Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

A MAN OF THE MWERA TRIBE AND A YAO

Being thus cut off from surrounding tribes, the south-east—i.e., the Makonde Plateau, the Lukuledi Valley north of it, and the wide plain to the west of these highlands—forms a compact, well-defined whole, an ideal sphere of work for one who, like myself, has only a limited time at his disposal, but wishes the work done in this time to be as far as possible complete. The Wamwera, whom I had in view in the first instance, have had, to my great regret, to be postponed for the present. I left Lindi on July 11th, with the Imperial District Commissioner, Mr. Ewerbeck. Ngurumahamba, the first noticeable place on the Lukuledi road, still bears the impress of the Coast—there is even a stone house among the huts of the Waswahili; but on the second day we reach the Yao tribe at Mtua. Here we first come in touch with the far interior, for these are the advance guard of the great migration which brought this vigorous and energetic race about the middle of the last century from its old home south-east of Lake Nyasa towards the shores of the Indian Ocean, and which is still going on. As to the way in which these migrations are accomplished, we are apt to be misled by the picture—no doubt a very incorrect one—which has remained in our minds from our school-days, in connection with the migration par excellence—the great westward movement of our own forefathers. We think of men, horses, and waggons, a dense, compact wave of people, rolling on slowly but irresistibly across the countries lying in its track. Here we find nothing of the sort. It is true that these Mtua Yaos are not typical of their tribe in this respect, as they were rescued from the Wangoni, further north, on the eastern shore of Nyasa, about ten years ago by Captain Engelhardt, and transferred to this settlement. But otherwise the immigration of foreign (though still African) elements takes place, here in the south, quietly and almost imperceptibly—a band, a horde, a group of families, sometimes, but not always, under the command of a chief, appears one fine day, hoes a piece of land at a suitable place in the pori, builds a few airy huts, and the immigration is complete. Conflicts, more or less sanguinary, between the aborigines and the intruders may have occurred—may even have been the rule—in former times; nothing of the kind seems to happen to-day. Whether the native has become more tolerant, or the firm hand of the German Government, to whom every accession of population must be welcome, has produced a change in his views, I am compelled to leave undecided.

In outward appearance these Yaos can scarcely be distinguished from the Swahilis of the coast. The women are dressed in precisely the same kind of kanga (calico printed in brightly-coloured patterns, and manufactured in Holland), as the Coast women, though not so neatly and fashionably as the girls at Dar es Salam, where the patterns in vogue change faster than even at Paris. They also wear the same coquettish little pin in the left nostril as the Coast ladies. Of Indian origin, this kipini, called chipini in Yao, has conquered the whole east coast of Africa, and is spreading, as a symbol of higher culture and refinement, among the more progressive tribes of the interior. In its simplest form a mere cylinder of pith, the better specimens are made—according to the means of the wearer—of ebony, tin, or silver. The ebony pins are almost always very tastefully inlaid with tin. To our notions, the chipini hardly beautifies the human countenance; but once the beholder is accustomed to its effect, it becomes quite pretty and attractive, lending a coquettish touch to the brown face it adorns.

RUINS OF NYANGAO MISSION STATION

The more distant hinterland inhabited by the Wamwera contrasts very unfavourably with the well-cultivated zone near the coast. The condition of Nyangao, the Benedictine Mission station, is a symptom of all the misery which the rebellion so short-sightedly conjured up by the natives has brought on this part of Africa. Up to the summer of 1905, the Fathers and Sisters here were peacefully engaged in their work of evangelizing and teaching, when the poison of the majimaji (magic water) idea spread to the Rondo Plateau and the central Lukuledi Valley. Before the unsuspicious missionaries had even any thought of coming disaster, it was already upon them. After fighting desperately for their lives, and losing one of the Sisters, the whole staff had to fly, and all the extensive buildings were destroyed by the rebels. The present state of Nyangao is shown in the accompanying photograph. Three of the Fathers (whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making on board the Prinzregent), have ventured back to their old station, and, living in the house formerly occupied by the Sisters, surrounded by heaps of ruins, have courageously and indefatigably taken up their work once more.

