STRUGGLES WITH THE LANGUAGE
“Trade” and “Bangala” languages—Making a vocabulary—Housekeeper and
master of works—Natives tell us words—Elements of difficulty—Glib
translations—Natives deceive us—Head-men offer us wines—We are a
conundrum to our neighbours—Confidence gained at last—Collect nearly
seven thousand root words—A mode of making derivations—Native
figures of speech.
On the main river there was a mixed language, commonly called among us
the “trade language”; by means of this _lingua franca_ we were able to
make ourselves understood at the various places at which we touched on
our search for a new site, and it stood us in good stead during our
early days among the Monsembe people. There was a large element of
Bobangi in it, some Kiswahili words, and a few Lower Congo words and
phrases. This “trade language” has now been supplanted by what is called
the “Bangala language,” which is a mixture of the languages already
mentioned, with a smattering of Bangala words thrown in.
For a considerable time Diboko (Nouvelles Anvers), or as it is most
frequently called by white men generally when speaking to natives,
Bangala, was the largest State station above Stanley Pool. A large
number of natives were imported there from all the tribes on the Upper
Congo, and this heterogeneous mass of humanity, often numbering over two
thousand soldiers, workmen, and women, held communication with each
other by means of the “trade language.” The smartest of the natives in
the towns adjacent to Diboko quickly learned this jargon, and used it
more or less fluently when communicating with the State soldiers and
workmen; and the white men hearing the natives of the neighbourhood
talking this lingo jumped to the conclusion that it was their own tongue
in which they were conversing, and thus called it the Bangala language,
and by that name it is now generally known on the Upper Congo.
As it was with the “trade language” so it is with the “Bangala”; it
varies considerably with the tribe using it. A Bobangi man when in
difficulty for a word or phrase while speaking “Bangala” will fill up
the hiatus with a word from his mother-tongue; the Bangalas, Bopoto, and
Bosoko peoples will fill up the gaps, each from their own language, so
that the “Bangala” spoken differs according to the district in which the
traveller may be sojourning. A crew running a steamer, or a gang of men
working on a station, though they may come from half a dozen different
tribes, will quickly arrange a lingo of their own, and the white man
running the steamer, or in charge of the station, will easily acquire
the resulting patter, and up to a certain point make himself fairly well
understood in all matters relating to the ordinary affairs of steamer or
station life. In the near future there will be, no doubt, a language
formed by a gradual selection of words and phrases from all the great
languages on the river from Stanley Pool to Stanley Falls. Such a means
of intercommunication will be a great boon to all concerned—black and
white alike—a better understanding will result, and, as a consequence, a
greater respect for each other.
Directly we settled at Monsembe we began to learn the language of the
people amongst whom we were living. The “trade language” was all that
was necessary to a passer-by; it answered the purpose of bartering for
food and dealing with the trivialities of life; but was absolutely
inadequate for conveying our message as missionaries, or for dealing
with the finer and deeper affairs of the minds, hearts, and souls of our
parishioners. We _had_ therefore to learn the language, and we had no
desire to shirk the drudgery, nor avoid the arduous, persistent effort
such a study demanded, for we regarded it as a part of our work, and not
the least interesting part either.
My colleague, Mr. Stapleton, and I arranged that one should take charge
of the house, buy the food brought for sale, and prepare the meals;
while the other should look after the workmen, clear the grass away,
mark out the ground, collect materials for building, and start the
erection of a larger and more comfortable house than our poor hut. We
were to alternate these duties—one was to be housekeeper one week, and
head of the works department the next week.
