CHAPTER II
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NATIVE ARTS AND LITERATURE.
H.—TRADES AND MANUFACTURES.
The chief method of obtaining a livelihood is by cultivating the soil. Near a lake abounding with fishes, the cultivation of the soil, though not abandoned, may take a secondary place. In districts abounding with game, the men as a rule hand over all agricultural work to their wives and slaves. Fishing and hunting are looked on as being more dignified occupations than hoeing.
_Work in Iron._
Skilled labour is exemplified chiefly in their blacksmiths. Still the smith does not live so exclusively by his trade that he can neglect his farm, and in his operations he has sometimes so many assistants that his peculiar position is compromised.
Iron is found in many places. It is dug up and brought to a furnace or small kiln (ng’aso) made of clay. A charcoal fire is kept blazing by means of clay pipes or hollow bamboos, which communicate with the bottom of the kiln, and are used as the pipes of a bellows. For a bellows they use a goat’s skin. Of iron they make hoes, spears, arrow-heads, knives, &c. Their hoes have no iron ring for fixing a handle. A hole is bored by means of a heated iron (there are no drills) in the handle, and the end of the hoe is inserted.
When a man wants a pocket handkerchief, it is to the blacksmith that he must go. The pocket handkerchief is made of iron and shaped somewhat like a spoon. The point of it is turned up so as to enter the nostril, and as the native has no pockets, it is hung round the neck.
_Wood-work and Basket-work._
The worker-in-wood has hardly a distinct trade. Nearly every man does his own wood-work. They make mortars by hollowing out part of the trunk of a tree with a bent axe. The work takes about four days. Drums are made in the same way—their ends are covered with python skins. Certain drums are beaten on the breast; the larger are not lifted from the ground. We have heard the sound of some of those at five miles’ distance. Chairs in imitation of animals are cut out of the trunk of a tree; but the legs are easily broken, as they run at right angles to the cleavage of the timber. Similarly they make large birds, wooden pillows, and plates.
Many things are made of bamboos (milasi) and reeds (matete). The tribes on the hills thus make beds and baskets in endless variety. The beds are not clumsy. One can easily “take them up and walk”. They are mats made of thin slips of bamboo, which are sewn together by a bamboo needle. They remind us of a Venetian blind, only the slips lie side by side without overlapping. They can be folded up in the form of a cylinder and earned conveniently under the arm (but the native carries his loads on his head). The borders of their baskets are thin broad pieces of wood, which are bent into a circular form, and sometimes curiously carved. A similar ornamental device, simpler in pattern, is seen on their clay pots. Good hats are made of the mlasa.
_Bark Cloth, &c._
They go and strip a tree of its bark, which they soften in water, and beat with an ebony hammer till it forms a cloth. This was the ordinary clothing of the people before the missions. Now it is worn above other clothes on a rainy day. It very soon tears. The work is very tedious, much beating being required. One hears the sound of the hammer long before he comes to the spot. The piece of bark is laid on a large log; after being well hammered, it becomes quite thin. The cloth thus formed is much wider than the original piece of bark had been.
Cotton grows plentifully. All the natives can make thread of it. One of their most tedious occupations is to make cloth. They do this in a very rude manner, and only make small strips at a time. Each thread has to be put separately in its place by the hand. Very few natives have courage for this tedious manipulation; but the cloth when made is strong and highly esteemed; it resembles bath towels.
They dye the English calico that it may last longer, but they preserve gaudy dresses without dyeing. A root is used for soap where the European article cannot be got.
Their pots are all made of clay by the women. Some of their clay vessels are a beautiful red. In their cooking they use no metals; English pots and pans speak to them of arts that are far beyond them. Their food is boiled in a clay pot, which is propped up on three stones. Another pot is turned down to serve for a lid.
Men of considerable skill are called alupa or apalu, and are believed to have strong medicine or charms.
If any one were to describe our English industries, he could not dispose of the subject in a short paragraph. But in Africa these industries do not strike us so much. They are not such a large item in human life. We see none of the working at high pressure that meets us everywhere at home. There are no crowds of pale-faced men and girls rushing along almost mechanically in response to some factory bell. There are no poor clerks cooped up in dingy counting-houses—no students with aching heads, trying to dispense with sleep. There are no careworn parents whose hard toil barely supports their children. The African has about him an air of stillness and repose that is in beautiful harmony with the scenery around. His life is not a struggle for existence. He does not care to work against time. Ambition does not drag him behind its chariot wheels. If we were to rank the Africans in classes, we should put down most of them as “gentlemen in easy circumstances”. Their circumstances are easy not because their gratifications are many, but because their wants are few.
