Chapter VII (2)

Plastic representations of men are known generally by the name of “Moiogohgyee:” when I first saw them, I was under the impression that they must be idols, similar to what the Fetish-worship has introduced into the western coasts, but I soon satisfied myself of my misconception in this respect. The true design of these wooden figures is simply to be a memorial of some one who has departed this life: this is proved by the term “Moiagoh Komarah,” _i.e._, the figure of the wife, which is applied to an image raised by a surviving husband to the pious memory of his departed wife, and which is set up in the hut as a species of Penates. However rude these attempts must be pronounced, they nevertheless reveal a kind of artistic power certainly far from contemptible; at any rate, the very labour bestowed upon them indicates the appreciation which the artist entertained for his work. The Bongo, for their own part, regard their wooden images as incomparably superb, and persuade themselves that the likenesses of those who are represented are perfect. To complete the illusion, they very often deck the figure with bead-necklaces and rings and affix some hair over the appropriate parts of the body. Travellers in Central Africa have narrated that they have seen figures of wood corresponding to what I have described, but although they have almost universally taken them for carved deities, I would venture to suggest that in all probability they are elsewhere monuments of the dead, in the same way as among the Bongo.

In addition it may be mentioned that a custom exists of raising a monument of this kind to preserve the memory of any _male_ person who has been murdered. I was made acquainted with this circumstance by the mouth of one of the national authorities, who depicted to me the peculiar custom of his fathers in a narrative to the following effect. He said that murder and manslaughter used to be the order of the day at all their festivals and drinking-bouts; when the harvest had been abundant and the granaries were well-stored with corn, there used to be no bounds to their licentiousness; there was no respect for the Nyare, and his words were disregarded amidst the blows of the Nogarra. Now the “Turks” would punish a murderer by carrying off his wife and children, and compel him to pay a heavy fine in iron and make some compensation to the relatives: but formerly the friends would take the law into their own hands, and proceed to exact personal punishment, though they had to set to work very warily if they would keep themselves out of difficulty. When anyone discovered that either his friend, or it might be his brother, or perhaps his wife, had been killed, and the criminal could not be detected, it was no unknown device to prepare beforehand an image carefully representing the murdered person, and very often the likeness would be singularly perfect. He would then invite all the men to a feast, at which the spirituous “legyee” would be freely circulated; and then, when the excitement was at its height, in the very midst of the singing and dancing, he would unexpectedly introduce the figure that had been prepared. The apparition would be sure to work its effect; the culprit would not fail to be betrayed, as he cowed and exhibited his wish to slink away. Having thus detected the offender, the injured party could deal with him as he pleased.

[Sidenote: BONGO MUSIC.]

The Bongo, in their way, are enthusiastic lovers of music; and although their instruments are of a very primitive description, and they are unacquainted even with the pretty little guitar of the Niam-niam, which is constructed on perfectly correct acoustic principles, yet they may be seen at any hour of the day strumming away and chanting to their own performances. The youngsters, down to the small boys, are all musicians. Without much trouble, and with the most meagre materials, they contrive to make little flutes; they are accustomed also to construct a monochord, which in its design reminds one of the instrument which (known as the “gubo” of the Zulus) is common throughout the tribes of Southern Africa. This consists of a bow of bamboo, with the string tightly strained across it, and this is struck by a slender slip of split bamboo. The sounding board is not, however, made of a calabash attached to the ground, but the mouth of the player himself performs that office, one end of the instrument being held to the lips with one hand, while the string is managed with the other. Performers may often be seen sitting for an hour together with an instrument of this sort: they stick one end of the bow into the ground, and fasten the string over a cavity covered with bark, which opens into an aperture for the escape of the sound. They pass one hand from one part of the bow to the other, and with the other they play upon the string with the bamboo twig, and produce a considerable variety of buzzing and humming airs which are really rather pretty. This is quite a common pastime with the lads who are put in charge of the goats. I have seen them apply themselves very earnestly and with obvious interest to their musical practice, and the ingenious use to which they apply the simplest means for obtaining harmonious tones testifies to their penetration into the secrets of the theory of sound.

As appeals, however, to the sense of sound, the great festivals of the Bongo abound with measures much more thrilling than any of these minor performances. On those occasions the orchestral results might perhaps be fairly characterised as cat’s music run wild. Unwearied thumping of drums, the bellowings of gigantic trumpets, for the manufacture of which great stems of trees come into requisition, interchanged by fits and starts with the shriller blasts of some smaller horns, make up the burden of the unearthly hubbub which re-echoes miles away along the desert. Meanwhile, women and children by the hundred fill gourd-flasks with little stones, and rattle them as if they were churning butter: or again, at other times, they will get some sticks or dry faggots and strike them together with the greatest energy. The huge wooden tubes which may be styled the trumpets of the Bongo are by the natives themselves called “manyinyee;” they vary from four to five feet in length, being closed at the extremity, and ornamented with carved work representing a man’s head, which not unfrequently is adorned with a couple of horns. The other end of the stem is open, and in an upper compartment towards the figure of the head is the orifice into which the performer blows with all his might. There is another form of manyinyee which is made like a huge wine-bottle; in order to play upon it, the musician takes it between his knees like a violoncello, and when the build of the instrument is too cumbrous, he has to bend over it as it lies upon the ground.

