Native life in East Africa

by Karl Weule

THE NJOROWE DANCE AT NEWALA

The indefatigable Sefu only allowed me one day in which to digest the impressions of Niuchi, before announcing another important expedition. Sefu lives only some thirty or forty yards away from us, in a house built Coast-fashion. He is not, like Nakaam and Matola, a native of the country, but has been transferred here from the coast as an official of the German Administration, while the other two might be compared with large landowners placed in a similar position on account of their local standing and influence among the people. He has rather more notion of comfort than is usual among his congeners, for he has had very neat bamboo seats—some even with backs to them, an unheard of luxury in this region—put up in his baraza, where he holds shauris and also receives, with great dignity, the leaders of passing caravans. Sefu spends all his spare minutes with us; he arrives first thing in the morning, and shivers through the evening with us in that temple of the winds which goes by the name of the rest-house, and which we shall be compelled to close in with a wall in order to get some protection against the evening gales.

Sefu, then, had a grand plan to propose. This time, he said, he could show us a ceremony of the Wamatambwe at the village of Mangupa. It was again a girls’ chiputu, that is, the conclusion of the first course of instruction which these children of between eight and eleven had been going through for some months in a special hut. But the Matambwe procedure is in some points different from that of the Yaos and the Makua; and, also, it was not far. If we started next morning at 7.30, we should be in time to see the beginning after a walk of an hour and a half.

I was able to form a slight idea of the famous Makonde bush on the expedition to Niuchi—but it was very far from being an adequate one. Much has been written about this form of vegetation, but I believe the theme is inexhaustible. Not that this bush is remarkable for æsthetic charms, for beautiful scenery, or abundance and variety of vegetation. It is a perfectly uniform, compact mass of thin stems, branches, leaves and tendrils. This is the unpleasant part of it; this indescribably thick tangle lets no one pass unless he has first cut his painful and toilsome way with axe and bill-hook. Our native troops have gone through unspeakable sufferings in this way, in the last ten years alone, especially in the war against Machemba. Things have been made easier for us—the victorious struggle against the formerly unreliable and often rebellious tribes of the south has led to the wise measure of connecting every place of the slightest importance with all other settlements by means of roads deserving the name of barabara, i.e., beaten road, in the most literal sense of the term. This road is so broad that a column could at need march along it four abreast; though in some places indeed it is very much overgrown.

We took the main road leading to Nkunya, but very soon turned off to the right, getting deeper and deeper into the bush. Riding soon became impossible; in fact, every member of the expedition was engaged in a very cautious struggle with the upupu. Nils Knudsen warned me against this agreeable plant soon after our arrival at Newala, so I have escaped an experience which many a new-comer will not forget in a hurry. The upupu[^[45]] is a kind of bean bearing dark green pods, which, if touched, cause an unbearable irritation in the skin. Rubbing or scratching only brings the victim nearer to madness. Washing is quite useless—the only effectual remedy is wood ashes, which, if mixed with water and plastered on the skin, draw out the minute poison-crystals in a short time. As in many other cases, the cure is easily applied if one only knows it.

Punctually at nine, we are standing before a hut similar to the one already described, only that the likuku, as it is here called, is double—two low, round structures, standing side by side. The ceremony is just about to begin, Sefu says. I am hard-hearted and barbarous enough to send the headman of the place—who has one foot ulcerated in the most horrible way and consequently poisons the atmosphere for some distance around him, but in spite of this feels that he ought to do the honours of his village—half-a-mile away to windward, before setting up my camera by the side of a bush, where I await the progress of events.

For some time we hear nothing but the familiar lu-lu-lu-ing of the women in all keys, soprano and alto, piano and fortissimo, as if the company, standing in a dense crowd behind the double house, wished to practise a little before making their appearance. Meanwhile, they are growing more and more shiny—they are anointing themselves with castor oil till they drip with it. They are also wearing peleles of a size I have never yet seen. Suddenly, the scene changes—seven women come forward out of the crowd carrying a long pole, and walk quickly towards the open space on the left of the likuku. As they approach we see that the pole is really a huge flag-staff—a whole length of brand-new coloured cotton print hangs down it from one end to the other. “Nini hii?” (“What is this?”) I ask Sefu. It is the fee for the instructresses, among whom it will soon be divided, but before being cut up, it is to be shown in all its beauty to the people.

From the moment of their first coming forward, the seven women have been chanting: “Watata wadihauye akalumbane kundeka unguwanguwe.” Sefu says that this means:—“My father has treated me badly—he gave me a bad husband, who ran away from me, and now I am left alone.” I cannot make out what this song has to do with the chiputu, but have no time for speculation on the subject, for the whole company is beginning to enact a kind of “Walpurgisnacht!” At least, should an African Goethe attempt to depict a festival on the heights of Kilimanjaro analogous to the famous scene in Faust, he would probably do it on the lines of what we see before us. Pigs, broomsticks, and other traditional paraphernalia of the venerable profession are here entirely wanting, but the illusion is more than sufficiently maintained by the white disc in the upper lip, the huge stud in the nose; the combs stuck in the woolly hair, the heavy bangles on arms and ankles, and, finally, the unhappy baby on the back of every young witch, and, strangely enough, on those of a good many elderly ones as well. Clapping their hands, and uttering their shrill, vibrating cry, the whole troop run, jump, and dance wildly in and out till the spectator’s senses are completely bewildered.

Suddenly, the noise ceases, and the figures of the five novices, closely huddled together, stooping low, swathed in new, gaudy cloths which cover them all over, appear from the “wings” in the same way as their predecessors. The silence lasts till they have taken their places in the arena, but then a din breaks loose to which what I have described as the “Walpurgisnacht” was merely a gentle murmur, for in addition to the voices we have now the roll and thunder of the half-dozen drums forming the inevitable band. Meanwhile, the chaos has hastily arranged itself into a large circle, in the centre of which the five bundles, now quite a familiar sight to me, stand in the same stooping posture as at Niuchi. The drums have by this time moderated their pace and volume, and the women glide and shuffle round the ring to the accustomed rhythm. Finally, the performers change places as on the previous occasion, the instructress comes forward, the rest of the women being now merely accessories, and the novices proceed to show their proficiency in the dance before alluded to. This trial being over, it seems as if the girls were receiving congratulations, and then the whole mass moves towards the double hut, the five girls walking backwards. All vanish into the dusk of the interior, but while the grown-up women remain there, the girls re-appear after a few minutes’ interval, and, walking in Indian file, a short distance apart, they cross the arena,—not backwards this time, but in the ordinary way—and silently vanish into the thick bush.

The exit of the five girls seems to mark the official close of the ceremony, as the women do not appear again. The lords of creation, however, now come into action, and man after man, as if drawn by a magnet, moves towards one of the two doors and enters, while no one is seen to come out again. This interests me, and approaching the entrance of the hut, to discover the cause of this singular phenomenon, I find that preparations are being made for a beer-drinking on a large scale:—the ground inside the hut is occupied by rows on rows of huge pombe-jars, waiting to fulfil the object of their being. We have not been invited to the feast—an omission due, we may be certain, not to any want of hospitality, but probably to timidity, and a feeling that the admission of a stranger to a share in their tribal mysteries is something unfitting. We should have liked to be asked, all the same.