“One day Mokwete’s son went into the bush, and while there he heard the sound of someone coming, so he hid himself. In a little time a man arrived and threw something with a thud to the ground, and then he heard a voice say: ‘Wives of Mokwete, wives of Mokwete, when your husband comes with meat you must not eat it; if you do, you will die.’
“The lad, on looking out, saw that it was his father who was deceiving his mothers, and keeping him and the other children from having their proper share of the meat. He hurried home and told his mothers all that he had seen and heard, but they disputed his word. However, one of them went to look, and saw that it was really the husband who had been telling them not to eat the meat. She went and told the others, and they decided to run away.
“While Mokwete was out hunting one day, his wives broke their saucepans, put out their fires and fled; and upon reaching their various towns they told their families why they had left their husband—on account of his greediness—and everybody justified them.”
Now Mokwete would return to a fireless hearth, an empty village, and no one to cook for him and wait on him. And I have heard the folk snap their fingers, and say: “Mokwete was well punished,” and there was no one to pity him. “When a man buys a fish or a piece of meat he should share it with the wife who cooks it for him; and when he kills an animal he should share it with all his wives.” The children received their share of meat or fish through their mothers.
While the hearth is the centre of a woman’s family life, for her children (if she is fortunate enough to have any) will gather around it at sundown to watch the bubbling saucepans on the fire, and her husband may occasionally be found there playing with his youngsters, or chatting to his wife, yet the dance is the real centre and expression of the social life of the village. Is there a death? Then relatives and friends will show their sympathy, not by sitting around talking over the good qualities of the departed, but by dancing their best and chanting the praises of him who has so lately gone to that mysterious longa, or nether regions, where all spirits find their home for a time. And standing round the funeral dances will be the whole village, applauding the agile or chaffing the awkward. Is there a marriage? Then relatives and boon companions of the old bachelor days are invited, and after the feast a dance is arranged, and although some of the legs will be unsteady, through too much sugar-cane wine, yet all present, both dancers and spectators, will be in a jovial mood.
On moonlight nights the drums will be brought out, reed rattles, ferret bells, and anything else that will tinkle, will be tied around the ankles, the men and women will form lines opposite each other, and for hours the dancers will jump, twist, and wriggle to and fro in the most approved fashion to the tap, tap, or boom, boom of the rhythmic drum. All distinctions are forgotten for the time being. The skilled and the unskilled, the poor and the rich, the slave and the free, are all mixed in indistinguishable confusion. It is the best dancer, be he poor and a slave, who is the cynosure of all eyes and the object of all their praises. And as the dance proceeds the dancers sing in unison some recitative song, while the onlookers keep time to song and dance by clapping their hands and swaying their bodies to and fro.
The greedy man, the coward, the thief, the scamp who disregards the feelings of others and rides rough-shod over the social and communal customs, the man who is accused of witchcraft and refuses to take the ordeal, and the incestuous, are all put into the songs which are sung at these village dances; and there is no more powerful factor in influencing the native to good and evil, inciting him to reckless bravery, or deterring him from committing some foolish deed, than to put his name into an impromptu song at a village dance. The paragraph in our newspaper is read by comparatively few people, and only a small percentage of those who read it know the person mentioned; but the song is sung, night after night, by all the village—the very neighbours of the one thus held up to ridicule or honour. The village song inspires the daring deeds in time of war, it brands and shames the cowards, it considerably restrains the rascals, and maddens to the verge of suicide the fool who so badly treats his wives that they run away and leave him a cold hearth by which to sit.
CHAPTER VIII
MARRIAGE AND CHILD BEARING
Young girls betrothed—The bespoke money—Marriage money—Dressing the new wife—A large looking-glass—A woman can choose her husband—Divorce—No great desire for children—Storage for baby spirits—Treatment of twins—Snake omen—Woman’s totem—The mother-in-law—Polygamy and its results—Monogamy and its results—Better morality—More children—Purer women—Better home-life.