In the male sex the transition from childhood to the status of fully-qualified maturity is a single, definite process, though extending over a long period. The memory of rejoicings and sufferings experienced in common is preserved henceforth among the men by means of a free, voluntary association known as the “age-class.” All those who have passed through the unyago in the same year stand by each other till death severs the connection. This connection, however, must be thought of in terms of African conditions; there is no society or club, or the like, and the sole obligation incurred by the old friends is that every one of them is bound to offer hospitality to any of the others who may come to his village. Secret societies no longer consciously influence the character of the age-classes here in the East, though the reverse is the case in West Africa where the two things go hand in hand, acting and reacting on each other as cause and effect, and both finding their common outward expression in great festivals with masked dances and other mysterious accessories calculated to terrify the women and the uninitiated men. Here on the Makonde plateau, the three phenomena—the age-classes, the festivals and the masked dances—are at the present day not very closely connected together; yet everything leads to the conclusion that the masked dance now in use among the Makonde was originally the outcome of a long-forgotten system of secret societies, similar to the quite analogous institutions of Kamerun, Upper Guinea, and Loango. There is many a knotty problem yet to be solved in this department of African ethnography.

The girls’ unyago is a graduated series of courses of instruction. I have purposely emphasized the word instruction, as there is nothing here in the nature of a surgical operation, with a single exception in the case of the Makua. In all the tribes each girl is given for the whole period of the unyago into the charge of a special teacher, who remains her friend through life. Under the guidance of these older women, the novices in the first place go through a curriculum very much resembling that of the boys. The children are unreservedly enlightened as to all sexual relations, and have to learn everything connected with married life. They are also taught all the rules which govern intercourse between members of the same tribe, and above all of the same family.

There is an opening and a closing ceremony for this first course of the girls’ initiation. I was able personally to observe the revels which take place on such occasions, at all three of the places where I had the opportunity of making the chiputu (or echiputu) illustrious by my presence. The phenomenal thirst shown is quite explained by the amount of dancing gone through.

After the mysteries, both boys and girls in due course become marriageable, but I have not succeeded in ascertaining, even approximately, the age at which this is the case. Individuals are always out of measure astonished when asked their age, and their relatives are profoundly indifferent on the subject. In general, marriage takes place very early, as is proved by the very young mothers who may be seen in any large assemblage of people, and who are mostly no further developed than German girls at their confirmation. Matola tells me that the form of marriage known as masange was formerly very prevalent, in which young children of from five to seven were united, huts being built for them to live in. This custom is said still to be practised occasionally.^[58] The same informant states that it is very common for one woman, who has just had a child to say to a neighbour expecting a like event, “I have a son—if you have a daughter, let him marry her”; and this, in due course, is done.

The African native is a peasant, not only in his avocation, but in the way in which he sets about his courting. In no other department is his mental kinship with our own rustics so startlingly shown. To express it briefly: the native youth in love is too shy to venture a bold stroke for his happiness in person; he requires a go-between quite in the style of our own rural candidates for matrimony. This office is usually undertaken by his own father, who, under some pretext or other, calls on the parents of the bride-elect, and in the course of conversation touches on his son’s projects. If the other side are willing to entertain the proposition, the negotiations are soon brought to a satisfactory conclusion—that is to say, if the maid, too, is willing. Girls are not in reality so passive in the matter as we are apt to assume, but most certainly expect to have their wishes consulted; and many a carefully-planned match has come to nothing merely because the girl loved another man. In this respect there is not the slightest difference between white and black. Of course, not every native girl is a heroine of constancy and steadfastness; here and there one lets herself be persuaded to accept, instead of the young man she loves in secret, an elderly wooer who is indifferent to her, but in that case she runs the risk of incurring—as happens elsewhere—the ridicule of her companions. The old bridegroom, moreover, may be pretty certain that he will not enjoy a monopoly of his young wife’s society.

Marriage is a matter of business, thinks the African, quite consistently with his general character, and the contract is only looked upon as concluded when the two fathers have come to an agreement as to the amount of the present to be paid by the bridegroom. The people here in the south are poor—they have neither large herds of horned cattle, nor abundance of sheep and goats; the whole purchase—were it correct, which it is not, to call the transaction by that name—is effected by handing over a moderate quantity of calico.

