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    the charges of
    old chambers. Mr. Tippet, an intelligent coloured man from the
    States, who has been living thirteen years on the Gaboon, since
    the age of fourteen, and who acts as native trader to Mr. R.B.N.
    Walker, for ivory, ebony, rubber, and other produce, escorted me
    to his extensive establishment. At length I am amongst the man-
    eaters.





    Chapter IX.

    A Specimen Day with the Fán Cannibals.



    At 5 a.m. on the next day, after a night with the gnats and rats,
    I sallied forth in the thick "smokes," and cast a nearer look
    upon my cannibal hosts. And first of the tribal name. The Mpongwe
    call their wild neighbours Mpángwe; the Europeans affect such
    corruptions as Fánwe, Panwe, the F and P being very similar,
    Phaouin and Paouen (Pawen). They call themselves Fán, meaning
    "man;" in the plural, Bafan. The n is highly nasalized: the
    missionaries proposed to express it by "nh" which, however,
    wrongly conveys the idea of aspiration; and "Fan," pronounced
    after the English fashion, would be unintelligible to them.

    The village contains some 400 souls, and throughout the country
    the maximum would be about 500 spears, or 4,000 of both sexes,
    whilst the minimum is a couple of dozen. It is pleasantly
    situated on the left bank of the Mbokwe River, a streamlet here
    some 50 feet broad, whose water rises 6 feet 10 inches under the
    tidal influence. The single street, about half a mile long, is
    formed by two parallel rows of huts, looking upon a cleared line
    of yellow clay, and provided with three larger sheds--the palaver
    houses. The Fán houses resemble those of the Mpongwe; in fact,
    the tribes, beginning at the Camarones River, build in much the
    same style, but all are by no means so neat and clean as those of
    the seaboard. A thatch, whose projecting eaves form deep shady
    verandahs, surmounts walls of split bamboo, supported by raised
    platforms of tamped earth, windows being absent and chimneys
    unknown; the ceiling is painted like coal tar by oily soot, and
    two opposite doors make the home a passage through which no one
    hesitates to pass. The walls are garnished with weapons and nets,
    both skilfully made, and the furniture consists of cooking
    utensils and water-pots, mats for bedding, logs of wood for seats
    and pillows, and lumps of timber or dwarf stools, neatly cut out
    of a single block. Their only night-light--that grand test of
    civilization--is the Mpongwe torch, a yard of hard, black gum,
    mixed with and tightly bound up in dried banana leaves. According
    to some it is acacia; others declare it to be the "blood" of the
    bombax, which is also used for caulking. They gather it in the
    forest, especially during the dries, collect it in hollow
    bamboos, and prepare it by heating in the neptune, or brass pan.
    The odour is pleasant, but fragments of falling fire endanger the
    hut, and trimming must be repeated every ten minutes. The sexes
    are not separated; as throughout intertropical Africa, the men
    are fond of idling at their clubs; and the women, who must fetch
    water and cook, clean the hut, and nurse the baby, are seldom
    allowed to waste time. They are naturally a more prolific race
    than those inhabiting the damp, unhealthy lowlands, and the
    number of the children contrasts pleasantly with the "bleak
    house" of the debauched Mpongwe, who puts no question when his
    wife presents him with issue.

    In the cool of the morning Fitevanga, king of Mayyán, lectured me
    upon the short and simple annals of the Fán. In 1842 the first
    stragglers who had crossed the Sierra del Crystal are said to
    have been seen upon the head waters of the Gaboon. I cannot,
    however, but suspect that they are the "Paämways" of whom Bowdich
    ("Sketch of Gaboon," p. 429) wrote in the beginning of the
    century, "All the natives on this route are said to be cannibals,
    the Paämways not so voraciously as the others, because they
    cultivate a large breed of dogs for their eating." Mr. W. Winwood
    Reade suspects them to be an offshoot of the great Fulah race,
    and there is nothing in point of dialect to disprove what we must
    at present consider a pure conjecture. "The Fulah pronouns have
    striking analogies with those of the Yoruba, Accra, Ashantee, and
    Timmanee, and even of the great Kaffir class of dialects, which
    reaches from the equator to the Cape," wrote the late learned E.
    Norris, in his "Introduction to the Grammar of the Fulah
    Language" (London: Harrison, 1854).

