The words of the German students’ song rise to my lips, now that I am thinking of bringing our stay here to a close—though, as a rule, I am anything but musical, and Knudsen, for his part, can never get beyond the first line of Gamle Norge. The mention of music suggests my experiences with the phonograph. When laying in my stock of blank cylinders at Berlin, it was a happy inspiration of mine to take half-a-dozen records as well, in the hope that they might serve to charm the savage breast of the African. I have no sort of responsibility for the choice of these pieces, as I left it entirely to the girl who served me at the shop where I bought them. What determined her selection I cannot tell, but it is a fact that the greater number of the six records, though not all, are immensely popular. An American march—quite rightly—produces no impression whatever, and a selection of songs fails to attract my public: it seems to suggest nothing at all to them. The next item on the programme, the arrangement of which I always leave to Knudsen, so that he may learn to work the instrument,—is “Die beiden kleinen Finken” (“The Two Little Finches”). Here and there an eye lights up with intelligence when the twittering of the birds begins, and many sets of white teeth are seen flashing behind the parapet which shuts off our baraza from the outer passage. Then comes the well-known xylophone solo, “Der Specht” (“The Woodpecker”). As the deep bass voice announcing the title of the piece issues from the funnel, the whole audience leans over the wall in feverish excitement, one might almost say with ears erect. A few of the experienced elders, who have been on the coast and therefore have the right to appear blasés, laugh ostentatiously to show that they understand. But this laughter dies away when the pure tones of my instrument, unmixed with any adventitious sound, begin to reproduce in the most striking way the unmistakable notes of the xylophone. One can see that these people have an ear and enjoy the harmony of sounds perhaps as much as we do. Besides, the sounds are not in this case unfamiliar—for the mgoromondo, the straw xylophone already described, has exactly the same timbre. By the time the final tapping duet begins, everything about them is shining—their eyes, their teeth, their whole faces—in fact they shine all over, for they keep crowding together more and more closely, and it is by no means cool. “Die Schmiede im Walde” (“The Forge in the Forest”) scarcely heightens their pleasure; it is true that the enjoyment is great and general, but the blacksmith is a familiar figure of everyday life, and the rhythm of his hammer as well known to them as it is to us. Now, however, comes our aria di bravura. It has been my experience that when a white man, after long residence among savages, declines more or less from the level of civilized society, music is the first thing to stimulate the endeavour towards recovery. Nils Knudsen can listen to the Fledermaus seventeen times running without getting enough of it. He winds up the apparatus over and over again and remarks that this is real music—the right sort. The natives, too, are delighted with the merry, audacious tunes, and if the mood of the moment is such that I feel moved to execute a few waltz or polka steps and float, like a fairy weighing some thirteen stone, round the table on which the phonograph is placed, their delight becomes indescribable rapture. This is the right moment for turning the tables and calling on the audience to become performers in their turn. The Newala natives are very reluctant to oblige in this respect; the men can only be induced to come up to the phonograph when under the influence of the ecstasy just alluded to, but the women are off like the wind whenever I want them.

The men, too, here at Newala, would not come near me for a time. I had become so absorbed in the linguistic studies which had been occupying me more and more during the last few weeks, that my growing isolation did not at first strike me. Only when Knudsen and I found that we scarcely ever saw any one besides my three teachers, the akida Sefu, the Yao Akuchigombo (which is, being interpreted, Mr. Toothbrush), and the Makua Namalowe (Mr. Echo), it became clear to me that some circumstance unknown to me must be the cause of this boycotting. Neither Sefu nor the other two could or would explain matters. Mr. Echo had only been resident a short time at Newala, having recently come to be trained as a teacher under his older colleague at the Universities’ Mission, so that his ignorance was not surprising; but it annoyed me greatly that the other two would give no answer to all my inquiries beyond “Si jui” (“I don’t know”). However, I was forced to admit that even these two did not really belong to the place, Sefu being a coast man, and in his capacity of akida, probably more feared than loved, while Akuchigombo was educated at Zanzibar, and through his position as teacher of the Mission School, separated by a great gulf from the illiterate mass of the population. This school, with a rusty tube of an artesian well and a small church-bell, hung according to the custom of this country in the first convenient tree, are the only relics of the once flourishing station of New Newala.

