and is accompanied by the preparation of suitable “ medicine.”
For forging they use heavy stones, wielded with
both hands; for the finer work, mallets. The articles
made are arrow-heads, spear-heads, hatchets, and picks.
They know nothing of tempering.
The dress of these people is most primitive. Men and
women alike wear a strip of calico or bark-cloth round the
middle, and the children nothing at all. Few of them even
possess beads, but all the women wear in their ears
enormous sticks of wood (mantenga). In some villages
NATIVE T E E TH FROM NY ASA.
TANGANIKA PLATEAU.
these “ mantenga” project beyond the ear, and are
decorated with bits of copper and steel. Others are
like | men ” in a game of draughts, but twice the size.
Many women have their two lower incisors pulled out, and
some both upper and lower, but these are mostly slaves
from the North; others file the teeth (see above). The
men compete with these embellishments either by growing
their hair long and braiding it, and smearing it with a
red powder, or sometimes by making scars on their faces.
The effect is equally hideous in all cases.
War consists in surprises, and the attacking tribe select
the women at work in the fields as their first objective.
Their assegais and arrows they poison with a kind
of resin. If they kill any enemies they stick up
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the heads on their palisades. For hunting, nets, pits
with sharp stakes, and snares are used. The nets are
about a yard high and are spread over a space of two
or three, hundred yards. Some of the hunters drive in
the game while others lie in ambush to fall upon it before
it can extricate itself. But as a matter of fact game was
very rare. It had been decimated by a strange disease
(sotoka), which had especially played havoc with the
larger antelopes, buffaloes, and even the elephants. This
disease had destroyed all the cattle north of Lake Nyasa
and all along the Tanganika plateau, and had also killed
most of the goats and even the fowls. This sotoka, I afterwards
discovered, was no other than the terrible rinderpest.*
It came from the north. Small-pox is very common on
Lake Tanganika, but not widespread. Other diseases
are dysentery, chest affections, and ophthalmia.. But the
worst scourge of this district is a kind of i\&&—pulex penetrans—
which lurks in the sand, and lays its eggs under
the human skin. Unless the bunch of eggs is removed
it sets up inflammation, followed by gangrene and death.
This pest was imported from America to the; West Coast,
and native indolence has made Africa a rich field for it.
It spread from Angola up the Congo, and was brought
to Tanganika by the Arabs. The son of Tippo Tip
is especially singled out for the honour of its importation.
It is found now as far south as Nyasaland. I brought
three away with me from Mambwe to Fwambo, and
they punished me most cruelly.
The Tanganika people can only count up to seven, but
they can reckon up to ten on their hands. For one they
hold up one finger; for two, the second and third fingers
of the left hand ; for three, the same, and one finger of the
* It was there that I first made my acquaintance with rinderpest, and
I followed the whole of its march right up to Uganda. I was so impressed
with it that I wrote to the F ield describing all the symptoms (I did not know
that it was rinderpest), but no one then attached much importance to the
matter. (See, for rinderpest and jiggers, Appendix I.)
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