MAKUA WOMAN WITH KELOIDS ON BACK
The patterns are cut by a professional—a fundi, who makes numerous small incisions, rubs in some sort of powder, and cuts the same place again and again till the skin heals in a raised scar.
It is essential that the director of an ethnographical museum should be a good man of business, even in Europe; but the same man, if he would collect successfully in Africa, must be more acute, patient, and unscrupulous in bargaining than any Armenian. I have already had occasion to mention the unexpected difficulties met with in this direction, and need not, therefore, express my feelings now, but the Makonde are certainly not disposed to make my task an easy one. The black crowd is moving up in close order.
“Well, what have you got?” asks the collector affably enough. By way of answer a worn-out wooden spoon is put into his hand, probably fished out of the rubbish-heap, as being quite good enough for the mzungu.
“Mshenzi!—you heathen! You may just take your treasure back again. Let me see what else you have. Where is your mask?”
“I have none, sir?”
“Oh! indeed—then I will give you time to look for it. Come back to-morrow, and mind you bring your mdimu, and don’t forget your snuff-boxes.”
MAKUA WOMEN WITH KELOIDS
This scene would be repeated a dozen times or more in the course of an afternoon; in some cases the penitential pilgrimage was efficacious, in others the men never turned up again. Since noticing this we have adopted a different procedure, and now simply render the village headman responsible for the production of the articles. This makes matters quite easy, and every evening, Knudsen, the boys, and the more intelligent of the carriers have their hands full making the inventory and packing the day’s purchases.