NATIVE LIFE—I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH
Villages. Huts. Birth. Naming. Dress. Childhood’s rights.
Games. Plastic art-work. Daily life.
I cannot begin this chapter better than by describing one of the villages
I know best—those of the Anyanja in the Upper Shiré district.
This district lies between the Kirk Mountains on the west and the Zomba
range on the east, and the part I am thinking of is a fertile plain,
slightly undulating in parts and crossed by two good-sized streams, which
slopes down from the western mountains to the river. As you look from
the hill on which our house stood, you see a wide level—green during
the rains, yellow when the grass is dry, with patches of bush here and
there and one grove of great trees plainly in sight—the _nkalango_,
where the dead are buried. Here and there, dotted about the plain, are
little groups of huts, several of which, taken together, may be held to
constitute a village. Each group, as a rule, contains one family (_i.e._
husband and wife or wives with their children), and is enclosed in a
stout fence of grass and reeds, woven as closely as matting, and tall
enough to keep any ordinary wild beast from leaping over. There is a door
to this enclosure, but, not being on hinges, it is usually invisible in
the daytime, as the people take it down, and, as often as not, lay it on
some short posts fixed in the ground, and use it as a table, on which
they can spread out grain or other things to dry. At night the door is
fastened by cross-bars, and perhaps thorn-bushes are stuck in at the
sides to give additional security.
Inside the enclosure stand the round huts, with their conical thatched
roofs—three, four, or more, according to the number of the family.
Between them are the corn-bins, called _nkokwe_—in a small enclosure only
one, or perhaps two. In the picture, which is that of a Yao village near
Domasi, several of these _nkokwe_ are to be seen—one with the top off—but
they do not look as neat as one often sees them. They are like huge round
baskets, woven of split bamboo, seven or eight feet high, without top or
bottom, raised from the ground on a low platform roughly floored with
small logs, and covered with a conical roof like those of the huts, but
not fastened down, so that it can be tilted up by means of a stick, or
taken off altogether when corn is wanted. They are reached by a primitive
ladder made of two poles, and cross-pieces lashed between them with bark.
This Yao village is in several ways different from the one I am
describing. It is larger, and, being in a more settled district, not
enclosed in a fence, though some of the huts may have a semicircular one
before the door, to screen it from the wind. The houses, too, are many of
them square, a fashion introduced, in some places by Europeans, in others
by coast people.
The huts in the enclosure have their doors facing inward; there may be
a tree (probably the ‘prayer-tree’) in the middle of the vacant space;
in any case, you will see the mortars, in which the women pound the
grain, perhaps a reed mat, with flour drying on it, or millet waiting
to be husked, and one or more little fires, with their three stones for
supporting the cooking-pot. Perhaps there will be also a pigeon-house,
like a neatly plaited basket, with a pointed roof, raised on a post,
and another post close by, supporting half an old water-jar, which has
come to grief, but can still be used as a bath and drinking-place for
the pigeons. The fowl-house, if any, is somewhere between, and rather
behind the huts, and perhaps there is also a house for the goats, but
some people prefer to have their stock sleeping in the hut with them, for
security’s sake. I remember calling at Sambamlopa’s one day, and finding
his mother engaged in plastering three or four stalls for the goats
against the circular wall of the hut, just leaving room for some of the
family to sleep between them and the central fireplace.
Sometimes there is a single enclosure, standing by itself; sometimes
several are grouped very closely together, the entrances being reached
by narrow, winding paths between the stockades, which, I suppose, are
intended to puzzle the enemy, in case of a night attack. Two old men,
brothers, Pembereka and Kaboa, had their enclosures side by side, and
the sacred tree in the narrow space of ground between the two. A little
way off, on one side of the path, was the well mentioned in the last
chapter, which I saw the women clearing out; and near this, too, some
trees had been left standing.
