Last week, we had a few days of such cool, bright, windless weather, that it seemed as if a St. Luke’s summer had set in. Now, however, the icy gales from the east are once more blowing round the boma of Newala, and we had rain on Michaelmas Day, which was somewhat early. This must have been a signal universally understood by young and old; for I am no longer besieged by the hitherto inevitable boys, and my old men, too, have ceased their visits. Fortunately, I have been able to pump the old gentlemen so effectually in the course of the last few weeks that I could leave at once, quite happy in the possession of an enormous stock of notes, were I not detained by the linguistic inquiries which I am now set on making. It is quite impossible to give here even the merest indication of the knowledge so far gained as to all these more or less strange customs and usages. The details will have a place in official and other documents to the preparation of which the leisure of many coming terms will have to be sacrificed; here I can only indicate such prominent points as are calculated to interest every civilized person.

Personal names among the natives offer an unlimited field for research. Where Islam has already gained a footing, Arab names are prevalent. The Makonde askari Saidi bin Musa keeps step with his comrade Ali bin Pinga from Nyasa, and Hasani from Mkhutu marches behind the Yao porter Hamisi. Among the interior tribes the division into clans predominates as a principle of social classification, and therefore, even in the case of converts to Christianity, the baptismal name is followed by the clan name. Daudi (David) Machina is the name of the native pastor at Chingulungulu, and the presumptive successor to Matola I and Matola II calls himself Claudio Matola. We shall have something more to say about these clan names later on.

The meaning of the names is often equally interesting. My carriers alone have already provided me with a good deal of amusement in this respect, the appellations they go by being in most cases exceedingly absurd. Pesa mbili (“Mr. Twopence”) is as familiar to us as his friend Kofia tule, the tall man with the little flat cap, Kazi Ulaya, the man who works for the European and Mambo sasa—“Affairs of to-day.” Besides these, the following gentlemen are running about among the two dozen who compose my faithful retinue:—Mr. Blanket (Kinyamwezi bulangeti, corrupted from the English word), Mr. Cigarette (no commentary needed), Kamba Ulaya (European rope, i.e. hemp rope as distinguished from native cordage of cocoa-nut fibre or palm-leaf twist), Mr. Mountain (Kilima) and Messrs. Kompania and Kapella (Company and Band—from the German Kapelle). The names Mashua (boat) and Meli (steamer, from the English “mail”) have a nautical suggestion and Sita (Six) an arithmetical one—and, to wind up with, we have Mpenda kula—(“He who loves eating”).

The names used by the interior tribes are free from the noticeable European touch found in these designations of the carriers, but here, too, we come across amusing specimens. I notice at the same time that these names are certainly not the first to grace their bearers. As is so often the case with primitive peoples, and with the Japanese at the present day, we find that every individual on being formally admitted to the duties and responsibilities of adult life assumes a new name. The natives hereabouts do not know or have forgotten the original significance of this change, but we are not likely to be wrong in supposing that the new name also means a new person, who stands in quite a different relation to his kinsmen and his tribe from his former one. Officially, every adult Yao, Makua, Makonde or Matambwe has the right to offer himself as godfather, but I have the impression that the majority of names one hears are really nicknames, casually given by acquaintances.^[53] It is well known that the native has a very acute sense of the weak points and absurdities of others.

Che Likoswe (“Mr. Rat”) will be remembered by his war-songs at Chingulungulu, and with him may be classed Che Chipembere (“Mr. Rhinoceros”). The latter is liable to fits of sudden rage, like the pachyderm, hence his name. The name of the old beer-drinker, Akundonde, is a reminiscence of his original kinship with the Wandonde tribe. Che Kamenya is he who is victorious in fight; there was joy at the birth of Machina; Makwenya gathers everything to himself, but Che Mduulaga, on the other hand, thinks nothing of himself,—he is modesty in person. In the same way, Mkotima is a quiet man, Siliwindi is named after a song-bird so-called; and, finally, Mkokora is he who carries away dirt in his hands.

These are some Yao men’s names. I will only mention the following women’s names for this tribe:—Che Malaga means “She is left alone”—all her relations have died. Che Chelayero, “She who has a hard time.” Che Tulaye, “She who fares poorly,” and Che Waope, “She is yours.”

