384 MANGANJA INDUSTRIES. 



Iron ore is dug out of the hills, and its manufacture is the 

 staple trade of the southern highlands. Each village has its 

 smelting-house, its charcoal-burners, and blacksmiths. They 

 make good axes, spears, needles, arrow-heads, bracelets and 

 anklets, which, considering the entire absence of machinery, are 

 sold at surprisingly low rates ; a hoe over two pounds in weight 

 is exchanged for calico of about the value of fourpence. In 

 villages near Lake Shirwa and elsewhere, the inhabitants enter 

 pretty largely into the manufacture of crockery, or pottery, 

 making by hand all sorts of cooking, water, and grain pots, 

 which they ornament with plumbago found in the hills. Some 

 find employment in weaving neat baskets from split bamboos, 

 and others collect the fibre of the buaze, which grows abun- 

 dantly on the hills, and make it into fish-nets. These they 

 either use themselves, or exchange with the fishermen on the 

 river or lakes for dried fish and salt. A great deal of native 

 trade is carried on between the villages, by means of barter in 

 tobacco, salt, dried fish, skins and iron. 



The Manganja were found to be generally a pleasant people, 

 and happily for some members of the expedition they were able 

 almost to forget color in associating with them. There were 

 peculiarities, however, which in the society of civilized com- 

 munities would constitute a distinction almost as marked as 

 color itself; fashions control communities more uncompromis- 

 ingly than natural conditions, if possible, and the fashions which 

 distinguished the Manganja would hardly find a follower even 

 among the most eager hunters of novelty. There were the buf- 

 faloes' horns and the rhinoceros horns which were found else- 

 where ; some also had their wool hanging about their shoulders, 

 while others still appeared shorn entirely, and, true to their 

 natures, there was an illimitable indulgence in bodily ornament ; 

 they adorned themselves most extravagantly, wearing rings on 

 their fingers and thumbs, besides throatlets, bracelets, and anklets 

 of brass, copper, or iron. But the most wonderful of ornaments, 

 if such it may be called, is the pelele, or upper-lip ring of the 

 women. The middle of the upper lip of the girls is pierced 

 close to the septum of the nose, and a small pin inserted to pre- 

 vent the puncture closing up. After it has healed, the pin is 

 taken out and a larger one is pressed into its place, and so on 



