CHAPTER I

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

A.—DRESS, TATOOS, ORNAMENTS, &C.

The _dress_ of the native is very scanty: sometimes we see full-grown men and women whose wardrobe does not consist of a square foot of cloth. We have even seen the primitive fig-leaves not sewn together, but simply taken down for use, along with the tip of the branches on which they grew. One tribe, called the Mangoni, is fond of wearing skins. Other tribes towards the north of Lake Nyassa are still more primitive in their dress, or rather want of dress. The usual costume in the Blantyre district is a piece of calico about two yards broad, and rather longer, which is put round the middle of the body: the dress of a man does not differ from that of a woman, except that the latter may occasionally cover her breasts. The breasts and arms are usually left quite bare. There is no hat on the head, nor shoes on the feet. When we tried to translate the words, “If any man sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also,” we found a difficulty, for if a native were stripped of _one_ garment, he would generally be left in a very helpless condition.

The chiefs, or principal men, dress as the rest of the people, only they may have a few more folds of calico about their loins. In certain families, as in the Abanda family of the Wayao tribe, the chief of the district, or of a village, wears a band of cloth round his temples as a kind of crown. Before the arrival of the missionaries, shirts, although very rare, were not entirely unknown, and there existed a belief that while men might wear them, they were not the proper thing for women. Bark cloth (H) is extensively made and worn.

The _tatoos_ (nembo) are sometimes dreadful inflictions, and when the larger marks are made the children roar as if they were distracted. The Angulu have marks like “flies,” the Wayao tribal mark is above the nose, the Anyasa make very large rude tatoos, which might be described in those words that Henry Salt, the Abyssinian traveller (1814), uses with reference to the Makua, a tribe not far distant, and much spoken of by the Wayao, under the name of Makuani. “The Makua practise tatooing so rudely that they raise the marks one-eighth of an inch above the surface.” He writes also:—“They file their teeth to a point, so that the whole set has the appearance of a coarse saw”. The natives here are fond of knocking out a front tooth in order to produce a beauty mark.

_Ornaments_ are worn chiefly by the women in Africa as elsewhere. Beads and bangles are in great request. Many have armlets and anklets of brass or iron. The most striking female ornament is the lip ring. Little girls have first a small hole (lupelele) bored in the upper lip, in this they place a stalk of grass, which prevents the hole from filling up, next they insert a thicker stalk of grass, then by means of bits of twigs, &c., the hole is made larger and larger, till it can receive this ring. Hardly any female is without it. They say it makes them look “pretty”; the bigger the ring, the more they value themselves! At Zomba, a small hole is bored on the side of the nose, and a tack (exactly similar to those large headed tacks or “tackets” used in the sole of a boot), is put in. This tack, _chipini_, is made of lead; some of the ladies used to express much surprise when I showed them that it would write on my book.

[Illustration: NATIVE WOMAN WITH BEADS, TATOOS AND LIP-RING.]

Occasionally, a woman will wear an enormous wig made of beads. The beads are so manipulated as to present the appearance of having been “threaded” on the hair of the head. Some females do actually thread beads on the separate hairs of their head, but the usual way is to put them on a cluster of strings, and then wear like a wig. Sometimes they allow their hair to grow till it is very long—it may be sticking up about 8 inches above the head—and then it looks exactly like the fleece of a black sheep. But this is unusual, as the natives are obliged, for the sake of cleanliness, to shave their heads often. The men have scarcely any beard or whiskers. On the shaving of the head for a death (40), not even the eyebrows are allowed to escape. There is no end of capricious shaving, for instance, they shave one side only, or the whole head except a patch in the middle.

CHARMS (_mbiji_) are very often worn round the neck by both sexes. These are little pieces of wood like what fill the gourds of the Sorcerers (I). They are worn on a small string in the same way as beads.

We may mention here that great quantities of beads are worn round the loins in strings as thick as cart ropes. When a person is from home and wishes to buy anything, he falls back upon this portion of his property which is really his “purse”. Besides this, a native carries a bag (msaku), which may contain a box with lime (swakala), which he uses in chewing tobacco: a snuff box is also common. Ladies partake of these “regales” to a less extent.