The personal names of the other tribes have on the whole the same character—Kunanyupu is an old Makua, who, according to his own statement, has killed many gnus (nyupu) in his youth. Nantiaka is the Don Juan who flits from one attraction to another. A similar train of thought has suggested the name of Ntindinganya, the joker, who contrives to saddle others with the blame of his own tricks. Linyongonyo is the weakling; Nyopa the ambitious man who strives to make himself feared by others; Madriga is the sad, melancholy man; Dambwala the lazy one.

Among the women Alwenenge is “the one who knows her own worth,”—her lord and master has, it is true, taken another wife, but he will not remain with her, but return penitently to Alwenenge, as she very well knows. Much less fortunate is Nantupuli; she wanders about the world and finds nothing at all, neither a husband nor anything else. Other unfortunates are Atupimiri and Achinaga—the former has a husband who is always on his travels and only comes home from time to time to “measure” (pima) his wife, i.e., to see how she is behaving. Achinaga’s husband, on the other hand, is ill and cannot work, so that she has to do everything by herself. There is also a Pesa mbili among the Makonde women. The name implies that she formerly stood high in the estimation of men, but now she has grown old and is only worth two pice. Beauty has its market value even with the negro.

A field of inquiry, extremely difficult to work, but which will everywhere well repay cultivation, is that of the customs accompanying the life of the individual from his cradle to his grave.

The native infant—which is not black, but at first as pink as our own new-born babies—has come into the world in its mother’s hut. The father is far from the spot, the women having sent him out of the way in good time. The baby is carefully washed, and wrapped in a piece of new bark-cloth. At the same time its ears are anointed with oil, that it may hear well, and the ligature under the tongue loosened with a razor, to ensure its learning to speak. Boys are everywhere welcomed; but with regard to girls, the feeling varies in different tribes, and, just as is the case among ourselves, in different families. It is often stated in ethnographical works that primitive peoples rejoice on purely interested grounds at the birth of girls, on account of the price they will bring when married. Up to a certain point such considerations may have weight here, too, but in general people are glad of daughters if only because they can soon begin to help their mother in her numerous outdoor and indoor tasks. Their marriage, moreover, brings an additional faithful and unpaid worker into the household. For this is the land of exogamy, where the young wife does not go to her husband’s home, or enter his family, but, on the contrary, the man leaves his father and mother and either moves directly into the house of his wife’s parents, or builds his own close beside it. In any case for some years, until his own family circumstances necessitate a different arrangement, he devotes all his powers to keeping up his mother-in-law’s establishment. He sees to the planting of the crops and their ingathering, he breaks up new ground, in short he renders every possible service, and anticipates her every wish. I have often been ashamed when the conversation turned on this and other features of native life, to remember the tenor of those venerable jests of which our comic papers never weary. Of course, a mere passing traveller like myself is no judge of the more intimate side of family life, but Knudsen, who has lived in the country long enough to become thoroughly familiar with the people’s ways of thinking and acting, confirms the impression I had arrived at, that, not only is the relation between mother and son-in-law nothing short of ideal, but that the behaviour of young people to their elders in general deserves to be called exemplary. We who belong to the highest stage of culture, or, according to the view held by most of us, the stage of culture, spend half our lives in educational establishments of various kinds and grades, and the final result is shown by statistics in the diminishing percentage of illiterates in our population. But let all who have eyes to see and ears to hear observe how little ethical sense and how much downright brutality make up the daily life of these very representatives of culture. I am far from wishing to say anything against our system of education and our schools—I am a kind of schoolmaster myself—but it gives food for serious reflection to see how worm-eaten, in spite of all the care bestowed on it, is much of the fruit they produce, and how ethically sound is the life we meet with among these barbarians. And this is the outcome of a training extending over three or four months and received from teachers who have passed through no school or college.

The treatment of twins is different among the various tribes in this part of the country. The Wayao welcome them with unmixed joy, while the Makonde look on their birth as a terrible event, to be averted if possible by all sorts of charms. But even here the parents are not so cruel as to kill them if they do come into the world; they are allowed to live and treated in the same way as by the Wayao, i.e., their clothing (such as it is) is always alike. If this were not done, it is believed that one of them would certainly die.

