THE AFRICAN NEGRO: I. SUDANESE
Conspectus--The Negro-Caucasic "Great Divide"--The Negro Domain--
Negro Origins--Persistence of the Negro Type--Two Main Sections:
Sudanese and Bantus--Contrasts and Analogies--Sudanese and Bantu
Linguistic Areas--The "Drum Language"--West Sudanese Groups--_The
Wolofs_: Primitive Speech and Pottery; Religious Notions--_The
Mandingans_: Culture and Industries; History; the Guine and Mali
Empires--_The Felups_: Contrasts between the Inland and Coast
Peoples; Felup Type and Mental Characters--_Timni_--African
Freemasonry--_The Sierra Leonese_--Social Relations--_The
Liberians_--_The Krumen_--_The Upper Guinea Peoples_--Table of the
Gold Coast and Slave Coast Tribes--Ashanti Folklore--Fetishism; its
true inwardness--Ancestry Worship and the "Customs"--The Benin
Bronzes--_The Mossi_--African Agnostics--Central Sudanese--General
Ethnical and Social Relations--_The Songhai_--Domain--Origins--
Egyptian Theories--Songhai Records--_The Hausas_--Dominant Social
Position--Speech and Mental Qualities--Origins--_Kanembu_; _Kanuri_;
_Baghirmi_; _Mosgu_--Ethnical and Political Relations in the Chad
Basin--The Aborigines--Islam and Heathendom--Slave-Hunting--Arboreal
Strongholds--Mosgu Types and Contrasts--The Cultured Peoples of
Central Sudan--Kanem-Bornu Records--Eastern Sudanese--Range of the
Negro in Eastern Sudan--_The Mabas_--Ethnical Relations in Wadai--
_The Nubas_--The Nubian Problem--Nubian Origins and Affinities--
The Negro Peoples of the Nile-Congo Watersheds--Political
Relations--Two Physical Types--_The Dinka_--Linguistic Groups--
Mental Qualities--Cannibalism--The African Cannibal Zone--Arts and
Industries--High Appreciation of Pictorial Art--Sense of Humour.
CONSPECTUS OF SUDANESE NEGROES.
#Present Range.# _Africa south of the Sahara, less Abyssinia, Galla,
Somali and Masai lands; Tripolitana, Mauritania and Egypt sporadically;
several of the southern United States; West Indies; Guiana; parts of
Brazil and Peru._
#Hair#, _always black, rather short, and crisp, frizzly or woolly, flat
in transverse section_; #skin-colour#, _very dark brown or chocolate and
blackish, never quite black_; #skull#, _generally dolichocephalous_
(_index 72_); #jaws#, _prognathous_; #cheek-bone#, _rather small,
moderately retreating, rarely prominent_; #nose#, _very broad at base,
flat, small, platyrrhine_; #eyes#, _large, round, prominent, black with
yellowish cornea_; #stature#, _usually tall, 1.78 m. (5 ft. 10 in.)_;
#lips#, _often tumid and everted_; #arms#, _disproportionately long_;
#legs#, _slender with small calves_; #feet#, _broad, flat, with low
instep and larkspur heel_.
#Temperament#, _sensuous, indolent, improvident_; _fitful, passionate
and cruel, though often affectionate and faithful_; _little sense of
dignity, and slight self-consciousness, hence easy acceptance of yoke of
slavery_; _musical_.
#Speech#, _almost everywhere in the agglutinating state, generally with
suffixes_.
#Religion#, _anthropomorphic_; _spirits endowed with human attributes,
mostly evil and more powerful than man_; _ancestry-worship, fetishism,
and witchcraft very prevalent_; _human sacrifices to the dead a common
feature_.
#Culture#, _low_; _cannibalism formerly rife, perhaps universal, still
general in some regions_; _no science or letters_; _arts and industries
confined mainly to agriculture, pottery, wood-carving, weaving, and
metallurgy_; _no perceptible progress anywhere except under the
influence of higher races_.
Main[129] Divisions.
#West Sudanese#: _Wolof_; _Mandingan_; _Felup_; _Timni_; _Kru_; _Sierra
Leonese_; _Liberian_; _Tshi, Ewe, and Yoruba_; _Ibo_; _Efik_; _Borgu_;
_Mossi_.
#Central Sudanese#: _Songhai_; _Hausa_; _Mosgu_; _Kanembu_; _Kanuri_;
_Baghirmi_; _Yedina_.
#East Sudanese#: _Maba_; _Fur_; _Nuba_; _Shilluk_; _Dinka_; _Bari_;
_Abaka_; _Bongo_; _Mangbattu_; _Zandeh_; _Momfu_; _Base_; _Barea_.
* * * * *
From the anthropological standpoint Africa falls into two distinct
sections, where the highest (Caucasic) and the lowest (Negro) divisions
of mankind have been conterminous throughout all known time. Mutual
encroachments and interpenetrations have probably been continuous, and
indeed are still going on. Yet so marked is the difference between the
two groups, and such is the tenacity with which each clings to its
proper domain, that, despite any very distinct geographical frontiers,
the ethnological parting line may still be detected. Obliterated at one
or two points, and at others set back always in favour of the higher
division, it may be followed from the Atlantic coast along the course of
the Senegal river east by north to the great bend of the Niger at
Timbuktu; then east by south to Lake Chad, beyond which it runs nearly
due east to Khartum, at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles.
From this point the now isolated Negro groups (Base and Barea), on the
northern slope of the Abyssinian plateau, show that the original
boundary was at first continued still east to the Red Sea at or about
Massowa. But for many ages the line appears to have been deflected from
Khartum along the White Nile south to the Sobat confluence, then
continuously south-eastwards round by the Sobat Valley to the Albert
Nyanza, up the Somerset Nile to the Victoria Nyanza, and thence with a
considerable southern bend round Masailand eastwards to the Indian Ocean
at the equator.
All the land north of this irregular line belongs to the Hamito-Semitic
section of the Caucasic division, all south of it to the western
(African) section of the Ulotrichous division. Throughout this
region--which comprises the whole of Sudan from the Atlantic to the
White Nile, and all south of Sudan except Abyssinia, Galla, Somali and
Masai lands--the African Negro, clearly, distinguished from the other
main groups by the above summarised physical[130] and mental qualities,
largely predominates everywhere and in many places exclusively. The
route by which he probably reached these intertropical lands, where he
may be regarded as practically indigenous, has been indicated in
_Ethnology_, Chs. X. and XI.
As regards the date of this occupation, nothing can be clearly proved.
"The history of Africa reaches back but a short distance, except, of
course, as far as the lower Nile Valley and Roman Africa is concerned;
elsewhere no records exist, save tribal traditions, and these only
relate to very recent events. Even archaeology, which can often sketch
the main outlines of a people's history, is here practically powerless,
owing to the insufficiency of data. It is true that stone implements of
palaeolithic and neolithic types are found sporadically in the Nile
Valley[131], Somaliland, on the Zambesi, in Cape Colony and the northern
portions of the Congo Free State, as well as in Algeria and Tunisia; but
the localities are far too few and too widely separated to warrant the
inference that they are to be in any way connected. Moreover, where
stone implements are found they are, as a rule, very near, even actually
on, the surface of the earth," and they are rarely, if ever, found in
association with bones of extinct animals. "Nothing occurs resembling
the regular stratification of Europe, and consequently no argument based
on geological grounds is possible[132]." The exceptions are the lower
Nile and Zambesi where true palaeoliths have been found not only on the
surface (which in this case is not inconsistent with great antiquity)
but also in stratified gravel. Implements of palaeolithic _type_ are
doubtless common, and may be compared to Chellean, Mousterian and even
Solutrian specimens[133], but primitive culture is not necessarily
pleistocene. Ancient forms persisted in Egypt down to the historic
period, and even patination is no sure test of age, so until further
evidence is found the antiquity of man in Africa must remain
undecided[134].
Yet since some remote if undated epoch the specialised Negro type, as
depicted on the Egyptian monuments some thousands of years ago[135], has
everywhere been maintained with striking uniformity. "Within this wide
domain of the black Negro there is a remarkably general similarity of
type.... If you took a Negro from the Gold Coast of West Africa and
passed him off amongst a number of Nyasa natives, and if he were not
remarkably distinguished from them by dress or tribal marks, it would
not be easy to pick him out[136]."
Nevertheless considerable differences are perceptible to the practised
eye, and the contrasts are sufficiently marked to justify ethnologists
in treating the _Sudanese_ and the _Bantu_ as two distinct subdivisions
of the family. In both groups the relatively full-blood natives are
everywhere very much alike, and the contrasts are presented chiefly
amongst the mixed or Negroid populations. In Sudan the disturbing
elements are both Hamitic (Berbers and Tuaregs) and Semitic (Arabs);
while in Bantuland they are mainly Hamitic (Galla) in all the central
and southern districts, and Arabs on the eastern seaboard from the
equator to Sofala beyond the Zambesi. To the varying proportions of
these several ingredients may perhaps be traced the often very marked
differences observable on the one hand between such Sudanese peoples as
the Wolof, Mandingans, Hausa, Nubians, Zandeh[137], and Mangbattu, and
on the other between all these and the Swahili, Baganda, Zulu-Xosa,
Be-Chuana, Ova-Herero and some other Negroid Bantu.
But the distinction is based on social, linguistic, and cultural, as
well as on physical grounds, so that, as at present constituted, the
Sudanese and Bantu really constitute two tolerably well-defined branches
of the Negro family. Thanks to Muhammadan influences, the former have
attained a much higher level of culture. They cultivate not only the
alimentary but also the economic plants, such as cotton and indigo; they
build stone dwellings, walled towns, substantial mosques and minarets;
they have founded powerful states, such as those of the Hausa and
Songhai, of Ghana and Bornu, with written records going back a thousand
years, although these historical peoples are all without exception
half-breeds, often with more Semitic and Hamitic than Negro blood in
their veins.
No such cultured peoples are anywhere to be found in Bantuland except on
the east coast, where the "Moors" founded great cities and flourishing
marts centuries before the appearance of the Portuguese in the eastern
seas. Among the results of the gold trade with these coastal settlements
may be classed the Zimbabwe monuments and other ruins explored by
Theodore Bent in the mining districts south of the Zambesi. But in all
the Negro lands free from foreign influences no true culture has ever
been developed, and here cannibalism, witchcraft, and sanguinary
"customs" are often still rife, or have been but recently suppressed by
the direct action of European administrations.
Numberless authorities have described the Negro as unprogressive, or, if
left to himself, incapable of progress in his present physical
environment. Sir H. H. Johnston, who knows him well, goes much further,
and speaks of him as a fine animal, who, "in his wild state, exhibits a
stunted mind and a dull content with his surroundings, which induces
mental stagnation, cessation of all upward progress, and even
retrogression towards the brute. In some respects I think the tendency
of the Negro for several centuries past has been an actual retrograde
one[138]."
There is one point in which the Bantu somewhat unaccountably compare
favourably with the Sudanese. In all other regions the spread of culture
has tended to bring about linguistic unity, as we see in the Hellenic
world, where all the old idioms were gradually absorbed in the "common
dialect" of the Byzantine empire, again in the Roman empire, where Latin
became the universal speech of the West, and lastly in the Muhammadan
countries, where most of the local tongues have nearly everywhere,
except in Sudan, disappeared before the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish
languages.
But in Negroland the case is reversed, and here the less cultured Bantu
populations all, without any known exception, speak dialects of a single
mother-tongue, while the greatest linguistic confusion prevails amongst
the semi-civilised as well as the savage peoples of Sudan.
Although the Bantu language may, as some suppose[139], have originated
in the north and spread southwards to the Congo, Zambesi, and Limpopo
basins, it cannot now be even remotely affiliated to any one of the
numerous distinct forms of speech current in the Sudanese domain. Hence
to allow time for its diffusion over half the continent, the initial
movement must be assigned to an extremely remote epoch, and a
corresponding period of great duration must be postulated for the
profound linguistic disintegration that is everywhere witnessed in the
region between the Atlantic and Abyssinia. Here agglutination, both with
prefixed and postfixed particles, is the prevailing morphological order,
as in the Mandingan, Fulah, Nubian, Dinkan, and Mangbattu groups. But
every shade of transition is also presented between true agglutination
and inflection of the Hamito-Semitic types, as in Hausa, Kanuri, Kanem,
Dasa or Southern and Teda or Northern Tibu[140].
