Before bidding adieu to the Maritime Region, it will be expedient to
enter into a few details concerning its geography and ethnology.[7]
[7] Those who consider the subject worthy of further consideration are
referred, for an ampler account of it, to the Journal of the R.
Geographical Society, vol. xxix. of 1860.
The first or maritime region extends from the shores of the Indian Ocean
in E. long. 39° to the mountain-chain forming the land of Usagara in E.
long. 37° 28′; its breadth is therefore 92 geographical miles, measured
in rectilinear distance, and its mean length, bounded by the waters of
the Kingani and the Rufiji rivers, may be assumed at 110. The average
rise is under 4 feet per mile. It is divided into two basins; that of
the Kingani easterly, and westward that of the Mgeta stream with its
many tributaries; the former, which is the principal, is called the land
of Uzaramo; the latter, which is of the second order, contains the
provinces of K’hutu, by the Arabs pronounced Kutu, and Uziraha, a minor
district. The natives of the country divide it into the three lowlands
of Tunda, Dut’humi, and Zungomero.
The present road runs with few and unimportant deviations along the
whole length of the fluviatile valleys of the Kingani and the Mgeta.
Native caravans if lightly laden generally accomplish the march in a
fortnight, one halt included. On both sides of this line, whose greatest
height above the sea-level was found by B. P. therm. to be 330 feet,
rises the rolling ground, which is the general character of the country.
Its undulations present no eminences worthy of notice; near the sea they
are short and steep, further inland they roll in longer waves, and
everywhere they are covered with abundant and luxuriant vegetation, the
result of decomposition upon the richest soil. In parts there is an
appearance of park land; bushless and scattered forests, with grass
rising almost to the lower branches of the smaller thorns; here and
there clumps and patches of impassable shrubbery cluster round knots and
knolls of majestic and thickly foliaged trees. The narrow footpaths
connecting the villages often plunge into dark and dense tunnels formed
by overarching branch and bough, which delay the file of laden porters;
the mud lingering long after a fall of rain in these low grounds fills
them with a chilly clammy atmosphere. Merchants traverse such spots with
trembling; in these, the proper places for ambuscade, a few determined
men easily plunder a caravan by opposing it in front or by an attack in
rear. The ways are often intersected by deep nullahs and water-courses,
dry during the hot season, but unfordable when rain falls. In the many
clearings, tobacco, maize, holcus, sesamum, and ground-nuts, manioc,
beans, pulse, and sweet potatoes flourish; the pine-apple is a weed, and
a few cocos and mangoes, papaws, jack-fruit, plantains, and limes are
scattered over the districts near the sea. Rice grows abundantly in the
lower levels. The villages are hidden deep in the bush or grass: the
crowing of the cocks heard all along the road, except in the greater
stretches of wilderness, proves them to be numerous; they are, however
small and thinly populated. The versant, as usual in maritime E. Africa,
trends towards the Indian Ocean. Water abounds even at a distance from
the rivers; it springs from the soil in diminutive runnels and lies in
“shimo” or pits, varying from surface-depth to 10 feet. The
monsoon-rains, which are heavy, commence in March, about a month earlier
than in Zanzibar, and the duration is similar. The climate of the higher
lands is somewhat superior to that of the valley, but it is still hot
and oppressive. The formation, after passing from the corallines, the
limestones, the calcareous tuffs, and the rude gravelly conglomerates of
the coast, is purely primitive and sandstone: erratic blocks of fine
black hornblende and hornblendic rock, used by the people as whetstones
and grinding-slabs, abound in the river-beds, which also supply the clay
used for pottery. The subsoil is near the sea a stiff blue loam, in the
interior a ruddy quartzose gravel; the soil is a rich brown or black
humus, here and there coated with, or varied by, clean white sand, and
in some parts are seams of reddish loam. Fresh-water shells are
scattered over the surface, and land-crabs burrow in the looser earths
where stone seldom appears. Black cattle are unknown in the maritime
region, but poultry, sheep, and goats are plentiful: near the jungle
they are protected from the leopards or ounces by large wooden huts,
like cages, raised on piles for cleanliness.
As a rule, the fluviatile valleys resemble in most points the physical
features of the coast and island of Zanzibar: the general aspect of the
country, however--the expression of its climate--undergoes some
modifications. Near the sea, the basin is a broad winding line,
traversed by the serpentine river, whose bed is now too deep for change.
About the middle expanse stony ridges and rocky hills crop out from the
rolling ground, and the head of the valley is a low continuous plain. In
many places, especially near the estuary, river-terraces, like road
embankments, here converging, there diverging, indicate by lines and
strews of water-worn pebbles and sea-shells the secular uprise of the
country and the declension of the stream to its present level. These
raised seabeaches at a distance appear crowned with dwarf rounded cones
which, overgrown with lofty trees, are favourite sites for settlements.