For the first year the African infant remains in close contact with its mother. When it is only a few days old, she takes it out for the first time, to be shown to the admiring neighbours. Like a little lump of misery it squats in the large coloured cloth enfolding the upper part of its mother’s person. It usually hangs on the mother’s back, but she very often swings it round to one hip. When the time comes for feeding the baby, it and the bag containing it are brought round to the front. Nothing so impresses me with the idea of poverty and squalor as this treatment of infants: no change of clothing for mother or child—for there is no supply of extra garments—no drying, no powdering, no napkins, no regular bath after the first few days, no care of the mouth. On the contrary, every child has sore places where the skin has been chafed, especially at the joints, and in folds and depressions of the body; half-healed scabs, where nature is getting the upper hand in spite of neglect; eyes nearly always bleared and running in consequence of the perpetual attacks of flies, and, finally, individual cases, here and there, of thrush-ulcers on such a scale that fungoid growths actually protrude from mouth and nostrils. It would be well if the Government and the Missions could unite to put an end to this frightful state of things, not so much by medical work, which is naturally limited to certain localities, as by training the mothers, as extensively as possible, in the simplest rules of hygiene and cleanliness.

I have been half-an-hour in a native village. The men and boys were all assembled within two minutes of my arrival; the women are gathering more slowly; the little girls, curiously enough, are altogether absent. Just as with us, the women have at once gathered into a closely-packed group. A shy silence reigns at first, but no sooner have they had time to get used to the sight of the white man, than there is an outburst of talk in every key, in spite of the hugest of peleles. At least half these women are carrying babies, but this term is tolerably comprehensive. Great boys and girls of two, or even three years old, are sprawling on the slight backs of delicate-looking mothers, or making violent attacks on the maternal fount of nourishment. My camera apparently affords the pretext for this last manœuvre; for, as if at a given signal, the whole little black band is propelled forward into position at the very moment when I press the bulb.

The later stages of childhood among the natives are passed in a way not materially differing from our own youthful recollections. The little boys band themselves together in troops and carry on their games in the village and the bush; while the little girls begin at an early age to help their mothers indoors and out. Wherever I have been able to carry on my activity as a collector, I have been particularly assiduous in getting together all toys and games in use in the country. There is one point deserving of special notice in connection with children’s games, and this is that almost from the first day of its existence the child is present wherever anything is going on. When the mother joins in the dance, the baby on her back goes through every movement with her, and thus learns dancing, so to speak, instinctively. By the time it can stand on its own little feet, it joins in with the same certainty as that with which the partridge chick just out of the egg goes to pick up its food. Whether native children have outside these dances anything that can be called concerted games, I cannot say, but so far I have seen nothing of the sort,^[54] unless we might count the great skill shown in clapping the hands in unison, in which, with its pleasing rhythm and (one might almost say) variety of tune, they are as much at home as their elders. Otherwise every child seems to be dependent on itself, at least as far as toys are concerned. For boys, bow and arrows are the sine qua non in the first place. If I had been willing to buy all the toy bows offered me, I should have had enough to load a small ship. Here in Africa the weapon is as much of a survival as in most other countries. The fact of its being confined to children shows that, as in Europe, it is no longer seriously used in war, but only in play, or at most, in the chase. We find, as might be expected, that the grown men are no better archers than the boys, and vice versa. Where firearms have once been introduced, more primitive weapons are no longer valued.