Little difference can be noticed between the kettle-drums of the Bongo and those of most other North African negroes. A section is cut from the thick stem of a tree, the preference being given to a tamarind when it can be procured; this is hollowed out into a cylinder, one end being larger than the other. The ends are then covered with two pieces of goat-skin stripped of the hair, which are tightly strained and laced together with thongs. At the nightly orgies a fire is invariably kept burning to dry the skin and to tighten it when it has happened to become relaxed by the heavy dews.

A great number of signal-horns may be seen made from the horns of different antelopes; these are called “mangoal,” and have three holes like small flutes, and in tone are not unlike fifes. There is one long and narrow pipe cut by the Bongo out of wood which they call a “mburrah,” and which has a widened air-chamber close to the mouth-piece, very similar to the ivory signal-horns which are so frequently to be seen in all the negro countries.

[Sidenote: BONGO SINGING.]

Difficult were the task to give any adequate description of the singing of the Bongo. It must suffice to say that it consists of a babbling recitative, which at one time suggests the yelping of a dog and at another the lowing of a cow, whilst it is broken ever and again by the gabbling of a string of words which are huddled up one into another. The commencement of a measure will always be with a lively air, and every one, without distinction of age or sex, will begin yelling, screeching, and bellowing with all their strength; gradually the surging of the voices will tone down, the rapid time will moderate, and the song be hushed into a wailing, melancholy strain. Thus it sinks into a very dirge, such as might be chanted at the grave, and be interpreted as representative of a leaden and a frowning sky, when all at once, without note of warning, there bursts forth the whole fury of the negro throats; shrill and thrilling is the outcry, and the contrast is as vivid as sunshine in the midst of rain.

Often as I was present at these festivities I never could prevent my ideas from associating Bongo music with the instinct of imitation, which belongs to men universally. The orgies always gave me the impression of having no other object than to surpass in violence the fury of the elements. Adequately to represent the rage of a hurricane in the tropics any single instrument of course must be weak, poor, and powerless, consequently they hammer at numbers of their gigantic drums with powerful blows of their heavy clubs. If they would rival the bursting of a storm, the roaring of the wind, or the splashing of the rain, they summon a chorus of their stoutest lungs; whilst to depict the bellowings of terrified wild beasts, they resort to their longest horns; and to imitate the songs of birds, they bring together all their flutes and fifes. Most characteristic of all, perchance, is the deep and rolling bass of the huge “manyinyee,” as descriptive of the rumbling thunder. The penetrating shower may drive rattling and crackling among the twigs, and amid the parched foliage of the woods, and this is imitated by the united energies of women and children, as they rattle the stones in their gourd-flasks, and clash together their bits of wood.

It remains still to notice some examples of the various handicrafts which are practised by this people. Compared with other nations, the Bongo are remarkable for the attention they give to basket-work. They make (very much after the fashion of a coffee-bag) a strainer to filter and clarify their “legyee,” which is a drink something like ale fermented from sorghum. Baskets are roughly yet substantially made by twining together the stems of the bamboo. As their first efforts in this line, the natives are accustomed to make the circular envelopes in which they pack their corn for exportation. They take the coriaceous leaves of the Combreta and Terminaliæ, and by inserting the petiole of one leaf into the laminæ of two others, they form strips of leaves which in a few minutes are made into a kind of basket, equally strong and flexible, which answers its purpose admirably.

Woven matting is very rarely found in use. The walls of every hut are made of basket-work, as are the beehives, which are more often than not under the shadow of some adjacent butter-tree. Generally these hives are long cylinders, which midway have an opening about six inches square. The yield of honey, wild or half-wild, is very large, and of fine quality: the bees belong to the European species. The aroma of the Gardenia flowers is retained to a very palpable degree, but wherever the Candelabra-euphorbia happens to be abundant, the honey partakes of the drastic properties of its poisonous milk, and has been the cause of the natives being reproached with the intention of poisoning the Nubians.

[Sidenote: BONGO FISHING.]

In consequence of the people being so much engrossed at certain periods of the year by their hunting and fishing, the manufacture of fish-nets, creels, and snares, makes an important item in their industrial pursuits. For the most part all the twist, the bird-snares, and the fishing-lines are made from the fibres of bast, which are so plentiful in the cultivated Crotalaria and the Hibiscus. For inferior purposes the common lime-like bast of the _Grewia mollis_ is made to suffice. The _Sanseviera guineensis_ is not less abundant, but the bast which it yields, although very fine, is not very enduring. It is generally very black through having been left to lie upon the dark soil of the marshes, and is only used for making a kind of kilt like a horse’s tail, which the women wear behind from a girdle about their waist. Cotton-shrubs are planted only by the Dinka, who make their fishing-lines of the material which is thus provided.

