Kabowe kabowe ku meso; Namuki kabowe ku meso. (1)
Wambunga kabowe ku meso; Namuki kabowe ku meso.
Ki! kabowe ku meso; Wamwera kabowe ku meso.
Ki! kabowe ku meso; Wakumbwa kabowe ku meso.
(1) We shoot with our eyes—we shoot the Namuki with our eyes,
The Wambunga, we shoot them with our eyes—the Namuki, we shoot them with our eyes;
Bang! we shoot with our eyes—the Wamwera, we shoot them with our eyes;
Bang! we shoot with our eyes—the Wakumbwa—we shoot them with our eyes.
To judge by the words of this song, the Wanyamwezi must be exceedingly loyal to the German Government, for they march against all the rebellious southern tribes in turn and annihilate them. The Namuki are identical with the Majimaji, the insurgents of 1905–6. The time is a frantic recitative which makes a reproduction in our notation impossible. The exclamation “ki” conveys, according to the unanimous testimony of Pesa mbili and the most intelligent among his friends, the expression of the force with which the Rugaruga (the auxiliaries) smash the skulls of the wounded enemy, even though it should have to be done with a stamp of the heel. At every repetition of the ki the singers stamp on the ground so that it quivers—so completely can these peaceable Northerners throw themselves into all the horrors of the late rising; one can almost hear the skulls crash at every ki. This song of defiance is certainly not an original composition of my people’s, but has been borrowed by them from some of their tribesmen who served in the last campaign as Rugaruga and are now lounging about Lindi out of work. I have been obliged to engage some of these men as carriers for the march to Masasi; they are in their whole behaviour much more decided and defiant than my gentle grown-up children from Dar es Salam, so that I shall be glad to get rid of them when my destination is reached. I think the above song must belong to them.
Now that I am on the subject I will reproduce a march of the Sudanese soldiers which in its meaning closely resembles the one just given. This was sung into the phonograph for me by Sol (Sergeant-Major) Achmed Bar Shemba and a couple of divisions from the third company of the Field Force by order of that excellent African veteran, Captain Seyfried. The little non-com. stood like a bronze statue in front of the machine, and the gaunt brown warriors from Darfur and Kordofan closed up behind him, as if they had been on the drill-ground, in two ranks, each man accurately behind the one in front. We had no little trouble in making them take up the wedge formation necessary to produce the desired effect. The song runs thus:—