Andrew Battell saith he knew six or seven, in his being there, that made this trial.
Chap. X, § III.—Of the Giacchi, or Iagges.[249]
[Origin of the Jagas.]
... Andrew Battel lived (by occasion of the Portugals treachery) with the Iagges a longer time than ever any Christian or white man had done, namely, sixteen months, and served them with their [his] musket in the wars; neither could Lopez (saith he) have true intelligence whence they came,[250] for the Christians at that time had but uncertain conjectures of them: neither after had the Portugals any conversing, but by way of commerce; but he, being betrayed, fled to them for his life, and after, by stealth, escaped from them: the only European that ever lived in their camp.
He saith they are called Iagges by the Portugals, by themselves Imbangolas*[251] (which name argues them to be of the Imbij and Galæ before mentioned) and come from Sierra Liona;*[252] that they are exceeding devourers of man’s flesh, for which they refuse beef and goats, whereof they take plenty. They have no settled habitation, but wander in an unsettled course.
[Infanticide among the Jaga.]
They rise in harvest, and invading some country, there stay as long as they find the palms, or other sufficient means of maintenance, and then seek new adventure. For they neither plant nor sow, nor breed up cattle, and, which is more, strange, they nourish up none of their own children, although they have ten or twenty wives a man, of the properest and comeliest slaves they can take. But when they are in travail they dig a hole in the earth, which presently receiveth in that dark prison of death the newborn creature, not yet made happy with the light of life. Their reason is that they will not be troubled with education, nor in their flitting wanderings be troubled with such cumbersome burthens.[253]
Once, a secret providence both punisheth the father’s wickedness, and preventeth a viperous generation, if that maybe a prevention where there is a succession without generation; and as Pliny saith of the Esseni (lib. v, c. 15), Gens æterna est in qua nepto nascitur. For of the conquered nations they [the Jaga] preserve the boys from ten to twenty years of age, and bring them up as the hope of their succession, like Negro-azimogli,[254] with education fitting their designs. These wear a collar about their neck in token of slavery, until they bring an enemy’s head slain in battle, and then they are uncollared, free’d, and dignified with the title of soldiers; if one of them runs away he is killed and eaten; so that, hemmed in betwixt hope and fear, they grow very resolute and adventurous, their collars breeding shame, disdain, and desperate fury, till they redeem their freedom as you have heard.
Elembe,[255] the great Iagge, brought with him twelve thousand of these cruel monsters from Sierra Liona, and after much mischief and spoil settled himself in Benguele,[256] twelve degrees from the Zone southwards, and there breedeth and groweth into a nation. But Kelandula, sometime his page, proceeds in that beastly life before mentioned, and the people of Elembe, by great troops, run to him and follow his camp in hope of spoil.