Man, Past and Present Part 9

[144] E. T. Hamy, "Les Races Negres," in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897, p. 257 sq.

[145] "Chaque fois que j'ai demande avec intention a un Mande, 'Es-tu Peul, Mossi, Dafina?' il me repondait invariablement, '_Je suis Mande_.'

C'est pourquoi, dans le cours de ma relation, j'ai toujours designe ce peuple par le nom de _Mande_, qui est son vrai nom." (L. G. Binger, _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee_, 1892, Vol. II. p. 373.) At p. 375 this authority gives the following subdivisions of the Mande family, named from their respective _tenne_ (idol, fetish, totem):

1. _Bamba_, the crocodile: _Bammana_, not _Bambara_, which means kafir or infidel, and is applied only to the non-Moslem Mande groups.

2. _Mali_, the hippopotamus: _Mali'nke_, including the Kagoros and the Tagwas.

3. _Sama_, the elephant: _Sama'nke_.

4. _Sa_, the snake: _Sa-mokho_.

Of each there are several sub-groups, while the surrounding peoples call them all collectively _Wakore_, _w.a.n.gara_, _Sakhersi_, and especially _Diula_. Attention to this point will save the reader much confusion in consulting Barth, Caillie, and other early books of travel.

[146] _Travels_, Vol. IV. p. 579 sqq.

[147] "La chaine des Montagnes de Kong n'a jamais existe que dans l'imagination de quelques voyageurs mal renseignes," _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee_, 1892, I. p. 285.

[148] Bertrand-Bocande, "Sur les Floups ou Feloups," in _Bul. Soc. de Geogr_. 1849.

[149] A full account of this literature will be found in the Rev. C. F.

Schlenker's valuable work, _A Collection of Temne Traditions, Fables and Proverbs_, London, 1861. Here is given the curious explanation of the tribal name, from _o-tem_, an old man, and _ne_, himself, because, as they say, the Temne people will exist for ever.

[150] There is also a sisterhood--the _bondo_--and the two societies work so far in harmony that any person expelled from the one is also excluded from the other.

[151] Reclus, Keane's English ed., XII. p. 203.

[152] "Da Njoe Testament, translated into the Negro-English Language by the Missionaries of the Unitas Fratrum," Brit. and For. Bible Soc., London, 1829. Here is a specimen quoted by Ellis from _The Artisan_ of Sierra Leone, Aug. 4, 1886, "Those who live in ceiled houses love to hear the pit-pat of the rain overhead; whilst those whose houses leak are the subjects of restlessness and anxiety, not to mention the chances of catching cold, _that is so frequent a source of leaky roofs_."

[153] Right Rev. E. G. Ingham (Bishop of Sierra Leone), _Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years_, London, 1894, p. 294. Cf. H. C. Lukach, _A Bibliography of Sierra Leone_, 1911, and T. J. Alldridge, _A Transformed Colony_, 1910.

[154] This increase, however, appears to be due to a steady immigration from the Southern States, but for which the Liberians proper would die out, or become absorbed in the surrounding native populations.

[155] H. H. Johnston, _Liberia_, 1906.

[156] Possibly the English word "crew," but more probably an extension of _Kraoh_, the name of a tribe near Settra-kru, to the whole group.

[157] _Sierra Leone after a Hundred Years_, p. 280.

[158] Mary H. Kingsley, _Travels in West Africa_, 1899, pp. 54-5.

[159] Since the establishment of British authority in Nigeria (1900 to 1907) much light has been thrown on ethnological problems. See among other works C. Partridge, _The Cross River Natives_, 1905; A. G.

Leonard, _The Lower Niger and its Tribes_, 1906; A. J. N. Tremearne, _The Niger and the Western Sudan_, 1910, _The Tailed Head-Hunters of Nigeria_, 1912; R. E. Dennett, _Nigerian Studies_, 1910; E. D. Morel, _Nigeria, its People and its Problems_, 1911, besides the _Anthropological Reports_ of N. W. Thomas, 1910, 1913, and papers by J.

Parkinson in _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst._ x.x.xVI. 1906, x.x.xVII. 1907.

[160] The services rendered to African anthropology by this distinguished officer call for the fullest recognition, all the more that somewhat free and unacknowledged use has been made of the rich materials brought together in his cla.s.sical works on _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_ (1887), _The Ewe-speaking Peoples_ (1890), and _The Yoruba-speaking Peoples_ (1894).

[161] N. W. Thomas cla.s.sifies Yoruba, Edo, Ibo and Efik as four main stocks in the Western Sudanic language group. "In the Edo and Ibo stocks people only a few miles apart may not be able to communicate owing to diversity of language" (p. 141). _Anthropological Report of the Ibo-speaking Peoples of Nigeria_, Part 1. 1913.

[162] _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, p. 332 sq.

