THE BEMBA TRIBE OF NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 105
differ only in degree. All are said to look after their people, to 'work the land1, and, with reference to their supernatural powers, to 'spit blessings over the land' (ukufunga mate). Their political duties consist in the administration of their capitals and also of their territories as a whole. A large urnusumba means plenty of coming and going, enough workers for joint enterprises, a large panel of advisers for court cases, many messengers to keep in touch with the surrounding villages—in short, the possibility of keeping the tribal machine running. To maintain and even augment such a community by his popularity and his reputation for generosity is one of the chiefs important political tasks. He has also to keep contact with the people widely dispersed over his icalo and to appoint new headmen, amalgamate old villages, and decide as to the selection of heirs to old titles. On his success in these last duties the integration of his people as a political unit largely depends.
As a judicial authority, the chief presides over his court with advisers selected from his village, and in the old days he alone could hear charges of witchcraft and, in the case of the greater territorial chiefs, put the accused to the poison ordeal (mwafi). In the economic sphere, he initiates agricultural activities by performing the customary ceremony before each begins; he makes big gardens with the aid of tribute labour from which he is able to fill large granaries and thus find the wherewithal to feed his following; he controls directly certain fishing and hunting enterprises : and he criticizes and directs the gardening work of his own villagers.1
The ritual duties of a chief consist in the observation of the taboos for the protection of his own person and the safety of the sacred relics at his disposal, and the carrying out of a number of rites for the sake of his whole icalo—in the case of the paramount, for the whole tribe. These last consist of economic rites, tree-cutting, sowing, and first-fruit ceremonies, those performed in case of national calamity, and for success in war in the old days. He was formerly bound to protect the people from witches and used to employ a special doctor at his court to destroy, by burning, the bodies of those found guilty of this offence.
In the old days the chief organized military expeditions,
1 cf. my Land, Labour, and Diet in Northern Rhodesia (i939>> chap, xiii, for a full account of the chief's economic powers.