African tribes

“ Of all the various tribes, nations, colours, and races of men who inhabit this immense country, there is not one which has not its enemy; and the universal creed of Africa seems to be, that the freedom and happiness of one tribe rest upon the slavery and misery of another. ”

“ Inasmuch as the history of most African tribes must ever remain unknown to us, their legends and all that is included in their folk-lore possess additional anthropological value as a medium through which to study the African mind.
The African, despite his degradation, is interesting; and that, not merely as an object of religious endeavour, but on the human level, as a man. ”

“ But, on the other side, it may be alleged that the African has been in existence from time immemorial—that he has been in contact with the civilization of ancient and modern Egypt—with Christianity—with the ancient Tyrians and Carthaginians—with the Arabs—with the Spaniards, Portuguese, and British, and yet the African tribes remain almost as savage now as when they first were known. ”

“ The numerous Central African tribes, as they exist to-day, exhibit marked differences in height, shape, language, habits, customs, and even in colour, some being an intense black, some of a chocolate hue, some reddish brown, and some of a bronze aspect. ”

“ In a month, his tribes awoke from their stupor with one of those fiery spasms that are not uncommon in Africa, and, missing their “white man” and his merchandise, rose in a mass, and, without a word of warning, sacrificed the twin varlets of the beach and restored their lawful prince. ”

“ The past is silent of any negro people who possessed military and civil organization, who cultivated the arts at home, or conducted a regular commerce with their neighbors. No African general has marched south of the desert, from the waters of the Nile to the Niger and Senegal, to unite by conquest the scattered territories of barbarous tribes into one great and homogeneous kingdom. ”

“ Spreading over it and around its beautiful waters are the most intelligent and industrious of the native African tribes, their native industry and enterprise yet almost undisturbed by the [p. 241] busy excitement of civilization. Hence there may fairly be drawn something like a sample of the real African native character and condition. They live in families; among them the family tie and the rights of property are regarded; conscience pronounces criminal and offensive the same irregularities as are so regarded among civilized peoples ”

“ The Moors of this part of Africa, are divided into many separate tribes; of which the most formidable, according to what was reported to me, are those of Trasart and Il Braken, which inhabit the northern bank of the Senegal river. The tribes of Gedumah, Jafnoo, and Ludamar, though not so numerous as the former, are nevertheless very powerful and warlike; and are each governed by a chief, or king, who exercises absolute jurisdiction over his own horde, without acknowledging allegiance to a common sovereign. In time of peace, the employment of the people is pasturage. ”

“ However, a study of African culture promises richer results when it can be identified with certain Negro tribes or such Negroid tribes as have a large extraction of Negro blood. The findings of archaeology have not only a backward look but also a meaning for the future and especially is this true of African cultures, which not only throw light upon the past of the black man but may also become prophetic of his future. ”

“ The negroid branch of the African race is doubtless of mixed ancestry, descended from the true negro and from the white race inhabiting North and East Africa. It is a well-marked branch, showing plainly the mixed ancestry of the people. The various tribes occupy Nubia, the high grassy plains of East Central Africa, which include the lake region and the basin of the Upper Nile, and the vast territory which contains the watersheds of the mighty Congo and Zambesi Rivers. ”

“ However wicked may be the Christian master, how much more is slavery to be desired by the negro than any condition among these pagan hordes! We, therefore, do not deem it presumptuous to say, that so degraded is the condition of the African in his own land, that it has been elevated in proportion as it has been affected by the slave-trade, and more especially with Christian nations. The first tendencies towards civilization, and whatever dawning of mental development there may be now noticed among the African tribes, are traceable alone to that source. ”

“ When a great continent has been thus ransacked to stock a little farm, the qualities which meet are so various, and present such lively contrasts, that the term African loses all its application. From the Mandingo, the Foulah, the Jolof, through the Felatahs, the Eboes, the Mokos, the Feloups, the Coromantines, the Bissagos, all the sullen and degraded tribes of the marshy districts and islands of the Slave Coast, and inland to the Shangallas, who border upon Southwestern Abyssinia, the characters are as distinct as the profiles or the colors. ”

“ The above traits are inborn and fundamental, belonging to the race everywhere, in Africa as well as America. Strict correctness requires, however, that attention be called to the fact that there are tribal differences among African Negroes that amount almost to the national variations of Europe; and these are reflected in American Negroes, who are the descendants of these different tribes. ”

“ It cannot fail to strike the traveller as remarkable that in all African nations he meets with individuals with black, red, and yellow complexions, whilst the yellow tribes of Asia and the copper-coloured tribes of America each present a remarkable uniformity in the tone and shade of their skins. ”

“ Supposing a people dwelt around a base line of the Swiss Alps, and an irresistible army of Scandinavians swept up to them, the aboriginal inhabitants would naturally take refuge up the mountains, and in the same manner these dark-complexioned people of the true negroid type found themselves unable to resist the invasions of the Indo-African Wachwezi and the coppery-faced tribes of the forest, and sought shelter in the hills, and recesses of the Equatorial Alps, and round about them ebbed and flowed the paler tribes, and so the Wakonju were confined to their mountains. ”

“ From time immemorial they have borne and bred tribes of wandering herdsmen; they have sent out the invading hordes who, in successive waves of conquest, have overwhelmed the neighboring river lowlands of Eurasia and Africa. They have given birth in turn to Scythians, Indo-Aryans, Avars, Huns, Saracens, Tartars and Turks, as to the Tuareg tribes of the Sahara, the Sudanese and Bantu folk of the African grasslands. But whether these various peoples have been Negroes, Hamites, Semites, Indo-Europeans or Mongolians, they have always been pastoral nomads. ”

