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4) Jim and Ryan work as researchers at Palmer Corp., a retail firm. Currently, they are discussing
whether they should use field observation to assess the public image of a newly launched product. Jim
states that field observation would be the best method to assess the market. However, Ryan disagrees.
Which of the following statements, if true, is likely to support Ryan's argument?
A) Researchers at Palmer Corp. have found that field research is a more flexible method than other
research methods.
B) Most researchers at Palmer Corp. are trained and qualified to conduct field observation across
different market segments efficiently.
C) In the past, Jim has gathered reliable and accurate market data with the use of field observation.
D) Studies have shown that field research disrupts the natural setting because the researcher’s presence
influences the people being studied.
Answer: D
Page Ref: 46
Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Visit TestBankFan.com to get complete for all chapters
A-head: Family Research Methods
Skill level: Analyze It
Difficulty: Hard
Learning Objective: 2.3 Describe seven data-collection methods that researchers use to study families, and identify
each of the method’s strengths and limitations.
5) Examination of data that have been collected by someone else is known as ________.
A) focus group study
B) secondary analysis
C) survey research
D) non-participant observation
Answer: B
Page Ref: 47
A-head: Family Research Methods
Skill level: Know the Facts
Difficulty: Easy
Learning Objective: 2.3 Describe seven data-collection methods that researchers use to study families, and identify
each of the method’s strengths and limitations.
8) Lin, who works at a youth information center, is conducting a social intervention to prevent the negative
outcomes of teenage pregnancy. Once the social intervention is complete, she will assess whether the
intervention generated the expected results by conducting surveys. In such a scenario, Lin is using the
________.
A) experiment method
B) evaluation research method
C) nonparticipant observation method
D) secondary analysis method
Answer: B
Page Ref: 50
A-head: Family Research Methods
Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Skill level: Apply What You Know
Difficulty: Hard
Learning Objective: 2.3 Describe seven data-collection methods that researchers use to study families, and identify
each of the method’s strengths and limitations.
9) According to the American Sociological Association, researchers must get a participant's ________
consent.
A) informed
B) confidential
C) hidden
D) "do no harm"
Answer: A
Page Ref: 52
A-head: Ethics, Politics, and Family Research
Skill level: Know the Facts
Difficulty: Easy
Learning Objective: 2.4 Describe the ethical standards that researchers must follow, and explain the political,
religious, and community constraints that researchers encounter.
10) Harry and Ben work as researchers at ASN Corporation. While conducting a study, Harry proposes
that secondary research should be used to gather data for the study. He believes that secondary
research provides fairly accurate information. However, Ben is against the idea and believes that
secondary research is not a reliable method. Give reasons to support Ben’s argument.
Answer: A drawback of secondary research is that the data may not provide the information needed by
the researcher. Consequently, researchers may have to rely on studies with small and nonrepresentative
samples or collect such data themselves. Determining the accuracy and authenticity of historical materials
can also be problematic.
Page Ref: 48
A-head: Family Research Methods
Skill level: Apply What You Know
Difficulty: Moderate
Learning Objective: 2.3 Describe seven data-collection methods that researchers use to study families, and identify
each of the method’s strengths and limitations.
Copyright © 2015, 2012, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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large pot of pombe whose quality precluded our drinking it
ourselves. “I suppose it will be quite good enough for these two old
sinners,” I remarked to Knudsen, who must have been revolving
similar cogitations; for he at once seized the import of my words,
fetched a huge tin mug from his tent, filled it with the yellow,
fermenting liquor, and handed it to Akundonde. The latter took it,
but did not drink, handing it to his companion instead. “There’s a
polite chief for you!” I thought to myself—but, seeing how very
cautiously Akumapanje touched the beer with his lips, it became
clear to me that I was witnessing an ancient traditional custom,
arising from the innate suspiciousness of the negro, who scents—not
indeed poison, but certainly witchcraft—everywhere, and dreads it
accordingly. The precaution is intended to divert the risk from the
superior to the subordinate.
