FUNERAL RITES
Wailing and mourning. The grave. Inheritance. The cause of
death. Ordeal.
I have already mentioned the _Nkalango_ thickets or groves, where the
Anyanja bury their dead. I have entered several of these, but saw no
signs of recent use—or anything to indicate the nature of the place
beyond a few broken pots—except in one case. This was at Blantyre; it
lay at some distance from the main road, and, so far as I could see,
no path led to it. Seeing it in the distance one day, when I was out
by myself, and could discover nobody in sight whose feelings might be
hurt, I determined to visit it. I only reached it after a struggle
through burnt grass (it was in September) which blacked me all over, and
a scramble across the dried-up bed of a stream. There may have been a
more convenient access, but I doubt it, and fancy that a path would be
cleared when wanted. It is not the native custom to visit the graves of
dead friends, though, as we have seen, this does not imply that they are
forgotten; on the contrary, communications from them are expected and
even hoped for. But it is not at the grave they are sought; that is an
uncanny place, haunted by other presences than that of the departed; and
persons found there, or seen going thither, might expose themselves to
serious suspicions.
The first thing I saw gave me something of a shock. It was an object
wrapped in a reed mat, and slung from a pole, supported between two
trees, the cords supporting it passed under the shoulders and knees,
so that the latter were slightly flexed by the weight of the body, and
allowed one just to perceive a human shape through the rigid outline of
the _bango_ mat. Looking round, I saw a number of graves—some fairly
recent—but no other interment like the above. The mounds were not like
ours, but nearly as broad as long, and looked more like rough garden-beds
than anything else. On them were laid broken sifting-baskets, handles of
hoes (or axes), and pots, these last with a hole in the bottom of each.
Pots of all sorts and sizes were scattered all over the grove, some of
them seemingly very old. There was nothing else to mark the older graves,
which were now level with the surrounding soil. I noticed two or three
shallow pits near the mounds; these were not half-completed graves (for
the digging is not begun till the corpse is actually on the spot), but
traps to catch the wizards, in case they should arrive with the views
indicated in a former chapter.
There are two possible explanations of what I saw, neither of which I
succeeded in obtaining at the time. One is that people dying of smallpox
(and perhaps other infectious diseases) are not buried in the earth,
but the corpse is ‘hung up to let the disease fly away with the wind,
instead of keeping it about the place.’ The intention is thus excellent
from a sanitary point of view, if the result is unfortunately rather wide
of the mark. As it happened that the disease had just about that time
been brought down from the Lake by some Atonga, and several people in the
Blantyre neighbourhood had died of it, this was probably the reason in
the above case. (_See note at end of chapter._)
Some clans of the Atonga appear to have been in the habit of burying
their dead in trees, placing the corpses in their mats on convenient
forked branches; and, as there were a good many Atonga temporarily in the
district, it is just possible that the man so buried may have belonged to
one of the clans in question; though the grove was commonly known as ‘the
Chipeta burying-ground,’ and used, I believe, by members of that tribe
only—or at least by dwellers in the villages called by their name. The
Anyanja and Yaos bury with the legs bent; the Atonga, apparently, lay the
body stretched at full length.
As soon as any one is known to be dead, the wail is raised by the women
about the hut. Sometimes (among the Atonga) some of the nearest friends,
when the end is seen to be at hand, come out of the hut and cry silently
till told that all is over.
The ‘first mourning’ takes place inside the hut, where the wife or mother
holds up the dead in her arms, or the body is laid across the knees of
the mourners as they sit on the ground. The wailing is kept up till
the ‘undertakers’ (_adzukulu_, or _awilo_) enter to prepare the corpse
for burial, when every one else leaves the hut. These may or not be
relatives—more usually they are not—but are thenceforth considered as
connected with the family by a special tie. They close the eyes (a dead
man who has no friends to do this for him is said ‘to lie with glaring
eyes’—_kutuzuka maso_), wash the corpse, swathe it in calico, and lay it
on a mat, which is then rolled round it and tied up with bark-string.
When they have finished they wash their hands in ‘medicine-water,’
because they handled a corpse.
