CHAPTERXV.The Monbuttoo.Previous accounts of the Monbuttoo. Population. Surrounding nations. Neglect of agriculture. Products of the soil. Produce of the chase. Forms of greeting. Preparation of food. Universal cannibalism. National pride and warlike spirit. Power of the sovereign. His habits. The royal household. Advanced culture of the Monbuttoo. Peculiarities of race. Fair hair and complexion. Analogy to the Fulbe. Preparation of bark. Nudity of the women. Painting of the body.Coiffureof men and women. Mutilation not practised. Equipment of warriors. Manipulation of iron. Early knowledge of copper. Probable knowledge of platinum. Tools. Wood-carving. Stools and benches. Symmetry of water-bottles. Large halls. Love of ornamental trees. Conception of Supreme Being.Itwas in December 1868, just before starting from Khartoom, that I received, in a somewhat circuitous way, the first intelligence of a people called the Monbuttoo, who were said to dwell to the south of the Niam-niam. Dr. Ori, the chief official physician at Khartoom, in a letter to the Marquis Antinori, had detailed all the most recent particulars of the ivory traffic in the remote districts south of the Gazelle, and had specially referred to the transactions of Jules Poncet. These particulars were published without much delay in the journal of the Geographical Association of Paris; and I chanced to find Dr. Ori’s letter quoted entire in the Italian Geographical Society’s ‘Bolletino,’ which was transmitted to me by the Marquis Antinori himself just before I was setting out on my expedition.NATIONAL FEATURES OF THE MONBUTTOO.Although the intelligence conveyed by Ori and Poncet failed utterly in giving either clearness or consistency to the confused depositions of those ignorant and uninformed menwho had been their authorities, it still had the intrinsic merit of enlarging the domain of geographical knowledge by some matters of fact which it was reserved for me individually to confirm by my own observation. It laid down as facts, first, that to the south of the Niam-niam territory there is a river flowing towards the west;[19]secondly, that this river is not tributary to the Nile; and, thirdly, that its banks are populated by a race quite distinct from the ordinary negro race, its inhabitants being of a brownish complexion, and exhibiting a grade of civilization which is considerably in advance of what is elsewhere found in Central Africa.These people were designated by the name of the Monbuttoo, and by the ivory traders they were known as Gurru-gurroo, a definition that is derived from an Arabic word which refers to their universal habit of piercing their ears.No sooner had I really reached the district of the Gazelle than I discovered from my conversation and intercourse with the leaders of the ivory traffic that the Monbuttoo were regarded as holding a very peculiar and prominent place. Their country never failed to furnish a theme of general praise. It was declared to be prolific in ivory; it was profuse in its natural products; the pomp of its sovereign was unrivalled; but, above all, the skill of its people, in the fabrication alike of their weapons for war and their utensils for peace, was assumed to be so striking that they were comparable to the denizens of the civilized west, and that in some respects the Franks themselves did not surpass them in the exercise of an æsthetic faculty.That I might succeed in making my way onwards to the territory of this problematical people, naturally became more and more my impatient and ardent desire; and it willreadily be understood how eagerly I recognised Aboo Sammat as offered by a propitious fate to be the conductor upon whom I might rely for being introduced to a closer view of this undefined race, which might be likened in a way to a nebula in the geographical firmament. Very much I now rejoice at being in a position to submit, upon the evidence of my own observation, a somewhat detailed account of this race, who may be described as constituting a sort of remote island of humanity. Surrounded as it is by the waves of fluctuating nationalities, it is, as it were, an “ultima Thule” of geographical research; or perhaps still more appropriately it might be likened to a boulder thrown up from a lower formation, and exhibiting a development of indigenous culture, entirely different to what can be witnessed all around.The territory of the Monbuttoo, as it lies in the heart of Africa, does not cover an area of more than 4000 square miles, but the ratio of the census of its population is hardly exceeded by any region of the entire continent. Estimating the density of the people by the districts through which we travelled, and observing that cultivated farms followed upon cultivated farms, without a barren spot between, I suppose that there are at least 250 inhabitants to the square mile, which would give an aggregate population of about a million. The position of the country is embraced very nearly between the parallels of 3° and 4° north latitude, and 28° and 29° east longitude from Greenwich. To the north of the country there is a large river, usually copious in its stream, called the Keebaly. This is joined by the Gadda, which flows from the south-east. After the junction it is known as the Welle, and has a breadth of about 800 feet, whilst never, even in the driest season, does its depth diminish to less than fifteen feet. It proceeds to the west along the southern portion of the adjoining Niam-niam district, and being swollen by the accession of numerous tributaries from the southern districts of the Monbuttoo, it very rapidly assumes its large dimensions.Beyond a doubt it is the upper course of the most easterly of the two arms which, after they have united in Baghirmy, flow onwards under the name of the Shary, that river to which Lake Tsad owes its existence.MONBUTTOO GOVERNMENT.There are two chieftains who, with regard to the extent of their dominions and the numerical strength of their armed forces (for their sway extends far beyond the populous districts of the Monbuttoo), may well be designated as kings. They have partitioned the sovereignty between them: the eastern division being subject to Degberra, the western division is governed by Munza, who exercises a much more powerful control; he is a son of King Tikkiboh, who had once enjoyed the undivided rule over the entire Monbuttoo land, but thirteen years previously had been murdered by his brother Degberra.Sub-chieftains or viceroys are distributed over various sections of the country, and these are accustomed to surround themselves with a retinue and state little inferior to those of the kings themselves. In Munza’s realms there are three of these dignitaries; viz. his brothers Izingerria, Mummery, and Nooma; subordinate to Degberra there are his four sons, Kubby, Benda, Koopa, and Yangara.The country of the Niam-niam constitutes the northern and north-western boundaries of the Monbuttoo. This comprises the territories of Kanna and Indimma, sons of the once powerful Keefa, and, farther on, the district of Malingde or Marindo, which approaches in an easterly direction more towards the territory of Wando; each of these countries are, however, separated by wildernesses which it requires two days to cross. The southern limits of the Monbuttoo are enclosed, as it were, by a semicircle of typical negroes, whom they embrace in the comprehensive definition of “Momvoo,” a disdainful epithet implying the extremity of their degradation. From this category we are possibly called upon to exclude in this quarter (as perchance in every other regionof Africa) those isolated races of dwarfs, familiarly known as “Pygmies,” of which the Akka, who reside in the S.S.W., and have their abodes close to the confines of the kingdom of Munza, may be quoted as examples. The bulk of this apparently thickly-peopled race is subject to independent chieftains, but there is one section which is tributary to Munza in so far as this, that it makes its contributary payments to Mummery, as being Munza’s vicegerent. According to the depositions of some Nubians who have been stationed for some years past in the Monbuttoo country, the language of the Babuckur is found to be spoken among the Momvoo. To support their opinion the Nubians affirm that women-slaves brought from Babuckur have always been found able to converse with the natives of the land just to the south of the Monbuttoo; a circumstance which is not without its signification as explaining the most recent migration of nations into this part of Africa. Since the twoenclavesof Babuckur on the eastern boundaries of the Niam-niam appear only to be removed from each other by an interval of sixty miles and to be hemmed in by hostile neighbours, the fact, taken in connection with the above, may serve to demonstrate that Monbuttoo and Niam-niam alike must have been advancing in an easterly direction.Munza’s neighbours towards the south-west and south of the kingdom of Kanna are the Mabohde. This is a people whom Keefa, Kanna’s father (known also as Ntikkima), was accustomed to harass in war till he met with his own death. Farther on towards the S.S.W., and separated from Munza by the Mabohde and the Akka, there lies the district of the Massanza, a tribe which is held in subjection by the formidable hand of Kizzo. To the south and south-east are found the Nemeigeh, the Bissangah, and the Domondoo, tenanting a mountainous region, which not improbably is the western declivity of that important mountainous formation to which Baker, in describing the north-west of Lake Mwootan, hasreferred under the name of the Blue Mountains. The settlements of the Domondoo are the usual limits to which the Monbuttoo are accustomed to carry their plundering expeditions. Some Nubian soldiers who had been quartered in the country of Munza, and who had accompanied him in some of his marauding exploits have given a description of the general mountainous character of the land, and, moreover, have asserted that goats, which are known neither to the Niam-niam nor to the Monbuttoo, have been captured there in great numbers. The Babuckur also, notwithstanding the frequent incursions which their neighbours, ever greedy of animal diet, have made upon their over-populated and oppressed communities, are always found in possession of herds of goats so numerous that they might be described as inexhaustible. Many days’ journey to the south and south-east of Munza’s realms are the abodes of the Maoggoo, over whom a powerful sovereign exercises his authority, and who seems to have various transactions with Munza, if I may judge from the splendid cattle which had been sent him as a present. Maoggoo is not improbably the same as Malegga, the appellation of a people, which appears in Baker’s map to the west of the Blue Mountains in an extensive country (Ulegga), of which it is affirmed that the king is named Kadjoro, and that the population is especially devoted to the breeding of cattle.THE MONBUTTOO TERRITORY.Having thus minutely taken a survey of the surroundings of the Monbuttoo, we may in the next place proceed to observe the land itself, regarding it as the substance of the picture of which we have been thus accurately surveying the background.The Monbuttoo land greets us as an Eden upon earth. Unnumbered groves of plantains bedeck the gently-heaving soil; oil-palms, incomparable in beauty, and other monarchs of the stately woods, rise up and spread their glory over the favoured scene; along the streams there is a brightexpanse of charming verdure, whilst a grateful shadow ever overhangs the domes of the idyllic huts. The general altitude of the soil ranges from 2500 to 2800 feet above the level of the sea: it consists of alternate depressions, along which the rivulets make their way, and gentle elevations, which gradually rise till they are some hundred feet above the beds of the streams below. Upon the whole the soil may be described as far more diversified in character than what is observed in the eastern parts of the Niam-niam land. Like it is there, it is rich in springs, wherever there are depressions, and in a network of “desaguaderos” associated with the watercourses, and justifies the comparison that has already been suggested between the entire land and a well-soaked sponge, which yields countless streams to the pressure of the hand. Belonging to one of the most recent formations, and still in process of construction, the ferruginous swamp-ore is found very widely diffused over the Monbuttoo country, and indeed extends considerably farther to the south, so that the red earth appears to be nearly universal over the greater part of the highlands of Central Africa. The denser population has involved, as might be expected, more frequent clearances for the sake of establishing plantain groves, and promoting the culture of maize and sugar-canes, but even here in the deeper valleys trees grow to such a prodigious height, and exhibit such an enormous girth, that they could not be surpassed by any that could be found throughout the entire Nile region of the north. Beneath the imposing shelter of these giants other forms grow up and, rising one above another, stand in mingled confusion. In its external and general aspect the country corresponds with the description which Speke has given of Uganda; but the customs of the inhabitants of that land, their difference of race, and their seclusion from all intercourse with commercial nations stamp them as being of a type which is of a very contrasted character.MONBUTTOO PRODUCE.It seems almost to involve a contradiction to give the title of agriculturists to a people whose existence indeed depends upon the easy securing of fruits and tubers, but who abhor the trouble of growing cereals. Sorghum and penicillaria, which are the common food of the population in nearly the whole of Central Africa, are absolutely uncared for amongst the Monbuttoo; eleusine is only grown occasionally, and maize, which is known as “Nendoh,” is cultivated quite as an exception in the immediate proximity of their dwellings, where it is treated as a garden vegetable. The growth of their plantain (Musa sapientium) gives them very little trouble; the young shoots are stuck in the ground after it has been slackened by the rain; the old plants are suffered to die down just as they are; and this is all the cultivation that is vouchsafed. In the propagation of these plantains, however, the Monbuttoo have a certain knack of discrimination for which they might be envied by any European gardener: they can judge whether a young shoot is capable of bearing fruit or not, and this gives them an immense advantage in selecting only such shoots as are worth the trouble of planting. They are not accustomed to bestow any greater amount of attention to the planting either of the tubers of their manioc (or cassava), their sweet-potatoes, their yams (neggoo), or their colocasiæ. A very limited range of plants embraces the whole of what they take the pains to cultivate, and that cultivation is all accomplished in the narrowest bounds. The entire produce is summed up in their sesame (mbellemoh), their earth-nuts, their sugar-canes, and especially their tobacco. The Virginian tobacco is the only kind which is seen; it is called Eh Tobboo, its name betraying its American origin. TheNicotiana rustica, which is of such constant growth amongst the Bongo, Dyoor, and Dinka, is here entirely unknown.Very little care, moreover, is given to the sugar-cane, which may be found amid the thinned woods that line thebanks of the rivers. It is grown only as a sort of delicacy, being found nowhere in any great quantity, and its quality is far from good. One ever-thriving supply, which is of the utmost importance for maintaining the population, is provided in all the valleys by the cassava (Manihot utilissima); but the cultivation of the sweet-potato, equally extensive as it is, demands a somewhat more careful attention, requiring the sunny soil of the upper slopes of the valleys above the line of the plantain groves and nearest to the edge of the depressions. Both sweet-potatoes and cassava here attain the very fullest standard of perfection, as far as regards either size or quality. But the staple food is the plantain. This is generally gathered in a green condition, dried, ground into meal, and boiled to a pulp; occasionally, but not so often, it is dried after it is ripe for the purpose of being kept for a longer time. Very few countries of the world have a soil and atmosphere so favourable as these for insuring the abundant produce of this serviceable plant. The fruit when dried is a very choice delicacy, but any fermented drink made from plantains I found to be almost unknown among the Monbuttoo.Owing to the thorough isolation in which the Monbuttoo have lived, holding no intercourse with Mohammedan or Christian nations, the art of weaving has not found its way amongst them, and woven material is consequently nowhere to be seen. Their clothing, as in many other regions of Central Africa, is contributed by their fig-trees (Urostigma Kotschyana), of which the bast from the bark, with the help of some strings and shreds, is worked into a substantial and enduring fabric. Hardly a hut can be seen that is without its own fig-trees, which, however, will not grow without due care and cultivation. The people are never known to wear skins attached to their girdles after the fashion of the Niam-niam; the only occasion when skins are worn being when they are made into a fancy dress for dancers.On the south of the Welle there is a very extensive cultivation of the oil-palm (Elais guineensis). It is a tree that, although common to the west coasts, has not hitherto been found in the Nile districts, and consequently, like the cola-nuts, which the wealthier of the Monbuttoo are accustomed to chew, it yields a significant evidence of the western associations of the people.MONBUTTOO HUNTING.Every kind of cattle-breeding is quite unfamiliar to them; and if the common little dogs known as the “nessy” of the Niam-niam breed be excepted, and no account be taken of their poultry (“naahle”), the Monbuttoo may be said to be absolutely without domestic animals at all. In a half tame state they keep, as I have said, the potamochœrus, which is their only representative of the swine family. From the marauding excursions with which they harass their southern neighbours they bring back a prodigious number of goats, but they make no attempt to rear them for themselves. Their hunting expeditions supply them with meat enough for their requirements, their taste leading them to give the preference to the flesh of elephants, buffaloes, wild boars, and the larger kinds of antelopes. Although the denseness of the population precludes any such increase of game of this kind as is universal in the more northern and less cultivated regions of Central Africa, yet the yield of their chase would be adequate for their own wants, because the abundance of their supply at certain seasons is very great, and they have the art of