THE AFRICAN NEGRO: II. BANTUS--NEGRILLOES--BUSHMEN--HOTTENTOTS
The Sudanese-Bantu Divide--Frontier Tribes--_The Bonjo Cannibals_--
_The Baya Nation_--A "Red People"--The North-East Door to
Bantuland--Semitic Elements of the Bantu Amalgam--Malay Elements
in Madagascar only--Hamitic Element everywhere--_The Ba-Hima_--
Pastoral and Agricultural Clans--The Bantus mainly a Negro-Hamitic
Cross--Date of Bantu Migration--The _Lacustrians_--Their
Traditions--The Kintu Legend--_The Ba-Ganda_, Past and Present--
Political and Social Institutions--Totemic System--Bantu Peoples
between Lake Victoria and the Coast--_The Wa-Giryama_--Primitive
Ancestry-Worship--Mulungu--_The Wa-Swahili_--The Zang Empire--_The
Zulu-Xosas_--Former and Present Domain--Patriarchal Institutions--
Genealogies--Physical Type--Social Organisation--"Common Law"--
_Ma-Shonas_ and _Ma-Kalakas_--The mythical Monomotapa Empire--The
Zimbabwe Ruins--_The Be-Chuanas_--_The Ba-Rotse_ Empire--_The
Ma-Kololo_ Episode--Spread of Christianity amongst the Southern
Bantus--King Khama--_The Ova-Herero_--_Cattle and Hill Damaras_--
_The Kongo People_--Old Kongo Empire--The Kongo Language--The
Kongo Aborigines--Perverted Christian Doctrines--_The Kabindas_ and
"_Black Jews_"--_The Ba-Shilange_ Bhang-smokers--_The Ba-Lolo_ "Men
of Iron"--The West Equatorial Bantus--_Ba-Kalai_--_The Cannibal
Fans_--Migrations, Type, Origin--_The Camerun Bantus_--
Bantu-Sudanese Borderland--Early Bantu Migrations--Eastern
Ancestry and Western Nature-worshippers--Conclusion--_Vaalpens_--
_Strandloopers_--_Negrilloes_--Negrilloes at the Courts of the
Pharaohs--Negrilloes and Pygmy Folklore--_The Dume_ and _Doko_
reputed Dwarfs--_The Wandorobbo_ Hunters--_The Wochua_ Mimics--
_The Bushmen and Hottentots_--Former and Present Range--_The
Wa-Sandawi_--Hottentot Geographical Names in Bantuland--Hottentots
disappearing--Bushman Folklore Literature--Bushman-Hottentot
Language and Clicks--Bushman Mental Characters--Bushman Race-Names.
CONSPECTUS.
#Present Range.# Bantu: _S. Africa from the Sudanese frontier to the
Cape_; Negrillo: _West Equatorial and Congo forest zones_; Bush.-Hot.:
_Namaqualands_; _Kalahari_; _Lake Ngami and Orange basins_.
#Hair.# Bantu: _same as Sudanese, but often rather longer_; Negrillo:
_short, frizzly or crisp, rusty brown_; Bush.-Hot.: _much the same as
Sudanese, but tufty, simulating bald partings_. #Colour.# Bantu: _all
shades of dark brown, sometimes almost black_; Negrillo _and_
Bush.-Hot.: _yellowish brown_. #Skull.# Bantu: _generally dolicho, but
variable_; Negrillo: _almost uniformly mesati_; Bush.-Hot.: _dolicho_.
#Jaws.# Bantu: _moderately prognathous and even orthognathous_; Negrillo
_and_ Bush.-Hot.: _highly prognathous_. #Cheek-bones.# Bantu:
_moderately or not at all prominent_; Negrillo _and_ Bush.-Hot.: _very
prominent, often extremely so, forming a triangular face with apex at
chin_. #Nose.# Bantu: _variable, ranging from platyrrhine to
leptorrhine_; Negrillo _and_ Bush.-Hot.: _short, broad at base,
depressed at root, always platyrrhine_. #Eyes.# Bantu: _generally large,
black, and prominent, but also of regular Hamitic type_; Negrillo _and_
Bush.-Hot.: _rather small, deep brown and black_. #Stature.# Bantu:
tall, from 1.72 m. to 1.82 m. (5 ft. 8 in. to 6 ft.); Negrillo: _always
much under 1.52 m. (5 ft.), mean about 1.22 m. (4 ft.)_; Bushman:
_short, with rather wide range, from 1.42 m. to 1.57 m. (4 ft. 8 in. to
5 ft. 2 in.)_; Hot.: _undersized, mean 1.65 m. (5 ft. 5 in.)_.
#Temperament.# Bantu: _mainly like the Negroid Sudanese, far more
intelligent than the true Negro, equally cruel, but less fitful and more
trustworthy_; Negrillo: _bright, active and quick-witted, but vindictive
and treacherous, apparently not cruel to each other, but rather gentle
and kindly_; Bushman: _in all these respects very like the Negrillo, but
more intelligent_; Hot.: _rather dull and sluggish, but the full-blood
(Nama) much less so than the half-caste (Griqua) tribes_.
#Speech.# Bantu: _as absolutely uniform as the physical type is
variable, one stock language only, of the agglutinating order, with both
class prefixes, alliteration and postfixes_[223]; Negrillo: _unknown_;
Hot.: _agglutinating with postfixes only, with grammatical gender and
other remarkable features_; _of Hamitic origin_.
#Religion.# Bantu: _ancestor-worship mainly in the east, spirit-worship
mainly in the west, intermingling in the centre, with witchcraft and
gross superstitions everywhere_; Negrillo: _little known_; Bush.-Hot.:
_animism, nature-worship, and reverence for ancestors_; _among
Hottentots belief in supreme powers of good and evil_.
#Culture.# Bantu: _much lower than the Negroid Sudanese, but higher than
the true Negro_; _principally cattle rearers, practising simple
agriculture_; Negrillo and Bush.: _lowest grade, hunters_; Hot.:
_nomadic herdsmen_.
Main Divisions.
#Bantus#[224]: _Bonjo_; _Baya_; _Ba-Ganda_; _Ba-Nyoro_; _Wa-Pokomo_;
_Wa-Giryama_; _Wa-Swahili_; _Zulu-Xosa_; _Ma-Shona_; _Be-Chuana_;
_Ova-Herero_; _Eshi-Kongo_; _Ba-Shilange_; _Ba-Lolo_; _Ma-Nyema_;
_Ba-Kalai_; _Fan_; _Mpongwe_; _Dwala_; _Ba-Tanga_.
#Negrilloes#: _Akka_; _Wochua_; _Dume(?)_; _Wandorobbo(?)_; _Doko(?)_;
_Obongo_; _Wambutte (Ba-Mbute)_; _Ba-Twa_.
#Bushmen#: _Family groups_; _no known tribal names_.
#Hottentots#: _Wa-Sandawi (?)_; _Namaqua_; _Griqua_; _Gonaqua_;
_Koraqua_; _Hill Damaras_.
* * * * *
In ethnology the only intelligible definition of a Bantu is a full-blood
or a half-blood Negro of Bantu speech[225]; and from the physical
standpoint no very hard and fast line can be drawn between the northern
Sudanese and southern Bantu groups, considered as two ethnical units.
Thanks to recent political developments in the interior, the linguistic
divide may now be traced with some accuracy right across the continent.
In the extreme west, Sir H. H. Johnston has shown that it coincides with
the lower course of the Rio del Rey, while farther east the French
expedition of 1891 under M. Dybowski found that it ran at about the same
parallel (5 deg. N.) along the elevated plateau which here forms the
water-parting between the Congo and the Chad basin. From this point the
line takes a south-easterly trend along the southern borders of the
Zandeh and Mangbattu territories to the Semliki Valley between Lakes
Albert Edward and Albert Nyanza, near the equator. Thence it pursues a
somewhat irregular course, first north by the east side of the Albert
Nyanza to the mouth of the Somerset Nile, then up that river to Mruli
and round the east side of Usoga and the Victoria Nyanza to Kavirondo
Bay, where it turns nearly east to the sources of the Tana, and down
that river to its mouth in the Indian Ocean.
At some points the line traverses debatable territory, as in the Semliki
Valley, where there are Sudanese and Negrillo overlappings, and again
beyond Victoria Nyanza, where the frontiers are broken by the Hamitic
Masai nomads and their Wandorobbo allies. But, speaking generally,
everything south of the line here traced is Bantu, everything north of
it Sudanese Negro in the western and central regions, and Hamitic in the
eastern section between Victoria Nyanza and the Indian Ocean.
In some districts the demarcation is not quite distinct, as in the Tana
basin, where some of the Galla and Somali Hamites from the north have
encroached on the territory of the Wa-Pokomo Bantus on the south side of
the river. But on the central plateau M. Dybowski passed abruptly from
the territory of the Bonjos, northernmost of the Bantu tribes, to that
of the Sudanese Bandziri, a branch of the widespread Zandeh people. In
this region, about the crest of the Congo-Chad water-parting, the
contrasts appear to be all in favour of the Sudanese and against the
Bantus, probably because here the former are Negroids, the latter
full-blood Negroes. Thus Dybowski[226] found the Bonjos to be a
distinctly Negro tribe with pronounced prognathism, and altogether a
rude, savage people, trading chiefly in slaves, who are fattened for the
meat market, and when in good condition will fetch about twelve
shillings. On the other hand the Bandziri, despite their Niam-Niam
connection, are not cannibals, but a peaceful, agricultural people,
friendly to travellers, and of a coppery-brown complexion, with regular
features, hence perhaps akin to the light-coloured people met by Barth
in the Mosgu country.
Possibly the Bonjos may be a degraded branch of the _Bayas_ or
_Nderes_, a large nation, with many subdivisions widely diffused
throughout the Sangha basin, where they occupy the whole space between
the Kadei and the Mambere affluents of the main stream (3 deg. to 7 deg. 30' N.;
14 deg. to 17 deg. E.). They are described by M. F. J. Clozel[227] as of tall
stature, muscular, well-proportioned, with flat nose, slightly tumid
lips, and of black colour, but with a dash of copper-red in the upper
classes. Although cannibals, like the Bonjos, they are in other respects
an intelligent, friendly people, who, under the influence of the
Muhammadan Fulahs, have developed a complete political administration,
with a Royal Court, a Chancellor, Speaker, Interpreter, and other
officials, bearing sonorous titles taken chiefly from the Hausa
language. Their own Bantu tongue is widespread and spoken with slight
dialectic differences as far as the Nana affluents.
M. Clozel, who regards them as mentally and morally superior to most of
the Middle and Lower Congo tribes, tells us that the Bayas, that is, the
"Red People," came at an unknown period from the east, "yielding to that
great movement of migration by which the African populations are
continually impelled westwards." The Yangere section were still on the
move some twelve years ago, but the general migration has since been
arrested by the Fulahs of Adamawa. Human flesh is now interdicted to the
women; they have domesticated the sheep, goat, and dog, and believe in a
supreme being called _So_, whose powers are manifested in the dense
woodlands, while minor deities preside over the village and the hut,
that is, the whole community and each separate family group. Thus both
their religious and political systems present a certain completeness,
which recalls those prevalent amongst the semi-civilised peoples of the
equatorial lake region, and is evidently due to the same cause--long
contact or association with a race of higher culture and intelligence.
In order to understand all these relations, as well as the general
constitution of the Bantu populations, we have to consider that the
already-described Black Zone, running from the Atlantic seaboard
eastwards, has for countless generations been almost everywhere
arrested north of the equator by the White Nile. Probably since the
close of the Old Stone Age the whole of the region between the main
stream and the Red Sea, and from the equator north to the Mediterranean,
has formed an integral part of the Hamitic domain, encroached upon in
prehistoric times by Semites and others in Egypt and Abyssinia, and in
historic times chiefly by Semites (Arabs) in Egypt, Upper Nubia, Senaar,
and Somaliland. Between this region and Africa south of the equator
there are no serious physical obstructions of any kind, whereas farther
west the Hamitic Saharan nomads were everywhere barred access to the
south by the broad, thickly-peopled plateaux of the Sudanese Black Zone.
All encroachments on this side necessarily resulted in absorption in the
multitudinous Negro populations of Central Sudan, with the modifications
of the physical and mental characters which are now presented by the
Kanuri, Hausas, Songhai and other Negroid nations of that region, and
are at present actually in progress amongst the conquering Fulah Hamites
scattered in small dominant groups over a great part of Sudan from
Senegambia to Wadai.
It follows that the leavening element, by which the southern Negro
populations have been diversely modified throughout the Bantu lands,
could have been drawn only from the Hamitic and Semitic peoples of the
north-east. But in this connection the Semites themselves must be
considered as almost _une quantite negligeable_, partly because of their
relatively later arrival from Asia, and partly because, as they arrived,
they became largely assimilated to the indigenous Hamitic inhabitants of
Egypt, Abyssinia, and Somaliland. Belief in the presence of a Semitic
people in the interior of S.E. Africa in early historic times was
supported by the groups of ruins (especially those of Zimbabwe), found
mainly in Southern Rhodesia, described in J. T. Bent's _Ruined Cities of
Mashonaland_. Exploration in 1905 dispelled the romance hitherto
connected with the "temples" and produced evidence to show that they
were not earlier in date than the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries and
were of native construction[228]. They probably served as distributing
centres for the gold traffic carried on with the Semitic traders of the
coast. For certainly in Muhammadan times Semites from Arabia formed
permanent settlements along the eastern seaboard as far south as Sofala,
and these intermingled more freely with the converted coast peoples
(_Wa-Swahili_, from _sahel_ = "coast"), but not with the _Kafirs_, or
"Unbelievers," farther south and in the interior. In our own days these
Swahili half-breeds, with a limited number of full-blood Arabs[229],
have penetrated beyond the Great Lakes to the Upper and Middle Congo
basin, but rather as slave-hunters and destroyers than as peaceful
settlers, and contracting few alliances, except perhaps amongst the
Wa-Yao and Ma-Gwangara tribes of Mozambique, and the cannibal Ma-Nyemas
farther inland.