[Illustration: NATIVE KNIVES AND ARROWS.]

B.—WEAPONS.

The men go armed generally with guns. (The country is full of flint muskets marked the “Tower,” and introduced by the slave trade.) Often they carry their _bows_ with half-a-dozen arrows. They never go unarmed. One chief used to be fond of carrying a large _spear_, which served as a kind of staff. Most of them carry knives as well. These weapons are necessary for protection against beasts of prey and other enemies, and may be used where game is seen. The Mangoni carry a shield like the Zulus.

On coming down from the Lake region to the Portuguese settlements at Quilimane, one of the first things that strikes us is, that natives under the Portuguese Government go about without carrying any deadly weapon. On the hills round Blantyre, a man scarcely sits down to sew his wives’ calico in his own village without having his bow and arrows by his side.

They do not seem to be expert marksmen; but they were able to send their arrows very much farther than I could do, let me try never so hard. They were fond of asking us to competitions of this nature. One time Kumpama of Cherasulo challenged us to a shooting match—his arrows against our guns! They allowed us, however, to stand too far back, and the arrows of his bowmen fell short of the target. Little boys are to be seen using their arrows from their earliest years, and they shoot small birds very cleverly.

They use the assagai, but more for thrusting than for throwing. Apart from war, chances for its use occur when they steal upon a buck before he awakes. A large broad spear is used in killing fish.

Some carry knob-sticks, or staves of a similar nature. They are useful for shaking the dew or rain off the long grass, as well as for defensive purposes. Little axes of various kinds are carried in the hand; they may be borne as credentials where a chief has to send by an unknown messenger. The usual African axes are said to resemble those used in Britain in the Roman period.

C.—HOUSES.

The houses, or huts (nyumba) in which they dwell, are all round. It is misleading to say that they dwell in them, as they scarcely enter them, except to sleep, or when driven by bad weather. Sometimes the women boil a pot inside the house, but often the cooking is done outside; all the meals are eaten outside. When the head of a house has any sewing to do, he does it on a mat before his door, or in the village forum. His wife does not sew, and most of her occupations (57) are necessarily outdoor. “A house,” says the native, “is made to sleep in.”

The walls form a circle—say about twelve feet in diameter—and are made of strong posts, sometimes close to each other, but generally with spaces between, where bamboos and grass are brought into requisition. The framework of the roof is placed upon the top of the circle, and some thatch is thrown on. The floor and walls are plastered with clay.

Two doors (mlango) are marked out before they plaster, but one of these is generally shut up, and may even be dispensed with. There are no windows. The wall is not above 3 feet high, the roof projects so as to form a small verandah in which a person may sit. Sometimes there are apertures in the wall calculated to let through the muzzle of a gun.

The houses being occupied chiefly during the night, part of the floor is often raised for a bedstead. The bed which is merely a mat made of bamboos or reeds, and is not nearly so soft as an ordinary door-mat or hearth-rug, is laid on this mound. By the side of the “bedstead” are placed a few logs of wood which form a fire during the night. The head of the house lies nearest to this fire, while his partner is placed on his other side, as he remarks, _away from the fire_. Blankets are unknown. The cloth that covers the man during the day may be drawn over him at night. Quite as often he lets it remain round his loins. Occasionally it seems as if a little flour had been spilt on the ground beside his head. He will not speak of this to a stranger, but you are on holy ground, and let me tell you in a whisper that it is an _offering to his gods_.

Candles are not used, the logs that smoulder in the fire give a little light. They burn beeswax occasionally, and when light is required, a little dry grass may be readily obtained. The native retires to rest soon after dark, and is astir at the first streaks of dawn.

The fire is in the middle of the floor, and there are no holes in the roof as in the old Highlands of Scotland. The houses are without any chimney whatsoever, and the smoke goes curling about in the roof and may ultimately escape through the thatch or at the doors. The roof is beautifully black and glossy inside, but outside it has an ugly brown appearance.

