Among Congo cannibals

Collecting fish for the Museum—Modes of fishing—By torchlight—Fish-fences—Traps and spoon-nets—Floating buoys and hooks—Fish-spears—Fish poisons—Prohibition with fish traps—Addressing the fisherman—Penalties—First-fruits—Portion given to head chief.

Fish is very plentiful in the Congo and its tributaries. The writer was asked a few years ago by the authorities of the Natural History Museum, London, if he would undertake to collect Congo fish for them. This he readily consented to do, and was glad of the opportunity of rendering them any assistance in his power on the understanding that it should be no expense, for transport, etc., to his Society. The Museum authorities sent him the necessary preserving spirits and the tanks. The latter he filled with fish, labelled them and forwarded them to M. G. A. Boulenger, who has charge of the Ichthyological Department at the Natural History Museum. The natives themselves became interested in collecting fish, and brought me their catches to see if there was a fish among them that I had not put into the “box”; and when later the Museum authorities sent me about fifty plates, beautifully engraved, of the Congo fish that I and others had sent to them, nothing delighted the native lads more than looking over those plates and talking about the fish represented by them.

I started collecting in the following simple way: In 1893 we had no fish-hooks on the station, but the boys asked my wife to give them some pins with which to make hooks. This we did, on the condition that the young fishermen brought their catches to us and allowed us to take one or two fish for my bottle. The fish they caught by such primitive means were, of course, rather small, about the size of one’s fingers; but I soon had two pickle bottles full of various kinds of fish. These bottles I brought home in 1895 and gave to the Natural History Museum, and several new species were found in that small, unpretentious collection. This led the Museum authorities to ask me to collect larger fish, which I gladly did.

I was much interested in noticing the various modes of fishing pursued by the different tribes on the Congo, and will here give the results of my observations: (1) Fishing by torches at night. Fishermen in twos and threes would light a bunch of grass, or an old mat, on a dark night and would walk quietly along the river’s bank, holding the light well up with one hand so as to attract the fish, and having in the other hand a long knife or spear well poised, ready to strike any fish that was attracted by the bright light. I never saw them catch a fish in this way, but they must kill one occasionally, or they would not trouble to spend their time in this manner. This mode of fishing was common to all the peoples right along the river. (2) During certain seasons of the year—May and November—the Congo itself and its numerous tributaries, inlets, and creeks are flooded with heavy rains. The watershed of the Congo River is extensive enough to benefit by the rainy seasons both north and south of the Equator; hence the two rises in the year—May and November.

At flood times fences are built across the smaller creeks and streams. These fences are so closely woven that none but the smallest fish can pass. As soon as the water falls, which it generally does in six or eight weeks, those who built the fences go and search the shallow water and mud for any fish that may have been shut in the trap. In this way large quantities of various kinds of fish are caught, which, being cleaned and thoroughly dried in the smoke over a slow fire, help them much by rendering their sour cassava more palatable. During the time that the river is subsiding the people catch snails, and cut them up to feed the fish in these creek traps, and also in any ponds and pools left on the islands by the receding river. At flood time many of the islands are one and two feet under water, and as the river goes down large pools are left in the hollows. These are claimed by those people who, as the water shallows, fatten the fish with snails and cassava parings, and in due time they bail the remaining water out of these pools and catch the gasping fish left on the muddy bottom. The mud-fish and siluroids are caught in large quantities in these pools and ponds. Both these modes of fishing are common to the whole river above Stanley Pool.

(3) On the Upper Congo, where the water is shallow and the banks slope gradually and regularly, the natives select a suitable place and drive in a number of wooden stakes forming a large semicircle, the ends of which touch the bank at from 15 to 20 yards from each other. They then fasten long bamboo nets to the stakes, thus enclosing a large sheet of water. A large number of light branches and leaves are loosely thrown over the surface of the enclosed water; the up-river end of this fish-trap is left open for the fish to pass in where they find shade. Snails and cassava parings are cut up and thrown in to fatten the fish and induce them to stay. As the river rises more branches are thrown on the enclosed water, and the fish gliding along the bank enter, and are charmed by the cool shade and food they find there.

