DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0375
THE WAYAO OF NYASALAND
359
Taking advantage of the natural inquisitiveness of youth, a favorite trick for making
money is for a man to appear in a village making pretence of having a peep-show, some-
thing contained in a covered basket or in a cloth. On payment of some small amount, the
youth is allowed to peep in, maybe only to see a dead mouse; finding he had been “ done,”
he of course bursts out laughing and, anxious that all his companions should also be “done,”
he does not “ give it away ” and so the peep-show man makes quite a good living.
Yao girls play with dolls of two kinds, lilele, made from little gourd-like fruits called
litonga, and others called mwanache, “ a child,” made from maize cobs. These dolls they
carry about on their backs as mothers do their children. Lilele is made of three of these
little spherical fruits glued together with beeswax; on the one which represents the head,
seed, red and blue, of the ulangaiye tree are cemented in rows to represent hair, and often
beads, as in the nchacha method of hair-dressing. One sees similar dolls made for the chil-
dren of other tribes. Thus, among Mombera’s Angoni, a doll called mwana, “a child/’
is made in a dumb-bell form of two small spherical gourds joined by a bundle of sticks
bound together with string and wax; on the head-piece string is cemented to represent
hair. Their children also play with little clay images of cattle and men, a custom they have
preserved from their old Zulu ancestors but foreign to the Yao. The Ankonde children
have carved wooden dolls not seen in any other tribe. Mwanache is made from a maize-
cob by shredding the papery coverings of the cob; on these shreds are threaded white
and red varieties of maize to represent beads, or the shreds are plaited into a number of
tags to represent hair.
Latterly, the children have taken to making hoops and show considerable skill in
driving them with a piece of bent reed (Pl. XXII, fig. 8), while the older boys make two-
wheeled representations of bicycles with a very clever imitation of all the parts of the
machine.
The whipping-top, nangulya or nangwape (nguli, Chin.), is found among the boys’ toys.
It is made of a conical piece of wood with a flat top and no metal peg. It is started spinning
by pulling off the string wound round the top. The whip consists of a piece of string fas-
tened to the end of a stick. Sometimes tops of large size are used, and two boys whip them
from opposite sides (Pl. XXII, fig. 6).
A game called chiputa is played by youths; it takes its name from ku-puta, to strike,
and refers to the action of striking with a finger the hand in which a bean is guessed to be.
A spiral is drawn with the finger in the sand with a central point to represent a village, and
a tail-piece prolonged on one side to a second point which represents a slave-market on the
coast. Along the line, a number of other points are demarcated to represent sleeping places
en route. At the village, two white beans are put to represent the two players and with
each is a smaller brown bean to represent his slave. At the slave-market are placed a variety
of beans to represent trade-goods, calico, beads, etc. Each of the two players in turn
shakes a single bean in his closed hands and then closes the hands, separating them at the
359
Taking advantage of the natural inquisitiveness of youth, a favorite trick for making
money is for a man to appear in a village making pretence of having a peep-show, some-
thing contained in a covered basket or in a cloth. On payment of some small amount, the
youth is allowed to peep in, maybe only to see a dead mouse; finding he had been “ done,”
he of course bursts out laughing and, anxious that all his companions should also be “done,”
he does not “ give it away ” and so the peep-show man makes quite a good living.
Yao girls play with dolls of two kinds, lilele, made from little gourd-like fruits called
litonga, and others called mwanache, “ a child,” made from maize cobs. These dolls they
carry about on their backs as mothers do their children. Lilele is made of three of these
little spherical fruits glued together with beeswax; on the one which represents the head,
seed, red and blue, of the ulangaiye tree are cemented in rows to represent hair, and often
beads, as in the nchacha method of hair-dressing. One sees similar dolls made for the chil-
dren of other tribes. Thus, among Mombera’s Angoni, a doll called mwana, “a child/’
is made in a dumb-bell form of two small spherical gourds joined by a bundle of sticks
bound together with string and wax; on the head-piece string is cemented to represent
hair. Their children also play with little clay images of cattle and men, a custom they have
preserved from their old Zulu ancestors but foreign to the Yao. The Ankonde children
have carved wooden dolls not seen in any other tribe. Mwanache is made from a maize-
cob by shredding the papery coverings of the cob; on these shreds are threaded white
and red varieties of maize to represent beads, or the shreds are plaited into a number of
tags to represent hair.
Latterly, the children have taken to making hoops and show considerable skill in
driving them with a piece of bent reed (Pl. XXII, fig. 8), while the older boys make two-
wheeled representations of bicycles with a very clever imitation of all the parts of the
machine.
The whipping-top, nangulya or nangwape (nguli, Chin.), is found among the boys’ toys.
It is made of a conical piece of wood with a flat top and no metal peg. It is started spinning
by pulling off the string wound round the top. The whip consists of a piece of string fas-
tened to the end of a stick. Sometimes tops of large size are used, and two boys whip them
from opposite sides (Pl. XXII, fig. 6).
A game called chiputa is played by youths; it takes its name from ku-puta, to strike,
and refers to the action of striking with a finger the hand in which a bean is guessed to be.
A spiral is drawn with the finger in the sand with a central point to represent a village, and
a tail-piece prolonged on one side to a second point which represents a slave-market on the
coast. Along the line, a number of other points are demarcated to represent sleeping places
en route. At the village, two white beans are put to represent the two players and with
each is a smaller brown bean to represent his slave. At the slave-market are placed a variety
of beans to represent trade-goods, calico, beads, etc. Each of the two players in turn
shakes a single bean in his closed hands and then closes the hands, separating them at the