Entering Pembereka’s stockade, one day in early spring, we found a
certain bustle and excitement pervading the place, the cause of which was
soon apparent, when we saw the head-wife, old Anapiri (the same whom I
found conducting the rain-ceremony a fortnight later), seated on a mat,
with a new-born baby on her knees. It was a queer little yellow thing;
they always start in life very light-coloured, but grow darker before
long. They also seem, to me, at least, to have more hair than European
babies, though they are not allowed to retain it. The mother on this
occasion was not visible—she was a younger wife of Pembereka’s; she was
in one of the huts, which she would not leave for some days—perhaps
eight or nine, perhaps less. The baby is supposed to stay with her, till
formally ‘brought out into the world’; but it may be that Anapiri had
been giving it its first bath and oiling. The eldest child of a family is
called the ‘child of the washing,’ or ‘of oil’—not that the others are
not bathed and oiled, but this is a ceremonial washing (with ‘medicine’)
and anointing. (Both children and grown-ups require plenty of oil to keep
their skins from cracking and chapping; they neither look nor feel well
without it.)
A Yao woman used—sometimes, at any rate, if not always—to go out into the
bush a few days before the birth of a child. One or two women would go
with her, to put up a little grass shelter and look after her, till they
could bring back mother and baby to the village, where, in the case of
a first child, they were met with great joy, the grandmother coming out
to welcome them and singing, ‘I have got a grandchild, let me rejoice.’
The mother would then go into the special house set apart for her—no
one being allowed to enter it except the older women—and stay there for
three or six days. If the baby dies during this interval, no mourning is
held for it; it has not been formally introduced into the world, and its
spirit is not supposed to count, or require propitiating. Perhaps they
think it has not really attained to a separate existence of its own.
When the time of seclusion is over, the old women shave the mother’s
head and also the baby’s, and they are brought out and rejoiced over.
The baby is now named by one of the women. I am not sure, however, that
the name is always given quite so soon. A Nyanja woman once seemed very
much amused when I asked her baby’s name, and said, ‘It has no name—it’s
only an infant.’ She was going about with it on her back, so that it must
have been more than a few days old if the custom of seclusion had been
observed. But perhaps she only thought it unlucky to tell me the name,
being a stranger.
Children are sometimes called after their father, or other relations, and
frequently a person who is no relation ‘may make “friendship” with the
babe and give it his own name, or the name of his brother or sister.’
Very often, too, the name is determined by some circumstance connected
with the place or time of birth. The father may have been making a canoe
(_ngalawa_), and finished it on the day of the child’s birth, so he will
name it Ngalawa accordingly. I knew a small boy called Chipululu, ‘the
wilderness,’ because, as his mother explained, ‘he was born at the time
of the hunger, when the people had to go into the bush to gather food.’
The baby at Pembereka’s was named Donna,[17] in honour of ourselves, as
we happened to visit the family on the day when he arrived. His being
a boy is nothing to the purpose—there is no such thing as grammatical
gender in the Bantu languages, and no one thinks (in Nyanja, at any rate)
of making any difference between the names given to girls and boys. In
fact, one occasionally finds the same name borne by both. Most names
have some obvious meaning—‘Leaves,’ ‘Affliction,’ ‘Wind on the Water,’
‘It goes,’ ‘We shall see it when we die,’ ‘I have been a Fool,’ ‘Ends
of Grass,’ ‘The Day of Beer,’ are a few specimens. But there are others
not so easy to make out, and if you ask, people will tell you ‘they are
just names—nothing more.’ Probably, unless they are found to be borrowed
from another language, these will be old words, obsolete except as proper
names. Sometimes, too, a compound, used as a name, is so contracted that
its separate parts are scarcely recognisable.
Mothers, when seated, hold their babies in their arms and on their knees,
just as they do in other countries. But when walking about, they carry
them on their backs, supported by a piece of cloth knotted in front, the
two upper corners passing under the arms and over the breast, the lower
round the waist; or, in some parts, by a goat-skin, with strings tied to
the four legs. The babies develop a most marvellous power of holding on.
One sees them sometimes spread out like the letter X; sometimes, when the
cloth is quite firmly fixed, and allows of a comfortable attitude, seated
in ‘the bight’ of it, with their feet appearing round the mother’s waist
in front. I do not remember seeing babies seated astride the hip (as
in India), but no doubt it is sometimes done, as shown in the group of
Likoma Island women in the photograph.