To this extent Semitism may be recognised as a factor in the constituent
elements of the Bantu populations. Malays have also been mentioned, and
some ethnologists have even brought the Fulahs of Western Sudan all the
way from Malaysia. Certainly if they reached and formed settlements in
Madagascar, there is no intrinsic reason why they should not have done
the same on the mainland. But I have failed to find any evidence of the
fact, and if they ever at any time established themselves on the east
coast they have long disappeared, without leaving any clear trace of
their presence either in the physical appearance, speech, usages or
industries of the aborigines, such as are everywhere conspicuous in
Madagascar. The small canoes with two booms and double outriggers which
occur at least from Mombasa to Mozambique are of Indonesian origin, as
are the fish traps that occur at Mombasa.
There remain the north-eastern Hamites, and especially the Galla branch,
as the essential extraneous factor in this obscure Bantu problem. To the
stream of migration described by M. Clozel as setting east and west,
corresponds another and an older stream, which ages ago took a southerly
direction along the eastern seaboard to the extremity of the continent,
where are now settled the Zulu-Xosa nations, almost more Hamites than
Negroes.
The impulse to two such divergent movements could have come only from
the north-east, where we still find the same tendencies in actual
operation. During his exploration of the east equatorial lands, Capt.
Speke had already observed that the rulers of the Bantu nations about
the Great Lakes (Karagwe, Ba-Ganda, Ba-Nyoro, etc.) all belonged to the
same race, known by the name of _Ba-Hima_, that is, "Northmen," a
pastoral people of fine appearance, who were evidently of Galla stock,
and had come originally from Gallaland. Since then Schuver found that
the Negroes of the Afilo country are governed by a Galla
aristocracy[230], and we now know that several Ba-hima communities
bearing different names live interspersed amongst the mixed Bantu
nations of the lacustrian plateaux as far south as Lake Tanganyika and
Unyamweziland[231]. Here the Wa-Tusi, Wa-Hha, and Wa-Ruanda are or were
all of the same Hamitic type, and M. Lionel Decle "was very much struck
by the extraordinary difference that is to be found between them and
their Bantu neighbours[232]." Then this observer adds: "Pure types are
not common, and are only to be found amongst the aristocracy, if I may
use such an expression for Africans. The mass of the people have lost
their original type through intermixture with neighbouring tribes."
J. Roscoe[233] thus describes the inhabitants of Ankole. "The pastoral
people are commonly called Bahima, though they prefer to be called
Banyankole; they are a tall fine race though physically not very strong.
Many of them are over six feet in height, their young king being six
feet six inches and broad in proportion to his height.... It is not only
the men who are so tall, the women also being above the usual stature of
their sex among other tribes, though they do injustice to their height
by a fashionable stoop which makes them appear much shorter than they
really are. The features of these pastoral people are good: they have
straight noses with a bridge, thin lips, finely chiselled faces, heads
well set on fairly developed frames, and a good carriage; there is in
fact nothing but their colour and their short woolly hair to make you
think of them as negroids."
The contrast and the relationship between the pastoral conquerors and
the agricultural tribes is clearly seen among the Ba-Nyoro. "The
pastoral people are a tall, well-built race of men and women with finely
cut features, many of them over six feet in height. The men are athletic
with little spare flesh, but the women are frequently very fat and
corpulent: indeed their ideal of beauty is obesity, and their milk diet
together with their careful avoidance of exercise tends to increase
their size. The agricultural clans, on the other hand, are short,
ill-favoured looking men and women with broad noses of the negro type,
lean and unkempt. Both classes are dark, varying in shade from a light
brown to deep black, with short woolly hair. The pastoral people
refrain, as far as possible, from all manual labour and expect the
agricultural clans to do their menial work for them, such as building
their houses, carrying firewood and water, and supplying them with grain
and beer for their households." "Careful observation and enquiry lead to
the opinion that the agricultural clans were the original inhabitants
and that they were conquered by the pastoral people who have reduced
them to their present servile condition[234]."
From these indications and many others that might easily be adduced, it
may be concluded with some confidence that the great mass of the Bantu
populations are essentially Negroes, leavened in diverse proportions,
for the most part by conquering Galla or Hamitic elements percolating
for thousands of generations from the north-eastern section of the
Hamitic domain into the heart of Bantuland.
The date of the Bantu migrations is much disputed. "As far as linguistic
evidence goes," says H. H. Johnston[235], "the ancestors of the Bantu
dwelt in some region like the Bahr-al-Ghazal, not far from the Mountain
Nile on the east, from Kordofan on the north, or the Benue and Chad
basins on the west. Their first great movement of expansion seems to
have been eastward, and to have established them (possibly with a
guiding aristocracy of Hamitic origin) in the region between Mount
Elgon, the Northern Victoria Nyanza, Tanganyika, and the Congo Forest.
At some such period as about 300 B.C. their far-reaching invasion of
Central and South Africa seems to have begun." The date is fixed by the
date of the introduction of the fowl from Nile-land, since the root word
for fowl is the same almost throughout Bantu Africa, "obviously related
to the Persian words for fowl, yet quite unrelated to the Semitic terms,
or to those used by the Kushites of Eastern Africa." F. Stuhlmann, on
the contrary, places the migrations practically in geological times.
After bringing the Sudan Negroes from South Asia at the end of the
Tertiary or beginning of the Pleistocene (_Pluvialperiod_), and the
Proto-Hamites from a region probably somewhat further to the north and
west of the former, he continues: From the mingling of the Negroes and
the Proto-Hamites were formed, probably in East Africa, the Bantu
languages and the Bantu peoples, who wandered thence south and west. The
wanderings began in the latter part of the Pleistocene period[236]. He
quotes Th. Arldt, who with greater precision places the occupation of
Africa by the Negroes in the Riss period (300,000 years ago) and that of
the Hamites in the Mousterian period (30,000 to 50,000 years ago)[237].
All these peoples resulting from the crossings of Negroes with Hamites
now speak various forms of the same organic Bantu mother-tongue. But
this linguistic uniformity is strictly analogous to that now prevailing
amongst the multifarious peoples of Aryan speech in Eurasia, and is due
to analogous causes--the diffusion in extremely remote times of a mixed
Hamito-Negro people of Bantu speech in Africa south of the equator. It
might perhaps be objected that the present Ba-Hima pastors are of
Hamitic speech, because we know from Stanley that the late king M'tesa
of Buganda was proud of his Galla ancestors, whose language he still
spoke as his mother-tongue. But he also spoke Luganda, and every echo
of Galla speech has already died out amongst most of the Ba-Hima
communities in the equatorial regions. So it was with what I may call
the "Proto-Ba-Himas," the first conquering Galla tribes, Schuver's and
Decle's "aristocracy," who were gradually blended with the aborigines in
a new and superior nationality of Bantu speech, because "there are many
mixed races, ... but there are no mixed languages[238]."
These views are confirmed by the traditions and folklore still current
amongst the "Lacustrians," as the great nations may be called, who are
now grouped round about the shores of Lakes Victoria and Albert Nyanza.
At present, or rather before the recent extension of the British
administration to East Central Africa, these peoples were constituted in
a number of separate kingdoms, the most powerful of which were Buganda
(Uganda)[239], Bunyoro (Unyoro), and Karagwe. But they remember a time
when all these now scattered fragments formed parts of a mighty
monarchy, the vast Kitwara Empire, which comprised the whole of the
lake-studded plateau between the Ruwenzori range and Kavirondoland.
The story is differently told in the different states, each nation being
eager to twist it to its own glorification; but all are agreed that the
founder of the empire was Kintu, "The Blameless," at once priest,
patriarch and ruler of the land, who came from the north hundreds of
years ago, with one wife, one cow, one goat, one sheep, one chicken, one
banana-root, and one sweet potato. At first all was waste, an
uninhabited wilderness, but it was soon miraculously peopled, stocked,
and planted with what he had brought with him, the potato being
apportioned to Bunyoro, the banana to Buganda, and these form the staple
food of those lands to this day.
Then the people waxed wicked, and Kintu, weary of their evil ways and
daily bloodshed, took the original wife, cow, and other things, and went
away in the night and was seen no more. But nobody believed him dead,
and a long line of his mythical successors appear to have spent the time
they could spare from strife and war and evil deeds in looking for the
lost Kintu. Kimera, one of these, was a mighty giant of such strength
and weight that he left his footprints on the rocks where he trod, as
may still be seen on a cliff not far from Ulagalla, the old capital of
Buganda. There was also a magician, Kibaga, who could fly aloft and kill
the Ba-Nyoro people (this is the Buganda version) by hurling stones down
upon them, and for his services received in marriage a beautiful
Ba-Nyoro captive, who, another Delilah, found out his secret, and
betrayed him to her people.
At last came King Ma'anda, who pretended to be a great hunter, but it
was only to roam the woodlands in search of Kintu, and thus have tidings
of him. One day a peasant, obeying the directions of a thrice-dreamt
dream, came to a place in the forest, where was an aged man on a throne
between two rows of armed warriors, seated on mats, his long beard white
with age, and all his men fair as white people and clothed in white
robes. Then Kintu, for it was he, bid the peasant hasten to summon
Ma'anda thither, but only with his mother and the messenger. At the
Court Ma'anda recognised the stranger whom he had that very night seen
in a dream, and so believed his words and at once set out with his
mother and the peasant. But the Katikiro, or Prime Minister, through
whom the message had been delivered to the king, fearing treachery, also
started on their track, keeping them just in view till the
trysting-place was reached. But Kintu, who knew everything, saw him all
the time, and when he came forward on finding himself discovered the
enraged Ma'anda pierced his faithful minister to the heart and he fell
dead with a shriek. Thereupon Kintu and his seated warriors instantly
vanished, and the king with the others wept and cried upon Kintu till
the deep woods echoed Kintu, Kintu-u, Kintu-u-u. But the blood-hating
Kintu was gone, and to this day has never again been seen or heard of by
any man in Buganda. The references to the north and to Kintu and his
ghostly warriors "fair as white people" need no comment[240]. It is
noteworthy that in some of the Nyassaland dialects _Kintu_ (_Caintu_)
alternates with _Mulungu_ as the name of the Supreme Being, the great
ancestor of the tribe[241].
Then follows more traditional or legendary matter, including an account
of the wars with the fierce Wakedi, who wore iron armour, until
authentic history is reached with the atrocious Suna II (1836-60),
father of the scarcely less atrocious M'tesa. After his death in 1884
Buganda and the neighbouring states passed rapidly through a series of
astonishing political, religious, and social vicissitudes, resulting in
the present _pax Britannica_, and the conversion of large numbers, some
to Islam, others to one form or another of Christianity. At times it
might have been difficult to see much religion in the ferocity of the
contending factions; but since the establishment of harmony by the
secular arm, real progress has been made, and the Ba-Ganda especially
have displayed a remarkable capacity as well as eagerness to acquire a
knowledge of letters and of religious principles, both in the Protestant
and the Roman Catholic communities. Printing-presses, busily worked by
native hands, are needed to meet the steadily increasing demand for a
vernacular literature, in a region where blood had flowed continually
from the disappearance of "Kintu" till the British occupation.
To the admixture of the Hamitic and Negro elements amongst the
Lacustrians may perhaps be attributed the curious blend of primitive and
higher institutions in these communities. At the head of the State was a
Kabaka, king or emperor, although the title was also borne by the
queen-mother and the queen-sister. This autocrat had his _Lukiko_, or
Council, of which the members were the _Katikiro_, Prime Minister and
Chief Justice, the _Kimbugwe_, who had charge of the King's umbilical
cord, and held rank next to the _Katikiro_, and ten District chiefs, for
the administration of the ten large districts into which the country was
divided, each rendering accounts to the _Katikiro_ and through him to
the King. Each District chief had to maintain in good order a road some
four yards wide, reaching from the capital to his country seat, a
distance possibly of nearly 100 miles. Each District chief had
sub-chiefs under him, independent of the chief in managing their own
portion of land. These were responsible for keeping in repair the road
between their own residence and that of the District chief. In each
district was a supreme court, and every sub-chief, even with only a
dozen followers, could hold a court and try cases among his own people.
The people, however, could take their cases from one court to another
until eventually they came before the _Katikiro_ or the King.
Yet together with this highly advanced social and political development
a totemic exogamous clan system was in force throughout Uganda, all the
Ba-Ganda belonging to one of 29 _kika_ or clans, each possessing two
totems held sacred by the clan. Thus the Lion (_Mpologoma_) clan had the
Eagle (_Mpungu_) for its second totem; the Mushroom (_Butiko_) clan had
the Snail (_Nsonko_); the Buffalo (_Mbogo_) clan had a New Cooking Pot
(_Ntamu_). Each clan had its chief, or Father, who resided on the clan
estate which was also the clan burial-ground, and was responsible for
the conduct of the members of his branch. All the clans were
exogamous[242], and a man was expected to take a second wife from the
clan of his paternal grandmother[243].
