[208] Domingos d’Abreu de Brito, in a memoir addressed in 1592 to King Philip, states that 52,000 slaves were exported from Angola to Brazil and the Spanish Indies between 1575 and 1591, and 20,131 during the last four years of this period (Paiva Manso, Hist. do Congo, p. 140). Cadornega, quoted by the same author, estimates the number of slaves annually exported between 1580 and 1680 at eight or ten thousand (ib., p. 287).
[209] Recte, Engenho, a mill, and in Brazil more especially a sugar mill.
[210] Turner says, in his Relations, p. 1243, that John de Paiis (sic) owned ten thousand slaves and eighteen sugar mills.
[211] Manuel Cerveira Pereira was Governor 1603-7 (see p. 37).
[212] Carvalho (Ethnographia, pp. 248, 258) describes trophies of these as also trophies of war, built up of the skulls of enemies killed in battle. Bastian (Loango Expedition, vol. i, p. 54) saw a fossil tusk, which was looked upon as a fetish, around which were piled up the horns of oxen, and the teeth and skulls of hippopotami.
[213] Libations are a common practice. Dr. Bastian (Loango Expedition, vol. i. p. 70) observed libations of rum being poured on the royal graves at Loangiri; Capello and Ivens (Benguella, vol. i, p. 26) say that the Bandombe, before they drink spirits, pour a portion on the ground, as a libation to Nzambi; whilst in Congo (according to Bentley), the blood of a beast killed in the chase is poured on the grave of a good hunter, to ensure success in the future. Instances of this practice could easily be multiplied. Compare note, p. 51.
[214] Wá, an interjection, O! Kizangu is a fetish image (see note, p. 24). Kuleketa, to prove, to try (Cordeiro da Matta’s Diccionario).
[215] On this ordeal, as practised in Angola, see note, p. 61.
[216] Nganga a mukishi.