The history of the word Zanzibar is curious. Its Persian origin proves
that the Iranians were in early days a more maritime people than Vincent
and other writers imagine. Zanzibar, signifying Nigritia, or Blackland,
is clearly derived from the “Zang,” in Arabic Zanj, a negro, and “bar,”
a region. This Zangbar was changed by the Arabs, who ignore in writing
the hard _g_, into Zanjíbár; they still, however, pronounce Zangbar, and
consider it synonymous with another popular expression, “Mulk el Zunuj,”
or “the Land of the Blacks.” Thus the poet sings,--
فسميت ملك الزنوج جميعها
“And it hath been called Land of the Blacks, all of it.”
Traces of the word may be found in the earliest geographers.
Ptolemy records a Zingis or Zingisa, which, however, with his customary
incorrectness, he places north of the equator. According to Cosmas
Indicopleustes, the Indian Ocean beyond Barbaria is called Zingium.
“Sinus Barbaricus” seems to have been amongst the Romans the name of the
belt of low land afterwards known as “Zanzibar,” and it was inhabited by
a race of Anthropophagi, possibly the fathers of the present “Wadoe”
tribe. In more modern times the land of the Zunuj has been mentioned by
a host of authors, El Novayri and others.
[Illustration: A TOWN ON THE MRIMA.]
The limits of Zanzibar,--a word indiscriminately applied in former times
to the coast, the island, and even to the principal town,--are variously
laid down by geographers. Usually it is made to extend from Cape
Delgado, in S. lat. 10° 41′ to the equator, or more strictly to S. lat.
0° 15′, at the mouth of the Vumbo, or the Webbe Ganana, which appears in
our maps under the deceptive corruptions “Juba” and “Govind,” from the
Somali “Gob,” a junction, and “Gob-wen,” a large junction. Mr. Cooley
(Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 111) corrects the great error of the
Portuguese historian, de Barros, who has made the embouchure of the
Obi--in Somali Webbe, meaning any river,--the demarcation line between
“Ajan” on the north, and “Zanguebar” in the south, and has placed the
mouth of that stream in 9° N. lat., which would extend Zanzibar almost
to Cape Guardafui. Asiatic authors, according to M. Guillain, (Documents
sur l’Histoire, &c. de l’Afrique Orientale. Première partie, p. 213)
vary in opinion concerning the extent of the “land of the Zunuj” and its
limits; some, as El Masudi, make it contain the whole country, including
Sofala, between the embouchure of the Juba River (S. lat. 0° 15′) and
Cape Corrientes (S. lat. 23° 48′): others, like El Idrisi and Ibn Said,
separate from it Sofala. In local and modern usage the word Zanjibar is
generally confined to the chief town upon the island, the latter being
called by Arabs, as well as by the Negroids, Kisiwa, “insula,” in
opposition to the Barr el Moli, a barbarised Semitic term for the
continent.
As usual throughout these lands, where comprehensive geographical names
are no longer required, there is no modern general word for East Africa
south of the equator. The term “Sawahil,” or “the shores,” in present
parlance is confined to the strip of coast beyond the half-Somali
country, called from its various ports,--Lamu, Brava, and Patta,--Barr
el Banadir, or Harbour-land. The “Sawahil” extend southwards to
Mombasah, below which the coast suddenly falling flat, is known as Mrima
or the Hill, and its people as Wamrima, the “hill-men.” It is limited on
the south by the delta of the Rufiji River, whose races are termed Watu
wa Rufiji, Rufiji clans, or more shortly, Warufiji.
The country properly called the Mrima has no history beyond its name,
whilst the towns immediately to the north and south of it,--Mombasah and
Kilwa,--have filled many a long and stirring page. The Arab geographers
preceding the Portuguese conquest mention only five settlements on the
coast between Makdishu (Magadoxo) and Kilwa, namely, Lamu, Brava, Marka,
Malindi (Melinda), and Mombasah. In Captain Owen’s charts, between
Pangani and the parallel of Mafiyah (Monfia Island) not a name appears.
