Captain Speke gives a very humorous account of his interview with one of the women of rank, together with the measurements which she permitted him to take:—
“After a long and amusing conversation with Rumanika in the morning, I called on one of his sisters-in-law, married to an elder brother, who was born before Dagara ascended the throne. She was another of these victims of obesity, unable to stand except on all fours. I was desirous to obtain a good view of her, and actually to measure her, and induced her to give me facilities for doing so by offering in return to show her a bit of my naked legs and arms. The bait took as I wished it, and, after getting her to sidle and wriggle into the middle of the hut, I did as I had promised, and then took her dimensions as noted.
“Round arm, one foot eleven inches. Chest, four feet four inches. Thigh, two feet seven inches. Calf, one foot eight inches. Height, five feet eight inches. All of these are exact except the height, and I believe I could have obtained this more accurately if I could have had her laid on the floor. But, knowing what difficulties I should have to contend with in such a piece of engineering, I tried to get her height by raising her up. This, after infinite exertions on the part of us both, was accomplished, when she sank down again fainting, for the blood had rushed into her head.
“Meanwhile the daughter, a lass of sixteen, sat stark naked before us, sucking at a milk-pot, on which the father kept her at work by holding a rod in his hand: for, as fattening is the first duty of fashionable female life, it must be duly enforced with the rod if necessary. I got up a bit of a flirtation with missy, and induced her to rise and shake hands with me. Her features were lovely, but her body was as round as a ball.”
In one part of the country, the women turned their obesity to good account. In exchanging food for beads, the usual bargain was that a certain quantity of food should be paid for by a belt of beads that would go round the waist. But the women of Karague were, on an average, twice as large round the waist as those of other districts, and the natural consequence was, that food practically rose one hundred per cent in price.
RUMANIKA’S PRIVATE BAND.
(See [page 405].)
Despite their exceeding fatness, their features retain much beauty, the face being oval, and the eyes peculiarly fine and intelligent. The higher class of women are very modest, not only wearing the cow-skin petticoat, but also a large wrapper of black cloth, with which they envelope their whole bodies, merely allowing one eye to be seen. Yet up to the marriageable age no clothing of any kind is worn by either sex, and both boys and girls will come up to the traveller and talk familiarly with him, as unconscious of nudity as their first parents. Until they are married they allow their hair to grow, and then shave it off, sometimes entirely, and sometimes partially. They have an odd habit of making caps of cane, which they cover on the outside with the woolly hair shaved off their own heads.
Mention has been made of various musical instruments used in Karague. The most important are the drums, which vary in size as much as they do in England. That which corresponds to our side-drum is about four feet in length and one in width, and is covered at the wide end with an ichneumon skin. This instrument is slung from the shoulder, and is played with the fingers like the Indian “tom-tom.” The large drums used at the new-moon levee are of similar structure, but very much larger. The war drum is beaten by the women, and at its sound the men rush to arms and repair to the several quarters.