabatele’s memory
as a water-course—otherwise, why should so matter-of-fact a fellow have
remembered the spot?
Now, however, we have reached the heart of German East Africa and find
ourselves in regions well known to my followers. No. 9 is the lofty
altitude of Kilimatinde, and No. 10 is called by Sabatele Kasanga. I
take the name for that of Katanga, the copper district far to the south
in the Congo basin, and shake my head incredulously,—it is impossible
that the young man can have travelled so far. On cross-examination it
comes out that he is from the Mambwe country at the south end of
Tanganyika, and his Kasanga is identical with our station of
Bismarckburg. No. 11 is my original goal Kondoa-Irangi, and No. 12 is
the post of Kalama, in Iramba. At _Tobola_, as my map-maker calls
Tabora, he even enters into detail. No. 13_a_ is the present Tabora with
the new _boma_,—No. 13_b_ is “_Tobola ya zamani_,” Old Tabora, with the
former _boma_. Nos. 14 and 15 are respectively Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika
and Mwanza, on Lake Victoria; these two trading centres are Sabatele’s
“farthest west” and “farthest north,” as he explains to me with proud
satisfaction.
Even without counting his comrades’ performances in the same kind,
Sabatele’s route-map is not an isolated phenomenon; on the contrary,
whole volumes have already been written on the subject of cartography
among the primitive races. Yet this unpretending little sketch is by no
means without psychological interest. We are accustomed to look at every
map from the south, considering the top of it as the north. All my
native maps are oriented in the opposite direction—they look at the
region represented as if from the north and place the south at the top
of the map.
[Illustration: MAKONDE WOMAN IN HOLIDAY ATTIRE]
This is likewise the case in the original of the one here reproduced,
which I have turned round through 180 degrees, merely in order to bring
it into agreement with our maps. The distances between the various
places are wrong, as already remarked, but otherwise it is wonderfully
correct, considered as the work of an entirely untrained man.
The last of the native drawings reproduced is a combination of
landscape-painting and topographical diagram—in it Salim Matola has
represented the mountains of his home at Masasi (p. 65). None of my
attempts to photograph this range were successful. When, in my
excursions, I reached a spot far enough off to see it as a whole, it was
even betting that the air would be too hazy; and when near enough to see
any of the hills well, I was too near to get a good view of all.
Salim has therefore supplied this want, and by no means unskilfully. It
is true that the native hunter on the top of Chironji, and his gun, are
both out of all proportion to the height of the mountain itself, and the
vegetation also errs in relative size (though not in character), but
everything else is right:—the series of gigantic peaks—Mkwera, Masasi,
Mtandi, Chironji, is given in the proper order, and, on the left, the
smaller outlying knobs of Mkomahindo, Kitututu and Nambele. The
steepness of the individual mountains is well rendered, as also the
rounded dome-shape of their tops;—perhaps it would not be too much to
say that Salim has tried, by parallel and concentric strokes, to
indicate the structure of the gneiss.
The early rains appear to follow me wherever I go. At Newala they began
at the end of September; at Nchichira, a few weeks later, and here at
Mahuta they set in with considerable violence at the end of October.
Fortunately I was able, before they began, to enjoy the natives even to
excess. The Makonde have for the last few weeks, been celebrating a
veritable series of popular festivals on a small scale, on the fine
large arena within the _boma_ enclosure. As these festivities were quite
spontaneous, I was able to feel assured of their genuinely native
character. More than once I saw the stilt-dancers, with their gigantic
strides, rigid, masked faces and waving draperies, stalking through the
crowd. One afternoon, a dancer, cleverly disguised as a monkey, earned
universal applause by his excellent imitation of the animal’s movements
and gestures. The African is fond of laughing—perhaps because he knows
that this reflex movement displays his magnificent teeth very
becomingly, but on this occasion the gambols and somersaults of the
mimic furnished a sufficient excuse for the echoing volleys of mirth.
