“For sure the pleasure is as great
In being cheated as to cheat.”
Like the generality of barbarous races, the East Africans are wilful, headstrong, and undisciplinable: in point of stubbornness and restiveness they resemble the lower animals. If they cannot obtain the very article of barter upon which they have set their mind, they will carry home things useless to them; any attempt at bargaining is settled by the seller turning his back, and they ask according to their wants and wishes, without regard to the value of goods. Grumbling and dissatisfied, they never do business without a grievance. Revenge is a ruling passion, as the many rancorous fratricidal wars that have prevailed between kindred clans, even for a generation, prove. Retaliation and vengeance are, in fact, their great agents of moral control. Judged by the test of death, the East African is a hardhearted man, who seems to ignore all the charities of father, son, and brother. A tear is rarely shed, except by the women, for departed parent, relative, or friend, and the voice of the mourner is seldom heard in their abodes. It is most painful to witness the complete inhumanity with which a porter seized with small-pox is allowed by his friends, comrades, and brethren to fall behind in the jungle, with several days’ life in him. No inducement—even beads—can persuade a soul to attend him. Every village will drive him from its doors; no one will risk taking, at any price, death into his bosom. If strong enough, the sufferer builds a little bough-hut away from the camp, and, provided with his rations—a pound of grain and a gourdful of water—he quietly expects his doom, to feed the hyæna and the raven of the wild. The people are remarkable for the readiness with which they yield to fits of sudden fury; on these occasions they will, like children, vent their rage upon any object, animate or inanimate, that presents itself. Their temper is characterised by a nervous, futile impatience; under delay or disappointment they become madmen. In their own country, where such displays are safe, they are remarkable for a presumptuousness and a violence of manner which elsewhere disappears. As the Arabs say, there they are lions, here they become curs. Their squabbling and clamour pass description: they are never happy except when in dispute. After a rapid plunge into excitement, the brawlers alternately advance and recede, pointing the finger of threat, howling and screaming, cursing and using terms of insult which an inferior ingenuity—not want of will—causes to fall short of the Asiatic’s model vituperation. After abusing each other to their full, both “parties” usually burst into a loud laugh or a burst of sobs. Their tears lie high; they weep like Goanese. After a cuff, a man will cover his face with his hands and cry as if his heart would break. More furious shrews than the women are nowhere met with. Here it is a great truth that “the tongues of women cannot be governed.” They work off excitement by scolding, and they weep little compared with the men. Both sexes delight in “argument,” which here, as elsewhere, means two fools talking foolishly. They will weary out of patience the most loquacious of the Arabs. This development is characteristic of the East African race, and “maneno marefu!”—long words!—will occur as a useless reproof half a dozen times in the course of a single conversation. When drunk, the East African is easily irritated; with the screams and excited gestures of a maniac he strides about, frantically flourishing his spear and agitating his bow, probably with notched arrow; the spear-point and the arrow-head are often brought perilously near, but rarely allowed to draw blood. The real combat is by pushing, pulling hair, and slapping with a will, and a pair thus engaged require to be torn asunder by half a dozen friends. The settled tribes are, for the most part, feeble and unwarlike barbarians; even the bravest East African, though, like all men, a combative entity, has a valour tempered by discretion and cooled by a high development of cautiousness. His tactics are of the Fabian order: he loves surprises and safe ambuscades; and in common frays and forays the loss of one per cent. justifies a sauve qui peut. This people, childlike, is ever in extremes. A man will hang himself from a rafter in his tent, and kick away from under him the large wooden mortar upon which he has stood at the beginning of the operation with as much sang-froid as an Anglo-Saxon in the gloomy month of November; yet he regards annihilation, as all savages do, with loathing and ineffable horror. “He fears death,” to quote Bacon, “as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.” The African mind must change radically before it can “think upon death, and find it the least of all evils.” All the thoughts of these negroids are connected with this life. “Ah!” they exclaim, “it is bad to die! to leave off eating and drinking! never to wear a fine cloth!” As in the negro race generally, their destructiveness is prominent; a slave never breaks a thing without an instinctive laugh of pleasure; and however careful he may be of his own life, he does not value that of another, even of a relative, at the price of a goat. During fires in the town of Zanzibar, the blacks have been seen adding fuel, and singing and dancing, wild with delight. On such occasions they are shot down by the Arabs like dogs.
