Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
The neighbours of the Mundonoros are the Mubangos, the Muyanji
(Muyanzi?), and the Mijolo, by some called Mijere. Possibly
Tuckey alludes to the Mijolos when he tells us (p. 141), that the
"Mandingo" slave whom he bought on the Upper River, called his
country "M'intolo." I have seen specimens of the three, who are
so similar in appearance that a stranger distinguishes them only
by the tattoo. No. 1 gashes a line from the root of the hair to
the commissure of the nose: No. 2 has a patch of cuts, five in
length and three in depth, extending from the bend of the eye-
brow across the zygomata to the ear, and No. 3 wears cuts across
the forehead. I was shown a sword belonging to the Mijolo: all
declared that it is of native make; yet it irresistibly suggested
the old two-handed weapon of Europe, preserved by the Bedawin and
the Eastern Arabs, who now mostly derive it from Sollingen. The
long, straight, flexible, and double-edged blade is neatly
mounted by the tang in a handle with a pommel, or terminating
knob, of ivory; others prefer wood. The guard is very peculiar, a
thin bar of iron springing from the junction of blade and grip,
forming an open oval below, and prolonged upwards and downwards
in two branches parallel with the handle, and protecting the
hand. They dance, brandishing this weapon, according to the
slaves, in the presence of their princes.
I inquired vainly about the Anzicos, Anzichi, Anzigui, Anzigi, or
Anziki, whose king, Makoko, the ruler of thirteen kingdoms, was
placed by Dapper north-west of Monemugi (Unyamwezi), and whom
Pigafetta (p. 79) located close to the Congo, and near his
northern Lake. "It is true that there are two lakes, not,
however, lying east and west (Ptolemy's system), but north and
south of each other, and about 400 miles asunder. The first is in
south latitude 12°. The Nile, issuing from it, does not,
according to Odoardo (Duarte Lopez), sink in the earth nor
conceal itself, but, after flowing northwards, it enters the
second lake, which is 220 miles in extent, and is called by the
natives a sea." If the Tanganyika shall be found to connect with
the Luta Nzige or Mwutan Lake, this passage will be found
wonderfully truthful. The Tanganyika's southern versant is now
placed in south latitude 8° 46' 54", or in round numbers 9°, and
the other figures are nearly as correct. James Barbot causes
these Anzikos to wander "almost through all Africa," from Nubia
to the Congo, like negro Bedawin or Scythians; the common food
was man's flesh fattened for the market and eaten by the
relatives, even of those who died diseased. Their "capital,"
Monsol, was built by D'Anville, close to the equator in the very
centre of Africa (east longitude Greenwich, 26° 20') hard by
Douville's "Yanvo;" and the "Opener of Inner Africa in 1852" (pp.
3, 4, 69), with equal correctness, caused them to "occupy the
hills opposite to Sundi, and extending downwards to Emboma below
the Falls."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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