Akumapanje, after tasting, handed the cup back to Akundonde,
who thereupon emptied it at a draught. A few seconds later it was
again at the lips of the prime minister, who faithfully copied his
master. Drink and counter-drink succeeded each other at the same
rapid rate, and we Europeans looked on with mixed feelings of envy
and admiration. This did not prevent me from remembering our
ethnographical purpose, and I found that what had previously
seemed impossible was now child’s play. The two old men, by turns
completing each other’s statements, gave a fluent description of the
general features of the boys’ unyago: the arrangement for holding
the festival at different villages every year (which was not new to
me); the introductory ceremony, held in an open square surrounded
by the huts erected for the candidates; and the operation itself, which
takes place in a special hut in the depths of the forest. I had heard
something of all this from Knudsen, who, in the course of his many
years’ residence among the Wayao, has acquired a wonderful
knowledge of their life and customs, and whom I have been pumping
at every spare minute with such persistency that the good fellow has
no doubt often wished one of us elsewhere.
At last, however, our two visitors, becoming more loquacious as
the pombe diminished, reached a part of the subject of which
Knudsen knows very little, but which attracts me most of all. This is
the instruction given to the boys during the months spent in the bush
by their teachers (anamungwi). These instructors, of whom every
boy has one from the time of his initiation into manhood, are
indisputably one of the most sympathetic features in the life of the
people. They watch over their pupils through the painful weeks of the
unyago, teach them what is fitting and unfitting, and remain
responsible for their welfare even after they have left their boyhood
far behind. I was anxious, above all, to ascertain the gist of the moral
teaching given in the bush hut, and, though I only partly succeeded
in doing this, it is a great satisfaction to have taken down verbatim a
fragment of a speech delivered on such an occasion.
Some extra well-filled cups having removed the last scruples of our
two jovial informants, Akundonde, with a little more encouragement
from Knudsen, began in a didactic tone:—
“Mwe mari, sambano mumbēle. Atati na achikuluwēno
mnyōgopĕ́. Nyumba mkasayinjila tinyisimana chimtumbánăgá.
Wakongwe mkasayogopa; mkagononawo, mesi akayasináwo.
Imālagắ akamtikĭté; imālagắ akamila muchisiḗ; masakam.
Munyitikisie: marhaba. Mkuona mwesi sumyógopé, ngakawa
kuulala. Kusimana timchiŭá; Miasi jili kogoya. Chilwele winyi.”[34]
The translation is as follows:—“You, my pupil, now you are
initiated. Your father and your mother, fear (respect) them. See that
you do not enter the house (unannounced), lest you should find them
embracing. Do not be afraid of women, but sleep with them, bathe
with them, when you have finished let her rub (knead) you; when
you have finished she should salute you (saying) ‘Masakam,’ and you
must answer, ‘Marhaba.’ You must be afraid (= take care) when you
see the (new) moon, you might get hurt. Beware of women during
their courses, this is dangerous, (it causes) many diseases.”
My notes were scarcely as complete and connected as the above
when first written down. The native is incapable even when sober of
taking his sentences to pieces, as it were, and dictating them bit by
bit; but taking down the words of these two jovial old sinners was a
difficult task, which, however, we accomplished successfully up to
the point when the inevitable catastrophe set in.
The two had invariably paused for refreshment at the end of every
sentence till they reached the point above indicated, when they
suddenly found the pombe jar empty. They had drunk at least five
gallons at a sitting, but with the strange logic of the intoxicated, they
considered themselves entitled to a further supply, and, when none
proved to be forthcoming, they indignantly broke off their lecture
and left in a huff. This is the reward of being hospitable overmuch.
The address here reproduced, which I have translated with the
help of Knudsen, Daudi, Matola and some others, is said to be the
same, both as to matter and form, at all unyago ceremonies. No
doubt this is correct, for I know nothing which could more exactly
express the feelings of the native than just these precepts. They are a
strange mixture of hygienic rules and moral instruction, and at the
same time contain a good deal of primitive tradition which still forms
part of daily life. I mean by this the fact that the youth, once
recognised as a member of the adult community, is forbidden to
enter his mother’s house unannounced. Here, in East Africa, we are
still in the matriarchal stage, where the husband is nothing, so to
speak, but a connection by marriage. He is his children’s father, but
is not related to them, in fact he belongs to a different clan. This clan,
as so often happens among primitive peoples, is exogamous—that is
to say that there is no impediment to a young man marrying a girl of
any clan but his own. This prohibition goes so far that the young Yao
has, as far as possible, to avoid his nearest female relations who, of
course, are his mother and sisters, and hence the injunction at least
to give warning of his approach when entering his mother’s house.