preserving it so that it remains fit for food for a very considerable time. With this fact capable of being substantiated, it is altogether a fallacy to pretend to represent that the Monbuttoo are driven to cannibalism through the lack of ordinary meat. To judge from Munza’s accumulated store of ivory, which is the result of the combined exploits of all the men in his dominions capable of bearing arms, the provision of elephant’s meat alone must be sufficient to keep his people amply supplied. Nor shouldthe immense quantity of poultry be forgotten, as there is hardly a dwelling that is not conspicuous for having a considerable stock, in the same way as dogs are an especial subject of interest amongst the Niam-niam, who have a very decided partiality for the flesh of that animal.A bird very common in the Monbuttoo lands is the grey parrot (Psittacus erythacus), which is very eagerly sought by the natives, who not only adorn their heads with the bright red feathers from its tail, but have a great relish for its savoury flesh. Other sport in the way of birds is very inconsiderable, guinea-fowls, francolins, and bustards being all caught by means of snares. The herbTephrosia Vogelii[20]is cultivated in nearly all the villages for the purpose of poisoning fish, and the fish that is thus secured forms a very considerable addition to the supply of food.Whilst the women attend to the tillage of the soil and the gathering of the harvest, the men, except they are absent either for war or hunting, spend the entire day in idleness. In the early hours of the morning they may be found under the shade of the oil-palms, lounging at full length upon their carved benches and smoking tobacco. During the middle of the day they gossip with their friends in the cool halls, which serve for general concourse, where they may be seen gesticulating vigorously to give full force to their sentiments. The action of the Monbuttoo in speaking exhibits several singularities, as, for example, their manner of expressing astonishment by putting their hand before their open mouth, very much in the same way as a person does when he is gaping. It has been said that the North American Indians have the habit of showing their surprise in the same way.Smiths’ work, of course, is done by the men, but, just as in most other parts of Africa, the pottery is exclusively made bythe women. Wood-carving and basket-weaving are performed indifferently by either sex. Musical instruments are not touched by the women.The universal form of salutation consists in holding out the right hand, and saying, “Gassiggy,” and at the same time cracking the joints of the middle fingers.MONBUTTOO WOMEN.The two sexes conduct themselves towards each other with an excessive freedom. The women in this respect are very different to the modest and retiring women of the Niam-niam, and are beyond measure obtrusive and familiar. Their inquisitiveness was a daily nuisance: they watched me into the depth of the woods, they pestered me by flocking round my tent, and it was a difficult matter to get a bath without being stared at. Towards their husbands they exhibit the highest degree of independence. The position in the household occupied by the men was illustrated by the reply which would be made if they were solicited to sell anything as a curiosity, “Oh, ask my wife: it is hers.”Polygamy is unlimited. The daily witness of the Nubians only too plainly testified that fidelity to the obligations of marriage was little known. Not a few of the women were openly obscene. Their general demeanour surprised me very much when I considered the comparative advance of their race in the arts of civilization. Their immodesty far surpassed anything that I had observed in the very lowest of the negro tribes, and contrasted most unfavourably with the sobriety of the Bongo women, who are submissive to their husbands and yet not servile. The very scantiness of the clothing of the Monbuttoo women has no excuse.Carved benches are the ordinary seats of the men, but the women generally use stools that have but one foot. On the occasion of paying a visit or going to a public gathering the men make their slaves carry their benches for them, as it is their custom never to sit upon the ground, not even when it has been covered with mats.The care that is given to the preparation of their food is very considerable, and betokens their higher grade of culture. The unripe produce of the plantain and the manioc, that in all districts is ready at their hand without the trouble of cultivation, make good the deficiency of corn. Their mode of treating manioc is precisely the same as that which is adopted in South America for the purpose of extracting the fine flour called tapioca. For spices they make use of the capsicum, the malaghetta pepper, and the fruit of two hitherto unspecified Solaneæ, and for which I regret that I cannot select the name ofS. anthropophagorum, because it has been already assigned to the “cannibal salad” of the Fiji Islanders. The flavour of both these is very revolting, having a detestable twang, something between a tomato and a melongena. Mushrooms are also in common use for the preparation of their sauces.All their food is prepared by the admixture of oil from the oil-palms. In its unpurified condition when first expressed from the pods, this oil is of a bright red colour, and of a somewhat thick consistency; for a few days it has an agreeable taste, which, however, soon passes off and leaves a decided rankness. By subsequently submitting the kernels to fire, a coarse, inflammable oil is obtained, which is used for the purpose of lighting their huts. Other vegetable oils in considerable abundance are obtained from earth-nuts, from sesame, and from the fruit of a forest-tree,Lophira alata. From the fat thick bodies of the male white ants they boil out a greasy substance which is bright and transparent, and has a taste perfectly unobjectionable.MONBUTTOO CANNIBALISM.But of most universal employment amongst them is human fat, and this brings our observations to the climax of their culinary practices. The cannibalism of the Monbuttoo is the most pronounced of all the known nations of Africa. Surrounded as they are by a number of people who are blacker than themselves, and who, being inferior to them in culture,are consequently held in great contempt, they have just the opportunity which they want for carrying on expeditions of war or plunder, which result in the acquisition of a booty, which is especially coveted by them, consisting of human flesh. The carcases of all who fall in battle are distributed upon the battle-field, and are prepared by drying for transport to the homes of the conquerors. They drive their prisoners before them without remorse, as butchers would drive sheep to the shambles, and these are only reserved to fall victims on a later day to their horrible and sickening greediness. During our residence at the court of Munza the general rumour was quite current that nearly every day some little child was sacrificed to supply his meal. It would hardly be expected that many opportunities should be afforded to strangers of witnessing the natives at their repast, and to myself there occurred only two instances when I came upon any of them whilst they were actually engaged in preparing human flesh for consumption. The first of these happened by my coming unexpectedly upon a number of young women who had a supply of boiling water upon the clay floor in front of the doorway of a hut, and were engaged in the task of scalding the hair off the lower half of a human body. The operation, as far as it was effected, had changed the black skin into a fawny grey, and the disgusting sight could not fail to make me think of the soddening and scouring of our fatted swine. On another occasion I was in a hut and observed a human arm hanging over the fire, obviously with the design of being at once dried and smoked.Incontrovertible tokens and indirect evidences of the prevalence of cannibalism were constantly turning up at every step we took. On one occasion Mohammed and myself were in Munza’s company, and Mohammed designedly turned the conversation to the topic of human flesh, and put the direct question to the king how it happenedthat just at this precise time while we were in the country there was no consumption of human food. Munza expressly said that being aware that such a practice was held in aversion by us, he had taken care that it should only be carried on in secret.As I have said, there was no opportunity for strangers to observe the habits of the Monbuttoo at their meals; the Bongo and Mittoo of our caravan were carefully excluded by them as being uncircumcised, and therefore reckoned as “savages;” whilst the religious scruples of the Nubians prevented them from even partaking of any food in common with cannibals. Nevertheless the instances that I have mentioned are in themselves sufficient to show that the Monbuttoo are far more addicted to cannibalism than their hunting neighbours, the Niam-niam. They do not constitute the first example of anthropophagi who are in a far higher grade of culture than many savages who persistently repudiate the enjoyment of human flesh (for example, the Fiji Islanders and the Caraïbs). It is needless for me to recount the personal experiences of the Nubian mercenaries who have accompanied the Monbuttoo on their marauding expeditions, or to describe how these people obtain their human fat, or again to detail the processes of cutting the flesh into long strips and drying it over the fire in its preparation for consumption. The numerous skulls now in the Anatomical Museum in Berlin are simply the remains of their repasts which I purchased one after another for bits of copper, and go far to prove that the cannibalism of the Monbuttoo is unsurpassed by any nation in the world. But with it all, the Monbuttoo are a noble race of men; men who display a certain national pride, and are endowed with an intellect and judgment such as few natives of the African wilderness can boast; men to whom one may put a reasonable question, and who will return a reasonable answer. The Nubians can never say enough in praise of their faithfulnessin friendly intercourse and of the order and stability of their national life. According to the Nubians, too, the Monbuttoo were their superiors in the arts of war, and I often heard the resident soldiers contending with their companions and saying, “Well, perhaps you are not afraid of the Monbuttoo, but I confess that I am; and I can tell you they are something to be afraid of.”A MONBUTTOO AMAZON.As matter of fact the Khartoom traders, some years before, had had a definite trial of arms with the Monbuttoo. Shortly after his accession to power, Munza had of his own accord and by a special embassy invited Aboo Sammat to extend his transactions beyond their present limits in Nganye’s and Wando’s territories; but in the year previous to that, the Nubian merchant Abderahman Aboo Guroon, having endeavoured to penetrate from Keefa’s dominions into the Monbuttoo lands, was attacked on the north of the Welle by the Monbuttoo forces, who opposed his advances upon their territory. At that time Munza’s father, Tikkiboh, had absolute rule in the country, and the achievements of his daughter Nalengbe, a sister of the present king, are still fresh in the memory of all who were present at the engagement; eye-witnesses gave me detailed accounts of the exploits of this veritable Amazon, whom I have mentioned before, and related how, in full armour, with shield and lance, and girded with the rokko apron of a man, she had with the utmost bravery led on the Monbuttoo troops, who then for the first time came in contact with firearms; and how her exertions were attended with a complete success, the adventurous Aboo Guroon being repulsed with considerable loss, and forced to relinquish altogether his design of entering the country. In the following year, 1867, Mohammed Aboo Sammat, invited as I have said by the king himself, crossed the Welle and entered the land, thus, as the first explorer, opening the ivory traffic under conditions of peace, which have ever since remained undisturbed.The Monbuttoo potentates enjoy far higher prerogatives than the Niam-niam princes. Besides the monopoly of the ivory, they claim regular contributions from the products of the soil. In addition to his special body-guard, the sovereign is always surrounded by a large body of courtiers, whilst an immense number of civil officers and local overseers maintain the regal dignity in the various districts of the land. Munza’s three brothers, Izingerria, Mummery, and Nooma, perform the office of viceroys, and subordinate to these again are sub-chieftains of the second rank, who act as governors of provinces.Next in rank to the sub-chieftains, who are generally chosen from the numerous members of the blood-royal, are the principal officers of state. These are five in number: the keeper of the weapons, the master of the ceremonies, the superintendent of the commissariat stores, the master of the household to the royal ladies, and the interpreter for intercourse with strangers and foreign rulers.Munza never leaves his residence without being accompanied by several hundred of his retinue, and, in token of his dignity, a long array of drummers, trumpeters, and couriers with great iron bells are sent at the head of the procession. The harem, in the immediate vicinity of the palace, consists of eighty young ladies, who, with their attendant women slaves, occupy as many huts erected in a wide circuit within the precincts of the royal halls and private apartments. Enclosed by these huts is a smooth and ample space, where the well-trodden red soil offers a fine contrast to the deep green foliage of the groups of oil-palms, bread-fruit trees, cordiæ, trumpet-trees, urostigmæ, and other trees by which it is overshadowed. Munza holds his councils in the great halls, and on appointed days grants audiences, and occasionally gives one of the extensive feasts, accompanied by music and dancing, such as I have already described.THE ROYAL WIVES.The royal ladies are divided, according to age and seniority, into several classes. The elder matrons occupy villages built for their accommodation at some distance from the residence; their number amounts to several hundred, for, besides his own wives of the first and second rank, Munza is bound to maintain the ladies inherited from his father, and even those belonging to a deceased brother. It is a long-established African custom that at a king’s death his wives should fall to the lot of his successor, who never fails to annex to their number a large addition of his own. In the sixteenth century the wives of the King of Loango were estimated at 7000.Whenever at night the king leaves his private apartments to visit his wives, the place re-echoes with the shouts of the courtiers, accompanied by the strains of horns and kettledrums, and then, too, may be heard the Monbuttoo hymn, “Ee, ee, Munza, tchuppy, tchuppy, ee.” Eye-witnesses state that the king spends his night in passing from one hut to another, and without favouring any with an especially long visit; but it is all done in the strictestincognitoand under cover of the darkness. Besides the courtiers, the royal household contains many officials appointed to some peculiar functions; there are the private musicians, trumpeters and buglers, whose productions testify to the time and labour spent upon their acquirement; there are eunuchs and jesters, ballad-singers and dancers, who combine to increase the splendour of the court, and to provide general amusement for the festal gatherings. In addition to these there are numbers of stewards, who keep order at the feasts and, by a free use of their rods, restrain the over-obtrusiveness of the younger portion of the community.The king’s private residence consists of a group of several large huts, each of which is set apart for one of his daily occupations. They are enclosed, like a Seriba, with a palisade, and are shaded by plantations of well-kept trees. Theking’s food is always prepared by one of his wives, who perform the office in turn, relieving one another at stated intervals. Munza invariably takes his meals in private; no one may see the contents of his dish, and everything that he leaves is carefully thrown into a pit set apart for that purpose. All that the king has handled is held as sacred, and may not be touched; and a guest, though of the highest rank, may not so much as light his pipe with an ember from the fire that burns before his throne. Any similar attempt would be considered as high treason and punished with immediate death.As permission was granted me to inspect the internal arrangements of the royal palace, I was enabled to survey the whole series of huts. The king’s wardrobe alone occupied several apartments. In one room I saw nothing but hats and feathers of every variety, special value being laid upon the red parrot’s feathers, which are arranged in great round tufts. One hut there was in which were suspended whole bundles of the tails of civets, genets, potamochœri, and giraffes, together with skins and thousands of the ornaments with which the king was accustomed to adorn his person. I observed also long strings of the teeth of rare animals captured in the chase. One ornament alone, composed of more than a hundred lions’ fangs, must have been a costly heirloom to be handed on from father to son. For the first time I noticed the skin of theGalago Demidoffi, an animal hitherto only observed in Western Africa.A little conical hut that I was shown was set apart for the privacy of the royal retiring-room, the only one of the kind that I came across in Central Africa. The internal arrangements of this corresponded exactly with what is seen in Turkish dwelling-houses. The heathen negroes are generally more observant of decorum in this respect than any Mohammedan.On another occasion I was conducted through the armoury.The store of weapons consisted principally of lances tied up in bundles of two or three hundred together, which in times of war are distributed amongst the fighting force; there are also piles of the knives and daggers which are borne by Monbuttoo warriors. In the same place were kept the ornamental weapons which are used for decorating the royal halls on festal occasions, consisting for the most part of immense spears, formed head and shaft alike of pure copper, and brightly polished.The storehouses and corn-magazines were provided with well-made, water-tight roofs, and Munza spends a portion of every day in the several sections, personally superintending the distribution and arrangement of the stores.MONBUTTOO CIVILIZATION.From these details it may be understood that the Monbuttoo are subject to a monarchical government of an importance beyond the average of those of Central Africa; and in its institutions it appears to correspond with the descriptions of negro empires long since passed away. The half mythical empire of the powerful Mwata