Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/141

 The Bari, who follow the Madi along both banks of the river, form one of those groups of Negro tribes most remarkable for their physical beauty and haughty carriage. The traveller can easily study their fine proportions, as they go perfectly naked, considering it effeminate to cover the body. Peney even tells us that they are "afraid of clothes," and that to assure himself of a favourable reception he had to take off his own garments. Although the women are allowed to dress, most of them merely wear the rahad, or loin-cloth, made either of little iron chains or strips of leather, and a hide round the hips. Their hair is always shaved off, while the men leave a little tuft on the top of the head, which the chiefs deck with ostrich feathers. Unlike the Shuli, the Bari do not cover themselves with amulets and bracelets, although some also paint the body, especially for the war dances, and tattoo themselves with arabesques or many-coloured geometrical designs. These operations, undergone at puberty, are very dangerous and often end in death. According to Felkin, the Bari, recently decimated by small-pox, have invented and applied the practice of innoculatiou, apparently with perfect success. The Bari warriors are considered the bravest of all the Nilotic tribes. Amongst them men are often met wearing on the wrist an ivory bracelet; these are the hunters who managed to kill an elephant in single combat. The slave-dealers generally recruited their bands of slave-hunters amongst the Bari, and the name of these banditti was dreaded as far as the vicinity of the great lakes. But the Bari have themselves suffered much from the razzias of the slave-traders, certain parts of their territory having been completely depopulated. Knowing that the principal wealth of the Bari consists of cattle, and that they are very proud of these beautiful animals, decorating them with bells, like the Swiss cows, the slavers first captured their herds, the Bari bringing their own wives and children to ransom them, unless a fortunate expedition enabled them to substitute the families of some neighbouring tribe. The cow is held as sacred amongst these Nile populations. Instead of squatting, like most other Negroes, or sitting cross-legged, like the Arabs, the Bari are accustomed to sit on stools painted red. Catholic missionaries have been for some time at work amongst the Bari, but with small success, the conduct of the Christian slave-dealers being scarcely of the kind to assist the teachings of the priests. The Bari still adhere to their magical rites, their ancient animistic religion, their worship of the serjx?nt, called by them "grandmother," and their veneration for the dead, whom they carefully bury in a sitting posture. "Formerly," said they, "we could climb to heaven by a cord connected with the stars, but this cord has been broken." The ruins of the church, the head-quarters of the Upper Nile missions, are no longer to be seen, a fine avenue of lemons alone marking the site of what was the city of Gomhkoro; the bricks of the Austrian missionaries' houses have also been ground down by the natives, and mixed with grease, with which to paint their bodies. Baker Pasha had made Gondokoro the centre of his administration under the name of Ismailia; but on account of the shifting of the river, and the development of marshes and sandbanks,