OUR EMBASSY TO THE CHIEF ’MTOKO
There is always a charm to us connected with the investigation of a
country the name of which conveys nothing to anybody, and which is a
blank on the map. This, I think, was one of the chief incentives to us
to accept the diplomatic post of presenting a gift of forty pounds’
worth of goods from the Chartered Company to the chief ’Mtoko.
We gathered that ’Mtoko was a powerful chief, dreaded by the natives,
whose country lay about 120 miles to the north-east of Fort Salisbury;
that he ruled over a large and almost unknown district reaching on the
west to the territories under the influence of the Portuguese satellite
Gouveia; and that his father, who had lately died, had entered into a
treaty with the Chartered Company which gave them paramount influence,
but that the present chief and his subjects, who were reported to have
customs of an exceedingly primitive order, had as yet had no official
dealings with the Company. This was about all the information we could
gather.
The following is an exact copy of my credentials:—
To the Chief Matoko
The British South Africa Company, Salisbury.
September 21, 1891.
My Friend,—Mr. Selous has told Mr. Rhodes, the Big Induna of all
white men in this country, all about you, and he has sent his
friend Mr. Bent to see you and your people, and to give you some
presents from him; and also to tell you that you are now under the
Great White Queen, and that the Portuguese will not trouble you any
more.
You and your people will now live in peace and security.
I am, your Friend,
F. Rutherfoord Harris,
Secretary.
We certainly felt somewhat adventurous when we left Fort Salisbury, on
September 23, on this journey of uncertain length and uncertain
results. We could take hardly any comforts with us except our tent, and
the smallest possible allowance of bedclothes, and only just enough
food to keep us from starvation for a week, for the donkeys of this
country carry very little weight, and the only bearers we could get
were our two faithful Makalangas, Mashanani and Iguzu. These, together
with our three white men, who looked after the eleven donkeys, formed
our only staff, for the interpreter had not yet come in, and was to be
sent after us. The only fixed idea of time that we had was that a
steamer was supposed to leave Port Beira for the Cape on November 18,
and this at all hazards we had to catch; the intervening space of time
was to us a maze of delightful uncertainty, only to be unravelled as
that time went by.
After a comfortable breakfast at the civilian mess hut, and farewells
to our kind friends at Fort Salisbury, my wife, Mr. Swan, and I started
on our three horses in pursuit of our donkeys, which had started along
the Manica road about an hour before. These we soon caught up, and
after a hot dusty ride of about ten miles we pitched our tents about
one hundred yards from a large Kaffir village on a flat space, hidden
away amongst a sea of small granite boulders. Here the women wore
pretty chaplets of red and white beads sewn on to snake-skins, and
aprons and necklets gaily decorated with the same; the chief had a
splendid crop of long black hair. Beyond this the village presented
nothing fresh to our notice until night fell, when our rest was
disturbed for hours by a series of hideous noises: drums were beaten,
dogs were barking, men were howling like wild beasts, and when they
ceased the women would take up their refrain, guns were periodically
let off, and everything conceivable was done to render night hideous.
On rising next morning and inquiring the cause of this nightmare, we
were informed that a death had taken place in the village, and that the
inhabitants were indulging in their accustomed wailing. I was also told
that in these parts they carefully tie up the limbs of a dead man, his
toes and his fingers each separately, in cloths, prior to burial,
whereas a woman is only tied up in a skin, and her grave is of no
account.
At the village of Karadi we left the Manica road and entered a very
populous district with numerous villages perched on the rocky heights,
the inhabitants of which were greatly excited at the sight of us, and
followed us for miles. This, we learnt, was Musungaikwa’s country. The
women here had a distinct tattoo mark of their own—namely, the lizard
pattern, which we have seen on the dollasses or divining-tablets
[32]—done in dots on their stomachs. Some of the men, too, have the
same device tattooed on them on their chests and backs. This is the
third distinctive tattoo mark we have seen in Mashonaland—namely, the
furrow pattern around Zimbabwe, the dots in squares in Gambidji’s
country, and here the lizard pattern, all of which are raised marks on
the skin made by the insertion of some drug. They are evidently
connected with some charm, but what the nature of it is I was never
able to discover.
At Musungaikwa’s, necessity for the first time made us acquainted with
red millet-meal porridge, called respectively sodza and ufa in
different parts of the country. With milk and sugar it is quite
palatable but gritty; the natives like it best very thick, eating it
with a stick and dipping it into water before consumption; they appear
almost to live upon it, and dispose of surprising quantities. Much rice
is grown about here in the swampy ground, sometimes in round holes,
sometimes in wide furrows, which are surprisingly straight for Kaffirs,
who seem to have the greatest difficulty in producing a straight line.