All this time ‘the mourning at the door’ is going on. It lasts two,
three, or sometimes five days; in the case of a chief who is buried
inside his hut, perhaps for weeks. In the hot climate of the Tonga
country the burial is the same day, if the death takes place in the
morning; but if not, it is felt to be more decent to wait till next day,
so as to avoid all appearance of hurrying things over.
The spaces between the verandah-posts are filled in, so as to make small
rooms, in which the family sleep till the mourning is over—sometimes on
leaves spread on the ground instead of the usual mats. The women keep up
the ‘keening,’ seated on the ground, or walk about, calling on the dead,
‘Alas! alas! (_mai ine_), my father! Ah! Pembereka!’—or whatever the name
may be. They put earth, ashes or flour, on their heads, tie bands of
plaited grass or palm-fibre round their heads and arms (these are worn
till they drop off), and let their hair grow; all ornaments are laid
aside, and old, soiled clothes put on.
The death is reported to the village chief, while the preparations for
burial are begun, and at the same time messengers are sent to relatives
at a distance, each of whom carries a present—perhaps a fowl or a
hoe; the acceptance of this means that no suspicions of foul play are
entertained. With the Atonga, a payment (sometimes quite a large one) is
made, on their arrival, to those relations who come to the funeral; after
they have received it, they go to view the body, and give permission for
burial. If they do not consider the amount sufficient, the undertakers
will not close the door of the hut (a sign that the preparations are
complete) till more has been given.
During the mourning at the door, the drums are kept going day and night,
to keep the witches from the body. The lamentations go on, interspersed
with praises of the dead man—his greatness, his kindness, and generosity.
‘That man gave us to eat,’ they will say; ‘we ate at his hands, he killed
his fattest; were it riches, he was always giving; his mourning has gone
forth far and wide; we feasted at his hands.’ Guns are fired, where
available, at frequent intervals, to let people at a distance know that
there is mourning at the village.
When all is ready for the burial, the ‘undertakers’ fasten the body
in its mat shroud to a long bamboo pole, and so carry it between them
on their shoulders. The nearest relative does not as a rule go to the
funeral, nor any one under age—_i.e._ who has not yet been to the
mysteries; but there is a large following of other people. The men carry
hoes and baskets for lifting out the earth; the women, who walk in the
rear, carry the funeral offerings of porridge and beer. The site of the
grave is marked out by the principal man present, and the body is laid
aside under a tree while the digging goes on. When the grave is deep
enough, stakes are driven in all round the sides, and two forked poles
planted in the bottom, to receive the ends of the carrying-pole when the
body is lowered into the grave, so that it is suspended without touching
the ground. The space is covered in with cross bars on top before
filling in the earth. These precautions are intended to prevent witches
from getting at the dead, but are by no means universally observed. The
Anyanja ‘cover with a little earth, then tread it down, then pour in much
and cover it up fully’; and the Atonga, after filling in the grave, break
the pole in the middle, and plant one-half at the head, and the other at
the foot.
The deceased’s personal possessions are put into the grave with him
before the earth is filled in. Ivory and beads, if buried with their late
owner, are first ground to powder between stones, to make them useless
to witches and perhaps to more prosaic resurrectionists, if any such can
be found to brave the terrors of the place and the risks of prosecution.
When all is finished, the women lay the offerings on the grave, also the
deceased’s water-jar, in which a hole is made, and gourd drinking-cup,
which is broken. The ‘undertakers’ sometimes eat the offerings, but no
one else touches them; it is believed that any one doing so would be
seized with madness.
We have already seen that some Atonga clans suspend the corpse instead of
burying it; others bury in the usual way, except in the case of persons
of high rank, where they lay the body on the ground and erect a fence
round it, covering in the top with heavy logs.
Young children of a few days old are not formally mourned for, and are
buried by the women only. People who die of the _mwavi_ ordeal are not
buried at all; they are looked on as accursed and their bodies thrown
away into the bush to be eaten by hyenas. This is also sometimes done
with slaves. Men killed in battle, if their friends can get possession of
the body at all, are not taken home, but buried on the war-path.
