As on the Mrima, the proportion of chiefs to subjects seems to increase in the inverse ratio of what is required. Every district in K’hutu has its P’hazi or headman, with his minister the Mwene Goha, and inferior chiefs, the Chándumé, the Muwinge, and the Mbárá. These men live chiefly upon the produce of their fields, which they sell to caravans; they are too abject and timid to insist upon the blackmail which has caused so many skirmishes in Uzaramo; and the only use that they make of their power is to tyrannise over their villages, and occasionally to organise a little kidnapping. With the aid of slavery and black magic they render their subjects’ lives as precarious as they well can: no one, especially in old age, is safe from being burnt at a day’s notice. They are civil to strangers, but wholly unable to mediate between them and the tribe. The Wak’hutu have been used as porters; but they have proved so treacherous, and so determined to desert, that no man will trust them in a land where prepayment is the first condition of an agreement. Property amongst them is insecure: a man has always a vested right in his sister’s children; and when he dies his brothers and relations carefully plunder his widow and orphans.
The dirty, slovenly villages of the Wak’hutu are an index of the character of the people. Unlike the comfortable cottages of the coast, and the roomy abodes of the Wazaramo, the settlements of the Wak’hutu are composed of a few straggling hovels of the humblest description—with doors little higher than an English pigsty, and eaves so low that a man cannot enter them except on all fours. In shape they differ, some being simple cones, others like European haystacks, and others like our old straw beehives. The common hut is a circle from 12 to 25 feet in diameter; those belonging to the chiefs are sometimes of considerable size, and the first part of the erection is a cylindrical framework composed of tall stakes, or the rough trunks of young trees, interwoven with parallel and concentric rings of flexible twigs and withies, which are coated inside and outside with puddle of red or grey clay. In some a second circle of wall is built round the inner cylinder, thus forming one house within the other. The roof, subsequently added, is of sticks and wattles, and the weight rests chiefly upon a central tree. It has eaves-like projections, forming a narrow verandah, edged with horizontal bars which rest upon forked uprights. Over the sticks interwoven with the frame, thick grass or palm-fronds are thrown, and the whole is covered with a coat of thatch tied on with strips of tree bark. During the first few minutes of heavy rain, this roofing, shrunk by the parching suns, admits water enough to patch the interior with mud. The furniture of the cottages is like that of the Wazaramo; and the few square feet which compose the area are divided by screens of wattle into dark pigeon-holes, used as stores, kitchen, and sleeping-rooms. A thick field of high grass is allowed to grow in the neighbourhood of each village, to baffle pursuers in case of need; and some cottages are provided with double doorways for easier flight. In the middle of the settlement there is usually a tall tree, under which the men lounge upon cots scarcely large enough for an English child; and where the slaves, wrangling and laughing, husk their holcus in huge wooden mortars. These villages can scarcely be called permanent: even the death of a chief causes them to be abandoned, and in a few months long grass waves over the circlets of charred stakes and straw.
The only sub-tribe of the Wak’hutu which deserves notice is the Waziráhá, who inhabit the low grounds below the Mabruki Pass, in the first parallel of the Usagara Mountains. They are remarkable only for having beards somewhat better developed than in the other Eastern races: in sickly appearance they resemble their congeners.
Remain for consideration the Wadoe and the Wazegura. The proper habitat of the Wadoe is between the Watondwe or the tribes of Saadani, on the littoral, and the Wak’hwere, near K’hutu, on the west; their northern frontier is the land of the Wazegura, and their southern the Gama and the Kingani Rivers. Their country, irrigated by the waters of the Gama, is plentiful in grain, though wanting in cattle; they export to Zanzibar sorghum and maize, with a little of the chakazi or unripe copal.
