The feast (if it can be so-called) mentioned above as constituting the marriage ceremony is sometimes (or used to be) celebrated in a more elaborate form. In this case, it was the entering the house, as soon as it was finished, which was held to constitute the act of marriage. The woman would bring with her pots, baskets, a sleeping-mat, and some flour to cook the first meal with. The man would contribute an axe and a hoe to the common outfit. One of his wife’s first duties is to plaster the house he has built, though this will not always be needed. The meeting at which what we may call the marriage-contract is drawn up, takes place some time later; perhaps not till the first produce of their new garden is ready. The wife’s surety is said to ‘come to settle her’ in her home.
She prepares two pots of beer for her husband’s surety or sureties and two for her own. The former contribute a cock to the banquet, the latter a laying hen. Both then lay down certain rules for the behaviour of the young couple, warning the wife against unfaithfulness, and binding both to resort to the diviner in case of illness or other trouble.
Women Pounding Maize in Yao Village
Note the cooking-stones and pots in the foreground; also the square house (cf. [p. 144])
The division of labour between husband and wife varies a good deal according to local circumstances. Where the husband goes away with trading caravans, or on hunting expeditions, or works on a plantation, or as a tenga-tenga man (carrier), or where he is liable to be summoned away for weeks at a time (as he was under the Angoni and Makololo) to work for the chief, the field-work, of course, falls on the wife.
This we shall describe more fully when treating of Agriculture. She also has to go to the bush to cut firewood, and to the stream or well for water; to plaster the floor and walls of the house with mud (which looks like grey stucco when dry); to fetch in supplies of food from the gardens, to pound and husk the grain, and to do the cooking. I have only once seen a man pounding at a mortar; this was a Ngoni who lived temporarily in one of the Blantyre villages, while working on a plantation, and, no doubt, he was lending a hand with the pounding by way of payment for his board.
When the husband is at home, he helps in the gardens, cuts grass for thatching, executes repairs generally on huts and fences, makes the grain mortar (cut with an adze out of a tree-trunk), spins and weaves (where this is still done), sews his wife’s calico, and makes mats and baskets. On the Lake and River many are engaged all day in fishing, and some in making canoes; the fishing by hand-nets or traps is also done by women. Sometimes he accompanies his wife to the Bush for firewood, and has been much reprobated for carrying nothing but his weapons while she is heavily loaded. But this leaves out of account the ever-present possibility of attack by raiders or wild animals—of course now rapidly becoming a matter of tradition. Still, no longer ago than 1894, I saw men patrolling the gardens with spear and shield, while their wives gathered the millet—in very real danger of being carried off by the Machinga.
The wife, as time goes on, is helped by the junior wives, and in due course by her daughters, sometimes also by slaves, men and women. The pounding of the grain is about the heaviest work; the maize is first husked, then the grain is stripped off the cobs with the fingers, and put into the mortar for the first rough pounding. It is then taken out and winnowed by being shaken in a flat basket, and after being separated from the bran (which is given to goats, fowls, and pigeons, or used to make coarse porridge in time of scarcity), pounded over again, sifting out the coarser particles after each pounding, till at last it is fine and white like flour. Millet is usually, when brought in from the garden, spread out on mats to dry in the sun, and then beaten with thin sticks to separate it from the husk. It is pounded with a little water, the bran sifted out, the meal washed and partly dried, and finally ground fine between two stones.
Porridge is made by stirring the maize or millet flour (usually the former) into boiling water, and is ready in a few minutes, once the water has been brought to the boil, which, with a large jar and a small fire, is apt to be a work of time. The pot is supported over the fire on three stones. Maize porridge (nsima) is, if well made of good flour, about the colour of a suet dumpling; if inferior, it is more or less greyish. It is very stodgy, trying to a European digestion, and exceedingly sticky to the touch. Natives will eat surprising quantities of it; but they feel it a privation to be obliged to take it without salt, or some kind of ‘relish’ (ndiwo). This may be beans, or ground-nuts, or green vegetables of some sort, such as the leaves of the manioc; or, more rarely, a fowl, or a bit of goat’s flesh. Whatever it is, it is put on to boil in a small pot beside the large one, after the latter has been on for some time. Occasionally roasted rats, such as the boys bring in from the fields, are eaten as ndiwo, or winged white ants—a great delicacy—or dried locusts. Some tribes consider dried (and very high) fish a choice kind of ndiwo—others will not touch fish in any shape.