[Illustration: MAKONDE HAMLET NEAR MAHUTA]
[Illustration: A DIABOLO PLAYER ON THE MAKONDE PLATEAU]
Another man, a muscular fellow of middle height, seemed to be a popular
all-round comedian. He first showed himself a skilled contortionist—in
fact, he might have appeared without hesitation in any European circus.
He next gave an equally masterly performance on the swinging trapeze,
four strong men holding up a long pole which served as the axis of his
evolutions. Finally, he distinguished himself as a clown. In accordance
with the mental constitution of the race, however, the comic effect was
produced, not so much by facial expression as by his attitudes and the
movements of his legs, as will be seen by the cinematograph records I
took of his performance. To complete the proof of his versatility, he
appeared in the second part of the programme as the hero of a pantomime.
This was a “problem play” of sorts,—the husband a blockhead, the wife
(played as in the classic drama of antiquity, by a man) an artful
coquette,—the lover, a Don Juan, approved in all the arts of seduction.
The foundation of the drama, as will be seen, is so far cosmopolitan,
but the naturalness and simplicity with which all the incidents of
actual life took place on the stage was genuinely primitive and African,
and equally African was the imperturbable gravity of the public, who
obviously followed the progress of the action with the deepest interest.
There was no silly laughter at the wrong time; no one made audible
comments.
[Illustration: DIABOLO]
If anyone is still inclined to doubt that the original and
uncontaminated culture of our primitive peoples is rapidly perishing, I
would request him to consider the following.
Again it is a lively afternoon: dancing, singing, and games going on
everywhere. I am fully occupied, as usual, but all at once, my attention
is directed to a figure apparently pursuing an individual activity by
itself. The arms move rhythmically up and down, holding two sticks about
half-a-yard in length, united by a string of twisted bark. Suddenly the
arms are abruptly thrown apart, the right being stretched upward, the
left spread sideways, and like a bomb a still unrecognisable object
descends out of the air, is cleverly caught on the string, and runs like
a frightened weasel backwards and forwards between the ends of the
sticks. Immediately afterwards it has again vanished in the air, but
returns repentant to its owner, and the process continues. I feel that I
have somewhere seen this before, and rack my brain for some time—at last
I have it. This is no other than the game of diabolo, which as we read
in the German papers, is pursued with such enthusiasm in England and
other countries where games are the rage. When I left home, it was still
unknown to my compatriots, who, in this as in other matters, limp slowly
but steadily after the rest of the world; but I venture to prognosticate
that it will begin to flourish among us when other nations have dropped
it as an obsolete fashion. Now, too, I can recall a picture of the game
seen in a shop-window at Leipzig, and if I compare my recollection of
this with the action of the man before me, I must confess that this
solution of the technical problem could not be bettered. The narrow
wedge-shaped notch cut all round the convex surface of the wooden
cylinder gives free play to the string without appreciably diminishing
the weight of the whole.[69]
Had I not been aware that the rain is the only cause for the daily
falling off in the number of my visitors, I should here, too, have
reason to consider myself a mighty magician; but, as it is, the people
tell me frankly enough that it is now time to attend to their fields. To
be candid, the leisure thus obtained is not at all unwelcome. I am,
indeed, satisfied, more than satisfied, and have several times caught
myself passing over with indifference the most interesting phenomena in
the life of the people. There are limits to the receptive power of the
human mind, and when overtaxed, as mine has recently been, it altogether
refuses to take in further impressions.
Only Ningachi and his school never fail to excite my interest. Our
_baraza_ is the second house on the south side of the _boma_, beginning
from the east. The first is the alleged abode of some _Baharia_; but in
reality it seems to be a large harem, for women’s voices keep up an
incessant giggling and chattering there. In the third house lives His
Excellency the Secretary of State to the Viceroy, in other words the
officially appointed clerk to the Wali. He is a Swahili from Dar es
Salam, and an intimate friend of Moritz’s, but his relations with the
pillar of my migratory household have not prevented my giving the rascal
a good dressing down. For some time after my arrival, I was unable to
get a proper night’s rest, on account of the perpetual crying of a baby,
evidently in pain, which was audible from somewhere close at hand.
