Read Ebook: The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies by Latham R G Robert Gordon

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But a Saxon element is greater.

And a Norse element is pre-eminently Norman.

FOOTNOTES:

"Natural History of Man," p. 197.

The details of this investigation are given in full in the present writer's "Taciti Germania with Ethnological notes," now in course of publication.

I include in this term the so-called old Saxons of Westphalia.

The original passage is as follows:--"???????? ?? ??? ????? ???? ???? ??????????????? ??????, ???????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ?????????, ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ?????? ??????? ??????? ?? ??? ????????? ??? ?? ?? ???? ???????? ?????????. ??????? ?? ? ????? ??? ????? ???????????? ???????? ???? ???? ??? ??? ???? ???? ??????? ??????? ?????????????? ??? ??????? ??? ?????? ?? ???????? ????????."--Procop. B. G. iv. 20.

????????? ?' ??????????? ??? ?????? ?????, ??? ?????????? ???????? ??? ??? ??????? ?????? ?????? ?? ???????????, ??? ???????? ??? ?????? ????????? ???????????? ????, ?? ????.

This was probably the case with the Callaici.

This I believe to have been the case with the ancient Greeks also; though the proof would require an elaborate monograph.

DEPENDENCIES IN AFRICA.

THE GAMBIA SETTLEMENTS.--SIERRA LEONE.--THE GOLD COAST.--THE CAPE.--THE MAURITIUS.--THE NEGROES OF AMERICA.

Of all the true and unequivocal Negroes, the Mandingos are the most civilized; the basis of their civilization being Arab, and their religion that of the Koran. Hence, they have priests, or Marabouts, the use of the Arabic alphabet, and a monotheistic creed.

Of all the Negroes, too, the Mandingos are the most commercial, not as mere slave-dealers, but as truly industrial merchants.

Of all the families of the African stock, with the exception of the Kaffres, the Mandingo is the most widely spread. It also falls into numerous divisions and subdivisions. Hence the term has a twofold power. Sometimes it is a generic name for a large group; sometimes the designation of a particular section of that group. The Mandingos of the Lower Gambia are Mandingos in the restricted meaning of the word.

As for the Paganism of the others, we must remember how far southwards and inland the same great stock extends--indefinitely towards the interior, and as far as the back of the Ashanti country, in the direction of the equator.

This prepares us for finding Mandingos at our next settlement.

Both are Negroes of the most typical kind, in respect to their physical conformation.

Both are Pagans.

Both speak what seem to be mutually unintelligible languages, but which have an undoubted relationship to each other, and to the numerous Mandingo dialects as well. It is this which induces me to place them in the same section with the more civilized Africans of the Gambia.

It is safe to say that they are amongst the rudest members of the stock; indeed it is only in the eyes of the etymologist that they are Mandingo at all. Practically, they, and several tribes like them, are Mandingo, in the way that a wolf is a dog, or a goat a sheep.

Round this has collected an equally miscellaneous population of rescued slaves; and, besides these, there are immigrants, labourers, and barterers from all the neighbouring parts of the Continent--Krumen more especially.

"A gentleman of Africa who sits at home at ease."

Half the Africans that we see in Liverpool are Krumen, who have left their own country when young, and taken employment on board a ship, where they exhibit a natural aptitude for the sea. Without being nice as to the destination of the vessel in which they engage, they return home as soon as they can; and rarely or never contract matrimony before their return. In Cape Coast Town, as well as in Sierra Leone, they form a bachelor community--quiet and orderly; and in that respect stand in strong contrast to the other tribes around them. Besides which, with all their blackness, and all their typical Negro character, they are distinguishable from most other western Africans; having the advantage of them in make, features, and industry.

The best measure of the heterogeneousness of the Sierra Leone population is to be found in Mrs. Kilham's vocabularies. That lady collected, at Free Town, specimens of thirty-one African tongues, from Negroes then and there resident. Of these--

B. Two were dialects of the Grebo : the Kru, and the Bassa.

C. Two were Fanti: the Fanti and the Ashanti, closely allied dialects.

D. Two were Dahoman: the Fot, and the Popo.

E. Two Benin: the Benin Proper, and the Moko, languages of a tract but little known.

F. One Wolof, from the Senegal.

K. Three from the widely-spread nations of the interior--the Fulah, the Haussa, and the Bornu.

I do not say that all Mrs. Kilham's specimens represent mutually unintelligible tongues; probably they do not. At the same time, as several decidedly different languages are omitted, the list understates, rather than exaggerates, the number of the divisions and subdivisions of the western African populations, as inferred from the divisions and subdivisions of the language.