Slaves used to be sacrificed at the death of a Yao chief, but only in
certain clans (the Abanda, Amilansi, and perhaps others); ten for an
important chief, or fewer for one of less standing. The master’s death
was kept secret for a time, till the required number had been secured in
slave-sticks. They were killed at the grave-side and thrown in before the
body was lowered. Sometimes they were buried alive, and this was done
till recently by the Atonga, who, if one slave was buried with a chief,
made him lie in the grave, clasping the dead man in his arms. If there
were several, they sat in the grave facing each other, and the corpse was
laid across their knees. If any of them sneezed after taking his place
in the grave, his life was spared, as it was believed that the spirit
thus signified his refusal of that particular victim. Mr George Pirie
says of the Babemba, that the people so sacrificed died willingly; and
indeed slaves are often sufficiently attached to their masters to make
such devotion possible. The funeral ceremonies of the Atonga include
some interesting details not mentioned above; some of them may be Yao and
Nyanja also, but I cannot find any record of them. I quote the account of
the Rev. A. C. MacAlpine:—
‘In taking the body out of the hut, exit was not made by the door, for
by that the living only passed out, and they must not slight the dead by
treating him as if he were still alive. So they broke down the back wall
of the hut opposite the door, and through the hole so made passed out
with the body. The children of the village had meanwhile been told to
hide out of the way, although the children of the deceased were brought
up to the bier and lifted over it by the _azukuru_.[21] Before they bore
the corpse away, they swung it to and fro outside the hut, where it had
passed out, chanting the while, “We are leaving to-day; we follow our
fellows.” In front of the procession walked a man blowing a reed whistle,
while other mourners followed the bier carrying weapons, utensils,
trinkets, and offerings to be buried in the grave or laid on the top.
Last of all went a woman with a hoe and a basket, into which she dropped
various roots growing beside the path which the funeral had followed, and
which she had dug up with the hoe. These were hurriedly prepared by her
as a charm with which to purify the party on their return from the graves
to the village.
‘On arrival at the graveyard, the people begun to shout and clap their
hands to warn the spirits supposed to be about.’ After the grave was dug
and the body lowered into it, the chief undertaker (called _chimbwi_, or
hyena, because he is not afraid to approach the dead), ‘descended into
the grave and untied the fastenings round the dead, exposing the face
for a few minutes; whatever had been brought to be buried along with
the dead was arranged about the corpse according to custom, and finally
arranging the grave-clothes and re-covering the face, the _chimbwi_
climbed out again. The nearest relatives, one on each side of the grave,
kneeling down and doing homage to the dead, pushed the first earth into
the grave, using their elbows to do so. After a little, the whole company
assisted in filling up the grave.... Prayers to the dead, conducted by
the _chimbwi_, with responses from the other mourners, completed the
obsequies at the grave, all the company having paid respect to the dead
by falling from a sitting position on to their backs, clapping their
hands.’
On their return from the grave, the whole party wash in ‘medicine-water.’
Sometimes, on the way back, they gather the leaves of a particular shrub,
and prepare it for themselves; but sometimes special men are called in
from a distance to make the medicine. Atonga mourners go to bathe in a
running stream before entering the village; after this, the _chimbwi_
fetches a torch of grass pulled from the roof of the dead man’s hut,
lights it at the fire in the same hut, jumps over it himself, and then
holds it a few inches from the ground for the whole party to jump over,
one by one. As they do so, the woman who has gathered the roots rubs
them on back and breast of each person; and they are then sufficiently
purified to come home.
The Babemba seem to make some attempt at mummifying the corpses of their
chiefs, by rubbing the body all over with boiled maize, repeating the
process till the whole skin becomes dry and shrivelled.
