The heart of Africa, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Georg August Schweinfurth

MONBUTTOO METAL WORK.

The masterpieces, however, of these Monbuttoo smiths are the ornamental chains which, in refinement of form and neatness of finish, might vie with our best steel chains; in fact, according to the judgment of connoisseurs, many of these specimens of autochthonic art may well bear comparison with the productions of our European craftsmen. The process of tempering is quite unknown to them, the necessary hardness being attained by continual hammering: the material used is singularly pure and homogeneous, qualities acquired not from any perfection of the smelting apparatus, but from the laborious welding of the separate particles of iron.

Copper was already known, and the king was in possession of large quantities of the metal, before the Nubians set foot in the country; and as previously to that event the Monbuttoo (if we except the great raid which Barth reports to have been made upon them by the Foorians in 1834) had had no intercourse with the Mohammedan world, there is every reason to conclude that they must have received their supply either from the copper mines of Angola and Loango, or from some other region of the north-western portion of South Africa.

Almost all the ornaments worn by the Monbuttoo are made of copper, so that it may be easily understood that the demand for the metal is not small. One of the most frequent uses to which it is applied is that of making flat wires, many yards long, to wind round the handles of knives and scimitars, or round the shafts of lances and bows. Copper, as well as iron, is used for the clasps which are attached to the shields, partly for ornament and partly to prevent them from splitting. Copper necklaces are in continual wear, and copper fastenings are attached to the rings of buffalo-hide and to the thick thongs of the girdles. The little bars inserted through the ear are tipped with the same metal; in fact there is hardly an ornament that fails in an adjunct of copper in some form or other; persons of rank not unfrequently pride themselves in having ornamental weapons formed entirely of it. All other metals being unknown, iron and copper are estimated by the Monbuttoo as silver and gold by ourselves, and the silver platter with which I presented the king failed to elicit any comment beyond the observation that it was white iron. Lead and tin have been introduced as curiosities by the Nubians, but previous to their arrival had never been seen. Information, however, which was incidentally dropped by a Niam-niam, led me to suppose that fragments of platinum about the size of peas have been found in these lands: he told me that a white metal, as hard as iron and as heavy as the lead of which the Nubians made their bullets, had been discovered, but that its existence was always carefully concealed from the strangers. I see no reason to doubt the truth of this statement, since it originated from a people who in no other way could have become aware of the existence of such a metal, which has been hitherto as unknown to the Nubians as silver and gold to the Monbuttoo.

MONBUTTOO WEAPONS.

It would require many illustrations to convey an adequate idea of the various forms of the beads of the arrows and lances: suffice it to say, that the symmetry of the various barbs, spikes, and prongs with which they are provided is always perfect. The prevailing forms of the spear-heads are hastate, whilst the arrows are generally made flat or spatular, as inflicting a deeper and wider wound than the pointed tips. All weapons of the Monbuttoo and the Niam-niam are provided with blood gutters, a mark which serves to distinguish them at once from those of the Bongo and Mittoo. The shafts of the Monbuttoo arrows are made of reed-grass, and differ from all others of the Bongo territory by being winged with pieces of genet’s skin or plantain leaves. The bows are rather over three feet in length, and in form and size correspond very nearly with those used by the Mittoo and Bongo; the bow-strings being made of a strip of the split Spanish reed, which possesses more elasticity than any cord. These bows are provided with a small hollow piece of wood for protecting the thumb from the rebound of the string. The arrow is always discharged from between the middle fingers.

Spear-heads.

The perfection of their instruments gives the Monbuttoo a great advantage in the art of wood-carving, and they are the only African nation, including even the modern Egyptians, who make use of a graving-tool with a single edge, an instrument which, by supporting the forefinger, enables the workman to give a superior finish to the details of his productions. The wood used for carving is generally that of the stem of one of the Rubiaceæ (Uncaria), of which the soft close texture resembles that of poplar-wood. The felling of these giant-trees, which vary from six to eight feet in diameter, and often shoot up to a height of forty feet without throwing forth a single branch, is performed by means of their small hatchets, with a most tedious amount of labour. The hatchets are like those which are used in other parts of Central Africa, and consist of a sharpened iron wedge inserted through the thick end of a knotted club; thus every blow tends to fix the blade firmer in its socket. The number of blows necessary to fell one of these ponderous trees must amount to several thousand, and yet I often noticed stems lying in the forest the ends of which were as smooth as though they had been cut with a knife, a circumstance that attests their correctness of vision, a quality in which the negroes outshine the Arabs and Nubians, as much as in their appreciation of sound and musical talent. The first crude form is given to the larger blocks of wood by means of a tool something like a cooper’s adze.[24] When first hewn, the wood of the Uncaria is white, but it is afterwards blackened by exposure to fire, or still more frequently by being allowed to lie in the dark soil of the brooks.