Before long, I had traced it to its source and cited father, mother and
son to appear in my consulting-room. Both parents, on examination,
proved to be thoroughly healthy and as fat as butter; the child, about a
year old, was likewise round as a ball, but covered from head to foot
with sores in consequence of the most disgraceful neglect. And this man
can read and write, and is, therefore, in the eyes of statisticians a
fully accredited representative of civilization, and looks down with
abysmal contempt on those who do not, like himself, lounge about in
white shirt and embroidered cap.
But now as to the fourth house. On the first morning, I saw, without
understanding the meaning of the sight, some six or eight half-grown
boys assembled in front of it about half-past six. My first thought was
that they were going to play, and, as I watched them, they arranged
themselves in Indian file in the order of their height. They were then
joined by a man in a white shirt, and, at a sign from him, vanished, one
after another, in the same order, under the overhanging eaves. A sound
reached my ear soon after, which, it is true, was in itself nothing
extraordinary; a deep voice reciting words immediately taken up by a
chorus of high trebles,—but something in the quality of the utterance
induced me to approach within earshot without knowing what attracted me.
Standing at a distance of a few feet from the house, I became aware that
I was actually listening to German words. An elementary lesson in
arithmetic was taking place. “_Und das ist eins_—and that is one,” began
Ningachi, and the class echoed his words. Then followed, in like manner,
“and that is two,” “and that is three,” and so on, up to thirty-one,
which appeared to be the limit of the teacher’s arithmetical knowledge,
as far as numeration is concerned, for he then proceeded to exercises in
addition and subtraction. Having listened to these lessons on many
successive mornings, I have reluctantly been forced to the conclusion
that they are a mere mechanical drill. The pupils are at once
embarrassed if asked to point out at random any figure in the series so
neatly written out on the blackboard by their teacher, and in the sums
they appear to be hopelessly at sea. “Two minus eight is six,” is a
comparatively venial error. Ningachi himself does not feel very happy
when going through this routine, but says that he was taught so in the
Government School at Mikindani, and is bound to teach in the same way
himself. It was no great consolation to the honest fellow to hear that
there are cramming establishments elsewhere.
[Illustration: ASKARI IN FATIGUE DRESS]
I finished my notes on the Makonde language in an astonishingly short
space of time. Like a god from the machine, my pearl of assistants,
Sefu, suddenly appeared from Newala, and in conjunction with him and
Ningachi I have been able to convince myself, in the course of seven
very strenuous days, that Makonde is most closely connected with the
neighbouring idioms, and that it is probably only the absence of the “s”
sound which has led other writers to describe it as very divergent from
Swahili and Yao. The want of this sound, however, I feel certain, is
intimately connected with the wearing of the _pelele_ in the upper lip.
I suppose all of us have, at one time or another, suffered from a badly
swelled upper lip. Is it possible, under such circumstances, to
articulate any sibilant whatever? This theory, indeed, supposes that the
men originally wore the same lip-ornaments as the women. But why should
this not have been the case? The Mavia men wear them even now, and the
Mavia are said to be very closely related to the Makonde.
Only with the Wamwera I have had no luck. I have never lost sight of my
intention to return and spend some time in the country of that tribe;
but the Wali, Sefu, and other well-informed men tell me it is
impossible. They say that the Wamwera, having been in rebellion against
the Government, were unable to plant their fields last season, as they
were in hiding in the bush.
“The Wamwera,” they say, “have been at war with the Germans, and so they
were living in the bush, for the whole of the planting season, and could
not sow their crops. They have long ago eaten up the little store they
had hidden, and now they have nothing more; they are all suffering from
hunger, and many of them have died.” My next suggestion was that we
should provision ourselves here and make for the Rondo plateau, but my
advisers were very much against this plan. They said the people in their
despair would fall upon us and fight with us for our supplies of corn.