    According to the people of the upper river the Fán were expelled
    by the Bati or Batti--not "Bari" as it has been written-from
    their ancient seats; and they are still pushing them seawards.
    The bushmen are said to live seven to ten short marches (seventy
    to a hundred miles) to the east, and are described by Mr. Tippet,
    whom they have visited, as a fine, tall, slender, and light-
    skinned people, who dress like the Fán, but without so much
    clothing, and who sharped the teeth of both sexes. Dr. Barth
    heard of the Bati, and Herr Petermann's map describes them[FN#20]
    as "Pagans, reported to be of a white colour, and of beautiful
    shape, to live in houses made of clay, to wear cloth of their own
    making, and to hold a country from which a mountain is visible to
    the south-west, and close to the sea." The range in question may
    be the Long Qua (Kwa), which continues the Camarones block to the
    north-east, and the Batis may have passed south-westward from
    Southern Adamáwa.

    The Fán were accompanied in their seaward movement by the Osheba
    or 'Sheba, the Moshebo and Moshobo of M. du Chaillu's map. They
    are said to be a tribe of kindred blood and warlike tastes,
    speaking a remarkably guttural tongue, but intelligible to the
    Mpángwe. They too were doubtless pressed forward by the Inner
    Bati, who are.also affected by the Okáná, the Yefá, and the
    Sensobá. The latter are the innermost known to my negro
    informants, and their sheep and goats have found their way to the
    Gaboon: they are doughty elephant-hunters, and they attack the
    Njína, although they have no fire-arms. The Mpangwe deride the
    savagery of these races, who have never heard of a man riding a
    horse or an ass, which the Mpongwes call Cavala and Buro burro).
    The names of these three races, which are described as brave,
    warlike, and hospitable to strangers, will not be found on any
    map; indeed the regions east of the Gaboon belong to the great
    white blot of inter-tropical Africa, extending from north
    latitude 7 degrees to south latitude 5 degrees. Major de Ruvignes
    heard also of a tribe called Lachaize (Osheba?) which excels the
    Fán in strength and courage as much as the latter do the coast
    tribes: a detachment of them had settled near one of the chief
    Mpángwe towns, "Mboma." Some days after his arrival he saw
    several of these people, and describes them as giants, compared
    with the negro races to which his eye was accustomed. The general
    stature varied from six feet to six feet four inches; their
    complexion was a light café au lait; their hair was ornamented
    with cowries, strung so thickly as to suggest a skull-cup, whilst
    long streamers of elephants' tails, threaded with the Cypraea and
    brass rings, hung down from the head behind the ears, covering
    the nape of the neck. All these, we may observe, are Congo
    customs. In their manufacture of iron, dug by themselves, they
    resemble the cannibals.

    The Fán have now lodged themselves amongst the less warlike,
    maritime, and sub-maritime tribes, as the (Ashantis) Asiante
    lately did in Fante-land; now they visit the factories on the
    estuary, and wander as far as the Ogobe. In course of time, they
    will infallibly "eat up" the Bákele, as the latter are eating up
    the Mpongwe and Shekyani. They have their own names for
    neighbouring tribes: the Mpongwe, according to Bowdich, called
    the Shekyani, and the inner tribes "Boolas, a synonym of Dunko in
    Ashantee;" hence, probably, the "Bulous" of Mr. Hutchinson (p.
    253), "a tribe on the Guergay Creek, who speak a different
    language from the Mpongwes." The Fán call the Mpongwes, Báyok;
    the Bákele, Ngon; the Shekyani, Besek; and the Gaboon River,
    Aboka. The sub-tribes of cannibals, living near my line of march,
    were named to me as follows:--1. The Lálá (Oshebas?), whose chief
    settlement, Sánkwí, is up the Mbokwe River; 2. their neighbours,
    the Esánvímá; 3. the Sánikiya, a bush tribe; 4. the Sákulá, near
    Mayyán; 5. the Esobá, about Fakanjok; 6. the Esonzel of the Ute,
    or Autá village; 7. the Okola, whose chief settlement is Esámási;
    and 8. the Ashemvon, with Asya for a capital.

