The customs from infancy to old age and death, of the nation will be given first, and a few peculiar customs of certain tribes will be described afterwards.
Birth.—A pregnant woman on feeling her confinement near, has a small grass hut built for her at the side of her husband’s house. There she is confined, no male being present, though other married women come to assist. Young women are not allowed to be present. The umbilical cord (kakombo) is cut close to the child’s navel (mukubu) and a piece of string is knotted tightly round the navel to prevent further bleeding. The child is washed with cold water. The mother’s thighs are washed with hot water, grass having been boiled in it previously. The afterbirth is buried by women near by. Certain roots are procured from the forest and soaked in water, the child being washed with this mixture every day for two or three months. The mother remains in the temporary hut for two months, women going every day to help her wash herself and child. After two days the husband may go to see his child but may not sleep there. Certain of the tribes absorbed by the Barozi have a custom that compels a woman, after delivery of a child, to sleep with two other men before returning to her husband. The Barozi themselves do not have this custom. About four months after the birth, if the child lives, conjugal relations are resumed, but if the child dies shortly after birth the mother mourns for a day or so, and directly she has recovered from the effects of giving the child birth, returns to her husband. Twins are not killed, nor are they considered unlucky. A child born deformed is killed, generally by the mother choking it by forcing the breast well into its mouth.
Triplets are very rare and are considered bad. One is killed and two left alive, the reason being that the mother has only two breasts. Children are suckled for nearly eighteen months. If it becomes known that a woman, married or single, has procured abortion, she is taken by the other women of the village and the hair of her head is pulled out by the roots. Nothing is said however, if a woman takes medicine to prevent pregnancy. If a woman gives birth to a still-born child a grass hut is built outside the village and the woman has to live there, day and night, for a month, only women attend her and bring her food, no man will go near the place. When the month is finished, the women bring medicine to wash her with and she is then at liberty to return to the village, but must sleep once with some man other than her husband, before returning to her husband.
Capture of a young Crocodile
Photo by Mrs. Cambell
Arrival of Lewanika’s Subsidy at Lialui:
Carried by British South Africa Company’s Messengers
Photo by J. Walton, Esq.
It is considered most unlucky for a woman to become pregnant while still suckling a child, and native tradition holds that the first child will always die, as after the mother becomes pregnant the milk then belongs to the unborn child and the bigger child will not thrive on it. Children are always carried on their mothers’ backs, supported by a skin, until about two years old, after which age, if the journey is any distance, the child is placed astride one shoulder of the father and so carried. A child is never beaten till about two years old and after that chastisement is very mild. At six or seven boys are chastised by father or mother, but girls of the same age are only chastised by their mothers.