Elsewhere, and especially in Upper Guinea, the originally agglutinating
tongues have developed on lines analogous to those followed by Tibetan,
Burmese, Chinese, and Otomi in other continents, with corresponding
results. Thus the Tshi, Ewe, and Yoruba, surviving members of a now
extinct stock-language, formerly diffused over the whole region between
Cape Palmas and the Niger Delta, have become so burdened with
monosyllabic homophones (like-sounding monosyllables), that to indicate
their different meanings several distinguishing tones have been evolved,
exactly as in the Indo-Chinese group. In Ewe (Slave Coast) the root
_do_, according as it is toned may mean to put, let go, tell, kick, be
sad, join, change, grow big, sleep, prick, or grind. So great are the
ravages of phonetic decay, that new expedients have been developed to
express quite simple ideas, as in Tshi (Gold Coast) _addanmu_, room
(_addan_ house, _mu_ interior); _akwancherifo_, a guide (_akwan_ road,
_cheri_ to show, _fo_ person); _ensahtsiabah_, finger (_ensah_ hand,
_tsia_ small, _abbah_ child = hand's-little-child); but middle-finger =
"hand's-little-chief" (_ensahtsiahin_, where _ehin_ chief takes the
place of _abbah_ child[141]).
Common both to Sudanese and Bantus, especially about the western
borderlands (Upper Guinea, Cameruns, etc.) is the "drum-language," which
affords a striking illustration of the Negro's musical faculty. "Two or
three drums are usually used together, each producing a different note,
and they are played either with the fingers or with two sticks. The
lookers-on generally beat time by clapping the hands. To a European,
whose ear and mind are untrained for this special faculty, the rhythm
of a drum expresses nothing beyond a repetition of the same note at
different intervals of time; but to a native it expresses much more. To
him the drum can and does speak, the sounds produced from it forming
words, and the whole measure or rhythm a sentence. In this way, when
company drums are being played at an _ehsadu_ [palaver], they are made
to express and convey to the bystanders a variety of meanings. In one
measure they abuse the men of another company, stigmatising them as
fools and cowards; then the rhythm changes, and the gallant deeds of
their own company are extolled. All this, and much more, is conveyed by
the beating of drums, and the native ear and mind, trained to select and
interpret each beat, is never at fault. The language of drums is as well
understood as that which they use in their daily life. Each chief has
his own call or motto, sounded by a particular beat of his drums. Those
of Amankwa Tia, the Ashanti general who fought against us in the war of
1873-4, used to say _P[)i]r[)i]h[=u]h_, hasten. Similar mottoes are also
expressed by means of horns, and an entire stranger in the locality can
at once translate the rhythm into words[142]."
Similar contrasts and analogies will receive due illustration in the
detailed account here following of the several more representative
Sudanese groups.
WEST SUDANESE.
_Wolofs._ Throughout its middle and lower course the Senegal river,
which takes its name from the Zenaga Berbers, forms the ethnical
"divide" between the Hamites and the Sudanese Negroes. The latter are
here represented by the Wolofs, who with the kindred _Jolofs_ and
_Serers_ occupy an extensive territory between the Senegal and the
Gambia rivers. Whether the term "Wolof" means "Talkers," as if they
alone were gifted with the faculty of speech, or "Blacks" in contrast to
the neighbouring "Red" Fulahs, both interpretations are fully justified
by these Senegambians, at once the very blackest and amongst the most
garrulous tribes in the whole of Africa. The colour is called "ebony,"
and they are commonly spoken of as "Blacks of the Black." They are also
very tall even for Negroes, and the Serers especially may claim to be
"the Patagonians of the Old World," men six feet six inches high and
proportionately muscular being far from rare in the coast districts
about St Louis and Dakar.
Their language, which is widespread throughout Senegambia, may be taken
as a typical Sudanese form of speech, unlike any other in its peculiar
agglutinative structure, and unaffected even in its vocabulary by the
Hamitic which has been current for ages on the opposite bank of the
Senegal. A remarkable feature is the so-called "article," always
postfixed and subject to a two-fold series of modifications, first in
accordance with the initial consonant of the noun, for which there are
six possible consonantal changes (_w_, _m_, _b_, _d_, _s_, _g_), and
then according as the object is present, near, not near, and distant,
for which there are again four possible vowel changes (_i_, _u_, _o_,
_a_), or twenty-four altogether, a tremendous redundancy of useless
variants as compared with the single English form _the_. Thus this
Protean particle begins with _b_, _d_ or _w_ to agree with _baye_,
father, _digene_, woman, or _fos_, horse, and then becomes _bi_, _bu_,
_bo_, _ba_; _di_, _du_ etc.; _wi_, _wu_ etc. to express the presence and
the varying distances of these objects: _baye-bi_ = father-the-here;
_baye-bu_ = father-the-there; _baye-bo_ = father-the-yonder; _baye-ba_ =
father-the-away in the distance.
All this is curious enough; but the important point is that it probably
gives us the clue to the enigmatic alliterative system of the Bantu
languages as explained in _Ethnology_, p. 273, the position of course
being reversed. Thus as in Zulu _in_- kose requires _en_- kulu, so in
Wolof _baye_ requires _bi_, _di_gene _di_, and so on. There are other
indications that the now perfected Bantu grew out of analogous but less
developed processes still prevalent in the Sudanese tongues.
Equally undeveloped is the Wolof process of making earthenware, as
observed by M. F. Regnault amongst the natives brought to Paris for the
Exhibition of 1895. He noticed how one of the women utilised a somewhat
deep bowl resting on the ground in such a way as to be easily spun round
by the hand, thus illustrating the transition between hand-made and
turned pottery. Kneading a lump of clay, and thrusting it into the
bowl, after sprinkling the sides with some black dust to prevent
sticking, she made a hollow in the mass, enlarging and pressing it
against the bowl with the back of the fingers bent in, the hand being
all the time kept in a vertical position. At the same time the bowl was
spun round with the left palm, this movement combined with the pressure
exerted by the right hand causing the sides of the vessel to rise and
take shape. When high enough it was finished off by thickening the clay
to make a rim. This was held in the right hand and made fast to the
mouth of the vessel by the friction caused by again turning the bowl
with the left hand. This transitional process is frequently met with in
Africa[143].
Most of the Wolofs profess themselves Muhammadans, the rest Catholics,
while all alike are heathen at heart; only the former have charms with
texts from the Koran which they cannot read, and the latter medals and
scapulars of the "Seven Dolours" or of the Trinity, which they cannot
understand. Many old rites still flourish, the household gods are not
forgotten, and for the lizard, most popular of tutelar deities, the
customary milk-bowl is daily replenished. Glimpses are thus afforded of
the totemic system which still survives in a modified form amongst the
Be-Chuana, the Mandingans, and several other African peoples, but has
elsewhere mostly died out in Negroland. The infantile ideas associated
with plant and animal totem tokens have been left far behind, when a
people like the Serers have arrived at such a lofty conception as
Takhar, god of justice, or even the more materialistic Tiurakh, god of
wealth, although the latter may still be appealed to for success in
nefarious projects which he himself might scarcely be expected to
countenance. But the harmony between religious and ethical thought has
scarcely yet been reached even amongst some of the higher races.
_Mandingans._ In the whole of Sudan there is scarcely a more numerous or
widespread people than the Mandingans, who--with their endless
ramifications, _Kassonke_, _Jallonke_, _Soninke_, _Bambara_, _Vei_ and
many others--occupy most of the region between the Atlantic and the
Joliba (Upper Niger) basin, as far south as about 9 deg. N. latitude. Within
these limits it is often difficult to say who are, or who are not
members of this great family, whose various branches present all the
transitional shades of physical type and culture grades between the true
pagan Negro and the Muhammadan Negroid Sudanese.
Even linguistic unity exists only to a limited extent, as the numerous
dialects of the Mande stock-language have often diverged so greatly as
to constitute independent tongues quite unintelligible to the
neighbouring tribes. The typical Mandingans, however--Faidherbe's
Malinka-Soninke group--may be distinguished from the surrounding
populations by their more softened features, broader forehead, larger
nose, fuller beard, and lighter colour. They are also distinguished by
their industrious habits and generally higher culture, being rivalled by
few as skilled tillers of the soil, weavers, and workers in iron and
copper. They thus hold much the same social position in the west that
the Hausa do in the central region beyond the Niger, and the French
authorities think that "they are destined to take a position of ever
increasing importance in the pacified Sudan of the future[144]."
Thus history brings about its revenges, for the Mandingans proper of the
Kong plateau may fairly claim, despite their late servitude to the Fulah
conquerors and their present ready acceptance of French rule, to be a
historical people with a not inglorious record of over 1000 years, as
founders of the two great empires of Melle and Guine, and of the more
recent states of Moasina, Bambara, Kaarta, Kong, and others about the
water-parting between the head-streams of the Niger, and the rivers
flowing south to the Gulf of Guinea. Here is the district of Manding,
which is the original home of the _Manding'ke_, _i.e._ "People of
Manding," as they are generally called, although _Mande_ appears to be
the form used by themselves[145]. Here also was the famous city of Mali
or Melle, from which the Upper Niger group take the name of _Mali'nke_,
in contradistinction to the _Soni'nke_ of the Senegal river, the
_Jalo'nke_ of Futa-Jallon, and the _Bamana_ of Bambara, these being the
more important historical and cultured groups.
According to native tradition and the annals of Ahmed Baba, rescued from
oblivion by Barth[146], the first Mandingan state of Guine (Ghana,
Ghanata), a name still surviving in the vague geographical term
"Guinea," goes back to pre-Muhammadan times. Wakayamangha, its legendary
founder, is supposed to have flourished 300 years before the Hejira, at
which date twenty-two kings had already reigned. Sixty years after that
time the Moslem Arabs or Berbers are said to have already reached West
Sudan, where they had twelve mosques in Ghana, first capital of the
empire, and their chief stronghold till the foundation of Jinni on the
Upper Niger (1043 A.D.).
Two centuries later (1235-60) the centre of the Mandingan rule was
transferred to Mali, which under the great king Mansa-Musa (1311-31)
became the most powerful Sudanese state of which there is any authentic
record. For a time it included nearly the whole of West Sudan, and a
great part of the western Sahara, beside the Songhai State with its
capital Gogo, and Timbuktu. Mansa-Musa, who, in the language of the
chronicler, "wielded a power without measure or limits," entered into
friendly relations with the emperor of Morocco, and made a famous
pilgrimage to Mecca, the splendours of which still linger in the memory
of the Mussulman populations through whose lands the interminable
procession wound its way. He headed 60,000 men of arms, says Ahmed Baba,
and wherever he passed he was preceded by 500 slaves, each bearing a
gold stick weighing 500 mitkals (14 lbs.), the whole representing a
money value of about L4,000,000 (?). The people of Cairo and Mecca were
dazzled by his wealth and munificence; but during the journey a great
part of his followers were seized by a painful malady called in their
language _tuat_, and this word still lives in the Oasis of Tuat, where
most of them perished.
Even after the capture of Timbuktu by the Tuaregs (1433), Mali long
continued to be the chief state in West Nigritia, and carried on a
flourishing trade, especially in slaves and gold. But this gold was
still supposed to come from the earlier kingdom of Guine, which word
consequently still remains associated with the precious metal in the
popular belief. About the year 1500 Mali was captured by the Songhai
king, Omar Askia, after which the empire fell to pieces, and its memory
now survives only in the ethnical term _Mali'nke_.
_Felups._ From the semi-civilised Muhammadan negroid Mandingans to the
utterly savage full-blood Negro Felups the transition is abrupt, but
instructive. In other regions the heterogeneous ethnical groups crowded
into upland valleys, as in the Caucasus, have been called the "sweepings
of the plains." But in West Sudan there are no great ranges towering
above the lowlands, and even the "Kong Mountains" of school geographies
have now been wiped out by L. G. Binger[147]. Hence the rude aborigines
of the inland plateau, retreating before the steady advance of Islam,
found no place of refuge till they reached the indented fjord-like
Atlantic seaboard, where many still hold their ground. This is the
explanation of the striking contrasts now witnessed between the interior
and so many parts of the West Coast; on the one hand powerful political
organisations with numerous, more or less homogeneous, and
semi-civilised negroid populations, on the other an infinite tangle of
ethnical and linguistic groups, all alike weltering in the sheerest
savagery, or in grades of barbarism even worse than the wild state.