No direct relations appear to exist between the Lacustrians and the
_Wa-Kikuyu_, _Wa-Kamba_, _Wa-Pokomo_, Wa-Gweno, _Wa-Chaga_, _Wa-Teita_,
_Wa-Taveita_, and others[244], who occupy the region east of Victoria
Nyanza, between the Tana, north-east frontier of Bantuland, and the
southern slopes of Kilimanjaro. Their affinities seem to be rather with
the _Wa-Nyika_, _Wa-Boni_, _Wa-Duruma_, _Wa-Giryama_, and the other
coast tribes between the Tana and Mombasa. All of these tribes have more
or less adopted the habits and customs of the Masai.
We learn from Sir A. Harding[245] that in the British East African
Protectorate there are altogether as many as twenty-five distinct
tribes, generally at a low stage of culture, with a loose tribal
organisation, a fully-developed totemic system, and a universal faith in
magic; but there are no priests, idols or temples, or even distinctly
recognised hereditary chiefs or communal councils. The Gallas, who have
crossed the Tana and here encroached on Bantu territory, have
reminiscences of a higher civilisation and apparently of Christian
traditions and observances, derived no doubt from Abyssinia. They tell
you that they had once a sacred book, the observance of whose precepts
made them the first of nations. But it was left lying about, and so got
eaten by a cow, and since then when cows are killed their entrails are
carefully searched for the lost volume.
Exceptional interest attaches to the Wa-Giryama, who are the chief
people between Mombasa and Melindi, the first trustworthy accounts of
whom were contributed by W. E. Taylor[246], and W. W. A.
Fitzgerald[247]. Here again Bantus and Gallas are found in close
contact, and we learn that the Wa-Giryama, who came originally from the
Mount Mangea district in the north-east, occupied their present homes
only about a century ago "upon the withdrawal of the Gallas." The
language, which is of a somewhat archaic type, appears to be the chief
member of a widespread Bantu group, embracing the Ki-nyika, and
Ki-pokomo in the extreme north, the Ki-swahili of the Zanzibar coast,
and perhaps the Ki-kamba, the Ki-teita, and others of the interior
between the coastlands and Victoria Nyanza. These inland tongues,
however, have greatly diverged from the primitive Ki-giryama[248], which
stands in somewhat the same relation to them and to the still more
degraded and Arabised Ki-swahili[249] that Latin stands to the Romance
languages.
But the chief interest presented by the Wa-Giryama is centred in their
religious ideas, which are mainly connected with ancestry-worship, and
afford an unexpected insight into the origin and nature of that perhaps
most primitive of all forms of belief. There is, of course, a vague
entity called a "Supreme Being" in ethnographic writings, who, like the
Algonquian Manitu, crops up under various names (here _Mulungu_) all
over east Bantuland, but on analysis generally resolves itself into some
dim notion growing out of ancestry-worship, a great or aged person,
eponymous hero or the like, later deified in diverse ways as the
Preserver, the Disposer, and especially the Creator. These Wa-Giryama
suppose that from his union with the Earth all things have sprung, and
that human beings are Mulungu's hens and chickens. But there is also an
idea that he may be the manes of their fathers, and thus everything
becomes merged in a kind of apotheosis of the departed. They think "the
disembodied spirit is powerful for good and evil. Individuals worship
the shades of their immediate ancestors or elder relatives; and the
_k'omas_ [souls?] of the whole nation are worshipped on public
occasions."
Although the European ghost or "revenant" is unknown, the spirits of
near ancestors may appear in dreams, and express their wishes to the
living. They ask for sacrifices at their graves to appease their hunger,
and such sacrifices are often made with a little flour and water poured
into a coconut shell let into the ground, the fowls and other victims
being so killed that the blood shall trickle into the grave. At the
offering the dead are called on by name to come and partake, and bring
their friends with them, who are also mentioned by name. But whereas
Christians pray to be remembered of heaven and the saints, the
Wa-Giryama pray rather that the new-born babe be forgotten of Mulungu,
and so live. "Well!" they will say on the news of a birth, "may Mulungu
forget him that he may become strong and well." This is an instructive
trait, a reminiscence of the time when Mulungu, now almost harmless or
indifferent to mundane things, was the embodiment of all evil, hence to
be feared and appeased in accordance with the old dictum _Timor fecit
deos_.
At present no distinction is drawn between good and bad spirits, but all
are looked upon as, of course, often, though not always, more powerful
than the living, but still human beings subject to the same feelings,
passions, and fancies as they are. Some are even poor weaklings on whom
offerings are wasted. "The Shade of So-and-so's father is of no use at
all; it has finished up his property, and yet he is no better," was a
native's comment on the result of a series of sacrifices a man had
vainly made to his father's shade to regain his health. They may also be
duped and tricked, and when _pombe_ (beer) is a-brewing, some is poured
out on the graves of the dead, with the prayer that they may drink, and
when drunk fall asleep, and so not disturb the living with their brawls
and bickerings, just like the wrangling fairies in _A Midsummer Night's
Dream_[250].
Far removed from such crass anthropomorphism, but not morally much
improved, are the kindred Wa-Swahili, who by long contact and
interminglings have become largely Arabised in dress, religion, and
general culture. They are graphically described by Taylor as "a
seafaring, barter-loving race of slave-holders and slave-traders, strewn
in a thin line along a thousand miles of creeks and islands; inhabitants
of a coast that has witnessed incessant political changes, and a
succession of monarchical dynasties in various centres; receiving into
their midst for ages past a continuous stream of strange blood,
consisting not only of serviles from the interior, but of immigrants
from Persia, Arabia, and Western India; men that have come to live, and
often to die, as resident aliens, leaving in many cases a hybrid
progeny. Of one section of these immigrants--the Arabs--the religion has
become the master-religion of the land, overspreading, if not entirely
supplanting, the old Bantu ancestor-worship, and profoundly affecting
the whole family life."
The Wa-Swahili are in a sense a historical people, for they formed the
chief constituent elements of the renowned Zang (Zeng) empire[251],
which in Edrisi's time (twelfth century) stretched along the seaboard
from Somaliland to and beyond the Zambesi. When the Portuguese burst
suddenly into the Indian Ocean it was a great and powerful state,
or rather a vast confederacy of states, with many flourishing
cities--Magdoshu, Brava, Mombasa, Melindi, Kilwa, Angosha, Sofala--and
widespread commercial relations extending across the eastern waters
to India and China, and up the Red Sea to Europe. How these great
centres of trade and eastern culture were one after the other
ruthlessly destroyed by the Portuguese corsairs _co' o ferro e fogo_
("with sword and fire," Camoens) is told by Duarte Barbosa, who was
himself a Portuguese and an eyewitness of the havoc and the horrors
that not infrequently followed in the trail of his barbarous
fellow-countrymen[252].
Beyond Sofala we enter the domain of the _Ama-Zulu_, the _Ama-Xosa_, and
others whom I have collectively called _Zulu-Xosas_[253], and who are in
some respects the most remarkable ethnical group in all Bantuland.
Indeed they are by common consent regarded as Bantus in a preeminent
sense, and this conventional term _Bantu_ itself is taken from their
typical Bantu language[254]. There is clear evidence that they are
comparatively recent arrivals, necessarily from the north, in their
present territory, which was still occupied by Bushman and Hottentot
tribes probably within the last thousand years or so. Before the Kafir
wars with the English (1811-77) this territory extended much farther
round the coast than at present, and for many years the Great Kei River
has formed the frontier between the white settlements and the Xosas.
But what they have lost in this direction the Zulu-Xosas, or at least
the Zulus, have recovered a hundredfold by their expansion northwards
during the nineteenth century. After the establishment of the Zulu
military power under Dingiswayo and his successor Chaka (1793-1828),
half the continent was overrun by organised Zulu hordes, who ranged as
far north as Victoria Nyanza, and in many places founded more or less
unstable kingdoms or chieftaincies on the model of the terrible
despotism set up in Zululand. Such were, beyond the Limpopo, the states
of Gazaland and Matabililand, the latter established about 1838 by
Umsilikatzi, father of Lobengula, who perished in a hopeless struggle
with the English in 1894. Gungunhana, last of the Swazi (Zulu) chiefs in
Gazaland, where the A-Ngoni had overrun the Ba-Thonga (Ba-Ronga)[255],
was similarly dispossessed by the Portuguese in 1896.
North of Zambesi the Zulu bands--Ma-Situ, Ma-Viti, Ma-Ngoni (A-Ngoni),
and others--nowhere developed large political states except for a short
time under the ubiquitous Mirambo in Unyamweziland. But some, especially
the A-Ngoni[256], were long troublesome in the Nyasa district, and
others about the Lower Zambesi, where they are known to the Portuguese
as "Landins." The A-Ngoni power was finally broken by the English early
in 1898, and the reflux movement has now entirely subsided, and cannot
be revived, the disturbing elements having been extinguished at the
fountain-head by the absorption of Zululand itself in the British Colony
of Natal (1895).
Nowhere have patriarchal institutions been more highly developed than
among the Zulu-Xosas, all of whom, except perhaps the Ama-Fingus and
some other broken groups, claim direct descent from some eponymous hero
or mythical founder of the tribe. Thus in the national traditions Chaka
was seventh in descent from a legendary chief Zulu, from whom they take
the name of _Abantu ba-Kwa-Zulu_, that is "People of Zulu's Land,"
although the true mother-tribe appear to have been the now extinct
Ama-Ntombela. Once the supremacy and prestige of Chaka's tribe were
established, all the others, as they were successively reduced, claimed
also to be true Zulus, and as the same process went on in the far north,
the term Zulu has now in many cases come to imply political rather than
blood relationship. Here we have an object lesson, by which the ethnical
value of such names as "Aryan," "Kelt," "Briton," "Slav," etc. may be
gauged in other regions.
So also most of the southern section claim as their founder and ancestor
a certain _Xosa_, sprung from Zuide, who may have flourished about 1500,
and whom the Ama-Tembus and Ama-Mpondos also regard as their progenitor.
Thus the whole section is connected, but not in the direct line, with
the Xosas, who trace their lineage from Galeka and Khakhabe, sons of
Palo, who is said to have died about 1780, and was himself tenth in
direct descent from Xosa. We thus get a genealogical table as under,
which gives his proper place in the Family Tree to nearly every
historical "Kafir" chief in Cape Colony, where ignorance of these
relations caused much bloodshed during the early Kafir wars:
Zuide (1500?)
_______________________/\________________________
/ \
Tembu Xosa (1530?) Mpondo
| | _______|_______
Ama-Tembus Palo (1780?) / \
(Tembookies) ________________|______________ Mpondumisi (Mpondos)
/ \
Galeka Khakhabe
| _________________|________________
Klanta / \
| Omlao Mbalu Ndhlambe
Hinza | | \______/
| Gika (ob. 1828) Gwali |
Kreli | | Ama-Ndhlambes
\________/ | | (Tslambies)
| Macomo Velelo
Ama-Galekas | |
Sandili Baxa
\________/ \________/
| |
Ama-Gaikas Ama-Mbalus
But all, both northern Zulus and southern Xosas, are essentially one
people in speech, physique, usages and social institutions. The hair is
uniformly of a somewhat frizzly texture, the colour of a light or clear
brown amongst the Ama-Tembus, but elsewhere very dark, the Swazis being
almost "blue-black"; the head decidedly long (72.5) and high (195.8);
nose variable, both Negroid and perfectly regular; height above the mean
1.75 m. to 1.8 m. (5 ft. 9 in. to 5 ft. 11 in.); figure shapely and
muscular, though Fritsch's measurements show that it is sometimes far
from the almost ideal standard of beauty with which some early observers
have credited them.
Mentally the Zulu-Xosas stand much higher than the true Negro, as shown
especially in their political organisation, which, before the
development of Dingiswayo's military system under European influences,
was a kind of patriarchal monarchy controlled by a powerful aristocracy.
The nation was grouped in tribes connected by the ties of blood and
ruled by the hereditary _inkose_, or feudal chief, who was supreme, with
power of life and death, within his own jurisdiction. Against his
mandates, however, the nobles could protest in council, and it was in
fact their decisions that established precedents and the traditional
code of common law. "This common law is well adapted to a people in a
rude state of society. It holds everyone accused of crime guilty unless
he can prove himself innocent; it makes the head of the family
responsible for the conduct of all its branches, the village
collectively for all resident in it, and the clan for each of its
villages. For the administration of the law there are courts of various
grades, from any of which an appeal may be taken to the Supreme Council,
presided over by the paramount chief, who is not only the ruler but also
the father of the people[257]."
In the interior, between the southern coast ranges and the Zambesi, the
Hottentot and Bushman aborigines were in prehistoric ages almost
everywhere displaced or reduced to servitude by other Bantu peoples such
as the Ma-Kalakas and Ma-Shonas, the Be-Chuanas and the kindred
Ba-Sutos. Of these the first arrivals (from the north) appear to have
been the Ma-Shonas and Ma-Kalakas, who were being slowly "eaten up" by
the Ma-Tabili when the process was arrested by the timely intervention
of the English in Rhodesia.
Both nations are industrious tillers of the soil, skilled in metal-work
and in mining operations, being probably the direct descendants of the
natives, whose great chief _Monomotapa_, _i.e._ "Lord of the Mines," as
I interpret the word[258], ruled over the Manica and surrounding
auriferous districts when the Portuguese first reached Sofala early in
the sixteenth century. Apparently for political reasons[259] this
Monomotapa was later transformed by them from a monarch to a monarchy,
the vast empire of Monomotapaland, which was supposed to comprise pretty
well everything south of the Zambesi, but, having no existence, has for
the last two hundred years eluded the diligent search of historical
geographers.