The Majimaji rebellion still forms the principal topic of conversation at native camp-fires, though the Lindi District has long been at peace again. Its origin belongs to the most interesting phenomena in military history, showing, as it does, the general and almost instantaneous amalgamation of the severed fragments of a race under the influence of a superstitious notion, once it has gained a hold and welded them into a unit animated by a common and fervid enthusiasm. So far as one can gather at present, the idea underlying the rising was that of shaking off the white man’s yoke by means of a concerted effort on the part of the whole native population. Without dawa, i.e., charms of some sort, such a rising would have been difficult, if not impossible to bring about, and thus the instigators of this disastrous war had recourse to the dawa of the “magic water.” As to this, several versions are current. According to one, the real ringleader was a man living near the Pangani Rapids on the Rufiji, who taught that he was commissioned by the Almighty, and communicated with Him by means of a serpent which had its abode in the river. This serpent had told him to make all the men drink the water of the hot springs at Kimambare, which would give them strength and courage to drive the Germans into the sea, and at the same time render them invulnerable to European bullets.

The other version current in Usagara, in the north of the Colony, says nothing of the serpent or the hot water, but states that the sorcerers began by ordering large beer-drinkings in every village. When the pombe had produced its effect, the villagers were initiated into the conspiracy, and received their dawa, of whose composition no details are given, but which, in this case also, was supposed to possess the power of making them invulnerable, so that the bullets of the Germans would simply be changed into water as soon as they left the rifle-barrel. The Majimaji soon discovered, in the course of numerous battles that this was not the case, but nevertheless, the fanaticism of these natives, who, under a murderous fire, charged up to within a spear’s length of the machine-guns—the bumbum, as they call them—is truly astonishing.

From the coast to a little beyond Nyangao the character of the vegetation is essentially different from that which we find farther west. The greater part of the road (the barabara, in the carriers’ jargon, that is to say, the path cut to the regulation width on which all the long-distance traffic takes place) runs as far as Nyangao through thick scrub from 10 to 15 feet high, from which rise here and there single trees of twice or three times that height. Several times in the course of the day’s march the traveller comes across large open spaces in the bush on either side of the path. It is clear from the absence of underwood and the presence of charred stumps that this is old cultivated ground—no doubt the sites of former villages. But where are the huts and where the people who once hoed their gardens here? Here we find a typical touch of African history, more especially in recent times, when its primitive conditions have been modified by the modern plantation system with its demand for labour and the necessity for a native military force. Originally and in himself the African is by no means shy, on the contrary, he is inquisitive and fully alive to the attractions of town life and social intercourse. But he cannot stand having his private affairs interfered with. Every caravan of inland natives on their way to the coast, whether to sell their supplies of wax, tobacco or what not, or to engage themselves as labourers to some European, considered that they had a natural right to expect food and drink from the villagers along their route. Even the caravan of a white man is apt to make the same sort of demands on the villagers. How often have I seen my men scatter at every halt, to ask for some service or other—perhaps merely the loan of a gourd dipper—at one or other of the straggling huts, which may be half-a-mile apart. However good-natured and obliging the native may be, he cannot put up with an indefinite continuance of such disturbances to the quiet of his home life, and therefore prefers to pull down his huts and build new ones in the bush at a distance from the main road, where they can only be reached by narrow side paths.

Anthropologically speaking, one might take the Wamwera for Indians, such is the lustrous copper tone of their skins. At first I thought that this marked redness of tint was a peculiarity of the tribe, but have since met with many individuals of exactly the same shade among the Makua of Hatia’s, Nangoo and Chikugwe, and a few among the Yaos at this place and those at Mtua, and Mtama. In fact, it seems to me very difficult to do any really satisfactory anthropological work here—the types are too much mixed, and it is impossible to tell from any man’s features the tribe to which he belongs. Probably, indeed, there is no distinction of race at all, for Wamwera, Wangindo, Wayao, Makonde, Matambwe and Makua alike belong to the great sub-group of the East African Bantu. This is one additional reason, when time is so precious, for giving to anthropology even less attention than I had originally planned. Let the gentlemen come out here themselves with their measuring instruments, compasses and poles—we ethnographers have more urgent work to attend to.