Native life in East Africa

I have been here at Masasi quite a week. My abode is a hut in the purest Yao style, built by the natives under the orders of the Imperial District Commissioner, expressly for the benefit of passing European travellers. This hut—or, I suppose I ought to say, this house, for it is a sizeable building of some forty feet by twenty—lies outside the boma which shelters the local police force. It is an oval structure whose roof is exactly like an overturned boat. The material of the walls is, as everywhere in this country, bamboo, and wood, plastered inside and out with dark grey clay. My palace is superior to the abodes of the natives in the matter of windows, though they are not glazed. At night, before I creep under my mosquito-net into the camp bed, the openings are closed with shutters constructed of strong pieces of bamboo. The floor, as in all native huts, is of beaten earth, which can in general be kept quite clean, but is not calculated for the sharp edges of European boot-heels, which soon play havoc with its surface. The interior forms an undivided whole, only interrupted by the two posts standing as it were in the foci of the ellipse, and supporting the heavy thatched roof. This projects outward and downward far beyond the wall of the house, its outer edge being carried by a further ellipse of shorter posts, and so makes a broad shady passage round the whole house, such as, under the name of baraza is an essential part of every East African residence.

The natives give the name of Masasi to a whole district alike interesting from the point of view of geography, geology, botany or geography.

Almost immediately after passing Nyangao, as one comes from the coast, begins the “open bush and grass steppe” already mentioned, while at the same time the edges of the Makonde plateau on the south and of the high ground to the north of the Lukuledi retreat further and further. As one walks on, day after day, across a perfectly horizontal plain covered with the same monotonous vegetation, the journey is by no means exciting. Then, suddenly, at a turn of the path, we see a huge cliff of glittering grey. We draw a long breath and forget all our fatigue in presence of this new charm in the landscape. Even the heavy-laden carriers step more lightly. Suddenly the bush, which has become fresher and greener as we approach the rock, ceases, and instead of the one cliff we now see a whole long range of rocky peaks, which seem to stand as a barrier right across our path. This, however, is not the case, for close to the foot of the first mountain the road turns sharply to S.S.E., running parallel and close to the range. When the range ends, the road ends too, for there, embosomed in a circle of “hill-children,”—as the native would say in his own language, i.e., low hills of a few thousand feet or under,—lies the military station of Masasi.

The dome-shaped gneiss peaks of Masasi are celebrated in geological literature: they are, in fact, unique, not in their petrographic constituents, but in the regularity of their serried ranks. Orographically this whole region of East Africa which I am now traversing is characterized by insular mountains (Inselberge), as they are called by the geologist Bornhardt. The name is very appropriate, for, if the land were to sink some three hundred feet, or the Indian Ocean to rise in the same degree, the valleys of the Lukuledi, Umbekuru and Rovuma, as well as, in all probability, several rivers in Portuguese East Africa, and also the whole vast plain west of the Mwera and Makonde plateaus would form one great lake. Here in the west, only these lumpy, heavy gneiss peaks would rise as tiny islands above the waters, while towards the coast the plateaus just mentioned would so to speak represent the continents of this piece of the earth’s surface.

In general these peaks are scattered irregularly over the whole wide area of the country. If I climb one of the smaller hills immediately behind my house, I can overlook an almost illimitable number of these remarkable formations to north, west and south. They are mostly single or in small clusters, but several days’ journey further west a large number are gathered into a close cluster in the Majeje country. The Masasi range in our immediate neighbourhood is the other exception. Corresponding to their irregular distribution is a great variety in height. Many are only small hillocks, while others rise to a sheer height of 1,600 feet and over from the plain, which here at Masasi is fully 1,300 feet above sea-level. The highest of these hills thus attain about the middle height among our German mountains.

As to the origin of these strange mountain shapes, not being a geologist, I am in no position to form an opinion. According to Bornhardt, who in his magnificent work on the earth-sculpture and geology of German East Africa^[11] has described the geological features of this landscape with admirable vividness, all these insular peaks testify to a primeval and never interrupted struggle between the constructive activity of the sea and the denuding, eroding, digging and levelling action of flowing water and of atmospheric influences. He sees this tract in primordial times as an immense unbroken plain of primitive gneiss. In this, in course of time, streams and rivers excavated their valleys, all more or less in the same direction. At the end of this long-continued process, long hill ridges were left standing between the different valleys. Then came another epoch, when stratification took the place of destruction. Whereas formerly, rain, springs, brooks and rivers carried the comminuted and disintegrated rock down to the sea, now, the sea itself overflowed the land, filled the valleys, and probably covered the whole former scene of action with its sediment. This sediment, again, in the course of further ages became hardened into rock. Once more the scene changed; again the land was left dry; and wind, rain and running water could once more begin their work of destruction. But this time their activity took a different direction. They had formerly carried the detritus north or south, but now they swept it eastward, at right angles to their former course, and so gradually ground and filed away the whole of the later deposit, and also eroded the long ridges which had survived from the first period of destruction. Finally, when even this primitive rock had been worn away down to the bottom level of the first valleys, nothing remained of the old sheet of gneiss except in the angles formed by the crossing of the two lines of abrasion and erosion. The superincumbent strata being swept away, the hard gneiss cores of these angles of ground form the very insular peaks I have been describing. Bornhardt’s theory is a bold one and assumes quite immeasurable periods of time, but it has been generally accepted as the most plausible of all attempts to explain the facts. In any case it is a brilliant proof of the capacity for inductive reasoning possessed by German scholars.

