Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/332

 262 SOUTH AND EAST AFEICA. the natives are obliged to build their villages on artificial mounds, scattered like islands amid the inland sea caused by the periodical floods. The Mabundas, who share the government of the country with the Barotses, inhabit the more elevated terraces which skirt the north side of the Zambese plains. All are very religious or superstitious peoples, invoking the sun, worship- ping or paying a certain homage to the new moon, and celebrating feasts at the graves of their forefathers. Belief in the resurrection is universal, but it takes rather the character of a metempsychosis, the wicked being bom again in the lower animals, the good in more noble forms, but nobody caring to resume the human state. In this life provision may also be made for the future transforma- tion by eating the flesh of the animal intended to be our " brother," by imitating its gait and its voice. Hence a Ma-Rotse * will occasionally be heard roaring like a lion, in preparation for his leonine existence in the next world. Of the other nations subject to the Barotse empire some are reduced to a state of servitude differing little from downright slavery ; others have preserved their tribal independence, or at least a large measure of self-government for all internal affairs, but paying tribute either in cereals, or fruits, matting, canoes, or other manufactured wares, or else such products of the forests and the chase as ivory, beeswax, honey, and caoutchouc. The Masupias (Ma-Supia) are serfs employed in fishing and hunting for the Barotses in the region about the Chobe and Zambese confluence. Farther south dwell the Madenassanas (Ma-Denassana), a people of mixed descent, resembling the Bechuanas in stature and physical appearance, the Central African Negroes in their features. Like the Masupias, they are enslaved hunters and peasants, as are also the Manansas (Ma-Nansa), whose services form a bone of contention between the two neighbouring Matebele and Barotse nations. A still more important reduced tribe are th? Butokas (Ba-Toka), who occupy the left or north bank of the main stream above the Victoria Falls. All the Batokas of both sexes extract the incisors of the upper jaw on arriving at the age of puberty, and this practice, which, like circumcision among the neighbouring peoples, is performed in secret, has assumed a purely religious character. But when questioned as to the origin of the custom, they reply that its object is to make them look like oxen. It is noteworthy that the not yet evangelised eastern Damaras observe the same practice and attribute it to the same motive. The incisors of the under jaw, being no longer hindered in their growth by those of the upper, project forward and cause the lip to protrude, thus giving the natives a repulsive appearance characteristic of decrepit old age. In the Kafukwe basin, stretching north of the Batokas, dwell the Bashuku- lompos (Ukulombwe), a people who go naked, and are said to till the land with hoes of hardened wood. They distinguish themselves by their style of headdress from all other African tribes, amongst whom there nevertheless prevails such a surprising diversity of taste and fancy in this respect. Saturating or greasing their fleecy curls with butter, and mixing them with the hair of sundry animals, • Jfu i« the singular, lia the plural personal prefix ; hence Ma-Sotte equals one member of the tribe, Ba-RoUc equals the whole nation.