In the lower lands the jungle and the cultivation are of the rankest and
most gigantic description, the effect of a damp, hot region, where
atmospheric pressure is excessive. The grass, especially that produced
by the black soils in the swamps and marshes, rises to the height of
12-13 feet, and serves to conceal runaway slaves and malefactors: the
stalks vary in thickness from a goose-quill to a man’s finger. The
larger growths, which are so closely planted that they conceal the soil,
cannot be traversed without paths, and even where these exist the
traveller must fight his way through a dense screen, receiving from time
to time a severe blow when the reeds recoil, or a painful thrust from
some broken and inclined stump. Even the horny sole of the sandal-less
African cannot tread these places without being cut or staked, and
everywhere a ride through these grass-avenues whilst still dripping with
the cold exhalations of night, with the sun beating fiercely upon the
upper part of the body, is a severe infliction to any man not in perfect
health. The beds of streams and nullahs are sometimes veiled by the
growth of the banks. These crops spring up with the rains, and are
burned down by hunters, or more frequently by accident, after about a
month of dry weather; in the interim fires are dangerous: the custom is
to beat down the blaze with leafy boughs. Such is the variety of species
that in some parts of the river-valleys each day introduces the
traveller to a grass before unseen. Where the inundations lie long, the
trees are rare, and those that exist are slightly raised by mounds above
the ground to escape the destructive effects of protracted submergence:
in these places the decomposed vegetation exhales a fetid odour. Where
the waters soon subside there are clumps of tall shrubbery and seams of
forest rising on extensive meadows of grassy land, which give it the
semblance of a suite of natural parks or pleasure-grounds, and the
effect is not diminished by the frequent herds of gnu and antelope
prancing and pacing over their pastures.
The climate is hot and oppressive, and the daily sea-breeze, which
extends to the head of the Mgeta valley, is lost in the lower levels.
About Zungomero rain is constant, except for a single fortnight in the
month of January; it seems to the stranger as if the crops must
infallibly decay, but they do not. At most times the sun, even at its
greatest northern declination, shines through a veil of mist with a
sickly blaze and a blistering heat, and the overcharge of electricity is
evidenced by frequent and violent thunder-storms. In the western parts
cold and cutting breezes descend from the rugged crags of Dut’humi.
The principal diseases of the valley are severe ulcerations and fevers,
generally of a tertian type. The “Mkunguru” begins with coldness in the
toes and finger-tips; a frigid shiver seems to creep up the legs,
followed by pains in the shoulders, severe frontal headache, hot eyes,
and a prostration and irritability of mind and body. This preliminary
lasts for one to three hours, when nausea ushers in the hot stage: the
head burns, the action of the heart becomes violent, thirst rages, and a
painful weight presses upon the eyeballs: it is often accompanied by a
violent cough and irritation. Strange visions, as in delirium, appear to
the patient, and the excitement of the brain is proved by unusual
loquacity. When the fit passes off with copious perspiration the head is
often affected, the ears buzz, and the limbs are weak. If the patient
attempts to rise suddenly, he feels a dizziness, produced apparently by
a gush of bile along the liver duct: want of appetite, sleeplessness and
despondency, and a low fever, evidenced by hot pulses, throbbing
temples, and feet painfully swollen, with eruptions of various kinds,
and ulcerated mouth, usher in the cure. This fever yields easily to mild
remedies, but it is capable of lasting three weeks.
A multitude of roads, whose point of departure is the coast, form a
triangle and converge at the “Makutaniro,” or junction-place, in Central
Uzaramo. The route whose several stations have been described is one of
the main lines running from Kaole and Bagamoyo, in a general southwest
direction, till it falls into the great trunk road which leads directly
west from Mbuamaji. It is divided into thirteen caravan stages, but a
well-girt walker will accomplish the distance in a week.
No apology is offered for the lengthiness of the ethnographical
descriptions contained in the following pages. The ethnology of Africa
is indeed its most interesting, if not its only interesting feature.
Everything connected with the habits and customs, the moral and
religious, the social and commercial state of these new races, is worthy
of diligent observation, careful description, and minute illustration.
There is indeed little in the physical features of this portion of the
great peninsula to excite the attention of the reader beyond the
satisfaction that ever accompanies the victory of truth over fable, and
a certain importance which in these “travelling times,”--when man
appears rapidly rising to the rank of a migratory animal,--must attach
to discovery. The subject, indeed, mostly banishes ornament. Lying under
the same parallels with a climate whose thermical variations know no
extremes, the succession of alluvial valley, ghaut, table-land, and
shelving plain is necessarily monotonous, the soil is the same, the
productions are similar, and the rocks and trees resemble one another.
Eastern and central inter-tropical Africa also lacks antiquarian and
historic interest, it has few traditions, no annals, and no ruins, the
hoary remnants of past splendour so dear to the traveller and to the
reader of travels. It contains not a single useful or ornamental work, a
canal or a dam is, and has ever been, beyond the narrow bounds of its
civilisation. It wants even the scenes of barbaric pomp and savage
grandeur with which the student of occidental Africa is familiar. But
its ethnography has novelties: it exposes strange manners and customs,
its Fetichism is in itself a wonder, its commerce deserves attention,
and its social state is full of mournful interest. The fastidiousness of
the age, however, forbidding ampler details, even under the veil of the
“learned languages,” cripples the physiologist, and robs the subject of
its principal peculiarities. I have often regretted that if Greek and
dog-Latin be no longer a sufficient disguise for the facts of natural
history, human and bestial, the learned have not favoured us with a
system of symbols which might do away with the grossness of words.