The manufacture of the pottery all falls to the care of the women, who do not shrink from the most difficult tasks, and, without the help of any turning-wheel, succeed in producing the most artistic specimens. The larger water-bottles are sometimes not less than a yard in diameter. The clay water-pots are ordinarily of a broad oval shape, adapted for being carried on the head with the narrow end resting on a kind of porter’s knot, which is made either of leaves or plaited straw. Handles are uniformly wanting: for, whatever may be the purpose to which the vessels are applied, whether for holding water or oil, for boiling or for baking, the material of which they are made contains so large a quantity of mica (which the natives do not understand how to get rid of), that it is very brittle, and the imperfect baking in the open air contributes to this brittleness. To compensate for the lack of handles by which the vessels might be lifted, their whole outer surface is made rather rough by being ornamented by a number of triangles and zigzag lines, which form all manner of concentric and spiral patterns. The gourd-platters and bottles are generally decorated with different dark rows of triangles. A large amount of labour is expended upon the manufacture of clay bowls for pipes, which are often really elaborate, and have generally quite a European character; very often their design consists of a human head, and these are so treasured as works of art, that their possessors cannot be induced to part with them at any price.

The preparation of skins for leather aprons and similar purposes has hitherto been limited amongst the Bongo, as probably amongst all the heathen negroes, to the simplest mechanical process of kneading and fulling by means of ashes and dung, which is followed up by a liberal application of fat and oil till a sufficient degree of softness and pliancy is attained. Recently from the Nubians the use of tan has become generally known, and it may not unreasonably be conjectured that the method of using it will gradually extend from the north of Africa towards the south, in the same way as it has spread upwards from the Cape. Previous to their contact with Europeans, none of the southern people of Africa had discovered the use of tan, although the skins of their animals were a very important item in their economy. In Bongoland at present the bark of the Gere (_Hymenocardia Heudelotii_) is what is most frequently employed, and the red tan it yields is found to be very effectual.

[Sidenote: BONGO PHYSIOGNOMY.]

We have now to notice the apparel and general external aspect of the people, which is as important in its way as the outline of any natural object, such as the growth and foliage of trees. In default of proper clothing, various disfigurements of person play an important part, and the savage is voluntarily even more of a slave to fashion than any of the most refined children of civilization. Here, as in every other quarter of the globe, the male sex desires to be externally distinguished from the female, and they differ widely in their habits in this respect. There is, however, one ugly custom which is common to both sexes throughout the basin of the Gazelle, which consists in snapping off the incisors of the lower jaw, an operation which is performed as soon as the milk teeth have been thoroughly replaced by the permanent. Upon the south borders of the country, near the Niam-niam, this custom ceases to be exactly followed, and there it is the habit, as with the Niam-niam themselves, instead of breaking them off, to file some of the teeth, and indeed sometimes all of them, into sharp points. Occasionally the natives file off the sides of the upper teeth as well as clip off the lower; nor is it an uncommon thing for gaps to be opened at the points of contact of the central upper teeth, whilst every now and then individual cases occur where interstices have been made in the sides of all the four front teeth large enough to admit a good-sized toothpick. Circumcision is unknown throughout the entire river-district.

The men do not go about in a condition so naked as either the Dyoor, the Shillooks, or the Dinka, but they wear an apron of some sort of skin, and recently have adopted a strip of stuff, which they fasten to the girdle that is never missing, allowing the ends to hang over before and behind. All the sons of the red soil, as the Bongo, the Mittoo, the Niam-niam, and the Kredy, are called “women” by the Dinka, because amongst them the females only are protected by any covering of this description. The Bongo women on the other hand, and especially those who reside on the highlands, obstinately refuse to wear any covering whatever either of skin or stuff, but merely replenish their wardrobe every morning by a visit to the woods; they are, therefore, in respect of modesty, less particular than the women of the Dinka; a supple bough with plenty of leaves, more often than not a bough of the Combretum, and perhaps a bunch of fine grass, fastened to the girdle, is all they consider necessary. Now and then a tail, like a black horsetail, composed of the bast of the Sanseviera, is appended to the back of the girdle in a way that has already been mentioned. The rest of the body is allowed by both sexes to be entirely unclad, and no addition to the costume is ever seen, except we should reckon the feathered head-gear, which is exhibited on the occasion of a feast or a ball.

As a rule the hair of both men and women is kept quite short, and not unfrequently is very closely shorn, the principal exception being found in the south, where the habits of the Niam-niam have extended their influence into the Bongo territory, and both men and women wear tufts and braids of a length approximating to that of their neighbours.

[Sidenote: BONGO WOMEN.]