The way in which their industries come before our notice is like this. We take a walk in the country. By the side of some brook we find a man or two digging for iron ore. They are surrounded by companions with whom they keep up a cheerful conversation. Some are ready to assist in carrying the ore to the furnace. They carry clay also, which is to be plastered on their kiln. How are these loads to be transported? There are no carts, no wheelbarrows, and no roads suitable for either. Neither have they any boxes or baskets. What are they to do? One lad darts into the bush and cuts a bundle of wands; he then takes his knife and splits each wand (if he be not content to use it whole), and there, he says, is his basket. The white man replies, “Yes; these wands might make a basket if you had anything to tie them together”. Immediately the youth tears off strips of bark, and exclaims, “Here’s the black man’s rope,” and soon the load is tied up in the middle of his basket.
As we pass along the stream we find indications of agricultural work also, but on these we do not dwell, as it is the more special trades we wish to illustrate. Already we see women washing their grain at the stream for we are advancing on little hamlets. Now we hear the peculiar tap, tap, tap of the hammer on the bark-cloth, as it mingles with the notes of the birds. Under the trees we can descry a group of men splitting up bamboos and smoothing the slips to form a bed. In a shaded verandah we find an old woman or two moulding some soft clay. It looks a shapeless mass, but it is “in the hands of the potter”. Each worker has found some ochre, for she is fond of ornamental tints. A potsherd is by her, and she has calculated the precise form she will give her vessel.
[Illustration: NATIVE PIPES AND POTTERY.]
Soon we reach the village green. Here we find a number of men sitting doing nothing. It may be that one is sewing a cloth, while the others loll upon mats and dreamily watch his hands. An ardent youth may approach the group and astonish us by taking from under his loin cloth a reel and some cotton, which he proceeds to make into thread. There are in that dark group all the elements of human nature that we find in busier lands. But in African life there is nothing of the bustle and hurry and scramble, nothing of the care and worry, the headache and heartache, that are found in England.
We cannot leave the group without asking ourselves, “What has all our boasted civilisation done?” Are we any happier than these rude natives? We shall see by and by that they are not exempt from hardship and injury. Their valleys and mountains witness many a sorrowful scene. But after we have placed a policeman in every corner, hardship and injury are still in our midst. Does it not seem as if there were some bankruptcy about human nature? For a hundred generations we have tried all manner of experiments with Governments and Institutions. We have moved them backwards and forwards like pieces on a draught board. In all this have we not been proving our bankruptcy? We have been diligently trying the most improved methods of book-keeping, but the result has only been to chase the deficit out of one column into another. The deficit is still there!
Yes. But above the clouds and storms we have the blue vault of heaven. The pale factory girl, the over wrought mechanic, the anxious student may all have a peace that passeth understanding. As the missionary is surrounded by the heathen, he feels that his message to them has not so much to do with civilisation. They are not disposed to trouble about mechanical improvements in their unsettled land; but in their unsettled land they are arrested by an expression like “Fear not them that kill the body, and after that have nothing that they can do”. Startling words to those that pass their days in fear of them that kill the body! These are surely whispers from some other world! Those dark figures have often gazed upon “the heavens above and the earth beneath” without making much of the vast mystery. They are likely to make more of the Scripture message. One of the oldest will turn on his mat and quietly remark, “Father, if you are speaking the truth, we are all living in darkness”.
I.—THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS.
What corresponds among the Africans to the clergymen, doctors, and lawyers of modern England? It will be found that in Africa these professions are not distinct, just as in Mediæval England the monks did all the teaching, healing, and advising. With reference to worship we shall find that the chief of the country and the chief of a village take prominent places.
_The Physician._
The healing art is practised most purely by the Msing’anga. Some of the methods are these:—_Cupping_ by means of a horn, whose end is stopped by bees wax. The blood that fills the horn is thrown to the ground, and the disease falls with it. _Counter-irritation._—Sometimes the physician will be content by making a number of incisions chiefly along the legs; on other occasions he will rub in vegetable ashes. _Administration of medicine_, which consists chiefly of plants and their roots; the Yao word for medicine means also a tree. The natives extract arrows by cutting all round the wound. They never amputate in order to heal, but they are able to cut off limbs very neatly, and are fond of practising the art on criminals and enemies.
