Occasionally Some Of The Free Blacks Become Slaves
Voluntarily By Going Through The Simple But Significant Ceremony Of
Breaking A Spear In The Presence Of Their Future Master.
A
Portuguese officer, since dead, persuaded one of the Makololo to
remain in Tette, instead of returning to his
Own country, and tried
also to induce him to break a spear before him, and thus acknowledge
himself his slave, but the man was too shrewd for this; he was a
great elephant doctor, who accompanied the hunters, told them when to
attack the huge beast, and gave them medicine to ensure success.
Unlike the real Portuguese, many of the half-castes are merciless
slave-holders; their brutal treatment of the wretched slaves is
notorious. What a humane native of Portugal once said of them is
appropriate if not true: "God made white men, and God made black
men, but the devil made half-castes."
The officers and merchants send parties of slaves under faithful
headmen to hunt elephants and to trade in ivory, providing them with
a certain quantity of cloth, beads, etc., and requiring so much ivory
in return. These slaves think that they have made a good thing of
it, when they kill an elephant near a village, as the natives give
them beer and meal in exchange for some of the elephant's meat, and
over every tusk that is brought there is expended a vast amount of
time, talk, and beer. Most of the Africans are natural-born traders,
they love trade more for the sake of trading than for what they make
by it. An intelligent gentleman of Tette told us that native traders
often come to him with a tusk for sale, consider the price he offers,
demand more, talk over it, retire to consult about it, and at length
go away without selling it; next day they try another merchant, talk,
consider, get puzzled and go off as on the previous day, and continue
this course daily until they have perhaps seen every merchant in the
village, and then at last end by selling the precious tusk to some
one for even less than the first merchant had offered. Their love of
dawdling in the transaction arises from the self-importance conferred
on them by their being the object of the wheedling and coaxing of
eager merchants, a feeling to which even the love of gain is
subordinate.
The native medical profession is reasonably well represented. In
addition to the regular practitioners, who are a really useful class,
and know something of their profession, and the nature and power of
certain medicines, there are others who devote their talents to some
speciality. The elephant doctor prepares a medicine which is
considered indispensable to the hunters when attacking that noble and
sagacious beast; no hunter is willing to venture out before investing
in this precious nostrum. The crocodile doctor sells a charm which
is believed to possess the singular virtue of protecting its owner
from crocodiles. Unwittingly we offended the crocodile school of
medicine while at Tette, by shooting one of these huge reptiles as it
lay basking in the sun on a sandbank; the doctors came to the
Makololo in wrath, clamouring to know why the white man had shot
their crocodile.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 22 of 263
Words from 11029 to 11574
of 136856
