Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

Matola’s compound, however, is rather more interesting. On my first visit to him, he was somewhat embarrassed, being obviously ashamed of the shabbiness of his interior; but he took me over his back premises with evident pride, for which indeed he had ample justification. The back verandah is occupied by an unbroken row of food-stores of the most diverse sizes and shapes. Here we find beehive-shaped receptacles about six feet high for millet and maize, and cylindrical ones, of nearly equal height for ground-nuts, beans and peas; while in the dark spaces between them the eye after a while makes out small bark boxes or earthen jars containing less important vegetable products. All these receptacles are thickly plastered with clay, to protect them from vermin and weather. If we turn to the back of the large rectangular compound, where a high palisade keeps out unauthorised intruders, we again find proof of a very far-seeing and prudent economy, for here, too, everything is arranged in order to make the crops of the current year last over till the next harvest. Large and small food-stores are ranged round it, and in the centre is a large granary, on whose ground floor, so to speak, some women are busy at a fireplace, while the whole roof-space is filled with heads of millet and cobs of maize. And if we step outside Matola’s compound on the eastern side, there is a scaffolding some seven or eight feet high and about as wide running along the whole length of the palisade. On this, in spite of the lateness of the season, large quantities of grain just harvested are drying in the sun. And, lastly, walking round the estate to the west side of the house, we come face to face with a granary of truly gigantic size, and without doubt of very rational construction, which is shown in the illustration at the head of this chapter. Like all the other food-stores, this granary is built on piles; but, while in the usual form the scaffolding is only about two feet high, and from three to five feet square, it is in this case between ten and twelve feet high and at least ten feet across. On this platform rests the granary itself, which in shape can best be compared to a brewer’s mash-tub. Just now it is only half full of millet, and therefore not yet closed, and the whole is covered in with the usual wide-eaved, heavy, thatched roof. Access to this marvel of architecture and economic science is gained by the same kind of antediluvian ladder which excited my risible faculties at Masasi—two strong gnarled logs, with a couple of wretched sticks tied across them—not too firmly—a yard apart.

Matola, however, saved up the most striking feature of his whole farm till the last. Grunts and squeaks expressive of the utmost well-being were heard proceeding from the shadows about a gloomy structure which was described to me as a prison. A prison in Africa? Certainly; the native is not an angel, and when he is on the chain-gang he must have some shelter at night. But for the present we were more interested in the origin of the above sounds, which proved to proceed from a sow with twelve piglings. This merry company, we soon found, was all over the place, examining the baggage of the askari, calling on Nils Knudsen in his tent, but most persistent of all in visiting our kitchen after dinner and helping the cook and his boy to clean up our dishes. Every facility is afforded them for this pursuit, as, in the first place, our kitchen is only a sheltered corner under the eaves of the prison, and in the second, when a native has eaten his fill and is lying spread-eagled on the ground snoring through his siesta, you might cut him to pieces at your leisure without waking him. Thus every afternoon witnesses the remarkable spectacle of a khaki-clad European, uttering frantic vituperations of the lazy black villains and their whole continent, as he rushes across the square of Chingulungulu brandishing a kiboko, to drive the affectionate mother and her family away from his cooking-pots. Of course, whenever this takes place, the careless kitchen-staff comes in for a few blows in passing, but my beloved Omari cares very little for that. Knudsen and I have vowed vengeance on the pigs, to the effect that they shall indeed find their way into our cooking-pots one day, whether they like it or not.

How Matola obtained these pigs, so rare a sight in a Moslem country (for as such we must count this district), I have not yet heard, but I assume that he got them, like his herd of cattle, from the English Mission. The cattle are sheltered in a kraal immediately adjoining his dwelling-house—a mere enclosure of stakes into which the animals are driven soon after sunset, to leave it the next morning after the dew is off the grass. They are herded by several boys, and number about twenty head, all of the humped breed, and most of them evidently suffering from the tsetse disease. Only one young bull and a couple of cows look healthy and vigorous, and are playful enough to put some life into the whole mournful company. I am glad to see some milch cows among them—in fact it is they who provide the jar Matola sends me every morning.