But some centuries before the arrival of the Portuguese the Ma-Kalakas
with the kindred Ba-Nyai, Ba-Senga and others, may well have been at
work in the mines of this auriferous region, in the service of the
builders of the Zimbabwe ruins explored and described by the late
Theodore Bent[260], and by him and many others attributed to some
ancient cultured people of South Arabia. This theory of prehistoric
Oriental origin was supported by a calculation of the orientation of the
Zimbabwe "temple," by reports of inscriptions and emblems suggesting
"Phoenician rites," and by the discovery, during excavation, of foreign
objects. Later investigation, however, showed that the orientation was
based on inexact measurements; no authentic inscriptions were found
either at Zimbabwe or elsewhere in connection with the ruins; none of
the objects discovered in the course of the excavations could be
recognised as more than a few centuries old, while those that were not
demonstrably foreign imports were of African type. In 1905 a scientific
exploration of the ruins placed these facts beyond dispute. The
medieval objects were found in such positions as to be necessarily
contemporaneous with the foundation of the buildings, all of which could
be attributed to the same period. Finally it was established that the
plan and construction of Zimbabwe instead of being unique, as was
formerly supposed, only differed from other Rhodesian ruins in
dimensions and extent. The explorers felt confident that the buildings
were not earlier than the fourteenth or fifteenth century A.D., and that
the builders were the Bantu people, remains of whose stone-faced kraals
are found at so many places between the Limpopo and the Zambesi. Their
conclusions, however, have not met with universal acceptance[261].
With the Be-Chuanas, whose territory extends from the Orange river to
Lake Ngami and includes Basutoland with a great part of the Transvaal,
we again meet a people at the totemic stage of culture. Here the
eponymous heroes of the Zulu-Xosas are replaced by baboons, fishes,
elephants, and other animals from which the various tribal groups claim
descent. The animal in question is called the _siboko_ of the tribe and
is held in especial reverence, members (as a rule) refraining from
killing or eating it. Many tribes take their name from their _siboko_,
thus the Ba-Tlapin, "they of the fish," Ba-Kuena, "they of the
crocodile." The _siboko_ of the Ba-Rolong, who as a tribe are
accomplished smiths, is not an animal, but the metal iron[262].
With a section of the great Be-Chuana family, the Ba-Suto, and the
Ba-Rotse is connected one of the most remarkable episodes in the
turbulent history of the South African peoples during the nineteenth
century. Many years ago an offshoot of the Ba-Rotse migrated to the
Middle Zambesi above the Victoria Falls, where they founded a powerful
state, the "Barotse (Marotse) Empire," which despite a temporary eclipse
still exists as a British protectorate. The eclipse was caused by
another migration northwards of a great body of Ma-Kololo, a branch of
the Ba-Suto, who under the renowned chief Sebituane reached the Zambesi
about 1835 and overthrew the Barotse dynasty, reducing the natives to a
state of servitude.
But after the death of Sebituane's successor, Livingstone's Sekeletu,
the Ba-Rotse, taking advantage of their oppressors' dynastic rivalries,
suddenly revolted, and after exterminating the Ma-Kololo almost to the
last man, reconstituted the empire on a stronger footing than ever. It
now comprises an area of some 250,000 square miles between the Chobe and
the Kafukwe affluents[263], with a population vaguely estimated at over
1,000,000, including the savage Ba-Shukulumbwe tribes of the Kafukwe
basin reduced in 1891[264].
Yet, short as was the Ma-Kololo rule (1835-70), it was long enough to
impose their language on the vanquished Ba-Rotse[265]. Hence the curious
phenomenon now witnessed about the Middle Zambesi, where the Ma-Kololo
have disappeared, while their Sesuto speech remains the common medium of
intercourse throughout the Barotse empire. How often have analogous
shiftings and dislocations taken place in the course of ages in other
parts of the world! And in the light of such lessons how cautious
ethnographists should be in arguing from speech to race, and drawing
conclusions from these or similar surface relations!
Referring to these stirring events, Mackenzie writes: "Thus perished the
Makololo from among the number of South African tribes. No one can put
his finger on the map of Africa and say, 'Here dwell the
Makololo[266].'" This will puzzle many who since the middle of the
nineteenth century have repeatedly heard of, and even been in
unpleasantly close contact with, Ma-Kololo so called, not indeed in
Barotseland, but lower down the Zambesi about its Shire affluent.
The explanation of the seeming contradiction is given by another
incident, which is also not without ethnical significance. From
Livingstone's _Journals_ we learn that in 1859 he was accompanied to the
east coast by a small party of Ma-Kololo and others, sent by his friend
Sekeletu in quest of a cure for leprosy, from which the emperor was
suffering. These Ma-Kololo, hearing of the Ba-Rotse revolt, wisely
stopped on their return journey at the Shire confluence, and through the
prestige of their name have here succeeded in founding several so-called
"Makololo States," which still exist, and have from time to time given
considerable trouble to the administrators of British Central Africa.
But how true are Mackenzie's words, if the political be separated from
the ethnical relations, may be judged from the fact that of the original
founders of these petty Shire states only two were full-blood Ma-Kololo.
All the others were, I believe, Ba-Rotse, Ba-Toka, or Ba-Tonga, these
akin to the savage Ba-Shukulumbwe.
Thus the Ma-Kololo live on, in their speech above the Victoria Falls, in
their name below the Victoria Falls, and it is only from history we know
that since about 1870 the whole nation has been completely wiped out
everywhere in the Zambesi valley. But even amongst cultured peoples
history goes back a very little way, 10,000 years at most anywhere. What
changes and shiftings may, therefore, have elsewhere also taken place
during prehistoric ages, all knowledge of which is now past
recovery[267]!
Few Bantu peoples have lent a readier ear to the teachings of Christian
propagandists than the Xosa, Ba-Suto, and Be-Chuana natives. Several
stations in the heart of Kafirland--Blythswood, Somerville, Lovedale,
and others--have for some time been self-supporting, and prejudice alone
would deny that they have worked for good amongst the surrounding Gaika,
Galeka, and Fingo tribes. Sogo, a member of the Blythswood community,
has produced a translation of the _Pilgrim's Progress_, described by J.
Macdonald as "a marvel of accuracy and lucidity of expression[268]";
numerous village schools are eagerly attended, and much land has been
brought under intelligent cultivation.
The French and Swiss Protestant teachers have also achieved great things
in Basutoland, where they were welcomed by Moshesh, the founder of the
present Basuto nation. The tribal system has yielded to a higher social
organisation, and the Ba-Tau, Ba-Puti, and several other tribal groups
have been merged in industrious pastoral and agricultural communities
professing a somewhat strict form of Protestant Christianity, and
entirely forgetful of the former heathen practices associated with
witchcraft and ancestry-worship. Moshesh was one of the rare instances
among the Kafirs of a leader endowed with intellectual gifts which
placed him on a level with Europeans. He governed his people wisely and
well for nearly fifty years, and his life-work has left a permanent mark
on South African history[269].
In Bechuanaland one great personality dominates the social horizon.
Khama, king of the Ba-Mangwato nation, next to the Ba-Rotse the most
powerful section of the Be-Chuana, may be described as a true father of
his people, a Christian legislator in the better sense of the term, and
an enlightened reformer even from the secular point of view.
When these triumphs, analogous to those witnessed amongst the
Lacustrians and in other parts of Bantuland, are contrasted with the
dull weight of resistance everywhere opposed by the full-blood Negro
populations to any progress beyond their present low level of culture,
we are the better able to recognise the marked intellectual superiority
of the negroid Bantu over the pure black element.
West of Bechuanaland the continuity of the Bantu domain is arrested in
the south by the Hottentots, who still hold their ground in Namaqualand,
and farther north by the few wandering Bushman groups of the Kalahari
desert. Even in Damaraland, which is mainly Bantu territory, there are
interminglings of long standing that have given rise to much ethnical
confusion. The Ova-Herero, who were here dominant, and the kindred
Ova-Mpo of Ovampoland bordering on the Portuguese possessions, are
undoubted Bantus of somewhat fine physique, though intellectually not
specially distinguished. Owing to the character of the country, a
somewhat arid, level steppe between the hills and the coast, they are
often collectively called "Cattle Damaras," or "Damaras of the Plains,"
in contradistinction to the "Hill Damaras" of the coast ranges. To this
popular nomenclature is due the prevalent confusion regarding these
aborigines. The term "Damara" is of Hottentot origin, and is not
recognised by the local tribes, who all call themselves Ova-Herero, that
is, "Merry People." But there is a marked difference between the
lowlanders and the highlanders, the latter, that is, the "Hill Damaras,"
having a strong strain of Hottentot blood, and being now of Hottentot
speech.
The whole region is a land of transition between the two races, where
the struggle for supremacy was scarcely arrested by the temporary
intervention of German administrators. Though annexed by Germany in
1884, fighting continued for ten years longer, and, breaking out again
in 1903, was not subdued until 1908, after the loss to Germany of 5000
lives and L15,000,000, while 20,000 to 30,000 of the Herero are
estimated to have perished. Under the rule of the Union of South Africa
this maltreatment of the natives will never occur again. Clearness would
be gained by substituting for Hill Damaras the expression _Ova-Zorotu_,
or "Hillmen," as they are called by their neighbours of the plains, who
should of course be called Hereros to the absolute exclusion of the
expression "Cattle Damaras." These Hereros show a singular dislike for
salt; the peculiarity, however, can scarcely be racial, as it is shared
in also by their cattle, and may be due to the heavy vapours, perhaps
slightly charged with saline particles, which hang so frequently over
the coastlands.
No very sharp ethnical line can be drawn between Portuguese West Africa
and the contiguous portion of the Belgian Congo south and west of the
main stream. In the coastlands between the Cunene and the Congo estuary
a few groups, such as the historical _Eshi-Kongo_[270] and the
_Kabindas_, have developed some marked characteristics under European
influences, just as have the cannibal _Ma-Nyema_ of the Upper Congo
through association with the Nubian-Arab slave-raiders. But with the
exception of the _Ba-Shilange_, the _Ba-Lolo_ and one or two others,
much the same physical and mental traits are everywhere presented by the
numerous Bantu populations within the great bend of the Congo.
The people who give their name to this river present some points of
special interest. It is commonly supposed that the old "Kongo Empire"
was a creation of the Portuguese. But Mbanza, afterwards rechristened
"San Salvador," was already the capital of a powerful state when it was
first visited by the expedition of 1491, from which time date its
relations with Portugal. At first the Catholic missionaries had great
success, thousands were at least baptised, and for a moment it seemed as
if all the Congo lands were being swept into the fold. There were great
rejoicings on the conversion of the _Mfumu_ ("Emperor") himself, on whom
were lavished honours and Portuguese titles still borne by his present
degenerate descendant, the Portuguese state pensioner, "Dom Pedro V,
Catholic King of Kongo and its Dependencies." But Christianity never
struck very deep roots, and, except in the vicinity of the Imperial and
vassal Courts, heathenish practices of the worst description were
continued down to the middle of the nineteenth century. About 1870 fresh
efforts were made both by Protestant and Catholic missionaries to
re-convert the people, who had little to remind them of their former
faith except the ruins of the cathedral of San Salvador, crucifixes,
banners, and other religious emblems handed down as heirlooms and
regarded as potent fetishes by their owners. A like fate, it may be
incidentally mentioned, has overtaken the efforts of the Portuguese
missionaries to evangelise the natives of the east coast, where little
now survives of their teachings but snatches of unintelligible songs to
the Blessed Virgin, such as that still chanted by the Lower Zambesi
boatmen and recorded by Mrs Pringle:--
Sina mama, sina mamai,
Sina mama Maria, sina mamai ...
Mary, I'm alone, mother I have none,
Mother I have none, she and father both are gone, etc.[271]
It is probable that at some remote period the ruling race reached the
west coast from the north-east, and imposed their Bantu speech on the
rude aborigines, by whom it is still spoken over a wide tract of country
on both sides of the Lower Congo. It is an extremely pure and somewhat
archaic member of the Bantu family, and W. Holman Bentley, our best
authority on the subject, is enthusiastic in praise of its "richness,
flexibility, exactness, subtlety of idea, and nicety of expression," a
language superior to the people themselves, "illiterate folk with an
elaborate and regular grammatical system of speech of such subtlety and
exactness of idea that its daily use is in itself an education[272]."
Kishi-Kongo has the distinction of being the first Bantu tongue ever
reduced to written form, the oldest known work in the language being a
treatise on Christian Doctrine published in Lisbon in 1624. Since that
time the speech of the "Mociconghi," as Pigafetta calls them[273], has
undergone but slight phonetic or other change, which is all the more
surprising when we consider the rudeness of the present Mushi-Kongos and
others by whom it is still spoken with considerable uniformity. Some of
these believe themselves sprung from trees, as if they had still
reminiscences of the arboreal habits of a pithecoid ancestry.
Amongst the neighbouring _Ba-Mba_, whose sobas were formerly _ex
officio_ Commanders-in-chief of the Empire, still dwells a potent being,
who is invisible to everybody, and although mortal never dies, or at
least after each dissolution springs again into life from his remains
gathered up by the priests. All the young men of the tribe undergo a
similar transformation, being thrown into a death-like trance by the
magic arts of the medicine-man, and then resuscitated after three days.
