A great inland sea—The Boloki and Bantus—The Boloki man—A native retort—Meaning of Bangala—Movements of tribes—Murder of Boloki chief—Refuge in a tree—Boloki raiding—A famous chief—Comets an evidence of greatness—Tribal marks and meaning.

There is much evidence in favour of the theory that the low-lying country of the Congo basin was once the bottom of a great inland sea, with here and there the highest points of land rearing their heads above the water, and thus forming numerous islands. The pressure and rush of water gradually wore down the barriers made by the ridge of rocks running across the river at Kintamo, and now forming the Kintamo Falls, thus draining the country and rendering it habitable. Then came another silting up, and the lower levels of the country, that had been covered in the meantime by trees and grass, were again flooded, and heavy deposits of clay were dropped on to and pressed down the vegetable growth. When the river was extremely low one year in the Monsembe district, I noticed for many miles a stratum of vegetable matter, about three inches thick, with here and there a tree of six inches diameter, a good eleven feet below the top of the bank. This vegetable layer was not fossilized, but was extremely hard, and though of a blackish brown colour, every vein in the leaves, and every line in the grass, was clear and perfect.

It is highly probable that as the Congo basin was drained the Bantus pressed down from their northern homes; and the Boloki tribe for greater security, perhaps, took possession of the Libinza Lake, and enlarged the islets they found there into places large enough to hold one, two, or more families.

The Boloki tribe belongs to the great Bantu race that stretches from 6° north of the Equator to Cape Town, and from the east to the west coast. The Bantus reach a higher latitude on the western than on the eastern side of the African continent, and here and there we find dotted over this vast tract of country small tribes—like the Hottentots, the Bushmen, the Pigmies, etc.—that are remnants probably of the aborigines of the country. These portions of tribes, speaking other than Bantu dialects, have not been absorbed, for geographical and other reasons, by their more civilized Bantu neighbours during the progress of many generations; but are there to-day like so many isolated pages of primitive history.

The Boloki man is above the average height, of sturdy frame, well-developed limbs, and splendidly proportioned body. When necessity has demanded it, he has paddled me for fifteen hours with only one short interval for food; but “on the road” he is not a good walker, for he finds his rations too heavy a burden, much more a 70-lb. load such as the Lower Congo man carries with a light heart and step for many days. In the canoe the Boloki swings his paddle with much grace, and if a drum is beaten, or a song is sung, the line of twenty paddlers will dip, bend, and raise their paddles in perfect time to the rhythm of the drum, or the lilt of the song.

The Boloki man is sociable and of a kindly disposition, but liable to fits of uncontrollable passion, and is then capable of great cruelty. He is fond of a laugh, enjoys a good joke, and appreciates a repartee, which he gives and takes in good humour.

We make more than three hundred dinners a year off fowls—they are very cheap, and are the most regular form of fresh meat that we can procure. Speaking with a native one day, I laughingly twitted him with the scarcity of fowls and the difficulty of buying any in his village.

He at once retorted: “White man, if all the fowls you have eaten from our village were to cackle and crow simultaneously in your stomach, there would be a tremendous noise.” And as he spoke there was a good humoured twinkle in his eye as he conjured up the noisy scene.

Formerly the term Bangala was applied only to those natives who lived at Diboko (Nouvelles Anvers), and for forty or fifty miles up and down the river on either side of them; but in a work published in Brussels called Les Bangalas,^[18] the term Bangala is made to cover an area reaching far east of Bopoto, west of Equatorville, north of the Welle, and south of the Congo River for some distance. This includes a dozen or more different tribes, talking as many distinct languages, having various tribal marks, possessing in many instances very different customs, etc., and among whom there is nothing in common except their black skins and backwardness in civilization. Since seeing the above-mentioned book, I have preferred using Boloki as a more definite term for denoting the inhabitants of certain towns on the main river, on the Mobangi River, and the Libinza Lake. Intermixed with the Boloki towns on the Congo River are other towns belonging to a hinterland people well known to us as the Bomuna.