The stress here as elsewhere laid on the reverence to be shown to
father and mother must strike all right-thinking Europeans as a very
pleasing trait. Respect for parents and for grown-up people in
general is, as I have been told over and over again, the principal and
fundamental feature in native education, and Knudsen testifies that
the young people in general observe it in a marked degree in their
intercourse with their elders. We Europeans might well learn from
the natives in this respect, thinks Nils, who is no doubt, well qualified
to form an opinion.
But, in spite of all pleasant impressions as to native educational
maxims, I have lost the end of the unyago address—a misfortune for
which the good Daudi’s big pombe-jar is to blame. If the mountain
will not come to Muhammad, Muhammad will have to go to the
mountain. In other words, Akundonde having declared that he must
go home to put fresh dawa on his leg and cannot possibly come
again, we shall have to look up the old gentleman at his own
residence.
HERD OF ELEPHANTS. FROM A DRAWING BY BARNABAS,
AN EDUCATED MWERA AT LINDI
CHAPTER X
FURTHER RESULTS
For the last few days I have been living in a different world, and
nearer heaven, for I am here at a height of more than 3,000 feet
above the level of the Indian Ocean, and look down on the vast
greyish-green plain in the west from an altitude of over 1,600 feet.
This view over the plain is wonderful, extending, on the south-west
across the broad channel of the Rovuma, which just now, it is true,
holds very little water, and on the north-west to the distant Masasi
range; while it also embraces the numerous insular peaks appearing
at various distances in the south, west, and north-west. I can only
enjoy this view, however, by walking back westward for about half-a-
mile from my present position, for Newala is not on the precipitous
edge of the plateau, but lies about a thousand yards away from it.
And the climate here! What a contrast to the Inferno of
Chingulungulu and the Purgatory of Akundonde’s! Here it is cool as
on the crest of the Thüringer Wald, and we Europeans had to get out
our warmest clothes immediately on arriving. Double blankets at
night and a thick waistcoat in the morning and evening are not
enough, and we have both had to take to overcoats.
But again I am anticipating! Between our departure from
Chingulungulu and our arrival at Newala only eleven days
intervened. But how many, or to be more accurate, what varied
experiences were crowded into this interval! Never before had my
carriers been so noisy with sheer high spirits as on the morning
which put an end to their long inactivity at Matola’s. Wanyamwezi
porters cannot endure sitting still, they want to be always on the
move, always seeing something new; and in the end, if kept too long
inactive in one place away from home, they realise the proverb about
the sailor with a wife at every port. I had the greatest trouble to steer
my twenty-four men (I had already, with no regret whatever,
discharged the Lindi Rugaruga at Masasi), through the dangers of
this Capua; they became violent, committed assaults on women and
girls, and gave other cause for complaint as well. I did all I could to
keep them out of mischief, as, for instance, employing them to make
long tables for the baraza out of halved bamboos; but all to no
purpose. On the morning of our departure, however, they skipped
along like young calves, in spite of their loads of sixty or seventy
pounds, as we marched along to the Rovuma. How cheerily we all
marched! We had soon left the shadeless bush of Chingulungulu far
behind. A sharp turn of the road from west to south, and a short
steep declivity brought us to the Nasomba, which had a small thread
of water at the bottom of its deep gorge. On we went, over extensive
stubble-fields of maize and millet, between beds of beans and
splendid plantations of tobacco. High ant-heaps showed the fertility
of the soil; little watch-huts fixed on high poles told how the crops
were endangered by wild pigs, monkeys, and other foes belonging to
the animal world. Knudsen was able to indulge his love of the chase
on this trip, and from time to time, one of his venerable shooting-
irons lifted up its voice over hill and valley. Meanwhile I had passed
the Lichehe Lake, a sheet of water almost choked with reeds, which
according to the map ought to be close to the Rovuma. The
vegetation, too, indicated a greater abundance of water than
hitherto; we passed enormous baobabs, forced our way through low
palm-thickets and heard the leaves of stately fan-palms rustling far
above our heads. Just as I was about to push through another clump
of bushes, the strong hand of my new corporal, Hemedi Maranga,
dragged me back. “Mto hapa, Bwana”—(“There is the river, sir”).
