Queen Lunga took an opportunity of calling upon me, to introduce her daughter Nyama. She was a girl of fourteen, and had just been married to Sepopo’s eldest son, Monalula, who was half an idiot. Before the wedding she had been sent to reside with her mother and some other of the royal wives in a retired hut in a neighbouring wood, where she was made to fast, and to spend her time in working and in learning her domestic duties; her hair meanwhile had been all shaved off, except an oval patch that was rubbed with manganese. Nyama’s father was Sekeletu, the Makololo prince.
In one of my next rambles through the woods, I came upon a little Mankoë settlement. The people were perhaps the finest men in the Marutse empire. They had long, woolly hair, which they combed up high, giving their heads the effect of being larger than they really were. Their purpose in coming to Sesheke was to assist the king in his projected great hunting-excursion. I noticed that their travelling-utensils of horn and wood were ornamented with carvings scarcely inferior in execution to those of the Mabundas. The four huts in which they were residing were about seven feet in height, and the same in width, and were arranged in the shape of a horseshoe. On my way back I saw several graves of Masupia chieftains, all adorned with ivory; I likewise noticed some calabashes, with sticks thrust right through them, resting mouth downwards on a small ant-hill, and filled with pulverized bone. They were supposed by the Marutse to bring rain.
From a conversation with Sepopo I gathered some information about the constitution of the country and the ranks of the officials. The hierarchy may be divided into four classes; first, the officers of state; secondly, the koshi or viceroys of the tribes in the different provinces; thirdly, the kosanas or makosanas, sub-chieftains who serve under the koshi; and lastly, the personal attendants of the king, whose rank may be said to be intermediate between the two latter classes.
The officers of state were, first, the commander-in-chief, who in Sepopo’s time was a Marutse relation of his named Kapella, and whom he afterwards condemned to death; secondly, there was the controller of the arsenal, having, as I have explained, the supervision of the ammunition and guns distributed to the vassals, an office that under Sepopo was shared by two Masupias, Masango and Ramakocan; next there was the captain of the body-guard, a post then held by Sepopo’s cousin, Monalula, but whose services were only required in time of war; and fourthly, the captain of the younger warriors, who had the command of a special division of the army during a campaign; this office was at present held by a man named Sibendi.
The second class of officials includes all the governors of the more important provinces. They are invested with both civil and military powers. In some of the more extensive districts, as the Barotse, there are several of these chiefs appointed, but they are all subordinate to the one who is chosen to reside at the principal town, and in all cases they are accountable to the head governor of the Barotse, who is regarded as ranking next to the king. In Sepopo’s time this office was filled by Inkambella.
Officials of the third grade were such as held control as deputy-viceroys over separate towns or small villages where cattle-breeding, hunting, or fishing, was carried on in behalf of the king. Their principal duty was to look to the proper payment of the royal tribute; the contribution of cereal products was ordinarily sent to the koshi, who were responsible for forwarding it to the sovereign. It is the law of the land that when a vassal kills a head of game, and even when a freeman slaughters any of his own cattle, the breast must be given to the kosana, or must be sent to the koshi if he should happen to be in the neighbourhood, or must be reserved for the king himself when the royal residence is within reach. The law likewise demands that all matters of importance should be submitted at once to the deputies, who refer them to their superiors to transmit, if need be, to the king himself.
Dignitaries of what I have called the fourth class comprise what may be designated as the king’s privy-council. Nominally they are reputed to rank below the koshi, but practically the monarch holds them as their superiors; they include the state executioner, five or six private physicians, the royal cup-bearer, one or two detectives, the superintendent of the fishermen, and the overseer of the canoes. There was likewise a kind of council belonging to Moquai. Although the king had virtually withdrawn the sovereignty from his daughter, the Mabunda people persisted in regarding her as their proper ruler, and she was allowed to retain her court-retinue, of whom her husband, Manengo, was the head; she had moreover a chancellor and a captain of the guard, both of whom were appointed viceroys in her dominions. I myself made the acquaintance of Sambe, her premier, as well as of several of her chiefs, Nubiana a Marutse, Moquele, Mokoro, and two Masupias, Monamori and Simalumba.
Sepopo had both a privy-council and a general council. Under a queen a privy-council has no existence at all, and in Sepopo’s hands it was entirely his tool, composed of men as cruel as himself. Nor in his time was the general council itself, made up mainly of state officials, much better than a farce; whatever decisions it might arrive at, and whatever sentences it might pass, were completely overruled in the other chamber. Besides the state officials the larger council always included any chiefs or subordinate governors who might be resident near the royal quarters.
Although Sepopo had several times changed his residence he had hitherto generally succeeded in getting a council fairly amenable to his authority; recently, however, his barbarities, and especially the wholesale way in which he was putting people to death upon the slightest pretext, had brought about a spirit of dissatisfaction. Conscious of the growing opposition, the king proceeded to yet greater severity in his dealings, and condemned a number of the leading counsellors, both of the Marutse and Barotse kingdoms, to be executed, an arbitrary measure which only served to hasten his downfall.
By the tribes of the Marutse kingdom in general the larger council was held in high esteem, the privy-council being regarded only with detestation and servile fear.