I have already tried to describe the course taken by the instruction imparted in the ndagala. Old Akundonde and his councillor, in the candour induced by their libations, were certainly trustworthy informants in this respect. It is an irreparable misfortune that the liquor supply coming to an end when it did (in such a surprisingly short time) deprived me of the conclusion of the address to the wari, but the fragment already given is quite sufficient to indicate the character of the teaching.
The lupanda reaches its culminating point only with the closing ceremony. The preparations on both sides are extensive: in the bush the wari are being restored by their mentors by means of head-shaving, baths, anointing with oil, and a supply of new cloth, to a condition worthy of human beings. In the village, meanwhile, the mothers, long before the time fixed, have been brewing large quantities of beer and preparing still larger piles of food for the festivity. When the great day at last arrives, the boys come back in procession, in their clean new garments, with their faces, necks, and freshly-shorn scalps all shining with oil, and carrying in their right hands the kakale, the sticks headed with rattles which have already been described. Men and women line the road in joyful expectation. Ever louder and more piercingly, the “lu-lu-lu” of the women vibrates across the arena, and yonder the drums strike up with their inspiriting rhythm, while the hoarse throats of the men utter the first notes of a ng’oma song. In short, everything is going on in the most satisfactory and genuinely African way.
KAKALE PROCESSION ON THE LAST DAY OF THE UNYAGO
The Africans, being human, like ourselves, it is only to be expected that all their works and ways are subject to as many changes and inconsistencies as our own. I have devoted a disproportionate part of the time (over a month) spent at Newala to the task of fixing the typical course of all these ceremonies. This has been a most severe labour, for if, in my wish to obtain unimpeachably accurate results, I arranged to let my informants of each tribe come separately, I might be sure that the two or three old men who made their appearance would say little or nothing. The native intellect seems not to become active till awakened and stimulated by sharp retort and rejoinder in a numerous circle of men. I have thus been compelled to go back again and again to my original method of assembling the whole senate of “those who know,” some fifteen aged Yaos, Makua and Makonde in a heterogeneous crowd round my feet. This was so far successful as to produce a lively discussion every time, but it becomes very difficult to distinguish between the elements belonging to different tribes. Yet I venture to think that, with a great deal of luck, and some little skill, I have succeeded so far as to get a general outline of these matters. I feel quite easy in my mind at leaving to my successors the task of filling up the gaps and correcting the inaccuracies which no doubt exist.
Further, it must be remembered that my notes on the initiation ceremonies of these three tribes would, if given in full, take up far too much space to allow of their reproduction here. Two other points must be borne in mind. What I saw with my own eyes of the unyago, I have here related in full, with that local colouring of which actual experience alone enables a writer to render the effect. But those scenes at Achikomu, Niuchi and Mangupa are only tiny fractions of the very extensive fasti represented by the girls’ unyago in reality; while, as to the remainder, I can only repeat what I have heard from my informants. Quotations, however, always produce an impression of dryness and tedium, which is what I would seek to avoid at any price. I therefore think it better to refer those interested in the details of such things to the larger work in which it will be my duty, according to agreement, to report to the Colonial Office on my doings in Africa and their scientific results.
The last point belongs to another department. The negro is not in the least sophisticated as regards the relation between the sexes. Everything pertaining to it seems to him something quite natural, about which his people are accustomed to speak quite freely among themselves,—only in extreme cases showing a certain reticence before members of the alien white race. Now the part played by sex in the life of the African is very great, incomparably greater than with us. It would be too much to say that all his thoughts and desires revolve round this point, but a very large proportion thereof is undoubtedly concerned with it. This is shown in the clearest way, not only in the unyago itself, but in the representation which I subsequently witnessed. In the present state of opinion resulting from the popular system of education, such delicate matters can only be treated in the most strictly scientific publications, being debarred from reproduction in a book of any other character. This is necessary—I must once more emphasize the fact,—not on account of the subject itself, but out of consideration for the misguided feelings of the public. It may be regrettable, but it is true.
