4 68 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
The flute is made of a hollow reed. This is an instrument which is very 
rarely seen nowadays in the better known parts of the country, but it is still met 
with in Yao-land, in the countries to the west of Lake Nyasa, and in all the 
regions where the cheap penny whistles of the white trader have not penetrated. 
The Rev. D. C. R. Scott states that in former days the big chiefs of Nyasaland 
used to have bands of performers on the flute which accompanied the armies 
to the battle-field much as the fifes in a fife and drum band. 
In addition to these regular musical instruments the native delights in the 
use of rattles which are made of hard seeds and pieces of wood and are hung 
round the ankles, the armpits, or the waist; or are shaken by the hands ; or 
a small gourd may be filled with pellets or seeds and rattled. 
Music is one of the many arts in which the negro has degenerated. There 
is evidence that before the coming of white men to these countries bringing 
the abominable concertina, panpipes, penny whistle, and harmonium, the 
natives played more musical instruments of their own than they do now, 
and thought much more of native music. 
The administration of justice has already been touched upon to some extent 
in the reference to the trials by ordeal. The headman of the village in council, 
the petty chief of the district and his headman, and the supreme chief of the 
country (if there be one) try cases according to their importance, give decisions 
and enforce them. In the case of powerful chiefs like Mpezeni, Chikusi , 1 
Chiwere, Mombera 1 of the Angoni, the Kazembe of Lunda, Ketiamkulu 1 of the 
Awemba, the power would be more or less autocratic, and the chief would 
probably give decisions and execute sentences without consulting his sub-chiefs; 
but smaller chiefs do not rule so despotically and seldom arrive at any im¬ 
portant decision without being in accord with their advisers. 
In every important village there is usually an open space with a shady tree 
in the middle or some other shelter from the sun, and here the cases are tried 
by the Village Council or the Chief alone. In a civil case the plaintiff and 
defendant set forth their case, each in his turn, and do not interrupt one another 
more than they would do in a civilised Court. Then various Elders, or men of 
mark , 2 give their views on the subject, arguing on one side or the other, and the 
chief pronounces his decision. Sometimes the defeated party appeals to the 
bigger chief or, if it is a serious case, secedes from the community sooner than 
abide by the decision, and runs away to the court of another potentate. 
Ordinarily, however, the decision given at these trials is accepted. Where 
it is a criminal case it is often referred to the poison ordeal, from which the 
prisoner emerges with declared innocence after vomiting the dose, or either dies 
from the poisonous draught which his stomach cannot reject, or is done to death 
by the onlookers when his guilt is made manifest by the inability to vomit 
This form of trial is often resorted to in serious cases involving capital punish¬ 
ment, as the chief usually shrinks from pronouncing a death sentence unless he 
is a blood-thirsty despot of considerable power who delights in cruelty; in 
which case he will kill or mutilate for his own good pleasure, not necessarily for 
the execution of the judicial sentence . 3 
Minor ordeals may be undergone, such as plunging the hand into boiling 
1 Now dead. 
2 In the case of a woman, she generally chooses a male advocate to plead her cause: usually a relation. 
3 In the Alunda and Awemba countries a great deal of mutilation goes on—hands are lopped off, eais 
or noses removed for trivial offences. 
