PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG SOKO. (Copied by permission from the Engraving In Livingstone’s “Last Journal.”)
“The Soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one can stalk him in front without being seen; hence, when shot, it is always in the back; when surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back too, otherwise he is not a very formidable beast. He is nothing, as compared in power of damaging his assailant, to a Leopard or Lion, but is more like a man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are long and formidable. Numbers of them came down in the forest, within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue like Fox-hounds; this is their nearest approach to speech. A man, hoeing, was stalked by a Soko, and seized; he roared out, but the Soko giggled and grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child, caught up by a Soko, is often abused by being pinched, and scratched, and let fall.”
SOKO HUNT. (After a Sketch by Dr. Livingstone.)
“The Soko kills the Leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws and biting them, so as to disable them; he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the Leopard dies. At other times both Soko and Leopard die. The Lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him. The Soko eats no flesh; small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound, and of these one is like large sweet sop, but indifferent in taste. The Soko brings forth at times twins. A very large Soko was seen by Mohamad’s hunters, sitting picking his nails; they tried to stalk him, but he vanished. Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise as Sokos, and one was killed with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong, and fears guns, but not spears. He never catches women.”
“Sokos collect together, and make a drumming noise, some say with hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells, which are well imitated by the natives’ embryonic music. If a man has no spear, the Soko goes away satisfied; but if wounded, he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin; he draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood; he does not seek an encounter with an armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him. Manyuema say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’ They live in communities of about ten, each having his own female; an intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother.”
The “Last Journals” contains a portrait of a young Soko (reproduced on [page 47]), which shows a short-armed, weak-legged, long-eared creature; and in the engraving on [page 48], the adults which are being hunted are certainly very much shorter than the natives who are killing them. All that can be said, then, is that possibly the Soko is a kind of Troglodyte, greatly resembling the kind we have next to notice; but its geographical range is most interesting. Its being found so many hundreds of miles from the Sierra del Crystal, and beyond the woods of the coast-living Chimpanzees, would appear to prove that formerly there were forest and jungle far away to the east, where there are now plains, rivers, and lakes with much forest land.