Angola and the River Congo, vol. 2

by Joachim John Monteiro

Neither infanticide nor abortion are practised in Angola; on the contrary, it is considered a misfortune not to have children, and their marriages may be dissolved if they prove barren.

The Mundombes have a curious custom in connection with this desire for children. A banana-tree is planted on the day of their marriage, and if on its producing its first bunch of fruit, which is generally in nine or ten months after, a child should not have been born, the contract is considered void, and they may marry again.

The common way amongst blacks to assert the truth of a statement, is to go on their knees and rub the forefinger of each hand on the ground, and then touch their tongues and forehead with the dusty tips; this is equivalent to an oath. About Loanda they make the sign of the cross on the ground with a finger, for the same purpose, and this is evidently derived from some old custom introduced by the former missionaries.

Some of the actions of the blacks are exactly the same as those performed by monkeys. In using their hands and fingers to clean or polish a piece of brass work, for instance, the feeble and nerveless manner of holding the bit of oiled rag, and the whole action of the hand and arm, is strikingly like that of a monkey when it rubs its hands on the ground when they are sticky or dirty. Their manner of sliding their hands up and down on the edge of a door or on a door-post, or along the edges of a table whilst waiting or speaking, is very monkey-like, and no black—man, woman, or child—ever goes along a corridor or narrow passage without rubbing both hands on the walls.

Blacks, especially women, have a singular way of carrying any object in the hand, which always appeared to me to be very uncomfortable. A plate or glass, for instance, is invariably carried as in [Plate XIV.], the hand being thrown back and the object taken on the flat, extended palm. The greater flexibility of the joints in the negro race may have something to do with this, as also with the fact of their squatting on their heels, but with their knees not touching the ground, for a considerable length of time, and then getting up apparently without the slightest stiffness from what would be to most of us a very uncomfortable position.

Blacks have an odd habit, when they feel cold, of placing their hands on their shoulders, not with their arms crossed, as would be most natural for us to do, but each hand on its corresponding shoulder, and if they feel very cold, they bring their elbows together in front and shrink their heads into their shoulders, so that the ears touch the sides of the hands.

They are fond of gambling, particularly the inhabitants of Loanda, and also the slaves and servants of the white men on the coast. For this they use playing-cards, and also small round pieces of crockery ground on a stone to the size of a sixpence, and these they shake in the hands and throw up in the same way as a handful of halfpence in our game of “toss,” and according as a greater or lesser number of the plain or coloured sides come down uppermost, so do the players win or lose. I have also seen in several places a board in which were a number of shallow pits, and in these a few seeds or round pebbles, which were rapidly shifted about into the different holes by the two players, but I could never make out the plan of the game. Beyond this, and the “batuco” or dance, and playing the “marimba,” the natives of Angola have absolutely no game or amusement of any kind whatever.

The youngsters have no toys or playthings, and never race or play together as ours do.

None, either young or old, know or practise a single game of skill or strength; there is not an indication anywhere that they ever contended at ball, stick, wrestling, or any other exercise or feat. This to my mind is striking in the highest degree, and most suggestive of a singularly low type, one in which no sentiment of emulation or rivalry exists, and consequently very difficult to work upon with much chance of success for its advancement.

I have never seen or heard of any monument, or sculptured rocks or stones being found in the country, which might indicate the existence of a previous race; and the most curious thing is that even tradition of any kind is unknown to the blacks of Angola. In no case could they trace events further back than during the reign of five “sobas;” no very great length of time when it is considered that these are generally old men when elected. They do not even know the history of the crucifixes now-existing amongst them as “fetishes” of the “sobas;” and when I have explained to them that they formerly belonged to the missionaries, they were astonished, and gave as a reason for their ignorance and my knowledge, that the white men could write, whereas, when they died, nothing they had seen or known was preserved, as our writings were, for the information of their children.