such as pendant earrings, pearl necklaces, copper bracelets, etc.
Many children and young people have, hanging from their necks, an eyebrow tweezer with which to remove hair from their eyebrows.
Digo country is divided into a large number of small chiefdoms, each with its own chief. However, all these chiefs accept, as at least honorary president, Kubo, who lived at Kikone in southern Digo country, and whom we wanted to visit.
When, however, we arrived at Kikone, brave old Kubo was not there. All the same, we settled down on the town square, which was actually outside the village, around a tamarind tree whose kindly head normally sheltered the local unemployed. We waited for a good hour or more; then we saw a large body, lean and elderly, clad in a slightly worn red overcoat, with, on top, a head severely marked by smallpox, accompanied by quite a lot of people, with, in front, a musician playing a trumpet. The body and the head were Kubo’s.
We found him a good conversationalist, welcoming, and well intentioned in his attitudes. He readily shared with us his loves and hates: he took a favorable view of the Arab governor of Vanga, but detested Mbaruku, the Swahili chief of Gasi, who had killed his uncle and three of his brothers and had ravaged the whole of Digo country. Kubo had understandably bitter feelings toward him.
We quickly noticed differences between the people at Kikone and those on the higher ground. Here people look at you in a less trustful way, they put on more clothes, and their way of acting is less straightforward; here, the influence of Islam was beginning to make itself felt.
For weapons, the Digo have rifles, spears, head-smashing clubs, big broad straight cutlasses, and bows. Here also you can find the arrow poison which is used in so many underdeveloped countries in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. It is taken from a tree. Unfortunately, I have never seen the tree which produces it, and I have never travelled in the area when the tree produces flowers at the end of the dry season. However, an old warrior who gave me some of this poison, gave me also some charming details about it. Here they are.
“You find it in a tree,” said he, “created specifically to be a poison tree. The birds are well aware of it, and they and the animals know many things at which we humans can only guess. They do not speak, and perhaps it is so that they do not reveal their secrets. The birds know what a poison tree looks like. They never settle on its branches, and you will find a lot of dead insects around its roots. To make the poison you have to cut pieces of wood from the tree, take also the roots, cut them all into small pieces, and boil them slowly in an earthenware bowl filled with fresh water, stirring it all the time with a long stick. You do that deep in the forest, not wearing any clothes. Every so often you should throw into the bowl some snake poison, the skin of a toad, then leaves from the forest, grass from the meadows, dust from the path, some shadow.”
“Shadow?” I exclaimed.
“Yes, and the idea is that for the man or animal hit by a poisoned arrow, everything should bring poison, death, and destruction. Surely an animal hit by an arrow will try and find relief by resting in the shadow of trees? Well, then, that shadow must strengthen the effect of the poison. What if he lies down on the grass? That grass must also become poison for him. What if the dust from the path sticks to his feet? That dust must also be poisonous for him, just as the water he drinks and the leaves he nibbles simply add to the poison. Nothing can make him better: he is lost, he has to die.”
“Then,” I asked, “is there no cure?”
“There is,” he said. “It is a root ground into powder. We carry it on us in wartime and we swallow it with water or saliva. But often we have not the time to take it to the man who has been hit. As you have asked me for it, I am giving you some of this poison, but do not let your younger brothers and sisters keep it. You are laughing? Well, if you shoot an arrow which is carrying this poison into the bark of a tree, the next day its leaves will fall.”
“And,” I said, “if your arrow hits a man?”
“He is as good as dead.”
I followed the advice of my old friend. I did not hand over my supply of poison to my little brothers and sisters. Instead, I handed it over to a highly competent Parisian scientist, Dr J. V. Laborde, who made a thorough study and produced a detailed report. The tests he applied show that this poison first affects the nervous system and then brings death “by suspending the influence of the heart on the breathing organs.” Dr. Laborde is very skeptical about the possibility of an antidote in view of the extremely toxic nature of this substance.
Chapter 5: At Gasi
The Digo people have always found themselves trapped between two enemies: the Maasai, who carry off their cattle, and the Swahili, who take their young people, their women, and their children. The main center for Swahili raiding is at Gasi, where the notorious Mbaruku rules. Mbaruku, Embareuk, Baraka, and Baruch come from the same Semitic word meaning “blessing.” It is rather ironical that this should be the name of the chief of Gasi.
Mbaruku was descended from the powerful old family of the Mazrui. This family was given power over Mombasa by the Imam of Muscat in the eighteenth century. When the Busaidi Dynasty established itself at Zanzibar, the Mazrui family refused to recognize them. Mbaruku spent his life fighting against Seyyid Said, Seyyid Majid and Seyyid Barghash. Practically all his time he concealed himself with a band of followers in the hinterland on the upper slopes of Mount Mwele, and had friendly contacts with the Arabs to whom he provided slaves and from whom he got the gunpowder and rifles necessary to raid the ill-equipped Digo villages. When the European powers began—some years ago—to look with covetous eyes on this part of Africa, Mbaruku was exactly the man for whom they were looking. He played his part, accepting in turn the various flags that were offered to him. Finally, since the place where he was living was made British territory, the British gave him Gasi as his capital, paid him a salary, and gave him enough guns and soldiers for him to regard himself as the local sultan. I do not know how he makes use of his power. But the Digo unanimously state that in the past he turned their villages into ruins, turned the magnificent countryside into lonely deserts, and sent three-quarters of the population into slavery in the island of Pemba or Arabia.
Sometimes, one asks oneself, on seeing so few of the coastal ethnic groups much influenced by Islam, how and why they have remained traditionalist. The answer is very simple. The Muslims have freely avoided propagating Islam among them, in order to be able to gain regular profits from them. They regard these neighboring tribes as simply a slave reserve kept going and also exploited in a businesslike manner, where a family is allowed to reproduce itself, by having, say, six children. At the right moment, four of these are taken and two are left to keep the family going.
Mbaruku! We were delighted to see with our own eyes this bold adventurer. A little turning toward the coast brought us to his capital. Many slaves were busy in rice farms; we went through fields of guinea corn and beyond a big lagoon which we managed to pass without wetting our feet. We soon saw two rows of houses in Swahili style, new, even unfinished. In each house four walls formed an oblong building, with a little veranda at the front and a number of separate rooms inside. Some rooms are built with stones, but the majority have trellis work with earth inside, covered with coconut palms. There is only one road, but surprisingly, it is entirely straight.
Our porters installed themselves on an unclaimed stretch of ground at the way into Gasi, and we went straight to what we were told was the sheikh’s residence. We had to wait a long time in an inner room where the local big men were seated in two lines. The conversation was far from lively, rather formal, somewhat embarrassed, such as you might imagine you would have with visitors when you would prefer to be a hundred leagues away. Finally, Mbaruku arrived in Arab dress. He was a big lad of about forty, light-skinned even though his mother was entirely African. His face was calm and had nothing to remind