Well, I thought, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must
go to the mountain, and a few days later, there appeared, summoned by
special messengers, the two Wamwera alleged to be the most learned men
in the tribe. They were two elderly men, emaciated to skeletons, without
a trace of calves, or any other muscular development, while their sunken
cheeks and hollow eyes bore eloquent testimony to the terrible
sufferings they had undergone. We waited patiently while they were
getting fed—they devoured such quantities of porridge that their
stomachs protruded like large skittle-balls from their bodies. At last
they were in a fit condition to be questioned.
In spite of their reputation for wisdom, there was not much to be got
out of Machigo and Machunya; a few dozen clan names, a longer list of
simple words—that was all. Every attempt to ascertain by their help the
forms of verbs or any of the mysteries of syntax was an utter failure.
Probably it was not intelligence so much as intellectual training that
was wanting; anyone who should attempt to ascertain the structure of the
German language with the assistance of a bullock-driver, would doubtless
fare no better than I did.
I dismissed the old men after a short time without resentment—in fact, I
loaded them with presents, and, cheered by the consciousness of their
unexpected gains, they stepped out manfully on their road northward.
With the departure of the two gaunt professors of Kimwera, I have really
got rid of my last scientific care, and that is just as well, for, as I
have already remarked, my appetite is more than satiated. I have
accomplished a respectable amount of work in the past few months. I have
taken more than 1,200 photographs; but the non-photographer, who
imagines the art to be a mere amusement, will scarcely place this to my
credit; and only the expert can appreciate the amount of exertion and
excitement represented by the above number of negatives in a country
like this. I have already alluded to some difficulties; these have only
increased with time, for the sun is every day higher in the heavens, and
the intensity of the light between eight a.m. and five p.m. is quite
incredible. I have always kept an exact record, in my register of
negatives, of all details of weather and light, but nevertheless I have
not escaped failure—so difficult is it to judge the intensity of light
in the tropics. One night, one may have the satisfaction of finding,
when developing the day’s work, that by good luck all the exposures have
been right. Next day the weather is precisely the same—you take the same
stop, and expose for the same length of time—and yet, when evening
comes, you find that every plate is over or under exposed. This is not
exhilarating. Then there is the perpetual worry about the background.
Unfortunately, I have brought no isochromatic plates; but the want of
them is partly supplied by a huge tarpaulin which I originally took with
me to cover my baggage at night, but which never served this purpose.
Even before leaving Masasi, we fastened it between two bamboo poles, and
covered one side of it with one or two lengths of _sanda_. Since then I
have always used it in photographing when the sun is high, to screen off
a too-strongly illuminated background. And if nothing else will serve,
the strongest of my men hold the screen over the object, when I find
myself obliged to take an important photograph with the sun directly
overhead.
Next come the phonograph cylinders. The extremely high temperature of
the lowlands has deprived me of the opportunity of making some valuable
records—a loss which must be borne with what philosophy I can summon to
my aid. It is the easier to do so, that, in spite of the drawbacks
referred to, I have only five left out of my five-dozen cylinders, and
for these, too, I can find an excellent use; to-morrow they shall be
covered with the finest Nyamwezi melodies. As to the cinematograph, I
must remember that I am a pioneer, and as such must not only incur all
the inconvenience involved in the imperfections of an industry as yet in
its infancy, but take the risk of all the dangers which threaten
gelatine films in the tropics. It certainly does not dispose one to
cheerfulness, when Ernemann writes from Dresden that my last consignment
of films has again proved a failure; but I have given over worrying over
things of this sort, ever since my vexation at the fall of my 9 x 12 cm.
camera let me in for the severe fever I went through at Chingulungulu.
Besides, I know, by those I have developed myself, that about two-thirds
of my thirty-eight cinematograph records must be fairly good, or at
least good enough to use, and that is a pretty fair proportion for a
beginner. Over twenty such imperishable documents of rapidly
disappearing tribal life and customs—I am quite disposed to congratulate
myself!
But my chief ground for pride is the quantity, and even more the quality
of my ethnological and sociological notes, which surely will not be an
entirely valueless contribution to our knowledge of the East African
native. As a stranger in the country, I could not, of course, in the
short time at my disposal, survey all the departments of native life,
but I have made detailed studies of a great many. I must not forget my
exceptional good fortune with regard to the _unyago_; the elucidation of
these mysteries would alone have amply repaid the journey.
