Conspectus—The Negro-Caucasic "Great Divide"—The Negro Domain—Negro Origins—Persistence of the Negro Type—Two Main Sections: Sudanese and Bantus—Contrasts and Analogies—Sudanese and Bantu Linguistic Areas—The "Drum Language"—West Sudanese Groups—The Wolofs: Primitive Speech and Pottery; Religious Notions—The Mandingans: Culture and Industries; History; the Guiné and Mali Empires—The Felups: Contrasts between the Inland and Coast Peoples; Felup Type and Mental Characters—Timni—African Freemasonry—The Sierra Leonese—Social Relations—The Liberians—The Krumen—The Upper Guinea Peoples—Table of the Gold Coast and Slave Coast Tribes—Ashanti Folklore—Fetishism; its true inwardness—Ancestry Worship and the "Customs"—The Benin Bronzes—The Mossi—African Agnostics—Central Sudanese—General Ethnical and Social Relations—The Songhai—Domain—Origins—Egyptian Theories—Songhai Records—The Hausas—Dominant Social Position—Speech and Mental Qualities—Origins—Kanembu;Kanuri;Baghirmi;Mosgu—Ethnical and Political Relations in the Chad Basin—The Aborigines—Islám and Heathendom—Slave-Hunting—Arboreal Strongholds—Mosgu Types and Contrasts—The Cultured Peoples of Central Sudan—Kanem-Bornu Records—Eastern Sudanese—Range of the Negro in Eastern Sudan—The Mabas—Ethnical Relations in Wadai—The Nubas—The Nubian Problem—Nubian Origins and Affinities—The Negro Peoples of the Nile-Congo Watersheds—Political Relations—Two Physical Types—The Dinka—Linguistic Groups—Mental Qualities—Cannibalism—The African Cannibal Zone—Arts and Industries—High Appreciation of Pictorial Art—Sense of Humour.
Conspectus—The Negro-Caucasic "Great Divide"—The Negro Domain—Negro Origins—Persistence of the Negro Type—Two Main Sections: Sudanese and Bantus—Contrasts and Analogies—Sudanese and Bantu Linguistic Areas—The "Drum Language"—West Sudanese Groups—The Wolofs: Primitive Speech and Pottery; Religious Notions—The Mandingans: Culture and Industries; History; the Guiné and Mali Empires—The Felups: Contrasts between the Inland and Coast Peoples; Felup Type and Mental Characters—Timni—African Freemasonry—The Sierra Leonese—Social Relations—The Liberians—The Krumen—The Upper Guinea Peoples—Table of the Gold Coast and Slave Coast Tribes—Ashanti Folklore—Fetishism; its true inwardness—Ancestry Worship and the "Customs"—The Benin Bronzes—The Mossi—African Agnostics—Central Sudanese—General Ethnical and Social Relations—The Songhai—Domain—Origins—Egyptian Theories—Songhai Records—The Hausas—Dominant Social Position—Speech and Mental Qualities—Origins—Kanembu;Kanuri;Baghirmi;Mosgu—Ethnical and Political Relations in the Chad Basin—The Aborigines—Islám and Heathendom—Slave-Hunting—Arboreal Strongholds—Mosgu Types and Contrasts—The Cultured Peoples of Central Sudan—Kanem-Bornu Records—Eastern Sudanese—Range of the Negro in Eastern Sudan—The Mabas—Ethnical Relations in Wadai—The Nubas—The Nubian Problem—Nubian Origins and Affinities—The Negro Peoples of the Nile-Congo Watersheds—Political Relations—Two Physical Types—The Dinka—Linguistic Groups—Mental Qualities—Cannibalism—The African Cannibal Zone—Arts and Industries—High Appreciation of Pictorial Art—Sense of Humour.
Distribution in Past and Present Times.
Present Range.Africa south of the Sahara, less Abyssinia, Galla, Somali and Masai lands; Tripolitana, Mauritania and Egypt sporadically; several of the southern United States; West Indies; Guiana; parts of Brazil and Peru.
Physical Characters.
Hair,always black, rather short, and crisp, frizzly or woolly, flat in transverse section;skin-colour,very dark brown or chocolate and blackish, never quite black;skull,generally dolichocephalous(index 72);jaws,prognathous;cheek-bone,rather small, moderately retreating, rarely prominent;nose,verybroad at base, flat, small, platyrrhine;eyes,large, round, prominent, black with yellowish cornea;stature,usually tall, 1.78 m. (5 ft. 10 in.);lips,often tumid and everted;arms,disproportionately long;legs,slender with small calves;feet,broad, flat, with low instep and larkspur heel.
