THE TRIBES OF THE GRASS-LAND.
The Wahuma: the exact opposite of the Dwarfs: their
descendants--Tribes nearly allied to the true negro type--Tribes of
the Nilotic basin--The Herdsmen--The traditions of Unyoro--My
experiences of the Wahuma gained while at Kavalli--View of the
surrounding country from Kavalli camp--Chiefs Kavalli, Katto, and
Gavira unbosom their wrongs to me--Old Ruguji’s reminiscences--The
pasture-land lying between Lake Albert and the forest--The cattle
in the district round Kavalli: their milk-yield--Three cases
referring to cattle which I am called upon to adjudicate--Household
duties of the women--Dress among the Wahuma--Old Egyptian and
Ethiopian characteristics preserved among the tribes of the
grass-land--Customs, habits, and religion of the tribes--Poor Gaddo
suspected of conspiracy against his chief, Kavalli: his death--Diet
of the Wahuma--The climate of the region of the grass-land.
[Sidenote: 1889.
July.
The
Wahuma]
The Wahuma are the most interesting people, next to the Pigmies in all
Central Africa. Some philological _nidderings_ have classed them under
the generic name Bantu, and every traveller ambitious of being
comprehended among the scientific, adds his testimony and influence to
perpetuate this most unscientific term. _Bantu_ is an Inner African word
of which the translation is Men. We are therefore asked seriously to
accept it as a solemn fact, upon scientific authority, that the Wahuma,
like the Pigmies, are men.
The Wahuma are the exact opposite of the dwarfs. The latter are
undersized nomads, adapted by their habits to forest life; the former
are tall, finely-formed men, with almost European features, adapted from
immemorial custom and second nature to life in pastoral lands only.
Reverse their localities, and they pine and die. Take the Pigmies out of
their arboreal recesses and perpetual twilight, and from their vegetable
diet, and plant them on a grass-land open to the winds and the sunshine,
feed them on beef and grain, and milk as you may, and they shrink with
the cold and exposure, refuse their meat, and droop to death. On the
other hand, deport the Wahuma into the woods, and supply them with the
finest vegetables, and always with plenty of food, and the result is,
that they get depressed, their fine brown-black colour changes into
ashen gray, the proud haughty carriage is lost, they contract an aspect
of misery, and die in despair and weariness. Yet these two opposites of
humanity are called Bantu, or men, a term which is perfectly
meaningless, and yet as old as the story of the Creation. In North
America we see to-day Esquimaux, English, Irish, German, French and
Spanish Americans, and Indians, and, after the scientific manner, we
should call them Bantu. Interest in the various human families is not
roused by comprehending them under such unphilosophical terms.
The Wahuma are true descendants of the Semitic tribes, or communities,
which emigrated from Asia across the Red Sea and settled on the coast,
and in the uplands of Abyssinia, once known as Ethiopia. From this great
centre more than a third of the inhabitants of Inner Africa have had
their origin. As they pressed southward and conquered the negro tribes,
miscegenation produced a mixture of races; the Semitic became tainted
with negro blood, the half-caste tribes inter-married again with the
primitive race, and became still more degraded in feature and form, and
in the course of ages lost almost all traces of their extraction from
the Asiatic peoples. If a traveller only bears this fact in mind, and
commences his researches from the Cape of Good Hope, he will be able
easily, as he marches northward, to separate the less adulterated
tribes from those who are so nearly allied to the true negro type as to
bear classification as negroid. The kinky, woolly hair is common to all;
but even in this there are shades of difference from that which is
coarse almost as horse-hair, to that which rivals silken floss for
fineness. The study of the hair may, however, be left; the great and
engrossing study being the Caucasian faces under the negro hair. From
among the Kaffirs, Zulus, Matabeles, Basutos, Bechuanas, or any other of
the fierce South African tribes, select an ordinary specimen of those
splendidly-formed tribes so ruthlessly denominated as negroes, and plant
him near a West African, or Congoese, or Gabonese type, and place a
Hindu between them, and having been once started on the right trail of
discovery, you will at once perceive that the features of the Kaffir are
a subtle amalgamation of the Hindu and West African types; but if we
take a Mhuma of mature age, the relation to the Hindu will still more
readily appear. Advancing across the Zambezi towards the watershed of
the Congo and Loangwa, we observe among the tribes a confusion of types,
which may be classed indifferently as being an intermediate family
