Volume I Part 3 (2/2)
When dreaded baldness appears, rosettes of false hair patch the temples, and plaits of purchased wigs are interwoven to increase the bulk: the last resources of all are wigs and toupets of stained pine-apple fibre. The comb is unknown, its succedaneum being a huge bodkin, like that which the Trasteverina has so often used as a stiletto. This instrument of castigation is made of ivory or metal, with a lozenge often neatly carved and ornamented at the handle. The hair, always somewhat ”kinky,” is anointed every morning with palm-oil, or the tallow-like produce of a jungle-nut; and, in full dress, it is copiously powdered with light red or bright yellow dust of pounded camwood, redwood, and various barks.
The ears are adorned with broad rings of native make, and, near the trading stations, with French imitation jewellery. The neck supports many strings of beads, long and short, with the indispensable talismans. The body dress is a Tobe or loin-cloth, like that of the men; but under the ”Namba,” or outer wrapper, which hangs down the feet, there is a ”Siri,” or petticoat, reaching only to the knees. Both are gathered in front like the Shukkah of the eastern coast, and the bosom is left bare. Few except the bush-folk now wear the Ibongo, Ipepe, or Ndengi, the woven fibres and gra.s.s-cloths of their ancestry; amongst the hunters, however, a Tanga, or gra.s.s-kilt, may still be seen. The exposure of the upper person shows the size and tumidity of the areola, even in young girls; being unsupported, the mammae soon become flaccid.
The legs, which are peculiarly neat and well turned, are made by art a fitting set-off to the head. It is the pride of a Mpongwe wife to cover the lower limb between knee and ankle with an armour of metal rings, which are also worn upon the wrists; the custom is not modern, and travellers of the seventeenth century allude to them. The rich affect copper, bought in wires two feet and a half long, and in two sizes; of the larger, four, of the smaller, eight, go to the dollar; the bra.s.s are cheaper, as 5: 4; and I did not see iron or tin. The native smiths make the circles, and the weight of a full set of forty varies from fifteen to nineteen pounds. They are separate rings, not a single coil, like that used by the Wagogo and other East African tribes; they press tightly on the limb, often causing painful chafes and sores. The ankle is generally occupied by a bra.s.s or iron chain, with small links. Girls may wear these rings, of which the husband is expected to present a considerable number to his bride, and the consequence is, that when in full dress she waddles like a duck.
Commerce and intercourse with whites has made the Mpongwe, once the rudest, now one of the most civilized of African tribes; and, upon the whole, there is an improvement. The exact Barbot (iv. 9) tells us ”the Gaboon blacks are barbarous, wild, b.l.o.o.d.y, and treacherous, very thievish and crafty, especially towards strangers. The women, on the contrary, are as civil and courteous to them, and will use all possible means to enjoy their company; but both s.e.xes are the most wretchedly poor and miserable of any in Guinea, and yet so very haughty, that they are perfectly ridiculous ... They are all excessively fond of brandy and other strong liquors of Europe and America ... If they fancy one has got a mouthful more than another, and they are half drunk, they will soon fall a-fighting, even with their own princes or priests ... Their exceeding greediness for strong liquors renders them so little nice and curious in the choice of them, that, though mixed with half water, and sometimes a little Spanish soap put into it to give it a froth, to appear of proof by the sc.u.m it makes, they like it and praise it as much as the best and purest brandy.”
Captain Boteler remarks, in 1827: ”The women do not speak English; though, for the sake of what trifles they can procure for their husbands, they are in the habit of flocking on board the different vessels which visit the river, and will permit them to remain; and the wives are generally maintained in clothing by the proceeds of their intercourse with the whites.” He further a.s.sures us, that mulatto girls thus born are not allowed to marry, although there is no such restriction for the males; and elsewhere, he concludes, that never having seen an infant or an adult offspring of mixed blood, abortion is practised as at Delagoa and Old Calabar, where, in 1862, I found only one child of mixed blood. If so, the Mpongwe have changed for the better.
