Mashona people

“ Here they discovered two little Mashona boys, Blachland’s servants, who were hiding in terror. These were dragged forth, and regardless of their shrieks for mercy, were ruthlessly speared, the bloodthirsty savages roaring with delight as they tossed the miserable little wretches to and fro among each other, on the blades of their great assegais. Then they went away, leaving the bleeding and mangled corpses lying in the gateway, and calling out to the sick occupant of the place that the time for killing white people had not come yet. ”

“ The Mashona huts are very well-made, most of them with circular roofs. The Matabele build their huts very similar to the Bechuanas, but the Zulus of Natal have round roofs fenced in with a high stick fence, and kept very neat and clean.
The Mashonas are a well-made people, and some of the women very good-looking when young, but after twenty they begin to show age. A man may have as many wives as he can buy, but few men have large families.
Gubuluwayro up to recently has been the principal military kraal of Lo-Bengulu; latterly he has removed to another locality. ”

“ Before crossing the Zambesi I had been told about the industrial skill of Sepopo’s people, and had been given to understand that amongst the southern tribes the Mashonas particularly excelled. Prevented as I was from visiting the country, I [333] had no opportunity of forming an opinion that is conclusive; but, judging from various specimens that I saw, I am inclined to believe that there are some of the Marutse tribes, that in certain branches of industry surpass even the Mashonas.
Amongst cooking-utensils, those that are made of clay form an important class. ”

“ Hence it is very clear to us that the country now called Mashonaland has been inhabited for at least a thousand years by the ancestors of the present barbarous race—a race of men who at one time became powerful and almost civilized, owing to their intercourse doubtless with foreign traders, but who during the later centuries have fallen away into barbarism. ”

“ The Mashonas are a separate race from the Matabele, who originally were pure Zulus when they came into this country with their chief Umselekatze, or as he was better known under the name of Moselikatze. Since then many of them have taken to wife the young girls of the Mashona tribe. The great men and high-caste Zulus take pride in keeping themselves pure from any mixture with other races, and in walking amongst them in their kraals a marked difference is seen. The pure Matabele is a fine specimen of the human race; tall, well-made, with regular features and an upright bearing. ”

“ In Mashonaland there exist tens of thousands of acres of fertile land entirely unoccupied. Thanks probably to the Matabele raids, the population is here exceedingly scanty, and when one travels through the long-deserted stretches of country, healthy, well watered, and capable of growing anything, which still exist between the Zambesi and the Limpopo, one cannot help thinking that those who complain of the world being too full, and that there is no opening for colonisation, are a century or two before their time. ”

“ The arrival of a white man in the Mashona country was evidently a quite unique event, exciting the utmost curiosity in the minds of the inhabitants—indeed, I subsequently learned that such a thing had never happened since the memorable visit of my friend Major Henderson and his partner, Van Raalte, consequently it was only a very few of the older men who had ever beheld a white man before ”

“ Occasionally it is found asleep in the forests ten miles or more away from the water. In eastern and southern Matabele-land, and in the Mashona country, where they are found in the affluents of the Limpopo and the Zambesi it is a much less difficult matter to capture them, and Matabele traders have told me that they have seen Mashonas attack them in the water with broad-bladed daggers, and soon overpower them. ”

“ A few Masai may still be seen on the Athi Plains, but as a rule they keep away from the railway, the majority of the tribe being now settled on the Laikipia Plateau. Formerly they were by far the most powerful native race in East Africa, and when on the war-path were the terror of the whole country from the furthest limits of Uganda to Mombasa itself. Their numbers have latterly become greatly reduced through famine and small-pox, but the remnant of the tribe, more especially the men, are still a fine, lithe, clean-limbed people. ”

“ Approaching Mangwendi’s, and also going between Mangwendi’s and Chipunza’s, our way lay along a very high watershed, on the western side of which rose some of the eastern tributaries of the Sabi River, the most important of which was the ’Msheke. At Makoni’s we reached the highest part of the plateau, and this is, with the exception of some villages on Mount Yenya, the highest inhabited part of Mashonaland. From Makoni’s to Mount Yenya the country is broken; and the descent is very rapid, but on the east of our route the descent is still more rapid and the mountains more imposing. ”

“ He is continually at war, and every year sends two or three of his regiments to rob and kill the Mashonas, and to bring guns into the Mashona country would make them become strong enough to oppose his depredatory incursions which he every year makes into that country. ”

“ Mashonaland, a plateau 4000 ft. high crossed by the Umvukwe Mountains, lying to the NE. of Matabeleland and S. of the Zambesi River, of which its streams are tributaries; is a fertile country, and being traversed continually by cold SE. winds is healthy and bracing; the natives, of Bantu stock, are peaceful and industrious, growing rice, maize, tobacco, and cotton, which they also weave, and working with skill in iron; they live in dread of the fierce Matabele tribes; the country is very rich in iron, copper, and gold, and has traces of ancient scientific gold-mining ”

“ I left those women there, and a lot of stuff in the garden and some sugar and rice, and I told them not to leave till I came back; and I asked the other man to keep an eye on them. Both those women were Mashonas. They always said the Mashonas didn’t love the Matabele; but, by God, it turned out that they loved them better than they loved us. They’ve got the damned impertinence to say, that the Matabele oppressed them sometimes, but the white man oppresses them all the time!
“Well, I left those women there,” said Peter, dropping his hands on his knees. ”

“ The Makalakas bury their dead in caves, but never allow strangers to be interred in their territory. Hence the followers of the two explorers Gates and Grandy, who had died in the country, were obliged to carry their bodies beyond the frontier. The Mashonas, who constitute the substratum of the population on the Zambese or northern slope of the uplands, have been better able to resist oppression, because their industry renders them indispensable to their new masters. ”

