Of round dishes there are a good many varieties; all of them appeared to have bosses projecting more or less, to serve as handles, and they were nearly always curved at the bottom, though in some rare cases they had a small flat surface at the bottom about the size of a crown-piece; the edges are generally notched. No household is ever without them, as they are especially serviceable for holding milk and oil, and all substances of a fatty nature.
The dried shells of nearly all the gourds are universally utilized as vessels, and on account of their light weight, there is no purpose to which they are so generally applied as that of carrying water, both for domestic use and for travelling. In variety of natural form, as well as in their artificial adaptations to use, they exhibit a still greater diversity than either the clay or the wooden wares. For common purposes they are polished to yellow, various shades of brown and brick red, and are often covered with a network of grass or bast; but those that are reserved for rare or more important occasions, are generally branded with well-executed devices. The Mabundas are notoriously skilful in this kind of work, particularly in figures. Amongst the designs thus burnt in I saw arabesques that were sometimes very elaborate, figures of men, animals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and insects; representations of huts, oars, weapons, and implements of many kinds; pictures of the sun and moon, besides scenes of hunting or of fighting, of which two especially attracted my attention, depicting with considerable minuteness the capture of a besieged town, and showing the stone breastworks that have now ceased to be erected as defences in warfare.
It must be confessed that on the whole the designs were executed with a certain amount of skill, and, considered as the production of savages, indicated a kind of artistic power; though I could not pretend to compare them in this respect with the carvings of the Bushmen. Occupying, as they do, a prominent place in the industrial products of the central Zambesi, these carved calabashes must be allowed to indicate a decided advance upon anything of the kind that is to be seen on the southern side of the river. The gourds chosen for the purpose are partly grown in the maize-fields, and partly close round the huts. The smallest-sized gourds were made into snuff-boxes, but not so frequently as among the Bechuanas.
I observed also some very handsome spoons, and some large ladles, made from a peculiar kind of gourd that grows thick at one end; not a few of these were ornamented with devices elaborated with much patience; their general colour was yellow, brown, or chocolate. Not all their spoons are made from gourds, as I saw some made of wood, two feet long, and used for serving out meal-pap or stewed fruit; many of those used for meals are also wood; and altogether I am disposed to think that throughout the savage tribes of Africa none would be found to use wooden utensils more neatly finished off than the spoons of the Mabundas. I may add, that in addition to other wooden productions, I saw some well-made mortars for pounding corn, and some sieves, dexterously put together with broad wood-shavings, to be used for sifting meal.
The Marutse-Mabunda people likewise do a good deal of good basket-work. Perhaps the simplest specimen of this would be found in the circular corn-bags, made of grass or baobab rind, about two feet long and not quite so wide; another sort of bag, hardly more elaborate in its make, is woven from reeds, from the stalks of plants, or from fan-palm leaves; these are of larger dimensions, and are really sacks for carrying dried fish and the heavier descriptions of fruit. Most of the tribes are skilful in making bags of thick bast, and in putting together very rapidly a kind of sweep-net. A basket that is of very easy manufacture is made from pieces of a bark very much resembling our red birch, sewn together with bast. It is nothing more than a tube closed at one end, and having a piece of wood thrust through the other, or a strap attached to form a handle. It is generally used at the ingathering of fruit. Basket-making of a superior character is exemplified in the makuluani baskets, which are manufactured from the lancet-shaped leaflets of the fan-palm; these are very strongly made, and with their close-fitting covers and firm texture, are sufficiently solid to serve the purpose of boxes or chests; so various are they in form, that it is rare to see two alike. The Matabele who have settled in the Barotse valley weave grass and straw into basket-work, so fine and compact that it is quite watertight, and can be used for drinking-cups.
The best specimens of this kind of handicraft are found in the makenke baskets made by the tribes in the Barotse, in spite of the material out of which they are formed being somewhat unmanageable. This material is the root-fibre of the mosura, a tree not unlike a maple. There are two kinds of them, one without any covering, and generally of uniform shape and size; the other with a close-fitting lid, and found in endless diversity of form and dimensions. As works of skill, there is not much to choose between them; they always have elaborate patterns woven into them with fibres that have either been burnt black or dyed of a darker colour than the rest. Except in the Barotse, they are very scarce, and in Sesheke there is the greatest difficulty in obtaining one at all.
Knives of the kind used by men in their daily occupations, and for ordinary domestic purposes, are worn without any sheath, and consist of a thin pointed iron blade, often bent round into a sickle shape, with a handle made of the skin of snakes or lizards. Weapons of offence are assegais of various kinds, daggers, hatchets, knives, and kiris; those of defence being shields and sticks.
There is a large variety of assegais, all of them exhibiting good form and workmanship, and carefully adapted to the different uses for which they are designed. Altogether they struck me as the best specimens that I had seen in South Africa, and they are far superior to those of either the Bechuanas or Makalakas. Amongst the stronger and more uncommon of the assegais are those belonging to the chieftains, and serving as insignia of their office; they vary from five feet to six and a half feet in length, a third part of which is iron; the shafts are the most substantial that are made north of the Zambesi, and are generally carved or ornamented with indented lines or circles.
The assegai that is used for hand-to-hand fights is a most formidable weapon, especially as wielded by the Matabele. It has a kind of gutter running along the blade; the neck is formed of embossed rings; the shaft is short and strong, and weighted at the end with an iron band as thick as one’s finger. When it is to be hurled as a javelin, an assegai has a different character; it is much lighter, and has a longer shaft, the length being frequently as much as seven feet; the blade is quite plain, and the neck altogether slighter.
For hunting purposes there are assegais of a good many different sizes; the necks of these are furnished with either single or double barbs, and the blades are sometimes harpoon-shaped, and sometimes like an ordinary spear-head. They may be divided into two leading groups, one being such as are used for killing gazelles and the smaller mammalia; the other including those adapted to buffaloes, lions, zebras, panthers, and wild game generally.