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Harpers Illustrated Biochemistry 31 E 31St Edition Ebook PDF All Chapter Scribd Ebook PDF
Harpers Illustrated Biochemistry 31 E 31St Edition Ebook PDF All Chapter Scribd Ebook PDF
8
Contents
Preface
SECTION
Structures & Functions of Proteins &
I Enzymes
2 Water & pH
Peter J. Kennelly, PhD & Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
SECTION
Enzymes: Kinetics, Mechanism,
9
Regulation, & Role of Transition Metals
II
6 Proteins: Myoglobin & Hemoglobin
Peter J. Kennelly, PhD & Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
8 Enzymes: Kinetics
Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
SECTION
Bioenergetics
III
11 Bioenergetics: The Role of ATP
Kathleen M. Botham, PhD, DSc & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
12 Biologic Oxidation
Kathleen M. Botham, PhD, DSc & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
SECTION
10
Metabolism of Carbohydrates
IV
14 Overview of Metabolism & the Provision of Metabolic Fuels
David A. Bender, PhD & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
18 Metabolism of Glycogen
David A. Bender, PhD & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
SECTION
Metabolism of Lipids
V
21 Lipids of Physiologic Significance
Kathleen M. Botham, PhD, DSc & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
11
22 Oxidation of Fatty Acids: Ketogenesis
Kathleen M. Botham, PhD, DSc & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
SECTION
Metabolism of Proteins & Amino Acids
VI
27 Biosynthesis of the Nutritionally Nonessential Amino Acids
Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
12
SECTION
Structure, Function, & Replication of
VII Informational Macromolecules
32 Nucleotides
Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
SECTION
Biochemistry of Extracellular &
VIII Intracellular Communication
13
40 Membranes: Structure & Function
P. Anthony Weil, PhD
SECTION
Special Topics (A)
IX
43 Nutrition, Digestion, & Absorption
David A. Bender, PhD & Peter A. Mayes, PhD, DSc
46 Glycoproteins
David A. Bender, PhD & Robert K. Murray, MD, PhD
47 Metabolism of Xenobiotics
David A. Bender, PhD & Robert K. Murray, MD, PhD
48 Clinical Biochemistry
David A. Bender, PhD & Robert K. Murray, MD, PhD
SECTION
14
Special Topics (B)
X
49 Intracellular Traffic & Sorting of Proteins
Kathleen M. Botham, PhD, DSc & Robert K. Murray, MD, PhD
SECTION
Special Topics (C)
XI
55 Hemostasis & Thrombosis
Peter L. Gross, MD, MSc, FRCP(C), P. Anthony Weil, PhD &
Margaret L. Rand, PhD
56 Cancer: An Overview
Molly Jacob, MD, PhD, Joe Varghese, PhD & P. Anthony Weil, PhD
15
57 The Biochemistry of Aging
Peter J. Kennelly, PhD
16
Preface
The authors and publishers are pleased to present the thirty-first edition of
Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry. The first edition, entitled Harper’s
Biochemistry, was published in 1939 under the sole authorship of Dr
Harold Harper at the University of California School of Medicine, San
Francisco, California. Presently entitled Harper’s Illustrated Biochemistry,
the book continues, as originally intended, to provide a concise survey of
aspects of biochemistry most relevant to the study of medicine. Various
authors have contributed to subsequent editions of this medically oriented
biochemistry text, which is now observing its 79th year.
18
metabolism, gluconeogenesis, and the control of blood glucose.
Section V outlines the nature of simple and complex lipids, lipid
transport and storage, the biosynthesis and degradation of fatty acids
and more complex lipids, and the reactions and metabolic regulation of
cholesterol biosynthesis and transport in human subjects.
Section VI discusses protein catabolism, urea biosynthesis, and the
catabolism of amino acids and stresses the medically significant
metabolic disorders associated with their incomplete catabolism. The
final chapter considers the biochemistry of the porphyrins and bile
pigments.
Section VII first outlines the structure and function of nucleotides and
nucleic acids, then details DNA replication and repair, RNA synthesis
and modification, protein synthesis, the principles of recombinant DNA
technology, and the regulation of gene expression.
Section VIII considers aspects of extracellular and intracellular
communication. Specific topics include membrane structure and
function, the molecular bases of the actions of hormones, and signal
transduction.
Sections IX, X, & XI address fourteen topics of significant medical
importance.
Section IX discusses nutrition, digestion, and absorption,
micronutrients including vitamins free radicals and antioxidants,
glycoproteins, the metabolism of xenobiotics, and clinical
biochemistry.
Section X addresses intracellular traffic and the sorting of proteins, the
extracellular matrix, muscle and the cytoskeleton, plasma proteins and
immunoglobulins, and the biochemistry of red cells and of white cells.