Even the _Felups_, whose territory now stretches from the Gambia to the
Cacheo, but formerly reached the Geba and the Bissagos Islands, do not
form a single group. Originally the name of an obscure coast-tribe, the
term Felup or Fulup has been extended by the Portuguese traders to all
the surrounding peoples--_Ayamats_, _Jolas_, _Jigushes_, _Vacas_,
_Joats_, _Karons_, _Banyuns_, _Banjars_, _Fuluns_, _Bayots_ and some
others who amid much local diversity, presented a sufficiently general
outward resemblance to be regarded as a single people by the first
European settlers. The Felups proper display the physical and mental
characters of the typical Negro even in an exaggerated form--black
colour, flat nose, wide nostrils, very thick and everted lips, red on
the inner surface, stout muscular frame, correlated with coarse animal
passions, crass ignorance, no arts, industry, or even tribal
organisation, so that every little family group is independent and
mostly in a state of constant feud with its neighbours. All go naked,
armed with bow and arrow, and live in log huts which, though strongly
built, are indescribably filthy[148].
Mother-right frequently prevails, rank and property being transmitted in
the female line. There is some notion of a superhuman being vaguely
identified with the sky, the rain, wind or thunderstorm. But all live in
extreme terror of the medicine-man, who is openly courted, but inwardly
detested, so that whenever it can be safely done the tables are turned,
the witch-doctor is seized and tortured to death.
_Timni, Kru, Sierra-Leonese, Liberians._ Somewhat similar conditions
prevail all along the seaboard from Sierra Leone to, and beyond, Cape
Palmas, disturbed or modified by the Liberian intruders from the North
American plantations, and by the slaves rescued in the thirties and
forties by the British cruisers and brought to Sierra Leone, where their
descendants now live in settled communities under European influences.
These "coloured" citizens of Sierra Leone and Liberia, who are so often
the butt of cheap ridicule, and are themselves perhaps too apt to scorn
the kindred "niggers" of the bush, have to be carefully distinguished
from these true aborigines who have never been wrenched from their
natural environment.
In Sierra Leone the chief aboriginal groups on the coastlands are the
_Timni_ of the Rokelle river, flanked north and south by two branches of
the _Bulams_, and still further south the _Gallinas_, _Veys_ and
_Golas_; in the interior the _Lokkos_, _Limbas_, _Konos_, and _Kussas_,
with _Kurankos_, _Mendis_, _Hubus_, and other Mandingans and Fulahs
everywhere in the Hinterland.
Of all these the most powerful during the British occupation have always
been the Timni (Timani, Temne), who sold to the English the peninsula on
which now stands Freetown, but afterwards crying off the bargain,
repeatedly tried to drive the white and coloured intruders into the
sea. They are a robust people of softened Negro type, and more
industrious farmers than most of the other natives. Like the Wolofs they
believe in the virtue both of Christian and Moslem amulets, but have
hitherto lent a deaf ear to the preachers of both these religions.
Nevertheless the Protestant missionaries have carefully studied the
Timni language, which possesses an oral literature rich in legends,
proverbs, and folklore[149].
The Timni district is a chief centre of the so-called _porro_
fraternity[150], a sort of secret society or freemasonry widely diffused
throughout the coastlands, and possessing its own symbols, skin
markings, passwords, and language. It presents curious points of analogy
with the brotherhoods of the Micronesian islanders, but appears to be
even more potent for good and evil, a veritable religious and political
state within the state. "When their mandates are issued all wars and
civil strife must cease, a general truce is established, and bloodshed
stopped, offending communities being punished by bands of armed men in
masks. Strangers cannot enter the country unless escorted by a member of
the guild, who is recognised by passwords, symbolic gestures, and the
like. Their secret rites are celebrated at night in the depths of the
forest, all intruders being put to death or sold as slaves[151]."
In studying the social conditions prevalent amongst the Sierra Leonese
proper, it should be remembered that they are sprung, not only from
representatives of almost every tribe along the seaboard, and even in
the far interior, but also to a large extent from the freedmen and
runaways of Nova Scotia and London, besides many maroons of Jamaica, who
were settled here under the auspices of the Sierra Leone Company towards
the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century.
Others also have in recent years been attracted to the settlements from
the Timni and other tribes of the neighbouring districts. The Sierra
Leonese are consequently not themselves a tribe, nor yet a people, but
rather a people in course of formation under the influence of a new
environment and of a higher culture. An immediate consequence of such a
sudden aggregation of discordant elements was the loss of all the native
tongues, and the substitution of English as the common medium of
intercourse. But English is the language of a people standing on the
very highest plane of culture, and could not therefore be properly
assimilated by the _disjecta membra_ of tribes at the lowest rung of the
social ladder. The resultant form of speech may be called ludicrous, so
ludicrous that the Sierra Leonese version of the New Testament had to be
withdrawn from circulation as verging almost on the blasphemous[152].
It has also to be considered that all the old tribal relations were
broken up, while an attempt was made to merge these waifs and strays in
a single community based on social conditions to which each and all were
utter strangers. It is not therefore surprising that the experiment has
not proved a complete success, and that the social relations in Sierra
Leone leave something to be desired. Although the freedmen and the
rescued captives received free gifts of land, their dislike for the
labours of the field induced many to abandon their holdings, and take to
huckstering and other more pleasant pursuits. Hence their descendants
almost monopolise the petty traffic and even the "professions" in
Freetown and the other colonial settlements. Although accused of
laziness and dishonesty, they have displayed a considerable degree of
industrial as well as commercial enterprise, and the Sierra Leone
craftsmen--smiths, mechanics, carpenters, builders--enjoy a good
reputation in all the coast towns. All are Christians of various
denominations, and even show a marked predilection for the "ministry."
Yet below the surface the old paganism still slumbers, and vodoo
practices, as in the West Indies and some of the Southern States, are
still heard of.
Morality also is admittedly at a low ebb, and it is curious to note that
this has in part been attributed to the freedom enjoyed under the
British administration. "They have passed from the sphere of native law
to that of British law, which is brought to this young community like an
article of ready-made clothing. Is it a wonder that the clothes do not
fit? Is it a wonder that kings and chiefs around Sierra Leone, instead
of wishing their people to come and see how well we do things, dread for
them to come to this colony on account of the danger to their morals? In
passing into this colony, they pass into a liberty which to them is
license[153]."
An experiment of a somewhat different order, but with much the same
negative results, has been tried by the well-meaning founders of the
Republic of Liberia. Here also the bulk of the "civilised aristocrats"
are descended of emancipated plantation slaves, a first consignment of
whom was brought over by a philanthropic American society in 1820-22.
The idea was to start them well in life under the fostering care of
their white guardians, and then leave them to work out their own
redemption in their own way. All control was accordingly withdrawn in
1848, and since then the settlement has constituted an absolutely
independent Negro state in the enjoyment of complete self-government.
Progress of a certain material kind was undoubtedly made. The original
"free citizens" increased from 8000 in 1850 to perhaps 20,000 in
1898[154], and the central administration, modelled on that of the
United States, maintained some degree of order among the surrounding
aborigines, estimated at some two million within the limits of the
Republic.
But these aborigines have not benefited perceptibly by contact with
their "civilised" neighbours, who themselves stand at much the same
level intellectually and morally as their repatriated forefathers.
Instead of attending to the proper administration of the Republic, the
"Weegee," as they are called, have constituted themselves into two
factions, the "coloured" or half-breeds, and the full-blood Negroes who,
like the "Blancos" and "Neros" of some South American States, spend most
of their time in a perpetual struggle for office. All are of course
intensely patriotic, but their patriotism takes a wrong direction, being
chiefly manifested in their insolence towards the English and other
European traders on the coast, and in their supreme contempt for the
"stinking bush-niggers," as they call the surrounding aborigines. In
1909 internal and external difficulties led to the appointment of a
Commission by President Roosevelt with the result that the American
Government took charge of the finances, military organisation,
agriculture and boundary questions, besides arranging for a loan of
L400,000. The able administration of President Barclay, a pure blooded
Negro, though not of Liberian ancestry, is perhaps the happiest augury
for the future of the Republic[155].
The _Krus_ (Kroomen, Krooboys[156]), whose numerous hamlets are
scattered along the coast from below Monrovia nearly to Cape Palmas, are
assuredly one of the most interesting people in the whole of Africa.
Originally from the interior, they have developed in their new homes a
most un-African love of the sea, hence are regularly engaged as crews by
the European skippers plying along those insalubrious coastlands.
In this service, in which they are known by such nicknames as
"Bottle-of-Beer," "Mashed-Potatoes," "Bubble-and-Squeak,"
"Pipe-of-Tobacco," and the like, their word may always be depended upon.
But it is to be feared that this loyalty, which with them is a strict
matter of business, has earned for them a reputation for other virtues
to which they have little claim. Despite the many years that they have
been in the closest contact with the missionaries and traders, they are
still at heart the same brutal savages as ever. After each voyage they
return to the native village to spend all their gains and pilferings in
drunken orgies, and relapse generally into sheer barbarism till the next
steamer rounds the neighbouring headland. "It is not a comfortable
reflection," writes Bishop Ingham, whose testimony will not be suspected
of bias, "as we look at this mob on our decks, that, if the ship chance
to strike on a sunken rock and become unmanageable, they would rise to a
man, and seize all they could lay hands on, cut the very rings off our
fingers if they could get them in no other way, and generally loot the
ship. Little has been done to Christianise these interesting,
hard-working, cheerful, but ignorant and greedy people, who have so long
hung on the skirts of civilisation[157]."
It is only fair to the Kru to say that this unflattering picture of them
stands alone. "There is but one man of all of us who have visited West
Africa who has not paid a tribute to the Kruboy's sterling qualities,"
says Miss Kingsley. Her opinion coincides with that of the old coasters
based on life-long experience, and she waxes indignant at the
ingratitude with which Kruboy loyalty is rewarded. "They have devoted
themselves to us English, and they have suffered, laboured, fought, been
massacred and so on with us generation after generation.... Kruboys are,
indeed, the backbone of white effort in West Africa[158]."
But the very worst "sweepings of the Sudanese plateau" seem to have
gathered along the Upper Guinea Coast, occupied by the already mentioned
_Tshi_, _Ewe_, and _Yoruba_ groups[159]. They constitute three branches
of one linguistic, and probably also of one ethnical family, of which,
owing to their historic and ethnical importance, the reader may be glad
to have here subjoined a somewhat complete tabulated scheme.
The _Ga_ of the Volta delta are here bracketed with the Tshi because A.
B. Ellis, our great authority on the Guinea peoples[160], considers the
two languages to be distantly connected. He also thinks there is a
foundation of fact in the native traditions, which bring the dominant
tribes--Ashanti, Fanti, Dahomi, Yoruba, Bini--from the interior to the
coast districts at no very remote period. Thus it is recorded of the
Ashanti and Fanti, now hereditary foes, that ages ago they formed one
people who were reduced to the utmost distress during a long war with
some inland power, perhaps the conquering Muhammadans of the Ghana or
Mali empire. They were saved, however, some by eating of the _shan_,
others of the _fan_ plant, and of these words, with the verb _di_, "to
eat," were made the tribal names _Shan-di_, _Fan-di_, now _Ashanti_,
_Fanti_. The _seppiriba_ plant, said to have been eaten by the Fanti, is
still called _fan_ when cooked.
TRIBES OF TSHI TRIBES OF EWE TRIBES OF YORUBA
AND GA SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH
_Gold Coast_ _Slave Coast West_ _Slave Coast East_
_and Niger Delta_
Ashanti Dahomi Yoruba[161]
Safwhi Eweawo Ibadan
Denkera Agotine Ketu
Bekwai Anfueh Egba
Nkoranza Krepe Jebu
Adansi Avenor Remo
Assin Awuna Ode
Wassaw Agbosomi Ilorin
Ahanta Aflao Ijesa
Fanti Ataklu Ondo
Agona Krikor Mahin
Akwapim Geng Benin (Bini)
Akim Attakpami Kakanda
Akwamu Aja Wari
Kwao Ewemi Ibo[161]
Ga Appa Efik[161]
Other traditions refer to a time when all were of one speech, and lived
in a far country beyond Salagha, open, flat, with little bush, and
plenty of cattle and sheep, a tolerably accurate description of the
inland Sudanese plateaux. But then came a red people, said to be the
Fulahs, Muhammadans, who oppressed the blacks and drove them to take
refuge in the forests. Here they thrived and multiplied, and after many
vicissitudes they came down, down, until at last they reached the coast,
with the waves rolling in, the white foam hissing and frothing on the
beach, and thought it was all boiling water until some one touched it
and found it was not hot, and so to this day they call the sea _Eh-huru
den o nni shew_, "Boiling water not hot," but far inland the sea is
still "Boiling water[162]."