But a great part of the treatment is by charms. Even where the native knows a good cure he looks on it as a charm, and his use of it is accompanied by much senseless mummery. This will be understood when we remember that diseases are supposed to be caused by witchcraft.
_The Sorcerer._
This brings us to speak of a more terrible member of the learned professions, viz., the sorcerer, diviner, or witch-doctor (mchisango). The “cup wherewith he divineth” is called chisango.
He is appealed to after the physician or herbalist has failed. He is asked to tell what witch causes the disease. He may find one, and the person that he accuses of witchcraft goes with a present to the sick person, who recovers immediately.
The diviner may be consulted on any matter. He is the great adviser of the people in all their difficulties. A person goes to him, and puts as many questions as he likes, and receives answers. These conversations are very interesting; but all that I have heard are so very intricate that it is impossible to do justice to them in an abridgment. “My female slave has gone away, what am I to do?” The diviner tells what he is to do if she have gone to Cherasulo, and what he is to do if she have gone to another place. He mentions what will happen if he goes to ask for her according to the individual that he may ask, &c., &c. Part of the advice may have reference to the spot where he will obtain a medicine helpful in his negotiations.
While these diviners give their response they shake a small gourd[4] filled with pebbles, and inspect pieces of sticks, bones, claws, pottery, &c., which are in another gourd. They often give sound advice, and they pretend to get it by this inspection, as it might otherwise give offence to their client.
Some of the diviners are the most intelligent men in the country. They claim high fees. One time we told a diviner very candidly our opinion of his art, insisting that his advice was sound, and deserved to be paid for, but that he knew as well as I that it did not come from the withered-looking contents of the gourd, but from his own judgment. The man took no offence, and though he lived at some distance he made a point of coming thereafter to our Sabbath meetings.
These men are the great agents in detecting and trying witchcraft. In one respect they, and not the chiefs, form the judicial tribunals of the land, although they play into the hands of the chiefs or any rich man that pays handsomely. After they have detected a criminal he must be tried. The trial takes place by the drinking of the poisoned cup—mwai. Consequently the diviner had better be on good terms with the professional “pounder of poison” (mpondela mwai), whose duty it is to administer this poisoned draught to the accused. This, in case of guilt, at once convicts and punishes, the poison causes death. In case of innocence the poison is vomited, and the accused is acquitted.
The witch-detective is at the head of the divining profession, and is referred to in almost every case of death, and sometimes in smaller cases, as where life was in danger (107).
K.—MEDICINES AND CHARMS.
A great many trees are supposed to have virtues. Each native knows this, and becomes to some extent his own doctor. Pain in the stomach is treated by the bark of the mbawa; headache by rubbing externally with ashes of the msolo, as also by certain charms put round the temples. The first thing a native does in headache is to tie a string tightly round his brow. The symptom of cold and shivering is treated by bathing in “water of the mkako”. For ulcers they use the mlonde. Ulcerated legs is one of the commonest maladies that attack children. For a time English treatment of these was brought into discredit, as the children would carelessly tear off the dressings and bandages. One native treatment was to tie on a broad leaf by strips of bark (which serves as their thread), and leave it till the sore had improved.
A common war medicine is to eat the heart of an enemy.
Medicine to keep the hunter from danger and to render him successful is much prized. Elephant medicine they buy from each other at the highest prices they can afford. They have many miscellaneous charms—some tied about their bodies, others on their guns. They have a very effectual arrow poison.
One time a leopard was killed by strychnia. A chief and his Prime Minister came to Zomba Mission very secretly to beg for this “medicine”; it was to be sprinkled into the mortars where the flour of their enemies was pounded. The experiment was trusted to by its promoters as likely to be very successful, a point which was not at all doubtful. Great was the disappointment when the poison was refused.
The goats belonging to the Mission seemed to get on very well, and Mr. Buchanan was beset with many entreaties for a medicine to increase the goats of the neighbouring chiefs.
When a fowl hatches, the egg shells that have been forsaken by the young brood are carefully collected and hung up in the house of their owner to preserve the chickens from hawks and other dangers.