As I had been in the country nine years the heavier end of the stick
fell naturally to my lot. I had brought two men and a lad with me from
the Lower Congo, one Cameroons man capable of doing rough carpentry had
joined us at Bolobo, and we had hired two men at Lukolele, so we had
some help; but more was necessary, and we were able to engage a few
natives—as many as we required—at twenty rods per month as pay, five
rods per week rations, and one fathom of cloth per month to wear, which
came in all to about two shillings, invoice price. This seems very
small, but we were in the heart of Africa where brass rods and cloth
were worth, at that period, many times their invoice value, for their
buying power was very great, and food was so plentiful and cheap that 12
lbs. of native bread could be bought for a single brass rod, and a
large-size fish for another rod. The men often requested that we would
reduce their ration rods and proportionately increase their monthly pay,
which we did.
While we were digging the holes for the posts of our larger house, the
natives who were curiously watching us, said: “Oh, to do that sort of
thing,” imitating a scooping action with the words, “is _tima_.” So we
wrote down _tima_ = to dig; when we had finished the hole, they said it
was, “_lifoko_,” hence we put down _lifoko_ = hole; when we procured a
post, they told us its name was _mwete_, and that we recorded as _mwete_
= a post; on standing the post in the hole they informed us that that
was _suma mwete_, and we wrote that down as _suma mwete_ = to stand a
post in a hole. When we placed the wall-plate on they gave us a word for
that; when we brought hammer and nails out of our tool-house they
acquainted us with the names for those things; when we hammered a nail
to hold the wall-plate in position they gave us an expression for
nailing; and if by any accident we hit our finger instead of the nail,
they found a suitable expletive for that action also. Night by night my
colleague and I added the words together we had procured during the day
and counted them as eagerly as any miser might his gold, for we
recognized in them a means by which we should eventually be able to
deliver our message.
It was very difficult to acquire words for abstract ideas, as courage,
faith, love, recklessness, etc.; and it was not easy to procure words
for tangible objects—things that we could point to and touch. I remember
on one occasion wanting the word for table. There were five or six boys
standing around, and tapping the table with my forefinger I asked: “What
is this?” One boy said it was _dodela_, another that it was _etanda_, a
third stated it was _bokali_, a fourth that it was _elamba_, and the
fifth said it was _meza_. These various words we wrote in our notebook,
and congratulated ourselves that we were working among a people who
possessed so rich a language that they had five words for one article.
By and by we wanted a table brought to us, and selecting a word at
random from our list of five words, each one of which we supposed meant
table, we said: “_Benga bokali_” = fetch the table. The boys looked at
us with considerable astonishment, and, noticing their embarrassment, we
checked the list of words and found that one lad had thought we wanted
the word for tapping, so he told us _dodela_ = to tap; another
understood we were seeking the word for the material of which the table
was made, and he gave us _etanda_ = plank; another had an idea that we
required the word for hardness, that which caused the noise as we tapped
with our finger, and he told us _bokali_, and that is what we had told
them to bring: _benga bokali_ = fetch the hardness, a feat they could
not possibly accomplish; another thought we wished for a name for that
which covered the table, and his contribution was _elamba_ = cloth; and
the last lad, not being able, perhaps, to think of anything else, gave
us the word _meza_ = table—the very word we were seeking. We had to
scratch out the first four words, leave the word _meza_, and pass on,
having learned a good lesson on the evil results of jumping too quickly
to conclusions. If the reader knows no German, and should ever happen to
be in the company of some five or six Germans who do not understand a
single word of English, let him ask: “What is this?” in indifferent
German, and write down their several answers.
In learning and reducing to writing an unwritten language there are
always several elements that increase and complicate the difficulties.
There is what is in your own mind as the object for which you are
seeking a word, and there is what the native thinks is the object for
which you are wanting the word, which two things may be very different;
again, when you are searching for a word to embody an abstract quality
there is, on the one hand, the meaning you attach to the words you use
as illustrative of the idea for which you want the word; and there is,
on the other hand, the meaning which your native lad attaches to the
words you employ, and the two sets of meanings may widely vary. You may
unknowingly employ a wrong phrase in your description of the quality you
are wanting a word to express, and your teacher is either puzzled or
thrown entirely off the scent, and the result leads to a disastrous
mistake and, unless corrected later, to a false, misleading translation.
