At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

AT THE BACK OF THE BLACK MAN’S MIND

 

OR

 

NOTES ON THE KINGLY OFFICE IN WEST AFRICA

 

R. E. DENNETT

 

[1906]

 

 

PREFACE

THE object of this little work is twofold. In the first place I wish to show that, concurrent with fetishism or Jujuism, there is in Africa a religion giving us a much higher conception of God than is generally acknowledged by writers on African modes of thought. And, in the second place, I am anxious to make clear the vital importance of the kingly office to the African communities.

This concurrence of fetishism and a higher religion is nothing new, and as our knowledge of primitive and degenerate people increases it will probably be found to be quite common, if not the rule. “Traces of ancestor worship and fetishism have in all ages been found among the Israelites, especially among those of the northern kingdom; this is abundantly proved,” writes Professor Fr. Hommel in his Ancient Hebrew Tradition Illustrated by the Monuments, by various passages in the Old Testament literature, but it is no more an argument against the concurrent existence of a higher conception of the Deity than the numerous superstitious customs and ideas still prevalent among the lower orders of almost every civilised country of the present day are arguments against the existence and practical results of Christianity.”

The lasting effect of missionary effort in Africa must depend to a very great extent on the grasp the missionaries are capable of obtaining of this higher conception of God which the natives of Africa in my opinion undoubtedly have, and the use they may make of it in manifesting God to them as the one and only true God, and not merely the white man’s God.

The work of the government of the natives must also be greatly simplified if once the importance of the kingly office is recognised. Their higher conception of God cannot be separated from the kingly office, for the king is priest as well. Rotten and degenerate as an African kingdom may have become, its only hope of regeneration rests in the purification of the kingly office and of the ancient system of government attached to it. I say ancient advisedly, because it seems to me that during the last few centuries Africa has been having a very bad time of it, and anarchy and usurpation have been busy upsetting older and purer customs. The disorganisation of the indigenous political fabric gives so great an opening for political adventurers of a cunning type to step in that the government of the country through the natives., on so-called native lines, becomes almost an impossibility for a foreign government.

However humble this contribution to the better understanding of the working of the African mind may be, it is hoped that it may be accepted as an attempt to uplift those who are not already above personal and petty prejudices to the possibility of crediting the Africans with thoughts, concerning their religious and political system, comparable to any that may have been handed down to themselves by their own ancestors.

In giving to this work the title of At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, I rather wish to imply that I should like to get there than to assert that I have actually solved all the problems that lie concealed there. If I have not succeeded, at any rate this study of the kingly office in West Africa will at least, I hope, draw attention to this matter and throw so much light upon it as may guide others to more complete success in the near hereafter.

Things are moving now in West Africa, and a greater number of people are taking an intelligent interest in the country since the late Miss M. H. Kingsley’s great books first drew crowds of her admirers to study African problems. Miss Kingsley used to say that West Africa wanted advertising, and she advertised it, and created a public for us. And this should be remembered by those who, coming after her, when our knowledge of the country has ripened, are apt to lay stress upon trivial errors in detail, forgetting the vast amount of general information she gave to the world about the country. How tireless she was in encouraging others less gifted than herself to add their mites of knowledge to her large collection of facts many can testify, the writer among the rest. It is only right and natural, therefore, that he should in the first place wish to record his sense of gratitude to her and her memory.

In the second place he desires to place on record his sense of obligation and thanks to the African Society, the Anthropological Institute, and the Folklore Society for having in the first place published in their journals parts of the following notes, and for now giving him permission to reprint them in book form.

He is also grateful to Mr. Cowan, of the firm of Messrs. A. Miller Brother and Co., and to Dr. A. G. Christian and Mr. M. H. Hughes for allowing him to reproduce many photographs of Benin City and people taken in the first place by them.

Finally, he thanks Mr. N. W. Thomas, the anthropologist (and here his readers will possibly also join him), for having cut out a lot of irrelevant matter and so reduced the present volume to a handy and readable size. When the writer thinks of his patience in wading through the MS., and his forbearance in leaving what remains of it, he feels that nothing that he can say or write will adequately express his gratitude.

TO MY FATHER

THE REV. R. DENNETT, D.C.L.

 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I LUANGO AND THE BAVILI

CHAPTER II ELECTION OF A KING IN THE KONGO

CHAPTER III CORONATION OF A KING IN THE KONGO

CHAPTER IV COURTS OF MALUANGO AND MAMBOMA

CHAPTER V LAW

CHAPTER VI MEASURES, SIGNS, AND SYMBOLS

CHAPTER VII BAVILI PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER VIII NDONGOISM

CHAPTER IX NKICI-ISM

CHAPTER X BAVILI PHILOSOPHY

CHAPTER XI BIBILA, THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GROVES

CHAPTER XII SACRED LANDS AND RIVERS

CHAPTER XIII SACRED TREES

CHAPTER XIV THE OMENS

CHAPTER XV SACRED ANIMALS

CHAPTER XVI NZAMBI (GOD), THE WORD NKICI, AND THE BAKICI BACI

CHAPTER XVII THE BINI

CHAPTER XVIII BENIN DISTRICTS

CHAPTER XIX BINI CUSTOMS

CHAPTER XX MORE CUSTOMS

CHAPTER XXI TRACES OF NKICI-ISM AMONG THE BINI

CHAPTER XXII THE PHILOSOPHY AT THE BACK OF THE BLACK MAN’S MIND IN TABLE FORM

CHAPTER XXIII CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

It may happen that we shall have to revise entirely our view of the Black races, and regard those who now exist as the decadent representatives of an almost forgotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an era yet to come.

 

FLORA L. SHAW, in A Tropical Dependency.

 

 

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

AT THE BACK OF THE BLACK MAN’S MIND

 

CHAPTER I

 

LUANGO AND THE BAVILI

Discovery of the Kongo. -Subsequent History.-The Bavili. -Phonetics.- King of Luango.

 

A FEW NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF LUANGO (NORTHERN PORTION OF KONGO COAST).[1]

WE owe the discovery of the Kongo[2] to the enterprise of Prince Henry the Navigator, fourth son of John I., King of Portugal, and grandson of Edward HL, King of England.

Diego Cao, by royal edict dated 14th April, 1484, was commissioned to extend the explorations on the coast of Africa, and he discovered the Kongo River in 1484. The native name for this river is Zaili, Zairi, or Zaidi, and it was so called as being the way of the spirit, or personality of love and knowledge. The name, of course, was given to it long before it was discovered by Diego Cao, and as part of the Fiote religious system, as we shall learn later on. It must not be supposed that the river was called by this name because the missionaries of old came that way and taught the natives certain trades. The spirits of all rivers in this part of Africa are supposed to teach the Fiote some lesson.

[1. By permission of the African Society.

2. The proper spelling is Kongo; and this will be adhered to, save in such expressions as Congo Free State, &c., which are fixed by usage.]

The first expedition arrived at San Salvador in 1491. One hundred years later we have a list of the provinces of the King of Kongo’s immediate kingdom, given to us by Pisafetta on the authority of the hermit, Duarte Lopez.

The first mention of Luango is of a comparately late date, i.e., 1663, when Christianity was first brought there by Father Ungaro. The stay of this missionary was quite a short one.

Father Jerome Merolla da Sorrento, 1682, says that he never heard there was any Christian Prince in the kingdom of Angoyo (Kabinda), that country having been always inhabited by a people extremely given to sorcery and magic. But Barbot, who must have touched at Luango about the year 1700, says English was spoken in Kabinda at that time and that the blacks were all Christians.

When the history of Luango and Kakongo by the Abbe Proyart (Paris, 1776), is brought up to date, much use should be made of the old trade books with their accounts of the sale of slaves and trade with the captains of sailing vessels who were in the habit of giving the princes credit and making remarks in these books. Father T. Derouet has collected a great number of facts in this way, and I hope may soon follow up the work of his famous predecessor, thus filling up the interval between the time of the “tree climbing” missionary age and the present-shall we say-intellectual one?

Then the old books of copies of correspondence of the firms of the British African Merchants, Taylor and Laughland, and those of Messrs. Hatton and Cookson, would throw light on the following period, when merchants had settled establishments.

But while missionaries and explorers have come and gone, it is an interesting fact that the only constant associates of the inhabitants of the country during the last century were the traders, so that when Mr. Stanley and M. de Brazza rediscovered and brought these parts once more within history, they found the traders long established.

The history of European political influence on the Kongo does not go back half a century. The most important dates are the following.

In 1873 the German West African Expedition settled in Chinchonso, a place in the county of Samanu, in the kingdom of Luango.

In spite of the work of Du Chaillu, Bruce Walker, the Marquis de Compiegne, and Monsieur Marche, the Ogowe River remained unknown until in 1874, when M. de Brazza began his interesting labour in that part of Africa.

1875.-In 1875 De Brazza expressed his anxiety to open up the Ogowe.

1877.-In 1877 Stanley arrived in Boma.

1878.-The Comite d’Etudes du Haut Congo was formed in Brussels.

1879-1882-De Brazza’s voyage to the Kongo via the Ogowe to Brazzaville was carried out, and treaties were made with the chiefs of Alima and Ntamo. In 1882 De Brazza declared the only practical route between the coast and Brazzaville to be via the Kuilu River.

1882, November 30th.-The famous Makoko treaty was ratified by the French Parliament.

1883, January 10th.-De Brazza was appointed Commissionnaire du Gouvernement de la Republique Francaise in West Africa.

1883.-Return of missionaries to Luango.

1884, April 23rd.-Colonel Strauch, on behalf of the African International Association, gave France the famous “droit du preference” on the Congo State.

1885, February 5th.-France, by a treaty with the African International Association (nascent Congo State), gave up its pretensions to the left bank of the Lower Kongo, and obtained the cession of the territories Niari Kuilu. February 14th.Portugal, with the mediation of France, concluded a treaty with the African International Association.

1885, February 26th.-Berlin Act was signed by which the district of “Congo Francais” was acknowledged as French.

Since which time this part of Luango under French rule, and no longer managed by its native rulers, has passed through a somewhat troublous time.

The Bavili, or inhabitants of Luango, occupy the coast of Africa between the Mayumba river north and that of the Chiluango river south, that is the land about latitude 5 degrees11’30”. So far as we know these people have not been subject to any great raids, like those of the Bayaka, or the people of the Congo south of that river. This may be owing to the protection given to them by the belt of forest that divides their country on the east from the country of the Bakunia and Bayaka. There are traditions of wars between the Bavili and Bacoxi, the people of Kakongo, when, the), say, the Bavili went in such crowds to Kakongo as to have dried up its rivers in the crossing.

It is only by their Bakici baci (dealt with in Chapter XI.) that traces can be found of the provinces having once been under one King, but the King of Kongo is still looked upon as their spiritual head in a far-off kind of way, and their system of government is the same. Even when the first missionaries made their appearance in Africa, both Kakongo and Luango acted as if they were independent kingdoms.

The BAVILI are part of the FJORT, FIOTI, or FIOTE tribe, which in its turn is a section of the great BANTU race. Although FJORT is the name by which these people of Kongo are undoubtedly known to-day, Consul Roger Casement informs me that that is not the name by which they are called by the people of other tribes in the interior, and the distinguished African trader, Mr. C. Sanders, tells me that the older Portuguese traders informed him some twenty years ago that the word FJORT or FIOTI was simply a corruption of the Portuguese word FILHOTE meaning, as nearly as I can translate the word’ in English, “young rascal,” that is to say the termination OTE gives the word FILHO or son a disparaging sense. If Mr. Sanders is correct then Monseigneur A. H. Carrie’s FIOTE is the nearest approach to FILHOTE, the O in the Portuguese alphabet having much the same sound given to it by Mr. Bentley in his KONGO alphabet, i.e., as the O in the French word corps. If on the other hand the word is a KONGO one (and undoubtedly it is used for the English word “little “), then it might be derived from the words FIA or VIA, to plant, and UTA, to bear, meaning the propagator in opposition to VIANGA, the creator.

In the following pages, to enable the reader to catch the native sounds as nearly as possible the writer will use the vowels as in the Italian, and the consonants as in English, with two exceptions, -AW, i.e. for the O sound, as in “corps,” and X for the sound TCHI, or Monseigneur Carrie’s K. This X or TCHI sound must not be confused with the SH or X sound of Mr. Bentley. For instance, Mr. Bentley spells ZINA, a name, XINA, but XINA or TCHINA in the BAVILI dialect has the signification of law, a thing forbidden, totem, abomination, while XINA the verb, is to dance. The prefix KI in the Kongo, finds its counterpart in XI (TCHI) in the XIVILI, and this I presume is why Monseigneur Carrie has manufactured the sign K. We have this TCHI sound very nearly in the English word “church” (XURX) which the Scotch call KIRK, and there being no EKS sound in the XIVILI, and a sign being wanted for the TCHI sound, I think I am right in using the letter X for it rather than the new sign K.

With these brief introductory remarks we may pass to matters more closely akin to the subject of the book-the kingly office in Luango.

Battell visited Luango in about the year 1603, and for the short time that he was in the province, gathered much information about the King and native customs which stands good even to this day. Among other interesting facts he mentions the -name of the last King, ie., “Gembe” (now written NJIMBI).

MANILUEMBA, the present Maluango elect, about whom we shall have much to say, took the place of MANIPRATI, who was deposed by the people for having killed his own daughter for refusing to cohabit with him. Maniprati had succeeded Mani MAKIWSO, who was the Maluango elect, and Nganga NVUMBA, when the French first took possession of the country in 1883. The title NGANGA NVUMBA is a priestly one, given to the Maluango elect upon his accession, and one that he retains until the coronation ceremony completes the burial rites of the NTAWTELA or deceased MALUANGO, when he becomes the crowned MALUANGO.

NIANIPRATI was the last crowned Maluango, and the ZINGANGA NVUMBA preceding him were MANI MAKAWSO MASONGA, MANIMAKAWSO MANAWMBO, MANIMAKAWSO MATUKILA of KONDI, and MAN’ANAWMBO, none of whom were crowned. MANI YAMBI became MALUANGO, as did his predecessors, MANIPUATI Of XIBANGA and Maluango TATI of KONDI, who they say succeeded Maluango NJIMBI.

Maluango PRATI is said to have died some fifty-five years ago, so that if this list of rulers be complete, eight of them filled in the time intervening between 1603 and, say, 1860, giving them each an average reign of thirty-two years, and this appears to the writer too great an average, though some native princes reign for a very long time. He is inclined to think that either the list is incomplete or that the NJIMBI referred to by the natives is not the same as the one mentioned by Battell.

The French took Luango in 1883, in MANIMAKAWSO’S time, but they naturally enough, not knowing much of the history of the country, never considered it well to crown him officially. Had they done so and aided him to assert his kingly authority over his provinces and vassals the French to-day would have been in possession of a well-ordered province. As it happened, at the Berlin Conference, 1884, Maluango’s rights were ignored, and part of his kingdom added to Portugal, just as part of Kakongo’s province was given to the Congo Free State. Then the Government seemed too busy in developing its Upper Ubanghi and Sangha provinces in the direction of the Nile and Lake Chad to devote any serious attention to this part of their rich colony, so that Luango and the Lower Kongo provinces of their enormous possessions have been neglected. After some time they caused MANILUEMBA to be elected, and appeared anxious to administer the country through native channels. In the meantime, however, they had created a class of natives who might be termed “atheist,” or who at any rate were “unfaithed,” and they, and the general state of anarchy in which the country finds itself, will certainly make the task of the Government no easy one.

Early in 1898, the Administrator summoned Mamboma and the other princes of Luango to the residence, and informed them that it was their desire that a Maluango should be crowned, and the native regime, under the Government’s protection, be restored. The choice of the people fell upon Maniluemba, nephew of Maluango Prati; and- Mamboma and the princes went to him to ask him if he would accept the throne. Hearing of this, I determined, in the interest of Folklore, to go and interview the king-elect.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER II

 

ELECTION OF A KING IN THE KONGO

My Residence in West Africa. -journey to Lubu.-The numbu- tree. -Meeting with Maniluemba.-His fetishes. -Return journey. -Election of Maluango.

IT is now necessary for me to say something about myself, which may serve as an excuse for my venturing to write at all on the rather complicated problems which in the following chapters I shall endeavour to elucidate.

I commenced studying the natives’ habits and custom in the year 1879, and, after some eleven or twelve years, had progressed so far as to perceive, first, that there was still much to learn, and, secondly, that I should only be able to learn that if I could confine my studies to a definite section of the Bantu people and become very intimate with them. Thus far I had picked up scraps of information about the people in the Kongo and south of it; for the future it seemed as if the rest of my life were to be spent in Luango among the Bavili people. I restarted my studies then about the year 1892, and in the year 1897, by the help of the Folklore Society, published Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort. Then I was fortunate enough to meet with some very intelligent natives who were willing to help me in these studies on the Bavili, among whom was Maniluemba, the King-elect of Luango, and the following pages are the result.

At the time of his election I was in Luango; and to see him I had to proceed to Ndembuano.

Turning my back on the sea I first made my way to Lubu, or Mamboma’s town. Here on a hill facing the Roman Catholic Sisters’ Mission, stand two mighty baobab trees (nkondo). When the people of Buali (Maluango’s capital) have brought the coffin containing the body of the defunct Maluango to XIENJI the people of Lubu throw shells at them and chase them away. Then taking charge of the body, they and Mamboma bury it near to the above two trees.

As we passed through the village of Zulu, we cast a last look at the sea and the pretty Bay of Luango, with its lighthouse at Point Indienne. Just beyond the point, on the way to Black Point, one can see the wood that contains the sacred grove of Nymina; and nearer to Luango may be noticed the tall mangrove trees that mark the grove sacred to Lungululubu. We next crossed the Xibanda valley, and came to a place where once a town stood, called Ximpuku. Looking north from this place we noted upon the crest of the opposite hill the grove sacred to Mpuku Nyambi, while to the south, and not far from our standpoint, a minor grove, spoken of as the offspring of Mpuku Nyambi, topped the hill. This grove is called Xilu Xinkukuba, and is near the linguister Juan’s town. Then 14 or 15 miles south, behind Black Point, near to the River Ximani and the town of NVUxi, stands the grove of Xivuma, and as many miles north, at Xissanga upon the sea coast, is situated the grove sacred to the double personages Nxiluka and Xikanga; while far away to the north, on the ruddy cliffs behind Konkwati, 60 miles from here, is the grove called Xinjili.

We made next for the huge numbu-tree situated at the village of Bitoko. Bitoko must be more than twenty miles from the sea, yet the huge numbu-tree can be distinctly seen from the deck of a passing ship as a dark spot in the horizon. We dived down into the valley of the Lubendi river, climbed over the hill and plain of Monga Matondi, where once a robberchief of that name had his town, and soon afterwards arrived at the town belonging to the Prince Mabukenia, called Luvwiti. Here we learnt that Mamboma and the othe, princes had just returned from a visit to Maniluemba, and that the latter had accepted their invitation to fill the vacant throne of Maluango Prati.

Maniluemba, they told us, had left Bitoko for Ndembuano, a town still further east, just at the time when the French Government was busy requisitioning carriers for the famous Marchand Nile expedition. They naively said that he was a man of peace and did not wish to have any question with the white man.

For miles and miles had we seen that numbu-tree. When we were on the top of Monga Matondi it looked as if it were just on the hill where Xiswami, the ivory-carver, has his village, and when we arrived there we found it was still two hours from us, on the summit of the Bitoko hill. We slept at Bitoko, and I do not think I shall ever forget the place, which is stamped upon my memory by the recollection of the wondrous sunrise I witnessed there. The neat little village rests on the top of the hill a little to the south-west of the wood in which the numbu-tree towers above the palms and other trees. The morning mist seemed to hang heavily over the wood, while the great sun, twice magnified, shot up behind it, and the tall grass, covered with a sea of spiders’ webs loaded with dew, which, rocked in the morning breeze, quickly lost its glistening pearl-like beauty. But as we marched down into the valley of the River Xisabu the grass was still wet enough to soak us through and through before we reached the swamps and shady waters which it took us fifteen minutes to cross. At length we gained the high land again where Ndembuano’s scattered shimbecs lie hidden among palm and mango-trees.

We found Maniluemba (Pl. II) wandering about, with his little fetishes, Nteu and Nkubi, in his hand; and wearing his Bicimbo (a kind of sash of iron boat-chain) over his right shoulder and fastened under his left arm. Protected in this way, whoever dared to wish him harm would have been killed by these fetishes, who would divine their very thoughts. When Maniluemba had greeted me, he went within the fence of rushes (called Lumbu) that guards the privacy of his wives, to put his coat on. Coming out again, he caught me examining a little hut close by, which he called nzo ngofo (house sacred to the marriage fetish ngofo). The copper bracelet Lembe[1] hung heavily upon his wrist. Maniluemba is humpbacked and short in stature, but he possesses a rather fine Jewish cast of face; and he is a bit of a dandy evidently, for the ends of his moustaches were strung through the hollow centres of two amber beads. In the middle of his forehead, from his hair to his nose, ran a line in red chalk, flanked on each side by a white one; while from his ears to his eyes similar marks nearly completed his fetish toilet. On either car he had placed a white chalk mark, while a string with a charm attached to it was worn as a kind of necklace. He wore a waistcoat and an overcoat with a velvet collar, while a fancy cloth hung on his belt around his waist, and in front of this his nkanda ndeci (a skin).[2]

I placed my offerings before him and congratulated him upon his election, and (while his people chased fowls) we had a long and interesting talk, and I took his photograph. Then he gave me his pipe to smoke, and shook me by the hand, until his heavy marriage bracelet fairly rattled against his bony wrist; and as I was leaving he presented me with the result of his people’s hunt, namely, three fowls, and bade me go in peace.

Upon my return journey, after passing the town of Ximoko, I came to a place in the grassy plain marked by

[1. Lembe is a bracelet showing that the wearers have been married according to a certain marriage rite. The wife married in this way is the one who acts as guardian of all her husband’s zinkici, and should she commit adultery the husband upon opening the basket containing the charms connected with the marriage will find them wet. Nkaci Lembe (the lembe wife) is kept very strictly within her hut and the fence surrounding it (lumbu). Women married in this way may not eat the fish xala (the bream?), which is noted for the efforts it makes to escape from the net when caught.

(“Lemba means, to cease. The rites of Lembe are those which refer to the marriage of – woman who swears to die with her husband, or rather to cease to live at the same time that he does.”-Letter of the author’s to Miss Kingsley, quoted in West African Studies, p. 193.)

2. There are two kinds of skins worn in this way by the Bavili: nkanda ndeci, a wild cat-skin, and xingola xinyundu, the otter-skin. Those who wear these skins are considered to-day very well to do people; there is one thing about them that they must always bear in mind, and that is, when they take them off not to pull them downwards, but to take care to pull them upwards between the belt and the cloth; otherwise they will have no children.]

the sacred tree Nkumbi (Pl. II). Here the Maluango elect is received by the princes upon his first official entrance upon the sacred ground (Xibila) set apart as the residence of the Kings of Luango.[1]

The place where this tree rears its stately head in lonely glory is called Xibindu bindu Xibukulu lu mpilo. Xinkumba means a maiden, and the natives tell me the place, and the tree Nkumbi, takes its name from the fact of some royal maiden having arrived at womanhood there. Man and woman together may not cross this Xibindu (valley); the man must go first, and when he is well across the woman may follow him. At Boa Vista there is another such Xibindu, and should a man and a woman cross these places together, they will be punished by having no children. So much for the tree at the entrance of the sacred ground. As we leave it upon the road to Lubu (Maluango’s burial-place) there stands a Nsexi tree, once a market tree, beneath whose scanty shade the corpse of the defunct Maluango is placed, awaiting the meeting of the people, whose duty it is to carry it to Lubu for burial. Here the little valley is called Xibindu bindu ku Ximonika na Buali, the valley of the last look at Buali (Maluango’s town). As we neared Luango we were struck by the great beauty of a deep valley that runs from the foot of the steep cliff upon which we stood, away to the sea. This valley is called Bulu Nzimbu Xikoko (the valley of the fly and the mosquito hand in hand), and from out its depths Xama Ngonzola, the evil rainbow-snake, rises, as I shall describe in the chapter on OMENS. The numbu tree is this valley’s sacred tree. In a very few years all traces of these trees and places may be lost, so that we have been fortunate in visiting them while they still remain intact.

On another occasion after trying very hard to get a photograph of a muamba-trce, and finding it impossible on account of the density of the bush, we left Mambuku’s town about ten o’clock in the morning, and found our way to Buali, expecting to find MANILUEMBA installed in state. We found

[1. Xi=ci, quality of, or earth; bila, to meet or to heap up. I could not find any lombi in Maluango’s xibila, but the meaning of the word XIBILA is very suggestive, i.e., sacred grove.]

him dressed in a loose cloth hung around his waist, the iron chain BICIMBO slung over his shoulder; he was sitting on a very shaky chair in front of a crowd of men and women, all seated on the ground and wearing wreaths of palm-leaves over their shoulders.[1] These were Nganga Mpunzi and his people, who were “jamming” about the pay they were to receive for clearing the sacred ground. This is the office of the priest Mpunzi (Mpu=hat or crown, Nzi=he that produces); he is the crowner, or, as it were, the creator of kings.

It seemed that having arrived and been received by the princes at the nkumbi-tree, Maluango had now to await the visits of the Bakici baci; i.e., the representatives of all the different families owning sacred ground within his kingdom. These people were described to me as the “eyes” of the people. Each one of these had to visit Maniluemba and receive a present from him, before NGANGA MPUNZI and his people could come and cut the grass and prepare a place where NGANGA NVUMBA, the king-elect, could erect his dwelling (shimbec). Until all these ceremonies were over Maniluemba was not allowed to live within a shimbec. Thus the sacrifice the old man was making was no imaginary one, for, as will be remembered, he was very comfortably housed and surrounded in his village NDEMBUANO.

The place about to be cleared was pointed out to us, and we were told that it was there that the late Maluango Prati had lived. I noticed two Baobabs, a NUMBU and an NFUMA (silk cotton tree) upon this ground.

As soon as Maluango caught sight of me he left the palaver and came to offer me his chair. Then he sat beside me and asked me if I had lunched. I answered, No; so he gracefully offered me all he could, namely, four pieces of miaka or prepared mandioca. While this was being roasted he told me that this was the last ceremony in connection with his accession, except that of receiving the congratulations

[1. The lembekmbe, wreath or rather sash of palm-leaves, also worn by the king elect, gives us the idea of the coming marriage of MANILUEMBA to his new duties as king. The plant or bush-string with which the two ends of the lembelembe are tied together is called mobula. Nganga Mpunzi’s sacred plant is the mobula; his fetish lembelembe; his xina, that he must not eat together with other people, and that his food must not be cooked by an unmarried person.]

and submission of all his petty princes. These, he said, he would send for as soon as he was settled. On that occasion he would declare that Maluango Prati had been buried, and crown himself as Maluango, and reinvest his chiefs with their caps of office.

He said he was a little worried about the chiefs of those provinces which he understood were now under the dominion of the King of Portugal; “but,” he added, “as Maluango, I am FUMU (=chief) of all the country from Mayumba to the river Xiluango.” He also said that he had spent a great deal of money in all these preliminary ceremonies, and did not exactly know where more money was to come from, as he could no longer receive customs from the traders, and was in fact only king in name.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER III

 

CORONATION OF A KING IN THE KONGO

The Bacilongo Ceremony. -Festival. -The Dancers.-Effigy of the Deceased King.-The Dance. -Processions.

 

A CORONATION CEREMONY

WHEN the time came for Maluango to be crowned he appealed to the French Government for funds. How, said he, can I entertain the hundreds of people that will be obliged to come to subject themselves to me, many of whom coming from long distances I shall have to support for many days. The French Government did not see its way to stand this trivial expenditure, and so Maniluemba remained simply NGANGA NVUMBA. A drought and famine succeeding his election, the people cried out that it was owing to his coming to Buali, and Maniluemba, bereft of the power wielded by the ancient NGANGA NVUMBAs, retired once more to his secluded home at NDEMBUANO, to the delight of the degenerate BAVILI.

As I was a witness some years ago (1891) of the ceremony attending the coronation of the present NEAMLAU of the BACILONGO, some extracts of a letter written at the time to the “Manchester Geographical Society” may be of interest. But I shall ever regret the non-coronation of MANILUEMBA, for the reason that the BAVILI, unlike the BACILONGO (singular Mucilongo), I have never, until quite lately, been really under the influence of Christianity. I feel that we

[1. Commonly but incorrectly written Musserongo; the word means “man of Cilongo.”]

should have had something to learn from the uncontaminated heathen ceremony.

NEAMLAU, the chief of the BACILONGO on the northern bank of the Kongo, in the kingdom of KAKONGO, near to BANANA, built his towns on the hills facing the sea. They are prettily situated, nestled, as it were, beneath the shade of huge Baobabs and groves of Cachew trees.

In the latter part of 1887 the late NEAMLAU (Pl. IVa) died, I should say of old age. A veritable prince, full of dignity and fire, he lived to see his country taken from him. Accustomed in the olden days, when the slave trade was in full swing, to receive handsome presents from the captains of men-of-war or slave-trading vessels with perfect impartiality, besides “customs” from the traders and natives living in his territory, NEAMLAU then lived in clover. He was much feared by the milder KAKONGOs round about, and known as the chief of a great family of pirates. Deprived of ways and means whereby to fill his exchequer he passed his latter days in comparative poverty.

His family had, with other BACILONGO, migrated from the south bank of the Congo and taken up its residence in the islands and on the banks on the northern side of this river.

This may have occurred at the time mentioned by Proyart, when MAMBUKU of KAKONGO, aided by the BACILONGO, dethroned MAKONGO; or the origin of NEAMLAU’s right to be on the north bank may have come from a far more early date, i.e., from the time when the first king of the united kingdom of Kongo organised his government and placed the ancestor of NEAMLAU there as MAFUKA MACI or ferryman, and then as NGENO, still a title of Neamlau, a kind of ambassador through whom messages were sent to KAKONGO and LUANGO.

It must be remembered that the history of the Kongo, as we have it, commenced only at that period when anarchy was already breaking it up. NEAMLAU, at any rate, owed allegiance to the chief of SONIO,[1] and received his wives from there (now Portuguese territory), and when he died had to be buried in the cemetery set apart for princes in Sonio.

[1. The King of Kongo’s province south of the Kongo.]

Thus, when the late NEAMLAU died, preparations were made for his burial in that place. A year passed and all was ready. The Congo State, naturally anxious that so influential a prince should be buried in State territory, promised that a steam launch should tow the funeral flotilla to BOMA, where the State proposed to bury him with all the honours due to his rank. Family ties and ancient usage, however, gained the day, and one dark night the canoes carrying the coffin and the mourners threaded their way through the maze of creeks, and at peep of day, ere yet the sea breeze ruffled the waters of the fast flowing river, were manfully paddled across to San Antonio, in the province of SONIO.

NENIMI, his nephew, was elected by the MAMBOMA to reign in his stead, but to complete his coronation it was necessary that he should give a dance and festival in honour of the deceased. There having been no rains that year (1890-1891), NENIMI would fain have put off this ceremony until he could have given his guests a truly royal feast, but he was pressed by the “State” to give a dance at once, and on the condition that the Government should help to feed his guests NENIMI agreed to proceed with the ceremony.

Princes from far and near were summoned to the feast, and the date for the commencement of the dance was fixed for the 24th January, 1891.

Soon I descried the figure of the old man (NENIMI) on his way to welcome me, and as he waddled towards me (for he suffered greatly from Elephantiasis) let me describe his appearance to you. About fifty-five years of age, of spare habit, medium height, grey hair, with a pointed beard almost white; rather fine features, quite unlike those of the negro; quiet, dignified, meeting one generally cordially and pleasantly. On this occasion he wore an old black leather military helmet, with a white plume, marked “10th Prince Albert’s Own.” His coat was the frock coat of a lieutenant in H.B.M. navy. About eight yards of cloth known as blue haft, forty-two inches in width, begirt his loins and flowed in graceful folds behind him, he also carried in one hand a blue and yellow shawl as a handkerchief, in his other a kind of wooden sceptre surmounted by a figure carved in ivory.

The space cleared for the dance and meeting was in the form of a square perhaps 200 by 250 yards. In the northeast corner was a mighty Banyan tree with most of its down-growing shoots lopped off. A Baobab and Acachew tree at a distance from each other of some thirty yards occupied the centre. At the south-cast corner an Acachew tree stood and at the south-west a Baobab.

Each tree was destined to lend its shade to a happy crowd of dancers, or to form a kind of canopy over NENIMI as he sat on a mat beneath its shade to receive his many guests.

Partitions (of papyrus) forming stalls something like horse-boxes rested against the outside fence that formed the eastern side of a great enclosure, within which the riches of the late NEAMLAU were exposed to view. This fence, which also formed the western boundary of the cleared space, was decorated with flags.

“Hullo! ‘Gabba!’ what is the matter? Have you only just turned out of bed? What means this hideous costume?” Gabba, a very old servant of the successive English houses in Banana, salaamed me. He was dressed in a red skull-cap, a short white surplice, and a yellow cloth which acted as a kind of skirt. In his ears hung two ugly looking large crosses formed of blue beads . . . . (He was a curious old stick was Gabba, and deserves to have his life written by anyone who has the patience to get his story out of him.) On this occasion I made use of him as a pilot.

Up to the present all those anxious to enter the enclosure to see the late NEAMLAU’s relics had had to pay two bottles of rum entrance fee, but now NENIMI and I were to open the show to the public. He led me through the maze-like entrance into the square beyond. The fence was made of strips of bamboo neatly tied together and supported by sticks firmly planted in the ground. There were two shimbecs or huts in this enclosure, the smaller one containing the relics of NEAMLAU, the greater one his bed and hammock. The roof of each shimbec was covered with white cloth, while a gay coloured (red, white, and yellow striped) cloth covered the ridge pole, and planks of the NVUKU tree kept this cloth in its place. The roofs in the distance had the appearance of the white-washed roofs of the white man’s houses in Banana. The open front of the smaller shimbec was curtained off by a red and white blanket. This NENIMI now threw over the roof, and displayed to our view its interior. The walls of the interior were draped with cloth and white blankets. At the back under an umbrella sat an effigy of the late NEAMLAU. He wore the uniform coat of a British naval officer, over which round about his shoulders hung a native cape made of cotton, called NSENDA.[1] Tell beads and crucifixes, charms, amulets, and fetishes hung from his neck. He wore a blue cloth and boots. To his right on a wall hung a small oleograph, on his left a large oil painting of a lady, while the walls were covered with advertisement cards that had been thrown away by the importers of the goods. In front of this effigy sat what was left of old NEAMLAU’S family, one of his wives playing the accordion, not well, but at least noisily. In the immediate foreground of the figure stood a table covered with black and red speckled shawls, and on this lay the relics of the prince who had gone to his rest, a cottage clock, a brass lamp, three ewers and basins, a duck box, and other earthenware figure ornaments, old red and white glass ware, table glasses and pint mugs. And while I had been taking all this in, two men without had been trying to deafen me with their music on drum and native bells.

I forgot to mention the most important part of all, and that is, that the effigy was wearing his native cap[2] (made of the fibre of the pineapple) with the name NEAMLAU marked on it. This accounted for the curious non-native head gear

[1. Or XISEMBA. See object in Exeter Museum or illustration in Seven Years among the Fjort, See also Laws of the Bavili.

2. MPU NTANDA, see Laws of the Bavili, also illustrations in Seven Years among the Fjort, p. 49.]

of NENIMI, for his “cap” was worn by the effigy and would only become legally his at the end of all these ceremonies.

I just took a look into the larger hut and saw the bed and hammock of the late NEAMLAU. NPAKA the son of the late king was seated there by himself, to receive any visitors that might come to condole with him. I asked him why they had made the entrance to this enclosure so difficult, and he said it was to prevent drunkards from finding their way in.

When I came out of the enclosure many princes were already seated under the shade of the Cachew tree, and dancing had commenced beneath the Banyan tree.

And now a procession of perhaps twenty men and women wended their way from the north-west in Indian file to the tree under which NENIMI was seated. They were all dressed in cloths, dyed red, and each wore a heavy silver leg ring about his ankle[1]; the contrast between the dull red cloth and the bright metal was very striking. The chiefs of this party knelt before NEAMLAU, and after a few words received his blessing, after which the followers sang a song of praise and then adjourned to the Baobab tree to dance.

Then from the N.E. a long line of white clothed natives marched solemnly forward. The MANKAKA (captain and executioner) accompanying this crowd beat the earth with his stick and then rushed excitedly along the line trailing his long cloth behind him. The NGANGA, with his wooden plate of medicine water in one hand and a bunch of herbs in the other, followed after him and sprinkled the people. The bugler and the drummer supplied the music. The chiefs knelt down before NENIMI and were blessed, and then the followers waved their sticks and cloths on high, shouting their song with great enthusiasm, which, however, was soon checked by the NGANGA, who sprinkled them once more with his medicine water. Now, as if in answer to this song

[1. The Bacilongo are famed for their blacksmiths, who turn English shillings bearing the late Queen’s head into their anklets. Ornaments made from this silver is called KWINIKIMBOTA (queenly good), which words now signify anything of pure metal. Even a wife that has born her husband children and is faithful to him is so called.]

up jumped the followers of XIMAWNGO AWLO followed by those of MBUKU and sang very loudly.

Then NEFUKU formed his people under a Cachew tree, the men near the trunk of the tree, the women to the left, and the children to the right, the drummers opposite to the men. A man began a song and dance by wriggling, rubbing his stomach with one hand and beating his chest with the other and emitting a great shout. He sang, and as he danced round the circle (inside) he bowed from time to time to those just in his vicinity, and as he did so they clapped their hands. Then they all sang and wriggled. Other men joined this singer and danced round with him. They became quiet, and then the singer treated them to a trill that Adelina Patti might be proud of. He beat his throat with the side of his hand and brought the effect out that way. Then as he came down to the level of an ordinary singer, the crowd once more joined in with its lala, lala, lala. Then a stranger (a servant of the Congo State), took his place and as he wriggled round and with a graceful curve bowed to his neighbour he found that the latter was looking the other way and did not give him the welcome clap-clap of hands, so he retired. Two ladies, good looking in their way, now modestly stepped into the circle. Dressed in red with silver anklets, and about thirty pounds of china olive beads about their waists, they appeared to await the orders of the singer or master of the ceremonies. He sprinkled some rum upon their heads to give them courage. They looked as if they would rather not be there, and I have no doubt wished themselves among their cooking-pots. They made two or three attempts to dance, but finally their shyness overcame them and they ran away back to their places. An old lady, very heavily weighted with beads, took their places and, wriggling, seemed to defy the world.

NENIMI was still seated under the Cachew tree receiving his guests, when a small procession was noticed coming from the S.W. It consisted of a man (dressed in a light blue coat and a cloth of blue and white checks, who also wore a white helmet), and his wife and two children in European clothes, and two or three other women. An opening was made for them in the crowd surrounding NENIMI, and the man, whose name was MARFINI, knelt down in front of his prince placing one of his children on either side of him. He spoke for some time in the usual flowery strain, and then turning his eyes upwards prayed NZAMBI to look down upon them and bless the great NEAMLAU to be. His little children, his wife and the women, when he commenced to pray, bowed their heads and buried their faces in their hands. All around listened patiently and respectfully, and when he had finished by saying AMEN, AMEN, NENIMI rubbed his hands in the earth and made the sign of the cross upon MARFINI’S forehead, and then blessed and dismissed them.

Yet one more procession, this time led by the gallant Gabba, and it was the longest of them all. A man carrying a basin of food headed it, then came the old man. And now a man carrying a girl, just out of the paint house,[1] upon his shoulders. She carried a looking-glass in her hand, and continued to admire herself in it; then came women carrying bottles on their heads, old blue glass ware, the lid of a cigar box with a picture on it, a small box, old books and plates; the bugler and drummer bringing up the rear.

NENIMI came to me to tell me that the other white men were going to take their breakfast at the Mission, but asked me not to go as he had prepared a meal for me. I thanked him and then went to watch him give out the food to his visitors.

He and his wife Maria [2] sat beneath a Cachew tree at the South-east corner of the cleared space near to his own shimbec, while certain of his people brought a low table and placed it before them. On this table were nine huge masses of FUNDI (tapioca) for the nine chiefs present. Out of a twenty-gallon (three-legged) iron pot boiled pig[3] was produced, and with the gravy this was put into nine basins. Nine men then took away the dishes to the princes for whom

[1. See p. 69; also West Africa, March 21, 1903, P. 293, and Laws of the Bavili.

2 After the great Donna Maria Segunda.

3 The flesh of the pig is XINA to FUMU ZINKONDI or ZINKATA, Royal princes, but not to FUMU LIVANTI ordinary chiefs.]

they were intended. Near to NENIMI was the twenty-five gallon barrel of rum, the pig, and the two-hundredweight bag of rice given to him by the State.

The State Doctor thought this a good opportunity to photograph NENIMI and his wife, but he was sorely interrupted. First of all a man came and asked NENIMI if the soldiers of the Congo State were not to drink? If they were, where was the water? “Call dem women,” cried Queen Maria. Then two men came bringing the food they had received back, complaining that it was not sufficient for so many people. “Give them a pig,” growled king NENIMI, while the impatient Doctor told him not to move. And now two princes with their long sticks came and knelt before NENIMI “Don’t move,” cried the Doctor, and he would take the picture thus. And yet another complaint reached the king before his photo had been taken. The people of MPANGALA being strong had taken all the food away from the complainant and had left him and his people with a hungry belly.

After this I “chopped” part of a very tough fowl and some rice mixed with palm oil and a liberal allowance of sand. Water was scarce, and that which there was, was very dirty, so that I was glad when my meal was over and I could rest and smoke for a while. Queen Maria, who was telling me a story, was evidently minded not to let me smoke too much, for she pounced upon my tin of tobacco and having taken what she wanted, passed it round to her friends. And the “last man” showed me what was left and took the tin. Thus, you see, it is not only in civilised countries that one has to pay for seeing a coronation.

Such was the Bacilongo coronation, and from this account the reader may form some idea of the ceremony on the Lower Kongo. It must be remembered that the Bavili ceremony would have been, in all probability of a more truly native cast; but as I have explained, circumstances did not permit me to witness the crowning of Maniluemba.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER IV

 

COURTS OF MALUANGO AND MAMBOMA

The Interregnum.-Maluango’s Court. -Mamboma’s Court. -Justice. -The Magic Mirror.-Some Fjort Sayings.-The Districts.

WE now turn to the court Of MALUANGO or the Prince of the Custom of the Leopard. Maluango, as we have seen, is the king or chief of the Bavili; the word is equivalent to Maniluango, i.e., Prince of Luango; his overlord was, of course, Kongo, the Ntawtela,[1] of the realm of Kongo. MALUANGO has seven titles, one of which, NTAWTELA, is his title after his death. Under six of these titles he presides over six sections of government, aided in each case by two assessors.

Division 1.

As Fumu (judge) he appears as the conscientious arbitrator, and in these matters he has as assessors LUEMBUNGU and MANKAKA, the chief of his army and the executioner. NGANGA MPUNZI is the priest, whose duty it is to clean and sweep up the place where the coming Maluango shall build his dwelling.

Division 2.

As NTINU (judge), he is the reasoning judge, and here he is aided by INJIBUNGU[2] and the recording messenger MAXIENJI.

In cases where no just decision can be arrived at Maluango

[1. The title is according to Bentley, applied during their lifetime to the kings of Kongo, to the subject princes of Luango and Kakongo only after their death.

2 Where no office is named, I have been unable to discover the functions performed by this officer mentioned.]

advised the parties to take the powdered bark of the NKASA tree (not the pea shrub) which was administered by the priest NGANGA NKASA. The innocent party would vomit, while the guilty one either died from the effect of the poison, or, being purged, was killed.

Division 3.

As NGANGA VUMBA (Priest of the Seasons), it was the duty of Maluango to look after the morals of his people, more especially touching adultery and murder; in this he was helped by KONGO MBUNGu and MAFUKA, his messenger. After punishment adulterers had to buy certain expensive medicines from NGANGA KUTECI to appease BUNZI.

Division 4.

As MALUANGO XIVANJI (head of the state), it was his duty to govern the country, and in these matters he was assisted by TATABUNGU and MAMBOMA. And NGANGA MBUMBA aided them with his knowledge of the secrets of life and medicines.

Division 5.

As MUENE (overlooker), Maluango was the overseer of his people; here he was assisted by MABUNDU, the representative of his fruit or offspring, and the chief of his household MASAF1. And the NGANGA BUNDU helped him in settling disputes by administering to the offenders the powdered bark of the BUNDU herb. The guilty party after taking this was unable to make water, and fell, while the innocent evacuated a few drops on a leaf placed beneath him.

Division 6.

As NKICI CI[1] as we shall note, Maluango was one of the seven powers or BAKICI BACI, and here he was aided by MAMATA and MAMBUKU, guardian of the eastern gate of his kingdom. And in this place he had the help of the NGANGA BAKICI, or the priest of the XIBILA or sacred grove.

Such is the court of MALUANGO.

[1. For the meaning, see Chapter XVI.]

Maxienji, Mafuka, Hambuku, are each attended by a MAFUKA (messenger), MANGOVA (knight) and a MASAFI (major domo).

Mamboma has three ZINGANGA as his attendants, NGANGANKICI (fetish), NGANGA BAKICI (sacred grove), and NGANGA XILEMBA.

Mamata has MAZONGA MAKAYA as his attendant.

Mankaka is attended by his successor MUELA.

The names of these courtiers are BABI ACI opposed to the name by which ordinary people are known, BACI CI.

MALUANGO also has a private MAMBOMA with him apart from the above courtiers, and KUTECI, his apothecary, is also generally with him.

With regard to the chief personages in this court, there are some sayings in very old Fjort which will help us perhaps to a little more precise information about them and their offices.

Of Mamboma they say:

 

Kanga lumbi; Kanga mbeta

Malamba malambakana, Xivili.

 

I don’t think anyone to-day can translate this exactly, but it carries the following meaning with it: “just as the sun rises and sets, so it is Mamboma’s business to look after the crowning and burial of Maluango; and just as a woman cooks and intends to go on cooking (and watching her pots), so Mamboma watches over the BAVILI.”

Of Mambuku they say:

 

Mambuku nandu, nkaka bakamba,

Xikata kata xianlo tenda Maluango yeza’ntu.

 

“Mambuku the guardian of the gateway leading from the Mayombe country into Luango, is hard-headed and obstinate, and like Maluango’s little box with its closed lid will only open his mouth at his bidding.”

Of Mafuka they say:

 

Mafuka xikangu kangula bana mampanga.

 

Mafuka as the royal messenger keeps on tying up people by word of mouth, or with a wordy yoke.”

Of Maxienji they say:

 

Maxienji, magundu lubenda

Sanga mbuila zika, monho

Bungu maci, Xindundu,

Ku zikula ntandu.

 

“Just as Mafuka is the bearer of messages, so Maxienji is the bearer of the news of the death of Maluango; he prays Mamboma to bury him; and just as the wife with her water-bottle leaves her husband’s corpse on its way to burial to fetch water, so he leaves Maluango’s body with the people of Mamboma, and looks after the Badungu or Xindundu (Maluango’s police), who are now scattered about in the grass ready to rob all passers-by while Mamboma’s people keep 6n burying Maluango in the open on the hill (at Lubu).”

Of Mankaka of Loango they say:

 

Mankaka zi Loango

Benze, moanga

Ke ku benzanga mitu bantu.

 

Mankaka the executioner of Luango cuts and twists about (Ke=not?) to keep on cutting off the heads of people.”

I think it will be found that these ancient sayings refer to a time when the official language of Luango was more in accordance with that of the ancient Kongo, so many of the words used in them are not of the Luango dialect. This perhaps points to Luango as having been a conquered province. The religion and social system may then have been superposed?

 

THE SUBJECT COURT OF MAMBOMA.

Upon his death MALUANGO is given the title of NTAWTELA, and is buried, as we have seen, by MAMBOMA, and his people, MAMBOMA, is the prime minister of the living king, his regent during his absence, and the ruler of the kingdom during an interregnum. He is always a slave, and as such incapable of succeeding to the kingship. On the death of the king, it is the duty of MAMBOMA, through the MAMBOMAS of the other provinces, to call the princes together and proceed to the election of the new high priest NGANGA NVUMBA. The choice is restricted to the sons of the princesses living in KONDI, but not to any particular one. The diviner NGANGA MPUKU with his magic mirror is called in, should there be any need of divine interference owing to want of unanimity.

In the meantime MAMBOMA and his court take the place of the court of the late MALUANGO, although MAMBOMA is always in subjection either spiritually to the NTAWTELA or bodily to MALUANGO, so that he is always either the servant of the dead or of the living.

At the gate of the XIBILA or MALUANGO’S sacred ground there sits a certain personage called MAXILACI. MAMBOMA claims this person as part of his court, but so does MALUANGO, and from the fact that he is at the gate of the XIBILA (sacred ground), there can be no doubt that he now is part of the latter’s following.

MAMBOMA has a court of twelve, not counting MAXILACI.

1. LUEMBA LAMBA.

2. XENDU, the executioner.

3. NJIMBI LAMBA.

4. MABUNDU MABUNDU.

5. KONGOLAMBA.

6. MAFUKA, the messenger.

7. TATA LAMBA.

8. MAMBOMA MICITATA, Mamboma’s Mamboma, the ruler the earth.

9. MABUNDU, representing his followers.

10. MANTU BOMA, his successor.

11. KABA, the one who allots,

12. MALUNGONGOLO, the crier.

These twelve are the assessors in the six divisions into which Mamboma’s court is divided, and which correspond to the divisions of Maluango’s court.

Division I.

A person representing Maluango, in his office of FUMU heads this division and his name is MAXINGANANKULU, and when he, aided by LUEMBA LAMBA and XENDU, cannot settle the question in arbitration they call in the NGANGA Mpusu, who has a small but neatly made basket of grass with a tight-fitting lid on it. When the name of the guilty one is mentioned he finds it impossible to take this lid off.

Division 2.

MAMBOMA KAYI, acting in the place of MALUANGO as NTINU, presides over this division, aided by NJIMBI LAMBA and the messenger MABUNDU MABUNDU (a kind of chief of police), and if they cannot properly prove the person guilty, they call in the NGANGA XIKETEMBI, who has two wisps of grass, a mat NKWALA, and a boy. The boy lies upon the wisps and mat and the NGANGA tries to lift him up by the two ends. If the name mentioned or thought of by him is that of the guilty party, the wisps and mat cling to the body of the boy in such a way that he can easily be lifted up, and the pressure is such on the body of the boy as to cause him at times to spit blood.

Division 3.

MAMBOMA, under his spiritual title NKANGA LUMBI, takes the place of MALUANGO as NGANGA VUMBA aided by KONGOLAMBA and his MAFUKA; and if they are not satisfied with the evidence they will call in the MKANGA NTALI, who has a small bundle of medicines wrapped in cloth and feathers. This he keeps on smelling till he thinks of the guilty one, when the odour confirms him in his suspicion.

Division 4.

MAMBOMA, in the place Of MALUANGO XIVANJI, aided by TATA LAMBA and MAMBOMA MICITATA, tries the accused, and if unable to convict, calls in the NGANGA XISENGO, who has a knife which he makes almost red-hot and passes across the palms of the hands or calves of the legs of the accused. If there appears the smallest sign of a blister, the person is considered guilty. (This custom is called XISENGO.)

Division 5.

VUTA MALEKA, the conciliator, takes the place of the king as MUENE, aided by the MABUNDU and MANTu BOMA, and in the final appeal he calls in NGANGA SUKU, who rubs the palms of his hands together, till he thinks of the name of the culprit, when his hands refuse to meet but turn back to back.

Division 6.

No one can fill in the office of NKICI CI, so that the services of the KABA and MALUNGONGOLO are called in with those of Nganga MPUKU NYAMBI who, if necessary, looks into the magic mirror to find out who shall become the new NKICI CI or NGANGA NVUMBA, who is then elected.

The Abbe Proyart says that everybody knew that when the king died MAKAYI would succeed him, and other writers have also told us who it is that will succeed the king; is it not possible that these authors have been in error, and that they have mistaken these temporary occupiers of the offices of MALUANGO for his real successor, whom nobody can name until he has been chosen and elected by MAMBOMA and the princes?

Battel also mentions a certain four, one of whom shall succeed the NTAWTELA. (See Ravenstein’s Battel, Congo and Angola.)

At the present day the Bavili consult these diviners without the intervention of MAMBOMA.

MPUKU NYAMBI often accompanies the present NGANGA NVUMBA. He wears a head-dress of the red feathers of the tail of the grey parrot. He holds a mirror with BILONGO (medicines) attached to the back of it in one hand, in the other he carries a small bundle of medicines out of which the feathers of the fowl protrude. He is not only the diviner (in case of dispute) of the MALUANGO to be elected, but also uses his powers to-day to divine the cause of the anger of the powers, or the person who has caused sickness or other evils to fall upon the petitioner or his dead relation.

 

THE KONGOZOVO, OR CHIEFS OF DISTRICTS IN THE SEVEN PROVINCES

Each province under its manifumu [1] has its courts modelled upon the two we have described and each petty prince as the chief of these districts is a magistrate, or KONGOZOVO.

[1. The manifumu is named after his province: thus the chief of XIBANGA is MA XIBANGA.]

BUALI is the name of Maluango’s centre province, and it has a road to the sea at Luango. The naines of the Kongozovo in this province are-Mpili, Ntumpu, Mpanji, Lubu, Bukulibuali, Xifungu, Butoko, Pongo, Xisu, Sauza, Nkondo, Kubemba, Lombo, Mengo, Mongo-ntandu, Nkatiga, Mbanga, Xibalo.

There are six other provinces-Mbuku, Luanjili, Zibanga, Kondi-Ndingi, Xikamba, Samanu.

MBUKU contains the following Kongozovo as far as I can gather. (It is bordered by Mayombe and Buali). Binga, Mfinio, Makollo, Inda, Lilu-ngoma, Xikana-xiinbuku, Mvuadi, Xilala, Tombi, Bilinga.

LUANJIM, bounded by the river Lueme and the sea, contains Mpaka, Xingambi, Mvumva, Ximbamba, Xinuka, Ximbambuka, Ngoio-ntu, Mpita, Kote-mateva, Njeno, Nanga, Xinangananga, Nkotchi, Winga, Ntembo, Futu, Luanjilinkula, Mvetu, Xinyambi-xinani, Kata-mavata, Xiabi, Lulobi, Mvampili, Mbambala.

XIBANGA, bounded by the sea and Mayombe, is composed of Lubu, Yombo, Bifundi, Belolo, Longobondi, Xilunga, Xibote, Mabondi, Maxilunga-luemba, Batli-kondi, Xinjili, Konkuati, Xitenda, Seta-banda, Ximbia, Longo, Xisanga and Kwilu.

KONDi NDINji, bordering Kakongo and Sundi. Ndinji, Kondi-ndinji, Xicita ndinji, Kaii-kon’dinji, Nombo-xindinji, Sanga, Xingango, Mpanga-mongo, Xivava, Sevi, Ntumbi, Maxonzo, Lutati, Samputu, Bulali, Sokoto, Kama-mbota, Ximbuku, Kumbi-liambo.

XIKAMBA (East of the Lueme river and west of Ndinji) contains Kaii, Nzaci, Xikaka, Sanza, Kutoto, Xamba, Mpemo, Jebba, Buamongo, Buku-ntamba, Xizibila, Nzanzi, Mvuli, Mieli, Nsuku, Konkonguati, Busu mbanda.

SAMANu, bounded by the sea in the west and Ndinji on the east. Buambu, Xinxonzo, Xiloango, Xela, Maxi-mabanda, Liku, Xikasu, Ntandu-lumana, Kikaka, Bixekete, Buswenji, Tungu, Nkotchi, Pam Kondi, Tero, Mabuli, Xibota, Ximaniamatadi.

In the olden days, traders situated in these provinces only heard of “Maluango” as a great over-lord, and all their palavers; were settled independently of him by these Kongozovo. This gave rise to the impression that these Kongozovo were independent princes, and that there was no connection between these petty princes and Maluango. It was only on great occasions that Maluango was appealed to, and this was done through regular channels. Palavers from south of the river Xiluango were carried to Njeno, on the Lueme river, who transferred them to Maluango’s Mafuka. This connection can even be carried from Maluango to Kongo at San Salvador through “Nieno” of the Lueme river and “Hgeno” (Banana) on the Kongo, and the Mafukas (or messengers).

This semi-independence of these petty princes quite misled Mr. H. M. Stanley, who, in a letter dated from Gibraltar to Col. Strauch in the early eighties despaired of creating “Free States” in the Kongo. The Kongo would have worn a very different appearance to-day had the kingdoms of Kongo, Kakongo and Luango been resuscitated and governed on natural lines, if not as one kingdom, then as at least three Free States.”

Nothing could have been more disastrous to the welfare of the people and the country than the absolutely insane way this country was cut up between the French, the Portuguese, and the independent State of the Congo.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER V

 

LAW

The Family. – Marriage.-Contracts. -Property. -Crimes and Punishments.-Judicial Procedure.

 

NATIVE LAW

THE subject of African Law is a fascinating one and I am tempted to enlarge on it, the more so as it is but little understood in England, although a knowledge of it is clearly essential to the right governance of our black fellow subjects. Miss Kingsley has treated of African religion and law in her West African Studies (abridged edition), among other writers may be mentioned the late Sir. A. B. Ellis, Sir J. Smallman Smith, and Mr. J. W. Sarbah in addition. Much material has of course been pigeon-holed by various officials.

But, able though the English works above mentioned are, they do not go deep below the surface, and are far from being text-books of native customary law, to which the administration can turn for guidance. Our French neighbours, wise in their generation, have recently issued a monumental work, Les Coutumes indigenes de la Cote d’Ivoire by Clozel; and a similar work on the native law of Nigeria compiled by a trained anthropologist who can give his whole time to his work would undoubtedly be of extreme value, not only to the student of comparative jurisprudence, but to the official who comes in daily contact with men who know only the native law, whose life is regulated by its fundamental principles, and who can be governed only if the English ruler recognises those principles and deals out even handed justice in accordance with them.

In some primitive communities there is only one sort of offence which can be regarded as law-breaking Dr. Codrington shows that in Melanesia tabu takes the place of law; the infraction of a tabu may bring down on the head of the offender an automatic penalty; but he may be too strong spiritually; and then the penalty falls upon the innocent. To provide against this, the society itself of which the offender forms a part inflicts the penalty for wrong doing and thus satisfies the power whose wrath is incurred by the infraction of the tabu.

Just in the same way in Africa a violation of the moral law, if I may so term it, is an affair for the whole of the community. If Nzambi, on the Kongo, is provoked by immorality especially of a sexual kind, the result, as we shall see in a later chapter, is drought, and the penalty falls on the community. A violation of the moral law is in native phraseology a “God palaver”; any outrage on a spirit may be of this nature but in practice a man is left to settle his own account with a minor spirit, which is hardly powerful enough to inflict damage on a family or tribe. On the Congo, justice is so far organised, where “god palavers” are concerned, that punishments are inflicted by the Badungu acting on the orders of the king.

“Man palavers,” on the other hand, or in our phraseology, Civil and Criminal Cases (for they are identical in Africa, the fundamental idea being that a debt of some sort has been incurred) are decided by a court of justice, which bases its decisions on precedents, but the judgment must be enforced by the winner of the case, aided it may be, by his family. It is not the business of the king or of any official to see that justice is done; when once judgment has been given and recognised by the people, generally the matter passes out of the hands of the state and becomes a private affair. If the loser is strong enough to resist payment the palaver becomes a trial of strength between the two families and may become a “war palaver”; in any case the palaver and its consequences, in the shape of liabilities to pay and right to receive, are handed down in the respective families, like any ordinary debt, until such time as the winner of the case is in a position to enforce payment.

If the loser cannot resist, he must pay the debt or in default become a serf or pawn in the hands of the creditor; failing him, a member of his family, or an inhabitant of his town or district, loses his freedom. This service is not a setoff against the debt; the pawn is held until the debt is paid in legal currency; though a debtor may become a slave if his family has died out or dies out before the debt is paid; slavery, however, being regarded as a disgrace, the family would as long as it subsisted, endeavour to release one of its members.

The intimate connection between the spheres of law and religion or magic cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that the weaker party to a suit calls in the help of nail fetishes.

The form of the following notes is dictated by the form of the questionnaire-issued by the French authorities-to which it was originally an answer, and it must be read in the light of the foregoing note.

Section I.-Of the Family.

The organisation of the family or Xifumba is certainly one that the Bavili need not be ashamed of, and when compared to that of many civilised peoples can only be looked upon as a model of logical compactness.

The Xifumba is composed of the four grandparents Nkaka, the father Tata, the mother Mama, their children Bana, grandchildren Batekulu, great-grandchildren Ndandu, and great-great-grandchildren Ndalula.

The uncle on the mother’s side is called Ngulinkaci, the aunt Mama.

The aunt by marriage is called Mama.

The uncles and aunts on the father’s side Tata.

Brother or sister-in-law Zali.

Father or mother-in-law Nkwekici.

Son or daughter-in-law Nkwekici.

Uncle of mother Xikweci.

Uncle of father Xikweci.

When you ask a native to what family he belongs he will answer you by giving you the name of his mother’s family.

On the death of the father his brother takes care of the children; but the wife remains with her children sorrowing for her husband for at least twenty-four months, when she may marry again. These children are called bana bana ba bika nkulu. (The little children left by the spirit.)

A man may not marry any of his mother’s family or relations whom he terms Mama. If the Xina of the girl the man wishes to marry is that of his mother he cannot marry her.

He may not marry the children of his father’s brothers, but those of his father’s sisters are not forbidden to him.

The family forms a part of the higher organisation of the tribe. Each individual belongs to a family; each family is under a chief called Kongo Zovo, and this chief is under the prince of the province containing these families, who is called by the name of his province preceded by the prefix Ma, short for Manifamu. Seven of these provinces hold the people of Luango, called the Bavili. The Bavili, under their king Maluango, form a third part of the kingdom of Kongo, or the Fjort people, who are a section of the Bantu race. My head man Tati for example is of the family of Yanga of the royal province Buali of the Bavili of the KONGO kingdom of the Bantu race.

An individual may not leave his town without the permission of his father or of the Kongo Zovo, and upon his return he must present himself before him, to give an account of himself and show the proceeds of his fishing, hunting, or trading. He must obey and respect his chief, who may tie him up, chastise him, deprive him of food, but has no power of life and death over him-this right belonging in law only to the King Maluango. The Kongo Zovo can also requisition the services of all his family.

Section II.-Marriage.

We find the highest form of marriage to be that of Monogamy. That is to say Princesses whose offspring may become the future rulers of the kingdom, may not have more than one husband, whom she has the right to choose. He may be already married or not, but once selected he must put away his other wives and become the slave of the princess, who has the power of life and death over him. But when she dies this man inherits all her property. Maluango so long as he is simply Nganga NVUMBU[1] may have as many wives as he pleases, but once he has been crowned Maluango he is supplied with one wife, a princess of Ngoio (Cabinda in Kakongo) and must put away the others.

The people generally are polygynists, but there is a line drawn between the first wife and the others. The first is called Nkaci Ntete, the second and others Nkaci Sialila. A concubine is called Ndaia Xicinsu. An unchaste woman Ndumba.

Polyandry has not the legal character that it has among certain primitive peoples. With regard to Polygyny and its effect upon the condition of the woman, it is true that, apparently, certain women have always existed in this country who object very strongly to sharing a husband with others, and such are said to be bad women or women of spirit, Muntu ‘Mbi. But as a rule the first wife asks her husband for women to help her in her work, and such a woman is called a good woman or creature, Muntu ‘Mbote. There are constant quarrels among these wives, but the husband refuses to take sides, and would be looked upon as a fool if he interfered. Should the injured woman in these disputes appeal to an outsider or judge, as an arbitrator, he will refuse to have anything to do with it. She has no appeal in these matters. Mankind generally treats the affair with indifference.

Should a man promise to marry a girl, she can make him pay very heavily for breach of promise if he has touched her; if not, she can only slang and shame him. The man, however, cannot claim anything from the woman who breaks off an engagement, but she gets a bad name.

If the woman whom the man desires to marry is past the age of puberty and is able to judge for herself as to a man’s parts, the man will first address himself to her. If the girl is still a child he goes to her father and mother in the first place. The proposal made, the father and mother discuss the matter.

[1. High priest.]

If they can find no objection to the young man and they think it well to allow their daughter to marry, they accept the young man’s offer.

The young man then approaches his own parents and if they do not object, the mother, who keeps her son’s savings for him, gives him the goods necessary to present to his future father and mother-in-law. These goods are given to the girl’s parents in order to give the man a hold upon them in case they supply him with a worthless article as a wife. It covers their responsibility, which is a very great one, and gives the father the right on the other hand, after returning the exact amount presented, to take his daughter away from the husband, should he turn out to be a beast and ill-treat her. There are two “marriage bundles”: (1) Bukali in the olden days, 20 longs (say 10 francs) but now 100 longs and one demijohn of rum (say 60 francs). (2) Mpakete, in the olden days 10 longs, but to-day consisting Of 50 longs and one demijohn of rum, 1 coat, 1 counterpane, 1 hat, 100 longs to mother’s relations, and a present of 50 longs to the bride.

Certain families may not intermarry, as those of Xibanga and Maluango. Intertribal marriages were once totally prohibited, but to-day marriages take place although the offspring of such unions are looked upon much in the same prejudiced light by the Bavili as the offspring of black and white races are looked upon by the Europeans.

A woman who cannot plant is not allowed by her parents to marry. A known fool will not be accepted, and sickness is a bar. The goods bestowed on the parents of the proposed wife are called goods for marriage, Bindele Bi Kukwela, and not goods for barter, nor can the marriage be properly termed a marriage by purchase. The goods are accepted as a gage, or pledge, not as purchase money.

The “Bundle” having been given to the assenting parents, when the time comes or the girl arrives at the age of puberty, the bridegroom sends money to the parents so that the girl may be placed in the “paint house,” where she undergoes certain rites of purification. The father’s women folk then take the girl to the water and the Tukula or red paint is beaten off her with pliant switches or twigs. Then she is dressed and adorned with leg and arm rings of brass, necklaces of coral and other ornaments and taken to the expectant bridegroom. The dancing and singing that has commenced after the washing maybe continued during the whole night. The husband gives certain presents to the father’s relations who have brought him his bride. The next morning the husband presents his wife with a white handkerchief. Then the women again come and present the couple with food. The husband makes them a return present and the bride returns to her father’s house. The husband then sends his father and mother to his father-in-law with a present to ask him to send him his wife. The father-in-law marks a day for her return to her husband, and gives certain presents to the father and mother of the husband, who return to their village. Upon the day mentioned the father-in-law takes his daughter back to his son-in-law with a present. Then in the presence of the husband’s father and mother he exhorts him to follow in his good father’s footsteps, then turning to his daughter he gives her good advice and hands her over finally to her husband.

The married couple now. have two fathers and two mothers to whom they owe obedience and whom they must treat equally as members of one family, helping them all as children are expected to help their parents.

Should the woman be guilty of adultery the man may forgive his wife the first offence, but on the second occasion he will return her to her father, who must return the ” pledge ” money given to him. Should he discover the guilty man he may ask what indemnity he likes, and that man has to pay the fine even if he has to pawn himself as a hostage. The first time the husband is caught by the wife he may be forgiven, but the next time the wife reports the matter to her husband’s parents, and the man must pay. She may leave him for a time, but generally comes back to him. If not, and should it happen that the father finds her another husband, the pledge goes to her first husband. But the husband cannot make her father give back the original pledge. The. wife has no claim on the woman who has committed adultery with her husband.

The male adulterer pays the fine, the husband alone inflicts it, and the amount is generally about equal to the pledge, but the actual amount rests with the husband.

As regards the duties of married persons, the woman plants, cooks, carries wood, and draws water; the man looks after the religious and fetish rites of the family, closely allied to the treatment of his sick relations, and their burial, finds his wife in dress, fish, the chase, palm nuts, etc., builds her house and cuts the bush where she may have decided to plant.

Divorce.-Apart from the causes already mentioned, long absence and non-support bring about divorce or dissolution of marriage. In this case the wife, after having waited, say twelve months, for the return of her husband, seeks his father and mother and puts the situation before them. They advise her, and if they give their consent she goes back to her father and may re-marry. Upon the reappearance of the first husband the “pledge” is returned to him. So that divorce is looked upon as a family matter.

In the event of the parties being unable to agree, the father returns the ” pledge ” and they are free to marry again.

If the children are very young they go with the mother, but the daughters remain with the mother in any case, while the sons when old enough to do without the mother’s care go to the father. The father has to do his part in sustaining the children.

Section III.-Concerning Relationship.

The different kinds of relationship are as follows:-

1. Their own children. Bana bana na veka.

2. The children of their elder brother. Bana ba ya yandi.

3. Their brother’s children. Bana ba nkawmba andi.

4. Children of their uncle. Bana ba mama’ndi nkaci.

5. Children of their grandparents. Bana ba buta kak’andi.

6. Children of the father’s sister. Bana ba nkaci.

7. Children of his nephew. Ntekulu u buta muana nkaci.

8. The children in pawn. Buti ci xivili i vanina.

9. The bought slaves. Ndongo i sumba.

10. The children of slaves. Bana ba xifula.

The native law does not adopt the distinction of our civil law between legitimate, and natural children recognised by the father or otherwise. Birth sanctifies the child, and, as the child of its mother, it may become the inheritor of its uncle’s property. As regards the general rule of succession it is not the eldest son but the wisest that inherits the property. But where the father of a family has been neglected by his relations, he sometimes takes his revenge on them by dividing his property among his children while he is yet alive. The mother has no property of her own, but is the guardian of that of her children, and should they die this goes to her family.

Both the father and mother watch over the interests of their children, and can punish them.

The mother alone has the right to pawn her child, but she must first consult the father, so that he may have the chance of giving her goods to save the pledging. The father cannot pledge his child. The brother can pawn his sister, or the uncle his niece, the mother being dead. But the father being alive the uncle must go first to him to give him the chance of helping him out of the difficulty by means of a loan of goods. If the uncle is what they call a bad man, the father will call witnesses to see the cloth that he is lending the uncle who would pawn his child, he takes up a kernel of the palm nut in their presence and drops it into his box; which being interpreted means that he has bought his daughter. Until this debt is paid to the father the uncle cannot raise the wind on that child again. A person is never free from being pawned in this way.

Parental authority is really never lost, for the father has always the right to ransom the child, who never ceases to look to him as its father. But as the child often settles down in the village of its pawnee and becomes the parent of children, the amount needed to ransom it increases in proportion to the child’s offspring. The debtor has to pay double the amount he borrowed and so much for every child. Even then the child may elect to remain where it is.

A child or children bereft of all family ties may be adopted by one of the father’s friends, who calls it or them (Muana bika wali) the child my friend left. Under this kind of artificial parentage the adoptor can neither sell nor pawn this child, nor has he any hold on its earnings; it is a work of love and honour, but he looks to the gratitude of the child to make it up to him in some way or other.

Section IV.-Of Guardianship, of Emancipation, and Prohibition.

The French law recognises four kinds of guardianship:

1 That of the survivors of the fathers and mothers.

2. That by will conferred by the fathers or mothers dying last.

3. That of the next of kin.

4. That which is disposed of by a meeting of the family.

The Bavili recognise six forms of guardianship, in order:

1 The grandfather. Xinkaka xi andi.

2. The father’s family. Xitata.

3. The mother’s father. Xinkaka xibuta.

4. The mother’s family. Mama ci andi.

5. The father’s friend. U,yukani tatitu.

6. The guardian appointed by the family. Nandi u yonzola muana u bika vumbi.

The guardian acts as a father to the child, but cannot touch its property, for, as already shown, that belongs to the mother’s family. He is paid by the family upon delivering up the child according to his deserts,-whatever he asks for if all has turned out well, with little except shame if badly.

The family are the judges as to the time when the child shall be taken from its guardian, and that is generally when the child has grown up to manhood or womanhood. As the child’s pro-father all that it has- earned is his, or as much thereof as he likes to take.

Section V.-Concerning Property.

The best general idea that can be given of the native theory concerning property is given in their own words (Li kanda li ami) “my family,” literally Kanda means to make straight, to tighten-Nkanda equals skin, i.e., the natural part of man, or that part which he has in common with animals. As the saying goes, Muntu nkanda, xibula nkanda, muntu ua vioka mu ku bula mbembo. Man is of skin, the cattle are skin, man is only superior by speech.

The right of property is derived through the mother, the planter, to the Great Uncle the giver of all good gifts, Mbunzi, the W. wind, the rain giver, one of the Bakici baci or primeval ” powers ” on earth.

The Bavili have no word in their language to express proprietor or property. The nearest expression for proprietor is Fumu Bima, the chief or prince of all things. He may possess (Baka vua) money or goods (Mbongo) or things (Bima) or even land, Ci, but as Fumu ci, the land chief, he is the head of a family holding the land in trust for his people; while a possessor of goods is really a man who is only the temporary owner of things that belong to his Fumu.

Both kinds of goods, movable and immovable, have their uses, but one remains (Ci, i.e. the land), the other gets used up (Ma). The difference may be best explained by the words themselves, thus Ci has the meaning of primeval matter, the earth (Nci), while the primeval Ma or Mad equals water.

Wherever labour is implied the possessor has the right of the disposal of its fruits, or that part of it which his Fumu has given back to him or allowed him to keep. A man trades, the part allotted to him is his. The woman plants, that part which remains after feeding her husband and paying the tithes to the Fumu may be said to be hers. The plantation is hers on this understanding. That is to say, all sources of wealth carry their responsibilities with them, and all goods are rather in trust than actual possessions.

The right of usufruct is granted to the Kongo Zovo by the Prince, or to the individual by the Kongo Zovo, on demand, and this may be for him and his descendants so long as they exist as a family, but no use or habitation gives a man the right to ownership. This usufruct may have been granted in the first place by right of birth, as a reward for service rendered, or on payment by a rich man on the extinction of the family on whose land he has been living. And just as the king of the country may depose the prince of the province, so the prince may take away this usufruct from a rebellious Kongo Zovo. The Kongo Zovo in his turn may revoke the usufruct of land or goods enjoyed by the individual.

Usufruct may be established by inheritance, gift, loan, and permission, on land, water, cloths, goods, fruit of the soil.

The Kongo Zovo has the use of the land and water for his family; in return for this (1) he must help the prince in his wars with armed men; (2) all leopards killed on the land must be sent to the prince; (3) the head and a leg of the antelope, the wild ox, and the pig killed must also be sent to him; (4) the backbone of any whale washed ashore, the heads of the sea fishes called Bafu, Ntala, Nqueci, Mbili, Mbuta, Muenji, Tobo; the water pig Ngulu Maci, and a small basket of fish from each net, must also be sent to the prince; (5) his women also must send him one-fifth of the palm nuts, and a basket of pea nuts and Indian corn harvested; (6) the rich man or Esina living upon the property is expected to give the prince a feast and presents every year.

In return for a gift of cloths or the loan of goods the recipient is expected to be at the beck and call of the one who gives, although he has no right to claim service. The receiver calls this man “my friend who gives me cloths to wear every day.” U yukana yami u kalila u mpuika nlele kada xilumbu.

Those who are permitted to cut down the palm nuts or reap any of the unplanted fruits of the soil are rewarded by a certain share in the profits of their sale.

The usufruct comes to an end by the will of the prince, the Kongo Zovo, or the individual, although it is granted generally to the recipient and his successors so long as they exist and behave themselves.

I have explained the duty of the individual to the Kongo Zovo, and of the Kongo Zovo to the Prince; there remains that of the Prince to the King. Maluango, as prince of the province of Buali, enjoys the same revenue as the princes of the other provinces, but as King he sends his messages to the princes to demand their aid in any emergency. He demands men in case of war, goods in case of need when one of the ” powers ” or Bakici baci have to be appealed to. The Prince must send him the skins of all animals killed, three pieces of chalk, 100 longs (or 50 francs goods), three saga ngo, and three mbongo lu tumbu or native money mats.

Roads running from the villages through the lands granted to the Kongo Zovo to the main roads are called Nzila Zi Nyawna, and are of a private nature, that is to say a stranger may be asked if met where he is going to, and if his reply is satisfactory he is allowed to proceed, if not he is asked to go by the public road, or Nzila Ivanga Nzambi, or God-created road.

These latter roads cross at Buali, the sacred and central province of the Bavili or Luango. The east road leads to the country of the Batetchi, and is called Nzila Xintetchi, the west leading to the sea, Nzila Mbu, the south, Nzila Kakongo, the north road, Nzila Balumbu. These are partof the public lands, as are also the sacred groves (Bibila), lakes, lagoons, rivers, bush, and ownerless lands.

Fishing, hunting, trees, native string, reeds, and the fruit of the soil not planted by the hand of man are common to the natives of the country.

The King holds the whole country in trust from God, through the “powers,” for the use of the people.

White men may on certain conditions become users of the land and that which grows on it. The white man wishing to occupy land applies to the Kongo Zovo, who marks off the land put aside for his use. The white man then compensates the Kongo Zovo for his loss of use of the land, and the family for loss of use of the trees, etc. In the meantime the Kongo Zovo has warned the prince, who sends his Mafuka, Maxienji, and Mangova to visit the white man and witness the act of self-sacrifice on the part of the Kongo Zovo. They supply the white man with an interpreter, to whom they give the title of Mafuka or messenger. This man watches the interests of the white man and the prince conjointly. When the white man has returned the prince’s messengers with small presents and has settled down a little, the prince, accompanied by his Mambuku, Mamboma, Mafuka, Maxienji, and Mangova and followers, comes to visit him officially.

The white man has to supply these six personages with chairs or stools, and should place upon the prince’s chair a piece of checked cloth called the cloth of law.

The prince then bestows the land upon the white man and his successors. Thereupon the white man takes a position in the country equivalent to the Kongo Zovo, but instead of paying the prince in flesh and fish or the products of the soil, pays the prince so much in goods half yearly or yearly, as well as a certain small percentage on the produce he buys.

Section VI.-Of Successions, Gifts, and Wills.

On hearing of the death of a person all his relations come to “weep.” The wife of the deceased delivers the key of the house, where the wealth is, to the man she knows in the absence of any will to be the rightful inheritor. These are -1. The brother of the deceased by the same mother. 2. Then the nephew by his sister. 3. The relations of his mother. 4. Failing these, his child. The wife he has loved and esteemed the most is the guardian of his wealth and the keeper of the key, but she inherits nothing.

The natural inheritor cannot repudiate his succession; he must take over the debts, not being able to renounce the inheritance.

When about to bury the deceased the inheritor plants a sword in the ground, before the assembled guests, and asks if there is anything more to be paid by him on behalf of the deceased. Any creditor present then goes up to the sword and placing his hand upon it declares that the deceased owes him money or goods, and that he will give particulars of the debt later on. These are considered as proved. Any creditor claiming his money after that must bring his witnesses, and be prepared to substantiate the debt. The wife generally knows all about the debts of her husband.

The wife mourns for her husband (or did) for 18 to 24 months after death; the burial of her husband often taking place about that time.

The members of the family generally help to pay the expenses of the ceremonies in connection with the death of the Kongo Zovo; they then stay with the inheritor or disperse to the families of their mothers. They inherit nothing from the Kongo Zovo except by will.

A man may give away his property during his life, or make his verbal will in the presence of his wife and witnesses. He will call his slaves and tell them that they have been given to so-and-so. Or he may call his children and let them choose their slaves or goods. But this is seldom done, and only to spite the family of his people who may have behaved badly to him.

The gift is made in the presence of witnesses, and is revocable until the death of the giver, if it is to take effect only after death. But a simple gift between the living is irrevocable.

There are no special forms to be observed when a will is made; it is held to be written in the heart of the wife who has the key.

The wife and the witnesses are the executors of the will. The family will often make the widow pass before their fetishes and swear that she is keeping nothing back. They sometimes go further and force her to take “casca”[1] as a test of her honesty.

There can be no revocation of the last will, the matter rests with the wife and witnesses once the husband is dead.

Section VII-Of Contracts.

Contracts may be enumerated as follows:-Those between the King and his neighbours, those between prince and King, those between prince and prince, those between prince and Kongo Zovo, and those between individuals.

[1. Bark of NKASA.]

Treaties or contracts between Kings are brought about by a third party or mutual friend, who acts as intermediary and witness. Between the King or prince and his inferior, the inferior gives the superior a present, and in the presence of witnesses “claps his hands,” “Kalambala nkele maluango nkici.” On the creation of a market a gun is buried, and an agreement made that no arms of any sort may be brought there, and this is done in the presence of witnesses. Between individuals no contract is legal unless made in the presence of witnesses. These compacts are known by the words Nkaka or Nkankano.

The one thing in all these compacts that is essential is that witnesses shall be present, and when it is proposed to cancel a contract the contracting parties buy “malafu” (palm wine) in equal quantities, but deposited in one bottle or other vessel, and then in the presence of witnesses drink and agree to cancel the compact. But in the case of one of the parties refusing to annul the contract, the matter is taken before two or three chiefs or princes and talked out. In the event of the dispute arising out of inequality of service rendered, the division of profits is rearranged, or the contract declared then and there null and void.

All goods, Bima, are freely bought and sold except men, Bantu, the sale of men being a family affair.

A sale becomes definite after the transaction has been accomplished in the presence of witnesses, and the seller has ” blessed it.” He lifts his hands to his arm-pits, and then throws them out towards the buyer, and breathes or blows over the thing sold. This is called Ku vana mula, to give the breath, and is equivalent to saying ” God bless thee.”

Mbongo Masandi (or a piece of grass cloth measuring in length, including fringe, 45 centimetres, and about 25 centimetres in breadth) has been in use as money from time immemorial, although at present it may be said to be out of use, the French coinage gradually taking its place. Four of these small mats were wrapped in one bundle, Vili, and five of these bundles (20 mats) were called Milele Mbongo I Tanu. Ten bundles (40 Vili) Mbongo Fula. One hundred Mbongo Fula (4,000 Vili) were called Kama Mbonga. This was the price of a little slave of about five years of age. This equalled 8 fathoms of cloth,. or about 16 yards, or four francs, that is to say, 1 Vili was equivalent to .001 centime. The white traders’ cloth is now doubled in 12 folds; three folds equals 1 long or “cortado”; and 4 longs or cortados form a piece of cloth sold for two francs. That is to say, one piece of 8 yards 21 inches wide is doubled into 12 folds or 24 laps.

Native custom allows the letting out on hire of men as of things. A native in need of labour might seek a large slave owner and hire slaves or others for the sum of five longs, the duration of the service not being definitely settled. Should one of these slaves die during the service, the hirer had to pass before the fetishes and declare that he had had no hand in his death. Under these circumstances he would pay the owner 20 longs. But if he had wilfully caused the death of the slave, he would have to pay 5 to 10 slaves in his place according to his wealth. The price of the grown slave was 5 times Kama Mbongo or 40 fathoms of cloth Kama Buta. This payment was called Ku Futa Li Bumi. (To pay that which is wasted.)

Slaves; are termed children of the “cloth”, or Muana Ntu “the son of the head,” in reference to the slave as the carrier). The owner is not expected to force a slave to do that which is wrong (Lu Kasu), but if he does the slave must do it, as his master has the right to kill him if he does not, and is himself responsible for the slave’s action.

The domestic servants of a rich man are called Bavinji. A father may ask a friend to take his son as servant and teach him all he knows. Such a boy is called Xileci. The head boy or steward is called Xileci Xi Busu.

There is no lending at interest in our sense of the word. Where a man borrows goods he must pay back double the amount borrowed, no matter for how long a time he has owed them. Unless a certain date for the return of the goods is mentioned, the debt may continue for years. The writer knows of one case where a debt was 15 years old.

A man may lease his cattle to another under the following recognised conditions:-First increase goes to the owner; of the second the caretaker takes a female; of the third a male, the fourth goes to the owner.

A man may commission another to carry on trade for him. He gives him exact instructions, paying him half the profits, but exacts from him or his family any loss incurred. The sender is responsible to the family for any evil that may overtake the one sent provided that it cannot be shown that the evil was the consequence of his own folly. A man on leaving the country may commission his friend to act for him, but the service requested must be mentioned to the man commissioned in the presence of witnesses, and he may only act for him in that particular instance or on that occasion. No procuration to act generally for another is ever given. A present is given to one so acting for another, where no profit can be expected. The act or service accomplished and the profits shared or present given, ends the commission. The family being responsible, no general procuration is needed, for it rests with them always as a matter of fact.

In the event of a time for the repayment of a debt having been fixed, the creditor asks for payment, and if this is put off or refused he has the right to arrest anyone belonging to the debtor’s family. This person is held until the matter has been publicly settled by palaver in the courts of law, when, the debt being paid, the prisoner is set at liberty. The person thus arrested is not necessarily of the same family as the debtor, but he should be of a family in the same princedom or province, that is some one living not very far from the debtor. This captive receives payment from the debtor quite apart from the creditor, but as the result of the judgment of the same palaver. And this is the only form of security for the payment of a debt which the native law provides for.

 

PART II

 

CRIMINAL LAW

Section I.-Of Infraction.

The Bavili have a very distinct idea of the moral and natural law, and classify their sins into five distinct sections of the one great class of laws called Xina or things forbidden, sometimes spoken of as Ka Zila, no road.

The first section is called Xina Xivanga Nzambi, or that which is contrary to God the creator. The sign of this is Mawso, the tail of the ox, the sign of office of the Kongo Zovo.

The second is found in the horror the native has (or had) of being photographed, and in the magic glass of the Nganga Nyambi, who alone is allowed to look into it, to discover the successor of the defunct Maluango, made, as they say in the image of God. This mirror-gazing is called Ku Sala Fumu.

The third we find in the way the mothers correct their children when they talk foolishly of God, this they call Xibika Bakulu.

In illustration of the fourth class. On the fourth day the prince, Kongo Zovo, or father, may have no connection with his wife, he may not go outside of his town, he may not hold a palaver. The doctor or Nganga Bilongo may not bleed his patient. The women may not work in the fields. All this is called Sona.

The fifth comprises all those ceremonies and things forbidden concerning maternity. A woman must not sleep with her husband on the ground. A girl must not have connection with a man before she has passed through the “paint house.” No dishonour to their parents must be thought of. All this is summed up in the word ‘Ngo, the leopard.

These foregoing five Bina (plural of Xina) are summed up as Xina Va Xi Fumba.

The sixth, to kill, is called Ku Vawnda.

The seventh, to commit adultery, Ku Bawnga.

The eighth, to steal, Ku. Kuba.

The ninth to bear false witness, Xi Buta Mambu.

These four are called Xina Nkaka.

Not to covet, to remember that all under the market tree is sacred, and that this tree is also the last resting place of the body of the defunct Maluango, on the way to the burial, after having held the “Seven” well in hand according to the will of God. All this is called Xina Nsotchi or Nsoxi.

Finally, we come to that class Aza Bina, or totems, by which the natives know whom they may marry and whom not, as already mentioned in Section II., i.e., a man may not marry a woman whose Xina or totem is the same as that of his mother’s family. This class is called Xina Mvila. As in the case of the Hebrews, so in that of the Bavili contravention of these laws is believed to be punished by God, by His withholding the rains in due season. Hence the necessity of the offerings made to the “powers” representing the attributes of God on earth, or Ba Kici Baci, of which Maluango is one under the title of Nkicici.

The father, the Kongo Zovo, or the village are responsible in the event of the delinquent’s non-arrest, and even then they must pay their share of the fine, or sell the prisoner into slavery, if he is not rich enough to pay the fine himself.

Children and fools or idiots are not responsible personally for their actions, but the injured party can claim compensation if he likes from the parents.

Killing, etc., in self-defence, robbery of plantations when very hungry, when no deception or secrecy is practised, are regarded as justifiable facts. In each case, however, payment for damage done is expected.

Section II.-Of Punishment.

The idea of the damage done to God, King, prince, father, neighbour, is the ground of the punishment inflicted. The punishment itself being a payment to satisfy the party injured. And this is shown by the fact, that except in the case of children who are chastised, payment in money, kind, or goods is first demanded. But pay you or your family must, if not in money, then by being sold into slavery, or by becoming the slave of the injured party. A man condemned to death may not be slain if there is one dissenting voice in his village. Under these circumstances a goat is killed in his stead. A piece of this goat is given to every member of the community and the culprit is sold. When it is decided to kill the murderer or culprit, the Kongo Zovo, or the prince, must hand the person over to Mamboma, and he hands him to Maluango, who calls his Mankaka (or executioner), and the latter cuts off his head.

Generally speaking, payment in a greater or less degree according to the crime is the rule as to form of punishment. The only exceptions to the above are,-When a man sleeps with a child not yet arrived at the age of puberty (Xina Xinselo) and so causes the wrath of God and a drought and consequent famine. Or when a man presumes to commit adultery with the wife of a prince (Ku sumuna nkawci Luango i matali) to sin against the wife and the royal rites of marriage. In these cases the culprits, male and female, are entirely in the hands of the Maluango, and they are bound hands and feet and cast into the fire. Witches who have taken “casca” and have been proved guilty are also burnt. But even in these extreme cases Maluango can spare their lives.

In the event of the crime being considered as in part justified by circumstances, or in the case of a crime being committed without intention (Mamu Ma Bakici), on the spur of the moment, by a hitherto good man, the King will take him on one side and reason with him, pointing out that he has broken the law and must pay, but only in part, warning him to be more careful in the future.

Slavery may be substituted for either death or nonpayment.

The accomplice is reckoned as blamable as the actual criminal, but the instigator pays more than either, on the principle that a slave does his master’s bidding, and that the master is responsible for his actions.

Each crime has its penalty, but in the event of a man becoming an habitual criminal the penalties may increase to such an extent as to make it worth while on the part of the family to sell or kill the criminal to get him out of the way.

 

PART III

 

JUDICIAL ORGANIZATION AND PROCEDURE

Section 1.

In simple matters a third party is asked in the presence of witnesses to judge between the two parties; if they are not satisfied with this and the palaver is between two of one family the father may judge the matter. If the question is between two of the same Kongo Zovo then this chief may settle it. If between two of different Kongo Zovo then the prince. If between two off different provinces then the question is taken to Mamboma, and this prince takes it before the king Maluango on the day that the latter has marked off for the hearing of the case. Maluango’s Court is the final court of appeal in a natural sense, although he may admit that the case is beyond his powers and refer the parties to the tests by ordeal.

In an ordinary palaver each party puts his side of the question before the third party or Reasoner, called Nzonzi. In case of appeal the Nzonzi appears before Maluango and explains the case to him from beginning to end. If one of the parties lives to the North of Buali (that is Maluango’s province), and the other to the South, then Maluango sits with his back to the East. If the parties live East and West then he sits facing the South. The Nzonzi then stands at the opposite side of a hollow square, the defendant (Ntunyi) and his party, and the plaintiff (Mqwika) and his party, seat themselves at the right or left of Maluango, according to the direction in which their towns lie. To talk a palaver, or rather sit it, is called Ku Funda Nkano. The people reasoning it out, or the two parties, are called Bana Bankano.

The place where the palavers are held may be under a shed or a tree, and is called Nganda Tela Li Misarnu.

The natives recognise at least five kinds of palavers.

1. Concerning the rains and the “powers” (Ku Fwika Mambu Ma Ci).

2. Between the princes concerning the land (Ku Funda NKANOCI).

3. To clear up an intrigue between friends and find out who is at the bottom of it (Ku Zinga Cina).

4. Civil (Mi Samu Ku Sosubula).

5. Criminal (Nkano Ku Funda).

As the judges are the Chiefs, Princes, and King of the country they have no special prerogatives or duties apart from their governing offices.

Generally speaking, each party has an advocate to plead the cause. This advocate is called Nanga.

The attendants or helpers of the judges are those entitled to hold these offices as Chiefs.

Maluango has seven titles, 12 followers, six kinds of Zi-Nganga. Mamboma has two titles of his own and people filling up the other titles of Maluango, except that of Nkicici, which, in Mamboma’s court, is not represented. Then he has also 12 followers and six Nganga in connection with the trials by ordeal.

The followers that the Manifumus of the provinces have in common with Maluango and his Mamboma are:-

1. Mamboma.

2. Mbuku.

3. Mafuku.

4. Maxienji.

5. Mangova.

Maluango’s signs of office are:-

1. Silver knife (Ximpaba).

2. 1 hat (Mpu Ntanda).

3. 1 cape (Xisemba).

his Mamboma:-

1. iron (Ximpaba).

2. 1 hat (Mpu Nzita).

3. 1 cape (Xisemba).

his Mankaka (executioner)

1. sword (Mbele).

2. hat (Mpu Xikumbu).

3. A long cloth (Xinzobolo).

The prince of a province (and Maluango as such):-

1. ivory horn.

2. iron bell.

3. hat (Mpu Nzita).

4. cape (Xisemba).

Kongo Zovo:-

1. the tail of an ox.

2. hat (Mpu Ngunda).

3. cape (Xisemba).

The condition of the plaintiff or defendant does not determine the composition of the palavers and there is no exceptional jurisdiction.

The judge alone is allowed to settle a palaver. The number of helpers or assessors is according to the importance of the palaver.

Section II.

The palaver commences by each party stating his own case, and where there are advocates (ZINANGA), each advocate is instructed by his client beforehand, but may be reminded of any point during the proceedings.

Anyone may sit down and listen to the palaver, and the judgment is very quickly spread about by report.

The procedure, Civil and Criminal, is much as it existed in Europe in barbarous times, ordeals being used instead of legal proceedings where one of the parties fears that his opponent may take an unfair advantage of his poverty, or when legal proceedings have not been successful in clearing the matter up and as a kind of last appeal.

A man is not forced to answer any question until the palaver is held. The head of a family may put one of his people in the yoke or whip him to get him to tell the truth, but torture in legal matters is unknown.

In opening the palaver the prince claps his hands and says, Ngo Ngo Ngo, ngete Nzambi twa dukuna,[1] and thus greets all that are present in the name of God. Then he asks for a drink, and each party gives the same quantity. He then calls on the NANGA to state the case (mayanga manzoa).[2] He swears by the fetish present to speak the truth, and then having stated the case, hands the parties over to the King judge (Nkunzi). The King then orders the plaintiff to speak, which he does after ” beating the fetish,” and insisting upon its not allowing the defendant to interrupt him before his time to speak arrives. When both have finished they both “beat” the fetish, and agree to abide by the judgment, of the King. If it is felt that the palaver

[1. Literally, “Leopard, leopard, leopard, yes, O Nzambi, to keep on extracting.”

2 Statement of the case.]

cannot be finished by “mouth,” they call in the Nganga Bisengo, or Nganga Mbele Ku Mbazu, or Nganga Mbundu Ncitu, who divines who is guilty.

1. In the case of Mbundu Ncitu (a herb) one of each party is called upon to appear before the Nganga. The Nganga first takes the herb himself, and then falls down in the direction of the guilty party. He informs the prince of the fact. The prince then says it will be best to let each party eat the Mbundu Ncitu. This they do; the guilty party falls down, the innocent lets three drops of urine fall on a leaf that is placed between the legs of each party. (This is not the same as the Nganga Nkasa who gives the casca to witches.)

2. Nganga Bisengo has a little box with a tight-fitting lid, which refuses to be parted from the box when the party present is guilty.

3. Nganga Mbele has a heated knife, which will only burn the guilty party.

After judgment the two parties called by the Nganga are brought just as they are to the assembly, and each side takes his representative. The King then tells the culprit how much he has to pay, and the day upon which the payment must be made in his presence. When the payment is made the judge asks them both if they are satisfied, and if the judge is Maluango they place their hands on the ground under his chair, and swear to let bye-gones be bye-gones; if the judge is a Kongo Zovo they put their hands on his head and swear. And after a few words of advice and warning the palaver is finished.

Each day that the palaver lasts, each party pays the judge one large calabash of palm wine. When the judgment is given each party pays Kama (100 mats or cubits, see page 62), ZIMBONGO per diem.

Corporal punishment, as has been stated, is a matter for the father to inflict in his village, refractory prisoners are put in the yoke for the time being, but there are no prisons, and the slave or pawn is just as free of the village as any of the inhabitants.

The prisoner directed to pay a fine or expenses becomes the slave or pawn to the creditor until the amount is paid by his family.

There is very little to alter in either the composition or procedure of the native courts, they are the outcome of thousands of years of accumulated experience of a people who know themselves and their needs. Rather do the natives need a taking back to their ancient customs, before the “slave trade” and its abuses destroyed so much of their natural beauty. While some natives may have benefited by their contact with the white races, it is certain that the ignorance of the latter of their ways of thought and action has done the race a great deal of injury, which only time and study can possibly repair.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER VI

 

MEASURES, SIGNS, AND SYMBOLS

Palavers. -Counting on the Hands.-The Fingers.-Lineal Measures.-The Shroud. -Duodecimal System. -Time. -Days and Months.-Sexual Matters. -The Seasons. -Praying for Rain. -Symbols. -Drum Language.

 

PROCEDURE OF PALAVERS, COUNTING.

IF I had not read Mr. R. A. Stewart Macalister’s Studies in Irish Epigrapy and had been asked to decipher an Ogham inscription, I should have had no hesitation in saying that it was a record of some ancient African palaver. When the Bavili hold their palavers, after having met and settled down as described by me in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort,[1] the party on either side smooth the earth just in front of them. Upon this smoothed ground they keep count of all the points in the arguments in the palaver for and against.

No. 1 begins by stating the case; and as he opens the palaver he makes a point with the tip of his index-finger upon the ground. He then states that so-and-so has robbed him, and this statement he marks by a stroke which he places just after the dot, thus:-

Then No. 2 defends himself, and as he does so No. 1 marks the points in his defence by strokes below a line he draws to divide his side of the question from that of the accused. The palaver then might stand thus:-

[1. And in Laws of the Bavili.]

No. 1 then answers these denials or justifications of the robbery, and as he does so makes his strokes above the line:-

Then No. 1 gives his proofs, but first makes a dot to show that another phase of the palaver has been entered upon, and another oration commenced:-

No. 2 answers him, restating his case:-

No. I then sums up, and as it is getting late, cuts the palaver for the day; so that, if this ” tally” had been kept on stone or wood, the palaver, as far as it had gone, would appear as under:-

The cutting of the line, or closing of the palaver, is done by drawing a double line with the index and next finger across the dividing line.

Now, in counting, the Bavili mark the ground also, and all this they call “Bisona bintawto,” writing on the ground. In counting they make four strokes on the ground, and the fifth they make by crossing the four upright strokes, thus:

No. 1 he marks with his index-finger; No. 2 with his second, covering the first mark with the index-finger. No. He marks with his index-finger; No. 4 sometimes with his index-finger and sometimes with his second finger, running over No. 3 with his index-finger; No. 5, as stated, by crossing the four strokes.

Sometimes he will count by tens. Then he marks two strokes with his index and second fingers, and so on five times, and then he makes a stroke apart to show that he has counted ten. Each ten are marked in this way, until the whole number of things are counted. Then he will count the number of strokes and declare the number counted. But when he counts on his fingers he begins by placing the index-finger of his right hand upon the little finger of his left hand.

I found that both the Bavili (of Luango) and the BAKOTCHI of Kakongo had their variants of the old nursery rime for fingers or toes. I will give them both, as they differ.

BAVILI.

1. Second Finger (no name)

Minu i kula i kula e fuana i munto Ko

2. Index-Finger (Luzala xiso anzo)

Minu xilandi Xiaku

3. Third Finger (no name)

Oho nu kulila ngolo ximbixi mibakaci?

4. Little Finger (Luzala lu sa)

Bene boso nu kulila minu unkuluntu inu?

5. Thumb (Luzala mbo mbo)

Buau i mangina lu naungu lu inu lu keli inu buau i botokula mundonga inu.

TRANSLATION.

1. There is no man so tall or equal to me.

2. Index-finger:

I am the one that follows.

3. 3rd Finger:

How much do you gain by being taller and stronger?

4. Little Finger: a very old man, they say, the primeval

What do you all gain by being tall? I am thy chief

5. The Thumb:

For this reason I who am not your equal am by myself, for this I left you (on account of constant strife).

THE KAKONGO VERSION.

The first two lines are the same.

3. Ayi nguli, ayi muna, tate, ximbixi nubakac?

4. Nsambixi nkotala ku nkwandi tata i nguli?

5. Lu naungu. lu inu i yaka na mundonga, inu.

TRANSLATION:

1. There is no man equal or as tall as I am.

2. I come after thee.

3. And what do you gain by it, Mother and Father?

4. Why does he raise the question (of?) his Father and Mother?

5. Your one apart is your slave.

The Kabinda woman who gave me the Kakongo version explained that the little finger claimed to be the chief (or the first?) because the little finger and the “tragus” of the ear were the first parts of a child in conception to be formed.

The Bavili use beads also to count with (BILABU or the blue glass beads); LABU as pere Visseg tells us is the most subtle part of fire.

Thus (to-day rarely but) twenty years ago generally if you watched the Bavili counting you would notice that when he counted one he would put two beads on the ground, two, two more, and so on until he had counted four, when he would place two apart. These he would amass, and then place two beads on one side, so that when he had counted eight he would have two heaps of ten each plus four beads or 24 in all. These he would amass again and place one on one side (25 or one generation) so that when he had counted forty he really had 80 + 16 + 4 = 100.

Now the word for ten is Kumi (from KUMA to cause, to reason) and ten is the square root of KAMA, a word meaning (the royal wife and) 100.

The smallest measure that I know of is what the natives call XITINI, that is from the tip of the middle finger to the bottom of its joint or its root in the palm of the hand. It measures two nails or 41/2 inches, and is used in measuring tobacco, long strings of which are cut up into these BITINI. The value of the XITINI of tobacco was 36 BILABU or beads, two Bitini make one MBOKANA (palm) and two MBOKANA make one LUBONGO ZIFULA (or a piece or native grass cloth measuring 18 inches or a cubit). Its value being 144 beads.

2 ZIMBONGO= I MAKABA or yard.

2 MAKABA = I NTAMA or fathom, and this may be said to be their standard measure.

Three NTAMA (or 12 mats in one bundle)=one MBONDO, while four MBONDO=One NLELE BIFUNZI (or 48 mats) or the bundle that a man is expected to contribute towards any of his wife’s near relations’ funeral expenses. These mats are sewn together also for the purpose of shrouds, thus six mats make a SAMBANO, complete cloth, four of which are sewn together to look as if there were only three to make a shroud, That is to say, two are first sewn together, then two more, and one of the latter is allowed to fall on one of the former just to cover it and then sewn that way, so that one complete shroud is composed Of 24 pieces or ZIMBONGO ZIFULA.

The King is first wrapped in one shroud (24 cubits). After an interval when his body has been dried, he is wrapped in three shrouds (72 cubits), and finally, just before burial in six shrouds, or 144 cubits. The NLELE BIFUNZI is valued at 7,200 beads.

120 Beads= 1 LOMBi or string.

1,400 ” or 12 MILOMBI = 1 XIKO or a bunch (50).

14,400 ” or 10 BIKO = 1 NSUKU or KAMA 400.

144,000 ” or 10 MISUKU = 1 XIVIEVE (1000).

In the olden days cottons were sent out in accordance with the demand of the natives in pieces 24 yards long doubled in 24 laps or 12 folds. In 1880 the length was 20 yards, in 1883 it went down to 18 yards, and latterly, when the trader was obliged to pay import dues and taxes to the different Governments, the length quickly fell to eight yards.

In the same way the Germans sent out strings of only 100 beads (believing in the superiority of the decimal system) until at last the natives refused to receive them in exchange for ivory.

The sun and moon are the great time markers of the Bavili, the heavens their mighty clock.

They divide the night and day into 12 periods of two hours each. They call this period LO or rather XELO a cutting (plural BILO).

From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. they call XELO XITOMBE XITOMBE or the little darkness.

”   8 p.m. to 10 p.m. they call XELO XITOMBE darkness.

”   10 p.m. to 12 p.m. XELO KATA XIBWICI.

”   12 a.m. to 2 a. m. MIXELO-XELO the little cuttings.

”   2 a.m. to 4 a.m. MWECI XELO the smoke cutting.

”   4 a.m. to 6 a.m. MWECI smoke or the revealer.

”   6 a.m. to 8 a.m. MBOTA MAULA the star MAULA.

”   8 a.m. to 10 a.m. LUBACI LUASEKA of the custom of the people of corruption.

”   10 a.m. to 12 a.m. MENE NGWALI (early partridge) morning.

”   12 p.m. to 2 p.m. TANGA MBATA to count the stroke, to throb.

”   2 p.m. to 4 p.m. MBUKU LUBWICI the birth of the falling.

”   4 P.m. to 6 p.m. TANGA MACIKA to count the sinking.

The night they call the deep of the heavens, BUILU; the day, LUMBU, of the custom of the deep.

There are four days in the week.

(1) NDUKA, the day when palavers are finished.

(2) NTONA. The day when women do not plant, and burials take place, followed by the dance MASUKU.

(3) CILO. The day when the family fetishes MPUMBU, NGOFO and XIMPUKA are consulted about death palavers, and Manioc is taken out of the water.

(4) SONA. Perhaps short for SUNGA virtue. The day when no one is allowed to pass the NKUMBI tree save women going for water. Man’s day of rest, the women’s market day. Only women sell in the market.

Thus there are seven weeks in the Bavili month. His year is composed of thirteen months, which he divides into three great divisions, one of one month, one of four months, and one of eight. MAWALALA, XICIFU, and NVULA is the beginning and end of the year, the dry season and the rainy season. And there are three great Zinganga presiding over these three divisions of the year. NGANGA NVUMBA the King, NGANGA BUNCI, who doctors sterility in men, and NGANGA FUNZA, who doctors barren women so that they may become fruitful. MAWALALA is also a season.

The other twelve months are then arranged into six seasons as under:-

The season MWICI (smoke) produces as food the pea, NKASA and the names of the two months in this time are BULU MACI MAVOLA (the deep of rain water), and BULU MACI MBU (the deep of the sea waters).

The next season is BUNJI (literal meaning mist) producing the new green grass called MBUNDUBUNDU.

The two months in this season are called BIKA LI MUANDA XICIVU (to leave the valley of mist) and MUANDA XICIVU (the valley of mist).

During the season Mwici the men hunt and fish while the women gather FUBU leaves for their mat and basket work. The season BUNJI is devoted by the men to the burning of the grass, hunting, and cutting down of the forests to form new plantations, while the women busy themselves in the making of mats and baskets.

The season of drizzling rains is called MVUMVUvu, and it produces BUKU or mushrooms. The names of the months are KUFULu NKACI and KUFULU NUNI (negative and positive burning or desire).

This season is occupied by the men putting new roofs on their houses and repairing them generally, while the women sow their seed and prepare to plant manioc and sweet potatoes. It is now that the BAVILI’S thoughts turn lightly to love and marriage, and as a great deal of false modesty is to be noticed in the writings of some authors of books about the Kongo, and as it leads to a good deal of misunderstanding,[1] it may be well to state clearly what the ideas of the Bavili are on this subject.

The great power BUNZI objects strongly to unmarried women; increase and multiply are his standing orders. Virginity therefore after one has come to the age of puberty

[1. I mention this because in one translation of the Gospels the Virgin Mary is called NDUMBA.]

is almost unknown, and is not a state which a woman can be proud of When speaking of the virgin earth the Bavili say ANCI I BUNA I BUTICI XIMAKA, “the earth as yet has not brought forth anything,” but speaking of a maiden they say XINKUMBI I BUNA KU NETA XIVUMU KO, “the maiden’s stomach has not yet carried anything.” A child before it arrives at the age of puberty is called XINKUMBA, but when she has arrived at that age and is still a virgin she is called XIKUMBI XIMBUILA. A woman who has lost her virtue is called NDUMBA. The name for an ordinary wife is NKACI, a royal wife NKAMA.

The next season is that of the WAW WAW WAW rains, and it produces the KUSAFU or NSAFU, a small green fruit something like a date in shape. KACI MBANGALA and NUNI MBANGALA, i.e., the negative and positive witness, are the names of the months. The name of these rains is also an exclamation used to express “listen! look! as it was, so it is again, the thief!”

MBANGALA carries with it the idea of exposure and the fear that causes one to run away (WANGALA). KUSAFU means the exhibiting or the sprouting of the tree.

The next season is that of the female rains NVULA NXENTU, and this brings forth fruit MAKUNDI. The months are BIKA LI MUANDA SUNJI and MUANDA SUNJI.

During the month of BIKA LI MUANDA SUNJI the female rains hurry on all fruit to a state of ripeness, so that when they cease in the next month (the little dry season) the people can gather in their harvest. It is said to leave sufficient moisture in the ground to last over the month of MUANDA SUNJI.

Just before the new moon that heralds in this last month (the seventh month of the Hebrews) the Bavili gather the large leaves of the herb LEMBELEMBE, and with them cover up their fetishes; this they call KUBATA BAKICI. These then remain covered until the next new moon appears, when, after having chewed the pepper NXEFU ZIMPUMBU and the leaves of the LUSAKU-SAKU, the Bavili splutter the contents of their mouths upon them to wake them up; this they call KUSAKA MUNA BAKICL

MAKUNDI =fruits. KUNDA is to do homage by throwing oneself on the ground and rubbing the earth with the sides of the palms of one’s hands and then touching the sides of one’s face with them. MUANDA SUNJI=the deep, valley, or soul of the cycle. SUNJI NDUNGO is the skin that is stretched over the hollow of the drum. SUNJIKA is to clear up and straighten (a complicated palaver).

NSUNJI YADUKA means the cycle is ended, referring to the end of a season or a year. Such is the picture of fruitfulness, as the result of pregnancy caused by the life-saving rains.

The last season is that of the male rains, NVULA MBAKALA, producing the palm kernel MBA, and comprising the months NDOLO NKAU and NDOLO NUNI.

And this is the end of the cycle of seasons.

 

PRAYING FOR RAIN IN FJORTLAND (KONGO).

The rainy season should commence in the Kongo about the middle of the month of September, that is, in the month called Kufulu Nkaci (negative desire), but in 1898 the rains came a little before their time, and the old men looked sadly on and prophesied a drought. Month followed month and scarce a shower fell, and the people began to cry out against their rulers for having neglected their duty to their Bakici Baci, or primeval powers on earth, of which Nzambi or God is the personal essence or spirit. In 1896 the same thing occurred and a famine scoured the land; the people blamed Nganga Vumba, or their king elect, who had not yet been crowned Maluango, and that poor old man left his Xibila (sacred ground) in the province of Buali and sought refuge in his natal village. This year, Maluango existing but in name, the slave Mamboma is acting in his place. Thus in answer to the cry of the people the sacred groves of Nyambi (vis vitae) the nephew of Bunzi in Kakongo, the south wind and the giver of rain, and that of Senza, the west wind, were cleaned up and once more put in order; and the goods necessary were collected by him (Mamboma) and sent in the name of Maluango to Bunzi to pray him to send the rain to the now parched country of the Bavili (people of Luango). Bunzi received their gifts, but Nzambi heard not their prayer, and the rain came not.

After an eloquent sermon at the mission a priest informed the congregation that special prayers would be offered to Almighty God that He might be pleased to forgive the sins of the people and send them rain, but the good priest reminded them that their sins might be such that God could not overlook, and so He might, in spite of the prayers of the faithful, refuse to grant their petition. And God did not hear their prayers, and no rain came.

And the Zi Nganga, or priests of the groves of Nyambi and Senza, sought hard for the cause of God’s wrath, and they divined that it was on account of the immorality of certain persons unknown, who were ignoring the traditions and laws of their God and country. Then Mamboma sent word to his Kongo Zovo, or chiefs, that there were people in their towns who were the cause of God’s wrath. And the Kongo Zovo each in his district called his people together and bid them make the necessary inquiries. And it was discovered that three girls were pregnant, who had ignored the customs of their country and had been defiled by men before having passed through the “paint-house.”

As there is much misconception abroad about this custom of putting maidens into the paint house, originating no doubt in the first impressions of people who without a proper study of the subject have concluded that it must be bad because it is a custom of a people living in a different stage of civilisation from their own, let us digress for a moment to describe it. We in England know what it is to suffer from the vicious fables of ignorant scribes bent on informing the Continental public of all the evil that exists amongst us. We cannot blame the public in question for the opinions they have formed of us, we can only pity them, and curse the idiots who have only studied one side of our character, or who have come to us so prejudiced that even our virtues are distorted by them into some cute scheme of the devil to put them off what to them may seem a true appreciation of our character. So it is with the European and the African generally; the European is white and therefore pure, the African black and therefore impure. And all the good we find in him, we proudly put down, not to the influence of God who has been with him from the beginning, but to our own good influence. And so, when we drop from our atmosphere of twentieth century refinement and find ourselves after a few days’ sea voyage in the middle of twelfth and thirteenth century frankness, we are apt to see sin and immodesty where really neither exists.

At the first signs of puberty the maiden’s (xikumbi) family rejoice, and the men fire off their guns. Then a small hut or shed is built outside the town for the girl. The hair of her head is shaved off and her whole body is covered with takula, or the powdered red wood mixed with water. Thus painted the maiden retires with friends of hers who have already gone through the ceremony to the little hut. Here she is presented with a fowl, or if the family cannot afford this, an egg. The maiden rests here for six days while her companions watch and amuse and feed her during the day, serving her as if she were a princess, and at night singing and dancing to the music of the misunga (the great dried pod of the Baobab tree).

In the meantime a nice shimbec or hut is built for her in town, wherein two beds are placed. Upon one of these, accompanied by two of her older friends, the maiden sleeps, while the other is placed at the disposal of her other and younger friends. Each day she twice submits to the painting process, and for four or five months is not permitted to work in any way.

When the time comes for her to be handed over to her husband, one of his relations proceeds to this shimbec at the break of day, and pulls her bed out of the hut by one of its legs. If she is not yet engaged to be married, then it is her father who pulls the bed out into the open. Then all the women of the maiden’s family, carrying umbrellas and clean clothes and ornaments for her, take her down to the salt water, and beat the paint off her with pliant twigs; then they proceed to the nearest fresh water stream and wash and dress. The maiden’s legs are loaded with great brass rings, her arms with smaller ones, while her neck and waist are hung with all the family’s coral, across her breast a coloured handkerchief is hung, and the general colour of the cloth or skirts hanging to her waist is red; an umbrella completes her outfit. Then a procession is formed, and all her friends, twirling their umbrellas, sing and march through the town or towns on their way home again. All along the route the young men in the towns come out and dance before her, presenting her with some small offering. Then she is taken to her husband, and dancing is kept up during the night.

And now to return to the search for the evil doers. When it became known that the Kongo Zovo were in earnest, and meant to punish the three girls and their defilers, their families hid them away, so that the people, who were now thoroughly aroused, became very angry. The month of Mbangala Nuni (December) had nearly passed, and the sun-scorched stocks of the fruitless Indian corn shook their rustling leaves in mockery around the native huts, and the shrivelled leaves of the native bean lay black and crisp upon the ruddy soil, while the sweet potato shoots planted beneath the mandioca had flowered and withered long ago. Their mandioca and their half sulky palm trees alone remained, and granted that it rained shortly, might still be saved to them. The mango trees, that during the last drought had born them two great crops of their luscious fruit, this year had scarcely deigned to bear at all.

On New Year’s Day, as I was on my way home, I noticed a crowd of women hooting and beating a girl, who was running away from them. That girl was one of the three. She got away to her village, and prematurely gave birth to a child. Time was given to her to recover, and January 23rd was the day marked for the great dance in Maluango’s capital, when the girl and her defiler should pay the penalty due to their God, King, and country for their crime. The custom is that the crime committed shall be proved against the culprit before the King and the people assembled, and the penalty is that the culprits shall be shamed by dancing naked before all the people, who heated gravel and bits of glass and threw them at the man and girl as they ran the gauntlet. The culprits were then obliged to buy some very expensive medicine by way of a fine to appease the Bakici Baci. I do not say that death may not in some cases be the penalty, but Maluango alone has the power of life and death over free men, and the people themselves would have to answer to him if they took the law into their own.hands, and killed a sinner of this kind before a proper trial had taken place. But before the 23rd the man and the girl in question had run away.

In the meantime, the people in the villages around the mission had discovered the second girl who had broken the laws of her country. So they went to her town to arrest her. But she had run away, so they tore up the plantations round about, and eased their wrath in that way.

Then the head of the mission, understanding that the. people wished to kill the girl, very properly wrote to the administrator to ask him to interfere in the matter. The administrator then arrested one of the Kongo Zovo, and kept him prisoner until the culprits should be delivered up to him. And on January 27th the culprits were brought before him, and on that morning it rained.

 

SOME SYMBOLS.

Questions of this sort are settled by the people; but in some cases the palaver is considered too important for human interference; then the man wears a badge (Pl. II, b) with various symbols upon it.

The great symbols which the Fjort describe upon their carved sticks, or on their cloths, are as follows:-

“Ntangu Ntangu, The Sun.”

Vana vamonikana ntangu mbata. ina.

This sign signifies: ” Even if I keep putting off talking the palaver with you, we will talk it out when the sun at midday is unclouded.”

Ngonde Ngonde, The Moon.

Vana vantentimina ngonde katekuici.

The same meaning, but at midnight when the moon shines brightly.

Axe.

Xitali kukuanga nunkuanga kwinu.

When a man is about to die he says: “You may be killing me, but there is one who will avenge me.”

Hoe.

Nkuku sengo kufua nkuku li ambu (kufua) mpe. ” The hoe may rust and vanish, but the word lasts for ever.” This refers of course to their everlasting palavers, but it has the higher sense also.

Ngonje.

Beno nuzabici minu i li fumu’nci Budu lu ncikila ngonje. ” Let all know that only on the death of a Prince, and by a Prince, can the ngonje be struck.”

Bikula.

The four royal drums, representing the four fingers on the hand.

Bikula ouaci ku muntu ku fua bikula ku cikila mpe una ba cikila fumu ci.

“The drums that are heard by man only on the death of a great prince, and not at other times.”

Ma Ku Ku.

The three lumps of ant-hill-earth, which women place under their pots to support them while their food is being cooked.

Ma Ku Ku ba tatu nzunga ku duku ka mpe.

“A pot on three stones does not upset.”

When a woman comes with a matet [1] upon her head in which bottles of water are carried, she places them at her husband’s feet, and if well educated, salutes him by clapping her hands three times, and says “makuku batu nzunga kuduku ka mpe.”

One day an old lady visited me. She had taken nkasa, the poisonous bark, to prove to the world that it was not she who had caused death. She was wearing the red collar to show the people that she had taken nkasa and that successfully.

On one side of this red neck-scarf or collar, which is bound with white tape, were represented the moon, a native axe and a native hoe, and at the bottom the sun. This picture gives us the idea of the moon’s place in creation, as the woman working with hoe and axe to supply man with food. On the other side were roughly represented the death-drum “Bikula,” and a woman carrying a load upon her head, above the three makuku (or tops of small ant-hill) upon which the woman’s cooking pot is placed. And where the two ends of the collar are joined together, a negro bell is attached.

Now when the BAVILI make a solemn oath (KU LEVA MPECI) they wet their finger and make the sign of the Cross upon the earth and then touch their earth-covered finger with their tongue.

General as this custom is even far inland, I have always

[1. Long native basket made of palm leaves.]

looked upon it as one possibly introduced into the country by the early Portuguese.

Mr. Bentley translates the word cross EKULUZU, while Pere Derouet gives the word KRUSSU, these are of course derived from the Portuguese word “Cruz.”

Now in the capitals of all Kongo’s once great provinces (now Kingdoms) four roads called NZILA NZAMBI or God’s roads meet, and where they cross or rather separate they are called MAVAMBA, and these roads come from the East and West and North and South and represent the four great winds, MABILI the East from whence their religious ideas come, SENZA the strong West wind representing morality, XIKAMACI the North wind representing matter, reason and evil, and BUNZI the South wind representing the deep of the nervous system, the rain giver.

The signs by which the natives represent the Cross they call ZILA (or way), and it is of the TAU form with the additions at the lower extremity of the inverted horns of the Antelope called MBAMBISA. It is used on the collar of red saved list, worn by those who have taken the powdered bark “NKASA,” the ordeal to prove that they are not witches. It says “We were of one . . . . stock and travelled by one way until this palaver parted us.”

On Friday, January 5, 1900, Matueka came to see me, he informed me he had taken “casca.” He was wearing the usual red collar round his neck and I asked him to explain the symbols worked in patchwork on it.

The sign near the top of the right shoulder, he said, we call nzila mavamba, , and it means that we were born of one mother, and were one until strife divided us. The next sign, xala mioko, is a seed that opens and separates easily, and shows that I was open handed and generous. Then the bellows, nsakaso, points to the fact that it was my relations that caused me to treat them as I have done. The nozzle to the bellows, , called nxelo, explains that we were sons of one father, and that I, the son of one wife, had to contend against my three half brothers, sons of another wife, The three ant-hills, makuku matatu, , tell you that I called witnesses, saluted them three times, and told them all about the palaver. The mat, mbonda fulla , says that I put my accusers on one side just as they have placed me on one side.; , ntanji or chair, points out that I was given a nice place in the town where I took casca, and was well treated. Then Mbambisa, the horns of an antelope, explains that I asked the question, “What did I do to cause this dividing of the ways of the children of one father.” And the smaller drums “bikula, , say, ” Why was I forced to beat the Bikula and so let all the world know that I was an outcast from my family?” Then when I had taken the bark and proved my

innocence, I beat the drum ndungu ilo, as the sign big drum, shows, to let the world know that I was innocent. And I sent the ngonje, , or bell to my people to announce the day of my return to town. And the Ximpaba, or knife of office was sent to my accusers to demand damages.[1]

 

THE TRIBAL MARKS OF THE PEOPLE BETWEEN LUANGO AND BRAZZAVILLE.

The Batexi, or Bateki, who say they are from the same Mother as the Bavili, file their front teeth to two points, and mark each side of their face with three marks .

The Bakuni file their front teeth to six points, and mark their face with six strokes.

The Bavili file their front teeth to four points, and mark their stomachs thus:-

The Bakamba file their front teeth to six points, and have from one to three crocodiles tattooed on their stomachs.

The Bayaka and Basanji file their front teeth to two points, and have six keloids, in the form of lizards, on their stomachs.

 

DRUM LANGUAGE.

In 1881, we in Landana heard of the wreck of the mail steamer Ethiopia off Luango, sixty or seventy miles away, one or two hours after its actual occurrence, in Luango, by drum message.

[1.These rough diagrams represent as nearly as possible the very rough patchwork figures on the red collar.]

This wonderful drum is called NKONKO, and is formed of a log of wood some six feet long. This log is then rounded; pieces at each end of what is destined to be the top side of the drum are left in the rough, to be carved and ornamented. From these pieces (nearly from end to end that is) a long thin slit or cut is made. This incision is about two inches deep and three finger-widths broad in the middle, narrowing at each end to two finger-widths. The rounding is then continued to the depth of the incision, then the drum is hollowed out by means of long chisels or gouges.

The drum being made, a good operator with his drumsticks can say anything he likes upon it in his dialect. The drum-language (so-called) is not limited to a few sentences but, given a good operator and a good listener, comprehends all a man can say.

I. The sound I (ee) is formed by operator striking the side of the drum nearest to him, just in the centre of the drum, on the line of the incision.

U is formed by hitting the belly of the drum on both sides at the same time, when they say the sound comes out at either end of the incision.

A is sounded by beating the line of incision to your left, near to that end of the drum.

O, by beating the line of incision to the right of the I.

E, by striking the line of incision on both sides of the drum between the letters A and I.

The other letters are formed in combination with these vowel sounds by striking the line with a second drum stick with more or less of emphasis or precision.

The call to arms:-In yako-in yako-i zi fula i me yela.

Here (we are ready)-(get ready) there both powder and ball.

To call the men who are in the bush to town:-Beno boso nu duka.

You all (gather) together (in town) caution.

And when the native hears that an enemy is approaching, he advises him to come well prepared, or he will suffer:-Nu ba intu for bantu.[1]

You men.

In the early part of 1895 I sent the schooner Olhanensa from Luango to a place some sixty miles north, called Konkwatti, for the purpose of picking up some cargo there. One morning about ten o’clock my head man came to me, and after some hesitation told me that he had heard that the schooner was ashore. I could get nothing more definite out of him except that he had heard the “news.” I knew enough about the rapidity with which bad news travels to believe that this misfortune must have occurred, and set about making the necessary preparations for despatching boats and implements to her rescue, so that the next day, when the messenger confirming the news arrived, all was ready and immediately forwarded. It appeared that the schooner had come ashore during the night previous to the arrival of the unofficial news, which probably had not been communicated to me until some time after it was the common property of the natives; that is to say, the news had travelled the sixty miles or so in three or four hours.

[1. This is particularly interesting, as giving the key to a perennial puzzle, revived during the Boer war, viz: How does news travel among the natives in the speedy way it does?]

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER VII

 

BAVILI PSYCHOLOGY

The Soul. -Shadows. -Black Magic. -Ghosts. -The Future of the Soul.Witchcraft.

 

THE SOUL.

WHEN I read that according to the observation of Mr. So-and-So the same word is used among a certain people for breath, shadow, ghost, and soul, I do not conclude that the observer in question is wrong. Neither, however, am I led to suppose that these four distinct ideas are one in the mind of those people. I know how hard it is for an observer of primitive, arrested, or degraded people’s thoughts to get at their real meaning, and I know that in some cases one word may stand for four distinct ideas.[1] Even in the country in which I have lived, although the white man has been there over four hundred years, I doubt if there are many who could enter into this subject with any great hope of giving you a definite idea of the difference the native draws between life shadow, breath, and intelligence on the one hand, and ghost, soul, and spirit on the other.

 

XI DUNDU OR SHADOW.

I remember when it was considered a crime for a person in this part of the country to trample on or even to cross the shadow of another, more especially if the shadow were that of a married woman. This shadow the Bavili call Xi dundu.

[1. Take the word MABILI for instance.]

To-day people are still very particular about passing one another; but a new-comer would be rather reminded of the custom at home that it is rude to pass in front of anyone, and inclined to put this habit down to a native’s natural politeness.

At night the Xi dundu is said to sleep[1] in the body of its owner; and that it is considered a very vital part of man we gather from the fact that should an ndoxi, or dealer in black arts, rob a sleeper of his Xi dundu, he is said to take away his life. The Xi dundu enters and comes out of the body by the mouth (Munu), and is then likened to the (Muvu) breath of a man. When a man dies, he is said to have no shadow, even as he has no breath. Thus, in the mind of the Bavili both Xi dundu and Muvu are part of mortal man, and die with him. But when a person swoons, or has a fit, or is in a trance, they say some ndoxi has taken his Xi dundu, and it is just at his pleasure to return it or not. Should you kill the ndoxi, the Xi dundu in question would escape with another member of the ndoxi’s family. Supposing even that you think you know the ndoxi who has secured your friend’s shadow, you may not go to him and ask him to return it; you must get two or three zinganga to confirm your supposition, who shall visit the sick person and cry out to the ndoxi to leave the person alone, and then threaten to call out his name if he does not return the Xi dundu; then if it is not returned you must knock some fetish, calling his name out, so that if the ndoxi does not return the Xi dundu he will surely die.

 

XIMBINDI, OR REVENANT.

We have already learnt a good deal about the Ximbindi in the tales in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort.[2]

After death the Ximbindi of a person may rest in the house in which he dies for twenty days, after which it goes off to the woods and lives the very natural kind of life described in the above tales. But the Ximbindi of an ndoxi may haunt the place he died in for ever.

[1. This belief is obviously derived from the fact that at night a man’s shadow disappears. How far the statement in the text requires modification when there is moonlight I am unable to say.

2. pp. 11-16, 115, 156.]

It is believed that if a person ever sees the Ximbindi of one of his relations he will die, and should anyone be beaten by a Ximbindi, that person certainly has not long to live.

An ndoxi who has the proper medicine (mpanga) is spoken of as having the power of “Nyungala.” Such an ndoxi catches and keeps Bimbindi, and sends them out to beat and kill living persons. This ndoxi has also the power to send the leopard to kill people, or the crocodile to drown them and to carry their Bimbindi away under the waters to some island in the river Kongo, where he collects them previous to selling them to the white man, whom they serve as slaves, and make cloth for him beneath the blue sea far away.

The girl mentioned in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort[1] as living in Malela, and as having died and been buried there, and then sold in Boma as a slave, and who afterwards came back to her family, was supposed to be under the influence of Nyungala by her parents. Since giving this example of a living Ximbindi I have heard of another case. A girl of the village of Lumbembika, in the upper Lukula river in Kakongo, died and was buried. Some time after this her mother, having made a long journey into the bush, came across her daughter, and asked her how she got there. She said that she had been sold to the chief of that town. After some palavers and delay she was brought back to her town, where she lived as a Ximbindi. She was forbidden to go near the place where she had been buried. The only difference people noticed about her was that her will was not her own, and that her eyes were like those of a person who had been drinking.[2]

Xilunzi, or ndunzi, the intelligence, dies, so they say, with man, and a Ximbindi is simply a tool in the hands of the ndoxi and has no ndunzi.

 

NKULU, VOICE OR SOUL OF THE DEAD.

The Bakulu, or souls, of the BAVILI have nothing to do with witches, shadows, or ghosts, or breath, or even intelligence; they are the guiding voices of the dead. They prefer

[1. p. 11

2 It is by no means impossible that she was under hypnosis.]

to dwell in the heads of some of their near relations, and are placed there as described in the “Death and Burial of the Fjort.”[1] If they are not fortunate enough to find such a habitation, they are said to hover about the outer division or verandah of the houses of their relations. They are never seen. They mourn with their relations when in trouble, and long to help them. And they say that if every one of the Bavili were destroyed to-morrow, these Bakulu would hover about in the grass around their towns for ever and ever.

I was very much touched the other day, when present at the funeral of a woman whom I had learnt to respect very much, to note the careful way in which the brother picked up the sacred earth from the grave of his now buried sister. His wife held out the end of the red cloth serving as her husband’s waistband, and he carefully placed the earth in it. She then doubled the cloth over it, and tied the whole into a knot. This earth at some future date will be placed by some nganga in the little horn “Likawla,” or then in the little tin box “Nkobi,” so that the Nkulu of the dead sister may be placed in the head of some living relation, and her guiding voice be once more heard by those who loved her.

There are apparently six kinds of KULU among the Bavili, three belonging to the MUNTu NZAMBI class and three to the MUNTO A NDONGO class-that is to say, three pertaining to the higher or moral nature of man, and three to his lower and physical nature.

1. Nkulu bakakata (or the soul of our ancestors) causes women to bear offspring. (This is connected with the BAKICI BACI or sacred groves, but I have not found any traces of reincarnation.)

2. Nkulu npunu is also an ancestral soul that causes babies to fall sick.

3. Nkulu yianzi is the soul of one who has just died. It is placed in the head of a living relation for the purpose of consultation.

4. The muntu nzambi will not reckon as “nkulu” the nkulu ndoxi (nkulu of the person dealing in witchcraft).

[1. Folklore, viii, 136.]

This nkulu of the dead witch only a witch seeks to have placed in his head. It is a sore point with the BAVILI, and they prefer to tell us that the nkulu of a witch ceases at his death.

5. Nkulu mbuila, a very destructive locust.

6. Nkulu xilunga.[1] Both 5 and 6 have medicines attached to them to be given to women whose “courses have been greatly delayed for some cause.

Those who have read either Seven Years among the Fjort or my Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort may remark that the Nkasa tree has not been mentioned as a sacred tree. It will be remembered that the powdered bark of the Nkasa tree is given to suspected witches and wizards as a test to prove their innocence or guilt. If the accused vomit the noxious medicine, they are innocent. If the poison is retained, it either poisons the witch or else acts as a strong purge, when the culprit is set upon and killed, the body burnt, and the ashes scattered to the wind. No burial was granted to this temple of “Ndongo.”

This witchcraft or fetishism (I use the word in the sense given to this part of BAVILI philosophy by the Portuguese sailors and missionaries of old) is just the evil counterpart of Nkicism (in the ancient acceptation of the word).

The BAVILI thus to this day describe themselves as BANTU NZAMBI, men of God, or BANTU A NDONGO, men of the black art; but all who think themselves Bantu nzambi are not necessarily such, for while among the Bantu a ndongo there are people who are aware that the evil power is in them (and these are those that are burnt, after death), there are others, on the other hand, who have lived with ndongo in their stomachs all their lives without knowing it. In fact, the painful truth is only brought to light after death, when the ndongo, who hates the idea of being tightly wrapped up and buried deep in the bowels of Mother Earth (or Bulunji), makes its appearance. For, say the Bavili, when the corpse has been wrapped up in folds of cloth, ndongo fights his way out of the stomach with a fearful explosion, burning a hole

[1. The meaning of this term has escaped me.]

through the wrappings. As the ndongo is no longer in the stomach of the corpse, and as when alive the man had lived a decent life, the corpse is buried; but no loving relation will pick up a handful of earth from the grave to keep until required for the purpose of depositing it in the Likaula or nkobi, those little zinkici so necessary to the sick relation who would commune with the “voice” or “nkulu” of the departed.

 

LU MUENO OR MIRROR.

It is “Xina” (a thing forbidden) to throw the light reflected from a mirror upon a person, and when the light passes across the face of an individual he cries out: “Leave me alone. I have ndudu medicine in my body.” It is not a crime, but more of the nature of an insult, to throw this light upon a person. Bits of looking-glass are to be found fixed in trees, and in the eyes and stomach of many fetishes. The light thus thrown is called “ntenia lu mueno.”

 

PHOTOGRAPHY.

When one wanders about the native village with a camera and points it at people with the intention of taking their photographs, they invariably at first run away. They say that they are afraid that the photographer wishes to take away their life or “Monio.”

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

NDONGOISM

Fetishism and Religion.-The Zinkici. -Putting Life into the Image.-The Mpumbu. -Rites.-Ximbuka and other Zinkici. -Amulets. -Nail Fetishes. – How they are made.

IT is commonly assumed by writers on Africa that fetishism (the worship of tutelary images) is the religion of the African. It is true that images (so-called gods of Africa) of this description are very common in the Kongo, and if religion be defined as the relation conceived to exist between man and an invisible world, the term religion may perhaps be applied without inaccuracy to this cult, which is essentially not unlike the occultism of more civilised regions with its familiar bottle imps and witches’ sabbaths.

Whether this fetishism (or NDONGOISM) is, properly speaking, religion or not is of small importance. There is at any rate side by side with this cult what few observers appear to have noticed, a higher religion, which I call NKICI-ISM, connected with NZAMBI and the powers which as his attributes symbolise him under the name of BAKICI BACI.

The ZINKICI are of two classes, ZINKICI ZINZO or ZINKONDI (home-protecting figures, charms, and talismans), and ZINKICI ZIMBOWU (figures into which nails are driven). Specimens of both kinds are to be found in the British Museum and also in the Museum in Exeter, and illustrations of some of these can be seen in Plates V and VII from an article in the Quiver entitled “The Gods of Africa,”[1] by Mr. F. M. Holmes.

[1. Many people talk of the gods of the BAVILI, as they call the “powers” and fetishes, but the BAVILI themselves say NZAMBI U VANGA BANTU I U VANGA BAKICI BACI, or God made man and he made the “powers” on earth also.]

In this article there is an interesting passage referring to the late Rev. Thomas Comber, a missionary in the Congo, whom all loved very much, which, if correct, points to a difference in the way these fetishes are supposed to act in the Congo and in Luango.

“Could this image hurt me?” asked Mr. Comber.

“Oh, yes; it would strike you dead.”

Mr. Comber took it in his hand, and turned it about and looked at it meditatively. It was a funny little object, an image of wood, with a large protuberance on its back and a similar protuberance on its chest, looking as though it were both hump-backed and pigeon-breasted at the same time.

“What would happen if I were to cut it?” asked Mr. Comber.

“Oh, it would strike you dead!” they exclaimed in alarm.

“May I try?” he asked.

“Oh, it will kill white man,” they asserted.

But as he pressed for permission, they at last agreed.

So in breathless silence Mr. Comber drew his knife from his pocket and slowly cut off the pigeon-breast of the little figure. Scrap after scrap fell from the image, but still it made no sign. At length he desisted; the operation was complete.

“Behold,” he exclaimed in triumph, “your god has no power. See what I have done, and yet I am not hurt. It is but a senseless piece of carved wood.”

Then he proceeded to point the moral of his action by showing the difference between such “gods” and the God of the Christian.

From the description of the fetish given, it was one into which nails might be driven, and was perhaps the NKAWCI (two-hearted figure) NTIMA WALI and of the ZINKICI ZIMBOWU class; their names are legion.

Whatever its name, and if of the ZINKICI ZIMBOWU the figure had been named, it had cost the life of one person. When any injury has been done to one of these fetishes in Luango, its “KULU,” or spirit, goes back to the owner of the fetish, and keeps on afflicting him until he has given it a new figure, but it has no power in itself to injure the person who has damaged it. If a native has done the damage he must pay for the renewal of the figure; if a white man-well, he is only a white man after all, and may be forgiven for his ignorance.

Many figures are sold to Europeans that are simply figures. A fetish that is sold has had its “KULU” withdrawn. The only genuine fetishes owned by strangers are those taken by force, but even in this case the “KULU” comes back to the NGANGA, or owner. The Luango boy might be very much alarmed and annoyed at such an action as that of Mr. Comber’s, but he might, if he were a rich man, laugh and enjoy the joke, concluding that it was no use trying to frighten a white man by telling him that his fetish, as a figure, had powers which he knows it has not. Natives forgive much in a white man, especially if he chances to be beloved, as the late Mr. Comber certainly was, but if he wished to be revenged for the damage done, his course would be to have the figure renewed, and then to have a nail driven into it with the express purpose of injuring his enemy. Then the “KULU” would set about its duty.

On one occasion the Writer asked a native if the BAVILI made no images of NZAMBI. “Who would be such a fool?” the man promptly answered, and the writer said no more.

I will now proceed to deal with the Zinkici, and with some of the more important amulets of the Bavili. We have seen that one class of images is called ZINKICI ZINKONDI.

The ZINKONDI or fetishes brought by the winds, are also known as BANKONDI in LUANGO. The only images of this class seem to be the MPUMBU. These are wooden figures of a man and a woman standing about eighteen inches in height. When these figures have been carved, it is necessary to enroll them among the ZINKICI of the BAVILI. They must be set apart from common figures (NKAWCI), and dedicated to their sacred use as Nxici. This is done by the NGANGA in the following way:-

A small shed having been built, he encloses it with the fronds of the palm tree. He goes into the bush to gather the leaves of certain trees and herbs to make the necessary medicines. He picks out a man from the family for whom the Bankondi is made, who shall act as the spokesman of the figure, and then proceeds to put the spirit into him by pouring a decoction or infusion of herbs he has gathered into his nostrils and eyes. The man thus treated lies down upon an empty box within the shed, surrounded by the fronds of the palm-tree, until the spirit enters his head. He gives evidence of this by beginning to shake violently, so that his body makes a noise on the box like the beating of a drum. He then gets up and tries to run away, but he is forced back into the hut until the attack has passed, when he is given the name of “NGULI BWANGA.”

The wooden figures are charged with the proper medicines, and as “Mpumbu” are then given into the custody of their spokesman, NGULI BWANGA.[1] And when NGULI BWANGA has received the MPUMBU, he buries medicines in the ground and plants a MBOTA-tree.

When a native is sick and has gone through all the necessary formalities in connection with the rites of Mpumbu (rites in which the plant MSAKASAKA plays an important part), a pig is killed, and its blood is poured over the wooden figures of Mpumbu, as if they were supposed to glory in that which the ZIFUMU ZINDONDI (kings) abhor.

The MPUMBU are said to have been brought by the EAST WIND (MABILI).

Other Zinkici are not in human form. Ximbuka has the form of a round native basket made of the Mfubu leaves, and is used as the deposit of the household remedies.

Its guardian does not throw kernels at this basket, but he shakes a small gourd (filled with hard seeds that rattle) at it, as he requests it to cure one of the family or to slay an enemy of the petitioner. It has two guardians and voices that speak for it, Nguli Bwanga, a woman, and Ngulu Bwite, a man. They are not a married couple, and are not necessarily

[1. See “Burial of the Fjort.” My cook MAKAWSO was NGUM BWANGA Of the Mpumbu.

2. This guardian does not drive nails into the Mpumbu. He simply throws palm-kernels and dust at them, as he asks them to kill the hidden enemy who is secretly destroying the petitioner. And NGULI BWANGA causes the MPUMBU to kiss mother-earth as a sign that the petition is heard, by taking it in his hand and making its head touch the earth.]

associated with one another. The ceremony of putting the voices into them is the same as that connected with Mpumbu, but each personage has a hut apart, in which he or she has to live two months.

NZACI is also a basket, and the same ceremonies are gone through in putting the voices into its guardians. Both take the name of Suami until the ceremony is over, when the woman takes a small fetish, NKUTU (a small net), which she wears between her arm and body near the armpit, and becomes Xicimbo, while the man takes the name of Xitembo. The above two ZINKICI are said to have been brought by BUNZI, the south wind.

NGOFO. The ceremonies connected with this basket, which is round and open like a coaling basket, are the same, but the maiden only is placed in the hut. After this, which in this case is a marriage ceremony, both man and woman wear a certain kind of iron bracelet. The maiden when first she enters the hut is called Kayi’s wife, or Nkaci Kayi; afterwards she is known as Nkaci Ngofo.

LEMBE is a bracelet connected with a marriage-rite. The wife married in this way is called Nkaci Lembe, and is the one who acts as the guardian of all her husband’s Zinkici, and should she commit adultery, the husband, on his return home, upon opening the basket containing the medicines connected with the marriage would find them wet. A Nkaci Lembe is kept very strictly within her hut and the fence, LUMBU (Pl. IV, b), surrounding it. LIBUKU, a large kind of rat, is said by Tati to be XINA to NKACI LEMBE.

NGOFO and LEMBE are said to have been brought by the south-west wind, NGONZOLA.

The following are some of the principal NKICIKICI, or personal protective charms:-

CIBA, a charm worn by women to ensure safety in childbirth, consisting of a horn of the little antelope (sese) filled with “medicines.”

TANTA, a string bearing a strip of the skin of the Xinkanda (lemur), tied tightly round the head as a charm to protect the wearer from harm and pain. Tanta is also worn as a sign of mourning, and is then supposed to have the effect of helping the wearer to bear his troubles.

(The sese and xinkanda are two of the most difficult animals to catch; hence the charms are proportionately valuable.)

NTEO, a charm for a woman.

NDUDA, a charm for a man (Pl. V, viii).

BETUNGA, the charm which women wear to guard the life of the baby yet unborn. It is made of a piece of the skin of the Xicimu, a kind of lemur which is a very fast breeder.

NZAU, a charm which enables a man to procreate children. It is made of the skin of the elephant.

XIKUNDA, a double-headed rattle having fetish powers, carried by the BADUNGU or police society.

Mabili (Pl. VI) as NKICi NKONDI is found at the entrance of each village and XIBILA, even as it is found at the gates of the old kingdom of Luango on its eastern frontier. It takes the form of a string of grass and feathers stretched across a road from two stakes or uprights of Nkala wood planted on each side of it.

MBUMBA is the copper bracelet worn by the NGANGA MBUMBA, who grants to those unfortunate in health the bracelet made of the fibre of the Baobab tree called SUNGA MBUMBA, not to be confounded with the iron bracelet or charm given by NGANGA MBUMBA XICIMBU.

Of the same class of charms are the bracelets (not marriage bracelets):-

NGOVQ, iron.

SUNGA NSACI, SUNGA XIMBUKA, SUNGA MABILI, SUNGA XINBINGO, plaited leaves of palm tree or cloth.

NGANGA MBUMBA XICIMBU is the full title of the NGANGA MBUMBA or medicine man attached to Maluango’s court. He it is who accompanies and encourages the NGANGA NVUMBA elect to proceed on his way to BUALI to be crowned. He tells him that he will overcome all his enemies, or that he has nothing to fear, as he has no enemies, &c.

He owns the fetishes XISONGO and XISIKA.

XISONGO is a piece of iron to be found near TERO, buried in the earth near to the sacred ground. “Is it true,” says the petitioner, “that I am to have no children?” as he tries to pull up this buried piece of iron.

XISIKA is a piece of heavy wood buried in the same way in different parts of the country for the same purpose, i.e., a test of virility. A plain iron bracelet is given to patients by NGANGA MBUMBA XICIMBU, and worn by them as a bracelet.

BINKAWCI NKAWC1 BI MWAKUNU (the little figures that are apart looking in different directions) are two figures on stakes driven into the ground, which are said to turn round as the seasons follow one another. At the beginning of the rainy season one faces Kayi, or the EAST, the other the lake LULEBA-that is, their backs are more or less turned to the sea. In the dry season they face west towards the sea.

NGOFO, iron marriage bracelet (originally ivory (LUVOSE) for real princesses). NGOFO and FUNZI are the Luango and Kakongo names for the same marriage rite and bracelet.

LEMBE, a heavy copper marriage bracelet common to Luango and Kakongo.

XIBUTU XILONGO, a small copper bracelet connected with the medicine given by XIGANGA XIBUTU to protect one from evil. When a man wearing this bracelet marries, his wife also takes and wears one as a charm and sign of marriage.

QWANGO, NGOYO, MBONDO of MBOIO, MPEMBE are ZINKICI BANKONDI (see Pl. V, viii).

MAKWAM and XIMPUNGU are names also of figures of this class. BISONGO (like forks) are also known here (see Pi. V).

LUSAWNZI and NKUTU are numbered 1 and 2 on page 258, Pioneering on the Congo.

NDIBU, page 247 in the same book.

We now turn to the other class of images, the NKICI MBOWU, or nail fetishes, also termed ZINKAWC1 ZI BAKICI.

By far the most comprehensive picture of fetishism that we have yet received from any of the great travellers who have from time to time visited the West Coast of Africa is the chapter on Fetish in Miss Kingsley’s West African Studies.

We call shops, or stores, “Fetishes” on this S.W. coast, and (as Miss Kingsley rightly says) the word is derived from the Portuguese word “Feitico,” meaning charm. “Feiticeiro” is the word the old Portuguese sailors and missionaries gave to the BAVILI’S Zinganga zinkici.

The BAVILI divide all people into two great classes

1. Muntu nzambi (man of god).

2. Muntu a Ndongo (man of black arts).

Ndongo signifies the evil spirit that is said to live in the stomach of all witches (ZINDOXI).

Now the Zinganga zinkici (or the repeaters of the lore connected with the wooden images into which nails are driven) are not priests in the sense that the Zinganga Bakici Baci are. The latter are Bantu Nzambi, the former Bantu a Ndongo. It will be seen from this that the religion of the Bavili is divided into two great divisions, and that the old Portuguese sailors and missionaries were most taken by the Ndongoistic pranks of the Zinganga zinkici, and that they looked upon this part of the religion of the Kongo people as the whole.[1] This error has been the cause of much misjudgment of the native religion, and is perhaps one of the causes of Miss Kingsley’s taking Professor Tylor’s definition of fetishism as serving to describe the complete religion of these people. As Professor Tylor says, fetishism is the doctrine of spirits embodied in or attached to, or conveying influence through, certain material objects. In the next chapter I show that the Bavili religion goes very far beyond mere fetishism. Their ideas, it is true, are expressed in symbolic language, but fetishism bears about as much relation to this portion of their religion as popular Buddhism does to Buddhistic philosophy.

[1. Talking Of NDONGO-ism or the religion of slaves connected with witchcraft, &c., or natural religion, they say that “Dust has been thrown into the eyes of the chicken.”]

Now let me tell you how a fetish of this kind is made, and describe some of their names and uses (see frontispiece).

When a party enters the wood with the Nganga (or the Doctor) attached to the service of the fetishes ZINKICI MBOWU, into which nails are driven, for the purpose of cutting the “Muamba” tree, with the intention of making a fetish, it is forbidden for anyone to call another by his name. If he does so, that man will die, and his KULU will enter into the tree and become the presiding spirit of the fetish when made; and the caller will of course have to answer with his life to the relations of the man whose life has been thus wantonly thrown away. So, generally speaking, a palaver is held, and it is there decided whose KULU it is that is to enter into the Muamba tree and to preside over the fetish to be made. A boy of great spirit, or else, above all, a great and daring hunter, is chosen. Then they go into the bush and call his name. The Nganga cuts down the tree, and blood is said to gush forth. A fowl is killed and its blood mingled with the blood that they say comes from the tree. The named one then dies, certainly within ten days. His life has been sacrificed for what the Zinganga consider the welfare of the people. They say that the named one never fails to die-and they repudiate all idea of his being poisoned or that his death is hurried on in any material way by the Nganga, who, they say, may be miles away. The difference between the spirit of “Mpumbu” brought by the East Wind and the Kulu of the known individual that is to preside over this fetish is evident.

People pass before these fetishes (ZINKICI MBOWU), calling on them to kill them if they do, or have done, such and such a thing. Others go to them and insist upon their killing so and so who has done or is about to do them some fearful injury. And as they swear or make their demand, a nail is driven into the fetish, and the palaver is settled so far as they are concerned. The KULU of the man whose life was sacrificed upon the cutting of the tree sees to the rest.

These fetishes attended big palavers and were knocked[1] by the parties engaged, so that he who spoke falsely or bore

[1. See Ante, P. 56.]

false witness should die. These are the class of fetishes most in evidence, and as such are apparently the bitter enemies of European Governments, who seem to take a delight in clearing the country of them. I wonder if they are right?-at any rate before they have got the country properly in hand and can give the inhabitants that security they are so fond of talking about. Brute force is no doubt a great power for a European Power to wield over such a race as the BANTU, and will make them do much; but is it not curious that civilised countries in the twentieth century should resort to so barbarous a form of governing a people supposed to be so much their moral inferiors? And by taking away a fetish of this kind they do not prevent the native from making another one to take its place. It merely makes the native more cautious, and forces him to guard his fetish in some secret place outside the small sphere of official influence.’

The wooden figures in this class of NKICI MBOWU are legion, and their multiplication comes (1) from the desire of each district to have its own nkici, and (2) from the importation from foreign districts of those who have gained fame for their slaying powers or as deterrents. Thus in Luango we hear of Mangarka,[2] Mbiali Mundunbi, EKAWSO,[3] Selo Xingululu, Mani Mavungu, Fulula, Xiela, MBWAKA, all of whom are known to be imported from Kakongo. It has therefore been hard work to distinguish those which were originally consecrated to the use solely of this district. For some time I had seventeen on my list, but I find that Maquarsia, Ngoio, and Kondi Mamba are not Zinkici Mbowu, so that I am left with the fourteen whose names I give you under all reserve, as, after all, I may not have got at the true and original Bavili ones:-

1. Mambili, a figure of a man with nails driven into it, now a wreck at Ximoko.

2. Mamboni Pwati, figure of a man.

3. Mambika, a figure of a man.

[1. MANGARKA, see Manchester Museum, Mani mavungu, see African Society’s Journal, July, 1902.

2. MBWAKA, see Bentley, Pioneering in the Congo, p. 260.

3. EKAWSO, see Seven Years among the Fjort, or Exeter Museum.]

4. Maleka,[1] a figure of a man (Pl. VIII).

5. Bixibula Xibula, a figure of a man, at Mpili.

6. Xilinga (?).

7. Lenga lenga, a man with knife.

8. Zambi inyona (?).

9. Ngembe,[1] a figure of a man.

10. Mvumvu Xioxilo,[1] a figure of a dog.

11. Pansu muinda, a figure of a man.

12. Boka miemvu, a figure of a man.

13. Lu siemu, a figure of a dog.

14. Mavungu Mambuembo, a figure of a man.

[1. These are now in Europe and doing no good there, you may be sure, but certainly no harm.]

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER IX

 

NKICI-ISM

Xibila. -Drought. -Inside the Grove.-The Nganga.-Visit to a Grove.

NKICI-ISM as opposed to Ndongoism is connected with sacred groves and the Kingly office. The sacred grove is called XIBILA the plural of which is BIBILA.

The sacred land where MALUANGO has to build his official residence is, as we have already noted, also called his XIBILA.

It is here that as NKICI CI he may be said to join mankind to ZAMBI through the BAKICI BACI. Here he greets his people. Here he asks the plaintiff Xibila Mbixi? (Of what crime do you accuse this person? Short for Xibila Mbixi naka Nlilila, What greeting, why do you keep on crying?) And here it is where all the people come together to talk out their great palavers.

When matters go wrong with the BAVILI (say for instance when there are no rains) they cry out to their King, and he summons his court to advise him on the affair. It then may be decided that the question is one that man cannot settle, and NGANGA MPUKU NYAMBI is called in and asked to consult his magic mirror and so divine the cause of the evil weighing so heavily upon the people. This NGANGA May answer that the cause of the want of rains is the immorality of some people unknown or he may say that it is the pleasure of God to visit them with this misfortune, and they had better send offerings to “BUNZI” to beseech him to send them. the necessary rain. Now NGANGA MPUKu NYAMBI is the NGANGA or priest connected with the sacred grove MPUKU NYAMBI. So that we can see the relationship between the XIBILA of the king and that of one of the BAKICIBACI.

There are apparently two great classes of sacred groves (I) those connected with the sea, salt water, fish, and spiritual ideas, and (2) those connected with the rains, plantations, births or ideas of nature.

 

CONTENTS OF A SACRED GROVE.

Each XIBILA, as we have said, has a name, i.e., that of the “power” it is called after.

And each rainwater XIBILA has its seawater mate, and each XIBILA contains a spring or a lagoon or swamp or well of some kind containing or connected with perhaps the home of its snake or XAMA. I regret to say that my studies in this subject of wells are so incomplete that the reader will have to be satisfied with any chance remarks that in the course of these papers I may have to make about them.

Each XIBILA contains (generally in the centre) a small native shimbec, where the NGANGA keeps his basket of seeds and shells, such as MBIALA MIOKO, a fruit from the interior, MASEVI crusader’s shell, ZELECE, a shell, NTUMPU, a fruit, and MANKANAKANA, a fruit which grows underground in the Mayombe district.

Heaps of oyster and cockle shells are found in the grove, while in and about the hut

The skin of a snake, the MBOMA.

The skin of the snake XAMA.

The vertebra of the whale.

The feathers of the fowl and parrot.

The heads and horns of animals such as the LUNGU, antelope, MPAKASA, the ox, and NGULUNGU, smaller antelope, etc.

The heads of beasts (see under animals), and of course the NGANGA, the diviner, or priest and man.

Such is the general description of the contents of the XIBILA or place of coming together and greeting of the BAVILL

I will now describe how I first discovered one of these groves, from which you will gather some idea of its appearance.

One day, walking about the woods on the hills behind Landana, in 1883, after winding our way through many over-branched pathways, we suddenly came in upon a circular clearing, in the centre of which grew an old tree, around which the jaws of two or three whales had been placed and become overgrown by the roots of the tree on which they once rested, so long must they have been there. The space around the tree was carefully swept, and on one side we noticed a beautiful new shimbec, or hut. My companions said they did not know who swept the clearing or who built the shimbec. Some feiticeiro or wizard, or perhaps a thief. A native story they told us runs:-“Once upon a time there was a wizard who was anxiously looking about in the woods for a place to build a shimbec, wherein he might rest in peace and hide the bodies of his many victims. After many days’ search he at last found a likely spot, marked it, and returned to town to buy some luangos or rushes, with which to build himself a hut.

“Now, there happened to be a thief who was puzzlect to know where he could place goats and sheep he had robbed in safety.

“He travelled many days through the woods, and at last hit upon the same spot as that selected by the wizard. ‘Just the place!’ he cried, and off he set to town to arrange for some bamboos. The wizard returned with his rushes, rested awhile, and then went back to town for some more. The thief returned, and declared the fetishes had been wondrously favourable to him in sending him the luangos (rushes). The wizard reappeared, and thanked the NKICI that had been so kind in sending him the bamboos.

“Between them the wizard and the thief soon raised the shimbec, and wondered at the progress made in its construction during each other’s absence. The wizard finally rigged up a broad shelf against one of the walls, and went away to seek someone whom he might poison. The thief in the meanwhile brought his goat, and, having killed it, cooked some and ate it, climbed upon the shelf, and fell asleep. The wizard returned, dragging the body of his victim after him. He partook of the goat so kindly provided for him, and then flung the body of his victim upon the shelf. The thief, without waking, pushed the body down again. ‘What, not dead yet?’ muttered the wizard; ‘then I’ll soon settle you,’ and then he smashed in the skull of the dead man with a club, and heaved him on the shelf again. The thief rolled over, and down came the body again. The wizard once more punished the body, and carefully placed it on the shelf again. The thief threw the body down again, and this so frightened the wizard that he ran off to town and shut himself up in his hut. The thief awoke, rubbed his eyes, saw the dead body, and concluded at once he was in a wizard’s shimbec. He followed the wizard to town, and knocked at his door. ‘O corpse,’ cried the wizard, ‘is it you?’ ‘Yes,’ said the thief, and he knocked again. ‘O corpse, is it you?’ cried the wizard. ‘Yes,’ said the thief, who now summoned all the townfolk, who dragged the wizard out of his hut and gave him NKASA, cast him into the fire, and burnt him. Moral-Better be a thief than a wizard.”

As I afterwards found out, the grove I had discovered was not the home of a wizard or a thief, but one of the Kakongo sacred groves, but this my companions had evidently concealed from me.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER X

 

BAVILI PHILOSOPHY

Sacred Symbols. -Compound Names. -The Sun and Moon. -General Scheme of Bavili Ideas. -Cosmological Ideas. -Ternporal Ideas.-The Year.-The Seasons. -Genetic Relations.-The Categories.

THE King of the Bavili, as I have said, has seven titles, one of which, that of Ntawtela, he does not receive until after his death. The other six, as I have explained elsewhere, are assigned to him as head of the six great departments of state. These six titles are, as I shall point out later, closely connected with the system of philosophy which I wish to expound to you. I believe that above and beyond fetishism or NDONGOISM, which I have already dealt with, there is a higher form of religion among the Bavili which is connected with certain symbols in the form of (1) sacred groves, (2) sacred lands and rivers, (3) sacred trees, (4) sacred animals, (5) omens, and (6) the seasons. The six titles of the King connect him directly with these six divisions of sacred symbols as well as with the six departments in the state. As Nkici ci he is, according to the native view, one of the products, or perhaps we should rather say the end and final result, of the working of the powers, or Bakici baci, represented by the sacred groves. As Fumu he is the king (or chief from whom all proceed) of the symbolic lands and rivers. As Ntinu Lukene he is head of the custom of the leopard, and thus associated with the sacred animals. As Nganga Nvumba (the doctor of the source of seasons or time) he is intimately connected with the seasons. As Xivangi (procreator) he is at the head of the omens. And as Mueno (the overseer of the morals of his people) he presides over the sacred trees. That is, he is the chief teacher in all these branches of native belief.

It is possible that at one time each of the sacred symbols mentioned above had its sacred grove; in this grove, it may be, the king, as the great high priest, taught his people the lesson connected with the symbol. In support of this conjecture I may mention that I have so far in no case discovered more than twenty-four sacred symbols in any of the six divisions enumerated above. There are, it is true, certain apparent exceptions, but the supernumerary symbols can be shown to stand apart from the others for clearly defined reasons. After years of study I have discovered twenty-four trees and herbs which are, as the natives say, BAKICI BACI or sacred, twenty-four sacred animals, and so on. Now if each division of sacred symbols is composed of twenty-four parts, the sum total of Bakici Baci should be 144. I have as a matter of fact discovered upwards of 90 sacred groves. It is therefore quite legitimate to suppose that there may formerly have been 144 or more. Not only so, but the meanings of the names of the sacred groves go to prove this supposition, as I shall show more in detail later. The most remarkable fact, however, about these groves is that the Bavili have preserved the orderly grouping of twenty-four of these, and I believe that it is in this order that we find the key to their philosophy.

In the sequel I treat of all the six sets of twenty-four symbols in detail. I should now like to draw your attention to the eight words, the only eight of this kind, so far as I know, found in Xivili, which are compounded of two words, as they seem to me to imply that the idea of the Bavili with regard to the symbols fall into 1+6+1 divisions. These words are:-

MAMU-NZAMBI

MBUNGU-NTWALI         MAULA-NXIENJI

NKALA-NGO                NKONDA, or NONGA-NZAU

MANIA-MATALI            BULU-NTU

KACI-NUNI

(1) MAMU-NZAMBI (the acts or word of God)[1] is a name given to certain towns, where some great palaver, consequent on the death of a great prince, has been talked out.

(2) MBUNGU-NTWALI (two mugs). This is the name given to the mouth of rivers where the waters of the sea and the river meet and form whirlpools.

BUNGU is the water bottle or mug, and there is a native saying KU NUA MALAVU, KU BULA MBUNGU, MBI I BELA NU MALAVU VO MU MBUNGU? To drink palm wine, to break the mug is the evil in the wine or the mug? This implies that the liquid in the mug may be replaced, but the wise man takes care of the mug.

A slave wishes to transfer himself to a new master, breaks his water cooler, and this act is called XIBULA MBUNGU.

When the princes hearing a palaver retire to take counsel one with another, they say they go away to drink water.

When the King dies it is his ambassador (or mouth) MAXIENJI, who carries the royal mug in the funeral procession, just as he has often before carried his words of wisdom. The mug is still left, you see, although it is not used until the princes elect their next King.

In ordinary funerals, which take place there, four or five years after death, the wife, parting from her dead husband for the last time, as they take his body away to bury it, lifts up her basket, containing the water bottle and, perhaps as a purification ceremony, goes to the stream to draw water.

Ideas of liquids, wisdom, and morality are connected with the MBUNGU NTWALL

(3) NKALA-NGO, the crab and the leopard. This stands for “Roe and Doe” in palavers, and the crab is the symbol of the sea, while the leopard is that of the earth. Their ideas of solids and justice are connected with these words.

(4) MANIA-MATALI, generally the name of a district up a river where rocky land rises from the low-lying swamps.

MANIA means the “cold” stones found in rivers and valleys. The word written in full is MANDIA (the princely womb). Ideas of the moon are connected with this word; everything looks cold by moonlight, and is actually cold.

[1. The translations given in brackets were in every case given me by the natives.]

MATALI (or Matadi) means the metallic rocks, heated by the sun, NTANGUA (mother chaser), and is opposed to NGONDE (or NGONDIA) the Moon, regarded here as the mother of the sun. The words mania-matali stand also for sun and moon.

The Sun and Moon are also spoken of as two brothers running one after the other, but as the word NKOMBA in BAVILI may stand for either brother or sister, we may if we like call them brother and sister.

The sun and moon are further spoken of as judges to whom certain palavers must be referred. The other day I noticed a very neatly devised badge (Pl. IIb) upon a native’s shirt, and I asked him what it meant. The background of the badge was red, a favourite colour with the materialistic Bavili. The sun and new moon were figured in white cloth, while the mouth was formed of white and black cloth. The native told me that he had a palaver with a certain cook, and that they had come to the conclusion that the decision of so great a question could come only from the sun and moon. Upon a visit to the grave of my old native friend Francisco I found the following device upon the gate of the fence surrounding it: the sun with lines across its face and the moon in its last quarter. Here no mouth was figured, showing, I suppose, that all breath was at an end. I can find no trees sacred either to the sun or moon.

5. The Morning Star the Bavili liken to a child running before its parent calling him to rule the day. This Star they call MA ULA.[1]

The Evening Star is the offspring expressing its joy at going to rest with its mother the Moon, and it is called NXIENJI.

The full moon rises from her couch accompanied by this same star, her offspring, now her husband, and this star is then called NDONGO (the spirit of witchcraft).

6. NKONDA or NONGA-NZAU (to hunt the Elephant) has the meaning of amassing everything for one’s own family and giving nothing to others. It is the name of certain towns The words symbolise weight, energy, and plenty.

[1. The exclamation U ULU is that with which the Bavili greet either the new moon or a “witch” (NDOXI).]

7. BULU-NTU (a breaking of the head) a place generally situated about the falls of a river where the waters burst a channel through or past the rocks. MBULU = beast. NTU = man.

8. KACI-NUNI = wife and husband, really “primeval dawn” and “I have absorbed.” These words are not only used for man and wife but also for negative and positive powers; inferior and superior, as when one man comes up to another to ask him for a favour and calls himself the other’s NKACI. NKACI is also used for the word NGULINKACI meaning one’s uncle on the mother’s side. Thus the mythologist may easily become confused. The natives say that the sun calls the moon his mother, but MAMA (mother) may mean his aunt by marriage. He is also said to be the husband of the moon; this may mean that he is superior to her just as Maluango, though the king of the offspring province, considers himself superior to KAKONGO, the mother province, from whence his wife comes.

These double words, which with one exception are compounded of elements of contrary meaning, may be regarded as one particular case of a formula which runs through their philosophy. To sum up we have-

1. MAMU-NZAMBI-concerning god palaver.

2. MBUNGU-NTWALI-the heads of maternity connected with ideas of water.

3. NKALA-NGO-the crab and the leopard connected with ideas of earth.

4. MANIA-MATALI-cold and hot stones connected with ideas of fire.

5. MAULA-NXIENJI-the two stars connected with ideas of motion and procreation.

6. NONGA-NZAU-hunting the elephant, connected with ideas of plenty.

7. BULU-NTU-beast and man connected with ideas of birth.

8. KACI-NUNI-wife and husband ideas of opposites.

Put into a generalised form we may say that the philosophy of the Bavili can be expressed by the formula 1 +6+ 1; six categories, which, as will be shown in the subsequent chapters, reappear in the arrangement of the groves and other symbols of Nzambi, and outside these categories at the one end the idea of Nzambi, regarded as cause; at the other the idea of man regarded as effect.

In the case of the compound words the order adopted is not based on any information drawn from the natives: all that has been gathered from them is the distinctive character of these eight words and the ideas which they connect with them. We now pass on to consider the seasons, and here not only has it been possible to elucidate the native ideas connected with the seasons and their names, but to get from the natives further details as to the genetic relation held to exist between the various months and seasons.

 

COSMOLOGICAL IDEAS.

In the last resort the Bavili are monists: they reduce everything ultimately to a manifestation of Nzambi. From the abstract Nzambi proceed Nzambi Mpungu, Nzambi Ci and Kici. These three elements of the trinity appear in Bavili philosophy as Xi, Ci, and Fu. (It is desirable to note Xi and Ci are respectively female and male, whereas Nzambi Mpungu and Nzambi Ci are male and female.)

Xi means passive matter or things pertaining to the maternal principle. Ci is the paternal or active principle.

Let us take an example. The sea is regarded as a male principle; from it proceeds rain which falls on the earth, and the earth is regarded as a female or passive principle; the rain fertilises the earth and causes it to bring forth fruits.

Fu is, properly speaking, habit, custom, or sequence; we may, perhaps, express it in one word by evolution, understanding thereby rather the process by which the individual is produced than the life history of a species. In another sense it may almost be said to be the individual himself. Thus, when the rain has fallen upon the earth, it forms on the one hand springs and rivers, and on the other causes vegetation to spring up. Both the rivers and the vegetation result from the interaction of earth and sea: the process of production and the product are both Fu.

In order to prevent misconception I expressly state that these ideas are not derived directly from the natives, but from philological considerations. These three ideas are naturally strictly abstract and out of all relation with the material universe.

Xi and Ci having produced Fu cease to operate; Fu, on the other hand, continues. Under the name Vu it becomes active in space and time, and may be called the cause of the material universe, Vu=time, season.

 

TEMPORAL IDEAS.

(a) The Divisions of the Year.

Properly speaking, the year falls into three divisions, Mawalala, Xicifu and Mvula. Of these, Mawalala is a period of rest, Xicifu a period of preparation, and Nvula an evolutionary period or period of production. just as in the cosmological ideas we have a progression of three factors, Xi, Ci and Fu, so in the same way in temporal ideas, Mawalala and Xicifu produce Nvula. just as Fu in its turn became a cause, so Nvula produces Mawalala of the succeeding year.

(b) The Seasons and Months.

Of the three divisions of the year, Mawalala is itself both a season and a month; Xicifu falls into two seasons of two months each, and Nvula into four seasons of two months each. Properly speaking, the seasons only ex’ist as factors in six groups of four, the other three being in each case the two months, and the product specially associated with the seasons. These groups of four are related just as our cosmological series, Xi, Ci, Fu, and Vu; they consist of a principle, male and female causes and a product.

We have already dealt with the months under measures (p. 65), and it is unnecessary to repeat the information given there.

I now give you these groups in the form of a table

MAWALALA.

Seasons.   Months.   Products.

Mwici (smoke).  Bulu Maci Mavola (source of sweet waters).

Bulu Maci Mbu (source of sea waters).  Nkasa (pea).

Bunji (mist).  Bika li Muanda Xicifu (to leave the valley of mist).

Muanda Xicifu (the valley of mist).  Mbundubundu (new green grass).

Mvumvumvu (drizzle).  Kufulu Nkaci (negative desire).

Kufulu Nuni (positive desire).  Buku (mushrooms).

Waw Waw Waw (rains).  Kaci Mbangala (negative witness).

Nuni Mbangala (positive witness).  Kusafu (a fruit).

Nvula Nxentu (female rains).  Bika li Muanda Sunji (to leave the valley of the cycle).

Muanda Sunji (the valley of the cycle).  Makundi (fruit).

Nvula Mbakala (male rains).  Ndolo Nkaci (female suffering).

Ndolo Nuni (female suffering).  Mba (palm kernel).

MAWALALA.

We may now consider the genetic relations of these six groups. Denominating the groups by the names of the seasons which preside over them, Mwici is female and Bunji is male; their product Mvumvumvu is regarded as female. just as in the cosmological ideas Fu, the effect, becomes Vu, the cause, the female effect Mvumvumvu is replaced by the male cause Waw Waw Waw. This is, however, not directly operative, but manifests itself through the secondary causes Nvula Nxentu and Nvula Mbakala, and their effect is Mawalala. Mawalala, as the table shows, stands outside the progression, and is in a way the end or final effect of the whole process.

In its turn Mawalala becomes a cause; it stands to Mwici and Bunji in the same relation as Waw Waw Waw to the two groups which follow it. Being regar-ded by the natives as a season of rest, no product is associated with Mawalala. The orderly grouping of the symbols may be termed the formula.

 

THE CATEGORIES.

The Bavili ideas relating to the various divisions enumerated above may be said to fall into six divisions which we shall term the categories. It must be understood that the European ideas which I have been led to select only represent imperfectly the native ideas. On the one hand the European conceptions go beyond those of the natives in many directions; on the other the natives associate many to the European heterogeneous notions under one heading, as shown below.

The six categories are: Water, Earth, Fire, Procreation and Motion, Fruitfulness, Life. I will now proceed to show the connection of the seasons with these ideas.

Mwici. Not only do the names of the months composing this season mean salt-water and fresh-water, but the word Mwici itself contains the root Mu. (for Mbu =the sea). The connection of this group with liquids is clear.

Bunji. The names of the component months mean the valley of Xicifu, and the name of the group the source of seed or maize. This connects it with the category of earth.

Mvumvumvu. This is the period of marriage and the names of the months mean male and female desire. The flame of love is perhaps sufficient to justify me in associating this group with fire and marriage.

Wawawaw. The notion of running away, to which we have already alluded, may serve to connect this season with the category of motion and procreation.

Nvula Nxentu. The months are the months of maturity of crops and the harvest, and their names are connected with the mortar in which seed is pounded. The connection with fruitfulness seems clear.

Nvula Nbakala. We have already mentioned that the opening of Mawalala is a period of high birth rate. This may serve to associate this season with the category of Life. The names of the months mean male and female suffering or travail.

In dealing with the compound words it has been mentioned that the natives associate various ideas with them; these ideas in their relation to the categories are here set out in tabular form:-

Category.   Associated Ideas.

Water.  Morality, wisdom (as opposed to reason), virtue, breath, speech (=out-breathing), inspiration (=in-breathing), hearing, mouth, fatherhood.

Earth.  Solids, justice, reason, intelligence, essence, seed, herbs and grass, hands, stomach, heart, motherhood.

Fire.  Love, desire, marriage, union, spirit, light, kernel, tying up, heat, and cold, the womb, smell.

Motion.  Touch, the penis, conception, germination, thunder, lightning.

Fruitfulness.  Weight, energy, plenty, pregnancy, harvest, sight, memory, leg.

Life.  Birth, parturition, pain, taste, lips.

 

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XI

 

BIBILA, THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GROVES

The King as NKICI CI.-The Groves and their order.-Bakici Baci.-The Formula.-The Families of Groves. -Xikamaci and others. -Categories again.-Names of Groves.-The Devil.

WE have seen that the Bavili philosophy teaches that a sort of genetic connection exists between the seasons. This idea is fairly intelligible in its application to periods of time, which involve a process, and therefore a sequence of cause and effect. Though it may appear to us metaphorical to speak of months as male and female, we need only recall the names of some of the chemical elements to see that our own forefathers were prone to deal in ideas of this order, and we can hardly feel surprise that the African intellect follows in their wake.

The idea is less comprehensible when we try to apply it to the groves-less comprehensible, that is, to the European. just as in the seasons, we have one group as a primary cause, then two intermediate causes, and then the effect; so with the groves. It must not, however, be forgotten that when we speak of the groves we are really dealing with the powers which the native puts behind them. We have enough examples of cosmogonies embodied in a mythology to make the Bavili idea, if not comprehensible, at any rate no more remarkable than many another primitive fancy.

Just as the seasons, months, and products fall into groups of four, which are genetically related to one another, so the first grove is the primary cause, the second and third the operative male and female causes, and the fourth is the product.

In this connection it is worthy of note that the order of the groves within the groups, and of the groups themselves, is not one which I have evolved out of my inner consciousness; it was given me by the natives themselves. If, therefore, we find it possible to trace, even imperfectly, the same formula in its application to the groves which we have just applied to the seasons, I shall, I conceive, have gone far to establish the genuine native character of the ideas which I am putting before you.

The groves fall into six groups of four each, and just as Mawalala stands outside the formula of the seasons, so the Lungululubu group stands apart from the rest of the groves.

In the chapter on the Zinkici have been mentioned the Bakici Baci, and we must now proceed to explain in detail the ideas connected with these powers. The Zinkici are what are commonly termed fetishes; the Bakici Baci are unconnected with images of any sort, and are not subject to human control; at the same time they are addressed by the nati-ves, not perhaps as independent powers, but as intermediates. The Bakici Baci are conceived as spiritual; they are the offspring of Nzambi, some being male, others female. Each Nkici ci has its own grove of the same name as itself, and each has two priests consecrated to its service.

We have already seen that Maluango is called Nkici ci, as the Tepresentative of Nzambi on earth. In the same way the chiefs, who in this capacity are termed the ” eyes of the people,” are also known as Bakici Baci; they are the representatives of Maluango in the same way that Maluango is the representative of Nzambi.

The name Bakici Baci is applied by the natives to the powers connected with the groves, and with the groves are connected sacred lands and rivers and sacred trees, -the seasons, the omens, and the sacred animals. The Nkici ci of a grove is conceived as resident no less in the seasons and in the omens than in the rivers or lands connected with the respective groves.

It will be shown in the sequel that the sacred groves are grouped together in sets of four, which we denominate “families.” The members of these families are conceived by the natives to be genetically related to each other; beyond this the families themselves are regarded as standing to each other in a similar relation.

The formula of these genetic relations must be clearly borne in mind by the reader who wishes to follow the ideas of the Bavili on the subject. It may be expressed in the following way:-

 

that is to say, we have outside the formula a cause, C, which produces (within the formula) a female cause; this, allied to a male cause, produces an intermediate female effect, which again being replaced by an intermediate male cause gives rise to the last two terms of the formula as a product, male and female; these two produce an effect, E, outside the formula again.

I now proceed to deal with the groves in detail. I may, perhaps, assume that the reader is now to some extent familiar with the idea of the categories. At any rate, I hope that the occasional digression on the subject of the beliefs and practices connected with the groves, will not obscure the important point of their position in the general scheme of the Bavili philosophy.

1. The Mpungu Group is especially associated with the category of liquids.

MPUNGU is used with the word ZAMBI when it is translated by the missionaries as almighty. They associate NZAMJBI MPUNGU with the sky, and therefore by a natural transition with rain.

SENZA is the west wind. The sea is to the west of Luango, and with the sea (MBU) the BAVILI connect ideas of fatherhood, spirit, and motion. This is readily understood when we remember that the general direction of the great rolling waves is from the west (SE= father).

NGONZOLA=the S.W. wind; it is also, in connection with XAMA, looked upon as the evil rainbow (see under Omens), when it is said to enter rivers and cause floods, and carry everything it meets with it to the sea. The word carries with it a meaning of love and maternity. (Ngo is the leopard, ZOLA is to love.)

MVULA means rain.

2. The group of Xibwinji is associated with the earth.

XIBWINJI is known as the mother of XIKAMACI, the north wind. XIKAMACI = the earth divided from the sea. When a person seeks her help to overcome one of his enemies, he goes to her sacred grove, and with the help of the NGANGA buries a nail or bead or other article in the earth at the same moment as he demands the favour. And when for some reason or other he, or one of his descendants, wishes to withdraw the curse XIKAMACI has blighted his enemy’s happiness with, he must seek out the NGANGA again and present him with an offering. The Nganga then prepares some medicine which he wraps up in leaves and places in a dish of palm wine. With this lotion the Nganga proceeds to sprinkle the ground. The petitioner informs the Nganga what particular thing he buried. Then it is said the earth “bubbles” up and throws out the article mentioned.

This act of bubbling up and throwing out that is common to this earth in XIKAMACI’S grove and the whirlpool in rivers is called XIZUKA.

SAMONA or SAMUNA. Here the petitioner whips the earth with a stick or throws a stone or other article on to it with great force as he asks his favour. As XIKAMACI’S opposite, this is supposed to represent the gathering-in action of the whirlpool, or XISEKU as the movement is called. As “powers,” then, XIKAMACI and SAMONA may be said to represent “dispersion and concentration.”

KUNZI means the North-West wind. Konkwati is the home of the above “powers” or groves, and they are not far from XILUNGA the home of the MAMBOMA of the province of XIBANGA. Here the connection of the family with the category earth is indisputable.

LUNGA means to blow, also the triumph of might over right. And it is said that there is always a pretender to the throne of Luango, to be found in XIBANGA.

Now XIKAMACI, the North wind, is the great enemy of LUNGULULUBU, the protecting power of the BAVILI. The story goes that she was a very hard-working woman who had large plantations of manioc. The children of the king of the land used to come and rob the produce of her labour, and so she complained to her mother, XIBWINJI, and said she meant to punish them if they did not desist from robbing. The mother advised her not to do so but to complain of the children to their father who would, she was sure, chastise his offspring himself. Contrary to her mother’s advice, XIKAMACI caught these children and taking the law into her own hands punished them. Then the king, their father, became very wrath and caused rains to flood her plantations, water coming up also out of the earth through the ant hills. In this flood XIKAMACI was washed (poor dear! say the Bavili) into the sea, where she is generally said to remain, save when she comes ashore to get red wood and other articles for her toilet. She is said also to demand one of all twins born in the country. And when boat, boys or fishermen are about to take a drink, they first pour a little out of the bottle into the sea. XIKAMACI is said to be the mother of the double grove X1KANGA NXILUKA, situated between the KWILu river and Luango at a place called XISSANGA. And NxILUKA is said to have brought forth an animal and a wooden figure (NKAWCI) and a stone.

Thus XIKAMACI (the North wind) coming from near XILUNGA in the province of XIBANGA may be said to be the grandmother of NDONGOISM or, as some would call it fetishism.

3. The group of Bukulu is associated with fire.

BUKULU means a ray of light, which the natives connect with the idea of chasing as bubbles seem to chase one another in boiling water.

KANGA is another word for FUNZI both meaning the guinea fowl. The word KANGA means to tie, to fry-KANJI = he who ties. A man who is tied up or made a prisoner becomes according to native law one of the family of the man who ties. So that KANGA as a power may mean conjunction or assimilation.

BUNZI is the South wind and has its home in the province of MUANDA between Cabinda and Banana. Its full designation is BUNZI BU BAMBA, and I notice on Mr. Ravenstein’s map MBAMBA is marked as being close to Banana. MBAMBA is also the most south-westerly province of the composite kingdom [1] of SONIO. It is to this “power” that Maluango after consultation with NGANGA MPUKU NYAMBI sends offerings of chalk, cloth and skins. As it is from BUNZI that rains and life and apparently all good things come as a power, it may stand for propagation or semination.

MBAMBA is the tiny kernel where all the virtues of the future palm tree exist (it is also the coronella snake). MBAZU =fire. As a power then it may mean fusion (or the offspring of marriage). All these come under the category of fire in one sense or the other.

4. The Hbawmbo group is associated with the category of motion.

Mbawmbo they say has its grove to the East of Maluango’s composite kingdom in a town called NKANDA NGO (the leopard’s relation) in the SUNDI country. The word BAWMBOKA means to move slowly, MBAWMBO therefore may mean “motion.” It must be remembered that thunder and lightning are connected with omens which the Bavili associate with the nervous system and ideas of procreation.

LUABI=the persistent (evil) light and so perhaps may as a “power” (connected with motion) signify lightning as the female of

SOLOKOTO, which means the power of growling in the father or (as a motion perhaps) Thunder.

MABILI, i.e.,” the prince who greets ” is the East wind. This wind brings with it great tornadoes, and this is thus connected with movement. BILA means reason, cause, purpose, as well as to greet, and we have already noted that it is connected with the word XIBILA, the sacred grove or

[1. By composite I mean formed of six provinces as that part of Kongo’s kingdom which lies south of the river Kongo, and those of KAKONGO or LUANGO.]

meeting place. In this way we catch a glimpse of the foundation of the saying of the Bavili that all religion comes from the East. Here, however, MABILI is the offspring of motion.

5. The group of Kungu is associated with fruitfulness.

KUNGU is a grove within the sacred province of Luango called BUALI where the dead who die with their eyes open are said to be placed under its LOMBA tree. The word KUNGU is derived from KUNGA, to amass, so that it means an amassing or heaping together.

MBUMBA = mystery. The idea may also be associated with ripe fruit falling from the trees. BUA =to fall.

NTAWMBO = seedling, sprout, shoot. It is the name of a river that keeps on rising out of the ground. This may be translated into European language as another kind of energy.

XIVOLA means attraction.

6. The group of Nyambi is associated with ideas of life.

NYAMBI = Ruler (literally the spirit or personality of the four). NYAMBI is said to be the nephew of BUNZI. Some people call God NYAMBI instead of NZAMBI, but the word rather means Life in the sense of VIS VITAe. IA= to be.

LUAYI = the umbilical cord. As XAMA LUAYI it is the protecting beneficent rainbow, so that as a power it may mean Protection, Maternal Love, Sustenance.

NYIMINA, YIMA is to bear fruit, while YIMINA is to know how to bear fruit with; NYIMINA then is the one who knows how to bear fruit with, or as a “power” paternal love.

MPUKUNYAMBI is the bursting or birth giving power in Nyambi or perhaps what we may term “Birth.” To this grove a man takes his pregnant wife and asks with her for a safe delivery. As there is no life without food we can understand how it is that the people first appeal for the reason of a famine caused by want of rains to the Nganga Nyambi, the great diviner attached to this grove. It is evident that these powers are connected with ideas of life.

The Nkungu and Nyambi groups are looked upon as the descendants of the four [1] previous great families which as we have seen, include the winds.

Of these 24 sacred groves of which the order was given me by the Bavili, no less than ig can, as it seems to me, without undue forcing, be brought into connection with the categories which we have already applied with success to the Seasons. This parallelism seems to me to be too striking for it to be possible to explain it as the result of coincidence. When I add that this formula may be applied with more or less success to the groups of sacred lands and rivers, to the sacred trees, to the omens and animals, I think you will agree that a good prima facie case is made out for attributing to the Bavili something better than the fetishism (NDONGOISM) which is commonly regarded as the expression of their highest thought.

There are many other groves, but although the writer has discovered the names of many he has not yet found a native capable of placing them in groups as the above have been. It is possible that there are 144 (i.e. 6 groups Of 24) or more 2 of these groves in the kingdom, or rather connected with the kingdom of Luango, but to undertake the discovery of them all would mean the appointing of a properly constituted mission and some years of labour.

The names of the other groves discovered by the writer and the meaning of their names are as follows:-

Name of Grove.   Literal meaning.

MUBA  = a grove connected in some way with the MPUNGU group, the name of a district in Kakongo. Mu is a prefix, and BA is to be.

MPUKULU  = side of a house.

XIFUSA  = connected with XIVUMA FUSA is to bore.

KAWMA  = to add to.

LUNGULULUBU  = the very deep of motherhood.

XIVUMA  = of the stomach.

MBANDA LUNGA  = to guard the ascent.

MPUMBA  =

DUMI  = the north-east wind.

NKONDO  = the upper part of the legs of an animal.

XIMBUNGU  = of the quality of a drinking mug.

XIBUTA  = a bringing forth.

XIQUANI  = that holds himself apart.

XIKANGA  = a tying up. offspring of XIKAMACI.

NXILUKA  = a vomiting. offspring of XIKAMACI.

XINGOMBE  = of the nature of cattle.

MANIA  = stones that absorb.

ZIMBU XIKOKO  = the fly and mosquito hand in hand.

MPESO  = chalk.

BALA  = to think. connected with XIBWINJI.

XINJILI  = conglomerate rock. connected with XIBWINJI.

MATALI  = stones throwing out heat.

MPUNZU ZINGA  = the blot of life.

KU SUNZI  = the spreading nerve.

XIBATA  = of the penis.

NJILI BECI  = fish rock.

ZIMBU BIFUNDI  = the waters of the offspring.

ZWANGANA  = the house of another.

LUSALA  = feather.

LUIBA  = to forget.

TACI MPUNGU  = the almighty primeval speaker.

XIKAFA  = of the leader, in the end of a fishing rope.

XUNGU  = pottery.

MPANZA  = mandioca (the river of giving).

MPANANA  = abundant reciprocal giving.

MWAKUNI  = division.

LUECI  = concerning the primeval being.

XILU XINKUKUBA  = of the weaving of heaven connected with MPUKU NYAMBI.

[1. Note the complete divining board and how OPELE (representing the eight discs) is the offspring of IFA as represented by his 16+ 1 palm kernels, Pl. XXI.

2 See chapter on Philosophy at the back of the black man’s mind, and the Bini story about EWARE, pp. 234.]

As the mind’s eye of the writer wanders over this beautiful land of the BAVILI and rests on these sacred groves dotted about the country, and lingers on woods and rivers, the names of which represent some spirit, teaching the people some lesson, and hovers over every town, the name of which for some good reason has been given to it by its founder, he wonders how such a people can have fallen to so low a moral level. And yet the answer is not far to seek, for the wars waged by ambitious princes causing disruption and anarchy in the Kongo, the wars waged by M’Buku and the BACILONGO against Makongo whom they dethroned, causing anarchy in KAKONGA, and the slave trade have affected LUANGO-where children refuse to submit to their parents, the young to the wisdom of the old, the people to the inspired voice of their NKICINI. Tradition and religion are lost in the rotten sea of NDONGOISM and vice, and all the higher teaching of NKICI-ISM swamped and nearly lost. And yet in trouble the BAVILI still look to their NKICIci, and after having placed their petition before him, on leaving his presence clap their hands three times and exhort him to “hold the seven [1] well in hand.”

See XILUNGA, on p. 113. Pere Visseg in his interesting dictionary Fiot-Francais, 1890, gives the word “nkadia-mpemba” (and so does Mr. Bentley) for the Devil; and Pere Derouet in his very complete dictionary Francais -Fiote tells us that “Bulunji” stands for Hell among the Bavili, which Mr. Bentley spells BILUNJI.

As to “nkadimpemba,” the word strikes me as unsatisfactory; not that I mean to say the word is not used to translate the Christians’ Devil in the Kongo, but because it seems to me to have been coined exactly for that purpose by the Fjort of some four hundred years ago.

I can imagine the missionaries of old impressing upon Fjort their ideas of that prong-tailed fire-loving monster they called the Devil; and I can picture the Fjort (as their wont is) discussing the proper position of this personage in their mythology. Fire and evil the Fjort connected at once with the burning of witches, and then with lightning. But the fire burnt the witch entirely, and his ashes were cast to the wind; his nkulu nobody desired, so that the Devil could hardly be said to be a witch. The white man’s Devil, then, not being a witch who perishes, could only be a personage attached to the white man’s lightning. He was not Nzambi Mpungu, the owner of the fire of heaven; what then was he?

Nkadi is an attendant on the nkici NZACI. It is the word which the guardian of “Nzaci” uses when addressing the people about her. “Nguli nkadi tambula malavu” means, as we should say “Companion, have a drink.” But NKADI is a black personage, and the white man’s Devil was not black, for he was a personage the white man feared, whereas white men do not fear black men; so they called him “NKadi ampembe,” the white companion of the guardian of the lightning.