The fringe of Moslem Negroids inhabiting this part of the East African
coast is called by the Arabs Ahl Maraim, and by themselves Wamrima, in
opposition to the heathen of the interior. These are designated in mass
the Washenzi--conquered or servile--properly the name of a Helot race in
the hills of Usumbara, but extended by strangers to all the inner races.
The Wasawahili, or people of the Sawahil, Mulattos originally African,
but semiticised, like the Moplahs of Malabar, by Arab blood, are in
these days confined to the lands lying northwards of Mombasah, to the
island of Zanzibar, and to the regions about Kilwa.
The Mrima is peopled by two distantly connected families, the half-caste
Arabs and the Coast-Clans. The former are generally of Bayazi or Khariji
persuasion; the latter follow the school of el Shafei; both, though the
most imperfect of Moslems, are fanatical enough to be dangerous. They
own a nominal allegiance to the suzerain of Zanzibar, yet they are
autonomous and free-spoken as Bedouins, when removed a few miles from
the coast, and they have a rooted aversion to the officials of the local
government, whom they consider their personal enemies. Between them and
the pure Arabs of Oman, who often traverse, but who now never settle
upon the Mrima, there is a repugnance increased by commercial jealousy;
they resent the presence of these strangers as an intrusion, and they
lose no opportunity of thwarting and discouraging them from travelling
into the interior. Like their ancestors, they dislike Europeans
personally, and especially fear the Beni Nar, or Sons of Fire,--the
English--“hot as the Ingrez,” is in these lands a proverb. In their many
Riwayat, Hadisi, and Ngoma--tales, traditions, and songs--they predict
the eventual conquest of the country that has once felt the white man’s
foot.
The half-caste Arab is degenerate in body and mind; the third generation
becomes as truly negroid as the inner heathen. Even Creoles of pure
blood, born upon the island and the coast of Zanzibar, lose the high
nervous temperament that characterises their ancestors, and become, like
Banyans, pulpy and lymphatic. These mestiços, appearing in the land of
their grandsires, have incurred the risk of being sold as slaves. The
peculiarity of their physiognomy is the fine Semitic development of the
upper face, including the nose and nostrils, whilst the jaw is
prognathous, the lips are tumid and everted, and the chin is weak and
retreating. The cranium is somewhat rounded, and it wants the length of
the Negroid’s skull. Idle and dissolute, though intelligent and cunning,
the coast-Arab has little education. He is sent at the age of seven to
school, where in two or three years he accomplishes the Khitmah, or
perlection of the Koran, and he learns to write a note in an antiquated
character, somewhat more imperfect than the Cufic. This he applies to
the Kisawahili, and as nothing can be less fitted for the Semitic
tongues than the Arabic syllabarium, so admirably adapted to its proper
sphere, his compositions require the deciphering of an expert. A few
prayers and hymns conclude the list of his acquirements. His
mother-tongue knows no books except short treatises on Bao, or geomancy,
and specimens of African proverbial wisdom. He then begins life by
aiding his father in the shop or plantation, and by giving himself up to
intoxication and intrigue. After suffering severely from his
excesses--in this climate no constitution can bear up against
over-indulgence long continued--at the age of seventeen or eighteen, he
takes unto himself a wife. Estranged from the land of his forefathers,
he rarely visits Zanzibar, where the restraints of semi-civilisation,
the decencies of oriental society, and the low estimation in which the
black skin is held, weary and irritate him. His point of honour seems to
consist chiefly in wearing publicly, in token of his Arab descent, a
turban and a long yellow shirt, called El Dishdasheh.