The present tenants of the First Region are the Wazaramo, the Wak’hutu,
and their great sub-tribe, the Waziraha; these form the staple of
population,--the Wadoe and the Wazegura being minor and immigrant
tribes.
The Wazaramo are no exception to the rule of barbarian maritime races:
they have, like the Somal, the Gallas, the Wangindo, the Wamakua, and
the Cape Kafirs, come into contact with a civilisation sufficiently
powerful to corrupt without subjugating them; and though cultivators of
the ground, they are more dreaded by caravans than any tribe from the
coast to the Lake Region. They are bounded eastward by the thin line of
Moslems in the maritime regions, westward by the Wak’hutu, northward by
the Kingani River, and on the south by the tribes of the Rufiji. The
Wazaramo, or, as they often pronounce their own name, Wazalamo, claim
connection with the semi-nomade Wakamba, who have, within the last few
years, migrated to the north-west of Mombasah. Their dialect, however,
proves them to be congeners of the Wak’hutu, and distinct from the
Wakamba. As in East Africa generally, it is impossible to form the
remotest idea of the number of families, or of the total of population.
The Wazaramo number many sub-tribes, the principal of which are the
Wákámbá and the Wáp’hangárá.
These negroids are able-bodied men, tall and straight, compared with the
Coast-clans, but they are inferior in development to most of the inner
tribes. The complexion, as usual, varies greatly. The chiefs are often
coal-black, and but few are of light colour. This arises from the
country being a slave-importer rather than exporter; and here, as among
the Arabs, black skins are greatly preferred. The Mzaramo never
circumcises, except when becoming a “Mháji,” or Moslem convert; nor does
this tribe generally tattoo, though some adorn the face with three long
cicatrized cuts, like the Mashali of Mecca, extending down each cheek
from the ear-lobes to the corners of the mouth. Their distinctive mark
is the peculiarity of dressing their hair. The thick wool is plastered
over with a cap-like coating of ochreish and micaceous clay, brought
from the hills, and mixed to the consistency of honey with the oil of
the sesamum or the castor-bean. The pomatum, before drying, is pulled
out with the fingers to the ends of many little twists, which circle the
head horizontally, and the mass is separated into a single or a double
line of knobs, the upper being above, and the lower below, the ears,
both look stiff and matted, as if affected with a bad plica polonica.
The contrast between these garlands of small red dilberries and the
glossy black skin is, however, effective. The clay, when dry, is washed
out with great trouble by means of warm water--soap has yet to be
invented--and by persevering combing with the fingers. Women wear the
hair-thatch like men; there are, however, several styles. It is usually
parted in the centre, from the crinal front-line to the nape of the
neck, and allowed to grow in a single or double dense thatch, ridging
the head breadthwise from ear to ear: this is coloured or not coloured,
according to the wearer’s taste. Some of the Wazaramo, again, train
lumps of their wool to rise above the region of cautiousness, and very
exactly simulate bears’ ears. The face is usually lozenge-shaped, the
eyes are somewhat oblique, the nose is flat and patulated, the lips
tumid and everted, the jaw prognathous, and the beard, except in a few
individuals, is scanty. The sebaceous odour of the skin amongst all
these races is overpowering: emitted with the greatest effect during and
after excitement either of mind or body, it connects the negroid with
the negro and separates him from the Somal, the Galla, and the Malagash.
The expression of countenance is wild and staring, the features are
coarse and harsh, the gait is loose and lounging; the Arab strut and the
Indian swagger are unknown in East Africa. The Wazaramo tribe is rich in
albinos; three were seen by the Expedition in the course of a single
day. They much resemble Europeans of the leucous complexion; the face is
quite bald; the skin is rough, and easily wrinkles in long lines, marked
by a deeper pink; the hair is short, sharp-curling, and coloured like a
silk-worm’s cocoon, and the lips are red. The eyes have grey pupils and
rosy “whites:” they appear very sensitive to light, and are puckered up
so as to distort the countenance. The features are unusually plain, and
the stature appears to range below the average. The people who have no
prejudice against them, call these leucœthiops Wazungu, “white men.”
The Wazaramo tribe is wealthy enough to dress well: almost every man can
afford a shukkah or loin-cloth of unbleached cotton, which he stains a
dirty yellow, like the Indian gerua, with a clay dug in the subsoil.
