Part 27

It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilised “social evil” is not recognised as an evil. In the economy of the affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now enlightened man. Marriage with this people--as amongst all barbarians, and even the lower classes of civilised races--is a mere affair of buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his comfort, consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brass-wire bracelets as the suitor can afford; he thus virtually sells her, and she belongs to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family; a large progeny enriches them. The African--like all barbarians, and, indeed, semi-civilised people--ignores the dowry by which, inverting Nature’s order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become the mother of a family; after matrimony there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni or adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor and weak, he is sold into slavery; husbands seldom, however, resort to such severities, the offence, which is considered to be against vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed, but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father’s property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race, but it regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity of relations and friends, than the fondness of family. Husband, wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but by surprise, as it were: “Mámá! mámá!”--mother! mother!--is a common exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad, or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran, becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The “ukosa,” or transgression, is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, “Mbáyá we!”--thou art bad!--a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and uneffective to European ears.

The social position of the women--the unerring test of progress towards civilisation--is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more highly organised tribes of the south. Few parts of the country own the rule of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their wives, but the opinion of a brother or a friend would usually prevail over that of a woman.

The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his hemisphere of boughs, or his hide acting tent, he hates and has a truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the “Madeleine,” but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a house.

The East African is greedy and voracious; he seems, however, to prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the civilised Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can exist and work with a small quantity of food, but he is unaccustomed, and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter is 1 kubabah (= 1·5 lbs.) of grain; he can, with the assistance of edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though generally, upon the barbarian’s impulsive principle of mortgaging the future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him the grand end of life is eating; his love of feeding is inferior only to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield precedence. They celebrate with beer every event--the traveller’s return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant--a labourer will not work unless beer is provided for him. A guest is received with a gourdful of beer, and, amongst some tribes, it is buried with their princes. The highest orders rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing: the proper diet for a king is much beer and a little meat. If a Mnyamwezi be asked after eating whether he is hungry, he will reply yea, meaning that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance, or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The favourite hour for drinking is after dawn,--a time as distasteful to the European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The civilised man avoids early potations because they incapacitate him for necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilised, on the other hand, prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when they awake, they have something to think of. The habit once acquired is never broken: it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and unoccupied barbarian.

In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little veneration--the negro race is ever irreverent--and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake’s sake. The accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the moments not devoted to intoxication.

The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African. The body politic consists of two great members, masters and slaves. Ignoring distinctions of society, he treats all men, except his chief, as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he enters a stranger’s house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak; his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and his look “sfacciato.” He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and tattered goat-skin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When travelling he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut: the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempt to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of mules--as the Arabs say, they “have no shame.” The curiosity of these people, and the little ceremony with which they gratify it, are at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at; total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles to “sow gape-seed:” if the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls, will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive spectacle--these uncouth figures, running at a “gymnastic pace,” half clothed except with grease, with pendent bosoms shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon, however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that between the manners of an Indian Ryot and an East African Mshenzi.

In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilised generally, he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle: his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in “Ah! ha^{n}!” or some such strongly-nasalised sound. Like the Somal, he has tunes appropriated to

## particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or the harvest-home. When

mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a little natural distress in a natural sound, the long, loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the “laughing-song” is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to the spirits of the audience, so the “weeping-song” of the African only tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day’s march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will have observed that the names which occur in these pages often consist entirely of liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word, and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally, though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent timist--a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like one--his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man. He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.

Though the general features of character correspond throughout the tribes in East Africa, there are also marked differences. The Wazaramo, for instance, are considered the most dangerous tribe on this line: caravans hurry through their lands, and hold themselves fortunate if a life be not lost, or if a few loads be not missing. Their neighbours, the Wasagara of the hills, were once peaceful and civil to travellers: the persecutions of the coast-people have rendered them morose and suspicious; they now shun strangers, and, never knowing when they may be attacked, they live in a constant state of agitation, excitement, and alarm. After the Wazaramo, the tribes of Ugogo are considered the most noisy and troublesome, the most extortionate, quarrelsome and violent on this route: nothing restrains these races from bloodshed and plunder but fear of retribution and self-interest. The Wanyamwezi bear the highest character for civilisation, discipline, and industry. Intercourse with the coast, however, is speedily sapping the foundations of their superiority: the East African Expedition suffered more from thieving in this than in any other territory, and the Arabs now depend for existence there not upon prestige, but sufferance, in consideration of mutual commercial advantage. In proportion as the traveller advances into the interior, he finds the people less humane, or rather less human. The Wavinza, the Wajiji, and the other Lakist tribes, much resemble one another: they are extortionate, violent, and revengeful barbarians; no Mnyamwezi dares to travel alone through their territories, and small