The power of causing the cataleptic sleep is said really to exist, and
these strange rites, unknown elsewhere, are probably to be connected
with the resurrection of Christ after three days and of everybody on the
last day as preached by the early Portuguese evangelists. A volume might
be written on the strange distortions of Christian doctrines amongst
savage peoples unable to grasp their true inwardness.
In Angola the Portuguese distinguish between the _Pretos_, that is, the
"civilised," and the _Negros_, or unreclaimed natives. Yet both terms
mean the same thing, as also does _Ba-Fiot_[274], "Black People," which
is applied in an arbitrary way both to the Eshi-Kongos and their near
relations, the _Kabindas_ of the Portuguese enclave north of the Lower
Congo. These Kabindas, so named from the seaport of that name on the
Loango coast, are an extremely intelligent, energetic, and enterprising
people, daring seafarers, and active traders. But they complain of the
keen rivalry of another dark people, the _Judeos Pretos_, or "Black
Jews," who call themselves _Ma-Vambu_, and whose hooked nose combined
with other peculiarities has earned for them their Portuguese name. The
Kabindas say that these "Semitic Negroes" were specially created for the
punishment of other unscrupulous dealers by their ruinous competition in
trade.
A great part of the vast region within the bend of the Congo is occupied
by the _Ba-Luba_ people, whose numerous branches--_Ba-Sange_ and
_Ba-Songe_ about the sources of the Sankuru, _Ba-Shilange_
(_Tushilange_) about the Lulua-Kassai confluence, and many
others--extend all the way from the Kwango basin to Manyemaland. Most of
these are Bantus of the average type, fairly intelligent, industrious
and specially noted for their skill in iron and copper work. Iron ores
are widely diffused and the copper comes from the famous mines of the
Katanga district, of which King Mzidi and his Wa-Nyamwezi followers were
dispossessed by the Congo Free State in 1892[275].
Special attention is claimed by the _Ba-Shilange_ nation, for our
knowledge of whom we are indebted chiefly to C. S. Latrobe Bateman[276].
These are the people whom Wissmann had already referred to as "a nation
of thinkers with the interrogative 'why' constantly on their lips."
Bateman also describes them as "thoroughly honest, brave to
foolhardiness, and faithful to each other. They are prejudiced in favour
of foreign customs and spontaneously copy the usages of civilisation.
They are the only African tribe among whom I have observed anything
like a becoming conjugal affection and regard. To say nothing of such
recommendations as their emancipation from fetishism, their ancient
abandonment of cannibalism, and their national unity under the sway of a
really princely prince (Kalemba), I believe them to be the most open to
the best influences of civilisation of any African tribe
whatsoever[277]." Their territory about the Lulua, affluent of the
Kassai, is the so-called Lubuka, or land of "Friendship," the theatre of
a remarkable social revolution, carried out independently of all
European influences, in fact before the arrival of any whites on the
scene. It was initiated by the secret brotherhood of the _Bena-Riamba_,
or "Sons of Hemp," established about 1870, when the nation became
divided into two parties over the question throwing the country open to
foreign trade. The king having sided with the "Progressives," the
"Conservatives" were worsted with much bloodshed, whereupon the barriers
of seclusion were swept away. Trading relations being at once
established with the outer world, the custom of _riamba_ (bhang) smoking
was unfortunately introduced through the Swahili traders from Zanzibar.
The practice itself soon became associated with mystic rites, and was
followed by a general deterioration of morals throughout Tushilangeland.
North of the Ba-Luba follows the great _Ba-Lolo_ nation, whose domain
comprises nearly the whole of the region between the equator and the
left bank of the Congo, and whose Kilolo speech is still more widely
diffused, being spoken by perhaps 10,000,000 within the horseshoe bend.
These "Men of Iron" in the sense of Cromwell's "Ironsides," or "Workers
in Iron," as the name has been diversely interpreted (from _lolo_,
iron), may not be all that they have been depicted by the glowing pen of
Mrs H. Grattan Guinness[278]; but nobody will deny their claim to be
regarded as physically, if not mentally, one of the finest Bantu races.
But for the strain of Negro blood betrayed by the tumid under lip,
frizzly hair, and wide nostrils, many might pass for average Hamites
with high forehead, straight or aquiline nose, bright eye, and
intelligent expression. They appear to have migrated about a hundred
years ago from the east to their present homes, where they have cleared
the land both of its forests and the aborigines, brought extensive
tracts under cultivation, and laid out towns in the American chessboard
fashion, but with the houses so wide apart that it takes hours to
traverse them. They are skilled in many crafts, and understand the
division-of-labour principle, "farmers, gardeners, smiths, boatbuilders,
weavers, cabinet-makers, armourers, warriors, and speakers being already
differentiated amongst them[279]."
From the east or north-east a great stream of migration has also for
many years been setting right across the cannibal zone to the west coast
between the Ogowai and Cameruns estuary. Some of these cannibal bands,
collectively known as _Fans_, _Pahuins_, _Mpangwes_[280], _Oshyebas_ and
by other names, have already swarmed into the Gabun and Lower Ogowai
districts, where they have caused a considerable dislocation of the
coast tribes. They are at present the dominant, or at least the most
powerful and dreaded, people in West Equatorial Africa, where nothing
but the intervention of the French administration has prevented them
from sweeping the _Mpongwes_, _Mbengas_, _Okandas_, _Ashangos_,
_Ishogos_, _Ba-Tekes_[281], and the other maritime populations into the
Atlantic. Even the great _Ba-Kalai_ nation, who are also immigrants, but
from the south-east, and who arrived some time before the Fans, have
been hard pressed and driven forward by those fierce anthropophagists.
They are still numerous, certainly over 100,000, but confined mainly to
the left bank of the Ogowai, where their copper and iron workers have
given up the hopeless struggle to compete with the imported European
wares, and have consequently turned to trade. The Ba-Kalai are now the
chief brokers and middlemen throughout the equatorial coastlands, and
their pure Bantu language is encroaching on the Mpongwe in the Ogowai
basin.
When first heard of by Bowdich in 1819, the Paaemways, as he calls the
Fans, were an inland people presenting such marked Hamitic or Caucasic
features that he allied them with the West Sudanese Fulahs. Since then
there have been inevitable interminglings, by which the type has no
doubt been modified, though still presenting distinct non-Bantu or
non-Negro characters. Burton, Winwood Reade, Oscar Lenz and most other
observers separate them altogether from the Negro connection, describing
them as "well-built, tall and slim, with a light brown complexion, often
inclining to yellow, well-developed beard, and very prominent frontal
bone standing out in a semicircular protuberance above the superciliary
arches. Morally also, they differ greatly from the Negro, being
remarkably intelligent, truthful, and of a serious temperament, seldom
laughing or indulging in the wild orgies of the blacks[282]."
M. H. Kingsley adds that "the average height in mountain districts is
five feet six to five feet eight (1.67 m. to 1.72 m.), the difference in
stature between men and women not being great. Their countenances are
very bright and expressive, and if once you have been among them, you
can never mistake a Fan. The Fan is full of fire, temper, intelligence
and go; very teachable, rather difficult to manage, quick to take
offence and utterly indifferent to human life." The cannibalism of the
Fans, though a prevalent habit, is not, according to Miss Kingsley, due
to sacrificial motives. "He does it in his common sense way. He will eat
his next door neighbour's relations and sell his own deceased to his
next door neighbour in return; but he does not buy slaves and fatten
them up for his table as some of the Middle Congo tribes do.... He has
no slaves, no prisoners of war, no cemeteries, so you must draw your own
conclusions[283]." The Fan language has been grouped by Sir H. H.
Johnston among Bantu tongues, but he describes it as so corrupt as to be
only just recognisable as Bantu. In linguistic, physical and mental
features they thus show a remarkable divergence from the pure Negro,
suggesting Hamitic probably Fulah elements.
In the Camerun region, which still lies within Bantu territory, Sir H.
H. Johnston[284] divides the numerous local tribes into two groups, the
aborigines, such as the _Ba-Yong_, _Ba-Long_, _Ba-Sa_, _Abo_ and _Wuri_;
and the later intruders--_Ba-Kundu_, _Ba-Kwiri_, _Dwala_, "_Great
Batanga_" and _Ibea_--chiefly from the east and south-east. Best known
are the Dwalas of the Camerun estuary, physically typical Bantus with
almost European features, and well-developed calves, a character which
would alone suffice to separate them from the true Negro. Nor are these
traits due to contact with the white settlers on the coast, because the
Dwalas keep quite aloof, and are so proud of their "blue blood," that
till lately all half-breeds were "weeded-out," being regarded as
monsters who reflected discredit on the tribe[285].
Socially the Camerun natives stand at nearly the same low level of
culture as the neighbouring full-blood Negroes of the Calabar and Niger
delta. Indeed the transition in customs and institutions, as well as in
physical appearance, is scarcely perceptible between the peoples
dwelling north and south of the Rio del Rey, here the dividing line
between the Negro and Bantu lands. The _Ba-Kish_ of the Meme river,
almost last of the Bantus, differ little except in speech from the Negro
_Efiks_ of Old Calabar, while witchcraft and other gross superstitions
were till lately as rife amongst the Ba-Kwiri and Ba-Kundu tribes of the
western Camerun as anywhere in Negroland. It is not long since one of
the Ba-Kwiri, found guilty of having eaten a chicken at a missionary's
table, was himself eaten by his fellow clansmen. The law of blood for
blood was pitilessly enforced, and charges of witchcraft were so
frequent that whole villages were depopulated, or abandoned by their
terror-stricken inhabitants. The island of Ambas in the inlet of like
name remained thus for a time absolutely deserted, "most of the
inhabitants having poisoned each other off with their everlasting
ordeals, and the few survivors ending by dreading the very air they
breathed[286]."
Having thus completed our survey of the Bantu populations from the
central dividing line about the Congo-Chad water-parting round by the
east, south, and west coastlands, and so back to the Sudanese zone, we
may pause to ask, What routes were followed by the Bantus themselves
during the long ages required to spread themselves over an area
estimated at nearly six million square miles? I have established,
apparently on solid grounds, a fixed point of initial dispersion in the
extreme north-east, and allusion has frequently been made to migratory
movements, some even now going on, generally from east to west, and, on
the east side of the continent, from north to south, with here an
important but still quite recent reflux from Zululand back nearly to
Victoria Nyanza. If a parallel current be postulated as setting on the
Atlantic side in prehistoric times from south to north, from Hereroland
to the Cameruns, or possibly the other way, we shall have nearly all the
factors needed to explain the general dispersion of the Bantu peoples
over their vast domain.
Support is given to this view by the curious distribution of the two
chief Bantu names of the "Supreme Being," to which incidental reference
has already been made. As first pointed out I think by Dr Bleek,
_(M)unkulunkulu_ with its numerous variants prevails along the eastern
seaboard, _Nzambi_ along the western, and both in many parts of the
interior; while here and there the two meet, as if to indicate
prehistoric interminglings of two great primeval migratory movements.
From the subjoined table a clear idea may be had of the general
distribution:
MUNKULUNKULU NZAMBI
{ Mpondo: Ukulukulu | Eshi-Kongo: Nzambi }
{ Zulu: Unkulunkulu | Kabinda: Nzambi Pongo}
{ Inhambane: Mulungulu | Lunda: Zambi }
{ Sofala: Murungu | Ba-Teke: Nza[~m] }
{ Be-Chuana: Mulungulu | Ba-Rotse: Nyampe }
{ Lake Moero: Mulungu | Bihe: Nzambi }
{ Lake Tanganyika: Mulungu | Loango: Zambi, Nyambi}
Eastern { Makua: Moloko | Bunda: Onzambi }Western
Seaboard{ Quillimane: Mlugu | Ba-Ngala: Nsambi }Seaboard
and { Lake Bangweolo: Mungu | Ba-Kele: Nshambi }and
Parts { Tete, Zambesi: Muungu | Rungu: Anyambi }Parts
of { Nyasaland: Murungu | Ashira: Aniembie }of
Interior{ Swahili: Muungu | Mpongwe: Njambi }Interior
{ Giryama: Mulungu | Benga: Anyambi }
{ Pokomo: Mungo | Dwala: Nyambi }
{ Nyika: Mulungu | Yanzi: Nyambi }
{ Kamba: Mulungu | Herero: Ndyambi }
{ Yanzi: Molongo |
{ Herero: Mukuru |
Of _Munkulunkulu_ the primitive idea is clear enough from its best
preserved form, the Zulu _Unkulunkulu_, which is a repetitive of the
root _inkulu_, great, old, hence a deification of the great departed, a
direct outcome of the ancestry-worship so universal amongst Negro and
Bantu peoples[287]. Thus Unkulunkulu becomes the direct progenitor of
the Zulu-Xosas: _Unkulunkulu ukobu wetu_. But the fundamental meaning of
_Nzambi_ is unknown. The root does not occur in Kishi-Kongo, and Bentley
rightly rejects Kolbe's far-fetched explanation from the Herero, adding
that "the knowledge of God is most vague, scarcely more than nominal.
There is no worship paid to God[288]."