The following is an account, by an eye-witness, of the funeral of the
Angoni chief, Mombera, who died in 1891:—
‘Men were there from all parts of the tribe, sitting in the
cattle-kraal—an immense enclosure open to the sky. Before the grave
was dug, one of his brothers jumped up, and placing his hands behind
his head, advanced towards the place of burial, mourning all the time
and performing a sort of waltzing movement. All the men at the same
moment jumped to their feet and stood mourning. After this subsided,
the digging of the grave was proceeded with. It was not finished till
next day. Meanwhile, companies of people were coming and going, and on
entering the village, stood mourning and crying at the top of their
voice, “_Baba be! Baba be!_”[22] Before the body was brought out, there
was a curious procession of his wives on their hands and knees to the
grave, decorated with great bunches of feathers that only the chief is
allowed to wear. Soon after, the body was brought in, rolled in cloth,
and deposited in the grave in a sitting posture with his face to the
east. This was the signal for all jumping up, and closing round the grave
in a big circle, and there mourning and rending the air with cries.
Only men were allowed in the kraal at this time. (The Zulus never allow
women in the cattle-kraal at any time.) They stood with their shields
over their heads, crying out. Afterwards the young men came marching in
in companies and stood mourning for a little, then retired. Meanwhile
they were depositing in the grave along with him an immense amount of
calico, dresses, etc.—I dare say the accumulation of years; cooking-pots,
drinking-vessels, mats, and pipes also went in. During this time, the
women were mourning in their own style and causing a fearful din. They
appeared as if bereft of their senses, catching one another, and going
through some queer movements.’
Among the Anyanja of the Lake (at Likoma and on the east side), the place
of the sacred grove is taken by something like a mausoleum. A small house
is built over the grave (instead of the grave being dug within the house
occupied when living), or it is planted round with a hedge of euphorbia;
these fashions may perhaps have been borrowed from the coast men. I have
seen the grave of a Yao chief near Domasi, covered with what looked like
a flat slab of concrete, but was probably an earthen mound smoothly
plastered over with mud. It was enclosed in a high reed fence. The idea
of this, too, was probably imported.
The subject of offerings to the spirit, which are sometimes made at the
grave, has been discussed in a former chapter. As there stated, they are
more usually presented elsewhere, unless the deceased has been buried
inside his own house. But, though avoided by the relations, the grave is
held sacred, and lawsuits may arise out of its desecration. One of the
worst acts of sacrilege that can be committed—in fact, an act amounting
to social suicide—is ‘to break a pot at the grave of some family not your
own ... the offender’s life is forfeited, and he lives only as the slave
of the grave-owners till redeemed.’
The next step after the burial is to destroy the house occupied by the
deceased. It is burned or pulled down, and the foundation dug over. The
thatch and other things are carried away and burned at the cross-roads,
and what is not burned is buried; the site is swept all over, and fresh
earth spread on it. Children are warned not to play there. ‘A pot is put
down to receive offerings of beer, and when any special offering is given
to the deceased, it is usually presented here. If this place become too
public (as when children play near and send dust into the pot), the pot
will be removed and placed under a tree at a little distance from the
village.’
If the man is buried in his own house, as is sometimes done with chiefs,
it is not taken down, but shut up and left to decay. A large part of the
dead man’s stock of calico is draped over the roof, and offerings are
presented under the verandah. A local head-man named Matope died near
Blantyre in 1893, and the white roof of his hut was a landmark visible
for miles throughout the following year. In such cases, a hole is first
dug in the floor, then a niche is made in the side of the hole. The
position of this niche is carefully concealed from all except those
immediately concerned, and no two graves of this kind have it in the same
place.
On the day when the house is taken down, the mourners, in some cases,
have their heads shaved, and some of the hair is buried on the site of
the house. This is only where there are _two_ shavings; where there is
only one, the hair is allowed to grow till the end of the mourning. It is
thought that the hair which the deceased has seen must not remain after
he is buried, or at any rate after the subsequent ceremonies are finished.
The mourning may last for two or even three months longer. Its duration
is decided by the most influential relative. The survivors do not wash or
oil themselves; in some cases they are forbidden to eat warm food, to use
salt, or to drink beer. Yet beer is sometimes brewed during this period,
to be drunk at the mourning dances which take place from time to time.
