Having dispatched a message to our old friend Manenko, we waited a day opposite her village, which was about fifteen miles from the river.  Her husband was instantly dispatched to meet us with liberal presents of food, she being unable to travel in consequence of a burn on the foot.  Sambanza gave us a detailed account of the political affairs of the country, and of Kolimbota’s evil doings, and next morning performed the ceremony called “Kasendi”, for cementing our friendship.  It is accomplished thus:  The hands of the parties are joined (in this case Pitsane and Sambanza were the parties engaged); small incisions are made on the clasped hands, on the pits of the stomach of each, and on the right cheeks and foreheads.  A small quantity of blood is taken off from these points in both parties by means of a stalk of grass.  The blood from one person is put into a pot of beer, and that of the second into another; each then drinks the other’s blood, and they are supposed to become perpetual friends or relations.  During the drinking of the beer, some of the party continue beating the ground with short clubs, and utter sentences by way of ratifying the treaty.  The men belonging to each then finish the beer.  The principals in the performance of “Kasendi” are henceforth considered blood-relations, and are bound to disclose to each other any impending evil.  If Sekeletu should resolve to attack the Balonda, Pitsane would be under obligation to give Sambanza warning to escape, and so on the other side.  They now presented each other with the most valuable presents they had to bestow.  Sambanza walked off with Pitsane’s suit of green baize faced with red, which had been made in Loanda, and Pitsane, besides abundant supplies of food, obtained two shells similar to that I had received from Shinte.

On one occasion I became blood-relation to a young woman by accident.  She had a large cartilaginous tumor between the bones of the fore-arm, which, as it gradually enlarged, so distended the muscles as to render her unable to work.  She applied to me to excise it.  I requested her to bring her husband, if he were willing to have the operation performed, and, while removing the tumor, one of the small arteries squirted some blood into my eye.  She remarked, when I was wiping the blood out of it, “You were a friend before, now you are a blood-relation; and when you pass this way, always send me word, that I may cook food for you.”  In creating these friendships, my men had the full intention of returning; each one had his ‘Molekane’ (friend) in every village of the friendly Balonda.  Mohorisi even married a wife in the town of Katema, and Pitsane took another in the town of Shinte.  These alliances were looked upon with great favor by the Balonda chiefs, as securing the good-will of the Makololo.