Suppose you want a word for healthiness; you say that a man walks well
every day, paddles for long distances without fatigue, eats his food
heartily, has no pains in his body, and never needs to go to a
medicine-man. “What do you call that?” Your helper will consider for a
moment, and then reply: “_Abe na bonganga._”
By and by you go over the description with another person, and he says
of such a man: “_Abe na nkonjo._” A few days later, in order to check
the former teachers, you try another young man, and he tells you: “_Abe
na nkasu._”
In due time, however, you discover that _abe na bonganga_ means: he has
a powerful charm; that _abe na nkonjo_ = he has good luck; and _abe na
nkasu_ = he is very strong; and that _nkuli_ is the proper word for
healthiness.
Your helpers have not purposely led you astray, for they have simply
stated from their point of view how they would regard such a fortunate
man who can walk, paddle, eat well, has no pains in his body, and never
needs medicine—he must possess a powerful charm, or have wonderful luck,
or be exceedingly strong. When you know the natives better you find they
rarely talk about their health, hence _abe na nkuli_ = he has
healthiness, would not come readily to their minds.
The difference between our point of view and that of our teachers
accounts for many of the difficulties we experience in learning a native
language; and I am afraid that a real appreciation of those difficulties
has rendered me somewhat suspicious of those travellers who, after a
very short acquaintance with the native language, translate glibly their
interviews with the people. Just recently I have been reading a book on
the Congo in which the following occurs: “_Bikei yonsono, malami be na
Mputu. Sola è koye._” This the author, who frequently takes credit to
himself for his knowledge of the native language, translates as follows:
“All I say is true, you say I lie. It is finished. I have seen those
things; you have not.” Whereas it should be: All things are very good in
Mputu (white man’s country). Truly friend! And the sentence in Bangala
should have been written: _Bike binso bilamu be na Mputu. Solo koye!_ No
Congo native would have been guilty of the grammatical blunders
perpetrated in the sentence as written by the author. I have frequently
noticed that the less a person knows about a native language the more
fluently and beautifully he will translate it, as he is bound only by
the limitations of his own imagination.
When we had been living at Monsembe a few months we were much vexed and
disgusted to find that the people had been deceiving us considerably
over their language. One day, while working with the men, I heard a
native workman shout out a request to another native labourer. From the
nature of the work being done I could easily guess what the phrase
really meant; but the wording of the sentence was entirely different
from that which they had given us to express the same idea. Going into
the house, I brought out my notebook and said: “Just now you called out
so and so,” repeating the short sentence that was still fresh in my
memory. “How is it we have another set of words in our book?”
A broad smile gradually spread over the native’s face as he replied:
“White man, when you came first to live amongst us we could not
understand the purpose of your coming. We brought you rubber and ivory;
but you said, ‘We do not trade in such things.’ We then brought you male
and female slaves, and asked you to buy them, and you replied, ‘We do
not trade in slaves.’ We then brought you a large jar of sugar-cane
wine, but you said that you did not drink wine, and we answered that we
would drink it for you, and even then you would not buy it. After that
we came to the conclusion that there was some wicked reason for your
presence in our town, some bad purpose we could not understand, and we
therefore arranged among ourselves not to teach you our language, but to
tell you as many words and phrases as we could belonging to other
languages.”
We found they had kept their agreement far too well, and as a result we
discovered that a large percentage of the words that we counted as good
coin of the realm were nothing but base metal, and had to be thrown out
of our notebook as utterly useless. Undoubtedly our presence was a great
mystery to the natives. They could easily understand the reasons why
traders and State officers were living in the country; but why men who
neither traded nor governed should live in their midst was a problem
discussed repeatedly around their evening fires. They had asked us more
than once: “Were you bad men in your country that you had to leave it to
come and live here in this land?” Or: “Is there no food in your country
that you come here and buy only fowls and vegetables of us?” Fowls were
plentiful and very cheap, costing us often less than twopence each, and
as it was the only fresh meat we could procure regularly, scarcely a day
passed without our having a fowl for dinner, hence the point and purpose
of their question. These inquiries we answered as fully as we could;
but, notwithstanding our replies, we remained a puzzle to our neighbours
and the subjects of many a long and heated talk.