It is difficult to explain the state of society in which the civilised “social evil” is not recognised as an evil. In the economy of the affections and the intercourse between the sexes, reappears that rude stage of society in which ethics were new to the mind of now enlightened man. Marriage with this people—as amongst all barbarians, and even the lower classes of civilised races—is a mere affair of buying and selling. A man must marry because it is necessary to his comfort, consequently the woman becomes a marketable commodity. Her father demands for her as many cows, cloths, and brass-wire bracelets as the suitor can afford; he thus virtually sells her, and she belongs to the buyer, ranking with his other live stock. The husband may sell his wife, or, if she be taken from him by another man, he claims her value, which is ruled by what she would fetch in the slave-market. A strong inducement to marriage amongst the Africans, as with the poor in Europe, is the prospective benefit to be derived from an adult family; a large progeny enriches them. The African—like all barbarians, and, indeed, semi-civilised people—ignores the dowry by which, inverting Nature’s order, the wife buys the husband, instead of the husband buying the wife. Marriage, which is an epoch amongst Christians, and an event with Moslems, is with these people an incident of frequent recurrence. Polygamy is unlimited, and the chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred. It is no disgrace for an unmarried woman to become the mother of a family; after matrimony there is somewhat less laxity. The mgoni or adulterer, if detected, is punishable by a fine of cattle, or, if poor and weak, he is sold into slavery; husbands seldom, however, resort to such severities, the offence, which is considered to be against vested property, being held to be lighter than petty larceny. Under the influence of jealousy, murders and mutilations have been committed, but they are rare and exceptional. Divorce is readily effected by turning the spouse out of doors, and the children become the father’s property. Attachment to home is powerful in the African race, but it regards rather the comforts and pleasures of the house, and the unity of relations and friends, than the fondness of family. Husband, wife, and children have through life divided interests, and live together with scant appearance of affection. Love of offspring can have but little power amongst a people who have no preventive for illegitimacy, and whose progeny may be sold at any time. The children appear undemonstrative and unaffectionate, as those of the Somal. Some attachment to their mothers breaks out, not in outward indications, but by surprise, as it were: “Mámá! mámá!”—mother! mother!—is a common exclamation in fear or wonder. When childhood is passed, the father and son become natural enemies, after the manner of wild beasts. Yet they are a sociable race, and the sudden loss of relatives sometimes leads from grief to hypochondria and insanity, resulting from the inability of their minds to bear any unusual strain. It is probable that a little learning would make them mad, like the Widad, or priest of the Somal, who, after mastering the reading of the Koran, becomes unfit for any exertion of judgment or common sense. To this over-development of sociability must be ascribed the anxiety always shown to shift, evade, or answer blame. The “ukosa,” or transgression, is never accepted; any number of words will be wasted in proving the worse the better cause. Hence also the favourite phrase, “Mbáyá we!”—thou art bad!—a pet mode of reproof which sounds simple and uneffective to European ears.
The social position of the women—the unerring test of progress towards civilisation—is not so high in East Africa as amongst the more highly organised tribes of the south. Few parts of the country own the rule of female chiefs. The people, especially the Wanyamwezi, consult their wives, but the opinion of a brother or a friend would usually prevail over that of a woman.
The deficiency of the East African in constructive power has already been remarked. Contented with his haystack or beehive hut, his hemisphere of boughs, or his hide acting tent, he hates and has a truly savage horror of stone walls. He has the conception of the “Madeleine,” but he has never been enabled to be delivered of it. Many Wanyamwezi, when visiting Zanzibar, cannot be prevailed upon to enter a house.