The Atonga keep a fire burning all this time in front of the dead man’s
house (which seemingly they do not destroy), called the ‘forbidden fire,’
because it may not be used for any ordinary purposes. It has been kindled
by the chief undertaker from the fire within the deceased’s house, with
a wisp of grass out of the roof—like the torch already mentioned. If
a fire is wanted for cooking, a light must be fetched from one of the
houses of the living. When the mourning is over, the first thing done
is to brew a large quantity of beer, and, when that is ready, to kill
fowls and cook porridge—in fact, to hold the funeral feast, which in
other parts of the world takes place immediately after the burial. This
is intended to convey that sorrow is not to last for ever; but the dead
is not forgotten—on the contrary, he is especially remembered, and his
spirit is supposed to share in the festivities. Regular drinking-songs
are sung in chorus. The undertakers attend and superintend the shaving of
the mourners’ heads, taking off a little piece of hair in front and one
behind for each person, and leaving the rest to be done by others. The
hair is buried on the site of the house; the Atonga burn it in a fresh
fire made by rubbing two sticks,[23] and the ‘forbidden fire’ is put out.
On the day of this shaving, what corresponds to the proving of the will
is done—the deceased’s affairs are settled, and his property, if any,
handed over to his successor. With the succession to the chieftainship we
shall deal in another chapter. A man’s next heir is his eldest surviving
brother, or failing brothers, his sister’s son. We have already said that
the dead man’s wife or wives are inherited by his successors; but this
requires some qualification. What really happens, among one section at
least of the Anyanja, is this:—‘The relations, after a decent interval’
(it is the rule that, during the period of mourning, nothing must be said
about the disposal of the property or re-marriage of the widows), ‘take
a corn-stalk, break it into as many pieces as there are eligible men in
the family, and send them to the woman by the hand of the chief of the
bearers[24] (who are chosen from outside the family). She may take one up
from the ground and show it, saying, ‘I want so and so.’ The man so named
becomes the heir. If the woman refuses all the men, she will have to
repay the original marriage gifts which her husband made to her family,
and often much more. If the man chosen refuses the woman, he sends her
an arrow or a fowl, or some other small present, but usually an arrow,
and tells her to marry some other man. If so, he gets no marriage gifts
returned to him.’
Some of a man’s property is, as we have seen, buried with him. Out of
the rest, his successor has to pay the funeral expenses, including heavy
fees to the undertakers, who, besides, have partaken of the offerings and
the funeral feast. There may also be a prosecution for witchcraft to be
paid for out of the estate, though this may be compensated by damages.
If, however, the deceased had himself been prosecuted and had died of
the ordeal, his heir has to pay damages to the bewitched person or his
representatives.
There are certain well-understood causes of death which are not supposed
to require any investigation, though, according to some, every death
is put down to witchcraft. The witch is believed to kill a person, and
then, when his relations have buried him, to send out messengers to find
out where the grave is. When they come back, they tell their master that
they have seen the meat (the ‘game’—_i.e._ the corpse), and say, ‘Come
along.’ Then the owl ‘which sits on the head of the chief’ goes out and
summons all the witches to the feast. The animals lead the way to the
grave, a fire is made, and the chief asks who it was that killed the
person they are about to eat. One answers, ‘It was I,’ and the chief
tells him to ‘bring the meat out.’ ‘So the man who killed him sounds
a rattle and calls him by his early name’—the name he bore before he
attended the mysteries, which has a compelling power over him—and he
comes out. The wizard then reproaches him for real or imaginary insults
and injuries—possibly there are unhealthy-minded persons who will brood
for years over fancied wrongs, and when the man they are nursing a grudge
against dies, imagine that they have killed him—and finally kills him
over again. ‘Then they take the meat and divide it, and take it with them
to their village; the _mfiti_ cooks it at night and eats it, and takes
a pot and digs to conceal it in the deserted house of the deceased, and
leaves and goes to his own house as if nothing had happened.’
If all the energy expended to prevent these proceedings counts for
anything, it may well be believed that they never happen at all. When the
circumstances of a death seem to warrant suspicion, the witch-detective,
whose methods are described elsewhere, is sometimes called in, and the
people pointed out by her are either killed at once or compelled to drink
_mwavi_. But the ordeal is sometimes put in operation without resorting
to her. Persons who feel themselves under suspicion may demand it in
order to clear their character. So firmly do they believe that it will
not hurt them if innocent, that no one, unless conscious of guilt, ever
seems to shrink from the trial.
