Canoes at Liwonde’s (Upper Shiré)
If the vessel is for the chief’s own use, he often attends, to see how it is progressing and cheer up his men with libations of moa. There is not much variety in the shape; but some have incurved gunwales like those in the illustration, some straight. The paddles are short, with oblong blades, about the size and shape of an ordinary spade. In low water, the canoe is propelled with punting-poles, which are always necessary because the level of the river changes very quickly and sand-banks shift their places from season to season. Canoes are kept at the regular crossing-places of rivers by men who will ferry passengers over for a consideration. When not in use, the paddles and poles are carefully hidden, to prevent the canoe being summarily ‘borrowed.’ The largest canoes are, perhaps, thirty or forty feet long, and have ten or twelve paddlers, who work sitting, and sing in time to their strokes.
WEAVING
We have already said that spinning, weaving, and sewing are considered emphatically men’s work, as they were by the ancient Egyptians. The material spun is most frequently cotton, though, in the Chipeta country, south-west of the Lake, the fibre of the bwazi (Securidaca longipedunculata) is more in use. This fibre is very strong, and is used for fishing-nets; but native cloth, whether cotton or bwazi, is not often seen now, since European material (very inferior to it in quality) has been easier to obtain. The spinning-wheel is unknown, and the process of twisting the thread by hand and then spinning it on the njinga, a wooden spindle with a whorl or reel of tortoise-shell (or hard wood), is a very leisurely one. Three or four bobbins full of thread are used to ‘set’ the loom, which consists of four posts driven into the ground and connected by cross-bars. It is set up in the open space near the owner’s hut, or perhaps in the bwalo. The web is never very large; two yards long by a yard in width appears to be the outside. The process has often been described, and can be seen in the illustration. There are also two excellent photographs of it in Sir H. H. Johnston’s book.
1. Mat-making.
2. Native Loom
Sewing is now done almost everywhere with European needles, which are very much in demand. Nine times out of ten, the requests of your carriers desiring extra tips, or of casual beggars (whom, however, I never found either as numerous or as troublesome as frequently represented), were for needles or soap (sopo or sabao according as British or Portuguese influence predominated in the experience of the speaker). Native needles and awls are either iron, or sharpened bamboo splinters; I have once or twice seen these, but the large ones, for thatching, are still in common use. Many men sew very neatly; they have an ingenious way of mending holes in their calicoes which is not like our darning, but consists in button-holing round the edge of the hole and continuing round and round inward, till it is filled up. Some seemed to aim at decorative effect, as in darning a blue cloth with red thread. The more artistic kinds of sewing, and such flights as the cutting out and making of Arab shirts, have probably been learnt on the coast, or from men who have been there; but the men, in general, are neat-fingered and take to these things almost instinctively, while to their wives, who are gathered into sewing classes at the missions, by way of making them ‘womanly,’ they are mostly pain and grief. One of a husband’s duties is to sew his wife’s calico; if he neglects this it is held to be a sufficient ground for divorce. It is curious to notice the sort of convention that has grown up about these things. Originally, I suppose, these and similar occupations were looked on as light and elegant relaxations for gentlemen who came back weary from the wars, or from hunting, or from a six months’ trip to the coast, and so gradually became exclusively appropriated to them. I once in my ignorance asked an old woman if she could make me a basket, and she replied in a slightly shocked tone that it was nchito ya amuna—men’s work. I imagine, though I never heard the point raised, that it would be little if at all short of improper for a man to set about making pots.
The word ruka, ‘to weave,’ is used both for the weaving of cloth and the making of mats and baskets; but in these last there is a certain distinction observed, ruka being applied to what is properly woven or inter-plaited, while another word, pika, describes the plaiting of the nkokwe, where the strands all run one way, and are twined in and out between the uprights, but the rows are not linked into one another. There is also a kind of mat made with bundles of reeds laid side by side and connected by strips of cane twined in and out between them in pairs. This process is called by English basket-makers ‘pairing,’ as distinct from ‘weaving.’