Yanvo, whose influence doubtless extended to the Monbuttoo lands, may probably, to a certain extent, have furnished the type for many of these institutions; but be that as it may, it is an indisputable fact, that of all the known nations of Central Africa the Monbuttoo, without any influence from the Mohammedan or Christian world, have attained to no contemptible degree of external culture, and their leading characteristics prove them to belong to a group of nations which inhabit the inmost heart of Africa, and which are being now embraced in the enlarging circle of geographical knowledge. The land of the Manuyema, visited by Livingstone, and the states of Mwata Yanvo, frequented by the Portuguese traders, form respectively the south-western and south-eastern limits of this immense territory, which in area surpasses half of European Russia.In turning to the national characteristics of this people,we may notice in the first place that their complexion is of a lighter tint than that of almost all the known nations of Central Africa, the colour of whose skins may be generally compared, by the test I have frequently adopted, to that of ground coffee. It is this peculiarity that forms a great distinction between the Monbuttoo and the Niam-niam, whose complexions are more aptly compared to cakes of chocolate or ripe olives. It cannot fail to strike the traveller as remarkable that in all African nations he meets with individuals with black, red, and yellow complexions, whilst the yellow tribes of Asia and the copper-coloured tribes of America each present a remarkable uniformity in the tone and shade of their skins. Barth observed this peculiarity among the Marghi; he noticed some individuals who were quite black, and others who had coppery-red skins, or, as he describes them, rhubarb-coloured, in distinction to those which he compared tochocolat-au-lait. His supposition that an intermingling of races was the sole cause of this diversity of complexion is probably incorrect, as it appears to be a characteristic of the entire series of the red-skinned races of Africa.The Monbuttoo have less fulness of muscle than the Niam-niam, without, however, any appearance of debility. The growth of the hair is much the same, and the beard is much more developed than that of the Niam-niam.PHYSIOLOGICAL SPECULATION.But there is one special characteristic that is quite peculiar to the Monbuttoo. To judge from the hundreds who paid visits of curiosity to my teat, and from the thousands whom I saw during my three weeks’ sojourn with Munza, I should say that at least five per cent. of the population have light hair. This was always of the closely frizzled quality of the negro type, and was always associated with the lightest skins that I had seen since leaving Lower Egypt. Its colour was by no means like that which is termed light hair amongst ourselves, but was of a mongrel tint mixed with grey, suggesting the comparison to hemp. All the individuals whohad this light hair and complexion had a sickly expression about the eyes, and presented many signs of pronounced albinism; they recalled a description given by Isaac Vossius, in his book upon the origin of the Nile, of the white men he saw at the court of the King of Loango: he says that “they were sickly-looking and wan of countenance, with their eyes drawn as though they were squinting.” In the previous chapter I have given a similar description of one of the king’s sons, named Bunza. This combination of light hair and skin gives the Monbuttoo a position distinct from all the nations of the northern part of Africa, with the single exception of the various inhabitants of Morocco, amongst whom fair-haired individuals are far from uncommon.It has been already observed that in the physiognomical form of the skull the Monbuttoo in many ways recall the type of the Semitic tribes; and they differ from the ordinary run of negroes in the greater length and curve of the nose. All these characteristics betoken an affinity with the Fulbe, and as such the Monbuttoo may probably be included amongst the “Pyrrhi Æthiopes” of Ptolemy. This would, however, be but a vague supposition if it were not supported by the fact that the Fulbe are of eastern origin, although in later times a portion of them have made a retrogade movement from Senegal towards the east. It must be understood that I do not intend by these remarks to offer a bridge for carrying over Eichwaldt’s theory bf the affinity of the Fulbe with the Malays, nor do I intend by such a national migration to add a new link to what he declares to be accomplished in the case of Meroe. Barth considers these Fulbe to be the issue of a double cross, a cross between the Arabs and people of Barbary on the one hand and the people of Barbary and the negroes on the other. This hypothesis, I believe, would also hold good for the Monbuttoo; but altogether it is a question too vague to be capable of being here discussed with any justice.On account of the loss of the specimens of the Monbuttoo dialect, which I had been at great pains to collect by means of a double interpretation, I am unfortunately not in a position to give much information about the dialect; this much, however, I can confidently assert, that it is a branch of the great African language-stock north of the equator, the greater number of the words belonging to the Nubio-Lybian group.Still more than in the colour of their skin do the Monbuttoo differ from the neighbouring nations in dress and habits. This appears to be a land where costume is a settled matter of rule, for the uniformity of attire is as complete as it is rapidly becoming under the sway of fashion in all classes of our civilized communities.Weaving is an art unknown to the Monbuttoo, and their only material for clothing is obtained from their fig-tree (Urostigma Fotschyana), the bark of which is found to be in a condition most serviceable for the purpose when the trunk of the tree is about as thick as a man’s body; the stem is then peeled in rather a remarkable manner: two circular incisions, four or five feet apart, are made right round the trunk, and the bark is removed entire; strange to say, this does no harm to the tree, and in a very short time a peculiar growth or granulation takes place along the edge of the upper incision in the form of little fibres, which gradually descend along the bare cambium or sap-wood, until the tree is once more clothed with a fresh layer of bast. The only explanation that can be offered for this unusual growth is, that in peeling off the bark the entire layer of bast is not removed, but that some portion of it is left hanging to the wood and retains its vitality.[21]In the course of three years the fresh growth is complete, and the bark is in a conditionto be again removed; apart from this property, the rearing of these rokko-trees would not compensate the natives for the trouble of planting them.Monbuttoo Warriors.Monbuttoo Warriors.ROKKO-TREES.The rokko bark has a certain resemblance to the lime-bast, which is so important an article of commerce in Russia; its fibres, however, have not the smoothness and paper-likethinness of the Russian product, but are tangled together almost like a woven mass. By a partial maceration and a good deal of thrashing, the Moributtoo contrive to give the bark the appearance of a thick close fabric, which, in its rough condition, is of a grey colour, but after being soaked in a decoction of wood acquires a reddish-brown hue, something like ordinary woollen stuff. Fastened at the waist with a girdle, one of these pieces of bark is sufficient to clothe the body, from the breast downwards to the knees, with a very effective substitute for drapery. Representations of two Monbuttoo warriors in full array are given in the illustration on the preceding page.The women go almost entirely unclothed; they wear nothing but a portion of a plantain leaf or a piece of bark about the size of their hand attached to the front of their girdle; the rest of the body being figured in laboured patterns by means of a black juice obtained from the Blippo (Randia malleifera). Whilst the Dinka women, leaving perfect nudity as the prerogative of their husbands, are modestly clothed with skins—whilst the Mittoo and Bongo women wear their girdle of foliage, and the Niam-niam women their apron of hides, the women of the Monbuttoo—where the men are more scrupulously and fully clothed than any of the nations that I came across throughout my journey—go almost entirely naked.Whenever the women go out, they carry across their arm a strap which they lay across their laps on sitting down. These straps or scarfs are about a foot wide, and something like a saddle-girth, and as they form their first attempt in the art of weaving, their texture is of the clumsiest order, possessing no other recommendation than their durability; they are appropriated to the further use of fastening infants to their mothers’ backs.TATTOOING OF THE WOMEN.The women can be distinguished from one another by the different tattooed figures running in bands across the breastand back along the shoulders; their bodies, moreover, are painted with an almost inexhaustible variety of patterns. Stars and Maltese crosses, bees and flowers, are all enlisted as designs; at one time the entire body is covered with stripes like a zebra, and at another with irregular spots and dots like a tiger; I have seen these women streaked with veins like marble, and even covered with squares like a chess-board. At the great festivals every Monbuttoo lady endeavours to outshine her compeers, and accordingly applies all her powers of invention to the adornment of her person. The patterns last for about two days, when they are carefully rubbed off, and replaced by new designs.Monbuttoo WomanMonbuttoo Woman.Instead of this paint the men use a cosmetic prepared from pulverised cam-wood, which is mixed with fat and then rubbed over the whole body. The Niam-niam also make use of this powder, but they only apply it partially in irregularspots and stripes, delighting especially in staining the breast and face to increase the ferocity of their appearance.Thecoiffureof both sexes is alike; the hair of the top and back of the head is mounted up into a long cylindrical chignon, and being fastened on the inside by an arrangement made of reeds, slopes backwards in a slanting direction. Across the forehead, from temple to temple, the hair is twisted in thin tresses, which lie one above another, closely fitting the skull until they reach the crown of the head. Their own hair is rarely long enough to form this portion of the head-gear, but the deficiency is supplied from the heads of those who have fallen in war, or, since hair is an article of traffic in the country, it is procured from the market. On the top of their chignon, the men wear the cylindrical straw-hats so often referred to. These are without brims, square at the top and circular at the base, and are adorned either with the tufts of red parrots’ feathers that I have described in connection with Munza’s wardrobe,[22]or with the long feathers of eagles and falcons. The hats, of course, follow the slanting directions of the chignon, and fall back diagonally to the head, and altogether the head-gear is remarkably similar to that worn by the Ishogo women in Western Africa. The Monbuttoo women wear no hat on their chignon, which is merely adorned with little hair-pins attached to combs made of the quills of the porcupines.These details may suffice to give a fair notion of the external appearance of the Monbuttoo, and if I add that their only mutilation of the body consists in boring the inner muscle of the ear for the purpose of inserting a bar about the size of a cigar, I shall have described all the fashions in vogue, from which no individual is at liberty to make marked deviation. They neither break out their lower incisor teeth,like the black nations on the northern river plains, nor do they file them to points, like the Niam-niam; neither do they imitate the Bongo and Mittoo women in the hideous perforation of their lips; and I repeat that, if we except circumcision (which, according to the accounts of all the heathen negroes of equatorial Africa, is a custom they have received from their remote ancestors), this piercing of the ear is the one disfigurement of nature adopted by the Monbuttoo. On account of this practice the Khartoomers have conferred upon them the title of “Gurrugurroo,”i.e.“pierced,” in contradistinction to the Niam-niam in general, Niam-niam being, as I have said, the term used by the inhabitants of the Soudan for all cannibals, irrespective of their various nationalities.Monbuttoo weaponsWeapons of the Monbuttoo.Figs. 1-9. Various scimitars. 10. Large dagger. 11. Hand-knife, for carving and peeling bark.MONBUTTOO WEAPONS.The weapons of the Monbuttoo warriors are very numerous. Besides shields and lances, they also carry bows and arrows, a combination somewhat rare amongst Africans; in additionto these, in their girdles they are accustomed to have scimitars with curved blades like sickles, whilst some of them use daggers and spatular knives of all shapes and sizes. The projectiles which are in use among the Niam-niam are not included in the equipment of the Monbuttoo.Since the Monbuttoo dwell upon the red ferruginous soil extending from the Gazelle over a large portion of Central Africa, it may be assumed as a matter of course that smiths’ work must play an important part in their industrial pursuits, and indeed in this respect they excel all other natives of the districts through which I travelled, whilst in other branches of their manufacture they surpassed even the Mohammedans of Northern Africa.The smelting process is of the most primitive description, and is the same that has been described by travellers in all parts of Africa. The simplicity of the arrangement is caused by the ventilating apparatus; for as the construction of valves is unknown, a continual draft is produced by means of two clay vessels, of which the openings are covered by the Monbuttoo smiths with plantain leaves, which have been allowed to simmer in hot water until they have become as flexible as silk: other nations cover the openings with soft skins. Although entirely without our pincers, hammers, and files, the Monbuttoo have a set of implements of their own, by means of which their iron-work is more carefully manipulated than that of any of their neighbours. Instead of the usual stone anvil, they use a miniature one of wrought iron, and on this each separate weapon is cut out with a chisel, and hammered until an approximate degree of sharpness is attained; the edge being brought to its finish by a piece of fine-ground sandstone or gneiss, which answers the purpose of a file. As a general rule, no special form is given to the iron used as a medium of exchange, unless indeed the great semicircular bars in the royal treasury be considered as currency, and which remind one of the rough copper ringsthat are brought from the mines of Darfoor.[23]Neither plates of iron nor round spades (melots) are in vogue, but the smiths have to work from great lumps of iron as large as the fist. The dexterity of these artificers is wonderful, and the short space of time in which they will convert the raw material into spades and lances is, I should think, unrivalled. The Monbuttoo smiths often joined our Bongo workmen at their forges in our camp, and as I had frequent opportunity of observing and comparing the two, I do not hesitate in asserting the decided superiority of the workmanship of the Monbuttoo.MONBUTTOO METAL WORK.The masterpieces, however, of these Monbuttoo smiths are the ornamental chains which, in refinement of form and neatness of finish, might vie with our best steel chains; in fact, according to the judgment ofconnoisseurs, many of these specimens of autochthonic art may well bear comparison with the productions of our European craftsmen. The process of tempering is quite unknown to them, the necessary hardness being attained by continual hammering: the material used is singularly pure and homogeneous, qualities acquired not from any perfection of the smelting apparatus, but from the laborious welding of the separate particles of iron.Copper was already known, and the king was in possession of large quantities of the metal, before the Nubians set foot in the country; and as previously to that event the Monbuttoo (if we except the great raid which Barth reports to have been made upon them by the Foorians in 1834) had had no intercourse with the Mohammedan world, there is every reason to conclude that they must have received their supply either from the copper mines of Angola and Loango, or from some other region of the north-western portion of South Africa.Almost all the ornaments worn by the Monbuttoo are madeof copper, so that it may be easily understood that the demand for the metal is not small. One of the most frequent uses to which it is applied is that of making flat wires, many yards long, to wind round the handles of knives and scimitars, or round the shafts of lances and bows. Copper, as well as iron, is used for the clasps which are attached to the shields, partly for ornament and partly to prevent them from splitting. Copper necklaces are in continual wear, and copper fastenings are attached to the rings of buffalo-hide and to the thick thongs of the girdles. The little bars inserted through the ear are tipped with the same metal; in fact there is hardly an ornament that fails in an adjunct of copper in some form or other; persons of rank not unfrequently pride themselves in having ornamental weapons formed entirely of it. All other metals being unknown, iron and copper are estimated by the Monbuttoo as silver and gold by ourselves, and the silver platter with which I presented the king failed to elicit any comment beyond the observation that it was white iron. Lead and tin have been introduced as curiosities by the Nubians, but previous to their arrival had never been seen. Information, however, which was incidentally dropped by a Niam-niam, led me to suppose that fragments of platinum about the size of peas have been found in these lands: he told me that a white metal, as hard as iron and as heavy as the lead of which the Nubians made their bullets, had been discovered, but that its existence was always carefully concealed from the strangers. I see no reason to doubt the truth of this statement, since it originated from a people who in no other way could have become aware of the existence of such a metal, which has been hitherto as unknown to the Nubians as silver and gold to the Monbuttoo.MONBUTTOO WEAPONS.It would require many illustrations to convey an adequate idea of the various forms of the beads of the arrows and lances: suffice it to say, that the symmetry of the variousbarbs, spikes, and prongs with which they are provided is always perfect. The prevailing forms of the spear-heads are hastate, whilst the arrows are generally made flat or spatular, as inflicting a deeper and wider wound than the pointed tips. All weapons of the Monbuttoo and the Niam-niam are provided with blood gutters, a mark which serves to distinguish them at once from those of the Bongo and Mittoo. The shafts of the Monbuttoo arrows are made of reed-grass, and differ from all others of the Bongo territory by being winged with pieces of genet’s skin or plantain leaves. The bows are rather over three feet in length, and in form and size correspond very nearly with those used by the Mittoo and Bongo; the bow-strings being made of a strip of the split Spanish reed, which possesses more elasticity than any cord. These bows are provided with a small hollow piece of wood for protecting the thumb from the rebound of the string. The arrow is always discharged from between the middle fingers.Spear-heads.Spear-heads.The perfection of their instruments gives the Monbuttoo a great advantage in the art of wood-carving, and they are the only African nation, including even the modern Egyptians, who make use of a graving-tool with a single edge, an instrument which, by supporting the forefinger, enables the workman to give a superior finish to the details of his productions. The wood used for carving is generally that ofthe stem of one of the Rubiaceæ (Uncaria), of which the soft close texture resembles that of poplar-wood. The felling of these giant-trees, which vary from six to eight feet in diameter, and often shoot up to a height of forty feet without throwing forth a single branch, is performed by means of their small hatchets, with a most tedious amount of labour. The hatchets are like those which are used in other parts of Central Africa, and consist of a sharpened iron wedge inserted through the thick end of a knotted club; thus every blow tends to fix the blade firmer in its socket. The number of blows necessary to fell one of these ponderous trees must amount to several thousand, and yet I often noticed stems lying in the forest the ends of which were as smooth as though they had been cut with a knife, a circumstance that attests their correctness of vision, a quality in which the negroes outshine the Arabs and Nubians, as much as in their appreciation of sound and musical talent. The first crude form is given to the larger blocks of wood by means of a tool something like a cooper’s adze.