The Sunday Oregonian., March 08, 1908, Magazine Section, Page 8, Image 52

8
.''-. ''.53 V Frank Carpenter Tells of the
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BY FRANK G. CARPENTER.
HAVE you ever heard of the Waki
kuyu? . ,
There are more than a million
of them In this part of Africa. They
live on the highlands just east of here
and about Mount Kenla, which Is more to
the north. I reached their country short
ly after leaving Nairobi, the capital of
British Rant Africa. Thtft town is at the
end of a series of highlands. It Is on
the western edge of a plateau and the
land rises beyond It. 'U e mounted over
3000 feet In 34 miles, and then found our
selves among the villages of these curi
ous people. e could see their little
farms everywhere. They take up patches
of woodland and burn off the trees. After
that thcr work the ground to death for a
few years, and .then go off to take up
patches somewhere else. Some of their
farms are no bigger than a bed quilt,
others cover a quarter of an acre and
some twice as much. The fields are not
fenced, and now and then a rhino or
lilppo gets in aid wallows, while near
the woodlands me moniteys puil up the
crops. The chief thing raised is Indian
corn. I see the women everywhere work
ing the fields. Half nude, they bend
low, pulling the weeds and digging the
ground over with hoes. In most places
the men squat around on the ground and
keep them up to their work. The more
wives a man has the richer he is; and
the more he drives his wives: the better
his farm. Indeed the cheapest cattle here
are human cattle.
Wear Grease, Clay and Telegraph
Wire.
Ths chief dress of the Wakikuyu con
sists of grease, clay and telegraph wire.
The grease makes their brown skins
shine, the red clay gives It a copper hue,
and the telegraph wire loads their arms,
necks and ankloe. The grease Is usually
mutton fat and the clay is the red soil
found everywhere. The more rancid the
fat the better they seem to like it. The
average man or woman smells high to
Heaven, and one can distinguish a na
tive's existence before he gets, to him.
They soak their hair with this grease, and
under the tropical sun you can almost
hear the stuff siixie. They stiffen their
hair with clay so that it can be put up in
all sorts of shapes, making their bead
(ear a pale brick-rust color. I examined
one man's head the other day. It was
covered with something like 10.000 indi
vidual curls which stood out over his
pate like the snakes of the Medusa. Each
rurl was an inch long and it had been
twisted by a professional hairdresser. -
Pipestems as Ear Plugs.
This man had three long pipe stems in
each ear. Each was as big arond as a
lead pencil and of about the same length.
It was fastened through a hole made in
lh rim ut lu aj by a kind, ul brass
button, and these three stems standing
out on each side his head looked almost
like horns, save that they projected front
the ears. He had beads in the lobes- and
one of the men with him had the lobe of
Ills ear so stretched that it held a plug as
big as my fist. I bought the plus of him
for 3 cents, and the man then took the
two lobes of bus ears and joined them
together under his chin, and tied them
there with a bit of string in order that
they might not catch on a branch or
something else as he went through the
forest.
This second man had a brass collar
about his neck and coils of bras wire
about each wrist and over the biceps of
each arm. His only clothing consisted of
a strip of dirty white cotton which was
fastened over one shoulder and fell to Jiis
thighs. He had pronounced negro fea
tures and where the red clay had worn
off his skin was as black as my boots.
Where Cattle Sleep With the People.
These Wakikuyu live in small villages.
Their towns look like collections of hav
cocks until you come close to them and
when you get inside you find that thov
contain as many animals as men. The
houses are. thatched huts built about six
feet apart in circles around au inclosure
In which the cattle, sheep and goats are
kept at night. The sheep and goats
often get inside the huts, and as for
the chickens, they go everywhere. Each
circle of huts usually belongs to one
family, a chief and his relatives thus
living together. The huts have wooden
walls about four feet high with conical
roofs. The wood is chopped out of the
trees with the native axes, the boards
being about 18 inches or two feet in
width. They are made by the natives,
a man and his wive,s requiring about ten
days to build a hut. The wood used Is
soft, and the kind Is regulated by the
Government which charges "the natives
66 cents for enough wood to build one
hut.