Their paths, though very accurate in direction, represent to the eye a
long wavy line, and they are aggravatingly narrow for a European, who
turns his toes out, to walk in, for the Kaffirs always go in single
file, and always put their feet down straight.
The natives about here followed us with bags of bark fibre full of figs
of a rich brown colour, which we purchased, and found excellent when
they were not inhabited, as was generally the case, by hundreds of
little ants.
At about thirty miles from Fort Salisbury we reached a nest of seven or
eight kraals ruled over by a chief called Kunzi. Here we elected to
stay and wait for the interpreter, and as he did not join us for two
days we had a pleasant time for rest and for studying the inhabitants.
Kunzi, the paramount chief of this community, is a young and
enterprising individual; he corresponds to the nouveau riche of
Kaffirdom, being spoken of as ‘a chief of the assegai’ in
contradistinction to the old hereditary chiefs around. He came
originally from ’Mtigeza’s country, got together a band of followers,
and won for himself with his assegai the territory he now occupies. To
a chief of this description all the youth and prowess of the country
flock, hence he had a remarkably fine set of followers, and these he
rules with marvellous strictness. We had an example of his power, for
we wanted to get bearers from him. He brought the men in person, and
would not allow them to go with us until we had paid the stipulated
quantity of cloth in advance and deposited it with him. This
arrangement did not please me at all, knowing well the tendency paid
bearers have to run away, but it was inevitable. The men served us
extremely well, accompanied us for a fortnight until we reached the
spot arranged upon with the chief, and when I offered them more to go
farther they refused, saying that they dare not do so without the
consent of their chief.
Kunzi is an ambitious man, and talks of becoming king of Mashonaland,
but as he was driven back during his last attack on his neighbour
Mangwendi, and as the Chartered Company may have something to say to
it, this eventuality seems at present in the dim future. Kunzi is,
however, a man of promise, and if he had been born a little earlier he
might have been in a position to resuscitate the fallen glories of the
race.
Outside Kunzi’s kraal is a fine iron smelting furnace, decorated with
the breast and furrow pattern, and with a large quantity of newly made
blow-pipes of dried mud, and decorated with a spiral pattern, lying in
heaps outside. We watched the process here at our leisure. First they
crush the ore obtained from the neighbouring mountains, which has a
large quantity of manganese in it, and spread it on the rocks; the
forge is heated with charcoal and kindled by two men with four bellows,
each worked by one hand; the nozzles are inserted into the blow-pipes,
and the blow-pipes into the charcoal; they press the bellows with their
hands by means of a wooden handle, and work with great vigour, singing
and perspiring freely as they work. Around the furnace is a hedge of
tall grass, and at night time, when the ore is cool, they remove it
from the furnace and afterwards weld it into the required shapes with
stone hammers. This time-honoured handicraft interested us much,
mentioned as it is by Dos Santos three hundred years ago, and by the
Arabian writers close upon a thousand years ago, as a speciality of the
country.
One of the neighbouring kraals is ruled over by Kunzi’s brother
Gwadeli, who, in his anxiety to be hospitable, gave us warm beer to
drink, which nearly had the effect of an emetic. A rock rises out of
the centre of this kraal, where is an induna’s grave walled into the
rock, with four pots of beer before it, and hedged off by a rope of
bark.
The following morning we watched with some interest a trader from Fort
Salisbury selling goods to the natives. Beads, gunpowder, and salt were
the favourite commodities he had to offer, in return for which he
rapidly acquired a fine lot of pumpkins, maize, potatoes, and other
vegetables; whilst for blankets and rifles he obtained cattle which I
am sure would bring him in a handsome profit when he reached the
capital. We ourselves got a few interesting things at Kunzi’s,
including a quill with gold in it which the natives had found in the
’Nyagowe River, and a dexterously wrought garment for a young lady,
about half the size of a freemason’s apron; it is made of bark fibre,
with geometrical patterns of excellent design worked into it, a species
of textile with which we were to become better acquainted in ’Mtoko’s
country. Here, too, we saw sticks set up in the ground with the bark
peeled off and bound round the top—a sort of fetich, which they call
their Maklosi or luck sign. They set these things up whenever they come
to a new country; also, on similar occasions, they kneel before a tree
and burn snuff, saying as they do so: ‘Muali!’ (the native name for
God) ‘we have brought knives, give us meat.’ Then they do the same at
another tree, asking the same petition for their children.