After they have planted their crops, the field is often protected against theft by charms which they buy. Pieces of string, either twisted from native cotton or made of the bark of a tree, are thus used.
On one occasion Dr. Macklin was called to prescribe for a woman. He asked to see her tongue. His quick observation detected at the same time signs of excitement and temper about her, and he advised her to try to be agreeable with her husband and friends. It appears the woman was a great scold; and the natives were astonished to find that the Doctor could discover this by looking at her tongue! That he had a great “charm” was beyond all doubt.
L.—TRADITIONAL LITERATURE.
These people have, of course, no writing. We met with many that had never seen a book before. The sight of pictures impressed them so much that their first impulse was to run away supposing that the little painted lion or leopard was dangerous. By and by some one in the crowd discovers that this lion is quite thin! He has looked at the back of the paper and found that the body of the lion is not there! Some of the boldest, after we assure them of safety, will even put their hands upon him. The attitude of old and young is one of utter, speechless amazement.
But these people are rich in a traditional literature. It meets us in at least four distinct forms. 1. Ndawi or conundrums. Some of them are quite short, as “the house without a door,” for an egg. An incredible number of these is in common circulation, and known to most boys and girls. I noted down over 150 of them.
There are other conundrums in the form of a little story.
2. Ndano, or tales. These are also called ndawi, because many of them resemble the conundrums in having a double meaning. Some of these, we might almost say most of these, when complete have songs in them, which are repeated every now and then at each crisis in the tale. They are often recited in this form on public occasions.
I got one old man that was as enthusiastic in his recitals as the old Homerids are said to have been. When I was writing to his dictation my private study became a small theatre. In vain I reminded him that the nursery was near! His voice was audible in the outside, scores of yards from the house. School children stopped their games, and came giggling about, and demure old natives would turn off the public highway and advance in amazement. Yet even so my old man was not satisfied—his enthusiasm, he thought, fell short of the occasion, and he introduced two young women to sing responses to the chants. The natives do not speak of “telling a tale,” but of “singing a tale” (kwimba ndawi).
3. Nyimbo or Songs. These may be extemporised—music, responses and all, on the shortest notice. But there is a great collection of old songs, many of which can be identified as being the songs of several tales (L. 2), even where they are used independently. Indeed the singers could seldom point to the corresponding tale; it was only when we happened to know the tale before that we could claim the song for it. Still many songs we believe to be quite independent. The music is a simple chant. Those that are not reciting join in responses. The language of the songs is more difficult than that of the tales, and still more difficult is the language of the catch-word literature (L. 4).
Many of their songs aim at being an echo of tuneful nature around them. One beautiful chant imitates a little brook as it goes murmuring down its stony channel. The singers intentionally render this song in a subdued voice. I could not find any corresponding tale. It calls up to my mind the idea of a mother sitting with a few children on the bank (chiko) of a small stream as she has finished her hoeing, and rests for a minute before going home. She warns the children against the Likwanya or prickly bush that grows by the stream. This strain sung so softly has a soothing effect, and might well make the children sit down on the bank, engrossed with the sound of the rippling stream imitated in the music.
Sung in a company of little girls it is rendered thus—
_1st Voice._ Likwanya likunyanya ku chiko. _Response._ _Anyanyale._
_1st Voice._ { singing } Likwanya likunyanya ku chiko. _2nd Voice._ {simultaneously.} Anya-nya-nya-le e.
_1st Voice._ { simultaneous. } Anya-nya-nya-le e. _2nd Voice._ { } Likunyanya ku chiko.
_1st Voice._ { simultaneous. } Likunyanya ku chiko. _2nd Voice._ { } Anya-nya-nya-le e.
_Response._ _Anyanyale._
After this the girls that have sung the parts marked 1st voice and 2nd voice fall back on the response; and a 3rd and 4th voice take these parts. All the voices that are not reciting join in the response.
Another song has reference to a large bird, the ndututu. One voice designedly imitates its notes as it converses with a few women; while another voice imitates as distinctly the pounding of corn in which these women are engaged.
4. The fourth form of their literature is in certain catch-word compositions (chitagu), which have double meanings. The following is a specimen when there are two speakers or reciters:—
THE FIRST SAYS. THE SECOND SAYS.