These mighty masses of rock, springing with an unusually steep slope, direct from the plain, dominate their surroundings wherever one comes across them, but where they appear in such a wonderfully regular series as they do here—Mkwera, Masasi, Mtandi, Chironji, Kitututu, Mkomahindo, and the rest of the lesser and greater elevations within my horizon,—they present an incomparable and quite unforgettable spectacle. When once the projected railway across the Umbekuru basin is completed, the tourist agencies will have no more popular excursion than that to the Masasi Range.

From a botanical point of view, also, the visitor finds himself well repaid for his trouble. Once in the shadow of these hills, the desolation of the pori is forgotten as if by magic; one plantation succeeds another, and patches of all the different varieties of millet bow their heavy cobs and plumes in the fresh morning breeze, which is a real refreshment after the stifling heat of the long day’s march through the bush. Beans of all kinds, gourds and melons, rejoice the eye with their fresh green, on either side of the path the mhogo (manioc) spreads its branches with their pale-green leaves and pink stalks. Wherever there is an interval between these various crops, the bazi pea rattles in its pod. This fertility (astonishing for the southern part of German East Africa) is only rendered possible by the geological constitution of the soil. Wherever we have set foot on the main road, and north and south of the same, as far as the eye can reach, the principal constituents of the upper stratum have been loamy sand and sandy loam. In places where the action of water has been more marked, we find an outcrop of bare, smooth gneiss rocks; or the ground is covered with hard quartzite, crunching under foot. Only where these mighty gneiss ranges break the monotony does anyone examining the country with an eye to its economic value find full satisfaction. Gneiss weathers easily and forms excellent soil, as the natives have long ago discovered; and, though they by no means despise the less fertile tracts, yet the most favoured sites for settlements have always been those in the immediate vicinity of the gneiss islands. Masasi, with its enormous extent, taking many hours to traverse, is the typical example of such economic insight.

Since this would naturally attract people from all directions, it is not to be wondered at if a question as to the tribal affinities of the Masasi people should land one in a very chaos of tribes. Makua, Wayao, Wangindo, a few Makonde, and, in addition a large percentage of Coast men:—such are the voluntary immigrants to this little centre of social evolution. To these we must add a miscellaneous collection of people belonging to various tribes of the far interior, who are here included under the comprehensive designation of Wanyasa. These Wanyasa are the living testimony to an experiment devised in the spirit of the highest philanthropy, which, unfortunately, has not met with the success hoped for and expected by its promoters. This very region was some decades ago the scene of an extremely active slave-traffic; the trade, kept up by the Zanzibar and Coast Arabs, preferred the route through this easily-traversed and at that time thickly-populated country. The situation of Kilwa Kivinje on a bay so shallow that Arab slave-dhows, but not the patrolling gun-boats of rigidly moral Powers, can anchor there, is to this day a speaking testimony to that dark period in the not excessively sunny history of Africa.

In order to get at the root of the evil, English philanthropists have for many years been in the habit of causing the unhappy victims driven down this road in the slave-stick, to be ransomed by the missionaries and settled on their stations as free men. The principal settlement of this kind is that among the gneiss peaks of Masasi. The Christian world cherished the hope that these liberated slaves might be trained into grateful fellow-believers and capable men. But when one hears the opinion of experienced residents in the country, it is not possible without a strong dose of preconceived opinion to see in these liberated converts anything better than their compatriots. The fact remains and cannot by any process of reasoning be explained away, that Christianity does not suit the native; far less, in any case than Islam, which unhesitatingly allows him all his cherished freedom.

Personally, however, I must say I have not so far noticed any discreditable points in the character of the Masasi people; all who have come in contact with me have treated me in the same friendly fashion as the rest of those I have come across in this country. Such contact has by no means been wanting in spite of the shortness of my stay here, since I have thrown myself into my work with all the energy of which I am capable, and am convinced that I have already seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears a large and important part of the people’s life.