More probable seems W. H. Tooke's suggestion that Nzambi is "a Nature
spirit like Zeus or Indra," and that, while the eastern Bantus are
ancestor-worshippers, "the western adherents of Nzambi are more or less
Nature-worshippers. In this respect they appear to approach the Negroes
of the Gold, Slave, and Oil Coasts[289]." No doubt the cult of the dead
prevails also in this region, but here it is combined with naturalistic
forms of belief, as on the Gold Coast, where _Bobowissi_, chief god of
all the southern tribes, is the "Blower of Clouds," the "Rain-maker,"
and on the Slave Coast, where the Dahoman _Mawu_ and the Yoruba _Olorun_
are the Sky or Rain, and the "Owner of the Sky" (the deified Firmament),
respectively[290].
It would therefore seem probable that the Munkulunkulu peoples from the
north-east gradually spread by the indicated routes over the whole of
Bantuland, everywhere imposing their speech, general culture, and
ancestor-worship on the pre-Bantu aborigines, except along the Atlantic
coastlands and in parts of the interior. Here the primitive
Nature-worship, embodied in Nzambi, held and still holds its ground,
both meeting on equal terms--as shown in the above table--amongst the
Ba-Yanzi, the Ova-Herero, and the Be-Chuanas (_Mulungulu_ generally, but
_Nyampe_ in Barotseland), and no doubt in other inland regions. But the
absolute supremacy of one on the east, and of the other on the west,
side of the continent, seems conclusive as to the general streams of
migration, while the amazing uniformity of nomenclature is but another
illustration of the almost incredible persistence of Bantu speech
amongst these multitudinous illiterate populations for an incalculable
period of time[291].
THE VAALPENS AND THE STRANDLOOPERS.
Among the ethnological problems of Africa may be reckoned the _Vaalpens_
and the _Strandloopers_. Along the banks of the Limpopo between the
Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia there are scattered a few small groups
of an extremely primitive people who are generally confounded with the
Bushmen, but differ in some important respects from that race. They are
the "Earthmen" of some writers, but their real name is _Kattea_, though
called by their neighbours either _Ma Sarwa_ ("Bad People") or
_Vaalpens_ ("Grey Paunches") from the khaki colour acquired by their
bodies from creeping on all fours into their underground hovels. But the
true colour is almost a pitch black, and as they are only about four
feet high they are quite distinct both from the tall Bantus and the
yellowish Hottentot-Bushmen. For the Zulus they are mere "dogs" or
"vultures," and are certainly the most degraded of all the aborigines,
being undoubtedly cannibals, eating their own aged and infirm like some
of the Amazonian tribes. Their habitations are holes in the ground,
rock-shelters, or caves, or lately a few hovels of mud and foliage at
the foot of the hills. Of their speech nothing is known except that it
is absolutely distinct both from the Bantu and the Bushman. There are no
arts or industries of any kind, not even any weapons beyond those
procured in exchange for ostrich feathers, skins or ivory. But they can
make fire, and are thus able to cook the offal thrown to them by the
Boers in return for their help in skinning the captured game. Whether
they have any religious ideas it is impossible to say, all intercourse
with the surrounding peoples being restricted to barter carried on with
gesture language for nobody has ever yet mastered their tongue. A
"chief" is spoken of, but he is merely a headman who presides over the
little family groups of from thirty to fifty (there are no tribes
properly so called), and whose purely domestic functions are acquired,
not by heredity, but by personal worth, that is, physical strength.
Altogether the Kattea is perhaps the most perfect embodiment of the pure
savage still anywhere surviving[292].
When the Hottentots of South Africa were questioned by scientific men a
hundred years ago and more regarding their traditions, they were wont to
refer to their predecessors on the coast of South Africa as a savage
race living on the seashore and subsisting on shellfish and the bodies
of stranded whales. From their habits these were styled in Dutch the
Strandloopers or "Shore-runners[293]." According to F. C. Shrubsall the
Strandlooper of the Cape Colony caves preceded the Bushman in South
Africa. They were a race of short but not dwarfish men with a much
higher skull capacity than that of the average Bush race. The extreme of
cranial capacity in the Strandloopers was a maximum of over 1600 c.c.,
while the extreme minimum among the Bush people descends as low as 955
c.c. The frontal region of the skull is much better developed than in
the Bush race, and in that respect is more like the Negro. There is
little or no brow prominence and one at least of the skulls is as
orthognathous in facial angle as that of a European. L. Peringuey
remarks also that the type was less dolichocephalic than the Bushmen and
Hottentots, under 80 in cephalic index. "He was artistically gifted,
like the race which occupied and decorated the Altamira ... and other
caves of Spain and France. He painted; he possibly carved on rocks; he
used bone tools; he made pottery; he perforated stones for either
heading clubs or to be used as make-weights for digging tools; his
ornaments consisted of sea-shells; and the ostrich egg-shell discs which
he made may be said to be a typical product of his industry. And this
culture is retained in South Africa by a kindred race, but more
dolichocephalic--the Bushmen-Hottentots. Analogous are most of his tools
and his expressions of culture to those of Aurignacian man."
THE NEGRILLOES.
The proper domain of the African Negrilloes is the intertropical
forest-land, although they appear to be at present confined to somewhat
narrow limits, between about six degrees of latitude north and south of
the equator, unless the Bushmen be included. But formerly they probably
ranged much farther north, and in historic times were certainly known in
Egypt some 4000 or 5000 years ago. This is evident from the frequent
references to them in the "Book of the Dead" as far back as the 6th
Dynasty. Like the dwarfs in medieval times, they were in high request at
the courts of the Pharaohs, who sent expeditions to fetch these _Danga_
(_Tank_) from the "Island of the Double," that is, the fabulous region
of Shade Land beyond Punt, where they dwelt. The first of whom there is
authentic record was brought from this region, apparently the White
Nile, to King Assa (3300 B.C.) by his officer, Baurtet. Some 70 years
later Heru-Khuf, another officer, was sent by Pepi II "to bring back a
pygmy alive and in good health," from the land of great trees away to
the south[294]. That the Danga came from the south we know from a later
inscription at Karnak, and that the word meant dwarf is clear from the
accompanying determinative of a short person of stunted growth.
It is curious to note in this connection that the limestone statue of
the dwarf Nem-hotep, found in his tomb at Sakkara and figured by Ernest
Grosse, has a thick elongated head suggesting artificial deformation,
unshapely mouth, dull expression, strong full chest, and small deformed
feet, on which he seems badly balanced. It will be remembered that
Schweinfurth's Akkas from Mangbattuland were also represented as
top-heavy, although the best observers, Junker and others, describe
those of the Welle and Congo forests as shapely and by no means
ill-proportioned.
Kollmann also, who has examined the remains of the Neolithic pygmies
from the Schweizersbild Station, Switzerland, "is quite certain that the
dwarf-like proportions of the latter have nothing in common with
diseased conditions. This, from many points of view, is a highly
interesting discovery. It is possible, as Nueesch suggests, that the
widely-spread legend as to the former existence of little men, dwarfs
and gnomes, who were supposed to haunt caves and retired places in the
mountains, may be a reminiscence of these Neolithic pygmies[295]."
This is what may be called the picturesque aspect of the Negrillo
question, which it seems almost a pity to spoil by too severe a
criticism. But "ethnologic truth" obliges us to say that the
identification of the African Negrillo with Kollmann's European dwarfs
still lacks scientific proof. Even craniology fails us here, and
although the Negrilloes are in great majority round-headed, R. Verneau
has shown that there may be exceptions[296], while the theory of the
general uniformity of the physical type has broken down at some other
points. Thus the _Dume_, south of Gallaland, discovered by Donaldson
Smith[297] in the district where the _Doko_ Negrilloes had long been
heard of, and even seen by Antoine d'Abbadie in 1843, were found to
average five feet, or more than one foot over the mean of the true
Negrillo. D'Abbadie in fact declared that his "Dokos" were not pygmies
at all[298], while Donaldson Smith now tells us that "doko" is only a
term of contempt applied by the local tribes to their "poor relations."
"Their chief characteristics were a black skin, round features, woolly
hair, small oval-shaped eyes, rather thick lips, high cheekbones, a
broad forehead, and very well formed bodies" (p. 273).
The expression of the eye was canine, "sometimes timid and
suspicious-looking, sometimes very amiable and merry, and then again
changing suddenly to a look of intense anger." Pygmies, he adds,
"inhabited the whole of the country north of Lakes Stephanie and Rudolf
long before any of the tribes now to be found in the neighbourhood; but
they have been gradually killed off in war, and have lost their
characteristics by inter-marriage with people of large stature, so that
only this one little remnant, the Dume, remains to prove the existence
of a pygmy race. Formerly they lived principally by hunting, and they
still kill a great many elephants with their poisoned arrows" (pp.
274-5).
Some of these remarks apply also to the _Wandorobbo_, another small
people who range nearly as far north as the Dume, but are found chiefly
farther south all over Masailand, and belong, I have little doubt, to
the same connection. They are the henchmen of the Masai, whom they
provide with big game in return for divers services.
Those met by W. Astor Chanler were also "armed with bows and arrows, and
each carried an elephant-spear, which they called _bonati_. This spear
is six feet in length, thick at either end, and narrowed where grasped
by the hand. In one end is bored a hole, into which is fitted an arrow
two feet long, as thick as one's thumb, and with a head two inches
broad. Their method of killing elephants is to creep cautiously up to
the beast, and drive a spear into its loin. A quick twist separates the
spear from the arrow, and they make off as fast and silently as
possible. In all cases the arrows are poisoned; and if they are well
introduced into the animal's body, the elephant does not go far[299]."
From some of the peculiarities of the Achua (Wochua) Negrilloes met by
Junker south of the Welle one can understand why these little people
were such favourites with the old Egyptian kings. These were
"distinguished by sharp powers of observation, amazing talent for
mimicry, and a good memory. A striking proof of this was afforded by an
Achua whom I had seen and measured four years previously in Rumbek, and
now again met at Gambari's. His comic ways and quick nimble movements
made this little fellow the clown of our society. He imitated with
marvellous fidelity the peculiarities of persons whom he had once seen;
for instance, the gestures and facial expressions of Jussuf Pasha
esh-Shelahis and of Haj Halil at their devotions, as well as the address
and movements of Emin Pasha, 'with the four eyes' (spectacles). His
imitation of Hawash Effendi in a towering rage, storming and abusing
everybody, was a great success; and now he took me off to the life,
rehearsing after four years, down to the minutest details, and with
surprising accuracy, my anthropometric performance when measuring his
body at Rumbek[300]."
A somewhat similar account is given by Ludwig Wolf of the Ba-Twa pygmies
visited by him and Wissmann in the Kassai region. Here are whole
villages in the forest-glades inhabited by little people with an average
height of about 4 feet 3 inches. They are nomads, occupied exclusively
with hunting and the preparation of palm-wine, and are regarded by their
Ba-Kubu neighbours as benevolent little people, whose special mission is
to provide the surrounding tribes with game and palm-wine in exchange
for manioc, maize, and bananas[301].
Despite the above-mentioned deviations, occurring chiefly about the
borderlands, considerable uniformity both of physical and mental
characters is found to prevail amongst the typical Negrillo groups
scattered in small hunting communities all over the Welle, Semliki,
Congo, and Ogowai woodlands. Their main characters are thus described.
Their skin is of a reddish or yellowish brown in colour, sometimes very
dark. Their height varies from 1.37 m. to 1.45 m. (4 ft. 4-1/4 in. to 4
ft. 9-1/4 in.[302]). Their hair is very short and woolly, usually of a
dark rusty brown colour; the face hair is variable, but the body is
usually covered with a light downy hair. The cephalic index is 79. The
nose is very broad and exceptionally flattened at the root; the lips are
usually thin, and the upper one long; the eyes are protuberant; the face
is sometimes prognathic. Steatopygia occurs. They are a markedly
intelligent people, innately musical, cunning, revengeful and suspicious
in disposition, but they never steal.
They are nomadic hunters and collectors, never resorting to agriculture.
They have no domestic animals. Only meat is cooked. They wear no
clothing. They use bows and poisoned arrows. Their language is unknown.
They live in small communities which centre round a cunning fighter or
able hunter. Their dead are buried in the ground. They differ from
surrounding Negroes in having no veneration for the departed, no
amulets, no magicians or professional priests. They have charms for
ensuring luck in hunting, but it is uncertain whether these charms
derive their potency from the supreme being, though evidence of belief
in a high-god is reported from various pygmy peoples.[303]
THE BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS.
Towards the south the Negrillo domain was formerly conterminous with
that of the Bushmen, of whom traces were discovered by Sir H. H.
Johnston[304] as far north as Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, and who, it
has been conjectured, belong to the same primitive stock. The
differences mental and physical now separating the two sections of the
family may perhaps be explained by the different environments--hot,
moist and densely wooded in the north, and open steppes in the
south--but until more is known of the African pygmies their affinities
must remain undecided.
The relationship between the Bushmen and the Hottentots is another
disputed question. Early authorities regarded the Hottentots as the
parent family, and the Bushmen as the offspring, but the researches of
Gustav Fritsch, E. T. Hamy, F. Shrubsall[305] and others show that the
Hottentots are a cross between the Bushmen--the primitive race--and the
Bantu, the Bushman element being seen in the leathery colour, prominent
cheek-bones, pointed chin, steatopygia and other special characters.
