THE FEAST IN THE VILLAGE
Mpoko and Nkunda could not remember any feast which was so great a
feast as the one that celebrated the killing of the elephants. The
preparation of food and the cooking of it took nearly every dish, pot,
and pan to be found in the village. Some of these were of wood, some of
iron, some of pottery, and some of basket-work. The framework of the
baskets used for food was sometimes of wood, with thin strips of cane
or narrow splints woven in and out, and maybe a wooden rim. Sometimes
the white wood used for baskets and dishes was stained black, and a
pattern was cut out by carving away the black surface, leaving a raised
black decoration on white. Baskets could be so closely woven that they
would hold milk. Some were made in the form of a demijohn, or bottle,
and covered with rubber-like juice to make them water-tight, and these
were generally used to hold beer.
The pottery used at the feast was partly plain and partly decorated.
Cooking pots and porridge pots were straight-sided. Beer pots were
shaped like an egg with a hole in the end. Water jars were made oval
with a spreading top, and there were round pots to hold the fat, salt,
and spices used in cooking. Some of this ware was colored red with
oxide of iron, and some was covered with a black glaze. It was made by
hand, without any potter’s wheel, dried in the sun, and then burned in
a wood fire.
The making of the round dishes or cups called calabashes was even
simpler. Some of them were made of gourds with the inside scooped out,
and some were picked off a tree as they were. The curious tree called
the baobab, which is one of the silk-cotton family of trees, bears a
large, gourdlike fruit which the natives call monkey-bread. The shell
is about the right size and shape for dishes, bowls, and cups.
[Illustration]
One of the most important articles needed for the feast was palm oil,
and it was good that there was a large supply on hand. In so hot a
climate, with no ice or ice-boxes, it is out of the question to keep
butter for use in cooking. The palm oil is used for various purposes
in cooking in place of butter, fat, lard, or olive oil. It is made
from the fruit of the oil palm, which is an olive-shaped, plumlike
fruit with a kernel inside a thick, fleshy outer envelope. The fruit
grows in long red and yellow clusters. When the men have climbed up
the palm tree and brought down the bunches, the fruits are cut off the
main stem and cooked in water until they are soft and the kernel is
loosened from the pulp. Then this pulp is pounded in a large mortar
to free the kernels, which are put aside in a pile, and the thick,
orange-colored, oily mass is dumped into a hollow log of wood like a
trough. The log rests on crossed sticks so that it slopes at an angle
of about forty-five degrees, and a pan or jar is set under the lower
end to receive the oil. Hot stones are mixed with the pulp, and the
oil, thinned by the heat, runs down into the jar. Sometimes the kernels
are eaten, and sometimes they are pounded up to make more oil.
[Illustration]
Palm oil was used for other things besides cooking. It could be burned
in a homemade lamp,--an earthen dish with a floating wick,--and it was
used for any ordinary purpose for which oil is used. Finally, it served
the purpose of cold cream in massaging and oiling the skin. Before a
feast, or after any great exertion, it was always used in this way,
and the dancers who were to entertain the company began quite early to
rub one another’s limbs with oil from the little ornamental dishes of
palm oil. However, there was plenty of oil for all these uses, without
touching the supply in jars that would be carried to the coast traders,
to be used in some far-away factory for making soap or candles.
Presently the guests began to gather and the musicians to play. Besides
the drums with their boom! boom! boom! there were several other
instruments--the sansi, a kind of wooden piano or xylophone, the
marimba, another form of the same thing, flutes made of hollow reed,
and a guitar-like instrument with the body of it covered with skin. The
dancers soon assembled, and the rattles tied to their ankles and the
clapping of the hands of the spectators kept time to the wild music.
This entertainment would go on all night, probably for two or three
nights.
[Illustration]
When it was time for the feast to begin, girls and boys went about
first of all with water in calabashes and jars, that every one might
rinse out his mouth and wash his hands before eating. Mpoko and Nkunda
had been taught always to do this before a meal, and they had also a
kind of wooden toothbrush which kept the teeth cleaner, if anything,
than the ones sold in shops. Some people say that the care which these
tribes take of their teeth is the reason why they usually have such
very white and sound ones.
The men and women did not eat together. The principal men were served
first, and after they had taken what they chose from the dishes, the
women and children had the rest in their turn. Meat and gravy were
cooked in one dish, dumplings, kwanga, or cooked rice were served in
another, vegetables in another. The people ate with their fingers.
