At the mouth of the Uelle is found the great mass of the Azandé, a very numerous and important tribe, who range the country from 23 degrees east to 30 degrees west, and from 6 degrees north to 3 degrees south. There are three subdivisions of the Azandé—the Abandjia, the Avongura, and the Makraka, born fighters all, and devoted to cannibalism. Some of the Azandé men, however, will eat only the flesh of their enemies whom they have slain in battle, declining a diet of human flesh otherwise obtained, though they all (except such of them as dwell south of the Uelle) forbid their women and children to touch it.
Kassai Women Returning from Market.
Batetela Women (Lualaba-Kassai).
And here arises a curious subject for speculation. The cannibalistic Azandé are much farther advanced in the arts of peace and war than many other tribes that are not cannibal—the forest Pigmies, for instance. Notwithstanding some peculiar customs concerning them, they hold their women in high regard, and never barter them for goats and cows, the almost universal practice among other Central African tribes. Their skill, too, in agriculture, pottery, and in the making and playing of their musical instruments, seems quite incompatible with their abhorred anthropophagy.
Each Azandé chief is really a despotic king. His power over his subjects is absolute, and any one of them who is so unfortunate as to offend him is simply handed over to the executioner, a procedure which to the Azandé mind seems the most natural thing in the world. The courage of the Azandés is beyond praise. They know no fear; and when assailed by a murderous fire, against which they have no chance of success, they will rush right up to their enemy and grapple with him hand to hand, though nine-tenths of their fellows fall by the way. Their favourite weapons are the lance and light throwing-spear, and each warrior carries, in addition, a shield.
Ordeal by Poison.
Among the Azandé, criminals condemned to death are despatched with the lance. Occasionally, however, they employ a peculiar method of trial, known as the ordeal by poison, which precludes this method of execution. On such occasions the chief acts as judge, and the person accused is made to drink a cup of poison, the theory being that if the accusation is baseless the accused survives unharmed. Of course, the invariable result is that the drinker falls dead within a minute or so. It is safe to assume that an Azandé chief is sufficiently intelligent never to subject one of his tribe to this ordeal whose death he has not previously determined upon.
Blood-Brotherhood.