To conclude with my ethnographic collection. In the Congo basin, and in
West Africa I should probably, in the same space of time, have been
able, without any difficulty, to get together a small ship-load of
objects, while here in the East a collection of under two thousand
numbers represents the material culture of tribes covering a whole
province. The number of individual specimens might, indeed, have been
increased, but not that of categories, so thoroughly have I searched the
native villages and rummaged their huts one by one. After all, the East
African native is a poor man.
But what is the use of speculating as to what is attainable or
unattainable? The sun is shining brightly, the woods are fresh and green
after the shower, and some of the _askari_ are lounging against the
palisade in a picturesque if untidy group. The metamorphosis undergone
by our native warrior in the course of the day is certainly surprising.
Smart and active on the drill-ground—they look on their drill as a kind
of game, and call it playing at soldiers—he is just the reverse, from
our German point of view, in the afternoon and evening.
It must be acknowledged that he knows how to make himself comfortable
when off duty. He has his boy to wait on him, even to take his gun from
his hand the moment the word has been given to “dismiss”; and the
respect commanded, in Africa as elsewhere, by anything in the shape of a
uniform secures him the best of everything wherever he goes. He lounges
through the hot hours on his host’s most commodious bedstead, and, when
evening comes on, sallies forth in fatigue dress to captivate the girls
of the place. They are less charming, it is true, than those of Lindi,
but a man has to take what he can get. The slovenly figures in the
photograph are those of Lumbwula and the Nubian Achmed Mohammed, taking
their ease in this fashion.
My release from work and worry has worked miracles, physiologically
speaking;—I sleep in my bed like a hibernating bear, wield a mighty
knife and fork at table and increase in circumference almost perceptibly
from day to day. Moreover, we have been living fairly well for the last
few weeks. The first case of porter was followed by a second, and
various other delights came up at the same time from Lindi—genuine
unadulterated milk from the blessed land of Mecklenburg, fresh
_pumpernickel_, new potatoes from British East Africa, tinned meats and
fruits in abundance, and so forth. The lean weeks of Newala are
forgotten, and our not much more luxurious sojourn at Chingulungulu
recedes into the misty past. The evenings, too, are pleasant and
leisurely. As decreed by a kindly destiny, I find that I have still some
plates left, but no chemicals for developing and fixing, so that I can
photograph as much as I like, while compelled to dispense with the
trying work of developing the plates in the close tent. Omari has
provided a spatchcocked fowl for our evening meal, which smells inviting
and tastes delicious. He has here revived for our benefit the primitive
process of roasting already known to prehistoric man, which consists of
simply holding the meat over the fire till done. Only one innovation has
been introduced: after splitting up the carcase of the fowl, Omari has
rubbed salt and pepper into it. This, though historically incorrect,
improves the flavour so much that it is quite a pardonable piece of
vandalism.
Here come my carriers, issuing with clean clothes and radiant faces from
their temporary lodgings in one of the thatched huts of the _boma_. They
know that in the next few days we are going on _safari_ again, the goal
in view being this time the eagerly anticipated paradise of the coast.
And they will be receiving uncounted sums of money at Lindi. Many a time
have they grumbled at the _Bwana Mkubwa_, because he refused them an
advance, when they wanted so very much to make a present to some pretty
girl in a neighbouring village. They had even been directly asked for
such presents, but the _Bwana Pufesa_ made a point of saying to any man
who wanted a trifle of a loan, “_Nenda zako_”—(“Be off with you”). He
was very hard, was the _Bwana Pufesa_, but it was best so, after all;
for now we shall get all the money paid down at once—it must be over
forty rupees. What times we shall have at Lindi—not to mention Dar es
Salam! And we will go to the Indian’s store and buy ourselves _visibau_
finer even than the ones sported by those apes of Waswahili.
