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 Portuguese, according to Vasconcello, shunning all fanciful
derivations, were long satisfied to term the Congo "Rio de
Patron" (Rio do Padrao) from the first of memorial columns built
at its mouth. In 1816 Captain Tuckey's expedition learned with
Maxwell that the stream should be called, not Zaire, but Moienzi
Enzaddi, the "great river" or the "river which absorbs all other
rivers." This thoroughly corrupted name, which at once found its
way into popular books, and which is repeated to the present day
even by scientific geographers, suggested to some theorists
"Zadi," the name of the Niger at Wassenah according to Sidi
Harriet, as related by the American, James Riley, of the brig
"Commerce," wrecked on August 28, 1815: others remembered "Zad"
which Shaykh Yusuf (Hornemann), misleading Mungo Park, learned to
be the Niger east of Tinbuktu, "where it turns off to the
southward." I need hardly say that this "Zadi" and "Zad" are
evident corruptions of Bahr Shady, Shary, Shari, Chad, Tsad, and
Chadda, the swampy lake, alternately sweet and brackish, which
was formerly thrown by mistake into the Chadda River, now called
the Binue or Bimúwe, the great eastern fork of the Negro-land
Nile: the true drainage of the Chadda in ancient times has lately
been determined by the adventurous Dr. Nachtigal. Mr.
Cooley[FN#12] applied, as was his wont, a superficial knowledge
of Kibundo to Fiote or Congoese, and further corrupted Moienzi
Enzaddi to Muenya (for Menha or Menya) Zinzádi-this Angolan
"emendation," however, was not adopted.
The natives dwelling upon the Congo banks have, as usual in
Africa, no comprehensive generic term for the mighty artery of
the West Coast. Each tribe calls it by its own name. Thus even in
Fiote we find "Mulángo," or "Lángo," the water; "Nkoko," the
stream, "Mwánza," the river, and "Mwanza Nnenne," the great
river, all used synonymously at the several places. The only
proper name is Mwánza Nzádi, the River Nzadi: hence Zaire, Zaïre,
Zahir, Zaira the "flumen Congo olim Zaida" (C. Barlé)--all
corruptions more or less common.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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