THE BUBÉS AND CONGOESE.
REAL NAME OF THE BUBÉS -- THEIR LIMITED RANGE -- APPEARANCE AND
MANNERS OF THE MEN -- TOLA PASTE -- REASONS FOR NUDITY -- BUBÉ
ARCHITECTURE -- GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE BUBÉS -- A WEDDING AT
FERNANDO PO -- CONGO -- ITS GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION -- CURIOUS TAXATION
-- RELIGION OF CONGO -- THE CHITOME AND HIS POWERS -- HIS DEATH,
AND LAW OF SUCCESSION -- THE NGHOMBO AND HIS MODE OF WALKING -- THE
ORDEAL -- CEREMONY OF CROWNING A KING -- THE ROYAL ROBES -- THE WOMEN
OF CONGO -- EARLY HISTORY OF THE COUNTRY -- THE FEMALE MONARCH -- THE
FATE OF TEMBANDUMBA.
The Bubé tribe (which unfortunately is pronounced Booby) is a really
interesting one, and, but for the rapidly decreasing space, would be
described in detail. The real name of the tribe is Adizah, but, as they
are in the habit of addressing others as Bubé, _i. e._ Man, the term
has clung to them.
The Bubés inhabit Fernando Po, and, although some of them believe
themselves to be aborigines of the island, have evidently come from the
mainland. They have, however, no particular pride in their autocthonic
origin, and, if questioned, are perfectly content to say that they came
from their parents.
The Bubés inhabit only one zone in Fernando Po. The sea air is too
soft and warm for them, and, besides, there is danger of being carried
off by the slavers. More than three thousand feet above the sea they
cannot exist, not because the climate is too cold, but because the
palms and plantains on which they live will not flourish there. With
the exception of those individuals who have come under the sway of the
missionaries, the Bubés wear no clothes except closely fitting coats
of palm oil, or, on grand occasions. of tola paste, _i. e._ palm oil
bruised and mixed with the leaves of the tola herb. This paste has
a powerful and very peculiar odor, and the first intimation of the
vicinity of a Bubé village is usually the scent of the tola paste borne
on the breeze.
The men wear large flat hats made of wicker-work covered with monkey
skin, and used chiefly to guard themselves from the tree snake. The
women are dressed in exactly the same fashion, but without the hat,
their husbands perhaps thinking that women cannot be hurt by snakes.
The hat is fastened to the head by skewers made of the bone of the
monkey’s leg, and the hair itself is plentifully greased and adorned
with yellow ochre, and manipulated so that it looks as if it were
covered with little gilded peas. Round the upper arm is tied a piece
of string, which holds a knife for the man and a pipe for the woman.
Clothing is to them a positive infliction, and Captain Burton remarks
that, even at an elevation of ten thousand feet above the sea, he
offered the Bubés blankets, but they would not have them, though they
found the warmth of the fire acceptable to them.
They have a legend which explains their nudity. Many years ago a
M’pongwe magician made fetish upon his great war spear, and killed
numbers of them, so that they fled. They then made a law that the Bubé
should wear no clothing until they had conquered the M’pongwe, and that
law they have kept to the present day.
Taken as a savage, the Bubé is a wonderfully good specimen. He is very
industrious, laying out yam fields and farms at some distance from his
house, in order to prevent his domestic animals from straying into it,
and he is the best palm-wine maker in Western Africa. He neither will
be a slave himself, nor keep slaves, preferring to work for himself;
and, after working hard at his farm, he will start off into the woods
to shoot monkeys or squirrels. He is a good athlete, and handles his
great staff with such address that he is a very formidable antagonist.
He is an admirable linguist, picking up languages with astonishing
readiness, and he is absolutely honest. “You may safely deposit rum and
tobacco in his street, and he will pay his debt as surely as the Bank
of England.” This testimony is given by Captain Burton, who certainly
cannot be accused of painting the native African in too bright colors.
[Illustration: (1.) A BUBÉ MARRIAGE. (See page 613.)]
[Illustration: (2.) KANEMBOO MAN AND WOMAN. (See page 627.)]
Yet he never trusts any one. He will deal with you most honorably, but
he will never tell you his name. If you present gifts to him, he takes
them, but with suspicion: “Timet Danaos et dona ferentes.” If you enter
his village unexpectedly, he turns out armed, and, “if you are fond
of collecting vocabularies, may the god of speech direct you.” The
fact is, he has been so cheated and plundered that he now suspects all
men alike, and will not trust even his fellow-countrymen of the next
village.