As soon as the river begins to fall below the top of the net the opening is shut. At this stage the natives frequently spear fish by probing with their fish-spears among the branches and grass inside the trap. In a few weeks the river falls, and the branches are carefully removed, and a number of women and boys and girls enter the water with cone-shaped baskets about 2 feet high, 18 inches in diameter at the mouth, and an 8-inch opening at the top. These baskets they lift up and down in the water, placing the bottom firmly each time on the river-bed, and from the feel they can tell whether a fish is enclosed or not. They catch fish frequently in this way, and then they put their hand through the top opening and grip it. If the fish is too large for that, then a spear is passed through and the fish pinned to the ground. See page 239.

Around the outside of the fence will be a number of canoes, occupied by men and lads fishing with large string nets fastened to stout canes of calamus palms. With these they spoon the water and often bring up a fish. After a time the large bamboo-net fence is slowly pulled up the sloping bank, sweeping before it and enclosing in its narrowing space any fish that may have escaped the spears, nets, and traps, until it is drawn right up the bank. The whole scene is very animated, men and women, boys and girls—a score or more of them—laughing, jesting, joking most noisily, splashing each other, scrambling, swimming, kicking, fighting, and diving in their efforts to catch the fish they feel gliding between their legs or slipping through their fingers. Many go as much for the fun as for the fish.

(4) Fish-hooks, probably first introduced by white men, are in general use all along the river. The hook is baited with cassava, or earth worms, or the entrails of fowls. It is thrown into the river to lie on the bottom until it is found and swallowed by a hungry fish. I have seen a fish weighing 20 pounds caught in this way. The end of the line is a running noose placed round the angler’s wrist. I once saw a boy about 14 years old jerked off the bank into the river by a fish that had swallowed his hook, and then in fright had suddenly started off. The boy, taken by surprise, lost his balance and toppled into the river; he and his fish, however, were soon pulled out.

The following is another mode of using the fish-hook: A crescent-shaped float of light wood (generally ambash) is prepared, and a cord is fixed across from horn to horn; from this cord hangs a string with the baited hook at the end. This float has a heavy stone fastened to it at the end of a long cord. The fisherman goes into the middle of the river, drops the stone anchor (to keep the float from being carried away by the current), arranges the float and hook, and returns to land in his canoe. As long as he sees the horns of his float above water he knows that no fish is on the hook. When a fish takes the bait and swallows the hook, it overturns the float in its attempts to escape, and when the fisherman sees the rounded bottom of his float above water he knows that a fish is caught on the hook. I have seen fish weighing close on 40 pounds caught by this ingenious method.

Throughout the whole length of the river the natives use large cone-shaped traps made of split canes and bamboos. These traps vary in size from 6 feet to 12 feet in length, and from 2 feet to 7 feet in diameter at the mouth. The sides run straight for two-thirds of the length, and then taper off to a point. Inside are several partitions running in semicircles and at an obtuse angle to the sides, so that it is easy for the fish to enter; but if they try to escape, the sharp, irregular ends of the canes forming the partitions probe them, and effectually turn them back. These large basket-like traps are weighted and dropped into deep water with their mouths upstream. Some have only one smaller circle of canes arranged inside a larger. There is also another trap having the same diameter for its whole length, and a mouth at each end with a smaller cone-shaped partition arranged in each opening, so that fish coming from opposite directions can enter.

Fish-spears are of different shapes, but their hafts are always long—from 10 to 12 feet—and tapered towards the end. Sometimes the handles are of sticks, and sometimes of bamboos. The fish-spear is often a simple prong, sometimes an ordinary spear shape, but the commonest form is the barbed—single, or double, or triple. The two former are always tightly fixed in their handles, but the barbed kind is always detachable, having two or three yards of string loosely wound round the handle near to the spear-head. This allows the barbed head of the spear to remain in the fish, and the handle to float and show its whereabouts. I think the only reason for this difference is that the barbed spear-heads are scarce and costly, and on account of the detachable handles they are not so likely to lose them.

Fish poisons are used. One was the milky juice of a leguminous, hairy plant, called botoko (probably Tephrosia toxifera), which was crushed and thrown into the streamlets and creeks and has the effect of partially stupefying the fish. The other was the juice of the Euphorbia, named by the natives kokotulu.