In prehistoric times the Hottentots ranged over a vast area. Evidence
has now been produced of the presence of a belated Hottentot or
Hottentot-Bushman group as far north as the Kwa-Kokue district, between
Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza. The _Wa-Sandawi_ people here visited by
Oskar Neumann are not Bantus, and speak a language radically distinct
from that of the neighbouring Bantus, but full of clicks like that of
the Bushmen[306]. Two Sandawi skulls examined by Virchow[307] showed
distinct Hottentot characters, with a cranial capacity of 1250 and 1265
c.c., projecting upper jaw and orthodolicho head[308]. The geographical
prefix _Kwa_, common in the district (Kwa-Kokue, Kwa-Mtoro, Kwa-Hindi),
is pure Hottentot, meaning "people," like the postfix _qua_ (_Kwa_) of
Kora-_qua_, Nama-_qua_, etc. in the present Hottentot domain. The
transposition of prefixes and postfixes is a common linguistic
phenomenon, as seen in the Sumero-Akkadian of Babylonia, in the
Neo-Sanskritic tongues of India, and the Latin, Oscan, and other members
of the Old Italic group.
Farther south a widely-diffused Hottentot-Bushman geographical
terminology attests the former range of this primitive race all over
South Africa, as far north as the Zambesi. Lichtenstein had already
discovered such traces in the Zulu country[309], and Vater points out
that "for some districts the fact has been fully established; mountains
and rivers now occupied by the Koossa [Ama-Xosa] preserve in their
Hottentot names the certain proof that they at one time formed a
permanent possession of this people[310]."
Thanks to the custom of raising heaps of stones or cairns over the
graves of renowned chiefs, the migrations of the Hottentots may be
followed in various directions to the very heart of South Zambesia. Here
the memory of their former presence is perpetuated in the names of such
water-courses as Nos-ob, Up, Mol-opo, Hyg-ap, Gar-ib, in which the
syllables _ob_, _up_, _ap_, _ib_ and others are variants of the
Hottentot word _ib_, _ip_, water, river, as in _Gar-ib_, the "Great
River," now better known as the Orange River. The same indications may
be traced right across the continent to the Atlantic, where nearly all
the coast streams--even in Hereroland, where the language has long been
extinct--have the same ending[311].
On the west side the Bushmen are still heard of as far north as the
Cunene, and in the interior beyond Lake Ngami nearly to the right bank
of the Zambesi. But the Hottentots are now confined mainly to Great and
Little Namaqualand. Elsewhere there appear to be no full-blood natives
of this race, the Koraquas, Gonaquas, Griquas, etc. being all
Hottentot-Boer or Hottentot-Bantu half-castes of Dutch speech. In Cape
Colony the tribal organisation ceased to exist in 1810, when the last
Hottentot chief was replaced by a European magistrate. Still the
Koraquas keep themselves somewhat distinct about the Upper Orange and
Vaal Rivers, and the Griquas in Griqualand East, while the Gonaquas,
that is, "Borderers," are being gradually merged in the Bantu
populations of the Eastern Provinces. There are at present scarcely
180,000 south of the Orange River, and of these the great majority are
half-breeds[312].
Despite their extremely low state of culture, or, one might say, the
almost total lack of culture, the Bushmen are distinguished by two
remarkable qualities, a fine sense of pictorial or graphic art[313], and
a rich imagination displayed in a copious oral folklore, much of which,
collected by Bleek, is preserved in manuscript form in Sir George Grey's
library at Cape Town[314]. The materials here stored for future use,
perhaps long after the race itself has vanished for ever, comprise no
less than 84 thick volumes of 3600 double-column pages, besides an
unfinished Bushman dictionary with 11,000 entries. There are two great
sections, (1) Myths, fables, legends and poetry, with tales about the
sun and moon, the stars, the _Mantis_ and other animals, legends of
peoples who dwelt in the land before the Bushmen, songs, charms, and
even prayers; (2) Histories, adventures of men and animals, customs,
superstitions, genealogies, and so on.
In the tales and myths the sun, moon, and animals speak either with
their own proper clicks, or else use the ordinary clicks in some way
peculiar to themselves. Thus Bleek tells us that the tortoise changes
clicks in labials, the ichneumon in palatals, the jackal substitutes
linguo-palatals for labials, while the moon, hare, and ant-eater use
"a most unpronounceable click" of their own. How many there may be
altogether, not one of which can be properly uttered by Europeans,
nobody seems to know. But grammarians have enumerated nine, indicated
each by a graphic sign as under:
Cerebral [Symbol] Palatal [Symbol]
Dental [Symbol] Lateral (Faucal) [Symbol]
Guttural [Symbol] Labial [Symbol]
Spiro-dental [Symbol] Linguo-palatal [Symbol]
Undefined [Symbol]
From Bushman--a language in a state of flux, fragmentary as the small
tribal or rather family groups that speak it[315]--these strange
inarticulate sounds passed to the number of four into the remotely
related Hottentot, and thence to the number of three into the wholly
unconnected Zulu-Xosa. But they are heard nowhere else to my knowledge
except amongst the newly-discovered Wa-Sandawi people of South
Masailand. At the same time we know next to nothing of the Negrillo
tongues, and should clicks be discovered to form an element in their
phonetic system also[316], it would support the assumption of a common
origin of all these dwarfish races now somewhat discredited on
anatomical grounds.
M. G. Bertin, to whom we are indebted for an excellent monograph on the
Bushman[317], rightly remarks that he is not, at least mentally, so
debased as he has been described by the early travellers and by the
neighbouring Bantus and Boers, by whom he has always been despised and
harried. "His greatest love is for freedom, he acknowledges no master,
and possesses no slaves. It is this love of independence which made him
prefer the wandering life of a hunter to that of a peaceful
agriculturist or shepherd, as the Hottentot. He rarely builds a hut, but
prefers for abode the natural caves he finds in the rocks. In other
localities he forms a kind of nest in the bush--hence his name of
Bushman--or digs with his nails subterranean caves, from which he has
received the name of 'Earthman.' His garments consist only of a small
skin. His weapons are still the spear, arrow and bow in their most
rudimentary form. The spear is a mere branch of a tree, to which is tied
a piece of bone or flint; the arrow is only a reed treated in the same
way. The arrow and spear-heads are always poisoned, to render mortal the
slight wounds they inflict. He gathers no flocks, which would impede his
movements, and only accepts the help of dogs as wild as himself. The
Bushmen have, however, one implement, a rounded stone perforated in the
middle, in which is inserted a piece of wood; with this instrument,
which carries us back to the first age of man, they dig up a few edible
roots growing wild in the desert. To produce fire, he still retains the
primitive system of rubbing two pieces of wood--another prehistoric
survival."
Touching their name, it is obvious that these scattered groups, without
hereditary chiefs or social organisation of any kind, could have no
collective designation. The term _Khuai_, of uncertain meaning, but
probably to be equated with the Hottentot _Khoi_, "Men," is the name
only of a single group, though often applied to the whole race. _Saan_,
their Hottentot name, is the plural of Sa, a term also of uncertain
origin; _Ba-roa_, current amongst the Be-Chuanas, has not been
explained, while the Zulu _Abatwa_ would seem to connect them even by
name with Wolf's and Stanley's _Ba-Twa_ of the Congo forest region.
Other so-called tribal names (there are no "tribes" in the strict sense
of the word) are either nicknames imposed upon them by their
neighbours, or else terms taken from the localities, as amongst the
Fuegians.
We may conclude with the words of W. J. Sollas: "The more we know of
these wonderful little people the more we learn to admire and like them.
To many solid virtues--untiring energy, boundless patience, and fertile
invention, steadfast courage, devoted loyalty, and family
affection--they added a native refinement of manners and a rare
aesthetic sense. We may learn from them how far the finer excellences of
life may be attained in the hunting stage. In their golden age, before
the coming of civilised man, they enjoyed their life to the full, glad
with the gladness of primeval creatures. The story of their later days,
their extermination and the cruel manner of it, is a tale of horror on
which we do not care to dwell. They haunt no more the sunlit veldt,
their hunting is over, their nation is destroyed; but they leave behind
an imperishable memory, they have immortalised themselves in their
art[318]."
FOOTNOTES:
[223] C. Meinhof holds that Proto-Bantu arose through the mixture of a
Sudan language with one akin to Fulah. _An Introduction to the Study of
African Languages_, 1915, p. 151 sqq.
[224] Bantu, properly Aba-ntu, "people." _Aba_ is one of the numerous
personal prefixes, each with its corresponding singular form, which are
the cause of so much confusion in Bantu nomenclature. To _aba_, _ab_,
_ba_ answers a sing. _umu_, _um_, _mu_, so that sing. _umu-ntu_,
_um-ntu_ or _mu-ntu_, a man, a person; plu. _aba-ntu_, _ab-ntu_, ba-ntu.
But in some groups mu is also plural, the chief dialectic variants
being, _Ama_, _Aba_, _Ma_, _Ba_, _Wa_, _Ova_, _Va_, _Vua_, _U_, _A_,
_O_, _Eshi_, as in Ama-Zulu, Mu-Sarongo, Ma-Yomba, Wa-Swahili,
Ova-Herero, Vua-Twa, Ba-Suto, Eshi-Kongo. For a tentative classification
of African tribes see T. A. Joyce, Art. "Africa: Ethnology," _Ency.
Brit._ 1910, p. 329. For the classification of Bantu tongues into 44
groups consult H. H. Johnston, Art. "Bantu Languages," _loc. cit._
[225] _Eth._ Ch. XI.
[226] _Le Naturaliste_, Jan. 1894.
[227] _Tour de Monde_, 1896, I. p. 1 sq.; and _Les Bayas_; _Notes
Ethnographiques et Linguistiques_, Paris, 1896.
[228] D. Randall-MacIver, _Mediaeval Rhodesia_, 1906. But R. N. Hall,
_Prehistoric Rhodesia_, 1909, strongly opposes this view. See below, p.
105.
[229] Even Tipu Tib, their chief leader and "Prince of Slavers," was a
half-caste with distinctly Negroid features.
[230] "Afilo wurde mir vom Lega-Koenig als ein Negerland bezeichnet,
welches von einer Galla-Aristokratie beherrscht wird" (_Petermann's
Mitt._ 1883, V. p. 194).
[231] The Ba-Hima are herdsmen in Buganda, a sort of aristocracy in
Unyoro, a ruling caste in Toro, and the dominant race with dynasties in
Ankole. The name varies in different areas.
[232] _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1895, p. 424. For details of the Ba-Hima
type see _Eth._ p. 389.
[233] J. Roscoe, _The Northern Bantu_, 1915, p. 103. Herein are also
described the _Bakene_, lake dwellers, the _Bagesu_, a cannibal tribe,
the _Basoga_ and the Nilotic tribes the _Bateso_ and _Kavirondo_.
[234] J. Roscoe, _loc. cit._ pp. 4, 5.
[235] "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._ XLIII. 1913, p. 390.
[236] _Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika_, 1910, p. 147.
[237] "Die erste Ausbreitung des Menschengeschlechts." _Pol. Anthropol.
Revue_, 1909, p. 72. Cf. chronology on p. 14 above.
[238] _Ethnology_, p. 199.
[239] Uganda is the name now applied to the whole Protectorate, Buganda
is the small kingdom, Baganda, the people, Muganda, one person, Luganda,
the language. H. H. Johnston, _The Uganda Protectorate_, 1902, and J. F.
Cunningham, _Uganda and its Peoples_, 1905, cover much of the elementary
anthropology of East Central Africa.
[240] The legend is given with much detail by H. M. Stanley in _Through
the Dark Continent_, Vol. I. p. 344 sq. Another and less mythical
account of the migrations of "the people with a white skin from the far
north-east" is quoted from Emin Pasha by the Rev. R. P. Ashe in _Two
Kings of Uganda_, p. 336. Here the immigrant Ba-Hima are expressly
stated to have "adopted the language of the aborigines" (p. 337).
[241] Sir H. H. Johnston, _op. cit._ p. 514.
[242] Except the Lung-fish clan.
[243] J. Roscoe, _The Baganda_, 1911.
[244] For the _Wa-Kikuyu_ see W. S. and K. Routledge, _With a
Prehistoric People_, 1910, and C. W. Hobley's papers in the _Journ. Roy.
Anthr. Inst._ XL. 1910, and XLI. 1911. The _Atharaka_ are described by
A. M. Champion, _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLII. 1912, p. 68. Consult
for this region C. Eliot, _The East Africa Protectorate_, 1905; K.
Weule, _Native Life in East Africa_, 1909; C. W. Hobley, _Ethnology of
the A-Kamba and other East African Tribes_, 1910; M. Weiss, _Die
Voelkerstaemme im Norden Deutsch-Ostafrikas_, 1910; and A. Werner, "The
Bantu Coast Tribes of the East Africa Protectorate," _Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._ XLV. 1915.
[245] _Official Report on the East African Protectorate_, 1897.
[246] _Vocabulary of the Giryama Language_, S.P.C.K. 1897.
[247] _Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa_, London, 1898,
p. 103 sq.
[248] A. Werner, "Girijama Texts," _Zeitschr. f. Kol.-spr._ Oct. 1914.
[249] Having become the chief medium of intercourse throughout the
southern Bantu regions, Ki-swahili has been diligently cultivated,
especially by the English missionaries, who have wisely discarded the
Arab for the Roman characters. There is already an extensive literature,
including grammars, dictionaries, translations of the Bible and other
works, and even _A History of Rome_ issued by the S.P.C.K. in 1898.
[250] W. E. H. Barrett, "Notes on the Customs and Beliefs of the
Wa-Giriama," etc., _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLI. 1911, gives further
details. For a full review of the religious beliefs of Bantu tribes see
E. S. Hartland, Art. "Bantu and S. Africa," _Ency. of Religion and
Ethics_, 1909.