It is not easy to form an ethnographical collection in this country. It is only in consequence of my very resolute attitude—which is far more effectual than my bags of copper coin—that the people make up their minds to bring anything at all, and then it is chiefly rubbish. In order to obtain the more valuable class of articles, such as the more important household implements, or the carved masks and other works of art, I am frequently compelled to resort to a mild display of force, by making the headman of the village morally responsible for the production of the specimens. And yet every article is liberally paid for. How peculiarly difficult it is to obtain toys, of all things, people at home have no notion. I would suggest the following explanation for this fact. If a Japanese ethnographer, for instance, were to visit Germany in the autumn he would find it easy enough to make a large collection of kites, but tops—to take one of our most typical children’s toys—he would only be enabled to see and procure if he definitely inquired for them. It is just the same here; everything has its season, and toys above all. Having once grasped this truth, I always made short work of the business, by delivering to the assembled villagers a lecture on all the playthings of mankind, winding up with, “If you have so and so—or so and so—be quick and bring it here.” In many cases neither my own linguistic acquirements nor the interpreter are sufficient, and gestures have to supply the lack of words. I was quite startled at my success, one day at Chingulungulu, when, on having gone through the vigorous movement of slinging a stone, I saw Salim Matola, the all-accomplished, return in a short time with two remarkable objects, which, on his demonstration of the way in which they were used, proved to be a veritable throwing-stick and a sling—an amentum. I have rarely had such a feeling of complete success as at this moment. Who would have thought to find the throwing-stick and the sling in Eastern Africa, a region hitherto considered so barren as regards ethnography? The former is an implement intended to serve no other purpose than the lengthening of the lower arm in order to throw a spear or a stone; it represents, therefore, in terms of physics, the lengthened arm of a lever. Its principal region of distribution is Australia; it also exists in some parts of the Western Pacific, among the Hyperboreans, and in isolated parts of America. Hitherto it has been assumed that the African had not arrived at this invention. The sling in the same way serves to lengthen a lever, but the spear or stone is in this case not thrown by means of a catch on the stick or board, but by a string fastened to the root of the forefinger, while the free end is coiled round the missile. If the warrior throws his arm forward, the weapon leaves the hand by centrifugal force, uncoils itself from the string and flies away with great initial velocity.

Where such antiquities as these occur—I reflected at the time—surely there are more discoveries to be made. This expectation was in fact fulfilled, though I had first to fight my way through a superfluity of another species of toy. One day, in the course of the lecture already referred to, I happened to make the gesture of whipping something over the ground, and it was at once correctly understood, for from that time forward the young people simply overwhelmed me with tops. No less than four kinds are in use here. One exactly corresponds to our European peg-top,^[55] and is, like it, driven with a whip, a second has a round or square piece of gourd fixed on a short, stout wooden peg as axis of rotation;^[56] a third is similar to the last, but has a second disc under the first (which is about the size of a five-shilling piece), in order to place the centre of gravity higher up. Finally, we have a very complicated mechanism whose action resembles that of our humming-top. The second and third require no whip, but are spun with the thumb and middle finger. The fourth, on the other hand, needs a “frame” to spin it. This is represented by a piece of maize-cob perforated lengthwise, through which the string wound round the top is quickly pulled back. Like many other things, the art of spinning tops is not made easy for native boys, the soft, sandy ground being ill-suited to this game; yet the little fellows show great skill in it.

With one exception, children have no musical instruments peculiar to themselves. Whether they fiddle on the sese, the one-stringed violin, or maltreat the ulimba, that instrument on which all Africans strum—the box with wooden or iron keys fixed to its surface, and struck with the finger-tips—or strike the mgoromondo, that antediluvian xylophone in which the keys rest on a layer of straw, or play on the lugombo, the musical bow with calabash resonator, which is so widely distributed over East and South Africa—in every case the instruments are only clumsy imitations of those used by grown-up people. The only one whose use is confined to the young is the natura—a friction-drum, made from a bottle-gourd or the fruit of the baobab, cut across and covered in, like a drum, with the skin of some small animal. A blade of grass passes through the middle of the diaphragm, and thence down through the bottom of the shell. By rubbing a wetted thumb and forefinger down the stalk, as the little wretches are perpetually doing, a noise is produced so excruciating that even my carriers—who are not precisely sufferers from nerves—take to flight when they hear it. But young people are not only capable of preserving ancient survivals in culture through thousands of years, but also have the advantage of a greater receptivity for novelties. I have in my collection two charming specimens of an African telephone, consisting of two miniature drums, beautifully carved and covered with the delicate skin of some small animal, perforated in the middle to allow the passage of a thin string, which is kept from slipping through by a knot on the inside of the skin. I never thought, at first, of taking this thing seriously, but one day, having a spare quarter of an hour, I put one of the drums into Knudsen’s hand, and told him to walk away till the string—about a hundred yards in length—was stretched tight. I held the membrane to my ear, and heard quite clearly, “Good-day, Professor. Can you hear me?” So the thing really acts, and all that remains for us to do is to develop it and boldly link ourselves up with the coast and that centre of civilization, Lindi!^[57] There can be no question of independent invention in this case; the telephone is undoubtedly borrowed—but the fact of the borrowing, and the way it is applied by children are not without interest.

