THE WOMEN OF CENTRAL AFRICA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 45, 22 February 1901, Page 2

THE WOMEN OF CENTRAL AFRICA.

Writing in the August number of the "Humanitarian" on the women of Central Africa, Dr. G. Douglas Grey says:— The main duties of a wife are the cultivation and preparation of the food of her husband and children. She has to 'do all the hoeing required, and this generally occupies the morning and forenoon. On her return she has to wash and pound I the chimanga seeds into ufa, which is the | staple diet, and pay attention to the brewjing of pombe (native beer). When the Ufa is cooked, so little'does her lord and | master appreciate all this work, so little does he even care for her, that she may not share his meal, but wait patiently for what he may leave, or. if he has not leit enough, wait till he has finished eating before she may cook some for herself. I Such a thing as women and girls eating j ' out of the same pot as the men and boys lis never known. I'Vom girlhood upwards i the- life is one of servility; no opportun- ! ity is ever given them to think, but simj ply to do what they are told, rear the I children they annually give birth to, and I when they have passed this stage., keep on j workinc FOR THE FOOD OF LIFE |as unobtrusively as possible, till, becom- ■ lug old women, they dio unmourned, and i arp buried near some stream; or, if it I should happen there- is a convenient^ ideep hole in the ground,the body is thrown i ; into It. Though there may be sometimes ! great wailing at a death, it rarely happens ; that anyone in the village attends the j funeral of an Nkazi wa kale (a woman lof long- ago). The ease of Darby and Joan rarely occur' in British Central Africa, for when the wife may get old (and wrinkled) the husband takes to himself another wife, whose age Is usually in inverse ratio of his. Of marriage laws there are none; a man pimply asks a girl 10 come and live with him, and there's i&n end on't. Should the connubial life j uot be successful from his point of view, |or should he In any way tiro of her, the j remedy is an easy ouc—he sends her back to her mother's hut, where she remains till she is married again. Polygamy — unlimited—reigns supreme; the only limit to ii is the husband's ability to pay the annual hut tax of three shillings. • ir there are any children of the marriage, they remain with the husband, and are taken care of by another wife. It seems passing strange, that the woman shouJd so quietly acquiesce in this custom as she does. Not having any experience of leading a better or more satisfactory life, and there not really being any need of her doing so, she naturally is not discontented with her lot in life, and tno less incidental this is, the happier she is. As for recreation, the only sort indulged in is when she takes part in tne big pombe dance, which is nothing more than n night or two (sometimes it lasts a week) OF MONOTONOUS DANCING, or, rather, stamping of feet, to the measured time of the tom-toms, accompanied by huge libations of pombe, which ha» taken her days before to pn pare. Beyond this, with the exception of making r:urious desigTis in bead work, her leisure time is passed by lolling on a mat in the full glare of the sun, surrounded by one or two of her youngest children. The Central African woman is capable of being raised and leading a much more satisfactory existence than she is at present doing, and if this can be accomplished, as liown before, it will reJlect most certainly on her progeny, and the men of the nation to which she belongs. One has only to look at her and examine the type of face, to see the dull, soulless, it mitcht almost be termed degraded, look of this woman, to see that there is great room for improvement. What a difference In the general appearance of the face — the wrinkled brow, the sullen look, the squat nose, and protruding lips—from that of a healthy, intellectual Eng-lish girl, It is the typical look of thousands of her race, and shows a condition capable or vast betterment.