CHAPTER VII

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MYSTERIES.

52.—“LITTLE-GO” FOR THE GIRLS.

When a girl is very young, scarcely approaching the age of puberty, she is taken to one mystery called unyago wa chiputu. The Wanyasa girls are a little older when they go to this ceremony. Girls until this ceremony are called “uninitiated” (wesichana); after it they are “initiated” (wali). The same terms are applicable to boys and young men, although more commonly applied to females. The girl may have been living with her husband even before this mystery. In such cases she gets a special charm at the ceremony. The mystery is a very great occasion among these tribes. Long before the time a great deal of food is prepared: the women may be seen pounding maize for about five days before. It begins at new moon, and continues for a month or more. The children to be initiated stay in booths away in the bush. Thousands of people collect from all quarters. There is a great deal of dancing and singing.

The girls are initiated by a female, who is called the “cook of the mystery” (mtelesi wa unyago). Among other things this “cook” gives an exhortation in which they are told to be obedient and respectful to their elders, and to avoid making any disturbance in the village. Towards the close of the ceremony the little girls are put under a roof, which they can carry on their heads. Ten may be under this at the same time. A great part of the exhortation has reference to the customs of the tribe, especially with reference to marriage duties, and advice is given in a great many absurd details. Each little girl is told that she must be faithful to her husband, otherwise he will kill her. Although the adultress is liable to punishment by death, this threat goes perhaps a little beyond the truth. But it is considered prudent to impress the mind of the child by warning her of the extreme danger that such conduct might incur. The heads of the girls are shaved, and their bodies anointed with an oil which contains various charms. One hurtful superstition is that when the girl is initiated she must find some man to be with her on her return otherwise she will die. The same superstition is implicitly believed with reference to the boys’ ceremonies. It reminds us a little of what Herodotus relates of certain Asiatics. When the girl comes back to her home her name is changed, and must not be again mentioned.

The ordinary fee for this initiation, payable by the guardians of the girl to the “cook,” is about four fathoms of cloth. This is a heavy fee—about a month’s wages of a native workman.

“LITTLE-GO” FOR THE BOYS (NDAGALA).

The boys go through a similar ceremony. First there is a dance (kwina) at a place cleared of the small trees and bushes (lupanda). This dance lasts for two or three days. After this they pass to the initiation (ndagala). Here they stay in booths made of cut trees, grass, and bamboos, for about a month and a-half. The ceremony begins at new moon, and continues until next full moon; but anyone may be initiated sooner if there be a cause for speed. (The Anyasa do not make their males go through this ceremony; but an Anyasa slave taken by the Wayao is put through it even if he be an old man and married.)

The candidates carry their beds with them. They provide themselves with sticks like ramrods (mbininga), which are thrown at any one that may intrude on their retreat; and if a person should thus be seriously hurt there is no redress. This reminds us of the

Odi profanum vulgus, Et arceo

of Horace. When they leave the ceremony great care is shown in destroying or disposing of these sticks: some are put together at a “cross-road”.

The chief figure in this ceremony is a man called the “rattler of the tails” (juakuchimula michila). Tails are possessed of great power as charms. A chief who goes to war seeks for such medicinal tails; the sick are restored by them. A house in which ivory is to be stored must first be swept by tails. Belief in their virtues is not confined to one tribe. Pictures of the Zulu witch-doctors represent these personages as fully armed with tails, and there are many other instances in Africa. The man that rattles the tails communicates to the initiated all information with regard to the customs of the tribe, and special observations connected with the sexes. He delivers lectures and is said to give much good advice. A person that has not gone through this ceremony is laughed at as being uninitiated (mwisichana). The lectures condemn selfishness, hence when one man refuses to share with another a piece of meat he is called mwisichana.

No one must call the initiated youth (wanachikopoko) by his previous name. “What would happen if any one were to forget this, and call the youth by his old name?” “Why, he would kill you.” It is a terrible way of teasing a Wayao to point to a little boy, and ask if he remembers what was his name when he was about the size of that boy. Some would not mention their old name on any consideration.

53.—THE “GREAT GO” (UNYAGO WA CHIMBANDI).

