Mbutu

“ His quick eye noticed that Mbutu wore the burnous and turban of an Arab. With a leaping heart he saw in a flash of thought his way made plain. It involved manifold risks. "Never venture never win," he said to himself, and proceeded to put his plan into operation. Tying the knife again to the rod, but at an angle to form a crook, he let it down, and hooked up the severed cords that lay at the foot of the tree. He swiftly knotted them to form two strong ropes. Then bidding Mbutu secure the knife and follow him, he crept cautiously along the bough towards the hut. ”

“ They carried bows and arrows, and one, who appeared to be their chief, had a light spear in addition. Without turning their heads they rapidly crossed the glade, and disappeared like gnomes in the forest on the other side.
Mbutu heaved a sigh of relief.
"Bambute!" he said. "No see us dis time; plenty poison dem arrows."
"So those are your pigmies, eh? Upon my word, Mbutu, they looked quite an interesting lot of little fellows. I liked that song of theirs much better than the 'man all alone', you know. We have a saying in my country, 'little and good'; many a little man has been a hero. ”

“ At two he was up again, going the round of the sentries, and he ordered Mwonda to get what sleep he could before dawn. He had expected that by this time the eight hundred men from the village would have joined him, but when at three o'clock there was still no sign of them he called Mbutu to him.
"You must go and hurry on the advance of those eight hundred men," he said. "We have tremendous odds against us, and it may make all the difference in the world to have those men. ”

“ On the contrary, though there is a certain physical resemblance among those tribes who speak clearly-marked Bantu dialects (the Babangi of the upper Congo, the people of the Great Lakes, the Ova-herero, the Ba-tonga, Zulu-Kaffirs, Awemba and some of the East Coast tribes) , there is nevertheless a great diversity in outward appearance, shape of head and other physical characteristics, among the negroes who inhabit Bantu Africa. Some tribes speaking Bantu languages are dwarfs or dwarfish, and belong to the group of Forest Pygmies. Others betray relationship to the Hottentots ”

“ The Bantu, who include, among other better known tribes, the Zulus, Basutos, Matabele, Makua, Wa-swahili, Wa-nyamwezi, Ba-ganda, Ba-congo, Uepongwé, Fang, etc., present a great variety of types, due, no doubt, to divers mixtures of race, which, as a rule, it is difficult to trace very far back. Their manner of life seems to depend chiefly on the country they live in; they are farmers, shepherds, and fishermen. Certain tribes, such as the Ba-ganda, have formed, and still form, large communities with regular institutions, generally in the form of an autocratic government. ”

“ The names by which these people are called vary in each locality, but the most widely used term is Batwa. The name Bantu is the word meaning people in a large area of Central Africa. The singular of this is Muntu, meaning a man. These two terms apply to the large or normal people, not to the pygmies. But curiously enough, the name Batwa is the plural for people with the Batwa pygmies, and the singular of this is Mutwa. These last two terms seem to the writer to be diminutives of the words Bantu and Muntu, so that they mean little people and little man, respectively. ”

“ Over nearly all this area the Bantu swept; and they assimilated or absorbed the vast majority of the preceding populations, of which, physically or linguistically, the only survivors are the scattered tribes of pygmies in the forests of south-west Nile land, Congo basin and Gabun, the central Sudanese of the N.E. Congo, a few patches of quasi-Hottentot, Hamitic and Nilotic peoples between Victoria Nyanza and the Zanzibar coast, and the Bushmen and Hottentots of south-west Africa. ”

“ Thus in outline was seen the mission of The People—La Bantu as they called themselves. They migrated, they settled, they tore down, and they learned, and they in turn were often overthrown by succeeding tribes of their own folk. They rule with their tongue and their power all Africa south of the equator, save where the Europeans have entered. They have never been conquered, although the gold and diamond traders have sought to debauch them, and the ivory and rubber capitalists have cruelly wronged their weaker groups. ”