Mental Characters.
Temperament,sensuous, indolent, improvident;fitful, passionate and cruel, though often affectionate and faithful;little sense of dignity, and slight self-consciousness, hence easy acceptance of yoke of slavery;musical.
Speech,almost everywhere in the agglutinating state, generally with suffixes.
Religion,anthropomorphic;spirits endowed with human attributes, mostly evil and more powerful than man;ancestry-worship, fetishism, and witchcraft very prevalent;human sacrifices to the dead a common feature.
Culture,low;cannibalism formerly rife, perhaps universal, still general in some regions;no science or letters;arts and industries confined mainly to agriculture, pottery, wood-carving, weaving, and metallurgy;no perceptible progress anywhere except under the influence of higher races.
Main[129]Divisions.
West Sudanese:Wolof;Mandingan;Felup;Timni;Kru;Sierra Leonese;Liberian;Tshi, Ewe, and Yoruba;Ibo;Efik;Borgu;Mossi.
Central Sudanese:Songhai;Hausa;Mosgu;Kanembu;Kanuri;Baghirmi;Yedina.
East Sudanese:Maba;Fúr;Nuba;Shilluk;Dinka;Bari;Abaka;Bongo;Mangbattu;Zandeh;Momfu;Basé;Barea.
The Negro-Caucasic "Great Divide."
From the anthropological standpoint Africa falls into two distinct sections, where the highest (Caucasic) and the lowest (Negro) divisions of mankind have been conterminous throughout all known time. Mutual encroachments and interpenetrations have probably been continuous, and indeed are still going on. Yet so marked is the difference between the two groups, and such is the tenacity with which each clings to its proper domain, that, despite any very distinct geographical frontiers, the ethnological parting line may still be detected. Obliterated at oneor two points, and at others set back always in favour of the higher division, it may be followed from the Atlantic coast along the course of the Senegal river east by north to the great bend of the Niger at Timbuktu; then east by south to Lake Chad, beyond which it runs nearly due east to Khartum, at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles.
From this point the now isolated Negro groups (Basé and Barea), on the northern slope of the Abyssinian plateau, show that the original boundary was at first continued still east to the Red Sea at or about Massowa. But for many ages the line appears to have been deflected from Khartum along the White Nile south to the Sobat confluence, then continuously south-eastwards round by the Sobat Valley to the Albert Nyanza, up the Somerset Nile to the Victoria Nyanza, and thence with a considerable southern bend round Masailand eastwards to the Indian Ocean at the equator.
The Negro Domain.
All the land north of this irregular line belongs to the Hamito-Semitic section of the Caucasic division, all south of it to the western (African) section of the Ulotrichous division. Throughout this region—which comprises the whole of Sudan from the Atlantic to the White Nile, and all south of Sudan except Abyssinia, Galla, Somali and Masai lands—the African Negro, clearly, distinguished from the other main groups by the above summarised physical[130]and mental qualities, largely predominates everywhere and in many places exclusively. The route by which he probably reached these intertropical lands, where he may be regarded as practically indigenous, has been indicated inEthnology, Chs. X. and XI.
Negro Origins.
As regards the date of this occupation, nothing can be clearly proved. "The history of Africa reaches back but a short distance, except, of course, as far as the lower Nile Valley and Roman Africa is concerned; elsewhere no records exist, save tribal traditions, and these only relate to very recent events. Even archaeology, which can often sketch the main outlines of a people's history, is here practically powerless, owing to the insufficiency ofdata. It is true that stone implements of palaeolithic and neolithic types are found sporadically in the Nile Valley[131], Somaliland, on the Zambesi, in Cape Colony and the northern portions of the Congo Free State, as well as in Algeria and Tunisia; but the localities are far too few and too widely separated to warrant the inference that they are to be in any way connected. Moreover, where stone implements are found they are, as a rule, very near, even actually on, the surface of the earth," and they are rarely, if ever, found in association with bones of extinct animals. "Nothing occurs resembling the regular stratification of Europe, and consequently no argument based on geological grounds is possible[132]." The exceptions are the lower Nile and Zambesi where true palaeoliths have been found not only on the surface (which in this case is not inconsistent with great antiquity) but also in stratified gravel. Implements of palaeolithictypeare doubtless common, and may be compared to Chellean, Mousterian and even Solutrian specimens[133], but primitive culture is not necessarily pleistocene. Ancient forms persisted in Egypt down to the historic period, and even patination is no sure test of age, so until further evidence is found the antiquity of man in Africa must remain undecided[134].