[Illustration: 1. WOMEN ON LIKOMA ISLAND
2. A MAKUA FAMILY]
Babies are not dressed, but the mothers wash and oil them carefully, and
hang a string of beads round their necks or waists, and a charm or two
to keep them from sickness or accident. In some parts they shave their
heads on both sides, leaving a little band in the middle, running from
the forehead to the nape of the neck. Of course, in cold weather, they
are wrapped in anything that comes handy, and the skin or cloth fastening
them to the mother’s back keeps them as warm as clothing would do. When
not being carried about, they are laid to sleep on a mat. They are not
weaned till two or three years old—sometimes later; in tribes where
cattle are not kept, it is somewhat difficult to get suitable food for
them, but a kind of thin porridge or gruel is made. The Anyanja, though
many of them keep goats, never drink milk.
As soon as the children can walk, or even crawl, they are left to play
about among the huts while the mothers are busy, cooking or pounding
grain. They are left in charge of the grandmother, and perhaps one of the
elder children, when the women have to go away to the gardens. They are
allowed to do pretty much as they like, so long as they keep out of the
fire, or refrain from climbing up any of the many tempting places whence
a fall might be dangerous—the fence, or the _nkokwe_ ladder, or what not.
If there is any one to keep an eye on them, they will be snatched back
in the first case, and fetched down in the second, and slapped in both,
to emphasise the lesson that ‘we don’t want to have a mourning for you
because you died by accident’—that being a wholly wilful and gratuitous
proceeding. One sometimes sees scars of bad burns that must have been
caused by a tumble into the fire; but, on the whole, these infants learn
to take care of themselves after a fashion at a wonderfully early age. It
is when the mothers have begun to put them into European garments that
fatal accidents are apt to occur; the child stands at what would be quite
a safe distance from the fire but for the little shirt or frock, and the
calico is ablaze before any one is aware.
Children wear nothing much for the first few years, unless they feel
cold, and are supplied with a skin, or a piece of cloth, to wrap
themselves in. The little boy in the illustration has a pretty complete
toilet. This family, like the group above them, were photographed at
Likoma, but the mother is a Makua and wears the _chipini_—the leaden
ornament like a drawing-pin stuck through a hole in the side of the
nose—which is in fashion among the coast women and some of the Yaos.
Very little Angoni boys have a mat of beads, three or four inches square,
worked for them by their mother or elder sister, and wear it like an
apron. Sometimes also they have a ‘sporran,’ made from the skin of some
small animal, such as a field-rat. In most homes now there is enough
calico to give each of the children a piece to wrap round the waist,
as they grow bigger. The only difference between the dress of the boys
and girls, as a rule, is that the latter put theirs on a little higher
up. The stuff used is the cheap ‘unbleached,’ which can be got in this
country for about twopence a yard. Babies are washed very carefully;
older children are left to do much as they please in the matter of
cleanliness; but they love bathing, when the means are accessible, and
near a lake or river all know how to swim.
Small children’s heads are shaved, from time to time, in the interests
of cleanliness, by their mothers; older boys and girls do it for each
other. I saw a woman performing this service for her little girl who
was squatting on the ground before her; she first greased the hair with
some mixture which she took out of a small earthen pot, and which had
the consistency of soft soap, and then scraped from the nape of the neck
forward and upward, with a little spatula-shaped iron razor, held firmly
in the right hand. Having finished the hair, she went on to shave the
eyebrows, but I do not think this is always done.
The strings of beads which the very little girls wear round their waists
disappear from view when they grow older and wear a cloth; but they are
kept on all the same, and added to from time to time, till, when they are
grown up, they may have several thick rolls. These, of course, are not
worn for ornament, but it is considered the safest and handiest way of
storing property, and a woman thus carries her private fortune about with
her.
Children and young people often stick flowers in their hair, or into the
perforation of the ear, and girls at Likoma weave wreaths or crowns out
of the _namteke_ blossoms, a small kind of sunflower.