The Wamrima, or coast-clans, resemble even more than the half-caste
Arabs their congeners the Washenzi. The pure Omani will not acknowledge
them as kinsmen, declaring the breed to be Aajam, or gentiles. They are
less educated than the higher race, and they are more debauched,
apathetic, dilatory, and inert; their favourite life is one of sensual
indolence. Like the Somal, they appear to be unfitted by nature for
intellectual labour; of the former people there is but one learned man,
the Shaykh Jami of Harar, and the Kazi Muhiyy-el-Din of Zanzibar is the
only literato amongst the Wasawahili. Study, or indeed any tension of
the mind, seems to make these weak-brained races semi-idiotic. They
cannot answer Yes or No to the simplest question. If, for example, a man
be asked the place of his tribe, he will point to a distance, though
actually living amongst them; or if questioned concerning some
particular of an event, he will detail everything but what is wanted. In
the earlier days of exploration, I have repeatedly collected the diwans,
and, after a careful investigation and comparison of statements, have
registered the names and distances of the stages ahead. These men,
though dwelling upon the threshold of the regions which they described,
and being in the habit of traversing them every year, yet could hardly
state a single fact correctly; sometimes they doubled, at other times
they halved, the distance; they seldom gave the same names, and they
almost always made a hysteron-proteron of the stations. The reader may
gather from this sample some idea of the difficulties besetting those
who would collect information concerning Africa from the Africans. It
would not have happened had an Arab been consulted. I soon resolved to
doubt for the future all Wasawahili, Wamrima, Washenzi, and slaves, and
I found no reason for regretting the resolution.
The Wamrima are of darker complexion, and are more African in
appearance, than the coast Arabs. The popular colour is a dull yellowish
bronze. The dress is a fez, or a Surat-cap; a loin-cloth, which among
the wealthy is generally an Arab check or an Indian print, with a
similar sheet thrown over the shoulders. Men seldom appear in public
without a spear, a sword, or a staff; and priding themselves upon the
possession of umbrellas, they may be seen rolling barrels, or otherwise
working upon the sands, under the luxurious shade. The women wear a
tobe, or long cloth, wrapped tightly round the body, and extending from
beneath the arms to the ankles; it is a garb ungraceful as was the
European “sacque” of bygone days. It spoils the figure by depressing
instead of supporting the bosom, and it conceals none of its
deficiencies, especially the narrowness of the hips. The Murungwana, or
free-woman, is distinguished from the slave-girl, when outside the
house, by a cloth thrown over the head. Like the women of the Bedouins
and of the Persian Iliyat, even the matrons of the Mrima go abroad
unmasked. Their favourite necklace is a string of shark’s teeth. They
distend the lobes of the ears to a prodigious size, and decorate them
with a rolled-up strip of variously-dyed cocoa-leaf, a disk of wood, a
plate of chakazi or raw gum-copal, or, those failing, with a betel-nut
or with a few straws. The left wing of the nose is also pierced to admit
a pin of silver, brass, lead, or even a bit of manioc-root. The hair,
like the body, is copiously anointed with cocoa-nut or sesamum oil. Some
shave the head wholly or partially across the brow and behind the ears;
others grow their locks to half or full-length, which rarely exceeds a
few inches. It is elaborately dressed, either in double-rolls rising
like bear’s ears on both sides of the head, or divided into a number of
frizzly curls which expose lines of scalp, and give to the head the
appearance of a melon. They have also a propensity for savage
“accroche-cœurs,” which stand out from the cheek bones, stiffly twisted
like young porkers’ tails. In early youth, when the short, soft, and
crisp hair resembles Astrachan wool, when the muscles of the face are
smoothly rounded, and when the skin has that life and texture, and the
countenance has that vivacity and amiability which belong only to the
young, many of the girls have a pretty piquancy, a little minois
chiffonné, a coquettishness, a natural grace, and a caressing look,
which might become by habit exceedingly prepossessing. In later life,
their charms assume that peculiar solidity which is said to characterise
the beauties of Mullingar, and as a rule they are shockingly ugly. The
Castilian proverb says that the English woman should be seen at the
window, the French woman on the promenade, and the Spanish woman
everywhere;--the African woman should be seen nowhere, or in the dark.
The children mostly appear in the graceful costume of the Belvidere
Apollo; not a few of them have, to the European eye, that amusing
prettiness which we admire in pug-pups.
