Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

MATAMBWE WOMAN DECORATED WITH NUMEROUS KELOIDS

This Bakiri of Zanzibar and his appearance on the Rovuma show unmistakably how little we know, at bottom, of the native and his history. Herr Ewerbeck has resided in the country over ten years, and has always taken a keen interest in the history of his district; but he never heard anything more than vague rumours of an embassy from the Sultan of Zanzibar. All the more vivid is the recollection of this event among those concerned, in the country itself. In the case of Akundonde and his contemporaries, who must have been grown-up men at the time, this is not to be wondered at; but even Matola and his generation, who were then mere children, or perhaps not even born, at once become excited when the conversation turns on Bakiri (already somewhat of a legendary character), and his memorable march.

This expedition, which, according to information elicited by Ewerbeck’s inquiries, had for its objective the coal measures of the Lujende, the great southern tributary of the Rovuma, has in the consciousness of the local tribes entirely lost its character as a journey, and has assumed that of the shauri familiar to and characteristic of all these tribes. But this shauri—this assembly of all the local notables and their tribesmen—has fixed itself indelibly in the people’s memory. It is the famous shauri of Nkunya, a place still in existence at the south-western corner of the Makonde plateau. Matola the Younger gives the following account of its causes, its course, and its consequences:—

“The Yaos in old times lived much further away to the west and south, but they were badly off there. The old Makua chief Mtarika of Metho made war on them, and when he was gone the Mazitu came from the other side and also made war on them. They killed or enslaved the men of the Yaos and carried off the women and children. This happened when old Matola was quite a young man. Now he would be very old, if he were still living; but he died twelve years ago, at a great age, but still quite strong.[^[25]]

“In the end Matola had to fly; he went first to the Upper Bangala and then down that river till he was three hours’ march from the Rovuma, where his second brother died. At this place Matola was only a small chief, for he had in all only five huts. But he was brave and clever, he raided other tribes and was also a great hunter, who killed much game and exchanged the meat for corn. From the Lower Bangala, Matola moved to the Newala River and built his huts down in the valley at the foot of the Makonde plateau. Here he lived a long time; but the land belonged to Mawa, a Makua. Then a man came up from Mikindani to Nkunya, by name Bakiri, to hold a shauri. He called all the tribes together: Wayao, Wamakua, Wamatambwe and Wangoni. They came, all of them, in troops, and Bakiri acted as judge. The Wangoni and Wamatambwe grew frightened and ran away; the Makua also ran away; there remained only Matola, Mawa, and some of the Makua. The shauri lasted from morning till evening and all night long till the next morning, and in the morning Bakiri said to Matola: ‘I give you the whole country; it is true that till now I have heard very little about you and your chieftainship, but all the others have run away and you only remained; I see, therefore, that you are trustworthy. So you shall rule over the whole country.’ Mawa, too, agreed to this. He said: ‘I am old, and I shall soon die; do you rule over the whole country.’ And so it came to pass. Matola I. ruled wisely and justly, though severely. First he moved to Mikindani and planted palms there, then he went back inland, halfway to Newala, and from thence, at last, to Newala itself. There he lived at first on the plateau, because of the attacks of the Mazitu; then he came down into the valley, but in the end he had to go back to the heights again. He died up there at Newala, and there he lies buried.”

It is in many respects highly interesting to watch these dusky elders while engaged in recalling their memories of the past. They usually speak well; it is well known that most African natives do; they have a natural eloquence which avoids artificial phraseology but is quick to find the simple, natural expression and fit it into the structure of the sentence. Only now and then we find a man whose faculties are blunted with old age and whose speech flows less smoothly from his toothless mouth. The teeth of old natives are by no means in the flourishing condition one might expect from the dazzling white rows of ivory which characterise the youth of the black race. The crowns of their teeth are rapidly worn down by the large amount of grit which enters into their daily food. Millet, maize and rice are alike ground on stones; the wear and tear to which these are subject are shown by the deep hollow in the lower and the rapid diminution in size of the upper, when they have been in use for any length of time. The resulting minute particles of stone do not exactly conduce to the benefit of the teeth, whose premature decay, moreover, is assisted by the artificial deformations of which I shall have much to say later on.

The kind of intellectual activity which goes on is also worth notice. The European investigator has, from the start, to take up a very critical attitude towards the native and his statements on any subject whatever, for our black brother’s standard of truthfulness is notoriously not very exacting. But here, in the department of history, the narrators check each other, whether consciously or unconsciously I cannot decide. One begins—the stream of his eloquence flows on peacefully for a time, and then another suddenly interrupts him with “A! A!”—an inimitable, abruptly-uttered sound twice repeated and accompanied by a still more inimitable gesture of deprecation, as who should say, “Stop, my friend, you are talking nonsense!” But the objection has hit its mark, the narrator breaks off, consults his historical conscience, and then presents the fact under discussion in a version which, on questioning the others, is found to have their approval.

It is characteristic of life in these parts that each narrator can only give the history of his own immediate tribal group. All these men, whether Yao or Makua by nationality, have been whirled about the country in numerically small sections, to which one may give the name of horde, clan, or troop, as one pleases. In this way a definite, historically-grounded tribal consciousness could not be formed, and, if it was already in existence, had every chance of being lost. So, too, they know nothing except about themselves and their own immediate neighbourhood. It is the task of ethnology to collect as many as possible of such individual accounts, in order ultimately to build them up into the complete structure of a tribal history. As far as I am concerned, there shall be no want of industry and perseverance in the collection of such narratives.

Now, however, comes the last and most delightful touch—a most characteristically African one. In the absence of writing, the native has no means of arriving at a correct estimate of time. His astonishment and perplexity when asked his own age are fully expressed in the stare which meets the questioner; and one never finds people able to give even the approximate ages of their own children and grandchildren. Life flows along far too monotonously and uneventfully, while at the same time it is too full of their small cares and small pleasures, to leave them any time for special exercises of memory, even if they had the smallest desire for such unnecessary mental exertion. Finally—and this is probably the really decisive cause—there is no such thing as compulsory, or other registration; and so the small black citizen of the world grows up untroubled by questions of space and time; he takes to himself a wife—or wives—and raises a family, and no one thinks of inquiring whether he and his age have been duly entered on the register.