In addition to the huts, each family
has two or three granaries to keep its
Winter supply of Indian corn. These are
made with wicker ' walls and wicleer
floors, and are raised a foot oris inches
off the ground. They are usually about
as big around as a hogshead and "six feet
in height. They have thatched roofs.
What They Eat.
The Wakikuyu are practically vegeta
rians. They live on com, beans, sweet
potatoes and a kind of millet. They have
a few cattle and some sheep, but they
consider them too valuable to be killed,
and they only eat them when the cattle
are sick or become injured in some, way
and have to be killed. They have no
chickens and eat neither fowls nor eggs.
The reason for this is that chickens crow,
and in the past the locality of a village
could ba told by the cocks and thereby
brought down Its enemies and the slave
traders upon It.
These people have many dishes like
ours. They eat. roasting ears off the
cob, and they boil beans and corn to
gether, making a kind of succotash. They
have also a gruel made of millet and
milk, and if one of the- family becomes
sick Uiey sometimes give hint mutton
TB"E SUNDAY OREGOXIANV PORTLAND, MARCH 8, 1903.
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broth. In their cooking they use clay
jars, which they rest upon stones and
build fires under them. They use pourds
for carrying milk and water, and make
bags of woven bark ranging in size
from a pint Jo four bushels. Such bags
are used for all sorts of purposes, and the
larger ones serve for the transportation of
their grain to the markets.
Wives Worth Money.
The Wakfkuyu looks upon the females
of his family as so much available cap
ital., If a man has 15 or 20 wives, he is
supposed to be wealthy beyond the
dreams of avarice. I am told that many
of the chiefs have a dozen or more, and
that since the British have begun to ex
ploit the forests, the more industrious of
the native men have been rapidly increas
ing their families. A good girl, large and
healthy, will bring as much as 60 sheep,
and a man may pay down ten sheep and
agree to bring in the balance from month
to month as himself and his wives earn
them. He goes into the woods and cuts
down trees, being paid so much per stick.
If a man works hard, he may make $1.35
or $160 a month, and if. In addition, he
has several women to help him, his In
come may be doubled' or trebled.
In such work the men cut the wood and
the women carry it on their backs to the
market. They are loaded up by their hus
bands, a piece of goatskin separating the
rough sticks from the women's bare skin,
the burden being tied on by a rope of
vines which rests on the forehead. In ad
dition to this goat skin on her back, the
woman usually has an apron or skirt of
skin, which is tied about the waist and
reaches to the knees and sometimes be
low them. A good -lusty girl can carry as
much as 300 pounds of wood in this way.,
and her husband does not scruple to load
her with all she will take. I made some
inquiries as to the prices of such women,
and am told that a girl is supposed to be
ready for sale at 12 years and that J30
In cattle or sheep is an average price.
For this sum the woman should be larpre.
well-formed and fairly Kood-lookingr.
Ugly girls and lean girls go cheap and
some such are often unmarried, in which
case they hove to work for their parents.
Great Ilailroad Thieves.
I saw a half-dozen Nandi, including
two women, at one of the stations be
tween here and the liscarpment. The
men were almost naked, save that
they wore oloaks of monkey skina
with the fur on and strips of cow
skin about the waist. The women had
on waist cloths and blankets of cow
hide tanned with the hair on. . These
blankets were fastened over one
shoulder, leaving the arms and half
of the breasts bare. .Theee Nandi were
walking along the railroad track, and
were closely watched by the station
agents. I am told they are great
thieves, and that the British have had
trouble with them because they steal
bolts and rivets 'Which hold the rails
to the ties, anff even climb the tele-
graph poles and steal the wire. The
women I saw had coils of brase wire
around their necks and arms, and long
coils of similar wire tied to strings in
their ears.' In their own country tele
graph wire brings a big price as
jewelry, and they look upon the
strands of iron stretched from pole to
pole along the railroad just as our
women look upon gold and silver Jew
elry. If the wires along our tracks
were made of gold and silver, so that
one could snip off a section far out
in the wood and make a gold neck
lace for his girl out of it you would
have about the conditions that pre
vail here as to the telegraph. The
native men are crazy for iron. They
can use the bolts and rivets for slung
shots to brain their enemies, and all
the iron they have had in the past has
come from digging up the ore and
smelting it. The Nandi live north
west of here on a plateau which con
tains iron deposits, and they make a
business of mining and smelting. Since
the railroad has been built they have
come down from time to time and
raided the tracks; and the British have
had several little wars with them to
keep them off. They had one in 1900
and another in 1903.