between the West African and the Kaffir; an improvement on the former,
but not quite up to the standard of the latter. If we extend our travels
east or west we will find this to be a far-spreading type. It embraces
the Babisa, Barua, Balunda, and the tribes of the entire Congo basin;
and to the eastward, Wachunga, Wafipa, Wakawendi, Wakonongo, Wanyamwezi,
and Wasukuma. Among them, every now and then, we will be struck with the
close resemblance of minor tribal communities to the finest Zulus, and
near the eastern littoral we will see negroid West Africans reproduced
in the Waiau, Wasagara, Wangindo, and the blacks of Zanzibar. When we
return from the East Coast to the uplands bordering the Tanganika, and
advance north as far as Ujiji, we will see the stature and facial type
much improved. Through Ujiji we enter Urundi, and there is again a
visible improvement. If we go east a few days we enter Uhha, and we are
in the presence of twin-brothers of Zululand--tall, warlike creatures,
with Caucasian heads and faces, but dyed darkly with the sable pigment.
If we go east a little further, among those mixtures of pure negroes,
with Kaffir type of ancient Ukalaganza, now called Usumbwa, we see a
tall, graceful-looking herdsman with European features, but dark in
colour. If we ask him what he is, he will tell us his occupation is
herding cattle, and that he is a Mtusi, of the Watusi tribe. “Is there
any country, then, called Utusi?” and he will answer “No; but he came
from the north.” We advance to the north, and we find ourselves
travelling along the spine of pastoral upland. We are in the Nilotic
basin. Every streamlet trends easterly to a great inland sea called now
the Victoria Nyanza, or westerly to the Albert Edward Nyanza. This
upland embraces Ruanda, Karagwé, Mpororo, Ankori, Ihangiro, Uhaiya, and
Uzongora, and all these tribes inhabiting those countries possess
cattle; but the people are not all herdsmen. Many among them are devoted
to agriculture. After journeying hither and thither, we are impressed
with the fact that all those occupied with tending cattle are similar to
that graceful Mtusi whom we met in Usumbwa, and who vaguely pointed to
the north as his original home, and that all the agriculturists are as
negroid in feature as any thick-lipped West Coast African. By dwelling
among them, we also learn that the herdsmen regard those who till the
soil with as much contempt as a London banking clerk would view the farm
labourer. Still advancing to the north we behold an immense snowy range.
It is an impassable barrier; we deflect our march to the west, and find
this Mtusi type numerous, and stretching up to the foot of the
mountains, and to dense, impenetrable forests unfit for the herding of
cattle; and at once the Caucasian type ceases, and the negroid features,
either coppery, black, or mixed complexion--the flat nose, the sunken
ridge, and the projecting of the lower part of the face--are dumb
witnesses that here the wave of superior races was arrested. We retrace
our steps, ascend to the upland and skirt the snowy range eastward, and
over a splendid grazing country called Toro, Uhaiyana, and Unyoro, we
see the fine-featured herdsmen again in numbers attending their vast
herds, and the dark flat-nosed negroid tilling the land with hoes, as we
saw them further south. After passing the snowy range on its northern
extremity, we proceed west across the flat grassy valley of the Semliki
to other grassy uplands parallel with Unyoro, but separated from it by
the Albert Nyanza; and over this pastoral region are living together,
but each strictly adhering to his own pursuit, the herdsmen and the
tillers of the soil. During our travels from Usumbwa the herdsmen have
changed their names from Watusi to Wanyambu, Wahuma, Waima, Wawitu, and
Wachwezi. That is, they have accepted these titles in the main from the
agricultural class, but whether in Ankori, or among the Balegga and
Bavira, or dwelling with the Waganda or in Unyoro, they call themselves
Watusi, Wahuma, or Wachwezi. In Karagwé, Ankori, or Usongora, they are
the dominating classes. Their descendants sit in the seat of power in
Ihangiro, Uhaiya, Uganda, and Unyoro; but the people of these countries
are an admixture of the Zulu and West African tribes, and therefore they
are more devoted to agriculture. When, as for instance, tribes such as
Waganda, Wasoga, and Wakuri have been left to grow up and increase in
power and prosperity, we have but to look at the sea-like expanse of the
Victoria Nyanza, and we see the reason of it. No further progress was
possible, and the wave of migration passed westward and eastward, and
overlapped these tribes, and in their progress southward dropped a few
members by the way, to become absorbed by the members of the
agricultural class, and to lose their distinctive characteristics.
