A little below the equator, and between 10° and 12° E. longitude, is a district inhabited by the Ishogo, a very large and remarkable tribe. The Ishogo live along a rather narrow tract of country that extends diagonally southwestward, parallel with the Rembo N’gouyai River, but divided from it by a range of hills.
The Ishogo are a fine race of men, black, with woolly hair, but not exhibiting the extreme negro development which characterizes the aborigines of the west coast. They decorate themselves in rather a singular manner. Both sexes add a ruddy tinge to their native black by rubbing themselves with a red powder obtained by scraping two pieces of bar-wood together, and they also disfigure themselves by removing the two middle teeth of the upper jaw.
Like other woolly-haired races, the Ishogo are very proud of their heads, and diminish the already scanty supply of hair with which Nature has supplied them. Eyelashes and eyebrows are unfashionable among them, and are carefully erased, while the hair of the head is dressed in the most extraordinary style. The men shave a circle round their heads, only allowing a round patch to remain on the crown. This is separated into three divisions, each of which is plaited into a lappet-like form, coming to a point at the end, and being finished off with a large bead, or perhaps a piece of polished wire. On account of the slow growth of the hair, an Ishogo cannot complete his headdress under several years.
The women begin by making a sort of frame of grass cloth, and fixing it to the head, at the top or at the back, as their taste may direct. They then work the woolly hair into it, and, when that part of the process is completed, shave away all the hair that is not required for the purpose. When the headdress is complete, it stands some eight or ten inches from the head, and consequently a term of years elapses before this odd ornament reaches perfection. In fact, a complete headdress is never seen on any one under five-and-twenty.
The “chignon,” if we may apply such a term to the headdress, has four partings, one in front, one behind, and one at each side. Of course this elaborate ornament cannot be dressed by the owners, and, as a general rule, it is intrusted to professional hands, several women in every town making hair-dressing a regular business. After being arranged, the head is not touched for several months, when the structure is taken to pieces, and elaborately rebuilt, the fresh growth of hair being woven into it. The operation of taking down and rebuilding one of these towers is a very long and tedious one, and occupies a full day.
Four modes of arranging the tower, if it may be called so, prevail among the Ishogo. The ordinary plan is to raise it perpendicularly from the top of the head, so that at a distance it looks exactly as if the woman were carrying a cylindrical basket on her head. Sometimes, when the base of the tower is placed half way between the top of the head and the neck, the direction is diagonal, and, when the hair at the back of the head is retained, the tower projects backward and horizontally. These are the usual fashions; but some of the women wear, in addition to the tower, a tuft of hair, which is allowed to remain at each side of the head, and is trained into a ball just above the ear.
The dress of the Ishogo is “grass cloth” of their own manufacture. They are celebrated for the soft and close texture of this cloth, which is, however, not made from grass, but from the cuticle of young palm leaves, stripped off dexterously by the fingers. M. du Chaillu gives the following account of the weavers:—
“In walking down the main street of Mokenga a number of ouandjas, or houses without walls, are seen, each containing four or five looms, with the weavers seated before them, weaving the cloth. In the middle of the ouandja a wood fire is seen burning, and the weavers, as you pass by, are sure to be seen smoking their pipes, and chatting to one another whilst going on with their work. The weavers are all men, and it is men also who stitch the ‘bongos’ together to make ‘denguis’ or robes of them. The stitches are not very close together, nor is the thread very fine, but the work is very neat and regular, and the needles are of their own manufacture. The bongos are very often striped, and sometimes made even in check patterns. This is done by their dyeing some of the threads of the warp, or of the warp and woof, with various simple colors. The dyes are all made of decoctions of different kinds of wood, except for black, when a kind of iron ore is used. The bongos are employed as money in this part of Africa.”
Two of the words in this passage need explanation. The loom of the Ishogo is made as follows:—A bar of wood, about two feet in length, is suspended horizontally from the roof of the weaving hut, and over this bar are passed the threads which constitute the warp, their other ends being fastened to a corresponding bar below, which is fixed tightly down by a couple of forked sticks thrust into the ground. The alternate threads of the warp are divided by two slight rods, the ends of which are held in the fingers of the left hand, which cross them alternately, while the woof is interlaced by means of a sword-shaped shuttle, which also serves to strike it down and lay it regularly.
In consequence of this form of loom it is only possible to weave pieces of cloth of a limited length, and, as these cloths are used as currency, they are all made of the same length. Each of these pieces is called a “bongo,” and when two are sewed together they become “denguis.”