Their ornaments are extensive girdles and bead necklaces of various
colours, white disks, made from the base of a sea-shell, and worn single
on the forehead or in pairs at the neck. A massy ring of brass or zinc
encircles the wrist. The decoration peculiar to the tribe, and common to
both sexes, is the mgoweko, a tight collar or cravat, 1 to 1·50 inches
broad, of red and yellow, white and black beads, with cross-bars of
different colours at short intervals. Men never appear in public without
an ostentatious display of arms. The usual weapons, when they cannot
procure muskets, are spears, bows, and arrows, the latter poisoned, and
sime, or long knives like the Somali daggers, made by themselves with
imported iron. The chiefs are generally seen in handsome attire;
embroidered Surat caps bound with a tight snowy turban of a true African
shape, which contrasts well with black skins and the short double-peaked
beards below. The body-garment is a loin-cloth of showy Indian cotton or
Arab check; some prefer the long shirt and the kizbao or waistcoat
affected by the slaves at Zanzibar. The women are well dressed as the
men--a circumstance rare in East Africa. Many of them have the tibia
bowed in front by bearing heavy water-pots at too early an age; when not
burdened they have a curious mincing gate, they never veil their faces,
and they show no shame in the presence of strangers. The child is
carried in a cloth at the back.
The habitations of the Wazaramo are far superior in shape and size to
those of K’hutu, and, indeed, to any on this side of Unyamwezi. Their
buildings generally resemble the humbler sort of English cow-house, or
an Anglo-Indian bungalow. In poorer houses the outer walls are of holcus
canes, rudely puddled; the better description are built of long and
broad sheets of Myombo and Mkora bark, propped against strong uprights
inside, and bound horizontally by split bamboos tied outside with
fibrous cord. The heavy pent-shaped roof often provided with a double
thatch of grass and reeds, projects eaves, which are high enough to
admit a man without stooping; these are supported by a long cross bar
resting on perpendiculars, tree-trunks, barked and smoothed, forked
above, and firmly planted in the ground. Along the outer marginal length
of this verandah lies a border of large logs polished by long sittings.
The interior is dark and windowless, and party-walls of stiff grass-cane
divide it into several compartments. The list of furniture comprises a
dwarf cartel about 4 feet long by 16 inches broad, upon which even the
married couple manages to make itself comfortable; a stool cut out of a
single block, a huge wooden mortar, mtungi or black earthen pots,
gourds, ladles of cocoa-nut, cast-off clothes, whetstones, weapons,
nets, and in some places creels for fishing. Grain is ground upon an
inclined slab of fine-grained granite or syenite, sometimes loose, at
other times fixed in the ground with a mud plaster; the classical
Eastern handmill is unknown in this part of Africa. The inner roof and
its rafters, shining with a greasy soot, in wet weather admit drenching
lines of leakage, and the only artifice applied to the flooring is the
tread of the proprietors. The door is a close hurdle of parallel
holcus-straw bound to five or six cross-bars with strips of bark. In a
village there will be from four to twelve “bungalows;” the rest are the
normal haycock and beehive hut of Africa. Where enemies are numerous the
settlements are palisaded; each has, moreover, but a single entrance,
which is approached by a narrow alley of strong stockade, and is guarded
by a thick planking that fits into a doorway large enough to admit
cattle.
The Wazaramo are an ill-conditioned, noisy, boisterous violent, and
impracticable race. A few years ago they were the principal obstacle to
Arab and other travellers entering into East Africa. But the seizure of
Kaole and other settlements by the late Sayyid of Zanzibar has now given
strangers a footing in the land. After tasting the sweets of gain, they
have somewhat relented; but quarrels between them and the caravans are
still frequent. The P’házi, or chief of the district, demands a certain
amount of cloth for free passage from all merchants on their way to the
interior; from those returning he takes cattle, jembe, or iron hoes,
shokah or hatchets, in fact, whatever he can obtain. If not contented,
his clansmen lie in ambush and discharge a few poisoned arrows at the
trespassers: they never have attempted, like the Wagogo, to annihilate a
caravan; in fact, the loss of one of their number causes a general
panic. They have hitherto successfully resisted the little armies of
touters that have almost desolated K’hutu, and they are frequently in
hostilities with the coast settlements. The young men sometimes set out
on secret plundering expeditions to Bagamoyo and Mbuamaji, and enter the
houses at night by mining under the walls. The burghers attempt to
defeat them by burying stones and large logs as a foundation, but in
vain: their superior dexterity has originated a superstitious notion
that they possess a peculiar “medicine,” a magic spell called “Ugumba,”
which throws the household into a deep trance. When a thief is caught
_in flagrante delicto_, his head soon adorns a tall pole at the entrance
of the settlement: it is not uncommon to see half a dozen bloody or
bleached fragments of humanity collected in a single spot. When disposed
to be friendly the Wazaramo will act as porters to Arabs, but if a man
die his load is at once confiscated by his relatives, who, however,
insist upon receiving his blood-money, as if he had been slain in
battle. Their behaviour to caravans in their own country depends upon
the strangers’ strength; many trading bodies therefore unite into one
before beginning the transit, and even then they are never without fear.