He treats his wife pretty well, but has an odd ascending series of
punishments. Should he detect her in an infidelity, he boils a pot of
oil, cuts off the offender’s left hand, and plunges the stump into the
oil to heal the bleeding. For the second offence she loses the right
hand, and for the third the head, on which occasion the boiling oil
is not required. Partly on account of this law, and partly on account
of their ugliness, which is said to be portentous, the women display
better morals than the generality of their African sisters.
Dr. Hutchinson, who resided in Fernando Po for some time, has not a
very favorable opinion of the Bubés, thinking that the twenty or thirty
thousand of their tribe form the greatest obstacle to civilization.
He states, moreover, that although the Baptist missionaries have been
hard at work among them for seventeen years, they had not succeeded in
Christianizing or civilizing, or even humanizing, a single Bubé.
They are not an intellectual race, and do not appear to know or care
much about the division of time, the new moon and the beginning of the
dry season marking their monthly and annual epochs. The latter begins
in November, and for two months the Bubés hold a festival called Lobo,
in which marriages are generally celebrated. Dr. Hutchinson was able to
witness a Bubé marriage, and has given a very amusing account of it.
The reader may find it illustrated on the preceding page. The bride was
a daughter of the king. “On getting inside of the town our first object
of attraction was the cooking going on in his Majesty’s kitchen. Here
a number of dead ‘ipa’ (porcupines) and ‘litcha’ (gazelles) were in
readiness to be mingled up with palm oil, and several grubs writhing
on skewers, probably to add piquancy to the dishes. These are called
‘inchaee,’ being obtained from palm trees, and look at first sight
like Brobdignagian maggots. Instead of waiting to see the art of the
Fernandian Soyer on these components, I congratulated myself on my ham
sandwiches and brandy-and-water bottle safely stowed in my portmanteau,
which one of the Krumen carried on his back, and sat on my camp-stool
beneath the grateful shade of a palm tree to rest a while.
“Outside a small hut belonging to the mother of the bride expectant, I
soon recognized the happy bridegroom, undergoing his toilet from the
hands of his future wife’s sister. A profusion of tshibbu strings (_i.
e._ small pieces of Achatectona shell, which represent the currency
in Fernando Po) being fastened round his body, as well as his legs
and arms, the anointing lady (having a short black pipe in her mouth)
proceeded to putty him over with tola paste. He seemed not altogether
joyous at the anticipation of his approaching happiness, but turned a
sulky gaze now and then to a kidney-shaped piece of brown-painted yam,
which he held in his hand, and which had a parrot’s red feather fixed
on its convex side. This I was informed was called ‘ntsheba,’ and is
regarded as a protection against evil influence during the important
day.
“Two skewer-looking hair-pins, with heads of red and white glass
beads, fastened his hat (which was nothing more than a disk of bamboo
plaiting) to the hair of his head; and his toilet being complete, he
and one of the bridesmen, as elaborately dressed as himself, attacked a
mess of stewed flesh and palm oil placed before them, as eagerly as if
they had not tasted food for a fortnight. In discussing this meal they
followed the primitive usage of ‘fingers before forks,’ only resting
now and then to take a gulp of palm wine out of a calabash which was
hard by, or to wipe their hands on napkins of cocoa-leaf, a process
which, to say the least of it, added nothing to their washerwomen’s
bill at the end of the week.
“But the bride! Here she comes! Led forth by her own and her
husband-expectant’s mother, each holding her by a hand, followed by two
‘nepees’ (professional singers) and half-a-dozen bridesmaids. Nothing
short of a correct photograph could convey an idea of her appearance.
Borne down by the weight of rings, wreaths, and girdles of ‘tshibbu,’
the tola pomatum gave her the appearance of an exhumed mummy, save her
face, which was all white--not from excess of modesty (and here I may
add, the negro race are expected always to blush blue), but from being
smeared over with a white paste, symbolical of purity.
“As soon as she was outside the paling, her bridal attire was proceeded
with, and the whole body was plastered over with white stuff. A
veil of strings of tshibbu shells, completely covering her face, and
extending from the crown of her head to the chin, as well as on each
side from ear to ear, was then thrown over her; over this was placed an
enormous helmet made of cowhide; and any one with a spark of compassion
in him could not help pitying that poor creature, standing for more
than an hour under the broiling sun, with such a load on her, whilst
the nepees were celebrating her praises in an extempore epithalamium,
and the bridegroom was completing his finery elsewhere.
