Then there was a blaze of torches in the forest, the dogs burst into a wild chorus of yelping and baying, and out of the dark they came, the whole company of them. Every man was keeping step to the splendid new song that the Alo Man led. Each one marched into the open circle of firelight, flung down his pack, and began to tell the news to his own family and ask for something to eat as soon as it could possibly be had.
They were all glad—the whole village—to see the Alo Man, and he was just as glad to see them. His white teeth flashed and his eyes shone as he greeted one old friend after another, and asked and answered questions as fast as his tongue would go. Cooking pots were hustled off the fire and good things ladled out, and soon the feasting and laughter and story-telling and singing of the Alo Man’s visit had fairly begun.
CHAPTER II
THE STRING OF BEADS
There was great chattering in the village over the unloading of the packs with the various wares brought from the market. The marketing arrangements of wild Africa are very curious. There are four days in a Congo week,—Konzo, Nkenge, Nsona, and Nkandu,—and on at least one of the four days a market is held somewhere near every important village. All markets held on Konzo are called Konzo markets, those held on Nkenge are called Nkenge markets, and so on. Each of the four kinds of markets is in a different place, but there is one of the four within five miles of every town. In the village where Mpoko and Nkunda lived, the people had to go four miles to the Konzo market, nine to the Nkenge market, sixteen to the Nsona and twenty to the Nkandu, but this last market was quite near the next village downstream.
Some of these markets were noted for certain goods. Mpoko’s mother could always depend on pigs being on sale at the Nkenge market, and whoever had a pig to sell would be likely to take it there. At the Konzo market, four miles away, were good pots, calabashes, and saucepans, some of which were made by women in their village, for one of the old grandmothers was rather famous for her pottery. Other markets were known for palm wine, iron work, oil, or some other specialty, and besides these things cassava roots, peanuts, kwanga (native bread), palm oil, beans and other vegetables, grains and fowls were generally sold in all markets.
Besides these markets, larger markets were held occasionally, from one to another of which the traders traveled with things not made in the country. Besides the brass rods, blue beads were sometimes used as a kind of money, a farthing string of a hundred beads being passed from hand to hand; or it might be used to buy food in small quantities, ten or fifteen blue beads three eighths of an inch long and about a quarter of an inch thick being used as small change.
A great deal of produce was simply swapped from one person to another. A man might gather a quantity of some produce like tobacco, rubber, raffia, palm oil, or grain, at one market and another, and take it finally to the great market to exchange for beads, brass, calico, or whatever else he found there. Salt is so rare in some parts of Africa that it is used for money, and a man will work as a porter so many days for so many bags of salt. When the people make salt on the shores of an inland lake, they have to gather the salty sand and wash it out in pots specially made, with little holes in the bottom into which the salt water runs; then the water is dried away over slow fires and the salt scraped off the sides of the kettle. It takes less time and labor to earn salt ready made than to make it in this way. Salt is also made from grass ashes.
The packs of the village men had in them not only salt, but many pieces of gay-colored cloth, beads, and wire. Nkunda felt that hers was the best share of all, when her mother called her to have hung round her neck a string of bright red coral beads. No other little girl had a string half so pretty, Nkunda thought. The more she fingered the little, smooth, scarlet drops of her necklace, the more she admired them.