DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0287
THE WAYAO OF NYASALAND
271
The wali thus remain for about a month under the care of their guardians, during which
time they receive most valuable instruction as to their behavior to others, especially to
their elders and to members of the opposite sex. Their faults are brought home to them
and many little pieces of advice given. They are taught the household duties which will
be their lot thenceforth and they are forewarned of approaching puberty and what it
means to them.
During this period their child-names are not used and until their new names are as-
signed to them, they are called after birds and animals, generally some of the smaller animals
e.g. Anyingalwe (myingalwe = the shrew rat), Alitawala (litawala = a big species of rat),
Analyelye (nycdyetye = the shrew). I have been unable to ascertain whether these have
any totemistic significance.
The girls are usually given a fright to impress on them the danger of lions; one night
an imitation of a lion approaching their enclosure is made when all is dark; then all of a
sudden one of the akamusi armed with big thorns instead of claws will spring upon one
of the girls, generally picking out the worst behaved.
When the term of instruction is completed, they again adjourn to Chiputu for two days
where Unyago is danced on the first night by women, on the second night by men. The
first day is spent by a party of men and women in the bush, preparing figures of animals and
their dress for the dance. The women wear a small garment of bark-cloth called matako-
gaiula, a word which literally means “buttocks of a frog” but which is used with the mean-
ing of trousers and refers in this case to the fact that the bark-cloth is sewn round the upper
part of each thigh into a garment like a pair of knickerbockers. Round the abdomen and
chest are worn bands made of short pieces of small, decorticated millet stalks; similar
bands are worn on the legs and arms, two on each thigh, two on the leg, one at the wrist,
below the elbow, and one round the upper arm. In the dark these give the body the ap-
pearance of being painted in alternate bands of black and white. They also wear a head-
dress of the same material.
On the first evening of the return to Chiputu, this party of women appears after dark;
they dance in a row, advancing and retiring in step, swinging their arms and moving their
bodies to exclamations of Bi-di! Bi-di! Other women dress up as men, wearing long beards
made of likanga, a kind of fibre plant.
The second night, the representations of animals made of grass and bamboo frame-
work supported by men appear, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and various antelopes being
the common figures, also the zebra made of painted bark cloth. These animal figures are
similar to the vinyao or zinyao of the Anyanja and to those of the Awisa,1 but the sanchima
is unknown among the Yao.
During all these presentations at Chiputu, the wait seated on mats are the chief specta-
tors and are duly frightened by the performances of the last two days.
1 Stannus, ‘ Notes on some tribes of British Central Africa,’ op. cit., p. 298.
271
The wali thus remain for about a month under the care of their guardians, during which
time they receive most valuable instruction as to their behavior to others, especially to
their elders and to members of the opposite sex. Their faults are brought home to them
and many little pieces of advice given. They are taught the household duties which will
be their lot thenceforth and they are forewarned of approaching puberty and what it
means to them.
During this period their child-names are not used and until their new names are as-
signed to them, they are called after birds and animals, generally some of the smaller animals
e.g. Anyingalwe (myingalwe = the shrew rat), Alitawala (litawala = a big species of rat),
Analyelye (nycdyetye = the shrew). I have been unable to ascertain whether these have
any totemistic significance.
The girls are usually given a fright to impress on them the danger of lions; one night
an imitation of a lion approaching their enclosure is made when all is dark; then all of a
sudden one of the akamusi armed with big thorns instead of claws will spring upon one
of the girls, generally picking out the worst behaved.
When the term of instruction is completed, they again adjourn to Chiputu for two days
where Unyago is danced on the first night by women, on the second night by men. The
first day is spent by a party of men and women in the bush, preparing figures of animals and
their dress for the dance. The women wear a small garment of bark-cloth called matako-
gaiula, a word which literally means “buttocks of a frog” but which is used with the mean-
ing of trousers and refers in this case to the fact that the bark-cloth is sewn round the upper
part of each thigh into a garment like a pair of knickerbockers. Round the abdomen and
chest are worn bands made of short pieces of small, decorticated millet stalks; similar
bands are worn on the legs and arms, two on each thigh, two on the leg, one at the wrist,
below the elbow, and one round the upper arm. In the dark these give the body the ap-
pearance of being painted in alternate bands of black and white. They also wear a head-
dress of the same material.
On the first evening of the return to Chiputu, this party of women appears after dark;
they dance in a row, advancing and retiring in step, swinging their arms and moving their
bodies to exclamations of Bi-di! Bi-di! Other women dress up as men, wearing long beards
made of likanga, a kind of fibre plant.
The second night, the representations of animals made of grass and bamboo frame-
work supported by men appear, the elephant, the rhinoceros, and various antelopes being
the common figures, also the zebra made of painted bark cloth. These animal figures are
similar to the vinyao or zinyao of the Anyanja and to those of the Awisa,1 but the sanchima
is unknown among the Yao.
During all these presentations at Chiputu, the wait seated on mats are the chief specta-
tors and are duly frightened by the performances of the last two days.
1 Stannus, ‘ Notes on some tribes of British Central Africa,’ op. cit., p. 298.