The East African is greedy and voracious; he seems, however, to prefer light and frequent to a few regular and copious meals. Even the civilised Kisawahili has no terms to express the breakfast, dinner, and supper of other languages. Like most barbarians, the East African can exist and work with a small quantity of food, but he is unaccustomed, and therefore unable, to bear thirst. The daily ration of a porter is 1 kubabah (= 1·5 lbs.) of grain; he can, with the assistance of edible herbs and roots, which he is skilful in discovering in the least likely places, eke out this allowance for several days, though generally, upon the barbarian’s impulsive principle of mortgaging the future for the present, he recklessly consumes his stores. With him the grand end of life is eating; his love of feeding is inferior only to his propensity for intoxication. He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to sleep, and awakes to drink again. Drinking-bouts are solemn things, to which the most important business must yield precedence. They celebrate with beer every event—the traveller’s return, the birth of a child, and the death of an elephant—a labourer will not work unless beer is provided for him. A guest is received with a gourdful of beer, and, amongst some tribes, it is buried with their princes. The highest orders rejoice in drink, and pride themselves upon powers of imbibing: the proper diet for a king is much beer and a little meat. If a Mnyamwezi be asked after eating whether he is hungry, he will reply yea, meaning that he is not drunk. Intoxication excuses crime in these lands. The East African, when in his cups, must issue from his hut to sing, dance, or quarrel, and the frequent and terrible outrages which occur on these occasions are passed over on the plea that he has drunk beer. The favourite hour for drinking is after dawn,—a time as distasteful to the European as agreeable to the African and Asiatic. This might be proved by a host of quotations from the poets, Arab, Persian, and Hindu. The civilised man avoids early potations because they incapacitate him for necessary labour, and he attempts to relieve the headache caused by stimulants. The barbarian and the semi-civilised, on the other hand, prefer them, because they relieve the tedium of his monotonous day; and they cherish the headache because they can sleep the longer, and, when they awake, they have something to think of. The habit once acquired is never broken: it attaches itself to the heartstrings of the idle and unoccupied barbarian.
In morality, according to the more extended sense of the word, the East African is markedly deficient. He has no benevolence, but little veneration—the negro race is ever irreverent—and, though his cranium rises high in the region of firmness, his futility prevents his being firm. The outlines of law are faintly traced upon his heart. The authoritative standard of morality fixed by a revelation is in him represented by a vague and varying custom, derived traditionally from his ancestors; he follows in their track for old-sake’s sake. The accusing conscience is unknown to him. His only fear after committing a treacherous murder is that of being haunted by the angry ghost of the dead; he robs as one doing a good deed, and he begs as if it were his calling. His depravity is of the grossest: intrigue fills up all the moments not devoted to intoxication.
The want of veneration produces a savage rudeness in the East African. The body politic consists of two great members, masters and slaves. Ignoring distinctions of society, he treats all men, except his chief, as his equals. He has no rules for visiting: if the door be open, he enters a stranger’s house uninvited; his harsh, barking voice is ever the loudest; he is never happy except when hearing himself speak; his address is imperious, his demeanour is rough and peremptory, and his look “sfacciato.” He deposits his unwashed person, in his greasy and tattered goat-skin or cloth, upon rug or bedding, disdaining to stand for a moment, and he always chooses the best place in the room. When travelling he will push forward to secure the most comfortable hut: the chief of a caravan may sleep in rain or dew, but, if he attempt to dislodge his porters, they lie down with the settled purpose of mules—as the Arabs say, they “have no shame.” The curiosity of these people, and the little ceremony with which they gratify it, are at times most troublesome. A stranger must be stared at; total apathy is the only remedy: if the victim lose his temper, or attempt to dislodge them, he will find it like disturbing a swarm of bees. They will come for miles to “sow gape-seed:” if the tent-fly be closed, they will peer and peep from below, complaining loudly against the occupant, and, if further prevented, they may proceed to violence. On the road hosts of idlers, especially women, boys, and girls, will follow the caravan for hours; it is a truly offensive spectacle—these uncouth figures, running at a “gymnastic pace,” half clothed except with grease, with pendent bosoms shaking in the air, and cries that resemble the howls of beasts more than any effort of human articulation. This offensive ignorance of the first principles of social intercourse has been fostered in the races most visited by the Arabs, whose national tendency, like the Italian and the Greek, is ever and essentially republican. When strangers first appeared in the country they were received with respect and deference. They soon, however, lost this vantage-ground: they sat and chatted with the people, exchanged pleasantries, and suffered slights, till the Africans found themselves on an equality with their visitors. The evil has become inveterate, and no greater contrast can be imagined than that between the manners of an Indian Ryot and an East African Mshenzi.
