(1.) THE ALAKÉ’S COURT.
(See [page 599].)
(2.) MUMBO JUMBO.
(See [page 604].)
CHAPTER LX.
THE MANDINGOES.
LANGUAGE AND APPEARANCE OF THE MANDINGOES — THEIR RELIGION — BELIEF IN AMULETS — A MANDINGO SONG — MARRIAGE AND CONDITION OF THE WOMEN — NATIVE COOKERY-A MANDINGO KING — INFLUENCE OF MAHOMETANISM.
Before proceeding across the continent toward Abyssinia, we must briefly notice the Mandingo nation, who inhabit a very large tract of the country through which the Senegal and Gambia flow. They are deserving of notice, if it were only on the ground that their language is more widely spread than any that is spoken in that part of Africa, and that any traveller who desires to dispense as far as possible with the native interpreters, who cannot translate literally if they would, and would not if they could, is forced to acquire the language before proceeding through the country. Fortunately it is a peculiarly melodious language, almost as soft as the Italian, nearly all the words ending in a vowel.
In appearance the Mandingoes are tall and well made, and have the woolly hair, though not the jetty skin and enormous lips, of the true negro. “The structure of the language,” says Mr. M’Brair, who has made it his special study, “is thoroughly Eastern. In some of its grammatical forms it resembles the Hebrew and Syriac; its most peculiar sound is of the Malay family; its method of interrogation is similar to that of the Chinese, and in the composition of some verbs it is like the Persian. A few religious terms have been borrowed from the Arabic, and some articles of foreign manufacture are called after their European names.”
As a rule, the religion of the Mandingoes is Mahometanism, modified to suit the people, but they still retain enough of the original negro character to have an intense faith in gregrees, which are made for them by the marabouts, or holy men, and almost invariably consist of sentences of the Koran, sewed up in little leathern cases beautifully tanned and stamped in patterns. Mahometanism has put an end to the noisy songs and dances which make night hideous; but the Mandingoes contrive, nevertheless, to indulge their taste for religious noise at night. Instead of singing profane songs they sing or intone the Koran, bawling the sacred sentences at the full stretch of their voices, and murdering sleep as effectually as if they had been still benighted idolaters singing praises in honor of the moon. Some ceremonies in honor of the moon still remain, but are quite harmless. When it appears, they salute it by spitting in their hands and waving them round their heads. For eclipses they account by saying that there is a large cat living somewhere in the sky, who puts her paw between the moon and the earth.
They are very strict Mahometans indeed, the marabouts always calling them to prayers one hour before sunrise; that, according to theological astronomy, being the time at which the sun rises at Mecca. Mahometanism has done much for the Mandingoes. It has substituted monotheism for idolatry, and totally abolished human sacrifices. It has not extirpated the innate negro character of the Mandingoes; but it has raised them greatly in the scale of humanity. It has not cured them of lying and stealing—neither of which vices, by the way, are confined to idolaters; but it has brought them to abhor the system of child selling, which is so ingrained in the ordinary negro, and a Mandingo Mahometan will not even sell a slave unless there is just cause of complaint against him.
The Rhamadan, or Mahometan fast, is rigidly observed by the Mandingoes, and it is no small proof of the power of their religious system that it has made a negro abstain from anything which he likes.