Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A native name for a kind of millet, Sorghum vulgare, much cultivated by the natives of Africa. Also called Kafir-corn and durra.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The villages of the Wakimbu are like those of the Wagogo, square, flat-roofed, enclosing an open area, which is sometimes divided into three or four parts by fences or matama stalks.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • Besides much undigested matama and grass there were found twenty-five short, thick, white worms, sticking like leeches into the coating of the stomach, while the intestines were almost alive with the numbers of long white worms.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • Foremost among these, as if in duty bound, came the village sultan — lord, chief, or head — bearing three measures of matama and half a measure of rice, of which he begged, with paternal smiles, my acceptance.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • Pereh, would surely keep them to remunerate him for the matama they had eaten.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • Said he, with another leer of his wrinkled visage, “Kingaru is poor, there is no matama in the village.”

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • At Umanda, six hours from Mfuto, our warriors bedaubed themselves with the medicine which the wise men had manufactured for them — a compound of matama flour mixed with the juices of

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • At the termination of this eventful day, the following remark was jotted down in my diary: “Thank God! After fifty-seven days of living upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous satisfaction a real breakfast and dinner.”

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • A sheep cost one chukka; six chickens were also purchased at that price; six measures of matama, maweri, or hindi, were procurable for the same sum; in short, we were coming, at last, into the land of plenty.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • Before an hour went by, there came boxes full of choroko, beans, rice, matama or dourra, and Indian corn, carried on the heads of a dozen villagers, and shortly after the Mtemi himself came, followed by about thirty musketeers and twenty spearmen, to visit the first white man ever seen on this road.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

  • To which I replied that since there was no matama in the village I would pay him half a shukka, or a yard of cloth, which would be exactly equivalent to his present; that if he preferred to call his small basketful a present, I should be content to call my yard of cloth a present.

    How I Found Livingstone Henry Morton 2004

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