  Title: People of Africa Author: Edith A. How Edition: 10 Language: English Produced by John Walker. Line #1. . .Text begins on Line #228 This electronic edition of Edith A. How's People of Africa was produced by John Walker in January 2003. It follows the 1921 edition (the only one of which I am aware) published in London by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and in New York by the Macmillan Company. I have corrected two typographical errors in the original text: "sandstorm" was misspelled as "standstorm" on page 21 (section 1 of chapter III), and "bought" appeared where "brought" was intended on page 33 (paragraph 3 of section 2 of chapter IV). ——————————————————————————————————— PEOPLE OF AFRICA This public domain Etext edition of Edith A. How's People of Africa was prepared by: John Walker If you discover any errors in this Etext, please report them to me by E-mail. If you're reporting a discrepancy between the Etext and a modern edition, please include a complete citation of your source. Upon close examination, most editions contain minor errors and discrepancies which I've tried to correct in this Etext. These Etexts are part of the intellectual heritage we share as humans—please help to make them perfectly embody the authors' legacies to the thousands of generations and billions of readers whose lives they will enrich. Beautifully Typeset Etexts ————————————— Free Plain Vanilla Etexts don't have to be austere and typographically uninviting. Most literature (as opposed to scientific publications, for example), is typographically simple and can be rendered beautifully into type without encoding it into proprietary word processor file formats or impenetrable markup languages. This Etext is encoded in a form which permits it to be both read directly (Plain Vanilla) and typeset in a form virtually indistinguishable from printed editions of the work. To create "typographically friendly" Etexts, I adhere to the following rules: 1. Characters follow the 8-bit ISO 8859/1 Latin-1 character set. ASCII is a proper subset of this character set, so any "Plain ASCII" file meets ths criterion by definition. The extension to ISO 8859/1 is required so that Etexts which include the accented characters used by Western European languages may continue to be "readable by both humans and computers". 2. No white space characters other than blanks and line separators are used (in particular, tabs are expanded to spaces). 3. The text bracket sequence: 4. Normal body text begins in column 1 and is set ragged right with a line length of 70 characters. The choice of 70 characters is arbitrary and was made to avoid overly long and therefore less readable lines in the Plain Vanilla text. 5. Paragraphs are separated by blank lines. 6. Centring, right, and left justification is indicated by actually so-justifying the text within the 70 character line. Left justified lines should start in column 2 to avoid confusion with paragraph body text. 7. Block quotations are indented to start in column 5 and set ragged right with a line length of 60 characters. 8. Preformatted tables begin with a line which starts in column 3 and contains at least one sequence of three or more spaces between nonblanks. The table is formatted verbatim until the next blank line. 9. Text set in italics is bracketed by underscore characters, "_". These must match. 10. Footnotes are included in-line, bracketed by "[]". The footnote appears at the point in the copy where the footnote mark appears in the source text. Footnotes may not be nested and may consist of only a single paragraph. 11. The title is defined as the sequence of lines which appear 12. The author's name is the text which follows the line of equal 13. Chapters are delimited by a three line sequence of centred 14. Dashes in the text are indicated in the normal typewritten text convention of "—". No hyphenation of words at the end of lines is done. 15. Ellipses are indicated by "…"; sentence-ending ellipses by "….". 16. Greek letters and mathematical symbols are enclosed in the brackets "\(" and "\)" and are expressed as their character or symbol names in the LaTeX typesetting language. For example, write the Greek word for "word" as: \( \lambda \acute{o} \gamma o \varsigma \) and the formula for the roots of a quadratic equation as: \( x_{1,2} = \frac{-b \pm \sqrt{b^2 - 4ac}}{2a} \) I acknowledge that this provision is controversial. It is as distasteful to me as I suspect it is to you. In its defence, let me treat the Greek letter and math formula cases separately. Using LaTeX encoding for Greek letters is purely a stopgap until Unicode comes into common use on enough computers so that we can use it for Etexts which contain characters not in the ASCII or ISO 8859/1 sets (which are the 7- and 8-bit subsets of Unicode, respectively). If an author uses a Greek word in the text, we have two ways to proceed in attempting to meet the condition: The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although…. The first approach is to transliterate into Roman characters according to a standard table such as that given in The Chicago Manual of Style. This preserves readability and doesn't require funny encoding, but in a sense violates the author's "original intent"—the author could have transliterated the word in the first place but chose not to. By transliterating we're reversing the author's decision. The second approach, encoding in LaTeX or some other markup language, preserves the distinction that the author wrote the word in Greek and maintains readability since letters are called out by their English language names, for the most part. Of course LaTeX helps us only for Greek (and a few characters from other languages). If you're faced with Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or other languages written in non-Roman letters, the only option (absent Unicode) is to transliterate. I suggest that encoding mathematical formulas as LaTeX ————- This is probably a better choice for occasional formulas simple enough to write out this way. But to produce Etexts of historic scientific publications such as Einstein's "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter K”rper" (the special relativity paper published in Annalen der Physik in 1905), trying to render dozens of complicated equations in ASCII is not only extremely tedious but in all likelihood counter-productive; ambiguities in trying to express complex equations would make it difficult for a reader to determine precisely what Einstein wrote unless conventions just as complicated (and harder to learn) as those of LaTeX were adopted for ASCII expression of mathematics. Finally, the choice of LaTeX encoding is made not only based on its existing widespread use but because the underlying software that defines it (TeX and LaTeX) are entirely in the public domain, available in source code form, implemented on most commonly-available computers, and frozen by their authors so that, unlike many commercial products, the syntax is unlikely to change in the future and obsolete current texts. 17. Other punctuation in the text consists only of the characters: . , : ; ? ! ` ' ( ) { } " + = - / * @ # $ % & ~ ^ " < > In other words, the characters: _ [ ] \ are never used except in the special senses defined above. 18. Quote marks may be rendered explicitly as open and close quote marks with the sequences `single quotes' or ``double quotes''. As long as quotes are balanced within a paragraph, the ASCII quote character `"' may be used. Alternating occurrences of this character will be typeset as open and close quote characters. The open/close quote state is reset at the start of each paragraph, limiting the scope of errors to a single paragraph and permitting ``continuation quotes'' when multiple paragraphs are quoted. A program to translate Etexts prepared in this format into: LaTeX (and thence to PostScript or PDF, if you wish) may be downloaded from: http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/etset/ The program is in the public domain and includes complete source code. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> PEOPLE OF AFRICA Universities' Mission to Central Africa With Six Coloured Illustrations LONDON New York: The Macmillan Co. 1921 ———————- PREFACE It is hoped that this book and its companion volume dealing with non-African peoples will be the beginning of a series of simple, readable accounts for Africans of some of the various objects of general interest in the world of to-day. There are many such works published for the use of English and American children. But the native African has a totally different experience of life, and much that is taken for granted by a child of a Northern civilized land needs explanation to one used to tropical uncivilized surroundings. Again, the African knows the essential operations of everyday life in their simplest form, whereas the European knows them disguised by an elaborate industrial system. All this makes books written for English children almost unintelligible to a member of a primitive race. These two volumes are far from perfect, but it has been difficult to know always how to select wisely from the mass of material at hand. They will have served, however, a useful purpose if they form a basis for adaptations into the various African vernaculars, and afford an inspiration for other works of a similar nature. Thanks are due to Miss K. Nixon Smith, of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, for her kindness in criticizing the MSS. from her long experience of the African outlook. EDITH A. HOW I In this book we are going to read about some of the other people who live in our own great country—Africa. Africa is very, very large, so big that no one would be able to go to all the places in it. But different people have been to different parts, and have told what they saw where they went. Wherever our home in Africa may be, if we walked towards the sunrise—that is, towards the east—day after day, at last we should reach the great salt sea. Again, if we walked towards the sunset in the west, we should at last get to the sea. To the north, again, is the sea, and to the south, the sea. Whichever way we walked, at last, after many months, we should be stopped by the sea. But on our journey we should have met many different kinds of people, and have seen many different customs. In some places there would be rivers, in some mountains, in some deserts, with no trees or grass to be seen. In these, people must make their homes in many ways, and have many kinds of food and clothes. Because we live in Africa, we want to know about Africa and the people in it. They are men and women and children like ourselves, though the colour of their skins may be lighter or darker than ours, and their languages quite different. But they, too, build houses and eat food and wear some kind of dress, and it is interesting to know about their customs. So in this book we shall read about some of them and of how they live; and, to help us to understand, we shall find with each part a picture of the people we are reading about. All the time we must remember that we could get to see them for ourselves if we were strong enough to walk so far, because they are all our own brothers and sisters in Africa. Long ago most African peoples were shut off from the other people of the world by the sea and the great sandy desert. Only the people of Egypt could meet and learn from the people of Europe and Asia. So while the Egyptians grew wise and clever, all the other Africans, south of the desert, knew nothing except what they had learnt by themselves. Then Arabs began to cross the desert to get gold and slaves from the dark-skinned Africans. These Arabs taught them a little. But, later still, Europeans began to come in great ships over the sea. These came at first like the Arabs to trade, and afterwards began to plant great fields of cotton and tobacco, which will not grow in their own lands. But they found the dark-skinned Africans were still ignorant, and afraid of people of other races. They were always fighting among themselves, and no one could settle among them until there was peace and safety. At last the European nations made agreements with the chiefs, so that now in nearly every part of Africa there is a European governor to prevent wars and fighting. Thus in North Africa the governors are sent by France, in the Congo lands by Belgium, in East Africa by England, in some other parts by Portugal. These are different European nations who send men to keep peace, and to make it possible to carry on trade. Of course, the coming of the Europeans has made great changes in the lives of the Africans. In the old times all the men were busy fighting, and often whole villages of people were killed or made slaves. Now there is no fighting, but there is more need to work than before. There are more people, and less land for each family. Europeans want workmen to help on their great fields. The Africans want many things now, which they did not know about before, and they must have money to buy them. So work for money has taken the place of fighting. Again, in some ways the Europeans, enforcing peace and making many quick ways of travel, such as good roads and bridges, have helped to weaken the power of the chiefs. Nobody likes changes to come, and the old people are always sorry when their children begin new customs; but on the whole it is good for Africans that other nations came to their country, because they have brought peace in the place of war, and safety and freedom instead of the old fear of death or slavery. II 1. The Country and its River Egypt is a country in the north of Africa. It has sea to the north and sea to the east. On the north it is called the Mediterranean Sea, and on the east the Red Sea. On the west is the great sandy desert called the Sahara, and to the south are great forests and mountains. Egypt itself is the land of the great River Nile. There is very seldom any rain there, and everyone has to get water from the great river. So all the people live near the Nile or the canals which lead out of it. A "canal" is a waterway, the channel of which has been dug by men. The big towns are where the river flows out into the sea, or where a canal meets the main stream, because the people bring their merchandise to market in boats. All over the land are little villages, where many people live and work in the fields to grow food. Year by year when there is heavy rain in the mountains far away south, the River Nile rises and floods the fields. Then the people plant their seed quickly and get a good harvest. It is not difficult to understand why the Egyptians love their great river, which gives them water for their fields and carries them in their boats from place to place. 