It may possibly be imagined that the extremely primitive covering of the Bongo women irradiates them with something of the charm of Paradise; but a very limited experience will soon dispel the rapture of any illusion of the kind. All full-grown women attain such an astounding girth of body, and acquire such a cumbrous superabundance of flesh, that it is quite impossible to look at them without observing their disproportion to the men. Their thighs are very often as large as a man’s chest, and their measurement across the hips can hardly fail to recall the picture in Cuvier’s Atlas of the now famous “Hottentot Venus.” Shapes developed to this magnitude are no longer the exclusive privilege of the Hottentots; day after day I saw them among the Bongo, and they may well demand to be technically described as “Steatopyga.” In certain attitudes, as for instance when they are carrying their heavy water-jars upon their heads, they seem to assume the shape of an inverted S. To their singular appearance the long switch tail of bast very much contributes, and altogether the profile of a fat Bongo woman is not unlike that of a dancing baboon. I can vouch for it that women who weigh twenty stone are far from scarce.

Very few are the people of Central Africa amongst whom the partiality for finery and ornaments is so strongly shown as with the Bongo. The women wear on their necks an accumulation of cords and beads, and not being fastidious like their neighbours, will put on without regard to shape or colour, whatever the market of Khartoom can provide. The men do not care much for this particular decoration, but prefer necklaces, on which they string some of those remarkable little fragments of wood which are so constantly found in every region of Africa. With the bits of wood hang fragments of roots, which are in form something like the mandrake, which, in Southern Europe, has been the subject of so strange a superstition. Alternating with the roots and wood are the talons of owls and eagles, the teeth of dogs, crocodiles, and jackals, little tortoise-shells, the claws of the earth-pig (_Orycteropus_), and in short any of those objects which we are accustomed to store in the cabinets which adorn our _salons_. They appear to supply the place of the extracts from the Koran which, wrapped in leather sheathes, the Nubians wear by dozens about their person; anything in the shape of an amulet being eagerly craved by every African.

[Sidenote: BONGO DECORATION.]

Not unfrequently the men deck themselves out in females’ ornaments. Many cover the rims of their ears with copper rings and crescents; others pierce the upper lip like the women, and insert either a round-headed copper nail or a copper plate, or, what is still more general, some rings or a bit of straw. The skin of the stomach above the waist is often pierced by the men, and the incision filled up with a bit of wood, or occasionally by a good-sized peg. On the wrist and upper part of the arm they wear iron rings of every pattern; some rings are cut out of elephant and buffalo hide, and look almost as though they were made of horn. The “dangabor,” an ornament composed of a series of iron rings, and worn on the lower portion of the arm, has been already described.

The Bongo women delight in distinguishing themselves by an adornment which to our notions is nothing less than a hideous mutilation. As soon as a woman is married the operation commences of extending her lower lip. This, at first only slightly bored, is widened by inserting into the orifice plugs of wood gradually increasing in size, until at length the entire feature is enlarged to five or six times its original proportions. The plugs are cylindrical in form, not less than an inch thick, and are exactly like the pegs of bone or wood worn by the women of Musgoo. By this means the lower lip is extended horizontally till it projects far beyond the upper, which is also bored and fitted with a copper plate or nail, and now and then by a little ring, and sometimes by a bit of straw about as thick as a lucifer-match. Nor do they leave the nose intact: similar bits of straw are inserted into the edges of the nostrils, and I have seen as many as three of these on either side. A very favourite ornament for the cartilage between the nostrils is a copper ring, just like those that are placed in the noses of buffaloes and other beasts of burden for the purpose of rendering them more tractable. The greatest coquettes among the ladies wear a clasp or cramp at the corners of the mouth, as though they wanted to contract the orifice, and literally to put a curb upon its capabilities. These subsidiary ornaments are not however found at all universally among the women, and it is rare to see them all at once upon a single individual: the plug in the lower lip of the married women is alone a _sine quâ non_, serving as it does for an artificial distinction of race. According to the custom of the people, there need only be a trifling projection of the skin so as to form a flap or a fold, to be at once the excuse for boring a hole. The ears are perforated more than any part, both the outer and the inner auricle being profusely pierced; the tip of the ear alone is frequently made to carry half-a-dozen little iron rings. There are women in the country whose bodies are pierced in some way or other in little short of a hundred different places.

The Bongo women limit their tattooing to the upper part of the arm. Zigzag or parallel lines, or rows of dots, often brought into relief by the production of proud flesh after the operation has been accomplished, are the three forms which in different combinations serve as marks of individual distinction. The men tattoo themselves differently, and some of them abstain from the operation altogether. At one time the lines run across the breast and stomach to one side of the body; at another they are limited to the top of the arm, whilst it is not at all unusual for the neck and shoulder-blades to be tattooed.

Besides the ornaments that I have mentioned, the toilet of a Bongo lady is incomplete without the masses of iron and copper rings which she is accustomed to wear on her wrists and arms, and more especially on her ankles. These rings clank like fetters as she walks, and even from a distance the two sexes can be distinguished by the character of the sound that accompanies their movements. That human patience should ever for the sake of fashion submit to a still greater martyrdom seems almost incredible, though hereafter we shall have sufficient proof when we delineate the habits of the Mittoo, the neighbours of the Bongo, that such is really the case.

