Life on the Congo

by W. Holman Bentley

Children commence trading very early. A five-year old boy will somehow get three or four strings of beads, and with them will buy a small chicken. After a few months of patient care, it is worth eight or ten strings, and his capital is doubled. He is soon able to buy a small pig, which follows him about like a dog, and sleeps in his house until, by and by, it fetches a good amount on the market. The proceeds of rat hunting, barter among the town boys, and further trade, have meanwhile increased his stock in trade. When he grows older, he accompanies a caravan to the coast, he gets a nice present to carry food for his uncle; en route his ideas of trade are enlarged. He commences to buy india-rubber, and brings back with him next time salt and cloth, a gun and some powder, a knife, and a plate. And so by degrees he is encouraged to fresh effort, until he has sufficient to pay for a wife or two. Continuing still in trade, he buys and sells, investing his property in slave retainers, and hiding some in reserve, in case of misfortune, or against his death. For it is the ambition of all to be buried in a large quantity of cloth. Then the report goes that so and so was buried, and that he was wound in 200 fathoms of cloth, and that 50 guns were buried with him, and so on. This sort of burial is a Congo Westminster Abbey.

The girls help their mothers in farming and housework until they arrive at a marriageable age. In some places they are betrothed very early; the intended husband paying a deposit, and by instalments completing the price demanded by the girl’s maternal relatives. The amount is often heavy—reckoned by Congo wealth—but varies much according to the position of the girl’s family or the suitor’s wealth. It is altogether a business matter. Should the wife die, her maternal relatives have to provide another wife without further payment; and as frequently they have spent the sum paid in the first instance, they are landed in difficulties. Palavers about women are a fruitful source of war.

Children are considered the property of the wife’s relatives, the father has little or no control over them. The right of inheritance is from uncle to nephew, thus a man’s slaves and real property go to the eldest son of his eldest sister, or the next of kin on such lines. A wise nephew will therefore leave his father’s house, and go to live with his uncle, whom he hopes to succeed. His uncle also, knowing that his nephew is to inherit his goods, while his own children belong to his wife’s clan, cares more for his nephew than his own children. The evil of the system is recognized by many, but they cannot see how the necessary revolution is to be brought about.

At the age of five or six the boys do not stay longer with their mothers. Some bigger boys having built a house, the small boys just breaking loose from parental restraints go to them, and beg to be allowed to live with them. They in turn promise to find them in firewood, and to be their little retainers pro tem. These boys’ houses are called mbonge. I turned up late at night (eight o’clock) in a native town, having made a forced march. I had never visited there before, and not liking to rouse the chief at such an hour, I went to the mbonge, and asked the boys whether I and my two attendants might sleep there to save fuss and trouble, as I must be off again at daybreak. ‘Oh, you are Ingelezo, are you? come in; yes, we are glad to see you, so often we have heard of you, and now we see you. We are very pleased.’ This was kindly spoken; so, stooping through the low doorway, I entered a roomy house. Some ten boys had just finished supper, and squatted round a smoky fire. I was glad to stretch out on the papyrus mat they gave me, keeping low down, to avoid the smoke which otherwise almost blinded me. I had with me half a fowl, a small bell (1¼d.), and three strings of beads. A boy spitted my fowl over the fire, while my attendants dozed, for they were worn out with the long march of the day. I begged some plantain, and a lad went to the door, and shouted, ‘Bring some plantain to the mbonge.’ A kindly woman brought some. When my meal was ready I asked for a pinch of salt and some water; they shouted for these, and got them. Having finished my meal, I coiled up in my blanket; and next morning, giving them the bell and three strings, thanked them, and so we parted.

The boys of the mbonge are well attended to; for to get the name of ‘stingy’ is the first step towards the terrible rumour of witch.

The constant activities of trade tend to develop the intellectual faculties of the people. Cute, long-headed men, with wonderful memories, having no account books or invoices, they ask you sensible questions; and if you can speak their language, an hour’s chat may be as pleasant with them as with some whiter and more civilised folk. If you have a bargain to drive with them, you need all your wits and firmness; while if they are stronger than you, or have no reason to respect you, they will have their way.

Clever in pottery and metal work, making hoes and knives, casting bracelets, anklets, and even bells from the brass rods of trade, beating out brass wire, and ribbon, they strike you at once as being of a superior type.

We might draw another picture. There are districts where there seems to be no energy in the people. Take, for instance, the Majinga or the Lukunga Valley, as we knew them two years ago. Here the natives live in the midst of plenty, for the soil is not to be equalled in richness. The proceeds of a goat sold on one of the markets will find a large family in palm fibre cloth for a year; while a crate or two of fowls will provide salt, gunpowder, and an occasional hoe or plate.

A boy grows up in this rich country, and for a while his intellect expands as he learns about the little world around him. As he grows older, he may bestir himself to find means to buy a gun, and then a wife: that accomplished, he has practically nothing more to learn or live for. He sleeps or smokes all day, unless about September the grass is burnt and there is a little hunting, though a war or a palaver may sometimes break the monotony. Otherwise, his wife cultivates the land, and feeds him; he eats and sleeps. Living such an animal life, his intellect stagnates, he becomes quarrelsome and stupid to a degree almost hopeless. Dirty, he is contented to see his hut fall to pieces almost over his head.