There is much more of the old spirit of the race about the Mondoro. He gave us the names of three generations of ’Mtokos who had ruled here before his brother—a rare instance of pedigree in this country; but the royal residence, Lutzi, is a miserable place, consisting of two little kraals crowning the two summits of a bare granite hill. One tree of sickly growth stood there, decorated, for what reason I could not discover, with part of a woman’s bark dress, grass roots, hair, and other oddments. Doubtless they were luck signs too, but we could gain no information on this point. Evidence of festivities was also present in the shape of drums and long chains of grass cases for beads, which they hang round their calves to rattle at the dances. On a hill opposite stood a single hut, where an outlaw had lived till quite recently, they told us.
Before we took our leave the Mondoro presented us with a goat, regretting that, owing to the bad times, he could not give us a handsomer present. We now understood several points which had been a mystery to us before—the constant and rather deferential way in which the ’Mtoko had spoken of his uncle, and the reason why, in the first instance, our guides had told us that the ’Mtoko dwelt at Lutzi. Also we now [[331]]seemed thoroughly to grasp the strange cult of the lion god, a cult probably carrying us back to the far-distant ages, when the Arabian tribes invented the system of totems, and called the stars by their names.[2]
Monteiro and Gamitto, two Portuguese travellers, who went to Cazembe in 1831–32, throw some light on the worship of the lion. They relate how the negroes near the Zambesi, ‘being Munyaes, subjects of Monomatapa, revere royal lions of great corpulence as containing the souls of their ancestors. When the Munyaes discover the lions eating their prey, they go on their knees at a distance, and creep, clapping their hands and begging them with humility to remember their slaves, who are hungry, and that when they were men they were always generous; so that the lions may retire and the negroes profit by what they leave behind.’ This is again another link connecting these people with the Zambesi and lands farther north. We were also told a story of how, during the old ’Mtokos’ struggles with the Portuguese, lions had been seen to attack the enemy, whilst they left the natives alone. Doubtless a faith of this kind is very conducive to valour, and may account for the superiority of the men of ’Mtoko over their neighbours.
The two above-quoted Portuguese travellers mention many Zimbabwes on their route northwards to Cazembe, and in another part of their work they often make mention of the Monomatapa, especially [[332]]the Monomatapa of Chidima, whom they speak of as ‘a much decayed person, but still respectable.’ His territory commences at Tete and goes on to Zumbo, ‘and when one dies all make civil war, until one gets possession, and sends to the governor of Tete to confirm his title.’
BUSHMAN DRAWING NEAR ’MTOKO’S KRAAL
From what I can make out of the older Portuguese accounts, the district of Chidima was formerly in the mountains to the north of ’Mtoko’s. This was the district where the famous silver mines were supposed to be, in searching for which several Portuguese expeditions came to grief. In fact, it would appear that ’Mtoko, Mangwendi, Makoni, and the chiefs in this part of the country are the modern representatives of the broken-up Monomatapa empire, who, fortunate in the possession of a rugged and mountainous country, escaped the visitation of the Zulu hordes, who on their way southwards probably passed by the more open high plateau of Mashonaland. [[333]]
BUSHMAN DRAWING NEAR ’MTOKO’S KRAAL