2. Its Past History Egypt is the only part of Africa that could be reached easily by people in Europe and Asia, because in Egypt is the only place where men could walk from Asia and Europe into Africa. Even if they did not want to walk, the sea was not too wide to cross in small boats. In the Bible we read how Abraham, who lived in Asia, walked to Egypt, and later how Moses led the Children of Israel back to Asia. Since that time Europeans have cut a waterway for ships through this narrow neck of land, which is called the Suez Canal. So now people can no longer walk from Asia to Africa, but in the old days the Egyptians grew wiser than others in Africa, because they were more able to meet men from other lands in Asia and Europe, and to learn something from them all. So hundreds and hundreds of years ago there were people living in this country of the Nile who were wise and great. They built large cities and temples and houses. They knew how to write, and covered the walls of their houses with writing. Their letters were not like ours, but were pictures of the things they were writing about. They also built huge stone tombs for their kings to be buried in, and these were called "pyramids." The kings of Egypt were called "Pharaohs." When the old Egyptians wrote books, instead of paper they used the dried leaves of a reed called "papyrus," which grows in the Nile. Several leaves were fastened together to make a book. These old writings on reeds and on the walls have been found after lying buried in the sand, which has covered so much of old Egypt. The hot sand has kept them dry, and prevented them being destroyed during hundreds of years. By reading these writings we are able to find out how these people lived so long ago. They had also a wonderful way of taking the waters of the Nile in ditches over the whole land. There is hardly any rain in Egypt, and this Nile water prevented the country becoming so sandy and dry. In those days Egypt was well-known for its wonderful harvests and stores of food. But though these people were wise in many ways, yet they were proud and cruel to their enemies. In the Bible we read how they treated the Children of Israel in the time of Moses. Perhaps this was because they did not know God our Father, but worshipped many gods, whose pictures and images were like animals. Many of the great temples they built for these gods are still standing, and when we see pictures of them, we wonder at the skill of these people who lived so long ago. Egypt was one of the first great countries to become Christian, and many of the old heathen temples were turned into churches. But at last the Arabs, who were Mohammedans, conquered Egypt, and forced most of the people to become Mohammedans too. But some remained faithful in spite of all, and these to-day are called "Copts," from the old name for Egypt. For hundreds of years these Copts have lived in a country ruled by Moslem Arabs, or Turks, who hated their religion, but they have been true to Christ through all. There are people of all lands living in the towns of Egypt in these days, for there is a great deal of business to be done in them. But the people who work in the fields are the children of the old Egyptians, though they have forgotten their old wisdom and are now very ignorant. 3. The People of Egypt The Egyptians are a race different both from the dark-skinned people of Africa and from Europeans. They have olive skins, very dark, almond-shaped eyes, and dark, straight hair. Most of the men shave their heads, and wear a turban or tarboosh as a covering. The women fasten a veil below their eyes, which falls over the lower part of their face. Both the men and the women wear several loose garments, which cover the whole body from the neck to the feet. All except the very poor wear shoes. In the towns there are a great many people, some very rich and others very poor. Often a city looks very beautiful, because the houses are built of white or light-coloured stone or brick. But they are close together, and the streets are very narrow and dirty, and so the poor people are often ill. The houses are built in "storeys," one room on the top of another, with steps leading to the upper rooms. Often there is a courtyard in the middle of the house, so that all the rooms can have windows and light. One part of the house is separated from the rest for the women to use. This is called the "hareem," and no man, except the master of the house, is allowed to go into it. All rich Mohammedans have a separate part of their house for the women. A poor woman in all countries has plenty of work to do, but a rich lady in Egypt has many servants, or slaves, to do the work, and, as she is kept shut up in the "hareem" from the time she is ten or eleven years old, she can learn very little, except how to do beautiful needlework. She cannot help her husband and her sons to be wise and good, because she does not know enough about life and work outside the "hareem." So the Egyptian ladies have little to do and little to think about all the day while their husbands are away, and they are often very dull. But the town-people love their children very much, and Egyptian children are taught always to love, honour, and obey their father and mother. An Egyptian man may have four wives, but generally he has only one. Until a few years ago, all Egyptians who had enough money used to buy slaves to do their work. Slaves could be bought or sold, or married or given away, as if they were things instead of people. Masters could illtreat or even kill their slaves and not be punished, because it was only as if they had broken their water-jar in a temper, and that was no one else's business. Often slaves were happy if they had good masters, but it is a bad custom to take away a person's freedom and treat him as if he had no soul. During the last few years many Europeans have been helping the Egyptians to improve their country, and one of the changes has been to do away gradually with slavery. No one is now allowed to buy a slave, and anyone born in slavery can become free if he wishes to do so. Instead of slaves, people now have servants who receive wages for their work. These are free to leave their master if he does not treat them well. Although slavery is dying out of Egypt, there are other parts of North Africa where the old bad customs still exist, though the great European nations try to prevent the public markets for slaves being held. People are happiest in countries where there are no slaves and everyone is free to do the work for which he is best fitted. In Egyptian households where there is more than one wife there is often quarrelling. The wives of one man all live in one "hareem," and cannot help being jealous if they see their husband likes one better than another. Then there is quarrelling and ill-will among them. As the children grow up there is a further cause for jealousy, because the mothers of boys are more important than those who have only girl-children. Children cannot respect their mothers if they often see them quarrelling and jealous. Again, there is always a possibility that a husband may divorce his wife. He is not likely to do so if she has a boy-baby, but until she has, her position as a wife is not very secure. These bad marriage customs lead to much unhappiness, and prevent the women of Egypt from doing so much good as the women of some other lands are able to do. We must not, of course, think that all Egyptian homes are unhappy; probably many poor women are quite glad when their husband brings another wife to help with the work. But where servants do the work, there are only the pleasures of the home to be shared, and then jealousy will be likely to come. 4. The Big Towns If we went for a walk in the narrow streets of an Egyptian city or big town, we should see on either side open shops, each with its owner ready to sell his goods. Many of the people of the towns have shops or trades. They sell jewellery, furniture, cloth, and everything that is wanted in the house for cooking. In the streets there are some men carrying drinking-water for sale, because it is hot walking about and people get thirsty. Others will be selling sweet-stuff made of sugar, which everyone likes. Others wait about ready to write letters for people who cannot write for themselves, and there are always many beggars. Great steamers from other countries—England, France, India, Japan—bring merchandise to Alexandria and Port Said, the seaports of Egypt, and so people from these countries have shops and offices in those towns. Then the goods are taken by boats or trains to the capital, Cairo, where the Sultan lives, and to other large towns. In all these towns there are hundreds of people, so that a man can only know those who live near him or work with him. Most of them are unknown to one another and are like strangers, although they all live in one town and can all speak Arabic. 