As to the word BILUNJI it is in XIVILI the plural of XILUNJI or intelligence, spirit; while BULUNJI, the deep of the spirit, is the word the natives use for grave Both words are derived from LUNGA to blow. It is true that when one man is vexed with another he may remind him they will both meet in the grave, this being a nasty reminder of the general fate of mankind. But when a native wishes to send his “best friend” to a very nasty place he says YENDA KU BUMBA, go to Bumba, and this certainly is a very hot place indeed, for it is the spot upon which an NDOXI is burnt. Note that the family of Maluango may not intermarry with that of XIBANGA. See Page 38.

Personally I should say NDONGO is nearest in meaning to our word devil.]

[1. Himself and the six.]

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XII

 

SACRED LANDS AND RIVERS

Sonio.-Killing the King.-The Provinces.-The Formula.-Maluango’s Lesson.

I COULD not, if I would, give you an exact account of the meanings of the names of all the rivers and places in Luango, so that I will restrict my study to the river Kuilu and its tributaries, and the names of the provinces into which the composite kingdom of Luango, is divided.

Starting south of the Kongo we find the name Solo, or SONIO, as that of a province in Kongo’s composite kingdom. When the natives talk of the banks of a river they stand with their backs to the sea, and call the right bank the man side and the left bank the woman side (the word Solo might be translated as the power of life in fatherhood).

Now just opposite to the province of Sonio on the woman side of the great river Kongo, we have the province of NGOIO (the power of life in motherhood).

NEAMLAU told me that he had the right to take the cap of NGANGA NGOIO, but that as this chief was always killed on the night after his coronation he did not care to do so. It is said that when Kongo sent his sons to govern his provinces, he sent NGOIO with them as a kind of high priest, and undoubtedly the NKICICI BUNzi has its home at MBAMBA in this province or district, and its NGANGA also.

But both Sonio and Ngoio are names used at times for the whole kingdoms of Kongo and Kakongo, which makes me think that these names are really their sacred names. Certain it is, that just as MAKONGO had to marry a princess Of SONIO, so MALUANGO had to marry a princess of NGOIO.

And just as Sonio and Ngoio for the natives represented Fatherhood and Motherhood, so BUKOIO, the sacred name for Luango, represents, as an effect, offspring (or as a cause, birth-giving power).

There is a legend which throws some light on the thoughts of the BAVILI regarding their origin. It runs thus

BUKOIO BUNTANGUA!

The birth-giving power of the sun (Luango).

LUKATU BAKA ‘NGILA MADONGA

UNA ‘N NUKA ‘NCIA CIALI,

translated to me ” though the fish-basket be empty there still remains the smell of the fish,” which I think means to say that although Luango, may not be the really great kingdom, yet, as the descendant of Kongo, it at least has some of the renown attached to that great father kingdom. In other words, if Maluango (great MFUMU in his own kingdom) is not the MFUMU, Still, in relation to Kongo, he is MANIFUMU.

This connecting of the seed of the great Kongo with the sun,[1] taken in connection with the name NGOIO (NGO NDE the moon) is very suggestive, for it leaves us to suppose that the Father Kongo must be on a line with some higher power, the moon being an intermediate effect, while the sun (the offspring and the propagator) becomes the intermediate cause, just as the offspring Luango is-that is, the father, through the mother, has a son who in his turn shall propagate his image. I know of no NGANGA BUKOIO in Luango and very few people seem to know that BUKOIO BU NTANGUA is the sacred name of the country. But MAMBUKU is the very powerful chief of the province of BUKU.

The people are now seldom, if ever, called to meet the king in his XIBILA and so valuable traditions are being lost, and it has become very difficult to piece together even the headings of these lessons, and of course, quite impossible to give them in his words.

I will now give you the names of the provinces and rivers.

[1. See p. 104.]

And here let me clearly state that the order in the following formula of twenty-four Bakici baci was obtained by the help of two or three intelligent non-Christian natives in an attempt to complete the philosophy of the Bavili. I therefore, first give a list of the titles and lands, and secondly in table form the order as established by myself and the natives. The contents of the sacred groves are the same as those given in chapter IX. In discussions it always appeared to me that these natives instinctively connected the animals, trees, and omens with the foregoing groves discussed in the last chapter, but they could give me no intelligent reason for so doing, save that they were all BAKICI BACI.

SAMANU is the most southerly province of Luango on the sea coast, just on the northern bank of the LUANGO LUICI or CHI LUANGO river which divides it from the mother province KAKONGO. The natives say that SAMANU means the waters of purity.

XIBANGA is the most northerly province divided into two parts by the waters of the KWILU river-the part to the north being the home Of XIKAMACI, where they say a pretender to the throne of Maluango is never wanting.

The meaning of XIBANGA is of the quality of seed.

LUANJILI is the province joining the two above provinces together with the exception of the sea frontage of BUALI, a strip of land containing the road from Buali to the beach. It is in this province that the kings of Luango are buried. LUANJILI means of fused rocks.

XIKAMBA is the centre inland province facing the Mayombe on the east, and its meaning is of the quality of informing or calling. It joins NKONDI to MBUKU.

NKONDI is the province on the South-east of BUALI where the sisters of Maluango reside and have children from among whom the king’s successor is chosen. The word means a hunter and this connects the province with fruitfulness (see P. 103).

MBUKU is the province to the East of BUALI and northeast of XIKAMBA, where MAMBUKU resides and guards the Eastern gate of the kingdom-the province where the sun rises. MBUKU means explosion.

These six provinces surround BUALI, the centre province in the middle of which MALUANGO has his XIBILA or sacred grove. The meaning of BUALI is the deep of breathing life.

The sea is called MBU, the deep, an enclosed space. It is at the mouth of the river, where whirlpools are created by the meeting of the fresh and the sea waters that the deeps of maternity exist, which they call MBUNGU NTWALI.

The KUILU, is the principal river of the kingdom of Luango, the word means to and from the sky. Into this river the tributaries LUICI, LUKULU, and the LUALI run.

NYANGA is the name of the lake and means the repetition of the four, and it is here that the NYARI, the name by which the KUILU is known in its upper reaches, has its source.[1]

The Sacred Rivers and Provinces and Contents of Sacred Grove.

BUKOIO

(Contents of the grove.)

Rivers.     Lands.

1. KUILU.  MACI (rain water).

MBU (salt water).  SAMANU.

2. LUICI.  XIVUNGA (seed).

MTI (tree).  XIBANGA.

3. LUKULU.  NZO (house).

XINKONKOLO (oyster shell).   LUANJILI.

4. LUALI.  XINIOKA (snake).

XAMA (snake).  XIKAMBA.

5. NYANGA.  MBIZI or NFU (fish).

SUSU (fowl).  NKONDI.

6. NYARI.  VUMUNA (animal).

XIBULU (beast).  MBUKU.

BUALI.

 

In the above order it will be seen by the meaning of the words that the order of the six categories is maintained.

[1. The meanings of these words are: Kuilu, to or from heaven; Luici, primeval essence; Lukulu, of the spirit, of the departed, or of the ray of light; Luali, of the breathing life, Nyanga, continuance of being; Nyari, of the road of being.]

The following lesson, if not exactly what Maluango used to say to his people, at any rate is a close reproduction of it. I have talked over these questions with him many times, although I never heard him address his people in a sacred grove. In the reading of these symbols it will be noted that my friends have as it were doubled the formula in the middle and taken the first and sixth families together, and worked down and up towards the line dividing the third and fourth.

Maluango is supposed to be speaking.

Nyari-Kuilu.

The way of Being, to and from sky.

The Source and the mouth of the river must not

be separated in your minds.

God is the Source of all things the

Nyari.  Great ruler (Nyari) in heaven as I am the ruler on earth-

Kuilu.  From heaven to heaven do we come and go-

Vumuna.  We suckle our young like cattle

Xibulu.  And know our wives like the beasts of the field.

Xibila.  But as we come together let us remember that we

Xibila.  Are also one with God so that our

Mbuku.  living offspring born through the birth-producing powers given to us by the Sun may also inherit and absorb the bright and

Samanu.  pure waters of morality.

Nyanga-Luici-Life

Nyanga.  The waters of life that have risen from their source are accumulated in the lake and as they flow onward

Luici.  are mingled with those of the river of primeval matter.

Mfu.  It is true that in our lower nature we are as the fish of the sea and the

Susu.  birds in the air who bring forth abundantly,

Kondi.  but let us remember our higher nature and seek to live.

Xivunga Mti.  rather as the tree and herbs that have seed in themselves and also bear fruit

Xi Banga.  and seed. For on the wrong side of the river Kuilu lives the usurper who would lead us to wrong thoughts and actions and the consequent punishment.

Lukulu and Luali.

Lukulu.  Two other great rivers flow into our river of Being, that of spirit and nature. And thus by spiritual law through the spirit of our ancestors we are connected with and of God, by natural

Luali.  law we are connected with and of the Sun. In us are two great lights, the light uncreated and the created light.

Nioka.  In our lower nature the snakes that crawl

Xama.  and feel and give birth to

Xikamba.  offspring are at one with us, but rather should we be called to look to what

Nkongolo.  the colours of the rainbows symbolise to us than to their snake-like nature, and to,

Nzo.  the house of love that contains all the mysteries of generation, so that our offspring may be in death in

Luanjili.  union with Nzambi even as parts of rocks are fused in one by heat.

 

Such are the lessons I would have you learn from my title Fumu, under which I am the way or will and power that has been sent by my father to rule all living things in the sea and rivers and on the land in this kingdom of Luango; Lamba Dende (to cook kernels) walk cautiously if you wish to attain the great end in life, and do no wrong so that your conscience will not force you to come to me crying Dianu (kill me, put me out of the country).

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XIII

 

SACRED TREES

Nkasa trees.-Sacred trees and the Bakici Baci.-Muema and other trees.-Secret Societies.-The Formula. -Maluango’s Lesson.

 

SACRED TREES AND HERBS.

I HAVE gathered sufficient evidence to convince myself that each grove has a tree sacred to it, but all these trees are not NKICI-CI. For instance I am told that the silk cotton NFUMA tree is NKICI to the grove XIVUMA, but the NFUMA tree is not NKICI-CI. Then some trees appear to be sacred to more than one grove, as for instance the NKUMBI tree, apparently sacred to MPUNGU and also to NYIMINA, and the NUMBU tree sacred to NYAMBI, BUKULU and others. My informants however differ so on this subject that in the following study I shall leave out all mention of the groves, and simply give the list of the twenty-four trees and herbs that are BAKICI-BACI, without bringing them in each instance into connection with the philosophy.

You must not conclude that in giving you this list of the sacred trees and herbs of the Bavili, I have exhausted their stock of medicine trees and shrubs. There are many other well-known plants and trees that have to do with medicine and NDONGOISM (fetish), but they are not BAKICI-BACI, or as we should say, sacred powers. MISENGO, MAKAKATA, XUMU, MVUTU, LUSINGO, all enter generally into fetish as medicines. Then there is the great tree NKASA, the powdered bark of which is given to people accused of witchcraft and the MBUNDU CITU. We are naturally left in wonder that two such members of the vegetable kingdom are not sacred, the BAVILI however say they are not, and we must be guided by them in this matter whatever the result may be.

There are no Nkasa trees near to Luango; that is to say, we must go for a walk of some twelve miles to find one. On one occasion we left Luango early in the morning, determined to photograph a few Nkasa and other “sacred” trees, as we thought them at the time.

We arrived at Ximoko, or Buku li Buali, the town of Mambuku Prati, the nephew of Maniluemba the Maluango-elect. Maluango had now left the town in which we first met him and come to Buali, his capital: and meanwhile on the road we heard that we should not find Mambuku at home. “He had gone to see Maluango,” was the only answer to our question. “What has he gone there for?” No answer. Thus when we arrived, the front door of the “little palace” Mambuku had been good enough to build as a chamber for his guests was locked. We walked in therefore through the opening at the back. Then we plied Mambuku’s mother with various questions (his wives were within the enclosure called Lumbu, already described).

It then appeared that the mother was suffering from an evil spirit that had already troubled her in one of her legs, and had now commenced to swell her fingers up. She showed us the hand to prove that there was no humbug about the palaver. Moreover, that same morning very early Makawso had got up and gone outside his shimbec in one direction, while his wife went into the grass in the other direction. Makawso was then, he said, suddenly attracted by the terrible cries of his wife. He rushed -to her assistance, and the leopard that had already seized her by the throat ran away. The poor woman was in a fearful state, but they hoped to save her life. Mambuku, as the father of his people, had gone to consult the great priest NGANGA NVUMBA, or Maluango.

After breakfast, I said I would start to find the Nkasatree which a small boy said he thought he knew of As we passed through another town the boy said we had better ask the women to guide us, for they generally knew where these trees were owing to the clearings made for them by their husbands for their plantations. So I asked them, and they laughed and giggled, the silly things, and said they would follow us, as they were going into the woods to gather the leaves of the fubu, it being nearly the time for mat-making. Down we dived into a wooded valley, and when we had reached the bottom we stopped to talk to some natives who were busy collecting palm-wine. Did they know of the whereabouts of an Nkasa-tree?

“Yes.”

“Would the spokesman guide us to it?

He was busy, but the direction in which we were going would not take us to one. I called upon the small boy for an explanation. The boy and the native discussed the question, and the men and the women laughed. The women then went on their way jabbering.

The tree the boy wished to show me was not an Nkasa-tree. I then asked the speaker to neglect his business for a consideration, and lead us to the tree he knew of. He growled, but at last was persuaded to accompany us, and we went back by the road we had come. Our guide was in a hurry and ran; we ran after him. Then he dived into the wood and we followed him. Then he said he would have to find the tree, and he left us, and, alas! we saw him no more.

Then we followed a path which led us out of that wood, and when we once more got into the open we saw one of our party (who they said was a fool) reclining upon the grass resting. He said he knew where an Nkasa-tree existed. “Why, then, had he not taken us to it straightaway? Was it far?”

“No.”

“Then let us be off.”

Finally, about an hour’s walk brought us to a clearing in the wood, where women were about to plant Indian corn and mandioca. By straining our necks and standing on the half-dried trunk of one of the felled trees which lay around us we caught sight of a few of the top branches of the Nkasa-tree, which we photographed. Then entering the dark wood we examined the trunk. The tree measured some twelve feet in circumference, and there appeared upon its trunk a great oblong patch devoid of bark. I wanted to take a sample of the bark, but I broke the blade of my knife in trying to cut some of it off; it was far harder than I had imagined. Tired and weary, but satisfied that I had added one more sacred tree to my collection, I arrived at Mambuku’s town too late to even think of returning to Luango that night.

Mambuku having returned and informed himself of the object of our visit turned to the fool, and, patting him on the head, said, “So you knew where the Nkasa-tree was?” and the fool said, “Yes, he knew where all the medicine-trees were.”

In conversation with some of my followers I had already discovered that the nkasa-tree was not a sacred tree; it was not Nkicici, but like all other trees that grow unplanted in the “sacred ground,” if it happened to find its home there, in that sense it might be said to be Nkici.

I did not trust my friends, so I now asked Mambuku, who replied, “No, it is not Nkicici,” but merely a tree which supplied them with the poisonous bark in Nkasa palaver.

MUEMA is the mangrove tree. As you know, the heavy trunk of this tree rests on a trellis-like mass of roots that appear to do all they can to keep its body from being in any way brought into contact with the filthy swampy matter at its base. The seeds of this tree also germinate in the air, and it is only when the plant is of a certain age that it drops from its parent stem into the soft mud below. The word might be translated as the essence or kernel in being. The verb EMA or OMA meaning to become dry, while ENA or ONA means he, who. Connected with the protecting NKICICI LUNGULULUBU and ideas of wind, we can understand that this tree gives the Bavili a very spiritual symbol.

 

THE TWENTY-FOUR BAKICI-BACI WITHIN THE FORMULA.

XILIKA. This is a large tree having a small fruit which when it falls to the ground and dries separates into two parts This seed enters into the medicine MBUMBA.

NKANDIKA is also a great tree that bears a large fruit containing twenty-four seeds which enter into many medicines. The word has the meaning “to enclose.” A man closes his house and places a few leaves of manioc, banana, or palm tree, about the latch and that means that no woman may enter therein. This custom is called LU KANDU BA KANDIKILA.

BI SULA BI NKANDI. The husks and shells of the palm fruit used in the smoking of dead bodies.

BIUMU. A string plant giving a bitter tasting fruit from which an ointment is made for drying up wounds.

NKALA is a bushy tree something like a willow that is planted over graves and from the wood of which the posts of the entrance gate to the towns called MABILI are made.

MISAKASAKA is a string plant which they wind round the NKALA posts Of MABILL SAKA is to chase, while SAKASAKA “a little chasing,” gives us the idea of the quick little waves of the sea following one after the other.

MIKWICI is a cane-like plant, planted close to the NKALA poles.

MACISA is also a cane-like plant growing at the foot of the NKALA poles.

XILAWLO is the wild “Coeur de boeuf” known as the LAWLO NTANDU or the wayside “pawpaw.” Its fruit is of a yellow colour and it is eaten by weary travellers on the march. It is one of those shrubs whose growth does not appear to be affected by the yearly prairie fires. It is burnt and scorched each year, but its blackened branches sprout and bear their yearly crop as if the fire had merely purged them of their dead matter and given them new life.

XIFILO is a bushy tree whose fruit is of a ruddy colour, and the leaves of which, together with those of the XILAWLO enter into the medicines connected with MBUMBA.

MAVUKA is a string plant used in binding the tooth of the Hippo (VUBU or NGUVU). This plant and the tooth is called MBUMBA XIDONGO and it is brought out by the prince on (Sundays) the fourth day SONA. Having chewed some KOLA nut, he spits the mass upon the part of the tooth that is bound by the MAVUKA to give him the power to overcome the wiles of the witches who would prevent his propagating his image.

MATONDI is the truffle found in the ground in the woods and eaten by the natives.

MUAMBA is a large tree producing a soft yellow wood of which the natives make figures (ZINKAWCI). It is the word used for the juice or broth made from the fruit of the palm tree.

NKANA is a lofty tree from the bark of which bracelets and anklets are made. Its small fruit enters into the MBUMBA medicines and MBUMBA is the smell of the earth. The wood of this tree must not be burnt in any town where the MBUMBA medicine exists.

MBUBU is the tree representing respectful fear (VUMI). BUBA (the spider) also means an assembly of many things wrapped up as in a parcel. The spider is said to have made a ladder up to heaven to fetch down fire.’

NTETE is a very high tree and serves as a mark or sign that the land on which it stands is near the headquarters of the King. This tree is now a very rare one, in Luango I only know of one and that is situated just on the BUALI side of the river LUBENDO which divides that province from LUANJILL The wood is used to make the handles of axes, hoes, etc. The meaning of the word is “First, principal.” NKAKI NTETE chief and first wife.

NLOMBA is a fine tree sacred to KUNGU, but found in other woods under which the dead who die with their eyes open are placed. It is said that such dead want some question deciding or at least debating before they will submit to burial.

MBOTA is the lonchocarpus (Bentley) producing a very hard yellow wood. The ideas connected with the tree are those of endurance, production, excellence.

NKUMBI is the large tree already mentioned as being at the Eastern entrance to Maluango’s XIBILA or sacred ground. It is here that the king elect, encouraged by NGANGA MBUMBA,

[1. Folklore of the Fjort, P. 74.]

must fight all pretenders who present themselves to dispute his right to the throne.

SEXI (Pl. XI) is the old market tree situated on the NZILA NZAMBI or high road leading from Maluango’s XIBILA to the sea. Here the body of the defunct Maluango is placed just previous to being carried away for burial.

NUMBU is a very great, soft wood tree, and the one situated in the KONGOZOVO of XIENJI marks the place where the people of MAMBOMA meet those of Maluango bearing the dead body, and, chasing them away with oyster and cockle shells, take charge of the body and carry it off to burial. It is sacred to BUKULU and NYAMBI and other groves.[1]

MBA, the palm tree. Maluango, the head of his race in the full vigour of manhood, when judging his people always wears a sash of palm leaves across his shoulders. This is called NDEMBE-DEMBE. This word will carry your thoughts to the word NDEMBO or the secret society, the rites of which are graphically described to us in Mr. Bentley’s dictionary, page 506, but the only secret society I know of among the BAVILI is that of the BADUNGO, who are the king’s policemen, and were chiefly used by him as detectives to deter his people from committing acts of immorality likely to cause the wrath Of ZAMBI or the power BUNZI. The Mayombe I am told use the word NDUNGO and NKIMBA for one and the same person. I am inclined to believe with Consul Roger Casement that the NKIMBA, as a secret society, and as known south of the Congo, is a degenerate conglomeration of native and jesuitical formation. The BADUNGU wear a wooden mask and are dressed in feathers or dried banana leaves, carrying the snout of the saw fish in their hands as a sign of office. (See illustration in Seven Years Among the Fjort, pages 13 and 49.) Naturally as the people degenerated these policemen abused their powers and became a nuisance to the people who, in time, as the power of the king waned, suppressed them.

[1. I notice that in Mr. Bentley’s dictionary of the Kongo language the word NUMBU is translated aromatic plant (generic) incense. The word the Bavili use for these plants is BIFUNDI, but I cannot find, any trace of their being used as incense.]

Some of you may have noticed Kongo pipes ornamented with the picture of a palm tree, among the branches of which quite near to the fruit the snake NLIMBA is coiled. At the foot of this palm tree a few straight lines figure a well. This picture is called NIOKA MU ILU, MPIWILA MACI, BOMA (KUNUA MACI understood), that is (the man seeing), a snake on high being thirsty, fears (to drink the waters of the well).[1]

LEMBE is the copper bracelet worn by princes who are married according to the rites of LEMBE. Now those women wearing the LEMBE bracelet may eat all kinds of palm fruit (NDENDE=a palm nut), but those wearing the NGOFO bracelet may not eat the all yellow nuts of the BA LI NTUNDABA a certain kind of palm tree.

The fence or LUMBU, wherein the wives after the rites of NGOFO and LEMBE live, should be made of the fronds of the palm tree, but if made of papyrus must have a branch of the palm tree showing here and there.

No ordinary woman while still capable of bearing children may eat of the yellow nuts called MATUNDABA, or the nut having a small kernel of the palm tree called SOMBO, but boys and men may eat all these nuts.

NSANDA is the Ficus religiosa or wild fig tree which spreads its branches over the market. It is a sacred tree in Luango but more common as a market tree in KAKONGO.

NKONDO (Pl. VIIb)is the Baobab tree. Its leaves mixed with palm oil are still eaten in the Kongo much as the leaves of the manioc are. Water poured on to the contents of its enormous pods makes a refreshing drink for a fever patient. Some of their dead are (everlastingly so they say) preserved within their hollow trunks. Cut it down and its fallen trunk throws roots down into the earth and shoots branches into the air with a persistent determination not to die.

The NFUMA tree is not sacred, but it is a sign which says “from this place you come.”

[1. I think there is such a pipe in the Exeter Museum.]

Sacred Trees.

MUBMA.

NKUMBI.  XILIKA.

NKADIKA.  MUAMBA.

SEXI.  BIUMU.

BISULA BI NKANDI.  NKANA.

NUMBU.  NKALA.

MISAKASAKA.  MBUBU.

MBA.  MKWICI.

MACISA.  NTETE.

NSANDA.  XILOLO.

XIFILO.  NLOMBA.

NKONDO.  MAVUKA.

MATONDI.  MBOTA.

NFUMA.

 

In this case it will be hard for the Europeans to connect the six groups with the six categories because it is a case of comparing spirit to matter, which, of course, can only be done by analogy. It can most easily be done by first taking, as before, Maluango’s lesson, and then tracing in it the ideas connected with the categories.

We have already seen what Maluango said with regard to the lands and rivers. I now give his lessons drawn from the sacred trees.

NKONDO.  The sisters of Maluango are allowed to choose a man each from any part of the country as their husbands. The man thus chosen becomes virtually the slave of his royal wife, and must have no other wife or concubine. When Maluango, is finally crowned king he also must marry a princess of Ngoio and put away his wives or concubines that he may have lived with while he reigned as Nganga Nvumba. The princesses must live in Kondi and here on the death of a Maluango, Mamboma and the other princes must repair to choose a successor.

MATONDI.  Not only must the ruler-elect be beloved by the people, but he must be a perfect man capable

MAVUKA.  of procreating, or, as we should say,

MBOTA.  excellent, enduring and good man. That is in every way a noble man.

NKUMBI.  He is led to the Nkumbi tree to meet the people and is encouraged by Mamboma to fight any one who has any pretension to the crown. Strong in the knowledge of the purity

XILIKA.  of his birth and that which has fallen

NKANDIKA.  on him, and is within him from above, he looks upon himself as

MUAMBA.  the essence of all virtue. In this physical nature he is surrounded

NSANDA.  by his courtiers as the market tree is by the people beneath its shade.

XILAWLO.  The fires and trials of life have but given him new life and a consciousness of Self, and he feels that

XIFILO.  his-intuition will guide him so that

NLOMBA.  all his discussions will be remembered by the people.

SEXI  Unconscious of wrong-doing he fears not death, and the knowledge that it is his duty to bury his uncle

BIUMU.  whose body is now being dried by the

BISULABINKANDI.  fire and smoke from husks and shells of the palm kernels makes

NKANA.  him all the more resolved to fight through his present troubles.

MBA.  And now that he has succeeded his uncle the Ntawtela and is married to the welfare of his people

MIKWICI.  the time has come when he must

MALISA.  fulfil his promises and become

NTETE.  in reality the head of his State

MISAKASAKA.  And that he may follow in the footsteps of

NUMBU.  Ntawtela and become absorbed in the deep of the Spirit, he must

NKALA.  remember his enduring and priestly powers, and live to the end,

MBUBU  in the respectful fear of God as Overseer and Chief from whom all come.

 

Such is the pure and kingly life; born of a royal mother, the only wife of one chosen husband; himself the husband of one royal wife.

In order to trace the connection of the trees and the categories the reader must refer to the table of associated ideas given on p. 109.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

THE OMENS

Bunzi.-The Nerves.-Omens: the dog, the frog, birds, snakes, colours.-Double meaning of words.-The formula.

 

OMENS, ETC.

IT is said that BUNZI the South wind brought NSACI and XIMBUKA with him. While both these are the names of BAKICI BANKONDI, or “household gods,” they are also the words used for thunder and lightning. NSACI (or NZACI), Antonio Lavadeiro told me some years ago, on one occasion sent his 24 dogs and they killed one of his companions and burnt a palm tree (Folklore of the Fjort, page 72.) At the time I wondered why there should have been 24 dogs, but now I feel assured that these dogs simply represented the 24 parts or pairs of intermediate nerves, which the natives attribute to the trunk of his body.

There is no longer any doubt in my mind that this constantly recurring 6 by 4 is part of the system of native philosophy.

Thus they believe there are three pairs of nerves and a fourth as the cause, six sets of four pairs as that which goes between, and one and three pairs as the effect. Which counting the joining fourth of the causative set and the joining one of the effective set as one pair would make up the 31 pairs of nerves in the human body, according to the native.

Putting all this on one side for the moment let me tell you what I know of their omens, which are so nearly connected with their nervous system.

Thunder and lightning out of season portend the death of a prince and as such are a bad sign; in season they are very welcome.

MBWA or MBULU is the dog. The MBULU must not cross one’s path at the commencement of a journey; if it does it must be taken as a sign of misfortune and the traveller must put off his departure for a day or two. The meaning of the word BULU is a valley, an animal, a being gifted with sensibility, a person without spirit or reason. BWA is now used rather as an appellation for the tame dog which their stories tell us was first sent to town to procure food for some of his friends, but enjoying the warmth of the fire there, determined to remain as the companion of man.

A man met a beautiful dog on one occasion and was so pleased with its appearance that he determined to take it home with him. As it was raining heavily he took it with him inside his shimbec and lighting a fire proceeded to dry and warm his pet. Suddenly there was an explosion and neither man, dog, nor shimbec were ever seen again. This dog was NSACI, so Antonio told me.

 

BAKICI-BACI.

XUULA, the croaking frog, has two voices. When you hear it croaking in a stuttering guttural way you may expect evil When on the contrary it utters a soft purring kind of croak all is well. The word ULA is connected with the smashing and crushing that goes on, on earth and -in rivers during a storm when trees are falling and waters rushing madly towards the sea.

MBIXI is the little bird that sings LU ELO-ELO-ELO. And if you are going out fishing in the sea and you hear this pleasant sound you are sure to have good luck.

SUSU, the fowl. It is a bad sign to hear a cock crow after 6 p.m. and before 3 a.m.

XIXEXI, a very small bird. When this bird sings XIXEXI and you hear it on your way to fish, it is a good sign ensuring luck, but if it sings TIETIE turn back, as you will catch nothing.

KULU = the horned owl. When at night this bird comes near to you and you hear it hooting it is a sign of death that is about to overtake you or one near to you.

NXECI is a fairly large black bird, whose wings are tipped with white. Its song KE-E-E portends “witch palaver.”

KNA KNA, a slender black bird with a long tail, that is continually crying out KNA KNA. When the Bavili hear this bird they conclude that there is something wrong with MABILI, not the power but the NKICINKONDI or entrance gate to their village, or there is some sickness hanging about some one dear to them. This bird came from the East with MABILI.

MVIA is a brown bird that cries out VIA, reminding the native of witch burning palaver. It is a bad sign. VIA=to burn.

NUMVU is a large dark-brown bird, the fish eagle, that lives near to rivers. When it is all one colour it is a bad sign, but when you meet one with its wings tipped with white it is a good sign.

XIFUTU NKUBU = the screech owl. Like the KULU, to hear it hoot is a sign of death.

MBENDA = the field rat. If this rat runs across your path from left to right it is a good sign; not so good when it crosses from right to left. Should it run towards you it is a bad sign, but if it runs along in front of you in the way you are going, “Oh! that is very good.”

MPAWLO PAWLO = the common owl. When you hear the hooting of this owl you may feel happy, for it means “Be at rest, all is well! ”

 

THE SNAKES AND COLOURS OF THE RAINBOW OR THE NERVES IN CONNECTION WITH THE SENSES AND PERCEPTIONS.

MPILI, the spitting adder, strikes terror into the noisy and is evidently connected with the sense of hearing.

NDUMA is a black coloured snake (Python?), from about 6 to 8 feet in length, that is said to lift itself on its tail and strike a person dead with its head if he attempts to pass it. Men wearing the iron bracelet of NGOFO Must ask themselves the following questions on meeting with it:-

Have we eaten the flesh of any animal that we have killed on the same day?

Have we pointed our knives at any one?

Did we know our wives on the day of rest, NSONA?

Have we looked upon women during their periods?

Have we eaten those long chili peppers instead of confining ourselves to the smaller kinds?

This snake causes man to reflect and reason.

MBUMBA is a great snake found in wells; it loves moisture, and is allied to the BOMA. Women are more especially afraid of MBUMBA, and after drawing the fish and water out of a well, they will run away and leave their fish if they discover that MBUMBA has been hidden in it after all. The word means moisture, secret, “to draw up the earth round the roots of a plant” when the smell of the earth is said to impart some secret to women. Nearly connected with MBUMBA is the plain copper bracelet of the NGANGA MBUMBA, and the NLUNGA SONGO. This connects MBUMBA with marriage and smell.

MACI MA XILEMBE = green. The water in which the King has washed his hands is called MACI MAXILEMBO or DEMBO. An ordinary man is said to wash his hands (SUKULA MIOKO), but a prince (SUKULA NDEMBO) his fingers. MACI MA XILEMBE is the water expressed from the five-fingered leaves of the MANIOC.[1] LEMBA means to touch mentally.

[1. The early Portuguese residents affirm that when they arrived in Africa the natives fed on bananas, sesame, and liico (by which perhaps they meant what we call Baku mushrooms), all which, they say, were indigenous. After a severe famine had ravaged the land, they say that they introduced the mandioca, Indian corn and sweet potatoes. This is possibly true. From the fact that the rnandioca, under the name of Mpanzi is sacred to the South wind, Bunzi, and that in the name for the colour green we find a reference to the same plant, we might, however, with reason doubt their having introduced it in the country north of the Kongo. But the leaves of the mandioca are very like to those of the Nkondo, or Baobab tree; and we know that the natives do with the leaves of this tree just what they do with those of the mandioca, i.e., boil and pound them in water to prepare them as food, and maci maxilembe may as a colour be said to be the proper name for the waters of both and may originally have been applied to the Baobab water only; “lembe” is not a name for mandioca.]

NLAWLO = yellow. LAWLOKA is to over-look; hence to pardon. It is the word used after a person has undergone the “hot knife” test and escaped unharmed signifying that he is innocent, so that the yellow colour is connected with this kind of examination.

MUAMBA = orange. It is the juice or essence of the palm nut. As an exclamation it is used to mean that what has been said, done, or seen, is very good; it therefore expresses appreciation.

MPILU = purple. This word could be written VILU or BIDU and that means the soot smeared upon the faces of people who mourn their dead. Hence VILUKA or MPILUKA is to change the face of a thing. This change of face expresses grief.

BUNDI = Indigo blue. The natives now tie a piece of blue baft, in which a bit of skin is fastened, around their heads as a sign of mourning. This band (TANTA) used to be made of folded grass cloth dyed nearly black.

MBAMBA is the green snake measuring from four to eight feet in length. The three snakes MBUMBA, NDUMA, and MPILI are classified by the natives under the name BOBO (the bearing ones) the three that we are now discussing, i.e. MBAMBA, NSANDA, and NLIMBA as Sasa (the procreating ones).

MBAMBA is harmful but not a deadly snake. ZIMBAMBA are the strips of the Mbamba palm used as string. The sense of touch is figured by this snake. SIMBA is to handle.

NSANDA is a light yellow snake about eight feet long, which will only bite those “whose day has come.” It lives in the grass. It is one of the snakes said to guard LUNGULULUBU. The sense of sight. The word SANDA means to search and see which you prefer.

NLIMBA, about eight feet in length, is the orange-coloured snake that guards the palm nuts of certain trees so that those who are forbidden to eat them may not obtain them. In this way it is connected with the sense of taste. It is the diminutive of the NDAMBA or XAMA.

XAMA = snake, written also NDAMA, NCIAMA, TIAMA. It is said to be red in colour but it is seldom seen (save as a part of a rainbow). It is they say of enormous proportions and lives in the woods. If anyone kills it the rains will not fall. Pieces of it are occasionally found (probably talc) and highly prized.

There are two great XAMA, XAMA NGONZOLA and XAMA LUAYI.

It is said that the snake NLIMBA grows into the snake NDUNDO which in its turn becomes XAMA LUAYI, the beneficent rainbow that drives away the evil XAMA NGONZOLA. On the other hand, NSANDA grows into the snake NKULA NTIETI which becomes XAMA NGONZOLA. That is, choice or the desire to choose that which is not his in the market-place leads one to the chasing of the wrong voice which carries one to destruction.

Another example of this double meaning given to words or sentences by the native is found in the following saying given to me by my old head man (now dead) Francisco. He said that when the floods caused by XAMA NGONZOLA were wrecking their villages and plantations, the princes of the Bavili raised their hands to their breasts and then lifting them up on high let them drop again to their sides (the sign of the rainbow) saying ETU (our) SE (father) LE (that is) I (and) LI (who is) A (of) MBUKU (the exploder) ZAMBI (God) UI (KO understood), may he not hear. Francisco put in quite a lot of aspirates in this sentence, which would go to show that the saying came from the people to the East of Luango who still make use of them, the Bavili using V in their place. I have omitted these to make the sentence more easily comprehended. Now the saying used by the people generally in Luango is ETUCI (clouds for MATUTI) LE (that are) I (and) LIAMBUKO (never mind) ZAMBI (God) UI KO (may he not hear).

The valley or deep, out of which XAMA NGONZOLO is said to rise, is called BULU LE MBOMA, the valley of fear.

MBENGA=red (MENGA=blood).

It is not very hard for a native to connect the senses with the six categories.

Hearing is the opposite to exclaiming, which they connect with air and the heavens and so with water.

Reason they connect with ideas of foundation, ground, solidity just as we do.

Smell they connect with marriage, and hence with desire and heat.

Touch implies motion for them.

Sight they connect through coveteousness, with abundance and wealth or plenty.

Taste they connect with eating, and through eating with life.

The order is the natural one taken from the colours of the rainbow.

Omens.

Colours of rainbow.      Rainbow snakes.

MPILU.  XUULA.

MBIXI.  MPILI.

BUNDI.  SUSU.

XIXEXI.  NDUMA.

XIDUTA.  KULU.

NXECI.  MBUMBA.

MACI MAXILEMBE.  KNAKNA

MVIA.  MBAMBA.

NLAWLO.  NUMVU

XIFTUTU NKUBU.  NSANDA.

MUAMBA.  NBENDA

MPAULO PAULO.  NLIMBA.

 

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XV

 

SACRED ANIMALS.

The Leopard. -Witchcraft, -Story of Ngo as an Old Woman. -Xina. -Classes of Bina.-Tabu Animals.-The Formula.-Bavili Laws and Lessons.

 

XINA.

THE King as NTINU LUKENE or the one who advises his people to fly from the custom of the Leopard.

NGO the leopard is the XINA of the people of KONGO (including the provinces south of the Kongo, as well as KAKONGO and LUANGO) and as such it is NKICICI It is the only animal having the title of Fumu. All palavers are commenced with the words NGONGONGO NGETE NZAMBI. NGO is the name by which a woman who is capable of bearing royal children is known; the wife of the first KONGO. The leopard’s skin is used as a charm against smallpox, and the MANKAKA’S (captain executioner) hat of office is also made of it.

In Jan. 1902, the writer was standing near to his house when a crowd of natives passed him carrying the body of a dead leopard[1] to Luango for sale. The head of the beast was covered with a cloth so that its eyes should not be seen. And a lady called NGO who was standing near to him began to cry.

“Why do you cry?” the writer asked.

“Ah,” she answered,” the brutes would not have treated

[1. In Seven Years among the Fjort I give part of the custom attending the killing of NGO, and in notes on the Folklore of the Fjort I supplement this. Many of the stories also throw some light on the character of this animal. The skins of the leopard are sent to BUNZI when rain is wanted by the King for his people. See ante, p. 45.]

my namesake in this rough way in the olden days with impunity.”

The BAVILI call the leopard XIKUMBUA, which might be translated as the calumniator, but the BATEKE still call it KENE, which might be translated, the one opposed to nobility.

As this animal is looked upon as the mother of all animals, we cannot be wrong in saying that she is descended from ZAMHI through XIKAMACI and her offspring XIKANGA and NXILUKA, who are said to be the parents of an animal and a wooden figure.

That the leopard is connected with witchcraft is certain, even if the words “NDONGO” and NDOXI did not so clearly point to the fact, for we were warned by MAMBUKU[1] at

[1. While at my frugal meal, MAMBUKU, who had been squatting on the ground near to me, got up and left me. I lit a cigarette and walked up and down in the moonlight by the side of the bananas MAMBUKU had planted as a kind of fence around a cleared space, within which his dwellings and outhouses were, built. At last I retired to rest upon the bed of boards prepared for me, but just as I was falling to sleep the midnight silence was suddenly broken by a shout. I recognised the voice of MAMBUKU immediately, and thought at first that he must have met with some accident. Another grunt-like shout, and I knew that MAMBUKU was simply calling the attention of his people to something he had to say to them. And this is what he -said:

“Ur! ur (to wake his people up).

“Nuvula (Listen!)

“Ngonde moci u bakana kubella, mukulu, abu mimibakana ku bella mu luzala.” (Last month my mother had a bad leg, now she is sick in her finger.) “Manwela Ngoma! Manwela Ngomo! Anjea, unkruntu u kela ku ngandu.’ (Manwela Ngoma! you are head man of the village.) “Mani ngombo! Anjea uzabici ma awso.” (Mani ngombo, the name of his suffering mother, you know all about it). “Bene Bawso! Nu keba mbizi Xikumbu una untambala befi inu manga ‘ntu ntese.” (All of you! Beware that when the leopard comes you don’t receive him, as we shall divine who be may be.) “Beno! Mundela naka kunxitula lau!” (All of you! The white man is sleeping in town, and if I make a noise he will think me a fool.)

There was a pause and a great silence; then MANWELA NGOMA from his corner of the village replied:

“Minu unkruntu, anjea veka Mani Puati, anjea veka bakaci libamba liaku, anjea veka ubakamba, minu bawso i bakambila baci kumpe, nsamu au ba veka.” (I am the head man, you yourself are Mani Puati, you own us all, you have called upon me, I called upon all, they do not hear, it is their palaver.)

Then came another pause; after which up spoke the sick mother, Mani ngombe.

“Bobo ntubila xibene xiaku tata, ntuba minu muntu yaka kalilanga enxenzo mu nitu.” (The father has just now told the truth, I tell you that I keep on suffering pain in my body.)]

XIMOKO that someone with “NDONGO” in his stomach, had willed the leopard to come to their town, or someone in that very town, perhaps, was ready to use the leopard as a means of destroying his neighbour’s life. And someone also with evil thoughts was causing the mother to keep on suffering.

The BAVILI fully believe that certain BANTU A NDONGO have this power over leopards and crocodiles, and that others who have not the power themselves, knowing their brother NDONGO, ask them a favour of the loan of the wer-beast. The MUNTU A NDONGO, or wizard as you perhaps would call him, does not in this case change himself into the leopard or the crocodile, for he may be talking to you in one place while the beast is doing his will in another. Neither need he die first, so that what some people like to call his “soul” may enter and possess the animal.

The man who has NDONGO in his stomach will search out an NGANGA, or doctor, who has the medicine XIKUMBU XIMANPANDU, and ask him to sell him some. The NGANGA will ask him if he is really desirous to obtain it, and the MUNTU A NDONGO answers yes. The NGANGA sells him the medicine. The MUNTU A NDONGO says he cannot see the leopard or crocodile. Then the NGANGA takes the medicine and gives the MUNTU A NDONGO some, and rubs some into his eyes, and asks him if he can now see the leopard. The MUNTU A NDONGO answers yes, and goes his way conscious that he owns a leopard or crocodile to do his will.

All leopards do not lend themselves to these horrible practices, and such as do not are said to belong to the BAKICI BACI, or the people who are owners of sacred ground.

Since my visit to XIMOKO I have noticed the following sad cases of the ravages said to have been worked by the wicked class of leopards:

1. XIKAWMO is a man who has lived with white men all his life, can read and write, and wears European clothes. He was with his master in Somboa, quite near to Luango, and it was here that the following sad event occurred. Three boys, one of them the son of XIKAWMO, were sleeping in an outhouse serving as a kitchen. One night a leopard entered this place, and passing over one of the boys, deliberately attacked and killed the son of XIKAWMO, only wounding the boy nearest the door in his flight.

XIKAWMO went to MALUANGO, and after relating the whole affair to him said, “How is this? I want to know who had this leopard?” Then they set the NGANGAS to work, and it was divined that it was a man of the village of NTANDA BILALA who owned this particular leopard. Then XIKAWMO said,” Very well; now I want to know who ate the flesh of this man of BILALA,” for if one of his boy’s family had not eaten the flesh [1] of the BILALA man, XIKAWMO reasoned that it was impossible that the BILALA man should have sent the leopard to “chop” his son. And here this palaver rests for the time being.

2. The Wife of XIKAIA was in her house sleeping with another woman when a leopard burst open the door, passed over the other woman, and carrying XIKAIA’S wife away, ate her up, leaving only her head. XIK)LIA called in the ZINGANGA, and they divined that MAXIENZI was the owner of that leopard. So XIKAIA went to MAXIENZI’S town and destroyed his house and plantations, and then went to MALUANGO to complain about MAXIENZI. MALUANGO arrested MAXIENZI, and advised him to take nkasa at once. MAXIENZI said, “Let us first hold a palaver.”

In the palaver it was proved that MAXIENZI had asked the acknowledged owner of the leopard to lend it to him. MAXIENZI protested, and declared that in this case he was innocent. MALUANGO then said that no one would believe him under the circumstances, and that the decision was in the hands of God, not his. Let him take nkasa. MAXIENZI went to MAMBUKU’S town, and demanded to be given the nkasa. It was given to him and he vomited, thus proving that he was innocent.

XIKAIA and his people, however, said that MAXIENZI used his knowledge as a MUNTU A NDONGO to avoid the proper

[1. Eaten the flesh, i.e., done him an injury, perhaps by sending a leopard to kill some one of his family.]

and just effects of the nkasa. XIKAIA and his other wife and family then left their town and went to live in the Mayombe, or bush-country.

3. A poor old man and his little grandchildren went into the woods to cut the fronds of the bamboo palm (ntombe), from the leaves of which he meant to make thatch to cover his house. Having finished their work, they picked up their bundles and were about to start homewards, when a leopard sprang out of the bush upon the old man. The children cried out, not being able to run away. The leopard. left the old man, and the party then took up their burdens and ran away in the direction of their village. At last the old man threw his bundle of leaves into the grass, and said he could go no further; he would rest and then come home. Shortly after he had stopped the leopard set upon him again. The little ones saw it, shouted to it to go away, and then ran home as fast as they could. The people of the village set out to look for the old man, but only found his head. How this palaver was settled I do not know.

These four cases in this district, then, have come to my knowledge within six months, and I give you the facts as related to me, and therefore with their native colouring and as they are looked upon by disinterested native third parties.

 

NGO AS THE OLD WOMAN IN A HAMMOCK.

The story of how Xidiela exposed the witches.

(Xidiela means in XIVILI a man who humbugs people.)

Xidiela was not well treated at home, and was finally told by his people that he was not worth anything, and had better go away and earn his living as best he could; they were tired of supporting him. This rather sobered Xidiela, and as he was already a bearded man, he knew he would have some difficulty in getting his living in a decent way, and he dreaded the thought of having to turn his hands to any hard work. He approached a rich man and offered him his services as “boy” or cook.

“You are too old,” said the rich man.

“Never mind that, try me. I will do my best for you.”

And so he was engaged to clean plates, cook food, and cut wood. He continued to clean plates, and cook food, and cut wood for a long, long time. During all this time sundry Zi Nganga kept on telling him that he was serving a MUNTU A NDONGO, and Xidiela at last felt that there must be some truth in what he was told.

“Every Nganga that comes here says the same thing. What am I to do? How can I get the better of him?”

He once more cooks his master’s chop, and then goes to him and says:

“Senhor!”

“What? I am a witch.”

“No!” says his master. Yes, I am.”

“Why, how do you know? ” asks the master.

“Yes, I am a witch, but am ashamed, and take off my clothes only behind the shimbec.”

“Never mind,” says the master, “I am one too, and perhaps after all you are one, for it is to-day that we are going to kill the prince of the country, and it is to-day that you tell me you are a witch. We will go together; but go to sleep and wait until the evening.”

Xidiela sleeps, wakes early in the evening, and goes to his master and wakes him.

“You are no witch,” says Xidiela, “or you would not sleep like this,”

“Nay,” says his master, “it is not time yet; you may sleep a little longer.”

Xidiela goes to sleep again. Then they wake up, and start for the meeting-place of the witches. Xidiela goes ahead to show that he is not afraid. They come to a place where a great number of cloths and bracelets and leg-rings lie strewn about.

The master tells Xidiela to take off his clothes.

“No,” says Xidiela; “when I do that people in town will dream that I am a witch, but when they see that I am dressed they will say, ‘ No, he cannot be a witch, because he dressed.'”

“Very well, then,” says his master, as he takes off his own clothes; “go as you are, but take care of the others.”

Then they walk and walk and walk, until they arrive at a place where all the ZINDOXI were in the grass.

“Mamboma Xinkanda”[1] says the old woman with sores, Nfumu Ngo (in her hammock), when she sees the boy. “Mamboma! Xidiela kalokaka mino mabola maka ku sungomina.” (Mamboma! he is not a witch; he comes only to look on. As sure as I’m a nganga I divine it.)

And Mamboma replies, “Zibika munu aku anjea natanga mu xipoia.” (Shut your mouth. It is because you are in a hammock that you say so.)

The old w man replies; “Maxi ku natua batu ku anganga.” (It is not because I have a hammock, but because I am a nganga that I say this.)

Mamboma then says: “How could he enter here if he were not a witch? Give him a matchet,[2] that he may dance.”

They give him a matchet. Xidiela takes the matchet, and dances away and dances back again, And the young women are very pleased, and cry out, “Tuala ntulu, return here.”

And Xidiela goes to them and returns twice; but the third time he runs away, taking the machet with him. And the old woman with the sores cried out from her hammock to Mamboma, “You now see that I was right.”

They all waited, and then exclaimed, “She is right.”

They then set upon the master and thrashed him. (They did not kill the prince.) They then knocked their fetish,

[1. heard a little story of the Xinkanda (lemur). This little animal is looked upon to-day as the “Mamboma” of the princely ‘Ngo, and was elected a prince of Luango in the following manner:

Ngondo (a long-tailed monkey) was very proud of the power his tail gave him in his hurried movements here and there, and upon this power he laid claim to the chief office in Luango, i.e., that of Mamboma. Now, the Xinkanda objected to this claim on the part of the Ngondo. The Xinkanda is a close-fisted little animal, and the Bavili say sticks hard to anything he clings to. They say it takes hours to get anything out of its hands, once they are closed on any object. The Xinkanda is said to have made some bitter remarks about the ngondo and his tail, and challenged him to call a meeting of all the animals to get at the general opinion of their world upon their merits. At this meeting the slow-moving but sure Xinkanda was unanimously elected Mamboma.

2. A kind of cutlass.]

crying out to Xidiela’s Master, “You brought the boy here If you come back here you will die.”

And Xidiela gathered up all the clothes and bracelets and leg-rings, and took them to his home. He made a fire outside his shimbec and waited for his master, but he did not sleep. The Zi-Ndoxi searched for their clothes, and thrashed the master again when they could not be found, and then they departed to their towns, dispersing in different directions.

And next day Xidiela remarked to all about him, “How is it that so many are wearing clean clothes to-day?”

And the master called Xidiela aside, and whispered to him that they had thrashed him.

“Who dared to thrash you?” shouted Xidiela.

“Don’t shout,” cried the master,

“Why?” shouted Xidiela.

“If you are a ndoxi, why do you act like this and get me thrashed?”

“I went simply to humbug you,” replied Xidiela.

And each ndoxi brought fifty longs (125 yards) of cloth, or sheep, or presents, to get their clothes from Xidiela and to bribe him to say nothing about the affair. Thus he became very rich, and went back to his town and built a nice shimbec, and looked down upon his poorer relations.

Some time afterwards he went back in a hammock to see his master. His master called him a ndoxi, and dared him to take nkasa.

“Let us take it together,” said Xidiela. And they both went far away, where they were not known, and took the bark

and the master died, and Xidiela escaped.

The above, of course, is merely a story; the following, however, occurred not so long ago, which proves how near fiction is to fact in the Bavili’s mind.

Buite had been out fishing, and on his way home met the drunkard Mavungu, who asked him for some fish. Buite refuspd to give it, and Mavungu threatened to ” do for him.” Buite fell sick and died. Mavungu took nkasa and died. And it then turned out that the drunkard Mavungu had gone to his town in a rage and told his brother, who was also no friend of Buite’s, that the latter had refused to give him fish. So they sought out one or two other Zi-Ndoxi, and they had determined to kill Buite. Buite, falling sick, called in an Nganga, who divined that he was bewitched, and that nothing could save him. When Buite died, Mavungu, who had thus been heard to threaten Buite, was accused of having been the cause of his death, and had to take nkasa, and died.

The Bavili say that supposing that Mavungu’s brother had refused to join him in wishing the death of Buite, but on the contrary had said, “No! Buite is not bad fellow, and I do not wish him to die,” Buite might have fallen sick, but would have soon got better.

ZAMBICI in some of the stories[1] is spoken of as the mother of all animals, as if she were the immediate mother rather than the Creator. This confusion is natural to degenerate people, who are apt to mistake the intermediate causes for the first cause. In the story that describes an old lady arriving at the town of SONANSENZI and asking for hospitality we have an example of this. NZENZ1 is the cricket, and the story therefore is an animal one; and the old lady so full of sores who chastised the people of the town for not giving her hospitality should perhaps be NGO, the leopard, and not NZAMBI Cl.

 

XINA.

Mesu Mazenzi Mavili Matuninini say the BAVILI for a crooked palaver in which one is able to see the truth. You can cook the grasshopper or cricket, but its eyes remain, or, in other words, “The truth will out.”

The cricket is XINA to SONJO.[2]

ZOMBO-BAWCI or BOCI,[3] the eel, is the XINA, or sacred animal of Kakongo.

An old lady is said to have been on a journey in Kakongo behind a place called FUTILA. She carried a child on her back, and asked some women who were planting in the fields for water. The women said that they only had enough for themselves, and that water had to be brought from a long distance. The lady eventually got a drink of palm wine

[1. See Folklore of the Fjort, p. 127.

2. SONANZENZI, Folklore of the Fjort, p. 122.]

3. These three words, Meci, Bawci, and Awci, all mean one-the seeing one, the instinctive one and the hearing one; Meci is equivalent to Mesu ma zenzi.]

from a young man who was tapping a palm tree. She rewarded the young man, and punished the women for their want of motherly instinct by turning the field they had been in into a lake (BAWCI), the fish of which is XINA to the women of NTUMPU to this day.

The third one[1] (AWCI or OCI) is MPAKASA AWCI, the wild ox or buffalo, the XINA of LUANGO.

When Maluango [2] first came from Kongo he brought this XINI which is NKICI’Cl with him. He is said to have asked some men for water and they refused to give it to him; hence he made the flesh of the MPAKASA XINA to their family BAKULu. These four,[3] great ones then are the XINA of the whole tribe and the three sub-tribes composing it, and the three are not only the sacred animals of the sub-tribes, but also the forbidden food of certain families in those sub-tribes. As we are treating only of LUANGO, we must restrict ourselves to its sacred animals.

MPAKASA AWCI is called the XINA XI BIKA MUANA BUKULU, or the four left by the offspring of the spirit of the ancient.

2nd Class. Each province under the rule of its Fumu has two XINA, as in the case of the province of XIBANGA, the SUSU or fowl, and the SEXI (duiker); these are called BINA FUMICI.

3rd Class. Then each district under its KONGO Zovo has its XINA, as in the chief district of the above province, the NZIKU, the chimpanzee. This kind is called XINA XICI, and is the sacred animal of the sacred grove of the district. Thus MPUKU, the rat, is XINA XICI of a family as well as the animal connected with the grove MPUKU NYAMBI as an omen.

[1. See note 3, p. 152.

2. The route of Maluango and Makongo from San Salvador to Luango and Kakongo is marked out by the ground where they rested becoming “xinkici a’nci,” i.e., sacred ground. There are no altars made with tools, but as you wander through the woods you will at certain places come across a mound of earth and leaves. And as your servants pass this mound they will add their tribute to it. They say these mounds are marks which divide the frontiers (ndilu) of two provinces, and that in passing them they pick up earth and leaves and heap them up, so that they may not be accused, as they say, of bringing anything evil into the next prince’s country. These mounds are called Lombi.

3. Including ngo.]

4th Class. Each person living under his KONGO ZOVO (head of family) with any pretensions to birth should have four BINA.

The XINA of each of his ancestors i.e., two XINA XIXINKAKA:

XI’XITATA, the XINA of his father’s family.

XI’XIFUMBA, the XINA of his mother’s family.

In connection with this class it is astonishing how few can trace their pedigrees back to their grandfathers. Take, for instance, the following examples:

TATI of BENGUELA says his father’s XINA was NGULUBU, the pig; his mother’s NGWALI, the partridge; and that he is

of the family of NZIKU.

BAYONA of NTUMPU

Father  KABI  Antelope.

Mother  NZIKU  Chimpanzee.

Ancestors  NGULUBU  Pig.

NYUNDU XIBANGA  Otter.

ENGO of FUTILA (Kakongo)

Father  KABI  Antelope.

Mother  NGWALI  Partridge

Grandparents

or ancestors  NGULUBU  Pig.

MAKAMBA Of XILENDI NKOMBI

Father  NKOMBO  Goat.

Mother  A slave brought from the interior.

SUNGU of XIENJI

Father  NKOMBO  Goat.

Mother  MPAKASA  Buffalo.

LUIZ

Father  NGWALI  Partridge.

Mother  He does not know.

In the case of BAYONA NGULUBu and NYUNDU XIBANGA show the districts of his grandparents, while his father’s XINA is KABI and his mother’s NZIKU. Through his ancestors he is related to TATI, whose father had the pig as his XINA. Then TATI is of the family of Nzixu, the XINA of Bayona’s mother, therefore their families may not intermarry.

5th Class. Certain offices or situations carry certain XINA with them.

The office of FUMU ZINKONDI or ZINKATA; the pig, NGULUBU.

The office of BADUNGU; the NZIKU.

The office of PUNZI; food cooked by an unmarried woman.

This class is called XINA XISALU.

6th Class. Each XIBILA has its XINA.

BUNZI hates unmarried women; XIKUMBI, the maiden, is therefore its XINA.

XIKANGA NXILUKA hate a noise; the goat NKOMBO is their XINA.

This class is called XINA XINKICICL

7th Class. When natives are sick and are undergoing treatment certain foods are XINA, and as often as not the patient is ordered henceforth not to allow a companion to eat certain flesh together with him.

This is called XINA XI BILONGO.

8th Class. Certain household fetishes, bracelets, etc., carry with their ownership certain restrictions as to food. The wearer of the NGOFO bracelet may not eat the fish MPULI with another person; he may not kill and eat an animal on the same day.

This is XINA BAKICI.

9th Class. Now, parts of some animals are found in the sacred grove. This summed-up class is called XINA XI BIFUMBA.

These BINA of the BAVILI are as follows:

The skin of the leopard finds its way into the XIBILA only as part of the dress of the individual. Neither the eel nor the cricket are found there, but the MPAKASA is the greatest of all the symbols entering the XIBILA of the BAVILI and so we will commence with it.

The wild ox in the stories of the Bavili is generally found acting as the servant or ambassador of either the Leopard or some princely animal. As often as not it is sacrificed while in the discharge of some duty. Thus when NZAMBI (NGO?) sent him for the wagtail’s drum he was killed by the followers of that bird.

The tail of the ox called MAWSO is the sign of office of all the Kongozovo among the Bavili, thus the idea of obedience to the voice of one in authority is implied.

The wild ox is always on the alert for the slightest noise, it is peculiarly sensitive to sound. The horns and head of this animal are found in the XIBILA.

BAFU = the saw fish, the snout of which the BADUNGU carry as their sign of office. This snout is found in the XIBILA.

NKAKA = a kind of crocodile (opposed to the NGANDU or crocodile in the Kongo). This reptile is eaten by the BAKUNI or woodmen of the MAYOMBE district to the east of Malango’s composite kingdom. It digs out its home underground in the banks of rivers. The hole is of the shape of the letter and great danger is encountered by the BAKUNI in hunting and killing it. The hunter by lighting a fire at the entrance (1) drives the reptile into the bend (2, 3). He then carries stones into the hole and blocks up entrance NO. 2, and lights another fire at the entrance NO. 3, and so suffocates his prey. Should the hunter venture beyond NO. 2 without having blocked it up the NKAKA is apt to slip through it and block up the main entrance with his body so that the hunter becomes captive and certain prey. One of the scales (MAKU) of this reptile is to be found in the XIBI LA.

BECI is what the Portuguese call silver fish. It causes great havoc with the fishing nets as it is a great struggler. The saying KUBELA NKANU, to lose right in a palaver, is connected with it. Its scales are found in the XIBILA.

SUSU = the fowl. White fowls are used as offerings by those going to the XIBILA to ask a favour. A fowl is generally found tied by a string to a peg in the ground in front of;a sick man the Nganga is trying to cure. It is a sign of good faith and is supposed to die if the Nganga in the presence of his fetish does not act fairly. It is killed and its blood used in certain medicines (XIMENGA). They call it MAFUKA the messenger among the animals, and there is a saying MUANA Susu KULEMBA KUCIATA KULALA NZALA.

A chicken goes to sleep hungry if its mother does not scratch for food for it. Its feathers are found in the XIBILA.

MAKUNKULA are the cockle shells that together with the oyster shells the people of Mamboma cast at the people of BUALI who have carried the coffin of NTAWTELA as far as the NUMBU tree. The saying MAKUKU MATATU XICI Ku BUNDUBUKU PE gives us to understand that it takes three ant hills for a pot properly to be balanced for cooking purposes. Many women and children are drowned each year by forgetting that when the tide begins to rise it is time to cease digging for cockles. A mound of these shells is found in the XIBILA.

NGWALI or NGUMBI or XILAWLOLO = the partridge, also a MAFUKA. The story goes that a Mr. Partridge fell in love with a Mrs. Fowl and went home with her, but passed a very wretched night in the coop owing to his fear of Mr. Fowl, and to the fact that the owner of the village gave loud orders at midnight to his people to kill a fowl in the morning before letting the fowls out, as he expected some friends the next day. The partridge got away. It is the bird that is killed by sons for their mothers when their husbands have neglected them for strange women. The head and feet of this bird are found in the XIBILA.

MAILI = oysters. The saying YAU MISAMU Y1 MATI MAILI gives us to understand that the palaver to be talked out is no small matter, and that it is as hard as an oyster to open. A mound of these shells is found in the XIBILA.

MBOMA the boa constrictor. Its skin is found in the XIBILA.

TELE the whale. Its vertebra (KALA KALA MBUSA) is in the XIBILA and is said to point out that people come there from all parts.

NKAWMBO the goat. When a member of a village has committed some crime worthy of death, a town’s meeting is called and if there be one dissenting voice against his being put to death, his family supply a goat in his place. This is killed and every member of the community must eat a little of it. This custom is called MUNTU FUNDU NKAWMBO FUNDU. Thus both the goats and the fowl are XIMENGA (of blood).

The goat’s skin is used in the XIBILA to sit upon instead of the usual grass mat. The animal itself is looked upon as noisy and lascivious.

SUNGU is a large antelope and the saying is (SUNGU MBAKALA MUNTU KE KULILA MU BINANGA) that the Sunga always feeds on the tops of hills and is therefore always ready to catch sight of his enemy. To look out becomes a habit of mind (SUNGA) with it. Its head and horns are in the XIBILA.

NZAU, the elephant. The chief of all the world the great giver of food (KULAWMBO NDUNDU KU MITEKA) for when it is killed people come with matets (baskets) and seem to be for ever coming and carrying its flesh away. It stands for the ideas of animal love and knowledge, and the story goes that it was led from Kakongo by a single string of piassava (NKAWXI BA KAWKILA NZAU Mu Luvusu). NZAU is pet name given to little babies. The hairs of its tail are found in the XIBILA round the necks of people.

MPILI. The spitting viper. This snake is said to object very much to noise or to being disturbed in any way. The people of the town of MPILI hold this viper in great respect, and will not allow the grass around the town to be burnt for fear of disturbing it. (LI very often takes the place of CI primeval) and PI means hush! silence! so that the word can be translated primeval silence. Its skin is found in the XIBILA.

NKALA (VUMA XIVANJI MANIA in full) the crab. After having held their breath with fright, the danger over, the BAVILI give vent to a sigh or groan of relief, this action they call Ku VUMINA and the word has thus come to mean to fear or respect. They liken this sigh to a rest, hence the word VUVUMA or VUVAMA, to be safe, or at rest. But the impression of fear remains, hence the saying, “KUFWA NKALA XIFUNDU MIZI,” the claws of the crab nip even after it is dead. The crab, the sea, and sun, are opposed to NGO, the earth, and moon, that is to say “spirit,” opposed to “matter.” (KALA = to be eternally.) The claws of the crab are found in the basket of Bilongo, in the XIBILA.

NOUIMBI KE KU VUKA. The shark that devours. Thus we learn that the word VUKAI has the sense of devouring as well as that of copulating. The word QUIMBUKA is to fear (relating to that cringing fear caused by a guilty conscience). The KUBU or fin of the shark is found in the basket of Bilongo in the XIBILA. KUBU also means the curtain or partition that screens the bedstead (or the NKAKA NDILU).

NKUFU, the turtle. NUNI NKUFU U I NATINA MUANZA the husband turtle who carries the roof (of his shimbec) on his back. This animal has a very bad character; he is noted for his treachery and deceit, taking a mean advantage over those he has promised to reward. For instance, “he” is said to have made a trading compact with a man. They formed two traps to catch game. He chose the best one, the man agreed as they were partners, and he said it did not matter where the “game” was trapped as it would be shared between them. An antelope is caught by the turtle’s trap. Instead of calling his partner to share the spoil he engages the ox to carry it to his town, promising him a share for his trouble. When the antelope has been cut up he sent the ox away to clean the plates, etc. Then he hid away the food in his strong shimbec. When the ox came back the meat could not be found, and he was much annoyed. He resolved to destroy the turtle’s trap. Unfortunately he was caught in it. The turtle then called the leopard to help him, and played the same dirty trick upon him. The leopard swore vengeance, and went to the trap and so arranged it that it appeared that he also was caught in it. The turtle came along and gloated over his friend’s apparent misery, but when he put his head out of his shell to have a look and smell at his victim, the leopard snapped it off. The leopard then went to the turtle’s town and ate up all the food there, and then told the partner what he had done. The man recognised that the turtle deserved his fate. NKUFI means short in stature. The shell of the turtle is found in the XIBILA.

NVUBU (or NGUVU, the hippopotamus) UNILLA NGOLO, the hippopotamus that eats very much. There are many amphibious animals, but only four of which these words are used: NXELO KU BAKOKO NSAKTJSO KU VIA MBAZU. As

[1. See p. 71.]

a protection for the mouth of his bellows the blacksmith places an earthenware nozzle over it, so must men protect themselves against the fires which burn (ZINDOXI). These four are KIMBOLO, Nile crocodile; NGANDU, Indian crocodile (another way of calling a man a wizard); BAMBI, Monitor lizard; and the NGUVU or NVUBU. The word VUBA is to take altogether too much for one’s self. The head of the hippopotamus is found in the XIBILA.

NKABI (the saddle-back antelope) Ku KABIKA NCITU MUNTU LI MONIO KU KABIKA BUALA BUANDI KUTUNGA (as) the antelope leaves the woods to die, (so) when the man leaves his town stockade he also dies. The word KABA is to divide. The horns of this antelope form the symbol of the parting of the ways. “We are all from one stock, and agree together along one road until we come to the parting of the way,” says the sign.

MBAMBI NGOMBI (monitor lizard). They say that this lizard came along a road carrying a long basket or matet of salt. He noticed the little cricket NKAWLA resting in the leaf of the LICISA (string plant).

“Get off that tree” (sic), says the Mbambi, “and allow me to rest this load of mine against its trunk.” “Why,” answered the NKAWLA, “use such a false picture to deceive me; you know that this is not a tree, and you know that you simply wish to kill and eat me. I am here; kill me!” And the MBAMBI snapped at the NKAWLA and devoured it.

The skin of this lizard is found in the basket of bilongo in the XIBILA.

NSEXI (SECI or SACI), a kind of antelope that is also known by the name KINKUBA, an axe, and KIMPITI, half a matchet. What a beautiful yet deceitful and undutiful animal this is is well shown in the stories Nos. 4 and 19 in Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort.

NSEXI KU SEKA, say the Bavili, meaning the dust of corruption. Its head and horns are found in the XIBILA.

NVULI (the water buck). NVULI OBO, listen to what another says. Like the NKUTI antelope, the NVULI listens to the false cry of the hunter, and so often falls an easy prey to his destroyer. Its head and horns are found in the XIBILA.

NGULUBU NGULU MBAKALA KE KU MANA MAYAKA. It is the pig that steals the manioc (in the market). After certain palavers, certain household fetishes like MPUMBU are washed in the blood of the pig. Its dried blood also enters into many bilongo. It is the head of the pig that enters the XIBILA.

XINGOLO XINYUNDU (the otter) XIBANGo NGOLA MACI.

The strength (resistance) of the anvil (NYUNDU) demolishes the firmness of the waters, or the otter eats the fish called NGOLA.

The saying above is a figurative way of implying that the wife should satisfy the desire of her husband. The skin of the otter is used in the place of the proverbial figleaf as a dress. All princes in their visit to the XIBILA wear this skin.

There are five kinds of fish forming the class MBIZI XIBALA, the spikes of which enter into bilongo; they are XIENDO, MPUDI, NKOKO, NGOLA, and XIBUELA. MPUDI and NGOLA are the cat fish, the others are rays.

NZIKU (=the chimpanzee). XZIKU NKONDO, as the saying goes, “Be careful how you choose your friends.”

NZIKA KE KU ZIKA MINA MUNTU, “an apparently friendly man may get one into a big palaver.”

NZIKU is the XINA of mankind generally. It is not only that there is a certain resemblance between man and the chimpanzee in their outward form, but they have many habits in common. It carries its young on its back, and walks about the woods upon its hind legs with the help of a stick. It fights with a stick. But above all, it is very gallant, and treats its pregnant wife with the greatest respect, running away from her when she is annoyed instead of beating her. Unlike other animals, he is never caught in the act of copulation. But in spite of all this the Bavili say that man must not be led to believe that the chimpanzee is an animal that he can make a real friend of. Its skin is found in the XIBILA.

When a person wishes to refuse a request he has simply to mention his XINA. Thus, supposing his XINA to be NGWALI, the person says NGWALI, the words MINU I CIABAKOKO, I have it not,” being understood. The word KAZILA (no road) is often used for the word XINA.

There is a class of people called MAVUMBU[1] (VUMBA to leak) living in different districts of Kakongo and just on the southern borders of LUANGO, who are not allowed to eat out of the same dish as the Bavili or people of Kakongo. Should one ask for food he must tell the people that he is MAVUMBU, but as it is a great disgrace to admit this, such a one seldom does ask another for it. I know one or two very rich and important men in the country, whose names I will not mention, who are MAVUMBU. But where these people come from I cannot find out, neither can I make out why they should be so cursed. MAVU=dirt, and so MAVUMBU may mean the essence of dirt.

We may now, I think, conclude that this remarkable word XINA means law, a thing forbidden, an abomination, and a totem.

It is said that the King Maluango has no XINA, but I think that this merely means that as NKICI CI he is in the place of God, and therefore above the law, for as Fumu his XINA is pig, and he must have his family BINA also.

Sacred Animals.

MPAKASA.

MBAMBINGOMBI.  BAFU.

NKAKA.  MPILI.

NSEXI.  BECI.

SUSU.  NKALA.

NVULI.  MAKUNKULA.

NGUALI.  NQUIMBI.

NGULUBU.  MAILI.

MBOMA.  NKUFU.

XINGOLOXINYUNDU.  TELE.

NKOMBO.  NVUBU.

NZIKUNKONDO.  SUNGU.

NZAU.  NKABI.

NDUMA.

[1. Father T. Derouet informs me that the tribe the Bavili call BAKUTU call themselves BAVUMBU Or BAHUMBU, and that their greatest fetish (sic) is NGO.

2. My linguister Bayonna who has lived among these people adds that when the father or prince Of the tribe dies his head (Father Derouet savs his hands also) is allowed to remain in the water until all the flesh comes away from it, when it is kept in a hut apart, and carried with the family should it remove to some other part. His penis is also cut off and smoked and then worn as a charm by his first wife’s eldest son.

Can these people be the family or tribe from which the MAVUMBU have descended? And can NGO then be the sacred animal of not only the Kongo people but of all the Bantu?]

This formula differs from those which have preceded it. In connecting the animals. with the categories we must take account of the fivefold division of the laws; two families in the formula-the third and fourth-are classed together by them for this purpose; and the six families of the formula are harmonised with the five divisions of the law, which may in fact be regarded as prohibitions of the opposite of the categories; thus theft is associated with the idea of running away, and this is the opposite of love and union, two of the ideas associated with fire.

 

THE PROHIBITIONS.

My friends have found no difficulty in placing these families in their order under the five great divisions into which their laws are divided. I give them exactly as they were given to me:-

1. XINA XIVANGA NZAMBI-against God and rulers.

2. XINA VA XIFUMBA -against parents.

3. XINA NKAKA -against neighbours.

4. XINA NSOKI or NSEXI -against covetousness.

5. XINA MVILA -against illegal marriages.

Xina Xivanga Nzambi.

As the KONGOZOVO armed with a tail of the ox (Mawso) punish offenders so does God-

The Badungu armed with the snout of the saw fish (bafu) are ready to avenge the abused authority of their king by punishing those who like the Mbambingombi would lead the people astray by false pictures (KUSALA Fumu, the magic mirror by which Nganga Nyambi is alone allowed to see the true picture of the prince to be elected in the place of the Ntawtela).

The Nkaka or executioner is ever ready to punish those who by their foolish talk disturb that silence (MPILI) ordered by the king concerning his name and that of God-Xibika Bakolu.

The above three commandments refer to God but also to Xifumba or the class that cannot be separated from God, in that God is man’s father.

Xina Va Xifumba.

The Susu reminds the prince that on the fourth day (Sona) he must rest (Ku Kala vaci) and the people of the country (Beci) know that if they do not uphold the authority of parents and refuse to act as the Nsexi they will become corrupt.

Xina Nkaka.

The cockle shells (Makunkula) remind the people of the death of their king and how through loss of balance of mind they are led through vice to become murderers and the prey of that fear associated with the shark Nquimbi.

Desire is like the messenger (Nguali, partridge) that leads them to ask married women questions which lead to adultery and death if like the water buck (Nvuli), the woman listens to them.

Hard as it may be to open your mind (Maili) and tell the truth, it is better to say nothing than to bear false witness in a palaver like the turtle (Nkufu).

Don’t let the snake Mboma usurp the place of your conscience and tempt you to act like the thieving pig (Ngulubu) that steals the mandioca.

Xina Nsoki.

Remember the size of the whale (tele) and the small size of the fish he swallows and don’t be a glutton like the Nvubu and don’t become a slave (Nkombo) through playing the goat but let your wife be all in all to you (Xingolo Xinyundu).

Xina Mvila.

Keep a sharp look out (as the Sungu) lest you fall into sin, and keep within the stockade of the law (Nkabi) of your own free will. Be loving and knowing as the elephant (Nzau) and as full of abundance, but take care how you choose your wife or companion and don’t marry your Xina (Nziku Nkondo).

Be noble and serve and respect your God and those who are put in authority over you, and do not allow yourselves to come under the domination of fear (Nduma for Mboma).

This is the sum total of your duty towards God and man.

This XINA XIVANGA ZAMBI is connected with the category of water, through immorality and abuse of speech.

XINA VA XI fumba is connected with the category of earth through corruption (SEXI dust), which is looked upon as the opposite of solidity.

XINA NKAKA is connected with marriage and desire, through fear caused by their opposites, adultery and abuse of desire; and with motion and procreation, through the fear of punishment which causes the evil doer to run away.

XINA SOXI is connected with the category of plenty through the abuse of appetite and lust.

XINA Mvila is connected with life and birth, through the product of legal marriage.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XVI

 

NZAMBI (GOD), THE WORD NKICI, AND THE BAKICI BACI

HAVE the Bavili a conception of a divinity or God? You ask me, and I, immediately, am overcome by an almost irresistible wish to evade your question, not because I shall be obliged to answer you in a roundabout and hesitating way but because on the contrary the conception of God formed by the Bavili is so purely spiritual, or shall I say abstract, that you are sure to think that I am mad to suppose that so evidently degenerate a race can have formed so logical an idea of a God we all recognise and try in various ways to comprehend. The name for God is NZAMBI[1] and its literal meaning is the personal essence (IMBI) of the fours (ZIA or ZA = fours). What then are the fours? They are the groups each of four powers called BAKICI BACI, which we have just discussed. The prefix BA the plural of N proving that these powers are personalities or attributes of a person, that is they are not ZINKICI like the mere wooden figures. Each group may be said to be composed of (1) a cause, (2 and 3) male and female parts, and (4) an effect. The group NZAMBI itself may be said to have four parts-(4) NZAMBI the

[1. Most people are under the impression that the native does not mention or fear NZAMBI very much, because in his broken English he tells us that “He is good too much.” I don’t think we are quite right in taking him at his word. As a matter of fact, I think that it is rather owing to his respect and fear of him, that he says as little about him as possible. In trouble he uses the word NZAMBI as an exclamation.]

abstract idea, the cause, (2 and 3) NZAMBI MPUNGU God Almighty, the father God who dwells in the heavens and is the guardian of the fire, NZAMBICI God the essence, the God on earth, the great princess, the mother of all the animals, the one who promises her daughter to the animal who shall bring her the fire from heaven, (4) KICI, the mysterious inherent quality in things that causes the BAVILI to fear and respect. This word was translated as “holy” by the first missionaries that came to the Congo, but many people now speak of it as “fetish,” and in Seven Years Among the Fjort, I write of NKICI as evil. I had then only heard the word used in connection with fetish as NKICI and had hardly heard of the BAKICI BACI.

It is not unnatural that one of the personalities of ZAMBI being Kim his powers (or perhaps attributes), are called BAKICI BACI, the speaking powers on earth and that their product or the final effect is NKICI ‘CI (KICI on earth) one of the titles of the King MALUANGO.

The word adopted by the old Romish missionaries for Holy was Nkici. The late Mr. Bentley in his interesting book entitled Pioneering on the Congo considers this a “most unfortunate selection” (page 236) and certainly it would have been were the current translation of the word to be taken as correct i.e., “fetish.” Mr. Bentley considers that the old missionaries made a still more egregious blunder in the word which they adopted for Church “nzoankici” which he says is the common word used for “grave” (Bulu XIBAYI Luango) and is a euphemism meaning “fetish house.”

Now I wonder whether these old missionaries were the asses Mr. Bentley seems to look upon them as, or whether they found the true religion of the natives less overgrown by “fetishism” than it is to-day. We must remember that some 400 years have passed between the arrival of the first missionaries and that of Mr. Bentley. What the words meant then and what they appear to mean to-day may well be two widely different things. Missionaries as a rule do not look for any high virtues in any religion but their own, and refusing to study the religion of the native set about to destroy it. The greater the play of civilisation and Christianity so-called the greater the havoc we may expect in the religion of the indigencs. In this case the work of the missionaries under the Portuguese Government took the greatest hold of the district south of the Congo, i.e., that about which Mr. Bentley writes; it is not then surprising to me that in his description of what he calls the religion of the natives, all trace of the higher part of it is found wanting. Neither is it to be wondered at that north of the Congo where the work of the missionaries took little or no hold, traces of Nkici-ism are still to be found. I say so-called religion because I do not call fetishism a religion any more than I would call witchcraft or any other form of priest ridden degeneracy anything more than a “superstition.” Mr. Bentley’s description of “fetishism” is a very correct one and must be most interesting to those who take an interest in the present degenerate form of the superstition of the native of the Congo. But as Mr. Bentley asks, “What are we to infer from the present state of things? Is the idea of God being slowly evolved out of fetishism? Is it not rather that the people have well-nigh lost the knowledge of God which once their forefathers possessed?” Exactly, I should infer from the long study of the people that I have made that such is certainly the case, and that this superstition called fetishism is an overgrowth imposed upon the purer knowledge they once certainly possessed. Can we be surprised, therefore, if the word Nkici was as near to the meaning of the word “Holy” as the priests of old could get.

It was stated in the preliminary remarks on Bavili philosophy (Chapter X) that fetishism is not the sum total of Bavili religion, that Bakici baci, or sacred symbols, exist, which are connected with Nzambi on the one side, and with the king on the other through his six titles. These sacred symbols are (1) groves, (2) lands and rivers, (3) trees, (4) animals, (5) omens, and (6) the seasons. In Chapter X it was shown that the seasons, the order of which is obviously indisputable, are regarded as genetically related to each other and that the various groups are connected in the native mind with certain ideas, which we have termed the categories, viz., water, earth, fire, procreation, motion, fruitfulness, life.

In the next chapter it was shown that the groves are grouped in sets of four, that the order of each set of four is fixed for the natives, and that the order of the groups inter se is likewise determined. That being so, it was possible to trace a connection between certain groups of groves, which we term families, and the categories, and to show that the natives regard the families as genetically related both internally and inter se in the same way as the seasons; it is however impossible, owing to lack of information, to work out this idea in detail, for though I have been successful in obtaining the names of nearly one hundred groves, I have failed to get from the natives any statement as to the order in which they should be placed.

In the case of the rivers, the order in which they were given me by the natives is that in which they appear on the map; the order of the provinces on the other hand is established by testimony only. In each case the order of the categories is preserved.

In the case of the trees the association with the categories seems to be less direct. The connection between the virtues of Maloango and the trees on the one hand, and between the categories and the virtues on the other, seems undeniable; but it is clear that the area of choice is wide, when we endeavour to associate the trees with the categories. It must, however, be remarked that the theory of Bavili philosophy here put forward may be perfectly correct in its main outlines, even though many details remain for future investigators. If the proof of the connection of the trees with the categories is slight, the fault is rather in my lack of knowledge than-in any real absence of continuity in native ideas.

At the end of the chapter on omens I have shown how the native connects with the categories the senses, which are themselves connected by the natives with colours and the rainbow snakes. It is important to notice that the order of the families is given in this case by the order of the spectral colours; it is consequently as indisputable as the order of the seasons.

In the case of the animals the connection with the categories is traced through the prohibitions or categories of the law, which are the opposites of the categories of the formula.

The relation of the king to the categories has already been traced on pp. 100, 135.

1 have now set forth the information gathered from the Bavili. During the past few years I have been in a different part of Africa, and I was naturally curious to see if I could discover traces of the same ideas among the inhabitants of Benin city and its neighbourhood. In the following chapters I develop what I have learnt of Bini philosophy.

My first impression of the religious system of the Bini was that it was something different from that of the Bavili.

An altar to OYATA at OKPWEBO, made of clay surmounted with native pottery.

I missed the class of fetishes into which nails are driven; I found temples near to the sacred groves, and altars not only in private houses, but also along many of their roads. But when I found the great dual division of ideas illustrated by the names ESHU and ESHU-SHU on the one hand, and EBAW, EBAMI, and OYISA on the other, equivalent to what I have described as NDONGOISM and NKICI-ISM among the BAVILI; and when I found traces of the “jujus” or fetishes into which nails are driven in some of their temples, swear “jujus” and family “jujus” on the one hand, and groves sacred to river spirits, trees, and animals on the other, I was driven to the conclusion that the apparent difference was rather an interesting development, which after all was a natural one and corresponded to the material progress from the rush huts or shimbecs of the Bavili to the solid mud houses of the Bini.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XVII

 

THE BINI

King and Constitution. -Native Ideas.-The Queen Mother and the King-His Attendants. -Viceroys. -The War Chief. -Officers. -Titles of the OB.A.

ALL have heard of the massacre of Consul Philips and his unlucky companions while on their way to Benin City, and also of the cleverly managed expedition under Adrniral Rawson, sent by H.M. Government to punish the King of Benin for his treachery, so that these notes scarcely need. any introductory remarks so far as the place is concerned. Those who take a deeper interest in all that has been written and said about Benin must read Great Benin by Ling Roth, or the Antiquities of Benin City by the late General Pitt Rivers, etc.

The few notes that I have been enabled to gather directly from the natives of these parts may perhaps serve to further illustrate some of the subjects touched upon by my predecessors- in this field, and to show that what Mr. Ling Roth calls jujuism in reality corresponds to Nkici-ism and the higher religion of the Kongo rather than to Ndongoism.

As to the natives themselves it is quite inconceivable how they could have acted in the barbarous way they are said to have done a few years ago, for they seem to the writer to be a peculiarly happy and pleasant people to dwell among. The present UNWAGWE’S grandfather was killed by the OBA for refusing to join in the expedition against Consul Philips, and it was only under great compunction that old EZOME or OJUMO was forced to join at the last moment, so that perhaps it was more as a duty than anything else that the people joined in this disastrous march against an unarmed and would-be friend.

Politically H.B.M. Government has preserved as much as possible of the native form of government, and the country is virtually governed on native lines by the so-called Benin City chiefs (who for the most part were the OBA’S tax-gatherers).

But all Europeans must suffer from the want of knowledge of what “native lines really are,” and if the natives are not governed more nearly on their own lines than at present it is generally because a few self-seeking natives, always to be found in the beginning of changes, are apt to wilfully misguide the white man where those lines oppose their own personal interests.

The public spirit of the chiefs in this district, however, is very remarkable, and little by little as the European’s knowledge and accumulation of facts increase, great things are to be expected, especially if Benin City is to be as lucky in the future as it has been in the past in its Residents and District Commissioners.

H.B.M. Government has a great opportunity of studying the constitution of a really African native state in the Kingdom of Benin, and if its officers continue to be of the right sort and the susceptibilities of the chiefs are not ruffled by the thoughtless action of one of the rough overbearing “I’m your conqueror” class of men there is every chance of our having in Benin City a very perfect model of how an African state can be governed by a European government.. On the other hand, if the susceptibilities of these now public-spirited chiefs are injured by our riding rough-shod over what they consider most sacred, i.e. their religion, their form of goverment, the integrity of their kingdom, bounded as it is by their sacred rivers, they will draw in their horns, as it were, and we shall never be able to help them again to govern their country on intelligent and non-barbaric lines. And if it is possible to obtain such a working model it will become an excellent school for those officers who may be destined to reduce chaos into something like order in countries like those of IJAWS and SOBOS, where at present no form of government (save the village form) appears to exist.

The words of that great lady, Mary Kingsley, so interested in the welfare of the Africans, keep on reminding us of our duty in this matter, where she says-“I cannot avoid thinking that before you cast yourself in a whole-hearted way into developing anything you should have a knowledge of the nature of the thing as it is on scientific lines.”

As in the formation of most African governments, there is a link with the past in the Bini constitution.

The Queen mother, IOBA, has her residence just outside the walls of Benin city, at a place called SHELU, on the YIRA, or north road. As the dowager Queen she maintains a Court of her own composed of-

1. AMOMA, her so-called wife.

2. AMADA, her naked boys.

3. The chiefs fulfilling the offices of IWEBO (equity), IWASE (medicine men), IWEGWE (Commons), and IBIWE (Lords). We will explain these four offices when we consider them under the King.

IOBA had the right to sacrifice human beings.

It is said that, accompanied by four pairs[1] of chiefs, one of the six sons of AWYAW, called BINI by the Yoruba historians, came to Benin city by the YIRA road, through SHELU, and asked CIGIFA[2] for a place where he might reside. CIGIFA is said to have given this son of AWYAW that part of the city that he and his people had vacated owing to sickness. After a time this prince declared that the smell of the place disgusted him, that he could not speak the language of the EFA, and that he purposed leaving them. This he did by the UDO road, returning thereby to UHE or IFE, the sacred capital of the YORUBA. But before leaving he informed CIGIFA that a certain daughter of OGIEGAW was in child to him if they wished to put anyone in his place. This son was called EWEKA (because he clasped or joined the two people together). He was the first OBA of the Bini, and the present deposed OBA Overami traces his ascent to him.

[1. EZOMO – EDOHAN.

IHOLO – OLOTTO.

OLIHA – INE.

ERO – ELEMA.

2. They say that he found OGIFA accompanied by AZELE and OGIAMI accompanied by IHELIGO.

OGI’FA=OGTE the king of EFA the people.]

The OBA’S throne or chair was placed on a platform of mud three steps above the ordinary level of the ground; this throne was called EKETE.

The OBA’S official dress was of beads and composed of

1. ERUIVIE bead crown.

2. ODIGBA broad collar.

3. EWIVIE bead coat.

4. ERUHAN skirt.

5. EGWUNBAW bracelets.

6. EGWONWE anklets.

7. EBE a flat kind of knife in his right hand.

8. ERIGO a two-forked instrument in his left hand.

But you have seen representations of him in brasswork (see Plate VIII, Fig. 3, Antiquities of Benin City), so that further description of him is unnecessary.

Neither need I dwell on his atrocious despotism, which finally brought him to ruin, and disposed H.M. Government to place the people of this kingdom under its protection.

The OBA’S immediate attendants may be recognised by the custom of wearing their back hair divided by three partings, a custom they enjoyed with the OBA and IOBA. Their names were as follows and their title OGBON:-

 

The sons of the OBA were, and are still called OBIOBA, and of these the eldest is entitled EDAIKIN, and had his residence between the SHELU and IKPOBA roads. The other sons were sent out as viceroys to govern different districts or collection of towns, and became known as OGI’CI.

Thus we have these OGI’CI (or viceroys who were succeeded by their sons) still ruling over the districts which were once given to the CIBIOBA, in the same way as in the Kongo.

In the case of the present deposed OBA CIVERAMI, EGWABASIMI should be the EDAIKIN and OSWALELE is an OBIOBA. The daughters of OVERAMi are EBAHABUKUN, OMONO, and GRINYAMI. These women may choose their own husbands, and when widows may cohabit with whom they like. The children of these daughters are called EKAIWI.

The chief CISULA is the EKAIWI of ADOLO, Overami’s predecessor.

There are six great chiefs who may represent the OBA in one or other of his six great estates; they are Ezomo (called also Ojumo), ERU (called AIRO and ARO), OLIHA, EDAIKIN, OGIFA, IYASE.

Ezomo in the popular parlance of travellers in Africa is the “great war chief,” but as a matter of fact he combined with his office as head of the war department an office nearly equivalent in a primitive kind of fashion to that of the Lord Chancellor as head of the Court of Equity. Among his followers was the famous general OLUGBOSHERI, who led the troops against and massacred Consul Philips’ expedition on its way to Benin city. This office of general is hereditary, and OLUGBOSHERI’S son under the OBA’s reglime would have succeeded to his father’s position. Ezomo was the only great chief who gloried in a “court” similar to that of IOBA, that is to say he was followed by his chiefs and followers under the offices of IWEBO, IWEGWE, IBIWE, and IWASE. ERU[1] was a great judge a kind of Lord Chief justice with all the policemen at his call. OLIHA must have been a kind of Archbishop of Canterbury,

[1. ERU is spoken of as ARO or AIRO.]

as he crowned the king. The above three great chiefs had the right to sacrifice human beings.

EDAIKIN, as the eldest son, represents the state and medicine men outside the compound of the OBA.

OGIFA[1] is said to represent all the people. He is the direct descendant of the OCIFA who was in the city when the son of AWYAW first came. He may be said to hold an office some, what like that of the Speaker of the House of Commons. He used to call the people together for great palavers, etc.

All the above great chiefs are succeeded by their sons in their offices.

IYASE[1] or IYASERI is head of the nobles or EGA-IBU such as IHASA, ESAWN, ESOGBAN, and many others. He had three immediate followers CISUMA, ESOGBAN, and ESAWN. He could pick men out of the different classes of chiefs and make them EGAIBU. IHASA, for instance, was serving under UNWAGWE, the chief of the IWEBO, and was thus ennobled or made an EGAIBU by IYASE. IYASE is not succeeded by his son, but is chosen by the OBA from one of the great chiefs of the kingdom. He was also regent on the OBA’S death or during his absence.

All these foregoing six viceroys were paramount without the compound of the OBA, but within that enclosure the heads of the following six offices were paramount:-

The six great offices in the OBA’S compound were the IWEBO, ABIOGBE, IHOGBWI, IWASE, IWEGWE, and IBIHE, representing in a primitive fashion, equity, justice, Church, State, Commons and Lords. Each of these offices was filled by a pair of great chiefs and their followers, who were of four grades more or less according to their wealth.

1. Those who could sacrifice one cow to their father and one to their mother.

2. Those who could sacrifice one cow to their father and a goat to their mother.

3. Those who could sacrifice goats.

4. The rest who could sacrifice fowls.

[1. These two chiefs had the right of sacrificing one cow to their father and one cow to their mother.]

The office of Iwebo was in the hands Of UNWAGWE and ELIBO[1]. When OBA made father, it was UNWAGWE who brought him the cowries (IGO) to be sprinkled with chalk, and the beads that were washed in the blood of the human beings sacrificed. These two chiefs also acted as arbitrators within the compound of the OBA. Some of their followers were as under:

ABIOGBE.-This office is in the hands of [1] OKAIBOGA 1 and OKAIWAGGA 2 and their follower OKADOGIRA 3. All land questions were in their hands, and it was OKAIBOGA who conducted the sons of the OBA to the different countries where they were destined to act as viceroys. Until H.B.M. Government took over this protectorate this chief used to receive yearly presents from the viceroys thus inducted. The above pair were in charge of the policemen called OKOW.

IHOGBWI.-This was the office of sacrificers and was in the hands of IHAMA 1 (whose son succeeded him in office) and SIGHURE 2, with their assistant, LEGAMA 3.

IWASE.-This was the office of the learned doctors and

[1. The numbers after the names of these officers mark their class.]

medicine men, and it was held by the pair, IGWESIBO 3 and OGIEMESE 3. Their followers were:-

 

The two chiefs at the head of the office of IWEGWE were ISIRI and BAZILU. These chiefs and their followers had to look after the household or the common wealth of all. Under them were the OKA, or headmen. They used to go, with the OBA to his farm at harvest time by the HUMIDUMU (headquarters) road, and help in the “play” that was there enacted. Some of the great IWEGWE were as under:-

The office of IBIHE was confided to the care of INE (YAMO) and OBAZWAIYI. They had to keep the OBA supplied with wives and slaves, and were, generally speaking overlords. Their followers were

 

All these chiefs had the right to wear the broad bead collar called ODIGBA.

They were not succeeded in office by their sons, but if the sons were wealthy they had the first refusal of the office. Their offspring belonged to the class in which their fathers served. Thus all children of the chiefs under the office IBIWE were IBIWE, and so on. The OBA, however, took people out of one class and put them into the other.

No one could approach the OBA save through one of these chiefs,and all tribute (IDIGWE) was paid to the King through them. They received for their trouble 25 per cent. of the whole amount brought in. These tribute-receiving chiefs were called NOTWEYEBO. Each of them had boys of their own in the towns thus paying tribute, and they were called OKUSHUEBO.

The OBA’s ambassador was called OKAWBA.

The BINI kingdom then was governed by the OBA through six offices by two kinds of chiefs, i.e., pro-kings without the walls of his compound, and six pairs of chiefs acting as assessors within the compound. So that, bereft of attendants and followers, the constitution (EVIUMBA) of the Bini government resolves itself into the following formula:

The OBA as head of six departments (represented at times by the six pro-kings).

Six pairs of assessors representing six offices.

The titles under which we hear of the OBA of the BINI spoken about are:-

OBADUDUDU, perhaps the Oba of Heaven, the name of the supreme goddess among the yoruba ODUDUA.

ENONYAGBON, the lord of the earth.

AGBAGE LO GI’ OLUKUN, the offspring of OLUKUN that we all want to see.

OGIE NO GBOMA ADENUWUIGHOMA, slayer of men who do not want to die.

AKPOLPOLO, the biggest one.

ELIMIDU, the oro whip.

OBA, emperor.

ADIMILA O SAKEJI, second to God.

Thus among the Bini, as among the Bavili, we have two great courts, first, the OBA ruling in person under six great titles, helped by his twelve assessors, and second, the twelve under the regent IYASE or IYASERI and the pro-kings. If, then, the writer is correct in believing that this form of government among the Bavili is the product of NKICIISM, which includes the seasons, we may expect to find traces of this philosophy among the Bini.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XVIII

 

BENIN DISTRICTS

 

QUARTERS.

The Provinces. -Benin City.-The King’s Compound. -Bronzes. -A Bini House.

 

DISTRICTS.

THE OBA’S central province was bound by the rivers

OYISA, OKWO, OVIA, OLUKUN, AWREHOMO, and IKPOBA. From the city through this province to six outlying districts or provinces, six great roads led, and these roads and districts were under the following chiefs:-

Gilly-Gilly under Ezomo.

Udo under OLIHA.

Shelu under ERO.

Geduma under OGIFA.

Sapoba under CIGIAML

Sapelli under ELEMA.

The neutral (or ambassador’s province) under ELAUWEY was bounded by the rivers OFUSU, OHA, and upper OVIA or OSSE, with its capital at OKENUE or OKELUSE. When they reached this place ELAUWEY told Bini to go on to OGIFA’S place and that he would follow in five days (but he stayed there and formed the province as a kind of buffer province between the Yoruba and Bini Kingdoms).

In each of these districts there are a certain number of OGIE (OGICI). In ELAUWEY, OGOTE, the two Bale, UHEIN and IKOHA, under OJIMA Of OKENUE.

ODCLOBO Sapelli road under ELEMA seems to have extended to UMUGUMO and the country between the rivers EKHIMI, IGBAGON, and OLUKUN. The ogies are:-

OGYUMUGUMU IZAWGBO.

OGYUMUGUMU NUGU.

OGIEBAZOGBI.

OGIOGEGE.

OGIEWISI.

OGIEABABO.

ODIYOKOREOMO (sapoba. under Ogiami) is the district between the rivers EKHIMI and AUREHOMO, and here we find the following OGIES:-

OGYUGU.

OGIEWEHIGAL

OGIEWEHIA.

OGYOGAN.

OGYOGBA.

OGYOHEZI.

OGYOMEDI.

OGULEGUN.

OGUKHIRI.

ODIYEKPOBA and ODUHUMODE (Geduma under Ogifa) the country bound by the Ifon road, the Awrehomo and the IKPOBA rivers with the OGIES:-

OGIEGMA.

OGIEHOBI.

OGIEKO.

OGIEBWI.

OGYUGO NEYEKPOBA.

OGYUBE.

OGIWAN.

OGIEBONWAN.

IH0LO NISI.

ODUHUMODE.

OGIEYNIE.

OGIEWOMUDU.

OHENUKUDI (Juju).

OGYUGA.

IHOLO NU GEDUMA.

OGIHAW.

OGIERWA.

OGIEUHL

OGIRHUE.

IEKUSHELU under ERO with the OGIES:-

OWAZA. Cap from AWYAW.

OGYUNWAN.

OGIOWA.

OGINWHAN.

ODUDO or ODIDUMIHOGBI (Udo road under OLIHA) within the centre province. OGIES:-

OGIEGANW.

OGUSE.

OGIOMI.

OGIOGEGE.

OGIOKELE.

OGIEGBAN.

OGIEBOLEKPE.

OGYUTOKA.

OGYUIE.

OGYULOMO.

OGYIGWOGI.

OGYIHOGWA.

OGIEKEZI.

OGIDA.

On the far side of the Ovia (river Osse):

OGETETI.

OGYUGOLO.

OGIESI.

OGYUTESI.

OGYEGBATA.

OGYUDO having died intestate IYASE NUDO governs in his place, in UDO.

ODUGWATON or ODUZABU (Gilly Gilly road under Ezomo).

No OGIE.

Plan of Benin City (Pl. XIV)

Under these OGIES are many villages ruled over by headmen equivalent to the KONGOZOVO in the Kongo. These. headmen have a number of families under them, each of which have land given to them for planting. There may be waste land in a province or a kingdom, but that is not to, say that it is no man’s land for it belongs either to the OGIE, or the OBA.

There were three other roads (Pl. XIV) leading from the OBA’S Compound to places within the outer wall, ODUHUMIDUMU to the east, where the OBA “played,” and ODOKORAW to the residence of the OBA’s eldest son, and ODIEKOGBA to the country at the back of the palace.

The OBA’S Compound became the centre of a very large city surrounded by two great ditches and the thrown-up earth forming walls on either side of them.

It takes one more than half an hour’s hard walking to march from the inner wall or ditch on one side of the city to the same on the other side. And from the inner to the outer wall the distance varies from 1,000 to 3,600 paces.

The main roads are those leading from the Oba’s Compound to Siluka, Yira and Ifon, Geduma, Sapoba, Sapeli, and Gilly Gilly.

In the olden days when the Sapoba and Gilly Gilly roads were unbroken approaches to and only bordered on one side by the palace wall and on the other by IMARAN’S house they must have had a very grand and beautiful appearance. A hundred paces broad, these green glades were lined by trees, growing on the raised sweeping of years on either side.’

It was the duty of certain towns to come in to Benin City yearly and clean and sweep these glorious entrances to the palace.

1. The OBA’S Compound was roughly divided into three quarters. The OBA’s quarter EGWAI. The wives’ quarter ODERIE, and the Eunuchs’ quarter called after the first great Eunuch URUKPOTA.2

[1. The poorer people who could not afford to bury their dead in houses threw their bodies on to this road, so that with-these and the bodies of people sacrificed it really had an awful appearance.

2 They say that OVERAMI did not castrate people to act as Eunuchs, but that any child who had the misfortune to be born without, or by an accident to lose these parts, was brought by his parents to the king. It is possible that this is in part the truth, but what about those holes in the wall of a town not far from Benin City, through which they say the victim’s head was thrust while this operation was carried out.]

Then there were eleven other divisions into which the City was divided and the names of these parts are those of the great chiefs who first founded them.

2. The beadmen’s quarter (OBADAGBONYI) known as IDUMI WEBO. These people under NWAGWE appear to have partly lived close to the King in his Compound and partly to the N.W. of it.

3. Then to the South, behind the wall of the ODERIE was the quarter called OGBEZAWTI.

4. From here to where OBASEKI has his house was called OGBE.

5. Round about where ARASI has his house was called OGBIOKA (OBA’S son’s quarter).

6. And where OBAYAGBON has his house was named the IDUMU IBIWI.

7. And where IHALIKA lives was called IDUM’EBO.

8. Then from the UDO or SILUKU road to the IKPOBA or GEDUMA road is named after OLENOKWA.

9. And from the IKPOBA road to the SAPOBA road the name is IDUMGWOSA as far as the house of PUSH PUSH.

10. From the latter’s house along the Sapoba road is still called IDUMEDIE.

11. From there to the ditch, near the Sapeli road is called IDUMSIAMALU.

12. From the Sapeli road to OGBEZAWTI is called OGBILAKA.

In the OBA’S Compound there was also a quarter called IDUMWUKI, where certain people observed the changes of the moon.

Each of these twelve quarters contained “Houses” or small quarters belonging to certain chiefs.

EBWIMOSI, a spot close to the second wall on the Gilly Gilly road, was where Ezomo (or OJUMO) used to sacrifice people.

On the IKPOBA road, about fifteen hundred yards from the Residency at IDUMIGUN NI INYA YUGI the blacksmiths had their shops, and some 150 yards from the river IKPOBA is the grove AWORE.

On the UDO or SILUKU road, a hundred yards on the other side of the first wall, is IDUMIOBIECISA, a place where the test for witchcraft used to be administered, and some 260 yards further on near HOLOTO is AZAMA, where the OBA-elect went previous to being crowned.

On the SHELU road, 700 yards or so from the first ditch is IYAKPA or the gate dividing the Queen Mother from her people, and 500 yards further on is EEYA; where the Queen Mother has erected her new quarters. About 3000 yards from the Residency on this road is God’s Grove called A RO’SA, and it was here that the OBA sent his son with a goat to sacrifice immediately after he had been crowned.

The late OBA’S palace was nearly in the Centre of what is known as the OBA’S Compound, his predecessors’ palaces and their ruins being to the north-west of it. Near to each of these palaces, and I think there were thirty-one of them, was a deep well (OVVIO, being the name of the late OBA’S well), where they threw the bodies of the human beings sacrificed. Round about the palace were the headquarters of the IWASI, IWEBO, IBIWI, and IWEGWE, while to the South and East the houses of the OBA’S many wives were scattered. The wall running round the ODERIE or wives’ quarter, or the back semicircular wall of the Compound, was considered sacred and no outsider was allowed even to touch it under the penalty of death.

The front wall ran in a straight line along the Sapoba to Gilli Gilli road, almost North-west and South-east for about 500 yards, and it was called OBOLOBA. The quarter behind it was called IDUMIWEBO, part of which is situated near to the OBA. The second wall was called OZAMOKO, while the quarter behind it was that of the Eunuchs, called URUKPOTA. The third wall was called UGOHE and the quarter behind it UGWOZOLA. Here the late OBA had a tin house built upon iron pillars, and it was in this quarter where people wishing to see him had to wait. There is a deep pit here and another just behind the present cemetery these pits are called IRIDIAWA1.

I never saw the palace, and cannot therefore describe it, but while wandering about its ruins I have come across holes in the ground some 15 feet deep, which were in some of the divisions of the palace, and were used by the late OBA as the burial place of those visitors whom he did not wish to see again.

The people still dig amongst the ruins of the palace for the bronzes the OBA and his followers valued so much. Mr. Erdmann, a well known German trader, on his last visit to Benin City informed me that he had seen the palace just after its roof had been burnt off and had taken many photographs of it. He said that the bronzes were ranged along the walls and served as historical symbols, reminding the historian of the chief events of the past history of the BINI people. Unfortunately this much-respected trader died on his way home in the year, 1904.

Inside the first or second wall was the tree under which people were sacrificed to the Rain power, this ceremony was called AIYAWOMANAMI.

People were sacrificed to the Sun[1] power under the UBOGWE tree which once stood just in front of the first wall outside the Compound. Where murderers are now hung under the OKHA and ULOHE trees near to IMARAN’s quarter the ceremonies connected with the new Yam Juju were commenced.

And in the ODERIE where there is now a fowl house, and under the IKHIMI tree cows were sacrificed.

What we know now as the Sapeli Road was called UBOKA, while just outside the Residency on the Sapoba Road there was a place and a tree to which people used to be tied called the OGYUWO. Along one side of the IKPOBA road there are the ruins of a line of blacksmiths’ shops, and blacksmiths are still found in different parts of the city working in iron and brass. The present productions in brass are rough and crude, but there are some artists who sculpture very well in clay, and so ornament the pillars in some of the houses of the Benin

[1. This was called AIYAWOMANUKBO.]

City Chiefs. Carvers in wood also exist, but the ivory carvers cannot be compared to those of Luango south of the Equator.

Upon showing the photos of bronzes and ivory in the “Antiquities of Benin” to certain chiefs, their surprise and satisfaction was very great, and they were glad to think that most of their ancient works of art still exist. It is to be hoped that private collectors of these bronzes may some day bequeath their collections to the British Museum, and that photographs at any rate of those collections in the Hamburg and Berlin Museums may be obtained and made accessible to the public. The future educated BINI as a British subject has a right to expect to find as full a collection as possible of these bronzes, etc., in this Imperial Museum.

By a house, I mean the abode of a family [1] living under its head, and not merely the dwelling place of an individual.

This house (Pl. XVI) is built on the same lines, though on a smaller scale than a chief’s palace.

Passing along a road (ODE) one comes to a fence on one side of it, and this outer fence they call OGBOLI. Passing through an entrance there is, at a given distance, a second fence called EGODOLI, and then a third called EKUNUGOLI before coming to the house. The front wall of this house is called EBOWI, the side walls IGIEKA, and the back wall IYEKOWA.

The space between the enclosing wall and the house in front is called AGUDULI, while those on the sides and back are made into a garden called EGUN.

The house is divided into three sections, the centre part being the husband’s quarters, looking towards the road to the left the wives’ quarters ODERIE (Pl. XVb), and to the right the young men’s quarters YEKOGBE. The doorway is called EKU, while the passages are called OBIOVIO.

The rooms are ranged in both these latter quarters on the inner sides of the outer walls of the house and the outer sides of the walls of the husband’s quarter, and are mere lean-to sheds.

[1. The family is called EGRE, and is composed of ERA, father, OMIWU, the sons of the father, EYE, INYHEYHI, SAPAMAREGUDI, EGABIONA and the next our generations, none of whom may intermarry.]

The centre part or husbands’ quarters of an ideal Bini house is divided into four rooms.

1. IKUNU OGULI or ALERA, father’s room, where there is an altar to the memory of the occupant’s father.

2. IKUNU KADICI or ALWIYE, mother’s room.

3. IKUNU AROHUMU, the reigning son’s room, or the head’s grove or temple.

The entrance passage to this room is called ONURU, and facing you as you enter is the side of the altar AROWEBO (bead grove or altar).[1] There is an entrance to the wives’ quarter from this. The roofs of these rooms incline towards the centre, which is an open square, and is upheld by a pillar (EHAWI) in each corner of the square. The floor of this square is about twelve inches or more below the level of the floor running round it, and this basin is called EGUDU. On the side opposite the altar is a raised platform of mud serving as a sofa or bed which is called UKBO. On the left hand side, just after entering the third room, are two closed-in rooms which you enter through small openings in the wall, one being the wife’s room UGUGA, and the other the husband’s room, OGWA.

The fourth room is a spare quarter called ODUOWA, and in a garden on the outside of the back wall of the ODUOWA is a general or medicine altar called OGUSHUN.

They call the roof EROHUMOWA, and it is made of the leaves (EBE) of a reed-like plant with a large leaf called EMWAME.

The ridge pole goes by the name OKPO, the rafter EREDOMI, while the opening or funnel down which the rain flows into the EGUDU is called the OBOTO.

[1 . For contents of this altar see under OLUKUN.]

A BINI HOUSE (Pl. XVI)

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XIX

 

BINI CUSTOMS

Some Bini Fetishes or Jujus.-EMATON. -The Phallic Pillar, God and the Devil. – Marriage Customs.-Secret Societies.

THE Bini call a wizard AZE but the Jakri word is OLOTCHO which is not very different from the word used by the BAVILI, i.e., NDOTCHI. A person accused of witchcraft is given the bark of the INYI pounded up together with water. If the accused vomits he is considered innocent, if he does not the poison generally kills him, and his guilt is thus proved.

The drum language does not appear to exist much north of Old Calabar, and the Bini will tell me nothing about it.

When the OBA makes father (Ezimi) the big thick looking drum beaten in the father’s house is called EKUN ALWERA.

Then the musicians carry:-

Two long drums   called IDAN  tum tum

One small     ”      ”   UKE  short drum like

ours in shape.

One medium     ”      ”   IGEGAN  ”     ”

One large     ”      ”   IMIGAN  ”     ”

Road jujus are called MWIHEYO.

Cowries represent the  EBAMI AKE

A big stone  ”      ”  OKWHAIHE

Pebbles        ”      ”  OVIA

A spoilt gun  ”      ”  OGUN (war)

 

And when the people hear or notice that a road has a MWIHEYO put on it they talk of the road as ULAWMA.

Osun are Jujus to which certain Doctors or Obos are attached.

Some times as you are marching you will notice a bunch of leaves tied together fastened to a branch of a tree, this they call ESHU SHU, which might be translated little devil, and may be the origin of the word JUJU used here much as the word fetish is south of the equator.

A fence made of Kola saplings, planted four or five feet apart, tied together with native string, screens a tree with a

OMEY, entrance to AROVIA, a grove sacred to OVIA, Similar to MABILI in the Congo, with chalk marks as above in half circle on the ground in front of entrance.

piece of cloth wrapt round it, and bottles, wood, and cones of chalk at its root is called EKEJI.

OMEHU is a tree found near most villages with a collection of ant-hills heaped about its roots. They say this is to make women bear children.

At IGUSALA there is a double IKHIMI tree growing behind a nicely kept fence, with a strip of cloth round it. Between its buttresses are a pot of water, a drinking cup, shells, the bark of a tree, AWAWA (spoon bill) and goats’ heads, and nearly round its base are seats for people to sit upon. While under a little shed, upon a wooden grill, rest great lumps of EKWHA (a kind of pudding made of the bean-like seeds of a tree) being smoked by a fire underneath them.

In the forest between ADENYOBA and ITE is a sacred stone called OKUTA.

On the Sapoba road there is a tree with the usual mound of earth and cowries in front of it, planted they say to mark the place where the top of Ezomo’s ladder fell. The story goes that this great war chief heard it thunder and wanted to know what enemy of the Oba’s it was who evidently wished to fight him, so he built a ladder to reac:h up to the heavens. When he and all his people were on the ladder and just

OMEHU, ant-hills placed at foot of tree near any village.

getting at the home of thunder, it gave way, and the top end of it fell where the tree is growing, about three miles from Ezomo’s house.

Near to these sacred spots you will often find pots of water and cups, or yams or bananas, with the price in cowries against the cup or the food to be sold. I have never known these silent markets abused.

The people swear by licking and touching stones, iron, cowries, bits of twisted rope, and the crushed dried leaves of a plant, asking these things to kill them if they are not telling the truth. These swear jujus are called EKHWAI, and there is generally an EKHWAI in connection with an CISUN.

The only fetishes into which nails, etc., are driven which the writer has noticed are two very old ones preserved in the temple to OLUKUN.[1]

The EMATON (the thing you keep on digging) is a very important CISUN among the BINI, quite a number were found stuck into the ground near to the King’s palace.

The EMATON (Pl. XVII) is an iron staff ornamented with two figures of the chameleon, the signs of wisdom, one just above and one below four leaf-like figures pointing downwards representing AJA, or that knowledge of medicines and lore supposed to be taught to man by the fairies who take certain people into the bush for this purpose. Then opposed to the AJA at the top of the staff is a bunch of figures surmounted by the representation of a horse and a bird.

This bird they call the AKIAMAWLO, which translated means-There existed previously the continued state of the living thou and him.

The figure of the horse bearing the bird stretches across the circle of figures to points between the two prongs of two figures. They call this ESIN (the act of exposing to sight). The figure marked 3 on the sketch represents the two tail feathers of the bird called ARIOKPA (the first one who sees). This bird is also called IFE or love, and IFE is, as you know, a town in Yoruba land, from which all people are said to have Come. (Can this mean that the BINI believe themselves to be the children of the spirit of light and love?)

The above, like Mawalala, stand outside the formula.

Category 1. Figure 8 is meant to represent that semicircular knife which is used to separate the skin from the body of the yam and is called ELULIMA, the act of having to keep on boring (the Bavili look upon the sky as solid, and so do the Bini, in the sense that a roof is solid). This semicircular knife, then, conveys the idea of ” the heavens.”

Category 2. Figure 7 represents the flat round hoe with which they hoe the earth, and they call this figure EGWE, the act of being.

[1. See OLUKUN.]

Category 3. Figure 10 represents the axe OGWANA (the relative in law of OGUN, the Yoruba “power” presiding over implements of war and hunting). The story says that an old lady who would cut wood on their first day (=Sunday) was banished to the moon. OGUN =blacksmith who by the help of fire makes his implements.

Category 4. Figure 9 represents the machet called IKHU (the act of cutting up the dead wood, which is a motion).

Category 5. Figure 5 represents the flat (fish-knife-like) knife that the Oba of Benin used to carry in one hand. It was held upwards towards the heavens when the King made a prayer of supplication, and is called EBEN, connected with the word EBAW, sacrifice or offering, and the Dove. I am not at present able to associate this knife with harvest.

Category 6. Figure 6 represents the knife used by the Oba to slay men or animals for sacrifice, and it is called ADA (one who propagates) This certainly entails suffering. And finally we come to the two-pronged figure joined as it were to IFE, which is called ELELI (the witness who speaks).

Thus was the Oba as God’s representative on earth reminded of his descent from God through IFE, and so did the EMATON convey to all who chose to look at it that man is of spirit, body, and mind, and that there are three distinct kinds of knowledge, i.e. that which he receives directly from God, that which he obtains from his animal nature, and that which he is taught by the elf AJA.

 

THE PILLARS IKO (MEETING) AND OYISA (GOD).

At a town called EBIYAWMALO, which I visited in company with Dr. A. G. Christian, we noticed a pillar (PI. XVIII) in

Pillar, or IKO, in front of meeting-house at EBIYAWMALO.

front of the native Court-house, and the chief told us that it was called IKO (a meeting).

Not far from here we noticed a hollow pillar under a small shed, and the chief of the place called that IKO also. This

A hollow clay pillar, IKO, at OKPWEBO, with three Achatena shells inserted in it.

pillar was of red sun-dried mud, and three shells were fixed in the mud on the side of the pillar exposed to our view.

Then at ADENYOBA near the OVIA river there is an altar

Pillar, called OYISA, and altar with IKHURE sticks and pot of water on it at ADENYOBA.

to OYISA placed under a shed, by the side of which is an ornamented whitewashed pillar or IKO.

In the bush near to the village called OVA there is a stunted

Squat pillar at OVA, called ADAMBI, said to be female.

squat kind of pillar which they call ADAMBI and described as a woman “Juju.”

Then at OWO, in the Oba’s Palace yard, I noticed a pillar, and the king called it OROBALE (which might be translated the husbands’ ward).

Then, proceeding farther away from the sea into the KUKURUKU country at ISULE, the Conservator and self noticed a triune pillar under a little shed, the figures being back to back and those of two males and a female. This the Chief called BABATCHIGIDDI (or earthenware image of the father).

But shortly after this we entered the village of IAIU, and. on the stone plateau near to the chiefs house our attention was drawn to three grass-capped figures (Pl. XVIIIb), two being of solid clay, while the third was simply formed of two upright sticks with a grass cap on it. These figures the chief called ESHI, which was interpreted as being equivalent to the Bini word Esu or ESHU (Devil). On the other hand, three fig-trees growing out of platforms of loose stones collected together close to these figures they called OYISA or God.

At ATEYI there is a figure standing on a platform outside a

A small wooden figure and two pieces of ironstone outside wall of house on a clay platform with a board with pieces of iron driven into it in front of it. The figure is called ESHU, and represents the Devil.

house, by the side of which are two pieces of ironstone, and they called this figure ESHU.

Then all juju houses have an altar to ESU outside, while those whose houses own the “Juju” AWLOMILA (a small basin containing the nut IVIAWNOMILA in a piece of cloth) may also have an altar to ESU outside their houses.

They say that OYISA is a trinity composed Of OYISA or

O’SA’LUGIMAIYI[1]  the King of us all on earth.

O’SA’LUBWA  who made us to be.

O’SA’LOGODWA  the queenly mortar of being.

And that he had a son called ESU, or ESHU who is also a trinity composed of

ESHU  the Devil connected with mystery.

OLUKUN  the teacher.

OGYUWU  the King or Queen of Death.

When OSALUBWA was making man he left him in an unfinished state: Esu came along and finished him according to his ideas. OSALUBWA returned, and was much annoyed, and banished Esu to the east, where the Sun comes from (ANIMINIHIA MIVI).

From this it will be noted that while trees symbolise the triune God the Creator, the pillars represent the so-called Devil or procreator in three parts also.

 

MARRIAGE.

There appear to be two kinds of marriages among the Bini.

Among the upper classes the children are betrothed by their parents from infancy. The present may be a nominal one, such as four kolas, three cowries, and some palm wine, or it may be more.

The man is supposed to keep on giving the child betrothed to him presents until she is grown up; he also makes her parents gifts. The seduction of such a betrothed girl is heavily punished. On the other hand, among the poor the girl is not necessarily betrothed, and a man may seduce her without legal punishment.

The man may refuse to marry his betrothed, and then he

[1. =Ogie x Oyisa x Lugimaiyi

royal self     god       earth.]

has the right to give her in marriage to anyone, unless she is of noble family, when she can only be given to a free man.

The girl may not refuse to marry the man to whom she is betrothed, or his chosen representative; but the father may at any time refuse to give his daughter to her betrothed, when he has to refund to him all the presents the would-be husband has given to her and her parents.

When his wife conceives the husband gives her a cock to sacrifice.

The son marries his deceased father’s wives, who have not borne children to him.

After the birth of a child, the father gives the mother another name; the child also will give her mother a name, a friend will also name her, and so one often hears a person spoken of by two or three names.

Very few women in this country are true to their husbands, many of them having at least one lover. When a child is born the woman does not declare who its father is until her husband is dead. Many women live openly with their lovers; the great majority of cases in court are for return of wife, and many women prefer to go to prison than to return to their legal husbands.

Often on the roads one passes a small tree planted by the side of the road, near where are chalk marks and a mound of earth, cowries, yams, and plaintains. This tree has been planted in memory of the fact that some woman or other has brought forth a child on that spot.

 

SECRET SOCIETIES.

The object that most of the secret societies round about Benin seem to have had at heart was to check the despotism of the rulers of the people, but often the ruler himself became a member of the society, and thus as its leader secured its services in furthering his own despotic ideas.

The Beni call their society IGWOMORI, and it is said that while still a prince the late OBA OVERAMI became a member of it. The first crime this society committed was on the death of OBA ADOLO and crowning of OVERAMI, and, at the latter’s suggestion, to execute all the late ADOLO’S councillors. OVERAMI then placed many of the IGWOMORI, sons of the lately executed councillors, in their fathers’ place.

The secret society of the ISHAN people played a great part in defending the Benin City chief ABOHON and other refugees after the British had taken Benin City in 1897-8.

There are secret societies at OWOO and AKWE.

The SOBO Society is called OTRADA, that at IFON, OTU, while we have only just had a sad experience of the influence of the EKEMEKU, or the Silent Ones, in the hinterland of ASABA.

In an interesting article, dated May 13, in the West African Mail, Mr. Hughes, an earnest student of African customs, writes:

“The EKEMEKU Society has for long been in existence. The aim and idea of its establishment was-

“1st. To settle any tribal differences amicably.

“2nd. To uphold the law and institution of their countries according to rights of usage.

“3rd. To prevent any oppression by their kings and chiefs.

“Of late the EKEMEKU Society has become composed for the most part of the younger and more lawless elements, who hold their meetings at night, who work by secret methods, and who are a continual source of terror to the more peaceful natives, whom they compel by threats of death to contribute to their society.”

On page 65 of Great Benin, Mr. C. Punch is made to say:

“I should imagine the Bini would have the ORO fetish, etc. The Bini call this whip ELIMIDU, and it was given to the OKIASON (OKERISON) by the OBA. From the season IHAW to IGWE, men desirous of obtaining a title roamed about armed with an iron instrument, by means of which they endeavoured to kill seven or fourteen people. As witness of their prowess they presented the OBA with the dried breasts of the women and the dried penis of the men they had killed. With these parts of the slain men and women the OBA is said to have made certain medicine for fetish purposes. To give these “braves” a fair chance to accomplish their task, the OBA made the chiefs bring all their people to dance in his compound every night. The “braves” ran a great chance of being killed themselves, for it was known that they were about, and naturally the people kept their eyes open. Should one of these aspirers to the rank of nobility be killed by the man attacked, the latter took possession of his dried trophies, and continued the process of killing on his own account.

If a person attacked by one of these people had the presence of mind to cry out the words OGED’ EGBOMA AYAN AKPWOKA WAW GAPOKAI (something to the effect that plantains do not kill a man in the day time) it was a matter of honour not to kill him.

The noise of chain and brass anklets as a woman ran away was also a life-saving sign.

When these men had presented the OBA with these parts of seven or fourteen persons the OBA gave them the coral necklace, bracelets, and anklets as a sign that they had become OKIASON; IDUN OHOGBI was their chief, and they lived in OBAYAGBON’s quarter.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XX

 

MORE CUSTOMS

Bini Dances.-Making Father.-The Rites.-Women’s Dance.-Egugu DanceOvia Dance.

 

BINI DANCES

IN the afternoon of February 2nd, 1903, after rather a long march, we entered UREZEN, a town not far from UDO, in the

A mound of clay under a rough seat, studded with pots and an iron ornament, like this, here and there. This is called OSUN.

district of Benin. As we neared the blacksmith’s shed we noticed twelve figures, quaintly clad, singing a song in falsetto, and a boy. These twelve people were dressed in a dress (OMIGWI), made of strips of leaves of the palm called OME; their heads and shoulders were covered in a mask and mantle of very rough cloth that looked like the material sacks are made of, their heads were crowned by a head-dress of the feathers of the AWAWA. Their arms and hands were encased in long sleeves of the same rough material a’s their mantles, and in their hands they held sticks which they call IKWATA.

The boy simply wore a skirt made of strips of palm leaves, but in his hand he held a staff called ERAN. This was made of the rib of the palm leaf knotched at intervals, and surmounted by a bushy tuft of strips of the petiole.

ERAN, the upper part of the branch, or petiole, of the palm tree, knotched with a fringe of the strips of the petiole at the top.

I watched them as they sang and glided about rather than danced, until at last they rustled away, making a cooing noise like that of the OKKU bird, and vanished in the direction of the grove sacred to OVIA.

From time to time, until long after midnight, these dancers kept rushing past the shed or native rest house under which I was encamped, cooing and singing in falsetto.

At times I heard cries coming from the direction of the grove, and wondered what they were, and felt like getting up to see. But cries in a native town are so common that they may mean almost anything, from the howl of a punished child to the cry of a man in grief.

Early next morning I got ahead of my carriers and slipped into the sacred grove. On the road in front of the entrance to the grove were the twelve dresses arranged on posts in a line, and the boy’s little one in the same line, but apart. IKHIMI trees were planted at the entrance, while on both sides of the road were lines of Kola trees. Passing the IKHIMI trees, I entered a kind of lane some fifteen or twenty feet long, and then came to a fence I and second entrance before I found myself in the grove itself.

At the far side of the circle of cleared bush I noticed the OLUKUN tree, against which was resting the ERAN that had been carried by the little boy the night before. In the centre of this circular grove was a “calabash” or gourd, a pot, and the ashes of what had been a small fire and the feathers of a fowl.

[1. These fences are called EGBON or OBA, and are always formed of the sacred plants IKHIMI, UNWETIOTA, and OTWA.]

About the 15th of March, just after crossing the CISSE or CIVIA river, the Conservator of Forests, Mr. H. N. Thompson, and myself arrived at a market place in the ITE creek. The market was in full swing but nearly ending when we got there, and while many of the Jakri women were seated before their wares under the shade of trees, some were just pushing off their canoes from the beach with their cargoes of palm oil and kernels. They were inclined to scamper away on seeing us, but we managed to persuade them to take no notice of us, and purchased food for ourselves and our boys. After we had breakfasted someone began to throw the apple-like fruit of a tree growing there into the river, in the attempt to throw them across. The infection spread, and soon all our carriers were busy competing. It spread further, and the Conservator and I joined in. The Conservator succeeded, and I clapped my, hands. This act seems to have been taken by the boys as a signal for a dance-at any rate, they all set about gathering sticks to serve as IKWATA, and soon formed themselves into a circle and commenced singing, keeping time with their feet and by beating their sticks together. Soon one boy danced into the middle of the circle and commenced spinning himself round; then, still spinning and inclined towards the centre of the circle at an angle of 45o, he seemed to whirl round and round the circle until, losing his balance, he came bumping up against one or the other of the boys forming the circle. Some of the boys were very clever at this dance, and they seemed quite keen on out-dancing one another, and on our part we were much interested in it, hardly expecting so scientific a display. Finally the Ranger Mockpai, a powerfully built man, was so moved that he must have a try, so he doffed his red coat and started spinning, and when he whirled around he shook the earth as he touched it, now with one foot and then with the other. The excitement was immense, the singing boisterous, until this ponderous dancer broke loose and cannoned right and left among the boys, who fell down before him like ninepins; then the dancing came to an end.

We purposed crossing the river OSSEOMO or AWREOMO on the morrow (the 22nd April, 1903), so we sent a boy on ahead to OKOGBO to say that we were coming and would cross the river in the morning.

We arrived at the crossing a little before 7 a.m. and met our boy there, who informed us that the ferryman had left early in the morning to bring up canoes large enough to carry our party across. As we waited a woman came down the hill from the village above, bringing some food for our boys. She had innocently taken off her cloth and made a pad of it to carry the load on her head the more easily, so that there appeared to be something wanting about her toilet that amused our boys from the city. More women followed her, some-of whom appeared very angry. We made inquiries, and found that some scamps among our boys, fearing that there would not be enough food to go round, had determined to forestall matters, and had run along the road and waylaid the ladies, and taken what they considered their share of the food. The Ranger Mockpai and the rest of the boys were annoyed at this, and so the scamps were turned over and given a dozen with a cane. This and the payment for the food taken pacified the good women, and so time went on until nearly 9 o’clock. We now became impatient and started shouting for the canoes, and getting no reply, we fired off a gun-still no reply. At last we prepared a raft and placed the interpreter and a forest guard upon it and told them to cross the river and hurry up the ferryman with the canoes. As they had never crossed the river at this place, and knew nothing of its dangers, they set off quite gaily. It now being nearly eleven, we decided to breakfast. When half way through our meal the canoes turned up, and we relieved our pent-up feelings by expressing them as strongly as we knew how, and would probably have proceeded to further and more strenuous arguments had not our attention been arrested by the woebegone appearance of our interpreter and forest guard: they were shivering, and looked half drowned. It appeared that while trying to negotiate a turning the raft had upset and left them clinging to the bushes which were growing out of deep swamp, and water where a foothold was an impossibility. The ferryman’s canoes had luckily picked them up. No large canoes had been obtainable, so that we had to make our way across in the wretchedly small ones that the ferryman had brought, and as we rushed down with the fierce current, and were cleverly steered into different branches of a perfect maze of streams, and kept on ducking our heads to avoid overhanging trees, we began to realise what a foolhardy thing we had done in sending the two boys off on a clumsy raft, and by the time we reached our destination we fully believed the people when they told us that they had not heard us shout or even fire off our guns.

The old Jakri in charge of the market town of Ugo told us that he and his people had been invited by OGUGU to his town, as he was “making father.”

We started together, but came to a place where a dispute arose between one of our boys, who professed to know the road, and the old Jakri. We thought that it was just possible that the old man wished to put us off the scent, so that we should not be at Ugo in time for the festivities, so we trusted to our own boy, and after three hours and twenty minutes’ walk arrived at the outskirts of the town, only to be met by the old Jakri, who from all appearances had been there some time.

Soon after our arrival, OG’UGU, accompanied by one or two Benin City chiefs and their followers, came to welcome us. He told us that he had intended “making father” that evening, but that as we had come, and the festivities might annoy us, he would put the feast off until we had gone. We thanked him for his welcome, and assured him that we should very much like to be present while he was making father, and prayed him to proceed with his festival just as if we were not present. He seemed pleased to be honoured by our presence, and ordered his people to bring us wood, fire, and water, and food for ourselves and our boys.

Shortly after dark crowds of people bearing lamps and torches came together in front of OG’UGU’S residence. The cloistered wall through which one had to pass to obtain an entrance into his house contained several altars, and as we lay on our camp beds in the rest-house opposite we gazed through the door and window at what was going on before us.

There stood OG’UGU before one of the altars, dressed in what appeared to be a red hat and gown-a glowing figure, the lurid light of many torches falling on him. Then a goat was held up so that he might sever its head from its body and sprinkle its blood upon the altar. Six goats were killed, and all the altars within and without the house sprinkled with their blood, and all this was done in comparative quiet. Then OG’UGU, a NABORI holding up one of his arms, and followed by his courtiers, danced before his people. Then followed the three great dances called UKELE, UGULU or SAKWADI, and OHOGO, which I will describe later on. We saw but little of these dances that night, but from the noise that took place the natives appeared to have appreciated them; and then for a time all was quiet. Soon, however, bands of people singing and bearing lamps and torches wended their way in Indian file round about and into OG’UGU’s residence; no sooner had one emerged than another seemed to take its place, and their songs as they approached and wandered about the place and finally departed were weird and beautiful. Some sang softly in falsetto, and some sang songs that reminded us of old Gregorian chants. This went on all night. In the early morning OG’UGU, preceded by a band of drummers and players on beaded gourds, came out of his house, followed by many hundreds of people. Immediately in front of him was a man bearing a dish of cowries (IGO), and just behind him was his umbrella bearer and his courtiers. Under the shade of this umbrella OG’UGU crushed the cones of chalk (ORHUE) and sprinkled the dust upon the cowries. Thus the procession passed us on its way down the grassy glade which led to the Benin City road. The band waited for the procession just where the glade is divided by KOLA trees from the village, while it proceeded to the “juju” place to salute the great father, who in the spirit is still in Benin City, but who, as OVERAMI, the late OBA of Benin, is in reality a prisoner in Old Calabar. On the return of the procession the band joined it, and OG’UGU scattered the cowries right and left to the boys and girls who scrambled for them.

Thus did OG’UGU celebrate the anniversary of the death of his father.

Then he came to greet us as we sat in front of the rest house, and asked us if we would like to see the dances more distinctly, as he was afraid that we had seen very little of them the night before. We thanked him, and said yes.

The first dance, called UGULU or SAKWADI, was danced by one man only. He turned circles, keeping perfect time to the band of beaded calabashes and drums. The second, OKELE, was rather more interesting, as it was danced by two men; one had a fan in his hand, and the other had his hands clasped in front of him. The man with the fan went through certain steps, which the man with the hands clasped had to copy exactly; when he failed another took his place. The third dance was called OHOGO, and was most remarkable. Fifteen men, three with native bells and the rest with beaded calabashes, took part in it. They were scantily dressed, and had bells and rattling seeds round their arms and ankles. A man with a bell (evidently their conductor), with one with a beaded calabash, were surrounded by the other thirteen in a perfect circle. At a signal from their conductor the thirteen, singing in parts, ran round in a circle, while all beat their calabashes and bells; suddenly they stopped, turned towards each other in couples, and saluted each other; at a signal they then started off again, changing their step as it pleased their conductor, who seemed to have perfect control over their movements. Then at a signal all danced inwards towards the centre of the circle, and crowded themselves over their now crouching conductor and his companion. At a beat of his bell all withdrew and continued dancing in a circle. The many and complicated steps, all perfectly accomplished, placed this dance a long way above the general average native dance, and we were more than astonished to find how perfectly trained these dancers were. We were told that in the olden days the slightest error in public in such a dance was punished by death.

On the 2nd August, 1903, the Chief OBASEKI gave a dance, to which he invited the officers then present in Benin City. This dance was given in one of the rooms in the Chiefs house. The room was square in shape, the roof sloping inwards towards the centre, which was open, forming something between a Roman pluvium and a Spanish patio, some 15 or 20 feet square. On two sides were recesses, in one of which the Chief’s wives were crowded, and it was on the mud platform in front of this recess where the dancing took place.

Some of the wives played the drums, while others beat the beaded calabashes and sang the choruses to the songs of the different ladies, who from time to time got up and danced and sang. Each lady was evidently famous for some particular song and step, but we preferred one that reminded us rather of one of our own round dances, danced to a song full of her husband’s praise

We had been travelling up hill for some time, and began to wonder when we should, arrive at the town of OTWAW, which we were told was just at the top of the hill. At last we reached the outskirts, passing a wall of loose stones, and found that the town, like many of those in this KUKURUKU country, was built in little plateaux at different levels. OTWAW lies nestled in a hollow, just at the top of a very high hill, the grey-coloured thatch and red mud walls of the houses looking well against the dark green woods dotted about with palm trees as a background.

Coming up through a regularly built street, we ascended a kind of platform where the “rest-house” has been built. A stone wall rising up from the street below keeps the earth in this plateau from being washed away by the rains. An old fig tree and an IKHIMI tree grow nearly opposite to the resthouse, and a pole between two other small trees bears a netlike “juju,” which the people call OSUMEGBI.

It was on this plateau that the Conservator and I witnessed a very curious dance, called EGUGU (Pl. XIX), which the BINI boys with us said was the same as their OVIA dance. The old Chief informed us that they were about to commence their EGUGU dance (this was on the 19th January, 1904); that it would continue for three days, and recommence for three days in about three months from date.

Just before dark we were amused and astonished by the appearance of a man on the plateau. He was dressed in a huge orange-coloured hat beautifully made of the dyed strips of the palm leaves; in the front running to the centre of the crown of the hat was a hair-like fringe of the same material, while a similar kind of fringe stood out like a brim all around it. He wore a mask and mantle of network, which in front was white, but dyed black over the face and shoulders. From the mask near the nose and mouth the network protruded like the trunk of an elephant with a bunch of strips of palm leaves. Hanging from the mantle were numerous strips of palm leaves dyed orange, completely covering the body. His legs and arms were enveloped in black network similar to that of the mask. Round his ankles orange and white fringes of strips of palm leaves covered some negro bells. In his hand he held a whip of plaited palm leaves, some 15 feet long, curled like a hoop.

This curiously draped figure rushed on the plateau in front of us and cracked his whip. The people who were crowding the streets surrounding the plateau howled. Then they followed the masked man down the town, and “horns” were blown.

Shortly four men dressed as above, and five in black masks of much less size, with red and white plaited fringe hanging at the back, rushed up the street, followed by the crowd, and came on to the plateau. They ran away; then they came back, all singing a jerky march, and passed to the upper part of the town. Then they returned, the people crowing like cocks, and some blowing horns. The EGUGU cracked their whips and retired one by one. The crack of the whip was greeted softly or loudly, according to its loudness. The EGUGU came back in pairs, and cracked their whips and retired. The people in the crowd crowed like cocks. At last a differently clad EGUGU came on. This man’s mask looked like a huge crown made of laths joined together by strips of palm leaves; each lath carried a tuft of cotton at its extremity, and a long streamer of white fibre. The mask was of black network like those of the others, but the whole mantle was covered with the quills of the porcupine. The fringe-like dress was white and not orange.

This figure made three entrances on to the plateau, and then all the dancers, followed by the crowd, crowing and blowing horns, ran off to their sacred grove, to keep on cracking their whips all night.

I had crossed over from the valley of the OGBA river to the GILLY-GILLY road, and having passed through IPAKU and EGBA, had arrived at EGWAHAMI, when my attention was arrested by the sounds of singing and drumming, which I was told were caused by some dancers who had come from UGBENI to give this village health and good luck. So I walked to where they were dancing, and found that the dancers were dressed very much like the EGUGU we had noticed at OTWAW. But the whole band were to dance that evening at UGBENI, and, as we were bound for that place, I left these five strolling players to do what good they could for the people of EGWAHAMI, and proceeded to UGBENI.

UGBENI or EGBENI is a place between Benin City on the road to UGWATON or GWATT’O and Gilly-Gilly, and is not far from the place where Consul Philips and his party were so mercilessly massacred by the people of Benin City in 1897.

One of my boys now told me that I should see the OVIA dance, which the boys had played in dancing at ITE, danced as it should be.

UKHURE sticks found on nearly all altars throughout the country. Great chiefs have as many but generally found in couples or threes.

lt was late in the afternoon on the 27th May, 1904, when the boys placed my chair in the shady side of a square in the town of UGBENI, so that I might witness the OVIA dance. Three men carried UKHURE sticks and placed them near to me against a wall. A boy carried one decorated with a tuft of strips of palm leaves. A crowd of women were to my left, a crowd of men just opposite to me, while children were as six, seated on the far side of the women.

Certain masters of the ceremonies pushed back the crowd until there was room enough for the dancers in the middle. There were ten dancers, five dressed in one fashion and five in another, and they formed themselves into a circle. Though these dancers were not dressed as extravagantly as those at OTWAW, yet they were picturesque and curious enough to be worth describing. Five were dressed as follows:-

A huge head-dress, attached to a kind of crown. A triangular wooden framework, covered with red cotton cloth, in the centre of which was a small mirror, while feathers of the hornbill ran up two sides of the triangle and around the top of the crown. A couple of the tail feathers of the parrot were attached to each of the feathers around the crown. The crown itself was of wood, surrounded by bands of gold or silver braid. Two square pieces of glass inserted into the crown gave it the appearance of having eyes. Below this was a mask of network, and over this was hung a small piece of a consular uniform rich in silver braiding. Then from the crown long streamers of red cotton cloth were suspended. The cape, or mantle, was of strips of palm leaves, and they had a garment of similar make tied round their waists. Instead of the black, neatly-netted work underwear of the EGUGU, these dancers wore ordinary cotton pants and shirts with long sleeves. Around their legs just below the knee they wore a string of negro bells, while around their ankles they had anklets of dried seeds that rattled.

The five others were dressed like the five just mentioned, save for their head-dress. They had the netted mask and crown and red streamers flowing from it, but the upper part was of light branched woodwork, from the branches of which hung many red parrot feathers in couples.

The dance commenced by the masked men beating their sticks while the women sang, and the men behind the circle walked backwards and forwards, with their shoulders pushed upwards, cooing like birds. Suddenly a couple of the masked figures rushed into the centre of the circle, and stamped the ground violently in front of each other. Then the others ran round in a circle, all their movements in perfect accord to the time they kept beating with their sticks. Then one of these clumsy-looking figures came into the centre of the circle, and commenced that spinning and roundabout motion already described in the dance at ITE, but instead of cannoning against one of the circle, the dancer in this case righted himself in time, and started stamping before one in the circle, who had to stamp back at him.

Many of their songs were sung in parts and were very effective, while the dancing was excellent. No one is supposed to know who these masked people are, and for a whole month they live in the grove sacred to OVIA, and are fed by the public. Any village in the district can send for them to dance there by paying for them, and they say that the dancing brings health to the people.

OTON is the name of the burial dance and song. Those who have lost one of their own house carry an empty box, covered with cloth, mirrors, and beads. They sing OMAWRARIYOYO, and parade the streets. Sometimes it is some years before this is done: it is then a sign that so-and-so’s father has at last been buried, and that the son has now amassed sufficient wealth to succeed to his father’s honours.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XXI

 

TRACES OF NKICI-ISM AMONG THE BINI

TheWeek.-The Year.-The Seasons.-The Rivers.-A Temple.-Wells.Trees. -Omens. -Animals.

 

THE BINI SEASONS.

THE Bini have now eight days in their week, but the part of jujuism, which I identify with Nkicism, has preserved the more ancient form of four days. The names of the eight days are:

1. ELEOWU for EDEOWU, first day.

2. AKWE.

3. ILAGWE.

4. UNIYIELE.

5. USIELE.

6. DEHAN.

7. EDEYHINELE.

8. DELUMALE.

Each of these days is a market day in or quite near to Benin City.[1]

On the 1st day the market is at INYA = EK’lNYA.

On the 2nd the market is at IOBA = EKIOBA (Benin City).

On the 3rd the market is at IGO = EKIGO (on the Gilly-Gilly road).

On the 4th the market is at BAREKE = EKEBAREKE (Benin City).

[1: 1. Yam market.

2. King’s mother’s market.

3. Money or cowrie market.

4. Slave compound market.]

On the fifth day EKINYA is again the market place, and the other three markets follow in the above order to the end of the eight days. But the juju doctor (OBO) renews the chalk marks in front of the ARO, or sacred grove, on the first

Chalk marks found on the ground in front of AKE.

day, EDEKEN, and on the fifth, which is again EDEKEN. The names of these four days are:

1. EDEKEN,[1] spoken of as being IYASE’s day (the king’s prime minister and regent).

2. ED’AHO, spoken of as being OSUMA’S day (messenger connected with the king’s wants).

3. ED’AWRIE, spoken of as being ESOGBAN’s day (messenger connected with king’s gifts).

4. ED’OKWAW, spoken of as being ESAWN’s day (the king’s captain or officer).

[1. These are possibly the Big men or great Lords who are always near the king’s person. But Mendael speaks of three only. See Great Benin, p. 92.]

Their year is divided into four parts, two of four lunar months, one of four, and one joining month, or thirteen lunar months in all, just as among the Bavili.

There are six (or seven, counting the first month) seasons in this year.

The joining month (called MAWALALA in Kongo) is also looked upon as a period or season in itself, and it is the time when the natives plant their yams, and thus represents the month or season of love or spring. It is called IKHURE, and is the time of drizzling rains, just before the rainy season. This month, however, instead of representing the first month at the beginning of the dry season, is in the place of the sixth month of the Bavili.

The next period is EHAW, and includes the seasons IHEDU, two months of which are the tornado months, and IHEMA, two months of heavy rains. EHAW is the custom of giving food to a stranger on his arrival in a town.

The next period is named IGWE, and it includes the seasons IGWE, two months, including the little dry season and heavy rain, and AGWE, one tornado month and one month of rest and quiet. IGWE (or IGBE or IWE = weight also 10) signifies the care and dress of children, and is the season of harvest. It is worthy of note that the Bini connect the idea of weight with harvest.

The period IHEUKU is that which contains the seasons AHISHUKU and IHEUKU, the four months forming their dry season.

It is said that the Bini have no names for their months, and this in a sense is true. But they number them, and so the numbers are really their names. If we wish to know the meanings of the names of their months we must get at the signification of their numerals.

1. Let us begin with the first month of their dry season, when, having reaped their harvest of yams, the people say they “rest and chop.” This is the second month in the season AGWE. The word for one is OWU, which in the form Owu means death, or, as we might put it, the beginning and end of all things. This agrees with the time and idea contained in the month of MAWALALA in the Kongo.

2. The next month, the first in the AHISHUKU season, the Bini are busy cutting down woods and forests for the purpose of making their farms. This action they call IFIE.

IFA is literally that which is scraped off and is also the name of the palm nut god of the Yoruba. The verb FA is to clean or scrape off.

The letters F, H, and Y, are interchangeable thus, HA is to scrape, UHE the Bini for IFE, and the Bina palm tree river spirit, taking the place of the Yoruba IFA is OVIA. O is a royal title short for OGIE; IA is the lengthened form of A, so that OVIA is really a lengthened form of IFA.

E as a prefix gives the verb following it a substantive form; thus EFA or EVA would mean a scraping. This idea of scraping off is connected with the idea of creation both in Xivili and Bini. The Bini use the word EVA as the numeral 2; EVA is therefore connected both with the river spirit OVIA and with ideas of creation.

3. The third month the people begin to burn what they can of the felled trees, and this act they call EGBAW.

EGBAW is a state of being cleaned as corn is when its husks are scraped off; so that the idea of scraping is associated with the third month also. Thus we have EHA three opposed to EVA, two both with much the same symbolic meaning. EHA, however, in the word ten and three or thirteen appears as ERA, and ERA means father.

We may then conclude that in EVA and EHA we have given to us the maternal and paternal principles, found under the symbolic names of the second and third months, in XIVILI, i.e., the deep of fresh water and the deep of salt water.

4. During the fourth month they clear the ground, thus getting it ready for planting the yams. This action they term EKWEN; the number four is ENA, and means that which contains the power of spreading.

5. ISAN, or five, means the act of springing. Thus these two months are connected with planting in the earth.

6. During the sixth month the people drive poles (IFIEMA) into the ground near to their yams, so that the yam vines may creep up them. Now the word for six is IHAN, and that means the act of being entangled. This is the month of marriage following that of love, the spring.

7. During the next month they keep on putting poles in the ground. The word for seven being (3 + 4) IH’INAW, signifying the act of being entangled and spreading. This is much the same meaning as that of sambuade, or seven, in the Kongo.

8, 9, and 10. Then for three months or so they keep on weeding their plantations, EKBONA NAGWINIMU:

8 = INENE  the act of much spreading (conception).

9= IHINI  the act of having fruit (germination).

10= IGBE  the act of being heavy (pregnancy).

11. Six months after planting, or the eleventh month, the yams known as EMAWWE are ready, and 11 is OWARA (i.e., first being or first substance), the second month of pregnancy. Harvest, weight, pregnancy have been also shown to be associated with the tenth and eleventh months of the Bavili.

12. During the twelfth month the IKME yams are ready, and 12, or IWE’YA, might be termed maternal weight or travail.

13. During the thirteenth month the Bini finally harvest the yams called IGULWA. The number 13 is called IWE’RA, or paternal weight, the second month of travail. The meaning conveyed by these numbers 12 and 13 agrees with the Bavili twelfth and thirteenth months.

14. Then comes the month of rest again, which of course might be called the fourteenth month, or IWINA, which gives us the idea of (spreading and travail or) birth, and may be said to be the end of the double figure months.

Thus the meaning of the names of the Bini months correspond to some extent to those of the Bavili months. I cannot however show that then any genetic connection was asserted of the month and seasons of the former. But if up to the present nothing of the sort has been found, it by no means follows that more extensive research will not bring it to light. I append a table of the Bini months, seasons, and divisions of the year.

I now give a few notes on other points of Bini belief and custom.

 

THE SACRED RIVERS OF BENIN CITY WHICH HAVE SACRED GROVES OR ARO (THUS, OVIA RIVER, SACRED GROVE AROVIA).

OYISA is a river rising to the north of Benin City, near IBEKWE. This word is the general term used for God, and is pronounced ORISHA by the Yoruba people. In the lower reaches its name changes to OKWO.

OKWO is noted for its natural bridge which crosses it on the road from IGWIKO to EMMA at a place called OKOKWO.

While ARUWANA, a son of the King of Benin City, followed by his dog, was crossing this river, his dog fell into the rushing torrent and was lost. He was much grieved, and joined stick to stick until in two hours he touched the bottom, but could not find his dog, so they say he ordered this stone bridge to be built.

OVIA. Ovia is said to have been one of the wives of AWLAWYO, the Alafin of AWYAW. A wife who was jealous of her put a rat and some water into her cloth, and then went and told the Alafin that OVIA had made water in her cloth. AWLAWYO was very cross with her, so she cried and ran away. And when AWLAWYO made inquiries, and found out that he had been deceived, he killed the jealous wife, and asked OVIA to come back to him, but she refused. Then he sent OKWO to bring her back, but she refused to go back, and OKWO feared to return without her, so they both became river spirits in the Benin country. The sign of the OVIA is the dress made of strips of palm leaves.

ATO. The river ATO runs into the OVIA, and ATO is a medicine to join broken bones together.

Then the OVIA runs into the OLUKUN.

There is a grove for the children of OVIA called IRIRI.

AWRE[1] or IKPOBA is the King’s river (and the meaning of the word AWRE is royal self). At its source, which is near to the source of the OYISA, this river is called the ERUBI (i.e., one who bears, applied to animals), and she is said to have had a son called ISE (challenge), who would persist in living with the King. The King finally sent him away to a village on the IFON road called Utekon. Then ISE declared war on the King, and the King went to UTEKON to fight. ERUBI killed 200 men with poisoned FUFU, and ISE killed the rest of the King’s followers. The King saved himself by hiding in a kola tree, from whence he howled for help. Then OLUMORIA and others came to the King’s rescue, and they killed ISE.

Now, OLUMORIA boasted of this deed, so that the King became very angry and drew his MUSU (sword) and tried to kill him. He tried three times, but failed on each occasion. Then he made a medicine called OKOKOGO (a small red bead worn at the back of the head) and gave it to those he specially honoured, and OLUMORIA asked for it, but for a long time the King refused to give it to him. Finally, however, he did so. This medicine then gave the King power over OLUMORIA, So that he drew his MUSU and killed him. The AWRE runs into the AWREOMO, called also the OSSEOMO.

AWREOMO. The sign of this river is an earthenware pot of water. At its source, not far from the town of OKHI, this river is called AKE, the axe. As a “juju” this power AKE is represented by lumps of earth, ant-hills, bits of pot, stones and chalk, which are covered by a slanting roof of bark called OKUKU. There is a large “juju house” at IDUNGENA, near Benin City. It is a building of sun-dried mud, in the form of a hollow square, with lean-tos from the top of each wall

[1. The sound AW or o in the word corpse is written in Yoruba o.]

AKE. Pieces of bark supported at one end by two sticks forming a kind of lean-to shed, under which are found a pot of water, bananas, and yams. Generally found at the foot of trees with various chalk marks in front of them. (See other note.)

forming cloisters. Over the doorway a long bamboo, with a basket cup-like arrangement at the top, hangs like a barber’s pole. This has been called OYISA, Esu, and UKHURE by different people I have asked to name it.

As you enter you notice the figure of a man without legs (OKE), the doorkeeper; then, turning to the left, you will see a figure in clay dressed in chain armour as in the days of Elizabeth, riding on a horse. He is called OKAKWU or an officer. Passing along the left wall we find a figure dressed as a prime minister, or IYASE. Then in the open space in the centre of the square there are two figures, one on your right and one on your left as you stand with your back to the door and facing AKE. The one on your left represents OYISA (god), and that on your right Esu, the devil. Esu is dressed as a slave in a hat and cloth, carrying a knife at his waist, and a stick or staff called UKPOPO in his

OYISA.A long bamboo pole with a wicker basket at the top.

right. OYISA, on the other hand, is dressed like a king. We now stand before the throne of AKE, who, dressed like a king, is seated with a wife (IREBU) with her babe on either side of him. A girl stands in front of them with a fan (OKWIKE). In front of all these figures are the figures of two naked boys (AMADA), while to the right and left are seen the figures of the two NABORI or hand-bearers. Then opposite to the figure of IYASE on the right hand side of the square there are the figures of a blacksmith, OGUN, in his shop and his assistant blowing the bellows, and between IYASE and OGUN in the open space the sacred tree IKHIMI is growing, and they call this INYATU.

A woman wanting a child goes to AKE and presents him with a fowl, and promises him more if she bears one. A man who has lost something goes to AKE and lays his complaint before him, asking him to kill the thief If AKE does this all the petitioner’s trade goes in future to AKE.

The dance sacred to AKE is called UKELE, and is he)d at the beginning of the rainy season. OKHI is the name of the middle course of the OREOMO, and means the difficulty in cutting.

The AKWIHAMA is a river running into the AWREOMO, and means the difficulty of woman in travail.

OKWAIHE is another river running into the AWREOMO, and the word means the difficulty of bearing a load. The people of this river may not marry those of the river IKHUKU. OKUMA, another tributary of this river, means continued death or the practice of dying.

The AWREOMO joins the OLUKUN at the same place as the OVIA.

The OYISA, OVIA, AWRE or AWREOMO are the four rivers that enclose the Centre province of the Benin Kingdom in which Benin city is situated.

OLUKUN is the Great Benin river forming the southern boundary of the Kingdom of Benin. It is marked in the maps as the Benin and Ethiope rivers. The meaning of the word OLUKUN is either the chief of death or the Teacher. Its sign is a pot of water. Every great house has an altar to OLUKUN in or near to which will be found a pot of water, a fringe of small leaves tied in knots called EBAIHE, stones in small earthenware pot IKPEBBO, chalk cones ORHUE, the sticks UKHURE, cowries, IGO, mats EWA, fishbones, the tail feather of the parrot EBAKWE, representations of the snake IKMWI and the leopard OGIAME and the skulls of cows, dogs and goats.

At EWESI not far from the SOBO plains, as in most towns, there is a temple to OLUKUN where chalk is given to the people as a protection against evil. The people put it round their eyes like the ZINGANGA south, and also mark their bodies with it.

At the door of this temple, a kind of square courtyard with cloisters round it, two figures are seated on guard.

On the door figures of two snakes IKPI, OBIANIMI, a bird, a crocodile, a small boy and a house are carved. There is an altar just inside the porch to Esu the devil as the Yorubas say ESU KO NI IWA AKO ILE RE SI ITA. As the devil has no kindliness of disposition his house is made for him in the street.

On your right, that is on OLUKUN’S left, there are figures of the son of OLUKUN with a nude wife on either side, a boy seated and holding a Kola box and a bottle of water. Strewn about are shells, chalk, a knife and a bell, while in front of all rises the bamboo pole with its end split and pushed out cup shape here called ‘SA or OYISA.

Next we come to a figure of OLUKUN’S IYASE who is wearing the ODIGBA and frontlet UDEHS1, collar, armlets and bracelets.

Then opposite to the door at the end of the building we see a great figure of OLUKUN the teacher dressed as a king and figures of his two Nabori (arm upholders) and four naked boys or AMADA.

An old priest sits at the feet of this figure near to an altar, half hidden by the long strings of cowries hanging in front of him from the roof.

While I was there a man and two women came into this temple and going up to OLUKUN, knelt down and bowed their heads until they touched the step on which rested the feet of OLUKUN. The priest crushed some chalk and handed some of it to each petitioner, then they marked themselves and went out. On either side of these great central figures are two sons of OBIANIMI very old wooden figures (like those into which nails are driven in the Congo) covered with cowries, bits of cloth, knives, etc., and near to one of these is the figure of a leopard and to the other the skull of a cow and the shell of a tortoise.

On the right in a cloister are the figures of the OLUKUN’S great war chief Ezomo (or OJUMO) wearing his ODIGBA and four necklaces, and his bugler. And neartothedooragain are the figures of EKIOLUKUN the grandson of OLUKUN wearing four necklaces, and his wife and AMADA.

In the centre of the open space in this temple were three cow’s heads surrounded by chalk marks.

At IGO a town on the Gilly Gilly road there is a mound on which is an altar to OLUKUN with chalk cones and cowries on it all covered by a shed. They say that EHAIZAAI, King of Benin, because it was unhappy in Benin City, sent it to IGO. They say they knew it was unhappy because of the sickness

An altar to OLUKUN, under a little shed, with native pots on it. Chalk marks, as above, being made on the ground in front of it.

it caused in the City. At UGWATON there is also a temple to this great spirit, or power, mentioned by Burton.[1]

OLUKUN is said to have been one of the sons of God who married OHA.

OHA is the river running from the town of OKHA past SILUKU into the Benin river, and forms the western and northern boundary of the Benin Kingdom dividing it from the intermediate province of ELAWWEY which is a kind of neutral province between the Benin and Yoruba Kingdoms.

OHA drank AINYO and hiccoughed which vexed OLUKUN so she ran away from him. OLUKUN cried. This was when OLUKUN was very poor. Then OLUKUN married IGBAGON (the Jamieson river). Then OHA wished to return and prayed OLUKUN to forgive her. He was rich now, so he forgave her and said she might come back, but as the wood bearer to IGBAGON.2 The meaning of the word OHA is fear, the bruiser.

The river ALEDE runs into the OHA, and means the language of the concubine, while ALA is the white cloth, the

[1. Describing the temple sacred to OLUKUN, Burton says there is a figure of the king, &c. See Great Benin, p. 57. This is wrong; the figure represents OLUKUN dressed as a king. MALAKU=OMAOLUKUN.

2. IGBAGON=the Admittance of Poison.]

abomination of the Gods. (It is a remarkable fact that while the slave tribe called the MUSSERONGO or BACILONGO, just

A seat made of clay.

north of the Congo were only allowed to wear white, in Benin City only the Chiefs may do so.)

Cows are sacrificed to OVIA, OLUKUN.

Dogs to OVIA and AWRE.

Goats to AWREOMO, OKWHAIHE, OGBA, AKE, IGBAGON ALEDE, OKUMA, AKWIAMA, AKKWA, OGBEHE, OKWO.

Altars in Houses are found to OVIA, OLUKUN, OKWHAIKE, AKE, IGBAGON, OKUMA, AKWIAMA.

Women may not eat the flesh of the thing sacrificed to OVIA, OKWHAIKE, OGBA, OGBEHE, OKWO.

These sacred rivers are known by the name EBAMI, and the word EBAW means sacrifice. I should say that the meaning of EBAMI is a “power” to which things are sacrificed.

 

OTHER GROVES NOT SACRED TO THE RIVER SPIRIT.

AROVATO is situated near to Geduma.

In this Grove there are always some logs of wood (OBEKE).

ARO ERRHEIN at ERUWA near Geduma.

ARO OGUN (blacksmith) Iron stones are placed in this Grove, and Goats are sacrificed.

ARO ERUMIA near AHO on the IKPOBA road.

There are sticks (UKHURE) there. It is also a household altar.

Its dancers dress like those of OVIA at the beginning of the dry season.

Women may not eat the flesh sacrificed.

ARO OWO or OBO at UZALA on the IKPOBA road.

UKHURE are there.

Dancers wear masks surmounted with the feathers of the fowl.

Women may not eat the flesh sacrificed.

 

CERTAIN ANIMALS HAVE GROVES SACRED TO THEM.

AROEKME in Benin City, near to the chief OBASEKI’s old house, is sacred to the Leopard.

AROENIMI to the Elephant.

AROGWUNAME to the Hippopotamus.

I could get no information from the Bini about Groves sacred to the Winds.

The presence of an ODIGI, or sacred well, is generally made known along the roads to one by a tree and a mound of earth and cowries.

Human sacrifices were made to the following three in OBA OVERAMI’S time:-

 

ODIGI NO’R’UDO on the UDO road.

ODIGI NOBA on the IFON road.

ODIGI NIRIWE on the GEDUMA road.

 

There is a story that two women, a maiden and a pregnant woman went down to the UDO well for water. The pregnant woman, against the advice of the maiden, drank some of the water, and in consequence had a miscarriage.

As far as my observations have taken me, there are only six sacred trees, though parts of many others enter into medicines and form part of dresses, etc.

OLOKU (OROKO) Chlorofera Excelsa. This tree is found in OVIA’S sacred grove. It is also a sign marking the place where the king had his harem.

The IKHIMI, one of the Bignoniaceae (possibly the Spathodea Campanulata), the UNWETIOTA and the OTWA are always growing close to the fences guarding the entrance to the grove.

OME. The palm tree, from the leaves of which the dresses used by the dancers of the OBUDU are made.

EBE. The kola. There are rows of kola trees at the entrance to all towns, varying from two miles to a few yards in length. War between two towns of people in the olden days was frequent, but peace could always be made provided that no kola trees had been cut down. Kola nuts as a welcome would never be given to anyone who had destroyed a kola tree in another village. The Yoruba have a saying, as the grubs eating the Iwo and the grubs eating the OBI (kola) lodge within the Iwo and the OBI nut, so he that betrays you is not far from your person.

 

OMENS

1. A falling star foretells the death of a prince.

2. When the owl OKUKU says OKURUKURU it is well, but when it cries U U U that is a bad sign.

3. When the bird AHIAMINUKYUYA cries OYIOWO it is a bad sign, but when it sings OMGWOGWO it is well.

4. When one goes to see something and the eyelid quivers all is well, but should the under part of the eye quiver then it is bad.

5. When the right shoulder throbs all is well, but when the left one throbs it is not well.

6. If on starting on a journey you strike the right foot it is a bad sign, but if you strike your left foot, no matter.

 

SACRED ANIMALS.

Only three animals, as far as my observations go, have sacred groves (i.e., the Leopard, the Elephant, and the Hippopotamus), but I have found the heads and bones of four kinds of antelope, the dog, the crocodile, the cow, and the shell of the tortoise, in or near their altars.

The leopard is known by the names ATALAGBA, OGYUHA, EKME, and OGIAME or queen.

OGIAME reminds me of the XIVILI word KAMA, royal wife or queen. OGIE-CI is the word the Bini use for the King indigenous to the country, equivalent to NKICI CI of the BAVILL

When a man killed a leopard he had to take it to the OBA, who gave the hunter a boy and a girl in exchange for it. The OBA used to try very hard to obtain the leopard alive, so that he might sacrifice it. On doing so he would put his finger into its blood and make a mark with it on his forehead, from his hair to his nose. Fans for his use were made of the leopard’s skin, or it was made into a coat for the great war chief EZOMO or OJUMO. The claws also were strung together and worn by this chief as a band around his head.

Women were not allowed to look at the leopard’s face.

The dance connected with the leopard ceremonies is called IGWE.

The Elephant ENI.-When a chief’s father dies, an elephant’s tusks are placed on the altar in the grove called ARUENIMI. The head and gun by which the elephant is shot are placed in the sacred ground called EFAII, and the dance in connection with this ceremony is called IKWEFAI.

When a hunter killed an elephant he had to give the OBA one foot and the tusks.

The strip of meat round the kidneys was given to the OBA’S mother.

One of the forelegs had to be given to the village owner of the country where it was killed.

The rest and the tail belonged to the hunter, and its hairs were sold to the women for necklaces.

The Hippopotamus OGWUNAME.- I have heard little or nothing about the Hippopotamus, save that his sacred ground is OKWHAIYE and his grove AROGWUNAME. There are plenty of hippos. in the upper OVIA or OSSE, but the people seem to fear them, and on asking the people about that part of the country why they did not kill them, they said it was no use doing so, as they did not eat them.

The Tortoise IGWI.-The sacred ground where the shell of the tortoise is found is called OTOI.

The people dance IGWI once a year just as the rains cease.

The character of the IGWI is a bad one; it is looked upon as a deceiver.

There is a story that says one day IGWI was a person, and all animals spoke one language. There was a famine in the land. A meeting was called, and it was decided that all should bring in their mothers. The elephant brought in his mother. They killed and eat her. And each day an animal brought in its mother. They always gave some of the meat to the parrot (OKWE), most of which it preserved. And when each animal had killed its mother they told the parrot to go and fetch his. But he had hidden his mother away in a hole where she kept a rope. As he refused to bring in his mother all the animals set about to look for her, but they could not find her. Then the IGWI watched the parrot, and found the mother’s hiding place. And he told all the other animals. And when they all knew where the mother parrot was to be found they held a meeting to decide upon some plan of getting her. Finally, they asked the parrot to go on an errand for them to a distant part. And he went. But he returned quickly to the court house and found no one there. Guided by the IGWI they had gone to find his mother. And when they were near the hole where the mother parrot was hidden the elephant sang a song, thinking that the mother would take his voice for that of her son. But the mother parrot was not so taken in. Then the IGWI sang, and the mother parrot was deceived and put out the rope for him. All the animals then seized hold of the rope. But just then the son parrot came along and sang to his mother, telling her to cut the rope, and this is how he sang:-

IYEMAO IYEMALO, IYEMAO IYEMALO  O Mother Mother, O Mother Mother

OFIFIEGE FWAO  Cut the rope,

NENI DEGBEGWIO IYEMALO  Let the elephant fall, Mother,

NEGWI PIEPIAW IYEMALO  And crush the tortoise, Mother.

 

XINA OF THE BAVILI ARE SPOKEN OF AS AWA OR AGWA BY THE BINI.

It is AGWA for a man to marry any of his EGBE and by EGBE they include

 

OBIRAMI children of one father.

OBIYIMI children of one mother.

OBIYIYIMI children of one grandmother.

OBIRERAMI children of one grandfather.

 

IGODARO says that be may not marry any woman who lifts drink up with her left hand, and who, when she cooks, kneels only on one knee.

OKUNDIA says he may not “eat” (or marry) snake and the antelope ERUHE on his father’s side, and OSURUHE on his mother’s side.

AJARRI may not “eat” IHIHIHI, a small fruit on his mother’s side, and ERHURU yam, and EBAKWE a leaf on his father’s side.

JEGEDI may not eat OSURUHE on his father’s side.

OKUKU may not eat monkey on his father’s side, nor elephant and antelope EHAN on his mother’s side.

But the Bini do not respect their AWA as the BAVILI do their XINA.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XXII

 

THE PHILOSOPHY AT THE BACK OF THE BLACK MAN’S MIND IN TABLE FORM

ON page 169 of Great Benin you will find a photograph taken by Mr. C. Punch in March 1892, of a Bini house in course of construction.

In this picture we find that a certain figure is built into the fluted wall, it is coloured white and shows up well against the dark red clay of which the wall is constructed (Pl. XXI).

This figure is of the greatest interest and may be said to be the “formula” at the back of the black man’s mind both north and south of the equator on the West coast of Africa, six of which apparently form the complete religious system of both the Yoruba and the Bavili or Luango people. It is used as a divining board or a tally of the seasons indiscriminately.

Resting on the top of the figure you will find a bird, meant to represent the IFE, a kind of wagtail, to whom the people of Luango attribute the origin of the drum. IFE is the spiritual capital of the Yoruba, and IFA is their great oracular deity. Now IFA means that which is stripped off, and the verb to strip off means also to create.[1] IFA as a God or part of God would and does represent what we should call the Son of God.

Immediately beneath this bird is the formula formed first of 16 marks or holes in four parallel lines, and secondly of eight

[1. Exactly the same idea exists among the Bavili where the word XIVANGA creator is derived from VANGA to create, which literally means to keep on stripping off.]

ditto in two parallel lines, that is 24 marks or holes in all. You will notice that there is a distinct gap between the first four and the second two lines.

Let us suppose this figure on the wall to represent the divining board, then the first 16 marks represent the 16 sacred palm kernels which the BABALAWOS use in consulting IFA on their Sunday. But Ifa is always attended by his offspring OPELE, the other great oracular God of the Yoruba whom the diviners consult every day. Now the literal translation of the word OPELE is the one who endures and replenishes.

Thus you will see that the Yoruba may be said to divide the “formula” into two great parts, first, 16 divine principles under four great headings, IBARA, EDI, OVEKUN, and OGBE, and second, eight natural parts under two great headings the names of which I have not been able to ascertain.

Separated from the above but underneath is a strong line drawn from side to side, representing man the diviner.

That is a formula Of 24 parts between first cause and final effect-a formula preserved to the Bavili in the making up of their shrouds, in their families of Bakici baci, and in their six seasons, as well as in the titles of their King, his 12 assessors and their six offices, and to the Bini at least in their political constitution, as well as their system of divination.

That this formula should exist not only among the Bavili but also among the Bini and Yoruba adds great importance and weight to my conviction that it in reality is the formula (six of which go to complete the philosophy) which has so Iong been lying hid at the back of the black man’s mind.

Difficult, perhaps impossible, as it may be to convince others of this (to me) great truth, I feel that I have been justified in making the attempt. At any rate, no harm will be done to whatever value may be attached to the foregoing notes, as no one need agree with these conclusions unless they like.

On the other hand I cannot help feeling that one who has lived so long among the Africans, and who has acquired a kind of way of thinking black, should be listened to on the off chance that a secondary instinct developed by long contact with the people he is writing about, may have driven him to a right, or very nearly right, conclusion.

It seems to the writer that the complete philosophy was once given and taught to the people by means of symbols, and that 201 sacred groves were set apart as the places where the lessons in connection with this philosophy were taught.

This is backed up by the following story a certain Babalawol told me: EWARE, he said, was a son of the sixth king of Benin, and when his father died he wished to succeed to the throne. The people, however, would not have him, and drove him into the bush. After 201 years he returned to Benin city with 201 followers. He and his followers were like men but were not really men, they were EBAMI (powers in rivers and sacred groves)-EWARE then taught the Bini people the foundation of their present religion. But the people said that there were too many EBAMI and set about thinking how their number could be diminished. They built a fine house or temple and invited them all to a feast there, gave them plenty to eat and drink, and when they were nearly drunk fastened the doors and burned the house down. Many of the EBAMI escaped and entered the different rivers and became river spirits, etc.

EWARE also was much troubled about the fact that he had to die, so he sent a messenger to OYISA (= God) to ask him to come to Benin city and talk the matter over. God came down and landed at Agbor (a place to the east of Benin city), and asked if that were Benin city. They told him no, and directed him via Oza and Ugo, to the city, so that at length he arrived and had a meeting with EWARE, when it was finally decided that every man must die. ESHU (the devil) is said to have accompanied OYISA bearing a knife.

This would bring the introduction of the present Bini religion to the fourteenth century, or about 400 years after the founding of the kingdom of Bini by the son of the Alafin of AWYAW the great Yoruba king.

This religion has taken such a vigorous root in the country

[1. BABALAWO = a Bini priest. See Appendix.]

that it is now very difficult to find any trace of the older form of religion that must have been in existence among the EFA or people of this country before the coming of EWARE, or even the first Yoruba OBA. Interesting as the study of this superimposed religion may be among the Bini we are not likely, upon their own showing, to find it in so perfect a form as among the Yoruba. It is to IFE, the spiritual capital of the Yoruba country, that we must go if we are to rebuild up and reform this religion, which is, of course, now degenerated into a kind of mythology.

But there is one great lesson that we have learnt from this story of the Bini, and that is that the completed religion is ruled by 201 EBAMI.

It is interesting to know that before the destruction of the OBA’S palace each of these 201 EBAMI had a bronze plate representing it on the walls of the great room as a record, but it is exasperating to think that in its destruction our chance of obtaining all the names by which they were known has gone. It will now take years of patient note-taking to collect them once again. No native that I have so far come across can give me more than a few of their names, just the most prominent ones, and just sufficient to let us know that they referred to sacred rivers, lands, trees, animals, omens, and the seasons.

We have noted that both the Bini and Bavili in the first place recognise God under the names OYISA and NZAMBI.

They then recognise that there are two great divisions among things and people. Those created which they connect with God (OYISA) and those procreated which they connect with the Devil (ESHU) as far as the Bini are concerned, and BANTU NZAMBI and BANTUA NDONGO so far as the Bavili are concerned. Things of the spirit and things of the body as we should say.

Then we note that they divide things of the spirit into three parts, and things of the body into three parts or six parts in all.

Then we have twenty-four powers representing the winds etc., as causative attributes under these two great headings.

After which we have the six formulae each of twenty-four powers which makes one hundred and forty-four parts in all, i.e., seventy-two parts under the spiritual heading and seventy-two parts under the procreating heading.

And finally we have the twenty-four parts which are the results of the foregoing creative and procreative parts.

In short there are two hundred and one parts in their philosophy which all must bear in mind.

It is possible that in the foregoing notes some error in detail may have crept in, but I feel that I have given data enough to be enabled to give you the formulaae in full, at any rate in table form in such a way as to make this philosophy which is at the back of the black man’s mind, fairly clear.

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

CHAPTER XXIII

 

CONCLUSION

IT is said that the earliest traditions represent rulers as Gods or demigods.

In times and among races less barbarous we find these beliefs a little modified, the monarch is conceived to be a man having divine authority. He retains, however, as in the East to the present day titles representing his heavenly descent.

Later on the progress of civilisation, as during the middle ages in Europe, the current opinions respecting the relationship of rulers and ruled are further changed, for the theory of divine origin is substituted that of divine right.

With advancing political opinion have come still greater restrictions of imperial power.

The writer does not think that the eternal and everlasting principles founded on man’s senses and the seasons and retained in the titles of Maluango and other kings have by any means passed away.

Although we do not talk of our most gracious King by seven titles he is certainly represented by six great dignities in the six offices of state which King Alfred like King Maluango may have managed in person.

It is this wide gap, between European constitutions and their developments and the constitutions as we find them in Africa -and their developments-that blinds most people to a proper valuation of the latter and makes the government of the Africans by the former so great a puzzle.

It needs but a glance at the following lists for us to be convinced of the psychic unity of mankind, and that in the art of ruling man this must be accepted as a working hypothesis inductively established.

I must now conclude hoping that these notes may be of service both to the intelligent black man anxious to remind his people of their greater past and to encourage them once more to search after higher things, and to the white man who for want of information has been inclined to undervalue the material he is expected to understand and I am sure hopes to guide or mould in the right way.

Both in the case of the white and black man environment has done its fatal work, it is therefore as foolish for the white man at the present juncture to impose many of his laws and customs upon the black man living in the tropics as it would evidently be for the black man to impose his upon the white man. It is, of course, easy to say that we should act up to the ideals set before us by great philosophers and be superior to our environment; but as a matter of fact we are not, and while in Africa we find the ruins of what were once great kingdoms wanting in strength to maintain themselves for any length of time free from the gravest internal disorders and so degenerating into a series of enclosed despotisms which in anything beyond the management of village affairs do not contain the principle of representation by the people-so, on the other hand, in Europe democracy has become too powerful, and the people, fast losing sight of the great fundamental truths at the base of all good government, look upon licence as liberty and attack or attempt to disestablish any one of the six great estates which endeavours to curb their so-called liberty.

It is here that the full beauty and use of the kingly office becomes apparent, for the king at least should be placed by the people above environment and so enabled to hold himself and the six great principles of government well in hand.

Insects recognise this great truth, why should not man?

 

 

British Constitution.

The King (inspired) in the place of God.

Lord Chancellor.  Arbitrator.

Executor.  Court of Equity.

Lord Chief Justice.  Judge.

Police.  Court of Justice.

Archbishop of Canterbury.  Atoning priests.

Preachers.  Church.

Edward VII.  Doctors.

Teachers.  State.

Prime Minister, or,

The Speaker.  Members.

Ministers.  House of Commons.

The Lord Chancellor.  Lords.

Nobles.  House of Lords.

The King (as man) in three parts.

 

 

 

The King of the Bavili and his Constitution.

NTAWTELA.

FUMU.  LUEMBUNGU.

MANKAKA.  NGANGA MPUNZI.

NTINU LUKENE.  INJIBUNGU.

MAXIENJI.  NKASA.

NGANGAVUMBA.  KONGOIBUNGU.

MAFUKA.  BILUNGO KUTECI.

XIVANJI.  TATA BUNGU.

MAMBOMA.  MBUMBA.

MUENE.  MABUNDU.

MASAFI.  BUNDU.

NKICI CI.  MAMATA.

MAMBUKU.  BAKICI.

MALUANGO.

 

 

The King of the Bini and his Constitution.

IOBA.

(King’s titles.)  (Assessors.)  (Offices.)

OBADUDUDU.  UNWAGWE.

ELIBO.  IWEBO.

ENONYAGBON.  OKAIBOGA.

OKAIWAGGA.  ABIOGBE.

AGBAGE LOGI’OLUKUN.  IHAMA.

SIGHURE.  IHOGBWI.

OGIE NO GBOMA.  IGWESIBO.

OGIEMESE.  IWASE.

AKPOLPOLO.  ISIRI.

BAZILU.  IWEGWE.

ELIMIDU.  INE (Yamo).

OBAZWAIYI.  IBIWE.

OBA.

 

 

At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1906]

 

APPENDIX

Extracts from Yoruba Heathenism, by the Right Rev. Bishop JAMES JOHNSON, and Astrological Geomancy in Africa, by Professor J. A. ABAYOMI COLE. [Transcription note: diacritics have been ignored in the following].

Yoruba Heathenism, by the Right Rev. Bishop James Johnson, is so intensely interesting that when once you begin to quote from it it is very difficult to leave off doing so. The work was written some years ago, which may account for its title which I am sure my friend the Bishop would now call by some other name. A native of Africa, Bishop Johnson stands out not merely as a learned and earnest divine, but as a patriotic African anxious to instil into his fellow countrymen true nobility and independence of spirit and character. It has been my privilege to have discussed with him on many occasions some of the religious problems now troubling the mind of the educated African, who is beginning to be conscious of the higher teaching in his own mythology. I take this opportunity to thank the Bishop for having placed this work at my disposal and allowing me to quote so liberally from it.

The Divine Being.

God is commonly called “OLORUN,” a contracted form of “Eniti-o-ni-orun,” “the Owner of the Heavens; or of “Olu-orun,” the Chief in the Heavens; or “Orun,” the heavens, which is an abbreviated form of Olorun, and is intended to imply both heaven and earth together, which are sometimes spoken of together as the Universe. “ALAIYE,”‘ a contracted form of “Eniti-o-ni-aiye,” “the Owner of the Earth,” or of “OLUWA-AIYE,” “the Master of the Earth,” the term “Aiye” being understood to include both the earth and the heavens together; “OLUDUMARE,” which some interpret to mean The Chief, or The King who is the Son of “ERE,” and some regard as representing THE “EVER RIGHTEOUS ONE,” and some “God the Almighty”; and “Oloni,” a contracted form of “Oluwa ini,” the Owner of all our possessions, and other like names, many of which are commonly applied to inferior and subordinate Deities, as was the case with some of the ancient nations, as, for instance, the Greeks and the Romans.

Man, both from his inability to fully grasp the Infinite and for his own convenience, has been wont to represent this Being to himself by some attribute of His that impresses him more forcibly than others, or, through some special blessing from Him to which he attaches unexceptional value, and sometimes to content himself with transferring to Him a name he had applied before to some subordinate deity. Thus the Greeks like other Aryan races speak of Him as “Zeus” or “Jupiter,” “The God of light,” or the “God of heaven,” and “Theos,” the “Being who has made and arranged all things”; the Jews speak of Him amongst other names as “The Mighty One”; the English still apply to Him the Saxon name “God,” “a graven image,” which they had before their conversion to Christianity applied to an inferior deity; and the Yorubans speak of Him as “Olorun,” “the Owner of the Heavens,” or, “The Chief One in, or, The King of the Heavens.”

The number of Yoruba gods commonly reckoned is 401, but it is strictly more correct to say that the number is 600, arranged generally under two divisions, 200, as the Babalawos would say, placed on the right-hand side, and 400 on the left-hand side. But the gods more commonly worshipped are Ifa, Oduduwa, Obanta and Obanla his wife, Osun, Ogun, Yemaja, Buruku, Obalufon, Orisa-oko, and Soponno, Sango and Obatala.

[1]These Deities are generally known among us as “Orishas, ” a term which, after the religious tradition of the country, was originally applied to some being whom Ifa, or Orunmila, the Son of God, had sent out with others to search about for and collect together the wisdom which he had strewn about, and who were successful in their search and collection whilst others failed, and who were then spoken of as “Awon ti o ri sa,” i.e., those who were successful in making their collection, and who after, and in consequence of this, became objects of worship. But others have represented the term “Orisha” as derived from the circumstance of a serious difference on a

[1. Compare the BAKICI BACI of the Bavili and the EBAMI of the Bini.]

particular occasion between two friends named Arin and Ogba, a difference in which some elders interfered, over a potsherd, “Isha,” which the one had made a present of to the other, but a return of which the giver afterwards from envy demanded, and which after its return was accounted sacred and became an object of worship; and they say that from this every other object of worship has been called an “Orisha” (Ori-isha), in allusion to the potsherd over which there had been a severe difference.

Sango, the god of the atmosphere; Aramife, the god of fire; Aje, the god of trade; Obalufon, the god of a prosperous empire; Korikoto and Oke, gods of child-birth; the gods of the sea, Yemoja, Okun or Olokun, and Osun; the god of war, and the goddess of hunting (Ogun and Oranmiyan, Ososi and Uja his wife, Obalogun and Akipo his wife, and Ikuligbogbo); the god of agriculture, Ogun; the gods of prophecy and song, Ifa and Erinle; the god of eloquence, Obatala; the god of love and beauty, Olokun; the god of wisdom, Olokun; and the deities of the hearth fire, the Egun, or spirits of deceased ancestors.

Some of the Yoruba Divinities have been borrowed from other tribes.

Sango, from the Niger territory; Eko-Ifa, from the Akoko tribe; and Aje, from the Egun or Popo tribe.

Yorubans, whose heathen and idolatrous worship is a recurring festival at which a particular divinity is worshipped, have from this circumstance often denominated a day in every cycle of five days from the name of the deity to whose worship it is devoted, e.g., thus we find one day named Ojo Jakuta, i.e., the day when Jakuta or Shango[1] is worshipped; Ojo Obatala, i.e., the day when Obatala is worshipped; Ojo Ifa, i.e., the day when Ifa is worshipped, or when he sits on a throne like a king; Ojo Abameta, i.e., the Abameta day; and Ojo Yemaja, which is Ojo Oro as well, when both Yemaja and deceased ancestors’ spirits are worshipped.

The Yorubans bury their dead in their houses, and believe in them, in their power after death, and in their interest in their surviving friends; this is the family Oro and Egun worship, i.e., the worship at some fixed place in a house of the spirits of deceased ancestors, male and female, by surviving members of a family of which they had been a visible part, the fixed place being commonly marked by coloured designs on a wall of the house

[1. Shango is an imported “power,” see the days of the week of the Bavili and Bini, pages 64 and 214.]

or on the floor, and called “Olojuba-Baba,” or “Oju-Egun, Baba,” i.e., the spot specially assigned to the worship of the spirits of our deceased ancestors, and to which has been added the worship of such spirits as Esu, the devil, whose image is often placed on the left-hand side of the entrance into a premises; Esi, whose own is often in the piazza; whilstIfaor Orunmila’s ORO, which consists of 32 sacred palm nuts in a bowl, is generally placed at the sleeping apartment of the head of the house, and on an elevation raised above that occupied by the images of other orishas kept in the house to mark his superior importance.

Yorubans, like many other African tribes, make use of groves which they regard as sacred to some of their gods, and consecrated for worship to them in connection with their idolatry, and which they sometimes designate as “Igboro,” i.e., groves sacred to the spirits of our ancestors-” “Igbo Egun”, or “Igbale Egun”, or “Opa,” “Igbo Osonyin,” “Igbo Oluwa-Olofin,”, or “Igbo Oluwa Aramife.”

The practice of appropriating individual trees to purposes of devotion is indulged in by many African tribes, including the Yorubans.

The Palm tree, the Cotton tree, the Iroko tree, the Akoko tree, and the Ekika, whose leaves are commonly employed fresh on occasions of installation to the position and rank of a sovereign, and to the office of a priest of high rank, and the Omiyolo tree, the Iporogun and the Atori shrubs are among others accounted sacred trees and shrubs in Yoruba.

The Palm tree, on occasions of both private and public festivities connected with religious worship. Its branches are commonly employed to decorate places and objects of worship, both as a mark of reverential regard and adoration and as a token of the belief and confidence of worhippers in their divinities, and in their attributes also which the height, strength, and durability of the tree itself and the upward direction of its younger branches are regarded as representing, exactly as the tree was regarded as sacred both by the Etrurians and the Greeks, and the Oak by the Jews and Greeks, and the ancient heathen nations of Gaul and Britain.

The great Oracle of the Yoruba country is Ifa. He is represented chiefly by 16 palm nuts each having from four to 10 or more eyelets on them. Behind each one of these representative nuts are 16 subordinate Divinities. Each one of the whole lot is termed an Odu -which means a chief, a head. This makes the number of Odu altogether 256. Besides these, there are 16 other Odus connected with each of the 256, and this makes the whole number of Odus 4,096. Some increase this large number still by an addition of 16 more to each of the last number of Odus, but the 16 principal ones are those more frequently in requisition.

There is a series of traditional stories, each of which is called a road, a pathway, or a course, and is connected with some particular Odu. Each Odu is supposed to have 1,680 of these stories connected with it, and these, together with those of the other Odus, every one aspiring to the office of “A Babalawo,” who is a divining or sacrificing priest, is expected to commit to memory, though scarcely has any one been found to perform the feat. Many learn by heart a very, considerable number, rather an appreciable number connected with the principal Odus. Upon the appearance of an Wit on the divining or consulting bowl, the “Babalawo,” thinks of some of the stories attached to it, and from any of them that appears to him to suit the case upon which he is consulted, he delivers his Oracular response, and prescribes the sacrifice that would be accepted.

These, each of which is always represented in a pair, and is spoken of as two, are named thus:Eji Ogbe, Oyekun meji, Iwori meji, Edi meji, Bara meji, Okaran meji, Urosi meji, Owaran meji, Osa meji, Ogunda meji, Eture meji, Oturupon meji, Ose meji, Ofu meji and Eka meji. Eji or meji means two, double, or a pair.

Eji Ogbe is regarded the most principal, “The Dux,” or “Imperator” and “King,” whose appearance on the consulting bowl is always regarded as indicating the communication of a message of very great importance, since earthly sovereigns are not accustomed to come and. stand out before their people themselves and set aside for the time being their representatives or deputies except when the communication to be delivered is one of uncommon importance.

Subordinate Odus are constituted and represented by the conjunction of two principal Odus at one and the same time upon the consulting and divining bowl, the one on the right and the other on the left, this simultaneous appearance and their conjunction uniting to give them their respective names, e.g., when Eji Ogbe and Oyekun appear together, they are joined together and named Ogbe-Iyekun; or if Eji Ogbe appear with Ogunda, they are both together named Ogbe-Ogdnda, and so on with all the rest. The first of the two names in combination is always that of the Odu which appears on the left-hand side.

Each nut, or the collection, is commonly described as Ikin or Akin, which means a strong one, after they have been, with an elaborate religious performance, set aside for the sacred purpose of divination. The collection is usually topped by an Ikin, called an Oduso, which is regarded as above being consulted or delivering a message, hence the parable,-

“Akin li a I pa- a ki lu Oduso.”

“An Akin is the one we may strike for divination: we have: no right to strike an Odusu.”

An “Adele,” or a “Watch Akin,” is that which happens not to be taken up with the rest by a consulting priest, when he takes out with one grasp of the palm of his right hand 16 and 1 Odus from the number of ikins in his bag or from the face of his consulting bowl for consultation and divination. This one, left behind, does the duty of a keeper of the house for both himself and his comrades, till they should be returned to their place again.

Ifa is known by a great many descriptive and attributive names, among which are the following:-“Orunmila” (Heaven is the wise and successful Arbiter or Reconciler; again, Heaven, knows him who will be saved or how to save), “Olodumare” (Olodun, Omoere, Olodu, the son of Ere) “Ikuforiji” (the Being whom death honours and pays obeisance to), “Olijeni” (the Master of the seventh (7th) day festival), “Oba Olofa Asun l’ola” (the Ruler who draws blessing and prosperity after Him, and who sleeps in the midst of honours), “Nini,” ti ise “Omo Oloni” (the Possessor, who is -the Son of the greater Possessor), “Erintunde” (laughing comes back to the world, or the Being whose advent into the world has brought back the laugh of joy and gladness), “Owa” (the Being whose advent into the world from heaven filled men with joyful and thankful surprise which caused many to ask, “Is it Thou who hast come?” “Iwo li o wa?” and the Being from heaven whose constant cry to all in the world is that they should come to Him), “Owo, Alarun jarun” (the Parent who has given birth to five children and has lost none of them by death), “Olubesan” or “Olu-li ibi Esan” (the Chief Avenger of wrongs), “Edu” (the Black One, or the Great One whom, as tradition says, troubles have ma-de black), “Ope Ifa” (the palm sacred to Ifa), “ljiki-ti ki f’ori ba le f’enikan” (the Being whom all honour with the daily morning salutation, but who is above paying respect to any other being), “Abakuwijo” (the Being whose power is so great that he calls death to account), “Baba ye omo” (the Father who reflects honour on his children, or of whom his children may justly be proud). “Okitibiri, a-pa-ojo iku da” (the Being who, turning himself over as it were in a struggle, postpones for his client the day of death).

Divination is taken by a Babalawo on a highly esteemed broad circular bowl or four cornered fan of a moderate size, which is generally covered with white flour from a dry tree, and upon which he works, and with one of the fingers of the right hand imprints certain signs, representing such Ifa representatives as may be left in the palm of his left hand, after he has attempted with one grasp of the palm of his right hand to take up all the 16, where they were all held. These small signs or marks which would represent a number of efforts, and would be placed one after another horizontally would, according to their number and respective positions, represent one or other of the principal or subordinate Odus, or Divinities. From that Odu or Divinity, and one or other of the traditional stories connected with it, and with the aid of lot casting and of Opele, divination is taken and delivered.

