The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

REAL NAME OF THE BUBÉS — THEIR LIMITED RANGE — APPEARANCE AND MANNERS OF THE MEN — TOLA PASTE — REASONS FOR NUDITY — BUBÉ ARCHITECTURE — GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE BUBÉS — A WEDDING AT FERNANDO PO — CONGO — ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION — CURIOUS TAXATION — RELIGION OF CONGO — THE CHITOME AND HIS POWERS — HIS DEATH, AND LAW OF SUCCESSION — THE NGHOMBO AND HIS MODE OF WALKING — THE ORDEAL — CEREMONY OF CROWNING A KING — THE ROYAL ROBES — THE WOMEN OF CONGO — EARLY HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY — THE FEMALE MONARCH — THE FATE OF TEMBANDUMBA.

The Bubé tribe (which unfortunately is pronounced Booby) is a really interesting one, and, but for the rapidly decreasing space, would be described in detail. The real name of the tribe is Adizah, but, as they are in the habit of addressing others as Bubé, i. e. Man, the term has clung to them.

The Bubés inhabit Fernando Po, and, although some of them believe themselves to be aborigines of the island, have evidently come from the mainland. They have, however, no particular pride in their autocthonic origin, and, if questioned, are perfectly content to say that they came from their parents.

The Bubés inhabit only one zone in Fernando Po. The sea air is too soft and warm for them, and, besides, there is danger of being carried off by the slavers. More than three thousand feet above the sea they cannot exist, not because the climate is too cold, but because the palms and plantains on which they live will not flourish there. With the exception of those individuals who have come under the sway of the missionaries, the Bubés wear no clothes except closely fitting coats of palm oil, or, on grand occasions. of tola paste, i. e. palm oil bruised and mixed with the leaves of the tola herb. This paste has a powerful and very peculiar odor, and the first intimation of the vicinity of a Bubé village is usually the scent of the tola paste borne on the breeze.

The men wear large flat hats made of wicker-work covered with monkey skin, and used chiefly to guard themselves from the tree snake. The women are dressed in exactly the same fashion, but without the hat, their husbands perhaps thinking that women cannot be hurt by snakes. The hat is fastened to the head by skewers made of the bone of the monkey’s leg, and the hair itself is plentifully greased and adorned with yellow ochre, and manipulated so that it looks as if it were covered with little gilded peas. Round the upper arm is tied a piece of string, which holds a knife for the man and a pipe for the woman. Clothing is to them a positive infliction, and Captain Burton remarks that, even at an elevation of ten thousand feet above the sea, he offered the Bubés blankets, but they would not have them, though they found the warmth of the fire acceptable to them.

They have a legend which explains their nudity. Many years ago a M’pongwe magician made fetish upon his great war spear, and killed numbers of them, so that they fled. They then made a law that the Bubé should wear no clothing until they had conquered the M’pongwe, and that law they have kept to the present day.

Taken as a savage, the Bubé is a wonderfully good specimen. He is very industrious, laying out yam fields and farms at some distance from his house, in order to prevent his domestic animals from straying into it, and he is the best palm-wine maker in Western Africa. He neither will be a slave himself, nor keep slaves, preferring to work for himself; and, after working hard at his farm, he will start off into the woods to shoot monkeys or squirrels. He is a good athlete, and handles his great staff with such address that he is a very formidable antagonist. He is an admirable linguist, picking up languages with astonishing readiness, and he is absolutely honest. “You may safely deposit rum and tobacco in his street, and he will pay his debt as surely as the Bank of England.” This testimony is given by Captain Burton, who certainly cannot be accused of painting the native African in too bright colors.

Yet he never trusts any one. He will deal with you most honorably, but he will never tell you his name. If you present gifts to him, he takes them, but with suspicion: “Timet Danaos et dona ferentes.” If you enter his village unexpectedly, he turns out armed, and, “if you are fond of collecting vocabularies, may the god of speech direct you.” The fact is, he has been so cheated and plundered that he now suspects all men alike, and will not trust even his fellow-countrymen of the next village.

He treats his wife pretty well, but has an odd ascending series of punishments. Should he detect her in an infidelity, he boils a pot of oil, cuts off the offender’s left hand, and plunges the stump into the oil to heal the bleeding. For the second offence she loses the right hand, and for the third the head, on which occasion the boiling oil is not required. Partly on account of this law, and partly on account of their ugliness, which is said to be portentous, the women display better morals than the generality of their African sisters.

