The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile by Samuel White Baker (best ebook reader for chromebook .txt) 📖

or six deep, following the leader who

headed them, dancing backwards. The women kept outside the line, dancing

a slow stupid step, and screaming a wild and most inharmonious chant;

while a long string of young girls and small children, their heads and

necks rubbed with red ochre and grease, and prettily ornamented with

strings of beads around their loins, kept a very good line, beating the

time with their feet, and jingling the numerous iron rings which adorned

their ankles to keep time with the drums. One woman attended upon the

men, running through the crowd with a gourd full of wood-ashes, handfuls

of which she showered over their heads, powdering them like millers; the

object of the operation I could not understand. The “premiere danseuse”

was immensely fat; she had passed the bloom of youth, but, “malgre” her

unwieldy state, she kept up the pace to the last, quite unconscious of

her general appearance, and absorbed with the excitement of the dance.

 

These festivities were to be continued in honour of the dead; and as

many friends had recently been killed, music and dancing would be in

fashion for some weeks.

 

There was an excellent interpreter belonging to Ibrahim’s party—a Bari

lad of about eighteen. This boy had been in their service for some

years, and had learnt Arabic, which he spoke fluently, although with a

peculiar accent, owing to the extraction of the four front teeth of the

lower jaw, according to the general custom. It was of great importance

to obtain the confidence of Loggo, as my success depended much upon

information that I might obtain from the natives; therefore, whenever I

sent for him to hold any conversation with the people, I invariably gave

him a little present at parting. Accordingly he obeyed any summons from

me with great alacrity, knowing that the interview would terminate with

a “baksheesh” (present). In this manner I succeeded in establishing

confidence, and he would frequently come uncalled to my tent and

converse upon all manner of subjects. The Latooka language is different

to the Bari, and a second interpreter was necessary; this was a sharp

lad about the same age: thus the conversation was somewhat tedious, the

medium being Bari and Latooka.

 

The chief Commoro (the “Lion”) was one of the most clever and

common-sense savages that I had seen in these countries, and the tribe

paid far more deference to his commands than to those of his brother,

“Moy,” although the latter was the superior in rank.

 

One day I sent for Commoro after the usual funeral dance was completed,

and, through my two young interpreters, I had a long conversation with

him on the customs of his country. I wished if possible to fathom the

origin of the extraordinary custom of exhuming the body after burial, as

I imagined that in this act some idea might be traced to a belief in the

resurrection.

 

Commoro was, like all his people, extremely tall. Upon entering my tent

he took his seat upon the ground, the Latookas not using stools like the

other White Nile tribes. I commenced the conversation by complimenting

him on the perfection of his wives and daughters in the dance, and on

his own agility in the performance; and inquired for whom the ceremony

had been performed.

 

He replied, that it was for a man who had been recently killed, but no

one of great importance, the same ceremony being observed for every

person without distinction. I asked him why those slain in battle were

allowed to remain unburied. He said, it had always been the custom, but

that he could not explain it.

 

“But,” I replied, “why should you disturb the bones of those whom you

have already buried, and expose them on the outskirts of the town?”

 

“It was the custom of our forefathers,” he answered, “therefore we

continue to observe it.”

 

“Have you no belief in a future existence after death? Is not some idea

expressed in the act of exhuming the bones after the flesh is decayed?”

 

Commoro (loq.).—“Existence AFTER death! How can that be? Can a dead man

get out of his grave, unless we dig him out?”

 

“Do you think man is like a beast, that dies and is ended?”

 

Commoro.—“Certainly; an ox is stronger than a man; but he dies, and his

bones last longer; they are bigger. A man’s bones break quickly—he is

weak.”

 

“Is not a man superior in sense to an ox? Has he not a mind to direct

his actions?”

 

Commoro.—“Some men are not so clever as an ox. Men must sow corn to

obtain food, but the ox and wild animals can procure it without sowing.”

 

“Do you not know that there is a spirit within you more than flesh? Do

you not dream and wander in thought to distant places in your sleep?

Nevertheless, your body rests in one spot. How do you account for this?”

 

Commoro (laughing).—“Well, how do YOU account for it? It is a thing I

cannot understand; it occurs to me every night.”

 

“The mind is independent of the body; the actual body can be fettered,

but the mind is uncontrollable; the body will die and will become dust,

or be eaten by vultures, but the spirit will exist for ever.”

 

Commoro.—“Where will the spirit live?”

 

“Where does fire live? Cannot you produce a fire (The natives always

produce fire by rubbing two sticks together.) by rubbing two sticks

together, yet you SEE not the fire in the wood. Has not that fire, that

lies harmless and unseen in the sticks, the power to consume the whole

country? Which is the stronger, the small stick that first PRODUCES the

fire, or the fire itself? So is the spirit the element within the body,

as the element of fire exists in the stick; the element being superior

to the substance.”