Ifa, to speak more properly, an Odu delivers his responses in and through the channel of Parables, which every Babalawo is expected to be able to interpret. Hence it is commonly said:-

 

Owe ni Ifa ipa,

Omoran ni imo-

Bi a ba wipe mo-

Omoran a mo-

Nigbati a ko ba mo,

A ni, ko se!

 

Ifa speaks always in parables,

A wise man is he who understands his speech,

When we say understand it

The wise man always understands it,

But when we do not understand it –

We say it is of no account or the prediction is not fulfilled.

A Babalawo may sometimes be seen sitting over his Ifa Bowl, attempting to consult the god and divine for an applicant who is present with him, and who, it may be, desires to know whether a business he thinks of embarking in would prosper. He uses his Ikins in the manner described above, and Eji Ogbe, the prince of all the Olodus or Odus appears. Upon this he casts lot to find out from him what the business is in regard to which he has been asked to consult him, and what the result of embarking in it would be to the applicant. The business known and its issue foretold, if this issue should be favourable, the Babalawo may sometimes be heard delivering himself thus and saying amongst other things with the authority of Eji Ogbe, of whose appearance he will have imformed the humble applicant-

Bi a ba bo oju,

Bi a ba bo imu

Isale agbon ni a ipari re.

Ada fun Orunmila nigbati o nlo gba ase l’owo Olodumare; o rubo. Olodumare si wa fi ase fun u. Nigbati gbogbo aiye gbo pe o ti gba ase l’owo Olodumare nwon si nwo to. Gbogbo eyi ti o wi si nse. Lati igba na wa ni a nwipe. A Se!

“If (when) we wash the face,

If (when) we wash the nose

We are accustomed to finish the operation at the bottom of the chin.”

Ifa was consulted for Orunmila on the occasion when he would go to receive authority and power from the Almighty One and he offered the sacrifice prescribed to him. After this the Almighty One gave him authority and power.

When the people of the world learnt that he had received authority and power from the Almighty, all of them began to flock to him, to consult him on their affairs.

It was since then we have been accustomed to say “A se!” – “It will be as predicted.”

Opele, or Opepere, is an Oracle of inferior rank to Ifa, and who is regarded as his constant attendant and is commonly spoken of as his slave. He is always represented by eight flat pieces of wood, or metal, or something else, strung together in two rows of four on each side, placed at equal distances from each other and joined together. The disposition of one or other of these pieces when the whole ensign is thrown and made to spread out upon the ground would represent at once a particular Odu; and one of Opele’s chief duties is to show to the Babalawo what particular Odu he should consult upon a case referred to him.

Opele is often and frequently thus consulted by Babalawos, who usually carry about them its ensigns, because, consulting it carries with it less labour than, and is not so difficult as the work of consulting the Master, Ifa, himself; but this would be on matters of minor importance, and its response would be that of a servant for his master, and which is not always absolutely relied upon.

Opele is expected to be referred to and consulted every morning that a devotee might know whether the day would be for him prosperous or not and, if it should be seen to be a non-prosperous one, what sacrifice he should offer to conciliate the goodwill of his divinity in order that he might convert the day to a prosperous one for him, and also, that he might generally secure the blessing of his guidance and other assistance throughout the day; whilst a Babalawo is expected to ordinarily consult his Ifa every fifth day, which is the close of a week of Oses or worshipping days. Hence the parable runs:-

(1) Oju mo ki mo ki Awo ma sode wo

Agbede a gbon ada-

(2) Bi oni ti ri, ola ki ri be, li o mu ki Babalawo ma da Ifa ororun.

(1) “There is never a morning when a Babalawo or a consulting Priest does not consult his Opele, as there is never a morning that a blacksmith is not called upon to sharpen a cutlass for a farmer.” (2) “The possibility of to-morrow not being like to-day in regard to the events which may transpire in it, is what induces a Babalawo to consult his Ifa and sacrifice to it every fifth day.”

There are three grades of priests. As the sacred nuts are given by Babalawos in two sets of sixteen Ikins and one Oduso to applicants, those who receive only the first set, which is called “The Olori,” or Chief, form one grade, and this is the first. Those who receive both the first and the second, which is called “The Orisa,” or the next in rank, make another, the second grade; and those who have, each one with his right foot in conjunction with those of his own Babalawo’s, and any of his fellow or senior Babalawo’s with him, resting upon his own and moving in a circle with him, trodden upon his Ifa nuts deposited in a lump of Eko or Agidi (comflour pudding), and who are generally spoken of as “Awon ti a te ni Ifa,” or “Those who are trodden together with Ifa nuts,” form the third grade. Those of the first grade are entitled to worship their Ifa always, but not to divine with it or suffer it to be so employed. Those of the second grade can both worship their own and divine with it, or suffer it to be thus used; and those two first are spoken of as “Awo egun,” or “Elegan”; whilst those of the third class, who have been brought to their position through the services of Olodus, or chief Babalawos, are, besides being entitled both to worship their own Ifa and divine with it, also privileged to eat of any sacrifice that may be offered to or before the “Igba Odu,” or the calabash or gourd vessel sacred to Odu, a privilege which is denied to those of the first two grades, as it is to any non-Ifa owning man, or, as the eating out of a sacrifice of any kind offered to Ifa and that which has been placed upon it and is called Irefa, is denied to women generally; and are also known as “Awo Olodu,” the Principal Ifa worshippers.

The ceremony on the part of the Babalawo consists, after divining with his Ifa for it, in collecting the palm nuts that he would consecrate, burying them in the solid earth or at the head of a river, or in some other convenient place, three days before the public performance of the giving and receiving service, bruising them, washing them and the candidate also when he is of the second grade, and when he is said to wash the devil away from himself or wash Ifa water, this water having had what are known as Ifa leaves bruised in it, enclosing them in the same kind of leaves, placing the packet on a plate and solemnly depositing it in the palms of the hands of the candidate kneeling before him with closed eyes, after he shall have answered to his name called out the third time, and when he would signify his glad acceptance of the parcel by touching his forehead and breast with it, saying “May my head, or the divinity of my destiny, or my Creator accept it! My own heart accepts it.” He will have paid the fees prescribed for every part of the ceremony and furnished victims and other offerings for sacrifice, which, in the case of those of the second grade, are expected to be, in every item, the double of those provided by candidates of the first grade, whilst by all, an observance with feasting is had on the third and on the seventh day respectively of the formal acceptance.

To these belongs the privilege of being led to a stream of water after the performance of the above ceremony, accompanied by their Babalawos and their assistants, to be further washed, in order to a greater purification, and escorted home triumphantly with a parrot’s tail tightly tied to each one’s forehead as a consecration token, with the praises of Ifa or Orunmila being lustily chanted after them.

There is the ceremony of extinguishing the Odu fire-(Pinodu, i.e., Pa-ina-odu). Under it a candidate receives upon the open palms of his hands, previously and frequently dipped in consecrated Ifa water, dropping flames from a new lamp lighted with a new wick and held by a Babalawo, and rubs the different parts of his body with them, without experiencing any injury. This is accepted as a token of his having become a proof against the fire of sickness, or having gained a victory over it and over bereavement, disappointment, or any other trouble and death also. He is escorted, after his performance, to a stream, led by his Oluwo and followed by the latter’s assistant or Ajigbona, carrying on his head animal and other sacrifices that have been offered on his behalf, and holding them to it with both hands, they being wrapped in a clean white sheet covered over with both a fine and a coarse mat, and having a rope wound tightly around them. When the parcel is removed from his head and thrown into and deposited in a muddy part of the stream, into which he would descend, his head is held forward and it is washed with water whose droppings are allowed to fall on the bundle, and which the stream would carry away. This is regarded as a token that all his uncleanness and all the ills that might have befallen him are carried away from him.

The Igbadu is a covered calabash, containing four small vessels made from cocoanut shells, cut, each into two pieces in the middle, and which hold besides something unknown to the uninitiated, one a little mud, another a little charcoal, and another a little chalk, and another some camwood, all which are intended to represent certain Divine attributes, and which, with the vessels containing them, represent the four principal Odus-Eji Ogbe, Oyekun meji, Ibara meji, and Edi meji-and this calabash is deposited in a specially and well-prepared wooden box called Apere. The box is regarded as very sacred and as an emblem of Divinity, and is also worshipped. It is never opened, except on very special and important occasions, as when perhaps a serious difference is to be settled, and not without washed hands and often the offering of blood to it, when the opener would, as a mark of reverence, turn his face away from it as he opens it, saying, “Bi omode ba si isa, a ye ojun fun oru re” “If a child opens a boiling pot, he would turn away from the heat.” Whatever is offered as a sacrifice to or before the Igbadu is to be eaten at once; no portion of it is to be left to the next day, and none but Olodus, i.e., those who have undergone the trampling ceremony, are to partake of it; whilst the room where it is deposited is considered so sacred that no woman nor any uninitiated man is ever permitted to enter into it, and the door opening into it is generally beautified with chalk and charcoal colouring, giving it a spotted appearance. One who receives his Ifa with trampling is usually received into this room and into the company of waiting and expectant Babalawos with much ceremony, after he has been escorted from the Igbodu and here it is he offers his first homage to Ifa after his initiation.

An Igbodu is a grove where the ceremony of giving Ifa with trampling is performed by the ObaIodu, or the chief Olodu priest, for those who desire to have it from him. The grove always contains three extemporized partitions, built of young palm branches and the Omu shrub. Into the first of these partitions any woman or any uninitiated person may enter, and here such. persons are expected to tarry as spectators or waiters. Into the second, Babalawos, and all Olodus, all those who have received Ifa by trampling are privileged to enter and remain. The third is entered only by the Obalodu, the ceremony-performing priest, who would take the candidate with him into it and who also would have brought his Igbadu into it previously under cover of night to preserve the sacred object from public gaze, and there perform his ceremony with the aid of such fellow Olodu priests as he might have seen fit to invite.

Ifa lays claim to every plant in creation as sacred to his worship, and thus it is come to pass that upon consultation by a Babalawo, one Odu will advise the use of the leaves of certain plants; another will prescribe one of these, or others totally different along with them, and so other Odus. But the plants whose leaves are always in demand, and which are considered as specially sacred to Eji Ogu, the Prince of all Odus, are Tete, Odundun, Renren, Gbegi, the Oriji herb, lpoye, omini, and the Iwerejeje plant; but some of these are known and described by sacred names on occasions of, or for purposes of divination. Then the leaves of the Tete herb become Ewe attedaiye, i.e., the herb that betokens our seniority in our entrance into the world; Renren becomes Ewe tutu, the herb of pacification; and Gbegi become Ewe Agidimogboyin.

Ifa or Orunmila is believed to know all and everything and is therefore consulted upon every circumstance of life, that of sickness not excluded; and he, through a consulting Babalawo, always prescribes medicines for the diseases referred to him; and for this, there is a foundation in the circumstance that in the traditional sayings of every Olodu, or Odu, mention is always to be found made of sufferers from this or that form of disease and of the remedies that cured them effectually. Hence every Babalawo is necessarily a physician in his own way, and he is often resorted to by professional practitioners for consultation with Ifa for aid to them in the exercise of their art.

Ela is evidently one of the many attributive names by which Ifa is described, and a very principal one among them. It is a contraction of the term “Orun mila,” and is intended to represent the Divinity to all its worshippers and devotees, principally as a Saviour and Deliverer, and one that is strong and mighty and is unconquerable by Death itself, so that all that look to him for help in trouble and against any other evil, death not excluded, will find that their confidence has not been misplaced; and this, although the name is often used as if it represented a separate and distinct Divine personality, and although a separate and distinct representative ensign made of pieces of ivory, carrying four eyelets each and corresponding in number to the Ifa palm nuts (Ikin) which, with one Oduso, are 17, are chosen and employed to represent him.

He is sometimes described in songs of praises and in other speeches as “Ela omo Osin” Ela the child of “Osin” (the Ruler); sometimes as “Ela omo Oyigi (Oyigiyigi) Ota omi” Elathe offspring of a stone, i.e., the hard stone from the bed of a spring of water (an emblem of great strength), a quality which believed in, enables devotees to identify themselves with him, and regard themselves free in consequence from death, or protected against it, and say also when they utter the above praise, “Awa di Oyigiyigi, a ki o ku mo,” “We are ourselves. become Oyigiyigi, that is the stone which gave birth to Ela, and will no longer die,” or, at other times to say, “Ela ro a ki o ku mo-Okribiti, Ela ro (sokale) Oruo Ifa,” “Ela has descended to the earth-we shall die no more-and this is Ifa’s name.” Sometimes he is described as “Eniti ngba ni la,” “He is the one that saves us, and devotees may be heard saying sometimes of a friend, “Nwon se ebo Ela fun u” “We have made the Ela sacrifice, or the delivery or salvation sacrifice for him.” One of them may be heard thus to confess his ignorance of the saving power of Ela, “Emi ko tete mo pe, Ela ni nwon mbo la ni ile wa,” “I did not know in time that it is the Ela that is worshipped and sacrificed to in our family for salvation,” or “Ko tina, ko to ro, beni on (Ela) ni gba ni la ni Ife,” “He is of no account, he is too small to be thought of, yet he is the one who is accustomed to deliver us from trouble in Ife,” or the world, for which the term Ife is often employed. And at other times he may be heard spoken of as 1″Oba-a mola” “The king, by knowing whom, we have come to salvation.”

Ela holds a very important place in the Ifa system of worship. It is to be found in connection with each of the 256 Odus of the system, a circumstance that suggests that the system aims especially at impressing its followers with the idea that Ifa is a Saviour and Deliverer at all times and under all circumstances. It, besides the Odu Osetura, is always first humbly and reverently invoked and its favour sought for acceptance whenever Ifa is to be worshipped with a sacrifice, and is thus addressed-

Ela! Omo Osin, mo wari o! or, Ela meji, mo wari o! or Ela! Mo yin aboru

Ela! mo yin aboye-

Ela! mo yin abosise.

O Thou Ela, Son of the Ruler,

I humble myself before thee!

or, O Ela! I praise the sacrificing that meets with acceptance or opens the way to blessing,

O Ela! I praise the sacrificing that brings life-

O Ela! I praise the sacrificing act that accompanies or precedes labour;

and it is the divinity to which harvest offerings are always presented by worshippers-especially in the yam season, before any portion of the harvest is partaken of, and when they are said to split the Ela yam (Pa isu Ela, or Pa Ela), and when also the following song may be heard sung lustily to Ela’s praises, and Orunmila is said to come and partake of the yam with them-

Ela Poke!

Eni esi si wa soro odun,

Odun ko, mo wa sodun, Iroko oko!

Iroko oko! Odun oni si ko. Ela Poke!

Ela has reappeared!

Our friend of the past year has come again to observe the yearly festival-

The anniversary has returned. I am come O Iroko (Lord)

of the cultivated field to observe the yearly festival.

O Iroko of the cultivated field, this day’s anniversary has returned.

Ela has reappeared!

Baba wa okirikisi!

Omo at’ orun ro s’aiye

Ti o ko wa da s’aiye

Baba wa okirikisi!

O Thou, our worthy Father!

The Son who hast descended from heaven to this earth

Who hast placed us in the world-

Thou our worthy Father!

The ceremony connected with the giving of Ela to one applying for it is identical with that with which Ifa is given to those who come under the first two grades of recipients who are generally spoken of as Awo Egan, and drawbacks and privileges are like those to be found in both cases.

The male sex is the sex which particularly gives itself to Ifa worship. There are, however, times when divinations may recommend and prescribe that worship to a woman. Whenever this should be the case, a woman would receive from a Babalawo only one Ikin or Consecrated Palm nut called Eko, which she would carry about her body for her protection, and whenever divination should recommend and prescribe to her sacrifice to Ifa, she would, for the time being, hand over her Eko either to her husband or to her brother, or any other male relative according to prescription, who would include it in his own Ikins for the purpose of the worship and sacrifice in which she would participate.

There is a particular Palm tree that is known by the name of Ope-Ifa, or the Ifa Palm tree, because that class of palm trees commonly yield nuts carrying four eyelets each, and these are the only nuts employed in Ifa worship, and are devoted to it. They are regarded sacred to this purpose, and are often spoken of as Ekuroaije, i.e. “Nuts that are not to be eaten”; and if nuts carrying two or three eyelets should be found among these yielded by such trees, these would be called Ekurq-Ososa-i.e., the palm nuts whose beauty has deserted them through the loss of one or more eyelets -oso-sa.

The cost of supplying Ifa to a candidate varies from; L5 to L150, and more, according to the circumstances of the individual; and often children are pawned, slaves sold, and other sacrifices made to raise the funds necessary to cover the expense of the elaborate ceremony.

There are other oracles; but some of these are local, and are resorted to only by particular tribes or townships, e.g., there is the Oro Ilare of Ijesha land, which is said to come down from heaven to Ilare or Aiye, or the world, once a year, to be waited upon by those who may need his Oracular assistance, and whose temporary residence is always a grove, where he is always attended by an Aworo Oro Ilare till his return to heaven. The Aworo would deliver his responses to inquirers. His advent is always looked forward to with joy, and the public roads and thoroughfares of a town are always specially cleaned and put in order for his reception, whilst the number of men and women repairing to the grove for his Oracular assistance is always large. There are such divinities as Osun, Yemaja, Ososi and Elegbara, &c., which are often consulted, mostly by women, using sixteen cowries for their consulting signs; and among some of the tribes, Eluku and Agemo, which also are regarded as possessing much predicting capacity, and are often resorted to, as their predictions are always esteemed infallible.

An Ogberi or lgberi is one that is not initiated into the mysteries of the religion with which a Babalawo, from the nature of his office, is expected to be fully acquainted.

The Cola-fruit holds a very important and sacred place. Both it and the tree bearing it are considered sacred. Every Orisha is worshipped with the fruit, whilst a woodman’s axe should on no account be laid upon the tree. Hence the parable which is commonly heard, “Orisa ti o yan igi obi li ayo, on-li o da awon iyoukun li Eru- A ki iyo Ida ba Orisa ja; Ayasebi Eke ati Eyo ni i be igi obi danu o” “The divinity that has chosen the Cola tree as his specially valued and loved representative has made all other trees subservient to it. We are not accustomed to draw out the sword to fight a divinity with; and no one but a liar and a perfidious person ever thinks of cutting down and throwing away a Cola tree.” The fruit is very commonly and extensively employed by men and women all over the country for purposes of consultation and divination, the majority using it as if they sought divination through it, each one, from his own god, or as if it were a divinity by itself, whilst Babalawos and other intelligent persons use it with the idea that divination is being sought for from Ifa with it. It is commonly split into halves and thrown upon the ground, as is always done with Opele, the position assumed then by the pieces, either that in which their faces are turned upwards or that in which they are turned downwards, or that in which some look upwards and others look downwards at one and the same time, being understood to declare either good or evil, as the case may be, care being commonly taken previously to precede this ceremony with a libation of pure and clean water poured out upon the ground in humble worship of the god Earth, the parent, after a sort, of all mankind, as from it we have all been brought into existence, and upon whose surface the split Cola pieces would be thrown for divination.

It is sometimes described in praises by the honourable title of “Baba, abebe oloran ku si oran, Oran oloran li obi i ku si.” “Our father who intercedes in another person’s matter till he dies over it; Cola is commonly put to death over other people’s affair,” which is evidently intended for the divinity which it represents, and which refers to his work of intercession between parties at variance with each other with a view to peace making, and that death over it which it entails on him, and which, together with a further division into plugs and into smaller pieces, and an immediate mutual consumption of them by the parties interested in the peace making, and their respective friends, confirm and sea] the peace made. It is this circumstance that has given rise to the phrase so often used, “A ti pa obi si oran na.” “We have split Cola over the matter,” which is equal to saying, “We have settled the matter.”

It, or the god it represents, is often spoken of as one whose entreaty or intercession is on no account to be refused; hence the saying, “Ebora,” or ” Ebo-ara ki ko ebe fun obi.” “The gods are not in the habit of refusing to listen and accept entreaty or intercession from the Cola nut;” and it is this that has suggested the presentation of Cola nuts amongst other things by a suitor for the hand of a young woman in marriage to the parents, urging with them his suit, his desire and request for a betrothal, and his prayer for their acceptance of it.

There are among the heathens those in our country who profess to exercise the office of speaking with the dead, and of being mediums of communications from them to the living, and who are known as “Awon Abokusoro”-speakers with the dead-and whose deliverances have generally been found to be true. But the system does not appear to be so elaborate with them as it is with their fellow-professors in Europe and America.

There is a great variety of sacrifice, and each prescribed sacrifice or each set of such a sacrifice takes its name generally from the object for which it is offered. Among them may be mentioned the following:-The Redemption sacrifice; the exchange sacrifice; the wealth and the longevity sacrifice; the sacrifice for recovery from illness and for preventing death – those for the possession of strength, and for the avoiding of losses of any kind; those for protection against being a cause of trouble to one’s own self; those against being successfully plotted against; those against a fire accident, and for the removal of drought or the prevention or the cessation of a flood of rain; that for attaining to some title and office of dignity, and that for securing a long enjoyment of the office, especially if he who seeks it had been told beforehand through Ifa divination that his enjoyment of it would not be long; that for securing the sign or mark on one’s forehead that would assure him of his safety from the approach and touch of the angel of Death, and of victory and triumph over difficully and trouble – and that for acquiring superiority to others, &c.

These various sacrifices mentioned, being atonement sacrifices, suggest the existence originally in the mind of the Pagan Yoruban that sin and the anger of an offended god are the cause of the various ills incidental to human life: that blessings are to be had only from him and according to his will, and that for this he is to be propitiated by means of sacrifice and offering, since he who desires them is a sinner.

Animals for sacrifice range from reptiles to man. Meat-offering includes all variety of food and drink; but for every particular sacrifice a certain victim is prescribed, and sometimes the same animal may be prescribed for more than one sacrifice; and so it is with meat and drink offerings, eg., against death in sickness, a sheep, and for longevity, a dog; for strength to the body, a ram sheep and a cock; against losses, a basket of eggs, most of which are usually employed with leaves sacred to Ifa; against being lied upon, domestic pigeons and palm nut shells; against trouble and misfortune, rats; against drought, small crabs from which water drops each time each makes a leap; against a flood from incessant rain or for confusion of a plot, snails; against a fire accident, a wild hog or a duck with different kinds of Ifa leaves; for victory in a time of war a ram sheep and an old cock together; against the death of a very young child, a hen that had had chickens; to be permitted to come to a title and for the destruction of a plot, a wild hog.

They are sometimes burnt with fire, and in some cases, like that of the Irapada or Redemption offering, the whole victim is roasted with fire within doors till it is reduced to ashes, and after this water is thrown into the hearth from behind it to extinguish the fire, and all the ashes and fire-brands are collected and taken outside, and as with all other offerings and gifts to Esu or Satan are placed on a public road for him. Sometimes they are taken out of the town alive and across a river, if any is near at hand, and left in the bush whereto they are supposed to bear the sin, guilt and trouble of the offerer which had been transferred to them. Sometimes they are thrown into a river to be carried away by it with the offerer’s sin and sorrow. Sometimes they are buried in the earth, with or without a chain attached to them, and a portion of it standing on the surface, the subject for whom the sacrifice is offered making a sleeping place of the spot to assure himself of the protection and security sought for and alleged to be given, and which the chain symbolizes. Sometimes they are placed at the edge of a river. Sometimes as in the case of Ebo Aba, i.e., a purpose sacrifice or a sacrifice to the divinity of purpose or that divinity which enables one to make a purpose, and Ebo Ase, i.e., an accomplishment sacrifice or a sacrifice to the divinity of will that accomplishes his purpose or enables a man to accomplish a purpose, the blood of a sacrificed victim is sprinkled first upon the right lintel, which is sacred to the Alaba, and then upon the left lintel, which is sacred to the Alase, and after this, upon the surface of the door hanging on one of them, some of the feathers of a fowl or other winged animal offered being affixed at the same time to each blood-sprinkled surface, whilst the flesh of the victim is either roasted or boiled and eaten altogether quickly and in a standing posture. Sometimes the sacrifice is taken at once outside and left on a street or some highway, as in the case of another Ebo Irapa or Irapada, a redemption or exchange offering, which consists of a 16-wicked lamp lighted, and which is usually employed in the case of the serious illness of an important person to change his fate and deliver him from death. Sometimes they are thrown from one priest to another, they standing together in a straight line, as in the case of Ebo Agbeso or the heave offering, which is not to be suffered to fall to the ground during the performance of the exercise, the object sought being to secure the offerer against the triumph of his enemies over him. Sometimes they are living creatures, left to be devoured by other living creatures, as in the case of a sacrifice in which seven very young chickens are usually employed, and taken out to some public highway and left there to be devoured by hawks, the death of the individual for whom it is offered being supposed to be substituted for and averted by that of the chickens. Sometimes the head of the offerer is streaked with the blood of the victim, exhibiting him as one for whom an atonement has been made, and assuring him thereby of his acceptance, as in the case of the Ebo isami, or the sign-marking sacrifice, when some of the blood of the victim is mixed by the Babalawo and hi assistant, the Ajigbona, with both mud and some bruised sacred or Ifa leaves in a sacred grove from which the preparation is usually brought out ceremoniously for those waiting for it, to be employed in marking their foreheads in order to secure to them escape from death and assure them of it. These may be heard saying and singing amongst themselves, “Edu, i.e., (Orunmila) ti sa ni li ami a ko ku mo, Iwerejeje ni Edu fi sami.” “Edu, or Orunmila, has marked us we shall not die again. It is the leaf of the Iwerejeje herb he has employed in doing it.” Sometimes an offerer’s hands are laid upon the victim before it is slain for the transferring of his guilt and death to it, and at other times the offerer touches his head with that of the victim or the body of the victim is passed over and made to touch every part of the body of him for whom it is offered, as is the case with the “Ebu iparo ori,” the sacrifice for exchanging or substituting one’s head, fate, or destiny with that of another. Sometimes sacrifices are eaten after they have been offered up, and sometimes they are not to be eaten, especially when they are offered for one in a dangerous illness. Sometimes in a case like this the sacrifice is buried in the earth with the bedding and covering of the sick person, and his body is washed over the spot if he is able to stand it. Some, like Ebo Osu, are to be eaten at once, as soon as they have been offered up, as is the case with either the Aba or the Ase sacrifice, and unlike it, are not to be suffered to remain to the next day. Some are attached to a light fan suspended upon a pole firmly planted in the ground and left to be waved about by the wind. Some victims are paraded through a town, city, or village for whose welfare they are to be sacrificed, and sometimes they are dragged about also on the solid ground before they are sacrificed in order that they might carry away with them the sin, guilt, and death of the inhabitants, and other troubles to which it may be they are liable.

Human sacrifices have been practised by all the different sections of the Yoruba nation and other West African tribes, especially at periodical festivals and on other great occasions; but till the recent conquest of the kingdom of Dahomey (on the East of the Yoruba kingdom) by France, and the unresisted and bloodless conquest and annexation of the great and powerful kingdom of Ashantee (on the South-east) by Great Britain, they were very common and abundant in them in connection with their respective ancestral worship.

The king of Dahomey is reported, as far back as 1664, to have built a royal dead-house, the mortar of which had been mixed with human blood.

In Yoruba the human victim chosen for sacrifice, and who may be either a free-born or a slave, a person of noble or wealthy parentage, or one of humble birth, is, after he has been chosen and marked out for the purpose, called an Oluwo.

He is always well fed and nourished and supplied with whatever he should desire during the period of his confinement. When the occasion arrives for him to be sacrificed and offered up, he is commonly led about and paraded through the streets of the town or city of the Sovereign who would sacrifice him for the well-being of his government and of every family and individual under it, in order that he might carry off the sin, guilt, misfortune and death of all without exception. Ashes and chalk would be employed to hide his identity by the one being freely thrown over his head, and his face painted with the latter, whilst individuals would often rush out of their houses to lay their hands upon him that they might thus transfer to him their sin, guilt trouble, and death. This parading done, he is taken through a temporary sacred shed of palm and other tree branches, and especially of the former, the Igbodu and to its first division, where many persons might follow him, and through a second where only the chiefs and other very important persons might escort and accompany him to, and to a third where only the Babalawo and his official assistant, the Ajigbona, are permitted to enter with him. Here, after he himself has given out or started his last song, which is to be taken up by the large assembly of people who will have been waiting to hear his last word or his last groan, his head is taken off and his blood offered to the gods. The announcement of his last word or his last groan heard and taken up by the people, would be a signal for joy, gladness and thanksgiving, and for drum beating and dancing, as an expression of their gratification because their sacrifice has been accepted, the divine wrath is appeased, and the prospect of prosperity or increased prosperity assured.

A sheep or any other brute creature chosen as a victim for a propitiatory sacrifice for one who desires to come to a great and important public office, and in respect of whom Ifa had predicted a short enjoyment of the position and an early removal from it to make room for another person who would enjoy it longer, would be similarly paraded through the town that it might be loaded with the ill-will which his enemies are believed to entertain against and wish the offerer and with the death pronounced against him, and when after this it is being led back into his house it would be clubbed to death at once at the entrance by some specially appointed persons.

Human sacrifices are generally offered in Yoruba and in many other parts of Africa by Sovereigns, especially when an expiation that is to be made is of a general character, and in the interests of their respective governments and peoples; and this is always, in Yoruba, according to the specific prescription and after the instigation of priests who, to reconcile them to the fearful and revolting deed and prevent to them qualms of conscience over it, usually seek by their language to magnify before them their great power and the importance of their office, and impress them with the idea that no one would or could call them into account for this use which they would make of a fellow man’s life.

Sacrifices are offered for and by private individuals, individual families, a particular quarter of a town or city, or the whole of it in the king’s name. When a sacrifice is a family one it is commonly spoken of as Ebo Agbole-a household sacrifice. When it is for a particular quarter of a town or city it is spoken of as Ebo igboro-or a district sacrifice; and when it is for a whole town or city it is generally spoken, of as Ebo Agbalu-a sacrifice for sweeping away evil from the town, or Ebo Oba, or the King’s sacrifice.

These sacrifices which are offered by heathens to their Orishas, who occupy the place both of subordinate deities and mediators, are believed to be taken to the Great One by a spirit whom they denominate “Agberu,” the carrier, whose special business it is to take them to him and wait upon him with them. He goes by the title, “Agberu ti igbe ebo re orun” ” Agberu who carries people’s sacrifices to heaven.” The basket in which he is supposed to carry the sacrifices to heaven is lined with leaves sacred to Ifa, as for instance “Ewe toto,” the toto leaf, ” which is symbolical of the wish and prayer of the offerer that he may be equal to those who are before and above him;” the “Ewe Ewuruju” the Ewuruju leaf, which is symbolical of his wish that he may surpass others; “Ewe Igberesi” the Igberesi leaf, which is generally spoken of and described as the Igberesi leaf which accompanies a sacrifice to heaven. ” Ewe Igberesi ti I sin ebolo si orun” and the Yeye leaf, which is often described as “Ewe Yeye ti ije ki ire ya si ile eni,” “the Yeye leaf that brings blessing into our houses.”

The Yoruban names of priests are the following:-The Babalawo, the Oluwo, the Ajigbona, the Aworo, the Odofin, the Aro, the Asarepawo, the Asawo, the Apetebi, who is sometimes called Ayawo.

The Babalawo is the president of the mysteries and the rites and ceremonies of religion and worship, and he is also the Sacrificing Priest, the teacher of the religion, and the Diviner by consulting the Sacred Oracles. He is always specially and in a formal manner consecrated to his office when he is to serve a king as his Consulting Priest.

An Oluwo in this class is a senior and chief of the class of Babalawos, whose directions the rest are all expected to obey; but often may a man be heard speaking of a Babalawo from whom he has received his Ifa as his Oluwo.

An Ajigbona is a chief assistant both to the Oluwo and any of the other Babalawos, and on an occasion of a great sacrifice, e.g., that of offering a human being, he is the only one, with an Aworo, appointed to accompany the Babalawo who would perform the sacrifice to what may be described as the most sacred place in the Igbodii, and which is the place both of slaughter and of offering.

An Odofin is a titled Babalawo next in rank to the Oluwo, and he is privileged to act for him in his absence.

An Aro is the third Babalawo in rank, and he is entitled to act for both the Oluwo and the Odofin in their absence.

An Asare pawo is a messenger whose office it is to call upon the Babalawos at their respective residences and invite them to a meeting whenever an appointment has been made, and he and all who bear the title with him are those who are also expected to prepare and extemporise an Igbodu whenever the Babalawos ask for one.

An Asawo is another attendant upon a Babalawo, and a special assistant to an Asare pawo.

An Apetebi or Esu or Ayawo is a woman who is regarded as the wife of Orunmila himself, and who may in reality be either a Babalawo’s wife or the wife of any one for whom a sacrifice is to be offered and who is always expected to give assistance at it.

An Aworo is a chief minister devoted to a particular Orisha, and to him is assigned the difficult and revolting task of putting to death a fellow human being devoted to sacrifice.

A candidate for the office and dignity of a Babalawo is expected to be a pupil to a Babalawo well known for his wide knowledge of the mysteries of the religion and his skill in the exercise of it, and especially in the art of divination, for at least three years and learn the profession from him. But pupils who are ambitious of being much superior to their fellows of the same profession sometimes elect to continue their pupilage and apprenticeship to four, five, six, and even seven years.

As the doctrines and practice of the profession are not committed to writing, the teacher only employs oral teaching, reproducing from his memory from time to time such things as the pupil should learn and commit also to memory himself; and his witnessing of his teacher’s performances frequently and assisting him at them are also expected to promote his education.

The course is divided into three parts covering the three years of ordinary pupilage. In the first year the candidate learns the names of all the Olodus and Odus,-the signs representing each of them and testifies by practice his mastery of them. In the second year he learns the one thousand and one traditions connected with the Olodus and Odus and-which are said to be so many that there has scarcely been a Babalawo found who has learnt and can recite the whole of them; but there are those who have learnt and committed to memory a much greater number of them than others have done, and who then can make a wider use of the consulting bowl. In the third year the candidate learns the method and use of lot casting and in connection with it assists at the consulting bowl.

A Babalawo, elected and appointed to wait upon a king always as his Babalawo who is to consult Ifa for him is always one who has distinguished himself above others by his superior knowledge of the traditions and his skill in using them and in the art of consulting the oracle Ifa. His term of pupilage must have exceeded three years, and he is generally formally set apart for this his very important and responsible office and the dignity connected with it by other Babalawos at a special meeting held for the purpose when they would amongst other ceremonies unitedly place on his head some leaves sacred to Ifa, to signify to him and to others his elevation to the office.

His specially appointed assistants are the Olwo Otun Awo, the right hand Babalawo, otherwise named Orisa; the Olowo Osi Awo, the left hand Babalawo, otherwise named the Osopo; and the Olopon ekeji awo, or the second consulting bowl Babalawo, each of whom has his own Ajigbona, who is sometimes called Lewere.

His ensign of office consists of a string of beads of various colours worn always round his left wrist; a cow’s or bullock’s tail which he always carries about with him; and a staff which is sometimes an Opa Osu, i.e., a staff sacred to Ofu; at other times an Opa Orerere, the Orerere staff, and at other times an Opa Osororo, or the Osororo staff.

The office is supported from regularly prescribed consulting and divining fees which are sometimes and indeed often exceeded on account of what is thought to be the superior financial position of an applicant for consultation of Ifa; the sacrifices and offerings made to the gods; and gifts from those whom they serve which these account it a duty and a privilege to make to them, especially at stated festivals.

The moral system of Yoruba heathenism teaches reverence to the gods, which is to show itself in, amongst other things, a daily early morning worship to them before their images before any business is done, the exercise of faith in them and their guidance and other assistances by consulting them on all important matters; respect and reverence for age and for all authority; filial regard and reverence for and obedience to parents-on the part of children always, and care and concern for them under the infirmities of sickness and old age, and in times of necessity produced by other circumstances; a great regard for marriage and the perpetuity of the bond, submission to their husbands on the part of wives, and care and protection on the part of husbands; the exercise of the duties of hospitality to all, and especially to strangers; fidelity to friendship under all circumstances; chastity, truthfulness in speech, honesty, kindness, and amongst some tribes courage also; whilst under its influence murder and theft, and sometimes the practice of witchcraft are punished with death; adultery and fornication with a severe social disgrace and fines and a selling into slavery, and, where the honour of a king’s wife is concerned, with death sometimes; suicide, with a dishonoured burial; and neglect and indifference to pay a debt, and insolvency, with much social dishonour; and it discountenances, amongst other things, pride and vanity and extravagance.

Among these may be reckoned revenge and retaliation, hatred, jealousy, malice, ill-will, worldliness, anger and wrath and selfishness, some of which have contributed to supply a basis for the system of slavery and the slave trade, and for the life of Polygamy which have ruled the country for centuries, and for the very long incessant inter-tribal warfares which have ruined it.

The motives for virtue are a belief in a retributive providence, either for good or for evil; the fear of social disgrace and of punishment also, which would fall not only upon an individual wrong and evil doer, but upon his relatives and other connections also; the prospect of a long life on earth, desire for prosperity, and dread of the anger of the gods and of punishment from them.

It teaches that the soul of man is not liable to death, and that after the death of the body, which results from its quitting it, it hovers about the earth for some time, and after this departs into the world of spirits above. Hence the following parable referring to the death of a Babalawo, and which is applicable to other persons also who have died:-“Awo ki i ku:-Awo lo si Itunla. Itunla ni ile Awo.” “Awo-or a Babalawo does never die; he goes to Itunla (the world where men live again after death). Itunla is an Awo’s home.”

The spirits of all the dead go after death to “Orun,” the heavens or the world above. It is divided into two parts. One part is commonly called “Isala Orun” or as a mark of excellence; “Orun” merely, or “Orun Afefe rere,” the heaven of sweet air, or “Orun Alafia,” the heaven of peace and happiness, where the souls of all the good from this world are admitted and live after death; and another part is called Orun Apandi, the world of potsherds, where the spirits of the wicked here pass to and live in after death as a heap of refuse and rubbish, a mass of God rejected souls-and who are treated there as potsherds are here where they are commonly flung to a dunghill. Sometimes this world is described as Orun ihariha, the heaven of the dry leaves, covering an ear of corn, or the heaven where the spirits that go there are treated as such leaves generally are here by being thrown into the fire, and it is also thus described, “Orun ihariha, ibi ti Orun ati ina pade ti nwon nho ye,” “the heaven of the Ihariha, where both the sun and fire meet together, and where the roar of their united flames and heat is like the shout of a great multitude.”

The spirit of a good dead returns from the spirit world to be again born into this world as had been the case with it before and into the family of which it had been before death a visible part. Hence it is that after a child’s birth and when a name would be given to it a Babalawo is consulted by the parents that they might know whether or not the child who is a departed one that has returned to them has come through the father’s or the mother’s line, that the family might know with what line they would formally connect it by the name that would be given to it. This accounts for such names as these given to children:-” Yeye-tunde”-“Our mother has returned to us; ” and “Babatunde”-“Our father has returned to us.” This transmigration is spoken of as “Yiya”-or the shooting forth of a branch.

There is some faint notion of a judgment after death, as may be inferred from the following occasional remarks of Yorubans, smarting under a sense of wrong and of their inability to revenge it-

” Ohun ti o se mi yi, ati emi ati iwo ni i ro o niwaju eni ti o ri wa.”

“As to this thing or this wrong which you have done me, I say, both yourself and myself will have to relate it to and before Him (God) who sees us.”

“Nigbati emi ba ku, ati emi ati iwo ni ilo ro o niwaju Olorun.”

When I die, both you and myself will have to relate it (our case) or (the alleged wrong) before God.”

“Ohun gbogbo ti a fe li Aiye a fere di idena orun (oju ibode orun) ka gbogbo

“With regard to what we do in this world we shall soon come to the entrance gate to the other world where we shall have to give an account of them all.”

Ignorance of letters has prevented the teaching of this system being embodied in a book for the followers of Yoruba heathenism: but it has been committed to the care of oral tradition for which the people’s well-exercised and strong memories afford a great help, parental teaching, the influence of the illustration afforded by the punishment awarded to evil and wrong doers, and the very many parables that enter largely into the language of the country and which have become in consequence of this an important vehicle of instruction, and the example of elder before younger people.

It cannot be justly and truly said that this idea of a hereafter has had any influence upon the people. It is not that it particularly influences their conduct in life. But very imperfect though it be, yet it certainly witnesses against those of them who riot in wickedness, injury, wrong and unkindness to their neighbours.

Extract from Astrological Geomancy in Africa, by Professor J. A. Abayomi Cole:-

In those early days of the world’s history, when the gods associated with men and rendered them valiant help in all their struggles for existence, sacrifices were offered unto them. At these offerings they became so delighted that they came down from heaven in such great numbers that it was not possible to obtain sufficient meat to distribute amongst them.

Having cultivated a taste for flesh, and the worshippers not being able to supply all they demanded, the gods were therefore obliged to resort to various pursuits so that they might obtain food.

Ifa, the God of Divination, took to fishing.

On a certain day Ifa returned from the sea hungry and exhausted, having caught no fish. He thereupon consulted the god Elegba (the devil) what to do.

Elegba, in reply, said that there was near the forest a farm belonging to Orunga, the son of the goddess (Yemaja). It was planted by Odudura, the wife of Obatala (Heaven). It bore only sixteen nuts, and if Ifa can succeed to obtain the sixteen palm nuts from Orunga-who now owns the lands-he would, with them, teach him the art of divination, by which food will be secured for the gods without resorting to labour; for every one wishing to consult the Oracles will pay a goat, and knowing the anxiety of mankind to pry into the future, he was sure that the gods would thereby have more flesh than they would need, stipulating at the same time that the first choice of all such should be his.

Ifa at once proceeded to the farm of Orunga. He bargained for the sixteen palm nuts, promising in return for them to teach Orunga how to forecast the future, assuring him that by this knowledge he will become very rich, and at the same time be of great service to mankind.

Orunga went and consulted his wife, Orisabi, who agreed that they would part with the palm nuts, if by so doing they would become both rich and useful. Both of them set out to get the nuts, which they collected by the aid of monkeys. All, sixteen in number, were wrapped in a bundle of clothes, and Orisabi tied the bundle on her back in the manner in which babies are generally carried, and she with her husband took them to Ifa.

Ifa received and took them to Elegba, who taught him, as he promised, the art of divination; Ifa in turn taught it to Orunga, who thus became the first Baba-alawo (i.e., Father of Mysteries).

Hence in all geomantic operations the Baba-alawoes use the common formula:

Orunga ajuba oh!-i.e., Orunga, I respect thee!

Orisabi ajubi oh!-i.e., Orisabi, I respect thee!

This accounts for the sixteen palm nuts used in Yoruba divinationall corresponding to the twelve houses of the heavens + two geomantic witnesses + one geomantic judge + one grand judge obtained by the permutation of the judge, the fifteenth figure, with the figure of the first house, all equal to sixteen figures.

There are various methods of divination, either with sixteen stones taken from the stomach of an alligator, used largely by tribes in the interior of the Colony of Sierra Leone, or with sixteen ordinary stones, beans, palm nuts, or cowries.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

 

THE NEGRO

 

By William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

 

New York: Henry Holt and Company

 

[1915]

 

Scanned, proofed and formatted at sacred-texts.com, October 2004, by John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States because it was published prior to 1923.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. ix]

 

CONTENTS

 

Preface,

<page 3>

 

I

Africa,

<page 5>

 

II

The Coming of Black Men,

<page 11>

 

III

Ethiopia and Egypt,

<page 17>

 

IV

The Niger and Islam,

<page 27>

 

V

Guinea and Congo,

<page 36>

 

VI

The Great Lakes and Zymbabwe,

<page 46>

 

VII

The War of Races at Land’s End,

<page 53>

 

VIII

African Culture,

<page 62>

 

IX

The Trade in Men,

<page 86>

 

X

The West Indies and Latin   America,

<page 96>

 

XI

The Negro in the United States,

<page 110>

 

XII

The Negro Problems,

<page 139>

 

 

Suggestions for Further   Reading,

<page 147>

 

 

Index,

155

 

 

MAPS

The Physical Geography of   Africa,

4

 

Ancient Kingdoms of Africa,

58

 

Races in Africa,

60

 

Distribution of Negro Blood,   Ancient and Modern,

144

 

 

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 1]

 

THE NEGRO

[p. 2]

TO A FAITHFUL HELPER M. G. A.

[p. 3]

 

PREFACE

The time has not yet come for a complete history of the Negro peoples. Archaeological research in Africa has just begun, and many sources of information in Arabian, Portuguese, and other tongues are not fully at our command; and, too, it must frankly be confessed, racial prejudice against darker peoples is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for judicial appraisement of the peoples of Africa. Much intensive monographic work in history and science is needed to clear mooted points and quiet the controversialist who mistakes present personal desire for scientific proof.

Nevertheless, I have not been able to withstand the temptation to essay such short general statement of the main known facts and their fair interpretation as shall enable the general reader to know as men a sixth or more of the human race. Manifestly so short a story must be mainly conclusions and generalizations with but meager indication of authorities and underlying arguments. Possibly, if the Public will, a later and larger book may be more satisfactory on these points.

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS.

New York City, Feb. 1, 1915

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 4]

 

Click to enlarge

I. The Physical Geography of Africa

[p. 5]

 

I    AFRICA

Africa is at once the most romantic and the most tragic of continents. Its very names reveal its mystery and wide-reaching influence. It is the “Ethiopia” of the Greek, the “Kush” and “Punt” of the Egyptian, and the Arabian “Land of the Blacks.” To modern Europe it is the “Dark Continent” and “Land of Contrasts”; in literature it is the seat of the Sphinx and the lotus eaters, the home of the dwarfs, gnomes, and pixies, and the refuge of the gods; in commerce it is the slave mart and the source of ivory, ebony, rubber, gold, and diamonds. What other continent can rival in interest this Ancient of Days?

There are those, nevertheless, who would write universal history and leave out Africa. But how, asks Ratzel, can one leave out the land of Egypt and Carthage? and Frobenius declares that in future Africa must more and more be regarded as an integral part of the great movement of world history. Yet it is true that the history of Africa is unusual, and its strangeness is due in no small degree to the physical peculiarities of the continent. With three times the area of Europe it has a coast line a fifth shorter. Like Europe it is a peninsula of Asia, curving southwestward around the Indian Sea. It has few gulfs, bays, capes, or islands. Even the rivers, though large and long, are not means of communication with the outer world, because from the central high plateau they plunge in rapids and cataracts to the narrow coastlands and the sea.

The general physical contour of Africa has been likened to an inverted plate with one or more rows of mountains at the edge and a low coastal belt. In the south the central plateau is three thousand or more feet above the sea, while in the north it is a little over one thousand feet. Thus two main divisions of the continent are easily distinguished: the broad northern rectangle, reaching down as far

[p. 6]

as the Gulf of Guinea and Cape Guardafui, with seven million square miles; and the peninsula which tapers toward the south, with five million square miles.

Four great rivers and many lesser streams water the continent. The greatest is the Congo in the center, with its vast curving and endless estuaries; then the Nile, draining the cluster of the Great Lakes and flowing northward “like some grave, mighty thought, threading a dream”; the Niger in the northwest, watering the Sudan below the Sahara; and, finally, the Zambesi, with its greater Niagara in the southeast. Even these waters leave room for deserts both south and north, but the greater ones are the three million square miles of sand wastes in the north.

More than any other land, Africa lies in the tropics, with a warm, dry climate, save in the central Congo region, where rain at all seasons brings tropical luxuriance. The flora is rich but not wide in variety, including the gum acacia, ebony, several dye woods, the kola nut, and probably tobacco and millet. To these many plants have been added in historic times. The fauna is rich in mammals, and here, too, many from other continents have been widely introduced and used.

Primarily Africa is the Land of the Blacks. The world has always been familiar with black men, who represent one of the most ancient of human stocks. Of the ancient world gathered about the Mediterranean, they formed a part and were viewed with no surprise or dislike, because this world saw them come and go and play their part with other men. Was Clitus the brother-in-law of Alexander the Great less to be honored because be happened to be black? Was Terence less famous? The medieval European world, developing under the favorable physical conditions of the north temperate zone, knew the black man chiefly as a legend or occasional curiosity, but still as a fellow man–an Othello or a Prester John or an Antar.

The modern world, in contrast, knows the Negro chiefly as a bond slave in the West Indies and America. Add to this the fact that the darker races in other parts of the world have, in the last four centuries, lagged behind the flying and even feverish footsteps of Europe, and we face to-day a widespread assumption throughout the dominant world that color is a mark of inferiority.

The result is that in writing of this, one of the most ancient, persistent, and widespread stocks of mankind, one faces astounding prejudice. That which may be assumed as true of white men must be

[p. 7]

proven beyond peradventure if it relates to Negroes. One who writes of the development of the Negro race must continually insist that he is writing of a normal human stock, and that whatever it is fair to predicate of the mass of human beings may be predicated of the Negro. It is the silent refusal to do Is which has led to so much false writing on Africa and of its inhabitants. Take, for instance, the answer to the apparently simple question “What is a Negro?” We find the most extraordinary confusion of thought and difference of opinion. There is a certain type in the minds of most people which, as David Livingstone said, can be found only in caricature and not in real life. When scientists have tried to find an extreme type of black, ugly, and woolly-haired Negro, they have been compelled more and more to limit his home even in Africa. At least nine-tenths of the African people do not at all conform to this type, and the typical Negro, after being denied a dwelling place in the Sudan, along the Nile, in East Central Africa, and in South Africa, was finally given a very small country between the Senegal and the Niger, and even there was found to give trace of many stocks. As Winwood Reade says, “The typical Negro is a rare variety even among Negroes.”

As a matter of fact we cannot take such extreme and largely fanciful stock as typifying that which we may fairly call the Negro race. In the case of no other race is so narrow a definition attempted. A “white” man may be of any color, size, or facial conformation and have endless variety of cranial measurement and physical characteristics. A “yellow” man is perhaps an even vaguer conception.

In fact it is generally recognized to-day that no scientific definition of race is possible. Differences, and striking differences, there are between men and groups of men, but they fade into each other so insensibly that we can only indicate the main divisions of men in broad outlines. As Von Luschan says, “The question of the number of human races has quite lost its raison d’etre and has become a subject rather of philosophic speculation than of scientific research. It is of no more importance now to know bow many human races there are than to know how many angels can dance on the point of a needle. Our aim now is to find out how ancient and primitive races developed from others and how races changed or evolved through migration and inter-breeding.” [*1]

[p. 8]

The mulatto (using the term loosely to indicate either an intermediate type between white and black or a mingling of the two) is as typically African as the black man and cannot logically be included in the “white” race, especially when American usage includes the mulatto in the Negro race.

It is reasonable, according to fact and historic usage, to include under the word “Negro” the darker peoples of Africa characterized by a brown skin, curled or “frizzled” hair, full and sometimes everted lips, a tendency to a development of the maxillary parts of the face, and a dolichocephalic head. This type is not fixed or definite. The color varies widely; it is never black or bluish, as some say, and it becomes often light brown or yellow. The hair varies from curly to a wool-like mass, and the facial angle and cranial form show wide variation.

It is as impossible in Africa as elsewhere to fix with any certainty the limits of racial variation due to climate and the variation due to intermingling. In the past, when scientists assumed one unvarying Negro type, every variation from that type was interpreted as meaning mixture of blood. To-day we recognize a broader normal African type which, as Palgrave says, may best be studied “among the statues of the Egyptian rooms of the British Museum; the larger gentle eye, the full but not over-protruding lips, the rounded contour, and the good-natured, easy, sensuous expression. This is the genuine African model.” To this race Africa in the main and parts of Asia have belonged since prehistoric times.

The color of this variety of man, as the color of other varieties, is due to climate. Conditions of heat, cold, and moisture, working for thousands of years through the skin and other organs, have given men their differences of color. This color pigment is a protection against sunlight and consequently varies with the intensity of the sunlight. Thus in Africa we find the blackest men in the fierce sunlight of the desert, red pygmies in the forest, and yellow Bushmen on the cooler southern plateau.

Next to the color, the hair is the most distinguishing characteristic of the Negro, but the two characteristics do not vary with each other. Some of the blackest of the Negroes have curly rather than woolly hair, while the crispest, most closely curled hair is found among the yellow Hottentots and Bushmen. The difference between the hair of the lighter and darker races is a difference of degree, not of kind, and can be easily measured. If the hair follicles of a Chinaman,

[p. 9]

a European, and a Negro are cut across transversely, it will be found that the diameter of the first is 100 by 77 to 85, the second 100 by 62 to 72, while that of the Negro is 100 by 40 to 60. This elliptical form of the Negro’s hair causes it to curl more or less tightly.

There have been repeated efforts to discover, by measurements of various kinds, further and more decisive differences which would serve as really scientific determinants of race. Gradually these efforts have been given up. To-day we realize that there are no hard and fast racial types among men. Race is a dynamic and not a static conception, and the typical races are continually changing and developing, amalgamating and differentiating. In this little book, then, we are studying the history of the darker part of the human family, which is separated from the rest of mankind by no absolute physical line, but which nevertheless forms, as a mass, a social group distinct in history, appearance, and to some extent in spiritual gift.

We cannot study Africa without, however, noting some of the other races concerned in its history, particularly the Asiatic Semites. The intercourse of Africa with Arabia and other parts of Asia has been so close and long-continued that it is impossible to-day to disentangle the blood relationships. Negro blood certainly appears in strong strain among the Semites, and the obvious mulatto groups in Africa, arising from ancient and modern mingling of Semite and Negro, has given rise to the term “Hamite,” under cover of which millions of Negroids have been characteristically transferred to the “white” race by some eager scientists.

The earliest Semites came to Africa across the Red Sea. The Phoenicians came along the northern coasts a thousand years before Christ and began settlements which culminated in Carthage and extended down the Atlantic shores of North Africa nearly to the Gulf of Guinea.

From the earliest times the Greeks have been in contact with Africa as visitors, traders, and colonists, and the Persian influence came with Cambyses and others. Roman Africa was bounded by the desert, but at times came into contact with the blacks across the Sahara and in the valley of the Nile. After the breaking up of the Roman Empire the Greek and Latin Christians filtered through Africa, followed finally by a Germanic invasion in 429 A.D.

In the seventh century the All-Mother, Asia, claimed Africa again for her own and blew a cloud of Semitic Mohammedanism all across

[p. 10]

[paragraph continues] North Africa, veiling the dark continent from Europe for a thousand years and converting vast masses of the blacks to Islam. The Portuguese began to raise the veil in the fifteenth century, sailing down the Atlantic coast and initiating the modern slave trade. The Spanish, French, Dutch, and English followed them, but as traders in men rather than explorers.

The Portuguese explored the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea, visiting the interior kingdoms, and then passing by the mouth of the Congo proceeded southward. Eventually they rounded the Cape of Good Hope and pursued their explorations as far as the mountains of Abyssinia. This began the modern exploration of Africa, which is a curious fairy tale, and recalls to us the great names of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Stanley, Barth, Schweinfurth, and many others. In this way Africa has been made known to the modern world.

The difficulty of this modern lifting of the veil of centuries emphasizes two physical facts that underlie all African history: the peculiar inaccessibility of the continent to peoples from without, which made it so easily possible for the great human drama played here to hide itself from the ears of other worlds; and, on the other hand, the absence of interior barriers–the great stretch of that central plateau which placed practically every budding center of culture at the mercy of barbarism, sweeping a thousand miles, with no Alps or Himalayas or Appalachians to binder.

With this peculiarly uninviting coast line and the difficulties in interior segregation must be considered the climate of Africa. While there is much diversity and many salubrious tracts along with vast barren wastes, yet, as Sir Harry Johnston well remarks, “Africa is the chief stronghold of the real Devil–the reactionary forces of Nature hostile to the uprise of Humanity. Here Beelzebub, King of the Flies, marshals his vermiform and arthropod hosts-insects, ticks, and nematode worms–which more than in other continents (excepting Negroid Asia) convey to the skin, veins, intestines, and spinal marrow of men and other vertebrates the microorganisms which cause deadly, disfiguring, or debilitating diseases, or themselves create the morbid condition of the persecuted human being, beasts, bird, reptile, frog, or fish.” [*1] The inhabitants of this land have had a sheer fight for physical survival comparable with that in no other great continent, and this must not be forgotten when we consider their history.

Footnotes

^7:1 Von Luschan: in Inter-Racial Problems, p. 16.

^10:1 Johnston: Negro in the New World, pp. 14-15.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 11]

 

II    THE COMING OF BLACK MEN

The movements of prehistoric man can be seen as yet but dimly in the uncertain mists of time. This is the story that to-day seems most probable: from some center in southern Asia primitive human beings began to differentiate in two directions. Toward the south appeared the primitive Negro, long-headed and with flattened hair follicle. He spread along southern Asia and passed over into Africa, where be survives to-day as the reddish dwarfs of the center and the Bushmen of South Africa.

Northward and eastward primitive man became broader headed and straight-haired and spread over eastern Asia, forming the Mongolian type. Either through the intermingling of these two types or, as some prefer to think, by the direct prolongation of the original primitive man, a third intermediate type of human being appeared with hair and cranial measurement intermediate between the primitive Negro and Mongolian. All these three types of men intermingled their blood freely and developed variations according to climate and environment.

Other and older theories and legends of the origin and spread of mankind are of interest now only because so many human beings have believed them in the past. The biblical story of Shem, Ham, and Japheth retains the interest of a primitive myth with its measure of allegorical truth, [*1] but has, of course, no historic basis.

[p. 12]

The older “Aryan” theory assumed the migration into Europe of one dominant Asiatic race of civilized conquerors, to whose blood and influence all modern culture was due. To this “white” race Semitic Asia, a large part of black Africa, and all Europe was supposed to belong. This “Aryan” theory has been practically abandoned in the light of recent research, and it seems probable now that from the primitive Negroid stock evolved in Asia the Semites either by local variation or intermingling with other stocks; later there developed the Mediterranean race, with Negroid characteristics, and the modern Negroes. The blue-eyed, light-haired Germanic people may have arisen as a modern variation of the mixed peoples produced by the mingling of Asiatic and African elements. The last word on this development has not yet been said, and there is still much to learn and explain; but it is certainly proved to-day beyond doubt that the so-called Hamites of Africa, the brown and black curly and frizzly-haired inhabitants of North and East Africa, are not “white” men if we draw the line between white and black in any logical way.

The primitive Negroid race of men developed in Asia wandered eastward as well as westward. They entered on the one hand Burmah and the South Sea Islands, and on the other hand they came through Mesopotamia and gave curly hair and a Negroid type to Jew, Syrian, and Assyrian. Ancient statues of Indian divinities show the Negro type with black face and close-curled hair, and early Babylonian culture was Negroid. In Arabia the Negroes may have divided, and one stream perhaps wandered into Europe by way of Syria. Traces of these Negroes are manifest not only in skeletons, but in the brunette type of all South Europe. The other branch proceeded to Egypt and tropical Africa. Another, but perhaps less probable, theory is that ancient Negroes may have entered Africa from Europe, since the most ancient skulls of Algeria are Negroid.

The primitive African was not an extreme type. One may judge from modern pygmy and Bushmen that his color was reddish or yellow, and his skull was sometimes round like the Mongolian. He entered Africa not less than fifty thousand years ago and settled eventually in the broad region between Lake Chad and the Great Lakes and remained there long stretches of years.

After a lapse of perhaps thirty thousand years there entered Africa a further migration of Asiatic people, Negroid in many characteristics, but lighter and straighter haired than the primitive Negroes. From this Mediterranean race was developed the modern inhabitants

[p. 13]

of the shores of the Mediterranean in Europe, Asia, and Africa and, by mingling with the primitive Negroes, the ancient Egyptians and modern Negroid races of Africa.

As we near historic times the migrations of men became more frequent from Asia and from Europe, and in Africa came movements and minglings which give to the whole of Africa a distinct mulatto character. The primitive Negro stock was “mulatto” in the sense of being not widely differentiated from the dark, original Australoid stock. As the earlier yellow Negro developed in the African tropics to the bigger, blacker type, be was continually mingling his blood with similar types developed in temperate climes to sallower color and straighter hair.

We find therefore, in Africa to-day, every degree of development in Negroid stocks and every degree of intermingling of these developments, both among African peoples and between Africans, Europeans, and Asiatics. The mistake is continually made of considering these types as transitions between absolute Caucasians and absolute Negroes. No such absolute type ever existed on either side. Both were slowly differentiated from a common ancestry and continually remingled their blood while the differentiating was progressing. From prehistoric times down to to-day Africa is, in this sense, primarily the land of the mulatto. So, too, was earlier Europe and Asia; only in these countries the mulatto was early bleached by the climate, while in Africa he was darkened.

It is not easy to summarize the history of these dark African peoples, because so little is known and so much is still in dispute. Yet, by avoiding the real controversies and being unafraid of mere questions of definition, we may trace a great human movement with considerable definiteness.

Three main Negro types early made their appearance: the lighter and smaller primitive stock; the larger forest Negro in the center and on the west coast, and the tall, black Nilotic Negro in the eastern Sudan. In the earliest times we find the Negroes in the valley of the Nile, pressing downward from the interior, Here they mingled with Semitic types, and after a lapse of millenniums there arose from this mingling the culture of Ethiopia and Egypt, probably the first of higher human cultures.

To the west of the Nile the Negroes expanded straight across the continent to the Atlantic. Centers of higher culture appeared very early along the Gulf of Guinea and curling backward met Egyptian,

[p. 14]

[paragraph continues] Ethiopian, and even European and Asiatic influences about Lake Chad. To the southeast, nearer the primitive seats of the earliest African immigrants and open to Egyptian and East Indian influences, the Negro culture which culminated at Zymbabwe arose, and one may trace throughout South Africa its wide ramifications.

All these movements gradually aroused the central tribes to unrest. They beat against the barriers north, northeast, and west, but gradually settled into a great southeastward migration. Calling themselves proudly La Bantu (The People), they grew by agglomeration into a warlike nation, speaking one language. They eventually conquered all Africa south of the Gulf of Guinea and spread their influence to the northward.

While these great movements were slowly transforming Africa, she was also receiving influences from beyond her shores and sending influences out. With mulatto Egypt black Africa was always in closest touch, so much so that to some all evidence of Negro uplift seem Egyptian in origin. The truth is, rather, that Egypt was herself always palpably Negroid, and from her vantage ground as almost the only African gateway received and transmitted Negro ideals.

Phoenician, Greek, and Roman came into touch more or less with black Africa. Carthage, that North African city of a million men, had a large caravan trade with Negroland in ivory, metals, cloth, precious stones, and slaves. Black men served in the Carthaginian armies and marched with Hannibal on Rome. In some of the North African kingdoms the infiltration of Negro blood was very large and kings like Massinissa and Jugurtha were Negroid. By way of the Atlantic the Carthaginians reached the African west coast. Greek and Roman influences came through the desert, and the Byzantine Empire and Persia came into communication with Negroland by way of the valley of the Nile. The influence of these trade routes, added to those of Egypt, Ethiopia, Benin, and Yoruba, stimulated centers of culture in the central and western Sudan, and European and African trade early reached large volume.

Negro soldiers were used largely in the armies that enabled the Mohammedans to conquer North Africa and Spain. Beginning in the tenth century and slowly creeping across the desert into Negroland, the new religion found an already existent culture and came, not a conqueror, but as an adapter and inspirer. Civilization received new impetus and a wave of Mohammedanism swept eastward, erecting the great kingdoms of Melle, the Songhay, Bornu, and the

[p. 15]

[paragraph continues] Hausa states. The older Negro culture was not overthrown, but, like a great wedge, pushed upward and inward from Yoruba, and gave stubborn battle to the newer culture for seven or eight centuries.

Then it was, in the fifteenth century, that the heart disease of Africa developed in its most virulent form. There is a modern theory that black men are and always have been naturally slaves. Nothing is further from the truth. In the ancient world Africa was no more a slave hunting ground than Europe or Asia, and both Greece and Rome had much larger numbers of white slaves than of black. It was natural that a stream of black slaves should have poured into Egypt, because the chief line of Egyptian conquest and defense lay toward the heart of Africa. Moreover, the Egyptians, themselves of Negro descent, had not only Negro slaves but Negroes among their highest nobility and even among their Pharaohs. Mohammedan conquerors enslaved peoples of all colors in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but eventually their empire centered in Asia and Africa and their slaves came principally from these countries. Asia submitted to Islam except in the Far East, which was self-protecting. Negro Africa submitted only partially, and the remaining heathen were in small states which could not effectively protect themselves against the Mohammedan slave trade. In this wise the slave trade gradually began to center in Africa, for religious and political rather than for racial reasons.

The typical African culture was the culture of family, town, and small tribe. Hence domestic slavery easily developed a slave trade through war and commerce. Only the integrating force of state building could have stopped this slave trade. Was this failure to develop the great state a racial characteristic? This does not seem a fair conclusion. In four great centers state building began in Africa. In Ethiopia several large states were built up, but they tottered before the onslaughts of Egypt, Persia, Rome, and Byzantium, on the one hand, and finally fell before the turbulent Bantu warriors from the interior. The second attempt at empire building began in the southeast, but the same Bantu hordes, pressing now slowly, now fiercely, from the congested center of the continent, gradually overthrew this state and erected on its ruins a series of smaller and more transient kingdoms.

The third attempt at state building arose on the Guinea coast in Benin and Yoruba. It never got much beyond a federation of large industrial cities. Its expansion toward the Congo valley was probably

[p. 16]

a prime cause of the original Bantu movements to the southeast. Toward the north and northeast, on the other hand, these city-states met the Sudanese armed with the new imperial Mohammedan idea. Just as Latin Rome gave the imperial idea to the Nordic races, so Islam brought this idea to the Sudan.

In the consequent attempts at imperialism in the western Sudan there arose the largest of the African empires. Two circumstances, however, militated against this empire building: first, the fierce resistance of the heathen south made war continuous and slaves one of the articles of systematic commerce. Secondly, the highways of legitimate African commerce had for millenniums lain to the north. These were suddenly closed by the Moors in the sixteenth century, and the Negro empires were thrown into the turmoil of internal war.

It was then that the European slave traders came from the southwest. They found partially disrupted Negro states on the west coast and falling empires in the Sudan, together with the old unrest of over-population and migration in the valley of the Congo. They not only offered a demand for the usual slave trade, but they increased it to an enormous degree, until their demand, added to the demand of the Mohammedan in Africa and Asia, made human beings the highest priced article of commerce in Africa. Under such circumstances there could be but one end: the virtual uprooting of ancient African culture, leaving only misty reminders of the ruin in the customs and work of the people. To complete this disaster came the partition of the continent among European nations and the modern attempt to exploit the country and the natives for the economic benefit of the white world, together with the transplanting of black nations to the new western world and their rise and self-assertion there.

Footnotes

^11:1 Ham is probably the Egyptian word “Khem” (black), the native name of Egypt. In the original myth Canaan and not Ham was Noah’s third son.

The biblical story of the “curse of Canaan” (Genesis IX, 24-25) has been the basis of an astonishing literature which has to-day only a psychological interest. It is sufficient to remember that for several centuries leaders of the Christian Church gravely defended Negro slavery and oppression as the rightful curse of God upon the descendants of a son who had been disrespectful to his drunken father! Cf. Bishop Hopkins: Bible Views of Slavery, p. 7.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 17]

 

III    ETHIOPIA AND EGYPT

Having viewed now the land and movements of African people in main outline, let us scan more narrowly the history of five main centers of activity and culture, namely: the valleys of the Nile and of the Congo, the borders of the great Gulf of Guinea, the Sudan, and South Africa. These divisions do not cover all of Negro Africa, but they take in the main areas and the main lines in development.

First, we turn to the valley of the Nile, perhaps the most ancient of known seats of civilization in the world, and certainly the oldest in Africa, with a culture reaching back six or eight thousand years. Like all civilizations it drew largely from without and undoubtedly arose in the valley of the Nile, because that valley was so easily made a center for the meeting of men of all types and from all parts of the world. At the same time Egyptian civilization seems to have been African in its beginnings and in its main line of development, despite strong influences from all parts of Asia. Of what race, then, were the Egyptians? They certainly were not white in any sense of the modern use of that word–neither in color nor physical measurement, in hair nor countenance, in language nor social customs. They stood in relationship nearest the Negro race in earliest times, and then gradually through the infiltration of Mediterranean and Semitic elements became what would be described in America as a light mulatto stock of Octoroons or Quadroons. This stock was varied continually: now by new infiltration of Negro blood from the south, now by Negroid and Semitic blood from the east, now by Berber types from the north and west.

Egyptian monuments show distinctly Negro and mulatto faces. Herodotus, in an incontrovertible passage, alludes to the Egyptians as “black and curly-haired” [*1]–a peculiarly significant statement from

[p. 18]

one used to the brunette Mediterranean type; in another passage, concerning the fable of the Dodonian Oracle, he again alludes to the swarthy color of the Egyptians as exceedingly dark and even black. Aeschylus, mentioning a boat seen from the shore, declares that its crew are Egyptians, because of their black complexions.

Modern measurements, with all their admitted limitations, show that in the Thebaid from one-seventh to one-third of the Egyptian population were Negroes, and that of the predynastic Egyptians less than half could be classed as non-Negroid. Judging from measurements in the tombs of nobles as late as the eighteenth dynasty, Negroes form at least one-sixth of the higher class. [*1]

Such measurements are by no means conclusive, but they are apt to be under rather than over statements of the prevalence of Negro blood. Head measurements of Negro Americans would probably place most of them in the category of whites. The evidence of language also connects Egypt with Africa and the Negro race rather than with Asia, while religious ceremonies and social customs all go to strengthen this evidence.

The ethnic history of Northeast Africa would seem, therefore, to have been this: predynastic Egypt was settled by Negroes from Ethiopia. They were of varied type: the broad-nosed, woolly-haired type to which the word “Negro” is sometimes confined; the black, curly-haired, sharper featured type, which must be considered an equally Negroid variation. These Negroes met and mingled with the invading Mediterranean race from North Africa and Asia. Thus the blood of the sallower race spread south and that of the darker race north. Black priests appear in Crete three thousand years before Christ, and Arabia is to this day thoroughly permeated with Negro blood. Perhaps, as Chamberlain says, “one of the prime reasons why no civilization of the type of that of the Nile arose in other parts of the continent, if such a thing were at all possible, was that Egypt acted as a sort of channel by which the genius of Negro-land was drafted off into the service of Mediterranean and Asiatic culture.” [*2]

To one familiar with the striking and beautiful types arising from the mingling of Negro with Latin and Germanic types in America, the puzzle of the Egyptian type is easily solved. It was unlike any of its neighbors and a unique type until one views the modern mulatto; then the faces of Rahotep and Nefert, of Khafra and Amenemhat I,

[p. 19]

of Aahmes and Nefertari, and even of the great Ramessu II, become curiously familiar.

The history of Egypt is a science in itself. Before the reign of the first recorded king, five thousand years or more before Christ, there had already existed in Egypt a culture and art arising by long evolution from the days of paleolithic man, among a distinctly Negroid people. About 4777 B.C. Aha-Mena began the first of three successive Egyptian empires. This lasted two thousand years, with many Pharaohs, like Khafra of the Fourth Dynasty, of a strongly Negroid cast of countenance.

At the end of the period the empire fell apart into Egyptian and Ethiopian halves, and a silence of three centuries ensued. It is quite possible that an incursion of conquering black men from the south poured over the land in these years and dotted Egypt in the next centuries with monuments on which the full-blooded Negro type is strongly and triumphantly impressed. The great Sphinx at Gizeh, so familiar to all the world, the Sphinxes of Tanis, the statue from the Fayum, the statue of the Esquiline at Rome, and the Colossi of Bubastis all represent black, full-blooded Negroes and are described by Petrie as “having high cheek bones, flat checks, both in one plane, a massive nose, firm projecting lips, and thick hair, with an austere and almost savage expression of power.” [*1]

Blyden, the great modern black leader of West Africa, said of the Sphinx at Gizeh: “Her features are decidedly of the African or Negro type, with ‘expanded nostrils.’ If, then, the Sphinx was placed here–looking out in majestic and mysterious silence over the empty plain where once stood the great city of Memphis in all its pride and glory, as an ’emblematic representation of the king’–is not the inference clear as to the peculiar type or race to which that king belonged?” [*2]

The middle empire arose 3064 B.C. and lasted nearly twenty-four centuries. Under Pharaohs whose Negro descent is plainly evident, like Amenemhat I and III and Usertesen I, the ancient glories of Egypt were restored and surpassed. At the same time there is strong continuous pressure from the wild and unruly Negro tribes of the upper Nile valley, and we get some idea of the fear which they inspired throughout Egypt when we read of the great national rejoicing which followed the triumph of Usertesen III (c. 2660-22) over

[p. 20]

these hordes. He drove them back and attempted to confine them to the edge of the Nubian Desert above the Second Cataract. Hemmed in here, they set up a state about this time and founded Nepata.

Notwithstanding this repulse of black men, less than one hundred years later a full-blooded Negro from the south, Ra Nehesi, was seated on the throne of the Pharaohs and was called “The king’s eldest son.” This may mean that an incursion from the far south had placed a black conqueror on the throne. At any rate, the whole empire was in some way shaken, and two hundred years later the invasion of the Hyksos began. The domination of Hyksos kings who may have been Negroids from Asia [*1] lasted for five hundred years.

The redemption of Egypt from these barbarians came from Upper Egypt, led by the mulatto Aahmes. He founded in 1703 B.C. the new empire, which lasted fifteen hundred years. His queen, Nefertari, “the most venerated figure of Egyptian history,” [*2] was a Negress of great beauty, strong personality, and of unusual administrative force. She was for many years joint ruler with her son, Amenhotep I, who succeeded his father. [*3]

The new empire was a period of foreign conquest and internal splendor and finally of religious dispute and overthrow. Syria was conquered in these reigns and Asiatic civilization and influences poured in upon Egypt. The great Tahutmes, III, whose reign was “one of the grandest and most eventful in Egyptian history,” [*4] had a strong Negroid countenance, as had also Queen Hatshepsut, who sent the celebrated expedition to reopen ancient trade with the Hottentots of Punt. A new strain of Negro blood came to the royal line through Queen Mutemua about 1420 B.C., whose son, Amenhotep III, built a great temple at Luqsor and the Colossi at Memnon.

The whole of the period in a sense culminated in the great Ramessu II, the oppressor of the Hebrews, who with his Egyptian, Libyan, and Negro armies fought half the world. His reign, however, was the beginning of decline, and foes began to press Egypt from the white north and the black south. The priests transferred their power at Thebes, while the Assyrians under Nimrod overran

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[paragraph continues] Lower Egypt. The center of interest is now transferred to Ethiopia, and we pass to the more shadowy history of that land.

The most perfect example of Egyptian poetry left to us is a celebration of the prowess of Usertesen III in confining the turbulent Negro tribes to the territory below the Second Cataract of the Nile. The Egyptians called this territory Kush, and in the farthest confines of Kush lay Punt, the cradle of their race. To the ancient Mediterranean world Ethiopia (i.e., the Land of the Black-faced) was a region of gods and fairies. Zeus and Poseidon feasted each year among the “blameless Ethiopians,” and Black Memnon, King of Ethiopia, was one of the greatest of heroes.

“The Ethiopians conceive themselves,” says Diodorus Siculus (Lib. III), “to be of greater antiquity than any other nation; and it is probable that, born under the sun’s path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier than other men. They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians are one of their colonies.”

The Egyptians themselves, in later days, affirmed that they and their civilization came from the south and from the black tribes of Punt, and certainly “at the earliest period in which human remains have been recovered Egypt and Lower Nubia appear to have formed culturally and racially one land.” [*1]

The forging ahead of Egypt in culture was mainly from economic causes. Ethiopia, living in a much poorer land with limited agricultural facilities, held to the old arts and customs, and at the same time lost the best elements of its population to Egypt, absorbing meantime the oncoming and wilder Negro tribes from the south and west. Under the old empire, therefore, Ethiopia remained in comparative poverty, except as some of its tribes invaded Egypt with their handicrafts.

As soon as the civilization below the Second Cataract reached a height noticeably above that of Ethiopia, there was continued effort to protect that civilization against the incursion of barbarians. Hundreds of campaigns through thousands of years repeatedly subdued or checked the blacks and brought them in as captives to mingle their blood with the Egyptian nation; but the Egyptian frontier was not advanced.

A separate and independent Ethiopian culture finally began to

[p. 22]

arise during the middle empire of Egypt and centered at Nepata and Meroe. Widespread trade in gold, ivory, precious stones, skins, wood, and works of handicraft arose. [*1] The Negro began to figure as the great trader of Egypt.

This new wealth of Ethiopia excited the cupidity of the Pharaohs and led to aggression and larger intercourse, until at last, when the dread Hyksos appeared, Ethiopia became both a physical and cultural refuge for conquered Egypt. The legitimate Pharaohs moved to Thebes, nearer the boundaries of Ethiopia, and from here, under Negroid rulers, Lower Egypt was redeemed.

The ensuing new empire witnessed the gradual incorporation of Ethiopia into Egypt, although the darker kingdom continued to resist. Both mulatto Pharaohs, Aahmes and Amenhotep I, sent expeditions into Ethiopia, and in the latter’s day sons of the reigning Pharaoh began to assume the title of “Royal Son of Kush” in some such way as the son of the King of England becomes the Prince of Wales.

Trade relations were renewed with Punt under circumstances which lead us to place that land in the region of the African lakes. The Sudanese tribes were aroused by these and other incursions, until the revolts became formidable in the fourteenth century before Christ.

Egyptian culture, however, gradually conquered Ethiopia where her armies could not, and Egyptian religion and civil rule began to center in the darker kingdom. When, therefore, Shesheng I, the Libyan, usurped the throne of the Pharaohs in the tenth century B.C., the Egyptian legitimate dynasty went to Nepata as king priests and established a theocratic monarchy. Gathering strength, the Ethiopian kingdom under this dynasty expanded north about 750 B.C. and for a century ruled all Egypt.

The first king, Pankhy, was Egyptian bred and not noticeably Negroid, but his successors showed more and more evidence of Negro blood–Kashta the Kushite, Shabaka, Tarharqa, and Tanutamen. During the century of Ethiopian rule a royal son was appointed to rule Egypt, just as formerly a royal Egyptian had ruled Kush. In many ways this Ethiopian kingdom showed its Negro peculiarities: first, in its worship of distinctly Sudanese gods; secondly, in the rigid custom of female succession in the kingdom, and thirdly, by the election of kings from the various royal claimants to the throne. “It

[p. 23]

was the heyday of the Negro. For the greater part of the century. . . . Egypt itself was subject to the blacks, just as in the new empire the Sudan had been subject to Egypt.” [*1]

Egypt now began to fall into the hands of Asia and was conquered first by the Assyrians and then by the Persians, but the Ethiopian kings kept their independence. Aspeluta, whose mother and sister are represented as full-blooded Negroes, ruled from 630 to 600 B.C. Horsiatef (560-525 B.C.) made nine expeditions against the warlike tribes south of Meroe, and his successor, Nastosenen (525-500 B.C.) was the one who repelled Cambyses. He also removed the capital from Nepata to Meroe, although Nepata continued to be the religious capital and the Ethiopian kings were still crowned on its golden throne.

From the fifth to the second century B.C. we find the wild Sudanese tribes pressing in from the west and Greek culture penetrating from the east. King Arg-Amen (Ergamenes) showed strong Greek influences and at the same time began to employ the Ethiopian speech in writing and used a new Ethiopian alphabet.

While the Ethiopian kings were still crowned at Nepata, Meroe gradually became the real capital and supported at one time four thousand artisans and two hundred thousand soldiers. It was here that the famous Candaces reigned as queens. Pliny tells us that one Candace of the time of Nero had had forty-four predecessors on the throne, while another Candace figures in the New Testament. [*2]

It was probably this latter Candace who warred against Rome at the time of Augustus and received unusual consideration from her formidable foe. The prestige of Ethiopia at this time was considerable throughout the world. Pseudo-Callisthenes tells an evidently fabulous story of the visit of Alexander the Great to Candace, Queen of Meroe, which nevertheless illustrates her fame: Candace will not let him enter Ethiopia and says he is not to scorn her people because they are black, for they are whiter in soul than his white folk. She sent him gold, maidens, parrots, sphinxes, and a crown of emeralds and pearls. She ruled eighty tribes, who were ready to punish those who attacked her.

The Romans continued to have so much trouble with their Ethiopian frontier that finally, when Semitic mulattoes appeared in the east, the Emperor Diocletian invited the wild Sudanese tribe of

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[paragraph continues] Nubians (Nobadae) from the west to repel them. These Nubians eventually embraced Christianity, and northern Ethiopia came to be known in time as Nubia.

The Semitic mulattoes from the east came from the highlands bordering the Red Sea and Asia. On both sides of this sea Negro blood is strongly in evidence, predominant in Africa and influential in Asia. Ludolphus, writing in the seventeenth century, says that the Abyssinians “are generally black, which [color] they most admire.” Trade and war united the two shores, and merchants have passed to and fro for thirty centuries.

In this way Arabian, Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman influences spread slowly upon the Negro foundation. Early legendary history declares that a queen, Maqueda, or Nikaula of Sheba, a state of Central Abyssinia, visited Solomon in 1050 B.C. and had her son Menelik educated in Jerusalem. This was the supposed beginning of the Axumite kingdom, the capital of which, Axume, was a flourishing center of trade. Ptolemy Evergetes and his successors did much to open Abyssinia to the world, but most of the population of that day was nomadic. In the fourth century Byzantine influences began to be felt, and in 330 St. Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated Fromentius as Bishop of Ethiopia. He tutored the heir to the Abyssinian kingdom and began its gradual christianization. By the early part of the sixth century Abyssinia was trading with India and Byzantium and was so far recognized as a Christian country that the Emperor Justinian appealed to King Kaleb to protect the Christians in southwestern Arabia. Kaleb conquered Yemen in 525 and held it fifty years.

Eventually a Jewish princess, Judith, usurped the Axumite throne; the Abyssinians were expelled from Arabia, and a long period begins when as Gibbon says, “encompassed by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians slept for nearly a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten.” Throughout the middle ages, however, the legend of a great Christian kingdom hidden away in Africa persisted, and the search for Prester John became one of the world quests.

It was the expanding power of Abyssinia that led Rome to call in the Nubians from the western desert. The Nubians had formed a strong league of tribes, and as the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia declined they drove back the Abyssinians, who had already established themselves at Meroe.

[p. 25]

In the sixth century the Nubians were converted to Christianity by a Byzantine priest, and they immediately began to develop. A new capital, Dongola, replaced Nepata and Meroe, and by the twelfth century churches and brick dwellings had appeared. As the Mohammedan flood pressed up the Nile valley it was the Nubians that held it back for two centuries.

Farther south other wild tribes pushed out of the Sudan and began a similar development. Chief among these were the Fung, who fixed their capital at Senaar, at the junction of the White and Blue Nile. When the Mohammedan flood finally passed over Nubia, the Fung diverted it by declaring themselves Moslems. This left the Fung as the dominant power in the fifteenth century from the Three Cataracts to Fazogli and from the Red Sea at Suakin to the White Nile. Islam then swept on south in a great circle, skirted the Great Lakes, and then curled back to Somaliland, completely isolating Abyssinia.

Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries the Egyptian Sudan became a congeries of Mohammedan kingdoms with Arab, mulatto, and Negro kings. Far to the west, near Lake Chad, arose in 1520 the sultanate of Baghirmi, which reached its highest power in the seventh century. This dynasty was overthrown by the Negroid Mabas, who established Wadai to the eastward about 1640. South of Wadai lay the heathen and cannibals of the Congo valley, against which Islam never prevailed. East of Wadai and nearer the Nile lay the kindred state of Darfur, a Nubian nation whose sultans reigned over two hundred years and which reached great prosperity in the early seventeenth century under Soliman Solon.

Before the Mohammedan power reached Abyssinia the Portuguese pioneers had entered the country from the east and begun to open the country again to European knowledge. Without doubt, in the centuries of silence, a civilization of some height had flourished in Abyssinia, but all authentic records were destroyed by fire in the tenth century. When the Portuguese came, the older Axumite kingdom had fallen and had been succeeded by a number of petty states.

The Sudanese kingdoms of the Sudan resisted the power of the Mameluke beys in Egypt, and later the power of the Turks until the nineteenth century, when the Sudan was made nominally a part of Egypt. Continuous upheaval, war, and conquest had by this time done their work, and little of ancient Ethiopian culture survived except the slave trade.

The entrance of England into Egypt, after the building of the

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Suez Canal, stirred up eventually revolt in the Sudan, for political, economic, and religious reasons. Led by a Sudanese Negro, Mohammed Ahmad, who claimed to be the Messiah (Mahdi), the Sudan arose in revolt in 1881, determined to resist a hated religion, foreign rule, and interference with their chief commerce, the trade in slaves. The Sudan was soon aflame, and the able mulatto general, Osman Digna, aided by revolt among the heathen Dinka, drove Egypt and England out of the Sudan for sixteen years. It was not until 1898 that England reentered the Sudan and in petty revenge desecrated the bones of the brave, even if misguided, prophet.

Meantime this Mahdist revolt had delayed England’s designs on Abyssinia, and the Italians, replacing her, attempted a protectorate. Menelik of Shoa, one of the smaller kingdoms of Abyssinia, was a shrewd man of predominantly Negro blood, and had been induced to make a treaty with the Italians after King John had been killed by the Mahdists. The exact terms of the treaty were disputed, but undoubtedly the Italians tried by this means to reduce Menelik to vassalage. Menelik stoutly resisted, and at the great battle of Adua, one of the decisive battles of the modern world, the Abyssinians on March 1, 1896, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italians, killing four thousand of them and capturing two thousand prisoners. The empress, Taitou, a full-blooded Negress, led some of the charges. By this battle Abyssinia became independent.

Such in vague and general outline is the strange story of the valley of the Nile–of Egypt, the motherland of human culture and

Footnotes

^17:1 “aytos de eikasa teide kai ote melagxroes eisi kai oylotrixes.” Liber II, Cap. 104.

^18:1 . Cf. Maciver and Thompson: Ancient Races of the Thebaid.

^18:2 Journal of Race Development, I, 484.

^19:1 Petrie: History of Egypt, I, 51, 237.

^19:2 From West Africa to Palestine, p. 114.

^20:1 Depending partly on whether the so-called Hyksos sphinxes belong to the period of the Hyksos kings or to an earlier period (cf. Petrie, I, 52-53, 237). That Negroids largely dominated in the early history of western Asia is proven by the monuments.

^20:2 Petrie: History of Egypt, II, 337.

^20:3 Chamberlain: Journal of Race Development, April, 1911.

^20:4 Petrie: History of Egypt, II, 337.

^21:1 Reisner: Archeological Survey of Nubia, I, 319.

^22:1 Hoskins declares that the arch had its origin in Ethiopia.

^23:1 Maciver and Wooley: Areika, p. 2.

^23:2 Acts VIII, 27.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 27]

 

IV    THE NIGER AND ISLAM

The Arabian expression “Bilad es Sudan” (Land of the Blacks) was applied to the whole region south of the Sahara, from the Atlantic to the Nile. It is a territory some thirty-five hundred miles by six hundred miles, containing two million square miles, and has to-day a population of perhaps eighty million. It is thus two-thirds the size of the United States and quite as thickly settled. In the western Sudan the Niger plays the same role as the Nile in the east. In this chapter we follow the history of the Niger.

The history of this part of Africa was probably something as follows: primitive man, entering Africa from Arabia, found the Great Lakes, spread in the Nile valley, and wandered westward to the Niger. Herodotus tells of certain youths who penetrated the desert to the Niger and found there a city of black dwarfs. Succeeding migrations of Negroes and Negroids pushed the dwarfs gradually into the inhospitable forests and occupied the Sudan, pushing on to the Atlantic. Here the newcomers, curling northward, met the Mediterranean race coming down across the western desert, while to the southward the Negro came to the Gulf of Guinea and the thick forests of the Congo valley. Indigenous civilizations arose on the west coast in Yoruba and Benin, and contact of these with the Mediterranean race in the desert, and with Egyptian and Arab from the east, gave rise to centers of Negro culture in the Sudan at Ghana and Melle and in Songhay, Nupe, the Hausa states, and Bornu.

The history of the Sudan thus leads us back again to Ethiopia, that strange and ancient center of world civilization whose inhabitants in the ancient world were considered to be the most pious and the oldest of men. From this center the black originators of African culture, and to a large degree of world culture, wandered not simply down the Nile, but also westward. These Negroes developed the

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original substratum of culture which later influences modified but never displaced.

We know that Egyptian Pharaohs in several cases ventured into the western Sudan and that Egyptian influences are distinctly traceable, Greek and Byzantine culture and Phoenician and Carthaginian trade also penetrated, while Islam finally made this whole land her own. Behind all these influences, however, stood from the first an indigenous Negro culture. The stone figures of Sherbro, the megaliths of Gambia, the art and industry of the west coast are all too deep and original evidences of civilization to be merely importations from abroad.

Nor was the Sudan the inert recipient of foreign influence when it came. According to credible legend, the “Great King” at Byzantium imported glass, tin, silver, bronze, cut stones, and other treasure from the Sudan. Embassies were sent and states like Nupe recognized the suzerainty of the Byzantine emperor. The people of Nupe especially were filled with pride when the Byzantine people learned certain kinds of work in bronze and glass from them, and this intercourse was only interrupted by the Mohammedan conquest.

To this ancient culture, modified somewhat by Byzantine and Christian influences, came Islam. It approached from the northwest, coming stealthily and slowly and being banded on particularly by the Mandingo Negroes. About 1000-1200 A.D. the situation was this: Ghana was on the edge of the desert in the north, Mandingoland  the Niger and the Senegal in the south and the western Sahara, Djolof was in the west on the Senegal, and the Songhay on the Niger in the center. The Mohammedans came chiefly as traders and found a trade already established. Here and there in the great cities were districts set aside for these new merchants, and the Mohammedans gave frequent evidence of their respect for these black nations.

Islam did not found new states, but modified and united Negro states already ancient; it did not initiate new commerce, but developed a widespread trade already established. It is, as Frobenius says, “easily proved from chronicles written in Arabic that Islam was only effective in fact as a fertilizer and stimulant. The essential point is the resuscitative and invigorative concentration of Negro power in the service of a new era and a Moslem propaganda, as well as the reaction thereby produced.” [*1]

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Early in the eighth century Islam had conquered North Africa and converted the Berbers. Aided by black soldiers, the Moslems crossed into Spain; in the following century Berber and Arab armies crossed the west end of the Sahara and came to Negroland. Later in the eleventh century Arabs penetrated the Sudan and Central Africa from the east, filtering through the Negro tribes of Darfur, Kanem, and neighboring regions. The Arabs were too nearly akin to Negroes to draw an absolute color line. Antar, one of the great pre-Islamic poets of Arabia, was the son of a black woman, and one of the great poets at the court of Haroun al Raschid was black. In the twelfth century a learned Negro poet resided at Seville, and Sidjilmessa, the last town in Lower Morocco toward the desert, was founded in 757 by a Negro who ruled over the Berber inhabitants. Indeed, many towns in the Sudan and the desert were thus ruled, and felt no incongruity in this arrangement. They say, to be sure, that the Moors destroyed Audhoghast because it paid tribute to the black town of Ghana, but this was because the town was heathen and not because it was black. On the other hand, there is a story that a Berber king overthrew one of the cities of the Sudan and all the black women committed suicide, being too proud to allow themselves to fall into the hands of white men.

In the west the Moslems first came into touch with the Negro kingdom of Ghana. Here large quantities of gold were gathered in early days, and we have names of seventy-four rulers before 300 A.D. running through twenty-one generations. This would take us back approximately a thousand years to 700 B.C., or about the time that Pharaoh Necho of Egypt sent out the Phoenician expedition which circumnavigated Africa, and possibly before the time when Hanno, the Carthaginian, explored the west coast of Africa.

By the middle of the eleventh century Ghana was the principal kingdom in the western Sudan. Already the town had a native and a Mussulman quarter, and was built of wood and stone with surrounding gardens. The king had an army of two hundred thousand and the wealth of the country was great. A century later the king had become Mohammedan in faith and had a palace with sculptures and glass windows. The great reason for this development was the desert trade. Gold, skins, ivory, kola nuts, gums, honey, wheat, and cotton were exported, and the whole Mediterranean coast traded in the Sudan. Other and lesser black kingdoms like Tekrou, Silla, and Masina surrounded Ghana.

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In the early part of the thirteenth century the prestige of Ghana began to fall before the rising Mandingan kingdom to the west. Melle, as it was called, was founded in 1235 and formed an open door for Moslem and Moorish traders. The new kingdom, helped by its expanding trade, began to grow, and Islam slowly surrounded the older Negro culture west, north, and east. However, a great mass of the older heathen culture, pushing itself upward from the Guinea coast, stood firmly against Islam down to the nineteenth century.

Steadily Mohammedanism triumphed in the growing states which almost encircled the protagonists of ancient Atlantic culture. Mandingan Melle eventually supplanted Ghana in prestige and power after Ghana had been overthrown by the heathen Su Su from the south.

The territory of Melle lay southeast of Ghana and some five hundred miles north of the Gulf of Guinea. Its kings were known by the title of Mansa, and from the middle of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fourteenth the Mellestine, as its dominion was called, was the leading power in the land of the blacks. Its greatest king, Mari Jalak (Mansa Musa), made his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324, with a caravan of sixty thousand persons, including twelve thousand young slaves gowned in figured cotton and Persian silk. He took eighty camel loads of gold dust (worth about five million dollars) to defray his expenses, and greatly impressed the people of the East with his magnificence.

On his return he found that Timbuktu had been sacked by the Mossi, but he rebuilt the town and filled the new mosque with learned blacks from the University of Fez. Mansa Musa reigned twenty-five years and “was distinguished by his ability and by the holiness of his life. The justice of his administration was such that the memory of it still lives.” [*1] The Mellestine preserved its preeminence until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when the rod of Sudanese empire passed to Songhay, the largest and most famous of the black empires.

The known history of Songhay covers a thousand years and three dynasties and centers in the great bend of the Niger. There were thirty kings of the First Dynasty, reigning from 700 to 1335. During the reign of one of these the Songhay kingdom became the vassal kingdom of Melle, then at the height of its glory. In addition to this the Mossi crossed the valley, plundered Timbuktu in 1339, and

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separated Jenne, the original seat of the Songhay, from the main empire. The sixteenth king was converted to Mohammedanism in 1009, and after that all the Songhay princes were Mohammedans. Mansa Musa took two young Songhay princes to the court of Melle to be educated in 1326. These boys when grown ran away and founded a new dynasty in Songhay, that of the Sonnis, in 1355. Seventeen of these kings reigned, the last and greatest being Sonni Ali, who ascended the throne in 1464. Melle was at this time declining, other cities like Jenne, with its seven thousand villages, were rising, and the Tuaregs (Berbers with Negro blood) had captured Timbuktu.

Sonni Ali was a soldier and began his career with the conquest of Timbuktu in 1469. He also succeeded in capturing Jenne and attacked the Mossi and other enemies on all sides. Finally he concentrated his forces for the destruction of Melle and subdued nearly the whole empire on the west bend of the Niger. In summing up Sonni Ali’s military career the chronicle says of him, “He surpassed all his predecessors in the numbers and valor of his soldiery. His conquests were many and his renown extended from the rising to the setting of the sun. If it is the will of God, he will be long spoken of.” [*1]

Sonni Ali was a Songhay Negro whose father was a Berber. He was succeeded by a full-blooded black, Mohammed Abou Bekr, who had been his prime minister. Mohammed was bailed as “Askia” (usurper) and is best known as Mohammed Askia. He was strictly orthodox where Ali was rather a scoffer, and an organizer where Ali was a warrior. On his pilgrimage to Mecca in 1495 there was nothing of the barbaric splendor of Mansa Musa, but a brilliant group of scholars and holy men with a small escort of fifteen hundred soldiers and nine hundred thousand dollars in gold. He stopped and consulted with scholars and politicians and studied matters of taxation, weights and measures, trade, religious tolerance, and manners. In Cairo, where he was invested by the reigning caliph of Egypt, he may have heard of the struggle of Europe for the trade of the Indies, and perhaps of the parceling of the new world between Portugal and Spain. He returned to the Sudan in 1497, instituted a standing army of slaves, undertook a holy war against the indomitable Mossi, and finally marched against the Hausa. He subdued these cities and even imposed the rule of black men on the Berber town of Agades,

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a rich city of merchants and artificers with stately mansions. In fine Askia, during his reign, conquered and consolidated an empire two thousand miles long by one thousand wide at its greatest diameters; a territory as large as all Europe. The territory was divided into four vice royalties, and the system of Melle, with its semi-independent native dynasties, was carried out. His empire extended from the Atlantic to Lake Chad and from the salt mines of Tegazza and the town of Augila in the north to the 10th degree of north latitude toward the south.

It was a six months’ journey across the empire and, it is said, “he was obeyed with as much docility on the farthest limits of the empire as he was in his own palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and absolute peace.” [*1] The University of Sankore became a center of learning in correspondence with Egypt and North Africa and had a swarm of black Sudanese students. Law, literature, grammar, geography and surgery were studied. Askia the Great reigned thirty-six years and his dynasty continued on the throne until after the Moorish conquest in 1591.

Meanwhile, to the eastward, two powerful states appeared. They never disputed the military supremacy of Songhay, but their industrial development was marvelous. The Hausa states were formed by seven original cities, of which Kano was the oldest and Katsena the most famous. Their greatest leaders, Mohammed Rimpa and Ahmadu Kesoke, arose in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The land was subject to the Songhay, but the cities became industrious centers of smelting, weaving, and dyeing. Katsena especially, in the middle of the sixteenth century, is described as a place thirteen or fourteen miles in circumference, divided into quarters for strangers, for visitors from various other states, and for the different trades and industries, as saddlers, shoemakers, dyers, etc.

Beyond the Hausa states and bordering on Lake Chad was Bornu. The people of Bornu had a large infiltration of Berber blood, but were predominantly Negro. Berber mulattoes had been kings in early days, but they were soon replaced by black men. Under the early kings, who can be traced back to the third century, these people had ruled nearly all the territory between the Nile and Lake Chad. The country was known as Kanem, and the pagan dynasty of Dugu reigned there from the middle of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century. Mohammedanism was introduced from Egypt

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at the end of the eleventh century, and under the Mohammedan kings Kanem became one of the first powers of the Sudan. By the end of the twelfth century the armies of Kanem were very powerful and its rulers were known as “Kings of Kanem and Lords of Bornu.” In the thirteenth century the kings even dared to invade the southern country down toward the valley of the Congo.

Meantime great things were happening in the world beyond the desert, the ocean, and the Nile. Arabian Mohammedanism had succumbed to the wild fanaticism of the Seljukian Turks. These new conquerors were not only firmly planted at the gates of Vienna, but had swept the shores of the Mediterranean and sent all Europe scouring the seas for their lost trade connections with the riches of India. Religious zeal, fear of conquest, and commercial greed inflamed Europe against the Mohammedan and led to the discovery of a new world, the riches of which poured first on Spain. Oppression of the Moors followed, and in 1502 they were driven back into Africa, despoiled and humbled. Here the Spaniards followed and harassed them and here the Turks, fighting the Christians, captured the Mediterranean ports and cut the Moors off  from Europe. In the slow years that followed, huddled in Northwest Africa, they became a decadent people and finally cast their eyes toward Negroland.

The Moors in Morocco had come to look upon the Sudan as a gold mine, and knew that the Sudan was especially dependent upon salt. In 1545 Morocco claimed the principal salt mines at Tegazza, but the reigning Askia refused to recognize the claim.

When the Sultan Elmansour came to the throne of Morocco, he increased the efficiency of his army by supplying it with fire arms and cannon. Elmansour determined to attack the Sudan and sent four hundred men under Pasha Djouder, who left Morocco in 1590. The Songhay, with their bows and arrows, were helpless against powder and shot, and they were defeated at Tenkadibou April 12, 1591, Askia Ishak, the king, offered terms, and Djouder Pasha referred them to Morocco. The sultan, angry with his general’s delay, deposed him and sent another, who crushed and treacherously murdered the king and set up a puppet. Thereafter there were two Askias, one under the Moors at Timbuktu and one who maintained himself in the Hausa states, which the Moors could not subdue. Anarchy reigned in Songhay. The Moors tried to put down disorder with a high hand, drove out and murdered the distinguished men of

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[paragraph continues] Timbuktu, and as a result let loose a riot of robbery and decadence throughout the Sudan. Pasha now succeeded Pasha with revolt and misrule until in 1612 the soldiers elected their own Pasha and deliberately shut themselves up in the Sudan by cutting off approach from the north.

Hausaland and Bornu were still open to Turkish and Mohammedan influence from the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the slave trade from the south, but the face of the finest Negro civilization the modern world had ever produced was veiled from Europe and given to the defilement of wild Moorish soldiers. In 1623 it is written “excesses of every kind are now committed unchecked by the soldiery,” and “the country is profoundly convulsed and oppressed.” [*1] The Tuaregs marched down from the desert and deprived the Moors of many of the principal towns. The rest of the empire of the Songhay was by the end of the eighteenth century divided among separate Moorish chiefs, who bought supplies from the Negro peasantry and were “at once the vainest, proudest, and perhaps the most bigoted, ferocious, and intolerant of all the nations of the south.” [*2] They lived a nomadic life, plundering the Negroes. To such depths did the mighty Songhay fall.

As the Songhay declined a new power arose in the nineteenth century, the Fula. The Fula, who vary in race from Berber mulattoes to full-blooded Negroes, may be the result of a westward migration of some people like the “Leukoaethiopi” of Pliny, or they may have arisen from the migration of Berber mulattoes in the western oases, driven south by Romans and Arabs.

These wandering herdsmen lived on the Senegal River and the ocean in very early times and were not heard of until the nineteenth century. By this time they had changed to a Negro or dark mulatto people and lived scattered in small communities between the Atlantic and Darfur. They were without political union or national sentiment, but were all Mohammedans. Then came a sudden change, and led by a religious fanatic, these despised and persecuted people became masters of the central Sudan. They were the ones who at last broke down that great wedge of resisting Atlantic culture, after it had been undermined and disintegrated by the American slave trade.

Thus Islam finally triumphed in the Sudan and the ancient culture

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combined with the new. In the Sudan to-day one may find evidences of the union of two classes of people. The representatives of the older civilization dwell as peasants in small communities, carrying on industries and speaking a large number of different languages. With them or above them is the ruling Mohammedan caste, speaking four main languages: Mandingo, Hausa, Fula, and Arabic. These latter form the state builders. Negro blood predominates among both classes, but naturally there is more Berber blood among the Mohammedan invaders.

Europe during the middle ages had some knowledge of these movements in the Sudan and Africa. Melle and Songhay appear on medieval maps. In literature we have many allusions: the mulatto king, Feirifis, was one of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s heroes; Prester John furnished endless lore; Othello, the warrior, and the black king represented by medieval art as among the three wise men, and the various black Virgin Marys’ all show legendary knowledge of what African civilization was at that time doing.

It is a curious commentary on modern prejudice that most of this splendid history of civilization and uplift is unknown to-day, and men confidently assert that Negroes have no history.

Footnotes

^28:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, II, 359-360.

^30:1 Ibn Khaldun, quoted in Lugard, p. 128.

^31:1 Quoted in Lugard, p. 180.

^32:1 Es-Sa’di, quoted by Lugard, p. 199.

^34:1 Lugard, p. 373.

^34:2 Mungo Park, quoted in Lugard, p. 374.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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V    GUINEA AND CONGO

One of the great cities of the Sudan was Jenne. The chronicle says “that its markets are held every day of the week and its populations are very enormous. Its seven thousand villages are so near to one another that the chief of Jenne has no need of messengers. If he wishes to send a note to Lake Dibo, for instance, it is cried from the gate of the town and repeated from village to village, by which means it reaches its destination almost instantly.” [*1]

From the name of this city we get the modern name Guinea, which is used to-day to designate the country contiguous to the great gulf of that name–a territory often referred to in general as West Africa. Here, reaching from the mouth of the Gambia to the mouth of the Niger, is a coast of six hundred miles, where a marvelous drama of world history has been enacted. The coast and its hinterland comprehends many well-known names. First comes ancient Guinea, then, modern Sierra Leone and Liberia; then follow the various “coasts” of ancient traffic–the grain, ivory, gold, and slave coasts–with the adjoining territories of Ashanti, Dahomey, Lagos, and Benin, and farther back such tribal and territorial names as those of the Mandingoes, Yorubas, the Mossi, Nupe, Borgu, and others.

Recent investigation makes it certain that an ancient civilization existed on this coast which may have gone back as far as three thousand years before Christ. Frobenius, perhaps fancifully, identified this African coast with the Atlantis of the Greeks and as part of that great western movement in human culture, “beyond the pillars of Hercules,” which thirteen centuries before Christ strove with Egypt and the East. It is, at any rate, clear that ancient commerce reached down the west coast. The Phoenicians, 600 B.C., and the

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[paragraph continues] Carthaginians, a century or more later, record voyages, and these may have been attempted revivals of still more ancient intercourse.

These coasts at some unknown prehistoric period were peopled from the Niger plateau toward the north and west by the black West African type of Negro, while along the west end of the desert these Negroes mingled with the Berbers, forming various Negroid races.

Movement and migration is evident along this coast in ancient and modern times. The Yoruba-Benin-Dahomey peoples were among the earliest arrivals, with their remarkable art and industry, which places them in some lines of technique abreast with the modern world. Behind them came the Mossi from the north, and many other peoples in recent days have filtered through, like the Limba and Temni of Sierra Leone and the Agni-Ashanti, who moved from Borgu some two thousand years ago to the Gold and Ivory coasts.

We have already noted in the main the history of black men along the wonderful Niger and seen bow, pushing up from the Gulf of Guinea, a powerful wedge of ancient culture held back Islam for a thousand years, now victorious, now stubbornly disputing every inch of retreat. The center of this culture lay probably, in oldest times, above the Bight of Benin, along the Slave Coast, and reached east, west, and north. We trace it to-day not only in the remarkable tradition of the natives, but in stone monuments, architecture, industrial and social organization, and works of art in bronze, glass, and terra cotta.

Benin art has been practiced without interruption for centuries, and Von Luschan says that it is “of extraordinary significance that by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a local and monumental art had been learned in Benin which in many respects equaled European art and developed a technique of the very highest accomplishment.” [*1]

Summing up Yoruban civilization, Frobenius concluded that “the technical summit of that civilization was reached in the terra-cotta industry, and that the most important achievements in art were not expressed in stone, but in fine clay baked in the furnace; that hollow casting was thoroughly known, too, and practiced by these people; that iron was mainly used for decoration; that, whatever their purpose, they kept their glass beads in stoneware urns within their own

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locality, and that they manufactured both earthen and glass ware; that the art of weaving was highly developed among them; that the stone monuments, it is true, show some dexterity in handling and are so far instructive, but in other respects evidence a cultural condition insufficiently matured to grasp the utility of stone monumental material; and, above all, that the then great and significant idea of the universe as imaged in the Templum was current in those days.” [*1]

Effort has naturally been made to ascribe this civilization to white people. First it was ascribed to Portuguese influence, but much of it is evidently older than the Portuguese discovery, Egypt and India have been evoked and Greece and Carthage. But all these explanations are far-fetched. If ever a people exhibited unanswerable evidence of indigenous civilization, it is the west-coast Africans. Undoubtedly they adapted much that came to them, utilized new ideas, and grew from contact. But their art and culture is Negro through and through.

Yoruba forms one of the three city groups of West Africa; another is around Timbuktu, and a third in the Hausa states. The Timbuktu cities have from five to fifteen hundred towns, while the Yoruba cities have one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants and more. The Hausa cities are many of them important, but few are as large as the Yoruba cities and they lie farther apart. All three centers, however, are connected with the Niger, and the group nearest the coast–that is, the Yoruba cities–has the greatest numbers of towns, the most developed architectural styles, and the oldest institutions.

The Yoruba cities are not only different from the Sudanese in population, but in their social relations. The Sudanese cities were influenced from the desert and the Mediterranean, and form nuclei of larger surrounding monarchial states. The Yoruba cities, on the other hand, remained comparatively autonomous organizations down to modern times, and their relative importance changed from time to time without developing an imperialistic idea or subordinating the group to one overpowering city.

This social and industrial state of the Yorubas formerly spread and wielded great influence. We find Yoruba reaching out and subduing states like Nupe toward the northward. But the industrial democracy and city autonomy of Yoruba lent itself indifferently to conquest, and the state fell eventually a victim to the fanatical

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[paragraph continues] Fula Mohammedans and was made a part of the modern sultanate of Gando.

West of Yoruba on the lower courses of the Niger is Benin, an ancient state which in 1897 traced its twenty-three kings back one thousand years; some legends even named a line of sixty kings. It seems probable that Benin developed the imperial idea and once extended its rule into the Congo valley. Later and also to the west of the Yoruba come two states showing a fiercer and ruder culture, Dahomey and Ashanti. The state of Dahomey was founded by Tacondomi early in the seventeenth century, and developed into a fierce and bloody tyranny with wholesale murder. The king had a body of two thousand to five thousand Amazons renowned for their bravery and armed with rifles. The kingdom was overthrown by the French in 1892-93. Under Sai Tutu, Ashanti arose to power in the seventeenth century, A military aristocracy with cruel blood sacrifices was formed. By 1816 the king had at his disposal two hundred thousand soldiers. The Ashanti power was crushed by the English in the war of 1873-74.

In these states and in later years in Benin the whole character of west-coast culture seems to change. In place of the Yoruban culture, with its city democracy, its elevated religious ideas, its finely organized industry, and its noble art, came Ashanti and Dahomey. What was it that changed the character of the west coast from this to the orgies of war and blood sacrifice which we read of later in these lands?

There can be but one answer: the slave trade. Not simply the sale of men, but an organized traffic of such proportions and widely organized ramifications as to turn the attention and energies of men from nearly all other industries, encourage war and all the cruelest passions of way, and concentrate this traffic in precisely that part of Africa farthest from the ancient Mediterranean lines of trade.

We need not assume that the cultural change was sudden or absolute. Ancient Yoruba had the cruelty of a semi-civilized land, but it was not dominant or tyrannical. Modern Benin and Dahomey showed traces of skill, culture, and industry along with inexplicable cruelty and bloodthirstiness. But it was the slave trade that turned the balance and set these lands backward. Dahomey was the last word in a series of human disasters which began with the defeat of the Askias at Tenkadibou. [*1]

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From the middle of the fifteenth to the last half of the nineteenth centuries the American slave trade centered in Guinea and devastated the coast morally, socially, and physically. European rum and fire arms were traded for human beings, and it was not until 1787 that any measures were taken to counteract this terrible scourge. In that year the idea arose of repatriating stolen Negroes on that coast and establishing civilized centers to supplant the slave trade. About four hundred Negroes from England were sent to Sierra Leone, to whom the promoters considerately added sixty white prostitutes as wives. The climate on the low coast, however, was so deadly that new recruits were soon needed. An American Negro, Thomas Peters, who had served as sergeant under Sir Henry Clinton in the British army in America, went to England seeking an allotment of land for his fellows. The Sierra Leone Company welcomed him and offered free passage and land in Sierra Leone to the Negroes of Nova Scotia. As a result fifteen vessels sailed with eleven hundred and ninety Negroes in 1792. Arriving in Africa, they found the chief white man in control there so drunk that he soon died of delirium tremens. John Clarkson, however, brother of Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionist, eventually took the lead, founded Freetown, and the colony began its checkered career. In 1896 the colony was saved from insurrection by the exiled Maroon Negroes from Jamaica. After 1833, when emancipation in English colonies took place, severer measures against the slave trade was possible and the colony began to grow. To-day its imports and exports amount to fifteen million dollars a year.

Liberia was a similar American experiment. In 1816 American philanthropists decided that slavery was bound to die out, but that the problem lay in getting rid of the freed Negroes, of which there were then two hundred thousand in the United States. Accordingly the American Colonization Society was proposed this year and founded January 1, 1817, with Bushrod Washington as President. It was first thought to encourage migration to Sierra Leone, and eighty-eight Negroes were sent, but they were not welcomed. As a result territory was bought in the present confines of Liberia, December 15, 1821, and colonists began to arrive. A little later an African depot for recaptured slaves taken in the contraband slave trade, provided for in the Act of 1819, was established and an agent was sent to Africa to form a settlement. Gradually this settlement was

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merged with the settlement of the Colonization Society, and from this union Liberia was finally evolved.

The last white governor of Liberia died in 1841 and was succeeded by the first colored governor, Joseph J. Roberts, a Virginian. The total population in 1843 was about twenty-seven hundred and ninety, and with this as a beginning in 1847 Governor Roberts declared the independence of the state. The recognition of Liberian independence by all countries except the United States followed in 1849. The United States, not wishing to receive a Negro minister, did not recognize Liberia until 1862.

No sooner was the independence of Liberia announced than England and France began a long series of aggressions to limit her territory and sovereignty. Considerable territory was lost by treaty, and in the effort to get capital to develop the rest, Liberia was saddled with a debt of four hundred thousand dollars, of which she received less than one hundred thousand dollars in actual cash. Finally the Liberians turned to the United States for capital and protection. As a result the Liberian customs have been put under international control and Major Charles Young, the ranking Negro officer in the United States army, with several colored assistants, has been put in charge of the making of roads and drilling a constabulary to keep order in the interior.

To-day Liberia has an area of forty thousand square miles, about three hundred and fifty miles of coast line, and an estimated total population of two million of which fifty thousand are civilized. The revenue amounted in 1913 to $531,500. The imports in 1912 were $1,667,857 and the exports $1,199,152. The latter consisted chiefly of rubber, palm oil and kernels, coffee, piassava fiber, ivory, ginger, camwood, and arnotto.

Perhaps Liberia’s greatest citizen was the late Edward Wilmot Blyden, who migrated in early life from the Danish West Indies and became a prophet of the renaissance of the Negro race.

Turning now from Guinea we pass down the west coast. In 1482 Diego Cam of Portugal, sailing this coast, set a stone at the mouth of a great river which he called “The Mighty,” but which eventually came to be known by the name of the powerful Negro kingdom through which it flowed–the Congo.

We must think of the valley of the Congo with its intricate interlacing of water routes and jungle of forests as a vast caldron shut

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away at first from the African world by known and unknown physical hindrances. Then it was penetrated by the tiny red dwarfs and afterward horde after horde of tall black men swirled into the valley like a maelstrom, moving usually from north to east and from south to west.

The Congo valley became, therefore, the center of the making of what we know to-day as the Bantu nations. They are not a unified people, but a congeries of tribes of considerable physical diversity, united by the compelling bond of language and other customs imposed on the conquered by invading conquerors.

The history of these invasions we must to-day largely imagine. Between two and three thousand years ago the wilder tribes of Negroes began to move out of the region south or southeast of Lake Chad. This was always a land of shadows and legends, where fearful cannibals dwelt and where no Egyptian or Ethiopian or Sudanese armies dared to go. It is possible, however, that pressure from civilization in the Nile valley and rising culture around Lake Chad was at this time reenforced by expansion of the Yoruba-Benin culture on the west coast. Perhaps, too, developing culture around the Great Lakes in the east beckoned or the riotous fertility of the Congo valleys became known. At any rate the movement commenced, now by slow stages, now in wild forays. There may have been a preliminary movement from east to west to the Gulf of Guinea. The main movement, however, was eastward, skirting the Congo forests and passing down by the Victoria Nyanza and Lake Tanganyika. Here two paths beckoned: the lakes and the sea to the east, the Congo to the west. A great stream of men swept toward the ocean and, dividing, turned northward and fought its way down the Nile valley and into the Abyssinian highlands; another branch turned south and approached the Zambesi, where we shall meet it again.

Another horde of invaders turned westward and entered the valley of the Congo in three columns. The northern column moved along the Lualaba and Congo rivers to the Cameroons; the second column became the industrial and state-building Luba and Lunda peoples in the southern Congo valley and Angola; while the third column moved into Damaraland and mingled with Bushman and Hottentot.

In the Congo valley the invaders settled in village and plain, absorbed such indigenous inhabitants as they found or drove them deeper into the forest, and immediately began to develop industry

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and political organization. They became skilled agriculturists, raising in some localities a profusion of cereals, fruit, and vegetables such as manioc, maize, yams, sweet potatoes, ground nuts, sorghum, gourds, beans, peas, bananas, and plantains. Everywhere they showed skill in mining and the welding of iron, copper, and other metals. They made weapons, wire and ingots, cloth, and pottery, and a widespread system of trade arose. Some tribes extracted rubber from the talamba root; others had remarkable breeds of fowl and cattle, and still others divided their people by crafts into farmers, smiths, boat builders, warriors, cabinet makers, armorers, and speakers. Women here and there took part in public assemblies and were rulers in some cases. Large towns were built, some of which required hours to traverse from end to end.

Many tribes developed intelligence of a high order. Wissmann called the Ba Luba “a nation of thinkers.” Bateman found them “thoroughly and unimpeachably honest, brave to foolhardiness, and faithful to each other and to their superiors.” One of their kings, Calemba, “a really princely prince,” Bateman says would “amongst any people be a remarkable and indeed in many respects a magnificent man.” [*1]

These beginnings of human culture were, however, peculiarly vulnerable to invading hosts of later comers. There were no natural protecting barriers like the narrow Nile valley or the Kong mountains or the forests below Lake Chad. Once the pathways to the valley were open and for hundreds of years the newcomers kept arriving, especially from the welter of tribes south of the Sudan and west of the Nile, which rising culture beyond kept in unrest and turmoil.

Against these intruders there was but one defense, the State. State building was thus forced on the Congo valley. How early it started we cannot say, but when the Portuguese arrived in the fifteenth century, there had existed for centuries a large state among the Ba-Congo, with its capital at the city now known as San Salvador.

The Negro Mfumu, or emperor, was eventually induced to accept Christianity. His sons and many young Negroes of high birth were taken to Portugal to be educated. There several were raised to the Catholic priesthood and one became bishop; others distinguished themselves at the universities. Thus suddenly there arose a Catholic kingdom south of the valley of the Congo, which lasted three centuries,

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but was partially overthrown by invading barbarians from the interior in the seventeenth century. A king of Congo still reigns as pensioner of Portugal, and on the coast to-day are the remains of the kingdom in the civilized blacks and mulattoes, who are intelligent traders and boat builders.

Meantime the Luba-Lunda people to the eastward founded Kantanga and other states, and in the sixteenth century the larger and more ambitious realm of the Mwata Yamvo. The last of the fourteen rulers of this line was feudal lord of about three hundred chiefs, who paid him tribute in ivory, skins, corn, cloth, and salt. His territory included about one hundred thousand square miles and two million or more inhabitants. Eventually this state became torn by internal strife and revolt, especially by attacks from the south across the Congo-Zambesi divide.

Farther north, among the Ba-Lolo and the Ba-Songo, the village policy persisted and the cannibals of the northeast pressed down on the more settled tribes. The result was a curious blending of war and industry, artistic tastes and savage customs.

The organized slave trade of the Arabs penetrated the Congo valley in the sixteenth century and soon was aiding all the forces of unrest and turmoil. Industry was deranged and many tribes forced to take refuge in caves and other hiding places.

Here, as on the west coast, disintegration and retrogression followed, for as the American traffic lessened, the Arabian traffic increased. When, therefore, Stanley opened the Congo valley to modern knowledge, Leopold II of Belgium conceived the idea of founding here a free international state which was to bring civilization to the heart of Africa. Consequently there was formed in 1878 an international committee to study the region. Stanley was finally commissioned to inquire as to the best way of introducing European trade and culture. “I am charged,” he said, “to open and keep open, if possible, all such districts and countries as I may explore, for the benefit of the commercial world. The mission is supported by a philanthropic society, which numbers nobleminded men of several nations. It is not a religious society, but my instructions are entirely of that spirit. No violence must be used, and wherever rejected, the mission must withdraw to seek another field.” [*1]

The Bula Matadi or Stone Breaker, as the natives called Stanley, threw himself energetically into the work and had by 1881 built a

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road past the falls to the plateau, where thousands of miles of river navigation were thus opened. Stations were established, and by 1884 Stanley returned armed with four hundred and fifty “treaties” with the native chiefs, and the new “State” appealed to the world for recognition.

The United States first recognized the “Congo Free State,” which was at last made a sovereign power under international guarantees by the Congress of Berlin in the year 1885, and Leopold II was chosen its king. The state had an area of about nine hundred thousand square miles, with a population of about thirty million.

One of the first tasks before the new state was to check the Arab slave traders. The Arabs had hitherto acted as traders and middlemen along the upper Congo, and when the English and Congo state overthrew Mzidi, the reigning king in the Kantanga country, a general revolt of the Arabs and mulattoes took place. For a time, 1892-93, the whites were driven out, but in a year or two the Arabs and their allies were subdued.

Humanity and commerce, however, did not replace the Arab slave traders. Rather European greed and serfdom were substituted. The land was confiscated by the state and farmed out to private Belgian corporations. The wilder cannibal tribes were formed into a militia to prey on the industrious, who were taxed with specific amounts of ivory and rubber, and scourged and mutilated if they failed to pay. Harris declares that King Leopold’s regime meant the death of twelve million natives.

“Europe was staggered at the Leopoldian atrocities, and they were terrible indeed; but what we, who were behind the scenes, felt most keenly was the fact that the real catastrophe in the Congo was the desolation and murder in the larger sense. The invasion of family life, the ruthless destruction of every social barrier, the shattering of every tribal law, the introduction of criminal practices which struck the chiefs of the people dumb with horror–in a word, a veritable avalanche of filth and immorality overwhelmed the Congo tribes.” [*1]

So notorious did the exploitation and misrule become that Leopold was forced to take measures toward reform, and finally in 1909 the Free State became a Belgian colony. Some reforms have been inaugurated and others may follow, but the valley of the Congo will long stand as a monument of shame to Christianity and European civilization.

Footnotes

^36:1 Quoted in Du Bois: Timbuktu.

^37:1 Von Luschan: Verhandlungen der berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, etc., 1898.

^38:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, Vol. I.

^39:1 Cf. <page 58>.

^43:1 Keane: Africa, II, 117-118.

^44:1 The Congo, I, Chap. III.

^45:1 Harris: Dawn in Africa.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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VI    THE GREAT LAKES AND ZYMBABWE

We have already seen how a branch of the conquering Bantus turned eastward by the Great Lakes and thus reached the sea and eventually both the Nile and South Africa.

This brought them into the ancient and mysterious land far up the Nile, south of Ethiopia. Here lay the ancient Punt of the Egyptians (whether we place it in Somaliland or, as seems far more likely, around the Great Lakes) and here, as the Egyptians thought, their civilization began. The earliest inhabitants of the land were apparently of the Bushman or Hottentot type of Negro. These were gradually pushed southward and westward by the intrusion of the Nilotic Negroes. Five thousand years before Christ the mulatto Egyptians were in the Nile valley below the First Cataract. The Negroes were in the Nile valley down as far as the Second Cataract and between the First and Second Cataracts were Negroes into whose veins Semitic blood had penetrated more or less. These mixed elements became the ancestors of the modern Somali, Gala, Bishari, and Beja and spread Negro blood into Arabia beyond the Red Sea. The Nilotic Negroes to the south early became great traders in ivory, gold, leopard skins, gums, beasts, birds, and slaves, and they opened up systematic trade between Egypt and the Great Lakes.

The result was endless movement and migration both in ancient and modern days, which makes the cultural history of the Great Lakes region very difficult to understand. Three great elements are, however, clear: first, the Egyptian element, by the northward migration of the Negro ancestors of predynastic Egypt and the southern conquests and trade of dynastic Egypt; second, the Semitic influence from Arabia and Persia; third, the Negro influences from western and central Africa.

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The migration of the Bantu is the first clearly defined movement of modern times. As we have shown, they began to move southward at least a thousand years before Christ, skirting the Congo forests and wandering along the Great Lakes and down to the Zambesi. What did they find in this land?

We do not know certainly, but from what we do know we may reconstruct the situation in this way: the primitive culture of the Hottentots of Punt had been further developed by them and by other stronger Negro stocks until it reached a highly developed culture. Widespread agriculture, and mining of gold, silver, and precious stones started a trade that penetrated to Asia and North Africa. This may have been the source of the gold of the Ophir.

The state that thus arose became in time strongly organized; it employed slave labor in crushing the hard quartz, sinking pits, and carrying underground galleries; it carried out a system of irrigation and built stone buildings and fortifications. There exists to-day many remains of these building operations in the Kalahari desert and in northern Rhodesia. Five hundred groups, covering over an area of one hundred and fifty thousand square miles, lie between the Limpopo and Zambesi rivers. Mining operations have been carried on in these plains for generations, and one estimate is that at least three hundred and seventy-five million dollars’ worth of gold had been extracted. Some have thought that the older workings must date back to one or even three thousand years before the Christian era.

“There are other mines,” writes De Barros in the seventeenth century, [*1] “in a district called Toroa, which is otherwise known as the kingdom of Butua, whose ruler is a prince, by name Burrow, a vassal of Benomotapa. This land is near the other which we said consisted of extensive plains, and those ruins are the oldest that are known in that region. They are all in a plain, in the middle of which stands a square fortress, all of dressed stones within and without, well wrought and of marvelous size, without any lime showing the joinings, the walls of which are over twenty-five hands thick, but the height is not so great compared to the thickness. And above the gateway of that edifice is an inscription which some Moorish [Arab] traders who were there could not read, nor say what writing it was. All these structures the people of this country call Symbaoe

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[paragraph continues] [Zymbabwe], which with them means a court, for every place where Benomotapa stays is so called.”

Later investigation has shown that these buildings were in many cases carefully planned and built fortifications. At Niekerk, for instance, nine or ten hills are fortified on concentric walls thirty to fifty feet in number, with a place for the village at the top. The buildings are forts, miniature citadels, and also workshops and cattle kraals. Iron implements and handsome pottery were found here, and close to the Zambesi there are extraordinary fortifications. Farther south at Inyanga there is less strong defense, and at Umtali there are no fortifications, showing that builders feared invasion from the north.

These people worked in gold, silver, tin, copper, and bronze and made beautiful pottery. There is evidence of religious significance in the buildings, and what is called the temple was the royal residence and served as a sort of acropolis. The surrounding residences in the valley were evidently occupied by wealthy traders and were not fortified. Here the gold was received from surrounding districts and bartered with traders.

As usual there have been repeated attempts to find an external and especially an Asiatic origin for this culture. So far, however, archeological research seems to confirm its African origin. The implements, weapons, and art are characteristically African and there is no evident connection with outside sources. How far back this civilization dates it is difficult to say, a great deal depending upon the dating of the iron age in South Africa. If it was the same as in the Mediterranean regions, the earliest limit was 1000 B.C.; it might, however, have been much earlier, especially if, as seems probable, the use of iron originated in Africa. On the other hand the culmination of this culture has been placed by some as late as the modern middle ages.

What was it that overthrew this civilization? Undoubtedly the same sort of raids of barbarous warriors that we have known in our day. For instance, in 1570 there came upon the country of Mozambique, Farther up the coast, “such an inundation of pagans that they could not be numbered. They came from that part of Monomotapa where is the great lake from which spring these great rivers. They left no other signs of the towns they passed but the heaps of ruins and the bones of inhabitants.” So, too, it is told how the Zimbas came, “a strange people never before seen there, who, leaving their

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own country, traversed a great part of this Ethiopia like a scourge of God, destroying every living thing they came across. They were twenty thousand strong and marched without children or women,” just as four hundred years later the Zulu impi marched. Again in 1602 a horde of people came from the interior called the Cabires, or cannibals. They entered the kingdom of Monomotapa, and the reigning king, being weak, was in great terror. Thus gradually the Monomotapa fell, and its power was scattered until the Kaffir-Zulu raids of our day. [*1]

The Arab writer, Macoudi, in the tenth century visited the East African coast somewhere north of the equator. He found the Indian Sea at that time frequented by Arab and Persian vessels, but there were no Asiatic settlements on the African shore. The Bantu, or as he calls them, Zenji, inhabited the country as far south as Sofala, where they bordered upon the Bushmen. These Bantus were under a ruler with the dynastic title of Waklimi. He was paramount over all the other tribes of the north and could put three hundred thousand men in the field. They used oxen as beasts of burden and the country produced gold in abundance, while panther skin was largely used for clothing. Ivory was sold to Asia and the Bantu used iron for personal adornment instead of gold or silver. They rode on their oxen, which ran with great speed, and they ate millet and boney and the flesh of animals.

Inland among the Bantu arose later the line of rulers called the Monomotapa among the gifted Makalanga. Their state was very extensive, ranging from the coast far into the interior and from Mozambique down to the Limpopo. It was strongly organized, with feudatory allied states, and carried on an extensive commerce by means of the traders on the coast. The kings were converted to nominal Christianity by the Portuguese.

There are indications of trade between Nupe in West Africa and Sofala on the cast coast, and certainly trade between Asia and East Africa is earlier than the beginning of the Christian era. The Asiatic traders settled on the coast and by means of mulatto and Negro merchants brought Central Africa into contact with Arabia, India, China, and Malaysia.

The coming of the Asiatics was in this wise: Zaide, great-grandson of Ali, nephew and son-in-law of Mohammed, was banished from

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[paragraph continues] Arabia as a heretic. He passed over to Africa and formed temporary settlements. His people mingled with the blacks, and the resulting mulatto traders, known as the Emoxaidi, seem to have wandered as far south as the equator. Soon other Arabian families came over on account of oppression and founded the towns of Magadosho and Brava, both not far north of the equator. The first town became a place of importance and other settlements were made. The Emoxaidi, whom the later immigrants regarded as heretics, were driven inland and became the interpreting traders between the coast and the Bantu. Some wanderers from Magadosho came into the Port of Sofala and there learned that gold could be obtained. This led to a small Arab settlement at that place.

Seventy years later, and about fifty years before the Norman conquest of England, certain Persians settled at Kilwa in East Africa, led by Ali, who had been despised in his land because he was the son of a black Abyssinian slave mother. Kilwa, because of this, eventually became the most important commercial station on the East African coast, and in this and all these settlements a very large mulatto population grew up, so that very soon the whole settlement was indistinguishable in color from the Bantu.

In 1330 Ibn Batuta visited Kilwa. He found an abundance of ivory and some gold and heard that the inhabitants of Kilwa had gained victories over the Zenji or Bantu. Kilwa had at that time three hundred mosques and was “built of handsome houses of stone and lime, and very lofty, with their windows like those of the Christians; in the same way it has streets, and these houses have got terraces, and the wood-work is with the masonry, with plenty of gardens, in which there are many fruit trees and much water.” [*1] Kilwa after a time captured Sofala, seizing it from Magadosho. Eventually Kilwa became mistress of the island of Zanzibar, of Mozambique, and of much other territory. The forty-third ruler of Kilwa after Ali was named Abraham, and he was ruling when the Portuguese arrived. The latter reported that these people cultivated rice and cocoa, built ships, and had considerable commerce with Asia. All the people, of whatever color, were Mohammedans, and the richer were clothed in gorgeous robes of silk and velvet. They traded with the inland Bantus and met numerous tribes, receiving gold, ivory, millet, rice, cattle, poultry, and honey.

On the islands the Asiatics were independent, but on the main

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lands south of Kilwa the sheiks ruled only their own people, under the overlordship of the Bantus, to whom they were compelled to pay large tribute each year.

Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and went north on the east coast as far as India. In the next ten years the Portuguese had occupied more than six different points on that coast, including Sofala. [*1]

Thus civilization waxed and waned in East Africa among prehistoric Negroes, Arab and Persian mulattoes on the coast, in the Zend or Zeng empire of Bantu Negroes, and later in the Bantu rule of the Monomotapa. And thus, too, among later throngs of the fiercer, warlike Bantu, the ancient culture of the land largely died. Yet something survived, and in the modern Bantu state, language, and industry can be found clear links that establish the essential identity of the absorbed peoples with the builders of Zymbabwe.

So far we have traced the history of the lands into which the southward stream of invading Bantus turned, and have followed them to the Limpopo River. We turn now to the lands north from Lake Nyassa.

The aboriginal Negroes sustained in prehistoric time invasions from the northeast by Negroids of a type like the ancient Egyptians and like the modern Gallas, Masai, and Somalis. To these migrations were added attacks from the Nile Negroes to the north and the Bantu invaders from the south. This has led to great differences among the groups of the population and in their customs. Some are fierce mountaineers, occupying hilly plateaus six thousand feet above the sea level; others, like the Wa Swahili, are traders on the coast. There are the Masai, chocolate-colored and frizzly-haired, organized for war and cattle lifting; and Negroids like the Gallas, who, blending with the Bantus, have produced the race of modern Uganda.

It was in this region that the kingdom of Kitwara was founded by the Calla chief, Kintu. About the beginning of the nineteenth century the empire was dismembered, the largest share falling to Uganda. The ensuing history of Uganda is of great interest. When King Mutesa came to the throne in 1862, he found Mohammedan influences in his land and was induced to admit English Protestants

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and French Catholics. Uganda thereupon became an extraordinary religious battlefield between these three beliefs. Mutesa’s successor, Mwanga, caused an English bishop to be killed in 1885, believing (as has since proven quite true) that the religion he offered would be used as a cloak for conquest. The final result was that, after open war between the religions, Uganda was made an English protectorate in 1894.

The Negroes of Uganda are an intelligent people who had organized a complex feudal state. At the head stood the king, and under him twelve feudal lords. The present king, Daudi Chua, is the young grandson of Mutesa and rules under the overlordship of England.

Many things show the connection between Egypt and this part of Africa. The same glass beads are found in Uganda and Upper Egypt, and similar canoes are built. Harps and other instruments bear great resemblance. Finally the Bahima, as the Galla invaders are called, are startlingly Egyptian in type; at the same time they are undoubtedly Negro in hair and color. Perhaps we have here the best racial picture of what ancient Egyptian and upper Nile regions were in predynastic times and later.

Thus in outline was seen the mission of The People–La Bantu as they called themselves. They migrated, they settled, they tore down, and they learned, and they in turn were often overthrown by succeeding tribes of their own folk. They rule with their tongue and their power all Africa south of the equator, save where the Europeans have entered. They have never been conquered, although the gold and diamond traders have sought to debauch them, and the ivory and rubber capitalists have cruelly wronged their weaker groups. They are the Africans with whom the world of to-morrow must reckon, just as the world of yesterday knew them to its cost.

Footnotes

^47:1 Quoted in Bent: Ruined Cities of Mashonaland, pp. 203 ff.

^49:1 Cf. “Ethiopia Oriental,” by J. Dos Santos, in Theal’s Records of South Africa, Vol. VII.

^50:1 Barbosa, quoted in Keane, II, 482.

^51:1 It was called Sofala, from an Arabic word, and may be associated with the Ophir of Solomon. So, too, the river Sabi, a little off Sofala, may be associated with the name of the Queen of Sheba, whose lineage was supposed to be perpetuated in the powerful Monomotapa as well as the Abyssinians.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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VII    THE WAR OF RACES AT LAND’S END

Primitive man in Africa is found in the interior jungles and down at Land’s End in South Africa. The Pygmy people in the jungles represent to-day a small survival from the past, but a survival of curious interest, pushed aside by the torrent of conquest. Also pushed on by these waves of Bantu conquest, moved the ancient Abatwa or Bushmen. They are small in stature, yellow in color, with crisp-curled hair. The traditions of the Bushmen say that they came southward from the regions of the Great Lakes, and indeed the king and queen of Punt, as depicted by the Egyptians, were Bushmen or Hottentots.

Their tribes may be divided, in accordance with their noticeable artistic talents, into the painters and the sculptors. The sculptors entered South Africa by moving southward through the more central portions of the country, crossing the Zambesi, and coming down to the Cape. The painters, on the other hand, came through Damaraland on the west coast; when they came to the great mountain regions, they turned eastward and can be traced as far as the mountains opposite Delagoa Bay. The mass of them settled down in the lower part of the Cape and in the Kalahari desert. The painters were true cave dwellers, but the sculptors lived in large communities on the stony hills, which they marked with their carvings.

These Bushmen believed in an ancient race of people who preceded them in South Africa. They attributed magic power to these unknown folk, and said that some of them had been translated as stars to the sky. Before their groups were dispersed the Bushmen had regular government. Tribes with their chiefs occupied well-defined tracts of country and were subdivided into branch tribes under subsidiary chiefs. The great cave represented the dignity and glory of the entire tribe.

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The Bushmen suffered most cruelly in the succeeding migrations and conquests of South Africa. They fought desperately in self-defense; they saw their women and children carried into bondage and they themselves hunted like wild beasts. Both savage and civilized men appropriated their land. Still they were brave people. “In this struggle for existence their bitterest enemies, of whatever shade of color they might be, were forced to make an unqualified acknowledgement of the courage and daring they so invariably exhibited.” [*1]

Here, to a remote corner of the world, where, as one of their number said, they had supposed that the only beings in the world were Bushmen and lions, came a series of invaders. It was the outer ripples of civilization starting far away, the indigenous and external civilizations of Africa beating with great impulse among the Ethiopians and the Egyptian mulattoes and Sudanese Negroes and Yorubans, and driving the Bantu race southward. The Bantus crowded more and more upon the primitive Bushmen, and probably a mingling of the Bushmen and the Bantus gave rise to the Hottentots.

The Hottentots, or as they called themselves, Khoi Khoin (Men of Men), were physically a stronger race than the Abatwa and gave many evidences of degeneration from a high culture, especially in the “phenomenal perfection” of a language which “is so highly developed, both in its rich phonetic system, as represented by a very delicately graduated series of vowels and diphthongs, and in its varied grammatical structure, that Lepsius sought for its affinities in the Egyptian at the other end of the continent.”

When South Africa was first discovered there were two distinct types of Hottentot. The more savage Hottentots were simply large, strong Bushmen, using weapons superior to the Bushmen, without domestic cattle or sheep. Other tribes nearer the center of South Africa were handsomer in appearance and raised an Egyptian breed of cattle which they rode.

In general the Hottentots were yellow, with close-curled hair, high check bones, and somewhat oblique eyes. Their migration commenced about the end of the fourteenth century and was, as is usual in such cases, a scattered, straggling movement. The traditions of the Hottentots point to the lake country of Central Africa as their place of origin, whence they were driven by the Bechuana tribes of the Bantu. They fled westward to the ocean and then turned south

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and came upon the Bushmen, whom they had only partially subdued when the Dutch arrived as settlers in 1652.

The Dutch “Boers” began by purchasing land from the Hottentots and then, as they grew more powerful, they dispossessed the dark men and tried to enslave them. There grew up a large Dutch-Hottentot class. Indeed the filtration of Negro blood noticeable in modern Boers accounts for much curious history. Soon after the advent of the Dutch some of the Hottentots, of whom there were not more than thirty or forty thousand, led by the Korana clans, began slowly to retreat northward, followed by the invading Dutch and fighting the Dutch, each other, and the wretched Bushmen. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Hottentots had reached the great interior plain and met the on-coming outposts of the Bantu nations.

The Bechuana, whom the Hottentots first met, were the most advanced of the Negro tribes of Central Africa. They had crossed the Zambesi in the fourteenth or fifteenth century; their government was a sort of feudal system with hereditary chiefs and vassals; they were careful agriculturists, laid out large towns with great regularity, and were the most skilled of smiths. They used stone in building, carved on wood, and many of them, too, were keen traders. These tribes, coming southward, occupied the east-central part of South Africa comprising modern Bechuanaland. Apparently they had started from the central lake country somewhere late in the fifteenth century, and by the middle of the eighteenth century one of their great chiefs, Tao, met the on-coming Hottentots.

The Hottentots compelled Tao to retreat, but the mulatto Gricquas arrived from the south, and, allying themselves with the Bechuana, stopped the rout. The Gricquas sprang from and took their name from an old Hottentot tribe. They were led by Kok and Barends, and by adding other elements they became, partly through their own efforts and partly through the efforts of the missionaries, a community of fairly well civilized people. In Gricqualand West the mulatto Gricquas, under their chiefs Kok and Waterboer, lived until the discovery of diamonds.

The Griquas and Bechuana tribes were thus gradually checking the Hottentots when, in the nineteenth century, there came two new developments: first, the English took possession of Cape Colony, and the Dutch began to move in larger numbers toward the interior; secondly, a newer and fiercer element of the Bantu tribes,

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the Zulu-Kaffirs, appeared. The Kaffirs, or as they called themselves, the Amazosas, claimed descent from Zuide, a great chief of the fifteenth century in the lake country. They are among the tallest people in the world, averaging five feet ten inches, and are slim, well-proportioned, and muscular. The more warlike tribes were usually clothed in leopard or ox skins. Cattle formed their chief wealth, stock breeding and hunting and fighting their main pursuits. Mentally they were men of tact and intelligence, with a national religion based upon ancestor worship, while their government was a patriarchal monarchy limited by an aristocracy and almost feudal in character. The common law which had grown up from the decisions of the chiefs made the head of the family responsible for the conduct of its branches, a village for all its residents, and the clan for all its villages. Finally there was a paramount chief, who was the civil and military father of his people. These people laid waste to the coast regions and in 1779 came in contact with the Dutch. A series of Dutch-Kaffir wars ensued between 1779 and 1795 in which the Dutch were hard pressed.

In 1806 the English took final possession of Cape Colony. At that time there were twenty-five thousand Boers, twenty-five thousand pure and mixed Hottentots, and twenty-five thousand slaves secured from the east coast. Between 1811 and 1877 there were six Kaffir-English wars. One of these in 1818 grew out of the ignorant interference of the English with the Kaffir tribal system; then there came a terrible war between 1834 and 1835, followed by the annexation of all the country as far as the Kei River. The war of the Axe (1846-48) led to further annexation by the British.

Hostilities broke out again in 1856 and 1863, In the former year, despairing of resistance to invading England, a prophet arose who advised the wholesale destruction of all Kaffir property except weapons, in order that this faith might bring back their dead heroes. The result was that almost a third of the nation perished from hunger. Fresh troubles occurred in 1877, when the Ama-Xosa confederacy was finally broken up, and to-day gradually these tribes are passing from independence to a state of mild vassalage to the British.

Meantime the more formidable part of the Zulu-Kaffirs had been united under the terrible Chief Chaka. He had organized a military system, not a new one by any means, but one of which we bear rumors back in the lake regions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. McDonald says, “There has probably never been a more

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perfect system of discipline than that by which Chaka ruled his army and kingdom. At a review an order might be given in the most unexpected manner, which meant death to hundreds. If the regiment hesitated or dared to remonstrate, so perfect was the discipline and so great the jealousy that another was ready to cut them down. A warrior returning from battle without his arms was put to death without trial. A general returning unsuccessful in the main purpose of his expedition shared the same fate. Whoever displeased the king was immediately executed. The traditional courts practically ceased to exist so far as the will and action of the tyrant was concerned.” With this army Chaka fell on tribe after tribe. The Bechuana fled before him and some tribes of them were entirely destroyed. The Hottentots suffered severely and one of his rival Zulu tribes under Umsilikatsi fled into Matabililand, pushing back the Bechuana. By the time the English came to Port Natal, Chaka was ruling over the whole southeastern seaboard, from the Limpopo River to Cape Colony, including the Orange and Transvaal states and the whole of Natal. Chaka was killed in 1828 and was eventually succeeded by his brother Dingan, who reigned twelve years. It was during Dingan’s reign that England tried to abolish slavery in Cape Colony, but did not pay promptly for the slaves, as she had promised; the result was the so-called “Great Trek,” about 1834, when thousands of Boers went into the interior across the Orange and Vaal rivers.

Dingan and these Boers were soon engaged in a death struggle in which the Zulus were repulsed and Dingan replaced by Panda. Under this chief there was something like repose for sixteen years, but in 1856 civil war broke out between his sons, one of whom, Cetewayo, succeeded his father in 1882. He fell into border disputes with the English, and the result was one of the fiercest clashes of Europe and Africa in modern days. The Zulus fought desperately, annihilating at one time a whole detachment and killing the young prince Napoleon. But after all it was assagais against machine guns, and the Zulus were finally defeated at Ulundi, July 4, 1879. Thereupon Zululand was divided among thirteen semi-independent chiefs and became a British protectorate.

Since then the best lands have been gradually reoccupied by a large number of tribes–Kaffirs from the south and Zulus from the north. The tribal organization, without being actually broken up, has been deprived of its dangerous features by appointing paid village

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Click to enlarge

Ancient Kingdoms of Africa

 

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headmen and transforming the hereditary chief into a British government official. In Natal there are about one hundred and seventy tribal chiefs, and nearly half of these have been appointed by the governor.

Umsilikatsi, who had been driven into Matabililand by the terrible Chaka in 1828 and defeated by the Dutch in 1837, had finally reestablished his headquarters in Rhodesia in 1838. Here he introduced the Zulu military system and terrorized the peaceful and industrious Bechuana populations. Lobengula succeeded Umsilikatsi in 1870 and, realizing that his power was waning, began to retreat northward toward the Zambesi. He was finally defeated by the British and native forces in 1893 and the land was incorporated into South Central Africa.

The result of all these movements was to break the inhabitants of Bechuanaland into numerous fragments. There were small numbers of mulatto Gricquas in the southwest and similar Bastaards in the northwest. The Hottentots and Bushmen were dispersed into groups and seem doomed to extinction, the last Hottentot chief being deposed in 1810 and replaced by an English magistrate, Partially civilized Hottentots still live grouped together in their kraals and are members of Christian churches. The Bechuana hold their own in several centers; one is in Basutoland, west of Natal, where a number of tribes were welded together under the far-sighted Moshesh into a modern and fairly well civilized nation. In the north part of Bechuanaland are the self-governing Bamangwato and the Batwana, the former ruled by Khama, one of the canniest of modern rulers in Africa.

Meantime, in Portuguese territory south of the Zambesi, there arose Gaza, a contemporary and rival of Chaka. His son, Manikus, was deputed by Dingan, Chaka’s successor, to drive out the Portuguese. This Manikus failed to do, and to escape vengeance he migrated north of the Limpopo. Here he established his military kraal in a district thirty-six hundred and fifty feet above the sea and one hundred and twenty miles inland from Sofala. From this place his soldiery nearly succeeded in driving the Portuguese out of East Africa. He was succeeded by his son, Umzila, and Umzila’s brother, Guzana (better known as Gungunyana), who exercised for a time joint authority. Gungunyana was finally overthrown in November, 1895, captured, and removed to the Azores.

North of the Zambesi, in British territory, the chief role in recent

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Click to enlarge

Races in Africa

 

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times has been played by the Bechuana, the first of the Bantu to return northward after the South African migration. Livingstone found there the Makolo, who with other tribes had moved northward on account of the pressure of the Dutch and Zulus below, and by conquering various tribes in the Zambesi region had established a strong power. This kingdom was nearly overthrown by the rebellion of the Barotse, and in 1875 the Barotse kingdom comprised a large territory. To-day their king, Lewanika, rules directly and indirectly fifty thousand square miles, with a population between one and two and a half million. They are under a protectorate of the British.

In Southwest Africa, Hottentot mulattoes crossing from the Cape caused widespread change. They were strong men and daring fighters and soon became dominant in what is now German Southwest Africa, where they fought fiercely with the Bantu Ova-Hereros. Armed with fire arms, these Namakwa Hottentots threatened Portuguese West Africa, but Germany intervened, ostensibly to protect missionaries. By spending millions of dollars and thousands of soldiers Germany has nearly exterminated these brave men.

Thus we have between the years 1400 and 1900 a great period of migration up to 1750, when Bushmen, Hottentot, Bantu, and Dutch appeared in succession at Land’s End. In the latter part of the eighteenth century we have the clash of the Hottentots and Bechuana, followed in the nineteenth century by the terrible wars of Chaka, the Kaffirs, and Matabili. Finally, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, we see the gradual subjection of the Kaffir-Zulus and the Bechuana under the English and the final conquest of the Dutch. The resulting racial problem in South Africa is one of great intricacy.

To the racial problem has been added the tremendous problem of modern capital brought by the discovery of gold and diamond mines, so that the future of the Negro race is peculiarly bound up in developments here at Land’s End, where the ship of the Flying Dutchman beats back and forth on its endless quest.

Footnotes

^54:1 Stowe: Native Races of South Africa, pp. 115-216.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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VIII    AFRICAN CULTURE

We have followed the history of mankind in Africa down the valley of the Nile, past Ethiopia to Egypt; we have seen kingdoms arise along the great bend of the Niger and strive with the ancient culture at its mouth. We have seen the remnants of mankind at Land’s End, the ancient culture at Punt and Zymbabwe, and followed the invading Bantu east, south, and west to their greatest center in the vast jungle of the Congo valleys.

We must now gather these threads together and ask what manner of men these were and how far and in what way they progressed on the road of human culture.

That Negro peoples were the beginners of civilization along the Ganges, the Euphrates, and the Nile seems proven. Early Babylon was founded by a Negroid race. Hammurabi’s code, the most ancient known, says “Anna and Bel called me, Hammurabi the exalted prince, the worshiper of the gods; to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy the wicked, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to go forth like the sun over the black-head race, to enlighten the land, and to further the welfare of the people.” The Assyrians show a distinct Negroid strain and early Egypt was predominantly Negro. These earliest of cultures were crude and primitive, but they represented the highest attainment of mankind after tens of thousands of years in unawakened savagery.

It has often been assumed that the Negro is physically inferior to other races and markedly distinguishable from them; modern science gives no authority for such an assumption. The supposed inferiority cannot rest on color, [*1] for that is “due to the combined influences of a great number of factors of environment working

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through physiological processes,” and “however marked the contrasts may be, there is no corresponding difference in anatomical structure discoverable.” [*1] So, too, difference in texture of hair is a matter of degree, not kind, and is caused by heat, moisture, exposure, and the like.

The bony skeleton presents no distinctly racial lines of variation. Prognathism “presents too many individual varieties to be taken as a distinctive character of race” [*2] Difference in physical measurements does not show the Negro to be a more primitive evolutionary form. Comparative ethnology to-day affords “no support to the view which sees in the so-called lower races of mankind a transition stage from beast to man.” [*3]

Much has been made of the supposed smaller brain of the Negro race; but this is as yet an unproved assumption, based on the uncritical measurement of less than a thousand Negro brains as compared with eleven thousand or more European brains. Even if future measurement prove the average Negro brain lighter, the vast majority of Negro brain weights fall within the same limits as the whites; and finally, “neither size nor weight of the brain seems to be of importance” as an index of mental capacity. We may, therefore, say with Ratzel, “There is only one species of man. The variations are numerous, but do not go deep.” [*4]

To this we may add the word of the Secretary of the First Races Congress: “We are, then, under the necessity of concluding that an impartial investigator would be inclined to look upon the various important peoples of the world as to all intents and purposes essentially equal in intellect, enterprise, morality, and physique.” [*5]

If these conclusions are true, we should expect to see in Africa the human drama play itself out much as in other lands, and such has actually been the fact. At the same time we must expect peculiarities arising from the physiography of the land–its climate, its rainfall, its deserts, and the peculiar inaccessibility of the coast,

Three principal zones of habitation appear: first, the steppes and deserts around the Sahara in the north and the Kalahari desert in the south; secondly, the grassy highlands bordering the Great Lakes

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and connecting these two regions; thirdly, the forests and rivers of Central and West Africa. In the deserts are the nomads, and the Pygmies are in the forest fastnesses. Herdsmen and their cattle cover the steppes and highlands, save where the tsetse fly prevents. In the open forests and grassy highlands are the agriculturists.

Among the forest farmers the village is the center of life, while in the open steppes political life tends to spread into larger political units. Political integration is, however, hindered by an ease of internal communication almost as great as the difficulty of reaching outer worlds beyond the continent. The narrow Nile valley alone presented physical barriers formidable enough to keep back the invading barbarians of the south, and even then with difficulty. Elsewhere communication was all too easy. For a while the Congo forests fended away the restless, but this only temporarily.

On the whole Africa from the Sahara to the Cape offered no great physical barrier to the invader, and we continually have whirlwinds of invading hosts rushing now southward, now northward, from the interior to the coast and from the coast inland, and hurling their force against states, kingdoms, and cities. Some resisted for generations, some for centuries, some but a few years. It is, then, this sudden change and the fear of it that marks African culture, particularly in its political aspects, and which makes it so difficult to trace this changing past. Nevertheless beneath all change rests the strong substructure of custom, religion, industry, and art well worth the attention of students.

Starting with agriculture, we learn that “among all the great groups of the ‘natural’ races, the Negroes are the best and keenest tillers of the ground. A minority despise agriculture and breed cattle; many combine both occupations. Among the genuine tillers the whole life of the family is taken up in agriculture, and hence the months are by preference called after the operations which they demand. Constant clearings change forests to fields, and the ground is manured with the ashes of the burnt thicket. In the middle of the fields rise the light watch-towers, from which a watchman scares grain-eating birds and other thieves. An African cultivated landscape is incomplete without barns. The rapidity with which, when newly imported, the most various forms of cultivation spread in Africa says much for the attention which is devoted to this branch of economy. Industries, again, which may be called agricultural, like the preparation of meal from millet and other crops, also from

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cassava, the fabrication of fermented drinks from grain, or the manufacture of cotton, are widely known and sedulously fostered.” [*1]

Bucher reminds us of the deep impression made upon travelers when they sight suddenly the well-attended fields of the natives on emerging from the primeval forests. “In the more thickly populated parts of Africa these fields often stretch for many a mile, and the assiduous care of the Negro women shines in all the brighter light when we consider the insecurity of life, the constant feuds and pillages, in which no one knows whether he will in the end be able to harvest what he has sown. Livingstone gives somewhere a graphic description of the devastations wrought by slave hunts; the people were lying about slain, the dwellings were demolished; in the fields, however, the grain was ripening and there was none to harvest it.” [*2]

Sheep, goat, and chickens are domestic animals all over Africa, and Von Franzius considers Africa the home of the house cattle and the Negro as the original tamer. Northeastern Africa especially is noted for agriculture, cattle raising, and fruit culture. In the eastern Sudan, and among the great Bantu tribes extending from the Sudan down toward the south, cattle are evidences of wealth; one tribe, for instance, having so many oxen that each village had ten or twelve thousand head. Lenz (1884), Bouet-Williaumez; (1848), Hecquard (1854), Bosman (1805), and Baker (1868) all bear witness to this, and Schweinfurth (1878) tells us of great cattle parks with two to three thousand head and of numerous agricultural and cattle-raising tribes. Von der Decken (1859-61) described the paradise of the dwellers about Kilimanjaro–the bananas, fruit, beans and peas, cattle raising with stall feed, the fertilizing of the fields, and irrigation. The Negroid Gallas have seven or eight cattle to each inhabitant. Livingstone bears witness to the busy cattle raising of the Bantus and Kaffirs. Hulub (1881) and Chapman (1868) tell of agriculture and fruit raising in South Africa. Shutt (1884) found the tribes in the southwestern basin of the Congo with sheep, swine, goats, and cattle. On this agricultural and cattle-raising economic foundation has arisen the organized industry of the artisan, the trader, and the manufacturer.

While the Pygmies, still living in the age of wood, make no iron or stone implements, they seem to know how to make bark cloth

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and fiber baskets and simple outfits for hunting and fishing. Among the Bushmen the art of making weapons and working in hides is quite common. The Hottentots are further advanced in the industrial arts, being well versed in the manufacture of clothing, weapons, and utensils. In the dressing of skins and furs, as well as in the plaiting of cords and the weaving of mats, we find evidences of their workmanship. In addition they are good workers in iron and copper, using the sheepskin bellows for this purpose. The Ashantis of the Gold Coast know how to make “cotton fabrics, turn and glaze earthenware, forge iron, fabricate instruments and arms, embroider rugs and carpets, and set gold and precious stones.” [*1] Among the people of the banana zone we find rough basket work, coarse pottery, grass cloth, and spoons made of wood and ivory, The people of the millet zone, because of uncertain agricultural resources, quite generally turn to manufacturing. Charcoal is prepared by the smiths, iron is smelted, and numerous implements are manufactured. Among them we find axes, hatchets, hoes, knives, nails, scythes, and other hardware. Cloaks, shoes, sandals, shields, and water and oil vessels are made from leather which the natives have dressed. Soap is manufactured in the Bautschi district, glass is made, formed, and colored by the people of Nupeland, and in almost every city cotton is spun and woven and dyed. Barth tells us that the weaving of cotton was known in the Sudan as early as the eleventh century. There is also extensive manufacture of wooden ware, tools, implements, and utensils.

In describing particular tribes, Baker and Felkin tell of smiths of wonderful adroitness, goatskins prepared better than a European tanner could do, drinking cups and kegs of remarkable symmetry, and polished clay floors. Schweinfurth says, “The arrow and the spear heads are of the finest and most artistic work; their bristlelike barbs and points are baffling when one knows how few tools these smiths have.” Excellent wood carving is found among the Bongo, Ovambo, and Makololo. Pottery and basketry and careful hut building distinguish many tribes. Cameron (1877) tells of villages so clean, with huts so artistic, that, save in book knowledge, the people occupied no low plane of civilization. The Mangbettu work both iron and copper. “The masterpieces of the Monbutto [Mangbettu] smiths are the fine chains worn as ornaments, and which in perfection

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of form and fineness compare well with our best steel chains.” Shubotz in 1911 called the Mangbettu “a highly cultivated people” in architecture and handicraft. Barth found copper exported from Central Africa in competition with European copper at Kano.

Nor is the iron industry confined to the Sudan. About the Great Lakes and other parts of Central Africa it is widely distributed. Thornton says, “This iron industry proves that the East Africans stand by no means on so low a plane of culture as many travelers would have us think. It is unnecessary to be reminded what a people without instruction, and with the rudest tools to do such skilled work, could do if furnished with steel tools.” Arrows made east of Lake Nyanza were found to be nearly as good as the best Swedish iron in Birmingham. From Egypt to the Cape, Livingstone assures us that the mortar and pestle, the long-handled axe, the goatskin bellows, etc., have the same form, size, etc., pointing to a migration southwestward. Holub (1879), on the Zambesi, found fine workers in iron and bronze. The Bantu huts contain spoons, wooden dishes, milk pails, calabashes, handmills, and axes.

Kaffirs and Zulus, in the extreme south, are good smiths, and the latter melt copper and tin together and draw wire from it, according to Kranz (1880). West of the Great Lakes, Stanley (1878) found wonderful examples of smith work: figures worked out of brass and much work in copper. Cameron (1878) saw vases made near Lake Tanganyika which reminded him of the amphorae in the Villa of Diomedes, Pompeii. Horn (1882) praises tribes here for iron and copper work. Livingstone (1871) passed thirty smelting houses in one journey, and Cameron came across bellows with valves, and tribes who used knives in eating. He found tribes which no Europeans had ever visited, who made ingots of copper in the form of the St. Andrew’s cross, which circulated even to the coast. In the southern Congo basin iron and copper are worked; also wood and ivory carving and pottery making are pursued. In equatorial West Africa, Lenz and Du Chaillu (1861) found iron workers with charcoal, and also carvers of bone and ivory. Near Cape Lopez, Hubbe-Schleiden found tribes making ivory needles inlaid with ebony, while the arms and dishes of the Osaka are found among many tribes even as far as the Atlantic Ocean. Wilson (1856) found natives in West Africa who could repair American watches.

Gold Coast Negroes make gold rings and chains, forming the metal into all kinds of forms. Soyaux says, “The works in relief

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which natives of Lower Guinea carve with their own knives out of ivory and hippopotamus teeth are really entitled to be called works of art, and many wooden figures of fetishes in the Ethnographical Museum of Berlin show some understanding of the proportions of the human body.” Great Bassam is called by Hecquard the “Fatherland of Smiths.” The Mandingo in the northwest are remarkable workers in iron, silver, and gold, we are told by Mungo Park (1800), while there is a mass of testimony as to the work in the north-west of Africa in gold, tin, weaving, and dyeing. Caille found the Negroes in Bambana manufacturing gunpowder (1824-18), and the Hausa make soap; so, too, Negroes in Uganda and other parts have made guns after seeing European models.

So marked has been the work of Negro artisans and traders in the manufacture and exchange of iron implements that a growing number of archeologists are disposed to-day to consider the Negro as the originator of the art of smelting iron. Gabriel de Mortillet (1883) declared Negroes the only iron users among primitive people. Some would, therefore, argue that the Negro learned it from other folk, but Andree declares that the Negro developed his own “Iron Kingdom.” Schweinfurth, Von Luschan, Boaz, and others incline to the belief that the Negroes invented the smelting of iron and passed it on to the Egyptians and to modern Europe.

Boaz says, “It seems likely that at a time when the European was still satisfied with rude stone tools, the African had invented or adopted the art of smelting iron. Consider for a moment what this invention has meant for the advance of the human race. As long as the hammer, knife, saw, drill, the spade, and the hoe had to be chipped out of stone, or had to be made of shell or hard wood, effective industrial work was not impossible, but difficult. A great progress was made when copper found in large nuggets was hammered out into tools and later on shaped by melting, and when bronze was introduced; but the true advancement of industrial life did not begin until the hard iron was discovered. It seems not unlikely that the people who made the marvelous discovery of reducing iron ores by smelting were the African Negroes. Neither ancient Europe, nor ancient western Asia, nor ancient China knew the iron, and everything points to its introduction from Africa. At the time of the great African discoveries toward the end of the past century, the trade of the blacksmith was found all over Africa, from north to south and from east to west. With his simple bellows and a charcoal

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fire he reduced the ore that is found in many parts of the continent and forged implements of great usefulness and beauty.” [*1]

Torday has argued recently, “I feel convinced by certain arguments that seem to prove to my satisfaction that we are indebted to the Negro for the very keystone of our modern civilization and that we owe him the discovery of iron. That iron could be discovered by accident in Africa seems beyond doubt: if this is so in other parts of the world, I am not competent to say. I will only remind you that Schweinfurth and Petherick record the fact that in the northern part of East Africa smelting furnaces are worked without artificial air current and, on the other hand, Stuhlmann and Kollmann found near Victoria Nyanza that the natives simply mixed powdered ore with charcoal and by introduction of air currents obtained the metal. These simple processes make it simple that iron should have been discovered in East or Central Africa. No bronze implements have ever been found in black Africa; had the Africans received iron from the Egyptians, bronze would have preceded this metal and all traces of it would not have disappeared. Black Africa was for a long time an exporter of iron, and even in the twelfth century exports to India and Java are recorded by Idrisi.

It is difficult to imagine that Egypt should have obtained it from Europe where the oldest find (in Hallstadt) cannot be of an earlier period than 800 B.C., or from Asia, where iron is not known before 1000 B.C., and where, in the times of Ashur Nazir Pal, it was still used concurrently with bronze, while iron beads have been only recently discovered by Messrs. G. A. Wainwright and Bushe Fox in a predynastic grave, and where a piece of this metal, possibly a tool, was found in the masonry of the great pyramid.” [*2]

The Negro is a born trader. Lenz says, “our sharpest European merchants, even Jews and Armenians, can learn much of the cunning and trade of the Negroes.” We know that the trade between Central Africa and Egypt was in the hands of Negroes for thousands of years, and in early days the cities of the Sudan and North Africa grew rich through Negro trade.

Leo Africanus, writing of Timbuktu in the sixteenth century, said, “It is a wonder to see what plentie of Merchandize is daily brought hither and bow costly and sumptuous all things be. . . .

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[paragraph continues] Here are many shops of artificers and merchants and especially of such as weave linnen and cloth.”

Long before cotton weaving was a British industry, West Africa and the Sudan were supplying a large part of the world with cotton cloth. Even to-day cities like Kuka on the west shore of Lake Chad and Sokota are manufacturing centers where cotton is spun and woven, skins tanned, implements and iron ornaments made.

“Travelers,” says Bucher, “have often observed this tribal or local development of industrial technique. ‘The native villages,’ relates a Belgian observer of the Lower Congo, ‘are often situated in groups. Their activities are based upon reciprocality, and they are to a certain extent the complements of one another. Each group has its more or less strongly defined specialty. One carries on fishing; another produces palm wine; a third devotes itself to trade and is broker for the others, supplying the community with all products from outside; another has reserved to itself work in iron and copper, making weapons for war and hunting, various utensils, etc. None may, however, pass beyond the sphere of its own specialty without exposing itself to the risk of being universally proscribed.'”

From the Loango Coast, Bastian tells of a great number of centers for special products of domestic industry. “Loango excels in mats and fishing baskets, while the carving of elephants’ tusks is specially followed in Chilungo. The so-called Mafooka hats with raised patterns are drawn chiefly from the bordering country of Kakongo and Mayyume. In Bakunya are made potter’s wares, which are in great demand; in Basanza, excellent swords; in Basundi, especially beautiful ornamented copper rings; on the Congo, clever wood and tablet carvings; in Loango, ornamented clothes and intricately designed mats; in Mayumbe, clothing of finely woven mat-work; in Kakongo, embroidered bats and also burnt clay pitchers; and among the Bayakas and Mantetjes, stuffs of woven grass.” [*1]

A native Negro student tells of the development of trade among the Ashanti. “It was a part of the state system of Ashanti to encourage trade. The king once in every forty days, at the Adai custom, distributed among a number of chiefs various sums of gold dust with a charge to turn the same to good account. These chiefs then sent down to the coast caravans of tradesmen, some of whom would be their slaves, sometimes some two or three hundred strong,

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to barter ivory for European goods, or buy such goods with gold dust, which the king obtained from the royal alluvial workings. Down to 1873 a constant stream of Ashanti traders might be seen daily wending their way to the merchants of the coast and back again, yielding more certain wealth and prosperity to the merchants of the Gold Coast and Great Britain than may be expected for some time yet to come from the mining industry and railway development put together. The trade chiefs would, in due time, render a faithful account to the king’s stewards, being allowed to retain a fair portion of the profit. In the king’s household, too, be would have special men who directly traded for him. Important chiefs carried on the same system of trading with the coast as did the king. Thus every member of the state, from the king downward, took an active interest in the promotion of trade and in the keeping open of trade routes into the interior.” [*1]

The trade thus encouraged and carried on in various parts of West Africa reached wide areas. From the Fish River to Kuka, and from Lagos to Zanzibar, the markets have become great centers of trade, the leading implement to civilization. Permanent markets are found in places like Ujiji and Nyangwe, where everything can be bought and sold from earthenware to wives; from the one to three thousand traders flocked here.

“How like is the market traffic, with all its uproar and sound of human voices, to one of our own markets! There is the same rivalry in praising the goods, the violent, brisk movements, the expressive gesture, the inquiring, searching glance, the changing looks of depreciation or triumph, of apprehension, delight, approbation. So says Stanley. Trade customs are not everywhere alike. If when negotiating with the Bangalas of Angola you do not quickly give them what they want, they go away and do not come back. Then perhaps they try to get possession of the coveted object by means of theft. It is otherwise with the Songos and Kiokos, who let you deal with them in the usual way. To buy even a small article you must go to the market; people avoid trading anywhere else. If a man says to another; ‘Sell me this hen’ or ‘that fruit,’ the answer as a rule will be, ‘Come to the market place.’ The crowd gives confidence to individuals, and the inviolability of the visitor to the market, and of the market itself, looks like an idea of justice consecrated by long

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practice. Does not this remind us of the old Germanic ‘market Place’?” [*1]

Turning now to Negro family and social life we find, as among all primitive peoples, polygamy and marriage by actual or simulated purchase. Out of the family develops the typical African village organization, which is thus described in Ashanti by a native Gold Coast writer: “The headman, as his name implies, is the head of a village community, a ward in a township, or of a family. His position is important, inasmuch as he has directly to deal with the composite elements of the general bulk of the people.

“It is the duty of the head of a family to bring up the members thereof in the way they should go; and by ‘family’ you must understand the entire lineal descendants of a materfamilias, if I may coin a convenient phrase. It is expected of him by the state to bring up his charge in the knowledge of matters political and traditional. It is his work to train up his wards in the ways of loyalty and obedience to the powers that be. He is held responsible for the freaks of recalcitrant members of his family, and he is looked to to keep them within bounds and to insist upon conformity of their party with the customs, laws, and traditional observances of the community. In early times he could send off to exile by sale a troublesome relative who would not observe the laws of the community.

“It is a difficult task that he is set to, but in this matter he has all-powerful helpers in the female members of the family, who will be either the aunts, or the sisters, or the cousins, or the nieces of the headman; and as their interests are identical with his in every particular, the good women spontaneously train up their children to implicit obedience to the headman, whose rule in the family thus becomes a simple and an easy matter. ‘The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.’ What a power for good in the native state system would the mothers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti become by judicious training upon native lines!

“The headman is par excellence the judge of his family or ward. Not only is he called upon to settle domestic squabbles, but frequently he sits judge over more serious matters arising between one member of the ward and another; and where he is a man of ability and influence, men from other wards bring him their disputes to settle. When he so settles disputes, he is entitled to a hearing fee,

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which, however, is not so much as would be payable in the regular court of the king or chief.

“The headman is naturally an important member of his company and often is a captain thereof. When he combines the two offices of headman and captain, he renders to the community a very important service. For in times of war, where the members of the ward would not serve cordially under a stranger, they would in all cases face any danger with their own kinsman as their leader. The headman is always succeeded by his uterine brother, cousin, or nephew–the line of succession, that is to say, following the customary law.” [*1]

We may contrast this picture with the more warlike Bantus of Southeast Africa. Each tribe lived by itself in a town with from five to fifteen thousand inhabitants, surrounded by gardens of millet, beans, and watermelon. Beyond these roamed their cattle, sheep, and goats. Their religion was ancestor worship with sacrifice to spirits and the dead, and some of the tribes made mummies of the corpses and clothed them for burial. They wove cloth of cotton and bark, they carved wood and built walls of unhewn stone. They had a standing military organization, and the tribes had their various totems, so that they were known as the Men of Iron, the Men of the Sun, the Men of the Serpents, Sons of the Com Cleaners, and the like. Their system of common law was well conceived and there were organized tribunals of justice. In difficult cases precedents were sought and learned antiquaries consulted, At the age of fifteen or sixteen the boys were circumcised and formed into guilds. The land was owned by the tribe and apportioned to the chief by each family, and the main wealth of the tribe was in its cattle.

In general, among the African clans the idea of private property was but imperfectly developed and never included land. The main mass of visible wealth belonged to the family and clan rather than to the individual; only in the matter of weapons and ornaments was exclusive private ownership generally recognized.

The government, vested in fathers and chiefs, varied in different tribes from absolute despotisms to limited monarchies, almost republican. Viewing the Basuto National Assembly in South Africa, Lord Bryce recently wrote, “The resemblance to the primary assemblies of the early peoples of Europe is close enough to add another

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to the arguments which discredit the theory that there is any such thing as an Aryan type of institutions.” [*1]

While women are sold into marriage throughout Africa, nevertheless their status is far removed from slavery. In the first place the tracing of relationships through the female line, which is all but universal in Africa, gives the mother great influence. Parental affection is very strong, and throughout Negro Africa the mother is the most influential councilor, even in cases of tyrants like Chaka or Mutesa.

“No mother can love more tenderly or be more deeply beloved than the Negro mother. Robin tells of a slave in Martinique who, with his savings, freed his mother instead of himself. ‘Everywhere in Africa,’ writes Mungo Park, ‘I have noticed that no greater affront can be offered a Negro than insulting his mother. ‘Strike me,’ cried a Mandingo to his enemy, ‘but revile not my mother!’ . . . The Herero swears ‘By my mother’s tears!’ . . The Angola Negroes have a saying, ‘As a mist lingers on the swamps, so lingers the love of father and mother.'” [*2]

Black queens have often ruled African tribes. Among the Ba-Lolo, we are told, women take part in public assemblies where all-important questions are discussed. The system of educating children among such tribes as the Yoruba is worthy of emulation by many more civilized peoples.

Close knit with the family and social organization comes the religious life of the Negro. The religion of Africa is the universal animism or fetishism of primitive peoples, rising to polytheism and approaching monotheism chiefly, but not wholly, as a result of Christian and Islamic missions. Of fetishism there is much misapprehension. It is not mere senseless degradation. It is a philosophy of life. Among primitive Negroes there can be, as Miss Kingsley reminds us, no such divorce of religion from practical life as is common in civilized lands. Religion is life, and fetish an expression of the practical recognition of dominant forces in which the Negro lives. To him all the world is spirit. Miss Kingsley says, “If you want, for example, to understand the position of man in nature according to fetish, there is, as far as I know, no clearer statement of it made than is made by Goethe in his superb ‘Prometheus.'” [*3]

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[paragraph continues] Fetish is a severely logical way of accounting for the world in terms of good and malignant spirits.

“It is this power of being able logically to account for everything that is, I believe, at the back of the tremendous permanency of fetish in Africa, and the cause of many of the relapses into it by Africans converted to other religions; it is also the explanation of the fact that white men who live in the districts where death and danger are everyday affairs, under a grim pall of boredom, are liable to believe in fetish, though ashamed of so doing. For the African, whose mind has been soaked in fetish during his early and most impressionable years, the voice of fetish is almost irresistible when affliction comes to him.” [*1]

Ellis tells us of the spirit belief of the Ewe people, who believe that men and all nature have the indwelling “Kra,” which is immortal; that the man himself after death may exist as a ghost, which is often conceived of as departed from the “Kra,” a shadowy continuing of the man. Bryce, speaking of the Kaffirs of South Africa, says, “To the Kaffirs, as to the most savage races, the world was full of spirits–spirits of the rivers, the mountains, and the woods. Most important were the ghosts of the dead, who had power to injure or help the living, and who were, therefore, propitiated by offerings at stated periods, as well as on occasions when their aid was especially desired. This kind of worship, the worship once most generally diffused throughout the world, and which held its ground among the Greeks and Italians in the most flourishing period of ancient civilization, as it does in China and Japan to-day, was, and is, virtually the religion of the Kaffirs.” [*2]

African religion does not, however, stop with fetish, but, as in the case of other peoples, tends toward polytheism and monotheism. Among the Yoruba, for instance, Frobenius shows that religion and city-state go hand in hand.

“The first experienced glance will here detect the fact that this nation originally possessed a clear and definite organization so duly ordered and so logical that we but seldom meet with its like among all the peoples of the earth. And the basic idea of every clan’s progeniture is a powerful God; the legitimate order in which the descendants of a particular clan unite in marriage to found new

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families, the essential origin of every new-born babe’s descent in the founder of its race and its consideration as a part of the God in Chief; the security with which the newly wedded wife not only may, but should, minister to her own God in an unfamiliar home.” [*1]

The Yoruba have a legend of a dying divinity. “This people . . . give evidence of a generalized system; a theocratic scheme, a well-conceived perceptible organization, reared in rhythmically proportioned manner.”

Miss Kingsley says, “The African has a great Over God.” [*2] Nassau, the missionary, declares, “After more than forty years’ residence among these tribes, fluently using their language, conversant with their customs, dwelling intimately in their huts, associating with them in the various relations of teacher, pastor, friend, master, fellow-traveler, and guest, and in my special office as missionary, searching after their religious thought (and therefore being allowed a deeper entrance into the arcana of their soul than would be accorded to a passing explorer), I am able unhesitatingly to say that among all the multitude of degraded ones with whom I have met, I have seen or heard of none whose religious thought was only a superstition.

“Standing in the village street, surrounded by a company whom their chief has courteously summoned at my request, when I say to him, ‘I have come to speak to your people,’ I do not need to begin by telling them that there is a God. Looking on that motley assemblage of villagers,–the bold, gaunt cannibal with his armament of gun, spear, and dagger; the artisan with rude adze in hand, or hands soiled at the antique bellows of the village smithy; women who have hasted from their kitchen fire with hands white with the manioc dough or still grasping the partly scaled fish; and children checked in their play with tiny bow and arrow or startled from their dusty street pursuit of dog or goat,–I have yet to be asked, ‘Who is God?'” [*3]

The basis of Egyptian religion was “of a purely Nigritian character,” [*4] and in its developed form Sudanese tribal gods were invoked and venerated by the priests. In Upper Egypt, near the confines of Ethiopia, paintings repeatedly represent black priests conferring on

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red Egyptian priests the instruments and symbols of priesthood. In the Sudan to-day Frobenius distinguishes four principal religions: first, earthly ancestor worship; next, the social cosmogony of the Atlantic races; third, the religion of the Bori, and fourth, Islam. The Bori religion spreads from Nubia as far as the Hausa, and from Lake Chad in the Niger as far as the Yoruba. It is the religion of possession and has been connected by some with Asiatic influences.

From without have come two great religious influences, Islam and Christianity. Islam came by conquest, trade, and proselytism. As a conqueror it reached Egypt in the seventh century and had by the end of the fourteenth century firm footing in the Egyptian Sudan. It overran the central Sudan by the close of the seventeenth century, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century had swept over Senegambia and the whole valley of the Niger down to the Gulf of Guinea. On the east Islam approached as a trader in the eighth century; it spread into Somaliland and overran Nubia in the fourteenth century. To-day Islam dominates Africa north of ten degrees north latitude and is strong between five and ten degrees north latitude. In the east it reaches below the Victoria Nyanza.

Christianity early entered Africa; indeed, as Mommsen say It was through Africa that Christianity became the, religion of the world. Tertullian and Cyprian were from Carthage, Arnobius from Sicca Veneria, Lactantius, and probably in like manner Minucius Felix, in spite of their Latin names, were natives of Africa, and not less so Augustine. In Africa the Church found its most zealous confessors of the faith and its most gifted defenders.” [*1]

The Africa referred to here, however, was not Negroland, but Africa above the desert, where Negro blood was represented in the ancient Mediterranean race and by intercourse across the desert. On the other hand Christianity was early represented in the valley of the Nile under “the most holy pope and patriarch of the great city of Alexandria and of all of the land of Egypt, of Jerusalem, the holy city, of Nubia, Abyssinia, and Pentapolis, and all the preaching of St. Mark.” This patriarchate had a hundred bishoprics in the fourth century and included thousands of black Christians. Through it the Cross preceded the Crescent in some of the remotest parts of black Africa.

All these beginnings were gradually overthrown by Islam except among the Copts in Egypt, and in Abyssinia. The Portuguese in the

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sixteenth century began to replant the Christian religion and for a while had great success, both on the east and west coasts. Roman Catholic enterprise halted in the eighteenth century and the Protestants began. To-day the west coast is studded with English and German missions, South Africa is largely Christian through French and English influence, and the region about the Great Lakes is becoming christianized. The Roman Catholics have lately increased their activities, and above all the Negroes of America have entered with their own churches and with the curiously significant “Ethiopian” movement.

Coming now to other spiritual aspects of African culture, we can speak at present only in a fragmentary way. Roughly speaking, Africa can be divided into two language zones: north of the fifth degree of north latitude is the zone of diversity, with at least a hundred groups of widely divergent languages; south of the line there is one minor language (Bushman-Hottentot), spoken by less than fifty thousand people, and elsewhere the predominant Bantu tongue with its various dialects, spoken by at least fifty million. The Bantu tongue, which thus rules all Central, West, and South Africa, is an agglutinative tongue which makes especial use of prefixes. The hundreds of Negro tongues or dialects in the north represent most probably the result of war and migration and the breaking up of ancient centers of culture. In Abyssinia and the great horn of East Africa the influence of Semitic tongues is noted. Despite much effort on the part of students, it has been impossible to show any Asiatic origin for the Egyptian language. As Sergi maintains, “everything favors an African origin.” [*1] The most brilliant suggestion of modern days links together the Egyptian of North Africa and the Hottentot and Bushmen tongues of South Africa.

Language was reduced to writing among the Egyptians and Ethiopians and to some extent elsewhere in Africa. Over 100 manuscripts of Ethiopian and Ethiopic-Arabian literature are extant, including a version of the Bible and historical chronicles. The Arabic was used as the written tongue of the Sudan, and Negroland has given us in this tongue many chronicles and other works of black authors. The greatest of these, the Epic of the Sudan (Tarikh-es-Soudan), deserves to be placed among the classics of all literature. In other parts of Africa there was no written language, but there was, on the

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other hand, an unusual perfection of oral tradition through bards, and extraordinary efficiency in telegraphy by drum and horn.

The folklore and proverbs of the African tribes are exceedingly rich, Some of these have been made familiar to English writers through the work of “Uncle Remus.” Others have been collected by Johnston, Ellis, and Theal.

A black bard of our own day has described the onslaught of the Matabili in poetry of singular force and beauty:

They saw the clouds ascend from the plains:

It was the smoke of burning towns.

The confusion of the whirlwind

Was in the heart of the great chief of the blue-colored cattle.

The shout was raised,

“They are friends!”

But they shouted again,

“They are foes!”

Till their near approach proclaimed them Matabili.

The men seized their arms,

And rushed out as if to chase the antelope.

The onset was as the voice of lightning,

And their javelins as the shaking of the forest in the autumn storm. [*1]

There can be no doubt of the Negro’s deep and delicate sense of beauty in form, color, and sound. Soyaux says of African industry, “Whoever denies to them independent invention and individual taste in their work either shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of knowledge renders him an incompetent judge.” [*2] M. Rutot had lately told us bow the Negro race brought art and sculpture to pre-historic Europe. The bones of the European Negroids are almost without exception found in company with drawings and sculpture in high and low relief; some of their sculptures, like the Wellendorff “Venus,” are unusually well finished for primitive man. So, too, the painting and carving of the Bushmen and their forerunners in South Africa has drawn the admiration of students. The Negro has been prolific in the invention of musical instruments and has given a new and original music to the western world.

Schweinfurth, who has preserved for us much of the industrial art

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of the Negroes, speaks of their delight in the production of works of art for the embellishment and convenience of life. Frobenius expressed his astonishment at the originality of the African in the Yoruba temple which he visited. “The lofty veranda was divided from the passageway by fantastically carved and colored pillars. On the pillars were sculptured knights, men climbing trees, women, gods, and mythical beings. The dark chamber lying beyond showed a splendid red room with stone hatchets, wooden figures, cowry beads, and jars. The whole picture, the columns carved in colors in front of the colored altar, the old man sitting in the circle of those who reverenced him, the open scaffolding of ninety rafters, made a magnificent impression.” [*1]

The Germans have found, in Kamarun, towns built, castellated, and fortified in a manner that reminds one of the prehistoric cities of Crete. The buildings and fortifications of Zymbabwe have already been described and something has been said of the art of Benin, with its brass and bronze and ivory. All the work of Benin in bronze and brass was executed by casting, and by methods so complicated that it would be no easy task for a modern European craftsman to imitate them.

Perhaps no race has shown in its earlier development a more magnificent art impulse than the Negro, and the student must not forget how far Negro genius entered into the art in the valley of the Nile from Meroe and Nepata down to the great temples of Egypt.

Frobenius has recently directed the world’s attention to art in West Africa. Quartz and granite he found treated with great dexterity. But more magnificent than the stone monument is the proof that at some remote era glass was made and molded in Yorubaland and that the people here were brilliant in the production of terracotta images. The great mass of potsherds, lumps of glass, heaps of slag, etc., “proves, at all events, that the glass industry flourished in this locality in ages past. It is plain that the glass beads found to have been so very common in Africa were not only not imported, but were actually manufactured in great quantities at home.”

The terra-cotta pieces are “remains of another ancient and fine type of art” and were “eloquent of a symmetry, a vitality, a delicacy of form, and practically a reminiscence of the ancient Greeks,” The antique bronze head Frobenius describes as “a head of marvelous

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beauty, wonderfully cast,” and “almost equal in beauty and, at least, no less noble in form, and as ancient as the terra-cotta heads.” [*1]

In a park of monuments Frobenius saw the celebrated forge and hammer: a mighty mass of iron, like a falling drop in shape, and a block of quartz fashioned like a drum. Frobenius thinks these were relics dating from past ages of culture, when the manipulation of quartz and granite was thoroughly understood and when iron manipulation gave evidence of a skill not met with to-day.

Even when we contemplate such revolting survivals of savagery as cannibalism we cannot jump too quickly at conclusions. Cannibalism is spread over many parts of Negro Africa, yet the very tribes who practice cannibalism show often other traits of industry and power. “These cannibal Bassonga were, according to the types we met with, one of those rare nations of the African interior which can be classed with the most esthetic and skilled, most discreet and intelligent of all those generally known to us as the so-called natural races. Before the Arabic and European invasion they did not dwell in ‘hamlets,’ but in towns with twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, in towns whose highways were shaded by avenues of splendid palms planted at regular intervals and laid out with the symmetry of colonnades. Their pottery would be fertile in suggestion to every art craftsman in Europe. Their weapons of iron were so perfectly fashioned that no industrial art from abroad could improve upon their workmanship. The iron blades were cunningly ornamented with damascened copper, and the hilts artistically inlaid with the same metal. Moreover, they were most industrious and capable husbandmen, whose careful tillage of the suburbs made them able competitors of any gardener in Europe. Their sexual and parental relations evidenced an amount of tact and delicacy of feelings unsurpassed among ourselves, either in the simplicity of the country or the refinements of the town. Originally their political and municipal system was organized on the lines of a representative republic. True, it is on record that these well-governed towns often waged an internecine warfare; but in spite of this it had been their invariable custom from time immemorial, even in times of strife, to keep the trade routes open and to allow their own and foreign merchants to go their ways unharmed. And the commerce of these nations ebbed and flowed along a road of unknown age, running from Itimbiri to Batubenge, about six hundred miles in length. This highway was

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destroyed by the ‘Missionaries of civilization’ from Arabia only toward the close of the eighteenth century. But even in my own time there were still smiths who knew the names of places along that wonderful trade route driven through the heart of the ‘impenetrable forests of the Congo.’ For every scrap of imported iron was carried over it.” [*1]

In disposition the Negro is among the most lovable of men. Practically all the great travelers who have spent any considerable time in Africa testify to this and pay deep tribute to the kindness with which they were received. One has but to remember the classic story of Mungo Park, the strong expressions of Livingstone, the words of Stanley and hundreds of others to realize this.

Ceremony and courtesy mark Negro life. Livingstone again and again reminds us of “true African dignity.” “When Ilifian men or women salute each other, be it with a plain and easy curtsey (which is here the simplest form adopted), or kneeling down, or throwing oneself upon the ground, or kissing the dust with one’s forehead, no matter which, there is yet a deliberateness, a majesty, a dignity, a devoted earnestness in the manner of its doing, which brings to light with every gesture, with every fold of clothing, the deep significance and essential import of every single action. Everyone may, without too greatly straining his attention, notice the very striking precision and weight with which the upper and lower native classes observe these niceties of intercourse.” [*2]

All this does not mean that the African Negro is not human with the all-too-well-known foibles of humanity. Primitive life among them is, after all, as bare and cruel as among primitive Germans or Chinese, but it is not more so, and the more we study the Negro the more we realize that we are dealing with a normal human stock which under reasonable conditions has developed and will develop in the same lines as other men. Why is it, then, that so much of misinformation and contempt is widespread concerning Africa and its people, not simply among the unthinking mass, but among men of education and knowledge?

One reason lies undoubtedly in the connotation of the term “Negro.” In North America a Negro may be seven-eights white, since the term refers to any person of Negro descent. If we use the term in the same sense concerning the inhabitants of the rest of

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world, we may say truthfully that Negroes have been among the leaders of civilization in every age of the world’s history from ancient Babylon to modern America; that they have contributed wonderful gifts in art, industry, political organization, and religion, and that they are doing the same to-day in all parts of the world.

In sharp contrast to this usage the term “Negro” in Africa has been more and more restricted until some scientists, late in the last century, declared that the great mass of the black and brown people of Africa were not Negroes at all, and that the “real” Negro dwells in a small space between the Niger and the Senegal. Ratzel says, “If we ask what justifies so narrow a limitation, we find that the hideous Negro type, which the fancy of observers once saw all over Africa, but which, as Livingstone says, is really to be seen only as a sign in front of tobacco shops, has on closer inspection evaporated from all parts of Africa, to settle no one knows how in just this region. If we understand that an extreme case may have been taken for the genuine and pure form, even so we do not comprehend the ground of its geographical limitation and location; for wherever dark, woolly-haired men dwell, this ugly type also crops up. We are here in the presence of a refinement of science which to an unprejudiced eye will hardly hold water.” [*1]

In this restricted sense the Negro has no history, culture, or ability, for the simple fact that such human beings as have history and evidence culture and ability are not Negroes! Between these two extreme definitions, with unconscious adroitness, the most extraordinary and contradictory conclusions have been reached.

Let it therefore be said, once for all, that racial inferiority is not the cause of anti-Negro prejudice. Boaz, the anthropologist, says, “An unbiased estimate of the anthropological evidence so far brought forward does not permit us to countenance the belief in a racial inferiority which would unfit an individual of the Negro race to take his part in modern civilization. We do not know of any demand made on the human body or mind in modern life that anatomical or ethnological evidence would prove to be beyond the powers of the Negro.” [*2]

‘We have every reason to suppose that all races are capable, under proper guidance, of being fitted into the complex scheme of our modern civilization, and the policy of artificially excluding them

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from its benefits is as unjustifiable scientifically as it is ethically abhorrent.” [*1] What is, then, this so-called “instinctive” modern prejudice against black folk?

