The older women spend most of the afternoon resting. The younger women fetch water and the men and boys build the calf pen, now digging a trench for the stakes with the tool brought back by the fetchers of the clay.
The baskets of clay are received by the forger who places a sprig of Omtundungu leaves on each, and then squatting beside the wooden trough which he has placed on the sand cleared of grass and roots, he puts the basket down beside it.
It is now evening, the calf pen has been filled in with branches and huge logs have been brought in and laid in rows before the place where the huts will be built.
It is the time for the lighting of the night's fires and this is done by the forger who first lights his own, chewing a few grains of Oidiavala millet together with leaves ofOmtundungu and then spitting into the fire on which he places the usual sprig of Omtundungu leave and powdered wood of Omumóngu. He then lights each fire in turn and on each he places a sprig of the same leaves and sprinkles a little of the same powdered wood of the Omumonga tree. This he does that the peace of the camp may not be troubled by inmates of the bush: it is called: Ehanangekélo.
To each member of the party a place is allotted: a fire to each of the two wives, next to which comes the forger's own fire, with his sons and daughters next him and his helpers beyond them. Flat woods are placed along the log of the fires.
Meanwhile little cooking fires have been made by the women, and the evening meal is prepared. The family settle down to eat; the tiny puppies squeal and crawl over the log seats, the dogs nose round and the cattle low nearby.
A great pile of leafy sprigs of Omtundungu stands by the log fires. Invocation of Spirits: Onghava, the evening prayer.
It is quite dark when the family have eaten and the forger rises from his seat and taking his bow and his axe he steps out just beyond the fire and stands with his back to the party, facing East, into the bush.
He beats the ground twice with the back of his axe and calls out into the night: Watula, I am here! His voice echoes and he calls out again and agai. He addresses himself to the spirits of the ancient “first” Kwanyama blacksmiths: Nanjembro, Sheruhungáma Shafa Haúlu and Hauwti and then to the spirits of his forefathers, that they bless the work that he is about to undertake, that the stone may be good and that his clay may not crack. Still declaiming into the echoing distance he speaks to his sons and his daughters and his wives, telling them of the work they have to do. They answer him briefly yes or no.
Again and again he beats the ground and calls out: Watula, and when his prayer is ended he steps back among his family and sits to smoke, by the fire. The bush and all its wild inmates are now at peace because he has put the traditional remedies on the fires, the spirits of his forefathers and of the ancient Kwanyama blacksmiths whose help he has invoked and from whom he has his power, will now bless his work. The
The calves have been driven unwillingly into the new pen, the cattle move restlessly in the night. ?????????????????????????????????????????????? thongs before beginning work.
Pounding and soaking the clay; Making of shelter hut (Onduda)
Arrival of bushmen. Making of clay nossle for bellows.
About 7 a.m. the forger having marked himself and his helpers with chalk as on the eve of his departure, sets the wooden trough in place, pounds the clay and leaves it to soak.
He cuts short pegs of the roots of Omtundungu, Omnamahlo and Omisenje. He makes a long hollow in the sand in which the trough will be set and in which he places a little coil of Omnamalo root, a sprinkling of Lukula powder and a few drops of Oshikundu beer and chalk. With the help of his little son he now sets the trough: Etemba L'oshingujdi L'edu in place, and hammers in the pegs firmly at either end.
The trough may be made of wood, but the pegs may only be cut from the above mentioned roots.
Another small coil of Omnamalo root is slipped under the trough, and the lumps of clay are put in it from the baskets. These are pounded small with a short wooden pestle, beer and water are sprinkled on it and it is covered with leaves of the Omnamalo tree over which the pestle is laid to keep them down.
The cows are milked, those with calf go lowing to the doorway of the calf pen. The calves are let out one by one and are allowed to suck a few minutes before being driven off and the cow milked. Many of the cows had their hind legs lashed together with leather thongs before beginning work.
Figures were moving nearer through the open bush, and all at once they could be distinguished walking through the long grass; a caravan of Tchokwe and three small yellow skinned, high cheek-boned bushmen. The latter came into the forger's camp and squatted with left thigh on the ground and right knee raised. They had been sent for by the forger in the hopes that they would move near and attracted by the opportunity to obtain a knife or an arrow and a little grain of tobacco, would supply the camp with fruits and perhaps meat. They were at once greeted and welcomed warmly by the Kwanyama who gave them tobacco and hemp telling them to bring Emanyete nuts on their return with their families to establish themselves in the morning.