Section XI includes hemostasis and thrombosis, an overview of cancer,
the biochemistry of aging, and a selection of case histories.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Michael Weitz for his role in the planning of this edition
and Peter Boyle for overseeing its preparation for publication. We also
thank Surbhi Mittal and Jyoti Shaw at Cenveo Publisher Services for their
efforts in managing editing, typesetting, and artwork. We gratefully
acknowledge numerous suggestions and corrections received from
students and colleagues from around the world, especially those of Dr.
Karthikeyan Pethusamy of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences,
New Delhi, India.
19
Victor W. Rodwell
David A. Bender
Kathleen M. Botham
Peter J. Kennelly
P. Anthony Weil
20
SECTION
Structures & Functions of
I Proteins & Enzymes
CHAPTER
1
Biochemistry & Medicine
Victor W. Rodwell, PhD, & Robert K. Murray, MD, PhD
OBJECTIVES
21
understand disease, identify potential therapies, and enhance our
understanding of the origins of life on earth.
Describe how genetic approaches have been critical for elucidating
many areas of biochemistry, and how the Human Genome Project
has furthered advances in numerous aspects of biology and
medicine.
BIOMEDICAL IMPORTANCE
Biochemistry and medicine enjoy a mutually cooperative relationship.
Biochemical studies have illuminated many aspects of health and disease,
and the study of various aspects of health and disease has opened up new
areas of biochemistry. The medical relevance of biochemistry both in
normal and abnormal situations is emphasized throughout this book.
Biochemistry makes significant contributions to the fields of cell biology,
physiology, immunology, microbiology, pharmacology, toxicology, and
epidemiology, as well as the fields of inflammation, cell injury, and
cancer. These close relationships emphasize that life, as we know it,
depends on biochemical reactions and processes.
22
biosynthesis, and revealed the essential roles of certain vitamin-derived
cofactors or “coenzymes” such as thiamin pyrophosphate, riboflavin, and
ultimately coenzyme A, coenzyme Q, and cobamide coenzyme. The 1950s
revealed how complex carbohydrates are synthesized from, and broken
down into simple sugars, and the pathways for biosynthesis of pentoses,
and the catabolism of amino acids and fatty acids.
Investigators employed animal models, perfused intact organs, tissue
slices, cell homogenates and their subfractions, and subsequently purified
enzymes. Advances were enhanced by the development of analytical
ultracentrifugation, paper and other forms of chromatography, and the
post-World War II availability of radioisotopes, principally 14C, 3H, and
32P, as “tracers” to identify the intermediates in complex pathways such as
that of cholesterol biosynthesis. X-ray crystallography was then used to
solve the three-dimensional structures of numerous proteins,
polynucleotides, enzymes, and viruses. Genetic advances that followed the
realization that DNA was a double helix include the polymerase chain
reaction, and transgenic animals or those with gene knockouts. The
methods used to prepare, analyze, purify, and identify metabolites and the
activities of natural and recombinant enzymes and their three-dimensional
structures are discussed in the following chapters.
23
established that these conditions were genetically determined. Garrod
designated these conditions as inborn errors of metabolism. His insights
provided a foundation for the development of the field of human
biochemical genetics. A more recent example was investigation of the
genetic and molecular basis of familial hypercholesterolemia, a disease
that results in early-onset atherosclerosis. In addition to clarifying different
genetic mutations responsible for this disease, this provided a deeper
understanding of cell receptors and mechanisms of uptake, not only of
cholesterol but also of how other molecules cross cell membranes. Studies
of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in cancer cells have directed
attention to the molecular mechanisms involved in the control of normal
cell growth. These examples illustrate how the study of disease can open
up areas of basic biochemical research. Science provides physicians and
other workers in health care and biology with a foundation that impacts
practice, stimulates curiosity, and promotes the adoption of scientific
approaches for continued learning.
24
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as a state of
“complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease and infirmity.” From a biochemical viewpoint, health
may be considered that situation in which all of the many thousands of
intra- and extracellular reactions that occur in the body are proceeding at
rates commensurate with the organism’s survival under pressure from both
internal and external challenges. The maintenance of health requires
optimal dietary intake of vitamins, certain amino acids and fatty acids,
various minerals, and water. Understanding nutrition depends to a great
extent on knowledge of biochemistry, and the sciences of biochemistry
and nutrition share a focus on these chemicals. Recent increasing emphasis
on systematic attempts to maintain health and forestall disease, or
preventive medicine, includes nutritional approaches to the prevention of
diseases such as atherosclerosis and cancer.
