Before the war in America raised the price of cotton so high as to induce the Portuguese at Benguella and Mossamedes to plant cotton on a large scale, a great many slaves were employed in picking orchilla-weed, which grew abundantly on the trees and bushes within the influence of the sea air; and I knew men who had their two or three hundred slaves thus engaged, collecting as much as from two to three tons a day. There is very little collected at present, the country having been picked nearly bare, and the aniline dyes so reducing the price in Europe that it was no longer worth seeking. These slaves were gradually employed in cotton-planting instead, and fortunes were made by the successful planters.
Plate XIII.
MUNDOMBES AND HUTS.
To face page 185.
All these flourishing plantations will be completely destroyed on the coming liberation of the slaves, as nothing will induce the natives of Benguella to work at anything of the kind. They belong to a tribe called the Mundombes, who are of a wild, roving disposition, and very unlike the rest of the tribes inhabiting Angola. Their clothing is principally skins and hides of sheep or wild animals, and they rub their bodies and heads with rancid cow’s butter or oil, with which they are fond of mixing charcoal-dust, and they are the only natives in Angola who wear sandals (made of raw hide) on their feet. They are very dirty, never making use of water for washing; are generally about the middle height, and ugly in face. The women especially are very rarely comely, either in face or figure, and they will not live with or intermarry with blacks of other tribes. Their huts are mostly round-roofed and low ([Plate XIII.]). They are very independent, and will not hire themselves to any kind of work.
The women cultivate the ground for the indispensable mandioca and beans; the men hunt, and tend large herds of cattle that thrive remarkably well in the country, and also flocks of sheep, which they rear for food.
Cattle are their principal riches, and are seldom killed for food, except when the owner dies, when, if he be a “soba” or chief, as many as 300 oxen have been known to be killed and eaten at one sitting, lasting for several days. On these occasions the whole tribe and friends are assembled, heaps of firewood collected, fires lit, and oxen killed one after the other till the herd is eaten up, not a native moving away from the feast or gorge till the last scrap is consumed. The flesh is cut into long thin strips and wound round long skewers,—these are stuck upright round the fires, and the meat only allowed to cook slightly. The meat is eaten alone, without any other food whatever and without salt, as that would make them drink, which they do not do, as they affirm it would prevent them from eating much meat; the blood, entrails, and even the hide, toasted to make it eatable, are consumed, a big feast lasting from ten to fifteen days, or sometimes more.
I have often seen Mundombes rolling on the ground groaning with pain, and on asking what was the matter with them, have been answered with a laugh, “Oh! he has eaten too much meat!!”
They are fond of dividing their cattle into herds of 100 head each, and are wonderfully clever at tracking strayed cattle, and also in recognizing any they may have once seen.
A most singular custom of these natives is that of the women and girls, with their heads covered with green leaves and carrying branches of trees in their hands, and singing in chorus, taking round to all their friends and acquaintances any young woman of their tribe who is about to be married; but the most curious part of the ceremony is the manner in which the interesting young bride is prepared. She is stripped perfectly naked, and whitewashed from head to foot with a thick mixture of a kind of pipe-clay and water, which dries perfectly white, and in this manner she is taken in procession to visit and receive the congratulations of her friends.
I never could learn what the meaning of this ceremony was; they always confined themselves to telling me “that it was their custom to do so.”