CHAPTER CLXIV.
AFRICA—Continued.
THE MANYUEMA—Concluded.
THEIR BLOOD-THIRSTY CHARACTER — BRUTAL CUSTOMS — UNTRUTHFUL BUT HONEST — FEAR OF GUNS — BAD REPUTATION — CANNIBALISM — ONLY ENEMIES EATEN — ABUNDANCE OF FOOD — WANT OF POLITICAL COHESION — NO PROGRESS — THE SAFURA — THE COUNTRY UNHEALTHY — THE SOKO — LIVINGSTONE’S GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION.
The Manyuema do not lack in industry and energy. In their villages they are orderly, courteous and kind toward each other. But if a man of another district ventures into a village, it is in peril of his life; he is not regarded as one of their tribe, and is almost sure to be killed. Those who served as guides to Livingstone would desert him as they approached a village, not daring to go near those between whom and their own people there was a bitter feud. The head men of the villages, in a strange blindness, often enlist by gifts of ivory the Arab traders to inflict punishment upon their enemies. Livingstone passed through eleven villages that had been burned, and all on account of one string of beads,—a mournful illustration of the barbarities committed.
The better he became acquainted with this people the more convinced was he of their degraded and blood-thirsty character. He noticed at one time a pretty woman, the young wife of Monasimba. Ten goats were given for her. Her friends, not satisfied, came and tried to obtain another goat. This being refused they enticed her away. She became sick and died a few days afterward, yet no one expressed one word of regret for the beautiful young creature, but all the grief was for the loss of the goats. “Oh, our ten goats! Our ten goats! Oh, oh!”
Monasimba went to his wife, and after washing he may appear among men. If no widow can be obtained, he must sit naked behind his house till some one happens there; all the clothes he wore are thrown away. The man who killed a woman goes free; he offered his grandmother to be killed in his stead, and after a great deal of talk nothing was done to him. They are the lowest of the low especially in blood-thirstiness.
A strong man among them is lawless, doing whatever he lists without any remonstrance or resistance by the head man. Thus, for example, a man’s wife was given away to another for ten goats, and then his child was sold also. For goats and cattle this people will do any mean or brutal thing.
Livingstone has to record this testimony after discovering some new proofs respecting the debasement of this people: “The Manyuema are the most bloody, callous savages I know. One puts a scarlet feather from a parrot’s tail on the ground, and challenges those near to stick it in the hair. He who accepts this challenge must kill a man or a woman.
“Another custom is that none dare wear the skin of the musk-cat (ngawa) unless he has murdered somebody. Guns alone prevent their killing us all, and for no reason either; some will kill people in order to be permitted to wear the red tail-feathers of the parrot in their hair. Yet these are not ugly-looking like the West Coast negroes, for many of the men have as finely formed heads as can be found in London. We English, if naked, would make but poor figures beside the strapping forms and finely-shaped limbs of Manyuema men and women.”
So blood-thirsty are the people that travellers are asked everywhere that some of their fellow-men be killed. They are afraid to go to villages three or four miles off, because there are murderers of fathers and mothers and other relations living there. The moral condition of this people is one of pre-eminent degradation.
They are far from being a generous people. Hassani, a Moslem trader, told Dr. Livingstone that no Manyuema had ever presented him with a mouthful of food, not even a potato or banana, though he had made many presents to them. They are untruthful as a people, but very honest. No articles are even purloined by them. If a fowl or goat be lost or anything else, it may be known that an Arab slave is the thief. It is a somewhat remarkable fact that Livingstone and the Arab merchants kept their fowls in the Manyuema villages, to prevent their being stolen by their own slaves. A conscientious, rigorous sense of justice, allied with their blood-thirstiness, is a singular feature in the character of this tribe.
The Manyuema have great fear of guns. Often a man will borrow one to help him settle a dispute. Going with it on his shoulder he can readily adjust the difficulty by the fear the weapon inspires, even though it is known by his opponent that he could not use it.
