[Mani Kesock.][178]
There is another Lord, to the eastward, which is called Mani Kesock, and he is eight days’ journey from Mayombe. Here I was with my two negro boys to buy elephants’ hairs and tails. And in a month I bought twenty thousand, which I sold to the Portugals for thirty slaves, and all my charges borne.
From this place I sent one of my negro boys to Mani Seat with a looking-glass. He did esteem it much, and sent me four elephants’ teeth (very great) by his own men, and desired me to cause the Portugals, or any other ship, to come to the northward of the Cape Negro, and he would make fires where his landing place is, for there was never yet any Portugal or other stranger in that place.[179]
[Pygmy Elephant-Hunters.]
To the north-east of Mani Kesock are a kind of little people called Matimbas,[180] which are no bigger than boys of twelve years old, but are very thick, and live only upon flesh, which they kill in the woods with their bows and darts. They pay tribute to Mani Kesock, and bring all their elephants’ teeth and tails to him. They will not enter into any of the Marombos[181] houses, nor will suffer any to come where they dwell; and if by chance any Maramba, or people of Longo [Loango], pass where they dwell, they will forsake that place and go to another.
The women carry bow and arrows, as well as the men, and one of these will walk in the woods alone, and kill the Pongos [gorillas] with their poisoned arrows. I have asked the Marombos whether the elephant sheddeth his teeth or no, and they say no! But sometimes they find their teeth in the woods, but they find their bones also.
[Poison Ordeals.]
When any man is suspected of any offence he is carried before the king, or before Mani Bomma [Mamboma],[182] which is, as it were, a judge under the king. And if it be upon matter that he denieth, and cannot be proved but by their oath, then the suspected person is thus sworn: they have a kind of root which they call Imbondo [mbundu].[183]