Persistence of the Negro Type.
Yet since some remote if undated epoch the specialised Negro type, as depicted on the Egyptian monuments some thousands of years ago[135], has everywhere been maintained with striking uniformity. "Within this wide domain of the black Negro there is a remarkably general similarity of type.... If you took a Negro from the Gold Coast of West Africa and passed him off amongst a number of Nyasa natives, and if he were not remarkably distinguished from them by dress or tribal marks, it would not be easy to pick him out[136]."
Two Main Sections: Sudanese and Bantus.
Nevertheless considerable differences are perceptible tothe practised eye, and the contrasts are sufficiently marked to justify ethnologists in treating theSudaneseand theBantuas two distinct subdivisions of the family. In both groups the relatively full-blood natives are everywhere very much alike, and the contrasts are presented chiefly amongst the mixed or Negroid populations. In Sudan the disturbing elements are both Hamitic (Berbers and Tuaregs) and Semitic (Arabs); while in Bantuland they are mainly Hamitic (Galla) in all the central and southern districts, and Arabs on the eastern seaboard from the equator to Sofala beyond the Zambesi. To the varying proportions of these several ingredients may perhaps be traced the often very marked differences observable on the one hand between such Sudanese peoples as the Wolof, Mandingans, Hausa, Nubians, Zandeh[137], and Mangbattu, and on the other between all these and the Swahili, Baganda, Zulu-Xosa, Be-Chuana, Ova-Herero and some other Negroid Bantu.
Contrasts and Analogies.
But the distinction is based on social, linguistic, and cultural, as well as on physical grounds, so that, as at present constituted, the Sudanese and Bantu really constitute two tolerably well-defined branches of the Negro family. Thanks to Muhammadan influences, the former have attained a much higher level of culture. They cultivate not only the alimentary but also the economic plants, such as cotton and indigo; they build stone dwellings, walled towns, substantial mosques and minarets; they have founded powerful states, such as those of the Hausa and Songhai, of Ghana and Bornu, with written records going back a thousand years, although these historical peoples are all without exception half-breeds, often with more Semitic and Hamitic than Negro blood in their veins.
No such cultured peoples are anywhere to be found in Bantuland except on the east coast, where the "Moors" founded great cities and flourishing marts centuries before the appearance of the Portuguese in the eastern seas. Among the results of the gold trade with these coastal settlements may be classed the Zimbabwe monuments and other ruins explored by Theodore Bent in the mining districts south ofthe Zambesi. But in all the Negro lands free from foreign influences no true culture has ever been developed, and here cannibalism, witchcraft, and sanguinary "customs" are often still rife, or have been but recently suppressed by the direct action of European administrations.
Numberless authorities have described the Negro as unprogressive, or, if left to himself, incapable of progress in his present physical environment. Sir H. H. Johnston, who knows him well, goes much further, and speaks of him as a fine animal, who, "in his wild state, exhibits a stunted mind and a dull content with his surroundings, which induces mental stagnation, cessation of all upward progress, and even retrogression towards the brute. In some respects I think the tendency of the Negro for several centuries past has been an actual retrograde one[138]."
Sudanese and Bantu Linguistic Areas.
There is one point in which the Bantu somewhat unaccountably compare favourably with the Sudanese. In all other regions the spread of culture has tended to bring about linguistic unity, as we see in the Hellenic world, where all the old idioms were gradually absorbed in the "common dialect" of the Byzantine empire, again in the Roman empire, where Latin became the universal speech of the West, and lastly in the Muhammadan countries, where most of the local tongues have nearly everywhere, except in Sudan, disappeared before the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages.
But in Negroland the case is reversed, and here the less cultured Bantu populations all, without any known exception, speak dialects of a single mother-tongue, while the greatest linguistic confusion prevails amongst the semi-civilised as well as the savage peoples of Sudan.