As soon as children are able to eat solid food, they fare much the same
as their elders, though there are two or three kinds of sweet, thick
gruel, besides that already mentioned, which are made specially for the
younger ones, and also sometimes for sick people. It is sweetened—not
with sugar, but with malt (that is, sprouting maize or millet), or the
juice of a kind of millet, which is almost as sweet as sugar-cane. The
stalks of this _msale_—and also sugar-cane, where that is to be had—are
constantly being chewed, both by children and grown-up people. The
results are visible on every native path as little bundles of tousled
white fibrous matter—and the new comer is apt to wonder what they are.
There is a game which mothers sometimes play with children supposed to
be too old for special infant diet; they tickle the child’s back with
a stalk of grass, and, if he starts, accuse him of having ‘eaten the
baby’s gruel’—which would be more attractive than the ordinary _nsima_.
It can readily be inferred that the young are not overburdened in the way
of education. Some training there must be—some elementary inculcation of
modesty and manners, to judge by results: but the deference shown to very
small children—especially boys; the girls begin to make themselves useful
at an early age, and are duly kept in their places—is somewhat ludicrous,
and one would expect it to be disastrous, only that the effects do not
seem to answer such expectation. When a six-foot Ntumbi native informed
me that his son (a precocious youth of perhaps eight, and extremely
minute for that age) had failed to attend school because he had gone
‘to a beer-drinking at So-and-So’s,’ and I expressed some not unnatural
surprise, not unmingled with reprobation, the father replied, ‘If he has
made up his mind to go, who can hinder him?’ ‘_Akana mwini_—his lordship
refuses,’ was the answer given by the female relatives of another
youthful truant to the teacher of the Blantyre mission-school.
I was still new to the country when I went out for a walk at Blantyre
with one Limwichi—aged, I suppose, ten, and with something of a
reputation for _chipongwe_ (the best translation is ‘cheek’)—to carry my
butterfly-net. We met a big Yao, meditatively walking along and eating
a piece of _chinangwa_ (cassava root) as he went. Whether Limwichi was
previously acquainted with this gentleman or not, I don’t know; but he
walked coolly up to him and asked (with what degree of politeness my
proficiency in the language did not enable me to judge) for a share in
this delicacy. I half expected to see Limwichi’s ears boxed, instead
of which the man broke off a piece of his _chinangwa_ and handed it to
him. I fear he did not say ‘Thank you.’ (Some hold that natives never
do—perhaps not understanding that ‘_Chabwino_’—‘It is good’ conveys the
same thing.)
Limwichi, I am sorry to say, had been to school—not long enough, let us
say, to have his manners (though these were not precisely ferocious)
softened by learning; but nothing could be gentler and prettier than the
ways of the unschooled Ntumbi village children who, having got over their
first shyness at the unwonted white faces which made babies shriek and
dogs bark from end to end of the kraals, followed one along the narrow
native paths—somewhat embarrassing in their desire to walk alongside,
where the nature of the ground made it difficult, and to hold one’s
hands, half a dozen at once—but not really forward or troublesome. I
never, with fair opportunities to have come across that sort of thing if
it had been at all common, saw a child struck or otherwise ill-treated.
On the whole, I think, if native parents fail in their duty, it is
through being too easy-going.
I cannot understand the statement sometimes made, that native children
do not know how to play, are without toys and games, and have rather
a melancholy time of it altogether. The traveller who speaks of their
portentous and unnatural solemnity has, of course, only observed them
under the inspiring influence of his own immediate neighbourhood. It is
curious to contrast the pathetic appeals on this score to the compassion
of English children which one sometimes reads with the experience of
the missionaries at Magomero. ‘Indeed it was a question with us at one
time what it was we could teach these children of ours in the way of
amusement. At last, Scudamore and Waller thought to surprise them with
a kite. The kite was made, the children assembled to see it ascend, but
it was lop-sided and heavy, would not go up, went down, and the children
made merry thereat. Said Waller, “You have never seen anything like this
before, have you?” Said a little urchin in reply, “Oh yes! we have,
though. We have seen them, but ours were different to yours. Ours went
up, yours go down.”’
