“Certains districts en effet ne remplacent pas les miliciens
décédés, désertés en cours de route et ceux réformés à leur arrivée
au camp.
“De plus, pendant la période d’instruction dans les camps un grand
nombre de déchets se produisent aussi parmi ces recrues, les
transports de miliciens laissant encore a désirer.”
The Commandant informed me that some of the natives who had fled into
the French territory opposite ten years ago, when the Irebu tribes had
deserted their homes, were now gradually returning to Congo State
territory. I found, subsequently, that this was the case, the people
alleging that since the rubber tax had been dropped in the Mantumba
district they preferred returning to their home lands to remaining on
the strange sites in French territory, to which they had fled when that
tax was at work.
From Irebu I proceeded some 25 miles to Ikoko, once a large village on
the north shore of Lake Mantumba. I remained in Lake Mantumba seventeen
days visiting, during that time, the Government post at Bikoro on the
east shore of the lake, and many native towns scattered around the lake
side. I also ascended by boat one of the rivers falling into the lake,
and visited three native villages in the forest situated along this
waterway. Lake Mantumba is a fine sheet of water about 25 or 30 miles
long and some 12 or 15 miles broad at the broadest part, surrounded by a
dense forest. The inhabitants of the district are of the Ntomba tribe,
and are still rude savages, using very fine bows and arrows and ill-made
spears as their weapons. There are also in the forest country many
families or clans of a dwarf race called Batwas, who are of a much more
savage and untameable disposition than the Ntombas, who form the bulk of
the population. Both Batwas and Ntombas are still cannibals, and
cannibalism, although repressed and not so openly indulged in as
formerly, is still prevalent in the district. The Mantumba people were,
in the days before the establishment of Congo State rule, among the most
active fishermen and traders of the Upper Congo. In fleets of canoes
they used to issue out upon the main waters of the Congo and travel very
great distances, fighting their way if necessary, in search of
purchasers of their fish or slaves, or to procure these latter. All this
has ceased and, save for small canoes used in catching fish, I saw
neither on the lake itself nor at the many villages I touched along its
shores, any canoes comparable to those so frequently seen in the past. A
man I visited told me that a fine canoe he bought for 2,000 brass rods
(100 fr.), in which to send the weekly imposition of fish to the local
State post, had been kept by the official there, had been used to
transport Government soldiers in, and was now attached to a Government
wood-cutting post, which he named, out on the main river. He had
received nothing for the loss of this canoe, and when I urged him to lay
the matter before the local official responsible, who had doubtless
retained the canoe in ignorance, he pulled up his loin cloth and,
pointing to where he had been flogged with a chicotte, said: “If I
complained I should only get more of these.” Although afraid to complain
locally, he declared he would be perfectly willing to accompany me if I
would take him before one of the Congo Judges or, above all, down to
Boma. I assured him that a statement such as that he had made to me
would meet with attention at Boma, and that if he could prove its truth
he would get satisfaction for the loss of the canoe.
Statements of a similar character, often supported by many witnesses,
were made to me more than once during my journey around the lake, some
of them pointing to far greater derelictions of duty. The same man told
me, on the same occasion, that one of the Government officials of the
district (the same man, indeed, who had retained the canoe) had recently
given him three wives. The official, he declared, had been “making war”
on a town in the forest I was then in, for failing to bring in its fixed
food supply, and as a result of the punitive measures undertaken the
town had been destroyed and many prisoners taken. As a result, several
women so taken were homeless, and were distributed. “Wives were being
given away that day,” said my informant, “he gave me three, but another
man got four.” The man went on to say that one of these “wives” had
since escaped, aided, as he complained, by one of his own townsmen, who
was a slave from her own native town.
The population of the lake-side towns would seem to have diminished
within the last ten years by 60 or 70 per cent. It was in 1893 that the
effort to levy an india-rubber imposition in this district was begun,
and for some four or five years this imposition could only be collected
at the cost of continual fighting. Finding the task of collecting
india-rubber a well nigh impossible one, the authorities abandoned it in
this district, and the remaining inhabitants now deliver a weekly supply
of food-stuffs for the up-keep of the military camp at Irebu, or the big
coffee plantation at Bikoro. Several villages I visited supply also to
the latter station a fortnightly tax of gum-copal, which the surrounding
forests yield abundantly. Gum-copal is also exposed and washed up on the
shores of the lake. The quantity of this commodity supplied by each
village on which it is assessed is put at 10 bags per fortnight. Each
bag is officially said to contain 25 kilog., so that the imposition
would amount to a quarter of a ton weight per fortnight. I found, when
trying to lift some of these bags I saw being packed at a native village
I was in, that they must weigh considerably more than 25 kilog., so that
I concluded that each sack represents that quantity net of gum-copal.
