public-house of the village, is the common brewery. In some tribes,
however, fermentation is the essential occupation of the women. The
principal inebrient is a beer without hops, called pombe. This ποτος
θειος of the negro and negroid races dates from the age of Osiris: it is
the buzah of Egypt and the farther East, and the merissa of the Upper
Nile, the ξιθον and xythum of the West, and the oala or boyaloa of the
Kafirs and the South African races. The taste is somewhat like soured
wort of the smallest description, but strangers, who at first dislike it
exceedingly, are soon reconciled to it by the pleasurable sensations to
which it gives rise. Without violent action, it affects the head, and
produces an agreeable narcotism, followed by sound sleep and heaviness
in the morning--as much liked by the barbarian, to whom inebriation is a
boon, as feared by the civilised man. Being, as the Arabs say, a “cold
drink,” causing hydrocele and rheumatism, it has some of the
after-effects of gin, and the drunkard is readily recognised by his red
and bleared eyes. When made thick with the grounds or sediment of grain,
it is exceedingly nutricious. Many a gallon must be drunk by the veteran
malt-worm before intoxication; and individuals of both sexes sometimes
live almost entirely upon pombe. It is usually made as follows: half of
the grain--holcus, panicum, or both mixed--intended for the brew is
buried or soaked in water till it sprouts; it is then pounded and mixed
with the other half, also reduced to flour, and sometimes with a little
honey. The compound is boiled twice or thrice in huge pots, strained,
when wanted clear, through a bag of matting, and allowed to ferment:
after the third day it becomes as sour as vinegar. The “togwa” is a
favourite drink, also made of holcus. At first it is thick and sickly,
like honeyed gruel; when sour it becomes exceedingly heady. As these
liquors consume a quantity of grain, they are ever expensive; the large
gourdful never fetches less than two khete or strings of beads, and
strangers must often pay ten khete for the luxury. Some years ago an
Arab taught the Wanyamwezi to distil: they soon, however, returned to
their favourite fermentation.
The use of pombe is general throughout the country: the other inebrients
are local. At the island and on the coast of Zanzibar tembo, or toddy,
in the West African dialects tombo, is drawn from the cocoa-tree; and in
places a pernicious alcohol, called mvinyo, is extracted from it. The
Wajiji and other races upon the Tanganyika Lake tap the Guinea-palm for
a toddy, which, drawn in unclean pots, soon becomes acid and acrid as
the Silesian wine that serves to mend the broken limbs of the poor. The
use of bhang and datura-seed has already been alluded to. “Máwá,” or
plantain-wine, is highly prized because it readily intoxicates. The
fruit when ripe is peeled and hand-kneaded with coarse green grass, in a
wide-mouthed earthen pot, till all the juice is extracted: the sweet
must is then strained through a _cornet_ of plantain-leaf into a clean
gourd, which is but partially stopped. To hasten fermentation a handful
of toasted or pounded grain is added: after standing for two days in a
warm room the wine is ready for drinking.
The East Africans ignore the sparkling berille or hydromel of Abyssinia
and Harar, and the mead of the Bushman race. Yet honey abounds
throughout the country, and near the villages log-hives, which from
their shape are called mazinga or cannons by the people, hang from every
tall and shady tree. Bees also swarm in the jungles, performing an
important part in the vegetable economy by masculation or
caprification, and the conveyance of pollen. Their produce is of two
kinds. The cheaper resembles wasp-honey in Europe; it is found in the
forest, and stored in gourds. More than half-filled with dirt and
wood-bark, it affords but little wax; the liquid is thin and watery, and
it has a peculiarly unpleasant flavour. The better variety, the
hive-honey, is as superior to the produce of the jungle as it is
inferior to that of India and of more civilised lands. It is tolerable
until kept too long, and it supplies a good yellow wax, used by the
Arabs to mix with tallow in the manufacture of “dips.” The best honey is
sold after the rains; but the African hoards his store till it reddens,
showing the first stage of fermentation: he will eat it after the second
or third year, when it thins, froths, and becomes a rufous-brown fluid
of unsavoury taste; and he rarely takes the trouble to remove the comb,
though the Arabs set him the example of straining the honey through bags
of plantain-straw or matting. Decomposition, moreover, is assisted by
softening the honey over the fire to extract the wax instead of placing
it in the sun. The price varies from one to three cloths for a large
gourdful. When cheap, the Arabs make from it “honey-sugar:” the
material, after being strained and cleaned, is stored for two or three
weeks in a cool place till surface-granulation takes place; the produce
resembles in taste and appearance coarse brown sugar. The “siki,” a
vinegar of the country, is also made of one part honey and four of
water, left for a fortnight to acetise: it is weak and insipid. Honey is
the only sweetener in the country, except in the places where the
sugar-cane grows, namely, the maritime and the Lakist regions. The
people chew it, ignoring the simple art of extracting and inspissating
the juice; nor do they, like the natives of Usumbara, convert it into an
inebrient. Yet sugar attracts them like flies; they clap their hands
with delight at the taste; they buy it for its weight of ivory; and if a
thimbleful of the powder happen to fall upon the ground, they will eat
an ounce of earth rather than lose a grain of it.
