Angola and the River Congo, vol. 1

by Joachim John Monteiro

The blacks have a great admiration for a white woman’s costume, and I shall never forget an old “Capata’s” description of a Portuguese officer’s wife that he had seen at Ambriz, or his imitation of her slim waist and flowing dress. I told him I would send him a thin-waisted wife from England if he promised to put away the three he then had; he refused then, but next day came to me and said that, having considered my offer, he would accept it!

The Mussurongo, but not the Ambriz or Mushicongo men, wear ankle-rings made of brass (European make), or of tin, made by themselves from bar-tin obtained in trade from the white men. The women of the three tribes are very fond of wearing rings both on their arms and legs; these are sometimes made in one piece of thin brass wire wound loosely round the arm or leg, but a number of separate rings, about the size of ordinary rings on curtain-rods, is most esteemed, and they must be solid; they are not appreciated if hollow. Some of the richer women wear as many as twenty of these rings on each leg and arm, the weight rendering them almost unable to move, but six or eight is a very usual number to wear on each limb. It must not be understood that this is the universal custom, as it is only the wives of the kings or “Macotas” who can afford these ornaments.

These three tribes generally keep their heads shaved, or else only allow their hair to grow very short, and cut or shave it into various patterns, sometimes very complicated in character. Where razors or scissors are scarce, I have seen blacks shave heads with a piece of glass split from the bottom of an ordinary bottle, the operator stretching the skin of the scalp tightly towards him with the thumb of the left hand, while he scrapes away from him with the sharp edge of the wedge-shaped piece of glass in his right. Did they not keep their woolly heads so free from hair, great would be the production of a certain obnoxious insect, under the combined influence of dirt and heat. Amongst the Mushicongos the chiefs’ wives and other more aristocratic ladies allow their hair to grow into a huge worsted-looking bush or mop, which is carefully combed straight up and out, and of course swarms with insect inhabitants. A very curious plan is adopted to entrap them:—a number of little flask-shaped gourds, about the size of an ordinary pear, are strung through their necks on a string, which is tied round the greasy forehead; a little loose cotton-wool is stuffed into each, and the open narrow ends stick into the bush of hair; they are taken off each morning, the cotton-wool is pulled out, and the little innocents that have crawled into it are crunched on the ground with a stone; the wool is replaced, and they are again hung round the back of the head as before. These traps in fact act in the same way as the little pots turned upside down and filled with hay, which our gardeners employ to capture earwigs on dahlias.

Hunting them by hand is of course very much in vogue, and I was once greatly amused at the way the chase was carried on on a woman’s head at a town called Sangue, near Bembe. She was sitting on a low stool, and two girls were busily turning over her hair and collecting the lively specimens, which, as they were caught, were pinched to prevent their crawling, and placed in the open palm of a child’s hand, who also stood in the group. My curiosity was excited as to the reason of the specimens being thus carefully preserved, and on asking one of my hammock-boys, he told me “that is for the payment”—they are afterwards counted, and the girls get a glass bead for every one they have caught.

I thought that a bead each was rather high pay for the work, and told him so; his answer was, “If you had a hundred on your head, would you not give a hundred beads to have them caught?” and I was obliged to confess that I should consider it a cheap riddance.

The Zombo and other natives farther to the interior, who come to the coast with ivory, &c., seldom shave their heads: the common lot let their hair grow anyhow, without apparently ever combing it out—a confused mass of wool, dirt, and palm oil—so that it gives them a wild appearance; others comb it straight up, letting it grow about six inches long, and ornament the front with a cock’s feather or a red flower, or sometimes stick two or three brass tacks in it; others shave their heads all round, leaving the hair in the middle to grow upright, but the most usual manner is to plait their hair in little strings all over the head; some twist and plait these strings again round the head, ending at the top in a round knob, so that they look exactly as if they had a basket on their heads.

Any malformation with which a child may be born is considered a “fetish” by the negroes in Angola. A very short or sunken neck is thought a very great fetish indeed. I saw two blacks in the Bembe country who seemed to have no necks at all.

Albinos are not at all uncommon, and very repulsive looking creatures they are, with their dirty white, scabby, shrunken skins. Blacks with six fingers and toes are often seen, and are also considered as “fetish.”

Women bear children with the greatest facility. In every town there are one or more old women who act as midwives, and I was informed that very few deaths indeed occur from childbirth, and in a very short time after the mothers may be seen about.

A very striking instance of the ease with which women go through this trial, happened to my knowledge whilst I was at Benguella. Senhor Conceição, the agent of the copper mine I was exploring there, had occasion to send up a number of poles to the mine, which was about six miles inland. He called his slaves together early one morning and told them that all who were able to carry poles should take up one and go off to the mine with it;—these wooden poles weighing about thirty to forty pounds each. About twenty of the slaves in the yard shouldered one, and away they went, merrily singing together. Amongst them was a woman near her confinement, who need not have gone with her companions if she had chosen to remain behind. After breakfast we proceeded to the mine, and on arriving at a place about four miles off we noticed a few of the poles on the ground, but none of the bearers near; our hammock-boys shouted for them, thinking they had perhaps gone into the bush and laid down to sleep, leaving their loads on the road. A woman came out of a thicket and explained that the pregnant woman’s time had arrived, and that the child had just been born. Senhor Conceição ordered the women to remain with her till we should arrive at the mine, when he would send bearers with a hammock, blanket, wine, &c., to carry her back. After some time they returned, saying that she and the other women had gone! and when we reached Benguella in the evening, Senhora Conceição described to us her surprise at seeing the women return carrying green boughs, singing merrily, and accompanying the woman bearing her new-born baby in her arms, she having walked back all the way, not caring to wait for the hammock!