TRIBAL ORGANISATION, GOVERNMENT, ETC.
Totemistic clans. Kinship counted through women. The
paramount chief: his powers. Succession to the chieftainship.
Administration of justice. Crime and punishment. Slavery.
Both Yaos and Anyanja trace descent through the mother, and cannot marry
within their own clan, which is, of course, the mother’s. The Yao clans
are still clearly known and named. Mr. R. S. Hynde says: ‘The Yaos
are divided among themselves into sub-tribes, stocks, or totemistic
clans,[30] each with its own distinctive name, _e.g._ the Amwale, the
Asomba, the Apiri clan. If you question them on the subject, they will
usually be able to tell you this clan name, unless the person questioned
be a slave, who, from various causes, may not know it.’ _Somba_ means ‘a
fish,’ and _mwale_ ‘a girl’; _piri_ in Nyanja is ‘a mountain,’ though I
have been unable to discover its significance as a Yao word. Thus, if
Mwepeta, of the _Somba_ clan, marries Ndiagani, of the _Mwale_, their
children will be _Mwale_, and none of them can marry a _Mwale_. Their
nearest relation and natural guardian will be their mother’s brother,
who (if the grandfather is dead) will be head of the family. But his
children will be no relatives of theirs, as they belong to their mother’s
clan, and she (by the rule) cannot be a _Mwale_. Any of Mwepeta’s sons or
daughters will therefore be free to marry any of these cousins; but they
could not marry the children of Ndiagani’s sisters, who would be _Mwale_.
Some tribes of Anyanja east of the Lake have, in addition to this, a
system of agnatic descent, through the father, called _chilawa_. This may
be borrowed from the Zulus (who always count descent in this way, though
the importance assigned to the maternal uncle is probably a survival of
a former state of things), and the more southern tribes call it ‘the
Angoni system.’ These last do not appear to have surnames; but those who
recognise _chilawa_ do; these names descend in the male line, and show
at once to what family a man belongs on his father’s side. ‘Although a
person’s surname is not generally known to those who are not his near
relations or intimate acquaintances, because, so to speak, he does not
make personal use of it, and is not called by it, yet every one knows his
own surname, and is ready to give it at once, if asked for it.’ The late
Bishop Maples, who put the above facts on record, was of opinion that, in
spite of the close relationship existing between the sister’s son and the
mother’s brother, the father is really the head of the Nyanja family, and
arrived at the conclusion that a distinction must be made between ‘kin’
and ‘blood’: ‘the mother preserves to her offspring the tie of kinship,
the father that of blood.’
The Yao chief, Kapeni, belonged to the Abanda clan, and was succeeded
on his death, not by any of his sons (who, of course, were not Abanda),
but by the son of his sister, born of the same mother. Had any younger
sons of his mother survived, they would have had the preference; but
half-brothers or sisters (children of the same father, but not of the
same mother), are not counted as relatives—except that they cannot marry.
According to the Yao system of descent, a man should be able to marry his
father’s sisters, but this is seldom done, and is, in fact, considered
very wrong; but he may marry their daughters. Where _chilawa_ prevails,
however, these too are forbidden—they are really reckoned as sisters.
Native terms of relationship are often very puzzling. _Mbale_ is a word
which may be applied to a brother, sister, cousin, or relative of almost
any sort—sometimes even to a friend. There is no word for ‘sister’ or
‘brother’; but there are words meaning ‘elder brother (or sister)’ and
‘younger brother (or sister)’; and these are never used apart from their
possessive pronouns. There is a word which means ‘sister’ when used by
a brother, and ‘brother’ when used by a sister, but is never applied to
one of the same sex as the speaker. A man will call all his father’s
brothers ‘father,’ and all his mother’s sisters ‘mother’; and the term
‘grandparents’ may include all the great-uncles and great-aunts.
