When the oil season is approaching, the white traders go over from Dondo to their principal towns to settle with the “sobas,” or kings, the price per measure at which the oil is to be sold. Though so wild in appearance, they are most inoffensive and peaceable, and are in the greatest fear lest the Portuguese should take it into their heads to annex their territory, which they could most easily do if they thought it advisable.
The Libollos, or natives of the Libollo country, are a very much finer and cleaner race than their neighbours the Quissamas, and their country (according to the accounts I received from several Portuguese and natives) most beautiful and fertile, and covered in great part with palm-trees.
The manner in which they have lately cultivated large quantities of ground-nuts, and increased the production of palm-oil, proves that they are an industrious race.
They are antagonistic to the Quissamas, and very favourable to the Portuguese, and have often offered to reduce them to the power of the latter, if these will give them leave and supply them with guns and ammunition. On one occasion, when I was at Dondo, an embassy arrived, through the Libollo country, from some powerful tribes of the Bailundo district—the most warlike of the tribes of the interior—also offering to conquer the country for the Portuguese on condition of being allowed to plunder and carry off prisoners as slaves.
These warlike tribes to the south of the Libollo and Quissama countries are known in Angola by the name of Quinbundos, and are the handsomest natives of any, being all very tall and well formed. They come in caravans to Dondo, principally laden with beeswax, singing on the march, and at night when assembled together, a song with chorus with great effect. They put up at the Libollo and Quissama towns, and come over to the northern bank to trade with the white men. They plait their hair in thin strings all round their heads, and in each plait they put several beads, mostly made of red paste in imitation of coral. The Quissamas are not cannibals, as described by an English tourist, whose sensational story about them, written after a few days’ trip in the steamers on the Quanza, is full of gross inaccuracies.
The dress of the men is a waistcloth of fine matting or cotton cloths, obtained from the traders; that of the women is very singular, being the soft, beaten inner bark of the baobab-tree made into a thick sort of skirt, which is fastened round the waist, and has extra layers at the back to puff it out still more, something in the manner of the “dress-improvers” worn by the fair sex in our own country. ([Plate XII.]). Nature has provided the Quissama ladies with an abundant development of what the Spaniards call “enthusiasm,” and on this account the use of the extra thicknesses on the back of their skirts is really quite unnecessary; but they are not satisfied, and consider this fashion an improvement. Their appearance, therefore, is very comical, particularly when they run, as the thick short skirt moves up and down, and swings round with every motion of the body.
Plate XII.
Maxilla, and Barber’s Shop.—Carrying Corpse to Burial.—Quissama Women, and manner of pounding and sifting Meal in Angola.
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They are very dirty in their habits, never appearing to make use of water for washing, and their baobab skirts are always black with grease, smoke, and perspiration. I had to order the two dresses in my possession, one for a married woman and the other for a girl or young woman, to be made on purpose, as I could not touch any of those offered to me for sale.
The women, when they come over to the northern bank, sometimes wear a handkerchief or other cloth over the breast, and even over the baobab skirt, but this latter they must wear, according to the custom of their country. They carry the produce of their plantations in large conical baskets on their backs, secured by a band round the forehead ([Plate XII.]). It is, as far as I know, the only tribe in Angola that carries a load in this manner.