Half-castes are now not uncommon; there are several nice ”yaller gals” well known on the river; and the number of old and sick speaks well for the humanity of the tribe.
Devoted to trade and become a people of brokers, of go-betweens, of middle-men, the Mpongwe have now acquired an ease and propriety, a polish and urbanity of manner which contrasts strongly with the Kru-men and other tribes, who, despite generations of intercourse with Europeans, are rough and barbarous as their forefathers. The youths used to learn English, which they spoke fluently and with tolerable accent, but always barbarously; they are more successful with the easier neo-Latin tongues. Their one aim in life is not happiness, but ”trust,” an African practice unwisely encouraged by Europeans; so Old Calabar but a few years ago was not a trust-river,” and consequently the consul and the gunboat had little to do there. Many of them have received advances of dollars by thousands, but the European merchant has generally suffered from his credulity or rapacity.
In low cunning the native is more than a match for the stranger; moreover, he has ”the pull” in the all-important matter of time; he can spend a fortnight haggling over the price of a tooth when the unhappy capitalist is eating his heart. Like all the African aristocracy, they hold agriculture beneath the dignity of man and fit only for their women and slaves; the ”ladies” also refuse to work at the plantations, especially when young and pretty, leaving them to the bush-folk, male and female. M. du Chaillu repeatedly a.s.serts (chap xix.) ”there is no property in land,”
but this is a mistake often made in Africa. Labourers are hired at the rate of two to three dollars per mensem, and gangs would easily be collected if one of the chiefs were placed in command.
No sum of money will buy a free-born Mpongwe, and the sale is forbidden by the laws of the land. A half-caste would fetch one hundred dollars; a wild ”n.i.g.g.e.r” near the river costs from thirty to thirty-five dollars; the same may be bought in the Apinji country for four dollars' worth of a.s.sorted goods, the ”bundle- trade” as it is called; but there is the imminent risk of the chattel's running away. A man's only attendants being now his wives and serviles, it is evident that plurality and domestic servitude will extend--
”Far into summers which we shall not see;”
in fact, till some violent revolution of society shall have introduced a servant cla.s.s.
The three grades of Mpongwe may be considered as rude beginnings of caste. The first are the ”Sons of the Soil,” the ”Ongwa ntye”
(contracted from Onwana wi ntye), Mpongwes of pure blood; the second are the ”Mbamba,” children of free-men by serviles; and lastly, ”Nshaka,” in Bakele ”Nshaka,” represents the slaves. M.
du Chaillu's distribution (chap, iii.) into five orders, namely, pure, mixed with other tribes, half free, children of serviles, and chattels, is somewhat over-artificial; at any rate, now it is not generally recognized. Like the high-caste Hindu, the n.o.bler race will marry women of lower cla.s.ses; for instance, King Njogoni's mother was a Benga; but the inverse proceeding is a disgrace to the woman, apparently an instinctive feeling on the part of the reproducer, still lingering in the most advanced societies. Old travellers record a belief that, unlike all other Guinea races, the Mpongwe marries his mother, sister, or daughter; and they compare the practice with that of the polished Persians and the Peruvian Incas, who thus kept pure the solar and lunar blood. If this ”breeding-in” ever existed, no trace of it now remains; on the contrary, every care is taken to avoid marriages of consanguinity. Bowdich, indeed, a.s.sures us that a man may not look at nor converse with his mother-in-law, on pain of a heavy, perhaps a ruinous fine; ”this singular law is founded on the tradition of an incest.”
Marriage amongst the Mpongwe is a purely civil contract, as in Africa generally, and so perhaps it will some day be in Europe, Asia, and America. C?lebs pays a certain sum for the bride, who, where ”marriage by capture” is unknown, has no voice in the matter. Many promises of future ”dash” are made to the girl's parents; and drinking, drumming, and dancing form the ceremony.
