This Was An Awful Visitation, As Each Wife Would
Expect A Present For Herself, And Would Assuredly Have Either A Child Or
A Friend For Whom She Would Beg An Addition.
I therefore told him that
the heat was so great that we could not bear too many in the tent, but
that if Bokke, his favourite, would appear, we should be glad to see
her.
Accordingly he departed, and shortly we were honoured by a visit. Bokke
and her daughter were announced, and a prettier pair of savages I never
saw. They were very clean; - their hair was worn short, like all the
women of the country, and plastered with red ochre and fat, so as to
look like vermilion; their faces were slightly tattooed on the cheeks
and temples; and they sat down on the many-coloured carpet with great
surprise, and stared at the first white man and woman they had ever
seen. We gave them both a number of necklaces of red and blue beads, and
I secured Bokke's portrait in my sketch book, obtaining a very correct
likeness. She told us that Mahommed Her's men were very bad people; that
they had burnt and plundered one of her villages; and that one of the
Latookas who had been wounded in the fight by a bullet had just died,
and they were to dance for him to-morrow, if we would like to attend.
She asked many questions; how many wives I had? and was astonished to
hear that I was contented with one. This seemed to amuse her immensely,
and she laughed heartily with her daughter at the idea. She said that my
wife would be much improved if she would extract her four front teeth
from the lower jaw, and wear the red ointment on her hair, according to
the fashion of the country; she also proposed that she should pierce her
under lip, and wear the long pointed polished crystal, about the size of
a drawing pencil, that is the "thing" in the Latooka country. No woman
among the tribe who has any pretensions to be a "swell" would be without
this highly-prized ornament, and one of my thermometers having come to
an end I broke the tube into three pieces, and they were considered as
presents of the highest value, to be worn through the perforated under
lip. Lest the piece should slip through the hole in the lip, a kind of
rivet is formed by twine bound round the inner extremity, and this
protruding into the space left by the extraction of the four front teeth
of the lower jaw, entices the tongue to act upon the extremity, which
gives it a wriggling motion, indescribably ludicrous during
conversation.
I cannot understand for what reason all the White Nile tribes extract
the four front teeth of the lower jaw. Were the meat of the country
tender, the loss of teeth might be a trifle; but I have usually found
that even a good set of grinders are sometimes puzzled to go through the
operation needful to a Latooka beefsteak. It is difficult to explain
real beauty; a defect in one country is a desideratum in another; scars
upon the face are, in Europe, a blemish; but here and in the Arab
countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks or temples have been
gashed.
The Arabs make three gashes upon each cheek, and rub the wounds with
salt and a kind of porridge (asida) to produce proud flesh; thus every
female slave, captured by the slave-hunters, is marked to prove her
identity, and to improve her charms. Each tribe has its peculiar fashion
as to the position and form of the cicatrix.
The Latookas gash the temples and cheeks of their women, but do not
raise the scar above the surface, as is the custom of the Arabs.
Polygamy is, of course, the general custom; the number of a man's wives
depending entirely upon his wealth, precisely as would the number of his
horses in England. There is no such thing as love in these countries:
the feeling is not understood, nor does it exist in the shape in which
we understand it. Everything is practical, without a particle of
romance. Women are so far appreciated as they are valuable animals. They
grind the corn, fetch the water, gather firewood, cement the floors,
cook the food, and propagate the race; but they are mere servants, and
as such are valuable. The price of a good-looking, strong young wife,
who could carry a heavy jar of water, would be ten cows; thus a man,
rich in cattle, would be rich in domestic bliss, as he could command a
multiplicity of wives. However delightful may be a family of daughters
in England, they nevertheless are costly treasures; but in Latooka, and
throughout savage lands, they are exceedingly profitable. The simple
rule of proportion will suggest that if one daughter is worth ten cows,
ten daughters must be worth a hundred, therefore a large family is the
source of wealth; the girls produce the cows, and the boys milk them.
All being perfectly naked (I mean the girls and the boys), there is no
expense, and the children act as herdsmen to the flocks as in the
patriarchal times. A multiplicity of wives thus increases wealth by the
increase of family. I am afraid this practical state of affairs will be
a strong barrier to missionary enterprise.
A savage holds to his cows, and his women, but especially to his COWS.
In a razzia fight he will seldom stand for the sake of his wives, but
when he does fight it is to save his cattle. I had now a vivid
exemplification of this theory.
One day, at about 3 P.M., the men of Ibrahim started upon some
mysterious errand, but returned equally mysterious at about midnight. On
the following morning I heard that they had intended to attack some
place upon the mountains, but they had heard that it was too powerful;
and as "discretion is the better part of valour," they had returned.
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