Mr. Duff Macdonald well shows the process by which a family may grow
into a small state. A man wishing to found a new village asks permission
of his chief—which in most cases is readily granted—and moves out into
the bush with his wives and children. Temporary shelters are built, and
then the man cuts down the trees, while his wives hoe up the ground for
gardens; and, when these are ready, and planted, more permanent dwellings
are erected. If there are daughters old enough to marry, the village is
soon enlarged by the sons-in-law who come and build their huts there. The
new chief may be accompanied by his younger brothers, or by friends who
call themselves by that name, and place themselves under his authority.
As the new settlement grows in power and importance, it will be joined by
others, and may grow wealthy by trading.
In general, the Bantu have everywhere much the same system of government:
the same features can nearly always be traced, even when modified by
local circumstances. The Anyanja, when they first became known to
Europeans, lived in small villages (as they do now), each under the
control of its own head-man. A district, containing a large number of
villages, was ruled by a sub-chief: such were Chinsunzi and Kankomba,
in the Shiré Highlands, in 1861; and over the whole country was the
Paramount Chief, or _Rundo_ (_Lundu_), who at the same period was
Mankokwe.[31] Mankokwe’s dominions appear to have extended from Lake
Chilwa to the Shiré, and down the latter river as far as the Ruo; below
the Ruo was another paramount chief, Tingani. Above the confluence of
the Shiré and the Zambezi, between Kebrabasa and Zumbo, were two other
independent Nyanja chiefs, Sandia and Mpende. All these chiefs seem at
one time to have been ‘united under the government of their great chief,
Undi, whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but
after Undi’s death it fell to pieces, and a large portion of it on
the Zambezi was absorbed by their powerful southern neighbours, the
Banyai.’[32] This process has been repeated over and over again in the
history of Africa. The Anyanja, being an agricultural (and on the whole a
peaceable) people, kept up no national life outside their little village
communities, but tended more and more to what German historians call
_Particularism_. Consequently, they were unable to withstand the shock
of an invasion; and their organisation, such as it was, went to pieces
before the onslaught of Yaos, Makololo, and Angoni.
_Women chiefs_ are mentioned several times by Livingstone as ruling in
various parts of this region: Chikandakadzi, near Morambala (her position
with regard to Tingani is not stated); Nyango, who seems to have ranked
as _Rundo_ in part of the Upper Shiré Valley, and Mamburuma, near Zumbo
on the Zambezi; also Manenko and Nyamosana in the Lunda country. More
recently, we find Nalolo, a sister of Liwanika, occupying the position
of a chief in the Barotse country. The present Kazembe appears to be
a woman. Sebituane, the Makololo chief, appointed his daughter as his
successor, ‘probably,’ says Livingstone, ‘in imitation of some of the
negro tribes with whom he had come into contact.’ She, however, soon
resigned what proved a distasteful position; for her father, unwilling
that she should transfer her power to a husband, directed her not to
marry, but to contract any number of temporary alliances. It may be,
however, that this feature of the situation was due, not so much to
Sebituane’s Bechuana ideas of the husband necessarily being ‘the woman’s
lord,’ as to some lingering Rotse and Lunda traditions of polyandry;
and a writer in the _Livingstonia Missionary Magazine_ characterises
the present Kazembe as ‘a thoroughly bad woman—a woman of Samaria over
again,’ which may be due to a misunderstanding of a very peculiar
institution.
It is impossible not to connect these scattered indications with those
afforded by the Yao system of kinship, and marriage customs, as to the
state of things in an earlier period of which we have no record.
The Yao tribal organisation is in itself much the same as that of the
Anyanja, but it was more closely knit, owing to the exigencies of war;
and the relations of the conquerors to the conquered tribes must be
distinguished from those which obtained among themselves. But it must
be remembered that the Yaos were not an aggressive tribe, organised
for conquest, under a chief like Tshaka or Mziligazi. In their own
country—between Lake Chilwa and the Upper Rovuma—they seem to have
been both a pastoral and an industrial people. ‘Yao-land proper,’ says
Archdeacon Johnson, ‘had plenty of smelting-furnaces, cattle, and peas
and beans, plenty for man and beast.’ They cultivated ‘down both sides of
the Lujenda, till the valleys were full of Indian corn, and settlement
extended its fields to those of the next settlement.’ The Machinga,
who occupied this country, were dislodged by the Alolo (Makua) from
the south-east, who themselves expelled from the north by the (Zulu)
Magwangwara, drove them into the country of the Mangoche, forcing the
latter into the Shiré Highlands. This was the so-called invasion of 1861.