A European finds it a most inconvenient thing at first to enter a native hut, the smoke so fills his nose, mouth, and eyes, but when he sits down to talk to an invalid, the inconvenience is of course less than when he stands upright; at best the atmosphere resembles a London fog. In native huts it is sometimes difficult for a man of ordinary stature to stand upright. The doors of the houses are never over 3 feet high. What pigmies the natives must be! We have heard a learned professor arguing that the height of the doors in certain very ancient houses proved that the human race was not degenerating in stature, but this argument, true in many cases, would not do here. If the native wants to stand upright, he never thinks of trying to do so in his doorway.

The roof of his house is generally made a store; he goes up from the outside, removes part of the thatch, and puts in his corn. Bags of beans are hung up round and round on the pillars inside. Sometimes there are one or two pots filled with beans, and hermetically sealed with clay on the top to preserve such vegetables. There are no fenders or fire-irons to be seen. Tables are unknown, and chairs are hardly used at all, although men clever at wood-work make very small chairs of various forms. Implements of agriculture are stowed away in the house, so are the cooking utensils, the man’s bow and arrows, the sleeping mat already mentioned, and—our inventory is complete! Some part of the house may be occupied by live stock. The fowls are sometimes put up stairs in the store, and sometimes in a corner so as not to disturb the other members of the family! But laying-hens (mkolo) and fowls with chickens have very special privileges, and are not always confined to their corner!

Another item of importance to the inmates of a native house is the rats. They swarm in all corners after dark. They nibble at the maize that is stored in the roof, and also at the feet of their lord and master below. As we sit in conversation with a number of natives we cannot help observing their feet. Very generally they are all nibbled round the sides, and, thick though the natives’ skin may be, we can see that many bites have reached the quick flesh. When a person dies in a house at night, if the death be unobserved, the body may be terribly eaten by the rats before morning. What is the meaning of tolerating these vermin? Leave that to the natives themselves. A great feast day will come. These rats will be caught in hundreds, and either eaten on the spot or laid up as stored provisions. Some natives set traps in the house even during the close season, but this is not nearly so profitable; for if one or two rats are caught during the night, the others will eat them, and the fondest expectation of “butcher meat” will be blasted.

After calling attention to the fowls and the rats, we have done with the live stock. There are indeed “smaller cattle,” but they are too numerous to be specified. They are not a burden to the house itself, but are generally borne by the other inmates. We have often seen a native sit patiently while two or three others kept searching among his hair. A favourite remedy is to shave the head quite bare, and smear the head and the whole body with certain vegetable oils.

D.—CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS.

The climate strikes us at first as being much too hot, but after a while we feel it more comfortable. Then we can nearly always anticipate the weather. It is quite amusing to hear an arrival from England saying “This is another fine day!” When we meet a man at home, and have nothing to say, we nearly always call his attention to the state of the weather. When two natives meet each other the usual salutation is—“Where are you going?” the weather being so uniform that it may be taken for granted. The temperature in the shade at the hill settlements was hardly ever over 105° or under 42°, 70° being about the average. On the plains the heat was excessive.

The rainy season begins about October. We have nearly six weeks of very hot weather about January without much rain. By and by the sun returns overhead again, and we have the latter rains. About April the dry season sets in.

On the productions of the country we may remark that there are fruits in almost endless variety in the bush, but they are generally very small, and few of them are so good that we care to taste them twice. The _masuku_ and _mbembu_ are used very much by the natives. Sugar cane, tobacco, india-rubber are all to be found growing throughout the country. The natives chew the stalks of the sugar cane, chew and smoke tobacco, and relish the apple-like fruit found on the india-rubber vine.

Thrifty housewives make various vegetable dishes (maponda) of leaves and grasses that a European would be inclined to despise. In the hot season that precedes the rains sometimes food is very scarce, and then roots and herbs still less savoury are called into use. Moreover, there are certain edibles of this kind, which are used only in years of famine. Before the arrival of the missionaries such famines were exceedingly common, but they were not all caused by the climate, many were caused by war.

