As to their diet in general, the Fans do not deserve a very high culinary rank. They have plenty of material, and very slight notions of using it. The manioc affords them a large portion of their vegetable food, and is particularly valuable on account of the ease with which it is cultivated, a portion of the stem carelessly placed in the ground producing in a single season two or three large roots. The leaves are also boiled and eaten. Pumpkins of different kinds are largely cultivated, and even the seeds are rendered edible. M. du Chaillu says that during the pumpkin season the villages seem covered with the seeds, which are spread out to dry, and, when dried, they are packed in leaves and hung in the smoke over the fireplace, in order to keep off the attacks of an insect which injures them.
When they are to be eaten, they are first boiled, and then the skin is removed. The seeds are next placed in a mortar together with a little sweet oil, and are pounded into a soft, pulpy mass, which is finally cooked over the fire, either in an earthen pot or in a plantain leaf. This is a very palatable sort of food, and some persons prefer it to the pumpkin itself.
The mortars are not in the least like those of Europe, being long, narrow troughs, two feet in length, two or three inches deep, and seven or eight wide. Each family has one or two of these small implements, but there are always some enormous mortars for the common use of the village, which are employed in pounding manioc. When the seed is pounded into a paste, it is formed into cakes, and can be kept for some little time.
The cooking pots are made of clay, and formed with wonderful accuracy, seeing that the Fans have no idea of the potter’s wheel, even in its simplest forms. Their cooking pots are round and flat, and are shaped something like milk pans. They also make day water bottles of quite a classical shape, and vessels for palm wine are made from the same material. These wine jars are shaped much like the amphoræ of the ancients. The clay is moulded by hand, dried thoroughly in the sun, and then baked in a fire. The exterior is adorned with patterns much like those on the knives and axes.
The Fans also make the bowls of their pipes of the same clay, but always form the stems of wood. The richer among them make their pipes entirely of iron, and prefer them, in spite of their weight and apparent inconvenience, to any others. They also make very ingenious water bottles out of reeds, and, in order to render them water tight, plaster them within and without with a vegetable gum. This gum is first softened in the fire, and laid on the vessel like pitch. It has a very unpleasant flavor until it is quite seasoned, and is therefore kept under water for several weeks before it is used.
Like some other savage tribes, the Fans have a craving for meat, which sometimes becomes so powerful as to deserve the name of a disease. The elephant affords enough meat to quell this disease for a considerable time, and therefore they have a great liking for the flesh of this animal. But the great luxury of a Fan is the flesh of a sheep, an animal which they can scarcely ever procure. Mr. W. Reade, in his “Savage Africa,” gives a most amusing description of the sensation produced among his Fan boatmen:—
“Before I left the village I engaged another man, which gave me a crew of eight. I also purchased a smooth-skinned sheep, and upon this poor animal, as it lay shackled in our prow, many a hungry eye was cast. When it bleated the whole crew burst into one loud carnivorous grin. Bushmen can sometimes enjoy a joint of stringy venison, a cut off a smoked elephant, a boiled monkey, or a grilled snake; but a sheep—a real domestic sheep!—an animal which had long been looked upon as the pride of their village, the eyesore of their poorer neighbors—which they had been in the habit of calling ‘brother,’ and upon whom they had lavished all the privileges of a fellow-citizen!
“That fate should have sent the white and wealthy offspring of the sea to place this delicacy within their reach was something too strong and sudden for their feeble minds. They were unsettled; they could not paddle properly; their souls (which are certainly in their stomachs, wherever ours may be) were restless and quivering toward that sheep, as (I have to invent metaphors) the needle ere it rests upon its star.
“When one travels in the company of cannibals, it is bad policy to let them become too hungry. At mid-day I gave orders that the sheep should be killed. There was a yell of triumph, a broad knife steeped in blood, a long struggle; then three fires blazed forth, three clay pots were placed thereon, and filled with the bleeding limbs of the deceased. On an occasion like this, the negro is endowed for a few moments with the energy and promptitude of the European. Nor would I complain of needless delay in its preparation for the table—which was red clay covered with grass. The mutton, having been slightly warmed, was rapidly devoured.
“After this they wished to recline among the fragments of the feast, and enjoy a sweet digestive repose. But then the white man arose, and exercised that power with which the lower animals are quelled. His look and his tone drew them to their work, though they did not understand his words.”