## parties are ever in danger of destruction.

In dealing with the East African the traveller cannot do better than to follow the advice of Bacon--“Use savages justly and graciously, with sufficient guard nevertheless.” They must be held as foes; and the prudent stranger will never put himself in their power, especially where life is concerned. The safety of a caravan will often depend upon the barbarian’s fear of beginning the fray: if the onset once takes place, the numbers, the fierce looks, the violent gestures, and the confidence of the assailants upon their own ground, will probably prevail. When necessary, however, severity must be employed; leniency and forbearance are the vulnerable points of civilised policy, as they encourage attack by a suspicion of fear and weakness. They may be managed as the Indian saw directs, by a judicious mixture of the “Narm” and “Garm”--the soft and hot. Thus the old traders remarked in Guinea, that the best way to treat a black man was to hold out one hand to shake with him, while the other is doubled ready to knock him down. In trading with, or even when dwelling amongst this people, all display of wealth must be avoided. A man who would purchase the smallest article avoids showing anything beyond its equivalent.

The ethnologist who compares this sketch with the far more favourable description of the Kafirs, a kindred race, given by travellers in South Africa, may suspect that only the darker shades of the picture are placed before the eye. But, as will appear in a future page, much of this moral degradation must be attributed to the working, through centuries, of the slave-trade: the tribes are no longer as nature made them; and from their connection with strangers they have derived nothing but corruption. Though of savage and barbarous type, they have been varnished with the semi-civilisation of trade and commerce, which sits ridiculously upon their minds as a rich garment would upon their persons.

Fetissism--the word is derived from the Portuguese feitiço, “a doing,”--scil. of magic, by euphuism--is still the only faith known in East Africa. Its origin is easily explained by the aspect of the physical world, which has coloured the thoughts and has directed the belief of man: he reflects, in fact, the fantastical and monstrous character of the animal and vegetable productions around him. Nature, in these regions rarely sublime or beautiful, more often terrible and desolate, with the gloomy forest, the impervious jungle, the tangled hill, and the dread uniform waste tenanted by deadly inhabitants, arouses in his mind a sensation of utter feebleness, a vague and nameless awe. Untaught to recommend himself for protection to a Superior Being, he addresses himself directly to the objects of his reverence and awe: he prostrates himself before the sentiment within him, hoping to propitiate it as he would satisfy a fellow-man. The grand mysteries of life and death, to him unrevealed and unexplained, the want of a true interpretation of the admirable phenomena of creation, and the vagaries and misconceptions of his own degraded imagination, awaken in him ideas of horror, and people the invisible world with ghost and goblin, demon and spectrum, the incarnations, as it were, of his own childish fears. Deepened by the dread of destruction, ever strong in the barbarian breast, his terror causes him to look with suspicion upon all around him: “How,” inquires the dying African, “can I alone be ill when others are well, unless I have been bewitched?” Hence the belief in magical and supernatural powers in man, which the stronger minded have turned to their own advantage.

Fetissism is the adoration, or rather the propitiation, of natural objects, animate and inanimate, to which certain mysterious influences are attributed. It admits neither god, nor angel, nor devil; it ignores the very alphabet of revealed or traditionary religion--a creation, a resurrection, a judgment-day, a soul or a spirit, a heaven or a hell. A modified practical atheism is thus the prominent feature of the superstition. Though instinctively conscious of a being above them, the Africans have as yet failed to grasp the idea: in their feeble minds it is an embryo rather than a conception--at the best a vague god, without personality, attributes, or providence. They call that being Mulungu, the Uhlunga of the Kafirs, and the Utika of the Hottentots. The term, however, may mean a ghost, the firmament, or the sun; a man will frequently call himself Mulungu, and even Mulungu Mbaya, the latter word signifying bad or wicked. In the language of the Wamasai “Ai,” or with the article “Engai”--the Creator--is feminine, the god and rain being synonymous.