The Boloki folk have very hazy ideas about relationship, and scarcely any two will give the same name to all the relatives, and, moreover, if you take a list of the names of relations from a young man and put it away for six months, and then ask the same lad about the same relations in the same order as before, with your list in front of you, he will give you another set of names that will not tally with your first one in several points. I have made many attempts to draw up a complete list,^[19] and if I had been satisfied to take one man and examine him once only, I might have procured a list of the names of relations that would have been full, but it would have been inaccurate, i.e. it would have been that man’s list then, but it would not have been his six or eight months later, and it would not have been anyone else’s list even at the time he gave it to me. In this there was no desire to deceive us, for we found the same difficulty on the Lower Congo.

Among the Boloki there is no historical literature, for not a single member of the tribe could write until we taught them; but although there is no written history there has been much oral communication dealing with the origin of the tribe, the place from whence it came, the approximate time of the migration, and the reason for it. Their communications have been handed from father to son, and the facts have been the constant theme of fireside conversations.

The following incidents connected with the migrations of a large portion of the tribe from the low-lying Libinza Lake district to the main river I gathered from a man of about 35 years of age, of good intelligence, and I have every reason to believe that they are the putting together of what he frequently heard around the evening fires, as well as what he learned from his father. Besides, in chatting with other folk, I have gathered various particulars that confirm his statements, and the constant antagonism shown by the Bomuna people to the Boloki, and the geographical distribution of these two tribes, all go to prove the truthfulness the main facts of this page from native history.

The Bomuna people, about the middle of the nineteenth century, came from the bush towns lying in the forest between the Mobangi and the Congo Rivers, and settled on the bank of the main river. Not being a riverine people, they had no knowledge of swimming, and possessed no canoes. They worked their way along the river’s bank from the Monsembe district up-river until they came to the Ejeba stream, near the village of Nyoi, which deep stream they passed by means of a stout cane-creeper that happened to stretch across the water from the overhanging trees. Many passed, and while others were working their way hand over hand along the cane creeper it broke, and thus severed the only means of communication between those on the opposite sides of the stream. Those who found themselves on the eastern side continued their journey, and founded the settlements of Diboko (sometimes called Iboko), now Nouvelles Anvers. Thus the ancient people of Diboko were Bomuna of the tribe of Bobanga, of whom the chief, Mata Bwiki, is the best known to fame, being the head-man who encountered Stanley, and on whose land the Congo Free State built their station of Nouvelles Anvers.

The Bomuna folk left on the western side of the stream settled on suitable town sites in the Mungala Creek above Monsembe, and along the banks of the main river below Monsembe. I knew this branch of the tribe well as being both ignorant and timid in all matters relating to water and canoes.

Between forty and fifty years ago some Libinza Lake people of the tribe of Boloki left their swampy island homes under the leadership of Munyata, and working their way in shallow canoes through the creeks, they came out on the main river near to Moboko. They paddled down the river to the Mungala Creek, which at that time was inhabited by Bomuna people. There Munyata made blood-brotherhood with Munkua, the chief of the Bomuna, and settled there with his people. The Bomuna at that time possessed no spears, but did their hunting and fighting with sharpened sticks, the points of which were hardened in the fire. Munyata presented Munkua with a spear, and received a fine young woman as a return present.

Munyata, the Boloki chief, was apparently a very grasping man, for although he had several wives he coveted more, and was always asking Munkua for one of his. For a time Munkua occasionally gave one; but Munyata let it be known that any woman who ran to him would be retained, and so much was the Boloki chief admired and feared, that one after another of the wives of Munkua escaped to him, until at last only one, his favourite, or principal (nkundi) wife was left, and she was eventually stolen from him by Munyata. So exasperated was Munkua by this treatment that, taking advantage of the first opportunity that offered, he speared Munyata to death.

