Angola and the River Congo, vol. 1

by Joachim John Monteiro

The native name for it is “mpinda” or “ginguba,” and it is cultivated in the greatest abundance at a few miles inland from the coast, where the comparatively arid country is succeeded by better ground and climate. It requires a rich soil for its cultivation, and it is chiefly grown, therefore, in the bottoms of valleys, or in the vicinity of rivers and marshes. The plant grows from one to two feet high, with a leaf and habit very much like a finely-grown clover. The bright-yellow pea-like flowers are borne on long slender stalks; these, after flowering, curl down, and force the pod into the ground, where it ripens beneath the soil. Its cultivation is a very simple affair. The ground being cleared, the weeds and grass are allowed to dry, and are then burnt; the ground is then lightly dug a few inches deep by the women with their little hoes—their only implement of agriculture—and the seeds dropped into the ground and covered up. The sowing takes place in October and November, at the beginning of the rainy season, and the first crop of nuts for eating green is ready about April; but they are not ripe for nine months after sowing, or about July or August, when they are first brought down to the coast for trade.

A large plantation of ground-nuts is a very beautiful sight: a rich expanse of the most luxuriant foliage of the brightest green, every leaf studded with diamond-like drops glittering in the early sun. The ground-nut is an important part of the food of the natives, and more so in the country from Ambriz to the River Congo than south at Loanda and Benguella. It is seldom eaten raw, but roasted, and when young and green, and roasted in the husks, is really delicious eating. It is excessively oily when fully ripe, and the natives then generally eat it with bananas and either the raw mandioca root, or some preparation of it, experience showing them the necessity of the admixture of a farinaceous substance with an excessively oily food. The nuts are also ground on a stone to a paste, with which to thicken their stews and messes. This paste, mixed with ground Chili pepper, is also made into long rolls, enveloped in leaves of the Phrynium ramosissimum, and is eaten principally in the morning to stay the stomach in travelling till they reach the proper camping-places for their breakfast or first meal and rest, generally about noon. It is called “quitaba,” and I shall never forget the first time I tasted this composition: I thought my palate and tongue were blistered, so great was the proportion of Chili pepper in it.

A considerable quantity of oil used to be prepared by the natives from this nut by the most rudimentary process it is possible to imagine. The nuts are first pounded into a mass in a wooden mortar; a handful of this is then taken between the palms of the hands, and an attendant pours a small quantity of hot water on it, and on squeezing the hands tightly together the oil and water run out. Since the great demand for, and trade in, the ground-nut, but little oil is prepared by the natives, as they find it more advantageous to sell the nuts than to extract the oil from them by the wasteful process I have just described. Ground-nut oil is very thin and clear, and is greatly used in cookery in Angola, for which it is well adapted as it is almost free from taste and smell.

The greater part of the several thousand tons of nuts that at present constitute the season’s crop in this part of the country is grown in the Mbamba country, lying parallel with the coast, at a distance of from thirty to eighty miles inland, or at the first and second elevation. Some idea of the great population of this comparatively small district may be formed from the fact that the whole of the above ground-nuts are shelled by hand, and brought down to the coast on the heads of the natives. It is difficult for any one unacquainted with the subject to realise the vast amount of labour implied in the operation of shelling this large quantity by hand.

The trade in coffee is almost entirely restricted to Ambriz, and it comes principally from the district of Encoge, a considerable quantity also being brought from the Dembos country and from Cazengo, to the interior of Loanda, from which latter place the trade is shut out by the stupid and short-sighted policy of high custom-house duties on goods, and other restrictions on trade of the Portuguese authorities. Very little of the coffee produced in the provinces of Encoge and Dembos is cultivated; it is the product of coffee-trees growing spontaneously in the virgin forests of the second elevation. The natives, of course, have no machinery of any kind to separate the berry from the pod, these being dried in the sun and then broken in a wooden mortar, and the husks separated by winnowing in the open air.

The sesamum seed (Sesamum indicum) has only very recently become an article of trade in Angola. It was cultivated sparingly by the natives, who employ it, ground to a paste on a stone in the same manner as the ground-nut, to add to their other food in cooking. It is as yet cultivated for trade principally by the natives about Mangue Grande, and only since about the year 1868, but there is no doubt it will be an important product all over Angola, as it is found to grow near the coast, in soil too arid for the ground-nut.

The red gum copal, called “maquata” by the natives, is of the finest quality, and is almost entirely the product of the Mossulo country. It is known to exist north, in the vicinity of Mangue Grande, but it is “fetish” for the natives to dig it, and consequently they will not bring it for trade, and even refuse to tell the exact place where it is found, but there can be no doubt about it, as they formerly traded in it with the white men.

Until about the year 1858, it was a principal article of export from Ambriz; vessels being loaded with it, chiefly to America, but with the American war the trade ceased, and it has never since attained anything like its former magnitude. I believe it to be a fossil gum or mineral resin. I have examined quantities of it, to discover any trace of leaves, insects, or other remains, that might prove it to have been of vegetable origin, but in vain.

It is obtained from a part of Angola where white men are not permitted by the natives to penetrate, and I have consequently not been an actual observer of the locality in which it occurs; but by all the accounts received from intelligent natives, it is found below the surface of a highly ferruginous hard clay or soil, at a depth of a few inches to a couple of feet. It is very likely that if the ground were properly explored, it would be found deeper, but most probably this is as deep as the natives care to dig for it, if they can obtain it elsewhere nearer the surface. It is said to be found in irregular masses, chiefly flat in shape, and from small knobs to pieces weighing several pounds. These are all carefully chopped into small nearly uniform pieces, the object of this being to enable the natives to sell it by measure,—the measures being little “quindas” or open baskets; the natives of the country where it is obtained not only bring it to the coast for barter, but also sell it to the coast natives, who go with goods to purchase it from them.

The blacks of the gum country are so indolent that they will only dig for the gum during and after the last and heaviest rains, about March, April, and May, and these, and June and July, are the months when it almost all makes its appearance, and they will only allow a certain quantity to leave the country, for fear that its price on the coast may fall; hence only a few tons of this beautiful gum are now obtained, where some years ago hundreds were bought. It is said by the natives that no trees grow on or near the places where the gum copal is found, and that even grass grows very sparingly: the very small quantities of red earth and sand sometimes attached to the gum show it to be so highly ferruginous, that I should imagine such was really the case.