The Black Race, as considered in the various peoples constituting its type, is distinguished by its short and woolly hair, compressed skull, flattened nose, prominent jaws, thick lips, bowed legs, and black or dark brown skin. Its members are confined to the central and southern regions of Africa and the southern parts of Asia and Oceania. The blacks found in America are the descendants of African slaves transported into the New World by Europeans.

The peoples belonging to the Black Race present great variations. Some have the type altogether peculiar to the Race we have just characterized, while others show a tendency to approach the Yellow and the White Races. The inhabitants of Guinea and Congo are quite black, but the Caffres are only excessively brown and resemble Abyssinians. The Hottentots and Bushmen are yellowish, like the Chinese, though at the same time possessing the features and physiognomy of the Negro.

As striking varieties are, therefore, observable in the Black Race as in the White, and a rigorous classification of it is consequently very difficult to establish; but as we coincide in that which has been suggested by M. d’Omalius d’Halloy, we shall separate the Black Race into two divisions, the Western and the Eastern Branches.

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CHAPTER I.
WESTERN BRANCH.

We shall notice three families in the Western Branch of the Black Race, those of the Caffres, Hottentots, and Negroes. These general groups comprise an immense number of tribes, many of them still unknown, constituting a population of about fifty-two millions.

Caffre Family.

The Caffres who inhabit the south-east of Africa form, so to speak, the stepping-stone or intermedium between the brown and the black nations. Their hair is woolly, but their complexion is not so dark nor their nose so flat as those of a Negro. Possessing more aptitude for civilization than the other black races, they are associated together in large communities, each of which obeys a chief, and though half wandering in their habits, occupy some very populous towns, of considerable extent, and resembling vast camps. Their clothing is very scanty, being reduced in the men’s case almost to a cloak, whilst the women are better covered in leathern garments.

The Caffres have great herds of cattle and devote themselves to agriculture. They cultivate maize, millet, beans and watermelons; make bread and beer, and manufacture earthenware, are able to utilize metals, employ iron and copper, and know how to turn both into tools and ornaments. They believe in a Supreme Being as well as in the immortality of the soul, but pervert their religious sentiments by divers superstitions.

The various tribes of this great family possess physical characteristics in common which are not to be found in other African nations. Caffres are far taller and stronger; they have well-proportioned limbs, a brown skin, black and woolly hair; the elevated forehead and the projecting nose of the European with the thick lips of the Negro, and the high prominent cheekbones of the Hottentot. Their language is sonorous, sweet, and harmonious, with a rumbling in its pronunciation.

We class with this family:

1. The Southern Caffres, who include the Amakisas, Amathymbas, or Tamboukis, Amapendas, and other tribes;

2. The Amazulas, Vatwas, and some other warlike wandering hordes who have lately advanced southward into the interior;

3. The inhabitants of Delagoa Bay, who bear a closer resemblance to the Negroes;

4. The Bechuanas and all the numerous tribes situated towards the north and in the interior, speaking a language of their own, called Sichuana.

The Bechuana nations are the most advanced of these four groups. The traveller Livingstone, who made a long stay in their country, has given excellent descriptions of them in his “Expedition to the Zambesi.” They have made progress in arts and civilization, inhabit large towns, have well-built houses, till the soil, and know how to preserve one year’s crop until the next. Their features tend towards an approach to those of Europeans.

In the region of the Tammahas, not far from Marhow, a town of ten thousand inhabitants, fields of corn several hundred acres in extent, testify to a rather forward state of agriculture and industry.

The Maratsi cultivate sugar and tobacco, make knives and razors, construct their houses in masonry, and ornament them with pilasters and mouldings.

We must also affiliate to the Caffres, the inhabitants of the Mozambique coast, that is to say, that portion of the east coast of Africa between the mouth of the Zambesi and Cape Delgado. Fig. 227 represents a typical native of this district.

Hottentot Family.

The Hottentots, whom the Dutch colonists call Bosjesmans or Bushmen, inhabit the southern extremity of the continent. Their skin is of a dark yellowish hue, and it is only in consequence of their features and conformation, which are those of Negroes, that the Hottentots are placed in the Black Race, for if their colour is considered, they should be ranked in the Yellow one.

Prior to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by European navigators, the Hottentots formed a numerous people, whose little tribes lived happily and tranquilly under the patriarchal rule of their chiefs or elders. Composed of from three to four hundred individuals only, these hordes roved about with their flocks and assembled in villages, the houses of which being constructed of branches of trees and reed mats, were taken asunder on the signal of departure, and removed by oxen to the site of the new encampment selected by the chief. The wildest of them had for covering a cloak of sheepskins sewn together, and their weapons were a bow and poisoned arrows. This people were active and intrepid hunters, and they found an opportunity of proving to the Europeans that they were brave in war. Their cruel invaders, the Dutch, exterminated the majority of these tribes, others were violently divested of their possessions and hurled back into the forests or the deserts, where their wretched descendants still live.

The Hottentots or Bushmen seem to be the lowest of mankind, as much by their physical characteristics as by the inferiority of their intelligence. They are of small stature, yellowish complexion, and repulsive countenance. Prominent foreheads, small sunken eyes, extremely flat noses, and thick projecting lips, form the distinctive features of their face. In consequence of their miserable state of existence, they become worn out and decrepit early in life. They delight in personal adornment, and deck ears, arms, and legs with beads, and with iron, copper, or brass rings. The women colour the whole or part of their faces; for all covering, they throw over their shoulders a kind of sheepskin mantle.

We give here (fig. 228), as an accurate specimen of the Hottentot race, the portrait (from a cast in the French Museum of Natural History) of a woman of that country, who died at Paris in 1828, and who was known by the name of “The Hottentot Venus.” The physical specialty which rendered her remarkable, and which consisted in a considerable development of the posterior muscles, was merely an individual anomaly, and does not permit of any general conclusion being drawn from it as a characteristic of the Hottentot race. The skeleton of this female is preserved entire in the Museum, where a cast of the whole body, coloured as in life, may also be seen.

The Bushman’s dwelling is a low hut or a circular cavity. They formerly lived in a species of natural caves among the rocks, and a few individuals, even to the present day, occupy these same dens, which convey to us a perfect idea of man’s habitations at the time of his first appearance on the globe.

