Effigies of men made of wood may often be seen in Manyuema. Some are of clay, and cone-like, with a small hole in the top. They are called Bathata (fathers or ancients), and the name of each is carefully preserved. Ancient or later chiefs are thus kept in remembrance. The natives are very careful to have the exact pronunciation of the name. On certain occasions goat’s flesh is offered to them by the old men. No young person and no women are permitted to partake. The flesh of the parrot, though often eaten by old men, is forbidden to young men, with the belief that if eaten by them their children will have the waddling gait of this bird.
The banks of the Lualaba are thickly peopled. One of the best methods of judging in regard to the number of the inhabitants is a visit to the chitoka or market. This is attended principally by women. They hold market one day, and then have an interval of three days, going to other markets in other places. All prefer to buy and sell in the market rather than elsewhere. If one says, “Come, sell me that fowl or cloth,” the answer is, “Come to the chitoka,” or market-place. This market is an important and cherished institution in Manyuema. The large numbers inspire confidence, and also help to maintain or enforce justice between the traffickers. “To-day,” adds Livingstone, “the market contained over a thousand people carrying earthen pots and cassava, grass-cloth, fishes, and fowls. They were alarmed at my coming among them, and were ready to flee. Many stood afar off in suspicion.” At another time he counted over seven hundred passing his hut on their way to market. It is the supreme pleasure of these women to haggle and joke, to laugh and chaffer. The sight of the throng is a peculiar one: women, some old, some young and beautiful, are mingled together.
All chiefs claim the privilege of shaking hands; that is, they touch the hand held out with their palm, then clap two hands together, then touch again and clap again, and the ceremony is ended.
Livingstone gives this description of market-day in Manyuema: “The market is a busy scene; every one is in dead earnest; little time is lost in friendly greetings. Venders of fish run along with potsherds full of snails or small fishes, or young Clarias capensis, smoke-dried and spitted on twigs, or other relishes, to exchange for cassava-roots, dried after being steeped about three days in water; potatoes, vegetables or grain, bananas, flour, palm-oil, fowls, salt, pepper. Each is intensely eager to barter food for relishes, and makes strong assertions as to the goodness or badness of everything; the sweat stands in beads on their faces; cocks crow briskly even when strung over the shoulder, with their heads hanging down, and pigs squeal; iron knobs, drawn out at each end to show the goodness of the metal, are exchanged for cloth of the muabe-palm. They have a large funnel of basket-work below the vessel holding the wares, and slip the goods down, if they are not to be seen.
“They deal fairly, and when differences arise they are easily settled by the men interfering or pointing to me; they appeal to each other and have a strong sense of natural justice. With so much food changing hands among the three thousand attendants, much benefit is derived. Some come from twenty to twenty-five miles. The men flaunt about in gaudy-colored lambas of many-folded kilts; the women work hardest; the potters slap and ring their earthenware all around, to show that there is not a single flaw in them. I bought two finely-shaped earthen bottles of porous earthenware, to hold a gallon each, for one string of beads. The women carry huge loads of them in their funnels above the baskets strapped to the shoulders and foreheads, and their hands are full besides. The roundness of the vessels is wonderful, seeing no machine is used. No slave could be induced to carry half so much as they do willingly. It is a scene of the finest natural acting imaginable,—the eagerness with which all sorts of assertions are made; the earnestness with which, apparently, all creatures above, around, and beneath are called on to attest the truth of what they allege; and then the intense surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted, wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive to need interpretation.
“Dugumbé’s horde tried to domineer over these market-women. ‘I shall buy that,’ said one. ‘These are mine,’ said another. ‘No one must touch these but me,’ said a third. They soon learned, however, that they could not monopolize nor coerce, but must deal fairly. These women are very clever traders, stand by each other, and will not submit to nor allow overreaching by any one.”
But this cheerful scene of eager and active life was doomed to be darkened by a dreadful deed of bloodshed and horror. We leave Livingstone to narrate in his graphic way the story of this merciless and unpardonable massacre of unoffending women:—
“It was a hot and sultry day, and when I went into the market I saw Adie and Manilla and three of the men who had lately come with Dugumbé. I was surprised to see these three with their guns, and felt inclined to reprove them, as one of my men did, for bringing weapons into the market; but I attributed it to their ignorance. It being very hot I was walking away to go out of the market, when I saw one of the fellows haggling about a fowl and seizing hold of it. Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun. Crowds dashed off from the place and threw down their wares in confusion and ran. At the same time that the three opened fire on the mass of people near the upper end of the market-place, volleys were discharged from a party down near the creek on the panic-stricken women who dashed at the canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek. The men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too small for so many. Men and women, wounded by the balls, poured into them and leaped and scrambled into the water, shrieking. A long line of heads in the river showed that great numbers struck out for an island a full mile off. In going toward it they had put the left shoulder to the current of about two miles an hour. If they had struck away diagonally to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land; as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of those that would inevitably perish.
“Shot after shot continued to be fired on the helpless and perishing. Some of the long line of heads disappeared quietly, while other poor creatures threw their arms high, as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank. One canoe took in as many as it could hold, and all paddled with hands and arms; three canoes, got out in haste, picked up sinking friends until all went down together and disappeared. One man in a long canoe, which could have held forty or fifty, had clearly lost his head; he had been out in the stream before the massacre began, and now paddled up the river nowhere, and never looked to the drowning. By and by all the heads disappeared; some had turned down stream toward the bank and disappeared. Dugumbé put people into one of the deserted vessels to save those in the water, and rescued twenty-one; but one woman refused to be taken on board, thinking that she was to be made a slave: she preferred the chance of life by swimming, to the lot of a slave. The Bagenya women are experts in the water, as they are accustomed to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have escaped; but Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life at between three hundred and thirty and four hundred people. The shooting parties near the canoes were so reckless they killed two of their own people; and a Banyamwezi follower who got into a deserted canoe to plunder, fell into the water, went down, then came up again, and down to rise no more.
“My first impulse was to pistol the murderers, but Dugumbé protested against my getting into a blood-feud, and I was thankful afterward that I took his advice.