BARK BASKET AND CALABASHES FOR HOLDING CORN, USED BY THE MABUNDAS.
The poorer people have only one regular meal a day, which is taken in the evening; the well-to-do classes have two daily meals; the first an hour and a half or two hours after sunrise, and the other at sunset. Beer is usually drunk after every meal. Of the two kinds of beer made from kaffir-corn, one is strong, called matimbe; the second sort, known as butshuala, being much weaker; besides these, there is a sweet beer made from wild fruits, that produced from the morula fruit being like cider; and there is likewise the honey-beer, or impote, which I have had to mention several times before.
Besides being clever in their cooking, the Marutse-Mabundas are very clean; they always keep their materials in well-washed wooden or earthenware bowls, or in suitable baskets or calabashes. They were the first people that I saw making butter. Their cleanliness in their work only corresponds to that of their persons, and I am repeating what I have elsewhere observed in stating that rather than lose their bath they are always ready to run the risk of being snapped up by crocodiles.
They smoke more tobacco than any of the tribes among whom it has been introduced by the white men, accustoming themselves to it from their earliest youth, and all of them, including young girls, take snuff. The snuff which they use is a compound of tobacco ashes, pulverized nymphæa-stalks, and the secretion from the glands of the Rhabdogale mustelina. Tobacco is usually made up into little cakes, which are strung together in rows.
In spite of its simplicity the costume of the Marutse may be pronounced more graceful than that of the majority of South African tribes. Instead of the leather fringe of the Zulus, or the narrow strap of the Bechuanas and Makalakas, the men wear leather aprons, which are fastened round their waist-belts, from the front to the back. Tribes like the Batokas, Manansas, Masupias, and Marutse, who frequently visit the southern side of the Zambesi, and consequently come more in contact with white men, wear cotton aprons, for which they generally require nearly three yards of calico; they are by no means particular about colour, but if they are unable to procure a piece of sufficient length (which they call a sitsiba), they make a point of getting at least enough for an apron to reach down to the knees in front. Those who wear leather aprons make them of the skins of the smaller mammalia, the Marutse and Masupias using those of the scopophorus and cephalopus, which are pierced all round the edge with square or circular holes, and the head part thrust through the girdle. The Manansas wear a small flap about as wide as their hand, made of calico, cloth, or leather.
In the style of their mantles, too, the Marutse subjects show a marked difference from the other branches of the great Bantu family. They prefer those of a circular shape, something like a Spanish mantilla, and reaching to their hips. Small mantles made of letshwe and puku skins are also worn. The sovereign and some of the principal officials occasionally attire themselves in European costume, but more often than not they wear nothing but their aprons, covering themselves in a woollen wrap in rainy weather. The waistband is made of every variety of material; sometimes of the hide of gnus, gazelles, or elephants, sometimes of the skins of water-lizards, boas, cobras, and other snakes, and occasionally of simple plaited grass or straw.
MABUNDA LADLE AND CALABASHES.
Boys go entirely naked until some time between their sixth and tenth years of age. Little girls on attaining their fourth year begin by wearing tiny aprons made of twisted cords about ten inches long, and sometimes ornamented with brass rings; when ten years old they have small square leather aprons fastened to a belt. Many of them, who are affianced when very young, wear two aprons, a short one in front, and a longer one behind.
Married women have short petticoats of roughly tanned leather, generally cowhide, with the hair inside; these reach to their knees, and are fastened on by double waistbands. A red-brown substance that is prepared from bark, and has a somewhat agreeable odour, is rubbed into the outer surface. Women who are suckling their infants wear mantles of letshwe-skin like the men, which are generally thrown across their back, and drawn over their bosom on the approach of a stranger.