At the market a stranger appeared who had ten human under-jaw bones hung on a string over his shoulder. When interrogated he professed to have killed and eaten the owners, and he showed with his knife how he had cut them up. When disgust was expressed at his recital he and others laughed.
A great fight had taken place at Muanampunda’s, and Livingstone saw the meat cut up to be cooked. The natives betrayed a shame about the matter, and said, “Go on, and let our feast alone.” They eat their foes to inspire courage. It will seem very remarkable that this custom prevails, for there is no want of food of all kinds. The country is full of it, overflowing with farinaceous products, with meat and every variety of fish, and they have stimulating luxuries in palm-toddy, tobacco or bange. With nature so lavish of her gifts, showing that cannibalism is not the result of want or starvation, it must be merely a depraved appetite that craves for meat that we call “high.”
“They are said to bury a dead body for a couple of days in the soil in a forest, and in that time, owing to the climate, it soon becomes putrid enough to regale the strongest stomachs.”
The great necessity of this people is some bond of union or national life. But there is no supreme chief in Manyuema or Balegga, and thus the tribe is disintegrated. Each head man regards himself as mologhwe or chief, however small his village, even if only four or five huts, and so is independent. This explains the fact of no political cohesion among the people. Jealousy and fear of each other among the head men are the great obstacles to their uniting for the common welfare. With no unity of interest, no concert of action, no ruler to whom all must pay allegiance, it is inevitable that offences must come, and feuds and wars will follow. Crimes against person or property cannot be punished except by revenge, reprisal, war, in which blood is shed. Enmities are thus caused between neighboring villages that last for generations, resulting in a vast amount of rapine and suffering. In this condition of mutual hostility they become the easy prey of the Arab adventurers, succumbing to their extortion and rapacity with only the feeblest resistance.
No progress or improvement is made among this tribe; they seem to have come to a permanent stand-still. The influence of intelligent and wise chiefs does not avail to start them out of the degradation into which their character and life have crystallized. Moenékuss was a sagacious ruler, ambitious to improve the condition of his people. He paid smiths to teach his sons how to work in copper and iron, but he could never inspire them with his own generous and far-seeing spirit. They could not emulate his virtues, being devoid of all magnanimity, sagacity, or ambition.
The disease called safura, the result of clay or earth eating, is quite common among the Manyuema. Though slaves are more addicted to this habit, yet it is not confined to them. They do not eat clay in order to end their lives and their sufferings. The Manyuema women eat it when pregnant, and many who do not lack food will form this fatal appetite. The disease shows itself in swollen feet, loss of flesh, and haggard face. The victim walks with great difficulty on account of shortness of breath and weakness, and yet persists in eating till death terminates his life. Only by the most powerful drastics and entire abstinence from clay-eating can a cure be effected after one has become diseased with safura.
The Manyuema country is unhealthy, not so much from fevers as from a general prostration caused by the damp, cold, and indigestion. This debility is ascribed by some to the maize, which is the common food, producing weakness of the bowels or choleraic purging. Ulcers form on any part of the body that is abraded, and they are like a spreading fungus, for the matter adhering to any part of the body forms a fresh centre of propagation. These ulcers will eat very rapidly if not allowed quiet. They are exceedingly difficult of healing, eating into the bone, especially on the shins. Many slaves die of them. Rheumatism is frequent, and many of the natives die of it. Tape-worm is common, and no remedy is known to the Arabs or natives.
One of the animals found in Manyuema is so remarkable as to require some special notice. It is undoubtedly a new species of the chimpanzee, and not the gorilla. The stuffed specimen of the latter in the British Museum was seen by Susi and Chuma, Livingstone’s men, and they, familiar with the sight of sokos, pronounced them unlike the gorilla, yet as large and as strong.
The description, by Livingstone, of this animal is so graphic and interesting that we give it below in full:—“They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady its body. When thus seen the soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ‘dear,’ but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentleman in him.
“Other animals, especially the antelopes, are graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion. The natives also are well-made, lithe, and comely to behold, but the soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil.