The charming festival recently witnessed at Achikomu’s seems to have broken the spell which debarred me, just when the season was at its height, from gaining an insight into this most important and interesting subject. In the short period since my arrival at Newala, I have been present at no less than two typical celebrations, both of them girls’ unyagos. This I owe to the kindness of the Akida Sefu.

Sefu bin Mwanyi is an Arab—apparently of unmixed blood—from Sudi. He is a tall, light-complexioned man, with finely-cut features. He knows a number of languages, excelling even Knudsen in this respect, and I cannot say enough of the obliging way in which he has endeavoured to further my plans ever since my arrival.

After a fatiguing climb up the edge of the cliff bordering the plateau, which just at Newala is particularly steep, and a short rest, we made hasty arrangements for encamping in the baraza—open as usual to the dreaded evening wind—within the boma or palisade of stakes. The cold that night was almost Arctic, and we wrapped ourselves in all the blankets we could find. In the early dawn, the zealous akida came in a great hurry, to conduct us to the Makua village of Niuchi, where the concluding ceremony of the girls’ unyago was fixed for that day, and where I was sure to see and hear much that was new. An hour later, our party, this time including my mule, had already wound its way through a long stretch of primæval Makonde bush. It proved impossible to ride, however—the path, bordered by thick, thorny scrub, being never two feet wide in the most frequented parts. We suddenly walked out of the thickest bush on to a small open space surrounded by houses, and perceived with some astonishment a large crowd of strange-looking female figures, who were staring at us, struck dumb with terror. I saw at once that, here, too, it would be well to keep as much as possible in the background, and disappeared with my men and all the apparatus behind the nearest hut. From this coign of vantage, I was able to watch undisturbed a whole series of performances which few if any travellers, probably, have seen in exactly the form they here assumed.

It is eight in the morning; the Makonde bush, which almost closes over our heads, is clad in the freshest green, one large tree in the middle of the bwalo^[42] and a few others of equal proportions rise above the general level of the pori, and the low Makonde huts stand out sharply in the clear morning air. The few women whom on our arrival we found sweeping the bwalo with bunches of green twigs, have vanished like lightning in the crowd surrounding five other figures dressed in gaudy cloths. These are squatting in the shadow of a hut, covering their eyes and temples with their hands, and staring fixedly at the ground through their fingers. Then a shrill sound is heard, and five or six women are seen hurrying with grotesque jumps across the open space. As they raise the traditional cry of rejoicing,^[43] the pelele, here of truly fabulous dimensions, stands up straight in the air, while the tongue, stretched out under it, vibrates rapidly to and fro in the manner indispensable to the correct production of the sound. The first six are soon followed by a dozen other women, among whom one voice sings:—“Anamanduta, anamanduta, mwan-angu mwanagwe” (“They go away, they go away, my dear child,”)—the rest repeating the line in chorus. The song is accompanied by accurately-rhythmical hand-clapping, as the dancers move in short tripping steps backward and forward. “Surely a barbaric lament over a parting,” I reflect, on hearing Sefu’s rapid translation, but already a new song is heard:—

“Namahihio achikuta kumaweru” (“The owl cries in the gardens”). This, too, is repeated for some time, then once more, all crowd round the five bundles of cloth. Five elderly women now step forward out of the throng and decorate the heads of their pupils—for such are the gaudily-attired beings—with bunches of millet. The latter now rise, and take up their position in Indian file, each with her hands on the shoulders of the one before her. The drums strike up—old and young together swaying with skilled vibration in the danse du ventre.

“Chihakatu cha Kuliwile nandu kuhuma nchere.” (“The chihakatu (small flat basket) of Liwile is carried out of the house early.”) This is the song now chanted as before by solo and chorus. By the chihakatu is probably meant the decoration of millet-heads—the natives are fond of symbolical expressions.

This song in its turn comes to an end; the ranks of the dancers break up and the women hasten in all directions, coming back to lay further supplies of millet, manioc, cloth, etc., at the feet of the five instructresses. These, meanwhile, have been preparing for the next step. An egg is broken, a little of the yolk is rubbed on the forehead of each girl and the rest mixed with castor oil and used to anoint the girls on chest and back. This is the sign that they have reached maturity, and that the unyago is over. The first part of the festival is concluded by the presentation of more new cloth to the girls.

Sefu now points out to me a stick planted in the ground, and tells me that medicines belonging to the unyago have been buried under it. He also says that some months ago, a large pot of water was buried at another spot in the bwalo; this was also “medicine.”

While I am listening to this explanation, the women have once more taken their places. With a ntungululu which, even at the distance at which we are standing, is almost enough to break the drums of our ears, all the arms fly up with a jerk, then down again, and the performers begin to clap their hands with a perfection of rhythm and uniformity of action seemingly peculiar to the dwellers on the shores of the Indian Ocean, in order to accompany the following song:—

“Kanole wahuma kwetu likundasi kuyadika kuyedya ingombe.”

The meaning is something like this: “Just look at that girl; she has borrowed a bead girdle, and is now trying to wear it gracefully and becomingly.”

Women are very much alike all the world over, I mutter to myself, as Sefu explains this—full, on the one hand, of vanity, on the other, of spite. The song refers to a poor girl appearing in borrowed finery, who is satirized by her companions. In the next song it is my turn to furnish the moral.

“Ignole yangala yangala meme mtuleke tuwakuhiyoloka.”

The sense appears to be about the following:—

“You are here assembled (for the unyago), rejoice and be merry. We who have come here, we do not want to play with you, only to look on.”

If Sefu is right, as there is every reason to suppose, these words are to be understood as spoken by myself, they are either dictated by my own delicacy of feeling: “I have no wish to intrude”—or they are intended as a captatio benevolentiæ: “Please stay at a distance, white man, or we shall be afraid!”

In spite of my discreet attitude, the performers do not seem to feel quite easy, for they now sing till they grow tired:—

“Nidoba ho, nidoba ho.” (“It is difficult, it is difficult, truly.”)

This is followed by a long pause.

The second division of the programme goes on to repeat part of the first. Still more completely muffled in their brightly-coloured cloths, so that neither face nor arms are to be seen, the five girls come forward as before, and march round to the right, the rest of the company following them in the same order as previously. Now the drums, which in the meantime have been tuned afresh over a tremendous fire, strike up again, and the chorus starts: “Chihakatu cha Kuliwile,” etc., with dance as before. This lasts fully half-an-hour, and then the long file breaks up; the oldest of the instructresses comes forward into the open space in front of the crowd, puts on a critical expression, and waits for what is about to happen. This is not long in showing itself. Like a gorgeous butterfly, one of the coloured calico bundles separates itself from the mass, and trips gracefully before the old woman, while the chorus bursts into song:—

“Nande è è, nande è è.”

The astonished white man, looking on, can only see clearly the head and feet of the bundle, which are comparatively at rest—everything between these extremities being an undistinguishable blur. On boldly approaching, I make out that the girl is vibrating her waist and hips, throwing herself to and fro with such velocity that the eye cannot follow the lines of her figure. The performer retires after a time, and the others follow, each in her turn, receiving praise or censure from the high authorities convoked for the occasion. But not even Sefu can tell me what the words of the song mean.

The third part follows. As full of expectant curiosity as myself, the five young girls certified as having arrived at maturity are now gazing at the arena. They have freed themselves from their wrappings, and seem to feel quite at home, with their mothers and aunts all standing round them. Then, with a quick, tripping step, another bundle of cloth comes out of the bush, followed by a second, and, after a short interval by a third and fourth. The four masks—for such, when they turn round, they are seen to be—stand up two and two, each pair facing the other, and begin the same series of movements which I had already watched at Chingulungulu, comprising the most varied manœuvres with arms and legs, contortions of the body above the waist, quivering vibrations of the region below the waist. In short, everything is African, quite authentic and primitive. I had seen all these evolutions before, but was all the more struck with the whole get-up of these strange figures. Makonde masks are now to be found in the most important ethnographic museums, but no one, it appears, has ever seen them in use—or, if so, they have not been described. The masks are of wood, two of them representing men, and two women. This is evident a hundred paces off, from the prominence given to the pelele, whose white stands out with great effect from the rigid black surface. The costume of the male and female figures is in other respects alike, following the principle of letting no part of the human form be seen—everything is swathed in cloth, from the closely-wrapped neck to the tips of the fingers and toes. This excessive amount of covering indicates the aim of the whole—the masks are intended to terrify. It is young men who are thus disguised; they do not wish to be recognized, and are supposed to give the girls a good fright before their entrance on adult life. The masks themselves in the first instance serve this purpose in a general way, but their effect is still further heightened by making them represent well-known bugbears: portraits of famous and much dreaded warriors or robbers, heads of monstrous beasts, or, lastly, shetani—the devil.^[44] This personage appears with long horns and a large beard, and is really terrible to behold.

While the four masks are still moving about the arena—sometimes all together facing each other, sometimes separating and dancing round in a circle with all sorts of gambols—a new figure appears on the stage. A tapping sound is heard as it jerks its way forward—uncanny, gigantic; a huge length of cloth flutters in the morning breeze; long, spectral arms, draped with cloth so as to look like wings, beat the air like the sails of a windmill; a rigid face grins at us like a death’s head; and the whole is supported on poles, a yard or more in length, like fleshless legs. The little girls are now really frightened, and even my bodyguard seem to feel somewhat creepy. The European investigator cannot allow himself to give way to such sensations: he has to gaze, to observe, and to snapshot.

The use of stilts is not very common in any part of the world. Except in Europe they are, so far as I know, only used in the culture-area of Eastern Asia, and (curiously enough) in the Marquesas Islands (Eastern Pacific), and in some parts of the West Coast of Africa. Under these circumstances, I cannot at present suggest any explanation of their presence on the isolated Makonde plateau. Have they been introduced? and, if so, from whence? Or are they a survival of very ancient usages once prevalent from Cape Lopez, in the west to this spot in the east, preserved at the two extremities of the area, while the intervening tribes advanced beyond the old dancing-appliances? My mind involuntarily occupies itself with such questions, though, properly speaking, this is not the time for them, as there are still many things to see.

That the stilt-dancer’s intention is to terrify, is evident from his movements, quite apart from his disguise. In a few gigantic strides he has reached the other side of the fairly spacious arena, and drives the natives squatting there back in headlong flight; for it looks as if the monster were about to catch them, or tread them under foot. But it has already turned away, and is stalking up to the five novices at the other end: they, and others near them, turn away shrieking. Now he comes within range of my camera—a click of the shutter, and I have him safe. I could almost have imagined that I saw the man’s face of consternation behind his mask—he stopped with such a start, hesitated a moment, and then strode swiftly away.

This dancing on stilts can scarcely be a pleasure. The man is now leaning, tired out, against the roof of one of the huts, and looks on while the four masks come forward again to take part in the dance. But the proceedings seem inclined to hang fire—the sun has by this time climbed to the zenith, and the stifling heat weighs us all down. A great many of the women taking part in the ceremony have already dispersed, and those still present are visibly longing for the piles of ugali at home. I take down the apparatus and give the word to start, and once more we are forcing our way through the thorny thickets of the Makonde bush towards Newala.

The indefatigable Sefu only allowed me one day in which to digest the impressions of Niuchi, before announcing another important expedition. Sefu lives only some thirty or forty yards away from us, in a house built Coast-fashion. He is not, like Nakaam and Matola, a native of the country, but has been transferred here from the coast as an official of the German Administration, while the other two might be compared with large landowners placed in a similar position on account of their local standing and influence among the people. He has rather more notion of comfort than is usual among his congeners, for he has had very neat bamboo seats—some even with backs to them, an unheard of luxury in this region—put up in his baraza, where he holds shauris and also receives, with great dignity, the leaders of passing caravans. Sefu spends all his spare minutes with us; he arrives first thing in the morning, and shivers through the evening with us in that temple of the winds which goes by the name of the rest-house, and which we shall be compelled to close in with a wall in order to get some protection against the evening gales.

Sefu, then, had a grand plan to propose. This time, he said, he could show us a ceremony of the Wamatambwe at the village of Mangupa. It was again a girls’ chiputu, that is, the conclusion of the first course of instruction which these children of between eight and eleven had been going through for some months in a special hut. But the Matambwe procedure is in some points different from that of the Yaos and the Makua; and, also, it was not far. If we started next morning at 7.30, we should be in time to see the beginning after a walk of an hour and a half.

I was able to form a slight idea of the famous Makonde bush on the expedition to Niuchi—but it was very far from being an adequate one. Much has been written about this form of vegetation, but I believe the theme is inexhaustible. Not that this bush is remarkable for æsthetic charms, for beautiful scenery, or abundance and variety of vegetation. It is a perfectly uniform, compact mass of thin stems, branches, leaves and tendrils. This is the unpleasant part of it; this indescribably thick tangle lets no one pass unless he has first cut his painful and toilsome way with axe and bill-hook. Our native troops have gone through unspeakable sufferings in this way, in the last ten years alone, especially in the war against Machemba. Things have been made easier for us—the victorious struggle against the formerly unreliable and often rebellious tribes of the south has led to the wise measure of connecting every place of the slightest importance with all other settlements by means of roads deserving the name of barabara, i.e., beaten road, in the most literal sense of the term. This road is so broad that a column could at need march along it four abreast; though in some places indeed it is very much overgrown.

We took the main road leading to Nkunya, but very soon turned off to the right, getting deeper and deeper into the bush. Riding soon became impossible; in fact, every member of the expedition was engaged in a very cautious struggle with the upupu. Nils Knudsen warned me against this agreeable plant soon after our arrival at Newala, so I have escaped an experience which many a new-comer will not forget in a hurry. The upupu^[45] is a kind of bean bearing dark green pods, which, if touched, cause an unbearable irritation in the skin. Rubbing or scratching only brings the victim nearer to madness. Washing is quite useless—the only effectual remedy is wood ashes, which, if mixed with water and plastered on the skin, draw out the minute poison-crystals in a short time. As in many other cases, the cure is easily applied if one only knows it.

Punctually at nine, we are standing before a hut similar to the one already described, only that the likuku, as it is here called, is double—two low, round structures, standing side by side. The ceremony is just about to begin, Sefu says. I am hard-hearted and barbarous enough to send the headman of the place—who has one foot ulcerated in the most horrible way and consequently poisons the atmosphere for some distance around him, but in spite of this feels that he ought to do the honours of his village—half-a-mile away to windward, before setting up my camera by the side of a bush, where I await the progress of events.

For some time we hear nothing but the familiar lu-lu-lu-ing of the women in all keys, soprano and alto, piano and fortissimo, as if the company, standing in a dense crowd behind the double house, wished to practise a little before making their appearance. Meanwhile, they are growing more and more shiny—they are anointing themselves with castor oil till they drip with it. They are also wearing peleles of a size I have never yet seen. Suddenly, the scene changes—seven women come forward out of the crowd carrying a long pole, and walk quickly towards the open space on the left of the likuku. As they approach we see that the pole is really a huge flag-staff—a whole length of brand-new coloured cotton print hangs down it from one end to the other. “Nini hii?” (“What is this?”) I ask Sefu. It is the fee for the instructresses, among whom it will soon be divided, but before being cut up, it is to be shown in all its beauty to the people.

From the moment of their first coming forward, the seven women have been chanting: “Watata wadihauye akalumbane kundeka unguwanguwe.” Sefu says that this means:—“My father has treated me badly—he gave me a bad husband, who ran away from me, and now I am left alone.” I cannot make out what this song has to do with the chiputu, but have no time for speculation on the subject, for the whole company is beginning to enact a kind of “Walpurgisnacht!” At least, should an African Goethe attempt to depict a festival on the heights of Kilimanjaro analogous to the famous scene in Faust, he would probably do it on the lines of what we see before us. Pigs, broomsticks, and other traditional paraphernalia of the venerable profession are here entirely wanting, but the illusion is more than sufficiently maintained by the white disc in the upper lip, the huge stud in the nose; the combs stuck in the woolly hair, the heavy bangles on arms and ankles, and, finally, the unhappy baby on the back of every young witch, and, strangely enough, on those of a good many elderly ones as well. Clapping their hands, and uttering their shrill, vibrating cry, the whole troop run, jump, and dance wildly in and out till the spectator’s senses are completely bewildered.

Suddenly, the noise ceases, and the figures of the five novices, closely huddled together, stooping low, swathed in new, gaudy cloths which cover them all over, appear from the “wings” in the same way as their predecessors. The silence lasts till they have taken their places in the arena, but then a din breaks loose to which what I have described as the “Walpurgisnacht” was merely a gentle murmur, for in addition to the voices we have now the roll and thunder of the half-dozen drums forming the inevitable band. Meanwhile, the chaos has hastily arranged itself into a large circle, in the centre of which the five bundles, now quite a familiar sight to me, stand in the same stooping posture as at Niuchi. The drums have by this time moderated their pace and volume, and the women glide and shuffle round the ring to the accustomed rhythm. Finally, the performers change places as on the previous occasion, the instructress comes forward, the rest of the women being now merely accessories, and the novices proceed to show their proficiency in the dance before alluded to. This trial being over, it seems as if the girls were receiving congratulations, and then the whole mass moves towards the double hut, the five girls walking backwards. All vanish into the dusk of the interior, but while the grown-up women remain there, the girls re-appear after a few minutes’ interval, and, walking in Indian file, a short distance apart, they cross the arena,—not backwards this time, but in the ordinary way—and silently vanish into the thick bush.

The exit of the five girls seems to mark the official close of the ceremony, as the women do not appear again. The lords of creation, however, now come into action, and man after man, as if drawn by a magnet, moves towards one of the two doors and enters, while no one is seen to come out again. This interests me, and approaching the entrance of the hut, to discover the cause of this singular phenomenon, I find that preparations are being made for a beer-drinking on a large scale:—the ground inside the hut is occupied by rows on rows of huge pombe-jars, waiting to fulfil the object of their being. We have not been invited to the feast—an omission due, we may be certain, not to any want of hospitality, but probably to timidity, and a feeling that the admission of a stranger to a share in their tribal mysteries is something unfitting. We should have liked to be asked, all the same.