25
Genomics. Except for a few gaps, the sequence of the entire human
genome was completed in 2003, just 50 years after the description of the
double-helical nature of DNA by Watson and Crick. The implications for
biochemistry, medicine, and indeed for all of biology, are virtually
unlimited. For example, the ability to isolate and sequence a gene and to
investigate its structure and function by sequencing and “gene knockout”
experiments have revealed previously unknown genes and their products,
and new insights have been gained concerning human evolution and
procedures for identifying disease-related genes.
Major advances in biochemistry and understanding human health and
disease continue to be made by mutation of the genomes of model
organisms such as yeast, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the
roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, and the zebra fish, all organisms that
can be genetically manipulated to provide insight into the functions of
individual genes. These advances can potentially provide clues to curing
human diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer disease. Figure 1–2
highlights areas that have developed or accelerated as a direct result of
progress made in the Human Genome Project (HGP). New “-omics” fields
focus on comprehensive study of the structures and functions of the
molecules with which each is concerned. The products of genes (RNA
molecules and proteins) are being studied using the techniques of
transcriptomics and proteomics. A spectacular example of the speed of
progress in transcriptomics is the explosion of knowledge about small
RNA molecules as regulators of gene activity. Other -omics fields include
glycomics, lipidomics, metabolomics, nutrigenomics, and
pharmacogenomics. To keep pace with the information generated,
bioinformatics has received much attention. Other related fields to which
the impetus from the HGP has carried over are biotechnology,
bioengineering, biophysics, and bioethics. Definitions of these -omics
fields and other terms appear in the Glossary of this chapter.
Nanotechnology is an active area, which, for example, may provide novel
methods of diagnosis and treatment for cancer and other disorders. Stem
cell biology is at the center of much current research. Gene therapy has
yet to deliver the promise that it appears to offer, but it seems probable that
ultimately will occur. Many new molecular diagnostic tests have
developed in areas such as genetic, microbiologic, and immunologic
testing and diagnosis. Systems biology is also burgeoning. The outcomes
of research in the various areas mentioned above will impact tremendously
the future of biology, medicine, and the health sciences. Synthetic biology
offers the potential for creating living organisms, initially small bacteria,
26
from genetic material in vitro that might carry out specific tasks such as
cleansing petroleum spills. All of the above make the 21st century an
exhilarating time to be directly involved in biology and medicine.
SUMMARY
Biochemistry is the science concerned with the molecules present in
living organisms, individual chemical reactions and their enzyme
catalysts, and the expression and regulation of each metabolic process.
Biochemistry has become the basic language of all biologic sciences.
Despite the focus on human biochemistry in this text, biochemistry
concerns the entire spectrum of life forms, from viruses, bacteria, and
plants to complex eukaryotes such as human beings.
Biochemistry, medicine, and other health care disciplines are
intimately related. Health in all species depends on a harmonious
balance of the biochemical reactions occurring in the body, while
disease reflects abnormalities in biomolecules, biochemical reactions,
27
or biochemical processes.
Advances in biochemical knowledge have illuminated many areas of
medicine, and the study of diseases has often revealed previously
unsuspected aspects of biochemistry.
Biochemical approaches are often fundamental in illuminating the
causes of diseases and in designing appropriate therapy. Biochemical
laboratory tests also represent an integral component of diagnosis and
monitoring of treatment.
A sound knowledge of biochemistry and of other related basic
disciplines is essential for the rational practice of medicine and related
health sciences.
Results of the HGP and of research in related areas will have a
profound influence on the future of biology, medicine, and other
health sciences.
Genomic research on model organisms such as yeast, the fruit fly D.
melanogaster, the roundworm C. elegans, and the zebra fish provides
insight into understanding human diseases.
GLOSSARY
Bioengineering: The application of engineering to biology and medicine.
Bioethics: The area of ethics that is concerned with the application of
moral and ethical principles to biology and medicine.
Bioinformatics: The discipline concerned with the collection, storage, and
analysis of biologic data, for example, DNA, RNA, and protein
sequences.
Biophysics: The application of physics and its techniques to biology and
medicine.
Biotechnology: The field in which biochemical, engineering, and other
approaches are combined to develop biologic products of use in
medicine and industry.
Gene Therapy: Applies to the use of genetically engineered genes to treat
various diseases.
Genomics: The genome is the complete set of genes of an organism, and
genomics is the in-depth study of the structures and functions of
genomes.
Glycomics: The glycome is the total complement of simple and complex
carbohydrates in an organism. Glycomics is the systematic study of the
structures and functions of glycomes such as the human glycome.
28
Lipidomics: The lipidome is the complete complement of lipids found in
an organism. Lipidomics is the in-depth study of the structures and
functions of all members of the lipidome and their interactions, in both
health and disease.