Only within the last few days has Knudsen been able to get out of an old friend from the plains the reason why we have been left so severely alone. The explanation, strange as it may seem to a European, is genuinely African: it is nothing more nor less than the suspicion—indeed the certainty—that I am a dangerous sorcerer. Somehow the belief had gained ground that in photographing people I deprived them of whatever clothes they were wearing. “Have you not seen,” some individual whose name is as yet unknown to me, is reported as saying to his countrymen, “how the white man gets under his great black cloth? It is then that he bewitches you. You are standing there with all your clothes on, but he goes and stands for hours in his tent overnight, working his charms, and next day, when he gets out his glasses, there you are on them quite naked. And if you are foolish enough to go and stand in front of the other machine, he will take away your voices, too. He is a great wizard, and his medicines are stronger than even our chisango (divination oracle). We made war against the Wadachi (the Germans), but what fools we were to do so, for this white man is one of them!”

The comic aspect of the situation struck me far more forcibly than the annoying one, and we both laughed heartily. I had not before realized that the phonograph had all along seemed to these people more or less uncanny—the apparatus always stood so that they could only see the mouthpiece and the smooth front, the rotating cylinder being invisible to them. They had seen, indeed, that Knudsen or I went through some manipulation of the instrument, but none of them had formed any idea as to the nature of the process. Thus the inexplicable assumed the aspect of the occult, and I was promoted to the rank of a wizard who robbed people of their voices. I must in this connection make honourable mention of the enterprising Zuza. Once, though only after the spell had been broken in another way, he seized a favourable opportunity to walk round the apparatus and see the revolving cylinder. Since that day this intelligent man and the more enlightened of his followers look on the phonograph as a mere machine, as innocent as any other brought by the white man from distant Ulaya.

In regard to my magic for stripping people of their clothes, I took very energetic steps. We used all our persuasions to get a few men and women to pose before the camera, took the photographs, developed them on the spot, printed them and exhibited the finished picture-postcards. “Well, are you naked in this picture, or are you clothed? And are these the very same clothes you are now wearing on your black bodies, or are they not?” Half-timid, half-startled at the novel spectacle, both men and women stared at the wonder of the picture; then they all went off with their portraits and the parting injunction to tell everyone that the white man was no sorcerer and did not rob people of their clothes, but that they were dressed in his pictures exactly as in real life. This proved quite effectual, and to-day the natives gather round us as confidingly as they did at first.

On the whole they might now save themselves the trouble, for I find that I no longer require them. The objects they bring for sale are the same as I already possess by the hundred, and my photographs reveal no further novelties—it is always the same type, the same keloids, the same pelele. I therefore find it best to devote the greater part of my time to languages, and the remainder to desultory notes on points which turn up of themselves during my excursions in the neighbourhood. A few days ago, I came across the strangest thing I have yet met with in this country where strange things are so common. For some weeks past, Namalowe had spoken of a custom of the Makua girls, who, he said, carry a collection of pebbles under their tongues as in a nest. I had laughed at the man—with a significant gesture towards my forehead—every time he said this. The day before yesterday, we five were assembled in the baraza as usual, and worrying ourselves over some peculiarly difficult forms in Yao. Namalowe, being a Makua, was not wanted just then, so excused himself and left the baraza. We were hardly thinking of him when I heard steps approaching and a slender figure of a girl appeared between the mat screen and the clay parapet, immediately followed by that of the native teacher. The next moment the pretty young creature stood before us, shyly smiling. “Hapa namangahlu, Bwana” (“Here are the mouth-stones, sir”), said Namalowe, pointing with a triumphant gesture to the girl’s mouth which was adorned with a pelele of only moderate dimensions. We all rose to our feet in the greatest excitement. Sefu, Namalowe and Akuchigombo all talked to her at once for some time, and at last reluctantly putting her hand to her mouth she produced an oval pebble, as large as the kernel of a hazel-nut, worn quite smooth, and almost transparent, and held it out to us on her open palm. A second, third and fourth followed, and I stood dumb with surprise, while Namalowe could scarcely contain himself for satisfaction. Is it a hallucination? or has the good schoolmaster been cheating? The girl takes a fifth pebble out of her mouth—then a sixth; at last, after the seventh and eighth, the nest appears to be empty. My three savants informed me that these namangahlu are quartz pebbles found in the gravel of all the rivers hereabouts, though the finest and clearest are those from the Rovuma, so that it is a point of honour for the young men to bring them from thence as presents to their innamoratas. Pearl necklaces and settings à jour are as yet beyond the aspirations of fashion on the Makonde plateau, and pockets are also an unknown refinement of luxury, so that the mouth is the only place for storing these jewels. This at least is how I explain the unique method of carrying about the stones. According to my informants, the meaning of the custom is equivalent to a troth-plight, and therefore the pebbles are the African for an engagement ring, except that, in contrast to the latter, they are seen by no one but the lover. My first instinctive suspicion of a hoax was, I may safely assume, unfounded. I have since studied the matter on my own account, and found several young Makua women carrying the stones in the manner described, so that I have independent evidence for the custom.^[63] It really seems as if there were no degree of lunacy of which human beings are incapable!