Nature is here so bountiful that, in ordinary circumstances, food is no object. The only season associated with hunger is a month or two immediately before the rains. If the rains do not come early, the old food may be quite finished. As soon as the rains begin, vegetable life flourishes with such luxuriance that the season of want is immediately forgotten. Once or twice in travelling during the season when everything is dried up, we have found a little boy sitting weeping on account of “hunger,” and the expression “hunger is painful” (_sala kupoteka_) reminds us that most natives know the fact by experience. Much of this is due to the tediousness of their cooking. If a party arrive half starving at a village, it may be several hours before anything can be cooked. The people do not keep flour on hand, but mill it as it is required for each meal; and as their meals are at 11 at noon and 6 at night, parties arriving in the interval must tighten their belts. Native travellers could easily sympathise with Esau when he sold his birthright.

E.—FOOD AND COOKING.

The cooking is done by the women; but every native is a born cook. When a buck is shot out in the bush, even little boys will cook it at once. The staple food at Blantyre is maize; among the Anyasa millet; and at the mouth of the Shire, rice. Maize and millet are ground into a fine flour (utandi, ufa), which is made into a kind of porridge (ugali, nsima). This is eaten without salt, but ought to be accompanied by some relish, as beans or meat. This porridge takes the place of bread in their meals, as the natives make no bread. Another way of using maize or millet is in the native beer (ukana, mowa), the only beverage in common use except water, which they drink out of the running streams. They drink stagnant water also. Their method of drinking is peculiar, as they literally throw the water into the mouth with their hands.

The natives have regularly only two meals a-day, but they may eat maize stalks or sugar cane or other vegetables from morning till night. There are often feasts, as on the occasion of hoeing-matches (65), wakes, and marriage settlements. Beer is used greatly in those cases, and beer drinkings may be got up also without any special occasion. Sometimes they last for several days, the last day (lia kusasula) is specially distinguished for cooking porridge and fowls. Such solid food is not expected on the other days. There is also singing, dancing, and drumming. The exercises generally continue the whole night. The parties that do most to keep up the interest in such dances are paid.

There are no live stock except the small species of fowls and the rats that we have already mentioned. Some natives keep ducks—Muscovy ducks, which do not require a pond. Richer people, as village chiefs, possess goats. The Magololo chiefs have sheep and a few cows.

The Wayao have a superstition against cow’s milk, goat’s milk, and dairy produce of every kind. (In the same way young people will not eat eggs; it would make them barren.) They eat hippopotami, elephants, monkeys, moles, beetles, and even caterpillars. They take kindly to meat that has begun to putrify. Yet they make a distinction between what animals are to be eaten and what are not. Any creature that will eat the flesh of a deceased human being is unclean. It is msawi (106). For instance, while some eat the raven or kite (likungulu), others protest that it feeds about the graves.

A person could travel far and wide and trust to native hospitality. If we arrive at a village at the time that the native is taking his meals we are invited to partake. A great drawback is that a person not brought up on native food will be unwilling to risk his health by partaking of their fare. It cannot be expected that the traveller will fare better than his host. They soon begin to know people that do not eat freely of native food, and from motives of politeness they are slow in offering it. If we pass through a village its inhabitants quietly ask some of our native retinue whether there is any chance of our tasting the native beer,[2] and if it be found that the beer will not be refused, the poor creatures go and search for a cup (if they have one in the whole village). They judged that, as we were more familiar with cups than with calibashes, the cup would be the more acceptable. The natives that accompanied us on any journey were presented with loads of the various fruits of the season. If one wish to stay all night he will get a house to sleep in. Natives receive hospitality quite freely, and are prepared when their host comes to their home to treat him in the same way. When a party from one chief goes to visit another chief, one of their credentials is a present.

It is a breach of etiquette to eat alone if any one be present. When a native is at food he shares it with those around him, indeed he goes on dividing till he has only a mouthful left for himself. Etiquette does not bind us to partake of their food, but it is a sign of friendship to do so as far as possible. The natives have no spoons, and Englishmen would burn their fingers severely in eating porridge in the fashionable manner.

F.—WORK.

The natives go to work at sunrise, and continue until the sun is overhead. After this their day’s work is finished, and they partake of their first meal. One reason why the morning meal is so late is that it would be difficult to have it ready before the people go out to work. In the afternoon the men sit down and converse. Some do light work, as sewing, but a great many remain quite idle. The women will be found pounding maize. They are nearly as strong and tall as the men, perhaps owing to the heavy work they do. By sunset the second meal is ready.