These children had been hunted away from their homes, some of them had
lost their parents, they had all suffered more or less from hunger and
some of them from illness, so that a certain amount of depression would
have been excusable; but the spirit in which they entered into the kindly
meant effort to amuse them is thoroughly characteristic. But for that
casual question, their instructors would never have learned that they
knew how to make kites which would go up. Miss Woodward tells me that she
has seen the Likoma children playing with kites, but I have never seen
one myself, and cannot describe their exact construction.
There are two kinds of tops, the wooden one (_nguli_), which is kept up
by beating, like our whipping-top, with a lash of three strands of bark
tied to a bit of stick. The other, the _nsikwa_, is made of a round
piece of gourd-shell, with a spindle of cane through the middle of it.
‘The game is played by two parties sitting opposite to each other, with
a bare space of hard ground between them, and spinning the tops across
the empty space with as much force as a twirl between the finger and
thumb is capable of, at little pieces of maize-cob set up before their
adversaries.’ Any number can play, one top and one piece of maize-cob
being allowed to each, and the game is to knock over all the pieces on
the opposite side before those on one’s own side are overthrown. The
player whose piece is knocked over catches his adversary’s top and fires
it back at him.
Maize-cobs (_zikonyo_) are also used in the game of _ponyana zikonyo_,
or throwing these missiles at each other; and in that of _tamangitsana_
(literally ‘making run,’ in which one side pretend to be Angoni, and
carry shields). There is a very popular game called _chiwewe_, which is
a somewhat original exercise with a skipping-rope. One player squats
down and whirls the cord, weighted at one end, round his head, so as to
describe round himself a circle of two or three yards in diameter, while
the others jump over it; the one who fails to clear it has to take his
place in the middle.
[Illustration: 1. “MCHOMBWA” OR “MSUO”
2. NYANJA BALL-GAME]
Children build little houses of grass, and otherwise imitate the
proceedings of grown-up people; the boys make themselves little bows,
with arrows of grass-stalks (sometimes these are tipped with sharp bits
of bamboo and strong enough to kill small birds with), and girls grind
soft stones to powder, pretending they are _ufa_, and carry maize-cobs on
their backs for babies. The little Yao girls have a kind of wooden doll
called a _mwali_ (‘girl’): there is no attempt at representing the human
figure; in fact, the thing is more like a ninepin than anything else,
except that both ends are rounded, so that it will not stand up, and one
of them, by way of suggesting the head, is covered with small scarlet
seeds, fitted on like a wig.
Cat’s cradle is played, though I am not certain how, and there is a
variety of guessing games, called ‘tricks’ (_zinyao_), such as _chagwa_,
which is something like ‘hunt-the-slipper’; and another where ‘three
arrows or three sticks are set, and one guesses which is chosen—if he
guess wrongly, his companions laugh and beat him in fun with the sticks.’
An elementary kind of swing is sometimes extemporised by means of a
convenient creeper hanging from the branch of a large tree; but I think I
have also seen one made with a rope.
There is a genuine native ball-game (_mpira_) played with an india-rubber
ball, in which the players stand in a circle, and, after every catch,
clap their hands rhythmically and leap into the air. This, being done
with great regularity, has a very pleasing effect. In one account I have
seen, an umpire is described as calling out ‘Hock! hock!’ after every
good catch. This is an impossible word in either Yao or Nyanja; one
conjectures it may be meant for _yaka_, ‘catch.’ The well-known game
of ‘mankala,’ which seems to be played all the way down from Abyssinia
to Mashonaland, and to be of Arab origin, is here called _mchombwa_
and _msuo_. The Abyssinians play it on a board, but this is not at all
necessary; the four rows of holes can be made on any bit of smooth
ground, and one often sees them in the _bwalo_ of a Nyanja village, where
the men sit smoking and gossiping and weaving baskets. It has been said
that no European has ever succeeded in mastering this game; and I must
own that I have always failed to follow the explanations obligingly given
by the players, but Dr. Scott’s description seems fairly clear. Premising
that there are two players, each provided with a handful of pebbles or
seeds, and six (or nine) holes in each row, it is as follows: ‘The game
consists in distributing one’s men along the rows of holes on one’s own
side, and again moving them up one hole at a time, until those in any
one hole surpass in number those in the enemy’s hole opposite, when the
latter are appropriated and placed out of the game; the game is won when
one is able to appropriate the last remaining one on his opponent’s side.’