The climate of Newala has been growing worse and worse. We enjoyed a short interval of lovely weather resembling that of a fine autumn in Central Germany; but now the mist shrouds the boma every morning up to about half-past eight, and in the evening the east wind blows more icily than ever. We two Europeans are afflicted with chronic colds, and our men are in a sorry plight. They have not much in the way of clothes, the carriers being without even a change of calico; and the commissariat of the poor wretches is not all that could be desired. When we consider in addition that the water is far from pure, I am not surprised that the sick list grows from week to week. On every side I hear indications of severe bronchial catarrh, and almost fancy myself back again with Ewerbeck’s company of coughers. Cases of dysentery, too, are not rare, neither are those of sexual disease. Most of the patients have sufficient confidence in their mzungu to come voluntarily and take in the most heroic manner any kind of dawa that is put into their mouths. I have to treat my soldiers in military fashion by having them up for medical inspection from time to time. At the same time, as one might expect from the native character, they will very often carry on a concurrent treatment with mshenzi medicines. Whenever Knudsen and I take a stroll along any of the roads leading out of Newala, we are pretty sure to come upon curious objects at places where two paths meet or cross. The ground has been carefully cleared of leaves, branches, etc., and in the middle of the level space thus made, an unknown hand has traced with snow-white meal, a magic circle about a foot in diameter and never quite regular. Within the circle little heaps of flour are arranged according to some recognised system, with more or less regularity, in rows of three or four.

It was some time before I could get any explanation of the object and meaning of these figures, which I had also seen before coming to Newala. This kind of therapeutics can only be understood if the native’s views as to a life after death and the action of supernatural powers are considered as a whole. In his belief human life by no means ceases with death. It is true that the body is buried and decomposes, but the soul lives on, and that in the same locality where it was active during life. Its favourite abode is a conspicuous tree. The religion of these southern tribes is thus distinctly tree-worship, in so far as the natives sacrifice and pray to their deceased ancestors by laying food and drink at the foot of such a tree, and addressing their petitions to its crown.

The msolo tree (in Makonde mholo) is the one here distinguished as the abode of the gods. To this tree the native goes when there is sickness in his family, or when he is about to undertake a long journey, or go on the war-path. He does not come empty-handed, but decorates the trunk with coloured stuff, so that, with all the gaudy rags previously fastened there by other distressed petitioners, the spectacle presented is more curious than beautiful. He sweeps the ground about the tree with a bunch of leaves, sprinkles flour on it, and pours strengthening pombe into the jar placed there for the purpose. These are the voluntary offerings of the living. But the giver being only human, and not only human, but African, expects a quid pro quo on the part of the dead. “I have given you cloth and brought you meal and beer; you, my ancestor, know that we are going to war against our enemies the Mavia. We are to march to-morrow; let no bullet strike me, no arrow, and no spear.” The tree rustles in the evening breeze, and the believer departs reassured.

