The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 2 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

THE BABEMBA TRIBE.

Lobisa, Lobemba, Ulungu, and Itawa-Lunda are the names by which the portions of an elevated region between the parallels 11° and 8° S. and meridian 28° 53° Lon. E. are known. The altitude of this section of country is from four thousand to six thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is the water-shed between the Loangwa, a tributary of the river Zambesi, and several rivers which flow toward the north. It abounds in forest lands and is watered by numerous rivulets. The soil is remarkably fertile, yielding abundantly wherever cultivated. Lake Liemba, which lies in this basin, is, however, twenty-five hundred feet above the level of the sea. The land around this lake is very steep, the rocks in many instances running from a height of two thousand feet down to the surface of the lake. The tops, sides, and bottom of these cliffs are covered with wood and grass.

The scenery of this region is romantic and very beautiful. The Acasy, a stream about fifty feet wide, comes down the cliffs, forming cascades by leaping three hundred feet at a time, exciting the admiration and wonder of the traveller. Buffalos, elephants, and antelopes are found in great abundance on these slopes, and in the waters of the lake crocodiles, hippopotami, and fish of various kinds.

The lake is from fifteen to twenty miles broad and from forty to fifty long, sending out an arm some two miles wide toward Tanganyika, of which it may be only a branch. Groves of palm-oil and other trees may be found on the banks of the lake. These palm-trees are large and fruitful. Livingstone saw a cluster from one carried past the door of his hut that required two men to bear it. Though there are villages around this lake yet most of the natives live on two islands, where they raise goats, cultivate the soil, and catch fish.

Livingstone had an opportunity to hear a case tried in Lobemba, before the chief. An old man talked an hour, the chief all the while listening and maintaining a grave and dignified deportment. When the trial was finished he gave his decision in about five minutes. Thereupon the successful party went away lullilooing. The custom with the attorneys in such cases is to turn the back upon the chief or judge, then lie down upon the ground, clapping the hands. Saluting him in this way they then are prepared to make their appeal or argument.

The chief Nsama, a very old man when Livingstone saw him, had a good head and face and an enormous abdomen. He was so large and helpless his people had to carry him. Women were constantly in attendance pouring pombé into him.

This tribe is very much more warlike than any of those south of them. They dig deep ditches around their villages and stockade them also. Their politeness is manifested in their retiring when food is presented to any one.

Nsama’s territory is called Itawa, and is generally cleared of trees for cultivation, lying about three thousand feet above the sea. The river Chiséra, a mile and a half broad, gives off its water to the Kalongosi, a feeder of Lake Moero. This is about twelve miles broad, having on the east and west sides lofty, tree-covered mountains. The western range is part of the country Rua Moero. What is of most interest about this lake is that it forms one of a chain of lakes linked by a river some five hundred miles in length. First, the Chambeze rises in the country of Mambwé, northeast of Molembé. Flowing southwest and west, till it reaches latitude 11° S. and longitude 29° E., it forms Lake Bemba or Bangueolo; emerging thence it takes the name Luapala and flows down to fall into Moero. Going out of this lake, it is known by the name of Lualaba, as it flows northwest to form another lake named Urengué or Ulengé. No positive information could be ascertained as to whether it enters Tanganyika or a lake beyond that.

Nsama had been a brave and successful warrior, and was regarded as invincible, but his power had waned and he was defeated by a party of twenty Arabs with guns. Some of them got within the stockade, and though Nsama’s men were very numerous they were overcome and soon fled carrying the bloated carcass of their chief.

The defeat of Nsama caused a great panic among the various tribes of the region. He had been the ablest and most successful warrior at the head of a brave and warlike people. That this “Napoleon,” before whom none could stand, should be conquered, created a surprise and a revolution in the minds of the people, and the superiority of guns over bows and arrows had to be acknowledged by those little inclined to admit the fact. But as the people have considerable intelligence they cannot resist the logic of events. It seems that Nsama had given great offence by some outrage upon the Arab traders, and was charged with “having broken public law by attacking people who brought merchandise into the country.” But though it was difficult to ascertain whether the Arabs were the aggressors or Nsama, the feud raged till the former had punished him by an ignominious defeat, routing a large number, besides killing some fifty, with the loss of about the same number by the Arab assailants. The consequences of the quarrel were most disastrous. His son was captured, and his country, which was but lately so densely peopled, seemed as if deserted, the inhabitants having scattered in various directions to escape the plunder of their goods and the stealing of their wives and children for the slave-market.

The peacemaking between these hostile parties absorbed three and a half months, thus delaying Livingstone, as it was not thought safe for him to enter Nsama’s territory till a reconciliation was effected. A custom of drinking each other’s blood is one of the formalities of making peace. But this did not altogether avail.

At length, as a final method of settling the difficulty, Nsama promised his daughter as wife to Hamees. So one afternoon, she who was to be a reconciler of the hostile parties came riding pick-a-back on a man’s shoulders. Livingstone describes her as “a nice, modest, good-looking young woman, her hair rubbed all over with nkola, a red pigment made from the cam-wood and much used as an ornament. She was accompanied by about a dozen young and old female attendants, each carrying a small basket with some provisions, as cassava, ground-nuts, etc. The Arabs were all dressed in their finery, and the slaves, in fantastic dresses, flourished swords, fired guns, and yelled. When she was brought to Hamees’ hut she descended and with her maids went into the hut. She and her attendants had all small, neat features. I had been sitting with Hamees, and now rose up and went away. As I passed him he spoke thus to himself, ‘Hamees Wadim Tagh! see to what you have brought yourself.’” But the condition he so much deprecated was not of long duration. The next day he set off with his new wife to make a visit upon his father-in-law, and was soon met by two messengers informing him that he must delay his visit. Yet when he went, Nsama would not admit him into the stockade unless he would lay aside gun and sword. But these conditions Hamees would not submit to. Soliciting guides from Nsama, yet he was annoyed by the chief’s delay and vacillation, although he had promised them. At length having secured them and making preparations for their journey, Hamees’ wife, supposing an attack upon her father was contemplated, decamped with the guides by night, forsaking her new Arab husband after a honeymoon of only a week, and without ceremony, relieving him of the humiliating attitude of marrying a negro wife for the sake of peace.

Not far from the lower part of Moero, and near the north end of the lakelet Mofwé is Casembé’s town. This covers about a mile square of cassava plantations. Some of the huts have square enclosures of reeds, but the whole resembles a rural village more than a town. The population, judged from the huts scattered irregularly over the space, was about a thousand. The court or palace of Casembé was an enclosure about two hundred yards by three hundred long; within this hedge of high reeds was the large hut of the chief and smaller huts for his domestics. The queen’s hut, with other small huts, was behind that of Casembé. In the reception that he gave Livingstone he sat before his hut on a square seat placed on lion and leopard skins. “He was dressed in a coarse blue and white Manchester print edged with red baize, and arranged in large folds so as to look like crinoline put on wrong side foremost. His arms, legs, and head were covered with sleeves, leggings, and cap made of various colored beads in neat patterns; a crown of yellow feathers surmounted his cap. Each of his head men came forward shaded by a huge, ill-made umbrella and followed by his dependents, made obeisance to Casembé and sat down on his right and left. Various bands of musicians did the same. When called upon, I rose and bowed, and an old councillor with his ears cropped, gave the chief as full an account as he had been able to gather of the English in general and my antecedents in particular. My having passed through Lunda and visited chiefs of whom he scarcely knew anything excited most attention. He assured me I was welcome to his country to go where I liked and do what I chose. We then went (two boys carrying his train behind him) to an inner apartment, where the articles of my present were exhibited in detail. They consisted of eight yards of orange-colored serge, a large striped table-cloth, another large cloth made at Manchester in imitation of west-coast manufacture, which never fails to excite the admiration of Arabs and natives, and a large, richly gilded comb for the back hair, such as ladies wore fifty years ago. As Casembé’s and Nsama’s people cultivate the hair into large knots behind, I was sure that this article would tickle the fancy. Casembé expressed himself pleased and again bade me welcome. Casembé has an ungainly look and an outward squint in each eye. A number of human skulls adorned the entrance to his court-yard, and great numbers of his principal men having their ears cropped and some with their hands lopped off showed his barbarous way of making his ministers attentive and honest.”

The Portuguese visited Casembé many years before Livingstone’s visit. Each Casembé builds a new town. The last seven Casembés had their towns within seven miles of the present. These Casembés have differed very widely in character. Pereira, an early traveller, states that the Casembé of his time had twenty thousand trained soldiers, watered his streets daily, and sacrificed twenty human victims every day. Livingstone, however, saw no evidence of human sacrifices. The present Casembé had but a small following, and was very poor. When he usurped power some five years before, the region was thickly populated. But his barbarity in punishment of offences—cropping the ears, cutting off the hands, and other mutilations, selling children for small misdemeanors—gradually drove many of his people into neighboring countries to escape his brutal tyranny. As there is no rendition of fugitives, this is the method of the oppressed who can no longer endure the tyrant. Casembé is so selfish that he has reduced himself to poverty. If any of his people killed elephants he would not share with them the profits from the sale of the ivory. Accordingly the successful hunters, aggrieved by this selfish robbery, have gone elsewhere or abandoned the chase, and the chief now has no tusks to sell to the Arab traders from Tanganyika. The predecessor of the present Casembé treated Major Monteiro, the traveller, so badly that the Portuguese have not ventured so far into Central Africa since.

West of Casembé’s country is Katanga. The people smelt copper ore into large bars, shaped like the letter I. These bars are found in great abundance, weighing from fifty to a hundred pounds. The natives draw the copper into wire for armlets and leglets. There are also traces of gold in this region.

One of the most remarkable of the vegetable products of this region is a potato that belongs to the pea family. Its flowers emit a very grateful fragrance. The tuber is oblong, like our common potato, and it is easily propagated from cuttings of the root or stalk. It tastes, when cooked, like our potato, but has some bitterness when unripe. It is a good remedy for nausea when raw. It is found only on the uplands and cannot endure a hot climate.

A very remarkable feature of the country is the stone under-ground houses in Rua. They are very extensive, running along mountain-sides for twenty miles. The door-ways, in some cases, are level with the ground, in others, a ladder is needed to climb up to them. Inside, these houses are very large, and in one part a rivulet flows. They are probably natural formations, though there are many indications of their being artificial.

It is a widely-spread superstition that if a child cuts its upper front teeth before the lower it is unlucky, and it is therefore killed. If a child be seen to turn from one side to the other in sleep, it is killed. A child having any of these defects is called an Arab’s child, because the Arabs have none of these superstitions. Such children are readily given to the Arabs, fearing ill-luck, “milando” or guilt to the family if they be kept. They never sell their children to slavers, but part with them to avoid the misfortunes they apprehend, their fears being caused by these superstitious notions.

If Casembé dream of any man twice or three times the man is supposed to be practising secret arts against his chief, and is accordingly put to death. If one be pounding or cooking food for him, silence must be invariably preserved. At Katanga the people are afraid to dig for gold, because, as they believe, it was hidden there in the earth by “Ngolu,” which means, as the Arabs say, Satan, and also departed spirits.

The fear of death among this people is universal and very strong. They never molest the wagtails, believing, if one be killed, death would visit and destroy them. The whydah birds are protected by this same superstitious notion that death would ensue if they be harmed. The people are everywhere degraded and oppressed by these and similar notions, which seem very absurd to us, and yet, after all, are not much more unreasonable and silly than some of the superstitions that are cherished by people in civilized countries. Are there not many believers still in the efficacy of the horse-shoe over the door? Who would not rather see the new moon over his right shoulder, as the token of better luck than if seen over the left? Do not multitudes forbear to undertake a journey or any new enterprise on Friday, because they regard it an unlucky day?

Unless he has swilled beer or pombé to excess, Casembé is a chief of very considerable good sense. His decisions often evince an independence and wisdom that show him to be worthy of his place at the head of the people. The Arabs are enthusiastic in his praise. A case of crim. con. was brought before him involving an Arab’s slave. An effort was made to arrange the matter privately by offering cloths, beads, and another slave. The complainant declined every proposition; but Casembé dismissed the case by saying to the complainant, “You send your women to entrap the strangers in order to get a fine, but you will get nothing.” This verdict was exceedingly gratifying to the Arabs, and the owner of the slave especially.

Kapika, an old chief, had charged his young and handsome wife with infidelity, and in punishment thereof had sold her as a slave. But the spectacle of a woman of high rank in the slave-gang greatly excited the ladies of Lunda, and learning from her that she was really a slave, they clapped their hands on their mouths, in a way peculiar to them and expressive of horror and indignation. The hard fate of the young chieftainess evoked the sympathy of all the people. Kapika’s daughters brought her refreshments, offers were made by one and another to redeem her with two and even three slaves; but Casembé, who is very rigorous in his treatment of all violations of chastity, said, “No; though ten slaves be offered, she must go.” Possibly a fear that he might lose his own queen, if such infidelities were not severely punished, may have led him to his stern and inexorable decision. Pérembé, the oldest man in Lunda, had a young wife who was sold as a punishment; but she was redeemed. The slave-trader is undoubtedly a means of making the young wives of some of these old men faithful to their marriage.

The people, however, are not kindly disposed toward the slave dealer, who is used as a means of punishing those who have family feuds,—as a wife with her husband, or a servant with his master. In cases of jealousy, revenge, or real criminality, they are the ready instrumentalities for effecting the just or the unjust punishment. The slaves are said to be generally criminals, and are sold in revenge or as a punishment.

The incident narrated below indicates the belief of the Africans in a future state,—a belief, however, around which cluster the darkest and saddest superstitions. The reader will see how the miseries and wrongs of their life shaped and colored their anticipations of the life to come. The hope of avenging the barbarities they endured inspired them with a sort of ghastly satisfaction, so that they blended songs with their sufferings.

“Six men slaves,” as Livingstone relates the incident, “were singing as if they did not feel the weight and degradation of the slave-sticks. I asked the cause of their mirth, and was told that they rejoiced at the idea of coming back after death, and haunting and killing those who had sold them. Some of the words I had to inquire about; for instance, the meaning of the words, ‘To haunt and kill by spirit power’; then it was, ‘Oh! you sent me off to manga (sea-coast), but the yoke is off when I die, and back I shall come to haunt and to kill you.’ Then all joined in the chorus, which was the name of each vender. It told not of fun, but of the bitterness and tears of such as were oppressed, and on the side of the oppressors there was a power.—There be higher than they!

“The slave owner asked Kapika’s wife if she would return to kill Kapika. The others answered to the names of the different men with laughter. Her heart was evidently sore: for a lady to come so low down is to her grievous. She has lost her jaunty air, and is, with her head shaved, ugly; but she never forgets to address her captors with dignity, and they seem to fear her.”

In personal appearance the Babemba are very handsome, many of them having heads as finely formed as the majority of Europeans. They are distinguished by small hands and feet, and have none of the gross ugliness of the Congo tribes of West Africa, who are with most persons the typical negroes.

Dr. Livingstone’s observations led him to adopt the opinion which Winwood Reade formed,—that the ancient Egyptian is the type of the negro race, and not the awkward forms and hideous features of the West Coast tribes. It is probable that this beautiful and romantic region was the real home of the negro. The women excited the admiration of the Arabs by the charms of their full forms and delicate features. The only drawback was the result of a fashion among them, as is often the case among their civilized sisters: they file their teeth to points, and this “makes their smile like that of a crocodile.”

CHAPTER CLXIII.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE MANYUEMA COUNTRY.

LIVINGSTONE’S DEPARTURE FROM UJIJI — LORD OF THE PARROT — GRAPHIC PICTURE — MOENÉKUSS AND HIS SONS — FEAR OF THE MANYUEMA — THEIR HORRIBLE DEEDS — REMARKABLE BEAUTY OF THE COUNTRY — AGRICULTURE OF THE PEOPLE — THEIR VILLAGES — DWELLINGS — THE WOMEN CLEVER TRADERS — THEIR VALUE AS WIVES — RITE OF CIRCUMCISION — LARGE POPULATION — THE CHITOKA — VIVID DESCRIPTION OF MARKET-DAY — DREADFUL MASSACRE.

The Manyuema country, for which Livingstone set out on the 12th of July, 1869, from Ujiji, the Arab settlement on Lake Tanganyika, had till then never been visited by any white man. It will be seen that its people differ from any of the tribes on the East Coast. Thinking that this portion of Africa, hitherto untravelled by foot of civilized man, must abound in ivory, the Arab merchants were desirous of securing the rich stores awaiting the earliest adventurers. Livingstone accompanied the first of these bands of Ujijan traders who entered this new field. The distance from Lake Tanganyika to Bambarré or Moenékuss (the paramount chief of the Manyuema) is about forty days’ travel.

The light-gray parrot with red tail which is so common in this region, and which is called Kuss or Koos, gives this chief his name, which means Lord of the Parrot. The pronunciation by the Manyuema is Monanjoose. This district is in the large bend of the Lualaba River, which is much larger here than at Mpwéto’s, near Moero Lake.

The course taken by the great explorer led over a very uneven country. It was up and down hills perpetually; now into dells filled with enormous trees, some of which were twenty feet in circumference and sixty or seventy feet to the first branches; then, rising upon some commanding height, the vast valley Jorumba lay before him with all its remarkable beauty. There were many villages dotted over the slopes of these mountains. One had been destroyed, showing by the hard clay walls and square form of the houses that it belonged to the Manyuema. A graphic picture of the country and its scenery is given by Dr. Livingstone. “Our path lay partly along a ridge, with a deep valley on each side. On the left the valley was filled with primeval forests, into which elephants, when wounded, escape completely. The bottom of this great valley was two thousand feet below us. Then ranges of mountains, with villages on their bases, rose as far as they could reach. On our right there was another deep but narrow gorge, and mountains much higher than on the ridge close adjacent. Our ridge wound from side to side, and took us to the edge of deep precipices,—first on the right, then on the left, till down we came to the villages of chief Monandenda. The houses were all filled with fire-wood, and each had a bed on a raised platform in an inner room.

“The paths are very skilfully placed on the tops of ridges of hills, and all gulleys are avoided; otherwise the distance would be doubled and the fatigue greatly increased. The paths seem to have been used for ages; they are worn deep on the heights, and in the hollows a little mound rises on each side, formed by the feet tossing a little soil on one side. Many villages teeming with a prodigious population were passed on the route.”

Approaching a village they were met by a company of natives beating a drum. This is a signal of peace: if war be meant the attack is stealthy. The people are friendly if they have not been assailed and plundered by the Arabs. The arrows used are small, made of strong grass-stalks, and poisoned; those for elephants and buffaloes are large and poisoned also. The two sons of Moenékuss, who had lately died, had taken his place. As there were signs of suspicion on their part, the ceremony of mixing blood was performed. This consists in making a small incision on the forearm of each person and then mixing the bloods and making declarations and vows of friendship. Moenembagg, the elder of the two sons, and the spokesman on all important occasions said, “Your people must not steal: we never do,”—which was no unwarrantable claim in behalf of his tribe. Blood in a small quantity was then conveyed from one to the other by a fig-leaf. “No stealing of fowls or of men,” said this chief. “Catch the thief and bring him to me. One who steals a person is a pig,” said Mohamad. Stealing, however, began on our side, a slave purloining a fowl. “They had good reason,” says Livingstone, “to enjoin honesty upon us. They think that we have come to kill them; we light on them as if from another world; no letters come to tell who we are or what we want. We cannot conceive their state of isolation and helplessness, with nothing to trust but their charms and idols, both being bits of wood.”