Much more interesting from an ethnographic point of view than the Yao wooing just sketched, are the customs of the Makua and Makonde. In their case, too, negotiations are opened by the fathers; but this is, in reality, only a skirmish of outposts,—the main action is afterwards fought by the mothers, each supported by her eldest brother, or perhaps by all her brothers. The fact that the matriarchate is still flourishing here explains the part they take in the matter.

Nils Knudsen, by the way, can tell a pretty story—of which he is himself the hero—illustrating the constancy of native girls. During the years of his lonely life at Luisenfelde, he so completely adapted himself to native ways as to take a wife from among the Wayao. Even now, after the lapse of years, he never grew tired of praising the virtues of this chipini wearer;—she was pretty, and domestic, and a first-rate cook—she could make excellent ugali, and had all the other good qualities which go to make up a good housewife in the bush. One day he went off to the Rovuma on a hunting expedition; he was only absent a few days, but on his return she had disappeared. On the table lay a knotted piece of bark-string. He counted the knots and found that there were seventy; the meaning of the token, according to the explanation given by the wise men of the tribe being this:—“My kinsfolk have taken me away; they do not like me to live with the white man, and want me to marry a black man who lives far away on the other side of the Rovuma. But even if I should live as many years as there are knots on this string, I will not take him, but remain faithful to you, the white man.” This was Knudsen’s story, and he added, with emotion not untouched by the pride of a man who feels himself to be greatly sought after, the further statement that the girl was in fact keeping her vow. She was living far away, in the heart of the Portuguese territory, and near the man for whom she was destined, but even the strongest pressure brought to bear by her family could not make her give way. After all, there is such a thing as faithfulness in love.

The native wedding is a very tame affair—one might almost say that there is no such thing. Betrothal and marriage, if we may say so, coincide in point of time. When once the wooer has obtained the approval of the rightful authorities, there is no further hindrance to the union of the couple than the delay necessary for erecting a new hut for them. When this is done and they have taken up their abode in it, the young husband begins to work for his mother-in-law, in the manner aforesaid, which appears so strange to our European ideas, though we cannot deny that there is room for improvement in our manners in this respect.

Now, however, we have to consider the question of who may marry whom, or, in other words, the table of forbidden degrees. This question has its importance even in Europe—how much more among people so much nearer the primitive conditions of society. If it is for the wise men of an Australian tribe one of the highest problems of social science to determine with absolute correctness which girl among the surrounding families the young man A may marry, and who is eligible for the young man B, so neither are the matrimonially disposed in the Rovuma valley free to indulge their inclination in any direction they may choose.

It is late in the afternoon. In the baraza at Newala fifteen natives of respectable age are squatting, as they have done for some weeks past, on the big mat. From time to time one of these seniors rises, and leaves the building to stretch his cramped legs, but always returns after a short time. The place is hot, a fetid vapour hangs over the assembly, so that the European in khaki, writing so assiduously at his folding table, presses his hands again and again to his aching forehead. The company are obviously tired, but they have to-day been occupied with a very exhausting subject. Hour after hour, I—for I am the man with the headache—have been trying, in the first place, to make clear to Nils Knudsen the principles of human marriage customs, of the various tribal divisions, of totemism, of father-right and mother-right—in short, a whole series of points in sociology, but with no very satisfactory result, as is clearly shown by every question I put. Now the task before me is to elicit from the fifteen wise elders, with his help and that of the usually acute Sefu, everything they know on these subjects. All my small failures have made me quite savage, besides wearying me to the point of exhaustion; and it costs me an appreciable effort to fling a question into the midst of the learned assembly.

“Well, old Dambwala, lazy one, you have a son, have you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you, Nantiaka, you have a daughter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. Now, Dambwala, can your son marry Nantiaka’s daughter?”

“No.”