Dr. Hutchinson, who resided in Fernando Po for some time, has not a very favorable opinion of the Bubés, thinking that the twenty or thirty thousand of their tribe form the greatest obstacle to civilization. He states, moreover, that although the Baptist missionaries have been hard at work among them for seventeen years, they had not succeeded in Christianizing or civilizing, or even humanizing, a single Bubé.

They are not an intellectual race, and do not appear to know or care much about the division of time, the new moon and the beginning of the dry season marking their monthly and annual epochs. The latter begins in November, and for two months the Bubés hold a festival called Lobo, in which marriages are generally celebrated. Dr. Hutchinson was able to witness a Bubé marriage, and has given a very amusing account of it. The reader may find it illustrated on the preceding page. The bride was a daughter of the king. “On getting inside of the town our first object of attraction was the cooking going on in his Majesty’s kitchen. Here a number of dead ‘ipa’ (porcupines) and ‘litcha’ (gazelles) were in readiness to be mingled up with palm oil, and several grubs writhing on skewers, probably to add piquancy to the dishes. These are called ‘inchaee,’ being obtained from palm trees, and look at first sight like Brobdignagian maggots. Instead of waiting to see the art of the Fernandian Soyer on these components, I congratulated myself on my ham sandwiches and brandy-and-water bottle safely stowed in my portmanteau, which one of the Krumen carried on his back, and sat on my camp-stool beneath the grateful shade of a palm tree to rest a while.

“Outside a small hut belonging to the mother of the bride expectant, I soon recognized the happy bridegroom, undergoing his toilet from the hands of his future wife’s sister. A profusion of tshibbu strings (i. e. small pieces of Achatectona shell, which represent the currency in Fernando Po) being fastened round his body, as well as his legs and arms, the anointing lady (having a short black pipe in her mouth) proceeded to putty him over with tola paste. He seemed not altogether joyous at the anticipation of his approaching happiness, but turned a sulky gaze now and then to a kidney-shaped piece of brown-painted yam, which he held in his hand, and which had a parrot’s red feather fixed on its convex side. This I was informed was called ‘ntsheba,’ and is regarded as a protection against evil influence during the important day.

“Two skewer-looking hair-pins, with heads of red and white glass beads, fastened his hat (which was nothing more than a disk of bamboo plaiting) to the hair of his head; and his toilet being complete, he and one of the bridesmen, as elaborately dressed as himself, attacked a mess of stewed flesh and palm oil placed before them, as eagerly as if they had not tasted food for a fortnight. In discussing this meal they followed the primitive usage of ‘fingers before forks,’ only resting now and then to take a gulp of palm wine out of a calabash which was hard by, or to wipe their hands on napkins of cocoa-leaf, a process which, to say the least of it, added nothing to their washerwomen’s bill at the end of the week.

“But the bride! Here she comes! Led forth by her own and her husband-expectant’s mother, each holding her by a hand, followed by two ‘nepees’ (professional singers) and half-a-dozen bridesmaids. Nothing short of a correct photograph could convey an idea of her appearance. Borne down by the weight of rings, wreaths, and girdles of ‘tshibbu,’ the tola pomatum gave her the appearance of an exhumed mummy, save her face, which was all white—not from excess of modesty (and here I may add, the negro race are expected always to blush blue), but from being smeared over with a white paste, symbolical of purity.

“As soon as she was outside the paling, her bridal attire was proceeded with, and the whole body was plastered over with white stuff. A veil of strings of tshibbu shells, completely covering her face, and extending from the crown of her head to the chin, as well as on each side from ear to ear, was then thrown over her; over this was placed an enormous helmet made of cowhide; and any one with a spark of compassion in him could not help pitying that poor creature, standing for more than an hour under the broiling sun, with such a load on her, whilst the nepees were celebrating her praises in an extempore epithalamium, and the bridegroom was completing his finery elsewhere.

“Next came a long chant—musical people would call it a howl—by the chief nepee. It was about as long as ‘Chevy Chase,’ and celebrated the beauties and many virtues of the bride, among which was rather oddly mentioned the delicious smell which proceeded from her. At every pause in the chant the audience struck in with a chorus of ‘Hee! hee! jee! eh!’ and when it was over the ceremony proceeded.