The village huts are very inconvenient, with low roofs and low door-ways. The men build them, but the women have to keep them well supplied with fire-wood and water. They carry their burdens in large baskets hung to the shoulders, like some of the fish-women in European cities.

Other tribes live in great terror of the Manyuema, whom they represent as man-eaters. A woman’s child crept into the corner of the hut to eat a banana. The mother, having missed him, at once suspected that the Manyuema had kidnapped him to eat him. She ran in a frenzy through the camp, screaming “Oh, the Manyuema have stolen my child to make meat of him! Oh, my child eaten! Oh! Oh!”

Two fine-looking young men made a visit to Livingstone one day. After preliminary questions about his country, such as “Where is it?” they asked whether people die there, and where they go after death. “Who kills them? Have you no charm (buanga) against death?” They were told that his people pray to the Great Father Mulungu, and he hears them, all which seemed to satisfy their curiosity as very reasonable.

The bloody and murderous propensity of the Bambarré people is evinced by the most horrible deeds. If a man be at work alone in the field he is almost sure of being slain. When they tell of each other’s deeds the heart sickens at the recital. Kandahara, brother of old Moenékuss, murdered three women and a child and also a trading-man, for no reason but to eat their bodies.

“The head of Moenékuss is said to be preserved in a pot in his house, and all public matters are gravely communicated to it, as if his spirit dwelt therein; his body was eaten; the flesh was removed from the head and eaten too. His father’s head is said to be kept also. In other districts graves show that sepulture is customary, but here no grave appears. Some admit the existence of this practice, but others deny it. In the Metamba country, adjacent to the Lualaba, a quarrel with a wife often ends in the husband killing her and eating her heart mixed up in a huge mess of goat’s flesh; this has the charm character. Fingers are taken as charms in other parts, but in Bambarré alone is the depraved taste the motive for cannibalism.”

The country inhabited by the Manyuema, which means forest people, is surpassingly beautiful. Livingstone gives this description in his journal: “Palms crown the loftiest heights of the mountains and their gracefully bended fronds wave beautifully in the wind; and the forests, usually about five miles broad between groups of villages, are indescribable. Climbers, of cable size, in great number, are hung among the gigantic trees; many unknown wild-fruits abound, some the size of a child’s head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere.

“The soil is very rich, and the people, although isolated by old feuds that are never settled, cultivate largely. They have selected a kind of maize that bends its fruit-stalk round into a hook, and hedges, some eighteen feet high, are made by inserting poles which sprout, like Robinson Crusoe’s hedge, and never decay. Lines of climbing plants are tied so as to go along from pole to pole, and the maize-cobs are suspended to these by their own hooked fruit-stalk. As the corncob is forming, the hook is turned round so that the fruit-leaves of it hang down and form a thatch for the grain beneath or inside of it. This upright granary forms a solid looking wall round the village. The people are not stingy, but take down maize and hand it to the men freely. Plantains, cassava, and maize are the chief food.

“The hoeing of the Manyuema is very superficial, being little better than the scraping of the soil. They leave the roots of maize, dura, ground-nuts, sweet potatoes, to find their way into the soft, rich earth. There is no need of plowing for ground-nuts, and cassava will resist the encroachments of grass for years. Rice will yield one hundred and twenty fold of increase, showing the wonderful fertility of the land. If kept free from weeds, the soil yields its grains and roots in the rankest profusion; pumpkins, melons, meleza, plantains, bananas, all flourish most abundantly. The Bambarré, however, are indifferent husbandmen, planting but a few things. The Balégga, like the Bambarré, rely chiefly upon plantains and ground-nuts. Their principal amusement is playing with parrots.

“It is the custom among this people to make approaches to the villages as difficult as possible. The hedges, which sprout and grow into a living fence, are covered with a sort of calabash, with its broad leaves, so that nothing appears of the fence outside.

“The villages are perched in the talus of each great range, so as to secure quick drainage. The streets generally run east and west in order that the heat of the sun may rapidly dissipate the moisture. The houses are mostly in line with meeting-houses at each end, fronting the middle of the street. The walls of these houses are of well-beaten clay, protected from the weather by the roof, the rafters of which are often the leaf-stalk of palms, split so as to be thin. The roofs are low, but well thatched with a leaf resembling that of the banana, but more durable. The leaf-stalk has a notch made in it of two or three inches lengthwise. This hooks to the rafters.”

These dwellings inside are very comfortable, and until the Arabs visited this tribe, vermin were unknown. Bugs and vermin go wherever the Arabs and Suaheli go.

“Where the southeast rains abound, the Manyuema place the back side of their houses to this quarter, and protect the walls by carrying the low roof considerably below the top of the walls. These clay walls will last for ages, and men often return after long years of absence to restore the portions that may have been washed away. Each housewife has from twenty-five to thirty earthen pots strung to the ceiling by neat, cord-swinging trestles, and often as many neatly-made baskets hung up in the same way, filled with fire-wood.”

The women are good traders, and ready for a bargain, bringing loads of provisions to exchange for beads. They are very strong, one basket three feet high being a woman’s load. They wear no dress, and their hair is plaited in the form of a basket behind. It is first rolled into a very large coil, then wound around something till it is eight or ten inches long, projecting from the back of the head.

The Manyuema buy their wives from each other. A pretty girl costs ten goats. When brought to the husband’s house, the new wife stays five days, then goes back and remains five days at home. The husband then goes for her again, and she remains with him afterward.

The remark is a common one among the Arabs, “If we had Manyuema wives, what beautiful children we should beget.” The men are usually handsome, and the women many of them are beautiful,—hands and feet, limbs and forms, perfect in shape, and the color light-brown. The women dress in a kilt of many folds of gaudy lambas. The orifices of the nose are widened by snuff-taking. Those addicted to the habit push the snuff as far up as possible with finger and thumb. The only filing of the teeth is a small space between the two upper front teeth. Yet with these disfigurements, Livingstone adds, “I would back a company of Manyuema men to be far superior in shape of head and generally in physical form too, against the whole Anthropological Society.”

Among all the Manyuema the rite of circumcision is performed upon the male children. If a head man’s son is to be operated on, an experiment is first made on a slave. Certain times of the year are regarded as unfavorable. If the trial prove successful, they go into the forest, beat drums, and have a feast. Unlike all other Africans they do not hesitate to speak about the rite even in the presence of women.

The inquiry very naturally arises, Whence came this custom? It seems to link this tribe, but lately unknown by all civilized peoples, dwelling in the interior of the great African continent, to a memorable people of whom this rite is the distinguishing characteristic. But, doubtless, somewhere and somehow along the centuries, this ancient rite of the Jewish people was communicated to this tribe.

Children in Manyuema do not creep, as those in civilized lands on their knees, but begin by putting forward one foot and using one knee; they will use both feet and both hands, but never both knees. An Arab child will do the same, never creeping, but getting up on both feet and holding on till he can walk.

The country swarms with villages. At some places the people are civil and generous, but at others, where the palm-trees flourish and palm-toddy is abundant, the people are consequently degraded and disagreeable, often inclined to fight on account of real or imaginary offences.

The Manyuema will not buy slaves, except females to make wives of them. They prefer to let their ivory rot than exchange it with the Arab traders for male slaves, who are generally criminals.

Iron bracelets are the usual medium of exchange and coarse beads and cowries. Copper is much more highly prized, and for a bracelet of this metal three fowls and three and a half baskets of maize are given.

Effigies of men made of wood may often be seen in Manyuema. Some are of clay, and cone-like, with a small hole in the top. They are called Bathata (fathers or ancients), and the name of each is carefully preserved. Ancient or later chiefs are thus kept in remembrance. The natives are very careful to have the exact pronunciation of the name. On certain occasions goat’s flesh is offered to them by the old men. No young person and no women are permitted to partake. The flesh of the parrot, though often eaten by old men, is forbidden to young men, with the belief that if eaten by them their children will have the waddling gait of this bird.

The banks of the Lualaba are thickly peopled. One of the best methods of judging in regard to the number of the inhabitants is a visit to the chitoka or market. This is attended principally by women. They hold market one day, and then have an interval of three days, going to other markets in other places. All prefer to buy and sell in the market rather than elsewhere. If one says, “Come, sell me that fowl or cloth,” the answer is, “Come to the chitoka,” or market-place. This market is an important and cherished institution in Manyuema. The large numbers inspire confidence, and also help to maintain or enforce justice between the traffickers. “To-day,” adds Livingstone, “the market contained over a thousand people carrying earthen pots and cassava, grass-cloth, fishes, and fowls. They were alarmed at my coming among them, and were ready to flee. Many stood afar off in suspicion.” At another time he counted over seven hundred passing his hut on their way to market. It is the supreme pleasure of these women to haggle and joke, to laugh and chaffer. The sight of the throng is a peculiar one: women, some old, some young and beautiful, are mingled together.

All chiefs claim the privilege of shaking hands; that is, they touch the hand held out with their palm, then clap two hands together, then touch again and clap again, and the ceremony is ended.

Livingstone gives this description of market-day in Manyuema: “The market is a busy scene; every one is in dead earnest; little time is lost in friendly greetings. Venders of fish run along with potsherds full of snails or small fishes, or young Clarias capensis, smoke-dried and spitted on twigs, or other relishes, to exchange for cassava-roots, dried after being steeped about three days in water; potatoes, vegetables or grain, bananas, flour, palm-oil, fowls, salt, pepper. Each is intensely eager to barter food for relishes, and makes strong assertions as to the goodness or badness of everything; the sweat stands in beads on their faces; cocks crow briskly even when strung over the shoulder, with their heads hanging down, and pigs squeal; iron knobs, drawn out at each end to show the goodness of the metal, are exchanged for cloth of the muabe-palm. They have a large funnel of basket-work below the vessel holding the wares, and slip the goods down, if they are not to be seen.

“They deal fairly, and when differences arise they are easily settled by the men interfering or pointing to me; they appeal to each other and have a strong sense of natural justice. With so much food changing hands among the three thousand attendants, much benefit is derived. Some come from twenty to twenty-five miles. The men flaunt about in gaudy-colored lambas of many-folded kilts; the women work hardest; the potters slap and ring their earthenware all around, to show that there is not a single flaw in them. I bought two finely-shaped earthen bottles of porous earthenware, to hold a gallon each, for one string of beads. The women carry huge loads of them in their funnels above the baskets strapped to the shoulders and foreheads, and their hands are full besides. The roundness of the vessels is wonderful, seeing no machine is used. No slave could be induced to carry half so much as they do willingly. It is a scene of the finest natural acting imaginable,—the eagerness with which all sorts of assertions are made; the earnestness with which, apparently, all creatures above, around, and beneath are called on to attest the truth of what they allege; and then the intense surprise and withering scorn cast on those who despise their goods: but they show no concern when the buyers turn up their noses at them. Little girls run about selling cups of water for a few small fishes to the half-exhausted, wordy combatants. To me it was an amusing scene. I could not understand the words that flowed off their glib tongues, but the gestures were too expressive to need interpretation.

“Dugumbé’s horde tried to domineer over these market-women. ‘I shall buy that,’ said one. ‘These are mine,’ said another. ‘No one must touch these but me,’ said a third. They soon learned, however, that they could not monopolize nor coerce, but must deal fairly. These women are very clever traders, stand by each other, and will not submit to nor allow overreaching by any one.”

But this cheerful scene of eager and active life was doomed to be darkened by a dreadful deed of bloodshed and horror. We leave Livingstone to narrate in his graphic way the story of this merciless and unpardonable massacre of unoffending women:—

“It was a hot and sultry day, and when I went into the market I saw Adie and Manilla and three of the men who had lately come with Dugumbé. I was surprised to see these three with their guns, and felt inclined to reprove them, as one of my men did, for bringing weapons into the market; but I attributed it to their ignorance. It being very hot I was walking away to go out of the market, when I saw one of the fellows haggling about a fowl and seizing hold of it. Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun. Crowds dashed off from the place and threw down their wares in confusion and ran. At the same time that the three opened fire on the mass of people near the upper end of the market-place, volleys were discharged from a party down near the creek on the panic-stricken women who dashed at the canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek. The men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too small for so many. Men and women, wounded by the balls, poured into them and leaped and scrambled into the water, shrieking. A long line of heads in the river showed that great numbers struck out for an island a full mile off. In going toward it they had put the left shoulder to the current of about two miles an hour. If they had struck away diagonally to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land; as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of those that would inevitably perish.

“Shot after shot continued to be fired on the helpless and perishing. Some of the long line of heads disappeared quietly, while other poor creatures threw their arms high, as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank. One canoe took in as many as it could hold, and all paddled with hands and arms; three canoes, got out in haste, picked up sinking friends until all went down together and disappeared. One man in a long canoe, which could have held forty or fifty, had clearly lost his head; he had been out in the stream before the massacre began, and now paddled up the river nowhere, and never looked to the drowning. By and by all the heads disappeared; some had turned down stream toward the bank and disappeared. Dugumbé put people into one of the deserted vessels to save those in the water, and rescued twenty-one; but one woman refused to be taken on board, thinking that she was to be made a slave: she preferred the chance of life by swimming, to the lot of a slave. The Bagenya women are experts in the water, as they are accustomed to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have escaped; but Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life at between three hundred and thirty and four hundred people. The shooting parties near the canoes were so reckless they killed two of their own people; and a Banyamwezi follower who got into a deserted canoe to plunder, fell into the water, went down, then came up again, and down to rise no more.

“My first impulse was to pistol the murderers, but Dugumbé protested against my getting into a blood-feud, and I was thankful afterward that I took his advice.

“After the terrible affair in the water this party of Tagamoio’s, who were the chief perpetrators, continued to fire on the people and burn their villages. As I write I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the depths of the Lualaba. Oh, let Thy kingdom come! No one will ever know the exact loss on this bright, sultry summer morning. It gave me the impression of being in hell. All the slaves in the camp rushed at the fugitives on land and plundered them; women were for hours collecting and carrying loads of what had been thrown down in terror.

“Some escaped to me and were protected. Dugumbé saved twenty-one, and of his own accord liberated them. They were brought to me and remained over night near my house. I sent men with our flag to save some, for without a flag they might have been victims, for Tagamoio’s people were shooting right and left like fiends. I counted twelve villages burning this morning. I asked the question of Dugumbé and others, ‘Now, for what is all this murder?’ All blamed Manilla as its cause, and in one sense he was the cause; but it is hardly credible that they repeat that it is in order to be avenged on Manilla for making friends with head men, he being a slave. The wish to make an impression in the country as to the importance and greatness of the new-comers was the most potent motive; but it was terrible that the murdering of so many should be contemplated at all. It made me sick at heart. Who could accompany Dugumbé and Tagamoio to Lomané and be free from blood-guiltiness?

“I proposed to Dugumbé to catch the murderers and hang them up in the market-place as our protest against the bloody deeds before the Manyuema. If, as he and others added, the massacre was committed by Manilla’s people he would have consented, but it was done by Tagamoio’s people and others of the party headed by Dugumbé.

“This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious as we have always heard that women coming to and from market have never been known to be molested. Even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities ‘the women’ say they ‘pass among us to market unmolested,’ nor has one ever been known to be plundered by the men. These nigger Moslems are inferior to the Manyuema in justice and right. The people under Hasani began the superwickedness of capture and pillage of all indiscriminately. Dugumbé promised to send over men to order Tagamoio’s men to cease firing and burning villages. They remained over among the ruins, feasting on goats and fowls, all night, and next day continued their infamous work till twenty-seven villages were destroyed.

“I restored thirty of the rescued to their friends.... An old man called Kabolo came for his old wife. I asked her if this was her husband; she went to him and put her arms lovingly around him and said ‘Yes.’ I gave her five strings of beads to buy food, all her stores being destroyed with her house. She bowed down and put her forehead to the ground as thanks, and old Kabolo did the same; the tears stood in her eyes as she went off.

“The murderous assault on the market-people felt to me like Gehenna without the fire and brimstone; but the heat was oppressive, and the firearms pouring their iron bullets on the fugitives was not an inapt representation of burning in the bottomless pit.”

CHAPTER CLXIV.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE MANYUEMA—Concluded.

THEIR BLOOD-THIRSTY CHARACTER — BRUTAL CUSTOMS — UNTRUTHFUL BUT HONEST — FEAR OF GUNS — BAD REPUTATION — CANNIBALISM — ONLY ENEMIES EATEN — ABUNDANCE OF FOOD — WANT OF POLITICAL COHESION — NO PROGRESS — THE SAFURA — THE COUNTRY UNHEALTHY — THE SOKO — LIVINGSTONE’S GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.

The Manyuema do not lack in industry and energy. In their villages they are orderly, courteous and kind toward each other. But if a man of another district ventures into a village, it is in peril of his life; he is not regarded as one of their tribe, and is almost sure to be killed. Those who served as guides to Livingstone would desert him as they approached a village, not daring to go near those between whom and their own people there was a bitter feud. The head men of the villages, in a strange blindness, often enlist by gifts of ivory the Arab traders to inflict punishment upon their enemies. Livingstone passed through eleven villages that had been burned, and all on account of one string of beads,—a mournful illustration of the barbarities committed.

The better he became acquainted with this people the more convinced was he of their degraded and blood-thirsty character. He noticed at one time a pretty woman, the young wife of Monasimba. Ten goats were given for her. Her friends, not satisfied, came and tried to obtain another goat. This being refused they enticed her away. She became sick and died a few days afterward, yet no one expressed one word of regret for the beautiful young creature, but all the grief was for the loss of the goats. “Oh, our ten goats! Our ten goats! Oh, oh!”

Monasimba went to his wife, and after washing he may appear among men. If no widow can be obtained, he must sit naked behind his house till some one happens there; all the clothes he wore are thrown away. The man who killed a woman goes free; he offered his grandmother to be killed in his stead, and after a great deal of talk nothing was done to him. They are the lowest of the low especially in blood-thirstiness.

A strong man among them is lawless, doing whatever he lists without any remonstrance or resistance by the head man. Thus, for example, a man’s wife was given away to another for ten goats, and then his child was sold also. For goats and cattle this people will do any mean or brutal thing.

Livingstone has to record this testimony after discovering some new proofs respecting the debasement of this people: “The Manyuema are the most bloody, callous savages I know. One puts a scarlet feather from a parrot’s tail on the ground, and challenges those near to stick it in the hair. He who accepts this challenge must kill a man or a woman.

“Another custom is that none dare wear the skin of the musk-cat (ngawa) unless he has murdered somebody. Guns alone prevent their killing us all, and for no reason either; some will kill people in order to be permitted to wear the red tail-feathers of the parrot in their hair. Yet these are not ugly-looking like the West Coast negroes, for many of the men have as finely formed heads as can be found in London. We English, if naked, would make but poor figures beside the strapping forms and finely-shaped limbs of Manyuema men and women.”