This is Matola’s residence in the more immediate sense. The best way to become acquainted with his whole territory is to mount and ride over it, for Chingulungulu is a settlement of extraordinary extent. Broad roads, as straight as a rule can make them, and planted with rubber-trees, run north, east and west from the square surrounding the baraza. To right and left of these roads lies a vast expanse of fields, from which emerges here and there the greyish-brown roof of a hut, larger or smaller as the case may be. During the whole of my stay here at Matola’s, I have been doing my best to get acquainted with all the details of this negro settlement, and I must confess that the charms of this occupation have so far consoled me for an evil which under other circumstances would long ago have disgusted me with the place. By this I mean the difficulty of obtaining information as to the more intimate customs, habits and opinions of the people, and thus penetrating as deeply as I certainly wish to do, into their intellectual and moral life. At Masasi the epidemic conviviality of the whole male population was a totally unforeseen impediment to this object, and here at Chingulungulu it seems either that Matola has not sufficient influence to obtain wise men for me to question, or that he does not care to reveal the wisdom of his people to a stranger. It is true that he possesses a good deal of information himself, and has already on more than one occasion sat with us and talked about the history of his tribe, but whenever I particularly want him, he is not to be found, and we are told that he is hunting on the Rovuma.

From an anthropological point of view the population here, in the political centre of the great plain between the Masasi mountains and the Rovuma, is as heterogeneous as at Masasi itself, only that down here the Wayao are not merely at present numerically in the majority, but politically supreme over their neighbours. These are, as in the north, Makua, Wangindo, Wamatambwe and Makonde, and, here as there, the various tribes live side by side according to no fixed rule. The history of the Yaos, up to the time when they settled and came to rest in this plain, is full enough of change and adventure. For a long time—from the moment when they first became known to Europeans, almost to the present day, they were unhesitatingly reckoned as belonging to the Kafir family. As, like the Wangoni, and almost simultaneously with them, they migrated from south to north—that is to say, from the region east of the Shire and south end of Nyasa to the Rovuma and Lujende, and as they at the same time showed equal freshness and physical vigour with those warlike hosts from the far south-east of the continent, it was natural that they should be considered as immigrants from sub-tropical South Africa, in other words, Kafirs. This view is now known to be erroneous; their language obviously belongs to the group of Eastern Bantu idioms, and it is quite clear that they have nothing to do with the southern extremity of Africa.

If we get the history of this people related to us by men who are either old enough to remember several of the many decades over which the tribal wanderings extended, or else, like Zuza, Matola and Nakaam, hold a position which makes them by right of birth transmitters of the tribal tradition,—we always find the region east of the south end of Nyasa mentioned as the starting point of all these (mostly involuntary) migrations.

A couple of aged Yaos, whom we had summoned, independently of Matola, through the agency of two or three sturdy askari, gave me the following report:—“Once, long ago, the Yaos lived at Kwisale Kuchechepungu. Kuchechepungu is the name of the chief under whom they lived at peace in the hill country of Kwisale. Then there befell a war in which the Yaos were beaten, and they went to the country of the Makua chief Mtarika. But that is very long ago; I, Akundonde (the spokesman of this historical commission) only know it from men older than myself.

“At Mtarika’s also the Yaos fared badly, for this powerful Makua chief made war on them and drove them out. And they went to Malambo, which lies behind Mkula. At Malambo the Yaos remained for a long time, but at last they were driven thence by the same Mtarika; then they settled near the Lumesule river in the Donde country, and from thence they afterwards went on to Masasi.”

This took place when Akundonde was a big lad. As the old gentleman must be some years over sixty, this march into the Masasi plain must be dated towards the end of the fifties. At Masasi the Yaos were attacked by the Wangoni, but defeated them and drove them back in the direction of Kilwa Kivinja. In spite of this success, the Yaos retired to the greater security of the Makonde plateau. Here they were once more attacked by the Wangoni at Mahuta, but this was in the time of the elder Matola. After that Bakiri came from Zanzibar, and this was the beginning of an entirely new epoch.