It Seems As If Their Minds Were Ever In Doubt And Dread
In These Gloomy Recesses Of The Forest, And That They Were Striving
To Propitiate, By Their Offerings, Some Superior Beings Residing There.
The dress of the Balonda men consists of the softened skins of small animals,
as the jackal or wild cat, hung before and behind from a girdle
round the loins.
The dress of the women is of a nondescript character;
but they were not immodest. They stood before us as perfectly
unconscious of any indecorum as we could be with our clothes on.
But, while ignorant of their own deficiency, they could not
maintain their gravity at the sight of the nudity of my men behind.
Much to the annoyance of my companions, the young girls laughed outright
whenever their backs were turned to them.
After crossing the Lonaje, we came to some pretty villages,
embowered, as the negro villages usually are, in bananas, shrubs, and manioc,
and near the banks of the Leeba we formed our encampment
in a nest of serpents, one of which bit one of our men,
but the wound was harmless. The people of the surrounding villages
presented us with large quantities of food, in obedience to
the mandate of Shinte, without expecting any equivalent.
One village had lately been transferred hither from the country of Matiamvo.
They, of course, continue to acknowledge him as paramount chief;
but the frequent instances which occur of people changing
from one part of the country to another, show that the great chiefs possess
only a limited power.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 465 of 1070
Words from 132835 to 133097
of 306638
