The people of the Congo are all dark-skinned Africans of the same race
as the Baganda, except two tribes which are quite different. These
other people are called the Pigmies, which means they are very small.
None of the Congo people have made a kingdom of their own like the
Baganda. They belong to different tribes, each with its own customs
and language. Most of them wear a piece of bark-cloth or the skin of
an animal for clothing, but some wear very little, and paint or tattoo
their bodies. Their houses are built of reeds, some tribes covering
the reed-walls with a thick plaster of mud, others leaving them
unplastered. The roofs of some are thatched with the long grass of
the country, others are made of plaited palm-leaf mats. Each tribe
has its own way of making a house, but no one builds very big houses
or large villages. None of the houses last more than three or four
years; but these people do not want their houses to stand for many
years, because they are not like the Baganda who chose a country and
stay there always. The Congo tribes move their villages after a few
years and live somewhere else. So villages are always shifting, and
nothing they make is wanted to last long. Some weave mats and baskets
out of palm-leaves or reeds; others make pottery; others make
iron-headed spears and hoes for their fields, but only a few things
that can easily be carried are wanted to last. When the village
moves, most of the things must be left behind. So, until a tribe
decides to stay always in one place, it does not as a rule learn to
make many useful and beautiful things.
Again, often men of different tribes build their villages near one
another, but the people of the two villages keep quite separate. Each
has its own chief and follows its own customs. Several villages of
one tribe may all obey a great chief, but no tribe has a chief so
powerful as the king of Uganda. The Congo tribes have not learnt
nearly so much as some other African peoples. The customs of each
tribe depend partly on which district of this large country they live
in. Those who live near the salt sea eat sea-fish, and get salt by
boiling the sea-water in their cooking-pots until the pot is quite
dry, and then the salt is left behind after the water has gone. It
was clever of those people to find out they could get salt that way.
Others, who live near the great rivers, make canoes out of the
tree-trunks with the inside hollowed out. In these they go out and
catch river-fish to eat. Others live in a country good for goats, and
these keep large herds of goats. Some make good earthenware cups and
pots, others carve wooden ones. Some wear ornaments made of shells,
some of beads, some of berries, some of teeth; everyone uses the
things he can get most easily. But each tribe follows its own
customs, and despises those of its neighbours. They are afraid and
jealous of each other, and there is constant fighting between the
various groups of villages.
Some tribes want to be peaceful, and these plant their food, which is
maize or millet, or some other grain which can be ground into flour,
then made into porridge. Others are hunters or fishermen, and chiefly
eat meat or fish. Some live by fighting other tribes, and capturing
their food and slaves. Some of these are called cannibals, which
means they eat the flesh of human beings. People who do this are
despised by all other races in the world, as they are so ignorant that
they do not know that it is wrong to eat other men. Many of the
people of the Congo are not cannibals, but there is always war and
fighting between the different tribes, and it is dangerous to travel
because so many are always watching to rob and kill strangers. The
lions and other wild beasts are dangerous, but the bands of fighting
men are still more to be feared. Everything is wild and unsafe, and
there is no law outside the village, so each one has to protect
himself. Among the dark-skinned Central African people each village
has a chief who keeps order within it, and often a group of villages
of one tribe has a great chief. There are old laws and customs of
each tribe, and if anyone breaks one of these and injures someone
else, the chief calls him and asks all about it, and punishes the man
who did the wrong.