There are five branches of the Yao nation: the Makale, near the sources
of the Rovuma; the Namataka (or Mwembe people), on the hills west of the
Lujenda; the Masaninga, Mangoche, and Machinga. The last three were the
tribes who entered the Shiré Highlands. Their chiefs seem to have been
quite independent of one another; Kapeni of Sochi was perhaps the most
powerful.
The chieftainship is hereditary, and passes, as already stated, to
the deceased’s younger brothers in succession, or, failing those, to
the eldest son of his sister. The new chief takes, at the same time,
his predecessor’s official name, so that there is always a Kapeni, or
Malemya, or Mponda, as the case may be. The Angoni chiefs, however,
observe the Zulu rule of inheritance, and are succeeded by the eldest
son of the principal (or ‘official’) wife, who is the one married after
accession—earlier ones do not count.
But there are some chiefs who have not succeeded to their position by
right of birth, but attained it by superior cleverness and energy.
Such a man may even be a slave, as was said to have been the case
with Chibisa, who, in the early sixties, had much more real power than
his neighbour Mankokwe, the Rundo of the Shiré Highlands. This man
began by representing himself as possessed by the spirit of Chibisa, a
deceased prophetess of note among the Nyungwe tribe, near Tete, whose
name he assumed. The Nyungwe believed him, and he gradually obtained a
complete ascendency over their chief, Kapichi, finally inducing part of
the latter’s people to secede with him and settle at the foot of the
Murchison Cataracts. His history may be read in the Rev. H. Rowley’s
_Story of the Universities’ Mission_, where it is related how, at last,
he fell in battle, fighting Terere, though without mention of the
sand-bullet which killed him—the only thing against which he had no charm.
The unexpected rise of a man like this has often been the agency in
breaking up Bantu ‘empires’ like that of Undi. But the new power is
seldom permanent, as it does not often happen that such parvenu chiefs
leave behind them successors of equal ability; while, having no backing
but their own immediate followers, they lack that support of custom and
tradition which in normal times will keep a mere average ruler in his
place, so long as he does not forfeit it by any act of his own.
The customary order of succession is sometimes set aside, not so much
by the tribe collectively (though it, too, being represented by the
head-men, has a share in deciding the question), as by the household of
the late chief. As both wives and slaves have a personal interest in
the appointment of the successor, it is but just that they should have a
chance to express their objections, if any. When Malemya of Zomba died,
in 1878, his slaves, and many of his head-men, disliked the obvious heir,
his younger brother Kumtaja, while the widows openly preferred a nephew,
Kasabola. The head-men announced that, if Kumtaja were appointed, the
people of the chief’s village would all leave and go to live elsewhere.
Kasabola, accordingly, was installed, and took the name of Malemya, while
Kumtaja left, taking with him such head-men as would go, and founded a
new village not far off. Malemya, finding him an inconvenient neighbour,
called in the Angoni, who came and raided Kumtaja’s village in August
1884. He fled first to Lake Chilwa, and then to the Upper Shiré, where he
died some years ago.
When the new chief is appointed, some little time is allowed to pass
before he is formally inducted. The day is then fixed for him to assume
his official title (literally, ‘to enter the name’), after which his
old name is never heard again. He is lectured on his duties to his
people—which are held to consist chiefly in exercising hospitality, and
not beating them too much; and, if he is a Yao of certain families, he
is invested with the _lisanda_, a white head-band with hanging ends.