“The candidates for marriage having taken their positions side by side in the open air, fronting the little house from which the bride elect had been led out by the two mothers, and where I was informed she had been closely immured for fifteen months previous, the ceremony commenced. The mothers were the officiating priests—an institution of natural simplicity, whose homely origin no one will dare to impugn. On these occasions the mother-bishops are prophetically entitled ‘boowanas,’ the Fernandian for grandmother.

“Five bridesmaids marshalled themselves alongside the bride postulant, each, in rotation, some inches lower than the other, the outside one being a mere infant in stature, and all having bunches of parrots’ feathers on their heads, as well as holding a wand in their right hands. The mother stood behind the ‘happy pair,’ and folded an arm of each round the body of the other—nepees chanting all the while, so that it was barely possible for my interpreter to catch the words by which they were formally soldered. A string of tshibbu was fastened round both arms by the bridegroom’s mother; she, at the same time, whispering to him advice to take care of this tender lamb, even though he had half-a-dozen wives before. The string was then unloosed. It was again fastened on by the bride’s mother, who whispered into her daughter’s ear her duty to attend to her husband’s farm, tilling his yams and cassava, and the necessity of her being faithful to him. The ratification of their promise to fulfil these conditions was effected by passing a goblet of palm wine from mother to son (the bridegroom), from him to his bride, from her to her mother, each taking a sip as it went round.

“Then an indiscriminate dance and chant commenced; and the whole scene—the tola paste laid on some faces so thickly that one might imagine it was intended to affix something to them by means of it—the dangling musk-cat and monkey tails—the disk hats and parrots’ feathers—the branches of wild fern and strings of tshibbu shells, fastened perhaps as nosegays to the ladies’ persons—the white and red and yellow spots painted under the eyes, and on the shoulders, and in any place where they could form objects of attraction—the tout ensemble, contrasted with the lofty Bombax, beautiful palm, cocoa-nut, and other magnificent tropical trees around, presented a picture rarely witnessed by an European, and one calculated to excite varied reflections.”

Lastly, the whole party—the tola paste now cracking from their bodies—proceeded to the house of the bridegroom, the old wives walking before the bride until they reached the door, and then allowing her to precede them. The newly-married pair then stood at their door facing the spectators, embracing each other as before. One of his children then presented the bride with a huge yam painted brown, others fixed tshibbu epaulets on her shoulders, the husband placed four rings on her fingers, and the ceremony was concluded by a second lecture from the bridegroom’s mother, at the expiration of which Dr. Hutchinson, as he rather quaintly says, “left the happy pair to the enjoyment of their tola-moon.”

CONGO

Passing southward down the West Coast, we come to the celebrated kingdom of Congo.

In these days it has been so traversed by merchants of different countries and missionaries of different sects, that it no longer presents the uniform aspect of its earlier monarchical days, of which we will take a brief survey. The reader must understand that the sources from which the information is taken are not wholly reliable, but, as we have none other, we must make the best of our information, and use our own discretion as to those parts which are best worthy of belief. The following account is mostly taken from Mr. Reade’s condensation.

The ancient constitution of the Congo kingdom much resembled that of Ashanti or Dahome; namely, a despotic monarchy controlled by councillors, the king and the council being mutually jealous, and each trying to overreach the other. When the kingdom of Congo was first established, the royal revenues were much in the same condition as the civil list of a late Emperor of Russia—all belonged to the king, and he took as much as he wanted. In later days, however, the revenues were controlled by the council, who aided, not only in their disposal, but in the mode of their collection. The greater part of the income depended on the annual tributes of the inferior chiefs, but, as in times of pressure, especially during a protracted war, this tribute is inadequate to meet the expenses, the king and council devise various objects of taxation.

The most productive is perhaps the tax on beds, which are assessed according to their width, every span costing an annual payment of a slave. Now, as an ordinary man cannot sleep comfortably on a bed less than four spans in width, it is very evident that the tax must be a very productive one, if indeed it were not so oppressive as to cause a rebellion. The natives seem, however, to have quietly acquiesced in it, and a wealthy negro therefore takes a pride in having a very broad bed as a tangible proof of his importance.