But the souls do not always live in the msolo tree. As a rule, they are restlessly wandering about the country, and naturally prefer the main roads, as they did while in the flesh. There, and above all in places where several roads meet, they are most commonly to be found, and their protection is most likely to be successfully invoked. This at least is the best explanation that occurs to me of the flour offering being made by preference at the cross-roads. The sick see the possibility of cure only, or at least principally, in the help of the ancestral spirits who are presumably endowed with greater powers than they enjoyed in this life. What, therefore, is more natural than to sacrifice to these spirits at the spots which they may be supposed to pass most frequently, at the cross-roads and at the junction of two paths? This is the view taken by my informants, in which I am quite disposed to concur; it seems extremely probable, while at the same time I admit that there may conceivably be another idea underlying the flour circles.

The planting of special trees at the graves seems to be closely connected with tree-worship. In the plains—and among the Yaos in particular—I noticed no such trees, but here on the plateau they are very common. On recent graves I find young, slender saplings; in other spots, where only the old men remember that anyone is buried, there are enormous trees with mighty trunks sixty feet high and more. More than one place near the boma of Newala is rendered solemnly impressive by a number of such old sepulchral trees. The tree is the one called kamuna, and is always planted at the head of the grave.

Whether the natives believe that the spirit has its abode for a time in these trees, I have hitherto been unable to make out. In fact, it is exceedingly difficult to get any definite statements at all as to the abiding-place of the soul. The Yaos gave no information whatever on this point. The Makua said: “The shadow of the man goes to God, and God lives up there.” But what the shadow does “up there,” and how it fares in that mysterious abode, they, too, do not know. The ghost stories current among the natives of these parts are horrible and awe-inspiring enough, to judge by the specimens I have heard. I will give one of them. Both Wayao and Wamakua have a ghost called itondosha (or in Yao, ndondosha). If a magician has killed a child—like all peoples in the primitive stage, the African does not look on death as a natural occurrence, but always attributes it to magical practices—he takes it out of the grave, brings it to life again, and cuts off both legs at the knee-joint. The sorcerer throws away the severed limbs, and sets the mutilated body of the child secretly in a certain place. Then people come from every direction and bring the itondosha porridge, beer, fruits and cloth. If this is done regularly and in sufficient quantities, nothing more is heard of the ghost, but if the people, as time goes on, forget it, it suddenly raises piercing and uncanny shrieks, which frighten the people and cause them to renew their offerings to the itondosha.^[64]

With the usual good fortune which has attended my inquiries, I obtained possession, quite accidentally, of a song referring to this itondosha. This was given me by Anastasio, or as he called himself, Anestehiu,^[65] a pupil of the Universities’ Mission, who distinguished himself among the inhabitants of Newala by his willingness to face my phonograph. His zeal, indeed, was more conspicuous than his musical ability, but his services to the cause of science deserve recognition all the same.

The words of his song run as follows:—

“I went to Masasi; I went again to Masasi. In the evening I heard screams; I turned round and saw the itondosha. ‘My cousin Cheluka!’ (I cried), ‘Give me a gun and caps and a bullet.’ ‘Load it yourself,’ (said my cousin). ‘Come and let us pursue the itondosha; it went through a hole in the side wall of the house.’ My brother (cousin) turned round and said: ‘It has its legs stretched out straight before it, like a beard on the chin.’ It was seated, and we tried to tame the itondosha, the girl of Ilulu. Elo (Yes), that is so.”

A less uncanny subject was broached by an old Makonde by means of a little gift which he brought me. We had been talking about the method of reckoning time among these tribes, and had arrived at the fact that they were as backward, and at the same time as practical, in this respect as in their way of marking the hours of the day.

The recording of events by means of knots on a string is a contrivance adopted by mankind at different times and in different places. The famous quipu of the Peruvians is one example. Others have been discovered in the Pacific, and also in West Africa. Here on the Makonde Plateau it is still in daily use, for the number of children learning to read and write in the German Government Schools at Lindi and Mikindani is as yet but small.