The Wazaramo chiefs are powerful only when their wealth or personal
qualities win the respect of their unruly republican subjects. There are
no less than five orders in this hereditary master-class. The P’hazi is
the headman of the village, and the Mwene Goha is his principal
councillor; under these are three ranks of elders, the Kinyongoni, the
Chúmá, and the Káwámbwá. The headman, unless exceptionally influential,
must divide amongst his “ministry” the blackmail extorted from
travellers. The P’hazi usually fills a small village with his wives and
families; he has also large estates, and he personally superintends the
labour of his slave-gangs. He cannot sell his subjects except for two
offences--Ugoni or adultery, and Ucháwe or black magic. The latter crime
is usually punished by the stake; in some parts of the country the
roadside shows at every few miles a heap or two of ashes with a few
calcined and blackened human bones mixed with bits of half-consumed
charcoal, telling the tragedy that has been enacted there. The prospect
cannot be contemplated without horror; here and there, close to the
larger circles where the father and mother have been burnt, a smaller
heap shows that some wretched child has shared their terrible fate, lest
growing up he should follow in his parents’ path. The power of
conviction is wholly in the hands of the Mgángá or medicine-man, who
administers an ordeal called Bága or Kyápo by boiling water. If the hand
after being dipped show any sign of lesion, the offence is proven, and
the sentence is instantly carried into execution.
Instinctively conscious of their moral wants, the Washenzi throughout
this portion of East Africa have organised certain customs which have
grown to laws. The first is the Sáre or brother oath. Like the “manred”
of Scotland, the “munh bola bhai” of India, and similar fraternal
institutions amongst most of the ancient tribes of barbarians in whom
sociability is a passion, it tends to reconcile separate interests
between man and man, to modify the feuds and discords of savage society,
and, principally, to strengthen those that need an alliance. In fact, it
is a contrivance for choosing relations instead of allowing Nature to
force them upon man, and the flimsiness of the tie between brothers born
in polygamy has doubtless tended to perpetuate it. The ceremony, which
is confined to adults of the male sex, is differently performed in the
different tribes. Amongst the Wazaramo, the Wazegura, and the Wasagara,
the two “brothers” sit on a hide face to face, with legs outstretched to
the front and overlapping one another; their bows and arrows are placed
across their thighs, whilst a third person, waving a sword over their
heads, vociferates curses against any one that may “break the
brotherhood.” A sheep is then slaughtered, and its flesh, or more often
its heart, is brought roasted to the pair, who, having made with a
dagger incisions in each other’s breasts close to the pit of the
stomach, eat a piece of meat smeared with the blood. Among the
Wanyamwezi and the Wajiji the cut is made below the left ribs or above
the knee; each man receives in a leaf his brother’s blood, which, mixed
with oil or butter, he rubs into his own wound. An exchange of small
presents generally concludes the rite. It is a strong tie, as all men
believe that death or slavery would follow its infraction. The Arabs, to
whom the tasting of blood is unlawful, usually perform it by proxy. The
slave “Fundi,” or fattori, of the caravans become brothers, even with
the Washenzi, whenever they expect an opportunity of utilising the
relationship.
The second custom is more peculiar. The East African dares not
appropriate an article found upon the road, especially if he suspect
that it belongs to a fellow tribeman. He believes that a “Kigámbo,” an
unexpected calamity, slavery or death, would follow the breach of this
custom. At Zungomero a watch, belonging to the Expedition, was picked up
by the country people in the jungle, and was punctually returned, well
wrapped round with grass and leaves. But subsequent experience makes the
traveller regret that the superstition is not of a somewhat more
catholic and comprehensive character.
The religion of the East African will be treated of in a future page.
The Wazaramo, like their congeners, are as little troubled with ceremony
as with belief. In things spiritual as in things temporal they listen to
but one voice, that of “Ádá,” or custom. The most offensive scoffer or
sceptic in Europe is not regarded with more abomination than the man who
in these lands would attempt to touch a jot or tittle of Ádá.
There are no ceremonies on birth-occasions and no purification of women
amongst these people. In the case of abortion or of a still-born child
they say, “he hath returned,” that is to say, to home in earth. When the
mother perishes in childbirth, the parents claim a certain sum from “the
man that killed their daughter.” Neither on the continent nor at
Zanzibar do they bind with cloth the head of the new-born babe. Twins,
here called Wápáchá, and by the Arabs of Zanzibar, Shukúl (شكول) are
usually sold or exposed in the jungle as amongst the Ibos of West
Africa. If the child die, an animal is killed for a general feast, and
in some tribes the mother does a kind of penance. Seated outside the
village, she is smeared, with fat and flour, and exposed to the derision
of people who surround her, hooting and mocking with offensive jests and
gestures. To guard against this calamity, the Wazaramo and other tribes
are in the habit of vowing that the babe shall not be shaved till
manhood, and the mother wears a number of talismans, bits of wood tied,
with a thong of snake’s skin, round her neck, and beads of different
shapes round her head. When carrying her offspring, which she rarely
leaves alone, she bears in her hand what is technically called a
kirangozi, a “guide” or “guardian,” in the form of two sticks a few
inches in length, bound with bands of particoloured beads. This article,
made up by the Mgángá or medicine-man, is placed at night under the
child’s head, and is carried about till it has passed the first stage of
life. The kirangozi is intended to guard the treasure against the
malevolent spirits of the dead; that almost universal superstition, the
Evil Eye, though an article of faith amongst the Arabs, the Wasawahili,
and the Wamrima, is unknown to the inner heathen.