Lord Bryce says of the intermingling of blacks and whites in South America, “The ease with which the Spaniards have intermingled by marriage with the Indian tribes–and the Portuguese have done the like, not only with the Indians, but with the more physically dissimilar Negroes–shows that race repugnance is no such constant and permanent factor in human affairs as members of the Teutonic peoples are apt to assume. Instead of being, as we Teutons suppose, the rule in the matter, we are rather the exception, for in the ancient world there seems to have been little race repulsion.”

In nearly every age and land men of Negro descent have distinguished themselves. In literature there is Terence in Rome, Nosseyeb and Antar in Arabia, Es-Sa’di in the Sudan, Pushkin in Russia, Dumas in France, Al Kanemi in Spain, Heredia in the West Indies, and Dunbar in the United States, not to mention the alleged Negro strain in Aesop and Robert Browning. As rulers and warriors we remember such Negroes as Queen Nefertari and Amenhotep III among many others in Egypt; Candace and Ergamenes in Ethiopia; Mansa Musa, Sonni Ali, and Mohammed Askai in the Sudan; Diaz in Brazil, Toussaint L’Ouverture in Hayti, Hannivalov in Russia, Sakanouye Tamuramaro in Japan, the elder Dumas in France, Cazembe and Chaka among the Bantu, and Menelik, of Abyssinia; the numberless black leaders of India, and the mulatto strain of Alexander Hamilton. In music and art we recall Bridgewater, the friend of Beethoven, and the unexplained complexion of Beethoven’s own father; Coleridge-Taylor in England, Tanner in America, Gomez in Spain; Ira Aldridge, the actor, and Johnson, Cook, and Burleigh, who are making the new American syncopated music. In the Church we know that Negro blood coursed in the veins of many of the Catholic African fathers, if not in certain of the popes; and there were in modern days Benoit of Palermo, St. Benedict, Bishop Crowther, the Mahdi who drove England from the Sudan, and Americans like Allen, Lot Carey, and Alexander Crummell. In science, discovery, and invention the Negroes claim Lislet Geoffroy o f the French Academy, Latino and Amo, well known in European

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university circles; and in America the explorers Dorantes and Henson; Banneker, the almanac maker; Wood, the telephone improver; McCoy, inventor of modern lubrication; Matseliger, who revolutionized shoemaking. Here are names representing all degrees of genius and talent from the mediocre to the highest, but they are strong human testimony to the ability of this race.

We must, then, look for the origin of modern color prejudice not to physical or cultural causes, but to historic facts. And we shall find the answer in modern Negro slavery and the slave trade.

Footnotes

^62:1 “Some authors write that the Ethiopians paint the devil white, in disdain of our complexions.”–Ludolf: History of Ethiopia, p. 72.

^63:1 Ripley: Races of Europe, pp. 58, 62.

^63:2 Denniker: Races of Men, p. 63.

^63:3 G. Finot: Race Prejudice. F. Herz: Moderne Rassentheorien.

^63:4 Ratzel: quoted in Spiller: Inter-Racial Problems, p. 31.

^63:5 Spiller: Inter-Racial Problems, p. 35.

^65:1 Ratzel: History of Mankind, II, 380 ff.

^65:2 Industrial Evolution, p. 47.

^66:1 These and other references in this chapter are from Schneider: Culturfahigkeit des Negers.

^69:1 Atlanta University Leaflet, No. 19.

^69:2 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XLIII, 414, 415. Cf. also The Crisis, Vol. IX, p. 234.

^70:1 Bucher: Industrial Revolution (tr. by Wickett), pp. 57-58.

^71:1 Hayford: Native Institutions, pp. 95-96.

^72:1 Ratzel, II, 376.

^73:1 Hayford: Native Institutions, pp. 76 ff.

^74:1 Impressions of South Africa, 3d ed., p. 352.

^74:2 William Schneider.

^74:3 West African Studies, Chap. V.

^75:1 Op. cit.

^75:2 Impressions of South Africa.

^76:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, Vol. I.

^76:2 West African Studies, p. 107.

^76:3 Nassau: Fetishism in West Africa, p. 36.

^76:4 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., XX, 362.

^77:1 The African Provinces, II, 345.

^78:1 Mediterranean Race, p. 10.

^79:1 Stowe: Native Races, etc., pp. 553-554.

^79:2 Quoted in Schneider.

^80:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, Vol. I, Chap. XIV.

^81:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, Vol. I.

^82:1 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, I, 14-15.

^82:2 Frobenius: Voice of Africa, I, 272.

^83:1 Ratzel: History of Mankind, II, 313.

^83:2 Atlanta University Publications, No. 11.

^84:1 Robert Lowie in the New Review, Sept., 1914.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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IX    THE TRADE IN MEN

Color was never a badge of slavery in the ancient or medieval world, nor has it been in the modern world outside of Christian states. Homer sings of a black man, a “reverend herald”

Of visage solemn, sad, but sable hue,

Short, woolly curls, o’erfleeced his bending head, . . .

Eurybiates, in whose large soul alone,

Ulysses viewed an image of his own.

Greece and Rome had their chief supplies of slaves from Europe and Asia. Egypt enslaved races of all colors, and if there were more blacks than others among her slaves, there were also more blacks among her nobles and Pharaohs, and both facts are explained by her racial origin and geographical position. The fall of Rome led to a cessation of the slave trade, but after a long interval came the white slave trade of the Saracens and Moors, and finally the modern trade in Negroes.

Slavery as it exists universally among primitive people is a system whereby captives in war are put to tasks about the homes and in the fields, thus releasing the warriors for systematic fighting and the women for leisure. Such slavery has been common among all peoples and was wide-spread in Africa. The relative number of African slaves under these conditions was small and the labor not hard; they were members of the family and might and did often rise to high position in the tribe.

Remembering that in the fifteenth century there was no great disparity between the civilization of Negroland and that of Europe, what made the striking difference in subsequent development? European civilization, cut off by physical barriers from further incursions of barbaric races, settled more and more to systematic industry and

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to the domination of one religion; African culture and industries were threatened by powerful barbarians from the west and central regions of the continent and by the Moors in the north, and Islam had only partially converted the leading peoples.

When, therefore, a demand for workmen arose in America, European exportation was limited by religious ties and economic stability. African exportation was encouraged not simply by the Christian attitude toward heathen, but also by the Moslem enmity toward the unconverted Negroes. Two great modern religions, therefore, agreed at least in the policy of enslaving heathen blacks, while the overthrow of black Askias by the Moors at Tenkadibou brought that economic chaos among the advanced Negro peoples and movement among the more barbarous tribes which proved of prime advantage to the development of a systematic trade in men.

The modern slave trade began with the Mohammedan conquests in Africa, when heathen Negroes were seized to supply the harems, and as soldiers and servants. They were bought from the masters and seized in war, until the growing wealth and luxury of the conquerors demanded larger numbers. Then Negroes from the Egyptian Sudan, Abyssinia, and Zanzibar began to pass into Arabia, Persia, and India in increased numbers. As Negro kingdoms and tribes rose to power they found the slave trade lucrative and natural, since the raids in which slaves were captured were ordinary inter-tribal wars. It was not until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the demand for slaves in Christian lands made slaves the object, and not the incident, of African wars.

In Mohammedan countries there were gleams of hope in slavery. In fiction and in truth the black slave had a chance. Once converted to Islam, he became a brother to the best, and the brotherhood of the faith was not the sort of idle lie that Christian slave masters made it. In Arabia black leaders arose like Antar; in India black slaves carved out principalities where their descendants still rule.

Some Negro slaves were brought to Europe by the Spaniards in the fourteenth century, and a small trade was continued by the Portuguese, who conquered territory from the “tawny” Moors of North Africa in the early fifteenth century. Later, after their severe repulse at Al-Kasr-Al-Kabu, the Portuguese began to creep down the west coast in quest of trade. They reached the River of Gold in 1441, and their story is that their leader seized certain free Moors and the next year exchanged them for ten black slaves, a target of hide,

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ostrich eggs, and some gold dust. The trade was easily justified on the ground that the Moors were Mohammedans and refused to be converted to Christianity, while heathen Negroes would be better subjects for conversion and stronger laborers. In the next few years a small number of Negroes continued to be imported into Spain and Portugal as servants. We find, for instance, in 1474, that Negro slaves were common in Seville. There is a letter from Ferdinand and Isabella in the year 1474 to a celebrated Negro, Juan de Valladolid, commonly called the “Negro Count”, (El Conde Negro), nominating him to the office of “Mayoral of the Negroes” in Seville. The slaves were apparently treated kindly, allowed to keep their own dances and festivals, and to have their own chief, who represented them in the courts, as against their own masters, and settled their private quarrels.

Between 1455 and 1492 little mention is made of slaves in the trade with Africa. Columbus is said to have suggested Negroes for America, but Ferdinand and Isabella refused. Nevertheless, by 1501, we have the first incidental mention of Negroes going to America in a declaration that Negro slaves “born in the power of Christians were to be allowed to pass to the Indies, and the officers of the royal revenue were to receive the money to be paid for their permits.”

About 1501 Ovando, Governor of Spanish America, was objecting to Negro slaves and “solicited that no Negro slaves should be sent to Hispaniola, for they fled amongst the Indians and taught them bad customs, and never could be captured.” Nevertheless a letter from the king to Ovando, dated Segovia, the fifteenth of September, 1505, says, “I will send more Negro slaves as you request; I think there may be a hundred. At each time a trustworthy person will go with them who may have some share in the gold they may collect and may promise them ease if they work well.” [*1] There is a record of a hundred slaves being sent out this very year, and Diego Columbus was notified of fifty to he sent from Seville for the mines in 1510.

After this time frequent notices show that Negroes were common in the new world. [*2] When Pizarro, for instance, had been slain in Peru, his body was dragged to the cathedral by two Negroes. After the battle of Anaquito the head of the viceroy was cut off by a Negro, and during the great earthquake in Guatemala a most remarkable figure was a gigantic Negro seen in various parts of the city.

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[paragraph continues] Nunez had thirty Negroes with him on the top of the Sierras, and there was rumor of an aboriginal tribe of Negroes in South America. One of the last acts of King Ferdinand was to urge that no more Negroes be sent to the West Indies, but under Charles V, Bishop Las Casas drew up a plan of assisted migration to America and asked in 1517 the right for immigrants to import twelve Negro slaves, in return for which the Indians were to be freed.

Las Casas, writing in his old age, owns his error: “This advice that license should be given to bring Negro slaves to these lands, the Clerigo Casas first gave, not considering the injustice with which the Portuguese take them and make them slaves; which advice, after he had apprehended the nature of the thing, be would not have given for all he had in the world. For he always held that they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically; for the same reason holds good of them as of the Indians.” [*1]

As soon as the plan was broached a Savoyard, Lorens de Gomenot, Governor of Bresa, obtained a monopoly of this proposed trade and shrewdly sold it to the Genoese for twenty-five thousand ducats. Other monopolies were granted in 1523, 1527, and 1528. [*2] Thus the American trade became established and gradually grew, passing successively into the hands of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French, and the English.

At first the trade was of the same kind and volume as that already passing northward over the desert routes. Soon, however, the American trade developed. A strong, unchecked demand for brute labor in the West Indies and on the continent of America grew until it culminated in the eighteenth century, when Negro slaves were crossing the Atlantic at the rate of fifty to one hundred thousand a year. This called for slave raiding on a scale that drew upon every part of Africa–upon the west coast, the western and Egyptian Sudan, the valley of the Congo, Abyssinia, the lake regions, the east coast, and Madagascar. Not simply the degraded and weaker types of Negroes were seized, but the strong Bantu, the Mandingo and Songhay, the Nubian and Nile Negroes, the Fula, and even the Asiatic Malay, were represented in the raids.

There was thus begun in modern days a new slavery and slave trade. It was different from that of the past, because ‘more and more it came in time to be founded on racial caste, and this caste was

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made the foundation of a new industrial system. For four hundred years, from 1450 to 1850, European civilization carried on a systematic trade in human beings of such tremendous proportions that the physical, economic, and moral effects are still plainly to be remarked throughout the world. To this must be added the large slave trade of Mussulman lands, which began with the seventh century and raged almost unchecked until the end of the nineteenth century.

These were not days of decadence, but a period that gave the world Shakespeare, Martin Luther, and Raphael, Haroun-al-Raschid and Abraham Lincoln. It was the day of the greatest expansion of two of the world’s most pretentious religions and of the beginnings of the modern organization of industry. In the midst of this advance and uplift this slave trade and slavery spread more human misery, inculcated more disrespect for and neglect of humanity, a greater callousness to suffering, and more petty, cruel, human hatred than can well be calculated. We may excuse and palliate it, and write history so as to let men forget it; it remains the most inexcusable and despicable blot on modern human history.

The Portuguese built the first slave-trading fort at Elmina, on the Gold Coast, in 1482, and extended their trade down the west coast and up the east coast. Under them the abominable traffic grew larger and larger, until it became far the most important in money value of all the commerce of the Zambesi basin. There could be no extension of agriculture, no mining, no progress of any kind where it was so extensively carried on. [*1]

It was the Dutch, however, who launched the oversea slave trade as a regular institution. They began their fight for freedom from Spain in 1579; in 1595, as a war measure against Spain, who at that time was dominating Portugal, they made their first voyage to Guinea. By 1621 they had captured Portugal’s various slave forts on the west coast and they proceeded to open sixteen forts along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea. Ships sailed from Holland to Africa, got slaves in exchange for their goods, carried the slaves to the West Indies or Brazil, and returned home laden with sugar. In 1621 the private companies trading in the west were all merged into the Dutch West India Company, which sent in four years fifteen thousand four hundred and thirty Negroes to Brazil, carried on war with Spain, supplied even the English plantations, and gradually became the great slave carrier of the day.

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The commercial supremacy of the Dutch early excited the envy and emulation of the English. The Navigation Ordinance of 1651 was aimed at them, and two wars were necessary to wrest the slave trade from them and place it in the hands of the English. The final terms of peace, among other things, surrendered New Netherlands to England and opened the way for England to become henceforth the world’s greatest slave trader.

The English trade began with Sir John Hawkins’ voyages in 1562 and later, in which “the Jesus, our chiefe shippe” played a leading part. Desultory trade was kept up by the English until the middle of the seventeenth century, when English chartered slave-trading companies began to appear. In 1662 the “Royal Adventurers,” including the king, the queen dowager, and the Duke of York, invested in the trade, and finally the Royal African Company, which became the world’s chief slave trader, was formed in 1672 and carried on a growing trade for a quarter of a century. Jamaica had finally been captured and held by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 and formed a West Indian base for the trade in men.

The chief contract for trade in Negroes was the celebrated “Asiento” or agreement of the King of Spain to the importation of slaves into Spanish domains. The Pope’s Bull or Demarkation, 1493, debarred Spain from African possessions, and compelled her to contract with other nations for slaves, This contract was in the hands of the Portuguese in 1600; in 1640 the Dutch received it, and in 1701 the French. The War of the Spanish Succession brought this monopoly to England.

This Asiento of 1713 was an agreement between England and Spain by which the latter granted the former a monopoly of the Spanish colonial slave trade for thirty years, and England engaged to supply the colonies within that time with at least one hundred and forty-four thousand slaves at the rate of forty-eight hundred per year. The English counted this prize as the greatest result of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), which ended the mighty struggle against the power of Louis XIV. The English held the monopoly until the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), although they had to go to war over it in 1739.

From this agreement the slave traders reaped a harvest. The trade centered at Liverpool, and that city’s commercial greatness was built largely on this foundation. In 1709 it sent out one slaver of thirty tons’ burden; encouraged by Parliamentary subsidies which

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amounted to nearly half a million dollars between 1729 and 1750, the trade amounted to fifty-three ships in 1751; eighty-six in 1765, and at the beginning of the nineteenth century one hundred and eighty-five, which carried forty-nine thousand two hundred and thirteen slaves in one year.

The slave trade thus begun by the Portuguese, enlarged by the Dutch, and carried to its culmination by. the English centered on the west coast near the seat of perhaps the oldest and most interesting culture of Africa. It came at a critical time. The culture of Yoruba, Benin, Mossiland, and Nupe had exhausted itself in a desperate attempt to stem the on-coming flood of Mohammedan culture. It has succeeded in maintaining its small, loosely federated city-states suited to trade, industry, and art. It had developed strong resistance toward the Sudan state builders toward the north, as in the case of the fighting Mossi; but behind this warlike resistance Jay the peaceful city life which gave industrial ideas to Byzantium and shared something of Ethiopian and Mediterranean culture.

The first advent of the slave traders increased and encouraged native industry, as is evidenced by the bronze work of Benin; but soon this was pushed into the background, for it was not bronze metal but bronze flesh that Europe wanted. A new tyranny, bloodthirsty, cruel, and built on war, forced itself forward in the Niger delta. The powerful state of Dahomey arose early in the eighteenth century and became a devastating tyranny, reaching its highest power early in the nineteenth century. Ashanti, a similar kingdom, began its conquests in 1719 and grew with the slave trade. Thus state building in West Africa began to replace the city economy, but it was a state built on war and on war supported and encouraged largely for the sake of trade in human flesh. The native industries were changed and disorganized. Family ties and government were weakened. Far into the heart of Africa this devilish disintegration, coupled with Christian rum and Mohammedan raiding, penetrated. The face of Africa was turned south on these slave traders instead of northward toward the Mediterranean, where for two thousand years and more Europe and Africa had met in legitimate trade and mutual respect. The full significance of the battle of Tenkadibou, which overthrew the Askias, was now clear, Hereafter Africa for centuries was to appear before the world, not as the land of gold and ivory, of Mansa Musa and Meroe, but as a bound and captive slave, dumb and degraded.

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The natural desire to avoid a painful subject has led historians to gloss over the details of the slave trade and leave the impression that it was a local west-coast phenomenon and confined to a few years. It was, on the contrary, continent wide and centuries long and an economic, social, and political catastrophe probably unparalleled in human history.

The exact proportions of the slave trade can be estimated only approximately. From 1680 to 1688 we know that the English African Company alone sent 249 ships to Africa, shipped there 60,783 Negro slaves, and after losing 14,387 on the middle passage, delivered 46,396 in America.

It seems probable that 25,000 Negroes a year arrived in America between 1698 and 1707. After the Asiento of 1713 this number rose to 30,000 annually, and before the Revolutionary War it had reached at least 40,000 and perhaps 100,000 slaves a year.

The total number of slaves imported is not known. Dunbar estimates that nearly 900,000 came to America in the sixteenth century, 2,750,000 in the seventeenth, 7,000,000 in the eighteenth, and over 4,000,000 in the nineteenth, perhaps 15,000,000 in all. Certainly it seems that at least 10,000,000 Negroes were expatriated. Probably every slave imported represented on the average five corpses in Africa or on the high seas. The American slave trade, therefore, meant the elimination of at least 60,000,000 Negroes from their fatherland. The Mohammedan slave trade meant the expatriation or forcible migration in Africa of nearly as many more. It would be conservative, then, to say that the slave trade cost Negro Africa 100,000,000 souls. And yet people ask to-day the cause of the stagnation of culture in that land since 1600!

Such a large number of slaves could be supplied only by organized slave raiding in every comer of Africa. The African continent gradually became revolutionized. Whole regions were depopulated, whole tribes disappeared; villages were built in caves and on bills or in forest fastnesses; the character of peoples like those of Benin developed their worst excesses of cruelty instead of the already flourishing arts of peace. The dark, irresistible grasp of fetish took firmer hold on men’s minds.

Further advances toward civilization became impossible. Not only was there the immense demand for slaves which had its outlet on the west coast, but the slave caravans were streaming up through the desert to the Mediterranean coast and down the valley of the Nile

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to the centers of Mohammedanism. It was a rape of a continent to an extent never paralleled in ancient or modern times.

In the American trade there was not only the horrors of the slave raid, which lined the winding paths of the African jungles with bleached bones, but there was also the horrors of what was called the “middle passage,” that is, the voyage across the Atlantic. As Sir William Dolben said, “The Negroes were chained to each other hand and foot, and stowed so close that they were not allowed above a foot and a half for each in breadth. Thus crammed together like herrings in a barrel, they contracted putrid and fatal disorders; so that they who came to inspect them in a morning had occasionally to pick dead slaves out of their rows, and to unchain their carcases from the bodies of their wretched fellow-sufferers to whom they had been fastened.” [*1]

It was estimated that out of every one hundred lot shipped from Africa only about fifty lived to be effective laborers across the sea, and among the whites more seamen died in that trade in one year than in the whole remaining trade of England in two. The full realization of the horrors of the slave trade was slow in reaching the ears and conscience of the modern world, just as to-day the treatment of dark natives in European colonies is brought to publicity with the greatest difficulty. The first move against the slave trade in England came in Parliament in 1776, but it was not until thirty-one years later, in 1807, that the trade was banned through the arduous labors of Clarkson, Wilberforce, Sharpe, and others.

Denmark had already abolished the trade, and the United States attempted to do so the following year. Portugal and Spain were induced to abolish the trade between 1815 and 1830. Notwithstanding these laws, the contraband trade went on until the beginning of the Civil War in America. The reasons for this were the enormous profit of the trade and the continued demand of the American slave barons who had no sympathy with the efforts to stop their source of cheap labor supply.

However, philanthropy was not working alone to overthrow Negro slavery and the slave trade. It was seen, first in England and later in other countries, that slavery as an industrial system could not be made to work satisfactorily in modern times. Its cost was too great, and one of the causes of this cost was the slave insurrections

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from the very beginning, when the slaves rose on the plantation of Diego Columbus down to the Civil War in America. Actual and potential slave insurrection in the West Indies, in North and South America, kept the slave owners in apprehension and turmoil, or called for a police system difficult to maintain. In North America revolt finally took the form of organized running away to the North, and this, with the growing scarcity of suitable land and the moral revolt, led to the Civil War and the disappearance of the American slave trade.

There was still, however, the Mohammedan slave trade to deal with, and this has been the work of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century ten thousand slaves annually were being distributed on the southern and eastern coast of the Mediterranean and at the great slave market in Bornu.

On the east coast of Africa in 186z nineteen thousand slaves were passed into Zanzibar and thence into Arabia and Persia. As late as 1880, three thousand annually were being thus transplanted, but now the trade is about stopped. To-day the only centers of actual slave trading may be said to be the cocoa plantations of the Portuguese Islands on the west coast of Africa, and the Congo Free State.

Such is the story of the Rape of Ethiopia–a sordid, pitiful, cruel tale. Raphael painted, Luther preached, Corneille wrote, and Milton sung; and through it all, for four hundred years, the dark captives wound to the sea amid the bleaching bones of the dead; for four hundred years the sharks followed the scurrying ships; for four hundred years America was strewn with the living and dying millions of a transplanted race; for four hundred years Ethiopia stretched forth her hands unto God.

Footnotes

^88:1 Cf. Helps: Spanish Conquest, IV, 401.

^88:2 Helps, op. cit., I, 219-220.

^89:1 Helps, op. cit., II, 18-19.

^89:2 Helps, op. cit., III, 211-212.

^90:1 Theal: History and Ethnography of South Africa before 1795, I, 476.

^94:1 Ingram: History of Slavery, p. 112.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

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X    THE WEST INDIES AND LATIN AMERICA

That was a wonderful century, the fifteenth, when men realized that beyond the scowling waste of western waters were dreams come true. Curious and yet crassly human it is that, with all this poetry and romance, arose at once the filthiest institution of the modern world and the costliest. For on Negro slavery in America was built, not simply the abortive cotton kingdom, but the foundations of that modern imperialism which is based on the despising of backward men.

According to some accounts Alonzo, “the Negro,” piloted one of the ships of Columbus, and certainly there was Negro blood among his sailors. As early as 1528 there were nearly ten thousand Negroes in the new world. We hear of them in all parts. In Honduras, for instance, a Negro is sent to burn a native village; in 1555 the town council of Santiago de Chile voted to allow an enfranchised Negro possession of land in the town, and evidently treated him just as white applicants were treated. D’Allyon, who explored the coast of Virginia in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, used Negro slaves (who afterward revolted) to build his ships and help in exploration; Balboa had with him thirty Negroes, who, in 1513, helped to build the first ships on the Pacific coast; Cortez had three hundred Negro porters in 1522.

Before. 1530 there were enough Negroes in Mexico to lead to an insurrection, where the Negroes fought desperately, but were overcome and their ringleaders executed. Later the followers of another Negro insurgent, Bayano, were captured and sent back to Spain. Negroes founded the town of Santiago del Principe in 1570, and in 1540 a Negro slave of Hernandez de Alarcon was the only one of the party to carry a message across the country to the Zunis of New Mexico. A Negro, Stephen Dorantes, discovered New Mexico. This

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[paragraph continues] Stephen or “Estevanico” was sent ahead by certain Spanish friars to the “Seven Cities of Cibola.” “As soon as Stephen had left said friars, he determined to earn all the reputation and honor for himself, and that the boldness and daring of having alone discovered those villages of high stories so much spoken of throughout that country should be attributed to him; and carrying along with him the people who followed him, he endeavored to cross the wilderness which is between Cibola and the country he had gone through, and he was so far ahead of the friars that when they arrived at Chichilticalli, which is on the edge of the wilderness, he was already at Cibola, which is eighty leagues of wilderness beyond.” But the Indians of the new and strange country took alarm and concluded that Stephen “must be a spy or guide for some nations who intended to come and conquer them, because it seemed to them unreasonable for him to say that the people were white in the country from which he came, being black himself and being sent by them.” [*1]

Slaves imported under the Asiento treaties went to all parts of the Americas. Spanish America had by the close of the eighteenth century ten thousand in Santo Domingo, eighty-four thousand in Cuba, fifty thousand in Porto Rico, sixty thousand in Louisiana and Florida, and sixty thousand in Central and South America.

The history of the Negro in Spanish America centered in Cuba, Venezuela, and Central America. In the sixteenth century slaves began to arrive in Cuba and Negroes joined many of the exploring expeditions from there to various parts of America. The slave trade greatly increased in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and after the revolution in Hayti large numbers of French emigrants from that island settled in Cuba. This and Spanish greed increased the harshness of slavery and eventually led to revolt among the Negroes. In 1844 Governor O’Donnell began a cruel persecution of the blacks on account of a plot discovered among them. Finally in 1866 the Ten Years’ War broke out in which Negro and white rebels joined. They demanded the abolition of slavery and equal political rights for natives and foreigners, whites and blacks. The war was cruel and bloody but ended in 1878 with the abolition of slavery, while a further uprising the following year secured civil rights for Negroes. Spanish economic oppression continued, however, and the leading chiefs of the Ten Years’ War including such

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leaders as the mulatto, Antonio Maceo, with large numbers of Negro soldiers, took the field again in 1895. The result was the freeing of Cuba by the intervention of the United States. Negro regiments from the United States played here a leading role. A number of leaders in Cuba in political, industrial, and literary lines have been men of Negro descent.

Slavery was abolished by Guatemala in 1824 and by Mexico in 1829. Argentine, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Paraguay ceased to recognize it about 1825. Between 1840 and 1845 it came to an end in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecquador. Bolivar, Paez, Sucre, and other South American leaders used Negro soldiers in fighting for freedom (1814-16), and Hayti twice at critical times rendered assistance and received Bolivar twice as a refugee.

Brazil was the center of Portuguese slavery, but slaves were not introduced in large numbers until about 1720, when diamonds were discovered in the territory above Rio Janeiro. Gradually the seaboard from Pernambuco to Rio Janeiro and beyond became filled with Negroes, and although the slave trade north of the equator was theoretically abolished by Portugal in 1815 and south of the equator in 1830, and by Brazil in these regions in 1826 and 1830, nevertheless between 1825 and 1850 over a million and a quarter of Negroes were introduced. Not until Brazil abolished slavery in 1888 did the importation wholly cease. Brazilian slavery allowed the slave to purchase his freedom, and the color line was not strict. Even in the eighteenth century there were black clergy and bishops; indeed the Negro clergy seem to have been on a higher moral level than the whites.

Insurrection was often attempted, especially among the Mohammedan Negroes around Bahia. In 1695 a tribe of revolted slaves held out for a long time. In 1719 a widespread conspiracy failed, but many of the leaders fled to the forest. In 1828 a thousand rose in revolt at Bahia, and again in 1830. From 1831 to 1837 revolt was in the air, and in 1835 came the great revolt of the Mohammedans, who attempted to enthrone a queen. The Negroes fought with furious bravery, but were finally defeated.

By 1872 the number of free Negroes had very greatly increased, so that emancipation did not come as a shock. While Mohammedan Negroes still gave trouble and were in some cases sent back to Africa, yet on the whole emancipation was peaceful, and whites, Negroes, and Indians are to-day amalgamating into a new race. “At

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the present moment there is scarcely a lowly or a highly placed federal or provincial official at the head of or within any of the great departments of state that has not more or less Negro or Amer-Indian blood in his veins.” [*1]

Lord Bryce says, “It is hardly too much to say that along the coast from Rio to Bahia and Pernambuco, as well as in parts of the interior behind these two cities, the black population predominates. . . . The Brazilian lower class intermarries freely with the black people; the Brazilian middle class intermarries with mulattoes and Quadroons. Brazil is the one country in the world, besides the Portuguese colonies on the east and west coasts of Africa, in which a fusion of the European and African races is proceeding unchecked by law or custom. The doctrines of human equality and human solidarity have here their perfect work. The result is so far satisfactory that there is little or no class friction. The white man does not lynch or maltreat the Negro; indeed I have never heard of a lynching anywhere in South America except occasionally as part of a political convulsion. The Negro is not accused of insolence and does not seem to develop any more criminality than naturally belongs to any ignorant population with loose notions of morality and property.

‘What ultimate effect the intermixture of blood will have on the European element in Brazil I will not venture to predict. If one may judge from a few remarkable cases, it will not necessarily reduce the intellectual standard. One of the ablest and most refined Brazilians I have known had some color; and other such cases have been mentioned to me. Assumptions and preconceptions must be eschewed, however plausible they may seem.” [*2]

A Brazilian writer said at the First Races Congress: “The cooperation of the metis [*3] in the advance of Brazil is notorious and far from inconsiderable. They played the chief part during many years in Brazil in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. I could quote celebrated names of more than one of these metis who put themselves at the head of the literary movement. They fought with firmness and intrepidity in the press and on the platform. They faced with courage the gravest perils to which they were exposed in their struggle against the powerful slave owners, who had the protection of a conservative government. They gave evidence of sentiments of

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patriotism, self-denial, and appreciation during the long campaign in Paraguay, fighting heroically at the boarding of the ships in the naval battle of Riachuelo and in the attacks on the Brazilian army, on numerous occasions in the course of this long South American war. It was owing to their support that the republic was erected on the ruins of the empire.” [*1]

The Dutch brought the first slaves to the North American continent. John Rolfe relates that the last of August, 1619, there came to Virginia “a Dutch man of warre that sold us twenty Negars.” [*2] This was probably one of the ships of the numerous private Dutch trading companies which early entered into the developed and the lucrative African slave trade. Although the Dutch thus commenced the continental slave trade they did not actually furnish a very large number of slaves to-the English colonies outside the West Indies. A small trade had by 1698 brought a few thousand to New York and still fewer to New Jersey.

The Dutch found better scope for slaves in Guiana, which they settled in 1616. Sugar cane became the staple crop, but the Negroes early began to revolt and the Dutch brought in East Indian coolies. The slaves were badly treated and the runaways joined the revolted Bush Negroes in the interior. From 1715 to 1775 there was continuous fighting with the Bush Negroes or insurrections, until at last in 1749 a formal treaty between sixteen hundred Negroes and the Dutch was made. Immediately a new group revolted under a Mohammedan, Arabi, and they obtained land and liberty. In 1763 the coast Negroes revolted. They were checked, but made terms and settled in the interior. The Bush Negroes fought against both French and English to save Guiana to the Dutch, but Guiana was eventually divided between the three. The Bush Negroes still maintain their independence and vigor.

The French encouraged settlements in the West Indies in the seventeenth century, but at last, finding that French immigrants would not come, they began about 1642 to import Negroes. Owing to wars with England, slaves were supplied by the Dutch and Portuguese, although the Royal Senegal Company held the coveted Asiento from 1701 to 1713.

It was in the island of Hayti, however, that French slavery centered. Pirates from many nations, but chiefly French, began to frequent

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the island, and in 1663 the French annexed the eastern part, thus dividing the island between France and Spain. By 1680 there were so many slaves and mulattoes that Louis XIV issued his celebrated Code Noir, which was notable in compelling bachelor masters, fathers of slave children, to marry their concubines. Children followed the condition of the mother as to slavery or freedom; they could have no property; harsh punishments were provided for, but families could not be separated by sale except in the case of grown children; emancipation with full civil rights was made possible for any slave twenty years of age or more. When Louisiana was settled and the Alabama coast, slaves were introduced there. Louisiana was transferred to Spain in 1762, against the resistance of both settlers and slaves, but Spain took possession in 1769 and introduced more Negroes.

Later, in Hayti, a more liberal policy encouraged trade; war was over and capital and slaves poured in. Sugar, coffee, chocolate, indigo, dyes, and spices were raised. There were large numbers of mulattoes, many of whom were educated in France, and many masters married Negro women who had inherited large properties, just as in the United States to-day white men are marrying eagerly the landed Indian women in the West. When white immigration increased in 1749, however, prejudice arose against these mulattoes and severe laws were passed depriving them of civil rights, entrance into the professions, and the right to hold office; severe edicts were enforced as to clothing, names, and social intercourse. Finally, after 1777, mulattoes were forbidden to come to France.

When the French Revolution broke out, the Haytians managed to send two delegates to Paris. Nevertheless the planters maintained the upper hand, and one of the colored delegates, Oge, on returning, started a small rebellion. He and his companions were killed with great brutality. This led the French government to grant full civil rights to free Negroes, Immediately planters and free Negroes flew to arms against each other and then, suddenly, August 22, 1791, the black slaves, of whom there were four hundred and fifty-two thousand, arose in revolt to help the free Negroes.

For many years runaway slaves had hidden in the mountains under their own chiefs. One of the earliest of these chiefs was Polydor, in 1724, who was succeeded by Macandal. The great chief of these runaways or “Maroons” at the time of the slave revolt was Jean Francois, who was soon succeeded by Biassou.

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Pierre Dominic Toussaint, known as Toussaint L’Ouverture, joined these Maroon bands, where he was called “the doctor of the armies of the king,” and soon became chief aid to Jean Francois and Biassou. Upon their deaths Toussaint rose to the chief command. He acquired complete control over the blacks, not only in military matters, but in politics and social organization; “the soldiers regarded him as a superior being, and the farmers prostrated themselves before him. All his generals trembled before him (Dessalines did not dare to look in his face), and all the world trembled before his generals.” [*1]

The revolt once started, blacks and mulattoes murdered whites without mercy and the whites retaliated. Commissioners were sent from France, who asked simply civil rights for freedmen, and not emancipation. Indeed that was all that Toussaint himself had as yet demanded. The planters intrigued with the British and this, together with the beheading of the king (an impious act in the eyes of Negroes), induced Toussaint to join the Spaniards. In 1793 British troops were landed and the French commissioners in desperation declared the slaves emancipated. This at once won back Toussaint from the Spaniards. He became supreme in the north, while Rigaud, leader of the mulattoes, held the south and the west. By 1798 the British, having lost most of their forces by yellow fever, surrendered Mole St. Nicholas to Toussaint and departed. Rigaud finally left for France, and Toussaint in 1800 was master of Hayti. He promulgated a constitution under which Hayti was to be a self-governing colony; all men were equal before the law, and trade was practically free. Toussaint was to be president for life, with the power to name his successor.

Napoleon Bonaparte, master of France, had at this time dreams of a great American empire, and replied to Toussaint’s new government by sending twenty-five thousand men under his brother-in-law to subdue the presumptuous Negroes, as a preliminary step to his occupation and development of the Mississippi valley. Fierce fighting and yellow fever decimated the French, but matters went hard with the Negroes too, and Toussaint finally offered to yield. He was courteously received with military honors and then, as soon as possible, treacherously seized, bound, and sent to France. He was imprisoned at Fort Joux and died, perhaps of poison, after studied humiliations, April 7, 1803.

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Thus perished the greatest of American Negroes and one of the great men of all time, at the age of fifty-six. A French planter said, “God in his terrestrial globe did not commune with a purer spirit.” [*1] Wendell Phillips said, “Some doubt the courage of the Negro. Go to Hayti and stand on those fifty thousand graves of the best soldiers France ever had and ask them what they think of the Negro’s sword. I would call him Napoleon, but Napoleon made his way to empire over broken oaths and through a sea of blood. This man never broke his word. I would call him Cromwell, but Cromwell was only a soldier, and the state he founded went down with him into his grave. I would call him Washington, but the great Virginian held slaves. This man risked his empire rather than permit the slave trade in the humblest village of his dominions. You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a bearing, the Muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for the English, La Fayette for France, choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earlier civilization, then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L’Ouverture.”

The treacherous killing of Toussaint did not conquer Hayti. In 1802 and 1803 some forty thousand French soldiers died of war and fever. A new colored leader, Dessalines, arose and all the eight thousand remaining French surrendered to the blockading British fleet.

The effect of all this was far-reaching. Napoleon gave up his dream of American empire and sold Louisiana for a song. “Thus, all of Indian Territory, all of Kansas and Nebraska and Iowa and Wyoming and Montana and the Dakotas, and most of Colorado and Minnesota, and all of Washington and Oregon states, came to us as the indirect work of a despised Negro. Praise, if you will, the work of a Robert Livingstone or a Jefferson, but to-day let us not forget our debt to Toussaint L’Ouverture, who was indirectly the means of America’s expansion by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.” [*2]

With the freedom of Hayti in 1801 came a century of struggle to fit the people for the freedom they had won. They were yet slaves, crushed by a cruel servitude, without education or religious instruction.

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[paragraph continues] The Haytian leaders united upon Dessalines to maintain the independence of the republic. Dessalines, like Toussaint and his lieutenant Christophe, was noted in slavery days for his severity toward his fellows and the discipline which he insisted on. He had other characteristics of African chieftains. “There were seasons when he broke through his natural sullenness and showed himself open, affable, and even generous. His vanity was excessive and manifested itself in singular perversities.” [*1] He was a man of great personal bravery and succeeded in maintaining the independence of Hayti, which had already cost the Frenchmen fifty thousand lives.

On January 1, 1804, at the place whence Toussaint had been treacherously seized and sent to France, the independence of Hayti was declared by the military leaders. Dessalines was made governor-general for life and afterward proclaimed himself emperor. This was not an act of grandiloquence and mimicry. “It is truer to say that in it both Dessalines and later Christophe were actuated by a clear insight into the social history and peculiarities of their people. There was nothing in the constitution which did not have its companion in Africa, where the organization of society was despotic, with elective hereditary chiefs, royal families, polygamic marriages, councils, and regencies.” [*2]

The population was divided into soldiers and laborers. The territory was parceled out to chiefs, and the laborers were bound to the soil and worked under rigorous inspection; part of the products were reserved for their support, and the rest went to the chiefs, the king, the general government, and the army. The army was under stern discipline and military service was compulsory. Women did much of the agricultural labor. Under Toussaint the administration of this system was committed to Dessalines, who carried it out with rigor; it was afterward followed by Christophe. The latter even imported four thousand Negroes from Africa, from whom he formed a national guard for patrolling the land. These regulations brought back for a time a large part of the former prosperity of the island.

The severity with which Dessalines enforced the laws soon began to turn many against him. The educated mulattoes especially objected to submission to the savage African mores. Dessalines started to suppress their revolt, but was killed in ambush in October, 1806.

[p. 105]

Great Britain now began to intrigue for a protectorate over the island and the Spanish end of the island threatened attack. These difficulties were overcome, but at a cost of great internal strain. After the death of Dessalines it seemed that Hayti was about to dissolve into a number of petty subdivisions. At one time Christophe was ruling as king in the north, Petion as president at Port au Prince, Rigaud in the south, and a semi-brigand, Goman, in the extreme southwest. Very soon, however, the rivalry narrowed down to Petion and Christophe. Petion was a man of considerable ability and did much, not simply for Hayti, but for South America. Already as early as 1779, before the revolution in Hayti, the Haytian Negroes had helped the United States. The British had captured Savannah in 1778. The French fleet appeared on the coast of Georgia late that year and was ordered to recruit men in Hayti. Eight hundred young freedmen, blacks and mulattoes, offered to take part in the expedition, and they fought valiantly in the siege and covered themselves with glory. It was this legion that made the charge on the British and saved the retreating American army. Among the men who fought there was Christophe.

When Simon Bolivar, Commodore Aury, and many Venezuelan families were driven from their country in 1815, they and their ships took temporary refuge in Hayti. Notwithstanding the embarrassed condition of the republic, Petion received them and gave them four thousand rifles with ammunition, provisions, and last and best a printing press. He also settled some international quarrels among members of the groups, and Bolivar expressed himself afterward as being “overwhelmed with magnanimous favors.” [*1]

Petion died in 1818 and was succeeded by his friend Boyer. Christophe committed suicide the following year and Boyer became not simply ruler of western Hayti, but also, by arrangement with the eastern end of the island, gained the mastery there, where they were afraid of Spanish aggression. Thus from 1822 to 1843 Boyer, a man of much ability, ruled the whole of the island and gained the recognition of Haytian independence from France and other nations.

France, under Charles X, demanded an indemnity of thirty million dollars to reimburse the planters for confiscated lands and property. This Hayti tried to pay, but the annual installment was a tremendous burden to the impoverished country. Further negotiations

[p. 106]

were entered into. Finally in 1838 France recognized the independence of the republic and the indemnity was reduced to twelve million dollars. Even this was a large burden for Hayti, and the payment of it for years crippled the island.

The United States and Great Britain in 1825-26 recognized the independence of Hayti. A concordat was arranged with the Pope for governing the church in Hayti, and finally in 1860 the church placed under the French hierarchy. Thus Boyer did unusually well; but his necessary concessions to France weakened his influence at home, and finally an earthquake, which destroyed several towns in 1842, raised the superstitious of the populace against him. He resigned in 1843, leaving the treasury well filled; but with his withdrawal the Spanish portion of the island was lost to Hayti.

The subsequent history of Hayti since 1843 has been the struggle of a small divided country to maintain political independence. The rich resources of the country called for foreign capital, but outside capital meant political influence from abroad, which the little nation rightly feared. Within, the old antagonism between the freedman and the slave settled into a color line between the mulatto and the black, which for a time meant the difference between educated liberalism and reactionary ignorance. This difference has largely disappeared, but some vestiges of the color line remain. The result has been reaction and savagery under Soulouque, Dominique, and Nord Alexis, and decided advance under presidents like Nissage-Saget, Solomon, Legitime, and Hyppolite.

In political life Hayti is still in the sixteenth century; but in economic life she has succeeded in placing on their own little farms the happiest and most contented peasantry in the world, after raising them from a veritable hell of slavery. If modern capitalistic greed can be restrained from interference until the best elements of Hayti secure permanent political leadership the triumph of the revolution will be complete.

In other parts of the French-American dominion the slaves achieved freedom also by insurrection. In Guadeloupe they helped the French drive out the British, and thus gained emancipation. In Martinique it took three revolts and a civil war to bring freedom.

The English slave empire in America centered in the Bermudas, Barbadoes, Jamaica and the lesser islands, and in the United States. Barbadoes developed a savage slave code, and the result was attempted slave insurrections in 1674, 1692, and 1702. These were

[p. 107]

not successful, but a rising in 1816 destroyed much property under the leadership of a mulatto, Washington Franklin, and the repeal of bad laws and eventual enfranchisement of the colored people followed. One Barbadian mulatto, Sir Conrad Reeves, has held the position of chief justice in the island and was knighted. A Negro insurrection in Dominica under Farcel greatly exercised England in 1791 and 1794 and delayed slave trade abolition; in 1844 and 1847 further uprisings took place, and these continued from 1853 to 1893.

The chief island domain of English slavery was Jamaica. It was Oliver Cromwell who, in his zeal for God and the slave trade, sent an expedition to seize Hayti. His fleet, driven off there, took Jamaica in 1655. The English found the mountains already infested with runaway slaves known as “Maroons,” and more Negroes joined them when the English arrived. In 1663 the freedom of the Maroons was acknowledged, land was given them, and their leader, Juan de Bolas, was made a colonel in the militia. He was killed, however, in the following year, and from 1664 to 1738 the three thousand or more black Maroons fought the British Empire in guerrilla warfare. Soldiers, Indians, and dogs were sent against them, and finally in 1738 Captain Cudjo and other chiefs made a formal treaty of peace with Governor Trelawney. They were granted twenty-five hundred acres and their freedom was recognized.

The peace lasted until 1795, when they rebelled again and gave the British a severe drubbing, besides murdering planters. Bloodhounds again were imported. The Maroons offered to surrender on the express condition that none of their number should be deported from the island, as the legislature wished. General Walpole hesitated, but could get peace on no other terms and gave his word. The Maroons surrendered their arms, and immediately the whites seized six hundred of the ringleaders and transported them to the snows of Nova Scotia! The legislature then voted a sword worth twenty-five hundred dollars to General Walpole, which he indignantly refused to accept. Eventually these exiled Maroons found their way to Sierra Leone, West Africa, in time to save that colony to the British crown. [*1]

The pressing desire for peace with the Maroons on the part of the white planters arose from the new sugar culture introduced in 1673. A greatly increased demand for slaves followed, and between

[p. 108]

[paragraph continues] 1700 and 1786 six hundred and ten thousand slaves were imported; nevertheless, so severely were they driven, that there were only three hundred thousand Negroes in Jamaica in the latter year.

Despite the Moravian missions and other efforts late in the eighteenth century, unrest among the Jamaica slaves and freedmen grew and was increased by the anti-slavery agitation in England and the revolt in Hayti. There was an insurrection in 1796; and in 1831 again the Negroes of northwest Jamaica, impatient because of the slow progress of the emancipation, arose in revolt and destroyed nearly three and a half million dollars’ worth of property, well-nigh ruining the planters there. The next year two hundred and fifty-five thousand slaves were set free, for which the planters were paid nearly thirty million dollars. There ensued a discouraging condition of industry. The white officials sent out in these days were arbitrary and corrupt. Little was done for the mass of the people and there was outrageous over-taxation. Nevertheless the backwardness of the colony was attributed to the Negro. Governor Eyre complained in 1865 that the young and strong were good for nothing and were filling the jails; but a simultaneous report by a missionary told the truth concerning the officials. This aroused the colored people, and a mulatto, George William Gordon, called a meeting. Other meetings were afterward held, and finally the Negro peasantry began a riot in 1861, in which eighteen people were killed, only a few of whom were white.

The result was that Governor Eyre tried and executed by court-martial 354 persons, and in addition to this killed without trial 85, a total of 439. One thousand Negro homes were burned to the ground and thousands of Negroes flogged or mutilated. Children had their brains dashed out, pregnant women were murdered, and Gordon was tried by court-martial and hanged. In fact the punishment was, as the royal commissioners said, “reckless and positively barbarous.” [*1]

This high-handed act aroused England. Eyre was not punished, but the island was made a crown colony in 1866, and given representation in the legislature in 1886.

In the island of St. Vincent, Indians first sought to enslave the fugitive Negroes wrecked there, but the Negroes took the Carib women and then drove the Indian men away. These “black Caribs” fought with Indians, English, and others for three quarters of a

[p. 109]

century, until the Indians were exterminated. The British took possession in 1763. The black Caribs resisted, and after hard fighting signed a treaty in 1773, receiving one-third of the island as their property. They afterward helped the French against the British, and were finally deported to the island of Ruatan, off Honduras. In Trinidad and British Guiana there have been mutinies and rioting of slaves and a curious mingling of races.

Other parts of South America must be dismissed briefly, because of insufficient data. Colombia and Venezuela, with perhaps eight million people, have at least one-third of their population of Negro and Indian descent. Here Simon Bolivar with his Negro, mulatto, and Indian forces began the war that liberated South America. Central America has a smaller proportion of Negroids, perhaps one hundred thousand in all. Bolivia and Peru have small amounts of Negro blood, while Argentine and Uruguay have very little. The Negro population in these lands is everywhere in process of rapid amalgamation with whites and Indians.

Footnotes

^97:1. H. O. Flipper’s translation of Castaneda de Nafera’s narrative.

^99:1 Johnston: Negro in the New World, p. 109.

^99:2 Bryce: South America, pp. 479-480.

^99:3 I.e., mulattoes.

^100:1 Inter-Racial Problems, p. 381.

^100:2 Smith: General History of Virginia.

^102:1 La Croix: Memoires sur la Revolution, I, 253, 408.

^103:1 Marquis d’Hermonas. Cf. Johnston: Negro in the New World, p. 158.

^103:2 DeWitt Talmage, in Christian Herald, November 18, 1906.

^104:1 Aimes: African Institutions in America (reprinted from Journal of American Folk Lore), p. 25.

^104:2 Brown: History of San Domingo, II, 158-159.

^105:1 See Leger: Hayti, Chap. XI.

^107:1 Cf. Chapter V, <page 69>.

^108:1 Johnston: Negro in the New World.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 110]

 

XI    THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES

There were half a million slaves in the confines of the United States when the Declaration of Independence declared “that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The land that thus magniloquently heralded its advent into the family of nations had supported the institution of human slavery for one hundred and fifty-seven years and was destined to cling to it eighty-seven years longer.

The greatest experiment in Negro slavery as a modern industrial system was made on the mainland of North America and in the confines of the present United States. And this experiment was on such a scale and so long-continued that it is profitable for study and reflection. There were in the United States in its dependencies, in 1910, 9,828,294 persons of acknowledged Negro descent, not including the considerable infiltration of Negro blood which is not acknowledged and often not known. To-day the number of persons called Negroes is probably about ten and a quarter million. These persons are almost entirely descendants of African slaves, brought to America in the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

The importation of Negroes to the mainland of North America was small until the British got the coveted privilege of the Asiento in 1713. Before that Northern States like New York had received some slaves from the Dutch, and New England had early developed a trade by which she imported a number of house servants. Ships went out to the African coast with rum, sold the rum, and brought the slaves to the West Indies; there they exchanged the slaves for sugar and molasses and brought the molasses back to New England, to be made into rum for further exploits. After the Asiento treaty

[p. 111]

the Negro population increased in the eighteenth century from about 50,000 in 1710 to 220,000 in 1750 and to 462,000 in 1770. When the colonies became independent, the foreign slave trade was soon made illegal; but illicit trade, annexation of territory and natural increase enlarged the Negro population from a little over a million at the beginning of the nineteenth century to four and a half millions at the outbreak of the Civil War and to about ten and a quarter millions in 1914.

The present so-called Negro population of the United States is:

1. A mixture of the various African populations, Bantu, Sudanese, west-coast Negroes, some dwarfs, and some traces of Arab, Berber, and Semitic blood.

2. A mixture of these strains with the blood of white Americans through a system of concubinage of colored women in slavery days, together with some legal intermarriage,

The figures as to mulattoes [*1] have been from time to time officially acknowledged to be understatements. Probably one-third of the Negroes of the United States have distinct traces of white blood. This blending of the races has led to interesting human types, but racial prejudice has hitherto prevented any scientific study of the matter. In general the Negro population in the United States is brown in color, darkening to almost black and shading off in the other direction to yellow and white, and is indistinguishable in some cases from the white population.

Much has been written of the black man in America, but most of this has been from the point of view of the whites, so that we know of the effect of Negro slavery on the whites, the strife among the whites for and against abolition, and the consequent problem of the Negro so far as the white population is concerned.

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This chapter, however, is dealing with the matter more from the point of view of the Negro group itself, and seeking to show what slavery meant to them, how they reacted against it, what they did to secure their freedom, and what they are doing with their partial freedom to-day.

The slaves landing from 1619 onward were received by the colonies at first as laborers, on the same plane as other laborers. For a long time there was in law no distinction between the indented white servant from England and the black servant from Africa, except in the term of their service. Even here the distinction was not always observed, some of the whites being kept beyond term of their service and Negroes now and then securing their freedom. Gradually the planters realized the advantage of laborers held for life, but they were met by certain moral difficulties. The opposition to slavery had from the first been largely stilled when it was stated that this was a method of converting the heathen to Christianity. The corollary was that when a slave was converted he became free. Up to 1660 or thereabouts it seemed accepted in most colonies and in the English West Indies that baptism into a Christian church would free a Negro slave. Masters therefore, were reluctant in the seventeenth century to have their slaves receive Christian instruction. Massachusetts first apparently legislated on this matter by enacting in 1641 that slavery should be confined to captives in just wars “and such strangers as willingly sell themselves or are sold to us,” [*1] meaning by “strangers” apparently heathen, but saying nothing as to the effect of conversion. Connecticut adopted similar legislation in 1650, and Virginia declared in 1661 that Negroes “are incapable of making satisfaction” for time lost in running away by lengthening their time of services, thus implying that they were slaves for life. Maryland declared in 1663 that Negro slaves should serve durante vita, but it was not until 1667 that Virginia finally plucked up courage to attack the issue squarely and declared by law: “Baptism doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom, in order that diverse masters freed from this doubt may more carefully endeavor the propagation of Christianity.” [*2]

The transplanting of the Negro from his African clan life to the West Indian plantation was a social revolution. Marriage became

[p. 113]

geographical and transient, while women and girls were without protection.

The private home as a self-protective, independent unit did not exist. That powerful institution, the polygamous African home, was almost completely destroyed, and in its place in America arose sexual promiscuity, a weak community life, with common dwelling, meals, and child nurseries. The internal slave trade tended further to weaken natural ties. A small number of favored house servants and artisans were raised above this–had their private homes, came in contact with the culture of the master class, and assimilated much of American civilization. This was, however, exceptional; broadly speaking, the greatest social effect of American slavery was to substitute for the polygamous Negro home a new polygamy less guarded, less effective, and less civilized.

At first sight it would seem that slavery completely destroyed every vestige of spontaneous movement among the Negroes. This is not strictly true. The vast power of the priest in the African state is well known; his realm alone–the province of religion and medicine–remained largely unaffected by the plantation system. The Negro priest, therefore, early became an important figure on the plantation and found his function as the interpreter of the supernatural, the comforter of the sorrowing, and as the one who expressed, rudely but picturesquely, the longing and disappointment and resentment of a stolen people. From such beginnings arose and spread with marvelous rapidity the Negro church, the first distinctively Negro American social institution. It was not at first by any means a Christian church, but a mere adaptation of those rites of fetish which in America is termed obe worship, or “voodooism.” [*1] Association and missionary effort soon gave these rites a veneer of Christianity and gradually, after two centuries, the church became Christian, with a simple Calvinistic creed, but with many of the old customs still clinging to the services. It is this historic fact, that the Negro church of to-day bases itself upon the sole surviving social institution of the

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[paragraph continues] African fatherland, that accounts for its extraordinary growth and vitality.

The slave codes at first were really labor codes based on an attempt to reestablish in America the waning feudalism of Europe. The laborers were mainly black and were held for life. Above them came the artisans, free whites with a few blacks, and above them the master class. The feudalism called for the plantation system’ and the plantation system as developed in America, and particularly in Virginia, was at first a feudal domain. On these plantations the master was practically supreme. The slave codes in early days were but moderately harsh, allowing punishment by the master, but restraining him in extreme cases and providing for care of the slaves and of the aged. With the power, however, solely in the bands of the master class, and with the master supreme on his own plantation, his power over the slave was practically what he wished it to be. In some cases the cruelty was as great as on the worst West Indian plantations. In other cases the rule was mild and paternal.

Up through this American feudalism the Negro began to rise. He learned in the eighteenth century the English language, be began to be identified with the Christian church, he mingled his blood to a considerable extent with the master class. The house servants particularly were favored, in some cases receiving education, and the number of free Negroes gradually increased.

Present-day students are often puzzled at the apparent contradictions of Southern slavery. One hears, on the one hand, of the staid and gentle patriarchy, the wide and sleepy plantations with lord and retainers, ease and happiness; on the other hand one hears of barbarous cruelty and unbridled power and wide oppression of men. Which is the true picture? The answer is simple: both are true. They are not opposite sides of the same shield; they are different shields. They are pictures, on the one hand, of house service in the great country seats and in the towns, and on the other hand of the field laborers who raised the great tobacco, rice, and cotton crops. We have thus not only carelessly mixed pictures of what were really different kinds of slavery, but of that which represented different degrees in the development of the economic system. House service was the older feudal idea of personal retainership, developed in Virginia and Carolina in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It had all the advantages and disadvantages of such a system; the advantage

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of the strong personal tie and disadvantage of unyielding caste distinctions, with the resultant immoralities. At its worst, however, it was a matter primarily of human relationships.

Out of this older type of slavery in the northern South there developed, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, in the southern South the type of slavery which corresponds to the modern factory system in its worst conceivable form. It represented production of a staple product on a large scale; between the owner and laborer were interposed the overseer and the drivers. The slaves were whipped and driven to a mechanical task system. Wide territory was needed, so that at last absentee landlordship was common. It was this latter type of slavery that marked the cotton kingdom, and the extension of the area of this system southward and westward marked the aggressive world-conquering visions of the slave barons. On the other hand it was the milder and far different Virginia house service and the personal retainership of town life in which most white children grew up; it was this that impressed their imaginations and which they have so vividly portrayed. The Negroes, however, knew the other side, for it was under the harsher, heartless driving of the fields that fully nine-tenths of them lived.

There early began to be some internal development and growth of self-consciousness among the Negroes: for instance, in New England towns Negro “governors” were elected. This was partly an African custom transplanted and partly an endeavor to put the regulation of the slaves into their own hands. Negroes voted in those days: for instance, in North Carolina until 1835 the Constitution extended the franchise to every freeman, and when Negroes were disfranchised in 1835, several hundred colored men were deprived of the vote. In fact, as Albert Bushnell Hart says, “In the colonies freed Negroes, like freed indentured white servants, acquired property, founded families, and came into the political community if they had the energy, thrift, and fortune to get the necessary property.” [*1]

The humanitarian movement of the eighteenth century was active toward Negroes, because of the part which they played in the Revolutionary War. Negro regiments and companies were raised in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and a large number of Negroes were members of the continental armies elsewhere. Individual Negroes

[p. 116]

distinguished themselves. It is estimated that five thousand Negroes fought in the American armies.

The mass of the Americans considered at the time of the adoption of the Constitution that Negro slavery was doomed. There soon came a series of laws emancipating slaves in the North: Vermont began in 1779, followed by judicial decision in Massachusetts in 1780 and gradual emancipation in Pennsylvania beginning the same year; emancipation was accomplished in New Hampshire in 1783, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784. The momentous exclusion of slavery in the Northwest Territory took place in 1787, and gradual emancipation began in New York and New Jersey in 1799 and 1804.

Beneficial and insurance societies began to appear among colored people. Nearly every town of any size in Virginia in the early eighteenth century had Negro organizations for caring for the sick and burying the dead. As the number of free Negroes increased, particularly in the North, these financial societies began to be openly formed. One of the earliest was the Free African Society of Philadelphia. This eventually became the present African Methodist Church, which has to-day half a million members and over eleven million dollars’ worth of property.

Negroes began to be received into the white church bodies in separate congregations, and before 1807 there is the record of the formation of eight such Negro churches. This brought forth leaders who were usually preachers in these churches. Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Church, was one; Lot Carey, one of the founders of Liberia, was another. In the South there was John Chavis, who passed through a regular course of studies at what is now Washington and Lee University. He started a school for young white men in North Carolina and had among his pupils a United States senator, sons of a chief justice of North Carolina, a governor of the state, and many others. He was a full-blooded Negro, but a Southern writer says that “all accounts agree that John Chavis was a gentleman. He was received socially among the best whites and asked to table.” [*1]

In the war of 1812 thirty-three hundred Negroes helped Jackson win the battle of New Orleans, and numbers fought in New York State and in the navy under Perry, Charming, and others. Phyllis

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[paragraph continues] Wheatley, a Negro girl, wrote poetry, and the mulatto, Benjamin Banneker, published one of the first American series of almanacs.

In fine, it seemed in the early years of the nineteenth century that slavery in the United States would gradually disappear and that the Negro would have, in time, a man’s chance. A change came, however, between 1820 and 1830, and it is directly traceable to the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century.

Between 1738 and 1830 there had come a remarkable series of inventions which revolutionized the methods of making cloth. This series included the invention of the fly shuttle, the carding machine, the steam engine, and the power loom. The world began to look about for a cheaper and larger supply of fiber for weaving. It was found in the cotton plant, and the southern United States was especially adapted to its culture. The invention of the cotton gin removed the last difficulties. The South now had a crop which could be attended to by unskilled labor and for which there was practically unlimited demand. There was land, and rich land, in plenty. The result was that the cotton crop in the United States increased from 8,000 bales in 1790 to 650,000 bales in 1820, to 2,500,000 bales in 1850, and to 4,000,000 bales in 1860.

In this growth one sees the economic foundation of the new slavery in the United States, which rose in the second decade of the nineteenth century. Manifestly the fatal procrastination in dealing with slavery in the eighteenth century received in the nineteenth century its terrible reward. The change in the attitude toward slavery was manifest in various ways. The South no longer excused slavery, but began to defend it as an economic system. The enforcement of the slave trade laws became notoriously lax and there was a tendency to make slave codes harsher.

This led to retaliation on the part of the Negroes. There had not been in the United States before this many attempts at insurrection. The slaves were distributed over a wide territory, and before they became intelligent enough to cooperate the chance of emancipation was held before them. Several small insurrections are alluded to in South Carolina early in the eighteenth century, and one by Cato at Stono in 1740 caused widespread alarm. The Negro plot in New York in 1712 put the city into hysterics. There was no further plotting on any scale until the Haytian revolt, when Gabriel in Virginia made an abortive attempt. In 1822 a free Negro, Denmark Vesey, in South Carolina, failed in a well-laid plot, and ten years after that,

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in 1831, Nat Turner led his insurrection in Virginia and killed fifty-one persons. The result of this insurrection was to crystallize tendencies toward harshness which the economic revolution was making advisable.

A wave of legislation passed over the South, prohibiting the slaves from learning to read and write, forbidding Negroes to preach, and interfering with Negro religious meetings. Virginia declared in 1831 that neither slaves nor free Negroes, might preach, nor could they attend religious service at night without permission. In North Carolina slaves and free Negroes were forbidden to preach, exhort, or teach “in any prayer meeting or other association for worship where slaves of different families are collected together” on penalty of not more than thirty-nine lashes. Maryland and Georgia and other states had similar laws.

The real effective revolt of the Negro against slavery was not, however, by fighting, but by running away, usually to the North, which had been recently freed from slavery. From the beginning of the nineteenth century slaves began to escape in considerable numbers. Four geographical paths were chiefly followed: one, leading southward, was the line of swamps along the coast from Norfolk, Virginia, to the northern border of Florida. This gave rise to the Negro element among the Indians in Florida and led to the two Seminole wars of 1817 and 1835. These wars were really slave raids to make the Indians give up the Negro and half-breed slaves domiciled among them. The wars cost the United States ten million dollars and two thousand lives.

The great Appalachian range, with its abutting mountains, was the safest path northward. Through Tennessee and Kentucky and the heart of the Cumberland Mountains, using the limestone caverns, was the third route, and the valley of the Mississippi was the western tunnel.

These runaways and the freedmen of the North soon began to form a group of people who sought to consider the problem of slavery and the destiny of the Negro in America. They passed through many psychological changes of attitude in the years from 1700 to 1850. At first, in the early part of the eighteenth century, there was but one thought: revolt and revenge. The development of the latter half of the century brought an attitude of hope and adjustment and emphasized the differences between the slave and the free Negro. The first part of the nineteenth century brought two movements: among the free Negroes an effort at self-development

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and protection through organization; among slaves and recent fugitives a distinct reversion to the older idea of revolt.

As the new industrial slavery, following the rise of the cotton kingdom, began to press harder, a period of storm and stress ensued in the black world, and in 1829 came the first full-voiced, almost hysterical protest of a Negro against slavery and the color line in David Walker’s Appeal, which aroused Southern legislatures to action.

The decade 1830-40 was a severe period of trial. Not only were the chains of slavery tighter in the South, but in the North the free Negro was beginning to feel the ostracism and competition of white workingmen, native and foreign. In Philadelphia, between 1829 and 1849, six mobs of hoodlums and foreigners murdered and maltreated Negroes. In the Middle West harsh black laws which had been enacted in earlier days were hauled from their hiding places and put into effect. No Negro was allowed to settle in Ohio unless he gave bond within twenty days to the amount of five thousand dollars to guarantee his good behavior and support. Harboring or concealing fugitives was heavily fined, and no Negro could give evidence in any case where a white man was party. These. laws began to be enforced in 1829 and for three days riots went on in Cincinnati and Negroes were shot and killed. Aroused, the Negroes sent a deputation to Canada where they were offered asylum. Fully two thousand migrated from Ohio. Later large numbers from other parts of the United States joined them.

In 1830-31 the first Negro conventions were called in Philadelphia to consider the desperate condition of the Negro population, and in 1833 the convention met again and local societies were formed. The first Negro paper was issued in New York in 1827, while later emancipation in the British West Indies brought some cheer in the darkness.

A system of separate Negro schools was established and the little band of abolitionists led by Garrison and others appeared. In spite of all the untoward circumstances, therefore, the internal development of the free Negro in the North went on. The Negro population increased twenty-three per cent between 1830 and 1840; Philadelphia had, in 1838, one hundred small beneficial societies, while Ohio Negroes had ten thousand acres of land. The slave mutiny on the Creole, the establishment of the Negro Odd Fellows, and the growth of the Negro churches all indicated advancement.

Between 1830 and 1850 the concerted cooperation to assist fugitives

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came to be known as the Underground Railroad. It was an organization not simply of white philanthropists, but the cooperation of Negroes in the most difficult part of the work made it possible. Hundreds of Negroes visited the slave states to entice the slaves away, and the list of Underground Railroad operators given by Siebert contains one hundred and twenty-eight names of Negroes. In Canada and in the northern United States there was a secret society, known as the League of Freedom, which especially worked to help slaves run away. Harriet Tubman was one of the most energetic of these slave conductors and brought away several thousand slaves. William Lambert, a colored man, was reputed between 1829 and 1862 to have aided in the escape of thirty thousand.

The decade 1840-50 was a period of hope and uplift for the Negro group, with clear evidences of distinct self-assertion and advance. A few well-trained lawyers and physicians appeared, and colored men took their place among the abolition orators. The catering business in Philadelphia and other cities fell largely into their hands, and some small merchants arose here and there. Above all, Frederick Douglass made his first speech in 1841 and thereafter became one of the most prominent figures in the abolition crusade. A new series of national conventions began to assemble late in the forties, and the delegates were drawn from the artisans and higher servants, showing a great increase of efficiency in the rank and file of the free Negroes.

By 1850 the Negroes had increased to three and a half million. Those in Canada were being organized in settlements and were accumulating property. The escape of fugitive slaves was systematized and some of the most representative conventions met. One particularly, in 1854, grappled frankly with the problem of emigration. It looked as though it was going to be impossible for Negroes to remain in the United States and be free. As early as 1788 a Negro union of Newport, Rhode Island, had proposed a general exodus to Africa. John and Paul Cuffe, after petitioning for the right to vote in 1780, started in 1815 for Africa, organizing an expedition at their own expense which cost four thousand dollars. Lot Carey organized the African Mission Society in 1813, and the first Negro college graduate went to Liberia in 1829 and became superintendent of public schools. The Colonization Society encouraged this migration, and the Negroes themselves had organized the Canadian exodus.

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The Rochester Negro convention in 1853 pronounced against migration, but nevertheless emissaries were sent in various directions to see what inducements could be offered. One went to the Niger valley, one to Central America, and one to Hayti. The Haytian trip was successful and about two thousand black emigrants eventually settled in Hayti.

Delaney, who went to Africa, concluded a treaty with eight kings offering inducements to Negroes, but nothing came of it. In 1853 Negroes like Purvis and Barbadoes helped in the formation of the American Anti-slavery society, and for a while colored men cooperated with John Brown and probably would have given him considerable help if they had thoroughly known his plans. As it was, six or seven of his twenty-two followers were Negroes.

Meantime the slave power was impelled by the high price of slaves and the exhaustion of cotton land to make increased demands. Slavery was forced north of Mason and Dixon’s line in 1820; a new slave empire with thousands of slaves was annexed in 1850, and a fugitive slave law was passed which endangered the liberty of every free Negro; finally a determined attempt was made to force slavery into the Northwest in competition with free white labor, and less effective but powerful movements arose to annex more slave territory to the south and to reopen the African slave trade.

It looked like a triumphal march for the slave barons, but each step cost more than the last. Missouri gave rise to the early abolitionist movement. Mexico and the fugitive slave law aroused deep opposition in the North, and Kansas developed an attack upon the free labor system, not simply of the North, but of the civilized world. The result was war; but the war was not against slavery. It was fought to protect free white laborers against the competition of slaves, and it was thought possible to do this by segregating slavery.

The first thing that vexed the Northern armies on Southern soil during the war was the question of the disposition of the fugitive slaves, who immediately began to arrive in increasing numbers. Butler confiscated them, Fremont freed them, and Halleck caught and returned them; but their numbers swelled to such large proportions that the mere economic problem of their presence overshadowed everything else, especially after the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln was glad to have them come after once he realized their strength to the Confederacy.

The Emancipation Proclamation was forced, not simply by the

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necessity of paralyzing industry in the South, but also by the necessity of employing Negro soldiers. During the first two years of the war no one wanted Negro soldiers. It was declared to be a “white man’s war.” General Hunter tried to raise a regiment in South Carolina, but the War Department disavowed the act. In Louisiana the Negroes were anxious to enlist, but were held off. In the meantime the war did not go as well as the North had hoped, and on the twenty-sixth of January, 1863, the Secretary of War authorized the Governor of Massachusetts to raise two regiments of Negro troops. Frederick Douglass and others began the work with enthusiasm, and in the end one hundred and eighty-seven thousand Negroes enlisted in the Northern armies, of whom seventy thousand were killed and wounded. The conduct of these troops was exemplary. They were indispensable in camp duties and brave on the field, where they fought in two hundred and thirteen battles. General Banks wrote, “Their conduct was heroic. No troops could be more determined or more daring.” [*1]

The assault on Fort Wagner, led by a thousand black soldiers under the white Colonel Shaw, is one of the greatest deeds of desperate bravery on record. On the other hand the treatment of Negro soldiers when captured by the Confederates was barbarous. At Fort Pillow, after the surrender of the federal troops, the colored regiment was indiscriminately butchered and some of them were buried alive.

Abraham Lincoln said, “The slightest knowledge of arithmetic will prove to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed with Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the white men of the North to do it. There are now in the service of the United States near two hundred thousand able-bodied colored men, most of them under arms, defending and acquiring Union territory. . . . Abandon all the posts now garrisoned by black men; take two hundred thousand men from our side and put them in the battlefield or cornfield against us, and we would be compelled to abandon the war in three weeks.” [*2] Emancipation thus came as a war measure to break the power of the Confederacy, preserve the Union, and gain the sympathy of the civilized world.

However, two hundred and forty-four years of slavery could not be

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stopped by edict. There were legal difficulties, the whole slow problem of economic readjustment, and the subtle and far-reaching questions of future race relations.

The peculiar circumstances of emancipation forced the legal and political difficulties to the front, and these were so striking that they have since obscured the others in the eyes of students. Quite unexpectedly and without forethought the nation had emancipated four million slaves. Once the deed was done, the majority of the nation was glad and recognized that this was, after all, the only result of a fearful four years’ war which in any degree justified it. But how was the result to be secured for all time? There were three possibilities: (1) to declare the slave free and leave him at the mercy of his former masters; (2) to establish a careful government guardianship designed to guide the slave from legal to real economic freedom; (3) to give the Negro the political power to guard himself as well as he could during this development. It is very easy to forget that the United States government tried each one of these in succession and was literally forced to adopt the third, because the first had utterly failed and the second was thought too “paternal” and especially too costly. To leave the Negroes helpless after a paper edict of emancipation was manifestly impossible. It would have meant that the war had been fought in vain.

Carl Schurz, who traversed the South just after the war, said, “A veritable reign of terror prevailed in many parts of the South. The Negro found scant justice in the local courts against the white man. He could look for protection only to the military forces of the United States still garrisoning the states lately in rebellion and to the Freedmen’s Bureau.” [*1] This Freedmen’s Bureau was proposed by Charles Sumner. If it had been presented to-day instead of fifty years ago, it would have been regarded as a proposal far less revolutionary than the state insurance of England and Germany. A half century ago, however, and in a country which gave the laisser faire economics their extremest trial, the Freedmen’s Bureau struck the whole nation as unthinkable, save as a very temporary expedient and to relieve the more pointed forms of distress following war. Yet the proposals of the Bureau were both simple and sensible:

1. To oversee the making and enforcement of wage contracts for freedmen.

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2. To appear in the courts as the freedmen’s best friend.

3. To furnish the freedmen with a minimum of land and of capital.

4. To establish schools.

5. To furnish such institutions of relief as hospitals, outdoor relief stations, etc.

How a sensible people could expect really to conduct a slave into freedom with less than this it is hard to see. Even with such tutelage extending over a period of two or three decades, the ultimate end had to be enfranchisement and political and social freedom for those freedmen who attained a certain set standard. Otherwise the whole training had neither object nor guarantee. Precisely on this account the former masters opposed the Freedmen’s Bureau with all their influence. They did not want the Negro trained or really freed, and they criticized mercilessly the many mistakes of the new Bureau.

The North at first thought to pay for the main cost of the Freedmen’s Bureau by confiscating the property of former slave owners; but finding this not in accordance with law, they realized that they were embarking on an enterprise which bade fair to add many millions to the already staggering cost of the war. When, therefore, they saw that the abolition of slavery could not be left to the white South and could not be done by the North without time and money, they determined to put the responsibility on the Negro himself. This was without a doubt a tremendous experiment, but with all its manifest mistakes it succeeded to an astonishing degree. It made the immediate reestablisbment of the old slavery impossible, and it was probably the only quick method of doing this. It gave the freedmen’s sons a chance to begin their education. It diverted the energy of the white South slavery to the recovery of political power, and in this interval, small as it was, the Negro took his first steps toward economic freedom.

The difficulties that stared reconstruction politicians in the face were these: (1) They must act quickly. (2) Emancipation had increased the political power of the South by one-sixth. Could this increased political power be put in the hands of those who, in defense of slavery, had disrupted the Union? (3) How was the abolition of slavery to be made effective? (4) What was to be the political position of the freedmen?

The Freedmen’s Bureau in its short life accomplished a great task.

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[paragraph continues] Carl Schurz, in 1865, felt warranted in saying that “not half of the labor that has been done in the South this year, or will be done there next year, would have been or would be done but for the exertions of the Freedmen’s Bureau. . . . No other agency except one placed there by the national government could have wielded that moral power whose interposition was so necessary to prevent Southern society from falling at once into the chaos of a general collision between its different elements.” [*1] Notwithstanding this the Bureau was temporary, was regarded as a makeshift, and soon abandoned.

Meantime partial Negro suffrage seemed not only just, but almost inevitable. Lincoln, in 1864, “cautiously” suggested to Louisiana’s private consideration “whether some of the colored people may not be let in as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who fought gallantly in our ranks. They would pro ably help in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom.” Indeed, the “family of freedom” in Louisiana being somewhat small just then, who else was to be intrusted with the “jewel”? Later and for different reasons Johnson, in 1865, wrote to Mississippi, “If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their name, and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, and pay taxes thereon, you would completely disarm the adversary and set an example the other states will follow. This you can do with perfect safety, and you thus place the Southern States, in reference to free persons of color, upon the same basis with the free states. I hope and trust your convention will do this.”

The Negroes themselves began to ask for the suffrage. The Georgia convention in Augusta (1866) advocated “a proposition to give those who could write and read well and possessed a certain property qualification the right of suffrage.” The reply of the South to these suggestions was decisive. In Tennessee alone was any action attempted that even suggested possible Negro suffrage in the future, and that failed. In all other states the “Black Codes” adopted were certainly not reassuring to the friends of freedom. To be sure, it was not a time to look for calm, cool, thoughtful action on the part of the white South. Their economic condition was pitiable, their fear of Negro freedom genuine. Yet it was reasonable to expect from them something less than repression and utter reaction toward

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slavery. To some extent this expectation was fulfilled. The abolition of slavery was recognized on the statute book, and the civil rights of owning property and appearing as a witness in cases in which he was a party were generally granted the Negro; yet with these in many cases went harsh and unbearable regulations which largely neutralized the concessions and certainly gave ground for an assumption that, once free, the South would virtually reenslave the Negro. The colored people themselves naturally feared this, protesting, as in Mississippi, “against the reactionary policy prevailing and expressing the fear that the legislature will pass such proscriptive laws as will drive the freedmen from the state, or practically reenslave them.”

The codes spoke for themselves. As Burgess says, “Almost every act, word, or gesture of the Negro, not consonant with good taste and good manners as well as good morals, was made a crime or misdemeanor for which he could first be fined by the magistrates and then be consigned to a condition of almost slavery for an indefinite time, if he could not pay the bill.” [*1]

All things considered, it seems probable that, if the South had been permitted to have its way in 1865, the harshness of Negro slavery would have been mitigated so as to make slave trading difficult, and so as to make it possible for a Negro to hold property and appear in some cases in court; but that in most other respects the blacks would have remained in slavery.

What could prevent this? A Freedmen’s Bureau established for ten, twenty, or forty years, with a careful distribution of land and capital and a system of education for the children, might have prevented such an extension of slavery. But the country would not listen to such a comprehensive plan. A restricted grant of the suffrage voluntarily made by the states would have been a reassuring proof of a desire to treat the freedmen fairly and would have balanced in part, at least, the increased political power of the South. There was no such disposition evident.

In Louisiana, for instance, under the proposed reconstruction “not one Negro was allowed to vote, though at that very time the wealthy intelligent free colored people of the state paid taxes on property assessed at fifteen million dollars and many of them were well known for their patriotic zeal and love for the Union.” [*2]

Thus the arguments for universal Negro suffrage from the start

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were strong and are still strong, and no one would question their strength were it not for the assumption that the experiment failed. Frederick Douglass said to President Johnson, “Your noble and humane predecessor placed in our hands the sword to assist in saving the nation, and we do hope that you, his able successor, will favorably regard the placing in our bands the ballot with which to save ourselves.” [*1]

Carl Schurz wrote, “It is idle to say that it will be time to speak of Negro suffrage when the whole colored race will be educated, for the ballot may be necessary to him to secure his education.” [*2]

The granting of full Negro suffrage meant one of two alternatives to the South: (1) The uplift of the Negro for sheer self-preservation. This is what Schurz and the saner North expected. As one Southern school superintendent said, “The elevation of this class is a matter of prime importance, since a ballot in the hands of a black citizen is quite as potent as in the bands of a white one.” Or (2) Negro suffrage meant a determined concentration of Southern effort by actual force to deprive the Negro of the ballot or nullify its use. This last is what really happened. But even in this case, so much energy was taken in keeping the Negro from voting that the plan for keeping him in virtual slavery and denying him education partially failed. It took ten years to nullify Negro suffrage in part and twenty years to escape the fear of federal intervention. In these twenty years a vast number of Negroes had arisen so far as to escape slavery forever. Debt peonage could be fastened on part of the rural South and was; but even here the new Negro landholder appeared. Thus despite everything the Fifteenth Amendment, and that alone, struck the death knell of slavery.

The steps toward the Fifteenth Amendment were taken slowly. First Negroes were allowed to take part in reconstructing the state governments. This was inevitable if loyal governments were to be obtained. Next the restored state governments were directed to enfranchise all citizens, black or white, or have their representation in Congress cut down proportionately. Finally the United States said the last word of simple justice: the states may regulate the suffrage, but no state may deprive a person of the right to vote simply because he is a Negro or has been a slave.

For such reasons the Negro was enfranchised. What was the result?

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[paragraph continues] No language has been spared to describe these results as the worst imaginable. This is not true. There were bad results, and bad results arising from Negro suffrage; but those results were not so bad as usually painted, nor was Negro suffrage the prime cause of many of them. Let us not forget that the white South believed it to be of vital interest to its welfare that the experiment of Negro suffrage should fail ignominiously and that almost to a man the whites were willing to insure this failure either by active force or passive acquiescence; that besides this there were, as might be expected, men, black and white, Northern and Southern, only too eager to take advantage of such a situation for feathering their own nests. Much evil must result in such case; but to charge the evil to Negro suffrage is unfair. It may be charged to anger, poverty, venality, and ignorance, but the anger and poverty were the almost inevitable aftermath of war; the venality was much greater among whites than Negroes both North and South, and while ignorance was the curse of Negroes, the fault was not theirs and they took the initiative to correct it.

The chief charges against the Negro governments are extravagance, theft, and incompetency of officials. There is no serious charge that these governments threatened civilization or the foundations of social order. The charge is that they threatened property and that they were inefficient. These charges are in part undoubtedly true, but they are often exaggerated. The South had been terribly impoverished and saddled with new social burdens. In other words, states with smaller resources were asked not only to do a work of restoration, but a larger social work. The property holders were aghast. They not only demurred, but, predicting ruin and revolution, they appealed to secret societies, to intimidation, force, and murder. They refused to believe that these novices in government and their friends were aught but scamps and fools. Under the circumstances occurring directly after the war, the wisest statesman would have been compelled to resort to increased taxation and would have, in turn, been execrated as extravagant, dishonest, and incompetent. It is easy, therefore, to see what flaming and incredible stories of Reconstruction governments could gain wide currency and belief. In fact the extravagance, although great, was not universal, and much of it was due to the extravagant spirit pervading the whole country in a day of inflated currency and speculation.

That the Negroes led by the astute thieves, became at first tools

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and received some small share of the spoils is true. But two considerations must be added: much of the legislation which resulted in fraud was represented to the Negroes as good legislation, and thus their votes were secured by deliberate misrepresentation. Take, for instance, the land frauds of South Carolina. A wise Negro leader of that state, advocating the state purchase of farm lands, said, “One of the greatest of slavery bulwarks was the infernal plantation system, one man owning his thousand, another his twenty, another fifty thousand acres of land. This is the only way by which we will break up that system, and I maintain that our freedom will be of no effect if we allow it to continue. What is the main cause of the prosperity of the North? It is because every man has his own farm and is free and independent. Let the lands of the South be similarly divided.” [*1]

From such arguments the Negroes were induced to aid a scheme to buy land and distribute it. Yet a large part of eight hundred thousand dollars appropriated was wasted and went to the white landholders’ pockets.

The most inexcusable cheating of the Negroes took place through the Freedmen’s Bank. This bank was incorporated by Congress in 1865 and had in its list of incorporators some of the greatest names in America including Peter Cooper, William Cullen Bryan and John Jay. Yet the bank was allowed to fail in 1874 owing the freedmen their first savings of over three millions of dollars. They have never been reimbursed.

Many Negroes were undoubtedly venal, but more were ignorant and deceived. The question is: Did they show any signs of a disposition to learn to better things? The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience. This is precisely what the Negro voters showed indubitable signs of doing. First they strove for schools to abolish ignorance, and second, a large and growing number of them revolted against the extravagance and stealing that marred the beginning of Reconstruction, and joined with the best elements to institute reform. The greatest stigma on the white South is not that it opposed Negro’ suffrage and resented theft and incompetence, but that, when it saw the reform movements growing and even in some cases triumphing, and a larger

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and larger number of black voters learning to vote for honesty and ability, it still preferred a Reign of Terror to a campaign of education and disfranchised Negroes instead of punishing rascals.

No one has expressed this more convincingly than a Negro who was himself a member of the Reconstruction legislature of South Carolina, and who spoke at the convention which disfranchised him against one of the onslaughts of Tillman. “We were eight years in power. We had built school houses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the jails and court houses, rebuilt the bridges, and reestablished the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the state and placed it upon the road to prosperity, and at the same time, by our acts of financial reform, transmitted to the Hampton government an indebtedness not greater by more than two and a half million dollars than was the bonded debt of the state in 1868, before the Republican Negroes and their white allies came into power.” [*1]

So, too, in Louisiana in 1872, and in Mississippi later, the better element of the Republicans triumphed at the polls and, joining with the Democrats, instituted reforms, repudiated the worst extravagance, and started toward better things. Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

In the midst of all these difficulties the Negro governments in the South accomplished much of positive good. We may recognize three things which Negro rule gave to the South: (1) democratic government, (2) free public schools, (3) new social legislation.

In general, the words of Judge Albion W. Tourgee, a white “carpet bagger,” are true when he says of the Negro governments, “They obeyed the Constitution of the United States and annulled the bonds of states, counties, and cities which had been issued to carry on the War of Rebellion and maintain armies in the field against the Union. They instituted a public school system in a realm where public schools had been unknown. They opened the ballot box and the jury box to thousands of white men who had been debarred from them by a lack of earthly possessions. They introduced home rule into the South. They abolished the whipping post, the branding iron, the stocks, and other barbarous forms of punishment

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which had up to that time prevailed. They reduced capital felonies from about twenty to two or three. In an age of extravagance they were extravagant in the sums appropriated for public works. In all of that time no man’s rights of persons were invaded under the forms of law. Every Democrat’s life, home, fireside, and business were safe. No man obstructed any white man’s way to the ballot box, interfered with his freedom of speech, or boycotted him on account of his political faith.” [*1]

A thorough study of the legislation accompanying these constitutions and its changes since shows the comparatively small amount of change in law and government which the overthrow of Negro rule brought about. There were sharp and often hurtful economies introduced, marking the return of property to power; there was a sweeping change of officials, but the main body of Reconstruction legislation stood. The Reconstruction democracy brought forth new leaders and definitely overthrew the old Southern aristocracy. Among these new men were Negroes of worth and ability. John R. Lynch, when Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, was given a public testimonial by Republicans and Democrats, and the leading white paper said, “His bearing in office had been so proper, and his rulings in such marked contrasts to the partisan conduct of the ignoble whites of his party who have aspired to be leaders of the blacks, that the conservatives cheerfully joined in the testimonial.” [*2]

Of the colored treasurer of South Carolina the white Governor Chamberlain said, “I have never heard one word or seen one act of Mr. Cardoza’s which did not confirm my confidence in his personal integrity and his political honor and zeal for the honest administration of the state government. On every occasion, and under all circumstances, he has been against fraud and robbery and in favor of good measures and good men.” [*3]

Jonathan C. Gibbs, a colored man and the first state superintendent of instruction in Florida, was a graduate of Dartmouth. He established the system and brought it to success, dying in harness in 1874. Such men–and there were others–ought not to be forgotten or confounded with other types of colored and white Reconstruction leaders.

There is no doubt that the thirst of the black man for knowledge,

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a thirst which has been too persistent and durable to be mere curiosity or whim, gave birth to the public school system of the South. It was the question upon which black voters and legislators insisted more than anything else, and while it is possible to find some vestiges of free schools in some of the Southern States before the war, yet a universal, well-established system dates from the day that the black man got political power.

Finally, in legislation covering property, the wider functions Of the state, the punishment of crime and the like, it is sufficient to say that the laws on these points established by Reconstruction legislatures were not only different from and even revolutionary to the laws in the older South, but they were so wise and so well suited to the needs of the new South that, in spite of a retrogressive movement following the overthrow of the Negro governments, the mass of this legislation, with elaborations and development, still stands on the statute books of the South. [*1]

The triumph of reaction in the South inaugurated a new era in which we may distinguish three phases: the renewed attempt to reduce the Negroes to serfdom, the rise of the Negro metayer, and the economic disfranchisement of the Southern working class.

The attempt to replace individual slavery had been frustrated by the Freedmen’s Bureau and the Fifteenth Amendment. The disfranchisement of 1876 was followed by the widespread rise of “crime” peonage. Stringent laws on vagrancy, guardianship, and labor contracts were enacted and large discretion given judge and jury in cases of petty crime. As a result Negroes were systematically arrested on the slightest pretext and the labor of convicts leased to private parties. This “convict lease system” was almost universal in the South until about 1890, when its outrageous abuses and cruelties aroused the whole country. It still survives over wide areas, and is not only responsible for the impression that the Negro is a natural criminal, but also for the inability of the Southern courts to perform their normal functions after so long a prostitution to ends far removed from justice.

In more normal economic lines the employers began with the labor contract system. Before the war they owned labor, land, and subsistence. After the war they still held the land and subsistence.

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[paragraph continues] The laborer was hired and the subsistence “advanced” to him while the crop was growing. The fall of the Freedmen’s Bureau hindered the transmutation of this system into a modern wage system, and allowed the laborers to be cheated by high interest charges on the subsistence advanced and actual cheating often in book accounts.

The black laborers became deeply dissatisfied under this system and began to migrate from the country to the cities, where there was an increasing demand for labor. The employing farmers complained bitterly of the scarcity of labor and of Negro “laziness,” and secured the enactment of harsher vagrancy and labor contract laws, and statutes against the “enticement” of laborers. So severe were these laws that it was often impossible for a laborer to stop work without committing a felony. Nevertheless competition compelled the landholders to offer more inducements to the farm hand. The result was the rise of the black share tenant: the laborer securing better wages saved a little capital and began to hire land in parcels of forty to eighty acres, furnishing his own tools and seed and practically raising his own subsistence. In this way the whole face of the labor contract in the South was, in the decade 1880-90, in process of change from a nominal wage contract to a system of tenantry. The great plantations were apparently broken up into forty and eighty acre farms with black farmers. To many it seemed that emancipation was accomplished, and the black folk were especially filled with joy and hope.

It soon was evident, however, that the change was only partial. The landlord still held the land in large parcels. He rented this in small farms to tenants, but retained direct control. In theory the laborer was furnishing capital, but in the majority of cases he was borrowing at least a part of this capital from some merchant.

The retail merchant in this way entered on the scene as middle man between landlord and laborer. He guaranteed the landowner his rent and relieved him of details by taking over the furnishing of supplies to the laborer. He tempted the laborer by a larger stock of more attractive goods, made a direct contract with him, and took a mortgage on the growing crop. Thus he soon became the middle man to whom the profit of the transaction largely flowed, and he began to get rich.

If the new system benefited the merchant and the landlord, it also brought some benefits to the black laborers. Numbers of these were still held in peonage, and the mass were laborers working for scant

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board and clothes; but above these began to rise a large number of independent tenants and farm owners.

In 1890, therefore, the South was faced by this question: Are we willing to allow the Negro to advance as a free worker, peasant farmer, metayer, and small capitalist, with only such handicaps as naturally impede the poor and ignorant, or is it necessary to erect further artificial barriers to restrain the advance of the Negroes? The answer was clear and unmistakable. The advance of the freedmen had been too rapid and the South feared it; every effort must be made to “keep the Negro in his place” as a servile caste.

To this end the South strove to make the disfranchisement of the Negroes effective and final. Up to this time disfranchisement was illegal and based on intimidation. The new laws passed between 1890 and 1910 sought on their face to base the right to vote on property and education in such a way as to exclude poor and illiterate Negroes and admit all whites. In fact they could be administered so as to exclude nearly all Negroes. To this was added a series of laws designed publicly to humiliate and stigmatize Negro blood: as, for example, separate railway cars; separate seats in street cars, and the like; these things were added to the separation in schools and churches, and the denial of redress to seduced colored women, which had long been the custom in the South. All these new enactments meant not simply separation, but subordination, caste, humiliation, and flagrant injustice.

To all this was added a series of labor laws making the exploitation of Negro labor more secure. All this legislation had to be accomplished in the face of the labor movement throughout the world, and particularly in the South, where it was beginning to enter among the white workers. This was accomplished easily, however, by an appeal to race prejudice. No method of inflaming the darkest passions of men was unused. The lynching mob was given its glut of blood and egged on by purposely exaggerated and often wholly invented tales of crime on the part of perhaps the most peaceful and sweet-tempered race the world has ever known. Under the flame of this outward noise went the more subtle and dangerous work. The election laws passed in the states where three-fourths of the Negroes live, were so ingeniously framed that a black university graduate could be prevented from voting and the most ignorant white hoodlum could be admitted to the polls. Labor laws were so arranged that imprisonment for debt was possible and leaving an

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employer could be made a penitentiary offense. Negro schools were cut off with small appropriations or wholly neglected, and a determined effort was made with wide success to see that no Negro had any voice either in the making or the administration of local, state, or national law.

The acquiescence of the white labor vote of the South was further insured by throwing white and black laborers, so far as possible, into rival competing groups and making each feel that the one was the cause of the other’s troubles. The neutrality of the white people of the North was secured through their fear for the safety of large investments in the South, and through the fatalistic attitude common both in America and Europe toward the possibility of real advance on the part of the darker nations.

The reaction of the Negro Americans upon this wholesale and open attempt to reduce them to serfdom has been interesting. Naturally they began to organize and protest and in some cases to appeal to the courts. Then, to their astonishment, there arose a colored leader, Mr. Booker T. Washington, who advised them to yield to disfranchisement and caste and wait for greater economic strength and general efficiency before demanding full rights as American citizens. The white South naturally agreed with Mr. Washington, and the white North thought they saw here a chance for peace in the racial conflict and safety for their Southern investments.

For a time the colored people hesitated. They respected Mr. Washington for shrewdness and recognized the wisdom of his homely insistence on thrift and hard work; but gradually they came to see more and more clearly that, stripped of political power and emasculated by caste, they could never gain sufficient economic strength to take their place as modern men. They also realized that any lull in their protests would be taken advantage of by Negro haters to push their caste program. They began, therefore, with renewed persistence to fight for their fundamental rights as American citizens. The struggle tended at first to bitter personal dissension within the group. But wiser counsels and the advice of white friends eventually prevailed and raised it to the broad level of a fight for the fundamental principles of democracy. The launching of the “Niagara Movement” by twenty-nine daring colored men in 1905, followed by the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1910, marked an epoch in the advance of the Negro. This latter organization, with its monthly organ, The

[p. 136]

[paragraph continues] Crisis, is now waging a nation-wide fight for justice to Negroes. Other organizations, and a number of strong Negro weekly papers are aiding in this fight. What has been the net result of this struggle of half a century?

In 1863 there were about five million persons of Negro descent in the United States. Of these, four million and more were just being released from slavery. These slaves could be bought and sold, could move from place to place only with permission, were forbidden to learn to read or write, and legally could never hold property or marry. Ninety per cent were totally illiterate, and only one adult in six was a nominal Christian.

Fifty years later, in 1913, there were in the United States ten and a quarter million persons of Negro descent, an increase of one hundred and five per cent. Legal slavery has been abolished leaving, however, vestiges in debt slavery, peonage, and the convict lease system. The mass of the freedmen and their sons have

1. Earned a living as free and partially free laborers.

2. Shared the responsibilities of government.

3. Developed the internal organization of their race.

4. Aspired to spiritual self-expression.

The Negro was freed as a penniless, landless, naked, ignorant laborer. There were a few free Negroes who owned property in the South, and a larger number who owned property in the North; but ninety-nine per cent of the race in the South were penniless field hands and servants.

To-day there are two and a half million laborers, the majority of whom are efficient wage earners. Above these are more than a million servants and tenant farmers; skilled and semi-skilled workers make another million and at the top of the economic column are 600,000 owners and managers of farms and businesses, cash tenants, officials, and professional men. This makes a total of 5,192,535 colored breadwinners in 1910.

More specifically these breadwinners include 218,972 farm owners and 319,346 cash farm tenants and managers. There were in all 62,755 miners, 288,141 in the building and hand trades; 28,515 workers in clay, glass, and stone; 41,739 iron and steel workers; 134,102 employees on railways; 62,822 draymen, cab drivers, and liverymen; 133,245 in wholesale and retail trade; 32,170 in the public service; and 69,471 in professional service, including 29,750 teachers, 17,495 clergymen, and 4,546 physicians, dentists, trained

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nurses, etc. Finally, we must not forget 2,175,000 Negro homes, with their housewives, and 1,620,000 children in school.

Fifty years ago the overwhelming mass of these people were not only penniless, but were themselves assessed as real estate. By 1875 the Negroes probably had gotten hold of something between 2,000,000 and 4,000,000 acres of land through their bounties as soldiers and the low price of land after the war. By 1880 this was increased to about 6,000,000 acres; in 1890 to about 8,000,000 acres; in 1900 to over 12,000,000 acres. In 1910 this land had increased to nearly 20,000,000 acres, a realm as large as Ireland.

The 120,738 farms owned by Negroes in 1890 increased to 218,972 in 1910, or eighty-one per cent. The value of these farms increased from $179,796,639 in 1900 to $440,992,439 in 1910; Negroes owned in 1910 about 500,000 homes out of a total of 2,175,000. Their total property in 1900 was estimated at $300,000,000 by the American Economic Association. On the same basis of calculation it would be worth to-day not less than $860,000,000.

Despite the disfranchisement of three-fourths of his voting population, the Negro to-day is a recognized part of the American government. He holds 7,500 offices in the executive service of the nation, besides furnishing four regiments in the army and a large number of sailors. In the state and municipal service be holds nearly 20,000 other offices, and he furnishes 500,000 of the votes which rule the Union.

In these same years the Negro has relearned the lost art of organization. Slavery was the almost absolute denial of initiative and responsibility. To-day Negroes have nearly 40,000 churches, with edifices worth at least $75,000,000 and controlling nearly 4,000,000 members. They raise themselves $7,500,000 a year for these churches.

There are 200 private schools and colleges managed and almost entirely supported by Negroes, and these and other public and private Negro schools have received in 40 years $45,000,000 of Negro money in taxes and donations. Five millions a year are raised by Negro secret and beneficial societies which hold at least $6,000,000 in real estate. Negroes support wholly or in part over 100 old folks’ homes and orphanages, 30 hospitals, and 500 cemeteries. Their organized commercial life is extending rapidly and includes over 22,000 small retail businesses and 40 banks.

Above and beyond this material growth has gone the spiritual

[p. 138]

uplift of a great human race. From contempt and amusement they have passed to the pity, perplexity, and fear on the part of their neighbors, while within their own souls they have arisen from apathy and timid complaint to open protest and more and more manly self-assertion. Where nine-tenths of them could not read or write in 1860, to-day over two-thirds can; they have 300 papers and periodicals, and their voice and expression are compelling attention.

Already in poetry, literature, music, and painting the work of Americans of Negro descent has gained notable recognition. Instead of being led and defended by others, as in the past, American Negroes are gaining their own leaders, their own voices, their own ideals. Self-realization is thus coming slowly but surely to another of the world’s great races, and they are to-day girding themselves to fight in the van of progress, not simply for their own rights as men, but for the ideals of the greater world in which they live: the emancipation of women, universal peace, democratic government, the socialization of wealth, and human brotherhood.

Footnotes

^111:1 The figures given by the census are as follows:

1850, mulattoes formed 11.2 per cent of the total Negro population.

1860, mulattoes formed 13.2 per cent of the total Negro population.

18 70, mulattoes formed 12 per cent of the total Negro population.

1890, mulattoes formed 15.2 per cent of the total Negro population.

1910, mulattoes formed 20.9 per cent of the total Negro population.

Or in actual numbers:

1850, 405,751 mulattoes.

1860, 588,352 mulattoes.

1870, 585,601 mulattoes.

1890, 1,132,060 mulattoes.

1910, 2,050,686 mulattoes.

^112:1 Cf. “The Spanish Jurist Solorzaris,” quoted in Helps: Spanish Conquest, IV, 381.

^112:2 Hurd: Law of Freedom and Bondage.

^113:1 “Obi (Obeah, Obiah, or Obia) is the adjective; Obe or Obi, the noun. It is of African origin, probably connected with Egyptian Ob, Aub, or Obron, meaning ‘serpent.’ Moses forbids Israelites ever to consult the demon Ob, i.e., ‘Charmer, Wizard.’ The Witch of Endor is called Oub or Ob. Oubaois is the name of the Baselisk al Serpent, emblem of the Sun, and, according to Horns. Appollo, ‘the Ancient Deity of Africa.'”-Edwards: West Indies, ed. 1819, II, 106-119. Cf. Johnston: Negro in the New World, pp. 65-66; also Atlanta University Publications, No. 8, pp. 5-6.

^115:1 Boston Transcript, March 24, 1906.

^116:1 Bassett: North Carolina, pp. 73-76.

^122:1 Cf. Wilson: The Black Phalanx.

^122:2 Wilson: The Black Phalanx, p. 108.

^123:1 American Historical Review, Vol. XV.

^125:1 Report to President Johnson.

^126:1 Reconstruction and the Constitution.

^126:2 Brewster: Sketches, etc.

^127:1 McPherson: Reconstruction, p. 52.

^127:2 Report to the President, 1865.

^129:1 American Historical Review, Vol. XV, No. 4.

^130:1 Occasional Papers, American Negro Academy, No. 6.

^131:1 Occasional Papers, American Negro Academy, No. 6.

^131:2 Jackson (Miss.) Clarion, April 24, 1873.

^131:3 Allen: Governor Chamberlain’s Administration, p. 82.

^132:1 Reconstruction Constitutions, practically unaltered, were kept in Florida, 1868-85, seventeen years; Virginia, 1870-1902, thirty-two years; South Carolina, 1868-95, twenty-seven years; Mississippi, 1868-90, twenty-two years.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 139]

 

XII    THE NEGRO PROBLEMS

It is impossible to separate the population of the world accurately by race, since that is no scientific criterion by which to divide races. If we divide the world, however, roughly into African Negroes and Negroids, European whites, and Asiatic and American brown and yellow peoples, we have approximately 150,000,000 Negroes, 500,000,000 whites, and 900,000,000 yellow and brown peoples. Of the 150,000,000 Negroes, 121,000,000 live in Africa, 27,000,000 [*1] in the new world, and 2,000,000 in Asia.

What is to be the future relation of the Negro race to the rest of the world? The visitor from Altruria might see here no peculiar problem. He would expect the Negro race to develop along the lines of other human races. In Africa his economic and political development would restore and eventually outrun the ancient glories of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Yoruba; overseas the West Indies would become a new and nobler Africa, built in the very pathway of the new highway of commerce between East and West-the real sea route to India; while in the United States a large part of its citizenship (showing for perhaps centuries their dark descent, but nevertheless equal sharers of and contributors to the civilization of the West) would be the descendants of the wretched victims of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century slave trade.

This natural assumption of a stranger finds, however, lodging in the minds of few present-day thinkers. On the contrary, such an outcome is usually dismissed summarily. Most persons have accepted that tacit but clear modern philosophy which assigns to the white race alone the hegemony of the world and assumes that other races, and particularly the Negro race, will either be content to serve the

[p. 140]

interests of the whites or die out before their all-conquering march. This philosophy is the child of the African slave trade and of the expansion of Europe during the nineteenth century.

The Negro slave trade was the first step in modern world commerce, followed by the modern theory of colonial expansion. Slaves as an article of commerce were shipped as long as the traffic paid. When the Americas had enough black laborers for their immediate demand, the moral action of the eighteenth century had a chance to make its faint voice heard.

The moral repugnance was powerfully reenforced by the revolt of the slaves in the West Indies and South America, and by the fact that North America early began to regard itself as the seat of advanced ideas in politics, religion, and humanity.

Finally European capital began to find better investments than slave shipping and flew to them. These better investments were the fruit of the new industrial revolution of the nineteenth century, with its factory system; they were also in part the result of the cheapened price of gold and silver, brought about by slavery and the slave trade to the new world. Commodities other than gold, and commodities capable of manufacture and exploitation in Europe out of materials furnishable by America, became enhanced in value; the bottom fell out of the commercial slave trade and its suppression became possible.

The middle of the nineteenth century saw the beginning of the rise of the modern working class. By means of political power the laborers slowly but surely began to demand a larger share in the profiting industry. In the United States their demand bade fair to be halted by the competition of slave labor. The labor vote, therefore, first confined slavery to limits in which it could not live, and when the slave power sought to exceed these territorial limits, it was suddenly and unintentionally abolished.

As the emancipation of millions of dark workers took place in the West Indies, North and South America, and parts of Africa at this time, it was natural to assume that the uplift of this working class lay along the same paths with that of European and American whites. This was the first suggested solution of the Negro problem. Consequently these Negroes received partial enfranchisement, the beginnings of education, and some of the elementary rights of wage earners and property holders, while the independence of Liberia and Hayti was recognized. However, long before they were strong

[p. 141]

enough to assert the rights thus granted or to gather intelligence enough for proper group leadership, the new colonialism of the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries began to dawn. The new colonial theory transferred the reign of commercial privilege and extraordinary profit from the exploitation of the European working class to the exploitation of backward races under the political domination of Europe. For the purpose of carrying out this idea the European and white American working class was practically invited to share in this new exploitation, and particularly were flattered by popular appeals to their inherent superiority to “Dagoes,” “Chinks,” “Japs,” and “Niggers.”

This tendency was strengthened by the fact that the new colonial expansion centered in Africa. Thus in 1875 something less than one-tenth of Africa was under nominal European control, but the Franco-Prussian War and the exploration of the Congo led to new and fateful things. Germany desired economic expansion and, being shut out from America by the Monroe Doctrine, turned to Africa. France, humiliated in war, dreamed of an African empire from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. Italy became ambitious for Tripoli and Abyssinia. Great Britain began to take new interest in her African realm, but found herself largely checkmated by the jealousy of all Europe. Portugal sought to make good her ancient claim to the larger part of the whole southern peninsula. It was Leopold of Belgium who started to make the exploration and civilization of Africa an international movement. This project failed, and the Congo Free State became in time simply a Belgian colony. While the project was under discussion, the international scramble for Africa began. As a result the Berlin Conference and subsequent wars and treaties gave Great Britain control of 2,101,411 square miles of African territory, in addition to Egypt and the Egyptian Sudan with 1,600,000 square miles. This includes South Africa, Bechuanaland and Rhodesia, East Africa, Uganda and Zanzibar, Nigeria, and British West Africa. The French hold 4,106,950 square miles, including nearly all North Africa (except Tripoli) west of the Niger valley and Libyan Desert, and touching the Atlantic at four points. To this is added the Island of Madagascar. The Germans have 910,150 square , principally in Southeast and South-west Africa and the Kamerun. The Portuguese retain 787,500 square miles in Southeast and Southwest Africa. The Belgians have 900,000 square miles, while Liberia (43,000 square miles) and Abyssinia (350,000 square

[p. 142]

miles) are independent. The Italians have about 600,000 square miles and the Spanish less than 100,000 square miles.

This partition of Africa brought revision of the ideas of Negro uplift. Why was it necessary, the European investors argued, to push a continent of black workers along the paths of social uplift by education, trades-unionism, property holding, and the electoral franchise when the workers desired no change, and the rate of European profit would suffer?

There quickly arose then the second suggestion for settling the Negro problem. It called for the virtual enslavement of natives in certain industries, as rubber and ivory collecting in the Belgian Congo, cocoa raising in Portuguese Angola, and diamond mining in South Africa. This new slavery or “forced” labor was stoutly defended as a necessary foundation for implanting modern industry in a barbarous land; but its likeness to slavery was too clear and it has been modified, but not wholly abolished.

The third attempted solution of the Negro sought the result of the second by less direct methods. Negroes in Africa, the West Indies, and America were to be forced to work by land monopoly, taxation, and little or no education. In this way a docile industrial class working for low wages, and not intelligent enough to unite in labor unions, was to be developed. The peonage systems in parts of the United States and the labor systems of many of the African colonies of Great Britain an Germany illustrate this phase of solution. [*1] It is also illustrated in many of the West Indian islands where we have a predominant Negro population, and this population freed from slavery and partially enfranchised. Land and capital, however, have for the most part been so managed and monopolized that the black peasantry have been reduced to straits to earn a living in one of the richest parts of the world. The problem is now going to be intensified when the world’s commerce begins to sweep through the Panama Canal.

All these solutions and methods, however, run directly counter to modern philanthropy, and have to be carried on with a certain concealment

[p. 143]

and half-hypocrisy which is not only distasteful in itself, but always liable to be discovered and exposed by some liberal or religious movement of the masses of men and suddenly overthrown. These solutions are, therefore, gradually merging into a fourth solution, which is to-day very popular. This solution says: Negroes differ from whites in their inherent genius and stage of development. Their development must not, therefore, be sought along European lines, but along their own native lines. Consequently the effort is made to-day in British Nigeria, in the French Congo and Sudan, in Uganda and Rhodesia to leave so far as possible the outward structure of native life intact; the king or chief reigns, the popular assemblies meet and act, the native courts adjudicate, and native social and family life and religion prevail. All this, however, is subject to the veto and command of a European magistracy supported by a native army with European officers. The advantage of this method is that on its face it carries no clue to its real working. Indeed it can always point to certain undoubted advantages: the abolition of the slave trade, the suppression of war and feud, the encouragement of peaceful industry. On the other hand, back of practically all these experiments stands the economic motive–the determination to use the organization, the land, and the people, not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of white Europe. For this reason education is seldom encouraged, Modern religious ideas are carefully limited, sound political development is sternly frowned upon, and industry is degraded and changed to the demands of European markets. The most ruthless class of white mercantile exploiters is allowed large liberty, if not a free hand, and protected by a concerted attempt to deify white men as such in the eyes of the native and in their own imagination. [*1]

White missionary societies are spending perhaps as much as five million dollars a year in Africa and accomplishing much good, but at the same time white merchants are sending at least twenty million dollars’ worth of European liquor into Africa each year, and the debauchery of the almost unrestricted rum traffic goes far to neutralize missionary effort.

Under this last mentioned solution of the Negro problems we

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Click to enlarge

Distribution of Negro Blood, Ancient and Modern

 

[p. 145]

may put the attempts at the segregation of Negroes and mulattoes in the United States and to some extent in the West Indies. Ostensibly this is “separation” of the races in society, civil rights, etc. In practice it is the subordination of colored people of all grades under white tutelage, and their separation as far as possible from contact with civilization in dwelling place, in education, and in public life.

On the other hand the economic significance of the Negro to-day is tremendous. Black Africa to-day exports annually nearly two hundred million dollars’ worth of goods, and its economic development has scarcely begun. The black West Indies export nearly one hundred million dollars’ worth of goods; to this must be added the labor value of Negroes in South Africa, Egypt, the West Indies, North, Central, and South America, where the result is blended in the common output of many races. The economic foundation of the Negro problem can easily be seen to be a matter of many hundreds of millions to-day, and ready to rise to the billions tomorrow.

Such figures and facts give some slight idea of the economic meaning of the Negro to-day as a worker and industrial factor. “Tropical Africa and its peoples are being brought more irrevocably every year into the vortex of the economic influences that sway the western world.” [*1]

What do Negroes themselves think of these their problems and the attitude of the world toward them? First and most significant, they are thinking. There is as yet no great single centralizing of thought or unification of opinion, but there are centers which are growing larger and larger and touching edges. The most significant centers of this new thinking are, perhaps naturally, outside Africa and in America: in the United States and in the West Indies; this is followed by South Africa and West Africa and then, more vaguely, by South America, with faint beginnings in East Central Africa, Nigeria, and the Sudan.

The Pan-African movement when it comes will not, however, be merely a narrow racial propaganda. Already the more far-seeing Negroes sense the coming unities: a unity of the working classes everywhere, a unity of the colored races, a new unity of men. The proposed economic solution of the Negro problem in Africa and America has turned the thoughts of Negroes toward a realization of the fact that the modern white laborer of Europe and America has

[p. 146]

the key to the serfdom of black folk, in his support of militarism and colonial expansion. He is beginning to say to these workingmen that, so long as black laborers are slaves, white laborers cannot be free. Already there are signs in South Africa and the United States of the beginning of understanding between the two classes.

In a conscious sense of unity among colored races there is to-day only a growing interest. There is slowly arising not only a curiously strong brotherhood of Negro blood throughout the world, but the common cause of the darker races against the intolerable assumptions and insults of Europeans has already found expression. Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it. In order for this colored world to come into its heritage, must the earth again be drenched in the blood of fighting, snarling human beasts, or will Reason and Good Will prevail? That such may be true, the character of the Negro race is the best and greatest hope; for in its normal condition it is at once the strongest and gentlest of the races of men: “Semper novi quid ex Africa!”

Footnotes

^139:1 Sir Harry Johnston estimates 135,000,000 Negroes, of whom 24,591,000 live in America. See Inter-Racial Problems, p. 335.

^142:1 The South African natives, in an appeal to the English Parliament, show in an astonishing way the confiscation o their land by the English. They say that in the Union of South Africa 1,250,000 whites own 264,000,000 acres of land, while the 4,500,000 natives have only 21,000,000 acres. On top of this the Union Parliament has passed a law making even the future purchase of land by Negroes illegal save in restricted areas!

^143:1 The traveler Glave writes in the Century Magazine (LIII, 913): “Formerly [in the Congo Free State] an ordinary white man was merely called ‘bwana’ or ‘Mzunga’; now the merest insect of a pale face earns the tide of ‘bwana Mkubwa’ [big master].”

^145:1 E. D. Morel, in the Nineteenth Century.

The Negro, by W.E.B. Du Bois, [1915]

[p. 147]

 

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

There is no general history of the Negro race. Perhaps Sir Harry H. Johnston, in his various works on Africa, has come as near covering the subject as any one writer, but his valuable books have puzzling inconsistencies and inaccuracies. Keane’s Africa is a helpful compendium, despite the fact that whenever Keane discovers intelligence in an African he immediately discovers that its possessor is no “Negro.” The articles in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica are of some value, except the ridiculous article on the “Negro” by T. A. Joyce. Frobenius’ newly published Voice of Africa is broad-minded and informing, and Brown’s Story of Africa and its Explorers brings together much material in readable form. The compendiums by Keltie and White, and Johnston’s Opening up of Africa are the best among the shorter treatises.

None of these authors write from the point of view of the Negro as a man, or with anything but incidental acknowledgment of the existence or value of his history. We may, however, set down certain books under the various subjects which the chapters have treated. These books will consist of (1) standard works for wider reading and (2) special works on which the author has relied for his statements or which amplify his point of view. The latter are starred.

 

THE PHYSIOGRAPHY OF AFRICA

A. S. White: The Development of Africa, 2d ed., 1892.

Stanford’s Compendium of Geography: Africa, by A. H. Keane, 2d ed., 1904-7.

E. Reclus: Universal Geography, Vols. X-XIII.

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RACIAL DIFFERENCES AND THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTERISTICS OF NEGROES

J. Deniker: The Races of Man, etc., New York, 1904.

*J. Finot: Race Prejudice (tr. by Wade-Evans), New York, 1907.

*W. Z. Ripley: The Races of Europe, etc., New York, 1899.

*Jacques Loeb: in The Crisis, Vol. VIII, p. 84, Vol. IX p. 92.

*Papers on Inter-Racial Problems Communicated to the First Universal Races Congress, etc. (ed. by G. Spiller), 1911.

*G. Sergi: The Mediterranean Race, etc., London, 1901.

*Franz Boas: The Mind of Primitive Man, New York, 1911.

C. B. Davenport: Heredity of Skin Color in Negro-White Crosses, 1913.

 

EARLY MOVEMENTS OF THE NEGRO RACE

*Sir Harry H. Johnston: The Opening up of Africa (Home University Library).

——- A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races, Cambridge, 1905.

*G. W. Stowe: The Native Races of South Africa (ed. by G. M. Theal), London, 1910.

(Consult also Johnston’s other works on Africa, and his article in Vol. XLIII of the journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland; also Inter-Racial Problems, and Deniker, noted above.)

 

NEGRO IN ETHIOPIA AND EGYPT

(The works of Breasted and Petrie, Maspero, Budge and Newberry and Garstang are the standard books on Egypt. They mention the Negro, but incidentally and often slightingly.)

*A. F. Chamberlain: “The Contribution of the Negro to Human Civilization” (Journal of Race Development, Vol. I, April, 1911).

T. E. S. Scholes: Glimpses of the Ages, etc., London, 1905.

W. H. Ferris: The African Abroad, etc., 2 vols., New Haven, 1913.

E. A. W. Budge: The Egyptian Sudan, 2 vols., 1907.

*Archeological Survey of Nubia.

*A. Thompson and D. Randal McIver: The Ancient Races of the Thebaid, 1905.

 

ABYSSINIA

Job Ludolphus: A New History of Ethiopia (tr. by Gent), London, 1682.

W. S. Harris: Highlands of Aethiopia, 3 vols., London, 1844.

[p. 149]

R. S. Whiteway: The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia . . . as narrated by Castanhosa, etc., 1902.

 

THE NIGER RIVER AND ISLAM

*F. L. Shaw (Lady Lugard): A Tropical Dependency, etc., London, 1906.

(The reader may dismiss as worthless Lady Lugard’s definition of “Negro.” Otherwise her book is excellent.)

*Es-Sa’di, Abderrahman Ben Abdallah, etc., translated into French by O. Houdas, Paris, 1900.

*F. DuBois: Timbuktu the Mysterious (tr. by White), 1896.

*W. D. Cooley: The Negroland of the Arabs, etc., 1841.

*H. Barth: Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, etc., 5 vols., 1857-58.

*Ibn Batuta, Travels, etc. (tr. by Lee), 1829.

*Leo Africanus: The History and Description of Africa, etc. (tr. by Pory, ed. by R. Brown), 3 vols., 1896.

*E. W. Blyden: Christianity, Islam, and the Negro Race.

*Leo Frobenius: The Voice of Africa (tr. by Blind), 2 vols., 1913.

Mungo Park: Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1799.

 

THE NEGRO ON THE GUINEA COAST

*Leo Frobenius (as above).

Sir Harry H. Johnston: Liberia, 2 vols., New York, 1906.

H. H. Foote: Africa and the American Flag, New York, 1859.

T. H. T. McPherson: A History of Liberia, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Studies.

T. J. Alldridge: A Transformed Colony (Sierra Leone), London, 1910.

E. D. Morel: Affairs of West Africa, 1902.

H. L. Roth: Great Benin and Its Customs, 1903.

*F. Starr: Liberia, 1913.

W. Jay: An Inquiry, etc., 1835.

*A. B. Ellis: The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast, 1887

—— The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 1890.

—— The Yoruba-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast, 1894.

C. H. Read and O. M. Dalton: Antiquities from the City of Benin, etc., 1899.

*M. H. Kingsley: West African Studies, 2d. ed., 1904.

*G. W. Ellis: Negro Culture in West Africa (Vai-speaking peoples), 1914

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THE CONGO VALLEY

*G. Schweinfurth: The Heart of Africa, Vol. II, 1873.

*H. M. Stanley: Through the Dark Continent, 2 vols., 1878.

—— In Darkest Africa, 2 vols., 1890.

—— The Congo, etc., 2 vols., London, 188 5.

H. von Wissman. My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa, 1891.

*H. R. Fox-Bourne: Civilization in Congoland, 1903.

Sir Harry H. Johnston: George Grenfell and the Congo, 2 vols., London, 1 908.

*E. D. Morel: Red Rubber, London, 1906.

 

THE NEGRO IN THE REGION OF THE GREAT LAKES

*Sir Harry H. Johnston: The Uganda Protectorate, 2d ed., 2 vols., 1904.

—— British Central Africa, 1897

—— The Nile Quest, 1903.

*D. Randal McIver: Mediaeval Rhodesia, 1906.

*The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa (ed. by H. Waller), 1874.

J. Dos Santos: Ethiopia Oriental (Theal’s Records of South Africa, Vol. VII).

C. Peters: “Ophir and Punt in South Africa” (African Society Journal, Vol. 1).

De Barros: De Asia.

R. Burton: Lake Regions of Central Africa, 1860.

R. p. Ashe: Chronicles of Uganda, 1894.

(See also Stanley’s works, as above.)

 

THIS NEGRO IN SOUTH AFRICA

*G. M. Theal: History and Ethnography of South Africa of the Zambesi to 1795, 3 vols., 1907-10.

—— History of South Africa since September, 1795, 5 vols., 1908

—— Records of South Eastern Africa, 9 vols., 1898-1903

*J. Bryce: Impressions of South Africa, 1897.

D. Livingstone: Missionary Travels in South Africa, 1857.

*South African Native Affairs Commission, 1903-5, Reports, etc., 5 vols., Cape Town, 1904-5.

G. Lagden: The Basutos, London, 1909.

J. Stewart: Lovedale, 1884.

(See also Stowe, as above.)

[p. 151]

 

ON NEGRO CIVILIZATION

Dowd: The Negro Races, 1907, 1914.

*H. Gregoire: An Inquiry concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of Negroes, etc. (tr. by Warden), Brooklyn, 1810.

C. Bucher: Industrial Evolution (tr. by Wickett), New York, 1904.

*Franz Boas: “The Real Race Problem” (The Crisis, December, 1910)

—— Commencement Address (Atlanta University Leaflet, No. 19).

*F. Ratzel: The History of Mankind (tr. by Butler), 3 vols., 1904,

C. Hayford: Gold Coast Institutions, 1903.

A. B. Camphor: Missionary Sketches and Folk Lore from Africa, 1909.

R. H. Nassau: Fetishism in West Africa, 1907.

*William Schneider: Die Culturfahigkeit des Negers, Frankfort, 1885.

*G. Schweinfurth: Artes Africanae, etc., 1875.

Duke of Mecklenburg: From the Congo to the Niger and the Nile (English tr.), Philadelphia, 1914.

D. Crawford: Thinking Black.

R. N. Cust: Sketch of Modern Language of Africa, 2 vols., 1883.

H. Chatelain: The Folk Lore of Angola.

D. Kidd: The Essential Kaffir, 1904.

—— Savage Childhood, 1906.

—— Kaffir Socialism and the Dawn of Individualism, 1908.

M. H. Tongue: Bushman Paintings, Oxford, 1909.

(See also the works of A. B. Ellis, Miss Kingsley, Sir Harry H. Johnston, Frobenius, Stowe, Theal, and Ibn Batuta; and particularly Chamberlain’s article in the Journal of Race Development.)

 

THE SLAVE TRADE

T. K. Ingram: History of Slavery and Serfdom, London, 1895. (Same article revised in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition.)

John R. Spears: The American Slave Trade, 1900.

*T. F. Buxton: The African Slave Trade, and Its Remedy, etc., 1896.

T. Clarkson: History . . . of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade, etc., 2 vols., 1808.

R. Drake: Revelations of a Slave Smuggler, New York, 1860.

*Report of the Lords of the Committee of Council, etc., London, 1789.

*B. Mayer: Captain Canot or Twenty Years of an African Slaver, etc., 1854.

W. E. B. DuBois: The suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the U.S.A., 1896.

(See also Bryan Edwards’ West Indies.)

[p. 152]

 

THE WEST INDIES AND SOUTH AMERICA

Fletcher and Kidder: Brazil and the Brazilians, 1879.

*Bryan Edwards: History . . . of the British West Indies, 5 editions, vols. II-V, 1793-1819.

*Sir Harry H. Johnston: The Negro in the New World, 1910.

T. G. Steward: The Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804, 1914.

J. N. Leger: Haiti, etc., 1907.

J. Bryce: South America, etc., 1912.

*J. B. de Lacerda: “The Metis or Half-Breeds of Brazil” (Inter-Racial Problems, etc.)

A. K. Fiske: History of the West Indies, 1899.

 

THE NEGRO IN THE UNITED STATES

*Walker’s Appeal, 1829.

*G. W. Williams: History of the Negro Race in America, 1619-1880, 1882.

B. G. Brawley: A Short History of the American Negro, 1913.

B. T. Washington: Up from Slavery, 1901.

—— The Story of the Negro, 2 vols., 1909.

*The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, 1912.

*G. E. Stroud: Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery, etc., 1827.

The Human Way: Addresses on Race Problems at the Southern Sociological Congress, Atlanta, 1913 (ed. by J. E. McCulloch).

W. J. Simmons: Men of Mark, 1887.

*J. R. Giddings: The Exiles of Florida, 1858.

W. E. Nell: The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, etc., 1855.

C. W. Chesnutt: The Marrow of Tradition, 1901.

P. L. Dunbar: Lyrics of Lowly Life, 1896.

*Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, revised edition, 1892.

*H. E. Kreihbel: Afro-American Folk Songs, etc., 1914.

T. P. Fenner and others: Cabin and Plantation Songs, etc., 1901.

W. F. Allen and others: Slave Songs of the United States, 1867.

W. E. B. DuBois: “The Negro Race in the United States of America” (Inter-Racial Problems, etc.)

—— “The Economics of Negro Emancipation” (Sociological Review, October, 1911).

—— John Brown.

—— The Philadelphia Negro, 1899.

W. E. B. DuBois: “Reconstruction and its Benefits” (American Historical Review, Vol. XV, No. 4).

[p. 153]

—— editor, The Crisis: A Record of the Darker Races, monthly, 1910.

—— editor, The Atlanta University Studies:

No. 1. Mortality Among Negroes in Cities, 1896.

No. 2. Social and Physical Conditions of Negroes in Cities, 1897.

No. 3. Some Efforts of Negroes for Social Betterment, 1898.

No. 4. The Negro in Business, 1899.

No. 5. The College Bred Negro, 1900.

No. 6. The Negro Common School, 1901.

No. 7. The Negro Artisan, 1902.

No. 8. The Negro Church, 1903.

No. 9. Notes on Negro Crime, 1904

No. 10. A Select Bibliography of the Negro American, 1905

No. 11. Health and Physique of the Negro American, 1906.

No. 12. Economic Co-operation among Negro Americans, 1907.

No. 13. The Negro American Family, 1908.

No. 14. Efforts for Social Betterment among Negro Americans, 1909.

No. 15. The College Bred Negro American, 1910.

No. 16. The Common School and the Negro American, 1911.

No. 17. The Negro American Artisan, 1912.

No. 18. Morals and Manners among Negro Americans, 1913.

*G. W. Cable: The Silent South, etc., 1885.

*J. R. Lynch: The Facts of Reconstruction, 1913.

*J. T. Wilson: The Black Phalanx, 1897.

William Goodell: Slavery and Anti-Slavery, 1852.

G. S. Merriam: The Negro and the Nation, 1906.

A. B. Hart: The Southern South, 1910.

*G. Livermore: An Historical Research respecting the Opinions of the Founders of the Republic on Negroes, etc., 1862.

Hartshorn and Penniman: An Era of Progress and Promise, 1910 (profusely illustrated).

*James Brewster: Sketches of Southern Mystery, Treason, and Murder.

Willcox and DuBois: Negroes in the United States (United States Census of 1900, Bulletin No. 8).

 

THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO RACE

*J. S. Keltie: The Partition of Africa, 2d ed., 1895.

B. T. Washington: The Future of the Negro.

W. E. B. DuBois: “The Future of the Negro Race in America” (East and West, Vol. II, No. 5).

—— Souls of Black Folk, 1913.

[p. 154]

—— Quest of the Silver Fleece.

Alexander Crummell: The Future of Africa, 2d ed., 1862.

*Casely Hayford: Ethiopia Unbound, 1911.

Kelly Miller: Out of the House of Bondage, 1914

—— Race Adjustment, 1908.

*J. Royce: Race Questions, etc., 1908.

*R. S. Baker: Following the Color Line, 1908.

N. S. Shaler: The Neighbor.

E. D. Morel: “Free Labor in Tropical Africa” (Nineteenth Century and After, 1914).

(See also Finot, Boas, Inter-Racial Problems, and White’s Development of Africa.)

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

 

STOLEN LEGACY

 

by GEORGE G. M. JAMES

 

New York: Philosophical Library

 

[1954]

Scanned, proofed and formatted by John Bruno Hare at sacred-texts.com, September 2008. This text is in the public domain in the US because its copyright was not renewed in a timely fashion.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

The author has also written the following pamphlets and articles:

PAMPHLETS

1. Health Week In New Castle.

2. Intermarriage. Published in London, England.

3. Black People Under Germany. Published in New York.

4. The Need of a New Education for the Subject Peoples of the World. Published in Arkansas, U. S. A.

5. The Probable Causes of Religious Apathy in our Institutions of Higher Learning and the Proposal of a New Naturalism. Published in Arkansas, U. S. A.

ARTICLES

1. The Church and the New Mentality.

2. Religion Is An Inductive and Progressive Science.

3. The Anti-Classical Wave.

4. The First Step In Negro Reconstruction.

5. Know Thyself. (A Series of 12 Articles) Published in the New York Age and the Zion Quarterly.

6. The Influence of Mathematics Upon the Mentality and Character of Students.

Published in the Georgia Herald.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. v]

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

PAGE

 

INTRODUCTION

<page 1>

 

(a) Characteristics of Greek Philosophy; (b) The Aims of the Book

 

 

 

 

 

PART I

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

 

GREEK PHILOSOPHY IS STOLEN EGYPTIAN PHILOSOPHY

<page 9>

 

1. The teachings of the Egyptian Mysteries reached other lands centuries   before it reached Athens; 2. The authorship of the individual doctrines is   extremely doubtful; 3. The chronology of Greek philosophers is mere   speculation; 4. The compilation of the history of Greek philosophy was the   plan of Aristotle executed by his school.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER II

 

 

SO-CALLED GREEK PHILOSOPHY WAS ALIEN TO THE GREEKS AND THEIR CONDITIONS OF   LIFE

<page 22>

 

The period of Greek philosophy (640-322 B.C.) was a period of   internal and external wars and was unsuitable for producing philosophers.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III

 

 

GREEK PHILOSOPHY WAS THE OFFSPRING OF THE EGYPTIAN MYSTERY SYSTEM

<page 27>

 

1. The Egyptian theory of salvation became the purpose of Greek   philosophy; 2. Circumstances of identity between the Egyptian and Greek   systems are shown; 3. The abolition of Greek philosophy with the Egyptian   Mysteries identifies them; 4. How the African Continent gave its culture to   the Western World.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV

 

 

THE EGYPTIANS EDUCATED THE GREEKS

<page 41>

 

1. The effects of the Persian Conquest; 2. The effects of the Conquest of Egypt   by Alexander the Great; 3. The Egyptians were the first to civilize the   Greeks; 4. Alexander visits the Oracle of Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah.

 

 

[p. vi]

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

 

THE PRE-SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHERS AND THE TEACHINGS ASCRIBED TO THEM

<page 55>

 

1. The earlier Ionion philosophers and their doctrines; 2. Pythagoras and   his doctrines; 3. The Eleatic philosophers and their doctrines. 4. The later   Ionion philosophers and their doctrines; 5. Summary of conclusions concerning   the Pre-Socratic philosophers and the history of the Four Qualities and Four   Elements. (a) The doctrines of the early Ionic, the Eleatic and the later   Ionic philosophers and Pythagoras are traced to their Egyptian origin; (b)   The doctrine of the Four Qualities and Four Elements is traced to its   Egyptian origin; (c) Plagiarism shown to be a common practice among the Greek   philosophers who borrowed from one another but chiefly from Pythagoras who   obtained his ideas from the Egyptians; (d) The doctrine of the Atom by Democritus   is traced to its Egyptian origin, as well as his large number of books. He   taught nothing new.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

 

THE ATHENIAN PHILOSOPHERS

<page 83>

 

1. SOCRATES

 

 

1. His Life: (a) Date and place of birth; (b) His economic status and   personality; (c) His trial and death; (d) Crito’s attempt to smuggle him out   of prison; (e) Phaedo describes the final scene before his death.

 

 

2. Doctrines: The doctrines of (a) The Nous; (b) The Supreme Good; (c)   Opposites and harmony; (d) The immortality of the soul and (e) Self   knowledge.

 

 

3. Summary of Conclusions: (a) The doctrines of Socrates are traced to their   Egyptian origin, as he taught nothing new; (b) The importance of the farewell   conversation of Socrates with his pupils and friends is set forth.

 

 

 

 

 

2. PLATO

 

 

(I) His early life; (II) His travels and academy; (III) His disputed writings;   (IV) His doctrines.

 

 

1. The theory of ideas and its application to natural phenomena including   (a) the real and unreal; (b) the Nous and (c) creation. 2. The ethical   doctrines concerning (a) the highest good; (b) definition of virtue and; (c)   the cardinal virtues. 3. The doctrine of the Ideal state whose attributes are   compared with the attributes of the soul and justice.

 

 

(V) Summary of Conclusions: (a) The doctrines of Plato are traced to their   Egyptian origin, as he taught nothing new;

 

 

[p. vii]

 

 

(b) Magic is shown to be the key to the interpretation of ancient religion   and philosophy; (c) The authorship of his books is disputed by modern   scholars, and ancient historians deny his authorship of the Republic and Timeas;   (d) The allegory of the charioteer and winged steeds is traced to its   Egyptian origin.

 

 

 

 

 

3. ARISTOTLE

 

 

(I) (a) His early life and training; (b) His own list of books; (c) Other list   of books; (II) Doctrines; (III) Summary of Conclusions.

 

 

A The doctrines are traced to their Egyptian origin, as he taught nothing   new; B (1) The library of Alexandria was the true source of Aristotle’s large   numbers of books; (2) The lack of uniformity between the list of books points   to doubtful authorship; C The discrepancies and doubts in this life.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

 

THE CURRICULUM OF THE EGYPTIAN MYSTERY SYSTEM

<page 131>

 

1. The education of Egyptian Priests according to their Orders; 2. The   education of the Egyptian Priests in: (a) The Seven Liberal Arts; (b) Secret   systems of languages and mathematical symbolism; (c) Magic. 3. A comparison   of the curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System with the list of books said   to be drawn up by Aristotle himself.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII

 

 

THE MEMPHITE THEOLOGY IS THE BASIS OF ALL IMPORTANT DOCTRINES OF GREEK   PHILOSOPHY

<page 139>

 

1. (a) The history, description and complete text of the Memphite Theology   are given and the subject matter is divided into three parts; (b) The text of   the first part is followed by the philosophy which the first part teaches;   (c) The text of the second part is followed by the philosophy which the   second part teaches; (d) The text of the third part is followed by the   philosophy which the third part teaches.

 

 

2. The Memphite Theology is shown to be the source of modern scientific knowledge;   (a) The identity of the creation of the Ennead with the Nebular Hypothesis   and; (b) The identity of the Sun God Atom with the atom of Science.

 

 

3. The Memphite Theology opens great possibilities for modern scientific   research: (a) The Greek concept of the atom is shown to be erroneous; (b)   With the new interpretation of the atom the Memphite Theology provides a vast   field of scientific secrets yet to be discovered.

 

 

[p. viii]

 

 

 

 

 

PART II

 

 

CHAPTER IX

 

 

SOCIAL REFORMATION THROUGH THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF AFRICAN REDEMPTION

<page 153>

 

1. SOCIAL REFORMATION

 

 

1. The knowledge that the African Continent gave civilization the Arts and   Sciences, Religion and Philosophy is des- tined to produce a change in the   mentality both of the White and Black people. 2. There are three persons in   the drama of Greek philosophy: (a) Alexander the Great; (b) Aristotle’s   School and; (c) The Ancient Roman Government who are responsible for a false   tradition about Africa and the social plight of its peoples; (3) Both the   White and Black people are common victims of a false tradition about Africa   and this fact makes both races partners in the solution of the problem of   racial reformation. (4) The methods suggested for racial reformation: (a)   Reeducation of both groups by world wide dissemination of Africa’s   contribution to civilization; (b) The abandonment of the false worship of   Greek intellect; (c) Special attention must be given to the re-education of   missionaries and a constant demand made for a change in missionary policy.

 

 

 

 

 

2. THE NEW PHILOSOPHY OF AFRICAN REDEMPTION

 

 

1. A statement and explanation of the new philosophy of African Redemption   are made; 2. Black people must cultivate methods of counteraction against:   (a) The false worship of Greek intellect; (b) Missionary literature and   exhibition and; (c) must demand a change in missionary policy.

 

 

Appendix

<page 163>

 

Notes

<page 176>

 

Index

<page 185>

 

 

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 1]

 

INTRODUCTION

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The term Greek philosophy, to begin with is a misnomer, for there is no such philosophy in existence. The ancient Egyptians had developed a very complex religious system, called the Mysteries, which was also the first system of salvation.

As such, it regarded the human body as a prison house of the soul, which could be liberated from its bodily impediments, through the disciplines of the Arts and Sciences, and advanced from the level of a mortal to that of a God. This was the notion of the summum bonum or greatest good, to which all men must aspire, and it also became the basis of all ethical concepts. The Egyptian Mystery System was also a Secret Order, and membership was gained by initiation and a pledge to secrecy. The teaching was graded and delivered orally to the Neophyte; and under these circumstances of secrecy, the Egyptians developed secret systems of writing and teaching, and forbade their Initiates from writing what they had learnt.

After nearly five thousand years of prohibition against the Greeks, they were permitted to enter Egypt for the purpose of their education. First through the Persian invasion and secondly through the invasion of Alexander the Great. From the sixth century B.C. therefore to the death of Aristotle (322 B.C.) the Greeks made the best of their chance to learn all they could about Egyptian culture; most students received instructions directly from the Egyptian Priests, but after the invasion by Alexander the Great, the Royal temples and libraries were plundered and pillaged, and Aristotle’s school converted the library at Alexandria into a research centre. There is no wonder then, that the production of the unusually large number of books ascribed to Aristotle has proved a physical impossibility, for any single man within a life time.

[p. 2]

The history of Aristotle’s life, has done him far more harm than good, since it carefully avoids any statement relating to his visit to Egypt, either on his own account or in company with Alexander the Great, when he invaded Egypt. This silence of history at once throws doubt upon the life and achievements of Aristotle. He is said to have spent twenty years under the tutorship of Plato, who is regarded as a Philosopher, yet he graduated as the greatest of Scientists of Antiquity. Two questions might be asked (a) How could Plato teach Aristotle what he himself did not know? (b) Why should Aristotle spend twenty years under a teacher from whom he could learn nothing? This bit of history sounds incredible. Again, in order to avoid suspicion over the extraordinary number of books ascribed to Aristotle, history tells us that Alexander the Great, gave him a large sum of money to get the books. Here again the history sounds incredible, and three statements must here be made.

(a) In order to purchase books on science, they must have been in circulation so as to enable Aristotle to secure them. (b) If the books were in circulation before Aristotle purchased them, and since he is not supposed to have visited Egypt at all, then the books in question must have been circulated among Greek philosophers. (c) If circulated among Greek philosophers, then we would expect the subject matter of such books to have been known before Aristotle’s time, and consequently he could not be credited either with producing them or introducing new ideas of science.

Another point of considerable interest to be accounted for was the attitude of the Athenian government towards this so-called Greek philosophy, which it regarded as foreign in origin and treated it accordingly. Only a brief study of history is necessary to show that Greek philosophers were undesirable citizens, who throughout the period of their investigations were victims of relentless persecution, at the hands of the Athenian government. Anaxagoras was imprisoned and exiled; Socrates was executed; Plato was sold into slavery and Aristotle

[p. 3]

was indicted and exiled; while the earliest of them all, Pythagoras, was expelled from Croton in Italy. Can we imagine the Greeks making such an about turn, as to claim the very teachings which they had at first persecuted and openly rejected? Certainly, they knew they were usurping what they had never produced, and as we enter step by step into our study the greater do we discover evidence which leads us to the conclusion that Greek philosophers were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Egyptian Priests and Hierophants.

Aristotle died in 322 B.C. not many years after he had been aided by Alexander the Great to secure the largest quantity of scientific books from the Royal Libraries and Temples of Egypt. In spite however of such great intellectual treasure, the death of Aristotle marked the death of philosophy among the Greeks, who did not seem to possess the natural ability to advance these sciences. Consequently history informs us that the Greeks were forced to make a study of Ethics, which they also borrowed from the Egyptian “Summum Bonum” or greatest good. The two other Athenian Philosophers must be mentioned here, I mean Socrates and Plato; who also became famous in history as philosophers and great thinkers. Every school boy believes that when he hears or reads the command “know thyself”, he is hearing or reading words which were uttered by Socrates. But the truth is that the Egyptian temples carried inscriptions on the outside addressed to Neophytes and among them was the injunction “know thyself”. Socrates copied these words from the Egyptian Temples, and was not the author. All mystery temples, inside and outside of Egypt carried such inscriptions, just like the weekly bulletins of our modern Churches.

Similarly, every school boy believes that when he hears or reads the names of the four cardinal virtues, he is hearing or reading names of virtues determined by Plato. Nothing has been more misleading, for the Egyptian Mystery System contained ten virtues, and from this source Plato copied what have been called the four cardinal virtues, justice, wisdom,

[p. 4]

temperance, and courage. It is indeed surprising how, for centuries, the Greeks have been praised by the Western World for intellectual accomplishments which belong without a doubt to the Egyptians or the peoples of North Africa.

Another noticeable characteristic of Greek philosophy is the fact that most of the Greek philosophers used the teachings of Pythagoras as their model; and consequently they have introduced nothing new in the field of philosophy. Included in the Pythagorean system we find the doctrines of (a) opposites (b) Harmony (c) Fire (d) Mind, since it is composed of fire atoms, (e) Immortality, expressed as transmigration of Souls, (f) The Summum Bonum or the purpose of philosophy. And these of course are reflected in the systems of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Democritus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

The next thing that is peculiar about Greek philosophy is its use in literature. The Egyptian Mystery System was the first secret Order of History and the publication of its teachings was strictly prohibited. This explains why Initiates like Socrates did not commit to writing their philosophy, and why the Babylonians and Chaldaeans who were very closely associated with them also refrained from publishing those teachings.

We can at once see how easy it was for an ambitious and even envious nation to claim a body of unwritten knowledge which would make them great in the eyes of the primitive world. The absurdity however, is easily recognized when we remember that the Greek language was used to translate several systems of teachings which the Greeks could not succeed in claiming. Such were the translation of Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, called the Septuagint; and the translation of the Christian Gospels, Acts and the Epistles in Greek, still called the Greek New Testament. It is only the unwritten philosophy of the Egyptians translated into Greek that has met with such an unhappy fate: a legacy stolen by the Greeks.

On account of reasons already given, I have been compelled to handle the subject matter of this book, in the way it has been handled: namely (a) with a frequency of repetition, because

[p. 5]

it is the method of Greek philosophy, to use a common principle to explain several different doctrines, and (b) the quotation and analysis of doctrines, because it is the object of this book to establish the Egyptian Origin and this cannot be so satisfactorily done if the doctrines are not presented. Greek philosophy is somewhat of a drama, whose chief actors were Alexander the Great, Aristotle and his successors in the peripatetic school, and the Roman Emperor Justinian. Alexander invaded Egypt and captured the Royal Library at Alexandria and plundered it. Aristotle made a library of his own with plundered books, while his school occupied the building and used it as a research centre. Finally, Justinian the Roman Emperor abolished the Temples and schools of philosophy i.e. another name for the Egyptian Mysteries which the Greeks claimed as their product, and on account of which, they have been falsely praised and honoured for centuries by the world, as its greatest philosophers and thinkers. This contribution to civilization was really and truly made by the Egyptians and the African Continent, but not by the Greeks or the European Continent. We sometimes wonder why the people of African descent find themselves in such a social plight as they do, but the answer is plain enough. Had it not been for this drama of Greek philosophy and its actors, the African Continent would have had a different reputation, and would have enjoyed a status of respect among the nations of the world. This unfortunate position of the African Continent and its peoples appears to be the result of misrepresentation upon which the structure of race prejudice has been built, i.e. the historical world opinion that the African Continent is backward, that its people are backward, and that their civilization is also backward.

Finally, the dishonesty in the movement of the publication of a Greek philosophy, becomes very glaring, when we refer to the fact, purposely that by calling the theorem of the Square on the Hypotenuse, the Pythagorean theorem, it has concealed the truth for centuries from the world, who ought

[p. 6]

to know that the Egyptians taught Pythagoras and the Greeks, what mathematics they knew.

I want to mention here that among the many books which I found helpful in my present work are “The Intellectual Adventure of Man” and “The Egyptian Religion” by Professor Henri Frankfort and “The Mediterranean World in Ancient Times” by Professor Eva Sandford.

George G. M. James

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 7]

 

THE AIMS OF THE BOOK

The aim of the book is to establish better race relations in the world, by revealing a fundamental truth concerning the contribution of the African Continent to civilization. It must be borne in mind that the first lesson in the Humanities is to make a people aware of their contribution to civilization; and the second lesson is to teach them about other civilizations. By this dissemination of the truth about the civilization of individual peoples, a better understanding among them, and a proper appraisal of each other should follow. This notion is based upon the notion of the Great Master Mind: Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. Consequently, the book is an attempt to show that the true authors of Greek philosophy were not the Greeks; but the people of North Africa, commonly called the Egyptians; and the praise and honour falsely given to the Greeks for centuries belong to the people of North Africa, and therefore to the African Continent. Consequently this theft of the African legacy by the Greeks led to the erroneous world opinion that the African Continent has made no contribution to civilization, and that its people are naturally backward. This is the misrepresentation that has become the basis of race prejudice, which has affected all people of color.

For centuries the world has been misled about the original source of the Arts and Sciences; for centuries Socrates, Plato and Aristotle have been falsely idolized as models of intellectual greatness; and for centuries the African continent has been called the Dark Continent, because Europe coveted the honor of transmitting to the world, the Arts and Sciences.

I am happy to be able to bring this information to the attention of the world, so that on the one hand, all races and creeds

[p. 8]

might know the truth and free themselves from those prejudices which have corrupted human relations; and on the other hand, that the people of African origin might be emancipated from their serfdom of inferiority complex, and enter upon a new era of freedom, in which they would feel like free men, with full human rights and privileges.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 9]

 

PART I

 

CHAPTER I:

 

Greek Philosophy is Stolen Egyptian Philosophy.

 

1. The Teachings of the Egyptian Mysteries Reached Other Lands Many Centuries Before It Reached Athens.

ACCORDING to history, Pythagoras after receiving his training in Egypt, returned to his native island, Samos, where he established his order for a short time, after which he migrated to Croton (540 B.C.) in Southern Italy, where his order grew to enormous proportions, until his final expulsion from that country. We are also told that Thales (640 B.C.) who had also received his education in Egypt, and his associates: Anaximander, and Anaximenes, were natives of Ionia in Asia Minor, which was a stronghold of the Egyptian Mystery schools, which they carried on. (Sandford’s The Mediterranean World, p. 195-205). Similarly, we are told that Xenophanes (576 B.C.), Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus were also natives of Ionia and that they migrated to Elea in Italy and established themselves and spread the teachings of the Mysteries.

In like manner we are informed that Heraclitus (530 B.C.), Empedocles, Anaxagoras and Democritus were also natives of Ionia who were interested in physics. Hence in tracing the course of the so-called Greek philosophy, we find that Ionian students after obtaining their education from the Egyptian priests returned to their native land, while some of them migrated to different parts of Italy, where they established themselves.

Consequently, history makes it clear that the surrounding neighbours of Egypt had all become familiar with the teachings of Egyptian Mysteries many centuries before the Athenians,

[p. 10]

who in 399 B.C. sentenced Socrates to death (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil., p. 112; 127; 170-172) and subsequently caused Plato and Aristotle to flee for their lives from Athens, because philosophy was something foreign and unknown to them. For this same reason, we would expect either the Ionians or the Italians to exert their prior claim to philosophy, since it made contact with them long before it did with the Athenians, who were always its greatest enemies, until Alexander’s conquest of Egypt, which provided for Aristotle free access to the Library of Alexandria.

The Ionians and Italians made no attempt to claim the authorship of philosophy, because they were well aware that the Egyptians were the true authors. On the other hand, after the death of Aristotle, his Athenian pupils, without the authority of the state, undertook to compile a history of philosophy, recognized at that time as the Sophia or Wisdom of the Egyptians, which had become current and traditional in the ancient world, which compilation, because it was produced by pupils who had belonged to Aristotle’s school, later history has erroneously called Greek philosophy, in spite of the fact that the Greeks were its greatest enemies and persecutors, and had persistently treated it as a foreign innovation. For this reason, the so-called Greek philosophy is stolen Egyptian philosophy, which first spread to Ionia, thence to Italy and thence to Athens. And it must be remembered that at this remote period of Greek history, i.e., Thales to Aristotle 640 B.C.-322 B.C., the Ionians were not Greek citizens, but at first Egyptian subjects and later Persian subjects.

Zeller’s Hist. of Phil.: p. 37; 46; 58; 66-83; 112; 127; 170172.

William Turner’s Hist. of Phil.: p 34; 39; 45; 53.

Roger’s Student Hist. of Phil.: p. 15.

B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil.: p. 13; 21.

Sandford’s The Mediterranean World p. 157; 195-205.

A brief sketch of the ancient Egyptian Empire would also make it clear that Asia Minor or Ionia was the ancient land of

[p. 11]

the Hittites, who were not known by any other name in ancient days.

According to Diodorus and Manetho, High Priest in Egypt, two columns were found at Nysa Arabia; one of the Goddess Isis and the other of the God Osiris, on the latter of which the God declared that he had led an army into India, to the sources of the Danube, and as far as the ocean. This means of course, that the Egyptian Empire, at a very early date, included not only the islands of the Aegean sea and Ionia, but also extended to the extremities of the East.

We are also informed that Senusert I, during the 12th Dynasty (i.e., about 1900 B.C.) conquered the whole sea coast of India, beyond the Ganges to the Eastern ocean. He is also said to have included the Cyclades and a great part of Europe in his conquests.

Secondly, the “Amarna Letters” found in the government offices of the Egyptian King, Iknaton, testify to the fact, that the Egyptian Empire had extended to western Asia, Syria and Palestine, and that for centuries Egyptian power had been supreme in the ancient world. This was in the 18th Dynasty i.e., about 1500 B.C.

We are also told that during the reign of Tuthmosis III, the dominion of Egypt extended not only along the coast of Palestine: but also from Nubia to Northern Asia.

(Breadsted’s Conquest of Civilization p. 84; Diodorus 128; Manetho; Strabo; Dicaearchus; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt vol. I).

 

2. The Authorship of the Individual Doctrines Is Extremely Doubtful.

As one attempts to read the history of Greek philosophy, one discovers a complete absence of essential information concerning the early life and training of the so-called Greek philosophers, from Thales to Aristotle. No writer or historian professes to know anything about their early education. All they tell us about them consists of (a) a doubtful date and

[p. 12]

place of birth and (b) their doctrines; but the world is left to wonder who they were and from what source they got their early education, and would naturally expect that men who rose to the position of a Teacher among relatives, friends and associates, would be well-known, not only by them, but by the whole community.

On the contrary, men who might well be placed among the earliest Teachers in history, who had grown up from childhood to manhood, and had taught pupils, are represented as unknown, being without any domestic, social or early educational traces.

This is unbelievable, and yet it is a fact that the history of Greek philosophy has presented to the world a number of men whose lives it knows little or nothing about; but expects the world to accept them as the true authors of the doctrines which are alleged to be theirs.

In the absence of essential evidence, the world hesitates to recognise them as such, because the truth of this whole matter of Greek philosophy points to a very different direction.

The Book on nature entitled peri physeos was the common name under which Greek students interested in nature-study wrote. The earliest copy is said to date back to the sixth century B.C. and it is customary to refer to the remnants of peri physeos as the Fragments. (William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 62). We do not believe that genuine Initiates produced the Book on nature, since this was contrary to the rules of the Egyptian Mysteries, in connexion with which the Philosophical Schools conducted their work. Egypt was the centre of the body of ancient wisdom, and knowledge, religious, philosophical and scientific spread to other lands through student Initiates. Such teachings remained for generations and centuries in the form of tradition, until the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the movement of Aristotle and his school to compile Egyptian teaching and claim

[p. 13]

it as Greek Philosophy. (Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail p. 16.)

Consequently, as a source of authority of authorships, peri physeos, is of little value, if any, since history mentions only four names as authors of it, namely, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras; and asks the world to accept their authorship of philosophy, because Theophrastus, Sextus, Proclus and Simplicius, of the school at Alexandria are said to have preserved small remnants of it (the Fragments). If peri physeos is the criterion to the authorship of Greek Philosophy, then it falls short in its purpose by a long way, since only four philosophers are alleged to have written this book, and to have remnants of their work. According to this idea all the other philosophers, who failed to write peri physeos and to have remnants of it, also failed to write Greek philosophy. This is the reductio ad absurdum to which peri physeos leads us.

The schools of philosophy, Chaldean, Greek and Persian, were part of the Ancient Mystery System of Egypt. They were conducted in secrecy according to the demands of the Osiriaca, whose teachings became common to all the schools. In keeping with the demands for secrecy, the writing and publication of teachings were strictly forbidden and consequently, Initiates who had developed satisfactorily in their training, and had been advanced to the rank of Master or Teacher, refrained from publishing the teachings of the Mysteries or philosophy.

Consequently any publication of philosophy could not have come from the pen of the original philosophers themselves, but either from their close friends who knew their views, as in the case of Pythagoras and Socrates, or from interested persons who made a record of those philosophical teachings that had become popular opinion and tradition. There is no wonder then, that in the absence of original authorship, history has had to resort to the strategy of accepting Aristotle’s opinion as the sole authority in determining the authorship of Greek Philosophy (Introduction to Alfred Weber’s History of Philosophy). It is for these reasons that great doubt surrounds the so-called

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[paragraph continues] Greek authorship of philosophy. (William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 35; 39; 47; 53; 62; 79; 210-211; 627. Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail p. 16. Theophrastus: Fragment 2 apud Diels. Introduction to Alfred Weber’s History of Philosophy.)

 

3. The Chronology of Greek Philosophers Is Mere Speculation.

History knows nothing about the early life and training of the Greek philosophers and this is true not only of the pre-Socratic philosophers: but also of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, who appear in history about the age of eighteen and begin to teach at forty.

As a body of men they were undesirable to the state, (personae non gratae) and were consequently persecuted and driven into hiding and secrecy. Under such circumstances they kept no records of their activities and this was done in order to conceal their identity. After the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the seizure and looting of the Royal Library at Alexandria, Aristotle’s plan to usurp Egyptian philosophy, was subsequently carried out by members of his school: Theophrastus, Andronicus of Rhodes and Eudemus, who soon found themselves confronted with the problem of a chronology for a history of philosophy. (Introduction of Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 13).

Throughout this effort there has been much speculation concerning the date of birth of philosophers, whom the public knew very little about. As early as the third century B.C. (274-194 B.C.) Eratosthenes, a Stoic drew up a chronology of Greek philosophers and in the second century B.C. (140) Apollodorus also drew up another. The effort continued, and in the first century B.C. (60-70 B.C.) Andronicus, the eleventh Head of the Peripatetic school, also drew up another.

This difficulty continued throughout the early centuries, and has come down to the present time for it appears that all modern writers on Greek Philosophy are unable to agree on

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the dates that should be assigned to the nativity of the philosophers. The only exception appears to occur with reference to the three Athenian philosophers, i.e., Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the date of whose nativity is believed to be certain, and concerning which there is general agreement among historians.

However, when we come to deal with the pre-Socratic philosophers, we are confronted with confusion and uncertainty, and a few examples would serve to illustrate the untrustworthy nature of the chronology of Greek Philosophers.

(1) Diogenes Laertius places the birth of Thales at 640 B.C., while William Turner’s History of Philosophy places it as 620 B.C.; that of Frank Thilly at 624 B.C.; that of A. K. Rogers at early in the sixth century B.C.; and that of W. G. Tennemann at 600 B.C.

(2) Diogenes Laertius places the birth of Anaximenes at 546 B.C.; while W. Windelbrand places it at the sixth century B.C.; that of Frank Thilly at 588 B.C.; that of B. D. Alexander at 560 B.C.; while that of A. K. Rogers at the sixth century B.C.

(3) Parmenides is credited by Diogenes as being born at 500 B.C.; while Fuller, Thilly and Rogers omit a date of birth, because they say it is unknown.

(4) Zeller places the birth of Xenophanes at 576 B.C.; while Diogenes gives 570 B C.; and the majority of the other historians declare that the date of birth is unknown.

(5) With reference to Xeno, Diogenes who does not know the date of his birth, says that he flourished between B.C. 464-460; while William Turner places it at 490 B.C.; like Frank Thilly and B. D. Alexander; while Fuller, A. K. Rogers and W. G. Tennemann declare it is unknown.

(6) With references to Heraclitus, Zeller makes the following suppositions: if he died in 475 B.C. and if he was sixty years old when he died, then he must have been born in 535 B.C.; similarly Diogenes supposes that he flourished between B.C. 504-500; and while William Turner places his birth at 530 B.C.; Windelbrand places it at 536 B.C.; and

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[paragraph continues] Fuller and Tennemann declare that he flourished in 500 B.C.

(7) With reference to Pythagoras, Zeller who does not know the date of his birth supposes that it occurred between the years 580-570 B.C.; and while Diogenes also supposes that it occurred between the years 582-500 B.C.; William Turner, Fuller, Rogers, and Tennemann declare that it is unknown.

(8) With reference to Empedocles, while Diogenes places his birth at 484 B.C.; Turner, Windelbrand, Fuller, B. D. Alexander and Tennemann place it at 490 B.C.; while A. K. Rogers and others declare it is unknown.

(9) With reference to Anaxagoras, while Zeller and Diogenes place his birth at 500 B.C.; William Turner, A. G. Fuller, and Frank Thilly agree with them, while Alexander places it at 450 B.C. and A. K. Rogers and others declare it is unknown.

(10) With reference to Leucippus, all historians seem to be of the opinion that he has never existed.

(11) Socrates (469-399 B.C.), Plato (427-347 B.C.), and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) are the only three philosophers the dates of whose nativity and death do not seem to have led to speculation among historians; but the reason for this uniformity is probably clue to the fact that they were Athenians and had been indicted by the Athenian Government who would naturally have investigated them and kept a record of their cases. (A. K. Roger’s Hist. of Phil. p. 104).

N.B.

It must be noted from the preceding comparative study of the chronology of Greek philosophers that (a) the variation in dates points to speculation (b) the pre-Socratic philosophers were unknown because they were foreigners to the Athenian Government and probably never existed (c) it follows that both the pre-Socratic philosophers together with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were persecuted by the Athenian Government tor introducing foreign doctrines into Athens. (d) In consequence of these facts, any subsequent claim by the

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[paragraph continues] Greeks to the ownership or authorship of the same doctrines which they had rejected and persecuted, must be regarded as a usurpation.

 

4. The Compilation of the History of Greek Philosophy Was the Plan of Aristotle Executed by His School.

When Aristotle decided to compile a history of Greek Philosophy he must have made known his wishes to his pupils Theophrastus and Eudemus: for no sooner did he produce his metaphysics, than Theophrastus followed him by publishing eighteen books on the doctrines of the physicists. Similarly, after Theophrastus had published his doctrines of the physicists, Eudemus produced separate histories of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and also theology. This was an amazing start, because of the large number of scientific books, and the wide range of subjects treated. This situation has rightly aroused the suspicion of the world, as it questions the source of these scientific works.

Since Theophrastus and Eudemus were students under Aristotle at the same time, and since the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, made the Egyptian Library at Alexandria available to the Greeks for research, then it must be expected that the three men, Aristotle who was a close friend of Alexander, Theophrastus and Eudemus not only did research at the Alexandrine Library at the sane time, but must also have helped themselves to books, which enabled them to follow each other so closely in the production of scientific works (William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 158-159), which were either a portion of the war booty taken from the Library or compilations from them. (Note that Aristotle’s works reveal the signs of note taking and that Theophrastus and Eudemus were pupils attending Aristotle’s school at the same time). William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 127.

Just here it might be as well to mention the names of Aristotle’s pupils who took an active part in promoting the

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movement towards the compilation of a history of Greek philosophy:

(a) Theophrastus of Lesbos 371-286 B.C., who succeeded Aristotle as head of the peripatetic school. As elsewhere mentioned, he is said to have produced eighteen books on the doctrines of physicists. Who were these physicists? Greek or Egyptians? Just think of it.

(b) Eudemus of Rhodes a contemporary of Theophrastus with whom he also attended Aristotle’s school. He is said to have produced histories of Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and theology, as elsewhere mentioned. What was the source of the data of the histories of these sciences, which must have taken any nation thousands of years to develop? Greece or Egypt? Just think of it.

(c) Andronicus of Rhodes, an Eclectic of Aristotle’s school and editor of his works (B.C. 70).

These men’s works together with Aristotle’s metaphysics, which contained a critical summary of the doctrines of all preceding philosophers, seem to form the nucleus of a compilation of what has been called, the history of Greek philosophy (Zeller’s Hist. of Greek Phil.: Introduction p. 7-14).

The next movement was the organization of an association called “The learned study of Aristotle’s Writings”, whose members were Theophrastus and Andronicus, who were both closely connected with the school of Aristotle. The function of this association was to identify the literature and doctrines of philosophy with their so-called respective authors, and in order to accomplish this the alumni of Aristotle’s school and its friends were encouraged to enter upon a research for Aristotle’s works and to write commentaries on them.

In addition to this, the Learned Association also encouraged research for the recovery of what has been named Fragments or remnants of a book, which is supposed to have once existed, and to have borne the common title “Peri Physeos”, i.e., concerning nature.

Here again those who went out in search of “peri physeos”

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or its remnants were the alumni of Aristotle’s school and its friends: but their efforts to establish authorship was a failure.

(a) Theophrastus found only two lines of peri physeos, supposed to have been written by Anaximander.

(b) Sextus and Proclus of the fifth century A.D., and Simplicius of the sixth century A.D. are said to have found a copy of “peri physeos” supposed to have been produced by Parmenides.

(c) In addition, the name of Simplicius is also associated with a copy of “peri physeos”, which is supposed to have been produced by Anaxagoras.

So much for “peri physeos and the Fragments,” and so much for the attempt of “The Learned Association” for the study of Aristotle’s works; which has failed because of lack of evidence, as has elsewhere been pointed out.

The recovery of two copies and two lines of “peri physeos” is not proof that all Greek Philosophers wrote “peri physeos”, or even that the names assigned to them were their bona fide authors. It certainly would appear that the object of the Learned Association was to beat Aristotle’s own drum and dance. It was Aristotle’s idea to compile a history of philosophy, and it was Aristotle’s school and its alumni that carried out the idea, we are told.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 20] [p. 21]

 

CHAPTER II:

 

So-called Greek Philosophy Was Alien To The Greeks And Their Conditions Of Life.

 

1. The Period of Greek Philosophy (640-322 B.C.) Was A Period of Internal and External Wars, and Was Therefore Unsuitable For Producing Philosophers.

HISTORY supports the fact that from the time of Thales. to the time of Aristotle, the Greeks were victims of internal disunion, on the one hand, while on the other, they lived in constant fear of invasion from the Persians who were a common enemy to the city states.

Consequently when they were not fighting with one another they found themselves busy fighting the Persians, who soon dominated them and became their masters. From the 6th century B.C. the territory from the coast of Asia Minor to the Indus Valley became united under the single power of Persia, whose central territory Iran has survived as a national unit to the present day. Persian expansion was like a nightmare to the Greeks who dreaded the Persians on account of their invulnerable navy, and organized themselves into Leagues and Confederacies in order to resist their enemy. (C. 12 P. 195; Sandford’s Mediterranean World). There are three sources which throw light on the chaotic and troublesome conditions of this period in Greek history. (A) The Persian Conquests (B) The Leagues and (C) Peloponnesian wars.

A. The Persian Conquests

After the Persians had conquered the Ionians (possibly ancient Hittites), and made them their subjects, Polycrates (539-524 B.C.) seized the Island of Samos and made it a famous city. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World c. 9). Between

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[paragraph continues] 499 and 494 B.C. the Ionians revolted against the Persians, who defeated them at Lade, while Cyprus and Miletus were also captured. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World c. 12). In the summer of 490 B.C. Greek and Persian forces met at Marathon, but after a hand to hand fight, both belligerents withdrew, only to prepare stronger forces in order to renew the conflict. Accordingly, after ten years had elapsed a Hellenic League was organized against the Persians, and the Spartan King Leonides was sent with an army to hold the pass at Thermopylae, until the fleet should win a decisive victory. (C. 12, P. 202; Sandford’s Mediterranean World). Accordingly, during the month of August 481 B.C. Persian ships under the command of Xerxes anchored in the gulf of Pagasae, while the Greeks anchored off Cape Artemisium. Both sides awaited a favorable opportunity to attack. The Persians began to force the pass while simultaneously one of their detachments was secretly aided by a Greek traitor, along a steep mountain pass to the rear of the Greek position. Having been taken by surprise, the Greek guards immediately withdrew without resistance. The Spartans who were guarding Thermopylae were all slain and the pass captured by the Persians. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 12 P. 202). Having been defeated at Thermopylae, the Greeks withdrew to Salamis, where again they encountered a naval engagement with the Persians. It was late in September 481 B.C., and the result was a wanton destruction of ships on both sides, without any decision. Both belligerents withdrew: The Persians to Thessaly, and the Greeks to Attica. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 12 P. 203).

With the persistent aim of freedom from Persian domination, Athens, together with the island and coast cities (of the Aegean and Ionia) renewed their resistance of Persian rule. This was the confederacy of Delos, which undertook several naval engagements, but with little or no success. In 467 B.C. the battle of Eurymedon River was fought and lost with a great number of ships. Eighteen years later (449 B.C.)

[p. 23]

another naval engagement took place off the island of Cyprus, but again without decision, and consequently Persian sovereignty over the Greeks remained. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 12 P. 205). In the meantime Sparta, under the terms of the Treaty of Miletus (413 B.C.) obtained subsidies from Persia, for naval construction, on condition that she recognize Persian sovereignty over the Ionians and their allies. This was done by Sparta as a threat to Athenian ambitions.

However, it was not long after the Treaty of Miletus, that the Greeks themselves submitted to the authority and dominance of the Persians. During the winter 387-386 B.C., the individual Ionian cities, signed the peace terms of the Persian King, and finally accepted Persian rule. This Treaty was negotiated by a Spartan envoy who was authorized by the Persian King to enforce its provisions. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 13 and 15, P. 225 and 255).

B. The Leagues

Apart from the resistance of a common foe, the Persians, a study of the function of the Leagues, reveals the enmity and spirit of aggression which were characteristic of the relationship which existed between the Greek city states themselves.

Accordingly in 505 B.C., the Peloponnesian states signed treaties among themselves, pledging warfare against Sparta who had absorbed them under her influence. Meanwhile, Aristogoras revived the Ionian League (499-494 B.C.) to resist Persian aggression, and friendship between Athens and Aegina was restored by the Hellenic League (481 B.C.) which was afterward converted into the Confederacy of Delos (478 B.C.) as mentioned elsewhere. In like manner, Thebes also fell in line with the general temper of the age and organized the Boeotian League, a federation of city states, for self-protection and aggression. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 9, P. 150; C. 12, P. 201).

In 377 B.C. a second Athenian Confederacy was organized, but this was to frustrate the aims of the Lacedaemonians and

[p. 24]

to compel them to respect the right of the Athenians and their allies (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 15, P. 260). Likewise in 290 B C., the Aetolian League, made up of the States of central Greece, gained control of Delphi, and frequently violated Achaean rights in the Peloponnesus, while in 225 B.C. Antigonus Doson organized another Hellenic League, with the purpose of obstructing the ambitions of Sparta and her Aetolian allies. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 18, P. 317 and 319).

(W. H. Couch’s Hist. of Greece, p. 206-209, c. 11. Botsford & Robinson’s Hellenic Hist., p. 115-121; 127-142. T. B. Bury’s Hist. of Greece, p. 216-229; 240-241; 259-269; 471472. The Tutorial Hist. of Greece by W. J. Woodhouse, c. 18, 20 and 21).

C. The Peloponnesian Wars 460-445 B.C. and 431-421 B.C.

Owing to the ambitions of Athens to dominate the Ionians and other neighboring peoples, Pericles launched a campaign of alliances and conquests extending from Thessaly to Argos, and from Euboea to Naupactus, Achaea and the chief islands of the Ionian Sea.

The net results were as follows: (a) Athens established alliances with Boeotia, Phocis and Locris, in spite of Sparta’s opposition. (b) In 456 B.C. Aegina was captured and made tributary. (c) In 450 B.C. Athens failed in her attempt to invade Corinth. (d) In 451 friendship between Athens and Sparta was restored through the instrumentality of Cimon, on the condition that Athenian alliance with Argos was dissolved. (e) In 447 B.C. the exiled Oligarchs of Thebes defeated the Athenians at Coronea, and reestablished the Boeotian League under Theban leadership. (f) In 445 B.C. the 30 years peace was signed and after the revolt of Euboea and Megara, Sparta invaded Attica and Pericles sued for peace. Athens lost all her continental holdings. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 13, P. 220).

The second Peloponnesian war (431-421 B.C.) like that of

[p. 25]

the first arose through a general spirit of rebellion among the Greek city states against Athenian imperialism, Sparta being the chief enemy.

The net results were as follows: (a) In 435 B.C. war between Corcyra and Corinth, Corcyra being aided by Athens.

(b) In 432 B.C.

(1) Athens blockaded Potidaea, because she refused to dismantle her Southern walls, and dismiss her Corinthian Magistrates.

(2) Megara was excluded from Greek Markets, in order to reduce her to subjection.

(3) The Peloponnesian League planned war against Athens and Boeotia. Phocis and Locris were to fight against Athens, Corcyra and a few Northern states.

(c) In 431 B.C.

(1) Thebes attacked Plataea, and while a Peloponnesian army occupied Attica, the Athenian fleet raided Peloponnesus.

(2) Pericles being unable to defend Attica adequately transferred the civil population every Spring to the area between the walls of Athens and the Peiraeus. In the meantime the Athenian fleet operated against Potidaea, the Peloponnesian coast and Corinthian commerce.

(d) In 428 B.C.

(1) Mitylene and all the cities of Lesbos revolted.

(2) A brutal massacre of Oligarchs took place at Corcyra.

(e) In 425 B.C.

(1) A Laconian force at Pylos was captured and a fort was established through Demosthenes and Cleon.

(2) Cythera and other stations were fortified against the Peloponnesians.

(3) Amphipolis was captured by Brasidas a Spartan, who had instigated rebellion among the Athenian

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allies, and after Brasdias and Cleon had been killed in battle (422 B.C.), Athens authorized Nicias to sue for peace. (Sandford’s Mediterranean World C. 13, P. 220-221).

It is obvious from a study of the causes and effects of the Peloponnesian wars that

(a) The Greek states were envious of each other and

(b) The desire for power and expansion led to constant aggression and warfare among themselves.

(c) The condition of constant warfare between the city states was unfavourable for the production of philosophers.

Before passing on to consider my next proposition I would like to say that it is an accepted truth that the development of philosophical thought requires an environment which is free from disturbance and worries. The period commonly assigned to Greek philosophy (i.e. Thales to Aristotle) was exactly the opposite to one of peace and tranquility, and therefore it could not be expected to produce philosophy. The obstacles against the origin and development of Greek philosophy, were not only the frequency of civil wars; and the constant defense against Persian aggression; but also the threat of extermination from the Athenian government, its worst enemy.

D. PHILOSOPHY REQUIRES A SUITABLE ENVIRONMENT.

I must now add the following quotation which depicts this period. “For although the natural ills that beset mankind are many, we ourselves have added to them by wars and civil strife against one another, so that some have been unjustly put to death in their own cities, others driven into exile with their wives and children, and many have been compelled, for the sake of their daily bread, to die fighting against their own people, for the sake of the enemy”. (Isocrates)

(Botsford & Robinson’s Hellenic Hist., c. XIII. Couch’s Hist. of Greece, c. XXII. Bury’s Hist. of Greece, c. X. The Tutorial Hist. of Greece by W. J. Woodhouse, c. 27, 28 and 29).

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 27]

 

CHAPTER III:

 

Greek Philosophy Was the Offspring of The Egyptian Mystery System.

 

1. The Egyptian Theory of Salvation Became the Purpose of Greek Philosophy.

THE earliest theory of salvation is the Egyptian theory. The Egyptian Mystery System had as its most important object, the deification of man, and taught that the soul of man if liberated from its bodily fetters, could enable him to become godlike and see the Gods in this life and attain the beatific vision and hold communion with the Immortals (Ancient Mysteries, C. H. Vail, P. 25).

Plotinus defines this experience as the liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, when it becomes one and is identified with the Infinite. This liberation was not only freedom of the soul from bodily impediments, but also from the wheel of reincarnation or rebirth. It involved a process of disciplines or purification both for the body and the soul. Since the Mystery System offered the salvation of the soul it also placed great emphasis upon its immortality. The Egyptian Mystery System, like the modern University, was the centre of organized culture, and candidates entered it as the leading source of ancient culture. According to Pietschmann, the Egyptian Mysteries had three grades of students (1) The Mortals i.e., probationary students who were being instructed, but who had not yet experienced the inner vision. (2) The Intelligences, i.e., those who had attained the inner vision, and had received mind or nous and (3) The Creators or Sons of Light, who had become identified with or united with the Light (i.e., true spiritual consciousness). W. Marsham Adams, in the “Book of the Master”, has described those grades as the equivalents of Initiation,

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Illumination and Perfection. For years they underwent disciplinary intellectual exercises, and bodily asceticism with intervals of tests and ordeals to determine their fitness to proceed to the more serious, solemn and awful process of actual Initiation.

Their education consisted not only in the cultivation of the ten virtues, which were made a condition to eternal happiness, but also of the seven Liberal Arts which were intended to liberate the soul. There was also admission to the Greater Mysteries, where an esoteric philosophy was taught to those who had demonstrated their proficiency. (Ancient Mysteries C. H. Vail P. 24-25). Grammar, Rhetoric, and Logic were disciplines of moral nature by means of which the irrational tendencies of a human being were purged away, and he was trained to become a living witness of the Divine Logos. Geometry and Arithmetic were sciences of transcendental space and numeration, the comprehension of which provided the key not only to the problems of one’s being; but also to those physical ones, which are so baffling today, owing to our use of the inductive methods. Astronomy dealt with the knowledge and distribution of latent forces in man, and the destiny of individuals, laces and nations. Music (or Harmony) meant the living practice of philosophy i.e., the adjustment of human life into harmony with God, until the personal soul became identified with God, when it would hear and participate in the music of the spheres. It was therapeutic, and was used by the Egyptian Priests in the cure of diseases. Such was the Egyptian theory of salvation, through which the individual was trained to become godlike while on earth, and at the same time qualified for everlasting happiness. This was accomplished through the efforts of the individual, through the cultivation of the Arts and Sciences on the one hand, and a life of virtue on the other. There was no mediator between man and his salvation, as we find in the Christian theory. Reference will again be made to these subjects, as part of the Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System.

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Now that we have outlined the Egyptian theory of salvation and its purpose, let us examine Greek philosophy and its purpose in order to discover whether there is an agreement between the two systems, or not.

 

2. Circumstances of identity between the Egyptian and Greek Systems.

A. The Indictment and Prosecution of Greek Philosophers.

The indictment and prosecution of Greek philosophers is a circumstance which is familiar to us all. Several philosophers, one after another, were indicted by the Athenian Government, on the common charge of introducing strange divinities. Anaxagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle received similar indictments for a similar offence. The most famous of these was that against Socrates which reads as follows. “Socrates commits a crime by not believing in the Gods of the city, and by introducing other new divinities. He also commits a crime by corrupting the youth”. Now, in order to find out what these new divinities were, we must go back to the popular opinion which Aristophanes (423 B.C.) in the Clouds, aroused against him. It runs as follows: “Socrates is an evildoer, who busies himself with investigating things beneath the earth and in the sky, and who makes the worse appear the better reason, and who teaches others these same things (Plato’s Apology C. 1-10; Aristophanes’ Frogs, 1071; Apology 18 B.C., 19 C. Apology 24 B).

It is clear then that Socrates offended the Athenian government simply because he pursued the study of astronomy and probably that of geology; and that the other philosophers were persecuted for the same reason. But the study of science was a required condition to membership in the Egyptian Mystery System, and its purpose was the liberation of the Soul from the ten bodily fetters, and if the Greek philosophers studied the sciences, then they were fulfilling a required condition to membership in the Egyptian Mystery System

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and its purpose; either through direct contact with Egypt or its schools or lodges outside its territory.

B. A Life of Virtue was a Condition Required by the Egyptian Mysteries as Elsewhere Mentioned.

The virtues were not mere abstractions or ethical sentiments, but were positive valours and virility of the soul. Temperance meant complete control of the passional nature. Fortitude meant such courage as would not allow adversity to turn us away from our goal. Prudence meant the deep insight that befits the faculty of Seership. Justice meant the unswerving righteousness of thought and action.

Furthermore, when we compare the two ethical systems, we discover that the greater includes the less, and that it also suggests the origin of the latter. In the Egyptian Mysteries the Neophyte was required to manifest the following soul attributes:–

(1) Control of thought and (2) Control of action, the combination of which, Plato called Justice (i.e., the unswerving righteousness of thought and action). (3) Steadfastness of purpose, which was equivalent to Fortitude. (4) Identity with spiritual life or the higher ideals, which was equivalent to Temperance an attribute attained when the individual had gained conquest over the passional nature. (5) Evidence of having a mission in life and (6) Evidence of a call to spiritual Orders or the Priesthood in the Mysteries: the combination of which was equivalent to Prudence or a deep insight and graveness that befitted the faculty of Seership.

Other requirements in the ethical system of the Egyptian Mysteries were:–

(7) Freedom from resentment, when under the experience of persecution and wrong. This was known as courage. (8) Confidence in the power of the master (as Teacher), and (9) Confidence in one’s own ability to learn; both attributes being known as Fidelity. (10) Readiness or preparedness for initiation. There has always been this principle of the Ancient

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[paragraph continues] Mysteries of Egypt: “When the pupil is ready, then the master will appear”. This was equivalent to a condition of efficiency at all times for less than this pointed to a weakness. It is now quite clear that Plato drew the four Cardinal virtues from the Egyptian ten; also that Greek philosophy is the offspring of the Egyptian Mystery System.

C. (i) There was a Grand Lodge in Egypt which had associated Schools and Lodges in the ancient world.

There were mystery schools, or what we would commonly call lodges in Greece and other lands, outside of Egypt, whose work was carried on according to the Osiriaca, the Grand Lodge of Egypt. Such schools have frequently been referred to as private or philosophic mysteries, and their founders were Initiates of the Egyptian Mysteries; the Ionian temple at Didyma; the lodge of Euclid at Megara; the lodge of Pythagoras at Crotona; and the Orphic temple at Delphi, with the schools of Plato and Aristotle. Consequently we make a mistake when we suppose that the so-called Greek philosophers formulated new doctrines of their own; for their philosophy had been handed down by the great Egyptian Hierophants through the Mysteries. (Ancient Mysteries C. H. Vail P. 59). In addition to the control of the mysteries, the Grand Lodge permitted an exchange of visits between the various lodges, in order to ensure the progress of the brethren in the secret science.

We are told in the Timaeus of Plato, that aspirants for mystical wisdom visited Egypt for initiation and were told by the priests of Sais, “that you Greeks are but children” in the Secret Doctrine, but were admitted to information enabling them to promote their spiritual advancement. Likewise, we are told by Jamblichus of a correspondence between Anebo and Porphyry, dealing with the fraternal relations, existing between the various schools or lodges of instructions in different lands, how their members visited, greeted and assisted one another in the secret science, the more advanced being obliged to afford assistance and instruction to their brethren

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in the inferior Orders. (Jamblichus: correspondence between Anebo and Porphyry) (Plato’s Timaeus) (W. L. Wilmshurst on meaning of Masonry).

Having stated that the Grand Lodge of ancient mysteries was situated in Egypt, with jurisdiction over all lodges and schools of the ancient world, it now remains to show that such a Grand Lodge, did actually and physically exist. In doing so, two things are necessary: first, a description of the Egyptian temple, of which our modern mystery lodges (called by different names) are copies, and second, a description of the actual remains of the Grand and Sublime Lodge of Ancient Egypt.

C. (ii) A description of the Egyptian temple.

Here I quote two authorities on the Egyptian temple, the first, C. H. Vail, on Ancient Mysteries P. 159 who says “that the Egyptian temples were surrounded with pillars recording the number of the constellations and the signs of the Zodiac or the cycles of the planets. And each temple was supposed to be a microcosm or a symbol of the temple of the Universe or of the starry vault called temple”. The next authority is Max Muller, who in his Egyptian Mythology P. 187-193, has described Egyptian temples as follows:–

“Egyptian temples were made of stone, the outer courts of mud bricks. Wide roads led to the temples for the convenience of processions, while the immediate entrance was lined with statues, consisting of sphinxes and other animals. The front wall formed two high tower like buildings, called pylons, before which stood two granite obelisks. Immediately behind the pylons came a large court where the congregation assembled and watched the sacrifices. Immediately next to the hall of the congregation, came the hall of priests, and immediately following the hall of the priests came the final chamber, called the Adytum, i.e., the Holy of Holies, which was entered only by the high Priest. This was the place of the shrine and the abode of the God. Each temple was a reproduction

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of the world. The ceilings were painted to represent the sky and the stars, while the floor was green and blue like the meadows. Ceremonial cleanliness was at all times imperative, and the people before entering the temple must carefully purify themselves in a nearby stream. In later times, this became a ceremony of sprinkling with holy water before entrance into the temple”.

It is clear from the foregoing description that not only the modern masonic lodges, are copies of the Egyptian temple, but also the ancient ones, for there is complete identity in their internal decoration. But the minor or lower lodges including those outside of Egypt, must have had a governing body, and so now, I proceed to quote C. H. Vail, who in his Ancient Mysteries, pages 182 and 183, describes fully the location and remains of the famous Grand Lodge of Luxor, as follows:–

C. (iii) The location of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Antiquity.

“At a short distance from Danderah, now called Upper Egypt, is the most extraordinary group of architectural ruins presented in any part of the world, known as the Temples of the ancient city of Thebes. Thebes in its prime occupied a large area on both sides of the Nile. This city was the centre of a great commercial nation of Upper Egypt ages before Memphis was the capital of the second nation in Lower Egypt; and however grand the architectural monuments of the latter may have been those of the former surpassed them. The portrayal by pencil or brush can convey but a faint idea of the perfected city. As the city stands today, it is like a city of giants, who after a long conflict have been destroyed, leaving the ruins of their various temples, as the only proof of their existence

“The Temple of Luxor (it was in this temple that the Grand Lodge of Initiates always met), stands on a raised platform of brickwork covering more than two thousand feet in length and one thousand feet in breadth (note the oblong shape, which became the pattern for all lodges and churches in the

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ancient world). It is the one that interests the members of all Ancient Orders, especially so, all the members of those Orders that worshipped at the Shrine of the Secret Fire, more than perhaps any other, and stands on the eastern bank of the Nile. It is in a very ruined state; but records say the stupendous scale of its proportions almost takes away the sense of its incompleteness. Up to about a quarter of a century ago, the greater part of its columns in the interior and outer walls had been removed, after falling, for use elsewhere. This temple was founded by the Pharaoh Amenothis III, who constructed the southern part, including the heavy colonnade overlooking the river; but destruction unfortunately conceals this fact. The chief entrance to the Temple looked to the east; while the Holy Chambers at the upper end of the plain approached the Nile. As mighty as the Temple of Luxor was, it was exceeded in magnitude and grandeur by that of Carnak. The distance between these two great structures was a mile and a half. Along this avenue was a double row of Sphinxes, placed twelve feet apart, and the width of the avenue was sixty feet. When in perfect state this avenue presented the most extraordinary entrance that the world has ever seen. If we had the power to picture from the field of imagination the grand processions of Neophytes constantly passing through and taking part in the ceremonies of Initiation, we would be powerless to produce the grandeur of the surroundings, and the imposing sight of colour and magnificent trappings of those who took part. Neither can we produce the music that kept the vast number of people in steady marching order. Crude it might have been to the cultivated ear of the 20th century. But could not the palpitating strain sung by massed voices on the lapse of time, whose history launches the profoundest aspirations of the human heart, like the trend of a mighty river, because the grand currents of Universal Law, imparting the desire to that Shadowy Past, as it steps forth from the pages of history, dim with age? Egypt must have been, when these Temples were built, a martial nation for

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records of her warlike deeds are perpetuated in deeply engraved tablets which even now, excite the admiration of the best Judges of archaeological remains. She was also a highly civilized nation, and of a nature that could bear the expenditure which always attends the culture of the Arts. She surpassed in her astonishing architecture, all other nations that have existed upon the earth.”

I am fully convinced by these references and quotations that an Egyptian Grand Lodge of Ancient Mysteries actually existed some five thousand years ago or more, on the banks of the Nile in the city of Thebes, and that it was the only Grand Lodge of the Ancient World whose ruins have been found in Egypt, and that it was the governing body which necessarily controlled the Ancient Mysteries together with the philosophical Schools and minor Lodges wherever they happened to have been organized.

C. (iv) The rebuilding of the temple of Delphi.

The temple of Delphi was burnt down in 548 B.C. and it was King Amasis of Egypt, who rebuilt it for the brethren, by donating three times as much as was needed, in the sum of one thousand talents, and 50,000 lbs. of alum. According to information at hand, the temple had organized its members into an amphictyonic league for protection against political and other forms of violence; but they were too poor to raise  funds from the membership, and they decided upon a public contribution from the citizens of Greece.

Accordingly they wandered throughout the land soliciting aid, but failed in their efforts. Having decided to visit the brethren in Egypt, they approached King Amasis, who as Grand Master, unhesitatingly offered to rebuild the Temple, and donated more than three times as much as was needed for the purpose.

N.B. Here it would be well to note that

(1) The Greeks regarded the Temple of Delphi as a foreign institution, hence

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(2) They were unsympathetic towards it and for the same reason destroyed it by fire.

(3) Clearly, the Temple of Delphi was a branch of the Egyptian Mystery System, projected in Greece. Sandford’s Mediterranean World p. 135; 139.

John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt Bk. II. P. 363.

 

3. The abolition of Greek Philosophy together with the Egyptian Mysteries.

From the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, the Greeks, who were always attracted by the mysterious worship of the Nile-land, began to imitate the Egyptian religion in its entirety; and during the Roman occupation, the Egyptian religion spread not only to Italy: but throughout the Roman Empire, including .

This assimilation of the Egyptian religion was confined to the Gods of the Osirian cycle and the Graeco-Egyptian Serapis, and aimed at a close imitation of the ancient traditions of the Nile-land. Owing to the splendour of architecture, the hieroglyphs of the temples, the obelisks and sphinxes before the shrines, the linen vestments and the shaven heads and faces of the priests, the endless and obscure ritual, filled the Greeks with awe, and wonderful mysteries were consequently believed to have underlain these incomprehensibles, and the Egyptian religion stood in the way of the rising Christianity.

The success of the Egyptian religion was due no doubt, on the one hand to its conservatism; while on the other to the shadowy philosophical abstractions which constituted Graeco-Roman religion, so that the staunch faith of the Egyptians, together with their mysterious forms of worship, led to the universal conviction among the Ancients, that Egypt was not only the Holy Land but the Holiest of lands or countries, and that indeed, the Gods dwelt there.

The Nile became a centre for pilgrimages in the ancient world, and the pilgrims who went there and experienced the marvellous revelations and spiritual blessings which it afforded

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them, returned home with the conviction that the Nile was the home of the most profound religious knowledge.

The Greeks failed to imitate Egyptian conservatism and not only in Egyptian cities, with large Greek population, but in Europe, Egyptian divinities were corrupted with Greek and Asiatic names and mythologies and reduced to vague pantheistic personalities, so that Isis and Osiris had retained very little of their Egyptian origin. (Max Muller p. 241-43; Egyptian Mythology). Consequently, as they failed to advance Egyptian Philosophy, so they also failed to advance Egyptian religion.

During the first four centuries of the Christian era, the religion of Egypt continued unabated and uninterrupted, but after the Edict of Theodosius at the end of the fourth century A.D., ordering the close of Egyptian temples, Christianity began to spread more rapidly and both the religion of Egypt and that of Greece began to die. In the island of Philae, in the first cataract of the Nile, however, the Egyptian religion was continued by its inhabitants, the Blemmyans and Nobadians, who refused to accept Christianity and the Roman government fearing a rebellion, paid tribute to them as an appeasement.

During the sixth century A.D., however, Justinian issued a second edict which suppressed this remnant of Egyptian worshippers and propagated Christianity among the Nubians. With the death of the last priest, who could read and interpret “the writings of the words of the Gods” (the hieroglyphics) the Egyptian faith sank into oblivion. It was only in popular magic that some practices lingered on as traces of a faith that became a universal religion, or the survival of a statue of Isis and Horus, which were regarded as the Madonna and Child.

A sentiment of admiration and awe for this strangest of all religions still survived, but the information from classical writers concerning this faith has been incomplete. Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt brought a revival of interest from the West to decipher her inscriptions and papyri with a view to an understanding and appreciation of this most ancient of civilizations.

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[paragraph continues] (Mythology of Egypt by Max Muller C. XIII p. 241-245; The Mediterranean World by Sandford, p. 508, 548, 552-558, 568).

We learn the following facts from the above quotations:–(i) The Egyptian Mysteries had become the Ancient World Religion, spreading throughout the Roman Empire and including Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, and various parts of Europe including Brittany. This continued under different names, long after Justinian’s Edict of toleration granted to the Christians. (ii) Egypt was the Holy Land of the ancient world, that pilgrimages were made to that land because of the marvellous revelations and spiritual blessings which it afforded the ancient peoples, and because of the universal conviction among the Ancients that Egypt was the land of the Gods. (iii) The Edicts of Theodosius in the fourth century A. D,. and that of Justinian in the sixth century A.D. abolished alike not only the Mystery system of Egypt, but also its philosophical schools, located in Greece and elsewhere, outside Egypt.