Although the Bantu language may, as some suppose[139], have originated in the north and spread southwards to the Congo, Zambesi, and Limpopo basins, it cannot now be even remotely affiliated to any one of the numerous distinct forms of speech current in the Sudanese domain. Hence to allow time for itsdiffusion over half the continent, the initial movement must be assigned to an extremely remote epoch, and a corresponding period of great duration must be postulated for the profound linguistic disintegration that is everywhere witnessed in the region between the Atlantic and Abyssinia. Here agglutination, both with prefixed and postfixed particles, is the prevailing morphological order, as in the Mandingan, Fulah, Nubian, Dinkan, and Mangbattu groups. But every shade of transition is also presented between true agglutination and inflection of the Hamito-Semitic types, as in Hausa, Kanuri, Kanem, Dasa or Southern and Teda or Northern Tibu[140].
Elsewhere, and especially in Upper Guinea, the originally agglutinating tongues have developed on lines analogous to those followed by Tibetan, Burmese, Chinese, and Otomi in other continents, with corresponding results. Thus the Tshi, Ewe, and Yoruba, surviving members of a now extinct stock-language, formerly diffused over the whole region between Cape Palmas and the Niger Delta, have become so burdened with monosyllabic homophones (like-sounding monosyllables), that to indicate their different meanings several distinguishing tones have been evolved, exactly as in the Indo-Chinese group. In Ewe (Slave Coast) the rootdo, according as it is toned may mean to put, let go, tell, kick, be sad, join, change, grow big, sleep, prick, or grind. So great are the ravages of phonetic decay, that new expedients have been developed to express quite simple ideas, as in Tshi (Gold Coast)addanmu, room (addanhouse,muinterior);akwancherifo, a guide (akwanroad,cherito show,foperson);ensahtsiabah, finger (ensahhand,tsiasmall,abbahchild = hand's-little-child); but middle-finger = "hand's-little-chief" (ensahtsiahin, whereehinchief takes the place ofabbahchild[141]).
The "Drum Language."
Common both to Sudanese and Bantus, especially about the western borderlands (Upper Guinea, Cameruns, etc.) is the "drum-language," which affords a striking illustration of the Negro's musical faculty. "Two or three drums are usually used together, each producing a different note, and they are played either with the fingers or with two sticks. The lookers-on generally beat time by clapping the hands. To a European, whoseear and mind are untrained for this special faculty, the rhythm of a drum expresses nothing beyond a repetition of the same note at different intervals of time; but to a native it expresses much more. To him the drum can and does speak, the sounds produced from it forming words, and the whole measure or rhythm a sentence. In this way, when company drums are being played at anehsádu[palaver], they are made to express and convey to the bystanders a variety of meanings. In one measure they abuse the men of another company, stigmatising them as fools and cowards; then the rhythm changes, and the gallant deeds of their own company are extolled. All this, and much more, is conveyed by the beating of drums, and the native ear and mind, trained to select and interpret each beat, is never at fault. The language of drums is as well understood as that which they use in their daily life. Each chief has his own call or motto, sounded by a particular beat of his drums. Those of Amankwa Tia, the Ashanti general who fought against us in the war of 1873-4, used to sayPĭrĭhūh, hasten. Similar mottoes are also expressed by means of horns, and an entire stranger in the locality can at once translate the rhythm into words[142]."
Similar contrasts and analogies will receive due illustration in the detailed account here following of the several more representative Sudanese groups.
Wolofs.Throughout its middle and lower course the Senegal river, which takes its name from the Zenaga Berbers, forms the ethnical "divide" between the Hamites and the Sudanese Negroes. The latter are here represented by the Wolofs, who with the kindredJolofsandSerersoccupy an extensive territory between the Senegal and the Gambia rivers. Whether the term "Wolof" means "Talkers," as if they alone were gifted with the faculty of speech, or "Blacks" in contrast to the neighbouring "Red" Fulahs, both interpretations are fully justified by these Senegambians, at once the very blackest and amongst the most garrulous tribes in thewhole of Africa. The colour is called "ebony," and they are commonly spoken of as "Blacks of the Black." They are also very tall even for Negroes, and the Serers especially may claim to be "the Patagonians of the Old World," men six feet six inches high and proportionately muscular being far from rare in the coast districts about St Louis and Dakar.
Primitive Wolof Speech.
Their language, which is widespread throughout Senegambia, may be taken as a typical Sudanese form of speech, unlike any other in its peculiar agglutinative structure, and unaffected even in its vocabulary by the Hamitic which has been current for ages on the opposite bank of the Senegal. A remarkable feature is the so-called "article," always postfixed and subject to a two-fold series of modifications, first in accordance with the initial consonant of the noun, for which there are six possible consonantal changes (w,m,b,d,s,g), and then according as the object is present, near, not near, and distant, for which there are again four possible vowel changes (i,u,o,a), or twenty-four altogether, a tremendous redundancy of useless variants as compared with the single English formthe. Thus this Protean particle begins withb,dorwto agree withbáye, father,digene, woman, orfos, horse, and then becomesbi,bu,bo,ba;di,duetc.;wi,wuetc. to express the presence and the varying distances of these objects:báye-bi= father-the-here;báye-bu= father-the-there;báye-bo= father-the-yonder;báye-bá= father-the-away in the distance.