    From M. du Chaillu's illustrations (pp. 74, 77) I fully expected
    to see a large-limbed, black-skinned, and ferocious-looking race,
    with huge mustachios and plaited beards. A finely made, light-
    coloured people, of regular features and decidedly mild aspect,
    met my sight.

    The complexion is, as a rule, chocolate, the distinctive colour
    of the African mountaineer and of the inner tribes; there are
    dark men, as there would be in England, but the very black are of
    servile origin. Few had any signs of skin-disease; I saw only one
    hand spotted with white, like the incipient Morphetico (leper) of
    the Brazil. Many, if bleached, might pass for Europeans, so
    "Caucasian" are their features; few are negro in type as the
    Mpongwe, and none are purely "nigger" like the blacks of maritime
    Guinea and the lower Congoese. And they bear the aspect of a
    people fresh from the bush, the backwoods; their teeth are
    pointed, and there is generally a look of grotesqueness and
    surprise. When I drank tea, they asked what was the good of
    putting sugar in tobacco water. The hair is not kinky,
    peppercorn-like, and crisply woolly, like that of the Coast
    tribes; in men, as well as in women, it falls in a thick curtain,
    nearly to the shoulders, and it is finer than the usual
    elliptical fuzz. The variety of their perruquerie can be rivalled
    only by that of the dress and ornament. The males affect plaits,
    knobs, and horns, stiff twists and upright tufts, suddenly
    projecting some two inches from the scalp; and, that analogies
    with Europe might not be wanting, one gentleman wore a queue,
    zopf, or pigtail, bound at the shoulders, not by a ribbon, but by
    the neck of a claret bottle. Other heads are adorned with single
    feathers, or bunches and circles of plumes, especially the red
    tail-plumes of the parrot and the crimson coat of the Touraco
    (Corythrix), an African jay; these blood-coloured spoils are a
    sign of war. The Brazilian traveller will be surprised to find
    the coronals of feathers, the Kennitare (Acangátara) of the Tupí-
    Guarani race, which one always associates with the New World. The
    skull-caps of plaited and blackened palm leaf, though common in
    the interior, are here rare; an imitation is produced by tressing
    the hair longitudinally from occiput to sinciput, making the head
    a system of ridges, divided by scalp-lines, and a fan-shaped tuft
    of scarlet-stained palm frond surmounts the poll. I noticed a
    fashion of crinal decoration quite new to me.

    A few hairs, either from the temples, the sides or the back of
    the head, are lengthened with tree-fibres, and threaded with red
    and white pound-beads, so called by Europeans because the lb.
    fetches a dollar. These decorations fall upon the breast or back;
    the same is done to the thin beard, which sprouts tufty from both
    rami of the chin, as in the purely nervous temperament of Europe;
    and doubtless the mustachios, if the latter were not mostly
    wanting, would be similarly treated. Whatever absurdity in hair
    may be demanded by the trichotomists and philopogons of Europe, I
    can at once supply it to any extent from Africa--gratis.
    Gentlemen remarkable by a raie, which as in the Scotch terrier
    begins above the eyes and runs down the back, should be grateful
    to me for this sporting offer.