The mode of life in the Mrima is simple. Men rise early and repair to
either the shop, the boat, or the plantation,--more commonly they waste
the morning in passing from house to house “ku amkía,”--to salute
neighbours. They ignore “manners”: they enter abruptly with or without
the warning cry of “Hodi! Hodi!” place their spears in the corner, and
without invitation squat and extend themselves upon the floor till
wearied with conversation they take “French leave.” Life, to the
European so real and earnest, is with them a continued scene of
drumming, dancing, and drinking, of gossip, squabble, and intrigue. The
favourite inebrients are tembu or cocoa toddy, and mvinyo, its
distillation, pombe or millet-beer, opium, Bhang, and sometimes foreign
stimulants purchased at Zanzibar. Their food is mostly ugali, the thick
porridge of boiled millet or maize flour, which represents the “staff of
life” in East Africa: they usually feed twice a day, in the morning and
at night-fall. They employ the cocoa-nut extensively: like the Arabs of
Zanzibar, they boil their rice in the thick juice of the rasped albumen
kneaded with water, and they make cakes of the pulp mixed with the flour
of various grains. This immoderate use of the fruit which, according to
the people, is highly refrigerant, causes, it is said, rheumatic and
other diseases. A respectable man seen eating a bit of raw or undressed
cocoa-nut would be derided by his fellows. They chew tobacco with lime,
like the Arabs, who, under the influence of Wahhabi tenets, look upon
the pipe as impure, and they rarely smoke it like the Washenzi.
The Wamrima as well as the Wasawahili are distinguished by two national
peculiarities of character. The first is a cautiousness bordering upon
cowardice, derived from their wild African blood; the second is an
unusual development of cunning and deceitfulness, which partially
results from the grafting of the semi-civilised Semite upon the Hamite.
The Arabs, who are fond of fanciful etymology, facetiously derive the
race-name “Msawahili” from “Sawwá hílah,”[3] _he played a trick_, and
the people boast of it, saying, “are we not Wasawahili?” that is “artful
dodgers.” Supersubtle and systematic liars, they deceive when duller men
would tell the truth, the lie direct is no insult, and the offensive
word “muongo!” (liar) enters largely into every dialogue. They lie like
Africans, objectlessly, needlessly, when sure of speedy detection, when
fact would be more profitable than falsehood; they have not discovered
with the civilised knave, that “honesty is the best policy;” they lie
till their fiction becomes subjectively fact. With them the lie is no
mental exertion, no exercise of ingenuity, no concealment, nor mere
perversion of the truth: it is apparently a local instinctive
peculiarity in the complicated madness of poor human nature. The most
solemn and religious oaths are with them empty words; they breathe an
atmosphere of falsehood, manœuvre, and contrivance, wasting about the
mere nothings of life--upon a pound of grain or a yard of
cloth--ingenuity of iniquity enough to win and keep a crown. And they
are treacherous as false; with them the salt has no signification, and
gratitude is unknown even by name.
[3] Dr. Krapf, in the Preface to his “Outlines of the Kisuahelí
Language,” deduces the national name from Síwá, ’a hílah, which would
mean exactly the reverse of astute--“without guile.” He has made other
curious linguistic errors: he translates, for instance, the
“Quilimancy” River--the ancient name for the Ozi or Dana--“water from
the mountain,” after a Germanic or Indo-European fashion, whereas, in
the Zangian languages, the compound word would, if admissible, signify
“a mountain of water.” It is curious that the learned and accurate Mr.
Cooley, who has charged Dr. Krapf with “puerile etymologies,” should
have fallen into precisely the same error. In the “Geography of
N’yassi,” p. 19, “Mazingia” is rendered the “road or land along the
water,” but Májí Njíá, if the elision of the possessive affix ya be
allowed in prose as in poetry--Májí Njíá for Májí ya Njíá--would mean
only the “water of the road.” As a specimen of Dr. Krapf’s discoveries
in philology the following may suffice. In his vocabulary of the
Engutuk Eloikob or Kikuafi dialect, he derives Olbitir, a _pig_, from
the Arabic El Batrah, a _young ass_, or from El Basir, a _sharp-seeing
dog_!
