Naliele, The Capital Of The Barotse, Is Built On A Mound Which Was
Constructed Artificially By Santuru, And Was His Store-House For Grain.
His Own Capital Stood About Five Hundred Yards To The South Of That,
In What Is Now The Bed Of The River.
All that remains of the largest mound
in the valley are a few cubic yards of earth, to erect
Which
cost the whole of the people of Santuru the labor of many years.
The same thing has happened to another ancient site of a town,
Linangelo, also on the left bank. It would seem, therefore,
that the river in this part of the valley must be wearing eastward.
No great rise of the river is required to submerge the whole valley;
a rise of ten feet above the present low-water mark would reach
the highest point it ever attains, as seen in the markings of the bank
on which stood Santuru's ancient capital, and two or three feet more
would deluge all the villages. This never happens, though the water sometimes
comes so near the foundations of the huts that the people can not move
outside the walls of reeds which encircle their villages.
When the river is compressed among the high rocky banks near Gonye,
it rises sixty feet.
The influence of the partial obstruction it meets with there
is seen in the more winding course of the river north of 16 Deg.;
and when the swell gets past Katima-molelo, it spreads out on the lands
on both banks toward Sesheke.
Santuru, at whose ancient granary we are staying, was a great hunter,
and very fond of taming wild animals. His people, aware of his taste,
brought to him every young antelope they could catch, and, among other things,
two young hippopotami. These animals gamboled in the river by day,
but never failed to remember to come up to Naliele for their suppers
of milk and meal. They were the wonder of the country, till a stranger,
happening to come to visit Santuru, saw them reclining in the sun,
and speared one of them on the supposition that it was wild.
The same unlucky accident happened to one of the cats I had brought
to Sekeletu. A stranger, seeing an animal he had never viewed before,
killed it, and brought the trophy to the chief, thinking that he had made
a very remarkable discovery; we thereby lost the breed of cats, of which,
from the swarms of mice, we stood in great need.
On making inquiries to ascertain whether Santuru, the Moloiana, had ever
been visited by white men, I could find no vestige of any such visit;*
there is no evidence of any of Santuru's people having ever seen a white man
before the arrival of Mr. Oswell and myself in 1851. The people have,
it is true, no written records; but any remarkable event here
is commemorated in names, as was observed by Park to be the case
in the countries he traversed. 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.
-
* 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!
-
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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