DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK
BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA
To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear, and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu![[51]] Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife. With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end, and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet, lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn during the unyago,[[52]] having been prepared with special solemn ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy, will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all, looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.