A delicious stream for bathing and washing clothes flowed a few yards
below our camp, which gave us sufficient employment for what would
otherwise have been an idle afternoon. At midnight our interpreter
arrived, and the following morning we commenced our journey in real
earnest.
At a village where we halted for a while we were introduced to a young
girl, who was shortly to become chief Kunzi’s eleventh wife—the state
wife, to be presented to him by his tribe, whose son will be heir to
the chiefdom, to the exclusion of the children by his other purchased
wives. This marriage is usually recommended and seen to by the tribe
when the chief is getting on towards middle life; and the succession in
these parts is carried on in this way. She wore round her neck one of
the large white whorls made out of the end of shells, which are common
amongst the natives, but a specimen of which I tried ineffectually to
get. This, I now learnt, is the sign of betrothal, and is transferred
to the neck of the baby when born. Men also wear them for love
philtres, and hence their reluctance to part with them.
During this day’s march we passed by a pond dug in a hollow which was
in process of drying up. These holes are dug by the natives in the dry
season with the object of catching fish when the swamps dry up; also
for fishing they make use of a thing very like our lobster-pot, which
they tie to a fence across a rapid portion of the stream. The love the
natives have for salt throughout this saltless country is very marked;
for sugar and lollipops, which we offered them, they have a positive
aversion; anything of a savoury nature pleases them immensely, and
their gestures of delight over the scrapings of tins of anchovy paste
were most pleasing to contemplate. Mice, locusts, and caterpillars are
their daintiest viands, and if given a lump of salt they will put it
straight-way into their mouths and consume it with the greatest
complacency.
We halted that night at the village of Yandoro, still in Kunzi’s
country, with a solitary rock in its midst, divided into two parts by a
narrow split forming a gully which is bridged over by trees, so that
they can retire to the highest point when the Matabele come, and wait
there till the impi has departed with their cattle and grain.
I learnt here a little more concerning the mysteries of hand-clapping
and greetings. One of our bearers from Kunzi’s kraal, Girandali by
name, had relatives here, and I followed him to their hut, the inmates
of which were seated solemnly on the floor and began to clap, whereupon
Girandali commenced to relate parenthetically the events of his career
since they last met; between each parenthesis the host clapped and said
his name. This went on for fully ten minutes, each parenthesis being
received with more or less clapping, as it attracted the attention of
his hearers. When Girandali had done, there was a general clapping
which lasted for some time, and then the formal part of the
conversation was over.
The chief of a neighbouring village, Bochiko by name, here paid us a
visit. He is a most curious specimen of his race, a veritable pigmy
only four feet four inches in height. He has lost all his toes in
battle and has had one leg broken and never set; he wore a large brass
ring with curious patterns on it on his tiny fingers, and brass
bracelets on his tiny arms, both of which we purchased from him. He is
said to have five wives and five stalwart children.
We were greatly surprised on rising next morning to learn that my mare,
an old ‘salted horse,’ which we had had with us for six months, and
ridden hard all the time, had presented us with a foal during the
night—unfortunately a dead one. The mare did not seem much the worse
for her adventure; in fact, I personally was the only sufferer, for a
probably misplaced compassion prompted me to walk instead of ride for
the next day’s march.
We were now passing through a corner of Mangwendi’s country, a chief
with whom we were to become better acquainted later on. Gaza, one of
his chief indunas, has a kraal on an exceedingly high rock by which we
passed; in fact, about here the country is very populous, owing to the
rocky nature of the ground and the inaccessible eyries in which the
natives can plant their huts. We wondered what the meaning of many pots
might be which we saw here on high boulders with stones around and on
the top. By inquiry we learnt that they were beehives, equivalent to
the bark hives we so constantly saw farther south. There is much
ceremony about here at the presentation of beer. At Malozo’s kraal the
chief handed the pot to one of our bearers, who handed it to the
interpreter, who handed it to me. Their hair, too, is very wildly
dressed, being long and tangled, and when it becomes past endurance by
reason of the insects collected therein, they shave it off and hang it
to a tree, revealing to the world their bare and greatly disfigured
pates.
