The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration, Vol. 1Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
The Lake Regions of Central Africa: A Picture of Exploration, Vol. 1
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, Central -- Description and travel
A name is given to the child without other celebration than a debauch
with pombe: this will sometimes occur at the birth of a male, when he is
wanted. The East Africans, having few national prejudices, are fond of
calling their children after Arabs and other strangers: they will even
pay a sheep for the loan of a merchant’s name. There must be many
hundred Sayyid Saids and Sayyid Majids now in the country; and as during
the eighteen months’ peregrination of the East African Expedition every
child born on and near the great trunk-line was called Muzungu--the
“white”--the Englishman has also left his mark in the land. The period
of ablactation, as in South Africa, is prolonged to the second or third
year: may this account, in part, for the healthiness of the young and
the almost total absence of debility and deformity? Indeed, the nearest
approach to the latter is the unsightly protrusion of the umbilical
region, sometimes to the extent of several inches, owing to ignorance of
proper treatment; but, though conspicuous in childhood, it disappears
after puberty. Women retain the power of suckling their children to a
late age, even when they appear withered grandames. Until the child can
walk without danger, it is carried by the mother, not on the hip, as in
Asia, but on the bare back for warmth, a sheet or skin being passed over
it and fastened at the parent’s breast. Even in infancy it clings like a
young simiad, and the peculiar formation of the African race renders the
position easier by providing a kind of seat upon which it subsides; the
only part of the body exposed to view is the little coco-nut head, with
the small, round, beady black eyes in a state of everlasting stare.
Finally, the “kigogo,” or child who cuts the two upper incisors before
the lower, is either put to death, or is given away or sold to the
slave-merchant, under the impression that it will bring disease,
calamity, and death into the household. The Wasawahili and the Zanzibar
Arabs have the same impressions: the former kill the child; the latter,
after a Khitmah or perlection of the Koran, make it swear, by nodding
its head if unable to articulate, that it will not injure those about
it. Even in Europe, it may be remembered, the old prejudice against
children born with teeth is not wholly forgotten.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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