There is still left a small fragment of one of the many African tribes which are rapidly expiring. These people are called Badéma, and from their ingenuity seem to deserve a better fate. They are careful husbandmen, and cultivate small quantities of tobacco, maize, and cotton in the hollows of the valleys, where sufficient moisture lingers to support vegetation. They are clever sportsmen, and make great use of the net, as well on the land as in the water. For fishing they have a kind of casting net, and when they go out to catch zebras, antelopes, and other animals, they do so by stretching nets across the narrow outlets of ravines, and then driving the game into them. The nets are made of baobab bark, and are very strong.
They have a singularly ingenious mode of preserving their corn. Like many other failing tribes, they are much persecuted by their stronger neighbors, who are apt to make raids upon them, and carry off all their property, the chief part of which consists of corn. Consequently they are obliged to conceal their stores in the hills, and only keep a small portion in their huts, just sufficient for the day’s consumption. But the mice and monkeys are quite as fond of corn as their human enemies, and would soon destroy all their stores, had not the men a plan by which they can be preserved. The Badéma have found out a tree, the bark of which is hateful both to the mice and the monkeys. Accordingly they strip off the bark, which is of a very bitter character, roll it up into cylindrical vessels, and in these vessels they keep their corn safely in caves and crevices among the rocks.
Of course, when their enemies come upon them, they always deny that they have any food except that which is in their huts, and when Dr. Livingstone came among them for the first time they made the stereotyped denial, stating that they had been robbed only a few weeks before.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE BALONDO OR BALONDA AND THE ANGOLESE.
GENERAL APPEARANCE — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — WOMAN’S DRESS — MANENKO AND HER STRANGE COSTUME — FASHIONS IN HAIR-DRESSING — COSTUME OF THE MEN — THEIR ORNAMENTS — PECULIAR GAIT — MODE OF SALUTATION — CURIOSITY — MILDNESS OF TEMPERAMENT — AN ATTEMPT AT EXTORTION — A SCENE AT COURT — BALONDA MUSIC — MANENKO IN COMMAND — KATEMA AND HIS BEARER — LOVE OF CATTLE — FOOD OF THE BALONDA — FISH-CATCHING — BALONDA ARCHITECTURE — CEMENTING FRIENDSHIP — RELIGION AND IDOLS — A WILD LEGEND — FUNERAL CUSTOMS — THE ANGOLESE — THEIR CHARACTER — AGRICULTURE — THE MANIOC, AND ITS USES — MEDICINES AND CUPPING — SUPERSTITIONS — MARRIAGES AND FUNERALS — DR. LIVINGSTONE’S SUMMARY.
We now come to a rather important tribe that lives very close to the equator. This is called the Balondo or Balonda tribe, i. e. the people who inhabit Londa-land, a very large district on the western side of Africa. A great number of small tribes inhabit this country, but, as they really are offshoots of the one tribe, we will treat of them all under the common name of Balondo.
The chief ruler, or king, of the Balonda tribes is Matiamvo, a name which is hereditary, like that of the Czar or Pharaoh. He has absolute power of life and death, and one of them had a way of proving this authority by occasionally running about the town and beheading every one whom he met, until sometimes quite a heap of human heads was collected. He said that his people were too numerous to be prosperous, and so he took this simple method of diminishing their numbers. There seems to be no doubt that he was insane, and his people thought so too; but their reverence for his office was so great that he was allowed to pursue his mad course without check, and at length died peaceably, instead of being murdered, as might have been expected.
He was a great slave-dealer, and used to conduct the transaction in a manner remarkable for its simplicity. When a slave-merchant came to his town, he took all his visitor’s property, and kept him as a guest for a week or ten days. After that time, having shown his hospitality, he sent out a party of armed men against some populous village, killed the headman, and gave the rest of the inhabitants to the slave merchant in payment for his goods. Thus he enriched his treasury and thinned his population by the same act. Indeed, he seemed always to look upon villages as property which could be realized at any time, and had, besides, the advantage of steadily increasing in value. If he heard of or saw anything which he desired exceedingly, and the owner declined to part with it, he would destroy a whole village, and offer the plunder to the owner of the coveted property.
Still, under this régime, the people lead, as a general rule, tolerably happy and contented lives. They are not subjected to the same despotism as the tribes of the Southern districts, and, indeed, often refuse to obey the orders of the chief. Once, when Katema sent to the Balobale, a sub-tribe under his protection, and ordered them to furnish men to carry Dr. Livingstone’s goods, they flatly refused to do so, in spite of Katema’s threat that, if they did not obey, he would deprive them of his countenance, and send them back to their former oppressors. The fact is, each of the chiefs is anxious to collect round himself as many people as possible, in order to swell his own importance, and he does not like to do anything that might drive them away from him into the ranks of some rival chief. Dr. Livingstone remarks, that this disobedience is the more remarkable, as it occurs in a country where the slave-trade is in full force, and where people may be kidnapped and sold under any pretext that may happen to occur to the chief.
As is frequently the case with African tribes, there is considerable variety of color among the Balondo, some being of a notably pale chocolate hue, while others are so black as to rival the negro in darkness of complexion. They appear to be a rather pleasing set of men, tainted, as must be the case, with the ordinary vices of savage life, but not morose, cruel, or treacherous, as is too often the case. The women appear to be almost exceptionally lively, being full of animal spirits, and spending all their leisure time, which seems to be considerable, in chattering, weddings, funerals, and similar amusements. Dr. Livingstone offers a suggestion that this flow of spirits may be one reason why they are so indestructible a race, and thinks that their total want of care is caused by the fatalism of their religious theories, such as they are. Indeed, he draws rather a curious conclusion from their happy and cheerful mode of life, considering that it would be a difficulty in the way of a missionary, though why a lively disposition and Christianity should be opposed to each other is not easy to see.