After eating, the East African invariably indulges in a long fit of
torpidity, from which he awakes to pass the afternoon as he did the
forenoon, chatting, playing, smoking, and chewing “sweet-earth.” Towards
sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness: the men sit outside the
Iwánzá, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching water for
household wants from the well, collecting in a group upon their little
stools, indulge in the pleasures of gossipred and the pipe. This hour in
the more favoured parts of the country is replete with enjoyment, which
even the barbarian feels, though not yet indoctrinated into æsthetics.
As the hours of darkness draw nigh, the village doors are carefully
closed, and, after milking his cows, each peasant retires to his hut, or
passes his time squatting round the fire with his friends in the Iwánzá.
He has not yet learned the art of making a wick, and of filling a bit of
pottery with oil. When a light is wanted, he ignites a stick of the
oleaginous mtata, or msásá-tree--a yellow, hard, close-grained, and
elastic wood, with few knots, much used in making spears, bows, and
walking staves--which burns for a quarter of an hour with a brilliant
flame. He repairs to his hard couch before midnight, and snores with a
single sleep till dawn. For thorough enjoyment, night must be spent in
insensibility, as day is in inebriety; and, though an early riser, he
avoids the “early to bed,” in order that he may be able to slumber
through half the day.
It is evident that these barbarians lead rather a “fast” life; there
are, however, two points that modify its evil consequences. The “damned
distillation” is unknown, consequently they do not suffer from delirium
tremens, its offspring. Their only brain-work is that necessitated by
the simple wants of life, and by the unartificial style of gambling
which they affect. Amongst the civilized, the peculiar state of the
nervous system in the individual, and in society, the abnormal
conditions induced by overcrowding in cities and towns, has engendered a
cohort of dire diseases which the children of nature ignore.
Such is the African’s idle day, and thus every summer is spent. As the
wintry rains draw nigh, the necessity of daily bread suggests itself.
The peasants then leave their huts at 6 or 7 A.M., often without
provision, which now becomes scarce, and labour till noon, or 2 P.M.,
when they return home, and find food prepared by the wife or the
slave-girl. During the afternoon they return to work, and sometimes,
when the rains are near, they are aided by the women. Towards sunset all
wend homewards in a body, laden with their implements of cultivation,
and singing a kind of “dulce domum,” in a simple and pleasing
recitative.
When the moon shines bright the spirits of the East African are raised
like the jackal’s, and a furious drumming and a droning chorus summon
the maidens to come out and enjoy the spectacle of a dance. The sexes
seldom perform together, but they have no objection to be gazed at by
each other. Their style of saltation is remarkable only for the extreme
gravity which it induces--at no other time does the East African look
so serious and so full of earnest purpose. Yet with all this
thoughtfulness, “poor human nature cannot dance of itself.” The dance
has already been described as far as possible: as may be imagined, the
African Thalia is by no means free from the reproach which caused
Mohammed to taboo her to his followers.
Music is at a low ebb. Admirable timists, and no mean tunists, the
people betray their incapacity for improvement by remaining contented
with the simplest and the most monotonous combinations of sounds. As in
everything else, so in this art, creative talent is wanting. A higher
development would have produced other results; yet it is impossible not
to remark the delight which they take in harmony. The fisherman will
accompany his paddle, the porter his trudge, and the housewife her task
of rubbing down grain, with song; and for long hours at night the
peasants will sit in a ring repeating, with a zest that never flags, the
same few notes, and the same unmeaning line. Their style is the
recitative, broken by a full chorus, and they appear to affect the major
rather than the interminable minor key of the Asiatic. Their singing
also wants the strained upper notes of the cracked-voiced Indian
performer, and it ignores the complicated raga and ragini or Hindu
modes, which appear rather the musical expression of high mathematics
than the natural language of harmony and melody.