(iv) The abolition of the Egyptian Mysteries was to create an opportunity for the adoption of Christianity. This was the problem: the Roman government felt that Egypt was now conquered in arms and reduced to her knees, but in order to make the conquest complete, it would be necessary to abolish the Mysteries which still controlled the religious mind of the ancient world. There must be a New World Religion to take the place of the Egyptian religion. This New Religion, which should take the place of the Mysteries, must be equally powerful and universal, and consequently everything possible must be done in order to promote its interests. This explains the rapid growth of Christianity following Justinian’s Edict of toleration.

(v) Since the Edicts of Theodosius and Justinian abolished both the Mysteries of Egypt and the schools of Greek philosophy alike, it shows that the nature of the Egyptian Mysteries and Greek philosophy was identical and that Greek philosophy grew out of the Egyptian Mysteries.

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4. How the African Continent gave its Culture to the Western World.

As mentioned elsewhere, the Egyptian Mysteries and the philosophical schools of Greece were closed by the edicts of Theodosius in the 4th century A.D. and that of Justinian in the 6th century A.D. (i.e., 529); and as a consequence, intellectual darkness spread over Christian Europe and the Graeco-Roman world for ten centuries; during which time, knowledge had disappeared. As stated elsewhere, the Greeks showed no creative powers, and were unable to improve upon the knowledge which they had received from the Egyptians (Hist. of Science by Sedgwick and Tyler p. 141; 153; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. Introduction p. 31).

During the Persian, Greek and Roman invasions, large numbers of Egyptians fled not only to the desert and mountain regions, but also to adjacent lands in Africa, Arabia and Asia Minor, where they lived, and secretly developed the teachings which belonged to their mystery system. In the 8th century A.D. the Moors, i.e., natives of Mauritania in North Africa, invaded Spain and took with them, the Egyptian culture which they had preserved. Knowledge in the ancient days was centralized i.e., it belonged to a common parent and system, i.e., the Wisdom Teaching or Mysteries of Egypt, which the Greeks used to call Sophia.

As such, the people of North Africa were the neighbours of the Egyptians, and became the custodians of Egyptian culture, which they spread through considerable portions of Africa, Asia Minor and Europe. During their occupation of Spain, the Moors displayed with considerable credit, the grandeur of African culture and civilization. The schools and libraries which they established became famous throughout the Mediaeval world; Science and learning were cultivated and taught; the schools of Cordova, Toledo, Seville and Saragossa attained such celebrity, that they, like their parent Egypt, attracted students from all parts of the Western world; and from them arose the most famous African professors that the

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world has ever known, in medicine, surgery, astronomy and mathematics. But these people from North Africa did more than merely distinguish themselves in Spain. They were really the recognized custodians of African culture, to whom the world looked for enlightenment. Consequently, through the medium of the ancient Arabic language, philosophy and the various branches of science were disseminated: (a) all the so-called works of Aristotle in Metaphysics, moral philosophy and natural science (b) translations by Leonardo Pisano in Arabic mathematical science (c) translation by Gideo a Monk of Arezzo in musical notation. (Sedgwick and Tyler’s Hist. of Science C. IX.)

In addition, the Moors kept up constant contact with mother Egypt: for they had established Caliphates not only at Baghdad and Cordova, but also at Cairo in Egypt. (Europe in the Middle Ages by Ault p. 216-219). Just here it would be well to mention that all the great leaders of the great religions of antiquity were Initiates of the Egyptian Mystery System: from Moses, who was an Egyptian Hierogrammat, down to Christ.

It should also be of interest to know that European scientists like Roger Bacon, Johann Kepler, Copernicus and others obtained their science through Arab or Berber sources. It is also noteworthy that throughout the Middle Ages, European knowledge of medicine came from these same sources.

(History of The Arabs, by Hitti pages 370, 629, 665 and 572).

(Philo; Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant p. 107; 128-129; Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail p. 59; 61; 74-75; 109).

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

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CHAPTER IV:

 

The Egyptians Educated the Greeks.

 

1. The Effects of the Persian Conquest.

A. Immigration restrictions against the Greeks are removed and Egypt is thrown open to Greek research.

Owing to the practice of piracy, in which the Ionians and Carians were active, the Egyptians were forced to make immigration laws restricting the immigration of the Greeks and punishing their infringement by capital punishment, i.e., the sacrifice of the victim. Before the time of Psammitichus, the Greeks were not allowed to go beyond the coast of Lower Egypt, but during his reign and that of Amasis, those conditions were modified. For the first time in Egyptian history Ionians and Carians were employed as Mercenaries in the Egyptian Army (670 B.C.), interpretation was organized through a body of interpreters, and the Greeks began to gain useful information concerning the culture of the Egyptians.

In addition to these changes, King Amasis removed the restrictions against the Greeks and permitted them to enter Egypt and settle in Naucratis. About this same time, i.e., the reign of Amasis, the Persians, through Cambyses invaded Egypt, and the whole country was thrown open to the researches of the Greeks.

B. The Genesis of Greek Enlightenment.

The Persian invasion, did not only provide the Greeks with ample research, but stimulated the creation of prose history in Ionia. Heretofore, the Greeks had little or no accurate knowledge of Egyptian culture: but their contact with Egypt resulted in the genesis of their enlightenment. (Ovid Fasti III 338; Herodotus Bk. II p. 113; Plutarch p. 380; Eratosthenes ap Strabo 801-802; Diogenes Bk. IX 49).

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C. Students from Ionia and the Islands of the Aegean visit Egypt for their Education.

Just as in our modern times, countries like the United States, England, and France are attracting students from all parts of the world, on account of their leadership in culture; so was it in ancient times, Egypt was supreme in the leadership of civilization, and students from all parts, flocked to that land, seeking admission into her mysteries or wisdom system.

The immigration of Greeks to Egypt for the purpose of their education, began as a result of the Persian invasion (525 B.C.), and continued until the Greeks gained possession of that land and access to the Royal Library, through the conquest of Alexander the Great. Alexandria was converted into a Greek city, a centre of research and the capital of the newly created Greek empire, under the rule of Ptolemies. Egyptian culture survived and flourished, under the name and control of the Greeks, until the edicts of Theodosius in the 4th century A.D., and that of Justinian in the 6th century A.D., which closed the Mystery Temples and Schools, as elsewhere mentioned. (Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick Bk. II p. 55; Sandford’s Mediterranean World p. 562; 570).

Concerning the fact that Egypt was the greatest education centre of the ancient world which was also visited by the Greeks, reference must again be made to Plato in the Timaeus who tells us that Greek aspirants to wisdom visited Egypt for initiation, and that the priests of Sais used to refer to them as children in the Mysteries.

As regards the visit of Greek students to Egypt for the purpose of their education, the following are mentioned simply to establish the fact that Egypt was regarded as the educational centre of the ancient world and that like the Jews, the Greeks also visited Egypt and received their education. (1) It is said that during the reign of Amasis, Thales who is said to have been born about 585 B.C., visited Egypt and was initiated by the Egyptian Priests into the Mystery System and science of the Egyptians. We are also told that during his residence

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in Egypt, he learnt astronomy, land surveying, mensuration, engineering and Egyptian Theology. (See Thales in Blackwell’s source book of Philosophy; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil.; Diogenes Laertius and Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt).

(2) It is said that Pythagoras, a native of Samos, travelled frequently to Egypt for the purpose of his education. Like every aspirant, he had to secure the consent and favour of the Priests, and we are informed by Diogenes that a friendship existed between Polycrates of Samos and Amasis King of Egypt, that Polycrates gave Pythagoras letters of introduction to the King, who secured for him an introduction to the Priests; first to the Priest of Heliopolis, then to the Priest of Memphis, and lastly to the Priests of Thebes, to each of whom Pythagoras gave a silver goblet. (Herodotus Bk. III 124; Diogenes VIII 3; Pliny N. H., 36, 9; Antipho recorded by Porphyry).

We are also further informed through Herodotus, Jablonsk and Pliny, that after severe trials, including circumcision, had been imposed upon him by the Egyptian Priests, he was finally initiated into all their secrets. That he learnt the doctrine of metempsychosis; of which there was no trace before in the Greek religion; that his knowledge of medicine and strict system of dietetic rules, distinguished him as a product of Egypt, where medicine had attained its highest perfection; and that his attainments in geometry corresponded with the ascertained fact that Egypt was the birth place of that Science. In addition we have the statements of Plutarch, Demetrius and Antisthenes that Pythagoras founded the Science of Mathematics among the Greeks, and that he sacrificed to the Muses, when the Priests explained to him the properties of the right angled triangle. (Philarch de Repugn. Stoic 2 p. 1089; Demetrius; Antisthenes; Cicero de Natura Deorum III, 36). Pythagoras was also trained in music by the Egyptian priests. (Kendrick’s Hist. of Ancient Egypt vol. I. p. 234).

(3) According to Diogenes Laertius and Herodotus, Democritus is said to have been born about 400 B.C. and to

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have been a native of Abdera in Miletus. We are also told by Demetrius in his treatise on “People of the Same Name”, and by Antisthenes in his treatise on “Succession”, that Democritus travelled to Egypt for the purpose of his education and received the instruction of the Priests. We also learn from Diogenes and Herodotus that he spent five years under the instruction of the Egyptian Priests and that after the completion of his education, he wrote a treatise on the sacred characters of Meroe.

In this respect we further learn from Origen, that circumcision was compulsory, and one of the necessary conditions of initiation to a knowledge of the hieroglyphics and sciences of the Egyptians, and it is obvious that Democritus, in order to obtain such knowledge, must have submitted also to that rite. Origen, who was a native of Egypt wrote as follows:–

“Apud Aegyptios nullus aut geometrica studebat, aut astronomiae secreta remabatur, nisi circumcisione suscepta.” (No one among the Egyptians, either studied geometry, or investigated the secrets of Astronomy, unless circumcision had been undertaken).

(4) Concerning Plato’s travels we are told by Hermodorus that at the age of 28 Plato visited Euclid at Megara in company with other pupils of Socrates; and that for the next ten years he visited Cyrene, Italy and finally Egypt, where he received instruction from the Egyptian Priests.

(5) With regards to Socrates and Aristotle and the majority of pre-Socratic philosophers, history seems to be silent on the question of their travelling to Egypt like the few other students here mentioned, for the purpose of their education. It is enough to say, that in this case the exceptions have proved the rule, that ail students, who had the means, went to Egypt to complete their education. The fact that history fails to supply a fuller account of this type of immigration, might be due to some or all of the following reasons:

(a) The immigration laws against the Greeks up to the time of King Amasis and the Persian Invasion, (b) Prose

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history was undeveloped among the Greeks during the period of their educational immigration to Egypt. (c) The Greek authorities persecuted and drove students of philosophy into hiding and consequently, (d) Students of the Mystery System concealed their movements.

Let us remember that Anaxagoras was indicted and imprisoned; that he escaped and fled to his home in Ionia, that Socrates was indicted, imprisoned and condemned to death; and that both Plato and Aristotle fled from Athens under great suspicion (William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 62; Plato’s Phaedo; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 84; 127; Roger’s Hist. of Phil. p. 76; William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 126).

 

2. The Effects of the Conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great.

A. The Royal Library and Museum together with Temples and other Libraries are Looted.

As elsewhere mentioned, it was an ancient custom of invading armies to loot libraries and temples in order to capture books and manuscripts, which were regarded as great treasures. A few instances would be enough to verify this custom: (a) we are informed that during the Persian Invasion beginning with Cambyses, the temples of Egypt were not only stripped of their gold and silver, but rifled for their ancient records. Every Egyptian Temple carried a secret library with secret manuscripts and books. (b) We are also informed that when Athens was captured by the Romans in 84 B.C. the library of books said to have belonged to Aristotle was also captured and taken to Rome. (William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 128; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt vol. II p. 432).

Just as in the invasion of Egypt by the Persians, the invading armies stripped the temples of their gold, silver and sacred books; and just as in the capture of Athens by the Romans Sulla carried off the only library of books which he found; so it is to be expected of Alexander the Great, in his invasion of Egypt. One of the first things that he and his companions

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and armies would do, would be to search for the treasures of the land and capture them. These were kept in temples and libraries and consisted of gold and silver out of which the gods and ceremonial vessels were made, and sacred books and, manuscripts kept both in libraries and in the “Holy of Holies” of Temples.

It is my firm belief that this indeed was the great opportunity which Alexander gave Aristotle and enabled him and his pupils to carry off as many books as they wanted from the Royal Library and to convert it into a research centre. Apart from the Royal Library at Alexandria, there was also another famous library near by: The “Royal Library of Thebes”; “The Menephtheion”, which was founded by Pharaoh, Setei. The Menephtheion was completed by Rameses II; but little occurs in history about this greatest of Egyptian Royal Libraries.

However, any invading army would first loot the Royal Library of Alexandria and then would turn their attention to the Menephtheion at Thebes. They would also visit the cities of Memphis and Heliopolis and likewise loot their libraries and temples. This was the ancient custom and certainly one of the ways in which the Greeks received their education from Egyptians. (Egyptian Mythology by Max Muller p. 187-189; 205; Diodorus 16, 51; Bunsen I p. 27; Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick vol. II 56; 432-433).

It is therefore an erroneous belief that the Greeks, on Egyptian soil, and through their own native ability, set up a great university at Alexandria and turned out great scholars. On the other hand, since it is a well known fact that Egypt was the land of temples and libraries, we can see how comparatively easy it was for the Greeks to strip other Egyptian libraries of their books in order to maintain the new Library at Alexandria, after it had been already looted by Aristotle and his pupils. The Greeks (i.e., Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s school and the succeeding Ptolemies) converted the Royal Library of Alexandria into a research centre, by transferring

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[paragraph continues] Aristotle’s school and pupils from Athens to this great Egyptian Library, and therefore the students who studied there received instructions from Egyptian priests and teachers, until they died out. The difficulty of language and interpretation made it imperative for the Greeks to use Egyptian teachers.

The Greeks did not carry culture and learning to Egypt, but found it already there, and wisely settled in that country, in order to absorb as much as possible of its culture.

B. The Royal Library of Thebes: The Menephtheion is described. It was also looted by invading armies.

But when we read a brief sketch of the magnificence of the Theban Royal Library; The Menephtheion, we even see a better picture and are bound to admit that Egypt was the store house of ancient culture and that that culture was preserved in the form of literature stored away in her great libraries and temples. Great as the Royal Library of Alexandria might have been, we see in the Theban Royal Library something far more magnificent and far more representative of the true greatness of our Ancient Egypt.

On the left of the steps leading to the second court, there is still seen the pedestal of the enormous granite statue of Rameses; the largest, that ever existed in Egypt, according to Diodorus. Its height has been calculated at fifty-four feet, and its weight, at 887 1/4 tons; a marvel to the modern mind. The interior face of the wall of the pylon represents the wars of Rameses III. The Osiride pillars of the second court, are the monolithal figures, sixteen cubits in height, supplying the place of columns, and at the foot of the steps leading from the court to the next hall beyond, there were two sitting statues of the King. The head of one of these was of red granite, known by the name of “Young Memon”, was taken away by Belzoni, and is now a principal ornament of the British Museum.

Beyond this are the remains of a hall 133 feet broad by 100 feet long, supported by 48 columns, twelve of which are

[p. 48]

thirty-two feet in height and 21 feet in circumference. On different parts of the columns, and the walls are represented acts of homage by the king to the principal Deities of the Theban Pantheon, and the gracious promises which they make him in return.

In another sculpture the two chief Divinities of Egypt invest him with the emblems of military and civil dominion, i.e., the Scimitar, the Scourge and the Pedum. Beneath, the twenty-three sons of Rameses appear in procession, bearing the emblems of their respective high offices in the state, their names being inscribed above them. Nine smaller apartments, two of them still preserved, and supported by columns, lay behind the hall. On the jambs of the first of these apartments are sculptured Thoth: the Inventor of Letters, and the Goddess Saf, with the title of ‘Lady of Letters’; and ‘President of the Hall of Books’, accompanied the former with an emblem of the sense of sight, and the latter of hearing.

There is no doubt that this is the “Sacred Library” which Diodorus describes as the inscribed “Dispensary of the Mind”. It had an astronomical ceiling, in which the twelve Egyptian months are represented, with an inscription from which important inferences have been drawn respecting the chronology of the reign of Rameses III.

On the walls is a procession of priests, carrying the Sacred Arts, and in the next apartment, the last that now remains, the king is presenting offerings to the various Divinities. (Ancient Egypt by J. Kendrick Bk. I p. 128-131. Report of French Commission).

C. Museum and the Library of Alexander were used as a University.

The Museum and Library of Alexandria were so famous in ancient times, that we wonder why more information concerning this centre of learning, has not come down to us. A few references to authoritative sources might no doubt help to enlighten us on this matter.

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From Sedgwick’s and Tyler’s History of Science, chapter 5 pages 87-119, we learn that the subjugation of Egypt by Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. had checked the further development of Greek civilization on its native soil.

That after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., his vast empire was divided among his generals, and that Alexandria, the new Egyptian capital fell to Ptolemy. That the city, barely ten years old, soon became the centre of the learned world, and that by 300 B.C., the Museum (i.e., the seat of the Muses), was founded, and became a veritable university of Greek learning.

That to the Museum was attached a great library, with a dining hall and lecture rooms for professors, and this became a school of philosophers, mathematicians and astronomers. Here for the next 700 years, science had its chief abiding place.

Here however, it should be remembered that the above statement of Sedgwick and Tyler is misleading, since the Greeks did not carry a civilization of their own to Egypt, but on the contrary found a very highly developed Egyptian culture, the survival of which was maintained by the use of Egyptian Priests and Scholars as teachers.

D. A Military Policy of the Greeks to Commandeer Information From the Egyptians was put in operation.

One of the military policies adopted by the Greek military authorities at Alexandria was the issue of commands to the leading Egyptian Priests for information concerning the Egyptian history, philosophy and religion. As a custom this is no less ancient than modern, since it is also a custom in modern times for victorious armies to confer with the men of science of an invaded country, in order to discover whether or not, there is anything new in the field of science, which they might possess. We would recall how at the end of World War II, the American scientists conferred with the Japanese scientists at Tokio. Accordingly, we are told that Ptolemy I Soter, in

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order to elicit the secrets of Egyptian wisdom or mystery system, ordered Manetho, the High Priest of the temple of Isis at Sebennytus in Lower Egypt, to write the philosophy, and the history of the religion of the Egyptians.

Accordingly, Manetho published several volumes concerning these respective fields, and Ptolemy issued an order prohibiting the translation of these books which had to be kept on reserve in the Library, for instruction of the Greeks by the Egyptian Priests. Here it becomes quite clear that the first professors of the Alexandrine School were the Egyptian Priests, and that the Scholarchs and pupils of Aristotle’s transferred school, received their training directly from the Egyptian Priests. It is also well to note that the chief text books of the Alexandrine School were Manetho’s books.

We are told by Apollodorus from whom Syncellus drew his information, that Ptolemy II ordered Eratosthenes, the Cyrenean (i.e., a black man and native of Cyrene) and librarian of the Alexandrine Library, to write a chronology of the Theban Kings, and that Eratosthenes did so with the aid of the Egyptian Hierophants at Thebes (Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick vol. II p. 81; Apollodorus; Syncellus; Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, sub anno).

Furthermore, it became the custom during the Greek and Roman occupation to use the services of Egyptian Priests and Scholars, as professors at the Alexandrine School. We are told that during the reign of Theodosius (378-395 A.D.), the Egyptian Professor Horapollo wrote a system of the Egyptian hieroglyphics: The Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, which has been regarded as the best that has come down to modern times. We are also told that this professor taught not only at the Alexandrine School, but also at that of Constantinople.

(John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt Bk. I p. 242; Leeman’s Amstelod, 1935 translated by Cory).

 

3. The Egyptians Were the First to Civilize the Greeks.

Greece was first civilized by colonies from Egypt, then from

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[paragraph continues] Phoenicia and Thrace. These were under the government of wise men, who not only subdued the ferocity of an ignorant populace by civil institutions, but also cast about them the strong chain of religion and the fear of the gods. Whatever dogmas they had been taught in their respective countries, concerning things divine and human, they delivered to these newly formed societies, with the object of bringing them under the restraint of virtuous discipline. Phoroneus and Cecrops were Egyptians, Cadmus a Phoenician and Orpheus a Thracian, and each of them, through their colonies carried into Greece the religious and philosophical tenets of his respective country.

The practice of teaching the doctrines of religion to people under the guise of myths originated from the Egyptians and was adopted by the Phoenicians and Thracians, and subsequently introduced to the Greeks.

According to Strabo, it was not possible in ancient times to lead a promiscuous multitude to religion and virtue by philosophical harangues. This could be effected only by the aid of superstition, by prodigies and fables. The thunder bolt, the aegis, the trident, the spear, torches and snakes were the instruments made use of by the founders of States, to terrify the ignorant and vulgar into subjection. These references must speak for themselves.

Cheops and Cecrops were the names which the Greeks used for the Egyptian Khufu, who belonged to the 4th Dynasty of the Egyptians or the pyramid age, i.e., 2800 B.C.

(Strabo Bk. I; Brucker’s Historia Critica Philosophiae with translation by Wm. Enfield: Bk. II p. 62).

 

4. Alexander Visits the Oracle of Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah.

No discussion on Alexander’s invasion of Egypt would be complete without reference to his famous visit to the Oracle of Ammon, situated in the Oasis of Siwah. Alexander had placed a garrison in Pelusium, whence he marched through

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the desert along the eastern bank of the Nile to Heliopolis where he crossed the river to Memphis, where his fleet had been awaiting him, and where he was welcomed by the Egyptians and crowned as Pharaoh. Having sacrificed to Apis and other Gods, Alexander descended the Nile by the Canopic branch and set out on his journey to the Oracle of Ammon in the Oasis of Siwah. His route was along the coast of Libya, as far as Paraetonium, whence he marched through the desert to the Oasis of Siwah. What do we suppose was Alexander’s motive for visiting the Temple of Ammon? Perhaps a brief description of the religious and economic importance of Heliopolis, Memphis, Thebes and Ammonium might help us to determine what it was.

In the first place these cities were strongholds of the Egyptian religion, where there were many rich temples, schools and Priests, and therefore were representative of the Egyptian religious life. In the second place these cities were centres of education, and after the Persian invasion, Greek students who travelled to Egypt for the purpose of their education, received their training from the Priests of one or all of these cities, as elsewhere mentioned.

When Pythagoras went to Egypt, he carried a letter of introduction from Polycrates of Samos to King Amasis, who in turn gave him letters of introduction to the Priests of Heliopolis, Memphis, and Thebes. As centres of education, the temples and libraries of these cities contained very valuable books; and in the third place, these regions had previously been captured by the Persians for the very fact of their wealth. This should explain why they included these districts in their Satrapy which paid them an enormous annual tribute amounting to 700 talents of gold, together with the produce of the fisheries of Lake Moeris which amounted to a talent a day, during the six months that the water flowed in from the Nile; and a third part of that sum, during the afflux. In addition Egypt furnished 120 thousand medicini of corn as rations for the Persian troops who were stationed in the White Fort of Memphis.

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[paragraph continues] The equivalent of this tribute was 170 thousand pounds sterling, and shows the underlying motive not only of the Persian invading armies, but also of all invading armies of antiquity. In the case of Alexander there is no exception.

According to history, the Persians were in occupation of Egypt, and Alexander having mustered superior forces, went there and drove them out and took possession himself. May I ask this question: was this a joke, or was there a motive? And if there was a motive, what else could it have been but that Alexander wanted the wealth in books, gold, silver, ivory, slaves, and tribute which the Persians were extorting from the unfortunate Egyptians?

In ancient times, the Oracle of Ammon at Siwah was the most celebrated, and Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes were representatives of the best of Egyptian culture.

(John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt Book II P. 433-435; Diodorus 15, 16. Herodotus Book III P. 124; Diogenes Laertius Book VIII; Timaeus of Plato; Pliny N. H. XXXVI 9; Antiphon recorded by Porphyry).

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 54] [p. 55]

 

CHAPTER V:

 

The Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the Teachings Ascribed to Them.

N.B.

It is absolutely necessary here in chapters V and VI to mention the doctrines of the so called Greek philosophers in order to convince my readers of their Egyptian origin which is shown in the summaries of conclusions which follow these teachings. It is also necessary to mention them so as to serve the purpose of reference and to meet the convenience of readers.

 

I. The Earlier Ionian School.

This Group consisted of (i) Thales (ii) Anaximander and (iii) Anaximenes.

(i) Thales, supposed to have lived 620-546 B.C. and a native of Miletus, is credited by Aristotle, with teaching that–

(a) water is the source of all living things.

(b) all things are full of God.

Both history and tradition are silent as to how Thales arrived at his conclusions, except that Aristotle attempts to offer his opinion as a reason: that is that Thales must have been influenced by the consideration of the moisture of nutriment, and based his conclusion on a rationalistic interpretation of the myth of Oceanus. This however is regarded as mere conjecture on the part of Aristotle. (Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 34).

(ii) Anaximander, supposed to have been born 610 B.C. at Miletus, is credited with the teaching that, the origin of all things is “the Infinite”, or the Unlimited (i.e., apeiron), or the Boundless.

The Apeiron is regarded as equivalent to the modern notion of space, and the mythological notion of chaos.

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Both history and tradition are silent as to how Anaximander arrived at his conclusion: but here again we find Aristotle offering his opinion as a reason, i.e., that Anaximander must have supposed that change destroys matter, and that unless the substratum of change is limitless, change must at sometime cease. This opinion, is of course, mere conjecture, on the part of Aristotle. (Turners History of Philosophy, p. 3536).

(iii) Anaximenes, also a native of Miletus, and supposed to have died in 528 B.C., is credited with the teaching that all things originated from air.

Both history and tradition are silent as to how Anaximenes arrived at his conclusion; and all attempts to furnish a reason are regarded as mere conjecture. (Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 37-38).

 

2. Pythagoras.

Born in the Aegean Island of Samos, supposedly in 530 B.C.; the following doctrines have been attributed to Pythagoras:–

(i) Transmigration, the immortality of the soul and salvation.

This salvation is based upon certain beliefs concerning the soul. True life is not to be found here on earth, and what men call life is really death, and the body is the tomb of the soul.

Owing to the contamination caused by the soul’s imprisonment in the body, it is forced to pass through an indefinite series of re-incarnations: from the body of one animal, to that of another, until it is purged from such contamination.

Salvation, in this sense, consists of the freedom of the soul from the “cycle of birth, death and rebirth”, which is common to every soul, and which condition must remain until purification or purgation is completed.

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Being liberated from the ten chains of the flesh, and also from successive re-incarnations, the soul now acquires her pristine perfection, and the eligibility to join the company of the Gods, with whom she dwells for ever.

This was the reward which the Pythagorean System offered its initiates.

(ii) The doctrines of (a) Opposites, (b) the Summum Bonum, or Supreme Good, and (c) the process of purification.

(a) THE UNION OF OPPOSITES creates harmony in the universe. This is true in the case of musical sounds, such as we find in the lyre: where the harmony produced is the result of the mean proportional relation between the length of the two middle strings to that of the two extremes. This is also true in natural phenomena, which are identified with number, whose elements consist of the odd and the even. The even is unlimited, because of its quality of unlimited divisibility, and the odd indicates limitation; while the product of both is the unit or harmony.

Similarly, do we obtain harmony in the union of positive and negative; male and female; material and immaterial; body and soul.

(b) THE SUMMUM BONUM OR SUPREME GOOD in man, is to become godlike. This is an attainment, or transformation which is the harmony resulting from a life of virtue. It consists in a harmonious relationship between the faculties of man, by means of which his lower nature becomes subordinated to his higher nature.

(c) THE PROCESS OF PURIFICATION

The harmony and purification of the soul is attained, not only by virtue, but also by other means, the most important among them being the cultivation

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of the intellect through the pursuit of scientific knowledge and strict bodily discipline.

In this process, music also held an important place. The Pythagoreans believed and taught that just as medicine is used to cure the body, so music must be used to cure the soul.

Here it might be appropriate to insert the doctrine of the “Three Lives”, since it is also a method and means of purification:–

“Mankind is divided into three classes: Lovers of wealth; lovers of honour, and lovers of wisdom (i.e. philosophers); this last, being highest.” According to Pythagoras, philosophy determined the purification, which led to the final salvation of the soul.

(iii) The Cosmological Doctrine

All things are numbers, that is to say not only every object, but the entire universe is an arrangement of numbers. This means that the characteristic of any object is the number by which it is represented.

(a) Since the universe consists of ten bodies, namely, the five stars, the earth and the counter earth, then the universe must be represented by the perfect number ten.

(b) Applied to the space around us, but called by Pythagoreans the Boundless or Unlimited, it must be taken to mean, the measuring out of this Boundless, into a balanced and harmonious universe, so that everything might receive its proper proportion of it. No more, no less.

(c) This arrangement seems to suggest the notion of forms capable of receiving a mathematical expression, i.e., a doctrine which later appeared in Plato, as the theory of Ideas.

(d) In the centre of the universe there is a central fire around which the heavenly bodies fixed in

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their spheres, revolve from West to East, while around all there is the peripheral fire.

This motion of the heavenly bodies is regulated in the velocity, and produces the harmony of the spheres.

(Roger’s Students’ History of Philosophy p. 14-22).

(Bakewell’s Source Book of Philosophy) (Life and Tenets of Pythagoras).

(Ruddick’s History of Philosophy) (Life and Tenets of Pythagoras).

(Fuller’s History of Philosophy) (Life and Tenets of Pythagoras).

(Turner’s History of Philosophy: p. 40-43).

(History of Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick vol. I p. 401-402)

(Plato’s Phaedo, 85E).

(Aristotle’s Metaphysics I 5; 985b, 24; and I 5; 986a, 23).

 

3. The Eleatic Philosophers.

The Eleatic Philosophers include (a) Xenophanes, (b) Parmenides, (c) Zeno and (d) Melissus. They deal with the problem of change, and are credited with introducing the notions of Being and Becoming. The term Eleatic is derived from Elea, a city in Southern Italy, where these men are said only to have visited.

(a) XENOPHANES

Born at Colophon, in Asia Minor, about 370 B.C., Xenophanes is credited with the following doctrines:–

(i) THE UNITY OF GOD

Men err when they ascribe their own characteristics to the gods: for God is all eye, all ear, and all intellect. Again, since there is no Becoming, and since Plurality depends upon Becoming, therefore there is no Plurality. Consequently all is one and one is all.

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(ii) TEMPERANCE

Against the artificial culture of Greece, its luxuries, excess and fops; Xenophanes is credited with advocating Temperance i.e., plain living, simplicity, moderation, and pure thinking.

Roger’s Students’ History of Philosophy: p. 27-28.

Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy: p. 45-46.

Zeller’s History of Philosophy: p. 58-60.

(b) PARMENIDES

Is said to have been born at Elea 540 B.C. and to have composed a poem concerning nature: peri physeos, which contains his doctrines.

A. THE POEM consists of three parts:–

(i) In part one, the Goddess of truth points out that there are two paths of knowledge: one leading to a knowledge of truth, and the other to a knowledge of the opinions of men.

(ii) In part two, the journey to truth is described and contains a metaphysical doctrine, and in part three, a cosmology of the apparent.

B. THE DOCTRINES are as follows:–

(i) The Physical Doctrine.

Though right reason (logos) holds that Being is one and immutable, the senses and common opinion (doxa) are convinced that plurality and change exist around us.

(ii) The Doctrine of Truth.

Truth consists of the knowledge that Being is, and that not-Being is not: and since not-Being is,not, then Being is one and alone.

Consequently, Being is unproduced and unchangeable. It is impossible for Being to produce Being; for under such circumstances Being must exist before it begins to exist.

(iii) The doctrine of the Cosmology of the Apparent.

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Here Parmenides simply repeats the Pythagorean doctrine of opposites:–

All things are composed of light or warmth, and of darkness or cold, and according to Aristotle, the former of these opposites corresponds to Being, while the latter to not-Being.

These opposites are equivalent to the male and female principles in the cosmos.

(iv) The Doctrine of the Anthropology of the Apparent:–The life of the soul, i.e., perception and reflexion, depends upon the blending of opposites, i.e., of the light-warm and the dark-cold principles, each of which stands in a physical relation to a corresponding principle in the cosmos.

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 60-62).

(Roger’s Students’ History of Philosophy p. 29-30).

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 47-48). (B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy p. 22-24).

(c) ZENO

Supposed to be born 490 B.C. at Elea was a pupil of Parmenides, according to Plato. (Parmenides 127B).

His doctrines were intended to be a contradiction of (i) Motion and (ii) Plurality and space.

(i) Arguments against motion:–

(a) A body, in order to move from one point to another, must move through an infinite number of spaces since magnitude is divisible ad infinitum.

(b) A body which is in one place is at rest. An arrow in its flight, is at each successive moment in one place therefore it is at rest.

(c) The race between Achilles and the tortoise, is intended to contradict the concept of motion. In such a race Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, because he must first reach the point at which the tortoise started; but in the meantime the tortoise

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will have gained more ground. Since Achilles must always reach first the position previously occupied by the tortoise, the tortoise must always keep ahead, at every point.

(ii) Arguments against Plurality and Space:–

(a) If a measure of corn produces a sound, then each grain ought to produce a sound. (This argument is taken from Simplicus: but ascribed to Zeno.)

(b) If Being exists in space, then space itself must exist in space, and the process will have to go on ad infinitum. (This argument is also taken from Simplicus.)

(c) If magnitude exists, it must be infinitely great and infinitely small, at one and the same time, since it has an infinitude of parts which are indivisible. Therefore the idea of the manifold is contradictory.

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 49-50).

(Roger’s Students’ History of Philosophy p. 31-32).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 63-64).

 

4. The Later Ionian School: (a) Heraclitus, (b) Anaxagoras, (c) Democritus.

(a) HERACLITUS

Believed to have been born B.C. 530, and to have died in 470 B.C. Heraclitus, a native of Ephesus, in Asia Minor, has been credited with the following doctrines:–

(i) THE DOCTRINE OF UNIVERSAL FLUX

There is no static Being, and no Unchanging element. Change is Lord of the Universe. The underlying element of the universe is Fire, and all things are changed for Fire, and Fire for all things.

(a) The change is not at random; but uniform, orderly and cyclic. Thus the heavenly Fires are transmuted successively, into vapour, water and earth;

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only to go through a similar process as they ascend again into Fire.

(b) It contains the elements both of the old and new, at any given moment in the process. Consequently, where night ends, there day begins; where summer begins, there spring ends; and where mortal life ends, there spiritual life begins.

(c) It also consists in the generation which results from the union of opposites (a doctrine, later to be found in Plato and Socrates).

Hence we observe that the union of male and female produces organic life; and that sharp  flat notes produce harmony.

(ii) THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

Since sense-knowledge, or knowledge derived from the senses is illusion, it must be avoided, and true knowledge sought for in the perception of the underlying unity of the various opposites.

This is possible for man, who is part of the all comprehending Fire, which underlies the Universe.

But in the doctrine of the upward and downward paths, true knowledge comes from the upward path which leads to the eternal Fire; whereas folly and death are the result of following the downward path.

(iii) THE DOCTRINE OF THE LOGOS

That the hidden harmony of nature ever reproduces concord from oppositions, that the divine law (dike) or universal reason (logos) rules all things; and that the primitive essence recomposes itself anew in all things according to fixed laws, and is again restored by them.

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 68).

(A. B. Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 66-77). (Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 66-71).

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 53-58).

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(b) THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF ANAXAGORAS

Anaxagoras, a native of Clazomenae, in Ionia, is supposed to have been born in 500 B.C. Like all the other philosophers, nothing is known about his early life and education. He comes into history through a visit to Athens, where he met and made the friendship of Pericles, and where he was charged with impiety. He however escaped from prison and fled back to his home in Ionia where he died in 430 B.C.

His doctrines included the following:–

(i) Nous i.e., mind alone is self-moved, and is the cause of motion in everything in the universe, and has supreme power over all things. (William Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 63); (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 85; 86).

(ii) Sensation is produced by the stimulation of opposites. We experience the sensation of cold, because of the heat in us, and we experience a sweet taste because of the sour in us. (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 64; Theophrastus: de Sensu, Fragment 27: Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 86).

N.B.

These doctrines will be treated elsewhere, as regards their source and authorship.

(c) THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF DEMOCRITUS

(1) HIS LIFE

Democritus (420-316 B.C.) is said to have been the son of Hegesistratus, and also a native of Abdera, a city at Miletus, an island in the Aegean.

Both Aristotle and Theophrastus have regarded Leucippus as the founder of atomism, in spite of the fact that his existence is doubted. Like all the other Greek philosophers, nothing seems to be known about his early life and training. However he enters history as a magician and sorcerer.

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(Burnet, op. cit. p. 350; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 65).

(2) HIS DOCTRINES

The name of Democritus has been associated with the following doctrines, summarized as atomism in his explanation of (i) the nature of the atoms, and their behavior in relation to the phenomena of (ii) creation (iii) life and death and (iv) sensation and knowledge

(i) The Description of the Atom

(a) The world-stuff. The atom is explained as a colorless, transparent and homogeneous powder, consisting of an infinite number of particles.

(b) Their Qualities: The atom is described as full or solid, invisible, indestructible, un-created and capable self-motion. The atoms differ in shape, order, position, quantity and weight.

(c) The Identity of the Atom with Reality: Every atom is equivalent to “that which is (i.e. To on); and the void is equivalent to “that which is not” (i.e., To me on). Reality is the movement of “that which is,” within that-which is not.

(ii) The Atom in Creation.

Owing to the difference in size, weight and mobility, and in particular to necessity, there is a resultant motion, by means of which the atoms combine themselves for the formation of the organic and inorganic worlds.

(iii) The Atoms in the Phenomena of Life and Death.

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What we commonly call life and death, are due to a change in the arrangement of the atoms. When they are arranged in a certain way, life emerges; but when that arrangement is changed to another way, then death is the result.

In death, the personality disappears, the senses also disappear; but the atoms live on for ever. The heavier atoms descend to the earth: but the soul atoms, which are composed of fire, ascend to the celestial regions, whence they came.

(iv) The Atom in Sensation and Knowledge

(a) The Mind or Soul is composed of fire atoms, which are the finest, the smoothest, and the most mobile. These fire atoms are distributed throughout the whole universe; and in all animate things, and especially in the human body, where they are found in the largest numbers.

(b) External objects constantly give off emanations or minute images of themselves. These in turn impress themselves upon our senses, which set in motion our Soul atoms, and thereby create Sensation and Knowledge.

(Diogenes Laertius Book IX p. 443-455).

(Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 65-70).

(Roger’s Students History of Philosophy p. 40-42).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 76-83).

(B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy p. 37-41).

 

5. Summary of Conclusions Concerning the Pre-Socratic Philosophers and the History of the Four Qualities and Four Elements.

I. The early Ionic philosophers have been given the credit

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of teaching the following doctrines (a) Thales, that all things originated from water, (b) Anaximander, that all things originated from Primitive matter, i.e., the boundless (to apeiron), and (c) Anaximenes, that all things get their life from air. But these ideas were not new at the time when these men are supposed to have lived, i.e., between the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. The creation story, found in the book of Genesis, speaks of the elements of water, air and earth as the cosmic ingredients of the chaos out of which creation gradually developed. The date of the Pentateuch is placed at the eighth century B.C.; but the view of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis takes us still further back into antiquity, and many centuries before the time of the Ionian philosophers. We are told not only by the bible, but also by the historian Philo, that Moses was an Initiate of the Egyptian Mysteries and became a Hierogrammat; learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptian people. This was only possible by proper initiation and gradual advancement, when evidence of fitness was demonstrated by the Neophyte. The Egyptian name of Moses was given to all candidates at their baptism, and meant “saved by water”.

The Exodus of the Israelites appears to have occurred in the 21st Egyptian Dynasty, i.e., 1100 B.C. in the reign of Bocchoris under the leadership of Moses, whose creation story of Genesis is clearly of Egyptian origin. It is clear that the early Ionic Philosophers drew their teachings from Egyptian sources.

(Chaeremon: Jos. C. Apion I, 32; Philo; Ancient Mysteries C. H. Vail p. 61; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt vol. 2 p. 268-270; 303; See also Dr. Hasting’s Bible Dictionary, on authorship and date of Pentateuch).

II. In the case of the Eleatic philosophers, history regards Zenophanes as a Satirist, not a philosopher, and Zeno as paradoxical concerning his treatment of the problems of plurality, space and motion, which ultimately leads to a reductio ad

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absurdum. Parmenides introduced no new teaching when he spoke of Being (To on) as that which exists; and Non-Being (To me on) as that which does not exist. He only reemphasized the doctrine of opposites as a principle of nature: a doctrine taught not only by the Pythagoreans, but also the Athenian philosophers, chiefly Socrates. But the doctrine of opposites owes its origin to the Egyptian Mysteries which take us back to 4000 B.C. when it was demonstrated not only by double pillars in front of temples, but also by the pairs of Gods in the Mystery System, representing male and female, positive and negative principles of nature. It is also clear that the Eleatic Philosophers drew their teachings from Egyptian sources.

(Plato Phaedo; Memphite Theology: Intellectual Adventure of Primitive Man by Frankfort p. 55; 66-67; 51-60. Plutarch: Isis et Osiris, p. 364C; 355A; 371B; 868, Ancient Egypt: John Kendrick vol. I p. 339).

III. The later Ionic philosophers have been given credit for the following doctrines:

(1) Heraclitus, (a) that the world was produced by fire through a process of transmutation, and (b) since all things originate from fire, then Fire is the Logos: The Creator.

(2) Anaxagoras (a) the Nous or mind is the source of motion or life in the universe and that sensation is produced by the stimulation of opposites.

(3) Democritus (a) that atoms under-lie all material things, and (b) that the phenomena of life and death are merely changes in the mixture of the atoms, so that the atoms never die, because they are immortal.

These doctrines were by no means produced by the late Ionic philosophers, but could be shown to have originated from the Egyptian Mystery System. The Egyptians were fire worshippers, because they believed that fire was the creator of the universe, and built their great pyramids (pyr = fire) in order to worship the God of Fire, and the pyramid age

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goes back to something like 3300 B.C., several thousands of years before the Greeks were said to have come into the Mediterranean area.

According to Jamblichus the Egyptian God Ptah was the God of order and form in creation, an Intellectual Principle. This God was also recognized as the Divine Artificer who fashioned the universe out of fire.

Rosellini: mon del sults; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt vol. I p. 318.

Furthermore, Swinburne Clymer in his Philosophy of Fire p. 18 has made the following statement “The study of the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris (Egyptian Goddess and God) quickly proves to the student that it was a pure Fire Philosophy. Zoroaster carried those mysteries into Greece, while Orpheus carried them into Thrace. In each of these places, these Egyptian mysteries assumed the names of different Gods in order to be adapted to local conditions. Hence in Asia they took the form of Mithra: in Samothrace, the form of the Mother of the Gods; in Boeotia, the form of Bacchus; in Crete, the form of Jupiter; in Athens, the forms of Ceres and Proserpine.

The most noted of these Egyptian imitations were the Orphic, Bacchic, Eleusinian, Samothracian, and Mithraic. All of these Fire Worshippers, believed that the universe originated from Fire, and they lived at a time which antedated the time of the late Ionic philosophers by thousands of years.

The other doctrines of the later Ionic philosophers together with those of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle will be treated under Summaries of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and in Chapter VIII, and will include (1) Opposites (2) The nous or mind (3) The Logos, (4) The Atom, (5) The Theory of Ideas, (6) The Unmoved Mover, (7) Immortality.

IV. The Greek Philosophers practised plagiarism.

The teachings of Pythagoras seem to have been so comprehensive that nearly all his successors embraced and taught a

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portion of his doctrine, which we are told he obtained by frequent visits which he made to Egypt for the purpose of his education. Two things are at once obvious, (1) that the Greek philosophers practiced plagiarism and did not teach anything new and (2) the source of their teachings was the Egyptian Mystery System, either directly through contact with Egypt, or indirectly through Pythagoras or tradition. These facts can now be further demonstrated by an outline of the doctrines of Pythagoras, with the names of philosophers who repeated his doctrines:

1. The Doctrine of Opposites: the unit of number is composed both of odd and even elements; of the finite and infinite; and of the positive and negative. In this connection, we find (a) Heraclitus suggesting fire to be the source of creation, by means of the principle of strife which separates phenomena; and harmony which restores them to their original source. (William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 55; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 67-68). (b) Parmenides, suggesting Being as existent and Non-Being as non-existent (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 61; Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 48). (c) Socrates, attempting to prove the immortality of the Soul by the doctrine of opposites (Plato Phaedo). (d) Plato, attempting to explain nature, used the Theory of Ideas which he based upon the principle of opposites. Consequently the Idea is true reality, i.e., Being (To on); hence the concept is real; but the thing which is known by the concept is unreal. The noumen is real and perfect; but the phenomenon is unreal and imperfect (Parmenides 132D; Aristotle Meta 16, 987b9). (e) Aristotle in attempting to establish the existence of God, describes the divine attributes in terms of opposites. God is the First Mover that is unmoved (proton kinoun akineton). Hence, we have a combination of motion and rest, as the attributes of Deity and Nature. (Aristotle’s physics VIII 5, 256a; II 1; 192b 14; II 8, 199; de caelo I 4, 271a; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 141).

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2. The Doctrine of Harmony, as a union of opposites, after being expounded by Pythagoras, appears also in the systems of (a) Heraclitus, who explains the phenomena of nature as passing successively through their opposites; (b) Socrates, who also defines harmony as the union of opposites; (c) Plato, who defines the harmony of the soul as the proper subordination of its parts, i.e., the higher and lower natures. (Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41; 56; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 51; 69; Plato Phaedo C 15; Plato Republic); also (d) Aristotle, who defines the soul as a harmony in his de animo I. 2.

3. The Central and Peripheral Fires. Here Pythagoras attempts to show that fire under-lies creation, and this same notion is expressed by (a) Heraclitus, who speaks of the origin of the universe through the transformation of fire. Then we have (b) Anaxagoras (c) Democritus (d) Socrates and (e) Plato, each using the term mind (nous) as responsible for creation. Anaxagoras and Socrates who speak directly of mind (nous) as an Intelligence and purpose behind nature; while Democritus and Plato speak of mind (nous) indirectly as the World Soul, but further describe it as being composed of fire atoms floating throughout space. Clearly then, Mind (nous), no matter what other name or function we give it, is fire, since it is composed of fire atoms; and fire according to Pythagoras underlies creation. (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 42, 55, 63, 82; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 53, 67, 76-83; Aristotle: Metaphysics I, 3, 984b, 17; Diogenes Laertius: Bk. X. p. 443-453; Xenophon Memorabilia I, 4, 2; Plato Timaeus: 30, 35; Roger’s Student Hist. of Phil. p. 40-42; B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 43).

4. Immortality of the Soul. According to Pythagoras, the doctrine of the immortality of the Soul is implied in the doctrine of the Transmigration of the Soul:–

A. Socrates: The purpose of philosophy is the salvation of the Soul, whereby it feeds upon the truth congenial to its divine nature and thus escapes from the wheel of rebirth, and

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finally attains the consummation of unity with God. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 50-56; Roger’s Hist. of Phil. p. 29 and 60; William Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41 and 48).

B. Plato’s doctrines (1) Transmigration and (2) Recollection: (1) Transmigration: the souls of men go to the place of reward or punishment, and after one thousand years they are permitted to choose a new lot of life. He who has thrice chosen the higher life, gains after three thousand years, the home of the Gods in the kingdom of thought. Others wander about for thousands of years in various bodies; and many are destined to pursue their earthly life in lower animal forms. It is necessary to point out that in this doctrine of Transmigration, Plato describes the judgement scene in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. (2) Recollection: although the sense perceived world cannot lead us to a knowledge of Ideas, yet it reminds us of the Ideas which we saw in a previous existence.

(The allegory of the Subterranean Cavern; Plato’s Republic C. X; The Allegory of the slave boy; Plato’s Meno; Timaeus of Plato: 31B, 33B; 38E; The Phaedo of Plato: C 15; 29; 57; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. P. 105-112; B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 55; 152-153).

5. Summum Bonum

According to Pythagoras, the supreme good in man is to become godlike. This transformation is to be accomplished by virtue which is a union of opposites in man’s faculties, i.e., the subordination of man’s lower nature to his higher nature. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 43). But the precise purpose of the Egyptian Mysteries was to make a man godlike by the purificatory agencies of education and virtue. Consequently it is clear that Pythagoras obtained this doctrine directly from the Egyptian Mysteries. Hence it also follows that philosophers who have taught this doctrine, must have obtained it, either directly from the Egyptian Mysteries, or indirectly, through the teachings of Pythagoras. (According to , Deification or becoming godlike was the purpose of the Egyptian Mysteries,

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and according to C. H. Vail in his Ancient Mysteries, the Egyptian Summum Bonum consisted of five stages, during which the Neophyte developed from a good man into a triumphant Master, attaining the highest spiritual consciousness by means of casting off the ten bodily fetters and becoming an adept like Horus or Buddha or Christ).

The philosophers, besides Pythagoras, who are given credit with having taught the doctrine of the Supreme Good, are (a) Socrates, who defined it as an attainment in which man becomes godlike, through self-denial and the cultivation of the mind. (Xenophon Memorabilia I, 5, 4,) (b) Plato who defined it as happiness which is the attainment of the Idea of the Good, which is God. (Plato: Symposium 204E; Plato: Republic IV, 441, 443; Plato: Phaedo 64 sqq; Plato: Theaetetus 176 A). (c) Aristotle; who defined it as happiness which is based upon reason and which includes all the gifts of fortune. It should be noted however that Aristotle’s definition of the Supreme Good marks the first departure from the concept of the Summum Bonum of the Egyptian Mysteries; and the same thing is true of the Hedonists, who defined it as pleasure. (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 153. Aristotle Ethics, Nic I, 6, 1097; Aristotle Ethics, Nic I, 9, 1099a, 31) The conception of a Supreme Good is Egyptian, from which source Pythagoras and other philosophers obtained the doctrine.

V. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING DEMOCRITUS

Because of the importance of the doctrine of the atom, and the great suspicion of his great number of books like that of Aristotle, Democritus is treated separately, like each of the Athenian philosophers.

1. HIS LIFE:

The same thing might be said of Democritus as might be said of any of the men who were called Greek philosophers: nothing appears to be known about his early

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life and training. However he comes into history attracting public attention, as a sorcerer and magician. (Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 65).

2. HIS DOCTRINES AND AUTHORSHIP:

(i) Authorship: The authorship of the doctrine of the atom is doubtful, from the standpoint or view of certain modern writers. The names of the Ionians Leucippus and Democritus have been associated with this doctrine, which according to the opinion of Aristotle and Theophrastus, originated through Leucippus, but was developed by Democritus.

As a matter of fact, the Ionians doubted the existence of Leucippus because he was unknown to them; and it seems proper that the opinion of the Ionians should receive credence rather than that of Aristotle and Theophrastus, who were Athenians, and who were compiling philosophy in the interest of their movement.

(Burnet op. cit. p. 350; Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 65).

(ii) The doctrine concerning the Atom is eclectic.

The doctrine of the atom as explained by Democritus, is eclectic, and represents one of the many forms in which the ancient doctrine of opposites has been expressed. The Pythagoreans expressed it by the elements of number: odd and even.

Parmenides being unfamiliar with the law of generation, denied the existence of one opposite (not-Being), in order to affirm the existence of the other (being).

Socrates, being more acquainted with the law of generation than Parmenides, expressed it in several pairs of opposites, in an effort to prove the immortality of the soul: hence he spoke of unity and duality; of division and composition; of life and death.

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In like manner Democritus expressed the doctrine of opposites, when he described Reality by the life of the atom, i.e., a movement of “that which is” (To on) within “that which is not” (To me on).

The original source of this doctrine however, is the philosophy of the Mystery System of Egypt where we find the male and female principles of nature symbolized by (a) Osiris and Isis: the Egyptian God and Goddess, and (b) the Gods Homs and Seth, symbolizing a world in static equilibrium of conflicting forces, as they contend for dominion over Egypt.

(Memphite Theology; Kingship and the Gods by Frankfort C. 3, p. 25-26; 35; Herodotus I, 6-26; Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick Bk. I p. 339; Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 64, 73 and 88; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 61; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41; Plato Phaedo C. 15, 16, 49).

The doctrine and philosophy of opposites is further demonstrated by the Egyptian Creation story, in which Order came out of Chaos and which was represented by four pairs of opposites i.e., male and female gods.

(a) Nun and Naunet i.e., primeval Matter and Space.

(b) Huk and Hauket i.e., Illimitable and the Boundless.

(c) Huh and Hauhet, i.e., Darkness and Obscurity.

(d) Amon and Amaunet, i.e., the hidden and concealed ones (the Air, Wind).

Clearly the doctrine of opposites was a basic philosophy of the Egyptians, being connected with not only the Gods of their Mystery dramas, but with their Cosmology, and since this connection makes the doctrine one of the earliest in the development of Egyptian thought, it antedates the reign of Menes, and means that the Egyptians were familiar with it before 3000 B.C.

Under these circumstances and in consequence of these facts, the Egyptian Mystery System was the source of the doctrines

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[paragraph continues] (a) of the atom and (b) of opposites. Leucippus and Democritus taught nothing new and must have obtained their knowledge of the doctrines from the Egyptians, directly or indirectly.

(iii) The Doctrines of the universal distribution of fire atoms, and their emanation from external objects are derived from Magic:–

These doctrines are magical and express the magical principle “that the qualities of animals or things are distributed throughout all their parts.” (Dr. Frazer’s Golden Bough). Consequently within the universe contact is established between objects through emanations, and in the case of human beings, the result might be sensation or cognition; healing or contagion.

This principle is demonstrated not only by the cures such as were affected by the garment of Christ, and the handkerchiefs of St. Paul: but also by the modern scientific and medical practice of the preventive measure of quarantine. It must be remembered that magic was part of the education of the Egyptian priests: for the religious rites and ceremonies of the Egyptians were magical; and the priests were the custodians of the knowledge.

(iv) A fourth point is the fact that in the history and compilation of Greek philosophy by Aristotle and his followers, there are only two men whose names are associated with the authorship of an extraordinary number of scientific books; and the names of these men are Democritus himself and Aristotle.

(Diogenes Laertius Bk. 9 p. 445-461; Bk. 5 p. 465-467).

(v) A fifth point which deserves important mention is the fact that in the history and compilation of

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[paragraph continues] Greek philosophy by Aristotle and his followers, it has been discovered that wherever there has been the possession of a large collection of scientific books, there has also been direct or indirect association with Alexander the Great.

(vi) The association between Democritus and Alexander the Great is seen through the Democritean Circle; a succession of Teachers and students, from a common original Teacher:–Democritus (420-316 B.C.) is said to have taught Metrodorus of Chios, who in turn is said to have taught Anaxarchus, who is said to have flourished at the time of the 110th Olympiad (340-337 B.C.), and to have accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaign against Egypt 333 B.C.

Here, it is easy to see the tie between Democritus and Anaxarchus for these men were all Ionians, and members of the same school and were alive at the time of Alexander’s Conquest of Egypt. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 83; Diogenes Laertius Bk. 2, p. 471).

On the other hand, Aristotle’s contact with Alexander the Great is well known, since he was a tutor of the young prince, at the Macedonian palace. Roger’s Student Hist. of Phil. p. 104).

(vii) Circumstantial evidence points to the fact that the books of Democritus were not written by him, nor did they contain his teachings. This is so, for the following reasons:–

(a) Leucippus, whom the Ionians did not know, and whose existence has been questioned, has been given credit by Aristotle for the origin of the doctrine of the atom. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 77; Burnet, op. cit. p. 350) (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. P. 65; Diogenes Bk. X, 13).

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(b) Apart from what was written on the Atom, the name of Democritus is, associated with a large list of books, dealing with over sixty different subjects, and covering all the branches of science known to the ancient world. In addition to this vast field of knowledge, the list also contains books on Military Science, Law and Magic. Clearly, the accumulation of such a vast range of knowledge, by a single individual, written in a single lifetime is impossible both physically and mentally. The method among the ancients of imparting knowledge was by gradual stages, followed by evidence of proficiency, which in turn was also followed by initiations, which marked every step in the progress of the Neophyte.

The progress of training was slow and no Neophyte could accomplish such knowledge in his life time as took the Egyptians over five thousand years to accumulate. These human limitations are as true today as they were among the ancients; for our great scientists of the Modern World are specialists only in single subjects.

(c) The question now remains: how did Democritus accumulate those books if he did not write them? We believe we have the answer because it has been noticed in the history of Greek philosophy that (a) wherever a Greek philosopher has had association, direct or indirect, with Alexander the Great, there was also the possession of a large collection of scientific books, and (b) this is true in the cases of Democritus and Aristotle. (c) Anaxarchus and Democritus

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were Ionians, who belonged to the same school and (d) Anaxarchus accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaign against Egypt. ( The indirect association between Democritus and Alexander the Great now becomes obvious.) (e) It follows that since Alexander’s conquest of Egypt had brought the Greeks their long hoped for opportunity, i.e., access to the Egyptian Library and Museum, we would naturally expect Alexander and his friends, and the invading armies to have helped themselves with the Egyptian books. We would also expect Anaxarchus upon his return to Ionia, to have sold, at least a portion of his loot, to Democritus, (nor do we expect Aristotle and Theophrastus to relate these facts to us), since under the rules of the Mysteries, knowledge (spoken or written,) could be diffused only by brethren among brethren. This we believe is the way Democritus came to possess such a large number of scientific books.

Again it must be stated that Democritus taught nothing new, but simply what he had learnt from the Egyptians, directly or indirectly.

His doctrine on the universal distribution of fire atoms is based upon a magical principle: if the atom is an ingredient of the world, then it would be universally distributed.

Furthermore, Democritus enters history as a magician, and since there is historical evidence that he visited the Egyptian priests, it is evident that magic was part of the

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training which he must have received from them.

(Antisthenes: Treatise on Succession; Herodotus; Origen; Diogenes Laertius: Bk. 9 p. 443; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 77).

3. His Books are doubtful in authorship.

Several important facts must be noted in connection with the books which are said to have been written by Democritus:–

(a) A large number of books which appears in a list in the 9th Book of Diogenes, Laertius, does not appear elsewhere in the usual textbooks on the history of Greek Philosophy; while Zeller asserts that the genuineness of these books cannot be determined upon the evidence of the fragments. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 77). It seems that his list of publications remains doubtful in authorship.

(b) More than 60 different subjects are treated and they include Ethics, Physics, Astronomy, Botany, Zoology, Poetry, Medicine, Dialectics, Military Science, and Law; also books on Magic, including divination.

(c) We are informed by Diogenes Laertius that this large list of books was compiled by Thrasyllus (about 20 A.D.) who was a student of the school of Plato, and also a member of Aristotle’s movement, which had for its purpose, the compilation of Greek philosophy. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 13-14) (Diogenes Laertius Bk. 9 p. 455-461).

VI. The Four Qualities and Four Elements.

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The history of the following ancient theory of “The Four Qualities and Four Elements”, provides the world with the evidence of the Egyptian origin of the doctrines of (a) Opposites or Contraries, (b) Change or Transmutation and (c) the life and function of the universe is due to either of four elements: fire, or water, or earth or air.

1. This ancient theory was expressed by a diagram formed by outer and inner squares.

2. The corners of the outer square carried the names of the elements: fire, water, earth and air.

3. The corners of the inner square, being at the mid points of the sides of the outer square, carried the four fundamental qualities, the hot, the dry, the cold and the wet.

4. The diagram explains that fire is hot and dry; earth is dry and cold; water is cold and wet; and air is wet and hot.

5. Accordingly water is an embodiment of cold and wet qualities, and when the cold quality is replaced by the hot quality, the element water is changed into the element air, with the wet and hot qualities.

6. Consequently, transmutation is definitely implied in the teaching of this symbol.

7. It is the oldest teaching of physical science and has been traced to the Egyptians, as far back as 5000 B.C.

8. It shows that Plato and Aristotle (who had been credited with the authorship of this teaching) derived their doctrines or portions of them from the Egyptians. (Rosicrucian Digest, May 1952, p. 175).

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

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CHAPTER VI:

 

The Athenian Philosophers.

 

1. Socrates: (i) His Life (ii) Doctrines (iii) Summary of Conclusions.

 

(i) LIFE OF SOCRATES

(a) Date and place of birth.

Socrates was born in Athens, in the year 469 B.C. He was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and Phaenarete, a midwife. Very little is known about his early years; but we are told that he was brought up in the profession of his father, and that he called himself not only a pupil of Prodicus and Aspasia, (which statement suggests that he might have learnt from them, music, geometry and gymnastics): but also a self taught philosopher, according to Xenophon in the Symposium. Up to the age of 40, his life appears to be a complete blank: the first mention being made of him, when he served as an ordinary soldier in the sieges of Potidaea and Delium between (432-429) B.C. (Trial and Death of Socrates: F. J. Church: p. 15 of Introduction).

(b) His economic status and personality.

Socrates did not accept fees for what he taught, and he became so poor, that his wife Xanthippe became very dissatisfied with domestic conditions.

He believed that he possessed (Daimonion Ti) a divine something, i.e., a divine voice which advised and guided him in the great crises of his life. (Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 78-79; and Plato’s Apology).

(c) His Condemnation and death in 399 B.C.

After the accustomed speeches of the accusers: (Miletus, Anytus and Lycon); Socrates followed with his defense, at

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the conclusion of which, the judges voted 281 to 220, and Socrates was condemned to death.

As a parting word, he addressed himself both to those who voted against him, and those who voted in his favour. In the case of the former, he rebuked them by predicting that evil would befall them, in consequence of their crime in condemning him.

In the case of the latter, he not only consoled them with the assurance that no evil could come to a good man either in life or in death; but also expressed to them his idea about immortality. “Death is either an eternal and dreamless sleep, wherein there is no sensation at all; or it is a journey to another, and a better world, where are the famous men of old”. Whichever alternative be true, death is not an evil, but a good. His death is willed by the gods, and he is content. (Plato’s Apology Chapters 25-28).

His death was delayed through a state religious ceremonial, and he remained in prison for 30 days. We are told that during this time, he was visited by his friends, who consisted of the inner circle, and also his wife Xanthippe; that this was the occasion of his discourse concerning the immortality of the soul; that he could have escaped from death if he wished; because his friends visited him before day-break and offered to set him free; but that he refused the offer. Accordingly Socrates drank the hemlock and died. (Plato Phaedo;) (Xenophon Memorabilia IV, 8, 2).

(d) Crito’s account:

Crito, on the night before the death of Socrates, while he was in prison, on behalf of the company of visitors, made a final appeal to him to permit them to secure his escape, and spoke as follows:–

“O, my Socrates, I beseech you for the last time to listen to me and save yourself. For to me your death will be more than a single disaster: not only shall I lose a friend the like of whom I shall never find again, but many persons, who do

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not know you and me well, will think that I might have saved you, if I had been willing to spend money, but that I neglected to do so. And what character could be more disgraceful than the character of caring more for money than for one’s friends? The world will never believe that we were anxious to save you, but that you yourself refused to escape.

“Tell me this Socrates. Surely you are not anxious about me and your other friends, and afraid, lest, if you escape, the informers should say that we stole you away, and get us into trouble, and involve us in a great deal of expense, or perhaps in the loss of all our property, and it may be, bring some other punishment upon us besides? If you have any fear of that kind, dismiss it.

“For of course we are bound to run those risks, and still greater risks than those if necessary, in saving you. So do not, I beseech you, refuse to listen to me.”

Then Socrates replied: “I am anxious about that, Crito, and about much besides,” and Crito continued the appeal:–

“Then have no fear on that score. There are men who, for no very large sum, are ready to bring you out of prison into safety, and then, you know, these informers are cheaply bought, and there will be no need to spend much on them.

“My fortune is at your disposal, and I think that it is sufficient, and if you have any feeling about making use of my money, there are strangers in Athens, whom you know, ready to use theirs, and one of them, Simmias of Thebes, who actually brought enough for the purpose. And Cebes and many others, are ready too.

“And therefore, I repeat, do not shrink from saving yourself, on that ground. And do not let what. you said in court (that if you went into exile, you would not know what to do with yourself), stand in your way: for there are many places for you to go to, where you will be welcomed.

“If you choose to go to Thessaly, I have friends there who will make much of you, and shelter you from any annoyance from the people of Thessaly.

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“Consider then, Socrates; or rather the time for consideration is past; we must resolve, and there is only one plan possible. Everything must be done tonight. If we delay any longer, we are lost.

“O, Socrates, I implore you not to refuse to listen to me.” (Plato’s Crito C. 3-5).

(e) Phaedo’s account of the final scene just before the death of Socrates.

In answer to another question from Echecrates, Phaedo replied: I will try to tell you the whole story:–

“On the previous days, I and the others had always met in the morning at the court, where the trial was held, which was close to the prison; and then we would go in to Socrates.

“We used to wait each morning until the prison was opened, conversing; for it was not opened early. When it was opened we used to go in to Socrates, and we generally spent the whole day with him. But on that morning we met earlier than usual, for the evening before we had learnt, on leaving the prison, that the ship had arrived from Delos. So we arranged to be at the usual place as early as possible. When we reached the prison, the porter, who generally let us in came out to us and bade us wait a little, and not to go in until he himself summoned us; for the ‘Eleven’ were releasing Socrates from his fetters and giving him directions for his death.

“In no great while he returned and bade us enter. So we went in and found Socrates just released. When Xanthippe saw us, she wailed aloud, and cried in her woman’s way: ‘This is the last time: Socrates, that you will talk with your friends, or they with you.’ And Socrates glanced at Crito and said, ‘Crito, let her be taken home’. So some of Crito’s servants led her away; weeping bitterly and beating her breasts. And it was about sunset, and the servant of the Eleven after bidding Socrates farewell, gave him the instructions as to how to take the poison, and then handed it to him. Socrates took the cup, and drank the poison cheerfully, and then walked about until

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his legs felt heavy. And when he had lain down, he made his last request to Crito in the following words: I owe a cock to Asclepius, do not forget to pay it. By this time the poison took effect and he passed away.” (Plato Phaedo C. 3 and 65).

(ii) THE DOCTRINES OF SOCRATES

i. The doctrine of Nous, i.e., mind or an Intelligent Cause, in order to account for God and Creation. He is credited with the teleological premise: whatever exists for a useful purpose is the work of an Intelligence. (Xenophon Memorabilia I, 4, 2; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 82).

ii. The doctrine of the Supreme Good:–

The Supreme good i.e., the summum bonum is equated both with happiness and with knowledge. This however is not merely eutuchia which depends upon external conditions and accidents of fortune; but is (eupraxia), a well-being, which is conditioned by good action. This is an attainment in which man becomes godlike through self denial of external needs and the cultivation of the mind: for happiness comes not through the perishable things of the external world, but through the things that endure, which are within us. (Xenophon Memorabilia I, 5, 4.) Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 83).

iii. The doctrines of opposites and harmony:

(a) Odd and even are the elements of numbers. One is definite but the other is unlimited, and the unit is the product both of odd and even. Hence the universe consists of opposites: the finite and the infinite, the male and the female; the odd and the even; the left and right.

(b) Harmony is the union of opposites.

(Plato’s Phaedo C. 15; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41; 47).

(Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 61).

iv. The Doctrines Concerning the Soul:

(a) The immortality of the Soul

(b) The transmigration of the Soul

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(c) The Salvation of the Soul:–

The purpose of philosophy is the salvation of the Soul, whereby it feeds upon the truth congenial to its divine nature, and thus escapes from the wheel of re-birth, and finally attains the consummation of unity with God. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 50-56; Roger’s Hist. of Phil. p. 29 and 60; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41 and 48).

(d) The body is the tomb of the Soul

(e) The aspirations of the Soul:–

There is a realm of true reality, which is above the world of sense. To this the Soul aspires.

v. The doctrine of Self-knowledge: Know thyself (seauton gnothi).

Self-knowledge is the basis of true knowledge. The Mysteries required as a first step, the mastery of the passions, which made room for the occupation of unlimited powers. Hence, as a second step, the Neophyte was required to search within himself for the new powers which had taken possession of him. The Egyptians consequently wrote on their temples: “Man, know thyself”. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 105; S. Clymer’s Fire Philosophy p. 203).

vi. Astrology and Geology:

There was a suspicion that Socrates was also engaged in the study of Astrology and Geology, and that he taught these subjects, for in his defense before the Athenian judges, he stated that the more formidable of his accusers tried to persuade them with lies, that one Socrates, a wise man, was speculating about the heavens and about things beneath the earth, and that he was capable of making the worse appear the better reason. (Plato’s Apology C. 2).

This suspicion is further supported by the indictment brought against Socrates, and which reads as follows:–“Miletus, the son of Miletus, of the deme Pitthis, on his oath,

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brings the following accusation against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, of the deme Alopece.

“Socrates commits a crime by not believing in the gods of the city, and by introducing new divinities. He also commits a crime by corrupting the youth. Penalty, death.”

(Plato’s Apology C. 24; C. 18 and 19).

There is still a third source from which the suspicion arose that Socrates was engaged also in Astrology and Geology. This was the caricature of Socrates, published by Aristophanes in his comedy: the Clouds, as follows:–

“Socrates is a miserable recluse, who speaks a great deal of absurd and amusing nonsense about Physics, and declares that Zeus is dethroned, that Rotation reigns in his stead, and that the new divinities are Air, which holds the earth suspended, Ether, the Clouds and Tongue.

“He professes to possess the power of Belial, which enables him to make the worse appear the better reason, and his teachings cause children to beat their parents.”

(Aristophanes Clouds, 828 and 380; Life and Trial of Socrates; F. J. Church: Introduction p. 18).

(iii) Summary of Conclusions.

1. Life and Personality of Socrates.

There are two circumstances in the life of Socrates which demand our attention: (a) he is said to have been completely unknown up to the age of 40 and (b) to have lived a life of poverty. These circumstances point to secrecy in training, and poverty as conditions of his life; and as such, they coincide with the requirements of the Mystery System of Egypt, and her secret schools, whether in the land of Egypt or abroad, which exacted the vows of secrecy and poverty from all Neophytes and Initiates. All aspirants of the Mysteries had to receive secret training and preparation, and Socrates was no exception. He alone of the three Athenian philosophers deserves the appellation of a true Master Mason. Plato was a

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great coward and Aristotle was greater still. At the execution of Socrates, Plato fled to Megara to the lodge of Euclid, and Aristotle when indicted fled in exile to Calchis.

(Clement of Alexandria: Stromata Bk. 5. C. 7 and 9; Plutarch on “Isis and Osiris” Sec. 9-11; Plato’s Apology C. 8; 17; Phaedo C. 10; 13; 32; 63).

2. The Doctrines:–

(i) The doctrine of the Nous or an Intelligent Cause.

With reference to this doctrine, we find that it is also credited to Anaxagoras, who is said to have lived between 500 and 430 B.C. and who therefore antedated Socrates (469-399 B.C.) in expounding it (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 63; p. 82).

Secondly, further examination shows that the doctrine of the Nous is also a direct inference from the doctrine of Cognition, as credited to Democritus (460-360 B.C.), who is credited with stating that fire atoms are distributed through the universe, and that mind is composed of fire atoms.

Therefore it can be inferred (a) that mind fills or is distributed through the universe and (b) since only like can produce like, then the mind of the Universe must have been produced by a mind which is its source.

(Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 68; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 80).

Thirdly, this doctrine of the Nous, is a doctrine that originated from the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt, where the God Osiris was represented in all Egyptian temples by the symbol of an Open Eye. This symbol indicated not only sight that transcends time and space, but also the omniscience of God, as the Great Mind which created and which directs the Universe. This symbol is carried as a decoration in all modern Masonic lodges and has the same meaning. (Ancient Mysteries: C. H. Vail p. 189).

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(ii) The doctrine of the Supreme Good:–

This doctrine of the Supreme Good or Summum Bonum is likewise a very ancient doctrine which takes us back to the Egyptian Mysteries.

As stated in the books on Greek philosophy and by Socrates, it is only in part, and consequently a mistaken notion of the original doctrine has resulted. To say that the supreme good is happiness, that happiness is well-being, that well-being is knowledge, and that knowledge is virtue, is the same thing as saying that the Supreme Good is virtue.

(Xenophon Memorabilia I 4, 5; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 81-83).

In the Egyptian Mysteries, however, the concept of the Supreme Good is expressed as the purpose of virtue, and that is the salvation of the Soul, by liberating it from the ten bodily fetters. This process of liberation is a process of purification both of mind and of body: the former by the study of philosophy and science, and the latter by bodily ascetic disciplines. This training was continued from the baptism of water, and was subsequently followed by the baptism of fire, when the candidate had made the necessary progress. This process transformed man and made him godlike, and fitted him for union with God.

The concept of the Supreme Good, which originally came from the Egyptian Mysteries is the earliest theory of salvation: and Socrates must have derived this doctrine from that source, or indirectly from the Pythagoreans.

(Plato’s Phaedo C. 31; 33-34; Ancient Mysteries, C. H. Vail p. 24-25; Fire Philosophy, R. S. Clymer p. 19; 74; 80).

(iii) The following doctrines are generally admitted as having been derived from the Pythagoreans:

(a) Transmigration of the Soul

(b) The immortality of the Soul

(c) The tomb of the Soul is the body.

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(d) The doctrines of opposites and harmony.

Since doctrines (a), (b), (c) and (d) originated from the Pythagoreans, and since the Pythagoreans derived them from the Egyptians, then their Egyptian origin,  or indirectly becomes evident.

(Roger’s Hist. of Phil. p. 29 and 60; Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 41 and 48; Plato’s Phaedo).

(iv) Astrology and Geology:

From (a) the indictment (b) his defense before the Athenian Judges and (c) the caricature by Aristophanes in the Clouds, we discover that Socrates was suspected of being a student of Nature, and of introducing new divinities into Athens.

Again it must be stated, that under the Mystery System of Egypt, the study of Nature was a requirement, and since the Athenians prosecuted and condemned Socrates to death, for engaging in this study and spreading the knowledge, they must have regarded the new ideas as foreign or of Egyptian origin.

(Plato’s Apology C. 24-28; Ancient Mysteries, C. H. Vail p. 24-25).

(v) The Doctrine of Self-knowledge:

The doctrine of self-knowledge, for centuries attributed to Socrates is now definitely known to have originated from the Egyptian Temples, on the outside of which the words “Man, know thyself” were written.

It is evident that Socrates taught nothing new, because his doctrines are eclectic containing elements from Anaxagoras, Democritus, Heraclitus, Parmenides and Pythagoras, and finally have been traced to the teachings of the Egyptian Mystery System.

(Fire Philosophy, S. R. Clymer p. 203).

vi) The importance of the farewell conversations of Socrates with his pupils and friends at the prison:

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In examining what took place during the farewell conversations of Socrates with his pupils and friends, at least five points should be noted:–

(a) The subject of the Conversations

(b) The determination of his friends to smuggle him away

(c) His refusal to accept liberation

(d) His dying request, which was addressed to Crito, whom he asked to pay an important debt for him

(e) The value of those conversations, in their present form in literature.

Now the question arises, what is the meaning and significance of these five points? The answers and conclusions are as follows:–

(a) As the subject of the conversations dealt with the immortality and salvation of the Soul, we at once recognize the fact that this was the central theme of the Ancient Mysteries, and consequently that Socrates was acquainted with the doctrines.

Moreover, when we read the Phaedo and the doctrines, both of Opposites and Recollection which he had advanced in proof of immortality, we are convinced that he must have received his training from the Mystery System of Egypt, in connection with which there were Hierophants and qualified teachers.

(b) Secondly, in dealing with the behavior of his friends, in their determination to smuggle him away, we are dealing with their attempt to render help to a brother in distress.

This was the life that Initiates were expected to live, for brotherhood was another great principle upon which, the Egyptian Mysteries laid emphasis. Evidently, Socrates was a “Brother Initiate” of the Egyptian Mysteries, since it comprised one universal brotherhood.

(c) Thirdly, in dealing with the refusal of Socrates to accept liberation, again we are dealing with a type of behaviour, which singles him out as an advanced Initiate of the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt. In the paths to mastery and victory, the

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[paragraph continues] Mystery System regarded unselfishness or sacrifice as an advanced stage of attainment, which must be accomplished before unlimited power could be bestowed upon the candidate. It is true that Anaxagoras escaped for his life and in like manner Plato and Aristotle; but this only serves to show that Socrates had reached a higher degree in the Mysteries than all of them. This necessitated training and the training centre was Egypt.

(d) Fourthly, with reference to the dying request of Socrates, addressed to Crito, in which he asked him to pay a certain debt, we again encounter another of the great ideals essential to the life of an Initiate. This in the teaching of the Mysteries embraces the exercise of a cardinal virtue i.e., justice; a practice which the Candidate must adopt, in order that his sense of value might also develop.

Here again the action of Socrates reveals that he was a Brother Initiate, with a high sense of justice and honesty, since he did not wish to die without discharging all his obligations. Certainly, the dying request of Socrates reveals him as a loyal member of the Mystery System of Egypt.

(e) Fifthly and finally, what value may we attach to the literature which deals with the farewell conversations of Socrates with his friends and pupils? Since this literature embraces a man whose beliefs and practices coincide with those of the Initiates of the Ancient Mysteries of Egypt, then we may regard the study of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, Plato’s Apology, the Phaedo, Euthyphro, Crito and Timaeus as valuable specimens of literature of the Mysteries, or Masonic World.

(Ancient Mysteries; C. H. Vail C. 24-25; also C. 32).

(The Phaedo of Plato; The Timaeus of Plato).

(R. S. Clymer; Fire Philosophy C. 44; 49; 67; 75).

 

2. Plato: (i) Early Life (ii) Travels (iii) Disputed Writings (iv) His Doctrines (v) Summary of Conclusions.

(i) His Early Life:

Plato is said to have been born at Athens in 427 B.C., and

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that his father’s name was Aristo, and his mother’s name was Perictione, who was a relative of Solon.

Little information is known about his early life and training: but there is a supposition that because his parents were wealthy, he must have had such educational opportunities as were available to a wealthy youth. He is said to have studied the doctrines of Heraclitus under Cratylus, and to have been a pupil of Socrates for eight years. It is also said that he was a soldier. (Roger’s Student Hist. of Philosophy p. 76) (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Philosophy p. 93) (Will. Durant’s Story of Phil.)

(ii) (a) His Travels:

He was 28 years old, when Socrates died (i.e., 399 B.C.), and together with the other pupils of Socrates, he fled from Athens to Euclid at Megara for Safety. He kept away from Athens for 12 years, during which time, it is also said that apart from visiting Euclid, he travelled (a) to Southern Italy where he met the remnant of Pythagoreans, (b) to Syracuse in Sicily, where, through Dion, he met Dionysius to whom he became a Tutor: who subsequently caused him to be sold as a slave, and (c) to Egypt.

(Fuller’s Hist. of Philosophy) (Roger’s Student’s Hist. of Philosophy) (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 94) (Diogenes Laertius Bk. III, p. 277).

(ii) (b) His Academy

Plato is said to have returned to Athens in 387 B.C. when a middle aged man of 40 years and to have opened an Academy in a gymnasium on the western suburbs of Athens over which he presided for 20 years. He is said to have taught the following subjects (a) Political Science (b) Statesmanship (c) Mathematics (d) Dialectics, and it is said that the curriculum was based upon the educational principles advocated in the Republic.

(Fuller’s Hist. of Philosophy: Plato’s Life) (B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Philosophy p. 68) (Roger’s Students Hist. of

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[paragraph continues] Philosophy p. 72) (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Philosophy p. 122123).

(iii) His Writings are disputed and doubted by modern scholarship.

There are 36 dialogues and a number of letters, which Plato is supposed to have written: but which are disputed and doubted by modern scholarship.

(a) Grote states that Plato has written only those dialogues that bear his name.

(b) Schaarsmidt states that only nine of the 36 dialogues are genuine while

(c) Aristotle considered the Platonic dialogues as nine in number, namely The Laws, Timaeus, Phaedo, Symposium, Phaedrus, Georgias, Theaetus, Philebus and the Republic, which he thought are genuine.

(d) Of the remaining 27 dialogues some scholars contend that the youthful dialogues should be included with the genuine ones, and these are the Apology, Crito, Enthydemus, Laches, Lysis and Protagoras, and

(e) Of the remaining 21 dialogues scholars suggest that those which were not written by Plato must have been written by his pupils (B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 68).

(iv) THE DOCTRINES OF PLATO:

The doctrines attributed to Plato are scattered over a wide area of literature: being found in piecemeal throughout what are called dialogues; but particularly in connection with

(I) the theory of ideas and its application to natural phenomena which includes the doctrines of (a) the real and unreal (b) the Nous (mind) and (c) Creation.

(II) the ethical doctrines concerning (A) the highest good (B) definition of virtue and (C) the cardinal virtues.

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(III) the doctrine of the Ideal State whose attributes are compared with the attributes of the soul and justice. Following this order, they are as follows:

(I) The Theory of Ideas

A. Definition of Ideas. This may be expressed in the following syllogism:

The idea (retaining its unity, unchangeableness and perfection) is the element of reality in a thing.

The idea is the concept by which a thing is known. Therefore the concept by which a thing is known is the element of reality in a thing (To on).

It follows also, that since the concept or idea of a thing is real, then the concrete thing itself is unreal.

(Timaeus 51) (Phaedrus 247).

B. The application of the theory of Ideas to natural Phenomena.

In view of the definition of the Idea, three doctrines have resulted:–

(a) The doctrine of the real and unreal.

The things which we see around us are the phenomena of nature, they belong to the earthly realm, they are only copies (Eidola) of their prototypes (paradeigmata), the Ideas and noumena, which dwell in the heavenly realm. The Ideas are real and perfect, but the phenomena are unreal and imperfect; and it is the function of philosophy to enable the mind to rise above the contemplation of the visible copies of Ideas, and advance to a knowledge of the Ideas themselves. (The Phaedrus 250).

There is however, something common between them, because the phenomena partake of the Idea (metechei). This participation is an imitation (mimesis), but it is so imperfect that natural phenomena fall far short of Ideas.

(Parmenides 132 D) (Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 6; 987b, 9).

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(b) The doctrine of the Nous or World Soul.

This teaches that the universe are living animals and that they are endowed with the most perfect and intelligent souls; that if God had made the world as perfect as the nature of matter allowed, that He must have endowed it with a perfect soul. This soul acts as mediator between the Ideas and natural phenomena, and is the cause of life, motion, order, and knowledge in the universe. (Timaeus, 30, 35).

(c) The doctrine of a Demiurgos in Creation (Cosmology)

In the myth of creation found in the Timaeus, we find the doctrine on Creation, as it is ascribed to Plato’s authorship, as follows:–

Out of chaos, which was ruled by necessity, God the Demiurgos or Creator, made order, by fashioning the phenomena of matter according to the eternal prototypes (i.e., the Ideas) in as perfect a manner, as the imperfection of matter would allow. He next created the Gods, and ordered them to fashion the body of man, while He himself, made the soul of man, from the same material as that of the world soul.

The soul of man is a self-moving principle and is responsible for life, motion and consciousness in the body.

(Myth of creation in Timaeus; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Philosophy, p. 109-110).

(II) The Ethical Doctrines

The ethical doctrines that have been attributed to Plato are (A) that of the highest good, i.e., the Summum Bonum (B) the connotation of virtue and (C) the reduction of the virtues to four and the place of wisdom among them (A) as something subjective, and as an earthly experience, the highest good is happiness: but as an objective attainment, it is the Idea of good, and consequently identified with God.

Therefore the purpose of man’s life is freedom from the fetters of the body, in which the soul is confined, and the practice of virtue and wisdom, makes him like a God, even while on earth.

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(B) and (C)

Virtue is the order, the health and the harmony of the soul.

There are many virtues, but the greatest is wisdom. All virtues may be reduced to the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice.

(Symposium 204E); (Theaetetus 176A); (Phaedo 64 sqq.) (The Republic IV, 441, 443).

(III) The Ideal State (The Republic)

The doctrine attributed to Plato in the field of civics is the doctrine of the Ideal state whose attributes are compared with the attributes of the soul and justice.

In a state, virtue should be the chief aim, and unless philosophers become rulers, or rulers become thorough students of philosophy, there will be unceasing troubles for states and humanity at large. The Ideal state is modelled upon the individual soul, and just as the soul has three parts, so also should the state have three parts: the rulers, the warriors, and the workers.

(Republic VI, 490 sqq.; V, 478; III, 415).

Similarly, just as the harmony of the soul depends upon the proper subordination of its parts, so also does the state depend upon the proper subordination of its parts, in order to enjoy peace.

Here Plato introduces the allegory of the charioteer and the winged steeds, in order to show that virtue is to the soul as justice is to the state:–One horse is of noble origin: while the other is ignoble; and consequently they cannot agree. As the noble horse strives to mount up to the heavenly regions which are suitable to its nature: so the other tries to drag him down. Likewise in dealing with the soul, it is the proper subordination of its parts, that enables the noble in man to attain its excellence; so also in dealing with the state, it is justice, or the proper subordination of the different classes, that makes it an Ideal State.

(Roger’s Students Hist. of. Phil. p. 83); (Plato’s Republic).

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(v) SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS.

The doctrines of Plato are eclectic and point to Egyptian origin.

1. The doctrine of the real and unreal to represent doctrine found in the comparison between natural phenomena and the Ideas, is only an instance of the application of the doctrine of opposites. Here the things of this world have their corresponding types in the heavenly realm; here the Ideas correspond to Being, while the natural phenomena correspond to not-Being. But the doctrine of opposites may be traced back not only to Socrates, Democritus, Parmenides and the Pythagoreans, but further back to its original source, i.e., the Egyptian Mystery System, where the principle of opposites was represented not only by pairs of male and female Gods, such as Osiris and Isis, but also by pairs of pillars in the front of all the Egyptian temples.

(Memphite Theology in Kingship and the Gods, by Frankfort, C. 3, p. 25-26 and 35).

(Herodotus I, 6-26) (Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick, Bk. I, p. 339).

(Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 64, 73, 88). (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 61).

(The Phaedo C. 15, 16, 49).

II. The doctrine of the Nous or World Soul is a principle of Egyptian magic:

Plato is credited with expressing this doctrine in the form of a simile, in which he compares the world to a living animal, which is composed of Souls. One being made perfect and responsible for the life, motion and knowledge of the animal or universe.

This doctrine may be traced not only to (a) Democritus who based his teaching about the fire atoms of the soul, and cognition upon the magical principle of the Egyptians: “that the qualities of an animal are distributed throughout its parts.”

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(Golden Bough by Frazer) (Hist. of Phil., B. D. Alexander, p. 40).

(Wm. Turner, Hist. of Phil., p. 68), but also to (b) Anaxagoras, who is said to have advanced the Nous (mind) as responsible for creating order out of chaos, and which is omnipotent and omniscient.

(History of Philosophy, Wm. Turner, p. 63).

The doctrine of the Nous as a matter of fact, originated from (c) the Mystery System of Egypt, in connection with which, the God Osiris was represented in all Egyptian temples, by the symbol of an Open Eye, referred to elsewhere.

This symbol indicated not only sight that transcended space and time: but also omniscience, as the Great Mind which created and which still directs the universe. This symbol also forms a part of the decoration of all Masonic lodges of the modern world and dates back to the Osirian or Sun worship of the Egyptians more than 5000 B.C. This same notion was also represented by the Egyptians by a God with eyes all over Him and was known as the “All seeing Eye.”

(Zeller’s Hist. of Phil., p. 809).

(The Ancient Mysteries, C. H. Vail, p. 189)

(Max Muller: Egyptian Mythology).

III. The doctrine of the Demiurge in Creation.

This doctrine which is ascribed to the authorship of Plato, did not by any means originate from Plato. It was not only a current doctrine at the time of Plato, but was well known among the Eastern Ancient nations and taught by them many centuries before his time (427-347 B.C.).

History tells us that the Persians taught this doctrine more than six centuries B.C. through their leader Zoroaster. History also tells us that Pythagoras (500 B.C.), taught the same doctrine expressed in terms of Monads. The universe consisted of two unities, i.e., (a) the Unity from which the series of numbers or beings is derived, being absolute Unity, which

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is the source of all, i.e., the Monad of Monads or the God of Gods and (b) the One, i.e., the first in the series of derived numbers or beings. It is opposed to and limited by plurality, and therefore it is relative unity, i.e., a created Monad or God (a Demiurge), consequently the opposition between the One and the many is the source of all the rest. Furthermore, history likewise tells us that the original source of the doctrine of a Demiurge in creation was Egypt, and it dates back to the creation story of Egypt 4000 B.C. which is to be found in the account given by the Memphite Theology: an inscription on a stone, now kept in the British Museum. It contains the theological and cosmological views of the Egyptians which date back to the very beginning of Egyptian history, when the first dynasties had made their new capital at Memphis, the city of the God Ptah, i.e., about 4000 B.C., or even earlier.

The Egyptian cosmology must be presented in three parts; each part being supplementary to the other, and presenting a complete philosophy by their combination. Part (I) deals with the Gods of chaos, part (II) deals with the Gods of order and arrangement in creation, and part (III) deals with the Primate of the Gods, through whose Logos creation was accomplished. In part (I) pre-creation or chaos is represented by (i) Ptah, the Primate of the Gods, emerging from the primeval waters Nun in the form of a Hill, Ta-tjenen, i.e., The Risen Land (ii) Atum, i.e., Atom, the sun God, immediately joining Ptah, by emerging also from the chaotic waters Nun, and sitting upon him (the Hill).

(iii) A description of the other qualities within the chaos follows:–There are four pairs of male and female Gods in the form of frogs and serpents. Their names are (a) Nun and Naunet, the primeval ocean and primeval matter; (b) Huh and Hauhet, the Illimitable and the Boundless, (c) Kuk and Kauket, Darkness and Obscurity; and (d) Amon and Amaunet, the Hidden and concealed ones. (Memphite Theology in Ancient Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 10, p. 21; Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventure of Man, p. 10, 21, 52).

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In part (II) the Gods of order and arrangement are represented as follows:–

The same first pair of pre-creation Gods are together present, i.e., Ptah, the primeval Hill, who is the thought and word of all the Gods, together with Atum, who rests upon Ptah.

Atum, i.e., Atom, having absorbed the thought and creative power of Ptah, then proceeds with the work of Creation. He names four pairs of parts of his own body, which become Gods, and in this way, eight Gods are created, who together with himself become nine Gods in one family or Godhead, called the Ennead.

N.B.

Magic is the key to the  of ancient religions and philosophy.

(a) Part (III) tells of the specific powers of Ptah, which Atum absorbs, but does not tell us how He absorbs them.

(b) Part (I) tells us how, for it describes the movement of Atum, as emerging from the primeval waters, and sitting upon Ptah (the risen land or hill). It however does not give us the reason for Atum’s movement: a behavior which can be understood, only when we apply to its interpretation, the key of magical principles.

(c) The Magical Principle

Now, what is the magical principle involved in Atum’s behavior? It is this:–

“The qualities or attributes of entities, human or divine, are distributed throughout their various parts, and contact with such entities, releases those qualities.”

(d) It is now clear that by making contact with Ptah, Atum immediately received the attributes of Ptah’s creative thought and speech and omnipotence and became the instrument and the Logos and the Demiurge, through whom the task of creation was undertaken and completed.

(Dr. Frazer’s Golden Bough).

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(e) It is also clear that according to the Memphite Theology, the doctrines of a Demiurge and created Gods originated from the Egyptian religion and Mystery System, and not from Plato who lived from 427 to 347 B.C.

(Ancient Egyptian Religion: Memphite Theology by Frankfort, p. 20 and 23).

(Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, by Frankfort, p. 21, and 51-60).

(The Egyptian Book of the Dead, c. 17).

(The Golden Bough, by Dr. Frazer–on Magic).

(The Mediterranean World, by Sandford, p. 182).

(History of Philosophy, by Weber, p. 21-22).

(The Cure of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment: Mark, chapter 5, verses 25-34).

(The cure of several people who held the kerchiefs of St. Paul: Acts, chapter 19, verse 12).

N.B.

The Memphite Theology will be dealt with in a separate chapter to show the origin of Greek Philosophy.

IV. The doctrines of (A) the highest good (B) virtue and (C) the cardinal virtues.

N.B.

This is really the earliest theory of salvation and it originated from the Egyptian Mysteries but not from Plato.

(A) The main purpose of the Egyptian Mysteries was the salvation of the human soul. The Egyptians believed the human body to be a prison house, where the soul is chained by ten fetters. This condition not only kept man separated from God, but made him subject to the wheel of re-birth or re-incarnation.

In order to escape from the effects of his condition, two requirements had to be fulfilled by the Neophyte:–

(i) He must keep the Ten Commandments taught by the Mysteries, for by such a discipline, he would gain conquest

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over the fetters of the soul, and liberate it, so as to make its development possible, and

(ii) he now being well qualified and duly prepared, must undergo a series of initiations, in order to develop his soul from the human stage to that of a God. Such a transformation was known as salvation. It placed the Neophyte in harmony with nature, man and God. It deified him, i.e., made him become godlike; and this attainment was known as the highest good.

According to this theory of salvation, man is expected to work out his own salvation, without a mediator between himself and his God.

(B) Plato defines virtue as the order or discipline of the soul. This meaning we accept, since it agrees with the purpose of the ten commandments of the Mysteries.

The doctrines of the ten virtues and the ten fetters are as old as the Egyptian history itself. Each commandment or discipline represented a principle of virtue, and the function of each virtue was to remove a fetter. Hence a life of virtue was antecedent and preparatory to those further experiences, i.e., the initiations which led to gradual perfection and the divinity of the Neophyte.

(C) Plato is also credited with having reduced all virtues to four cardinal virtues, and with assigning the highest place among them to wisdom, as follows:–wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice.

We are also informed through the history of philosophy, that Socrates, the alleged teacher of Plato, taught that wisdom was the equivalent of all virtue. This divergence of opinion between pupil and teacher is significant, since it points to the fact that both of them simply speculated about a system of Ethics which was current in the ancient world, and which neither of them had produced.

This system of Ethics as has already been mentioned belonged to the Mystery System of Egypt, which required Neophytes in preparation for initiation, to keep the following ten

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commandments, underlying which were ten principles of virtue:–

The Neophyte must (I) control his thoughts (II) control his actions (III) have devotion of purpose (IV) have faith in the ability of his master to teach him the truth (V) have faith in himself to assimilate the truth (VI) have faith in himself to wield the truth (VII) be free from resentment under the experience of persecution (VIII) be free from resentment under experience of wrong, (IX) cultivate the ability to distinguish between right and wrong and (X) cultivate the ability to distinguish between the real and the unreal (he must have a sense of values).

If we now compare the order in the above outline with the order in which the cardinal virtues are said to be arranged, we shall immediately see that the first place which wisdom occupies among the virtues was given to it by the Egyptian Mysteries, and not by Plato. Consequently in (I) and (II) from the control of thoughts and actions, we derive the virtue of wisdom; in (VI) from freedom of resentment under persecution, we derive the virtue of fortitude; in (IX) and (X) from an ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and between the real and unreal, we derive the virtues of justice and temperance.

(Plato’s Republic, c. IV, 44, and 443).

(Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail, p. 25 also 109-112).

(Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 115).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 155-157).

V. (A) The doctrine of the Ideal State.

Concerning the authorship and source of this doctrine, there are two conclusions: First, Plato was not the author of the Republic and second, the allegory of the charioteer and winged steeds, is not a product of Plato, but is derived from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, in the Judgment Drama.

Concerning the first conclusion it is only necessary to reaffirm what has already been stated in connection with the

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writings of Plato, and that is that they are disputed not only by such modern scholars as Grote and Schaarsmidt, but also by ancient historians: Diogenes Laertius, Aristoxenus and Favorinus (80-150 A.D.), who declare that the subject matter of the Republic was found in the controversies written by Protagoras (481-411 B.C.) at the time of whose death Plato was but a boy.

Furthermore, the authorship of Plato rests only upon the opinions of Aristotle and Theophrastus, both of whose aims were the compilation of a Greek philosophy with Egyptian material.

(Diogenes Laertius, p. 311 and 327; Aristotle Metaphysics Bk. I).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy; Introduction, p. 8 and 13; Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 95).

Concerning the second conclusion, it must be pointed out that the allegory of the “Charioteer and the winged steeds” is a description of the quality and destiny of the soul as it appears at the bar of justice, in the Judgment Drama of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. In this Drama, the Great Chief Justice and President of the Unseen World, Pethempamenthes, i.e., Osiris is seated on a throne, and is attended by the Goddesses Isis and Nephthys, while 42 assistant judges are seated around.

Near Osiris there are four genii of Amenthe, the Unseen World, represented as short vases, called canopi, in which the different viscera, symbolizing the moral qualities of the individual, are kept embalmed. The intestines hive a very important connection with the moral qualities of the individual since they are blamed for any sin which the individual commits. At the opposite end the deceased is introduced by Horus, while in the centre stands the Scale of Justice which has been erected by Anubis. On one side of it, there appears a heart-shaped vase containing the moral qualities of the deceased, while on the other side, there is a figure of the Goddess of Truth. Toth,

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the scribe, holding a roll of papyrus, stands by and makes a record of the weighing. After this is completed, Horus receives the record from Toth and advances to Osiris to make known the results. Osiris listens and at the end of the report, pronountes sentence of reward or punishment. In the meantime, fearful monsters lurk around the scene to destroy the soul, if the verdict is against it.

Let us observe that

(1) the motion of the scale in the Judgment Drama corresponds with the up and down motion of the winged steeds of the allegory

(2) the opposite qualities weighed on the scale correspond with the opposite qualities possessed by the noble and ignoble steeds of the allegory

(3) the idea of justice symbolized by the scale of Judgment Drama, corresponds with the idea of justice expressed in the allegory.

(4) The winged steeds corresponds with the monsters of the judgment drama.

(B) The Authorship of the Republic.

According to Diogenes Laertius book III and pages 311 and 327, it is stated both by Aristoxenus and Favorinus, that nearly the whole of the subject matter of Plato’s Republic was found in the Controversies, written by Protagoras. Furthermore, according to Roger’s Students History of Philosophy p. 78, it is stated that although Plato might have drawn heavily upon the reminiscences of Socrates, whose lectures he attended: yet the subject matter of the Republic is a more carefully reasoned system of philosophy, than can be easily attributed to Socrates. ‘That the whole volume is a cumulative argument into which there are subtly interwoven opinions on almost every subject of philosophical importance.

It is obvious that modern scholarship doubts that Plato drew the subject matter of the Republic from

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[paragraph continues] Socrates, and is inclined to attribute authorship to Plato himself. If however, we take into consideration the fact that the subject matter of the Republic was in circulation long before the time of Plato: for Protagoras is supposed to have lived from 481-411 B.C. and Plato, from 427-347 B.C., reason forbids the assignment of the authorship to Plato.

But the important question remains: From what source did Protagoras draw the ideas of the Republic which were circulated in the Controversies?

Text books on Greek philosophy tell us that Protagoras was a pupil of Democritus; but when we turn to the writings of Democritus we are unable to discover any connection between them and the (a) educational system and the (b) paternal government which are advocated in the Republic.

This fact forces us to the conclusion that the subject matter of Plato’s Republic was neither produced by Plato, nor any Greek philosopher.

(C) The Authorship of Timaeus.

According also to Diogenes Laertius Book VIII p. 399-401, when Plato visited Dionysius at Sicily, he paid Philolaus, a Pythagorean, 40 Alexandrian Minae of silver, for a book, from which he copied the whole contents of the Timaeus.

Under these circumstances it is clear that Plato wrote neither the Republic nor the Timaeus, whose subject matter identifies them with the purpose of the Mysteries of Egypt.

(Roger’s Students Hist. of Philosophy p. 76; 78; and 104).

(Zeller’s Hist. of Philosophy: Introduction p. 13 and 103).

(Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Philosophy p. 79 and 95).

(Plato; Apology, Crito, and Phaedo).

(Xenophon: Memorabilia; Strabo; Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail).

(Clement: Stromata Bk. V. C. 7 and 9).

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VI. The Chariot was not a culture pattern of the Greeks, at the time of Plato, nor was it used by them in warfare:–

Greek culture and traditions did not furnish Plato with the idea of the chariot and winged steeds, for nowhere in their brief military history, (i.e., up to the time of Plato) do we find the use of such a war machine by the Greeks.

The only nearby nation who specialized in the manufacture of chariots and the breeding of horses was the Egyptians. When Joseph was Governor in Egypt, the horse and war chariot were in use; and when the Israelites fled from the country, Pharaoh pursued them to the Red Sea in chariots. Even Homer and Diodorus who visited Egypt, testify that they saw a great multitude of war chariots and numerous stables along the banks of the Nile, from Memphis to Thebes.

And since the Judgment Drama in the Egyptian Book of the Dead reveals the entire philosophy contained in the allegory, Plato cannot be credited as its author.

The following sketch of the military history of the Greeks shows that the chariot was not used by them, nor was it their culture pattern:–

A.  wars or wars with the Persians.

(a) The Ionian revolt against Persian rule, 499-494 B.C. This climaxed in a naval engagement at Lade, where the Ionian fleet was defeated.

(b) The  of Marathon, 490 B.C.

During the summer of 490 B.C., the Greeks met the Persians at the bay of Marathon, and after a brief fight with bows and arrows, both belligerents withdrew to prepare for more decisive engagements.

(c) The battle of Thermopylae, 480 B.C.

Ten years after Marathon, the Persians and Greeks met again to settle their grievances. The Persians anchored in the Gulf of Pagasae, while the Greeks anchored off Cape Artimesium. A battle followed and Thermopylae was captured by the Persians.

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(d) The battle of Salamis, 479 B.C.

Both Persians and Greeks met again at Salamis in 479 B.C., and a naval engagement followed, with considerable loss of ships on both sides. Both belligerents withdrew without any decision.

(e) The confederacy of Delos and their wars with the Persians, 478-448 B.C.

The purpose of the confederacy was defense against Persian aggression, and two naval battles were fought: one at the river Eurymedon in 467 B.C., when the Greeks gained a minor victory, and the other at Cyprus in 449 B.C., when the island was captured by the Persians.

N.B.

Chariots were not used in any of these engagements.

B. Internal wars, i.e., the Peloponnesian wars, 460-445 B.C., and 431-421 B.C. respectively.

These wars were fought between the different Greek states, and their major engagements were maritime.

In 432 B.C. Athens blockaded Potidaea and Megara was excluded from Greek markets. In 431 B.C. Thebes attacked Plataea, and while a Peloponnesian army occupied Attica, an Athenian fleet raided Peloponnesus.

Pericles conducted the evacuation of Attica, the oligarchs at Corcyra were massacred, and after the seizure of Amphipolis; Nicias sued for peace 422 B.C.

N.B.

It is evident that Greek culture and tradition did not furnish Plato with the idea of the charioteer and winged steeds, for nowhere in their brief military history, (i.e., up to the time of Plato) do we find the use of such a war machine by the Greeks as a chariot. The only nearby nation who specialized in the manufacture of chariots and horse breeding was the Egyptians, as already mentioned.

And since the Judgment Drama in the Egyptian Book of

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the Dead depicts the allegory of the charioteer and winged steeds, credit for its authorship cannot be given to Plato, but to the Egyptians.

(Sandford: Mediterranean World, c. 12, p. 197; 202; 203; 205; c. 13, p. 220-221).

(Genesis, c. 45, 27; c. 47, 17; Deut. c. 17, 16).

(I Kings, c. 10, 28).

(Homer II. i, 381; Diodorus; Roger’s Hist. of Phil., p. 8384).

(John Kendrick: Ancient Egypt, Vol. I, p. 166).

(The Egyptian Book of the Dead).

 

3. Aristotle: (i) (a) Early Life and Training and (b) His Own List of Books (c) Other Lists of Books (ii) Doctrines (iii) Summary of Conclusions: A. His Doctrines B. (i) The Library of Alexandria B. (ii) True Source of his Unusual Number of Books C. The Discrepancies and Doubts in His Life.

(i) (a) Birth and early life and training.

According to the textbooks on the history of Greek philosophy, Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. at Stagira, a town in Thrace. His father, Neomachus is said to have been a physician to Amyntas, King of Macedonia. Nothing is mentioned in books about his early education, only that he became an orphan and at the age of 19 he went to Athens, where he spent twenty years as a pupil of Plato.

We are also informed that after the death of Plato, his nephew, became the master of his school, and that Aristotle left immediately for Mysia, where he met and married the niece of Hermeias.

Likewise, that after the death of Amyntas of Macedon, his son Phillip having become king, appointed Aristotle as Tutor of his son Alexander a boy of 13 years (later to be called the Great in consequence of his conquest of Egypt).

After Phillip’s assassination in 336 B.C. Alexander became

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king, and we are informed that he immediately planned an Asiatic campaign and included Egypt, during which time Aristotle is said to have returned to Athens and founded a school in a gymnasium called the Lyceum. We are further informed that Aristotle conducted this school for only twelve years, that Alexander the Great advanced him the funds to purchase a large number of books, that his pupils were called Peripatetics, and that owing to an indictment for impiety, brought against him by a priest named Eurymedon, he fled from Athens to Chalcis in Euboea, where he remained in exile until his death in 322 B.C.

(Roger’s Student’s History of Phil. p. 104).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 171-172).

(Fuller’s History of Philosophy, Aristotle’s Life).

(B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 91-92).

(Diogenes Laertius Bk. V. p. 449).

(b) His own list of books.

Aristotle is credited with classifying his own writings as follows:–

(i) The Theoretic, whose object is truth, and which included (a) Mathematics (b) Physics and (c) Theology.

(ii) The Practical, whose object is the useful, and which included (a) Ethics (b) Economics and (c) Politics.

(iii) The Productive or Poetic whose object is the beautiful, and which included (a) Poetry (b) Art and (c) Rhetoric.

N.B.

Neither Logic nor Metaphysics was in this list. (History of Philosophy, B. D. Alexander, p. 92).

(c) Other lists of books.

There are two lists of books which have come down to modern times from Alexandrine and Arabian sources.

(i) The older list, derived from the Alexandrine Hermippus (200 B.C.), who estimated the books of Aristotle at 400, which, according to Zeller’s suggestion, must have been in

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the Alexandrine Library, at the time of the compilation of the list, since works which are now considered to be Aristotle’s are not found in the list.

(ii) The later, derived from Arabian sources, was compiled by Ptolemus, of the First or Second Century A.D. This list mentions most of the works in the modern collection, and has a total of one thousand books.

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 172-173; B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 92-93).

(ii) DOCTRINES OF ARISTOTLE

I. Metaphysics: or The Principles of Being, in the Metaphysical realm.

1. Aristotle defines Metaphysics as the science of Being as Being.

2. He names the Attributes of Being as

(a) actuality (entelecheia) i.e., perfection and

(b) potentiality i.e., the capacity for perfection. (dynamis).

3. He states that all created beings are composed of actuality and potentiality.

These two principles are present and are mixed in all created beings except one, whose being is actuality, and includes the composition of (a) matter and form (b) substance and accident (c) soul and its faculties (d) active and passive intellect.

II. Principles of being in the physical realm.

There are four principles of being in the physical realm which are called Causes:–

(1) Matter (hyle) the material cause, is the potentiality or capacity of existence (hyle prole). It is that out of which being is made.

(2) Form or Essence (morphe) i.e., the formal cause is that which gives actuality to existence. It is that into which a thing is made. When matter is united with form the result is organized or realized being that has come to existence in the processes of nature (synolon, ousia prote).

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(3) Final Cause, is that for which everything exists. Everything has a purpose and that purpose is the final cause. A final cause always implies intelligence: but this is not always true in the case of the efficient Cause.

Consequently in the realm of nature, every being or living organism is the complex effect of four causes:–

(1) The substance out of which it is made (i.e., material cause).

(2) The type or idea, according to which the embryo tends to develop (i.e., formal cause).

(3) The act of creation or generation (i.e., efficient cause).

(4) The purpose or end for which the organism is created (i.e., final cause). In other words, matter, type, creation and purpose are the four principles which underlie all existing things.

(B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 97-100; Aristotle, Meta. I, 3; Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 136140. Alfred Weber’s Hist. of Phil., p. 80-84).

III. Doctrines concerning the existence of God.

(1) Although motion is eternal, there cannot be an indefinite series of movers and the moved, therefore there must be One, the first in the series which is unmoved (proton kinoun akineton) i.e., The Unmoved Mover.

(2) The actual is antecedent to the potential for although last in appearance, is really first in nature. Therefore before all matter and the composition of actual and potential, pure actuality must have existed. Therefore actuality is the cause of all things that exist and since it is pure actuality, its life is essentially free from all material conditions. It is the thought of thought, the absolute spirit, who dwells in eternal peace and self enjoyment, who knows himself and the absolute truth, and is in need of neither action nor virtue.

(3) God is one, for matter is the principle of plurality, and the First Intelligence is free from material conditions. His life is contemplative thought: neither providence nor will is

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comparable with the eternal repose in which He dwells. God is not concerned with the world.

IV. The doctrine of the origin of the world.

The world is eternal, because matter, motion and time are eternal.

V. The doctrine concerning Nature.

Nature is everything which has the principle of motion and rest. It is spontaneous and self determining from within. Nature does nothing in vain, but according to definite law. It is always striving for the best according to a plan of development, which is obstructed only by matter. The striving of nature is through the less perfect to the more perfect.

VI. The doctrine concerning the Universe.

The world is globe shaped, circular and most perfect in form. The heaven, which is composed of ether, stands in immediate contact with the First Cause. The stars, which are eternal come next in order, the earth-ball is in the middle, and is the furthest from the prime mover, and least participant of divinity.

(Eth. Wic 10, 8; 1178b, 20) (Op. cit. 10: 8, 9; 1179).

(Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 141-143; B D. Alexander, History of Phil. p. 102-103; Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 221; Roger’s History of Philosophy, p. 109).

(Aristotle’s Physics II, I, 192b 14) (De Caelo, I, 4, 271a, 33).

(De Part. An. IV, 2, 677a 15)

(Aristotle’s Physics II, 8, 199).

(B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 104).

(De Generatione Animalium, IV, 4, 7706, 9).

VII. The doctrine of the soul.

The soul is not merely a harmony of the body or the blending of opposites. It is neither the four elements nor their compound, for it transcends all material conditions.

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The soul and body are not two distinct things: but one in two different aspects, i.e., just as form is related to matter.

The soul is the power which a living body possesses, and it is the end for which the body exists, i.e., the final cause of its existence.

While the soul which is the radical principle of life, is one, yet it has several faculties. Those faculties are:–(1) Sensitive (2) Rational (3) Nutritive (4) Appetitive (5) Locomotive.

Of these, the sensitive and the rational are the most important: sensation being the faculty by means of which the forms of sen’sible things are received, just as impression is made as by a seal; and intelligent knowledge being the faculty by means of which intellectual knowledge is acquired.

It is the seat of ideas only, it does not create them, since knowledge comes through the senses.

(B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 105-106).

(Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 147-153).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p 201-204).

(iii) SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS.

A. His Doctrines.

1. The doctrine of Being (To on).

By declaring the attributes of Being as (a) actuality or the determining principle, and (b) potentiality or the indeterminate principle: Aristotle attempted to explain Reality in terms of the principle of opposites.

But this principle was used not only by the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, and Democritus in a similar manner but also by Socrates in his attempt to prove the immortality of the soul, and by Plato who saw reality as the concept of things as distinguished from the things themselves: as the noumena as distinct from phenomena, and as the real, distinct from the unreal.

But the principle of opposites originated from the Egyptian Mystery System, whose Gods were male and female, and whose

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temples carried in front of them two pillars as symbols of the principle of opposites. It is obvious that Aristotle was not the author of this doctrine, but the Egyptians.

(Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 5, 985b, 24; Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 5, 98b, 31).

(Aristotle’s Metaphysics I, 6, 987b, 9; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil., p. 41; 47; 48).

(Plato’s Phaedo, c. 15; c. 16 and c. 49; Parmenides 132D). (Memphite Theology, King-ship and the Gods, by Frankfort, c. 3, p. 25, 26, 35).

(Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 64, 73, 88).

2. The existence of God.

(a) The teleological concept has not only been embraced by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, but also by the peoples of the remotest antiquity. In the accounts found in the first chapter of Genesis and in the Memphite Theology, found in chapters 20 and 23 of Frankfort’s Ancient Egyptian Religion, creation proceeds from chaos to order, by definite and gradual steps, showing design and purpose in nature, and suggesting that it must be the work of a divine Intelligence. The dates of these sources carry us far back into antiquity, many centuries before the time of Aristotle, between 2000 and 5000 B.C.

We are also told that in addition to the teleological concept, Aristotle introduced the concept of the “Unmoved Mover” in order to prove the existence of God. But the “Unmoved Mover” is none other than the Atum of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians, the Demiurge, through whose command (logos) four pairs of Gods were created out of different parts of his body and who accordingly moved out of him. This act of creation took place while Atum remained unmoved; as he embraced Ptah. Thus the family of Nine Gods was created, and has been named the Ennead. It is quite clear that the concept of the “Unmoved Mover” is derived from the Egyptian theological or mystery system, and not from Aristotle, as the modern world has been made to believe.

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N.B.

Incidentally, but no less important, it might be mentioned here that in this story of the created Gods by Atum the Sun God into a family of nine, i.e., the Ennead, we have the original source of two important scientific hypotheses of modern times:–

(1) There are nine major planets and (2) The Sun is the parent of the other planets (This latter being supported by the Nebular Hypothesis). Let us remember also that

(a) the worship of the planets began in Egypt and

(b) the Egyptian temples were the first observatories of history.

(c) In attempting to prove the existence of God or a First Cause by reference to actuality and potentiality, Aristotle simply followed the traditional custom of the Ancients, who used the principle of Opposites in order to explain the functions of nature.

(d) Plato used it, through the theory of Ideas, to explain the real and unreal in the phenomena of nature.

(e) Socrates used it in order to establish the fact of immortality by showing that the death of one form of life of existing things, is but the beginning of another form of life of these things. In other words life is perpetual, it only changes its form in its course of progress.

Democritus applied the principle of opposites in their interpretation of a particular phase of reality. We cannot therefore consider Aristotle’s use of the terms, actuality and potentiality in the problem of the existence of God as a new method of interpretation.

Furthermore, Aristotle’s review of the doctrines of all previous philosophers including Plato, together with his exposure of their errors, and inconsistencies, shows that he had become confident not only of the fact that he was in possession of a new and correct knowledge one that had not before been made available to the Greeks, but also that he could then speak with

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great authority. Right here I must say that I am convinced that Aristotle represents a culture gap of 5000 years or more between his innovation and the Greek level of civilization; because it is impossible to escape the conviction that he obtained his education and books from a nation outside of Greece, the Egyptians who were far in advance of the culture of Greeks of his day.

(Memphite Theology in Kingship & The Gods by Frankfort c. 3. p. 25, 26, 35).

(Herodotus I, 6-26) (Egyptian Religion by Frankfort p. 64, 73, 88).

(Plato’s Phaedo c. 15, 16, 49) (Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 61).

(Aristotle’s Eth., Nic. 10, 8; 1178b, 20) (Op. cit. 10: 8, 9; 1179).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 221) (Roger’s History of Philosophy p. 109).

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 141-143).

(B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 102, 103).

(B D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy p. 92, 93; Roger’s Student History of Philosophy p. 104).

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 126-127, 135).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy p. 171-173) (Plutarch’s Alexander) (Aristotle’s Metaphysics) (William Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 128 footnote also Noct. Mt. 20: 5).

(Strabo).

3. The doctrine of the origin of the world.

According to the doctrine that has been ascribed to Aristotle: “because matter, motion and time are eternal, therefore the world is also eternal”, he plainly accepts and repeats a doctrine which has also been ascribed to Democritus (400 B.C.), whose dictum we are all quite familiar with: ex nihillo nihil fit (nothing comes out of nothing), and consequently matter or the world must always have existed.

But the antiquity of the doctrine of the eternal nature of

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matter, takes us back to the creation story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians, in which Chaos is represented by the Primeval Ocean Nun, out of which there arose the Primeval Hill Ta-tjenen. Under these circumstances we cannot give Aristotle credit for the authorship of this doctrine.

In addition to the false authorship that has been attributed to Aristotle, he contradicts himself in his physics VIII 1. 25; when he also speaks of the world as caused. A thing cannot be eternal and infinite, and at the same time finite.

(Memphite Theology in Egyptian Religion by Frankfort p. 20).

(Intellectual Adventure of Man by Frankfort p. 10, 21, 52).

4. The doctrine of the attributes of nature.

Aristotle defines nature as that which possesses the principle of motion and rest and also adds that the motion is an effort to move from the less perfect to the more perfect by a definite law: supposedly what we would today call evolution.

As we examine this definition, we find that Aristotle has only applied the principle of opposites to explain one of the modes by which nature has revealed herself just as he has done in his attempt to explain Being in the dual terms of actuality and potentiality.

But change and motion, permanence and rest, were by no means new problems at the time of Aristotle; since they appear to have been investigated not only by Parmenides, Zeno and Melissus, but also by Democritus, who stressed the notion of permanence in his famous dictum: ex nihillo nihil fit (out of nothing, nothing comes) implying thereby that nature is permanent and eternal.

Similarly, his reference to nature’s movement from the less perfect to the more perfect, was by no means a new discovery of a principle of nature.

The creation account found in the first chapter of Genesis speaks of the gradual development of life, in which the Demiurge or Logos was engaged at work during six stages and

[p. 122]

rested on the seventh. Similarly, the creation account of the Egyptians pound in the Memphite Theology, also speaks of nature’s movement from Chaos to order.

These accounts by many thousand years antedate Aristotle’s time for the former is about 2000 B.C. while the latter 4000 B.C., and since the principle of opposites has already been shown to originate from the Egyptians, as well as that of the gradual development of life, it is clear that this doctrine on the attributes of nature did not originate from Aristotle.

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 60-65;) (William Turner’s History of Philosophy p. 44-52).

(Genesis c. 1).

(Roger’s History of Philosophy p. 28-32).

(Intellectual Adventure of Man by Frankfort, p. 21, 51-60).

(Ancient Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 20, 23).

5. The Soul.

According to Aristotle the soul possesses the following attributes (1) Identity with body, as form with matter (2) The power which a living body possesses, i.e., the radical principle of life, manifesting itself in the following attributes:–

(a) sensitive

(b) rational

(c) nutritive

(d) appetitive

(e) locomotive.

This description of the soul by Aristotle, seems to vary somewhat from the more familiar and current ideas held by the Atomists, on the one hand and Socrates, Plato and the Pythagoreans on the other; for while the former believed that the soul is material and is composed of fire atoms; the latter regarded it as a harmony of the body and a blending of opposites.

(William Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 42, 67-68).

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(Plato Phaedo, c. 15) (Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 61).

(De Respiratione, 4, 30, 47a).

Naturally we are now forced to ask the question: Did this doctrine of the soul originate from Aristotle? It is clear that he did not get it from his teacher Plato, nor from the Pythagoreans and Atomists; but from some other source outside of Greece.

As we turn our attention to ancient history, we happily discover that there are two such sources outside of Greece (1) The Creation story in Genesis first chapter and (2) The Egyptian Book of the Dead, which does not only contain attributes of the soul, identical with those mentioned by Aristotle, but far more in an elaborate system of philosophy in which human nature is explained as a unity of nine inseparable parts consisting of different bodies and souls interdependent one upon another, the physical body being one of them. (The Egyptian Book of the Dead by Sir E. A. Budge. Introduction, p. 29-64).

In the Genesis story, it is asserted that God made man out of matter (i.e., the dust of the earth), and breathed into his nostrils, the breath of life, and “man became a living soul”. Here we have a clear statement of the identity of “body and soul”, taken from a document (Genesis) which antedates Aristotle by many centuries.

In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, we also find that the human soul is composed of the following nine inseparable parts:–

(1) The Ka, which is an abstract personality of the man to whom it belongs possessing the form and attributes of a man with power of locomotion, omnipresence and ability to receive nourishment like a man. It is equivalent to (Eidolon), i.e., image.

(2) The Khat, i.e., the concrete personality, the physical body, which is mortal.

(3) The Ba, i.e., the heart-soul, which dwells in the Ka and

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sometimes alongside it, in order to supply it with air and food. It has the power of metamorphosis and changes its form at will.

(4) The Ab, i.e., the Heart, the animal life in man, and is rational, spiritual and ethical. It is associated with the Ba (heart-soul) and in the Egyptian Judgment Drama it undergoes examination in the presence of Osiris, the great Judge of the Unseen World.

(5) The Kaibit, i.e., shadow. It is associated with Ba (heart-soul) from whom like the Ka, it receives its nourishment. It has the power of locomotion and omnipresence.

(6) The Khu, i.e., spiritual soul, which is immortal. It is also closely associated with the Ba (heart-soul), and is an Ethereal Being.

(7) The Sahu, i.e., spiritual body, in which the Khu or spiritual soul dwells. In it all the mental and spiritual attributes of the natural body are united to the new powers of its own nature.

(8) The Sekhem, i.e., power or the spiritual personification of the vital force in a man. Its dwelling place is in the heavens with spirits or Khus.

(9) The Ren, i.e., the name, or the essential attribute for the preservation of a Being. The Egyptians believed that in the. absence of a name, an individual ceased to exist.

N.B.

It must be noted that according to the Egyptian concept

(1) The soul has nine parts, whose unity is so complete, that even the Ren, i.e., the name, is an essential attribute, since without it, it cannot exist.

(2) The Ba (or heart-soul), is connected with the Ka, Kaibit and Ab (Abstract personality or Shadow and Animal life) on the one hand, and also with Khu and Sekhem (spiritual Soul and spiritual personification of vital force) on the other hand, as the power of Nourishment.

[p. 125]

(3) The Sahu is a spiritual body which is used both by Khu and Sekhem.

(4) The Khat, i.e., the physical body, is essential to the soul while manifesting itself upon the physical plane.

(5) The soul has the additional following attributes:–

(a) omnipresence

(b) metamorphosis

(c) locomotion

(d) nutritive

(e) mortality (in case of one khat)

(f) immortality

(g) rationality

(h) spirituality

(i) morality

(j) ethereal

(k) shadowy

(6) It is clear therefore from such a comparison as this, that the Aristotelian doctrine of the soul is identical and coincides with only a very small portion of the Egyptian philosophy of the soul, which therefore stands in relation to it as a whole to its part. Consequently we must conclude that Aristotle obtained his doctrine of the soul from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, directly or indirectly.

B (i) The Library of Alexandria was the true source of Aristotle’s large numbers of books:

It is to be expected that the library of Alexandria was immediately ransacked and looted by Alexander and his party, no doubt made up of Aristotle and others, who did not only carry off large quantities of scientific books: but also frequently returned to Alexandria for the purpose of research. Just as these books were captured in Egypt by the army of Alexander and fell into the hands of Aristotle, so after Aristotle’s death, these very books were destined to be captured by a Roman army and conveyed to Rome according to the following story taken from the histories of Strabo and Plutarch:–

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The books of Aristotle fell into the hands of Theophrastus who succeeded him as Head of his School. At the death of Theophrastus, they were bequeathed to Neleus of Scepsis. After the death of Neleus, the books were hidden in a cellar, where they remained for almost two centuries.

When Athens was captured by the Romans in 84 B.C., the books were captured by Sulla and carried to Rome, where Tyrannio a grammarian secured copies and enabled Andronicus of Rhodes to publish them.

(Strabo; Plutarch; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil., p. 128 footnote).

(Noct., Mt, 20; 5)

The fragmentary character of Aristotle’s writings and their lack of unity, reveal the fact that he himself made notes hurriedly from books while doing his research at the great Egyptian Library. The ancient teaching method was oral; not by lecture and note taking.

Right here I must repeat that I am convinced that Aristotle represents a culture gap of 5000 years between his innovation and the Greek level of civilization; because it is impossible to escape the conviction that he obtained his education and books from a nation outside of Greece, who was far ahead of the culture of the Greeks of his day, and that was the Egyptians.

(B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 92 and 93).

(Roger’s Student History of Philosophy, p. 104).

(Alfred Weber’s History of Philosophy, p. 77 and 78).

(Wm. Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 126, 127, 135).

(Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 171-173).

(Plutarch’s Alexander, c. 8).

(Aristotle’s Metaphysics) (Wm. Turner’s History of Phil., p. 128 footnote also Noct., Mt., 20; 5).

(Strabo).

The so-called books of Aristotle deal with scientific knowledge which was not in circulation among the Greeks, and

[p. 127]

consequently, it was impossible, as has already been stated, for him to have purchased them from other so-called Greek philosophers.

It is for the purpose of concealing the true source of his books and of his education, that history tells the very strange stories about Aristotle (a) that he spent 20 years, as a pupil under Plato, whom we know was incompetent to teach him; and (b) that Alexander the Great also gave him money to buy the large number of books to which his name has been attached; but at the same time, fails to tell us when, where and from whom Aristotle bought the books.

Furthermore, as already pointed out, Aristotle’s review of the doctrines of all previous philosophers including Plato, together with his exposure of their errors and inconsistencies, shows that he had become confident not only of the fact that he was in possession of correct knowledge, one that had not before been made available to the Greeks; but also that he could then speak with great authority.

B (ii) The lack of uniformity between the lists of books points to doubtful authorship.

1. There are at least three lists of books. One list is said co be Aristotle’s own classification of his writings, and naturally it must be dated within the period of his own life time 384-322 B.C. In this list Aristotle has told the world that he wrote texts on (a) Mathematics, Physics and Theology, (b) Ethics, Economics and Politics and (c) Poetry, Art and Rhetoric.

Now, in order to write these texts one must have received his education and training in the subjects on which they are written. We are told in the history of Greek philosophy, that Socrates taught Plato and that Plato taught Aristotle. But there is no evidence that Socrates ever taught mathematics or economics or politics.

Consequently, it was impossible for him to teach Plato these subjects, and also impossible for Plato to teach Aristotle

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these subjects, under the Egyptian Mystery System which was graded, and which required proof of efficiency before promotion.

We are therefore unable to accept the claim of Aristotle to have been the author of those books.

2. Two lists are derived from different sources and the two together differ widely in (a) number (b) subject matter and (c) date.

The list of Hermippus the Alexandrine (200 B.C.) contains 400 books. The list compiled by Ptolemus, between First and Second Centuries A.D. contains 1000 books. The very fact that there is no uniformity in the lists points to a doubtful authorship. Also, if Aristotle in 200 B.C. had only 400 books, by what miracle did they increase to 1000 in the Second Century A.D.? Or was it forgery?

C. The discrepancies and doubts in his life.

(i) He wastes 20 years as a pupil under Plato:–

It is said that he went to Plato at the age of 19 and spent 20 years with him as a pupil. But this is doubtful and unreasonable. Doubtful because Plato is regarded as a Philosopher, while Aristotle as a Scientist, who has been credited with all the scientific knowledge of the Ancient World, and it is impossible for a master to teach a pupil what he himself does not know.

It is also unreasonable to expect a man who has been credited with Aristotle’s knowledge, to waste 20 of the best years of his life, under a master who was incompetent to teach him.

(B. D. Alexander, Hist. of Phil., p. 92; Roger’s Student History of Philosophy, p. 104).

(ii) The truth of how he got such a large number of books is misrepresented:–

He is said to have received financial aid from Alexander the Great, and was able to purchase a large number of books in order to advance his studies.

[p. 129]

(Zeller’s Hist. of Phil., p. 171; Wm. Turner’s History of Phil. p. 127).

But this sounds more like a fable than the truth, for up to the time of Aristotle, Greek education was represented by the Sophists who taught Rhetoric and dialectics; while the study of elementary science was confined to a few unknown philosophers. This was the standard of Greek education, for the Sophists were the only authorized teachers.

Yet Aristotle is credited with producing a thousand different books dealing with all branches of the scientific knowledge of antiquity. Certainly he could not have obtained them from the Greeks, for that vast body of knowledge, which bears his name and which was presented as new, would really have been the traditional common possession of all who were members of the Greek schools of philosophy for they would have been the only persons inside Greece permitted to own such books; for knowledge was protected as secret.

Under these circumstances it is evident that the vast body of scientific knowledge ascribed to Aristotle, was neither in the possession of the Greeks of his time, nor was there any one in Greece competent to teach him Science and, least of all, on so vast a scale.

(iii) He got the books by looting the Library of Alexandria:–

The question must now be asked: How did Aristotle, a single individual, come to possess such a vast number of scientific works, a body of knowledge which took the Ancient World five thousand years or more to accumulate? It is evident that Aristotle’s fame as a scholar has been grossly exaggerated: for such an accomplishment would have been both a physical and mental impossibility. Throughout the intellectual advancement of man, the world has witnessed many a genius; but those have always been specialists in particular fields, not specialists in every branch of science.

And the modern world is no exception, for our great men

[p. 130]

of science are not specialists in every branch of science, but only in a particular one. That appears to be nature’s way.

As a matter of fact, the many discrepancies and doubts in the life and activities of Aristotle lead us to the only reasonable solution of the problem that instead of the tales (a) that Alexander the Great gave him money to buy books (b) that he spent 20 years of his life as a pupil with Plato and (c) that he left the Palace of Alexander for Athens, when Alexander started on his Egyptian invasion, he, on the contrary, must have spent a large part of those 20 years under the tutorship of the Egyptian Priests, and also must have accompanied Alexander on the Egyptian invasion, which gave him the opportunity, not only to carry away from the Alexandrian Library, the vast number of books which are now said to be his, but also to copy notes from a large number of volumes. Indeed modern scholarship has shown that the writings of Aristotle bear all the marks of hurriedly copied notes which of course suggests that Aristotle himself copied these notes from the books of the Alexandrian Library. The historical account of Aristotle’s life is incredible.

(iv) It was the custom of ancient armies to capture books as valuable war booty:–

When a victorious army takes possession of a country, it is customary for special companies to search for and  war booty, i.e., to help themselves to everything that is considered valuable. The Greeks, among all the surrounding nations, were the most anxious to obtain the valuable secrets of the Egyptians, in the Ancient Sciences, and it would appear that the greatest opportunity came to them to accomplish the desire when Alexander the Great invaded Egypt. As stated elsewhere, ancient invading armies looted libraries, because of the great value attached to books; and temples were also looted, not only for books, but also for the gold and silver, out of which the gods and ceremonial vessels were made.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 131]

 

CHAPTER VII:

 

The Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System.

 

1. The Education of the Egyptian Priests According to Their Orders.

From Diodorus, Herodotus and Clement of Alexandria, we learn that there were six Orders of Egyptian Priests, and that each Order had to master a certain number of the books of Hermes. Clement has described a procession of the Priests, calling them by their Order, and stating their qualifications, as follows:

First comes the Singer Odus, bearing an instrument of music. He has to know by heart two of the books of Hermes; one containing the hymns of the Gods, and the other, the allotment of the king’s life. Next comes the Horoscopus, carrying in his hand a horologium or sun-dial, and a palm branch; the symbols of . He has to know four of the books of Hermes, which deal with Astronomy.

Next comes the Hierogrammat, with feathers on his head, and a book in his hand, and a rectangular case with writing materials, i.e., the writing ink and the reed. He has to know the hieroglyphics, cosmography, geography, astronomy, the topography of Egypt, the sacred utensils and measures, the temple furniture and the lands.

Next comes the Stolistes, carrying the cubit of justice, and the libation vessels. He has to know the books of Hermes that deal with the slaughter of animals.

Next comes the Prophetes carrying the vessel of water, followed by those who carry the loaves.

The Prophetes is the President of the temple and has to know the ten books which are called hieratic, and contain the laws and doctrines concerning the Gods (secret-theology) and

[p. 132]

the whole education of the Priests. The books of Hermes are 42 in number and are absolutely necessary. 36 of them have to be known by the Orders which precede, and contain the whole philosophy of the Egyptians.

The remaining six books must be known by the Order of Pastophori. These are medical books and deal with physiology, male and female diseases, anatomy, drugs and instruments. The books of Hermes were well known to the ancient world and were known to Clement of Alexandria, who lived at the beginning of the third century A.D.

In addition to the education contained in the 42 Books of Hermes, the Priests gained considerable knowledge from the selection and examination of sacrificial victims, and the strict bodily purity which their priestly office imposed.

In addition to the Hierogrammat and Horoscopus, who were skilled in theology and hieroglyphics, a Priest was also a Judge and an interpreter of the law. This led to a select tribunal, which made the Egyptian Priest the custodian of every kind of literature. We are also told that the Science of Statistics was cultivated to the greatest perfection among the Egyptian Priests.

(Diodorus I, 80; Clement of Alexandria; Stromata 6, 4,

p. 756; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt Bk. I, p. 378-379; Bk. II, 85-87; Aelian, Var. Hist. 14, 34; Clement of Alexandria: Stromata 6, 4, p 758: John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt Bk. II p. 31-33).

 

2. The Education of the Egyptian Priests in–A. The Seven Liberal Arts. B. Secret Systems of Languages and Mathematical Symbolism. C. Magic.

A. The education of the Egyptian Priests in the Seven Liberal Arts.

As has already been pointed out, in connection with Plato and the Cardinal Virtues, the Egyptian Mysteries were the centre of organized culture, and the recognized source of education

[p. 133]

in the ancient world. Neophytes were graded according to their moral efficiency and intellectual competence, and had to submit to many years of tests and ordeals, in order that their eligibility for advancement might be determined. Their education included the Seven Liberal Arts, and the virtues. The virtues were not mere abstractions or ethical sentiments; but positive valours and the virility of the soul. Beyond these, the Priests entered upon a course of specialization.

B. The education of the Egyptian Priests consisted also in the specialization in secret systems of language and mathematical symbolism.

(i) It would appear that there were two forms of writing in use among the Egyptians: (a) The demotic, believed to have been introduced by Pharaoh Psammitichus, for trade and commercial purposes; and (b) The hieroglyphics of which there were two forms, i.e., the hieroglyphics proper, and the hieratic a linear form, both of which were used only by the Priests, in order to conceal the secret and mystical meaning of their doctrines. (Clement of Alexandria: Stromata Bk. V. c. 4 p. 657; Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride Bk. II, p. 374; John Kendrick; Ancient Egypt, Bk. II, p. 84; 119, 336, and 245).

(ii) We are also informed that the mystery system of Egypt employed modes of spoken language which could be understood, only by the initiated. These consisted not only of myths and parables; but also of a secret language called Senzar.

(Ancient Mysteries: C. H. Vail, p. 23).

(iii) We also understand that the Egyptians attached numerical values both to letters of words and to geometrical figures, with the same intention as with their use of hieroglyphics, i.e., to conceal their teachings. It is further understood that the Egyptian numerical and geometrical symbolism were contained in the 42 Books of Hermes, whose system was the oldest and most elaborate repository of mathematical symbolism. Here

[p. 134]

again we are reminded of the source of the number philosophy of Pythagoras.

(Ancient Mysteries: C. H. Vail, p. 22-23; Clement of Alexandria: Stromata Book V, c. 7 and 9).

C. The education of the Egyptian Priests consisted also in the specialization in magic.

According to Herodotus, the Egyptian Priests possessed super-natural powers, for they had been trained in the esoteric philosophy of the Greater Mysteries, and were experts in Magic. They had the power of controlling the minds of men (hypnosis), the power of predicting the future (prophecy) and the power over nature, (i.e., the power of Gods) by giving commands in the name of the Divinity and accomplishing great deeds. Herodotus also tells us that the most celebrated Oracles of the ancient world were located in Egypt: Hercules at Canopis; Apollo at Apollinopolis Magna; Minerva at Sais; Diana at Bubastis; Mars at Papremis; and Jupiter at Thebes and Ammonium; and that the Greek Oracles were Egyptian imitations.

Here it might be well to mention that the Egyptian Priests were the first genuine Priests of history, who exercised control over the laws of nature. Here it might also be well to mention that the Egyptian Book of the Dead is a book of magical formulae and instructions, intended to direct the fate of the departed soul. It was the Prayer Book of the Mystery System of Egypt, and the Egyptian Priest received training in post mortem conditions and the methods of their verification. It must also be noted that Magic was applied religion, or primitive scientific method.

(The Egyptian Book of the Dead; Herodotus Bk. II 109, 177; Sandford’s Mediterranean World, p. 27; 507; Definition of Magic, Frazier’s Golden Bough).

 

3. A Comparison of the Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System with the Lists of Books Attributed to Aristotle.

[p. 135]

A. The Curriculum

The Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System consisted of the following subjects:

(i) The Seven Liberal Arts, which formed the foundation training for all Neophytes and included: grammar, Arithmetic, Rhetoric and Dialectic (i.e., the Quadrivium) and Geometry, Astronomy and Music (i.e., the Trivium).

(ii) The Sciences of the 42 Books of Hermes

In addition to the foundation training prescribed for all Neophytes, those who sought Holy Orders, had to be versed in the books of Hermes and according to Clement of Alexandria, their orders and subjects were as follows:–

(a) The Singer or Odus, who must know two books of Hermes dealing with Music i.e., the hymns of the Gods.

(b) The Horoscopus, who must know four books of Hermes dealing with Astronomy.

(c) The Hierogrammat, who must know the hieroglyphics, cosmography, geography, astronomy and the topography of Egypt and Land Surveying.

(d) The Stolistes, who must know the books of Hermes that deal with slaughter of animals and the process of embalming.

(e) The Prophetes, who is the President of the temple, and must know ten books of Hermes dealing with higher esoteric theology and the whole education of priests.

(f) The Pastophori, who must know six books of Hermes, which are medical books, dealing with physiology, the diseases of male and female, anatomy, drugs and instruments.

(iii) The Sciences of the Monuments (Pyramids, Temples, Libraries, Obelisks, Phinxes, Idols);–

Architecture, masonry, carpentry, engineering, sculpture, metallurgy, agriculture, mining and forestry. Art (drawing and painting).

(iv) The Secret Sciences

Numerical symbolism, geometrical symbolism, magic, the book of the Dead, myths and parables.

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(v) The Social Order and Its Protection

The Priests of Egypt were also Lawyers, Judges, officials of government, Business Men and Sailors and Captains. Hence, they must have been trained in Economics, Civics, Law, Government, Statistics,  taking, navigation, ship building, military science, the manufacture of chariots and horse breeding.

If we compare 3A  3B which immediately follows, we would discover that the curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System covered a much wider range of scientific subjects than those of Aristotle’s list, which it includes.

N.B.

Note also that The Seven Liberal Arts: The Quadrivium and Trivium originated from the Egyptian Mysteries.

(The Mechanical Triumphs of the Ancient Egyptians by F. M. Barber).

(The Book of the Foundation of Temples by Moret).

(A short history of Mathematics by W. W. R. Ball).

(The Problem of Obelisks by R. Engelbach).

(The Great Pyramid Its Divine Message by D. Davidson).

(History of Mathematics by Florian Cajori).

B. Aristotle’s list of books, prepared by himself.

(1) Aristotle is said to have prepared a list of books in the following order (B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil. p. 97; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 129).

(i) Theoretic whose purpose was truth, and which included (a) Mathematics (b) Physics and (c) Theology.

(ii) Practical, whose purpose was usefulness, and which included (a) Ethics (b) Economics (c) Politics and

(iii) Poetic or Productive, whose purpose was beauty, and which included (a) Poetry (b) Art and (c) Rhetoric. An examination and comparison of 3 A. with 3 B. show that (a) The Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System included all the scientific and philosophic subjects credited to the authorship of Aristotle. (b) The books attributed to Aristotle’s

[p. 137]

authorship cannot be dissociated from Egyptian origin, as elsewhere referred to, both through the plunder of the Royal Library of Alexandria and through research carried on at the centre by Aristotle himself. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the writings of Aristotle are disputed by modern scholarship (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 127) and I feel more justified in making the comparison between the curriculum of the Mystery System and the list said to be drawn up by Aristotle himself; rather than with the notorious list of one thousand books, whose subjects are nevertheless included under the curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System.

(Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 173).

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 138] [p. 139]

 

CHAPTER VIII:

 

The Memphite Theology is the Basis of all Important Doctrines in Greek Philosophy.

History and Description:

The Memphite Theology is an inscription on a stone, now kept in the British Museum. It contains the theological, cosmological and philosophical views of the Egyptians. It has already been referred to in my treatment of Plato’s doctrines; but it must be repeated here to show its full importance as the basis of the entire field of Greek philosophy. It is dated 700 B.C., and bears the name of an Egyptian Pharaoh who stated that he had copied an inscription of his ancestors. This statement is verified by language and typical arrangement of the text, and therefore assigns the original date of the Memphite Theology to a very early period of Egyptian history, i.e., the time when the first Dynasties had made their new capital at Memphis: the city of the God Ptah, i.e., between 4000 and 3500 B.C. (Intellectual Adventure of Man by Frankfort, p. 55).

The Text:

This consists of three supplementary parts, each of which will be treated separately: both as regards its teachings and the identity in Greek philosophy.

Part I presents the Gods of Chaos. Part II presents the Gods of Order and arrangement in creation; and Part III presents the Primate of the Gods, or the God of Gods, through whose (Logos) creation was accomplished.

In Part I pre-creation or chaos is represented as follows:–

A. Text of Part I:

The Primate of the Gods Ptah, conceived in his heart, everything that exists and by His utterance created them all. He

[p. 140]

is first to emerge from the primeval waters of Nun in the form of a Primeval Hill. Closely following the Hill, the God Atom also emerges from the waters and sits upon Ptah (the Hill). There remain in the waters four pairs of male and female gods (the Ogdoad, or unity of Eight-Gods), bearing the following names:–

(1) Nun and Naunet, i.e., the Primeval waters and the counter heaven.

(2) Huh and Hauhet, i.e., the boundless and its opposite:

(3) Kuk and Kauket, i.e., darkness and its opposite; and

(4) Amun, i.e., (Amon) and Amaunet, i.e., the hidden and its opposite.

(Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 20; 23. Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man by Frankfort, p. 21).

B. The Philosophy of Part I:

(1) Ptah has the following attributes: (a) The Primate of the Gods, i.e., The God of Gods (b) The Logos. Thought and creative utterance and power (Egyptian Religion by Frankfort, p. 23). (c) The God of Order and form (d) The Divine Artificer and Potter (Fire Philosophy by Swinburne Clymer; Jamblichus; Ancient Egypt by John Kendrick, Bk. I, p. 318; 339).

It must be noted that while the Sun God Atom sits upon Ptah the Primeval Hill He accomplishes the work of creation. But the Memphite Theology dates back to 4000 B.C., when it is believed the Greeks were unknown (Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventure of Man, p. 5; 53; 55. The Book of the Dead, p. 17).

This arrangement in the Memphite Theology could only mean that the ingredients of the Primeval Chaos contained ten principles: four pairs of opposite principles, together with two other gods: Ptah representing Mind, Thought, and creative Utterance; while Atom joins himself to Ptah and acts as Demiurge and executes the work of creation. From such an

[p. 141]

arrangement in the cosmos we are in position to infer the following philosophies:–

(a) Water is the source of all things.

(b) Creation was accomplished by the unity of two creative principles: Ptah and Atom, i.e., the unity of Mind (nous) with Logos (creative Utterance).

(c) Atom was the Demiurge or Intermediate God in creation. He was also Sun God or Fire God.

(d) Opposite Principles control the life of the universe.

(e) The elements in creation were Fire (Atom), Water (Nun), Earth (Ptah or Ta-tjenen) and Air.

Part I of the Memphite Theology is the correct Source of these philosophies: but strangely the Greeks have claimed them as their production, although without any right whatever.

C. Individual Greek Philosophers to whom portions of the philosophy of the Memphite Theology has been assigned:

Of these doctrines, “water as the source of all things” has been assigned to Thales (Zeller: Hist. of Phil. p. 38); that of the “Boundless or Unlimited”, has been assigned to Anaximander (Zeller: Hist. of Phil. p. 40); while that of “Air as the basis of life” has been assigned to Anaximenes (Zeller: Hist. of Phil. p. 42). Furthermore, the doctrine “that Fire underlies the life of the universe”, has been assigned not only to Pythagoras, who spoke of the functions of the central and peripheral Fires; but also to Heraclitus who spoke of the transmutation of Fire into the other elements, and their transmutation back into Fire. Also Democritus who spoke of Fire Atoms, as filling space as the Mind or Soul of the World; and Plato who spoke of a World-Soul, which is composed of Fire Atoms. (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 42; 5; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 53; 149; Plato’s Timaeus, 30A; B. D. Alexander’s Hist. of Phil., p. 40).

Likewise the doctrine of opposites has been assigned not only to Pythagoras, who spoke of the elements of the unit as odd and even; but also to (a) Heraclitus who spoke of “the

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unity of warring opposites”; (b) Parmenides who spoke of the distinction between Being and Not-Being; (c) Socrates, who spoke of things as being generated from their opposites; and

(d) Plato who spoke of Ideas and Noumena as real and perfect; but phenomena as unreal and imperfect. (The Phaedrus of Plato 250; Parmenides 132D; Aristotle Metaphysics I, 6; 987b, 9; Plato Phaedo 70E; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 51; 61, 68; The Timaeus, p. 28).

Furthermore, the doctrines of the Nous (or Mind) or an Intelligent Agency as responsible for creation, has been assigned not only to Anaxagoras, but also to Socrates who spoke of the existence of useful things as the work of an Intelligence: To Plato who spoke of a World-Soul or Mind, as the cause of life and knowledge in the universe and to Democritus, who attached a similar meaning. (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 80; p. 85; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 82; p. 109). The doctrine of the Logos has been assigned to Heraclitus who spoke of Fire as the Logos or creative principle in nature; while the doctrine of the Demiurge, or an Intermediate God who created the world, has been assigned to Plato (Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 55, p. 108).

A. Text of Part II

The Gods of Order and arrangement in the cosmos are represented by nine gods, in one God-head, called the Ennead. Here Atum (Atom), the source of the Ogdoad, is also retained as the source of the Gods of Order and arrangement. Atum (Atom) names four pairs of parts of his own body, and thus creates eight Gods, who together with himself become nine. These Eight Gods are the created Gods, the first creatures of this world; and Atum (Atom), the Creator God, the Demiurge, of whom Plato spoke. The Gods whom Atum (Atom) projected from his body were

(i) Shu (Air)

(ii) Tefnut (Moisture)

(iii) Geb (Earth) and

(iv) Nut (Sky);

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who are said to have given birth to four other Gods:

(v) Osiris (the God of omnipotence and omniscience)

(vi) Isis (wife of Osiris, Female Principle)

(vii) Seth (the opposite of good)

(viii) Nephthys (Female Principle in the Unseen World).

(Plutarch: Isis et Osiris, 355A; 364C; 371B; Frankfurt; Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, p. 66-67).

B. The Philosophy of Part II.

As we read the text of Part II, we find that the Sun God Atum (Atom) who was present in the Chaos was also present at the development of orderly arrangement in the cosmos. At this stage Atum (Atom) assumes the role of creator of all Gods except Ptah, the God of Gods. He next proceeds to accomplish this special type of creation in the following manner: He commands Eight Gods to proceed from His own body according to the names of those eight parts.

The result of this creation presents us with what has been called (a) the “Ennead” or the unity of “nine Gods in one Godhead” (b) the doctrine of the Demiurge as in Part I, (c) the doctrine of the created Gods and (d) the doctrine of the Unmoved Mover; also (e) the doctrine of opposites and (f) Omnipotence and Omniscience. Of these doctrines, that of the “Ennead” will be dealt with elsewhere, and since the doctrine of the Demiurge has already been treated, together with (c) the created Gods, I shall now discuss the doctrine of the Unmoved Mover, as based upon the same act of creation. According to the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians, Atum created Eight Gods who proceeded from eight parts of His own body. He was seated upon Ptah the Hill and was unmoved. In this act of creation Atum (Atom) became the Unmoved Mover. In spite of the Memphite Theology being the direct source of these doctrines, yet Plato has been given credit for the doctrine of the created Gods; while Aristotle has received credit for that of the “Unmoved Mover”. Certainly the world has never been more misled.

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Here it must be made quite clear, that the doctrine of a Demiurge in creation includes two other doctrines: that of the created Gods and that of the Unmoved Mover.

It was the function of the Demiurge to create the universe; and in doing so, his first act was the creation of the Gods, who accordingly became the first creatures.

But the manner in which the Demiurge created the Gods was the process of projecting them from His own body.

This method of creation clearly makes the Demiurge the Unmoved Mover.

However the history of Greek philosophy has assigned the authorship of the doctrines of the Demiurge and the created Gods to Plato, and the authorship of the doctrine of the Unmoved Mover to Aristotle.

But this so-called Platonic doctrine is one, made up of three inseparable parts (a) the Demiurge (b) the function of the Demiurge and (c) the method of the function: a unity which contradicts Aristotle’s authorship of what is really only an inference from the supposed original doctrine of Plato.

(The Myth of Creation in Plato Timaeus; Wm. Turner; Hist. of Phil., p. 109-110; Zeller’s Hist. of Phil. p. 192; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. p. 142).

The doctrine of opposites has already been discussed, however, in Part I of the Memphite Theology. One of the pairs of created Gods, Osiris and Isis was used to represent the male and female principles of nature. In addition to this, Osiris had other qualities attached to Him, which might be understood from the following derivatives (a) osh meaning many, and (b) iri meaning to do and also (c) meaning an Eye. Consequently Osiris came to mean not only many eyed or omniscient, but also omnipotent or all powerful. Here again, as in all instances already mentioned, in spite of the fact that the Memphite Theology is the source of Greek philosophy, yet the doctrines of “an Intelligent Cause”, a Nous as responsible for the life and conduct of the world, has been assigned to Anaxagoras,

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[paragraph continues] Socrates and also Plato, whose World Soul, consisted of fire atoms, like the World Soul of Democritus. (Plato Timaeus 30, 35. Xenophon Memorabilia I, 4, 2; Wm. Turner’s Hist. of Phil. 63).

A. Text of Part III

In this third part of the Memphite Theology, the Primate of the Gods is represented as Ptah: Thought, Logos and Creative Power, which are exercised over all creatures. He transmits power and spirit to all Gods, and controls the lives of all things, animals and men through His thought and commands. In other words it is in Him that all things live move and have their eternal being.

B. The Philosophy of Part III

From Part III we infer the following doctrines:–(a) all things were created by the thought and command of Ptah, the God of Gods. (b) Through the thought and command of Ptah, we all live, move and have our eternal Being. (c) Ptah is Creator and Preserver as has already been pointed out elsewhere; Ptah’s powers were transmitted by magical means to Atum who performed the work of creation. (Intellectual Adventures of Man by Frankfort, p. 52-60).

 

II. Memphite Theology is the Source of Modern Scientific Knowledge.

A. The Ennead and the Nebular Hypothesis.

B. The identity between the Sun God Atom, and the atom of science.

A. The Ennead and the Nebular Hypothesis coincide.

Just as the Memphite Theology is the source of Greek philosophy or primitive science, so it is also the basis of modern scientific belief. The Gods of Order and arrangement in the cosmos are represented by nine Gods in the Godhead, called the Ennead. Atum, (Atom), the Sun God, i.e., Fire God, creates eight other Gods, by naming four pairs of parts of his own body, from which they came forth. Here the names

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of the created Gods were given as Shu and Tefnut (Air and Moisture), Geb and Nut (Earth and Sky); and two other pairs of opposites: Osiris and Isis; and Seth and Nephthys, who are supposed to be the first creatures of this world (Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventures of Man, p. 54).

Now if we compare this Egyptian cosmology with the Nebular hypothesis of Laplace, we would find very striking similarities in the two contexts. According to the Nebular hypothesis our present solar system was once a molten gaseous nebula. This nebula rotated at an enormous speed, and as the mass cooled down it also contracted and developed greater speed. The result was a bulging at the equator and a gradual breaking off of gaseous rings, which formed themselves into planets. These planets in turn threw off gaseous rings, which formed themselves into smaller bodies, until at last, the sun was left as the remnant of the original parent Nebula. From this context it is clear that the original parent nebula was fire or the Sun, and that by throwing off parts of itself, it created some planets, which in turn threw off parts of themselves and created others. According to the context of the Memphite Theology, the creator God was the Sun God or fire God Atum (Atom), who named four pairs of parts of his own body, from which Gods came forth.

But Atum (Atom) together with the Eight Created Gods composed the Ennead or Godhead of nine: a very striking similarity with modern science which teaches that there are nine major planets. We may now summarise these similarities:–(a) The creator God in both the Egyptian and Modern Cosmologies is the Sun or Fire. (b) The creator God in both cosmologies creates Gods from parts of Himself. (c) The number of Gods are nine and correspond with the nine major planets. These similarities make it evident that Laplace obtained his hypothesis from the Memphite Theology or other Egyptian sources.

Of course the Memphite Theology, according to Frankfort in his Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, p. 54 does not

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mention the creation of planets. Nevertheless, since it was the method of the Egyptian to conceal the truth by the use of myths, parables magical principles (primitive scientific method), number philosophy and hieroglyphics, we can easily see what methods might be involved before we could arrive at a better translation of the Memphite Theology.

At any rate, the entire setting of the Memphite Theology is astronomical, and what could be more natural, than to expect an astronomical interpretation? It seems well within reason, to regard the Ennead as the heliocentric system of history. Atom the sun God, creating eight other Gods or planets from his own body, as the Unmoved Mover a teaching which has been falsely attributed to Aristotle.

B. The identity between the Egyptian Sun God Atum (Atom) and the atom of Modern Science:

There are two things which I desire to point out in connexion with the relationship between Atum (Atom) the Egyptian Sun God and the atom of modern science. These things are (i) the similarity of attributes and (ii) the similarity of names. (i) The Egyptian God Atum (Atom) means self-created; everything and nothing; a combination of positive and negative principles:–all-inclusiveness and emptiness; a Demiurge, possessing creative powers; the Creator Sun. (p. 53, Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man; p. 182, Frankfort’s Kingship and the Gods).

Atum (Atom) also means “the all and the not yet Being”; (p. 168 Frankfort’s Kingship of the Gods). As a God Atum (Atom) represents the principles of opposites. The atom, as the substratum of matter, according to Greek philosophy, is defined by Democritus as “movement of that which is” (To on) within “that which is not” (To me on). It therefore represents the principle of opposites, and shows the identity between the Egyptian Sun God and the substratum of matter. Furthermore, the atom is defined as “the full and void; being and not-being (Zeller’s Hist. of Phil., p. 38) and these definitions

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coincide with the everything and nothing, and the “all-inclusiveness” and emptiness of the Egyptian Sun God.

(ii) The similarity of names shared by the Egyptian Sun God and the atom of science:

Now, with reference to the similarity of these two names, the first thing we should bear in mind is the fact that they both possess identical attributes, as has been already pointed out in section i; and consequently we are compelled to conclude that the atom of science is the identical name of the Egyptian Sun God: the most ancient of Gods except Ptah, who was present with Atom at creation. The second thing we should bear in mind is the fact that the name of the God Atom (sometimes spelt Atum) belongs to the cosmology of the Memphite Theology, whose date goes back to 4000 B.C. when the Greeks were not even known. Consequently we are compelled to conclude that the Greeks obtained both the original name and the attributes of the Sun God Atom from the Egyptians.

Furthermore, the Greeks were unacquainted with the Egyptian language, during the period of the so-called Greek philosophy, dating from the sixth century B.C. and as a consequence transliterated Egyptian words into Greek without regard to their  derivatives. The following Homeric stories verify the practice of the Greeks in the transliteration of Egyptian words and the plagiarism of their legends. (a) According to Homer, Proteus was a Maritime Divinity feeding his phocae on the coast of Egypt. He was endowed with the gift of prophecy which was exercised only upon compulsion. Proteus, however was an Egyptian Pharaoh who succeeded to the throne on the death of Pheron, the son of Sesostris. Proteus was also worshipped at Memphis. The Greeks did not only transliterate the name of this Egyptian King, but also plagiarized on the legend. (Herodotus II, 112).

(b) Likewise the story of Io the Argive Princess, who was changed into a heifer, and after long wanderings, reached

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[paragraph continues] Egypt, where she gave birth to a God, and where she herself was worshipped as the Goddess Isis, points clearly to the introduction of the worship of Isis or Athor, under the symbol of the heifer, at an early period into Argos. Here it must be pointed out that Io is the Coptic name for Moon, and the same word was preserved as the dialect of Argos, without any affinity with any Greek root. It was a habit of the Greeks to Hellenize Egyptian words by transliterating them and adding them to the Greek vocabulary.

(c) This practice of borrowing words from nearby nations continued until New Testament times. In Acts of Apostles of the Greek Testament, Chapter 13th and verse 1, the word Niger (i.e., black man) in the name Simeon the Negro is a Roman or Latin word (niger, nigra, nigrum) meaning black. Simeon, of course, was an Egyptian Professor attached to the Church at Rome.

The atom of science is really the name of the Egyptian Sun God that has come down to modern times, through the so-called Greek philosophy, and carries identical attributes, with the Sun God. (Diodorus I, 29; John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt, vol. II 5-52; Eust. ad Dionys: Perieg: V).

N.B.

It must be remembered that what we erroneously call Greek philosophy, was the beginning of science or the investigation of nature; and consequently we cannot separate modern science from Greek philosophy.

 

III. Memphite Theology Opens Great Possibilities for Modern Scientific Research.

A. Greek Concept of the Atom; erroneous.

The Greeks derived the meaning of the atom from (i) (alpha) i.e. a negative prefix meaning not; and (ii) (temnein) i.e. the present infinitive active of (temno) to cut. The two derivatives together meaning “that which cannot be cut”. For centuries the world has been misled by this misconception

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of the Greeks: a fact which no doubt, had impeded the progress of atomic research by Western scholars, who had believed in the so-called Greek origin of philosophy or primitive science.

Today, however, the Greek conception of the atom is no longer tenable, since modern science has successfully split the atom.

B. Great scientific secrets in the Memphite Theology, yet to be discovered.

I believe that the time has come, within which man will be able to unlock most of the secrets of nature hitherto hidden and unknown. I have shown that the Nebular Hypothesis of modern times coincides with the teachings of the Memphite Theology, in which the Sun God Atom is said to have created eight other Gods, which together with himself constitute the Ennead of the Egyptians, which correspond to the nine major planets of modern scientific teaching.

We also know that out of Cosmic Chaos there arose from the primeval waters a pair of Gods i.e. the Primeval Hill and Atom the Sun God, and that through the contact of Atom with the Hill, He received power to create the other eight major planets. This seems to imply that

(i) Atomic energy originates from water and earth, since water H2O, and uranium, an indispensable ingredient in atomic energy, is found in the bowels of the earth. Note that both Atom and the Hill came out of the primeval Waters.

(ii) Four pairs of Gods, representing positive and negative principles still remain in water, in the form of male and female frogs and snakes, and constitute four fifths of the secrets of creation, which man has yet to fathom.

(iii) Successful scientific research in the principles and secrets of nature lies in the study of the Memphite Theology, whose symbology requires the key of magical principles for its interpretation. With this approach our men of science should be able to unlock the doors of the secrets of nature and become the custodians of unlimited knowledge.

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This is the legacy of the African Continent to the nations of the world. She has laid the cultural foundations of modern progress and therefore she and her people deserve the honour and praise which for centuries have been falsely given to the Greeks. And likewise, it is the purpose of this book to make this revelation the beginning of a universal reformation in race relations, which I believe would be the beginning of the solution of the problem of universal unrest.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 152]

 

PART II

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CHAPTER IX:

 

Social Reformation through the New Philosophy of African Redemption.

Now that it has been shown that philosophy, and the arts and sciences were bequeathed to civilization by the people of North Africa and not by the people of Greece; the pendulum of praise and honour is due to shift from the people of Greece to the people of the African continent who are the rightful heirs of such praise and honour.

This is going to mean a tremendous change in world opinion, and attitude, for all people and races who accept the new philosophy of African redemption,  the truth that the Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy; but the people of North Africa; would change their opinion from one of disrespect to one of respect for the Black people throughout the world and treat them accordingly.

It is also going to mean a most important change in the mentality of the Black people: a change from an inferiority complex, to the realization and consciousness of their equality with all the other great peoples of the world, who have built great civilizations. With this change in the mentality of the Black and White people, great changes are also expected in their respective attitudes towards each other, and in society as a whole.

In the drama of Greek philosophy there are three actors, who have played distinct parts, namely Alexander the Great, who by an act of  invaded Egypt in 333 B.C., and ransacked and looted the Royal Library at Alexandria and together with his companions carried off a booty of scientific, philosophic and religious books. Egypt was then stolen and annexed as a portion of Alexander’s empire; but the invasion

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plan included far more than mere territorial expansion; for it prepared the way and made it possible for the capture of the culture of the African Continent. This brings us to the second actor, that is the School of Aristotle whose students moved from Athens to Egypt and converted the royal library, first into a research centre, and secondly into a University and thirdly compiled that vast body of scientific knowledge which they had gained from research, together with the oral instructions which Greek students had received from the Egyptian priests, into what they have called the history of Greek Philosophy.

In this way, the Greeks stole the Legacy of the African Continent and called it their own. And as has already been pointed out, the result of this dishonesty has been the creation of an erroneous world opinion; that the African continent has made no contribution to civilization, because her people are backward and low in intelligence and culture.

This erroneous opinion about the Black people has seriously injured them through the centuries up to modern times in which it appears to have reached a climax in the history of human relations. And now we come to the third actor, and that is Ancient Rome, who through the edicts of her Emperors Theodosius in the 4th century A.D. and Justinian in the 6th century A.D. abolished the Mysteries of the African Continent; that is the ancient culture system of the world. The higher metaphysical doctrines of those Mysteries could not be comprehended; the spiritual powers of the priests were unsurpassed; the magic of the rites and ceremonies filled the people with awe; Egypt was the holy land of the ancient world and the Mysteries were the one, ancient and holy Catholic religion, whose power was supreme. This lofty culture system of the Black people filled Rome with envy, and consequently she legalized Christianity which she had persecuted for five long centuries, and set it up as a state religion and as a rival of Mysteries, its own mother. This is why the Mysteries have been despised; this is why other ancient religions of the Black

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people are despised; because they are all offspring of the African Mysteries, which have never been clearly understood by Europeans, and consequently have provoked their prejudice and condemnation. In keeping with the plan of Emperors Theodosius and Justinian to exterminate and forever suppress the culture system of the African continents the Christian church established its missionary enterprise to fight against what it has called paganism. Consequently missionaries and educators have gone to the mission field with a superiority complex, born of miseducation and disrespect: a prejudice which has made it impossible for them to accomplish the blessings which missionary enterprise might otherwise have accomplished. For this reason Missionary enterprise has been responsible for a positive injury against the African people, which consists of the perpetual caricature of African culture in literature and exhibitions which provoke laughter and disrespect. This then is only a brief summary of the parts played by the persons of the drama of Greek philosophy and the resultant effects upon the Black people. This drama might be called the Causa Causarum of the social plight of the peoples of African descent, because it has made the White and Black races not only common victims of a false racial tradition about the African Continent but also partners in the solution of the problem of racial reformation.

I believe that a reformation of this kind is possible, if the best minds of both racial groups co-operate in its accomplishment. Both groups have been the common victims of miseducation arising from a false tradition about the African Continent and it has caused them to develop attitudes according to their common belief: The White people, a superiority complex; and the Black people, the corresponding inferiority complex; and if we are to accomplish a reformation in race relations it is obvious that both racial groups must combine their efforts in the abandonment and destruction of that mentality which has plunged the Black people into their social plight.

This I suggest should be done by a world wide dissemination

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of the truth, through a system of re-education, in order to stimulate and encourage a change in the attitude of races toward each other In combining their efforts, both races must not only preach and teach the truth that the Mystery system of the African Continent gave the world philosophy and religion, and the arts and sciences, but they must see to it that all false praise of the Greeks be removed from the textbooks of our schools and colleges: for this is the practice that has blind-folded the world, and has laid the foundations for the deplorable race relations of the modern world. (a) The name of Pythagoras, for instance, should be deleted from our mathematical textbooks: in Geometry, where the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle is called the Pythagorean theorem, because this is not true. (b) we must point out to the world the deception in attaching the authorship of Socrates to the precept ‘man know thyself’; and in attaching the authorship of Plato to the four cardinal virtues; since Socrates obtained the self-knowledge precept from the Egyptian temples where it was used as an inscription; and Plato reduced the ten virtues of the North African Mystery system to four (c) we must also prove to the world that the doctrines of the so-called Greek philosophers originated from the ancient Mystery System of North Africa.

This proof has been set forth in chapters five to eight of ‘Stolen Legacy,’ and in order to carry out our world-wide crusade we must recommend ‘Stolen Legacy,’ for adoption and study in the schools and colleges of both racial groups and in our fraternities, sororities and inter-racial groups, in order that young and old of our present generation might all get to know the truth and be able to pass it on to future generations.

This I believe would be a very helpful method by which this process of re-education would become universal and effective in the creation of a much needed racial reformation. The White people of ‘our modern age cannot be regarded as  responsible for social conditions which are the result

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of false racial tradition. It is this that makes race relations a challenge to the best minds of both racial groups to combine their efforts in its solution.

But our disturbed race relations have also another cause. This I would say is both supplementary and intensive; for the false tradition about the backwardness of the African Continent, created by Alexander the Great and Aristotle’s School has been dramatized by missionary literature and exhibitions, as the will of Roman Emperors and as a source of laughter and disrespect. There is no doubt that this policy has created bitterness and dissatisfaction in the minds of natives, who have been compelled to question the sincerity of the missionary. In the meantime missionary enterprise gains the sympathy and support of a miseducated world, in order to carry on its programme.

What can we do to eradicate this second and more subtle evil: the dramatization of a false tradition so as to make it appear as true? I suggest that since the missionary dramatizes false tradition because he himself also believes it, we should combine our efforts, first of all in re-educating him so that he might know the truth and change his superiority complex which is responsible for his mistaken policy. His re-education should not only consist of a thorough study of the ideas and arguments contained in my book ‘Stolen Legacy’; but he must also be given special training in the language, customs and ideals of Africans, in order to make him cultivate an attitude of respect for the culture of the African Continent, seemingly the oldest specimen to have been developed by mankind; because that continent is the birth place and the cradle of the Ancient Mysteries. With a world enlightened as to the real truth about the place of the African Continent in the history of civilization, false tradition and belief should cease to be effective, disrespect and prejudice should tend to disappear, and race relations should tend to be normal and peaceful. This brings us to the final problem, the problem of African redemption. The aims of ‘Stolen Legacy’ are not only to stimulate a reformation

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in race relations and scientific research; but also to cultivate race pride in the Black people themselves and to offer them a New Philosophy of African Redemption as the Modus Operandi of achieving racial reformation.

This New Philosophy of Redemption consists of a simple proposition as follows:

‘The Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy, but the Black people of North Africa, The Egyptians.’

Now, in order to explain the value of this proposition, three questions must be asked and answered.

(a) As a simple proposition, what is its significance?

Its significance lies in the fact that it is a statement of an important truth, which is the exposure of Greek dishonesty.

(b) Why is this proposition called a philosophy?

A philosophy is an accepted belief, and this proposition is a philosophy because it is offered as a belief, worthy of acceptance.

(c) What is a philosophy of redemption?

A philosophy of redemption is not merely an accepted belief; but a belief that is also lived in order to enjoy the benefits of its teaching.

This proposition will become a philosophy of redemption to all Black people, when they accept it as a belief and live up to it. This brings us to our final question and that is, how to live up to this philosophy of redemption? In other words, how shall the Black people work out their own salvation?

From the outset my readers and co-workers in the solution of a common problem, must be reminded that our philosophy of redemption is a psychological process, involving a change in belief or mentality to be followed by a corresponding change in behaviour. It really signifies a mental emancipation, in which the Black people will be liberated from the chain of traditional falsehood, which for centuries has incarcerated them in the prison of inferiority complex and world humiliation and insult. This mental emancipation or redemption, it must be remembered,

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has two functions. It is general, when, on the one hand, the phenomenon of our unwholesome race relations is regarded as a general problem needing a general emancipation of both races in order to effect a solution. In this general sense emancipation transcends the limitations and boundaries of race, and therefore includes the whole world, White and Black people, since we are all victims of the same chain of the traditional falsehood, that has incarcerated the modern world. On the other hand, emancipation or redemption is specific, when we refer to the effects of the phenomenon of unwholesome race relations upon the Black people. It is freedom from such conditions that constitutes the specific function of emancipation or redemption.

We digressed somewhat in order to explain the terms  and philosophy of redemption, believing it to be necessary before proceeding to answer the next question: how to live up to this New Philosophy of Redemption? How must it be worked out?

Being liberated from inferiority complex by their New Philosophy of Redemption, which is destined to destroy the chain of false tradition which has incarcerated them, the Black people must face and interpret the world according to their new vision and philosophy. Throughout the centuries up to our modern times, world conditions have been influenced by two phenomena which have affected human relations.

(i) The giving of false praise to the Greeks: a custom which appears to be an educational policy conducted by educational institutions. This has led to the false worship of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, as intellectual gods in all the leading universities of the world, and in support of this intellectual worship, these institutions have also organized what are known as Greek lettered fraternities and sororities, as the symbols of the superiority of Greek intellect and culture.

(ii) The second phenomenon is Missionary enterprise whereby the Black people’s culture has been caricatured in literature and exhibitions, in such specimens as provoke disrespect

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and laughter. Never let us forget that the Roman Emperors Theodosius and Justinian were responsible for the abolition of the Egyptian Mysteries that is the culture system of the Black people, and also for the establishment of Christianity for its perpetual suppression.

Likewise, never let us forget when we are reviewing this bit of history that the Greeks called the Egyptians Hoi Aiguptoi which meant Black people.

In living up to their New Philosophy of Redemption, the life of the Black people will have to be one of counteraction against these two sets of conditions. In the first place the Black people must adopt a negative attitude towards this type of phenomena, because they have become fully aware that these phenomena are the result of a false tradition, and therefore also partake of the nature of falsehood and insincerity.

In this negative attitude the Black people of the world must shun the false tradition and must teach the truth, which is their New Philosophy of Redemption. This must be done in the home to young children; in the colleges and schools to students; from the pulpits and platforms to audiences; and in the fraternities and sororities to young men and women. This New Philosophy of Redemption, being a revelation of truth in the history of Black people’s civilization must become a necessary portion of their education, and must be taught for generations and centuries to come; in order to fill them with inspiration and pride and liberate them from mental servitude.

In the second place, in this negative attitude the Black people must demonstrate their disbelief in the false worship of Greek intellect. This should be done in the following three ways:–

(i) They must discontinue the practice of quoting Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in their speeches as intellectual models; because we know that their philosophy was stolen (ii) They must relinquish membership from all Greek lettered fraternities and sororities and (iii) They must abolish all Greek lettered fraternities and sororities from all colored colleges because

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they have been a source of the promotion of inferiority complex and of educating the Black people against themselves. We come now to the counteraction of the second set of phenomena, the missionary activities in defamatory literature and exhibitions which provoke disrespect for and laughter at the Black people.

Just as in the first set of phenomena, so is it in the second, the Black people must adopt a negative attitude in their attempt to live up to their philosophy of redemption. Of course, they are perfectly well aware that the activities of missionaries are the result of their own miseducation through the medium of a false tradition about Black people; but since their problem is also one of emancipation from certain social evils, the Black people feel that they are entitled to a change in Missionary policy. For these reasons I suggest that the negative attitude of the Black people should consist first of a boycott of missionary literature and exhibitions, and secondly, of a perpetual protest against these forms of missionary policy, until a change is brought about. For as long as Missionary enterprise maintains its policy of militancy against African culture, the Black people will be disrespected. This is the least that the Black people are entitled to: respectful treatment, because they are the representatives of the oldest civilization in the world, from which all other cultures have borrowed. I have frequently seen in the parish magazines of some European churches, pictures of the following description:–An African Chief, dressed in a new silk hat, a long shirt, but no trousers, a frock coat and barefeet; probably to provide amusement for the parishioners and to excite their pity. This is what the Black people must protest against and this is how they must live up to their philosophy of redemption and work it out.

In conclusion, let us remember that the unfortunate position of the modern church in being associated with the drama of Greek philosophy is excusable; because her missionary function has been due to the erroneous mandates and edicts of secular Princes and Emperors, who ruled the church, when it was only

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a department of state. This bit of ecclesiastical history should be well known to the early branches of the Christian church and consequently, they are the ones whom our enlightened age expects to initiate a change in missionary policy, which would free themselves from the error and superstition of human relations.

This lead of the various branches of Catholicism should be followed by Protestantism, so that the entire church of Christ on earth should be united in this racial reformation, and carry to the mission field a practical gospel of happiness; that is happiness that must begin while we are here on earth; a gospel that is interested in the total welfare of the people. A gospel which ignores the social and economic rights of natives and emphasizes only happiness in an unknown world is onesided, misleading, and contrary to Christian tenets and practice. It was early Christianity that established a diaconate for the express purpose of solving the economic problems of its adherents; so that they might begin in their earthly life to experience what happiness  meant.

It is evident that the benefits of religion are intended to be coextensive with human needs and unless the Christian religion changes its missionary policy with respect to the Culture of the Black people, it would be difficult for them to obtain complete emancipation from the social injuries created by Ancient Rome.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

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APPENDIX

THE PURPOSE of this appendix is to present a brief analysis and summary of the arguments, conclusions and inferences which relate to the subject matter which has already been treated. It is also hoped that it will serve the secondary purpose of simplification.

ARGUMENT I. Greek philosophy was stolen Egyptian philosophy.

Because history tells us that (i) The teachings of the Egyptian Mystery System travelled from Egypt to the island Samos, and from Samos to Croton and Elea in Italy, and lastly from Italy to Athens in Greece through the medium of Pythagoras and the Eleatic and late Ionic philosophers. Accordingly, Egypt was the true source of the Mystery teachings and therefore any claim to such origin by the ancient Greeks is not only erroneous but must have been based upon dishonest motives.

(ii) History also represents the early life and education of Greek philosophers as a blank and their chronology as a matter of speculation. Consequently it has given the world the opinion that the Greek philosophers, with the exception of the three Athenians, might never have existed and might never have taught the doctrines alleged to them. In other words History represents the Pre-Socratic philosophers as questionable in existence and under those circumstances they could neither produce philosophy nor claim its authorship, except by questionable and dishonest methods.

(iii) The compilation of Greek philosophy appears to have been the idea of Aristotle, but the work of the alumni of his school. The movement was unauthorized by the Greek Government which always hated and persecuted philosophy, because it was Egyptian and foreign. The organization, control and operation of the Mysteries gave the Egyptians the right of ownership to philosophy, and therefore any claims by the ancient Greeks to philosophy must be considered as illegal and dishonest.

ARGUMENT II. So-called Greek philosophy was alien to the Greeks.

Because (i) the period of Greek philosophy (Thales to Aristotle) was a period of internal wars among the city states themselves and external wars with their common enemy, the Persians. The Greeks were victims of perpetual internal strife and perpetual fear of annihilation

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by their common enemy. They had no time which they could devote to the study of nature, for this required the riches and wealth of the leisure classes: but they were too poor to engage in such a pursuit. This is one of the reasons why the Greek philosophers were so few and why the Greeks were unacquainted with philosophy.

(ii) The Greeks did not possess the native ability essential to the development of philosophy. The death of Aristotle, who had inherited a vast quantity of books from the library of Alexandria through his friendship with Alexander the Great, was also followed by the death of Greek philosophy which soon degenerated into a system of borrowed ideas known as eclecticism. This system contained nothing new in spite of the great treasure of knowledge which they had obtained through Alexander’s friendship with Aristotle and his conquest of Egypt.

(iii) The Greeks rejected and persecuted philosophy owing to the fact that it came from an outside and foreign source and contained strange ideas with which they were unacquainted. This prejudice led to the policy of persecution. Hence Anaxagoras was indicted and escaped from prison and fled to Ionia in exile. Socrates was executed; Plato fled to Megara to the rescue of Euclid; and Aristotle was indicted and escaped into exile. This policy of the Greeks would be meaningless, if it did not indicate that philosophy was alien to Greek mentality.

ARGUMENT III. Greek philosophy was the offspring of the Egyptian Mystery System.

Because complete identity had been found to exist between the Egyptian Mystery System and Greek philosophy with the only exception of age in relation of parent to child. The Egyptian Mystery System antedated that of Greece by many thousands of years. The following are the circumstances and conditions of identity:–

(i) Complete agreement between the Egyptian, theory of salvation and the purpose of Greek philosophy, i.e., to make man become Godlike by virtue and educational disciplines.

(ii) Complete agreement of the conditions of initiation into both systems, i.e., preparation (in gradual stages of virtue) before every initiation.

(iii) Complete agreement in tenets and practice.

(iv) History tells us that the remains of the Ancient Grand Temple of Luxor have been traced to the banks of the Nile in the ancient city of Thebes, a short distance from Danderah, now called upper Egypt. It also tells us that this Grand Temple was constructed by Pharaoh Amenothis III who began it, and Rameses II who completed it. At the

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time of Greek philosophy, the Mystery System of Egypt was the only such system in the ancient world, and therefore its Grand Lodge was the only such Grand Lodge in existence. It was the seat of government, having organized the ancient world into a universal or catholic brotherhood with jurisdiction over all minor lodges and schools wherever they were. And whether we call it the Mysteries or Greek philosophy or Free Masonry, the system was one and all branches came out of that one and were subordinate to it.

(v) The identity between the Egyptian Mysteries and Greek philosophy is also established by the fact that when the Roman Emperors Theodosius and Justinian issued their edicts closing down the Egyptian Mysteries, the effect was the same upon the philosophical schools in Greece, for they had to be closed. Things which are affected equally by the same cause are themselves equal.

ARGUMENT IV. The Egyptians educated the Greeks.

Because History supports the following facts:–

(i) The effects of the Persian conquest upon Egypt

(a) Removed immigration restrictions against the Greeks.

(b) Opened up Egypt to Greek research and (c) encouraged students from Ionia and elsewhere to visit Egypt for the purpose of their education.

(ii) The effects of the conquest of Alexander the Great upon Egypt

(a) It was the custom of ancient armies when invading countries to search for treasures in libraries and temples. Accordingly it is believed that Alexander and his friends who accompanied him ransacked the Library of Alexandria and other libraries and helped themselves with books. It is also believed that this was how Aristotle got the vast quantity of books alleged to his authorship and how he acquired exaggerated fame.

(b) The Library of Alexandria was taken over by the Alumni of Aristotle’s school and converted into a research centre and University, for the education of the Greeks who were compelled to use Egyptian Professors, on account of linguistic difficulties and other reasons.

(c) Apart from the looting of libraries and the conversion of the Library of Alexandria into a University for their education, the Greeks had another way of adopting the culture of the Egyptians. The Ptolemies used to commandeer useful information from the Egyptian High Priests, and we are told that Ptolemy I Soter commanded the High Priest Manetho to write a history of religion and philosophy of the Egyptians and this was done and the volumes became the chief text books in the University of Alexandria.

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(iii) The Egyptians were the first to civilize the Greeks

History tells us that the Greeks received the influence of civilization from three sources: colonizers first from Egypt, colonizers secondly from Phoenicia and colonizers thirdly from Thrace. It also tells us that these colonies were under the government of wise men who subdued the ferocity of the ignorant populace, not only by means of civil institutions, but also by the strong chain of religion and the fear of the Gods. Those colonizers were Cecrops from Egypt, Cadmus from Phoenicia and Orpheus from Thrace.

ARGUMENT V. The doctrines of Greek philosophers are the doctrines of the Egyptian Mystery System.

The proof of this proposition is really one of the main purposes of this book and hence chapters five and six have been devoted to this purpose. The Egyptian teachings were expressed in symbols of various types and therefore their origin can be established by reference to the particular symbol in question. In these chapters therefore mention has been made not only of the names of Greek philosophers and the doctrines which have been ascribed to them; but also the necessary references to the particular types of symbology, in proof of their Egyptian origin. These have been given in the Summary of Conclusions as follow:–

1. The early Ionic philosophers have been credited with the doctrines that (a) all things originated from water (b) all things originated from the boundless or primitive chaos and (c) all things originated from air. But these doctrines could not have been those of the Ionic philosophers; since we find the same ideas expressed in the first chapter of Genesis, where we are told that at the beginning the world was in a state of chaos, without form and void (boundless); and how the spirit of God (air) moved upon the waters and separated them from dry land and earth from sky; and how step by step, living things came out of the waters and how finally, through the breath of life (air) man came into existence. Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch whose date has been placed to the Eighth Century B.C.: a time when the early Ionic philosophers did not even exist and who therefore could not have been the authors of these doctrines. Similarly, the authorship of Genesis has been ascribed to Moses, who Philo tells us was an Egyptian Priest, a Hierogrammat, and learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. But the age in which Moses lived must be associated with the Exodus of the Israelites which he conducted in the 21st Egyptian Dynasty: 1100 B.C. in the reign of Bocchoris. But the creation story of Genesis coincides with the creation

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story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians, which takes us back to between 4 and 5 thousand B.C. This means that the doctrines of the early Ionians arose neither at their time (the fifth century B.C.), nor at the time of Pentateuch (the eighth century B.C.), nor yet at the time of Moses (the eleventh century B.C.), but at the time of the Memphite Theology ( 4 and 5 thousand B.C.) and therefore definitely point to Egyptian origin.

2. The Eleatic philosophers have been named as (i) Zenophanes who was a satirist (ii) Zeno whose treatment of space and time led to a reductio ad absurdum and (iii) Parmenides who alone deserves notice. He has been credited with the definitions of Being and non-Being, which he expressed as ‘that which is’ and ‘that which is not’. In other words, nature or reality consists of two properties, i.e., a positive and a negative. But Parmenides introduced no new doctrine, when he defined the principle of opposites. This principle was used by Pythagoras in his theory of numbers; by Socrates in his proof of the immortality of the Soul; by Plato in his Theory of Ideas and the distinction between phenomena and noumena; and by Aristotle in his definition of the attributes of Being. In all these instances it has been shown that the doctrine of opposites originated from the Egyptian Mystery System, in connection with which Gods were represented as male and female, and temples carried double pillars in front of them to indicate positive and negative principles of nature.

3. The late Ionic philosophers have been named as (i) Heracleitus who taught that the world was produced by fire, through a process of transmutation; and that since all things originate from Fire, then Fire is the Logos.

(ii) Anaxagoras, who taught that Mind or Nous is the source of life in the Universe and

(iii) Democritus, who taught that atoms underlie all material things; that life and death are merely changes brought about by variation in the mixture of atoms, which do not die because they are immortal. Now, taking these doctrines in the order in which they come, their Egyptian origin has been fully established.

(a) The doctrine of Fire has been traced to the Egyptians, whose Mystery System was a Fire Philosophy and who worshipped the God of Fire in their pyramids. The word pyramid is a Greek word, whose derivative pyr means fire. This doctrine takes us back to the pyramid age in Egypt 33 hundred B.C. when, of course, the Greeks were unknown.

(b) It must be noted that the doctrine of the Logos has been identified by Heracleitus with the doctrine of Fire. This is as it should be,

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because (c) in the doctrine of the created Gods which has been ascribed to Plato, Atom the Sun God or Fire performs the function of Demiurge in creating the Gods.

(d) Similarly in the doctrine of the Unmoved Mover ascribed to Aristotle, the Fire God Atom while unmoved and sitting upon the Primeval Hill, creates the Gods by commanding them to proceed from various parts of His own body. In this way Atom also became the Unmoved Mover. This makes it clear that the Logos of Heracleitus is identical with the Demiurge of Plato and the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle. The function of Atom as Demiurge and the method of His creation are found in the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians. Here

I would like to suggest that students who are interested in tracing the influence of Egyptian philosophy upon Christian thought, should read this portion of my book together with the first chapter of St. John’s gospel. The problem of permanence and change is also traced in the Creation story of the Memphite Theology in which eternal matter is represented by chaos, and change by the gradual formation of order.

(e) The doctrine of Mind or Nous, has been ascribed not only to Anaxagoras, but also to Democritus who spoke of it as being composed of fire atoms distributed throughout the universe and Socrates who has been credited with the teleological premise: that whatsoever exists for a useful purpose is the work of an Intelligence. This doctrine has been traced to the Egyptian Mystery System, in which the God Osiris was represented by an Open Eye; signifying not only omniscience, but also omnipotence. All Masonic lodges carry this symbol with the same meaning today.

(f) The doctrine of the atom has been ascribed to Democritus, who does not define but describes its properties. It is the basis of life; it is immortal and does not die; and when many of them are mixed in certain ways the result is a radical change. These properties coincide with the properties of Atom the Sun God and the Demiurge in creation, who created other Gods from various parts of himself. He was the basis of life and giver of life. But Atom the Sun God occurs in the creation story of the Memphite Theology and shows the Egyptian origin of the atom.

4. The system of Pythagoras seems to have been so comprehensive that nearly all subsequent philosophers have copied ideas from his teachings. Interpreting nature in the form of mathematics, Pythagoras is credited with teaching the following doctrines:

(a) The properties of Number include opposite elements: odd and even, finite and infinite, and positive and negative. This principle of

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opposites was copied by and used in the teachings of Heracleitus, , Democritus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

(b) The doctrine of Harmony, defined as the union of opposites. This idea was copied by and used in the teachings of Heracleitus, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.

(c) Fire (central and peripheral) was taught to be the basis of creation. This doctrine was also used by and in the teachings of Heracleitus, Anaxagoras, Democritus, Socrates and Plato.

(d) The immortality of the soul and The Summum Bonum. This was taught by Pythagoras in the form of a transmigration of the soul. It was also taught by Socrates as the purpose of philosophy through which, the soul feeding upon the truth congenial to its divine nature, was enabled to escape the wheel of rebirth and to attain the final consummation of unity with God. All the doctrines of Pythagoras have been shown to originate from the Egyptian Mystery System. Number possesses opposite elements and the principle of opposites belongs to the Egyptian Mystery System in which it was represented by male and female Gods. Harmony being a blending of opposites, needs no further reference, and Fire likewise takes us back to the Egyptian Mystery System which was a Fire Philosophy and its Initiates Fire worshippers. Finally, the purpose of philosophy was the salvation of the soul. This was accomplished by methods of purification offered by the Egyptian Mysteries, which lifted man from the mortal to the immortal level. This was the Summum Bonum, The Greatest Good.

5. Socrates (A) His life and (B) His doctrines (C) His indictment, condemnation and death (D) His farewell conversations.

A. In his life he voluntarily adopted secrecy and poverty, in order that he might avoid the temptation of riches and be enabled to cultivate the virtues required by the Mysteries.

B. All his doctrines likewise associate him with the Egyptian Mysteries.

(i) His doctrine of the Mind or Nous as Intelligence which underlies creation, was represented in Egyptian temples, just as in modern Masonic temples, by the “Open Eye of Osiris”, indicating omniscience and omnipotence.

(ii) His doctrine of self knowledge: “Man know thyself” was copied directly or indirectly from among the inscriptions which appeared on the outside of the Mystery temples in Egypt.

(iii) His doctrines of Opposites and Harmony were a testimony of the custom of the Mysteries to demonstrate the principle of opposites in nature by pairs of male and female Gods and also by double pillars in front of temples.

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(iv) His doctrines of Immortality, Salvation of the Soul and The Summum Bonum were a summary of the theory of salvation as was taught by the Mysteries. Socrates himself explained it. The purpose of philosophy was the salvation of the soul by a process of purification which lifted man from the mortal level and raised him to the immortal. This was an attainment, this was the Summum Bonum or Greatest Good.

C. His indictment, condemnation and death are circumstances which also show his association with the Mysteries. He was indicted for the introduction of foreign Gods and the corruption of Athenian Youth and was condemned and put to death. The foreign Gods were the Gods of the Mysteries and his submission to martyrdom was due on the one hand to the prejudice of the Athenian authorities, while on the other hand, to his virtue of courage, required by the Mysteries.

D. His farewell conversations also show his membership with the great Egyptian Order. There are two accounts of these conversations: one by Crito and the other by Phaedo. Crito describes the brotherly behaviour of a band of faithful friends and Neophytes who visited him daily while he was in prison awaiting his execution. The purpose of these visits was to secure the escape of a brother; but their efforts were in vain, for he refused to yield to their entreaties. Phaedo mentions that the theme of the other conversation was the immortality of the soul in which Socrates endeavoured to give them some proofs by his application of the principles of opposites. We are also told that towards the end of the conversations, and just before he drank the poison, Socrates requested Crito to pay for him a certain debt which he owed. These conversations reveal the following facts:–

(a) The brotherly love of the visiting Neophytes in their attempt to secure the escape of their brother Socrates.

(b) A final class was conducted by Socrates on the doctrine of immortality: the central doctrine of the Egyptian Mysteries and

(c) A final request of Socrates to have a debt paid for him and

(d) These conversations constitute the earliest specimen of Masonic literature. All four of which facts point to membership in the Egyptian Mystery System. It was a Universal Brotherhood and required the cultivation of brotherly love. Its central teaching was the immortality of the soul, and it also required all Initiates to practice the virtues of justice and honesty and therefore to pay their debts.

E. It is believed that Socrates did not commit his teachings to writings. This was also in obedience to the secrecy of the Mysteries.

6. Plato

(A) His early life and education as in the case of all other philosophers

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are unknown to history, which represents him as fleeing from Athens after the death of Socrates and after twelve years during which time he visited Euclid at Megara, the Pythagoreans in Italy, Dionysius in Sicily and the Mystery System in Egypt, he returned to Athens and opened an Academy, where he taught for 20 years.

(B) His doctrines which are scattered over a wide area of literature consisting of 36 dialogues are disputed by modern scholarship. The pupils of Socrates especially Plato are supposed to have published his teachings, and it is not known how much of this vast literature belongs to Plato and how much to Socrates. The doctrines of Plato have all been traced to Egyptian origin.

(i) The Theory of Ideas, which he illustrated by reference to the phenomena of nature, is a distinction between the Ideas or noumena and their copies the phenomena; and between the real and unreal, by the application of the principle of opposites, which was manifested by the Egyptian Mystery System by male and female Gods and pairs of pillars carried in front of Egyptian temples.

(ii) The doctrine of the Mind or Nous has also been traced to the “Open Eye” used in Egyptian temples and modern Masonic lodges to symbolize the omniscience and omnipotence of the Egyptian God Osiris.

(iii) The doctrine of the Demiurge and created Gods have also been traced to Atom the Sun God in the creation story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians.

(iv) The doctrine of the Summum Bonum or Greatest Good has been shown to be identical with the theory of salvation of the Egyptian Mystery System. The salvation of the soul was the purpose of philosophy, whose methods of purification lifted the individual from the level of a mortal and advanced him to the level of a God. This goal was the Summum Bonum or Greatest Good.

(v) The doctrine of the Ideal State whose attributes have been compared with the attributes of the soul and justice which are contained in the allegory of the charioteer and winged steeds, points to Egyptian origin because the allegory has been traced to the Judgment Drama of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

(vi) The doctrines of virtue and wisdom have been shown to have originated from the Egyptian Mystery System which required ten virtues in order to subjugate the ten bodily impediments.

7. Aristotle

1. The life of Aristotle is one of discrepancies and doubts.

(i) While like other philosophers, history does not know any thing about his early life and education, yet it tells the strange story that he

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spent 20 years as a pupil under Plato, that he never went to Egypt and that Alexander the Great gave him the money to secure the vast number of books which are attached to his name. But history also tells us that Plato was a philosopher and that Aristotle was a scientist and consequently we are forced to ask the question: why should a man like Aristotle waste 20 years of his life under a Teacher who was incompetent to teach him? These circumstances have led to the suspicion that Aristotle must have spent the greater part of those 20 years in advancing his education in Egypt and in accompanying Alexander the Great on his invasion of Egypt, when he got the opportunity to ransack the library at Alexandria and carry off all the books which he wanted. The story of history does not make much sense; but unfortunately throws a cloud of darkness over the life of Aristotle.

(ii) Another discrepancy is to be found in connection with three lists of books said to belong to him, but which differ in source, in date and in quantity, (a) His own list which must receive the date in which he lived: the 4th century B.C. This contains the smallest number of books. (b) A list from Hermippus of Alexandria two centuries later, i.e., 200 B.C. containing 400 books and (c) A list from Arabian sources, compiled at Alexandria, three centuries later, i.e., 1st century A.D. containing a thousand books. One is forced to ask the questions: Did Aristotle write a thousand books in his life time? How has his small list increased after his death to 400 after the lapse of two centuries, and to one thousand after the lapse of five centuries? These circumstances make the authorship of Aristotle very doubtful, for it is incredible that a single individual could write a thousand books on the various fields of science in a single life time.

2. The doctrines of Aristotle have all been shown to originate from the Egyptian Mystery System

(i) The doctrine of Being in the metaphysical realm has been explained as the relation between potentiality and actuality, which acts according to the principle of opposites. The Egyptians were the first scientists to discover the principle of duality in nature and therefore represented it by male and female Gods and by pairs of pillars in front of their temples. This is the source of this doctrine.

(ii) In the proof of the existence of God, Aristotle used two doctrines, (a) Teleology, showing purpose and design in nature as the work of an Intelligence and (b) the Unmoved Mover. Both doctrines have been traced to the creation story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians where it is shown that creation moved from chaos to order and indicated the work of an Intelligence; and also where Atom the Demiurge and Logos while sitting unmoved upon the

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[paragraph continues] Primeval Hill projected eight Gods from various parts of His body and thus became the Unmoved Mover.

(iii) The doctrine of the origin of the world, according to Aristotle, states that the world is eternal because matter, motion and time are eternal. This same view was expressed by Democritus in 400 B.C. in the dictum ex nihillo nihil fit (out of nothing, nothing comes), indicating that matter is permanent and eternal. The same view has been traced to the creation story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians in which chaos or primitive matter is represented by the Primeval Ocean Nun out of which arose the Primeval Hill. These are supposed to have always been in existence.

(iv) The doctrines of the attributes of nature, according to Aristotle, states that nature consists of motion and rest and that the motion moves from the less perfect to the more perfect by a definite law. I suppose the law of evolution. This teaching however did not originate from Aristotle for the problem of motion and rest permanence and change were not only investigated by the Eleatic and later Ionic philosophers, but by the Egyptians in whose creation story, the Memphite Theology, nature is shown to move from chaos by gradual steps to order. Certainly the doctrine of the attributes of nature came from the Egyptians.

(v) The doctrine of the soul, according to Aristotle, states that the soul is a radical principle of life which is identical with the body, and possesses five attributes, being sensitive, rational, nutritive, appetitive and locomotive. Other philosophers have defined the soul (a) as material and composed of fire atoms (b) as a harmony of the body through the blending of opposites, and (c) as the breath of life in the creation story of Genesis. The true source of Aristotle’s doctrine of the soul has however been traced to the philosophy of the soul found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. There we find the soul explained as a unity of nine inseparable souls in one just like the Ennead a God Head of Nine in One, with necessary bodies. In this Egyptian philosophy, the attributes of the soul of the physical body have been found to coincide with those described by Aristotle, and it therefore shows the Egyptian source of Aristotle’s doctrine, which relates to a small fragment of the Egyptian philosophy of the soul.

ARGUMENT VI. The Education of the Egyptian Priests and the Curriculum of the Mystery System show that Egypt was the source of Higher Education in the ancient world, not Greece.

The first idea that we get from chapter seven is the fact that the Institution of Holy Orders originated from the Egyptian Mystery

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[paragraph continues] System, where African Priests were organized into various Orders and trained according to their rank. This made the priesthood the custodians of learning until the dawn of the modern age and pointed to Africans as the first professors in Higher Education. The second idea that we get is that the Seven Liberal Arts also originated from the Egyptian Mystery System, because these subjects formed the basis of the education of the Priests, who in addition, had to be versed in the 42 Books of Hermes and to specialize in Magic, Hieroglyphics, secret language and mathematical symbolism. The third idea that we get is that the Curriculum of the Egyptian Mystery System was coextensive with the needs of the highest civilization of the ancient world. Its text books consisted of:–

(i) The 42 Books of Hermes.

(ii) The therapeutic use of the Seven Liberal Arts, for the cure of man’s soul.

(iii) The applied Sciences and Arts as revealed by the monuments such as sculpture, painting, drawing, architecture, engineering.

(iv) The social Sciences appropriate for trade and commerce, such as geography, economics and ship-building.

ARGUMENT VII. The Memphite Theology contains the theology, philosophy and cosmology of the Egyptians and is therefore an authoritative source of doctrinal origin.

Chapter VIII attempts to show that the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians is the source of (i) Greek philosophy by showing that the separate doctrines of philosophers are portions of the teachings contained in it and also the source of (ii) modern scientific hypotheses by showing that (a) the Nebular Hypothesis and (b) the assumption that there are nine major planets of the solar system have originated from Atom the Egyptian Sun God or Fire God who has been shown to be identical with the atom of modern science. It is because of this great revelation, i.e., the identity of Atom the Sun God of the Egyptians with the atom of modern science that I have recommended the Memphite Theology as a new field of scientific research, and magic the scientific method of the Mysteries as the key to its interpretation. My second reason is the fact that the Memphite Theology is the first Heliocentric theory of the universe, and my third reason is the fact that the history of philosophy is the history of science.

IX. The New Philosophy of African Redemption

Chapter IX deals with the New Philosophy of African Redemption, the aim of which is mental and social redemption, by converting the world to the New Philosophy that the Black people of North Africa

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gave philosophy to the world, but not the Greeks; and by refusing not only to worship Greek intellect, because it is a process of miseducation, but also refusing to submit any longer to missionary policy. The New Philosophy of African Redemption is a necessary escape of the Black people from their social plight caused by a false tradition concerning them which has been set in motion by (a) Alexander the Great (b) Aristotle and his school and (c) Emperors Theodosius and Justinian whose edicts abolished the Egyptian Mysteries: the Greatest Educational and Ecclesiastical System that the world has ever known and established Christianity as its perpetual rival.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

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NOTES

 

CHAPTER I

(1) The Teachings of the Egyptians. This was called Sophia by the Greeks and meant Wisdom Teaching. It included (a) Philosophy and the Arts and Sciences (b) religion and magic and (c) secret methods of communication both linguistic and mathematical. Read The Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, Bk. 6, p. 756 and 758; also Diodorus I, 80; also Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail, p. 22-23; The Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, Bk. 5, c. 7 and 9.

(2) The Peri Physeos

This was the name given to one of the earliest books on science apart from the manuscripts of the Egyptians. The name means “Concerning nature”. Read Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail, p. 16.

 

CHAPTER II

The period of Greek philosophy was unsuitable for the production of Greek philosophers. Because (a) Persian domination did not only enslave the Greeks but kept them in a constant state of fear (b) It also kept them busy organizing Leagues in constant self-defense against aggression and (c) The city states could not agree, and the Peloponnesian wars kept them in constant warfare with each other. Read Sandford’s Mediterranean World, c. 12, p. 203, 205; c. 13 and 15, p. 225, 255; also c. 18, p. 317, 319; also The Tutorial History of Greece, c. 27, 28 and 29.

 

CHAPTER III

(1) The Summum Bonum. This means (a) The Greatest Good (b) the lifting of man from the level of a mortal and advancing him to the level of a God (c) the salvation of the soul (d) the purpose of philosophy (e) the goal of the Egyptian theory of salvation. Read C. H. Vail’s Ancient Mysteries, p. 25.

(2) The Grand Lodge of Luxor

The ruins of the ancient Grand Lodge of Luxor are found today on the banks of the Nile in Upper Egypt in the ancient city of Thebes. It was built by Pharaoh Amenothis III. It was the only Grand Lodge of the ancient world. It had branches or minor lodges throughout the ancient world; in Europe, Asia, , North America, South America

[p. 177]

and probably in Australia. These were some of the places:–(a) Palestine at Mt. Carmel (b) Syria at Mt. Herman in Lebanon (c) Babylon (d) Media, near the Red Sea (e) India, on the banks of the Ganges (f) Burma (g) Athens (h) Rome (i) Croton (j) Rhodes (k) Delphi (l) Miletus (m) Cyprus (n) Corinth (o) Crete (p) Central and South America, especially Peru (q) Among the American Indians and among the Mayas, Aztecs and Incas of Mexico. Read Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics by Jas. Hastings; Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; and History of Philosophy by Thomas Stanley. The discovery of the ruins of Luxor on the banks of the Nile and the organization of the Egyptian Mysteries into a Grand Lodge with minor lodges throughout the ancient world are evidence that Egypt was the cradle of the Mysteries and of the Masonic Brotherhood.

(3) The rebuilding of the temple of Delphi

This temple was burnt down in 548 B.C. by the Greeks who were always hostile towards the Egyptian Mysteries. The Brethren tried at first to raise funds from the native Greeks but failed in their attempt. They then decided to approach the Grand Master Amasis King of Egypt, who unhesitatingly donated three times as much as was needed for the purpose. This act of King Amasis shows the universality of the brotherhood of the Egyptian Mysteries and of Free Masonry. Read Sandford’s Mediterranean World, p. 135 and 139; also John Kendrick’s Ancient Egypt, Bk. II, p. 363.

(4) The abolition of Greek philosophy together with the Egyptian Mysteries

Identical effects proceed from identical causes. Therefore the edicts of Theodosius in the 4th century A.D. and of Justinian in the 6th century A.D., which closed down the Egyptian Mysteries, simultaneously had the same effect upon Greek philosophy, and proved the identity between them. Read The Ecclesiastical edicts of the Theodosian Code by W. K. Boyd; also Mythology of Egypt by Max Muller, c. 13, p. 241-245; also Sandford’s Mediterranean World, p. 508, 548, 552-568.

(5) The Statue of the Egyptian Goddess Isis with Her Child Horns in Her arms

This was the first Madonna and Child of human history. It was a Black Madonna and Child. Read Max Muller’s Mythology of Egypt, c. 13, p. 241-245; also Sandford’s Mediterranean World, p. 552-568. Remember that the name Egyptian is a Greek word Aiguptos which means Black, and that primitive man visualized God in terms of his own attributes and this included colour.

[p. 178]

(6) All the great religious leaders from Moses to Christ were Initiates of the Egyptian Mysteries

This is an inference from the nature of the Egyptian Mysteries and prevailing custom.

(a) The Egyptian Mystery System was the One Holy Catholic Religion of the remotest antiquity.

(b) It was the one and only Masonic Order of Antiquity, and as such,

(c) It built the Grand Lodge of Luxor in Egypt and encompassed the ancient world with its branch lodges.

(d) It was the first University of history and it made knowledge a secret, so that all who desired to become Priests and Teachers had to obtain their training from the Mystery System, either locally at a branch lodge or by travelling to Egypt.

We know that Moses became an Egyptian Priest, a Hierogrammat, and that Christ after attending the lodge at Mt. Cannel went to Egypt for Final Initiation, which took place in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. Other religious leaders obtained their preparation from lodges most convenient to them.

(e) This explains why all religions, seemingly different, have a common nucleus of similarity; belief in a God; belief in immortality and a code of ethics. Read Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail, p. 61; Mystical Life of Jesus by H. Spencer Lewis; Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant, p. 107, 128-129; Philo; also read note (2) Chapter III for branch lodges of the ancient world.

 

CHAPTER IV

(1) The Genesis of Greek Enlightenment

In the reign of King Amasis, the Persians through Cambyses invaded Egypt 525 B.C. and as a result (a) Immigration regulations against the Greeks were removed (b) They were allowed to settle at Naucratis and do their research (c) This contact enabled the Greeks to begin to borrow Egyptian Culture and to become enlightened. Read Herodotus, Bk. II, p. 113; Plutarch, p. 380; Diogenes, Bk. IX 49; Ovid Fasti III 338.

(2) Cheops and Cecrops

Those were Greek names for the Egyptian Khufu who belonged to the 4th Dynasty of the Egyptians. It was during the Pyramid Age, and Cheops was also the name of the Great Pyramid where Christ received His Final Initiation into the Egyptian Mysteries. Read Brucker’s Critical History of Philosophy; also Mystical Life of Jesus by H. Spencer Lewis.

[p. 179]

 

CHAPTER V

(1) The Diagram of the Four Qualities and Four Elements

This is important evidence that the teachings of the supposed early Ionic philosophers and of Heracleitus originated from the Egyptian Mysteries. Read the Diagram and also Ancient Mysteries by C. H. Vail, p. 61; and the Creation Story of the Memphite Theology by Frankfort; also Rosicrucian Digest, May 1952, p. 175.

(2) The Pythagorean Theorem

Pythagoras travelled to Egypt and was taught geometry by the Egyptian Priests and made to sacrifice to the Gods, before they showed him the proof of the theorem of the square on the hypotenuse of a right angled triangle. Pythagoras did not discover this proof, and it is misleading to name the theorem after him. Read Herodotus, Bk. III, p. 124; Diogenes, Bk. VIII, p. 3; Pliny, N. H., 36, 9; also Plutarch and Demetrius.

 

CHAPTER VI

(1) The doctrine of self-knowledge: Man know thyself (Seauton gnothi)

This doctrine has been falsely ascribed to Socrates. It was an inscription that was placed on the Egyptian temples, and Socrates copied it directly or indirectly. Read Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 105; S. Clymer’s Fire Philosophy and Max Muller’s Egyptian Mythology.

(2) The Farewell Conversation of Socrates with his pupils and friends

These conversations are significant in the following respects:–

(a) Socrates is identified as a member of the Egyptian Mysteries or Masonic Order.

(b) Masonic behavior is manifested through these conversations.

(c) The books containing these conversations; Plato’s Crito, Phaedo, Euthyphro, Apology and Timaeus, are the earliest specimen of Masonic literature apart from the secret writings of the Egyptians.

(d) Of the three Athenian philosophers Socrates stood highest in the rank of a Free Mason. He was not afraid of death, he did not publish the knowledge imparted to him and he was an honest man. Read Crito and Phaedo of Plato.

(3) Plato’s Theory of Ideas

After the Egyptian Priests discovered the fundamental principle of opposites as underlying life in the universe, they applied it in their interpretation of natural phenomena. Consequently this mode of interpretation has been reflected in the teachings of the so-called Greek philosophers who had obtained their education from the Egyptian

[p. 180]

[paragraph continues] Mystery System. Read the doctrines of Parmenides who in the problem of existence distinguishes between Being and non-Being; also of Heracleitus in the problem of flux and change through the process of transmutation; also of Socrates in the proof of immortality, and Plato in his supposed Theory of Ideas, in which he distinguished between (a) the real and unreal (b) the idea of a thing and the thing itself (c) the noumena and phenomena. In all these instances the principle of opposites has been used as a method of interpretation. This method is Egyptian not Platonic.

(4) The Republic of Plato: The Ideal State

Plato’s authorship of the Republic is disputed for the following reasons:–

(a) The attributes of an Ideal State are expressed in the allegory of the charioteer and winged steeds which is dramatized in the Judgment Drama of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and therefore proves its Egyptian origin.

(b) The chariot was neither a culture pattern nor war machine of the Greeks at the time of Plato. The wars of the Greeks with the Persians and the Peloponnesian wars were all maritime.

(c) At this time the Egyptians were specialists in the manufacture of chariots and horse breeding Gen., c. 45, v. 27; c. 47, v. 17; Deut., c. 17, v. 16; I Kings, c. 10, v. 28.

(d) The historians Diogenes Laertius, Aristoxenus and Favorinus have declared that the subject matter of the Republic was found in the controversies written by Protagoris (481-411) when Plato was but a boy. Read Diogenes Laertius, p. 311 and 327; also The Egyptian Book of the Dead, c. 17; also Republic III 415; V 478; and VI 490 sqq.

(5) The Timaeus of Plato

Plato’s authorship of the Timaeus is also disputed for the following reasons:–

(a) The historian Diogenes Laertius in Bk. VIII, p. 399-401 has declared that when Plato visited Dionysius in Sicily, he paid Philolaus a Pythagorean forty Alexandrian Minae of silver for a book, from which he copied the whole contents of the Timaeus.

(b) The subject matter of the Timaeus is eclectic. Read the Timaeus.

(6) Magic is the Key to the interpretation of ancient religion and natural philosophy

Through the application of the principle: that the qualities of entities, human or divine, are distributed throughout their various parts; and that contact with such entities releases those qualities, many religious phenomena and those of primitive science could be interpreted and understood.

[p. 181]

(a) The cure of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, Mark, c. 5, verses 25-34.

(b) The cure of several people, who held the handkerchiefs of St. Paul. Acts, c. 19, verse 12.

(c) In order to accomplish creation, Atom the Sun God sat upon Ptah, the God of Gods, in order to absorb His qualities of creative thought, speech and omnipotence. This act qualified Him as the Logos and Demiurge and He first created the Gods and finally mortals. Read Memphite Theology in Frankfort’s Ancient Egyptian Religion and Dr. Frazer’s Golden Bough.

(7) The doubts and discrepancies in the life and activities of Aristotle

It is somewhat unfortunate that history has represented the life and activities of Aristotle in a way so repugnant to reason, that the world has been compelled to doubt his accomplishments and fame. It tells us that

(a) he spent twenty years as a pupil under Plato whom we know was incompetent to teach him.

(b) It tells us that Alexander gave him money to buy his large number of books, but the Greeks had no libraries at the time, nor was it easy to purchase books which were not in circulation.

(c) It also tells us that three lists of books which bear his name differ froth one another, in source, date and quantity.

(d) The third list contains one thousand books: a quantity which is a mental and physical impossibility as the production of a single individual in a single lifetime.

(e) It is silent about Aristotle’s visits to Egypt, although it was the custom in his days for Greek students to go to Egypt for the purpose of their education. Read Zeller’s History of Philosophy, p. 172-173; Diogenes, Bk. V, p. 449; B. D. Alexander’s History of Philosophy, p. 92-93.

(8) The Unmoved Mover: Proton Kinoun Akineton

A doctrine ascribed to Aristotle in his attempt to prove the existence of God. The God in this doctrine was Atom the Egyptian Sun God, who in the creation story of the Memphite Theology, sat upon the God of Gods Ptah and having absorbed His creative qualities, speech and omnipotence, became the Logos and accomplished the work of creation by projecting Gods from various parts of His own body. This doctrine did not originate from Aristotle, but has been traced to the creation story of the Memphite Theology of the Egyptians. Read Memphite Theology in Frankfort’s Ancient Egyptian Religion, c. 20 and

[p. 182]

[paragraph continues] 23; also p. 25, 26 and 35; William Turner’s History of Philosophy, p. 141-143; B. D. Alexander, p. 102-103.

(9) Aristotle’s doctrine of the Soul

This doctrine has been found to be only a very small part of the elaborate philosophy of the soul found in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is the original source of Aristotle’s supposed doctrine. Read the Egyptian Book of the Dead by Sir E. A. Budge, p. 29-64.

 

CHAPTER VII

The Curriculum of the Egyptian Mysteries

Through the curriculum of the Egyptian Mysteries it is now known that the African Continent has given the following Legacy to the civilization of the world. It consists of the following culture patterns:–

(1) Holy Catholic Orders, together with a priesthood divided into ranks according to training.

(2) Holy Catholic Worship, consisting of rituals, ceremonies including processions and appropriate vestments of priests.

(3) Greek Philosophy and the Arts and Sciences, including the Seven Liberal Arts, that is, the Quadrivium and Trivium which were the foundation training of Neophytes. These were included in the forty-two Books of Hermes.

(4) The applied Sciences which produced the pyramids, tombs, libraries, obelisks, and Sphinxes, war chariots and ships, etc.

(5) The social sciences, appropriate for the highest civilization in ancient times. Read The Stromata of Clement of Alexandria, c. 6, p. 756, 758; also Diodorus I, 80. Read also The Mechanical Triumphs of the Ancient Egyptians by F. M. Barber; History of Mathematics by Florian Cajeri; History of Mathematics by W. W. R. Ball.

 

CHAPTER VIII

The Memphite Theology

(1) Definition

The Memphite Theology is an inscription on a stone containing the cosmology, theology and philosophy of the Egyptians. Read Frankfort’s Ancient Egyptian Religion, c. 20 and 23; also Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventure of Man. It is located in the British Museum.

(2) Importance

Its importance lies in the fact that (a) it is an authoritative source of Egyptian Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion (b) it is proof of the Egyptian origin of Greek philosophy.

(3) The Source of Modern Scientific Knowledge

(a) Atom the Egyptian Sun God who is the Logos of Heracleitus,

[p. 183]

the Demiurge of Plato and the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle creates eight other Gods by projecting them from His own body, thus producing nine Gods or the Ennead. This is identical with the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace, in which the original Sun creates eight other planets, by throwing off rings from itself, thus producing the nine major planets of modern scientific belief.

(b) It has been shown on pages <page 146> and <page 147> of this book, that the name of Atom the Egyptian Sun God is the same name used for the atom of science and also that the attributes of both are the same. Read Frankfort’s Intellectual Adventure of Man, p. 53; Frankfort’s Kingship and the Gods, p. 182; also Herodotus II, 112; Diodorus I, 29.

(4) It offers great possibilities for modern scientific research

What science knows about (a) the number of major planets (b) how these major planets were created by the Sun and (c) the attributes of the atom has been traced to the Cosmology of the Memphite Theology, which suggests that (d) science knows only 1/5 of the secrets of creation and therefore 4/5 of such secrets yet remains to be discovered (e) consequently The Memphite Theology offers great possibilities for modern scientific research.

 

CHAPTER IX

The Drama of Greek Philosophy

(1) This consists of three actors (a) Alexander the Great who invaded Egypt and plundered the Royal Library at Alexandria (b) Aristotle and the alumni of his school, who took possession of the Royal Library and having first carried off large quantities of scientific books, subsequently converted it into a research Centre and University. (c) The Roman government, which through the edicts of Emperors Theodosius and Justinian closed down the Egyptian Mysteries together with its schools, the University of the Ancient World and System of the African Culture.

(2) The result of this was (a) the misrepresentation and erroneous opinion that the African Continent and people are backward in culture and have made no contribution to civilization and (b) the establishment of Christianity as a rival against the Mysteries or African System of Culture, in order to perpetuate this erroneous opinion.

(3) A further result has been (a) the false worship of Greek intellect and (b) the activities of Missionary enterprise through which the culture of Black people is caricatured both in literature and in exhibitions.

(4) A further result has been (a) the general feeling among Black

[p. 184]

people throughout the world that they are in great need of freedom from their social plight, and (b) The offer by “Stolen Legacy” of a “New Philosophy of African Redemption” in order to meet this universal need of “Social Reformation”.

(5) The nature and methods of this New Philosophy and Social Reformation

(a) The New Philosophy of African Redemption is simply the proposition that the “Greeks were not the authors of Greek philosophy: but the people of North Africa, the Egyptians”. This must be preached and circulated for centuries to come.

(b) The effects of this New Philosophy should be as follows:–

(1) To change the mentality both of White and Black people and their attitude towards each other and bring about a Social Reformation.

(2) To stimulate the Black people to abandon their false worship of Greek intellect, and to reject the caricature of their culture by Missionary enterprise and to demand a change in Missionary policy.

 

Stolen Legacy, by George G. M. James, [1954]

[p. 185]

 

INDEX

A

Ab, The-<page 124>

Ability-<page 3>

Abolished-<page 5>

Abolition-<page 36>, <page 38>, <page 160>

Academy-<page 95>

Accomplishment-<page 4>

Achievement-<page 2>

Achilles-<page 61>

Africa (North)-<page 4>

Air-<page 81>, <page 89>, <page 142>, <page 146>

Alexander (The Great)-<page 1>, <page 2>, <page 3>, <page 5>, <page 12>, <page 14>, <page 17>, <page 42>, <page 45>, <page 153>

Allegory (of the charioteer and winged steeds)-<page 99>, <page 106>, <page 107>, <page 112>

Alumni-<page 19>

Anaxagoras-<page 9>, <page 13>, <page 29>, <page 64>, <page 68>

Anaximander-<page 9>, <page 13>, <page 55>, <page 56>, <page 67>

Anaximenes-<page 9>, <page 55>, <page 56>, <page 67>

Anatomy-<page 132>

Ancient-<page 34>

Andronicus-<page 14>, <page 18>, <page 126>

Animate-<page 66>

Antecedent-<page 115>

Antiquity-<page 2>, <page 67>

Apeiron, The-<page 55>, <page 67>

Apollo-<page 134>

Apollodorus-<page 14>

Appetitive-<page 117>, <page 122>

Architecture-<page 35>, <page 36>

Arithmetic-<page 17>, <page 18>

Argos-<page 24>

Aristophanes-<page 29>

Aristotle-<page 1>, <page 2>, <page 3>, <page 4>, <page 5>, <page 6>, <page 10>, <page 14>, <page 15>, <page 16>, <page 17>, <page 18>, <page 21>, <page 29>, <page 56>, <page 69>, <page 113>, <page 137>, <page 154>

Artificer (Divine)-<page 140>

Artimesium-<page 22>, <page 110>

Arts (The Seven Liberal)-<page 1>, <page 132>

Asia (Minor)-<page 9>, <page 38>

Aspirants-<page 31>, <page 42>, <page 43>

Astronomy-<page 17>, <page 18>, <page 40>, <page 80>

Athens-<page 9>, <page 10>, <page 23>, <page 112>, <page 113>

Athenian-<page 2>, <page 24>

Atom-<page 65>, <page 77>, <page 90>, <page 102>

Authorship-<page 74>, <page 80>, <page 98>, <page 101>, <page 108>, <page 109>, <page 127>, <page 137>

B

Ba, The-<page 123>

Babylonians-<page 4>

Bacchus-<page 69>

Being-<page 59>, <page 100>

Belligerent-<page 22>

Bolt (thunder)-<page 51>

Books (of Hermes)-<page 131>, <page 135>

Botany-<page 80>

Boundless-<page 58>, <page 67>, <page 102>, <page 141>

Boycott-<page 161>

Branches (of science)-<page 40>

Breeding (of horses)-<page 110>

Brotherhood (one universal)-<page 93>

Buddha-<page 73>

Bulletin-<page 3>

C

Cadmus-<page 51>

Cairo-<page 40>

Caliphates-<page 40>

Captured-<page 5>

Catholic-<page 154>

Cause (Final)-<page 115>

Cause (First)-<page 119>

Cause (Intelligent)-<page 87>, <page 90>

Cecrops-<page 51>

Ceremony-<page 33>, <page 76>

Ceremonies (of initiation)-<page 34>

Ceremonial (cleanliness)-<page 33>

Centre (research)-<page 5>, <page 46>

Centralized-<page 39>

-<page 4>

Chaos-<page 75>, <page 98>, <page 102>, <page 118>, <page 122>, <page 140>

Children (of the Mysteries)-<page 42>

Christ-<page 73>, <page 110>, <page 111>

Christianity-<page 36>, <page 38>, <page 154>, <page 160>

Chronology-<page 14>

Churches-<page 3>

City (of giants)-<page 33>

Classification-<page 107>

Clement (of Alexandria)-<page 131>

Colourless-<page 65>

Company (of the Gods)-<page 57>

[p. 186]

Competence-<page 133>

Compilation-<page 10>, <page 17>, <page 18>, <page 76>

Complex (inferiority)-<page 7>

Confederacy (of Delos)-<page 22>, <page 23>, <page 111>

Confederacies-<page 21>

Conjecture-<page 56>

Conquest-<page 41>, <page 42>, <page 45>

Continent (African)-<page 5>, <page 6>, <page 7>, <page 39>, <page 154>, <page 155>

Contribution (to civilization)-<page 6>, <page 153>

Cordova-<page 40>

Cosmological-<page 102>, <page 139>

Cosmology-<page 75>, <page 98>, <page 146>

Counteraction-<page 160>, <page 161>

Courage-<page 4>

Creation-<page 65>, <page 67>, <page 75>, <page 87>, <page 96>, <page 98>, <page 101>, <page 115>, <page 118>, <page 122>, <page 139>, <page 140>, <page 145>, <page 147>

Creator-<page 98>

Crito-<page 84>, <page 93>

Croton-<page 3>, <page 9>

Culture-<page 1>, <page 27>, <page 39>, <page 41>, <page 110>, <page 120>

Curriculum-<page 95>, <page 131>, <page 134>, <page 137>

Custodians-<page 39>, <page 40>, <page 76>

Cyclades-<page 11>

Cycle-<page 56>

Cyprus-<page 22>

D

The Daimonion (of Socrates)-<page 83>

Darkness (Intellectual)-<page 39>

Deification-<page 27>, <page 72>

Deified-<page 100> Delphi-<page 34>

Demiurge-<page 101>, <page 102>, <page 118>, <page 141>

Democritus-<page 4>, <page 9>, <page 65>, <page 68>, <page 73>, <page 79>, <page 80>, <page 92>, <page 100>, <page 109>, <page 119>, <page 121>, <page 141>, <page 145>

Demonstrated-<page 76>

Demotic-<page 133>

Destiny-<page 28>

Dialectics-<page 80>

Dialogues-<page 96>

Diogenes-<page 43>, <page 80>, <page 107>, <page 108>, <page 109>

Discipline (of the soul)-<page 105>

Discrepancies-<page 128>

Discussion-<page 51>

Dispensary (of the mind)-<page 48>

Dissemination-<page 6>

Disunion-<page 21>

Divine-<page 51>

Divinities-<page 29>, <page 37>, <page 48>, <page 89>, <page 92>

Doctrines-<page 5>, <page 12>, <page 31>, <page 55>, <page 58>, <page 98>, <page 100>

Dominated-<page 21>, <page 24>

Domination-<page 22>

E

Earth-<page 81>, <page 142>

Eclectic-<page 74>, <page 92>, <page 100>

Economics-<page 127>

Education-<page 1>, <page 12>, <page 42>, <page 44>, <page 112>, <page 131>, <page 133>, <page 134>

Egypt-<page 2>, <page 8>, <page 95>, <page 110>

Egyptians-<page 4>, <page 5>, <page 39>, <page 41>, <page 76>, <page 78>, <page 122>

Elea-<page 8>, <page 59>, <page 61>

Eleatic-<page 59>, <page 67>

Elements-<page 81>, <page 97>

Eleusinian-<page 69>

Emancipated-<page 7>

Emancipation-<page 158>, <page 159>, <page 161>

Emblems-<page 48>

Empedocles-<page 9>

Ennead, The-<page 118>, <page 143>, <page 145>

Enlightenment-<page 41>

Entelecheia-<page 114>

Entities-<page 103>

Enterprise (Missionary)-<page 155>

Epistles-<page 4>

Equator-<page 146>

Eratosthenes-<page 14>

Erroneous-<page 154>, <page 161>

Esoteric-<page 134>

Ethical-<page 98>, <page 133>

Ethics-<page 3>, <page 80>, <page 127>

Eudemus-<page 14>, <page 17>, <page 18>

Eupraxia-<page 87>

Eutuchia-<page 87>

Evidence (circumstantial)-<page 77>

Exhibitions-<page 161>

Exiled-<page 3>

F

Fables-<page 51>

Federation-<page 23>

Ferocity-<page 51>

Fetters-<page 29>

Fire-<page 4>, <page 63>, <page 66>, <page 68>, <page 69>, <page 71>, <page 81>

Flux (universal)-<page 62>

Fortitude-<page 30>, <page 105>

Fragments, The-<page 12>

Freedom (from resentment)-<page 30>

Frequency (of repetition)-<page 4>

G

Genesis-<page 67>, <page 118>, <page 121>, <page 123>

Genii-<page 107>

Geology-<page 29>, <page 88>

Geometry-<page 17>, <page 18>, <page 83>, <page 156>

[p. 187]

Goblet (silver)-<page 43>

God (Atom the Sun)-<page 103>, <page 119>, <page 140>, <page 145>

Gods (Pre-creation)-<page 103>

Gods (Primate of the)-<page 102>, <page 140>

Goddess (of Truth)-<page 107>

Godlike-<page 73>

Good (The Supreme)-<page 73>, <page 87>, <page 91>, <page 105>

Gospels (christian)-<page 4>

Government-<page 2>, <page 29>, <page 38>, <page 51>

Greeks-<page 3>, <page 4>, <page 6>, <page 17>, <page 21>, <page 22>, <page 23>, <page 41>, <page 51>

Gymnasium-<page 95>, <page 113>

Gymnastics-<page 83>

H

Harmony-<page 4>, <page 57>, <page 59>, <page 70>, <page 87>, <page 92>, <page 99>, <page 105>, <page 122>

Hebrew-<page 4>

Hedonists-<page 73>

Heliocentric-<page 147>

Heliopolis-<page 43>, <page 52>

Hellenic-<page 22>, <page 23>, <page 24>

Hemlock-<page 84>

Heraclitus-<page 4>. <page 9>, <page 13>, <page 15>, <page 62>, <page 68>, <page 92>, <page 141>

Hercules-<page 134>

Herodotus-<page 134>, <page 148>

Hieroglyphics-<page 36>, <page 131>, <page 133>, <page 147>

Hierogrammat-<page 67>, <page 131>, <page 135>

Hierophants-<page 3>, <page 31>, <page 50>

Hill (The Primeval)-<page 103>, <page 140>

History-<page 14>

Hittites-<page 11>, <page 121>

Holy of Holies, The-<page 32>, <page 46>

Homogeneous-<page 65>

Horoscopus-<page 131>, <page 135>

Horus-<page 73>, <page 108>

House (prison)-<page 1>

Hypothesis (Nebular)-<page 145>

Humanities-<page 6>

Hypotheses-<page 119>

I

Ideas (theory of)-<page 58>, <page 70>, <page 97>, <page 119>

Identity-<page 14>, <page 29>

Idolized-<page 6>

Iknaton-<page 11>

Imitate-<page 37>

Immortal-<page 68>

Immortality-<page 27>, <page 56>, <page 71>, <page 84>, <page 87>, <page 93>, <page 117>, <page 119>

Impediments-<page 1>

Incompetent-<page 127>, <page 128>

Incomprehensibles-<page 36>

Incredible-<page 130>

Indestructible-<page 65>

Indeterminate-<page 117>

India-<page 11>

Indicted-<page 3>

Indictment-<page 29>, <page 92>

Inferiority (complex)-<page 133>, <page 155>, <page 159> <page 161>

Initiates-<page 4>, <page 12>, <page 13>, <page 31>, <page 40>, <page 93>

Initiation-<page 1>, <page 27>

Innovation-<page 10>

Inscriptions-<page 3>, <page 139>

Institution-<page 35>

Instruction-<page 31>, <page 44>

Intellect-<page 57>, <page 59>

Intellectual-<page 3>, <page 4>, <page 69>

Intelligences-<page 27>, <page 118>

Internal-<page 21>

Introducing-<page 29>

Invasion (Persian)-<page 39>, <page 41>, <page 42>, <page 45>, <page 51>

Ionia-<page 9>, <page 10>, <page 41>

Ionians-<page 19>, <page 21>, <page 22>, <page 23>, <page 24>, <page 41>

Isis and Osiris-<page 68>

Italy-<page 9>, <page 10>, <page 59>, <page 95>

J

Jupiter-<page 134>

Jurisdiction-<page 32>

Justice-<page 30>, <page 99>, <page 105>, <page 107>, <page 131>

Justinian-<page 5>, <page 154>

K

Ka-<page 123>

Kaibit-<page 124>

Khat-<page 123>

Khu-<page 124>

Khufu-<page 51>

Knowledge-<page 66>, <page 76>

Knowledge (self)-<page 88>

Knowledge (theory of)-<page 63>

Knowledge (unwritten)-<page 4>

Know (thyself)-<page 3>, <page 88>, <page 92>

L

Language (Arabic)-<page 40>

Language (Greek)-<page 4>

Law (Divine)-<page 63>

Leagues-<page 21>, <page 22>, <page 23>, <page 24>, <page 25>

[p. 188]

Legacy-<page 154>

Letters (The Amarna)-<page 11>

Letters (Lady of)-<page 48>

Liberated-<page 57>

Liberation (of the mind)-<page 27>

Librarian-<page 150>

Libraries-<page 1>, <page 3>, <page 39>, <page 79>

Library (Royal)-<page 5>, <page 14>, <page 17>, <page 42>, <page 45>, <page 46>, <page 114>, <page 125>, <page 137>, <page 153>

Library (secret)-<page 45>

Library (sacred)-<page 48>

Libya-<page 52>

Literature-<page 4>

Locomotion-<page 125>

Locomotive-<page 117>, <page 122>

Lodge, The Grand (of Egypt)-<page 31>, <page 32>, <page 33>

Lodge, The (of Pythagoras)-<page 31>

Lodges (Masonic)-<page 33>, <page 90>

Logos, The-<page 28>, <page 63>, <page 68>, <page 103>, <page 121>, <page 140>, <page 141>

Looting-<page 129>

Lyceum-<page 113>

Lyre-<page 57>

M

Magic-<page 76>, <page 78>, <page 79>, <page 100>, <page 103>, <page 134>, <page 154>

Manetho-<page 10>, <page 50>

Manufacture-<page 110>

Marathon-<page 22>, <page 110>

Mason (Master)-<page 89>

Masonic-<page 94>

Material-<page 98>, <page 122>

Mathematics-<page 6>, <page 40>, <page 43>, <page 113>, <page 127>

Matter-<page 120>

Mediaeval-<page 39>

Medical-<page 76>, <page 132>

Medicine-<page 40>, <page 43>, <page 58>, <page 80>

Medicini-<page 52>

Mediator-<page 105>

Mediterranean-<page 22>

Memphis-<page 43>, <page 52>

Menephtheion, The-<page 146>

Mentality-<page 153>, <page 155>

Metaphysics-<page 40>, <page 59>, <page 113>, <page 114>, <page 142>

Microcosm-<page 32>

Miletus-<page 22>

Mind-<page 4>, <page 73>

Mind (The Great Master)-<page 6>

Minerva-<page 135>

Misconception-<page 149>

Miseducation-<page 161>

Misrepresentation-<page 6>

-<page 155>, <page 161>

Mithra-<page 69>

Mobile-<page 66>

Models-<page 6>

Moisture-<page 142>, <page 146>

Monads-<page 102>

Moral-<page 133>

Morality-<page 125>

Mortals-<page 27>

Moses-<page 40>

Motion-<page 61>, <page 120>

Motion (self)-<page 65>

Museum-<page 102>, <page 139>

Music-<page 58>, <page 83>

Mysteries-<page 1>, <page 9>, <page 31>, <page 32>, <page 79>, <page 88>, <page 92> <page 109>, <page 155>, <page 157>

Mysteries (Egyptian)-<page 5>, <page 12>, <page 30>, <page 38>, <page 39>, <page 132>

N

Napoleon’s (invasion of Egypt)-<page 37>

Naucratis-<page 41>

Nebula-<page 146>

Negative-<page 57>

Neleus (of Scepsis)-<page 126>

Neophytes-<page 1>, <page 3>, <page 67>, <page 73>, <page 78>, <page 105>, <page 133>

Nile-<page 33>, <page 34>, <page 36>, <page 52>

Notation-<page 40>

Noumen-<page 70>

Noumena-<page 97>, <page 140>

Nous-<page 64>, <page 68>, <page 71>, <page 87>, <page 90>, <page 96>, <page 98>, <page 100>, <page 141>, <page 142>

Nutritive-<page 117>, <page 122>

O

Oasis, The (of Siwah)-<page 51>

Obelisks-<page 36>

Odus, The-<page 131>, <page 135>

Offspring-<page 27>, <page 31>

Ogdoad, The-<page 140>

Omnipresence-<page 125>

Opinion-<page 153>

Opposites-<page 4>, <page 57>, <page 61>, <page 70>, <page 76>, <page 87>, <page 92>, <page 116>, <page 119>, <page 122>, <page 141>, <page 142>

Oracle, The (of Ammon)-<page 51>

Order-<page 1>, <page 4>, <page 9>, <page 32>, <page 33>, <page 34>

Origin-<page 5>, <page 7>, <page 116>, <page 120>

Orpheus-<page 51>

Osiriaca-<page 13>, <page 31>

Osiris-<page 108>, <page 143>, <page 146>

[p. 189]

P

Paganism-<page 155>

Parmenides-<page 3>, <page 9>, <page 13>, <page 60>, <page 67>, <page 92>, <page 100>, <page 142>

Pastophori-<page 131>, <page 135>

Pelusium-<page 51>

Pendulum-<page 153>

Pentateuch-<page 67>

Perfection-<page 27>, <page 97>

Peripatetic-<page 18>, <page 113>

Peri Physeos-<page 12>, <page 18>, <page 19>, <page 60>

Persia-<page 21>, <page 23>

Persians-<page 1>, <page 21>, <page 22>, <page 23>, <page 41>, <page 110>

Personality-<page 83>, <page 89>

Pharaoh-<page 110>, <page 133>

Phenomena-<page 57>, <page 65>, <page 68>, <page 70>, <page 97>, <page 100>, <page 117>, <page 119>, <page 142>, <page 160>, <page 161>

Philo-<page 67>

Philosophical-<page 51>, <page 139>

Philosophers-<page 15>, <page 18>, <page 19>, <page 21>, <page 29>, <page 31>, <page 59>, <page 67>, <page 68>, <page 69>, <page 70>, <page 81>, <page 99>, <page 119>

Philosopher (Greek)-<page 2>, <page 3>, <page 4>, <page 16>, <page 55>

Philosophy-<page 3>, <page 4>, <page 10>, <page 13>, <page 14>, <page 40>, <page 80>, <page 153>, <page 159>

Philosophy (Stolen Egyptian)-<page 10>

Physicists-<page 18>

Physics-<page 80>, <page 89>, <page 113>, <page 127>

Piracy-<page 41>

Plagiarism-<page 69>, <page 70>

Plato-<page 2>, <page 4>, <page 6>, <page 9>, <page 10>, <page 14>, <page 15>, <page 16>, <page 31>, <page 61>, <page 69>, <page 100>, <page 145>

Plight (social)-<page 5>

Plundered-<page 5>

Plurality-<page 59>, <page 61>, <page 62>, <page 67>

Plutarch-<page 68>, <page 126>, <page 133>, <page 143>

Polycrates-<page 52>

Potential-<page 115>

Potentiality-<page 117>

Powers (creative)-<page 39>

Powers (supernatural)-<page 134>

Prejudice-<page 6>, <page 155>

Priests (Egyptian)-<page 3>, <page 9>, <page 28>, <page 44>, <page 76>, <page 132>, <page 134>

Priests (of Sais)-<page 31>

Priest (High)-<page 32>

Primitive-<page 4>, <page 67>

Proficiency-<page 28>

Prophetes-<page 131>, <page 135>

Prosecution-<page 29>

Prudence-<page 30>

Purification-<page 56>, <page 57>, <page 58>

Pythagoras-<page 3>, <page 4>, <page 5>, <page 9>, <page 43>, <page 52>, <page 56>, <page 70>, <page 72>, <page 92>, <page 100>, <page 141>, <page 156>

Q

Qualities-<page 80>, <page 103>, <page 108>

Quarantine-<page 76>

R

Rational-<page 117>, <page 122>

Rationality-<page 125>

Real-<page 97>

Reality-<page 65>, <page 70>, <page 97>

Recollection-<page 72>, <page 93>

Redemption-<page 153>

Redemption (African)-<page 157>, <page 158>

Re-education-<page 156>

Reformation-<page 153>, <page 155>

Re-incarnation-<page 56>, <page 57>

Rejected-<page 3>

Religion-<page 36>, <page 38>, <page 52>, <page 104>

Research (Greek )-<page 41>

Republic (of Plato)-<page 95>, <page 99>, <page 106>, <page 108>, <page 109>

Resentment-<page 30>

Reward-<page 57>

Rhetoric-<page 127>

S

Salvation-<page 1>, <page 27>, <page 28>, <page 56>

Salvation (The Egyptian theory of)-<page 27>, <page 28>, <page 29>, <page 104>, <page 105>

Samos-<page 9>

Sahu, The-<page 124>

Saved (by water)-<page 67>

Scale, The (of Justice)-<page 107>

Scholarship-<page 96>

Schools-S, <page 9>, <page 30>, <page 31>, <page 38>, <page 39>, <page 154>

Scribe-<page 108>

Science-<page 2>, <page 31>, <page 40>, <page 135>

Sciences (of transcendental space)-<page 28>

Sea (Aegean)-<page 11>

Sekhem, The-<page 124>

Sensation-<page 64>, <page 68>, <page 76>, <page 84>

Sensitive-<page 122>

Septuagint-<page 4>

Serfdom-<page 7>

Sextus-<page 13>, <page 19>

Shrine, The (of the secret Fire)-<page 34>

Simplicius-<page 13>, <page 19>, <page 62>

Sky-<page 142>

Socrates-<page 3>, <page 4>, <page 6>, <page 10>, <page 14>, <page 15>, <page 29>, <page 69>, <page 84>, <page 89>, <page 119>, <page 145>

Solar-<page 146>

Solid-<page 65>, <page 66>

[p. 190]

Sons (of Light)-<page 27>

Sophia-<page 10>, <page 39>

Sparta-<page 23>, <page 24>

Spartan-<page 22>, <page 23>

Specialization-<page 133>

Speculation-<page 14>

Spirituality-<page 125>

State, The Ideal-<page 99>

Stolistes-<page 131>, <page 135>

Strabo-<page 51>

Subjects (Persian)-<page 10>

Subordination-<page 99>

Substance-<page 115>

Sulla-<page 126>

Summum Bonum-<page 1>, <page 3>, <page 4>, <page 57>, <page 72>, <page 98>

Superiority (complex)-<page 155>

Surgery-<page 40>

Symbolism-<page 132>

System (The Mystery)-<page 1>, <page 3>, <page 13>, <page 27>, <page 29>, <page 38>, <page 68>, <page 70>, <page 89>, <page 92>, <page 117>, <page 131>, <page 137>

System (The Egyptian Mystery)-<page 4>, <page 27>, <page 28>, <page 31>, <page 40>

T

Teleological-<page 87>, <page 118>

Temperance-<page 4>, <page 30>, <page 60>, <page 105>

Temple-<page 1>, <page 3>, <page 5>

Temple (The Egyptian) <page 32>, <page 33>

Temple (The Ionian)-<page 31>

Temple (The Orphic)-<page 31>

Temple (The Delphic)-<page 35>

Temples (of the ancient city of Thebes)-<page 33>

Tenets-<page 51>

Tests and Ordeals-<page 28>, <page 133>

Thales-<page 9>, <page 21>, <page 42>, <page 55>

Thebes-<page 24>, <page 33>, <page 43>

Theodosius-<page 154>

Theological-<page 139>

Theology-<page 17>, <page 18>, <page 113>, <page 127>, <page 132>

Theology (Memphite)-<page 68>, <page 75>, <page 100>, <page 102>, <page 118>, <page 122>, <page 139>, <page 143>, <page 145>, <page 149>

Theophrastus-<page 13>, <page 14>, <page 17>, <page 18>, <page 126>

Theorem (The Pythagorean)-<page 3>

Theory-<page 27>, <page 28>, <page 29>

Therapeutic-<page 28>

Time-<page 120>

Toth-<page 108>

Torches-<page 51>

Tradition-<page 12>, <page 56>

Traditional-<page 10>, <page 159>

Transformation-<page 105>

Transmigration-<page 4>, <page 72>

Transmutation-<page 81>, <page 141>

Travels-<page 95>

Treaty (of Miletus)-<page 23>

Truth (The Goddess of)-<page 60>

Tutor-<page 95>, <page 112>

U

Unchangeableness-<page 97>

-<page 14>

Uniformity-<page 127>

Unity, The (of God)-<page 59>

Universe-<page 58>, <page 76>, <page 90>, <page 98>, <page 116>

University-<page 27>, <page 49>, <page 154>

Unmoved Mover, The-<page 70>, <page 115>, <page 118>, <page 143>, <page 147>

Unreal-<page 97>

Unwholesome-<page 159>

Usurping-<page 3>

Utensils-<page 131>

Utterance (creative)-<page 140>

V

Virility-<page 133>

Vision (Beatific)-<page 27>

Virtues (the ten)-<page 28>

Virtues (Cardinal)-<page 3>, <page 31>, <page 104>, <page 132>

Virtues-<page 3>, <page 57>, <page 98>, <page 99>, <page 104>

W

Wars (Peloponnesian)-<page 21>, <page 24>

Warriors-<page 98>

Waters, The (of Nun)-<page 140>

Weighing-<page 108>

Wheel, The (of rebirth)-<page 27>, <page 71>, <page 88>

Wisdom (of the Egyptians)-<page 10>

Wisdom-<page 98>, <page 105>

Workers-<page 98>

Writings-<page 18>, <page 96>, <page 137>

X

Xanthippe-<page 84>

Xenophanes-<page 9>, <page 59>

Z

Zeller-<page 15>, <page 60>, <page 80>

Zeno-<page 9>, <page 61>

Zoology-<page 80>

Zoroaster-<page 69>

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NOTES ON THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT

 

(FRENCH CONGO).

BY

 

Richard Edward DENNETT,

AUTHOR OF “SEVEN YEARS AMONG THE FJORT.”

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

 

MARY H. KINGSLEY.

ILLUSTRATED.

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY

BY DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND.

1898.

PRINTED BY

J. B. NICHOLS AND SONS,

PARLIMENT MANSIONS,

VICTORIA STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

PREFACE.

‘THE following collections reached my hands in a more or less fragmentary state, The bulk of the work had been written at one time, and little was needed to put it into a state for publication. But other portions, and those not the least important, had been written at different times and with different objects, and the task of weaving them all together in the author’s absence was not a light one. Thus, though the author has read the proofs of all but Appendix II, it will be easily understood that the difficulties involved in passing a book of this kind through the press, while he was residing several thousand miles away, are such as to account for many imperfections, which would have been rectified had he been able himself to determine its final form and to superintend its publication. The sins of omission, of occasional repetition, and perhaps of occasional obscurity, that may be found, must therefore be laid at the editor’s, and not at the author’s door. I can only hope that the circumstances may be taken into account to extenuate these offences.

The difficulties I have referred to would, indeed, have been insuperable had it not been for the incessant help of Miss Kingsley. The debt due to her is by no means confined to the writing of her interesting and valuable introduction and the arrangement of Appendix I. She read all the manuscripts and selected in the first instance those most suitable for publication. Innumerable questions of detail have arisen in the course of printing, making it necessary to refer constantly to her, and in every case her knowledge of the country and the people, her time and thought, have been ungrudgingly placed at the service of the Folk-Lore Society. Lastly, she selected the photographs to be reproduced for the plates, and laid her own stock of negatives under contribution for the purpose of adding to them. It has been a matter of regret that the Society has been unable to avail itself to a greater extent of her kindness in this direction.

I am also indebted to Mr. W. H. D. Rouse for help kindly rendered in revising the Latin translation of the songs.

The orthography of the word Fjort has been adopted with some hesitation. Mr. Dennett has himself not always adhered to this form. In the chapter on the Death and Burial of the Fjort (which was communicated independently to the Society and published in Folk-Lore, vol. viii., p. 133), as it originally stood, he wrote Fiote. The pronunciation of the word would, I am informed, be more closely represented in ordinary English spelling as Feeaught.

E. SIDNEY HARTLAND.

Highgarth, Gloucester,

July, 1898.

 

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION, BY MISS KINGSLEY

1. THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT

II. HOW A NATIVE STORY IS TOLD

III. HOW THE WIVES RESTORED THEIR HUSBAND TO LIFE

IV. HOW NSASSI (GAZELLE) GOT MARRIED

V. THE VANISHING WIFE

VI. ANOTHER VANISHING WIFE

VII. THE JEALOUS WIFE

VIII. NGAMBA’s BALLOON

IX. THE WICKED HUSBAND

X. THE WONDERFUL CHILD

XI. HOW KENGI LOST HER CHILD

XII. THE TWIN BROTHERS

XIII. THE YOUNGER BROTHER WHO KNEW MORE THAN THE ELDER

XIV. THE CHIMPANZEE AND GORILLA

XV. THE ANTELOPE AND THE LEOPARD

XVI. HOW THE SPIDER WON AND LOST NZAMBI’S DAUGHTER

XVII. THE TURTLE AND THE MAN

XVIII. KILLING A LEOPARD

XIX. THE GAZELLE AND THE LEOPARD

XX. THE WILD CAT AND THE GAZELLE

XXI. THE CRAFTY WOMAN OVERREACHES HERSELF

XXII. HOW THE FETISH SUNGA PUNISHED MY GREAT-UNCLE’S TWIN BROTHER, BASA

XXIII. THE RABB1T AND THE ANTELOPE

XXIV. THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE TWO FETISHES, LIFUMA AND CHIMPUKELA

XXV. THE FETISH OF CHILUNGA

XXVI. THE LEOPARD AND THE CROCODILE

XXVII. WHY SOME MEN ARE WHITE AND OTHERS BLACK

XXVIII. THE BIRD-MESSENGERS

XXIX. NZAMBI MPUNGU’S AMBASSADOR

XXX. WHY THE CROCODILE DOES NOT EAT THE HEN

XXXI. THE THREE BROTHERS

XXXII, DEATH AND BURIAL OF THE FJORT

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

INDEX

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NOTES ON THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT.

 

INTRODUCTION.

Ever since the Folk-Lore Society did me the honour to ask me to write an introduction to these stories, I have had a gradually intensifying sense of my incapacity to do it properly. It is true that I am personally acquainted with the tribe of Africans to whom these stories belong-that I have heard many of them told in the way Mr. Dennett so accurately describes-that I know Mr. Dennett personally, and am therefore acquainted with the many claims that anything he may have to say has upon students of primitive culture, because he speaks on the subject of the Fjorts from a knowledge gained during seventeen years of close association and sympathy with them,

and possesses also a thorough knowledge of their language. Yet, these things notwithstanding, I still feel that someone else should write this Introduction, because I am myself only a collector of West African ideas, and these stories clearly require a preface from the pen of a comparative ethnologist who could tell you how the Undine-like story of the vanishing wife got into Fjort folklore. I can only say I have not only heard this story, but I have known in the flesh several ladies whose husbands were always most anxious that they should not bear or see some one particular thing that would cause them to disappear, for ladies who have this weakness are always very valuable.

And again, I cannot tell you how the Fjorts came by the set of stories they and their neighbouring tribes possess regarding the descent into hell of living men, of which Mr. Dennett gives the finest example I know of in the story of “The Twin Brothers “: nor yet again how they came by the Prometheus-like story of “How the Spider won and lost Nzambi’s Daughter.” All these explanations I must leave to the comparative ethnologist; but in so doing it may be as well to mention a few things regarding the difficulties that present themselves, even to the mere collector, in forming opinions regarding West African folklore.

First, there is the difficulty of getting reliable information regarding the opinion of the natives on things, as that opinion at present stands. Secondly, there is the difficulty of forming an opinion as to why it stands in that form; whether it arises from the native’s uninterrupted observations of Nature, modified by his peculiar form of intellect; or whether it is a white idea primarily, but in a state modified by having passed through a generation or so of African minds.

Regarding the difficulty of getting reliable information upon native customs it is not necessary for me to speak at great length, because it is now fully recognised by scientific students of the subject. The best way of surmounting the difficulty is for the ethnologist to go and study the mind of the native personally; but this method is not one easily followed in West Africa on account of the deadliness of the climate and other drawbacks. But even if this method is followed, as it was by Bastian, Buchholz, and Hubbe Schlieden, it is still greatly to the student’s advantage to compare his own collected information with that of men who have been for years resident in West Africa, who are well acquainted with the native language, and who have had opportunities of observing the native conduct under all sorts of difficulties, dangers, joys, and sorrows-who have, as the old saying puts it, summered and wintered them. Unfortunately such white men are rare in West Africa; but so great is the value of their opinions in my eyes that I have always endeavoured to get the few there are of them to publish their information for the benefit of students of ethnology at home, instead of leaving these worthy people to the mercy of travellers’ tales. Do not however imagine that I regard the traveller as, next to the mining expert, the most unreliable source of information extant. Even the African traveller has given reliable information on many things, but the conditions under which African travel is carried on are not favourable to the quiet, patient sympathetic study of the native mind; for that we must look to the white resident in Africa, the missionary, and the trader.

To give you an instance of the ease with which native customs might be badly observed by a traveller, I will cite an experience of my own when I (in spite of not being a true traveller but a wandering student of early law), nearly fell into error. Passing down a branch of the Karkola River in the Oroungou country, in a canoe with a choice band of natives for crew, we suddenly came upon a gentleman on the bank who equally suddenly gave several dismal howls and fired at us with the scatter gun prevalent in West Africa. Having a rooted antipathy to being fired at, and knowing that the best way to prevent a recurrence of the unpleasantness when dealing with a solitary native is to tackle him before he reloads, I jumped on to the bank. The man turned and fled, and I after him down a narrow bush-path followed at a discreet distance by a devoted member of the crew yelling for me to come back. I succeeded in getting bold of my flying friend by his powder-bag and asked him why he had behaved so extremely badly. Then, when the rest of the crew saw that the incident promised entertainment without danger, they joined us, and we found the poor man was merely suffering under domestic affliction. One of his wives had run away with a gentleman from a neighbouring village, and so he had been driven to fire at and attempt to kill a member of any canoe-crew from yet another village that might pass his way; because, according to the custom of the country, the men of this village would thereby have to join him in attacking the village of the man who had stolen his wife. So you see, if I had not minded being fired at, but just put down in my note-book that the people of this region were hostile savages and passed on, I should not have come across this interesting piece of native law, nor any of the other interesting pieces of native law I gained knowledge of during the subsequent palavers. This is only one instance of many which I have come across, wherein it would be almost impossible for a person rapidly passing through a country to form a true opinion regarding a native custom, and these instances have all confirmed me in my respect for the resident white man’s opinion.

The missionary opinion has of late years been regarded by the ethnologist somewhat suspiciously, as being a biassed one, but, however this may be, we are very heavily indebted to the missionaries for the work they have done in native languages. This department is one to which the missionary has naturally devoted himself, because his aim in dealing with native-, is to make them comprehend his teaching. He is, for many reasons, not so much interested in other parts of native culture. Their manners, customs, laws, and religions are, from his point of view, bad and foolish; but experience has taught him that the natives will listen to his teaching as soon as they can understand him, and therefore he is mostly content to leave alone the study of other things than the language, as little better than waste of time. There have been, however, several notable exceptions to this general rule. The works published by the Rev. J. L. Wilson,[1] the Rev. H, Goldie,[2] and the Rev. H. M. Waddell are of immense value, both from the great opportunities of observation these gentlemen had, and from their speaking of native customs and ideas with a knowledge of the native language. Unfortunately, the missionary who could surpass all these, valuable as they are, the Rev. Dr. Nassau, shows no sign of breaking the silence which afflicts all men who really know West Africa.

I cannot help thinking that the time has now come when it is the duty of some ethnologist to turn philologist for himself, with the assistance already provided for him by the missionaries, and work at African languages, not from the point of view of their structure, classification, and diffusion, but from that of their inner meaning, and I can safely promise him the discovery of an

[1. Western Africa. J. Leighton Wilson. London, 1856.

2. Calabar and its Mission. Hugh Goldie. Edinburgh, 1890.]

extremely interesting Mass of matter. I feel sure that we cannot thoroughly understand the inner working of the African mind until this department of the study of it has been efficiently worked up; for the languages contain, and are founded on, a very peculiar basis of figurative thought, and until that is thoroughly understood we really cannot judge the true meaning of native statements on what is called totemism, and sundry other subjects.

The other resident white who lives in close contact with the native is the trader. I regret to say I can cite to you no book of reference on native customs by a trader in modern times, save Mr. J. Whitford’s; [1] but in former days we had several, chief among which are those of Bosman,[2] Sicur Brue,[3] and Barbot; and the great exactness of these makes one all the more regret the absence of the West Coast trader from modern literature. I have done my utmost to induce many of the gentlemen whom I have had the honour to know personally to break through their silence and give us works again like Bosman’s Guinea, they being by experience and knowledge so pre-eminently fitted to speak regarding native customs, and I think with regret of the perfectly irreplaceable library of knowledge that has been lost by the death of Captain Boler of Bonny, and Major Parminter, and of the other great collections of facts that Mr. Wallace, Mr. Bruce Walker, Mr. Hart, Mr. Pinnock, Mr. Forshaw, and several others could give us. Mr. Dermett is so far, however, the only one inclined to do anything else but shake his head in horror over the mis-statements circulated about Africans.

[1. Trading Life in Western and Central Africa. J. Whitford.

2. Bosman’s Description of Guinea. London, 1705.

3. Labat’s Afrique Occidentale, 1728.]

The position of the trader towards the native is such as to make his information and observations particularly valuable to the ethnologist. The trader is not intent on altering the native culture to a European one; but he is intent on understanding the thing as it stands, so that he may keep at peace with the natives himself and induce them to keep peace with each other, for on peace depends the prosperity of West African regions in the main. We have not any tribe on the West Coast that subsists by war; we have no slave-raiding tribes that are directly in touch with the coast-trader; [1] but we have a series of middlemen tribes through whose hands the trade from the interior passes to the latter. The middlemen system is in its highest state of development from the Niger to the Benito. Above this part namely, in the regions of the Bight of Benin-the power of the middleman has been broken considerably by Mohammedan influence; while below, from the Benito to the Congo, it is now being considerably upset by the invasion of the Bafan from the interior, and the enterprise of the French explorers. To the south of the Congo it has long ago been broken by the Portuguese. Therefore the trader’s greatest danger is now in the Niger districts, when a chief, on account of some quarrel, stepping trade passing through his district, may become a serious nuisance to the white man. The management of the chief, however, has in those regions now passed into the hands of the English government in the Niger Coast Protectorate, and into the hands of the Royal Niger Company in the regions of the middle Niger; so it is not so interesting to study the relationships of the native and the trader in those regions as it is to study those existing between the

[1. This statement does not include the Royal Niger Company, who have pushed up through the middle-man zone.]

individual white traders, such as Mr. Dennett, and the native, as you can still find them in Congo Francais, and in KaCongo and Angola. Here the trader is practically dealing single-handed with the native authorities, and is regarded by them in much the same light as they regard one of their great spirits, as an undoubtedly superior, different sort of creation from themselves, yet as one who is likewise interested in mundane affairs, and whom they try to manage and propitiate and bully for their own advantage; while the trader, on his part, gets to know them so well during this process that he usually gets fond of them, as all white men who really know Africans always do, and looks after them when they are sick or in trouble, and tries to keep them at peace with each other and with the white government, for on peace depends the prosperity that means trade. Therefore, on the whole, the trader knows his African better than all the other sorts of white men put together, and he demonstrates this in two ways. Firstly, he calls upon the gods to be informed why he is condemned to live and deal with such a set of human beings, as those blacks; and then, if the gods remove him from them and send him home to live among white men, he spends the rest of his days contrasting the white and black human beings to the disadvantage of the former, and hankering to get back to the Coast, which demonstrates that the trader feels more than other men the fascination of West Africa, in other words that he understands West Africa, and therefore that he is the person most fitted to speak regarding it, and the most valuable collector of facts that the student of the primitive culture in the region can get to act for him.

I will now turn from presenting you with the credentials of Mr. Dennett to the consideration of the value of these stories which he has sent up to the Folk-Lore Society, and which are laid before you quite untouched by other white hands. Mr. Dennett’s own knowledge of the Fjort language has enabled him to give them in a fuller and more connected form than is usually given to the African story.

The position in the native culture of stories, such as those of which you have specimens here, is exceedingly interesting. African native literature (if one may so call it, while it has no native written language) consists of four branches-proverbs, stories, riddles, and songs. Burton, in his Wit and Wisdom of West Africa, collected many of the proverbs; and Ellis, in his important works on the Tshi, Ewe, and Yoruba- speaking peoples, has also collected specimens of all of the three first-named classes. So far, I think, no one has dealt with the songs, and indeed it would be exceedingly difficult to do so, as in the songs, more than in any other native thing, as far as I can judge, do you find yourself facing the strange under-meaning in the very words themselves. But, interesting as the songs and riddles are, the proverbs and stories are infinitely the more important portions of the native literature, for in them we get the native speaking to his fellow-native, not to the white man, about his beliefs.

The stories can be roughly divided into three classes (only roughly, because one story will sometimes have material in it belonging to two classes)-legal, historical, and play. You have in this small collection examples of all these. The Nzambi stories are historico-legal the “Crocodile and the Hen” is legal; “the Wonderful Child ” is play-story, and so on.

As a general rule, historical stories are rare among West African tribes -, you find more of them among the Fjort than among the Ewe or Tshi [1] people even, and infinitely more than amongst true forest-belt tribes, like the Ajumba, Fan, and Shekiani. I have repeatedly questioned natives regarding their lack of interest in the past history of their tribes, and have always had the same sort of answer: “Why should we trouble ourselves about that? They (the dead) lived as we live now. A chief long ago bought, and sold, and fought; we now buy, and sell, and fight. We are here in this world; he has gone away.” This spirit obtains, of course, only regarding the human experiences of the men who have lived “in the old time.”

I well remember being struck with a phrase Dr. Nassau used: “the future which is all around them.” Once I asked him why he used it, and he only smiled that grave, half-pitying smile of his; but as my knowledge of the native grew by experience, I came to understand that phrase, and to put alongside it the phrase: “the past which is all around them.” I am afraid a vague make of mind like my own is necessary in order to grasp the African’s position; for every mortal printer who comes across my quotation of the Doctor’s phrase puts a long note of interrogation, instantly, in the margin of the proof.

Legal stories, however, do not plunge us into such mental swamps when studying them; and they are the stories which have the greatest practical value, for in them is contained evidence of the moral code of the African, and a close study of a large number of them gives you a clearer perception of the native ideal of right conduct than any other manifestation of his

[1. This is the spelling of the word used by Ellis, but it is pronounced by the natives “T’chewhe.”]

mind that I know of. You will find them all pointing out the same set of lessons: that it is the duty of a man to honour his elders; to shield and sustain those dependent on him, either by force of hand or by craft; that violence, or oppression, or wrong done can be combated with similar weapons; that nothing can free a man from those liabilities which are natural to him; and, finally, that the ideal of law is justice-a cold, hard justice which does not understand the existence of mercy as a thing apart from justice. For example, a man, woman, or child, not knowing what it does, damages the property of another human being. Native justice requires, and contains in itself, that if it can be proved the act was committed in ignorance that was not a culpable ignorance, the doer cannot be punished according to the law. I by no means wish you to think that the administration of the law is perfect, but merely that the underlying principles of the law itself are fairly good.

The part these stories play in the administration of justice is remarkable. They clearly are the equivalents to leading cases with us, and just as the English would cite A v. B, so would the African cite some such story as “The Crocodile and the Hen, or any other stories you find ending with “and the people said it was right.” Naturally, the art in pleading lies in citing the proper story for the case-one that either puts your client in the light of a misunderstood, suffering innocent, or your adversary in that of a masquerading villain.

It may at first strike the European as strange, when, listening to the trial of a person for some offence before either a set of elders, or a chief, he observes that the discussion of the affair soon leaves the details of the case itself, and busies itself with the consideration of the conduct of a hyaena and a bush-cat, or the reason why monkeys live in trees, or some such matter; but if the European once gets used to the method, and does not merely request to be informed why he should be expected to play at Aesop’s Fables at his time of life, the fascination of the game will seize on him, and he will soon be able to play at Aesop’s Fables with the best, and to point out that the case, say, of the Crocodile and the Hen, does not exonerate some friend of a debtor of his from having committed iniquity in not having given up property, lodged with him by the debtor, to its rightful owner.

Regarding the play-stories, it is not necessary for me to speak, they are merely interesting from the scraps of information you find embedded in them regarding native customs and the native way of looking on life.

The form of religion which Mr. Dennett calls Nkissism requires a great deal of attention and study, and seems to me exceedingly interesting, most particularly so in its form in KaCongo and Loango, where, in my opinion, it is an imported religion. I say my opinion, merely because I do not wish to involve Mr. Dennett in a statement of which he may disapprove; but you will find Mr. Dennett referring to the manner in which Fumu Kongo, the King of Congo, sent his two sons to take possession of the provinces of KaCongo and Loango, which to this day bear their names, and that be sent with them wise men, learned in the cult of Nzambi, and that at each place whereat the princes stayed they left a Nkiss. I am driven to conjecture that in introducing these Nkissi and their attendant Ngangas, the two princes were introducing a foreign religion into KaCongo and Loango-the religion of their father, the King of Congo. During my own sojourns on the South-Western African Coast, I got to know whereabouts you may expect to meet with the Nkiss and its Nganga, when you are coming down the Coast from the north; and I can only say that I have never been able myself to find, or to find among those people more conversant with the Coast than I am, any trace of the existence of Nkissism until you reach the confines of the kingdom of Loango. It is true, the essential forms of fetish-worship and ideas of Loango, KaCongo and Congo, are common to the districts north of them, namely, the Ogowe, the Cameroons, the Oil Rivers, and the Bight of Benin; yet, if I may so call it, that particular school of fetish called Nkissism.you do not meet with until you strike the northern limits of the old kingdom of Kongo.

Where exactly this school of fetish arose I am unable to say, but I think its home, from divers observations made by Sir H. H. Johnston, who has given much attention to the ethnology of the Bantu, must have been the region to the south-east or east-south-east of the region where it was first discovered by Europeans, namely, in the kingdom of Congo. There are many points in it which sharply differentiate it from the form of fetish of the true Negro, and it seems to be the highest form that the fetish of the Bantu has attained to.

We have an enormous amount of information of an exceedingly interesting character left us by the early Portuguese navigators and by the Italian, Portuguese, and Flemish Roman Catholic missionaries who worked so devotedly for nearly 200 years from 1490 in the kingdom of’ Congo. Yet, so far as I have been able to discover, they give one little, if any, information regarding the traditional history of Congo prior to its discovery by the Portuguese. They found there what they regarded as a prosperous and wealthy state in a condition of considerable culture, an immense territory ruled over by vassal lords subject to one king, who was a temporal king, clearly distinct from the fetish king of the true Negroes. From the accounts they give the native religion, which, unfortunately for the ethnologist, they scorned and detested too much to study in detail, there is little doubt that that form of religion was Nkissism and that “the wizards,” whom they term Gangas, the chasing whereof gave the worthy fathers such excellent sport, were no other than the Nganga Nkissi Mr. Dennett describes.

Regarding, however, the territorial relationship between Congo and KaCongo and Loango these early historians are yet more unsatisfactory. The missionaries, however, have occasion now and then to speak of the natives of the north banks of the Congo, because they were occasionally cast among them when, by a turn in the wheel of fortune, the wizards got the upper hand, or a subsidiary chief to the King of Congo rebelled; and they always speak of these north-bank people as being fearsome and savage tribes, given to the eating of men and so on. And this bad opinion of them was evidently held by the Kongoes themselves; for it was with direct intent to get two Capuchin Fathers killed, for example, that the Count of Sogno, during his rebellion about 1636, drove the Fathers out of his domains. “After having been much misused and unprovided of all necessaries, they were left on the confines of the Count’s dominions on a little uninhabited island of the River Zaire.[1] Here they made a shift to support themselves two or three days, Father Thomas, who was the least hurt of the two, going out to hunt for their

[1. Regarding the islanders of the Lower Congo in 1700, Barbot says: They are strong, well-set, live after a beastly manner, and converse with the Devil.” A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, by John Barbot, Agent-General of the Royal Company of Africa and the Islands of America, at Paris. 1732.]

subsistence. But at length they were unexpectedly delivered from thence by some pagan fishermen, who took them on board and carried them to a city of theirs called Bombangoij, in the kingdom of Angoy.[1] Here, arriving at night, they were very courteously entertained by an infidel of the place, who gave them supper and, moreover, assigned to them a house and three women to wait on them after the manner of the country. But our Fathers, not caring to trust themselves among these people, soon after they had supped, sending away their women, meditated an escape. For this purpose Father Thomas, who was the best able to walk, took his lame companion on his back and marched out of the house; but before he had gone far, he was forced through weakness to set down his burden under a great shady tree, which, as soon as day appeared, for fear of discovery they got up into. Their patron, coming that morning to visit his guests and finding them gone, much wondered, and well knowing they could not go far by reason of the condition be left them ill, immediately went about to search after them. Coming at last near the place where they were, and not having yet found them, a pagan thought came into his head that they might have been carried away by some spirit, which he expressed after this manner: ‘If the devil has carried them away, I suppose he did it that they might make me no recompense for my kindness.’ Our Fathers, hearing this, could not forbear laughing, even amidst their miseries and misfortunes, and putting out their

[1. Merolla says Angoij is a kingdom rather in name than in dominion having but a small territory. Here, formerly, a certain Mani, happening to marry a mulatto, daughter to a very rich Portuguese, his father-ill law would needs make him King of Angoij, and for this purpose caused him to rebel against the King of Kacongo, his lawful lord.” Anaoij was a small territory on the seaward end of the north bank of the Congo.]

heads from the tree’ cried out: ‘We are here, friend, never doubt our gratitude; for we only went out of the house to refresh ourselves with the rays of the morning sun.’ Hereat the old man, being exceedingly rejoiced, immediately took them down, and putting them into two nets (hammocks) sent them away to Capinda (Kabinda), a port in the kingdom of Angoij, about two days from Bombango-ij.”[1]

This account, I think, shows clearly that in 1636 Loango and KaCongo were not provinces of the king of Congo, for had they been so, the Capuchins would have had no dread of the inhabitants, but have known they were safe; for, although they were driven out of Sogno, this had been done entirely because they were Capuchins. The Count of Sogno immediately attempted to supply their place with Franciscans, his objection to Capuchins arising from his regarding them as allies of the Portuguese and King of Kongo, against whom he was at war; and, although it may be urged that the early missionaries to Congo were in the habit of going up trees, some of them, indeed cautiously bringing out with them from home rope-ladders for that purpose, yet this is the only instance, I think, of their climbing up them out of the way of natives. The usual cause was an “exceeding plentie of lions and tygers and other monsters, for not half of which,” they cheerily observed, “would they have made a mouthful.”

Proyart gives us;a slightly more definite statement. He says:-“The King of Congo claims the Kingdom of KaCongo as a province of his States, and the King of KaCongo, doubtless

[1. A Voyage to Congo, by Father Jerome Merolla da Sorrento, 1682. Churchill Collection, vol. i. p. 521.]

by way of reprisals, never calls himself any other title but Ma Congo, King of Congo, instead of King of KaCongo. a title given him by foreigners, and one that suits him. These pretensions are not always unfounded; many small kingdoms of savage states, which at the present day share Africa among them, were originally provinces dependent on other kingdoms, the particular governors of which usurped the sovereignty. It is not long since Sogno ceased to be a province of the kingdom of Congo.”[1]

Unfortunately there is no means of fixing any date to the severance of the two north-bank provinces from the main kingdom. Apparently they had asserted their independence long enough for the question not to have been a burning political one in Congo at the time of Diego Cab’s discovery of the Congo in 1484. It is, however, idle to conjecture how long prior to that date KaCongo and Loango ceased to be fiefs of the King of Congo. It may have been centuries, or it may have been but a few decades; for, for some time prior to Diego Cao’s arrival, Congo itself had been so terribly worried by those interesting, but, as yet, undetermined people, the Gagas or Gindes (a fearful, warlike, cannibal tribe, who, according to Battel[2]who was amongst them about 1695, came from Sierra Leone, harassed the inland borders of Congo and penetrated as far south as Dondo in Angola) that, at the time of the coming of Diego Cao, undoubtedly the public mind was entirely concentrated on these Gagas-a condition of affairs which enabled the Portuguese and their missionaries to obtain the ascendancy in

[1. History of Loango and Kacongo, by the Abbe Proyart. Paris, 1776.

2. The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battel of Leigh in Essex. (Purchas His Pilgrims.) See also A Curious and Exact Account of a Voyage to Coligo in theyears 1666 and 1667, by Michael Angelo of Gattina and Denis de Carli of Piacenza. 1723. Churchill Collection.]

the kingdom, as they did, and which would, in all human probability but for their timely arrival, have wiped the kingdom of Congo out.

This distraction was sufficiently great to have caused a people so deficient in interest in historical matters to have almost forgotten the severance from the main kingdom (which was situated on the southern bank of the Great River) of two provinces on the northern bank, even had the severance been comparatively recent-provinces, moreover, that could never have been much in touch with the tbrone-town at San Salvador on account of their difficulty of access, the terrific current of the river making canoe-journeys across its stream alike difficult and dangerous.

But a far stronger proof than there is in the scattered observations relating to the affair in white, literature, of the tradition of the two sons of Fumu Kongo, as given by Mr. Denuett, being a historical tradition, I think is found in the existence in KaCongo and Loango of this peculiar form of fetish, Nkissism. It is surrounded in these provinces on all sides, save the sea and the Congo, by a dissimilar form of fetish, which I believe to be the form of fetish Nkissism supplanted.

During my first visit to Africa I came in contact with the Fjort tribes and learnt much from Mr. Dennett personally regarding their beliefs and customs; and all that I myself saw fully bore out the accuracy of his statements about them. During my second visit my time was mainly spent among tribes inhabiting country to the north and north-east of the Fjorts, and among those tribes I did not find the Nkiss and Nganga as aforesaid. Nevertheless, I found something extremely like some of the Nkiss of the Fjorts: deities which, as far as I can see form observations on their powers and spheres of influence, simply indistinguishable from some of the Nkiss which Mr. Dennett describes as acknowledged among the Fjort, such ones as that of the Mountain Mungo. This sort of deity is called by the Mpongwe-speaking tribes Ombuiri. They have, however, no priesthood whatsoever attached to their service. Every human being who passes one of their places of habitation has to do obeisance to the Ombuiri who inhabits it, just to give some trifling object in homage as a token of respect. As a general rule the 1mbuiri (pl.) are, as West African deities go, fairly inoffensive; but now and then one will rise up and kill someone by throwing down a tree on a passer by its forest glade, or, by swelling up the river it resides in, will cause devastating inundation. But it is really quite a different species of deity from the regular Nkiss, such as was introduced by the emissaries of Fumu Kongo into the regions of KaCongo and Loango. You would never, for example, if you were a member of a Mpongwe stem tribe, think of calling in an Ombuiri to settle the question of who killed a man or who had stolen something. You would call in a totally different class of spirit . Yet when you are in KaCongo or Loango, or among the Ivili tribe, [1] you will see these great, honourable, ancient Nature-spirits, these Imbuiri themselves, in charge of a mere human priest employed in the most trivial affairs concerning thefts of garden hoes or cooking pots and such like; and I am quite sure, if you have a Mpongwe Soul in you, you will be deeply shocked at this degradation. If

[1. A small and dying-out set of Fjorts, living in a few villages near the confluence of the Ogowe-Okanda and the Ngunie Rivers, having a tradition that they eame from Loango and were driven by bad weather into the Ogowe and by bad men to their present situation.]

you were only an ethnologist, ignorant of the little bit of history regarding the King of Congo and the Nganga he sent with his Nkissi from his throne-town of San Salvador into the conquered provinces of KaCongo, Loango and Ngoio, you might be tempted to regard an Ombuiri having a priest and a ritual of a definite kind attached to it, as an instance of a development in religious thought and a demonstration of how gods at large are made. But with a knowledge of the history of the affair, dateless as that history is, I think you will be induced to believe that the Imbuiri have merely suffered that change which nature-spirits have suffered in other lands taken possession of by a conqueror with a religion of his own: namely, that some of the spirits worshipped by the conquered people were held in such respect that the conquerors held it more politic to adopt them into their own religion, after making suitable alterations in their characters, than to attempt to destroy them; and so it is that to-day you will find Imbuiri made into Nkissi and existing in esteem and worship side by side with a very different kind of deity, the true Nkissi of Fumu Kongo.

The best authority for the present condition of the Fjort religion is Monteiro, who says: “In times past the King of Congo was very powerful. All the country, as far as and including Loanda, the River Congo and Cabinda, was subject to him and paid him tribute. The missionaries under his protection worked far and wide, attained great riches, and were of immense benefit to the country, where they and the Portuguese established and fostered sugar-cane plantations, indigo manufactories, iron-smelting and other kindred trades. With the discovery and colonisation of the Brazils, however, and the expulsion of the Jesuits from Angola, the power of the Portuguese and of the King of Congo has dwindled away to its present miserable condition. The King of Congo is now only Chief of San Salvador and a few other small towns, and does not receive the least tribute from any other, nor does he possess any power in the land. Among the natives of Angola, however, he still retains a certain amount of prestige as King of Congo, and all would do homage to him in his presence, as he is considered to possess the greatest fetish of all the kings and tribes, though powerless to exact tribute from them.” [1]

Things are to-day exactly as Monteiro describes them regarding the natives. KaCongo is under Portuguese rule, Loango tinder French; the regions that were part of the old main kingdom are divided between Portugal and Congo Belge. But the natives of these countries alike acknowledge the importance of the King of Congo’s fetish, while just north of Loango you meet with the regions of the tribes that regard him not; they may have heard of him, but his fetish is not their fetish, for they never fell under the rule of Nkissi.

I need now only detain you with a few remarks about the infusion of Christian doctrine into the original Fjort fetish. The admixture of doctrines both from Christian missionary teaching, and from Mohammedan, makes the study of the real form of the native’s own religion difficult in several West African districts, notably so at Sierra Leone, the Gold, Slave, and Ivory coasts, and among the Fjort of the Congo and Angola. But, provided you are acquainted with the forms of fetish in districts which have not been under white influence, such as those of the great forest-belt from the Niger to the

[1. Angola and the River Congo, by J. J. Monteiro. Macmillan, 1875.]

Niari, a little care will enable you to detect what is, and what is not, purely native.

It is true that the whole of the Fjorts were under the sway of Roman Catholicism more thoroughly and for a greater duration of time than any other West African people have been under any European influence. The energy with which the kin s of Congo took it up from the first was remarkable but it is open to doubt whether those dusky monarchs were not in so doing as much actuated by temporal considerations as spiritual. As I have mentioned before, when the Portuguese first came into the country, the country was in imminent peril from the Gagas, a peril from which the Portugese rescued it. The whole aim of the Congoese thereupon became to be as much like the Portuguese as possible. Many natives went up to Lisbon and were received with great courtesy by the king, Joao II.; and while there they saw, in the keen but empirical African native way, how great a veneration the Portuguese held their priests in, how the very king himself did them homage, and how even durst hardly leave haven on a voyage without a chaplain on board. And there is little doubt that from these observations the Congoese regarded the Roman Catholic priests with great veneration, and thought that in them and their teaching lay the secret of earthly power, at any rate; and the king of Congo and his subsidiary princes did their utmost to get as many of these priests to come and live among them and instruct them as possible, and when there the priests themselves, by their own nobility, devotion, and courage, confirmed the Congoese in their opinion of their, to them, superhuman powers. Ceaselessly active, regardless of danger, they led armies into battle, and notably into that great battle in which Alfonso I. of’ Congo, the Christianised king, fought with his brother, Pasanquitama, for the crown, and had his army saved from immolation and given victory by the appearance of St. James and an angelic host fighting on his side in the crisis of the battle.

It is impossible in the space at my command to enter into the history of the Roman Catholic mission to Congo, owing to its great complexity of detail. Capuchins, Jesuits, Franciscans alike laboured there; but the doctrine they taught being uniformly that of Rome, it affords no such difficulty in recognition among the native traditions as do the results of the other forms of Christian mission. Moreover, the hold of the missionaries was not by any means so great in KaCongo and Loango as it was in the kingdom of Congo itself. Merolla says: “The kingdom of Loango lies in 5o and a half, south latitude. The Christian religion was first planted there in the year 1663,[1] by the labour and diligence of one Father Ungaro, a friar of our Order. Father Bernardino Ungaro, on entering into his work of evangelising Loango, commenced by baptising the king and queen, after having instructed them for some days, and then marrying them according to the manner of our church. His next business was to baptise the king’s eldest son, and after him, successively, the whole court, which consisted of about 300 persons. In a word, within the space of’ a year that he lived there he had baptised upwards of 12,000 people. At last this zealous missioner, finding himself oppressed by a grievous indisposition and believing that he should not live long, sent for our lay Brother Leonard, who coming not long after to him, the pious

[1. One hundred and sixty-seven years later than in Congo, and therefore at the time of the breaking up of the Portuguese power by the Dutch, who are referred to by the missionaries as “the Heretics.”]

father died the same morning that he arrived, well provided, as we may imagine, of merits for another world.

“The good king hearing this, and being desirous to keep up what he had so happily begun, sent Brother Leonard to the aforesaid Superior (Father Joao Maria de Pavia in Angola) to acquaint him with Ungaro’s death and to desire him to speedily send another missioner; but, however, these his good intentions were afterwards disappointed by a rebellion raised against him by a kinsman, who, being ambitious of his crown, and having been assisted by some apostate Catholics, deprived the good king of his life. The tyrant and usurper that dispossessed him lived not long after to enjoy his ill-gotten throne, but was snatched away from it by a sudden death. This wicked person being dead, another king arose, who, though he did all he could by the help of one Capuchin, to promote what had been begun by Father Ungaro, yet was not able to bring his intentions about, and that for want of more missioners, wherefore the kingdom remains at present, as formerly, buried in idolatry. In my time were several attempts made to recover our interest there, though to no purpose. . . . . I never heard there was any Christian prince in the kingdom of Angoij (Cabinda), that country having been always inhabited by a sort of people extremely given to sorcery and magic.” [1]

There is yet another passage in Merolla’s very wise and very charming work that has an especial bearing on the subjects treated of in this book of Mr. Dennett’s. The holy Father gives a long list of “the abuses” existing in his time among the

[1. A Voyage to Congo, by Father Jerome Merolla da Sorrento, 1682. Churchill Collection, vol. i.]

natives of Kongo. This list has a double interest. It shows us how acute a mind he had, how clearly he saw the things that were fundamental to the form of religion he battled against; but it has a great interest to an ethnologist apart from this, as it gives us a clearer insight into native custom than has been given us by any subsequent traveller in that region, and moreover because there is not one custom that the holy Father classes as “an abuse” that does not exist to-day with the same force as in the seventeenth century. I will only detain you now with Merolla’s description of “The seventh abuse,” that of prohibited foods, for you will often in this book come across references by Mr. Dennett to the Kazila.

“Seventhly, it is the custom that either the parents or the wizards give certain rules to be inviolably observed by the young people, and which they call Chegilla. These were to abstain from eating either some sorts of poultry, the flesh of some kinds of wild beasts, such and such fruits; roots either raw or boiled after this or another manner, with several other ridiculous injunctions of the like nature, too many to be enumerated here. You would wonder with what religious observance these injunctions were obeyed. These young people would sooner abuse to fast several days together than to taste the least bit of what has been forbidden them; and if it sometime happen that the Chegilla has been neglected to have been given them by their parents, they think they shall presently die unless they go to receive it from the wizards. A certain young Negro being upon a journey lodged in a friend’s house by the way; his friend, before he went out the next morning, had got a wild hen ready for his breakfast, they being much better than tame ones. The Negro hereupon demanded, ‘If it were a wild lion Id’ His host answered, ‘No.’ Then he fell on heartily and afterwards proceeded on his journey. After four years these two met together again, and the aforesaid Negro being not yet married, his old friend asked him, ‘If he would eat a wild hen,’ to which he answered, ‘That he had received his Chegilla and could not.’ Hereat the host began immediately to laugh, inquiring of him, ‘What made him refuse it now, when he had eaten one at his table about four years ago?’ At the hearing of this the Negro immediately fell a trembling, and suffered himself to be so far possessed with the effects of imagination, that he died in less than twenty-four hours after.” [1]

The subject of these prohibitions regarding either some particular form of food, or some particular manner of eating any form of food, is a very interesting one.

You will find in West Africa, under all the various schools of fetish thought, among both Negro and Bantu, that every individual, slave or free, so long as he is not under either European or Mahommedan influence, has a law that there is some one thing that he individually may not do. Among the Calabar people it is called Ibet, which signifies a command, a law, an abstinence. Among the Gaboon people it is called Orunda, which Dr. Nassau informs me signifies a prohibition. Among the Fjorts it is called Kecheela or Chegilla. But under whatever name you meet it, it is in itself always the same in its essential character, for it is always a prohibition regarding food.

[1. A Voyage to Congo, by Father Jerome Merolla da Sorrento, 1682. Churchill Collection, vol. i. p. 237.]

When I was in West Africa in daily contact with this custom and the inconveniences it presents, like any prohibition custom, to every-day affairs, I endeavoured to collect information regarding it. At first I thought it might be connected with the totemism. I had read of; but I abandoned this view, finding no evidence to support it, and much that went against it.

Soinctimes I found that one prohibition would be common to a whole family regarding some particular form of food; but the individual members of that family had each an individual prohibition apart from the family one. Moreover, there was always a story to account for the whole family abstaining from eating some particular animal. That animal had always afforded signal help to the family, or its representative, at some crisis in life. I never came across, as I expected to, a story of the family having descended from the animal in question, nor for the matter of that any animal whatsoever; and these stories regarding the help received from animals which caused the family in gratitude to avoid killing them were always told voluntarily and openly. There was not the touch of secrecy and mystery that lurks round the reason of the Ibet or Orunda. Therefore I rather doubt whether these prohibitions common to an entire family are identical with the true Orunda, Ibet, or Kecheela.

Mr. Dennett in his chapter on The Folklore of The Fjort, evidently referring to this eating of his Kecheela, says that “so long as he knows nothing about it, the Fjort may eat out of unclean pots, but if he knows that anything unclean has been cooked in the pot in which his food has been prepared, and he ‘eats thereof, he will be punished by some great sickness coming over him, or by death.”

I am unable, from my own experience, to agree with this statement that ignorance would save the man who had eaten his prohibited food. From what I know, Merolla’s story as cited above is the correct thing: the man, though he eat in ignorance, dies or suffers severely.

It is true that one of the doctrines of African human law is that the person who offends in ignorance, that is not a culpable ignorance, cannot be punished; but this merciful dictum I have never found in spirit-law. Therein if you offend, you suffer; unless you can appease the enraged spirit, neither ignorance nor intoxication is a feasible plea in extenuation. Therefore I think that Mr. Dennett’s informant in this case must have been a man of lax religious principles; and in Merolla’s story I feel nearly certain that the man who gives his friend his Chegilla to eat must have been one of the holy Father’s converts engaged in trying to break down the superstition of his fellow-countryman. Had he been a believer in Chegilla himself, he would have known that the outraged spirit of the Chegilla would have visited its wrath on him, as well as on his friend, with a fine impartiality and horrible consequences.

The inevitableness of spirit-vengeance, unless suitable sacrifices are made, seems to me also demonstrated in another way. Poisoning is a thing much dreaded in West Africa; practically it is a dread that overshadows every man’s life there. I personally doubt whether white people are poisoned so frequently as is currently supposed in West Africa. But undoubtedly it is practised among the natives; and the thing that holds it in reasonable check is the virulence of the attack made on the poisoner, or, as the poisoner is currently called, the witch. Briefly, poisoning is the most common form of witchcraft in West Africa. The witch has other methods of destroying the victims-catching their souls, witching young crocodiles, &c., into them-but poisoning is the sheet-anchor, and is regarded on the same lines as soul-theft, &c. Now there is one form of poisoning which is regarded among all the various tribes I know as a particularly vile one and that is giving a person a prohibited food. For example, to give a man, whose Orunda is boiled chicken, a mess containing boiled chicken, or to boil a chicken and take it from the pot and then cook his meal in the pot, is equivalent to giving him so much prussic acid or strychnine. But in spite of its efficacy in destroying an enemy, this giving of the prohibited food is regarded as a very rare form of the crime of poisoning, because of the great danger to himself the giver would incur from the wrath of the spirit to whom the prohibited food belonged. The great iniquity of this form of the crime of poisoning, I believe, lies in its injuring, in some way, the soul of the victim after death.

Mr. Dennett, moreover, in the passage I have quoted uses the word “unclean.” He does this from his habit of using scriptural phraseology; but I entirely disapprove of the use of the word “unclean” in connection with these Ibet. Orunda or Kecheela matters should suggest the word consecrated, or sacrificed, to be substituted. The West African has a whole series of things he abstains from doing, or from touching, because he believes them truly to be unclean. For example, he regards the drinking of milk from animals as a filthy practice, and also the eating of eggs; and he will ask why you use these forms of animal excreta and avoid the others. And there are several other things besides that he regards as loathsome in themselves. But there is nothing loathsome or unclean in things connected with this prohibited food. There are, I believe, and I think I may say Dr. Nassau would support me in this view, things that a man dedicates for the whole of his natural life to the use of his individual attendant guardian spirit.

This Roman Catholic influence over the Fjort may, I think, be taken as having been an evanescent one. I do not say, as the Rev. J. Leighton Wilson does, that this is so, because Roman Catholicism is an unfit means of’ converting Africans; but it suffered the common fate that has so far overtaken all kinds of attempts to Europeanise the African. It is like cutting a path in one of their native forests. You may make it a very nice path-a clean, tidy, and good one-but if you leave it, it grows over again, and in a few seasons is almost indistinguishable from the surrounding bush. The path the Roman Catholics made was one intended to lead the African to Heaven. At first, the African thought it was to lead him to earthly power and glory and riches. During the ascendancy of the Portuguese in the region it did this; but when their power was crippled, it did not. Therefore the African “let it go for bush”; and it is his blame, not the missionary’s, that the Fjort to-day is found by Europeans in a state of culture lower than many African tribes, and with a religion as dependent “on conversing with the Devil” as ever-in short, a very interesting person to the folklorist.

The mind of the African has a wonderful power of assimilating other forms of belief apart from fetish; and when he has had a foreign idea put into his mind it remains there, gradually taking on to itself a fetish form; for the fetish idea overmasters it, so long as the foreign idea is left without reinforcements and it becomes a sort of fossil. The teachings of the Roman Catholic missionaries are now in this fossil state in the mind of the Fjort. Ardent ethnologists may wish that they had never been introduced; but it is well to remember that their religion was not the only thing introduced into the region by them, for the Fjort of to-day owes almost all his food supply to them: the maize, the mango, the banana, arid most likely the manioc. Nevertheless the high intelligence of the Fjort, as evidenced by their having, before coming into contact with Europeans, an organised state of society, a definitely thought-out religion, and an art superior to that of all other Bantu West Coast tribes, makes them a tribe that the student of the African cannot afford to ignore, because the study of them entails a little trouble and a knowledge of the doctrine taught by the Roman Catholic Church.

MARY H. KINGSLEY.

Mr. Dennett on reading the proofs of the foregoing introduction, and in response to an invitation from me for any suggestions, sent a number of notes. I select from these for insertion here such as relate to historical and ethnological questions; the rest will be more appropriately placed in Appendix 1.

p. xix. “Miss Kingsley mentions a lost part of the Loango, race (Bavili) in the Ogowe, and calls them Ivili (singular). Vila is to lose, in Fjort. Thus, the Bavili were the lost men, lost in their journey northward.”

p. xx. “The only Fumu was Kongo, king of the united provinces. He sent his sons under the title of Mafumu to rule these provinces. They in their turn divided their lands among their children under the title of Tekklifumu. To-day, Fumu has come to mean chief, head of a family; it really means Judge. The son in Manifumu, the grandson, Tekklifumu. Ma is short for Mani (son of); so that MaKongo simply meant son of Kongo; and it is a proof that MaKongo always recognised his secondary position, just as MaLoango does today. KaCongo should probably be written KaciKongo, which would give the sense of Middle Kongo.

“Ngoio was the name of the great Rain-doctor sent with MaKongo and MaLoango, by Fumu Kongo; and he gave his name to the province he took possession of, like MaKongo and MaLoango did; and not only to the province, but to the chieftainship of it. Strange to say, to this day Ncanlam, the chief of the Musurongo, has the right to take the cap (succeed to the chieftainship of the province Ngoio); but as Ngoio (the chief of this province) is always killed the day after he takes the cap, the throne remains vacant “-i.e. no one likes to lose his life for a few hours’ glory on the Ngoio throne.

The italics are mine.

M. H. K.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NOTES ON THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT.

 

I. THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT.

By the Fjort I mean the tribes that once formed the great kingdom of Congo. From the Quillo river, north of Loango, to the River Loge, south of Kinsembo, on the south-west coast of Africa, and as far almost as Stanley Pool in the interior, this kingdom is said to have extended. My remarks refer chiefly to the KaCongo and Loango provinces: that is to say, to the two coast provinces north of the great river Congo or Zaire.

The religion or superstition of the Fjort, as well as their laws, can easily be traced to their source, namely, to San Salvador, the headquarters or capital of the great Fumu Kongo. Their legends describe how Fumu Kongo sent his sons KaCongo and Loango to govern these provinces; and their route can be traced by their having left what you call fetishes at each place where they slept.[1] These fetishes are called Nkissi nsi, the spirit or mystery of the earth, just as the ruler or nFumu

[1. See my Seven Years Among the Fjort. London, 1887, p. 50, sqq.]

is called Fumu nsi, the prince of the land or earth. Together with these two sons of Kongo (called Muene nFumu) or, as we should write it, Manifumu), the king sent a priest or raindoctor, called Ngoio. Even to this day, when the rains do not come in their proper season, the princes of KaCongo and Loango send ambassadors to Cabinda or Ngoio with presents to the rain-doctor, or, as they call him, Nganga.

Loango, KaCongo, and Ngoio are now all spoken of as nFumu nsi; and their existence is admitted, although, as a matter of fact, their thrones are vacant, and each petty prince, or head of a family, governs his own little town or towns. Each little town or collection of towns or better perhaps each family, has now its patch of ground sacred to the spirit of the earth (Nkissi nsi),[1] its Nganga nsi, the head of the family, and its Nganga Nkissi (charm or fetish doctor), and its Nganga bilongo (medicine-doctor or surgeon). Nzambi-Mpungu. is what we should call the Creator. Nzambi (wrongly called God) is Mother Earth, literally Terrible Earth. In all the Fjort legends that treat of Nzambi she is spoken of as the “mother,” generally of a beautiful daughter, or as a great princess calling all the animals about her to some great meeting, or palaver; or as a poor woman carrying a thirsty or hungry infant on her back, begging for food, who then reveals herself and punishes those

[1. Thus the voyage of Kongo’s sons KaCongo and Loango from San Salvador to Loango is marked for us; for where they rested the ground became blessed (Nkissiansi, land sacred to the spiritual law family Fetish). There are no altars made with hands, no images among the Nkissiansi. Sometimes one meets with a stone, a mound of earth, a tree, a mound of shells, on this holy ground, and I have met with huts containing the family fetishes.]

who refused her drink or food by drowning them,[1] or by rewarding with great and rich presents those who have given her child drink. Animals and people refer their palavers to her as judge. Her name also is used as an ejaculation.

Nkissi nsi is the mysterious spirit that dwells in the earth. Nkissi is the mysterious power in herbs, medicines, fetishes.

The missionary is called a Nganga Nzambi. This alone proves, I think, that the natives consider Nzambi, the earth, as their deity; and when once the missionaries are convinced of this fact it should be their duty to protest against the use of the word Nzambi as the equivalent to the white man’s God. The word they must use is Nzambi Mpungu, or perhaps they had better make a new word. Mpungu, or mpoungou, is the word used by the Fjort to mean gorilla. This should delight the heart of the evolutionist. But mpounga has the signification of something that covers. There are, however, no gorillas south of the Congo, and in the Ntandu dialect mpoungou has the signification of creator or father. And we must remember that this religion came from the south of the Congo.

Upon the sacred earth in each village or family a small hut or shimbec is usually built, where the family fetish is kept. A tree is also usually planted there, and holes are made in it, where medicines are placed. Each hole is then covered by a piece of looking glass, which is kept in its place by a rim of clay, which again is spluttered over with white and red earth or chalk, moistened in the mouth of the prince. Here the prince summons his family to what they call a “washing-up.” That is, after having made their offerings (generally of white fowls)

[1. See below, p. 121.]

the people cut the grass and clean up the sacred ground and dance and sing. The prince also on certain occasions admits the young men who have been circumcised to the rights of manhood, and teaches them the secret words which act as passwords throughout the tribe. The prince is crowned here; and it is this fetish that he consults whenever he is in trouble.

The Nganga Nkissi has his hut apart from his holy ground; and there he keeps his image, into which nails, spear-points knives, etc., are driven by the suppliant who seeks the help of the mysterious spirit to kill his enemies or to protect him against any evil. The Nganga Nkissi also sells charms, such as little wooden images charged with medicines, bracelets, armlets, bead-bands, waistbands, little bits of tiger’s skin to keep the small-pox away, the little horns of kids, and other pendants for the necklace.

The Nganga bilongo is the doctor and surgeon. Each surgeon or doctor keeps the secret of his cure in the family, so that the sick have sometimes to travel great distances to be cured of certain diseases. After most sicknesses or misfortunes the native undergoes a kind of thanksgiving and purification according to the rites of Bingo, who has a Nganga in almost every family. This is not the same as the form of going through the “paint-house.”

The Nkissi, the spirit, as it were, of mother earth, is met with in mountains and rocks. Thus, in the creek that flows behind Ponta da Lenha in the River Congo there is a rock falling straight down into the water, which the natives fear to pass at night; and even in the daytime they keep close to the far side of the creek. They declare that the Nkissi will swallow them up. The story of the four young men who left their town early in the morning to visit their lovers across the mountains, and after a long visit, at about four o’clock wished to return, proves the power of the terrible spirit of the earth. For their lovers determined to see the four young men part of the way home, and so went with them up the mountain. Then the young men saw the young women back to their town. The young women again went up the hill with their lovers, and again the young men came back with them. The earth-spirit got vexed at such levity and turned them all into pillars of clay, as can be proved, for are not the eight pillars visible to this day (white-ant pillars taking the shape of four men and four women)? And the lying woman who said she had no peas for sale when she had her basket full of them, did not the earth-spirit turn her into a pillar of clay, as can be seen in the woods near Cabinda behind Futilla even to this day?

The mountain Mongo is spoken of at times as a person, as in the story of the old lady who, after many exchanges, secured a drum in exchange for the red wood she had given the image-maker, to keep for her. For the old lady took this drum to Mongo and played upon it until Mongo broke it. But she wept and Mongo was sorry for her and gave her some mushrooms and told her to go away.

Islands in the River Congo are spoken of as the home of the men who turn themselves into crocodiles, so that they may upset canoes and drag their prisoners to them and eventually sell them. Monkey Island, just above Boma, in the River Congo, is used as the burial-place of princes of that part of the country.

The names of the rivers are also the names of the spirits of the same. These spirits, like those of the Chimpanzu and Mlomvu, kill those who drink their waters; others get angry, and swell, and overflow their banks like the Lulondo, and drown many people; while some punish those who fish in their waters for greediness by causing them to become deaf and dumb, as Sunga did in one of the stories I have given on a subsequent page.

Then the great Chamma (rainbow) is described as a huge snake that enters rivers at their source and swells them up, and carries everything before it, grass, trees, at times whole villages, in its way to the sea.

Any place, either in the hills or along the banks of rivers (near fishing places), or near wells, can be reserved by any one by his placing shells, strips of cloth, or other charms there. The nearest approach that we have to these charms in England is the scarecrow, or the hat which the Member of Parliament leaves on his seat to show that the place is his.

The dead bodies of witches are either thrown down precipices or into the rivers.

The sun, Ntangu, and moon, Ngonde, are generally described as two brothers. There is a legend which tells us that two brothers, Ntangu and Ngonde, lived in a village by the sea and Ntangu bet Ngonde that he could not catch him up, so they set off racing. Ngonde caught up Ntangu; and then Ntangu got vexed and said he could catch up Ngonde, but he never did, so Ngonde won the bet. The fact of the moon’s being seen during the day, together with the sun, and the sun’s never being seen at night in company with the moon has, no doubt, given rise to this story. I have also collected two versions of a story of two brothers setting out, one after the other, to the land whence no man returns, which also are sun-myths.

I have heard very little about the stars. The new moon is greeted with a cry of “Lu lu lu lu,” in a high key, the native beating his mouth with his hand as he cries.

Lightning is said to be made by a blacksmith (Funzi) who lives in the centre of KaCongo. Nzassi means thunder; Lu siemo, lightning; and they are both spoken of as persons, Nzassi being used often for both thunder and lightning. Thus, they say that if it comes on to rain when you are in the woods, and it thunders, and you try to run away, Nzassi runs after you and kills you.

A man named Antonio one day told me a story of how he had .seen Nzassi’s dogs. It was raining, he declared; and he and his companions were under a shed playing at marbles when it began to thunder and lighten. It thundered frightfully; and Nzassi sent his twenty-four dogs down upon them. They seized one of the party who had left the shed for a moment, and the fire burnt up a living palm tree.

The sky is spoken of in certain stories as something to be bored through, as in the story where Nzambi on earth promises her beautiful daughter in marriage to anyone who should go to Nzambi above, and bring down a little of Nzambi Mpungu’s fire from heaven. The woodpecker bores the hole through which all those anxious to compete for Nzambi’s daughter’s hand creep, after having climbed up the silken cord made by the spider from heaven to earth.[1]

The clouds they call Ituti, or rather Matuti (pl.), They rise from where the walls of heaven touch the earth, and sail across the sky to the other side, or round and round about.

[1. The story is given at length on p. 74.]

The Fjort divide the year into two seasons: i muna ki mvula (rainy season), i muna ki sifu (dry season). They divide the month (ngonde) into seven weeks of four days; Tono, Silu, Nkandu, Nsona, on the last of which they do no work.

The sea is known as Mbu. The sun rises in the Mayomba bush-country, and sets in the Mbu.

Before going to sea, the fishermen knock their fetishes to bring them good luck, or to kill those who spoil their luck. If a fisherman goes to sleep, and while he sleeps the little black bird called ntieti comes and rests in the stern of his canoe, and in the morning he awakes and finds it there, he knows some misfortune has come upon his family, or is to come upon himself.

The spirit that dwells in the sea is called Chicamassi-chibuinji. At times she comes ashore to collect red-wood and other necessary articles of toilet. Now, when anyone steals some of these articles she gets vexed and causes a calemma (swell) to arise, which stops all fishing and at times causes loss of life to those passing through the surf.

Waterspouts they call Nvussuko and Ngo-lo; and they fear them as we should a ghost.

They say that they do not make sacrifices to the sea; but that when Chicamassi is vexed she comes ashore and takes one of twins or triplets, and drowns it in the sea. It is well to save a relation from drowning; and if you like to save a stranger’s life, he becomes your slave, or gives you a slave in exchange. When the native passes certain places where Chicamassi is supposed to have passed, he throws bits of fish, mandioca, or whatnot, into the sea for her. They also splutter rum into the sea before drinking it.

The tides are caused by Nzambi Mpungu, who, when the time comes, drops a large stone into the ocean to make the water rise and takes it out again when it is time for low tide.

Zimini has towns under the sand in the sea; and at times he comes up and seizes a man or woman, and takes him or her down to his place. There are stories in which the white man is said to have his town under the sea, and to take thither all the slaves be captures and buys to help him to make his cloth.

Woods and forests are the homes of the Mpunia (highway robber and murderer), Ndotchi (witch), and Cbimbindi (spirit of the departed).

The Nkissi that exists in herbs, plants, and trees, poisons or cures people; and the natives have a great knowledge of the different properties of plants, herbs, and trees. The Nkissi grows with the plant out of the earth.

Fetishes are made of a wood called Mlimbe; and it is said that when the tree is felled the blood that flows from the tree is mixed with the blood of a cock that the Nganga kills. This cock used to be a slave, when slaves were cheaper than they are now.

Grasses are worn as charms around the neck or body of a sick man.

The greater number of natives are called after animals. Ngo, the leopard; Nkossa, the lobster; Chingumba, lion; Nzau, elephant; Memvu, a kind of wild dog; are the names given those of royal blood; and the greatest of these names is that of Ngo. Only princes can wear a leopard’s skin. The Leopard, the royal animal, the figure of royal motherhood (the earth, as opposed to Nkala, the crab, the figure of the sea), is the name given to women through whom the royal line may descend, Kongo being the name of the Fjort’s Adam, the great and first King or Nfumu (judge), the father of KaCongo and Loango and Ngoio. And many customs touching the hunting and slaying of the Leopard still exist, and in themselves would form an interesting study. Its skin is still worn as a sign of Royalty, and its hair is used as a charm against small pox: thirty skins used to be sent from Loango to Ngoio, so that he might send Mbunzi with rain to water his plantations.

In listening to their many stories about animals, one forgets for the time that the relator is talking about animals; and when it comes to where one eats the other, one wonders whether the native forgets that his ancestors did act in this outrageous fashion. The Fjort believe that some people have the power, or misfortune, to change themselves into beasts of prey, such as leopards and crocodiles. Stories of quite recent date tell of relations who have suffered in this way, and who in their better moods have admitted that they have killed so and so, and torn him to pieces.

This brings us to another interesting subject, that of the kazilas, or things forbidden. Some families, especially those of royal descent, may not eat pig; others may not touch goat, flat-fish, shell-fish, doves. None except witches would attempt to eat snakes, crocodiles, lizards, chamelions. Many families will not touch certain animals because their ancestors owe such animals a debt of gratitude, as many of their stories point out to us.[1]

[1. Another kind of kazila, or taboo, is mentioned below (p. 122), namely, the prohibition to women to fish in the lake Mbosi or Mboasi, near Futilla.]

The native herd in the white trader’s employ talks to his sheep and goats as if they certainly understood him.

The plagues were sent by God (so the Hebrews say) to punish the oppressors of the children of Israel: so also any great scourge in this part of Africa is looked upon as a punishment. The locusts are at this moment eating up the Fjort’s plantations here in Loango. The locusts are known by the name of Makonko, and are not entire strangers; but this year (1896-97) is the first time that the Fjort have seen them in such abundance. They do not know what to do to get rid of them; they say that their princes in the olden days would have done something and sent them away in a day.

A French official cut the long beard of poor old Maniprato, who was acting in the place of the King of Loango. The Fetish, who is the nephew of the great Mbunzi (S.W. wind), was very much annoyed at this action of the French official, and sent word to Mbunzi, and Mbunzi sent the plague of locusts, which in one night ate up the large banana plantation of the French mission. And now they are eating up the Fjort’s plantations and his palm trees, and the poor Fjort has no longer any princes to send presents to Ngoio to calm the angry Mbunzi.

Bimbindi (pl. of Chimbindi), the spirits of the good who have departed this life, live in the woods, and are generally considered the enemies of mankind. But I knew a Chimbindi who was a very decent woman indeed. She was in love, and about to be married; but she fell sick, died, and was buried. Her lover was accused of having bewitched her, and he took casca and died. Her parents grieved greatly for her, for she was an only child. When she rose from the dead she found herself a slave, and married to a white man in Boma. She lived there with him until he went to Europe, when he freed her. She then tried to get back to her native town, which lay behind Malella. So she hired a canoe, and got the owners thereof to promise to paddle her there. But they took her to the south bank of the Congo, and sold her. Here she remained nearly three years, when she happened to meet some people of her own family, and they took her back to her parents. The parents were rejoiced to see her again; but they will not believe that she is a human being, and continue to treat her as the departed spirit of their daughter. I have tried to convince her that the Nganga Nkissi, or native doctor, must have played her some trick, and that she had been buried by him while in a trance, or while unconscious, and that he must have taken her to Boma and sold her there to his own profit; but she would not believe it.

But Bimbindi as a rule are hostile to the human race, and consequently greatly feared.

A certain chief owned a large town, and all the inhabitants were either his children or his relations, He was sorely troubled at times how to provide them all with animal food; and so he used to go into the woods, and set traps. One night he got up, and went to see if there was anything in his traps and sure enough there was a large antelope in one of the traps. He made short work of its life by drawing his long knife and cutting its throat. Then he carried it home, and called upon all to get up and eat. They rejoiced greatly, and got up quickly enough to skin and cut up the antelope. It was then fairly divided, and each took away his share. And they all ate their shares, except the father, who put his away. Before the first cock crew, he got up again to look at his traps. Yes, there was another antelope. He killed and took it to his town, and again roused the, people up. They came, and again each took his share. And they all ate their shares, except the father, who put his share in the same place where he had kept his first share. He now slept until sun-rise. About midday his son came to him and said: “Father, I am, hungry. Give me the antelope you have kept in your shimbec (hut).” “No,” he answered, “I wish to sell that meat for cloth, even if I only get a fathom or two for it.” But the son pestered and bothered his father until he waxed wroth and shot him dead. Then the father called his people again, and said “See, here is more meat for you, take it and eat it.” “Nay,” they all said, “we cannot eat this; for your son was one of us; he is of our family. But we will cut him up, and give the meat to the princes round about.” And the princes were thankful for the meat, and gave the bearers presents.

The next evening the father again went to visit his traps, and thought he saw a huge something in one of them. He ran up to the thing and tried to kill it; but as he neared the trap, the monster’s arms embraced him and held him fast. “Ah ha!” said the Chimbindi, “so you have dared to set your traps in my woods, and to kilt my antelopes. You shall die.” With this the Chimbindi cut the father’s head off, and hung his body to a tree by its feet. Now when his wife had cooked his food, she called for him to come and eat. Receiving no answer, she set out to look for him. “Surely he has gone to look at his traps,” she thought. So she went into the woods; and after a little while she caught sight of the body hanging by its legs to the tree. The head was not there; the Chimbindi had taken it away with him. She examined the body carefully, and at last convinced herself that it was that of her husband. She sat down and wept. Then she got up, and went crying into the town. The people asked her what she was crying for, and she answered: “My husband has been killed, and I have seen his body in the woods.” Then they tried to comfort her, telling her that she was mistaken. But she continued weeping, and offered to lead them to the place where he was hung. Then the whole tribe went with her; and when they saw with their own eyes that their father was dead, they were, sorely troubled and lamented. Then the Chimbindi returned, and utterly annihilated the tribe, cutting off their heads, and leaving their bodies as food for the eagles, and the crows, and the beasts of the woods that eat the flesh of men. So are those punished who kill a relation and offer his meat to be eaten.

But the natives have a weapon with which they can put the Chimbindi to flight, as we learn from the following story.

All preparations for a long stay out of town were made by a married couple, the parents of a little boy some four years old. As they could not take their little one with them on this occasion, they left sufficient food for him with a neighbour, and asked her to take care of him. Soon the little boy felt hungry, and ran to the neighbour’s house and asked her for food. “What food, my child?” she asked. “But mother told me to come and ask you for food whenever I felt hungry.” “Your mother left no food with me, so that I cannot give you any; and you can run away and play.” Each day the little boy went to the woman and asked her for food. But each day she refused to give him any. So on the sixth day the little boy sat down and cried, saying: “Six days have passed and I have had no food. I know not whither my parents have gone. I shall surely die. I will find them, I will go from here at once.” Then he got up and walked and walked all day, but could not find his parents. When the night came, he climbed up a big tree and sat in it and cried. And a Chimbindi came and found the boy. He called his friends together, and they asked: “Who is this?” The little boy was very much afraid; but he sang, in a piteous voice: “My father and mother left me, they gave another food for me; but she did not give it to me; and now I have come here to die.” The Bimbindi came near to him and meant to kill him. When the little boy saw what the Bimbindi were about he cried bitterly for his mother.

Meanwhile the parents returned. The mother said Father, our little one has left our town, and has wandered away. Listen! I hear him crying.” ” Nay,” says the father, ” we left food enough for him, why should he have left the town? Look again for him.” ” No,” says the mother; ” he is in the woods, and the Bimbindi will surely eat him, and we shall lose our little one.” Then the father went to the market and bought some chili pepper, and loaded his gun with it. And the mother carried a calabash of pepper with her. “Let us go,” said the father, “and search for him!” And the mother soon found him, attracted by his cries. Then the father shot the Chimbindi just as he was climbing up the tree to kill his son. And the mother flew at the others that were looking on, and rubbed pepper into their eyes, so that they all ran away.

When the parents returned to the town they demanded an explanation from their neighbour; but she could make no excuse for her conduct, so that the irate father shot the woman, saying: “You tried to kill my child, am I not right in killing you?”

And the people said he was acting rightly.

Women have been captured by Bimbindi and made to live with them, according to their tales, but have managed to escape. The Bimbindi have followed them to their towns, and to get rid of them these women have thrown pepper into their eyes, and poured boiling water over them.

I have also heard of an opposite case, where a Cbimbindi has come to a town and married a girl and tried to live with her, but he would run away at daybreak, and all night he was busy eating insects and lizards; so she left him. Native women dare not go out at night alone for fear of meeting them; and any wailing noise they hear during the night they immediately put down to the Bimbindi.

The word witch, in our sense, I think, would correspond rather with that of Nganga Nkissi, the man learned in the art of mystery. But whereas our witch combines the office of spell-binder with that of curer, the Nganga Nkissi acts as the curer only, and the power that he exercises is not supposed to be his, but rather that of the Nkissi, or, as you would call it, his fetish. The sufferer goes to him to find out why it is that he suffers, and who it is that is making him suffer, and he divines the cause or person if he can; and if he cannot, advises the sufferer to knock a nail into the Nkissi, or fetish, and ask it to kill the person who is causing him so much pain.

The causer of the pain or suffering is called by the Fjort a Ndotchi, which has rather the sense of poisoner, and then spell-binder, or evil-wisher, or hypnotiser. This last personage is usually called the witch, and the Nganga Nkissi, the witchdoctor, by Europeans. The Ndotchi, it is true, may have poisoned some of his people to get rid of them, but he will have done this very secretly. He is not at all likely to go about proclaiming the fact that he can cast spells upon people, raise storms, or hypnotise, as such a proclamation would mean certain death. I am, therefore, sceptical when I hear Europeans talking about African witches and witchcraft, unless indeed, you call, a poisoner a witch. It is the knowledge of poisons in the native, his horror of death, and his disbelief in death from natural causes, that force him to believe, when a death does take place, that poison has in all probability caused it. Accordingly, a so-called Ndotchi, or poisoner, is called upon to prove his innocence by being forced to undergo the ordeal by poison; he is made to eat two or three spoonfuls of the powdered bark of the “casca” tree, and drink a bottle of water. If he vomits, he is innocent; if the casca acts as a purge he is guilty, and at once slain. A native goes to sleep and dreams some fearful dream, awakes and feels himself spellbound. Up he gets and fires off a gun to frighten away the evil spirits. He imagines that he has an enemy who is seeking to kill him, and accuses people right and left of attempting to poison him, and gives them casca.

There are certain of the Ngangas who profess to work miracles like the magicians of old.

Women give their husbands certain medicines to cause them to love them, and try their own love for them, by undergoing different ordeals. For instance, a woman will bet another woman that she loves her husband more than she does. They will heat an iron and place it on their arms; if a blister is raised, they consider their great love as proved.

As you enter a village by some road or other you will often find the grass tied into a knot (nteuo) with medicines enclosed, to prevent anyone bent on evil from passing that way; or an arch[1] formed by a string of feathers and charms, stretched across the road from one pole to another, will keep away evil winds and spirits.

Then, every town has some Nkissi or other to guard it. One will often notice an earthenware pot (nduda) balf-full of sand, containing two eggs, placed upon a stand. It is said that these eggs will explode with a fearful report, if anyone bent on evil enters the town.

The Fjort have no legends about the creation, except such as are easily traceable to the teachings of the missionaries of old, settled in this country some 400 years ago. Nzambi Mpungu made the earth, or gave birth to Nzambi; and she brought forth many children. We are told nothing more about the creation. The difference in colour between the black and white man is accounted for by stories of the short-sightedness of the black man. The best, perhaps, is that given on a later page.

Then, we have tales which begin: “A long, long time ago, before even our ancestors knew the use of fire, when they ate grass like the animals,” etc., which then go on to tell how a river-spirit first pointed out to them the mandioca root and the banana. These I think go a long way to prove that the agricultural age was prior to the pastoral and hunting age. This river-spirit taught them the use of fire, and then came the blacksmith, Mfuzi, (Loango, Funzi) and the iron and copper age.

I do not think the people north of the Congo can yet be said to

[1. An ordinary knot in the grass means that some. lady has marked the pIace for a plantation, or that a passer-by has hidden something within a certain distance from that knot.]

be, in the Pastoral Age,[1] or to have passed through it, for, although they do keep a few goats, and fowls, and sheep, their attention is given more to the planting of mandioca, bananas, and potatoes than to the care of animals. But they certainly are hunters. They are also manufacturers of native grass-cloth, of knives, arms, and ornaments of iron and copper, and of ornaments made from European silver coins. They gather cotton, and spin a coarse kind of thread, with which they make chinkutu, arm-bags, and netted capes for their princes. They make beautiful caps from the fibre of the pine-apple, and mats from the leaves of the fubu-tree. And all these goods they dye red, black and yellow. Earthenware pots, vases, carafes, moringos, and pipes they make from the black clay that abounds in the different valleys. The fishermen make their own nets from the fibre of different trees, and floats from the bark of the baobab-tree.

Others gather the palm-nuts from the palm-trees, and extract the oil from them, dry them and crack them, and then sell the kernels and the oil to the European. Some go into the woods and collect the milky juice of several vines and trees, and sell it as caoutchouc, or rubber, to the white man.

And the women, as they bee their fields, at times dig up pieces of preserved lightning (aulo, or buangu, gum copal), which they and their husbands also sell to the trader.

People collect round the shimbec, or hut, in which a woman

[1. There is no word in the KaCongo dialect to express the word shepherd. The nearest they have is i lungo mbizi, he who keeps animals; but mbizi is used in the sense of wild animals. Thus a native missionary, or priest, in preaching in native-mouth to the children at the mission here in Loango talked of the shepherds who came to visit the child Christ and his Mother as the galigneru, from the Portuguese gollinheiro, one who looks after the fowls.]

lies, about to give birth to a child, and fire off guns and shout to her to help her to bring it forth. The woman is attended by her mother, or other female relation; and the child is washed, sometimes in palm-wine, by them. As soon as the after-birth comes ,Way, the woman walks away to the place where she is to take her hot bath. The women then throw the very hot water upon her parts with their hands.

Charm upon charm is attached to the infant; and the mother suckles it until it is nearly two years old, being separated from her husband until she has weaned the child.

When a boy arrives at the age of puberty he is circumcised, and if he is wealthy a dance is given in his honour. A girl arriving at the same age is closely watched. The moment of her first menstruation is marked by the firing off of a gun, and this is followed by a dance. And now, while she little suspects it, she is caught and forced into what the natives call the paint-house. Here she is painted red, and carefully fed and treated, until they consider her ready for marriage, when she is washed and led to her husband. But if she has not a husband waiting for her, she is covered over with a red cloth, or handkerchief, and taken round by women to the different towns, until someone is found anxious to have her.

Should a man wish to marry a girl, he has to present her parents with goods according to the value placed upon her by them. In fixing the value, her position and wealth have to be considered. He can marry her according to different rites, such as those of Lembe or Funzi. On such occasions a certain kind of native-made copper bracelet is given to her by the husband, and worn also by him. She swears to be faithful to him, and to die and be buried with him. Formerly these wives were buried alive with their husbands, but the custom is now dying out.

Or a man may not have money enough to marry. So he proposes to give the girl so much of his earnings if she will live with him. He presents the parents with some small donation, and they live together until he can marry her.

But virgins may be used by a man for a certain payment, and afterwards put aside. These women are then at the service of anyone who chooses to pay them. This life is not looked upon as being immoral by them, and in no way stands in the way of future marriage. And it is a strange fact that these women do not seem to lose their sense of modesty. They seem to think that it is natural that their desires should be satisfied, and that until they are married they are in their right to live in this way.

A man may marry as many wives as he has wealth enough to obtain; and as they all make their plantations he is not likely to starve so long as he treats them properly. But the wives quarrel for his favours, and so very often a very-much-married man does not live so happily as one who has (say) two wives.

When the bridegroom takes his bride from the paint-house, he is generally supposed to give a dance, and this dance is kept up all night round about his house.

Unfaithfulness in a princess used not very long ago to be punished by burying her into the ground up to her neck, leaving only her head visible., and then leaving her to starve and die. The adulterer used to be impaled and allowed to rot.

If a KaCongo princess, one of the wives of KaCongo, was found to have crossed the River Loango Luz, a certain prince called Maloango had the. right to break off her ivory bracelet and declare her a whore. The same law applied to any of the wives of Loango who crossed over into KaCongo.

“I am in debt” is the cry of nearly every native one meets; and thus he stirs himself to action. He now owes the Nganga Nkissi for some charms, or the Nganga bilongo, for some medicine, or else he has borrowed goods to help him to bury some relation. Wealthy men lend people goods, such as a hoe to a woman to bury her child. In her grief she perhaps might bury it with the body. Then the wealthy man would ask her for his hoe and she would have to dig it up again. The man would say to her: “This hoe smells of death; keep it and pay me for it.” The woman having nothing to pay him with, the wealthy man would take one of her little daughters to live with his wives. The woman might repay him at any time up to the time when the girl should come to the age of puberty; but once he put the girl into the paint-house she became his “daughter of the cloth,” a household slave. Men wanting money used to go to these men and accept loans, thus becoming their dependants.

The burden of debt seems to have been the only great motive power in the life of the Fjort. Thus all along the coast you will find that the traders have always been forced to lend money, or rather goods, to native princes and traders, and then use all their knowledge of native law to oblige them to give them the produce promised in exchange.

When a child dies it is marked round the eyes and about the body with white and red chalk, and is buried perhaps the next day. The slave, or poor man, is also buried quickly without any particular ceremony. The rich man for woman) when dead, is smoked dry over a smoky fire wrapped up in endless lengths of cloth according to his wealth, and after some months is buried in an imposing case very similar to that of a prince.

A prince dies. Immediately it is known, all other princes either go themselves with, or else send, their people dressed in feathers, with drums and bugles, to cry. These visitors receive unlimited drink, and dance and sing until they are tired, and then they return to their towns. The Nganga Nkissi is set to work to find out who it is that has caused the death of the prince; and many people are forced to take casca. Many deaths, therefore, follow that of the prince.

His body is smoked and watched by his wives in the back room (as it were), while in the front half of the shimbec the prince’s wealth, in the shape of ewers, basins, figure ornaments, pots, pipes, glassware, etc., is on view. One of his wives will generally be found walking about in front of the shimbec, throwing her arms about and crying. This may last for a year or more before the body is buried.

The coffin is a case, perhaps 15 feet long, 4 feet broad, 6 feet high, covered over with red save-list. White braid is nailed by means of brass-headed chair-nails in diamond-shaped designs, all over the red cloth. The coffin (into which the dried body, wrapped in cloth is placed) is then put on the funeral car. Stuffed tigers, an umbrella, and other ornaments are placed upon the top of the coffin. The whole is then drawn to the burial ground by hundreds of assembled guests, who sing and dance by the way.

The grave is ready; and the coffin is lowered into it. Then one or two of his wives (10 years ago) jumped in, or (as is the case to this day, a little north of Loango) two small boys are placed in the grave beside the coffin; and all are buried. His relations proclaim the new prince, and place over his shoulder a wreath of grass. The people then return to the prince’s town and dance.

A year or two after this, a kind of festival in honour of the departed is kept. An effigy in straw of the late prince is placed in a shimbec, seated behind a table which bears such earthenware, glassware, and ornaments as belonged to him, and were not placed over his grave when he was buried. The rest of his wives, who from the time of his death until that of his burial have never washed themselves, have now only certain marks in charcoal upon their faces, and walk about the place more reasonably. Some of his children take it in turns to beat a drum and sing near to the shimbec. Visitors, bringing their offerings, come and congratulate the new prince upon what we should call his coronation; and he receives them sitting perhaps under the shade of some great tree. The relies of the late prince are visited; and then dancing, and singing, and eating, and drinking commence; and this is continued for perhaps three or four days.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

II. HOW A NATIVE STORY IS TOLD.

PERHAPS it may interest you to know how a story is told.

Imagine, then, a village in a grove of graceful palm trees. The full moon is shining brightly upon a small crowd of Negroes seated round a fire in an open space in the centre of the village. One of them has just told a story, and his delighted audience demands another. Thus he begins:

“Let us tell another story; let us be off!”

All then shout: “Pull away!”

“Let us be off!” he repeats.

And they answer again: “Pull away!”

Then the story teller commences:

“There were two brothers, the Smart Man and the Fool. And it was their habit to go out shooting to keep their parents supplied with food. Thus one day they went together into the mangrove swamp, just as the tide was going down, to watch for the fish as they nibbled at the roots of the trees. The Fool saw a fish, fired at it and killed it. The Smart Man fired also, but at nothing, and then ran up to the Fool and said: ‘ Fool, have you killed anything?’

“‘Yes, Smart Man, I am a fool; but I killed a fish.’

“‘Indeed, you are a fool,’ answered the Smart Man, I for when I fired I hit the fish that went your way; so that the fish you think you killed is mine. Here, give it to me.’

“The Fool gave the Smart Man the fish. Then they went to their town, and the Smart Man, addressing his father, said: ‘ Father, here is a fish that your son shot, but the Fool got nothing.’ ”

Here the crowd join in, and sing over the last sentence two or three times.

Then the narrator continues:

“The mother prepared and cooked the fish, and the father and the Smart Man ate it, giving none to the Fool.

“Then they went again; and the Fool fired, and with his first shot killed a big fish.

“‘Did you hear me fire?” says the Smart Man.

“‘No,’ answers the Fool.

“‘No?’ returned the Smart Man; ‘see then the fish I killed.’

“‘All right,’ says the Fool, ‘take the fish.’

When they got home they gave the fish to their mother; and when she had cooked it, the Smart Man and his father ate it, but gave none to the Fool. But as they were enjoying the fish, a bone stuck in the father’s throat. Then the Smart Man called to the Fool and bade him go for a doctor.

No, says the Fool, ‘I cannot. I felt that something would happen.’ And he sings:

 

‘Everyday you eat my fish, you call me Fool,

And would let me starve.”‘

 

The crowd here join in, and sing the Fool’s song over and over again.

“‘How can you sing,’ says the Smart Man, ‘when you see that our father is suffering?

“But the Fool goes on singing:

 

‘You eat and eat unto repletion

A bone sticks in your throat;

And now your life is near completion,

The bone is still within your throat.

 

‘So you, smart brother, killed the fish,

And gave the fool to eat?

Nay! but now he’s dead perhaps you wish

You’d given the fool to eat.'”

 

The crowd go go on singing this until they are tired; and the story-teller continues:

“While yet the Fool was singing, the father died. Then the neighbours came and joined the family circle, and asked the Fool how it was that he could go on singing now that his father was dead.

“And the Fool answered them, saying: ‘Our Father made us both, one a smart man, the other a fool. The Fool kills the food, and they eat it, giving none to the Fool. They must not blame him, therefore, if he sings while they suffer. He suffered hunger while they had plenty.

And when the people had considered the matter, they gave judgement in favour of the Fool, and departed.

“The father had died, and so had been justly punished for not having given the Fool food.

“He who eats fish with much oil must suffer from indigestion.

“And now I have finished my story.”

All answer, “Just so!”

“To-morrow may you chop palm-kernels,” says the -narrator, as he gets up and walks away.

A lady telling a story begins by shouting out the words: “Viado! Nkia? (An antelope! How big?)”

The crowd answer: “Nzoka (two fathoms).”

Then the narrator begins:

“Once there was a man who had a wife, but he fell in love with another woman. His wife was heavy with child, but he neglected her. He used to go out fishing; but instead of giving his wife the fish, he gave it to his lover. When he shot an antelope he gave his wife none of it. If he trapped a bird it went to the wicked woman.”

The narrator sings:

 

“The poor starved wife

Brought forth a son,

She gave it life,

Poor weakly one!”

 

Then all join in this song in tones of disgust.

“The son grew up and complained to his mother that while he had eaten of the produce of her farm he had not yet eaten any food killed by his father, nor even worn a cloth given by him.

“One day a friend gave him a knife, and he immediately, unknown to his mother, went to the woods and hills to cut some muchinga, or native string. He tried to kill some game by throwing his knife at it, but to no purpose. So before he left for home he set a trap to catch some bird or other. He grieved at his bad luck.

“Next morning he went out again, and to his intense relief found a guinea-fowl in his trap. He ran away home with his prize, and, while yet afar off, shouted to his mother:

“‘Mother, get the fundi (tapioca) ready!’

“Fundi! my son., How is this? You return too early for meal-time and call for fundi. Your father has taken no notice of me and has brought me no food: whence then, my son, hast thou got food for me to cook?’

‘Never you mind, mother, get the fundi ready.’

“The mother prepared the fundi, and the son laid the bird at her feet. When she saw that her son could bring her food, she no longer thought of her troubles or her husband. When the food was ready, the mother called her son and named him Zinga (to continue to live), for now they could eat and live without the help of a father.

“About this time the husband had grown tired of his concubine and sent her away, so that having no one to cook for him, he remained in his shimbec (house) hungering.

“When he heard that his son now went out hunting, and had plenty of food, he sneaked out of his shimbec and clapped his ban s and beirzed his son to give him food.

He sang:

 

“My son, can it be true

That you me food deny?

Upon my knees I sue,

My son, let me not die.'”

 

All present repeat this song plaintively.

“Then the mother replied:

 

‘You first denied us food;

We starved and nearly died

We will not give him food

Who kept that girl supplied.’

 

“Another day, when the son had been lucky and caught a bird, after killing and cleaning it, he said: ‘Mother, time was when we nearly died of hunger, but now we have plenty; and now that I am a man you shall need neither cloth nor food.’

“And as they were feeding, the father, very thin and weak, crawled out of his shimbec, and cried:

‘Oh, Zinga, my son, Zinga,

Will you let your father die?

Oh, Kengi, my wife, Kengi,

Here starving do I lie.’

All around sing this song in a supplicating tone.

“When the son heard his father crying so bitterly, he was greatly moved, and prayed his mother to put some food upon a plate and send it to him; but the mother refused, saying that he deserved none.

“Then the son wept and sang:

 

‘Mother, father wronged us

When he starved us;

Let us feed him now he asks us,

Or God may kill us.’

 

“And then he put some food upon a plate and was about to give it to his father, when his father dropped down dead from starvation.

“An enquiry was held to find out how the father had come to die; and when the people had heard all they gave judgement.

“He did not give his wife and child food when they needed it. They were in their right when they gave him none when he asked for it. He died by the avenging band of the Great Spirit.”

1 will conclude this chapter with a native tale of a practical joker, a character who is as much en evidence in Africa, I regret to say, as he is in other parts of the world.

There were two men who from their childhood had been fast friends, and never were known to have quarrelled with one another. So great was their friendship that they had made their farms close to one another. They were divided one from the other only by a native path.

Now there was a wicked wit in their town, who had determined, if possible, to make these chums quarrel. This man made a coat, one side or half of which was red in colour, while the other was blue. An,1 he walked past these two chums as they were busy on their farms, making enough noise to attract their attention. Each of the chums looked up to see who it was that was passing, and then went on with his work.

“Ugh, say! did you see that man?” said one.

“Yes,” answered the other.

“Did you notice the bright coat he wore?”

“Yes.”

“What colour should you say it was?”

“Why, blue, of course.”

“Blue, man! why, it was a kind of red! Nay, friend, I am sure it was blue.”

“Nonsense! I know it was red, but-”

“Well! you are a fool! ”

“A fool, how now! we have been friends all our lives, and now you call me a fool! let us fight; our friendship is at an end.” And the quondam chums fought.

Then their women screamed and interfered, and managed to separate them.

Then the wit walked quietly back, and saw the two chums seated each in his own farm, with his elbows resting on his knees and his head between his hands.

Then they saw through the joke and they were sorry; and they ordered the wit never to come that way again.

But the women cursed the wit and hoped that he would soon die.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

III. HOW THE WIVES RESTORED THEIR HUSBAND TO LIFE.

A CERTAIN man, named Nenpetro, had three wives, Ndoza’ntu (the Dreamer), Songa’nzila (the Guide), and Fulla Fulla (the Raiser of the Dead). Now Nenpetro was a great hunter; and one day he killed an antelope, and gave it to his three wives. They ate it, and after a time complained of hunger. Nenpetro went out shooting again, and killed a monkey. They ate this also, but still complained of hunger. “Oh,” says Nenpetro, “nothing but an ox will satisfy you people.” So off he went on the track of an ox. He followed the tracks for a long way, and at last caught sight of it as it was feeding with two or three others. He stalked it carefully, and shot it; but before he could reload, another angry ox charged him, and killed him.

Now in town they knew nothing of all this; but his wives grew very hungry, and cried for him to come back to them. Stillbe returned not. Then Ndoza’ntu dreamt that he had been killed by an ox, but that he had killed an ox before he fell.

“Come along,” said Songa’nzila; “I will show you the road.”

Thus they set out, and marched up hill and down dale, through woods and across rivers, until towards nightfall they came up to the place where their husband lay dead. And now Fulla Fulla went into the woods and collected herbs and plants, and set about raising him from the dead.

Then the three women began to quarrel and wonder into whose shimbec Nenpetro would first enter.

“I dreamt that he was dead,” said Ndoza’ntu.

“But I showed you where he lay dead,” said Songa’nzila.

“And I have brought him back to life,” said Fulla Fulla, as the husband gradually gave signs of life.

“Well! let us each cook a pot of food, and take it to him as soon as he can eat; and let him decide out of which pot he will take his first meal.”

So two killed fowls, and cooked them each in her own pot, while the third cooked some pig in hers. And Nenpetro took the pot of pig that Fulla Fulla had cooked, and said: “When you dreamt that I was dead, you did not give me food, Ndoza’ntu; for I was not yet found. And when you, Songa’nzila, had shown the others the road, I was still unfit to eat; but when Fulla Fulla gave me back my life, then was I able to eat the pig she gave me. The gift therefore of Fulla Fulla is the most to be prized.”

And the majority of the people said he was right in his judgement; but the women round about said he should have put the food out of the three pots into one pot, and have eaten the food thus mixed.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

IV. HOW NSASSI[1] (GAZELLE) GOT MARRIED.

NENPETRO had two Wives, and they each gave birth to a beautiful daughter. As they were a rich family, they determined not to take a present for their daughters on being asked in marriage, but to give them to him who could find out their names. They called one Lunga and the other Lenga.

The daughters grew up as beautiful as their parents could have wished, and were now of a marriageable age. The antelope then came to the parents, and, placing his large bundle of cloth and valuables at their feet, asked them to give him their daughters in marriage.

“We cannot accept your generous presents, for we have sworn to give our daughters only to the man who can guess their names.”

The antelope scampered off and wondered how he could possibly find out their names.

Then Nsassi, a well-known prince of a town some way off, came along followed by his faithful dog, and asked Nenpetro for his daughters.

“Nay, guess their names, my son, and thou shalt have them.”

[1. So in the Musurongo dialect, In the Cabenda and Loango dialects the word is Nsessi.]

“Well! what do you call them?”

“No, I May not tell you.”

And the dog sat watching his master and heard all that was said, and felt for him. Nsassi went away sore-hearted; for the daughters of Nenpetro were beautiful to behold, and he yearned for them. So grieved was he, that he did not miss his dog, but marched straight back to his town to devise some means by which he might find out their names.

And now Nenpetro called his daughters to him by their names, “Lunga! Lenga! come here.”

And the dog heard their names and said: “Oh I must run off and tell my father the names of these beautiful daughters, that he may marry them and be happy.”

And off he trotted along the road, until he was nearly dead with hunger. Then he looked about for something to eat, and after some trouble caught a wild kitten. When he had eaten it, he set off again full of happiness, until he began to think over in his mind the names of Nenpetro’s daughters. Alas! he had forgotten them. What -was he to do? He resolved to go back again to Nenpetro’s town. After a weary journey, he arrived there about midnight, and then slept until well into the next day.

“Oh! Lunga and Lenga, give that little dog of Nsassi’s some food.”

The daughters gave him food, but no water to drink; but he licked their hands and thanked them. Off he set again as happy as possible, fall of the importance of his mission. He met a clear stream of water, and so overcome was he by thirst, that he forgot his errand and drank deeply of the waters. When he had satisfied himself, he tried to think of the names of Nenpetro’s daughters, but he could not. So he had to return again to Nenpetro’s town and sleep there that night.

The next morning Nenpetro called Lunga and Lenga, and said: “My children, give food and drink to Nsassi’s dog.”

And the’daughters gave him both food and drink. And he was satisfied, and once more set off towards Nsassi’s town. He arrived there safely this time, having thought of nothing else but the names of Nenpetro’s daughters and his father’s happiness along the road.

And Nsassi, when he saw him, was glad, and called him, and said: “O, my dear dog, where hast thou been? and canst thou tell me the names of Nenpetro’s daughters?

And the dog answered: “Yes, my master, I know their names.”

“Tell me, then.”

“First, thou must pay me, father.”

Nsassi killed a pig and gave it to his dog. Then the dog told him the names of the beautiful girls, and all that had happened. And Nsassi was delighted, and gave a great dance; and all in town were happy, as now it was certain that Nsassi would get the daughters of Nenpetro in marriage.

Then Nsassi and his dog set out to claim the daughters of Nenpetro. But the dancing and singing had made them very thirsty, so that when they came to the clear water they drank deeply. And when they were satisfied they found to their dismay that they had forgotten the names of the girls.

Then the dog went alone to Nenpetro’s town, and again heard the father call his daughters by their names. They gave him food and drink, and he immediately returned to his master. Then they neither ate nor drank on the road, but went straight for Nenpetro’s town. And Nsassi called the daughters of Nenpetro by their names and claimed them as his wives.

And Nenpetro said, “Take thern, my son, for thou hast fulfilled the condition upon which I promised them.”

And the antelope declared war against Nsassi, and they fought; but Nsassi gained the victory, and killed the antelope and ate him.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

V. THE VANISHING WIFE.

Two brothers lived in a certain town. They were called Buite and Swarmi.

Swarmi was married and had servants to wait upon him; but Buite was alone and despised. As Buite had no one to cook for him, he used to eat palm-kernels, which he daily brought in from the bush.

Swarmi treated Buite very badly, never asking him to join him at his meals, or enter in any way into the festivities of his family; so that Buite determined to leave his town, and live alone far away in the bush. So one day, without saying anything, he left his brother, and walked, and walked, and walked, until at nightfall he arrived at a deep valley, fertile and thickly planted with palm-trees. Far away at the bottom of this damp valley, beneath the shade of the high trees, palms and rushes, Buite built himself a little shed-a roof, supported upon sticks, about a foot in height above the ground. In this damp hovel he spread out his mat to sleep upon, and lighted his fire to cook his solitary meals.

Tired and weary of life, Buite one night fell asleep, and dreamt that a beautiful girl called him, that he rose and followed her, and that she led him through the thick jungle and woods, until they arrived at a river. Here she told him to tap on the ground three times; and to his surprise a canoe appeared. He tapped the canoe three times, and paddles made their appearance. Then she told him to go and fish, and bring her food, that she might cook it for him; but that he should cut the heads off the fish, as she could not bear to see them. And he dreamt that he did so, and returned to find the girl waiting for him to cook the fish. Then he awoke, and could sleep no longer that night.

The next morning he got up and, remembering his dream, travelled through the jungle and woods, until he came to the river he had seen in his dream. And he tapped the ground, and lo! there appeared the canoe. He tapped the canoe, and there were the paddles. Then he went and fished, and cut the heads off the fish, and returned to his wretched hovel. But the shed had disappeared, and in its place was a large house, beautifully furnished, and all the necessary out-houses, and above everything, the beautiful girl, who came forward to meet him, just as if she had been accustomed to do so every day, and she also had nine little servants to wait upon her. And when she told him, that she had come to comfort him, he was very pleased and loved her very much.

And every day, when he went out fishing, she would send one of the little ones with him, to carry the fish. And people who passed that way were astonished at the liberal treatment bestowed upon them by Buite, and wondered where he had got his wife and riches from. His brother, Swarmi, would not believe in Buite’s prosperity, and determined to visit him.

Now Buite each day went fishing, taking one of his wife’s boys with him. But after a time he got tired of always cutting off the fishes’ heads.

And it so happened one day that he did not cut off the heads of the fish. When the boy saw this, he cried out and protested saying that his mother did not like to see a fish’s head.

But Buite asked him if it was for him, a servant, to talk in that way to his master. And the boy left for the house, carrying the fish with him. But after a time Buite ran after the boy, and caught him up just before he got home, and cut the heads of the fish off, so that his wife should not see them.

And this happened eight times with eight different servants of his wife. Each time the boy protested; each time Buite scolded him, and then, repenting, ran after the boy and cut the heads of the fish off.

The ninth time he took the youngest boy, Parrot by name, and fished, and gave the entire fish to him to carry home. And Parrot cried very much and protested, but was frightened by Buite’s imperious manner, and ran away home with the fish. And Buite ran after him, and ran, and ran, and ran, but could not catch Parrot up.

And Parrot arrived, and showed the fish to the woman; and immediately the house vanished; and the out-houses, and the servants, and beautiful furniture, and lastly the lovely wife, all disappeared, so that when Buite arrived, all out of breath, he no longer saw his house, or wife, or servants, but only his brother, Swarmi, who just then turned up to visit him.

And Buite was very sorry, and wept very much; and Swarmi more than ever despised him, and left him once more alone.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

VI. ANOTHER VANISHING WIFE.

THERE were two sons of one mother, one named Mavungu, and the other Luemba. Luemba was a fine child, and grew up to be a handsome man. Mavungu was puny and miserable-looking, and as he came to man’s estate became dwarfish and mean-looking. The mother always treated Luemba very well: but she maltreated Mavungu, and made him sleep outside the house beneath the mango-trees; and often when he approached her, to beg for food, she would throw the water she had cooked the beans in over his head.

Mavungu could not stand this bad treatment any longer; so he ran away into the woods, and wandered far away from home, until he came to a river. Here he discovered a canoe, and so determined to use it as a means of carrying him still further from his town. And he paddled and paddled, until he came to a huge tree, that overspread the river and prevented him from paddling. So he laid his paddle down, and caught hold of the leaves of the fuba-tree to pull his canoe along. But no sooner had he begun to pull the leaves of the fuba-tree, than he heard a voice, as if of a woman, faintly crying: “You are hurting me! please take care.”

Mavuiio, wondered, but still pulled himself along.

“Take care! you are breaking my legs off,” said the voice.

Still Mavungu pulled until a leaf broke off and instantly became changed into a beautiful woman. This startled Mavungu, so that he pulled many other leaves off the fuba-tree. Each leaf turned into a man, or a woman; his canoe was so full that he could not pull it any longer.

Then the first woman told him that she had come to be his wife, and comfort him; and Mavungu was no longer afraid, but was very happy. Then the wife appealed to her fetish, and said: “Am I to marry a man so deformed as this one is?” And immediately Mavungu became changed into a beautifully-formed man.

“Is he to be dressed like that?” she cried; and straightway his dress was changed.

In the same magical way did the wife build Mavungu a large house and town for his people, so that he wanted nothing that was needful to a powerful prince. And as people passed that way they were astonished at the transformation, and wondered where Mavungu had obtained his beautiful wife. And his mother and brother and whole family came to see him; and he treated them liberally and sent them away loaded with presents. But, having been expressly warned by his wife to say nothing to them as to the origin of his happiness, he left them in ignorance of that fact.

Then his people invited Mavungu to their town, but his wife advised him not to go, and so he stayed at home. But after having received many invitations he finally agreed, in spite of his wife’s advice, to visit them. He promised, however, not to eat any of the food given to him. When he arrived in town his mother placed poisoned food before him and urged him to partake thereof, but he refused. And then they asked. about his beautiful wife, and being taken off his guard, he replied:

“Oh, when I left you I wandered through the woods.”

But when he had got thus far he heard his wife’s voice ringing through the woods:

“Oh! Ma-vu-ng-u-a-a-a! ” and immediately he remembered, and got up and ran away home.

His wife was very cross with him, and told him plainly that she would not help him the next time he made a fool of himself.

Some time after this Mavungu again went to visit his family. His wife said nothing, neither asking him to stay at home, nor giving him her consent to his going. When he had greeted his mother and had partaken of food, the family again asked him to tell them from whence he had obtained his wife.

And he said: “When I left you, owing to your bad treatment, I wandered through the woods and came to a river. Dear me! where has my beautiful hat gone? ”

“Your brother has taken it, to put it in the sun,” said the mother, ” but continue.”

“I found a canoe with a paddle in it. Where has my coat gone?”

“Your brother has taken that also.”

“And I paddled and paddled. Why have you taken I my beautiful cloth? ”

“To have it washed, of course.”

“I paddled until I came to a big tree. Nay, why not leave me my shirt? and as I pulled off the leaves of the fuba-tree, they turned into my wife and her attendants. But I am naked!”

Then Mavungu remembered, and ran away to his town, only to find that it and his beautiful wife had disappeared. And when the people beard the whole story, they said it served Mavungu right for being so foolish as to want to please his people, who had been his eneinies all along, rather than please his wife, who had been so good to him.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

VII. THE JEALOUS WIFE.

Two wives busied themselves preparing chicoanga, or native bread, for their husband, who purposed going into the bush for six months to trade. Each of these women had a child; and the husband, as he left them, adjured them to be very careful with the children, and see that no harm came to them. They promised faithfully to attend to his entreaty.

When it was nearly time for the husband to return, the women said: “Let us go and fish, that we may give our husband some good food when he returns.”

But as they could not leave the children alone, one had to stay with them while the other fished. The elder wife went first, and stayed in the fishing-ground for two or three days to smoke what she had caught. Then the younger wife left to fish, and the elder remained to take care of the children.

Now the child of the younger wife was a much brighter and more intelligent child than that of the elder; and this made the latter jealous and angry. So she determined to murder the child, and get it out of the way while its mother was fishing. She sharpened a razor until it easily cut off the hairs on her arm, and then put it away until the evening when the children should be asleep. And When it was evening and they were fast asleep, she went to the place where the child was accustomed to sleep, and killed it. The other child awoke, and in its fright ran out of the house and took refuge with a neighbour.

In the morning the elder wife went to look at her evil work, thinking to put the child away before its mother should return. But when she looked again at the child she was horror-struck to find that she had killed her own child. She wept as she picked up its little body; and wrapping it up in her cloth she ran away with it into the woods, and disappeared.

The husband returned and at once missed his elder wife. He questioned the younger one; but she could only repeat to him what her child had told her, namely, that during the night the elder wife had killed her child. The husband would not believe this story, and asked his friends, the bushmen who had come with him, to help him to search for his wife. They agreed, and scoured the woods the whole day, but without success.

The next day one of the bushmen came across a woman who was nursing something; so he hid and listened to her singing. The poor woman was for ever shaking the child, saying:

“Are you always going to sleep like this? Why don’t you awake? Why don’t you talk? See! See! it is your mother that nurses you.”

“Surely,” said the bushman, “this must be my friend’s wife. I will go to him and tell him that I have found her.”

“Let us go,” said the husband; and as they approach her they hide themselves so that she cannot see them. And they find her still shaking the child and still singing the same sad song.

Then the father calls in her relations, and together they go to the woods, and make her prisoner. And when they saw that the child had been really murdered, they gave casca to the woman; and it killed her. Then they burnt her body, and scattered its ashes to the wind.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

VIII. NGOMBA’S BALLOON.

FOUR little maidens one day started to go out fishing. One of them was suffering sadly from sores, which covered her from head to foot. Her name was Ngomba. The other three, after a little consultation, agreed that Ngomba should not accompany them.; and so they told her to go back.

“Nay,” said Ngoniba, “I will do no such thing. I mean to catch fish for mother as well as you.”

Then the three maidens beat Ngomba until she was glad to run away. But she determined to catch fish also, so she walked she hardly knew whither, until at last she came and walked, upon a large lake. Here she commenced fishing and singing:

 

If my mother

[She catches a fish and puts it in her basket.]

Had taken care of me,

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

I should have been with them,

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

And not here alone.”

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

 

But a Mpunia (murderer) had been watching her for some time, and now he came up to her and accosted her:

“What are you doing here?”

“Fishing. Please, don’t kill me! See! I am full of sores, but I can catch plenty of fish.”

The Mpunia watched her as she fished and sang:

 

Oh, I shall surely die!

[She catches a fish and puts it in her basket.]

Mother, you will never see me!

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

But I don’t care,

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

For no one cares for me.”

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

 

“Come with me,” said the Mpunia.

“Nay, this fish is for mother, and I must take it to her.”

“If you do not come with me, I will kill you.”

 

“Oh! Am I to die

[She catches a fish and puts it in her basket.]

On the top of my fish?

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

If mother had loved me,

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

To live I should wish.

[She catches another fish and puts it in her basket.]

 

Take me and cure me, dear Mpunia, and I will serve you.”

The Mpunia took her to his home in the woods, and cured her. Then he placed her in the paint-house and married her.

Now the Mpunia was very fond of dancing, and Ngomba danced beautifully, so that he loved her very much, and made her mistress over all his prisoners and goods.

“When I go out for a walk,” he said to her, “I will tie this string round my waist; and that you may know when I am still going away from you, or returning, the string will be stretched tight as I depart, and will bang loose as I return.”

Ngomba pined for her mother, and therefore entered into a conspiracy with her people to escape. She sent them every day to cut the leaves of the mateva-palm, and ordered them to put them in the sun to dry. Then she set them to work to make a huge ntenda, or basket. And when the 31punia returned, he remarked to her that the air was heavy with the smell of mateva.

Now she had made all her people put on clean clothes, and when they knew that he was returning, she ordered them to come to him and flatter him. So now they approached him, and some called him “father” and others “uncle” – and others told him how he was a father and a mother to them. And he was very pleased, and danced with them.

The next day when he returned he said he smelt mateva.

Then Ngomba cried, and told him that he was both father and mother to her, and that if he accused her of smelling of mateva, she would kill herself.

He could not stand this sadness, so he kissed her and danced with her until all was forgotten.

The next day Ngomba determined to try her ntenda, to see if it would float in the air. Thus four women lifted it on high, and gave it a start upwards, and it floated beautifully. Now the Mpunia happened to be up a tree, and he espied this great ntenda floating in the air; and he danced and sang for joy, and wished to call Ngomba, that she might dance with him.

That night he smelt mateva again, and his suspicions were aroused; and when he thought how easily his wife might escape him, he determined to kill her. Accordingly, he gave her to drink some palm-wine that he had drugged. She drank it, and slept as he put his somino (the iron that the natives make red hot, and with which they burn the hole through the stem of their pipes) into the fire. He meant to kill her by pushing this red hot wire up her nose.

But as he was almost ready, Ngomba’s little sister, who had changed herself into a cricket and hidden herself under her bed, began to sing. The Mpunia heard her and felt forced to join in and dance, and thus he forgot to kill his wife. But after a time she ceased singing, and then he began to heat the wire again. The cricket then sang again, and again he danced and danced, and in his excitement tried to wake Ngomba to dance also. But she refused to awake, telling him that the medicine he had given her made her feel sleepy. Then he went out and got some palm-wine, and as he went she drowsily asked him if he had made the string fast. He called all his people, dressed himself, and made them all dance.

The cock crew.

The iron wire was still in the fire. The Mpunia made his wife get up and fetch more palm-wine.

Then the cock crew again, and it was daylight.

When the Mpunia had left her for the day, Ngomba determined to escape that very day. So she called her people and made them try the ntenda again; and when she was certain that it would float, she put all her people, and all the Mpunia’s ornaments, into it. Then she got in and the ntenda began to float away over the tree-tops in the direction of her mother’s town.

When the Mpunia, who was up a tree, saw it coming towards him, he danced and sang for joy, and only wished that his wife had been there to see this huge ntenda flying through the air. It passed just over his bead, and then he knew that the people in it were his. So that he ran after it in the tops of the trees, until he saw it drop in Ngomba’s town. And he determined to go there also and claim his wife.

The ntenda floated round the house of Ngomba’s mother, and astonished all the people there, and finally settled down in front of it. Ngomba cried to the people to come and let them out. But they were afraid and did not dare, so that she came out herself and presented herself to her mother.

Her relations at first did not recognise her; but after a little while they fell upon her and welcomed her as their long-lost Ngomba.

Then the Mpunia entered the town and claimed Ngomba as his wife.

“Yes,” her relations said, “she is your wife, and you must be thanked for curing her of her sickness.”

And while some of her relations were entertaining the Mpunia, others were preparing a place for him and his wife to be seated. They made a large fire, and boiled a great quantity of water, and dug a deep hole in the ground. This hole they covered over with sticks and a mat, and when all was ready they led the Mpunia and his wife to it, and requested them to be seated. Ngomba sat near her husband, who, as he sat down, fell into the hole. The relations then brought boiling water and fire, and threw it over him until he died.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

IX. THE WICKED HUSBAND.

“Cut you more palm-nuts? why, I am for ever cutting palm-nuts! What on earth do you do with them? I cut enough in one day to keep you for a week,” said the husband to his wife.

“Nay,” said the wife, “what am I to do? first, one of your relations comes to me, and asks me for a few, then another, and another, and so on, until they are all gone. Can I refuse to give them? ”

“Well, as you know, its a long way to where the palm-trees grow. If you want palm-nuts, you can come with me and carry them back with you.”

“Nay, I cannot go so far, for I have just put the mandioca in the water.”

“But you must go!

“Nay, I will not.”

“Yes, you shall!” And the husband dragged her after him.

When he got her well into the woods he placed her upon a rough table, he had constructed, and cut off her arms and legs. Then the wife wriggled her body about and sang: ” Oh, if I had never married, I could never have come to this.”

The husband left her, and returned to his town, telling the people that his wife had gone to visit her relations.

Now a hunter happened to hear the wife’s song, and was greatly shocked to find her in such a terrible condition. He returned to town, and told his wife all about it, but cautioned her to tell no one.

Bat the prince got to hear about it, and knocked his chingongo (or bell), and thus summoned all his people together. When they were all assembled, he bade them go and fetch the wife. And they went and brought her, but she died just as she arrived in town.

Then they tied up the husband and accused him of the crime. And while they placed the wife upon a grill, to smoke and dry the body, they placed the husband beneath, in the fire, and so burnt him.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

X. THE WONDERFUL CHILD.

A MAN had two wives named Kengi and Gunga. One day he called them to him, and said that he was going to Loango to buy salt, and so might be away some time. He left them both well. Some time after he had gone, Kengi became heavy with child. And Gunga asked her how it was that she was in that condition.

“It is true,” said Kengi, “that I am with child; but never you mind. When the child is born, you will see that it is his.”

“How can it be, when he has been gone so long?” rejoined Gunga.

Now when the child was born, it carried with it a handful of hair. And all the people marvelled. Then the child spoke, and said: “This is the work of God.”

And the people ran away, they were so much afraid. And when the child grew up, he went into the woods to hunt elephants. And all this time the father had not returned.

One day the child killed an elephant, and came to tell his mother of his good fortune. They called the princes together; and then they went and cut up the elephant and divided it among the people. Then the people said that he was a. good child.

And now the father returned, and Kengi was afraid, and prayed Gunga not to tell him that the child was his.

“No, I will not, Kengi,” said Gunga; “but the boy himself will.”

And when the father came the boy went up to him, and said: “Father, give me your hand.”

“Nay, child, I know thee not. If I am thy father, tell me, child, when did I give thee birth, and by whom?”

And the people all said: “He is your son by Kengi.”

“Nay, I left Kengi well.”

Then the son sings: “Now am I indeed dead, and become a bird.”

And hearing this, the father took his son to his heart, and gave him a wife, and made him chief over many towns.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XI. HOW KENGI LOST HER CHILD.

Nenpetro had two wives, Kengi and Gunga. So he cleared a piece of ground for them, and divided it, giving each her part. And they planted maize, and beans, and cassava; and soon they had plenty to eat.

One day Gunga took some beans from Kengi’s plantation, and this made Kengi very cross. Gunga was sorry that she had done wrong, but pointed out that they were both married to one man, and that they ate together. After some time they came to an agreement that all that was born on the farm of the one should belong exclusively to her, and that the other should have no right to take it for her use.

Some time after this Kengi came to Gunga’s plantation, and asked her for a little tobacco, as she was in great pain and wished to smoke. Gunga told her to sit down awhile, and gave her tobacco. And while Kengi was on Gunga’s plantation, she bore a child. Gunga took possession of the child, and would not give it up to Kengi. Kengi wept bitterly, and sent a special ambassador to Gunga demanding her child. But Gunga refused to give the child up, and said she was ready to hold a palaver over it. Thus the two women resolved to go to the town of Manilombi and state their grievance to him.

They arrived, and Manilombi received their presents, and welcomed them. He then asked them what ailed them.

Kengi said: “I brought forth a child. Gunga has robbed me of it; let her speak.”

And Gunga answered. “Nay, the child is mine; for when I took some beans from Kengi’s plantation, Kengi got vexed, and made me come to an agreement with her that whatsoever was born on her plantation should belong to her, and all that was born on my plantation should belong to me, and neither of us should take anything from each other’s plantation. Now, Kengi came, uncalled by me, to my plantation, and this child was born there; so that, according to our agreement, the child is mine and she cannot take it from me.”

And witnesses were called, and they gave their evidence.

Then the prince and his old men went to drink water. And when they returned, Manilombi said that Gunga was acting within her right, and that therefore the child should belong to her.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XII. THE TWIN BROTHERS.

A CERTAIN woman, after prolonged labour, gave birth to twins, both sons. And each one, as he was brought forth, came into this world with a valuable fetish, or charm. One the mother called Luemba, the other Mavungu. And they were almost full-grown at their birth, so that Mavungu, the first-born, wished to start upon his travels.

Now about this time the daughter of Nzambi was ready for marriage. The tiger came and offered himself in marriage; but Nzambi told him that he must speak to her daughter himself, as she should only marry the man of her choice. Then the tiger went to the girl and asked her to marry him, but she refused him. And the gazelle, and the pig, and all created things that had breath, one after the other, asked the daughter in marriage; but she refused them all, saying that she did not love them; and they were all very sad.

Mavungu heard of this girl, and determined to marry her. And so he called upon his charm, and asked him to help him; and then he took some grass in his hands, and changed one blade of grass into a horn, another into a knife, another into a gun, and so on, until he was quite ready for the long journey.

Then he set out, and travelled and travelled, until at last hunger overcame him, when he asked his charm whether it was true that he was going to be allowed to starve. The charm hastened to place a sumptuous feast before him, and Mavuligu ate and was satisfied.

“Oh, charm!” Mavungu said,”are you going to leave these beautiful plates which I have used for the use of any commoner that may come along?” The charm immediately caused all to disappear.

Then Mavungu travelled and travelled, until at length he became very tired, and had to ask his charm to arrange a place for him where he might sleep. And the charm saw to his comfort, so that he passed a peaceful night.

And after many days’ weary travelling he at length arrived at Nzambi’s town. And Nzambi’s daughter saw Mavungu and straightway fell in love with him, and ran to her mother and father and cried: “I have seen the man I love, and I shall die if I do not marry him.”

Then Mavungu sought out Nzambi, and told her that he had come to marry her daughter.

“Go and see her first, said Nzambi, and if she will have you, you may marry her.”

And when Mavungu and the daughter of Nzambi saw each other, they ran towards each other and loved one another.

And they were led to a fine shimbec, and whilst all the people in the town danced and sang for gladness, Mavungu and the daughter of Nzambi slept there. And in the morning Mavungu noticed that the whole shimbec was crowded with mirrors, but that each mirror was covered so that the glass could not be seen. And he asked the daughter of Nzambi to uncover them, so that he might see himself in them. And she took him to one and opened it, and Mavungu immediately saw the perfect likeness of his native town. And she took him to another, and he there saw another town he knew; and thus she took him to all the mirrors save one, and this one she refused to let him see.

“Why will you not let me look into that mirror?” asked Mavungu.

“Because that is the picture, of the town whence no man that wanders there returns.”

“Do let me see it!” urged Mavungu.

At last the daughter of Nzambi yielded, and Mavungu looked hard at the reflected image of that terrible place.

“I must go there,” he said.

“Nay, you will never return. Please don’t go!” pleaded the daughter of Nzambi.

“Have no fear!” answered Mavungu. “My charm will protect me.”

The daughter of Nzambi cried very much, but could not move Mavungu from his purpose. Mavungu then left his newly-married wife, and mounted his horse, and set off for the town from whence no man returns.

He travelled and travelled, until at last he came near to the town, when, meeting an old woman, he asked her for fire to light his pipe.

“Tie up your horse first, and come and fetch it.”

Mavungu descended, and having tied his horse up very securely, he went to the woman for the fire; and when he had come near to her she killed him, so that he disappeared entirely.

Now Luemba wondered at the long absence of his brother Mavungu, and determined to follow him. So he took some grass, and by the aid of his fetish changed one blade into a horse, another into a knife, another into a gun, and so on, until he was fully prepared for his journey. Then he set out, and after some days’ journeying arrived at Nzambi’s town.

Nzambi rushed out to meet him, and, calling him Mavungu, embraced him.

“Nay,” said Luemba,”my name is not Mavungu; I am his brother, Luemba.”

“Nonsense!” answered Nzambi. “You are my son-in-law, Mavungu.” And straightway a great feast was prepared. Nzambi’s daughter danced for joy, and would not hear of his not being Mavungu. And Luemba was sorely troubled, and did not know what to do, as he was now sure that Nzambi’s daughter was Mavungu’s wife. And when night came, Nzambi’s daughter would sleep in Luemba’s shimbec; but he appealed to his charm, and it enclosed Nzambi’s daughter in a room, and lifted her out of Luemba’s room for the night, bringing her back in the early morning.

And Luemba’s curiosity was aroused by the many closed mirrors that hung about the walls; so he asked Nzambi’s daughter to let him look into them. And she showed him all excepting one; and this she told him was the one that reflected the town whence no man returns. Luemba insisted upon looking into this one; and when he had seen the terrible picture he knew that his brother was there.

Luemba determined to leave Nzambi’s town for the town whence no man returns; and so after thanking them all for his kind reception, he set out. They all wept loudly, but were consoled by the fact that he had been there once already, and returned safely, so that he could of course return a second time. And Luemba travelled and travelled, until he also came to where the old woman was standing, and asked her for fire.

She told him to tie up his horse and come to her to fetch it, but. he tied his horse up only very lightly, and then fell upon the old woman and killed her.

Then he sought out his brother’s bones and the bones of his horse, and put them together, and then touched them with his charm. And Mavungu and his horse came to life again. Then together they joined the bones of hundreds of people together and touched them with their charms, so that they all lived again. And then they set off with all their followers to Nzambi’s town. And Luemba told Mavungu how he had been mistaken for him by his father-in-law and wife, and how by the help of his charm he had saved his wife from dishonour; and Mavungu thanked him, and said it was well.

Then a quarrel broke out between the two brothers about the followers. Mavungu said they were his, because he was the elder; but Luemba said that they belonged to him, because he had given Mavungu and them all life. Mavungu then fell upon Luemba and killed him; but his horse remained by his body. Mavungu then went on his way to Nzambi’s town, and was magnificently welcomed.

Now Luemba’s horse took his charm and touched Luemba’s body, so that he lived again. Then Luemba mounted his horse, and sought out his brother Mavungu and killed him.

And when the town had heard the palaver, they all said that Luemba had done quite rightly.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XIII. THE YOUNGER BROTHER WHO KNEW MORE THAN THE ELDER.

IN a certain town there lived two brothers who could not agree with one another, the younger continually asserting that he knew more than his brother, thus enraging his elder.

At last the younger brother said he could stand it no longer, and threatened to leave his town. So he and his wife left the town and wandered far away, until at last they entered a wood and came to a little river of very clear water.

“Let us drink,” he said,” and sit down here, as there does not seem to be a path leading from the river on the other side.”

So they drank and rested. Then he got up and waded down the stream some way, and found a pathway on the other side of the river. He called his wife, and they proceeded on their way. Soon they heard voices, and wondered what kind of people could have built in such a place.

“Let us go back,” said the wife;” how do you know that these people will not harm us?”

“Nay, I will not go back; so let us enter the town at once.”

They saw only two or three huts.

Now these huts, or shimbecs, were inhabited by a man and his wife, who had left his town on account of certain “palavers” that had been constantly pushed against him.

“And where do you come from?” said he, as the stranger and his wife entered his clearing.

The younger brother told him how it was that he had left his town and wandered there, and added that he would like to live there with him.

“Very well, you can do so. But first tell me, are you a bad man?”

“No, certainly not; I am a good man, the others treated me badly.”

“Well, there’s a shimbec for you; stay there.”

They did nothing for four days; but on the fifth day the man proposed that they should take their women with their hoes to a certain place he knew of, and get them to dig a large hole, which they would cover over with dried sticks and leaves, so as to form a trap for the many wild animals that passed that way. This they did.

“Now, that we may not quarrel over the game we catch, tell me: which will you have, the males or the females?”

The younger brother said he would take the males.

“Agreed! Then I will take the females.”

Agreed!”

They went back to their towns, and slept soundly that night. The next morning very early they went to see their trap. They had caught an ox.

“‘Tis yours,” said the owner of the town, “take it.”

The next day an antelope, the next day a chimbimbi, [1] and

[1. A kind of antelope-mouse coloured with a fawn-coloured patch on its shoulders and back, small straight horns like a goat.]

the next a hog, each day a male of some kind, until the younger brother had so much meat that he did not know what to do with it, But he gave the owner of the town none of it. He sent his wife out into the woods to gather sticks to smoke the meat, and so preserve it. Towards night he became anxious about her, as she had not returned. He went to the owner of the town and told him about it. But he could not account for her absence.

“Let us go and look for her.”

“Nay,” said the man, “it is night. To-morrow we will go.” The younger brother roamed about the whole night, crying and moaning at the loss of his wife. Early he awoke the owner of the town and asked him to go with him to look for her.

“Yes. But first let us go and see the trap, for I have dreamt that luck has changed, and that to-day we shall catch a female.”

They went, and soon discovered the female in the trap. It was the young man’s wife. Overjoyed at finding her the young man wanted to jump into the hole to help her out. But the man reminded him of his agreement, and how he had given him nothing of all the meat he had entrapped.

“Nay, take all the meat you like, but my wife is a human being, surely you will not kill and eat her?”

“She is mine by agreement, I can do as I like with her.” And thus they went on wrangling the day through.

Now the elder brother had gone out bunting and had chanced to come into the wood not far from where the trap was. He heard voices, and so crept cautiously up in that direction. He recognised his brother’s voice and ran to him. The younger brother was overjoyed to see him, and welcomed him boisterously. The elder brother met him coldly. When the owner of the town knew who the stranger was, he laid the whole matter before him, and asked him to say whether the female in the trap was his or not. The elder heard all, and answered that the female in the trap was certainly his, and that he had better go in and kill her. The younger brother tried to restrain him; but the man flung him aside and jumped into the trap.

“Fool,” said the elder to the younger, when he saw him trying to stop the man from entering the pit; “can you not yet trust your brother’s superior wisdom? See, now, that male in your trap; he is yours by agreement, even as your wife is his. Spare his life, and perhaps he will give you back your wife.” The man saw how he had been fooled, and gave the woman up. The two brothers and the wife then returned to their town.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XIV. THE CHIMPANZEE AND GORILLA.

A NATIVE friend of mine, who considers himself a great hunter and naturalist, told me that, his plantations having suffered severely from the depredations of the gorilla, he had determined to follow up his tracks, and kill him, if possible. After having journeyed a long distance, he at last came up to the gorilla’s camp. The gorilla was up a tree, at the foot of which was a large heap of fruits of different kinds. He resolved upon the bold course of getting as near this fruit as he could, waiting until the gorilla should come down. Hardly had he got himself safely in his chosen position, when a chimpanzee, club in hand, came leisurely along, evidently looking about for food.

“Oh la! What fool has left his food in such a place, I wonder, right in the public footpath? I need go no further.”

Thereupon the chimpanzee sat himself down, and began to enjoy a really good feed. He had not been there very long, however, before the gorilla came quietly down the tree. He quietly seated himself opposite to the chimpanzee, and commenced to eat also.

“Here, you!” said the chimpanzee, “what do you mean by eating my fruit? Can’t you go and find some for yourself?”

The gorilla made no reply, but went on eating. The chimpanzee got excited, and began to abuse the gorilla. The gorilla looked at him. Then the chimpanzee struck the gorilla. The gorilla smiled, and pushed him aside. The chimpanzee took his club, and hit the gorilla with all his might. The gorilla then raised his long arm, and gave the chimpanzee one fearful blow, which stretched him dead at his feet.

“I did not wait to see any more,” said my friend, “but ran away as hard as I could.”

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XV. THE ANTELOPE AND THE LEOPARD.

The leopard one day bet his life to the antelope, that if he bid himself the antelope would never find him.

“Well,” said the antelope, “I accept your bet. Go and hide yourself.”

And the leopard went into the woods and hid himself. Then the antelope looked for him, and after a little while found him. And the leopard was very angry with the antelope, and told him to go and hide himself, and see how easily he would find him. The antelope agreed to this, but told the leopard that he would have his life.

After some time the leopard set out to seek the antelope. He searched the woods through and through, but could not find him. At last, thoroughly worn out, he sat down, saying: “I am too fat to walk any more; and I am also very hungry. I will pick some of these nonje nuts, and carry them to my town and eat them.”

So he filled the bag he carried under his arm (called nkutu), and returned to his town. Once there, he determined to call his people together, and continue his search for the antelope after breakfast.

So he knocked his ngongo, and ordered all his people to assemble, from the babe that was born yesterday, to the sick men who could not walk and must be carried in a hammock. When they were all there, he ordered his slaves to crack the nonje nuts. But out of the first nut that they cracked jumped a beautiful dog.

Now, the leopard was married to four princesses. To one by common consent, to another by the rites of Boomba, to the third by the rites of Funzi, and to the fourth by those of Lembe, Each of his wives had her own cooking-shed.

Now, when the little dog jumped out of the nut, it ran into the first wife’s shed. She beat it, so that it ran away and entered the shed of the wife after the rites of Boomba. This wife also beat the dog, so that it took refuge with the wife after the rites of Funzi. She also beat the little dog; and thus it fled to the wife after the rites of Lembe. She killed it.

But as the dog was dying, it changed into a beautiful damsel. And when the leopard saw this beautiful maiden, he longed to marry her, and straightway asked her to be his wife.

The beautiful girl answered him and said: “First, kill those four women who killed the little dog.”

The leopard immediately killed them. Then the maid said:

“How can I marry a man with such dreadful-looking nails. Please have them taken out.”

The leopard was so much in love with the maiden, that he had his claws drawn.

“What fearful eyes you have got, my dear leopard! I can never live with you with those eyes always looking at me. Please take them out.”

The leopard sighed, but obeyed.

“I never saw such ugly ears; why don’t you have them cut?”

The leopard had them cut.

“You have certainly the clumsiest feet that have been seen in this world! Can you not have them chopped off?”

The leopard in despair had his feet taken off.

“And now my dear, dear leopard, there is but one more favour that I have to ask you. Have you not noticed how ugly your teeth are? how they disfigure you? Please have them drawn.”

The leopard was now very weak, but he was so fascinated by the girl, and so hopeful now that he would obtain her by this last sacrifice, that he sent to the cooking-shed for a stone and had his teeth knocked out.

The maiden then saw that the leopard was fast dying. So she turned herself into the antelope, and thus addressed him:

“My dear leopard, you thought to kill me to avoid giving your life to me, as promised, when I found you. See now how I have outdone you. I have destroyed you and your whole family.” And this is why the leopard now always kills the antelope when he meets one.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XVI. HOW THE SPIDER WON AND LOST NZAMBI’S DAUGHTER.

NZAMBI on earth had a beautiful daughter; but she swore that no earthly being should marry her, who could not bring her the heavenly fire from Nzambi Mpungu, who dwelt in the heavens above the blue roof. And as the daughter was very fair to look upon, the people marvelled, saying: “How shall we secure this treasure? and who on such a condition will ever marry her?”

Then the spider said: “I will, if you will help me.”

And they all answered: “We will gladly help you, if you will reward us.”

Then the spider reached the blue roof of heaven, and dropped down again to the earth, leaving a strong silken thread firmly hanging from the roof to the earth below. Now, he called the tortoise, the woodpecker, the rat, and the sandfly, and bade them climb up the thread to the roof. And they did so. Then the woodpecker pecked a hole through the roof, and they all entered the realm of the badly dressed Nzambi Mpungu.[1]

Nzambi Mpungu received them courteously, and asked them what they wanted up there.

[1. See Appendix, p. 133]

And they answered him, saying: “O Nzambi Mpungu of the heavens above, great father of all the world, we have come to fetch some of your terrible fire, for Nzambi who rules upon earth.”

“Wait here then,” said Nzambi Mpungu, “while I go to my people and tell them of the message that you bring.”

But the sandfly unseen accompanied Nzambi Mpungu and heard all that was said. And while he was gone, the others wondered if it were possible for one who went about so poorly clad to be so powerful.

Then Nzambi Mpungu returned to them, and said: “My friend, how can I know that you have really come from the ruler of the earth, and that you are not impostors?”

“Nay,” they said; “put us to some test that we may prove our sincerity to you.”

“I will,” said Nzambi Mpungu. “Go down to this earth of yours, and bring me a bundle of bamboos, that I may make myself a shed.”

And the tortoise went down, leaving the others where they were, and soon returned with the bamboos.

Then Nzambi Mpungu said to the rat: “Get thee beneath this bundle of bamboos, and I will set fire to it. Then if then escape I shall surely know that Nzambi sent you.”

And the rat did as he was bidden. And Nzambi Mpurigu set fire to the bamboos, and lo! when they were entirely consumed, the rat came from amidst the ashes unharmed.

Then he said: “You are indeed what you represent yourselves to be. I will go and consult my people again.”

Then they sent the sandfly after him, bidding him to keep well out of sight, to hear all that was said, and if possible to find out where the lightning was kept. The midge returned and related all that he had heard and seen.

Then Nzambi Mpungu returned to them, and said: “Yes, I will give you the fire you ask for, if you can tell me where it is kept.”

And the spider said: “Give me then, O Nzambi Mpungu, one of the five cases that you keep in the fowl-house.”

“Truly you have answered me correctly, O spider! Take therefore this case, and give it to your Nzambi.”

And the tortoise carried it down to the earth; and the spider presented the fire from heaven to Nzambi; and Nzambi gave the spider her beautiful daughter in marriage.

But the woodpecker grumbled, and said: “Surely the woman is mine; for it was I who pecked the hole through the roof, without which the others never could have entered the kingdom of the Nzambi Mpungu above.”

“Yes,” said the rat, “but see how I risked my life among the burning bamboos; the girl, I think, should be mine.”

“Nay, O Nzambi; the girl should certainly be mine; for without my help the others would never have found oat where the fire was kept,” said the sandfly.

Then Nzambi said: “Nay, the spider undertook to bring me the fire; and he has brought it. The girl by rights is his; but as you others will make her life miserable if I allow her to live with the spider, and I cannot give her to you all, I will give her to none, but will give you each her market value.”

Nzambi then paid each of them fifty longs of cloth and one case of gin; and her daughter remained a maiden and waited upon her mother for the rest of her days.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XVII. THE TURTLE AND THE MAN.

A TURTLE and a man built themselves a small town, but because they had as yet planted nothing they suffered from hunger.

“Let us build a large trap,” said the turtle,” that we may catch an antelope.” The man agreed, and they set to work and made a very large one.

“This is too large,” said the turtle,” let us divide it, and each have a trap of his own.”

The man divided it and the turtle chose the best one. That night the man caught nothing, but a splendid antelope was found in the turtle’s trap. As the turtle could not lift it, he called all the people from round about to a dance.

While they were dancing, the chimpacasi, or wild ox, came out of the wood and wanted to know what all this singing was about. And the turtle told him that he had caught an antelope, and as he could not carry it to his house, he had called in his friends. “Perhaps, good ox, you will take the antelope out of the trap for me and lift it as far as my house.”

“Oh, certainly,” said the ox.

“And now, please go and fetch some water.”

The ox went and drew some water. They then cut up the antelope.

“Clean the plates, please,” said the turtle.

And the delighted ox washed them.

“This is your share, dear ox; but you must go and got some leaves to wrap it in.”

And while the ox was away in the woods, collecting leaves, the turtle lifted all the meat up and carried it into his house, which was a very strong one, and shut himself inside.

The ox returned and asked for his share, but the turtle refused to let him have it, and insulted him grossly. The ox became very angry, and told the turtle that he would destroy the trap. But the turtle had reset the trap, so that when the ox put his head in he was caught, and died after a short struggle.

“Oh, oh, Mr. Ox, I told you so. You should be more careful when you are entering the turtle’s trap.”

He called the people again to dance and sing.

This time the leopard was attracted by the noise, and came to the turtle to find out what it was all about. And the turtle told him, and said that his hands were very sore, and that he could not carry the ox to his house; would the leopard drag him there?

Glad to oblige the turtle, the leopard at once offered his services, and in a very short time had brought the ox to the turtle’s house.

“Thank you, dear leopard, will you now go to the river and fetch some water, and clean the pots?

“Certainly,” said the leopard.

And when they had cooked the whole of the ox, the turtle put aside part of the meat for the leopard, and carried the rest into his shimbec.

“You would better go and fetch some leaves to wrap the meat in,” said the turtle.

The leopard went. While he was away, the turtle took the meat, and shut himself within his strong house.

The leopard returned and said “Turtle, turtle, where is my meat?”

“It is here, my dear leopard.”

“Then give it me.”

“Nay, the ox was mine.”

“Yes, but I helped you to cook it.”

“Well, I shalt not give you any.”

“Then I will destroy your trap.”

“Take care you do not meet with the fate of the ox.”

“Yes, I will take care.”

And the leopard went and destroyed the trap entirely, and then, placing the rope round his neck lay down in the middle of the ruins, as if he had been entrapped.

Then the turtle went again to look at his trap and was delighted to find the leopard there.

“Ah, ah, I told you so! Why did you not take more care, my dear leopard?”

And the turtle stretched out his long neck as if to kiss the leopard. The leopard sprang upon him, and bit the turtle’s head off before he had time to pull it in. He then entered his shimbec and ate up all the meat that the turtle had stored there.

Now the man wondered what the leopard was doing in the turtle’s shimbec. So he went there and asked the leopard And the leopard told him bow the turtle had tried to trick him, and how he had killed the turtle. And the man said he was quite right and might go on eating the food of the turtle.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XVIII. KILLING A LEOPARD.

I CLOSED the autobiography of a Fjort in “Seven Years among the Fjort” thus: “We were obliged to hurry back to town, however, as notice was brought to us that some one had killed a leopard. The custom is that when a leopard is killed, the people of the different towns in that district can loot each other’s towns to their hearts’ content, and on the day fixed for the delivery of the leopard to the king, the destroyer of the leopard can take it through any of the towns he chooses, having the right to appropriate any article he may meet in his road that is not inside a shimbec or other dwelling.”

I can now tell you more of this custom. The slayer, it seems, is himself tied up, and the head of the leopard is carefully wrapped up in cloth. Both are then taken to the king, who addresses the slayer thus:

“My son, why have you slain this man?”

“Father,” answers the slayer, “he is a very dangerous man and has taken the life of many. of your people’s sheep and fowls.”

“Thou hast done well, my son. Count now the hairs of his whiskers. As thou knowest, there should be three times nine hairs, and for every one that is missing must thou pay me two pieces of cloth.”

“Father, they are all there.”

“Then pull them out carefully; take also his teeth, his claws, and his skin, and prepare them for my use.”

This the hunter does and presents them to the king.

Then the king again addresses him:

“My son, thou art a great hunter and must need someone to cook thy food for thee when thou goest out hunting. Take therefore this young girl as thy slave, or concubine.”

“But father, look! I am not in a fit state to receive such a gift; my clothes are worn and tattered.”

“Thou sayest but what is the truth, my son. Take therefore these clothes and dress thyself.”

“Yea, father, thou art too good to me; but I have no one to cut wood for such a beautiful creature.”

“There, there, take this small boy to cut wood for her, and this man to carry thy gun.”

“I clap my hands to thee, father, and thank thee.”

Then the king has to give a grand feast in honour of the event.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XIX. THE GAZELLE AND THE LEOPARD.

THE gazelle said to the leopard: “It is now the dry season, and we should be cutting down the bush, that our women may plant as soon as the first rains come.”

“Well”, said the leopard, “I cannot go to-day, but you may as well go.”

And the gazelle went; and all that day he cut the bush, and cleared the ground for planting. And the next day he went also alone.

On the third day the leopard called on the gazelle and asked him to go to the plantation with him. But the gazelle said he was sick, and could not go, so the. leopard went by himself.

The next day the leopard again called for the gazelle, but he was not in.

“Where has he gone?” enquired the leopard.

“Oh, he has gone to another part.”

And each day the leopard called upon the gazelle he was either sick or out of town; so that the leopard had nearly all the bard work to himself. When the women had planted, and the harvest was ripe, however, the gazelle went to look at the plantation. He was greatly pleased to find so much planted, and thought how pleased his friends would be if he invited them to a feast; so he called in all the antelopes and other beasts of the field, and they had a splendid feast.

By and by the leopard thought he would go and see how his plantation was getting on, and no sooner had he arrived there than he exclaimed: “Hullo, who has been feeding on my plantation and eaten up my corn? Surely I will set a trap for them and catch the thieves.”

The next day the animals, led by the little gazelle, came again; and he warned them, saying: “Be careful, for the leopard will surely set a trap for us.” But the antelope became careless, and finally fell into the leopard’s trap. “There,” says the gazelle,” I told you to be careful. What shall we do? They have all run away and left us, and I am not strong enough to release you.”

Then the leopard came, and rejoiced greatly at having caught a thief. He took the antelope to his town. “Please, Sir, the gazelle told me to go,” cried the antelope, “don’t kill me, don’t kill me.”

“How am I to catch the gazelle?” the leopard replied.

“No, I must kill you.” And so he killed the antelope and ate him.

When the gazelle heard what the leopard had done, he was greatly annoyed, and declared that us the leopard was their chief, they were quite right in eating the food he had provided for them. Was it not the duty of the father to provide for his children?” Well, well, never mind, he will pay us for this.”

Then the gazelle made a drum, and beat it until all the animals came as if to a dance. When they were assembled, he told them that they must be revenged upon the leopard.