To A. B. Ellis we are indebted especially for the true explanation of
the much used and abused term _fetish_, as applied to the native
beliefs. It was of course already known to be not an African but a
Portuguese word[163], meaning a charm, amulet, or even witchcraft. But
Ellis shows how it came to be wrongly applied to all forms of animal and
nature worship, and how the confusion was increased by De Brosses'
theory of a primordial fetishism, and by his statement that it was
impossible to conceive a lower form of religion than fetishism, which
might therefore be assumed to be the beginning of all religion[164].
On the contrary it represents rather an advanced stage, as Ellis
discovered after four or five years of careful observation on the spot.
A fetish, he tells us, is something tangible and inanimate, which is
believed to possess power in itself, and is worshipped for itself alone.
Nor can such an object be picked up anywhere at random, as is commonly
asserted, and he adds that the belief "is arrived at only after
considerable progress has been made in religious ideas, when the older
form of religion becomes secondary and owes its existence to the
confusion of the tangible with the intangible, of the material with the
immaterial; to the belief in the indwelling god being gradually lost
sight of until the power originally believed to belong to the god, is
finally attributed to the tangible and inanimate object itself."
But now comes a statement that may seem paradoxical to most students of
the evolution of religious ideas. We are assured that fetishism thus
understood is not specially or at all characteristic of the religion of
the Gold Coast natives, who are in fact "remarkably free from it" and
believe in invisible intangible deities. Some of them may dwell in a
tangible inanimate object, popularly called a "fetish"; but the idea of
the indwelling god is never lost sight of, nor is the object ever
worshipped for its own sake. True fetishism, the worship of such
material objects and images, prevails, on the contrary, far more
"amongst the Negroes of the West Indies, who have been christianised for
more than half-a-century, than amongst those of West Africa. Hence the
belief in Obeah, still prevalent in the West Indies, which formerly was
a belief in indwelling spirits which inhabited certain objects, has now
become a worship paid to tangible and inanimate objects, which of
themselves are believed to possess the power to injure. In Europe itself
we find evidence amongst the Roman Catholic populations of the South,
that fetishism is a corruption of a former _culte_, rather than a
primordial faith. The lower classes there have confused the intangible
with the tangible, and believe that the images of the saints can both
see, hear and feel. Thus we find the Italian peasants and fishermen beat
and ill-treat their images when their requests have not been complied
with.... These appear to be instances of true fetishism[165]."
Another phase of religious belief in Upper Guinea is ancestry worship,
which has here been developed to a degree unknown elsewhere. As the
departed have to be maintained in the same social position beyond the
grave that they enjoyed in this world, they must be supplied with
slaves, wives, and attendants, each according to his rank. Hence the
institution of the so-called "customs," or anniversary feasts of the
dead, accompanied by the sacrifice of human victims, regulated at first
by the status and afterwards by the whim and caprice of chiefs and
kings. In the capitals of the more powerful states, Ashanti, Dahomey,
Benin, the scenes witnessed at these sanguinary rites rivalled in horror
those held in honour of the Aztec gods. Details may here be dispensed
with on a repulsive subject, ample accounts of which are accessible from
many sources to the general reader. In any case these atrocities teach
no lesson, except that most religions have waded through blood to better
things, unless arrested in mid-stream by the intervention of higher
powers, as happily in Upper Guinea, where the human shambles of Kumassi,
Abomeh, Benin and most other places have now been swept away.
On the capture of Benin by the English in 1897 a rare and unexpected
prize fell into the hands of ethnologists. Here was found a large
assortment of carved ivories, woodwork, and especially a series of about
300 bronze and brass plates or panels with figures of natives and
Europeans, armed and in armour, in full relief, all cast by the _cire
perdue_ process[166], some barbaric, others, and especially a head in
the round of a young negress, showing high artistic skill. Many of these
remarkable objects are in the British Museum, where they have been
studied by C. H. Read and O. M. Dalton[167], who are evidently right in
assigning the better class to the sixteenth century, and to the aid, if
not the hand, of some Portuguese artificers in the service of the King
of Benin. They add that "casting of an inferior kind continues down to
the present time," and it may here be mentioned that armour has long
been and is still worn by the cavalry, and even their horses, in the
Muhammadan states of Central Sudan. "The chiefs (_Kashellawa_) who serve
as officers under the Sultan [of Bornu] and act as his bodyguard wear
jackets of chain armour and cuirasses of coats of mail[168]." It is
clear that metal casting in a large way has long been practised by the
semi-civilised peoples of Sudan.
Within the great bend of the Niger the veil, first slightly raised by
Barth in the middle of the nineteenth century, has now been drawn aside
by L. G. Binger, F. D. Lugard and later explorers. Here the _Mossi_,
_Borgu_ and others have hitherto more or less successfully resisted the
Moslem advance, and are consequently for the most part little removed
from the savage state. Even the "Faithful" wear the cloak of Islam
somewhat loosely, and the level of their culture may be judged from the
case of the Imam of Diulasu, who pestered Binger for nostrums and charms
against ailments, war, and misfortunes. What he wanted chiefly to know
was the names of Abraham's two wives. "Tell me these," he would say,
"and my fortune is made, for I dreamt it the other night; you must tell
me; I really must have those names or I'm lost[169]."
In some districts the ethnical confusion is considerable, and when
Binger arrived at the Court of the Mossi King, Baikary, he was addressed
successively in Mossi, Hausa, Songhai, and Fulah, until at last it was
discovered that Mandingan was the only native language he understood.
Waghadugu, capital of the chief Mossi state, comprises several distinct
quarters occupied respectively by Mandingans, Marengas (Songhai),
Zang-wer'os (Hausas), Chilmigos (Fulahs), Mussulman and heathen Mossis,
the whole population scarcely exceeding 5000. However, perfect harmony
prevails, the Mossi themselves being extremely tolerant despite the long
religious wars they have had to wage against the fanatical Fulahs and
other Muhammadan aggressors[170].
Religious indifference is indeed a marked characteristic of this people,
and the case is mentioned of a nominal Mussulman prince who could even
read and write, and say his prayers, but whose two sons "knew nothing at
all," or, as we should say, were "Agnostics." One of them, however, it
is fair to add, is claimed by both sides, the Moslems asserting that he
says his prayers in secret, the heathens that he drinks _dolo_
(palm-wine), which of course no true believer is supposed ever to do.
CENTRAL SUDANESE.
In Central Sudan, that is, the region stretching from the Niger to
Wadai, a tolerably clean sweep has been made of the aborigines, except
along the southern fringe and in parts of the Chad basin. For many
centuries Islam has here been firmly established, and in Negroland Islam
is synonymous with a greater or less degree of miscegenation. The native
tribes who resisted the fiery Arab or Tuareg or Tibu proselytisers were
for the most part either extirpated, or else driven to the southern
uplands about the Congo-Chad water-parting. All who accepted the Koran
became merged with the conquerors in a common negroid population, which
supplied the new material for the development of large social
communities and powerful political states.
Under these conditions the old tribal organisations were in great
measure dissolved, and throughout its historic period of about a
millennium Central Sudan is found mainly occupied by peoples gathered
together in a small number of political systems, each with its own
language and special institutions, but all alike accepting Islam as the
State religion. Such are or were the Songhai empire, the Hausa States,
and the kingdoms of Bornu with Kanem and Baghirmi, and these jointly
cover the whole of Central Sudan as above defined.
_Songhais_[171]. How completely the tribe[172] has merged in the
people[172] may be inferred from the mere statement that, although no
longer an independent nation[172], the negroid Songhais form a single
ethnical group of about two million souls, all of one speech and one
religion, and all distinguished by somewhat uniform physical and mental
characters. This territory lies mainly about the borderlands between
Sudan and the Sahara, stretching from Timbuktu east to the Asben oasis
and along both banks of the Niger from Lake Debo round to the Sokoto
confluence, and also at some points reaching as far as the Hombori hills
within the great bend of the Niger.
Here they are found in the closest connection with the Ireghenaten
("mixed") Tuaregs, and elsewhere with other Tuaregs, and with Arabs,
Fulahs or Hausas[173], so that exclusively Songhai communities are now
somewhat rare. But the bulk of the race is still concentrated in Gurma
and in the district between Gobo and Timbuktu, the two chief cities of
the old Songhai empire.
They are a distinctly negroid people, presenting various shades of
intermixture with the surrounding Hamites and Semites, but generally of
a very deep brown or blackish colour, with somewhat regular features and
that peculiar long, black, and ringletty hair, which is so
characteristic of Negro and Caucasic blends, as seen amongst the Trarsas
and Braknas of the Senegal, the Bejas, Danakils, and many Abyssinians of
the region between the Nile and the Red Sea. Barth, to whom we still owe
the best account of this historical people, describes them as of a dull,
morose temperament, the most unfriendly and churlish of all the peoples
visited by him in Negroland.
This writer's suggestion that they may have formerly had relations with
the Egyptians[174] has been revived in an exaggerated form by M. Felix
Dubois, whose views have received currency in England through uncritical
notices of his _Timbouctou la Mysterieuse_ (Paris, 1897). But there is
no "mystery" in the matter. The Songhai are a Sudanese people, whose
exodus from Egypt is a myth, and whose Kissur language, as it is called,
has not the remotest connection with any form of speech known to have
been at any time current in the Nile Valley[175]. Nor has it any evident
affinities with any group of African tongues. H. H. Johnston regards the
Songhai as the result of the mixing of "the Libyan section of the
Hamitic peoples, reinforced by Berbers (Iberians) from Spain," with the
pre-existing Fulah type and the Negroids; as also from the far earlier
intercourse between the Fulah and the Negro[176].
The Songhai empire, like that of the rival Mandingans, claims a
respectable antiquity, its reputed founder Za-el-Yemeni having
flourished about 680 A.D. Za Kasi, fifteenth in succession from the
founder, was the first Muhammadan ruler (1009); but about 1326 the
country was reduced by the Mandingans, and remained throughout the
fourteenth and a great part of the fifteenth century virtually subject
to the Mali empire, although Ali Killun, founder of the new Sonni
dynasty, had acquired a measure of independence about 1335-6. But the
political supremacy of the Songhai people dates only from about 1464,
when Sonni Ali, sixteenth of the Sonni dynasty, known in history as "the
great tyrant and famous miscreant," threw off the Mandingan yoke, "and
changed the whole face of this part of Africa by prostrating the kingdom
of Melle[177]." Under his successor, Muhammad Askia[178], "perhaps the
greatest sovereign that ever ruled over Negroland[179]," the Songhai
Empire acquired its greatest expansion, extending from the heart of
Hausaland to the Atlantic seaboard, and from the Mossi country to the
Tuat oasis, south of Morocco. Although unfavourably spoken of by Leo
Africanus, Askia is described by Ahmed Baba as governing the subject
peoples "with justice and equity, causing well-being and comfort to
spring up everywhere within the borders of his extensive dominions, and
introducing such of the institutions of Muhammadan civilisation as he
considered might be useful to his subjects[180]."
Askia also made the Mecca pilgrimage with a great show of splendour. But
after his reign (1492-1529) the Songhai power gradually declined, and
was at last overthrown by Mulay Hamed, Emperor of Morocco, in 1591-2.
Ahmed Baba, the native chronicler, was involved in the ruin of his
people[181], and since then the Songhai nation has been broken into
fragments, subject here to Hausas, there to Fulahs, elsewhere to
Tuaregs, and, since the French occupation of Timbuktu (1894), to the
hated Giaur.
_Hausas._ In everything that constitutes the real greatness of a
nation, the Hausas may rightly claim preeminence amongst all the peoples
of Negroland. No doubt early in the nineteenth century the historical
Hausa States, occupying the whole region between the Niger and Bornu,
were overrun and reduced by the fanatical Fulah bands under Othman Dan
Fodye. But the Hausas, in a truer sense than the Greeks, "have captured
their rude conquerors[182]," for they have even largely assimilated them
physically to their own type, and the Hausa nationality is under British
auspices asserting its natural social, industrial and commercial
predominance throughout Central and even parts of Western Sudan.
It could not well be otherwise, seeing that the Hausas form a compact
body of some five million peaceful and industrious Sudanese, living
partly in numerous farmsteads amid their well-tilled cotton, indigo,
pulse, and corn fields, partly in large walled cities and great trading
centres such as Kano[183], Katsena, Yacoba, whose intelligent and
law-abiding inhabitants are reckoned by many tens of thousands. Their
melodious tongue, with a vocabulary containing perhaps 10,000
words[184], has long been the great medium of intercourse throughout
Sudan from Lake Chad to and beyond the Niger, and is daily acquiring
even greater preponderance amongst all the settled and trading
populations of these regions.