There is a considerable loss in cleaning, chipping, and washing crude
gum as collected. The quantity brought by each village would thus work
out at 6-1/2 tons per annum. When I visited the Government station at
P*, the chief of that post showed me ten sacks of gum which he said had
been just brought in by a very small village in the neighbourhood. For
this quarter of a ton of gum-copal he said he had paid the village one
piece of blue drill--a rough cotton cloth which is valued locally, after
adding the cost of transport, at 11-1/2 fr. a-piece. By the Congo
Government “Bulletin Officiel” of this year (No. 4, April 1903) I found
that 339-1/2 tons of gum-copal were exported in 1902, all from the Upper
Congo, and that this was valued at 475,490 fr. The value per ton would,
therefore, work out at about 56_l._ The fortnightly yield of each
village would therefore seem to be worth a maximum of 14_l._ (probably
less), for which a maximum payment of 11-1/2 fr. is made. At one village
I visited I found the majority of the inhabitants getting ready the
gum-copal and the supply of fish which they had to take to P* on the
morrow. They were putting it into canoes to paddle across the lake--some
20 miles--and they left with their loads in the night from alongside my
steamer. These people told me that they frequently received, instead of
cloth, 150 brass rods (7-1/2 fr.) for the quarter of a ton of gum-copal
they took fortnightly.
The value of the annual payment in gum-copal made by each town would
seem to be about 360_l._, while at an average of 9 fr. as the
remuneration each receives fortnightly, they would appear to receive
some 10_l._ in annual return.
In the village of Montaka, at the south end of the lake, where I spent
two days, the people seemed, during my stay, to be chiefly engrossed in
the task of chipping and preparing the gum-copal for shipment to Bikoro,
and in getting ready their weekly yield of fish for the same post. I saw
the filling with gum of the ten basket-sacks taking place under the eyes
of the Chief--who himself contributed--and a State sentry who was posted
there. Each household in the town was represented at this final task,
and every adult householder of Montaka shared in the general
contribution. Assuming the population of Montaka at from 600 to 800--and
it cannot now be more although a town of 4,000 souls ten years
ago--fully 150 householders are thus directly affected by the collection
and delivery, each fortnight, of this “impôt en nature,” and are
affected for the great majority of the days throughout the year.
Since for the 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal which the 150 householders of
Montaka contribute annually, they are seen to receive not more than a
total payment of 10_l._ in the year--viz., 26 fortnightly payments of,
on an average, say 9 fr. 50 c., giving 247 fr. annually--it follows that
the remuneration each adult householder of Montaka receives for his
entire year’s work is the one hundred and fiftieth part of that
total--or just 1_s._ 4_d._ This is just the value of an adult fowl in
Montaka. I bought ten fowls, or chickens rather, the morning of my going
away, and for the only reasonably sized one among them I gave 30 rods (1
fr. 50 c.), the others, small fledglings, ranging from 15 to 20 rods
each (75 cents. to 1 fr.).
The 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal supplied annually by these 150 householders
being valued at about 364_l._, it follows that each householder had
contributed something like 2_l._ 8_s._ per annum in kind.
The labour involved may or may not be unduly excessive--but it is
continuous throughout the year--each man must stay in his town and be
prepared each week and fortnight to have his contribution ready under
fear of summary punishment.
The natives engaged as workmen on my steamer were paid each a sum of 20
rods (1 fr.) per week for food rations only, and 100 rods (5 fr.) per
month wages. One of these native workmen thus earned more in one week of
my service--which was that of any other private establishment employing
ordinary labour--than the Montaka householder got in an entire year for
his compulsory public service rendered to the Government.
At other villages which I visited, I found the tax to consist of
baskets, which the inhabitants had to make and deliver weekly as well
as, always, a certain amount of food-stuffs--either kwanga or fish.
These baskets are used at Bikoro in packing up the gum-copal for
conveyance down the river and to Europe--the river transport being
effected by Government steamers. The basket-makers and other workers
complained that they were sometimes remunerated for their labour with
reels of sewing cotton and shirt buttons (of which they had no use) when
supplies of cloth or brass wire ran short at Bikoro. As these natives go
almost entirely naked, I could believe that neither thread or shirt
buttons were of much service to them. They also averred that they were
frequently flogged for delay or inability to complete the tale of these
baskets, or the weekly supply of food. Several men, including a Chief of
one town, showed broad weals across their buttocks, which were evidently
recent. One, a lad of 15 or so, removing his cloth, showed several scars
across his thighs, which he and others around him said had formed part
of a weekly payment for a recent shortage in their supply of food. That
these statements were not all untrue was confirmed by my visit to P*,
when the “domaine privé” store was shown to me. It had very little in
it, and I learned that the barter stock of goods had not been
replenished for some time. There appeared to be from 200 to 300 pieces
of coarse cotton cloth, and nothing else, and as the cloth was visibly
old, I estimated the value of the entire stock at possibly 15_l._ It
certainly would not have fetched more if put up to auction in any part
of the Upper Congo.
The instructions regulating the remuneration of the native contributors
and the mode of exploitation of the “forêts domaniales” were issued in
the “Bulletin Officiel” of 1896, under authority of Decrees dated the
30th October and the 5th December, 1892.