The leopard heard the drum, and said to his wife: “Let us go to the dance.” But his wife said she would rather stay at home, and did not go. The leopard went; but no sooner had he arrived than they all set upon him and killed. him. And when the dance was over, the leopard’s wife wondered why he did not return. The gazelle sent her the head of her husband skinned as her part of the feast; and not knowing that it was her husband’s head, she ate it.

“Oh, for shame,” said the gazelle, “You have eaten your husband’s head.”

“Nay, Sir, the shame rests with you; for you gave it to me to eat, after having murdered him.” And she wept and cursed the gazelle.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XX. THE WILD CAT AND THE GAZELLE.

NENPETRO (kind of wild cat) and Nsessi (the gazelle), agreed that in case of famine the one might eat the other’s mother. The famine came. Nsessi killed Nenpetro’s mother and ate her; but, loving his own mother very much, he took her into the bush, and hid her there in a cave, telling her never to come out unless she should bear him call her. Each day he took her food, but not caring to carry it himself, he got Nenpetro’s little son to carry it for him.

Now this little boy felt with his father in his loss of his mother, and so resolved to tell him where Nsessi kept his mother. Thus he told Nenpetro, and showed him the way to the cave where Nsessi had hidden his mother. Nenpetro then simulated the voice of Nsessi, and called to her to come out. When she came, Nenpetro killed her and took her to town. Then he had her cooked, and gave a feast, and invited Nsessi. But Nsessi wondered where he could have got his meat, and went to look for his mother. Could he have killed her? She was not there. Yes, he had killed her. He refused Nenpetro’s invitation, and said he would no longer live in that town. So he called his people together, and they burned their houses and went to live elsewhere.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXI. THE CRAFTY WOMAN OVERREACHES HERSELF.

IT was market day, and all were intent upon going to Kitanda (the market). The first lady to arrive brought a large basket of chicoanga (native bread), placed it under the shade of the market-tree, and then hid herself in the bush near at hand.

A second lady came along with a basket (or matet) of pig, and sat herself down beneath the tree.

“I wonder,” said she, as she caught sight of the chicoanga, “to whom that belongs? I should very much like one piece to eat with a little of my pig. I was so busy preparing the pig for market, that I really had no time to get any chicoanga ready.” She raised her voice and cried out:

“To whom does this chicoanga belong? Where is its owner?”

This she repeated many times., and then came to the conclusion that it had no owner. So she took one piece and ate it with her pig.

By-and-bye the owner of the chicoanga came forth, and told the owner of the pig that she must pay her in pig for the chicoanga she had taken.

“No,” said the owner of the pig.

And the people round about were called in; and after hearing what both had to say, they declared that the woman who owned the chicoanga was in the wrong; because she had hidden herself in the bush on purpose that her chicoanga should be taken by the owner of the pig, whom she had evidently seen coming. She had laid this trap to get some of the pig, and she deserved to lose her chicoanga.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXII. HOW THE FETISH SUNGA PUNISHED MY GREAT-UNCLE’S TWIN BROTHER, BASA.

BASA was my great uncle’s twin brother, and a very clever fisherman. Every day he used to go out fishing in the river; and every day he caught great quantities of fish, which he used to smuggle into his house, so that none should know that he had caught any. His brother and relations used each day to ask him: “Basa, have you caught any fish?” And he would answer “No,” although his house was full of fish going rotten. All this time the fetish Sunga was watching, and was grieved to hear him lie thus. So one day she sent one of her moleques, or little servants, to the place where Basa was fishing, to call him to her. It happened that upon that day Basa caught so much fish that he had to make some new matets, or baskets, to hold it all. He had already filled two, and placed them in the fork of a large tree, when he heard three distinct clappings of the hands, as if some child were saluting him, and then he heard a voice saying: “Come to my mother.”

Then Basa was greatly afraid, and answered: “Which way? please show me the way.”

“Follow me,” said the voice of the child, as; she led him to the river.

When they stepped into the river, the waters dried up, and all the fish disappeared, so that the bed of the river formed a perfect road for them. Even the fallen trees had been removed, that Basa might not meet the slightest difficulty in the way. When they had reached the watershed of the river, there in the great lake he saw a large and beautiful town. Here he was met by many people, and warmly welcomed. They led him to a chair, and asked him to be seated. But he was alarmed at all this ceremony, and wondered what it all meant.

Then Sunga laid a table before him, and loaded it with food and wine, and asked him to eat and drink. But he was still and told Sunga that so grand was the feast she had afraid, placed before him that the smell alone of it had satisfied him. Then she pressed him to eat and drink, and finally he did so, drinking all the wine that there was.

Then Sunga deprived him of the power of speech, that he might lie no more, and bade him depart to his town. And so for the future he could only make his wants known by signs.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXIII. THE RABBIT AND THE ANTELOPE.

IT was during an almost rainless “hot season,” when all who had no wells were beginning to feel the pangs of thirst, that the rabbit and the antelope formed a partnership to dig a deep well so that they could never be in want of water.

Let us finish our food, said the antelope, “and be off to our work.”

“Nay,” said the rabbit; “had we not better keep the food for later on, when we are tired and hungry after our work?”

“Very well, hide the food, rabbit; and let us got to work, I am very thirsty.”

They arrived at the place where they purposed having the well, and worked hard for a short time.

“Listen!” said the rabbit; “they are calling me to go back to town.”

“Nay, I do not hear them.”

“Yes, they are certainly calling me, and I must be off. My wife is about to present me with some children, and I must name them.”

“Go then, dear rabbit, but come back as soon as you can.”

The rabbit ran off to where he had hidden the food, and ate some of it, and then went back to his work, Well!” said the antelope, “what have you called your little one?”

“Uncompleted one,” said the rabbit.

“A strange name,” said the antelope.

Then they worked for a while.

“Again they are calling me,” cried the rabbit. “I must be off, so please excuse me. Cannot you hear them calling me?”

“No, said the antelope, “I hear nothing-”

Away ran the rabbit, leaving the poor antelope to do all the work, while he ate some more of the food that really belonged to them both. When he had had enough, he hid the food again, and ran back to the well.

And what have you called your last, rabbit?

“Half-completed one.”

“What a funny little fellow you are! But come, get on with the digging; see how hard I have worked.”

Then they worked hard for quite along time. “Listen, now!” said the rabbit,” surely you heard them calling me this time!”

“Say, dear rabbit, I can hear nothing; but go, and get back quickly.”

Away ran the rabbit, and this time he finished the food before going back to his work.

“Well, little one, what have you called your third child?”

Completed,” answered the rabbit. Then they worked hard and as night was setting in returned to their village.

“I am terribly tired, rabbit; run and get the food, or I shall faint.”

The rabbit went to look for the food, and then calling out to the antelope, told him that some horrid cat must have been there, as the food was all gone, and the pot quite clean. The antelope groaned, and went hungry to bed. I

The next day the naughty little rabbit played the antelope the same trick. And the next day he again tricked the antelope. And the next, and the next, until at last the antelope accused the rabbit of stealing the food. Then the rabbit got angry and dared him to take casca (or, the test-bark, a purge or emetic).

“Lot us both take it, said the antelope, “and let him whose tail is the first to become wet, be considered the guilty one.”

So they took the casca and went to bed. And as the medicine began to take effect upon the rabbit, he cried out to the antelope:

“See, your tail is wet!”

“Nay, it is not!”

“Yes, it is!”

“No, but yours is, dear rabbit; see there!”

Then the rabbit feared greatly, and tried to run away. But the antelope said: “Fear not, rabbit; I will do you no harm. Only you must promise not to drink of the water of my well, and to leave my company for ever.”

Accordingly the rabbit left him and went his way.

Some time after this, a bird told the antelope that the rabbit used to drink the water of the well every day. Then the antelope was greatly enraged, and determined to kill the rabbit. So the antelope laid a trap for the silly little rabbit. He cut a piece of wood, and shaped it into the figure of an animal about the size of the rabbit; and then he placed this figure firmly in the ground near to the well, and smeared it all over with bird-lime.

The rabbit went as usual to drink the waters of the well, and was much annoyed to find an animal there, as he thought, drinking the water also.

“And what may you be doing here, Sir?” said the rabbit to the figure.

The figure answered not.

Then the rabbit, thinking that it was afraid of him, went close up to it, and again asked what he was doing there.

But the figure made no answer.

“What!” said the rabbit, “do you mean to insult me? Answer me at once, or I will strike you.”

The figure answered not.

Then the little rabbit lifted up his right hand, and smacked the figure in the face. His hand stuck to the figure.

What’s the matter?” said the rabbit. “Let my hand go, Sir, at once, or I will hit you again.”

The figure held fast to the rabbit’s right hand. Then the rabbit hit the figure a swinging blow with his left. The left hand stuck to the figure also.

“What can be the matter with you, Sir? You are excessively silly. Let my bands go at once, or I will kick you.”

And the rabbit kicked the figure with his right foot; but his right foot stuck there. Then he got into a great rage, and kicked the figure with his left. And his left leg stuck to the figure also. Then, overcome with rage, he bumped the figure with his head and stomach, but these parts also stuck to the figure. Then the rabbit cried with impotent rage. The antelope, just about this time, came along to drink water; and when he saw the rabbit helplessly fastened to the figure, he laughed at him, and then killed him.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXIV. THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE TWO FETISHES, LIFUMA AND CHIMPUKELA.

Now this is a sad but true story, for it is of recent occurrence, and many living witnesses can vouch for its truth.

Poor King Jack, late of Cabinda, now retired a little into the interior of KaCongo, known to all who visit this part of Africa, either in whaler, steamer, or man of war, owns the fetish called Lifuma. Lifuma had all his life sniffed the fresh sea-breezes, and rejoiced with his people when they returned from the deep sea in their canoes laden with fish. But now circumstances (namely, the occupation of Cabinda by the Portuguese) forced him to retire to the interior, behind the coast-line between Futilla and Cabinda. How he longed to see his people happy yet again is proved by the trouble he put himself to in trying to gain possession of a part of the sea-beach that he thought should belong to his “hinterland.” He left the sweet waters of Lake Chinganga Miyengela (waters that have travelled even to the white man’s country, and returned without being corrupted) and quietly travelled down to the sea-beach, near to a place called Kaia. Once there, he picked up a few shells and pebbles, and filled a pint mug with salt water, meaning to carry them back to his sweet-water home, and to place them on the holy ground beside him as a sign of his ownership of the sea-beach, and as a means whereby his people might once more play on the sea-beach by the salt water, and once again occupy themselves in fishing in the deep blue sea. Peaceful and benevolent was indeed his mission, and perhaps, as he passed the town of Kaia and Subantanu unmolested, he at last thought that his object was secured. Alas! the bird Ngundu espied him, and rushed to town to acquaint the Kaia people’s fetish, called Chimpukela. Then Chimpukela, ran after Lifuma, and caught him up, and roughly asked him what he had there, bidden under his cloth.

“Go away,” cried the anxious Lifuma, as he pushed Chimpukela aside.

Chimpukela stumbled over an ant-hill and fell, so that when he got up again he was very angry with Lifuma, and knocked him down. Poor Lifuma fell upon a thorn of the Minyundu tree and broke his leg. The mug of salt water was also spilt, and Chimpukela took from him all the relies he had gathered upon his sea-beach.

Then Chimpukela swore that ant-hills should no longer exist in his country, and that is why you never see one there now as you travel through his country.

And Lifuma cursed the bird Ngundu, and the tree Minyundu, and canoes, and salt water, and everything pertaining to the beach. And that is why all these things do not now exist in his country, or on his sweet-water lake.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXV. THE FETISH OF CHILUNGA.

AT a place called Chilunga, north of Loango, there is a fetish called Boio, who by his representative in the flesh, a princess, rules the country with a rod of iron. His dwelling-place is the earth; and as people pass that part which is dedicated to him, they bear his voice. People place their offerings here, and while yet they are looking at them they disappear. The spirit, or fetish, has, besides this human voice, the voice of a certain bird.

The sister of my cook, married to a man in Chilunga, was one day gathering sticks in a wood, when she heard a bird singing very loudly. Half in fun, half seriously, she spoke roughly to it, telling it to keep quiet; when to her astonishment her hands were roughly tied behind her back by some invisible force. She stood rooted to the place, as it were, by fear, and was found there by her husband who, wondering at her delay, had come to look for her.

“How have you angered Boio?” he asked.

She told him what had happened, and said that she did not know that the voice of the bird was that of Boio. The husband ran to the princess, and, having explained the matter, made her a peace-offering. The princess then gave the woman her liberty.

On another occasion some natives laughed at two men who were carrying a hammock-pole as if a hammock was hanging from it. Immediately they were made prisoners by invisible bands, and only released upon a heavy payment being made to the princess by their relations. The men, you see, were carrying the fetish in his hammock, although both it and the hammock were invisible to the passers-by.

Girls who are given in marriage by their parents to ugly men, and who object to them on that account, are taken to the holy ground. Then they hear a voice speaking to them, saying: “Are you then so beautiful that you can afford to despise these good men on account of their ugliness?” Then their hands are tied behind them; and there they remain prisoners until such time as they are willing to marry the men. When the whole town, men, women, and children, go to the holy ground to praise this fetish, it takes a great delight in those who dance well, and punishes those who dance badly.

A certain white man would not believe in the sudden disappearance of the offerings made to this spirit. So he was asked by the princess to come to the holy ground and bring some presents for the spirit. The white man immediately set out with many presents, laughing at the whole matter as if it were a huge joke. His servants placed the gifts upon the ground, while he looked sharply after them. Then they cleared the ground and left him there. And lo! while he was yet looking, the presents disappeared. Then he said he believed in that spirit.

Only two men have the power of seeing this fetish in his earthly home; and they are the men appointed to carry food to him.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXVI. THE LEOPARD AND THE CROCODILE.

ONCE a man and his many wives lived in a certain town far away in the bush. His wives refused to work, and he was at his wit’s ends to know what to do to feed them and himself.

One day a happy thought struck him, and away he went into the bush to cut palm-kernels. He cut twenty bunches in all. Then he sought out the leopard, and made him his friend by presenting him with ten bunches of palm-nuts. The leopard thanked him very much, and told him that if he would cut palm-nuts for him, and him only, he would never more be without fresh meat to feed his wives. The man thanked the leopard, and promised to supply his wants.

Then the man went to the crocodile and presented him. with ten bunches of palm-nuts. The crocodile was indeed thankful, and promised to supply the man daily with a quantity of fish, if he would only promise in his turn to cut palm-nuts for him and no other.

The next day, the leopard came to the man’s town and presented him with a wild pig. The crocodile came soon afterwards and brought him plenty of fish. Thus the town was full of food, and the man and his wives were never hungry.

This continued for a long time, until, in fact, the crocodile and leopard were getting tired of palm-nuts, and asked the man to present them with a dog, as they had heard that dog’s flesh was excellent. Hitherto neither the crocodile nor the leopard had met each other, nor had they ever seen a dog. The man did not wish to lose his dogs, so he told them that he had none. But they each day became more anxious to eat dog’s flesh, and so they worried the man, until at last he promised them a dog each. But he did not mean to give them the dogs. However, they bothered and vexed him so much that they became a nuisance to him, and he determined to rid himself of them.

The next day, the leopard came and asked for a dog, which as yet he had neither seen nor tasted. The man told him that if he went to such and such a place he would there find a dog just to his taste. The leopard left him to find the dog.

The crocodile also came, bringing plenty of fish, and again asked for a dog. The man told him to go to the same place he had indicated to the leopard, and told him that he would there meet a dog that he would enjoy immensely.

The crocodile arrived at the spot first, but saw nothing that he could imagine a dog. So relying upon the word of the man he closed his eyes and basked in the hot sun. After a time the leopard came along and found the crocodile, as he thought, asleep.

“This is indeed a much larger animal than I had imagined the dog to be,” he murmured.

The crocodile, aroused by the rustling noise made by the leopard as he approached, slowly opened his eyes, and thought the leopard was a very large kind of dog, if all he had heard about dogs was true. Hardly had he moved, when the leopard sprang upon him. Then there was a terrible fight, and the man called all the town to witness it. After a prolonged struggle the beasts killed each other, and the man and his people returned to town and feasted upon the food the crocodile and leopard had given him, and sang and danced until the next day.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXVII. WHY SOME MEN ARE WHITE AND OTHERS BLACK.

IT was in the beginning, and four men were walking through a wood. They came to a place where there were two rivers. One river was of water, clear as crystal and of great purity; the other was black and foul and horrible to the taste. And the four men were puzzled as to which river they should cross; for, whereas the dirty river seemed more directly in their way, the clear river was the most pleasant to cross, and perhaps after they had crossed it they might regain the proper path. The men, after some consultation, thought that they ought to cross the black river, and two of them straightway crossed it. The other two, however, scarce touched and tasted the water than they hesitated and returned. The two that had now nearly crossed the river called to them and urged them to come, but in vain. The other two had determined to leave their companions, and to cross the beautiful and clear river. They crossed it, and were astonished to find that they had become black, except just those parts of them that had touched the black river, namely, their months, the soles of their feet, and the palms of their hands. The two who had crossed the black river, however, were of a pure white colour. The two parties now travelled in different directions, and when they had gone some way, the white men were agreeably surprised to come across a large house containing white wives for them to marry; while the black men also found huts, or shimbecs with black women whom they married. And this is why some people are white and some black.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXVIII. THE BIRD-MESSENGERS.

ALL the towns in Molembo or Neotchi were suffering terribly from the awful scourge or evil wind (the disease we know by the name of small-pox). And the chief prince called the princes and people together and asked them if it were not time to ask Nzambi Mpungu why he was so cross with them? And they all agreed that it was so. But whom were they to send? They said that the Ngongongo was a wonderful bird, and could fly in a marvellous way. They sent him with a message to Nzambi Mpungu; but when he got there, and cried out “quang, quang, quang,” it was evident that Nzambi Mpungu did not understand his tongue. So he flew back back to Neotchi and reported his failure.

Then Neotchi sent the rock-pigeon (mbemba), but he could not make Nzambi Mpungu understand, and he also returned to Neotchi.

Then the prince sent the ground-dove (ndumbu nkuku), and she went and sang before Nzambi Mpungu:

 

“Fuka Matenda ma fua

Vanji Maloango ma fua

Vanji Makongo ma fua

Sukela sanga vi sia.”

 

(“Mafuka Matenda is dead,

Vanji Maloango is dead,

Vanji Makongo is dead;

This is the news that I bring.”[1])

 

And Nzambi Mpungu heard what the dove had said, but answered not.

[1. Mafuka means ambassador, and is a title given to certain rich natives. Matenda is the name of a prince of KaCongo. Vanji is a title and has the sense of creator, lord. The last line is a form expressing that one has delivered one’s message.]

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXIX. NZAMBI MPUNGU’S AMBASSADOR.

NZAMBI Mpungu heard that some one across the seas was making people who could speak. This roused his ire, so that he called the ox, the tiger, the antelope, the cock, and other birds together, and after telling them the news, he appointed the cock his ambassador.

“Tell the white man that I alone am allowed to make people who can talk, and that it is wrong of them to make images of men and give them the power of speech.”

And the cock left during the night, passing through a village about midnight, and only a few of the people got up to do honour to Nzambi Mpungu’s ambassador, so that Nzambi Mpungu waxed wroth, and turned the inhabitants of that village into monkeys.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXX. WHY THE CROCODILE DOES NOT EAT THE HEN.

THERE was a certain hen; and she used to go down to the river’s edge daily to pick up bits of food. One day a crocodile came near to her and threatened to eat her, and she cried: “Oh, brother, don’t!”

And the crocodile was so surprised and troubled by this cry that he went away, thinking how he could be her brother. He returned again to the river another day, fully determined to make a meal of the hen.

But she again cried out: “Oh, brother, don’t

“Bother the hen!” the crocodile growled, as she once more turned away. “How can I be her brother? She lives in a town on land; I live in mine in the water.”

Then the crocodile determined to see Nzambi about the question, and get her to settle it; and so he went his way. He had not gone very far when he met his friend Mbambi (a very large kind of lizard). ” Oh, Mbambi!” he said, “I am sorely troubled. A nice fat hen comes daily to the river to feed; and each day, as I am about to catch her, and take her to my home and feed on her, she startles me by calling me ‘brother.’ I can’t stand it any longer; and I am now off to Nzambi, to hold a palaver about it.”

“Silly idiot!” said the Mbambi, do nothing of the sort, or you will only lose the palaver and show your ignorance. Don’t you know, dear crocodile, that the duck lives in the water and lays eggs? the turtle does the same; and I also lay eggs. The hen does the same; and so do you, my silly friend. Therefore we are all brothers in a sense.” And for this reason the crocodile now does not eat the hen.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXXI. THE THREE BROTHERS.

IN the beginning, when KaCongo had still one mother, and the whole family yet lived on grass and roots, and knew not how to plant, a woman brought forth three babes at one birth.

“Oh, what am I to do with them?” she cried. “I do not want them; I will leave them here in the grass.” And the three little ones were very hungry, and looked about them for food. They walked and walked a long long way, until at last they came to a river, which they crossed.

They saw bananas, and palm-trees, and mandioca, growing in great quantities, but dared not eat the fruit thereof. Then the river-spirit called to them, and told them to eat of these good things. And the tiniest of the three tried a banana and found it very sweet. Then the other two ate them, and found them very good. And after this they ate of the other trees, and so grew up well nurtured and strong; and they learnt how to become carpenters and blacksmiths, and built themselves houses. The river-spirit supplied them with women for wives; and soon they multiplied and created a town of their own.

A man who had wandered far from his town came near to where the three brothers had built their home, and was astonished as he approached it, to bear voices. This man happened to be the father of the three brothers. So he returned to his town, without having entered the village, to tell his wife that he had found her children. Then the old woman set out with her husband to seek for her children, and wandered and wandered on, until she was too tired to go any further, when she sank down by the wayside to rest.

Now one of the children of the three brothers came across the old woman, and was afraid, and ran back to tell his father.

Then the three brothers set out with the intention of killing the intruder; but the river-spirit called out to them, and told them -not to kill her, but to take her to their home, and feed her, for she was their mother. And they did so.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

XXXII. DEATH AND BURIAL OF THE FJORT.

ONE of my cook’s many fathers having died (this time, his real father), he came to me with tears in his eyes to ask me for a little rum to take to town, where he said his family were waiting for him. Some days previously the cook had told me that his father was suffering from the sleeping sickness, and was nearing his end, so that when I heard the cry of “Chibai-i ” floating across the valley from a little town close to that in which the cook lived, I guessed who the dead one was, and was prepared to lose the cook’s services for a certain number of days.

The death of the father of a family is always a very sad event, but the death of the father of a Fjort family seems to me to be peculiarly pathetic. His little village at once assumes a deserted appearance; his wives and sisters, stripped of their gay cloths, wander aimlessly around and about the silent corpse, crying and wringing their hands, their tears coursing down their cheeks along little channels washed in the thick coating of oil and ashes with which they have besmeared their dusky faces. Naked children, bereft for the time being of their mother’s care, cry piteously; and the men, with a blue band of cloth (ntanta mabundi) tied tightly round their heads, sit apart and in silence, already wondering what evil person or fetish has caused them this overwhelming loss.

The first sharp burst of grief being over, loving bands shave and wash the body, and, if the family be rich enough, palm-wine or rum is used instead of water. Then the heavy body is placed upon mats of rushes and covered with a cloth. After resting in this position for a day, the body is wrapped in long pieces of cloth and placed upon a kind of rack or framework bed, underneath which a hole has been dug to receive the water, etc, that comes from the corpse. A fire is lighted both at the head and foot of the rack, and the body is covered each day with the leaves of the Acaju, so that the smoke that hangs about it will keep off the flies. More cloth is from time to time wrapped around the body; but, unless there are many palavers which cannot be quickly settled, it is generally buried after two or three wrappings. The more important the person, the longer, of course, it takes to settle these palavers and their many complications; and as the body cannot be buried until they are settled, one can understand how the heirs of a great king sometimes come to give up the hope of burying their relation, and leave him unburied for years. On the other hand, the slave, however rich he may be, is quickly buried.

The family being all present, a day is appointed upon which the cause of the death shall be divined. Upon this day the family, and the family in which the deceased was brought up, collect what cloth they can and send it to some well-known Nganga, a long way off. The Nganga meets the messengers and describes to them exactly all the circumstances connected with the life, sickness and death of the deceased; and if they conclude that this information agrees with what they know to be the facts of the case, they place the cloth before him and beseech him to inform them the cause of their relation’s death. This the Nganga sets himself to divine. After some delay he informs the relations (1) that the father has died because someone (perhaps now dead) knocked a certain nail into a certain fetish, with his death as the end in view, or (2) that so-and-so has bewitched him, or (3) that he died because his time had come.

The relations then go to the Nganga of the fetish or Nkissi mentioned, and ask him if he remembers so-and-so knocking a nail into it? and if so, will be kindly point out the nail to them? He may say Yes. Then they will pay him to draw it out, so that the rest of the family may not die. Or the relations give the person indicated by the Nganga as having bewitched the dead man, the so-called Ndotchi (witch), a powdered bark, which he must swallow and vomit if he be really innocent. The bark named Mbundu is given to the man who owns to being a witch, but denies having killed the person in question. That of Nkassa is given to those who deny the charge of being witches altogether. The witches or other persons who, having taken the bark, do not vomit are either killed or die from the effects of the poison, and their bodies used to be burnt. Since civilized government have occupied the country a slight improvement has taken place, in that the relations of the witch are allowed to bury the body. If events turns out as divined by the Nganga, he retains the cloth given to him by the relations or their messengers: otherwise he must return it to the family, who take it to another Nganga.

While all this is going on, a carpenter is called in to build the coffin; and he is paid one fowl, one mat of rushes, and one closely woven mat per day. Rum and a piece of blue cloth are given to him on the day he covers the case with red cloth. Palm-wine, rum, and cloth are given to him as payment on its completion. And now that all palavers are finished, and the coffin ready, the family are once more called together; and the prince of the land and strangers are invited to come and bear how all the palavers have been settled. A square in front of the shimbec containing the coffin is cleared of herbs and grass, and carefully swept; and here, during the whole night previous to the official meeting, women and children dance. Mats are placed immediately in front of the shimbec for the family and their fetishes (Poomba): the side opposite is prepared for the prince and his followers; and the other two sides are kept for those strangers and guests who care to come. At about three o’clock guns are fired off as a signal that all is ready. The family headed by their elder and spokesman then seat themselves ready to receive their guests. Then the guests glide into the village and make their way to the elder, present themselves, and then take their allotted seats.

When all are assembled, the elder addresses the two family fetishes held by two of the family. Pointing and shaking his hand at them, he tells them how the deceased died, and all the family has done to settle the matter; he tells them how they have allowed the father to be taken, and prays them to protect the rest of the family; and when he has finished his address, the two who hold the fetishes, or wooden figures, pick up a little earth and throw it on the beads of the fetishes, then, lifting them up, rub their heads in the earth in front of them.

Then the elder addresses the prince and his people, and the strangers who have come to bear how the deceased has died, and offers them each a drink. When they have finished drinking, he turns to the fetishes and tells them that they have allowed evil to overtake the deceased, but prays them to protect his guests from the same. Then the fetishes again have earth thrown at them, and their heads are once more rubbed in the earth.

And now the elder addresses the wives and tells them that their husband has been cruelly taken from them, and that they are now free to marry another; and then, turning to the fetishes, he trusts that they will guard the wives from the evil that killed their husband; and the fetishes are again dusted and rubbed in the earth.

On the occasion that I watched these proceedings, the elder got up and addressed me, telling me that my cook, who had served me so well and whom I had sent to town when he was sick, etc.,etc., had now lost his father; and once more turning to his fetishes, the poor creatures were again made to kiss old mother earth, this time for my benefit.

If a witch has to undergo the bark-test, rum is given to the prince, and he is told that if he hears that the Ndotchi has been killed he is to take no official notice of the fact.

Then the men dance all through the night; and the next day the body is placed in the coffin and buried. In KaCongo the coffin is much larger than that made in Loango; and it is placed upon a huge car on four or six solid wheels. This car remains over the grave, ornamented in different ways with stuffed animals and empty demijohns, animal-boxes, and other earthenware goods, in accordance with the wealth of the deceased. I can remember when slaves and wives were buried together with the prince; but this custom has now died out in Loango and KaCongo, and we only bear of its taking place far away inland.

The “fetish cbibinga”[1] sometimes will not allow the corpse to close its eyes. This is a sure sign that the deceased is annoyed about something, and does not wish to be buried. In such a case no coffin is made, the body is wrapped in mats and placed in the woods near to an Nlomba tree. Should he be buried in the ordinary way, all the family would fall sick and die. Should his chimyumba (KaCongo chimbindi) appear to one of his family, that person would surely die. But others not of the family may see it and not die.

The deceased will often not rest quiet until his nkulu (soul? spirit?) is placed in the head of one of his relations, so that he can communicate with the family. This is done by the Nganga picking up some of the earth from the grave of the deceased, and, after mixing it with other medicine, placing it in either the born of an antelope (lekorla) or else a little tin box (nkobbi). Then seating himself upon a mat within a circle drawn in chalk on the ground, he shakes a little rattle (nquanga) at the patient, and goes through some form of incantation, until the patient trembles and cries out with the voice of the deceased, when they all know that the nkulu has taken up its residence in his head. The medicine and earth together with the nkobbi is called nkulu mpemba, and shows that the deceased died of some ordinary disease; but when the medicine and earth are put into the lekorla it shows that the deceased died of some sickness of the bead, and this is called nkulu mabiali.

[1. Chibinga is the state of a corpse which remains with its eyes open, and is also the power, or nkissi, that is the cause of this affliction.]

The Fjort say the “shadow” ceases at the death of the person. I asked if that was because they kept the corpse in the shade; what if they put the corpse in the sun? The young man asked turned to his elderly aunt and re-asked her this question. “No,” she said emphatically, “certainly not!”[1]

[1. Miss Kingsley writes as follows on this: “The final passage is an unconscious support to my statements regarding the four souls of man. The shadow dies utterly at bodily death; therefore it does not matter whether the corpse is in the sun, or no, because the shadow it might throw would not be the shadow of the man as he was when alive; it would only be the shadow of the dead stuff.” (See Folk-Lore, vol. viii., p. 144.)]

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

APPENDIX I.

 

BY MARY H. KINGSLEY.

 

NZAMBI.

IN the preceding pages Mr. Dennett’s observations have been given just as they have reached the hands of the Folk-Lore Society; but there are many more of his observations on the religion of the Fjort which have come into my hands, unfortunately in so scattered a state that they cannot be given as separate chapters, little fragments of a few pages only, paragraphs in letters, and so on. Yet, as these fragments contain much valuable information in themselves, and also help in the understanding of much of the information he has sent home from KaCongo and Loango in a more connected form, I have collected some of them, and give them here without any alteration of Mr. Dennett’s words, except obvious and trifling errors.

I have explained in the Introduction that I regard Nkissism as a school of the fetish form of thought, and that I regard Mr. Dennett as the best authority we have on this particular school of this great Nature-Religion. The most important bit of work that he has done for us in the study of Nkissism seems to me to be his explanation of the word Nzambi in its inner meaning. Mr. Dennett himself would probably not agree with me on this point, and prefer to base his claim to honour on his investigation of the inner meaning of the whole Fjort language; but, at present, he has not sent -up his observations in this matter in a form that makes sufficient allowance for the ignorance of the civilised world regarding that beautiful but complex form of Bantu; and, as the material Mr. Dennett has sent home regarding the inner meaning of the Fjort language is not printed in this volume, I will confine my collection of supplementary matter to Nzambi and the religion which surrounds her.

Mr. Dennett says in a letter of the 6th July, 1897:

1 have translated Nzambi as the Spirit of the Earth or Old Mother Earth. But Anza is the River Congo, and so Anzambi might well be translated the River-Spirit; but this does not fit in with Fjorts’ explanation of Nzambi, who figures in their folklore as the Great Princess, the mother of all animals, etc., the real truth being that Anza, the river, comes out of the earth, Nsi. In Fjort legends the river-spirits are legion, the name of the river and the spirit being one, Anzambi then is the spirit of the River Congo. All river-spirits appear to teach some lesson, physical or moral. In one story you will see the river-spirit taught the Fjort to plant bananas and manioc,[1] to forge iron and so on; and I have given you the real etymology of the word Nzambi and its real meaning, which fits in with the ideas, with the love of Mother Earth (Nzambi, mother earth) and this knowledge of the Anzambi, River-Spirit.

Nsi the earth may be also translated as the Offspring of the Beginner; then we have the river-spirit of knowledge coming out of the spirit of motherhood, which in its turn is the (N) Offspring of the (isi) Beginner.

That Mr. Dennett is right in this matter I have no doubt from my own investigations of important words in other schools of fetish than Nkissism; but that it will seem clear to those who have not personally wrestled with the difficulties of such words as Nzambi, or Woka, I feel many doubts. I hope, however, Mr. Dennett will soon be able to publish a full account of his long study of the Fjort language, and that may make the affair clearer. Of one thing I am very sure; and that is, that until we know the underlying meaning

[1. Bananas and manioc were introduced in Fjort culture by the Roman Catholic missionaries, who first landed among the Fjort in 1490, but I found Anyambie as a great god among the Mpongwe, but with them it is not Anyambie, that is connected with knowledge, and with the river, and sea, but Mbuiri (see Travels in West Africa, p. 228). The difference between the Fjort and the Mpongwe in this matter is easily explainable, for the Mpongwe did not receive, up any of their rivers, Roman Catholic missionaries to the same extent and in the same manner as the Fjorts received, via the Congo, instruction and now articles of food. The underlying idea, which is earlier than the introduction of manioc and bananas, is identical. – M. H. K.]

of the languages of Africa, we cannot safely dogmatise regarding the African’s religion. I do not say ‘that when Mr. Dennett does publish his key to the Fjort alphabet, he and I will be found to agree in all deductions; because, although we both steep our minds in black and agree in black, we, in our white capacities, start from very different points of view in these matters.

I now pass on to another fragment of Mr. Dennett’s observations on Nzambi, wherein he says:–

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

ABOUT NZAMBI.

It is the most difficult thing in the world at present, I think, to get a clear definition of Nzambi Mpungu, or of Nzambi, from the natives themselves in a direct way.

Some say that Nzambi Mpungu made the world and sent Nzambi there, and that then he came down and married his creation, and thus became the father of us all. And of course we have distorted versions of the Creation according to the Bible. God, we are told, made man and woman, and put them in a large white house in a beautiful garden and told them not to eat of the tree of shame. But before they took charge of their house, thousands and thousands of rats trooped out of it. They ate of the tree of shame, and when God called to see them they were ashamed and dared not come out. And so forth.

Still the faint notion of a spirit that rules the rains and sends the lightning, and gives them rainbows, exists; and they call that very humanised spirit Nzambi Mpungu.

But Nzambi, as the great princess that governed all on earth, is ever in their months as a mighty ruler, and she seems to have obtained the spirit of rain, lightning, etc., and to have buried it in her bowels. The following is a little story that gives her a human shape, and fixes her position as a mother:

Some women were busy planting in a country where water was scarce, so that they had brought their sangas, containing that precious fluid, with them. As they were working, a poor old woman, carrying a child on her back, passed by them, hesitated for a moment, and then walked back to them and asked them to give her child a cup of water.

The women said that they had carried the water from afar, and needed it for themselves, as there was no water just there.

The poor old woman passed on, but told them that they would one day regret their want of charity.

Noticing a man up a palm tree, she asked him if he would mind giving her baby a little palm-wine, as the poor little thing, she was afraid, was dying of thirst.

“Why not, mother?” he replied, and straightway came down the tree and placed a calabash at her feet.

But I have no cup,” she said.

“Nay, mother, let me break this spare calabash, and give the child a drink.”

She thanked him, and went her way, saying: “Be here, my son, at this time to-morrow.”

He wondered what the old woman meant; but such was the impression her words had made upon him, that he could not sleep at all that night, and felt himself obliged, when the morrow came, to proceed to the place.

“Surely this cannot be the place,” he said, as he came near to the palm-tree where he had met the old woman. “There was no water where the women were at work yesterday, yet surely that is a great lake.”

“Wonder not, my son,” said the old woman, as she approached him, “for thus have I punished the women for their want of charity. See my son, this lake is full of fish, and you and all men may fish here daily, and the abundance of fish shall never grow less. But no woman shall eat the fish thereof, for as sure as she eats the fish of this lake, so surely shall she immediately die. Lot the lake and its fish be kazila for women. For I, Nzambi, have so ordered it.” Nzambi then loaded the young man with many gifts, and told him to depart in peace. The name of this lake is Bosi, and it is situated a few miles inland behind a place called Futilla.

Another story proves to us that retribution is an attribute of Nzambi:

An old lady, after some days’ journey, arrived at a town called Sonanzenzi, footsore and weary, and covered with those terrible sores that afflict a great number of the Negroes in the Congo district. The old lady asked for hospitality from each householder as she passed through the town; but they all refused to receive her, saying that she was unclean, until she arrived at the very last house. Here the kind folk took her in, nursed and cured her. When she was quite well and about to depart, she told her kind friends to pack up their traps and leave the town with her, as assuredly it was accursed and would be destroyed by Nzambi. And the night after they had left it, heavy rains fell, and the town was submerged, and all the people drowned, for Sonanzenzi was in a deep valley, quite surrounded by hills. And now as the people of Tandu pass on their way to Mbuela, and they look down into the deep waters, they notice the sticks of the houses at the bottom; and they remember that Nzambi would have them take care of the sick, and not turn them cruelly away from their doors.

From the following, one gathers that Nzambi is also a judge:

Nzambi was in her town resting, when she was called to settle a palaver in a town close to. She and her followers went, and after the usual preliminary formalities, commenced to talk the palaver. While they were yet talking, Nzambi heard the drum beaten in her own town, and wondered greatly what the matter could be. She sent the pig to see what the disturbance was, and to find out who had dared to beat her Ndungu zilo, or great drum, during her absence. But the pig returned, and said: “Princess, I did not see anyone in the town, and all was quiet and in order.”

“Strange!” said Nzambi, “but I distinctly heard the beating of my drum.”

They continued the palaver until Nzambi again heard her drum beating.

“Go immediately, O antelope!” said Nzambi, “and find out who is beating my drum.”

The antelope went and returned; but he had not seen nor heard anything. They continued the palaver, and just as they drew it to a close, Nzambi heard the drum a third time.

“Let us all go and find out,” said Nzambi, “who has thus dared to disturb us.”

They went, but saw nothing.

“Hide yourselves in the grass round about the town, and watch for the intruder!”

Then they saw the crab coming out of the water. Breathlessly they all watched him. They saw the crab creep stealthily up to the drum and beat it. Then they heard him sing:

“Nzambi has gone up to the top of the mountain, and left me here all alone.”

Then the people rushed out of the grass, and caught the terrified crab and dragged him to Nzambi.

And Nzambi rebuked him saying: “Thou hast acted as one without a head, henceforth thou shall be headless, and shalt be eaten by all men.”

According to another crab story, Nzambi had already given the crab a body and legs, and promised on the next day to give him a head. Then the crab sent invitations to all around to come and see Nzambi place his head on. And when they had all arrived, he was so proud that he could hardly walk straight. But Nzambi rebuked him for his great pride, and told those who were present that as a warning to them not to be self-glorious she would not give the crab a head. And thus it happens that when the crab wants to see where he is going, he has to lift his eyes out of his body.

Nzambi Mpungu made the world and all the people in it. But Nzambi had made no drum for her people, so that they could not dance. Nchonzo nkila, a little bird with a long tail, fashioned like a native drum that seems always to be beating the earth, lived in a small village near to the town that Nzambi had chosen as her place of residence. This Nchonzo nkila set to work, and was the first to make a drum. He then called his followers together, and they beat the drum and danced. And when Nzambi heard the beating of the drum she wanted it, so that her people might also dance. “What!” she said to her people, “I, a great princess, cannot dance, because I have no drum, while that little wagtail dances to the beat of the drum he has made. Go now, O antelope, and tell the little wagtail that his Great Mother wants his drum.”

And the antelope went to wagtail’s town and asked him to send Nzambi his drum.

“Nay,” answered the wagtail, “I cannot give Nzambi my drum, because I want it myself.”

“But,” said the antelope, “the great mother gave you your life; surely you owe her something in return.”

“Yes, truly,” answered wagtail, “but I cannot give her my drum.”

Lend it to me then, said the antelope, “that I, may play it for you.”

“Certainly,” said the wagtail.

But after beating the drum for a short time, the antelope ran away with it. Then wagtail waxed exceeding wrath, and sent his people after him. And they caught the antelope and killed him, and gave him to their women to cook for them.

After a while Kivunga, the hyena, was sent by Nzambi to see why the antelope was so long away. And he asked Nchonzo nkila what had become of the antelope. And Nchonzo nkila told him.

“Give me then some of his blood, that I may take it to our mother, and show her.”

Nchonzo nkila gave him some, and Kivunga took it to Nzambi, and told her all that had occurred. And Nzambi was grieved at not being able to secure the drum. Then she addressed the Mpacasa, or wild ox, and besought him to get her the drum. But Mpacasa tried the same game as the antelope, and met with the same fate. Kivunga came again, and was told by the wagtail that Mpacasa had been killed by his people for trying to steal the drum. Kivunga returned to Nzambi, and told her how Mpacasa had tried to run away with the drum, and had been killed. Nzambi grieved sorely, and would not be comforted, and cried out to her people, praying them to get her Nchonzo nkila’s drum.

Then Mflti (the ant) stood out from among the people and volunteered, saying: “Weep not, O Nzambi, I will get the drum for you.”

“But you are so small a creature, how will you secure the drum?”

“From the fact of my being so small I shall escape detection.”

And so the ant went out to wagtail’s town, and waited there until all were asleep. Then he entered the house where the drum was kept, and carried it away unperceived, and brought it to Nzambi. And Nzambi rewarded the ant and then beat the drum and made all her people dance.

Then Nchonzo nkila heard the noise, and said: “Listen! they are dancing in Nzambi’s town. Surely they have stolen my drum.”

And when they looked in the house for the drum, they found it not. So Nchonzo nkila became very angry and called all the birds together; and they all came to hear what he had to say, save the Mbemba, or pigeon. Then they discussed the matter and decided upon sending Nzambi a messenger, asking her to appoint a place of meeting where the palaver between them might be talked. And Nzambi promised to be in Neamlau’s town the next day to talk the palaver over before that prince.

Then Nchonzo nkila and his followers went to Neamlau’s town and awaited Nzambi. Two day’s they waited, and on the third Nzambi and her people arrived.

Then Nchonzo nkila said: “O, prince! I made a drum and Nzambi has taken it from me. It is for her to tell you why; let her speak.”

Nzambi arose and said: “O, prince! My people wished to dance, but we had no drum, and therefore they could not. Now I heard the sound of a drum being beaten in the village over which I had set Nchonzo nkila to rule. I therefore first sent the antelope as my ambassador to Nchonzo nkila to ask him for the drum; but his people killed the antelope. I then sent Mpacasa for the drum; but they killed him also, as Kivunga will bear witness. Finally I sent the ant; and he brought me the drum, and my people danced and we were happy. Surely, O prince, I who brought forth all the living in this world have a right to this drum if I want it.”

Then Kivunga told them all he knew of the palaver.

Nenlau[1] and his old men, having heard all that was said, retired to drink water. When he returned, Nenlau said: “You have asked me to decide this question, and my judgment is this: It is true that Nzambi is the mother of us all, but Nchonzo nkila certainly made the drum. Now when Nzambi made us, she left us free to live as we chose, and she did not give us drums at our birth. The drums we make ourselves; and they are therefore ours, just as we may be said to be Nzambi’s. If she had made drums and sent them into the world with us, then the drums would be hers. But she did

[1. Nenlau is a contracted form of Neamlau.]

not. Therefore she was wrong to take the drum from Nchonzo nkila.”

Nzambi paid Nchonzo nkila for the drum, and was fined for the mistake.

Then both Nzambi and Nchonzo nkila gave presents to Nenlau and went their way.

Thus, in this case, we have Nzambi brought down to the level of the rest of the world, and judged by human laws. And such is the native idea of their second divinity; for while they willingly give her credit for being the mother of all things and full of all power, they cannot entertain the idea of her being other than human.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NZAMBI’S DAUGHTER AND HER SLAVE.

Nzambi had a most beautiful daughter, and she took the greatest care of her. As the child grew up, she was kept within the house, and never allowed to go outside, her mother alone waiting upon her. And when she arrived at the age of puberty, her mother determined to send her to a town a long way off, that she might be undisturbed while she underwent her purification in the paint-house.

She gave her child a slave; and unnoticed these two left Nzambi’s town for the distant place where the paint-house was situated.

“Oh, see there, slave! what is that?”

“Give me your anklets, and I will tell you,” answered the slave.

The daughter of Nzambi gave the slave the anklets.

“That is a snake.”

And then they walked along for some time, when suddenly the daughter of Nzambi said: “Oh, slave, what is that?”

“Give me your two new cloths, and I will tell you.”

She gave the slave the two cloths.

“That is an antelope.”

They had not gone far when the daughter again noticed something strange.

“Slave, tell me what that thing is? Give me your bracelets.”

The girl gave the slave her bracelets.

“That thing is an eagle.”

The princess thought it wonderful that the slave should know so much more than she did; and when she caught sight of a thing rising gently from the ground, she turned to her again and asked: “And what is that?

“Give me your coral necklace.”

The girl gave the slave the coral.

“That is a butterfly.”

The next time she asked the slave for information, the slave made her change her clothes with her; so that while she was nearly naked, the slave was dressed most beautifully. And in this fashion they arrived at their destination, and delivered their message to the prince.

After the proper preparations they placed the slave in the paint-house, with all the ceremony due to a princess; and they set the daughter of Nzambi to mind the plantations. In her innocence and ignorance the daughter of Nzambi at first thought all this was in order, and part of what she had to go through; but in a very short time she began to realize her position, and to grieve about it. She used to sing plaintive songs as she minded the corn, of how she had been mistaken for a slave, while her slave was honoured as a princess. And the people thought her mad. But one day a trade-caravan passed her and she asked the trader where he was going, and he answered: “To Nzambi’s town.”

“Will you then take a message to Nzambi for me.”

The trader gladly assented.

“Then tell her that her daughter is as a slave watching the plantations, while the slave is in the paint-house.”

He repeated the message; and when she had said that it was correct, he went on his way and delivered it to Nzambi.

Nzambi and her husband immediately set out in their hammock, accompanied by many followers, for the town where she had sent her daughter. And when she arrived she was greatly shocked to see her daughter in that mean position, and would have punished the prince, had she not seen that he and his people were not to blame.

They called upon the slave to come out of the paint-house. But she was afraid, and would not. Then they entered, and having stripped her of all her borrowed plumes, they shut her within the house and burnt her.

Mr. Dennett also informs me that, in districts occupied by Fjort south of the Congo, the high roads from the sea to the capital town are called “the footsteps of Nzambi.” We now pass on to the consideration of the cult which has Nzambi for its central object, namely the cult of Nkissism. Mr. Dennett says:–

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NKISSISM.

Nkissi means the mysterious power that is contained in plants and herbs and earth, or, as we should say, the medicine or poison. Hence it comes to mean any mysterious power-in short, a mystery. The power of the hypnotiser is called Nkissi; the hypnotiser is called Ndotchi or Ndokki. The poisoner is also called by this name. To explain the Great Something, the unknown power that certainly governs the universe, has puzzled the Fjort, as it has puzzled all others who have tried to dive beyond the regions of certainty. But while others have reasoned and sought after wisdom, Fjort has just put the whole matter on one side, and called it Nkissi. So that it has not been a search after wisdom so much as a severe letting alone. His knowledge has come to him from his experience of a series of hard lessons in every-day life.

He suffered pain; fire burnt him; water drowned him; without food he hungered; sickness caused him pain, and death followed sickness. He ascribed it to Nkissi. Herbs poisoned some people, and herbs contained the power that cured others–Nkissi. Here there was something visible that contained the Nkissi; that caused pain and relieved it. Whence this power? It grew with the trees and herbs out of the earth: Nkissi nsi the mysterious power that comes from the earth. Fearful earth, or Nza-mbi, really, terrible firstborn, mother, or producer. The earth is the father’s firstborn; the father’s name, Mpungu.

Thus have we arrived at the name the Fjort has given to the Creator. He calls him Nzambi Mpungu, the Father of the Fearful Firstborn, or Earth.

The Rev. Pere Alexandre Visseq, in his Fiot Dictionary, under the heading “Nzambi,” says it means “God, the Supreme Being, Creator and Preserver of the Universe. The Negroes believe in a Supreme Being who has made all things. According to them, he is a great monarch who has a great number of wives and beautiful children. He passes a happy existence in the heavens, and scarcely troubles himself about us. As he is not wicked, there is no use in their offering him sacrifices. Below him there are smaller divinities capable of doing barm. It is necessary to pray to them, invoke them and adore them. God is not jealous of the worship people render to them,” and so on. I think we need not pursue this definition any further. There can be no doubt that the Supreme Being, Nzambi Mpungu, and Nzambi, Mother Earth, are two separate and distinct conceptions.

But we have another dictionary to appeal to, that of Mr. Bentley, a Baptist missionary in the Congo. And his vast knowledge of the natives and their language commands our respect. He writes: “The root of the word Nzambi has not been found in Congo. It is suggested by Mr. Kobbe in his Huero Dictionary that in Kurunga, ‘Ndyambi’ = God, and Ndyambi is derived from Yamba, to present on a special occasion, and connects it with Ndyembi, a reward, to which may be allied the Congo Nzamba, a toll for a bridge or a ferry. These suggestions can scarcely be regarded as satisfactory.” So much for this authority.

But in the Tandu dialect of the Congo district, the word Mpungu means Father in the sense of Creator. And in the words: Nsusu, the young of a fowl, chicken; Nswa, the child; Nsa, dependents; Nsa Ka, the title of the heir apparent of the throne of Congo; we have a root which, in each case, refers to immediate offspring or dependence.

You will also learn as we proceed that Nzambi is talked of as the mother of all things, the first daughter of the first father. Nza, the earth, was the creator’s first creation. That the earth that contained the Nkissi that poisoned or cured people should have been called the bad (mbi) earth, in the sense of the earth that is to be feared, is surely not a wonderful conclusion.

Hence Nza mbi, I conclude, first meant the Fearful First-born and producer. Thus we have Nkiss nsi, Nzambi’s spirit, mystery in the earth; Nzambi, the Fearful First-born of Mpungu, the Father: a Trinity.

Mpungu, or, as he is more often called, Nzambi Mpungu, the father of the Fearful First-born, is seldom invoked by the natives. He is far above them. A father perhaps; but do not the children belong to the mother? and is it not to their mother and her family that they must look for assistance? The line between the white man’s God and Nzambi Mpungu is a very thin one. The Negro has got as far as natural religion will take him, and admits that he knows little or nothing about Him. He is willing to believe whatever the white man likes to tell him. And thus we have Nzambi Mpungu, the father of Nzambi, described to us in their mythology, or folklore, as a human being-as a naked man. This idea has crept into their minds through their having come across pictures of Our Lord as he is painted dying for us upon the cross.

There is a man still living who declares that he was translated to heaven and saw Nzambi Mpungu. He lives in a town not far from Loango. He says that one day, when it was thundering and lightning and raining very heavily, and when all the people in his village, being afraid, had hidden themselves in their shimbecs, he alone was walking about. Suddenly, and at the moment of an extraordinarily vivid flash of lightning, after a very loud peal of thunder, he was seized and carried through space until he reached the roof of heaven, when it opened and allowed him to pass into the abode of Nzambi Mpungu. Nzambi Mpungu cooked some food for him, and gave him to eat. And when he had eaten, he took him about and showed him his great plantations and rivers full of fish, and then left him, telling him to help himself whenever he felt hungry. He stayed there two or three weeks, and never had he had such an abundance of food. Then Nzambi Mpungu came to him again, and asked him whether he would like to remain there always, or whether he would like to return to the earth. He said that he missed his friends, and would like to return to them. Then Nzambi Mpungu sent him back to his family.[1]

I have said in the Introduction, that from historical tradition and from internal evidence, it is clear that Nkissism is a superimposed religion on the peoples of Loango and KaCongo, and that I believe the religion that was extant in these regions before the coming of the sons of the king of Congo and the priests of the Congo religion (Nkissism) was a religion identical

[1. This story was told to me by Antonio Lavadeiro, my linguister, or head-man, at Bintamba, River Chiloango.]

in essentials with that which I had opportunities of studying among the tribes of the Mpongwe stem (Mpongwe, Ajumba, Orungu, Nkami and Igalwa); and I may remark that among these tribes there is not a priesthood apart, but the house-father is the priest of his people. The following observations of Mr. Dennett seem to me to have a bearing on this point.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

NKISSINSI.

And now it is that we come to Nkissi, the spirit, the power, the mystery, that is contained in the Bilongo, or medicines, in the earth, and trees, and herbs.

The father of the tribe carefully guarded one spot within his domain, in which he planted a stunted baobab, or placed a sacred stone, or a wooden image. Nails were not driven into this image, and the place so set apart was sacred-sacred to the mysterious power or spirit-and this was called his Nkissinsi. He was father and priest, or Nganga, the man learned in the folklore of his people. He it was who cured the sick, and instructed the young by his wise words and stories. He, as the direct descendant of Nzambi, ruled his people by that moral authority that devolved from what he considered his God.

But as this family became great, it was ruled not only by the father, but by those elders that he might select to govern certain districts under him; and these lieutenants in their turn appointed others to govern small portions of their regency. And finally Ngangas, or priests, men learned in folklore and medicine, were sent to help these lieutenants, and thus the office of ruler and priest, the effective authority and the moral authority, were separated, although the elder still considered himself as high-priest and ruler. The Ngangas became a class apart under the title of Zinganga Nkissi (Zinganga being the plural of Nganga).

These Zinganga developed Nkissisin as time went on, and instituted the Nkissi, or wooden image of a man or a beast charged with medicines. The petitioner who wished to kill the thief who had stolen some of his property, made the Nganga an offering, and drove a nail into the image as he made his request. Or the friends of the sick man would present their offering to the Nganga of a certain Nkissi; and he would present them with some bracelet or amulet, Nkissi, charged with medicine which he affirmed would certainly cure the sick man.

What a field was thus opened to unscrupulous Ngangas, and how quick they were to avail themselves of their chance, we can easily realise.

The Zinganga at last professed to be able to call down the rain from heaven, and thus held the whole country in fear and trembling while they filled their pockets with their peace offerings; and they backed up their profession by wholesale murder and poisoning of all unbelievers. They hypnotised the weak, who thought that some evil Nkissi had possession of them, until the patient’s friends paid the Zingauga heavily to come and cast out the evil spirit, or killed them as so-called witches. They usurped the powers of the Elders, and cast off their allegiance to their great Father, until the great kingdom of the Bantu became cut up into innumerable petty sovereignties.

The month of February is sacred to Nkissinsi. This month is called Muauda. The prince calls all his people before him and addresses them; they then clean the holy ground of all grass and herbs, and for the first fifteen days the people dance and sing. On the fifteenth day all fetishes (Nkissi) are covered up, and no one is allowed to touch an image until the new moon appears again.

The day of the week upon which the prince calls his people together to discuss any subject is called Nduka. Palavers concerning dead people are talked over on the day called Ntono.

The Fjort has four days in his week: Tono; Silu; Nkandu; Nsona, the fourth day, upon which the women will not work in the fields, sacred to production and motherhood.

Touching those things which the Fjort regard as forbidden, and which they call Xina (thina, or tchina), the youngest resident amongst them must have noticed many of these Xina Swine, which no prince will touch. In addition to these, the Fjort regard all things that come from the sea and have not fins and scales as forbidden, and also all eagles, crows, cuckoos, hawks, owls, herons, bats, and snakes.

So long as he knows nothing about it he says he may eat food out of unclean pots, but if he knows that anything unclean has been cooked in the pot in which his food has been prepared, and he eats thereof, he will be punished by some great sickness coming over him, or by death.

The rites of purification are numerous. After menstruation, childbirth, or sickness, they anoint their bodies with palm-oil mixed with the red powder called takula.

Lastly, I give a note of Mr. Dennett’s on the Nkissi of the Musurongo. These Musurongo to this day keep up their tradition for turbulence and miscellaneous villainy with which the Roman Catholic missionaries of the 15th and 16th centuries credited them. They are the descendants of the people of “the Count of Sogno.” I also venture to think that they are a people upon whom Nkissism is a superimposed religion; but the superimposition of this religion on the Musurongo took place prior to superimposition of it on the people of Loango and KaCongo. We have, however, no white record on this point, but it shows faintly here and there in the black tradition, the Musurongo being frequently called “the bastard tribe, or people,” and so on. Nevertheless, the information Mr. Dermett gives of these Nkissi at the present day is of such interest that I include it here.

The principal Nkissi, or wooden images, into which nails are driven in this part of the Musurongo territory are:

Kabata, which is said to kill its victims by givifig them the sleeping sickness.

Nsimbi, that causes dropsy.

Quansi, that infests them with a ceaseless itching.

Then we have their rain-giver, or withholder, called Nvemba.

The Nkissist is robbed, and straightway he goes to the Nganga of Kabata, with an offering, and knocks a nail into the Nkissi (or fetish, as you are given to calling it) that the robber may be plagued with the sleeping sickness and die.

Has he the sleeping sickness, the Nkissist goes to the Nganga, and, perhaps, confesses his sin, and pays him to withdraw the nail and cure him.

It has not rained as it should have done; then the prince collects cloth and goods from his people to present to the Nganga Nvemba; and they all go to the sacred grove, and having made their offering sing and dance, and clap their hands and shout for rain. The Nganga secures them this blessing if he can; -but if he cannot, it is because someone has committed some great act of indecency, or has broken some of the orders of Nvemba-perhaps someone has been digging up the gum copal and selling it to some trader. The fault at any rate is never with the Nganga; and some victim or other is pounced upon and has to appease the wrathful Nvemba by either losing his life, or that of a slave, or else by paying the Nganga.

But if the thief or sinner who has kindled the wrath of Nvemba will not confess his fault, how then is the culprit to be brought to justice?

The Ngauga Nkissi is not behind the sainted priests of our own church in its infancy, and is privileged to proceed by the ordeal of poison, fire, and water. And this again opens to the unscrupulous Nganga a wide field for what is called priestly jugglery, although I do not believe that the Ngangas, who in their simplicity appeal to the interposition of the Great Hidden Power, are necessarily impostors; for they certainly are not.

What we will call the conscience, for want of a better word, of people such as these KaCongos, who are still under the power of a religion full of superstition, is peculiarly sensitive. As then they fully believe that the Great Hidden Power will expose them, is it a wonderful conclusion to arrive at that this fear reacts upon their system? The next time you are in fear and trembling, just try to eat a mouthful of dry bread; and I think that after that you will be a step nearer faith in trial by ordeal than you are to-day, and that you will easily understand how a native suffering from a guilty conscience, and dreading discovery, standing in the presence of the Nganga and the people, when suddenly called upon to swallow a piece of dry mandioco, may probably be choked in his terrible effort to do so. And if fear acts upon the system in this way in this case, why should we doubt its action in other ordeals?

The swindling comes in when a rich sinner confesses his sin to the Nganga, and bribes him to see him through the ordeal safely. The Nganga promises; and the sinner, no longer the victim of fear, gets through the ordeal, even if the Nganga does not help him. But the unscrupulous Nganga does often help by putting a bean in the powdered bark, or casca, and thus ensuring its rejection by the stomach, and by other tricks known to him.

We know that St. Wilfrid built an abbey near Ripon, which was destroyed by fire in 950, and that the privilege of ordeal by fire and water was granted to this church; yet we do not hear people talking of St. Wilfrid as an old humbug. They give him the benefit of the doubt, and call him a saint. And yet I have no doubt that there were unscrupulous priests in those days, quite equal in villany to the vilest Nganga Nkissi of to-day.

But before a man is brought to his trial there must be some evidence against him; and this is supplied by the Nganga, who, having gone through a process of divining, accuses the man of being a poisoner, spell-binder, thief, or adulterer. Thus, a person falling sick will not presume that his sickness is brought about by his own folly, but rather concludes that someone is quietly poisoning him. He therefore calls in a Nganga; and it is this man’s business to divine the evil-doer, or to tell the sufferer that his sickness is a natural one.

I have often known my servants get up in the night after a disagreeable dream and fire off their guns to drive the evil power away, and the next day busy themselves by divining who the person was that was trying to get at them.

I will close this collection of miscellaneous fragments with an account Mr. Dennett gives of the method of conducting a native palaver, a story that shows in what respect the decisions of the law were held, and a story showing the danger that is in words.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

PALAVERS.

It has struck me, as it must have struck all residents in Africa, that the force of reason and logic, as illustrated in his many palavers, plays no mean part in the life of the Fjort.

A discussion takes place between two natives which leads to a quarrel. Each party relates his side of the question to some friend, these friends enter into the discussion, but fail to settle the question in dispute. A bet is then made between the two in the following way: one offers the other a corner of his cloth (a dress), and the other taking his knife cuts it off. Or a stick is broken into two parts, each keeping his part until the palaver is settled. The dispute is then referred to a prince, in whose presence it is “talked out.” This prince decides the matter, and is paid for his trouble. This the Fjort calls “Ku funda nKana, that is to plead and circumstantiate a cause.

Palavers of the above kind of course are easily settled, but the more serious questions, such as those of shedding blood and intertribal dispute, are far more imposing and formal. It matters not whether the tribes have had recourse to arms in their endeavours to settle the palaver; no question is considered finally settled until it has been properly and judicially talked out. In wars of this kind the stronger may gain the day, but the weaker, if not entirely annihilated, will bide his time, and bring the palaver up again on some future and more favourable occasion, and probably be successful in getting right given to him after all. The palaver settled, the fine inflicted paid, the whole question is closed for ever.[1]

The princes before whom the palaver is to be talked are generally seated near the trunk of some wide-spreading, shade-giving tree. The audience sit opposite to them-the defendant and plaintiff and their followers on either side, the space left being thus formed with a hollow square.

If the palaver is one of great importance, and the parties opposed to each other are wealthy, they will employ their pleaders or Nzonzi (who know how to speak). The plaintiff states his case. The defendant states his. The simple bearing of the supposed facts of the case may take days, for each has to trace back the palaver to its origin. “If you want to catch a rat, says the Fjort, “go to its hole.” Then the Nzonzi of the plaintiff argues the case, showing that under each bead his party is in the right, illustrating his speech by well-known comparisons, proverbs, truisms, and songs. The Nzonzi of the defendant) on the other hand, takes up each heading and argues against it. The followers on each side emphasize each

[1. This is common to all the West African tribes I know, and not confined to the Fjort. M. H. K.]

conclusion drawn by the Nzonzi by repeating his last sentence, by clapping their bands, or by joining in the chorus of the song, that the Nzonzi has sung to illustrate his case. If this song is a stirring one and does not tell much either way, princes and audience as well as both sides join in it until by it terrific grunt the presiding prince silences the court.

This kind of thing goes on for many days, perhaps, until the two have as it were talked themselves dry, then, after leaving the court to drink water (as they say), the princes, having decided upon the guilt of the litigant, return. The presiding prince then, going through the counts once more, gives his judgment. Song after song is sung, hands are clapped, and telling words are repeated, until as the prince nears the end of his discourse the whole court is led by pure reason to admit the justice of his words and judgment.

Then a great uproar ensues, the last song is sung with terrible enthusiasm, men jump up and twist themselves about, dancing and waving their spears and guns above their heads. The condemned is fined and given so many days to pay, or if the punishment be death, he is immediately tied up and either killed or ransomed according to his position. If the dispute has been between two tribes, after the fine has been paid an agreement is made between the two parties, and a slave killed, to seal the compact.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE STORY OF A PARTNERSHIP.

There were two partners in trade, but they were of different tribes; one was of the tribe of Mandamba, the other of that of Nsasso. They were going to sell a goat. On their way to market the Mandamba man said to the Nsasso man: “You go on ahead, while I go into the bush; I will tie the goat up here, and catch you up shortly.”

“Ah,” thought the Nsasso man, “he wants to give me the slip.”

So he assented and went on ahead. But when he saw that the Mandamba man had tied up the goat and gone into the bush, he came back and took the goat, and sold it quickly. Then he returned to the Mandamba man. They met, and the Nsasso man asked the Mandamba man how it was that he had been so long.

“Oh, I have lost the goat,” he replied.

“Well, how stupid it was of you not to have given me charge of the goat while you went into the bush!”

“Let us go to the market,” said the Mandamba, man, “we may find the goat there” (for a suspicion of what had occurred crossed his mind).

“Very well,” said the Nsasso man.

On arriving at the market they saw the goat in the hands of a certain man.

“Who sold you that goat?” said the Nsasso man.

“Why, you to be sure,” said the man.

“In truth then our partnership is at an end, for you have grossly deceived me,” said the Mandamba man.

And they went before the king, Nteka Matunga, and the Nsasso man said he thought the Mandamba man meant to play him a trick.

“Yes,” said the king, “perhaps he did intend to do so, as you are of different families, and do not trust one another; but you did play the trick, which amounts to robbery.” The king condemned the Nsasso man to be burnt, but he promised to pay the price of his life to the Mandamba man, and the latter agreed to receive payment, and thus the palaver was settled.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE DANGER IN WORDS.

The Fjort, as we have seen, is quick to give a subtle meaning to words that may have no evil significance. The following may help to bring this force of words before you.

Kingolla one day went to Banana and came back to his town in rather a happy state, and thus influenced he called upon his sister Cha and said: “Keep up your health and strength and look well after your children, they are of a great family, and must live to prolong the race.”

“What can he mean?” thought the sister. “We are all in good health!”

Next day one of the children fell sick and died. And Cha told her father all that Kingolla had said, and how she feared that he had bewitched her little one.

The father accused Kingolla of having poisoned the little one.

Kingolla denied the charge.

“Take casca[1] then,” said the father, “and let God judge between us.”

Kingolla took casca and vomited, thus proving his innocence.

I watched Kingolla’s career, and as it may interest you to know more about him, I give you the following as a sequel to the above.

Some time after this, Kingolla committed adultery with the wife of a man named Lallu. Lallu caught him in the act,

[1. Casea, or cassia, or NKasa, the powdered bark of a tree.]

and fell upon his wife, and stabbed her to death. Then the father of the woman was very wroth with Lallu for spilling the blood of his daughter, when by the laws of the land he (the father) was willing to take his daughter back again and to pay Lallu, not only what he had received for her, but also a sum equal to the value of the food and clothing Lallu had given her during the time she had been with him. Thus the father declared war against Lallu and his family, and they fought. Now Kingolla joined the side of the father, and was the only man killed in that war.

Since the foregoing was in type I have received Mr. Dennett’s notes on certain points raised in the Introduction. Such of them as relate to Nkissism and the allied subject of Kazila, or Xina, are here inserted, at the risk of some repetition, since they help us to form a clearer conception of those matters.

Nkissism is divided into four parts: 1. Nkissi’nsi (or Nkissi anci) Earth or Nature; Nkissi, with the king as high priest. 2. Nkissi, the wooden images into which nails are driven, with their priests or Ngangas. This division may be termed Nganga Nkissi. 3. Nkissi kissi, little fetishes, or family fetishes, with a family Nganga. 4. Medicines, with their Nganga bilongo, or medicine man.

The division here made by Mr. Dennett is interesting, because, under the four fairly distinct schools of Fetish existent in West Africa, you will find these four divisions in the religion. I would prefer to use the word departments, for the form of religion each of these departments deals with is the same in essence. The king deals with one class of affairs, the medicine-man with another, and the private individual sees to his home-fetish for himself. Mr. Dennett has called the Nganga bilongo “the medicine-man,” but this term, I think, belongs more correctly to the Nganga Nkissi. For the Nganga bilongo is the Fjort representative of our apothecary, and is quite a reasonable person in his way, and it is Nganga Nkissi who represents that class to which the name “medicineman” has been applied by European writers. Nganga in Fjort, Mr. Dennett says, means Repeater, i.e. he who repeats the secrets of native religion, family affairs, or medicine, or, as I should say, those parts of religion appertaining to these several things; for no Nganga tackles all of them, but takes a department.

Mr. Dennett’s most important statement is on Kazila, he says:

As it is pronounced to-day it might mean “no road,” and we must remember that in old Portuguese ch had the force of k, and g had a sound between j and z. So Merolla’s “Chegilla” is evidently the same thing as the Kazila. But there is something uncanny about this word; for some natives say it was given them by the Portuguese, and if so, ka or ke is simply a prefix, and the word was gira, which means gibberish or cant. The Fjort cannot roll his r or put l in its place.

The native word (about which there is no doubt) for these things forbidden is (s.) xina (for) Bina. It is xina to steal, to murder, to sleep with a woman on the bare earth, and to eat a certain number of food-stuffs. The punishment is not always death. Sometimes the punishment for eating a forbidden food shows itself in the culprit’s coming out in spots and blotches. I know one family that will not eat pigeons, because that bird, by scratching, let light into a cave in which one of the family’s ancestors had been made a prisoner. Death is certainly not necessarily the punishment for breaking one’s xina.

Merolla’s tale, which Miss Kingsley quotes in the Introduction (p. xxv.), proves that so long as the young Negro knew nothing about it, he was “as right as a trivet,” and that it was only when he was roughly told the truth that his fear and power of imagination got the better of him and killed him. That tale is incomplete, for, according to native law, the host was the cause of the young Negro’s death, and it should end up with: “and the relations of the young Negro fell upon the host, and killed him, and the people said they had done well.” Once the man knew that, even by accident, he had eaten his xina, he would notice something was wrong, and he would go to the Nganga of the fetish set apart for that particular crime, and get the thing righted, or suffer sickness or death, as the case might be. I grant Miss Kingsley that if a native gave another his xina to eat, and that person died within a decent period, he would feel he had murdered him; so that when casca, was given to him to eat as an ordeal, he would die in almost the exactly same way as that in which the young Negro in the story did. All of which proves the terrible hold fear mixed with imagination has over the Fjort’s mind and stomach. A pot in which any xina has been cooked is unclean for ever, as far as that person is concerned, and no amount of washing will do. As I have said, xina are general and particular. The pig is xina to all royal blood; the Ampa kala, or buffalo, to the Bakutu, as a punishment to them for not listening to the words of Maloango; the antelope to a family round about Fahi, for refusing to give water to a voice in the bush when asked for it; fish of certain inland waters to certain people, near Cabinda, for not giving water to Nzambi and her child; and so on. The Fjort believes in the “voice that speaks,” and this voice (as the very soul of man) is taken from the dead father and placed in the bead of a living relation, and it speaks to the dead man’s offspring, and thus what was his xina becomes the xina of his offspring. This is what the reverend fathers would call “conversing with the devil.”

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

APPENDIX II.

 

FJORT SONGS.

THE following Songs and additional matter by Mr. Dennett reached the Editor’s hands in letters after the rest of the book was in type. As they contained valuable illustrations of the native customs and modes of thought, it was determined to add them by way of Appendix. Unfortunately the photographs of the string of symbols and the mode of using it were in such a condition that it was found impossible to reproduce them. Mr. Dennett’s description, however, is so clear that their reproduction is hardly necessary.

The Editor has to thank Miss Kingsley for arranging the translation and explanation furnished by Mr. Dennett of the Song of Hunger, and for further elucidating some of its obscurities. His practice has been to give a translation of each word of the song separately, and at the end of a line or phrase to paraphrase the whole or translate it as closely as the differences of idiom of Bantu and Aryan languages permit. It was thought too tedious to reproduce this procedure in the case of every song; hence, in four out of the five songs here printed, only the translation or paraphrase of the entire line or phrase is given. In the case of the Song of Hunger, however, Mr. Dennett’s procedure has been retained, as an illustration of the construction of the Bantu song.

The name given to the first of the following songs is Miss Kingsley’s suggestion.

It should be noted that the symbol X stands throughout for tch or dj.

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE SONG OF LIFE.

I now have the pleasure of enclosing two photographs, representing, the one a string of symbols or headings of a native song, and the other the boy singing the song from the string.

The song itself and the string came from the Mayumba district, i.e., that country to the north and east of Loango.

The string is composed of pieces of stick, shells, calabashes, and skins and feathers strung together.

1st line. A piece of rounded stick about an inch long.

2nd The shell of a peanut.

3rd A piece of rounded stick with two notches in it.

4th Two pieces of rounded stick (two wives of the dead represented by a small bundle of cloth).

5th A piece of rounded stick (ximanga liambu).

6th Two pieces of rounded stick (ngoma and mavungu).

7th line A piece of calabash (ntumbu).

8th Two pieces of rounded stick (two women).

One little piece of mandioca.

One piece of husk of palm-kernel.

9th One piece of rounded stick (one woman, Buketi).

10th with string round it (nganga nsassi).

11th (Buyali).

One piece of hollow wood for canoe.

12th One rounded piece of calabash (sun).

One half-moon-shaped piece of calabash (moon).

13th One short piece of round stick (two notches).

One small round stick (hammer).

One small bundle of cloth (Bisakala).

14th One piece of wood in shape of cross supposed to represent man with drum between his legs.

A very small piece of wood as drumstick.

15th One round piece of wood (xivunda).

One smaller piece (son).

A bit of the leaf of Indian corn.

16th A flat piece of wood representing bark of a tree.

17th Round piece of stick with string round top (Nganga bi yango).

18th Round piece of stick, one notch (son).

Small piece of stick, drumstick (ngoma).

19th Flat piece of stick like spoon (cease eating).

20th Two little bits of stem of tobacco (pipe and tobacco).

21st Small flat stick (xibala. nganzi).

22nd Rather long round stick with forked stick tied round the top representing Father Makuika, a prisoner.

23rd Small piece of pipe.

24th Round piece of stick tied round the middle.

25th Small piece of grass.

26th Shell.

27th Imitation of a comb.

Piece of wood like hand-mirror.

28th Round stick tied to string 3/4 way up.

29th Skin of Mpakasa.

30th Tail of Ngumba.

Piece of skin.

31st Piece of skin of big antelope (sungu).

32nd Tail-feather of parrot (nkusu).

Tail-feather of pheasant (mbulu nkoko).

So much, then, for the symbols; now for the song. One boy holds one end of the string while the singer holds the other; then, as the latter sings, his fingers touch the symbols. He sings a sentence, the other boy and the onlookers repeat it.

1. Xitini xinkondo xifumina ku Sundi. (Shoots of the silk-cotton tree came from Sundi.)[1]

2. Lunguba lu nkuanji lu fumina ku Sundi. (And peanuts, which are now so common also, came from Sundi.)[2]

3. Ma ngombi xinanga nquanga. (O, mother, ngombi dance the nquanga.)

4. Xibaiia niombo bakanga vulubongo. (Tie up the corpse in native grass-cloth.)

5. Ximanga liambu buna ku manga busu ku bititi. (The man who does not wish to hear the word turns his face to the grass.)

6. Ngoma i Mavungu ba nkote mi kunji. (Ngoma and Mavungu [Truth and Falsehood] are present at all palavers.)

7. Ntumpunganga ntumpu ilanga ma bungu. (Tell us openly the palaver you have hidden in your heart.)

8. Bilezi bixentu ku yolo, biyolo m’uenda ku lindaiia. (Two young ladies after smearing themselves over with takula, or red paint, go to visit their lovers.)

9. Buketi nkuendanga ku buala, keti nkuendanga ku buala kutanga babota. (Buketi keeps on going to town, going to town [because she is pregnant; may she]. bring forth her child well.)

10. Nganga Nsassi Kubela ku mbela. (Nganga Nsassi [Suamil is sick.)

11. Buyali ku buyali tuala ko nlungu, mino ku simika, nlungu. muana ku banda. ([A man on the other side of the river shouts] “Buyali, Buyali, bring hither thy canoe [I want to cross this river],” [Buyali answers]: “I am pushing my canoe along with a bamboo; my child is at the bottom of the river.”)

12. Ntangu mu luanda, ngonde ne bi sunji. (The sun is always marching [as in a hammock], and meets the new moon on the beach.)

13. Nkubi nyundu ‘mduda bi sengo, kududa, kududa, mioko u aka nxienzo, bonga bi sakala u dudila bi sengo. (The blacksmith by beating makes the hoe; he beats and beats the iron until his hammer [too hot to

[1. And now fishermen in Cabinda, etc., make their nets and floats from its bark.

Sundi is the grass country beyond the Mayomba district.]

hold] drops to the ground. [Says his friend:] “Take this bit of native cloth to hold your hammer with, and go on beating the iron and make your hoe.”)

14. Akubemba ndungu kubemba i xikonko. ([He addresses the drummer:] “Take your drum and put it between your legs, and your drum-stick, and beat the drum.”)

15. Xivunda xibuala xinkenia li sango, kukenia kukenia li eno li aka nxienzo; bikela muana mudidi ku manisia li sango. (When a man in town is old and eats Indian corn, he leaves some corn on the cob; and the corn he leaves, his son is forced to finish.)

16. Lubalu lubaluka vi xifumba? (How is it my family respect me no longer?)

17. Nganga biyango biyango ba sumuka. (Some one has touched my birth-fetish [nganga biyango], and it has lost its virtue.)

18. Muana mbela ngoma mi ntomba. (My child is sick; fetch the ngoma [little drum.])

19. Bika i lia malandu e landu landu mabungu. (Let me eat malandu [a fruit] and remember the whole palaver.)[1]

20. Sungu mu xi timba, liamba mu nkondo. ([Put] tobacco in the pipe, liamba [hemp] in the calabash.)

21. Xibala nganzi balanga mabungu. (To think heavily, with a frown on one’s forehead [nganzi], about the palaver).

22. Tata makuika bueka bonso mbi lilanga bueka ieka mu xivanga. (Father Makuika, who is a prisoner, is saluted by his sons, and answers: “Don’t salute me; can’t you see the yoke on my neck?”)

23. Nkonko xitumba bakulu bito babika. (An old pipe left by a relation must not be thrown away.)

24. Muamba sango ntiti bilongo. (Renowned muamba [yellow-tree] is our medicine-tree.)

25. Xizika zika nzila nkulu ntu bititi. (Xizika [grass with great roots] is the old man of the road [nkulu ntu = wisehead. ])

26. Seve nganga sevanga mabungu. (The laugher hears good words and goes on laughing.)

27. Kusimba xisanu ku simbuanga In enueno. (When you comb your hair, hold the glass before you.)

28. Xisinza mazila umananga milembo. (Stumps on the road keep on damaging one’s toes.)

29. Mapakasa xinuaini ntuandi u tabuka. (The buffalo fights until his head falls off.)

[1. The malandu is a fruit given to a man to give him the power of remembering, and the will to speak all that is hidden in his heart.]

30. Nzau e xilanga, ngumba imimbiekesi. (The elephant has a tail [the hairs of which are a valuable ornament], the porcupine has spines.)

31. Sungu kulila mu binauga. (Sungu [the name of a very large kind of antelope] eats on the top of hills.)

32. Nkusu mu nkunda, nbulu nkoko kuta nilolo. (The parrot perches on a branch, the pheasant sings his song [ko, ko, ko, ku, ku.])

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

SONG OF THE BURIAL OF THE FJORT PRINCE.

It has been a very difficult matter to get the song together. One cannot pick it up while they are singing it, for many of the words are new to one; and to sit out of sight, perhaps in a cramped position, from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m. is no joke, and not an aid to one’s work. To go openly to such a meeting means either a disturbance of the peace or a change in the programme. Then when one has got the rough part done and begins to ask questions about the song, the native “fights shy.” He is sufficiently accustomed to the white man’s ways to know that he will not give him credit for being serious, and he does not like his ways laughed at. It needs a native (if he is a good man) of great moral courage to tell a white man these things; and if he is a bad one he must be a great villain, without any sense of respect for the white man he is conversing with, to speak upon such a subject. It is greatly to the Fjort’s credit that he is not worse and more degraded than he is, for he has forgotten the deep meaning of the words he uses, which perhaps would keep him pure in thought in the midst of his “worship ” (?) of maternity, or earth as the mother and bearer of all things. Watching the Fjort at his burial ceremonies, and not knowing the meaning of the words of his song, no one could possibly detect the slightest sign of indecency. Some who, as Chicaia said, had shame, wore the leaves of the mandioca before their persons, and these were under the influence of Christianity. Personally, the pure and unadulterated heathen seemed to me the more decent of the two, naked as he was, for he, like the half-naked stoker on board a steamer, struck me as a man who had a certain work to do, and was not afraid to do it.

The Fjort either destroys the house in which his late relative dwelt after burial, or else dismantles it and sells the material to some other family. He plants mandioca in the ground where the deceased’s bed rested, so that people shall not build there again. The wives sleep in the shimbec with the corpse, but none of the family dare sleep in it after the burial of the deceased, for fear of being considered his poisoner or bewitcher. They fear a meeting with the ghost, or chimbindi, of the deceased, for no one has been known to live more than two days after having been beaten by one.

I took instantaneous photographs of the shimbec and coffin of my cook’s father, whose death and burial I have related.

In my walks through KaCongo it was by no means a rare occurrence to come across a place where orange, lime, and mango-trees were found growing in a half-wild state; levelled terraces, raised foundations, and neglected mandioca plantations clearly pointed to the fact that a village had once existed there. Upon enquiry I found that these places had been deserted, owing to the number of deaths from small-pox. This is one of the reasons why a prince, although he may have a fine house, generally lives in a small shimbec by the side of it. This custom may also be one of the reasons why the Fjort is, as a rule, so poorly housed, apart from the fear he has of being considered a witch if he builds himself a substantial dwelling. If millionaires at home were as easily frightened by the Socialists, where should we all be?

Now for the song. It is past sundown, and the relations and friends about to bury their chief are seated around the coffin, that as yet does not contain the corpse. That relation who has undertaken the burial now arises, and beating the coffin with his hand, cries out:

1. “Mpolo ku fu.” (Bene est mori et quiescere.)

Again he hits the coffin, and cries:

2. “Mpola makata.” (Testiculi bene quiescunt.)

Again he beats the case, and shouts:

3. “Mpolo xikolo.” (Cunnus bene quiescit.)

4. “Mpolo msutu.” (Penis bene quiescit.)

5. “Ku fua nkulu u tuba bu ao.” (Et spiritus mortuus est et dicendi facultas.)

Then the people there assembled take off their clothes, and, after the chief mourner has sung the following verse, burst forth in song, repeating the same words and tune time after time.

1. “Ku aba si tuli monanga.” (In olden days of the earth [these good things] were often seen.)

The song is now changed to:

2. “Basi uanda liboili banonga mpakala bikolo.” (Basi [the Basi, or secret society] illius oppidi saccum virginitatum habent.)

This song is sung by all until they are tired of it, when another one is given out, and so on.

3. “Bakakata boili umquenda o.” (The old folk of the town are all dying.)

4. “Aujei ko u rata mikala abu uaka mkuta ‘mpinda” (You did not plant nor hoe, and now you have a basket of peanuts; [where did you get it?].)

5. “Neno uak’ili bulu msutu nako uvanga li bulu.” (Vulva cavea est, quam fecit penis.)

6. “Beno ni kufulanga nkossa ubilo nkeia kubenga nkossa kubengila nyamu milenji.” (You are always asking about the lobster; don’t you know that its teeth [mouth] are misplaced, and that when you boil it, it becomes red tip to its hair?)

7. “Xilumbu xina xinquenda yaia masuella kwitekanga.” (The day that my brother goes [dies] I keep on shedding tears.)

8. “Ma mbamba [1] songa, neno uvisia munu uaka enxienzo.” (Mambamba, utere cunno bene, donec os ejus doleat.)

9. “Abu lele makata mavia mbazu.” (Dum dormis, testiculi ardent).

10. “Abu lele msutu mavia mbazu.” (Dum dormis, ardet penis.)

11. “Abu lele xikoalo xavia mbazu.” (Dum dormis, ardet cunnus.)

Then comes the final part of this song:

12. “Una uku vena uli ku linda mayaka ma mona u lili obua.” (One gives without being asked. The new mandioca one plants, another eats.)

Then the people sing ordinary songs until the cock crows; then they put the corpse into the coffin. The wife of the dead prince then places a small gourd into a “matet,” or basket, and goes to the place she has been in the habit of going to fetch water. On arriving there, she falls into the water once, twice, three times, and her part in the ceremony of the burial of the Fjort is at an end, and she is free.

When the wife has left the coffin, the chief mourner again sings:

13. “Mingenza monami kuluma tuenda Kamangot [2] fua.” (Young man, my son, push and go; Kamango is dead.)

14. “Mueniyambi [3] ngulubu xina xikoada ku lia.” (Mueniyambi, they

[1. Ma mbamba is said by the Fjort to be the name of a man of old, and to-day he attaches no meaning to the name.

2. Kamango, they say, is the name of an old prince.

3. Mueniyambi, another prince of old.]

said, did not eat pig [but one day he asked them what it was he was eating, and they had to admit that] he was eating the foot of a pig.)

Then the coffin is placed in the hole dug for it, and the earth is heaped up over it by willing hands; and as the Fjort throws the earth upon the coffin, he murmurs:

“Bakulu [1] vandu vandu.” (People of spirit-land, be at rest, be at rest [and don’t bother the people of this world].)

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE SONG OF THE SNAKE.

1. Sanguila mboma kumina muntu.

2. Mbelli sandaugu nkambu ku vonda muntu.

3. Aula mani Zinga bazolila muliambu.

4. Bakana [2] ku vonda, ba vonda kua u-

5. Macosso rnuana Danka banzola maka lilanga.

1. [Si quis, in oppidum cum venerit, dicat] anguem parvulum hominem devorasse, [nemo ei credat. Sic Fjort cum primum de paederastia audivisset) non verum esse credidit.]

2. [Ut inter saltantes opus est] cuivis cultro, quo nescio quem [illudentem] occidat: [sic Fjort, cum primum audivisset aliquem hoc facinus, in se admisisse, cultrum desideravit, quo eum occidere].

3. Filius Zingae, [cujus facies velut] gum-copal [pulchra erat], paederastiae deditus erat.

[1. Bakulu-Nkulu, as I have already described to you, is that part of the dead which the Fjort says can be placed in the head of a living person; Ba, Bantu people; Kulu, perhaps soul, spirit. The Fjort say that the Bakulu are invisible and that they cannot see one another; but they contradict themselves, for on referring to my notes I find that when a man wishes to become rich, he obtains a fetish, or nkissi, called Buti, and when a man who has obtained this fetish dies, his nkulu ties up other Bakulu, and places them in the corner of some shimbec, and keeps them there.

2. Zinga means the long-lived; Bakana, the calculator, the man of thought.

4. Bakana [cum] occidere [voluit, et filius Zingae respondit:] Occide [me, si vis, at ego in flagitio pergam].

5. Macosso, puer Dankae [albi hominis] dominum. amabat, [et quun hic in Europam abiisset] non desiit lugere].

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE SONG OF LOANGO WOMEN.

1. Munu u li vumba lelo u xinda ku vata mama.

2. Muango ma woho ba li aku bunkuela anjea ku kuela mpe.

3. Ku simba va nxenzo, ku simba va ku bella, malongo, malongo mabila nkumbu.

4. Minu uali aku mama.

5. Ndumba buala lelo uiza muinhi.

6. Suaka esesi lelo xindaku sala.

7. Minu uali aku mama

8. Zimvula ziamana.

1. Tu mater cui os est magnum, multum serere debes.

2. Tu qui permultum saltas [nuptae mulieres dicunt] desine saltare, et nube tu quoque.

3. Mulier salax, quae huc illuc (multa loca) visitat, sed si quando cum ea vis coire, morbum nescio quem semper pro excusatione habet.

4. Forsitan quae propria sint tibi palam faciam, O mater.

5. Meretrix in urbem interdiu venire solet [dum nuptae mulieres in villa restant].

6. Gracilis mulier opus suum bene perficit.

7. Forsitan [etc., ut supra (4)].

8. Imbres cessant [id est, hoc carmen de mulieribus, quae per imbres serunt, finitum est].

Notes on the Folklore of the Fjort, by Richard Edward Dennett, [1898]

 

THE SONG OF HUNGER.

1. Xissanga e Buali bi koka mti

2. Muanyali ba nlainbili xikamvu

3. Xinkatu nkatu manyouga

4. Lembe li Ngongo ngeia tubanga

5. Tubanga minu i lembo

6. Xilunga o Quillo bi koka mti

7. Xilunga uaka xi nanu

8. Nzala nguli yalla tanta

9. Ndevo nkunda mbongo

10. Bemvena madungo masina mbinda

11. Zimvula zi Maloango ziaku zimani

12. Xilumbu mfuafua minu kuxibota.

1. Xissanga, a province of Loango; e, and; Buali, another province of Loango; bi, they; koka, drag; mti, a tree.

 

Explanation.-In these provinces the people are dying of hunger, and are therefore making new farms in the Fjort way, clearing forest and dragging about the trees as a sort of rough ploughing.

 

2 & 3. Muanyali, proper name meaning the first stage of pregnancy; ba nlainbili, cooked; xikamvu, large basket used for carrying food; Xinkatu, mat on which food is served; nkatu, mat; manyonga, to feel bitterly in one’s heart.

 

Muanyali gets a large basket and a mat of the large kind, and cooked food, and is angry that the basket and the mat are all right, the food is properly cooked, but there is not enough. This is a common African way of indirectly saying disagreeable things or telling you what they dislike in a thing. “This is right,” they say,” and that is right; ” and they expect you to know what is wantiug. It is as if they set you a subtraction sum: given the total, you deduct what is praised, and the difference is what is disliked. If you don’t arrive at it, you are a fool, and it is no use talking to you.

 

4 & 5. Lembe (the name given to a wife married according to the rites of Lemba, i.e., the wife, properly so called, who binds herself not to survive her husband), the wife of Muanyali; li ngongo (a large fisli-eating bird-a pelican), proper name, ngeia, thou; tubanga, talk; minu, I; lembo, cease.

 

Muanyali’s wife, Lembo, asks her father, Mr. Pelican, to explain to her husband why she has not been able to send him more food. She says to her father: “You talk to him about it; I cease from telling him.” That is, it is no good my telling him, he thinks I could send more if I chose. Then off goes Pelican to his son-in-law, and says:

 

6 & 7. Xilunya e Quillo bi koka mti, Xilunga and Quillo are dying of hunger (details explained above); Xilunga, a province of Loango; uaka, now; xi nanu, is far away.

 

I think this means: “We who live in Quillo (a province of Loango) can get nothing, even if we go to Xilunga, because that is famine-stricken too.” I know, xi nanu, far away, is often used as a description of a place not worth going to.

 

8. Nzala, through; nguli, mother; yalla, hunger; tanta, pain.

 

“The thought of the hungered mother pains them.” Pelican throws this observation in, meaning Xilunga and Quillo grieve for their hungering mothers.

 

9. Ndevo, beard; nkunda, elephant’s tail; mbongo, money.

 

I think Pelican throws out a suggestion that a man named Ndevo nkunda is a rich man, and should be asked for aid; “money,” of course, not being necessarily coin, but possibly in this case food.

 

10. Bemvena, efficiunt; madungo, testiculos tumefactos; masina, fundum; mbinda, cucurbitae.

 

Mulieres viros ita elephantiasi afficiunt, ut testiculi ventri cucurbitae similes fiunt. (A statement not made in the interest of medical knowledge, but connected in the Affican mind with the rainfall, and having a definite bearing on what falls.) Pelican is still speaking.

 

11. Zimvula, rain; zi Maloango, as in the days of Maloango; ziaku, they; zimani, are finished.

 

“Now we no longer get the rains we had in the days of Maloango.”

 

12. Xilumbu, day; mafuafua; die; minu, I; kuxi bota, to be well.

 

“I shall be well cared for the day I die;” I shall be well buried. That is, I wish I were dead. This is the final lament of poor Pelican.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

SPECIMENS OF BUSHMAN FOLKLORE

 

COLLECTED BY

 

THE LATE W. H. I. BLEEK, PH.D.

 

AND

 

L. C. LLOYD

 

EDITED BY THE LATTER

 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

 

GEORGE McCALL THEAL, D.LIT., L.L.D., ETC.

 

TRANSLATION INTO ENGLISH; ILLUSTRATIONS; AND APPENDIX.

 

LONDON

 

GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.

 

Ruskin House, 44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE, W.

 

1911.

 

HERTFORD: PRINTED BY

 

STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, LTD.

 

TO ALL FAITHFUL WORKERS.

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

PREFACE.

With all its shortcomings, after many and great difficulties, this volume of specimens of Bushman folk-lore is laid before the public. As will be seen from the lists given in Dr. Bleek’s “Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore and other Texts”, Cape Town, 1875, and in my “Short Account of Further Bushman Material collected”, London, 1889, the selections which have been made for it form but a very small portion of the Bushman native literature collected. Whether future days will see the remainder of the manuscripts, as well as the fine collection of copies of Bushman pictures made by the late Mr. G. W. Stow, also published is a question that only time can answer.

In the spelling of the native text in the volume now completed, various irregularities will be observed. These have their source chiefly in two causes. One of these was the endeavour always to write down, as nearly as possible, the sounds heard at the time; the other, that Dr. Bleek’s orthography was of a more scientific kind than that of the other collector, whose ear had been mainly accustomed to English sounds.

In a few instances, the “new lines” in the native text and translation do not correspond; as the Bushman and English proofs had often to be sent over separately to Germany for correction.

The corresponding marginal numbers, by the side of the native texts and the translation (which refer to the pages in the original manuscripts), will, it is hoped, be of material assistance to those wishing to study the Bushman language from this volume.

With regard to the extra signs used in printing the Bushman texts, it should be explained that Dr. Block, in order to avoid still further confusion in the signs used to represent clicks, adopted the four marks for these which had already been employed by some of the missionaries in printing Hottentot. He added a horizontal line at the top of the mark |, used for the dental click, for the sake of additional clearness in writing (see the table of signs on page 438 of the Appendix). This addition he intended to discontinue when the time for printing should come; and it no longer appears in the table of signs he prepared for the printer in 1874. The sequence of the clicks, in this last table, he has also somewhat altered; and has substituted the mark @, instead of the previously used @ for the “gentle croaking sound in the throat”.

 

| indicates the dental click.

! cerebral click.

|| lateral click.

# palatal click.

@ labial click.

X an aspirated guttural, like German ch.

Y a strong croaking sound in the throat.

U a gentle croaking sound in the throat.

###126### the nasal pronunciation of a syllable.

= under vowels, indicates a rough, deep pronunciation of them.

indicates the raised tone.[1]

= indicates that the syllable under which it stands has a musical intonation.

` indicates an arrest of breath (as in tt’uara).

 

[1. The tone is occasionally the only distinguishing feature in words spelt otherwise alike, but having a different meaning.]

 

o placed under a letter, indicates a very short pronunciation of it.

– under a vowel, indicates a more or less open pronunciation of it.

ng indicates a ringing pronunciation of the n, as in “song” in English.

r placed over n indicates that the pronunciation is between that of the two consonants. There is also occasionally a consonantal sound met with in Bushman between r, n, and l.

 

A description of how to make the first four clicks, in this list, follows; taken from Dr. Bleek’s “Comparative Grammar of South African Languages”, Part I, Phonology, pp. 12 and 13.

The dental click | is sounded by pressing the “tip of the tongue against the front teeth of the upper jaw, and then suddenly and forcibly withdrawing it”. (Tindall.) It resembles our interjection of annoyance.

The cerebral click ! is “sounded by curling up the tip of the tongue against the roof of the palate, and withdrawing it suddenly and forcibly” (Tindall.)

The lateral click || is, according to Tinddall, in Nama Hottentot generally articulated by covering with the tongue the whole of the palate, and producing the sound as far back as possible, either at what Lepsius calls the faucal or the guttural point of the palate. European learners, however, imitate the sound by placing the tongue against the side teeth and then withdrawing it.” * * * “A similar sound is often made use of in urging forward a horse.”

The palatal click = is “sounded by pressing the tip of the tongue with as flat a surface as possible against the termination of the palate at the gums, and removing it in the same manner as during the articulation of the other clicks”.

The labial click, marked by Dr. Bleek @, sounds like a kiss.

Transcription notes: The stories in this document are translations from Bushman. The Bushman were nomadic hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Kalihari desert in the area of western South Africa known as Namiba and neighboring regions of Angola. The Bushman language, which has many rare phonemes including clicks, is transcribed in the original using typographic symbols which have no correspondence in the HTML character set. All Bushman transliterations are given in italics. For the purposes of this transcription, we use the following symbols for the clicks and other phonemes:

| is a dental click. This is sounded by pressing the tip of the tongue against the front teeth of the upper jaw, and then suddenly and forcibly withdrawing it. It resembles our interjection of annoyance.

! is a cerebral click. This is sounded by curling up the tip of the tongue against the roof of the palette, and withdrawing it suddenly and forcibly.

|| is a lateral click. This is pronounced by covering with the tongue the whole of the palette, and producing the sound as far back as possible, at the guttural part of the palette. A similar sound is often made use of in urging a horse forward.

# is a palatal click. The palatal click is sounded by pressing the tip of the tongue with as flat a surface as possible against the termination of the palate at the gums, and removing it in the same manner as during the articulation of the other clicks.

@ is a labial click. This sounds like a kiss.

X is an aspirated guttural, like German ch.

Y is a strong croaking sound in the throat.

U is a gentle croaking sound in the throat.

All other diacritics have been omitted; however, the dotted n is transcribed as ‘ng’.

This transcription presents the English translations. The original book has Bushman text on the facing pages.–JBH

In the arrangement of these specimens of Bushman folk-lore, Dr. Bleek’s division has been followed. The figures at the head of each piece refer to its number in one or other of the two Bushman Reports mentioned above. The letter B. or L. has been added, to show in which report it was originally included.

“The Resurrection of the Ostrich,” and the parsing of a portion of it, were not finally prepared for the printer when Dr. Bleek died; and it was, here and there, very difficult to be sure of what had been his exact intention, especially in the parsing; but the papers were too important to be omitted.

The givers of the native literature in the “Specimens” are as follows:–

|a!kungta (who contributes two pieces) was a youth who came from a part of the country in or near the Strontbergen (lat. 30 deg S., long. 22 deg E.). He was with Dr. Bleek at Mowbray from August 29th, 1870, to October 15th, 1873.

||kabbo or “Dream” (who furnishes fifteen pieces) was from the same neighbourbood as |a!kungta. He was an excellent narrator, and patiently watched until a sentence had been written down, before proceeding with what he was telling. He much enjoyed the thought that the Bushman stories would become known by means of books. He was with Dr. Bleck from February 16th, 1871, to October 15th,

1873. He intended to return, later, to help us at Mowbray, but, died before he could do so, |hang#kass’o or “Klein Jantje” (son-in-law to ||kabbo) contributes thirty-four pieces to this volume. He also was an excellent narrator; and remained with us from January 10th, 1878, to December, 1879.

Dia!kwain gives fifteen pieces, which are in the Katkop dialect, which Dr. Bleek found to vary slightly from that spoken by ||kabbo and |a!kungta. He came from the Katkop Mountains, north of Calvinia (about 200 miles to the west of the homes of |a!kungta and ||kabbo). He was at Mowbray from before Christmas, 1873, to March 18th, 1874, returning on June 13th, 1874, and remaining until March 7th, 1875.

!kweiten ta ||ken (a sister of Dia!kwain’s) contributes three pieces, also in the Katkop dialect. She remained at Mowbray from June 13th, 1874, to January 13th, 1875.

|Xaken-ang, an old Bushman woman (fifth in a group of Bushman men and women, taken, at Salt River, in 1884), contributes one short fragment. She was with us, for a little while, in 1884; but, could not make herself happy at Mowbray. She longed to return to her own country, so that she might be buried with her forefathers.

To the pieces of native literature dictated by ||kabbo, no giver’s name has been prefixed. To those supplied by the other native informants, their respective names have been added.

Portraits of ||kabbo, Dia!kwain, his sister, !kweiten ta ||ken, |hang#kass’o, and |Xaken-au will be seen among the illustrations; from which, by an unfortunate oversight, that of |a!kungta has been omitted.

The few texts in the language of the “Bushmen” calling themselves !kung, met with beyond Damaraland, which are given in the Appendix, are accompanied by as adequate an English translation as can at present be supplied. These texts were furnished by two lads, whose portraits will also be found among the illustrations. The extract given below, from the Bushman Report of 1889, sent in to the Cape Government, will explain a little more about them. The additional signs required for the printing of the !kung texts are almost similar to those employed in printing the Specimens of Bushman Folk-lore, but fewer in number.

“It had been greatly desired by Dr. Bleek to gain information regarding the language spoken by the Bushmen met with beyond Damaraland; and, through the most kind assistance of Mr. W. Coates Palgrave (to whom this wish was known), two boys of this race (called by itself !kung), from the country to the north-east of Damaraland, were, on the 1st of September, 1879, placed with us, for a time, at Mowbray. They were finally, according to promise, sent back to Damaraland, on their way to their own country, under the kind care of Mr. Eriksson, on the 28th of March, 1882. From these lads, named respectively !nanni and Tamme, much valuable information was obtained. They were, while with us, joined, for a time, by permission of the authorities, on the 25th of March 1880 by two younger boys from the same region named |uma and Da. The latter was very young at the time of his arrival; and was believed by the elder boys to belong to a different tribe of !kung. |uma left us, for an employer found for him by Mr. George Stevens, on the 12th of December, 11 1881, and Da was replaced in Mr. Stevens’ kind care on the 29th of March, 1884. The language spoken by these lads (the two elder of whom, coming from a distance of fifty miles or so apart, differed slightly, dialectically, from each other) proved unintelligible to |hang#kass’o, as was his to them. They looked upon the Bushmen of the Cape Colony as being another kind of !kung; and |hang#kass’o, before he left us, remarked upon the existence of a partial resemblance between the language of the Grass Bushmen, and that spoken by the !kung. As far as I could observe, the language spoken by these lads appears to contain four clicks only; the labial click, in use among the Bushmen of the Cape Colony, etc., being the one absent; and the lateral click being pronounced in a slightly different manner.[1] The degree of relationship between the language spoken by the !kung and that of the Bushmen of the Cape Colony (in which the main portion of our collections had been made) has still to be determined. The two elder lads were fortunately also able to furnish some specimens of their native traditionary lore; the chief figure in which appears to be a small personage, possessed of magic power, and able to assume almost any form; who, although differently named, bears a good deal of resemblance to the Mantis, in the mythology of the Bushmen. The

[1. It will be observed that, in some instances, in the earlier collected !kung texts, given in the Appendix, the mark !! has been used to denote the lateral click, in words where this differed slightly in its pronunciation from the ordinary lateral click, ||. Later, this attempt to distinguish these two sounds apart was discontinued.]

power of imitating sounds, both familiar and unfamiliar to them, as well as the actions of animals, possessed by these boys, was astonishing. They also showed a certain power of representation, by brush and pencil. The arrows made by them were differently feathered, and more elaborately so than those in common use among the Bushmen of the Cape Colony.”[1]

As the suggestion has been advanced that the painters and sculptors were from different divisions of the Bushman race, the following facts will be, of interest. One evening, at Mowbray, in 1875, Dr. Bleek asked Dia!kwain if he could make pictures. The latter smiled and looked pleased; but what he said has been forgotten. The following morning, early, as Dr. Bleek passed through the back porch of his house on his way to Cape Town, he perceived a small drawing, representing a family of ostriches, pinned to the porch wall, as Dia!kwain reply to his question. (See illustration thirty-three.) The same Bushman also told me, on a later occasion, that his father, Xua-tting, had himself chipped pictures of gemsbok, quaggas, ostriches, etc., at a place named !kann where these animals used to drink before the coming of the Boers. Some other drawings made by Dia!kwain, as well as a few by |hang#kass’o, and the !kung boys, will be found among the illustrations. In the arrangement of these, it has not, been easy to place them appropriately as regards

[1. Taken from “A Short Account of further Bushman Material” collected By L. C. Lloyd.–Third Report concerning Bushman Researches, presented to both Houses of the Parliament of the Cape of Good Hope, “.–London: David Nutt, 270, Strand.–1889. pp. 4 & 5.]

the text, as anything standing between text and translation would materially hinder the usefulness of the latter; and, for this reason, the main portion of the illustrations will be placed at the end of the volume.

To show the living activity of Bushman beliefs, the following instances may be given. Some little time after Dr. Bleek’s death, a child, who slept in a small room by herself, had been startled by an owl making a sound, like breathing, outside her window in the night. This was mentioned to Dia!kwain, who said, with a much-pleased expression of countenance, did I not think that Dr. Bleek would come to see how his little children were getting on?

Later, I brought a splendid red fungus home from a wood in the neighbourhood of the Camp Ground, in order to ascertain its native name. After several days, fearing lest it should decay, I asked |hang#kass’o, who was then with us, to throw it away. Shortly afterwards, some unusually violent storms of wind and rain occurred. Something was said to him about the weather; and |hang#kass’o asked me If I did not remember telling him to throw the fungus away. He said, he had not done so, but had “put it gently down”. He explained that the fungus was “a rain’s thing”; and evidently ascribed the very bad weather, we were then having, to my having told him to “throw it away”.

To Dr. Theal, for his most kind interest in this work, and for his untiring help with regard to its publication, to Professor von Luschan, for his kind efforts to promote the publication of the copies of Bushman pictures made by the late Mr. G. W. Stow, to Herrn Regierungsbaumeister a.d., H. Werdelmann, for the copies of Bushman implements that he was so good as to make for us, to my niece, Doris Bleek, for her invaluable help in copying many of the manuscripts and making the Index to this volume, and to my niece, Edith Bleek, for much kind, assistance, my most grateful thanks are due.

L. C. LLOYD.

CHARLOTTENBURG, GERMANY.

May, 1911.

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

INTRODUCTION.

THE Bushmen were members of a division of the human species that in all probability once occupied the whole, or nearly the whole, of the African continent. It would seem that they were either totally exterminated or partly exterminated and partly absorbed by more robust races pressing down from the north, except in a few secluded localities where they could manage to hold their own, and that as a distinct people they bad disappeared from nearly the whole of Northern and Central Africa before white men made their first appearance there. Schweinfurth, Junker, Stanley, Von Wissmann,[1] and other explorers and residents in the equatorial

[1. The following volumes may be referred to:–

Schweinfurth, Dr. George: The Heart of Africa, Three Years’ Travels and Adventures in the Unexplored Regions of Central Africa, from 1868 to 1871. Two crown octavo volumes, published in London (date not given).

Junkier, Dr. Wilhelm: Travels in Africa during the Years 1875-1886. Translated from the German by A. H. Keane, F.R.G.S. Three demy octavo volumes, published in London in 1890-2.

Stanley, Henry N1.: In Darkest Africa or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. Two demy octavo volumes, published in London in 1890.

von Wissinann, Hermann: My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa from the Congo to the Zambesi in the Years 1886 and 1887. Translated from the German by Minna J. A. Bergmann. A demy octavo volume, published in London in 1891.

Casati, Major Gaetano: Ten Years in Equatoria and the Return with Emin Pasha. Translated from the original Italian Manuscript by the Hon. Mrs. J. Randolph Clay assisted by Mr. I. Walter Savage Lauder. Two royal octavo volumes, published at London and New York in 1891.

Burrows, Captain Guy: The Land of the Pygmies. A demy octavo volume, published in London in 1898.]

regions, who have had intercourse with the pygmies still existing in the depths of the dark forest west of the Albert Nyanza, have given descriptions of these people which show almost beyond a doubt that they and the Bushmen of South Africa are one in race. All the physical characteristics are the same, if we allow for the full open eye of the northern pygmy being due to his living in forest gloom, and the sunken half-closed eye of the southern Bushman to his life being passed in the glare of an unclouded sun.

The average height of adult male Bushmen, as given by Fritsch and other observers from careful measurement, is 144.4 centimetres or 56-85 inches. Von Wissmann gives the height of some pygmies that he measured as from 140 to 145 centimetres, or about the same.

Schweinfurth’s description not only of the bodily but of the mental characteristics of his pygmy would hold good for one of the southern stock, Junker’s photographs might have been taken on the Orange river; and no one acquainted with Bushman can read the charming account of the imp Blasiyo, given by Mrs. R. B. Fisher in her book On the Borders of Pygmy Land, without recognising the aborigine of South Africa. Whether he is blowing a great horn and capering under the dining-room window, or caning the big Bantu men in the class which he is teaching to read in the mission school at Kabarole, in order to make them respect him, the portrait in words which Mrs. Fisher has given of that exceedingly interesting pygmy is true to the life of one of those with whom this volume deals.

But those isolated remnants of a race that there is every reason to believe was once widely spread do not offer to ethnologists such an excellent subject for study as might at first thought be supposed, for it would appear from the observations of travellers that they have lost their original language, though this is not altogether certain. Savages though having the passions and the bodily strength of men, are children in mind and children in the facility with which they acquire other forms of speech than those of their parents. The rapidity with which a Bushman learned to speak Dutch or English, when he was brought into contact with white people in South Africa, was regarded as almost marvellous in the early days of the Cape Colony. And so the Bushmen or pygmies of the north, hemmed in by Bantu, although not on friendly terms with them, learned to speak Bantu dialects and may have lost their own ancient tongue. This is to be gathered from what travellers have related, but no one has yet lived long enough with them to be able to say definitely that among themselves they do not speak a distinct language, and use a corrupt Bantu dialect when conversing with strangers. But whether this be so or not, they must have lost much of their original lore, or it must at least have changed its form.

South of the Zambesi and Kunene rivers, in addition to the Bushmen, two races had penetrated before our own. One of those was composed of the people termed by us Hottentots, who at a very remote time probably had Bushmen as one of its ancestral stocks, and certainly in recent centuries had incorporated great numbers of Bushman girls. But these people never went far from the coast, though they continued their migrations along the border of the ocean all the way round from the Kunene to a little beyond the Umzimvubu, where their further progress was stopped by the Bantu advancing on that side. Where they originally resided cannot be stated positively, but there is strong reason for believing that in ancient times they occupied the territory now called Somaliland. The references to Punt in early Egyptian history, and the portrait of the queen of that country so often described by different writers, may be mentioned as one of the indications leading to this belief. Another, and perhaps stronger, indication is the large number of drilled stones of the exact size and pattern of those used by the Hottentots in South Africa–different in form from those manufactured by Bushmen–that have been found in Somaliland, an excellent collection of which can, be seen in the ethnological museum in Berlin. The Hottentots, according to their own traditions, came from some far distant country in the northeast, and they cannot have crossed the Kunene many centuries before Europeans made their first appearance at the extremity of the continent. This is conclusively proved by the fact that the dialects spoken by the tribes in Namaqualand and beyond Algoa Bay on the south-eastern coast differed slightly that the people of one could understand the people of the other without much difficulty, which would certainly not have been the case if they had been many centuries separated. They had no intercourse with each other, and yet towards the close of the seventeenth century an interpreter belonging to a tribe in the neighbourhood of the Cape peninsula, when accompanying Dutch trading parties, conversed with ease with them all.

In our present state of knowledge it is impossible to say when the Bantu first crossed the Zambesi, because it is altogether uncertain whether there were, or were not, tribes of black men in the territory now termed Rhodesia before the ancestors of the present occupants moved down from the north; but those at present in the country cannot claim a possession of more than seven or eight hundred years. When the Europeans formed their first settlements, the area occupied by the Bantu was small compared with what it is to-day, and a vast region inland from the Kathlamba mountains nearly to the Atlantic shore was inhabited exclusively by Bushmen. That region included the whole of the present Cape province except the coast belt, the whole of Basutoland and the Orange Free State, the greater part, if not the whole, of the Transvaal province, and much of Betshuanaland, the Kalahari, and Hereroland. The paintings on rocks found in Southern Rhodesia at the present day afford proof of a not very remote occupation by Bushmen of that territory, but they give evidence also that the big dark-coloured Bantu were already there as well.

By the Hottentots and the Bantu the Bushmen were regarded simply as noxious animals, and though young girls were usually spared and incorporated in the tribes of their captors to lead a life of drudgery and shame, all others who could be entrapped or hunted down were destroyed with as little mercy as if they had been hyenas. On the immediate border of the Hottentot and Bantu settlements there was thus constant strife with the ancient race, but away from that frontier line the Bushmen pursued their game and drank the waters that their fathers had drunk from time immemorial, without even the knowledge that men differing from themselves existed in the world.

This was the condition of things when in the year 1652 the Dutch East India Company formed a station for refreshing the crews of its fleets on the shore of Table Bay, a station that has grown into the present British South Africa. The Portuguese had established themselves at Sofala a hundred and forty-seven years earlier, but they had never penetrated the country beyond the Bantu belt, and consequently never made the acquaintance of Bushmen. From 1652 onward there was an opportunity for a thorough study of the mode of living, the power of thought, the form of speech, the religious ideas, and all else that can be known of one of the most interesting savage races of the earth, a race that there is good reason to believe once extended not only over Africa, but over a large part of Europe, over South-Eastern Asia, where many scientists maintain it is now represented by the Semang in the Malay peninsula, the Andamanese, and some of the natives of the Philippine islands,-and possibly over a much greater portion of the world’s surface, a race that had made little, if any, advance since the far distant days when members of it shot their flint-headed arrows at reindeer in France, and carved the figures of mammoths and other now extinct animals on tusks of ivory in the same fair land. It was truly an ancient race, one of the most primitive that time had left on the face of the earth.

But there were no ethnologists among the early white settlers, whose sole object was to earn their bread and make homes for themselves in the new country where their lot was cast. They too soon came to regard the wild Bushmen as the Hottentots and the Bantu regarded them, as beings without a right to the soil over which they roamed, as untamable robbers whom it was not only their interest but their duty to destroy. They took possession of the fountains wherever they chose, shot the game that the pygmies depended upon for food, and when these retaliated by driving off oxen and sheep, made open war upon the so-called marauders. It was impossible for pastoral white men and savage Bushmen who neither cultivated the ground nor owned domestic cattle of any kind to live side by side in amity and peace. And so, slowly but surely, the Europeans, whether Dutch or English, extended their possessions inland, the Hottentots-Koranas and Griquas,-abandoning the coast, made their way also into the interior, and the Bantu spread themselves ever farther and farther, until to-day there is not an acre of land in all South Africa left to the ancient race. Every man’s hand was against them, and so they passed out of sight, but perished fighting stubbornly, disdaining compromise or quarter to the very last. There is no longer room on the globe for palaeolithic man.

When I say every man’s hand was against them, I do not mean to imply that no efforts at all were ever made by white men to save them from absolute extinction, or that no European cast an eye of pity upon the unfortunate wanderers. On more than one occasion about the beginning of the nineteenth century benevolent frontier farmers collected horned cattle, sheep, and goats, and endeavoured to induce parties of Bushmen to adopt a pastoral life, but always without success. They could not change their habits suddenly, and so the stock presented to them was soon consumed. The London Missionary Society stationed teachers at different points among them, but could not prevail upon them to remain at any one place longer than they were supplied with food. In the middle of the same century the government of the Orange River Sovereignty set apart reserves for two little bands of them, but by some blunder located a Korana clan between them, and that effort failed. Then many frontier farmers engaged families of Bushmen to tend their flocks and herds, which they did as a rule with the greatest fidelity until they became weary of such a monotonous life, and then they wandered away again. Other instances might be added, but they all ended in the same manner. The advance of the white man, as well as of the Hottentots and the Bantu, was unavoidably accompanied with the disappearance of the wild people.

On the farms where a number of Bushman families lived white children often learned to speak their language, with all its clicks, and smacking of the lips, and guttural sounds, but this knowledge was of no use to anyone but themselves, and it died with them. They were incompetent to reduce it to writing and too ill-educated to realise the value of the information they possessed. Here and there a traveller of scientific attainments, such as Dr. H. Lichtenstein, or a missionary of talent, such as the reverend T. Arbousset, tried to form a vocabulary of Bushman words, but as they did not understand the language themselves, and there were no recognised symbols to represent the various sounds, their lists are almost worthless to philologists.

So matters stood in 1857, when the late Dr. Wilhelm H. I. Bleek (Ph.D.), who was born at Berlin in 1827, and educated at the universities of Bonn and Berlin, commenced his researches in connection with the Bushmen. He was eminently qualified for the task, as his natural bent was in the direction of philology, and his training had been of the very best kind, in that he had learned from it not to cease study upon obtaining his degree, but to continue educating himself. For many years after 1857, however, he did not devote himself entirely, or even mainly, to investigations regarding the Bushmen, because of the difficulty of obtaining material, and also because he was intently engaged upon the work with which his reputation as a philologist must ever be connected, A Comparative Grammar of South African Languages. In this book he deals with the Hottentot language and with the Bantu, the last divided into a large number of dialects. In 1862 the first part of his valuable work appeared, in 1864 a small volume followed entitled Renyard the Fox in South Africa, or Hottentot Fables and Tales, and in 1869 the first section of the second part of his Comparative Grammar was published. That work, regarded by everyone since its issue as of the highest value, and which must always remain the standard authority on its subject, was never completed, for in 1870 a favourable opportunity of studying the Bushman language occurred, of which Dr. Bleek at once availed himself, knowing that in the few wild people left he had before him the fast dying remnant of a primitive race, and that if any reliable record of that race was to be preserved, not a day must be lost in securing it.

To abandon a work in which fame had been gained, which offered still further celebrity in its prosecution, and to devote himself entirely to a new object, simply because the one could be completed by somebody else at a future time, and the other, if neglected then, could never be done at all, shows such utter devotion to science, such entire forgetfulness of self, that the name of Dr. Bleek should be uttered not only with the deepest respect, but with a feeling akin to reverence. How many men of science are there in the world today who would follow so noble an example?

The task now before him was by no means a simple or an easy one. The few pure Bushmen that remained alive were scattered in the wildest and most inaccessible parts of the country, and it would have been useless to search for them there. A traveller indeed, who was prepared to live in a very rough manner himself, might have found a few of them, but his intercourse with them would necessarily have been so short that he could not study then thoroughly. But, fortunately for science, unfortunately for the wretched creatures themselves, the majesty of European law had brought several of them within reach. That law, by a proclamation of the earl of Caledon, governor of the Cape Colony, issued on the 1st of November 1809, had confounded them with the Hottentots, and made all of them within the recognised boundaries British subjects, but had placed them under certain restraints, which were intended to prevent them from roaming about at will. It had very little effect upon the wild people, however, who were almost as difficult to arrest on the thinly occupied border as if they had been baboons. Then, in April 1812, by a proclamation of Governor Sir John Cradock, their children, when eight years of age, if they had lived on a farm since their birth, were apprenticed by the local magistrate for ten years longer. In this proclamation also they were confounded with Hottentots, and it really had a considerable effect upon them, because it was no uncommon circumstance for Bushman parents to leave their infant children on farms where they had been in service, and not return perhaps for a couple of years.

By a colonial ordinance of the 17th of July 1828 all restraints of every kind were removed from these people, and they had thereafter exactly the same amount of freedom and of political rights as Europeans. It seems absurd to speak of Bushmen having political rights, for their ideas of government were so crude that their chiefs were merely leaders in war and the chase, and had no judicial powers, each individual living the right to avenge his own wrongs; but so, the law determined. It determined also that the ground upon which their ancestors for ages had hunted should be parcelled out in farms and allotted to European settlers, and that if they went there afterwards and killed or drove away an ox or a score of sheep, they could be sentenced to penal servitude for several years. It seems hard on the face of it, but progress is remorseless, and there was no other way of extending civilisation inland. The pygmy hunter with his bow and poisoned arrows could not be permitted to block the way.

But he, though he could not argue the matter, and regarded it as the most natural thing in the world for the strong to despoil the weak, being the feeble one himself resented this treatment. He was hungry too, terribly hungry, for the means of sustenance in the arid wastes where be was making his last stand were of the scantiest, and he longed for meat, such meat as his fathers had eaten before the Hottentots and the big black men and the white farmers came into the country and slaughtered all the game and nearly all of his kin. And so he tightened his hunger belt, and crept stealthily to a hill-top, where he could make observations without anyone noticing him, and when night fell he stole down to the farmer’s fold and before day dawned again he and his companions were gorged with flesh. When the farmer arose and discovered his loss there was a big hunt as a matter of course. Man and horse and dog were pressed into the chase, and yet so wily was the little imp, so expert in taking cover, and it must be added so feared were his poisoned arrows, that it was a rare thing for him to be captured. Once in a while, however, he was made a prisoner, and then if it could be proved that he had killed a shepherd he was hanged, but if he could be convicted of nothing more than slaughtering other men’s oxen and sheep he was sent to a convict station for a few years.

So it came about that Dr. Bleek found at the convict station close to Capetown several of the men he wanted. There were two in particular, whose terms of imprisonment bad nearly expired, and who were physically unfit for hard labour. The government permitted him to take these men to his own residence, on condition of locking them up at night until the remainder of their sentences expired. After they had returned to the place of their birth, two other Bushmen were obtained, who ere long were induced to proceed to their old haunts and prevail upon some of their relatives to accompany them back again, so that at one time a whole family could be seen on Dr. Bleck’s grounds.

The material was thus obtained to work with, but first the language of the primitive people had to be learned, a language containing so many clicks and other strange sounds that at first it seemed almost impossible for all adult European tongue to master it. To this task Dr. Bleek and his sister-in-law Miss Lucy C. Lloyd, who had boundless patience, untiring zeal, and a particularly acute ear, devoted themselves, and persevered until their efforts were crowned with success. Symbols were adopted to represent the different sounds that are foreign to the European ear, and then it became possible to take down the exact words used by the Bushman narrators and to have the manuscript checked by repetition.

Before the results of such prolonged labour were ready for publication, but not until a very large quantity of valuable matter had been collected, to the great loss of students of man everywhere Dr. Bleek died, 17th of August 1875, Miss Lloyd then continued during some years to collect further material from. various individuals of the Bushman race, and after adding greatly to the stock on hand at her brother-in-law’s death in 1887 she proceeded to Europe with a view to arranging it properly and publishing it. For nine years she endeavoured, but in vain to carry out this design, the subject not being considered by publishers one that would attract readers in sufficient number to repay the cost of printing, as that cost would necessarily be large, owing to the style of the Bushman text. In 1896 Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. undertook to get out a volume, but then, unfortunately, Miss Lloyd fell ill, and her impaired strength has since that time delayed the completion of the work. It has only been at long intervals and by dint of much exertion that what is here presented to the reader, with much more that may perhaps follow, has been got ready. This is a brief account of the manner in which the material was collected, and of the causes which have delayed its publication for so many years. It would be quite impossible to gather such information now.

As to the value for scientific purposes (if the contents of this volume, a great deal might be stated, but it cannot be necessary to say much here, as the book speaks for itself. The religion of the Bushmen is made as clear from their own recitals as such a subject can be, when it is remembered that the minds of the narrators were like those of little children in all matters not connected with their immediate bodily wants. Their views concerning the sun, moon, and stars seem utterly absurd, but a European child five or six years of age, if not informed, would probably give no better explanation. Their faith too, that is, their unreasoning belief in many things adult European seem ridiculous, is seen to be that of mere infants. Every reader of this book has gone through the same stage of thought and mental power him or herself, and our own far remote ancestors must have had beliefs similar to those of Bushmen. The civilised European at different stages of his existence is a representative of the whole human species in its progress upward from the lowest savagery. We may therefore pity the ignorant pygmy, but we are not justified in despising him.

On many of their customs a flood of light is thrown in this volume, but I shall only refer to one here. In the early Dutch records of the Cape Colony there is an account of some Bushmen eating almost the whole of an animal, the intestines included, rejecting only two little pieces of flesh containing the sinews of the thighs. When questioned concerning this, they merely replied that it was their custom. not to eat those parts, beyond which no information is given. Who could have imagined the cause of such a custom? They had devoured parts tougher to masticate, so it certainly was not to spare their teeth. That is all that could be said of it, but here in this volume the reason is given, and how well it fits in with the belief of the wild people that certain men and animals could exchange their forms, that some animals in former times were men, and some men in former times were animals.

Probably, however, the value of this volume will be greatest to the philologist, as the original Bushman text, which will be unintelligible to the general reader, is printed side by side with the English translation. Students of the growth of language have thus the means of ascertaining how ideas were expressed by a race of people so low in culture as the Bushmen. Their vocabulary, it will be seen, was ample for their needs. What is surprising is that, though they had no word for a numeral higher than three, and though the plurals of many of their nouns were formed in such a simple manner as by reduplication, their verbs were almost, if not quite, as complete and expressive as our own. The myths indicate a people in the condition of early childhood, but from the language it is evident that in the great chain of human life on this earth the pygmy savages represented a link much closer to the modern European end than to that of the first beings worthy of the name of men.

GEO. McCALL THEAL.

LONDON, 1911.

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A. MYTHOLOGY, FABLES, LEGENDS, AND POETRY

 

I. The Mantis.

 

THE MANTIS ASSUMES THE FORM OF A HARTEBEEST.

The Mantis is one who cheated the children, by becoming a hartebeest, by resembling a dead-hartebeest. He feigning death lay in front of the children, when the children went to seek gambroo (|kui, a sort of cucumber); because he thought (wished) that the children should cut him up with a stone knife, as these children did not possess metal knives.

The children perceived him, when he had laid himself stretched out, while his horns were turned backwards. The children then said to each other: “It is a hartebeest that yonder lies; it is dead.” The children jumped for joy (saying): “Our hartebeest! we shall eat great meat.” They broke off stone knives by striking (one stone against another), they skinned the Mantis. The skin of the Mantis snatched itself quickly out of the children’s hands. They say to each other: “Hold thou strongly fast for me the hartebeest skin!” Another child said: “The hartebeest skin pulled at me.”

Her elder sister said: “It does seem that the hartebeest has not a wound from the people who shot it; for, the hartebeest appears to have died of itself. Although the hartebeest is fat, (yet) the hartebeest has no shooting wound.”

Her elder sister cut off a shoulder of the hartebeest, and put it down (on a bush). The hartebeest’s shoulder arose by itself, it sat down nicely (on the other side of the bush), while it placed itself nicely. She (then) cut off a thigh of the hartebeest, and put it down (on a bush); it placed itself nicely on the bush. She cut off another shoulder of the hartebeest, and put it upon (another) bush. It arose, and sat upon a soft (portion of the) bush; as it felt that the bush (upon which the child had laid it) pricked it.

Another elder sister cut off the other thigh of the hartebeest. They spoke thus: “This hartebeest’s flesh does move;[1] that must be why it shrinks away.”

They arrange their burdens; one says to the other: “Cut and break off the hartebeest’s neck, so that (thy) younger sister may carry the hartebeest’s head, for, (thy) yonder sitting elder sister, she shall carry the hartebeest’s back, she who is a big girl. For, we must carrying return (home); for, we came (and) cut up this hartebeest. Its flesh moves;

[1. The children truly thought that the hartebeest’s flesh moved. The hartebeest’s flesh seemed as if it was not hartebeest; for, the hartebeest’s flesh was like a man’s flesh, it moved.

(As regards) a man’s flesh, when another man shoots him, the poison enters the body. The people cutting break away his flesh, while they cutting take away the mouth of the poisonous wound. The people set aside the man’s flesh; it remains quivering, while the other part of the flesh moves (quivers) in his body,-that (flesh) which he sits in (literally “which he possesses sitting”),that which the people cutting broke. This it is which moves in the (cut out) wound’s mouth, while the flesh feels that the flesh is warm. Therefore, the flesh moves, as (while) the flesh (feels that the flesh) is alive; hence it is warm. As (while) the man (feels that he) warms himself at the fire, all his flesh is warm, while it (feels that it) lives. The thing (reason) on account of which he really dies is that his flesh feels cool. While it feels that it is cold, his flesh becomes very cold. This is the reason why his flesh dies.]

its flesh snatches itself out of our hand. |atta![1] it of itself places itself nicely.”

They take up the flesh of the Mantis; they say to the child: “Carry the hartebeest’s head, that father may put it to roast for you.” The child slung on the hartebeest’s head, she called to her sisters “Taking hold help me up;[2] this hartebeest’s head is not light.” Her sisters taking hold of her help her up.

They go away, they return (home). The hartebeest’s head slips downwards, because the Mantis’s head wishes to stand on the ground. The child lifts it up (with her shoulders), the hartebeest’s head (by turning a little) removes the thong from the hartebeest’s eye. The hartebeest’s head was whispering, it whispering said to the child: “O child! the thong is standing in front of my eye. Take away for me the thong; the thong is shutting my eye.” The child looked behind her; the Mantis winked at the child. The child whimpered; her elder sister looked back at her. Her elder sister called to her: “Come forward quickly; we return (home).”

The child exclaimed: “This hartebeest’s head is able to speak.” Her elder sister scolded her: “Lying come forward; we go. Art thou not coming deceiving (us) about the hartebeest’s head?”

The child said to her elder sister: “The hartebeest has winked at me with the hartebeest’s eye; the hartebeest desired that I should take away the thong

[1. This seems to be an exclamation, the meaning of which is not yet known to the editor.

2. The child lay upon her back upon the hartebeest’s head.]

from his eye. Thus it was that the hartebeest’s head lay looking behind my back.”

The child looked back at the hartebeest’s head, the hartebeest opened and shut its eyes. The child said to her elder sister: “The hartebeest’s head must be alive, for it is opening and shutting its eyes.”

The child, walking on, unloosened the thong; the child let fall the hartebeest’s head. The Mantis scolded the child, he complained about his head. He scolded the child: “Oh! oh! my head![1] Oh! bad little person![2] hurting me in my head.”

Her sisters let fall the flesh of the Mantis. The flesh of the Mantis sprang together, it quickly joined itself to the lower part of the Mantis’s back. The head of the Mantis quickly joined (itself) upon the top of the neck of the Mantis. The neck of the Mantis quickly joined (itself) upon the upper part of the Mantis’s spine. The upper part of the Mantis’s spine joined itself to the Mantis’s back. The thigh of the Mantis sprang forward,.[3] it joined itself to the Mantis’s back. His other thigh ran forward, racing it joined itself to the other side of the Mantis’s back. The chest of the Mantis ran forward, it joined itself to the front side of the upper part of the Mantis’s spine. The shoulder blade of the Mantis ran forward, it joined itself on to the ribs of the Mantis.

[1. He was merely complaining about his head.

2. Mantis pronunciation of |nu!kui@ua wwe. The cursing of the Flat Bushmen. When a Flat Bushman is angry with another, then it is that he is wont to say |nu!kui, resembling |nussa!e (the name by which the Flat Bushmen call the Grass Bushmen), for the other one’s name. When he loves another person he is wont to say ‘mate’; he is wont to say ‘brother’ when they love each other.

3. The Mantis’s thigh sprang forward like a frog.]

The other shoulder blade of the Mantis ran forward, while it felt that the ribs of the Mantis had joined themselves on, when they raced.

The children still ran on; he (the Mantis, arose from the ground and) ran, while be chased the children,–he being whole,–his head being round,while he felt that he was a man.[1] Therefore, he was stepping along with (his) shoes, while he jogged with his shoulder blade.[2]

He saw that the children had reached home; he quickly turned about, be, jogging with his shoulder blade, descended to the river. He went along the river bed, making a noise as he stepped in the soft sand; he yonder went quickly out of the river bed. He returned, coming out at a different side of the house (i.e. his own house) he returned, passing in front of the house.

The children said: “We have been (and) seen a hartebeest which was dead. That hartebeest, it was the one which we cut up with stone knives; its flesh quivered. The hartebeest’s flesh quickly snatched itself out of our hands. It by itself was placing itself nicely upon bushes which were comfortable; while the hartebeest felt that the hartebeest’s head would go along whispering. While the child who sits (there) carried it, it talking stood behind the child’s back.”

The child said to her father “O papa! Dost thou seem to think that the hartebeest’s head did not talk to me? For the hartebeest’s head felt that it would be looking at my hole above the nape of the

[1. He became a man while he was putting himself together again.

2. With his left shoulder blade, he being a left-handed man.]

neck, as I went along; and then it was that the hartebeest’s head told me that I should take away for him the thong from his eye. For, the thong lay in front of his eye.”

Her father said to them: “Have you been and cut up the old man, the Mantis, while he lay pretending to be dead in front of you?”

The children said: “We thought that the hartebeest’s horns were there, the hartebeest had hair. The hartebeest was one which had not an arrow’s wound; while the hartebeest felt that the hartebeest would talk. Therefore, the hartebeest came and chased us, when we bad put down the hartebeest’s flesh. The hartebeest’s flesh jumped together, while it springing gathered (itself) together, that it might mend, that it might mending hold together to the hartebeest’s back. The hartebeest’s back also joined on.

“Therefore, the hartebeest ran forward, while his body was red, when he had no hair (that coat of hair in which he had been lying down), as he ran, swinging his arm like a man.

“And when he saw that we reached the house, he whisked round, He ran, kicking up his heels (showing the white soles of his shoes), while running went before the wind, while the sun shone upon his feet’s face (soles), while he ran with -all his might into the little river (bed), that he might pass behind the back of the hill lying yonder.”

Their parents said to the children: “You are those who went and cut up the old man ‘Tinderbox Owner.’ He, there behind, was one who gently came out from the place there behind.”

The children said to their fathers: “He has gone round, he ran fast. He always seems as if he would come over the little hill lying yonder when he sees that we are just reaching home. While this little daughter, she was the one to whom the hartebeest’s head, going along, talked; and then she told us. Therefore, we let fall the hartebeest’s flesh; we laid our karosses on our shoulders, that we might run very fast.

“While its flesh running came together on its back, it finished mending itself. He arose and ran forward, he, quickly moving his arms, chased us. Therefore, we did thus, we became tired from it, on account of the running with which he had chased us, while he did verily move his arms fast.

“Then he descended into the small river,-while he thought that he would, moving his arms fast, run along the small river. Then he thus did, he, picking up wood, came out; while we sat, feeling the fatigue; because he had been deceiving. While he felt that all the people saw him, when we came carrying his thighs, when he went to die lying in front of us; while he wished that we should feel this fatigue, while this child here, it carried his head, he looked up with fixed eyes. He was as if he was dead; he was (afterwards) opening and shutting his eyes; he afar lay talking (while the children were running off). He talked while be mended his body; his head talked, while he mended his body. His head talking reached his back; it came to join upon the top (of his neck).

“He ran forward; he yonder will sit deceiving,(at home), while we did cut him up with stone knives (splinters). |a-tta! he went feigning death to lie in front of us, that we might do so, we run.

“This fatigue, it is that which we are feeling; and our hearts burnt on account of it. Therefore, we shall not hunt (for food), for we shall altogether remain at home.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

!GAUNU-TSAXAU (THE SON OF THE MANTIS), THE BABOONS, AND THE MANTIS.

!gaunu-tsaxau [1] formerly went to fetch for his father sticks, that his father might take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels. Fetching, he went up to them (the baboons) as they were going along feeding. Therefore, a baboon who feeding went past him,-he who was an older baboon,-he was the one to whom !gaunu-tsaxau came. Then he questioned !gaunu-tsaxau. And !gaunu-tsaxau told him about it, that he must fetch for his father sticks, that his father might take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels. Therefore, he (the baboon) exclaimed [2] “Hie! Come to listen to this child.” And the other one said:

 

“First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.

First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.”

 

[1 !gaunu-tsaxau was a son of the Mantis.

2. I must (the narrator here explained) speak in my language, because I feel that the speech of the baboons is not easy.”]

And he reached them. He said: “What does this child say?” And the child said: “I must fetch for my father sticks (bushes?), that my father may take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels.” Then the baboon said: “Tell the old man yonder that he must come to hear this child.” Then the baboon called out: “Hie! Come to hear this child.” Then the other one said:

 

First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.”

 

And he came up (to them); he exclaimed: “What does this child say?” And the other one answered: “This child, he wishes, he says, to fetch sticks for his father, that his father may take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels.” And this baboon said: “Tell the old man yonder that he must come to hear this child.” Then this (other) baboon called out: “O person passing across in front! come to listen to this child.” Therefore, the other one said:

 

First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.”

 

And he came up (to them). He said: “What does this child say?” And the other one answered: “This child wants, he says, to fetch sticks [1] for his father, that his father may take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels.” Therefore, this baboon

[1. In a paper entitled “A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen,” which appeared in the Cape Monthly Magazine for July, 1874, written by Mr. J. M. Orpen. (at that time Chief Magistrate, St. John’s Territory), we find, on p. 8, that the Mantis sent one of his sons to cut sticks to make bows, and that he was caught and killed by the baboons.]

exclaimed It is ourselves! Thou shalt tell the old man yonder that he shall come to listen to this child.” Therefore, this other baboon called out: “Ho! come to listen to this child.” Then the other one said:

 

First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.”

 

He came up to the other people on account of it. He said: “What does this child say?” And the other one answered: “This child, he wants, he says, to fetch[1] sticks for his father, that his father may take aim at the people who sit upon (their) heels.” Therefore, this baboon exclaimed (with a sneering kind of laugh): “O ho! It is ourselves! Thou shalt quietly go to tell the old man yonder, that he may come to listen to this child.” And the other one called out: “O person passing across in front! come to listen to this child.” And the other said:

 

First going

I listen,

To the child yonder.”

 

And he went up to the other people; he said: “What does this child say?” And the other one answered: “This child, he wants, he says, to fetch sticks for his father, that his father may take aim at the people who sit upon their heels.”

Then that baboon,–he felt that he was an old

[1. Note by the narrator. He had sent his son, that his son should go to construct things for him. I think that they were sticks (bushes?). He wished his son to go (and) make them for him, that he might come (and) work them, in order that he might make war upon the baboons.]

baboon–therefore, he said, when the other one had said, “This child wanted, he said, to fetch sticks for his father,” therefore the other one (the old baboon) exclaimed: “What? it is we ourselves; ourselves it is! Ye shall strike the child with your fists.”

Therefore, they were striking !gaunu-tsaxau with their fists on account of it; they hit with their fists, breaking (his) head. And another struck with his fist, knocking out !gaunu-tsaxau’s eye, the and the child’s eye in this manner sprang (or rolled) away. Then this baboon exclaimed: “My ball! my ball! “Therefore, they began to play a game at ball,[2] while the child died; the child lay still. They said (sang):

 

And I want it,

Whose ball is it?

And I want it,

Whose ball is it?

And I want it.”

 

The other people said:

 

My companion’s ball it is,

And I want it,

My companion’s ball it is,

And I want it,”

 

while they were playing at ball there with the child’s eye.

The Mantis was waiting for the child. Therefore, the Mantis lay down at noon. Therefore, the Mantis

[1 (They) were playing at ball.

 

My ball,

My ball it is,

And I want it.

My companion’s ball it is,

And I want it,

My companion’s ball,

And I want it.”

 

]

was dreaming about the child, that the baboons were those who had killed the child; that they had made a ball of the child’s eye; that he went to the baboons, while the baboons played at ball there with the child’s eye.

Therefore, he arose; he took up the quiver, he slung on the quiver; be said, “Rattling along,[1] rattling along,” while he felt that he used formerly to do so, he used to say, Rattling along.” Then, when he came into sight. he perceived the baboons’ dust, while the baboons were playing at ball there with the child’s eye. Then the Mantis cried on account of it, because the baboons appeared really to have killed the child. Therefore, they were playing at ball there with the child’s eye. Therefore, when he came into sight, he perceived the baboons’ dust, while the baboons were playing at ball there with the child’s eye. Therefore he cried about it. And he quickly shut his mouth; he thoroughly dried the tears from his eyes, while he desired that the baboons should not perceive tears in his eyes; that he appeared to have come crying, hence tears were in his eyes; so that he might go to play at ball with the baboons, while his eyes had no tears in them.

Then he, running, came up to the baboons, while the baboons stared at him, because they were startled at him.[2] Then, while the baboons were still staring at him, he came running to a place where he

[1 The arrows they were, the arrows which were in the quiver; they made a rattling noise, because they stirred inside (it). Therefore, he said, “Rattling along, rattling along.”

2. They were not in the habit of seeing him; therefore they stared at him.]

laid down the quiver; he took off (his) kaross (i.e. skin cloak), he put down the kaross, he, grasping, drew out the feather brush which he had put into the bag, he shook out the brush, he played with (?) the ball. He called out to the baboons, why was it that the baboons were staring at him, while the baboons did not play with (?) the ball, that the baboons might throw it to him.

Then the baboons looked at one another, because they suspected why he spoke thus. Then he caught hold of the ball, when the ball had merely flown to another baboon, when this (the first) baboon had thrown the ball to the other. Then the child’s eye, because the child’s eye felt that it was startled (?), on account of his father’s scent, it went playing about; the baboons trying to get it, missed it. Then one baboon, he was the one who caught hold of it, he threw it towards another. Then the Mantis merely sprang out from this place, the Mantis caught hold of the child’s eye, the Mantis, snatching, took the child’s eye. Then the Mantis whirled around the child’s eye; he anointed the child’s eye with (the perspiration of) his armpits. Then he threw the child’s eye towards the baboons, the child’s eye ascended, the child’s eye went about in the sky; the baboons beheld it above, as it played about above in the sky. And the child’s eye went to stand yonder opposite to the quiver; it appeared as if it sprang over the quiver, while it stood inside the quiver’s bag.[1]

[1. He tied, placing a little bag at the side of the quiver; therefore it is the quiver’s bag; while it feels that it is a little bag which is tied at the side of the quiver; he had laid the bow upon it; it was the one that he tied, placing it by the side of the quiver. That bag, it was the one that the child’s eye was in. That bag, it was the one that he laid the bow upon.]

Then the baboons went to seek for it. The Mantis also sought for it, while the baboons sought for it. Then all the baboons were altogether seeking for the child’s eye. They said: “Give my companion the ball.”[1] The baboon whose ball it was, he said: “Give me the ball.”[2] The Mantis said: “Behold ye! I have not got the ball.” The baboons said: “Give my companion the ball.” The baboon whose ball it was, he said: “Give me the ball.” Then the baboons[3] said that the Mantis must shake the bag, for the ball seemed to be inside the bag. And the Mantis exclaimed: “Behold ye! Behold ye! the ball is not inside the bag. Behold ye!” while he grasped the child’s eye, he shook, turning the bag inside out. He said: “Behold ye! Behold ye! the ball cannot be inside the bag.”

Then this baboon exclaimed: “Hit the old man with (your) fists.” Then the other one exclaimed: “Give my companion the ball! “while he struck the head of the Mantis. Then the Mantis exclaimed: “I have not got the ball,” while he struck the baboon’s head. Therefore, they were all striking the Mantis with their fists; the Mantis was striking them with his fist. Then the Mantis got the worst of it; the Mantis exclaimed: “Ow! Hartebeest’s Children![4] ye must go! !kau

[1. “Give my companion the ball.”

2. “Give me the ball.”

3. It is uncertain whether this should be singular or plural here.

4. “Hartebeest’s Children,” here, may refer to a bag made from the skin of young hartebeests, which the Mantis had with him.]

!Yerriggu![1] ye must go!” while the baboons watched him ascend; as he flew up, as he flew to the water. Then he popped into the water on account of it; while he exclaimed: “I |ke, tten !khwaiten!khwaiten, !kui ha i |ka!”[2] “Then he walked out of the water; he sat down; he felt inside (his) bag; he took out the child’s eye; he walked on as he held it; he walked, coming up to the grass at the top of the water’s bank[3]; he sat down. He exclaimed: “Oh wwi ho!”[4] as he put the child’s eye into the water.

“Thou must grow out, that thou mayest become like that which thou hast been.”[5] “Then he walked on; he went to take up (his) kaross, he threw it over his shoulder; be took up the quiver, he slung on the quiver; and, in this manner, he returning went, while he returning arrived at home.

Then the young Ichneumon exclaimed: “Who can have done thus to my grandfather, the Mantis, that the Mantis is covered with wounds? “Then the Mantis replied: “The baboons were those who killed grandson, !gaunu-tsaxau; I went [the Mantis speaks very sadly and slowly here], as they were

[1. The meaning of !kau !Yerri-ggu is at present unknown to the translator, but the Mantis is still addressing some of his possessions, and ordering them to leave the scene of his defeat.

2. Of these words of the Mantis (which frequently appear in stories concerning him) the narrators were not able to furnish a sufficiently clear explanation, so the original text is given.

3. It is grass; the grass which stands upon the top of the water’s bank; it is that which the Bushmen call |kannung-a-sse.

4. At the same time, putting the first finger of his right hand into his mouth, against his left cheek, and drawing it forcibly out; the eye being meanwhile in the palm of his right hand, shut down by his other fingers.

5 He desired that the child should live; that it should living return.]

playing at ball there with grandson’s eye; I went to play at ball with them. Then grandson’s eye vanished. Therefore, the baboons said (that) I was the one who had it; the baboons were fighting me; therefore, I was fighting them; and I thus did, I flying came.”

Then |kuammang-a said: “I desire thee to say to grandfather, Why is it that grandfather continues to go among strangers [literally, people who are different]?” Then the Mantis answered: “Thou dost appear to think that yearning was not that on account of which I went among the baboons; “while he did not tell |kuammang-a and the others that he came (and) put the child’s eye into the water.

Then he remained there (i.e. at home), while he did not go to the water. Then he went there, while he went to look at the place where he had put in the child’s eye. And he approached gently, while he wished that he might not make a rustling noise. Therefore, he gently came. And the child heard him, because he had not come gently when afar off; and the child jumped up, it splashed into the water. Then the Mantis was laughing about it, while his heart yearned (for the child). And he returned; altogether returned.

Then the child grew; it became like that which it had (formerly) been. Then the Mantis came; while he came to look; and be in this manner walking came. While he came walking and looking, he espied the child, as the child was sitting in the sun. Then the child heard him, as be came rustling (along); the child sprang up, the child entered the water. And he looking stood, he went back. he went; he went to make for the child a front kaross (or apron), that and a ||koroko.[1] He put the things aside; then he put the front kaross (into a bag), that and the ||koroko; he in this manner went; he in this manner came he approached gently. And, as he approached gently, he espied the child lying in the sun, as the child lay yonder, in the sun, opposite the water. Therefore, he gently came up to the child. And the child heard him, as his father gently came. And the Mantis, when the child intended to get up, the Mantis sprang forward, he caught hold of the child. And he anointed the child with his scent; he anointed the child; be said: “Why art thou afraid of me? I am thy father; I who am the Mantis, I am here; thou art my son, thou art !gaunu-tsaxau; I am the Mantis, I whose son thou art; the father is myself.” And the child sat down, on account of it; and he took out the front kaross, he took out the ||koroko. He put the front kaross on to the child; he put the ||koroko on to the child; he put the front kaross on to the child. Then he took the child with him; they, in this manner, returning went; they returning arrived at home.

Then the young Ichneumon exclaimed: “What person can it be who comes with the Mantis?” And |kuammang-a replied: “Hast thou not just(?) heard that grandfather said he had gone to the baboons, while they were playing at ball there with the child’s eye? while grandfather must have been playing before us; his son comes yonder with him! “And they returned, reaching the house. Then the young Ichneumon spoke; he said: “Why did my grandfather, the Mantis, first say that the

[1. Another article for the child to wear.]

baboons were those who killed the child, while the child is here Then the Mantis said: Hast thou not seen (that) he is not strong? while he feels that I came to put his eye into the water; while I wished that I might see whether the thing would not accomplish itself for me; therefore, I came to put his eye into the water. He came out of the water; therefore, thou seest (that) he is not strong. Therefore, I wished that I might wait, taking care of him; that I may see whether he will not become strong.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE STORY OF THE LEOPARD TORTOISE.[1]

The people had gone hunting: she was ill; and she perceived a man [2] who came up to her hut; he had been hunting around.

She asked the man to rub her neck a little with fat for her; for, it ached. The man rubbed it with fat for her. And she altogether held the man firmly with it.[3] The man’s hands altogether decayed away in it. [4]

Again, she espied another man, who came hunting. And she also spoke, she said.: “Rub me with fat a little.”

And the man whose hands had decayed away in

[1. Testudo pardalis.

2. The narrator explains that this misfortune happened to men of the Early Race.

3. By drawing in her neck.

4. The flesh decayed away and came off, as well as the skin and nails, leaving, the narrator says, merely the bones.]

her neck, he was hiding his hands,[1] so that the other man should not perceive them, namely, that they had decayed away in it. And he said: “Yes; O my mate! rub our elder sister a little with fat; for, the moon has been cut,[2] while our elder sister lies ill. Thou shalt also rub our elder sister with fat.” He was hiding his hands, so that the other one should not perceive them.

The Leopard Tortoise said Rubbing with fat, put (thy hands) into my neck. And he, rubbing with fat, put in his hands upon the Leopard Tortoise’s neck; and the Leopard Tortoise drew in her head upon her neck; while his hands were altogether in her neck; and he dashed the Leopard Tortoise upon the ground, on account of it; while he desired, he thought, that he should, by dashing (it) upon the ground, break the Leopard Tortoise. And the Leopard Tortoise held him fast.

The other one had taken out his bands (from behind his back); and he exclaimed: “Feel (thou) that which I did also feel!” and he showed the other one his hands; and the other one’s hands were altogether inside the Leopard Tortoise’s neck. And he arose, he returned home. And the other one was dashing the Leopard Tortoise upon the ground; while he returning went; and he said that the other, one also felt what he had felt. A pleasant thing

[1. He sat, putting his hands behind him, when the other man came, taking them out from the Leopard Tortise’s neck.

2. The moon ‘died’, and another moon came, while she still lay ill, the narrator explains. “Whilst in the preceeding myths of the Mantis, the Moon, according to its origin, is only a piece of leather (a shoe of the Mantis),-in Bushman astrological mythology the Moon is looked upon as a man who incurrs the wrath of the Sun, and is consequently pierced by the knife (i.e rays) of the latter. This process is repeated until almost the whole of the Moon is cut away, and only one little piece left; which the Moon piteously implores the Sun to spare for his (the Moon’s) children. (As mentioned above, the Moon is in Bushman mythology a male being.) From this little piece, the Moon gradually grows again until it becomes a full moon, when the Sun’s stabbing and cutting processes recommence.” (“A Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore and other Texts.” By W.H.I. Bleek, Ph.D. Cape Town, 1875. p. 9,  section16.)]

(it) was not, in which he had been! He yonder returning went; (he) arrived at home.

The people exclaimed: “Where hast thou been? And he, answering, said that the Leopard Tortoise had been the one in whose neck his hands had been; that was why he had not returned home, The people said: “Art thou a fool? Did not (thy) parents instruct thee? The Leopard Tortoise always seems as if she would die; while she is deceiving us.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

II. Sun and Moon.

 

THE CHILDREN ARE SENT TO THROW THE SLEEPING SUN INTO THE SKY.

The children were those who approached geutly to lift up the Sun-armpit, while the Sun-armpit lay sleeping.

The children felt that their mother was the one who spoke; therefore, the children went to the Sun; while the Sun shone, at the place where the Sun lay, sleeping lay.

Another old woman was the one who talked to the other about it; therefore, the other one spoke to the other one’s children.[1] The other old woman said to the other, that, the other one’s children should approach gently to lift up the Sun-armpit, that they should throw up the Sun-armpit, that the Bushman rice might become dry for them, that the Sun might make bright the whole place; while the Sun felt that the Sun went (along), it went over the whole sky, it made all places bright; therefore, it made all the ground bright; while it felt that the children were those who had coaxed (?) him; because an old woman was the one who spoke to the other about it, therefore, the other one said: “O children! ye must wait for the Sun, that the Sun may lie down to sleep, for, we are cold. Ye shall gently approach to lift

[1. Another old woman was the one who said to the other, that the other should tell the other one’s children; for, she (herself) had no young male children; for, the other was the one who had young male children who were clever, those who would understand nicely, when they went to that old man.]

him up, while he lies asleep; ye shall take hold of him, all together, all together ye lift him up, that ye may throw him up into the sky.” They, in this manner, spoke; the old woman, in this manner, she spoke to the other; therefore, the other in this manner spoke to her, she also, in this manner, spoke to her children. The other said to her: “This (is the) story which I tell thee, ye must wait for the Sun.”

The children came, the children went away; the old woman said: “Ye must go to sit down, when ye have looked at him, (to see) whether he lies looking; ye must go to sit down, while ye wait for him.” Therefore, the children went to sit down, while the children waited for him; he lay down, he lifted up his elbow, his armpit shone upon the ground, as he lay. Therefore, the children threw him up into the sky, -while they felt that the old woman had spoken to them. The old woman said to the children: “O children going yonder! ye must speak to him, when ye throw him -up.” The old woman said to the children: “O children going yonder! ye must tell him, that, he must altogether become the Sun, that he may go forward, while he feels that he is altogether the Sun, which is hot; therefore, the Bushman rice becomes dry, while he is hot, passing along in the sky; he is hot, while he stands above in the sky.”

The old woman was the one who told the children about it, while she felt that her head was white; the children were listening to her, they were listening to their mamma, their mother; their mother told them about it, that which the old woman in this manner said. Therefore, they thought in this manner. Therefore, they went to sit down. An older child spoke to another, therefore, they went to sit down, while they waited for him (the Sun), they went to sit down.

They arose, going on, they stealthily approached him, they stood still, they looked at him, they went forward; they stealthily reached him, they took hold of him) they all took hold of him together, lifted him up, they raised him, while he felt hot. Then, they threw him up, while he felt hot; they spoke to him while he felt hot: “O Sun! thou must altogether stand fast, thou must go along, thou must stand fast) while thou art hot.”

The old woman said (that) they seemed to have thrown him up, he seemed to be standing fast above. They thus spoke, they in this manner spoke. Her (apparently the mother’s) husband said: “The Suns’ armpit is standing fast above yonder, he whom the children have thrown up; he lay, he intended to sleep; therefore, the children have thrown him up.”

The children returned. Then, the children came (and) said: “(Our) companion who is here, he took hold of him, I also was taking hold of him; my younger brother was taking hold of him, my other younger brother was also taking bold of him; (our) companion who is here, his other younger brother was also taking hold of him. I said: ‘Ye must grasp him firmly.’ I, in this manner, spoke; I said: ‘Throw ye him up!’ Then, the children threw him up. I said to the children: ‘Grasp ye the old man firmly!’ I said to the children: ‘Throw ye up the old man!’ Then, the children threw up the old man; that old man, the Sun; while they felt that the old woman was the one who spoke.”

An older child spoke, while he felt that he was a youth; the other also was a youth, they were young men (?), they went to throw up the Sun-armpit. They came to speak, the youth spoke, the youth talked to his grandmother: “O my grandmother! we threw him up, we told him, that, he should altogether become the Sun, which is hot; for, we are cold. We said: ‘O my grandfather, Sun-armpit! Remain (at that) place; become thou the Sun which is hot; that the Bushman rice may dry for us; that thou mayst make the whole earth light; that the whole earth may become warm in the summer; that thou mayst altogether make heat. Therefore, thou must altogether shine, taking away the darkness; thou must come, the darkness go away.'”

The Sun comes, the darkness goes away, the Sun comes, the Sun sets, the darkness comes, the moon comes at night. The day breaks, the Sun comes out, the darkness goes away, the Sun comes. The moon comes out, the moon brightens the darkness, the darkness departs; the moon comes out, the moon shines, taking away the darkness; it goes along, it has made bright the darkness, it sets. The Sun comes out, the Sun follows (drives away?) the darkness, the Sun takes away the moon, the moon stands, the Sun pierces it, with the Sun’s knife, as it stands; therefore, it decays away on account of it. Therefore, it says: “O Sun! leave for the children the backbone!” Therefore, the Sun leaves the backbone for the children; the Sun does so. Therefore, the Sun says that the Sun will leave the backbone for the children, while the Sun assents to him; the Sun leaves the backbone for the children; therefore, the moon painfully goes away, he painfully returns home, while he painfully goes along; therefore, the Sun desists, while he feels that the Sun has left for the children the backbone, while the Sun assents to him; therefore, the Sun leaves the backbone; while the Sun feels that the Sun assents to him; therefore, the Sun desists on account of it; he (the moon) painfully goes away, he painfully returns home; he again, he goes to become another moon, which is whole; he again, be lives; he again, be lives, while he feels that he had seemed to die. Therefore, he becomes a new moon; while he feels that he has again put on a stomach; he becomes large; while he feels that he is a moon which is whole; therefore, he is large; he comes, while he is alive. He goes along at night, he feels that he is the moon which goes by night, while he feels that he is a shoe[1]; therefore, he walks in the night.

The Sun is here, all the earth is bright; the Sun is here, the people walk while the place is light, the earth is light; the people perceive the bushes, they see the other people; they see the meat, which they are eating; they also see the springbok, they also head the springbok, in summer; they also head the ostrich, while they feel that the Sun shines; they also head the ostrich in summer; they are shooting the springbok in summer, while they feel that the Sun shines, they see the springbok; they also steal up to the gemsbok; they also steal up to the kudu, while they feel that the whole place is bright; they also visit each other, while they feel that the Sun shines, the earth also is bright, the Sun shines upon the path. They also travel in summer; they

[1. The Mantis formerly, when inconvenienced by darkness, took off one of his shoes and threw it into the sky, ordering it to become the Moon.]

are shooting in summer; they hunt in summer; they espy the springbok in summer; they go round to head the springbok; they lie down; they feel that they lie in a little house of bushes; they scratch up the earth in the little house of bushes, they lie down, while the springbok come.

 

FURTHER REMARKS.

The second version of the preceeding myth, which is unfortunately too long to be conveniently included in the present volume, contains a few interesting notes, furnished by the narrator, ||kabbo (“Dream”), which are given below. ||kabbo further explained that the Sun was a man; but, not one of the early race of people who preceded the Flat Bushmen in their country. He only gave forth brightness for a space around his own dwelling. Before the children threw him up, he had not been in the sky, but, had lived at his own house, on earth. As his shining had been confined to a certain space at, and round his own dwelling, the rest of the country seemed as if the sky were very cloudy; as it looks now, when the Sun is behind thick clouds. The sky was black (dark?). Thee shining came from one of the Sun’s armpits, as he lay with one arm lifted up. When he put down his arm, darkness fell everywhere; when he lifted it up again, it was as if day came. In the day, the Sun’s light used to be white; but, at night, it was red, like a fire. When the Sun was thrown up into the sky it became round, and never was a man afterwards.

TRANSLATION OF NOTES.

The First Bushmen[1] were those who first inhabited the earth. Therefore, their children were those who worked with the Sun. Therefore, the people who [later] inhabited their country, are those who say that the children worked, making the Sun to ascend, while they felt that their mothers had agreed together that they should throw up, for them, the Sun; that the Sun might warm the earth for them; that they-might feel the Sun’s warmth, that they might be able to sit in the Sun.

[1. The men of the early race.]

When the first Bushmen had passed away, the Flat Bushmen inhabited their ground. Therefore, the Flat Bushmen taught their children about the stories of the First Bushmen.

The Sun had been a man, he talked; they all talked, also the other one, the Moon. Therefore, they used to live upon the earth; while they felt that they spoke. They do not talk, now that they live in the sky.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE ORIGIN OF DEATH; PRECEDED BY A PRAYER ADDRESSED TO THE YOUNG MOON.

We, when the Moon has newly returned alive, when another person has shown us the Moon, we look towards the place at which the other has shown us the Moon, and, when we look thither, we perceive the Moon, and when we perceive it, we shut our eyes with our hands, we exclaim: “!kabbi-a yonder! Take my face yonder! Thou shalt give me thy face yonder! Thou shalt take my face yonder! That which does not feel pleasant. Thou shalt give me thy face,–(with) which thou, when thou hast died, thou dost again, living return, when we did not perceive thee, thou dost again lying down come,–that I may also resemble thee. For, the joy yonder, thou dost always possess it yonder, that is, that thou art wont again to return alive, when we did not perceive thee; while the hare told thee about it, that thou shouldst do thus. Thou didst formerly say, that we should also again return alive, when we died.”

The hare was the one who thus did. He spoke, he said, that he would not be silent, for, his mother would not again living return; for his mother was altogether dead. Therefore, he would cry greatly for his mother.

The Moon replying, said to the hare about it that the hare should leave off crying; for, his mother was not altogether dead. For, his mother meant that she would again living return. The hare replying, said that he was not willing to be silent; for, he know that his mother would not again return alive. For, she was altogether dead.

And the Moon became angry about it, that the hare[1] spoke thus, while he did not assent to him (the Moon). And he hit with his fist, cleaving the hare’s mouth; and while he hit the hare’s mouth with his fist, he exclaimed: “This person, his mouth which is here, his mouth shall altogether be like this, even -when he is a hare;[2] he shall always bear a scar on his niouth; he shall spring away, he shall do-doubling (?) come back. The dogs shall chase him; they shall, when they have caught him, they shall grasping tear him to pieces,[3] he shall altogether die.

“And they who are men, they shall altogether dying go away, when they die.[4] For, he was not

[1. It was a young male hare, the narrator explained.

2. The hare had also been a person; but, the Moon cursed him, ordering that he should altogether become a hare.

3. Or, bite, tearing him to pieces.

4. The people shall, when they die, they shall altogether dying go away; while they do not again living return. For the hare was the one who thus spoke; he said that his mother would not again living return.]

willing to agree with me, when I told him about it, that he should not cry for his mother; for, his mother would again live; he said to me, that, his mother would not again living return. Therefore, he shall altogether become a hare. And the people, they shall altogether die. For, he was the one who said that his mother would not again living return. I said to him about it, that they (the people) should also be like me; that which I do; that I, when I am dead, I again living return. He contradicted me, when I had told him about it.”

Therefore, our mothers said to me, that the hare was formerly a man; when he had acted in this manner, then it was that the Moon cursed him, that he should altogether become a hare. Our mothers told me, that, the hare has human flesh at his ||katten-ttu[1]; therefore, we, when we have killed a hare, when we intend to eat the hare, we take out the “biltong flesh”[2] yonder, which is human flesh, we leave it; while we feel that he who is the hare, his flesh it is not. For, flesh (belonging to) the time when he formerly was a man, it is.

Therefore, our mothers were not willing for us to eat that small piece of meat; while they felt that it is this piece of meat with which the hare was formerly a man. Our mothers said to us about it, did we not feel that our stomachs were uneasy if we

[1. The meaning of ||katten-ttu is not yet clear; and the endeavors to obtain a hare, that it might be exactly ascertained from the Bushmen which piece of meat was meant, were unsuccessful. The ttu at the end of the word shows that some sort of hollow of the human body is indicated.

Since these sheets have gone to press, Dr. J.N.W. Loubser, to whom I had applied for information regarding this particular piece of meat, was so good as to send me the following lines, accompanied by a diagram, which unfortunately it was already too late for me to include in the illustrations for this volume:–

“As regards the ‘biltong flesh’, I have often watched my mother cutting biltong, and know that each leg of beef contains really only one real biltong, i.e. the piece of flesh need not be cut into the usual oblong shape, bat has this a priori. In other words, it is a muscle of this form. From my anatomical knowledge I can only find it to correspond to the museulus bicelis femoris of the man. It will therefore be a muscle sitting rather high up the thigh (B of Figure).”

2. The narrator explained |kwaii to be “biltong flesh” (i.e., lean meat that can be cut into strips and sun-dried, making “biltong”).]

ate that little piece of meat, while we felt that it was human flesh; it is not hare’s flesh; for, flesh which is still in the hare it is; while it feels that the hare was formerly a man. Therefore, it is still in the hare; while the hare’s doings are those on account of which the Moon cursed us; that we should altogether die. For, we should, when we died, we should have again living returned; the hare was the one who did not assent to the Moon, when the Moon was willing to talk to him about it; he contradicted the Moon.

Therefore, the Moon spoke, he said: “Ye who are people, ye shall, when ye die, altogether dying vanish away. For, I said, that, ye should, when ye died, ye should again arise, ye should not altogether die. For, I, when I am dead, I again living return. I had intended, that, ye who are men, ye should also resemble me (and) do the things that I do; that I do not altogether dying go away. Ye, who are men, are those who did this deed; therefore, I had thought that I (would) give you joy. The hare, when I intended to tell him about it,–while I felt that I knew that the hare’s mother had not really died, for, she slept,–the hare was the one who said to me, that his mother did not sleep; for, his mother had altogether died. These were the things that I became angry about; while I had thought that the hare would say: ‘Yes; my mother is asleep.'”

For, on account of these things, he (the Moon) became angry with the hare; that the hare should have spoken in this manner, while the hare did not say: “Yes, my mother lies sleeping; she will presently arise.” If the hare had assented to the Moon, then, we who are people, we should have resembled the Moon; for, the Moon had formerly said, that we should not altogether die. The hare’s doings were those on account of which the Moon cursed us, and we die altogether; on account of the story which the hare was the one who told him. That story is the one on account of which we altogether die (and) go away; on account of the hare’s doings; when he was the one who did not assent to the Moon; when the Moon intended to tell him about it; he contradicted the Moon, when the Moon intended to tell him about it.

The Moon spoke, saying that he (the hare) should lie upon a bare place; vermin should be those who were biting him, at the place where he was lying; he should not inhabit the bushes; for, he should lie upon a bare place; while he did not lie under a tree. He should be lying upon a bare place. Therefore, the hare is used, when he springs up, he goes along shaking his head; while he shakes out, making to fall the vermin from his head, in which the vermin had been hanging; while he feels that the vermin hung abundantly in his head. Therefore, he shakes his head, so that the other vermin may fall out for him.

(This, among the different versions of the Moon and Hare story called “The Origin of Death”, has been selected on account of the prayer to the young Moon with which it begins.)

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MOON IS NOT TO BE LOOKED AT WHEN GAME HAS BEEN SHOT.

We may not look at the Moon, when we have shot game; for, we look, lowering our head, while we do not look up, towards the sky; while we are afraid of the Moon’s shining. It is that which we fear. For, our mothers used to tell us about it, that the Moon is not a good person, if we look at him.

For, if we look at him, when we have shot game, the beasts of prey will eat the game, when the game lies dying, if we look at the Moon. When the game does not die, the Moon’s water is that which causes the game to live. For, our mothers used to tell us about it, that, the Moon’s water yonder, (that) we see, which is on a bush, it resembles liquid honey. It is that which falls upon the game; the game arises, when it has fallen upon the game. It makes cool the poison with which we shot the game; and the game arises, it goes on, while it does not show signs of poison[1]; even if it had appeared as if it would die. The Moon’s water is that which cures it. And it lives, on account of it.

Therefore, our mothers did not wish us to be looking about, we should not look at the things which are in the sky; while our mothers used to tell us about it, that the Moon, if we had looked at him, the game which we had shot, would also go along like the Moon, Our mothers said to us about it, did we

[1. Literally, “make,” or “become poison.”]

not see the Moon’s manner of going? he was not in the habit of going to a place near at hand, for, the day was used to break, while he was still going along. The game would also do the same, if we had looked at the Moon. The day would break, while the game was still going along; while it resembled the Moon, at which we had looked. Therefore, we feared to look at the Moon; while we felt that our mothers used to tell us about it, that the game would desire to take us away to a place where no water was. We could (?) go to die of thirst, while it, leading us astray, took us away to a place where no water was.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE GIRL OF THE EARLY RACE, WHO MADE STARS.[1]

My mother was the one who told me that the girl arose; she put her hands into the wood ashes; she threw up the wood ashes into the sky. She said to the wood ashes: “The wood ashes which are here, they must altogether become the Milky Way. They must white lie along in the sky, that the stars may stand outside of the Milky Way, while the Milky Way is the Milky Way, while it used to be wood ashes.” They (the ashes) altogether become the Milky Way. The Milky Way must go round with the stars; while the Milky Way feels that, the Milky Way lies going round; while the stars sail along; therefore, the Milky Way, lying, goes along with the stars. The Milky Way, when the Milky Way stands upon the earth, the Milky Way turns across in front, while the Milky Way means to wait(?), While the Milky Way feels that the Stars are turning back; while the Stars feel that the Sun is the one who has turned back; he is upon his path; the Stars turn back; while they go to fetch the daybreak; that they may lie nicely, while the Milky Way lies nicely. The Stars shall also stand nicely around.

[1. This girl is said to have been one of the people of the early race (!Xwe-|na-ssho-!ke) and the ‘first’ girl; and to have acted ill. She was finally shot by her husband. These !Xwe-|na-ssho-!ke are said to have been stupid, and not to have understood things well.]

They shall sail along upon their footprints, which they, always sailing along, are following. While they feel that, they are the Stars which descend.

The Milky Way lying comes to its place, to which the girl threw up the wood ashes, that it may descend nicely; it had lying gone along, while it felt that it lay upon the sky. It had lying gone round, while it felt that the Stars also turned round. They turning round passed over the sky. The sky lies (still); the Stars are those which go along; while they feel that they sail. They had been setting; they had, again, been coming out; they had, sailing along, been following their footprints. They become white, when the Sun comes out. The Sun sets, they stand around above; while they feel that they did turning follow the Sun.

The darkness comes out; they (the Stars) wax red, while they had at first been white. They feel that they stand brightly around; that they may sail along; while they feel that it is night. Then, the people go by night; while they feel that the ground is made light. While they feel that the Stars shine a little. Darkness is upon the ground. The Milky Way gently glows; while it feels that it is wood ashes. Therefore, it gently glows. While it feels that the girl was the one who said that the Milky Way should give a little light for the people, that they might return home by night, in the middle of the night. For, the earth would not have been a little light, had not the Milky Way been there. It and the Stars.

The girl thought that she would throw up (into the air) roots of the !huing, in order that the !huing roots should become Stars; therefore, the Stars are red; while they feel that (they) are !huing roots.[1]

She first gently threw up wood ashes into the sky, that she might presently throw up !huing roots; while she felt that she was angry with her mother, because her mother had not given her many !huing roots, that she might eat abundantly; for, she was in the hut. She did not herself go out to seek food; that she might get(?) !huing for herself; that she might be bringing it (home) for herself; that she might eat; for, she was hungry; while she lay ill in the hut. Her mothers were those who went out. They were those who sought for food. They were bringing home !huing, that they might eat. She lay in her little hut, which her mother had made for her. Her stick stood there; because she did not yet dig out food. And, she was still in the hut. Her mother was the one who was bringing her food. That she might be eating, lying in the little hut; while her mother thought that she (the girl) did not eat the young men’s game (i.e. game killed by them). For, she ate the game of her father, who was an old man. While she thought that the hands of the young men would become cool. Then, the arrow would become cool. The arrow head which is at the top, it would be cold; while the arrow head felt that the bow was cold; while the bow felt that his

[1. She threw up a scented root (eaten by some Bushmen) called !huing, which became stars; the red (or old) !huing making red stars, the white or young !huing making white stars. This root is, ||kabbo says, eaten by baboons and also by the porcupine.

The same girl also made locusts, by throwing up into the sky the peel of the !kuissi [an edible root] which she was eating.

2. ||kabbo here explained that, when a girl has ‘grown’, she is put into a tiny hut, made by her mother, with a very small arpeture for the door; which her mother closes upon her. When she goes out, she looks upon the ground; and when she returns to the hut, she sits and looks down. She does not go far, or walk about at this time. When presently she becomes a, ‘big girl’, she is allowed to look about, and to look afar again; being, on the first occasion, allowed to look afar over her mother’s hand. She leaves the small hut, when allowed to look about and around again; and she then walks about like the other women. During the time she is in retreat, she must not look at the springbok, lest they should become wild.]

(the young man’s) hands were cold. While the girl thought of her saliva, which, eating, she had put into the springbok meat; this saliva would go into the bow, the inside of the bow would become cool; she, in this manner, thought. Therefore, she feared the young men’s game. Her father was the one from whom she alone ate (game). While she felt that she had worked (i.e. treated) her father’s hands: she had worked, taking away her saliva (from them).

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE GREAT STAR, !GAUNU, WHICH, SINGING, NAMED THE STARS.

!gaunu,[1] he was formerly a great Star; therefore, his name is !gaunu; while he feels that he was the one who formerly spoke (lit. “called”) the Stars’ names; while he feels that he is a great one. Therefore, he called the Stars’ names. Therefore, the Stars possess their names; while they feel that !gaunu was the one who called their names. He formerly sang, while he uttered the Stars’ names. He said “||Xwahai”[2] to (some) Stars which are very small; they are those of which he made ||Xwhai; their small, fine ones are those which are ||Xwhai.

[1. My (paternal) grandfather, |Xugen-ddi, was the one who told me star’s stories.”

2. The stars ||Xwahai |aiti and ||Xwhai-@pua were identified as “Altair” or “Alpha Aquilae”, and “Gamma Aquilae”, respectively, by the late Mr. George Maclear and Mr. Finlay of the Royal Observatory, on October 10, 1873, at Mowbray. ||Xwhai gwai was behind a tree and too low to be distinguished.]

Therefore, the porcupine, when these Stars have, sitting, turned back, he will not remain on the hunting ground; for, he knows that it is dawn, when ||Xwhai has, lying, turned back. He returns home; for, he is used to look at these Stars; they are those which he watches; while he feels that he knows that the dawn’s Stars they are.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

WHAT THE STARS SAY, AND A PRAYER TO A STAR.

They (the Bushmen) wish, that they may also perceive things.[1] Therefore, they say that the Star shall take their heart, with which they do not a little hunger; the Star shall give them the Star’s heart, the Star’s heart,–with which the Star sits in plenty. For the Star is not small; the Star seems as if it had food. Therefore, they say, that the Star shall give them of the Star’s heart, that they may not hunger.

The Stars are wont to call, “Tsau! Tsau!” therefore the Bushmen are wont to say, that the Stars curse for them the springboks’ eyes; the Stars say, “Tsau!” they say, “Tsau! Tsau!” I am one who was listening to them. I questioned my grandfather (Tsatsi), what things it could be that spoke thus. My grandfather said to me that the Stars were those who spoke thus. The Stars were those who said, Tsau! while they cursed for the people

[1. i.e. things which their dogs may kill.]

the springboks’ eyes. Therefore, when I grew up, I was listening to them. The Stars said, “Tsau! Tsau!” Summer is (the time) when they sound.

Because I used to sleep with my grandfather, I was the one who sat with my grandfather, when he sat in the coolness outside. Therefore) I questioned him, about the things which spoke thus. He said, the Stars were those who spoke thus; they cursed for the people the springboks’ eyes.[1]

My grandfather used to speak to Canopus, when Canopus had newly come out; he said: “Thou shalt give me thy heart, with which thou dost sit in plenty, thou shalt take my heart,–my heart,–with which I am desperately hungry. That I might also be full, like thee. For, I hunger. For, thou seemest to be satisfied (with food); hence thou art not small. For, I am hungry. Thou shalt give me thy stomach, with which thou art satisfied. Thou shalt take my stomach, that thou mayst also hunger. Give thou me also thy arm, thou shalt take my arm, with which I do not kill. For, I miss my aim. Thou shalt give me thy arm. For, my arm which is here, I miss my aim with it.” He desired that the arrow might hit the springbok for him; hence, he wished the Star to give him the Star’s arm, while the Star took his arm, with which he missed his aim.

He shut his mouth, he moved away, he sat down; while he felt that he wished to sit and sharpen an arrow.

[1. I think that it was all the springbok.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

!KO-G!NUING-TARA, WIFE OF THE DAWN’S-HEART STAR, JUPITER.

They sought for !haken,[1] they were digging out !haken. They went about, sifting !haken, while they were digging out !haken. And, when the larvae of the, !haken were intending to go in (to the earth which was underneath the little hillock), they collected together, they sifted the larvae of the !haken on the hunting ground.

And the hyena[2] took the blackened perspiration of her armpits, she put it into the !haken. And they[3] gave to !ko-g!nuing-tara of the !hagen. And !ko-g!nuing-tara exclaimed, she said to her younger sister: “Thou shalt leave this !haken alone; I will be the one who eats it. For, thou art the one who shalt take care of the child.[4] For, this !haken, its smell is not nice.”

Therefore, as !ko-g!nuing-tara sat, eating the !haken,

[1. !haken resembles “rice” (i.e. “Bushman rice”); its larvae are like (those of) “Bushman rice”. !haken is a thing to eat; there is nothing as nice as it is, when it is fresh.

2. A female hyena.

3. The hyenas (it) was, with the jackals, the blue cranes (and) the black crows.

4. It was !ko-g!nuing-tara’s child. The Dawn’s-Heart was the one who buried the child away from his wife, under the !huing (a plant with a handsome green top, and little bulbous roots at the end of fibres in the ground. The roots are eaten by the Bushmen raw, and also roasted and made into meal, which is said to be excellent, |hang#kass’o thinks that the flower is red; but has not seen the plant since he was a child).]

the ornaments[1] (i.e., earrings, bracelets, leglets, anklets) of themselves ) came off.[2] The kaross (skin cloak) also unloosened (itself), the kaross also sat down. The skin petticoat also unloosened (itself), the skin petticoat sat down. The shoes ilso unloosened (themselves). Therefore, she sprang up,[3] she in this manner trotted away. Her younger sister, shrieking, followed her.[4] She went; she went into the reeds. She went to sit in the reeds.

Her younger sister exclaimed: “O !ko-g!nuing-tara! wilt thou not first allow the child to suck?” And she (the elder sister) said: “Thou shalt bring it, that it may suck; I would altogether talk to thee, while my thinking-strings still stand.” Therefore, she spoke., she said to her younger sister: “Thou must be quickly bringing the child, while I am still conscious; and thou shalt bring the child to-morrow morning.”

Her younger sister returned home, also the hyena, when the hyena bad put on the ornaments; they returned home, while the Dawn’s-Heart and the rest[5] were (still) out hunting. The Dawn’s-Heart returned home, as the child cried there, while his younger sister-in-law was the one who had the child.

He came, he exclaimed: “Why is it, that !ko-g!nuing-tara is not attending to the child, while the child cries there?” The hyena did not speak.

[1. Bracelet, anklet, leglet.

2. (They) came off, they sat down upon the ground.

3. She felt that she became a beast of prey.

4. Because she wanted to run to catch hold of her elder sister.

5. I think that he was with other people. I think that they seem to have been the jackals’ husbands, and the quaggas, and the wildebeests with the ostriches.]

|Xe-dde-Yoe[1] was soothing the child. She waited; her elder sister’s husband went to hunt; and she took the child upon her back. She went to her elder sister; she walked, arriving at the reeds. She exclaimed: “O !ko-g!nuing-tara! let the child suck.” And her elder sister sprang out of the reeds; her elder sister, in this manner, came running; her elder sister caught hold of her, she turning (her body on one side) gave her ) elder sister the child. She said: “I am here” And her elder sister allowed the child to suck. She said: “Thou must quickly bring the child (again), while I am still conscious; for, I feel as if my thinking-strings would fall down.” And her younger sister took the child upon her back, she returned home; while her elder sister went into the reeds.

And, near sunset, she went to her elder sister; while she felt that her elder sister was the one who had thus spoken to her about it; her elder sister said: “Thou must quickly bring the child, for, I feel. as if I should forget you, while I feel that I do not know.” And, her younger sister took the child near sunset, she went to her elder sister, she stood. She exclaimed: “O !ko-g!nuing-tara! let the child suck.” Her elder sister sprang out of the reeds; she ran up to her younger sister. And she caught hold of her younger sister. Her younger sister said: “I am here! I am here!” She allowed the child to suck. She said: “Thou must quickly come (again); for, I feel as if I should forget you, (as if) I should not any longer think of you.” Her

[1. The name of the younger sister of !ko-g!nuing-tara was |Xe-dde-Yoe. She was a (one of the early race).]

younger sister returned home, while she went into the reeds.

Her younger sister, on the morrow, she went to her elder sister; she walked, coming, coming, coming, coming, she stood. And she exclaimed: “O !ko-g!nuing-tara!” let the child suck.” And her elder sister sprang out of the reeds, she ran up to her younger sister, she caught hold of her younger sister. Her younger sister, springing aside, gave her the child. Her younger sister said: “I am here!” Therefore, she (the elder sister) spoke, she said to her younger sister: “Thou must not continue to come to me; for, I do not any longer feel that I know.” And her younger sister returned home.

And they went to make a !ku[1] there (at the house). They played. The men played with them, while the women were those who clapped their hands, while the men were those who nodded their heads, while the women were those who clapped their hands for them. Then, the Dawn’s-Heart, nodding his head, went up to his younger sister-in-law, he laid his hand on his younger sister-in-law (on her shoulder). Then his younger sister-in-law swerved aside. She exclaimed: “Leave me alone! your wives, the old she-hyenas,[2] may clap their hands for you.”

Then the Dawn’s-Heart ran to the hyena; he took

[1. This is a dance or game of the Bushmen, which |hang#kass’o has not himself seen, but has heard of from Tuani-ang and #kammi, two of Tsatsi’s wives. They used to say that their fathers made a !ku (and) played. Their mothers were those who clapped their hands, clapped their hands for the men; the men nodded their heads.

2. She said !gwai |e-tara, a from anger; anger was that on account of which she said !gwai |e-tara.]

aim (with his assegai),[1] he pierced the place where the hyena had been sitting,[2] while the hyena sprang out, she trod, burning herself in the fire, while she sprang away; while the ornaments remained at the place where she had been sitting, and where she had been wearing them. She sprang away, while they remained.

And the Dawn’s-Heart scolded his younger sister-in-law, why was it that his younger sister-in-law had not quickly told him about it; she had concealed from him about the hyena; as if this was not why he had seen that the woman had been sitting with her back towards him, she had not been sitting with her face towards him. She had been sitting with her back towards him; the (i.e. his) wife had been sitting with her face towards him. A different person, she must be the one who was here, she had sat with her back towards him.[3] And he said that his younger sister-in-law should quickly explain to him about the place where the (his) wife seemed to be. His younger sister-in-law said: “Thou shalt wait, that the place may become light[4]; for, thou dost seem to think that (thy) wife is still like that which she used to be. We will go to (thy) wife, when the sun has come out.”

[1. (He) brought himself to a stand (in order to take aim).

2. She sat in the house, being afraid. Therefore, she took off the bracelets from her wrists, while she desired that she might sit quietly; while she felt that she left the things. She suspected that the people were making a !ku (on her account), therefore she did not go to the !ku, while she felt that she had been wearing !ko-g!nuing-tara things.

3. Because he had married the hyena, because he thought that it was !ko-g!nuing-tara.

4. Because it was night.]

Therefore, on the morrow, he said that his younger sister-in-law must quickly allow them to go. Then his younger sister-in-law said: “We ought to drive, taking goats, that we may take goats to (thy) wife.” Therefore, they drove, taking goats. They drove along goats, drove along goats; they took the goats to the reeds. And they drove the goats to a stand.[1]

|Xe-dde-Yoe[1] directed her elder sister’s husband, she said that her elder sister’s husband should stand behind her back, the other people must stand behind her elder sister’s husband’s back, while she must be the one to stand beside the goats. Then she exclaimed: !ko-g!nuing-tara! let the child suck.”

Then her elder sister sprang out of the reeds; she, in this manner, she running came. She, when she had run to her younger sister, she perceived the goats, she turned aside to the goats. She caught hold of a goat. The Dawn’s-Heart caught hold of (his) wife, while the wife caught hold of the goat; while his younger sister-in-law, |Xe-dde-Yoe, also took hold of the wife. All the people altogether caught hold of her. Other people were catching hold of the goats; they out the goats open, they took out the contents of the stomach, they anointed !ko-g!nuing-tara with the contents of the stomachs. They, taking hold, rubbed off the hair[3] (from her skin). Therefore, when she sat down, she said: “Ye must, pulling, leave the hair on the tips of my ears; for, in that

[1. They left off (driving), in order that the goats might stand still.

2. |Xe is a young girl. What the whole of |Xe-dde-Yoe’s name means, the narrator does not know.

3. The hair, with which she had become a lynx.]

manner I shall come to hear; for, I do not feel as if I should hear.” Therefore, the man (her husband), pulling off, left the hair on the tips of her ears, that hair which is thus[2] on the tips of the ears, standing on the top of them.

Therefore, the Dawn’s-Heart used, when he was returning home,[3] to put an arrow on the bow, he walked, sticking the end of his assegai into the ground, as he returning came. His eyes were large, as he came walking along; they resembled fires. The people were afraid of him as he came, on account of his eyes; while they felt that his eyes resembled fires, as he came walking along. The jackals were afraid of him, as he returning came.

In order to throw more light on that portion of the story of !ko-gnuing-tara which is contained in the version here given, the following extract is supplied from page 11 of Dr. Bleek’s “Second Report concerning Bushman Researches”, printed at Cape Town, in 1875:–

“The “Dawn’s-Heart” (the star Jupiter) has a daughter, who is identified with some neighboring star preceding Jupiter (at the time when we asked, it was Regulus or Alpha Leonis). Her name is the “Dawn’s-Heart-child,” and her relation to her father is somewhat mysterious. He calls her “my heart,” he swallows her, then walks alone as the only Dawn’s-Heart Star, and, when she is grown up, he spits her out again. She then herself becomes another (female) Dawn’s-Heart, and spits out another Dawn’s-Heart-child, which follows the male and female Dawn’s-Heart. The mother of the latter, the first-mentioned Dawn’s-Heart’s wife, was the Lynx, who was then a beautiful woman, with a younger sister who carried her digging-stick after her. The Dawn’s-Heart hid his child under the leaves of an edible root (!kuissi), where he thought that his wife would come and find it. Other animals and birds arrived first, and each proposed herself to the Dawn’s-Heart-child as its mother; but they

[1. She said that she should not hear, if all the hair were off her ears. Therefore, her husband should leave the other hair on her ears.

2. Holding up two fingers.

3. He always (henceforth) did thus, because the hyenas had made his heart angry, they had poisoned (his) wife.]

were mocked at by the child, until at last it recognized its own mother. Among the insulted animals were the Jackal and the Hyena, who, to revenge themselves, bewitched the mother (Lynx) with some poisoned “Bushman rice” (so-called “ants’ eggs”), by which means she was transformed into a lioness. la the dark, the Hyena tried to take her (the Lynx’s) place in the hut, on the return of the Dawn’s-Heart; but the imposture was made known to him by his sister-in-law. The Dawn’s-Heart tried to stab the Hyena with his assegai, but missed her. She fled, putting her foot into the fire, and burning it severely. The bewitched wife was enticed out of the reeds by her younger sister, and then caught by her brothers, who pulled off the lion skin, so that she became a fair woman again. But, in consequence of having been bewitched by “Bushman rice,” she could no longer eat that, and was changed into a lynx who ate meat.–This myth, which contains many minor, and some beautiful incidents, is partly given in the form of a narrative, and partly in discourses addressed by the Dawn’s-Heart to his daughter, as well as in speeches made by the Hyena and her parents, after her flight home.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

IIIa. Other Myths.

 

THE SON OF THE WIND.

The (son of the) Wind was formerly still. And he rolled[1] (a ball) to !na-ka-ti. He exclaimed: “O !na-ka-ti! There it goes!” And!na-ka-ti exclaimed: “O comrade! There it goes!” because inq-ka-ti felt that he did not know his (the other one’s) name. Therefore, !na-ka-ti said: “O comrade! There it goes!” He who was the wind, he was the one who said: “O !na-ka-ti! There it goes!

Therefore, !na-ka-ti went to question his mother about the other one’s name. He exclaimed: “O our mother! Utter for me comrade who is yonder, his name; for, comrade utters my name; I do not utter comrade’s name. I would also utter comrade’s name, when I am rolling (the ball) to him. For, I do not utter comrade’s name; I would also utter his name, when I roll (the ball) to him.” Therefore,

[1. Rolled (a ball of) ||kuarri to him. I think that it must have been ||kuarri; for, ||kuarri is that with which we are rolling (a ball): when we wish to aim, seeing ourselves, whether a man aims better than the other people. Therefore, we are rolling (a ball) with ||kuarri.

||kuarri is found in our country. They stand in numbers around. Therefore, the porcupine eats them. We do not eat them; for they are poison.

2. The name !na-ka-ti |hang#kass’o was unable to explain. He thinks that it must have been given by the parents, as !na-ka-ti was still a child. He further stated that the word !na is the name of an insect which resembles the locust. It is large, and also resembles the Acridium ruficorne. It is red. It affects the eyes of the Bushmen. Their eyes become closed and they writhe with pain on account of the burning caused by this insect.]

his mother exclaimed: “I will not utter to thee comrade’s name. For, thou shalt wait; that father may first shelter for us the hut;[1] that father may first strongly shelter the hut.[2] And then I will utter for thee comrade’s name. And thou shalt, when I have uttered for thee comrade’s name, thou must, when I am the one who has uttered for thee comrade’s name, thou must, when I have uttered for thee comrade’s name, thou must scamper away, thou must run home, that thou mayest come into the hut, whilst thou dost feel that the wind would blow thee away.”

Therefore, the child went; they (the two children) went to roll (the ball) there. Therefore, he (!na-ka-ti) again, he went to his mother, he again, he went to question his mother about the other one’s name.

And his mother exclaimed: “|erriten-!kuang-!kuang” it is; !gau-!gaubu-ti it is. He is |erriten-!kunag-!kunag; he is !gau-!gaubu-ti, he is |erriten-!kuang-!kuang.”

Therefore, !na-ka-ti went on account of it. He went to roll (the ball) there, while he did not utter the other one’s name, while he felt that his mother was the one who had thus spoken to him. She said: “Thou must not, at first, utter comrade’s name. Thou must, at first, be silent, even if comrade be the one who is uttering thy name. Therefore, thou shalt, when thou hast uttered comrade’s name, thou must run home, while thou dost feel that the wind would blow thee away.”