But though showing a marked preference for peaceful pursuits, the Hausas
are by no means an effeminate people. Largely enlisted in the British
service, they have at all times shown fighting qualities of a high order
under their English officers, and a well-earned tribute has been paid to
their military prowess amongst others by Sir George Goldie and Lieut.
Vandeleur[185]. With the Hausas on her side England need assuredly fear
no rivals to her beneficent sway over the teeming populations of the
fertile plains and plateaux of Central Sudan, which is on the whole
perhaps the most favoured land in Africa north of the equator.
According to the national traditions, which go back to no very remote
period[186], the seven historical Hausa States known as the "Hausa
bokoy" ("the seven Hausas") take their name from the eponymous heroes
_Biram_, _Daura_, _Gober_, _Kano_, _Rano_, _Katsena_ and _Zegzeg_, all
said to be sprung from the Deggaras, a Berber tribe settled to the north
of Munyo. From Biram, the original seat, the race and its language
spread to seven other provinces--_Zanfara_, _Kebbi_, _Nupe_ (_Nyffi_),
_Gwari_, _Yauri_, _Yariba_ and _Kororofa_, which in contempt are called
the "Banza bokoy" ("the seven Upstarts"). All form collectively the
Hausa domain in the widest sense.
Authentic history is quite recent, and even Komayo, reputed founder of
Katsena, dates only from about the fourteenth century. Ibrahim Maji, who
was the first Moslem ruler, is assigned to the latter part of the
fifteenth century, and since then the chief events have been associated
with the Fulah wars, ending in the absorption of all the Hausa States in
the unstable Fulah empire of Sokoto at the beginning of the nineteenth
century. With the fall of Kano and Sokoto in 1903 British supremacy was
finally established throughout the Hausa States, now termed Northern
Nigeria[187].
_Kanembu_; _Kanuri_[188]; _Baghirmi_, _Mosgu_. Round about the shores of
Lake Chad are grouped three other historical Muhammadan nations, the
Kanembu ("People of Kanem") on the north, the Kanuri of Bornu on the
west, and the Baghirmi on the south side. The last named was conquered
by the Sultan of Wadai in 1871, and overrun by Rabah Zobeir, half Arab,
half Negro adventurer, in 1890. But in 1897 Emile Gentil[189], French
commissioner for the district, placed the country under French
protection, although French authority was not firmly established until
the death of Rabah and the rout of his sons in 1901. At the same time
Kanem was brought under French control, and shortly afterwards Bornu was
divided between Great Britain, France and Germany.
In this region the ethnical relations are considerably more complex than
in the Hausa States. Here Islam has had greater obstacles to contend
with than on the more open western plateaux, and many of the pagan
aborigines have been able to hold their ground either in the
archipelagos of Lake Chad (_Yedinas, Kuri, Buduma_[190]), or in the
swampy tracts and uplands of the Logon-Shari basin (_Mosgu_, _Mandara_,
_Makari_, etc.).
It was also the policy of the Muhammadans, whose system is based on
slavery, not to push their religious zeal too far, for, if all the
natives were converted, where could they procure a constant supply of
slaves, those who accept the teachings of the Prophet being _ipso facto_
entitled to their freedom? Hence the pagan districts were, and still
are, regarded as convenient preserves, happy hunting-grounds to be
raided from time to time, but not utterly wasted; to be visited by
organised razzias just often enough to keep up the supply in the home
and foreign markets. This system, controlled by the local governments
themselves, has long prevailed about the borderlands between Islam and
heathendom, as we know from Barth, Nachtigal, and one or two other
travellers, who have had reluctantly to accompany the periodical
slave-hunting expeditions from Bornu and Baghirmi to the territories of
the pagan Mosgu people with their numerous branches (_Margi, Mandara,
Makari, Logon, Gamergu, Keribina_) and the other aborigines (_Bede,
Ngisem, So, Kerrikerri, Babir_) on the northern slopes of the Congo-Chad
water-parting. As usual on such occasions, there is a great waste of
life, many perishing in defence of their homes or even through sheer
wantonness, besides those carried away captives. "A large number of
slaves had been caught this day," writes Barth, "and in the evening a
great many more were brought in; altogether they were said to have taken
one thousand, and there were certainly not less than five hundred. To
our utmost horror, not less than 170 full-grown men were mercilessly
slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part of them being allowed to
bleed to death, a leg having been severed from the body[191]." There was
probably just then a glut in the market.
A curious result of these relations is that in the wooded districts some
of the natives have reverted to arboreal habits, taking refuge during
the raids in the branches of huge bombax-trees converted into temporary
strongholds. Round the vertical stem of these forest giants is erected a
breast-high look-out, while the higher horizontal branches, less exposed
to the fire of the enemy, support strongly-built huts and store-houses,
where the families of the fugitives take refuge with their effects,
including, as Nachtigal assures us[192], their domestic animals, such as
goats, dogs, and poultry. During the siege of the aerial fortress, which
is often successfully defended, long light ladders of withies are let
down at night, when no attack need be feared, and the supply of water
and provisions is thus renewed from _caches_ or hiding-places round
about. In 1872 Nachtigal accompanied a predatory excursion to the pagan
districts south of Baghirmi, when an attack was made on one of these
tree-fortresses. Such citadels can be stormed only at a heavy loss, and
as the Gaberi (Baghirmi) warriors had no tools capable of felling the
great bombax-tree, they were fain to rest satisfied with picking off a
poor wretch now and then, and barbarously mutilating the bodies as they
fell from the overhanging branches.
Some of these aborigines disfigure their faces by the disk-like
lip-ornament, which is also fashionable in Nyassaland, and even amongst
the South American Botocudos. The type often differs greatly, and while
some of the widespread Mosgu tribes are of a dirty black hue, with
disagreeable expression, wide open nostrils, thick lips, high
cheek-bones, coarse bushy hair, and disproportionate knock-kneed legs,
other members of the same family astonished Barth "by the beauty and
symmetry of their forms, and by the regularity of their features, which
in some had nothing of what is called the Negro type. But I was still
more astonished at their complexion, which was very different in
different individuals, being in some of a glossy black, and in others of
a light copper, or rather rhubarb colour, the intermediate shades being
almost entirely wanting. I observed in one house a really beautiful
female who, with her son, about eight or nine years of age, formed a
most charming group, well worthy of the hand of an accomplished artist.
The boy's form did not yield in any respect to the beautiful symmetry of
the most celebrated Grecian statues. His hair, indeed, was very short
and curled, but not woolly. He, as well as his mother and the whole
family, were of a pale or yellowish-red complexion, like rhubarb[193]."
There is no suggestion of albinism, and the explanation of such strange
contrasts must await further exploration in the whole of this borderland
of Negroes and Bantus about the divide between the Chad and the Congo
basins. The country has until lately been traversed only at rare
intervals by pioneers, interested more in political than in
anthropological matters.
Of the settled and more or less cultured peoples in the Chad basin, the
most important are the _Kanembu_[194], who introduce a fresh element of
confusion in this region, being more allied in type and speech to the
Hamitic Tibus than to the Negro stock, or at least taking a transitional
position between the two; the _Kanuri_, the ruling people in Bornu, of
somewhat coarse Negroid appearance[195]; and the southern _Baghirmi_,
also decidedly Negroid, originally supposed to have come from the Upper
Shari and White Nile districts[196]. Their civilisation, such as it is,
has been developed exclusively under Moslem influences, but it has never
penetrated much below the surface. The people are everywhere extremely
rude, and for the most part unlettered, although the meagre and not
altogether trustworthy Kanem-Bornu records date from the time of Sef,
reputed founder of the monarchy about 800 A.D. Duku, second in descent
from Sef, is doubtfully referred to about 850 A.D. Hame, founder of a
new dynasty, flourished towards the end of the eleventh century
(1086-97), and Dunama, one of his successors, is said to have extended
his sway over a great part of the Sahara, including the whole of Fezzan
(1221-59). Under Omar (1394-98) a divorce took place between Kanem and
Bornu, and henceforth the latter country has remained the chief centre
of political power in the Chad basin.
A long series of civil wars was closed by Ali (1472-1504), who founded
the present capital, Birni, and whose grandson, Muhammad, brought the
empire of Bornu to the highest pitch of its greatness (1526-45). Under
Ahmed (1793-1810) began the wars with the Fulahs, who, after bringing
the empire to the verge of ruin, were at last overthrown by the aid of
the Kanem people, and since 1819 Bornu has been ruled by the present
Kanemiyin dynasty, which though temporarily conquered by Rabah in 1893,
was restored under British administration in 1902[197].
EASTERN SUDANESE.
As some confusion prevails regarding the expression "Eastern Sudan," I
may here explain that it bears a very different meaning, according as it
is used in a political or an ethnical sense. Politically it is
practically synonymous with Egyptian Sudan, that is the whole region
from Darfur to the Red Sea which was ruled or misruled by the Khedivial
Government before the revolt of the Mahdi (1883-4), and was restored to
Egypt by the British occupation of Khartum in 1898. Ethnically Eastern
Sudan comprises all the lands east of the Chad basin, where the Negro or
Negroid populations are predominant, that is to say, Wadai, Darfur, and
Kordofan in the West, the Nile Valley from the frontier of Egypt proper
south to Albert Nyanza, both slopes of the Nile-Congo divide (the
western tributaries of the White Nile and the Welle-Makua affluent of
the Congo), lastly the Sobat Valley with some Negro enclaves east of the
White Nile, and even south of the equator (Kavirondo, Semliki Valley).
Throughout this region the fusion of the aborigines with Hamites and
Arabs, Tuareg, or Tibu Moslem intruders, wherever they have penetrated,
has been far less complete than in Central and Western Sudan. Thus in
Wadai the dominant Maba people, whence the country is often called
Dar-Maba ("Mabaland"), are rather Negro than Negroid, with but a slight
strain of foreign blood. In the northern districts the _Zoghawa_,
_Gura'an_, _Baele_ and _Bulala_ Tibus keep quite aloof from the blacks,
as do elsewhere; the _Aramkas_, as the Arabs are collectively called in
Wadai. Yet the _Mahamid_ and some other Bedouin tribes have here been
settled for over 500 years, and it was through their assistance that the
Mabas acquired the political supremacy they have enjoyed since the
seventeenth century, when they reduced or expelled the _Tynjurs_[198],
the former ruling race, said to be Nubians originally from Dongola. It
was Abd-el-Kerim, founder of the new Moslem Maba state, who gave the
country its present name in honour of his grandfather, _Wadai_. His
successor Kharub I removed the seat of government to Wara, where Vogel
was murdered in 1856. Abeshr, the present capital, dates only from the
year 1850. Except for Nachtigal, who crossed the frontier in 1873,
nothing was known of the land or its people until the French occupation
at the end of the last century (1899). Since that date it has been
prominent as the scene of the attack on a French column and the death of
its leader, Colonel Moll, in 1910, and the tragic murder of Lieutenant
Boyd Alexander earlier in the same year[199].
_Nubas._ As in Wadai, the intruding and native populations have been
either imperfectly or not at all assimilated in Darfur and Kordofan,
where the Muhammadan Semites still boast of their pure Arab
descent[200], and form powerful confederacies. Chief among these are the
_Baggara_ (Baqqara, "cow-herds"), cattle-keepers and agriculturalists,
of whom some are as dark as the blackest negroes, though many are
fine-looking, with regular, well-shaped features. Their form of Arabic
is notoriously corrupt. Their rivals, the _Jaalan_ (Jalin, Jahalin), are
mostly riverain "Arabs," a learned tribe, containing many scribes, and
their language is said to be closer to classical Arabic than the form
current in Egypt. These are the principal slave-hunters of the Sudan,
and the famous Zobeir belonged to their tribe. The _Yemanieh_ are
largely traders, and trace their origin from South Arabia. The
_Kababish_ are the wealthiest camel-owning tribe, perhaps less
contaminated by negro blood than any other Arab tribe in the Sudan[201].
The _Nuba_ and the _Nubians_ have been a source of much confusion, but
recent investigations in the field such as those of C. G. Seligman[202]
and H. A. MacMichael[203], and the publications of the Archaeological
Survey of Nubia conducted by G. A. Reisner, help to elucidate the
problem. We have first of all to get rid of the "Nuba-Fulah" family,
which was introduced by Fr. Mueller and accepted by some English writers,
but has absolutely no existence. The two languages, although both of the
agglutinative Sudanese type, are radically distinct in all their
structural, lexical, and phonetic elements, and the two peoples are
equally distinct. The Fulahs are of North African origin, although many
have in recent times been largely assimilated to their black Sudanese
subjects. The Nuba on the contrary belong originally to the Negro stock,
with hair of the common negro type, and are among the darkest skinned
tribes in the Sudan, their colour varying from a dark chocolate brown to
the darkest shade of brown black.
