Chapter XXX: Appendix: The Invention of the Cloth Loom

This story is taken down from an Eboe, but practically the same story can be found among all the cloth-making tribes in West Africa.

In the old times there was a man who was a great hunter; but he had a bad wife, and when he made medicine to put on his spear, she made medicine against his spear, but he knew nothing of this thing and went out after bush cow.

By and by he found a big bush cow, and threw his spear at it, but the bush cow came on, and drove its horns through his thigh, so the man crept home, and lay in his house very sick, and the witch doctor found out which of his wives had witched the spear, and they killed her, and for many days the man could not go out hunting. But he was a great hunter, and his liver grew hot in him for the bush, so he dragged himself to the bush, and lay there every day. One day, as he lay, he saw a big spider making a net on a bush and he watched him. By and by he saw how the spider caught his game, and that the spider was a great hunter, and the man said "If I had hunted as this spider hunts, if I had made a trap like that and put it in the bush and then gone aside and let the game get into it and weary itself to death quickly,--quicker and safer than they do in pit-falls--that bush cow would not have gored me." And so after a time he tried to make a net like the spider's, out of bush rope, and he did this thing and put his net into the forest, and caught bush deer (gazelles) and earthpig (pangolins) and porcupines, and he made more nets, and every net he made was better, and he grew well, and became a greater hunter than before. One day he made a very fine net, and his wife said "This is a cloth, it is better than our cloth (bark cloth) because when the rain gets to it, it does not shrivel. Make me a cloth like this and then I will beat it with the mallet and wear it." And the man tried to do this thing, but he could not get it a good shape and he said, "Yet the spider gets a shape in his cloth. I will go and ask him again this thing." And he went to the spider, and took him another offering, and said: "Oh, my lord, teach me more things." And he sat and watched him for many days. By and by he saw more (his eyes were opened) and he saw the spider made his net on sticks, and so he went home and got fine bush rope that he had collected, and taken there, to make his game nets with, and he brought them to the bush near the spider, and fixing the strings on to the bush he made a new net and he got shape into it, and he made more nets this way, and every net he made was better. And his wife was pleased and gave him sons, and by and by the man saw that he did not want all the sticks of a bush to make his net on, only some of them; and so he took these home and put them up in his house, and made his nets there, and after a time his wife said: "Why do you make the stuff for me with that bush rope? Why do you not make it with something finer?" And he went into the bush and took offerings to the spider and said: "Oh, my lord, teach me more things!" And he sat and watched the spider, but the spider only went on making stuff out of his belly. And the man said: "Oh, my lord, you pass me. I cannot do this thing." And as he went home he thought and saw that there are trees, and there are bush ropes, thick bush rope and thin bush rope, and then there is grass which was thinner still, and he took the grass, and tried to make a net with it, and did this thing and made more nets and every net he made was better. And his wife was pleased and said "This is good cloth." And the man lived to be very old and was a great chief and a great hunter. For it is good for a man to be a great hunter, and it is good for a man to please women. This is the origin of the cloth loom.

It was in the old time, and men have got now thread on spools from the white man, for the white man is a great spider; but this is how the black man learnt to make cloth.

NOTES.

{14} Sierra Leone has been known since the voyage of Hanno of Carthage in the sixth century B.C., but it has not got into general literature to any great extent since Pliny. The only later classic who has noticed it is Milton, who in a very suitable portion of Paradise Lost says of Notus and Afer, "black with thunderous clouds from Sierra Lona." Our occupation of it dates from 1787.

{15} Lagos also likes to bear this flattering appellation, and has now-a-days more right to the title.

{28} Along the Coast, and in other parts of Africa, the coarser, flat-sided kinds of banana are usually called plantains, the name banana being reserved for the finer sorts, such as the little "silver banana."

{37} From Point Limbok, the seaward extremity of Cameroons Mountain, to Cape Horatio, the most eastern extremity of Fernando Po, the soundings are, from the continent, 13, 17, 20, 23, 27, 29, 30, 34 fathoms; close on to the island, 35 and 29 fathoms.

{44} I am informed that the allowance made to these priests exceeds by some pounds the revenues Spain obtains from the Island. In Spanish possessions alone is a supporting allowance made to missionaries though in all the other colonies they obtain a government grant.

{47} Ten Years' Wanderings among the Ethiopians, T. J. Hutchinson.

{48a} There is difference of opinion among authorities as to whether Fernando Po was discovered by Fernando Po or by Lopez Gonsalves.

{48b} From April 1777 till the end of 1782, 370 men out of the 547 died of fever.

{51} Porto is the Bubi name for black men who are not Bubis, these were in old days Portuguese slaves, "Porto" being evidently a corruption of "Portuguese," but it is used alike by the Bubi to designate Sierra Leonian and Accras, in fact, all the outer barbarian blacks. The name for white men, Mandara, used by the Bubis, has a sort of resemblance to the Effik name for whites, Makara, i.e., the ruling one, but I do not know whether these two words have any connection.