So blood-thirsty are the people that travellers are asked everywhere that some of their fellow-men be killed. They are afraid to go to villages three or four miles off, because there are murderers of fathers and mothers and other relations living there. The moral condition of this people is one of pre-eminent degradation.

They are far from being a generous people. Hassani, a Moslem trader, told Dr. Livingstone that no Manyuema had ever presented him with a mouthful of food, not even a potato or banana, though he had made many presents to them. They are untruthful as a people, but very honest. No articles are even purloined by them. If a fowl or goat be lost or anything else, it may be known that an Arab slave is the thief. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that Livingstone and the Arab merchants kept their fowls in the Manyuema villages, to prevent their being stolen by their own slaves. A conscientious, rigorous sense of justice, allied with their blood-thirstiness, is a singular feature in the character of this tribe.

The Manyuema have great fear of guns. Often a man will borrow one to help him settle a dispute. Going with it on his shoulder he can readily adjust the difficulty by the fear the weapon inspires, even though it is known by his opponent that he could not use it.

Though the presence of guns will always awaken such terror, yet if their enemies be armed only with spears, however numerous, these men are brave. It is a common expression “The Manyuema are bad.” They are exceedingly cruel among themselves, but their reputation for badness is in no small degree caused by the representations of the Arab traders, who plunder them in every possible way. It is no wonder that some badness should be manifested when their huts are appropriated without leave, compensation, or thanks. Firewood, pots, baskets, food, in fact everything is taken that they fancy. The women usually flee into the forest, to return only after the invaders have gone, but to find their possessions plundered or destroyed. If treated kindly, they make overtures of friendship by gifts of provisions and fruits. The Arabs will eat up all they can lay hands on, and then say, “The Manyuema are bad, very bad.”

In respect to cannibalism, it is the fact that the Manyuema eat only their foes and those who are killed in war. Some have alleged that captives also are eaten, and that a slave is bought with a goat to be eaten, but there is doubt of the truth of this assertion. From the most careful observation, Livingstone concluded that it is only those slain in battle who are eaten, and this in revenge. Mokandira said, “The meat is not nice; it makes one dream of the dead man.”

On the west of Lualaba it is thought that men eat those bought for the purpose of a feast. All unite in saying that human flesh is saltish, and needs very little condiment.

At the market a stranger appeared who had ten human under-jaw bones hung on a string over his shoulder. When interrogated he professed to have killed and eaten the owners, and he showed with his knife how he had cut them up. When disgust was expressed at his recital he and others laughed.

A great fight had taken place at Muanampunda’s, and Livingstone saw the meat cut up to be cooked. The natives betrayed a shame about the matter, and said, “Go on, and let our feast alone.” They eat their foes to inspire courage. It will seem very remarkable that this custom prevails, for there is no want of food of all kinds. The country is full of it, overflowing with farinaceous products, with meat and every variety of fish, and they have stimulating luxuries in palm-toddy, tobacco or bange. With nature so lavish of her gifts, showing that cannibalism is not the result of want or starvation, it must be merely a depraved appetite that craves for meat that we call “high.”

“They are said to bury a dead body for a couple of days in the soil in a forest, and in that time, owing to the climate, it soon becomes putrid enough to regale the strongest stomachs.”

The great necessity of this people is some bond of union or national life. But there is no supreme chief in Manyuema or Balegga, and thus the tribe is disintegrated. Each head man regards himself as mologhwe or chief, however small his village, even if only four or five huts, and so is independent. This explains the fact of no political cohesion among the people. Jealousy and fear of each other among the head men are the great obstacles to their uniting for the common welfare. With no unity of interest, no concert of action, no ruler to whom all must pay allegiance, it is inevitable that offences must come, and feuds and wars will follow. Crimes against person or property cannot be punished except by revenge, reprisal, war, in which blood is shed. Enmities are thus caused between neighboring villages that last for generations, resulting in a vast amount of rapine and suffering. In this condition of mutual hostility they become the easy prey of the Arab adventurers, succumbing to their extortion and rapacity with only the feeblest resistance.

No progress or improvement is made among this tribe; they seem to have come to a permanent stand-still. The influence of intelligent and wise chiefs does not avail to start them out of the degradation into which their character and life have crystallized. Moenékuss was a sagacious ruler, ambitious to improve the condition of his people. He paid smiths to teach his sons how to work in copper and iron, but he could never inspire them with his own generous and far-seeing spirit. They could not emulate his virtues, being devoid of all magnanimity, sagacity, or ambition.

The disease called safura, the result of clay or earth eating, is quite common among the Manyuema. Though slaves are more addicted to this habit, yet it is not confined to them. They do not eat clay in order to end their lives and their sufferings. The Manyuema women eat it when pregnant, and many who do not lack food will form this fatal appetite. The disease shows itself in swollen feet, loss of flesh, and haggard face. The victim walks with great difficulty on account of shortness of breath and weakness, and yet persists in eating till death terminates his life. Only by the most powerful drastics and entire abstinence from clay-eating can a cure be effected after one has become diseased with safura.

The Manyuema country is unhealthy, not so much from fevers as from a general prostration caused by the damp, cold, and indigestion. This debility is ascribed by some to the maize, which is the common food, producing weakness of the bowels or choleraic purging. Ulcers form on any part of the body that is abraded, and they are like a spreading fungus, for the matter adhering to any part of the body forms a fresh centre of propagation. These ulcers will eat very rapidly if not allowed quiet. They are exceedingly difficult of healing, eating into the bone, especially on the shins. Many slaves die of them. Rheumatism is frequent, and many of the natives die of it. Tape-worm is common, and no remedy is known to the Arabs or natives.

One of the animals found in Manyuema is so remarkable as to require some special notice. It is undoubtedly a new species of the chimpanzee, and not the gorilla. The stuffed specimen of the latter in the British Museum was seen by Susi and Chuma, Livingstone’s men, and they, familiar with the sight of sokos, pronounced them unlike the gorilla, yet as large and as strong.

The description, by Livingstone, of this animal is so graphic and interesting that we give it below in full:—“They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady its body. When thus seen the soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ‘dear,’ but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentleman in him.

“Other animals, especially the antelopes, are graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion. The natives also are well-made, lithe, and comely to behold, but the soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil.

“He takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light-yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and faint apology for a beard; the forehead, villainously low, with high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development.

“The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow, and the eagerness with which the Manyuema devour it leaves the impression that eating sokos was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals. They say the flesh is delicious. The soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping children and running up trees with them.

“He seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that drops the child; the young soko in such a case would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and naked, when a soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go. A man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a soko; it seized the spear and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his companions, ‘Soko has caught me!’ The soko bit off the ends of his fingers and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarré.

“The soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes that no one can stalk him in front, without being seen; hence, when shot, it is always in the back. When surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back too; otherwise, he is not a very formidable beast. He is nothing, as compared in power of damaging his assailant, to a leopard or lion, but is more like a man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are long and formidable.

“Numbers of them come down in the forest within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue like fox-hounds: this is their nearest approach to speech. A man hoeing was stalked by a soko and seized. He roared out, but the soko giggled and grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child caught up by a soko is often abused by being pinched and scratched and let fall.

“The soko kills the leopard occasionally by seizing both paws and biting them so as to disable them; he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the leopard dies. At other times both soko and leopard die. The lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him. The soko eats no flesh; small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound. One, staféné, or Manyuema mamwa, is like large, sweet sop, but indifferent in taste and flesh. The soko brings forth at times twins. A very large soko was seen by Mohamad’s hunters sitting picking his nails. They tried to stalk him, but he vanished.

“Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise as sokos, and one was killed, with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong and fears guns, but not spears; he never catches women.

“Sokos collect together and make a drumming noise, some say with hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells, which are well imitated by the natives’ embryotic music. When men hear them, they go to the sokos; but sokos never go to men with hostility. Manyuema say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’

“If a man has no spear the soko goes away satisfied; but if wounded he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin. He draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood. He does not wish an encounter with an armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him.

“They live in communities of about ten, each having his own female. An intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of another he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries the child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother.”

Sometime after the soko hunt, which gave rise to the striking portrait of the beast that Livingstone has left, Katomba presented to him a young soko that had been caught when its mother was killed. “She sits eighteen inches high; has fine, long black hair all over, which was pretty, so long as it was kept in order by her dam. She is the least mischievous of all the monkey tribe I have seen, and seems to know that in me she has a friend, and sits quietly on the mat beside me. In walking the first thing I observed is, that she does not tread on the palms of her hands, but on the backs of the second line of bones of the hands; in doing this the nails do not touch the ground, nor do the knuckles. She uses the arms thus supported crutch-fashion, and hitches herself along between them; occasionally, one hand is put down before the other, and alternates with the feet, or she walks upright, and holds up a hand to any one to carry her; if refused she turns her face down and makes grimaces of the most bitter human weeping, wringing her hands, and sometimes adding a fourth hand or foot to make the appeal more touching. Grass or leaves she draws around her to make a nest, and resents any one meddling with her property. She is a most friendly little beast, and came up to me at once, making her chirrup of welcome, smelled my clothing, and held out her hand to be shaken. I slapped her palm without offence, though she winced. She began to untie the cord, with which she was afterward bound, with fingers and thumbs in quite a systematic way, and on being interfered with by a man, looked daggers, and screaming, tried to beat him with her hands. She was afraid of his stick and faced him, putting her back to me as a friend. She holds out her hand for people to lift her up and carry her quite like a spoiled child, then bursts into a passionate cry, somewhat like that of a kite, wrings her hands quite naturally, as if in despair. She eats everything, covers herself with a mat to sleep, and makes a nest of grass or leaves, and wipes her face with a leaf.”

A soko alive is thought by the natives to be a good charm for rain. There being a drought, one was caught; but the captor met with the usual fate of those men who, without weapons, contend with this animal; he lost the ends of his fingers and toes.

CHAPTER CLXV.
AFRICA—Continued.
UNYAMWEZI.

SIGNIFICATION OF UNYAMWEZI — EXTENT OF ITS TERRITORY — CHARMING SCENERY — STANLEY’S DESCRIPTION — TREES OF FOREST — FRUIT-BEARING TREES — THE “MEDICINE MAN” — CREDULITY OF THE PEOPLE — DISEASE — PEN-PORTRAIT OF A MNYAMWEZI — THE YANKEE OF AFRICA — LOVE OF MUSIC — SINGULAR CUSTOMS IN REGARD TO BIRTH AND BURIAL — OLD AGE SELDOM SEEN — PROBABLE EXTINCTION OF THIS TRIBE.

Although an extended and interesting account of the people of Unyamwezi has been given in a former portion of this work (see page 386), we think our readers will be grateful for the additional sketch of them compiled from Stanley’s “Travels and Adventures in Central Africa,” resulting from his romantic and successful expedition in search of Livingstone.

The name Wanyamwezi, or Banyamwezi, as Livingstone gives it, is derived, he says, from an ivory ornament of the shape of the new moon, hung to the neck, with a horn reaching round over either shoulder. The tradition is that their forefathers came from the sea coast, and when people inquired after them they said, “We mean the men of the moon ornament.” This ornament is worn very extensively now and a large amount of ivory is used in its manufacture. Sometimes, however, the curved tusks of hippopotami are substituted for ivory.

If the name referred to the “moon ornament” as the people think, the name would be Ba or Wamwezi, but Banyamwezi means probably Ba, they or people, Nya, place, Mwezi, moon, people of the moon locality or moonland.

Note.—M is a prefix to denote a person of any country, as, for example, M-jiji, a native of Jiji. U is a prefix to denote the country, as U-jiji, meaning the country of the Jiji. Wa denotes persons, thus, Wa-jiji, means people of the Jiji. Wa-nya-mwezi, the people of Mwezi.

The pronunciation of this word, Unyamwezi, by the natives is Oo-nya-mwezi. Its meaning, according to the African explorers, Krapf, Burton, Speke, is “Country of the Moon.” Mr. Desbrough Cooley thinks it means “Lord of the World,” and its orthography, he thinks, should be Monomoezi. Mr. Stanley, however, differs from them all, and gives the following as the reason for his interpretation: There once lived a powerful and successful king in Ukalaganza, the original name of the country as known to the western tribes. His name was Mwezi, and after his death his sons contended for the possession of his power. The portions they secured as the result of their wars were named from them. The people of the central portion, Ukalaganza, accepting the one whom the old king had appointed his successor, came to be known at length as Children of Mwezi, and the country as Unyamwezi, while the other districts were called Konongo, Sagozi, Gunda, Simbiri, etc. This theory, so in conflict with the opinion of other travellers, Stanley bases upon a tradition related to him by the old chief of Masangi, which lies on the road to Mfuto. He confirms it also by the fact that the name of the king of Urundi is Mwezi, and the name of almost every village in Africa is named from some chief either living or dead.

This country contains about 24,500 square miles, and is divided into districts known as Unyanyembe, the most populous, Ugunda, Usagara, Ugara, Nguru, Usongo, etc.

No portion of East or Central Africa equals Unyamwezi in beauty of scenery. The blending of its forests with the clearings and plains, the rocky elevations here and there seen rising above the vari-colored leafage that lies like a carpet widely extended, constitute a view of unusual attraction. Though there are no majestic mountains, no picturesque or startling scenes, and a journey through the country does not awaken the emotion of sublimity, yet the landscape, as far as the eye can stretch in every direction, is one so lovely as to be forever remembered.

Stanley in describing it says, “The foliage is of all the colors of the prism; but as the woods roll away into the distance, the calm, mysterious haze enwraps them in its soft shroud, paints them first a light blue, then gradually a deeper blue, until, in the distance, there appears but a dim looming, and on gazing at its faded contour we find ourselves falling into a day-dream, as indistinct in its outline as the view which appears in the horizon. I defy any one to gaze on such a scene without wishing his life would fade away as serenely as the outlines of the forests of Unyamwezi.”

These forests abound with a great variety of trees, the wood of which, according to the peculiarity of each, is made useful by the natives.

The mkurongo is harder and more lasting than hickory and is susceptible of a very high polish. The pestle for pounding grain is made of this tree.

The bark from which their cloth is made comes from the mbugu. After being thoroughly soaked, it is pounded and then dried and rubbed, so that it resembles felt. The natives sometimes make ropes from this bark, and also round boxes for storing grain. These they ornament in various ways.

Another tree, called the imbite, is capable of being ornamentally carved, when made into the shape of doors and pillars. As it also emits an agreeable odor, this quality, with its beautiful color, makes it a choice and favorite wood. Stanley mentions some twenty other varieties, most of which are made subservient to some useful purpose. These trees abound everywhere in equatorial Africa.

From the Guinea palm-tree the natives extract an intoxicating liquor, called “tembo.” A toddy which they call “zogga” is made from plantains.

There are various fruit-bearing trees in Central Africa, and the kinds of grapes, some of which are poisonous, are numerous. The common articles of food among the different tribes are sorghum, sesame, millet, and maize or Indian corn, pulse, beans, and rice, with many kinds of fish. There is one kind called “dogara,” which, though one of the smallest, contributes more than any other to the food of the people. It is minute, a kind of white-bait, and is caught in nets in great quantities, in Lake Tanganyika. They are then dried in the sun or salted, and often become an article of commerce as far as Unyanyembe.

Belief in the power of the “medicine man” is almost unlimited. The natives thought Stanley was able to make rain; that, with some preparation, he could kill all the people of Mirambo, a hostile chief who was making frequent raids upon them. They would carry their sick to him, believing he could cure them. It was only by his most earnest and positive assertion that he possessed no such power that he could satisfy them. One old man took to him a fine, fat sheep and a dish of vegetables, to enlist his services in curing a chronic dysentery, but he refused them, disclaiming any ability to help him.

This credulity of the people is the basis of the wide and sometimes terrible sway of the “medicine man” in Africa. Says Stanley, “No hunting expedition of Wanyamwezi starts without having consulted the mganga (medicine man), who, for a consideration, supplies them with charms, potions, herbs, and blessings. A bit of the ear of a zebra, the blood of a lion, the claw of a leopard, the lip of a buffalo, the tail of a giraffe, the eyebrow of a harte-beest, are treasures not to be parted with save for a monetary value. To their necks are suspended a bit of quartz, polished and of triangular shape, and pieces of carved wood, and an all-powerful talisman in the shape of a plant, sewed up jealously in a small leathern pouch.”

The same diseases to which civilized peoples are subject prevail in Central and East Africa. The most terrible scourge of all is the small-pox; its ravages are seen everywhere on the line of caravans and in the depopulation of villages. A rigorous quarantine is attempted, yet multitudes die by this foul and fearful disease. If any of a caravan become sick with it, they are left in the wilderness, as the caravan can not stop. The poor sufferers will not be received into any village. They therefore betake themselves to the jungle, with store of food and water, and there await the issue of recovery or death,—most frequently the latter. The skulls bleaching in the air on the line of every caravan indicate the ravages made by this loathsome disease.

Mr. Stanley thinks the Wanyamwezi are the most remarkable tribe in Central Africa. His fine characterization of them, given below, is taken from his interesting book, “How I found Livingstone.”

“A beau ideal of a Mnyamwezi to me will be a tall, long-limbed black man, with a good-natured face, always with a broad smile upon it; displaying in the upper row of teeth a small hole, which was cut out when he was a boy to denote his tribe; with hundreds of long, wiry ringlets hanging down his neck; almost naked, giving me a full view of a form which would make an excellent model for a black Apollo. I have seen many of this tribe in the garb of the freedmen of Zanzibar, sporting a turban of new American sheeting, or wearing the long diskdasheh (shirt) of the Arab, presenting as fine and intelligent an appearance as any Msawahili from the Zanzibar coast,—but I cannot rid myself of my ideal.

“A Mnyamwezi is the Yankee of Africa; he is a born trader and traveller. From days immemorial his tribe has monopolized the carrying of goods from one country to another. The Mnyamwezi is the camel, the horse, the mule, the ass, the beast of burden to which all travellers anxiously look to convey their luggage from the coast to the far African interior. The Arab can go nowhere without his help; the white traveller, bound on an exploring trip, cannot travel without him.... He is like the sailor, having his habitat in certain sailors’ boarding houses in great seaport towns, and, like the sailor, is a restless rover. The sea-coast to a Mnyamwezi is like New York to an English sailor. At New York the English sailor can re-ship with higher pay; so can the Mnyamwezi re-hire himself on the coast, for a return trip, at a higher rate than from Unyamwezi to the sea. He is in such demand, and during war time so scarce, that his pay is great, ranging from thirty-six to one hundred yards of cloth. A hundred of these bites de somme will readily cost the traveller 10,000 yards of cloth even as far as Unyanyembe, a three months’ journey, and 10,000 yards of cloth represent $5,000 in gold.

“The Wanyamwezi, weighted with the bales of Zanzibar, containing cottons and domestics from Massachusetts, calicoes from England, prints from Muscat, cloths from Cutch, beads from Germany, brass wire from Great Britain, may be found on the Lualaba, in the forests of Ukawendi, on the hills of Uganda, the mountains of Karagwah, on the plains of Urori, on the plateau of Ugogo, in the park lands of Ukonongo, in the swamps of Useguhha, in the defiles of Usagara, in the wilderness of Ubena, among the pastoral tribes of the Watuta, trudging along the banks of the Rufigi, in slave-trading Kilwa,—everywhere throughout Central Africa.