“And why not?” I must have been very tired, indeed, for even the surprise audible in this decided negative raised no particular expectations in my mind. I only began to listen more attentively when, among the reasons for the negative then alleged, my ear caught the word litawa. “Nini litawa? What is a litawa?” I ask, now quite fresh and lively. Well, it appears, a litawa is a litawa. Then comes a long shauri, in which the wits of the natives, who, like us have been half asleep, awaken to full activity, and all three languages—Makonde, Yao, and Makua—are heard at once with a clatter of tongues like that conventionally attributed to a woman’s tea-party. At last the definition is found. Translated into technical language litawa means the matriarchal exogamic kin, including all descended from one common ancestress. A man’s inheritance does not descend to his son, but to the son of his sister, and a young Makonde takes his wife, not from his own litawa, but in one of the numerous matawa outside his own. The Makua have exactly the same arrangement, but the word they use instead of litawa is nihimu.

The evening of this day—the twenty-first of September—was cheered by the feeling that it had been among the most successful of my whole journey. In order to celebrate it in a worthy fashion, Knudsen and I, instead of the one bottle of beer which we had been in the habit of sharing between us, shared two.

The reader, especially after my declaration in Chapter II, will wonder how we suddenly became possessed of this beverage. It is true that, in the heat of the plains the mere thought of it was intolerable, but, up here, close to the clouds, especially when the east wind blows cold of an evening, a glass of German beer is very welcome. A few weeks ago I had occasion to send a dozen cases of specimens down to Lindi. The twelve carriers left early one morning, and were expected back in a fortnight. On all previous occasions of this sort, their absence had left me cold; this time, to be honest, we two white men counted the days of that fortnight, and, when, on a Sunday morning, the unmistakable sound of Wanyamwezi porters approaching their journey’s end was heard far out in the bush, we hurried to meet the great case containing many long-forgotten comforts—not only the heavy German stout from the Dar es Salam brewery, but above all, the milk we had so greatly missed, and which in our present state of emaciation was an absolute necessity.

On that memorable afternoon, however, the close of which I have thus been anticipating, I had no leisure to think of such material delights as these.

“So your son, friend Dambwala, cannot marry Nantiaka’s daughter, because both belong to the same litawa—what is the name of your litawa?”

“Waniuchi.”

“And where do you live?”

“In and around Niuchi.”

“And you, Kumidachi,” I went on, turning to another old man, in a new embroidered fez, which marked him as a headman, “to what litawa do you belong?”

“Nanyanga,” was the prompt reply. Instantly the name is written down, and my eye rests questioningly on the next wise man. He, one of the quickest, already knows what is wanted, and does not wait to be asked, but calls out, “Wamhwidia.”

But I cannot go on in this way—I must find out, not only the names but their meanings. I have already discovered, in my study of personal names, how fond the natives are of discussing etymologies, and here, too, only a slight hint is needed to get the meaning of the clan-name as well as the name itself. I had translated Waniuchi as “the people of Niuchi;” but this interpretation did not satisfy these black philologists,—niuchi was “a bee,” they said, and the Waniuchi were people who sought honey in hollow trees. The Nanyanga were flute players in time of war, nanyanga being the name of the Makonde flute. The Wamhidia, they said, had their name derived from the verb muhidia, “to strike down,” from their warlike ancestors, who were continually fighting, and had beaten down everything before them.

That afternoon, the old men, in spite of their weariness, had to keep on much longer than usual: I had tasted blood and pumped them, till, about sunset, their poor brains, unaccustomed to such continued exertion, could do no more. They, however, received an extra tip, in return for their self-sacrificing help in this difficult subject. Even Moritz, the finance-minister, had to-day quite lost his usual hang-dog expression, and grinned all over his brown face when he came, after we had struck work, to hand my assistants their bright new silver pieces. Since then I have devoted all my efforts to the study of the clan system, and do not know what most excites my astonishment, the social differentiation of the tribes, their subdivision into innumerable matawa and dihimu (plural of nihimu), or the fact that, as I am forced to assume, none of my predecessors in this field of study has had his attention called to this arrangement. However, when I come to think it over, I have no reason to be surprised, for in the first place, I had been travelling about the country for months without suspecting the existence of the clan system, and in the second, it was a mere accident that, in the discussion just described, the answer happened to take just the form it did. Men are to a certain extent at the mercy of the unforeseen—the scientific traveller most of all.