[163] _Feitico_, whence also _feiticeira_, a witch, _feiticeria_, sorcery, etc., all from _feitico_, artificial, handmade, from Lat.

_facio_ and _fact.i.tius_.

[164] _Du Culte des Dieux Fetiches_, 1760. It is generally supposed that the word was invented, or at least first introduced, by De Brosses; but Ellis shows that this also is a mistake, as it had already been used by Bosman in his _Description of Guinea_, London, 1705.

[165] _The Tshi-speaking Peoples_, Ch. XII. p. 194 and _pa.s.sim._ See also R. H. Na.s.sau, _Fetichism in West Africa_, 1904.

[166] That is, from a wax mould destroyed in the casting. After the operation details were often filled in by chasing or executed in _repousse_ work.

[167] "Works of Art from Benin City," _Journ. Anthr. Inst._ February, 1898, p. 362 sq. See H. Ling Roth, _Great Benin, its Customs_, etc., 1903.

[168] A. Featherman, _Social History of Mankind_, The Nigritians, p.

281. See also Reclus, French ed., Vol. XII. p. 718: "Les cavaliers portent encore la cuira.s.se comme au moyen age.... Les chevaux sont recouverts de la meme maniere." In the mythical traditions of Buganda also there is reference to the fierce Wakedi warriors clad in "iron armour" (Ch. IV.). Cf. L. Frobenius, _The Voice of Africa_, II. 1913, pl. p. 608.

[169] _Du Niger au Golfe de Guinee_, 1892, I. p. 377.

[170] Early in the fourteenth century they were strong enough to carry the war into the enemy's camp and make more than one successful expedition against Timbuktu. At present the Mossi power is declining, and their territory has been parcelled out between the British and French Sudanese hinterlands.

[171] Also _Sonrhay_, _gh_ and _rh_ being interchangeable throughout North Africa; _Ghat_ and _Rhat_, _Ghadames_ and _Rhadames_, etc. In the mouth of an Arab the sound is that of the guttural [Symbol], _ghain_, which is p.r.o.nounced by the Berbers and Negroes somewhat like the Northumberland _burr_, hence usually transliterated by _rh_ in non-Semitic words.

[172] It should be noticed that these terms are throughout used as strictly defined in _Eth._ Ch. I.

[173] Barth's account of Wulu (IV. p. 299), "inhabited by Tawarek slaves, who are _trilingues_, speaking Temashight as well as Songhay and Fulfulde," is at present generally applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to most of the Songhai settlements.

[174] As so much has been made of Barth's authority in this connection, it may be well to quote his exact words: "It would seem as if they (the Sonrhay) had received, in more ancient times, several inst.i.tutions from the Egyptians, with whom, I have no doubt, they maintained an intercourse by means of the energetic inhabitants of Aujila from a relatively ancient period" (IV. p. 426). Barth, therefore, does not bring the people themselves, or their language, from Egypt, but only some of their inst.i.tutions, and that indirectly through the Aujila Oasis in Cyrenaica, and it may be added that this intercourse with Aujila appears to date only from about 1150 A.D. (IV. p. 585).

[175] Hacquard et Dupuis, _Manuel de la langue Songay, parlee de Tombouctou a Say, dans la boucle du Niger_, 1897, _pa.s.sim._

[176] "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," _Journ. Roy. Anthr. Soc._ XLIII. 1913, p. 386.

[177] Barth, IV. pp. 593-4.

[178] The _Ischia_ of Leo Africa.n.u.s, who tells us that in his time the "linguaggio detto Sungai" was current even in the provinces of Walata and Jinni (VI. ch. 2). This statement, however, like others made by Leo at second hand, must be received with caution. In these districts Songhai may have been spoken by the officials and some of the upper cla.s.ses, but scarcely by the people generally, who were of Mandingan speech.

[179] Barth, IV. p. 414.

[180] _Ib._ p. 415.

[181] Carried captive into Marakesh, although later restored to his beloved Timbuktu to end his days in perpetuating the past glories of the Songhai nation; the one Negroid man of letters, whose name holds a worthy place beside those of Leo Africa.n.u.s, Ibn Khaldun, El Tunsi, and other Hamitic writers.

[182] "Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes Intulit agresti Latio." Hor. _Epist._ II. 1, 156-7.

The epithet _agrestis_ is peculiarly applicable to the rude Fulah shepherds, who were almost barbarians compared with the settled, industrious, and even cultured Hausa populations, and whose oppressive rule has at last been relaxed by the intervention of England in the Niger-Benue lands.

[183] "One of their towns, Kano, has probably the largest market-place in the world, with a daily attendance of from 25,000 to 30,000 people.

This same town possesses, what in central Africa is still more surprising, some thirty or forty schools, in which the children are taught to read and write" (Rev. C. H. Robinson, _Specimens of Hausa Literature_, University Press, Cambridge, 1896, p. x).