Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 39

Among the twenty-one tales collected in Theal's _Kaffir Folk Lore_ there is one which approximates what we call a love-story. As it takes up six pages of his book it cannot be quoted entire, but in the following condensed version I have retained every detail that is pertinent to our inquiry. It is ent.i.tled _The Story of Mbulukazi_.

There was once a man who had two wives; one of them had no children, wherefore he did not love her. The other one had one daughter, who was very black, and several children besides, but they were all crows. The barren wife was very downcast and often wept all day.

One day two doves perching near her asked why she cried. When they had heard her story they told her to bring two earthen jars. Then they scratched her knees until the blood flowed, and put it into the jars. Every day they came and told her to look in the jars, till one day she found in them two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. They grew up in her hut, for she lived apart from her husband, and he knew nothing of their existence.

When they were big, they went to the river one day to fetch water. On the way they met some young men, among whom was Broad Breast, a chief's son who was looking for a pretty girl to be his wife. The men asked for a drink and the boy gave them all some water, but the young chief would take it only from the girl. He was very much smitten with her beauty, and watched her to see where she lived. He then went home to his father and asked for cattle with which to marry her. The chief, being rich, gave him many fine cattle, and with these the young man went to the husband of the girl's mother and said: "I want to marry your daughter." So the girl who was very black was told to come, but the young chief said: "That is not the one I want; the one I saw was lighter in color and much prettier." The father replied: "I have no other children but crows."

But Broad Breast persisted, and finally the servant-girl told the father about the other daughter.

In the evening he went to his neglected wife's hut and to his great joy saw the boy and his sister. He remained all night and it was agreed that the young chief should have the girl. When Broad Breast saw her he said: "This is the girl I meant." So he gave the cattle to the father and married the girl, whose name was Mbulukazi.

To appease the jealousy of the very black girl's mother he also married that girl, and each of them received from her father an ox, with which they went to their new home. But the young chief did not care for the very black girl and gave her an old rickety hut to live in while Mbulukazi had a very nice new house. This made the other girl jealous, and she plotted revenge, which she carried out one day by pushing her rival over the edge of a rock, so that she fell into the river and was drowned. The corpse was, however, found by her favorite ox, who licked her till her life came back, and as soon as she was strong once more she told what had happened.

When the young chief heard the story he was angry with the dark wife and said to her: "Go home to your father; I never wanted you at all; it was your mother who brought you to me." So she had to go away in sorrow and Mbulukazi remained the great wife of the chief.

In this interesting story there are two suspicious details. Theal says he has taken care in his collection not to give a single sentence that did not come from native sources. He calls attention, however, to the fact that tens of thousands of Kaffirs have adopted the religion of Europeans and have accepted ideas from their teachers, wherefore "it will surprise no one to learn that these tales are already undergoing great changes among a very large section of the natives on the border." I suspect that the touch of sentiment in the place where the young chief will accept a drink from the girl's hand alone is such a case of European influence, and so, in all probability is the preference for a light complexion implied in the tale; for Shooter (p.

I) tells us expressly that to be told that he is light-colored "would be esteemed a very poor compliment by a Kaffir."

The following pa.s.sage, which occurs in another of Theal's stories (107), shows how unceremonious Kaffir "courtship" is in relation to the girl's wishes.

"Hlakanyana met a girl herding some goats.

"He said: 'Where are the boys of your village, that the goats are herded by a girl?'

"The girl answered: 'There are no boys in the village.'

"He went to the father of the girl and said: 'You must give me your daughter to be my concubine, and I will herd the goats.'

"The father of the girl agreed to that. Then Hlakanyana went with the goats, and every day he killed one and ate it till all were done."

LOWER THAN BEASTS

If we now leave the degraded and licentious Kaffirs, going northward in Eastern Africa, into the region of the lakes--Nya.s.sa, Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza--embracing British Central, German East, and British East Africa, we are doomed to disappointment if we expect to find conditions more favorable to the growth of refined romantic or conjugal love. We shall not only discover no evidence of what is vaguely called Platonic love, but we shall find men ignoring even Plato's injunction (_Laws_, VIII., 840) that they should not be lower than beasts, which do not mate till they have reached the age of maturity. H.H. Johnston, in his recent work on British Central Africa, gives some startling revelations of aboriginal depravity. As these regions have been known a few years only, the universality of this depravity disproves most emphatically the ridiculous notion that savages are naturally pure in their conduct and owe their degradation to intercourse with corrupt white men. Johnston (409) says:

"A medical missionary who was at work for some time on the west coast of Lake Nya.s.sa gave me information regarding the depravity prevalent among the young boys in the Atonga tribe of a character not even to be described in obscure Latin. These statements might be applied with almost equal exact.i.tude to boys and girls in many other parts of Africa. As regards the little girls, over nearly the whole of British Central Africa, chast.i.ty before p.u.b.erty is an unknown condition....

Before a girl becomes a woman (that is to say, before she is able to conceive), it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does, and scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age."

Girls are often betrothed at birth, or even before, and when four or five years old are placed at the mercy of the degraded husbands.