[24]When first hewn, the wood of the Uncaria is white, but it is afterwards blackened by exposure to fire, or still more frequently by being allowed to lie in the dark soil of the brooks.Hatchet, spade, adzeHatchet, spade, and adze, of the Monbuttoo.MONBUTTOO HANDICRAFT.Platters, stools, drums, boats, and shields constitute the chief items of their handicraft. Upon the Lower Shary, the boats which are in common use are manufactured by fastening together wooden planks, but here, on the Welle, canoes are hewn out of a solid stem, and are in every way adapted for their purpose. I saw some of them upwards of thirty-eight feet long and five feet wide, quite large enough for the conveyance of horses and cattle.[25]Wooden kettle-drumWooden kettle-drum.The large signal-drums of the Niam-niam are to be seen in every Monbuttoo village. They stand sometimes upon four, and sometimes upon two, feet, and are like the instruments which are seen upon the West Coast. Another smaller kind is made in a semicircular shape, very compressed, and fitted with a handle at the top; the opening for the sound is below, and the instrument may be compared to a flattened bell.Single seatSingle seat used by the Women.Benches and stools, such as are exclusively used by the women, are made in every diversity of shape. They are carved out of a single block, for, to say the truth, no people of Central Africa seems to have acquired the art of joining one piece of wood to another, so that the craft of the cabinet-maker may be said to be unknown. The seats of these stools are circular and somewhat hollowed out, surmounting aprettily carved stem, which rises from a circular or polygonal base. Close to the edge of the seat is a triangular aperture, which serves as a handle. They are usually made from twelve to sixteen inches high, and are hardly to be distinguished from certain contrivances for meal-times, which are here made so as to serve at once for table and plate. Wooden platters there are of every possible size: one kind of them has two open ring-shaped handles; another stands upon four feet, and both are patterns quite worthy of our own factories at home. Besides the single seats they are in the habit of making long benches also with four feet. The practice of making all their utensils to stand upon feet is all but universal among the Niam-niam and the Monbuttoo, even the little cylindrical boxes covered with bark for storing away their knick-knacks being finished off in this fashion. The ordinary seats of the men are made exclusively from the leaf-stalks of the Raphia palm: they always keep to precisely the same form, and in their manufacture appear to indicate a first attempt at the joiner’s art. The benches of the Monbuttoo men are about five feet long and of corresponding width; they are made of such lightness that one of our bearers, without any apparent exertion, carried six of them at once; but they are nevertheless of very extraordinary firmness, and the way in which the separate parts are fixed together is really very ingenious. The Monbuttoo do not fasten their benches or any of their structures by means of nails or pegs, but they sew them, as it were, together by fine split Spanish reeds, which by their unyielding toughnessanswer as admirably as in the manufacture of our cane-chairs.SEATS AND SHIELDS.Backs are not attached to the Monbuttoo seats; but as some support of the kind is clearly indispensable, they endeavour to supply its place by placing by the side of their benches a singular sort of crutch. This is obtained by taking a young tree and cutting a section of it, where what botanists call its “verticillate ramification” has developed itself into four additional separate limbs: the main stem and two of the boughs supply the three feet, the other two boughs serving, with the continuation of the stem, to make the arms and back. No wood is so available for the purpose as that of the cotton tree (Eriodendron).Seat-restSeat-rest.The shields of the warriors are hewn out of the thickest stems by means of the axe, and consist of perfectly smooth rectangular boards, not more than half an inch thick, but which are long enough to cover two-thirds of the person. These inelegant instruments of defensive warfare, in which the recommendation of solidity is ill sacrificed for the sake of their lightness, require to be protected from splitting or starting, and to secure this a number of parallel seams of rotang are fixed across the width, and both the upper and lower edges are provided with a strong border of rotang twist, and a strong rib run across the middle gives them an additional firmness. They are generally decorated with tails of the guinea-hog (Potamochærus), and are invariably stained quite black. If any fissures or cracks should be detected, they are at once drawn together by iron and copper braces.Water-bottlesWater-bottles.Contrasted with the rest of Africa, and even with theBongo, whose comparative skill was noticed on a previous page,[26]the district shows a very considerable advance in the manufacture of their pottery. Although they remain as unacquainted as other races with the use of the wheel, their productions, besides being of a superior quality, are of a more perfect symmetry than any which are elsewhere observed. All the vessels and drinking-cups of the Africans in general have the character of urns, being made without handles and being never otherwise than spherical in form; but those of the Monbuttoo exhibit a manifest improvement, and by having the surface decorated either with some raised symmetrical pattern (which is especially the case upon their oil vessels) or with some ornamental figures, they afford a firm hold to the hand, and thus make good the lack of handles for lifting them. It is, however, principally upon the water-bottles that the greatest care is bestowed, some of which may fairly be said to rival in symmetry the far-famed examples of Egyptian art, and to betray a considerable faculty of plastic genius.[27]GRASS ORNAMENTS.For the bowls of pipes, upon which other of the native populations lavish so much care, they have no use. They smoke only the Virginian tobacco, and for this purpose employ the midrib of the plantain leaf in the way that I have already described,[28]superseding entirely the necessity for a solid bowl.They are very ignorant of the art of leather-dressing, and are no more acquainted with the use of tan than any of the rest of the tribes that have their homes in the Bahr-el-Ghazal district.Their baskets and nets are woven out of rotang, the form of the baskets in which they bear burdens on their backs being very similar to those which are seen amongst the Thuringians. Their mode of dressing their hair necessarily prevents them from ever carrying a load upon their heads.They are in the habit of twisting ornaments for themselves out of reeds and grass, which they wear like rings round their arms and legs, and which make a rustling sound as they walk. They bestow a great amount of care in weaving the fine webs which hold on their hats and chignons. The rattles, filled with shells and pebbles, that are used for beating time to the music of the drums and horns at the great festivals are also woven from reeds.The Monbuttoo musical instruments require no particular description. They do not include the pretty little mandolins of the Niam-niam, nor any other stringed instruments, and their horns, trumpets, and drums may be said to be little short of universal throughout Africa. Wooden dulcimers (Marimba) are met with neither here nor in South Africa.But the artistic versatility of the people reveals itself more than anywhere else in their architectural skill. It would hardly be credited that Africa would be capable of rearingany erection so spacious and well proportioned as the hall of Munza’s palace. This was little short of 150 feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and rose to the height of about 50 feet. Combined with these imposing dimensions were a lightness of character and solidity of structure that were quite remarkable. The ever-useful leaf-stalks of the wine-palm form the principal building-material, and its natural polish and bright brown colour give every building for which it is used an aspect of finished grace. The flat horizontal roofs of their huts, as distinguished from the conical roofs which we have hitherto observed as almost universal throughout the rest of Central Africa, mark out these Monbuttoo in a fresh respect as being allied to the natives of the west, viz., the Ishogo, the Ashango, the Bakalai, the Ashiva, the Camma, the Mpongwe, and the Fan—a relation that is further confirmed by the physical character of the land, the streams of which flow to the west instead of to the north. Some of the huts, however, have conical roofs, and these are generally appropriated, either as kitchens, because they allow better escape for the smoke, or as granaries, because they throw off the rain more rapidly.The dwellings of the ordinary population are by no means large, being seldom more than thirty feet long, and twenty feet wide; the roofs project considerably, and are slightly rounded with a bend corresponding to the natural curvature of the palm leaves from which they are made, and which furnish the ribs of the roof. They are rendered water-tight by a lining of plantain leaves, which is frequently covered again with grass, straw, or skin. The walls are built up to a height of five or six feet, and are lined like the roof and bound together by the split Spanish reed. This, again, is the mode of erecting the huts upon the West Coast. It offers an astonishing power of resistance to the fury of the elements, which, left to play upon rows of posts or to range through open halls, might be expected to work complete destruction;yet such is the stability with which the Monbuttoo huts are raised, that they never totter in a storm, and only show by a slight trembling in the walls that they are exposed to the violence of a hurricane.A spacious doorway is the only aperture for light and air, the door itself being made in one piece; the interior is divided into two apartments, the more remote of which is reserved for the stores.TREES.Plantations of trees are frequent, and still more frequent are patches of shrubs, which are intentionally suffered to grow, and which, as being serviceable, are permitted to survive the extirpation of the ancient forests. These are generally to be seen in the immediate vicinity of the unenclosed farms. In addition to them, many trees are allowed to stand for the sake of the shelter they afford; and some are kept because of their useful products, as for example, theTephrosia Vogelii, which furnishes the powder for poisoning fish; or theRandia malleifera, which produces the pigment for the staining of the skin, and of which the white funnel-shaped blossoms are a striking ornament to the bushes; and some are retained merely for ornament and for increasing the pleasantness of the external aspect of their dwellings. As examples of this superfluous indulgence I may refer to the marvellousMussaenda, with its glowing bracts, and to the variety of resplendent orchids. Here, too, I noticed what I must not omit to record, the turf-likeChlorophytum, with its variegated leaves of mingled white and green, which is employed among the Niam-niam as a charm to detect a thief, much in the same way as theCanavalia ensiformis, known as the “overlook” or horse-bean, is employed in Jamaica and Haiti, where it is sown in the negro-plantations for that purpose.The huts are arranged in sets following the lines of the brooks along the valleys, the space between each group being occupied by plantations of oil-palms. The dwellingsare separated from the lowest parts of the depressions by the plantain-grounds, whilst above, on the higher and drier soil, extend the fields of sweet-potatoes and colocasiæ.No one could seriously expect a traveller, after a transient residence of five weeks, to pass anything like a decided judgment upon the religious ideas of a people like the Monbuttoo. A wide scope for speculation is undoubtedly opened, but it would ill become a stranger to pretend to pronounce a conclusive verdict. I must be excused, therefore, from drawing any very definite inference from the fact that they adopt the rite of circumcision so far as to have it performed on boys when they come to an age of puberty, a period of life which is neither in accordance with the original prescription, nor with the doctrine of Mohammed. I may say, however, that I never allowed myself to be unconcerned with regard to any of the people amongst whom I journeyed as to their opinions about a presiding Deity, but, by collecting all the proofs I could from their habitual speech, I endeavoured to learn what were their conceptions about the sovereignty of an invisible power, and its influence upon the destinies of men.MONBUTTOO THEOLOGY.The Monbuttoo have undoubtedly very intelligent ideas of what the Nubians mean by their bowing of the knee, their prostrations to the ground, and their cry of “Allah!” The very designation which they use to express their conception of God as the concentration of the Supreme Being, opens a long vista into the kindred association of African people. In the district of the Mahas, the word now employed for the God of the Nubians is “Nor,” and, upon the authority of my interpreters, I may state that “Noro” was the term by which, after the double interpretation, “Allah” was rendered to me. When the question was put as to where “Noro” resided, the Monbuttoo, who was familiar with the Niam-niam dialect, pointed upwards to the sky; but when he was further pressed with the inquiry whether he couldsee him, he only answered with a smile. Whether the Monbuttoo are in the habit of consulting oracles, or whether they have any reliance upon auguries from fowls, or any fortune-telling apparatus corresponding to the “damma” of the Niam-niam, my residence among them was not long enough to permit me to ascertain.Bongo and Dinka womenBongo woman. Dinka woman.(See description,vol. i., p.296.)FOOTNOTES:[19]Heuglin in 1863, had received intelligence of what was now proved, viz. that the same district from which issues the White Nile also gives birth to another stream, called by him the river of Sena.[20]A kindred plant of this genus is used in the West Indies, where the practice is generally carried on by slaves.[21]Livingstone observed a similar new growth of bark on the trunk of the Baobab (Adansonia), from which the Matabele obtain material for cord.[22]In the woodcut which represents Munza in full dress, the king has one of these clusters of feathers in his hat.[23]Iron rings of the heaviest calibre are current in Wandalo, south of Bornoo.[24]One of these tools is represented in the accompanying illustration.[25]A boat of this kind is seen in the view of therapids of the Keebaly, inChap. XVII.[26]Videvol. i.page 292.[27]The two examples of water-bottles given in the engravings are copies of the originals, which are deposited in the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin. To the one in three compartments handles are attached, being the only instance of the kind that I ever saw.[28]Videvol. i.page 547.
The Monbuttoo.Previous accounts of the Monbuttoo. Population. Surrounding nations. Neglect of agriculture. Products of the soil. Produce of the chase. Forms of greeting. Preparation of food. Universal cannibalism. National pride and warlike spirit. Power of the sovereign. His habits. The royal household. Advanced culture of the Monbuttoo. Peculiarities of race. Fair hair and complexion. Analogy to the Fulbe. Preparation of bark. Nudity of the women. Painting of the body.Coiffureof men and women. Mutilation not practised. Equipment of warriors. Manipulation of iron. Early knowledge of copper. Probable knowledge of platinum. Tools. Wood-carving. Stools and benches. Symmetry of water-bottles. Large halls. Love of ornamental trees. Conception of Supreme Being.
The Monbuttoo.Previous accounts of the Monbuttoo. Population. Surrounding nations. Neglect of agriculture. Products of the soil. Produce of the chase. Forms of greeting. Preparation of food. Universal cannibalism. National pride and warlike spirit. Power of the sovereign. His habits. The royal household. Advanced culture of the Monbuttoo. Peculiarities of race. Fair hair and complexion. Analogy to the Fulbe. Preparation of bark. Nudity of the women. Painting of the body.Coiffureof men and women. Mutilation not practised. Equipment of warriors. Manipulation of iron. Early knowledge of copper. Probable knowledge of platinum. Tools. Wood-carving. Stools and benches. Symmetry of water-bottles. Large halls. Love of ornamental trees. Conception of Supreme Being.