_Chuchu_ is a kind of combination of this game and ‘hunt-the-slipper.’
A spiral is drawn on the ground, and holes made in it; three stones are
chosen and two put into the holes. ‘The people are divided into two
bodies, and the stone belonging to each party is moved up according to
the skill of that party in guessing who has the other stone—this third
stone is put in the hands of one by a person who goes all round and
pretends to give the stone to each.’ A somewhat similar game is played
with ten holes and nine stones, and the boy who goes away (or hides his
face) has to guess whether there is a stone in any particular hole at the
moment he is asked, or not.
Some of the above, especially the _mchombwa_, are also played by
adults, who enter into them with great zest. On the coast, and in the
Portuguese settlements, they also play at cards, though the game, or
that form of it which has now spread to the Shiré Highlands, is said to
be ‘unintelligible to Europeans.’ They call the court-cards after local
celebrities, such as Sir Harry Johnston (‘Jonsen’) and the late Mr. John
Buchanan (‘Makanani’). Speaking of games adopted from Europeans—though
it does not strictly belong to our subject—I cannot forbear quoting the
following description from Mr. H. L. Duff’s _Nyasaland under the Foreign
Office_:—
‘The football played at Kota Kota has scarcely more in common with
Association than with Rugby or any other known rules. Indeed, the
distinguishing peculiarity of the game would seem to be its gay immunity
from any rules or restrictions whatever. No limit is apparently set to
the extent of the ground, to the period of time to be covered, or to
the number of those who participate in the game. The spectators may and
do join in when and where they please, and continue to play as long as
they can stand or see. The ball, once fairly committed to the mêlée,
disappears for good. So, of course, does any man who has the misfortune
to tumble down in a scrimmage. The goal-posts are rickety superfluities,
a mere concession to appearances, heeded by nobody and nearly always
prostrated at the first rush. The same abundant energy and the same lack
of restraint are noticeable wherever these Central African natives take
to any European game, and they take to European games of the rougher sort
very readily indeed. I have seen them at Blantyre clubbing one another
on the head, under pretence of playing hockey, just as they rend one
another to pieces at Kota Kota under pretence of playing football. It is,
however, only fair to add that they show great activity, enthusiasm, and
pluck; nor is there much reason to doubt that they might develop into
really sound players, if they could only be induced to adopt a coherent
system and a somewhat more chastened style.’
Games are very often played by moonlight; some of these come rather under
the heading of dances, and _vice versâ_. In fact, the words _sewera_,
‘to play,’ and _bvina_, ‘to dance,’ are used interchangeably; on one
occasion, when the drums boomed all night long from Chona’s kraal, and
the dancing was still going on at 8 A.M., we were told that ‘it was the
Angoni playing.’ As the drums are an essential feature of the dance, this
moonlight diversion becomes trying for the hearer in the vicinity of
European settlements, where empty tins can be got hold of and made to do
duty in the orchestra. The boarders at the Blantyre girls’ school used
to let off their superfluous gaiety by drumming on the zinc baths used
in the laundry, and this was permitted, within limits, lest worse should
befall.
One of these moonlight games, at Likoma, consists in the players joining
hands in a ring and dancing round and round, singing the words _Zunguli,
zunguli, bwata_ (‘Go round, go round, crouch!’) over and over again.
