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
We may now turn our attention to the Bongo games, which are as
original and primitive as their music. One of these games, as forming
excellent training for the chase, deserves some especial notice. A
number of men are provided with pointed sticks made of hard wood,
which they use as lances. They form a large ring, and another man who
has a piece of soft wood attached to a long string, runs round and
round within the circle. The others then endeavour with their pointed
sticks to hit the mark whilst it is being carried rapidly round. As
soon as it is struck it falls to the ground, and the successful
marksman is greeted with a loud cheer. Another game requires no less
calmness and dexterity. A piece of wood bent into a crescent has a
short string attached to the middle; this wood is then hurled by the
one end of it with such violence to the earth that it goes spinning
like a boomerang through the air. The players stand face to face at a
distance of about twenty feet apart, and the game consists in catching
the wood by the string, a performance that requires no little skill,
as there is considerable danger of receiving a sharp knock. Both games
might, under some modifications, admit of being adopted into our rural
sports.
Turning now to the national manners, customs, and ideas, I profess
that they are subjects of which I must treat with considerable
reserve, since my residence as a stranger for two years amongst these
savages only gave me after all a very superficial insight into the
mysteries of their inner life. Since, however, the accounts of
eye-witnesses, who knew the land in its primitive condition, seem to
accord with and to corroborate my own observations, as well as the
information I obtained from the Bongo themselves, I am in a position
to depose to some facts, of which I must leave the scientific analysis
to those who are seeking to cultivate the untried soil of the
psychology of nations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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