The very beginning of my studies was remarkably promising. The Mission station of Masasi lies a short hour’s walk north north-eastward from us, immediately under the precipitous side of Mtandi Mountain. This Mtandi is the most imposing peak of the whole range; it rises in an almost vertical cliff directly behind the straw huts of the Mission, ending, at a height of nearly 3,100 feet in a flat dome. District Commissioner Ewerbeck and I had already, when riding past it on the day of our arrival, determined to visit this mountain; and we carried out our project a day or two later. The trip was not without a certain fascination. At 4.30 a.m. in a pitch-dark tropical night, we were ready to march, the party consisting of two Europeans and half-a-dozen carriers and boys, with Ewerbeck’s Muscat donkey and my old mule. As quickly as the darkness allowed, the procession passed along the barabara, turning off to the left as we approached Mtandi. The animals with their attendants were left behind at the foot of the mountain, while the rest of us, making a circuit of the Mission grounds, began our climbing practice.

I had equipped myself for my African expedition with the laced boots supplied by Tippelskirch expressly for the tropics. When I showed these to “old Africans” at Lindi, they simply laughed at me and asked what I expected to do in this country with one wretched row of nails on the edge of the sole. They advised me to send the things at once to Brother William at the Benedictine Mission, who earns the gratitude of all Europeans by executing repairs on shoes and boots. Brother William, in fact, very kindly armed my boots with a double row of heavy Alpine hobnails, and I wore a pair the first day out from Lindi, but never again on the march. They weighed down my feet like lead, and it soon appeared that the heavy nails were absolutely unnecessary on the fine sand of the barabara. After that first day, I wore my light laced shoes from Leipzig, which make walking a pleasure. Here, on the other hand, on the sharp ridges of Mtandi, the despised mountain boots rendered me excellent service.

I prefer to omit the description of my feelings during this ascent. It grew lighter, and we went steadily upwards, but this climbing, in single file, from rock to rock and from tree to tree was, at any rate for us two well-nourished and comfortable Europeans, by no means a pleasure. In fact, we relinquished the ambition of reaching the highest peak and contented ourselves with a somewhat lower projection. This was sensible of us, for there was no question of the magnificent view we had expected; the heights and the distant landscape were alike veiled in thick mist, so that even the longest exposure produced no effect to speak of on my photographic plates.

This ascent, though barren of results in other respects, has produced one small monument of African art, a drawing of our climbing caravan, which is here offered to the reader’s inspection. The native artist has quite correctly indicated the steepness of the mountain by the vertical line representing the road. The confusion of circles and curves at the lower end stands for the buildings of the Mission station:—the foundations of a church vast enough, should it ever be finished, to hold all the converted heathen of Africa and the adjacent continents; the ci devant cowhouse, in which the two aged clergymen have found a primitive refuge after the destruction of their beautiful buildings by the Majimaji, the boys’ school and the girls’ school—two large bamboo huts in the native style; and the dwellings of the native teachers and boarders. The curly labyrinth at the upper end of the line is the top of the mountain with its gneiss blocks. The two uppermost climbers are the kirongozi or guide and one of our men, the third is Captain Ewerbeck, and the fourth myself. The District Commissioner is readily recognizable by the epaulettes with the two stars denoting his military rank, which belong to the uniform worn on duty by this class of officials. Of all attributes of the white man this seems to make the greatest impression on the native mind, since, in every drawing in my possession where officers are represented, their rank is invariably (and always correctly) indicated by the number of stars. In the same way the native draughtsman never makes a mistake with regard to the stripes on the sleeves of non-commissioned officers, black or white. The advantages of a well-developed corporation are here evident! Ewerbeck and Seyfried are about the same age as myself, and our chest and other measurements are pretty nearly identical. This I suppose must be the reason why the inhabitants of Lindi, and later on those of the interior, have promoted me to the rank of captain; at Lindi I went by the name of Hoffmani mpya, “the new captain” (Hauptmann). The drawing here reproduced is evidence of my promotion, the artist having bestowed the epaulettes on me as well as on Ewerbeck. The figures behind us are of no importance, they are only the rest of our party. Now, however, comes the psychologically noteworthy point; I figure in the picture twice over, first laboriously climbing the mountain, and then in majestic pose at the top, in the act of photographing the African landscape. You must know that the tripod shown in the drawing is that of my 13 × 18 cm. camera, the zig-zags between its legs are the brass struts which keep it rigid; the long snake-like line is the rubber tube for the release of the instantaneous shutter—of which, as a matter of fact, I could make no use on account of the mist,—and the photographer is, as above stated, myself. The men behind me are my personal attendants to whom the more fragile parts of the apparatus are usually entrusted. The graphic reproduction of this ascent is no great achievement on the part of the native intellect, but nevertheless it is a very important document for the beginnings of art in general and for the African point of view in particular. To the ethnographer, of all men, the most apparently insignificant matters are not without importance, and this is why the prospect of working undisturbed for many months in these surroundings is such a delight to me.

