Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/368

 294 SOUTH AST) EAST AFEICA. incursions of the Maviti and other plundering hordes beiriug this name. The Yaos are ulsj raiH m )re or 1ms interuiiuglol with other tribas along the banks of Nyassa and the II )vu:n i, and wherever they have penetratad they have almost invariably acquired the pjlitical preponderance. They neither disfigure their features by tattooing, nor do their women wear the repulsive ])elele. Of cleanly habits both in their dress and dwellings, they readilv adapt themselves to foreign ways, aud are specially distinguished by their enterprising H rt, so much so that they might be called the Vuangamezi of Mozambique. Tlie Yaos are also excellent husbandmen, and those of the Lujenda Yallcv have convcrtetl the ^vhole land inlo a vast garden, where groundnuts, sweet potatoes. j)uiupkiiis, harico's, and here and there a little rice are cultivated, jointly with niai/e .md .sorglio, the cereals serving as the staple of food. In the upland vallevs draining to the Rovuma, they have founded settlements on the crests of the steep hills, where they defy the attacks of the Magwangwara raiders. The upper slopes of these natural strongholds are for the most part covered with Imts. Johnson estimates the number of cabins grouped in the large settlement of Unyanyo at certainly not less than nine thousand. The summits of the mountains swarm with children, who climb the terraces and spring from crag to crag with the agilitv of monkeys. Cliiicagnht, another rocky citadel, is almost as populous as Unyango. The Yaos are frequently visited by the Arab traders, but they have not accepted the Moslem faith, aud still remain pagans. Sanguinary funeral rites and banquets of human flesh are even still kept up by the chiefs, although for the most part secretly. Young women and slaves are buried alive in the graves of .the great chiefs, but it is said that should an intended victim have the good luck to snoe/c during the funeral prctjession he is at once liberated, the spirit of the departed having in this way expressed his unwillingness to be attended in the other world by such persons. Till recently the Yaos displayed great enterprise and aciivity, especially as slave-dealers They acted as a sort of middlemen in forwarding nearly all the convoys of captives to Kiloa and the other ports along the coast. Nor has this traffic been yet completely suppressed. Thomson estimated at about two thousand the number of slaves annually sold by the Yaos in the coast towns. Probably in no other part of Africa are the effects of the slave-trade seen under a more hideous aspect than in the liovuma basin, where cultivated tracts have been abandoned, villages burnt, and whole communities dispersed or carried into bondage. At the beginning of the present century ^lave8 were annually exported from this district to the number of from four to five thousand, and when the traffic was abolished by Portugal, the Mozambique slave-hunters and dealers were powerful enough to incite an insurrection again-t the Government. Th.inks to the inaccessible nature of their territory, the Mavihas or Mahibas (Mu-^ iha, Ma-Hiba), were able to escape from the attacks of the raiders. But although iluir villages, situated in the clearings of the coastlands, were strongly palisaded, and mortover protected by their almost impenetrable thicliets, their