Queer Nandi Customs.
These. Nandi are among the bravest of
the African natives. They are much like
the Masai, delighting in warfare, and
ready to fight at the least provocation.
They are more civilized than the Waki
kuyu, and do considerable work in iron
and leather. They have cattle, sheep
and goats, and a few do some farming.
Like the Masai, they bleed their cattle.
and drink the blood not, sometimes mix-
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lng it with their porridge. After bleed
ing they close the wounds, so that the
cattle grow' -well again. They are good
hunters, anj have large dogs, with which
they run the game down so that it can
be killed with spears. They also trap
game by digging wedge-shaped pits, and
covering them over with grass. They
have donkeys which they use to carry
the Iron ore from the mines to their fur
naces, where they turn it into pig metal.
These people have about the same cus
toms of marriage as the Masai. The
young girls live with the. warriors until
they reach a marriageable age, and mar
riage is always a matter of bargain and
sale. The price of a. good-looking girl is
three goats, a cow and a good fat hen,
and the belle of the tribe may bring
twice as much. Among the Nandi, the
woman who bears the most children is
considered the most valuable. She who
has twins Is a mascot, and is given a
cow, the milk of which goes exclusively
to her. The younger women of this
tribe wear small aprons of leather, orna
mented with beads; and the young men
go practicallv naked. The married men
dress much like those I saw on the track.
I understand that the Nandi live about
the same as the other natives about
here They have circular huts of boards
roofed with thatch. Each hut has a fire
place in the center, and on each side of
this a little bed consisting of a platform
of mud built along the wall of the hut.
The people sleep on the mud, and use
round blocks of wood for pillows. The
children sleep with their parents until
they are 6 years of age. when they are
shoved off into a smalller hut outside
built especially for them. They believe
In witches and medicine men, and they
have a sky god to whom they pray every
morning and to whom they sacrifice
when times are hard.
People Who Dress in Beads.
Nearly all these Africans believe in
witch doctors. The Wakamba, whose
country I passed through on my way to
Nairobi, not infrequently kill the women
of their tribe when they are charged
with witchcraft, and there is a record of
something like 40 having, been murdered
this way within the past two or three
years. I saw these Wakamba on the
Athi plains and in and about Nairobi.
They are tall and fine looking, having
wooly hair, rather thick lips and almost
straight noses. They wear but little
clothing. Some of the women I saw
were clad in nothing but beads. They
had bead legglns reaching from their
ankles almost to their knees, and bead
waistbands embracing their bodies from
the breast to the thighs.with short bead
aprons hanging at the front. They wore
wristlets consisting of about 20 coils of
brass wire as thick' as a leadpencil, and
they had other coils of wire above and
below the blceys encircling their upper
arms. They had also necklaces of wire,
and wire earrings, but all this failed to
hide the greater part of their persons.
The girls were fat, plump and well fed,
and their dark brown skins had all the
luster of a briarwood pipe well oiled.
Saving the African Forests.
In coming from the plains over the
mountains into the Great Rift Valley, I
rode for miles through the woods and had
a chance to see what the British govern
ment is doing to save the forests. Con-
1 trary to the general opinion, this country
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has but little woods except in the hills,
and lumber is high. A great deal of that
used at Mombasa and Nairobi is brought
In from Norway, and some comes- from
the Vnlted States. Leaving the Kikuyu
hills there are woods all the way to the
ridge known as the Escarpment and they
extend for some distance down the sides
of the Rift Valley. Here In the valley
itself the country is mostly pasture and
there Is no timber of any account. In
the forest region, above referred to. the
woods are thin, and in many places the
virgin timber has been cleared by the
Wakikuyu, who burn the ground over,
in order that they may use the virgin soil
for garden patches. The government is
now prohibiting this and is doing all that
It can to save the trees remaining and
to build up new wood lands. I met here
at Navaisha an Australian who Is one
of the heads of the forestry department.
He tells me that the government- has es
tablished nurseries at Mombasa, Nairobi,
Escarpment and Ltfindaivi. Near Mom
basa they are setting out teak trees, and
at Nairobi they have planted a large
number of acacia and .eucalypti, which
they have imported from Australia. The
eucalyptus grows well at Nairobi. ' I
saw trees there which were 75 feet high.