After this we went through a long stretch of almost uninhabited
country, very lovely indeed to look upon, richly wooded, with glimpses
through the woods of tree-clad heights, with strange finger-shaped
rocks appearing out of them as far as the eye could reach into the blue
distance. These granite kopjes would be distinctly wearisome were it
not for the ever-varying fantastic shapes. The forests themselves are
painfully monotonous; at one time you are riding through groves of
medlars with coarse large leaves, then you come across a stretch of
white-flowered sugar-tree (Protea mellifera), which, I think, of all
trees is the most aggravating, from the dull monotony of its leaves and
generally scraggy appearance of its branches. Its flower is very
pretty, being like a soft silvery white chrysanthemum, three inches in
diameter; it is very attractive to butterflies and pretty sun-beetles,
with which the flower is sometimes quite covered. About here we passed
a curious granite mountain called Mount Jomvga, rising above all the
rest like a gigantic silver thimble. Mount Jomvga haunted us for days
and days, and we never lost sight of it during the whole of our stay in
’Mtoko’s country.
We were now rapidly approaching ’Mtoko’s country, but the nearer we
approached our goal the more difficulty we had in obtaining information
as to where the chief actually lived. Some said he lived at the village
of Lutzi, a few miles across the border, others said he lived about six
miles farther on; consequently we were somewhat perplexed, and ended by
stopping near Lutzi for a while, whilst our interpreter rode on to make
further inquiries.
Amongst other embarrassing things that a son inherits with the chiefdom
are his father’s wives. Of course a man is not expected to marry his
own mother, but his stepmothers are different, especially if, as often
happens, they are young and comely. At Lutzi we were told that the new
’Mtoko had deposited several of his father’s widows, presumably the old
and ugly ones, whom he did not admire. Certainly some of the customs of
this country are exceedingly strange, and we should not have believed
them had we not again and again asked the same questions from different
individuals and always got the same reply. One of these is sufficiently
horrible, and I hope the influence of the Chartered Company will soon
work for its suppression. If a woman gives birth to twins they are
immediately destroyed. This they consider an unnatural freak on the
part of a woman, and is supposed to indicate famine or some other
calamity. In this custom they differ essentially from their Matabele
neighbours, where Lobengula, like our Queen, honours a prolific mother
with a special gift. In ’Mtoko’s country the unfortunate twins are put
into one of their big pots, with a stone on the top, and left to their
fate.
In their marauding transactions there is a curious code of honour
amongst them. Suppose a woman to be stolen from a tribe, the injured
individuals lie in wait for the oxen of the thieves, and when captured
take them to the chief, who allots them as follows: 1. One is
slaughtered for general consumption and joviality. 2. The rightful
owner of the stolen woman is next indemnified. 3. The rest of the tribe
are questioned as to whether they have any grievance to be rectified.
4. If there are any oxen over they are scrupulously returned to their
owners. Their code of morality is far below the standard amongst the
Zulus in Matabeleland.
Many of the customs have a curious Eastern tinge; for example, hired
labour is unknown, and if a man wants assistance in his fields he brews
a quantity of beer, bids his neighbours come, and the better the beer
the more labourers he will get. This custom is still common in Asia
Minor and the East, where wine is the substitute for beer.
Lutzi did not interest us much; it is a scattered and poor-looking
kraal on a bleak hill, with large stone semicircles, where the men of
the village can sit and smoke sheltered from the wind; so on hearing
that the ’Mtoko’s kraal was really about six miles off, we set out for
it about ten o’clock on the following morning.
There is much that is different in this country from what we had seen
elsewhere in Mashonaland, enough almost to point to a difference of
race; the language, too, we found so different that we could understand
but little of it ourselves, though the ordinary Makalanga terms for
commodities such as mazai for eggs, makaka for milk, &c., were still in
vogue. Probably the different circumstances of life will account for
the difference in character. The people do not live in kraals huddled
together on the top of rocks, but in small scattered kraals of from six
to twenty huts dotted all over the country, where agriculture may take
them, arguing a degree of prosperity and security to property which we
had not seen elsewhere in Mashonaland. In these little kraals there is
generally a hut raised on poles in the midst, which acts as a kind of
watch-tower. They told us that the Matabele never penetrate as far as
this, and that the only enemy they fear is the Portuguese half-caste
Gouveia, whose territory lies over the mountains to the east; but his
attacks were successfully repulsed by the old ’Mtoko, who had thereby
established such a reputation for valour that none of his neighbours
durst interfere with him.