“While journeying with caravans they are docile and tractable; in their villages they are a merry-making set; on trading expeditions of their own they are keen and clever; as Ruga-Ruga they are unscrupulous and bold; in Ukonongo they are hunters; in Usukuma they are drovers and iron smelters; in Lunda they are energetic searchers for ivory; on the coast they are a wondering and awe-struck people.”

The Wanyamwezi are very industrious and quite ingenious. They smelt their iron, and make their weapons of war and implements of agriculture. They are ready to exchange their hatchets, bill-hooks, spears, bows, etc., for cloth. It is a common sight,—the peddler endeavoring to make a barter trade with his various wares. He will sell a first-class bow for four yards of sheeting, and two yards will buy a dozen arrows.

They are quite clever smiths and manufacture iron and copper wire. The process is as follows: a heavy piece of iron with a funnel-shaped hole is firmly fixed in the fork of a tree. A fine rod is then thrust into it and a line attached to the first few inches which can be coaxed through. A number of men haul on this line singing and dancing in tune and thus it is drawn through the first drill; it is subsequently passed through others to render it finer. Excellent wire is the result.

Love of music is one of the characteristics of this tribe, as of almost all Africans. Though the music is rude, yet those who hear it are not usually the most accomplished and fastidious critics. It therefore has its uses and merits. Sometimes it is made the vehicle of satire or humor. The latest scandal or sensation is incorporated into the song, for many of the people have the faculty of the improvisatore, and so contribute to the amusement or interest of their villages by these allusions to or criticisms of matters of public concern or personal gossip.

The women are generally very homely and coarse, unlike those of the Batusi who are very often beautiful. Their chief ornament is of the half-moon shape. They are not generous having learned the Arab adage “nothing for nothing” yet they are respectful in deportment.

This tribe have some very singular customs in regard to birth and burial. “When a child is born,” says Mr. Stanley, “the father cuts the caul, and travels with it to the frontier of his district, and there deposits it under the ground; if the frontier be a stream, he buries it on the banks; then taking the root of a tree, he conveys it, on his return, and buries it at the threshold of his door. He then invites his friends to a feast that he has prepared. He kills an ox or half a dozen goats, and distributes pombe. The mother, when approaching childbirth, hastens to the woods, and is there attended by a female friend.

“After death the Wanyamwezi remove the body into the jungle, or, if a person of importance, bury it in a sitting posture, or on its side, as in Wagogo. On the march the body is merely thrown aside and left for a prey to the hyena, the cleanest scavenger of the forest. When death has taken away a member of a family, it is said by the relatives of the deceased, that the ‘Miringu has taken him or her,’ or, ‘He or she is lost,’ or, ‘It is God’s work.’”

Very few old men are seen in Central Africa. There are the evidences in every village of premature age, such as gray hair and bent forms. The Wanyamwezi seem to be diminishing in numbers. What with emigration to other tribes, the hardships of the life of travel and burden-bearing to which many of them are exposed, and the ravages of the slave wars in which their chiefs are engaged, this people is evidently dying out. It is a saddening spectacle, this decay and disappearance of one of the most intelligent and capable tribes of Africa.

It is the testimony of Stanley that “eight out of ten of the bleached skulls along the line of commerce in the interior are those of the unfortunate Wanyamwezi, who succumbed to the perils and privations attending the footsteps of every caravan. What a power in the land might not a philanthropic government make of these people! What a glorious testimony to the charity of civilization might they not become! What docile converts to the gospel truths through a practical missionary would they not make!”

CHAPTER CLXVI.
AFRICA—Continued.
UVINZA AND UHHA.

UVINZA, ITS LOCATION — MODE OF SALUTATION — GREAT MUTWARE OF KIMENYI — HIS EXTORTION — THE CARAVAN STOPPED — LONG PARLEY WITH CHIEF MIONVU — MIONVU’S SPEECH — STANLEY’S REPLY — MIONVU’S DEMAND FOR TRIBUTE — THE CHIEF INFLEXIBLE — STANLEY ENRAGED, BUT POWERLESS — CONSULTATION WITH HIS MEN — THEIR COUNSEL OF PEACE ADOPTED — ENORMOUS BONGA PAID — STANLEY’S STORES SADLY REDUCED — BOLD PLAN TO ESCAPE THE ROBBERS — ITS SUCCESS — LIVINGSTONE FOUND.

On the north of Unyanyembe is Uvinza, a rugged and somewhat mountainous country. Its numerous ravines and ridges, while imparting picturesqueness to the views, do not however contribute to its productiveness. It is but poorly watered, the banks of Malagarazi River being almost the only portion of great fertility. It has many salt pans, from which the people manufacture their salt. Crossing the Malagarazi, new customs and peculiarities greet the traveller. The method of salutation is singular and tiresome. As persons approach, they stretch out both hands to each other, uttering the words “Wake, wake!” They then seize each other by the elbows, and rubbing each other’s arms, say rapidly, “Wake, wake, waky, waky!” and finally terminate the tiresome formula with grunts of “Huh, huh!” as token of satisfaction. They dress in cloth when able to purchase it of the caravans; but if poor, they use “goat-skins, suspended by a knot fastened over the shoulder and falling over one side of their bodies.”

After many perils and delays Stanley entered the Uhha country. The boundary between Uvinza and Uhha, is a narrow, dry ditch. Numerous small villages could be seen, without the usual defence of a stockade, indicating that the people were living in quiet and without fear of marauders. Halting at Kawanga he soon learned from the chief that he was “the great Mutware of Kimenyi under the king, and therefore the tribute-gatherer for his Kiha majesty.” As an illustration of the African character and the difficulties of travelling in the interior, we give the narrative in Stanley’s own words:—

“He declared he was the only one in Kimenyi, an eastern division of Uhha, who could demand tribute, and that it would be very satisfactory to him and a saving of trouble to ourselves if we settled his claim of twelve doti of good cloth at once. We did not think it the best way of proceeding, however, knowing as we did the character of the native African; so we at once proceeded to diminish the demand, but after six hours’ hot argument the mutware only reduced it by two. This claim was then settled upon the understanding that we should be allowed to travel through Uhha, as far as Rusugi River, without being further mulcted.

“Leaving Kawanga early in the morning and continuing our march over the boundless plain we were marching westward, joyfully congratulating ourselves that within five days we should see that which I had come far from civilization and through so many difficulties to see, and were about passing a cluster of villages with all the confidence which men possess against whom no one has further claim or word to say, when I noticed two men darting from a group of natives, who were watching us, and running toward the head of the expedition, with the object, evidently, of preventing further progress.

“The caravan stopped, and I walked forward to ascertain the cause from the two natives. I was greeted politely by the two Wahha with the usual yambos, and was then asked, ‘Why does the white man pass by the village of the King of Uhha without salutation and a gift? Does not the white man know that there lives a king in Uhha to whom the Wangwana and Arabs pay something for the right of passage?’

“‘Why, we paid last night to the chief of Kawanga, who informed us he was the man deputed by the King of Wahha to collect the toll.’

“‘How much did you pay?’

“‘Ten doti of good cloth.’

“‘Are you sure?’

“‘Quite sure. If you ask him he will tell you so.’

“‘Well!’ said one of the Wahha, a fine, handsome, intelligent-looking youth, ‘it is our duty to the king to halt you here until we find out the truth of this. Will you walk to our village and rest yourselves, under the shade of the trees until we can send messengers to Kawanga?’

“‘No, the sun is but an hour high, and we have far to travel; but in order to show you we do not seek to pass through your country without doing that which is right, we will rest where we now stand, and we will send with your messenger two of our soldiers, who will show you the man to whom we paid the cloth.’

“The messenger departed; but in the meantime the handsome youth, who turned out to be a nephew of the king, whispered some order to a lad, who immediately hastened away, with the speed of an antelope, to the cluster of villages we had just passed. The result of this errand, as we soon saw, was the approach of a body of warriors, about fifty in number, headed by a tall, fine-looking man, who was dressed in a crimson robe, called joho, two ends of which were tied in a knot over the left shoulder; a new piece of American sheeting was folded like a turban around his head, and a large, curved piece of polished ivory was suspended to his neck. He and all his people were armed with spears and bows and arrows, and their advance was marked with a deliberation that showed they felt perfect confidence in any issue that might transpire.

“The gorgeously-dressed chief was a remarkable man in appearance. His face was oval in form, with high cheek-bones, eyes deeply sunk, a prominent and bold forehead and a well-cut mouth; he was tall in figure and perfectly symmetrical.

“When near to us he hailed me with the words ‘Yambo, bana?’ (How do you do, master?) in quite a cordial tone.

“I replied cordially also, ‘Yambo, mutware?’ (How do you do, chief?)

“We, myself and men, interchanged yambos with his warriors, and there was nothing to indicate that the meeting was of a hostile character.

“The chief seated himself, his haunches resting on his heels, and laying down his bow and arrows by his side, his men did likewise. I seated myself on a bale, and each of my men sat down on their loads, forming quite a semi-circle. The Wahha slightly outnumbered my party, but while they were armed with only bows and arrows, spears and knob-sticks, we were armed with rifles, muskets, revolvers, pistols, and hatchets.

“All were seated, and deep silence was maintained by the assembly. Then the chief spoke: ‘I am Mionvu, the great Mutware of Kimenyi and am next to the king, who lives yonder,’ pointing to a large village near some naked hills, about ten miles to the north. ‘I have come to talk with the white man. It has always been the custom of the Wangwana and the Arabs to make a present to the king when they pass through his country. Does not the white man mean to pay the king’s dues? Why does the white man halt in the road? Why will he not enter the village of Lukomo, where there are food and shade, where we can discuss this thing quietly? Does the white man mean to fight? I know well he is stronger than we are. His men have guns, and the Wahha have but bows and arrows and spears; but Uhha is large and our villages are many. Let him look about him everywhere: all is Uhha, and our country extends much farther than he can see or walk in a day. The King of Uhha is strong, yet he wishes friendship only with the white man. Will the white man have war or peace?’ A deep murmur of assent followed this speech of Mionvu from his people and disapprobation, blended with uneasiness, from my men.”

Stanley replied as follows:—

“‘Mionvu, the great Mutware, asks me if I have come for war. When did Mionvu ever hear of white men warring against black men? Mionvu must understand that white men are very different from the black. White men do not leave their country to fight the black people, neither do they come here to buy ivory or slaves. They come to make friends with the black people; they come to search for rivers and lakes and mountains; they come to discover what countries, what peoples, what rivers, what lakes, what forests, what plains, what mountains and hills are in your country, that when they go back they may tell the white kings and men and children. The white people are different from the Arabs and Wangwana, the white people know everything and are very strong; when they fight the Arabs and Wangwana run away. We have great guns which thunder, and when they shoot the earth trembles; we have guns which carry bullets further than you can see. Even with these little things (pointing to my revolvers) I could kill ten men quicker than you could count. I could kill Mionvu now, yet I talk to him as a friend. I wish to be a friend to Mionvu and to all black people. Will Mionvu say what I can do for him?’

“As these words were translated to him, imperfectly I suppose but still intelligibly, the faces of the Wahha showed how well they appreciated them. Once or twice I thought I detected something like fear, but my assertions that I desired peace and friendship with them soon obliterated all such feelings.”

Mionvu replied,—

“‘The white man tells me he is friendly: why does he not come to our village? Why does he stop on the road? The sun is hot. Mionvu will not speak here any more. If the white man is a friend he will come to the village.’

“‘We must stop now. It is noon. You have broken our march. We will go and camp in your village,’ I said, at the same time rising, and pointing to the men to take up their loads.

“We were compelled to camp, there was no help for it; the messengers had not returned from Kawanga. Having arrived at his village, Mionvu cast himself at full length under the scanty shade afforded by a few trees without the boma. About 2 P. M. the messengers returned, saying it was true the chief of Kawanga had taken ten cloths, not however for the King of Uhha, but for himself.

“Mionvu, who, evidently, was keen-witted and knew perfectly what he was about, now roused himself and began to make miniature fagots of thin canes, ten to each fagot, and shortly he presented ten of these small bundles, which together contained one hundred, to me, saying, ‘Each stick represents a cloth.’ The amount of the bonga required by the King of Uhha was one hundred cloths,—nearly two bales.

“Recovering from our astonishment, which was almost indescribable, we offered ten. ‘Ten to the King of Uhha! Impossible. You do not stir from Lukomo until you pay one hundred,’ exclaimed Mionvu in a significant manner.

“I returned no answer, but went to my hut, which Mionvu had cleared for my use, and Bombay, Asmani, Mabruski, and Chowpereh were invited to come to me for consultation. Upon my asking them if we could not fight our way through Uhha, they became terror-stricken, and Bombay, in imploring accents, asked me to think well what I was about to do, because it was useless to enter on a war with the Wahha. Said he, ‘Uhha is a plain country; we cannot hide anywhere. Every village will rise all about us; and how can forty-five men fight thousands of people? Think of it, my dear master, and do not throw your life away for a few rags of cloth.’

“‘Well, but, Bombay, this is robbery. Shall we give the fellow everything he asks? He might as well ask me for all the cloth and all my guns without letting him see that we can fight.’

“‘No, no, dear master; don’t think of it for a moment. Pay Mionvu what he asks and let us go away from here. This is the last place we shall have to pay, and in four days we shall be in Ujiji.’

“‘Did Mionvu tell you that this is the last place we should have to pay?’

“‘He did, indeed.’”

Each of the others whom Stanley had chosen as counsellors advised him to yield to the extortion of Mionvu and pay rather than provoke a fight.

“‘Pay, bana,’ said Chowpereh. ‘It is better to get along quietly in this country. If we were strong enough they would pay us.’

“‘Well, then, Bombay and Asmani, go to Mionvu, and offer him twenty; if he will not take twenty, give him thirty; if he refuses thirty, give him forty; then go up to eighty, slowly; make plenty of talk; not one doti more. I swear to you, I will shoot Mionvu if he demands more than eighty. Go, and remember to be wise.’

“I will cut the matter short. At 9 P. M. sixty-four doti were handed over to Mionvu for the King of Uhha, six doti for himself, and five doti for his sub,—altogether seventy-five doti, a bale and a quarter.

“No sooner had we paid than they began to fight amongst themselves over the booty. At dawn we were on the road, very silent and sad.”

After a four hours’ march, crossing the Kanengi River, they entered the boma of Kahirigi, and were told that the brother of the King of Uhha lived there. This roused the apprehension that another exaction of bonga would be made, despite Mionvu’s assertion that his was the last. The king’s brother demanded thirty doti, or half a bale. Stanley was in a rage, ready and willing to fight and die rather than be “halted by a set of miserable, naked robbers.”

He was also informed that there were five more chiefs about two hours’ distance apart from each other. This intelligence led him to adopt a plan of evading this extortion. Accordingly, arrangements were secretly made for leaving the usual route and taking to the jungle; and though the plan came near being defeated several times, yet at length success crowned the adventurous undertaking, and Stanley “had passed the boundary of wicked Uhha and entered Ukaranga,—an event that was hailed with extravagant shouts of joy.”

He saw inevitable ruin before him if his cloth was to be filched from him at this rate by other chiefs. Beggary or bravery was the alternative. He chose the latter. In a few days afterward he found Livingstone at Ujiji.

CHAPTER CLXVII.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE MONBUTTOO.

DR. SCHWEINFURTH, THE DISCOVERER OF THIS TRIBE — THEIR LOCALITY — THEIR GOVERNMENT — KINGS DOGBERRA AND MUNZA — BONGWA AND HIS WIFE VISIT DR. SCHWEINFURTH — RECEPTION OF SCHWEINFURTH BY IZINGERRIA — PIPES OF THE MONBUTTOO — THEIR ACCURACY OF JUDGMENT — WONDERFUL BEAUTY OF THE COUNTRY — KING MUNZA’S COURT — ARROWS OF THE MONBUTTOO — DRESS AND MARTIAL EQUIPMENTS — NEGLECT OF AGRICULTURE — SPHERE OF THE WOMEN — SUBJECTION OF THE MEN — UNCHASTITY OF BOTH SEXES — THEIR CANNIBALISM.

Dr. G. A. Schweinfurth, a young German explorer, having received a grant of money from the Humboldt Institution in 1868, landed in Egypt and thence penetrated the “heart of Africa.” Following out the footsteps of Sir Samuel Baker, he took a westerly course and passing through the country of Niam-niam (of which there is an account on pages 440-444) he visited the hitherto unknown kingdom of Monbuttoo. His scientific and ethnological discoveries have placed his name among the eminent explorers of the African continent, and the results of his explorations, published under the title, “In the Heart of Africa,” are given to the public in a style that is rarely equalled.

On the south of the Niam-niam territory, between the parallels of 3° and 4° north lat. and 28° and 29° east long. there is a district of some 4,000 square miles inhabited by a people differing widely from the usual type of the negro race. They are of a brownish complexion, and are in many respects superior to the tribes of Central Africa. They are generally called Monbuttoo, though the name of Gurrugurroo is applied by the ivory traders. It is derived from the custom universal among this people of piercing their ears. The density of population, estimated from the observations of Dr. Schweinfurth, is probably not exceeded by any portion of the continent. If the average be, as he thought, at least two hundred and fifty inhabitants to a square mile, the aggregate must be about a million people.

The government of this tribe, when Dr. Schweinfurth visited it, was in the hands of two chieftains who had divided the sovereignty between them. Dogberra was the king of the Eastern Division, while the Western was under the sway of Munza, a more powerful and capable man. His father was Tikkibah, who was the sole ruler of the Monbuttoo country, but had been murdered by Dogberra, his brother, some thirteen years before.

Nembey, a local chieftain under Dogberra, was visited by Schweinfurth as soon as he entered the Monbuttoo territory, and showed his friendly disposition by going to the hut of the explorer with his wives and carrying a present of poultry. Schweinfurth was treated in the same friendly way by Bongwa, another chief whose district he entered. This Bongwa was subject to pay tribute to Munza and Dogberra alike, as his possessions were contiguous to those of the rival kings.

Bongwa, attended by his wife, made a visit to the camp of Schweinfurth and permitted him the unusual privilege of taking a sketch of both himself and his better-half. Madame Bongwa took her seat on a Monbuttoo bench, clad in nothing save “a singular band like a saddle-girth across her lap, in the fashion of all the women of the country.” Her complexion was several shades lighter than that of her husband. The tattooing upon her person was quite remarkable and consisted of two different kinds. A portion ran over the bosom and shoulders, forming a line and ornament just where our ladies wear their lace collars, which terminated in large crosses on the breast. The other pattern was traced over the stomach, and stood out in such relief that it must have been made by a hot iron. “It consisted of figures set in square frames, and looked like the tracery which is sculptured on cornices and old arches. Bodkins of ivory projected from her towering chignon, which was surmounted by a plate as large as a dollar, fastened on by a comb with fine teeth manufactured of porcupine-quills.”