When Our English Is Japanned
Blunders That One Sees on the Business Signs of Tokio.
George Kennan, in New York Tribune. I
EVERT foreigner who has explored
in a jinrikisha the great street
labyrinth of Tokio must have no
ticed the comparatively frequent occur
rence of English signboards over tha
shops of Japanese tradesmen. One sel
dom runs across a French or German
signboard, but in all parts of the city,
even in quarters to which foreigners
seldom go, and over shops that tourists
never patronize, one sees among the
perpendicular strings of Chinese ideo
graphs the familiar letters of the Eng
lish alphabet. Often, however, it is only
the letters that are familiar. The words
of which they form a part are as un
intelligible as a cipher or a crypto
gram. The Brst time 1 passed a Japa
nese signboard bearing the legend
"Miluk Hole," I tried In vain, to guess
what the owner of the shop had for
sale; and it was not until I had seen
other Blgnboards Inscribed "Fulllsh
Milk," "Fluish Milk," "Fulish Butter,"
and "Milk Holl" that I was able to
solve' the puzzle. "Miluk Hole" was
Intended for "Milk Hall." Why a 7x9
shop for the sale of dairy products
should be called a "hall" I did not
know and I have never since been able
to ascertain; but the Japanese Invari
ably call such shops "Holes," "Holls,"
or "Halls," when they describe them
In English on their signboards. "Full
lsh," "Fulish," and "Fluish" are at
tempts to spell phonetically 'the word
"fresh" as It sounds to the Oriental car.
English words containing the letter "r"
give the Japanese a great deal of trou
ble; and in trying to reproduce them,
with their imperfect knowledge of al
phabetic values, they make some Curi
ous and funny combinations.
One would hardly guess that "Karare
and Kufus" meant "collars and cuffs,"
unless one happened to see a Japanese
ironing those articles In the laundry
bearing the signboard. Neither would
one recognize the English element In
the name "Howjiudu Maru" painted on
the bow of a Japanese junk; and yet
"Howjiudu" is not a bad reproduction
of "How do you do?" as the words are
often carelessly and slurringly pro
nounced. "How do you do?" was prob
ably the only English phrase that the
owner of the boat had ever heard; and,
having the courage of his Ignorance, he
treated it as a single word, combined it
with a Japanese suffix applied to sail
ing vessels generally, and gave It, with
pride, to his "honorable" junk.
All of these blunders are obviously
the results of Inaccurate hearing or im
perfect knowledge of the phonetic val
ues of English letters; but in the liter
ature of Japanese signboards there is
another class of errors which is plainly
due to the looking up of English words
in Japanese-English dictionaries and
the putting of such words together
without regard to the rules of English
syntax. When, for example, a Japanese
wishes to paint on a signboard the
words "Shop of the Courteous Barber"
he turns in his dictionary to the Japa
nese word for "courtesy" and finds op
posite it a whole group of nearly
synonymous English words, among
which is "kindness." Not having knowl
edge enough to discriminate between
shades of meaning, ha selects "kind
ness" almost at random, and associates
it with "shop" and "barber," as follows:
"Barber the Kindness Shop." Another
Japanese, practicing the same trade,
refers to himself as the "Cheerful Ber-J
ber"; a laundryman gives notice that
he Is a "High W ashman." and a sar
torial artist describes himself as "The
Sublime Tailor." "High" and . "sub
lime" seem Inappropriate or at least
hyperbolic adjectives to apply to
"washmen" and tailors: but reference
to a Japanese-English dictionary shows
that among the definitions there given
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and that although they were only flv
years of age. This forest manager tellr
me he is laboring under great disadvan
tages in hiB efforts to raise new trees.
He says he has to fight not only the na
tives, but also the mbnkeys. baboons and
other wild animals. The woods are full
of monkeys, and among them Is a dog
faced baboon which grows as big as a .
10-year-old boy. This animal barks like
a dog and acts like a uevil. It watches
the planting and then sneaks in at night
and digs up the trees. If seeds are put
in. It digs them up and bites them in
two, and if the trees should sprout It
pulls the sprouts out of the ground and
breaks them -up and throws them away.