But rightly to understand the question we have carefully to avoid
confusion between the Nubians of the Nile Valley and the Negro _Nubas_,
who gave their name to the Nuba Mountains, Kordofan, where most of the
aborigines (_Kargo, Kulfan, Kolaji, Tumali, Lafofa, Eliri, Talodi_)
still belong to this connection[203]. Kordofan is probably itself a Nuba
word meaning "Land of the Kordo" (_fan_ = Arab, _dar_, land, country).
There is a certain amount of anthropological evidence to connect the
Nuba with the _Fur_ and the _Kara_ of Darfur to the west[204]. But it is
a different anthropological type that is represented in the three groups
of _Matokki_ (_Kenus_) between the First Cataract and Wadi-el-Arab, the
_Mahai_ (_Marisi_) between Korosko and Wadi-Halfa, at the Second
Cataract, and the _Dongolawi_, of the province of Dongola between
Wadi-Halfa and Jebel Deja near Meroe.
These three groups, all now Muhammadans, but formerly Christians,
constitute collectively the so-called "Nubians" of European writers, but
call themselves _Barabra_, Plural of _Berberi_, _i.e._ people of Berber,
although they do not at present extend so far up the Nile as that
town[205]. Possibly these are Strabo's "Noubai, who dwell on the left
bank of the Nile in Libya [Africa], a great nation etc.[206]"; and are
also to be identified with the _Nobatae_, who in Diocletian's time were
settled, some in the Kharga oasis, others in the Nile Valley about
Meroe, to guard the frontiers of the empire against the incursions of
the restless Blemmues. But after some time they appear to have entered
into peaceful relations with these Hamites, the present Bejas, even
making common cause with them against the Romans; but the confederacy
was crushed by Maximinus in 451, though perhaps not before crossings had
taken place between the Nobatae and the Caucasic Bejas. Then these Bejas
withdrew to their old homes, which they still occupy, between the Nile
and the Red Sea above Egypt, while the Nobatae, embracing Christianity,
as is said, in 545, established the powerful kingdom of Dongola which
lasted over 800 years, and was finally overthrown by the Arabs in the
fourteenth century, since which time the Nile Nubians have been
Muhammadans.
There still remains the problem of language which, as shown by
Lepsius[207], differs but slightly from that now current amongst the
Kordofan Nubas. But this similarity only holds in the north, and is now
shown to be due to Berberine immigration into Kordofan[208]. Recent
investigations show that the Nuba and the Barabra, in spite of this
linguistic similarity which has misled certain authors[209], are not to
be regarded as belonging to the same race[210]. "The Nuba are a tall,
stoutly built muscular people, with a dark, almost black skin. They are
predominantly mesaticephalic, for although cephalic indices under 70 and
over 80 both occur, nearly 60 per cent. of the individuals measured are
mesaticephals, the remaining being dolichocephalic and brachycephalic in
about equal proportions." The hair is invariably woolly. The Barabra, on
the contrary, is of slight, or more commonly medium build, not
particularly muscular and in skin colour varies from a yellowish to a
chocolate brown. The hair is commonly curly or wavy and may be almost
straight, while the features are not uncommonly absolutely non-Negroid.
"Thus there can be no doubt that the two peoples are essentially
different in physical characters and the same holds good on the cultural
side" (p. 611). Barabra were identified by Lepsius with the Wawat, a
people frequently mentioned in Egyptian records, and recent excavations
by the members of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia show a close
connection with the predynastic Egyptians, a connection supported also
on physical grounds. It seems strange, therefore, to meet with repeated
reference on Egyptian monuments to Negroes in Nubia when, as proved by
excavations, the inhabitants were by no means Negroes or even frankly
Negroid. Seligman's solution of the difficulty is as follows (p. 619).
It seems that only one explanation is tenable, namely that for a period
subsequent to the Middle Kingdom the country in the neighbourhood of the
Second Cataract became essentially a Negro country and may have remained
in this condition for some little time. Then a movement in the opposite
direction set in; the Negroes, diminished by war, were in part driven
back by the great conquerors of the New Empire; those that were left
mixed with the Egyptian garrisons and traders and once more a hybrid
race arose which, however, preserved the language of its Negro
ancestors. Although Seligman regards the conclusion that this race gave
rise directly to the present-day inhabitants of Nubia as "premature,"
and suggests further mixture with the Beja of the eastern deserts,
Elliot Smith recognises the essential similarity between the homogeneous
blend of Egyptian and Negro traits which characterise the Middle Nubian
people (contemporary with the Middle Empire, XII-XVII dynasties), a type
which "seems to have remained dominant in Nubia ever since then, for the
span of almost 4000 years[211]."
Before the incursions of the Nubian-Arab traders and raiders, who began
to form settlements (_zeribas_, fenced stations) in the Upper Nile
regions above Khartum about the middle of the nineteenth century, most
of the Nile-Congo divide (White Nile tributaries and Welle-Makua basin)
belonged in the strictest sense to the Negro domain. Sudanese tribes,
and even great nations reckoned by millions, had been for ages in almost
undisturbed possession, not only of the main stream from the equatorial
lakes to and beyond the Sobat junction, but also of the Sobat Valley
itself, and of the numerous south-western head-waters of the White Nile
converging about Lake No above the Sobat junction. Nearly all the Nile
peoples--the _Shilluks_ and _Dinkas_ about the Sobat confluence, the
_Bari_ and _Nuers_ of the Bahr-el-Jebel, the _Bongos_ (_Dors_), _Rols_,
_Golos_, _Mittus_, _Madis_, _Makarakas_, _Abakas_, _Mundus_, and many
others about the western affluents, as well as the _Funj_ of Senaar--had
been brought under the Khedivial rule before the revolt of the Mahdi.
The same fate had already overtaken or was threatening the formerly
powerful _Mombuttu_ (_Mangbattu_) and _Zandeh_[212] nations of the Welle
lands, as well as the _Krej_ and others about the low watersheds of the
Nile-Congo and Chad basins. Since then the Welle groups have been
subjected to the jurisdiction of the Congo Free State, while the
political destinies of the Nilotic tribes must henceforth be controlled
by the British masters of the Nile lands from the Great Lakes to the
Mediterranean.
Although grouped as Negroes proper, very few of the Nilotic peoples
present the almost ideal type of the blacks, such as those of Upper
Guinea and the Atlantic coast of West Sudan. The complexion is in
general less black, the nose less broad at the base, the lips less
everted (Shilluks and one or two others excepted), the hair rather less
frizzly, the dolichocephaly and prognathism less marked.
Apart from the more delicate shades of transition, due to diverse
interminglings with Hamites and Semites, two distinct types may be
plainly distinguished--one black, often very tall, with long thin legs,
and long-headed (_Shilluks, Dinkas, Bari, Nuers, Alur_), the other
reddish or ruddy brown, more thick-set, and short-headed (_Bongos_,
_Golos_, _Makarakas_, with the kindred _Zandehs_ of the Welle region).
No explanation has been offered of their brachycephaly, which is all the
more difficult to account for, inasmuch as it is characteristic neither
of the aboriginal Negro nor of the intruding Hamitic and Semitic
elements. Have we here an indication of the transition suspected by many
between the true long-headed Negro and the round-headed Negrillo, who is
also brownish, and formerly ranged as far north as the Nile
head-streams, as would appear from the early Egyptian records (Chap.
IV.)? Schweinfurth found that the Bongos were "hardly removed from the
lowest grade of brachycephaly[213]," and the same is largely true of the
Zandehs and their Makaraka cousins, as noticed by Junker: "The skull
also in many of these peoples approaches the round form, whereas the
typical Negro is assumed to be long-headed[214]." But so great is the
diversity of appearance throughout the whole of this region, including
even "a striking Semitic type," that this observer was driven to the
conclusion that "woolly hair, common to all, forms in fact the only sure
characteristic of the Negro[215]."
Dinka is the name given to a congeries of independent tribes spread over
a vast area, stretching from 300 miles south of Khartum to within 100
miles of Gondokoro, and reaching many miles to the west in the
Bahr-el-Ghazal Province. All these tribes according to C. G.
Seligman[216] call themselves _Jieng_ or _Jenge_, corrupted by the
Arabs into Dinka; but no Dinka nation has arisen, for the tribes have
never recognised a supreme chief, as do their neighbours, the Shilluk,
nor have they even been united under a military despot, as the Zulu were
united under Chaka. They differ in manners and customs and even in
physique and are often at war with one another. One of the most obvious
distinctions in habits is between the relatively powerful cattle-owning
Dinka and the small and comparatively poor tribes who have no cattle and
scarcely cultivate the ground, but live in the marshes in the
neighbourhood of the Sudd, and depend largely for their sustenance on
fishing and hippopotamus-hunting. Their villages, which are generally
dirty and evil-smelling, are built on ground which rises but little
above the reed-covered surface of the country. The Dinka community is
largely autonomous under leadership of a chief or headman (_bain_) who
is sometimes merely the local magician, but in one community in each
tribe he is the hereditary rain-maker whose wish is law. "Cattle form
the economic basis of Dinka society; ... they are the currency in which
bride-price and blood-fines are paid; and the desire to acquire a
neighbour's herds is the common cause of those inter-tribal raids which
constitute Dinka warfare."
Some uniformity appears to prevail amongst the languages of the
Nile-Welle lands, and from the rather scanty materials collected by
Junker, Fr. Mueller was able to construct an "Equatorial Linguistic
Family," including the Mangbattu, Zandeh, Barmbo, Madi, Bangba, Krej,
Golo and others, on both sides of the water-parting. Leo Reinisch,
however, was not convinced, and in a letter addressed to the author
declared that "in the absence of sentences it is impossible to determine
the grammatical structure of Mangbattu and the other languages. At the
same time we may detect certain relations, not to the Nilotic, but the
Bantu tongues. It may therefore be inferred that Mangbattu and the
others have a tolerably close relationship to the Bantu, and may even be
remotely akin to it, judging from their tendency to prefix
formations[217]." Future research will show how far this conjecture is
justified.
Although Islam has made considerable progress, throughout the greater
part of the Sudanese region, though not among the Nilotic tribes, the
bulk of the people are still practically pagan. Witchcraft continues to
flourish amongst the equatorial peoples, and important events are almost
everywhere attended by sanguinary rites. These are absent among the true
Nilotics. The Dinka are totemic, with ancestor-worship. The Shilluk have
a cult of divine kings.
Cannibalism however, in some of its most repulsive forms, prevails
amongst the Zandehs, who barter in human fat as a universal staple of
trade, and amongst the Mangbattu, who cure for future use the bodies of
the slain in battle and "drive their prisoners before them, as butchers
drive sheep to the shambles, and these are only reserved to fall victims
on a later day to their horrible and sickly greediness[218]."
In fact here we enter the true "cannibal zone," which, as I have
elsewhere shown, was in former ages diffused all over Central and South
Africa, or, it would be more correct to say, over the whole
continent[219], but has in recent times been mainly confined to "the
region stretching west and east from the Gulf of Guinea to the western
head-streams of the White Nile, and from below the equator northwards in
the direction of Adamawa, Dar-Banda and Dar-Fertit. Wherever explorers
have penetrated into this least-known region of the continent they have
found the practice fully established, not merely as a religious rite or
a privilege reserved for priests, but as a recognised social
institution[220]."
Yet many of these cannibal peoples, especially the Mangbattus and
Zandehs, are skilled agriculturists, and cultivate some of the useful
industries, such as iron and copper smelting and casting, weaving,
pottery and wood-carving, with great success. The form and ornamental
designs of their utensils display real artistic taste, while the temper
of their iron implements is often superior to that of the imported
European hardware. Here again the observation has been made that the
tribes most addicted to cannibalism also excel in mental qualities and
physical energy. Nor are they strangers to the finer feelings of human
nature, and above all the surrounding peoples the Zandeh
anthropophagists are distinguished by their regard and devotion for
their women and children.