“Next came a long chant--musical people would call it a howl--by the
chief nepee. It was about as long as ‘Chevy Chase,’ and celebrated the
beauties and many virtues of the bride, among which was rather oddly
mentioned the delicious smell which proceeded from her. At every pause
in the chant the audience struck in with a chorus of ‘Hee! hee! jee!
eh!’ and when it was over the ceremony proceeded.
“The candidates for marriage having taken their positions side by
side in the open air, fronting the little house from which the bride
elect had been led out by the two mothers, and where I was informed
she had been closely immured for fifteen months previous, the ceremony
commenced. The mothers were the officiating priests--an institution of
natural simplicity, whose homely origin no one will dare to impugn.
On these occasions the mother-bishops are prophetically entitled
‘boowanas,’ the Fernandian for grandmother.
“Five bridesmaids marshalled themselves alongside the bride postulant,
each, in rotation, some inches lower than the other, the outside one
being a mere infant in stature, and all having bunches of parrots’
feathers on their heads, as well as holding a wand in their right
hands. The mother stood behind the ‘happy pair,’ and folded an arm of
each round the body of the other--nepees chanting all the while, so
that it was barely possible for my interpreter to catch the words by
which they were formally soldered. A string of tshibbu was fastened
round both arms by the bridegroom’s mother; she, at the same time,
whispering to him advice to take care of this tender lamb, even though
he had half-a-dozen wives before. The string was then unloosed. It
was again fastened on by the bride’s mother, who whispered into her
daughter’s ear her duty to attend to her husband’s farm, tilling his
yams and cassava, and the necessity of her being faithful to him. The
ratification of their promise to fulfil these conditions was effected
by passing a goblet of palm wine from mother to son (the bridegroom),
from him to his bride, from her to her mother, each taking a sip as it
went round.
“Then an indiscriminate dance and chant commenced; and the whole
scene--the tola paste laid on some faces so thickly that one might
imagine it was intended to affix something to them by means of it--the
dangling musk-cat and monkey tails--the disk hats and parrots’
feathers--the branches of wild fern and strings of tshibbu shells,
fastened perhaps as nosegays to the ladies’ persons--the white and
red and yellow spots painted under the eyes, and on the shoulders,
and in any place where they could form objects of attraction--the
_tout ensemble_, contrasted with the lofty _Bombax_, beautiful palm,
cocoa-nut, and other magnificent tropical trees around, presented a
picture rarely witnessed by an European, and one calculated to excite
varied reflections.”
Lastly, the whole party--the tola paste now cracking from their
bodies--proceeded to the house of the bridegroom, the old wives walking
before the bride until they reached the door, and then allowing her to
precede them. The newly-married pair then stood at their door facing
the spectators, embracing each other as before. One of his children
then presented the bride with a huge yam painted brown, others fixed
tshibbu epaulets on her shoulders, the husband placed four rings on her
fingers, and the ceremony was concluded by a second lecture from the
bridegroom’s mother, at the expiration of which Dr. Hutchinson, as he
rather quaintly says, “left the happy pair to the enjoyment of their
tola-moon.”
CONGO
Passing southward down the West Coast, we come to the celebrated
kingdom of CONGO.
In these days it has been so traversed by merchants of different
countries and missionaries of different sects, that it no longer
presents the uniform aspect of its earlier monarchical days, of which
we will take a brief survey. The reader must understand that the
sources from which the information is taken are not wholly reliable,
but, as we have none other, we must make the best of our information,
and use our own discretion as to those parts which are best worthy
of belief. The following account is mostly taken from Mr. Reade’s
condensation.
The ancient constitution of the Congo kingdom much resembled that
of Ashanti or Dahome; namely, a despotic monarchy controlled by
councillors, the king and the council being mutually jealous, and each
trying to overreach the other. When the kingdom of Congo was first
established, the royal revenues were much in the same condition as the
civil list of a late Emperor of Russia--all belonged to the king, and
he took as much as he wanted. In later days, however, the revenues
were controlled by the council, who aided, not only in their disposal,
but in the mode of their collection. The greater part of the income
depended on the annual tributes of the inferior chiefs, but, as in
times of pressure, especially during a protracted war, this tribute is
inadequate to meet the expenses, the king and council devise various
objects of taxation.
The most productive is perhaps the tax on beds, which are assessed
according to their width, every span costing an annual payment of a
slave. Now, as an ordinary man cannot sleep comfortably on a bed less
than four spans in width, it is very evident that the tax must be a
very productive one, if indeed it were not so oppressive as to cause a
rebellion. The natives seem, however, to have quietly acquiesced in it,
and a wealthy negro therefore takes a pride in having a very broad bed
as a tangible proof of his importance.
