The wives in Congo are tolerably well off, except that they are severely beaten with the heavy hippopotamus-hide whip. The women do not resent this treatment, and indeed, unless a woman is soundly flogged occasionally, she thinks that her husband is neglecting her, and feels offended accordingly. The king has the power of taking any woman for his wife, whether married or not, and, when she goes to the royal harem, her husband is judiciously executed.
The people of Congo are—probably on account of the enervating climate—a very indolent and lethargic race, the women being made to do all the work, while the men lie in the shade and smoke their pipes and drink their palm wine, which they make remarkably well, though not so well as the Bubé tribe of Fernando Po. Their houses are merely huts of the simplest description; a few posts with a roof over them, and twigs woven between them in wicker-work fashion by way of walls, are all that a Congo man cares for in a house. His clothing is as simple as his lodging, a piece of native cloth, tied round his middle being all that he cares for; so that the ample clothes and handsome furs worn by the king must have had a very strong effect on the almost naked populace.
According to traditional history, Congo was in old times one of the great African kingdoms. Twice it rose to this eminence, and both times by the energy of a woman, who, in spite of the low opinion in which women are held, contrived to ascend the throne.
Somewhere about 1520—it is impossible in such history to obtain precision of dates—a great chief, named Zimbo, swept over a very large part of Africa, taking every country to which he came, and establishing his own dominion in it. Among other kingdoms, Congo was taken by him, and rendered tributary, and so powerful did he at last become, that his army outgrew his territory, and he had the audacity to send a division to ravage Abyssinia and Mozambique. The division reached the eastern sea in safety, but the army then met the Portuguese, who routed them with great loss. Messengers conveyed the tidings to Zimbo, who put himself at the head of his remaining troops, went against the Portuguese, beat them, killed their general, and carried off a great number of prisoners, with whose skulls he paved the ground in front of his house.
In process of time he died, and the kingdom separated, after African fashion, into a number of independent provinces, each governed by one of the leaders of the now useless army. One of these leaders had a daughter named Tembandumba, who, together with her mother, ruled the province when her father died. These women always accompanied the troops in war, and so fierce and bloodthirsty was Tembandumba, even as a girl, that her mother gave her the command of half the troops, the natural consequence of which was that she took the command of the whole, deposed her mother, and made herself queen.
(1.) WASHING DAY.
(See [page 648].)
(2.) CONGO CORONATION.
(See [page 616].)