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

by Georg August Schweinfurth

NSEWUE’S DEATH.

Notwithstanding all my assiduity and attention, I am sorry to record that Nsewue died in Berber, from a prolonged attack of dysentery, originating not so much in any change of climate, or any alteration in his mode of living, as in his immoderate excess in eating, a propensity which no influence on my part was sufficient to control.

During the last ten months of his life, my protégé did not make any growth at all. I think I may therefore presume that his height would never have exceeded 4 feet 7 inches, which was his measurement at the time of his death. The portrait on the following page may be accepted as a faithful representation of one who was a fair type of his race.

Altogether very few examples of the Akka came under my notice; but so ample was my opportunity of studying in detail the peculiarities of this individual specimen, that, in the course of any observations that follow, I shall feel justified in referring to Nsewue, when the rest of my experience furnishes no other illustration.

Nsewue the Akka.

THE OBONGO.

The Akka would appear to be a branch of that series of dwarf races which, exhibiting all the characteristics of an aboriginal stock, extend along the equator entirely across Africa. Whatever travellers have penetrated far into the interior of the continent have furnished abundant testimony as to the mere fact of the existence of tribes of singularly diminutive height; whilst their accounts are nearly all coincident in representing that these dwarf races differ in hardly anything from the surrounding nations excepting only in their size. It would be entirely an error to describe them as dwarfs either in the sense of the ancient myths, or in the way of lusus naturæ, such as are exhibited as curiosities amongst ourselves; most of the accounts, moreover, that have been given, concur in the statement that these undersized people are distinguished from their neighbours by a redder or brighter shade of complexion; but they differ very considerably in the reports they make about the growth of the hair. The only traveller, I believe, before myself that has come into contact with any section of this race is Du Chaillu, who, in the territory of the Ashango, discovered a wandering tribe of hunters called Obongo, and took the measurements of a number of them. He describes these Obongo as “not ill-shaped,” and as having skins of a pale, yellow-brown, somewhat lighter than their neighbours; he speaks of their having short heads of hair, but a great growth of hair about their bodies. Their average height he affirms to be 4 feet 7 inches. In every particular but the abundance of hair about the person, this description is quite applicable to the Akka. According to Battel,[34] there was a nation of dwarfs, called the Matimbos or Dongo, to the north-east of the land of Tobbi, which lies to the north of the Sette River, and consequently in the same district as that in which Du Chaillu discovered the Obongo. Portuguese authorities, moreover, quite at the beginning of the seventeenth century, contain a distinct reference to a dwarf nation called Bakka-bakka. Dapper furnishes corresponding information on the same subject; and all that he relates about the dwarfs coincides very accurately with what is known about the Akka, whose name had penetrated even at that date to the western equatorial coasts. It is to be understood that districts were known by the name of the people who chanced to be occupying them, and not by any permanent name of the soil itself. After Dapper, in his compilation, had told the history of the Yagas, who is said in olden time to have spread fear and destruction as far as the coasts of the Loango, a hundred miles away, so that it took three months for caravans to come and go, he proceeds to state that the greater part of the ivory was obtained still farther inland, and was brought from a people who were tributary to the great Makoko, and called Mimos or Bakke-bakke. “These little men,” he writes,[35] “are stated by the Yagas to have the power of making themselves invisible, and consequently can slay an elephant with little trouble.” And this dexterity in killing elephants seems to be implied in another place,[36] where, in describing the court of Loango and the dwarfs who took up their positions before the throne, he says, “the negroes affirm that there is a wilderness inhabited by those dwarfs, and where there are many elephants; they are generally called Bakke-bakke, but sometimes Mimos.” Farther on again[37] he speaks of the empire of the great Makoko (described as lying beyond the kingdom of Kongo, and some 200 miles or more inland, north of the River Zaire), and proceeds to specify that “in the wilderness of this country there are to be found the little people that have been mentioned before, who carry on the greater part of the ivory trade throughout the kingdom.” Besides this it is expressly stated that the ivory was bartered for the salt of Loango. Now in none of the countries that I visited in Central Africa was either sea salt or common salt ever an article of commerce, but each separate nation produced its own supply from ashes: but whilst I was at the court of Munza I learnt from the Khartoomers who had settled there that, as matter of fact, king Munza did receive tribute from the Akka in the shape of “real good salt,” which was brought from the far south. Taken in connection with Dapper’s account, this statement would seem to justify the hypothesis that even at this day there may be commercial transactions between the very heart of Africa, where the Akka dwell, and the western coasts.

THE KENKOB.