Such an important epoch in native life as that represented by the unyago, with all its joys and woes, its games and dances, cannot be without influence on the habits of the young people, even before it arrives. Thus I have some ipivi flutes obtained from little fellows far too young to be admitted to the mysteries. Anyone who wishes to excel in an art must begin his training early, and the flute players of the ndagala practise their instrument for years beforehand. Moreover, boys, who had evidently not yet passed through the unyago, have more than once brought me specimens of the kakale, the long sticks, painted black and white in alternate rings with a little trophy at the top, consisting of the shell of some fruit with a plume of feathers stuck in it. These two insignia of maturity, therefore, are also found in the capacity of toys. There is nothing surprising in this so far as the boys are concerned, for the native has no secrets from them. At the ceremonies I witnessed at Achikomu, as well as at Niuchi and Mangupa, there was always a whole troop of little fellows, covered with dirt and ashes, running about. Strangely enough, there were never any half-grown girls to be seen on these occasions; everything relating to the mysteries seems to be carefully kept secret from them. It was only during my long residence at Newala, with its possibilities of free intercourse between me and the different tribes, as well as among natives of different ages, that I could see and photograph any of these young things. They seem to be brought up much more within the walls of the hut and its compound than we are accustomed to suppose; and even in the hundreds of visits I have paid to native homes, I have seldom been able to see the young daughters of the house face to face. As a rule, I only caught sight of a slender little figure retreating swiftly through the back door of the hut.

Under these circumstances, of course, I cannot say how the little native girl actually grows up, and whether she enjoys anything even faintly resembling the happy childhood of our own loved ones—but nothing leads us to suppose that she does; though there is no question that the native shares in the universal instinct which inspires all parents with affection for their offspring; he feeds his children and protects them when they need protection; he rejoices when they thrive and mourns over their illness and death. I can still see Matola, as he came to me one day—his usual expression of gentle melancholy heightened to one of deep grief and anxiety—carrying a little girl of some five or six years. She was not even his own child, but a relative, for whom he entreated my help. To my sincere regret, it was impossible for me to do anything—the poor little thing was suffering from a malignant gangrene, which had eaten away the whole front of one thigh, so that the tendons were laid bare and the bones were beginning to bend. I spoke very seriously to Matola, asking whether he were as much of a mshenzi as his people, who were perishing through their own stupidity and apathy. He, the headman, and a clever man at that, knew very well, so I told him, that there were German doctors at Lindi, who could cure even such cases as this, if the patients were brought to them. He ought therefore, to send the child down at once, unless he wished her to die, as all her elder brothers and sisters had done.

Matola gazed at me for some time, evidently wavering between hope and doubt; but in the end he followed my advice; and I have since heard that the child is well on the way to recovery. But it is astonishing and perplexing that such an enlightened man as the chief of Chingulungulu should have allowed the disease to go on so long before taking any serious steps to obtain assistance. What then could be expected of a man from the bush, who consulted me immediately after my arrival, asking me for medicine for his sick child?

“What is the matter with your child?”

“A wound on her foot.”

“But, my good man,” I said, “I can’t give you medicine to take home,—you would not know how to put it on. You must bring your child here. Where do you live?”

“Mbali—a long way off—Bwana,” he answers, lengthening the vowel to signify inexpressible distance.

“How far?”

“Well—about two hours.”

