When M. du Chaillu was among the Ashango, scarcely any articles of civilized manufacture had penetrated into the country. The universal bead had reached them, and so had a few ornaments of brass. There was an article, however, which was sometimes found among them, and which was about the last that could be expected. It was the common black beer-bottle of England. These bottles have penetrated almost as far as the beads, and are exceedingly prized by the chiefs, who value no article of property more than a black bottle, which they sling to their belts, and in which they keep their plantain wine. Calabashes would, of course, answer their purpose better, being less fragile, but the black bottle is a chief’s great ambition. Mostly, the wives do as they like; but, if a wife should happen to break a bottle, she has committed an offence for which no pardon is expected.
The Ashangos have an odd custom of receiving a visitor. When they desire to do him particular honor, they meet him with some dishes of their red paint, with which he is expected to besmear himself. If a stranger approach a house, and the owner asks him to make himself red, he is quite happy, and, if the pigment should not be offered, he will go off in dudgeon at the slight.
OBONGOS, OR BUSHMEN OF ASHANGO-LAND.
Somewhere near the equatorial line, and between long. 11° and 12° E., there is a tribe of dwarfed negroes, called the Obongos, who seem to be among the very lowest of the human race, not only in stature, but in civilization.
The Obongos have no settled place of residence, their houses being simply huts made of branches, and constructed so slightly that no home interests can possibly attach to them. They are merely made of leafy boughs stuck in the ground, and are so slight that a whole village of Obongos will change its residence with scarcely a warning. The principal cause of abandonment seems to be summed up in the single word “vermin,” with which the huts swarm to such an extent that, long after they have been abandoned, no one can enter without being covered with swarms of these offensive little insects. The huts are merely made of green boughs, and the hole which serves as a door is closed with a smaller bough. They are scattered about without any order in the open space left among the trees.
The resemblance between the Obongos and the Bosjesmans of Southern Africa is really wonderful. Like them, the Obongos are short, though not ill-shaped, much lighter in hue than their neighbors, and have short hair growing in tufts, while the Ashangos are tall, dark, and have rather long bushy hair.
Their color is pale yellow-brown, their foreheads narrow, and their cheek-bones high. The average height is about four feet seven inches, according to M. du Chaillu’s measurements, though he found one woman who was considered very tall, and who was five feet and a quarter of an inch high. The men are remarkable for having their breasts and legs covered with hair, which grows in tufts like that of the head.
This diminutive stature is not entirely owing to the small size of the whole figure, but to the shortness of the legs, which, unlike those of African races in general, are very short in proportion to the size of the body. Thus, instead of looking like ordinary but well-shaped men seen through a diminishing glass, as is the case with the Bosjesman of Southern Africa, they have a dwarfish and stunted appearance, which, added to the hairy limbs of the men, gives them a weird and elfish appearance.