A name is given to the child without other celebration than a debauch
with pombe: this will sometimes occur at the birth of a male, when he is
wanted. The East Africans, having few national prejudices, are fond of
calling their children after Arabs and other strangers: they will even
pay a sheep for the loan of a merchant’s name. There must be many
hundred Sayyid Saids and Sayyid Majids now in the country; and as during
the eighteen months’ peregrination of the East African Expedition every
child born on and near the great trunk-line was called Muzungu--the
“white”--the Englishman has also left his mark in the land. The period
of ablactation, as in South Africa, is prolonged to the second or third
year: may this account, in part, for the healthiness of the young and
the almost total absence of debility and deformity? Indeed, the nearest
approach to the latter is the unsightly protrusion of the umbilical
region, sometimes to the extent of several inches, owing to ignorance of
proper treatment; but, though conspicuous in childhood, it disappears
after puberty. Women retain the power of suckling their children to a
late age, even when they appear withered grandames. Until the child can
walk without danger, it is carried by the mother, not on the hip, as in
Asia, but on the bare back for warmth, a sheet or skin being passed over
it and fastened at the parent’s breast. Even in infancy it clings like a
young simiad, and the peculiar formation of the African race renders the
position easier by providing a kind of seat upon which it subsides; the
only part of the body exposed to view is the little coco-nut head, with
the small, round, beady black eyes in a state of everlasting stare.
Finally, the “kigogo,” or child who cuts the two upper incisors before
the lower, is either put to death, or is given away or sold to the
slave-merchant, under the impression that it will bring disease,
calamity, and death into the household. The Wasawahili and the Zanzibar
Arabs have the same impressions: the former kill the child; the latter,
after a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, make it swear, by nodding
its head if unable to articulate, that it will not injure those about
it. Even in Europe, it may be remembered, the old prejudice against
children born with teeth is not wholly forgotten.
Amongst the Wazaramo there is no limitation to the number of wives,
except the expense of wedding and the difficulty of supporting a large
establishment. Divorce is signified by presenting to the wife a piece of
holcus-cane: if a sensible woman she at once leaves the house, and, if
not, she is forced to leave. There is no more romance in the affair even
before marriage than in buying a goat. The marriageable youth sends a
friend to propose to the father: if the latter consents, his first step
is, not to consult his daughter--such a proceeding would be deemed the
act of a madman--but to secure for himself as many cloths as possible,
from six to twelve, or even more, besides a preliminary present which
goes by the name of kiremba (kilemba), his “turban.” This, however, is a
kind of settlement which is demanded back if the wife die without issue;
but if she bear children, it is preserved for them by their
grand-parents. After the father the mother puts in her claim in behalf
of the daughter; she requires a kondáví, or broad parti-coloured band of
beads worn round the waist and next the skin; her mukájyá or loin-cloth,
and her wereko, or sheet in which the child is borne upon the back. In
the interior the settlement is made in live-stock, varying from a few
goats to a dozen cows. This weighty point duly determined, the husband
leads his wife to his own home, an event celebrated by drumming,
dancing, and extensive drunkenness. The children born in wedlock belong
to the father.
When a man or a woman is at the point of death, the friends assemble,
and the softer sex sometimes sings, howls, and weeps: the departing is
allowed to depart life upon the kitanda, or cartel. There is, however,
little demonstrative sorrow amongst these people, and, having the utmost
dread of disembodied spirits, all are anxious to get rid of the corpse
and its appertainings. The Wazaramo, more civilised than their
neighbours, bury their dead stretched out and in the dress worn during
life: their graves have already been described.
The “industry” of Usaramo will occupy but few sentences. Before the
great rains of the year set in the land must be weeded, and scratches
must be made with a hoe for the reception of seed. The wet season
ushers in the period for copal digging: the proceeds are either
sold to travelling traders, or are carried down to the coast in
mákándá--mat-sacks--of light weight, and are sold to the Banyans.
Bargaining and huckstering, cheapening and chaffering, are ever the
African’s highest intellectual enjoyments, and he does not fail to
stretch them to their utmost limits. After the autumnal rains during the
Azyab, or the north-east monsoon, the grass is fired, when the men
seizing their bows, arrows, and spears, indiscriminately slaughter beast
and bird--an operation which, yearly repeated, accounts in part for the
scarcity of animal life so remarkable in this animal’s paradise. When
all trades fail, the Mzaramo repairs to the coast, where, despite his
bad name, he usually finds employment as a labourer.
