Girls take Arabic names, as Mamai Khamisi (Mother Thursday), Fatimah, and Arusi, or they borrow from the pagans Magonera, Zawádi and Apewai (a gift), Tímeh, Sítí, Baháti, Tínisí, and Machoyáo (their eyes). The ceremonial address to men is Bwana (pronounced B’áná) master, possibly a corruption of the Arabic ‘Abuna:’ it is prefixed to proper names, especially Arabic, as B’áná Muamádi. The diminutive Kib’áná is the Italian ‘Signorino.’ The feminine form Mwana (M’áná) has equal claims of descent from the Arabic Ummaná, our mother. It means, however, ‘child’ generically in the proverb M’áná uwwá Mze, Mze hawwá M’áná—child slays parent, parent slays not child—the equivalent of the Italian Amor descende non ascende, and the Arab’s ‘My heart is on my son, my son’s is on a stone.’ Amongst certain interior tribes it is still prefixed to the names of chiefs; hence probably the ‘Emperor’ Monomotapa (M’áná Mtápa) which J. de Barros writes Benomotapa: the latter may not be a misprint, but represent ‘B’áná Mtápa.’ Muigni, contracted to Mui’, is applied to Sayyids, Sherifs, and temporal rulers, and Shehe is the equivalent of Shaykh. Mkambi belongs to the sultan or chief, and the Anglo-Arab ‘Seedy’ (Sídi = my lord) is unknown.
The marriages (Máowáno) of the Wasawahili are operose, as might be expected amongst a race whose family festivals are, as in the far north of Europe, their only public amusements. I may, perhaps, here remark that in matching, as well as in despatching, even civilization has not thrown off all traces of the old barbarism, and that the visit to M. le Maire and the wedding breakfast, to mention no other troubles and disagreeables, should make us uncommonly lenient to those less advanced than ourselves. The relatives of the bridegroom, as soon as he reaches the mature age of 15, having found for him a fit and proper mate, repair to the parents; propose a Mahr, or settlement, varying according to means from $15 to $25, and obtain the reply ancipital. The women then visit one another; the answer emerges into distinctness, and all fall to cooking. In due time Cœlebs receives, as a token of acceptance, a large Siniyyah, a tray of rice, meat, and confectionery, a ‘treat’ for his friends, forwarded by the future father-in-law. The feast concludes the betrothal;[[107]] either of the twain most concerned is still at liberty to jilt; but in such a case, as usual throughout the Moslem East, enmity between the families inevitably results.
The wedding festivities outlast the month: there are great ‘affinities of gossips;’ tympanum et tripudium; hard eating and harder wetting of the driest clay with the longest draughts of Tembo K’hali (sour toddy), of Pombe beer (the Kafir Chuala), and of the maddening Zerambo. Processions of free women and slave girls, preceded by chattels performing on various utensils of music, perambulate the streets, singing and dancing in every court. At length the Kazi, or any other man of letters, recites the Fatiheh, and the two become one, either at the bridegroom’s or at the bride’s house. The women are present when the happy man enters the nuptial chamber, and they always require to be ejected by main force. Unlike the Arabs, they retain the Jewish practice of inspection: if the process be satisfactory, the bridegroom presents $10 to $50 to his new connections, while the exemplary young person is blessed, congratulated, and petted with small gifts by papa and mamma. She often owes, it is whispered, her blushing honours to the simple process of cutting a pigeon’s throat. In case of a disappointment, there is a violent scene of abuse and recrimination; but when lungs and wrath are exhausted, the storm is lulled without blows or even divorce. The first ‘Mfungato,’ i. e. seven (days) after consummation, is devoted to the wildest revelry, the ‘Walímeh,’ or wedding feast, concluding only with the materials for feasting.