5. Life in the Villages The country-people of Egypt are very poor, and have to work very hard all the year round in their fields. Their houses are built of bricks dried in the sun, plastered together with mud, and the roof is made of plaited palm leaf. Inside there is only one room, which has a big oven made of mud with a flat top on which the father and mother sleep. The work in the fields is very hard, as the ground has to be made fertile by digging canals and ditches all over it to bring the water from the Nile, because, you remember, there is no rain in Egypt. When the Nile begins to fall, the water has to be raised in baskets fastened to a wheel or pole, and thrown on the ground. In order to get enough money, the people plant another kind of seed as soon as one harvest is gathered; first, perhaps, planting wheat, then millet, or cotton, then maize. So the country-people in Egypt are always working hard from sunrise to sunset all the year in their fields, and their little children have to learn to mind sheep, goats, or cattle, and to help in other ways as soon as they can walk alone. Other men work on the Nile, carrying people or goods up and down the river in boats from place to place. This, again, is hard work, but the boatmen seem very happy and often sing as they pass along. People in the country villages are ignorant, and very few can read or write. Sometimes when the harvest has been bad and food is dear and scarce, the people get deeply into debt. There is a great deal of illness and disease, but there are very few doctors and nurses to help people to get well. So the life of an Egyptian peasant is a hard one—a great deal of work and very little time to rest, or play, or learn. But everyone has something to make him happy, and, unless there is famine or pestilence, these people have their wives and children and home, just as people have in England and other countries. The only person who need be unhappy is the one who has no one to love. So we have learnt a little about that part of Africa called Egypt—the land of the Nile—and about the people who live in it. We must remember that all the other people who live on the North Coast of Africa, in Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, are something like the Egyptians, also speaking Arabic, and different from the dark-skinned people who live farther south where it is very hot. III 1. What the Desert is Like In the last chapter we were reading about Egypt, and we said that on the West of Egypt lay the Great Desert. Now a desert is a place where for some reason no food will grow. In some deserts the soil is too bad; in some the ground is covered with salt; in others, like the Sahara, there are no rivers. In some places in the Sahara there is water coming up through a crack in the rocks. This water is called a "spring," and wherever one is found, trees and grass and food will grow. Such a place is called an "oasis." In the big oases there are villages and towns. But the sun is so hot that before the water from the spring has flowed very far it is dried up, and beyond that nothing will grow. So when we think of the Sahara we have to try and picture to ourselves a very big country, full of hills and valleys, but with no rivers or lakes. It is a journey of many months to cross the Sahara, and day after day there is nothing to see but sand—sand, not flat, but in ridges of hills like great waves of the sea. When people are travelling across this desert, they get very tired of looking at nothing but sand all day. Then, at last, as the sun sets, they reach an oasis where there is water and bananas and date-trees, and perhaps houses and people. Sometimes great winds blow in the desert and bring a sandstorm. Then the sand beats hard against everything. If travellers meet a sandstorm, they have to throw themselves face downwards on the ground to keep the sand out of their eyes and mouth. Very often people who live in the desert have bad eyes, and many are blind because of the sandstorms. 2. How the Desert Came Long, long ago, the Sahara was not quite so dry as it is now. There were rivers then, which have dried up since. When there was water, food would grow, and people could keep sheep and cattle. In those days there were several large cities there. But when the water began to dry up, the ground became sandy and nothing would grow. Then, whenever the wind blew, the sand was carried along and began to cover up the houses and temples. The people had moved away because their food would not grow, and soon the sand completely covered the old cities. For a long time they were buried, until some Europeans went to see what they could find out about the people who lived there long ago. Then they dug and dug in the sand, and found the old houses and temples. But digging in the desert is very hard work, because it is very hot, and there is very little water and food. Often, too, a great wind arises and brings a sandstorm. Then the sand drifts back again to the places already cleared. 3. The Desert Peoples (a) Berbers It is surprising to find that there are a great many people living in this desert region of North Africa. There are three kinds of people there. Firstly, there are the Berbers, who live always in a little town or village on a big oasis, and grow their own food. Secondly, there are the Bedouin, who live in large wandering tribes. These keep sheep and goats and camels, and stay on a small oasis until their herds have eaten all the grass on it, and then move on to another place. Thirdly, there are the Arab traders, whose business is to go south of the desert to get ivory and gold, and to take these back to Egypt and to the great cities north of the desert to sell. All these people speak Arabic and are Mohammedans. The Berbers who live in the towns on the great oasis, where there is a large spring of water, are a different race from the Arabs, the Egyptians, or the dark-skinned people of farther south. They are much darker-skinned than the Egyptians and the Bedouin. In the past many different races of South Europe, as well as the Arabs, have conquered them and intermarried with them, but they still remain a distinct race, though their customs are like those of other Moslems. They make their houses of bricks dried in the sun, and build them so close together that people can step from one roof to another across the street. The roofs are flat, so that they can sit or sleep on them at night when it is very hot inside the house. All round the outside of the towns are brick walls with gates that are shut at night for fear of robbers. These people live very much like the town-people in Egypt, only they are much poorer. They can buy things from the traders in the caravans which stop at their village for the night, but as they cannot grow or make many things to give in exchange, most people have to be content with the earthenware cooking-pots and the cloth they can make themselves. The women draw water and prepare the food and look after the children. Then they weave flax and wool into cloth. Their dress is something like that of the poor Egyptians. The children have to herd the sheep and goats, which at night sleep in the house with their owners. The men hoe the gardens and grow the millet and barley for food, and the flax for cloth. The chief food of these people is bread made of millet-flour kneaded with milk and baked in a hole in the ground. The flour is ground between two stones placed one on the top of the other, the upper one having one or two handles by which it can be moved round. The people in these small, crowded towns in the middle of the desert must live very narrow lives, and they do not know much about anything outside their own village. Journeys in the desert are very dangerous because of sandstorms and the difficulty of finding the way where there are no roads, and more especially