The reception of Dr. Schweinfurth and his party by Izingerria, King Munza’s viceroy and brother, was so hospitable as to be worthy of narration. It was somewhat late in the afternoon that they made their entrance into the viceroy’s mbanga. Both sides of the roadway were thronged with wondering people who were attracted by curiosity to see the white strangers. The officials were arrayed in full state, their hats ornamented with plumes waving in the air. Their shield-bearers accompanied them, and benches were brought so that they might receive their guests with ease and sit comfortably to observe their appearance in the interview.

When Schweinfurth visited Izingerria in the evening at his dwelling, he found him sitting on his bench in the open space, surrounded by his chief men. It is a custom of the country that all persons of any distinction, heads of families and officials, when they pay a visit, take with them their slaves who carry their benches, because, unlike the Turks, the Munbuttoo consider it very unbecoming to sit upon the ground even though it be covered with mats. The bench is indispensable. The women sit on stools having only one leg. Having been made acquainted with this custom, Schweinfurth always gave instructions that some of his party should accompany him carrying his cane chair.

In this interview they sat opposite each other, and by a double translation were enabled to confer together till late in the night. There were none of the usual expression of hospitalities. Even the explorer’s cigars did not attract the natives, though they smoke tobacco excessively, nor did they offer the accustomed eleusine beer.

The Monbuttoo pipes, though of a primitive character are ingenious and serviceable. They are made of the mid-rib of a plantain leaf generally, though the upper classes often use a metal tube, some five feet long and made by their smiths. “The lower extremity of the pipe is plugged up and an opening is made in the side, near the end, into which is inserted a plantain leaf twisted up and filled with tobacco. This extemporized bowl is changed as often as requisite, sometimes every few minutes, by the slaves who are kept in attendance. The only tobacco that is known here is the Virginian.” Pipes constructed in this novel way have a decided merit in modifying the rankness of the tobacco as perfectly as if it had been inhaled through the water-reservoir of a narghileh.

It excited the wonder of Dr. Schweinfurth that the natives could so accurately, by the indication of the finger, point to any particular place. Their skill in telling the hour of the day by the elevation of the sun was equally surprising. He could rarely detect an error of more than half an hour in their conjectures. On the plains and deserts like those of Nubia a straight course is often pursued for many miles without the least variation. The exactitude of their estimate is so remarkable that if a lance be laid upon the ground the path to which it directs will lead with scarcely a hair’s-breadth deviation to the destination desired. This singular precision of judgment has been observed and mentioned by other African travellers.

Munza’s kingdom which Schweinfurth at length entered lies about midway between the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean in the “heart of Africa.” The description of this remote region, hitherto unvisited by the white man, we give in his own language:—

“Nothing could be more charming than that last day’s march, which brought us to the limit of our wanderings. The twelve miles which led to Munza’s palace were miles enriched by such beauty as might be worthy of Paradise. The plantain groves harmonized so perfectly with the clustering oil-palms that nothing could surpass the perfection of the scene; whilst the ferns that adorned the countless stems in the background of the landscape enhanced the charms of the tropical groves. A clear and invigorating atmosphere contributed to the enjoyment of it all, refreshing water and grateful shade being never far away. In front of the native dwellings towered the splendid fig-trees of which the spreading coronets defied the passage of the sun. The crowds of bearers made their camp around the stem of a colossal Cordia Abyssinica, which stood upon the open space in front of the abode of the local chief and reminded me of the Abyssinian villages, where this tree is cultivated.... These trees with their goodly coronets of spreading foliage are the survivors from generations that are gone, and form a comely ornament in well-nigh all the villages of the Monbuttoo.

“And then, finally, conspicuous amidst the massy depths of green was descried the palace of the king. Halting on the hither side of a stream at a place clear of trees they fixed their camp. In front was visible a sloping area covered with a multitude of huts, some in a conical shape and others like sheds. Surmounting all with ample courts, broad and imposing, unlike anything we had seen since we left the edifices of Cairo, upreared itself the spacious pile of King Munza’s dwelling.”

The king is invested with large prerogatives, and always appears in great state, accompanied with a numerous body of courtiers. Whenever he leaves his residence he is attended by hundreds of his retinue, besides his special body-guard, and a large number of trumpeters, drummers, and subordinates with great iron bells lead the procession. Munza had three viceroys in the persons of his brothers, and next to them were the sub-chiefs who were governors of the provinces, and generally selected from the numerous members of the blood royal.

The subordinate chiefs, to whom are assigned separate and well-defined portions of the Monbuttoo territory, are accustomed to surround themselves with the tokens of authority and state, little inferior to those of their respective kings.

Next to them in rank are the chief officers of state, five in number. “These are the keeper of the weapons, the master of the ceremonies, the superintendent of the commissariat stores, the master of the household to the royal ladies, and the interpreter for intercourse with strangers and foreign rulers.” Besides, there is a vast number of civil officers and overseers in various districts of the land to guard the interests and maintain the prerogatives and dignity of the sovereign. In addition to the courtiers there are numerous officials assigned to special duties, such as private musicians, trumpeters and buglers, eunuchs and jesters, ballad singers and dancers, who are retained to give splendor to the court and furnish amusement on public and festal occasions. There are also stewards whose duty is to maintain order at the feasts, and they are authorized to inflict bodily chastisement if any be guilty of disturbance and indecorum.

The arrows of the Monbuttoo differ from those of other tribes except the A-Banga, by being furnished at the extremity of the shaft with two wings. These are made either of pieces of plantain leaves or of hairs of the tail of the genet. The points, when not of iron, are made of a kind of wood that is almost as hard as iron. The shaft consists of the firm, reedy steppe-grass, and is about the size of a common lead-pencil. Schweinfurth says, “by a cruel refinement of skill, which might almost be styled diabolical, they contrive to place one of the joints of the reed just below the barbs, with the design that the arrow should break off short as soon as it has inflicted the wound, making it a very difficult matter to extract the barbs from the flesh. The usual method of extracting a lance head is to take a knife and make a sufficiently large incision in the wounded muscle for the barb to be withdrawn, but, in fact, the result generally is that very jagged and troublesome wounds are inflicted.”

The Monbuttoo resemble the A-Banga in their dress and martial equipments. They have the custom of piercing the ears of both sexes so that quite a large stick can be run through the opening. In order to effect this the concave portion of the ear is cut out. This tribe, as well as the A-Banga, have by this peculiarity received the name from the Nubians of Gurrugurroo (derived from the word gurgur, which means “bored,”) to distinguish them from Niam-niam. Both the first-mentioned tribes practise circumcision, while the latter allow no mutilation of the human body.

This people, living in so remote and secluded a region, and having no intercourse with Mohammedan or Christian nations, have never learned the art of weaving. Accordingly their clothing is made of the bast from the bark of the fig-trees, which are so much prized that they may be seen contiguous to almost every hut. The custom of wearing skins, which obtains among the Niam-niam, does not exist among this tribe save when a fancy dress is needed for dancers. There is a singular absence of domestic animals among the Monbuttoo, with the exception of the little dogs known as the “nessey,” and their poultry. They do not engage in cattle-breeding, and have only one specimen of the swine family, the potamochoerus, which they keep in a half-tame state.

Their supply of meat for food is obtained in their hunting expeditions, their taste giving preference to the flesh of elephants, buffaloes, wild boars, and antelopes. As they understand the art of preserving meat they are not under the necessity of keeping cattle or resorting constantly to the field to supply their ever-recurring wants.

There is very little that can be called agriculture among them, the soil producing very abundantly and without the need of much care or cultivation. Besides, it is somewhat remarkable that what is the common feed of the tribes in the interior of Africa, viz. sorghum and pencillaria, are entirely disregarded by this people. They are too idle to devote any time to the raising of cereals. The cultivation of plantain, which is common, requires very little attention; all that is requisite is to let the old plants die down where they are and simply stick the young shoots in the ground after it has been softened by rain. The Monbuttoo exhibit a remarkable discrimination in the selection of plants, being able to tell whether a shoot will bear fruit or not, and thus avoid those not worth the trouble of planting,—a faculty that would be of great service to gardeners everywhere. There are only a few plants that they cultivate at all, and these are such as require but the least possible exertion. The sesame, earthnuts, sugar-canes, and tobacco constitute the bulk of their products from the soil.

This work of tillage and of gathering the harvest is the sphere of the women, the men spending the day in lounging, talking, and smoking, except when engaged in war or the hunt. They avoid all labor. In the morning they may be seen reclining under the shade of the oil-palms upon their carved benches and regaling themselves with tobacco. In the middle of the day they betake themselves to the cool halls where they can give utterance to their opinions with entire freedom. These groups form an animated picture of the social life of these distant people. Their vivacity and gesticulation are truly visible in all these noonday gatherings of the Monbuttoo men.

The manufacture of pottery is also here confined exclusively to the women as in other parts of Africa. The men however are the smiths, and they share the work of basket-making and wood-carving with the women. The greater portion of the manual labor, it will be seen, is performed by the weaker sex. While, however, they are subjected to this servile labor, the relation of wives to their husbands is one of independence and authority.

The subjection of men was illustrated by the answer made when they were solicited to sell anything: “Oh, ask my wife; it is hers.” Polygamy prevails among this people, and very little regard is paid to the obligations of marriage. Considering their intelligence and general improvement in some of the arts of civilization, rendering them superior to most other tribes, the character of the women, in respect to deportment and chastity, is an anomaly. They suffer greatly in comparison with the Niam-niam women, who are modest and retiring. The conduct of the men and women toward each other is one of offensive laxity. Many of the latter indulged in gross obscenity, and the immodesty of this sex, generally, far exceeded anything Schweinfurth had seen among other tribes, even the lowest. The contrast of this general freedom and unchastity, with so much that is commendable and interesting in the character of the Monbuttoo, excited his surprise.

In the culinary arts they exhibit a very considerable superiority over the African tribes. Yet blended with this higher culture in the mode of preparing their food there is another horrid anomaly. Human fat is in universal use among them, and this leads us to consider their cannibalism. Among no people of the continent is the eating of human flesh so much a recognized and systematic custom as among the Monbuttoo. The testimony of Dr. Schweinfurth we give in his own language: “Surrounded as the Monbuttoo are by a number of people who are blacker than themselves, and who, being inferior to them in culture, are consequently held in great contempt, they have just the opportunity which they want for carrying on expeditions of war or plunder that result in the acquisition of a booty which is especially coveted by them, consisting of human flesh. The carcasses of all who fall in battle are distributed upon the battle-field, and are prepared by drying for transport to the homes of the conquerors. They drive their prisoners before them without remorse, as butchers would drive sheep to the shambles, and those are only reserved to fall victims on a later day to their horrible and sickening greediness. During our residence at the court of Munza, the general rumor was quite current, that nearly every day some little child was sacrificed to supply his meal. It would hardly be expected that many opportunities would be afforded to strangers of witnessing the natives at their repast, and to myself there occurred only two instances when I came upon any of them whilst they were actually engaged in preparing human flesh for consumption. The first of these happened by my coming unexpectedly upon a number of young women who had a supply of boiling hot water upon the clay floor in front of the doorway of a hut, and were engaged in the task of scalding the hair off the lower half of a human body. The operation, so far as it was effected, had changed the black skin into a fawny gray, and the disgusting sight could not fail to make me think of the soddening and scouring of our fatted swine. On another occasion I was in a hut and observed a human arm hanging over the fire, obviously with the design of being at once dried and smoked.

“Incontrovertible tokens and indirect evidence of the prevalence of cannibalism were constantly turning up at every step we took. On one occasion Mohammed and myself were in Munza’s company, and Mohammed designedly turned the conversation to the topic of human flesh, and put the direct question to the king, how it happened at this precise time, while we were in the country, there was no consumption of human flesh? Munza expressly said, ‘that being aware that such a practice was held in aversion by us, he had taken care that it should only be carried on in secret.’”

There was no opportunity granted to any of Schweinfurth’s caravan of seeing the Monbuttoo at their meals. The Nubians had conscientious scruples which forbade their partaking food with these cannibals. The others, belonging to inferior native tribes, as the Mittoo or Bonga servants, were regarded as unworthy, being uncircumcised and savages, to sit at meal with the Monbuttoo.

Schweinfurth bought, with pieces of copper, quite a number of human skulls, that are now in the Anatomical Museum, in Berlin,—the unquestionable proofs that this people are unsurpassed in their devotion to this degrading and horrible practice; yet they are a remarkable and in many respects a noble race of men, “who display a certain national pride, and are endowed with an intellect and judgment such as few natives of the African wilderness can boast, men to whom one may put a reasonable question and who will return a reasonable answer.”

CHAPTER CLXVIII.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE PYGMIES.

A TRADITION OF THE CENTURIES — AN ETHNOLOGICAL QUESTION SETTLED — DR. SCHWEINFURTH’S DISCOVERY OF THE AKKA RACE — HIS INTERVIEW WITH ADIMOKOO — WAR-DANCE OF THE LITTLE PYGMY — CORPS OF AKKA WARRIORS — DR. SCHWEINFURTH’S PYGMY PROTEGÉ, NSEWUE — PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE AKKA — THEIR RESEMBLANCE TO THE BUSHMEN — DR. SCHWEINFURTH’S CONCLUSIONS IN REGARD TO THE ORIGIN OF THE PYGMIES.

One of the chief results of Dr. Schweinfurth’s travels in Africa is the solution of a problem that for thousands of years has remained without any satisfactory answer. The ethnological question respecting the existence of a dwarf race in Central Africa, which has occasioned so much discussion, this traveller has forever settled. The classical writers of the centuries gone make mention of the Pygmies. The poet of the Iliad alludes to them as though the fact of their existence had been long and well-known. Historians like Herodotus and Aristotle, as well as the poets, give similar testimony. For three or four centuries before the Christian era, the Greeks seem to have fully believed in the existence of a dwarf race in equatorial Africa.

So, too, modern travellers on the Nile have much to say about these small people. Du Chaillu asserts that he met them in Ashango Land. Knapf says he saw one on the eastern coast. But despite all the ancient traditions from the earlier ages and the testimony of recent explorers, the existence of such a race has been stoutly denied. It has been regarded as the “immortal myth of poetry,” over which scholars and travellers have fought a long and, till recently, only a drawn battle. To Dr. Schweinfurth is to be ascribed the credit of having turned the tide of this conflict and caused victory to perch on the banners of those who have believed in the veritable existence of the Pygmy race.

This traveller found that his Nubian attendants never wearied of talking about the Automoli or dwarfs, whose country they were daily approaching. It seemed strange that they should be so thoroughly possessed with the conviction of the existence of such a people. They would state, with the utmost confidence, that south of the Niam-niam land lived a race not more than three feet in height and wearing beards so long as to reach to their knees. They described them as armed with lances and accustomed to creep beneath the bellies of elephants and kill them, so adroitly managing their own movements as to avoid any injury from the trunk of the infuriated beasts. This skill, it was represented, made them of great service to the ivory traders. The name assigned them was “Shebber-diginto,” meaning the growth of the elongated beard.

That those of Dr. Schweinfurth’s attendants and servants who had been attached to the Niam-niam expedition should be such firm believers in the fact of a dwarf race that they never described the wonders and splendors of the court of the cannibal kings without referring to and describing the Pygmies who filled the office of court buffoons, excited the surprise of the traveller, and awakened the keenest desire to solve, if possible, the vexed question of the ages. He could not resist the impression that there must be some substantial basis for these unequivocal and positive assertions of the natives. The way in which his doubts were all dispelled and this ethnological problem of the centuries solved is graphically described by him:—

“Several days elapsed after my taking up my residence by the palace of the Monbuttoo king without my having a chance to get a view of the dwarfs, whose fame had so keenly excited my curiosity. My people, however, assured me that they had seen them. I remonstrated with them for not having secured me an opportunity of seeing for myself, and for not bringing them into contact with me. I obtained no other reply but that the dwarfs were too timid to come. After a few mornings my attention was arrested by a shouting in the camp, and I learned that Mohammed had surprised one of the Pygmies in attendance upon the king, and was conveying him, in spite of a strenuous resistance, straight to my tent. I looked up, and there, sure enough, was the strange little creature, perched upon Mohammed’s right shoulder, nervously hugging his head, and casting glances of alarm in every direction. Mohammed soon deposited him in the seat of honor. A royal interpreter was stationed at his side. Thus, at last, was I able veritably to feast my eyes upon a living embodiment of the myths of some thousand years.

Eagerly, and without loss of time, I proceeded to take his portrait. I pressed him with innumerable questions, but to ask for information was an easier matter altogether than to get an answer. There was the greatest difficulty in inducing him to remain at rest, and I could only succeed by exhibiting a store of presents. Under the impression that the opportunity before me might not occur again, I bribed the interpreter to exercise his influence to pacify the little man, to set him at his ease, and to induce him to lay aside any fear of me that he might entertain. Altogether we succeeded so well that in a couple of hours the Pygmy had been measured, sketched, feasted, presented with a variety of gifts, and subjected to a minute catechism of searching questions.

His name was Adimokoo. He was the head of a small colony, which was located about half a league from the royal residence. With his own lips I heard him assert that the name of his nation was Akka, and I further learned that they inhabit large districts to the south of the Monbuttoo, between lat. 2° and 1° N. A portion of them are subject to the Monbuttoo king, who, desirous of enhancing the splendor of his court by the addition of any available natural curiosities, had compelled several families of the Pygmies to settle in the vicinity.

My Niam-niam servants, sentence by sentence, interpreted to me everything that was said by Adimokoo to the Monbuttoo interpreter, who was acquainted with no dialects but those of his own land.

In reply to my question put to Adimokoo as to where his country was situated, pointing toward the south-south-east, he said, “Two days’ journey and you come to the village of Mummery; on the third day you will reach the River Nalobe; the fourth day you arrive at the first of the villages of the Akka.”

The patience of Adimokoo having been exhausted by the persistent and prolonged questioning of Dr. Schweinfurth, he made a sudden, violent effort to escape from his curious inquisitor, but being surrounded by so many in the tent his attempt was fruitless. After some persuasion he was prevailed upon to go through with some of the war-dances characteristic of his race. His dress was like that of the Monbuttoo, and he was armed with a small lance and a bow and arrow. The height of this interesting representative of the Pygmies was four feet and ten inches, which is about the average measurement of these small people. Dr. Schweinfurth was familiar with the war-dances of the Niam-niam, and they had excited his astonishment by the wonderful evolutions displayed; but the exhibition that this dwarf gave surpassed all he had ever seen. Notwithstanding his bandy legs and large, bloated belly and his age, his rapid and dexterous movements were simply marvellous. The spectators were convulsed with laughter at the grotesque expressions that accompanied the leaps and various attitudes assumed by this little fellow.