Every time the word _bwata_ comes, the whole ring drops into a squatting
position. In another, ‘a ring of boys dance round one boy crouching in
the middle with a cap or something on his head, and each one of the
ring has in turn to dance round the boy in the middle, keeping his back
to him, not losing his hold of his companions on either hand, and not
displacing the object on the boy’s head.’ One refrain sung with this
game is: ‘_Katuli, katuli, eee katuli_—don’t tread on the boy who has
it, don’t tread on him!’—I have not been able to find out the meaning of
_katuli_ (_e-e-e_ is just the repeated vowel sound, very common in songs,
of which the refrain is often nothing more than _i_, _i_, _i_ or _o_,
_a_, _o_), it probably has none, as now used, and belongs to the same
category as ‘_Tit, tat, toe_’ and the like. Words sung in games are often
more or less of this kind, though sometimes quite intelligible, like
_Nkondo lelo ijija_—‘War comes to-day,’ which belongs to a game something
like ‘Fox and Geese.’ ‘Two captains, each with a long tail of followers,
holding tight one behind the other, face one another, singing this song,
and each seeks to swoop upon the last man in his opponent’s tail and
make a prisoner of him, without his own tail being broken.’ Wrestling is
practised (at least by the Yaos), and a kind of single-stick.
One sometimes comes on a little group of children quietly busy and happy
on the bank of a stream and finds that they are engaged in modelling
figures out of clay. One does not see this art carried into adult life;
and as there is no attempt to make the results permanent by burning them,
they are not often met with. I suppose it was an unusually successful
group I once saw, set up on the ant-heap just outside Ndabankazi’s kraal;
it was, I think, meant to represent a European (there could be no mistake
about that, for he had a hat on) riding on an ox. I was so struck with
this work of art that I offered to buy it if it could be baked, and
understood that the offer had been agreed to—but nothing came of it.
It has been remarked that what knowledge they have seems to come to
these African children instinctively—for no one ever sees them taught,
or chastised for not knowing! Certainly one wonders how they learn some
things which the smallest children do quite easily. Twisting string,
for instance, out of bark, or the fibre of the _bwazi_, the _sonkwe_
hibiscus, and other plants, is a thing which requires a certain knack,
yet you see the whole population at it, when they have the materials
handy, and nothing else to do—from the old grandmother sitting on the
ground to have a chat with you, to the little boy or girl whose attention
is found to be wandering in school. I imagine they must always have
bunches of fibrous stuff secreted somehow about their persons. The
process begins with rubbing a bit of it against one’s leg with the open
hand—further than that, I cannot tell exactly what is done, or how they
manage to twist two strands round each other without making the whole
thing curl up, as it does when I try it.
Having got a sufficient supply of string, the next thing is to make
string bags—which is done by making a row of loops for the bottom of the
bag, and working round and round, putting the end of the string through
each loop to make a fresh row. Usually the end is fastened to a hen’s
feather to make it go through easily. It is a kind of netting without the
knot, and is often quite tastefully done in string of two colours.
But the realities of life begin to make themselves felt. Girls get real
babies tied to their backs instead of dolls, as soon as they are big
enough to carry them. I have no doubt that this injures their growth
less than dragging them about in their arms; and anyhow they are usually
very cheerful about it. Then they have to fetch water, and, as soon as
they are able, to help their mothers in pounding corn and hoeing in the
gardens. The boys have an easier time—at ten, or so, perhaps earlier,
they are set to herding the goats, and will start for the _dambo_ in the
early morning, as soon as the kraal gate is opened, with their sticks,
and, during the rainy season, an old worn-out shield to shelter under in
case of a shower. They take a bit of cold porridge with them, done up in
a leaf, or some roasted maize cobs, unless they are near enough to run
home for the family meal a little before noon. Sometimes they make a fire
in the _dambo_, and roast their maize themselves—or any small game they
may have taken. They shoot small birds with arrows, or knock them down
with sticks; they set various kinds of traps in the grass, and, if they
can find the burrows (which are fairly common), they dig out field-mice
(_mbewa_), which are considered a rare delicacy, and roast them as shown
in the illustration.
The various kinds of traps will be described more fully under the heading
of Hunting and Fishing.
