We took our hot baths and sat down to supper most gratefully, for we
were tired. The long string of men, bearing each a log of wood, filed in
from the darkness to add to our pile of fuel. Saa-sita and Shamba knelt
and built the night fire. In a moment the little flame licked up through
the carefully arranged structure. We finished the meal, and the boys
whisked away the table.
Then out in the blackness beyond our little globe of light we became
aware of a dull confusion, a rustling to and fro. Through the shadows
the eye could guess at movement. The confusion steadied to a kind of
rhythm, and into the circle of the fire came the group of Monumwezis.
Again they were gathered together in a compact little mass; but now they
were bent nearly double, and were stripped to the red blankets about
their waists. Before them writhed Sulimani, close to earth, darting
irregularly now to right, now to left, wriggling, spreading his arms
abroad. He was repeating over and over two phrases; or rather the same
phrase in two such different intonations that they seemed to convey
quite separate meanings.
“Ka soompeele?” he cried with a strongly appealing interrogation.
“Ka soompeele!” he repeated with the downward inflection of decided
affirmation.
And the bent men, their dark bodies gleaming in the firelight, stamping
in rhythm every third step, chorused in a deep rumbling bass:
“Goom zoop! goom zoop!”
Thus they advanced; circled between us and the fire, and withdrew to the
half darkness, where tirelessly they continued the same reiterations.
Hardly had they withdrawn when another group danced forward in their
places. These were the Kikuyus. They had discarded completely their
safari clothes, and now came forth dressed out in skins, in strips of
white cloth, with feathers, shells and various ornaments. They carried
white wands to represent spears, and they sang their tribal lion song.
A soloist delivered the main argument in a high wavering minor and was
followed by a deep rumbling emphatic chorus of repetition, strongly
accented so that the sheer rhythm of it was most pronounced:
“An-gee a Ka ga An-gee a Ka ga An-gee a Ka ga Ki ya Ka ga Ka ga an gee
ya!”
Solemnly and loftily, their eyes fixed straight before them they made
the circle of the fire, passed before our chairs, and withdrew to the
half light. There, a few paces from the stamping, crouching Monumwezis,
they continued their performance.
The next to appear were the Wakambas. These were more histrionic. They
too were unrecognizable as our porters, for they too had for the lion
discarded their work-a-day garments in favour of savage. They produced a
pantomime of the day's doings, very realistic indeed, ending with a half
dozen of dark swaying bodies swinging and shuddering in the long grass
as lions, while the “horses” wove in and out among the crouching forms,
all done to the beat of rhythm. Past us swept the hunt, and in its turn
melted into the half light.
The Kavirondos next appeared, the most fantastically caparisoned of the
lot, fine big black men, their eyes rolling with excitement. They had
captured our flag from its place before the big tent, and were rallied
close about this, dancing fantastically. Before us they leaped and
stamped and shook their spears and shouted out their full-voiced song,
while the other three tribes danced each its specialty dimly in the
background.
The dance thus begun lasted for fully two hours. Each tribe took a
turn before us, only to give way to the next. We had leisure to notice
minutiae, such as the ingenious tail one of the “lions” had constructed
from a sweater. As time went on, the men worked themselves to a frenzy.
From the serried ranks every once in a while one would break forth with
a shriek to rush headlong into the fire, to beat the earth about him
with his club, to rush over to shake one of us violently by the hand,
or even to seize one of our feet between his two palms. Then with equal
abruptness back he darted to regain his place among the dancers. Wilder
and wilder became the movements, higher rose the voices. The mock lion
hunt grew more realistic, and the slaughter on both sides something
tremendous. Lower and lower crouched the Monumwezi, drawing apart with
their deep “goom”; drawing suddenly to a common centre with the sharp
“zoop!” Only the Kikuyus held their lofty bearing as they rolled forth
their chant, but the mounting excitement showed in their tense muscles
and the rolling of their eyes. The sweat glistened on naked black and
bronze bodies. Among the Monumwezi to my astonishment I saw Memba Sasa,
stripped like the rest, and dancing with all abandon. The firelight
leaped high among the logs that eager hands cast on it; and the shadows
it threw from the swirling, leaping figures wavered out into a great,
calm darkness.
The night guard understood a little of the native languages, so he stood
behind our chairs and told us in Swahili the meaning of some of the
repeated phrases.
“This has been a glorious day; few safaris have had so glorious a day.”
“The masters looked upon the fierce lions and did not run away.”
“Brave men without other weapons will nevertheless kill with a knife.”
“The masters' mothers must be brave women, the masters are so brave.”
“The white woman went hunting, and so were many lions killed.”
The last one pleased Billy. She felt that at last she was appreciated.
We sat there spellbound by the weird savagery of the spectacle-the great
licking fire, the dancing, barbaric figures, the rise and fall of the
rhythm, the dust and shuffle, the ebb and flow of the dance, the dim,
half-guessed groups swaying in the darkness-and overhead the calm tropic
night.
At last, fairly exhausted, they stopped. Some one gave a signal. The men
all gathered in one group, uttered a final yell, very like a cheer, and
dispersed.
We called up the heroes of the day-Fundi and his companion-and made a
little speech, and bestowed appropriate reward. Then we turned in.