Dr. Schweinfurth won the confidence of Adimokoo, and loading him with presents sent him away, expressing the desire to see others of his people, and promising that they should lose nothing by making him a visit. Having overcome their fear of the stranger, some of them visited him almost every day. It is to be regretted that Schweinfurth’s sudden departure from the Monbuttoo territory interrupted his study of this singular and interesting race, and prevented him from learning all their peculiarities. A somewhat amusing incident occurred which corroborates Dr. Schweinfurth’s discovery. Mummery, brother and viceroy of King Munza, was returning from a campaign against the Momvoo. Among his soldiers was a corps of Akka warriors, the Akka being tributary to him. Dr. Schweinfurth had occasion to pass through the village where these troops were halted. Just as he reached the open space in front of the royal halls he found himself surrounded by what he supposed to be a throng of rude, insulting boys. They pointed their arrows at him and made a show of fight, and treated him with so much disrespect as to excite his indignation. But his Niam-niam attendants immediately corrected his misapprehension. “They are Tikkitikki” (the Niam-niam word for Akka), said they. “You imagine that they are boys, but in truth they are men; nay, men that can fight.” Mummery discovering the situation, at once relieved Schweinfurth’s fears. The strange spectacle of such a company of trained warriors, yet all so small, deeply impressed the mind of the traveller, and he resolved to inspect their camp the next morning. But his purpose was defeated, for Mummery and all his followers took an early departure; and thus, as Schweinfurth says, “‘like the baseless fabric of a vision,’ this people, so near and yet so unattainable, had vanished into the thin obscurity of the innermost continent.”

None of the measurements taken of these Pygmies much exceeded four feet and ten inches, except in instances in which they were descended from the Monbuttoo by intermarriages. Dr. Schweinfurth secured one of these little men and made him his protégé, departing from an hitherto invariable rule, allowing Nsewue (this being the name of the little Akka), to be the companion of his meals, a privilege he never allowed to any other native African.

The race of dwarfs does not differ materially from surrounding tribes, except in size. They have a redder or brighter complexion, and reports of travellers vary in regard to the growth of the hair. The Niam-niam, however, uniformly represent the Pygmies as having long beards, and yet Schweinfurth never found this characteristic in any of the Akka who came under his notice.

The head of the Akka is disproportionately large and is balanced on a weak, thin neck. The upper portion of the body is long; the chest being flat and much contracted, widens out in the lower part, to support the huge belly. From behind, their bodies seem to form a curve that resembles the letter S. Turning their feet inward, unlike other Africans, who walk straight, they have a waddling gait. Nsewue could never carry a dish without spilling a part of its contents, as every step was a kind of lurch, and he was a good representative of the physical peculiarities of his race.

The structure of their hands is singularly delicate and handsome. The most marked peculiarity of these people is the shape of the skull and head. The prognathous character of the face is developed to a large degree, the facial angles in the two portraits that Schweinfurth gives, being 60° and 66° respectively. “The snout-like projection of the jaw, with an unprotruding chin and a wide, almost spherical skull and gaping lips, suggest a resemblance to the ape. In these peculiarities the Akka and Bushmen of South Africa exhibit undeniable resemblances. We conclude this account of the Pygmies with the summary into which their discoverer has briefly embodied his opinion in regard to the origin of the Akka and their relationship to other African peoples.

“Scarcely a doubt,” says he, “can exist but that all these people, like the Bushmen of South Africa, may be considered as the scattered remains of an aboriginal population now becoming extinct; and their isolated and sporadic existence bears out the hypothesis. For centuries after centuries, Africa has been experiencing the effects of many immigrations; for thousands of years one nation has been driving out another, and as the result of repeated subjugations and interminglings of race with race, such manifold changes have been introduced into the conditions of existence that the succession of new phases, like the development in the world of plants, appears almost, as it were, to open a glimpse into the infinite.

“Incidentally, I have just referred to the Bushmen, those notorious natives of the South African forests who owe their name to the likeness which the Dutch colonists conceived they bore to the ape, as the prototype of the human race. I may further remark that their resemblance to the equatorial Pygmies is in many points very striking. Gustav Fritsch, the author of a standard work upon the natives of South Africa, first drew my attention to the marked similarity between my portraits of the Akka and the general type of the Bushmen, and so satisfied did I become in my own mind, that I feel quite justified (in my observations upon the Akka) in endeavoring to prove that all the tribes of Africa, whose proper characteristic is an abnormally low stature, belong to one and the self-same race.”

CHAPTER CLXIX.
AFRICA—Continued.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AFRICAN RACE.

BEADS AS CURRENCY — MOST POPULAR KINDS — MODE OF BECKONING — NATIVE SURGERY — RELIGION — IDOLS, REPRESENTING DECEASED KINDRED — COMMUNION WITH DEPARTED SPIRITS — THEIR RETURN TO AVENGE INJURIES — SINGULAR CUSTOMS — THE MILANDO — WOMEN THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE — THE DREAD OF RIDICULE — POLITENESS A TRAIT OF THE AFRICANS — MODES OF SALUTATION — THE NATURAL KINDNESS OF AFRICAN TRIBES — THEIR BARBARITY CAUSED BY WRONGS AGAINST THEM — THEIR KINDNESS TOWARD LIVINGSTONE — MISTAKE OF SPEKE — CHILD SELLING — EDUCATION OF THE WORLD — AFRICANS QUICK TO RECOGNIZE GOODNESS.

In concluding the description of the tribes of Eastern and Central Africa of which we have learned from the pages of Livingstone, Schweinfurth and Stanley, we present some general features and characteristics not confined merely to one tribe.

It is well-known to our readers that beads are a most important part of the currency throughout Africa; but it is not so well-known that great judgment must be exercised in the selection of them in regard to size and color. These are far from being matters of indifference to the natives, and fashions obtain among them as inexorable and fatal to the trader oftentimes as the fashions among civilized peoples. With few exceptions the beads used in Africa are manufactured in Venice. If not informed in regard to the prevalent fashion among a people whom the traveller is intending to visit, he will be likely to load himself with what cannot be exchanged at all, and will prove utterly valueless.

The following nomenclature and description of the most valuable and popular beads are derived from Chuma and Susi, those faithful servants of Dr. Livingstone who came to England bearing the precious remains of their beloved master.

“The beads that the Waiyau prefer are exceedingly small, the size of a mustard seed and of various colors, but they must be opaque; among them, dull, white chalk varieties called ‘catchokolo’ are valuable besides black and pink named respectively ‘bububu’ and ‘sekundereché,’ (the dregs of pombé). One red bead of various sizes, which has a white centre, is always valuable in any part of Africa. It is called ‘samisami’ by the Suahélé, ‘chitakaraka’ by the Waiyau, ‘mangazi’ (blood) by the Nyassa, and was found popular even among the Manyuema, under the name of ‘masokantussi,’ (birds’ eyes). It is interesting to observe that one peculiar, long bead, recognized as common in the Manyuema land, is only sent to the west coast of Africa, and never to the east. On Chuma’s pointing to it as a sort found at the extreme limit explored by Livingstone, it was at once seen that he must have touched that part of Africa which begins to be within the reach of the traders in the Portuguese settlements.

“‘Machua kangu’ (guinea fowls’ eyes) is another popular variety; and the ‘moiompio’ (new heart), a large, pale-blue bead, is a favorite among the Wabisa; but by far the most valuable of all is a small, white, oblong bead which when strung looks like the joints of the cane-root, from which it takes its name ‘salami’ (canes). Susi says that one pound weight of these beads would buy a tusk of ivory at the south end of Tanganyika, so big that a strong man could not carry it more than two hours.

“Africans all beckon to a person with the hand in a way very different from that of Europeans and Americans. We beckon with the hand supine, or the palm up, but they with the palm down. This mode arises from their idea of beckoning, which is to lay the hand on the person and so draw him toward them. If the person wished for be near, the beckoner puts out his right hand on a level with his heart and makes the motion of catching the other, by shutting the fingers and drawing him to himself. If the person be farther off, this motion is increased by lifting the right hand as high as he can; he then brings it down with a sweep toward the ground, the hand being held prone during all the operation. Their method of assent is entirely opposite from ours. We nod assent bringing the chin down: they lift it to signify their concurrence. This raising of the chin, though not appearing so strange after becoming familiar with the custom, is yet not so natural as the use of the hand in beckoning.”

As the servants of Livingstone were faithfully bearing his dead body from the interior of Africa to the coast, they reached a village of the Kawendé people. A present of a cow was made to the caravan; but she must be caught. These animals being very wild, a hunt was undertaken. Saféné, firing recklessly, unfortunately wounded one of the villagers, fracturing his thigh-bone. The process adopted for setting the broken limb is so peculiar that we give its description as an illustration of native surgery.

“First of all, a hole was dug, say two feet deep and four in length, in such a manner that the patient could sit in it with his legs out before him. A large leaf was then bound round the fractured thigh, and earth thrown in, so that the patient was buried up to the chest. The next act was to cover the earth which lay over the man’s legs with a thick layer of mud; then plenty of sticks and grass were collected and a fire lighted on the top, directly over the fracture. To prevent the smoke from smothering the sufferer, they held a tall mat as a screen before his face, and the operation went on. After some time the heat reached the limbs under ground. Bellowing with fear and covered with perspiration, the man implored them to let him out. The authorities, concluding he had been under treatment a sufficient time, quickly burrowed down and lifted him from the hole. He was now held perfectly fast, while two strong men stretched the wounded limb with all their might. Splints duly prepared were afterward bound round it, and we must hope that in due time benefit accrued; but as the ball passed through the limb, we must have doubts on the subject. The villagers told Chuma that after the Banyamwezi engagements they constantly treated bad gun-shot wounds in this way with perfect success.”

In respect to religion of the African tribes, it is the belief that there is a power superior to man, which is sometimes beneficent, and sometimes evil, and to be dreaded. This is the elementary belief, arising from the feelings of dependence on a divine or unseen power, yet with a vague conception of the attributes of this power, and so idols may come to be regarded as the modes or channels for its manifestation.

In Central Africa an idol may be found in almost every village. It is made of wood, and resembles the people in features, marking, and fashion of the hair. Some are in the houses, others have little huts made for them. They are called Nkisi by the Bahemba, and Kalubi by the people of Rua. Presents of pombé, flour, bhang, tobacco are made to the idol and a fire is lighted for it to smoke by.

They represent the departed father or mother, and it is thought that they are gratified by the offerings made to their representatives. Casembe has many of these nkisi; one with long hair, named Motombo, is carried in front when he takes the field. Sometimes the names of dead chiefs are given to them. It is doubtful whether prayers are ever offered to these idols. The Arabs, who are familiar with their language, assert that they have no prayers and think that death is the end of the man. There are, however, evidences of a belief in a Superior Power. Some think there are two Superior Beings,—Rua above, who kills people, and Rua below, who carries them away after death.

The existence of and communion with departed spirits is deeply imbedded in the faith of the African and has been from time immemorial. The keenest distress is felt in the prospect of any bodily mutilation or burning of the body after death. They regard these as bars to their intercourse with relatives that survive; they think they would thereby be unable to aid those they love or retaliate upon those who have wronged them. As we have seen, this hope inspires the slaves to sing in their bondage, giving them a kind of enjoyment in their anticipated revenge upon those who have captured or cruelly treated them.

This is a prevalent belief among the tribes in the interior. Their conception of the future state is that a desire for vengeance upon enemies still alive on earth is the ruling purpose and passion, and hence there is a superstitious horror connected with the dead. This was one of the most serious dangers imperilling the success of Livingstone’s faithful servants, in their endeavor to bring the dead body of their master out of Central Africa and deliver it up to his kindred and his native land.

The religion of the African is therefore an effort to propitiate those who show that they are able to revisit the earth and torment and work mischief by any unfortunate accident or the opening of a war. All their ceremonies hinge upon this belief. Accordingly chief and people make common cause against those who, in going through their territory, lose any of their number by death. Such events are regarded as most serious offences, and therefore excite the strongest apprehension of the natives and unite them as one in hostilities against those who thus are brought into conflict with their superstition.

In some of the villages a singular custom prevails in regard to the dead. When a child or relative dies, a small miniature hut, about two feet high, is built and very neatly thatched and plastered. If any food especially palatable be cooked, or beer be brewed, a portion of it is placed in this tiny hut for the departed soul, that is believed to enjoy it.

Another peculiarity of these uncivilized Africans is not without some counterpart among more intelligent and self-styled civilized people. A chief whose town Livingstone entered was absent on some milando. Livingstone writes in connection with this circumstance that “these milandos are the business of their lives. They are like petty lawsuits; if one trespasses on his neighbor’s rights in any way it is a milando, and the head men of all the villages are called to settle it. Women are a fruitful source of milando.” If an intelligent African traveller should visit this country to learn the customs and traits of the people he might possibly conclude that the truth of Livingstone’s last statement is not applicable only to equatorial Africa. A few ears of Indian corn had been taken by a person, and Chitikola had been called a full day’s journey off to settle this milando. He administered muave[2] and the person vomited; therefore innocence was clearly established. In cases of milando they rely on the most distant connections and relations to plead their cause, and seldom are they disappointed, though time at certain seasons is felt by all to be precious.

[2] The ordeal poison.

Another characteristic of the African is that he cannot withstand ridicule and sneers. He is extremely sensitive to any manifestations of derision, and is restive under criticism. Livingstone describes this trait in this way:—

“When any mishap occurs in the march (as when a branch tilts a load off a man’s shoulder), all who see it set up a yell of derision; if anything is accidentally spilled or one is tired and sits down, the same yell greets him, and all are excited thereby to exert themselves. They hasten on with their loads and hurry with the sheds they build, the masters only bringing up the rear and helping any one who may be sick. The distances travelled were quite as much as the masters or we could bear.”

Sensitive as Africans are to anything like derision or depreciation, they are naturally mindful of what is due to others. Such a disposition is the foundation of politeness. Livingstone, passing through a village of Manyuema, saw a newly-married couple standing with arms around each other very lovingly, but “no one joked or poked fun at them.”

The Africans, as a race, are distinguished for politeness, and their modes of salutation indicate courtesy and deference. In Ulungu, the custom “among relations is to place the hands around each other’s chests, kneeling; they then clap their hands close to the ground. Some more abject individuals kiss the soil before the chief. The generality kneel only, with the forearms close to the ground and the head bowed down to them, saying ‘O Ajadla, chiusa, Mari a bwéno!’

“The Usanga say ‘Ajé senga.’ The clapping of hands to superiors and even equals is in some villages a perpetually occurring sound. Aged persons are usually saluted. How this extreme deference to each other could have arisen, I cannot conceive; it does not seem to be fear of each other that elicits it. Even the chiefs inspire no fear, and those cruel old platitudes about governing savages by fear seem unknown; yet governed they certainly are, and upon the whole very well. The people were not very willing to go to punish Nsama’s breach of public law; yet, on the decision of its chiefs, they went, and came back,—one with a wooden stool, another with a mat, a third with a calabash of ground-nuts or some dried meat, a hoe or a bow,—poor, poor pay for a fortnight’s hard work, hunting fugitives and burning villages.”

The African people have naturally a great deal of kindness of disposition. They are not treacherous, savage, and blood-thirsty without some cause. Their bitter and sore experience from the Arab traders has made them suspicious of all strangers, and has transformed their native kindness into sullen hatred and a desire for vengeance upon their enemies.

Moenemokata, an Arab who had travelled among African tribes more extensively than any of his race, said to Livingstone, “If a man go with a good-natured, civil tongue, he may pass through the worst people in Africa unharmed.” It is a remarkable fact that Livingstone, who traversed so large a portion of the great continent of Africa, and visited so many tribes widely differing in spirit and character, never resorted to violence. In no instance during his long wanderings and his manifold perils among these heathen people did he use his weapon to the injury of the natives.

Even in Manyuema, among the people that all said “are bad, very bad,” blood-thirsty cannibals, if none of them had been wronged by the Arab traders, plundered and spoliated, they would not be so inspired with feelings of malice and revenge. Livingstone had little difficulty in obtaining what he needed. He says, “None of the people are ferocious without cause.” It was a quite frequent occurrence for old men to come forward to him with bananas as a present, saying as he passed, with trembling accents, “Bolongo, bolongo!” (Friendship, friendship). If he paused to return the favor by some gift, others ran for plantains or palm-toddy. The Arabs would seize what they wished, demand food peremptorily, and eat it without one word of thanks, and then say to Livingstone, “They are bad. Don’t give them anything.” “Why, what badness is there in giving food?” Livingstone replied. “Oh! they like you, but hate us.”

Much of the barbarity and badness of these African tribes may be ascribed to the heartlessness, falsehood, pillage, and murder by the Mohammedan slave-dealers. Livingstone gives in his journal these incidents to show the characteristic kindness of the African race:—

“When we were on the Shiré, we used to swing the ship into mid-stream every night in order to let the air which was put in motion by the water pass from end to end. Musa’s brother-in-law stepped into the water one morning in order to swim off for a boat, and was seized by a crocodile. The poor fellow held up his hands imploringly, but Musa and the rest allowed him to perish. On my denouncing his heartlessness, Musa replied, ‘Well, no one tell him to go in there.’ When at Senna, a slave-woman was seized by a crocodile; four Makololo rushed in unbidden and rescued her, though they knew nothing about her. From long intercourse both with Johanna men and Makololo, I take these incidents as typical of the two cases. Those of mixed blood possess the vices of both races and the virtues of neither.”

Speke, at Kasangé Islet, made this statement, viz., “The mothers of these savage people have infinitely less affection than many savage beasts of my acquaintance. I have seen a mother-bear galled by frequent shots, obstinately meet her death by repeatedly returning under fire while endeavoring to rescue her young from the grasp of intruding men. But here, for a simple loin-cloth or two, human mothers eagerly exchanged their little offspring, delivering them into perpetual bondage to my Beluch soldiers.”—Speke, pp. 234, 235.

Livingstone contradicts this statement as a general one, and thinks it was only a single and exceptional case. His inquiries, put to Arabs who have travelled most extensively among the African tribes, failed to elicit any corroboration of this assertion of Speke, except in the very infrequent case of a child cutting the upper front teeth before the under, and because such a child is thought to be moiko (unlucky), and certain to bring death into the family. It is called an Arab child, and sold to the first Arab, or even left at his door. The Arabs knew of no child-selling except under these circumstances, which seldom occur, and the transaction, accordingly, grows out of a superstition. “Speke had only two Beluch soldiers with him, and the idea that they loaded themselves with infants stamps this tale as fabulous. He may have seen one sold,—an extremely rare and exceptional case, but the inferences drawn are just like that of the Frenchman who thought the English so partial to suicide in November that they might be seen suspended from trees in the common highways.”

Livingstone well says, “The education of the world is a terrible one, and it has come down on Africa with relentless vigor from most remote times. What the African will become after this awfully hard lesson is learned, is among the future developments of Providence. When He who is higher than the highest, accomplishes His purposes, this will be a wonderful country, and again something like that which it was of old, when Zerah and Tirhaka flourished and were great.”

Among the reflections inspired by his desire for the redemption of Africa which the missionary explorer was in the habit of recording from time to time in his journal, we find tributes to the character of these benighted men. The following is one of these testimonies by him who, better than any other man, knew the African race:—

“No jugglery or sleight-of-hand, as was recommended to Napoleon III, would have any effect in the civilization of Africa. They have too much good sense for that. Nothing brings them to place thorough confidence in Europeans but a long course of well-doing. They believe readily in the supernatural as effecting any new process or feat of skill, for it is part of their original faith to ascribe everything above human agency to unseen spirits. Goodness or unselfishness impresses their minds more than any kind of skill or power. They say ‘You have different hearts from ours; all black men’s hearts are bad, but yours are good.’ The prayer for a new heart and right spirit at once commends itself as appropriate.”