Though the presence of guns will always awaken such terror, yet if their enemies be armed only with spears, however numerous, these men are brave. It is a common expression “The Manyuema are bad.” They are exceedingly cruel among themselves, but their reputation for badness is in no small degree caused by the representations of the Arab traders, who plunder them in every possible way. It is no wonder that some badness should be manifested when their huts are appropriated without leave, compensation, or thanks. Firewood, pots, baskets, food, in fact everything is taken that they fancy. The women usually flee into the forest, to return only after the invaders have gone, but to find their possessions plundered or destroyed. If treated kindly, they make overtures of friendship by gifts of provisions and fruits. The Arabs will eat up all they can lay hands on, and then say, “The Manyuema are bad, very bad.”
In respect to cannibalism, it is the fact that the Manyuema eat only their foes and those who are killed in war. Some have alleged that captives also are eaten, and that a slave is bought with a goat to be eaten, but there is doubt of the truth of this assertion. From the most careful observation, Livingstone concluded that it is only those slain in battle who are eaten, and this in revenge. Mokandira said, “The meat is not nice; it makes one dream of the dead man.”
On the west of Lualaba it is thought that men eat those bought for the purpose of a feast. All unite in saying that human flesh is saltish, and needs very little condiment.
At the market a stranger appeared who had ten human under-jaw bones hung on a string over his shoulder. When interrogated he professed to have killed and eaten the owners, and he showed with his knife how he had cut them up. When disgust was expressed at his recital he and others laughed.
A great fight had taken place at Muanampunda’s, and Livingstone saw the meat cut up to be cooked. The natives betrayed a shame about the matter, and said, “Go on, and let our feast alone.” They eat their foes to inspire courage. It will seem very remarkable that this custom prevails, for there is no want of food of all kinds. The country is full of it, overflowing with farinaceous products, with meat and every variety of fish, and they have stimulating luxuries in palm-toddy, tobacco or bange. With nature so lavish of her gifts, showing that cannibalism is not the result of want or starvation, it must be merely a depraved appetite that craves for meat that we call “high.”
“They are said to bury a dead body for a couple of days in the soil in a forest, and in that time, owing to the climate, it soon becomes putrid enough to regale the strongest stomachs.”
The great necessity of this people is some bond of union or national life. But there is no supreme chief in Manyuema or Balegga, and thus the tribe is disintegrated. Each head man regards himself as mologhwe or chief, however small his village, even if only four or five huts, and so is independent. This explains the fact of no political cohesion among the people. Jealousy and fear of each other among the head men are the great obstacles to their uniting for the common welfare. With no unity of interest, no concert of action, no ruler to whom all must pay allegiance, it is inevitable that offences must come, and feuds and wars will follow. Crimes against person or property cannot be punished except by revenge, reprisal, war, in which blood is shed. Enmities are thus caused between neighboring villages that last for generations, resulting in a vast amount of rapine and suffering. In this condition of mutual hostility they become the easy prey of the Arab adventurers, succumbing to their extortion and rapacity with only the feeblest resistance.
No progress or improvement is made among this tribe; they seem to have come to a permanent stand-still. The influence of intelligent and wise chiefs does not avail to start them out of the degradation into which their character and life have crystallized. Moenékuss was a sagacious ruler, ambitious to improve the condition of his people. He paid smiths to teach his sons how to work in copper and iron, but he could never inspire them with his own generous and far-seeing spirit. They could not emulate his virtues, being devoid of all magnanimity, sagacity, or ambition.
The disease called safura, the result of clay or earth eating, is quite common among the Manyuema. Though slaves are more addicted to this habit, yet it is not confined to them. They do not eat clay in order to end their lives and their sufferings. The Manyuema women eat it when pregnant, and many who do not lack food will form this fatal appetite. The disease shows itself in swollen feet, loss of flesh, and haggard face. The victim walks with great difficulty on account of shortness of breath and weakness, and yet persists in eating till death terminates his life. Only by the most powerful drastics and entire abstinence from clay-eating can a cure be effected after one has become diseased with safura.