On the murder of Munyata the Boloki folk came out in crowds from the Libinza Lake to avenge the death of their head-man, and so successful were they with their iron spears against the sharpened sticks of the Bomuna that, although more numerous, the latter gave way before their fierce onslaught. Many escaped, but some took refuge in a high bombax tree. The tree was surrounded by the Boloki, who threatened to starve their enemies to death unless they submitted; and apparently after some palavering the entrapped people had the privilege accorded to them of selecting their own future owners. Thus one would say, “I will take So-and-so as my master,” and on his request being agreed to he would climb down the tree and take his place among the followers of his new master. In this way they divided themselves among their conquerors, and it seems from all accounts they were well treated by the Boloki.

Other contingents of the Boloki came out on to the main river and wrested sites from the Bomuna at Monsembe, Lobengu, Maleli, and Bokomela, and up-river at Bombilinga. In the meantime the Diboko Bomuna had increased in numbers, had become possessed of canoes, and had learned the way to manage them. Their numbers also had been greatly augmented, and their passions inflamed by those who had escaped from the Mungala Creek before, and during, the fight caused by the death of Munyata. These Diboko Bomuna so harassed and fought the Mungala Creek Boloki that numbers of them fled up-river (undoubtedly passing behind the islands to avoid their enemies at Diboko), and established themselves at Mobeka, at the mouth of the Mungala River many miles above Diboko. When first we went to live at Monsembe a very high tree that stood on the bank at the bend of the river was pointed out to me as their post of observation when watching for the Diboko Bomuna.

The Boloki tribe in 1890 possessed the following districts on the north bank of the Congo: Mobeka, at the mouth of the Mungala River, Bombilinga, the Mungala Creek towns, Monsembe, Lobengu, situated in the Mangala Creek, Moleli, Bokomela, and Bungundu. On the south bank they owned Bokumbi, Libulula, and Bolombo. At some time or other the people of Bungundu, Bokomela, Moleli, and Lobengu were called Mangala, and gave their name to the creek in which their principal town was built. Perhaps there was a powerful family called Mangala, and this has been corrupted into Bangala; or the Mungala River was supposed to be the original home of these people, and as mu means place, locality, and ba means people, it was easy to call the people the Bangala. I am rather inclined to the latter reason for the origin of the term among white people, but the natives themselves never used the name Bangala.

Near to Mobeka are the Ngombe people, who are also called Bokumbi, and this tribe in 1908 was becoming mixed with the neighbouring tribes; and as they are being absorbed into them they no longer call themselves Ngombe or Bokumbi, but appropriate the names of the peoples whose language they learn and whose tribal mark they imitate. The hinterland folk of Diboko belong to the Mokulu tribe, and the Bomuna of Diboko to the Bobanga tribe; others in between the Boloki towns down to Bokomela retain their old name of Bomuna. Below Bokomela is the Mbonji tribe that came originally from the bush. The Baloi on the Mobangi River are Boloki from Lake Libinza.

The Libinza Lake is a large sheet of shallow water that drains itself, by the Ngiri River, into the Mobangi, and retains its distinctive colour for many miles. Islands have been slowly made with great labour, and they need constant watching or they will be washed away by the annual floods. The folk drove stakes around any slight elevations shown at low water, and then dug up clay and mud from the bottom of the lake and put inside the stakes, and thus formed an island. These islands are small, but they are numerous, and are often linked together by bridges. There are some large islands, but most of them are small. The lake was thickly populated in the nineties with expert fishermen and saucepan-makers; and they often came out in parties of twenty and thirty to fish with their peculiar box-shaped nets, and to sell their fish, their saucepans, and “fire-pots” to the riverine people for cassava roots. They frequently camped on our beach, and thus we saw much of them. The Libinza folk lived chiefly on plantains, as cassava would not grow in their swampy soil, hence they always exchanged their wares for cassava; and this may have been one of the reasons why Munyata came out from the lake, to establish a centre of exchange for cassava roots.