One day some of the head-men came to us, and after solemnly taking their
seats on the stools their wives had brought for the purpose, they said:
“White men, we have come to talk a palaver with you.”
Our minds quickly ran over our actions during the last few days, for we
wondered what offence we had committed to cause such a visit from so
many serious-looking head-men. We could not recall any action or any
words that were likely to have given umbrage to the natives, so we
waited to hear from their lips of some breach of etiquette of which, all
unknowingly, we had been guilty.
Old Mata Bombo, a tall, straight man of over sixty years, was spokesman
for the deputation. “We have noticed,” he said, “that you have no wives,
and we think it would be well for you two white men to marry two of our
women; and we have brought some from which you can make your selection.”
And as he finished speaking he pointed to a row of giggling girls and
women, who while he was talking had lined up a few yards away.
As seriously as we could, we expressed our thanks for their concern on
our behalf, and also for their generosity in giving us such a fine array
from which to choose our wives; but continuing, I said: “I have a wife
in Mputu (white man’s country); and my friend, Mr. Stapleton, has a lady
there waiting to become his wife as soon as he returns home. We cannot
therefore accept your offer.”
“That is no difficulty,” they all answered in chorus. “You can marry two
of these now, and when your white wives come you can send these back to
their families, and there will be no palaver.”
We, however, persisted in declining with thanks, and at last it dawned
upon them that we were quite serious in our refusal. The head-men went
off in a huff, as they expected to make some profit out of the alliance;
and the women moved away chagrined that their charms had had so little
effect on us, and, possibly, they were also vexed by the knowledge that
they would be, for many a day to come, the butts of much ridicule and
chaff from the other women of the town and district.
Doubtless this incident added much to the problem concerning us that was
exercising the native mind. Here are two strong, healthy white men, rich
like other white men (the poorest white man is a millionaire in the eyes
of the natives), building houses in our town, working hard from sunrise
to sunset, refusing our ivory, and rubber, our slaves, our women, and
our drink. What are they? They say they have “come to tell us about
God.” But would white men leave home, wives, family, and work in the sun
as they do just to tell us about God? They say they have “come to help
us, to teach us many things and to do us good”; and they offer us
medicine when we are sick. How can they help us? What can they teach us?
How will they do us good? And as for their medicine, who would be
foolish enough to drink it? It might bewitch us. Such were the questions
surging through their minds (as we learned later); and there was no one
sufficiently in their confidence to help to the proper solution of this
difficult conundrum. Is it any wonder that they came to the conclusion
that we were bad men living in their district for some ulterior motive;
and the best way to treat us was to humour us in building, keep their
eyes alert to thwart any wicked designs, avoid teaching us their
language, which we seemed particularly eager to learn, and in the
meantime make as much money out of us as they could, either by fair or
dishonest means, it did not matter which?
Many of these thoughts we surmised from their actions, but their whole
course of reasoning we did not fully learn until very many months had
passed away, in fact, not until we had gained their entire confidence.
In the meantime we tried, in our poor way, to live the life of our
Master, Jesus Christ, among our barbarous neighbours, and their
suspicions about us gradually melted away. They would come and chat
freely with us, and by and by it was no uncommon thing to have three or
four lads sitting with us teaching us their language and helping us to a
right understanding of the rules that govern it; and men passing by
would stop, and, listening to the lads for a time, aid in elucidating
some knotty point. Patience, love, and straight dealing won their
confidence, their disinterested assistance, and at last their love.
