Identifier: nativesofbritish00wern (find matches)
Title: The natives of British Central Africa
Year: 1906 (1900s)
Authors: Werner, Alice, 1859-1935
Subjects: Ethnology
Publisher: London : A. Constable and Company, ltd.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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gon a stick, and several of these sticks attached roundthe ankles of the dancers. Women never wear thesemaseche at their chamba dance, above referred to; butmen always do at their corresponding one, calledchitoto. The subject of dances is a large one, celebrating, asthey do, every important event in life, from birth todeath, besides ordinary merrymakings which have noparticular motive beyond cheerfulness and sociability.In place of attempting to enumerate all the varieties,which would be wearisome and convey no particularimpression, I shall content myself with extracting oneor two descriptions from my notes. Passing throughMlombas village (near Blantyre) found a grandmasewero^ going on. The dancing man was per-forming, but not singing—calico turban on his head,leather belt under his arms, with a great bunch oflong feathers stuck into it in front, some falling downover his waistcloth, others reaching to his shoulders, ^ Literally playing —the word is used both for games and dances.
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To face p. 226 LANGUAGE 227 a wild-cat skin hanging down his back, and dance-rattles on his legs. This dance is called the tseche.There were also six drummers: one sat on the groundand beat his drum (the kind with legs like a stool)with two sticks; the rest held theirs against theirchests and beat them with both hands, the drum beingsupported by a piece of twine passing under it andlooped over both wrists. They were well - made,muscular fellows, and danced pretty hard whiledrumming: this, it seems, is called the nkonde. Twoyounger boys came forward at intervals and dancedpas seuls, and at the end a collection was taken up,chiefly in fowls. Sometimes the beads contributedby a gratified audience are put into a hole in thegourd of the chiinwenyinnwenyii. I remember the drums going all night long for thechamba dance at Ntumbi (which, by the bye, in spiteof the name, has nothing to do with the smoking ofthe pernicious Indian hemp), and the ball was still infull swing between 7 and 8 A.M.,

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