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

A PAGE OF HISTORY 429
vowels. But the important point to note is tliat even
this longish name is only a mere apocope, like its twin-
sister Mweru. For the Tom = Thomas analogy is as
nothing to the fact that Bangweulu is only the curtate
form of the real name, Bangweuluwavikilwanshimango-
mwana. If you laugh at the fisher-folk for such a long-
winded title, they will quote the proverb, " Big thing,
big name." And if you still refuse to bow to the sanity
of the idea, they clinch their postulate with the sister-
proverb, "Little beef, little juice." Now, although this
seems mere black verbosity, these long names are really
a philological boon, deciding at a glance the real inner
meaning of the Lake's name. A geographer in London
without the clue of this full name could toy with his
pencil for weeks, trying to solve the meaning of brief
" Mweru," and would fail, because the solution is all
locked up in this hidden longer name. For instance,
the Mweru mouthful, parsed literally, is unerringly
rendered " Great-White-Lake-Locust-Drowner " (i.e. too
wide an expanse for locusts to dare to try to cross with
impunity). So, too, with the geographic mouthful repre-
senting the true name of Bangweulu. This only means
" The- Lake -so-stormy- that-it-must-be-propitiated-by-the-
voyager - and-so-wide - that - you - must - take -provisions-
aboard-for-a-trans-Lake-voyage." So, for orthographical
pains you get philological gains, and the names are as
easy to parse as they are hard to pronounce.