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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with. The man would contribute an axeand a hoe to the common outfit. One of his wifes firstduties is to plaster the house he has built, though thiswill not always be needed. The meeting at whichwhat we may call the marriage-contract is drawn up,takes place some time later; perhaps not till the firstproduce of their new garden is ready. The wifessurety is said to come to settle her in her home. She prepares two pots of beer for her husbandssurety or sureties and two for her own. The formercontribute a cock to the banquet, the latter a layinghen. Both then lay down certain rules for the behaviourof the young couple, warning the wife against unfaith-fulness, and binding both to resort to the diviner incase of illness or other trouble. The division of labour between husband and wifevaries a good deal according to local circumstances.Where the husband goes away with trading caravans,or on hunting expeditions, or works on a plantation,or as a tenga-tenga man (carrier), or where he is liable
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Tu face p. 135 NATIVE LIFE 135 to be summoned away for weeks at a time (as he wasunder the Angoni and Makololo) to work for thechief, the field-work, of course, falls on the wife. This we shall describe more fully when treating ofAgriculture. She also has to go to the bush to cutfirewood, and to the stream or well for water; toplaster the floor and walls of the house with mud(which looks like grey stucco when dry); to fetch insupplies of food from the gardens, to pound and huskthe grain, and to do the cooking. I have only onceseen a man pounding at a mortar ; this was a Ngoniwho lived temporarily in one of the Blantyre villages,while working on a plantation, and, no doubt, he waslending a hand with the pounding by way of paymentfor his board. When the husband is at home, he helps in thegardens, cuts grass for thatching, executes repairsgenerally on huts and fences, makes the grain mortar(cut with an adze out of a tree-trunk), spins andweaves (where this is still done), sews his wifes

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