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.
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