Life on the Congo

by W. Holman Bentley

Interspersed among the Negro and Hamitic races are detached peoples, speaking languages of the Nuba Fullah group, of whom the Masai, among whom Mr. Thomson has been travelling, to the east of the Victoria Nyanza, may be taken as types.

To the south of all these is the great Bantu (= men) race. A line drawn eastward from the Gulf of Biafra to the Indian Ocean will mark roughly the boundary of this greatest of the African races. Near to the Cape of Good Hope are found the Hottentot Bushman, a degraded race, who appear to have been the aborigines, but now driven to the remotest corner, are still yielding to the stronger Bantus.

It is surmised that some dwarf races, said to be scattered through the Bantu countries, may be of this aboriginal stock, but no satisfactory opportunities have yet offered for ascertaining the truth. These dwarfs are always a little beyond the countries visited by travellers, a few specimens, said to belong to them, have been seen, but their country is ever elusive. It is likely that they may prove to be degraded tribes of the races among whom they dwell, just as the Niam Niams are believed to be Nuba-Fullahs.

Of the Bantus the Zulu Kaffirs may be the best known types, although they have borrowed from the Hottentots the clicks that so much disfigure their language.

With the exception of these hypothetical dwarfs, the inhabitants of the Congo basin are all Bantus.

As before stated, language is the basis of such classification. With the other races they have nothing in common. In roots, grammatical construction and all distinguishing features of language, the Bantu dialects have a marked individuality, differing almost totally from the other races, while showing the most marked affinities among themselves. It would be inappropriate to burden the present paper with a lengthy dissertation on the peculiarities of the Bantu languages. The most marked feature is the euphonic concord, a principle by which the characteristic prefix of the noun is attached to the pronouns and adjectives, qualifying it, and to the verb of which it is the subject. Thus matadi mama mampwena mampembe mejitanga beni: these great white stones are very heavy. Quoting J. R. Wilson, Mr. Cust remarks that ‘The Bantu languages are soft, pliant, and flexible, to an almost unlimited extent. Their grammatical principles are founded on the most systematic and philosophical basis, and the number of words may be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent. They are capable of expressing all the nicer shades of thought and feeling, and perhaps no other languages of the world are capable of more definiteness and precision of expression. Livingstone justly remarks that a complaint of the poverty of the language is often only a sure proof of the scanty attainments of the complainant. As a fact the Bantu languages are exceedingly rich.’ My own researches fully confirm these remarks. The question is very naturally raised, Whence do these savages possess so fine a language? Is it an evolution now in process from something ruder and more savage or from something inarticulate? The marked similarity of the dialects points to a common origin; their richness, superiority, and the regularity of the individual character maintained over so large an area, give a high idea of the original language which was spoken before they separated.

Heathenism is degrading, and under its influence everything is going backwards. We are led by the evidence of the language to look for a better, nobler origin of the race, rather than to consider it an evolution from something infinitely lower. The Bantu languages are as far removed from others of the continent as English is from Turkish or Chinese. Some earlier writers have endeavoured to trace similarities, but later research has proved that they do not exist. The origin of the race must ever remain a mystery. What, when, and where, cannot be ascertained, for no memorials exist in books or monuments. The Bantu race and languages cannot be an evolution from something inferior; they are a degradation from something superior. Coastwards there are traditions of change and movement on the part of the people; in the east and on the south marauding tribes and slave-hunters have devastated large tracts of country, but there is no sign of general movement on the part of the Bantus.

The traditions of countries along the coast where white men have long settled speak of much greater, more powerful kingdoms in the past; and after due allowance has been made for exaggeration, it is too evident that the kings of Congo, Kabinda, Loango, and Angola, exerted at one time far more influence than they do to-day. Indeed, the King of Congo is the only chief who maintains his style and title; the others have become extinct during this century. We find then the whole country in a state of disintegration; every town a separate state, and its chief, to all practical purposes, independent.

Makoko, the Teke chief with whom De Brazza made his famous treaty, is said to have levied taxes on the north bank people near his town. The King of Congo used to receive a tribute from the remnants of the old Congo empire; but to-day he has to content himself with levying a mild blackmail on passing caravans, and receives a present, when he gives the ‘hat’ and the insignia of office to those who succeed to chieftainships over which in olden times the kings exercised suzerainty. Few, indeed, of those acknowledge him to-day even to that extent.

These independent townships group themselves into tribes and tribelets; it is, however, a matter of great difficulty to learn the tribal names, which are best obtained from neighbours. The old Congo empire formerly included the countries on the south bank from the coast to Stanley Pool, and southward to the Bunda-speaking people of Ngola (Angola), while homage was rendered by the kings of Loango and Kabinda. To-day the influence of the king is merely nominal outside his town. He is respected, however, in a radius of thirty or forty miles, but seldom if ever interferes in any matters.