because of robbers. So people never go on journeys unless they can join a big company with plenty of men ready to fight if the robbers attack them. 4. The Desert Peoples (b) Bedouin The second kind of people who have their home in the desert are the Bedouin. These are Arabs who once lived in another desert in Arabia, but long, long ago many of them came to live in the Sahara. The Bedouin live in tents made of poles with dark cloth of goats' hair or camels' hair spread across them for walls and roof. They travel in large tribes, and put up their tents on a small oasis where there is no town. These people still live as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived long ago, before the Israelites built their towns. On the oasis their camels, horses, sheep, and goats can find water to drink and grass to eat. When all the food has been eaten they pack up the tents and everything they have and put it on the backs of the animals. Then the men and women and children all mount camels and horses and donkeys, and the whole tribe moves to another oasis. These people drink camels' milk and eat the dates and bananas and other fruit they find where they pitch their tents. They also bring these fruits to the Berber towns, and exchange them for flour to make bread and for coffee to drink. Coffee is a berry which is first roasted, then, when water is boiled and poured on to it, it makes a strong, brown liquid which Arabs and Europeans like to drink. The women weave camels' hair into clothes and blankets, and goats' hair into tent-covers. The Bedouin men are always ready to fight with their guns and lances; sometimes they are robbers, but most of them travel from place to place, only fighting if others attack them. There is always a chief in each tribe of Bedouin, and in each village of the Berbers, but away in the desert there are many bands of robbers who will not obey any law, and everyone has to fight for himself against these people. The Bedouin love their animals, especially their camels and their horses. It is quite natural that they should do so, because often a man would die in the desert if his horse or camel would not work well and carry him faithfully until they reached water. Sometimes when the people lose their way in the pathless sand, the horses and camels can find it. 5. The Desert Peoples (c) Traders The third kind of people who are found in the Sahara are the traders. These, like the Bedouin, are Arabs, but often their homes are in some town, either on the edge of the desert or in Egypt. They travel from the great North African towns and from Egypt, across the desert to the rich countries south of it, where the dark-skinned people live. There, south of the Sahara, they buy ivory and dyed goat-skins and other things in exchange for cloth and beads, and return with their merchandise to the northern towns again. Many years ago they used to capture slaves, but they cannot often do so now, because the Christian Europeans try to stop trading in slaves. The journeys of the traders take many months, because often they have to go by a long road in order to find water. So they travel from oasis to oasis seeking shade and water. Sometimes they have to ride three or four days to reach the next drinking-place. Then they have to carry water for themselves in goat-skins. The camels can live for a few days without water, though they get very weak. For this reason, everyone who makes long journeys in the Sahara has to ride on a camel. A horse can travel more quickly, but he, like a man, must have water every day. So the camel is sometimes called the "Ship of the Desert," because he, best of all, can carry men across the waterless sand. When traders travel across the desert with their merchandise, they are very much afraid of the desert robbers, who steal what they can from travellers. So they journey in large companies called "caravans," with a paid guide to show them the best and the quickest way from oasis to oasis, and with many men armed with guns and spears paid to ride along by the side of the camels carrying the merchandise, and to fight if robbers come to steal. These Sahara robbers are very bad people, who fight, and steal all they can get, and always kill everyone they can. So everyone who crosses the Sahara has to be ready to fight for his life as well as his property. The desert is so vast, and has so many hills and hiding-places, that it is easy for the robbers to get away after they have robbed a caravan. Then, as silence once more falls on the place of the struggle, the cries of the jackals and hyenas and vultures are heard, as they come from miles away drawn by the smell of blood. Swiftly they gather to feed on the bodies of the slain, and soon the wind blows the sand smooth and clean, where a few hours before it was trampled and stained with blood. Perhaps only a few whitened bones remain to show what has happened. 6. The North of Africa So we have learned something about the people who live in the North of Africa. In Egypt, the land of the great River Nile, the people can grow rich and prosperous. They have time to learn, but, except the Copts, many of whom are goldsmiths, they seem to have quite forgotten how to make the beautiful things the old Egyptians made. In the desert, the Sahara, there is little water, and life is very hard. All day people must work to get enough for food and clothes. It is a land without a king and without laws, where each must fight for himself. Yet these people, on their long journeys through the waterless waste, have learned to be very brave and fearless and strong. They are patient, and endure great hardships without grumbling. They love music, and often sing as they ride over the silent sand. In the evening they gather round the fire to tell stories of what happened long ago. The people of North Africa are all Arabs or Egyptians or Berbers, with olive complexions and smooth, dark hair as a rule. Next we shall read about the very dark-skinned races who live farther south, in Central Africa, where the sun is much hotter. IV 1. Central Africa In the last chapter we read that the Arab merchants crossed the desert to buy ivory and goat-skins from the people who lived farther south. In these next two chapters we shall read about these people south of the desert. Their land lies in the very middle of Africa, and so is called Central Africa. It is a beautiful country, with many rivers and great lakes and mountains. Central and West Africa are also the very hottest part of this continent. Now when plants have a lot of water and a lot of sun they grow very quickly, and so Central Africa, with its hot sun and its great rivers and lakes, is a land of great forests. In these forests there are lions and leopards, elephants, and deer; and ivory and skins, as well as gold, have for many years been sold by the Central Africans to the traders from the desert. On the eastern side of this country there are more mountains, lakes, and small rivers; on the western side there are great rivers, all of which join one very large one called the Congo. In this chapter we shall read about some of the people who live on the eastern side on the shores of the largest of all the lakes—the one called Victoria Nyanza. These people are called the Baganda, and their country is Uganda. 