“Oh! you call that far, do you? you mshenzi! if you were going to a beer-drink, twenty hours would be karibu sana. Off with you now, and come back at eight to-morrow morning.” But neither at eight nor at any later hour was there any sign of the noble father from the Makonde bush. It was not till the fifteenth day after the preliminary consultation that he appeared, bringing with him a little girl of five or six. I did not at first remember him, but at once recalled his previous visit when the child, overcoming her natural shyness, held out her foot. Nothing was to be seen but a horrible mass of dirt and sand cemented together with blood. I started at once on the cleansing process, with the help of Stamburi, my trusty hospital orderly; and when at last the foot was laid bare, we found that the whole ball was eaten away to the bone—whether owing to jiggers, or through the cumulative effect of various other circumstances, my medical knowledge is insufficient to decide. When at last I glanced at the father, I saw him staring like one hypnotized at a leg of antelope intended for the next day’s dinner, which Knudsen had hung up just over my table. Having recalled him to reality, I bade Moritz give him the softest part from the skin of a recently killed wild pig, and told him to make a shoe, or at least a sandal such as are certainly not unknown in this country, as he must see for himself that the child could not walk through the dirty sand with her freshly-bandaged foot. He had his knife with him—let him get to work without delay! We two practitioners devoted ourselves once more to the treatment of the wound, which was in truth a terrible one; and in a little while the bandage was put on as correctly as we knew how. A second look at the father showed that he was still staring at the raw joint, as intently as if he had really eaten his way into it. It is a good thing, after all, in such cases, to have the kiboko within reach. In another quarter of an hour the well-wrapped foot was protected by a very serviceable pigskin slipper. But that is the last I ever saw or heard of the gentleman, and he never so much as thanked me either for the treatment or for the thrashing.

Boys and girls, as a rule, reach the age of eight or nine, perhaps ten, before any event of importance interrupts the even tenor of their lives. Then the assembly of the men, which when the harvest is over, meets daily in the baraza, decides where the unyago is to be celebrated in the current year. Since all the adjacent districts have now taken their turn in bearing the expense of the ceremony, it is a point of honour that our village should invite them this time. The resolution is soon carried into effect; the moon is already on the wane, and the celebration must take place before the new moon. The unyago presents exactly the same features in all the tribes of this region. The men erect a circle—larger or smaller as circumstances may require—of simple grass huts in an open space near the village. In this space the opening and closing ceremonies are performed; the huts are intended for the candidates to live and sleep in. Such an arena, with all its appurtenances in excellent preservation, was the circle of something over fifty yards’ diameter which I was enabled to photograph when visiting the echiputu at Akuchikomu. The charred remains of a similar lisakasa, as the system of huts is called in Yao, were to be seen near the road on this side of Akundonde’s—the relics of a former festival.

It is inherent in the nature of the whole institution that both boys and girls should be passive throughout. They sit silent, inactive and motionless in their huts while, on the first night of the festival, the grown-ups feast and drink and enjoy themselves in the wild masewe dance. Next day the boys, each one in charge of his instructor, are conducted to the bush by the chief director. There they sleep one night without any shelter whatever. For a short time, on the following day, they may do as they please, but during the remainder they have to set to work with their anamungwi (teachers) and build the ndagala. As soon as this airy construction is finished, one after another of the boys is laid on a very primitive couch of millet-straw, and the jua michila performs the operation. For weeks the little patients lie there in a row, unable to do anything to accelerate the slow process of healing. Not till this is complete and the subsequent moral and other instruction has begun do the wari, as the boys are now called, acquire the right to take part in public life. In the high spirits engendered by the pride of their new position, they indulge in many a mad freak. Woe to the unhappy woman or girl who, ignorant of the situation of the ndagala, strays into this region of the bush. Like a troop of mischievous imps, the boys rush on her, tease her, perhaps even tie her up and ill-use her. According to tribal custom, they are quite within their rights in so doing, for their abode in the bush is supposed to be utterly unknown to women. When he goes out into the pori the boy is dead to his mother,—when he returns, he will be a different person with a new name, and nothing to connect him with his former relationship.

I have already tried to describe the course taken by the instruction imparted in the ndagala. Old Akundonde and his councillor, in the candour induced by their libations, were certainly trustworthy informants in this respect. It is an irreparable misfortune that the liquor supply coming to an end when it did (in such a surprisingly short time) deprived me of the conclusion of the address to the wari, but the fragment already given is quite sufficient to indicate the character of the teaching.

The lupanda reaches its culminating point only with the closing ceremony. The preparations on both sides are extensive: in the bush the wari are being restored by their mentors by means of head-shaving, baths, anointing with oil, and a supply of new cloth, to a condition worthy of human beings. In the village, meanwhile, the mothers, long before the time fixed, have been brewing large quantities of beer and preparing still larger piles of food for the festivity. When the great day at last arrives, the boys come back in procession, in their clean new garments, with their faces, necks, and freshly-shorn scalps all shining with oil, and carrying in their right hands the kakale, the sticks headed with rattles which have already been described. Men and women line the road in joyful expectation. Ever louder and more piercingly, the “lu-lu-lu” of the women vibrates across the arena, and yonder the drums strike up with their inspiriting rhythm, while the hoarse throats of the men utter the first notes of a ng’oma song. In short, everything is going on in the most satisfactory and genuinely African way.

