Besides the lance and the “boomerangs,” each Neam-Nam carries a strangely-shaped knife in a leathern sheath, and oddly enough the hilt is always downward. It is sharp at both edges, and is used as a hand-to-hand weapon after the boomerangs have been thrown, and the parties have come too close to use the spear effectually. From the projection at the base of the blade a cord is tied loosely to the handle, and the loop passed over the wrist, so as to prevent the warrior from being disarmed.
Some of the Neam-Nam tribes use a very remarkable shield. It is spindle-shaped, very long and very narrow, measuring only four or five inches in breadth in the middle, and tapering to a point at either end. In the middle a hole is scooped, large enough to contain the hand, and a bar of wood is left so as to form a handle. This curious shield is carried in the left hand, and is used to ward off the lances or arrows of the enemy, which is done by giving it a smart twist.
In principle and appearance it resembles so closely the shield of the native Australian, that it might easily be mistaken for one of those weapons. Sometimes a warrior decorates his shield by covering it with the skin of an antelope, wrapped round it while still wet, and then sewed together in a line with the handle. The Shilloch and Dinka tribes use similar weapons, but their shields are without the hollow guard for the hand, and look exactly like bows without the strings.
Each warrior has also a whistle, or call, made of ivory or antelope’s horn, which is used for conveying signals; and some of the officers, or leaders, have large war trumpets, made of elephants’ tusks. One form of these trumpets is seen in the [illustration] “Caboceer and soldiers,” on page 564. The reader will observe that, as is usual throughout Africa, they are sounded from the side, like a flute, and not from the end, like ordinary trumpets.
Altogether Mr. Petherick passed a considerable time among this justly dreaded tribe, and was so popular among them, that when he left the country he was accompanied by crowds of natives, and the great chief Dimoo not only begged him to return, but generously offered his daughter as a wife in case the invitation were accepted, and promised to keep her until wanted.
THE DÔR.
Passing by a number of small and comparatively insignificant tribes, we come to the large and important tribe of the Dôr. Like all African tribes of any pretence, it includes a great number of smaller or sub-tribes, which are only too glad to be ranked among so important and powerful a tribe, and, for the sake of belonging to it, they forego their own individuality.
Like the Neam-Nam, the Dôr acknowledged no paramount chief, the innumerable sub-tribes of which it is composed being each independent, and nearly all at feud with one another. Indeed the whole political condition of the Dôr is wonderfully similar to that of Scotland, when clan was set against clan, and a continual state of feud prevailed among them, though they all gloried in the name of Scotchman.