King Mombo

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

The next evening the slaves again made their appearance, and to amuse them I told them again to fill their pipes, and lighted them with my matches, to their great delight. While they were smoking I said: “I heard yesterday about the strong and fierce ngina. Tell me this evening something about the nshiego, nshiego mbouvé, nshiego kengo, and kooloo-kamba. Tell me how you can distinguish the different kinds among these ‘men of the woods,’ as you call them.”

“We easily recognize each kind,” replied Oshoria, for he was again to be the spokesman. “I will tell first of the nshiego mbouvé. He is far from being as tall and powerful as the ngina. The nshiego mbouvé is the bald-headed man of the woods—he is born with thin hair on his head, but as he grows older the hair drops off entirely. He is the only one amongst the nshiegos that becomes bald. But, Oguizi, the nshiego mbouvé when very young has a face whiter and paler than yours—though his mother and father are as black as the blackest among us. Strange to say, as the baby nshiego mbouvé grows older, his pale face grows darker and darker, and after a time comes to be as black as that of his father and mother.

“But, Oguizi,” added Oshoria, with emphasis, “they are so shy that it is very difficult to approach them. The best way is to discover their shelter and lie in wait for them.”

After a pause, he said: “The nshiego kengo is born pale yellow, and has a pale face also; the blood does not go through its skin, as your blood does through yours; no matter how warm they are, how much they have run, they always remain pale. The nshiego mbouvé and the nshiego kengo are more intelligent than the ngina. They make a shelter for themselves on trees, about five or six arms’ lengths from the ground. There they rest at night, as they are afraid of the leopards. The ‘man’ has one shelter, the ‘woman’ another, on two different trees close together. They do not attack men, and run away at the least noise.

“Then comes the kooloo-kamba, another kind of nshiego. This kind is very rare. He is different from the nshiego mbouvé and nshiego kengo. He is born black. We call him kooloo-kamba because his cry is ‘kooloo-kooloo.’

“Then comes the last of the men of the woods, and the most numerous species. He goes by the name of nshiego. He is born pale-faced and gradually becomes black. He also is very intelligent. We can tame easily all the species of young nshiegos, and we capture them by killing their mothers when we find them together.

“The reason we call all this kind of ‘men of the woods’ ‘nshiego’ is because they are much alike in some respects: they all have elongated hands with long fingers, and long and narrow feet. All nshiegos have big ears, too, while the ngina has very small ears and much shorter hands and feet. All the nginas and the nshiegos are tailless; they have a spine, like man. The nshiegos spend much of their time on trees; they are great tree-climbers—that is the reason that they have long hands and fingers. With these they readily seize the branches of trees; their feet are also on that account more flexible than those of the ngina.”

When Oshoria had done speaking about all the “men of the woods” found in this great African forest, I thought of the strange orang-outangs, which I had seen alive at home in New York and Boston, and how wonderfully human they looked, with their high foreheads. These also live in big forests in the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. They are another kind of “men of the woods,” without tails. “How strange it is,” I said to myself, “that amongst the ‘men of the woods,’ there are three colors, as with human beings. The orang-outang has hair that is brown and a face of almost the same color, and corresponds to the brown races. The nshiego kengo has somewhat the color of the white man, and the ngina and the kooloo-kamba have that of the black man.”

Two days after our conversation about the nshiegos I heard a great uproar near Regundo’s house, just as I was emerging from the forest after my morning’s hunting. I saw a big crowd of slaves, and heard loud exclamations of astonishment, and the words “nshiego mbouvé” and “baby nshiego mbouvé.” I hurried up and saw Regundo, Oshoria, Ogoola, Ngola, and Quabi coming to meet me. They said: “Oguizi, we have killed a nshiego mbouvé and captured her baby, which is alive and well. Come and see them.” Soon after I stood by the side of the dead nshiego mbouvé, which was perfectly black, and looked with wonder at the very white face of the baby nshiego mbouvé. I thought I had never seen amongst wild creatures such a human face as I did in that little old face of the baby; he looked so pale that one might have thought he had just left a sick bed or the hospital. He crept over the body of his mother and moaned, “Whoe, whoe,” as if he were a human being. It was his mode of crying. He knew that his mother was dead.

In the evening Oshoria and the slaves assembled and we talked about nshiego mbouvés and the other “men of the woods.” Pointing to the little nshiego mbouvé fast asleep on a bed of dry leaves, Oshoria said: “The pale-faced nshiego mbouvé and the other ‘men of the woods’ have in many respects better luck than we poor black men have. They have not to work hard as we do, they have not to dig the ground, to cut down the trees of the forest, to sow or to plant, in order to live. If we did not do this we should die of hunger. Food grows of itself for them in the forest; they can always find something to eat. It is true that there is the race of pigmies, who are human beings like us and live chiefly, like the ‘men of the woods,’ on the nuts, berries, and fruits of the forest and do not plant or sow anything, but then the pigmies can trap game and exchange it with the big people for plantains. They know the use of fire and cook their food.