In Bongoland, as in all the northern parts of the territory that I visited, copper of late years has attained a monetary value, and has become an accustomed medium of exchange. Glass beads are annually deteriorating in estimation, and have long ceased to be treasured up and buried in the earth like jewels or precious stones, being now used only to gratify female vanity. In former times, when the only intercourse that the Bongo held with the Mohammedan world was by occasional dealings with the Baggara Arabs, through the intervention of the Dembo, a Shillook tribe connected with the Dyoor, cowrie-shells were in great request, but these also have long since fallen out of the category of objects of value. Gold and silver are very rarely used as ornaments, even in the Mohammedan parts of the Eastern Soudan; it is therefore hardly a matter of surprise that to the Bongo, whose soil is singularly uniform in its geological productions, they should be all but unknown. The Bongo, moreover, have but little value for brass, differing greatly in this respect from their neighbours, the Dyoor.

[Sidenote: BONGO WEAPONS.]

Their weapons consist mainly of lances, bows and arrows, shields being very rarely used, and even then being appropriated from other neighbouring nations. Although the greater part of the population is at present quite unaccustomed to any warlike occupation, except when any of them chance to be employed in the raids upon the Dinka or in the Niam-niam campaigns, yet they still maintain a wonderful dexterity in the use of the bow and arrow, and we shall have occasion in another place to notice their performances in this respect. The large size of their weapons is remarkable; I saw many of their bows which were four feet in length, their arrows are rarely under three feet long, and on this account they are never made from the light reed-grass, but are cut out of solid wood. The forms of the arrow-heads also have a decided nationality stamped upon them. In the course of time I was easily able to determine at a glance the tribe to which any weapon belonged by certain characteristics, the details of which would now engross more time and space than are at our command. It may be mentioned that the Bongo, like the negroes above Fesoglu, on the Upper Blue Nile, imbue their arrows with the milky juice of one of the Euphorbiæ. This species, of which I now for the first time collected some specimens, has been erroneously represented by Tremaux in the atlas of his travels[35] as _Euphorbia mamillaris_, but it is in fact one of the many Cactus-euphorbiæ for which the flora of Tropical Africa, and especially that of the drier regions, is distinguished, and is entirely distinct from the South African species. It is a branching, straggling shrub, varying in height from five to eight feet, at one time growing in large masses in the light woods, and then failing altogether for the space of several days’ journey. Not only the larger branches, nearly two inches thick, but also the smaller boughs, are encrusted with a snowy white rind, covered with thick spiny protuberances, which stand singly under the eyes of the leaves. At the extremity of each bough is a bunch of fleshy succulent leaves, shaped like lances, and six inches in length. This species of Cactus-euphorbia (_E. venefica_) is termed by the Bongo “bolloh,” in contradistinction to “kakoh,” their name for the larger sort (_E. candelabrum_), which is common in the country, but of which the milky juice is far less dangerous than that of the “bolloh,” for if this be applied in a fresh condition to the skin, it results in a violent inflammation. It is, however, my opinion that this juice, as it is used by the Bongo, being spread in a hard mass over the barbs and heads of the arrows, can do very little harm to the wounded, as when it is once hard it is difficult to melt, and there cannot possibly be time for it to commingle with the blood after a wound has been made by an arrow.

[Sidenote: BONGO GAMES.]

We may now turn our attention to the Bongo games, which are as original and primitive as their music. One of these games, as forming excellent training for the chase, deserves some especial notice. A number of men are provided with pointed sticks made of hard wood, which they use as lances. They form a large ring, and another man who has a piece of soft wood attached to a long string, runs round and round within the circle. The others then endeavour with their pointed sticks to hit the mark whilst it is being carried rapidly round. As soon as it is struck it falls to the ground, and the successful marksman is greeted with a loud cheer. Another game requires no less calmness and dexterity. A piece of wood bent into a crescent has a short string attached to the middle; this wood is then hurled by the one end of it with such violence to the earth that it goes spinning like a boomerang through the air. The players stand face to face at a distance of about twenty feet apart, and the game consists in catching the wood by the string, a performance that requires no little skill, as there is considerable danger of receiving a sharp knock. Both games might, under some modifications, admit of being adopted into our rural sports.

Turning now to the national manners, customs, and ideas, I profess that they are subjects of which I must treat with considerable reserve, since my residence as a stranger for two years amongst these savages only gave me after all a very superficial insight into the mysteries of their inner life. Since, however, the accounts of eye-witnesses, who knew the land in its primitive condition, seem to accord with and to corroborate my own observations, as well as the information I obtained from the Bongo themselves, I am in a position to depose to some facts, of which I must leave the scientific analysis to those who are seeking to cultivate the untried soil of the psychology of nations.