2. The Baganda 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. Some tribes were much stronger than others, and some of these drove everyone else out of the country they had chosen for themselves and made a kingdom of it. One of these strong tribes was the Baganda. Others liked to wander from place to place, but the Baganda chose to settle down on the shores of the great Lake Victoria Nyanza, and to stay there always. When Europeans went to Uganda they found the Baganda had a king to whom they paid great honour. The king had many officers under him. Some of these were the chiefs of different parts of the kingdom. Others had special work to do—one to hear all the lawsuits and to settle disputes, another to command the army. Others had to work in the king's household, to wait on his wives and children, or to beat the big drum to call the people when the king wanted them, or to take care that no one entered the palace unless the king wished them to do so. But whatever their work was, all the chiefs and officers and people honoured and obeyed the king, and, because in this way everyone was ready to fight or to work for the king and the rest of the nation, the Baganda were one of the strongest and wisest of all the African peoples. The old dress of these people was a cloth, not sewn, but simply twisted tight round their body under their arms, and reaching nearly to the ground. Sometimes it was fastened also by a belt round the waist. The cloth is made from the bark of certain trees soaked in water and beaten hard for many days until it is soft and thin and strong like woven cloth. Their houses were round and built of reeds, with steep roofs which nearly reached to the ground. The smaller villages had only a few people in them, everyone in each village being related to the rest. But the Baganda also had big towns, the biggest to-day being Mengo, where the king lives. Here there were people gathered together for the king's work, and many others brought food and bark-cloth to market to sell. The houses of the king and the great chiefs were large and beautifully decorated with plaited reeds. The chief food of the Baganda is plantains or bananas, which are peeled when unripe and wrapped in smoke-dried banana leaves. These packets are slowly cooked with very little water in earthenware cooking-pots. When the food is cooked it is pressed and beaten, and then the leaves are opened out and make a plate. Other things, such as beans and vegetables and fish, are cooked in the same way, wrapped in banana leaves and then eaten with the bananas. Some of the Baganda fish in the lake, and when they go on journeys it is often quicker to travel by boat on the lake. Many Africans can only make boats out of rough tree-trunks with the inside scooped out, but the Baganda had learnt to build long, narrow boats with high carved wooden ends. These canoes shot through the water very swiftly, as twenty or thirty men paddled together in each boat. It is well they learnt to travel quickly, because the lake is very wide and distances are great. Often there are sudden, violent storms, which would overturn a clumsy boat. The carving on the boats and the beautiful reed-work on the chiefs' houses were different from the work of other African tribes. When people begin to try to make things beautiful as well as useful it is a sign that one day they will become wise and great. 3. Europeans Come to Uganda In the old days the Baganda, like other African people, thought there were spirits in all the rivers and lakes and trees and everywhere, which could help or hurt men. The chief spirit they feared and to whom they offered sacrifice was the spirit of their lake, Victoria Nyanza. Their witch-doctors told the people when they thought this spirit was pleased or angry. These witch-doctors were often bad and cruel, and really cared more about getting all the power they could over the king and people than for anything else. Sometimes they said that people must be killed as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Lake. When Europeans first went to Uganda, a few went to trade, but most went to teach the Baganda about the Christians' God. Many boys went to their school near Mengo and were taught. But the witch-doctors grew frightened and persuaded the king to drive away all the Europeans, and to kill the Baganda who would not worship the Lake Spirit because they were Christians. Mutesa the king did this, killing the Christian Baganda boys very cruelly by burning them to death, and killing the European, Bishop Hannington, when he came. But in a few years there were more Christians than before, and now in Uganda the king and nearly all the chiefs and people are Christians, as well as many of the tribes living near them to whom the Baganda have sent teachers. All through the Christian African kingdom there are schools and hospitals. The Baganda were always strong, and now so many are Christians they have stopped fighting the other tribes and killing and making slaves, and instead they spend their time learning to make useful and beautiful things, which make their homes happier and more comfortable to live in. They quickly learn all they can from Europeans and Indians, and to-day, in Mengo and in the other large towns of Uganda, there are trains and motor-cars and stores, while steamers on the lake bring European and Indian things quickly from the coast towns. There are many Europeans and Indians living in Uganda, and this is a good thing, because when many people of different races meet, they learn from one another and so grow wiser. 4. Europeans help Africans In this chapter we have read about one of the wisest tribes of the dark-skinned African people. The Arabs in the north came to Africa long ago from their own home in Asia, and the Europeans in the south came from their home in Europe. Both these races had learnt by themselves a great deal more than the African race has done. This is partly because their homes were not so hot, and so they had to think hard to get enough food and to keep warm. It is partly due, too, to the way in which for hundreds of years the people of Europe and Asia have been able to read and write, and have met and learnt from one another. The Africans never found out how to write, and so could only learn from each other by listening, never by reading. They were shut off from the rest of the world until one hundred years ago, and all they knew they had found out for themselves. But among the Africans some learnt more than others, and the Baganda are a tribe who used their minds as well as their bodies in becoming strong. So by thinking and learning they grew wise as well as powerful, and now Europeans and Indians have come to their country they are able to learn all these other races can teach them, which is far more than any one race could find out alone. V 1. Towards the Sunset In the last chapter we read about some of the people who lived in the Eastern lands south of the desert. They were among the wisest of the dark-skinned African tribes. In this chapter we shall read about some of the people who live in the Western part of Central Africa. If the Baganda walked day after day towards the sunset, they would reach the land of the great River Congo. This is not a narrow strip of land along one river, like Egypt, but a very large country with many great rivers, but all of these at last pour their waters into one very large one, which is called the Congo. Then the Congo takes all the water from the whole land to the great salt sea. Like Uganda this country is very hot, and so, because there is so much sun and so much water, there are great forests. In places where there are no trees the grass and maize grow much higher than a man's head. In the forests there are wild beasts—lions, leopards, elephants, and hippopotami—as well as deer which are good to eat. Many of the people spend most of their time hunting in the forests for food and skins. 