The following notes on the religion and customs of the Negroes of Angola, Congo and Loango, are taken from Book vii, chapters ix and x, of Purchas His Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered from the Creation unto this Present. London (H. Fetherstone), 1617. This account is a compilation. Purchas quotes, among others, Duarte Lopez, De Barros, Osorio, Marmol, and Du Jarric. In what follows, we confine ourselves to the oral information which Purchas received from his friends or acquaintances, Andrew Battell and Thomas Turner.
Chap. IX, § I.—Angola.
[The Slave Trade.]
ASTER THOMAS TURNER, one that had lived a long time in Brasil, and had also been at Angola, reported to me[207] that it was supposed eight and twenty thousand slaves (a number almost incredible, yet such as the Portugals told him) were yearly shipped from Angola and Congo, at the Haven of Loanda.[208] He named to me a rich Portugal in Brasil, which had ten thousand of his own, working in his Ingenios[209] (of which he had eighteen) and in his other employments. His name was John du Paus, exiled from Portugal, and thus enriched in Brasil.[210] A thousand of his slaves at one time entered into conspiracy with nine thousand other slaves in the country, and barricaded themselves for their best defence against their master, who had much ado to reduce some of them into their former servitude.
[Fetishes.]
To return to Angola, we may add the report of another of our countrymen, Andrew Battell (my near neighbour, dwelling at Leigh, in Essex) who served under Manuel Silvera Pereira,[211] Governor under the King of Spain, at his city of St. Paul, and with him went far into the country of Angola, their army being eight hundred Portugals and fifty thousand Naturals. This Andrew Battell telleth that they are all heathens in Angola. They had their idols of wood in the midst of their towns, fashioned like a negro, and at the foot thereof was a great heap of elephants’ teeth, containing three or four tuns of them: these were piled in the earth, and upon them were set the skulls of dead men, which they had slain in the wars, in monument of their victory.[212] The idol they call Mokisso [Mukishi], and some of them have houses built over them. If any be sick, he accounteth it Mokisso’s hand, and sendeth to appease his angry God, with pouring wine (which they have of the palm tree) at his feet.[213] They have proper names of distinction for their Mokissos, as Kissungo, Kalikete, etc., and use to swear by them, Kissungo wy, that is, by Kissungo.[214]