As in more civilized nations, war is the great parent of taxation,
the king being obliged to maintain a large standing army, and to keep
it in good humor by constant largesses, for a large standing army is
much like fire,--a useful servant, but a terrible master. The army is
divided into regiments, each acting under the immediate command of
the chief in whose district they live, and they are armed, in a most
miscellaneous fashion, with any weapons they can procure. In these
times the trade guns are the most valued weapons, but the native
swords, bows and arrows, spears, and knives, still form the staple of
their equipment. As to uniform, they have no idea of it, and do not
even distinguish the men of the different regiments, as do the Kaffirs
of Southern Africa.
The ancient religion of the Congo negro is simply polytheism, which
they have suffered to degenerate into fetishism. There is one
monotheistic sect, but they have gained very little by their religion,
which is in fact merely a negation of many deities, without the least
understanding of the one whom they profess to worship--a deity to whom
they attribute the worst vices that can degrade human nature.
The fetish men or priests are as important here as the marabouts among
the Mandingoes, and the chief of them, who goes by the name of Chitomè,
is scarcely less honored than the king, who finds himself obliged to
seek the favor of this spiritual potentate, while the common people
look on him as scarcely less than a god. He is maintained by a sort of
tithe, consisting of the first-fruits of the harvest, which are brought
to him with great ceremony, and are offered with solemn chants. The
Congo men fully believe that if they were to omit the first-fruits of
one year’s harvest, the next year would be an unproductive one.
A sacred fire burns continually in his house, and the embers, which are
supposed to be possessed of great medicinal virtues, are sold by him
at a high price, so that even his fire is a constant source of income
to him. He has the entire regulation of the minor priests, and every
now and then makes a progress among them to settle the disputes which
continually spring up. As soon as he leaves his house, the husbands
and wives throughout the kingdom are obliged to separate under pain of
death. In case of disobedience, the man only is punished, and cases
have been known where wives who disliked their husbands have accused
them of breaking this strange law, and have thereby gained a double
advantage, freed themselves from a man whom they did not like, and
established a religious reputation on easy terms.
In fact, the Chitomè has things entirely his own way, with one
exception. He is so holy that he cannot die a natural death, for if he
did so the universe would immediately be dissolved. Consequently, as
soon as he is seized with a dangerous illness, the Chitomè elect calls
at his house, and saves the universe by knocking out his brains with a
club, or strangling him with a cord if he should prefer it. That his
own death must be of a similar character has no effect upon the new
Chitomè, who, true to the negro character, thinks only of the present
time, and, so far as being anxious about the evils that will happen at
some future time, does not trouble himself even about the next day.
Next to the Chitomè comes the Nghombo, a priest who is distinguished
by his peculiar gait. His dignity would be impaired by walking like
ordinary mortals, or even like the inferior priests, and so he always
walks on his hands with his feet in the air, thereby striking awe
into the laity. Some of the priests are rain-makers, who perform the
duties of their office by building little mounds of earth and making
fetish over them. From the centre of each charmed mound rises a strange
insect, which mounts into the sky, and brings as much rain as the
people have paid for. These priests are regularly instituted, but
there are some who are born to the office, such as dwarfs, hunchbacks,
and albinos, all of whom are highly honored as specially favored
individuals, consecrated to the priesthood by Nature herself.
The priests have, as usual, a system of ordeal, the commonest mode
being the drinking of the poison cup, and the rarest the test of
the red-hot iron, which is applied to the skin of the accused, and
burns him if he be guilty. There is no doubt that the magicians are
acquainted with some preparation which renders the skin proof against a
brief application of hot iron, and that they previously apply it to an
accused person who will pay for it.
The Chitomè has the privilege of conducting the coronation of a king.
The new ruler proceeds to the house of the Chitomè, attended by a host
of his future subjects, who utter piercing yells as he goes. Having
reached the sacred house, he kneels before the door, and asks the
Chitomè to be gracious to him. The Chitomè growls out a flat refusal
from within. The king renews his supplications, in spite of repeated
rebuffs, enumerating all the presents which he has brought to the
Chitomè--which presents, by the way, are easily made, as he will extort
an equal amount from his subjects as soon as he is fairly installed.
At last, the door of the hut opens, and out comes the Chitomè in his
white robe of office, his head covered with feathers, and a shining
mirror on his breast. The king lies prostrate before the house, while
the Chitomè pours water on him, scatters dust over him, and sets his
feet on him. He then lies flat on the prostrate monarch, and in that
position receives from him a promise to respect his authority ever
afterward. The king is then proclaimed, and retires to wash and change
his clothes.