The Yaos hold that it should not be administered to a free person without
grave cause—_i.e._ unless suspicion is definitely directed to some one
person. The Angoni and Makololo chiefs, whose government (at least as
regards the subject tribes) was more despotic, used to order wholesale
_mwavi_-drinkings, trying a whole village or district to discover the
supposed culprit. In these cases, the poison was often taken by proxy and
given to fowls or dogs—each animal being tied by a string to the person
whom it represented, and whose guilt or innocence was decided by its
death or recovery. There was a _cause célèbre_ of this kind at Chekusi’s
kraal, about twenty years ago. Chekusi’s mother had been suffering from
rheumatism, and had been treated for it by Dr. Henry, of the Livingstonia
Mission. Shortly afterwards, unfortunately, she committed suicide in
a fit of depression, and, naturally, things looked very black for the
doctor. However, there were two other possible culprits, and a trial
took place with three sets of fowls, one for the Europeans at Livlezi
Mission, one, I think, for Mponda, with whom Chekusi was then more or
less at war, and the third for the other suspected party. The proceedings
were complicated by the number of victims demanded by the importance
of the occasion: had one been allotted to each defendant, the decision
would have been quite clear; as it was, some of each set died and some
recovered, and the issue was such hopeless confusion that the case was
dropped without arriving at a verdict.
The poison used throughout the Shiré Highlands, on the Lake, and by the
Angoni appears to be the same; it is the pounded bark of a tree known to
science as _Erythrophleum guineense_. Its effect is fatal within an hour
or two, unless it causes sickness; this symptom is therefore held to be
a sign of innocence. Its different action on different people probably
arises from the strength of the dose being varied by accident or design.
When a trial of this sort is decided on, the _mapondera_, or ‘pounder,’
is sent for. He prepares the poison in the _bwalo_, before the assembled
people, by pounding the bark, steeped in water, in a small wooden mortar,
with a pestle which has a cover fixed round it to prevent the liquid
splashing out. The result is a red infusion, said by those who have
been fortunate enough to taste it and recover, to be very bitter. This
information I had from a man who complained that he was not well, and
to whom, finding that he seemed to have feverish symptoms, I offered a
dose of quinine. After tasting it—and retiring out of sight to reject it
with decency—he declined any more, on the ground that it was exactly like
the _mwavi_ he had been compelled to drink a month ago. The usual dose
is about half a pint; the accused come up one by one to drink, and then
sit down on the ground to wait till it takes effect. This, as stated,
is usually within an hour or two. In cases where public feeling is very
strong against the accused, the end is not always waited for, but he or
she is lynched as soon as the symptoms seem likely to be fatal.
It is said that the accused has a voice in the selection of the
professional who is to mix the draught; but most natives believe so
firmly in the infallibility of the _mwavi_-test, that in practice it
matters little to them who compounds it. Of course, the _mapondera_
has opportunities of diluting the dose, as his own inclinations or
hints previously received from interested parties may prompt; and this
is probably the reason why the greater number of those who submit to
the test usually escape. I remember an occasion when several families
escaping from the war which was going on between Chekusi’s men and
Bazale, near Lake Malombe, halted at a village near Ntumbi, where a
child belonging to one of them died. They accused the people of the
place of bewitching them, and called on them to drink _mwavi_, which was
immediately done. One child of the village died; it is likely that it
succumbed to a dose which was not strong enough to kill the adults. But
the matter did not end here. The people who had demanded the ordeal were
subjects of Chekusi’s brother Mandala, who was also the over-lord of
certain kraals in the neighbourhood, while the villagers who had drunk
the poison were under the immediate jurisdiction of Chekusi himself. The
latter thought that his rights had been infringed, and insisted that some
of his brother’s subjects should take _mwavi_ in their turn. I do not
know how many did so this time, but the number of deaths was two.
