Seven years in South Africa, volume 2 (of 2)

by Emil Holub

With the exception of the Mashonas, on the east of the Matabele, there are none of the South African tribes that exhibit so much energy, as these in the Marutse-Mabunda kingdom. The various products of their handicraft to be found throughout the country mark them out to a student of comparative ethnology as people of a relatively high state of culture, an inference which is further illustrated and confirmed by their skill in boating, fishing, and other similar pursuits. Their aptitude in manipulating metal, horn, bone, wood, or leather, augurs well for their mental capacity, and they are very quick in receiving instruction. Compared with the tribes south of the Zambesi it must be confessed that their moral standard is low, but this proceeds so much from their primitive ignorance, and from their long seclusion from the outer world, and not, as is the case with the Hottentots, from wilful and degraded corruption, that I do not hesitate to express my belief that in this respect they will gradually show many signs of improvement.

Perhaps the evil which is most deeply rooted among them is their superstition. In this they are far worse than most other South African tribes, the Zulus and Matabele being hardly their match in this respect. The effect of the vice is both demonstrated and aggravated by the multitude of human lives that are sacrificed to its demands. The royal house on the Zambesi is the very hot-bed of superstition; magic is the pretext under which the worst of barbarities are perpetrated, and the people, associating the enormities with the sovereigns who sanction them, learn at once to dread and hate their rulers. To deliver the people of the district from their superstitious credulity, would be to remove the greatest hindrance that exists to their future civilization.

Among the Marutse the king has a despotic power extending to the land as well as to the population; until the time however of the present ruler, whose rule is that of a tyrant, it has very rarely happened that any king has stretched his right to interfere with private property. During their own lifetime the reigning sovereigns appoint their successors; these may be of either sex, provided they are born of a Marutse mother—and women are especially welcome as sovereigns among the northern tribes, on the presumption that they are less cruel than men. Amongst the Bechuanas, who are more conservative in their instincts, the eldest son of the principal wife is always recognized as the rightful heir, and so strictly is this rule enforced, that even if the king should die before the heir is born, the eldest son of the widowed queen by another husband would still be held to be the legitimate successor to the throne. In 1875 Sepopo appointed his little daughter of six years of age to be queen at his own demise; by right his eldest daughter Moquai should have been nominated, but as she had been formally designated as the proper sovereign of the Mabundas, he feared that she already had too many friends and supporters in that district, to make it advisable for him to name her as successor to the joint kingdom. The king’s principal wife is always called “the mother of the country.”

The king holds the offices of chief doctor and chief magician, and under the cloke of these two arts, he works upon the credulity of the people by the most hideous crimes, being himself quite aware of the hollowness of his pretences.

Large sources of revenue are open to the king of the Marutse people. Besides his own extensive territories, which are cultivated partly by colonies of subjects, and partly by the royal wives with their staff of labourers, the direct taxes, which include contributions of every article which a prince can require, yield an immense revenue. As a consequence, moreover, of ivory and india-rubber, the staple commodities of the country, being crown property, the king is the chief merchant, and from time to time he makes large purchases of goods to the amount of 3000l. to 5000l., which he gives away to the people who reside near him, or to the chiefs or subjects who may happen to visit him, always stipulating that any guns that may be distributed shall be considered not given, but lent. Notwithstanding his wealth, it will often happen that the king looks with a covetous eye upon some property, perhaps a fine herd of cattle, belonging to one of his more well-to-do subjects, and although he considers he has a perfect right to it, he hardly likes to carry it off by force, but proceeds to get the owner convicted of treason or witchcraft, and put to death, after which he appropriates to himself the property he wants.

Quite undisputed is the king’s power to put to death, or to make a slave of any one of his subjects in any way he chooses; he may take a man’s wife simply by providing him with another wife as a substitute, and he is quite at liberty to demand any children he may wish to devote to the purposes of his magic. Reigning queens may choose any husband they like, perfectly regardless of the consideration whether he is married or not. It is high treason for any subject to retain possession of an article that is either more handsome or more valuable than what belongs to the king, and anything of exceptional quality, whether it has been purchased from neighbouring tribes or from white men, or even manufactured in the country, belongs to the king, or at least is free for him to claim as a matter of course. I could not offer anybody a present of anything the least unusual without finding it invariably refused, the excuse being that no one dared to take for himself what he was not quite sure that Sepopo already possessed.