Capture is another method of getting a wife, and Johnston's description of this custom indicates that individual preference is as weak as we have found it among Kaffirs:

"The women as a rule make no very great resistance on these occasions. It is almost like playing a game. A woman is surprised as she goes to get water at the stream, or when she is on her way to or from the plantation. The man has only got to show her she is cornered and that escape is not easy or pleasant and she submits to be carried off. Of course there are cases where the woman takes the first opportunity of running back to her first husband if her captor treats her badly, and again she may be really attached to her first husband and make every effort to return to him for that reason. But as a general rule they seem to accept very cheerfully these abrupt changes in their matrimonial existence."

In a footnote he adds:

"The Rev. Duff Macdonald, a competent authority on Yao manners and customs, says in his book _Africana_: 'I was told ... that a native man would not pa.s.s a solitary woman, and that her refusal of him would be so contrary to custom that he might kill her.' Of course this would apply only to females that are not engaged."

COLONIES OF FREE LOVERS

Of the Taveita forest region Johnston says:

"After marriage the greatest laxity of manners is allowed among the women, who often court their lovers under their husband's gaze; provided the lover pays, no objection is raised to his addresses."

And regarding the Masai (415):

"The Masai men rarely marry until they are twenty-five nor the women until twenty. But both s.e.xes, _avant de se ranger_, lead a very dissolute life before marriage, the young warriors and unmarried girls living together in free love."

The fullest account of the Masai and their neighbors we owe to Thomson. With the M-teita marriage is entirely a question of cows.

"There is a very great disproportion between the s.e.xes, the female predominating greatly, and yet very few of the young men are able to marry for want of the proper number of cows--a state of affairs which not unfrequently leads to marriage with sisters, though this practice is highly reprobated."

Of the Wa-taveta, Thomson says (113): "Conjugal fidelity is unknown, and certainly not expected on either side; they might almost be described as colonies of free lovers." As for life among the Masai warriors, he says (431) that it

"was promiscuous in a remarkable degree. They may indeed be proclaimed as a colony of free lovers.

Curiously enough the sweetheart system was largely in vogue; though no one confined his or her attentions to one only. Each girl in fact had several sweethearts, and what is still stranger, this seemed to give rise to no jealousies. The most perfect equality prevailed between the Ditto and Elmoran, and in their savage circ.u.mstances it was really pleasant to see how common it was for a young girl to wander about the camp with her arm round the waist of a stalwart warrior."[144]

A LESSON IN GALLANTRY

Crossing the waters of the Victoria Nyanza we come to Uganda, a region which has been entertainingly described by Speke. One day, he tells us (379), he was crossing a swamp with the king and his wives:

"The bridge was broken, as a matter of course; and the logs which composed it, lying concealed beneath the water, were toed successively by the leading men, that those who followed should not be tripped up by them.

This favor the King did for me, and I in return for the women behind; they had never been favored in their lives with such gallantry and therefore could not refrain from laughing. He afterward helped the girls over a brook. The king noticed it, but instead of upbraiding me, pa.s.sed it off as a joke, and running up to the Kamraviona, gave him a poke in the ribs and whispered what he had seen, as if it had been a secret.

'Woh, woh!' says the Kamraviona, 'what wonders will happen next?'"

There is perhaps no part of Africa where such an act of gallantry would not have been laughed at as an absurd prank. In Eastern Central Africa

"when a woman meets any man on the path, the etiquette is for her to go off the path, to kneel, and clasp her hands to the 'lords of creation' as they pa.s.s. Even if a female possesses male slaves of her own she observes the custom when she meets them on the public highway. A woman always kneels when she has occasion to talk to a man" (Macdonald, I., 129).

"It is interesting to meet a couple returning from a journey for firewood," says the same writer (137). "The man goes first, carrying his gun, bow and arrows, while the woman carries the invariable bundle of firewood on her head." He used to amuse such parties by taking the wife's load and putting it on the husband, telling him, 'This is the custom in our country.' The wife has to do not only all the domestic but all the hard field work, and the only thing the lazy husband does in return is to mend her clothes. That const.i.tutes her "rights;"

neglect of it is a cause for divorce! Burton notes the absence of chivalrous ideas among the Somals (_F.F._, 122), adding that

"on first entering the nuptial hut, the bridegroom draws forth his horsewhip and inflicts memorable chastis.e.m.e.nt upon the fair person of his bride, with the view of taming any lurking propensity to shrewishness."

Among the natives of Ma.s.sua, on the eighth of the month of Ashur, "boys are allowed," says Munzinger,

"to mercilessly whip any girl they may meet--a liberty of which they make use in anything but a sentimental way. As the girls naturally hide themselves in their houses on this day, the boys disguise themselves as beggars, or use some other ruse to get them out."

Adults sometimes take part in this gallant sport. But let us return to Uganda.

The Queen of Uganda offered Speke the choice between two of her daughters as a wife. The girls were brought and made to squat in front of him. They had never seen him.

"The elder, who was in the prime of youth and beauty, very large of limb, dark in color, cried considerably; whilst the younger one ... laughed as if she thought the change in her destiny very good fun."

He had been advised that when the marriage came off he was to chain the girl two or three days, until she became used to him, else, from mere fright, she might run away.

A high official also bestowed on him a favor which throws light on the treatment of Uganda women. He had his women come in, made them strip to the waist, and asked Speke what he thought of them. He a.s.sured him he had paid him an unusual compliment, the Uganda men being very jealous of one another, so much so that anyone would be killed if found staring upon a woman, even in the highways. Speke asked him what use he had for so many women, to which he replied,