The pigmies arrange their dwellings—low structures of the shape of an oval figure cut lengthways; the doors are from two feet to three feet high, placed at the ends—in a rough circle, the centre of which is left cleared for the residence of the chief and his family, and as a common. About 100 yards in advance of the camp, along every track leading out of it, is placed the sentry-house, just large enough for two little men, with the doorway looking up the track. If we assumed that native caravans ever travelled between Ipoto and Ibwiri, for instance, we should imagine, from our knowledge of these forest people, that the caravan would be mulcted of much of its property by these nomads, whom they would meet in front and rear of each settlement, and as there are ten settlements between the two points, they would have to pay toll twenty times, in tobacco, salt, iron, and rattan, cane ornaments, axes, knives, spears, arrows, adzes, rings, &c. We therefore see how utterly impossible it would be for the Ipoto people to have even heard of Ibwiri, owing to the heavy turnpike tolls and octroi duties that would be demanded of them if they ventured to undertake a long journey of eighty miles. It will also be seen why there is such a diversity of dialects, why captives were utterly ignorant of settlements only twenty miles away from them.
As I have said, there are two species of these pigmies, utterly dissimilar in complexion, conformation of the head, and facial characteristics. Whether Batwa forms one nation and Wambutti another we do not know, but they differ as much from each other as a Turk would from a Scandinavian. The Batwa have longish heads and long narrow faces, reddish, small eyes, set close together, which give them a somewhat ferrety look, sour, anxious, and querulous. The Wambutti have round faces, gazelle-like eyes, set far apart, open foreheads, which give one an impression of undisguised frankness, and are of a rich yellow, ivory complexion. The Wambutti occupy the southern half of the district described, the Batwa the northern, and extend south-easterly to the Awamba forests on both banks of the Semliki River, and east of the Ituri.
The life in their forest villages partakes of the character of the agricultural classes. The women perform all the work of collecting fuel and provisions, and cooking, and the transport of the goods of the community. The men hunt, and fight, and smoke, and conduct the tribal politics. There is always some game in the camp, besides furs and feathers and hides. They have nets for fish and traps for small game to make. The youngsters must always be practising with the bow and arrow, for we have never come across one of their villages without finding several miniature bows and blunt-headed arrows. There must be free use of axes also, for the trees about bear many a mark which could only have been done to try their edge. In every camp we have seen deep incisions in a tree several inches deep, and perhaps 500 yards from the camp a series of diamond cuttings in a root of a tree across the track, which, when seen, informed us that we were approaching a village of the Wambutti pigmies.
Two Egyptians, a corporal and a Cairo boy of fifteen, both light complexioned, were captured near Fort Bodo during my absence, and no one discovered what became of them. It is supposed they were made prisoners, like young Nassamonians of old. I have often wondered what was done to them, and what the feelings of both were—they were devout Mussulmans—after they were taken to the Wambutti’s camp. I fancy they must have been something similar to those of Robert Baker, a sailor, in 1562—
“If cannibals they be
In kind, we do not know,
But if they be, then welcome we,
To pot straightway we goe.
They naked goe likewise,
For shame, we cannot so;
We cannot live after their guise,
Thus naked for to go.
By roots and leaves they live,
As beasts do in the wood:
Among these heathen who can thrive,
On this so wilde a food?”
One of the poisons employed by the tribes of the forest to smear their weapons, in order to make them more deadly, is a dark substance of the colour and consistency of pitch. It is supposed—if native women may be trusted—to be made out of a species of arum, a very common plant, with large leaves, found in any quantity between Fort Bodo and Indesura. Its smell, when fresh, reminds one of the old blister plaster. That it is deadly there can be no doubt. They kill the elephants and other big game with it, as certainly as these animals could be slain with bone-crushing rifles. That they do kill elephants is proved by the vast stores of ivory collected by Ugarrowwa, Kilonga-Longa, and Tippu-Tib, and each adult warrior has a waist-belt, or a shoulder-belt, to suspend his dagger and skinning-knife, and every mother who carries her child and every wife who carries a basket has need of broad forehead-straps, made out of buffalo hide, to bear her load on her back.