As a result the nurseries have to be.
watched during the day by men with
guns In their hands. If the men have no
guns the baboons will jump for the near
est tree and make grimaces out of the
branches, only to return to their devas
tating work as soon as the watchmen
go away. If guns are brought out the
animals realize their danger and run for
their lives.. These monkeys also dig up
the Indian corn planted by the Waki
kuyu, and they are said to be far worse
than crows and blackbirds combined.
' Navaisha, British South Africa.
of these words are "eminent," "su
perior," and "great": and such were
the Ideas that the Japanese signboard
painter Intended to express. I passed
almost dally for weeks a Tokio shop
whose signboard bore the words "Nour
ishing Drugs," but whether the propri
etor sold cocktails or cod liver oil I
never ascertained.
Among the signboard blunders that
afforded me perennial enjoyment in
Japan were those of the butcher who
advertised "Boef and Hen Met"; the
milkman who meant to recommend
"Best Fresh Milk," who solemnly as
sured his patrons' that "Fresh Milk Is .
Best": the dairy farmer who called his
establishment "Squeeze Out Place of
the- Milk Dealer." and the photogra
pher who Invited the passerby to "Come
In and Try and Take Vour Shape."
On almost every street In Yokohama
and Tokio one sees signboards on
which queer effects have been produced
by slight errors in the spelling of Eng
lish words. Among such are "Electorial
Engineers," "Wholesaler and Retainer,"
"Mishln Shop," "Curious Shop" and
"Furniture and Curios Sold and Bay."
Another blunder common on Japanese
signboards is the result of joining sell
ers with their goods by means of the
conjunction 'and." This accounts for
such signs as "The Japanese Bicycle &
Co..'" "Confectionery Biscuit & Co." and
"Great Japanese Sporting Dogs & Co."
Just why the Japanese are so desir
ous of having English signboards over
their shops I do not know. It cannot
be wholly for the purpose of attract
ing English and American customers,
because the resident foreign population
in Japanese cities is small and many
of the signboards are In quarters to
which tourists seldom if ever go. Per
haps the -tradesmen regard their smat
tering of Snglish as an evidence of
culture and social distinction.
It is a curious fact that Japanned
English 'prose. In spite of Its gram
matical lawlessness, is almost invari
ably Intelligible. The parts of speech
may all disagree, and the metaphors
may all limp, but there is seldom room
fqr doubts as to the author's mean
ing. Take, for instance, the following
description of a hot spring:
THE PRECAUTION OF THE VISITOR
I. The siKht-pay is:
5 for manhood.
Kn 24 for childhood 10-5 3'ars old.
II. The ticket Is to be shown and notched
to and ty the &crlstan at the en
trance, and delivered to him at the
outlet. . -
III. The prepared straw-slipper ought to
bo worn all In the hall.
IV. Shoe. Stick, Umbrella and puch others
arc to commitable to be auDervlaed by);
tho ahoeHkeexer at the inlet.
V. The house interdict: (.a) smoking- and
repast: b) handling- ink or liquid
fialnt; e the photographing- or trac
ng of the articles, or the inside or the
ouLside of the edlfflce: td touching
all the exhlbltaiiles: (e) sonorous
sacrilege: it) suspending bulky bag
gage. VI The spectator should be obligatory to.
repay ordinarily at the defilement or
the damage of the articles, the furni
ture and the sanctum.
.18th the MeHH.
If we eliminate the single word
"not," which may be a typesetter's
blunder, the whole description is per
fectlys understandable. It violates al
mott every rule of English grammar,
but we know what it means. The same
may be said of the following rules for
visitors, which are displayed in
front of a recently erected temple at
Kotonira:
This hot earing Is beautiful perspective
and a delightful freshness in the air. It
is raise up 4.640 foot up the sea surface
and the temperature within 75 degree.
Therefore it is almost able to everybody
sheltering the hot In the summer season.
This hot spring is not special virtue that
will give the pure and healthy to human
heart. Because it is the carbonic acid
spring to comprehend many iron. There
are build the several bathroom to' reserve
for some person. Half A 8 miles for Tab
alia Station at Shlnetsu I.lne.
THE SACRISTY OF
THE KOTOHIKA TEMPLB - .
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