The result of this condition of affairs was that in ’Mtoko’s country we
saw more cattle than we had seen elsewhere, but all of the same
calibre. The characteristic of all domestic animals in Mashonaland is
their small size. The cows are less than our Guernsey breed, and give
very little milk; the sheep and goats are diminutive and unhealthy
looking; the hens are ridiculous little things, and their eggs not much
bigger than pigeons’ eggs at home. As for the dogs, they are the most
contemptible specimens of the canine race I have ever seen in any of my
wanderings. This does not look well for the prospects of the
agriculturists, but probably the diminution in physique amongst the
Mashonaland cattle is rather due to the coarse grass and swampy land
and the want of proper care than to any other cause.
Up a narrowing valley, with a gorge or kloof at the end of it, under
the shadow of a rocky mountain, and almost hidden by a dense mass of
timber, lies ’Mtoko’s kraal, also, after the fashion of the country, a
small one. In our innocence we advanced right up to the kraal; and
despite the expostulation of an angry crowd of natives, who screamed
and yelled at us, we commenced to pitch our tents close by the shady
trees in a spot which looked very inviting for a few days’ rest.
Suddenly it dawned upon us that we had been guilty of some breach of
savage etiquette, so I immediately despatched our interpreter to see
the chief, with a portion of the present as a foretaste of better
things to come. We seated ourselves rather disconsolately beneath the
trees awaiting his return, watching the inhabitants, who swarmed around
us.
The women of ’Mtoko’s country are quite the most decent of their sex
that we had seen since entering Mashonaland. Out of bark fibre they
weave for themselves quite massive dresses, two yards long and one yard
wide, which they decorate with pretty raised geometric patterns like
one sees on old-fashioned ‘Marsella’ quilts at home; these they gird
round their loins and fasten on with a girdle of bark netting, and
consequently they present an air of decency to which their sisters in
other parts of this country are strangers, with their tiny leather
aprons scarce worthy of the name of clothing. Nevertheless, when in
their huts the women of this country take off this heavy and somewhat
awkward garment, and one day, having crawled into a hut, I was somewhat
startled to find myself in the presence of two dusky ladies dressed
like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Most of the people about here have
their upper and lower lips bored, and insert in them either a nail-like
object, somewhat after the fashion of the Nubians, or a bead or ring,
or a plain bit of stick. Their front teeth of both upper and lower jaws
are filed, an ancient custom to which both Dos Santos and El Masoudi,
the Arabian historian, allude. There is evidently a strong Zambesi
influence in ’Mtoko’s country; their battle-axes, their assegais, and
their powder-horns are far more elaborately carved and decorated with
brass wire than those we had seen farther south, and bear a close
resemblance to those which the tribes on the Zambesi produce. In their
hair they wear combs inlaid with different-coloured straws, and their
bracelets also are very elaborate.
Our emissary came back with a long face. The ’Mtoko, despite the
offering we had sent him, was indignant at our invasion of his privacy;
in fact, to avoid seeing a white induna without taking counsel with his
head men, he had been obliged to take refuge in a cave. His father, he
said, would not allow a white man to encamp within eight miles of his
kraal. This happened to Mr. Selous, the only white man who had as yet
visited the country in an official capacity, when he came to get the
old ’Mtoko to sign the treaty a few months before. However, he said he
would consent to our pitching our tents at a spot indicated about a
mile away, and would come and visit us and receive the rest of his
gifts on the morrow.
Somewhat crestfallen and highly indignant at our treatment, we packed
up our things again and hurried off as fast as we could, so that we
might get our tents pitched before night came on.
The following day was advancing rapidly, and still no signs of ’Mtoko’s
visit. We were much annoyed at the loss of time and the supposed
insult, so we collected our presents together, and determined to take
them and get them given, come what might. We set off and marched behind
the gift, which was carried on the heads of many bearers. We had
scarcely gone two hundred yards on our way, when men came running to
us, announcing the advent of his majesty; so we went back again to
prepare our rugs for the reception, and sat in state.
Through the trees we saw him coming, with a following of about fifty
men armed with battle-axes and assegais. About two hundred yards from
our camp they all seated themselves, and held a council which we
thought would never end. The result of this was an envoy sent to state
it was the monarch’s opinion that the white lady had bewitched the
presents, for she had been seen going to a stream and sprinkling the
things with water which she had fetched from thence; that he would
nevertheless graciously receive the presents, but that he would not
keep them but give them at once to his uncle. Whilst we were making up
our minds whether we should be annoyed or amused at this message, the
chief and his men moved one hundred yards nearer to us, so we
determined to await the progress of events. Here again they stopped for
another indaba. This time the message, that the chief would like us to
send him the presents to the spot where he was, was accompanied by a
present to us of a kid and twenty pounds of meal. This somewhat
pacified us. Nevertheless we sent a message back that if the chief
wished for the things he must come and fetch them in person. To the
indunas who brought the message we gave a few articles for themselves.
