Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

316 THINKING BLACK
supremely clean without a tooth-brush, one can eat with
serenity his leavings.
Very much of this, of course, was not by any means
the normal Central African dietary, and the dining music
was not always to the tune of de profundis. Never-
theless, my practical experience of purely native food for
more than twenty years all points to its peculiar acclima-
tising properties, and it seems in some unarguable sense
true that if you wish to be much in Africa, then the said
Africa must be much in you. Certainly it is along the
lines of an ideal African dietary that the "blackwater"
problem will be solved. They challenge all puzzling
diseases with the pungent query :
" What has the invalid
eaten?" Hence their national saying (an unconscious
Irishism) : " Eat one thing, and then you'll know what
you have died of !
" Thus when he sees a European dip
into so many difterent tins, the sage negro says trium-
phantly : " That is why you ' whites * die oflf so easily : we
Africans eat only one thing, so we know what kills us."
For this is the meaning of that most curious name the
white man receives from his negro Kaminamabweta.
Supposed to be a compliment of the first water, it means
" Mr. Tin-Swallower." Thus you see this tin-swallowing
by the European is the African's glory, for does it not
mean an assured income as a carrier of the terrible tins ?