Itwas in December 1868, just before starting from Khartoom, that I received, in a somewhat circuitous way, the first intelligence of a people called the Monbuttoo, who were said to dwell to the south of the Niam-niam. Dr. Ori, the chief official physician at Khartoom, in a letter to the Marquis Antinori, had detailed all the most recent particulars of the ivory traffic in the remote districts south of the Gazelle, and had specially referred to the transactions of Jules Poncet. These particulars were published without much delay in the journal of the Geographical Association of Paris; and I chanced to find Dr. Ori’s letter quoted entire in the Italian Geographical Society’s ‘Bolletino,’ which was transmitted to me by the Marquis Antinori himself just before I was setting out on my expedition.
NATIONAL FEATURES OF THE MONBUTTOO.
Although the intelligence conveyed by Ori and Poncet failed utterly in giving either clearness or consistency to the confused depositions of those ignorant and uninformed menwho had been their authorities, it still had the intrinsic merit of enlarging the domain of geographical knowledge by some matters of fact which it was reserved for me individually to confirm by my own observation. It laid down as facts, first, that to the south of the Niam-niam territory there is a river flowing towards the west;[19]secondly, that this river is not tributary to the Nile; and, thirdly, that its banks are populated by a race quite distinct from the ordinary negro race, its inhabitants being of a brownish complexion, and exhibiting a grade of civilization which is considerably in advance of what is elsewhere found in Central Africa.
These people were designated by the name of the Monbuttoo, and by the ivory traders they were known as Gurru-gurroo, a definition that is derived from an Arabic word which refers to their universal habit of piercing their ears.
No sooner had I really reached the district of the Gazelle than I discovered from my conversation and intercourse with the leaders of the ivory traffic that the Monbuttoo were regarded as holding a very peculiar and prominent place. Their country never failed to furnish a theme of general praise. It was declared to be prolific in ivory; it was profuse in its natural products; the pomp of its sovereign was unrivalled; but, above all, the skill of its people, in the fabrication alike of their weapons for war and their utensils for peace, was assumed to be so striking that they were comparable to the denizens of the civilized west, and that in some respects the Franks themselves did not surpass them in the exercise of an æsthetic faculty.
That I might succeed in making my way onwards to the territory of this problematical people, naturally became more and more my impatient and ardent desire; and it willreadily be understood how eagerly I recognised Aboo Sammat as offered by a propitious fate to be the conductor upon whom I might rely for being introduced to a closer view of this undefined race, which might be likened in a way to a nebula in the geographical firmament. Very much I now rejoice at being in a position to submit, upon the evidence of my own observation, a somewhat detailed account of this race, who may be described as constituting a sort of remote island of humanity. Surrounded as it is by the waves of fluctuating nationalities, it is, as it were, an “ultima Thule” of geographical research; or perhaps still more appropriately it might be likened to a boulder thrown up from a lower formation, and exhibiting a development of indigenous culture, entirely different to what can be witnessed all around.
The territory of the Monbuttoo, as it lies in the heart of Africa, does not cover an area of more than 4000 square miles, but the ratio of the census of its population is hardly exceeded by any region of the entire continent. Estimating the density of the people by the districts through which we travelled, and observing that cultivated farms followed upon cultivated farms, without a barren spot between, I suppose that there are at least 250 inhabitants to the square mile, which would give an aggregate population of about a million. The position of the country is embraced very nearly between the parallels of 3° and 4° north latitude, and 28° and 29° east longitude from Greenwich. To the north of the country there is a large river, usually copious in its stream, called the Keebaly. This is joined by the Gadda, which flows from the south-east. After the junction it is known as the Welle, and has a breadth of about 800 feet, whilst never, even in the driest season, does its depth diminish to less than fifteen feet. It proceeds to the west along the southern portion of the adjoining Niam-niam district, and being swollen by the accession of numerous tributaries from the southern districts of the Monbuttoo, it very rapidly assumes its large dimensions.Beyond a doubt it is the upper course of the most easterly of the two arms which, after they have united in Baghirmy, flow onwards under the name of the Shary, that river to which Lake Tsad owes its existence.
MONBUTTOO GOVERNMENT.
There are two chieftains who, with regard to the extent of their dominions and the numerical strength of their armed forces (for their sway extends far beyond the populous districts of the Monbuttoo), may well be designated as kings. They have partitioned the sovereignty between them: the eastern division being subject to Degberra, the western division is governed by Munza, who exercises a much more powerful control; he is a son of King Tikkiboh, who had once enjoyed the undivided rule over the entire Monbuttoo land, but thirteen years previously had been murdered by his brother Degberra.
Sub-chieftains or viceroys are distributed over various sections of the country, and these are accustomed to surround themselves with a retinue and state little inferior to those of the kings themselves. In Munza’s realms there are three of these dignitaries; viz. his brothers Izingerria, Mummery, and Nooma; subordinate to Degberra there are his four sons, Kubby, Benda, Koopa, and Yangara.
The country of the Niam-niam constitutes the northern and north-western boundaries of the Monbuttoo. This comprises the territories of Kanna and Indimma, sons of the once powerful Keefa, and, farther on, the district of Malingde or Marindo, which approaches in an easterly direction more towards the territory of Wando; each of these countries are, however, separated by wildernesses which it requires two days to cross. The southern limits of the Monbuttoo are enclosed, as it were, by a semicircle of typical negroes, whom they embrace in the comprehensive definition of “Momvoo,” a disdainful epithet implying the extremity of their degradation. From this category we are possibly called upon to exclude in this quarter (as perchance in every other regionof Africa) those isolated races of dwarfs, familiarly known as “Pygmies,” of which the Akka, who reside in the S.S.W., and have their abodes close to the confines of the kingdom of Munza, may be quoted as examples. The bulk of this apparently thickly-peopled race is subject to independent chieftains, but there is one section which is tributary to Munza in so far as this, that it makes its contributary payments to Mummery, as being Munza’s vicegerent. According to the depositions of some Nubians who have been stationed for some years past in the Monbuttoo country, the language of the Babuckur is found to be spoken among the Momvoo. To support their opinion the Nubians affirm that women-slaves brought from Babuckur have always been found able to converse with the natives of the land just to the south of the Monbuttoo; a circumstance which is not without its signification as explaining the most recent migration of nations into this part of Africa. Since the twoenclavesof Babuckur on the eastern boundaries of the Niam-niam appear only to be removed from each other by an interval of sixty miles and to be hemmed in by hostile neighbours, the fact, taken in connection with the above, may serve to demonstrate that Monbuttoo and Niam-niam alike must have been advancing in an easterly direction.
Munza’s neighbours towards the south-west and south of the kingdom of Kanna are the Mabohde. This is a people whom Keefa, Kanna’s father (known also as Ntikkima), was accustomed to harass in war till he met with his own death. Farther on towards the S.S.W., and separated from Munza by the Mabohde and the Akka, there lies the district of the Massanza, a tribe which is held in subjection by the formidable hand of Kizzo. To the south and south-east are found the Nemeigeh, the Bissangah, and the Domondoo, tenanting a mountainous region, which not improbably is the western declivity of that important mountainous formation to which Baker, in describing the north-west of Lake Mwootan, hasreferred under the name of the Blue Mountains. The settlements of the Domondoo are the usual limits to which the Monbuttoo are accustomed to carry their plundering expeditions. Some Nubian soldiers who had been quartered in the country of Munza, and who had accompanied him in some of his marauding exploits have given a description of the general mountainous character of the land, and, moreover, have asserted that goats, which are known neither to the Niam-niam nor to the Monbuttoo, have been captured there in great numbers. The Babuckur also, notwithstanding the frequent incursions which their neighbours, ever greedy of animal diet, have made upon their over-populated and oppressed communities, are always found in possession of herds of goats so numerous that they might be described as inexhaustible. Many days’ journey to the south and south-east of Munza’s realms are the abodes of the Maoggoo, over whom a powerful sovereign exercises his authority, and who seems to have various transactions with Munza, if I may judge from the splendid cattle which had been sent him as a present. Maoggoo is not improbably the same as Malegga, the appellation of a people, which appears in Baker’s map to the west of the Blue Mountains in an extensive country (Ulegga), of which it is affirmed that the king is named Kadjoro, and that the population is especially devoted to the breeding of cattle.
THE MONBUTTOO TERRITORY.
Having thus minutely taken a survey of the surroundings of the Monbuttoo, we may in the next place proceed to observe the land itself, regarding it as the substance of the picture of which we have been thus accurately surveying the background.
The Monbuttoo land greets us as an Eden upon earth. Unnumbered groves of plantains bedeck the gently-heaving soil; oil-palms, incomparable in beauty, and other monarchs of the stately woods, rise up and spread their glory over the favoured scene; along the streams there is a brightexpanse of charming verdure, whilst a grateful shadow ever overhangs the domes of the idyllic huts. The general altitude of the soil ranges from 2500 to 2800 feet above the level of the sea: it consists of alternate depressions, along which the rivulets make their way, and gentle elevations, which gradually rise till they are some hundred feet above the beds of the streams below. Upon the whole the soil may be described as far more diversified in character than what is observed in the eastern parts of the Niam-niam land. Like it is there, it is rich in springs, wherever there are depressions, and in a network of “desaguaderos” associated with the watercourses, and justifies the comparison that has already been suggested between the entire land and a well-soaked sponge, which yields countless streams to the pressure of the hand. Belonging to one of the most recent formations, and still in process of construction, the ferruginous swamp-ore is found very widely diffused over the Monbuttoo country, and indeed extends considerably farther to the south, so that the red earth appears to be nearly universal over the greater part of the highlands of Central Africa. The denser population has involved, as might be expected, more frequent clearances for the sake of establishing plantain groves, and promoting the culture of maize and sugar-canes, but even here in the deeper valleys trees grow to such a prodigious height, and exhibit such an enormous girth, that they could not be surpassed by any that could be found throughout the entire Nile region of the north. Beneath the imposing shelter of these giants other forms grow up and, rising one above another, stand in mingled confusion. In its external and general aspect the country corresponds with the description which Speke has given of Uganda; but the customs of the inhabitants of that land, their difference of race, and their seclusion from all intercourse with commercial nations stamp them as being of a type which is of a very contrasted character.
MONBUTTOO PRODUCE.
It seems almost to involve a contradiction to give the title of agriculturists to a people whose existence indeed depends upon the easy securing of fruits and tubers, but who abhor the trouble of growing cereals. Sorghum and penicillaria, which are the common food of the population in nearly the whole of Central Africa, are absolutely uncared for amongst the Monbuttoo; eleusine is only grown occasionally, and maize, which is known as “Nendoh,” is cultivated quite as an exception in the immediate proximity of their dwellings, where it is treated as a garden vegetable. The growth of their plantain (Musa sapientium) gives them very little trouble; the young shoots are stuck in the ground after it has been slackened by the rain; the old plants are suffered to die down just as they are; and this is all the cultivation that is vouchsafed. In the propagation of these plantains, however, the Monbuttoo have a certain knack of discrimination for which they might be envied by any European gardener: they can judge whether a young shoot is capable of bearing fruit or not, and this gives them an immense advantage in selecting only such shoots as are worth the trouble of planting. They are not accustomed to bestow any greater amount of attention to the planting either of the tubers of their manioc (or cassava), their sweet-potatoes, their yams (neggoo), or their colocasiæ. A very limited range of plants embraces the whole of what they take the pains to cultivate, and that cultivation is all accomplished in the narrowest bounds. The entire produce is summed up in their sesame (mbellemoh), their earth-nuts, their sugar-canes, and especially their tobacco. The Virginian tobacco is the only kind which is seen; it is called Eh Tobboo, its name betraying its American origin. TheNicotiana rustica, which is of such constant growth amongst the Bongo, Dyoor, and Dinka, is here entirely unknown.
Very little care, moreover, is given to the sugar-cane, which may be found amid the thinned woods that line thebanks of the rivers. It is grown only as a sort of delicacy, being found nowhere in any great quantity, and its quality is far from good. One ever-thriving supply, which is of the utmost importance for maintaining the population, is provided in all the valleys by the cassava (Manihot utilissima); but the cultivation of the sweet-potato, equally extensive as it is, demands a somewhat more careful attention, requiring the sunny soil of the upper slopes of the valleys above the line of the plantain groves and nearest to the edge of the depressions. Both sweet-potatoes and cassava here attain the very fullest standard of perfection, as far as regards either size or quality. But the staple food is the plantain. This is generally gathered in a green condition, dried, ground into meal, and boiled to a pulp; occasionally, but not so often, it is dried after it is ripe for the purpose of being kept for a longer time. Very few countries of the world have a soil and atmosphere so favourable as these for insuring the abundant produce of this serviceable plant. The fruit when dried is a very choice delicacy, but any fermented drink made from plantains I found to be almost unknown among the Monbuttoo.
Owing to the thorough isolation in which the Monbuttoo have lived, holding no intercourse with Mohammedan or Christian nations, the art of weaving has not found its way amongst them, and woven material is consequently nowhere to be seen. Their clothing, as in many other regions of Central Africa, is contributed by their fig-trees (Urostigma Kotschyana), of which the bast from the bark, with the help of some strings and shreds, is worked into a substantial and enduring fabric. Hardly a hut can be seen that is without its own fig-trees, which, however, will not grow without due care and cultivation. The people are never known to wear skins attached to their girdles after the fashion of the Niam-niam; the only occasion when skins are worn being when they are made into a fancy dress for dancers.
On the south of the Welle there is a very extensive cultivation of the oil-palm (Elais guineensis). It is a tree that, although common to the west coasts, has not hitherto been found in the Nile districts, and consequently, like the cola-nuts, which the wealthier of the Monbuttoo are accustomed to chew, it yields a significant evidence of the western associations of the people.
MONBUTTOO HUNTING.
Every kind of cattle-breeding is quite unfamiliar to them; and if the common little dogs known as the “nessy” of the Niam-niam breed be excepted, and no account be taken of their poultry (“naahle”), the Monbuttoo may be said to be absolutely without domestic animals at all. In a half tame state they keep, as I have said, the potamochœrus, which is their only representative of the swine family. From the marauding excursions with which they harass their southern neighbours they bring back a prodigious number of goats, but they make no attempt to rear them for themselves. Their hunting expeditions supply them with meat enough for their requirements, their taste leading them to give the preference to the flesh of elephants, buffaloes, wild boars, and the larger kinds of antelopes. Although the denseness of the population precludes any such increase of game of this kind as is universal in the more northern and less cultivated regions of Central Africa, yet the yield of their chase would be adequate for their own wants, because the abundance of their supply at certain seasons is very great, and they have the art of preserving it so that it remains fit for food for a very considerable time. With this fact capable of being substantiated, it is altogether a fallacy to pretend to represent that the Monbuttoo are driven to cannibalism through the lack of ordinary meat. To judge from Munza’s accumulated store of ivory, which is the result of the combined exploits of all the men in his dominions capable of bearing arms, the provision of elephant’s meat alone must be sufficient to keep his people amply supplied. Nor shouldthe immense quantity of poultry be forgotten, as there is hardly a dwelling that is not conspicuous for having a considerable stock, in the same way as dogs are an especial subject of interest amongst the Niam-niam, who have a very decided partiality for the flesh of that animal.