These wild beings have never been seen engaged in any other occupation than that of making or repairing their weapons and their barbed or poisoned arrows. In times of scarcity, they eat herb-roots, ants’ eggs, locusts, and snakes. Their language is a mixture of chattering, hissing, and nasal grunts.

As regards physical type, the Hottentots are small, but well-proportioned, and erect without being muscular. They are generally extremely ugly. Their nose is usually flat, their eyes long and narrow, very wide apart from each other and with the inner angle rounded as among the Chinese, whom the Hottentots resemble besides in some other respects. Their cheekbones are high set and very prominent, and form almost an equilateral triangle with their sharp-pointed chin. Their teeth are very white. The women sometimes possess pleasing figures in early youth, but later on their breasts lengthen immoderately, their stomach becomes protuberant, and sometimes the hind part of their body is covered with an enormous mass of fat. This inclination was visible to an exaggerated excess in the case of the “Hottentot Venus;” but as we have said, she merely constituted an individual exception, and it would be erroneous to set it down as a general characteristic of the whole Hottentot family.

Negro Family.

The Negroes occupy a large part of Central and Southern Africa. Senegambia, Guinea, a portion of the western Soudan, the coast of Congo, along with the immense extent of country, as yet almost entirely unknown, which is comprised between Congo on the west and the coasts of Mozambique and Zanzibar on the east, are the dwelling-places of the Negroes, properly so called.

Guinea and Congo are the classic homes of the Negro. There live the representatives of this race, with the most characteristic and repulsive features. The belief is, that, as the incursions of Asiatic and European populations into Africa were always effected by the Isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea, the aboriginal blacks were thrust back more and more towards the west of the continent. The inhabitants of Guinea and Congo would consequently be the descendants and contemporary representatives of the primitive black stock.

Negroes are also to be found in the numerous islands of the Southern Ocean; New Guinea, New Britain, New Caledonia, Australia, Madagascar, &c., &c. In the last named large island, a vast Negro kingdom is in existence, governed by a queen, who sent ambassadors to England and France at the commencement of the present century. Finally, there are Negroes in the United States, and in the West Indies. From 1848, when slavery was declared abolished in the French possessions, the blacks have been free in those colonies, and the gradual emancipation of the Negroes which has taken place since, both in the American and Spanish territories, has completely relieved them from bondage.

We proceed to study the Negroes, firstly as regards organization, and then from the intellectual and moral stand-point.

The physiognomy of the Negro is so strongly distinctive that it is impossible not to recognize it at the first glance, even if the individual should have a fair skin. His protruding lips, low forehead, projecting teeth, woolly and half-frizzled hair, thin beard, broad, flat nose, retreating chin, and round eyes, give him a peculiar look amongst all other human races. Several are bow-legged, almost all have but little calf, half-bent knees, the body stooped forward, and a tired gait.

The masticatory muscles are more powerful in the Negro than in the White, on account of the greater length of the jaw. Their occiput is flatter than that of the White, and the great occipital hole placed further back. Dr. Madden has noticed skeletons of Negroes in Upper Egypt, showing six lumbar vertebrÆ instead of five, a fact which explains the length of their loins and shambling gait. The hips are less prominent than in a white man. We may add that in this race the trunk is not so broad as in the other human families, the arms are slightly longer in proportion, and the legs rather perceptibly bent, with flat and high placed calves.

The bones of the skull and those of the body are thicker and harder than in the other races.

The bony cavity of the pelvis is much narrower in the Negro than in the European, but it is broader towards the os sacrum, which renders delivery easy to a Negress. Accurate measurements show the upper portion of the pelvis to be a fourth wider in the European than in the Negro.

The thighs also differ in the Negro and the White, being very perceptibly flattened in the former.

The foot participates in this general ugliness of the limbs. Flat feet, which are sufficient to exempt from military service among the French, are not only no deformity in the Negro, but a normal characteristic. Instead of forming that curve which imparts elasticity to the whole frame, the under part of the Negro’s foot is flat, thus rendering it less fitted to support the body on marches. So apparent is this malformation in the black, that they say of him in America, “The sole of his foot makes a hole in the sand;” and it is easy, in consequence, to distinguish by a mere look the footprint of an European from that of a Negro. The first only shows the marks of the toes and heel, while the other is the impress of the entire sole, from one end to the other. Besides, the foot of the Negro is large and narrow, with wide divisions between the toes, while the nails are so sharp and pointed, that they resemble claws.

The complexion of the skin is one of the most apparent, though not most characteristic, attributes of the Negro race. The belief was long entertained that the colour of the blacks resulted from the prolonged action of the sun on their bodies, but observation has shown that such is not the case, and that their extremely dark hue by no means depends either on the intensity or brilliancy of the solar rays. White men are to be found in the central parts of Africa, in the Soudan and the Sahara, for instance, as well as among the Touaricks, whilst black tribes exist in countries subject to the most rigorous cold, such as Van Diemen’s Land, and New Zealand. In another direction, too, quite close to the white Icelanders and Norwegians, people with very dark skins may be seen, like the Laplanders; and in California, a country of cold latitude, the aborigines are, as we have stated, almost black.

The black colour resides in an oily, greasy principle, termed pigmentum nigrum (black pigment), which is deposited in a layer in the mucous tissue on the cuticle. This penetrates into the hair, dyeing it black, and diffuses itself throughout the entire system even to the membranes surrounding the brain. This black mucous net-work appears to protect the skin from the violent action of an African sun, and preserves it from those inflammations which are called sun-strokes in our climate.

Crossing with the White gradually diminishes the Negro’s colour, and in proportion to the preponderance of black or white in its progenitors, the offspring presents various gradations of complexion. The following are the names which according to Valmont de Bomaire are given in the colonies to the issue of the union of the two races: 1. The child of a white man and a Negress, or of a Negro and a white woman, is called a mulatto, who is neither black nor white, but of a blackish yellow hue, and who has short and frizzly black hair. 2. The offspring of a white man and a mulatto woman, or of a Negro and a mulatto woman, is termed a quadroon, who, as regards colour, is a mixture of three-quarters white with one-quarter black, or three-quarters black with one-quarter white. In the first case the complexion is fairer; in the second, darker than that of a mulatto. 3. A white man and a fair quadroon, or a Negro and a dark quadroon produce an octoroon, seven-eighths white and one-eighth black, or seven-eighths black and one-eighth white. 4. The child of a White and an octoroon, or of a Negro and a dark octoroon, is in the one case almost entirely white, in the other, nearly quite black.

