Dr. Kirk
Found That The Mosibe Is Peculiar, In Being Allied To A Species Met
With Only In The West Indies.
The Motsikiri, sometimes called
Mafuta, yields a hard fat, and an oil which is exported from
Inhambane.
It is said that two ancient Batoka travellers went down
as far as the Loangwa, and finding the Macaa tree (jujube or
zisyphus) in fruit, carried the seed all the way back to the great
Falls, in order to plant them. Two of these trees are still to be
seen there, the only specimens of the kind in that region.
The Batoka had made a near approach to the custom of more refined
nations and had permanent graveyards, either on the sides of hills,
thus rendered sacred, or under large old shady trees; they reverence
the tombs of their ancestors, and plant the largest elephants' tusks,
as monuments at the head of the grave, or entirely enclose it with
the choicest ivory. Some of the other tribes throw the dead body
into the river to be devoured by crocodiles, or, sewing it up in a
mat, place it on the branch of a baobab, or cast it in some lonely
gloomy spot, surrounded by dense tropical vegetation, where it
affords a meal to the foul hyenas; but the Batoka reverently bury
their dead, and regard the spot henceforth as sacred. The ordeal by
the poison of the muave is resorted to by the Batoka, as well as by
the other tribes; but a cock is often made to stand proxy for the
supposed witch.
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