Though partially Arabised, the Wamrima, as well as the Wasawahili,
retain many habits and customs derived from the most degraded of the
Washenzi savagery. Like the Wazegura heathen of Eastern Africa, and the
Bangala of the Kasanji (Cassange) Valley, in the West, the uncle sells
his nephews and nieces by an indefeasible vested right, with which even
the parents cannot interfere. The voice of society even justifies this
abomination. “What!” exclaim the people, “is a man to want when his
brothers and sisters have children?” He is thus encouraged in doing, on
the slightest pretext, that of which the heathen rarely approve, except
to save themselves from starvation. At the same time the Wamrima,
holding the unchastity of woman as a tenet of belief, consider the
sister’s son--the “surer side”--the heir, in preference to the son. They
have many superstitions, and before all undertakings they consult a
pagan Mganga or medicine-man. If the K’hunguru or crow caws from the
house-top, a guest is coming; if a certain black bird cries “chee!
chee!” in front of a caravan, the porters will turn back, saying that
there is blood on the road, and they will remain four or five days till
the “chika! chika!” of the partridge beats the “General.” An even number
of wayfarers met in early morning is a good omen, but an odd number, or
the bark of the Mbweha--the fox--before the march, portends misfortune.
Strong minds of course take advantage of these and a thousand other
follies of belief, and when there is not, as in civilised countries, a
counteracting influence of scepticism, the mental organisation of the
people becomes a mass of superstitious absurdities.
The chief industry of the Mrima, namely the plundering of caravans, has
already been alluded to; it will here be described with somewhat more of
detail. The industrious and commercial nations near Kilwa and the
southern regions delay but a few days on the coast; the Wanyamwezi, on
the line now to be described, will linger there from three to six
months, enjoying the dear delights of comparative civilisation. Many old
campaigners have so far overcome their barbarous horror of water
travelling, which has been increased by tales of shipwreck and drowning,
as to take boat and carry their ivory to the more profitable market in
this land of Zanzibar, where the Wanyamwezi occupy their own quarter.
Arrived within two marches of the coast-town, the head of the caravan
calls a halt till the presents promised by an escort of touters have
arrived and have been approved of. He then delays as long as possible,
to live gratis upon those with whom he proposes to deal. After a time,
the caravan enters in stately procession, a preliminary to the usual
routine of commercial operations. Having settled the exorbitant claims
of the village headmen and the charges of the Zanzibar Government, which
are usually levied in duplicate by the local authorities, the barbarian
has recourse to the Indian Banyan. Bargains are usually concluded at
night: to a civilised man the work would be an impossible trial of
patience. A lot of two hundred tusks is rarely sold under four months.
Each article is laid upon the ground, and the purchaser begins by
placing handsome cloths, technically called “pillows,” under the point
and bamboo of the tusk, and by covering its whole length with a third;
these form the first perquisites of the seller. After a few days, during
which rice and ghee, sugar and sweetmeats, must be freely supplied,
commences the chaffering for the price. The Banyan becomes excited at
the ridiculous demand of his client, screams like a woman, pushes him
out of doors, and receives a return of similar treatment with interest.
He takes advantage of his knowledge that the African in making a bargain
is never satisfied with the first offer, however liberal; he begins with
a quarter of the worth, then he raises it to one-half, and when the
barbarian still hesitates he throws in some flashy article which turns
the scale. Any attempt at a tariff would be contemptuously rejected by
both parties. The African delights in bargaining, and the Indian having
brighter wits relies upon them for a profit, which the establishment of
fair prices would curtail. It were in vain to attempt any alteration in
this style of doing “business;” however despicable it may appear in the
London market, it is a time-honoured institution in East Africa.
[Illustration: The Wazaramo Tribe.]