A bird very common in the Monbuttoo lands is the grey parrot (Psittacus erythacus), which is very eagerly sought by the natives, who not only adorn their heads with the bright red feathers from its tail, but have a great relish for its savoury flesh. Other sport in the way of birds is very inconsiderable, guinea-fowls, francolins, and bustards being all caught by means of snares. The herbTephrosia Vogelii[20]is cultivated in nearly all the villages for the purpose of poisoning fish, and the fish that is thus secured forms a very considerable addition to the supply of food.
Whilst the women attend to the tillage of the soil and the gathering of the harvest, the men, except they are absent either for war or hunting, spend the entire day in idleness. In the early hours of the morning they may be found under the shade of the oil-palms, lounging at full length upon their carved benches and smoking tobacco. During the middle of the day they gossip with their friends in the cool halls, which serve for general concourse, where they may be seen gesticulating vigorously to give full force to their sentiments. The action of the Monbuttoo in speaking exhibits several singularities, as, for example, their manner of expressing astonishment by putting their hand before their open mouth, very much in the same way as a person does when he is gaping. It has been said that the North American Indians have the habit of showing their surprise in the same way.
Smiths’ work, of course, is done by the men, but, just as in most other parts of Africa, the pottery is exclusively made bythe women. Wood-carving and basket-weaving are performed indifferently by either sex. Musical instruments are not touched by the women.
The universal form of salutation consists in holding out the right hand, and saying, “Gassiggy,” and at the same time cracking the joints of the middle fingers.
MONBUTTOO WOMEN.
The two sexes conduct themselves towards each other with an excessive freedom. The women in this respect are very different to the modest and retiring women of the Niam-niam, and are beyond measure obtrusive and familiar. Their inquisitiveness was a daily nuisance: they watched me into the depth of the woods, they pestered me by flocking round my tent, and it was a difficult matter to get a bath without being stared at. Towards their husbands they exhibit the highest degree of independence. The position in the household occupied by the men was illustrated by the reply which would be made if they were solicited to sell anything as a curiosity, “Oh, ask my wife: it is hers.”
Polygamy is unlimited. The daily witness of the Nubians only too plainly testified that fidelity to the obligations of marriage was little known. Not a few of the women were openly obscene. Their general demeanour surprised me very much when I considered the comparative advance of their race in the arts of civilization. Their immodesty far surpassed anything that I had observed in the very lowest of the negro tribes, and contrasted most unfavourably with the sobriety of the Bongo women, who are submissive to their husbands and yet not servile. The very scantiness of the clothing of the Monbuttoo women has no excuse.
Carved benches are the ordinary seats of the men, but the women generally use stools that have but one foot. On the occasion of paying a visit or going to a public gathering the men make their slaves carry their benches for them, as it is their custom never to sit upon the ground, not even when it has been covered with mats.
The care that is given to the preparation of their food is very considerable, and betokens their higher grade of culture. The unripe produce of the plantain and the manioc, that in all districts is ready at their hand without the trouble of cultivation, make good the deficiency of corn. Their mode of treating manioc is precisely the same as that which is adopted in South America for the purpose of extracting the fine flour called tapioca. For spices they make use of the capsicum, the malaghetta pepper, and the fruit of two hitherto unspecified Solaneæ, and for which I regret that I cannot select the name ofS. anthropophagorum, because it has been already assigned to the “cannibal salad” of the Fiji Islanders. The flavour of both these is very revolting, having a detestable twang, something between a tomato and a melongena. Mushrooms are also in common use for the preparation of their sauces.
All their food is prepared by the admixture of oil from the oil-palms. In its unpurified condition when first expressed from the pods, this oil is of a bright red colour, and of a somewhat thick consistency; for a few days it has an agreeable taste, which, however, soon passes off and leaves a decided rankness. By subsequently submitting the kernels to fire, a coarse, inflammable oil is obtained, which is used for the purpose of lighting their huts. Other vegetable oils in considerable abundance are obtained from earth-nuts, from sesame, and from the fruit of a forest-tree,Lophira alata. From the fat thick bodies of the male white ants they boil out a greasy substance which is bright and transparent, and has a taste perfectly unobjectionable.
MONBUTTOO CANNIBALISM.
But of most universal employment amongst them is human fat, and this brings our observations to the climax of their culinary practices. The cannibalism of the Monbuttoo is the most pronounced of all the known nations of Africa. Surrounded as they are by a number of people who are blacker than themselves, and who, being inferior to them in culture,are consequently held in great contempt, they have just the opportunity which they want for carrying on expeditions of war or plunder, which result in the acquisition of a booty, which is especially coveted by them, consisting of human flesh. The carcases of all who fall in battle are distributed upon the battle-field, and are prepared by drying for transport to the homes of the conquerors. They drive their prisoners before them without remorse, as butchers would drive sheep to the shambles, and these are only reserved to fall victims on a later day to their horrible and sickening greediness. During our residence at the court of Munza the general rumour was quite current that nearly every day some little child was sacrificed to supply his meal. It would hardly be expected that many opportunities should be afforded to strangers of witnessing the natives at their repast, and to myself there occurred only two instances when I came upon any of them whilst they were actually engaged in preparing human flesh for consumption. The first of these happened by my coming unexpectedly upon a number of young women who had a supply of boiling water upon the clay floor in front of the doorway of a hut, and were engaged in the task of scalding the hair off the lower half of a human body. The operation, as far as it was effected, had changed the black skin into a fawny grey, and the disgusting sight could not fail to make me think of the soddening and scouring of our fatted swine. On another occasion I was in a hut and observed a human arm hanging over the fire, obviously with the design of being at once dried and smoked.
Incontrovertible tokens and indirect evidences of the prevalence of cannibalism were constantly turning up at every step we took. On one occasion Mohammed and myself were in Munza’s company, and Mohammed designedly turned the conversation to the topic of human flesh, and put the direct question to the king how it happenedthat just at this precise time while we were in the country there was no consumption of human food. Munza expressly said that being aware that such a practice was held in aversion by us, he had taken care that it should only be carried on in secret.
As I have said, there was no opportunity for strangers to observe the habits of the Monbuttoo at their meals; the Bongo and Mittoo of our caravan were carefully excluded by them as being uncircumcised, and therefore reckoned as “savages;” whilst the religious scruples of the Nubians prevented them from even partaking of any food in common with cannibals. Nevertheless the instances that I have mentioned are in themselves sufficient to show that the Monbuttoo are far more addicted to cannibalism than their hunting neighbours, the Niam-niam. They do not constitute the first example of anthropophagi who are in a far higher grade of culture than many savages who persistently repudiate the enjoyment of human flesh (for example, the Fiji Islanders and the Caraïbs). It is needless for me to recount the personal experiences of the Nubian mercenaries who have accompanied the Monbuttoo on their marauding expeditions, or to describe how these people obtain their human fat, or again to detail the processes of cutting the flesh into long strips and drying it over the fire in its preparation for consumption. The numerous skulls now in the Anatomical Museum in Berlin are simply the remains of their repasts which I purchased one after another for bits of copper, and go far to prove that the cannibalism of the Monbuttoo is unsurpassed by any nation in the world. But with it all, the Monbuttoo are a noble race of men; men who display a certain national pride, and are endowed with an intellect and judgment such as few natives of the African wilderness can boast; men to whom one may put a reasonable question, and who will return a reasonable answer. The Nubians can never say enough in praise of their faithfulnessin friendly intercourse and of the order and stability of their national life. According to the Nubians, too, the Monbuttoo were their superiors in the arts of war, and I often heard the resident soldiers contending with their companions and saying, “Well, perhaps you are not afraid of the Monbuttoo, but I confess that I am; and I can tell you they are something to be afraid of.”
A MONBUTTOO AMAZON.
As matter of fact the Khartoom traders, some years before, had had a definite trial of arms with the Monbuttoo. Shortly after his accession to power, Munza had of his own accord and by a special embassy invited Aboo Sammat to extend his transactions beyond their present limits in Nganye’s and Wando’s territories; but in the year previous to that, the Nubian merchant Abderahman Aboo Guroon, having endeavoured to penetrate from Keefa’s dominions into the Monbuttoo lands, was attacked on the north of the Welle by the Monbuttoo forces, who opposed his advances upon their territory. At that time Munza’s father, Tikkiboh, had absolute rule in the country, and the achievements of his daughter Nalengbe, a sister of the present king, are still fresh in the memory of all who were present at the engagement; eye-witnesses gave me detailed accounts of the exploits of this veritable Amazon, whom I have mentioned before, and related how, in full armour, with shield and lance, and girded with the rokko apron of a man, she had with the utmost bravery led on the Monbuttoo troops, who then for the first time came in contact with firearms; and how her exertions were attended with a complete success, the adventurous Aboo Guroon being repulsed with considerable loss, and forced to relinquish altogether his design of entering the country. In the following year, 1867, Mohammed Aboo Sammat, invited as I have said by the king himself, crossed the Welle and entered the land, thus, as the first explorer, opening the ivory traffic under conditions of peace, which have ever since remained undisturbed.
The Monbuttoo potentates enjoy far higher prerogatives than the Niam-niam princes. Besides the monopoly of the ivory, they claim regular contributions from the products of the soil. In addition to his special body-guard, the sovereign is always surrounded by a large body of courtiers, whilst an immense number of civil officers and local overseers maintain the regal dignity in the various districts of the land. Munza’s three brothers, Izingerria, Mummery, and Nooma, perform the office of viceroys, and subordinate to these again are sub-chieftains of the second rank, who act as governors of provinces.
Next in rank to the sub-chieftains, who are generally chosen from the numerous members of the blood-royal, are the principal officers of state. These are five in number: the keeper of the weapons, the master of the ceremonies, the superintendent of the commissariat stores, the master of the household to the royal ladies, and the interpreter for intercourse with strangers and foreign rulers.
Munza never leaves his residence without being accompanied by several hundred of his retinue, and, in token of his dignity, a long array of drummers, trumpeters, and couriers with great iron bells are sent at the head of the procession. The harem, in the immediate vicinity of the palace, consists of eighty young ladies, who, with their attendant women slaves, occupy as many huts erected in a wide circuit within the precincts of the royal halls and private apartments. Enclosed by these huts is a smooth and ample space, where the well-trodden red soil offers a fine contrast to the deep green foliage of the groups of oil-palms, bread-fruit trees, cordiæ, trumpet-trees, urostigmæ, and other trees by which it is overshadowed. Munza holds his councils in the great halls, and on appointed days grants audiences, and occasionally gives one of the extensive feasts, accompanied by music and dancing, such as I have already described.
THE ROYAL WIVES.
The royal ladies are divided, according to age and seniority, into several classes. The elder matrons occupy villages built for their accommodation at some distance from the residence; their number amounts to several hundred, for, besides his own wives of the first and second rank, Munza is bound to maintain the ladies inherited from his father, and even those belonging to a deceased brother. It is a long-established African custom that at a king’s death his wives should fall to the lot of his successor, who never fails to annex to their number a large addition of his own. In the sixteenth century the wives of the King of Loango were estimated at 7000.
Whenever at night the king leaves his private apartments to visit his wives, the place re-echoes with the shouts of the courtiers, accompanied by the strains of horns and kettledrums, and then, too, may be heard the Monbuttoo hymn, “Ee, ee, Munza, tchuppy, tchuppy, ee.” Eye-witnesses state that the king spends his night in passing from one hut to another, and without favouring any with an especially long visit; but it is all done in the strictestincognitoand under cover of the darkness. Besides the courtiers, the royal household contains many officials appointed to some peculiar functions; there are the private musicians, trumpeters and buglers, whose productions testify to the time and labour spent upon their acquirement; there are eunuchs and jesters, ballad-singers and dancers, who combine to increase the splendour of the court, and to provide general amusement for the festal gatherings. In addition to these there are numbers of stewards, who keep order at the feasts and, by a free use of their rods, restrain the over-obtrusiveness of the younger portion of the community.
The king’s private residence consists of a group of several large huts, each of which is set apart for one of his daily occupations. They are enclosed, like a Seriba, with a palisade, and are shaded by plantations of well-kept trees. Theking’s food is always prepared by one of his wives, who perform the office in turn, relieving one another at stated intervals. Munza invariably takes his meals in private; no one may see the contents of his dish, and everything that he leaves is carefully thrown into a pit set apart for that purpose. All that the king has handled is held as sacred, and may not be touched; and a guest, though of the highest rank, may not so much as light his pipe with an ember from the fire that burns before his throne. Any similar attempt would be considered as high treason and punished with immediate death.
As permission was granted me to inspect the internal arrangements of the royal palace, I was enabled to survey the whole series of huts. The king’s wardrobe alone occupied several apartments. In one room I saw nothing but hats and feathers of every variety, special value being laid upon the red parrot’s feathers, which are arranged in great round tufts. One hut there was in which were suspended whole bundles of the tails of civets, genets, potamochœri, and giraffes, together with skins and thousands of the ornaments with which the king was accustomed to adorn his person. I observed also long strings of the teeth of rare animals captured in the chase. One ornament alone, composed of more than a hundred lions’ fangs, must have been a costly heirloom to be handed on from father to son. For the first time I noticed the skin of theGalago Demidoffi, an animal hitherto only observed in Western Africa.
A little conical hut that I was shown was set apart for the privacy of the royal retiring-room, the only one of the kind that I came across in Central Africa. The internal arrangements of this corresponded exactly with what is seen in Turkish dwelling-houses. The heathen negroes are generally more observant of decorum in this respect than any Mohammedan.
On another occasion I was conducted through the armoury.The store of weapons consisted principally of lances tied up in bundles of two or three hundred together, which in times of war are distributed amongst the fighting force; there are also piles of the knives and daggers which are borne by Monbuttoo warriors. In the same place were kept the ornamental weapons which are used for decorating the royal halls on festal occasions, consisting for the most part of immense spears, formed head and shaft alike of pure copper, and brightly polished.
The storehouses and corn-magazines were provided with well-made, water-tight roofs, and Munza spends a portion of every day in the several sections, personally superintending the distribution and arrangement of the stores.
MONBUTTOO CIVILIZATION.
From these details it may be understood that the Monbuttoo are subject to a monarchical government of an importance beyond the average of those of Central Africa; and in its institutions it appears to correspond with the descriptions of negro empires long since passed away. The half mythical empire of the powerful Mwata Yanvo, whose influence doubtless extended to the Monbuttoo lands, may probably, to a certain extent, have furnished the type for many of these institutions; but be that as it may, it is an indisputable fact, that of all the known nations of Central Africa the Monbuttoo, without any influence from the Mohammedan or Christian world, have attained to no contemptible degree of external culture, and their leading characteristics prove them to belong to a group of nations which inhabit the inmost heart of Africa, and which are being now embraced in the enlarging circle of geographical knowledge. The land of the Manuyema, visited by Livingstone, and the states of Mwata Yanvo, frequented by the Portuguese traders, form respectively the south-western and south-eastern limits of this immense territory, which in area surpasses half of European Russia.