All this is curious enough; but the important point is that it probably gives us the clue to the enigmatic alliterative system of the Bantu languages as explained inEthnology, p. 273, the position of course being reversed. Thus as in Zuluin- kose requiresen- kulu, so in Wolofbayerequiresbi,digenedi, and so on. There are other indications that the now perfected Bantu grew out of analogous but less developed processes still prevalent in the Sudanese tongues.
Primitive Wolof Pottery.
Equally undeveloped is the Wolof process of making earthenware, as observed by M. F. Regnault amongst the natives brought to Paris for the Exhibition of 1895. He noticed how one of the women utilised a somewhat deep bowl resting on the ground in such a way as to be easily spun round by the hand, thus illustrating the transition between hand-made and turned pottery. Kneading a lump of clay, and thrusting it into thebowl, after sprinkling the sides with some black dust to prevent sticking, she made a hollow in the mass, enlarging and pressing it against the bowl with the back of the fingers bent in, the hand being all the time kept in a vertical position. At the same time the bowl was spun round with the left palm, this movement combined with the pressure exerted by the right hand causing the sides of the vessel to rise and take shape. When high enough it was finished off by thickening the clay to make a rim. This was held in the right hand and made fast to the mouth of the vessel by the friction caused by again turning the bowl with the left hand. This transitional process is frequently met with in Africa[143].
Religious Notions.
Most of the Wolofs profess themselves Muhammadans, the rest Catholics, while all alike are heathen at heart; only the former have charms with texts from the Koran which they cannot read, and the latter medals and scapulars of the "Seven Dolours" or of the Trinity, which they cannot understand. Many old rites still flourish, the household gods are not forgotten, and for the lizard, most popular of tutelar deities, the customary milk-bowl is daily replenished. Glimpses are thus afforded of the totemic system which still survives in a modified form amongst the Be-Chuana, the Mandingans, and several other African peoples, but has elsewhere mostly died out in Negroland. The infantile ideas associated with plant and animal totem tokens have been left far behind, when a people like the Serers have arrived at such a lofty conception as Takhar, god of justice, or even the more materialistic Tiurakh, god of wealth, although the latter may still be appealed to for success in nefarious projects which he himself might scarcely be expected to countenance. But the harmony between religious and ethical thought has scarcely yet been reached even amongst some of the higher races.
Mandingan Groups, Culture and Industries.
Mandingans.In the whole of Sudan there is scarcely a more numerous or widespread people than the Mandingans, who—with their endless ramifications,Kassonké,Jallonké,Soninké,Bambara,Veiand many others—occupy most of the region between the Atlantic and the Joliba (Upper Niger) basin, as far south as about 9° N. latitude. Within these limits it isoften difficult to say who are, or who are not members of this great family, whose various branches present all the transitional shades of physical type and culture grades between the true pagan Negro and the Muhammadan Negroid Sudanese.
Even linguistic unity exists only to a limited extent, as the numerous dialects of the Mandé stock-language have often diverged so greatly as to constitute independent tongues quite unintelligible to the neighbouring tribes. The typical Mandingans, however—Faidherbe's Malinka-Soninké group—may be distinguished from the surrounding populations by their more softened features, broader forehead, larger nose, fuller beard, and lighter colour. They are also distinguished by their industrious habits and generally higher culture, being rivalled by few as skilled tillers of the soil, weavers, and workers in iron and copper. They thus hold much the same social position in the west that the Hausa do in the central region beyond the Niger, and the French authorities think that "they are destined to take a position of ever increasing importance in the pacified Sudan of the future[144]."
Thus history brings about its revenges, for the Mandingans proper of the Kong plateau may fairly claim, despite their late servitude to the Fulah conquerors and their present ready acceptance of French rule, to be a historical people with a not inglorious record of over 1000 years, as founders of the two great empires of Melle and Guiné, and of the more recent states of Moasina, Bambara, Kaarta, Kong, and others about the water-parting between the head-streams of the Niger, and the rivers flowing south to the Gulf of Guinea. Here is the district of Manding, which is the original home of theManding'ké,i.e."People of Manding," as they are generally called, althoughMandéappears to be the form used by themselves[145]. Here also was the famous city of Malior Melle, from which the Upper Niger group take the name ofMali'nké, in contradistinction to theSoni'nkéof the Senegal river, theJalo'nkéof Futa-Jallon, and theBamanaof Bambara, these being the more important historical and cultured groups.