Nda. Nda kuluma. Kuluma. Kuluma mbale. Mbale. Mbale katete. Katete. Katete ngupe. Ngupe. Ngupe akane. Kane. Kane akongwe. Kongwe. Akongole chimanga. Chimanga. Chimanje macholo. Macholo. Gachole wandu.
Long tales are carried on in this way. One effect sought after is to bring together words similar in form, but differing in meaning, as if we were to catch up the last word of our sentences thus:—
Come forward, shew thys_elf_! _Elf_ dost thou call me, vile pretender?
In this form of literature we meet with plays upon words—an unusual phenomenon in unwritten languages. In the conundrums proper (L. 1) we met with only one case of a play on words. We are asked, “What is the girl that decks herself?” The word for “deck” happens also to mean “shine,” and the answer is “the moon”.
Having now spoken of the forms in which this literature has been handed down we shall say something of its matter or contents.
A great part of it consists of fables regarding the lower animals where the characteristics of these animals are brought out. The rabbit is the clever hero of all the tales, much as the fox is in European tales. The hyena (litunu) is celebrated for its greediness. The litunu is a large carrion eater, which stands, we think, rather higher than the lion. In one tale the hyena is always begging food from the lion. The lion makes a buck climb a tree, so that its shadow is reflected in the water; this reflection is pointed out to the hyena, who at once casts himself into the river.
The following may stand for an example of their tales:—There was once a hyena and a leopard. They went a journey, and the hyena picked up a tortoise, and told the leopard, saying, “See, I have picked up my[5] tortoise”. The leopard said, “Give it me that I may see it”. He gave it him, then the leopard threw the tortoise away. One day they heard that the tortoise was a doctor. Then the hyena and the leopard arranged to go to the tortoise, and beg medicine for hunting. They went, they found the tortoise, and said, “We have come for medicine for hunting”. The tortoise gave the leopard beautiful spots, and the hyena ugly spots, because the hyena had wished to eat the tortoise; then he gave them horns of medicine, and said to them, “If you find meat that died of itself you must not eat it”. Then the hyena and the leopard went to hunt. On the path they found an animal that had died of itself. The hyena said, “Leopard, my friend, behold an animal that has died of itself”. But the leopard said, “Come, let us go away”. The hyena said, “Pshaw! we must not eat meat that died of itself?” Then the leopard said to the hyena, “That doctor said to us, should you find meat that died of itself, you must not eat it”. The hyena said “Pshaw! not quite!” The leopard went to the bush, but the hyena returned to the doctor, and said, “Tortoise, I have found meat that died of itself. Is it a transgression to look at it?” The tortoise said, “No, it is not a transgression”.
The hyena went to his meat and gazed on it. Then he went back again to the doctor and said, “I have looked at it”. Then he said again, “Is it a transgression to lick it?” The tortoise said “No”. The hyena then went to his meat and licked it. Then he returned again to the tortoise and said, “Is it a transgression to remove it from the path?” The tortoise said “No”. The hyena then went to his meat and removed it off the path, and threw it far away. He returned again to the tortoise and said to him, “I have removed it”. And the tortoise said, “Very well”. The hyena asked again saying, “Is eating it a transgression?” The tortoise said, “You will not swallow it?” The hyena said “No”. Then he went back to his meat and ate it, and came back to the tortoise and said, “I have eaten that meat”. But the tortoise said, “You have transgressed, hyena, you will not be a hunter, but the leopard will be a good hunter, I gave him a horn of medicine”. So the leopard caught much meat, but the hyena did not know how to catch meat. The tortoise had said, “Hyena, O chief, your name is hyena”.
We may here note that the naming of the animals is a subject on which they have many legends. The names, too, in most of their legends about persons, are significant, and accord with the moral of the story.
It must not be forgotten that all the natives’ names have a meaning It is common for men and women to bear the names of animals; thus we may have a Mr. Cock, Mr. Lion, and so on. We almost think that their children when hearing these stories for the first time would think of “hyena,” “leopard,” &c., as being people who bore these names.
Several stories relate to fowls and birds. Fowls are stated to have been at first wild, and after a while to have been domesticated. One fowl was visited by a guinea-fowl. The latter was greatly astonished that the housewife threw out food for them—that a comfortable house was provided—and every kindness shewn; but just as all these things were favourably impressing the guinea-fowl the hungry husband returned and said, “Kill that fowl as a relish for my porridge”.
