Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/542

 444 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. the west coast, collectively known as Sakalavas, or " Men of the Long Plains." * These Sukulavas, who were weakened by being divided into two independent kingdoms, besides several autonomous chieftaincies, are at present, if not actually reduced by the Ilovas, at least officially abandoned by iheir former French allies to the generosity of the dominant race. The stations already occupied by the Ilovas at all the strategical points in the Sakalava territory render the future conquest of the whole country a mere question of time. The Mahafali of the south-western regions, the Anti-Fiherenanas, Anti-Manas, Anti-Mahilakas, Anti-IJucni, and other tribes, all belong to the Sakalava family, which numbers altogether about half a million of souls.t Amongst these Mala- giisy peoples the Negro seems on the whole to prevail over the Malay type. The hair is neither straight, as in the latter, nor yet woolly, as in the former, but undulating and kinky; the nose broad and flat, the mouth protruding, with some- what thick and pouting lips. The calf is well developed and the foot of remark- ably shapely form, and the people are generally nimble, active, and of robust con- stitution, leprosy, so common amongst the Ilovas, rarely occurring amongst them. The purest branch of the Sakalava race are the Mashicores, who dwell in the interior, but in many of the seaboard districts they have become crossed with Arabs. The Vezos, that is to say " swimmers," or inhabitants of the sea-shore, in the still independent Sakalava kingdoms of Fiherenana and Kitombo, on the south- west coast, are of almost white complexion. They even claim to be whites, on the ground of their repeated interminglings with the Hindu immigrants, the English and French corsairs of the last two centuries, and the inhabitants of Reunion who come to trade in all the ports along the coast.J Notwithstanding the abundant evidence of black blood, the Sakalavas are connected by no direct records with any of the populations on the opposite mainland ; nor is it possible now to determine with any accuracy the precise time when the Negroes began to pass over to the groat island either in a body, or, us is more probable, in successive expeditions spread over long periods. The inhabitants of the coastlands, however, still possess little flotillas of outriggr^rs, with which fishermen and traders undertake long voyages, and with which, till rocontly, the corsairs paid yearly piratical expe- ditions to the Comoro Islands. In the year 1/^05 these Sakalava rovers even captured a Portuguese corvette near the port of Ibo, on the Mozambique coast. At the same time these Negroid Malagasy peoples may readily be distinguished from the pure Negro slaves introduced from time to time by the Arabs into the ports along the Sakalava seaboard. These slaves belong for the most part to the Makua (Ma-Kua) nation, a numerous Mozambique people whose tribal communities are scattered over the extensive region between the Zambeze and the Rovuma basins. According to Baron, they call themselves by the collective name of Za^a- Manga. • Thi» etymology, however, although given by the Sakalavas themselven, has been questioned. Ac«)niing to some authorities the word really means " Long cats," and was attributed to them in an oifeiutive aenite. t The prt'fix Attti, Anta, Ante, before ethnical names, has the meaning of here, people of here, that is, indignioua inhabitants. X »ibrt«. The Great African IiUnd. *