An Uncle Of Sekeletu,
Being A Younger Brother Of Sebituane, Got That Chieftain's Head-Wife Or Queen:
There Is Always One Who Enjoys This Title.
Her hut is called the great house,
and her children inherit the chieftainship.
If she dies,
a new wife is selected for the same position, and enjoys the same privileges,
though she may happen to be a much younger woman than the rest.
The majority of the wives of Sebituane were given to influential under-chiefs;
and, in reference to their early casting off the widow's weeds,
a song was sung, the tenor of which was that the men alone felt the loss
of their father Sebituane, the women were so soon supplied with new husbands
that their hearts had not time to become sore with grief.
The women complain because the proportions between the sexes
are so changed now that they are not valued as they deserve.
The majority of the real Makololo have been cut off by fever.
Those who remain are a mere fragment of the people who came to the north
with Sebituane. Migrating from a very healthy climate in the south,
they were more subject to the febrile diseases of the valley
in which we found them than the black tribes they conquered.
In comparison with the Barotse, Batoka, and Banyeti, the Makololo have
a sickly hue. They are of a light brownish-yellow color,
while the tribes referred to are very dark, with a slight tinge of olive.
The whole of the colored tribes consider that beauty and fairness
are associated, and women long for children of light color so much,
that they sometimes chew the bark of a certain tree in hopes of producing
that effect. To my eye the dark color is much more agreeable
than the tawny hue of the half-caste, which that of the Makololo ladies
closely resembles. The women generally escaped the fever, but they are
less fruitful than formerly, and, to their complaint of being undervalued
on account of the disproportion of the sexes, they now add their regrets
at the want of children, of whom they are all excessively fond.
The Makololo women work but little. Indeed, the families of that nation
are spread over the country, one or two only in each village, as the lords
of the land. They all have lordship over great numbers of subjected tribes,
who pass by the general name Makalaka, and who are forced to render
certain services, and to aid in tilling the soil; but each has his own land
under cultivation, and otherwise lives nearly independent.
They are proud to be called Makololo, but the other term is often used
in reproach, as betokening inferiority. This species of servitude
may be termed serfdom, as it has to be rendered in consequence of subjection
by force of arms, but it is necessarily very mild. It is so easy
for any one who is unkindly treated to make his escape to other tribes,
that the Makololo are compelled to treat them, to a great extent,
rather as children than slaves.
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