Eventually, by the help of the people—old and young, for all became
interested in the work—we were able to collect close upon seven thousand
root words which, with their derivatives, give us a vocabulary of nearly
forty thousand words.
These derivatives are produced by very regular rules, which when once
understood, the learner possesses the key to a large treasury of words,
e.g.:
Verb. _Tula._ To do smithing.
Der. Noun. _Motuli._ A smith.
Der. Noun. _Motuliji._ One who causes the
smithing to be
done, a master.
Der. Noun. _Motuleliji._ One who causes smithing
to be done for
another, a foreman.
Der. Noun. _Ntula._ The smithing peculiar to
one smith, as distinct
from that of another
smith—his mode of
smithing.
Der. Noun. _Lituli._ The kind of smithing
needed by one article
as distinct from that
required by another.
Der. Noun. _Botula._ Skill or ability in
smithing.
Der. Noun. _Etuli._ The article worked upon.
Der. Noun. _Etulela._ Habit of smithing.
Der. Noun. _Etuleli._ Instrument with which to
do smithing.
Der. Noun. _Motula._ A smithing, e.g. _Atuli
motula_, literally, he
smiths a smithing, i.e.
he works at smithing.
Der. Noun. _Litulele._ A place for smithing = a
workshop, smithy.
Der. Noun. _Motuleli._ One who does smithing for
another, an employee at
smithing.
Another set of derivatives is made from the reversive form of the word,
as _kanga_ = to tie, _mokangi_ = a tier, _kangola_ = to untie,
_mokangoli_ = an untier; and this reversive form can give us derivatives
built on its idea, as from _kangolela_ = to untie for another, comes
_mokangoleli_ = one who unties for another; and from the causative
_kangolija_ = to cause to untie, comes _mokangoliji_ = one who causes to
untie; and, again, from the causative of its prepositional form
_kangolelija_ = to cause to untie something for someone, comes
_mokangoleliji_ = one who causes a person to untie something for or on
behalf of another.
One could mention the stative and the passive forms of the verb with
their respective prepositional and causative suffixes, each supplying
their own series of derivatives; but I fear the reader would weary of
them, and the student of African languages has now at his disposal many
grammars of Bantu tongues that will fully satisfy his love for
comparative language study. My only desire in these few paragraphs is to
show that the natives of the Congo do not talk a gibberish like a lot of
monkeys, but have at their disposal a magnificent language that excites
the admiration of every student. And it will be seen that such complex
languages are not to be mastered in a few weeks or months by any
globe-trotter who has a fancy for African travel, for they demand time
and constant study to appreciate their finesse, and special linguistic
ability to master their details and accurately define the words
collected, and the various derivatives discovered.
It must not be thought that for every verb all the various derivatives
can be found, as for obvious reasons some derivatives are not required
from some verbs, and other derivatives are not required from other
verbs, e.g. the reversive verb _tulola_ = to undo smithing, can be built
on _tula_ = to do smithing; but as such an idea as to undo smithing is
ridiculous, hence no derivatives founded on the reversive form _tulola_
are to be met with in the language. Smithing can be spoilt, and for that
they have a word, but when once a knife is forged it cannot be unforged,
i.e. it cannot be returned to iron ore like a knot that can be untied
and the string resume its original form.
Neither do the natives add to _every_ verb all the prefixes and suffixes
that can grammatically be affixed to them. It is very apparent that some
verbs are complicated with causative, prepositional, tense, and other
forms, and it is necessary to know for what the polysyllabic word stands
as a phrase, as there is no time to dissect it while a speech is in
progress. This is what I think the native does. He has no words for the
parts of speech as we have in grammar, he does not know that
_bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga_ is made up of the nominative pronominal
prefix _ba_ = they, the present tense progressive _ka_ = ing, the
objective pronominal prefix _mo_ = him, the verb _kanga_ = tie, the two
prepositional suffixes _ela_ = for, and _ela_ = with (the “a” elides
before “e”), and two objective nouns _ntaba_ = goat, and _nxinga_ =
string; but he knows that _bakamokangelela ntaba nxinga_ means “they are
tying the goat for him with string.” And if you, as a white man, while
speaking and translating, try to make new polysyllabic words by a new
combination of prefixes and suffixes, then you confuse your hearers (or
readers) to such an extent that they do not readily follow you. You will
have to educate them to a proper understanding of your new phrases, as
English folk had to learn Carlyle’s picture-phrases a generation ago
before they could appreciate their force and beauty.
