Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

OUR ASCENT OF MTANDI MOUNTAIN. DRAWN BY JUMA

This ascent, though barren of results in other respects, has produced one small monument of African art, a drawing of our climbing caravan, which is here offered to the reader’s inspection. The native artist has quite correctly indicated the steepness of the mountain by the vertical line representing the road. The confusion of circles and curves at the lower end stands for the buildings of the Mission station:—the foundations of a church vast enough, should it ever be finished, to hold all the converted heathen of Africa and the adjacent continents; the ci devant cowhouse, in which the two aged clergymen have found a primitive refuge after the destruction of their beautiful buildings by the Majimaji, the boys’ school and the girls’ school—two large bamboo huts in the native style; and the dwellings of the native teachers and boarders. The curly labyrinth at the upper end of the line is the top of the mountain with its gneiss blocks. The two uppermost climbers are the kirongozi or guide and one of our men, the third is Captain Ewerbeck, and the fourth myself. The District Commissioner is readily recognizable by the epaulettes with the two stars denoting his military rank, which belong to the uniform worn on duty by this class of officials. Of all attributes of the white man this seems to make the greatest impression on the native mind, since, in every drawing in my possession where officers are represented, their rank is invariably (and always correctly) indicated by the number of stars. In the same way the native draughtsman never makes a mistake with regard to the stripes on the sleeves of non-commissioned officers, black or white. The advantages of a well-developed corporation are here evident! Ewerbeck and Seyfried are about the same age as myself, and our chest and other measurements are pretty nearly identical. This I suppose must be the reason why the inhabitants of Lindi, and later on those of the interior, have promoted me to the rank of captain; at Lindi I went by the name of Hoffmani mpya, “the new captain” (Hauptmann). The drawing here reproduced is evidence of my promotion, the artist having bestowed the epaulettes on me as well as on Ewerbeck. The figures behind us are of no importance, they are only the rest of our party. Now, however, comes the psychologically noteworthy point; I figure in the picture twice over, first laboriously climbing the mountain, and then in majestic pose at the top, in the act of photographing the African landscape. You must know that the tripod shown in the drawing is that of my 13 × 18 cm. camera, the zig-zags between its legs are the brass struts which keep it rigid; the long snake-like line is the rubber tube for the release of the instantaneous shutter—of which, as a matter of fact, I could make no use on account of the mist,—and the photographer is, as above stated, myself. The men behind me are my personal attendants to whom the more fragile parts of the apparatus are usually entrusted. The graphic reproduction of this ascent is no great achievement on the part of the native intellect, but nevertheless it is a very important document for the beginnings of art in general and for the African point of view in particular. To the ethnographer, of all men, the most apparently insignificant matters are not without importance, and this is why the prospect of working undisturbed for many months in these surroundings is such a delight to me.

Our ascent of Mtandi was concluded, at any rate for the present, by a ceremonious breakfast, to which the two missionaries had kindly invited us. Englishmen, as is well known, live extremely well in their own country; but abroad, too, even in the far interior of a continent, they know how to make the best of things. I was here impressed with the fact that Masasi must be a “very nourishing district,” as Wilhelm Raabe would say. We had no champagne, it is true—Archdeacon Carnon had set it before us on the previous day, in a huge water-jug, apologizing for the absence of champagne glasses. We showed him that we were able to appreciate his hospitality, even in the absence of such refinements.

The merriest part of our whole Mtandi expedition, however, was the ride home, with the Mission pupils trotting along beside us. The little fellows looked warlike enough with their bows and arrows, and seemed desirous of shouting each other down. I could not at first make out what they wanted, but on reaching home, that is to say, our police-post, I soon understood that their object was nothing less than to offer me the whole of their martial equipment for my ethnographic collection. But not as a present—giving things away for nothing is not in the negro’s line, and in this he resembles our German rustics. On the contrary, these young people demanded fancy prices for the bows which they had made on purpose to sell them to the mzungu, that remarkable character who buys all sorts of native rubbish. I purchased such of their wares as seemed suitable for my objects, and thought it advisable to prevent disappointment to those whose offers had been refused by giving each a copper or two out of the famous jar of which we shall hear again later on. Before doing so, however, I instituted a pleasing experiment, instructive for myself and highly enjoyable for the youth of Masasi, in the shape of an archery competition.

Comparative ethnography has for a long time past busied itself with the task of classifying and analyzing all the technical and mental activities of man. Thus some decades ago, the American, Morse,[^[12]] ascertained that all men who shoot, or ever have shot, with the bow, have certain definite ways of drawing it. There are about half-a-dozen distinct methods, which are so distributed over the globe that, in some places the same release (or “loose” as it is technically called) is known to be common to the whole of a large area, while elsewhere the most abrupt contrasts may be observed between contiguous nations or tribes. It might be supposed that there could be no possible differences in so simple an action as that of drawing a bow; but experiment shows otherwise, and this experiment I have made over and over again in the course of my lectures.

It is a thousand to one that any German (leaving out of consideration the English and the Belgians, who still practise archery according to the rules of the game, and can distinguish a good “loose” from a bad one), when he has taken the bow in his left hand and grasped the arrow and the string in his right, will hold the notch as it rests on the string between his thumb and forefinger, and thus only indirectly draw the string by means of the arrow. This, which is the “loose” we used on the little toy bows of our boyhood, is the very worst conceivable, as anyone who understands the other methods can convince himself by every shot he tries. It is obvious that the arrow must slip from the fingers if a moderately strong pull is given. The best proof of the inferiority of this particular “loose” is the fact that it is very seldom found among those sections of mankind who still use the bow as a serious and effective weapon, whether in war or hunting. These handle it after a very different fashion. Only where the bow is a mere survival, and only used as a toy by children (the most conservative class in the community), as for instance among ourselves, this method, quite useless for an effective shot, is practised simply because no better is known.

If I felt compelled to take the boys at Masasi Mission as a standard for estimating the culture of the race, I should have to say that here too the bow is a survival, for nine-tenths of the whole multitude shot in the same way as our boys at home, but with one difference; we hold the bow horizontally, the African boys held it vertically, the arrow lying on the left side of the string between the index and middle finger. Only one-tenth of the whole number used a different “loose,” and these, significantly enough, were older boys, who therefore had evidently taken over with them into their Christianity a considerable dose of old African conservatism.

My competition was arranged with a view, not so much of registering the number of hits and misses, as of observing the method of drawing; but, notwithstanding, I must say that the little archers acquitted themselves by no means contemptibly. It is true that the distances were short, and my mark was scarcely a small one, being a copy of the Tägliche Rundschau; but the greater number sent their arrows inside the rings I had hastily drawn on this improvised target. They were proud of their success, too; and when I praised a good shot it was good to see the triumphant looks that the little black hero cast round on his admiring companions.

As to the other methods, if I were asked the question in my Leipzig lecture-room, I should have to answer it at once. As it is, I am enabled to claim the privilege of the investigator and excuse myself from giving further information till I have collected sufficient material by a series of fresh observations. I hope to gratify my readers’ thirst for knowledge when I have traversed the whole plain north of the Rovuma, and, encamped on the cool heights of the Makonde plateau, find leisure to look back and take stock of my studies. Till then—Au revoir, Messieurs!