    Nothing simpler than the Fán toilette. Thongs and plaits of goat,
    wild cat, or leopard skin gird the waist, and cloth, which is
    rare, is supplied by the spoils of the black monkey or some other
    "beef." The main part of the national costume, and certainly the
    most remarkable, is a fan of palm frond redolent of grease and
    ruddled with ochre, thrust through the waist belt; while new and
    stiff the upper half stands bolt upright and depends only when
    old. It suggests the "Enduap" (rondache) of ostrich-plumes worn
    by the Tupi-Guarani barbarians of the Brazil, the bunchy caudal
    appendages which made the missionaries compare them with pigeons.
    The fore part of the body is here decked with a similar fan, the
    outspread portion worn the wrong way, like that behind. The
    ornaments are seed-beads, green or white, and Loangos (red
    porcelain). The "bunch" here contains 100 to 120 strings, and up
    country 200, worth one dollar; each will weigh from one to three,
    and a wealthy Fán may carry fifteen to forty-five pounds. The
    seed-bead was till lately unknown; fifteen to twenty strings make
    the "bunch." There is not much tattooing amongst the men, except
    on the shoulders, whilst the women prefer the stomach; the
    gandin, however, disfigures himself with powdered cam-wood, mixed
    with butter-nut, grease, or palm oil--a custom evidently derived
    from the coast-tribes. Each has his "Ndese," garters and armlets
    of plaited palm fibre, and tightened by little cross-bars of
    brass; they are the "Hibás" which the Bedawin wear under their
    lower articulations as preservatives against cramp. Lastly, a
    Fetish horn hangs from the breast, and heavy copper rings
    encumber the wrists and ankles. Though unskilful in managing
    canoes--an art to be learned, like riding and dancing, only in
    childhood--many villagers affect to walk about with a paddle,
    like the semi-aquatic Kru-men. Up country it is said they make
    rafts which are towed across the stream by ropes, when the
    swiftness of the current demands a ferry. The women are still
    afraid of the canoe.

    All adult males carry arms, and would be held womanish if they
    were seen unweaponed. These are generally battle-axes, spears
    cruelly and fantastically jagged, hooked and barbed, and curious
    leaf-shaped knives of archaic aspect; some of the latter have
    blades broader than they are long, a shape also preserved by the
    Mpongwe. The sheaths of fibre or leather are elaborately
    decorated, and it is chic for the scabbard to fit so tight that
    the weapon cannot be drawn for five minutes; I have seen the same
    amongst the Somal. There are some trade-muskets, but the "hot-
    mouthed weapon" has not become the national weapon of the Fán.
    Bows and arrows are unknown; the Náyin or cross-bow peculiar to
    this people, and probably a native invention, not borrowed, as
    might be supposed, from Europe, is carried only when hunting or
    fighting: a specimen was exhibited in London with the gorillas.
    The people are said sometimes to bend it with the foot or feet
    like the Tupí Guaranís, the Jivaros, and other South Americans.
    Suffice it to remark of this weapon, with which, by the by, I
    never saw a decent shot made, that the détente is simple and
    ingenious, and that the "Ebe" or dwarf bolt is always poisoned
    with the boiled root of a wild shrub. It is believed that a graze
    is fatal, and that the death is exceedingly painful: I doubt both
    assertions. Most men also carry a pliable basket full of bamboo
    caltrops, thin splints, pointed and poisoned. Placed upon the
    path of a bare-footed enemy, this rude contrivance, combined with
    the scratching of the thorns, and the gashing cuts of the grass,
    must somewhat discourage pursuit. The shields of elephant hide
    are large, square, and ponderous. The "terrible war-axe" is the
    usual poor little tomahawk, more like a toy than a tool.

    After a bathe in the muddy Mbokwe, I returned to the village, and
    found it in a state of ferment. The Fán, like all inner African
    tribes, with whom fighting is our fox-hunting, live in a chronic
    state of ten days' war, and can never hold themselves safe; this
    is the case especially where the slave trade has never been heard
    of. Similarly the Ghazwah ("Razzia") of the Bedawin is for
    plunder, not for captives. Surprises are rare, because they will
    not march in the dark. Battles are not bloody; after two or three
    warriors have fallen their corpses are dragged away to be
    devoured, their friends save themselves by flight, and the weaker
    side secures peace by paying sheep and goats. On this occasion
    the sister of a young "brave" had just now been killed and
    "chopped" by the king of Sánkwí, a neighbouring settlement of
    Oshebas, and the bereaved brother was urging his comrades with
    vociferous speeches to "up and arm." Usually when a man wants
    "war," he rushes naked through his own village, cursing it as he
    goes. Moreover, during the last war Mayyán lost five men to three
    of the enemy; which is not fair, said the women, who appeared
    most eager for the fray. All the youths seized their weapons; the
    huge war-drums, the hollowed bole of a tree fringed with Nyáre
    hide, was set up in the middle of the street; preparations for
    the week of singing and dancing which precedes a campaign were
    already in hand, and one war-man gave earnest of blood-shed by
    spearing a goat the property of Mr. Tippet. It being our interest
    that the peace should be kept till after my proposed trip into
    the interior, I repaired to the palaver-house and lent weight to
    the advice of my host, who urged the heroes to collect ivory,
    ebony, and rubber, and not to fight till his stores were filled.
    We concluded by carrying off the goat. After great excitement the
    warriors subsided to a calm; it was broken, however, two days
    afterwards by the murder of a villager, the suspected lover of a
    woman whose house was higher up the Mbokwe River; he went to
    visit her, and was incontinently speared in the breast by the
    "injured husband." If he die and no fine be paid, there will be
    another "war."