Next in order to the maritime Wazaramo are the Wak’hutu, to whom many of
the observations upon the subject of their more powerful neighbours
equally apply. Their territory extends from the Mgeta River to the
mountains of Usagara, and in breadth from the Dut’humi Highlands to the
Rufiji River.
The Wak’hutu are physically and, apparently, mentally a race inferior to
the Wazaramo; they are very dark, and bear other marks of a degradation
effected by pernicious climatory conditions. They have no peculiar
tattoo, although individuals raise complicated patterns in small
cicatrices upon their breasts. The popular head-dress is the
clay-coating of the Wazaramo, of somewhat modified dimensions; and some
of them, who are possibly derived from the Wahiao and other southern
clans, have a practice--exceptional in these latitudes--of chipping
their incisors to sharp points, which imitate well enough the armature
of the reptilia. Their eyes are bleared and red with perpetual
intoxication, and they seem to have no amusements but dancing and
singing through half the night. None but the wealthier can afford to
wear cloth; the substitute is a kilt of the calabash fibre, attached by
a cord of the same material to the waist. In women it often narrows to a
span, and would be inadequate to the purposes of decency were it not
assisted by an underclothing of softened goatskin; this and a square of
leather upon the bosom, which, however, is often omitted, compose the
dress of the multitude. The ornaments are like those of the Wazaramo,
but by no means so numerous. The Wak’hutu live poorly, and, having no
ghee, are contented with the oil of the sesamum and the castor-bean with
their holcus porridge. The rivers supply them with the usual mud-fish;
at times they kill game. Their sheep, goats, and poultry they reserve
for barter on the coast; and, though bees swarm throughout the land, and
even enter the villages, they will not take the trouble to make hives.
As on the Mrima, the proportion of chiefs to subjects seems to increase
in the inverse ratio of what is required. Every district in K’hutu has
its P’hazi or headman, with his minister the Mwene Goha, and inferior
chiefs, the Chándumé, the Muwinge, and the Mbárá. These men live chiefly
upon the produce of their fields, which they sell to caravans; they are
too abject and timid to insist upon the blackmail which has caused so
many skirmishes in Uzaramo; and the only use that they make of their
power is to tyrannise over their villages, and occasionally to organise
a little kidnapping. With the aid of slavery and black magic they render
their subjects’ lives as precarious as they well can: no one, especially
in old age, is safe from being burnt at a day’s notice. They are civil
to strangers, but wholly unable to mediate between them and the tribe.
The Wak’hutu have been used as porters; but they have proved so
treacherous, and so determined to desert, that no man will trust them in
a land where prepayment is the first condition of an agreement. Property
amongst them is insecure: a man has always a vested right in his
sister’s children; and when he dies his brothers and relations carefully
plunder his widow and orphans.
The dirty, slovenly villages of the Wak’hutu are an index of the
character of the people. Unlike the comfortable cottages of the
coast, and the roomy abodes of the Wazaramo, the settlements of
the Wak’hutu are composed of a few straggling hovels of the humblest
description--with doors little higher than an English pigsty, and eaves
so low that a man cannot enter them except on all fours. In shape they
differ, some being simple cones, others like European haystacks, and
others like our old straw beehives. The common hut is a circle from 12
to 25 feet in diameter; those belonging to the chiefs are sometimes of
considerable size, and the first part of the erection is a cylindrical
framework composed of tall stakes, or the rough trunks of young trees,
interwoven with parallel and concentric rings of flexible twigs and
withies, which are coated inside and outside with puddle of red or grey
clay. In some a second circle of wall is built round the inner cylinder,
thus forming one house within the other. The roof, subsequently added,
is of sticks and wattles, and the weight rests chiefly upon a central
tree. It has eaves-like projections, forming a narrow verandah, edged
with horizontal bars which rest upon forked uprights. Over the sticks
interwoven with the frame, thick grass or palm-fronds are thrown, and
the whole is covered with a coat of thatch tied on with strips of tree
bark. During the first few minutes of heavy rain, this roofing, shrunk
by the parching suns, admits water enough to patch the interior with
mud. The furniture of the cottages is like that of the Wazaramo; and the
few square feet which compose the area are divided by screens of wattle
into dark pigeon-holes, used as stores, kitchen, and sleeping-rooms. A
thick field of high grass is allowed to grow in the neighbourhood of
each village, to baffle pursuers in case of need; and some cottages are
provided with double doorways for easier flight. In the middle of the
settlement there is usually a tall tree, under which the men lounge upon
cots scarcely large enough for an English child; and where the slaves,
wrangling and laughing, husk their holcus in huge wooden mortars. These
villages can scarcely be called permanent: even the death of a chief
causes them to be abandoned, and in a few months long grass waves over
the circlets of charred stakes and straw.
The only sub-tribe of the Wak’hutu which deserves notice is the
Waziráhá, who inhabit the low grounds below the Mabruki Pass, in the
first parallel of the Usagara Mountains. They are remarkable only for
having beards somewhat better developed than in the other Eastern races:
in sickly appearance they resemble their congeners.