When not cooking, eating, or keeping their charges from straying, they
will find plenty of diversion to help them through the day. They build
little houses in trees, putting up a platform of sticks and a grass
shelter over it; they dig out mole-crickets (_lololo_), guided by the
sound of their chirping, or they make models, as aforesaid, if they find
a patch of moist clay, or an ant-heap and water in happy conjunction. In
fact, whenever, in walking through bush or dambo, you come across any
phenomenon obviously due to human agency—such, for instance, as hats
made out of leaves pinned together with thorns or bits of grass—yet
without visible author or apparent object, you may be sure your escort
will attribute it to the _abusa_—herd-boys. When I asked the meaning of
a number of tufts of grass knotted together in the middle of a piece of
meadow, the children cheerfully said that the _abusa_ had done it in
order to trip people up. I think, however, that they need not be credited
with this, as it is more probable that some one had been marking out a
plot for hoeing next rainy season; and besides, natives are not in the
habit of walking off the path.
[Illustration: 1. BOYS DIGGING OUT FIELD-MICE
2. CAUGHT!
3. ROASTING THE “MEAT,” SPITTED ON A STICK
4. EATING
Note the flat basket of porridge, for which the roast mice are the
“relish”]
They divert themselves also with music, of a sort, making flutes and
whistles out of hollow reeds, or joints of bamboo—it is surprising what
sweet sounds they get out of a very simple bamboo flute. There was a boy,
Bvalani, who used to play on his flute all the way up the hill, as he
came to school. He further distinguished himself by wearing a charming
little coronet, plaited out of pale green palm-leaves, into which he had
stuck two or three blossoms of the crimson ‘Turk’s cap’ lily. Sometimes
they fasten several lengths of reed together to make a kind of Pan-pipes.
The only times they are likely to get into serious trouble are when they
let the goats get into the gardens—or when (being set to watch the fields
when the crops are ripening) they fail to drive off the baboons.
Then, as the sun gets low, they drive their respective flocks home, put
them up for the night, and join the family at the evening meal—or, if
that is over, the mothers are sure to have put aside something for them.
And then come the evening games, on moonlight nights—or the sitting round
the fire, telling stories and asking riddles. This is the appropriate
hour for such amusements. A little Yao boy told Mr. Macdonald that ‘the
old people’ said that ‘if boys recited riddles at midday, horns would
grow on their foreheads.’ This _might_ be intended as a precaution
against their attention being absorbed by this pastime when they ought to
be herding.
The girls sometimes join the games and dances, but they also have
their own amusements apart; and the boys, as they grow older, stand
on their dignity and ‘keep themselves to themselves.’ They have their
own dormitory (_gowero_) when too big to sleep in their mothers’ huts
with the babies; and in some villages, they have an open shed reserved
for their use, where they make a fire in the evenings, and sit round
it, telling tales and roasting sweet potatoes till a late hour. When
they are older, and after they have attended the dances in the bush and
been recognised as men, they are admitted to the bachelors’ house, the
_bwalo_, till they marry and set up an establishment of their own. In a
village like Ntumbi, of small, scattered kraals, the grown-up men of each
family will most likely have a small hut to themselves, as there will not
be a regular _bwalo_, in this sense—which is not quite the same as when
the word is used to mean the ‘village green’ or ‘forum.’
Like most other boys, they quarrel occasionally, and fight sometimes,
with fists, sticks, and anything else—scratching and biting not barred.
But on the whole they are not particularly combative, unless under
exceptional provocation, and their affectionate comradeship is a very
pleasing trait. A boy will never eat alone; and special treats, such as
biscuits, are often subdivided into very minute portions to make them
go round. The boy in the illustration is performing a service for his
friend which is only too frequently needed of late years, since the
non-indigenous pest, the jigger (_matekenya_), was introduced by Arab
caravans at the North End, and gradually found its way south to the
Zambezi. Unless the insect’s egg-sac can be extracted (usually from under
the toe-nail) before the eggs are hatched, a very bad sore is the result.
With the ‘mysteries,’ childhood ends, and a new phase of life begins,
which will be dealt with in the next chapter.
[Illustration: 1. BOY EXTRACTING JIGGER FROM A COMPANION’S FOOT
2. HERD-BOYS COOKING THEIR MIDDAY MEAL]