Some Yao chiefs are not entitled to wear the _lisanda_; while, on the
other hand, the right is enjoyed by some minor head-men who belong to the
privileged families. It is henceforth worn on all solemn occasions—and
sometimes at beer-drinkings—and the chief’s first appearance in it is
hailed with songs of rejoicing. The proceedings, as might be expected,
end with feasting.
On the Lake a special oblong house, with one side open, is built for the
chief’s investiture. The insignia of royalty are here, a red blanket, and
a red fez, called _chisoti cha zindi_—both probably imported.
The chief’s powers are not despotic;[33] he is not supposed to act
without consulting his head-men, who represent the general views of the
tribe; and he seldom disregards their opinion to any serious extent.
Should he persist in doing so, his career would either come to a sudden
and violent end, or his people would leave him to seek some more
congenial ruler, and he would find himself lord of deserted villages.
This is a recognised and constitutional remedy for grievances, and no
chief refuses an asylum to such refugees; indeed, it is to his interest
to welcome them. Fugitive slaves, on the other hand, are often returned
to their masters.
The village head-man settles all local matters, usually with the
assistance of the elders or heads of families, who are called his
‘younger brothers.’ He consults them before engaging in war, or
undertaking any public work, such as constructing a stockade round the
village; but he cannot summon them to work on his own private account,
nor exact tribute from them. He settles any disputes among them, but if
they are not satisfied with his decision, they can appeal to a higher
head-man, or sub-chief, or to the chief himself.
Graver matters are reported by the head-man to the sub-chief, and by him,
if necessary, to the chief. The latter holds the head-man responsible
for any wrong-doing of his people which may come to his ears, just as
the chief in his turn will be held responsible for any aggression of his
head-men against outsiders. So far is this principle carried that, when
a man has been injured by an inhabitant of a certain village, he and his
friends are quite satisfied if they can catch any other man belonging to
the same village, whom they will either put to death or hold to ransom
till reparation is made.
The _mlandu_ and the _ordeal_ are the two great judicial institutions of
Bantu Africa. With the ordeal we have partly dealt elsewhere, but there
will be a little more to say about it presently.
_Mlandu_ is a word which may be variously rendered as ‘lawsuit,’
‘complaint,’ ‘discussion,’ ‘crime,’ and otherwise, according to the
context. It is the same thing known as a ‘palaver’ in West Africa, and an
_indaba_ by the Zulus. Civil cases are thus settled. The head-man and his
‘younger brothers’ take their seats in the _bwalo_, and, as a rule, the
whole village is assembled, the men sitting on one side, and the women—a
little apart—on the other. The accuser speaks first, then the accused,
and the various members of the council give their opinions in turn. The
speeches are often long and eloquent, and the case may extend over days
or even weeks before the head-man gives his decision, or, as the natives
say, ‘cuts the case.’ If no decision is come to, or if either party
wishes to appeal, the case is transferred to a higher court, and ‘the
_mlandu_ spoken’ before the sub-chief or the chief. An important case of
this sort is sometimes attended by hundreds of people. The successful
party in the suit makes the judge a present out of the damages.
Matrimonial cases are settled before a court of this kind—if, for
instance, a wife feels herself aggrieved and returns to her relatives.
She is represented before the court by her ‘surety.’ The husband may also
bring an action for divorce in this way.
Criminal charges, too, in the first instance, are brought before the
chief’s or head-man’s court. A man caught stealing may, by native law,
be killed, and his death entails no prosecution. He may be caught alive,
and would then be put into a slave-stick for safe-keeping, till ransomed
by his friends; and killed, or kept as a slave, if no ransom were
forthcoming.