Needless to say, immediately after this momentous discovery, I came back to the problem of the Yaos. After my Makua and Makonde men had for some time been dictating name after name with the most interesting explanations into my note-book, Nils Knudsen suddenly said, “The Yaos have something of that sort, too.” Ten minutes later, swift messengers were already on the way to fetch up from the plain any men of that tribe who had the slightest pretensions to intelligence. They all came up—Zuza, and Daudi, and Masanyara and the rest. Even now the examination was no easy task, either for me or for the subjects, but after honestly doing my best, I got enough out of them to be able to say, “Nils Knudsen is right, the Yaos, too, have something of the sort.” Not only so, but in their case I ascertained without much difficulty that there is a second division into large groups, quite independent of the system of matriarchal, exogamous clans.

Of the great groups of the Yao tribe, which is now spread over an extraordinarily large region of East Africa, since it extends from Lake Chilwa in the south almost to the gates of Lindi in the north, the following are known to us,—the Amakale, near the sources of the Rovuma, the Achinamataka or Wamwembe at Mataka’s, between the Rovuma and the Lujende; the Amasaninga, originally at the south end of Lake Nyasa; the Achinamakanjira, or Amachinga, on the Upper Lujende; the Mangoche in the neighbourhood of Blantyre. The indication of the residences of these great groups, as here given, has now merely a historic value. Through the gradual migrations already alluded to, the old limits of the groups are now quite effaced, and can no longer be definitely laid down on the map. The clans, too (here called ngosyo, plural of lukosyo), cannot possibly have any definite position assigned them on the map; and this is also true of the other tribes. Some clans, indeed, may have a recognizable centre of distribution, but in general, the same confusion prevails here as in the case of the larger divisions.

It was not merely curiosity which made me so persistent in inquiring into the meaning of clan names, but the desire to ascertain whether they convey any indications of totemism. It may not be superfluous to say that the word totem comes from North America, and was originally applied to the drawings of animals appended by the Iroquois chiefs to their treaties with the white man by way of signature, the animal represented being that from which the clan of the signatory traced its descent. Totemism was first studied among these North American Indians, but was afterwards discovered to exist in Australia, apparently, also, in Melanesia, and in a very marked form among the older populations of India, as well as in various other parts of the world. In most cases, the clans trace their descent from some animal, which is reckoned sacred and invulnerable and must not be hunted or eaten. In some isolated instances it is even considered the height of good fortune for a man to be eaten by his totem animal. Small and harmless creatures, as well as plants, are also chosen as totems—otherwise it would scarcely be possible to find enough; as, for example, in Southern India, where the totems are innumerable. I cannot here give the whole long series of clan names collected by me for all three tribes, but must refer the reader for this part of my results to the official publication. But it was interesting to find that though totemism no longer consciously exists among the natives, many a small trait witnesses to its former prevalence. To point out these traits in detail will be the task of later inquirers, I will here give only a few specimens of the clan names.

Matola and his cousin, our common friend, Daudi, belong to the lukosyo of the Achemtinga, but at the same time to the group of the Amachinga.^[59] The prefix Che, as already stated, is an honorific title for both men and women:—Chemtinga, according to Daudi, was once a great chief in the region of the upper Lujende. The Masimbo lived in Zuza’s district. These take their name from the pitfalls (lisimbo, plural masimbo) in which their forefathers used to catch game. The Amiraji, who lived near Mwiti, derive their name from the character of the country where they formerly lived, which abounded in bamboo (mlasi).^[60] Another Yao clan are the Achingala, who take their name from the ngala, a kind of mussel, found in the Rovuma and its tributaries, the shells of which are still used as spoons; the reason for the name is said to be that their ancestors chiefly lived on this mollusc.

In the same category as these last we may place the Makua clan of the Wamhole, whose forefathers fed on the wild manioc (mhole), a root still eaten in time of famine. The Makonde clan of the Wambunga derive their name from the tradition that their ancestors ate the nambunga, or fruit of the bamboo. The Wantanda formerly had the custom of cutting the flesh of the game they killed into long strips (nantanda). The Wamunga^[61] are rice-planters, the ancestors of the Alamande lived on a small locust of that name, and the Wutende are people famous throughout the country on account of a quality for which we are little disposed to give the natives credit—they are always working (kutenda).