Valmont de Bomaire adds, that in succeeding mixed generations (the union with the white man taking place in Europe, and that with the black man, in Senegal) the complexion would grow lighter or darker, until at last a white or a black being was brought into the world. Such is the course of physical influences and the causes of deterioration or relapse in the colour of the human species. Only four or five generations of mixed blood are required in order to render the Negro stock white, and no more are wanted to make the white black. The union of a mulatto with a quadroon or octoroon woman will produce, as may be understood, other hues approaching to white or black in proportion to the progression described above. The progeny of a black and a quadroon is termed “saltatras” in the colonies; the word signifies “a leap-backwards” or a return towards the black race.

Crossings of the Negro with individuals of the Yellow or Red Races, with Asiatic Indians or American red-skins, beget offspring of varied shades of colour, bearing different designations according to the countries. These men of colour are seen in many islands of Polynesia. Possessing neither the intelligence of whites nor the submissiveness of blacks, despised by the former and hated by the latter, they constitute an equivocal caste, with no settled position, and less disposed to labour than revolt.

The colour of his skin takes away all charm from the Negro’s countenance. What renders the European’s face pleasing is that each of its features exhibits a particular shade. The cheeks, forehead, nose, and chin of the White have each a different tinge. On the contrary all is black on an African visage, even the eyebrows, as inky as the rest, are merged in the general colour; scarcely another shade is perceptible, except at the line where the lips join each other.

The skin of Negroes is very porous, so much so that the pores show visibly; but it is far from hard in all cases, being in some instances quite the reverse, smooth, satiny, and extremely soft to the touch.

The most unpleasant thing about a Negro’s skin is the nauseous odour it emits when the individual is heated by perspiration or exercise; these emanations are as hard to endure as those which some animals exhale.

A Negro’s hair is quite peculiar. Whilst that of a White is cylindrical, the Black man’s is flat. It is also short and crisp, like the wool of a sheep, and in contradistinction to the abundant supply of Europeans, the women among whom can even trail their locks on the ground, it only attains the length of a few inches. The beard, also, is very scanty and scarcely covers the upper lip.

The eye of the Negro differs also from that of the white; the iris is so dark as almost to be confounded with the black of the pupil. In the European, the colour of the iris is so strongly marked as to render at once perceptible whether the person has black, blue, or grey eyes. Nothing similar in the case of the Negro, where all parts of the eye are blended in the same hue. Add to this that the white of the eye is always suffused with yellow in the Negro, and you will understand how this organ, which contributes so powerfully to give life to the countenance of the White, is invariably dull and expressionless in the Black Race.

Nature adapts the Negro to the torrid countries he inhabits. His constitution is in general lymphatic and lethargic. His slow, sluggish gait and invincible laziness provoke Europeans, who cannot understand so much indolence. The relaxation of the limbs of the Negro betrays itself by his inertia and drowsiness, as well as by the flabby flesh of the women (Fig. 230).

Negroes are much less subject than Europeans to the influence of stimulants. The strongest spirit, rum, pepper, the most irritant spices, only feebly rouse their inert palate. Their soft, thick, oily skin, smooth and hairless, is encrusted beneath the epidermis, as we have said, with a black mucous deposit which gives it its colour. This viscid film envelopes the nervous ramifications beneath the cuticle, thus blunting the sensibility. The fine and delicate skin of the European experiences horrible torture under the lash; but even when he is torn by leathern thongs, the bleeding weals of which are sometimes, in an excess of barbarity, rubbed with pepper and vinegar, the Negro supports this cruel usage with indifference. Some blacks are seen joining the dance after this punishment, as if nothing had happened.

Before speaking of the brain and understanding of the Negro, we should make some remarks on the facial angle observed in this race. We have said that a relatively exact judgment may be formed from the size of this angle as to the value of a race of mankind, from the intellectual point of view.[10] The more obtuse the angle, the greater indication does it afford of noble and lofty sentiments; the smaller it is, the nearer the head approaches to that of animals. A prominent forehead is the sign of a developed intellect, whilst protruding jaws reveal brute instincts. Consequently, the facial angle increases or diminishes according as the forehead or the jaws project forward. The facial angle of Europeans is about 76¹/₂ degrees, sometimes reaching 81. An angle of 90 degrees, that is to say a right angle, is found in the ancient statues of Greece. But by reason of his retreating forehead and prominent jaws the Negro only exhibits a facial angle of from 61¹/₄ to 63 degrees, approaching that of the monkey, which in those of the species to which the orang-outang and gorilla belong, is of 45 degrees.

This proportionate weakness of intelligence, revealed to us by the smallness of the facial angle in the Negro, is confirmed by an examination of his brain. The labours of anatomists of our own day have established that not only is it the bulk of the brain which corresponds relatively with intellectual activity, but that the genuine indication revealing the superiority of mind in man consists in the number and depth of the furrows or circumvolutions of the brain. Now the outlines and windings of the cerebral mass in the European are so numerous and deep that[507]
[508] they can scarcely be measured, whilst the complications in the head of the black are, as regards the same qualities, less by one half. The brain of a Negro is also perceptibly smaller than that of a White. It is the front part especially, that is to say the cerebral lobes, which is so much larger in the European, and hence the fine arch of the forehead peculiar to the White or Caucasian race.

The intellectual inferiority of the Negro is readable in his countenance, devoid of expression and mobility. The black man is a child, and like a child he is impressionable, fickle, easily affected by good treatment, and capable of self-devotion, but capable also of hatred in some cases, as well as of working out his revenge. The people of the Black Race living in a free condition in the interior of Africa, demonstrate by their habits and the state of their mind that they can hardly get beyond the level of tribe life; and on the other hand such difficulty is experienced in many colonies, in endeavouring to induce the Negroes (so indispensable has the guardianship of Europeans become to them) to maintain among themselves the benefits of civilization, that the inferiority of their intelligence, compared with that of the rest of mankind, is a fact not to be disputed.

Several instances might doubtless be adduced of Negroes who have surpassed Europeans by their capacity of mind. Generals Toussaint Louverture, Christofle, and Dessalines were no ordinary men, and Blumenbach has preserved to us the names of many illustrious blacks, among whom he mentions Jacob Captain, whose sermons, and theological writings, in Latin and Dutch, are truly remarkable. It is not from individual cases, however, but from the whole, that a judgment must be arrived at, and experience has proved that the Negroes are inferior in intelligence to all known races, not even excepting the savage people of America and the Oceanian islands.