The result of this last message was instantaneous. His majesty came
forthwith, but he refused to sit on the rug prepared for him. He
refused to shake hands, nay, even look at the white lady, and during
the whole of the interview he trembled so violently, and looked so
nervous, that we felt quite sorry for him.
’Mtoko is a fine specimen of his race, lithe and supple of limb, but
more like a timid wild animal than a man. As he sat before us he
nervously peeled a sweet potato with his battle-axe, and looked ill at
ease. Gradually, as the presents came out, his sinister face relaxed,
and in spite of himself became wreathed with smiles. Spread out before
him was an entire uniform of the Cape Yeomanry, helmet and all, with
two horsehair plumes. Then there were knives, and looking-glasses, and
handkerchiefs, and shirts, and beads, and yards of limbo; wealth,
doubtless, of which he had scarce dreamt, was now his. The impression
made on him was great. He was overcome with gratitude, and after
stepping aside for a few moments’ talk with his head men, he told us
that, as a return present, a whole live bullock should be ours.
Permission was given to us to come and encamp under his kraal if we
liked. His apologies were profuse, and he even ventured to touch the
white lady’s hand; and thus ended this strange interview. Not wishing
to uproot ourselves again, we thanked him for his offer, and said we
preferred to remain where we were, but would come up and visit him on
the morrow.
Afterwards we learnt the cause of all ’Mtoko’s nervousness. His father
had died shortly after Mr. Selous’s visit. The common belief was that
he had been bewitched; naturally he thought that the white lady had
been sent purposely to cast a glamour over him. He had been told how
these white men are ruled over by a woman, and he thought Queen
Victoria had sent a humble representative of her sex to bring about the
same state of affairs in his country. Her name was of course asked at
the interview, and feeling the flatness with which her English
appellative would be received, our interpreter promptly called her
’Msinyate, ‘the Home of the Buffaloes,’ to which high-sounding name she
answered for the rest of her stay in ’Mtoko’s country.
The day was far spent when the chief left us, and we took a stroll in
the cool of the evening to a tiny Kraal, consisting only of three huts,
about half a mile from our camp. There was an air of prosperity about
the place which pleased us. The huts are better built than elsewhere,
and have porches. Their granaries are wattled, and have very well
thatched roofs, and our reception was most cordial. They spread mats
for us to sit on. They brought us monkey-nuts, tamarind, and other
vegetables to eat, and seemed to think themselves greatly honoured by a
visit from the white indunas who had brought their chief such a fine
present.
Next morning we walked up to visit ’Mtoko in his kraal. The twenty huts
which compose it are girt around with a strong palisade. Each hut is
large, and has a porch. ’Mtoko and his head men were seated on a rock
in the midst of it with a wood fire for lighting their pipes. One of
the indunas had just decorated his hair in splendid fashion, tying up
his black tufts with beads, and covering the whole with a thick coating
of grease, which soaked into his matted hair before our eyes under the
strong influence of the sun. Into this circle we were all invited, for
the dread of the white lady seemed to have passed away. She presented
the monarch with some English needles, and his delight in receiving
these treasures exceeded even that which he showed on receipt of the
Chartered Company’s gifts, for in ’Mtokoland they are accustomed to use
strong sharp blades of grass for needles, on which ours were a distinct
improvement.
Our object to-day was to inquire into the politics of the country, and
to verify the strange stories we had heard about the priest of the lion
god, the Mondoro, who is reported to be even stronger than the chief.
We wanted to learn more concerning the cult of the lion, and where the
Zimbabwe of ’Mtokoland was, where the annual sacrifices take place to
the king of beasts.
The question was a delicate one, and had to be tenderly approached,
knowing as we did by this time the extreme reluctance of the Kaffirs to
disclose to white men the secrets of their religion. A man called
Benoula seemed to take the lead in everything. The ’Mtoko hardly spoke,
and looked very uncomfortable whilst the catechising was going on. The
results of our investigations were vague. The Mondoro, or lion priest,
was uncle to the chief, and he resided at Lutzi, the village by which
we had passed. The old ’Mtoko on his death-mat had left his son and
heir somehow or another in tutelage to this mysterious priest-uncle of
his. When asked where the Zimbabwe was, he replied reluctantly: ‘The
Mondoro may tell you if he likes; I dare not.’ Finally, after ‘the Home
of the Buffaloes’’ hair had been taken down by his majesty’s special
request, we made arrangements for Benoula to accompany us to Lutzi on
the morrow and introduce us to the priest, whom we had been so near
without knowing it when we first entered the country.