In turning to the national characteristics of this people,we may notice in the first place that their complexion is of a lighter tint than that of almost all the known nations of Central Africa, the colour of whose skins may be generally compared, by the test I have frequently adopted, to that of ground coffee. It is this peculiarity that forms a great distinction between the Monbuttoo and the Niam-niam, whose complexions are more aptly compared to cakes of chocolate or ripe olives. It cannot fail to strike the traveller as remarkable that in all African nations he meets with individuals with black, red, and yellow complexions, whilst the yellow tribes of Asia and the copper-coloured tribes of America each present a remarkable uniformity in the tone and shade of their skins. Barth observed this peculiarity among the Marghi; he noticed some individuals who were quite black, and others who had coppery-red skins, or, as he describes them, rhubarb-coloured, in distinction to those which he compared tochocolat-au-lait. His supposition that an intermingling of races was the sole cause of this diversity of complexion is probably incorrect, as it appears to be a characteristic of the entire series of the red-skinned races of Africa.
The Monbuttoo have less fulness of muscle than the Niam-niam, without, however, any appearance of debility. The growth of the hair is much the same, and the beard is much more developed than that of the Niam-niam.
PHYSIOLOGICAL SPECULATION.
But there is one special characteristic that is quite peculiar to the Monbuttoo. To judge from the hundreds who paid visits of curiosity to my teat, and from the thousands whom I saw during my three weeks’ sojourn with Munza, I should say that at least five per cent. of the population have light hair. This was always of the closely frizzled quality of the negro type, and was always associated with the lightest skins that I had seen since leaving Lower Egypt. Its colour was by no means like that which is termed light hair amongst ourselves, but was of a mongrel tint mixed with grey, suggesting the comparison to hemp. All the individuals whohad this light hair and complexion had a sickly expression about the eyes, and presented many signs of pronounced albinism; they recalled a description given by Isaac Vossius, in his book upon the origin of the Nile, of the white men he saw at the court of the King of Loango: he says that “they were sickly-looking and wan of countenance, with their eyes drawn as though they were squinting.” In the previous chapter I have given a similar description of one of the king’s sons, named Bunza. This combination of light hair and skin gives the Monbuttoo a position distinct from all the nations of the northern part of Africa, with the single exception of the various inhabitants of Morocco, amongst whom fair-haired individuals are far from uncommon.
It has been already observed that in the physiognomical form of the skull the Monbuttoo in many ways recall the type of the Semitic tribes; and they differ from the ordinary run of negroes in the greater length and curve of the nose. All these characteristics betoken an affinity with the Fulbe, and as such the Monbuttoo may probably be included amongst the “Pyrrhi Æthiopes” of Ptolemy. This would, however, be but a vague supposition if it were not supported by the fact that the Fulbe are of eastern origin, although in later times a portion of them have made a retrogade movement from Senegal towards the east. It must be understood that I do not intend by these remarks to offer a bridge for carrying over Eichwaldt’s theory bf the affinity of the Fulbe with the Malays, nor do I intend by such a national migration to add a new link to what he declares to be accomplished in the case of Meroe. Barth considers these Fulbe to be the issue of a double cross, a cross between the Arabs and people of Barbary on the one hand and the people of Barbary and the negroes on the other. This hypothesis, I believe, would also hold good for the Monbuttoo; but altogether it is a question too vague to be capable of being here discussed with any justice.
On account of the loss of the specimens of the Monbuttoo dialect, which I had been at great pains to collect by means of a double interpretation, I am unfortunately not in a position to give much information about the dialect; this much, however, I can confidently assert, that it is a branch of the great African language-stock north of the equator, the greater number of the words belonging to the Nubio-Lybian group.
Still more than in the colour of their skin do the Monbuttoo differ from the neighbouring nations in dress and habits. This appears to be a land where costume is a settled matter of rule, for the uniformity of attire is as complete as it is rapidly becoming under the sway of fashion in all classes of our civilized communities.
Weaving is an art unknown to the Monbuttoo, and their only material for clothing is obtained from their fig-tree (Urostigma Fotschyana), the bark of which is found to be in a condition most serviceable for the purpose when the trunk of the tree is about as thick as a man’s body; the stem is then peeled in rather a remarkable manner: two circular incisions, four or five feet apart, are made right round the trunk, and the bark is removed entire; strange to say, this does no harm to the tree, and in a very short time a peculiar growth or granulation takes place along the edge of the upper incision in the form of little fibres, which gradually descend along the bare cambium or sap-wood, until the tree is once more clothed with a fresh layer of bast. The only explanation that can be offered for this unusual growth is, that in peeling off the bark the entire layer of bast is not removed, but that some portion of it is left hanging to the wood and retains its vitality.[21]In the course of three years the fresh growth is complete, and the bark is in a conditionto be again removed; apart from this property, the rearing of these rokko-trees would not compensate the natives for the trouble of planting them.
Monbuttoo Warriors.Monbuttoo Warriors.
Monbuttoo Warriors.
ROKKO-TREES.
The rokko bark has a certain resemblance to the lime-bast, which is so important an article of commerce in Russia; its fibres, however, have not the smoothness and paper-likethinness of the Russian product, but are tangled together almost like a woven mass. By a partial maceration and a good deal of thrashing, the Moributtoo contrive to give the bark the appearance of a thick close fabric, which, in its rough condition, is of a grey colour, but after being soaked in a decoction of wood acquires a reddish-brown hue, something like ordinary woollen stuff. Fastened at the waist with a girdle, one of these pieces of bark is sufficient to clothe the body, from the breast downwards to the knees, with a very effective substitute for drapery. Representations of two Monbuttoo warriors in full array are given in the illustration on the preceding page.
The women go almost entirely unclothed; they wear nothing but a portion of a plantain leaf or a piece of bark about the size of their hand attached to the front of their girdle; the rest of the body being figured in laboured patterns by means of a black juice obtained from the Blippo (Randia malleifera). Whilst the Dinka women, leaving perfect nudity as the prerogative of their husbands, are modestly clothed with skins—whilst the Mittoo and Bongo women wear their girdle of foliage, and the Niam-niam women their apron of hides, the women of the Monbuttoo—where the men are more scrupulously and fully clothed than any of the nations that I came across throughout my journey—go almost entirely naked.
Whenever the women go out, they carry across their arm a strap which they lay across their laps on sitting down. These straps or scarfs are about a foot wide, and something like a saddle-girth, and as they form their first attempt in the art of weaving, their texture is of the clumsiest order, possessing no other recommendation than their durability; they are appropriated to the further use of fastening infants to their mothers’ backs.
TATTOOING OF THE WOMEN.
The women can be distinguished from one another by the different tattooed figures running in bands across the breastand back along the shoulders; their bodies, moreover, are painted with an almost inexhaustible variety of patterns. Stars and Maltese crosses, bees and flowers, are all enlisted as designs; at one time the entire body is covered with stripes like a zebra, and at another with irregular spots and dots like a tiger; I have seen these women streaked with veins like marble, and even covered with squares like a chess-board. At the great festivals every Monbuttoo lady endeavours to outshine her compeers, and accordingly applies all her powers of invention to the adornment of her person. The patterns last for about two days, when they are carefully rubbed off, and replaced by new designs.
Monbuttoo WomanMonbuttoo Woman.
Monbuttoo Woman.
Instead of this paint the men use a cosmetic prepared from pulverised cam-wood, which is mixed with fat and then rubbed over the whole body. The Niam-niam also make use of this powder, but they only apply it partially in irregularspots and stripes, delighting especially in staining the breast and face to increase the ferocity of their appearance.
Thecoiffureof both sexes is alike; the hair of the top and back of the head is mounted up into a long cylindrical chignon, and being fastened on the inside by an arrangement made of reeds, slopes backwards in a slanting direction. Across the forehead, from temple to temple, the hair is twisted in thin tresses, which lie one above another, closely fitting the skull until they reach the crown of the head. Their own hair is rarely long enough to form this portion of the head-gear, but the deficiency is supplied from the heads of those who have fallen in war, or, since hair is an article of traffic in the country, it is procured from the market. On the top of their chignon, the men wear the cylindrical straw-hats so often referred to. These are without brims, square at the top and circular at the base, and are adorned either with the tufts of red parrots’ feathers that I have described in connection with Munza’s wardrobe,[22]or with the long feathers of eagles and falcons. The hats, of course, follow the slanting directions of the chignon, and fall back diagonally to the head, and altogether the head-gear is remarkably similar to that worn by the Ishogo women in Western Africa. The Monbuttoo women wear no hat on their chignon, which is merely adorned with little hair-pins attached to combs made of the quills of the porcupines.
These details may suffice to give a fair notion of the external appearance of the Monbuttoo, and if I add that their only mutilation of the body consists in boring the inner muscle of the ear for the purpose of inserting a bar about the size of a cigar, I shall have described all the fashions in vogue, from which no individual is at liberty to make marked deviation. They neither break out their lower incisor teeth,like the black nations on the northern river plains, nor do they file them to points, like the Niam-niam; neither do they imitate the Bongo and Mittoo women in the hideous perforation of their lips; and I repeat that, if we except circumcision (which, according to the accounts of all the heathen negroes of equatorial Africa, is a custom they have received from their remote ancestors), this piercing of the ear is the one disfigurement of nature adopted by the Monbuttoo. On account of this practice the Khartoomers have conferred upon them the title of “Gurrugurroo,”i.e.“pierced,” in contradistinction to the Niam-niam in general, Niam-niam being, as I have said, the term used by the inhabitants of the Soudan for all cannibals, irrespective of their various nationalities.
Monbuttoo weaponsWeapons of the Monbuttoo.Figs. 1-9. Various scimitars. 10. Large dagger. 11. Hand-knife, for carving and peeling bark.
Weapons of the Monbuttoo.
Figs. 1-9. Various scimitars. 10. Large dagger. 11. Hand-knife, for carving and peeling bark.
MONBUTTOO WEAPONS.
The weapons of the Monbuttoo warriors are very numerous. Besides shields and lances, they also carry bows and arrows, a combination somewhat rare amongst Africans; in additionto these, in their girdles they are accustomed to have scimitars with curved blades like sickles, whilst some of them use daggers and spatular knives of all shapes and sizes. The projectiles which are in use among the Niam-niam are not included in the equipment of the Monbuttoo.
Since the Monbuttoo dwell upon the red ferruginous soil extending from the Gazelle over a large portion of Central Africa, it may be assumed as a matter of course that smiths’ work must play an important part in their industrial pursuits, and indeed in this respect they excel all other natives of the districts through which I travelled, whilst in other branches of their manufacture they surpassed even the Mohammedans of Northern Africa.
The smelting process is of the most primitive description, and is the same that has been described by travellers in all parts of Africa. The simplicity of the arrangement is caused by the ventilating apparatus; for as the construction of valves is unknown, a continual draft is produced by means of two clay vessels, of which the openings are covered by the Monbuttoo smiths with plantain leaves, which have been allowed to simmer in hot water until they have become as flexible as silk: other nations cover the openings with soft skins. Although entirely without our pincers, hammers, and files, the Monbuttoo have a set of implements of their own, by means of which their iron-work is more carefully manipulated than that of any of their neighbours. Instead of the usual stone anvil, they use a miniature one of wrought iron, and on this each separate weapon is cut out with a chisel, and hammered until an approximate degree of sharpness is attained; the edge being brought to its finish by a piece of fine-ground sandstone or gneiss, which answers the purpose of a file. As a general rule, no special form is given to the iron used as a medium of exchange, unless indeed the great semicircular bars in the royal treasury be considered as currency, and which remind one of the rough copper ringsthat are brought from the mines of Darfoor.[23]Neither plates of iron nor round spades (melots) are in vogue, but the smiths have to work from great lumps of iron as large as the fist. The dexterity of these artificers is wonderful, and the short space of time in which they will convert the raw material into spades and lances is, I should think, unrivalled. The Monbuttoo smiths often joined our Bongo workmen at their forges in our camp, and as I had frequent opportunity of observing and comparing the two, I do not hesitate in asserting the decided superiority of the workmanship of the Monbuttoo.
MONBUTTOO METAL WORK.
The masterpieces, however, of these Monbuttoo smiths are the ornamental chains which, in refinement of form and neatness of finish, might vie with our best steel chains; in fact, according to the judgment ofconnoisseurs, many of these specimens of autochthonic art may well bear comparison with the productions of our European craftsmen. The process of tempering is quite unknown to them, the necessary hardness being attained by continual hammering: the material used is singularly pure and homogeneous, qualities acquired not from any perfection of the smelting apparatus, but from the laborious welding of the separate particles of iron.
Copper was already known, and the king was in possession of large quantities of the metal, before the Nubians set foot in the country; and as previously to that event the Monbuttoo (if we except the great raid which Barth reports to have been made upon them by the Foorians in 1834) had had no intercourse with the Mohammedan world, there is every reason to conclude that they must have received their supply either from the copper mines of Angola and Loango, or from some other region of the north-western portion of South Africa.
Almost all the ornaments worn by the Monbuttoo are madeof copper, so that it may be easily understood that the demand for the metal is not small. One of the most frequent uses to which it is applied is that of making flat wires, many yards long, to wind round the handles of knives and scimitars, or round the shafts of lances and bows. Copper, as well as iron, is used for the clasps which are attached to the shields, partly for ornament and partly to prevent them from splitting. Copper necklaces are in continual wear, and copper fastenings are attached to the rings of buffalo-hide and to the thick thongs of the girdles. The little bars inserted through the ear are tipped with the same metal; in fact there is hardly an ornament that fails in an adjunct of copper in some form or other; persons of rank not unfrequently pride themselves in having ornamental weapons formed entirely of it. All other metals being unknown, iron and copper are estimated by the Monbuttoo as silver and gold by ourselves, and the silver platter with which I presented the king failed to elicit any comment beyond the observation that it was white iron. Lead and tin have been introduced as curiosities by the Nubians, but previous to their arrival had never been seen. Information, however, which was incidentally dropped by a Niam-niam, led me to suppose that fragments of platinum about the size of peas have been found in these lands: he told me that a white metal, as hard as iron and as heavy as the lead of which the Nubians made their bullets, had been discovered, but that its existence was always carefully concealed from the strangers. I see no reason to doubt the truth of this statement, since it originated from a people who in no other way could have become aware of the existence of such a metal, which has been hitherto as unknown to the Nubians as silver and gold to the Monbuttoo.
MONBUTTOO WEAPONS.
