After this interview Shinte always behaved very kindly to the whole party, and, as we have already seen, invested Dr. Livingtone with the precious shell ornament before his departure.
As to Shinte’s niece, Manenko, the female chief, she was a woman who really deserved her rank, from her bold and energetic character. She insisted on conducting the party in her own manner; and when they set out, she headed the expedition in person. It happened to be a singularly unpleasant one, the rain falling in torrents, and yet this very energetic lady marched on at a pace that could be equalled by few of the men, and without the slightest protection from the weather, save the coat of red grease and a charmed necklace. When asked why she did not wear clothes, she said that a chief ought to despise such luxuries, and ought to set an example of fortitude to the rest of the tribe. Nearly all the members of the expedition complained of cold, wet, and hunger, but this indefatigable lady pressed on in the very lightest marching order, and not until they were all thoroughly wearied would she consent to halt for the night. Her husband, Sambanza, had to march in her train, accompanied by a man who had instructions to beat a drum incessantly, which he did until the perpetual rain soaked the skin-heads so completely that they would not produce a sound. Sambanza had then to chant all kinds of invocations to the rain, which he did, but without any particular effect.
She knew well what was her dignity, and never allowed it to be encroached upon. On one occasion Dr. Livingstone had presented an ox to Shinte. Manenko heard of it, and was extremely angry that such a gift should have been made. She said that, as she was the chief of the party who had brought the white men, the ox was hers, and not theirs, as long as she was in command. So she sent for the ox straightway, had it slaughtered by her own men, and then sent Shinte a leg. The latter chief seemed to think that she was justified in what she had done, took the leg, and said nothing about it.
Yet she did not forget that, although she was a chief, she was a woman, and ought therefore to perform a woman’s duties. When the party stopped for the night in some village, Manenko was accustomed to go to the huts and ask for some maize, which she ground and prepared with her own hands and brought to Dr. Livingstone, as he could not eat the ordinary country meal without being ill afterward. She was also careful to inform him of the proper mode of approaching a Balonda town or village. It is bad manners to pass on and enter a town without having first sent notice to the headman. As soon as a traveller comes within sight of the houses, he ought to halt, and send forward a messenger to state his name, and ask for permission to enter. The headman or chief then comes out, meets the stranger under a tree, just as Shinte received Dr. Livingstone, giving him a welcome, and appointing him a place where he may sleep. Before he learned this piece of etiquette, several villages had been much alarmed by the unannounced arrival of the visitors, who were in consequence looked upon with fear and suspicion.
Afterward, when they came to visit the great chief Katema, they found him quite as friendly as Shinte had been. He received them much after the same manner, being seated, and having around him a number of armed men or guards, and about thirty women behind him. In going to or coming from the place of council, he rode on the shoulders of a man appointed for the purpose, and who, through dint of long practice, performed his task with apparent ease, though he was slightly made, and Katema was a tall and powerful man. He had a great idea of his own dignity, and made a speech in which he compared himself with Matiamvo, saying that he was the great Moéne, or lord, the fellow of Matiamvo.
He was very proud of a small herd of cattle, about thirty in number, mostly white in color, and as active as antelopes. He had bred them all himself, but had no idea of utilizing them, and was quite delighted when told that they could be milked, and the milk used for food. It is strange that the Balonda are not a more pastoral people, as the country is admirably adapted for the nurture of cattle, and all those which were possessed by Katema, or even by Matiamvo himself, were in splendid condition. So wild were Katema’s cattle, that when the chief had presented the party with a cow, they were obliged to stalk and shoot it, as if it had been a buffalo. The native who shot the cow being a bad marksman, the cow was only wounded, and dashed off into the forest, together with the rest of the herd. Even the herdsman was afraid to go among them, and, after two days’ hunting, the wounded cow was at last killed by another ball.
The Balonda are not only fond of cattle, but they do their best to improve the breed. When a number of them went with Dr. Livingstone into Angola, they expressed much contemptuous wonder at the neglect both of land and of domesticated animals. They themselves are always on the look-out for better specimens than their own, and even took the trouble of carrying some large fowls all the way from Angola to Shinte’s village. When they saw that even the Portuguese settlers slaughtered little cows and heifer calves, and made no use of the milk, they at once set the white men down as an inferior race. When they heard that the flour used by these same settlers was nearly all imported from a foreign country, they were astonished at the neglect of a land so suited for agriculture as Angola. “These know nothing but buying and selling; they are not men,” was the verdict given by the so called savages.
The food of the Balonda is mostly of a vegetable character, and consists in a great measure of the manioc, or cassava, which grows in great abundance. There are two varieties of this plant, namely, the sweet and the bitter, i. e. the poisonous. The latter, however, is the quicker of growth, and consequently is chiefly cultivated. In order to prepare it for consumption, it is steeped in water for four days, when it becomes partially rotten, the skin comes off easily, and the poisonous matter is easily extracted. It is then dried in the sun, and can be pounded into a sort of meal.
When this meal is cooked, it is simply stirred into boiling water, one man holding the vessel and putting in the meal, while the other stirs it with all his might. The natives like this simple diet very much, but to an European it is simply detestable. It has no flavor except that which arises from partial decomposition, and it looks exactly like ordinary starch when ready for the laundress. It has but little nutritive power, and however much a man may contrive to eat, he is as hungry two hours afterward as if he had fasted. Dr. Livingstone compares it in appearance, taste, and odor, to potato starch made from diseased tubers. Moreover, owing to the mode of preparing it, the cooking is exceedingly imperfect, and, in consequence, its effects upon ordinary European digestions may be imagined.
The manioc plant is largely cultivated, and requires but little labor, the first planting involving nearly all the trouble. In the low-lying valleys the earth is dug with the curious Balonda hoe, which has two handles and one blade, and is scraped into parallel beds, about three feet wide and one foot in height, much resembling those in which asparagus is planted in England. In these beds pieces of the manioc stalk are planted at four feet apart. In order to save space, ground-nuts, beans, or other plants are sown between the beds, and, after the crop is gathered, the ground is cleared of weeds, and the manioc is left to nurture itself. It is fit for eating in a year or eighteen months, according to the character of the soil; but there is no necessity for digging it at once, as it may be left in the ground for three years before it becomes dry and bitter. When a root is dug, the woman cuts off two or three pieces of the stalk, puts them in the hole which she has made, and thus a new crop is begun. Not only the root is edible, but also the leaves, which are boiled and cooked as vegetables.