As in more civilized nations, war is the great parent of taxation, the king being obliged to maintain a large standing army, and to keep it in good humor by constant largesses, for a large standing army is much like fire,—a useful servant, but a terrible master. The army is divided into regiments, each acting under the immediate command of the chief in whose district they live, and they are armed, in a most miscellaneous fashion, with any weapons they can procure. In these times the trade guns are the most valued weapons, but the native swords, bows and arrows, spears, and knives, still form the staple of their equipment. As to uniform, they have no idea of it, and do not even distinguish the men of the different regiments, as do the Kaffirs of Southern Africa.

The ancient religion of the Congo negro is simply polytheism, which they have suffered to degenerate into fetishism. There is one monotheistic sect, but they have gained very little by their religion, which is in fact merely a negation of many deities, without the least understanding of the one whom they profess to worship—a deity to whom they attribute the worst vices that can degrade human nature.

The fetish men or priests are as important here as the marabouts among the Mandingoes, and the chief of them, who goes by the name of Chitomè, is scarcely less honored than the king, who finds himself obliged to seek the favor of this spiritual potentate, while the common people look on him as scarcely less than a god. He is maintained by a sort of tithe, consisting of the first-fruits of the harvest, which are brought to him with great ceremony, and are offered with solemn chants. The Congo men fully believe that if they were to omit the first-fruits of one year’s harvest, the next year would be an unproductive one.

A sacred fire burns continually in his house, and the embers, which are supposed to be possessed of great medicinal virtues, are sold by him at a high price, so that even his fire is a constant source of income to him. He has the entire regulation of the minor priests, and every now and then makes a progress among them to settle the disputes which continually spring up. As soon as he leaves his house, the husbands and wives throughout the kingdom are obliged to separate under pain of death. In case of disobedience, the man only is punished, and cases have been known where wives who disliked their husbands have accused them of breaking this strange law, and have thereby gained a double advantage, freed themselves from a man whom they did not like, and established a religious reputation on easy terms.

In fact, the Chitomè has things entirely his own way, with one exception. He is so holy that he cannot die a natural death, for if he did so the universe would immediately be dissolved. Consequently, as soon as he is seized with a dangerous illness, the Chitomè elect calls at his house, and saves the universe by knocking out his brains with a club, or strangling him with a cord if he should prefer it. That his own death must be of a similar character has no effect upon the new Chitomè, who, true to the negro character, thinks only of the present time, and, so far as being anxious about the evils that will happen at some future time, does not trouble himself even about the next day.

Next to the Chitomè comes the Nghombo, a priest who is distinguished by his peculiar gait. His dignity would be impaired by walking like ordinary mortals, or even like the inferior priests, and so he always walks on his hands with his feet in the air, thereby striking awe into the laity. Some of the priests are rain-makers, who perform the duties of their office by building little mounds of earth and making fetish over them. From the centre of each charmed mound rises a strange insect, which mounts into the sky, and brings as much rain as the people have paid for. These priests are regularly instituted, but there are some who are born to the office, such as dwarfs, hunchbacks, and albinos, all of whom are highly honored as specially favored individuals, consecrated to the priesthood by Nature herself.

The priests have, as usual, a system of ordeal, the commonest mode being the drinking of the poison cup, and the rarest the test of the red-hot iron, which is applied to the skin of the accused, and burns him if he be guilty. There is no doubt that the magicians are acquainted with some preparation which renders the skin proof against a brief application of hot iron, and that they previously apply it to an accused person who will pay for it.

The Chitomè has the privilege of conducting the coronation of a king. The new ruler proceeds to the house of the Chitomè, attended by a host of his future subjects, who utter piercing yells as he goes. Having reached the sacred house, he kneels before the door, and asks the Chitomè to be gracious to him. The Chitomè growls out a flat refusal from within. The king renews his supplications, in spite of repeated rebuffs, enumerating all the presents which he has brought to the Chitomè—which presents, by the way, are easily made, as he will extort an equal amount from his subjects as soon as he is fairly installed.

At last, the door of the hut opens, and out comes the Chitomè in his white robe of office, his head covered with feathers, and a shining mirror on his breast. The king lies prostrate before the house, while the Chitomè pours water on him, scatters dust over him, and sets his feet on him. He then lies flat on the prostrate monarch, and in that position receives from him a promise to respect his authority ever afterward. The king is then proclaimed, and retires to wash and change his clothes.