“ The slave is thrown out into the bush—no one will take the trouble to dig a hole for him.
The industry of the Mpongwe is that of the African generally; every man is a host in himself; he builds and furnishes his house, he makes his weapons and pipes, and he ignores division of labour, except in the smith and the carpenter; in the potter, who works without a wheel, and in the dyer, who knows barks, and who fixes his colours with clay. The men especially pride themselves upon canoe-making; the favourite wood is the buoyant Okumeh or bombax, that monarch of the African forest. ”

“ In the north-west of the Bantu field, in the region between Cameroon and the north-western basin of the Congo, the Cross river and the Benue, there is an area of great extent occupied by languages of a “semi-Bantu” character, such as Nki, Mbudikum, Akpa, Mbe, Bayoñ, Manyañ, Bafut and Banshō, and the Munshi, Jaráwa, Kororofa, Kamuku and Gbari of the central and western Benue basin. The resemblances to the Bantu in certain word-roots are of an obvious nature; and prefixes in a very simple form are generally used for singular and plural, but the rest of the concord is very doubtful. ”

“ The legends and traditions of the Bantu peoples themselves invariably point to a northern origin, and a period, not wholly removed from their racial remembrance, when they were strangers in their present lands. Seemingly the Bantu, somewhat early in their migration down the east coast, took to the sea, and not merely occupied the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar, but travelled as far afield as the Comoro archipelago and even the west coast of Madagascar. ”

“ The rest of the group was split up into tribes, little larger than joint families, which treated all strangers as enemies, and held their lands at the point of the spear.
The Mbau people settled upon the coast about a mile from the islet now called by their name, but then known as Mbutoni, which is connected with the mainland by a coral reef fordable at high water. Upon the islet lived two tribes of fishermen, named Levuka and Mbutoni, who were supplied with vegetable food by the inland chiefs in return for fish. ”

“ At the present day the population is, as a rule, of a black or chocolate-coloured Negro type, and belongs, linguistically, entirely and exclusively to the Bantu family. The languages spoken offer several very interesting forms of Bantu speech, notably in the districts between the north end of Lake Nyasa, the south end of Lake Tanganyika, and the river Luapula. ”

“ After the gods and goddesses of Mbau had assembled in solemn council, they decided that it would be best to make living people who could be happy on the isles situated away down beneath the sun. ‘So shall it be,’ they all muttered, as they stalked across the magic mountains of Mburoto, where they at once began to gather wonderful flowers and weeds, stones, bits of fire, and cloudy skeins of moonlight and starlight. For it was from the essential materials of Paradise that they must make the children of the world that was beneath the sun. ”

“ The other day I heard of some exceedingly wicked white men who pretend to tell people about God, white men who will give you medicine if you ask for it, and will teach you in a school how to read and write, and will even take you into their houses and clothe and feed you. Beware of 18those white men, for they are only trying to secure you, and you will soon die and become their slaves in Mputu. The other white men say: ‘We have come for rubber and ivory,’ and we receive plenty of trade goods from them in return for our rubbish ”

“ IV. The Bantus inhabit the vast area from about Lake Victoria, comprising Eastern Equatorial and South Central Africa. Of the Equatorial tribes, the Ugandas are generally the finest types and the most progressive. Stanley tells us that he found them to be fine craftsmen. Even more than elsewhere, Uganda is a land of musicians, who have developed a great variety of native musical instruments. The Congo region also produces a fine race, physically superior to any of their kinsmen. In the mountains of the region “one sees magnificent specimens of human beings, both male and female. ”

“ The Baganda are dark-skinned Africans. They all belong to one tribe and speak one language, but all around them are other Africans belonging to different tribes and speaking different languages. About sixty years ago, when the grandfathers of the men who are alive now were still young, the first Europeans went to Uganda. Until that time the tribes in Central Africa had spent most of their time fighting one another, killing many and making others slaves. Some of these slaves were sold to the Arabs to take away to Zanzibar and across the sea, or to take across the desert to Egypt. ”