The crimson glow of the sunset is still lingering on the western
horizon, while the full moon is rising in the east, behind the great
spreading tree, under which my camera has been planted day after day for
the last few weeks; and I am watching the spectacle, stretched
comfortably in my long chair, and at the same time listening to the
chant of the Wanyamwezi.
[Music:
Air A.
hi-la-la hi-la-la yum-be wa-li-la ki-ja-na wa-wa se-se
wa-tog-wa mam-bas-ya hi-si ngu-vu nsia-ko mwa-na wa li sum-bu-ka
wa-wo da-ma-na o-sen-te ki-ja-na ma-wa-na wa-li ne-na
ya kwe-li hi-la-la hi-la-la yum-be wa-li-la ki-ja-na wa-wa se-se
wa-tog-wa mam-bas-ja o dya-mu-yin-ga wa-wa ne-ne o dya-mu-yin-ga
wa ma yo a-ne ku-le-ka wa na wu-li-la
si-li-lo si-li-lo si-li-lo-lo wa-wa si-li-lo si-li-lo si-li-lo o sen-te
wa-to-gwa mam-bas-ya o dya-mu-yin-ga wa-wa ne-ne o dya-mu-yin-ga
wa ma-yo a-ne-ku-le-ka wa-na wu-li-la
hi-la-la hi-la-la yum-be wa-li-la ki-ja-na wa-wa se-
se wa-tog-wa mam-bas-ya hi-si ngu-vu nsis-ko wa-na wa li sum-bu-ka
wa-wo da-ma-na o son-te ki-ja-na ma-wa-na wa-li ne-na ya kwe-li.]
With the deep notes characteristic of the Wanyamwezi, the chant
penetrates the ear of the European listener. My men have often sung it
at Newala, at Majaliwa’s, and here at Mahuta, always accompanying the
rhythm of the song with equally rhythmical movements. It is a
hoeing-song. The Mnyamwezi going out into the fields with his hoe is
provided with a whole repertoire of such songs; the body bends and rises
in regular time as the broad blade crunches its way through the soil,
and the chant of labour sounds softly and harmoniously over the wide
plain. At this moment, when the men are squatting round me in
picturesque groups, they snap their fingers in time with great spirit
and energy, instead of going through the motions of hoeing.
The air is pleasing enough and insensibly steals into the consciousness
of the listening European, carrying him away from the harsh, raw nature
of Africa to the ancient civilisation of his native land, which the busy
days now left behind have left him little leisure to recall. As Pesa
mbili’s clear baritone alternates with the deep-toned chorus I recall
the blacksmith at the forge, seeking the rhythm in his strokes which
keeps his arm from tiring so soon in wielding the heavy hammer. It takes
me back, too, to my boyhood, when few if any small farmers owned a
threshing machine, and I used to hear from our neighbour’s barn the
triple and quadruple time of the flails. The same sort of rhythm, too,
is heard in our streets, above the bustle and noise of traffic, when the
paviours are ramming down the stones,—_ping_, _ping_, _ping_, _ping_,
_ping_, _ping_,—each note louder or softer according to the degree of
force employed, but all in the strictest time. This rhythm is the
outcome of a need inherent in human nature: it precedes, indeed it is
indispensable to, any sustained bodily exertion. This is felt even by
civilized people, as we see when the striking-up of the band puts new
life and vigour into the tired legs of a marching regiment, or when a
number of men are engaged in moving a heavy load; and it is true in a
much greater degree of the African. I am convinced that he cannot
accomplish the easiest task unless he accompanies it with a rapidly
improvised chant; even the heavily-ironed convicts in the chain-gangs,
push or pull their barrows to a continuous antiphonal chant. Thus, too,
when a number of people are hoeing a field together, the work becomes a
game in which the body spontaneously falls into the rhythmic motions of
the dance; but no dance is without its song.
The song comes to an end with a long-drawn _kweli_ (“it is true”). The
Wanyamwezi are famed for their endurance, both in marching and singing,
and the above performance has lasted for a considerable time. But after
a short pause the indefatigable Pesa mbili begins again,—this time with
my favourite melody, _Kulya mapunda_.