As the traditions of Unyoro report that the Wachwezi came from the
eastern bank of the Victoria Nile, we will cross that river, and we find
that between us and Abyssinia there are no grand physical features such
as great lakes or continuous ranges to bar the migration to the south of
barbarous multitudes; that the soil is poor and the climate dry, and
pasture unpromising, and that all the tribes are devoted to the rearing
of cattle; that the indigenous races, such as we see in the Congo basin
and near the littoral of east Africa, disparted by the waves of
migrating peoples on their course south, have been so thoroughly
extinguished by the superior Indo-African race that the vast area of the
upland from the Victoria Nile to the Gulf of Aden simply repeats its
long-established types, which we may call Galla, Abyssinian, Ethiopic,
or Indo-African.[34] This too brief outline will serve to prepare the
reader for knowing something more of the Wahuma, the true descendants of
these Ethiopians, who have for fifty centuries been pouring over the
continent of Africa east and west of the Victoria Nyanza in search of
pasture, and while doing so have formed superior tribes and nations
along their course, from the Gulf of Aden to the Cape of Good Hope--a
vast improvement on the old primitive races of Africa.
I propose to illustrate the Wahuma by our experiences with those who
recognised Kavalli as chief.
Looking westward from Kavalli’s we had a prospect of over 1,000 square
miles. Though fairly populous in parts, the view was so immense that it
suggested little of human presence except in the immediate foreground.
Compared to the mountainous ridges and great swells of land, what were a
few clusters of straw-coloured cotes, with generous spaces between
showing the small arable plots of the Bavira soil-tillers? During the
earlier days of our residence at Kavalli we enjoyed the free,
uninterrupted, limitless view of pasture-land, swelling ridge, bold
mountain, isolated hill, subsiding valleys, and extending levels.
Undisturbed by anxiety from want of food, and satisfied with our diet of
grass-land esculents and nourishing meat, it was exhilarating to the
nerves to watch the countless grass blades stoop in broad waves before
the gusty winds from the Nyanza, and see them roll and swerve in
currents of varying green, after our long forest life.
Kavalli’s zeriba, wherein he herded his cattle and flocks every night,
was in the centre of a gentle slope of turfy green. Constant browsing by
the swarming herds of himself and Wahuma neighbours kept the grass
short, and gave us unobstructed views and walks over delicious pasture.
Even the tiny chicklings attendant on the mother hen might be numbered
at a bowshot’s distance. Every few yards or so there rose an ant-hill
from 3 to 12 feet high. They served happily enough for the herdsmen to
keep watch over their herds and flocks of sheep and goats, and those
near the kraals were the resort of the elders and gossips to discuss the
events of the period. There at such times, in low converse with Kavalli
and his aged men, I gained large insight into the local histories of the
villages and tribes about him. Indeed, no more suitable spot could be
found, for before us were mapped out nearly threescore districts.
Far to the west rose Pisgah, throned high above a hundred leagues of
dark forest-land, and every yard of its contour distinct in delineation
against the reddening sky. Lifted in lone majesty, a sombre mass, it
attracted the attention in every pause of the conversation. From Pisgah,
which to Kavalli was the end of the world, all beyond being fable and
night, he would direct our gaze to Kimberri’s cones, a day’s march
N.N.W. to the lofty peak of Kuka seen just behind, and then to the massy
square-browed mount of Duki, and the flats below occupied by the
Balungwa, of whose numerous herds he had much to say; and to Kavalli, be
it remembered, there was no subject so worthy of talk as cattle. To the
south of west a range of grassy mountains rose in Mazamboni’s country,
and extending in a seemingly unbroken line to the verge of the gulf
occupied by the Albert Lake, and its bordering plains, valleys, and
terraces. The westerly portion is governed by Mazamboni, the easterly by
Chief Komubi. The plain extending from the mountains as far as Kavalli
is called Uzanza, and is occupied by the agricultural Bavira, who came
originally from behind Duki, in the neighbourhood of Kuka Peak. Between
Kavalli and Kimberri a great cantle of the plain is owned by warlike
Musiri and his people.
