Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

A DIABOLO PLAYER ON THE MAKONDE PLATEAU

Another man, a muscular fellow of middle height, seemed to be a popular all-round comedian. He first showed himself a skilled contortionist—in fact, he might have appeared without hesitation in any European circus. He next gave an equally masterly performance on the swinging trapeze, four strong men holding up a long pole which served as the axis of his evolutions. Finally, he distinguished himself as a clown. In accordance with the mental constitution of the race, however, the comic effect was produced, not so much by facial expression as by his attitudes and the movements of his legs, as will be seen by the cinematograph records I took of his performance. To complete the proof of his versatility, he appeared in the second part of the programme as the hero of a pantomime. This was a “problem play” of sorts,—the husband a blockhead, the wife (played as in the classic drama of antiquity, by a man) an artful coquette,—the lover, a Don Juan, approved in all the arts of seduction. The foundation of the drama, as will be seen, is so far cosmopolitan, but the naturalness and simplicity with which all the incidents of actual life took place on the stage was genuinely primitive and African, and equally African was the imperturbable gravity of the public, who obviously followed the progress of the action with the deepest interest. There was no silly laughter at the wrong time; no one made audible comments.

DIABOLO

If anyone is still inclined to doubt that the original and uncontaminated culture of our primitive peoples is rapidly perishing, I would request him to consider the following.

Again it is a lively afternoon: dancing, singing, and games going on everywhere. I am fully occupied, as usual, but all at once, my attention is directed to a figure apparently pursuing an individual activity by itself. The arms move rhythmically up and down, holding two sticks about half-a-yard in length, united by a string of twisted bark. Suddenly the arms are abruptly thrown apart, the right being stretched upward, the left spread sideways, and like a bomb a still unrecognisable object descends out of the air, is cleverly caught on the string, and runs like a frightened weasel backwards and forwards between the ends of the sticks. Immediately afterwards it has again vanished in the air, but returns repentant to its owner, and the process continues. I feel that I have somewhere seen this before, and rack my brain for some time—at last I have it. This is no other than the game of diabolo, which as we read in the German papers, is pursued with such enthusiasm in England and other countries where games are the rage. When I left home, it was still unknown to my compatriots, who, in this as in other matters, limp slowly but steadily after the rest of the world; but I venture to prognosticate that it will begin to flourish among us when other nations have dropped it as an obsolete fashion. Now, too, I can recall a picture of the game seen in a shop-window at Leipzig, and if I compare my recollection of this with the action of the man before me, I must confess that this solution of the technical problem could not be bettered. The narrow wedge-shaped notch cut all round the convex surface of the wooden cylinder gives free play to the string without appreciably diminishing the weight of the whole.[^[69]]

Had I not been aware that the rain is the only cause for the daily falling off in the number of my visitors, I should here, too, have reason to consider myself a mighty magician; but, as it is, the people tell me frankly enough that it is now time to attend to their fields. To be candid, the leisure thus obtained is not at all unwelcome. I am, indeed, satisfied, more than satisfied, and have several times caught myself passing over with indifference the most interesting phenomena in the life of the people. There are limits to the receptive power of the human mind, and when overtaxed, as mine has recently been, it altogether refuses to take in further impressions.

Only Ningachi and his school never fail to excite my interest. Our baraza is the second house on the south side of the boma, beginning from the east. The first is the alleged abode of some Baharia; but in reality it seems to be a large harem, for women’s voices keep up an incessant giggling and chattering there. In the third house lives His Excellency the Secretary of State to the Viceroy, in other words the officially appointed clerk to the Wali. He is a Swahili from Dar es Salam, and an intimate friend of Moritz’s, but his relations with the pillar of my migratory household have not prevented my giving the rascal a good dressing down. For some time after my arrival, I was unable to get a proper night’s rest, on account of the perpetual crying of a baby, evidently in pain, which was audible from somewhere close at hand. Before long, I had traced it to its source and cited father, mother and son to appear in my consulting-room. Both parents, on examination, proved to be thoroughly healthy and as fat as butter; the child, about a year old, was likewise round as a ball, but covered from head to foot with sores in consequence of the most disgraceful neglect. And this man can read and write, and is, therefore, in the eyes of statisticians a fully accredited representative of civilization, and looks down with abysmal contempt on those who do not, like himself, lounge about in white shirt and embroidered cap.

But now as to the fourth house. On the first morning, I saw, without understanding the meaning of the sight, some six or eight half-grown boys assembled in front of it about half-past six. My first thought was that they were going to play, and, as I watched them, they arranged themselves in Indian file in the order of their height. They were then joined by a man in a white shirt, and, at a sign from him, vanished, one after another, in the same order, under the overhanging eaves. A sound reached my ear soon after, which, it is true, was in itself nothing extraordinary; a deep voice reciting words immediately taken up by a chorus of high trebles,—but something in the quality of the utterance induced me to approach within earshot without knowing what attracted me. Standing at a distance of a few feet from the house, I became aware that I was actually listening to German words. An elementary lesson in arithmetic was taking place. “Und das ist eins—and that is one,” began Ningachi, and the class echoed his words. Then followed, in like manner, “and that is two,” “and that is three,” and so on, up to thirty-one, which appeared to be the limit of the teacher’s arithmetical knowledge, as far as numeration is concerned, for he then proceeded to exercises in addition and subtraction. Having listened to these lessons on many successive mornings, I have reluctantly been forced to the conclusion that they are a mere mechanical drill. The pupils are at once embarrassed if asked to point out at random any figure in the series so neatly written out on the blackboard by their teacher, and in the sums they appear to be hopelessly at sea. “Two minus eight is six,” is a comparatively venial error. Ningachi himself does not feel very happy when going through this routine, but says that he was taught so in the Government School at Mikindani, and is bound to teach in the same way himself. It was no great consolation to the honest fellow to hear that there are cramming establishments elsewhere.