The Negro tribes would be excessively numerous if their children lived, but negligence and laziness cause a notable proportion of their offspring to perish. The continual wars, too, in which they indulge against each other, equally impede the spread of their species, and notwithstanding the fertility of the soil in a great part of Africa, the improvidence and carelessness of the natives bring on real famines which decimate their numbers.

Another cause of depopulation that happily becomes less important every day is the trade which the blacks themselves are most eager to keep up. They sell their children for a packet of beads or for a few flasks of “fire-water.”

Thought grows sad as it carries itself back to the time, not yet very remote, when Negro traffic and slavery, which to-day form the exception, were the universal rule along the whole coast of Western Africa. Negroes then were torn ruthlessly from their country and transported to other climes to be reduced to bondage, or in other words to sacrifice life and strength for their master, and in serving him, to exhaust themselves by toil without gaining as much pity as is extended to beasts of burden. With our animals, in fact, repose succeeds fatigue and food restores vigour; whilst, in colonies subject to Europeans, dread of punishment, the lash, and the most shocking usage, subdued the Negro to forced labour.

This horrible traffic having excited universal indignation for half a century, most States decreed its abolition. France by laws passed between the years 1814 and 1848, definitively emancipated the slaves in all her possessions, and since 1860 or so, almost the whole of America has followed this example. Cruisers are now kept permanently on the coasts of Africa both by England and France, which renders the slave trade, if not impossible, at least difficult and dangerous for the grasping, barbarous men who are not afraid to devote themselves to it still.

This commerce, against which European nations have effected so much, nevertheless, reckons as its partizans the Negroes themselves. The tribes are, in fact, incessantly waging war on each other in order to take prisoners and sell them to the traders who pay prohibited visits to their shores. Even now, convoys of captives, chained together by means of forked sticks, are too often to be seen traversing the forests on their way to a slave-ship moored in some unfrequented creek.

Since the almost general abolition of slavery, many Negro tribes have been remarked to live in better accord among themselves. Fathers have some little love for their children, as they no longer entertain the hope of selling them for a bottle of rum or a glass necklace!

This bondage of the Negroes is not, we may add, a social institution of recent date. The Romans possessed black slaves, and had been preceded by the Egyptians in a custom which, at a period yet more remote, prevailed among the Assyrians and Babylonians. Three thousand years ago the Arabians and Turks carried off Negroes. They ascended the Nile in large vessels, collecting, as they went, the blacks that were delivered up to them in Nubia and Abyssinia, and returning to Lower Egypt with this cargo of human cattle, sold it for slaves.

A cruelty which occasionally approaches ferocity is the sad attribute of some African tribes. Molien said of the inhabitants of Fouta-Toro, that those Negroes had derived nothing from civilization but its vices, and the same reproach is applicable to some of the modern tribes. The natives of Dahomey, a Negro kingdom extending along the shores of the Gulf of Guinea, distinguish themselves among all other blacks by their callous and revolting inhumanity. To kill and slay is to them a pleasure, which anyone who can indulge in it rarely denies himself, and the post of executioner is sought for by the richest and most powerful in the land as affording an opportunity for the most coveted enjoyments. To form an idea of a similar excess of savagery and depravity, the shocking account should be read in the “Tour du Monde,” narrated from personal experience by Doctor RÉpin, who passed through Dahomey in 1856. We cannot attempt to reproduce here the picture of such cold-blooded barbarity.

The Negroes impose heavy labours on their women. Among them the wife is merely a helper in toil, a servant the more. Making flour and bread, tilling the ground, and the most fatiguing occupations, are the Negress’s lot in her own country; and it has been said, perhaps rightly, that the former slavery was possibly a benefit to her, as she at any rate changed tyrants. The Negress grinds the corn by placing it in a hollow stone and crushing it with a round flint, the flour falling through a hole in the stone and being received in a mat laid on the floor.

The religious notions possessed by the Negroes are very dim; they doubtless believe in a supreme God, in a creator; but addict themselves in excess to the practices of fetishism. Their fetishes are a kind of secondary divinities, subordinate to the great God, master of nature. Each person chooses for fetish whatever he likes—fire, a tree, a serpent, a jackal, water, a hog, down to a piece of wood shaped by the hand of man. The worship of the serpent is in much favour among the inhabitants of Dahomey. They construct tents and dwellings for these reptiles, rear them in great numbers, and allow them to rove about wherever they please. Immediate death would follow any attempt to kill or pursue the fetish serpents.

Belief in the power of chance or destiny predominates among these rude men. They feel that events do not depend on their own will, but upon some hidden influence which directs everything, and which it is necessary to render favourable to them. Hence the magicians and soothsayers whose duty it is to avert evil fate or hurtful destinies, and hence also the incalculable quantity of fetishes. Each Negro has his own, to which he offers sacrifice so long as he obtains something from it, and which he abandons the moment he recognizes its uselessness. Lamentable effect of the natural degradation of these races!

The sad defects of the Negro in his savage state should not cause his aptitudes to be forgotten. When he has been snatched from tribe life, or freed from the chains that weighed him down, the black manifests qualities which deserve to be brought into relief.

Let us remark firstly, that the Negroes, or the mulattoes resulting from their union with the whites, are often gifted with an extraordinary memory which gives them a great facility for acquiring languages. They are not slow to appropriate the language of the people amidst whom they are placed. They speak English in North America, Spanish in the Central and Southern parts of the New World, and Dutch at the Cape of Good Hope. They can even change their tongue with their masters. If a Dutch Negro enters the service of an Englishman, he will abandon his former idiom for that of the latter, and will forget his old mode of speech. Nay more, their memory sometimes retains widely diverse languages at the same time. Travellers have met negro traders in the centre of Africa, having connections with different nations, who expressed themselves in several tongues, and understood both Arabic and Koptic as well as Turkish.

The towns inhabited by the Negroes resemble European cities sometimes so much as to be mistaken for them; there is only a difference of degree in their civilization and knowledge when compared with those of Europe. Towns, properly so called, in the interior of Africa are however very much scattered, but travellers bring to light fresh information concerning the country every day, and the future will perhaps reveal to us particulars about the civilization of Central Africa, of which we have as yet hardly a suspicion.