Note.—These facts offer a solution of a great national problem in regard to an uncivilized race on this continent. Selfish, unscrupulous government traders, whiskey-venders, etc., all say that the “Indian is bad, very bad,” a remorseless savage, and should be summarily exterminated. The Arab merchants and slave-dealers say the Manyuema are bad. The parallel is close and not complimentary to the conduct of the civilized race that has plundered the Red Man, debauched him with fire-water, and provoked retaliation and war by its breach of treaties and its seizure of the lands solemnly pledged to the Indians as their permanent home. See pages 1331, 2.

CHAPTER CLXX.
AFRICA—Concluded.
THE SLAVE-TRADE.

THE UNLIKENESS OF RACES — LIVINGSTONE’S PROTEST AGAINST MAN-SELLING — DISCUSSIONS WITH AFRICAN CHIEFS — THEIR EXCUSES FOR SLAVE-TRADE — HORRORS OF THE TRAFFIC — ARAB RAGE AND ATROCITIES — A STRANGE DISEASE — BROKEN-HEARTEDNESS — AN ENGLISH SAILOR’S OPINION — BARBARITIES OF SLAVE-TRADE NOT OVERSTATED — THE GELLAHBAS — THE PETTY SLAVE-TRADERS — WHOLESALE MERCHANTS — THE FAKIS — COST OF SLAVES — TERRITORIES AND TRIBES THAT SUPPLY THE SLAVE-MARKETS — PROFITS OF THE TRAFFIC — STANLEY’S TESTIMONY — LIVINGSTONE’S GREAT DESIRE — NO HOPE FOR AFRICA WHILE SLAVE TRADE EXISTS — WESTERN COAST EMANCIPATED — WORK TO BE DONE — GRAND FUTURE OF AFRICA — DUTY OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA — THE OPEN SORE OF THE WORLD — LIVINGSTONE’S LAST APPEAL — MEMORABLE WORDS ON HIS TABLET IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

The unlikeness of races that in many respects are similar, and the tenacity with which peculiar ideas and customs are maintained are facts abundantly verified in this work. The strange fantasy that one can have property in his fellow-man, which includes the right to control his thoughts, conduct, life, and sell him to another as a slave, is cherished by some tribes and wholly repudiated by others. The Arabs excluded, the Manganja and Waiyau are the only two families of slavers in that part of Central Africa which finds its outlet at the great slave-market of Zanzibar. No idea of slavery exists among the Kaffirs or Zulus and Bechuanas.

Livingstone, the heroic and world-renowned explorer, availed himself of every opportunity to protest against the selling of their people by the African chiefs. He sought to educate them by kindly counsels and arguments, so that they would be able to see the wrong and ruin they were bringing upon themselves and their subjects by wars with neighboring tribes, and the selling of captives to the mercenary Arabs.

When among the Waiyau he had long discussions with the chief, Mukatè. To counteract the effect of Livingstone’s influence the slave-drivers had represented to the natives that his object in capturing and releasing their slaves was to make them of his own religion; but the terrible evils of the slave trade, the ruined villages, the numerous bones and skulls bleaching in the sun along every path, the fearful sufferings of those who falter and perish on the journey to the coast, the rapine, plunder, and wholesale murder of neighboring tribes in order to secure captives for sale to Arab merchants, all these direful evidences of the terrible curse of the country Mukatè could not deny. He would often end the discussion by dismissing these facts with a laugh. A headman, who was Livingstone’s guide for a mile or two, whispered to him, “Speak to Mukatè to give his forays up.”

The chiefs and people were fertile in excuses for their participation in the slave traffic. One said that the Arabs, who come and tempt them with fine clothes, are the cause of their man-selling. Livingstone replied, “Very soon you will have none to sell. Your country is becoming a jungle, and all the people who do not die on the road will be making gardens for Arabs at Kilwa and elsewhere.” The common argument in defence of the business by African chiefs was, “What could we do without Arab cloth?” “Do what you did before the Arabs came into the country,” was Livingstone’s answer. But the greed for cloth, which the natives are too indolent to spin and weave, overmasters all the latent humanity and reason of the chiefs, and keeps up a chronic condition of war and spoliation, decimating the population of the country and transforming some of its fairest districts into deserts. In order to have the means to buy the coveted cloth, one village makes an incursion upon another, and thus there is almost perpetual pillage, kidnapping, and murder. The village whose chief is victorious at one time is, in its turn, sacked and burned by a stronger party. And so the traveller through the country often passes the ruins of what were once populous and pleasant villages of unoffending people.

From village to village the missionary traveller carried his lessons and appeals, sowing the good seed, with confidence that it would sometime bear fruit in the regeneration of his beloved Africa. “It is but little we can do,” is his sad reflection when among the Waiyau; “but we lodge a protest in the heart against a vile system, and time may ripen it.” His counsels to those unenlightened, tempted, and misguided people were not all lost, however impervious they seemed, generally, to moral considerations and appeals. Visiting Kimsuma, a chief on the Nyassa, he received this gratifying testimony. Kimsuma told him it was by following the advice given in his former visit, and not selling the people as slaves, that his village had grown to three times its former size.

Women faint, starving, dying by the roadside—the dead bodies of those of former gangs who could not march longer—were the frequent and painful sights that Livingstone beheld as he moved on toward Central Africa.

A slave-gang is usually composed of men and women, and children of a tender age. The adults are fastened into the heavy slave-sticks, weighing from thirty to forty pounds. From these there is no escape. The younger are secured by thongs that pass around the neck of each. Multitudes die on the journey to the coast, overpowered by the burden of the slave-stick. The following fact illustrates how thoroughly all sentiments of sympathy and humanity, and every idea of justice are destroyed by this traffic in human life. In reply to Livingstone’s inquiry why people were tied to trees and left to die, as he had seen on his way, there was the usual answer that this was the work of the Arabs, because they are enraged when their slaves can go no farther, and prefer they should die rather than have their freedom if they should, perchance, be succored and recover. The numerous empty slave-sticks scattered along the road led Livingstone to the conviction, though the natives denied the charge, that they make it a practice to follow the slave-caravans, and cut off the sticks from those who falter in the march, in order to steal and sell them over again, and so obtain an additional quantity of cloth. Another fact, revealing the atrocious wickedness of these Arab man-stealers, is also stated by Livingstone. Those who sink under the burden of the slave-stick, or from sickness fall by the way, are not unfrequently murdered. In vexation and rage at the loss of the money value of the slaves, the Arab drivers will shoot or stab them. It was no uncommon sight which met the eye of the philanthropic traveller, that of some dead or dying African, weltering, perhaps, in a pool of blood, or tied to a tree by the neck.

“The strangest disease,” says Livingstone, “I have seen in this country is broken-heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been kidnapped and made slaves.” Of a large gang that had been captured by Syde bin Habib, many died three days after they crossed the Lualaba. Enduring their chains till then, when they saw the broad river rolling between them and their old homes, they lost all spirit and hope. They ascribed their only pain to the heart, and placed their hands on their breasts, exactly over that organ. Some slavers expressed surprise that they should die, seeing that they had plenty to eat and no work. “Children would keep up with remarkable endurance; but if, perchance, passing near a village, and hearing the sound of dancing and the merry tinkle of the small drums, the memories of home and happy days would prove too much for them; they cried and sobbed, the ‘broken heart’ came on, and they rapidly sank.”

The atrocity of the system was forcibly expressed by an English sailor, who had opportunity of seeing the slave-traders in their business. “Shiver my timbers, mate, if the devil don’t catch these fellows, we might as well have no devil at all!”

“The Ujiji slavers,” he says, “like the Kilwa and Portuguese, are the vilest of the vile. It is not a trade, but a system of consecutive murders. They go to plunder and kidnap, and every trading-trip is nothing but a foray.” His idea at first that there were degrees in the atrocities and sufferings inflicted upon the slaves, and that the barbarities perpetrated by the Portuguese of Tette are absent from the slave traffic, as conducted by the Arabs, was wholly corrected. The better he came to know the system, the more convinced was he that it is everywhere and by whomsoever pursued only a story of murder, horror, and destruction.

“While endeavoring to give some account of the slave-trade in East Africa,” says Livingstone, “it was necessary to keep far within the truth in order not to be thought guilty of exaggeration. To overdraw its evils is simply an impossibility. The sights I have seen, though common incidents of the traffic, are so nauseous that I always strive to drive them from memory. In the case of most disagreeable recollections, I can succeed in time in consigning them to oblivion; but the slaving scenes come back unbidden, and make me start up at dead of night horrified by their vividness.” After an assault upon a village, in which several were killed and women and children captured, he writes in his diary these words: “I am heart-sore and sick of human blood.”

The Gellahbas, as the slave-dealers of Equatorial Africa are called, are first the petty traders, who, with a small stock of goods, start forth each with his ass or bullock, on which he rides from village to village. His cloth will purchase two or three slaves, and exchanging the donkey for one or two more, the return is commenced on foot. His slaves are compelled to carry all the articles needed on the journey. His stock in trade, worth perhaps $25, has been exchanged for four or five slaves, that will bring in Khartoom $250. And yet the journeys of these speculative traders are not always lucrative to the peddler. If the donkey chance to die, the enterprise is a failure, as his goods have to be sold at a ruinous sacrifice. The slaves also frequently escape, and thus loss is entailed. Schweinfurth says of them, “Their powers of endurance are wonderful. I repeatedly asked them what induced them to leave their homes to suffer the greatest hardships in a strange land, for the sake of pursuing an occupation attended with so much pecuniary hazard. ‘We want groosh,’ they would reply. Too lazy to work at home, it is the irresistible propensity to traffic in human beings that impels them to this toilsome life.

Besides these travelling traders, there are also wholesale slave-merchants, who have their agents or partners permanently established in the large Scribas. These traverse the country protected by a large retinue of armed slaves, and with long trains of oxen and asses, loaded with goods for exchange, they are able to purchase large numbers of slaves. Generally these agents are priests or Fakis, though this name is usually applied to those who interpret the Scriptures. Strange as it may seem, and almost incredible, it is an incontrovertible fact that this slave business is included among the secondary occupations of these Fakis, and with very few exceptions they are more or less involved in the iniquitous traffic. To multiply facilities for securing slaves, they act as retail dealers, brokers, quacks, match-makers, and school-masters. The richer and more intelligent class act as directors of schools, or are proprietors of inns, where they have sub-agents to advance their interests. “The doctrines of the Prophet,” says Schweinfurth, “are taught in their schools, and the merissa-shops are dedicated in a large degree to the worship of Venus. But in spite of everything, these people are held in the greatest veneration.

“A few words will suffice to exhibit these holy men in their true colors. With the Suras of the Koran in hand, they rove all over the country, leading what might be termed a life of perpetual prayer. But the wide difference between faith and practice is exemplified in the unrighteous dealings of these Fakis. Never did I see slaves so mercilessly treated as by these fanatics, and yet they would confer upon the poor souls, whom they purchased, like stolen goods, for a mere bagatelle, the most religious of names, such as Allagabo (i. e., ‘given of God’).” Schweinfurth, who had witnessed their abominable cruelties, adds that their treatment of the sick and dying was “such as a common scavenger would not inflict upon a dying dog.”

He mentions another hideous atrocity connected with their business—the emasculation of boys so as to fit them for the position of the eunuch. It is perpetrated as soon after capture as convenient, and though attempted only upon children of a tender age, it is said that four fifths of those thus mutilated perish from the injuries they receive. This infernal crime,—which is committed principally by the Fakis, who traverse the country with the Koran in one hand and the operating-knife in the other, is peculiar to Moslem slavery alone, and specially entitles it to be called an accursed system, deserving to be swept from the earth in the fiery indignation of all civilized peoples.

There is another class who supply the slave-markets of the East. This consists of the colonized slave-dealers, who live on their own property. These are the only ones who penetrate beyond the Scribas into the negro countries with bands of armed men, and return with great caravans of slaves.

The price paid for slaves varies of course, according to the difficulty of obtaining them, and as cotton, the principal medium of exchange, fluctuates in value. In 1871 Schweinfurth found that sittahsi (literally six spans high), that is children eight or ten years of age, were bought for £1 10s., or about $7.00 in our currency. Women slaves, if specially attractive, cost double this price.

As an illustration of how cheap is human life among some tribes, Livingstone mentions the case of an elderly woman and her son, about three years old, who were bought for six yards of calico, the child being regarded twice as valuable as the mother. After the raids of slave-dealers, when the villages are pillaged and famine succeeds, boys and girls are often bought for a few handfuls of maize. Vigorous and healthy women who are ugly are cheaper than young girls, and old women have little value, and are bought for a trifle. Men are seldom purchased, because more difficult to manage or to transport. It will be remembered that the principal object for which slaves are held in the East is not their capability for labor.

Nationality, also, is an element affecting the price of slaves. Of those brought from the Bahr-el-Ghazal districts the Bongo are most in demand, because they are easily taught, faithful, good-looking, and industrious. The Niam-niam girls are more costly than the Bongo slaves, but they are so rarely in the market it is not easy to state their price. The Mittoo are of the least value, because so ugly, and the Babucker are so spirited and resolute that they are rarely sought. No kindness and no appeals avail to subdue their love of freedom or repress their struggles to escape. The Loobah and Abaka tribes are like them in this respect. The demand for slaves by the Mohammedan residents of the Western territories, as the Kredy Golo and Sehre, who greatly exceed the aboriginal population, is sufficient of itself to sustain a very considerable slave-trade. The number of the private slaves owned by the Moslems who have settled in various portions of Northern Africa Schweinfurth estimated to be about sixty thousand.

But this number is small compared with those who, along all the highways, are brought out of the interior to the great slave markets to supply the insatiable and licentious demands of Egypt, Arabia, Persia, and Asiatic Turkey. It is these, the prey of Arab rapacity or the pitiable and powerless victims of the selfishness and inhumanity of their fellow Africans, that form the numerous caravans moving toward the coast. It is these that drain and depopulate the tribes of Eastern and Central Africa. It is thus their very life blood is sacrificed to the luxurious caprices and sensuality of the Moslem race.

The territories that supply the slave-trade in northeastern Africa (Nile district) are the Galla countries to the south of Abyssinia, between latitude 3° and 8° north, the region between the white and blue Niles, Azoa, in the centre of Abyssinia, and its northwestern frontier, and the upper district of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. But the most fruitful sources of supply are the negro countries to the south of Darfoor. During the last forty years there has been an exodus from the numerous and unprotected Kredy tribes of 12,000 to 15,000 annually, to minister to the lust or laziness of the Mohammedans of the East. And the territories west of the Niam-niam tribe have been the principal supply in the northern part of Africa. This energetic race, under their king Mofio, has made constant raids upon their neighbors, thus furnishing vast numbers for exchange with Arab slave-merchants.

There is a portion of the country called Mrima or Sawahili, and formerly Zanguebar. The latter name will be recognized by older readers as that of a strip of sea coast from the mouth of Jub to Cape Delgado, or from the equator to S. lat. 10° 41´. This part of Eastern Africa now attracts the attention of the civilized world because of its connection with the slave-trade. By means of its ports three fourths of the slaves kidnapped or purchased in the interior are shipped abroad. Here is the famous port of Kilwa, “the hornets’ nest,” as Stanley names it, the great entrepot of slave-traders, who have received such scathing condemnation in Livingstone’s journals.

Zanzibar, an island near the east coast in lat. 6° S., is, however, the principal mart to which the ivory and slave merchants gather from the interior of Africa. The Banyans, who are among the more influential residents, are the principal traders in slaves, and have accumulated great wealth. Here tens of thousands of Africans are annually sold, some to be transported to the Spanish West Indies, but the great majority to Arabia.

The profits of this infamous traffic are so enormous as to offer a resistless temptation to the cupidity of the unscrupulous. The lucrative character of a business, though fraught with terrible evils and wrongs, has, not unfrequently, overcome the conscience, humanity, and even the religion of those acknowledged to be civilized if not Christian. The statements of the most trustworthy travellers in regard to the profitableness of the slave-trade tax the credulity of the most sceptical. The estimate that Mr. Stanley has given, as the result of a careful observation, must, we think, be accepted. “We will suppose,” says he, “for the sake of illustrating how trade with the interior is managed, that the Arab conveys by his caravan $5,000 worth of goods; at Unyanyembe, the goods are worth $10,000; at Ujiji they are worth $15,000, or have trebled in price. Seven dollars and fifty cents will purchase a slave in the markets of Ujiji, who will bring in Zanzibar thirty dollars. Ordinary men slaves may be purchased for six dollars who will sell for twenty-five dollars on the coast. We will say he purchases slaves to the full extent of his means; from these he will realize about $14,000, leaving a net profit of $9,000 from an investment of $5,000, in one trip from Zanzibar to Ujiji. It is from such a traffic that the Banyans have come to be ranked among the wealthiest of the 200,000 residents of Zanzibar.”

Livingstone was intensely absorbed with the passion for exploration, and longed to be the discoverer that should solve the great geographical problem which has enlisted the curiosity and toil of centuries, viz., the sources of the Nile. During eight years in his last expedition, he traversed Central Africa, enduring sufferings and sacrifices inexpressible, holding on with a fortitude and inflexibility never surpassed, till he sank down in death at Ilala, May 1, 1873. But this most illustrious of African explorers, when in weariness he was journeying toward Bangweolo for the last time, eager to learn some fact that would settle the great enigma with which Africa has baffled the nations and the ages, writes, “The discovery of the true source of the Nile is nothing to me except as it may be turned to the advantage of Christian missions.” So, too, in a letter that he sent by Stanley to Mr. Bennett, of New York, he writes, “If my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave-trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together. This fine country is blighted as with a curse from above, in order that the slavery privileges of the Sultan of Zanzibar may not be infringed.”

It may safely be asserted that, had it not been for the slave-trade, this indomitable, sagacious, philanthropic traveller would have succeeded in laying the foundation for Christian missions in Central Africa, and also have given to the civilized world the discovery it has so laboriously sought. No progress can be made in the arts or commerce, no social and moral development among the African tribes can be secured so long as this system, the offspring of Moslem cupidity and lust, is permitted to desolate this fair land.

Stricken, suffering Africa! Despoiled and desolated by stronger and more civilized nations for centuries, her youth, her strength, her life-blood on the Western Coast, subsidized by force and barbarities unspeakable to minister to the comfort and affluence of England, Spain, and America! But the awful scourge that freighted the slave-ships of the Great Republic and caused the horrors of “the middle passage” has been, through the combined agency of England and America, inspired by the appeals of the philanthropic spirit of the last half-century, utterly suppressed. The Western Coast of that great continent has been emancipated, and is fast being regenerated. Instead of slave-ships in the lagoons and harbors waiting for the return of their armed crews from raids upon the villages along the coast and in the interior, thus stealing annually in the middle of the last century not less than 100,000 human beings, there are now populous villages springing up, the inhabitants of which are engaged in peaceful pursuits, and making rapid progress in all the arts and comforts of civilized life. The slave-ship is exchanged for the school-house, and with this most formidable barrier removed, the redemption of Western Africa has begun.

