Like many other tribes which bear, but do not deserve, the name of savages, the Waganda possess a curiously strict code of etiquette, which is so stringent on some points that an offender against it is likely to lose his life, and is sure to incur a severe penalty. If, for example, a man appears before the king with his dress tied carelessly, or if he makes a mistake in the mode of saluting, or if, in squatting before his sovereign, he allows the least portion of his limbs to be visible, he is led off to instant execution. As the fatal sign is given, the victim is seized by the royal pages, who wear a rope turban round their heads, and at the same moment all the drums and other instruments strike up, to drown his cries for mercy. He is rapidly bound with the ropes snatched hastily from the heads of the pages, dragged off, and put to death, no one daring to take the least notice while the tragedy is being enacted.
They have also a code of sumptuary laws which is enforced with the greatest severity. The skin of the serval, a kind of leopard cat, for example, may only be worn by those of royal descent. Once Captain Speke was visited by a very agreeable young man, who evidently intended to strike awe into the white man, and wore round his neck the serval-skin emblem of royal birth. The attempted deception, however, recoiled upon its author, who suffered the fate of the daw with the borrowed plumes. An officer of rank detected the imposture, had the young man seized, and challenged him to show proofs of his right to wear the emblem of royalty. As he failed to do so, he was threatened with being brought before the king, and so compounded with the chief for a fine of a hundred cows.
Heavy as the penalty was, the young man showed his wisdom by acceding to it; for if he had been brought before the king, he would assuredly have lost his life, and probably have been slowly tortured to death. One punishment to which M’tesa, the king of Uganda, seems to have been rather partial, was the gradual dismemberment of the criminal for the sake of feeding his pet vultures; and although on some occasions he orders them to be killed before they are dismembered, he sometimes omits that precaution, and the wretched beings are slowly cut to pieces with grass blades, as it is against etiquette to use knives for this purpose.
The king alone has the privilege of wearing a cock’s-comb of hair on the top of his head, the remainder being shaved off. This privilege is sometimes extended to a favorite queen or two, so that actual royalty may be at once recognized. Even the mode of sitting is carefully regulated. Only the king is allowed to sit on a chair, all his subjects being forced to place themselves on the ground. When Captains Speke and Grant visited Uganda, there was a constant struggle on this point, the travellers insisting on sitting in their arm-chairs, and the king wanting them to sit on the ground. On one occasion, when walking with M’tesa and his suite, a halt was ordered, and Captain Speke looked about for something to sit upon. The king, seeing this, and being determined not to be outdone, called a page, made him kneel on all fours, and then sat on his back. The controversy at last ended in a compromise, the travellers abandoning their chairs in the king’s presence, but sitting on bundles of grass which were quite as high.
When an inferior presents any article to his superior, he always pats and rubs it with his hands, and then strokes with it each side of his face. This is done in order to show that no witchcraft has been practised with it, as in such a case the intended evil would recoil on the donor. This ceremony is well enough when employed with articles of use or apparel; but when meat, plantains, or other articles of food are rubbed with the dirty hands and well-greased face of the donor, the recipient, if he should happen to be a white man, would be only too happy to dispense with the ceremony, and run his risk of witchcraft.
ARREST OF THE QUEEN.
(See [page 413].)
The officers of the court are required to shave off all their hair except a single cockade at the back of the head, while the pages are distinguished by two cockades, one over each temple, so that, even if they happen to be without their rope turbans, their rank and authority are at once indicated. When the king sends the pages on a message, a most picturesque sight is presented. All the commands of the king have to be done at full speed, and when ten or a dozen pages start off in a body, their dresses streaming in the air behind them, each striving to outrun the other, they look at a distance like a flight of birds rather than human beings.
Here, as in many other countries, human life, that of the king excepted, is not of the least value. On one occasion Captain Speke had given M’tesa a new rifle, with which he was much pleased. After examining it for some time, he loaded it, handed it to one of his pages, and told him to go and shoot somebody in the outer court. The page, a mere boy, took the rifle, went into the court, and in a moment the report of the rifle showed that the king’s orders had been obeyed. The urchin came back grinning with delight at the feat which he had achieved, just like a schoolboy who has shot his first sparrow, and handed back the rifle to his master. As to the unfortunate man who was fated to be the target, nothing was heard about him, the murder of a man being far too common an incident to attract notice.