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
of age, worth 20 Mil Keys (dollars) each." (Carli.) In the
Barbots' day each "coin-clout") was equivalent to 2d.; some were
unmarked, whilst others bore the Portuguese arms single or
double. The wilder Kru-men still keep up their "buyapart" (= 25
cents), a cloth 4 inches square and thickly sewn over with
cowries.
The only liquor was palm wine in huge calabashes. The smoking of
Lyamba (Bhang or Cannabis sativa) seems to become more common as
we advance. I did not find the plant growing, as did Dr.
Livingstone at Linyanti and amongst the Batoka ("First
Expedition," 198, 541). The pipe is the gourd of a baobab, which
here sometimes grows a foot and a half long; it is cleared,
filled with water and provided with a wooden tube fixed in the
upper part away from the mouth, and supporting a small "chillam"
or bowl of badly baked clay. The people when smoking affect the
bunched shoulders, the deep inhalation, and the loud and body-
shaking bark, which seems inseparable from the enjoyment of this
stimulant. I have used it for months together, and my conclusion
is, that mostly the cough is an affectation. Tobacco is smoked in
the usual heavy clay pipes, with long mouthpieces of soft wood,
quite as civilized as the best European. "Progress" seems unknown
to the pipe; the most advanced nations are somewhat behind the
barbarians, and in the matter of snuff the Tupi or Brazilian
savage has never been rivalled.
The greater part of the vendors seemed to be women, of the buyers
men; there was more difference of appearance than in any European
fair, and the population about Nkulu seemed to be a very mixed
race. Some were ultra-negro, of the dead dull-black type,
prognathous and long-headed like apes; others were of the red
variety, with hair and eyes of a brownish tinge, and a few had
features which if whitewashed could hardly be distinguished from
Europeans. The tattoo was remarkable as amongst the tribes of the
lower Zambeze.[FN#33] There were waistcoats, epaulettes, braces
and cross-belts of huge welts, and raised polished lumps which
must have cost not a little suffering; the skin is pinched up
between the fingers and sawn across with a bluntish knife, the
deeper the better; various plants are used as styptics, and the
proper size of the cicatrice is maintained by constant pressure,
which makes the flesh protrude from the wound. The teeth were as
barbarously mutilated as the skin; these had all the incisors
sharp-tipped; those chipped a chevron-shaped hole in the two
upper or lower frontals, and not a few seemed to attempt
converting the whole denture into molars. The legs were
undeniably fine; even Hieland Mary's would hardly be admired
here. Whilst the brown mothers smoked and carried their babies,
the men bore guns adorned with brass tacks, or leaned upon their
short, straight, conical "spuds" and hoes, long-handled bits of
iron whose points, after African fashion, passed through the
wood. I nowhere saw the handsome carved spoons, the hafts and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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