The Africans, being human, like ourselves, it is only to be expected that all their works and ways are subject to as many changes and inconsistencies as our own. I have devoted a disproportionate part of the time (over a month) spent at Newala to the task of fixing the typical course of all these ceremonies. This has been a most severe labour, for if, in my wish to obtain unimpeachably accurate results, I arranged to let my informants of each tribe come separately, I might be sure that the two or three old men who made their appearance would say little or nothing. The native intellect seems not to become active till awakened and stimulated by sharp retort and rejoinder in a numerous circle of men. I have thus been compelled to go back again and again to my original method of assembling the whole senate of “those who know,” some fifteen aged Yaos, Makua and Makonde in a heterogeneous crowd round my feet. This was so far successful as to produce a lively discussion every time, but it becomes very difficult to distinguish between the elements belonging to different tribes. Yet I venture to think that, with a great deal of luck, and some little skill, I have succeeded so far as to get a general outline of these matters. I feel quite easy in my mind at leaving to my successors the task of filling up the gaps and correcting the inaccuracies which no doubt exist.

Further, it must be remembered that my notes on the initiation ceremonies of these three tribes would, if given in full, take up far too much space to allow of their reproduction here. Two other points must be borne in mind. What I saw with my own eyes of the unyago, I have here related in full, with that local colouring of which actual experience alone enables a writer to render the effect. But those scenes at Achikomu, Niuchi and Mangupa are only tiny fractions of the very extensive fasti represented by the girls’ unyago in reality; while, as to the remainder, I can only repeat what I have heard from my informants. Quotations, however, always produce an impression of dryness and tedium, which is what I would seek to avoid at any price. I therefore think it better to refer those interested in the details of such things to the larger work in which it will be my duty, according to agreement, to report to the Colonial Office on my doings in Africa and their scientific results.

The last point belongs to another department. The negro is not in the least sophisticated as regards the relation between the sexes. Everything pertaining to it seems to him something quite natural, about which his people are accustomed to speak quite freely among themselves,—only in extreme cases showing a certain reticence before members of the alien white race. Now the part played by sex in the life of the African is very great, incomparably greater than with us. It would be too much to say that all his thoughts and desires revolve round this point, but a very large proportion thereof is undoubtedly concerned with it. This is shown in the clearest way, not only in the unyago itself, but in the representation which I subsequently witnessed. In the present state of opinion resulting from the popular system of education, such delicate matters can only be treated in the most strictly scientific publications, being debarred from reproduction in a book of any other character. This is necessary—I must once more emphasize the fact,—not on account of the subject itself, but out of consideration for the misguided feelings of the public. It may be regrettable, but it is true.

Of all the tribes in the South of German East Africa, the Yaos seem to be, not only the most progressive, but the most prosaic and unimaginative, and in fact their initiation ceremonies are very simple, compared with those of the Makonde and Makua. Those of the latter have to a certain extent a dramatic character. The Makua choose a branch of a particular shape, and forked several times, which they plant in the midst of the open space where the festival is held. This is fetched from the bush by the men, who, singing a certain song, carry it in procession into the arena, where the director of the mysteries stands, in the attitude of a sacrificing priest. He now kills a fowl, the blood of which is caught in a bowl, while some charcoal is pounded to powder in a second vessel, and some red clay crushed in a third—the branch is then encircled with a triple band of the three substances—red, black, and red. Meanwhile some men have been digging a hole, in which is laid a charm made out of pieces of bark tied together. The hole is then filled up and the earth heaped over it in a mound on which the forked branch, called lupanda, is planted. A second mound is then made, which, as well as the first, was still clearly recognizable in the ring of huts at Akundonde’s. This second mound is the seat for the unyago boy who is considered of highest rank, the others being grouped around him, on stumps, which, if the director of the proceedings has the slightest sense of beauty, are arranged in two regular, concentric circles similar to those which I saw in the bush near Chingulungulu. “The cromlech of the tropics!” was the idea which occurred to me at the time, and even now I cannot resist the impression that this arrangement of tree-stumps resembles our prehistoric stone circles, not only in form but perhaps also in the object for which it is designed. If our Neolithic megaliths were, really used by assemblies for ritual purposes, there seems no reason why these venerable stones should not have served as seats for our ancestors. The negro, too, would no doubt dispense with wooden seats, if stone ones had been obtainable in his country.