One man went at once to fetch in all those who were then in the bush-men camp, and at about midday these filed in, mostly women and children and all appearing strangely tiny and light skinned in contrast to the darker strongly built Vakwanyama.
A little girl fetched some onion like roots, tasting not unlike leeks which she cooled in the ashes. The babies played fearlessly and amused themselves by peeping through the stakes of the calf pen which a little Bwanyama boy was binding with lengths of bark.
The men wore loin cloths of skin or cloth; the women for the most part wore a cloth apron edged with glass or metal beads, and a back skin of duiker(?) or a little skin cut into three tails tied at the waist, tanned and with an outer band of hair left on, the lower edge sometimes decorated with beads and hanging Emanyete nuts. Over this, a large skin covers the whole back and ties over the right shoulder, it has oranges and little gourds for snuff and tobacco or reeds which make a pleasing sound when walking, attached to the upper part.
The women and girls wore the hair short cropped and decorated with diamond and rectangular shapes made from small glass and metal beads; older women wore discs of ostrich egg-shell or of metal, at the back of the head; some wore bands of bead work below the knees; they all wore long strings of beads of many kinds round their necks.
Every woman carried a stick or club and those with babies stuck under the tie of the skin on the right shoulder when travelling. Men women and children, mostly the latter, many of them had sores on the chest and stomach which they said were burns obtained from sleeping with the front uncovered by the fire.
The ground was cleared with a hoe and the forger himself traced the sit by dragging a foot round in the sand. His young son-in-law then loosened the sand with the metal- headed digging tool while the forger heated the shaft of a how blade and having hammered it flatter, set it in a hoe handle.
He then dug out a narrow, deepish trench, lifting the sand out on the how blade, and another man followed him scooping up the loose sand with his hands. As soon as the trench was made, and when the forger had sprinkled powdered Omumonga root round it: Okukuna Oimbodi: in order that the cattle which might stray into the bush should not get lost, the stakes which had been cut and placed ready, were dropped in and those which were too long were marked and chopped down.
The forger then shifted up the stakes and added others so that they stop close together and inclined very slightly inwards at the top. Working round the hut wall once again, the shorter stakes were gently lifted level with the others. They were all straightened, and the sand pushed in to fill up the ditch.
Long pliable sticks were then split, and the binding of the top stakes was begun, the
Work is first begun across the doorway, and then all round the hut. Two men work beside the hut seated on the ground, making the lengths of bark into narrow rolls and dropping them in to soak in a pot of water.
Long woods with forked ends are now set up with their base in the binding at the top of the wall and their forks fitting into each other to form a colonial roof. Plain woods are cut and stuck in to rest at the top against these first forked ones and are placed close one to the other.
All day women have been cutting long grass intermittently and carrying in huge bundles lashed round with bark, one of these is now cut loose and the grass laid tips upwards over the roof frame, the stumps pushed even to lie just below the binding of the wall. This grass is bound down to the frame with a long loop of bark and tied firmly at the end. More grass is added all round in the same way and above it comes another layer placed the other way up, tips downwards. A third layer follows again overlapping the top of the last layer, and finally a bundle of grass tied at the top is set over a crowning stick which is set vertically into the mesh of woods at the peek of the frame. The lower part of grass is spread round and a ring of pliable wood bound down through the grass to the frame below.
This rough temporary roof is now complete, and the wall is now thatched exteriorally with grass set vertically against the stakes. (The method of construction is a mixture, the house is identicle with that of a Kwanyama hut, but the roof is N'Gangela being very much more quickly built; the Kwanyama hut wall is constructed to fit the roof which is built outside the compound under the shade of a tree and then lifted on.
Making of clay funnels for bellows
The clay which has been soaking all day is uncovered and pounded. A woman hammers a log of Oshingwidi, and breaking off the bark, pounds it in the sunk wood mortar, which was set in place at the same time as the trough close by it. When pounded to a moist red powder, it is scooped out in the hands, into the blacksmiths' flat round basket, and when the clay is sufficiently soft, this powder is sprinkled on it by the blacksmith who then marks the trough all round with chalk. Several times this powdered bark is added andalways the pounding of the clay again worked thinner. Finally, it is taken off the mould for the last time and is carried carefully into the now finished shelter hut and stood upright with its smaller end and burried in the sand.
A second funnel is made similarly and similarly one of the forgers wives makes smaller ones, which will be used for forging after the smelting of the metal is over, on a short stick which she has cut herself. All the funnels are placed in the hut and the doorway is closed over with grass.