Elsewhere, and among other nations with whom I became acquainted, the number of a man’s wives was dependent on the extent of his possessions, but amongst the Bongo it seemed to be limited to a maximum of three. Here, as in other parts of Africa, a wife cannot be obtained for nothing, even the very poorest must pay a purchase price to the father of the bride in the form of a number of plates of iron; unless a man could provide the premium, he could only get an old woman for a wife. The usual price paid for a young girl would be about ten plates of iron weighing two pounds each, and twenty lance tips. Divorces, when necessary, are regulated in the usual way, and the father is always compelled to make a restitution of at least a portion of the wedding-payment. If a man should send his wife back to her father, she is at liberty to marry again, and with her husband’s consent she may take her children with her; if, however, her husband retains the children, her father is bound to refund the entire wedding-gift that he received. This would be the case although ten years might have elapsed since the marriage. The barrenness of a woman is always an excuse for a divorce. In cases of adultery, the husband endeavours to kill the seducer, and the wife gets a sound flogging. Whoever has been circumcised according to the Mohammedan law, cannot hope to make a good match in Bongoland.

A Bongo woman, as a rule, will seldom be found to have less than five children: the usual number is six, and the maximum twelve. In childbirth she is supported with her arms on a horizontal beam, and is in that position delivered of the child; the navel-cord is cut very long with a knife, and always without a ligature. No festivities are observed on the occasion of a birth. The infants are carried on the mothers’ backs, sewn up in a bag of goat’s-hide, like a water-bottle. The children are kept at the breast until they have completed their second year, weaning being never thought of until they can be trusted to run about. In order to wean a child, the mother’s breast is smeared with some acrid matter, and the bruised leaves of some of the _Capparidæ_ are mixed with water to a pulp, and have the effect of drying up the milk.

Among the Bongo and the neighbouring nations there is a custom, manifestly originating in a national morality, that forbids all children that are not at the breast to sleep in the same hut with their parents; the Bongo in this respect putting to shame many of those who would boast of their civilization. The elder children have a hut appropriated to themselves, but take their meals with the rest of the family. In addition to this custom there is the universal rule, as with ourselves, that no matrimonial alliance takes place until the youths are about eighteen and the girls about fifteen years of age.

[Sidenote: BONGO EXEQUIES.]

In the disposal of their dead, the customs of the Bongo are very remarkable. Immediately after life is extinct, the corpses are placed, like the Peruvian mummies, in what may be described as a crouching posture, with the knees forced up to the chin, and are then firmly bound round the head and legs. When the body has been thus compressed into the smallest possible compass, it is sewn into a sack made of skins, and placed in a deep grave. A shaft is sunk perpendicularly down for about four feet, and then a niche is hollowed to the side, so that the sack containing the corpse should not have to sustain any vertical pressure from the earth which is thrown in to fill up the grave. This form of interment is also prescribed in the law of Islam, which, in this and many other cases, has probably followed an African custom. The Bongo have a striking practice, for which, perhaps, some reason may be assigned, of burying men with the face turned to the north and women to the south. After the grave is filled in, a heap of stones is piled over the spot in a short cylindrical form, and this is supported by strong stakes, which are driven into the soil all round. On the middle of the pile is placed a pitcher, frequently the same from which the deceased was accustomed to drink his water. The graves are always close to the huts, their site being marked by a number of long forked branches, carved, by way of ornament, with numerous notches and incisions, and having their points sharpened like horns. Of these votive stakes I saw a number varying from one to five on each grave. The typical meaning belonging to these sticks has long since fallen into oblivion, and notwithstanding all my endeavours to become acquainted with the Bongo, and to initiate myself into their manners and customs, I could never discover a satisfactory explanation. The sticks reminded me of the old English finance-budgets in the time of William the Conqueror. In answer to my inquiries, the Khartoomers merely returned the same answer as they did to my predecessor, Heuglin; they persisted in saying that every notch denoted an enemy killed in battle by the deceased. The Bongo themselves, however, repeatedly declared that such was by no means the case, and quite repudiated the idea that they should ever think of thus perpetuating the bloodthirstiness of the dead. The neighbouring Mittoo and Madi adopt very much the same method of sepulture. The memorial-urns erected over the graves of the Musgoo remind the traveller of those of the Bongo. Whenever a burial takes place, all the neighbours are invited to attend, and are abundantly entertained with merissa. The entire company takes part in the formation of the grave, in the rearing of the memorial-urn, and in the erection of the votive stakes. When the ceremony is finished, they shoot at the stakes with arrows, which they leave sticking in the wood. I often noticed arrows that had been thus shot still adhering to the sticks.

The Bongo have not the remotest conception of immortality. They have no more idea of the transmigration of souls, or any doctrine of the kind, than they have of the existence of an ocean. I have tried various ways and means of solving the problem of their inner life, but always without success. Although the belief in immortality may be indigenous to Africa, I should question whether the ancient Egyptians did not in their religious development obey the promptings of the Asiatic East. At any rate, those statements are incorrect which would endeavour to explain the dull resignation displayed by the victims of human sacrifice in Dahomey by a theory of their belief in immortality. All religion, in our sense of the word religion, is quite unknown to the Bongo, and, beyond the term “loma,” which denotes equally luck and ill-luck, they have nothing in their language to signify any deity or spiritual being. “Loma” is likewise the term that they use for the Supreme Being, whom they hear invoked as “Allah” by their oppressors, and some of them make use of the expression, “loma-gobo,” _i. e._, the superior, to denote the God of the “Turks.” The almost incomprehensible prayers of the Mohammedans are called by the Bongo “malah,” which has evidently some connection with the word “Allah” that is generally repeated over and over again in all the devotions of the Nubians.

