Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/234

 188 WEST AFEICA. village forms an independent petty state ruled by tlie wealtliiest family. Tte Balantas are distinctly black, but smaller and less symmetrical than the Wolofs, with very long skulls, retreating forehead, and small bloodshot eyes. Of all the natives they are the most addicted to plunder, and as theft is a capital crime, they are especially proud of the "heroic" valour displayed by them on predatory excursions. Special professors are appointed to teach the noble art of robbery, and the village youth are not regarded as men until they have distinguished them- selves as footpads or marauders. The Papels or Burnes are centred chiefly in the district between the Cacheo and Geba estuaries to the west of the Balantas, whom they closely resemble in physical appearance and social usages. Like them, they bury the dead with great pomp, and at least, until recently, their chiefs were accompanied to the other world by several maidens buried alive. Even in 1860 human flesh still formed part of the " baked meats " at funeral banquets in some remote districts. The Papels are, however, distinguished by their artistic taste, and to their designers are due the ornaments with which the native earthenware and culabashes are embellished. Although showing no kind of respect for their dead, the Biafars, or Biafadas, are the mildest and most pacific of all the Guine peoples. The Nalus, their southern neighbours beyond the Eio- Grande estuary, are also distinguished for their sociable habits. Amongst them marriages are exogamous, and when a young man selects his bride from a neighbouring tribe, he sends his sister to her brother by way of compensation. The Bujagos or Bijugas, who occupy the Bissagos archipelago and a part of the opposite coast, are a fine Negro race, proud, intrepid, and from infancy accustomed to endure physical pain unflinchingly. They were long dreaded by the Europeans as formidable corsairs, being the only people on this seaboard who ventured on the high seas to any distance from the coast. In their warlike expe- ditions the men smeared themselves with ochre and decked their heads with plumes and metal ornaments ; but they soon learnt to exchange their primitive bow and arrows tipped with poisoned fish-bones for swords of European make. Their fetishes, representing men and animals, are carved with singular truth to nature, and compared with similar objects elsewhere in West Africa may be regarded as genuine works of art. In some of the Bissagos islands matriarchal rites still prevail among the Bujagos. Islam is spreading amongst all the coast tribes, and in the Nalu county Mus- sulman communities already reach all the way to the sea. In pre-Mohammedan times the natives were mostly devil- worshippers, considering it useless to pray to the good spirits, and reserving their supplications only for the maleficent genii. Where these views still survive the people assemble at some china, or sacred spot, such as a great tree, the seashore, or the chiefs dwelling, and here sacrifice an ox, a goat, or a fowl, reading the pleasure of the demon in the entrails. If the prescribed rites have been faithfully performed it is always favourable, and the evil one betakes himself elsewhere. To circumvent the minor spirits, w^ho bring