Our ascent of Mtandi was concluded, at any rate for the present, by a ceremonious breakfast, to which the two missionaries had kindly invited us. Englishmen, as is well known, live extremely well in their own country; but abroad, too, even in the far interior of a continent, they know how to make the best of things. I was here impressed with the fact that Masasi must be a “very nourishing district,” as Wilhelm Raabe would say. We had no champagne, it is true—Archdeacon Carnon had set it before us on the previous day, in a huge water-jug, apologizing for the absence of champagne glasses. We showed him that we were able to appreciate his hospitality, even in the absence of such refinements.

The merriest part of our whole Mtandi expedition, however, was the ride home, with the Mission pupils trotting along beside us. The little fellows looked warlike enough with their bows and arrows, and seemed desirous of shouting each other down. I could not at first make out what they wanted, but on reaching home, that is to say, our police-post, I soon understood that their object was nothing less than to offer me the whole of their martial equipment for my ethnographic collection. But not as a present—giving things away for nothing is not in the negro’s line, and in this he resembles our German rustics. On the contrary, these young people demanded fancy prices for the bows which they had made on purpose to sell them to the mzungu, that remarkable character who buys all sorts of native rubbish. I purchased such of their wares as seemed suitable for my objects, and thought it advisable to prevent disappointment to those whose offers had been refused by giving each a copper or two out of the famous jar of which we shall hear again later on. Before doing so, however, I instituted a pleasing experiment, instructive for myself and highly enjoyable for the youth of Masasi, in the shape of an archery competition.

Comparative ethnography has for a long time past busied itself with the task of classifying and analyzing all the technical and mental activities of man. Thus some decades ago, the American, Morse,^[12] ascertained that all men who shoot, or ever have shot, with the bow, have certain definite ways of drawing it. There are about half-a-dozen distinct methods, which are so distributed over the globe that, in some places the same release (or “loose” as it is technically called) is known to be common to the whole of a large area, while elsewhere the most abrupt contrasts may be observed between contiguous nations or tribes. It might be supposed that there could be no possible differences in so simple an action as that of drawing a bow; but experiment shows otherwise, and this experiment I have made over and over again in the course of my lectures.

It is a thousand to one that any German (leaving out of consideration the English and the Belgians, who still practise archery according to the rules of the game, and can distinguish a good “loose” from a bad one), when he has taken the bow in his left hand and grasped the arrow and the string in his right, will hold the notch as it rests on the string between his thumb and forefinger, and thus only indirectly draw the string by means of the arrow. This, which is the “loose” we used on the little toy bows of our boyhood, is the very worst conceivable, as anyone who understands the other methods can convince himself by every shot he tries. It is obvious that the arrow must slip from the fingers if a moderately strong pull is given. The best proof of the inferiority of this particular “loose” is the fact that it is very seldom found among those sections of mankind who still use the bow as a serious and effective weapon, whether in war or hunting. These handle it after a very different fashion. Only where the bow is a mere survival, and only used as a toy by children (the most conservative class in the community), as for instance among ourselves, this method, quite useless for an effective shot, is practised simply because no better is known.

If I felt compelled to take the boys at Masasi Mission as a standard for estimating the culture of the race, I should have to say that here too the bow is a survival, for nine-tenths of the whole multitude shot in the same way as our boys at home, but with one difference; we hold the bow horizontally, the African boys held it vertically, the arrow lying on the left side of the string between the index and middle finger. Only one-tenth of the whole number used a different “loose,” and these, significantly enough, were older boys, who therefore had evidently taken over with them into their Christianity a considerable dose of old African conservatism.

My competition was arranged with a view, not so much of registering the number of hits and misses, as of observing the method of drawing; but, notwithstanding, I must say that the little archers acquitted themselves by no means contemptibly. It is true that the distances were short, and my mark was scarcely a small one, being a copy of the Tägliche Rundschau; but the greater number sent their arrows inside the rings I had hastily drawn on this improvised target. They were proud of their success, too; and when I praised a good shot it was good to see the triumphant looks that the little black hero cast round on his admiring companions.

As to the other methods, if I were asked the question in my Leipzig lecture-room, I should have to answer it at once. As it is, I am enabled to claim the privilege of the investigator and excuse myself from giving further information till I have collected sufficient material by a series of fresh observations. I hope to gratify my readers’ thirst for knowledge when I have traversed the whole plain north of the Rovuma, and, encamped on the cool heights of the Makonde plateau, find leisure to look back and take stock of my studies. Till then—Au revoir, Messieurs!