GIRLS’ UNYAGO AT THE MAKONDE HAMLET OF NIUCHI
Now comes a new stage. “Hawara marre” mutters the jumbe. This even Nils Knudsen cannot translate, for it is Kimakua, which he does not know, but the jumbe, like all intelligent men in this country, is a polyglottist. He says the Yao for it is “Chisuwi mkamule” (“The leopard breaks out”). At this moment something unexpected happens. The three young fellows rise quick as lightning, and, with loud crashing and rustling, they have burst through the fragile hut-wall and are seen retiring towards the outskirts of the village. I have not yet clearly made out whether these youthful husbands themselves represent the leopard or whether they are to be thought of as pursued by an imaginary leopard. In either case, the leisurely pace at which they stroll away is scarcely convincing and still less imposing; less so, certainly, than the song of Hawara marre, rendered by the women with equal spirit and energy, which rings out into the sun-baked pori long after the three leopards have vanished in the distance.
Now comes another picture; the hall is empty, but the open space beside it, which has been carefully swept, swarms with brightly-coloured fantastic figures. It is only now that we can see how they have adorned themselves for the occasion. The massive brass bangles, nearly an inch thick, which they wear on their wrists and ankles, shine like burnished gold, and the calico of their skirts and upper garments is of the brightest colours. These cloths, in fact, have just been bought from the Indian traders at Lindi or Mrweka, at great expense, by the gallant husbands, who have recently made an expedition to the coast for the purpose. The white pelele seems to shine whiter than usual, and the woolly heads and brown faces are quite lustrous with freshly-applied castor oil, the universal cosmetic of these regions. Once more the anamungwi take up a majestic pose, and once more all the women crowd round them. This time the presents consist of cobs of maize, heads of millet, and other useful household supplies, which are showered wholesale on the recipients.
Once more the scene changes. The drummers have been tuning up their instruments more carefully than usual, and at this moment the fire blazes up for the last time and then expires. The first drum begins—boom, boom, boóm, boom, boom, boóm, boom, boom, boóm: two short notes followed by a long one. How the man’s hands fly! There are more ways of drumming than one, certainly,—but the art as practised here seems to require a special gift. It is by no means a matter of indifference whether the drumhead is struck with the whole hand, or with the finger-tips only, or whether the sound is produced by the knuckles or finger-joints of the closed fist. It is pretty generally assumed that we Europeans have an entirely different mental organization from that of the black race, but even we are not unaffected by the rhythm of this particular kind of drumming. On the contrary, the European involuntarily begins to move his legs and bend his knees in time to the music, and would almost feel impelled to join the ranks of the dancers, were it not for the necessity of maintaining the decorum of the ruling race, and of keeping eye and ear on the alert for everything that is going forward.
The dance which the women are now performing is called ikoma.[[41]] Our eyes are insufficiently trained to perceive the slight differences between these various choric dances, and so we grew tired with mere looking on long before the natives, who are exerting themselves to the utmost, begin to weary. In this case the sun contributes to the result, and Moritz is already feeling ill, as he says, from the smell of the crowd; though he certainly has no right to look down on his compatriots in this respect. It is true that he has improved since the day at Lindi, when I drove him before my kiboko into the Indian Ocean, because he diffused around him such a frightful effluvium of “high” shark, that it seemed as if he himself had been buried for months. I am just about to pack up my apparatus, when the uniform, somewhat tedious rhythm in which the crowd of black bodies is moving suddenly changes. Hitherto, everything has been characterized by the utmost decency, even according to our standards, but now what do I see? With swift gesture the bright-coloured draperies fly up, leaving legs and hips entirely free, the feet move faster, and with a more vivacious and rapid motion the dancers now circle round one another in pairs. I am fixed to the spot by a sight I have often heard of, but which has never come in my way before:—the large keloids which, in the most varied patterns cover these parts of the body. The scars are raised to this size by cutting again and again during the process of healing. This, too, belongs to the ideal of beauty in this country.
Unfortunately, I was not able to await the end of the ikoma. The performers, in spite of the small silver coin which I had distributed to each of them, were evidently constrained in the presence of a European,—a being known to most of them only by hearsay—and the spontaneous merriment which had prevailed inside the hut was not to be recovered. Besides, I was forced, out of consideration for Moritz, who was now quite grey in the face, to return as quickly as possible.
Akundonde’s junior headman is excellent as a practical guide, but has little theoretic knowledge,—he is probably too young to know much of the traditional lore of his own tribe and the Makua. Old Akundonde himself keeps silence,—perhaps because he needs a stronger inducement than any yet received. This, however, I am unable to offer, especially as we ourselves have to subsist on our tinned goods, the usual lean fowls and a few old guinea-fowl shot by Knudsen. There is no trace of the liberal gifts of pombe which had delighted our thirsty souls at Masasi and Chingulungulu.
It was, therefore, with light hearts that we left Akundonde’s on the fourth day for Newala. The stages of our three days’ march were Chingulungulu, where we had left a considerable part of our baggage, and Mchauru, a very scattered village in a district and on a river of the same name, in the foothills of the Makonde plateau. Mchauru is interesting enough in several respects. First, topographically: the river, which has excavated for itself a channel sixty, in some places even ninety feet deep, in the loose alluvial soil, runs south-westward towards the Rovuma. On reaching the bottom of this gorge, after a difficult climb, we found no running water, but had to dig at least a fathom into the clean sand before coming on the subterranean supply. The deep, narrow water-holes, frequently met with show that the natives are well aware of this circumstance. The vegetation in this whole district, however, is very rich, and it is not easy to see at present whence it comes, since we are on the landward side of the hills whose seaward slope precipitates the rains. It is possible that the soil here holds more moisture than in other parts of the plain.
Mchauru has not only charming scenery but abounds in ethnographic interest. It possesses, in the first place, a fundi who makes the finest ebony nose-pins in the country, and inlays them with zinc in the most tasteful manner, and secondly, a celebrated magician by the name of Medula. In fact, it was on account of these two men that I halted here at all. The nose-pin-maker was not to be found—we were told that he was away on a journey—but Medula was at home.