If any one is ill, his illness is attributed to “Loma,” but in the event of anybody losing a wager or a game, or returning from a hunting adventure without game, or coming back from war without booty, he is said to have had “no loma” (loma nya), in the sense of having no luck.

[Sidenote: BONGO SUPERSTITION.]

Quite amazing is the fear which exists among the Bongo about ghosts, whose abode is said to be in the shadowy darkness of the woods. Spirits, devils, and witches have the general appellation of “bitaboh;” wood-goblins being specially called “ronga.” Comprehended under the same term are all the bats (especially the _Megaderma frons_, which flutters about from tree to tree in broad daylight), as likewise are owls of every kind (_Strix leucotis_ and _Strix capensis_ being here the chief); and besides these the Ndorr (_Galago senegalensis_), a kind of pseudo-simia, with great red eyes and erect ears, which drags out a gloomy existence in the cavities of hollow trees. There are, too, prowling beasts of night, for which they entertain the utmost dread, regarding them with superstitious awe. To ward off the evil influences of these spirits, the Bongo are acquainted with no other means except the magical roots in which the professional sorcerers trade, in a similar way as the Mohammedan priests of the Soudan in their amulets and sentences from the Koran. Very seldom are any attempts made to expel the spirits by the means of exorcism, which is turned to great account by the Dinka magicians. The institution of the “Cogyoor” is here called “belomah,” but whenever it is necessary to have an invocation over a sick patient, they more often than not send for a professional wizard from the neighbouring Dinka.

Good spirits are quite unrecognised, and, according to the general negro idea, no benefit can ever come from a spirit at all. They affirm that the only thing they know about spirits is that they do mischief, and certain it is that they have no conception either of there being a Creator, or any kind and ruling power above. They assert that there is no other resource for obtaining communication with spirits, except by means of certain roots, which may be of service likewise in employing the powers of evil to inflict injury on others. To their knowledge of this magic may be attributed much of the influence which the native chiefs, independently of their authorised rule, exercise over the mass of the people in their districts. This may be witnessed among the Bary on the Bahr-el-Gebel, and a hundred other tribes, who yield the greatest deference to the controllers or captains of their communities. The practice of fetching down rain is never pretended to by the Bongo chiefs, and may be said to be absolutely unknown; but probably this may rise from the climate so rarely making it necessary to put their skill in this respect to the test.

[Sidenote: BELIEF IN WITCHES.]

All the very old people of either sex, but especially the old women, are exposed to the suspicion of allying themselves to wicked spirits, for the purpose of effecting the injury and detriment of others. Old folks, so the Bongo maintain, wander through the forest-glades at night, and have only to secure the proper roots, and then they may apparently be lying calmly in their huts, whilst in reality they are taking counsel with the spirits of mischief how they can best bring their neighbours to death and destruction. They dig for roots, it is continually said, that they may have the means of poisoning those around them. Whenever any case of sudden death occurs, the aged people are held responsible, and nothing, it is taken for granted, could be more certain than that a robust man, except he were starved, would not die. Woe to the old crones, then, in whose house the suspected herbs and roots are found! though they be father or mother, they have no chance of escape.

A genuine and downright belief in witches has long been and still continues as deeply seated here as in any spot upon the face of the earth, and nowhere are prosecutions more continually being instituted against them. As matter of fact, I can affirm that really aged folks among the Bongo are comparatively scarce, and that the number of grey-headed people is, by contrast, surprisingly large amongst the neighbouring race of the Dyoor, who put no faith at all in any witchcraft. The Nubians are not only open to superstitions of their own, but confirm the Bongo in all of theirs. In the Eastern Soudan, which is a Mohammedan country, the conversation will constantly turn upon the “sáhara” (_i. e._, the witches), and no comparison is more frequent than that which likens the old women to hyænas: in fact, many of the people hold hard and fast to the conviction that the witches are capable of going out at night, and taking up their quarters inside the bodies of these detestable brutes, without any one being aware of what is happening. It chanced, during my stay in Gallabat, that I killed one out of a herd of hyænas that was infesting the district; my fate, in consequence, was to be loaded with reproaches on the part of the Sheikh, who informed me that his mother was a “hyæna-woman,” and that I might, for all I could tell, have shot her. After this I was not so surprised as might be expected when Idrees, the governor of Ghattas’s Seriba, boasted in my presence of his conflicts with witches, bragging that in one day he had had half a dozen of them executed. An occasion shortly afterwards arose, when Idrees was contemplating putting two old women to death at the desire of some Bongo, and the only scheme I could devise to make him desist from his purpose, was by threatening him that, in the event of the women being executed, I would poison his water-springs.