The following is, or rather I should say was, a fair list of articles paid for a virgin bride. One fine silk hat, one cap, one coat; five to twenty pieces of various cottons, plain and ornamental; two to twenty silk kerchiefs; three to thirty jars of rum; twenty pounds of trade tobacco; two hatchets; two cutla.s.ses; plates and dishes, mugs and gla.s.ses, five each; six knives; one kettle; one bra.s.s pan; two to three Neptunes (caldrons, the old term being ”Neptune's pots”), a dozen bars of iron; copper and bra.s.s rings, chains with small links, and minor articles ad libitum. The ”settlement” is the same in kind, but has increased during the last forty years, and specie has become much more common.[FN#10]
After marriage there is a mutual accommodation system suggesting the cicisbeo or mariage a trois school; hence we read that wives, like the much-maligned Xantippe, were borrowed and lent, and that not fulfilling the promise of a loan is punishable by heavy damages. Where the husband acts adjutor or cavaliere to his friend's ”Omantwe”--female person or wife--and the friend is equally complaisant, wedlock may hardly be called permanent, and there can be no tie save children. The old immorality endures; it is as if the command were reversed by accepting that misprint which so scandalized the Star Chamber, ”Thou shalt commit adultery.” Yet, unpermitted, the offence is one against property, and Moechus may be cast in damages ranging from $100 to $200: what is known in low civilization as the ”panel dodge” is an infamy familiar to almost all the maritime tribes of Africa. He must indeed be a Solomon of a son who, sur les bords du Gabon, can guess at his own sire; a question so impertinent is never put by the ex-officio father. The son succeeds by inheritance to his father's relict, who, being generally in years, is condemned to be useful when she has ceased to be an ornament, and, if there are several, they are equally divided amongst the heirs.
Trading tribes rarely affect the pundonor which characterizes the pastoral and the predatory; these people traffic in all things, even in the chast.i.ty of their women. What with pre-nuptial excesses, with early unions, often infructuous, with a virtual system of community, and with universal drunkenness, it is not to be wondered at if the maritime tribes of Africa degenerate and die out. Such apparently is the modus operandi by which Nature rids herself of the effete races which have served to clear the ground and to pave the way for higher successors. Wealth and luxury, so generally inveighed against by poets and divines, injure humanity only when they injuriously affect reproduction; and poverty is praised only because it breeds more men. The true tests of the physical prosperity of a race, and of its position in the world, are bodily strength and the excess of births over deaths.
Separation after marriage can hardly be dignified on the Gaboon by the name of divorce. Whenever a woman has or fancies she has a grievance, she leaves her husband, returns to ”the paternal” and marries again. Quarrels about the s.e.x are very common, yet, in cases of adultery the old murderous a.s.saults are now rare except amongst the backwoodsmen. The habit was simply to shoot some man belonging to the seducer's or to the ravisher's village; the latter shot somebody in the nearest settlement, and so on till the affair was decided. In these days ”violent retaliation for personal jealousy always 'be-littles' a man in the eyes of an African community.” Perhaps also he unconsciously recognizes the sentiment ascribed to Mohammed, ”Laysa bi-zanyatin ilia bi zani,”
”there is no adulteress without an adulterer,” meaning that the husband has set the example.
Polygamy is, of course, the order of the day; it is a necessity to the men, and even the women disdain to marry a ”one-wifer.” As amongst all pluralists, from Moslem to Mormon, the senior or first married is No. 1; here called ”best wife:” she is the goodman's viceroy, and she rules the home-kingdom with absolute sway. Yet the Mpongwe do not, like other tribes on the west coast, practise that separation of the s.e.xes during gestation and lactation, which is enjoined to the Hebrews, recommended by Catholicism, and commanded by Mormonism--a system which partly justifies polygamy. In Portuguese Guinea the enceinte is claimed by her relatives, especially by the women, for three years, that she may give undivided attention to her offspring, who is rightly believed to be benefited by the separation, and that she may return to her husband with renewed vigour. Meanwhile custom allows the man to co-habit with a slave girl.
