EMBLEMS OF WAR.
It is in a measure anticipating the order of events, but I may here allude to the remarkable symbolism by which war was declared against us on the frontiers of Wando’s territory when we were upon our return journey. Close on the path, and in full view of every passenger, three objects were suspended from the branch of a tree, viz. an ear of maize, the feather of a fowl, and an arrow. The sight seemed to recall the defiant message sent to the great King of Persia, when he would penetrate to the heart of Scythia. Our guides readily comprehended, and as readily explained, the meaning of the emblems, which were designed to signify that whoever touched an ear of maize or laid his grasp upon a single fowl would assuredly be the victim of the arrow. Without waiting, however, for any depredations on our part, the Niam-niam, with the basest treachery, attacked us on the following day.
In hunting, the Niam-niam employ very much the same contrivances of traps, pits, and snares as the Bongo; but their battues for securing the larger animals are conducted both more systematically and on a more extensive scale.
In close proximity to each separate group of hamlets, and more frequently than not at the threshold of the abodes of the local chieftains known as the “borrumbanga,” or “chief court,” there is always a huge wooden kettledrum, made of a hollow stem mounted upon four feet. The sides of this are of unequal thickness, so that when the drum is struck it is capable of giving two perfectly distinct sounds. According to the mode or time in which these sounds are rendered, three different signals are denoted, the first being the signal for war, another that for hunting, and the third a summons to a festival. Sounded originally in the mbanga of the chief, these signals are in a few minutes repeated on the kettledrums of the “borrumbangas” of the district, and in an incredibly short space of time some thousands of men, armed if need be, are gathered together.
Perhaps the most frequent occasions on which these assemblages are made arise from some elephants having been seen in the adjacent country. As soon as the force is collected, the elephants are driven towards some tracts of dense grass that have been purposely spared from the steppe burning. Provided with firebrands, the crowd surrounds the spot; the conflagration soon extends on all sides, until the poor brutes, choked and scorched, fall a helpless prey to their destroyers, who despatch them with their lances. Since not only the males, with their large and valuable tusks, but the females also with the young, are included in this wholesale and indiscriminate slaughter, it may easily be imagined how year by year the noble animal is fast being exterminated. The avarice of the chiefs, ever desirous of copper, and the greediness of the people, ever anxious for flesh, make them all alike eager for the chase. I constantly saw the natives returning to their huts with a large bundle of what at first I imagined was firewood, but which in reality was their share of elephant-meat, which after being cut into strips and dried over a fire had all the appearance of a log of wood.
The thickets along the river-banks abound in many kinds of wild fowl, which the natives catch by means of snares. The most common are guinea-fowl and francolins, which are caught by a bait that is rather unusual in other places. Instead of scattering common corn in the neighbourhood of the traps, the people make use of fragments of a fleshy Stapelia. This little succulent grows on the dry parts of the steppe, and is frequently found about the white anthills; it is likewise naturalised in Arabia and Nubia, and in a raw condition is sometimes eaten as human food. Birds are very fond of it, and so approved is it as a bait that I not unfrequently found it growing beside the huts, where it was planted for this particular purpose.
NIAM-NIAM HANDICRAFT.
The handicraft of the Niam-niam exhibits itself chiefly in ironwork, pottery, wood carving, domestic architecture, and basket-work; of leather-dressing they know no more than others in this part of Central Africa. Their earthenware vessels may be described as of blameless symmetry. They make water-flasks of an enormous size, and manufacture pretty little drinking-cups. They lavish extraordinary care on the embellishment of their tobacco-pipes, but they have no idea of the method of giving their clay a proper consistency by washing out the particles of mica and by adding a small quantity of sand. From the soft wood of several of the Rubiaceæ they carve stools and benches, and produce great dishes and bowls, of which the stems and pedestals are very diversified in pattern. I saw specimens of these which were admirable works of art, and the designs of which were so complicated that they must have cost the inventor considerable thought.
