NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
469 
water, to prove innocence from charges of stealing, adultery, and so on. The 
native, as I have said, shrinks from the responsibility of pronouncing a death 
sentence, but once such a decision is given the thirst for bloodshed is aroused 
and the execution is usually a cruel one. Persons who have been unsuccessful 
in the Muavi ordeal, or who are otherwise sentenced to death, are often killed 
by a general assault of the surrounding crowd who stab, hack, stamp on, kick, 
and smother the wretched victim, usually ending by cutting off the head, and, 
in the case of sorcerers, burning the body. In executions conducted more 
soberly by persons whom the chief deputes to inflict the death sentence, the 
convict has his throat cut or is stabbed with a spear. I do not remember to have 
heard in this part of Africa of any cases of hanging or strangling. It is said 
that in some of these countries criminals are crucified. I fancy this is a custom 
more of the Zambezi Valley or of the extreme west of British Central Africa 
than attributable to the eastern part of the territory which I am describing . 1 
Small cases are generally dealt with summarily by the chiefs or elders, who 
usually give wise decisions. The regular judicial trials take a longer time and 
there is a great deal of forensic eloquence displayed, not only by the parties to 
the case but by the bench of magistrates, who, with the exception of the chief, 
are mostly partizans. Some of the speaking is remarkably good—the argument 
being subtle, well sustained and copiously illustrated by analogies and references 
to other cases. A speaker will at times lash himself into a simulated fury, but 
the proceedings as a rule are orderly. 
These trials are called in Chi-nyanja Milandu ; in Chi-yao, Magambo ; and 
in Iki-nkonde, Ainasyo. These words are soon only too familiar to the European 
travelling through the country. Any subject of dispute is called a “ Mlandu ” ; 
and amongst a litigious people not standing in awe of the European the 
traveller will constantly be harassed by threats to bring him up before the chief 
or magistrate to cause him to be mulcted for some imaginary grievance. 
War may be suddenly waged without warning and without reason. Petty 
warfare may be constantly carried on between the border villages of two chiefs 
who are on unfriendly terms, without the main forces of the countries becoming 
involved. In such cases men from one or other village will hide in the bush 
outside the place they wish to annoy, and attack unarmed persons, killing them 
if they are men, and carrying them off if they are women. 
If one chief resolves to proceed to war with another he usually sends 
a messenger stating his cause of complaint and offering the offending chief 
a bullet (or where guns are not used, a spear) or a hoe. The chief thus 
addressed will retain the bullet and send back the hoe, if he takes up the 
challenge and is prepared for war ; if not he returns the bullet and thus implies 
that he intends to yield to the demands made of him. Or a defiant potentate 
may simply send to another ruler bullets or spear-heads as an insolent provoca¬ 
tion. When we were having our difficulties with the slave-raiding chiefs on the 
borders of the Protectorate they were always sending me iron bullets, generally 
by persons whom they had kidnapped for the purpose of carrying back this 
challenge. 
When war is inevitable preparations are made for it by drumming, dancing, 
beer drinking, high feeding and the making of war medicine which is usually 
hung about the person in amulets of horn. The forces then advance to the 
attack. 
1 In the Niger Delta I have several times noticed cases of men or women who were sentenced to death, 
being tied by stout ropes round the trunk of a tree and left there to die of hunger and thirst. 
