“Where the southeast rains abound, the Manyuema place the back side of their houses to this quarter, and protect the walls by carrying the low roof considerably below the top of the walls. These clay walls will last for ages, and men often return after long years of absence to restore the portions that may have been washed away. Each housewife has from twenty-five to thirty earthen pots strung to the ceiling by neat, cord-swinging trestles, and often as many neatly-made baskets hung up in the same way, filled with fire-wood.”
The women are good traders, and ready for a bargain, bringing loads of provisions to exchange for beads. They are very strong, one basket three feet high being a woman’s load. They wear no dress, and their hair is plaited in the form of a basket behind. It is first rolled into a very large coil, then wound around something till it is eight or ten inches long, projecting from the back of the head.
The Manyuema buy their wives from each other. A pretty girl costs ten goats. When brought to the husband’s house, the new wife stays five days, then goes back and remains five days at home. The husband then goes for her again, and she remains with him afterward.
The remark is a common one among the Arabs, “If we had Manyuema wives, what beautiful children we should beget.” The men are usually handsome, and the women many of them are beautiful,—hands and feet, limbs and forms, perfect in shape, and the color light-brown. The women dress in a kilt of many folds of gaudy lambas. The orifices of the nose are widened by snuff-taking. Those addicted to the habit push the snuff as far up as possible with finger and thumb. The only filing of the teeth is a small space between the two upper front teeth. Yet with these disfigurements, Livingstone adds, “I would back a company of Manyuema men to be far superior in shape of head and generally in physical form too, against the whole Anthropological Society.”
Among all the Manyuema the rite of circumcision is performed upon the male children. If a head man’s son is to be operated on, an experiment is first made on a slave. Certain times of the year are regarded as unfavorable. If the trial prove successful, they go into the forest, beat drums, and have a feast. Unlike all other Africans they do not hesitate to speak about the rite even in the presence of women.
The inquiry very naturally arises, Whence came this custom? It seems to link this tribe, but lately unknown by all civilized peoples, dwelling in the interior of the great African continent, to a memorable people of whom this rite is the distinguishing characteristic. But, doubtless, somewhere and somehow along the centuries, this ancient rite of the Jewish people was communicated to this tribe.
Children in Manyuema do not creep, as those in civilized lands on their knees, but begin by putting forward one foot and using one knee; they will use both feet and both hands, but never both knees. An Arab child will do the same, never creeping, but getting up on both feet and holding on till he can walk.
The country swarms with villages. At some places the people are civil and generous, but at others, where the palm-trees flourish and palm-toddy is abundant, the people are consequently degraded and disagreeable, often inclined to fight on account of real or imaginary offences.
The Manyuema will not buy slaves, except females to make wives of them. They prefer to let their ivory rot than exchange it with the Arab traders for male slaves, who are generally criminals.
Iron bracelets are the usual medium of exchange and coarse beads and cowries. Copper is much more highly prized, and for a bracelet of this metal three fowls and three and a half baskets of maize are given.