History.
The Guiné and Mali Empires.
According to native tradition and the annals of Ahmed Bábá, rescued from oblivion by Barth[146], the first Mandingan state of Guiné (Ghána, Ghánata), a name still surviving in the vague geographical term "Guinea," goes back to pre-Muhammadan times. Wakayamangha, its legendary founder, is supposed to have flourished 300 years before the Hejira, at which date twenty-two kings had already reigned. Sixty years after that time the Moslem Arabs or Berbers are said to have already reached West Sudan, where they had twelve mosques in Ghána, first capital of the empire, and their chief stronghold till the foundation of Jinni on the Upper Niger (1043A.D.).
Two centuries later (1235-60) the centre of the Mandingan rule was transferred to Mali, which under the great king Mansa-Musa (1311-31) became the most powerful Sudanese state of which there is any authentic record. For a time it included nearly the whole of West Sudan, and a great part of the western Sahara, beside the Songhai State with its capital Gogo, and Timbuktu. Mansa-Musa, who, in the language of the chronicler, "wielded a power without measure or limits," entered into friendly relations with the emperor of Morocco, and made a famous pilgrimage to Mecca, the splendours of which still linger in the memory of the Mussulman populations through whose lands the interminable procession wound its way. He headed 60,000 men of arms, says Ahmed Bábá, and wherever he passed he was preceded by 500 slaves, each bearing a gold stick weighing 500 mitkals (14 lbs.), the whole representing a money value of about £4,000,000 (?). The people of Cairo and Mecca were dazzled by his wealth and munificence; but during the journey a great part of his followers were seized by a painful malady called in their languagetuat, and this word still lives in the Oasis of Tuat, where most of them perished.
Even after the capture of Timbuktu by the Tuaregs (1433), Mali long continued to be the chief state in West Nigritia, and carried on a flourishing trade, especially in slaves and gold. But this gold was still supposed to come from the earlier kingdom of Guiné, which word consequently still remains associated with the precious metal in the popular belief. About the year 1500 Mali was captured by the Songhai king, Omar Askia, after which the empire fell to pieces, and its memory now survives only in the ethnical termMali'nké.
Contrasts between the Inland and Coast Peoples.
Felups.From the semi-civilised Muhammadan negroid Mandingans to the utterly savage full-blood Negro Felups the transition is abrupt, but instructive. In other regions the heterogeneous ethnical groups crowded into upland valleys, as in the Caucasus, have been called the "sweepings of the plains." But in West Sudan there are no great ranges towering above the lowlands, and even the "Kong Mountains" of school geographies have now been wiped out by L. G. Binger[147]. Hence the rude aborigines of the inland plateau, retreating before the steady advance of Islam, found no place of refuge till they reached the indented fjord-like Atlantic seaboard, where many still hold their ground. This is the explanation of the striking contrasts now witnessed between the interior and so many parts of the West Coast; on the one hand powerful political organisations with numerous, more or less homogeneous, and semi-civilised negroid populations, on the other an infinite tangle of ethnical and linguistic groups, all alike weltering in the sheerest savagery, or in grades of barbarism even worse than the wild state.
Felup Type and Mental Characters.
Even theFelups, whose territory now stretches from the Gambia to the Cacheo, but formerly reached the Geba and the Bissagos Islands, do not form a single group. Originally the name of an obscure coast-tribe, the term Felup or Fulup has been extended by the Portuguese traders to all the surrounding peoples—Ayamats,Jolas,Jigúshes,Vacas,Joats,Karons,Banyúns,Banjars,Fulúns,Bayotsand some others who amid much local diversity, presented a sufficiently general outward resemblance to be regarded as a single people by the firstEuropean settlers. The Felups proper display the physical and mental characters of the typical Negro even in an exaggerated form—black colour, flat nose, wide nostrils, very thick and everted lips, red on the inner surface, stout muscular frame, correlated with coarse animal passions, crass ignorance, no arts, industry, or even tribal organisation, so that every little family group is independent and mostly in a state of constant feud with its neighbours. All go naked, armed with bow and arrow, and live in log huts which, though strongly built, are indescribably filthy[148].