But, in this dread of witches, the whole superstition of the Bongo culminates and exhausts itself; and we Europeans may well ask what real right have we, with all our advancement in knowledge, to presume to reproach them? We cannot resist the impression that these poor Bongo are infinitely more free from hundreds of superstitious fallacies than many of those who boast of their civilization; much more so, for instance, than the Mohammedans of the Soudan, where the idlest of superstitions prevail in every household. Let nature be free, and the germs of energy in man’s spirit will develop themselves, without overstepping their proper limits, in trustful dependence upon the presiding spirit which controls all thought. That the spirit of man, moreover, revolves in a circle, is demonstrated by the old man becoming again a child. A philosopher might fairly speculate (in the spirit of Bernardin de St. Pierre, when he advocated a worship of Nature) whether this land would not have been happier if the Moslems had never set foot upon its soil. They brought a religion that was destitute of morality; they introduced contagion rather than knowledge; they even suppressed the true doctrines of Mohammed their prophet, which would have enfranchised the very people whom they oppressed, and have raised them to a condition of brotherhood, and of equality.

[Sidenote: BONGO SURGERY.]

The method of proceeding among the Bongo with the sick and wounded is invariably of the very simplest character. When the disorder is internal, and the origin cannot be detected, the treatment consists merely in liberal applications of very hot water. The patient is stretched upon the ground, and sprinkled by means of leafy boughs with boiling water from vessels that are placed close by. Somewhat more expert is their proceeding in the case of the wounded. It once chanced that I saw a group of sufferers brought back from one of the raids that had been made into the territory of the Dinka. The wounds had nearly all been inflicted by the lances of the adversary. With remarkable fortitude the patients all submitted to the practice of the country, which consisted in the introduction of a number of setons, made of the strong and fibrous bast of the grewia, into the injured parts, in order to reduce the inflammation. Amongst others, I saw a knee, which was immensely swollen, subject to the operation of being pierced in every direction by setons of this sort, until it was larded like a roast hare. With the exception of red ochre the Bongo, like most of their neighbours, are not acquainted with any mineral which they can apply to a wound, either as a reduceut or an antiseptic. As medicines to accelerate the natural processes of cure, they make use of the astringent bitter barks of certain trees like the Hymenocardia, the Butyrospermum, and the Prosopis, which are here known as the “gere,” the “kor,” and the “göll.” Syphilis, which now makes its insidious progress, was quite unknown amongst these poor savages previous to the settlement amongst them of the Nubians, and against its mischief the only specific employed is the bitter bark of the Heddo-tree (_Anogeissus_), one, however, which undoubtedly is utterly useless for the purpose.

The misshapen and crippled are entirely unknown amongst these unsophisticated children of Nature. But in a country where, even with the best attention on the part of a mother, every child must be exposed to the perils which necessarily are associated with existence in a wilderness, how should it be possible for a cripple to stand out the battle of life? As freaks of nature, every now and then there may be seen some dwarfs, and I presume that some mutes may occasionally be found, as there is a word (“mabang”) in their language to express the defect in the faculty of speech.

The insane (“bindahko”) are shackled hand and foot; and avowedly with the design of cooling and soothing their passions, they are thrown into the river, where they are immersed by practised swimmers. If this remedy should prove of no effect, the patient is put into confinement, and dieted by the relatives; but generally the lot of a maniac is far happier than that which befalls an aged man, however innocent. To maintain the strength of invalids, certain kinds of flesh are prescribed, and a particular value is attributed to the flesh of the Gullukoo (_Tmetoceros abyssinicus_), a kind of rhinoceros hornbill, which has a detestable flavour, as odious as hemlock.

The dialect of the people throughout the whole country exhibits very little diversity; the best evidence for this is afforded by the perfect uniformity of expression in every part of the land for all natural objects whatever; whilst even in dealing with conceptions of an abstract character, there is little fear of being misunderstood. The language altogether has a harmonious ring, abounding in the vowel sounds of _a_ and _o_, as the name of the people indicates; it is very simple in its grammatical structure, and at the same time it presents a great variety of terms for all concrete subjects. The vocabulary that I compiled contained nearly one thousand distinct expressions.

[Sidenote: BONGO DIALECT.]

The etymology of connected words and the analysis of separate idioms afford considerable interest, and transport the student right into the ingenuous world of their natural life. The more common of our abstract ideas such as _spirit_, _soul_, _hope_, and _fear_, appear to be absolutely wanting, but experience shows that in this respect other negro tongues are not more richly provided by nature. The labours of missionaries in translating the Scriptures have notoriously introduced into the written language a number of elevated idioms and of metaphorical ideas which very probably in a few generations may be more or less incorporated into the tongue, but to the student of language who shall make the gleanings these introductions will be a mere refuse, and the only subject of any scientific interest will be the speech of the people as it was while it remained intact and unaffected by innovation.

Instances of the indirect method which is employed on the part of the Bongo to express any abstract idea may here be given. The monosyllable “firr,” for example used in combination with other words, answers the purpose of expressing any of the following ideas: will, love, pleasure, taste, or speech. The true conception which would appear to be the original force of the little word, is first the will, and then the expression of that will by means of the tongue. The phrase for “I wish it,” would be “firr nahamah,” which is literally, “The will is in my stomach.”