 

Commoro.—“Ha! Can you explain what we frequently see at night when lost

in the wilderness? I have myself been lost, and wandering in the dark, I

have seen a distant fire; upon approaching, the fire has vanished, and I

have been unable to trace the cause—nor could I find the spot.”

 

“Have you no idea of the existence of spirits superior to either man or

beast? Have you no fear of evil except from bodily causes?”

 

Commoro.—“I am afraid of elephants and other animals when in the jungle

at night, but of nothing else.”

 

“Then you believe in nothing; neither in a good nor evil spirit! And you

believe that when you die it will be the end of body and spirit; that

you are like other animals; and that there is no distinction between man

and beast; both disappear, and end at death?”

 

Commoro.—“Of course they do.”

 

“Do you see no difference in good and bad actions?” Commoro.—“Yes,

there are good and bad in men and beasts.”

 

“Do you think that a good man and a bad must share the same fate, and

alike die, and end?”

 

Commoro.—“Yes; what else can they do? How can they help dying? Good and

bad all die.”

 

“Their bodies perish, but their spirits remain; the good in happiness,

the bad in misery. If you have no belief in a future state, WHY SHOULD A

MAN BE GOOD? Why should he not be bad, if he can prosper by wickedness?”

 

Commoro.—“Most people are bad; if they are strong they take from the

weak. The good people are all weak; they are good because they are not

strong enough to be bad.”

 

Some corn had been taken out of a sack for the horses, and a few grains

lying scattered on the ground, I tried the beautiful metaphor of St.

Paul as an example of a future state. Making a small hole with my finger

in the ground, I placed a grain within it: “That,” I said, “represents

you when you die.” Covering it with earth, I continued, “That grain will

decay, but from it will rise the plant that will produce a reappearance

of the original form.”

 

Commoro.—“Exactly so; that I understand. But the ORIGINAL grain does

NOT rise again; it rots like the dead man, and is ended; the fruit

produced is not the same grain that we buried, but the PRODUCTION of

that grain: so it is with man—I die, and decay, and am ended; but my

children grow up like the fruit of the grain. Some men have no children,

and some grains perish without fruit; then all are ended.”

 

I was obliged to change the subject of conversation. In this wild naked

savage there was not even a superstition upon which to found a religious

feeling; there was a belief in matter; and to his understanding

everything was MATERIAL. It was extraordinary to find so much clearness

of perception combined with such complete obtuseness to anything ideal.

 

Giving up the religious argument as a failure, I resolved upon more

practical inquiries.

 

The Turks had only arrived in the Latooka country in the preceding year.

They had not introduced the cowrie shell; but I observed that every

helmet was ornamented with this species; it therefore occurred to me

that they must find their way into the country from Zanzibar.

 

In reply to my inquiries, Commoro pointed to the south, from which he

said they arrived in his country, but he had no idea from whence they

came. The direction was sufficient to prove that they must be sent from

the east coast, as Speke and Grant had followed the Zanzibar traders as

far as Karagwe, the 2 degrees S. lat.

 

Commoro could not possibly understand my object in visiting the Latooka

country; it was in vain that I attempted to explain the intention of my

journey. He said, “Suppose you get to the great lake; what will you do

with it? What will be the good of it? If you find that the large river

does flow from it, what then? What’s the good of it?”

 

I could only assure him, that in England we had an intimate knowledge of

the whole world, except the interior of Africa, and that our object in

exploring was to benefit the hitherto unknown countries by instituting

legitimate trade, and introducing manufactures from England in exchange

for ivory and other productions. He replied that the Turks would never

trade fairly; that they were extremely bad people, and that they would

not purchase ivory in any other way than by bartering cattle, which they

stole from one tribe to sell to another.

 

Our conversation was suddenly terminated by one of my men running in to

the tent with the bad news that one of the camels had dropped down and

was dying. The report was too true. He was poisoned by a well-known

plant that he had been caught in the act of eating. In a few hours he

died. There is no more stupid animal than the camel. Nature has

implanted in most animals an instinctive knowledge of the plants

suitable for food, and they generally avoid those that are poisonous:

but the camel will eat indiscriminately anything that is green; and if

in a country where the plant exists that is well known by the Arabs as

the “camel poison,” watchers must always accompany the animals while

grazing. The most fatal plant is a creeper, very succulent, and so

beautifully green that its dense foliage is most attractive to the

stupid victim. The stomach of the camel is very subject to inflammation,

which is rapidly fatal. I have frequently seen them, after several days

of sharp desert marching, arrive in good pasture, and die, within a few

hours, of inflammation caused by repletion. It is extraordinary how they

can exist upon the driest and