The Wadoe once formed a powerful tribe, and were the terror of their neighbours. Their force was first broken by the Wakamba, who, however, so weakened themselves, that they were compelled to emigrate in mass from the country, and have now fixed themselves in a region about 14 marches to the north-west of Mombasah, which appears to have been anciently called that of the Meremongao. During this struggle the Wadoe either began or, what is more likely, renewed a practice which has made their name terrible even in African ears. Fearing defeat from the Wakamba, they proceeded, in presence of the foe, to roast and devour slices from the bodies of the fallen. The manœuvre was successful; the Wakamba could dare to die, but they could not face the idea of becoming food. Presently, when the Wazegura had armed themselves with muskets, and the people of Whinde had organised their large plundering excursions, the Wadoe lost all power. About ten years ago Juma Mfumbi, the late Diwan of Saadani, exacted tribute from them, and after his death his sons succeeded to it. In 1857, broken by a famine of long continuance, many Wadoe fled to the south of the Kingani River, and obtained from the Wazaramo lands near Sagesera and Dege la Mhora.
The Wadoe differ greatly in colour and in form. Some are tall, well-made, and light-complexioned Negroids, others are almost black. Their distinctive mark—in women as well as men—is a pair of long cuts down both cheeks, from the temple to the jaw; they also frequently chip away the two inner sides of the upper central incisors, leaving a small chevron-shaped hole. This however is practised almost throughout the country. They are wild in appearance, and dress in softened skins, stained yellow with the bark and flowers (?) of the mimosa. Their arms are a large hide-shield, spears, bows, and arrows, shokah or the little battle-axe, the sime-knife, and the rungu or knobstick. They are said still to drink out of human skulls, which are not polished or prepared in any way for the purpose. The principal chief is termed Mweme: his privy councillors are called Mákungá (?), and the elders M’áná Miráo (?). The great headmen are buried almost naked, but retaining their bead-ornaments, sitting in a shallow pit, so that the forefinger can project above the ground. With each man are interred alive a male and a female slave, the former holding a mundu or billhook wherewith to cut fuel for his lord in the cold death-world, and the latter, who is seated upon a little stool, supports his head in her lap. This custom has been abolished by some of the tribes: according to the Arabs, a dog is now buried in lieu of the slaves. The subdivisions of the Wadoe are numerous and unimportant.
The Wazegura, who do not inhabit this line of road, require some allusion, in consequence of the conspicuous part which they have played in the evil drama of African life. They occupy the lands south of the Pangani River to the Cape of Utondwe, and they extend westward as far as the hills of Nguru. Originally a peaceful tribe, they have been rendered terrible by the possession of fire-arms; and their chiefs have now collected large stores of gunpowder, used only to kidnap and capture the weaker wretches within their reach. They thus supply the market of Zanzibar with slaves, and this practice is not of yesterday. About twenty years ago the Wazegura serfs upon the island, who had been cheaply bought during a famine for a few measures of grain, rose against their Arab masters, retired into the jungle, and, reinforced by malefactors and malcontents, began a servile war, which raged with the greatest fury for six months, when the governor, Ahmed bin Sayf, maternal uncle to His Highness the late Sayyid Said, brought in a body of mercenaries from Hazramaut, and broke the force of this Jacquerie by setting a price upon their heads, and by giving the captives as prizes to the captors. The exploits of Kisabengo, the Mzegura, have already been alluded to. The Arab merchants of Unyanyembe declare that the road will never be safe until that person’s head adorns a pole: they speak with bitterness of heart, for he exacts an unconscionable “blackmail.”
The Wazegura are in point of polity an exception to the rule of East Africa: instead of owning hereditary sultans, they obey the loudest tongue, the most open hand, and the sharpest spear. This tends practically to cause a perpetual blood-feud, and to raise up a number of petty chiefs, who, aspiring to higher positions, must distinguish themselves by bloodshed, and must acquire wealth in weapons, especially fire-arms, the great title to superiority, by slave-dealing. The only occasion when they combine is an opportunity of successful attack upon some unguarded neighbour. Briefly, the Wazegura have become an irreclaimable race, and such they will remain until compelled to make a livelihood by honest industry.
EXPLORERS IN EAST AFRICA.