From our camp, pitched under a huge tree beside the road, we—that is Knudsen and I, with my more immediate followers carrying the apparatus—walked through banana groves (which I now saw for the first time), and extensive fields of maize, beans, and peas, ready for gathering, in a south-westerly direction for nearly an hour. At intervals the path runs along the bed of a stream, where the deep sand makes walking difficult. At last, on ascending a small hill, we found ourselves before an open shed in which an old native was seated, not squatting in the usual way, but with his legs stretched out before him, like a European. After salutations, my errand was explained to him,—I wanted him to tell me all about his medicines and sell me some of them, also to weave something for us. According to native report, there are only two men left in the whole country who still possess this art, already obsolete through the cheapness of imported calico. Medula is one of these weavers,—the other, a tottering old man, I saw, several weeks ago, at Mkululu. I was greatly disappointed in him; he had not the faintest notion of weaving, and there was nothing in the shape of a loom to be seen in his hut; the only thing he could do was to spin a moderately good cotton thread on the distaff.
PARTICIPANTS ASSEMBLING AT THE UNYAGO HUT
PRESENTATION OF CALICO BY THE MOTHERS
DANCE OF THE OLD WOMEN
ARRIVAL OF THE NOVICES
GIRLS’ UNYAGO AT THE MATAMBWE VILLAGE OF MANGUPA. I