Note 1 — Chapter X · OUR EMBASSY TO THE CHIEF ’MTOKO

At the village of Karadi we left the Manica road and entered a very populous district with numerous villages perched on the rocky heights, the inhabitants of which were greatly excited at the sight of us, and followed us for miles. This, we learnt, was Musungaikwa’s country. The women here had a distinct tattoo mark of their own—namely, the lizard pattern, which we have seen on the dollasses or divining-tablets1—done in dots on their stomachs. Some of the men, too, have the same device tattooed on them on their chests and backs. This is the third distinctive tattoo mark we have seen in Mashonaland—namely, the furrow pattern around Zimbabwe, the dots in squares in Gambidji’s country, and here the lizard pattern, all of which are raised marks on the skin made by the insertion of some drug. They are evidently connected with some charm, but what the nature of it is I was never able to discover.