Having dealt with the main feature of the land, Kavalli proceeds to
unbosom himself. He is in danger of his life from Kadongo, who is an
ally of Kabba-Rega, and he has an enemy in Katonza. Some years ago
Kavalli possessed a village near the Nyanza, where his fishermen lived.
Kadongo envied him the fine possession, and with Katonza and some
raiders of Unyoro set upon Kavalli, burned his village, slew many of his
people, and despoiled him of all his cattle in one night. Kavalli fled
to Melindwa, and after awhile he returned to live with the Bavira, and
by scraping a bit here and there, and making good bargains, he can show
about eighty head of cattle to-day. He has received warning, however,
that Kadongo will attack him again.
No sooner has Kavalli ceased his graphic recital wrongs endured, than
Katto and Kalengé--Mazamboni’s brother and cousin--begin to detail the
wrongs inflicted on them by Musiri. A brother and a sister, several
relatives, and many friends have been slaughtered by relentless Musiri.
The stories are given circumstantially with expressive action, and
heighten the atrocious conduct of Musiri.
Then Gavira begins to relate how the Balegga of Mutundu, and Musiri,
have ill-treated him. According to him, what few herds escaped the
rapacious Wara-Sura during their periodic raids have been often thinned
by the nocturnal cattle-lifters of Mutundu and Musiri, who steal
alternately from him. “Ah,” says Gavira, “to-day it is the Wara-Sura,
to-morrow it is Musiri, the day after Mutundu; we are continually flying
to the hills from somebody.”
Yet, gazing on the wonderfully pleasant scene of green grass-land before
us, with not a cloud in the sky, and a drowsy restfulness everywhere,
who could have supposed this Arcadia-like land was disturbed by
contentions, enmities, and wars?
Most of the Wahuma now west of the Albert came from Unyoro, as they fled
from the avaricious tyranny and avarice of its kings.
Old Ruguji, for instance, who is next neighbour to Kavalli, and whose
forty head of cattle we rescued for him from Melindwa, was born in
Unyoro, and remembers his great-grandfather, who must have been born
about 1750 A.D. When he was ten years old (1829) Kuguji remembered
Chowambi, father of Kamrasi, the father of Kabba Rega, sending to his
great-grandfather for cattle. “At that time the Semliki River flowed
into a large lagoon, called Katera, on the south-east side of the Lake.
The Waganda were often prevented from crossing over to the Balegga
countries because of those lagoons, but since the lagoons have been
filled with mud, and the Semliki falls into the Lake, and as Kamrasi
wanted cattle continually, and one day he took all, I took my women and
children, when I was a young man, and came over here.”
“Have you had peace here, Ruguji?”
“See my scars; I have things to remind me of the Balegga and Melindwa,
Musiri and the Wara-Sura. The Bavira also came from Kukaland, and they
asked our permission while we were feeding our herds to come and live
with us, but they have the big head also, and some day there will be
trouble with them.”
The pasture-land lying between Lake Albert and the forest was subjected
to much denudation by rain. Though the bosses of hills, ridges, dykes,
bear an approximately uniform level, the intermediate ground varies
greatly--it is highest of course as it approaches the Albert, and lowest
towards the Ituri river, which drains nearly the whole of the area. It
would be difficult, however, to find an absolutely level tract of any
respectable extent, though a cursory view of it might decide otherwise.
It is a complicated system of slope and counter-slope, supplying scores
of tributary rivulets, brooks and stream, belonging to some main feeder
of the Ituri.