A lump of kwanga, dumpling, bread, or cooked rice was taken in the
fingers and dipped in the broth. The dumpling was swallowed whole;
it could not be chewed, as it would stick to the teeth like so much
glue, but it would slip down whole like an oyster. Groups of friends
or relatives ate together, and good breeding was shown in the special
care which every well-brought-up guest would take, to eat no more than
his proper share. Greediness is very unpopular among the Bantu, and any
unfair division of food is regarded as the worst possible manners.
During the days that the feast lasted, appetites were saved up for the
evening meal, and nobody ate anything during the day except perhaps a
little fruit, a handful of peanuts, or some sugar-cane juice. The Alo
Man told tales, there was much dancing and singing, naps were taken
at any time of day by those who were sleepy, and the children played
many games. The children often made almost as much noise as the grown
people, for the boys had a band of their own. Nkula, who had a biti--a
kind of marimba--which he had made for himself, was leader.
A game that was a general favorite was played with the biti and the
other instruments, and a needle. In playing it, the boys divided
into two camps, Mpoko being captain of one, and Satu, a boy from a
neighboring village, of the other. Boko, one of Mpoko’s players, was
sent out of sight and hearing, and Mpoko then took a needle--a rather
large bone needle used for raffia or sinew--and hid it so that both
camps would know where it was. Meanwhile Satu’s camp had agreed upon
a certain note in the scale played on the biti, which should be the
“guiding note.” Then Boko was called back to hunt for the needle. When
he came near the needle, the player of the biti, Nkula, who was in
Satu’s camp, must sound the guiding note, mixing it up with as many
variations and other notes as he could, and when Boko moved away from
the needle, the guiding note must not be sounded. Of course, if Nkula
did not keep to this rule Mpoko’s side would make trouble for him. To
win for his side, Boko must not only find the needle but must name the
guiding note.
Boko had a quick ear, and he was a shrewd boy. Within two or three
minutes he was nearly sure where the needle was, but he was not certain
about the guiding note. Satu’s side made such a racket that all the
notes in the scale seemed to be part of it. Mpoko felt more than once
like calling out “Otuama” (you are warm) when Boko stopped two or three
times almost on top of the needle, but of course that would never do.
Then Boko walked across the ground and came back, went straight to the
hiding place, picked up the needle, and sounded the correct guiding
note!
After they had kept quiet, watching the search for the needle, as long
as active boys could, they played the game called “antelope.” Boko,
having won in the last game, was antelope. A line was scratched on the
ground, marking out a large court, and all the boys except Boko got
down on all fours with their faces uplifted. They were the hunters,
and they tried to touch Boko with their hands, or kick him with their
feet, or butt him with their heads, or pen him up between them and the
boundary line. Since they had to chase him on all fours, Boko had an
advantage, and once he jumped right over a hunter who almost had him.
When they finally did get him hemmed in and he ran out of the ring,
they all got on their feet and chased him, and Nkula, the first to
touch him, was antelope in his turn.
Some of the smaller children were playing a game of their own, under
a bush where the fowls had been having a dust bath. The large, black,
glossy _loso_ (canna seeds) were used in this game. While one player
went out, the others hid a canna seed in one of five little heaps
of dirt. The searcher had to sweep away the four heaps that did not
hold any seed, and leave untouched the heap that did. If he guessed
correctly, it counted one game for his side.
When they were tired of “antelope,” the older boys played a rather
difficult memory game, called “loso,” with forty canna seeds. Satu and
Mpoko chose sides, and all sat on the ground around an open space.
Satu, taking twenty seeds in each hand, led the play. His side had
agreed beforehand that the seventh seed thrown should be the “playing
seed,” and the other side would have to guess which it was, and pick
it up. Satu threw first a seed from the right hand, then one from
the left, counting aloud as he threw until he had thrown ten all
together--solo, beri, tatu, inno, tano, tandatu, pungati, inani, kenda,
ikundi. Then he threw down the other seeds helter skelter, without
counting, but so as not to disturb the first ten where they lay.
Then Satu chose Boko to go away out of sight and hearing of the game,
and Mpoko and his players consulted as to which the “playing seed”
was. In throwing the seeds, Satu had tried not to call attention to
pungati, the seventh seed, in any way, and had told his players not to
seem to be watching it when he threw it. They did not. They were so
very, very careless just at that moment that Mpoko wondered if that
were not the “playing seed.” He took note where it fell and saw that it
lay near a little hump in the ground. When he told his players what he
thought, they said that he was likely to be right, and when he picked
up the seventh seed and said, “This is the playing seed and its name is
pungati,” Satu admitted that it was and that Mpoko had won.