Thus, no samples are given of the--

Southward, the unrepresented languages are equally numerous--especially for the Ivory Coast, and for the Delta of the Niger. Of these I shall only notice one--the Vey.

The settlement with which the tribes speaking the Vey language is in contact is one of which the tongue is English, but not the political relations. It is the American free Negro settlement of Liberia.

The books written in it are essentially Mahometan; the Koran appearing in them much in the same way as the Bible appears in the more degenerate legends of the middle ages.

How far the Vey alphabet will be an instrument of civilization, is a difficult question. For my own part, I half regret its evolution; since the Arabic that served for the Mandingo, would have served for the Vey as well--or if not the Arabic, the English.

We now move southwards to the--

The particular population of the parts about Cape Coast is Fanti in the limited sense of the term.

The Fanti, Ashanti, and Boroom forms of speech are merely dialects of one and the same language.

A great proportion of the vocabularies of "Bowdich's Ashanti" are the same.

So are the Fetu, Affotoo, and other vocabularies of the "Mithridates."

The inhabitants of the Native Town of Cape Coast, a mixed population of Krumen, Fantis, and Mulattoes, amounting to as many as 10,000, are no true specimens of the African of the Gold Coast. European influences have too long been at work on them. Before the town was English it was Dutch; and it was English as early as 1661.

Now the Fantis that thus displaced the Fetu, were themselves fugitives from the conquering Ashantis; all, however, being the members of one stock, and the pressure being from the highlands of the interior towards the lowlands of the coast.

All three are truly Negro in conformation, and miserably Pagan in creed, the best measure of their political capacity being the organized kingdom of the Ashantis; and the lowest form of it, the system of clanships, chieftainships, or captainships of the proper Fantis of the coast. The details of these are of importance.

It is easier to enumerate their external characteristics, and material elements of their union. In the Native Town there are four quarters, each occupied by a separate section of the population. This section has its own proper head, its own proper standards, and its own proper band of music.

What follows seems to apply to the rude state of society in the country around. Each division has its badge or device; so that we have the tribe, or clan, of the leopard, the cat, the dog, the hawk, the parrot, &c. On certain days there are certain festivals and processions, when the chief is carried in a long basket on the heads of two men, with umbrellas above him, and attendants around proportionate to his rank. When in distress, the Fanti has a claim upon the good offices of his tribe.

"There are some superstitious rites employed by Fetish-men for the detection of crime; and whether it is that these people really possess such powerful influence over their wretched dupes, as to frighten into confession of his guilt the perpetrator of crime, or whether it is that they manage by their numerous spies to obtain a clue sufficient in most cases to lead to the detection of the person, is more than I can venture to assert; but, be the means employed what they may, a Fetish-man will assuredly very often bring a crime home to the right person, even after the most patient investigation in the ordinary way has failed to elicit the slightest clue.

"The Rice test, although practised in this part of Africa, is, I believe, not peculiar to it, being also employed in the West Indies, and South America. Although no doubt originally introduced by a people in a low state of civilization, it is interesting in so far that it exemplifies the powerful influence which the mind possesses over the corporeal functions, and as it appears to have been in use among the blacks for centuries, we may give them the credit of having been practically aware that 'conscience doth make cowards of us all,' long before the Bard of Avon chronicled the fact. In the employment of this test in Guinea, those who are suspected of having committed a crime are assembled, and to each a small portion of rice is given, which they are required to masticate, and afterwards produce on the hand; and it is invariably the case that while all but the real culprit will produce their rice in a soft pulpy mass, his will be as dry as if ground in a mill, the salivary glands having, under the influence exerted upon the nervous system by fear, refused to perform their ordinary functions."

The hardest workers amongst the Fantis are the fishers, who use a canoe of wood of the bombax, from ten to twelve feet in length, and strengthened by cross timbers. The net--a casting net--is made from the fibres of the aloe or the pine-apple, and is about twenty feet in diameter .

Next to these come the farmers, whose rough agriculture consists in the cultivation of maize, bananas, yams, and pumpkins; and lastly, the gold-seekers. Of this there is abundance; and where the European coin of the coast ceases, the native currency of gold-dust begins. Sums of so small a value as three half-pence are thus paid; smaller ones being represented by cowries.

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