The heart of Africa, Vol. 1 (of 2)Schweinfurth, Georg August
Science
The heart of Africa, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Schweinfurth, Georg August
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Schweinfurth, Georg August, 1836-1925 -- Travel -- Africa, Central
The “loggoh kullutty” is the circulating medium of the Bongo, the only
equivalent which Central Africa possesses for money of any
description; but, rough-shaped as it is, it seems really to answer in
its way the purpose of regular coin. According to Major Denham, who
visited the Central Soudan in 1824, there were at that time some iron
pieces which were circulated as currency in Loggon on the Lower Shary,
answering to what is now in use among the Bongo; but at the period of
Barth’s visit all traces of their use had long disappeared. The
“loggoh kullutty” is formed in flat circles, varying in diameter from
10 to 12 inches. On one edge there is a short handle; on the opposite
there is attached a projecting limb, something in the form of an
anchor. In this shape the metal is stored up in the treasures of the
rich, and up to the present time it serves as well as the lance-heads
and spades for cash and for exchanges, being available not only for
purchases, but for the marriage portions which every suitor is pledged
to assign. The axe of the Bongo consists of a flat, cumbrous wedge of
iron, into the thick end of which is inserted a knobbed handle; it is
an instrument differing in no particular from what may be seen
throughout Central Africa.
[Illustration: Bongo lances.]
Besides these rough exhibitions of their craft, the Bongo produce
arms, tools, and ornaments of admirable quality, and, at the instance
of the controllers of the Seribas, have manufactured chains and
manacles for the slave-traffic. Very elegant, it might almost be said
artistic, is the work displayed on the points of their arrows and
lances. The keen and (to use a botanical expression) the “awny” barbs
and edges of these instruments, to any one who is aware of the simple
means of production in their reach, must be quite an enigma. The
lances are readily recognised by their shapes, and may be classified
in a threefold way. First, there is the common lancet-formed
spear-head, which is known as “mahee;” then, secondly, there is the
“golo,” a hastate sort of spear, with long iron barbs below the point
extending along the stem to which the wooden stock is attached; whilst
the third description is called “makrigga,” and consists of a spike,
the stem of which is covered with a number of teeth symmetrically
arranged along it, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards. This
makrigga is often merely an article of show, and the technical skill
of the smith is concentrated upon its design. The name of makrigga is
appropriated to it from the _Randia dumetorum_,[34] a prickly shrub,
which is quite common in the district: seeming to indicate that the
pattern is derived from an object in nature, it affords a fresh
illustration of the view, that all human arts are only imitations of
what may be observed in the free fields of a wide creation.
[Illustration: Pincers used by the Bongo women for plucking out their
eyelashes.]
[Illustration: Knife of the Bongo women.]
[Sidenote: BONGO ORNAMENTS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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