When a theft has been committed, without suspicion falling on any
particular person, the diviner or the _mabisalila_ is consulted, and
the person pointed out by him or her accused before the court. The
prosecutors demand restitution of the stolen goods; the defendant pleads
not guilty, and offers to drink _mwavi_ to prove it. His friends, if
they believe him innocent, will demand the ordeal on his behalf; if they
have misgivings, they will be afraid to run the risk, convinced, as they
are, that the guilty party invariably dies, and knowing that, in such a
case, they will have to pay the full value of whatever was stolen. If
guilty, a man will probably confess rather than risk the ordeal—he, or
his relations, will have to make restitution and pay a fine besides, the
head-man of his village being held responsible. These payments also have
to be made for him, if his confidence in the judgment of the ordeal turns
out to have been misplaced—his death, in the native view, conclusively
proving his guilt. If, on the other hand, he survives, the accusers have
to pay over a fine to him, and the sorcerer is assumed to have been
mistaken. Some try a second sorcerer, but he must not point out the man
just acquitted, as no man can be made to drink _mwavi_ twice on the same
charge.
Theft, if brought into court at all, is always punished by a fine; but
sometimes the thief is handed over as a slave to the injured party. Other
ordeals are sometimes used besides the _mwavi_—plunging the hand into hot
water, or touching red-hot iron—but the principle is the same: injury
to the hand proves guilt. It will be noticed that the head-man is held
responsible for thefts committed by his villagers, in accordance with the
principle already stated. (He may, in fact, be the receiver of the stolen
goods.) If he refuses to take the matter up when it is brought to his
notice, war may be the result.
A murderer, if caught red-handed, may be killed by the friends of his
victim; or they may put him in a slave-stick till slaves have been paid
over for his ransom. Some of these are sometimes sacrificed to the
_manes_ of the victim. If the actual slayer cannot be caught, a man
from the same village may be captured and held to ransom in the same
way. In some cases, no distinction is made between accidental homicide
and murder; sometimes a gun which has been the cause of an accident is
seized instead of the owner, and held till he pays several slaves for it.
Sometimes, however, the view is taken that the man or his gun may have
been bewitched, and steps are taken to find out and punish the person
who has done this. The man who kills his own slave, or even his younger
brother, or other ward, is not amenable to justice, but—unless he can
protect himself by a charm—he is afraid of the mysterious _chirope_ which
overtakes those who shed blood within the tribe. The chief, to whom he
goes if he has committed such a murder, procures the charm for him from
his own medicine-man, and uses it himself as well, ‘because of the blood
that has been shed in his land.’
Adultery is theoretically a capital crime with most Bantu tribes; that
is, the man may be (and frequently is) shot or speared by the husband;
the wife is frequently let off with a warning the first time, but for a
second offence either killed or divorced and sent back to her relatives,
who in such a case must return whatever present was made at the marriage.
Sometimes she drinks _mwavi_, and is, of course, accounted guilty if she
dies. But in practice, the matter is often arranged by paying damages, or
the guilty man may be sold into slavery. Still there can be no question
that (where they have not been corrupted by outside influences, or their
customs and institutions disorganised by war, etc.) they look on it as a
very serious affair.
Slave wives are more summarily dealt with, and are often either killed
or sold. I have seen one ‘Angoni’ woman who had had her nose and ears cut
off, but seemed to be living on in her husband’s (or master’s) family, as
before,—though evidently doing most of the heavy work. But such cases are
not common, except perhaps among the coast Arabs, who have large slave
harems and rule them by terror.
From what has already been said, it will be seen that in ordinary
procedure formal executions are not common; if the criminal has not
been killed red-handed, or if he does not undergo the ordeal, the trial
usually ends in a fine, or in his being handed over as a slave to
his accusers. But where the chief orders a man to be executed, he is
usually stabbed or has his throat cut. Sometimes a wizard is shot at
once on being detected by the Mabisalila, and sometimes, when convicted
by the ordeal, the crowd fall upon him and lynch him without waiting
for the poison to do its work: an outbreak of panic ferocity which has
its parallel, in a more deliberate form, in the records of English and
Scottish witch-trials.
Witches were in former times sometimes burned alive by the Yaos; but Mr.