One step more, and I should have fallen down the steep bank, some
sixteen or eighteen feet in height, at the foot of which I now see the
gleam of those broad reaches which Nils Knudsen has so often
described to me, and which have not failed to impress men so free
from enthusiasm as Ewerbeck. Having so often heard the word
hapana, which is really beginning to get on my nerves, the corporal’s
hapa was a pleasant surprise, and it is no wonder that I felt inclined
to bless him. What shall I say of the five or six pleasant days passed
on the banks and islands of this river, consecrated by the memory of
Livingstone?[38] The ethnographer finds little to do there at the
present day. Forty years ago, when Livingstone ascended it, its banks
were covered with settlements of the Wamatambwe, its current
carried a thousand canoes of that energetic fishing tribe, and a busy,
cheerful life prevailed everywhere. But here, too, the Wangoni came
down, like frost on a spring night, and of the once numerous and
flourishing Matambwe only scanty remnants are to be found,
irregularly scattered along the immense Rovuma valley, or absorbed
into the Makua, Yao and Makonde. The traveller is lucky—as, by the
way, I usually am—if he sees a few individuals of this lost tribe.
We made our first camp close to the river. My tent, as usual, was
pitched furthest to windward, and next to the water, Knudsen’s being
next to it; while the carriers had to seek shelter more to leeward,
under an overhanging bank. Steep banks like this are very common
here. During the rains the river carries down an immense volume of
water to the sea, and piles up masses of alluvial drift to a greater
height every year, but in the dry season, as now, its bed, nearly a mile
wide, is almost dry, consisting of a vast expanse of sand and gravel
banks. Between these the river takes a somewhat uncertain course,
sometimes in a single channel about as wide as the Elbe at Dresden,
but usually divided into two or three easily-forded arms. Yet, in spite
of its powerlessness, the river is aggressive, and constantly washes
away its banks at the bends, so that we frequently come upon trees
lying in the stream which have been undermined and fallen. Its bed
is, therefore, continually changing, as is the case with the Zambezi
and Shire, and, in fact, most rivers of tropical Africa.
It is late afternoon: a dozen natives are standing in a circle on a
level spot in mid-channel and looking round them attentively, almost
timidly, staring straight at the water, as though anxious to penetrate
to the bottom. What are they after? Has the white man lost some
valuable property for which he is setting them to look? The answer is
much simpler than that. Look within the circle, and you will see two
hats floating on the surface of the current. When they raise
themselves a little from the shining level, you will see two white faces
—those of the Wazungu, Knudsen and Weule, who, delighted to
escape for once from the rubber bath with its mere half-bucket of
water, are cooling their limbs in the vivifying current. And the
natives? The Rovuma has the reputation—not altogether undeserved
—of containing more crocodiles than any other river in East Africa,
and therefore it is as well to station a chain of outposts round us, as a
precautionary measure. It is highly amusing to watch the uneasy
countenances of these heroes, though the water for a long way round
does not come up to their knees.
Evening is coming on; a stiff westerly breeze has sprung up,
sweeping up the broad river-channel with unopposed violence, so
that even the scanty current of the Rovuma makes a poor attempt at
waves. Glad of the unusual sight, the eye ranges far and wide down
the river. Everything is still as death—no trace remains of the old
joyous Matambwe life as it was in the sixties. There, far away, on the
last visible loop of the river, appears a black dot, rapidly increasing in
size. Our natives, with their keen sight, have spied it long ago, and
are staring in the same direction as ourselves. “Mtumbwi”—(a
canoe)! they exclaim in chorus, when the dot coming round a bend
becomes a black line. In a quarter of an hour the canoe has reached
us, a dug-out of the simplest form, with a mournful freight, an old
woman crouching in the stern more dead than alive. I feel sorry for
the poor creature, and at a sign from me an elderly man and a
younger one spring lightly to the bank. A few questions follow. “She
is very ill, the bibi,” is the answer, “we think she will die to-day.” I
can see for myself that no human help will avail. The two men return
at their paddles, and in ten minutes more we see them landing
higher up on the other side, carrying between them a shapeless
bundle across the sand-bank into the bush. A human destiny has
fulfilled itself.
Nils Knudsen had in his usual enthusiastic way been telling me of
the marvels to be found at Naunge camp, higher up the Rovuma,
where he insisted that we must go. This time he was not so far
wrong; in fact, the wild chaos of rocks beside and in the river, the
little cascades between the mossy stones, and the dark green of the
vegetation on the banks, made up an attractive picture enough. But
the state of the ground itself! The trodden grass and broken bushes,
as well as the unmistakable smell, showed plainly enough that it was
a popular camping-place and had been used not long before. “No,
thank you!” said I. “Safari—forward!” Here, where we were directly
on Livingstone’s track, the open bush begins a couple of hundred
yards away from the bank. With three askari to cover my left flank, I
therefore marched up stream, through the vegetation lining the
bank, at the cost of indescribable toil, but rejoicing in the view of the
river with its ever-changing scenery. At last I found what I was
looking for. In mid-channel, at a distance from us of perhaps six or
seven hundred yards, rose an island, steep and sharply-cut as the
bow of a man-of-war, its red cliffs shining afar over the silvery grey of
the sand-banks, but covered at the top with a compact mass of fresh
green vegetation. With a shrill whistle to call my followers across
from the pori, and one leap down the bank, I waded through the
deep sand direct for the island.
