These pillows are many of them pretty objects, and decorated with curious patterns, the favourite one being the female breast, and resting on legs which had evidently been evolved out of the human form. [[37]]They bear a close and curious resemblance to the wooden head-rests used by the Egyptians in their tombs to support the head of the deceased, specimens of which are seen in the British Museum. They are common all over Africa, and elsewhere amongst savage tribes where special attention is paid to the decoration of the hair.
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PILLOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
A Makalanga is by nature vain, and particular about the appearance of his nudity; the ladies have fashions in beads and cloths, like our ladies at home, [[38]]and before visiting a fresh kraal our men used to love to polish themselves like mahogany, by chewing the monkey-nut and rubbing their skins with it, good-naturedly doing each other’s backs and inaccessible corners. Somehow they know what becomes them too, twisting tin ornaments, made from our meat tins, into their black hair. Just now they will have nothing but red beads with white eyes, which they thread into necklaces and various ornaments, and which look uncommonly well on their dark skins; and though it seems somewhat paradoxical to say so of naked savages, yet I consider no one has better taste in dress than they have until a hybrid civilisation is introduced amongst them.
WOODEN DOLLASSES OR DIVINING TABLETS
From many of the huts at Inyamanda were hanging [[39]]their dollasses—wooden charms, on which are drawn strange figures. Each family possesses a set of four tied together by a string. Of these four one always has a curious conventional form of a lizard carved on it; others have battle axes, diamond patterns, and so forth, invariably repeating themselves, and the purport of which I was never able to ascertain. They are common amongst all the Abantu races, and closely bound up with their occult belief in witchcraft; they are chiefly made of wood, but sometimes neat little ones of bone are found, a set of which I afterwards obtained.
BONE DOLLASSES
On the evening of the new moon they will seat themselves in a circle, and the village witch doctor will go round, tossing each man’s set of dollasses in the air, and by the way they turn up he will divine the fortune of the individual for the month that is to come.