{55} I am glad to find that my own observations on the drink question entirely agree with those of Dr. Oscar Baumann, because he is an unprejudiced scientific observer, who has had great experience both in the Congo and Cameroon regions before he came to Fernando Po. In support of my statement I may quote his own words: --"Die Bube trinken namlich sehr gerne Rum; Gin verschmahen sie vollstandig, aber ausser Tabak und Salz gehort Rum zu den gesuchtesten europaischen Artikeln fur sie. Wie bekannt hat sich in Europa ein heftiges Geschrei gegen die Vergiftung der Neger durch Alcohol erhoben. Wenn dasselbe schon fur die meisten Stamme Westafrikas der Berechtigung fast vollstandig entbehrt und in die Categorie verweisen worden muss die man mit dem nicht sehr schonen aber treffenden Ausdrucke 'Humanitatsduselei' bezeichnet, so ist es den Bube gegenuber wohl mehr als zwecklos. Es mag ja vorkommen dass ein Bube wenn er sein Palmol verkauft hat, sich ein oder zweimal im Jahre mit Rum ein Rauschlein antrinkt. Deshalb aber gleich von Alkohol-Vergiftung zu sprechen ware mindestens lacherlich. Ich bin uberzeugt dass mancher jener Herren die in Wort und Schrift so heftig gegen die Alkolismus der Neger zetern in ihren Studenten- jahren allein mehr geistige Getranke genossen haben als zehn Bube wahrend ihres ganzen Lebens. Der Handelsrum welcher wie ich mich ofters uberzeugt zwar recht verwassert aber keineswegs abstossend schlecht schmeckt, ist den Bube gewohnlich nur eine Delikatesse welche mit Andacht schluckweise genossen wird. Wenn ein Arbeiter bei uns einen Schluck Branntwein oder ein Glas Bier geniesst um sich zu starken, so findet das Jeder in der Ordnung; der Bube jedoch, welcher splitternackt tagelang in feuchten Bergwaldern umher klettern muss, soll beliebe nichts als Wasser trinken!" Eine Africanische Tropen. insel Fernando Poo, Dr. Oscar Baumann, Edward Holzer, Wien, 1888.

{56} "Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Bubisprache auf Fernando Poo," O. Baumann, Zeitschrift fur afrikanische Sprachen. Berlin, 1888.

{61} Ten Years' Wanderings among the Ethiopians. T. J. Hutchinson.

{80} The Sierra del Cristal and the Pallaballa range are, by some geographers, held to be identical; but I have reason to doubt this, for the specimens of rock brought home by me have been identified by the Geological Survey, those of the Pallaballa range as mica schist and quartz; those of the Sierra del Cristal as "probably schistose grit, but not definitely determinable by inspection," and "quartz rock." The quantity of mica in the sands of the Ogowe, I think, come into it from its affluents from the Congo region because you do not get these mica sands in rivers which are entirely from the Sierra del Cristal, such as the Muni. The Rumby and Omon ranges are probably identical with the Sierra del Cristal, for in them as in the Sierra you do not get the glistening dove-coloured rock with a sparse vegetation growing on it, as you do in the Pallaballa region.

{96} The villages of the Fans and Bakele are built in the form of a street. When in the forest there are two lines of huts, the one facing the other, and each end closed by a guard house. When facing a river there is one line of huts facing the river frontage.

{167} The M'pongwe speaking tribes are the M'pongwe, Orungu, Nkami, Ajumba, Inlenga and the Igalwa.

{170} These four Ajumba had been engaged, through the instrumentality of M. Jacot, to accompany me to the Rembwe River. The Ajumba are one of the noble tribes and are the parent stem of the M'pongwe; their district is the western side of Lake Ayzingo.

{181} As this river is not mentioned on maps, and as I was the first white traveller on it, I give my own phonetic spelling; but I expect it would be spelt by modern geographers "Kakola."

{185} A common African sensation among natives when alarmed, somewhat akin to our feeling some one walk over our graves.

{189} Since my return I think the French gentleman may have been M. F. Tenaille d'Estais, who is down on the latest map (French) as having visited a lake in this region in 1882, which is set down as Lac Ebouko. He seems to have come from and returned to Lake Ayzingo--on map Lac Azingo--but on the other hand "Ebouko" was not known on the lake, Ajumba and Fans alike calling it Ncovi.

{200} Diospyros and Copaifua mopane.

{205} Vipera nasicornis; M'pongwe, Ompenle.

{208} I have no hesitation in saying that the gorilla is the most horrible wild animal I have seen. I have seen at close quarters specimens of the most important big game of Central Africa, and, with the exception of snakes, I have run away from all of them; but although elephants, leopards, and pythons give you a feeling of alarm, they do not give that feeling of horrible disgust that an old gorilla gives on account of its hideousness of appearance.

{223} An European coat or its equivalent value is one of the constant quantities in an ivory bundle.

{241} Specimen placed in Herbarium at Kew.

{286} It is held by some authorities to come from gru-gru, a Mandingo word for charm, but I respectfully question whether gru-gru has not come from ju-ju, the native approximation to the French joujou.

