As in the old days of Chevy Chase, a hunt is almost a sure precursor of a fight. The Dôr are much given to hunting, and organize battues on a grand scale. They weave strong nets of bark fibre, and fasten them between trunks of trees, so as to cover a space of several miles. Antelopes and other game are driven from considerable distances into these nets; and as the hunters have to pass over a large space of country, some of which is sure to be claimed by inimical tribes, a skirmish, if not a regular battle, is sure to take place.
The weapons carried by the Dôr are of rather a formidable description. One of the most curious is the club. It is about two feet six inches in length, and is remarkable for the shape of the head, which is formed like a mushroom, but has sharp edges. As it is made of very hard wood, it is a most effective weapon, and not even the stone-like skull of a Dôr warrior can resist a blow from it. The bow exhibits a mode of construction which is very common in this part of Africa, and which must interfere greatly with the power of the weapon. The string does not extend to the tips of the bow, so that eighteen inches or so of the weapon are wasted, and the elasticity impaired. The reader will see that, if the ends of the bow were cut off immediately above the string, the strength and elasticity would suffer no diminution, and that, in fact, the extra weight at each end of the bow only gives the weapon more work to do.
The Africans have a strange habit of making a weapon in such a way that its efficiency shall be weakened as much as possible. Not content with leaving a foot or so of useless wood at each end of the bow, some tribes ornament the weapon with large tufts of loose strings or fibres, about half way between the handle and the tip, as if to cause as much disturbance to the aim as possible. Spears again are decorated with tufts to such an extent that they are rendered quite unmanageable.
Much more care is taken with the arrows than with the bows. There is a great variety in the shape of the arrows, as also in their length. They are all iron-headed, and every man seems to make his arrows after his own peculiar fashion; sometimes large and broad-headed, sometimes slightly barbed, though more commonly slender and sharply pointed.
In my collection there is a most remarkable quiver, once belonging to a warrior of one of the Dôr sub-tribes. It was brought from Central Africa by Mr. Petherick. Nothing can be simpler than the construction of this quiver. The maker has cut a strip of antelope hide rather more than three feet in length and fourteen inches in width. He has then poked his knife through the edges at moderately regular intervals, so as to make a series of holes. A thong about half an inch wide has next been cut from the same hide, and passed through the topmost hole or slit, a large knot preventing it from slipping through. It has then been passed through the remaining slits, so as to lace the edges together like the sides of a boot. The bottom is closed by the simple plan of turning it up and lacing it by the same thong to the side of the quiver.
It is hardly possible to conceive any rougher work. The maker has cut the slits quite at random, so that he has occasionally missed one or two, and he has not taken the least pains to bring the sides of the quiver together throughout their length. So stupid or careless has he been, that he has begun by cutting the strip of skin much too narrow, and then has widened it, never taking the pains to sew up the cut, which extends two-thirds down the quiver.
Four or five of the arrows have the leaf-shaped head and need not be particularly described. The largest of the arrows, being a “cloth-yard shaft,” but for the absence of feathers, might vie with the weapons of the old English archers. The head is remarkable for a heavy ridge which runs along the centre on both sides. There is another not so boldly barbed as that which has just been mentioned, but which is quite as formidable a weapon, on account of a thick layer of poison that begins just behind the head, and extends nearly as far as the shaft.
The most characteristic forms, however, are these two. The first is an arrow which is barbed with a wonderful ingenuity, the barbs not being mere projections, but actual spikes, more than an inch in length, and at the base nearly as thick as a crow quill. They have been separated from the iron head by the blow of a chisel, or some such implement, and have then been bent outward, and sharpened until the points are like those of needles. Besides these long barbs, the whole of the square neck of the iron is jagged exactly like the [Bechuana assagai] which has been figured on page 281.
Such an arrow cannot be extracted, and the only mode of removing it is to push it through the wound. But the Central Africans have evidently thought that their enemy was let off too cheaply by being allowed to rid himself of the arrow by so simple a process, and accordingly they have invented a kind of arrow which can neither be drawn out nor pushed through. In the second of these arrows there is a pair of reversed barbs just at the junction of the shaft and the iron head, so that when the arrow has once penetrated, it must either be cut out or allowed to remain where it is. Such an arrow is not poisoned, nor does it need any such addition to its terrors. Both these arrows are remarkable for having the heads fastened to the shaft, first in the ordinary way, by raw hide, and then by a band of iron, about the sixth of an inch in width. Though shorter than some of the other arrows, they are on that account much heavier.
One of the fights consequent on a hunt is well described by Mr. Petherick. He was sitting in the shade at noon-day, when he perceived several boys running in haste to the village for an additional supply of weapons for their fathers. “The alarm spread instantly that a fight was taking place, and the women en masse proceeded to the scene with yellings and shrieks indescribable. Seizing my rifle, and accompanied by four of my followers, curiosity to see a negro fight tempted me to accompany them. After a stiff march of a couple of hours through bush and glade, covered with waving grass reaching nearly to our waists, the return of several boys warned us of the proximity of the fight, and of their fear of its turning against them, the opposing party being the most numerous. Many of the women hurried back to their homes, to prepare, in case of emergency, for flight and safety in the bush. For such an occurrence, to a certain extent, they are always prepared; several parcels of grain and provisions, neatly packed up in spherical forms in leaves surrounded by network, being generally kept ready in every hut for a sudden start.