[45]. Called in Chinganja chitedzi; it is the plant known as “cowage.”—[Tr.]
[46]. These are a small kind of turnip, the size of a large radish, grown at and near Teltow, a Prussian town on the line between Berlin and Potsdam.—[Tr.]
[47]. The Persians who had settled at Lamu in the tenth century.—[Tr.]
[48]. It has sometimes been thought that the Ma in “Makua” and “Makonde” is a prefix, as in “Matabele,” “Mashona,” etc. It appears, however, to be an integral part of the word, and the correct plural is therefore Wamakua, Wamakonde.—[Tr.]
[49]. The author seems to have overlooked the fact that the “short, woolly crop” is the result of regular shaving. The shock heads of, e.g., the Alolo (Alomwe) or other “bush people” strike the eye at once among the Yaos or Anyanja, and these people (who are a branch of the Makua) frequently wear the hair twisted into long strings. The sentence about washing, as it stands, is somewhat too sweeping. It only applies to districts where water is scarce—as, indeed, appears from other passages in the book.—[Tr.]
[50]. “This kind of lock and key,” says the late Rev. D. C. Scott (Cyclopædic Dictionary of the Mang’anja Language, s.v., mfungulo), “is common among the Ambo branch of the Mang’anja” (living between the Ruo junction and the sea), “and is a wooden key about a foot long, with three teeth; it is passed in between the wall-post and upright door-stick (kapambi) inside, and the teeth fit into notches and lift the bolts; only the Ambo can make them and they lock their door thus behind them, carrying the key with them when they go to any short distance from their house.” (See also svv. Funga and Mtengo: “mitengo ya Ambo, the Ambos’ stick keys.”) The ordinary method of fastening the door (chitseko) is by cross-bars, slipped in between the door and the side posts. The following passage from Mr. Charles Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta seems to show that this Ambo form of lock and key must have been borrowed, directly or indirectly, from the Arab settlers on the coast—doubtless at a remote period, as it seems to be no longer in use among the latter. “The fastening, as in all Arabic places, is a wooden lock; the bolt is detained by little pegs falling from above into apposite holes, the key is a wooden stele, some have them of metal, with teeth to match the holes of the lock, the key put in under, you strike up the pegs and the slot may be withdrawn” (Vol. I, p. 143).—[Tr.]
[51]. Both Yaos and Anyanja carry sheath-knives, either stuck in the waist-cloth or hung to a cross-belt passing over the right shoulder, or (if of small size) on a string round the neck or left arm.—[Tr.]
[52]. The reference is to p. [315] where the chimbandi ceremony (observed when a young wife is expecting her first child) is described. Dr. Weule does not mention the fact of bark-cloth being worn by the girls at the unyago mysteries he has previously described—indeed, he says expressly that, at Nuchi (p. [231], and apparently also at Akuchikomu’s, p. [222]) they were dressed in new, bright-coloured calicoes. But he appears to have witnessed only the closing ceremony. Usually, if not always, bark-cloth is worn during the weeks spent in the bush. This was certainly the case among the Yaos of the Shire Highlands, fourteen or fifteen years ago, and probably is so still. “The unyago [at one of the Ndirande villages near Blantyre] was just over, and [two of the missionaries] met the girls coming away from it all freshly anointed and dripping with oil. They found the masasa (booths or huts) built round three sides of a square, divided into little compartments, where the girls sleep. They are not allowed outside the place till the thing is over, and they wear bark-cloth. In the middle of the square were traces of pots having been made, and ufa (flour) pounded.... The girls go through symbolic performances of all their married duties,—pretend to sow maize, hoe it, gather it, bring it home, etc.—pounding, sweeping, fetching water, cooking, making pots, etc., are all gone through.”—(MS. note, September 26th and 27th, 1894.)—[Tr.]
[53]. A native is not likely to tell a stranger, above all a European, the names by which he is known at home. The name by which he is known to his employer is therefore most probably a nickname, or one assumed by himself for the occasion.—[Tr.]
[54]. It is not always easy to draw the line between games and dances; but there is certainly no lack of the former. Particulars of games played by a number of children are given in Scott, Cyclopædic Dictionary of the Mang’anja Language, s.vv. Masewero and Sewera.—[Tr.]