A voyage to Senegal

by Jean Baptiste Léonard Durand

Their domestic amusements are every where alike, and are similar to those of our country people. In the evening the principal wife, surrounded by the other women of her husband, and the servants of the house, employs herself in spinning or carding cotton; while one of the company amuses the rest by reciting pleasant stories. The old ones tell of witches and ghosts, the young ones of their amours. There are likewise games of chance, at which the men and women play separately; but both sexes like dancing in preference to every thing, and to this exercise they devote themselves every moon-light evening, from an hour after sun-set till midnight. Besides these evenings, the birth of a child, or the visit of a friend, likewise supplies them with frequent opportunities for enjoying Cullumgées, by which name they distinguish their meetings for singing and dancing. When they give a cullumgée in honour of any event, the dancers appear dressed in a grotesque manner. They wear a high cap of rushes, surrounded by feathers, have the eyes, mouth, and nose painted white, and wear round their waists a small petticoat of rushes, which they display in every possible shape. On beginning to dance they take in their hands small pieces of wood, which they strike together, and by which they mark time, as do the Spaniards with the castanets.

The death of one of the family, or of a relation or friend, is a new opportunity for a dance. They celebrate the Wha, or mourning; and the ceremony of lamentation is of such a nature, that a stranger would suppose them to be making festivities.

On the evening of an appointed day, the relations, friends, and acquaintances of the deceased assemble before his house, where they sing in his praise, and dance to the sound of a drum: they incessantly vary the figures of their dance; sometimes they form a large circle round the music, and clap their hands on each stanza of the song; at others a single person dances in the midst of the rest, who alternately sit down and stand up; or three or four only are in action at once, and continue to move about till they are fatigued, when they are replaced by others. The company all the while sing and clap their hands. This ceremony and discharges of musquetry continue without interruption from morning to evening for three successive nights. On these occasions neither tobacco nor brandy is spared.

When the person deceased is a man of importance, and his parents or friends are rich, this mourning ceremony is repeated two or three times a year for several years together. On the death of a member of a poor family, his relatives are a long time before they can procure a sufficient quantity of brandy and tobacco for the solemnity; but, whatever difficulties they may experience in amassing it, the ceremony takes place sooner or later.

This assembly, in which both sexes join, may be called a public mourning; but there is another of a domestic kind, practised principally by the women, and which is peculiar to the Bulams and the Tommanies. The performers on this occasion wear a linen or white cotton cap, which comes down as low as their eyes, so that they can see nothing but the ground. They have several rows of the grain of the country round their neck and waist. If they be married women, they wear no other clothes than the simple tuntungée. They are not permitted to eat or drink with other persons, nor even prepare their own food; but at the time of the repast, a drum is beaten, and dancing takes place before the door of the house in which the mourning is celebrated. None, except the guests, must use the vessels which are employed at this repast.

The duration of such a mourning is not fixed, but is regulated by the will or caprice of those who make it; and the chief person is generally the mother, aunt, or some other aged relative. They generally cause it to be celebrated by young girls who are of a marriageable age, as a means of securing their virtue: for while it lasts, if any connection be discovered between the two sexes, the woman would be dishonoured, and the man punished.

A woman, if she conceive herself neglected by her husband, may put the house of the latter into mourning; but, after she has made use of this privilege for a short time, the husband pacifies her by a present: it consists of a goat, some poultry, tobacco, and a bottle of brandy, towards her expences. The woman then becomes tractable, and the people reconcile her with her husband. This custom is very judicious on the part of the women, who like to avenge themselves and shew their authority: for while the mourning lasts, the husband cannot enjoy the society of his mistress.

The drum is their principal instrument of music; they have three sorts of it, which differ in size according to the purposes for which they are used. One kind is made of hard wood, hollowed within: the two ends are stopped up, and a longitudinal hole is cut in the side. They strike it with two sticks, and the strong and acute sound which it sends forth, is heard in calm weather at a great distance, and is considered as the signal of alarm. Another kind is made of light wood, hollowed like the former, but the ends of which are covered with goat or sheep-skins, dried and lightly stretched by cords. Some of these drums are six or eight feet high, by two or three in diameter; and they occasionally have at their ends rows of sharks’ teeth or pieces of copper, which produce a tolerably loud tinkling.

These people have likewise two kinds of stringed instruments, one of which is a sort of guitar, and the other resembles in shape a Welsh harp, but is only two feet high. The strings are made of the fibres of a plant combined with the hair of elephants’ tails. The women and children in their amusements produce a sound from gourds, in which they inclose some dry seeds. At Sherbro the natives reckon amongst their musical instruments a reed pipe pierced with four holes, and a trumpet made of an elephant’s tooth.

The chief food of the people is rice, which they boil after it is dried, and season it with palm-oil, or with a strong sauce made from fish or meat, or from poultry or vegetables simmered together, and to which they add spices, pepper, and palm-oil. They eat very little meat, but what they do consume, they prefer smoked or boiled: they are, however, good cooks, and prepare their aliments in a very delicate manner. The men and women do not eat together, and they drink only water; they make but two meals a day, one at ten in the morning, and the other at sunset. The men, however, who are in easy circumstances, generally add another meal very early in the morning, which has been prepared over night by their favourite woman.