Presently he comes out of the palace, attended by his priests and nobles, and gorgeous in all the bravery of his new rank, his whole person covered with glittering ornaments of metal, glass, and stone, so that the eye can scarcely bear the rays that flash on every side as he moves in the sunbeams. He then seats himself, and makes a speech to the people. When it is finished, he rises, while all the people crouch to the ground, stretches his hands over them, and makes certain prescribed gestures, which are considered as the royal benediction. (See the engraving No. 2, on the next page.) A long series of banquets and revelry ends the proceedings.

At the present day, the Congo king and great men disfigure themselves with European clothing, such as silk jackets, velvet shoes, damask coats, and broad-brimmed hats. But, in the former times, they dressed becomingly in native attire. A simple tunic made of very fine grass cloth, and leaving the right arm bare, covered the upper part of the body, while a sort of petticoat, made of similar material, but dyed black, was tied round the waist, and an apron, or “sporran,” of leopard skin, was fastened to the girdle and hung in front. On their heads they wore a sort of hood, and sometimes preferred a square red and yellow cap. Sandals made of the palm tree were the peculiar privilege of the king and nobles, the common people being obliged to go bare-footed.

The wives in Congo are tolerably well off, except that they are severely beaten with the heavy hippopotamus-hide whip. The women do not resent this treatment, and indeed, unless a woman is soundly flogged occasionally, she thinks that her husband is neglecting her, and feels offended accordingly. The king has the power of taking any woman for his wife, whether married or not, and, when she goes to the royal harem, her husband is judiciously executed.

The people of Congo are—probably on account of the enervating climate—a very indolent and lethargic race, the women being made to do all the work, while the men lie in the shade and smoke their pipes and drink their palm wine, which they make remarkably well, though not so well as the Bubé tribe of Fernando Po. Their houses are merely huts of the simplest description; a few posts with a roof over them, and twigs woven between them in wicker-work fashion by way of walls, are all that a Congo man cares for in a house. His clothing is as simple as his lodging, a piece of native cloth, tied round his middle being all that he cares for; so that the ample clothes and handsome furs worn by the king must have had a very strong effect on the almost naked populace.

According to traditional history, Congo was in old times one of the great African kingdoms. Twice it rose to this eminence, and both times by the energy of a woman, who, in spite of the low opinion in which women are held, contrived to ascend the throne.

Somewhere about 1520—it is impossible in such history to obtain precision of dates—a great chief, named Zimbo, swept over a very large part of Africa, taking every country to which he came, and establishing his own dominion in it. Among other kingdoms, Congo was taken by him, and rendered tributary, and so powerful did he at last become, that his army outgrew his territory, and he had the audacity to send a division to ravage Abyssinia and Mozambique. The division reached the eastern sea in safety, but the army then met the Portuguese, who routed them with great loss. Messengers conveyed the tidings to Zimbo, who put himself at the head of his remaining troops, went against the Portuguese, beat them, killed their general, and carried off a great number of prisoners, with whose skulls he paved the ground in front of his house.

In process of time he died, and the kingdom separated, after African fashion, into a number of independent provinces, each governed by one of the leaders of the now useless army. One of these leaders had a daughter named Tembandumba, who, together with her mother, ruled the province when her father died. These women always accompanied the troops in war, and so fierce and bloodthirsty was Tembandumba, even as a girl, that her mother gave her the command of half the troops, the natural consequence of which was that she took the command of the whole, deposed her mother, and made herself queen.

Her great ambition was to found a nation of Amazons. Licentiousness she permitted to the fullest extent, but marriage was utterly prohibited; and, as soon as the women found themselves tired of their male companions, the latter were killed and eaten, their places being supplied by prisoners of war. All male children were killed, and she had nearly succeeded in the object of her ambition, when she was poisoned by a young man with whom she fell violently in love, and from whom she imprudently accepted a bowl of wine at a banquet.

It is very remarkable that, about a hundred years after the death of Tembandumba, another female warrior took the kingdom. Her name was Shinga, and she obtained a power scarcely less than that of her predecessor. She, however, was wise in her generation, and, after she had fought the Portuguese, and been beaten by them, she concluded an humble peace, and retained her kingdom in safety.