NIGERIAN RUMFA

Greymouth Evening Star, 30 December 1937, Page 8

NIGERIAN RUMFA

BUILDING HOME IN HALF-HOUR

Have you ever heard of a rumfa? No, it is not the latest dance step, but a native hut made of dry grass, writes George Hett in the “Daily Mail.” These rumfas are put up in the villages in Nigeria whenever a white man arrives. They comprise generally one rectangular hut about ten feet by fifteen and about six feet high; and a smaller circular hut which is used as a kitchen. My wife and I stayed in many of these grass huts during our recent expedition in Nigeria. They are comfortable; there is room for camp bed's and equipment, and they are far more airy than any tent. After a long night march we arrived unexpectedly early at a village one morning, and it was amazing to see the speed with which the natives built our rumfa. First they dug holes in the sand with their long hunting spears, and in these holes they set upright tree branches to act as wall timbers. Across the forked ends of these branches were laid long sticks to form the rafters, the whole framework of the house then being tied together with reeds and creepers. Long mats of plaited and woven reeds and grass were then dragged up and placed in position round this framework of sticks, to form walls and roof. Tho sand floor was swept, and clean

reed mats laid down, and there was our home complete. From beginning to end the whole process had taken just half an hour. Think of the simplicity of it all

from the native’s point of view. 'The materials for building are free and close at hand. The labour costs are non-existent; indeed, if a man is so fortunate as to possess several wives he can have many grass mats made for him. Tho Nigerian villager builds his

home near the scene of his work—if he has to go to a new job he just takes his home with him! As for his food, that is a vastly different proposition from what we know it to be in England. I used to be fond of chicken, and when I arrived in Nigeria and was told that chicken at 4d each and eggs at 3d a dozen could be found at every small village, I was delighted. But how soon disillusioned'! The first chicken that was brought to us by a village headman was taken

by our boy and served to us boiled. When we attempted to carve it we could find no breast! It seemed impossible that this could be so; but later, when we saw the lean- longlegged, athletic birds that somehow scratched a living from the soil, we understood the reason. But that was not the worst. Have you ever tried living on nothing but chicken and eggs for three months? The delicate flavour soon palls and grows stale.

Tlio inevitable eggs appear for breakfast, eggs or chicken for lunch, and chicken for dinner, relieved only occasionally by a guinea fowl, a meal of elephant’s foot, or buffalo liver. A succession of daily chickens, boiled, roasted, or fried, becomes so unbearable that attempts at some original forms of disguise are thrust upon one.

Actually almost every “cook-boy” is a master in the art of Deceptive Cookery; anci occasionally he produces a giound-nut stew. Ground-nuts, of course, are monky nuts.

Almost everything can go into this stew, and, when the cooking is in charge of a native boy, almost anything does!