Who has eaten the mao from the pika—
The pika in the emie?
The suggestion is obviously that the women have stolen and eaten the cassava of the chief, but it is made solely to bring in the sexual suggestion. The women deny the imputation, and declare that their bellies are empty, or that they are great with child, not swollen with mao. The chief will then ask why, or when, the belly fills with child, and so the song continues on the lines of the sexual ideas introduced until the finale is reached, when the chief would sing:
Imine, imine,
The women are good women,
Imine.[330]
PLATE XLVI.
MUENANE DANCE