Two other cases came to my personal knowledge—one a wholesale affair
of the kind already referred to. Chekusi had been ill; and Mandala
(apparently just then on exceptionally good terms with him) sent for
a number of people to the royal kraal, and administered the ordeal to
find out who had bewitched him. Among those who went from Ntumbi were
two old men mentioned in a previous chapter—Pembereka and Kaboa. The
former died—Kaboa either recovered or he did not drink the poison, which,
however, is unusual, and, I fancy, unprecedented; and, if I understood
him rightly, it is surprising that he should have been allowed to depart
without further trouble. What he said to me was, ‘I refused’ (_ndakana_),
which might, however, conceivably mean that his system had rejected the
drug. The mourning for poor old Pembereka continued at his kraal for two
or three days, and subsequently his family went up to Chekusi’s to finish
the mourning there and (we were told) to drink _mwavi_, but on what
grounds I never made out: in any case there was no further fatality. As
we have already seen, those who die by _mwavi_ are not usually buried,
but cast out to be eaten by wild beasts; we gathered from rumours which
reached us that this was not done in Pembereka’s case, but that he was
buried at Chekusi’s.
The other case was a local one: a young girl died suddenly—possibly
of pneumonia or rapid consumption; she was delicate, but seemed in
fairly good health when we last saw her, about three months before her
death. Her father, the Ntumbi head-man, made a number of people drink
_mwavi_, and one young man died—_chifukwa wodiera antu_, as my informant
said—‘because he was an eater of men.’ It is possible, however, that
there might have been more deaths in this case but for the action of an
English planter who heard of the matter in time and came to the rescue
with ipecacuanha.
A case which all the older residents in British Central Africa will
remember took place at Blantyre. Mr. John Moir, at that time manager
of the African Lakes Company, got wind of the trial and arrived on the
scene when matters were already so far advanced that it seemed best
to act first and explain afterwards. Accordingly, he began by kicking
over the doctor’s mortar, and then set forth his views on the subject.
He succeeded in getting the proceedings quashed, but—and this is the
interesting feature in the story—the rescued victim considered himself
ever afterwards to have a standing grievance against Mr. Moir. He was a
local head-man of some standing, and complained that, as he had not been
allowed the opportunity of clearing his character, he was under a cloud
and likely to remain so for the rest of his life. His people were leaving
him and settling elsewhere—no one cared to be associated with a person of
such doubtful reputation—in short, he was a ruined man!
The administration of the ordeal-poison is a very solemn ceremony;
commonly, as we have seen, it takes place in the _bwalo_, or village
forum, but Livingstone speaks of some Batoka head-men making a pilgrimage
to the graves of their ancestors for the purpose.
‘The ordeal by the poison of the muave is resorted to by the Batoka as
well as by the other tribes; but a cock is often made to stand proxy for
the supposed witch. Near the confluence of the Kafue the Mambo, or chief,
with some of his head-men, came to our sleeping-place with a present;
their foreheads were smeared with white flour, and an unusual seriousness
marked their demeanour. Shortly before our arrival they had been accused
of witchcraft; conscious of innocence, they accepted the ordeal. For this
purpose they made a journey to the sacred hill of Nchomokela, on which
repose the bodies of their ancestors; and after a solemn appeal to the
unseen spirits to attest the innocence of their children, they swallowed
the muave, vomited, and were therefore declared not guilty.’[25]
NOTE.—The Rev. H. Rowley says that the Mang’anja distinguished
between deaths brought about by Mpambe (_i.e._ those resulting
from old age or ‘the ordinary diseases of the country’), and
those caused by the _mfiti_. The former were buried; the
latter, as being accursed, rolled in mats and hung up in
trees. One cannot help suspecting some confusion here—more
especially as violent deaths are reckoned as the work of
the _mfiti_,—a word which this writer translates by ‘evil
spirit’—thus introducing another element of misconception. Dr.
Hetherwick, in a communication received since this chapter
has been in type, says: ‘The Yaos lay their dead with their
faces to the east, and with the knees bent to the chin. This
is the invariable rule, and so the niche which they make in
the side of the grave to receive the corpse is dug out on the
_west_ side of the pit. The turning of the face to the east is
interesting. At old Kapeni’s funeral one of his men went into
the grave after the body was laid in its place, and fired an
arrow up into the air. I have never found any explanation of
this rite. It is not done on any other occasion that I have
note of.’