Macdonald says that in his time this was only done if they refused the
_mwavi_ test, which was not likely to happen. It was done also by the
Anyanja at Likoma, and the stake where these executions took place stood
on the site of the present Cathedral. But by far the greater number of
cases were left to be decided by the issue of the poison.
At one time, the Yaos used to torture the person pointed out by the
witch-detective by squeezing his head between two pieces of wood, till
he pointed out where the horns were buried; but in later times the
Mabisalila found the horns (as already described) as well as naming
the witch. But I do not think that this, or judicial torture to extort
confession of ordinary crime, is common.
An act of sacrilege held to be penal is when a free man sets fire to
grass or reeds near a lake supposed to be the abode of a tutelary spirit,
in which case he would be thrown into the lake. This perhaps would be
rather a sacrifice than an execution.
Imprisonment as a punishment is scarcely known, and indeed scarcely
possible, though, as has been said, men are sometimes detained in the
slave-stick till ransomed or otherwise disposed of. It is a small log
with a fork at one end, long enough for the other end to rest on the
ground when a man’s neck is inserted into the fork and secured with an
iron pin. Slaves are confined in these sticks on the march (as in the
familiar picture in Livingstone’s _Zambezi Expedition_), or when they are
likely to run away,—or sometimes as a punishment. Debtors, adulterers,
and thieves may be put in the slave-stick till their debts or fines are
paid up. Slaves, when thus confined, sometimes have the other end of the
stick fastened up to a tree, so that they can do their usual work of
pounding corn, or the like. There is also a form of stocks called in Yao
_ugwalata_, consisting of a hole in the verandah-part of a hut, through
which a man’s arm or leg is passed, and secured so that he cannot draw it
back. Slaves are sometimes severely beaten.
The Makololo chiefs approach more nearly the idea of an irresponsible
despot than any others in this part of Africa; but this is owing to a
special set of circumstances, and they cannot be taken as typical. It is
the more necessary to bear this in mind, because the chapter of horrors
which Mr. Macdonald gives under the heading, ‘A Slave Government,’
may seem to contradict some of the statements we have made. These
chiefs, then, were placed in a very exceptional position. They were
a small minority of warriors in the midst of an unwarlike population
whom they regarded with contempt, but who were strong enough to make
them think they must secure their position by ruthless severity. Some
of them had actually been slaves themselves, though the only Makololo
among them, Ramakukane, was of good family. Cruelty is not a Makololo
trait, though Sebituane and Sekeletu could act with firmness and even
harshness when the occasion seemed to demand it. But some unusually
barbarous punishments seem to have been used in the Barotse valley where
the Makololo had settled, and to which some of these chiefs belonged
by birth. They may have brought some of these customs with them; and
their becoming possessed of virtually unlimited power, while at the
same time their footing was but a precarious one, did the rest. None
of them was subject to the others; they were far enough apart to be
quite independent; but they acted together in face of a common enemy.
It is a pleasing fiction that their despotism was on the whole of a
benevolent character, and voluntarily submitted to by the Mang’anja,
who welcomed them as protectors against the Yaos; but this illusion
is dispelled by a closer acquaintance with the facts. Even before the
departure of the Livingstone expedition, they had begun to tyrannise over
the Shiré population; but it was only after that event that their power
became fully established. Several of them were undoubtedly men of fine
qualities; but a careful examination of their careers before and after
(roughly speaking) 1861, leads to the conclusion that some at least must
have degenerated sadly.
They took advantage of the famine of 1862-3 to enslave the Mang’anja, and
‘their power increased every day till they could claim all on the Lower
Shiré for their subjects.’ They had no council of head-men, and though
each village had a head-man, he was not a responsible local ruler, but
a mere taskmaster appointed by the chief. Forced labour and oppressive
tribute were exacted. No woman had a ‘surety,’ as with the Yaos, but
the chief disposed at will of his subjects’ daughters—assigned them to
husbands of his own choosing, or took them into his harem, as he felt
disposed. Wholesale _mwavi_-drinkings took place, at which no one was
allowed to refuse the cup; and judicial torture was frequent.