(5) The Libinza people, to whom I have referred several times, make the largest nets, and fish in a more business-like way than any tribe I have seen on the Upper Congo. These nets are of a large mesh, and are made entirely of native string. In shape the net is like a box without a lid. It is 15 feet long, about 8 feet wide, and from 3 to 4 feet deep.

This is a fair average size; there are many larger than this, and some smaller.

Soon after dark the Libinza fishermen select a suitable place—a sandbank with three or four feet of water on it. The net is fixed by one end and the two sides, being tied to stakes driven in the sand; the other end was allowed to lie on the bottom of the river. Having fastened the net, they form a wide semicircle at some distance from the loose end of their net, and at a signal they begin to beat the water with their hands and feet, gradually working up to the open end and driving the startled fish before them. This operation is frequently repeated through the night, and as a result large quantities of all kinds of fish are brought to the town next morning. For this kind of fishing the river must be fairly shallow.

(6) The Basoko people have another mode of fishing by means of a string net 30 feet long and 5 feet high. The two ends are fixed to sticks; along the upper edge of the net were floats of pith-wood, and along the bottom edge were weights of burnt fire-clay. The men go out in a canoe, and at a likely place the net is unrolled, and one man slips over the side of the canoe with one end of the net which, by means of the stick, he fastens upright in the bed of the river; the other man then jumps into the river with his end of the net and makes a wide detour—the floats buoying up one edge and the weights sinking the other. The second man having made as wide a detour as the length of the net permits, sweeps round the fixed end and winds the net closely round and round, entangling in its meshes any fish caught inside the circle of its sweep. I have seen many fish caught in this manner.

(7) The Bopoto people have another mode, which appears more clumsy than it really is. A light frame of poles about 8 or 9 feet square is covered with a fine mat of bamboo laths closely woven together. One side of this frame is hinged to the side of the canoe so that it moves freely. The two upper corners of the frame have ropes attached to them. The two fishermen hold the frame upright while a third paddles them into mid-stream; then the frame is lowered by the ropes until the top end is 12 or 14 inches under the water, and the canoe is then allowed to drift with the current. By and by a fish swims over the submerged net, and the men, who are watching, pull quickly at their ropes, up comes the net, and down tumbles the fish into the canoe.

It is a curious fact that one tribe never imitates another in its principal mode of fishing. I have seen an Upper River native make and use a cast net such as he had seen the Accra carpenters use; but I never saw a man of one tribe imitate a man of a neighbouring tribe in his peculiar mode of fishing. They have traps common to all, but each tribe has its own principal mode peculiar to itself. I have twitted a native of Monsembe about not following, or even trying, the successful mode of fishing pursued by the Libinza people, and he has replied: “We could not catch fish like them even if we tried; that is their way, and we have ours.”

Fishermen while making their traps (moleke) are prohibited from all intercourse with women, and this prohibition continues until the trap has caught some fish and the said fish has been eaten, otherwise they will have no luck in fishing. This abstinence may last some few weeks, or only a few days. The Boloki folk in the old days often threw old men or women into the river to appease the water-spirits (mingoli), that they might be more successful in fishing.

While a man is fishing, and immediately on his return from fishing, he is called mwele, no matter who he may be. The river is supposed to be full of spirits, and if these hear the proper names of the fishermen they can so work against them that they will catch little or no fish, consequently the fishermen desire to hide their identity under the general name of mwele.

Again, when a man lands with his fish the buyer must not address him by his proper name, but as mwele, or the spirits will hear it, and either mark him as one against whom they will exercise their influence another time, or they will impoverish the fish just caught, so that the man’s chances of a good price will be lost. Hence the fisherman can make the person who breaks this rule either pay him heavy damages, or compel him to sell the fish in the village at a good price and thus restore his luck.

The first-fruits of a lad’s fishing are given to his nearest relatives. When this is not possible, then other fish are given later on. Very often a share of the first catch of every season is similarly given to the parents or nearest relatives. A part of the fish caught is given to the head-man of the town to which the fisherman belongs. This was regarded as one of the perquisites of his position, and the non-observance of custom is bitterly resented.