The Monbuttoo have less fulness of muscle than the Niam-niam, without, however, any appearance of debility. The growth of the hair is much the same, and the beard is much more developed than that of the Niam-niam.
PHYSIOLOGICAL SPECULATION.
But there is one special characteristic that is quite peculiar to the Monbuttoo. To judge from the hundreds who paid visits of curiosity to my teat, and from the thousands whom I saw during my three weeks’ sojourn with Munza, I should say that at least five per cent. of the population have light hair. This was always of the closely frizzled quality of the negro type, and was always associated with the lightest skins that I had seen since leaving Lower Egypt. Its colour was by no means like that which is termed light hair amongst ourselves, but was of a mongrel tint mixed with grey, suggesting the comparison to hemp. All the individuals who had this light hair and complexion had a sickly expression about the eyes, and presented many signs of pronounced albinism; they recalled a description given by Isaac Vossius, in his book upon the origin of the Nile, of the white men he saw at the court of the King of Loango: he says that “they were sickly-looking and wan of countenance, with their eyes drawn as though they were squinting.” In the previous chapter I have given a similar description of one of the king’s sons, named Bunza. This combination of light hair and skin gives the Monbuttoo a position distinct from all the nations of the northern part of Africa, with the single exception of the various inhabitants of Morocco, amongst whom fair-haired individuals are far from uncommon.
It has been already observed that in the physiognomical form of the skull the Monbuttoo in many ways recall the type of the Semitic tribes; and they differ from the ordinary run of negroes in the greater length and curve of the nose. All these characteristics betoken an affinity with the Fulbe, and as such the Monbuttoo may probably be included amongst the “Pyrrhi Æthiopes” of Ptolemy. This would, however, be but a vague supposition if it were not supported by the fact that the Fulbe are of eastern origin, although in later times a portion of them have made a retrogade movement from Senegal towards the east. It must be understood that I do not intend by these remarks to offer a bridge for carrying over Eichwaldt’s theory bf the affinity of the Fulbe with the Malays, nor do I intend by such a national migration to add a new link to what he declares to be accomplished in the case of Meroe. Barth considers these Fulbe to be the issue of a double cross, a cross between the Arabs and people of Barbary on the one hand and the people of Barbary and the negroes on the other. This hypothesis, I believe, would also hold good for the Monbuttoo; but altogether it is a question too vague to be capable of being here discussed with any justice.
On account of the loss of the specimens of the Monbuttoo dialect, which I had been at great pains to collect by means of a double interpretation, I am unfortunately not in a position to give much information about the dialect; this much, however, I can confidently assert, that it is a branch of the great African language-stock north of the equator, the greater number of the words belonging to the Nubio-Lybian group.
Still more than in the colour of their skin do the Monbuttoo differ from the neighbouring nations in dress and habits. This appears to be a land where costume is a settled matter of rule, for the uniformity of attire is as complete as it is rapidly becoming under the sway of fashion in all classes of our civilized communities.
Weaving is an art unknown to the Monbuttoo, and their only material for clothing is obtained from their fig-tree (Urostigma Fotschyana), the bark of which is found to be in a condition most serviceable for the purpose when the trunk of the tree is about as thick as a man’s body; the stem is then peeled in rather a remarkable manner: two circular incisions, four or five feet apart, are made right round the trunk, and the bark is removed entire; strange to say, this does no harm to the tree, and in a very short time a peculiar growth or granulation takes place along the edge of the upper incision in the form of little fibres, which gradually descend along the bare cambium or sap-wood, until the tree is once more clothed with a fresh layer of bast. The only explanation that can be offered for this unusual growth is, that in peeling off the bark the entire layer of bast is not removed, but that some portion of it is left hanging to the wood and retains its vitality.[21] In the course of three years the fresh growth is complete, and the bark is in a condition to be again removed; apart from this property, the rearing of these rokko-trees would not compensate the natives for the trouble of planting them.
Monbuttoo Warriors.