NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 471 
conqueror and desires to tender his submission sends word that he wishes “ to 
catch his leg,” and, if the conqueror consents, this ceremonial act of homage is 
performed and peace is declared. Sometimes tribes that have been savagely 
fighting with all the horrors and barbarities of such warfare a few days prior 
to the conclusion of peace, will become quite sentimental, patch up a friendship, 
and chiefs and headmen will exchange daughters or sisters as wives, and their 
peoples mingle with joyous expressions of goodwill, while the decaying heads 
and other relics of the mutilated dead still remain on exhibition. 
These negroes have clear ideas of property. The waste land is usually 
considered to belong to the chief, but plantations and enclosures belong 
personally to the individual who originally made them, or who has inhabited 
them. Private property also includes all movables in the possession of the 
individual who originally acquired them. Sometimes land is held to belong to 
the tribe or to a certain family rather than to the supreme chief. The natives 
have a clear idea of the boundaries of large or small estates, or of their king¬ 
doms ; and in the case of the former they are marked by the planting of certain 
trees of quick growth, while of course streams and mountain ranges are recog¬ 
nised as boundaries and natural limits of territories. 
The laws of inheritance are by no means uniform. Amongst the tribes in 
North Nyasa property descends from a man who has died to the brother next 
to him in age. If there are no more brothers the eldest nephew follows the 
uncle. 
Amongst the Anyanja the sons usually divide the father’s or mother’s 
property. In the case of the Yao a woman usually leaves her property 
amongst her sons and daughters. In the case of a man the right to his 
chieftainship or personal property usually passes to his eldest sister’s son or 
to any other descendants of his other sisters (in order of seniority) who may 
be living. In fact amongst the Wa-yao succession is almost always on the 
female side. The women may not, theoretically, govern (though they often 
do so practically) but at the same time the right to govern can only pass 
through the sister and mother; thus when Makanjira I. died the successor was 
not one of his sons, but his nephew—son of one of his sisters, d his man 
again left the chieftainship to his sister’s son, and so on. 
This custom also obtains amongst some of the North-West Nyasa people. 
All Africans are fond of trade. Commerce has a great attraction for them 
and it is thought to be a bad policy on the part of a chief to drive away trade 
by deeds of injustice or rapine. The men and women both make long journeys 
to sell their goods, the men always travelling farther. Salt is hawked about 
the country—also tobacco, smoke-dried fish, the material for various medicines, 
and charms (such as crocodile’s liver), fowls, goats and sheep, cloth, beads and 
other trade goods. Nothing, probably, except ivory or gunpowder is sold by 
weight—and the sale of these articles is usually in foreign hands (Arabs, 
Europeans, or half-castes)—natives usually sell by measures of length and 
capacity. Salt will be sold by the bag — generally of regular bulk and 
weight—grain or flour by measure of capacity which can be gauged by the 
hand; cloth is measured by the arm—the commonest measure being 
the ell, from the point of the elbow to the end of the second finger, or from 
the end of the second finger to the wrist, or along the outstretched arms from 
finger tip to finger tip across the chest. Beads would be sold by the bunch ; 
other articles that could not be sold by measure would be valued by number 
and in some cases by divisions or subdivisions. 