It seems that in the course of time the various dialects have become
more or less stereotyped in the use of certain verbal suffixes, and if a
speaker now creates new combinations the hearers do not at once follow
him; or it may be that at some period in the past when a dialect was in
the making the minds of the people were very active, and the
combinations they formed are fixed and remembered, and no new ones are
being made, as the minds of the present generation are less gymnastic;
or, again, it may be that a man with some pretensions to intellectual
power created new combinations of verbal suffixes, and impressed them on
his generation, and thus superseded other word-phrases as Chaucer’s
English has been succeeded by a later form, and that by a still later,
and the forms of speech used by his characters have given place to later
forms that would have been scarcely understood in his day. However, in
the Bantu languages there are such possibilities of infinite
combinations that as the natives are now being educated it is impossible
to foretell what subtleties of thought they will be able to express
accurately with so plastic and beautiful a language.
The Boloki dialect, like all the Bantu languages, is alliterative in
construction, i.e. the prefix of the nominative of the sentence becomes
the prefix of all the words dependent on it, e.g.:
_ma_toko _ma_na _ma_bale _ma_nene _mama_nsombela we _ma_laba,
(literally)
spoons those two large (which me/bought for) you they are lost
= those two large spoons which you bought for me, they are lost. The
plural prefix _ma_ of the first word which is the nominative is prefixed
to all the other words because they are dependent on it. If it had been
in the singular it would have been _li_toko _li_na, etc. This
alliterative concord, as it is called, is very helpful to clearness of
meaning.
In the Boloki language there are eight classes of alliterative
concord,[7] i.e. all the nouns in the language belong to one or other of
these eight classes, and directly the class of a noun is decided its
pronominal prefixes, its possessive and demonstrative pronouns, etc.,
are at once known also by the fixed rules of usage, or, as we should
say, by the grammar of the language, and its plural form is also easily
ascertainable.
Footnote 7:
On the Lower Congo there are fifteen classes.
Class 1. _Motu_ = person. _Batu_ = persons, people.
Class 2. _Ndaku_ = house. _Mandaku_ = houses.
Class 3. _Loboko_ = arm. _Maboko_ = arms.
Class 4. _Linkeme_ = _Mankeme_ = guinea fowls.
guinea fowl.
Class 5. _Bopepe_ = pipe _Mapepe_ = pipe bowls.
bowl.
Class 6. _Lobeki_ = _Mbeki_ = saucepans.
saucepan.
Class 7. _Etanda_ = _Bitanda_ = planks.
plank.
Class 8. _Munke_ = eggs. _Minke_ = eggs.
Collective noun, _nke_ = a lot of eggs, and this makes its plural in
_manke_ = lots, as _manke mabale_ = two lots of eggs, as a noun of Class
2.
It took us a considerable time to work out this classification, as it
meant the collecting of a very large number of words and the writing
down of their singular and plural forms. It was easy enough to see that
all nouns beginning with “_e_” made their plurals by turning the “_e_”
into “_bi_”; but it was not so easy to decide about the “_lo_,” for we
found that some plurals were made by changing the “_lo_” into “_ma_,”
and others by turning “_lo_” into “_m_”; and when it is remembered that
there are sixteen ways of using every adjective, according as it is
singular or plural and belongs to one or other of the classes, it will
be recognized by the reader that an African language is something to
study and not despise as being “only a nigger’s language.” Of course, it
is easy to pick up a few words and phrases for ordinary daily use which,
when eked out with gestures, will carry the traveller a long way if he
has a factotum quick at sign and thought-reading; but for expressing the
finer shades of meaning, and also for receiving the same, an intimate
knowledge of the language is necessary. I have heard more than one white
man blame the missionary for “making a grammar for the nigger”; whereas
the missionary has simply found out the rules by which the “niggers”
talk, and written them down in such grammatical terms that others might
understand them.