The Msawahili is allowed to breathe his last upon a couch, and the corpse, after being washed by an Alim or by some kinsman, is hastily wrapped in a perfumed winding-sheet. Women of the highest rank sit at home in solitary grief. The middle-classes stain their faces, assume dark or dingy-coloured dresses, and repair to the sea-shore for the purpose of washing the dead man’s clothes before dividing them amongst his relations or distributing them to the poor. The slave girls shave their heads like Hindus, bathe, and go about the streets singing Neniæ, and mourning aloud. Meanwhile a collection, technically known as Sándá (the winding-sheet), is made amongst the people, who are almost all connected by a near or distant tie. One of the blood-kinsmen acts Munádi, or crier. As each one appears with his quotum, he shouts ‘lo! such a person (naming him) has bought such and such articles for his brother’s funeral feast.’ This publicity tends of course to make men liberal. The corpse is buried, as is customary amongst Moslems, on the day, generally the evening, of decease, and there is a popular belief, in which some Europeans join, that deaths take place mostly when the tide ebbs, at the full and change of the moon. The custom of abusing the corpse, accompanied with the greatest indecencies, is confined to the least civilized settlements. After the funeral all apply themselves to eating, drinking, and what we should call merriment; whilst music and dancing are kept up as long as weak human nature permits. The object is not that of the Yorkshire Arvills, to refresh those who attended from afar—it is confessedly to ‘take the sorrow out of the heart.’ So the Velorio of Yucatan is para divertise—to distract kin-grief. As in the matter of marriage, however, so in funerals, we can hardly deride barbarous races whilst we keep up our pomp and expense of ridiculous trappings, taxing even the poor for mutes and carriages, for ‘gloves, scarves, and hatbands.’
The Wasawahili have all the African passion for the dance and song: they may be said to exist upon manioc and betel, palm-wine and spirits, music and dancing. The Ngoma Khu, or huge drum, a hollowed cocoa-stem bound with leather braces, and thumped with fists, palms, or large sticks, plays an important and complex part in the business of life: it sounds when a man falls sick, when he revives, or when he dies; at births and at marriages; at funerals and at festivals; when a stranger arrives or departs; when a fight begins or ends, and generally whenever there is nothing else to do. It is accompanied by the ‘Siwa,’ a huge pipe of black wood or ebony, and by the ‘Zurmári,’ a more handy variety of the same instrument. On occasions which justify full orchestras, an ‘Upatu,’ or brass pan, is placed upon the ground in a wooden tray, and is tapped with two bits of palm-frond. Some wealthy men possess gongs, from which the cudgel draws lugubrious sounds. The other implements are ‘Tabl,’ or tomtoms of gourd, provided with goatskin; the Tambire, or Arab Barbut, a kind of lute; the Malagash ‘Zeze,’ a Calabash-banjo, whose single string is scraped with a bow; and finally horns of the cow, of the Addax, and the Oryx antelopes. These people are excellent timeists, but their music, being all in the minor key, and the song being a mere recitative without change of words, both are monotonous to the last degree. The dancing resembles that of the Somal, and, as amongst the slaves, both sexes prance together. The Diwans, or chiefs, caper with drawn swords, whilst the women move in regular time, shaking skirts with the right hand. The ‘figures’ are, unlike the music, complicated and difficult: they seem to vary in almost every village. The only constant characteristic appears to be that tremulous motion from the waist downwards, and that lively pantomime of love which was so fiercely satirized by the eminently moral Juvenal. It is, indeed, the groundwork of all ‘Oriental’ dancing from Morocco to Japan.
The principal occupation of the Wasawahili is agriculture; they form the farmer class of the Island, and everywhere in the interior we find their little settlements of cajan-thatched huts of wattle and dab, with flying roofs, acting chimney as well as ventilator—a right sensible contrivance, worthy of imitation. The furniture consists of a few mats; of low stools, mostly cut out of a single block; of chairs, a skin being stretched on a wooden frame; and invariably of a Kitándá, or cartel of coir and sticks; even the beggar will not sleep or sit upon the damp face of his mother earth. The dwelling is divided into several rooms, or rather closets, by partition walls the height of a man; as usual in tropical lands, the interior is kept dark. Sometimes the hovel boasts the convenience of a Cho’oni or Shironi (latrina), but in no case is there a window. Gossips meet under the shade of huge Calabashes and other trees.
Like the Somal, the Wasawahili are essentially a trading race, a crumenimulga natio, and they do business with the characteristic dishonesty of Africans. They defraud and even offer violence to Banyans, and acting as trade-men to European merchants, they never allow a purchase without deducting their percentage. At the same time their plausibility, like that of the travelling Dragoman, so impresses upon the civilized dupe, whom they hedge round with an entourage of their own, and whom it is their life-business to cozen, that nothing can convince him of their rascality. Some of them make considerable fortunes: I heard of one who lately purchased an estate for $14,000. They are also commercial travellers of no mean order. Upon the Zanzibar coast they cut rafters and firewood; they dig for copal, and they act as middlemen; they wander far into the interior, buying hides, slaves, and ivory, and they have thus become familiar with the Lake Regions, which are now attracting our attention. The poorest classes employ themselves in fishing, and many may be seen by day plying about the harbour in little ‘Monoxyles,’ which they manage with admirable dexterity. Others have learned to make the rude hardwares with which the mainland is supplied: there are also rough masons, boat-builders, and carpenters of peculiar awkwardness.