The nature of the soil, being a loose sandy loam--loosened still more by
hosts of burrowing beetles, which do the office of moles and
earthworms--offers no resistance to the perpetual denuding of the
surface by frequent furious and long-lasting rainstorms, despite its
rich crops of grass. A visit to one of the streams after a rainstorm
reveals how rapid is the process of destruction; and if we follow one of
these smaller streams to the confluence with the main tributary, we
shall see yet greater proofs of the havoc created in the face of the
apparently smooth swells of land than would appear at first possible by
a few hours’ heavy rain.
In the district in view from Kavalli I have estimated that the entire
number of cattle cannot exceed 4,000 head. They are almost equal in size
to English oxen, and are of a humpless breed, very different from the
species south and east of Lake Victoria. The horns are of medium length,
though there are some few distinguished for unusual length of their
horns. The bulls, however, were well developed in the hump. The cattle
of Usongora and Unyoro are mostly all of a hornless and humpless breed,
and principally of a fawn colour; while those of Ankori have immensely
long horns, and their hides are of variegated hue. It is said that the
cattle are made hornless by burning them with fire, with a view to
enable them to penetrate jungles. The owners mark their cattle on the
ears with one or several cuts, by piercing or excision at the ends.
Kavalli informed me that large numbers of cattle are sometimes poisoned
by plants, if they happened to be driven somewhere not generally haunted
by them. Repeated burnings of the grass, however, render the herbage
innocuous. The plains in the neighbourhood of the Lake are very fatal to
the herds. In fifteen days a disease develops, with a running at the
nostrils; the milk dries up, the coats begin to stare, the animal
refuses to eat, and dies.
The old Wahuma have good veterinary knowledge perhaps, but many of their
practices would not bear repeating. I wished to have some butter made
with my ration of milk, and sent to borrow a churning gourd, and after
the operation directed the servants to wash the vessel; but this
produced a storm of reproaches. They believed water in the vessel to
injure the cattle. Nor will they permit a person who eats cooked food to
put his lips to any pot, basin, or gourd that is used in contact with
their cows.
The sound of the churning was heard daily in a hut near my tent, and the
operation was performed in a somewhat similar style to agitating a
punkah, the milk gourd being suspended to the rafter of a house.
The milk yield of the cattle is very small considering the size of the
cattle and the abundance of pasturage. The best milker does not furnish
more than half a gallon per diem. Kavalli’s boys and young men were
employed in milking our cattle. They invariably lashed the hind legs
together, and brought the calf to its mother’s head; one hand held the
wooden vessel and the other milked, and they appeared to leave but
little for the hungry calves. The goats often gave us as much milk as an
ordinary cow, but I have never observed that the natives cared for the
fair supply they might have obtained from these useful animals.
Though a woman is as much a chattel in these lands as any article their
lords may own, and is priced at from one to five head of cattle, she is
held in honour and esteem, and she possesses rights which may not be
overlooked with impunity. The dower stock may have been surrendered to
the father, but if she be ill used she can easily contrive at some time
to return to her parents, and before she be restored the husband must
repurchase her, and as cattle are valuable, he is likely to bridle his
temper. Besides, there is the discomfort of the cold hearth, and the
chilly arrangement of the household, which soon serve to subdue the
tyrant.
I was requested to adjudicate a case relating to marriage custom,
between Kavalli on the one hand, owner of a slave girl, and Katonza, a
Mhuma chief. The latter had sought Kavalli’s girl in marriage, and had
paid two cows for her out of three that had been fixed as the price.
Kavalli therefore detained the bride of Katonza, and this detention was
the cause of his grievance. The price was not denied, and Katonza
offered a plea that he feared the girl might not be surrendered by
Kavalli if he paid the third cow. He was requested to put the cow into
court, and in this manner the bride was forthcoming.
Kavalli brought another case to me for consideration. He was already
five times married, and he desired a sixth wife. He had purchased her
from the tribe of Bugombi, and her parents, having heard something to
his prejudice, wished to compel a double payment, and would not deliver
her to him. Whereupon I suggested to Kavalli that by giving another cow
and a calf the matter might be arranged.