    I made careful inquiry about anthropophagy amongst the Fán, and
    my account must differ greatly from that of M. du Chaillu. The
    reader, however, will remember that Mayyán is held by a
    comparatively civilized race, who have probably learned to
    conceal a custom so distasteful to all their neighbours, white
    and black; in the remoter districts cannibalism may yet assume
    far more hideous proportions. Since the Fán have encouraged
    traders to settle amongst them, the interest as well as the
    terrors of the Coast tribes, who would deter foreigners from
    direct dealings, has added new horrors to the tale; and yet
    nothing can exceed the reports of older travellers.

    During my peregrinations I did not see a single skull. The
    chiefs, stretched at full length, and wrapped in mats, are buried
    secretly, the object being to prevent some strong Fetish medicine
    being made by enemies from various parts of the body. In some
    villages the head men of the same tribe are interred near one
    another; the commonalty are put singly and decently under ground,
    and only the slave (Máká) is thrown as usual into the bush. Mr.
    Tippet, who had lived three years with this people, knew only
    three cases of cannibalism; and the Rev. Mr. Walker agreed with
    other excellent authorities, that it is a rare incident even in
    the wildest parts--perhaps opportunity only is wanted. As will
    appear from the Fán's bill of fare, anthropophagy can hardly be
    caused by necessity, and the way in which it is conducted shows
    that it is a quasi-religious rite practised upon foes slain in
    battle, evidently an equivalent of human sacrifice. If the whole
    body cannot be carried off, a limb or two is removed for the
    purpose of a roast. The corpse is carried to a hut built
    expressly on the outskirts of the settlement; it is eaten
    secretly by the warriors, women and children not being allowed to
    be present, or even to look upon man's flesh; and the cooking
    pots used for the banquet must all be broken. A joint of "black
    brother" is never seen in the villages: "smoked human flesh" does
    not hang from the rafters, and the leather knife-sheaths are of
    wild cow; tanned man's skin suggests only the tannerie de Meudon,
    an advanced "institution." Yet Dr. Schweinfurth's valuable
    travels on the Western Nile prove that public anthropophagy can
    co-exist with a considerable amount of comfort and, so to speak,
    civilization--witness the Nyam-Nyam and Mombattu (Mimbuttoo). The
    sick and the dead are uneaten by the Fán, and the people shouted
    with laughter when I asked a certain question.

    The "unnatural" practice, which, by the by, has at different ages
    extended over the whole world, now continues to be most prevalent
    in places where, as in New Zealand, animal food is wanting; and
    everywhere pork readily takes the place of "long pig." The damp
    and depressing atmosphere of equatorial Africa renders the
    stimulus of flesh diet necessary. The Isángú, or Ingwánba, the
    craving felt after a short abstinence from animal food, does not
    spare the white traveller more than it does his dark guides; and,
    though the moral courage of the former may resist the
    "gastronomic practice" of breaking fast upon a fat young slave,
    one does not expect so much from the untutored appetite of the
    noble savage. On the eastern parts of the continent there are two
    cannibal tribes, the Wadoe and the Wabembe; and it is curious to
    find the former occupying the position assigned by Ptolemy (iv.
    8) to his anthropophagi of the Barbaricus Sinus: according to
    their own account, however, the practice is modern. When weakened
    by the attacks of their Wákámbá neighbours, they began to roast
    and eat slices from the bodies of the slain in presence of the
    foe. The latter, as often happens amongst barbarians, and even
    amongst civilized men, could dare to die, but were unable to face
    the horrors of becoming food after death: the great Cortez knew
    this

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