Therefore, !na-ka-ti went on account of it; they went to roll (the ball) there, while the other was

[1. They had a hut . . . the hut was small. They probably had a mat hut.

2. That is, make a strong screen of bushes for the mat hut.]

the one who uttered his (!na-ka-ti’s) name. While he (!na-ka-ti) felt that he wished that his father should first finish making the shelter for the hut. And (when) he saw that his father sat down, then he would, afterwards, utter the Other one’s name, when he beheld that his father had finished sheltering the hut.

Therefore, when he beheld that his father had finished sheltering the hut, then he exclaimed: “There it goes! O |erriten-!kuang-!kuang! There it goes !gau-!gaubu-ti! There it goes! And he scampered away, he ran home; while the other one began to lean over, and the other one fell down. He lay kicking violently upon the vlei.[1] Therefore, the people’s huts vanished away, the wind blew, breaking their (sheltering) bushes, together with the huts, while the people could not see for the dust. Therefore, his (the wind’s) mother came out of the hut [2] (i.e., of the wind’s hut); his mother came, grasping (him), to raise him up; his mother, grasping (him), set him on his feet. And he was unwilling, (and) wanted to lie still. His mother, taking hold (of him), set him on his feet. Therefore, the wind became still; while the wind had, at first, while he lay, caused the dust to rise.

Therefore, we who are Bushmen, we are wont to say: “The wind seems to be lying down, for, it does not gently blow (i.e. it blows strongly). For, when it stands (upright), then it is still, when it stands; for, it seems to be lying down, when it

[1. A depression in the ground, sometimes dry, sometimes covered with coarse grass and rushes, and sometimes filled with water.

2. Her hut remained standing, while it felt that they themselves were wind.]

does in this manner. its knee is that which makes a noise, when it lies down; for its knee does sound. I had wished that it might gently blow for us, that we might go out, that we might ascend the place yonder, that we might behold the river bed yonder standing behind (the hill). For, we have driven away the springbok from this place. Therefore, the springbok, have gone to yonder (dry) river bed standing behind (the hill). For, we have not a little shot the springbok at this place; for, we have shot, letting the sun set,[1] at the springbok at this place.”

[1. Literally, “having put in the sun.”]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE WIND.

The Wind [1] (i.e. the Wind’s son) was formerly a man. He became a bird.[2] And he was flying, while he no longer walked, as he used to do; for, he was flying, and he dwelt, in the mountain (that is, in a mountain hole). Therefore, he was flying. He was formerly a man. Therefore, he was formerly rolling (a ball); he was shooting; while he felt that he was a person. He became a bird; and he was flying, and he dwelt in a mountain’s hole. And he was coming out of it, he flew about, and) he returned to it. And he came to sleep in it; and, he early awaking goes out of it;

[1. The young wind blew, while, the young wind felt that its fathers seemed formerly to have blown; for, they were the wind. Therefore, they blew. For the people did not tell me about the wind’s parents–, for, they merely talked to me about the young wind.

2. The Wind was formerly a person; he, became a bird. Therefore, he is tied up in stuff. His skin is that which we call stuff.]

he flies away, again, he flies away. And he again returns, while he feels that he has sought food. And he eats, about, about, about, about, he again returns. And he, again, comes to sleep (in) it.

[That this curious belief, that the wind now wears the form of a bird, was even lately in active existence among the Bushmen, the following will suffice to show:–]

Smoke’s Man[1] was the one who formerly spoke to me about the wind, when he was still living with his master, Jacob Kotze.[2] He said that the place at which he had seen the wind was Haarfontein;[3] while its Bushman name is #koaXa; while its name (by) which the Europeans call it, is Haarfontein.

Smoke’s Man espied the wind at Haarfontein’s mountain. Therefore, he was throwing a stone at the wind, while he believed (it) to be a !kuerre!kuerre (a certain bird). And the wind burst on account of it. Therefore, the wind did not blow gently; the wind raised the dust, because he had thrown a stone at the wind, The wind raised the dust, while the wind flew away. The wind went into a mountain’s hole, and the wind burst; the wind did not gently blow.

And he (Smoke’s Man), being afraid, went home; he went to sit under the hut’s bushes,[4] while he

[1. ||goo-ka-!kui, or “Witbooi Tooren”, was the son of ||khabo (“Oud Jantje Tooren”) and his wife, !kuabba-ang (“Oude Lies”). |han#kass’o used to teach “Witbooi” how to hunt springbok; being already grown up when “Witbooi” was still a child.

2. Jacob Kotze is a Bastaard. He used to live at “Hartus Kloof”.

3. Haarfontein’s mountains in which he saw the Wind.

4. i.e. the bushes broken off and used to make a shelter for the mat hut.]

did not look to the sheep. The sheep[1] by themselves, the sheep returning came, while he sat under the (hut’s) bushes; while he felt that he did not perceive the sheep on account of the dust. Therefore, he went to sit under the (hut’s) bushes, while he desired that the dust should settle for him, he sat under the (hut’s) bushes, sat close under the hut’s sheltering bushes, while he felt that he sat warming himself; while he felt that the place was cold. Therefore, he sat under the (hut’s) bushes, while he felt that he sat warming himself. And he afterwards arose, he drove bringing the sheep[2] to the kraal, while he felt that the sun had met. Therefore he again, he went to sit under the (hut’s) bushes, while he wished that his mother should be the one to bring him food.[3] Therefore, he came to sit under the (hut’s) bushes, when he had brought the sheep to the kraal. He went to sit under the hut’s bushes, while his mother who worked there,[4] she would be the one to bring him food. Therefore, he sat under the (hut’s) bushes, while he desired that he might lie down.

Therefore, his mother worked (and) worked,[5]

[1. The “Africander” sheep (those with the thick tails) will (|hang#kass’o says) return home alone; while the “Va’rland” sheep do not return home alone, but remain where they were left.

!k’oa is the name for “Va’rland sheep, or “Moff”.

!gei s the name for “Africander sheep, “Kaap Schaap.”

3. The sheep stand upon a bare (unenclosed) place, the Bastaard’s sheep. Therefore, the shepherd dwells (i.e. has his hut) on this side of the sheep; the wagon stands on that (the opposite) side of the sheep, while the sheep stand between.

4. He was (at that time) a child.

5. Worked at the master’s, the Bastaard’s.]

his mother brought him food. Therefore, he ate up this little food, he lay down; while he felt that the Bastaards are not accustomed to give food liberally. “Silla” was the one who gave food liberally, Jacob Kotzes wife, while she felt that she was a Bushman (woman); she speaks the Bushman (language). We used, being satisfied, to leave the food which she gave to us. I used to live with her (i.e. at her place). Silla (and) Jacob Kotze, they are those with whom I used to live.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

#KAGA’RA[1] AND !HAUNU, WHO FOUGHT EACH OTHER WITH LIGHTNING.

They formerly, #kagara formerly went to fetch his younger sister, he went to take her away; he went to take her away from !haunu[2]; and he took (her) back to her parents.

!haunu gave chase to his brother-in-law, he passed along behind the hill.

The clouds came, clouds which were unequalled in beauty (lit. “clouds which not beautiful like them”); they vanished away.

#kagara said:[3] “Thou must walk on.” His younger sister walked, carrying (a heavy burden of)

[1 A bird (it) is; a little bird (it) is; it resembles the Lanius Collaris (a Butcher-Bird).

2. A man (it) is; the Rain (it) is. I think that a Rain’s Sorcerer (he) seems to have been. His name resembles (that of) the mucus which we are used to blow out of our nose, which is thick, that which the Bushmen call !hau!haung.

3. To his younger sister.]

things, (her) husband’s things. He (#kagara) said: “Thou must walk on; for, home is not near at hand.”

!haunu passed along behind (the hill).

The clouds came, the clouds vanished away.

#kagara said: “Thou must walk on, for, thou art the one who dost see.” And he, because the house became near) he exclaimed: “Walk on! Walk on!” He waited for his younger sister; his younger sister came up to his side. He exclaimed: “What things can these be, which thou dost heavily carry?”

Then !haunu sneezed, on account of it;[3] blood poured out of his nostrils; he stealthily lightened at his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law fended him quickly off,[4] his brother-in-law also stealthily lightened at him. He quickly fended off his brother-in-law. His brother-in-law also lightened at him. He (#kagara) said: “Thou must come (and) walk close beside me; for, thou art the one who dost see that husband does not allow us time; for, he does not singly lighten.”

They (#kagara and !haunu) went along angry with

[1. The things which the wife carried, they resembled water; they, in this manner, were pushing at her; while they felt that they were not hard, they did in this manner (i.e. swayed forward), behind her back.

2. !haunu was the one from whose nostrils blood came out, when he intended to sneeze. He sneezed on account of his things, to which #kagara did in this manner (i.e. felt at roughly).

3. In the word ||khabbe(t) the t is barely pronounced. The meaning of this word is explained by the narrator as follows: (He) fends off his brother-in-law (by motioning with his arm). Fending off (it) is, when other people are fighting their fellows with their fists. Fending off is that which they are wont to do, they wave off with the arm, while they fend off the other one’s arm. He (#kagara) fended off the other one’s lightning.]

each other. !haunu had intended that he should be the one lightening to #kagara to whisk away

#kagara. #kagara was one who was strong (lit. “was not light”, or “did not feel light”), he continued to fend off his younger sister’s husband, !haunu. His younger sister’s husband was also lightening at him; he was lightening at his brother-in-law. Then he stealthily lightened at his younger sister’s husband with black lightning,[1] he, lightening, whisked him up (and carried him to a little distance).

His younger sister’s husband, in this manner, lay dying; he, in this manner, he thundered,[2] while #kagara bound up his head[3] with the net, he, returning, arrived at home.

He went to lie down in the hut, while !haunu lay thundering;[4] he thundered there, while #kagara went to lie down, when he had rubbed them (i.e. himself and his younger sister) with buchu,[5] buchu, buchu, buchu, he lay down.

[1. Black lightning is that which kills us, that which we do not perceive it come; it resembles a gun, we are merely startled by the clouds’ thundering, while the other man lies, shrivelled up lies.

2. As he lay.

3. His head ached; his head was splitting (with pain).

4. To thunder is !kuerriten; but the narrator explained that !ke!keya here means ‘to lie thundering’; and illustrated the expression by saying that “the Bushmen are wont to say that the springbok is one which goes to lie bleating; it is not willing to die quickly”.

5. Buchu (in Webster’s international Dictionary of 1902) is stated to be, “A South African shrub (Barosma)”.]

Note by the Narrator.

My grandmothers used to say: “#kagara and his companion are those who fight in the East, he and !haunu.”

When the clouds were thick, and the clouds, when the clouds were thick, and the clouds were at this place, and the clouds resembled a mountain, then, the clouds were lightening, on account of it. And my grandmothers used to say: “It is #kagara, with !haunu.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

IV. Animal Fables.

 

THE HYENA’S REVENGE.

First Version.

The Hyena was the one who went to the Lion’s house, then, he deceived the Lion; while he felt that the Lion had acted grudgingly towards him about the quagga’s flesh; therefore, the Lion came to the Hyena’s house, when the Hyena was boiling there in the Hyena’s pot; the Hyena boiled ostrich flesh in it.

Therefore, the Hyena gave soup to the Lion therefore, the Lion took hold of the pot, while the pot was hot; the Hyena also grasped the pot with his, hands; the Hyena said: “O Lion! Allow me to pour soup into the inside of thy mouth.” The Hyena poured soup into the Lion’s mouth; then, he put the mouth of the pot over the Lion’s head, while the pot was hot; the soup was burning the Lion’s eyes; the soup also burned the inside of his mouth. Then, he swallowed hot soup with his throat, he swallowed, causing himself to die with hot soup he died, while his head was inside the pot.

The Hyena took up the Hyena’s stick, the Hyena was beating him with the stick, while his head was inside the pot; the Hyena was beating him; the Hyena struck, cleaving the pot asunder; while the Hyena felt that the Hyena had deceived him therefore, he came to the Hyena.

The Hyena killed him, with hot soup; while he felt that the pot had stood upon the fire; he took the pot off from the fire, while he felt that he intended to burn the Lion to death, with the soup’s heat; while he felt that the Lion had been niggardly towards him about the quagga’s flesh; therefore, he deceived him with the ostrich flesh; while he felt that he intended to put the Lion’s head into the pot; therefore, he deceived him; while he felt that (he had married a female Hyena, he also is a male Hyena; therefore, be is a “Decayed Arm”,[1] on account of it.

The Lion also marries a Lioness, as the Lion is a male Lion. The Hyena also marries a female Hyena, as the Hyena is a male Hyena. The leopard also marries a leopardess, as the leopard is a male leopard. The hunting leopard[2] marries a hunting leopardess, as the hunting leopard is a male hunting leopard.

[1. This expression is used to denote a person who acts ungenerously regarding food.

2. Felis jubata.]

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE HYENA’S REVENGE.

Second Version.

The Hyena was the one who went to the Lion’s house, then, the Lion acted grudgingly towards the Hyena; then, the Hyena became angry about it, therefore, the Hyena deceived the Lion, that he should also come to his house. The Hyena said: “O Lion! Thou must also visit my house; while he felt that he deceived the Lion; therefore, the Lion visited his house on account of it; he went to deceive the Lion with soup.

The Hyena said: “I am accustomed to pour soup into this child’s mouth, I also pour soup into this child’s mouth, I also pour soup into the child’s mouth; I also pour into my wife’s mouth soup.”

Therefore, he poured soup into the Lion’s mouth, he put the Lion’s head into the pot, while he felt that he altogether put the Lion’s head into the pot, that he might altogether kill the Lion with the soup’s heat; while he feels that he is a Hyena who deceives other people; he speaks; therefore, he talked to the Lion about it. The Lion also speaks; they talked to each other; therefore, the Lion assented, because he also is a foolish Lion, because he is a Lion who kills people; he also eats people. The Hyena also kills people, while the Hyena feels that he also eats people; therefore, the Hyena carried off the old woman[1] on account of it.

Therefore, the Hyena took up the stick, he struck the Lion down, while the Lion’s head was inside the pot; he beat him with the stick, while he felt that the Lion died, when his head was inside the pot.

[1. This is an allusion to a favourite Bushman story. Vide  section80 of Dr. Bleek’s “Brief Account of Bushman Folklore and other Texts”, Cape Town, 1875.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE LION JEALOUS OF THE VOICE OF THE OSTRICH.

“It is the Story of the Lions and the Ostrich.”

And the Lions conspired[1] together that they might deceive the Ostrich; for, the women[2] were

[1. The Lion was a man, the Ostrich was also a man, at the time when the Lion kicked the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu; when they called (in) the #gebbi-ggu. Therefore, the nail of the Ostrich decayed, while it felt that he (the Ostrich) had kicked the Lion’s |una-ttu. Therefore, it decayed. Therefore, the people, with regard to the scar yonder on the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu, they say that it is (from) the Lion’s nail.

2. The women of the Ostriches and of the Lions.]

wont, with regard to the Ostrich, they only praised the Ostrich for calling finely; the women did not praise them. And they (the Lions), speaking, said: “In what manner shall I we deceive?” And another Lion answered, he said: “We must tell the women to make a (game of) #gebbi-ggu,[1] that we may see whether the women will again do as they are wont to do; when they only admire (?) the Ostrich; that we may really see whether it be true that the women admire (?) the Ostrich. We shall see what the Ostrich will do.” And another Lion spoke, be said: “Why can it be that the Ostrich calls so well (lit. does not a little call sweetly)?” And the other Lion answered, he said: “The ostrich calls with his lungs; therefore, his throat sounds in this manner; his chest’s front. Thou dost call with thy mouth; therefore, thou dost not call nicely.”

The other Lion answered, he said: “Ye must make a (game of) #gebbi-ggu, that ye may kill the Ostrich, that ye may take out the Ostrich’s lungs,

[1. The |goo or #gebbi-ggu among the Grass Bushmen.

They (the Grass Bushmen) call [like the male ostrich]; the women clap their hands for them; they (the men) call to the women. The women are those who dance; they (the men) call. And this woman goes out (from the dance), she stands [being weary], while two other persons (i.e. two other women), they come forward in among the men, while the men call. They call more sweetly than anybody, for, their throats sound like real Ostriches; while the women are those who sing, while the men call.]

that ye may eat them; and ye will call, sounding like the Ostrich, when ye have eaten the Ostrich’s lungs.”

And the Lions spoke, they said to the women: “Make a (game of) #gebbi-ggu” They would listen whether it were true that the Ostrich calls finely.

And the women made a (game of) #gebbi-ggu on account of it; and the Lion called. The Ostrich was still yonder at his house; the Lion called; the women did not applaud the Lion, because they felt that the Lion did not call well; for, they continued to look at the Lion; and the Ostrich came; and the Ostrich called, sounding afar. And the women exclaimed: “I do wish that the Lion called in this manner; for, he sounds as if he had put his tail into his mouth, while the Ostrich calls in a resounding manner.”

And the Lion, answering, said: “Dost thou not see that the women act in this manner towards the Ostrich? and it is only the Ostrich whom they cherish, because he possesses this sweet call. The women cherish him only.”

And the other Lion became angry on account of it; namely, that the Ostrich was the one whom the women cherished; and he seemed as if he were about to move away; and he scratched the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu; scratched, tearing it. And he called out: “is it a thing which calls sweetly?” while he kicked the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu. And the Ostrich also quickly (?) turned back. And the Ostrich also kicked, tearing his |uan-ttu; and the Ostrich, speaking, said: “This person, it is his |uan-ttu, he is wroth with me, because he is the one who is wont to hold his tail in his mouth

when he calls; this is why the women do not praise him; while the women feel that he does not call nicely for the women. This is why the women are not willing to make a #gebbi-ggu for him; the women feel that he does not call, sounding like me; in that case the women would have praised him.”

Therefore, my grandfather spoke, he said to us[1] about it, that we should also do as the Lion formerly did to the Ostrich about it, when he had formerly killed the Ostrich; he ate the Ostrich’s lungs, while he wished that he might call, sounding like the Ostrich. Therefore, he ate the lungs.

My grandfather also gave us the Ostrich’s lungs to eat, that we might also resemble the Ostrich; and we spoke, we asked our grandfather, whether we should not baking cook the Ostrich’s lungs; and our grandfather spoke, he said to us about it, that we should not cook the Ostrich’s lungs; for, we in this manner eat the Ostrich’s lungs, eat them raw. For, we should, if we were to eat the Ostrich’s lungs when they were cooked, we should not call, sounding like the Ostrich, if we ate them when they were cooked. Our grandfather, speaking, told us about it, that, we should not chew the Ostrich’s lungs, we should swallow them down, while they were whole. For, we should, if we had chewed the Ostrich’s lungs, we should not call, sounding like the Ostrich, if we had chewed them.

And, our grandfather, speaking, said: “Ye must come and stand around, that I may be cutting off from the Ostrich’s lungs, that I may be giving

[1. We who were little boys,” the narrator explains.]

them to you, that ye may be swallowing them down.” And we, answering, said: “O my grandfather! We do not wish to eat the Ostrich’s lungs when they are raw.”And our grandfather answered, he said to us about it, that we also wished to resemble the Lion; he formerly became angry with the Ostrich, about the Ostrich’s fine calling. We also should be wont if we heard that our companions called, sounding very sweetly, we should become angry with our companions, when we heard that they called, sounding very sweetly; we should fight with them, if we felt that the women did not applaud (?) us. Therefore, we become angry. We are fighting with them, because we are angry that the women do not applaud(?) us.

Translation of Notes.

The Lion was a man, the Ostrich was also a man, at that time when the Lion kicked the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu; when they were calling the #gebbi-ggu. Therefore, the nail of the Ostrich decayed; while it felt that he had kicked the Lion’s |uan-ttu. Therefore, it decayed on account of it. Therefore, the people are used to say to the scar which is yonder upon the Ostrich’s ||hatten-ttu, that it is the Lion’s nail.

The time when the Lion had not killed the Ostrich, was the one at which they made the #gebbi-ggu’s fight. He, afterwards, killed the Ostrich; and he ate the Ostrich; it was at a new time that he ate the Ostrich; and he made “a food’s thing” of the Ostrich; therefore, the old people say, that, the Lion is a thing which is wont, when it has killed an Ostrich, it is not willing to go away in fear, leaving the Ostrich; for, it is wont, even if we are speaking very angrily to it, it is not willing to go away in fear, leaving the Ostrich. For, it would be very angry with us, if we even thought that we would drive it away.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE RESURRECTION OF THE OSTRICH.

The Bushman kills an Ostrich at the Ostrich’s eggs; he carries away the Ostrich to the house. And his wife takes off the Ostrich’s short feathers which were inside the net, because they were bloody; she goes to place them (on the bushes). They eat the Ostrich meat.

A little whirlwind comes to them; it blows up the Ostrich feathers. A little Ostrich feather that has blood upon it, it blows up the little feather into the sky. The little feather falls down out of the sky, it having whirled round falls down, it goes into the water, it becomes wet in the water, it is conscious, it lies in the water, it becomes Ostrich flesh; it gets feathers, it puts on its Wings, it gets its legs, while it lies in the water. It walks out of the water, it basks in the sun upon the water’s edge, because it is still a young Ostrich. Its feathers are young feathers (quills); because its feathers are little feathers. They are black; for a little male Ostrich it is. He dries (his feathers) lying upon the water’s bank, that he may afterwards walk away, when his little feathers are dried, that he may walk unstiffening his legs. For he had been in the water; that he may walk strengthening his feet, for he thinks that his feet must be in (Ostrich’s) veldschoens, because his feet become strong. While he walks strengthening his feet) he lies down, he hardens his breast, that his breastbone may become bone. He walks away, he eats young, bushes, because a young Ostrich he is. He swallows young plants which are small, because a little Ostrich he is. His little feather it was which became the Ostrich, it was that which the wind blew up, while the wind was a little whirlwind; he thinks of the place on which he has scratched; he lets himself grow, that he may first be grown, that he may afterwards, lying (by the way), go to his house’s old place, where he did die lying there, that he may go to scratch in the old house,[1] while he goes to fetch his wives. He will add (to the two previous ones)

[1. Making the new house on the old one.]

another she Ostrich; because he did die, he will marry three Ostrich wives. Because his breastbone is bone, he roars, hardening his ribs, that his ribs may become bone. Then he scratches (out a house), for he does sleeping (by the way) arrive at the house’s place; he roaring calls the Ostrich wives, that the Ostrich wives may come to him. Therefore he roaring calls, that he may perceive the she Ostriches come to him; and he meets them, that he may run round the females; for he had been dead; he dying left his wives. He will look at his wives’ feathers, for his wives’ feathers appear to be fine.

When he has strengthened his flesh, he feels heavy, as he comes, because his legs are big, his knees are large; he has grown great feathers, because the quills are those which are great feathers; these feathers become strong, they are old feathers. Therefore he roars strongly, for the ribs are big. And he is a grown up Ostrich; his wings’ feathers are long. He thinks that he will scratch, that the females may lay eggs; for his claws are hard, they want to scratch for he brings the females to the house’s place. The females stand eating. Therefore he goes back, he scratches, while the she Ostriches eat there. He first goes to scratch drying the house, because it is damp, that the inside of the house may dry. The she Ostriches shall look at the house; one she Ostrich, she lies down to try the house, she tries whether the house seems to be nice; she first sleeps opposite the house, because the inside of the house is wet, as the rain has newly fallen. Thus they first lie opposite the house, they sleep opposite the house. She shall lie, making the ground inside the house soft; she first lies, making the ground inside the house soft, that the inside of the house may be dry, that another female may come and lay an egg in the inside of the house which is dry, for the earth of the house is wet. She first goes to lie opposite the house. One other female again comes, She comes to lay another new egg; she first comes to flap her wings in the house, for two small eggs stand (there); she again goes to sleep opposite the house. All the females are those who sleep at the house. He galloping in the dark drives the females to the house; he shall running take the females to the house; they all walking arrive at the house. Another female, a different one, lays another egg; they again flapping their wings peck at it. He drives the females away; he lies inside the house. These females, following each other, reach him at the house; these females send him off, they all lay eggs. He goes, for he goes away to eat. Two wives lie in the house; another wife also goes with him, they go to eat together; they sleep. The two wives sleep in the house. They two (the male and female) return early, they shall early send off the two wives, who had lain in the house. The wife who had been with him, lays another egg; the wives go, all the wives, whilst he lies down, that he may sleep at the house. He will drive away the jackal, when he thinks that the jackal is coming to the eggs, the jackal will push the eggs. Therefore he takes care of the eggs, because his children they indeed are. Therefore, he also takes care of them, that he may drive away the jackal, that the jackal may not kill his children, that he may kick the jackal with his feet.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE VULTURES, THEIR ELDER SISTER, AND HER HUSBAND.

The Vultures formerly made their elder sister of a person;[1] they lived with her.

They, when their elder sister’s husband[2] brought (home) a springbok, they ate up the springbok. And their elder sister’s husband cursed them, he scolded at them.

And their[3] elder sister took up the skin of the springbok, she singed it. Their elder sister boiled the skin of the springbok, their elder sister took it out (of the pot).

[1. A woman was the one of whom they made their elder sister. The woman was a person of the early race.

2. man of the early race (he) was.

3. |han#kass’o explains the use of the singular form of the pronoun, here, in the following manner: “Their elder sister was one, they were many.”]

And they were taking hold[1] of the pieces of skin, they swallowed them down. Their elder sister’s husband scolded them, because they again, they ate with their elder sister, of the springbok’s skin, when they had just eaten the body of the springbok, they again, they ate with their elder sister of the springbok’s skin.

And they were afraid of their elder sister’s husband, they went away, they went in all directions, they, in this manner, sat down. And they looked at their elder sister’s husband, they were looking furtively at their elder sister’s husband.

Their elder sister’s husband went hunting. He again, he went (and) killed a springbok; he brought the springbok home, slung upon his back.[3] They again, they came (and) ate up the springbok. Their elder sister’s husband scolded them. And they moved away, they sat down. [4]

Their elder sister singed the springbok’s skin she boiled the springbok’s skin. Their elder sister was giving to them pieces of the skin, they were swallowing them down.

Therefore, on the morrow, their elder sister’s husband said that his wife must go with him; she should altogether eat on the hunting ground; for, his younger sisters-in-law were in the habit of eating up the springbok. Therefore, the wife should go with him. Then, the wife went with him.

[1. I think that it was (with) their hands, if they were not taking hold of things with their mouths; for, they flew.

2. Their elder sister was the one who had been giving to them of the springbok’s skin.

3. Carried the springbok.

4. When the meat was finished; they had eaten up the meat.]

Therefore, they,[1] when their elder sister had gone, they went out of the house,[2] they sat down opposite to the house,[3] and they conspired together about it. They said, this other one said: “Thou shalt ascend, and then thou must come to tell us what the place seems to be like.” And another said: “Little sister[4] shall be the one to try; and then, she must tell us.” And then, a Vulture who was a little Vulture girl, she arose, she ascended.

They said: “Allow us, that we may see what little sister will do.” Then, she went, disappearing in the sky, they no longer perceived her.

They sat; they were awaiting the time at which their younger sister should descend. Then, their younger sister descended (lit. fell) from above out of the sky, she (came and) sat in the midst of them.

And they exclaimed Ah! What is the place like? “And their younger sister said: “Our mate[5] who is here shall ascend, that she may look. For, the place seems as if we should perceive a thing, when we are above there.”

Then, her elder sister who was a grown up girl, she arose, she ascended, she went, disappearing in

[1. The Vultures.

2. Their elder sister’s house, in which they had been living with their elder sister.

3. They felt that they were people.

4. A little girl.

5. Her elder sister was the one of whom she spoke.]

the sky. She descended from above, she sat in the midst of the other people. [1]

And the other people said: “What is the place like?” And she said: “There is nothing the matter with the place; for, the place is clear. The place is very beautiful; for, I do behold the whole place; the stems of the trees,[2] I do behold them; the place seems as if we should perceive a springbok, if a springbok were lying under a tree; for the place is very beautiful.”

Then, they altogether arose, all of them, they ascended into the sky,[3] while they wished that their elder sister should eat; for, their elder sister’s husband scolded them.

Therefore, they used, when they espied their elder sister’s husband coming, they ate in great haste. They said: “Ye must eat! ye must eat! ye must eat in great haste! for, that accursed man who comes yonder, he could not endure us.” And, they finished the springbok, they flew away, flew heavily away, they thus, they yonder alighted; while their elder sister’s husband came to pick up the bones.

They, when they perceived a springbok, they descended, and their elder sister perceived them, their elder sister followed them up.[4] They ate, (they) ate, they were looking around; they said: “Ye must eat; ye should look around; ye shall leave some meat for (our) elder sister; ye shall

[1. The Vultures.

2. Large trees.

3. While they felt that they altogether became Vultures.

4. Vultures are those which we follow up.]

leave for (our) elder sister the undercut,[1] when ye see that (our) elder sister is the one who comes.” And they perceived their older sister coming, they exclaimed: “Elder sister really seems to be coming yonder, ye must leave the meat which is in the springbok’s skin.”[2] And, they left (it).[3] And, when they beheld that their elder sister drew near to them, they went away, they went in all directions.

Their elder sister said: “Fie! how can ye act in this manner towards me? as if I had been the one who scolded you!”

And their elder sister came up to the springbok, she[3] took up the springbok, she returned home; while the Vultures went forward (?), they went to fly about, while they sought for another springbok, which they intended again to eat.

[1. It is meat; the |kuaiten is that which lies along the front of the upper part of the spine.

2. The word |kuaiten, translated here as “undercut” (in accordance with the description of its position), bears some resemblance to that given for “biltong flesh”, in the Katkop dialect, by Dia!kwnain, which is |kwaii.

3. They ate the skin together (with the meat).

4. It is possible that the pronoun hi may have combined with the verb here.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

DDI-XERRETEN, THE LIONESS, AND THE CHILDREN.

Ddi-Xerreten,[1] formerly, when the Lioness was at the water, dipping up,[2] (when) she had gone to dip[3]

[1. Their elder sister, the Vultures’ elder sister.

2. A man of the early race he was. His head was stone.

3. I think that she probably dipped up water with a gemsbok’s stomach; for she killed gemsbok.]

up water there, Dai-Xerreten felt that the Lioness was the one who had gathered together the people’s children, because the Lioness felt that she was an invalid on account of (her) chest; therefore, she gathered together the people’s children, that the children might live with her, that the children might work for her; for, she was an invalid, and she could not do hard work.

Therefore, Dai-Xerreten went to her house, when she was dipping up water. Dai-Xerreten went in her absence to the house, Dai-Xerreten went to the children, at the house. Dai-Xerreten went to the house reaching the children. Dai-Xerreten sat down. And Dai-Xerreten said: “O children sitting here! The fire of your people is that which is at the top of the ravine which comes down from the top (of the hill).” Therefore, two children arose, they went away to their own people.

Dai-Xerreten again said: “O children sitting here! The fire of your people is that which is below the top of the ravine which comes down on this side (of the hill).” And three children[1] thus went, while they went away to their own people.

And he again said: “O little child sitting here! Thy people’s fire is that which is below the top of the ravine which comes down on this side (of the hill).” And the child arose, it thus went, while the child went away to its own people.

He again said: “O children sitting here! The fire of your people is that which is below[2] the top

[1. Literally, “children which became three.”

2. because the house is in the ravine (i.e., not where the water flows, but among the bushes).]

of the ravine[1] which comes down on this side (of the hill).” And two children arose, they thus went away, while they went away to their own people.

And he again said: “O children sitting here! Your people’s fire is that which is at the top. of the ravine which comes down from the top (of the hill).” And two children arose, they thus went away.

And he again said: “O children sitting here! The fire of your people is that which is at the top of the ravine which comes down from the top (of the hill).” And three children arose, they thus went away; while they went away to their own people.

And he again said: “O children sitting here![2] The fire of your people is that which is at the top of the ravine which comes down from the top (of the hill).” And two children arose, they thus went away; while they went away to their own people; while Dai-Xerreten sat waiting for the Lioness.

And the Lioness came from the water, she thus returning came. She came along looking (at the house); she did not perceive the children. And she exclaimed: “Why do the children (stammering with rage) children children children, the children not do so to me? and the children do not play here, as they are wont to do? It must be this man who sits at the house; his head resembles Dai-Xerreten.”[3]

And she became angry about it, when she perceived

[1. He speaks of another ravine.

2. Her children were not there; for the people’s children were those whom she had.

3. She recognized him.]

Dai-Xerreten.[1] She exclaimed: “Dai-Xerreten indeed (?) sits here!” She walked up to the house. She exclaimed: “Where are my children?”[2] And Dai-Xerreten said: Our children (they) are not.” And the Lioness exclaimed: “Out on thee! leave off! thou must give me the children!” Dai-Xerreten said: “Our children (they) were not.”

And the Lioness caught hold of his head. She exclaimed: “Xabbabbu”[3] (growling) to the other one’s head. And she exclaimed: “Oh! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear! my teeth! This must be why this cursed(?) man’s big head came to sit in front of my house!” While Dai-Xerreten said: “I told thee that our children they were not.” The Lioness exclaimed: “Destruction! Thou hast been the one whose big head came to sit (here).” Our children[4] (they) were not.”

And he arose, he returned (home); while the Lioness sat in anger at her house; because he had come (and) taken away from her the children, who had been (living) peacefully with her; for she felt that she had done well towards the children; she did not a little love the children while she was doing so.

[1. Because she did not perceive the children.

2. The narrator’s translation of |ne |auwaki !kauken was “Where are my children?” but “Give me the children” or “Show me the children” may be verbally more accurate.

3. Growling put in the head.

4. Dai-Xerreten was the one who spoke thus.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MASON WASP[1] AND HIS WIFE.

The Mason Wasp[2] formerly did thus as he walked along, while (his) wife walked behind him, the wife said: “O my husband! Shoot for me that hare!” And the Mason Wasp laid down his quiver; the Mason Wasp said: “Where is the hare? And (his) wife said: The hare lies there.”

And the Mason Wasp took out an arrow; the Mason Wasp in this manner went stooping along.[3] And the wife said: “Put down (thy) kaross! Why is it that thou art not willing to put down (thy) kaross?” Therefore, the Mason Wasp, walking along, unloosened the strings of the kaross; he put down the kaross. Therefore the wife said: “Canst thou be like this?[4] This must have been why thou wert not willing to lay down the kaross.”

Therefore, the Mason Wasp walked, turning to one side; he aimed at (his) wife, he shot, hitting the (head of) the arrow on (his) wife’s breast[5] (bone).

[1. The Mason Wasp resembles the Palpares and Libellula. It has a small body. The Mason Wasp flies, and is to be seen in summer near water; |hang#kass’o has seen it in our garden at Mowbray. it is rather smaller than the Palpares and Libellula.

2. He was formerly a man; therefore, he had a bow; therefore, he shot his wife, when he had not shot the hare.

3. We are accustomed to go along stooping, when we wish that the hare may quietly lie hidden (knowing that people are at hand; lying still, thinking that it will be passed by).

4. She mocked at the man on account of the middle of the man’s body, which was slender; hence she mocked at the man.

5. i.e. breaking her breastbone.]

And (his) wife fell down dead on account of it. Then he exclaimed: “Yi ii hihi! O my wife hi!” (crying) as if he had not been the one to shoot (his) wife. He cried, that he should have done thus, have shot his wife; his wife died.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

V. Legends.

 

THE YOUNG MAN OF THE ANCIENT RACE, WHO WAS CARRIED OFF BY A LION; WHEN ASLEEP IN THE FIELD.

A young man[1] was the one who, formerly hunting, ascended a hill; he became sleepy; while he sat looking around (for game), he became sleepy. And he thought that he would first lie down; for he was not a little sleepy. For what could have happened to him to-day? because he had not previously felt like this.[2]

And he lay down on account of it; and he slept, while a lion came; it went to the water,[3] because the noonday (heat) had “killed” it; it was thirsty; and it espied the man lying asleep; and it took up the man.

And the man awoke startled; and he saw that it was a lion which had taken him up. And he thought that he would not stir; for the lion would biting kill him, if he stirred; he would first see what the lion intended to do; for the lion appeared to think that he was dead.

And the lion carried him to a zwart-storm tree[3]; and the lion laid him in. it.[4] And the lion

[1. He was a young man of the early race.

2. It is evident, from another version of this legend, given by !kweiten ta ||ken (VI.-2, pp. 4014-4025), that the unusual sleepiness is supposed to be caused by the lion.

3. To a water pit.

4. This is described by the narrator as being a large tree, which has yellow flowers and no thorns.

5. The lion put the man half into the tree, at the bottom of it; his legs were not in it.]

thought that it would (continue to) be thirsty if it ate the man; it would first go to the water, that it might go to drink; it would come afterwards to eat, when it had drunk; for, it would (continue to) be thirsty if it ate.

And it trod, (pressing) in the man’s head between the stems of the zwart-storm tree; and it went back. And the man turned his head a little.[1] And the lion looked back on account of it; namely, why had the man’s head moved? when it had first thought that it had trodden, firmly fixing the man’s head. And the lion thought that it did not seem to have laid the man nicely; for, the man fell over. And it again trod, pressing the man’s head into the middle (of the stems) of the zwart-storm tree. And it licked the man’s eyes’ tears.[2] And the man wept; hence it licked the man’s eyes. And the man felt that a stick[3] did not a little pierce the hollow at the back of his head; and the man turned his head a little, while he looked steadfastly[4] at the lion, he turned his head a little. And the lion looked (to see) why it was that the thing seemed as if the man had moved. And it licked the man’s eyes’ tears. And the lion thought it would tread, thoroughly pressing down the man’s head, that it might really see whether it had been the one who had not laid the man

[1. The tree hurt the back of the man’s head; therefore he moved it a little.

2. The man cried quietly, because he saw himself in the lion’s power, and in great danger.

3. Narrator explains that the stick was one of those pieces that had broken off, fallen down, and lodged in the bottom of the tree.

4. The man looked through almost closed eyes; but watched to see if the lion remarked that be moved his head.]

down nicely. For, the thing seemed as if the man had stirred. And the man saw that the thing seemed as if the lion suspected that he was alive; and he did not stir, although the stick was piercing him. And the lion saw that the thing appeared as if it had laid the man down nicely; for the man did not stir; and it went a few steps away, and it looked towards the man, while the man drew up his eyes; he looked through his eyelashes; he saw what the lion was doing. And the lion went away, ascending the hill; and the lion descended (the hill on the other side), while the man gently turned his head because he wanted to see whether the lion had really gone away. And he saw that the lion appeared to have descended (the hill on the other side); and he perceived that the lion again (raising its head) stood peeping behind the top of the hill; [1] because the lion thought that the thing had seemed as if the man were alive; therefore, it first wanted again to look thoroughly. For, it seemed as if the man had intended to arise; for, it had thought that the man had been feigning death. And it saw that the man was still lying down; and it thought that it would quickly run to the water, that it might go to drink, that it might again quickly come out (from the water), that it might come to eat. For, it was hungry; it was one who was not a little thirsty; therefore, it first intended to go to drink, that it might come afterwards to eat, when it had drunk.

The man lay looking at it, at that which it did;

[1. The lion came back a little way (after having gone out of sight) to look again.]

and the man saw that its head’s[1] turning away (and disappearing), with which it turned away (and disappeared), seemed as if it had altogether gone. And the man thought that he would first lie still, that he might see whether the lion would not again come peeping. For, it is a thing which is cunning; it would intend to deceive him, that the thing might seem (as if) it had really gone away; while it thought that he would arise; for, he had seemed as if he stirred. For, it did not know why the man had, when it thought that it had laid the man down nicely, the man had been falling over. Therefore, it thought that it would quickly run, that it might quickly come, that it might come to look whether the man still lay. And the man saw that a long time had passed since it again came to peep (at him); and the thing seemed as if it had altogether gone. And the man thought that he would first wait a little; for, he would (otherwise) startle the lion, if the lion were still at this place. And the man saw that a little time had now passed, and he had not perceived it (the lion); and the thing seemed as if it had really gone away.

And he did nicely at the place yonder where he lay; he did not arise (and) go; for, he arose, be first sprang to a different place, while he wislied that the lion should not know the place to which he seemed to have gone. He, when he had done in this manner, ran in a zigzag direction,[2]

[1. The lion, this time when it came back to look at the man, only had its head and shoulders in sight.

2. He did not run straight; but ran first in one direction, then sprang to another place, then ran again, etc.]

while he desired that the lion should not smell out his footsteps, that the lion should not know the place to which he seemed to have gone; that the lion, when it came, should come to seek about for him (there). Therefore, he thought that he would run in a zigzag direction, so that the lion might not smell out his footsteps; that he might go home; for, the lion, when it came, would come to seek for him. Therefore, he would not run straight into the house; for, the lion, when it came (and) missed him, would intend to find his footprints, that the lion might, following his spoor, seek for him, that the lion might see whether it could not get hold of him.

Therefore, when he came out at the top of the hill, he called out to the people at home about it, that he had just been “lifted up”[1] while the sun stood high, he had been “lifted up”; therefore, they must look out many hartebeest-skins, that they might roll him up in them; for, he had just been “lifted up”, while the sun was high. Therefore, he thought that the lion would,–when it came out from the place to which it had gone,–it would come (and) miss him; it would resolve to seek (and) track him out. Therefore, he wanted the people to roll him up in many hartebeest-skins, so that the Lion should not come (and) get him. For, they were those who knew that the lion is a thing which acts thus to the thing which it has killed, it does not leave it, when it has not eaten it. Therefore, the people must do thus with the hartebeest-skins, the people must roll him up in them; and also (in) mats; these (are)

[1. He avoided(?) the name of the lion; therefore, he in this manner told the people about it.]

things which the people must roll him up in, (in order) that the lion should not get him.

And the people did so; the people rolled him up in mats,[1] and also (in) hartebeest-skins, which they rolled together with the mats. For, the man was the one who had spoken thus to them about it; therefore it was that they rolled him up in hartebeestskins, while they felt that their hearts’ young man (he) was, whom they did not wish the lion to eat. Therefore, they intended to hide him well, that the lion should not get hold of him. For, a young man whom they did not a little love he was. Therefore, they did not wish the lion to eat him; and they said that they would cover over the young man with the hut’s sheltering bushes,[2] so that the lion, when it came, should come seeking about for the young man it should not get hold of the young man, when it came; it should come seeking about for him.

And the people went out to seek for !kui-sse [an edible root]; and they dug out !kui-sse; and they brought (home) !kui-sse, at noon, and they baked[3] !kui-sse. And an old Bushman, as he went along getting wood for his wife, in order that his wife might make a fire above the !kui-sse,[4] espied the lion, as the lion eanie over (the top of the hill), at the place which the young man had come over. And he told the house folk about it; and he spoke, he said:

[1. Many mats.

2. The screen or shelter of the hut. The narrator uses the word scherm for it.

3. In a hole in the ground, which has been previously heated, and which is covered over with earth when the has been put into it.

4. i.e. on the top of the earth with which the hole had been covered over.]

“Ye are those who see the hill yonder, its top, the place yonder (where) that young man came over, what it looks like!”

And the young man’s mother spoke, she said:

Ye must not allow the lion to come into the huts;[1] ye must shoot it dead, when it has not (yet) come to the huts.”

And the people slung on their quivers; and they went to meet the lion; and they were shooting at the lion; the lion would not die, although the people were shooting at it.

And another old woman spoke, she said: “Ye must give to the lion a child, (in order) that the lion may go away from us.” The lion answered, it said that it did not want a child; for, it wanted the person whose eyes’ tears it had licked; he was the one whom it wanted.

And the (other) people speaking, said: “In what manner were ye shooting at the lion that ye could not manage to kill the lion?” And another old man spoke, he said: “Can ye not see that (it) must be a sorcerer? It will not die when we are shooting at it; for, it insists upon (having) the man whom it carried off.”

The people threw children to the lion; the lion did not want the children which the people threw to it; for, it, looking, left them alone.

The people were shooting[2] at it, while it sought for the man,–that it might get hold of the man,–the people were shooting at it. The people

[1. The narrator explains here that several but, were in a row; the mother means all the huts, not merely one. The lion must not come into the werf (= “yard”, or “ground”).

2. They wanted to shoot him dead, before he could find the man.]

said: Ye must bring for us assegais, we must kill[1] the lion.” The people were shooting at it; it did not seem as if the people were shooting at it; they were stabbing[2] it with assegais, while they intended to stab it to death. It did not seem as if the people were stabbing it; for, it continued to seek for the young man; it said that it wanted the young man whose tears it had licked; he was the one whom it wanted.

It scratched asunder, breaking to pieces for the people the huts, while it scratched asunder, seeking for the young man. And the people speaking, said: “Can ye not see that the lion will not eat the children whom we have given to it?” And the people speaking, said: “Can ye not see that a sorcerer (it) must be?” And the people speaking, said: “‘Ye must give a girl to the lion, that we may see whether the lion will not eat her, that it may go away.”[3] The lion did not want the girl; for, the lion only wanted the man whom it had carried off; he was the one whom it wanted.

And the people spoke, they said, they did not know in what manner they should act towards the lion; for, it had been morning[4] when they shot at the lion; the lion would not die; for, it had, when the people were shooting at it, it had

[1 As their arrows did not seem able to reach a spot which would kill the lion, they thought that they might do better with their assegais.

2. The narrator explains that some threw assegais; others stabbed the lion with them. The people were all round it; but it did not bite them, because it wanted the young man whom it had carried off.

3. The lion could not have eaten her at the houses.

4. It was now late, and they had been shooting at the lion since the morning, and did not know what they should now do to get rid of it.]

been walking about. “Therefore, we do not know in what manner we shall act towards the lion. For, the children whom we gave to the lion, the lion has refused, on account of the man whom it had carried off.”

And the people speaking, said: “Say ye to the young man’s mother about it, that she must, although she loves the young man, she must take out the young man, she must give the young man to the lion, even if he be the child of her heart. For, she is the one who sees that the sun is about to set, while the lion is threatening us; the lion will not go (and) leave us; for, it insists upon (having) the young man.”

And the young man’s mother spoke, she said:

Ye may give my child to the lion; ye shall not allow the lion to eat my child; that the lion may go walking about; for, ye shall killing lay it upon my child; that it may die, like my child; that it may die, lying upon my child.”

And the people, when the young man’s mother had thus spoken, the people took the young man out from the hartebeest- skins in which they had rolled him up, they gave the young man to the lion. And the lion bit the young man to death; the people, when it was biting at the young man, were shooting at it; the people were stabbing it; and it bit the young man to death.

And the lion spoke, it said to the people about it, that this time was the one at which it would die; for, it had got hold of the man for whom it had been seeking; it had got hold of him!

And it died, while the man also lay dead; it also lay dead, with the man.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A WOMAN OF THE EARLY RACE AND THE RAIN BULL.

The Rain formerly courted(?) a young woman, while the young woman was in (her) hut, because she felt that she was still ill. The Rain scented her, and the Rain went forth, on account of it; while the place became misty.[1] And he, in this manner, courting(?) came, while he courted(?) the young woman on account of her scent. He in this manner trotting came; while the young woman was lying down, while she held (her) child (by her) on the kaross; she was lying down.

And she lay, smelling the Rain’s scent, while the place was fragrant,[2] while the place felt that his (the Rain’s) breath was that which closed in the place; it was that[3] through which he coming passed; it resernbled a mist.

And the young woman became aware of him, as he came up; while he lowered his tail (?). And the young woman perceived him,[4] as he came past her, at, the side of the hut. And the young woman

[1. Resembling a fog (or mist). The people spoke tbus, they said to nue that the Rain’s breath was wont to shut in the place, when he came out to seek food; (while) he was eating about, the mist was “sitting” there,

2. The Rain’s scent it was. The people say that there is no scent as sweet, hence the people say that it is fragrant.

3. His breath is that through which he passing comes.

4. He resembled a bull, while he felt that (he) was the Rain’s body.

5. The word Xoro also means an ox; but the narrator explained that a bull (Xoro gwai) is meant here.]

exclaimed: “Who can this man be who comes to me?” while he, crouching (?)[1], came up.[2]

The young woman took up buchu in her hand, the young woman threw buchu upon his forehead. And she arose; and she pressed (the buchu) down upon his forehead (with her hand); she pushed him away; and she took up (her) kaross; she tied it on.

The young woman took up the child,[3] she held the child very nicely; she, holding (it) very nicely, laid the child down upon a kaross; she, covering (it), laid the child[4] away.

She mounted the Rain; and the Rain took her away.[5] She went along; she went along looking at the trees. And she went along, she spoke, she said: “Thou must go to the tree standing yonder, the one that is big, thou shalt go (and) set me down at it. For I ache; thou shalt first go to

[1. His ears (they) were; those which he laid down; while he felt that he crouched (?).

2. While he felt that he stood in front of the opening of the hut.

3. She seems to have laid the child away for (her) husband; while she felt that she was not going to live; for, she would living go, go, go, go, she would go to become a frog, for the Rain intended that she should go to the water pit, that water pit from which he went forth, he courting (?) went.

4. At the hut. She laid it down, while she thought that she should die, (and) go to become a frog.

5. While the Rain felt that the Rain was going to the Rain’s home, the pit from which he came out. Therefore, the young woman said he should go to let her sit down.

The people say that the Rain’s Bull goes out from his pit, and the Pit becomes dry, while it feels that the Rain has gone out, the Rain’s Bull. Therefore, the pit dries up on account of it.]

set me down at it.” Therefore, the Rain trotted, taking her straight to the |kuerriten|kuerriten.[1] And he trotted up to the |kuerriten|kuerriten. And the young woman said: “Thou must go underneath, close to the stem of the tree.” Therefore, he went underneath, close to the stem of the tree. The young woman looked at him; the young woman took out buchu, she rubbed him (with it).[2] Then the Rain went to sleep, on account of it.

Therefore, when she saw that the Rain slept, she climbed up, she stole softly away, she climbed up, she climbed along (?) the |kuerriten|kuerriten. And she descended at a distance, she in this manner stole softly along, while the Rain continued to sleep. She, afar, softly returned home; while the Rain awoke behind her back, when the Rain felt that the place was becoming cool.

He arose, he walked away; he went away to the middle of the spring(?) from which he had courting(?) gone out, while he believed that the young woman was still sitting upon his back. He went away, he went away to the water. He went into (it), while the young woman went along, she went to burn buchu; while she was “green”, while

[1. It is a large tree, which is found in kloofs.

2. The singular form of |kuerriten|kuerriten is, |hang#kass’o says, |kui|kuerri. It is the name of a bush found in the ravines of a ‘red’ mountain, on this side of Kenhardt, called Rooiberg by the white men. (VIII-21, p. 7835.)

3. Rubbed his neck (with buchu).

4. With dry things they rub. Therefore, they are wont to say that they rub ‘with them.

If things are wet, they are wont to say that they anoint with them.]

she smelt strongly[1] of the scent of the ||khou; she was rubbing herself, while she rubbed, taking away the smell of the ||khou from herself.

The old women who had been out seeking food were those who came to burn horns, while they desired that the smell of the horns should go up, so that the Rain should not be angry with them.[2]

[1. To smell strongly.

2. Her own scent it was which resembled (that of) the||khou. The ||khou (possibly a fungus?) is a thing belonging to the Rain. Her (the young woman’s) intelligence was that with which she acted wisely towards the Rain; hence all the people lived; they would (otherwise) have been killed; all (of them) would have become frogs.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE GIRL’S STORY; THE FROGS’ STORY.

A girl formerly lay ill; she was lying down. She did not eat the food which her mothers[1] gave her. She lay ill.

She killed the children of the Water[2]; they were what she ate. Her mothers did not know that she did thus, (that) she killed the Water’s children; (that) they were what she ate; she would not eat what her mothers were giving to her.

Her mother was there. They[3] went out to seek Bushman rice. They[4] spoke, they ordered a

[1. That is to say, her mother and the other women.

2. !kweiten ta ||ken has not seen these things herself, but she heard that they were beautiful, and striped like a |habba, i.e. zebra.

3. The Water was as large as a bull, and the Water’s children were the size of calves, being the children of great things.

4. All the women, and all the children but one.]

child[1] to remain at home. The girl did not know (about) the child. And the old woman said that she must look at the things which her elder sister ate. And they left the child at home; and they went out to seek food (Bushman rice). They intended (?) that the child should look at the things which her elder sister ate.

The elder sister went out from the house of illness, (and) descended to the spring, as she intended again to kill a Water-child. The (Bushman) child was in the hut,[3] while she (the girl) did not know (about) the child. And she went (and) killed a Water-child, she carried the Water-child home. The (Bushman) child was looking; and she (the girl) boiled the Water-child’s flesh; and she ate it; and she lay down; and she again went to lie down, while she (the child) beheld her. And she went to lie down, when she felt that she had finished eating. The child looked at her; and she lay down.

And her mother returned. The child told her mother about it; for her elder sister had gone to kill a handsome thing at the water. And her mother said: “It is a Water-child!” And her mother did not speak about it; she again went out to seek for Bushman rice.

And when she was seeking about for food, the clouds came up. And she spoke, she said: “Something is not right at home; for a whirlwind is bringing (things) to the spring. For something is not going on well at home. Therefore, the whirlwind is taking (things) away to the spring.”

[1. A little girl, as big as a European child of 11.

2. Literally, “allowed” her to remain there.

3. In her mother’s hut.]

Because her daughter killed the Water’s children, therefore the whirlwind took them away to the spring. Something had not gone well at home, for her daughter had been killing the Water’s children. That was why the whirlwind took them away to the spring. Because her daughter killed the Water’s children, therefore the whirlwind took them away to the spring; because she had killed the Water’s children.

The girl was the one who first went into the spring, and then she became a frog. Her mothers afterwards went into the spring; the whirlwind brought them to it, when she was already in the spring. She was a frog. Her mothers also became frogs; while the whirlwind was that which brought them, when they were on the hunting ground; the whirlwind brought them to the spring, when her daughter was already in the spring. She was a frog. And her mothers afterwards came; the whirlwind was that which brought them to it, when they were on the hunting ground. Meanwhile their daughter was in the spring; she was a frog.

Her father also came to become a frog; for the whirlwind brought her father-when he was yonder on the hunting ground-to the spring, (to) the place where his daughter was. Her father’s arrows[1] altogether grew out by the spring; for the great whirlwind had brought them to the spring. He also altogether became a frog; likewise his wife, she also became a frog; while she felt that the whirlwind had brought them to the spring. Their things entered that spring (in which) they were. The

[1. All the family and their mats were carried into the spring, by the whirlwind, and all their things.]

things entered that spring, because they (the people) were frogs. Therefore it was that their things went into the spring, because they were frogs. The mats[1] (grew) out by the spring, like the arrows; their things grew out[2] by the spring.

[1. Mats of which the Bushmen make their huts (made from a thick grass or reed?).

2. These things that grow by the springs belonged to the first Bushmen, who preceded the present race, !kweiten ta ||ken says. Her mother told her this.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MAN WHO ORDERED HIS WIFE TO CUT OFF HIS EARS.

He[1] formerly wished (his) wife to cut off his ears, for his younger brother’s head had surely been skinned[2]; whereas his younger brother’s wife had only shaved his younger brother’s head.

Therefore, (his) wife cut away his ears; although (his) wife had said that she would not do so; he was the one who insisted (upon it).

Therefore, (his) wife cut off his ears; and he was screaming, on account of his skin, while he himself had been the one who wished the wife to do so; for his younger brother’s head had surely been skinned; whereas his younger brother had merely had his head shaved; while (his) wife shaved, removing the old hair.[3]

[1. !Xwe-|na-sse-!k’e is the name of the Bushmen who lived first in the land.

2. I am one who does not know his name, because the people were those who did not utter his name to me; for, they were men of the early race; therefore, they did foolish things on account of it.

3. He really thought that the skin of his younger brother’s head was off, while it was his younger brother’s head’s hair which had been shaved away.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE #NERRU AND HER HUSBAND.[1]

A man of the early race formerly married a #nerru.[2] The #nerru put[3] the dusty (i.e. earthy) Bushman rice into a bag, when her husband had dug out (literally,”had killed”) Bushman rice. She went to wash the Bushman rice; they returned home.

They early went out to seek for food on the morrow, she and (her) husband; for she was alone(?) with her husband. He was the one who dug[4] out (Bushman rice). Therefore she was with her husband. Thus she went out to seek for food, on the morrow. The husband dug out Bushman rice; he put the Bushman rice into the bag.[5] And the husband again dug out other Bushman rice. He put it in above, put in the Bushman rice on the top of the morning’s Bushman rice. He again arose, he sought for other Bushman rice. He again found other Bushman rice; he dug out

[1. think that |Xabbi-ang’s grandmother’s grandmother’s other grandmother’s mother it must have been who formerly, in this manner, spoke to her.

2. The #nerru (now a bird) was formerly a person; therefore, a man of the early race was the one who married her.

3. When they are putting Bushman rice into (a bag), when the Bushman rice has earth with it, they say that they !ko Bushman rice.

4. “To dig with a stick” is here meant.

5. The man was the one who was putting Bushman rice into the bag, while the woman was the one who was holding the bag; she was the one who intended to shake in the Bushman rice. He stood inside the mouth of the hole, while the wife stood above.]

(the earth from it). And he again dug it (the rice) out. He put it on the top (of the other). He put it on the top; and the bag[1] became full.

And he arose, he sought for other Bushman rice. He found other Bushman rice; he dug but (the earth from) it. He dug it out. And he exclaimed:”Give me (thy) little kaross,[2] that I may put the Bushman rice upon it.” And the wife said:[3] “We are not accustomed to put Bushman rice, having earth with it, into our back’s kaxoss, we who are of the house of #nerru.”[4] And he exclaimed: “Give me, give me the little kaross, that I may put the Bushman rice upon (it).” And the wife said: “Thou shouldst put the Bushman rice into the ground; for we are not accustomed to put Bushman rice, having earth with it, into our back’s kaross.” And he exclaimed: “Give me, give me the little kaross, that I may put the Bushman rice upon (it).” And the wife exclaimed: “Thou shouldst put the Bushman rice into the ground, that thou mayst cover over the Bushman rice.”[5]

And he exclaimed: “Give me the kaross, that I may put the Bushman rice upon (it)!” while he snatched away the kaross. The wife’s entrails,

[1. I think that it seems to have been a springbok sack (i.e. a bag made of springbok skin).

2. It is a little kaross. One skin (that is, the skin of one animal) they call !koussi.

3. She spoke gently (i.e. did not sing here).

4. I think that their houses must have been numerous; for they were numerous; for, when they are little birds, they are not a little numerous.

5. With other earth.]

which were upon the little kaross,[1] poured down.[2] And he, crying, exclaimed: “Oh dear! O my wife! What shall I do?” while the wife arose, the wife said (i.e. sang)–

 

 

“We, who are of the house of #nerru,

We are not used to put earthy Bushman rice

(Into) our back’s kaross;

We, who are of the house of #nerru,

We are not used to put earthy Bushman rice

(Into) our back’s kaross:”

 

 

 

while she walked on replacing her entrails. She sang–[3]

 

 

“We, who are of the house of #nerru,

We are not used to put earthy Bushman rice

(Into) our back’s kaross:”

 

 

 

Therefore, her mother, when sitting,[4] exclaimed: “Look at the place to which (thy) elder sister went to seek food, for the noise of the wind is that which sounds like a person;” for, (thy) elder sisters’ husbands do not act rightly. Thou dost see that the noise of the wind is that which sounds like a person, singing to windward.” And her daughter stood up; her daughter looked. She (the daughter) exclaimed: “(Thy) daughter is the one who falling comes.” Then her mother said: “I wish that ye may see; (thy) elder sisters’ husbands[6] do

[1. I do not know well (about it), for my people were those who spoke thus; they said that the #nerru’s entrails were formerly upon the little kaross.

2. She was sitting down.

3. She went along singing, as she went away home (to her mother’s home).

4. She was sitting at home.

5. Her daughter was the one of whom she spoke, (of) her singing.

6. I think that she was speaking of her daughter’s husband.]

mad things, as if they do not seem to understand; they marry among us (literally, ‘into us’) as if they understood.”

Then she ran to meet her daughter; she went to put the little kaross[1] upon her daughter; she, holding, put her daughter’s entrails upon the little kaross; and she bound up her daughter;[2] she slowly conducted her daughter home; she went to take her daughter into her (the mother’s) hut.

Therefore, she was angry about her daughter; when her daughter’s husband wanted to come to his wife, she was angry. Therefore, her daughter’s husband went back to his own people, when she had said that her daughter’s husband should go back; for, they did not understand. Therefore, her daughter’s husband went back; while they[3] continued to dwell (there).

[1. Her mother’s new little kaross, which had been unused (lit. “sitting”), and which she had put away.

2. With the four straps of the !k’oussi, formed by the four legs of the springbok’s skin

3. i.e., the #nerru, many #nerru.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE #NERRU, AS A BIRD

The #nerru’s bill is very short. The male #nerru is the one whose plumage resembles (that of) the ostrich; it is black like the male ostrich. The female #nerru is the one whose plumage is white like (that of) the female ostrich. Thus, they resemble the ostriches; because the male #nerru are black, the female #nerru white.

They eat the things which little birds usually eat, which they pick up on the ground.

They make grass nests on the ground, by the root of a bush.

When not breeding, they are found in large numbers.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE DEATH OF THE LIZARD.

The Lizard[1] formerly sang–

“For,

I therefore intend to go,

Passing through,

!guru-|na’s pass.

“And,

I therefore intend to go,

Passing through,

|Xe-!khwai’s pass.

For,

I therefore intend to go,

passing through,

!guru-|na’s pass,

“For,

I therefore intend to go,

Passing through,

|Xe-!khwai’s pass.

 

And, when he was passing through, the mountains[2] squeezing broke him, when he had intended to pass through; for, he seems to have thought that he would spring through the mountain pass, which was like this (the narrator here showed

[1. The !khau was a man of the early race. He is now a lizard of the genus Agama. “Chiefly found in rocky and sandy places. Many species distributed all through South Africa.”

2. These mountains are large ones, near |itten|hing.]

the first and second fingers of his left hand in a forked and almost upright position). Then, the mountains caught him thus (putting his fingers close together), the mountains bit, breaking him. Therefore, his forepart fell over[1] (and) stood still) it became !guru-|na; while his hinder part fell over (and) stood still; it was that which became |Xe-!khwai.

REMARKS ON THE PRECEDING STORY BY THE NARRATOR.

I think that he seems to have been going to the red sand hills, that he might come (and) dwell at them. For, I think that the (shallow) pools, which lie among the red sand hills, seem to have been those towards which he was going, that he might come (and) live at them. He seems to have been going towards !kaugen-|ka|ka (a certain pool), that he might come (and) live at it. For, I think that !kaugen-|ka|ka is near this place. He is the one who, when he came passing through, would come along the ‘vlei’, that he might ascend, passing along the side of the hill; and he would altogether descend into ||na-||kuarra (a certain river), and he would go quite down, along (the river bed) to !kaugen-|ka|ka. !kaugen-|ka|ka would be the place where he descended; it was where he was going to dwell; it must, I think, be the place towards which he appears to have been going. He broke (in twain) when he seems to have been going towards it.

[1. It verily (?) turning over went.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

VI. Poetry.

 

THE CAT’S SONG.

Ha[1] ha ha,

Ha, Ha,

I am the one whom the Lynx derides,

I am the one who did not run fast;

For, the Lynx is the one who runs fast,

Ha[1] ha ha,

Ha, Ha,

I am the one whom the Lynx derides.

Ya Ya Ya,

Ya Ya,

I am the one whom the Lynx derides.

I am the one who could not run fast,

Ya Ya Ya,

Ya Ya,

I am the one whom the Lynx derides,

“The Cat could not run fast.”

Ya Ya Ya,

Ya Ya,

The Cat is the one whom the Lynx derides,

“It is the one who could not run fast,”

Ya Ya Ya,

Ya Ya,

The Cat is the one who could not run fast,

It was not cunning.

[1. Here the cat opens its mouth wide in singing.]

It did foolish things;

For, the Lynx is one who understands,

The Cat does not understand.”

The Cat (nevertheless) is cunning.

Ya Ya Ya,

Ya Ya,

The Cat is the one about whom the Lynx talked.

“It is the one who could not run fast.”

It had to be cunning.[1]

For, the Lynx is one who is cunning.

Haggla[2] haggla haggla

haggla haggla

Heggle heggle heggle

heggle heggle

Heggli heggli heggli

Heggli ng!

[1. Reference is here made to the Cat’s way of doubling when pursued.

2. The narrator here explains that the Cat “talks with its tongue”, assenting to what it has been saying.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SONG OF THE CAAMA FOX.

Crosser of the Spoor, Crosser of the Spoor,[1]

Crosser of the Spoor, Crosser of the Spoor!

[1. The Caama Fox is called “Crosser of the Spoor”, because it avoids the dog nicely when the dog chases it, and, turning suddenly, runs back, crossing the dog’s spoor (behind it), while the dog is racing on in front, thinking to catch the Caama Fox by so doing.]

Cross the Caama Fox’s spoor,

Cross the Caama Fox’s spoor![1]

Cross the Caama Fox’s spoor,

Cross the Caama Fox’s spoor!

[1. It sings that the dog appears to think that he will kill it; but the dog will not kill it; for it is the one who crosses the spoor of (another) Caamaa Fox. It is the one which that dog will not kill; for the dog is the one who will nearly(?) die of fatigue, when it (the Caama Fox) has gone to lie peacefully in the shade; while it does not feel tired; while the dog painfully goes back to his master.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SONGS OF THE BLUE CRANE.

1. It is the Blue Crane’s story which it sings; it sings(about)its shoulder, namely, that the”krieboom” berries are upon its shoulder; it goes along singing–

The berries are upon my shoulder,

The berries are upon my shoulder,

The berry it[1] is upon my shoulder,

[1. Its name is one; they (the berries) are numerous; its name is (still) one. The “krieboom” berries are many; the name of the berries is one. It appears as if its berry were one, (but) they are many.

The word |gara is the same in the singular and plural, viz., |gara (or |gara tsaXau) a !kwai, “one |gara berry,” and |gara (or |gara tsaXaiten) e |Ukwaiya, “many |gara berries.” The |gara is a part of the ||na, or”krieboom”, the berries of it, as far as I can understand. They are said to be round, white, and “hard” (i.e., they have something hard inside them). The outside flesh is sweet. They are eaten by the Koranna and the Bushmen. The women go to the “krieboom”, pick the berries, put them into a bag and take them home to eat, first mixing them with other berries. They do not eat them unmixed, on account of their teeth, as they fear that the sweetness of the berries might otherwise render their teeth unfit to chew meat well.]

The berries are upon my shoulder.

The berries are up here (on its shoulder),[1]

Rrru are up here;

The berries are up here,

Rrru are up here,

Are up here;

The berries Rrru are put away (upon)it(its shoulder).”

2.

(When running away from a man.)

A splinter of stone which is white,[2]

A splinter of stone which is white,

A splinter of stone which is white.

3.

(When walking slowly, leaving the place [walk of peace].)

A white stone splinter,

A white stone splinter.

4.

(When it flaps its wings.)

Scrape (the springbok skin[3] for) the bed.

Scrape (the springbok skin for) the bed.

Rrrru rrra,

Rrru rrra

Rru rra!

[1. ||kabbo cannot explain why the berries do not roll off; he says that he does not know. This is a song of the very old people, the “first” old people, which was in his thoughts.

2. ||kabbo explains that the bird sings about its head, which is something of the shape of a stone knife or splinter, and has white feathers. He says that Bushmen, when without a knife, use a stone knife for cutting up game. They break a stone, knocking off a flat splinter from it, and cut up the game with that. The Grass Bushmen, ||kabbo says, make arrowheads of white quartz points (crystal points, as far as could be understood).

3. The Bushmen make beds (i.e., skins to sleep on) from the skins of springbok and goats.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE OLD WOMAN’S SONG.

First Version.

The old Woman sings; goes singing along; sings as she goes; the old Woman sings as she goes along about the Hyena-

 

“The old she Hyena,

The old she Hyena,

 

Was carrying off the old Woman from the old hut;

 

The old Woman in this manner,

She sprang aside,

She arose,

She beat the Hyena.

The Hyena, herself,

The Hyena killed[1] the Hyena.”

 

Second Version.

 

The old she Hyena,

The old she Hyena,

Was carrying off the old Woman,

As the old Woman lay in the old hut.[2]

 

 

 

[1. She killed herself, by casting herself violently upon the pointed rock on which she had intended to cast the old Woman who was upon her back; but the old Woman sprang aside and saved herself.

2. The old Woman, who was unable to walk, lay in an old, deserted hut. Before her sons left her, they had closed the circle [sides] of the hut, as well as the door-opening, with sticks from the other huts, leaving the top of the hut open, so that she should feel the sun’s warmth. They had left a fire for her, and had fetched more dry wood. They were obliged to leave her behind, as they were all starving, and she was too weak to go with them to seek food at some other place.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A SONG SUNG BY THE STAR !GAUNU, AND ESPECIALLY BY BUSHMAN WOMEN.

 

Does the ||garraken[1] flower open?

The #ku-Yam[2] is the one which opens.

Dost thou open?

The #ku-Yam is the one which opens.

 

[1. The ||garraken are bulbs; the Bushmen dig them out.

2. Dimorphotheca annua, a daisy-like flower, in bloom at Mowbray in August, 1879.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

SIRIUS AND CANOPUS.

My (step)grandmother, Ttuai-ang, was the one who used to rejoice about Canopus. She said–

Sirius!

Sirius!

Winks like

Canopus!

Canopus

Winks like

Sirius!

Canopus

Winks like

Sirius!

Sirius

Winks like

Canopus!

 

While my grandmother felt that food was abundant.[1]

[1. We are wont to say !Xu, when food is abundant.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SONG OF THE BUSTARD.

 

My younger brother-in-law,

Put my head in the fire.[1]

My younger brother-in-law,

My younger brother-in-law,

Put my head in the fire.

 

When we startle it up, it flies away; it (cries): “Wara ||khau, wara ||khau, wara ||khau, ||khau ||khau, ||khau, wara ||khau, wara ||khau, wara ||khau, ||khau ||khau, ||khau!”

When it stands on the ground, it says: “A wa,a wa, a wa, a wa!” when it stands on the ground.

[1. When the “Knorhaan Brandkop” was still a man, his head was thrust into the fire by his brother-in-law, in order to punish him for having surreptitiously married a sister. Since then he is only a bustard.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SONG OF THE SPRINGBOK MOTHERS.

The Springbok mothers sang (soothing their children)–

 

“A-a’ hng

O Springbok Child!

sleep for me.

A-a’ hng

O Springbok Child!

Sleep for me.”

 

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

||KABBO’S SONG ON THE LOSS OF HIS TOBACCO POUCH.[1]

 

Famine it is,

Famine it is,

Famine is here.

 

Famine it is,

Famine it is,

Famine is here.

 

Famine [“tobacco-hunger” is meant here]-he did not smoke, because a dog had come in the

[1. It was stolen by a hungry dog, named “Blom”, which belonged to !gou!nui.]

night (and) carried off from him his pouch. And he arose in the night, he missed his pouch. And then he again lay down, while he did not smoke. And we were early seeking for the pouch. We did not find the pouch.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE BROKEN STRING.

People were those who

Broke for me the string.

Therefore,

The place became like this to me,

On account of it,

Because the string was that which broke for me.[1]

Therefore,

The place does not feel to me,

As the place used to feel to me,

On account of it.

For,

The place feels as if it stood open before me,

Because the string has broken for me.

Therefore,

The place does not feel pleasant to me,

On account of it.

The above is a lament, sung by Xaa-tting after the death of his friend, the magician and rain-maker !nuing|kui-ten; who died from the effects of a shot he received when going about, by night, in the form of a lion.

[1. Now that “the string is broken”, the former “ringing sound in the sky” is no longer heard by the singer, as it had been in the magician’s lifetime.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SONG OF !NU!NUMMA-!KWITEN.

!nu!numma-!kwiten[1] formerly said (sang)-

“Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry;

Hng-ng, hng.

I kill children who cry;

Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry.

A beast of prey (he, !nu!numma-!kwiten) is. My grandfather used to say (that) !nu!numma-!kwiten formerly said-

 

“Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry;

“Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry;

 

When my grandfather wished that we should leave off making a noise,[2] he said that !nu!numma-!kwiten formerly used to say

 

“Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry;

“Hng-ng, hng;

I kill children who cry;

 

[1. The narrator gave the following explanation of !nu!numma-!kwiten’s name:–

“A man who eats great (pieces of) meat, he cuts them off, he puts them into his mouth. I think that eggs are white; therefore, I think that his name seems to be ‘White-Mouth’.”

“!nu!numma-!kwiten is a beast of prey. A man was the one who gobbled eggs, swallowed down eggs. Therefore, be was [his name was] !kotta-kkoe.” Reference is here made to a man of the early race, who swallowed ostrich eggs whole, and is the chief figure in a legend related by |han#kass’o (V.–56. L.).

2. We were calling out, making a noise there, as we played.]

And (when) he hears a little child crying there, he follows the sound to it, while the little child is crying there, he, following the sound, goes to it, approaches it stealthily, approaching stealthily, reaches the hut, in which the little child is crying. He springs, springs into the hut. He catches hold of the little child) he springs, taking it away. He goes to swallow it down. He departs.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

B. HISTORY (NATURAL AND PERSONAL).

 

VII. Animals and their Habits-Adventures with them-and Hunting.

 

THE LEOPARD AND THE JACKAL.

The jackal watches the leopard, when the leopard has killed a springbok. The jackal whines (with uplifted tongue), he begs the leopard for springbok flesh. He howls, he begs, for he is a jackal. Thus he howls, he indeed begs, because he is a jackal. Therefore he howls when he begs, he indeed wants the leopard to give him flesh, that he may eat, that he also may eat.

Then the leopard is angry, the leopard kills him, the leopard bites him dead, he lifts him up, he goes to put him into the bushes; thus he hides him.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

DOINGS OF THE SPRINGBOK.

The mother springbok is wont to do thus, as she trots along, when she has a springbok kid which is little, she grunts,[1] as she trots along; she says– “a, a, a” [2] as she trots along. Therefore they (the springbok) make a resounding noise(?), because they are numerous; while the springbok kids also cry (bleat), while their mothers cry (grunt). Their mothers say–“a, a, a,” the springbok kids say-

[1. Because she protectingly takes along the child, she grunts, as the child plays.

2. Here the narrator made a grunting noise which, he said, was “in his throat”; and about which he remarked–“When I sit imitating the springbok, then I cough, on account of it.”]

“me, me, me,” while their mothers say “a, a, a,” as they grunt. The springbok children say “me, me, me,” while their mothers say “a, a, a,” as they grunting go forward.

Therefore,[1] we are wont to say–“O beast of prey! thou art the one who hearest the place behind, it is resonant with sound. Therefore, I said that I would sit here. For these male springbok which stand around, are those which will go along, passing behind you; because I am lying down, and they do not perceive me; they will have to (?) go along, passing behind you, when ye have gone behind (the hill); they will have to (?) go along, passing behind you.”

[1. Therefore, the Bushmen are wont to say: “O beast of prey! it (the herd of springbok) seems as if it will arise; for thou art the one who seest the springbok’s children. For thou art the one who seest (that) the springbok’s children seem as if (they) would arise.” (They had been lying down, or, as the narrator expressed it, “sitting.”)]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

HABITS OF THE BAT AND THE PORCUPINE.

Mamma said to me that the bat,[1] when the porcupine is still at the place where it is seeking about for food, does not come, for the bat remains with it, while it is seeking about for food, When it (the porcupine) returns home, then it is that the bat comes to its hole;[2] then I know that the porcupine appears to have returned.

[1. The bat’s other name is !|gogen.

2. The bat inhabits the same hole as the porcupine.]

Mamma told me about it, that I should watch for the porcupine, if I saw the bat; then I know, that the porcupine appears to come; for the bat comes. And I must not sleep; for I must watch for the porcupine; for, when the porcupine approaches, I feel sleepy, I become sleepy (on account of) the porcupine; for the porcupine is a thing which is used, when it draws near, to go along making us sleep against our will, as it wishes that we may not know the time at which it comes; as it wishes that it may come into the hole while we are asleep. Therefore, it goes along making us sleep; while it wishes that it may come, while we are asleep, that it may smell whether harm awaits it at the hole, whether a man is lying in wait for it at the hole. And if the man is asleep it steals softly away [lifting its quills that they may not rattle], when it has smelt the man’s scent. Therefore it is used to cause us to become sleepy, when it wishes to smell whether peace it be.

Therefore mamma used to tell me that I should do thus, even if I felt sleepy, I should know that the porcupine was the one who went along making me sleepy against my will; it was the one who went along causing me to sleep. I should do thus, even if I felt that I wanted to sleep, I should not sleep; for the porcupine would come, if I slept there. And the porcupine would steal gently away, while I slept. I should not know the time at which the porcupine came; I should think that the porcupine had not come, while the porcupine bad long come; it had come (and) gone away, while I slept. Therefore, I should not sleep, that I might know when the porcupine came. For, I should do thus, if I slept, I should not know when it came.

Therefore, I am used to do thus, when I lie in wait for a porcupine, I do not sleep, when I am watching for the porcupine; the porcupine comes, while I am watching for it; I see it return, while I feel that I am the one who did not sleep. For mamma was the one who thus told me, that I must not sleep, even if I felt sleepy; I must do as father used to do, when father watched well for the porcupine. Therefore, father used to know when the porcupine came, while he felt that he watched for the porcupine. Therefore, he used to know when the porcupine came; even if he felt sleepy, he did not sleep, because he felt that he wanted to know the time at which the porcupine came.

For, these things are those about which my mother and the others told me, namely, did I not see that the porcupine is a thing which does not go (about) at noon; for it goes (about) by night; for it cannot see at noon. Therefore, it goes (about) by night, while it feels that night is (the time) at which it sees; it would, if it went (about) at noon, it would be going into the bushes, while it felt that its eyes were not comfortable. Therefore, it would be going into the bushes, while it felt that its eyes were not comfortable. For its eyes would feel dazzled. Night is (the time) when it sees well. For, it knows that this is the time, at which it perceives; on the place where it goes it sees the bushes at night.

Father used to tell me that, when lying in wait for a porcupine, at the time at which the Milky Way turns back, I should know that it is the time at which the porcupine returns. Father taught me about the stars; that I should do thus when lying in wait at a porcupine’s hole, I must watch the stars; the place where the stars fall,[1] it is the one which I must thoroughly watch. For this place it really is which the porcupine is at, where the stars fall.

I must also be feeling (trying) the wind. Things which I should watch, father in this manner taught me about, things which I should watch. Father said to me about it, that I should not watch the wind (i.e. to windward), for the porcupine is not a thing which will return coming right out of the wind. For, it is used to return crossing the wind in a slanting direction, because it wants to smell. Therefore, it goes across the wind in a slanting direction, because it wants to smell; for its nostrils are those which tell it about it, whether harm is at this place.

Father used to tell me, that I must not breathe strongly when lying in wait for a porcupine; for, a thing which does not a little hear,[2] it is. I should also not rustle strongly; for, a porcupine is a thing which does not a little hear. Therefore, we are used gently to turn ourselves when sitting; because we fear that had we done so (noisily), as it came, it would have heard.[3]

[1. The porcupine will come from the place at which the star seemed to fall.

2. A thing whose ears hear finely it indeed(?) is. Therefore, we do not rustle much on account of it; because (it is) a thing which, even if we thought that we had not rustled much, would hear.

3. If the porcupine had heard, it would have turned back.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SAXICOLA CASTOR[1] AND THE WILD CAT.

It (the Saxicola Castor) says: “Tcha, tcha, tcha, tcha,” when it is laughing at the wild cat, when it has espied the cat, while the cat is lying down, lying asleep; and it is laughing at the cat, on account of it.

The other little birds (hearing it) go to it, they are all laughing at the cat.

[1. The |ka-kau or Saxicola Castor is a little bird found in Bushmanland. It lives in trees and flies about. It is not eaten by Bushmen.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE BABOONS AND ||XABBITEN||XABBITEN.

The baboons espied ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten. as he was coming away from the white men whom he had been to visit. He was carrying flonr, which the white men gave him. And the baboons said: “Uncle ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten seems to be returning yonder; let us cross his path (?), that we may knock him down.”

The baboons did so; ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten thought he would speak to them, he asked them what they were saying. And ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten remarked upon their foreheads’ steepness (?).[1] And the baboons angrily came down to ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten; they

[1. “Ye speak to me! ye are ugly! your foreheads resemble overhanging cliffs!” The baboons became angry with him, because he derided them; he said that their foreheads resembled overhanging cliffs. And they broke off sticks, on account of it they went towards ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten.]

broke off sticks, with which they intended to come to beat ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten.

The baboons’ children also came; going along, they called out to their parents.about it: “O fathers! ye must give us ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten’s head that we may play with it.”

||Xabbiten||Xabbiten did as follows, when he heard that the baboons’ children were speaking in this manner, he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? for the baboons are not a little numerous.’ He thought, ‘I will climb a krieboom, that I may sit above in the krieboom; the baboons will have (?) to drag me down from the krieboom.’

And the baboons went up to him, as he sat above in the krieboom; the baboons’ children spoke to each other about it, they said: “First look ye at ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten’s big head; we should be a Iong while playing there, with ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten’s head; for ye are those who see that its bigness is like this; it seems as if it would not quickly break.”A baboon, who was grown up,[1] spoke to the baboons’ children; he questioned the baboons’ children: Did not the baboons’ children see that ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten was grown up-that they who were children should think that they could possess the pieces of ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten. They spoke as if he were their little cousin; that they should possess his pieces. Did they not see that those who are grown up would be the ones to get the pieces of ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten those who are grown up?

And ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten thought to himself: ‘What shall I do, (in order) that the baboons may

[1. The name of the head baboon, the big, old one, which goes after the rest, is !uhai|ho|kwa, or “Schildwacht”]

leave me? for, they speak angrily about me. it sounds as if they would really attack me.’ And 11 e ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten thought to himself: ‘Wait, I will first tell about the baboons to the white men. For baboons are not a little afraid of a gun; I shall see whether they will not be afraid, if they hear that I am talking about them to the white men.’

And ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten called out,–while he deceived them,–he said: “O white men! the baboons are here, they are with me, ye must drive them away”(?). And the baboons did thus, when they heard that ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten spoke about them, that the white men should drive them away (?), the baboons looked about, on account of it. And the baboons ran, leaving ||Xabbiten||Xabbiten; and he escaped, at the time when the baboons went away in fear, he quickly descended from the krieboom. He ran away, as he escaped from the baboons; while they ran to the cliffs he ran away.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A LION’S STORY.

The child cried there for “Bushman rice”; a lion hearing came to her, while she cried there; her parents lay asleep; she sat by them, sat crying.

And the lion heard, as she cried there, And the lion came to her, on account of it.

And she took out (some of) the grass[1] upon which her parents were lying; because she had perceived the lion; the lion intended to kill (and) carry

[1. The narrator explained that the Bushmen sleep upon grass, which, in course of time, becomes dry.]

off her parents; she set the lion on fire with it; [1] the lion ran away; the bushes took fire.[2] Because the child had set the lion on fire.

And the child’s mother afterwards gave her “Bushman rice” (because) she felt that the lion would have killed (them) if the child had not set the lion on fire with grass.

And the lion went to die on account of the fire. Because the fire had burned, killing it.

And the child’s mother said: “Yes, my child, hadst thou not in this manner set the lion on fire we should have died. For thou didst set the lion on fire for us, for we should have died, hadst thou not set the lion on fire for us. Therefore it is, that we will break for thee an ostrich eggshell of “Bushman rice”; for, thou hast made us to live; we should have been dead, we should have died, hadst thou not set the lion on fire for us; hadst thou not, in this manner, set the lion on fire for us, we should have died.”

[1. She set the lion’s hair on fire.

2. As he ran through the bushes, they caught fire also.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MAN WHO FOUND A LION IN A CAVE.

My grandfather, !Xugen-ddi, formerly told me, that a man long ago did thus: when the rain fell he thought that he would go (and) sleep in a cave; when a lion had been the one who had made rain for him, so that he should not know the place at which (his) home seemed to be, that he might pass (it) by (in the darkness), so that he might go to a different place, that the lion might get hold of him.

The place was not a little dark, for, he continued to go into the bushes; he did not see the place along which he was walking. He did not know the place at which (his) home seemed to be. And he thought, ‘I must go along in the darkness seeking for a cave, that I may go to sleep in it, if I find it; I can afterwards in the morning return home; for, the rain does not a little fall upon me.’

And the lion had come first to the cave; it came to wait for the man in the cave.

And it felt that it was also wet; when it had sat (for a little while) inside the cave,. it became warm, and it slept, when it had become warm; while it had thought that it would sit watching for the man, that it might do thus, if the man came in; while the man thought he would look for a place where he could lay down his things; it might catch hold of the man. It had thought so; (but) it fell fast asleep.

And the man came, while it sat asleep. And the man, when he had entered the cave, heard a thing which seemed to breathe; and the man thought: ‘Can people have come to the cave? Do they wait at the cave, those who breathe here?’ And he thought, ‘How is it that the people do not talk, if people (they) be? Can the people have fallen fast asleep, that the people do not speak to me?’ And he thought: ‘I will not call out to the people, for I do not know, whether they are people; for, I will first feel gently about (with my hands), that I may feel whether real people (they) be. For, I should, if it were a different thing, I should call awakening it.’

And he felt about; and he felt that a thing which seemed to have hair was there. And he gently approached a little nearer to it; and he felt well about, and he felt that a lion was the one which slept sitting inside the cave. And he gently stepped backwards (and) turned round; and he went out on tiptoe.

And, when he had gone to a little distance, he ran swiftly, because he thought that the lion would smell his scent (where) he had gone to feel about for the lion; the lion would run to seek him.

And when he had gone to a little distance, when a little time had passed, he heard the lion, because the lion had smelt his scent, while the lion slept. And as the lion had in this manner sat sleeping, the man’s scent had entered its nose, and, because of the man’s scent, which seemed as if the man were standing beside it, it had growling arisen; because the man’s scent which it smelt, seemed as if the man were standing beside it; that was why it snatched, it the place at which the man seemed to be.

And the man heard it; and the man exclaimed: “It sounds as if it had perceived my scent; for thou (addressing himself) art the one who hearest that the cave sounds thus; for the lion sounds as if (it) had been startled awake by my scent; for it sounds as if (it) were biting about, seeking[1] for me in the cave.” And the man thought, that he would not go home; for, he would run to a different place; for, he knew that the lion would find his spoor; he would afterwards do as follows, when the day

[1. The narrator explained that the lion was smelling and growling about, in order to find the person (or persons) whom it had smelt.]

had broken)–if the lion had not killed him, he would afterwards look seeking for (his) home in the morning.

And the day broke, while the man was (still) running, because he had heard the lion, namely, the noise that the lion made, while the lion sought to get him. And, as he ran along, he espied the fire of some other people, which they kindled to warm themselves. And he thought: ‘I will run to the fire which stands yonder(?), that I may go to the people who are making fire there, that I may go to sleep (among) them.’ And he thought: I Dost thou not think (that) our fathers also said to me, that the lion’s eye can also sometimes resemble a fire by night? I will look whether it be a real fire which burns there.’ And he ran nearer to the fire; he looked, and he saw that people were lying round(?) in front of the fire. And he thought: ‘I will go to the people; for the thing seems as if they are people.’

And he went to the people. And he told the people about it: “Do ye think, that I have not walked into death this night? It happened to me that the lion slept; therefore ye see me! For, ye would not have seen me, had the lion not slept; because it slept, hence it is that the thing seems that ye see me; I have come to you. For, I had thought that I would go to wait there (in) the cave, but, the lion had come to wait for me in the cave. I did not know that the lion was sitting inside the cave; I thought that I would feel about, seeking for a place which was dry, that I might lay down my things there. Then, when I walked into the cave, I heard a thing which sounded as if it breathed; and I thought that people seemed also to be waiting there (in) the cave. I heard that the breathing of the thing did not sound like a man; I thought that I would first feel about, while I did not lay down my things. I felt about, while I (still) had my things; and I felt gently about. I felt that I was touching hair; and I became aware that (it) must be a lion which slept, sitting in (the cave). I turned softly back, when I became aware that it was a lion.”

He told the other people about it: Did not the other people hear its seeking? Therefore, the other people must watch for the lion; for the lion would come, when the lion had found his spoor. And they heard the lion, as the lion questioned, seeking to get him. The lion asked, where was the man who had come to it–because it smelt that the scent of the man’s spoor had ceased at this house? The thing seemed, as if he were at this house; it wanted the man to become visible, that it might get hold of the man.

Day broke, while the lion was (still) threatening them. When the day broke, then it was, that the lion went away, leaving the people; because the sun was rising; therefore, it went away, leaving the people, while it felt that the sun rose. For (otherwise), the people would perceive it; for the lion is a thing which is not willing to come to us, when the sun stands (in the sky).

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

CERTAIN HUNTING OBSERVANCES, CALLED !NANNA-SSE.

When we show respect to the game, we act in this manner; because we wish that the game may die. For the game would not die if we did not show respect to it.

We do as follows: a thing which does not run fast is that which we eat, when we have shot game; because we desire that the game should also do as it does. For the game is used to do thus, if we eat the flesh of a thing which is fleet, the thing (i.e. the game) arises; it does like that thing of whose flesh we did eat. The thing, also acts like that thing the flesh of which we had eaten, (doing) that which it does.

Therefore, the old people are accustomed to give us the flesh of a thing which is not fleet. They do not give us all (kinds of) food; for they only give us food (of) which they know that it will strengthen the poison, that the poison may kill the game.

The people do thus, when we have shot a gemsbok, they do not give us springbok flesh, for they feel that the springbok does not a little go. For it is used to act thus, even if it be night, it is used to walk about; day breaks, while it is (still) walking about. Therefore the old people do not give us springbok meat; while they feel that the game, if we ate springbok meat, would also do like the springbok; it would not go to a place near at hand, while it felt that we ate springbok which does not sleep, even though it be night. It (the game) would also do that which the springbok does; and the springbok is wont to do thus, when the sun has set for it in one place, the sun arises for it in a different place, while it feels that it has not slept. For it was walking about in the night. Therefore, the old people fear to give us springbok’s meat, because they feel that the gemsbok would not be willing to go to sleep, even at night. For it would, travelling in the darkness, let the day break, while it did not sleep.

Therefore, the old people also do not allow us to take hold of springbok’s meat with our hands, because our hands, with which we hold the bow, and the arrows, are those with which we are taking hold of the thing’s flesh; we shot the thing, and our hands also are as if we had smelt the springbok’s scent; because our hands are those which held the arrows (when) we shot the thing. Therefore, if we take hold of springbok’s meat, the thing is as if we ate springbok’s meat, because our hands are those which (make) the thing seem as if we had eaten springbok’s meat with them. We have not eaten springbok’s meat; for it is our hands. We think, ‘How can it be? I have not smelt the things which I am (now) smelling?’ Another man, who is clever, he thus speaks: “Thou must have taken hold of springbok’s flesh, it must be that which has acted in this manner; for, I feel that thou dost not seem to have smelt other things.”

Therefore, the people are used to act thus with regard to the man who shot the thing, they do not allow him to carry the springbok; they let him sit down at a little distance, while he is not near to the place where the people are cutting up the springbok. For he sits at a little distance, because he fears lest he should smell the scent of the springbok’s viscera(?); that is why he sits at a little. distance, because he wishes that he may not smell the scent of the springbok’s viscera

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

!NANNA-SSE SECOND PART.

 

FURTHER INFORMATION; PARTICULARLY WITH REGARD TO THE TREATMENT OF BONES.

They (the Bushmen) put the things’ bones nicely aside, while they do not throw them (about).

They put down the bones opposite to the entrance to the hut (the place which the. hut’s mouth faces; they call it “the hut face’s opposite”(?)); and they go they pour down the bones at it. Therefore, they call it, “The heap of meat bones[1]; while they feel that this is the place to which they go, at which they pour down the bones; they pour down the bones by the side of a bush (a little thorn bush), at the place to which they go to put down the bones.

And another person [who lives opposite] gnaws, putting the bones upon an (ostrich) breastbone;[2] he does as follows, when he has finished gnawing the bones, he takes up the bones, he goes to pour down the bones at this place.[3]

[1. This heap of bones (springbok, gemsbok, hare, porcupine, etc.) is called |uhaiten as well as |ka.

2. The breastbone of an ostrich, used as a dish.

3. One hut has its own heap of bones; the other man also has the other man’s heap of bones; another man also has his own heap of bones, the bones of the springbok. which he kills.]

And when they have boiled other bones, they again gnaw,[1] putting them upon (the ostrich breastbone dish). When they have finished gnawing the bones, they take up the ostrich breastbone upon which the bones are, they go to pour down the bones opposite to the entrance to the other one’s hut. The other one (i.e. the neighbour living opposite) also when he has boiled, takes the bones which he gnaws, he goes to pour them down, opposite to the entrance of the other one’s hut, (upon) the other one’s heap of bones,[2] he goes to pour down the bones upon it. Another man also does thus, when he has gnawed the bones, he also goes to pour down the bones opposite to the entrance of the other one’s hut, (upon) the other one’s heap of bones.

And, they[3] also (do it), a different man does

[1. biting off the flesh from the bones. The heap of bones belonging to the other man who killed the springbok.

2. Another man (it) is. I think that he has a wife and children. These children are those for whom he cuts off meat. He cuts meat; he cuts off for this child (a boy) this piece of meat; he cuts off for this (other) child (also a boy) this (other) piece of meat while the woman cuts off meat for the little girl.

3. The women do not eat (the meat of) the springbok’s shoulder blades, because they show respect for the men’s arrows, so that the men may quietly kill. For, when we miss our aim, the place is not nice; for we are wont to be ill when we miss our aim; when we shoot destruction to ourselves, when we are going to be ill. Therefore we become ill.

The springbok are in possession of (invisible) magic arrows (?). Therefore, we are ill on account of the springbok. Therefore, we do not allow the little children to play upon the springbok skin. For the springbok is wont to get into our flesh, and we become ill. And the springbok is inside of us and we become ill on account of it. Therefore, we do not play tricks with springbok’s bones; for we put the springbok’s bones nicely away, while we feel that the springbok is wont to get into our flesh. The springbok also possesses things which are magic sticks; if they stand in us, we, being pierced, fall dead.]

as follows, he also boils, he also gnaws, putting the bones upon an ostrich breastbone; he also comes to pour down the bones opposite to the entrance of the other one’s hut.

They also do thus when they cut up a springbok, they also take out the stomach, as they, cutting open (the springbok), take out the stomach; they go to shake out the contents of the stomach opposite to the entrance of the other one’s hut; they go to shake out the contents of the stomach there (upon the other one’s heap of bones). They [having washed it well] come to lade blood into the stomach, they dip up blood with their hand,[1] they lade blood into the stomach with their hand, while they turn with their band (holding the right hand like a scoop); they holding, form a tortoise [shell] with their hand. With regard to the blood which has spilt,[2] that which lies upon the earth, they also take it up (with the earth on which it lies), together with the bushes[3] upon which there is blood; they go to put them down opposite to the entrance of the other man’s hut (the hut of the man who, killed the springbok).

With regard to the |kaoken bones,[4] from which the children (breaking them) eat out the marrow, they also collect them together; they go to put them down opposite to the entrance of the other one’s hut.

With regard to the shoulder blade bones, when they have gnawed them, they put them away in the

[1. One hand.

2. It is blood which lies (lit. “sits”) upon the ground.

3. They lay the springbok on the bushes.

4. Springbok’s bones.]

hut;[1] because they desire that the dogs may not crunch them; while they feel that the other man (who shot the springbok) would miss his aim.

They take to the other man (who shot the springbok) the upper bones of the fore legs, while they intend that the other man’s child shall go (and) eat out the marrow from them; for the other man was the one who killed the springbok. Therefore they take to the other man the upper bones of the fore leg. The shoulder blade bones which they gnaw, they put away in the sticks of the hut, they are those into which they put them.

They out off the back of the springbok’s neck, they take it to the other man (who killed the springbok); while they boil the springbok’s back, they gnaw its bones, together with the tail, which they wish the wife to put away, that the wife may, rubbing, make soft for him bags, that he may go to get things, when he bartering goes to another man; he goes to give them to another man, when the wife has rubbed, making soft for him, springbok skin bags. The wife rubs, making them soft for him; he folds them up, he lays them into (his own) bag, and he goes to the other man.

They (the man and his wife) go, to give them to the other man; and the other person (that is, the other man’s wife) also gives her (the first man’s wife) tto,[2] which is red; she also gives some ||hara with the tto, because the other one (the first man’s wife) gave the other bags.

Then, the man also gives to the other man his own bags, he who is the man, his own bags. And the

[1. In a paper published in the Westminster Review (New Series, no cvii, July 1878, ii. “The Mythology and Religious Worship of the Ancient Japanese”), it is stated that the Japanese used the shoulder blade of a deer for the purpose of divination; and that Pallas found a similar practice among the Kirghiz, by whom the shoulder blade of a sheep was employed.

[In Staffordshire, also, sixty years ago, the shoulder blade bone of a sheep was believed to possess the power of fortelling the future–ED.]

2. For a little further information regarding tto and ||hara see IX.–237.]

other man also gives him arrows; because he (the man who brought the bags) wishes that the other man may give him in exchange poisoned arrows, that the other man may give him in exchange poison (i.e. poisoned arrows). Therefore, the other man gives him in exchange poison.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

TREATMENT OF BONES BY THE NARRATOR’S GRANDFATHER, TSATSI.

Thus my grandfather (Tsatsi) was one who put away (in the sticks of the hut) the upper bones of the fore leg, and the shoulder blades, and the springbok’s ||khurken; because the first finger (of our right hand) is apt to get a wound when we are shooting, if the dogs eat the springboks’ ||khu||khuruken, our first finger has a wound; we do not know how to manage with it, when we pull the string as we are shooting.

Therefore, we sew our first finger into a cover(?) (it is skin which has been rubbed and made soft), which the wife cuts out, she sews it for us; we put our finger into it; and then we pull the (bow-) string, while we feel that our finger is inside. We are shooting, when we lie in wait for the springbok. Then it is that our finger gets a wound, when we shoot, lying in the screen of bushes, while the springbok come up to us as we lie, because the springbok are not a little numerous, when we have gone by night (among them, making a shelter behind which to shoot). Therefore, this male springbok, he comes out from this place, he walks, coming up to us, we shall shoot (him). He runs away, he goes to lie down (to die), while we lie inside the screen of bushes which we have made.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

HOW THE FATHER-IN-LAW OF THE NARRATOR TREATED BONES.

“Dream” was the one who threw bones upon a heap; therefore, I did so, while I felt that I had married into them (i.e. into the family).

I threw the bones upon a heap, (and gave the shoulder blade bones to the dogs, while I felt that my father-in-law, “Dream,” was the one who did thus. Therefore, “Smoke’s Man” (the son of “Dream”) does the same.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

TACTICS IN SPRINGBOK HUNTING.

This man [who stands at 5], he has ostrich feathers upon sticks.[1] Therefore, he sticks (into the little bushes) a large stick with ostrich feathers (upon it) here [at 6], because he wants it to look like a man who stands, so that the springbok may see it, when they go towards the (lesser) feather brushes. For, the springbok would (otherwise), turning back, pass behind him, when he was driving[2] the springbok for the other people, the springbok would, turning back, pass behind him, at the place where he

[1. The !Xui!Xui are three in number; of these he sticks two (a longer and a shorter) into the ground at 6 and 7; the smallest of the three he holds in his hand, waving it over his head to make the springbok afraid of him. He had been calling the springbok; but is now silent; because the springbok have come into the curve of the feather brushes.

2. (He) drives the springbok, that they may run in among the other people. He does not a little run along, for, he passes the foremost springbok, while he desires that the springbok may not pass by on one side of the man who came to lie on this side.]

had stood, calling them. He runs forward from it. Therefore, he sticks in a feather brush at it [at 6]. He goes, also to stick in a little feather brush, which is short [at 7]; while he intends, with the little feather brush which is very small to drive the springbok, as he wishes that the foremost one may run, passing through, may run passing by the man who lies between [at 9]; he is the one to whom he (the man who drives the springbok) intends the foremost to run.[1] Therefore, the springbok do thus, when this man shoots the springbok which follows the leading one, they divide nicely; because, the springbok which was following the other turns aside, it darts aside, while the springbok which had been following it turns aside [in an opposite direction], while they, springing aside, divide at the noise of the arrow on the other one’s skin, that and (the noise of) the feathers, which went so quickly.

[1. [At 8 is] the man who lies…; the man who lies to leeward. He lies “with a red head”.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

VIII. Personal History.

 

||KABBO’S CAPTURE AND JOURNEY TO CAPE TOWN. FIRST ACCOUNT.

I came from that place, I came (here), when I came from my place, when I was eating a springbok. The Kafir took me; he bound my arms. We (that is, I) and my son, with my daughter’s husband, we were three, when we were bound opposite to (?) the wagon, while the wagon stood still. We went away bound to the Magistrate; we went to talk with him; we remained with him.

We were in the jail. We put our legs into the stocks. The Korannas came to us, when our legs were in the stocks; we were stretched out(?) in the stocks. The Korannas came to put their legs into the stocks; they slept, while their legs were in the stocks. They were in the house of ordure(?). While we were eating the Magistrate’s sheep, the Korannas came to eat it. We all ate it, we and the Korannas.

We went; we ate sheep on the way, while we were coming to Victoria; our wives ate their sheep on the way, as they came to Victoria.

We came to roll stones at Victoria, while we worked at the road. We lifted stones with our chests; we rolled great stones. We again worked with earth. We carried earth, while the earth was upon the handbarrow. We carried earth; we loaded the wagon with earth; we pushed it. Other people walked along. We were pushing the wagon’s wheels; we were pushing; we poured down the earth; we pushed it back. We again loaded it, we and the Korannas. Other Korannas were carrying the handbarrow. Other people (i.e. Bushmen) were with the Korannas; they were also carrying earth; while the earth was upon the handbarrow. They again came to load the handbarrow with earth.

We again had our arms bound to the wagon chain; we walked along, while we were fastened to the wagon chain, as we came to Beaufort, while the sun was hot. They (our arms) were set free in the road. We got tobacco from the Magistrate; we smoked, going along, with sheeps’ bones. We came into Beaufort jail. The rain fell upon us, while we were in Beaufort jail.

Early (the next) morning, our arms were made fast, we were bound. We splashed into the water; we splashed, passing through the water in the river bed. We walked upon the road, as we followed the wagon, while the wagon went first. We walked, following the wagon, being bound, until we, being bound, came to the Breakwater. On the way, we ate sheep as we came to the Breakwater; we came (and) worked at it.

A white man took us to meet the train in the night. We early sat in the train; the train ran, bringing us to the Cape. We came into the Cape prison house when we were tired, we and the Korannas; we lay down to sleep at noon.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

||KABBO’S CAPTURE AND JOURNEY TO CAPE TOWN. SECOND ACCOUNT.

My wife was there; I was there; my son was there; my son’s wife was there, while she carried a little child (on her back); my daughter was there, while she also carried a little child; my daughter’s husband was there; we were like this (in number). Therefore, the Kafirs[1] took (lit. “lifted”) us, when we were like this, while we were not numerous; the Kafirs took us, while we were not numerous.

We went to sit in the wagon; the Kafirs took us away, as we sat in the wagon. Our wives also sat in the wagon. They got out of the wagon; they walked upon their feet. The wagon stood still; we got out of the wagon; we lay down, when we had first made a fire. We roasted lamb’s flesh; my son)s wife roasted a springbok, which I had killed with my arrow. We smoked; we lay down. The day broke; we made a fire; we smoked early in the morning.

Then, we left them, we went away to the Magistrate; while we (who were in the wagon) ran along, we were upon the road, while our wives walked along upon their feet. We ran, leaving them, while we altogether ran, leaving them.

[1. Kafir police are probably meant here.]

Then we went to talk with the Magistrate; the Magistrate talked with us. The Kafirs took us away to the jail at night. We went to put our legs into the stocks; another white man laid another (piece of) wood upon our legs. We slept, while our legs were in the stocks. The day broke, while our legs were in the stocks. We early took out our legs from the stocks, we ate meat; we again put our legs into the stocks; we sat, while our legs were in the stocks. We lay down, we slept, while our legs were inside the stocks. We arose, we smoked, while our legs were inside the stocks. The people boiled sheep’s flesh, while our legs were in the stocks.

The Magistrate came to take our legs out of the stocks, because he wished that we might sit comfortably, that we might eat; for, it was his sheep that we were eating. Katteng (“Piet Rooi”) came (and) ate with us of the Magistrate’s sheep, while we were eating it; also another man, Khabbi-ddau; also !kwarra-ga-|k(e)ow.

They again put their legs into the stocks; they slept, while their legs were in the stocks. Other Korannas also came, they came into another house, another “jail’s house.”

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

||KABBO’S JOURNEY IN THE RAILWAY TRAIN.[1]

I have said to thee that the train (fire wagon) is nice. I sat nicely in the train. We two sat in (it), we (I) and a black man.

A woman did seize my arm; she drew me inside, because I should have fallen, therefore she drew me in. I sat beside a black man; his face was black; his mouth (was) also black; for they are black.

White men are those whose faces are red, for they are handsome. The black man he is ugly, thus his mouth is black, for his face is black.

The black man then asked me: “Where dost thou come from?” I said to the black man: “I come from this place.” The black man asked me: “What is its name?” I said to the blackman: “My place is the Bitterpits.”

[1. From Mowbray to Cape Town and back.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

||KABBO’S INTENDED RETURN HOME.

Thou knowest that I sit waiting for the moon to turn back for me, that I may return to my place.

That I may listen to all the people’s stories, when I visit them; that I may listen to their stories, that which they tell; they listen to the Flat Bushmen’s stories from the other side of the place. They are those which they thus tell,[1] they are listening to them; while the other !Xoe-ssho-!kui (the sun) becomes a little warm, that I may sit in the sun; that I may sitting, listen to the stories which yonder come (?), which are stories which come from a distance.[2] Then; I shall get hold of a story from them, because they (the stories) float out from a distance; while the sun feels a little warm; while I feel that I must altogether visit; that I may be talking with them, my fellow men.

For, I do work here, at women’s household work. My fellow men are those who are listening to stories from afar, which float along; they are listening to stories from other places. For, I am here; I do not obtain stories; because I do not visit, so that I might hear stories which float along; while I feel that the people of another place are here; they do not possess my stories. They do not talk my language; for, they visit their like; while they feel that work’s people (they) are, those who work, keeping houses in order. They work (at) food; that the food may grow for them; that they should get food which is good, that which is new food.

The Flat Bushmen go to each other’s huts; that they may smoking sit in front of them. Therefore, they obtain stories at them; because

[1. With the stories of their own part of the country too.

2. ||kabbo explains that a story is “like the wind, it comes from a far-off quarter, and we feel it.”]

they are used to visit; for smoking’s people they are. As regards myself (?) I am waiting that the moon may turn back for me; that I may set my feet forward in the path.[1] For, I verily(?) think that I must only await the moon; that I may tell my Master (lit. chief), that I feel this is the time when I should sit among my fellow men, who walking meet their like. They are hstening to them; for, I do think of visits; (that) I ought to visit; (that) I ought to talk with my fellow men; for, I work here, together with women; and I do not talk with them; for, they merely send me to work.

I must first sit a little, cooling my arms; that the fatigue may go out of them; because I sit. I do merely listen, watching for a story, which I want to hear; while I sit waiting for it; that it may float into my ear.[2] These are those to which I am listening with all my ears; while I feel that I sit silent. I must wait (listening) behind me,[3] while I listen along the road; while I feel that my name floats along the road; they (my three names)[4] float along to my place; I will go to sit at it; that I may listening turn backwards (with my ears) to my feet’s heels, on which I went; while I feel that a story is the wind. It (the story)

[1. When a man intends to turn back, he steps turning (?) round, he steps going backwards.

2. The people’s stories.

3. ||kabbo explains that, when one has travelled along a road, and goes and sits down, one waits for a story to travel to one, following one along the same road.

4. “Jantje,” |uhi-ddoro, and ||kabbo.]

is wont to float along to another place. Then, our names do pass through those people; while they do not perceive our bodies go along. For, our names are those which, floating, reach a different place. The mountains lie between (the two different roads). A man’s name passes behind the mountains’ back; those (names) with which he returning goes along. While he (the man) feels that the road is that which lies thus; and the man is upon it. The road is around his place, because the road curves. The people who dwell at another place, their ear does listening go to meet the returning man’s names; those with which he returns.[1] He will examine the place. For, the trees of the place seem to be handsome; because they have grown tall; while the man of the place (||kabbo) has not seen them, that he might walk among them. For, he came to live at a different place; his place it is not. For, it was so with him that people were those who brought him to the people’s place, that he should first come to work for a little while at it. He is the one who thinks of (his) place, that he must be the one to return.

He only awaits the return of the moon; that the moon may go round, that he may return (home), that he may examine the water pits; those at which he drank. He will work, putting the old hut in order, while he feels that he has gathered his children together, that they may work, putting the water in order for him; for, he did go away, leaving the place, while strangers were those who walked at the place. Their place it is not; for ||kabbo’s father’s father’s place it was.

[1. ||kabbo explains that the people know all the man’s names.]

And then ||kabbo’s father did possess it; when ||kabbo’s father’s father died, ||kabbo’s father was the one who possessed it. And when ||kabbo’s father died, ||kabbo’s elder brother was the one who possessed the place; ||kabbo’s elder brother died, (then) ||kabbo’s possessed the place.[1] And then ||kabbo married when grown up, bringing ||kabba-ang to the place, because he felt that he was alone; therefore, he grew old with his wife at the place, while he felt that his children were married. His children’s[2] children talked, they, by themselves, fed themselves; while they felt that they talked with understanding.

Therefore, they (||kabbo’s children) placed huts for themselves; while they felt that they made huts for themselves; they made their huts nicely; while my hut stood alone, in the middle; while they (my children) dwelt on either side. Because my elder brother’s child (Betje) married first, they (my own children) married afterwards; therefore, their cousin’s child grew up first; while she (the cousin) felt that she married, leaving me; she who, from afar, travelling came to me; because

[1. |hang#kass’o (son-in-law of ||kabbo) gave in July, 1878, the following description of ||kabbo’s place, ||gubo, or Blauwputs.”

People (that is Bastaards) call it “Blauwputs” while they feel that its rocks are black; for, they are slate.

||kabbo’s place is ||gubo; and he altogether went round, he, possessing, went along at the place; thus, he possessed !khui-tteng and ||Xau-ka-!khoa. He possessed ||Xuobbeten (a certain water pool); and, he, altogether possessing, went along, he possessed |unn.

Therefore, he dug out (at) ||ka-ttu [the name of a place near ||gubo]. He dug, making a (deep) pitfall (for game), there. Therefore, an ostrich was slaughtered at that pitfall, because my father-in-law’s pitfalls were surpassingly good ones.

2. The word @puondde here means both ||kabbo’s son and daughter.]

I was the one who feeding, brought her up. Her father was not the one who had fed her. For, her father died, leaving her. I was the, one who went (and) fetched her, when her mother had just died; I brought her to my home. As I felt that I had not seen her father die,[1] I also did not see her mother die; for, her mother too, died,[2] leaving her; I only heard the story.

And then I went to fetch her (Betje), while I felt that I was still a young man, and I was fleet in running to shoot. And I thought that she would get plenty of food, which I should give her. She (would) eat it. She (would) eat with my (own) child, which was still (an only) one. And then they would both grow, going out from me (to play near the hut); because they both ate my game (“shot things”). For, I was fresh for running; I felt that I could, running, catch things.

Then I used to run (and) catch a hare, I brought

[1. The father was killed by some one who was angry with him, while he himself was not angry; he had been visiting at another house, and had slept five nights away from home. A man who was at that place where his wife lived, gave the child food, but it still cried after its own father. The man was angry with the father, because he had stayed away from his wife, ||kabo says, and because the child still cried for him. And, when the father had returned, and was sleeping by the side his wife, in his own hut, the man came behind the hut in the very early morning, and stabbed him as he slept, with a Kafir assegai, which had be bought at Wittberg. As he lay dead in the hut, the rest (including his wife) left him, by the advice of the murderer.

2. The mother died afterwards of some internal sickness; she was not buried, because, at the time of her death, she only had a younger sister with her, who was suffering from the same illness. The latter went away with difficulty, taking the dead mother’s child to a relative’s hut, not near at hand. From the relative’s hut, the fire of ||kabo’s dwelling could be seen at night. She proceeded thither with the child, and was met by him midway. Before he got the child, he had seen the dead mother’s bones lying at her hut, her body having just been eaten by jackals. ||kabo had gone off from his home in baste, hearing that the wife’s sister was ill, and fearing that she might die on the way, and the child, yet living and playing about, might be devoured by jackals. He left his own home early one morning, and in the evening reached the spot where the mother’s bones lay. He made a hut at a little distance, and slept there one night, and the next morning went to fetch the child at the relation’s hut; but the sister met him with it on the road. He slept at the newly-made hut, to which he returned with the child, for one more night, and then went back to his own home.]

it to my home, while it was in my bag, while the sun was hot. I felt that I had not seen a springbok. For, I saw a hare. I used to shoot, sending up a bustard. I put it in(to the bag) (and) brought it home. My wife would come to pluck it, at home. She boiled it in the pot; that we might drink soup. On the morrow I would hunt the hare, I would be peeping about in the shade of the bushes. I would shoot it up,[1] that the children might eat. For, the springbok were gone away. Therefore, I was shooting hares, that I might chasing, cause them to die with the sun, when they had run about in the noonday’s sun. They were “burnt dead” by the sun; while I remembered that the hare does not drink; for it eats dry bushes, while it does not drink, putting in water upon the dry bushes which it crunches. Therefore, it remains thirsty there, while it does not drink. It dwells, sitting in the summer (heat), because it does not understand water pans, so that it might go to the water, so that it might go to drink. For it waits, sitting in the sun.

Therefore, I chase it, in the sun, that the sun may, burning, kill it for me, that I may eat it, dead from the sun; while I feel that I was the one who chased it, while it went along in fear of me. It, in fear, lay down to die from the sun; because it had become dry (while running about) in the sun; because it saw me when I followed it. It did not stop to walk, that it might look backwards. For it had run about, when it was tired.

[1. i.e., make it spring up from its form and run away, falling down dead later.]

It seemed as if it were about (?) to die; because it had been obliged to run about. Therefore, it went to lie down to die; because fatigue had killed it; while it had run about in the heat; for, (it) was the summer sun, which was hot. The ground was hot which was burning its feet.

Therefore, I used to go to pick it up, as it lay dead. I laid it in the arrows’ bag. I must, going along, look for another hare. It would spring up (running) into the sun; it would, being afraid, run through the sun, while I ran following it. I must, going along, wait, so that the sun might, burning, kill it. I would go to pick it up, when it lay dead. I would sitting, break its (four) legs, and then I should put it in. I thought that another hare would probably dwell opposite to it. I must first go to seek round in the neighbourhood of the form. For it seemed to be married. I must, seeking around, look for the female hare, that I might also chase it, when I had unloosened (and) laid down the bag. I must chase it, with my body. I must run very fast, feeling that I should become thirsty.

I shall go to drink at home.[1] For the children will have probably fetched[2] water. For, my wife (was) used to send them to the water, thinking that I had walked about in the sun when the sun was hot; because I thought that |kui[3] would kill the

[1. Water which is in an ostrich eggshell.

2. In the ostrich eggshells, and probably also in a springbok’s stomach.

3. Also called “gambro”; a vegetable food eaten by Bushmen; which is injurious if used as the chief nourishment in winter, causing severe pain in the head and singing in the ears.]

children for me. The rain must first fall, and then, I should be looking around, while I looked around, seeking for (a pair of) ostriches which are wont to seek the water along the “Har Rivier”, that they may, going along, drink the water. I must, going round in front, descend into the “Har Rivier”.

I must (in a stooping position) steal up to them in the inside of the river bed. I must lie (on the front of my body) in the river bed; that I might shoot, lying in the river bed. For, the western ostriches do, seeking water, come back; that they may, going along, drink the new water.

Therefore, I must sit waiting for the Sundays on which I remain here, on which I continue to teach thee. I do not again await another moon, for this moon is the one about which I told thee. Therefore, I desired that it should do thus, that it should return for me. For I have sat waiting for the boots, that I must put on to walk in; which are strong for the road. For, the sun will go along, burning strongly. And then, the earth becomes hot, while I still am going along halfway. I must go together with the warm sun, while the ground is hot. For, a little road it is not. For, it is a great road; it is long. I should reach my place, when the trees are dry. For, I shall walk, letting the flowers become dry while I still follow the path.

Then, autumn will quickly be (upon) us there; when I am sitting at my (own) place. For, I shall not go to other places; for, I must remain at my (own) place, the name of which I have told my Master; he knows it; be knows, (having) put it

[1. When he is sitting at his own place.]

down. And thus my name is plain (beside) it. It is there that I sit waiting for the gun; and then, he will send the gun to me there; while he sends the gun in a cart; that which running, takes me the gun. While he thinks, that I have not forgotten; that my body may be quiet, as it was when I was with him; while I feel that I shoot, feeding myself. For, starvation was that on account of which I was bound, starvation’s food,–when I starving turned back from following the sheep. Therefore, I lived with him, that I might get a gun from him; that I might possess it. That I might myself shoot, feeding myself, while I do not eat my companions’ food. For, I eat my (own) game.

For, a gun is that which takes care of an old man; it is that with which we kill the springbok which go through the cold (wind); we go to eat, in the cold (wind). We do, satisfied with food, lie down (in our huts) in the cold (wind). It (the gun) is strong against the wind. It satisfies a man with food in the very middle of the cold.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

HOW |HANG#KASS’O’S PET LEVERET WAS KILLED.

|Xabbi-ang[1] killed (my) leveret for me, and I came crying to her, because I wanted them[2] therefore to seek for (other) leverets; for they were those who had killed (my) leveret for me. And she soothed

[1. The narrator’s mother.

2. i.e. his mother and his maternal grandmother #kammi.]

me, about it. Therefore, she told me that the lizard had formerly said:

“For,

I therefore intend to go,

Passing through,

guru-|na’s pass.–

“For,

I therefore intend to go,

Passing through,

|Xe-!khwai’s pass.”

 

Tsatsi[1] was the one who caught hold of (and) took up a leveret on the hunting-ground; and, he brought it (home) alive, he came (and) gave it to me. And I played with it; I set it down, it ran; I also ran after it. And I went to catch it, and, I came to set it down. It again ran; and I again ran to catch it; and I went catching hold of it, I came to set it down. Again, it ran; and, I again ran after it. And I again caught hold of it; and again, I caught hold of it; and I came to set it down.

|Xabbi-ang wished that I (should) leave off playing with the leveret, that I (should) kill it, that I (should) lay it to roast. I was not willing to kill the leveret. She wished me to leave off playing with the leveret, that I (should) kill it, that I might lay it to roast. I was not willing to kill the leveret, because I felt that nothing acted as prettily as it did, when it was gently running, gently running along. It did in this manner (showing the motion of its ears), while it was gently running along, nothing acted as prettily as it did; and it went to sit down.

[1. The narrator’s maternal grandfather.]

Then they told me to fetch water; for I was one who quickly came away from the water, while I did not go to play at the water. Therefore, I went to fetch water, when I had tied up the leveret. And I went to fetch water; then, they killed (my) leveret for me, while I was at the water. They killed (my) leveret for me; and then I came (and) cried, about it; because I had thought that they would let (my) leveret alone. For, they must have been deceiving me; they told me to fetch water, while they must have intended that they would kill (my) leveret for me, which I had meant to let alone, so that it might live (on) in peace. They had killed it for me. Therefore, I came (and) cried, on account of it. They said, that we should not again get another leveret; when I wanted them to seek some leverets for me, they said, we should not again get another leveret.

Therefore, they soothing calmed(?) me with the (story of the) lizard; while they wished that I might quietly listen to them; when I had shut my mouth, I might quietly listen to them.[1]

[1. She (my mother) said (to me), that I should not play with meat; for we do not play with meat; for we lay meat to roast. For the leveret is not a little fat; therefore, we kill it, we lay it to roast, while we do not play with it.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE THUNDERSTORM.

When the rain fell upon us at night, I did thus, while the rain fell, I lay, playing the “goura”,[1] like

[1. A description of this musical instrument will be found on p. 100 of “The Native Races of South Africa”, by the late Mr. G. W. Stow (London, 1905), and a picture of it in the preceding plate (fig. 8).]

||kunn.[1] And mamma said to me, did I not see how the rain was lightening; that I did like ||kunn; did I not know that ||kunn was a person who used, if people scolded him, he used, (when) he was angry with the people, to say to the people, about it, that the people seemed to think that the rain would fall; but (on the contrary) the rain would stand still, while the rain did not fall. The rain used really to stop; when ||kunn had said that the rain would not fall.

When mamma rebuked me, I did not listen to her, for, I lay, playing the “goura”, like ||kunn. And mamma became silent; when she saw that I did not seem as if I heard her. And mamma lay down; I lay, playing the “goura”.

And the rain did thus, as I lay, playing the “goura”, the rain first seemed to shine into our eyes. And the rain did thus, (when) we were thinking that it was going to lighten and it seemed as if the rain were closing our eyes, when it was the light that entered. our eyes; we stood shutting our eyes, while we felt as if darkness kept our eyes closed. And when we had not (yet) opened our eyes, the rain gave us things on account of which our eyes seemed as if they were green; and the rain lightened, while our eyes felt green.

And the rain, lightening, went over us; and the rain did as follows to a stone which stood outside, in front of our hut, the rain, lightening, shivered it.

And mamma exclaimed: “Ng ng ng ng ng!” And father questioned mamma, as to what was the matter

[1. ||kunn or “Coos Groot-Oog” was a rain sorcerer, wbo lived at !khai |ku (also called “Evvicass Pits”, on account of a tree which stands by the Pits).]

with her; had the rush of the storm[1] reached her that she exclaimed as if in pain? And mamma told father about it, that ) the thing seemed as if the rain were tearing off her skin; therefore, she had exclaimed with pain. And mamma said that we had wished to fall dead; it was our fault that we had not been willing to obey her when she rebuked us about a very little thing. We had wanted to see (what would happen) when we did not appear to hear when she rebuked us.

I had acted thus, when mamma told me to leave off playing the “goura”,–like ||kunn,–I would not listen; I was the one who saw that the rain had intended to kill us, on account of my doings.

[1. The narrator compares this to the wind from a cannon ball.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

IX. Customs and Superstitions.

 

CUTTING OFF THE TOP OF THE LITTLE FINGER, AND PIERCING EARS AND NOSE.

A little boy has this hand out.[1] A female child has this hand cut,[2] because she is a little girl, therefore, she has the hand of her female arm cut; because this is her female hand. The little boy feels that he is a little boy, therefore, he has this hand cut, his male arm, for, they shoot with this hand. Another boy does not have his hand cut; another girl does not have her hand cut.

Thus, the boy has this arm cut, with which they intend him to shoot; therefore, he turns this (the right) hand, when be grasps the arrow, he turns this (the left) hand, when he grasps the bow.

Another man has this (the right) ear pierced; he also has that (the left) ear pierced. Another woman has this (the left) ear pierced, because she feels that her female arm is here (i.e., on this side); she also has this (the right) ear pierced, because she feels that her male arm is here; she also has her nose pierced.

Another woman does not have her nose pierced, because the other woman is ugly; the other woman who has had her nose pierced, is handsome.

[1. Showing the top joint of the little finger of the right hand.

2. Showing the top joint of the little finger of the left hand.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

CUTTING OFF THE TOP OF THE LITTLE FINGER.

 

SECOND ACCOUNT.

Her father, |Ukwaiyau, was the one who cut off the upper joint of his daughter Kaueten-ang’s little finger.[1]

My husband was the one who cut off (the upper joint of) !kabbe-tu’s (“Willem Streep’s”) finger.

[1. |Xaken-ang further explained that the joint is cut off with reed. It is thought to make children live to grow up. It is done before they suck at all.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

BUSHMAN PRESENTIMENTS[2]

The Bushmen’s letters[3] are in their bodies. They (the letters) speak, they, move, they make their (the Bushmen’s) bodies move. They (the Bushmen) order the others to be silent a man is altogether still, when he feels that his body is tapping (inside). A dream speaks falsely, it is (a thing) which deceives. The presentiment is that which speaks the truth; it is that by means of which the Bushman gets (or perceives) meat, when it has tapped.

[3. The above piece of Bushman native literature is described by Dr. Bleek as follows: “99. Bushman Presentiments.–They feel in their bodies that certain events are going to happen. There is a kind of beating of the flesh, which tells them things. Those who are stupid, do not understand these teachings; they disobey them, and get into trouble,–such as being killed by a lion, etc.–The beatings tell those who understand them, which way they are not to go, and which arrow they had better not use, and also warn them, when many people are coming to the house on a wagon. They inform people where they can find the person of whom they are in search, i.e., which way they must go to seek him successfully.” (“A Brief Account of Bushman Folk-lore and other Texts.” By W.H.I. Bleek, Ph.D. Cape Town, 1875. pp. 17 and 18.)

2. The word !gwe was used by the Bushmen to denote both letters and books. ||kabbo explained that the beatings in their bodies, here described, are the Bushman’s “letters”, and resemble the letters which take a message or an account of what happens in another place.]

The Bushmen perceive people coming by means of it. The Bushmen feel a tapping (when) other people are[1] coming.

With regard to an old wound, a Bushman feels a tapping at the wound’s place, while the tapping feels that the man (who has the old wound) walks, moving his body. The one man feels the other man who comes; he says to the children: “Look ye around, for grandfather, for grandfather seems to be coming; this is why I feel the place of his body’s old wound.” The children look around; the children perceive the man coming. They say to their father: “A man is coming yonder.” Their father says to them: “Grandfather (his own father) comes yonder; he would come to me; he was the one whose coming I felt at the place of his old wound. I wanted yon to see that he is really coming. For ye contradict my presentiment, which speaks truly.”

He feels a tapping (at) his ribs; he says to the children: “The springbok seem to be coming, for I feel the black hair (on the sides of the springbok). Climb ye the Brinkkop standing yonder, that ye may look around at all the places. For I feel the springbok sensation.” The other man agrees with him: “I think (that) the children (should) do so;

[1. The Bushman, when an ostrich is coming and is scratching the back of its neck with its foot, feels the tapping in the lower part of the back of his own neck; at the same place where the ostrich is scratching.

The springbok, when coming, scratches itself with its horns, and with its foot; then the Bushman feels the tapping.

2. When a woman who had gone away is returning to the house, the man who is sitting there, feels on his shoulders the thong with which the woman’s child is slung over her shoulders; he feels the sensation there.]

for the springbok come in the sun; for the Brinkkop standing yonder is high; they shall look down upon the ground. And then they can see the whole ground. They can therefore (?) look inside the trees; for the springbok are wont to go hidden inside the trees. For the trees are numerous. The little river beds are also there. They are those to which the springbok are wont to come (in order) to eat in them. For, the little river beds have become green.[1] For I am wont to feel thus, I feel a sensation in the calves of my legs when the springbok’s blood is going to run down them. For I always feel blood, when I am about to kill springbok. For I sit feeling a sensation behind my back, which the blood is wont to run down, when I am carrying a springbok. The springbok hair lies behind my back.” The other agrees with him (saying): Yes, my brother.

Therefore, we are wont to wait (quietly); when the sensation is like this, when we are feeling the things come, while the things come near the house. We have a sensation in our feet, as we feel the rustling of the feet of the springbok with which the springbok come, making the bushes rustle. We feel in this manner, we have a sensation in our heads, when we are about to chop the springbok’s horns. We have a sensation in our face, on account of the blackness of the stripe on the face of the springbok;[2] we feel a sensation in our eyes, on account of the black marks on the eyes of the springbok. The ostrich is one, for whom we feel the sensation of

[1. i.e., the grass and the little bushes of the river bed.

2. A black stripe that comes down in the centre of the forehead, and terminates at the end of the nose.]

a louse;[1] as it walks, scratching the louse; when it is spring,[2] when the sun feels thus, it is warm.

Then it is that the things go from us. They go along, passing opposite to the hut. Therefore, we early cross the things’ spoor, when we early go to hunt. For, the things which are numerous are us, to come first, when we are lying in the shade of the hut; because they think that we are probably lying asleep in the noonday’s sleep. For we really lie down to sleep the noonday’s sleep. But we do not lie sleeping at noon, when we feel this sensation. For we are used to feel like this when the things are walking; when we have felt the things coming, as they walk, moving their legs. We feel a sensation in the hollows under our knees, upon which blood drops, as we go along, carrying (the game). Therefore, we feel this sensation there.

Therefore, the little boys do not lie in the shade inside the hut; they lie in the shade above yonder, so that they may beckon to us, when they have perceived the things, when the things walk at that place. They will beckon, making us see; for we are wont, sitting at a distance, to watch them, as they sit above yonder. Therefore, we say to each other, that the children appear to have seen things. For, they beckon. They point to that place, while they point to the place towards (?) which the things are walking, where the Brinkkop, mountains lie thus spread out (?). So we may quickly chase

[1. An insect which bites the ostrich, a black insect; an “ostrich louse” as the Bushmen describe it.

2. ||kabbo explains that ||gu means “de bloem tijd.”]

the things at the hill which lies across, to which the things are walking. The things walk, putting themselves in front of it;[1] we will quickly pass behind it, while it still lies away (from the springbok). We will stand nicely (ready) for the things, that we may not steal up abreast[2] of the things, (but) that we may steal up in front of the things, at the place[3] to which the leader goes.

[1. That is, putting their faces towards the mountain.

2. That is, not at the side of the game as it goes along, but right in front of its path.

3. The Bushmen are at the back of the hill, waiting for the springbok to cross it, coming to the place where they (the Bushmen) are.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

DOINGS AND PRAYERS WHEN CANOPUS AND SIRIUS COME OUT.

The Bushmen perceive Canopus, they say to a child: “Give me yonder piece of wood, that I may put (the end of) it (in the fire), that I may point (it) burning (towards) grandmother, for, grandmother carries Bushman rice; grandmother shall make a little warmth for us; for she coldly comes out; the sun[1] shall warm grandmother’s eye for us.”

Sirius comes out; the people call out to one another: Sirius comes yonder; they say to one another Ye must burn (a stick) for us (towards) Sirius.” They say to one another: “Who was it who saw Sirius?” One man says to the other: “Our brother saw Sirius.” The other man says to him:

[1. The sun is a little warm, when this star appears in winter.]

I saw Sirius.”[1] The other man says to him: “I wish thee to burn (a stick) for us (towards) Sirius; that the sun may shining come out for us; that Sirius may not coldly come out.” The other man (the one who saw Sirius) says to his son: “Bring me the (small) piece of wood yonder, that I may put (the end of) it (in the fire), that I may burn (it) towards grandmother; that grandmother may ascend the sky, like the other one, Canopus.”

The child brings him the piece of wood, he (the father) holds (the end of) it in (the fire). He points (it) burning towards Sirius; he says that Sirius shall twinkle like Canopus. He sings; he sings (about) Canopus, he sings (about) Sirius; he points to them with fire,[2] that they may twinkle like each other. He throws fire at them. He covers himself up entirely (including his head) in (his) kaross and lies down.

He arises, he sits down; while he does not again lie down; because he feels that he has worked, putting Sirius into the sun’s warmth; so that Sirius may warmly come out.

The women go out early to seek for Bushman rice; they walk, sunning their shoulder blades.[3]

[1. ||Ukoa-ggu, “Canopus,” and !kuttau, “Sirius,” are both female stars, ||kabbo says.

2. With the stick that he had held in the fire, moving it up and down quickly.

3. They take one arm out of their kaross, thereby exposing one shoulder blade to the sun.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MAKING OF CLAY POTS.

The women dig, removing the earth which lies above, lifting it away; and they only dig out the earth[1] which is inside there. And they scoop it out; they put it into the bag. And they sling it (the earth) over their [left] shoulder, they take it home.

And, as they return, they go along plucking grass, they only pluck the male grass; they bind it together. And they take it to the hut.

And they pound the pot (clay),[2] pound (it), making it soft.[3] And they pound the grass, they also pound, making the grass soft. And they put the grass into the earth; and they make the earth wet. And they make the earth wet, and they make the earth very nice indeed, and they mould[4]

[1. The earth resembles stones which contain things which seem to glitter. Hence, the earth of which the people make a pot contains things, which are like them (i.e., like the said glittering particles). The earth is red,

The earth to which the people go, to dig it out, is red. They call it “a pot’s hole”, because they dig, making a stick’s hole, there. Therefore, they call it “a pot’s hole”.

2. The earth of which they make the pot.

It is earth; it is dry; the people pound it (when) it is dry. And they sift it, sift out the earth which is soft. And they pour down the earth which is hard [to be pounded again at another time]. With regard to the soft earth, they pour it out upon a skin [a whole skin, which has no holes in it, a springbok skin].

3. Pound, making it like sand. (They) put it upon a skin.

4. They work it; they work, making a pot of it.]

the earth. And, when they have made the lower part of the pot, they, holding, break off the clay, they rub the clay between their hands. They put the clay down (in a circle). And they smooth[1] the clay very nicely indeed; they moulding, raise (the sides of) the pot. And they smooth it, smooth it, smooth it, make it very nice indeed, they set it down to dry (in the sun).[2] And they make a little pot which is small, beautiful beyond comparison. They anoint the pot with fat, while they wish the pot not to split. Therefore, they anoint the pot with fat, while the pot is still damp, when the pot has just newly dried, the pot’s inner part (the inner layers, not the inside) being still damp; because they wish the pot to dry when it has fat upon it (inside and out). And they set the pot (in the sun) to dry; they make a little pot; they make it very nicely indeed. They set the little pot to dry (in the sun) by the side of the large pot; and they take the other part of the clay; they make it also wet. They mould it; they mould it very nicely indeed; they set it down. They also make another little pot, a little pot which is larger (lit. “grown”). And they set it to dry (in the sun). When the pot dries, they also prepare gum;[3] they pound it (between stones); they pound it, they pound, making it fine. They take it up in their hand (and) put it into the pot; and they

[1. This is done with a piece of bone called !kau or !au (See IX.-185, and also illustration.)

2. (They) wish that it may become dry.

3. The berries (lit. “the eyes”) of the “Doorn Boom” are black (i.e. “black gum”). The people call them the dung of the “Doorn Boom”, because they come out of the stem of the !khou tree.

4. A white gum, called !gui, seems also to be found on this tree.]

pour in water [into the new pot]. It [the gum] boils while they feel that gum is that which adheres,[1] it resembles |kwaie.

And if springbok are at hand, a man kills a springbok, they pour the springbok’s blood into (its) stomach, and the man brings back the blood he takes the blood home.

And the wife goes to pour the blood into the new pot. And she boils the blood; and, when the blood is cooked, she takes the pot off the fire, she takes the blood out of the pot (with a springbok horn spoon), and she sets the pot down; because she wishes the blood [i.e., the blood remaining in the pot] to dry.

And she[2] again takes the pot, and she pours water into (it), she boils meat.

And, also, they do not strike with a stone,[3] when a new pot is on the fire, because they wish it not to split.

[1. They smear the pot outside [with gum taken out with the spoon, made from springbok horn, with which they stir the gum which is boiling inside], while they wish this gum to adhere to the outside of the pot.

2. A man works at springbok’s arrows, making them straight. A woman moulds pots.

3. |hang#kass’o further stated that his wife, Ssuobba-||keng, had been taught to make pots by |Xu-ang (an elder sister of her mother, !kuabba-ang), and also by |Xu-ang (another elder female relative on the maternal side).

3. To break bones (with a stone). The Bushmen do this because they do not possess an axe. They place a bone upon a stone which stands upon the ground, while they hold a stone which has a sharp edge, they strike with it; strike, dividing the bone because they intend to boil it, that they may gnaw it.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE BUSHMAN SOUP SPOON.[1][2]

The hair of the Proteles is here, that part of the hair which is on the top of its back.[3] The roots of the hair are here, those which stick into the skin.

I do not know whether it is springbok’s paxwax[4] [which binds the hair on the stick]. This is the (wood of the) “Driedoorn” (the “Driedoorn”) is a bush.

We scratch the fire together with it (i.e., with the handle of the brush). Therefore, the fire burns, blackening this part of it. It becomes black.

[1. Among some Bushman implements given to Dr. Bleek. by a friend, was the brush of which a picture appears in the illustrations. ||kabbo recognized this at once as a Bushman “soup spoon” and showed us, with immense pleasure, in what manner the bushmen eat soup with it, and how well it can be used to take up the fat on the top of the soup, if rolled round in it.

2. The men are those who bind (i.e., make) them.

3. Really along its back, the narrator explains.

4. It is in the flesh; it lies upon the bone. It is yellow.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE SHAPED RIB BONE.

A bone (it) is; a rib (it.) is; a Bushman is the one who makes it.[1] He works it; he shapes it with a knife.

“Kambro” is that which we eat (with) it.

[1. He works two ribs, with a knife.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE BUSHMAN DRUM AND DANCING RATTLES.[1]

They tie, putting the bag over the pot’s (drum’s) mouth.[2] Then they tie on the sinew. And they pull the drum’s surface tight; for they wish that the drum may sound, when they beat the drum.

The men will tie springbok ears upon their feet;[3] they will dance, while the springbok ears sound, as springbok ears are wont to do, like what we call dancing rattles. Springbok ears (they) are; we call them dancing rattles. They sound well, when we have tied (them) on to our feet. They sound well, when we have tied (them) on to our feet. They sound well, they rattle as we dance, when we have tied (them) on to our feet. The drum which the women beat sounds well. Therefore, the men dance well on account of it, while they feel that the drum, which the women beat, sounds well. The dancing rattles which the men tie upon their feet sound well, because a woman who works nicely is the one who has worked them. Therefore, they sound nicely, because they are good. Therefore, they sound nicely, because they are good.

[1. For a drawing of the dancing rattles see illustration.

2. A springbok’s bag. They wet the skin of the springbok’s thigh; then, when it is wet, they tie it over the pot’s mouth and they try the drum.

3. Their insteps.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

HOW THE DANCING RATTLES ARE PREPARED.

A woman takes off the skin[1] of the springbok’s ear; and then, she sews the inner skin of the springbok’s ear, when she has laid aside the (hairy) skin of the springbok’s ear; for it is the inner skin of its ear which she sews. And she sews it, and she scoops up with her hand, putting soft earth into it. And they dig, lading in earth, because they wish that the springbok ears may dry; that they may put in ||kerri[2] berries when they have taken out the earth. And then they tie on a small piece of sinew at the tip of the springbok ear, which was open, while they tie shutting in the ||kerri berries, so that the ||kerri berries may not come out of the springbok ear. And they pierce through the springbok ears; and they put in little threads, which the men are to tie, fastening the springbok ears on their feet.[3]

[1. The hairy skin.

2. The top of this plant is described as being like that of a pumpkin. Its seeds are black, and small. They are found underneath the flower, which is red. The root is roasted and eaten by the Bushmen. The seeds are also eaten, unroasted; being, when dry, pounded fine by the women with stones, and mixed with “Kambro” in order to moisten them for eating.

3. The narrator explains that the springbok ears, when thus prepared and filled, are tied, in fours or fives, on to the top of each foot (on the instep), letting the men’s toes appear below them.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE USE OF THE !GOING!GOING, FOLLOWED BY AN ACCOUNT OF A BUSHMAN DANCE.

The people beat the !going!going, (in order) that the bees may become abundant[1] for the people, (in order)

[1. To become abundant.]

that the bees may go into the other people’s places, that the people may eat honey. Therefore, the people beat the !going!going, when they desire that the people’s bees may go into the other people’s places, so that the people may cut honey, that they may put honey away into bags.

And the people carry honey. And the people, carrying, bring the honey home. And the people take honey to the women at home. For, the women are dying of hunger, at home. Therefore, the men take honey to the women at home; that the women may go to eat, for they feel that the women have been hungry at home; while they wish that the women may make[1] a drum for them, so that they may dance, when the women are satisfied with food. For they do not frolic when they are hungry.

And they dance, when the women have made a drum for them. Therefore, the women make a drum for them; they dance. The men are those who dance, while the women sit down, because they clap their hands for the men when the men are those who dance; while one woman is the one who beats the drum; while many women are those who clap their hands for the men; because they feel that many men are dancing.

Then, the sun rises, while they are dancing there, while they feel that they are satisfied with food. Then, the sun rises, while they are dancing there, while they feel that the women are satisfied with food. Therefore, the sun shines upon the backs of

[1. That the women may play for them, when the women are satisfied with food; that the women may also arrange the (game of) !goo for them, that they may roar.]

their heads;[1] while the women get the dust of the drum. Then the men are covered (?) with dust, while the dust of the drum lies upon the women’s faces, because the women are accustomed to sit down there; therefore, the dust of the drum lies upon the women’s faces. Because they (the men) do not dance a little, for they dance very much. Therefore, their foot’s dust covers the women’s faces; because they have danced strongly. Therefore, they get their foot’s dust, which rises up from their feet, it rises up among them, as they stand dancing. They dance, standing around, while the women are those who sit down, while the men are those who dance, standing around.

Therefore they sleep, letting the sun set;[2] because they are tired when they have been dancing there; while the women leave off drumming. Therefore they sleep, letting the sun set; because they are tired when they have been dancing there. Therefore, they sleep, letting the sun set; because they are tired when they have been dancing there. The place becomes dark, as they sleep there, because they are tired, when they have danced there.

Therefore, morning is (the time) when they send the children to the water, that the children may dip up (water) for them, that they may drink; for they are thirsty. Therefore, the children go early to dip up (water) for them, at the break of day, so that they may come to drink. For they are

[1. The men are those, on the backs of whose heads the sun shines (literally, upon “the holes above the nape of their neck.”).

2. They sleep at noon, because the women had bound on the drum for them, when the sun had just set.]

thirsty. They are aware that they are tired. Therefore it does not seem as if they will be those to send the children to the water; for they feel at first that they are still tired. Therefore, it does not seem as if they will be those to send the children to the water. Because they are still sleeping there for a while; because they are still tired. Therefore, they do not seem as if they will be those to send the children to the water. Therefore, when they awake, they send the children to the water; when they feel that they have had their sleep out. Therefore, they awake. And then they send the children to the water. They speak to the children, they thus say to the children, that the children must quickly bring them water, that they may quickly come to drink. For they are thirsty.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

PREPARATION OF THE FEATHER BRUSHES USED IN SPRINGBOK HUNTING.[1]

They roll the feather brushes, binding the ostrich feathers (the body feathers) upon the “Driedoorn” stick. They become numerous; and they (the Bushmen) pound red stones,[2] they paint[3], the feather brush sticks. And they make ready the (dried) skin of a springbok’s chest; they thread little thongs[4]

[1. I used to see my grandfather (Tsatsi) roll the feather brushes.

2. The red stones here meant, are ||ka; not tto. At the “Philadelphia Exhibition,” in November, 1875, Dia!kwain recognized red haematite as ||ka.

3. Paint them red.

4. Thongs (they) are. The “children of thongs” (they) are. The Korannas call them !Ya.]

into (it); and they put away the feather brushes. They put away the feather brushes; they dig ||kuain,[1] they roast (the stem of) the ||kuain, they lay the feather brushes over the ||kuain’s smoke, while the ||kuain’s smoke ascends into the feather brushes.

First, they dig[2] [with a stick pointed with horn], making a little hole; they put live coals into it. And they put ||kuain upon the live coals, while they wish that the ||kuain may smoke quietly, and not flame up; for the ||kuain would set the feather brushes on fire, if the fire were to flame up, if they (the stems) flamed up, when roasted.

They (the Bushmen) put the springbok skin[3] over (the fire); they put a stone upon the place where the feather brush sticks are for they intend that the smoke should only go out through the ostrich feathers.

[1. Its stem is that which the people call ||kuain, because it does not a little smell. Therefore, the people smoke the feather brushes with it. The people call the stem of the !Ywa-kau, which is in the earth, ||kuain.

2. Men dig with sticks which have no stones (upon them); they are those with which men dig.

3. They turn the skin, into which the feather brushes have been put, upside down, over the hole into which the live embers and the ||kuain were put.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE MARKING OF ARROWS.

The Bushmen are those who mark arrows,[1] while they wish that they may recognize the arrows, when they are shooting springbok at one place. And, when they are following the springbok spoor, when

[1. All the arrows.]

they are going along picking up the arrows they recognize the arrows. They say: “Thy arrow it seems to be, for, their mark is like this.” Another man says: “Yes, my arrow is yonder.” They again go to pick up this arrow. The other man says: “My arrow seems to be yonder; for their mark is like this.”

|kwae[1] is that with which they make the marks. They put tto into (it), and they pound the tto together with the ||kuae; and the ||kuae becomes red on account of it; then, they mark the arrows with it.

[1. They (the farmers) call it “Harpis.” (Probably harpuis, * * * “resin.”)]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE ADHESIVE SUBSTANCE USED BY THE BUSHMEN IN MARKING ARROWS.

It is |kwae[1]; it is ||kuarri juice. It is like a pumpkin, it is round. Its juice is white; it is like water. Its juice is not a little white; its whiteness resembles milk. It is poison.

We make an incision(?) (and) set it (the ||kuwarri) down; and then we hold a tortoise (shell) underneath it; because we wish its juice to be upon the tortoise (shell), that we may make ||kuae of it. And we warm (it) by the fire, making it hot; and we beat(?) it, when it is hot. Then, we beat(?), cooling it. And we take it up in this manner,[2] with a “Driedoorn” stick; we do in this manner to it, with the “Driedoorn” stick, as we make it round; while we think that we intend to make little springbok arrows.

[1. The later spelling of this word has been followed in the translation, as probably more correct.

2. The narrator here imitated the manner of taking lip the |kwae by means of rolling it upon a stick.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

MODE OF GETTING RID OF THE EVIL INFLUENCE OF BAD DREAMS.

My mother used to do in this manner, when she intended to go out to seek for food, when she was about to start, she took a stone; (and) as she plunged the stone into the ashes of the fire, she exclaimed: “Rider(?) yonder!” while she wished that the evil things, about which she had been dreaming, should altogether remain in the fire; instead of going out with her. For, if she did not act in this manner, they would go out with her. That place to which she went would not be nice; while she knew that she had dreamt of evil things which were not nice. Therefore, she acted in this manner; because she was aware that, if she went out with the dream which she had dreamt, her going out would not be fortunate.

The Bushman rice which she dug would not be favourable to her, because it was aware that she had dreamt evil things. Therefore, the Bushman rice would not be favourable to mamma; while the Bushman rice was aware that mamma had dreamt evil things; therefore, the Bushman rice would act in this manner about it.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

CONCERNING TWO APPARITIONS.

We buried my wife in the afternoon. When we had finished burying her, we returned to the home of my sister, Whai-ttu,[1] and the other people, whence they had come forth. They had come to bury my wife with me; and we went away, crossing over the salt pan.

And we perceived a thing, which looked like a little child, as it sat upon the salt pan, seeming as if it sat with its legs crossed over each other.

And my sister, Whai-ttu, spoke, she questioned us: “Look ye! What thing sits yonder upon the salt pan? It is like a little child.” And !kweiten-ta-||ken [another sister] spoke, she asked us: “Look ye! Why is it that this thing is truly like a person? It seems as if it had on the cap which Ddia!kwain’s wife used to wear.” And my sister, Whai-ttu, spoke, she answered: “Yes, O my younger sister! The thing truly resembles that which brother’s wife was like.” It did thus as we went along, it seemed as if it sat looking (towards) the place from which we came out.

And ||ku-ang spoke, she said: The old people used to tell me, that the angry people were wont to act thus, at the time when they took a person away, they used to allow the person to be in front of us, (so that) we might see it. Ye know that she really had a very little child, therefore, ye should allow us to look at the thing which sits upon this salt pan; it strongly resembles a person, its head is there, like a person.” And I spoke, I said: “Wait! I will do thus, as I return to my home, I will see, whether I shall again perceive it, as it sits.”

And we went to their home. And we talked there, for a little while. And I spoke, I said to

[1. Whai-ttu means “Springbok Skin”.]

them that they appeared to think that I did not wish to return (home); for the sun was setting. And I returned on account of it. I thought that I would go in the same manner as we had come; that I might, going along, look whether I should again perceive it, as it sat. Going along I looked at the place, where it had sat; because of thought that it might have been a bush. I saw that I did not perceive it, at the place where it had sat. And I agreed that it must have been a different kind of thing.

For my mothers used to tell me that, when the sorcerers are those who take us away, at the time when they intend to take us quite away, that is the time when our friend is in front of us, while he desires that we may perceive him, because he f eels that he still thinks of us. Therefore, his outer skin[1] still looks at us, because he feels that he does not want to go away (and) leave us; for he insists upon coming to us. Therefore, we still perceive him on account of it.

My sister’s husband, Mansee,[2] told us about it, that it had happened to him, when he was hunting about, as he was going along, he espied a little child, peeping at him by the side of a bush. And he thought: ‘Can it be my child who seems to

[1. That part of him (with) which he still thinks of us, is that with which he comes before us, at the time when the sorcerers are taking him away; that is the time when he acts in this manner. For, my mother and the others used to tell me, that they change(?) (when we die) we do as the last people do, themselves into a different thing.

2. My sister, |a-kkumm’s husband it was who told us, that he bad perceived a child who was afraid of him. It wanted to run away.]

have run after me? It seems to have lost its way, while it seems to have followed me.’ And Mansse thought: ‘Allow me to walk nearer, that I may look at this child (to see) what child (it) be.’

And Mansse saw that the child acted in this manner, when the child saw that he was going up to it, that he might see what child it was, he saw that the child appeared as if it feared him. The child sat behind the bush; the child looked from side to side; it seemed as if it wanted to run away. And he walked, going near to it; and the child arose, on account of it. It walked away, looking from side to side; it seemed as if it wanted to run away.

And Mansse looked (to see) why it was that the child did not wish him to come to it; and the child seemed to be afraid of him. And he examined the child; as the child stood looking at him. He saw that it was a little girl; he saw that the child was like a person. In other parts[1] (of it) it was not like a person; be thought that he would let the child alone. For a child who was afraid of him was here. And he walked on, while the child stood looking from side to side. And (as) the child saw that he went away from it, it came forward (near the bush), it sat down.

[1. At one time, when he looked at it, it was not like a person; for, it was different looking, a different thing. The other part of it resembled a person.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE JACKAL’S HEART NOT TO BE EATEN.

They (the Bushmen) feel that a little child is wont to be timid; therefore, the little child does not eat jackals’ hearts; because the jackal is not a little afraid; for the jackal runs away.

The leopard is the one whose heart the little child eats; it which is not afraid; for, a little child becomes a coward from the jackal’s heart, it fears immoderately (?).

Therefore, we do not give to a little child the jackal’s heart; because we feel that the jackal is used to run away, when it has not (even) seen us; when it has only heard our foot rustle, it runs away, while it does not look towards (us).

Note added by the Narrator.

He (my grandfather, Tssatssi) had bought dogs from |gappem-ttu, and |gappem-ttu gave him a dog. And he took hold of the dog, he tied the dog up; and he took the dog away; holding the thong with which he had tied up the dog. He at first kept the dog tied up; and, when the dog had slipped his thong(?), he put it upon the scent(?), and the dog killed jackals.

He (my grandfather) skinned the jackals; and my grandmothers dressed the jackals’ skins; they dressed them, they sewed them.

He again(?) killed(?) a jackal and an Olocyon Lalandii, he brought them (home), he skinned them.

And he made a kaross for |gappem-ttu, a jackals’ kaross, while he put on the Otocyon kaross, the Otocyon skin.

And he took the kaross to |gappem-ttu, the jackals’ kaross, while he felt that |gappem-ttu was the one who had given him the dog. Therefore, he made a kaross for i|gappem-ttu; while be made for |gappem-ttu an equivalent(?) for the dog; therefore, he gave the kaross to |gappem-ttu, and |gappem-ttu also gave him a pot, while he rewarded (?) my grandfather for the jackals’ kaross. And my grandfather returned home.

Then my grandfather used to act in this manner, when he was boiling a jackal, he said: “Thou dost seem to think that we eat jackals’ hearts? for, we become cowards (if we do so).” Therefore, we did not eat the jackals’ hearts.

For, my grandfather used not to eat the jackal; he only boiled the jackal for his sons.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

||HARA AND TTO.

||hara[1] is black; the people [having mixed it with fat] anoint their heads with it; while tto is red, and the people rub their bodies with it, when they have pounded it; they pound it, pound it, pound it, they rub their bodies with it. They pound ||hara, they anoint their heads, when they have first

[1. A certain stone which is said to be both hard and soft.]

pounded the tto; they first rub their bodies with tto. And they pound ||hara, they anoint their heads. They anoint their heads very nicely, while they wish that their head’s hair may descend (i.e., grow long). And it becomes abundant on account of it; because they have anointed their heads, wishing that the hair may grow downwards, that their heads may become black with blackness, while their heads are not a little black.

And they return, when they come away from the other man, while they return to their home; when they have told the other person (the woman) about it, that the other person shall prepare [More] ||hara for them, as well as tto. For he (the man) also goes, (his) wife will go to dress bags for him, bags which he will also bring to the other man; while the other (man’s wife) will also put aside ||hara for him, when the other (man) collects ||hara. And the other (man) comes to put aside ||hara for him; while she [the wife of the man who brought the bags] also dresses (and) puts away bags for the other; for, she has told the other (woman) that the other must also bring her ||hara and tto; for she has been to the other, and she will not be coming (soon again) to the other, for, the other must go to her; the other must go to receive the bags, when the other takes tto to her. Therefore, the other one also does so; she takes to the other tto and ||hara.

||hara sparkles; therefore, our heads shimmer, on account of it; while they feel that they sparkle, they shimmer. Therefore, the Bushmen are wont to say, when the old women are talking there: “That man, he is a handsome young man, on account of his head, which is surpassingly beautiful with the ||hara’s blackness.” They say, “Handsome young man” to him, “His head is surpassingly beautiful; for, his head is like the !khi tree.[1]

It is a tree which is in our country; it is the !khi tree; it is large; (it) is a great tree. They are not a little abundant in our country: the ||Ukerri tree and the khi.

[1. The !khi tree bears berries; and has no thorns.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

HOW TTO IS OBTAINED.

Tto is in the mountain, the tto mine; the people say that the tto mine is on the side of the mountain, the people say ‘tto mine’ to it.

The people are afraid of it [that is, of the sorcerers who live by the mine], because the people are aware that people are there (sorcerers). They (the sorcerers) make a house[1] there. Therefore, the people who intend to pound tto, rub themselves when they (go to) collect tto. And when they go to the tto, they throw stones at the tto mine, when they wish the sorcerers to bide themselves, that they may go undisturbed to work at the tto, while they feel that the sorcerers dwell at the tto mine. Therefore, they take up stones, they throw stones at the tto mine, when they wish the sorcerers to hide themselves, that they may go in peace[2] to work at the tto. And they go to work at the tto, tto, tto. They also get ||hara;[3] they put away the ||hara and the tto, and they return home.

[1. The narrator thinks that their houses are small holes, like mouse-holes.

2. For, they would be ill, if the sorcerers saw them.

3. The ||hara mine [literally, “mouth” or “opening “] is in a different place; the tto mine is also in a different place.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

SIGNS MADE BY BUSHMEN IN ORDER TO SHOW IN WHICH DIRECTION THEY HAVE GONE.

They (the Bushmen) are accustomed to act thus, when another man has gone away (and) does not return, they push their foot along the ground,[1] if they travel away; and they place grass[2] near the marks (they have made); and the other man does thus, when he returns, he comes (and) misses them at the house. He looks at the house, he looks (and) looks, he perceives the grass standing upright. And he goes to the grass, he looks at the grass. He also perceives the grass which stands yonder.[3]

And he exclaims: “The people must have travelled away to the water pool there.” And he goes to the water, while he goes, looking (and) seeking for the people, (to see) whether the people have gone to dwell at that water.

And, he goes, ascending the water’s hill;[4] he sits upon (it), that he may, sitting, look, look seeking for the huts. And he perceives the huts, as the huts stand white yonder. He sits, looking at them; the (smoke of the) fire[5] rises from the huts,[6] as he sits looking. And he exclaims: “The

[1. They push their foot along the ground.

2. (They) stick grass into the bushes.

3. There are four pieces of grass, at a distance from each other, in the direction of the place to which the people have gone.

4. (It) is a hill, behind which the water is.

5. All the fires smoke.

6. The fire is outside.]

house must be yonder!” And he arises, he goes to the house, and, returning, arrives ) at home.

And the other people exclaim: “Our brother must be (the one who) comes yonder; for, he is the one who walks in this manner; for, a man of the place (he) is, he knows the water. He would do thus, when he came past (and) missed the house. He would come to the water which he knew. For, ye did say that he would lose his way,[1] when I said that we should travel away. Ye did say that he would lose his way, when I wished that we should travel away, although we had not told him about it that we should travel away; for, the water was gone. Therefore, we travelled away on account of it.”

We are used also to reverse branches.[2] We thus place them, their green top is underneath, while the stump of the branch is uppermost. And we again, we go yonder to place that branch. And we draw our foot along the ground (making a mark), while we feel that we shall not again go to place another branch; because we altogether travel away.[3]

Therefore, the other man is wont to do thus, when he returns home (and) misses the house.

[1. The Bushmen are those who say, ||gwi !k’u, while the white men are those who say, “verdwall” (i.e. verdwalen, “to lose one’s way”).

2. Pierce it into the ground.

3. I feel that I used to see nay grandfather reverse (branches).

4. Four branches (and sometimes five) are said to be used; the first is placed opposite to the house, the next about fifty yards distant, the next a little further than that distance, the next rather more than double the previous distance, and, then, no more. At the last stick, the foot is drawn along the ground in the direction of the place to which they go, from the last stick; which leans in the same direction.]

He looks (about), and he espies a branch; and he exclaims: “The folk must have travelled away to that little pool, for, this is why they have reversed (a branch), pointing in the direction of the place where the water is. I will go down(?) to the water, that I may go to look for the people’s footprints at the water, at the place to which they seem to have gone to make a house,[1] (from which) they go to the water.” And he goes to the water, he goes down(?) to the water. And he goes to look at the water, he espies the people’s foot-path, he takes it,[2] he follows it, follows it along to the house.

[1. Seeking for food (to dig up) is one thing; making a house is different: “to dwell at a place.”

2. The people’s footpath is that which goes along.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A BUSHMAN, BECOMING FAINT FROM THE SUN’S HEAT WHEN RETURNING HOME, THROWS EARTH INTO THE AIR, THAT THOSE AT HOME MAY SEE THE DUST AND COME TO HELP HIM.[1]

A man is wont, when returning home, when he feels as if he should not reach home, he throws up earth (into the air), because he wishes that the, people at home may perceive the dust.

And the person who is looking out,[2] standing up to look out,–because she feels that the sun is not a little hot,–she stands up, she looks

[1. Dying is that on account of which a person throws up earth (into the air).

2. (It) is the man’s wife; while she feels that (her) husband has not returned; for, she sees that all the (other) people have returned home.]

around.[1] And, as she stands looking around, she perceives the dust, she exclaims: “A person seems to be throwing up earth there!”

And the people run, run out[2] of the house, exclaiming: “His heart is that on account of which he throws up earth. Ye must run quickly, that ye may go to give him water quickly; for, (it) is his heart; the sun is killing him; (it) is his heart; ye must quickly go to give him water.” While the people feel that all the people run to the man. They go, pouring (water), to cool the man with water.

And he first sits up,[3] to remove the darkness from his face; for, the sun’s darkness resembles night.

These are not women’s doings; for, men’s doings they are.

They (the Bushmen) feel that they chase[4] things, chase the springbok; and it happens thus when they are tired by running, the sun is killing them

[1. While she feels that the old man (her father) was the one who said: “My child! (?) thou art not standing up that thou mightst look around seeking for (thy) husband. The sun is really(?) very hot, for it did scorch me as I walked hither; as if it were not still morning, the sun did scorch me.”

2. While they feel that they are numerous.

3. He was lying down, on account of his heart.

4. (To) run after a (wounded) springbok, to run after a springbok which we have shot. A wounded springbok they call: “a wounded thing(?).” A springbok, which is not wounded, they call: “a living springbok.”

People who are strong to bear the sun(‘s heat), they are those who chase the living (i.e. unwounded) springbok; they run after them through the sun, and the springbok vomit on account of it. And they turn the springbok, chasing, take the springbok to the house.]

when they are tired. Then, they go staggering along, also (from) fatigue. The fatigue goes out, and they become cool. Then, they go staggering along, while they go along becoming cool, when they were previously hot; while they feel that they still perspire. Therefore, they go along staggering, widle they do not feel as if they should reach home; therefore, they go to sit down; they throw up earth (into the air); throw up earth for the people at home, while they wish that the people at home may perceive the dust.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

DEATH.

The star does in this manner, at the time when our heart falls down, that is the time when the star also falls down; while the star feels that our heart falls over.[1] Therefore, the star falls down on account of it. For the stars know the time at which we die. The star tells the other people who do not know that we have died.

Therefore, the people act thus, when they have seen a star, when a star has fallen down, they say: “Behold ye! Why is it that the star falls down? We shall bear news; for a star falls down. Something which is not good appears to have occurred at another place; for the star tells us, that a bad thing has happened at another place.”

[1. As when something which has been standing upright, falls over on to its side.]

The hammerkop[1] acts in this manner, when a star has fallen, it comes; when it flies over us, it cries.[2] The people say: “Did ye not hear the hammerkop, when the star fell? It came to tell us that our person is dead.” The people speak, they say that the hammerkop is not a thing which deceives, for it would not come to our home, if it did not know; for, when it knows, then it comes to our home; because it intends to come and tell us about it, namely, that our person has died.

Therefore, mother and the others used,–if they heard a hammerkop, when it flew, going over us, to say: “Do thou go (and) plunge in, * * * for I know that which thou camest to tell me”, while mother and the others said that the story, which it came to tell, should go into the Orange River’s water, where the stars stand in the water. That is the place where its stories should go in. For mother and the others did not want to hear the story which it came to tell; for they knew that the hammerkop does in this manner at the time when a man dies, that is the time at which it comes to us, it tells us about it, that the man has died. For, mother and the others used to say,

[1. Of this bird, the Seopus umbrella, or Hammerkop, the following description is given in “The Birds of South Africa” by E.L. Layard, Cape Town, 1867, p. 312.

“The “Hammerkop” (literally, Hammerhead) is found throughout the colony, and all the way to the Zambezi, frequenting ponds, marshes, rivers, and lakes. It is a strange, weird bird, flitting about with great activity in the dusk of the evening, and preying upon frogs, small fish, &c. At times, when two or three are feeding in the same small pool, they will execute a singular dance, skipping round one another, opening and closing their wings, and performing strange antics.

2. Yak! or Yaak! is the bird’s cry, which it repeats twice.]

that the hammerkop is a thing which lives at that water in which we see all things. Therefore, it knows what has happened; while it is aware that it lives at the water which is like a pool, in which we see all things; the things which are in the sky we see in the water, while we stand by the water’s edge. We see all things, the stars look like fires which burn.

When it is night, when another man walks across, we see him, as he walks passing the water. It seems as if it were noonday, when he walks by the water. We see him clearly. The place seems as if it were midday as we see him walking along. Therefore, mother and the others said, that, when the hammerkop has espied in the water a person who has died, even though it be at a distance, when it knows that (he) is our relative, it flies away from this water, it flies to us, because it intends to go to tell us about it, that our relative has died. (It) and the star are those who tell us about it when we have not heard the news; for they are those who tell us about it, and when we have heard the hammerkop, we also perceive the star, we afterwards hear the news, when we have just perceived them; and we hear the news, when they have acted in this manner towards us.

For, mother and the others used to tell us about it, that girls are those whom the Rain carries off; and the girls remain at that water, to which the Rain had taken them, girls with whom the Rain is angry. The Rain lightens, killing them; they become stars, while their appearance has been changed. They become stars. For, mother and the others used to tell us about it, that a girl, when the Rain has carried her off, becomes like a flower[1] which grows in the water.

We who do not know are apt (?) to do thus when we perceive them, as they stand in the water, when we see that they are so beautiful; we think, ‘I will go (and) take the flowers which are standing in the water. For they are not a little beautiful.’ Mother and the others said to us about it, that the flower–when it saw that we went towards it,–would disappear in the water. We should think, ‘The flowers which were standing here, where are they? Why is it that I do not perceive them at the place where they stood, here?’ It would disappear in the water, when it saw that we went towards it; we should not perceive it, for it would go into the water.

Therefore, mother and the others said to–as about it, that we ought not to go to the flowers which we see standing in the water, even if we see their beauty. For, they are girls whom the Rain has taken away, they resemble flowers; for (they) are the water’s wives, and we look at them, leaving them alone. For we (should) also be like them (in) what they do.

Therefore, mother and the others do in this manner with regard to their Bushman women, they are not willing to allow them to walk about, when the Rain comes; for they are afraid that the Rain also intends, lightening, to kill them. For the Rain is a thing which does in this manner when it rains

[1. #kamme-ang’s mother, |abbe-ttu, was the one who formerly told mamma about the flower which grows in the water; she said to mamma about it, that mamma seemed to think that she would not also become a flower, if she did not fear the Rain.]

here, it smells our scent, it lightens out of the place where it rains. It lightens, killing us at this place; therefore, mother and the others told us about it, that when the Rain falls upon us (and) we walk passing through the Rain, if we see that the Rain lightens in the sky we must quickly look towards the place where the Rain lightens; the Rain, which intended to kill us by stealth. It will do in this manner, even if its thunderbolts[1] have come near us, (if) we look towards (the place where it has lightened), we look, making its thunderbolts turn back from us; for our eye also shines like its thunderbolts. Therefore, it also appears to f ear our eye, when it feels that we quickly look towards it. Therefore, it passes over us on account of it; while it feels that it respects our eye which shines upon it. Therefore, it goes over us; it goes to sit on the ground yonder, while it does not kill us.

[1. Black, pointed, shining stones, which only come from the sky when it lightens. They disturb the ground where they fall. They are called !khwa !kweiten (the Rain’s thunderbolts).]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE RELATIONS OF WIND, MOON, AND CLOUD TO HUMAN BEINGS AFTER DEATH.

The wind does thus when we die, our (own) wind blows; for we, who are human beings, we possess wind; we make clouds, when we die. Therefore, the wind does thus when we die, the wind makes dust, because it intends to blow, taking away our footprints, with which we had walked about while we still had nothing the matter with us; and our footprints, which the wind intends to blow away, would (otherwise still) lie plainly visible. For, the thing would seem as if we still lived. Therefore, the wind intends to blow, taking away our footprints.

And, our gall,[1] when we die, sits in the sky; it sits green in the sky, when we are dead.

Therefore, mother was wont to do thus when the moon lying down came, (when) the moon stood hollow. Mother spoke, she said: “The moon is carrying people who are dead. For, ye are those who see that it lies in this manner; and it lies hollow, because it is killing itself (by) carrying people who are dead. This is why it lies hollow. It is not a ||k’auru; for, it is a moon of badness(?).[2] Ye may (expect to) hear something, when the moon lies in this manner. A person is the one who has died, he whom the moon carries, Therefore, ye may (expect to) hear what has happened, when the moon is like this.”

The hair of our head will resemble clouds, when we die, when we in this manner make clouds. These things are those which resemble clouds; and we think that (they) are clouds. We, who do

[1. Mother, she used to tell me, that it (thus) happens to us if we sit in the shade when the place is not particularly warm, when it is (only) moderately warm, (and) we feel that the summer seems as if it would be hot. We think: ‘Allow me to sit for a little in the shade under the bush; for the sun’s eye is not a little hot; I will sit a little while in the shade;’ (then) we make clouds; our liver goes out from the place where we are sitting in. the shade, if the place is not hot. Therefore, we make clouds on account of it. For, when it is really summer, then we (may) sit in the shade.

2. Possibly, “of threatening.”]

not know, we are those who think in this manner, that (they) are clouds. We, who know, when we see that they are like this, we know that (they) are a person’s clouds; (that they) are the hair of his head. We, who know, we are those who think thus, while we feel that we seeing recognize the clouds, how the clouds do in this mauner form themselves.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

APPENDIX.

 

A. FEW !KUNG TEXTS.

 

THE DOINGS OF |XUE ARE MANY.

The works of |Xue are many, and were not one, but many; and my father’s father, Karu, told me about |Xue’s doings, for |Xue’s works are numerous.

 

VARIOUS TRANSFORMATIONS OF |XUE

 

1. |XUE AS !NAXANE.

(When) the sun rose, |Xue was !naXane; the birds ate |Xue; |Xue was !naXane. The sun set, (and) |Xue, was |Xue; and lay down and slept. The night fell, and |Xue lay down, (he) slept; the place was dark; and the sun rose, and |Xue was another (kind of) !naXane, a large (kind of) !naXane, which is a tree. And the night fell, (and) |Xue was not a tree, and was |Xue, and lay down.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

2. FURTHER CHANGES OF FORM.

The sun rose, and |Xue was a dui;[1] and the sun set, and |Xue was an Omuherero and lay down; and the sun rose, and |Xue was |Xue, and went into another country and was a sha’o[2]; and the sun

[1. The flower of the dui is light-coloured; its fruit is green; another day, (when) its fruit has ripened, its fruit is red.

2. The shao is a tall tree, like the !kuni (palm?).]

set, and |Xue was a Makoba, and lay down; and the sun rose and |Xue was a |naXane.[1]

[1. (One kind of) !naXane lies upon the earth; another (kind of) !naXane is a tree. The !naXane are numerous. The fruit of the tree !naXane is yellowish. The fruit of the tree !naXane is large; and the ground !naXane fruit is small, and resembles the |kui fruit, is red, is small, and abundant.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

3. |XUE AS A ||GUI TREE AND AS A FLY.

The sun set, and |Xue was |Xue, and lay upon the ground, and slept, was alone, and lay upon the ground and slept. And the sun rose, and |Xue awoke and . . . and stood up, and saw the sun,–a little sun,–and was ||gui, and was a tree.

And his wife saw the ||gui, and went to the ||gui, and went to take hold of a |gui fruit, and the ||gui vanished; and |Xue was a fly. And his wife laid herself upon the earth, and cried about the |gui, and died. And |Xue was a fly, and settled upon the grass.[1] And his wife lay down upon the earth, and cried about the ||gui[2]

[1. And he settled upon the grass, and the grass broke. The naine of the grass is goo.

2. The ||gui is a tree. People eat the ||gui, the||gui fruit. People do not put the ||gui into a pot, but eat it raw. The ||gui has thorns.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

4. |XUE AS WATER AND AS OTHER THINGS. IN HIS OWN FORM, HE RUBS FIRE AND DIES.

|Xue was water; and the water was (in) the shadow of the tree. And the wood pigeons ate the fruit of the |kui. And |Xue was a lizard[1] and lay in the dead leaves of the |kui. And (he) saw the wood pigeons, and was water[2] And the wood pigeons saw the water, and settled upon the water’s edge. And |Xue worked large grass, like reeds, and it took hold of a wood pigeon. And the wood pigeons came to drink (lit. to eat) water, and the grass came near, and bit the wood pigeon’s bill, and the wood pigeon cried out; and the other wood pigeons flew away.

And |Xue was |Xue and rose up, and took hold of the wood pigeon, and plucked out the wood pigeon’s feathers, and put the wood pigeon’s feathers in his head, and lay upon the ground. And the water vanished, and he was and put the wood pigeon’s feathers in his head, and lay upon the ground. And (he) put the wood pigeon’s body into the hot embers, and lay down. And continued to lie down, and arose, and went to take out the wood pigeon’s body from the fire.

And (he) ate the wood pigeon, and heard Ovaherero, and arose. And went to the Ovaherero, and the Ovaherero saw him. And he hid himself on the ground. The Ovaherero came to search for him, to search for him, (and) did not see him. For (he) was little, and was a |nu-erre;[4] and a little Omuherero boy saw the |nu-erre upon a bush, and

[1. This lizard (called also ggoru and nggoru by my !kung informants and |hai-@pua by |hang#kass’o) appears to be the comnion Gecko.

2. (He) was not a large (piece of) water, but (?) was a little water, a water hole.

3. |Xue was a grass which is (called) go, and (is) small; and bit the wood pigeon. Large grass, which is (called) reeds, took hold of the wood pigeon; and was |Xue.

4. A (certain) little bird.]

he saw the Ovaherero, and cried out.[1] And was the Bushman’s eye water and fell upon the ground. And he said: “Ye-he! Ye-he! Ye-he!” And the Omuherero heard, and sought for him, sought for him, sought f or him, and did not see him, and (he, |Xue) flew away.

And (he, |Xue)[2] flew, coming to his mother’s country, and saw his father, and was not a |nu-erre but was |Xue, and died.[3] And his father went to him, and came to look at him, and he was dead. And his father went away, and he was not dead, and was and rose up. He called to his father: “My father! O!” and his father called to him, and said: “My child! O!” and he called to his father once, and cried out: “#no! #no!” and came to his mother’s country.

And his father saw him and stealthily approached him. And he heard his father. And (he) saw his father, and died; and was a lizard, and lay down, lay down upon the ground.

And his father saw him, and said: “It is my child, |Xue! for it is not another person, but is my child; and (he) saw me, and died. And (he) was rubbing sticks (to make) fire[4]; and saw me, and died; and is not another person, but is my child, and is |Xue. For, I went (?) away to my country, and did not see my child; and to-day,

[1. And (he) cried: “Tsuai! tsuai ! tsuai!” (Two) Ovaherero children saw him; for be was a |nu-erre.

2. |Xue was a |nu-erre, and cried out. He was not one |nu-erre; but was many |nu-erre.

3. He was [now] not many |nu-erre, bat was one |nu-erre, and went to his mother’s country.

4. He carried over his shoulder a little bag, the skin of an antelope, a female antelope’s skin.]

I saw my child, and my child was rubbing fire, little sticks’ fire;[1] and my child rubbed fire, and saw me, and died. And is |Xue; and is not another person, but is |Xue. I am afraid of my child, for my child is dead.

“I go to my country; and my country is far away, and (during) many moons I go to my country, (and) do not see my country; my country is far distant. And, to-day, I see my child, for my child is and makes fire, little sticks’ fire, and eats |shana,[2] and rubs fire, and his hands hurt (him), and he cries, and sees me, and dies; for I am |Xe-||n’u and my child, |Xue, sees me, and dies; and I am afraid of my child. I go away to my country, my country that(?) is far distant.

“And my child is another person; I see my child. And (I) wear in my head wood pigeons’ feathers; and my child saw me, my head with wood pigeons’ feathers, many wood pigeon feathers, for they(?) were two wood pigeons. And, to-day, I am afraid of my child, and (I) go to my (own) country.”

And (he) went to his (own) country; the name of his country is ||noa; it is a mountain, a large mountain. And he went away to his (own) country.

[1. The tree’s name was |n’au-|kumm; and (he had) two sticks; the fire stick (i.e., the one which he held in his hands) was long, small, and long, like a reed. The other (fire) stick lay on the ground; for he had laid (it) the other stick upon grass; he rubbed fire, the fire fell upon the grass; and he took up the fire (i.e., the grass), he blew the fire.

2. Tshana is the name of a tall fruit-bearing tree. The fruit of it is eaten raw.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

PRAYER TO THE YOUNG MOON.[1]

 

Young Moon!

 

Hail, Young Moon!

 

Hail, hail,

 

Young Moon!

 

Young Moon! speak to me!

 

Hail, hail,

 

Young Moon!

 

Tell me of something.

 

Hail, hail!

 

When the sun rises,

 

Thou must speak to me,

 

That I may eat something.

 

Thou must speak to me about a little thing,

 

That I may eat.

 

Hail, hail,

 

Young Moon!

 

[1: When (?) we see the moon [!nanni elsewhere explained], we say !ka!karrishe; we sound the male antelope’s horn.

We call the small moon !ka!karrishe; (but) women call (it) !ka!karibe.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE TREATMENT OF THIEVES.

If a !kung woman steals, her father and her mother being (still) there, we take hold of her, we give her to her mother and her father; and they all go away from their place. Her stolen thing, we take it, we run, we give (it) to the other person, run to give to the other person the other person’s thing. And we say to the other person: “My wife stole your thing which is here; your nice thing here, my wife stole. And I have given (back ) my wife to her father and her mother. For, my wife stole the nice thing here.”

And the other person hears, and objects (saying):

“No; kill thy wife.” And, we hear, (and) object (saying): “No; I do not listen to you, and will not kill my wife; for, my wife has gone away, has gone to her father and her mother; and is far away; and has gone to her country; and I will not kill my wife.”

And the others cry, and we hear; and our hearts ache, and we go away; we say to the other people: “We go away; come, that I may kill my wife, kill my father-in-law, kill my mother-in-law, kill my. . .”[1]

On the day that the woman took the thing, we see the thing, we take the thing. The woman says to us: “My husband, look at my nice thing, here, which I stole.”[2] And we hear; and we say:

[1. Another relation.

2. A !kung woman is not afraid.]

“My wife, give me thy thing, that I may look (at it).” And (we) persuade her; and she takes (it) and gives (it) to us. And we take (it), and put (it) into our bag; and she cries (saying): “Give me my thing, oh dear! My husband! give me my thing, oh dear!” And we refuse (saying): “No, my wife, I will not listen to thee; for, the other person would kill me; and I will give the other person the other person’s thing. My wife! I will not listen to thee, for thou dost (try to) persuade me (in vain).”[1]

If a woman steals another person’s thing, (and) returns to her husband, (and) her husband sees the other person’s thing, his heart aches, and be kills her; he altogether kills his wife.[2]

Another man (i.e., his father) says to him: “No; do not quite kill thy wife.”[3] And, he objects (saying): “No; I object to stealing; and my heart aches; and I will kill my wife; leave off talking to me; to-day ye must fear me.”

A female child, if her mother is dead and the female child is an only child, goes to another person’s hut. Another day, if she steals, the other person into whose hut she went (to live) takes her, (and) gives her to the other person, the other (from

[1. Should the father be dead, and the mother alive, the woman, who stole, is still taken and given back to the latter. And, should she be an old offender, the mother is said to give her, through a son, to another person, to be burned to death.

2. He shoots with an arrow, killing his wife; he shoots, killing his wife with a |nubbo (a particular kind of arrow).

3. Meaning, that he may beat her.]

whom she stole, the other people kill her altogether; (they) put her in a hut, and burn, killing her with fire; and she dies altogether; and the other people return home.

They say to the people, to the people who gave them the girl who stole, they, (who) killed the girl, they say: “We have burning, killed the girl with fire, put the girl into a hut, and burning killed the girl. Leave off reproaching us about the girl.” And the. other people object (saying): “No; we are not scolding you; for, we object (to stealing); for this[1] girl stole; and we do not scold you; for, we hear, and our hearts are glad.”

If a man steals, we kill (him), we shoot, killing him (with) arrows,[2] and do not put him into the fire; but, kill him altogether with arrows. It is only a woman (whom) we burn, burn, putting (her) into the fire.

If a child steals, we merely scold the child;[3] and do not kill the child.

Another day, when the child has grown up, if it steals, we object, we kill the child;[4] give the child to other persons, and they kill it altogether.

[1. We fear her name, and do not utter her name; (but) merely mention her.

We fear the people whom we kill, on account of their spirits.

2. Many arrows, not a single arrow; the arrows of many persons; many persons shoot at him.

3. For, we respect the stealing of a little child.

4. We fear its name, and call it “child”. Those persons whom we kill altogether, we fear their names; we do not utter their names.]

If another woman comes into our hut (and) her child steals a thing of ours, (if) her child eats our food, (and) we see, we take it, and we take its mother, we give them to other people,[1] (and) the other people put them into the fire, and burn, burn, killing them with fire; (and) return (and) say to us: “We have, burning, killed the two people with fire.” We hear; we say: “Yes; we object to stealing.” And (we) are silent.[2] And they say: “We have burnt the two persons; ye must not scold (us).” Our hearts are glad,[3] and we sing. And (we) say to them: “We . . . object to stealing; and fear stealing; and do not steal.” And those[4] (who killed the woman) hear; and (one) says: “Yes.”[5]

And we give them a male elephant’s tusk; and they go away to their home. And, another day, they give (it) to the Makoba. And the Makoba give them one bull, with Indian Hemp; and they give to us; and we kill, and eat (it) up; and they return to their home; and we speak nicely to them (saying): “Return ye to your dwelling; give us Indian Hemp; do not give us the bull alone; we object to one thing (only); we do not eat one thing; for, we eat two things.” And they hear, and assent (to us); and they return to their home.

And we eat up the bull; and they say to us:

[1. (They) are not strangers, but, are our other people (of the same place).

2. It is not many of us, but, one of us (who) speaks to him (to the other person).

3. Our many hearts are glad.

4. They (are) many.

5. Many other people listen, displeased; and one person assents, and says: “Yes.”]

“Ye have eaten up the bull; give us an elephant’s tusk.” And we hear; and our hearts are glad. The sun arises, and we return to our dwelling.[1] And come, telling the other people who are at our dwelling-our people-we say to them: “Give ye an elephant’s tusk to the people.” And the others, who are our people, hear; and we give them Indian Hemp.

[1. When we have eaten up the bull, (we) go to their dwelling, to seek Indian Hemp; and they give us Indian Hemp.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

THE FOUR PIECES OF WOOD CALLED |XU[1], USED FOR DIVINING PURPOSES.

The !kung women respect these things, (they) do not take hold (of them). Men take hold (of them). A small !kung child, who is a little girl, does not take hold of this thing; for (she) respects (it). For, her mother says to her: “This thing, thou must respect, my mother.” And the child listens, (and) respects the thing; but a little male child does not fear the thing, (and) takes hold of the thing, (and) carries, carries the thing to his father.

And his father puts down[2] the thing upon the ground, and (the child) does not see (or look at) the thing, he goes away. For his father objects

[1. The |Xu is a set of four pieces of wood, two “male” and two “female “. Spoons are also made from the wood of the same tree. The narrator described it as follows:–

The name of the tree is !ke; and (it) is a food tree; (it) is not a mere tree. (It is) one tree, (from) which we make the thing (i.e., the set of !Xu).

By the Makoba, the !Xu is called |nu|num. Their name for the fruit of the !ke tree is kanzuai.

2. (When putting down) one thing, I say ||ning; (when putting down) several things, I say ||ning-a.]

(to his looking on, and says): “Go, my father!”[1] The child laughs, and runs off, goes to his mother, (and) says to his mother: “My mother! give water.” For the child ran, coming (and) saying to his mother:

Give my father water.”

And his mother took water (from the pot) with a gourd(?), the skin of food; and gave her child water; and her child carried the (vessel of) water in his hands, carried water to his father. And the water (vessel) fell, and (the water) poured upon the ground; and he (the boy) saw, and cried out: “My father! the water pours down, oh dear! My father! the water pours down, oh dear!” And his father heard him, and ran, coming to take hold of him. And (he) beat his child, broke off a little stick, and beat his child; and the little stick was a shana. And his son’s speech was this (?): “My father! leave off beating me! oh dear! My father! leave off beating me! oh dear! My father! leave off striking me! oh dear! My father! leave off striking me! oh dear!”

And the people[2] took hold of him, his mother came to take hold of him (saying): “My mother! my child! oh dear! My mother! my child! oh dear! My mother! my husband is striking my child, oh dear!”

His (the child’s) father came and took (his) quiver, and drew out an arrow, and put his arrow upon his bow; and the people (i.e., the women) called out. For, he took aim at his wife with (two) arrows; for his arrows were a |nubbo, and a ||Xi.[3]

[1. (He) caressed (?) his child; for his child was a little boy.

2. (They) were not men, but were women.

3. He aimed at his wife with two arrows (one after the other).]

And his wife cried, and avoided the arrow. And (she) cried; and his wife’s mother cried: “My mother! my son-in-law takes aim at my daughter with two arrows, oh dear!” And (she) fell down, and lay upon the ground, and cried; and the people (many other women) came (and) took hold of her, and said to her: “Do not cry!” And she refused (saying): “No! my son-in-law aims at my daughter with two arrows, oh dear!” And the people took hold of her; and she would not listen to the people, and refused.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

TO BEAT THE GROUND (WITH A STONE).

The !kung beat a stone upon the ground. My father’s mother beat a stone upon the ground. She said: “Fall into the water ! Fall into the water!” And the thing (the lightning?) fell into the water.

A man does not beat a stone upon the ground. A woman beats a stone upon the ground.

My (Tamme’s) father’s mother was Ng-||na. My mother’s father was Little Tamme; and my mother’s mother was !karo-||n’a. My father’s father’s father was Great Tamme.

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

SNAKES, LIZARDS, AND A CERTAIN SMALL ANTELOPE, WHEN SEEN NEAR GRAVES, TO BE RESPECTED.

A snake which is near a grave, we do not kill, for, (it) is our other person, our dead person, the dead person’s snake.[1] And we do not kill (it); for (we) respect it. And (if, during) many days, we see it, we do not kill (it); looking (at it), (we) let it alone.

Another day, (if) we see a lizard, we follow the lizard’s spoor; (if) the lizard has gone to the earth (grave?) of our other person, we respect the lizard, (we) do not kill the lizard, (we) let the lizard alone.

(When) we see an antelope,[2] an antelope (which is) near our other person’s place, that place where our other person has died, we respect the antelope; for, the antelope is not a mere antelope. Its legs(?) seem(?) small, it is the person who has died, and is a spirit antelope. It is a male antelope; it is not a female antelope.

[1. (When) our “other one”, (who) is a man, dies, he becomes (?) a snake; and his snake is a spirit. A snake bites him, he dies, he is a snake.

When a woman just dies, the woman has no snake. If a snake bites a woman, (and) the woman dies, the woman is a snake. If a woman merely dies, her sprit is a mere spirit.

When a man dies, his “other” is a mere spirit; his “other” is a snake; near his earth (grave?); and his mere spirit goes away.

If an elephant kills him, (he) becomes (?) one kind of snake; (he) is a #ne-ko, and is black; he is not a different kind of snake; for his heart aches.

2. At the Cape Town Museum, a very small kind of buck (the name of which the Curator did not know) was recognized as the |ou by my informants. It had been, I believe, brought from Damaraland or its neighbourhood.

With regard to the above belief, it may also be mentioned that, on one occasion, I saw a snake close to the coping of a burial place; and showed it to !nanni, expecting him to destroy it. He merely looked at it in rather a strange way, and allowed it to depart uninjured; saying something about its being near a grave; which, at the time, I did not clearly understand–ED.]

 

Specimens of Bushman Folklore, by W.H.I. Bleek and L.C. Lloyd, [1911]

 

A CERTAIN SNAKE, WHICH, BY LYING UPON ITS BACK, ANNOUNCES A DEATH IN THE FAMILY; AND WHICH MUST NOT, UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, BE KILLED.

The ||hing[1] (is) a serpent of our country. (If, when) we strike it, it does in this manner with its belly,[2] it

[1. A. long, light-coloured snake, which does not bite, and is timid.

2. That is, turns the under side of its body upwards.]

gives us its belly, we fear it, and go away, and return home; while (we) do not kill[1] it. For (we) let (it) alone; and it lies, lies, lies; arises, (and) goes away altogether.

And, another day, (if) we see it (and) it does not give us its belly, we beat it, we kill it altogether, and throw (it) altogether away; (we) do not keep (it) [do not eat it].[2]

Another day, (when) it sees us, (as) we approach it, approach it, approach it, (and) reach it, (and) it gives us its belly, we are afraid, we do not kill it, we run away.

Another day, we see it, (when) it is in the water–tree water[3]-we are near it, we think that we will drink water, we see its body, (when) it is in the water, (and) it sees us, it quickly(?) goes out of the water, and lies upon the ground. We think that we will strike it, (and) it gives us its belly, we turn back, we go away, and it alone lies (there).

And (if) a woman comes (and) the woman sees it, (she) unloosens (her) skin necklace, and (gently) lays (it) down; and it turns,[4] and lays its belly upon the earth. And the woman kills it, and throws it away.

(If) another person dies, (and) we have not heard his news,[5] (and) we see the ||hing turning its belly towards us, we are afraid of the ||hing, and cry.

[1. And (we) tell the people who are at home, and say: “I saw a ||hing, and struck the ||hing; and the ||hing objected, and gave me its belly; and I was afraid of the ||hing, and did not kill the |hing. but ran away.” And many women hear, (and) cry.

2. And, another day, (when) it lies nicely [not turning up its belly at us, in a hollow manner, while it lies on its back], we skin it, and throw away its flesh; and keep its skin; give the Makoba its skin.

3. Namely, that which is in the hollow of a tree.

4. It sees the woman, it does thus with its belly. It sees the woman’s skin necklace, it is afraid; for the woman has worked the necklace with plenty of fat; and (it) smells good; its scent being powerful (lit. “long “, i.e., reaching a long way)

5. The words ||numm and #nua both mean “news”, “tidings”.]