{295} The proper way to spell this name is booby, i.e. silly, but as Bubi is the accepted spelling, I bow to authority.

{301} This article has different names in different tribes; thus it is called a bian among the Fan, a tarwiz, gree-gree, etc., on other parts of the Coast.

{306} Care must be taken not to confuse with sacrifices (propitiations of spirits) the killing of men and animals as offerings to the souls of deceased persons.

{324} Pronounced Tchwee.

{329} Among the Fjort the body cannot be buried until all the deceased's debts are paid.

{338} In speaking of native ideas I should prefer to use the good Yorkshire term of "overthrowing" in place of "superstition," but as the latter is the accepted word for such matters I feel bound to employ it.

{363} "Tshi-speaking People," Colonel Sir H. B. Ellis.

{439} Since my return to England I have read Sir Richard Burton's account of his first successful attempt to reach the summit of the Great Cameroons in 1862. His companions were Herr Mann, the botanist, and Senor Calvo. Herr Mann claimed to have ascended the summit a few days before the two others joined him, but Burton seems to doubt this. The account he himself gives of the summit is: "Victoria mountain now proved to be a shell of a huge double crater opening to the south-eastward, where a tremendous torrent of fire had broken down the weaker wall, the whole interior and its accessible breach now lay before me plunging down in vertical cliff. The depth of the bowl may be 360 feet. The total diameter of the two, which are separated by a rough partition of lava, 1,000 feet. . . Not a blade of grass, not a thread of moss, breaks the gloom of this Plutonic pit, which is as black as Erebus, except where the fire has painted it red or yellow." This ascent was made from the west face. I got into the "Plutonic pit" through the S.E. break in its wall, and was said to be the first English person to reach it from the S.E., and the twenty-eighth ascender, according to my well- informed German friends.

{455} The African Association now own two steamers. Alexander Miller Brothers and Co. also charter steamers.

{463} A Naturalist in Mid Africa, 1896.

{465} The accounts given by the various members of the Stanley Emin Relief Expedition well describe the usual sort of West African hinterland work, but the forests of the Congo are less relieved by open park-like country than those of the rivers to the north or south. Still the Congo, in spite of this disadvantage, has greater facilities for transport in the way of waterways than is found east of the Cross or Cameroon.

{468} Export of coffee from the Gold Coast, 1894, given in the Colonial Report on that year published in 1896, was of the value of 1,265 pounds 3s. 4d.; cocoa, 546 pounds 17s. 4d. The greater part of this coffee goes to Germany.

Export of coffee from Lagos, given in Colonial Report for 1892, published in 1893, was of the value of 12 pounds. No figures on this subject are given in the 1894 report, published in 1896, but I cite these figures to show the delay in publishing these reports by the Colonial Office and the difficulty of getting reliable statistics on West African trade.

{493} "The Development of Dodos." National Review, March, 1896.

{504} Ethnology, p. 266. A. H. Keane, Cambridge, 1896.

{508} Lagos Annual Consular Report (150, p.6), 1894: "There were only three cases of drunkenness. Considering that in the Island of Lagos alone the population is over 33,300, this clearly proves that drunkenness in this part of Africa is uncommon, and that there is insufficient evidence for the contention which is advanced that the native is being ruined by what is so often spoken of as the heinous gin traffic; it is a well-known fact by those in a position best able to judge by long residence that the inhabitants of this country have a natural repugnance to intemperance."

{509} Board of Trade Journal, August 1896.

{514} By slavery, I mean the quasi-feudal system you find existing among the true negroes. I do not mean either the form of domestic slavery of Egypt, or the system of labour existing in the Congo Free State; although I am of opinion that the suppression of his export slave trade to the Americas was a grave mistake. It has been fraught with untold suffering to the African, which would have been avoided by altering the slave trade into a coolie system.

{516} Bilious Haemoglobinuric, black water fever.

{517} See also Klebs and Tommasi Crudeli, Arch. f. exp. Path., xi.; Ceci, ibid., xv.; Tommasi Crudeli, La Malaria de Rome, Paris, 1881; Nuovi Studj sulla Natura della Malaria, Rome, 1881; "Malaria and the Ancient Drainage of the Roman Hills," Practitioner, ii., 1881; Instituzioni de anat. Path., vol. i., Turin, 1882; Marchiafava e Cuboni, Nuovi Studj sulla Natura della Malaria, Acad. dei Lincei, Jan. 2, 1881; Marchand, Virch. Arch., vol. lxxxviii.; Laveran, Nature parasitaire des Accidents d'Impaludisme, Paris, 1881; Richard, Comptes Rendus, 1881; Steinberg, Rep. Nat. Board of Health (U.S.), 1881. Malaria-krankheiten, K. Schwalbe; Berlin, 1890; Parkes, On the Issue of a Spirit Ration in the Ashantee Campaign, Churchill, 1875; Zumsden, Cyclopaedia of Medicine; Ague, Dr. M. D. O'Connell, Calcutta, 1885; Roman Fever, North, Appendix I. British Central Africa, Sir H. H. Johnstone.