Here, as in Asia, the women generally act as porters, carrying large burdens on the head. Sometimes they may be seen sitting on mats by the road-side, selling potatoes, beans, and small bits of roasted meat, to travellers.
Men and women are both employed in digging and washing gold for the Moorish markets. Small shells, called cowries, constitute the general currency of Africa. All payments from the king’s household are made in branches containing two thousand cowries each. The women pierce and string these, deducting one-fortieth part as their own perquisite. Four hundred and eighty of these shells are equivalent to a shilling. The Africans are said to manifest a most extraordinary facility in reckoning the large sums exchanged for articles of merchandise. Europeans have been much surprised at this, being themselves unable to calculate so rapidly without the use of figures.
The wives of the king of Dahomey, generally to the number of three thousand, are formed into a regiment, part of which act as his body-guard, equipped with bows, arrows, drums, and sometimes muskets. They are regularly trained to the use of arms, and go through their evolutions with as much expertness as any other of his majesty’s soldiers.
Captain Clapperton thus describes a visit he received from the king of Kiama: “Six young girls, without any apparel, except a fillet on the forehead, and a string of beads round the waist, carrying each three light spears, ran by the side of his horse, keeping pace with it at full gallop. Their light forms, the vivacity of their eyes, and the ease with which they seemed to fly over the ground, made them appear something more than mortal. On the kind’s entrance they laid down their spears, wrapped themselves in blue mantles, and attended on his majesty. On his taking leave, they discarded their attire; he mounted his horse, and away went the most extraordinary cavalcade I ever saw in my life.”
In time of battle the African women encourage the troops, supply them with fresh arrows, and hurl stones at their enemies. In some tribes it is common for them to unite with the men in hunting the lion and the leopard.
Mr. Campbell attended a palaver, or council, in Southern Africa. He says, “The speeches were replete with frankness, courage, often with good sense, and even with a rude species of eloquence. The women stood behind and took an eager interest in the debate—cheering those whose sentiments they approved, or bursting into loud laughter at any thing they considered ridiculous.”
If the king of Congo dies without sons, his daughter, if she be marriageble, becomes absolute mistress of the kingdom. She visits various towns and villages, where she causes the men to appear before her, that she may select a husband from among them. When her choice is made, she resigns all authority into his hands, and he becomes the king.
Every great man has bands of minstrels, of both sexes, who sing his praises in extempore poetry, while they play upon drums, or guitars with three strings.
Some of these guiriots, or minstrels, travel about the country with their families, dancing and singing at every village where their services are required. The Africans are so partial to these wandering musicians, that they often make them quite rich by their liberality. The female singers are covered with various colored beads, and not unfrequently with ornaments of the precious metals. But though the guiriots are always welcome at weddings and festivals, though their songs kindle the soldier’s courage as he goes to battle, and enliven the dreariness of journeys through the desert, yet they are regarded with even more contempt than falls upon similar classes in other parts of the world. Not even a slave would consent to marry into a family that had followed this profession; and when they die, their bodies are placed in hollow trees, from the idea that crops of millet would certainly fail if they were buried in the earth. The guiriots dance in the same immodest style that characterizes the Asiatic performers. Their dances are always accompanied by drums and other musical instruments. Among the Wolofs none but public singers play on any instrument, it being considered disrespectable for others to practise this amusement.
The African women are so passionately fond of dancing, that wherever the itinerant minstrels appear, they flock around them, and encourage them by songs, while they beat time by clapping their hands. Indeed with this mirth-loving race every thing furnishes occasion for festivity and frolic. Their marriages and funerals conclude with dances; all their festivals are commemorated with songs and dances; every moonlight night the men and women meet in great numbers to enjoy this favorite exercise; and if the moon be wanting, they dance by the light of large fires. The young girls often unite together to buy palm wine, and after an entertainment at the hut of one of their companions, they go together through the village, singing in chorus a variety of charming airs, marking time by clapping their hands; these strains, though simple, and often repeated, are by no means monotonous. The Fulah songs are said to have a melancholy sweetness which is exceedingly captivating; and some of the Wolof airs are gracefully pathetic, while the measures in which they are composed indicates skill in music somewhat remarkable in a people so little civilized. On the banks of rivers and on the sea-coast, the inhabitants of villages one or two miles distant may be heard singing the same song, and alternately answering each other. Drums are their most common musical instruments; beside which they have a guitar of three strings, made of half a calabash covered with leather; a species of castanets, made of small gourd shells, filled with pebbles, or Guinea peas, which the dancers shake in a lively manner; and an instrument resembling a spinnet, called the balafo, in which the notes are struck by small sticks, terminated by knobs covered with leather. These instruments are generally of rude construction, and produce dull, heavy tones; but the voices of the people are peculiarly soft and melodious, and they are said to keep time with great exactness. Music is never mute in Africa. Whether the inhabitants are weaving at their doors, laboring in the fields, rowing their boats, or wandering in the desert, songs may be heard resounding through the air. Even the poor slaves dragged to distant markets, suffering with hunger, and thirst, and cruel laceration, will begin to sing as soon as they have a few moments rest; particularly if the assurance is given them that after they pass a certain boundary, they shall be free and dressed in red. Thus does the God of love console his guileless children even under circumstances of the greatest external misery! and man, in the wantonness of his pride, makes this blessed influence of Divine Providence an excuse for continued cruelty!