Metabolomics: The metabolome is the complete complement of
metabolites (small molecules involved in metabolism) present in an
organism. Metabolomics is the in-depth study of their structures,
functions, and changes in various metabolic states.
Molecular Diagnostics: Refers to the use of molecular approaches such as
DNA probes to assist in the diagnosis of various biochemical, genetic,
immunologic, microbiologic, and other medical conditions.
Nanotechnology: The development and application to medicine and to
other areas of devices such as nanoshells, which are only a few
nanometers in size (10–9 m = 1 nm).
Nutrigenomics: The systematic study of the effects of nutrients on genetic
expression and of the effects of genetic variations on the metabolism of
nutrients.
Pharmacogenomics: The use of genomic information and technologies to
optimize the discovery and development of new drugs and drug targets.
Proteomics: The proteome is the complete complement of proteins of an
organism. Proteomics is the systematic study of the structures and
functions of proteomes and their variations in health and disease.
Stem Cell Biology: Stem cells are undifferentiated cells that have the
potential to self-renew and to differentiate into any of the adult cells of
an organism. Stem cell biology concerns the biology of stem cells and
their potential for treating various diseases.
Synthetic Biology: The field that combines biomolecular techniques with
engineering approaches to build new biologic functions and systems.
Systems Biology: The field concerns complex biologic systems studied as
integrated entities.
Transcriptomics: The comprehensive study of the transcriptome, the
complete set of RNA transcripts produced by the genome during a
fixed period of time.
APPENDIX
Shown are selected examples of databases that assemble, annotate, and
analyze data of biomedical importance.
ENCODE: ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements. A collaborative effort that
29
combines laboratory and computational approaches to identify every
functional element in the human genome.
GenBank: Protein sequence database of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH) stores all known biologic nucleotide sequences and their
translations in a searchable form.
HapMap: Haplotype Map, an international effort to identify single
nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with common human
diseases and differential responses to pharmaceuticals.
ISDB: International Sequence DataBase that incorporates DNA databases
of Japan and of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL).
PDB: Protein DataBase. Three-dimensional structures of proteins,
polynucleotides, and other macromolecules, including proteins bound
to substrates, inhibitors, or other proteins.
30
CHAPTER
2
Water & pH
Peter J. Kennelly, PhD & Victor W. Rodwell, PhD
OBJECTIVES
31
conditions.
Illustrate how the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation can be used to
calculate the net charge on a polyelectrolyte at a given pH.
BIOMEDICAL IMPORTANCE
Water is the predominant chemical component of living organisms. Its
unique physical properties, which include the ability to solvate a wide
range of organic and inorganic molecules, derive from water’s dipolar
structure and exceptional capacity for forming hydrogen bonds. The
manner in which water interacts with a solvated biomolecule influences
the structure both of the biomolecule and of water itself. An excellent
nucleophile, water is a reactant or product in many metabolic reactions.
Regulation of water balance depends upon hypothalamic mechanisms that
control thirst, on antidiuretic hormone (ADH), on retention or excretion of
water by the kidneys, and on evaporative loss. Nephrogenic diabetes
insipidus, which involves the inability to concentrate urine or adjust to
subtle changes in extracellular fluid osmolarity, results from the
unresponsiveness of renal tubular osmoreceptors to ADH.
Water has a slight propensity to dissociate into hydroxide ions and
protons. The concentration of protons, or acidity, of aqueous solutions is
generally reported using the logarithmic pH scale. Bicarbonate and other
buffers normally maintain the pH of extracellular fluid between 7.35 and
7.45. Suspected disturbances of acid-base balance are verified by
measuring the pH of arterial blood and the CO2 content of venous blood.
Causes of acidosis (blood pH <7.35) include diabetic ketosis and lactic
acidosis. Alkalosis (pH >7.45) may follow vomiting of acidic gastric
contents.
32
electronegative oxygen atom in a water molecule attracts electrons away
from the hydrogen nuclei, leaving them with a partial positive charge,
while its two unshared electron pairs constitute a region of local negative
charge.
33
kcal/mol, less than 5% of the energy required to rupture a covalent O—H
bond.
34
INTERACTION WITH WATER INFLUENCES
THE STRUCTURE OF BIOMOLECULES
Covalent and Noncovalent Bonds Stabilize Biologic
Molecules
The covalent bond is the strongest force that holds molecules together
(Table 2–1). Noncovalent forces, while of lesser magnitude, make
significant contributions to the structure, stability, and functional
competence of macromolecules in living cells. These forces, which can be
either attractive or repulsive, involve interactions both within the
biomolecule and between it and the water that forms the principal
component of the surrounding environment.
35
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.