The Truth About the Congo: The Chicago Tribune Articles. Frederick Starr
no one knows what any other is saying.
One of the chief occupations of the man is the palaver. The Portuguese term applies to any serious consultation on any subject, pleasant or otherwise. A palaver may be confined to chiefs or it may include practically all the men of one or more villages. In many towns there is a place for gathering for palavers under a tree known as the palaver tree. Those who participate in a palaver bring their chairs or stools or a roll of skin, which they place upon the ground to sit upon. At the beginning there is more or less formality, and each one presents his view decently and in order; sometimes, however, hubbub ensues, disturbance arises, and the palaver breaks up in disorder. In these palavers frequently speeches of great length and finished oratory are delivered. Not only are the emotions played upon by the speaker, but keen argument is employed, and the appeal is made to the intelligence.
All matters of consequence—tribal, inter-tribal, and dealings with the white man—are settled in palavers. The white man who knows the natives is wise to conform to native customs. If he has some difficulty to settle, some favor to ask, some business to arrange, he will do well to have a formal palaver called in which he himself participates.
On the occasion of my second visit to Ndombe I found the town in great excitement. Going to the chief’s headquarters, we found a great palaver in progress. Our coming was looked upon as a favorable omen, and with much formality chairs were brought and placed for us in the midst of the gathering. The remarks were translated to me as they were made.
Ndombe’s town is really an aggregation of villages. Not one but four different tribes are represented in the population. The central town, walled and of Bakuba style, was Ndombe’s own. Three or four Bakete towns were clustered near it. In another direction were several Baluba towns, and close by them small villages of Batua. These four populations, though living by themselves, were all subject to Ndombe, and the group of villages taken together made a town of some pretension.
The day before our visit, there had been a battle with the Bakete in which several men had been wounded, though none were killed. The trouble was taxes. The state demanded increased payments. The proud Bakuba decided that the Bakete should pay the new tax, and so informed them. Against this there had been a feeling of rebellion, and the Bakete refused to pay the tax. Hence the battle. All were greatly excited. The speeches were full of fire. The men—Bakuba—challenged each other to show mighty deeds of valor; they belittled and derided the unfortunate Bakete; they drew unpleasant contrasts between themselves and their vassals.
Many of the speeches were fine efforts, and the words were emphasized by the most graceful and vigorous gesticulation. Finally an old woman crowded in from one side where she had been listening to the speeches. In impassioned language she described the heavy labors which the women of the tribe already endured. They could stand no more. If the Bakuba were men let them prove it now or forever after remain silent. Force the Bakete to work. Put no more heavy tasks upon your mothers, wives, and sisters. The old woman’s speech stirred the audience, and the meeting broke up, the men hurrying to prepare themselves for a new battle.
The market was among the most important institutions of the Congo native. It retains importance to the present day. In the Lower Congo a week consisted of four days, and market was held at each market-place once a week. The markets were named from the day of the week on which they were held. Thus, a Nsona market was a market held on the day of that name.
To these markets people came in numbers from all the country round, and it was no uncommon thing to see thousands thus gathered. There were special places for certain products. Thus, women who brought pottery for sale occupied a set place; those who brought bananas would be grouped together in their section; sellers of camwood, sweet potatoes, kwanga (native cassava bread), palm wine, oil, salt, fowls, pigs, goats—all occupied places well known to the frequenters of the market. In the olden times, of course, there was a section devoted to the sale of slaves.
Such a market presented a scene of active life and movement. Yet order was preserved. No crime was considered more serious than the disturbance of a market. Such an act deserved severest punishment, and those in whose hands the maintenance of order lay never hesitated to kill the offender at once, and to make a public display of his punishment as a warning to all.
There is no question that the Congo native is cruel, and this cruelty shows itself in many ways. The killing of slaves was extremely common. It is true that it was never carried to the extreme in Congoland that it reached in some true negro kingdoms, as Dahomey and Benin. It was, however, customary to kill slaves on the occasion of the death of a man of any consequence. The body of one of the slaves thus killed was placed first in the grave to serve as a pillow for the dead man. It was a common practice to preserve the skulls of victims sacrificed on such occasions as memorials.
Not only were slaves sacrificed to grace the funeral ceremony of chiefs, but often one or more were killed upon occasions of festivity and joy. King Ndombe once presented me a skull. It was that of a Batua slave who had been killed upon the occasion of the chief’s coming into power. In this case, apparently, judging by the condition of the skull, the victim had been killed by simply knocking in his head.
Until lately all through the Congo public executions were of a more formal character than this. At Lake Mantumba we were shown the exact mode of procedure. A sort of stool or seat was set upon the ground and sticks were tightly driven in around it, in such a way as to limit the motions of the victim after he was seated; in fact, to almost prevent all movement. A sapling was then thrust in the ground. A sort of cage or framework made of pliant branches was fixed about the head of the victim. The sapling was then bent over in an arch and firmly fastened to the cage, thus holding the head firmly and stretching the neck tense and hard. The hands were tied together, as were the feet. When all was ready the executioner with his great knife at a single blow struck off the head.
Enemies killed in battle were often mutilated, and fingers, nails, bones, or the skulls were treasured as trophies. When the white men first visited the villages of the Upper Congo there was scarce a house without its ghastly trophy, and the houses of great chiefs displayed baskets filled with skulls.
It is doubtful whether the Congo native has as keen a sense of physical suffering as ourselves. In almost every tribe men and sometimes women, are marked with tribal marks upon the face or body; thus, among the Bangala each member of the tribe bears a projection like a cock’s comb running vertically across the forehead from the nose root to the hair line. This excrescence is frequently three-quarters of an inch in breadth and of the same elevation. Its development begins in childhood, when a series of short but deep horizontal lines are cut in the child’s forehead; these are irritated to produce swelling; later on they are cut again, and again, and again, until the full development is produced. We should certainly find such an operation painful in the extreme. I have seen women whose entire bodies were masses of raised patterns, produced by cutting and irritating.
When being operated upon the subject usually squats or lies in front of the operator, who sits cross-legged on the ground. The head or other portion of the body which is being cut rests upon the lap or knees of the cutter. No particular pain is shown by the subject, though the cuts are often deep and blood flows copiously. A few minutes after the operation, smeared with fresh oil on the wounds, the scarred person walks about as if nothing had happened.
The first subject that I saw treated for rheumatism was a young woman. She was standing before her house door, while the old woman who was treating her was squatted on the ground before her. In her hand the old woman had a sharp, native razor, and with it she cut lines several inches long and to good depth in the fleshy part of the leg of her standing patient. Not once nor twice, but a dozen times the old woman cut, and rubbed in medicine in the open wounds. The patient gave but little signs of pain. Once or twice she winced as the knife went a little deeper than usual; she held a long staff in her hand, and in the most serious moments of the cutting she clutched it a little the tighter. But there were no groans, no cries, nor tears. I have never seen a white person who could have stood the operation with so little evidence of suffering.
Part of the time that we were in Ndombe’s district we had charge of an establishment employing 140 natives, more or less. Among these natives was one Casati. I think he was a Zappo Zap.