Of all the tribes in the South of German East Africa, the Yaos seem to be, not only the most progressive, but the most prosaic and unimaginative, and in fact their initiation ceremonies are very simple, compared with those of the Makonde and Makua. Those of the latter have to a certain extent a dramatic character. The Makua choose a branch of a particular shape, and forked several times, which they plant in the midst of the open space where the festival is held. This is fetched from the bush by the men, who, singing a certain song, carry it in procession into the arena, where the director of the mysteries stands, in the attitude of a sacrificing priest. He now kills a fowl, the blood of which is caught in a bowl, while some charcoal is pounded to powder in a second vessel, and some red clay crushed in a third—the branch is then encircled with a triple band of the three substances—red, black, and red. Meanwhile some men have been digging a hole, in which is laid a charm made out of pieces of bark tied together. The hole is then filled up and the earth heaped over it in a mound on which the forked branch, called lupanda, is planted. A second mound is then made, which, as well as the first, was still clearly recognizable in the ring of huts at Akundonde’s. This second mound is the seat for the unyago boy who is considered of highest rank, the others being grouped around him, on stumps, which, if the director of the proceedings has the slightest sense of beauty, are arranged in two regular, concentric circles similar to those which I saw in the bush near Chingulungulu. “The cromlech of the tropics!” was the idea which occurred to me at the time, and even now I cannot resist the impression that this arrangement of tree-stumps resembles our prehistoric stone circles, not only in form but perhaps also in the object for which it is designed. If our Neolithic megaliths were, really used by assemblies for ritual purposes, there seems no reason why these venerable stones should not have served as seats for our ancestors. The negro, too, would no doubt dispense with wooden seats, if stone ones had been obtainable in his country.
If I were at all given to imaginative speculations, I could easily prove that the Makonde are fire-worshippers. As soon as the men have built the likumbi, i.e., a hut of the kind we saw at Mangupa, all scatter to look for medicine in the bush. In the evening of the same day, they give the roots they have collected to an old woman who pounds them in a mortar. The resulting paste is dabbed in spots on the arms of some five or six men by the high priest or doctor. When this is done all sit inactive till midnight, when the munchira (doctor) begins to beat his drum. As the deep sound of this instrument thunders out through the dark tropical night, all the people, adults and children, stream out of the huts, and dancing and gun-firing are kept up till the following afternoon, when they distribute presents to each other and to the boys’ instructor. Thereupon the munchira delivers an address. The six men above referred to are, he says, sacred; if they should take it into their heads to steal, or commit violent assaults, or interfere with their neighbours’ wives, no one must do anything to them, their persons are inviolable. The six, for their part, are now informed by him that it is their duty to beat the drum at midnight for the next three months.
When the three months are ended, the village is all stir and bustle. Men go into the bush to collect dead wood, and in the evening carry it in perfect silence to the open space near the likumbi hut. The women, meanwhile, have been preparing enormous quantities of beer, which also finds its way to the likumbi. In this hut stands a small round covered basket (chihero), containing medicines, into which (and on the medicines) every one of the wood-gatherers spits out a little of the specially prepared beer. Beside the chihero stands the old woman who pounded the medicines in the mortar, who then puts the basket on her head, seizes in one hand the end of a whole piece of calico, specially bought for the ceremony, and leaves the hut with a slow and solemn step, dragging the cloth behind her. The first of the wood-gatherers quickly takes hold of it, so as not to let it touch the ground; as it unrolls from the bale a second takes it, then a third, and a fourth, till at last it passes along a little above the ground, like a train borne by pages. The munchira walks in front next to the woman, and they circumambulate the likumbi, after which the munchira takes the end of the calico and wraps it round the chihero. This he then holds to his right ear; after a short pause, he places it on his shoulder, again keeping it there for a few moments; then it is lowered to the hip, the knee, and finally to the outside of the ankle. At the close of the ceremony the venerable man takes both cloth and chihero as his well-earned fee.