headstrong, and undisciplinable: in point of stubbornness and
restiveness they resemble the lower animals. If they cannot obtain the
very article of barter upon which they have set their mind, they will
carry home things useless to them; any attempt at bargaining is settled
by the seller turning his back, and they ask according to their wants
and wishes, without regard to the value of goods. Grumbling and
dissatisfied, they never do business without a grievance. Revenge is a
ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars that have
prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation, prove.
Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral
control. Judged by the test of death, the East African is a hardhearted
man, who seems to ignore all the charities of father, son, and brother.
A tear is rarely shed, except by the women, for departed parent,
relative, or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom heard in
their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete inhumanity with
which a porter seized with small-pox is allowed by his friends,
comrades, and brethren to fall behind in the jungle, with several days’
life in him. No inducement--even beads--can persuade a soul to attend
him. Every village will drive him from its doors; no one will risk
taking, at any price, death into his bosom. If strong enough, the
sufferer builds a little bough-hut away from the camp, and, provided
with his rations--a pound of grain and a gourdful of water--he quietly
expects his doom, to feed the hyæna and the raven of the wild. The
people are remarkable for the readiness with which they yield to fits of
sudden fury; on these occasions they will, like children, vent their
rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that presents itself. Their
temper is characterised by a nervous, futile impatience; under delay or
disappointment they become madmen. In their own country, where such
displays are safe, they are remarkable for a presumptuousness and a
violence of manner which elsewhere disappears. As the Arabs say, there
they are lions, here they become curs. Their squabbling and clamour pass
description: they are never happy except when in dispute. After a rapid
plunge into excitement, the brawlers alternately advance and recede,
pointing the finger of threat, howling and screaming, cursing and using
terms of insult which an inferior ingenuity--not want of will--causes to
fall short of the Asiatic’s model vituperation. After abusing each other
to their full, both “parties” usually burst into a loud laugh or a burst
of sobs. Their tears lie high; they weep like Goanese. After a cuff, a
man will cover his face with his hands and cry as if his heart would
break. More furious shrews than the women are nowhere met with. Here it
is a great truth that “the tongues of women cannot be governed.” They
work off excitement by scolding, and they weep little compared with the
men. Both sexes delight in “argument,” which here, as elsewhere, means
two fools talking foolishly. They will weary out of patience the most
loquacious of the Arabs. This development is characteristic of the East
African race, and “maneno marefu!”--long words!--will occur as a useless
reproof half a dozen times in the course of a single conversation. When
drunk, the East African is easily irritated; with the screams and
excited gestures of a maniac he strides about, frantically flourishing
his spear and agitating his bow, probably with notched arrow; the
spear-point and the arrow-head are often brought perilously near, but
rarely allowed to draw blood. The real combat is by pushing, pulling
hair, and slapping with a will, and a pair thus engaged require to be
torn asunder by half a dozen friends. The settled tribes are, for the
most part, feeble and unwarlike barbarians; even the bravest East
African, though, like all men, a combative entity, has a valour tempered
by discretion and cooled by a high development of cautiousness. His
tactics are of the Fabian order: he loves surprises and safe ambuscades;
and in common frays and forays the loss of one per cent. justifies a
_sauve qui peut_. This people, childlike, is ever in extremes. A man
will hang himself from a rafter in his tent, and kick away from under
him the large wooden mortar upon which he has stood at the beginning of
the operation with as much sang-froid as an Anglo-Saxon in the gloomy
month of November; yet he regards annihilation, as all savages do, with
loathing and ineffable horror. “He fears death,” to quote Bacon, “as
children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is
increased with tales, so is the other.” The African mind must change
radically before it can “think upon death, and find it the least of all
evils.” All the thoughts of these negroids are connected with this life.
“Ah!” they exclaim, “it is bad to die! to leave off eating and drinking!
never to wear a fine cloth!” As in the negro race generally, their
destructiveness is prominent; a slave never breaks a thing without an
instinctive laugh of pleasure; and however careful he may be of his own
life, he does not value that of another, even of a relative, at the
price of a goat. During fires in the town of Zanzibar, the blacks have
been seen adding fuel, and singing and dancing, wild with delight. On
such occasions they are shot down by the Arabs like dogs.
It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilised
“social evil” is not recognised as an evil. In the economy of the
affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that rude
stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now enlightened
man. Marriage with this people--as amongst all barbarians, and even the
lower classes of civilised races--is a mere affair of buying and
selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his comfort,
consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her father
demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brass-wire bracelets as the
suitor can afford; he thus virtually sells her, and she belongs to the
buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell his wife,
or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which
is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A strong
inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in Europe,
is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family; a large
progeny enriches them. The African--like all barbarians, and, indeed,
semi-civilised people--ignores the dowry by which, inverting Nature’s
order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband buying the
wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and an event with
Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent recurrence.
Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves upon the number
of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace
for an unmarried woman to become the mother of a family; after matrimony
there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni or adulterer, if detected, is
punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor and weak, he is sold into
slavery; husbands seldom, however, resort to such severities, the
offence, which is considered to be against vested property, being held
to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the influence of jealousy,
murders and mutilations have been committed, but they are rare and
exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by turning the spouse out of
doors, and the children become the father’s property. Attachment to home
is powerful in the African race, but it regards rather the comforts and
pleasures of the house, and the unity of relations and friends, than the
fondness of family. Husband, wife, and children have through life
divided interests, and live together with scant appearance of affection.
Love of offspring can have but little power amongst a people who have no
preventive for illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time.
The children appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the
Somal. Some attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward
indications, but by surprise, as it were: “Mámá! mámá!”--mother!
mother!--is a common exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is
passed, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of
wild beasts. Yet they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of
relatives sometimes leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity,
resulting from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain.
It is probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the
Widad, or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the
Koran, becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To
this over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always
shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The “ukosa,” or transgression,
is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving the
worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, “Mbáyá
we!”--thou art bad!--a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and
uneffective to European ears.
The social position of the women--the unerring test of progress towards
civilisation--is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more highly
organised tribes of the south. Few parts of the country own the rule of
female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their
wives, but the opinion of a brother or a friend would usually prevail
over that of a woman.
The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already
been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his
hemisphere of boughs, or his hide acting tent, he hates and has a truly
savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the “Madeleine,”
but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many Wanyamwezi,
when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a house.
The East African is greedy and voracious; he seems, however, to prefer
light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the
civilised Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and
supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can
exist and work with a small quantity of food, but he is unaccustomed,
and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter is 1
kubabah (= 1·5 lbs.) of grain; he can, with the assistance of edible
herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the least likely
places, eke out this allowance for several days, though generally, upon
the barbarian’s impulsive principle of mortgaging the future for the
present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him the grand end of
life is eating; his love of feeding is inferior only to his propensity
for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to
sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts are solemn things, to
which the most important business must yield precedence. They celebrate
with beer every event--the traveller’s return, the birth of a child, and
the death of an elephant--a labourer will not work unless beer is
provided for him. A guest is received with a gourdful of beer, and,
amongst some tribes, it is buried with their princes. The highest orders
rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing: the
proper diet for a king is much beer and a little meat. If a Mnyamwezi be
asked after eating whether he is hungry, he will reply yea, meaning that
he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The East
African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance, or
quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these
occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The
favourite hour for drinking is after dawn,--a time as distasteful to the
European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved
by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The
civilised man avoids early potations because they incapacitate him for
necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by
stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilised, on the other hand,
prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and
they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when
they awake, they have something to think of. The habit once acquired is
never broken: it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and
unoccupied barbarian.
In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East
African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little
veneration--the negro race is ever irreverent--and, though his cranium
rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being
firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The
authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him
represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from
his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake’s sake. The
accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a
treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the
dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his
calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the
moments not devoted to intoxication.
The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African.
The body politic consists of two great members, masters and slaves.
Ignoring distinctions of society, he treats all men, except his chief,
as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he
enters a stranger’s house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever
the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak; his
address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and his
look “sfacciato.” He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and
tattered goat-skin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand
for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When
travelling he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut: the
chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempt to
dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of
mules--as the Arabs say, they “have no shame.” The curiosity of these
people, and the little ceremony with which they gratify it, are at times
most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at; total apathy is the only
remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he
will find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles
to “sow gape-seed:” if the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and peep
from below, complaining loudly against the occupant, and, if further
prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road hosts of idlers,
especially women, boys, and girls, will follow the caravan for hours; it
is a truly offensive spectacle--these uncouth figures, running at a
“gymnastic pace,” half clothed except with grease, with pendent bosoms
shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more
than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the
first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races
most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and
the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first
appeared in the country they were received with respect and deference.
They soon, however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with
the people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the
Africans found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil
has become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that
between the manners of an Indian Ryot and an East African Mshenzi.
In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently
unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilised generally, he
observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his
perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that of
an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond which
apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is stationary,
but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his love of tune has
invented nothing but whistling and the whistle: his instruments are all
borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no
metrical songs: he contents himself with improvising a few words
without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate: the long,
drawling recitative generally ends in “Ah! ha^{n}!” or some such
strongly-nasalised sound. Like the Somal, he has tunes appropriated to
particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or the harvest-home. When
mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form: women weeping or
sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted
threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular
groan or wail: after venting a little natural distress in a natural
sound, the long, loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key,
continues as before. As in Europe the “laughing-song” is an imitation of
hilarity somewhat distressing to the spirits of the audience, so the
“weeping-song” of the African only tends to risibility. His wonderful
loquacity and volubility of tongue have produced no tales, poetry, nor
display of eloquence; though, like most barbarians, somewhat
sententious, he will content himself with squabbling with his
companions, or with repeating some meaningless word in every different
tone of voice during the weary length of a day’s march. His language is
highly artificial and musical: the reader will have observed that the
names which occur in these pages often consist entirely of liquids and
vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word, and that they
never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of a syllabarium
seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally, though the East
African delights in the dance, and is an excellent timist--a thousand
heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like one--his performance
is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man. He delights in a joke,
which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his efforts in wit are of the
feeblest that can be conceived.
