THE METHODIST NEW CONNEXION MAGAZINE. SEPTEMBER, 1879. THE BENIGHTED CONTINENT. CHAPTER IX. HUTS, HAUNTS, HOMES, AND HABITS OF SAVAGEDOM. WE go now amongst the tribes westward of Nyassa, on towards the south end of lake Tanganyika, and in the path of Livingstone, as given in his "Last Journals;" most of it, to Europeans, unknown territory before his explorations. African architecture has nothing specially striking in these regions. The huts are sometimes mushroom-shaped, sometimes conical, and west of Tanganyika they are often square. Some are of mud, some of reeds plastered with mud, and others of grass. Livingstone heard much of underground villages, and was very anxious to see them, as they were not far out of his way when he reached lake Moera on his way westward from Lake Tanganyika. There are numbers of them a little westward of the Moera in the Rua country; and Cameron, if we mistake not, saw some of them in his journey "Across Africa." Livingstone received many detailed accounts of these strange habitations. They were said to extend twenty miles along the sides of the Rua mountains, and in one of these villages a considerable rivulet is said to flow through the middle of it. In some cases the doors entering them are level with the ground outside, in others ladders have to be used to climb up to the entrances. The villages are large, and numbers of fowls are kept by the subterranean villagers. The villages of many tribes are extremely filthy, the huts being peopled with very uncomfortable company. Livingstone, Stanley, and others, often preferred to sleep in the open air, rather than face the nocturnal contests with the large colonies of parasites. Among the cannibals of Manyuema, between lake Tanganyika and the Livingstone river (Lualaba), the natives build quite substantial clay huts, which last "Across Africa," vol. ii. pp. 89, 314. This traveller gives numerous descriptions of hut architecture, but we have no room for details. See vol. i. pp. 120, 191, 332; vol. ii. pp. 30, 162, 340, etc. * for ages. But in Uhombo, a little west of Tanganyika, a village is merely a number of grass huts ranged round a common, with a space of ground inside, where stand three or four fig trees. The hut doors are thirty inches high. These entirely naked people are of a low type, and were so surprised when they saw Stanley and his white colleagues, that they said quietly to each other, "are these men ?" as if they could hardly think so. Exceedingly filthy and supremely ugly, they were nevertheless kind and hospitable.† In Manyuema the hut furniture is largely composed of quantities of firewood placed on shelves, for the supply of which the wives are made responsible; and the beds are placed in an inner room on a raised platform. Beyond this the furniture consists of twenty-five to thirty earthen pots, slung by cords to the ceiling, and often there are found as many baskets, very neatly made and similarly slung. A chief's wife has forty pots, and a number of baskets, dishes, knives, and mats. Here, where the chiefs have little or no power-especially as we near the Livingstone river-the women are assisted in the cultivation of the soil by the men. Near the Livingstone, in Uregga, though the people are quite cut off from the outside world, of which they know nothing, they are superior to most tribes on the east of the continent. Their huts indeed have doorways two feet square only, and about a foot and a half from the ground; yet they use settees, stools, benches, spoons, and curious back-rests, made of the forked branches of a tree, with three forks inverted for lounging purposes.§ In Urua, south of this, Cameron found the beds of kings of a unique pattern. King Kasongo had none of your vulgar clay floors, skins, boards, or blankets for his bed, for at night the members of his harem go on" all fours," or lie flat on the ground, and his august majesty regularly sleeps on them as his bed. As in almost all regions, the Manyuema practice circumcision, and they freely talk of it, which is most unusual amongst all other tribes of Africans.¶ The Balungu (the country is called Ulungu, as those of Uregga are called Waregga, Uganda, Waganda, etc.), who are settled a little west of the Tanganyika, the marriage state is a sad state of bondage. The slave-trading Arabs go there, and wherever Arabs are found the condition of the people is always made tenfold worse. The old men in their marriages procure young wives, and these most villainous of all African people tempt these husbands to sell them when money is scarce. Ordinary marriages are of little moment, but the marriage of a chief's daughter is attended by a public demonstration rather amusing. The "Last Journals," vol. ii. p. 33. "Through the Dark Continent," vol. ii. pp. 72–77. "Last Journals," vol. ii. pp. 26, 33. § "Through the Dark Continent," vol. ii. p. 135. bride is set across a man's shoulders, and, attended by ten maids who carry small baskets of fruit and food for her, she is thus carried to her future husband. Of all the modes of presenting a daughter to her suitor this is considered the most dignified.