The ordinary tribute paid to chiefs varies in different tribes, but is
not in general excessive. In some parts, when an elephant is killed,
the chief claims ‘the ground tusk’—_i.e._ the one which touches the
ground when it falls; elsewhere this is not insisted on. Presents are
usually expected from strangers passing through the country, but they get
something in return; and a chief (though in practice he may fall short
of the ideal) is always supposed to be generous. Yao local head-men send
their chief a percentage of the ivory when they kill elephants, and (if
they live near enough) a haunch of any large animal (such as an eland)
which they may shoot. It is also the custom for them to invite him to a
beer-drinking at least once in the year. Sometimes the chief sends for
the village head-men, or orders them to find men, to do some work for him
at his village—hoeing, or building huts. This was frequently done by the
Angoni chiefs, who also (as has been said before) made periodical levies
of their subjects’ sons to herd their cattle, and of their daughters for
the harem.
There is no regular priestly class. The professional diviners and
medicine-men to a certain extent occupy the same position, and a Yao
chief sometimes appoints a ‘sacrificer,’ whose duties are of a somewhat
miscellaneous character. Besides taking the omens before a battle, he
has to carry the banner and lead the army—the chief himself, like David
in later life, not going into action. (He stays behind to ‘supply powder
and deal with deserters.’) The ‘sacrificer’ tastes the beer offered to
the chief’s guests, to show that it is not poisoned, and beats one of the
drums at witch-dances, where he represents the chief, if the latter is
unable to be present. Whether he is the same as the chief’s medicine-man
is not clear.
But the strictly religious functions of a priest, as we have seen, are
performed by the chief on behalf of his tribe, by the head-man for the
village, by the father for the family, and (in private matters) by the
individual for himself.
We have seen how the chief presides over, or at least takes part in,
public prayers for rain; but the Yaos and Anyanja do not at present seem
to have anything corresponding to the ‘feast of first-fruits’ among the
southern Bantu, where the chief ceremonially ‘tastes’ the first of the
new crops before the people are allowed to gather them. There are traces
of such a rite among the Yaos, and I am inclined to think that the Angoni
keep up something of the kind, or did a few years back, because I was
informed at one of the Ntumbi kraals, about the beginning of the harvest
season, that the father of the family was away at Chekusi’s, ‘eating
maize,’—an expression of which I did not at the time grasp the probable
bearing. The Zulus keep the _ukutshwama_ with great solemnity, and the
Angoni would have brought the custom with them from the south, though I
do not know how they observe it in detail.
The chief is supposed to be the owner of all the land, but in strictness
he cannot alienate it without the consent of the tribe. It seems,
however, as if, apart from European or Arab influence, the idea of
permanent property in land scarcely existed. No one is supposed to own
land except so long as he actually cultivates it; and, owing to the
method of agriculture, it is abandoned every few years. Any member of the
tribe can make a fresh garden where he likes, provided no one else has
bespoken the ground; but a stranger would require the chief’s permission
to settle. The chief’s land is well defined, and has recognised
boundaries, but there seem to be no definite limits to the territory
occupied by a tribe.
The Mang’anja used to recognise certain animals as _nyama ya lundu_,
‘king’s meat,’ not allowed to be eaten by the people in general. Among
these were the _nkaka_, or scaly ant-eater, whereof the Rev. D. C. Scott
was on one occasion invited to partake by Ramakukane, and a certain kind
of large frog or toad called _tesi_, said to be very delicate eating.
It remains to speak of slavery, which has always been, in varying
proportions, a feature of Bantu society. The outside slave _trade_ does
not so much concern us here, as (in this part of Africa, at any rate) it
is entirely an exotic thing, introduced and fostered by the Portuguese on
one side and the Arabs on the other. And though this has been largely, if
not wholly, done away with (it is certain that there was some smuggling
going on, twelve years ago), yet domestic slavery, which is very
difficult for governments to interfere with, still continues in fact, if
not in name, and will only die out gradually. The proportion of slaves to
free people is probably not large—unless all the Anyanja subject to the
Angoni are counted as slaves—which is not, strictly speaking, correct;
they are rather in the position of serfs or villeins.