Negroes are not bad accountants; they calculate mentally with great rapidity, far surpassing Europeans in this respect.

The industrial arts are pursued with some success by many black tribes. Iron can be extracted from its ores easily enough to admit of the trades of founders and blacksmiths being carried on in every Negro village, and some excellent handicraftsmen in both these callings are to be found in Senegambia and several of the interior regions.

Fermented drinks, such as beer, sorgho wine, &c., are also manufactured with considerable skill.

Negroes possess the talent of imitation to a very remarkable extent. They seize hold of and are able faithfully to mimic a person’s particular characteristics or behaviour if they show any ludicrous peculiarities. Negro humour is also generally gay and pleasant. They like to laugh at their masters and overseers, the children of the house, &c., and delight in making themselves merry at their expense.

Yet this imitative faculty inherent to blacks, does not go so far as to endow them with any artistic talents. Drawing, painting, and sculpture are unknown to Negroes, and it is impossible to infuse into them the smallest capacity for such subjects, either by lesson or advice. Their temples and dwellings are, in fact, only decorated with shapeless scratches; Africans of the present day are utterly unskilled in drawing and sculpture.

Negroes, if thus obtuse to the plastic arts, are on the contrary very easily affected by music and poetry. They sing odd and expressive recitatives at their festivals and sports, and in some Negro kingdoms a caste of singers is even to be met with, which is alleged to be hereditary, and whose members are also at the same time the chroniclers of the tribe.

Musical instruments are rather plentiful among the Africans. In addition to the drum, which holds so prominent a place in the music of the Arabs, they use flutes, triangles, bells, and even stringed instruments, with from eight to seventeen strings, the latter being supplied from the tail of the elephant. They also possess instruments fashioned from the rind of cucumbers, forming a sort of rude harp. The Mandigoes who live on the banks of the Senegal, about the middle of its course, have a species of clarionet, from four to five yards long.

“The Negroes,” says Livingstone, in his “Expedition to the Zambesi,” “have had their minstrels; they have them still, but tradition does not preserve their effusions. One of these, apparently a genuine poet, attached himself to our party for several days, and, whenever we halted, sang our praises to the villagers in smooth and harmonious numbers. His chant was a sort of blank verse, and each line consisted of five syllables. The song was short when it first began, but each day he picked up more information about us, and added to the poem, until our praises grew into an ode of respectable length. When distance from home compelled him to return, he expressed his regret at leaving us, and was, of course, paid for his useful and pleasant flatteries. Another, though less gifted son of Apollo, belonged to our own party. Every evening, while the others were cooking, talking, or sleeping, he rehearsed his songs, which contained a history of everything he had noticed among the white men, and on the journey. In composing, extempore, any new piece, he was never at a loss; for, if the right word did not come, he didn’t hesitate, but eked out the measure with a peculiar musical sound, meaning nothing at all. He accompanied his recitations on the sausa, an instrument held in the fingers, whilst its nine iron keys are pressed with the thumbs. Persons of a musical turn, too poor to buy a sausa, may be seen playing vigorously on a substitute made of a number of thick sorgho-stalks sewn together, and with keys of split bamboo. This makeshift emits but little sound, but seems to charm the player himself. When the sausa is played with a calabash as a sounding board, it produces a greater volume of sound. Pieces of shell and tin are added to make a jingling accompaniment, and the calabash is profusely ornamented.”

The music of the Negroes is not confined, it may be remarked, to simple melody. They are not satisfied with merely playing the notes sung by the voice, but have some principles of harmony. They perform accompaniments in fourths, sixths, and octaves, the other musical intervals being less familiar to them, except when sometimes employed to express irony or censure. The advanced state of music amidst the Negro tribes is all the more noticeable from the fact that among ancient European races, among the ancient Greeks, at the most brilliant epoch of their history, for instance, no idea whatever prevailed of harmony in music.

The faculties of the blacks can consequently in certain respects become developed, and it is established that Negroes who live for several generations in the towns of the colonies, and who are in perpetual contact with Europeans, improve by the connection, and gain an augmentation of their intellectual capacities.

To sum up, then, the Negro family possesses less intelligence than some others of the human race; but this fact affords no justification for the hateful persecutions to which these unfortunate people have been the victims in every age. At the present day, thanks to progress and civilization, slavery is abolished in most parts of the globe, and its last remnants will not be slow to disappear. And thus will be swept away, to the honour of humanity, a barbarous custom, the unhappy inheritance of former times, repudiated by the modern spirit of charity and brotherhood; and with it will vanish the infamous traffic which is called the slave-trade.

No little time will, however, be needed in order to confer social equality on the enfranchised Negro. We cannot well express the scorn with which the liberated blacks are treated in North and South America. They are hardly looked on as human beings, and notwithstanding the abolition of slavery, are invariably kept aloof from the white population. Centuries will be required to efface among Americans this rooted prejudice, which France herself has had some trouble in shaking off, since an edict of Louis XIV. cancelled the rank of any noble who allied himself with a Negress, or even with a mulatto woman.

The general assuagement of manners and customs will ultimately, it must be hoped, entirely obliterate these distinctions, so cruel and unjust to the unhappy people whom a fatal destiny has condemned to a state of perpetual martyrdom, without their having done anything to deserve it, beyond coming into the world beneath an African sky.

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CHAPTER II.
EASTERN BRANCH.

The Eastern Blacks, who have also been called Melanesians and Oceanian Negroes, inhabit the western part of Oceania and the south-east of Asia. Their complexion is very brown, sometimes increasing in darkness until it reaches intense black. Their hair is frizzled, crisp, flaky, and occasionally woolly. Their features are disagreeable, their figures of little regularity, and their extremities often lank. They live in tribes or small divisions, without forming themselves into nationalities.

We shall divide them into two groups, one, the Papuan Family, composed of peoples among whom the characteristics indicated above, are the most developed; the other, the Andaman Family, made up of tribes which more resemble the Brown Race, and probably result from a mixture of it with the Black one.

Papuan Family.

The Papuan Family seems to dwell only in small islands or on the coasts of larger ones. Two groups of peoples are observable in it, one, resembling the Malays, consists of the Papuans, who inhabit the New Guinea Archipelago, and the other, resembling the Tabuans, occupies the Fiji Islands, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Solomon range. We proceed to say a few words as to the manners and customs of these different sections of the Black Race.