They have little notion of the division of labour. Natives have not arrived at such a pitch of education that one of them would spend his days in making the sixth part of a pin. The little girls from their earliest years are initiated into all parts of the mysteries of hoeing, reaping, milling, and cooking. The men are equally ignorant of the advantages and disadvantages of division of labour. Each man builds his own house, and makes his own furniture. The only trade that can maintain a special existence is working in iron—a trade embracing mining, smelting, and forging. Even in this case most natives know the secrets of the trade; but to be specially successful they need to obtain a charm.

Agricultural work is the great means of a livelihood. It yields a great return, for every seed the natives sow they expect to reap hundreds. A little before the rains they begin to hoe their ground. They first clear all the trees and wood, which they collect in heaps and burn on the spot. They use no other manure. When they do work for the English they say they hoe very slowly, because they are told to hoe deep; but when they hoe their own land they hoe fast, as a scratch on the surface is considered sufficient. When the rains come they plant. After the maize grows they set up the soil round the stems as farmers do with potatoes.

Each house has generally what we might call a garden; but the natives have no fancy for flowers. The wild flowers in the wood they recognise as being very pretty; but they laugh at any one that plucks them. They fancy that a lover of flowers culls them for some charms. The natives have no word for a garden as distinct from a cultivated field or farm, but they have often round their houses little beds of tobacco, great quantities of manioc, and several other useful plants. Indian hemp is also much cultivated, and is nearly as bad as opium. Near Mazaro opium is cultivated by a Portuguese Company.

F².—RACES AND CHIEFS.

As we pass out of Portuguese territory we find ourselves in the country of a chief called Matekenya, on the Lower Shire (Chiri). His people are the Achikunda. When we reach the Ruwo or Ruo we are perhaps about two days from Blantyre by land. Here we come to what are called the Magololo, whose paramount chief is Makukani, although many of the others, as Katunga and Chiputula, seem to view themselves as independent of him. Still they say that if he commands they must all follow him to war. These men though aliens, have established themselves as rulers over the Anyasa. There is no Magololo tribe here. Passing through these Anyasa we ascend to Blantyre, where we find ourselves with a chief called Kapeni, who rules another tribe called the Wayao (Yao), with whom we are best acquainted.

Then about Zomba, which is other two days farther on, we encounter the Machinga, who speak practically the same language as the Wayao, and this language carries us far beyond. Several great chiefs on the east side of Lake Nyassa are Machinga. Again, when we stand on the south side of Mount Zomba and look over Lake Chirwa[3] (Shirwa) towards the rising sun we see mountains that are peopled by the Angulu (or Walolo).

The tradition is that the Anyasa first inhabited the land everywhere about Zomba; but that the Angulu, who lived at one time on the other side of the river Lujenda, began to fight the Machinga. The Machinga then went and encountered the Wayao, who, in turn, pressed on and drove from their home at Zomba the Anyasa tribe, many of whom now live under the Magololo on the Lower Shire[3] (Chiri), _i.e._, the Shire below the cataracts.

The Anyasa are also called Anyanja, both words in different languages of the district mean river- or lake-people. The word Wayao (or Achawa) suggests a derivation from the personal pronoun. Yao regularly means “their” (_ipanje yao_ means their property). So the Awa of Achawa is identical with the personal pronoun. I am inclined to interpret the name as “The people that hold their own!” until I find something more satisfactory. The Machinga are really the same tribe, and are called the “fighting branch of the Yao”. The derivation of their name is in harmony with this view.

It is instructive to note the descriptions that these tribes give of other tribes that live at a distance, and are barely known to them. I had heard such strange particulars about the Makua that I thought they must be a peculiar people; now so they are, but only just as the Wayao are peculiar. It was the old story; every race considers itself perfection, and points to a mote in the eye of a brother race. The language of the Makua is quite similar to Machinga. I travelled to London with a Makua with whom I had little difficulty in conversing.

