In bad weather the women, and sometimes the men too, wrap themselves up in a huge circular leather cloak reaching to the ankles, and fastened at the throat with a strap or a brooch of wood or metal; it requires to be held together in front by the hand. As a rule the people go barefooted, which is much more practicable on their sandy soil than in the thorny districts south of the Zambesi; for long journeys, however, they wear sandals made of rough leather, which are fastened to the great toe and ankle by a strap across the instep.
The eastern vassal tribes who grow cotton make pieces of calico of all sizes, from handkerchiefs to sheets. The smaller pieces are used for men’s aprons, and the larger, which are one or two yards wide, and from one and a half to two and a half yards long, are used for domestic purposes; their narrower ends are all finished off with fringes, varying from four to sixteen inches in length. The Mashonas weave similar articles of clothing, but employ bast for the material instead of cotton.
The position held by the women of the Marutse empire is better than that of their southerly neighbours. Although they till the soil, and assist in the erection of huts, all the hardest work, such as hunting, fishing, and the collection of building materials, is performed by the men. I generally found the elder people at work, the men gathering wild fruit in the woods, and the women in the fields, either superintending the young or engaged in some of the less arduous labour. The sons of the poorer people, and slave boys, usually act as shepherds, sometimes by themselves, but more generally under supervision, whilst boys of the upper class go hunting, either with assegais or guns. At harvest-time a very serviceable occupation is found for them in watching over the crops and scaring away the gazelles and birds; they are likewise employed to warn the villagers of the approach of any antelopes, buffaloes, or elephants.
It is not the habit of the Marutse to indulge in much sleep; they generally retire to rest late, and go to their work an hour or two before sunrise. Their recreations seldom begin until the close of the day, the lower their rank the later. They sleep chiefly upon mantles, skins, or straw mats. The king’s bed consisted of forty-five splendid mantles, piled one upon another, and three or four of the queens were appointed every night to keep watch over his slumbers.
The training of the children is entrusted to the women, though the boys soon escape the maternal eye, and associate more with the fathers. The children of freemen are allowed to have slave-children as companions and playmates, and as these are to form their future retinue, they often have a great influence upon the rising generation, who become much more attached to them than to those who have the natural authority over them; in fact, the children in this way are often so much indulged that I have known boys of only twelve years of age have quite the upper hand of their fathers. Boys are instructed in the use of weapons while they are quite young, and soon acquire the art of building a hut. The girls are kept strictly to their work, and the householder always expects the daughters to take a share in the maintenance of the family as soon as possible. Until ten or twelve years of age they are chiefly employed in fetching water.
Marriages are celebrated by noisy demoralizing orgies, of which, as at funerals, a large consumption of kaffir-corn beer and a special dance are the principal features. Children, as I have remarked, are often affianced at an early age, and the marriage is consummated as soon as the girl arrives at maturity. Not unfrequently a man of rank, although already he may have several other wives and a number of children, obtains the daughter of a friend for a wife, arranging meanwhile to give one of his own daughters to his new father-in-law in return, thus making him his son-in-law likewise. Sepopo, it has been mentioned, held this double relationship to several of the koshi and kosanas.
When a girl reaches her maturity, the fact is formally announced to all her companions, an invitation is sent round, and they visit her at her own home every evening for about a week, and execute a dance, which is accompanied by singing and castanet-playing. The performance is generally kept up until a very late hour. If the girl is a daughter or near relation of the king or a koshi, she is carried off by her people to some out-of-the-way place in a neighbouring wood or reed-thicket, where she has to reside in seclusion for eight days, attended only by her own maid, except that in the evening she is visited by her friends, who perfume her head, and instruct her in her conjugal duties, so that at the end of her probation she may be ready to go to her husband. I have already described the marriage-dance, in which only men take part. As a rule, even in the case of vassals, it lasts for three days and nights. A vassal may only marry by the consent of his lord, who assigns him one of his slave women as a wife.
In complete contrast to the tribes south of the Zambesi, who bury their dead at night in secluded spots near their homes, or under the hedges; the Marutse-Mabundas celebrate their funerals with music, singing, shouting, and firing of guns. Many of them mark the place of interment by depositing on it the hunting-trophies of the deceased, such as the skulls of gazelles and zebras, that during his lifetime have been preserved upon poles. Sometimes trees are planted in an oval form round the grave, which never fails in being protected by some means or other from desecration by wild animals. The ceremonies observed at funerals, it is only reasonable to suppose, are associated with certain ideas of a future existence. Monuments of more elaborate construction are said to exist in the Barotse, the mother country of the dominant tribe, where a mausoleum is erected to the memory of every important member of the royal family. It is a matter of much regret to me that I failed to get far enough north to enable me to inspect these monuments; the only accounts that I received of them were from Sepopo and several of the chiefs, and from Westbeech and Blockley, who, under the king’s authority, had visited the district in 1872 and 1873.
Audiences with the king are conducted in prescribed form. When subjects who have come from distant provinces enter the royal courtyard they keep repeating the cry “tow-tu-nya” over and over again, and then squat down close to the entrance in silence, and wait until they are summoned; in course of time they are generally introduced by their own koshi or kosana residing in Sesheke, who crawls up to the king and announces their arrival; on their admittance they have to creep forwards on their knees, and when within a few yards of the king they have to halt and keep clapping their hands gently, while their leader acts as spokesman. As soon as they have received the royal answer, the audience is at an end, and they have to retire in the same way as they advanced. Visitors from the neighbourhood greet the king with the cry of “shangwe-shangwe;” other forms of salutation are “shangwe-koshi,” and “rumela-rarumela intate,” the former of these being more particularly addressed to white men.
There is one form of salutation to a stranger which is observed by every householder, from the king downwards. After a few words have been exchanged, the host produces a snuff-box that hangs from his neck or his waistband by a strap, or from his bracelet, and having opened it, offers it to his guest; though, sometimes, instead of passing the box, he empties its contents into his own left hand, from which he takes a pinch himself, and then extends his half-opened palm to those about him.