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Papuans.—A remarkable feature presented by the Papuans, is the enormous bulk of their half-woolly hair. Their skin is dark brown, their hair black, and their beard, which is scanty, is, as well as their eyebrows and eyes, of the same colour. Though they have rather flat noses, thick lips and broad cheekbones, their countenance is by no means unpleasant. The women are more ugly than the men, their withered figures, hanging breasts, and masculine features render them disagreeable to the sight, and even the young girls have a far from attractive look.

Lesson considered the Papuans fierce, inhospitable, crafty men, but the inhabitants of Havre de Doresy and generally of the northern part of this Oceanic region, as far as the Cape of Good Hope, seemed to him of great mildness and more disposed to fly from Europeans than to hurt them. He thinks, nevertheless, that the Negroes in the south of New Guinea, pushed back into that part of the island, and whom no intermixture has altered, have preserved their savage habits and rude independence. The state of perpetual hostility in which they live renders their character distrustful and suspicious. Never did Lesson visit a village, in a small boat manned by a fair number of men, that women, children, old men, and warriors did not take to flight in their large canoes, carrying off with them their movables and most precious effects. He adds, that by good treatment and plenty of presents, people may succeed in making way with them, may be able to lull their uneasiness and establish friendly relations. The coloured Plate accompanying this part of the work represents a native of the Papuan Islands.

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Vitians.—The first accurate information about the Viti or Fiji Islands is due to Dumont d’Urville. Mr. Macdonald, an assistant-surgeon on board the English ship Herald, has published an account of his visit to Fiji, and from it we extract the following particulars.

Thakombau (fig. 234), the king, was a man of powerful and almost gigantic stature, with well-formed limbs of fine proportions. His appearance, which was further removed from the Negro type than that of other individuals of lower rank, sprung from the same stock, was agreeable and intelligent. His hair was carefully turned up, dressed in accordance with the stylish fashion of the country, and covered with a sort of brown gauze. His neck and broad chest were both uncovered, and his naked skin might be seen, of a clear black colour. Near him was his favourite wife, a rather large woman with smiling features, as well as his son and heir, a fine child of from eight to nine years old. His majesty was also surrounded at respectful distance by a crowd of courtiers, humbly cringing on their knees.

In the course of his peregrinations, Mr. Macdonald was present at a repast, consisting of pork, ignames, and taro,[11] served in wooden dishes by women. Freshwater shell-fish of the cyprine kind completed the banquet. The broth was very savoury, but the meat insipid. During the conversation which followed, the traveller became convinced that gossip is a natural gift of the Fijians. Figs. 235 and 236 represent types of these people.

The Fijians are fond of assembling to hear the local news, or to narrate old legends. Respect for their chiefs is always preserved unalterable among this people, turbulent in their behaviour, depraved in their instincts, and familiar with murder, robbery, and lying. The homage paid to their chiefs makes itself manifest both by word and action; men lower their weapons, take the worst sides of the paths, and bow humbly as one of the privileged order passes by. One of the oddest forms taken by this obsequiousness is a custom in accordance with which every inferior who sees his chief trip and fall, allows himself to stumble in his turn, in order to attract towards himself the ridicule which such an accident might have the effect of drawing upon his superior.

The different classes or castes into which the Fijian population is divided, are as follows: 1, sovereigns of several islands; 2, chiefs of single islands, or of districts; 3, village chiefs, and those of fisheries; 4, eminent warriors, but born in an inferior station, master carpenters, and heads of turtle-fisheries; 5, the common people; and 6, slaves taken in war.

The horrible custom of eating human flesh still exists in Fiji; the missionaries have succeeded in bringing about its disappearance in some parts of the island, but it remains in the interior districts, concealing itself, however, and no longer glorying in the number of victims devoured! Cannibalism does not owe its existence among the Fijians, as in most savage tribes, to a feeling of revenge pushed to the utmost limits; it arises there from an especial craving for human flesh. But as this choice dish is not sufficiently abundant to satisfy all appetites, the chiefs reserve it exclusively to themselves, and only by extraordinary favour do they give up a morsel of the esteemed delicacy to their inferiors.

The engraving (fig. 237) is taken from a sketch made by the missionary Thomas Williams, of a sort of temple used on occasions of cannibalism in Fiji. The four persons squatted in front of the edifice are victims awaiting their doom, and whose bodies will afterwards serve for the feast of these man-eaters.

Mr. Macdonald discovered that the custom of immolating widows is still in full vigour in one of the districts of the island.

Dancing is the popular diversion of the Fiji Islands. The chant by which it is usually regulated is of monotonous rhythm, its words recalling either some actual circumstance or historical event. The dancers’ movements are slow at first, growing gradually animated, and being accompanied by gestures of the hands and inflections of the body. There is always a chief to direct the performers. A buffoon is sometimes brought into the ring whose grotesque contortions bring applause from the spectators.

Two bands, one of musicians, the other of dancers, take part in the regular dances of the solemnities at Fiji (fig. 238); the first usually numbers twenty, and the other from a hundred and fifty to two hundred, individuals. These latter are covered with their richest ornaments, carry clubs or spears, and execute a series of varied evolutions, marching, halting, and running. As the entertainment draws towards its close their motions increase in rapidity, their action acquires more liveliness and vehemence, while their feet are stamped heavily on the ground, until at last the dancers, quite out of breath, ejaculate a final “Wa-oo!” and the antics cease.

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New-Caledonians.—The inhabitants of New Caledonia belong to the branch of Oceanian Negroes. This island, hidden in the Equinoctial Ocean, is a French possession, and has been marked out for the reception of those Communist insurgents and incendiaries arrested in Paris in June 1871, after the “seven days’ battle” who were sentenced to transportation by the courts-martial. We are indebted to MM. Victor de Rochas and J. Garnier for some valuable details concerning the population of the colony.

The aborigines of New Caledonia have a sooty-black skin; woolly, crisp hair and abundant beard, both black; a broad, flat nose deeply sunk between the orbits; the white of the eye bloodshot; large, turned-out lips; prominent jaws; a wide mouth; very even and perfectly white teeth; slightly projecting cheekbones;[525]
[526] a high, narrow, and convex forehead; and the head flattened between the temples. Their average stature is at least as tall as that of the French, their limbs are well-proportioned, and their development of both chest and muscles is generally considerable.