2. The Different Tribes The people of the Congo are all dark-skinned Africans of the same race as the Baganda, except two tribes which are quite different. These other people are called the Pigmies, which means they are very small. None of the Congo people have made a kingdom of their own like the Baganda. They belong to different tribes, each with its own customs and language. Most of them wear a piece of bark-cloth or the skin of an animal for clothing, but some wear very little, and paint or tattoo their bodies. Their houses are built of reeds, some tribes covering the reed-walls with a thick plaster of mud, others leaving them unplastered. The roofs of some are thatched with the long grass of the country, others are made of plaited palm-leaf mats. Each tribe has its own way of making a house, but no one builds very big houses or large villages. None of the houses last more than three or four years; but these people do not want their houses to stand for many years, because they are not like the Baganda who chose a country and stay there always. The Congo tribes move their villages after a few years and live somewhere else. So villages are always shifting, and nothing they make is wanted to last long. Some weave mats and baskets out of palm-leaves or reeds; others make pottery; others make iron-headed spears and hoes for their fields, but only a few things that can easily be carried are wanted to last. When the village moves, most of the things must be left behind. So, until a tribe decides to stay always in one place, it does not as a rule learn to make many useful and beautiful things. Again, often men of different tribes build their villages near one another, but the people of the two villages keep quite separate. Each has its own chief and follows its own customs. Several villages of one tribe may all obey a great chief, but no tribe has a chief so powerful as the king of Uganda. The Congo tribes have not learnt nearly so much as some other African peoples. The customs of each tribe depend partly on which district of this large country they live in. Those who live near the salt sea eat sea-fish, and get salt by boiling the sea-water in their cooking-pots until the pot is quite dry, and then the salt is left behind after the water has gone. It was clever of those people to find out they could get salt that way. Others, who live near the great rivers, make canoes out of the tree-trunks with the inside hollowed out. In these they go out and catch river-fish to eat. Others live in a country good for goats, and these keep large herds of goats. Some make good earthenware cups and pots, others carve wooden ones. Some wear ornaments made of shells, some of beads, some of berries, some of teeth; everyone uses the things he can get most easily. But each tribe follows its own customs, and despises those of its neighbours. They are afraid and jealous of each other, and there is constant fighting between the various groups of villages. Some tribes want to be peaceful, and these plant their food, which is maize or millet, or some other grain which can be ground into flour, then made into porridge. Others are hunters or fishermen, and chiefly eat meat or fish. Some live by fighting other tribes, and capturing their food and slaves. Some of these are called cannibals, which means they eat the flesh of human beings. People who do this are despised by all other races in the world, as they are so ignorant that they do not know that it is wrong to eat other men. Many of the people of the Congo are not cannibals, but there is always war and fighting between the different tribes, and it is dangerous to travel because so many are always watching to rob and kill strangers. The lions and other wild beasts are dangerous, but the bands of fighting men are still more to be feared. Everything is wild and unsafe, and there is no law outside the village, so each one has to protect himself. Among the dark-skinned Central African people each village has a chief who keeps order within it, and often a group of villages of one tribe has a great chief. There are old laws and customs of each tribe, and if anyone breaks one of these and injures someone else, the chief calls him and asks all about it, and punishes the man who did the wrong. 3. The Pigmies Now we will think about the other two tribes who live in this country, but who are of quite a different race from the others. These little red and black Pigmy peoples do not have villages at all. They are all hunters, and each man wanders with his wife and children wherever he chooses. Then, near the village of some chief of another tribe, he collects grass and sticks, and builds a little house which is too small for an ordinary man to stand upright inside. The Pigmy people are not so dark-skinned as the other races of Central Africa, and they are very small, not so high as an ordinary man's shoulder. They live by hunting with a bow and arrow. The Pigmy man respects the chief whose village he settles in, but he does not fight for him or serve him as the other people do in his village. When he chooses, he leaves that village and goes somewhere else. If the Pigmies want fruit or anything the villagers have, they shoot an arrow into it. Then, later, when they come to fetch it, they leave a packet of meat in payment, for these little people never steal. Although they live peaceably with the other races, they speak their own language, and never have anything to do with other villagers, and they only marry among their own people. The Pigmy men wear a small strip of cloth, and the women wear a bunch of leaves for their clothes. Most people of Central Africa like to be clean, and when there is enough water they always wash and bathe, but the Pigmies hate water and are always very dirty. They have no cooking-pots, but roast the meat they have got from hunting on a stick over a fire. These Pigmy people have learnt less than any other tribe in Africa, for they do not even know that it is better to live in villages with others of their own race, which is the beginning of learning most other things. 4. Many still Ignorant So in this chapter we have read about some other people who live in the very hottest part of Africa. The Baganda are among the cleverest Central Africans, and these Pigmies and the cannibal tribes are among the most ignorant. But the Congo lands are very large, and there are many different peoples; they often move their villages, and because they hate one another they fight whenever they get the chance. So these people are still very ignorant and miserable. When they find out that it is better to be peaceful and work to help each other, then they will be able to grow wise and strong like the other Central African people in Uganda, and like the dark-skinned people of South Africa whom we shall read about in the next chapter. VI 1. The Cooler Land of the South The Congo rivers and another great river called the Zambezi stretch right across Africa from east to west. North of this the country is called Central Africa, about some of whose people we have been reading. South of it across the Zambezi lies South Africa. East and west of this land is the salt sea, on the east called the Indian Ocean, on the west the Atlantic Ocean. As we travel south the country gets narrower and narrower, until the two great oceans meet at the Cape of Good Hope. Near the Congo and the Zambezi towards Central Africa the sun is very hot, but as we journey southwards it gets cooler. When we reach the colder lands of the south we find that the grass and maize do not grow so tall, and that there are no great forests. For long distances the land stretches as far as we can see, covered with short grass, but there are no trees. This kind of country is called "veld" in South Africa. There are some waterless deserts here, too, but none so large as the Sahara in North Africa. In other parts there are rivers, though some of them dry up in the summer and only have water in the rainy season. In South Africa, as in Central Africa, it rains some months of the year and is dry the others. 