For Many Centuries Native Tribes of Africa Have Had Systems of
Communication Which Have Mystified White Travelers—Effective Use of
Tom-Toms, Gourds, and Ivory Horns Keeps Villages in Touch With Each
Other.
There is nothing new under the sun, not even the wireless telegraph. To
be sure, the system which has been in use for centuries among the savage
tribes in the heart of Africa bears no resemblance to our latest wonder,
but it is practical and effective, and its value has been proved many
times.
A French explorer seems to have been the first to describe it.
By means of this system news of important events in the interior of
the Sudan reaches all the trading ports on the coast in a very short
time, although there is no electric telegraph or telephone in the
interior.
The communication is made by means of various instruments, the most
commonly employed being horns, tom-toms, and whistles. The horns are
of solid ivory, made by hollowing out elephant’s tusks. The mouthpiece
is at the side. These trumpets are of all sizes, but the favorite ones
are very long and give seven distinct notes, produced by plugging the
mouth with corks of various sizes. The ordinary tom-tom is a hollow
log of wood, with a goatskin stretched over one end.
The following instance will illustrate the way in which this native
telegraph is employed. The post commander at Stanley Falls was
informed by a native of a neighboring village that a provision train
had been attacked by robbers two days before at a point one hundred
and eighty miles farther down the Congo. A week later the party
arrived and confirmed the story in part.
They had reached the scene of the alleged attack at the time reported,
but the shots which the natives had taken as indications of a conflict
with robbers had been fired at a herd of antelopes.
More recently, when an officer of the French Congo came to grief in
the rapids, the accident was reported the next morning at a village
one hundred and eighty-six miles distant.
Among the Bengala tribe a sort of xylophone is used with four notes,
by means of which the natives hold communication over great distances
In a kind of telegraphic language.
The Rev. C. A. Rideout, an African missionary, gives in the Kansas
City _Star_ an account of this method of communication over long
distances of sparsely settled country. He was working among the
Basutos when he discovered that the villages had means of conveying
messages from one chief to another, or transmitting the intelligence
of defeat or victory. Says Mr. Rideout:
“A large gourd is hollowed out and thoroughly dried. Then kid’s skin,
as hard and thin as parchment, is stretched across the hollow of the
gourd. When beaten with a padded drumstick this gives forth a sound
which can be distinctly heard at a distance of from five to eight
miles.
“In every village there is a class of men who are utilized as scouts.
Among these guards there are always two or three trained to the use of
the gourd drum. The code is practically an African Morse alphabet, and
is beaten on the drum in the open air.
“The sound is carried across the valleys and glens to the next
village, where it is interpreted by another guard. If the message is
for a distant part, he repeats it on his drum; and so it is carried
from village to village, with very little loss of time, until it
reaches the person for whom it is intended.
“I was granted the privilege of using the gourd telegraph system to
send messages to our mission workers, and often availed myself of it.
I don’t know a single instance where it failed to deliver its word
properly.
“During the Boer War we, who were hundreds of miles from the scene of
hostilities, got all the news with surprising rapidity, and I have
known of several instances where tidings came by the gourd air-line
hours ahead of the message by field-telegraph.
“Who first invented the system nobody knows. It has been in use for
centuries. There appears to be no difficulty in sending any kind of a
message, and I have known one to travel nearly one thousand miles.”
The Blind Sailor-Explorer.