BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
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much in eating and drinking. Yet it is a fashion not only prevalent amongst 
all the A-nyanja, but to some extent amongst the Yao, though in this case I 
think it can only be where the Yao woman is really of A-nyanja origin. 
It is a custom not peculiar to British Central Africa, but 
may be met with in widely removed parts of the continent. 
There are few tribes within the limits of the country 
under description which deliberately knock out any of the 
front teeth as is so much the custom with the people dwelling 
on the Upper Zambezi and within the watershed of the 
Kafue river ; but I learn that this practice prevails in some 
tribes of North-West Nyasaland where the two middle lower 
incisors are knocked out at puberty, and that the A-nyika of 
the same district chip the upper incisors by means of an 
axe. The A-lolo to the south-east of Nyasaland file their teeth into sharp 
points. This is also done sometimes amongst the Awemba Babisa, and tribes 
on the Upper Luapula. 
Not even the slave trade devastations and the continual warfare between 
tribe and tribe for the past two hundred years have succeeded in destroying 
agriculture amongst the British Central African negroes: though it must be 
admitted that many tribes have degenerated in the exercise of this industry 
through their harried existence. Those among whom agricultural skill is best 
preserved are the Wankonde of North Nyasa (a tribe which until 
the recent invasion of the Arabs had enjoyed centuries of un¬ 
disturbed peace) and the A-nyanja of South-West Nyasaland. 
As a rule, native agriculture is conducted on a heedless 
system, ruinous to the future interests of the country. A negro 
household wishes to start a new plantation. The husband sallies another example 
out and selects a piece of land in the wilderness, generally well OF THE PELELE 
forested and therefore offering indications of fertile soil. Having chosen his 
“ estate ” he lets other people know it by gathering tufts of grass and tying 
them round the trees, so that passers-by may know that the land has been 
“ betrothed ” (that is often the term used). Then he cuts the trees down 
(leaving stumps in the ground) over the area intended for cultivation and often 
in addition pollards those standing round the boundaries of the field. The 
trunks and branches are left to dry during the rainless season of the year. 
At the close of the dry season they are burnt and their ashes are dug into 
the soil which at this time is carefully hoed up and turned over, all weeds being 
cut down, burnt, and buried. By the beginning of the wet season the land 
is ready for sowing with a crop of maize or sorghum. When the corn comes 
up, the plants are carefully thinned and those left are often earthed up and are 
separated one from the other by a space of (say) three feet. Sometimes 
pumpkins are planted in the furrows, in between the raised mounds from which 
the cereals grow. 
Beyond the burning of the hewn trees and the weeds no attempt is made to 
manure the soil which, being virgin, yields a very large crop and is then greatly 
exhausted. The next year the native cultivator abandons the plantation of the 
year before and prepares another section of forest-land for corn-growing by 
felling and burning the trees. The result of this procedure is naturally the 
gradual disforesting of South Central Africa. Only in small areas near a river 
or lake, which in the wet season are marshes or at that time of the year 
are under water and enriched by the deposit of alluvial soil, does the negro 
EXAMPLE OF PELELE 
IN UPPER LIP 