The tribe near the river always ridicules the tribe behind in the bush, as the Boloki laugh at the Bomuna, and the Bomuna at the Ndobo people further behind. The Boloki are proud of their name and their origin; and the neighbouring tribes acknowledge their courage and endurance, and prefer their friendship to their enmity. The following is an instance of their bravery and the long distances the Boloki men paddled on their raiding expeditions: In the beginning of 1891 there was a big fight in our vicinity, and on inquiring the cause we learned that the reason for the fight between these Boloki towns was this: A year or two before our arrival the Boloki of the Monsembe district paddled over 300 miles up-river and raided the Bopoto riverine towns, carrying off a quantity of loot and a number of captives; and the unsatisfactory division of the spoils culminated in the fight that cost some few lives.

About 1870 there lived at Mobeka (one of the Boloki towns) a chief who styled himself Monoko mwa Nkoi, or Mouth of a Leopard, for he boasted that, like that animal, he never let go any person unfortunate enough to fall into his clutches. He was the terror of the district, and a message from him made a whole town quake with fear; and a demand from him was instantly obeyed from apprehension of the consequences. He was a man of war, a cruel warrior who held life cheap; and he burnt down many a town, scattered the people, or took them as slaves. On one of his raids among the Bopoto towns (which district is about 130 miles above Mobeka) he was mortally wounded and carried back to his town, where he died. About the time of his death a large comet appeared, which was described by my informant as being “like a large star with a hat on it.” It was seen for three nights in succession, and was regarded as a sign of the greatness of Monoko mwa Nkoi.

Abnormal appearances in the sky are either the evidences of the death of some great chief whom they do not know, because he lived and died among a distant tribe, or are a proof of the greatness of a chief who has died within the limits of their own district. I have also known them to blame a lad, recently buried, for the tornado that was rushing across their village, shaking their huts and uprooting their plantains and bananas. They abused him in unmeasured language, and expressed the hope that he would be “humbugged” in the nether regions. Emanya of Diboko is the name of another fighter whose cruel exploits are the subject of conversations around the evening fires.

The tattoo marks give indications of tribal movements, and also some idea of the various component parts that go to the making of a village community. I have noticed three kinds of tattooing among the Boloki. (1) A single line of elliptical punch-marks running from temple to temple just above the eyebrows. (2) A cock’s comb (called likwala) running from the tip of the nose in some, and from between the eyebrows in others, to the crown of the head. (3) A cock’s comb plus a palm leaf on each temple, or some other marking. When you look at the profile of a man his tattoo stands out like a cock’s comb, hence the name.

The first kind of tattooing—line of elliptical punch-marks—is to be found only on the old men and women, indicating that they are probably some of the original contingent of Libinza Lake people who forced a footing on the main river. They cling to the Libinza tribal mark, being proud of their kinsfolk and their origin. The second tattoo is seen on boys and girls, and on men and women from 35 downwards, and shows that the new marking had come into fashion when they were young, and was sufficiently in favour to supplant the old Libinza marking. On men and women from 35 to 45 there were (in 1900) slight traces of the Libinza marks, but the cock’s comb was the more prominent tattoo. Whence did they borrow the cock’s-comb tattoo? is a question I have often asked myself; or did they originate it as a distinctive mark of their own as they became a separate tribe and the ties binding them to the Libinza people gradually faded? The third set of marks is to be found on the slaves, who imitate the tattoo of their masters. Hence the Mongo tribal marks—lumps the size of a bean on the nose and across the forehead—will be seen on a man in conjunction with the cock’s comb; or the palm leaf on the temples—mark of a tribe on the upper Lulanga River—and the cock’s comb. Slaves captured or bought young allow their distinctive tribal mark to disappear, and try to work up a good-sized cock’s comb like their owners, so as to be regarded as belonging to the same tribe as their masters.