The idyllic life which I enjoyed for some days on this island in the
Rovuma has left an indelible impression on my memory. Nils
Knudsen was always hunting, and never failed to return with a
supply of meat for roasting, which kept the men in high good
humour. Our tents were pitched in a narrow sandy ravine at the foot
of the cliff, which may have been twenty-seven or twenty-eight feet
high; the men were encamped at some distance to leeward, and I
myself was alone in a green bower at the top of the island, where no
one was allowed to approach me without announcing himself in the
words prescribed by Swahili etiquette, “Hodi Bwana!” Only my
personal attendants might bring me, unannounced, the repasts
prepared by Omari, who has now learned to cook some things so as
not to be absolutely uneatable. Altogether it was a delightful
interlude.
Equally delightful was our last camp on the Rovuma. It was at the
mouth of the Bangala, its largest northern tributary, so imposing on
the map, but just now only a dry channel. The water was still flowing
underground; but we should have had to dig down several yards to
reach it. We did not find it necessary to do so, having abundance of
clear water in the Rovuma itself, where my men led quite an
amphibious life. How neat and clean they all looked as soon as daily
washing became possible. “Mzuri we!” (“How fine you are!”) I
remarked appreciatively in passing to Chafu koga, the Dirty Pig, for
that is the approximate rendering of his name. The self-complacent
smile on his bronze-coloured face was by itself worth the journey to
Africa.
There is only one drawback to life on the Rovuma: the gale which
springs up about sunset and, gradually rising till it becomes a
veritable hurricane, sinks again about midnight. No reed fence is any
protection against it, neither is it any use to seek shelter behind the
tent; and no contrivance so far devised will keep the lamp from being
blown out, so that there is nothing for it but to go to bed at eight.
Our nights, moreover, were disturbed by unwelcome visitors.
Elephants, it is true, which, though abounding in this part of the
country, are very shy, always made a wide circuit round our camp;
but lions seemed to be fond of taking moonlight walks up and down
between the sleeping carriers. At the Bangala, the sentry, who had
stood a little way off with his gun at the ready, related to me with a
malicious grin how he saw a lion walk all along the row of snoring
men, and stop at Omari, the cook, seemingly considering whether to
eat him or not. After standing like this for some time, he gave a deep,
ill-tempered growl, as if he did not consider Omari sufficiently
appetising, and slowly trotted back into the bush.
Luisenfelde Mine—I do not know what Luise gave it its name—will
long remain in my memory as a greeting from home, in the heart of
the African bush; it sounds so enterprising and yet so pleasantly
familiar. It is true that the mining operations did not last long,
though the former owner, Herr Vohsen, in the pride of his heart,
bestowed on the lustrous red garnets produced there the name of
“Cape rubies.” Garnets are so cheap and found in so many places that
in a very short time the market was glutted. Herr Marquardt, the
enterprising manager, went home, and Nils Knudsen, his assistant
and factotum, remained behind forgotten in the bush. Literally in the
bush, for the well-built house with its double roof of corrugated zinc
protected by an outer covering of thatch, was shut up, and the
Norwegian had to find shelter as best he could in one of the two
outhouses. We halted here, on our march northward from the
Rovuma, for three or four hours, so as to eat our Sunday dinner
under the verandah of the manager’s house. Here we had before us a
double reminder of the past: in the middle of the compound a great
heap of the unsaleable “Cape rubies” which were to have realised
such fortunes, and now lie about as playthings for native children,
and in the foreground the grave of Marquardt’s only child, a
promising little girl of three, who came here with her parents full of
health and life. We prosaic Europeans have no faith in omens; but it
appears that the child’s sudden death was no surprise to the natives.
Knudsen tells me that one day a native workman from the garnet-
pits came to him and said, “Some one will die here, sir.” “‘Nonsense!’
