African Jungle Harems on the Decline

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 18

African Jungle Harems on the Decline

The High Cost of Purchasing Wives—Sometimes as Much as 10 Oxen !—Has serious effect on Matrimonial Market.

BIVE -wives are too much for one man nowadays. If you think of getting married, do not have more than one.” This edict has just been made by a swarthy African monarch, to Mr. Eric Rosenthal, who writes for the San Francisco “Chronicle.” Harems are to be found throughout the greater part of Africa, even in 1929. During a recent census in the British Dominion of the South, one respected negro chieftain told the enumerator that he had 69 “better halves.” A colleague of this man walked round his own household and found that the figure for the moment was 46. In the more northern jungles and busli country linger numerous unrecorded kraals whose rulers possess scores of spouses. Formerly households were even more enormous. Tshaka, a monstrously cruel and powerful Zulu king who was murdered about 90 years ago, had a whole string of straw-built palaces in various districts of his country. In each of them there lived 300 to 500 girls who counted as' his wives, the entire total far exceeding that of King Solomon. Unlike that wise monarch, however, he did not treat fhem well. A special executioner was attached to each harem and there was a “wastage” of many dozens a year, slaughtered for so-called offences. Nowadays African seraglios are peaceful establishments. The exciting old caveman system of stealing from a neighbour whatever wives were desired has fallen into disuse. No longer is it possible to run a spear through any gentleman whose sister or daughter you would like to have as your bride. African native marriages are now affairs for lawyers—even though a white man would not identify the naked, bead-adorned sages who sit by the tribal bonfire and expound ageless customs as legal practitioners. But unlike the money of marriageable young men in America or Europe, the money involved does not go toward buying the home, furniture, settling up for the building plot or arranging a trousseau. The romanti-cally-minded tribal youth saves for a vastly different reason. He has to buy and pay for his wives. Mammas and papas who possess daughters emerging from their teens—girls still living in the stuffy, lightless family

hut where they were born, although old enough to have husbands on their own—do not feel aijy worries. Ketabadala, the elder of the jungle village, does not say to Marokiane. his chief spouse (there are first, second and third-class wives): “My dear, don’t you think it is time that Nondeweni, Mafuta, Umdeni, Mankanzana and Hlulu should be settling down in life? Their friends are nearly all engaged. Why hasn't one of our girls got a fiance?” No, what old Ketabadala says to his wife is: “liittle Ostrich, next spring we ought to be able to buy that land beyond the ford and plant another field of Kaffir corn. Nondeweni Is nearly 17 and is strong as an elephant. I reckon she is worth anything from five to nine oxen. And look how fat Mafuta is. If Telayizi, the young man who lives below the wizard’s cave, doesn't ask me for her soon he will find that Kwadini, the chief’s counsellor, will have her. He has already had four daughters of mine,”

This variety of love-making sends more young braves from the grasswalled, bee-hive huts of their native villages to the automobile-filled, pros-

RUDY LIPS. —A charming girl, one of the younger dancing set among 'the Sara people of equatorial Africa. Yogumbungi (her name means *‘she-who-mußt-be-adored”) belongs to a tribe which purchases wives, .the current rate, allowing for exchange, being id. Yogumbungi has stretched her mouth until it is 12 inches long. This is a great advantage in whispering scandalous secrets of the jungle. perous cities of the Europeans, with their American style buildings and department stores, than all the propaganda about labour shortages could ever do. Telayizi wants to start a home and he has no money to buy his first wife (even in Africa one must begin in a small way). So he ties his beaded loincloth tighter, hacks a stick from some thorny bush as a protection from wild beasts, tramps to the nearest railway station, hundreds of miles away, and re-enacts the little story of the country boy who goes to town to seek his fortune.

Unlike the rural youths of nearly ail other countries, the lucky African nearly always finds prosperity. This is because an amount which a prosperous workman elsewhere might spend on a single vacation suffices in Africa to make a native rich for life. Once the first wife is bought and paid for —no credit is given, and there is no “time payment” system —the remaining path toward affluenca is simple. Wife No. 1 works for her husband until he has, by her labour, acquired sufficient money to pay for wife No. 2, and so ad infinitum. Within a few years Telayizi has, if times are good, four or five wives. He settles down to 101 l with other braves outside the tribal cattle pen. smoking, sleeping through the noon, telling untruthful stories about exploits in love and war. The single original hut of the, household has Increased into quite a community settlement. Each additional wife possesses her separate little home of grass and there she lives with those particular piccamns of which she is the mother. Thirty or forty youngsters are quite a usual number for a single family. Papa must show a stupendous amount of tact in order to prevent continual commotions. Wife No. 4 comes into the chief hut yelling loudly that wife No. 2 has been spanking her rival’s set of youngsters. “Why should this happen? K>s quite right that papa should smac ’ everybody, including his wives, if “ e chooses, but in no family is one wife entitled to chastise the offspring of another.” Harem life in Africa is, however, quite peaceful on the whole. T " e women always have plenty of topic s about which to gabble, and the duties of keeping several children supphf® with goodies, *the work among tn cattle and in the fields and the manufacture of ornaments and clay P°“ keep everybody except the kusban very busy. Kraal piccanins probably have a more enjoyable time than an) other children in the world. examinations, doctors, dentists, P®‘‘ petual scrubbings and all the othe obnoxious worries of European ebu • hood do not appear in the wilder

parts of Africa. , When the lads get big enough take an interest in girls, they b®* to save up. as their father did in m day, for the acquisition of desiraD maidens. . Prices in the marriage market nu tuate. Recent quotations show tnac along with most commodities, t price of wives is rising. ve . n ,- n <, Africa the cost of living is restrict! » the size of families. It i® “ ar ." possible to get a girl good-looking the eyes of the natives for less - 10 oxen nowadays. The result ' that only the most prosperous keep up really big households. - chief may still have 60 or 70 s P°| l .„ m ’ but the man in the jungle can sei afford more than half a dozen.