2. Black and White In South Africa there are two races of people living side by side. First, there are dark-skinned Africans like those of Uganda and the Congo. These belong to many tribes, each speaking its own language. Secondly, there are many Europeans who, about three hundred years ago, began to come across the great salt sea to live in South Africa. Their own countries in Europe were too small for all the people in them, but South Africa is so large that there was plenty of room. These Europeans live in houses of brick or stone, and wear the same kind of clothes which are worn by the people in Europe. Their skins are lighter-coloured than even those of the Egyptians and Arabs of North Africa, and their hair is straight and often very fair. There are two chief European peoples in South Africa, the English and the Dutch. These speak different languages, but many of them can speak both. Europeans, as perhaps you know, are very clever at making machines of iron to work for them. They have made motor-cars to carry them quickly along ordinary roads, and another machine called an "engine" which draws many cars on its own road, which is made of two iron rails. Among the African people of South Africa there are many different customs, but most people live in their own villages very much like those of Central Africa. Some tribes keep great herds of cattle, which find plenty of food on the grassy plains of the "veldt." Many have learned to copy European customs, especially those living near the great European towns. Some go long distances to work in these towns, especially in places where gold or other valuable things are found under the ground in the "mines." It is about these men who work on the mines that we will read now. 3. Work in the Mines When men first found gold in the ground it was near the surface, and was not very difficult to get. But when this had all been taken, they had to dig deeper and deeper, until at last they found it easier to cut out roads and rooms far down underneath the ground, and to look for the gold among the earth and stones they found there. Perhaps you wonder how the miners get so deep down in the earth every day. There are no steps, but they get into a kind of cage called a "lift," which slips down on a rope skip into a deep hole called a "shaft," to where they want to work. It is a wonderful machine, something like a motor-car, only it goes down into the earth instead of along the top. When the men get out of the skip down in the mine, there are many different roads in it, and each man has to go to his own part to work. When he reaches his place he has to drill holes in the rock for the dynamite which breaks up the rock, and the loose stones are taken away along the roads to the lift and then up to the top. There it is stamped with great hammers into dust, and washed, until the gold-dust is separated from the rest. There are thousands of men, both underground and at the top, always at work at the mines. Down in the mines it is always dark because the sunlight cannot get down there, and so the people have to use lanterns. In the larger openings there are lamps fixed to the walls and ceilings lighted by "electricity." Although it is dark below the ground, we must not think it is cold. On the contrary, it is very hot and difficult to breathe, because there is no wind, so that the bad air does not get cleared away. It is hot and stuffy, like a house where people have been sleeping all night with no windows open. When people first made mines, a great many died because of the bad air and because of fires, but now they have machines which blow good air down into the ground, and electric and other lamps which do not set fire to things easily, and so there are not many people killed in the mines now. Nevertheless, it is very hard and tiring work, and men are often ill because of the dust which fills the air they breathe. So the Europeans to whom the mines belong pay for doctors and hospitals where the sick can be cared for until they are well. Many valuable minerals, besides gold, are found in South Africa, but the chief mines are for gold, diamonds, and coal. Diamonds are beautiful stones, clear like water, which flash red, blue, and green when they are turned about. They are very hard, and are sometimes used to cut glass. But they are valuable because European and Indian ladies will pay large prices for them, as they like to wear them as ornaments. Coal is a hard, black, shiny mineral used for burning. It makes better fires than wood, and burns much longer. These three—gold, diamonds, and coal—are the chief things found in mines in South Africa. But in other countries men find iron and silver and copper (of which pennies are made), and tin and salt, and many other useful things, in mines dug deep under the ground. 4. How the Miners Live People often come from very long distances to work in the diamond mines at Kimberley and in the gold mines at Johannesburg. Sometimes they walk, but in South Africa there are railways and trains to take people to all the large towns, and a person can travel in one day by train as far as he could walk in three or four days. Very few people spend all their lives at the mines. Most of the workers come for six months or a year, because they want money for clothes or food, as well as to buy cattle to pay the dowry for the girls they wish to marry. When they arrive at the mines, after their long journey, their names are written in a book as miners, and they are given places where they can live. If the men are single they live together in a large compound, which is a place enclosed by walls and gates. In these compounds there are houses where the men sleep, and places where they can do their washing, and the European mine masters provide people to clean these houses and to do the cooking. If the workman has a wife he is given a house in a mine village, called a "location." A location or a compound is like a village with a great number of houses placed close together along straight roads. The houses are sometimes built of stones or bricks, but more often of corrugated iron. In each location there are hundreds of people who have come to work at the mines for a few months from different parts of South Africa. They are all strangers to each other and speak many different languages. Most of them try to copy the dress of Europeans; but as European clothes are very expensive to buy and soon wear out, the natives often look ragged and dirty in them. These native workers in the mines are supplied with food, such as maize, corn, and meal; but there are shops in the locations and compounds where they can buy other food, such as tea, coffee, sugar, and bread, and where they can also get clothes and other European things. There are hospitals with doctors and nurses at all the mines to attend to the sick and the injured. There are also schools for the children in the location. It is difficult to teach in these schools because the children speak different languages, and their parents only stay for a short time. But a great many do learn to read, write, to do sums, and to sew. The country near the mines is very often dry and dusty. There are no fields nor trees, unless planted by Europeans. There are many laws regulating the life and work of the native miner; for example, he must go to work every day unless the doctor says he is too ill to do so. At night every one must be in the location, unless he be given a letter, which is called a "pass," from his master giving the reason why he is not in the location. 5. Strict Laws for Miners The reason for these laws is that all these people are far away from their homes, and often no one can speak their language. Their relations and chiefs are far away and cannot help them, and so the Government has to make laws to prevent bad people robbing and perhaps killing them. Wherever there is a great deal of money, there are always thieves and bad people. So the Europeans who own the mines and pay the workmen make these laws to protect their workmen, until their time on the mines is finished, and they can go home to their own chiefs again. There are police ready to see that everyone obeys the laws, and if they find bad people or thieves they take them to a police-court and lock them up. |
|