With a courteous gesture the Makonde handed me a piece of bark string about a foot long, with eleven knots at regular intervals, proceeding to explain, with Sefu’s help, that the string was intended to serve as a kind of calendar. Supposing he were going on an eleven days’ journey, he would say to his wife, “This knot” (touching the first) “is to-day, when I am starting; to-morrow” (touching the second knot) “I shall be on the road, and I shall be walking the whole of the second and third day, but here” (seizing the fifth knot) “I shall reach the end of the journey. I shall stay there the sixth day, and start for home on the seventh. Do not forget, wife, to undo a knot every day, and on the tenth you will have to cook food for me; for, see, this is the eleventh day when I shall come back.”

Here, again, then, we have a survival, something which reminds us of a stage of culture passed through long ago by our ancestors. After all, have we left it so very far behind? Do we not, to this day, make a knot in our handkerchief, when we have something we want to remember? Mankind is poor in ideas, not only in the sense that inventions in all parts of the world can be reduced to the same simple fundamental principle, but with all our technical and intellectual progress the most advanced members of the race are in some points extremely conservative. So much the knot in the handkerchief is sufficient to prove.

The Makonde system of knot-records does not seem to be always quite so simple as we might think from the above example. Another Makonde has just brought me a whole bundle of knotted strings, saying that they belong to such and such a headman, who cannot remember which of his villagers have paid their hut-tax and which have not, but can manage in this way to keep count of them quite successfully.

In the light of my experiences in this country I am more and more confirmed in the conviction, formed on the ground of previous study at home, that our conventional estimate of the difference between “savage” and “civilized” mankind is to a great extent misleading. It is true that Amerinds and Eskimo, Hyperboreans and negroes, Oceanians and Australians alike, along with many peoples of southern and south-eastern Asia, live in more intimate connection with surrounding nature than we, who think that our environment is entirely artificial. But has not in reality each one of these despised groups of mankind a culture of its own? Is not—to take those who most nearly concern us just now—the material and mental life of these Rovuma Valley natives made up of a thousand details, not less differentiated from each other than the activities of our own lives? It is true that the native cannot attain by means of his hoe-culture and his simple arts and crafts to that standard of comfort and well-being demanded by every white man who is even moderately well off. But surely in many parts of Germany our rural population are no better, perhaps even worse off, than these barbarians who lie under the terrible reproach of being unable to write their names. I am, indeed, very far from seeing these so-called primitive peoples through rose-coloured spectacles; but when I consider that, in despite of the high opinion we entertain of ourselves, the enormous advance consequent upon the invention of printing, the discovery of the New World and the Reformation has after all affected in the fullest sense only a very small fraction of the white race—we might say, only a thin upper stratum, and that not continuous,—I cannot but come back again and again to my conviction that culture is not a thing of which we have the monopoly.

The time, however, has now come to say farewell to Newala, with its roaring evening gale, its cool mornings, its jiggers, and its interesting congeries of tribes.

The weeks of my stay here have been a time of hard work—averaging, one day with another, about sixteen hours daily,—and this very circumstance has produced a sort of attachment to the place, making one loth to part from it. We leave at daybreak to-morrow.

Note.—The itondosha suggests in some points a comparison with the Zulu umkovu, or “familiar” of wizards, who “are said to dig up a corpse and give it certain medicines which restore it to life, when they run a hot needle up the forehead towards the back part of the head, then slit the tongue, and it becomes an umkovu, speaking with an inarticulate confused sound, and is employed by them for wicked purposes” (Colenso’s Zulu Dictionary). The umkovu, like certain animals (the baboon, the wild cat), is, however, sent out on errands of mischief, instead of being set up in the mode indicated by Dr. Weule’s informant. See also Mr. Dudley Kidd’s Essential Kafir, p. 147, and Among the Zulus and Amatonga, by the late David Leslie, who calls them Esemkofu (isikovu?) and says that the witches who bring them to life clip off the top of the tongue so that the creature can only wail out “Maieh, maieh,” “which is a sound like the soughing of the wind.”—[Tr.]