They Believe, Too, That They Will Live After The
Death Of The Body, But Do Not Know Anything Of The State Of The
Barimo (Gods, Or Departed Spirits).
The mango-tree grows luxuriantly above Lupata, and furnishes a
grateful shade.
Its delicious fruit is superior to that on the
coast. For weeks the natives who have charge of the mangoes live
entirely on the fruit, and, as some trees bear in November and some
in March, while the main crop comes between, fruit in abundance may
easily be obtained during four months of the year; but no native can
be induced to plant a mango. A wide-spread superstition has become
riveted in the native mind, that if any one plants this tree he will
soon die. The Makololo, like other natives, were very fond of the
fruit; but when told to take up some mango-stones, on their return,
and plant them in their own country - they too having become deeply
imbued with the belief that it was a suicidal act to do so - replied
"they did not wish to die too soon." There is also a superstition
even among the native Portuguese of Tette, that if a man plants
coffee he will never afterwards be happy: they drink it, however,
and seem the happier for it.
The Portuguese of Tette have many slaves, with all the usual vices of
their class, as theft, lying, and impurity. As a general rule the
real Portuguese are tolerably humane masters and rarely treat a slave
cruelly; this may be due as much to natural kindness of heart as to a
fear of losing the slaves by their running away.
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