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
We are glad to be rid of the Jagas, a subject which has a small
literature of its own; the savage race appeared everywhere like a
"deus ex machina," and it became to Intertropical Africa what the
"Lost Tribes" were and even now are in some cases, to Asia and
not rarely to Europe. Even the sensible Mr. Wilson ("West
Africa," p. 238) has "no doubt of the Jagas being the same people
with the more modernly discovered Pangwes" (Fans); and this is
duly copied by M. du Chaillu (chap. viii.). M. Valdez (ii. 150)
more sensibly records that the first Jaga established in
Portuguese territory was called Colaxingo (Kolashingo), and that
his descendants were named "Jagas," like the Egyptian Pharaohs,
the Roman Ceesars, the Austrian Kaisers, and the Russian Czars:
he also reminds us (p. 150) that the chief of the Bangalas
inhabiting Cassange (= Kasanjí) was the Jaga or ruler par
excellence.
Early on the morning of September 11, I was aroused by a "bob" in
the open before us. We started up, fearing that some death by
accident had taken place: the occasion proved, on the contrary,
to be one of ushering into life. The women were assembled in a
ring round the mother, and each howled with all the might of her
lungs, either to keep off some evil spirit or to drown the
sufferer's cries. In some parts of Africa, the Gold Coast for
instance, it is considered infamous for a woman thus to betray
her pain, but here we are amongst a softer race.
Chapter XII.
Preparations for the March.
Gidi Mavunga, finding me in his power, began, like a thoroughbred
African, to raise obstacles. We must pass through the lands of
two kings, the Mfumo ma Vivi (Bibbie of Tuckey) and the Mfumu
Nkulu or Nkuru (Cooloo). The distance was short, but it would
occupy five days, meaning a week. Before positively promising an
escort he said it would be necessary to inspect my outfit; I at
once placed it in the old man's hands, the better to say, "This
is not mine, ask Gidi Mavunga for it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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