Even in the cool climate of Europe it is not altogether easy for the mind to grasp the marriage laws of these clans. Here in tropical Africa, with its perpetual alternations of heat and cold, I find it almost impossible to follow the expositions of old Mponda, my principal lecturer on Civil Law. Moreover, it is very much of a shock to our customary ways of thinking, to hear, for example, the following:—After the Makonde boy has been circumcised he does not return to his parents’ house, but remains in that of his maternal uncle. There he has nothing further to do but grow up and wait till his girl cousins are grown up likewise. If the uncle has no daughters, the nephew first waits till one is born, and, after this event has taken place, he has again to wait. It must be understood that the young man is not supposed to get his board for nothing all this time; he is expected to work pretty hard, like Jacob serving seven years for Rachel. When at last the goal is reached and the cousin is marriageable, the suitor, meanwhile arrived at years of discretion, goes away somewhere where he can earn a rupee’s worth of calico, hands this to his uncle, and takes home his wife. He is not, however, free to live where he likes, but remains at his uncle’s village, and works for him like a bondsman, as before. If, in due course, he has a son, this son, according to Mponda, must again marry a cousin—the daughter of his father’s sister. In the old man’s own concise words: “If I have a sister and she has a daughter, and I have a son, my son can marry that girl. But if I have a brother and he has a daughter, my son cannot marry his daughter, because she is numbuwe—his sister.”

We took our leave of the young girl at the moment when, after passing through the months of the chiputu with their formalities and festivities, she has taken her place among the initiated. According to some of my informants the child’s marriage takes place very soon after this epoch—certainly before the period which we in Europe consider as the beginning of maturity, viz., the first menstruation.

I have no means of checking these statements, so cannot say whether this is so or not; in any case we are just now more interested in the treatment of girls on the occasion alluded to—the more so that this treatment is analogous to that practised in a whole series of other regions. As on the Lower Guinea coast, (in Loango,^[62] on the Gabun, and on the Ogowe) and in various parts of Melanesia, the girl is lodged in a separate hut, where she remains entirely alone; her friends come and dance, uttering the shrill cry of the ntungululu outside the hut, but otherwise keep at a distance. Her mother, her instructress during the unyago, and the other wise women, however, impart to her the rules of conduct and hygiene:—she must keep at a distance from every one; she must be particular as to cleanliness, must wash herself and bathe, but above all, must have intercourse with no one. This is repeated over and over again, while at the same time eating, singing and dancing go on incessantly.

At the first pregnancy of a young wife, also, various ceremonies take place. At bottom, however, these are only a pleasant setting for a number of rules and prohibitions inculcated on this occasion by the older women. In the fifth month the young woman has her head shaved, and a month later the women make a feast for themselves, and roast some maize for her. Some more maize is then soaked in water and pounded and the resulting paste smeared on her head. Then the husband goes to the bush, accompanied by a near relation of his wife’s, the woman wearing nothing but a small waist-cloth. The man cuts down a suitable tree and prepares a piece of bark-cloth in the way already described, while the girl sings in time to the strokes of his mallet “Nalishanira wozewa neakutende.” The fabric when finished is ornamented with beads, and the instructress hangs it round her protegée’s neck as a charm. This is called mare ndembo, and the same name is henceforth applied to the expectant mother. Next morning all the people are again assembled for the dance—the inevitable ntungululu inseparable from all joyful feelings or festive occasions, mingling, of course, with the singing and hand-clapping. All, however, do not take part in these rejoicings; the wise women and the instructress stand apart from the crowd, in a group round the young wife. “You must not sit on other people’s mats,” says one toothless old woman, “it would injure both you and the child—you would be prematurely confined.”

“You must not talk to your friends, men or women,” says another woman, whose utterance is impeded by an enormous pelele, “that, too, would be bad for the child.”

“You must not go out much after this,” says a third. “If possible let no one see you but your husband, or the baby might resemble someone else. But if you do go out, you must get out of people’s way, for even the smell of them might hurt the child.”

