The cooking is done by the women; but every native is a born cook. When a buck is shot out in the bush, even little boys will cook it at once. The staple food at Blantyre is maize; among the Anyasa millet; and at the mouth of the Shire, rice. Maize and millet are ground into a fine flour (utandi, ufa), which is made into a kind of porridge (ugali, nsima). This is eaten without salt, but ought to be accompanied by some relish, as beans or meat. This porridge takes the place of bread in their meals, as the natives make no bread. Another way of using maize or millet is in the native beer (ukana, mowa), the only beverage in common use except water, which they drink out of the running streams. They drink stagnant water also. Their method of drinking is peculiar, as they literally throw the water into the mouth with their hands. The natives have regularly only two meals a-day, but they may eat maize stalks or sugar cane or other vegetables from morning till night. There are often feasts, as on the occasion of hoeing-matches (65), wakes, and marriage settlements. Beer is used greatly in those cases, and beer drinkings may be got up also without any special occasion. Sometimes they last for several days, the last day (lia kusasula) is specially distinguished for cooking porridge and fowls. Such solid food is not expected on the other days. There is also singing, dancing, and drumming. The exercises generally continue the whole night. The parties that do most to keep up the interest in such dances are paid. There are no live stock except the small species of fowls and the rats that we have already mentioned. Some natives keep ducks—Muscovy ducks, which do not require a pond. Richer people, as village chiefs, possess goats. The Magololo chiefs have sheep and a few cows. The Wayao have a superstition against cow’s milk, goat’s milk, and dairy produce of every kind. (In the same way young people will not eat eggs; it would make them barren.) They eat hippopotami, elephants, monkeys, moles, beetles, and even caterpillars. They take kindly to meat that has begun to putrify. Yet they make a distinction between what animals are to be eaten and what are not. Any creature that will eat the flesh of a deceased human being is unclean. It is msawi (106). For instance, while some eat the raven or kite (likungulu), others protest that it feeds about the graves.