We took a look round the kraal before taking our leave. The cattle are
all housed in the centre of it. There was the pigeon-cote, a feature in
all the villages about here, consisting of a mud box with holes, raised
on poles. Hard by dwelt a hideous black sow with a litter of young ones
in a grass sty. There was a hut for the calves and a hut for the goats,
a scene of bucolic prosperity which we had come across nowhere else in
Mashonaland.
The following morning, after breakfast, we set off for Lutzi once more,
armed with presents for the lion priest, and exceedingly curious about
him. Benoula was there before us, and everyone was expecting our
arrival. Presently we were ushered into a large but rather dilapidated
hut, where sat a venerable-looking old man, who received us and our
presents with great cordiality. We seated ourselves on the ground,
forming a curious assemblage: the Mondoro and his son, ’Mkateo, his
enormously fat daughter Tourla, Benoula, and one or two indunas, our
three selves, and our interpreter. ‘I am the ’Mtoko,’ was almost the
first thing the old man said, explaining how he considered himself the
rightful heir to the chiefdom. ‘Next year, when the crops are gathered
in, I shall return to the kraal where my brother died, and assume the
command of the country.’ We soon saw the state of things, which
explained many points that had previously been mysterious. ’Mtokoland
was threatened with a grave political quarrel, and all the elements of
civil war were present. The elders of the country all recognise the
Mondoro as their chief; whilst younger men, with everything to gain and
little to lose, affect to follow the chief whose kraal we had visited,
and whom they speak of as Bedapera at Lutzi, his own name, as
distinguished from the dynastic name of ’Mtoko.
In his position as religious head of the community lies the Mondoro’s
strength. ‘Here is the Zimbabwe of our land, here the annual sacrifice
to the Maklosi of our ancestors now takes place;’ that is to say,
wherever the chief lives, and wherever the annual sacrifice takes
place, there is the Zimbabwe of the chiefdom.
Then we questioned him about the lion god, and he gave us to understand
that the Mondoro or lion god of ’Mtoko’s country is a sort of spiritual
lion which only appears in time of danger, and fights for the men of
’Mtoko; all good men of the tribe, when they die, pass into the lion
form and reappear to fight for their friends. It is quite clear that
these savages entertain a firm belief in an after-life and a spiritual
world, and worship their ancestors as spiritual intercessors between
them and the vague Muali or God who lives in Heaven.
The lion of ’Mtoko is the totem of the tribe. We asked the old priest
if we should get into trouble if we shot a lion whilst in his country.
‘If a lion attacks you,’ he replied, ‘you may shoot it, for it could
not be one of ours; our lions will do the white man no harm, for they
are our friends.’ There was a charming amount of dignity and sophistry
about the old Mondoro. We felt that he was a far better man to rule the
country than his nervous, superstitious nephew. Once a year this old
Mondoro (the name Mondoro is common in this country both to the sacred
lions and the priest) sacrifices a bullock and a goat to the Maklosi or
luck spirit of their ancestors. Formerly this ceremony took place at
the residence of the old chief, and now here at Lutzi; much beer is
drunk on the occasion, and it takes place in February, about the same
time as the Matabele war-dance.
There is much more of the old spirit of the race about the Mondoro. He
gave us the names of three generations of ’Mtokos who had ruled here
before his brother—a rare instance of pedigree in this country; but the
royal residence, Lutzi, is a miserable place, consisting of two little
kraals crowning the two summits of a bare granite hill. One tree of
sickly growth stood there, decorated, for what reason I could not
discover, with part of a woman’s bark dress, grass roots, hair, and
other oddments. Doubtless they were luck signs too, but we could gain
no information on this point. Evidence of festivities was also present
in the shape of drums and long chains of grass cases for beads, which
they hang round their calves to rattle at the dances. On a hill
opposite stood a single hut, where an outlaw had lived till quite
recently, they told us.