Presently he comes out of the palace, attended by his priests and
nobles, and gorgeous in all the bravery of his new rank, his whole
person covered with glittering ornaments of metal, glass, and stone,
so that the eye can scarcely bear the rays that flash on every side as
he moves in the sunbeams. He then seats himself, and makes a speech
to the people. When it is finished, he rises, while all the people
crouch to the ground, stretches his hands over them, and makes certain
prescribed gestures, which are considered as the royal benediction.
(See the engraving No. 2, on the next page.) A long series of banquets
and revelry ends the proceedings.
At the present day, the Congo king and great men disfigure themselves
with European clothing, such as silk jackets, velvet shoes, damask
coats, and broad-brimmed hats. But, in the former times, they dressed
becomingly in native attire. A simple tunic made of very fine grass
cloth, and leaving the right arm bare, covered the upper part of the
body, while a sort of petticoat, made of similar material, but dyed
black, was tied round the waist, and an apron, or “sporran,” of leopard
skin, was fastened to the girdle and hung in front. On their heads they
wore a sort of hood, and sometimes preferred a square red and yellow
cap. Sandals made of the palm tree were the peculiar privilege of the
king and nobles, the common people being obliged to go bare-footed.
The wives in Congo are tolerably well off, except that they are
severely beaten with the heavy hippopotamus-hide whip. The women do not
resent this treatment, and indeed, unless a woman is soundly flogged
occasionally, she thinks that her husband is neglecting her, and feels
offended accordingly. The king has the power of taking any woman for
his wife, whether married or not, and, when she goes to the royal
harem, her husband is judiciously executed.
The people of Congo are--probably on account of the enervating
climate--a very indolent and lethargic race, the women being made to do
all the work, while the men lie in the shade and smoke their pipes and
drink their palm wine, which they make remarkably well, though not so
well as the Bubé tribe of Fernando Po. Their houses are merely huts of
the simplest description; a few posts with a roof over them, and twigs
woven between them in wicker-work fashion by way of walls, are all that
a Congo man cares for in a house. His clothing is as simple as his
lodging, a piece of native cloth, tied round his middle being all that
he cares for; so that the ample clothes and handsome furs worn by the
king must have had a very strong effect on the almost naked populace.
According to traditional history, Congo was in old times one of the
great African kingdoms. Twice it rose to this eminence, and both times
by the energy of a woman, who, in spite of the low opinion in which
women are held, contrived to ascend the throne.
Somewhere about 1520--it is impossible in such history to obtain
precision of dates--a great chief, named Zimbo, swept over a very large
part of Africa, taking every country to which he came, and establishing
his own dominion in it. Among other kingdoms, Congo was taken by
him, and rendered tributary, and so powerful did he at last become,
that his army outgrew his territory, and he had the audacity to send
a division to ravage Abyssinia and Mozambique. The division reached
the eastern sea in safety, but the army then met the Portuguese, who
routed them with great loss. Messengers conveyed the tidings to Zimbo,
who put himself at the head of his remaining troops, went against the
Portuguese, beat them, killed their general, and carried off a great
number of prisoners, with whose skulls he paved the ground in front of
his house.
In process of time he died, and the kingdom separated, after African
fashion, into a number of independent provinces, each governed by one
of the leaders of the now useless army. One of these leaders had a
daughter named Tembandumba, who, together with her mother, ruled the
province when her father died. These women always accompanied the
troops in war, and so fierce and bloodthirsty was Tembandumba, even
as a girl, that her mother gave her the command of half the troops,
the natural consequence of which was that she took the command of the
whole, deposed her mother, and made herself queen.
[Illustration: (1.) WASHING DAY. (See page 648.)]
[Illustration: (2.) CONGO CORONATION. (See page 616.)]
Her great ambition was to found a nation of Amazons. Licentiousness
she permitted to the fullest extent, but marriage was utterly
prohibited; and, as soon as the women found themselves tired of their
male companions, the latter were killed and eaten, their places being
supplied by prisoners of war. All male children were killed, and she
had nearly succeeded in the object of her ambition, when she was
poisoned by a young man with whom she fell violently in love, and from
whom she imprudently accepted a bowl of wine at a banquet.
It is very remarkable that, about a hundred years after the death
of Tembandumba, another female warrior took the kingdom. Her name
was Shinga, and she obtained a power scarcely less than that of her
predecessor. She, however, was wise in her generation, and, after she
had fought the Portuguese, and been beaten by them, she concluded an
humble peace, and retained her kingdom in safety.
[Illustration: THE JU-JU EXECUTION. (_See page 602._)]