[Music:
kul-ya ma-pun-da wan-i-lam-ba wa-ha-ya na-ne ly-a ma-pun-da
wa-li-ha-ya ha-sim-po a-wa-ya-ko-ka ya-mo ka-gis-ya wa-na ka-lya lya
ku-li ma-yu ni-sa ho-wa-nä-ti na-no-wa-we-la na wa po-li-cy
wan-sen-te la-gi ko-li tu-li-ku-ja mwi-ko-lo a-li gon-ga twe-ka
na-we-li san-ga na-li san-ga wa-le lyangwi (la) o ku-mu-wa-nä-ti
ku ni-so-le ku-lya ma-pun-da ku-lya ma-pun-da wan-i-lam-ba wa-ha-ya
na-ne
ly-a ma-pun-da wa-li-ha-ya ha-sim-po a-wa-ya-ko-ka ya
mo ka-gis-ya wa-na ka-lya lya ku-li ma-yu ni-sa ho-wa-nä-ti
na no-wa-we-la na no-wa-we-la na wa po-li-cy wan-sen-te
la-gi ko-li tu-li-ku-ja mwi-ko-lo a-li gon-ga twe-ka
na-we-li san-ga na-li san-ga wa-le lyangwi o ku-mu-wa-nä-ti.]
The singing has exercised its usual fascination on the European auditor,
he is sitting upright and vigorously joining in, to the delight of the
performers. This _hasimpo_, as it is usually called for brevity’s sake,
is sung to accompany a dance. In the hoeing-song the tune and the words,
so far as I have been able to translate the latter, show some degree of
congruity with each other, but I cannot as yet make head or tail of what
Pesa mbili has to-day dictated to me as the gist of this _hasimpo_ song.
For the sake of completeness I will first give my attempt at the
translation of the _hilala_.
“Work, work. The headman will weep for his son. They love the white
_ombasha_, he is strong. Thanks, the son has prophesied. Oh! blockhead
that I am! my mother is going away, the children are crying. Do not cry,
do not cry, do not cry.”
As will be seen, it is confused enough, but at least some parts appear
to have a connected sense, and the _sililo_ “do not weep,” thrice
repeated, sounds rather touching. It is less easy to fit the
_ombasha_—the corporal—into the framework of the song; but who shall
fathom the profundities of the African mind? especially when it is the
mind of a poet.
The dancing song is as follows:—
“The Wairamba are eating vegetables—they are eating vegetables, I say,
at the well. When you get home, salute my mother, and tell her I am
coming. So I said and the police seized the devil. We set down our loads
of cloth and beads and yet again beads. The sun is going down, the time
for dancing is at an end.”
Here again the reference to the mother is a pathetic touch, but the
police and the nature of their association with the Prince of Darkness
must remain a mystery.
Now comes the song of the Standard:—
[Music:
yooh nderu-le yooh nderu-le wa bwa-na mku-bwa nderu-le
wa bwa-na mku-bwa nderu-le ku-bwa sum-ba na wo-gi nde-ru-le-wa
yooh-nderu-le.]
It is the chant of the Long Trail—the glorification of travel for its
own sake,—the element as necessary to the Mnyamwezi as his _ugali_:—“O
journey! O journey with the great master, O (delightful) journey! He
will give cloth to the young men—O journey, O beautiful journey!”
The deep bass notes have died away slowly, almost mournfully, and the
men are visibly growing sleepy; in fact, it is nearly ten, by which hour
they are usually rolled up in their mats and dreaming of home. A
questioning glance from Pesa mbili induces me to give the signal; the
whole band vanishes almost without a sound, and I am left alone. Really
alone, for Knudsen has been away for some days, hunting in the valley.
The people there sent him word that numbers of elephants had been seen,
and after that there was no keeping him back. He hurried off at such a
pace that his cook, Latu, and his boy, Wanduwandu, a splendid big Yao,
could scarcely follow him. He was to have returned at noon to-day. I
wonder what has detained him.