I have inserted a short note on the verb[8] in the Appendix, and also a
note on the Boloki method of counting.[9] But before closing this
chapter I wish to write a few lines on the figurative mode of speaking
which is peculiar to all Bantu languages, and by no means confined to
the Boloki people. The phrases in italics are literal translations of
the native terms for expressing their emotions, etc.
Footnote 8:
See Appendix, Note 2, p. 336.
Footnote 9:
See Appendix, Note 3, p. 339.
When a native is worried his _heart is let down_, and should he have a
choice of two equally pleasant things his _heart is pulled in opposite
directions_; but when the heart has recovered its normal condition after
some violent outbreak it is said _to be stopped_, or after some
perturbing grief they say the _heart is stuck to the ribs_, as there are
no longer any flutterings.
A greedy, selfish person has a _heart of leaves_, and a person who is
recklessly indifferent to all the consequences of his action has _lost
his heart_, and one who is lying and treacherous in his ways has a
_heart that has broken loose_, over which the owner has no proper
control. Should you be kind enough to comfort a person in a great
sorrow, your action will be described as _sticking the heart to the
ribs_, and thus keeping it from moving about inside; or if you have
soothed a person in distress you are regarded as having _pushed his
heart down into its place_. When a person is irresolute in mind, and
undecided as to the best course to pursue, he describes his state by
saying, “_My heart is rolling from side to side_,” and the word used
describes a canoe rocking in a storm.
The moon, as its light begins to appear above the horizon, is said _to
be kicking out with its legs_, and when it shows itself above the
sky-line it is then _unstuck from the earth_. Sunset is called either
_the sun has become black_, or _the sun has entered_, or _when the fowls
go to roost_; and the Pleiades are spoken of as a _crowd of young
women_; and the bright star Venus as it draws near the moon is named
_the wife of the moon_.
When you desire to warn a person you tell him _to throw his eyes about_,
and a person who frowns is said _to tie his eyebrows_. A conceited
person who wants the whole path to himself is scornfully asked, “_Did
you plant the earth?_” (i.e. Did you create the world?), as though it
were a pumpkin over which he had sole rights of ownership. A lad who
gives an impertinent answer is described as having a _sharp mouth_,
while one who is not good at repartee is looked upon as having _no mouth
at all_.
A person who frequently reverts to the cause of a quarrel, or a woman
who is constantly nagging, has a word applied to her which means the
_bubbling up of boiling water_; and one who does not contribute his
share to the general talk around the evening fire is likened to the
useless _fibrous core of a cassava root_, only fit to be thrown away;
while a person who answers a question not addressed to him is _picking
up something before it is lost_.
The native word for an _umbrella_ means a _large bat_. When the eyes are
dimmed from any cause they are said to _be covered with cobwebs_; and a
man suffering from hunger says, “_My waist is stuck to my back_”; i.e. I
am so empty of food that there is nothing to keep the front of the
stomach from sticking to the backbone. A foolish, credulous person is
likened to _a squirrel constantly nodding its head in assent to
everything that is said_. To become conscious of someone behind looking
at you is expressed in the phrase: _to feel the back heavy_. The Congo
crow has a broad white band round its neck, and when the river is dark
with the reflection of the frowning storm-clouds above, and the wind is
blowing up-river, covering the water with white-crested waves, such
waves are called by the natives _a flock of crows_.
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