* Mothers here do a little surgery: it is common with them to cup their children for sore eyes or other diseases. They use a goat's horn, and, extracting the air by the mouth at the thin end, they have no difficulty. The blood they collect and throw over their huts as a charm. The people appear to have no family names. A man takes his mother's name. Should his father die he will sometimes take his father's name. Marriage in the same family is unlawful to the first, second, and third degrees. Both first and second cousins are called brothers and sisters. About lake Moera, and in many regions further west, there are some cruel practices amongst parents. Should a child chance to cut the upper front teeth before the lower ones it is at once killed as an unlucky child. A little further south, at Casembe's village, if a child in its sleep turns over from one side to the other it is destroyed, because it will bring ill luck to the family. If the chief, Casembe, dreams two or three times of a man, the man is practising witchcraft upon him and, as with Mtesa, must be put to death.§ Here, also, a wife's infidelity is punished by selling into slavery. Farther on westward, in the direction of the Lualaba, the marriage tie, as nearly everywhere, is a very loose business. The husband has to pay, but just as he would have to pay for any other commodity. The men traffic with each other in this business. A pretty girl will fetch ten goats. Livingstone says, "I saw one brought home "-i.e., to her new husband-" she came jauntily, with but one attendant, and her husband walking behind." This was not a happy match. A month later her friends thought the bride was worth more, and they demanded another goat; a plain case of overreaching the husband believed, and so refused to pay. The girl was enticed away by her friends, and soon after died. On the part of the husband there was great wailing-sorrow inexpressible for the ten goats he had lost, not for the wife. It was all, “Oh, oh my ten goats!" ¶ On lake Victoria Nyanza, where the men often pay a rather high price, if they cannot raise enough at once, the defaulters may be called on by the wife's father after marriage to pay up, or the wife may be taken back, unless in the meantime she becomes a mother, when her relations can no longer claim her. Here the laws are strict, and often red-handed. Among the Wakerewé, on the Nyanza, thieves, adulterers, and murderers are decapitated; or, if they prefer it, they may become the slaves of the parties injured. ** Further west by a little south, in Cameron's path, and in Urua, where the king makes a "Last Journals," vol. i. pp. 232, 258. † Ibid. p. 223. ‡ Ibid. pp. 276, 277. § Ibid. p. 277. | Ibid. p. 310. T Ibid. vol. ii. pp. 73, 85. ** "Through the Dark Continent," vol. i. p. 254. bed on his wives, a wedding is a fearful row, made up of shouting, yelling, dancing, and drumming, in the midst of which the bride is brought on the shoulders of another woman, and knocked about by the carrier jumping up and down as if she would shake the life out of the "fair" black creature. To increase the excitement she throws about to the crowd beads and bits of tobacco to scramble for. She then dances with her husband, who picks her up under his arm and takes her to his hut. This Bedlam lasts for days. Mothers have been charged with selling their children commonly. Speke tells of mothers, on the islands of Tanganyika, parting with them for a loin-cloth or two. But Livingstone, who knew much more about the people here, denies this. He says no such custom is found anywhere, and he made inquiries in all quarters. An unlucky child, such as one who cats its upper front teeth first, and is believed to bring certain death into the family, may be sold; or famine or fear might force the sale of a babe; otherwise mothers do not so treat their children. Children in Central Africa, on the plateau, have their games, but these are few, and consist chiefly in imitating their parents, making little buts, gardens, bows, arrows, shields, and spears. They early learn to shoot birds with bows, and make bird-lime and traps to capture them. They teach linnets to sing, and cleverly shoot locusts with small toy guns. A gun-play is common amongst them, in which they use weapons made of reeds, with trigger and spring; and they make double-barrelled guns of clay. Further eastwards, towards Nyassa, and on the river Lokuzhwa, children left without parents are badly treated. No one feeds or cares for them; when they cry for their "mother" the women say, "she is coming!" but no one gives them food, and they are left to die of starvation. § The food supply, as we have said, is more or less precarious in most districts. There are tribes about Nyassa, west of the south end, who will not take milk, and are utterly disgusted with eggs. Nowhere is milk taken till sour, when by-the-bye it is much more digestible. Further on west still, towards the south end of Tanganyika, a most fruitful district, where the climate quite changed Livingstone's colour and turned his dog a yellowish red (one of John Bright's sort, with head and tail alike, and which Mr. R. Lowe will recollect), the people in bad seasons feed much on roots, fruits, and leaves, and what flesh they can put their hands upon. They gather a bundle of leaves in the forest, and eat the unsavoury mess as if it were cauliflowers and asparagus. There are tribes who regularly eat the first weeds they come near. Livingstone, himself, was hardly pressed when here. The natives ate "wretched wild fruit," but "I took my belt up three holes * "Across Africa," vol. ii. pp. 75, 76. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 227. |