“ Of these Uganda on the north-west shores of Victoria Nyanza, Cazembe and Muata Hianvo (or Yanvo) may be mentioned. The two last-named kingdoms occupied respectively the south-eastern and south-western parts of the Congo basin. In all this vast region the Negro and Negro-Bantu races predominated, for the most part untouched by Mahommedanism or Christian influences. They lacked political cohesion, and possessed neither the means nor the inclination to extend their influence beyond their own borders. The exploitation of Africa continued to be entirely the work of alien races. ”

“ Thus (in the purer forms of Bantu languages) muntu means “a man,” bantu means “men,” kintu means “a thing,” bintu “things,” kantu means “a little thing,” tuntu “little things,” and so on. This term Bantu has been often criticized, but no one has supplied a better, simpler designation for this section of Negro languages, and the name has now been definitely consecrated by usage. ↑ In Luganda and other languages of Uganda and the Victoria Nyanza, and also in Runyoro on the Victoria Nile, the word for “fowl” is enkoko. In Ki-Swahili of Zanzibar it is kuku. In Zulu it is inkuku. ”

“ Devoted to trade and become a people of brokers, of go-betweens, of middle-men, the Mpongwe have now acquired an ease and propriety, a polish and urbanity of manner which contrasts strongly with the Kru-men and other tribes, who, despite generations of intercourse with Europeans, are rough and barbarous as their forefathers. The youths used to learn English, which they spoke fluently and with tolerable accent, but always barbarously ”

“ All the rest are natives, belonging mainly to the Basuto and Bechuana branches of the Bantu family, and consequently allied in speech and to a large extent in physique to their Zulu-Kaffre neighbours. A considerable number of these natives have abandoned the tribal state and taken service, either freely or by compulsion, with the whites as farm labourers in the rural districts, and as domestic servants in the towns, and are now also largely employed in mining operations. ”

“ At the same time, contact with the slave-dealer has increased cupidity and has diminished hospitality: the African loses all sense of savage honour, without learning to replace it by commercial honesty, and all his ingenuity is devoted to the contrivance and the carrying out of ‘avanies.’ But where, on the other hand, the explorer must hew his own way—such was the case with Paul du Chaillu from the Gaboon region, and with myself up the Congo river—and where there is no prescriptive right of transit even for pay, the adventure waxes far more difficult and dangerous. ”

“ To these migrations were added attacks from the Nile Negroes to the north and the Bantu invaders from the south. This has led to great differences among the groups of the population and in their customs. Some are fierce mountaineers, occupying hilly plateaus six thousand feet above the sea level; others, like the Wa Swahili, are traders on the coast. There are the Masai, chocolate-colored and frizzly-haired, organized for war and cattle lifting; and Negroids like the Gallas, who, blending with the Bantus, have produced the race of modern Uganda. ”

“ What Schweinfurth and Junker, Emin and Casati, have said about the Monbuttu, Niam Niam, and Momvu, may with a few fine shades of difference, be said about the Bangala, the Wyyanzi, the Batomba, the Basoko, the Baburu, the Bakumu, and Balessé. One tribe more compact in organisation may possess a few superior characteristics to one which has suffered misfortunes, and been oppressed by more powerful neighbours, but in the main I see no difference whatever. They own no cattle, but possess sheep, goats, and domestic fowls. ”

“ Uganda and British East Africa can show enormous tracts of park land, where European enterprise is engaged in cattle rearing, and native tribes such as the Masai rely on their flocks and herds for a living. In no part of the world, not even in the Amazon valley, are the forests more dense than those of Uganda, where the traveller finds Bantu tribes existing much as they have done for thousands of years. ”

“ Early in the eighteenth century there seems to have been an upheaval among the inland tribes of Vitilevu which sent forth a stream of emigrants to the coast, whether as fugitives, or as voluntary exiles in search of new lands, there is no tradition to show. This event was destined to have a tremendous influence upon the political destiny of the islands, for among the emigrants was the tribe of Mbau, sturdy mountain warriors, still bearing in their physiognomy and dark complexion the proof of their Melanesian blood and their late arrival in the sphere of Polynesian influence. ”