Respectable Wasawahili dress like Arabs in ‘Kofíyya,’ here meaning red caps, and the long Disdashah, or night-gown; the loins are girt with a ‘Kamarband’-shawl, and sandals protect the feet. Others are contented with the Hammam-toilette, waist-cloth (Shukkah or Tanga) and shoulder-sheets (Izár), always adorned with the favourite fringe (Tambúa or Taraza). This is at once the simplest and one of the most ancient of attires; the plate from Montfaucon’s Cosmas Indicopleustes (1706, Topographia Christiana) reproduced by Vincent (Periplus, Appendix, part I.) shows the kilt to have been the general dress of the ancient Æthiopians, as the spear was their weapon. Before superiors they bare the shaven poll, an un-Oriental custom probably learned from the Portuguese. As amongst the Arab Bedawin, the Syrian Rayahs, and the Persian Iliyat, the women mostly go abroad unveiled. The ‘Murungawánah,’ or freeborn, however, is distinguished out-of-doors by her rude mantilla, and ‘ladies’ affect an Ukaya, or fillet of indigo-dyed cotton, or muslin, somewhat like that of the Somal and the Syrians. The feminine garb is a Kisitu, or length of stained cotton, blue and red being the pet colours. It resembles the Kitambi of the Malagash, and it is the nearest approach to the primitive African kilt of skin or tree bark. Wrapped tightly round the unsupported bosom, and extending from the armpits to the heels, this ungraceful garb depresses the breast, spoils the figure, and conceals nothing of its deficiencies. The hair, like the body, drips with unfragrant cocoa-nut oil; and though there is not much material to work upon, it is worked in various fanciful styles. Many shave clean; some wear a half-crop, like a skull-cap of Astracan wool; others a full-grown bush covering the whole head. These part it down the middle, with an asinine cross over the regions of veneration; those draw longitudinal lines above the ears, making a threefold parting; there are also garnishings and outworks of stunted pigtails, forming stiff and savage accroche-cœurs. Two peculiar coiffures at once attract the stranger’s eye. One makes the head look as if split into a pair of peaks, the side hair being raised from sinciput to occiput in tall double unpadded rolls, parted by a deep central hollow: this style is nowhere so pronounced as near the Gaboon river, where the heads of the Mpongwe girls appear short-horned. The other consists of frizzly twists trained lengthwise from nape to brow, and the whitish etiolated scalp showing itself between the lines as though the razor had been used: the stripes suggest the sections of a musk-melon or the meridians of a map.
The favourite feminine necklace is a row of sharks’ teeth; some use beads, others bits of copal, but the amber so highly valued in the Somali country is here not prized. I have alluded before to the artificial deformity of ear-lobes distended by means of the Mpogo, a mixture of raw Copal (Chakazi) and Cinnabar. The left nostril is usually honoured with some simple decoration—a stud or rose-shaped button of wood or bone, of ivory or of precious metal, and at times its place is taken by a clove or a pin of Cassava. The tattoo is not so common on the Island as upon the Continent. These women are said to be prolific, but apparently they have small families: the child is carried in a cloth called Mbereko, and, curious to say, they do not bind up its head immediately after birth. They are hard-worked; and, like the dames of Harar, they buy and sell with men in the bazar. Their food is manioc, holcus, rice, and sometimes fish; a fowl is the extent of luxury, flesh being mostly beyond their means. Few smoke, but almost all chew tobacco as lustily as their husbands, and their mouths are horrid chasms full of ‘Tambúl’—quids of betel-nut and areca leaf peppered with coarse shell-lime.[[108]] This astringent, like the Kola-nut of the Guinea Regions, acts preventive against the effect of damp heat, and it is a stomachic, consequently a tonic. The habit of ‘chawing’ it becomes inveterate: Hindostanis visiting Portugal, and unable to procure the favourite ‘Pán-Supári,’ have imitated it with cuttings of cypress-apples and ivy leaves. Ibn Batuta declares the betel to be highly aphrodisiac, and hence partly the high esteem in which this masticatory is held.
The Wasawahili are not an honoured race; even the savage Somal call them ’Abíd, or serviles, and bitterly deride their peculiarities. The unerring instinct of mankind has pointed them out for slaves, and they have readily accepted the position. As Moslems they should be free, and the Faith forbids them to trade in Moslems. Yet by local usage, as the children become the property not of the parents, but of the mother’s brother, the latter can sell any or all of his nephews and nieces; indeed, he would be subject to popular contempt if, when poor, he did not thus ‘raise the wind.’