The Fetiss superstition is African, but not confined to Africa. The faith of ancient Egypt, the earliest system of profane belief known to man, with its Triad denoting the various phases and powers of nature, was essentially fetissist; whilst in the Syrian mind dawned at first the idea of “Melkart,” a god of earth, and his Baalim, angels, viceregents, or local deities. But generally the history of religions proves that when man, whether degraded from primal elevation or elevated from primal degradation, has progressed a step beyond atheism--the spiritual state of the lowest savagery--he advances to the modification called Fetissism, the condition of the infant mind of humanity. According to the late Col. Van Kennedy, “such expressions as the love and fear of God never occur in the sacred books of the Hindus.” The ancient Persians were ignicolists, adoring ethereal fire. Confucius owned that he knew nothing about the gods, and therefore preferred saying as little as possible upon the subject. Men, still without tradition or training, confused the Creator with creation, and ventured not to place the burden of providence upon a single deity. Slaves to the agencies of material nature, impressed by the splendours of the heavenly bodies, comforted by fire and light, persuaded by their familiarity with the habits of wild beasts that the brute creation and the human claimed a mysterious affinity, humbled by the terrors of elemental war, and benefitted by hero and sage,--

“Quicquid humus, pelagus, cœlum mirabile gignunt, Id duxere deos.”

The barbarian worshipped these visible objects not as types, myths, divine emanations, or personifications of a deity: he adored them for themselves. The modern theory, the mode in which full-grown man explains away the follies of his childhood, making the interpretation precede the fable, fails when tested by experience. The Hindu, and, indeed, the ignorant Christian, still adore the actual image of man and beast; it is unreasonable to suppose that they kneel before and worship with heart and soul its metaphysics; and an attempt to allegorise it, or to deprive it of its specific virtues, would be considered, as in ancient Greece and Rome, mere impiety.

By its essence, then, Fetissism is a rude and sensual superstition, the faith of abject fear, and of infant races that have not risen, and are, perhaps, incapable of rising to theism--the religion of love and the belief of the highest types of mankind. But old creeds die hard, and error, founded upon the instincts and feelings of human nature borrows the coherence and uniformity of truth. That Fetissism is a belief common to man in the childhood of his spiritual life, may be proved by the frequent and extensive remains of the faith which the cretinism of the Hamitic race has perpetuated amongst them to the present day, still sprouting like tares even in the fair field of revealed religion. The dread of ghosts, for instance, which is the mainstay of Fetissism, is not inculcated in any sacred book, yet the belief is not to be abolished. Thus the Rakshasa of the Hindus is a disembodied spirit, doing evil to mankind; and the ghost of the prophet Samuel, raised by the familiar of the Witch of Endor, was the immortal part of a mortal being, still connected with earth, and capable of returning to it. Through the Manes, the Umbra, and the Spectrum of the ancients, the belief has descended to the moderns, as the household words ghost, goblin, and bogle, revenant, polter-geist, and spook, Duh, Dusha, and Dukh attest. Precisely similar to the African ghost-faith is the old Irish belief in Banshees, Pookas, and other evil entities; the corporeal frame of the dead forms other bodies, but the spirit hovers in the air, watching the destiny of friends, haunting houses, killing children, injuring cattle, and causing disease and destruction. Everywhere, too, their functions are the same: all are malevolent to the living, and they are seldom known to do good. The natural horror and fear of death which may be observed even in the lower animals has caused the dead to be considered vindictive and destructive.

Some missionaries have detected in the habit, which prevails throughout Eastern and Western Africa, of burying slaves with the deceased, of carrying provisions to graves, and of lighting fires on cold nights near the last resting-places of the departed, a continuation of relations between the quick and the dead which points to a belief in a future state of existence. The wish is father to that thought: the doctrine of the soul, of immortality, belongs to a superior order of mind, to a more advanced stage of society. The belief, as its operations show, is in presentity, materialism, not in futurity, spiritualism. According to the ancients, man is a fourfold being:--