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Not many women wear the lip-ring: the example of the Waiyau has prevailed so far; but some of the young women have raised lines crossing each other on the arms, which must have cost great pain: they have also small cuts, covering in some cases the whole body. The Maravi or Manganja here may be said to be in their primitive state.
Both Babisa and Waiyau may have a mixture of the race, which would account for their roving habits. The women have the fashion of exposing the upper part of the buttocks by letting a very stiff cloth fall down behind. Their teeth are filed to points, they wear no lip-ring, and the hair is parted so as to lie in a net at the back part of the head.
The men have the hair dressed as if a number of the hairs of elephants' tails were stuck around the head: the women wear a small lip-ring, and a straw or piece of stick in the lower lip, which dangles down about level with the lower edge of the chin: their clothing in front is very scanty. The men know nothing of distant places, the Manganja being a very stay-at-home people.
Many of these people had gone to the coast as traders, and returning with arms and ammunition joined the Waiyau in their forays on the Manganja, and eventually set themselves up as an independent tribe. The women do not wear the lip-ring, though the majority of them are Waiyau. They cultivate largely, and have plenty to eat. They have cattle, but do not milk them.
Our first definite information about Lake Nyassa was obtained from her. Seeing us taking notes, she remarked that she had been to the sea, and had there seen white men writing. She had seen camels also, probably among the Arabs. She was the only Manganja woman we ever met who was ashamed of wearing the "pelele," or lip-ring.
They speak a language slightly different from that of the Makondé, but they understand them. The Matambwé women are, according to Ali, very dark, but very comely, though they do wear the lip-ring. They carry their ivory, gum-copal, and slaves to Ibo or Wibo. 29th April, 1866.
Their heads are of a round shape; compact foreheads, but not particularly receding; the alae nasi are flattened out; lips full, and with the women a small lip-ring just turns them up to give additional thickness. Their style of beauty is exactly that which was in fashion when the stone deities were made in the caves of Elephanta and Kenora near Bombay.
On this the native remarked that it was a pity to cut such a nice dress for his wife, and he would rather bring more meal. "All right," said the Makololo, "but look, the cloth is very wide, so see that the basket which carries the meal be wide too, and add a cock to make the meal taste nicely." The highland women of these regions all wear the pelele, or lip-ring, before described.
À favourite mode of dressing the hair into little knobs, which was in fashion there, is more common in some tribes than in this. The mouths of the women would not be so hideous with a small lip-ring if they did not file their teeth to points, but they seem strong and able for the work which falls to their lot.
The people all cultivate maize near the Rovuma, and on islands where moisture helps them, nearly all possess guns, and plenty of powder and fine beads, red ones strung on the hair, and fine blue ones in rolls on the neck, fitted tightly like soldiers' stocks. The lip-ring is universal; teeth filed to points. 24th June, 1866.
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