Polygamy, also, in Africa is rather a political than a domestic or social inst.i.tution. A ”judicious culture of the marriage tie”
is necessary amongst savages and barbarians whose only friends and supporters are blood relations and nuptial connections; besides which, a mult.i.tude of wives ministers to the great man's pride and influence, as well as to his pleasures and to his efficiency. When the head wife ages, she takes charge of the girlish brides committed to her guardians.h.i.+p by the husband. I should try vainly to persuade the English woman that there can be peace in households so const.i.tuted: still, such is the case.
Messrs. Wilson and Du Chaillu both a.s.sert that the wives rarely disagree amongst themselves. The sentimental part of love is modified; the common husband becomes the patriarch, not the paterfamilias; the wife is not the mistress, but the mere de famille. The alliance rises or sinks to one of interest and affection instead of being amorous or uxorious, whilst the underlying idea, ”the more the merrier,” especially in lands where free service is unknown, seems to stifle envy and jealousy.
Everywhere, moreover, amongst polygamists, the husband is strictly forbidden by popular opinion to show preference for a favourite wife; if he do so, he is a bad man.
But polygamy here has not rendered the women, as theoretically it should, a down-trodden moiety of society; on the contrary, their position is comparatively high. The marriage connection is not ”one of master and slave,” a link between freedom and serfdom; the ”weaker vessel” does not suffer from collision with the pot de fer; generally the fair but frail ones appear to be, as amongst the Israelites generally, the better halves. Despite the Okosunguu or cow-hide ”peacemaker,” they have conquered a considerable lat.i.tude of conducting their own affairs. When poor and slaveless and, naturally, when no longer young, they must work in the house and in the field, but this lot is not singular; in journeys they carry the load, yet it is rarely heavier than the weapons borne by the man. On the other hand, after feeding their husbands, what remains out of the fruits of their labours is their own, wholly out of his reach--a boon not always granted by civilization. As in Unyamwezi, they guard their rights with a truly feminine touchiness and jealousy. There is always, in the African mind, a preference for descent and inheritance through the mother, ”the surer side,”--an unmistakable sign, by the by, of barbarism. The so-called royal races in the eight great despotisms of Pagan Africa--Ashanti, Dahome, and Benin; Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro; the Mwata ya Nvo, and the Mwata Cazembe-- allow the greatest liberty even to the king's sisters; they are expected only to choose handsome lovers, that the race may maintain its physical superiority; and hence, doubtless, the stalwart forms and the good looks remarked by every traveller. As a rule, the husband cannot sell his wife's children whilst her brother may dispose of them as he pleases--the vox populi exclaims, ”What! is the man to go hungry when he can trade off his sister's brats?”
The strong-minded of London and New York have not yet succeeded in thoroughly organizing and popularizing their clubs; the belles sauvages of the Gaboon have. There is a secret order, called ”Njembe,” a Rights of Woman a.s.sociation, intended mainly to counterbalance the Nda of the lords of creation, which will presently be described. Dropped a few years ago by the men, it was taken up by their wives, and it now numbers a host of initiated, limited only by heavy entrance fees. This form of freemasonry deals largely in processions, whose preliminaries and proceedings are kept profoundly secret. At certain times an old woman strikes a stick upon an ”Orega” or crescent-shaped drum, hollowed out of a block of wood; hearing this signal, the wors.h.i.+pful sisterhood, bedaubed, by way of insignia, with red and white chalk or clay, follow her from the village to some remote nook in the jungle, where the lodge is tiled. Sentinels are stationed around whilst business is transacted before a vestal fire, which must burn for a fortnight or three weeks, in the awe- compelling presence of a bra.s.s pipkin filled with herbs, and a basin, both zebra'd like the human limbs. The Rev. William Walker was once detected playing ”Peeping Tom” by sixty or seventy viragos, who attempted to exact a fine of forty dollars, and who would have handled him severely had he not managed to escape. The French officers, never standing upon ceremony in such matters, have often insisted upon being present.
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