[251] The name still survives in _Zangue-bar_ ("Zang-land") and the
adjacent island of _Zanzibar_ (an Indian corruption). _Zang_ is "black,"
and _bar_ is the same Arabic word, meaning dry land, that we have in
_Mala-bar_ on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean. Cf. also _barran wa
bahran_, "by land and by sea."
[252] _Viage por Malabar y Costas de Africa_, 1512, translated by the
Hon. Henry E. J. Stanley, Hakluyt Society, 1868.
[253] In preference to the more popular form _Zulu-Kafir_, where _Kafir_
is merely the Arabic "Infidel" applied indiscriminately to any people
rejecting Islam; hence the _Siah Posh Kafirs_ ("Black-clad Infidels") of
Afghanistan; the _Kufra_ oasis in the Sahara, where _Kufra_, plural of
_Kafir_, refers to the pagan Tibus of that district; and the Kafirs
generally of the East African seaboard. But according to English usage
_Zulu_ is applied to the northern part of the territory, mainly Zululand
proper and Natal, while Kafirland or Kaffraria is restricted to the
southern section between Natal and the Great Kei River. The bulk of
these southern "Kafirs" belong to the Xosa connection; hence this term
takes the place of _Kafir_, in the compound expression _Zulu-Xosa_.
_Ama_ is explained on p. 86, and the _X_ of _Xosa_ represents an
unpronounceable combination of a guttural and a lateral click, this with
two other clicks (a dental and a palatal) having infected the speech of
these Bantus during their long prehistoric wars with the Hottentots or
Bushmen. See p. 129.
[254] See p. 86 above.
[255] See the admirable monograph on the Ba-Thonga, by H. A. Junod, _The
Life of a South African Tribe_, 1912.
[256] Robert Codrington tells us that these A-Ngoni (Aba-Ngoni) spring
from a Zulu tribe which crossed the Zambesi about 1825, and established
themselves south-east of L. Tanganyika, but later migrated to the
uplands west of L. Nyasa, where they founded three petty states. Others
went east of the Livingstone range, and are here still known as
Magwangwara. But all became gradually assimilated to the surrounding
populations. Intermarrying with the women of the country they preserve
their speech, dress, and usages for the first generation in a slightly
modified form, although the language of daily intercourse is that of the
mothers. Then this class becomes the aristocracy of the whole nation,
which henceforth comprises a great part of the aborigines ruled by a
privileged caste of Zulu origin, "perpetuated almost entirely among
themselves" ("Central Angoniland," _Geograph. Jour._ May, 1898, p. 512).
See A. Werner, _The Natives of British Central Africa_, 1906.
[257] Rev. J. Macdonald, _Light in Africa_, p. 194. Among recent works
on the Zulu-Xosa tribes may be mentioned Dudley Kidd, _The Essential
Kafir_, 1904, _Savage Childhood_, 1905; H. A. Junod, _The Life of a
South African Tribe_ (Ba-Thonga), 1912-3; G. W. Stow and G. M. Theal,
_The Native Races of South Africa_, 1905.
[258] From _Mwana_, lord, master, and _tapa_, to dig, both common Bantu
words.
[259] The point was that Portugal had made treaties with this mythical
State, in virtue of which she claimed in the "scramble for Africa" all
the hinterlands behind her possessions on the east and west coasts
(Mozambique and Angola), in fact all South Africa between the Orange and
Zambesi rivers. Further details on the "Monomotapa Question" will be
found in my monograph on "The Portuguese in South Africa" in Murray's
_South Africa, from Arab Domination to British Rule_, 1891, p. 11 sq.
Five years later Mr G. McCall Theal also discovered, no doubt
independently, the mythical character of Monomotapaland in his book on
_The Portuguese in South Africa_, 1896.
[260] _Proc. R. Geogr. Soc._ May, 1892, and _The Ruined Cities of
Mashonaland_, 1892.
[261] D. Randall-MacIver, _Mediaeval Rhodesia_, 1906. But R. N. Hall
strongly combats his views, _Great Zimbabwe_, 1905, _Prehistoric
Rhodesia_, 1909, and _South African Journal of Science_, May, 1912. H.
H. Johnston says, "I see nothing inherently improbable in the finding of
gold by proto-Arabs in the south-eastern part of Zambezia; nor in the
pre-Islamic Arab origin of Zimbabwe," p. 396, "A Survey of the
Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913.
[262] G. W. Stow, _The Native Races of South Africa_, 1905.
[263] The British Protectorate was limited in 1905 to about 182,000
square miles.
[264] Cf. A. St H. Gibbons, _Africa South to North through Marotseland_,
1904, and C. W. Mackintosh, _Coillard of the Zambesi_, 1907, with a
bibliography.
[265] The Ma-Kololo gave the Ba-Rotse their present name. They were
originally Aaelui, but the conquerors called them Ma-Rotse, people of the
plain.
[266] _Ten Years North of the Orange River._
[267] Cf. G. M. Theal, _The History of South Africa_ 1908-9, and _The
Beginning of South African History_, 1902.
[268] _Op. cit._ p. 47.
[269] G. Lagden, _The Basutos_, 1909.
[270] Variously termed _Ba-Kongo_, _Bashi-Kongo_ or _Ba-Fiot_.
[271] _Towards the Mountains of the Moon_, 1884, p. 128.
[272] _Dictionary and Grammar of the Kongo Language_, 1887, p. xxiii. F.
Starr has published a _Bibliography of the Congo Languages_, Bull. V.,
Dept. of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 1908.
[273] "Li Mociconghi cosi nomati nel suo proprio idioma gli abitanti del
reame di Congo" (_Relatione_, etc., Rome, 1591, p. 68). This form is
remarkable, being singular (_Moci = Mushi_) instead of plural (_Eshi_);
yet it is still currently applied to the rude "Mushi-Kongos" on the
south side of the estuary. Their real name however is Bashi-Kongo. See
_Brit. Mus. Ethnog. Handbook_, p. 219.
[274] Often written _Ba-Fiort_ with an intrusive _r_.
[275] Under Belgian administration much ethnological work has been
undertaken, and published in the _Annales du Musee du Congo_, notably
the magnificent monograph on the _Bushongo_ (_Bakuba_) by E. Torday and
T. A. Joyce, 1911. See also H. H. Johnston, _George Grenfell and the
Congo_, 1908; M. W. Hilton-Simpson, _Land and Peoples of the Kasai_,
1911; E. Torday, _Camp and Tramp in African Wilds_, 1913; J. H. Weeks,
_Among Congo Cannibals_, 1913, and _Among the Primitive Bakongo_, 1914;
and Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg, _From the Congo to the Niger
and the Nile_, 1913.
[276] _The First Ascent of the Kassai_, 1889, p. 20 sq. See also my
communication to the _Academy_, April 6, 1889, and _Africa_ (Stanford's
Compendium), 1895, Vol. II. p. 117 sq.
[277] _Op. cit._ p. 20.
[278] _The New World of Central Africa_, 1890, p. 466 sq.
[279] _Op. cit._ p. 471.
[280] These _Mpangwe_ savages are constantly confused with the
_Mpongwes_ of the Gabun, a settled Bantu people who have been long in
close contact, and on friendly terms, with the white traders and
missionaries in this district.
[281] The scanty information about the Ba-Teke is given, with
references, by E. Torday and T. A. Joyce, "Notes on the Ethnography of
the Ba-Huana," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XXXVI. 1906.
[282] My _Africa_, II. p. 58. Oscar Lenz, who perhaps knew them best,
says: "Gut gebaut, schlank und kraeftig gewachsen, Hautfarbe viel
lichter, manchmal stark ins Gelbe spielend, Haar und Bartwuchs
auffallend stark, sehr grosse Kinnbaerte" (_Skizzen aus West-Afrika_,
1878, p. 73).
[283] M. H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, 1897, pp. 331-2.
[284] _Official Report_, 1886.
[285] H. H. Johnston, _George Grenfell and the Congo ... and Notes on
the Cameroons_, 1908.
[286] Reclus, English ed., XII. p. 376.
[287] So also in Minahassa, Celebes, _Empung_, "Grandfather," is the
generic name of the gods. "The fundamental ideas of primitive man are
the same all the world over. Just as the little black baby of the Negro,
the brown baby of the Malay, the yellow baby of the Chinaman are in face
and form, in gestures and habits, as well as in the first articulate
sounds they mutter, very much alike, so the mind of man, whether he be
Aryan or Malay, Mongolian or Negrito, has in the course of its evolution
passed through stages which are practically identical" (Sydney J.
Hickson, _A Naturalist in North Celebes_, 1889, p. 240).
[288] _Op. cit._ p. 96.
[289] "The God of the Ethiopians," in _Nature_, May 26, 1892.
[290] A. B. Ellis, _Tshi_, p. 23; _Ewe_, p. 31; _Yoruba_, p. 36.
[291] Cf. E. S. Hartland, Art. "Bantu and S. Africa," _Ency. of Religion
and Ethics_, 1909.
[292] This account of the Vaalpens is taken from A. H. Keane, _The
World's Peoples_, 1908, p. 149.
[293] This summary of our information about the Strandloopers, with
quotations from F. C. Shrubsall and L. Peringuey, is taken from H. H.
Johnston, "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr.
Inst._ XLIII. 1913, p. 377.
[294] Schiaparelli, _Una Tomba Egiziana_, Rome, 1893.
[295] James Geikie, _Scottish Geogr. Mag._ Sept. 1897.
[296] Thus he finds (_L'Anthropologie_, 1896, p. 153) a presumably
Negrillo skull from the Babinga district, Middle Sangha river, to be
distinctly long-headed (73.2) with, for this race, the enormous cranial
capacity of about 1440 c.c. Cf. the Akka measured by Sir W. Flower (1372
c.c.), and his Andamanese (1128), the highest hitherto known being 1200
(Virchow).
[297] _Through Unknown African Countries_, etc., 1897.
[298] _Bul. Soc. Geogr._ XIX. p. 440.
[299] _Through Jungle and Desert_, 1896, pp. 358-9.
[300] _Travels_, III. p. 86.
[301] _Im Innern Afrika's_, p. 259 sq. As stated in _Eth._ Ch. XI. Dr
Wolf connects all these Negrillo peoples with the Bushmen south of the
Zambesi.
[302] One of the Mambute brought to England by Col. Harrison in 1906
measured just over 3-1/2 feet.
[303] See A. C. Haddon, Art. "Negrillos and Negritos," _Ency. of
Religion and Ethics_, 1917.
[304] "It would seem as if the earliest known race of man inhabiting
what is now British Central Africa was akin to the Bushman-Hottentot
type of Negro. Rounded stones with a hole through the centre, similar to
those which are used by the Bushmen in the south for weighting their
digging-sticks, have been found at the south end of Lake Tanganyika. I
have heard that other examples of these 'Bushman' stones have been found
nearer to Lake Nyasa, etc." (_British Central Africa_, p. 52).
[305] G. Fritsch, _Die Ein-geborenen Sud-Afrikas_, 1872, "Schilderungen
der Hottentotten," _Globus_, 1875, p. 374 ff.; E. T. Hamy, "Les Races
negres," _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 257 ff.; F. Shrubsall, "Crania of
African Bush Races," _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ 1897. See also G. McCall
Theal, _The Yellow and Dark-skinned People South of the Zambesi_, 1910.
[306] "I have not been able to trace much affinity in word roots between
this language and either Bushman or Hottentot, though it is noteworthy
that the word for four ... is almost identical with the word for four in
all the Hottentot dialects, while the phonology of the language is
reminiscent of Bushmen in its nasals and gutturals" (H. H. Johnston,
"Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII.
1913, p. 380).
[307] _Verhandl. Berliner Gesellsch. f. Anthrop._ 1895, p. 59.
[308] Of another skull undoubtedly Hottentot, from a cave on the
Transvaal and Orange Free State frontier, Dr Mies remarks that "seine
Form ist orthodolichocephal wie bei den Wassandaui," although differing
in some other characters (_Centralbl. f. Anthr._ 1896, p. 50).
[309] From which he adds that the Hottentots "schon lange vor der
Portugiesischen Umschiffung Afrika's von Kaffer-Staemmen wieder
zurueckgedraengt wurden" (_Reisen_, I. p. 400).
[310] Adelung und Vater, Berlin, 1812, III. p. 290.
[311] Such are, going north from below Walvisch Bay, Chuntop, Kuisip,
Swakop, Ugab, Huab, Uniab, Hoanib, Kaurasib, and Khomeb.
[312] The returns for 1904 showed a "Hottentot" population of 85,892,
but very few were pure Hottentots. The official estimate of those in
which Hottentot blood was strongly marked was 56,000.
[313] M. H. Tongue and E. D. Bleek, _Bushman Paintings_, 1909. Cf. W. J.
Sollas, _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, p. 399, with bibliography.
[314] W. H. I. Bleek and L. C. Lloyd, _Bushman Folklore_, 1911.
[315] See W. Planert, "Ueber die Sprache der Hottentotten und
Buschmaenner," _Mitt. d. Seminars f. Oriental. Sprachen z. Berlin_, VIII.
(1905), Abt. III. 104-176.
[316] "In the Pygmies of the north-eastern corner of the Congo basin and
amongst the Bantu tribes of the Equatorial East African coast there is a
tendency to faucal gasps or explosive consonants which suggests the
vanishing influence of clicks." H. H. Johnston, "A Survey of the
Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ XLIII. 1913.
[317] "The Bushmen and their Language," in _Journ. R. Asiatic Soc._
XVIII. Part 1.
[318] _Ancient Hunters_, 1915, p. 425.