There is another of these mysteries. It must be remembered that the foregoing mysteries are great occasions among the natives, and this one, though in some respects less public and more a family matter is no less so. When the “greater mystery” (unyago wokulu), as the Anyasa call it, is to be held, a quiet and peaceful village is converted into a scene resembling an old feeing market or a penny wedding. The ceremony is held when a young woman is with child for the first time; it is attended only by women that have borne children themselves. Other women are banished from the village, and all the males except the husband of the young woman, who must be present if he has not been initiated before.

The day before the ceremony women may be seen pounding corn for the occasion, as they have been doing for several days. A preparation is made that might do for a marriage feast. The young woman that is to be the subject of the mystery is seated before the door of her hut, and her head is smeared over with castor oil. The “Cook” seems to superintend this operation, although other women assist. They take the thinner end of their razor (lukwangulo), and keep poking all along her head while the girl sits quiet and gloomy. That day her head is shaved. Next day there is the mystery proper. The Surety (48) has gone to invite other women. The “Cook” also invites her friends. The young woman herself (achakongwe wene) invites some. There is a very imposing gathering of matrons; songs and dances of the usual indelicate character are the order of the day. One of the most conspicuous parties is to be seen with an enormous pumpkin tied under her dress. The young woman is anointed with oil and red ochre (ngama). The ceremony is finished towards night and inside the house. The fee to the “Cook” is two bushels of maize. This is the last of these mysteries. The advice given to the young woman (and her husband) is not deficient in quantity; but on its quality we prefer to be silent. To the natives themselves it appears ridiculous as soon as they become critical.

We have met a Yao far from his own home, and once or twice, in order to find out at what age he had been carried off in slavery, we have asked whether he was at the mysteries; the very mention of the subject nearly put him beside himself with laughter. He looks back to the matter as a comical experience of his life; but at the same time he is rather ashamed, especially when he thinks that a European knows about it. The following from the Zulu tales of Bishop Callaway illustrates a similar practice in the South of Africa:—“When young men come to the Umgongo where the ceremonies of puberty are being performed (for when a damsel is of age it is then that the filthy custom is practised of all the young people going there), the house is now a house of sweethearts and damsels where all kind of evil will be spoken; modesty is at an end at that time, and all fearful things are mentioned, which ought not to be openly mentioned, and which, if a man mentioned them by name, he would be regarded as mad. There then all become mad, for there is no one of authority to say, ‘Do not mention such things’.”

On this whole subject writers are divided. Some say that the mysteries include circumcision after the Jewish or Mahommedan custom. Others deny this. The subject has its difficulties, as these rites are supposed to be inviolably concealed by the initiated, who often say that they would die if they revealed them. Mr. Rowley, in his book on the “Universities Mission,” makes the remark that the Wayao circumcise. From one native I gathered that such was the case; but on subsequent inquiry I could not verify the statement. The Mahommedans, who are pressing into the country, have, according to Senhor Nunes, a missionary spirit about them, but even at Quilimane the administration of circumcision is confined to their prosyletes. The general character of the mysteries is as we have described above. We may also point out that in the initiation of males, figures of the whale (nyamgumi) are made on the ground, and in the initiation of females, figures of leopards, hyenas, and such animals as are seen by those that never leave their homes. Flour is sprinkled on the top of these figures; if it fall off soon, there will be war in the country. Some of the advices given to the Namaquas at similar ceremonies is that they must not any longer suck goats!

At initiation the Bechuana girls are put under the authority of a stern old woman, who sets them very severe tasks in order to teach them to undergo pain and fatigue. One of their duties is to hold a piece of hot iron in their hands for some time. We have often been astonished at the manner in which the natives about us used to handle fire. It seemed to become quite harmless in their fingers!

The boys in some Bechuana tribes have an ordeal still more severe. A number of questions are asked, for instance, “Will you herd the cattle well?” When the boy says “I will,” he receives a stroke which inflicts a deep gash in his back. Another question is put to him, which is impressed on his memory by another terrible blow. If he were to wince under these inflictions he would fail to “pass”. The boys generally acquit themselves marvellously. The cuts inflicted are said to be from 12 to 18 inches long. Few Europeans would survive the initiation.

Few things better shew the degradation of the African heathen than the fact that instruction at the Mysteries is the only kind of formal teaching to be found in his country.

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