Many such tales evince a wonderful sympathy for animals. The natives are greatly distressed by the visits of a large crow to their crops. Yet they have a tale which makes them excuse the depredations. “Once on a time a chief was puzzled over some case, and could get no advice till a crow came and put matters quite right. This crow was handsomely rewarded by a gift of beans and other seeds. It proceeded to carry these home, but dropped many on the way; now when the crow rifles the native’s fields it is looking for some of those lost seeds and their fruit.”
They have a great many tales embodying theories on the creation of the world, to which we shall allude below (13). The introduction of arts and manufactures is also an important theme. We are told of a woman that found people with plenty of corn, but no porridge. They simply chewed their grain. This lady produced a mortar and procured flour. Hollow stones they say gave place to pots, in the same way as caves were abandoned for houses. They speak of a time when they hoed with wood. It was after they could use iron knives that they dug down, and could put in their posts as they do in their modern houses. The first clothing was bark. Death was introduced by a woman who taught two men to sleep; she held one’s nostrils, and he never awoke. “Death and sleep,” the legend remarks, “are one word.”
Monkeys were at one time human beings who quarrelled with their friends, and went to stay in the bush. Though the natives admit that the monkeys are their cousins, they are not slow in pointing out where they differ from men. We said to one woman who was severely censuring the monkeys for eating her crop, that she should give them some corn to see whether they would not raise a crop for themselves. She replied that monkeys would not leave their seed in the ground—they would pick it up and eat it. It is not everyone that would have fixed so promptly on such a characteristic difference between men and monkeys. They give many tales of experiments tried to make human beings out of monkeys, specially in the case of women that were barren and wanted a child; but, after the most careful training, these “children” always rejoined their own “kind”.
_Relation to Tales of Other Lands._
There are also many wonderful tales regarding people that crossed lakes or rivers; but at the time we did not note these so carefully, as we considered that it was possible that our narrator might modify it in accordance with teaching that he had heard from the Scriptures.
Since we arrived in England, however, we find that Bishop Callaway has written down stories exactly similar, and indeed hardly so circumstantial, which he received from the Amazulu. On looking over his collection we find several that correspond, chiefly as regards the most striking feature of the story, with some of ours. This shows what we had been convinced of long before, that some of these traditions had been recited at a period when the ancestors of the Amazulu and of these Nyasa tribes were one people.
The following is an instance of the kind of resemblance:—In one of the tales of Bishop Callaway a young man tries to destroy the cubs of a leopard. He kills them one by one; and the point by which the deception was carried out was to hand the cubs to their mother one by one. When only one cub was left he handed this cub several times according to the number of children. The leopard thought that the same cub handed to her three times was three cubs. In a collection of ours that was sent home in 1880, and since printed, a “rabbit” or fox cheats a lioness by the same peculiar strategy.
In the stories themselves there is little to give us any note of time or antiquity. They are liable to modification too in important particulars. Thus one man will tell a wonderful story of what a hero effected by his gun. He judges that a European would despise the hero if he were armed only with a bow and arrows. But another narrator of the same story may remark on his variation that guns did not come till long after.
After we have had a tale written, we have, in order to obtain explanations, asked the same man to repeat it, and where he had given any expression that seemed to vary from the more usual form of language, we have observed that he kept as faithfully to such expressions as if he had been reading from a book. We had little doubt that, as he confessed, he had before him some recital that had produced an impression in his early years.
As to the amount of this species of literature it is difficult to be certain. The number of conundrums (1) we think does not much exceed 250. I find that I have written out more than 100 tales (2), and I have listened to at least 150 others which I did not write out. I merely noted new words and points in grammar. The traditional songs (3) may be as numerous as the tales. Of the catch-word compositions (4), at least the longer ones, I should not expect to find more than 50.
Before I left I had difficulty in finding new specimens of 1, 2, and 4. Mr. Buchanan, in his study of the language, was collecting specimens of native literature at the same time, and we had begun to think that we had nearly exhausted the field so far as the more pointed tales were concerned. New reciters generally wished to give us what we had already. Our contributors represented a wide district. My list included Wayao, Machinga, Anyasa, Angulu, Achipeta, Achikunda, and Awisa. But the tales seemed to be common to all these tribes. A Machinga was generally familiar even with the tales of a native of Quilimane. Where this was not so we considered the tale as merely local and of no antiquity.
We have given translations of several tales in the appendices.
ETHOLOGY.
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