In intellect the East African is sterile and incult, apparently unprogressive and unfit for change. Like the uncivilised generally, he observes well, but he can deduce nothing profitable from his perceptions. His intelligence is surprising when compared with that of an uneducated English peasant; but it has a narrow bound, beyond which apparently no man may pass. Like the Asiatic, in fact, he is stationary, but at a much lower level. Devotedly fond of music, his love of tune has invented nothing but whistling and the whistle: his instruments are all borrowed from the coast people. He delights in singing, yet he has no metrical songs: he contents himself with improvising a few words without sense or rhyme, and repeats them till they nauseate: the long, drawling recitative generally ends in “Ah! han!” or some such strongly-nasalised sound. Like the Somal, he has tunes appropriated to particular occasions, as the elephant-hunt or the harvest-home. When mourning, the love of music assumes a peculiar form: women weeping or sobbing, especially after chastisement, will break into a protracted threne or dirge, every period of which concludes with its own particular groan or wail: after venting a little natural distress in a natural sound, the long, loud improvisation, in the highest falsetto key, continues as before. As in Europe the “laughing-song” is an imitation of hilarity somewhat distressing to the spirits of the audience, so the “weeping-song” of the African only tends to risibility. His wonderful loquacity and volubility of tongue have produced no tales, poetry, nor display of eloquence; though, like most barbarians, somewhat sententious, he will content himself with squabbling with his companions, or with repeating some meaningless word in every different tone of voice during the weary length of a day’s march. His language is highly artificial and musical: the reader will have observed that the names which occur in these pages often consist entirely of liquids and vowels, that consonants are unknown at the end of a word, and that they never are double except at the beginning. Yet the idea of a syllabarium seems not to have occurred to the negroid mind. Finally, though the East African delights in the dance, and is an excellent timist—a thousand heels striking the ground simultaneously sound like one—his performance is as uncouth as perhaps was ever devised by man. He delights in a joke, which manages him like a Neapolitan; yet his efforts in wit are of the feeblest that can be conceived.
Though the general features of character correspond throughout the tribes in East Africa, there are also marked differences. The Wazaramo, for instance, are considered the most dangerous tribe on this line: caravans hurry through their lands, and hold themselves fortunate if a life be not lost, or if a few loads be not missing. Their neighbours, the Wasagara of the hills, were once peaceful and civil to travellers: the persecutions of the coast-people have rendered them morose and suspicious; they now shun strangers, and, never knowing when they may be attacked, they live in a constant state of agitation, excitement, and alarm. After the Wazaramo, the tribes of Ugogo are considered the most noisy and troublesome, the most extortionate, quarrelsome and violent on this route: nothing restrains these races from bloodshed and plunder but fear of retribution and self-interest. The Wanyamwezi bear the highest character for civilisation, discipline, and industry. Intercourse with the coast, however, is speedily sapping the foundations of their superiority: the East African Expedition suffered more from thieving in this than in any other territory, and the Arabs now depend for existence there not upon prestige, but sufferance, in consideration of mutual commercial advantage. In proportion as the traveller advances into the interior, he finds the people less humane, or rather less human. The Wavinza, the Wajiji, and the other Lakist tribes, much resemble one another: they are extortionate, violent, and revengeful barbarians; no Mnyamwezi dares to travel alone through their territories, and small parties are ever in danger of destruction.