The men are not very ugly, many even showing a certain regularity of feature; and some tribes on the east coast are better favoured than the rest in this respect. Figs. 239 and 240 convey a fair idea of the male population.

The ugliness of the women is proverbial. With their shaven heads and the lobes of their ears horribly perforated or pinked, they present a revolting appearance, even when young in years. The rude toil and bad treatment to which they are subjected bring upon them premature old age. They suckle their children for a long period, for three years on the average, and sometimes for five or six.

Like all savages, the New-Caledonians possess an exquisitely keen sense of sight and hearing. They are active and capable of exerting considerable strength for a short effort, but have no lasting power. Their inability to support fatigue for any length of time doubtless arises from the nature of their nourishment. They swallow really nothing beyond sugary and feculent vegetable food, seldom eating meat, the true source of the sustainment and recuperation of strength. Their island supplies the New-Caledonians with no quadrupeds which they can capture for sustenance, and they possess no weapons suitable for killing birds.

The quantity of eatables these people can gorge at a single meal is wonderful, quite three times as much as an European would be equal to.

M. Garnier visited the village of HienghÈne. Its chief came to meet the travellers and presented to them his eldest son, while numbers of naked warriors, with blackened chests, beards, and faces, stood round in a silent and motionless group. They might have been taken for bronze statues were it not for their dark and sparkling eyes which followed the smallest gesture of the visitors.

At a signal from the chief, several youths dashed forward and in a few seconds showered down from the cocoa-trees a hail of nuts, the pulp of which in the liquid state is the most agreeable drink imaginable for allaying thirst.

The village of HienghÈne is one of the most considerable in the island. Its dwellings are shaped like beehives, and are crowned with a rude statue surmounted by a quantity of shell-fish or sometimes by skulls of enemies slain in war.

These cabins have a single opening, very low and narrow. In the evening they are filled with smoke in order to banish the mosquitoes; the narrow aperture is then shut and the occupants lay themselves down to sleep on mats, whilst the smoke, by reason of its lightness, remains floating over their heads; but to sit upright without being half smothered by it is impossible.

Great numbers of aborigines dwell along the sea-coast. They came on board M. Garnier’s vessel in crowds, bringing provisions and shell-fish, and examining everything with the greatest attention.

The natives of this tribe are of a fine type. M. Garnier noticed among the visitors several men admirably built, and with a perfectly developed muscular system; but he nevertheless remarked as a general defect of the New Caledonians, that they have too thin legs in comparison with their bodies, and calves placed higher than in Europeans.

Whether from habit, or in consequence of anatomical formation, these people assume positions at every moment which would fatigue us terribly. They sit down on their heels for whole days, and when they climb up into a cocoa-tree, or rest themselves by the way, place themselves without any effort in postures that are really surprising.

The singular fancy which some of these tribes have for clay, has been already noticed, and M. Garnier convinced himself of the reality of the fact. The earth in question, is a silicate of magnesia, greenish in colour. It is ground by the teeth into a soft, fine dust, by no means disagreeable in taste. The habit of eating this clay, is, however, far from general; women only, in certain cases of illness, take a few pinches of it.

M. Garnier had an opportunity of being present at the pilou-pilou, a dancing festival which takes place on the occasion of the igname harvest. On a piece of high but level ground, overlooking a vast plain, were seated the chiefs and old men; the crowd were assembled below, and in front of them was piled a huge heap of ignames. Thirty or forty youngsters, selected from the handsomest of the tribe, advanced and each took a load, and then ascended the plateau in a body, all dashing at full speed to lay their burdens at the feet of the chiefs. Then, still running, they returned to the great mass of ignames to carry away a fresh cargo, and so on until the whole pile disappeared.[529]
[530] They were pursued during this wild race by the yelling crowd, bounding around them with brandished weapons. Every European would have been interested in this strange spectacle; but a painter or a sculptor would have never grown weary of admiring the forms of the young performers: finer artistic models have seldom “posed” in any studio.

This fÊte was interrupted by a mock fight, during which the warriors, either in complete nudity or with gaudy cloths tied round their waists, whirled their weapons about as they kept bounding, yelling, and taunting their adversaries. The old withered men, whose hands could throw neither stone nor javelin, animated the courage of the young people and showered insults on their opponents.

We are unable to retrace in its entirety, the curious and graphic description which M. Gamier has given of this contest, but a scene of cannibalism at which he was present, is too dramatic to be passed over.

Near a large fire sat a dozen men, in whom the traveller recognized the chiefs he had seen in the morning, and pieces of smoking meat surrounded with ignames and taros were laid on broad banana leaves before them. The bodies of some unfortunate wretches killed during the day, supplied the materials for this ghastly banquet, and the hole in which their limbs had just been cooked was still there. A savage joy was pictured on the faces of these demons. Both hands grasped their horrid food. An old chief with a long white beard did not seem to enjoy so formidable an appetite as his comrades. Leaving aside the thigh-bone and the thick layer of flesh accompanying it which had been served him, he contented himself with nibbling a head. He had already removed all the meaty parts, the nose and cheeks, but the eyes remained. The old epicure took a bit of pointed stick and thrust it into both pupils, then shook the horrid skull until bit by bit he brought out the brain; but as this process was not quick enough, he put the back of the head into the flames, and the rest of the cerebral substance dropped out without difficulty!....

Andaman Family.

We comprise in the Andaman Family those Eastern blacks who possess the characteristics of the Negro race strongly marked. These nations are as yet but little known. The inhabitants of New Guinea, the aborigines of the Andaman Isles, in the bay of Bengal, the blacks of the Malacca peninsula, those dwelling in some of the mountains of Indo-China, the natives of Tasmania, and, finally, the indigenous population of Australia are included in this group.

Among all these people the facial angle does not exceed 60 degrees; the mouth is very large, the nose broad and flat, the arms short, the legs lanky, and the complexion the colour of soot. The women are positively hideous.

The tribes which form these groups are, in general, numerous and subject to the arbitrary authority of a chief. Language is extremely limited among them; they possess neither government, laws, nor regularly established ceremonies, and some do not even know how to construct places of abode.

In order to convey to the reader an idea of the people composing the Andaman Family we shall give a glance at the inhabitants of the Andaman Isles and also at those of Australia.