[Illustration:
1. Paddle in East Africa.
2. The Sange or Gourd.
3. Bellows.
4. Drum.
5. Stool.
6. The Zeze (guitar).
7. The D’hete, or Kidete.]
The instruments of the East African are all of foreign invention,
imported from various regions, Madagascar, and the coast. Those
principally in use are the following. The zeze, or banjo, resembles in
sound the monochord Arabian rubabah, the rude ancestor of the Spanish
guitar. The sounding-board is a large hollow gourd, open below; on the
upper part, fastened by strings that pass through drilled holes, is a
conical piece of gourd, cleft longitudinally to admit the arm or handle,
which projects at a right angle. The arm is made of light wood, from 18
inches to 2 feet in length; the left-hand extremity has three frets
formed by two notches, with intervals, and thus the total range is of
six notes. A single string, made of “mondo,” the fibre of the mwale or
raphia-palm, is tied to a knob of wood projecting from the dexter
extremity of the handle, thence it passes over a bridge of bent quill,
which for tuning is raised or depressed, and lastly it is secured round
another knob at the end beyond the frets. Sometimes, to form a bass or
drone, a second string is similarly attached along the side of the arm,
whilst the treble runs along the top.
The kinanda, a prototype of the psaltery and harp, the lute and lyre,
and much used by the southern races in the neighbourhood of Kilwa, is of
two kinds. One is a shallow box cut out of a single plank, thirteen
inches long by five or six in breadth, and about two inches in depth:
eleven or twelve strings are drawn tightly over the hollow. The
instrument is placed in the lap, and performed upon with both hands. The
other is a small bow-guitar, with an open gourd attached to the part
about the handle: sometimes the bow passes through the gourd. This
instrument is held in the left hand, whilst the “tocador” strikes its
single cord with a thin cane-plectrum about one foot long. As in the
zeze, the gourd is often adorned with black tattoo, or bright brass
tacks, disposed in various patterns, amongst which the circle and the
crescent figure conspicuously. A third form of the kinanda appears to be
a barbarous ancestor of the Grecian lyre, which, like the modern Nubian
“kisirka,” is a lineal descendant from the Egyptian oryx-horn lute with
the transverse bar. A combination of the zeze and kinanda is made by
binding a dwarf hollow box with its numerous strings to the open top of
a large circular gourd, which then acts as a sounding-board.
The wind-instruments are equally rude, though by no means so feeble as
their rivals. The nai or sackbut of India, and the siwa, a huge bassoon
of black wood, at least five feet long, are known only to the
coast-people. The tribes of the interior use the d’hete or kidete,
called by the Wasawahili zumari. It is literally the bucolic reed, a
hollowed holcus-cane, pierced with four holes at the further end: the
mouthpiece is not stopped in any way, and the instrument is played upon
solely by the lips, a drone being sometimes supplied by the voice. Thus
simple and ineffective, it has nevertheless a familiar sound to European
ears. The barghumi is made by cutting an oblong hole, about the size of
a man’s nail, within two or three inches of the tip of a koodoo, an
oryx, or a goat’s horn, which, for effect and appearance, is sometimes
capped with a bit of cane, whence projects a long zebra’s or giraffe’s
tail. Like the det’he, it is played upon by the lips; and without any
attempt at stops or keys, four or five notes may be produced. Its sound,
heard from afar, especially in the deep silence of a tropical night,
resembles not a little the sad, sweet music of the French
_cor-de-chasse_; and when well performed upon, it might be mistaken for
a regimental bugle. There are smaller varieties of the barghumi, which
porters carry slung over the shoulder, and use as signals on the line of
march. Another curious instrument is a gourd, a few inches in
circumference, drilled with many little apertures: the breath passes
through one hole, and certain notes are produced by stopping others with
the fingers--its loud, shrill, and ear-piercing quavers faintly resemble
the European “piccolo.” The only indigenous music of the pastoral
African--the Somal, for instance--is whistling, a habit acquired in
youth when tending the flocks and herds. This “Mu’unzi” is soft and
dulcet; the ear, however, fails to detect in it either phrase or tune.
For signals the East Africans practise the kik’horombwe, or blowing
between the fore and the middle fingers with a noise like that of a
railway whistle. The Wanyamwezi also blow over the edge of the hollow in
a small antelope’s horn, or through an iron tube; and the Watuta are
said to use metal-whistles as signals in battle.