Of course, if Satu and his side were dishonest players they might deny
that the seed picked up was the playing seed. But that would do them no
good, for Boko, who had been sent out of sight and hearing, was a check
on them. How the check worked was shown when Mpoko in his turn threw
the seed. This time the third seed, tatu, was the “playing seed.” It
was the turn of Satu’s side to guess, and they disagreed. Satu thought
it was the fifth, and the others were divided between the third and the
sixth. In the end they took a chance, and Satu, picking up the fifth
seed, said, “This is the playing seed, and its name is tano.” But it
wasn’t the playing seed.
Still, Satu’s side had one more chance. Mpoko had sent Nkula out of
sight and hearing before the discussion began, and Nkula would have
to come back and pick up the playing seed, depending on his memory of
the way in which the seeds lay when he left the circle. Mpoko touched
tatu, the playing seed, and then called Nkula back. Everybody watched,
breathless. If Nkula touched the wrong seed, Satu’s side would still
win. But he didn’t. Nkula had a good memory, and he remembered that
tatu, the playing seed, lay at one end of a line of three, the only
three seeds close together in a straight line. He picked it up and
said, “This is the playing seed, and its name is tatu.”
It will be seen that it is almost impossible to cheat in this game. If
Satu had really picked up the right seed, and Mpoko had denied that he
did, then when Nkula came back there would have been no right seed on
the ground; and if Mpoko pointed to the wrong seed, the chances were
all against Nkula’s guessing that one seed, out of the thirty-nine
still remaining on the ground.
The old hunters who were looking on very much approved of this game,
which they had played when they were boys, and their fathers and
grandfathers before them. A good player must have a quick eye and a
good memory, both of which are most needful in hunting. As the Bantu
proverb has it, “For a running antelope one needs a running shot.”
The next game, Mbele, or the Knife, trained not only the eye but the
limbs, and was sometimes played by boys and girls alike. All the
players stood in line, Satu at the head and Mpoko next him. Satu
stepped out and faced Mpoko, and holding up both hands waved them
about, and then shot out one hand quickly. Mpoko countered with the
corresponding hand. This was done three times, and the third time
Mpoko missed, for he was in too much of a hurry and answered the wrong
gesture. Nkula, who came next, failed also; but in Boko, Satu met his
match, and Boko became “King” in his turn, while Satu went to the foot
of the line. If the King could go down the line without meeting his
match, the last one in the line would be called a slave, and would go
out. Sometimes--so Mpoko’s father told them--Satu’s father, as King,
had gone up and down the line until all the other players were slaves.
Games such as these not only teach the players to move promptly, see
correctly and remember what they see, but give them practice in judging
by the expression of a person’s face what he is about to do or what he
is thinking. When a boy trained in games of the wits, like these, grows
up and becomes a chief or a trader, it is very hard for any one to
deceive him, or to read his face when he does not wish his thoughts to
be known. They are also games which must be played fairly if there is
to be any fun in them.
Besides playing their games, the boys wrestled, ran races, had contests
in high jumping, and did as much bragging and arguing as is usual in
a crowd of boys on a three days’ holiday. On the third day the boys
from Satu’s village and Mpoko and his friends got into an argument, and
there was a quarrel which attracted the attention of the fathers and
led to punishment.
That evening Mpoko remembered something. He sidled over to the Alo Man,
who was just then sitting by himself mending a marimba, and said, “What
is the story about the People with the Bandaged Faces?”
“Ho!” said the Alo Man. “Do you think that fashion is a good one?”
“I don’t know,” said Mpoko. “I should like to see some people with
their faces bandaged.”
“Perhaps they might like to see you with yours bandaged, too,” said the
Alo Man. “However, this is the story.”
* * * * *
Once the Rabbit went on a long journey, and lost his way. When he had
wandered a long time he came to a town where there was a market place,
but the market place was very still. There were many people, wearing
bandages of white cloth over their faces, who were coming and going and
exchanging their produce for brass rods, mirrors, trader’s cloth, and
ivory trumpets. But none of them said a single word.
“Ho!” said the Rabbit, “this is a very queer place. Curious kind of
people these must be.”
He spoke to one and another, asking for food and oil and offering to
pay, but although they gave him all that he needed and took his beads
in payment, not one of them said a word in reply.
It was so queer in that place that the Rabbit began to be frightened,
and at last he left the market place and went on, looking back over his
shoulder until he was out of sight. When he came to a house he found an
old man, and he asked the old man what was the matter with the people
of that market, who went and came and bought and sold, and never said a
word.
“That is their custom,” said the old man. “A long time ago they got
into the habit of quarreling and arguing with one another until nobody
had any peace from morning till night. Each market day it was worse
than the last. Finally the King heard of it and was angry with them for
their foolishness, and he made a law that in that village, when the
people went to market, each must leave his lower jaw at home.”