Mother-right frequently prevails, rank and property being transmitted in the female line. There is some notion of a superhuman being vaguely identified with the sky, the rain, wind or thunderstorm. But all live in extreme terror of the medicine-man, who is openly courted, but inwardly detested, so that whenever it can be safely done the tables are turned, the witch-doctor is seized and tortured to death.
Timni, Kru, Sierra-Leonese, Liberians.Somewhat similar conditions prevail all along the seaboard from Sierra Leone to, and beyond, Cape Palmas, disturbed or modified by the Liberian intruders from the North American plantations, and by the slaves rescued in the thirties and forties by the British cruisers and brought to Sierra Leone, where their descendants now live in settled communities under European influences. These "coloured" citizens of Sierra Leone and Liberia, who are so often the butt of cheap ridicule, and are themselves perhaps too apt to scorn the kindred "niggers" of the bush, have to be carefully distinguished from these true aborigines who have never been wrenched from their natural environment.
In Sierra Leone the chief aboriginal groups on the coastlands are theTimniof the Rokelle river, flanked north and south by two branches of theBulams, and still further south theGallinas,VeysandGolas; in the interior theLokkos,Limbas,Konos, andKussas, withKurankos,Mendis,Hubus, and other Mandingans and Fulahs everywhere in the Hinterland.
Timni Beliefs.
Of all these the most powerful during the British occupation have always been the Timni (Timani, Temné), who sold to the English the peninsula on which now stands Freetown, but afterwards crying off the bargain, repeatedly tried to drive the white and colouredintruders into the sea. They are a robust people of softened Negro type, and more industrious farmers than most of the other natives. Like the Wolofs they believe in the virtue both of Christian and Moslem amulets, but have hitherto lent a deaf ear to the preachers of both these religions. Nevertheless the Protestant missionaries have carefully studied the Timni language, which possesses an oral literature rich in legends, proverbs, and folklore[149].
West African Freemasonry.
The Timni district is a chief centre of the so-calledporrofraternity[150], a sort of secret society or freemasonry widely diffused throughout the coastlands, and possessing its own symbols, skin markings, passwords, and language. It presents curious points of analogy with the brotherhoods of the Micronesian islanders, but appears to be even more potent for good and evil, a veritable religious and political state within the state. "When their mandates are issued all wars and civil strife must cease, a general truce is established, and bloodshed stopped, offending communities being punished by bands of armed men in masks. Strangers cannot enter the country unless escorted by a member of the guild, who is recognised by passwords, symbolic gestures, and the like. Their secret rites are celebrated at night in the depths of the forest, all intruders being put to death or sold as slaves[151]."
The Sierra Leonese.
In studying the social conditions prevalent amongst the Sierra Leonese proper, it should be remembered that they are sprung, not only from representatives of almost every tribe along the seaboard, and even in the far interior, but also to a large extent from the freedmen and runaways of Nova Scotia and London, besides many maroons of Jamaica, who were settled here under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company towards the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century. Others also have in recent years been attracted to the settlements from the Timni and other tribes of the neighbouring districts. The Sierra Leonese are consequently notthemselves a tribe, nor yet a people, but rather a people in course of formation under the influence of a new environment and of a higher culture. An immediate consequence of such a sudden aggregation of discordant elements was the loss of all the native tongues, and the substitution of English as the common medium of intercourse. But English is the language of a people standing on the very highest plane of culture, and could not therefore be properly assimilated by thedisjecta membraof tribes at the lowest rung of the social ladder. The resultant form of speech may be called ludicrous, so ludicrous that the Sierra Leonese version of the New Testament had to be withdrawn from circulation as verging almost on the blasphemous[152].
Social Relations.
It has also to be considered that all the old tribal relations were broken up, while an attempt was made to merge these waifs and strays in a single community based on social conditions to which each and all were utter strangers. It is not therefore surprising that the experiment has not proved a complete success, and that the social relations in Sierra Leone leave something to be desired. Although the freedmen and the rescued captives received free gifts of land, their dislike for the labours of the field induced many to abandon their holdings, and take to huckstering and other more pleasant pursuits. Hence their descendants almost monopolise the petty traffic and even the "professions" in Freetown and the other colonial settlements. Although accused of laziness and dishonesty, they have displayed a considerable degree of industrial as well as commercial enterprise, and the Sierra Leone craftsmen—smiths, mechanics, carpenters, builders—enjoy a good reputation in all the coast towns. All are Christians of various denominations, and even show a marked predilection for the "ministry." Yet below the surface the old paganism still slumbers, and vodoo practices, as in the West Indies and some of the Southern States, are still heard of.