Remain for consideration the Wadoe and the Wazegura. The proper habitat
of the Wadoe is between the Watondwe or the tribes of Saadani, on the
littoral, and the Wak’hwere, near K’hutu, on the west; their northern
frontier is the land of the Wazegura, and their southern the Gama and
the Kingani Rivers. Their country, irrigated by the waters of the Gama,
is plentiful in grain, though wanting in cattle; they export to Zanzibar
sorghum and maize, with a little of the chakazi or unripe copal.
The Wadoe once formed a powerful tribe, and were the terror of their
neighbours. Their force was first broken by the Wakamba, who, however,
so weakened themselves, that they were compelled to emigrate in mass
from the country, and have now fixed themselves in a region about 14
marches to the north-west of Mombasah, which appears to have been
anciently called that of the Meremongao. During this struggle the Wadoe
either began or, what is more likely, renewed a practice which has made
their name terrible even in African ears. Fearing defeat from the
Wakamba, they proceeded, in presence of the foe, to roast and devour
slices from the bodies of the fallen. The manœuvre was successful; the
Wakamba could dare to die, but they could not face the idea of becoming
food. Presently, when the Wazegura had armed themselves with muskets,
and the people of Whinde had organised their large plundering
excursions, the Wadoe lost all power. About ten years ago Juma Mfumbi,
the late Diwan of Saadani, exacted tribute from them, and after his
death his sons succeeded to it. In 1857, broken by a famine of long
continuance, many Wadoe fled to the south of the Kingani River, and
obtained from the Wazaramo lands near Sagesera and Dege la Mhora.
The Wadoe differ greatly in colour and in form. Some are tall,
well-made, and light-complexioned Negroids, others are almost black.
Their distinctive mark--in women as well as men--is a pair of long cuts
down both cheeks, from the temple to the jaw; they also frequently chip
away the two inner sides of the upper central incisors, leaving a small
chevron-shaped hole. This however is practised almost throughout the
country. They are wild in appearance, and dress in softened skins,
stained yellow with the bark and flowers (?) of the mimosa. Their arms
are a large hide-shield, spears, bows, and arrows, shokah or the little
battle-axe, the sime-knife, and the rungu or knobstick. They are said
still to drink out of human skulls, which are not polished or prepared
in any way for the purpose. The principal chief is termed Mweme: his
privy councillors are called Mákungá (?), and the elders M’áná Miráo
(?). The great headmen are buried almost naked, but retaining their
bead-ornaments, sitting in a shallow pit, so that the forefinger can
project above the ground. With each man are interred alive a male and a
female slave, the former holding a mundu or billhook wherewith to cut
fuel for his lord in the cold death-world, and the latter, who is seated
upon a little stool, supports his head in her lap. This custom has been
abolished by some of the tribes: according to the Arabs, a dog is now
buried in lieu of the slaves. The subdivisions of the Wadoe are numerous
and unimportant.
The Wazegura, who do not inhabit this line of road, require some
allusion, in consequence of the conspicuous part which they have played
in the evil drama of African life. They occupy the lands south of the
Pangani River to the Cape of Utondwe, and they extend westward as far as
the hills of Nguru. Originally a peaceful tribe, they have been rendered
terrible by the possession of fire-arms; and their chiefs have now
collected large stores of gunpowder, used only to kidnap and capture the
weaker wretches within their reach. They thus supply the market of
Zanzibar with slaves, and this practice is not of yesterday. About
twenty years ago the Wazegura serfs upon the island, who had been
cheaply bought during a famine for a few measures of grain, rose against
their Arab masters, retired into the jungle, and, reinforced by
malefactors and malcontents, began a servile war, which raged with the
greatest fury for six months, when the governor, Ahmed bin Sayf,
maternal uncle to His Highness the late Sayyid Said, brought in a body
of mercenaries from Hazramaut, and broke the force of this Jacquerie by
setting a price upon their heads, and by giving the captives as prizes
to the captors. The exploits of Kisabengo, the Mzegura, have already
been alluded to. The Arab merchants of Unyanyembe declare that the road
will never be safe until that person’s head adorns a pole: they speak
with bitterness of heart, for he exacts an unconscionable “blackmail.”
The Wazegura are in point of polity an exception to the rule of East
Africa: instead of owning hereditary sultans, they obey the loudest
tongue, the most open hand, and the sharpest spear. This tends
practically to cause a perpetual blood-feud, and to raise up a number of
petty chiefs, who, aspiring to higher positions, must distinguish
themselves by bloodshed, and must acquire wealth in weapons, especially
fire-arms, the great title to superiority, by slave-dealing. The only
occasion when they combine is an opportunity of successful attack upon
some unguarded neighbour. Briefly, the Wazegura have become an
irreclaimable race, and such they will remain until compelled to make a
livelihood by honest industry.
[Illustration: EXPLORERS IN EAST AFRICA.]