“ I love to look at American slavery in connection with the future history of that great African continent, containing one hundred and fifty millions of people. History and discovered relics make the Ethiopian race to be older even than Egypt. The once powerful nations of Northern Africa, Numidia, Mauratania, as well as the Egyptian builders of pyramids, have disappeared, or they exist only in a few Coptic tribes ”

“ These slaves are descended from various African tribes, whose characteristics are so marked as to be easily discernible even by strangers. The Congoes are small in stature, but very agile and good workers, and in past years they have been a favorite tribe. The Fantees are a larger race of negroes, hard to manage, and possessing a revengeful nature. Those from the Gold Coast are still more powerful in body, but are good-natured and well-liked by planters. The Ebros are less black than those already named, almost mulatto in complexion, and make favorite house servants. ”

“ It is within about two hundred yards of the colonial dwellings. The people are said to have committed many depredations upon the colonists; and there is an evident intention of driving them off. This is the tribe with which we are to hold a palaver.
There are two grand divisions of native Africans on the Western Coast, the Fishmen and the Bushmen; the latter being inhabitants of the interior; and the former comprising all the tribes along the sea-shore, who gain a subsistence by fishing, trading between the Bushmen and foreign vessels, and laboring on shipboard. ”

“ Hence from the remotest times the blacks were most highly esteemed os slaves, and of the tributes or presents forwarded to the Asiatic and European sovereigns, those were most acceptable which were accompanied by African captives. In Africa itself almost every community has its slaves, and amongst many tribes one half of the population is enslaved to the other. ”

“ The earlier wanderers into Africa, passing inward and southward, would give rise to those marked and many-named tribes, classed under the nomenclature of Negroes. The hot sun, and the condition of their soil, would affect their physical nature. ”

“ It is a well-known rule that savage races go under before the encroachments of white civilisation. The case of the native tribes in Southern Africa is a notable exception. Far from diminishing, every year sees their population actually increased. ”

“ Practically the rest of Africa, from the southern fringe of the Sahara and the upper valley of the Nile to the Cape, with the exception of Abyssinia and Galla and Somali-lands, is peopled by Negroes and the “transitional” tribes to which their admixture with Libyans on the north, and Semites (Arabs) and Hamites on the north-east and east, has given rise. A slight qualification of the last statement is necessary, in so far as, among the Fula in the western Sudan, and the Ba-Hima, &c., of the Victoria Nyanza, Libyan and Hamitic elements are respectively stronger than the Negroid. ”

“ South of this latitude the people are more barbarous and cruel, and the deserts of the west are inhabited by tribes more purely negro and ignorant. Moors, Mandingoes, Foolahs, and Jaloofs, principally dwell in this vast region of West-Central Africa. All these peoples are more or less European in their form and countenance; the pure negroes occasionally mixed with them being probably imported slaves or their descendants. ”

“ The interior of Africa has still its original negro population; New Guinea is still inhabited by the Papoos, and many other islands of tropical clime are still occupied by the descendants of the ancient aboriginals, although they are rather on the decrease.”
“Have those tribes that belong to the so-called inferior races improved at all in civilization?”
“Not much. With all of them progress is slow, extremely slow. ”

“ If a traveller only bears this fact in mind, and commences his researches from the Cape of Good Hope, he will be able easily, as he marches northward, to separate the less adulterated tribes from those who are so nearly allied to the true negro type as to bear classification as negroid. ”

“ The nations and tribes of negroes in Africa, who thus ultimately became the universal prey of Europeans, were themselves equally guilty in subjecting men to perpetual bondage. In the most remote times, every Ethiopian man of consequence had his slaves, just as a Greek or Roman master had. ”

“ The reason is, that Africa, southern and equatorial, is filled with a bewildering variety of singular tribes, each of which has manners and customs unique in themselves, and presents as great a contrast to its neighbors as if they were separated by seas or mountain ranges. ”

“ It was forgetfulness of God, idolatry! "Righteousness exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people."
The Negro tribes of Africa are as widely separated by mental, moral, physical, and social qualities as the Irish, Huns, Copts, and Druids are. Their location on the Dark Continent, their surroundings, and the amount of light that has come to them from the outside world, are the thermometer of their civilization. It is as manifestly improper to call all Africans Negroes as to call, Americans Indians. ”

“ It is the misfortune of Africa to be surrounded by a cordon of vitiated races, half-caste and mongrel breeds, propagated from adventurers and convicts from the other continents of the world. So that Africa learns nothing but the vices of civilization from its contact with the rest of the world. It is also certain, that the native tribes of Africa itself are more immoral and barbarous on the coasts than in the interior. ”

“ Before turning to this last and most prominent family of humankind, let us look for a moment at the other, darker races, seen vaguely as they come in contact with the whites. The negroes, set sharply by themselves in Africa, never seem to have created any progressive civilization of their own, never seem to have advanced further than we find the wild tribes in the interior of the country to-day. But the yellow or Turanian races, the Chinese and Japanese, the Turks and the Tartars, did not linger so helplessly behind. ”

“ Besides the lands occupied by the Bantu, there are to be found in the valleys of Senegal, Gambia, of the Niger, Lake Tchad, and Bénué, strong and numerous tribes of a more markedly negro type, of great stature, strongly dolichocephalous, with very black skins, rounded foreheads, thick lips, and frequent prognathism. These tribes, sufficiently varied in appearance, are often known under the generic name of Nigritians, and are divided into four principal groups: the Nilotic negroes, such as the Mittu, the Bari, the Bongo, the Sandé, etc. ”