DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0357
THE WAYAO OF NYASALAND
341
and the baskets and pots. A wooden dish mbisi may be seen occasionally, but of late years,
this has been generally replaced by enameled articles.
Around the entire hut, or simply enclosing a yard behind it, there is often a fence about
five feet high. In the enclosure thus formed, many household duties are performed, such
as the pounding and sifting of grain. The grain store ngokwe often stands in this yard with
the pigeon-loft and possibly a hen-house or goat kraal; these are sometimes found in the
open space at the front of the house. If a grain store is built within the hut itself, it is then
known as mbungu. Near the pigeon-loft will be seen a pole with prongs supporting an old
pot with water for the pigeons to drink. In a tree in the bush nearby, there may stand a
beehive, consisting of a bark cylinder. Similar cylinders are sometimes used as pigeon-
houses.
The large pots for brewing beer are usually set in the yard or on the back veranda,
together with a basket of split bamboo for carrying fowls, chiteletele (Yao and Chin.).
Gourds. Gourds are grown in the village for use as vessels of various kinds. Different
shapes serve different purposes; names are given them according to use rather than shape,
though these more or less coincide. Ladles for water or beer, msomalo or mgao (nsomero or
chiko, Chin.) are usually long-handled gourds (Pl. XIV, figs. 7, 8, 9). Drinking vessels for
beer, etc. chipanda and a specially large one, mtumba are usually of the shape illustrated
in Plate XIV, fig. 1; sometimes they are like fig. 5, but this shape is more commonly used
for water. Lipache, the type illustrated by fig. 2, is also used for drinking or for holding
gruel. Oil flasks, chisasi (tsupa, Chin.), are usually of the double-bellied type (figs. 4 and 6).
Salt bottles, chitumba (chiguru, Chin.), are similar to oil flasks. Rattles, sanje, used at
dances etc., are also made from gourds, often from those with tuberosities (fig 3). Other
uses for gourds include pipes, snuff-boxes, enema funnels, and resonators for musical
instruments.
Pottery. The art of pot-making appears to have been known to the Yao for a very
considerable period. There is no history relating to its introduction among them. The
art is in the hands of the Yao women. As among all Nyasaland tribes, a particular kind of
clay is used and no admixture with any binding substance is made. The pots are simply
moulded by hand from base to brim and, without the aid of any wheel or other device,
wonderful symmetry is attained.
After drying, the pots are fired by being set on their bases on the ground and a wood fire
is made round and above them. They are then sprinkled with an infusion of the nywenywe
or ntumbi tree, a head of millet being used for the purpose, after which the pots are set
upon a fire and millet husks are thrown into them and allowed so to be incinerated. These
customs, a kind of christening of the pots, “ insure their turning out well.”
No glaze of any kind is used, but they are sometimes colored red by boiling with a pig-
ment called ngama, prepared from a red sediment found in sluggish streams. The prepara-
tion of ngama is in the hands of men and women who make a trade of it, such as a man called
341
and the baskets and pots. A wooden dish mbisi may be seen occasionally, but of late years,
this has been generally replaced by enameled articles.
Around the entire hut, or simply enclosing a yard behind it, there is often a fence about
five feet high. In the enclosure thus formed, many household duties are performed, such
as the pounding and sifting of grain. The grain store ngokwe often stands in this yard with
the pigeon-loft and possibly a hen-house or goat kraal; these are sometimes found in the
open space at the front of the house. If a grain store is built within the hut itself, it is then
known as mbungu. Near the pigeon-loft will be seen a pole with prongs supporting an old
pot with water for the pigeons to drink. In a tree in the bush nearby, there may stand a
beehive, consisting of a bark cylinder. Similar cylinders are sometimes used as pigeon-
houses.
The large pots for brewing beer are usually set in the yard or on the back veranda,
together with a basket of split bamboo for carrying fowls, chiteletele (Yao and Chin.).
Gourds. Gourds are grown in the village for use as vessels of various kinds. Different
shapes serve different purposes; names are given them according to use rather than shape,
though these more or less coincide. Ladles for water or beer, msomalo or mgao (nsomero or
chiko, Chin.) are usually long-handled gourds (Pl. XIV, figs. 7, 8, 9). Drinking vessels for
beer, etc. chipanda and a specially large one, mtumba are usually of the shape illustrated
in Plate XIV, fig. 1; sometimes they are like fig. 5, but this shape is more commonly used
for water. Lipache, the type illustrated by fig. 2, is also used for drinking or for holding
gruel. Oil flasks, chisasi (tsupa, Chin.), are usually of the double-bellied type (figs. 4 and 6).
Salt bottles, chitumba (chiguru, Chin.), are similar to oil flasks. Rattles, sanje, used at
dances etc., are also made from gourds, often from those with tuberosities (fig 3). Other
uses for gourds include pipes, snuff-boxes, enema funnels, and resonators for musical
instruments.
Pottery. The art of pot-making appears to have been known to the Yao for a very
considerable period. There is no history relating to its introduction among them. The
art is in the hands of the Yao women. As among all Nyasaland tribes, a particular kind of
clay is used and no admixture with any binding substance is made. The pots are simply
moulded by hand from base to brim and, without the aid of any wheel or other device,
wonderful symmetry is attained.
After drying, the pots are fired by being set on their bases on the ground and a wood fire
is made round and above them. They are then sprinkled with an infusion of the nywenywe
or ntumbi tree, a head of millet being used for the purpose, after which the pots are set
upon a fire and millet husks are thrown into them and allowed so to be incinerated. These
customs, a kind of christening of the pots, “ insure their turning out well.”
No glaze of any kind is used, but they are sometimes colored red by boiling with a pig-
ment called ngama, prepared from a red sediment found in sluggish streams. The prepara-
tion of ngama is in the hands of men and women who make a trade of it, such as a man called