In their style of building, as in other respects, the Marutse-Mabunda people surpass most of the tribes south of the Zambesi. This remark, however, applies only to the stationary tribes, and does not include the temporary erections put up by those who come for hunting and fishing, either on their own sites or in places marked out for them by the chief or king; such structures are generally found on the river-banks, or on wooded slopes, or in glades where game is likely to resort; but the permanent settlements are scattered over the kingdom, the larger towns being mainly in the Barotse country. The houses in these established towns are as a general rule equally strong and comfortable, and they have the advantage of being very quickly constructed. It may be said that the material required is very abundant, and most conveniently close at hand, but so it is in the case of the tribes much farther south. The northern people are much more adroit in turning their natural advantages to good account. No better example is needed than that of New Sesheke to prove the rapidity of their building-operations; nor can it be objected that their huts are more liable to be burnt down than those of the Bechuana, Zulu, and Hottentot races; the truth is that when any of these are destroyed, they are so easily replaced that the damage is quite inappreciable.

The river-system of the Marutse district is just of the character, on account of its extensive marsh-lands, to provide the inhabitants with most admirable and productive sites for their settlements; all around is an abundance of reeds for building purposes, wood for framework and for laths, besides bast, palm-leaves for making ropes and twine, metal for nails and bolts, and sand and clay for cement. Even if it should happen that in any particular spot there should be a deficiency of any one of these materials, the light canoes are so available, and the natives so ready to assist one another, that the want is soon supplied. The towns are built as close to the rivers as the annual inundations will permit, and are generally surrounded by villages that are for the most part tenanted by the vassal people, who till the fields and tend the cattle of the masters who reside within the town itself. That cleanliness is comparatively great, both in the settlements and amongst the population, is probably to be attributed to the abundance of water always at their command.

I observed that the Marutse themselves were always to be credited with a more masterly style of workmanship than any of the servile tribes around them and in their employ. They had three distinct classes of buildings, one of a double concentric form, another cylindrical, and a third long and low. That which I designate the concentric hut consists of two compartments, the inner being the loftier and in shape like the inferior half of a cone, the outside one considerably lower and cylindrical in its form. The inner hut is covered by a low vaulted roof of its own, over which is placed another roof, conical in its design, and projecting five or six feet beyond the top of the outer compartment, supported at its extremity by a series of upright posts that form a shady verandah running round the whole. After the owner, with the help of his vassals, has procured the materials, and prepared the foundation by making a layer of level cement, the construction of the edifice is left to the women. A royal residence is always built by the royal wives. The circular sites upon which the structures are reared vary from twenty to forty feet in circumference; round their edge a trench is dug some ten or twelve inches deep and about five inches wide, into which are planted loose bundles of strong reeds, when the trench is filled up with soil again. To bind the loose reeds together several palm-leaf cords are woven amongst them, and as these are drawn tighter and tighter they have the effect of giving the structure a conical form, arising from the tapering character of the reeds themselves; these are then trimmed off evenly at a height of about twelve feet from the ground, after which the outside, and not unfrequently the inside also, is plastered over with cement. Meanwhile a low conical roof has been woven by the men, which is placed in position, and left to be cemented on by the women. The doorway, which generally faces the entrance to the enclosure, is a semi-oval aperture cut in the reeds, and finished off all round with a cement moulding. This completes the inner compartment.

For the outer building the foundation is made in precisely the same way; the trench is dug, but the reeds inserted are some two feet at least shorter than before; in consequence however of this being the wall which has to maintain the great burden of the roof, it is always strengthened by a number of peeled stakes driven in firmly against it at intervals of only a few inches apart, and when the whole has been thoroughly cemented over on both sides, the material of which it has been formed is quite undistinguishable. The doorway is cut so as to correspond exactly with that of the inner compartment, and is generally about six feet high and three feet wide. While the outer wall, ordinarily from forty to sixty feet in circumference, is being finished by the women, the men drive in the verandah-poles about a yard or a yard and a half away, and then proceed to put together the upper or principal roof, the lifting of which into position is the greatest difficulty of the whole; the operation is effected by about fifty men raising it from the ground by long levers and gradually getting it supported all round on a number of short stakes; these stakes are then replaced by longer ones, which in their turn are exchanged for others yet longer, until the roof has been elevated by degrees to such a height that its edge can be laid above the top of the inner roof; it is then driven carefully onwards by main force until it properly covers the two enclosures. The ends of the reeds have then to be clipped off even all round the top of the verandah, after which the entire roof is covered with a layer of last year’s grass five or six inches thick, and bound over with a perfect network of palm-cord to make it firm against the wind. Great pains are bestowed upon getting a smooth surface to the cement, particularly where it is laid over the cornice of the inner doorway, which not unfrequently is very delicately moulded. I was told that the former royal residence in the Barotse valley had been very prettily built.