The next case that I had to judge was somewhat difficult. Chief Mpigwa
having appeared at the Barza (Durbar), a man stepped up to complain of
him, because he withheld two cows that belonged to his tribe. Mpigwa
explained that the man had married a girl belonging to his tribe and had
paid two cows for her, that she had gone to his house, and in course of
time had become a mother, and had borne three children to her husband.
The man died, whereupon his tribe accused the woman of having contrived
his death by witchcraft, and drove her home to her parents. Mpigwa
received her into the tribe with her children, and now the object of
complaint was the restoration of the two cows to the husband’s tribe.
“Was it fair,” asked Mpigwa, “after a woman had become the mother of
three children in the tribe to demand the cattle back again after the
husband’s death, when they had sent the woman and her infants away of
their own accord?” The decision upheld Mpigwa in his views, as such
conduct was not only heartless and mean, but tended to bring the
honoured custom of marriage contracts into contempt.
The women have control within the house, and over the products of the
dairy and the field. It is the man’s duty to build the house, tend and
milk the cattle, repair the fence, and provide the clothing, which is
naturally scanty; but it is the woman who cultivates the field, makes
the butter, and does the marketing. Butter and milk must be purchased
from her, as well as the provisions. It is an universal custom in
Africa.
The dress of the men consists generally of a single goat-skin, which
depends from the left shoulder. It is varied with antelope-hide with the
hair scraped off, excepting a margin of three or four inches wide round
the borders. The wives are clothed with cow-hides, which are often
beautifully tanned and soft: slave women, in the absence of a goat-skin,
wear a strip of leather round the waist, from which a narrow piece of
bark cloth depends in front and back, or a very limited apron. Girls up
to a marriageable age travel about publicly in complete nudity, while
boys over ten years old are rarely seen without a kid-skin, aping the
adult: on occasions of rejoicing each woman bears in her girdle at the
back a bunch of green leaves, corn or sugar-cane leaves, or a piece of
banana frond.
The favourite wives of chiefs, or “medicine women,” “witches,” are also
entitled like the great chiefs to wear a leopard-skin, or in lieu of
that, cat or monkey-skins. It seems to be a pretty general idea that
leopard or lion skins prove rank and dignity. If a stranger expresses a
doubt that a chief is only a person of low rank, he points to his
leopard-skin and asks, “How can I possess this, then?”
[Illustration: A PAGE FROM MR. STANLEY’S NOTE-BOOK.]
[Illustration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE BALEGGA.]
In looking over Wilkinson’s ‘Ancient Egyptians’ the other day I was much
struck with the conservative character of the African, for among the
engravings I recognize in plate 459 the form of dress most common among
the Wahuma, Watusi, Wanyambu, Wahha, Warundi, and Wanyavingi, and which
were in vogue thirty-five centuries ago among the black peoples who paid
tribute to the Pharaohs. The musical instruments also, such as are
figured in plates 135, 136--a specimen of which is in the British
Museum--we discovered among the Balegga and Wahuma, and in 1876 among
the Basoga. The hafts of knives, the grooves in the blades and their
form, the triangular decorations in plaster in their houses, or on their
shields, bark clothes, boxes, cooking utensils, and in their weapons,
spears, bows, and clubs; in their _mundus_, which are similar in form to
the old pole-axe of the Egyptians, in the curved head-rests, their
ivory and wooden spoons; in their eared sandals, which no Mhuma would
travel without; in their partiality to certain colours, such as red,
black, and yellow; in their baskets for carrying their infants; in their
reed flutes; in the long walking-staffs; in the mode of expressing their
grief, by wailing, beating their breasts, and their gestures expressive
of being inconsolable; in their sad, melancholy songs; and in a hundred
other customs and habits, I see that old Egyptian and Ethiopian
characteristics are faithfully preserved among the tribes of the
grass-land.
The boys have games similar to those of “marbles” and ball and
backgammon with us. As the ancients bore their watering-pots for
irrigating their fields, so the Wahuma convey the milk to their chiefs;
and the oil of their castor berries, and butter, serve to perpetuate the
custom of old antiquity in their ablutions; and in the respect paid to
the elders and their chiefs by the modern youth of Inner Africa may be
observed that reverence which was so often inculcated in the olden time.
