Scattered over a considerable track of country between the Muni and Gaboon rivers, on the western coast of Africa, are numerous villages of the Shekiani or Chekiani tribe. The Shekiani are divided into numerous sub-tribes, which speak a common language, but call themselves by various names, such as the Mbondemo, the Mbousha, the Mbicho, &c. Each of these lesser tribes is again subdivided into clans or families, each of which has its own head.
The mode of government is very simple, and indeed scarcely deserves the name; for although the chiefs of the different tribes are often called kings, their titles are but empty honors, and their authority is but partially recognized even by the headmen of the clans. The kings, indeed, are scarcely distinguishable from their so called subjects, their houses being the same, and their mode of living but little superior. Still, they are respected as advisers; and, in cases of difficulty, a few words from one of these kings will often settle a dispute which threatens to be dangerous.
Owing to their proximity to the coast, the Shekiani are great traders, and, in consequence of their contact with the white man, present a most curious mixture of savageness and civilization, the latter being modified in various droll ways. Take, for example, the Shekiani mode of managing fire-arms. When they go to hunt the elephant for the sake of its tusks, they always arm themselves with trade guns, for which they pay seven shillings and sixpence. The quality of these weapons may be easily imagined, and it is really wonderful how the Birmingham manufacturer contrives to furnish for so small a sum a gun that deserves the name.
Of course it is made to suit native ideas, and consequently it is very large and very heavy, a negro contemptuously rejecting a small and light gun which might be worth thirty or forty pounds. Then the mainspring of the lock is of prodigious strength, and the hammer and pan of proportionate size. Inferior, of course, as is the material, the weapon is really a wonderful article; and, if properly handled, is capable of doing good service. But a negro never handles anything carefully. When he cocks his musket, he wrenches back the hammer with a jerk that would break a delicate lock; when he wants to carry home the game that he has killed, he hangs it to the muzzle of the piece, and so slings it over his shoulder, and, as he travels, he allows it to bang against the trees, without the least care for the straightness of the barrel.
But it is in loading the weapon that he most distinguishes himself. First he pours down the barrel a quantity of powder at random, and rams upon it a tuft of dry grass. Upon the grass come some bullets or bits of iron, and then more grass. Then come more powder, grass, and iron as before; and not until then does the negro flatter himself that he has loaded his musket. That a gun should burst after such a method of loading is not surprising, and indeed it is a wonder that it can be fired at all without flying to pieces. But the negro insists on having a big gun, with plenty of powder and shot, and he cares nothing for a weapon unless it goes off with a report like a small cannon, and has a recoil that almost dislocates the shoulder.
The Shekiani are of moderate size, not very dark-colored, and in character are apt to be quarrelsome, passionate, revengeful, and utterly careless of inflicting death or pain. Owing to their unsettled habits, they are but poor agriculturists, leaving all the culture of the ground to the women. Their mode of making a plantation is very simple. When they have fixed upon a suitable spot, they begin to clear it after a very primitive fashion. The men ascend the trees to some ten or twelve feet of height, just where the stem narrows, supporting themselves by a flexible vine branch twisted hoop-fashion round the tree and their waist. They then chop away at the timber, and slip nimbly to the ground just as the upper part of the tree is falling. The trunks and branches are then gathered together until the dry season is just over, when the whole mass is lighted, and on the ground thus cleared of trees and brushwood the women plant their manioc, plantains, and maize.
Their villages are built on one model. The houses are about twelve or fifteen feet in length by eight or ten wide, and are set end to end in a double row, so as to form a long street. The houses have no windows, and only one door, which opens into the street. At night the open ends of the street are barricaded, and it will be seen that each village thus becomes a fortress almost impregnable to the assaults of native warriors. In order to add to the strength of their position, they make their villages on the crests of hills, and contrive, if possible, to build them in the midst of thorn brakes, so that, if they were attacked, the enemy would be exposed to their missiles while engaged in forcing their way through the thorns. When such a natural defence cannot be obtained, they content themselves with blocking up the approaches with cut thorn branches.
The houses are made of the so called bamboo poles, which are stuck in the ground, and lashed to each other with vine ropes. The interior is divided at least into two apartments, one of which is the eating and the other the sleeping chamber. Each Shekiani wife has a separate apartment, with its own door, so that the number of wives may be known by the number of doors opening out of the sitting-room. Although their houses are made with some care, the Shekiani are continually deserting their villages on some absurd pretext, usually of a superstitious character, and, during their travels toward another site, they make temporary encampments in the woods, their rude huts being composed of four sticks planted in the ground, tied together at the top, and then covered with leaves.
It has been mentioned that the Shekiani are careless about inflicting torture. One day M. du Chaillu was staying with one of the so-called Shekiani “kings,” named Njambai; he heard terrible shrieks, and was coolly told that the king was only punishing one of his wives. He ran to the spot, and there found a woman tied by her waist to a stout stake, and her feet to smaller stakes. Cords were tied round her neck, waist, wrists, and ankles, and were being slowly twisted with sticks, cutting into the flesh, and inflicting the most horrible torture. The king was rather sulky at being interrupted in his amusement, but, when his guest threatened instant departure unless the woman were released, he made a present of the victim to her intercessor. The cords had been so tightly knotted and twisted that they could not be untied, and, when they were cut, were found to have been forced deeply into the flesh.
The same traveller gives an account of the cruel manner in which the Shekiani treated an unfortunate man who had been accused of witchcraft. He was an old man belonging to the Mbousha sub-tribe, and was supposed to have bewitched a man who had lately died.