That “fine country,” as Livingstone calls it, is needed with its measureless riches for the world’s commerce and civilization. Its gigantic, wide-spreading curse is the slave-trade. Eastern and Central Africa still, over large portions of territory, is blighted with this “sum of all villanies.” Its history has darker shades than any human pencil can portray. Livingstone has told it, and startled the civilized world with the story of murders innumerable and horrors unutterable, of perpetual inter-tribal wars, instigated by the rapacious Arabs, so that captives, numerous and cheap, may be kidnapped or bought for the slave-markets of the coast.

This Mohammedan abomination is a standing, shameless affront to the civilization of the great Christian powers of the earth. Commerce, Humanity, Christianity, demand that it be blotted out. The progress that has been made but recently in this country and Great Britain, in respect to the doctrine of human rights and the claims of the African people, indicates the duty of these powerful nations to this long-benighted and sorely-stricken race. When this powerful barrier against commerce, industry, science, education, Christianity is removed, what will be the glory and grandeur of this great continent, with its numberless population “stretching out their hands unto God,” its uncivilized races transformed into Christian and prosperous peoples, ministering to the world’s advancement by the inexhaustible treasures with which the Creator has endowed their broad and beautiful land!

Exactly one year before the death of the most eminent explorer of the century, Dr. Livingstone, he finished, so his journal informs us, a letter to the New York Herald, in which he endeavors to enlist American enterprise and philanthropy in the suppression of the East Coast slave-trade of Africa. The last words of the letter are these: “All I can add in my loneliness is, may Heaven’s rich blessing come down on every one, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world.” No words could more perfectly represent the life and spirit of this missionary traveller; and these—his appeal to the American people—were chosen to be inscribed upon the tablet erected to his memory near his grave in Westminster Abbey.

Loving America, rejoicing in her triumph over slavery, grateful to her for rescuing him, when lost to the civilized world, by her brave and adventurous Stanley, he bequeathes his great life-work, the fervent aspiration of his heart, to her Christian zeal. And England, his own country, takes that memorable invocation and inscribes it as the most expressive memorial of the life and character of her noble son where he is laid to rest among the great and renowned ones of her history. Thus the devoted missionary, the world-known, world-honored explorer of the vast continent of Africa, to which he had given his long and laborious service, entrusts to Great Britain and America united, the accomplishment of the noble undertaking that absorbed and consecrated his life, viz.,

The Regeneration of Africa.

CHAPTER CLXXI.
CENTRAL ASIA.
THE KAKHYENS.

HIGHLANDERS OF WESTERN CHINA — PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT — TRIBUTE PAID TO THE CHIEF — ARCHITECTURE OF THE KAKHYENS — PERSONAL APPEARANCE — THEIR PRINCIPAL WEAPON — SERVILE LOT OF WOMEN — THE MEETWAY OR DIVINER — EXTRAORDINARY MANIFESTATIONS — FAVORABLE PREDICTIONS — SEVERE ORDEAL OF THE ASPIRANT TO THE POSITION OF MEETWAY — MARRIAGE CEREMONIES — COST OF A WIFE — PUNISHMENT FOR INFIDELITY — RITES ATTENDING BIRTH OF A CHILD — BURIAL RITES — SERVICES OF THE TOOMSA — THE DEATH-DANCE — A CRUEL CUSTOM — RELIGION OF THE KAKHYENS — THE VARIOUS NATS OR DEITIES — MORAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE KAKHYENS — THEIR KIDNAPPING — CHARITABLE EXPLANATION.

For many years the attention of the British Government has been directed to the consideration of an overland route to Western China. To avoid the long and perilous voyage by the Straits and the Indian Ocean seemed to be an object fraught with so many commercial advantages as to repay almost any endeavor to accomplish it. Accordingly in January, 1868, the government of India sent an expedition, under the command of Col. Edward B. Sladen, from the royal city of Mandalay, on the Irrawaddy, to explore the unknown country beyond. The narrative of the expedition, written by Dr. John Anderson, its medical officer and naturalist, has recently been given to the public. The only use our limits permit us to make of it, interesting though it is, is to introduce to our readers the Kakhyens, or the wild Highlanders of that distant and little known region of Western China.

The Kakhyens are a race of mountaineers inhabiting the hills that bound the Irrawaddy basin. They are probably cognate with the hill tribes of the Mishmees and Nagas. They call themselves Chingpaw, or “men,” and Kakhyens is their Burmese appellation.

Among this people the patriarchal government has universally prevailed. Each clan has its hereditary chief, assisted by pawmines, or lieutenants, who determine all questions about which the people are at variance. The youngest son is entitled to the office of chieftain; and if there be no sons, it descends to the youngest brother. The eldest sons inherit the rank of pawmine.

The chief of a clan exacts toll of all travellers through his territory, and its payment secures his friendship and protection, and accordingly that of his people. The slaves who were stolen as children or kidnapped as adults belong to the tsawbwa, or head man of the clan. The females are concubines, and the men, if obedient and industrious, are kindly treated, their children being regarded as members of the chieftain’s family. A basket of rice is the annual tribute due the chief from every family, and if a buffalo be killed, a quarter must be presented to him.

With singular good taste the Kakhyens build their villages near a mountain stream in a sheltered glen, or a row of houses climbs some gentle slope.

These are constructed of bamboo in an oblong form, with closely matted sides, and raised on piles several feet from the ground. The roof is thatched with grass and slopes nearly to the earth; the eaves being propped by bamboo posts form a portico which is used at night as a stable for pigs, ponies, and fowls, and as a lounging place for the men during the day. These houses are generally built so as to face eastward, and in size are about one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in length by forty to fifty feet in breadth. The front room is devoted to hospitality and reserved for guests. Those in the rear are occupied by different families more or less connected by blood or marriage.

Owing to the admixture of Shan and Burmese blood, there are two styles of face among these people, but the most common, that of the true Chingpaw, has these characteristics. The face is round and short, with a low forehead and prominent molars. The slightly oblique eyes, with a wide space between, the broad nose and thick, protruding lips, give a look of ugliness to their faces; but this is relieved considerably by an expression of good-nature and kindness. There is a disproportionate shortness of the legs, though they are slight, and otherwise well formed. The Kakhyen possess remarkable agility. The young girls bound along the hill paths with great fleetness, and bring down from the mountains loads of wood and lumber that would task the strength of full-grown Englishmen. With many attractions in personal appearance, yet it is the universal custom never to change a garment till it be worn out. Their clothes and persons are never washed, and they, both women and men, leave their hair uncombed, so that it becomes a thick, matted mass upon the head. A piece of bamboo or of embroidered red cloth is inserted in the lobe of the ear; sometimes a piece of paper is used, and old newspapers are in great demand. Around the leg, below the knee, they wear a number of rattan rings.

The dah, or knife, is the invariable companion of these Highlanders. “Half sheathed in wood and suspended to a rattan hoop covered with embroidered cloth and adorned by a leopard’s tooth, it is slung over the right shoulder so as to bring the hilt in front ready to the grasp of the right hand.” The most common style of knife is short and broad, widening from the hilt to the tip. This is called by the Burmese “the Kakhyen’s chief,” because of the dexterity with which it is handled by these mountaineers. It is the instrument for carving and tracing ornaments on pipes and other articles, as well as the weapon which is relied upon for attack or defence. With it the Kakhyen settles his dispute, and employs it with marvellous readiness against his visible enemies or the invisible nats or deities. They have other arms, such as the matchlock and a cross-bow, with poisoned arrows.

Though some of the more industrious of the men aid the women in their agricultural labor, yet it is characteristic of these hill men that they dislike work, and all the toil and drudgery are the lot of the women. The custom of the men is to wander from house to house and from village to village, to gossip and drink and smoke. Having no inventive talent, they do not work in metal, their dahs even, though they are the indispensable attendants of the Kakhyens, being made by the Shans of the Hotha Valley. Their artistic work does not exceed the simplest designs of tracery in straight lines and the rude figures of bird and animal.

The Kakhyens never undertake any enterprise or begin a journey without seeking to learn the will of the nats, through a meetway or diviner. Sala, a Ponline chief, whose co-operation Col. Sladen desired, privately intimated that the nats must be propitiated before any advance into his country was begun. He and his party were accordingly invited to the ceremony for ascertaining through a meetway, the will of the demons in regard to their expedition. Dr. Anderson thus describes it:—

“Accordingly after dinner we all adjourned to the hall of the tsawbwa’s new house, and reclining on mats brought by his wife, chatted for some time with the chiefs and headmen assembled round the fire. The meetway now entered and seated himself on a small stool, in one corner, which had been through sprinkled with water; he then blew through a small tube, and throwing it from him, with a deep groan, fell into an extraordinary state of tremor; every limb quivered, and his feet beat a literal ‘devil’s tattoo’ on the bamboo flooring. He groaned as if in pain, tore his hair, passed his hand with maniacal gestures over his head and face, then broke into a short, wild chant, interrupted with sighs and groans, his features appearing distorted with madness or rage, while the tones of his voice changed to an expression of anger or fury. During this extraordinary scene, which realized all one had read of demoniacal possession, the tsawbwa and his pawmines occasionally addressed him in low tones, as if soothing or deprecating the anger of the dominant spirit, and at last the tsawbwa informed Sladen that the nats must be propitiated with an offering. Fifteen rupees and some cloth were produced. The silver on a bamboo, sprinkled with water, and the cloth on a platter of plantain leaves were humbly laid at the diviner’s feet; but with one convulsive jerk of the legs rupees and cloth were instantly kicked away, and the medium, by increased convulsions and groans, intimated the dissatisfaction of the nats with the offering. The tsawbwa in vain supplicated for its acceptance, and then signified to Sladen that more rupees were required, and that the nats mentioned sixty as the propitiatory sum. Sladen tendered five more, with an assurance that no more would be given. The amended offering was again, but more gently, pushed away, of which no notice was taken. After another quarter of an hour, during which the convulsions and groans gradually grew less violent, a dried leaf, rolled into a cone and filled with rice, was handed to the meetway. He raised it to his forehead several times, and then threw it on the floor; a dah, which had been carefully washed, was next handed to him, and treated the same way, and after a few gentle sighs he rose from his seat and, laughing, signed us to look at his legs and arms, which were very tired. The oracle was in our favor, and predictions of all manner of success were interpreted to us as the utterances of the inspired diviner.”

The ordeal which a young man, who shows some signs of the diviner’s gift, has to undergo before becoming an accredited meetway is an extremely difficult one. “A ladder is prepared, the steps of which consist of sword-blades with the sharp edges turned upward, and this is reared against a platform thickly set with sharp spikes. The barefooted novice ascends the perilous path to fame, and seats himself on the spikes without any apparent inconvenience; he then descends by the same ladder, and if, after having been carefully examined, he is pronounced free from any trace of injury he is thenceforward accepted as a true diviner.”

Purchase and abduction, which constitute so prominent a part of the nuptial rites of many races, also enter very largely into the marriage ceremonies of the Kakhyens. A rich Kakhyen pays for his wife, a female slave, ten pieces of silver, ten spears, ten buffaloes, ten dahs, a gong, two suits of clothes, a matchlock, and an iron cooking-pot. Clothes and presents of silver are given by him to the bridesmaids, and he must pay all the expenses of the marriage feast.

Preliminary to a marriage the diviner or toomsa is consulted in regard to the fortune of the intended bride; some portion of her dress or some ornament is obtained and given to the seer, who then predicts her destiny. If his report be favorable, messengers are sent with presents to the girl’s parents to make proposals and learn from them the amount of the dowry required; if these terms be accepted, the bridegroom sends two messengers to inform the bride’s parents that such a day is selected for the marriage. These are feasted, and then attended on their return by two of her kindred, who agree to be prepared for the marriage. “When the day comes five young men set out from the bridegroom’s village to that of the bride, where they wait till nightfall in a neighboring house. At dusk the bride is brought thither by one of the stranger girls, as it were, without the knowledge of her parents, and told that these men have come to claim her. They all set out for the bridegroom’s village. In the morning, the bride is placed under a closed canopy outside the bridegroom’s house. Presently there arrives a party of young men from her village to search, as they say, for one of their girls who has been stolen. They are invited to look under the canopy, and bidden, if they will, to take the girl away, but they reply, ‘It is well, let her remain where she is.’ While a buffalo, etc., are being killed as a sacrifice, the bridegroom hands over the dowry, and shows the trousseau prepared for his bride. Meanwhile, the toomsa, or officiating priest has arranged bunches of fresh grass, pressed down with bamboos at regular intervals, so as to form a carpet between the canopy and the bridegroom’s house.”

At every marriage there is an invocation to the household nats, and a libation of sheroo and water. The grass-path over which the bride passes from the canopy is sprinkled with the blood of fowls. Boiled eggs, ginger, and dried fish are offered to the household deities. This ends the ceremony. The bridegroom is merely a spectator of all these rites. Then a grand feast follows. In addition to the usual fare, such as plantains, rice, fish, and pork, the flesh of the buffalo, offered in sacrifice, and that of the barking deer are provided for the guests. These viands, together with liberal supplies of sheroo and the Chinese samshu, are the preparations for the dance. Various musical instruments are employed to contribute to the entertainment of the occasion; and the marriage feast ends at length, like all their festal gatherings, in drunkenness and often in a brutal quarrel.

Female infidelity after marriage the Kakhyens regard as a crime punishable by death, which the aggrieved husband may inflict at any time upon both the offenders. If a wife elope the husband is entitled to damages double the amount of the marriage dowry, and this the kinsmen of the wife’s seducer must make good or incur the penalty of a feud.

The household nats are propitiated the day after the birth of a child by the sacrifice of a hog and offerings of sheroo. The toomsa, the slayer and the cook, and the head of the household only share in the flesh; but the entrails, with eggs, fish, and ginger, are put upon the altars so that the villagers may partake. All are invited, and sheroo is offered in the order of seniority. When the feast is over the oldest man among the guests rises, and pointing to the child announces its name.

The peculiarities of their burial rites can best be given in the language of Dr. Anderson: “When a Kakhyen dies the news is announced by a discharge of matchlocks. This is a signal for all to repair to the house of death. Some cut bamboos and timber for the coffin, others prepare for the funeral rites. A circle of bamboos is driven into the ground slanting outward, so that the upper circle is much wider than the base. To each a small flag is fastened, grass is placed between this circle and the house, and the toomsa scatters grass over the bamboos and pours a libation of sheroo. A hog is then slaughtered, and the flesh cooked and distributed, the skull being fixed on one of the bamboos. The coffin is made of the hollowed trunk of a large tree, which the men fell with their dahs. Just before its fall a fowl is killed by being dashed against the tottering stem. The place where the head is to rest is blackened with charcoal and a lid constructed. The body is washed and dressed in new clothes. Some of the pork, boiled rice, and sheroo are placed before it, and a piece of silver is inserted in the mouth to pay ferry dues over the streams the spirit may have to cross. It is then coffined and carried to the grave, amidst the discharge of firearms. The old clothes of the deceased are laid on the mound, and sheroo is poured out, the best being drunk by the friends around it. In returning the mourners strew ground-rice along the path, and when near the village they cleanse their legs and arms with fresh leaves. Before re-entering the house all are lustrated with water by the toomsa with an asperge of grass, pass over a bundle of grass sprinkled with the blood of a fowl, sacrificed during their absence to the spirit of the dead. Eating and drinking wind up the day. Next morning an offering of a hog and sheroo is made to the spirit of the dead man, and a feast and dance are held till late at night and resumed in the morning. A final sacrifice of a buffalo in honor of the household nats then takes place, and the toomsa breaks down the bamboo fence, after which the final death-dance successfully drives forth the spirit, which is believed to have been still lingering round its former dwelling.”

In the death-dance all classes and ages participate,—men, women, and children,—each carrying a small stick with which they beat time as they move round the hall with measured step, which is a sort of prance and side-shuffle. The drummers vigorously beat their instruments, and ever and anon the dancers burst into loud yells and increase the speed and violence of their movements.

No funeral rites are granted to those who are killed by shot or steel. Such are buried in jungles, their bodies being merely wrapped in mats. A small, open hut is constructed over the grave for the occupancy of the spirits, and a dah, bag, and basket are deposited there for them. So, too, those dying of small-pox and women dying in child-birth are refused the usual rites of burial. A strange superstition possesses the people respecting the mother and her unborn child,—they are supposed to become a terrible compound vampire. All the young people hurry from the house in terror, and the diviner is summoned to discover what animal the evil spirit will devour, and with what other it will transmigrate. The first animal is sacrificed and a part of the flesh put before the corpse. The other animal indicated by the toomsa is hung, and a grave is dug in the direction to which the head of the animal pointed when dead. The clothes and ornaments of the deceased are deposited in the grave and the other property is burned upon it, and a small hut is built over it.

These singular rites indicate in some degree the prominent idea in the religion of this wild race. There is a universal and irresistible belief in good and evil spirits, and the ancient forms of worshipping them are retained. All missionary endeavors to produce any change in their religious thought and customs have been fruitless. There is a belief in a future existence and a vague conception of a Supreme Author of all things.

“The objects of worship are the nats, benign or malignant,—the first such as Sinlah, the sky spirit, who gives rain and good crops; Chan and Shitah, who cause the sun and moon to rise. These they worship because their fathers did so and told their children that they were good. Cringwan is the beneficent patron of agriculture; but the malignant nats must be bribed not to ruin the crops. When the ground is cleared for sowing, Masoo is appeased with pork and fowls burned at the foot of the village altars; when the paddy is eared, buffaloes and pigs are sacrificed to Cajat. A man about to travel is placed under the care of Muron, the toomsa, after due sacrifices, requesting him to tell the other nats not to harm that man. Neglect of Mowlain will result in the want of compraw, or silver, the great object of a Kakhyen’s desire; and if hunters forbear offerings to Chilong some one will be killed by stag or tiger. Chilong and Muron are two of ten brothers who have an especial interest in Kakhyen affairs, and another, named Phee, is the guardian of the night. Every hill, forest, and stream has its own nat of greater or less power; every accident or illness is the work of some malignant or vindictive one of ‘these viewless ministers.’

The character of this race of mountaineers is not attractive. They are not brave as warriors, but are quarrelsome and revengeful, and if atonement for a wrong be not made they perpetuate a feud implacably. They do not seek an open, fair fight, but lie in wait and attack stealthily, springing like the tiger upon their foes. Anderson touches their portrait with these dark lines,—“lazy, thievish, and untrustworthy.”

Their thieving propensity extends to man-stealing. They are the kidnappers of the country.

Dr. Anderson, however, charitably intimates that perhaps the moral deterioration of these fierce, cruel highlanders may be the result of “the knavish injustice of the Chinese traders, or the high-handed extortion and wrong on the part of the Burmese.” The readers of this work will remember many and sad proofs in these sketches of the uncivilized races, that tribes, possessing naturally many excellent traits, have been transformed and degraded into most selfish, brutal, and cruel people by the pillage and piracy of their neighbors, and sometimes by the rapacity and fraud of those that are called civilized and Christian nations.