Morality also is admittedly at a low ebb, and it is curious to note that this has in part been attributed to the freedomenjoyed under the British administration. "They have passed from the sphere of native law to that of British law, which is brought to this young community like an article of ready-made clothing. Is it a wonder that the clothes do not fit? Is it a wonder that kings and chiefs around Sierra Leone, instead of wishing their people to come and see how well we do things, dread for them to come to this colony on account of the danger to their morals? In passing into this colony, they pass into a liberty which to them is license[153]."
The Liberians.
An experiment of a somewhat different order, but with much the same negative results, has been tried by the well-meaning founders of the Republic of Liberia. Here also the bulk of the "civilised aristocrats" are descended of emancipated plantation slaves, a first consignment of whom was brought over by a philanthropic American society in 1820-22. The idea was to start them well in life under the fostering care of their white guardians, and then leave them to work out their own redemption in their own way. All control was accordingly withdrawn in 1848, and since then the settlement has constituted an absolutely independent Negro state in the enjoyment of complete self-government. Progress of a certain material kind was undoubtedly made. The original "free citizens" increased from 8000 in 1850 to perhaps 20,000 in 1898[154], and the central administration, modelled on that of the United States, maintained some degree of order among the surrounding aborigines, estimated at some two million within the limits of the Republic.
But these aborigines have not benefited perceptibly by contact with their "civilised" neighbours, who themselves stand at much the same level intellectually and morally as their repatriated forefathers. Instead of attending to the proper administration of the Republic, the "Weegee," as they are called, have constituted themselves into two factions, the "coloured" or half-breeds, and the full-blood Negroes who, like the "Blancos" and "Neros" of some South American States, spend most of their time in a perpetual struggle foroffice. All are of course intensely patriotic, but their patriotism takes a wrong direction, being chiefly manifested in their insolence towards the English and other European traders on the coast, and in their supreme contempt for the "stinking bush-niggers," as they call the surrounding aborigines. In 1909 internal and external difficulties led to the appointment of a Commission by President Roosevelt with the result that the American Government took charge of the finances, military organisation, agriculture and boundary questions, besides arranging for a loan of £400,000. The able administration of President Barclay, a pure blooded Negro, though not of Liberian ancestry, is perhaps the happiest augury for the future of the Republic[155].
The Krumen.
TheKrus(Kroomen, Krooboys[156]), whose numerous hamlets are scattered along the coast from below Monrovia nearly to Cape Palmas, are assuredly one of the most interesting people in the whole of Africa. Originally from the interior, they have developed in their new homes a most un-African love of the sea, hence are regularly engaged as crews by the European skippers plying along those insalubrious coastlands.
In this service, in which they are known by such nicknames as "Bottle-of-Beer," "Mashed-Potatoes," "Bubble-and-Squeak," "Pipe-of-Tobacco," and the like, their word may always be depended upon. But it is to be feared that this loyalty, which with them is a strict matter of business, has earned for them a reputation for other virtues to which they have little claim. Despite the many years that they have been in the closest contact with the missionaries and traders, they are still at heart the same brutal savages as ever. After each voyage they return to the native village to spend all their gains and pilferings in drunken orgies, and relapse generally into sheer barbarism till the next steamer rounds the neighbouring headland. "It is not a comfortable reflection," writes Bishop Ingham, whose testimony will not be suspected of bias, "as we look at this mob on our decks, that, if the ship chance to strike on a sunken rock and become unmanageable, they would rise to a man, and seize all they could lay hands on, cut the very rings off our fingers ifthey could get them in no other way, and generally loot the ship. Little has been done to Christianise these interesting, hard-working, cheerful, but ignorant and greedy people, who have so long hung on the skirts of civilisation[157]."
It is only fair to the Kru to say that this unflattering picture of them stands alone. "There is but one man of all of us who have visited West Africa who has not paid a tribute to the Kruboy's sterling qualities," says Miss Kingsley. Her opinion coincides with that of the old coasters based on life-long experience, and she waxes indignant at the ingratitude with which Kruboy loyalty is rewarded. "They have devoted themselves to us English, and they have suffered, laboured, fought, been massacred and so on with us generation after generation.... Kruboys are, indeed, the backbone of white effort in West Africa[158]."