There is, after all, something in these rules and warnings. We in Europe are quite familiar with the idea that a pregnant woman must not see anything unpleasant or terrifying, and ought not, if she can possibly help it, to let herself be impressed by any other face than that of her husband. The other prescriptions belong to the region of sympathetic magic, or action by analogy—the mere possibility of coming within the atmosphere of people who have recently had sexual intercourse with one another may endanger the coming life.

But this is not all,—the most important points are yet to come.

“You must not eat eggs, or your child will have no hair.”

“You must not eat the flesh of monkeys, or the child will have no more sense than a monkey.”

“You must not eat what is left over in the cooking-pot from the day before, or the baby will be ill.”

“If you go to the garden or the well, and anyone salutes you, you must not thank him or answer him in any way, for then the birth of the child will be long delayed.”

The conclusion of the whole lecture which, in contrast to the system pursued in our Universities, is simultaneously delivered by many teachers to one unhappy student, is the very urgent and serious warning to have nothing to do with any other man than her husband, or she will infallibly die. On the other hand, if her husband were to forget himself and go after another woman, she would have a miscarriage, resulting in her death. She must, therefore, be very good to him and cook his porridge as he likes it.

This is the last word. With the peculiar gait of the native woman, which has an inimitable twist in it, not to be described in words, the dispensers of wise counsel hasten, as fast as their dignity will allow, across the open space and join the rest of the throng, “Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu,”—the shrill vibrations again agitate the air, the drums, beaten by the men’s strong hands, strike up afresh, a mighty cloud of dust rises and veils the whole scene, everything is in motion and full of genuine African mirth, all unconscious of life’s daily miseries. One alone sits by in silence, the young woman herself who, according to the instructions just received, is entirely interdicted from taking any part in the festivity. Her brown eyes—which would deserve to be called beautiful were their effect not marred by the white being interspersed with yellowish-brown specks—are fixed musingly on one point. Is she thinking of the dark hour she will have to encounter in a few months’ time? The Scripture, “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,” is true for the black race also. But, personally, I do not think that the young thing is looking so far ahead; it is not in any case natural for youth to do so, and African youth, in particular, sees no occasion to be anxious about the future. The race is truly happy, in the enviable facility with which it lives for to-day, leaving to-morrow’s cares entire and untouched for to-morrow.

Note.—The system of kinship among the Yaos and neighbouring tribes has not been so entirely overlooked by inquirers as Dr. Weule supposes. The subject has been investigated by Archdeacon Johnson, the late Bishop Maples, and the Rev. H. B. Barnes among others, though, unfortunately, many of their notes are buried in little-known periodicals. Some valuable information is also to be found in Mr. R. Sutherland Rattray’s Some Folk-lore, Songs and Stories in Chinyanja. We think Dr. Weule is mistaken in distinguishing the “larger groups” of the Yao tribe from the ngosyo: they are probably identical with the latter in origin: e.g., the Machinga would be the descendants of a single (female) ancestor, who in the course of generations became numerous and powerful, and perhaps increased their consequence by incorporating weaker clans who placed themselves under their protection and adopted their name. But there is a second system of descent, which may be what Dr. Weule is referring to. This is called by the Anyanja chilawa, and descends through the father; marriage within it is prohibited. “A man may not marry any woman who is of his kamu (Yao, lukosyo) or of his chilawa. Thus the daughters of his mother’s sisters are excluded because they are of the same kamu, and daughters of his father’s brothers are excluded because they are of the same chilawa; but the daughters of his mother’s brothers or of his father’s sisters are eligible, because they are neither of the same kamu nor of the same chilawa” (Rev. H. B. Barnes). This tallies with the information given to Dr. Weule about the Makonde marriage laws (p. 314). Mr. Barnes doubts whether the clan names explained to Dr. Weule are really connected with totems, and thinks the customs they refer to are “perhaps more likely to be traceable to individual peculiarities of some ancestor than to any religious totemistic restriction,” and that the chilawa names, whose significance appears to be lost, are the real totem names. But the subject is too wide to be discussed in a note. [Tr.]