If I were at all given to imaginative speculations, I could easily prove that the Makonde are fire-worshippers. As soon as the men have built the likumbi, i.e., a hut of the kind we saw at Mangupa, all scatter to look for medicine in the bush. In the evening of the same day, they give the roots they have collected to an old woman who pounds them in a mortar. The resulting paste is dabbed in spots on the arms of some five or six men by the high priest or doctor. When this is done all sit inactive till midnight, when the munchira (doctor) begins to beat his drum. As the deep sound of this instrument thunders out through the dark tropical night, all the people, adults and children, stream out of the huts, and dancing and gun-firing are kept up till the following afternoon, when they distribute presents to each other and to the boys’ instructor. Thereupon the munchira delivers an address. The six men above referred to are, he says, sacred; if they should take it into their heads to steal, or commit violent assaults, or interfere with their neighbours’ wives, no one must do anything to them, their persons are inviolable. The six, for their part, are now informed by him that it is their duty to beat the drum at midnight for the next three months.

When the three months are ended, the village is all stir and bustle. Men go into the bush to collect dead wood, and in the evening carry it in perfect silence to the open space near the likumbi hut. The women, meanwhile, have been preparing enormous quantities of beer, which also finds its way to the likumbi. In this hut stands a small round covered basket (chihero), containing medicines, into which (and on the medicines) every one of the wood-gatherers spits out a little of the specially prepared beer. Beside the chihero stands the old woman who pounded the medicines in the mortar, who then puts the basket on her head, seizes in one hand the end of a whole piece of calico, specially bought for the ceremony, and leaves the hut with a slow and solemn step, dragging the cloth behind her. The first of the wood-gatherers quickly takes hold of it, so as not to let it touch the ground; as it unrolls from the bale a second takes it, then a third, and a fourth, till at last it passes along a little above the ground, like a train borne by pages. The munchira walks in front next to the woman, and they circumambulate the likumbi, after which the munchira takes the end of the calico and wraps it round the chihero. This he then holds to his right ear; after a short pause, he places it on his shoulder, again keeping it there for a few moments; then it is lowered to the hip, the knee, and finally to the outside of the ankle. At the close of the ceremony the venerable man takes both cloth and chihero as his well-earned fee.

Again it is night—the outline of the great wood-pile is just recognizable in the faint light. About an hour after midnight, a tall, gaunt figure rises from the circle of prostrate figures wrapped in their sleeping-mats. Silently it glides up to the pile, a little flame flashes up, to disappear again; but soon there is a fresh crackling; the flame, in the draught produced by the rhythmic pulsations of a fan, grows and strengthens. Now we recognize the figure—it is that of the munchira. In a few minutes the whole large pile is a sheet of flame, its flickering, quivering lights dancing on the shining faces of the men standing round in a circle. The fire having now burnt up brightly, the munchira walks quickly round it, and, his face turned to the pile, utters the following words:—“Let the wounds of the boys heal soon and painlessly, and let the chief who is keeping the likumbi this year find the boys do him credit in after life.” At the same time he ties a white rag to a pole, and fans the fire with powerful strokes. The men remain standing round it, watching it as it dies down, till broad daylight.

Fire, as the central point in a ceremony which cuts so deeply into social life as do the celebrations of puberty among these tribes, is so far as I know quite an isolated phenomenon among the peoples of Africa. Have we here a case of genuine fire-worship, or are the walk round the fire and the address to it only the last unconscious survivals of a cult prevalent in ancient times? I do not know, and, to speak frankly, cannot even say where the answer to this question may be looked for. We must not a priori assume it to be impossible that the Makonde should once have been fire-worshippers; we know far too little as yet of their social evolution. The abundant results of my inquiries up to this point are the best proof that unexpected discoveries are yet in store for us.