[268] There is no such city in Angola. It seems to me that Knivet found the name in Linschoten, a translation of whose work appeared in 1698. Linschoten says here of the island of Luandu, which lies in front of the Portuguese town of S. Paul de Loanda, that “there were seven or eight villages upon it, at one of which called ‘Holy Ghost’, resides the Governor of Kongo, who takes care of the right of fishing up shells.” This “Governor” was an officer of the King of Kongo. The island, with its valuable cowrie fishery, was ceded to Portugal in 1649.
[269] Ngulu, a hog.
[270] Sanji, a hen.
[271] I’mboa, or mbwa, dog.
[272] Earlier in his narrative he mentions having seen, at the Straits of Magellan, “a kind of beast bigger than horses; they have great eyes about a span long, and their tails are like the tail of a cow; these are very good: the Indians of Brazil call them tapetywason: of these beasts I saw in Ethiopia, in the Kingdom of Manicongo. The Portugals call them gombe” (marginal note by Purchas). The gombe (ngombe) of the Portugals is undoubtedly a cow, whilst the tapetywason, called “taparussu” in a Noticia de Brazil of 1589, and tapyra, in the language of the Tupi Indians, is applied to any large beast, and even to the oxen imported by the Portuguese, which they call tapyra sobay go ara, that is, “foreign beasts,” to distinguish them from their own tapyra caapora or “forest beast.”
[273] This account of a “trial by battle” does much credit to the author’s ingenuity. No such custom is referred to by any other visitor to the Kongo. The meaning of “Mahobeque” we cannot discover, but mbenge-mbenge means “principally.”
[274] Nkadi, one who is, and mpungu, the highest. The usual word to express the idea of God is nzambi, or nzambi ampungu, God the most high! Nkadi ampemba, according to Bentley, means Satan. The word used in Angola is, Karia-pemba.
[275] Ri-konjo, banana.
[276] Mutombo is the flour from which cassava-bread is made.
[277] The name for bread, both in Kimbundu and Kishikongo, is mbolo (derived from the Portuguese word for cake or bolo). Anou or auen may stand for mwan, a cassava-pudding; tala means look! kuna, here! The Rev. Thomas Lewis would say, in the Kongo language of Salvador: Umpana mbolo tambula nzimbu; literally, “Give me bread, take or receive money.”