In one respect all these peoples show a higher degree of intelligence
even than the Arabs and Hamites. "My later experiences," writes Junker,
"revealed the remarkable fact that certain negro peoples, such as the
Niam-Niams, the Mangbattus and the Bantus of Uganda and Unyoro, display
quite a surprising understanding of figured illustrations or pictures of
plastic objects, which is not as a rule exhibited by the Arabs and
Arabised Hamites of North-east Africa. Thus the Unyoro chief, Riongo,
placed photographs in their proper position, and was able to identify
the negro portraits as belonging to the Shuli, Lango, or other tribes,
of which he had a personal knowledge. This I have called a remarkable
fact, because it bespoke in the lower races a natural faculty for
observation, a power to recognise what for many Arabs or Egyptians of
high rank was a hopeless puzzle. An Egyptian pasha in Khartum could
never make out how a human face in profile showed only one eye and one
ear, and he took the portrait of a fashionable Parisian lady in
extremely low dress for that of the bearded sun-burnt American naval
officer who had shown him the photograph[221]." From this one is almost
tempted to infer that, amongst Moslem peoples, all sense of plastic,
figurative, or pictorial art has been deadened by the Koranic precept
forbidding the representation of the human form in any way.
The Welle peoples show themselves true Negroes in the possession of
another and more precious quality, the sense of humour, although this is
probably a quality which comes late in the life of a race. Anyhow it is
a distinct Negro characteristic, which Junker was able to turn to good
account during the building of his famous _Lacrima_ station in Ndoruma's
country. "In all this I could again notice how like children the Negroes
are in many respects. Once at work they seemed animated by a sort of
childlike sense of honour. They delighted in praise, though even a frown
or a word of reproach could also excite their hilarity. Thus a loud
burst of laughter would, for instance, follow the contrast between a
piece of good and bad workmanship. Like children, they would point the
finger of scorn at each other[222]."
One morning Ndoruma, hearing that they had again struck work, had the
great war-drum beaten, whereupon they rushed to arms and mustered in
great force from all quarters. But on finding that there was no enemy to
march against, and that they had only been summoned to resume operations
at the station, they enjoyed the joke hugely, and after a general
explosion of laughter at the way they had been taken in, laid aside
their weapons and returned cheerfully to work. Some English overseers
have already discovered that this characteristic may be utilised far
more effectively than the cruel kurbash. Ethnology has many such lessons
to teach.
FOOTNOTES:
[129] For a tentative classification of African tribes see T. A. Joyce,
Art. "Africa: Ethnology," _Ency. Brit._ 1910, p. 329.
[130] Graphically summed up in the classical description of the Negress:
"Afra genus, tota patriam testante figura,
Torta comam labroque tumens, et fusca colorem,
Pectore lata, jacens mammis, compressior alvo,
Cruribus exilis, spatiosa prodiga planta."
[131] See H. R. Hall, papers and references in _Man_, 19, 1905.
[132] T. A. Joyce, "Africa: Ethnology," _Ency. Brit._ 1910, I. 327.
[133] J. P. Johnson, _The Prehistoric Period in South Africa_, 1912.
[134] See H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa,"
_Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913.
[135] The skeleton found by Hans Reck at Oldoway in 1914 and claimed by
him to be of Pleistocene age exhibits all the typical Negro features,
including the filed teeth, characteristic of East African negroes at the
present day, but the geological evidence is imperfect.
[136] H. H. Johnston, _British Central Africa_, 1897, p. 393.
[137] Zandeh is the name usually given to the groups of tribes akin to
Nilotics, but probably with Fulah element, which includes the _Azandeh_
or Niam Niam, _Makaraka_, _Mangbattu_ and many others. Cf. T. A. Joyce,
_loc. cit._ p. 329.
[138] _British Central Africa_, p. 472. But see R. E. Dennett, _At the
Back of the Black Man's Mind_, 1906, and A. G. Leonard, _The Lower Niger
and its Tribes_, 1906, for African mentality.
[139] For theories of Bantu migrations see H. H. Johnston, _George
Grenfell and the Congo_, 1908, and "A Survey of the Ethnography of
Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc._ XLIII. 1913, p. 391 ff. Also F.
Stuhlmann, _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_, 1910, p. 138, f. 147,
with map, Pl. 1. B. For the date see p. 92.
[140] Even a tendency to polysynthesis occurs, as in Vei, and in Yoruba,
where the small-pox god _Shakpanna_ is made up of the three elements
_shan_ to plaster, _kpa_ to kill, and _enia_ a person = one who kills a
person by plastering him (with pustules).
[141] The Nilotic languages are to a considerable extent tonic.
[142] A. B. Ellis, _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, etc., 1887, pp. 327-8.
Only one European, Herr R. Betz, long resident amongst the Dualas of the
Cameruns district, has yet succeeded in mastering the drum language; he
claims to understand nearly all that is drummed and is also able to drum
himself. (_Athenaeum_, May 7, 1898, p. 611.)
[143] Cf. H. S. Harrison, _Handbook to the cases illustrating stages in
the evolution of the Domestic Arts_. Part II. Horniman Museum and
Library. Forest Hill, S.E.
[144] E. T. Hamy, "Les Races Negres," in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 257
sq.
[145] "Chaque fois que j'ai demande avec intention a un Mande, 'Es-tu
Peul, Mossi, Dafina?' il me repondait invariablement, '_Je suis Mande_.'
C'est pourquoi, dans le cours de ma relation, j'ai toujours designe ce
peuple par le nom de _Mande_, qui est son vrai nom." (L. G. Binger, _Du
Niger au Golfe de Guinee_, 1892, Vol. II. p. 373.) At p. 375 this
authority gives the following subdivisions of the Mande family, named
from their respective _tenne_ (idol, fetish, totem):
1. _Bamba_, the crocodile: _Bammana_, not _Bambara_, which means kafir
or infidel, and is applied only to the non-Moslem Mande groups.
2. _Mali_, the hippopotamus: _Mali'nke_, including the Kagoros and the
Tagwas.
3. _Sama_, the elephant: _Sama'nke_.
4. _Sa_, the snake: _Sa-mokho_.
Of each there are several sub-groups, while the surrounding peoples call
them all collectively _Wakore_, _Wangara_, _Sakhersi_, and especially
_Diula_. Attention to this point will save the reader much confusion in
consulting Barth, Caillie, and other early books of travel.
[146] _Travels_, Vol. IV. p. 579 sqq.
[147] "La chaine des Montagnes de Kong n'a jamais existe que dans
l'imagination de quelques voyageurs mal renseignes," _Du Niger au Golfe
de Guinee_, 1892, I. p. 285.
[148] Bertrand-Bocande, "Sur les Floups ou Feloups," in _Bul. Soc. de
Geogr_. 1849.
[149] A full account of this literature will be found in the Rev. C. F.
Schlenker's valuable work, _A Collection of Temne Traditions, Fables and
Proverbs_, London, 1861. Here is given the curious explanation of the
tribal name, from _o-tem_, an old man, and _ne_, himself, because, as
they say, the Temne people will exist for ever.
[150] There is also a sisterhood--the _bondo_--and the two societies
work so far in harmony that any person expelled from the one is also
excluded from the other.
[151] Reclus, Keane's English ed., XII. p. 203.
[152] "Da Njoe Testament, translated into the Negro-English Language by
the Missionaries of the Unitas Fratrum," Brit. and For. Bible Soc.,
London, 1829. Here is a specimen quoted by Ellis from _The Artisan_ of
Sierra Leone, Aug. 4, 1886, "Those who live in ceiled houses love to
hear the pit-pat of the rain overhead; whilst those whose houses leak
are the subjects of restlessness and anxiety, not to mention the chances
of catching cold, _that is so frequent a source of leaky roofs_."
[153] Right Rev. E. G. Ingham (Bishop of Sierra Leone), _Sierra Leone
after a Hundred Years_, London, 1894, p. 294. Cf. H. C. Lukach, _A
Bibliography of Sierra Leone_, 1911, and T. J. Alldridge, _A Transformed
Colony_, 1910.
[154] This increase, however, appears to be due to a steady immigration
from the Southern States, but for which the Liberians proper would die
out, or become absorbed in the surrounding native populations.
[155] H. H. Johnston, _Liberia_, 1906.
[156] Possibly the English word "crew," but more probably an extension
of _Kraoh_, the name of a tribe near Settra-kru, to the whole group.
[157] _Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years_, p. 280.
[158] Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, 1899, pp. 54-5.
[159] Since the establishment of British authority in Nigeria (1900 to
1907) much light has been thrown on ethnological problems. See among
other works C. Partridge, _The Cross River Natives_, 1905; A. G.
Leonard, _The Lower Niger and its Tribes_, 1906; A. J. N. Tremearne,
_The Niger and the Western Sudan_, 1910, _The Tailed Head-Hunters of
Nigeria_, 1912; R. E. Dennett, _Nigerian Studies_, 1910; E. D. Morel,
_Nigeria, its People and its Problems_, 1911, besides the
_Anthropological Reports_ of N. W. Thomas, 1910, 1913, and papers by J.
Parkinson in _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVI. 1906, XXXVII. 1907.
[160] The services rendered to African anthropology by this
distinguished officer call for the fullest recognition, all the more
that somewhat free and unacknowledged use has been made of the rich
materials brought together in his classical works on _The Tshi-speaking
Peoples_ (1887), _The Ewe-speaking Peoples_ (1890), and _The
Yoruba-speaking Peoples_ (1894).
[161] N. W. Thomas classifies Yoruba, Edo, Ibo and Efik as four main
stocks in the Western Sudanic language group. "In the Edo and Ibo stocks
people only a few miles apart may not be able to communicate owing to
diversity of language" (p. 141). _Anthropological Report of the
Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria_, Part 1. 1913.
[162] _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 332 sq.
[163] _Feitico_, whence also _feiticeira_, a witch, _feiticeria_,
sorcery, etc., all from _feitico_, artificial, handmade, from Lat.
_facio_ and _factitius_.
[164] _Du Culte des Dieux Fetiches_, 1760. It is generally supposed that
the word was invented, or at least first introduced, by De Brosses; but
Ellis shows that this also is a mistake, as it had already been used by
Bosman in his _Description of Guinea_, London, 1705.
[165] _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, Ch. XII. p. 194 and _passim._ See
also R. H. Nassau, _Fetichism in West Africa_, 1904.
[166] That is, from a wax mould destroyed in the casting. After the
operation details were often filled in by chasing or executed in
_repousse_ work.
[167] "Works of Art from Benin City," _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ February,
1898, p. 362 sq. See H. Ling Roth, _Great Benin, its Customs_, etc.,
1903.
[168] A. Featherman, _Social History of Mankind_, The Nigritians, p.
281. See also Reclus, French ed., Vol. XII. p. 718: "Les cavaliers
portent encore la cuirasse comme au moyen age.... Les chevaux sont
recouverts de la meme maniere." In the mythical traditions of Buganda
also there is reference to the fierce Wakedi warriors clad in "iron
armour" (Ch. IV.). Cf. L. Frobenius, _The Voice of Africa_, II. 1913,
pl. p. 608.
[169] _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee_, 1892, I. p. 377.
[170] Early in the fourteenth century they were strong enough to carry
the war into the enemy's camp and make more than one successful
expedition against Timbuktu. At present the Mossi power is declining,
and their territory has been parcelled out between the British and
French Sudanese hinterlands.
[171] Also _Sonrhay_, _gh_ and _rh_ being interchangeable throughout
North Africa; _Ghat_ and _Rhat_, _Ghadames_ and _Rhadames_, etc. In the
mouth of an Arab the sound is that of the guttural [Symbol], _ghain_,
which is pronounced by the Berbers and Negroes somewhat like the
Northumberland _burr_, hence usually transliterated by _rh_ in
non-Semitic words.
[172] It should be noticed that these terms are throughout used as
strictly defined in _Eth._ Ch. I.
[173] Barth's account of Wulu (IV. p. 299), "inhabited by Tawarek
slaves, who are _trilingues_, speaking Temashight as well as Songhay and
Fulfulde," is at present generally applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to
most of the Songhai settlements.
[174] As so much has been made of Barth's authority in this connection,
it may be well to quote his exact words: "It would seem as if they (the
Sonrhay) had received, in more ancient times, several institutions from
the Egyptians, with whom, I have no doubt, they maintained an
intercourse by means of the energetic inhabitants of Aujila from a
relatively ancient period" (IV. p. 426). Barth, therefore, does not
bring the people themselves, or their language, from Egypt, but only
some of their institutions, and that indirectly through the Aujila Oasis
in Cyrenaica, and it may be added that this intercourse with Aujila
appears to date only from about 1150 A.D. (IV. p. 585).
[175] Hacquard et Dupuis, _Manuel de la langue Songay, parlee de
Tombouctou a Say, dans la boucle du Niger_, 1897, _passim._
[176] "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc._
XLIII. 1913, p. 386.
[177] Barth, IV. pp. 593-4.
