The Year Of Our Arrival Is Dignified
By The Name Of The Year When The White Men Came, Or Of Sebituane's Death;
But They Prefer The Former, As They Avoid, If Possible, Any Direct Reference
To The Departed.
After my wife's first visit, great numbers of children
were named Ma-Robert, or mother of Robert, her eldest
Child;
others were named Gun, Horse, Wagon, Monare, Jesus, etc.;
but though our names, and those of the native Portuguese who came in 1853,
were adopted, there is not a trace of any thing of the sort
having happened previously among the Barotse: the visit of a white man
is such a remarkable event, that, had any taken place during the last
three hundred years, there must have remained some tradition of it.
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* The Barotse call themselves the Baloiana or little Baloi,
as if they had been an offset from Loi, or Lui, as it is often spelt.
As Lui had been visited by Portuguese, but its position
not well ascertained, my inquiries referred to the identity of Naliele
with Lui. On asking the head man of the Mambari party, named Porto,
whether he had ever heard of Naliele being visited previously,
he replied in the negative, and stated that he "had himself attempted
to come from Bihe three times, but had always been prevented
by the tribe called Ganguellas." He nearly succeeded in 1852,
but was driven back. He now (in 1853) attempted to go eastward
from Naliele, but came back to the Barotse on being unable to go
beyond Kainko's village, which is situated on the Bashukulompo River,
and eight days distant. The whole party was anxious to secure a reward
believed to be promised by the Portuguese government.
Their want of success confirmed my impression that I ought to go westward.
Porto kindly offered to aid me, if I would go with him to Bihe; but when
I declined, he preceded me to Loanda, and was publishing his Journal
when I arrived at that city. Ben Habib told me that Porto
had sent letters to Mozambique by the Arab, Ben Chombo, whom I knew;
and he has since asserted, in Portugal, that he himself went to Mozambique
as well as his letters!
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But Santuru was once visited by the Mambari, and a distinct
recollection of that visit is retained. They came to purchase slaves,
and both Santuru and his head men refused them permission
to buy any of the people. The Makololo quoted this precedent
when speaking of the Mambari, and said that they, as the present
masters of the country, had as good a right to expel them as Santuru.
The Mambari reside near Bihe, under an Ambonda chief named Kangombe.
They profess to use the slaves for domestic purposes alone.
Some of these Mambari visited us while at Naliele. They are of
the Ambonda family, which inhabits the country southeast of Angola,
and speak the Bunda dialect, which is of the same family of languages
with the Barotse, Bayeiye, etc., or those black tribes comprehended
under the general term Makalaka.
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