There are two great Wayao chiefs in the district of Blantyre, who are called Kapeni and Kumpama, and whose head quarters are at Mounts Sochi and Cherasulo respectively. These are the two large territorial chiefs. Mkanda of Cherasulo, was at first a headman of Kumpama’s, but rebelled, and lives on the southern side of that mountain; an easy day’s march from Blantyre. Kumpama’s territory begins about six miles from Blantyre at a stream called the Luunsu, and extends to the Namasi, on which is the old site of the Magomero Mission. The next great centre of population as we march to the north-east is Zomba, one side of which is owned by Chemlumbe, a Yao chief. The other side belongs to Malemya, a more powerful man, who is a Machinga. A little way beyond there is Mount Chikala, where a still more powerful chief called Kawinga resides; he is also a Machinga. If we look towards the south from Zomba we see a great mountain, Mlanje, this marks the domain of Matapwiri. When we wish in Quilimane to ask for a man who speaks Chiyao or Machinga, we ask for a person from Matapwiri’s country. There a Matapwiri is used for a simpleton—one that has not seen the world. It is with this chief that the Yao of the coast are most associated, as the slave gangs for Quilimane used to set out from his village.

G.—TRAVELLING AND SALUTATIONS.

_Native Roads._

The native roads are never straight; at best they glide along by an easy succession of curves. Sometimes the amount of curvature is very annoying. The path is little more than a foot broad. Each side is covered with tall grass, which reaches over the traveller’s head. You can only see four or five paces in front, and you can never predict what course the path will take after that. The causes of curvature are numerous. Here a tree fell down long ago and lay across the path. While it still lay every traveller went round the end of it, and the original path was abandoned, and replaced by grass that no traveller will care to interfere with. At another place the path turned aside to go through a little village; but the village has passed away years ago. At another spot some one had hoed a field, and made the road go round its border. There are cases too where the path may have deviated to avoid marshes and difficult crossings. On many roads we lose one mile in every five. After the grass is burned, or in bad soil where very little grass grows, one may have the pleasure of going in a straight line; but where the grass is at all represented no one can pass through it without the greatest exertion. If a person leave a native path with the idea of taking a short cut, he may get into a tangle of long grass and bushes, where his progress will be not more than one mile in four hours.

_Grass Fires._

One of the best sights in Africa is a large grass fire. No fireworks in Britain can for a moment compare with this. Broad plains will keep burning for weeks. At the mission on the side of Mount Zomba, which overlooked a plain of several days’ journey, the sight of these fires was very impressive. The trees in the country suffer much.

_Salutations._

The natives in saluting each other say “moni”—a corruption of the English “morning”. So general did this word become that we have heard people inclined to fancy that there must really be a native word “moni!” The native salutation is “mugonile?” “Have you slept well?” Sometimes friends will ask each other “Are you well?” “Is all well at your home?”

A party arriving at a village observes the greatest formality. After getting an introduction to the chief of the village he begins to explain the object of his visit. The explanation is generally most tedious—it seems to go from the creation downwards—every step being carefully traced, whether in action or in motive, till the moment of the arrival!

The natives have the greatest respect for the older people. The title of father is given to such. If we ask anything of a younger man about 30 years of age he will say “I am only a child; ask the old men of gray hairs”. All the English are saluted as father; even a white child of a few months is saluted in the words, “moni, moni, atati!” (morning, morning, father).

_The Inferior Position of Women._

The women hold an inferior position. They are viewed as beasts of burden, which do all the harder work. When a woman meets any men on the path the etiquette is for her to go off the path, to kneel (tindiwala), and clap her hands to the “lords of creation” as they pass. Even if a female possess male slaves of her own she observes this custom when she meets them on the public highway. A woman always kneels when she has occasion to talk to a man. The custom very rapidly disappeared in the region of the missionaries. When we saw a woman go out of her way, carrying perhaps half a hundred-weight on her head, with the intention of kneeling down, and reflecting, as she must, that with her load she might have difficulty in getting up, we have often playfully shouted out, “You are losing your way; this is the path,” and she took it for granted that she might dispense with the clumsy ceremony.

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