Presents Were Always Given To The Chiefs Whom We Visited,
And Nothing Accepted In Return; But When Sebituane (In 1851)
Offered some ivory, I took it, and was able by its sale
to present his son with a number of
Really useful articles of a higher value
than I had ever been able to give before to any chief. In doing this,
of course, I appeared to trade, but, feeling I had a right to do so,
I felt perfectly easy in my mind; and, as I still held the view
of the inexpediency of combining the two professions, I was glad
of the proposal of one of the most honorable merchants of Cape Town,
Mr. H. E. Rutherford, that he should risk a sum of money in Fleming's hands
for the purpose of attempting to develop a trade with the Makololo.
It was to this man I suggested Sekeletu should sell the tusks
which he had presented for my acceptance, but the chief refused
to take them back from me. The goods which Fleming had brought were
ill adapted for the use of the natives, but he got a pretty good load of ivory
in exchange; and though it was his first attempt at trading,
and the distance traveled over made the expenses enormous,
he was not a loser by the trip. Other traders followed, who demanded
90 lbs. of ivory for a musket. The Makololo, knowing nothing of steelyards,
but supposing that they were meant to cheat them, declined to trade
except by exchanging one bull and one cow elephant's tusk for each gun.
This would average 70 lbs. of ivory, which sells at the Cape
for 5s. per pound, for a second-hand musket worth 10s.
I, being sixty miles distant, did not witness this attempt at barter,
but, anxious to enable my countrymen to drive a brisk trade,
told the Makololo to sell my ten tusks on their own account
for whatever they would bring. Seventy tusks were for sale,
but, the parties not understanding each other's talk,
no trade was established; and when I passed the spot some time afterward,
I found that the whole of that ivory had been destroyed by an accidental fire,
which broke out in the village when all the people were absent.
Success in trade is as much dependent on knowledge of the language
as success in traveling.
I had brought with me as presents an improved breed of goats,
fowls, and a pair of cats. A superior bull was bought, also as a gift
to Sekeletu, but I was compelled to leave it on account of its
having become foot-sore. As the Makololo are very fond of improving
the breed of their domestic animals, they were much pleased with my selection.
I endeavored to bring the bull, in performance of a promise made to Sebituane
before he died. Admiring a calf which we had with us, he proposed
to give me a cow for it, which in the native estimation was offering
three times its value. I presented it to him at once, and promised
to bring him another and a better one. Sekeletu was much gratified
by my attempt to keep my word given to his father.
They have two breeds of cattle among them. One, called the Batoka,
because captured from that tribe, is of diminutive size, but very beautiful,
and closely resembles the short-horns of our own country. The little pair
presented by the King of Portugal to H.R.H. the prince consort,
is of this breed. They are very tame, and remarkably playful;
they may be seen lying on their sides by the fires in the evening;
and, when the herd goes out, the herdsman often precedes them,
and has only to commence capering to set them all a gamboling.
The meat is superior to that of the large animal. The other, or Barotse ox,
is much larger, and comes from the fertile Barotse Valley.
They stand high on their legs, often nearly six feet at the withers;
and they have large horns. Those of one of a similar breed
that we brought from the lake measured from tip to tip eight and a half feet.
The Makololo are in the habit of shaving off a little
from one side of the horns of these animals when still growing,
in order to make them curve in that direction and assume fantastic shapes.
The stranger the curvature, the more handsome the ox is considered to be,
and the longer this ornament of the cattle-pen is spared to beautify the herd.
This is a very ancient custom in Africa, for the tributary tribes of Ethiopia
are seen, on some of the most ancient Egyptian monuments,
bringing contorted-horned cattle into Egypt.
All are remarkably fond of their cattle, and spend much time
in ornamenting and adorning them. Some are branded all over with a hot knife,
so as to cause a permanent discoloration of the hair,
in lines like the bands on the hide of a zebra. Pieces of skin
two or three inches long and broad are detached, and allowed to heal
in a dependent position around the head - a strange style of ornament;
indeed, it is difficult to conceive in what their notion of beauty consists.
The women have somewhat the same ideas with ourselves of what
constitutes comeliness. They came frequently and asked for the looking-glass;
and the remarks they made - while I was engaged in reading,
and apparently not attending to them - on first seeing themselves therein,
were amusingly ridiculous. "Is that me?" "What a big mouth I have!"
"My ears are as big as pumpkin-leaves." "I have no chin at all."
Or, "I would have been pretty, but am spoiled by these high cheek-bones."
"See how my head shoots up in the middle!" laughing vociferously all the time
at their own jokes. They readily perceive any defect in each other,
and give nicknames accordingly. One man came alone to have
a quiet gaze at his own features once, when he thought I was asleep;
after twisting his mouth about in various directions, he remarked to himself,
"People say I am ugly, and how very ugly I am indeed!"
The Makololo use all the skins of their oxen for making either
mantles or shields.
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