Congo life and folklore

by John H. Weeks

There are four days in a Congo week--Konzo, N kenge, N sona and N kandu, and these are also the names of the markets held on those days. All the markets on a certain day all over our part of the Congo are called Konzo, and all the markets next day are called N kenge, and so on. These markets are all held in different places, e. g. all the Konzo markets are held in different places from all the rest of the markets on the other three successive days; and these markets are so arranged that one in four comes within two to five miles of every town or village on the Lower Congo.

Thus one of the Konzo markets was only four miles from our town; the nearest N kenge one was nine miles away from us, but near some other towns, the nearest N sona market was sixteen miles away, and the N kandu market was nearly twenty miles distant from us, but not far from some other villages. Again, some of these markets were famous for certain articles that were always to be found on sale at them. For instance, at one N kenge a person could always find pigs, and buyers and sellers of pigs consequently travelled to that particular N kenge; another N kenge was noted for pots, calabashes and sauce-pans. One N sona would be noted for cloth and another for palm-wine. At all the markets cassava roots, kwanga, or native bread, peanuts, beans and various other food-stuffs were on sale, besides the speciality of the market.

There are also five important markets that are held every eight days, not on the same but on the successive eighth days. These are called N kenge Elembelo, held not far from the King’s town; Konzo Kinsuka, about two days north of the previous one; two days farther north is Konzo Kikandikila; three days north of that is Konzo Makwekwe, and about another two days north, but on the other side of the great river, is the N kenge N kila. Perhaps these great markets are to be found well established much farther north and south of the points I have named, and are only limited by the boundaries of the old kingdom of Congo, which formerly included Landana on the north and Bihe on the south.

While there were stringent laws against fighting, raiding, quarrelling and capturing people on the markets, no law could be enforced to guard small, unprotected parties on the way to or from the markets. Rowdy rascals would lie in wait and pounce on any defenceless child or adult, and, hurrying them away to some distant place, sell them into slavery, to the intense grief of their relatives.

I heard Bakula once tell how his young sister was sent by her mother to buy a saucepan at a market only four miles from home. She had bought the vessel and was returning to her town in the company of some neighbours, when, in a forest, she strayed from the path and was never heard of again, although the whole town turned out to search the forest.

Now and again some of these daring, reckless scamps were caught, and the whole countryside would wreak its vengeance on them, for there was scarcely a family but had lost one or more of its members or some of its goods by these kidnappings and robberies.

Bakula and some of the men were sent to the various markets far and near to buy up rubber and tusks of ivory. Sometimes they would take pigs and goats to sell, and having sold them would then buy what rubber and ivory there were for sale on the market. At other times they would take cloth and gunpowder to give in exchange for those products that white men bought at the coast--rubber and ivory. Occasionally they had to go to distant markets to buy pigs for cloth, and then travel to another market to exchange the pigs for rubber, peanuts and tusks.

Thus the rubber and ivory were gradually accumulated by the richer natives, and when enough were gathered a large caravan of men, from eighty to a hundred and twenty in number, was dispatched to the trading houses at the coast. As the natives could neither read nor write, it needed a clear head and a complicated system of knots and notches to keep a record of what was spent in pigs, goats, cloth and gunpowder in buying up the little stores of rubber and ivory on the markets. A man would tie a knot in a string for every pig sold, another string was used for every goat, another for every keg of gunpowder, and a notch was cut in a stick for every piece of cloth. By counting the knots and notches he knew just how much the ivory, rubber and peanuts had cost him; he also knew how much each man would “eat” on the road, and therefore he was quite able to ask of, and only accept from, the white traders a price that would pay for his stuff, meet the expenses of his carriers, and leave him a fair margin of profit for his risk of capital and trouble.

After months of petty trading on the markets, sufficient rubber, peanuts and ivory were collected to warrant a journey to the coast. Satu himself could not go, so he sent one of his head men, and told him how much he wanted for the produce he was sending, which would require forty men to carry it. Satu’s agent had ten loads, and neighbouring chiefs and head men joined the caravan with their porters, so that when all were ready to start there were nearly one hundred and forty men and lads in the party, and as most had knives, guns or spears they were well able to protect themselves on the long, wearisome road.

When all was arranged for the journey a “medicine man,” named N gang’ a mpungu, or the Luck-giver, was called. He came with his bag, containing pieces of leopard’s skin, hyæna’s skin, lion’s skin, and, in fact, a piece of the skin of every strong animal he could procure, and also some albino’s hair; and he carried with him his wooden fetish image with grass tied round its neck, knotted back and front.