The drum is ever the favourite instrument with the African, who uses it
as the alarum of war, the promise of mirth, the token of hospitality,
and the cure of diseases: without drumming his life would indeed be a
blank. The largest variety, called “ngoma ku,” is the hollowed hole of a
mkenga or other soft tree, with a cylindrical solid projection from the
bottom, which holds it upright when planted in the ground. The
instrument is from three to five feet in length with a diameter of from
one to two feet: the outside is protected with a net-work of strong
cord. Over the head is stretched a rough parchment made of calf’s-skin;
and a cap of green hide, mounted when loose, and afterwards shrunken by
exposure to fire, protects the bottom. It is vigorously beaten with the
fists, and sometimes with coarse sticks. There are many local varieties
of this instrument, especially the timbrel or tabret, which is about a
foot long, shaped like an hour-glass or a double “darabukkah,” and
provided with a head of iguana-skin. The effect of tom-toming is also
produced by striking hollow gourds and similar articles. The only cymbal
is the upatu, a flat-bottomed brass pot turned upside down, and tapped
with a bit of wood. The “sanje,” a gourd full of pebbles, is much
affected in parts of the country by women, children, and, especially, by
the mganga or rain-maker; its use being that of the babe’s rattle
amongst Europeans.
The insipidity of the African’s day is relieved by frequent drinking
bouts, and by an occasional hunt. For the former the guests assemble at
early dawn, and take their seats in a circle, dividing into knots of
three or four to facilitate the circulation of the bowl. The mwandázi,
or cup-bearer, goes round the assembly, giving scrupulous precedence to
the chiefs and elders, who are also provided with larger vessels. The
sonzo, or drinking-cup, which also serves as a travelling canteen, is
made generally by the women, of a kind of grass called mávú, or of wild
palm-leaf: the split stalks are neatly twisted into a fine cord, which
is rolled up, beginning from the bottom, in concentric circles, each
joined to its neighbour by a binding of the same material: it is
sometimes stained and ornamented with red and black dyes. The shape when
finished is a truncated cone, somewhat like a Turk’s fez; it measures
about six inches in diameter by five in depth, and those of average size
may contain a quart. This cup passes around without delay or heel-taps,
and the topers stop occasionally to talk, laugh, and snuff, to chew
tobacco, and to smoke bhang. The scene of sensuality lasts for three or
four hours--in fact, till the pombe prepared for the occasion is
exhausted,--when the carousers, with red eyes, distorted features, and
the thickest of voices, stagger home to doze through the day. Perhaps in
no European country are so many drunken men seen abroad as in East
Africa. Women also frequently appear intoxicated; they have, however,
private “pombe,” and do not drink with the men.
The East African, who can seldom afford to gratify his longing for meat
by slaughtering a cow or a goat, looks eagerly forward to the end of the
rains, when the grass is in a fit condition for firing; then, armed with
bows and arrows, and with rungu or knobkerries, the villagers have a
battue of small antelopes, hares, and birds. During the hot season also,
when the waters dry up, they watch by night at the tanks and pools, and
they thus secure the larger kinds of game. Elephants especially are
often found dead of drought during the hot season; they are driven from
the springs which are haunted by the hunters, and, according to the
Arabs, they fear migrating to new seats where they would be attacked by
the herds in possession. In many parts the huntsmen suspend by a cord
from the trees sharpened blocks of wood, which, loosened by the animal’s
foot, fall and cause a mortal wound. This “suspended spear,” sprung by a
latch, has been described by a host of South African travellers. It has
been sketched by Lieut. Boteler (“Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery to
Africa and Arabia,” chap. iv.); and Major Monteiro (“O Muata Cazembe,”
chap. v.); and described by Mr. Galton, Mr. Gordon Cumming, and Dr.
Livingstone (chap. xxviii.). Throughout Ugogo and upon the maritime
regions large game is caught in pitfalls, here called mtego, and in
India ogi: in some places travellers run the risk of falling into these
traps. The mtego is an oblong excavation like a great grave, but
decreasing in breadth below the surface of the ground and it is always
found single, not in pairs as in South Africa. The site generally chosen
is near water, and the hole is carefully masked with thin layers of
small sticks and leaves. The Indian “surrounds” and the hopo or V-shaped
trap of the Bakwens are here unknown. The distribution of treasure-trove
would seem to argue ancient partitions and lordships, and, in dividing
the spoils of wild or tame animals, the chief claims, according to
ancient right, the breast. This custom apparently borrowed by the
Hebrews from Africa (Leviticus, chap. vii. 30, 31), is alluded to by
almost all South-African travellers.