Slavery may be a matter of birth; the children of slaves, or of a
slave mother and free father, are slaves also. Some slaves are persons
taken prisoners in war, or sold (probably to pay a debt) by father,
grandfather, or elder brother. Others may have been condemned to slavery
as criminals, or bewitchers, or possessed of ‘the evil eye,’ and these
are sold to some one at a distance—to get rid of them. Or they may
be seized on account of a debt they cannot pay; or, lastly, they may
voluntarily become slaves, in time of famine, in order to get food.
The owner has the power of life and death over his slaves, but subject
to the moral restraint already mentioned. Slaves may be beaten—sometimes
cruelly—or confined in _gori_-sticks, at the will of their masters, but
as a rule they are kindly treated, and, in fact, to an outsider, are
often indistinguishable from the family. In speaking of or to them,
the master says _mwana_ (‘child’), or _mnyamata_ (‘boy’), rather than
_kapolo_ (‘slave’). Some of the families at Nziza and Ntumbi had Yao
slaves who must have been captured in the raids across the Shiré a few
years before, and who seemed quite contented with their lot.
Slaves are employed about the usual work of a house and garden: the women
are generally the master’s junior wives, and share the household labours
among them; the men sometimes relieve them of part of the heavy work,
such as pounding corn, or fetching wood and water, but are also engaged
in more strictly masculine pursuits. They are supplied with guns and go
out hunting; they spin, weave, sew, make baskets, etc.; and sometimes
they are sent to carry loads for a trading party, or accompany their
master to war. A man may even send a confidential slave to the coast to
trade on his account. A chief often gives considerable authority to his
principal slave, who may attain a position of great importance, and
cases are not unknown where such a slave has become a chief.
People kidnapped from another tribe may be, and sometimes are, ransomed
by their friends. After a fight it is common to send word that such and
such prisoners have been taken, so that a ransom may be sent. It does
not seem to be possible, in practice, for a slave to redeem himself; but
once free, there are no special disabilities attaching to his position.
A slave who runs away places himself under the protection of another
master, if he can find one to shelter him; but if he can escape being
caught, he _may_ achieve freedom for himself, as, apparently, Chibisa
did. But in general a masterless slave does not find the highroad a safe
place, and hastens to put himself under some one’s protection.
Slaves are not distinguished by any special mark, badge, or dress. They
may possess property (such as cloth, guns, and ivory), as their owner
frequently allows them to keep part of what they earn. They may even, in
some cases, own other slaves. The master gives the slave a wife—usually a
slave woman, but occasionally he may let him marry his daughter. The case
of a free woman marrying a slave husband is, however, rare; and he is
likely to be superseded at any time.
On the death of a slave-owner, such of his slaves as are not chosen to
accompany him (and this, as we have seen, is by no means universal) pass
into the possession of his heir. If a slave dies possessed of property,
it all goes to his master.
The Machinga, at Mponda’s on the Upper Shiré, made a raid on Ntumbi and
Nziza, in May 1894, for the purpose of capturing women and children, but
the men of the place frustrated this attempt, and took two prisoners, who
were sent up to Chekusi’s, but released (I believe) after their guns had
been taken from them. There is reason to believe that they had been more
successful on previous occasions, not so very long before, and that the
women in question had been smuggled across the Shiré, and, as there was
no safe opportunity of sending them down to the coast, bought by various
Yaos in the Shiré Highlands, who set them to work in their gardens, and,
if inquiry was made, passed them off as their wives. In Livingstone’s
time even the Anyanja, who have themselves suffered so much from the
slave-trade, at times kidnapped people and sold them to the Portuguese.
There is a special word for this (_fwamba_), and though practised it
seems to have been always more or less reprobated—or at any rate felt to
be wrong.