I said, and sent him away. Next day he came again and said the same
thing. I sent him about his business, but he kept coming. Every night
we heard an owl crying on the roof of Marquardt’s house. This went
on for a whole fortnight, and then Marquardt’s little girl was taken ill
and died in a few hours. The bird never came after that. They call it
likwikwi.”
It was only in part for the sake of the past that we visited
Luisenfelde; we should scarcely have done so but for the fact that the
road from the mouth of the Bangala to Akundonde’s runs directly
past it. A march of an hour and a half or two hours up the deeply-
excavated ravine of the Namaputa, and a short, steep ascent to the
crest of the next ridge, brought us to Akundonde’s. We saw before us
the typical native settlement of these parts, a moderate-sized,
carefully-swept open space with the baraza in the middle—a roof
supported on pillars, and open all round. This is surrounded by some
half-dozen huts, round or square, all with heavy thatched roofs, the
eaves reaching nearly to the ground, other groups of huts being
scattered at long intervals all along the crest of the hill. Akundonde,
though he said he had been expecting our visit, did not seem very
obliging or communicative. We could scarcely attribute this to the
after effects of his recent libations—his throat must be far too well
seasoned for that; but thought it more probable that his bad leg
made him feel indisposed for society. I had just one bottle of “jumbe
cognac” left, that delectable beverage, which smells like attar of
roses, but has a taste which I cannot attempt to describe, and this I
bestowed on the old chief, but took no further notice of him, which I
could well afford to do without endangering the success of my
enterprise. The junior headman of the village,—a smart Yao, quite a
dandy according to local standards, who even wore a watch on a very
large chain and consequently had to look at the time every two
minutes—proved a much more competent guide to the life and
customs of this remote district than morose old Akundonde. The
young man showed us plenty of indigenous works of art—we had
only to go from house to house and look under the eaves to find the
walls covered with frescoes. He also conducted us to a small burying-
ground—a few Yao graves sheltered by low thatched roofs (now
somewhat dilapidated) which, with the cloth fastened on the top, I
now saw for the first time.
Having previously heard that the unyago was taking place this
year at Akundonde’s, we made every effort to see and hear as much
as possible. The promise of a princely remuneration soon brought
about the desired result, but the jumbe told me that the carriers and
soldiers could not be allowed to come with me, though Moritz and
Kibwana would be admitted. My two boys are by this time heartily
sick of campaigning, and their sense of duty requires stimulating in
the usual way; but this done, they trudge along, though reluctantly,
behind us with the camera.
The headman leads us out of the village through byways, evidently
desiring to escape notice, and then our party of five plunges into the
silent bush, which here, with its large trees almost reminds me of our
German forests; the foliage, too, is fresher and more abundant than
we ever saw it on the other side of Chingulungulu. In the natural
excitement of the new discoveries awaiting us, I pay no heed to place
or time—I cannot tell whether we have been walking for half-an-hour
or an hour, when, breaking through a thicket, we see a small hut
before us and find that we have reached our goal.
Our exertions have been amply rewarded. Before I have yet had
time to note the size, construction and workmanship of the hut, we
are surrounded by a troop of half-grown boys. With loud cries and
energetic gestures the jumbe orders them back, and I now perceive
the approach of an elderly man who must have come out of the hut,
for he suddenly appears as if he had risen out of the ground. This is
the wa mijira,[40] the man who presides over all the ceremonies of
the boys’ unyago. He greets us solemnly and signals with a barely
perceptible motion of his eyelids to the boys. These are already
drawn up in a long row: strange, slight figures in the wide grass kilts
which make them look like ballet-dancers. Each one holds to his
mouth a flute-like instrument from which they proceed to elicit a
musical salute. Once more I have to regret my lack of musical
training, for this performance is unique of its kind. After hearing the
not unpleasing melody to its close, I approach near enough to make a
closer inspection of the band. The instruments are nothing more
than pieces of bamboo, each differing from the rest in length and
diameter, but all closed-at the lower end by the natural joint of the
reed, and cut off smoothly at the upper. In this way, each of the little
musicians can only play one note, but each produces his own with
perfect correctness and fits it so accurately into the concerted “song
without words” as to form an entirely harmonious whole. Moritz has
meanwhile been attending to his duties as Minister of Finance, and
some of the boys have even been persuaded to retire behind the hut
and show me the result of the surgical operation which they
underwent about a month ago, but which in some cases is still
causing suppuration. Now, however, I wish to see the inside of the
hut.