Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/456

 378 WEST AFRICA. cordage, with which they enclose extensive spaces in the forests to entrap the game driven in by the heaters. The plantations of the Ba-Kundus are cultivated as carefully as the finest European gardens by their slaves, nearly all imported from beyond the Ba-Farami mountains. These slaves, generally taller, stronger, and braver than their masters, and their equals in intelligence, are serfs in little more than the name, living in separate villages, and sometimes even forming autonomous republics with their local chiefs and general assemblies. Their communal independence is complete, and according to the missionary Richardson, who resided many years in the country, the political supremacy threatens to pass from the nominal rulers to the nominal slaves The authority of the fetishmen is scarcely less extensive than amongst the Ba- Kwiri. A young man who had committed the crime of eating a chicken at the missionary's table, was himself eaten by his fellow tribesmen. The sight of an owl forebodes great danger ; the ghosts, especially of enemies, are much dreaded, and to them are evidently attributed the tastes of vampires, for at the death of a Mo-Kundu two graves are dug, one in his cabin, the other in the forest, in order to puzzle the spirits and prevent them from knowing where the body has been deposited ; but this precaution not being deemed perhaps quite sufficient, after a certain time it is again disinterred, and removed to a distant cave. East of the Ba-£undus dwell the Ba-Longs and Abos, the former in the Mungo, the latter in the Yabiang basin, both keen traders and active boatmen. But amongst the Ba-Longs all the profits go to the community, and the commu- nistic idea is carried so far that some of the houses are large enough to contain a whole village of five hundred persons. Smaller groups of not less than ten families reside together in a vast hall, while the Abos, on the contrary, live quite apart, each family in its own cabin, often completely isolated or perched on some artificial mound, and surrounded by a ditch as a protection against the periodical fioods. Of all the Cameroons peoples the best known are the D wallas, whose settle- ments on the chief estuary have long been in direct commercial relation with the English and Germans. Although as dark as their neighbours, the Dwallas, who number j)erhaps twenty eight thousand altogether, approach nearest to the European or Semitic type. The women cover their bodies with intricate tattoo designs, the men contenting themselves with a few simple geometrical figures on the face, or even dispensing entirely with such marks. Physically they are a fine race, whose well- developed calves upset the theory of certain writers, who regard this anato- mical feature as an essential characteristic of the western Aryans, The Dwallas are very proud of their pure blood, and until recently were accustomed to kill all half- castes, looking on them as monsters, whose complexion reflected dishonour on the tribe. But the women are held in as low esteem as in any part of the continent, being regarded as mere chattels, possessing no personal rights, and a few years after birth sold to their future masters. like the Ba-Kwiri and some other neighbouring tribes, the Dwallas use the