The elephant roams in herds throughout the country, affecting the low
grounds where stagnating water produces a plentiful vegetation: with
every human being its foe, and thousands living by its destruction, the
animal is far from becoming scarce; indeed, the greatest number of
footprints appeared near Chogwe and Tongwe, stations of Baloch garrisons
close to the town of Pangani. The elephant hunt is with the African a
solemn and serious undertaking. He fortifies himself with periapts and
prophylactics given by the mganga, who also trains him to the use of his
weapon. The elephant-spear resembles our boarding-pike rather than the
light blunt arm employed in war; it is about six feet long, with a broad
tapering head cut away at the shoulders, and supported by an iron neck,
which is planted in a thick wooden handle, the junction being secured by
a cylinder of raw hide from a cow’s tail passed over it, and shrunk on
by drying: a specimen was deposited with the Royal Geographical Society.
The spear is invariably guarded by a mpigi or charm, the usual two bits
of wood bound together with a string or strip of skin. It is not a
little curious that the East African, though born and bred a hunter, is,
unlike almost all barbarians, as skill-less as an European in the art of
el asr, the “spoor” or “sign.”
The hunting-party, consisting of fifteen to twenty individuals, proceeds
before departure to sing and dance, to drink and drum for a consecutive
week. The women form line and perambulate the village, each striking an
iron jembe or hoe with a large stone, which forms an appropriate
accompaniment to the howl and the vigelegele, “lullilooing,” or trills
of joy. At every step the dancer sways herself elephant-like from side
to side, and tosses her head backwards with a violence threatening
dislocation of the atlas. The line, led by a fugle-woman by the right,
who holds two jembe in one hand, but does not drum, stops facing every
Arab house where beads may be expected, and performs the most hideous
contortions, whirling the arms round the shoulder-socket, kneeling, and
imitating the actions of various animals. The labour done, the ladies
apply to their pombe, and reappear after four or five hours with a
tell-tale stagger and a looseness of limb which adds a peculiar charm to
their gesticulations. The day concludes with a “fackeltanz” of
remarkable grotesqueness. This merrymaking is probably intended as a
consolation for the penance which the elephant-hunter’s wife performs
during the absence of her mate; she is expected to abstain from good
food, handsome cloth, and fumigation: she must not leave the house, and
for an act of infidelity the blame of failure in the hunt will fall
heavily upon her. Meanwhile the men--at least as “far gone” as the
women--encircle with a running jumping gait, and with the grace and
science of well-trained bears, a drum or a kilindo,--the normal bark
bandbox,--placed with open mouth upon the ground, and violently beaten
with sticks and fists or rubbed and scraped with stones. It forms also a
sounding-board for a kinanda or bow-guitar, one end of which is applied
to it, whilst a shrill fife of goat’s horn gives finish and completeness
to the band. Around the drum are placed several elephants’ tails,
possibly designed to serve the purpose of the clay-corpse introduced
into the feasts of ancient Egypt.
When thoroughly drenched with drink, the hunters set out early in the
morning, carrying live brands lest fire should fail them in the jungle,
and applying them to their mouths to keep out the cold air. These
trampers are sometimes dangerous to stragglers from caravans, especially
in countries where the robber or the murderer expects to escape with
impunity. In some places hunting-huts have been erected; they are,
however, seldom used when elephants are sought, as a herd once startled
does not readily return to the same pasture-grounds. The great art of
the African muinzi or elephant-hunter is to separate a tusker from the
herd without exciting suspicion, and to form a circle round the victim.
The mganga, then rising with a shout, hurls or thrusts the first spear,
and his example is followed by the rest. The weapons are not poisoned:
they are fatal by a succession of small wounds. The baited beast rarely
breaks, as might be expected, through the frail circle of assailants:
its proverbial obstinacy is excited; it charges one man, who slips away,
when another, with a scream, thrusts the long stiff spear into its hind
quarters, which makes it change intention and turn fiercely from the
fugitive to the fresh assailant. This continues till the elephant,
losing breath and heart, attempts to escape; its enemies then redouble
their efforts, and at length the huge prey, overpowered by pain and loss
of blood trickling from a hundred gashes, bites the dust. The victors,
after certain preliminaries of singing and dancing, carefully cut out
the tusks with small, sharp axes, and the rich marrow is at once picked
from the bamboo and devoured upon the spot, as the hare’s liver is in
Italy. The hunt concludes with a grand feast of fat and garbage, and the
hunters return home in triumph, laden with ivory, with ovals of hide for
shields, and with festoons of raw and odorous meat spitted upon long
poles.