THE EMPIRE OF SNAKES

Northern Advocate, 5 December 1935, Page 4

THE EMPIRE OF SNAKES

“How would anyone set about de- j scribing a queen whose household j consists of twenty wives and several] husbands?” asks F. G. Karnochan and | H. C. Adamson, in their book, “The j Empire of Snakes.” j “A queen who spends all her days j sitting on the porch of her palace, j dressed in a faded Mother-Hubbard j gown and a soiled cotton turban on her head. A queen who owns a fourposter bed that is eight feet long and seven feet wide, but who sleeps on the floor beside it. A queen who serves tea to white travellers who stop to chat, out of fragile Dresden china cups; who within one year spent 8000 shillings on new wives whom she quickly married off to young men of Samue, and who has done,, more to help the British fight the deadly fly than any other African native from Cairo to Capetown. Yes—how would one describe such a woman? . ■ • “To start with, let me point out that Queen Nzele, in the eyes of her people, is not a woman, but a chief. According to Bantu custom;, chiefs must have many wives and, being a Bantu, as [ well as chief, Queen Nzele is no ex- | ception.

“After a bit of investigating,- I discovered that the Sultana of Samue bought anywhere from six to twelve new wives a year, with the exception of one year when' she bought twenty. These purchases were not made because the Queen is a female Bluebeard, but for purely economic .reasons. There is no servant class within the Wanyamwesi tribe. When the head of a household needs help for home or field, he marries it; for in Africa, women do the work until the children are old enough to help. ... “Any Samue debutante would give her eye-teeth to become one of Queen Nzele’s wives. She watches over them 'with motherly care —makes them work, but not too hard —gives them good huts to live in—and feeds them with better food than their own homes provide.

“Another incentive is that all of Queen Nzele’s ‘wives’ land good husbands. The average ‘wife’ does not remain more than a year or two under the Queen’s roof before she is married off to some native youth, for the Queen is reputed to be a great matchmaker.”

“Kalola,” the Emperor of the Snakes, an African native who alone is acquainted with a drug that makes harmless the bites of the most venomous of snakes, is the chief figure of interest in this remarkable book. The facts imported are vouched for by “accredited scientists,” and Mr Carpochan gained his first information when on a visit to Tanganyika to collect reptiles for the National Zoological Park at Washington. Mr Adamson is also an expert in natural history, and the almost incredible things they record are thus vouched for by reliable authorities