Though the general features of character correspond throughout the
tribes in East Africa, there are also marked differences. The Wazaramo,
for instance, are considered the most dangerous tribe on this line:
caravans hurry through their lands, and hold themselves fortunate if a
life be not lost, or if a few loads be not missing. Their neighbours,
the Wasagara of the hills, were once peaceful and civil to travellers:
the persecutions of the coast-people have rendered them morose and
suspicious; they now shun strangers, and, never knowing when they may be
attacked, they live in a constant state of agitation, excitement, and
alarm. After the Wazaramo, the tribes of Ugogo are considered the most
noisy and troublesome, the most extortionate, quarrelsome and violent on
this route: nothing restrains these races from bloodshed and plunder but
fear of retribution and self-interest. The Wanyamwezi bear the highest
character for civilisation, discipline, and industry. Intercourse with
the coast, however, is speedily sapping the foundations of their
superiority: the East African Expedition suffered more from thieving in
this than in any other territory, and the Arabs now depend for existence
there not upon prestige, but sufferance, in consideration of mutual
commercial advantage. In proportion as the traveller advances into the
interior, he finds the people less humane, or rather less human. The
Wavinza, the Wajiji, and the other Lakist tribes, much resemble one
another: they are extortionate, violent, and revengeful barbarians; no
Mnyamwezi dares to travel alone through their territories, and small
parties are ever in danger of destruction.
In dealing with the East African the traveller cannot do better than to
follow the advice of Bacon--“Use savages justly and graciously, with
sufficient guard nevertheless.” They must be held as foes; and the
prudent stranger will never put himself in their power, especially where
life is concerned. The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the
barbarian’s fear of beginning the fray: if the onset once takes place,
the numbers, the fierce looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence
of the assailants upon their own ground, will probably prevail. When
necessary, however, severity must be employed; leniency and forbearance
are the vulnerable points of civilised policy, as they encourage attack
by a suspicion of fear and weakness. They may be managed as the Indian
saw directs, by a judicious mixture of the “Narm” and “Garm”--the soft
and hot. Thus the old traders remarked in Guinea, that the best way to
treat a black man was to hold out one hand to shake with him, while the
other is doubled ready to knock him down. In trading with, or even when
dwelling amongst this people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A
man who would purchase the smallest article avoids showing anything
beyond its equivalent.
The ethnologist who compares this sketch with the far more favourable
description of the Kafirs, a kindred race, given by travellers in South
Africa, may suspect that only the darker shades of the picture are
placed before the eye. But, as will appear in a future page, much of
this moral degradation must be attributed to the working, through
centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as nature made
them; and from their connection with strangers they have derived nothing
but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type, they have been
varnished with the semi-civilisation of trade and commerce, which sits
ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment would upon their
persons.
Fetissism--the word is derived from the Portuguese feitiço, “a
doing,”--scil. of magic, by euphuism--is still the only faith known in
East Africa. Its origin is easily explained by the aspect of the
physical world, which has coloured the thoughts and has directed the
belief of man: he reflects, in fact, the fantastical and monstrous
character of the animal and vegetable productions around him. Nature, in
these regions rarely sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and
desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the tangled
hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly inhabitants,
arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a vague and
nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to a Superior
Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his reverence and
awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within him, hoping to
propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The grand mysteries of
life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained, the want of a true
interpretation of the admirable phenomena of creation, and the vagaries
and misconceptions of his own degraded imagination, awaken in him ideas
of horror, and people the invisible world with ghost and goblin, demon
and spectrum, the incarnations, as it were, of his own childish fears.
Deepened by the dread of destruction, ever strong in the barbarian
breast, his terror causes him to look with suspicion upon all around
him: “How,” inquires the dying African, “can I alone be ill when others
are well, unless I have been bewitched?” Hence the belief in magical and
supernatural powers in man, which the stronger minded have turned to
their own advantage.
Fetissism is the adoration, or rather the propitiation, of natural
objects, animate and inanimate, to which certain mysterious influences
are attributed. It admits neither god, nor angel, nor devil; it ignores
the very alphabet of revealed or traditionary religion--a creation, a
resurrection, a judgment-day, a soul or a spirit, a heaven or a hell. A
modified practical atheism is thus the prominent feature of the
superstition. Though instinctively conscious of a being above them, the
Africans have as yet failed to grasp the idea: in their feeble minds it
is an embryo rather than a conception--at the best a vague god, without
personality, attributes, or providence. They call that being Mulungu,
the Uhlunga of the Kafirs, and the Utika of the Hottentots. The term,
however, may mean a ghost, the firmament, or the sun; a man will
frequently call himself Mulungu, and even Mulungu Mbaya, the latter word
signifying bad or wicked. In the language of the Wamasai “Ai,” or with
the article “Engai”--the Creator--is feminine, the god and rain being
synonymous.