Before we took our leave the Mondoro presented us with a goat,
regretting that, owing to the bad times, he could not give us a
handsomer present. We now understood several points which had been a
mystery to us before—the constant and rather deferential way in which
the ’Mtoko had spoken of his uncle, and the reason why, in the first
instance, our guides had told us that the ’Mtoko dwelt at Lutzi. Also
we now seemed thoroughly to grasp the strange cult of the lion god, a
cult probably carrying us back to the far-distant ages, when the
Arabian tribes invented the system of totems, and called the stars by
their names. [33]
Monteiro and Gamitto, two Portuguese travellers, who went to Cazembe in
1831–32, throw some light on the worship of the lion. They relate how
the negroes near the Zambesi, ‘being Munyaes, subjects of Monomatapa,
revere royal lions of great corpulence as containing the souls of their
ancestors. When the Munyaes discover the lions eating their prey, they
go on their knees at a distance, and creep, clapping their hands and
begging them with humility to remember their slaves, who are hungry,
and that when they were men they were always generous; so that the
lions may retire and the negroes profit by what they leave behind.’
This is again another link connecting these people with the Zambesi and
lands farther north. We were also told a story of how, during the old
’Mtokos’ struggles with the Portuguese, lions had been seen to attack
the enemy, whilst they left the natives alone. Doubtless a faith of
this kind is very conducive to valour, and may account for the
superiority of the men of ’Mtoko over their neighbours.
The two above-quoted Portuguese travellers mention many Zimbabwes on
their route northwards to Cazembe, and in another part of their work
they often make mention of the Monomatapa, especially the Monomatapa of
Chidima, whom they speak of as ‘a much decayed person, but still
respectable.’ His territory commences at Tete and goes on to Zumbo,
‘and when one dies all make civil war, until one gets possession, and
sends to the governor of Tete to confirm his title.’
From what I can make out of the older Portuguese accounts, the district
of Chidima was formerly in the mountains to the north of ’Mtoko’s. This
was the district where the famous silver mines were supposed to be, in
searching for which several Portuguese expeditions came to grief. In
fact, it would appear that ’Mtoko, Mangwendi, Makoni, and the chiefs in
this part of the country are the modern representatives of the
broken-up Monomatapa empire, who, fortunate in the possession of a
rugged and mountainous country, escaped the visitation of the Zulu
hordes, who on their way southwards probably passed by the more open
high plateau of Mashonaland.
Next morning, whilst we were packing for our start from ’Mtoko’s, I was
informed of the existence of some Bushman drawings under an overhanging
rock about half a mile from our camp. I hurried thither and took some
hasty sketches of them. The rock is literally covered with these
drawings in colours of red, yellow, and black, which had evidently
eaten into the granite, so that the figures are preserved to us. They
represent all sorts of wild animals such as elephants, kudus, and
cynocephalous apes; these are wonderfully well executed; the figures of
warriors with poised spears and quivers of arrows are, however,
grotesque. The most curious fact about them is finding these drawings
so far north, and a close examination of this district will probably
bring to light many more. The people who made these drawings inhabited
all this district and down into Manicaland. Specimens, too, are found
near Fort Salisbury; oddly enough, during our wanderings near Zimbabwe
and the Sabi, we never saw any or heard of their existence.
After a ride of eight miles we reached the kraal of Kalimazondo,
another son of the late ’Mtoko. It is just a circular collection of
wattled huts, all joined together by a stockade. We alighted for a
while here and sat in a hut, with a view to putting some leading
questions to the chief concerning the state of the country. He told us
that, in his opinion, his uncle the Mondoro was the rightful heir to
the chiefdom, for his father, the old ’Mtoko, had wished it, but that
his brother Bedapera had said: ‘I am a man, I wish to be chief.’ All
the old indunas and the head men of the country were on the Mondoro’s
side, and he had little doubt but that he would succeed in establishing
his claim.
When approached on the subject of religion, Kalimazondo grew vague and
uncommunicative. We let him know that we had seen the Mondoro, and knew
a great deal. To all this he replied: ‘I dare not tell you anything, or
I should become deaf. I like my gun, and if I was to tell you anything
it would be taken away, and I should be no man.’ Kalimazondo is a
cunning man in his generation, and we saw that we should learn no more
about this strange and primitive community than it had pleased the
priest of the lion god to tell us.
Close to Kalimazondo’s kraal we passed the remains of the hedges or
skerms which Mr. Selous and his followers had erected to protect their
camp when on their visit to the old ’Mtoko, and we congratulated
ourselves that it had not been our fate to be driven thus far from
headquarters.
Next day we rode through an uninteresting waterless country, and
encamped for the night by a stream which formed the southern border of
’Mtoko’s country.