[70] “Gingado,” elsewhere spelt “Iergado,” is evidently a misprint for Jangada, a Portuguese word meaning “raft.” Such a raft is called Mbimba, and is made of the wood of the bimba (Herminiera Elaphroxylon, Guill. et. Perr.), which is identical with the Ambaj of the Nile, and grows abundantly on the swampy banks of the rivers. Battell himself, at a critical point of his career, built himself such a jangada (Ficalho, Plantas uteis da Africa, 1884, p. 33).
[71] Tavale. Mr. Dennet suggests that tavale corresponds to the libala of Loango, a word derived from the Portuguese taboa (table), for the instrument of this name consists of a board supported by two sticks of wood, and kept in its place by wooden pegs driven into the ground. The player beats this board with his two index fingers. A. R. Neves, Mem. da Epedição a Cassange, p. 110, calls tabalha a drum, which is beaten to make known the death of a Jaga Cassange.
[72] Mbala or Embala merely means town or village. Lad. Magyar (Reisen in Süd-Afrika, p. 383) has a district Kibala, abounding in iron, the chief town of which is Kambuita on the river Longa. Walckenaer’s suggestion (Histoire des Voyages, vol. xiii, p. 30) that Bambala and Bembe are identical is quite unacceptable.
[73] The baobab is indifferently called by Battell alicunde, licondo, elicondi, olicandi, or alicunde, all of which are corruptions of nkondo, by which name the tree is known in Congo. The Portuguese know this characteristic tree of the coast-land and the interior as imbondeiro (from mbondo in Kimbundu). Its inner bark yields a fibre known as licomte, is made into coarse cloth, and is also exported to Europe to be converted into paper. The wood is very light. The pulp of the fruit is refreshing, and was formerly esteemed as a remedy against fever and dysentery. The seeds are eaten. The shell (macua) is used to hold water (hence the popular name of Calabash tree). Ficalho distinguishes three species, viz., Adansonia digitata, Linn., the fruit of which is longish; A. subglobosa, bearing a bell-shaped fruit; A. lageniformis, yielding a fruit shaped like a cucumber (see Monteiro, Angola, vol. i, p. 78; Ficalho, Plantas uteis, p. 100).
[74] The cedar of the Portuguese is Tamarix articulata, Vahl., and resembles a cypress (Ficalho, Plantas uteis da Africa, 1884, p. 94).
[75] Kizangu, in Kimbundu, means fetish. Burton (Two Trips to Gorilla Land, vol. ii, p. 120), saw a like image, also called Quesango, in a village above Boma.
[76] The so-called fetishes (from feitiço, a Portuguese word meaning sorcery) are not idols, but charms and amulets, generally known as nkissi, nkishi, or mukishi. There are nkissi peculiar to a district, village, or family; charms and amulets to shield the wearer or possessor against all the evils flesh is heir to, and others enabling the priest or nganga to discover crime or the cause of disease. The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of these charms was very prevalent among our own ancestors, and the images, rosaries, crosses, relics, and other articles introduced by the Roman missionaries are looked upon by the natives as equivalent to their own nkissi. Even at the present day, images of S. Francis and of other saints may be seen in the collection of Royal Fetishes at S. Salvador, and a cross called santu (Santa Cruz) “is the common fetish which confers skill in hunting” (Bentley, Pioneering on the Congo, vol. i, pp. 35, 36, 39). The images, according to Bentley, seen among the natives are not idols but receptacles of “charms” or medicine. As to a belief in witchcraft (ndoki, witch; Kindoki, witchcraft), it is not even now quite extinct among Christian people, boasting of their civilisation, for a reputed wizard was drowned at Hedingham in Essex in 1863, and a witch burnt in Mexico as recently as 1873. Matthew Hopkins, the famous witch-finder, cannot claim a higher rank than an African nganga, although his procedure was not quite the same. Nor can I see any difference between a fetish and the miraculous “bambino” manufactured in the sixteenth century, and kept in the church of S. Maria Aracœli, which a priest takes to the bedside of sick or dying persons, who are asked to kiss it to be cured, and whose guardians are at all times ready to receive the offerings of the faithful (see Dickens, Pictures from Italy).
[77] Marginal note by Purchas:—“Of these Giagas read also Pigafetta’s Book of Congo, translated into English by M. Hartwell, and my Pilgrimage, l. 7. But none could so well know them as this author, who lived so long with them.”
[78] The river Longa [Lungu] enters the sea in lat. 10° 20´ S.
[79] A soba Calungo is shown on the most recent maps as residing north of the river Longa.