It would require many illustrations to convey an adequate idea of the various forms of the beads of the arrows and lances: suffice it to say, that the symmetry of the variousbarbs, spikes, and prongs with which they are provided is always perfect. The prevailing forms of the spear-heads are hastate, whilst the arrows are generally made flat or spatular, as inflicting a deeper and wider wound than the pointed tips. All weapons of the Monbuttoo and the Niam-niam are provided with blood gutters, a mark which serves to distinguish them at once from those of the Bongo and Mittoo. The shafts of the Monbuttoo arrows are made of reed-grass, and differ from all others of the Bongo territory by being winged with pieces of genet’s skin or plantain leaves. The bows are rather over three feet in length, and in form and size correspond very nearly with those used by the Mittoo and Bongo; the bow-strings being made of a strip of the split Spanish reed, which possesses more elasticity than any cord. These bows are provided with a small hollow piece of wood for protecting the thumb from the rebound of the string. The arrow is always discharged from between the middle fingers.
Spear-heads.Spear-heads.
Spear-heads.
The perfection of their instruments gives the Monbuttoo a great advantage in the art of wood-carving, and they are the only African nation, including even the modern Egyptians, who make use of a graving-tool with a single edge, an instrument which, by supporting the forefinger, enables the workman to give a superior finish to the details of his productions. The wood used for carving is generally that ofthe stem of one of the Rubiaceæ (Uncaria), of which the soft close texture resembles that of poplar-wood. The felling of these giant-trees, which vary from six to eight feet in diameter, and often shoot up to a height of forty feet without throwing forth a single branch, is performed by means of their small hatchets, with a most tedious amount of labour. The hatchets are like those which are used in other parts of Central Africa, and consist of a sharpened iron wedge inserted through the thick end of a knotted club; thus every blow tends to fix the blade firmer in its socket. The number of blows necessary to fell one of these ponderous trees must amount to several thousand, and yet I often noticed stems lying in the forest the ends of which were as smooth as though they had been cut with a knife, a circumstance that attests their correctness of vision, a quality in which the negroes outshine the Arabs and Nubians, as much as in their appreciation of sound and musical talent. The first crude form is given to the larger blocks of wood by means of a tool something like a cooper’s adze.[24]When first hewn, the wood of the Uncaria is white, but it is afterwards blackened by exposure to fire, or still more frequently by being allowed to lie in the dark soil of the brooks.
Hatchet, spade, adzeHatchet, spade, and adze, of the Monbuttoo.
Hatchet, spade, and adze, of the Monbuttoo.
MONBUTTOO HANDICRAFT.
Platters, stools, drums, boats, and shields constitute the chief items of their handicraft. Upon the Lower Shary, the boats which are in common use are manufactured by fastening together wooden planks, but here, on the Welle, canoes are hewn out of a solid stem, and are in every way adapted for their purpose. I saw some of them upwards of thirty-eight feet long and five feet wide, quite large enough for the conveyance of horses and cattle.[25]
Wooden kettle-drumWooden kettle-drum.
Wooden kettle-drum.
The large signal-drums of the Niam-niam are to be seen in every Monbuttoo village. They stand sometimes upon four, and sometimes upon two, feet, and are like the instruments which are seen upon the West Coast. Another smaller kind is made in a semicircular shape, very compressed, and fitted with a handle at the top; the opening for the sound is below, and the instrument may be compared to a flattened bell.
Single seatSingle seat used by the Women.
Single seat used by the Women.
Benches and stools, such as are exclusively used by the women, are made in every diversity of shape. They are carved out of a single block, for, to say the truth, no people of Central Africa seems to have acquired the art of joining one piece of wood to another, so that the craft of the cabinet-maker may be said to be unknown. The seats of these stools are circular and somewhat hollowed out, surmounting aprettily carved stem, which rises from a circular or polygonal base. Close to the edge of the seat is a triangular aperture, which serves as a handle. They are usually made from twelve to sixteen inches high, and are hardly to be distinguished from certain contrivances for meal-times, which are here made so as to serve at once for table and plate. Wooden platters there are of every possible size: one kind of them has two open ring-shaped handles; another stands upon four feet, and both are patterns quite worthy of our own factories at home. Besides the single seats they are in the habit of making long benches also with four feet. The practice of making all their utensils to stand upon feet is all but universal among the Niam-niam and the Monbuttoo, even the little cylindrical boxes covered with bark for storing away their knick-knacks being finished off in this fashion. The ordinary seats of the men are made exclusively from the leaf-stalks of the Raphia palm: they always keep to precisely the same form, and in their manufacture appear to indicate a first attempt at the joiner’s art. The benches of the Monbuttoo men are about five feet long and of corresponding width; they are made of such lightness that one of our bearers, without any apparent exertion, carried six of them at once; but they are nevertheless of very extraordinary firmness, and the way in which the separate parts are fixed together is really very ingenious. The Monbuttoo do not fasten their benches or any of their structures by means of nails or pegs, but they sew them, as it were, together by fine split Spanish reeds, which by their unyielding toughnessanswer as admirably as in the manufacture of our cane-chairs.
SEATS AND SHIELDS.
Backs are not attached to the Monbuttoo seats; but as some support of the kind is clearly indispensable, they endeavour to supply its place by placing by the side of their benches a singular sort of crutch. This is obtained by taking a young tree and cutting a section of it, where what botanists call its “verticillate ramification” has developed itself into four additional separate limbs: the main stem and two of the boughs supply the three feet, the other two boughs serving, with the continuation of the stem, to make the arms and back. No wood is so available for the purpose as that of the cotton tree (Eriodendron).
Seat-restSeat-rest.
Seat-rest.
The shields of the warriors are hewn out of the thickest stems by means of the axe, and consist of perfectly smooth rectangular boards, not more than half an inch thick, but which are long enough to cover two-thirds of the person. These inelegant instruments of defensive warfare, in which the recommendation of solidity is ill sacrificed for the sake of their lightness, require to be protected from splitting or starting, and to secure this a number of parallel seams of rotang are fixed across the width, and both the upper and lower edges are provided with a strong border of rotang twist, and a strong rib run across the middle gives them an additional firmness. They are generally decorated with tails of the guinea-hog (Potamochærus), and are invariably stained quite black. If any fissures or cracks should be detected, they are at once drawn together by iron and copper braces.
Water-bottlesWater-bottles.
Water-bottles.
Contrasted with the rest of Africa, and even with theBongo, whose comparative skill was noticed on a previous page,[26]the district shows a very considerable advance in the manufacture of their pottery. Although they remain as unacquainted as other races with the use of the wheel, their productions, besides being of a superior quality, are of a more perfect symmetry than any which are elsewhere observed. All the vessels and drinking-cups of the Africans in general have the character of urns, being made without handles and being never otherwise than spherical in form; but those of the Monbuttoo exhibit a manifest improvement, and by having the surface decorated either with some raised symmetrical pattern (which is especially the case upon their oil vessels) or with some ornamental figures, they afford a firm hold to the hand, and thus make good the lack of handles for lifting them. It is, however, principally upon the water-bottles that the greatest care is bestowed, some of which may fairly be said to rival in symmetry the far-famed examples of Egyptian art, and to betray a considerable faculty of plastic genius.[27]
GRASS ORNAMENTS.
For the bowls of pipes, upon which other of the native populations lavish so much care, they have no use. They smoke only the Virginian tobacco, and for this purpose employ the midrib of the plantain leaf in the way that I have already described,[28]superseding entirely the necessity for a solid bowl.
They are very ignorant of the art of leather-dressing, and are no more acquainted with the use of tan than any of the rest of the tribes that have their homes in the Bahr-el-Ghazal district.
Their baskets and nets are woven out of rotang, the form of the baskets in which they bear burdens on their backs being very similar to those which are seen amongst the Thuringians. Their mode of dressing their hair necessarily prevents them from ever carrying a load upon their heads.
They are in the habit of twisting ornaments for themselves out of reeds and grass, which they wear like rings round their arms and legs, and which make a rustling sound as they walk. They bestow a great amount of care in weaving the fine webs which hold on their hats and chignons. The rattles, filled with shells and pebbles, that are used for beating time to the music of the drums and horns at the great festivals are also woven from reeds.
The Monbuttoo musical instruments require no particular description. They do not include the pretty little mandolins of the Niam-niam, nor any other stringed instruments, and their horns, trumpets, and drums may be said to be little short of universal throughout Africa. Wooden dulcimers (Marimba) are met with neither here nor in South Africa.
But the artistic versatility of the people reveals itself more than anywhere else in their architectural skill. It would hardly be credited that Africa would be capable of rearingany erection so spacious and well proportioned as the hall of Munza’s palace. This was little short of 150 feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and rose to the height of about 50 feet. Combined with these imposing dimensions were a lightness of character and solidity of structure that were quite remarkable. The ever-useful leaf-stalks of the wine-palm form the principal building-material, and its natural polish and bright brown colour give every building for which it is used an aspect of finished grace. The flat horizontal roofs of their huts, as distinguished from the conical roofs which we have hitherto observed as almost universal throughout the rest of Central Africa, mark out these Monbuttoo in a fresh respect as being allied to the natives of the west, viz., the Ishogo, the Ashango, the Bakalai, the Ashiva, the Camma, the Mpongwe, and the Fan—a relation that is further confirmed by the physical character of the land, the streams of which flow to the west instead of to the north. Some of the huts, however, have conical roofs, and these are generally appropriated, either as kitchens, because they allow better escape for the smoke, or as granaries, because they throw off the rain more rapidly.
The dwellings of the ordinary population are by no means large, being seldom more than thirty feet long, and twenty feet wide; the roofs project considerably, and are slightly rounded with a bend corresponding to the natural curvature of the palm leaves from which they are made, and which furnish the ribs of the roof. They are rendered water-tight by a lining of plantain leaves, which is frequently covered again with grass, straw, or skin. The walls are built up to a height of five or six feet, and are lined like the roof and bound together by the split Spanish reed. This, again, is the mode of erecting the huts upon the West Coast. It offers an astonishing power of resistance to the fury of the elements, which, left to play upon rows of posts or to range through open halls, might be expected to work complete destruction;yet such is the stability with which the Monbuttoo huts are raised, that they never totter in a storm, and only show by a slight trembling in the walls that they are exposed to the violence of a hurricane.
A spacious doorway is the only aperture for light and air, the door itself being made in one piece; the interior is divided into two apartments, the more remote of which is reserved for the stores.
TREES.
Plantations of trees are frequent, and still more frequent are patches of shrubs, which are intentionally suffered to grow, and which, as being serviceable, are permitted to survive the extirpation of the ancient forests. These are generally to be seen in the immediate vicinity of the unenclosed farms. In addition to them, many trees are allowed to stand for the sake of the shelter they afford; and some are kept because of their useful products, as for example, theTephrosia Vogelii, which furnishes the powder for poisoning fish; or theRandia malleifera, which produces the pigment for the staining of the skin, and of which the white funnel-shaped blossoms are a striking ornament to the bushes; and some are retained merely for ornament and for increasing the pleasantness of the external aspect of their dwellings. As examples of this superfluous indulgence I may refer to the marvellousMussaenda, with its glowing bracts, and to the variety of resplendent orchids. Here, too, I noticed what I must not omit to record, the turf-likeChlorophytum, with its variegated leaves of mingled white and green, which is employed among the Niam-niam as a charm to detect a thief, much in the same way as theCanavalia ensiformis, known as the “overlook” or horse-bean, is employed in Jamaica and Haiti, where it is sown in the negro-plantations for that purpose.
The huts are arranged in sets following the lines of the brooks along the valleys, the space between each group being occupied by plantations of oil-palms. The dwellingsare separated from the lowest parts of the depressions by the plantain-grounds, whilst above, on the higher and drier soil, extend the fields of sweet-potatoes and colocasiæ.
No one could seriously expect a traveller, after a transient residence of five weeks, to pass anything like a decided judgment upon the religious ideas of a people like the Monbuttoo. A wide scope for speculation is undoubtedly opened, but it would ill become a stranger to pretend to pronounce a conclusive verdict. I must be excused, therefore, from drawing any very definite inference from the fact that they adopt the rite of circumcision so far as to have it performed on boys when they come to an age of puberty, a period of life which is neither in accordance with the original prescription, nor with the doctrine of Mohammed. I may say, however, that I never allowed myself to be unconcerned with regard to any of the people amongst whom I journeyed as to their opinions about a presiding Deity, but, by collecting all the proofs I could from their habitual speech, I endeavoured to learn what were their conceptions about the sovereignty of an invisible power, and its influence upon the destinies of men.
MONBUTTOO THEOLOGY.
The Monbuttoo have undoubtedly very intelligent ideas of what the Nubians mean by their bowing of the knee, their prostrations to the ground, and their cry of “Allah!” The very designation which they use to express their conception of God as the concentration of the Supreme Being, opens a long vista into the kindred association of African people. In the district of the Mahas, the word now employed for the God of the Nubians is “Nor,” and, upon the authority of my interpreters, I may state that “Noro” was the term by which, after the double interpretation, “Allah” was rendered to me. When the question was put as to where “Noro” resided, the Monbuttoo, who was familiar with the Niam-niam dialect, pointed upwards to the sky; but when he was further pressed with the inquiry whether he couldsee him, he only answered with a smile. Whether the Monbuttoo are in the habit of consulting oracles, or whether they have any reliance upon auguries from fowls, or any fortune-telling apparatus corresponding to the “damma” of the Niam-niam, my residence among them was not long enough to permit me to ascertain.
Bongo and Dinka womenBongo woman. Dinka woman.(See description,vol. i., p.296.)
Bongo woman. Dinka woman.(See description,vol. i., p.296.)
FOOTNOTES:[19]Heuglin in 1863, had received intelligence of what was now proved, viz. that the same district from which issues the White Nile also gives birth to another stream, called by him the river of Sena.[20]A kindred plant of this genus is used in the West Indies, where the practice is generally carried on by slaves.[21]Livingstone observed a similar new growth of bark on the trunk of the Baobab (Adansonia), from which the Matabele obtain material for cord.[22]In the woodcut which represents Munza in full dress, the king has one of these clusters of feathers in his hat.[23]Iron rings of the heaviest calibre are current in Wandalo, south of Bornoo.[24]One of these tools is represented in the accompanying illustration.[25]A boat of this kind is seen in the view of therapids of the Keebaly, inChap. XVII.[26]Videvol. i.page 292.[27]The two examples of water-bottles given in the engravings are copies of the originals, which are deposited in the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin. To the one in three compartments handles are attached, being the only instance of the kind that I ever saw.[28]Videvol. i.page 547.
[19]Heuglin in 1863, had received intelligence of what was now proved, viz. that the same district from which issues the White Nile also gives birth to another stream, called by him the river of Sena.
[20]A kindred plant of this genus is used in the West Indies, where the practice is generally carried on by slaves.
[21]Livingstone observed a similar new growth of bark on the trunk of the Baobab (Adansonia), from which the Matabele obtain material for cord.
[22]In the woodcut which represents Munza in full dress, the king has one of these clusters of feathers in his hat.
[23]Iron rings of the heaviest calibre are current in Wandalo, south of Bornoo.
[24]One of these tools is represented in the accompanying illustration.
[25]A boat of this kind is seen in the view of therapids of the Keebaly, inChap. XVII.
[26]Videvol. i.page 292.
[27]The two examples of water-bottles given in the engravings are copies of the originals, which are deposited in the Ethnographical Museum in Berlin. To the one in three compartments handles are attached, being the only instance of the kind that I ever saw.
[28]Videvol. i.page 547.