Games are very often played by moonlight; some of these come rather under the heading of dances, and vice versâ. In fact, the words sewera, ‘to play,’ and bvina, ‘to dance,’ are used interchangeably; on one occasion, when the drums boomed all night long from Chona’s kraal, and the dancing was still going on at 8 A.M., we were told that ‘it was the Angoni playing.’ As the drums are an essential feature of the dance, this moonlight diversion becomes trying for the hearer in the vicinity of European settlements, where empty tins can be got hold of and made to do duty in the orchestra. The boarders at the Blantyre girls’ school used to let off their superfluous gaiety by drumming on the zinc baths used in the laundry, and this was permitted, within limits, lest worse should befall.
One of these moonlight games, at Likoma, consists in the players joining hands in a ring and dancing round and round, singing the words Zunguli, zunguli, bwata (‘Go round, go round, crouch!’) over and over again. Every time the word bwata comes, the whole ring drops into a squatting position. In another, ‘a ring of boys dance round one boy crouching in the middle with a cap or something on his head, and each one of the ring has in turn to dance round the boy in the middle, keeping his back to him, not losing his hold of his companions on either hand, and not displacing the object on the boy’s head.’ One refrain sung with this game is: ‘Katuli, katuli, eee katuli—don’t tread on the boy who has it, don’t tread on him!’—I have not been able to find out the meaning of katuli (e-e-e is just the repeated vowel sound, very common in songs, of which the refrain is often nothing more than i, i, i or o, a, o), it probably has none, as now used, and belongs to the same category as ‘Tit, tat, toe’ and the like. Words sung in games are often more or less of this kind, though sometimes quite intelligible, like Nkondo lelo ijija—‘War comes to-day,’ which belongs to a game something like ‘Fox and Geese.’ ‘Two captains, each with a long tail of followers, holding tight one behind the other, face one another, singing this song, and each seeks to swoop upon the last man in his opponent’s tail and make a prisoner of him, without his own tail being broken.’ Wrestling is practised (at least by the Yaos), and a kind of single-stick.
One sometimes comes on a little group of children quietly busy and happy on the bank of a stream and finds that they are engaged in modelling figures out of clay. One does not see this art carried into adult life; and as there is no attempt to make the results permanent by burning them, they are not often met with. I suppose it was an unusually successful group I once saw, set up on the ant-heap just outside Ndabankazi’s kraal; it was, I think, meant to represent a European (there could be no mistake about that, for he had a hat on) riding on an ox. I was so struck with this work of art that I offered to buy it if it could be baked, and understood that the offer had been agreed to—but nothing came of it.
It has been remarked that what knowledge they have seems to come to these African children instinctively—for no one ever sees them taught, or chastised for not knowing! Certainly one wonders how they learn some things which the smallest children do quite easily. Twisting string, for instance, out of bark, or the fibre of the bwazi, the sonkwe hibiscus, and other plants, is a thing which requires a certain knack, yet you see the whole population at it, when they have the materials handy, and nothing else to do—from the old grandmother sitting on the ground to have a chat with you, to the little boy or girl whose attention is found to be wandering in school. I imagine they must always have bunches of fibrous stuff secreted somehow about their persons. The process begins with rubbing a bit of it against one’s leg with the open hand—further than that, I cannot tell exactly what is done, or how they manage to twist two strands round each other without making the whole thing curl up, as it does when I try it.
Having got a sufficient supply of string, the next thing is to make string bags—which is done by making a row of loops for the bottom of the bag, and working round and round, putting the end of the string through each loop to make a fresh row. Usually the end is fastened to a hen’s feather to make it go through easily. It is a kind of netting without the knot, and is often quite tastefully done in string of two colours.
But the realities of life begin to make themselves felt. Girls get real babies tied to their backs instead of dolls, as soon as they are big enough to carry them. I have no doubt that this injures their growth less than dragging them about in their arms; and anyhow they are usually very cheerful about it. Then they have to fetch water, and, as soon as they are able, to help their mothers in pounding corn and hoeing in the gardens. The boys have an easier time—at ten, or so, perhaps earlier, they are set to herding the goats, and will start for the dambo in the early morning, as soon as the kraal gate is opened, with their sticks, and, during the rainy season, an old worn-out shield to shelter under in case of a shower. They take a bit of cold porridge with them, done up in a leaf, or some roasted maize cobs, unless they are near enough to run home for the family meal a little before noon. Sometimes they make a fire in the dambo, and roast their maize themselves—or any small game they may have taken. They shoot small birds with arrows, or knock them down with sticks; they set various kinds of traps in the grass, and, if they can find the burrows (which are fairly common), they dig out field-mice (mbewa), which are considered a rare delicacy, and roast them as shown in the illustration.
The various kinds of traps will be described more fully under the heading of Hunting and Fishing.
When not cooking, eating, or keeping their charges from straying, they will find plenty of diversion to help them through the day. They build little houses in trees, putting up a platform of sticks and a grass shelter over it; they dig out mole-crickets (lololo), guided by the sound of their chirping, or they make models, as aforesaid, if they find a patch of moist clay, or an ant-heap and water in happy conjunction. In fact, whenever, in walking through bush or dambo, you come across any phenomenon obviously due to human agency—such, for instance, as hats made out of leaves pinned together with thorns or bits of grass—yet without visible author or apparent object, you may be sure your escort will attribute it to the abusa—herd-boys. When I asked the meaning of a number of tufts of grass knotted together in the middle of a piece of meadow, the children cheerfully said that the abusa had done it in order to trip people up. I think, however, that they need not be credited with this, as it is more probable that some one had been marking out a plot for hoeing next rainy season; and besides, natives are not in the habit of walking off the path.