The Manyuema country is unhealthy, not so much from fevers as from a general prostration caused by the damp, cold, and indigestion. This debility is ascribed by some to the maize, which is the common food, producing weakness of the bowels or choleraic purging. Ulcers form on any part of the body that is abraded, and they are like a spreading fungus, for the matter adhering to any part of the body forms a fresh centre of propagation. These ulcers will eat very rapidly if not allowed quiet. They are exceedingly difficult of healing, eating into the bone, especially on the shins. Many slaves die of them. Rheumatism is frequent, and many of the natives die of it. Tape-worm is common, and no remedy is known to the Arabs or natives.
One of the animals found in Manyuema is so remarkable as to require some special notice. It is undoubtedly a new species of the chimpanzee, and not the gorilla. The stuffed specimen of the latter in the British Museum was seen by Susi and Chuma, Livingstone’s men, and they, familiar with the sight of sokos, pronounced them unlike the gorilla, yet as large and as strong.
The description, by Livingstone, of this animal is so graphic and interesting that we give it below in full:—“They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady its body. When thus seen the soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a ‘dear,’ but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentleman in him.
“Other animals, especially the antelopes, are graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion. The natives also are well-made, lithe, and comely to behold, but the soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the devil.
“He takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light-yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers and faint apology for a beard; the forehead, villainously low, with high ears, is well in the background of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development.
“The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow, and the eagerness with which the Manyuema devour it leaves the impression that eating sokos was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals. They say the flesh is delicious. The soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping children and running up trees with them.
“He seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that drops the child; the young soko in such a case would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and naked, when a soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go. A man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a soko; it seized the spear and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his companions, ‘Soko has caught me!’ The soko bit off the ends of his fingers and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarré.
“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 come 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.
“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. One, staféné, or Manyuema mamwa, is like large, sweet sop, but indifferent in taste and flesh. 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’ embryotic music. When men hear them, they go to the sokos; but sokos never go to men with hostility. Manyuema say, ‘Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.’
“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 wish 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.
“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 the child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother.”
Sometime after the soko hunt, which gave rise to the striking portrait of the beast that Livingstone has left, Katomba presented to him a young soko that had been caught when its mother was killed. “She sits eighteen inches high; has fine, long black hair all over, which was pretty, so long as it was kept in order by her dam. She is the least mischievous of all the monkey tribe I have seen, and seems to know that in me she has a friend, and sits quietly on the mat beside me. In walking the first thing I observed is, that she does not tread on the palms of her hands, but on the backs of the second line of bones of the hands; in doing this the nails do not touch the ground, nor do the knuckles. She uses the arms thus supported crutch-fashion, and hitches herself along between them; occasionally, one hand is put down before the other, and alternates with the feet, or she walks upright, and holds up a hand to any one to carry her; if refused she turns her face down and makes grimaces of the most bitter human weeping, wringing her hands, and sometimes adding a fourth hand or foot to make the appeal more touching. Grass or leaves she draws around her to make a nest, and resents any one meddling with her property. She is a most friendly little beast, and came up to me at once, making her chirrup of welcome, smelled my clothing, and held out her hand to be shaken. I slapped her palm without offence, though she winced. She began to untie the cord, with which she was afterward bound, with fingers and thumbs in quite a systematic way, and on being interfered with by a man, looked daggers, and screaming, tried to beat him with her hands. She was afraid of his stick and faced him, putting her back to me as a friend. She holds out her hand for people to lift her up and carry her quite like a spoiled child, then bursts into a passionate cry, somewhat like that of a kite, wrings her hands quite naturally, as if in despair. She eats everything, covers herself with a mat to sleep, and makes a nest of grass or leaves, and wipes her face with a leaf.”
A soko alive is thought by the natives to be a good charm for rain. There being a drought, one was caught; but the captor met with the usual fate of those men who, without weapons, contend with this animal; he lost the ends of his fingers and toes.