“ We were visited by men who had been as far as Tete or Nyungwe, and were told that we were but ten days from that fort. One of them, a Mashona man, who had come from a great distance to the southwest, was anxious to accompany us to the country of the white men; he had traveled far, and I found that he had also knowledge of the English tribe, and of their hatred to the trade in slaves. He told Sekwebu that the "English were men", an emphasis being put upon the term MEN, which leaves the impression that others are, as they express it in speaking scornfully, "only THINGS". ”

“ Three months later the rebellion spread to the north-western province of Mashonaland, and there the number of independent and isolated tribes made the task of suppression more difficult. The chief town of Mashonaland is Salisbury, but scattered in the country round were a number of embryo townships connected by precarious roads. Everywhere there was a large native population, and the white residents were separated by many miles of difficult country from their fellows. ”

“ We left a village, called Mekosi, and goon came to a slaving party by a sand stream. They said that they had bought two slaves, but they had run away from them, and asked us to remain with them; more civil than inviting. We came on to Makochera, the principal headman in this quarter, and found him a merry laughing mortal, without any good looks to recommend his genial smile,—low forehead, covered with deep wrinkles; flat nose, somewhat of the Assyrian shape; a big mouth and lean body. He complained of the Machinga (a Waiyau tribe north of him and the Rovuma) stealing his people. ”

“ Mashah’s Makalanga brethren call him ‘the white man’s slave,’ from his devotion to the new race, and he constantly affirmed that if ever the white man left this country he would go with them, for he was heartily sick of the petty jealousies and constant squabbles of his countrymen. ”

“ Conversation turned on his tribe. He told us how they had come to Zimbabwe about forty years ago, when he was only eighteen years of age, from the neighbourhood of the Sabi River, where they had lived for many years. No one was then living on Zimbabwe Hill, which was covered, as it is still in parts, with a dense jungle. No one knew anything about the ruins, neither did they seem to care. This is how all tradition is lost among them. The migratory spirit of the people entirely precludes them from having any information of value to give concerning the place in which they may be located ”

“ There had been no decent open fighting—only secret, savage murder of men and women in far places. Murder—and worse! Men bit their mouths close on revolting stories that it would do no good for the women to hear; and women came into laager, night after night, white-faced and sick of heart. The whole country was “up” in rebellion, but except in Matabeleland there had been no actual fighting. Overwhelming small isolated bands of men cannot be called fighting—but it was the nearest approach to it that the Mashonas had made. That was what they had attempted in the case of the Mazoë patrol. ”

“ The Bazizulu, or Mashona, are spoken of as the Morururus.
The government of the Banyai is rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal republicanism. The chief is elected, and they choose the son of the deceased chief's sister in preference to his own offspring. When dissatisfied with one candidate, they even go to a distant tribe for a successor, who is usually of the family of the late chief, a brother, or a sister's son, but never his own son or daughter. When first spoken to on the subject, he answers as if he thought himself unequal to the task and unworthy of the honor ”

“ Apprised of this, the king immediately sent directions to the father to go out at once and procure some grass and reeds for a hut that he was building, and then charged Mashoku to lose no time. As soon as he had satisfied himself that the man had left his home, Mashoku sent his messenger to fetch the child to the royal courtyard, where, although the place was full of people, a perfect silence prevailed. The king was in a terribly bad temper, and no one dared to breathe a word. ”

“ As Mazamboni presented us with two fat beeves, it was essential that the Zanzibaris, and the Manyuema should be indulged a little after long abstinence from flesh. We accordingly halted on the 15th, and during the day Chief Gavira came in and imparted the intelligence that Jephson had arrived at Katonza’s village three days before with seventeen soldiers; and our people, who were now well supplied with cloth for extra labour, and five doti each from Banalya, besides beads, cowries, and wire, were able to invest in luxuries to their hearts’ content. ”

“ They told us that the Matabele never penetrate as far as this, and that the only enemy they fear is the Portuguese half-caste Gouveia, whose territory lies over the mountains to the east; but his attacks were successfully repulsed by the old ’Mtoko, who had thereby established such a reputation for valour that none of his neighbours durst interfere with him.
The result of this condition of affairs was that in ’Mtoko’s country we saw more cattle than we had seen elsewhere, but all of the same calibre. The characteristic of all domestic animals in Mashonaland is their small size. ”

“ He was one of those devil-may-care, reckless, wandering fellows, so many of whom are to be found upon the frontiers of civilisation in Southern Africa. I first saw him, outspanned at breakfast, near Palla Camp on the Crocodile River, with a number of other men, going into Mashonaland upon the same errand as himself. He was the life and soul of the party, and was superintending the “bossing-up” of the meal. For the next week our waggons moved on together and I saw a good deal of Strangeways. He was a tall, handsome fellow of thirty or thirty-one. ”

“ Masiko expressed delight, by his principal men, at the return of the captives, and at the proposal of peace and alliance with the Makololo. He stated that he never sold any of his own people to the Mambari, but only captives whom his people kidnapped from small neighboring tribes. When the question was put whether his people had been in the habit of molesting the Makololo by kidnapping their servants and stealing canoes, it was admitted that two of his men, when hunting, had gone to the Makololo gardens, to see if any of their relatives were there. ”

“ When Masiko fled from the Makololo country in consequence of a dislike of being in a state of subjection to Sebituane, he came into the territory of Shinte, who received him kindly, and sent orders to all the villages in his vicinity to supply him with food. Limboa fled in a westerly direction with a number of people, and also became a chief. His country was sometimes called Nyenko, but by the Mambari and native Portuguese traders "Mboela"—the place where they "turned again", or back. As one of the fruits of polygamy, the children of different mothers are always in a state of variance. ”