Mission to Kilimanjaro. Alexandre Le Roy

means of a greenish line without the smoke of any village, with no sign of growing crops, and where the waters are only of use to the wild animals who come by night from the depths of the savannah to slake their thirst.

      In Europe, such a great stretch of country would always be linked to some historical memory, to some indicator of times past; there would be traditions, and legends, and, parallel to its position in space, it would provide a perspective on the past. Here, there is nothing like that, everything is in the same order of things, everything is new, and everything has lasted forever. Men have certainly passed here, but they have left nothing—no palaces, no ruins, no columns, and no tombs. There is scarcely even a straight path which, as the seasons change, shifts or disappears; there are villages which, from time to time, need to be rebuilt. There are fields carved out of the forest and which will be retaken by the forest that is Africa. Man is present there as a ship is present on an ocean, or a bird in the air. But thinking about life like that has a certain greatness, reminding us of our original poverty. Let us not be too attached to the earth; our stay on it is so short, we achieve so little on it and we leave it such sad remains of ourselves.

      At Daluni, we came back to the valley where there was a young and magnificent forest of coconut palms. Under the palm trees, there were signs of an encampment, and we chose the site for our own tents. There were still fires under the ashes of the deserted hearths; in the ramshackle huts, the lice were waiting for new guests; we had evidently arrived at exactly the right moment.

      Incidentally, I would like to make a point. It is often said that a coconut palm needs to be near the sea in order to develop properly. Perhaps; but here, we are already three days’ march from the shore, and these trees are really splendid, and bring a full yield. This is the case also on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. It would seem then that the coconut palm, if planted in light cool soil, can live and flourish far from the sea; what it needs more than anything is water and watery mist.

      This valley is inhabited by a small number of Digo, occupying five or six villages. Their reputation is not good, and they live up to it. They are extremely superstitious, inhospitable, exacting, and not very bright. They would seem, however, to take farming seriously. The coconut palms are really beautiful, and beside them there are big fields of sugar cane. The local people know how to extract from them by pounding the canes, the precious juice which provides Europeans with rum and sugar, and these Africans with pombé and syrup. Higher up on the grounds which get less water, guinea corn, maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, and various kinds of beans are all cultivated. Moreover, if the yield is not as good as one expects, this is not through lack of amulets; they are all over the place.

      To give an example: at the foot of a large hollow tree there is a little hut intended for a Mzimu, the wandering ghost of some ancestor; it comes there to rest and, so that it will settle down there, an offering is made of an ear of maize, some grains of rice, and a libation of guinea corn beer. Or, to give another example, there is at a crossroads where two or three paths meet some twisted straw fixed with stakes and containing a pinch of grain to feed suffering spirits. Elsewhere, there can be a little calabash, full of palm wine, hanging from a tree trunk, intended for the mysterious guardian spirit of the coconut plantation so that through ill will he does not let the juice dry up. In the fields, there may be a piece of forked wood, decorated with odd-looking objects, in order to frighten, not the birds, but rather prowling thieves. At the beginning of a path leading to a plantation, there may be a coconut palm leaf set across the path on two stakes, with shells and pieces of carved wood, to warn that if one went down the path, one would certainly suffer terrible illnesses, or be eaten by crocodiles, or bitten by snakes.

      I said above that we came to Daluni country at the right time; I should explain that we got there for a funeral. That very day, in fact, the last rites were performed for an old minor chief, who did not seem to be unduly regretted, but who, having had a certain dignity in his life on this earth, had to be sent to the land of the dead with a certain amount of ceremony. Consequently, the neighboring chief, who had to conduct the rituals, came to ask us for guns, gunpowder, and linen, all of which, he said, would make the funeral more prestigious and please the spirit of the dead man. We gave him what he asked for, a courtesy which, we trusted, would be repaid to us. Soon, the procession was on its way, with the corpse wrapped up in a variety of cloths, tom-toms were being played in the fields, the women trilled toward heaven piercing cries which were artistically ordered, with regular intervals, and guns were fired one after the other. So the procession moved toward the tomb where the petty chief would take his rest. Our porters, always ready to make fun of the “bushmen”—for it is obvious that only they themselves can be considered “civilized”—would have been very happy to go and join in the ceremony, dancing their version of a saraband, but we strictly forbade it.

      But we could not escape the final act. While the men, having filled in the grave, returned to the village, a large group of old women, wrinkled, with parchment-like skins, altogether hideous, skinny as witches, came to install themselves at a point where three paths met, in front of our camp though a certain distance away. From there they gave us a melodrama which even Shakespeare could not have better directed. They came to wash their own linen and that of the dead man. Custom demands that on such an occasion their skins are practically the only covering they wear; but, I hasten to add, given their distance from us and their age, nobody would feel offended by their state of dress. Several of them carried earthenware bowls into which they uttered the most frightful howls, others had various kinds of musical instruments. The leader was an old shrew, who held a basket full of cockleshells and directed the cries, the dancing, and their procession. Then they reached the crossroads where the last act of the ceremony must take place. The old mistress of ceremonies gave orders, her long, hag-like arm pointing to the mountain, her bony fingers spread out and trembling, her face turned radiant, her swollen eyes staring, her harsh voice uttering strange, wave-like sounds, which are answered by the cries and the gestures of her women companions.

What are they saying? Ah, it is a very special Libera.4 In various expressions, sometimes so offensive and laughable that the women themselves laugh at them, they exhort the Mzimu, that is, the shade of the dead man, to stay where he is, at the foot of his tree, and never to come and make a nuisance of himself to them as they continue to live the life which he has left. They will give him maize and rice, some stalks of sugar cane, a little of the palm wine of which he was so fond.

      If he wants to keep wandering about, he can go to the mountains, he can amuse himself in the wilderness, he can play around the baobabs in the forest, he can go to sleep night or day in the woodlands, but let him not disturb the men, the women, and the little children of the village. His place has been taken.

      These farewell exhortations went on a long time. One can guess that in this strange monologue regularly interrupted by a kind of varying refrain, repeated by the choir of women present, place was found for delicate allusions and biting witticisms directed at the memory of the old chief who was “a kindly father and a devoted husband.”

      But, at the end, the mistress of ceremonies, summoning all her strength, launched a final broadside of shrill cries, which was answered by terrifying howls into the earthenware bowls. She then threw the white cockleshells from her basket, all the bowls were smashed, and the group of women dispersed, each to her own home. A very serious duty has been faithfully carried out.

      4. Reference to a Catholic prayer for the dead.