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Andamans.—The dwellings of the Andamans are of the most rudimentary kind, being hardly superior to the dens of wild beasts. Four posts covered with a roof of palm-leaves constitute these lairs, which are open to every wind, and “ornamented” with hogs’ bones, turtle shells, and large dried fish tied in bunches.

As for the inhabitants themselves, they are of an ebon black. They seldom exceed five feet in stature; their heads are broad and buried between their shoulders; and their hair is woolly, like that of the African blacks. The abdomen is protuberant in a great many cases, and their lower limbs lank. They go about in a state of complete nudity, merely taking care to cover the entire body with a layer of yellow ochre or clay, which protects it from the sting of insects. They paint their faces and sprinkle their hair with red ochre.

Their weapons are, however, manufactured with much cleverness. Their bows, which require a very strong pull, are made of a sort of iron-wood and gracefully shaped. Their arrows are tipped with fine points, some of them barbed, and they shoot them with much skill. They handle expertly their short paddles, marked with red ochre, and hollow their canoes with a rather rude implement formed of a hard and sharp stone fastened to a handle by means of a strong cord made from vegetable fibres.

The Andamans are ichthyophagists, for the seas which wash their islands abound in excellent fish and palatable mollusks. Soles, mullets, and oysters constitute the staple of their food, and when during tempestuous weather fish runs short, they eat the lizards, rats, and mice which swarm in the woods.

Though not cannibals, the Andamans are nevertheless a most savage race, who do not even exist in a state of tribedom, but who are merely gathered into gangs.

The bitterest contempt has been lavished on these rude inhabitants of the islands of Bengal, and people have been willing to consider them as brutes of the worst cruelty, and most extreme ugliness; but more recent observation, and the few facts which we have mentioned, show that this estimate should be somewhat mitigated.

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Australian Blacks.—We have arrived at the black people who occupy part of Australia, and take advantage of some valuable information concerning them, found in M. H. de Castella’s “Souvenirs d’un Squatter FranÇais en Australie,” and which was acquired by the author’s personal experience of these uncouth beings.

The wild state in which the aborigines of Australia exist is the result of the poverty of their country, which affords no other source of sustenance than animals. True, these abound there; kangaroos, squirrels, opossums, wild-cats, and birds of all kinds are so numerous, that the natives need, as it were, only stretch out their hands in order to take them. In this mild climate they can live without any shelter.

According to M. de Castella, the Negroes of Australia are not so ugly as they have been represented. Among the men whom he examined, some were tall and well made. Their slow, lounging gait, was not devoid of dignity, and the solemnity of their step reminded one of the strut of a tragedian on the stage.

The Australian blacks recognize family ties. None of them have more than one wife, but they do not marry within their own particular tribe. They live encamped in bands, and now that they are reduced to small numbers, in entire tribes. They do not build permanent huts, but protect themselves in summer from the sun and hot winds merely by a heap of gum-tree branches, piled up against some sticks, thrust in the ground. When winter comes on, they strip from the trees large pieces of bark, eight or ten feet high, and as wide as the whole circumference of the trunk, forming with these fragments a screen, which they place at the side whence the rain is blowing, and alter if the wind happens to change. Squatted on the bare earth, in the opossum skin which serves the double purpose of bed and clothing, each of them is placed before a hearth of his own. Fig. 241 is an engraving taken from a photograph of Australian natives.

The Australian Negroes of the present day have guns, and employ little axes for chopping their wood and cutting bark, but it is not so long since the only weapons they possessed were made of hard wood, and their hatchets consisted of sharp stones fastened to the end of sticks, like the flint instruments used by men before the Deluge. There is in fact little or no difference between the people of the age of stone, and the Negroes of Australia, and consequently an acquaintance with the wild manners and customs of these races has been of great advantage to naturalists of our day in throwing light upon the history of primitive man.

M. H. de Castella was greatly struck by the agility of the Australian blacks in climbing gum-trees whose straight stems are often devoid of branches for twenty or thirty feet from their base, and are besides too thick to be clasped. When by perfect prodigies of acrobatism the native reached the wild cats and opossums’ nests, he seized the animals, and threw them to his wife.

This wife carried everything; her last-born in a reed basket hanging from her neck, the slaughtered game in one hand, and in the other a blazing gum branch, to light the fire when the family took up fresh quarters. The man walked in front, carrying nothing but his weapons; then came the wife, and after her, their children according to height.

A batch of Australian blacks is never, by any chance, to be met walking abreast, even when in great numbers, and if a whole tribe is crossing the plains, only a long black file is to be seen moving above the high grass.

M. de Castella was a spectator of the curious sight which eel-fishing affords among these natives. Holding a spear in each hand, with which to rake up the bottom, they wade through the water up to their waists, balancing and regulating their movements to the even measure of one of their chants. When an eel is transfixed by a stroke of one lance, they pierce it in another part of the body with the second, and then, holding the two points apart, throw the fish upon the ground, the quantity which they take in this manner being enormous. They dispense with saucepans and cooking utensils of all kinds in the preparation of their meals, simply placing the game or fish on bright coals covered over with a little ashes.

Everyone has heard of the skill with which savages navigate their rivers in bark canoes, but the people of whom we are now speaking render themselves remarkable above all others by their adroitness in guiding their little crafts over the rapids. Only two persons can sit in their boats, while a spear supplies the place of an oar, and is used with astonishing dexterity.

No one acquainted with this kind of barbarous life will be surprised to hear that the blacks of Australia are diminishing at a wonderfully quick rate. Of the whole Varra tribe, formerly a numerous one, M. de Castella could find no more than seventeen individuals.

What most struck the author of an account of a journey from Sydney to Adelaide, which appeared in the “Tour du Monde,” in 1860, was the small number of aborigines which he met in a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles. Sturt and Mitchell, in the middle of the present century, had visited tribes on the higher tributaries of the Murray river, which then consisted of several hundred persons, but M. de Castella found them only represented by scattered groups of seven or eight famished individuals. Fig. 242 portrays one of the types sketched by this gentleman.

Mitchell has given a description in his “Travels,” of the “groves of death”—those romantic burial-places of the Australians—but the writer in the “Tour du Monde” found them no longer in existence. The tombs of the natives at the present day are as wild and rude as themselves. In the bleak deserts of the land of the West four branches driven into the ground and crossed at the top by a couple more (fig. 243), support the mortal remains of the Australian aboriginal, whose only winding sheet is the skin of a kangaroo.

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