These people, having no literature, and undisturbed by advent of
superior influences among them, have only learned what has been
communicated to them by their parents, who had received from their
progenitors such few functions and customs as were necessary for
existence and preservation of their particular tribal distinctions. Thus
the unlettered tribes of these long unknown regions are discovered to be
practising such customs, habits and precepts, as must have distinguished
the ancestors of the founders of the Pyramids in the dark prehistoric
ages of Egypt.
No traces of any religion can be found among the Wahuma. They believe
most thoroughly in the existence of an evil influence in the form of a
man, who exists in uninhabited places as a wooded, darksome gorge, or
large extent of reedy brake, but that he can be propitiated by gifts;
therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of the meat, which he
tosses, however, as he would to a dog, or he places an egg, or a small
banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature dwelling which is
always found at the entrance to the zeriba.
Every person wears a charm around the neck, or arm, or waist. They
believe in “evil eyes” and omens, but are not so superstitious as the
Waganda, probably because they are so scattered. Witchcraft is dreaded,
and the punishment of a suspected person follows swiftly.
[Illustration: WEAPONS OF THE BALEGGA AND WAHUMA TRIBES.]
Poor Gaddo, a good-looking, faithful young fellow who accompanied Mr.
Jephson as lake pilot to Mswa Station soon after his return to Kavalli’s
village, was suspected of conspiring against his chief. Gaddo came to me
and reported that he was in danger, and he was advised to remain in my
camp until we should leave. The elders proceeded with a fowl to a
distance of about a hundred yards beyond the camp, and opened the
breast. They were seen whispering together over what they had
discovered, and it was presently known that the jury had found Gaddo
guilty of evil practices against Kavalli, and this was doom. As Gaddo
was as guiltless as the babe unborn, a messenger was sent to the chief
to say that if he were injured Kavalli would be held responsible. Yet
Gaddo felt so uncomfortable in the vicinity of the village, as public
opinion had already condemned him, that he sought to escape to Katonza’s
by the lake, but on the brow of the plateau fate found him. It was
reported circumstantially that while standing on a rock he had fallen
over and broken his neck. It was very sad to hear the young wife and
children and sisters wailing for the dead, and Kavalli was markedly good
and amiable in those days.
The diet of the Wahuma is principally milk. The sale of their butter and
hides now and then enables them to purchase sweet potatoes, millet, and
bananas, but it is with a peculiar pride they say they are not “hoemen.”
The sorghum of the tribes around them is of the red variety. The Indian
corn, or maize, is of an inferior quality. It is planted in the latter
part of February at the same period as the beans. In two months the
latter are fit to be eaten. A month later the corn comes into ear, and
in the fourth month it is mature. In September the millet is sown and
is ripe for cutting in February. Every village owns extensive tracts
planted with sweet potatoes, and along the edges of their plantain
groves they grow _colocassia_, or _helmia_; but the latter are not
favourites with strangers, as ignorance in the art of cooking them
leaves them nauseous.
The “malwa,” or beer, is from fermented millet and ripe bananas. It is
in great demand, and a chief’s greatest business in life appears to be
paying visits to his friends round about, for the purpose of exhausting
their malwa pots. Fortunately, it is not very potent, and is scarcely
strong enough to do more than inspire a happy convivial feeling.
The climate of the region is agreeable. Five hours’ work per day can be
performed, even out-door, without discomfort from excessive heat, and
three days out of seven during the whole of daylight, because of the
frequent clouded state of the sky. When, however, the sky is exposed,
the sun shines with a burning fervour that makes men seek the shelter of
their cool huts. The higher portions of the grass-land--as at Kavalli’s,
in the Balegga Hills, and on the summit of the Ankori pastoral
ranges--range from 4,500 to 6,500 feet above the sea, and large extents
of Toro and Southern Unyoro as high as 10,000, and promise to be
agreeable lands for European settlers when means are provided to convey
them there. When that time arrives they will find amiable, quiet, and
friendly neighbours in that fine-featured race, of which the best type
are the Wahuma, with whom we have never exchanged angry words, and who
bring up vividly to the mind the traits of those blameless people with
whom the gods deigned to banquet once a year upon the heights of
Ethiopia.