[178] The _Ischia_ of Leo Africanus, who tells us that in his time the
"linguaggio detto Sungai" was current even in the provinces of Walata
and Jinni (VI. ch. 2). This statement, however, like others made by Leo
at second hand, must be received with caution. In these districts
Songhai may have been spoken by the officials and some of the upper
classes, but scarcely by the people generally, who were of Mandingan
speech.
[179] Barth, IV. p. 414.
[180] _Ib._ p. 415.
[181] Carried captive into Marakesh, although later restored to his
beloved Timbuktu to end his days in perpetuating the past glories of the
Songhai nation; the one Negroid man of letters, whose name holds a
worthy place beside those of Leo Africanus, Ibn Khaldun, El Tunsi, and
other Hamitic writers.
[182] "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes
Intulit agresti Latio." Hor. _Epist._ II. 1, 156-7.
The epithet _agrestis_ is peculiarly applicable to the rude Fulah
shepherds, who were almost barbarians compared with the settled,
industrious, and even cultured Hausa populations, and whose oppressive
rule has at last been relaxed by the intervention of England in the
Niger-Benue lands.
[183] "One of their towns, Kano, has probably the largest market-place
in the world, with a daily attendance of from 25,000 to 30,000 people.
This same town possesses, what in central Africa is still more
surprising, some thirty or forty schools, in which the children are
taught to read and write" (Rev. C. H. Robinson, _Specimens of Hausa
Literature_, University Press, Cambridge, 1896, p. x).
[184] See C. H. Robinson, _Hausaland, or Fifteen Hundred Miles through
the Central Soudan_, 1896; _Specimens of Hausa Literature_, 1896; _Hausa
Grammar_, 1897; _Hausa Dictionary_, 1899. Authorities are undecided
whether to class Hausa with the Semitic or the Hamitic family, or in an
independent group by itself, and it must be admitted that some of its
features are extremely puzzling. While Sudanese Negro in phonology and
perhaps in most of its word roots, it is Hamitic in its grammatical
features and pronouns. But the Hamitic element is thought by experts to
be as much Kushite, or even Koptic, as Libyan. "On the whole, it seems
probable," says H. H. Johnston, "that the Hausa speech was shaped by a
double influence: from Egypt, and Hamiticized Nubia, as well as by
Libyan immigrants from across the Sahara." "A Survey of the Ethnography
of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc._ XLIII. 1913, p. 385. Cf. also
Julius Lippert, "Ueber die Stellung der Hausasprache," _Mitteilungen des
Seminaers fuer Orientalische Sprachen_, 1906. It is noteworthy that Hausa
is the only language in tropical Africa which has been reduced to
writing by the natives themselves.
[185] _Campaigning on the Upper Nile and Niger_, by Lt Seymour
Vandeleur, with an Introduction by Sir George Goldie, 1898. "In camp,"
writes Lt Vandeleur, "their conduct was exemplary, while pillaging and
ill-treatment of the natives were unknown. As to their fighting
qualities, it is enough to say that, little over 500 strong (on the Bida
expedition of 1897), they withstood for two days 25,000 or 30,000 of the
enemy; that, former slaves of the Fulahs, they defeated their dreaded
masters," etc.
[186] The Kano Chronicle, translated by H. R. Palmer, _Journ. Roy.
Anthr. Inst._ XXXVIII. 1908, gives a list of Hausa kings (Sarkis) from
999 A.D.
[187] For references to recent literature see note on p. 58. Also R. S.
Rattray, _Hausa Folk-lore_, 1913; A. J. N. Tremearne, _Hausa
Superstitions and Customs_, 1913, and _Hausa Folk-Tales_, 1914.
[188] By a popular etymology these are _Ka-Nuri_, "People of Light."
But, as they are somewhat lukewarm Muhammadans, the zealous Fulahs say
it should be _Ka-Nari_, "People of Fire," _i.e._ foredoomed to Gehenna!
[189] E. Gentil, _La Chute de l'Empire de Rabah_, 1902.
[190] The Buduma, who derive their legendary origin from the Fulahs whom
they resemble in physique, worship the _Karraka_ tree (a kind of
acacia). P. A. Talbot, "The Buduma of Lake Chad," _Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._ XLI. 1911. The anthropology of the region has lately been dealt
with in _Documents Scientifiques de la Mission Tilho_ (1906-9),
_Republique Francaise, Ministere des Colonies_, Vol. III. 1914; R.
Gaillard and L. Poutrin, _Etude anthropologique des Populations des
Regions du Tchad et du Kanem_, 1914.
[191] III. p. 194.
[192] _Sahara and Sudan_, II. p. 628.
[193] II. pp. 382-3.
[194] That is "Kanem-men," the postfix _bu_, _be_, as in _Ti-bu_,
_Ful-be_, answering to the Bantu prefix _ba_, _wa_, as in _Ba-Suto_,
_Wa-Swahili_, etc. Here may possibly be discovered a link between the
Sudanese, Teda-Daza, and Bantu linguistic groups. The transposition of
the agglutinated particles would present no difficulty; cf. Umbrian and
Latin (_Eth._ p. 214). The Kanembu are described by Tilho, who explored
the Chad basin, 1906-9. His reports were published in 1914. _Republique
Francaise Ministere des Colonies, Documents Scientifiques de la Mission
Tilho_ (1906-9), Vol. III. 1914.
[195] Barth draws a vivid picture of the contrasts, physical and mental,
between the Kanuri and the Hausa peoples; "Here we took leave of Hausa
with its fine and beautiful country, and its cheerful and industrious
population. It is remarkable what a difference there is between the
character of the ba-Haushe and the Kanuri--the former lively, spirited,
and cheerful, the latter melancholic, dejected, and brutal; and the same
difference is visible in their physiognomies--the former having in
general very pleasant and regular features, and more graceful forms,
while the Kanuri, with his broad face, his wide nostrils and his large
bones, makes a far less agreeable impression, especially the women, who
are very plain and certainly among the ugliest in all Negroland" (II.
pp. 163-4).
[196] See Nachtigal, II. p. 690.
[197] For recent literature see Lady Lugard's _A Tropical Dependency_,
1905, and the references, note 3, p. 58.
[198] These are the same people as the _Tunjurs_ (_Tunzers_) of Darfur,
regarding whose ethnical position so much doubt still prevails. Strange
to say, they themselves claim to be Arabs, and the claim is allowed by
their neighbours, although they are not Muhammadans. Lejean thinks they
are Tibus from the north-west, while Nachtigal, who met some as far west
as Kanem, concluded from their appearance and speech that they were
really Arabs settled for hundreds of years in the country (_op. cit._
II. p. 256).
[199] A. H. Keane, "Wadai," _Travel and Exploration_, July, 1910; and H.
H. Johnston, on Lieut. Boyd Alexander, _Geog. Journ._ same date.
[200] H. A. MacMichael has investigated the value of these racial claims
in the case of the Kababish and indicates the probable admixture of
Negro, Mediterranean, Hamite and other strains in the Sudanese Arabs. He
says, "Among the more settled tribes any important sheikh or faki can
produce a table of his ancestors (_i.e._ a _nisba_) in support of his
asseverations.... I asked a village sheikh if he could show me his
pedigree, as I did not know from which of the exalted sources his
particular tribe claimed descent. He replied that he did not know yet,
but that his village had subscribed 60 piastres the month before to hire
a faki to compose a _nisba_ for them, and that he would show me the
result when it was finished." "The Kababish: Some Remarks on the
Ethnology of a Sudan Arab Tribe," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910,
p. 216.
[201] See the Kababish types, Pl. XXXVII in C. G. Seligman's "Some
Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan," _Journ.
Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913, but cf. also p. 626 and n. 2.
[202] "The Physical Characters of the Nuba of Kordofan," _Journ. Roy.
Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910, "Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem," etc.,
_tom. cit._ XLIII. 1913.
[203] See H. A. MacMichael, _The Tribes of Northern and Central
Kordofan_, 1912.
[204] Cf. A. W. Tucker and C. S. Myers, "A Contribution to the
Anthropology of the Sudan," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910, p. 149.
[205] This term, however, has by some authorities been identified with
the _Barabara_, one of the 113 tribes recorded in the inscription on a
gateway of Thutmes, by whom they were reduced about 1700 B.C. In a later
inscription of Rameses II at Karnak (1400 B.C.) occurs the form
_Beraberata_, name of a southern people conquered by him. Hence Brugsch
(_Reisebericht aus AEgypten_, pp. 127 and 155) is inclined to regard the
modern _Barabra_ as a true ethnical name confused in classical times
with the Greek and Roman _Barbarus_, but revived in its proper sense
since the Moslem conquest. See also the editorial note on the term
_Berber_, in the new English ed. of Leo Africanus, Vol. 1. p. 199.
[206] [Greek:'Ex aristeron de ruseos tou Neilou Noubai katoikousin en te
Libue, mega ethnos], etc. (Book XVII. p. 1117, Oxford ed. 1807). Sayce,
therefore, is quite wrong in stating that Strabo knew only of
"Ethiopians," and not Nubians, "as dwelling northward along the banks of
the Nile as far as Elephantine" (_Academy_, April 14, 1894).
[207] _Nubische Grammatik_, 1881, _passim._
[208] B. Z. Seligman, "Note on the Languages of the Nubas of S.
Kordofan," _Zeitschr. f. Kol.-spr._ I. 1910-11; C. G. Seligman, "Some
Aspects of the Hamitic Problem," etc., _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII.
1913, p. 621 ff.
[209] See A. H. Keane, _Man, Past and Present_, 1900, p. 74.
[210] C. G. Seligman, "The Physical Characters of the Nuba of Kordofan,"
_Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910, p. 512, and "Some Aspects of the
Hamitic Problem," etc., _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913,
_passim_.
[211] _Archaeological Survey of India_, Bull. III. p. 25.
[212] See note 1, p. 44.
[213] _Op. cit._ I. p. 263.
[214] _Travels in Africa_, Keane's English ed., Vol. III. p. 247.
[215] _Ibid._ p. 246.
[216] C. G. Seligman, Art. "Dinka," _Encyclopaedia of Religion and
Ethics._ See also the same author's "Cult of Nyakangano the Divine Kings
of the Shilluk," _Fourth Report Wellcome Research Lab. Khartoum_, Vol.
B, 1911, p. 216; S. L. Cummins, _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ XXXIV. 1904, and
H. O'Sullivan, "Dinka Laws and Customs," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XL.
1910. Measurements of Dinka, Shilluk etc. are given by A. W. Tucker and
C. S. Myers, "A Contribution to the Anthropology of the Sudan," _Journ.
Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910. G. A. S. Northcote, "The Nilotic
Kavirondo," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVI. 1907, describes an allied
people, the _Jaluo_.
[217] _Travels in Africa_, Keane's Eng. ed., III. p. 279. Thus the Bantu
_Ba_, _Wa_, _Ama_, etc., correspond to the _A_ of the Welle lands, as in
_A-Zandeh_, _A-Barmbo_, _A-Madi_, _A-Bangba_, _i.e._ Zandeh people,
Barmbo people, etc. Cf. also Kanem_bu_, Ti_bu_, Ful_be_, etc., where the
personal particle (_bu, be_) is postfixed. It would almost seem as if we
had here a transition between the northern Sudanese and the southern
Bantu groups in the very region where such transitions might be looked
for.
[218] Schweinfurth, _op. cit._ II. p. 93.
[219] G. Elliot Smith denies that cannibalism occurred in Ancient Egypt,
_The Ancient Egyptians_, 1911, p. 48.
[220] _Africa_, 1895, Vol. II. p. 58. In a carefully prepared monograph
on "Endocannibalismus," Vienna, 1896, Dr Rudolf S. Steinmetz brings
together a great body of evidence tending to show "dass eine hohe
Wahrscheinlichkeit dafuer spricht den Endocannibalismus (indigenous
anthropophagy) als staendige Sitte der Urmenschen, sowie der niedrigen
Wilden anzunehmen" (pp. 59, 60). It is surprising to learn from the
ill-starred Bottego-Grixoni expedition of 1892-3 that anthropophagy is
still rife even in Gallaland, and amongst the white ("floridi") Cormoso
Gallas. Like the Fans, these prefer the meat "high," and it would appear
that all the dead are eaten. Hence in their country Bottego found no
graves, and one of his native guides explained that "questa gente
seppellisce i suoi cari nel ventre, invece che nella terra," _i.e._
these people bury their dear ones in their stomach instead of in the
ground. Vittorio Bottego, _Viaggi di Scoperta_, etc. Rome, 1895.
[221] I. p. 245.
[222] II. p. 140.