Cuisines and Crops of Africa – Imagining Cannibalism in the 19th Century and Now

It is a curious feature of cannibalism in Africa, that it is always practiced by another group – a group that is ‘just over the hill’ – and in that place.  There, it is said, one finds such a practice.  I recently was talking to several Burundian friends in the nearby village about rumours of cannibalism in the Eastern Congo, just across Lake Tanganyika from us, and was assured that ‘yes; cannibalism is practiced, but only with respect to conquered enemies after a fight. It is a ritual feast, of the warriors on those they conquored – so I was told.

But who knows?  Human fascination with the topic continues to abound.

Of the 19th century colonial writings that I have here in Burundi, cannibalism is mentioned in the majority of the journals.  What is behind the seemingly universal fascination with the topic?  One reason, was that many of the explorers were advised, by future publishers,  to seek and write about findings that were bound to increase sales by way of pandering to the exotic interests of popular readers.  And perhaps, for some, that was sufficient reason.

Indeed, the 19th century interest in the topic bears similarity to the medieval interest in a variety of exotic creatures that were said to inhabit unknown areas of  the map.  For example, the Blemmyes (whose head was in their chest) and their fantastic cohorts  (no-one ever saw these creatures , either…):

Sciopod, cyclops, duplex, blemmya, cynocephalos. sebastian mc3bcnster - cosmographia c. 1559 page 1080

Here are some of the 19th century explorers’ books that take up the issue of cannibalism (though, not of the exotic creatures such as the Blemmies):

• Fetishism in West Africa : Forty Years Observation
  
• Great African Explorers, Kingston
• How I Found Livingstone, Stanley
• In the Wilds of Africa, Kingston
• Ismailia, Baker
• Landers Travels, Huish
• Letters from Egypt, Duff-Gordon
• Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, Livingstone
• Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaier…1818, Tukey
• Queer Things About Egypt, Sladen
• The Albert N’Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, Baker
• The Cruise of the Snark
  
• The Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Speke
• The heart of Africa: Three years’ travels and adventures in the unexplored regions of Central Africa from 1868 to 1871, Volume 2 George August Schweinfurth
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
• The Last Journals of David Livingstone V.1, Livingstone
• The Last Journals of David Livingstone V.2, Livingstone
• The Life and Travels of Mungo Park
• Travels and discoveries in North and Central Africa:Being a journal of an expedition undertaken under the auspices of H. B. Majesty’s government, Volume 2, Barth
• Travels in Morocco, V.1, Richardson
• Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, Richardson
• Travels in the Interior of Africa V.1, Park
• Travels in the Interior of Africa V.2, Park
• Travels in West Africa, Kingsley
• Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts V.1, Burton
• Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts V.2, Burton
• What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, Speke

Sir Burton’s writings on Africa contain some of the worst racist remarks to be found in the colonial literature.  That he was so widely respected and read, only served to imprint his remarks as reality on the European mind and helped to secure the colonial and imperial notion that Africans ‘needed’ Europeans in order to ‘become civilized’ and to ‘develop’ – a notion that has continued to inform development theory and practice as well as research in agriculture, livestock, and other areas unto now.

Cannibalism – or ‘anthropophagy’, as Sir Richard Burton (discussed below) termed it – was a topic that fascinated 19th Century explorers in Africa, just as it continues to peak the imagination today…

Sir Richard Burton  systematically asked about possible ‘cannibal tribes’ known to those whom he visited throughout his travels in Africa.  In West Africa, the Fan were said to have been cannibals, and it was in search of this practice that Sir Richard Burton set out to visit the Fan in c.1863.  The visit turned into a study of cannibalism in Africa, and below are excerpts from Sir Burton’s findings.

Richard Burton was not a particularly sympathetic writer

 I made careful inquiry about anthropophagy [Cannibalism] amongst the Fan, and my account must differ greatly from that of M. du Chaillu. The reader, however, will remember that Mayyan is held by a comparatively civilized race, who have probably learned to conceal a custom so distasteful to all their neighbours, white and black; in the remoter districts cannibalism may yet assume far more hideous proportions.

Since the Fan have encouraged traders to settle amongst them, the interest as well as the terrors of the Coast tribes, who would deter foreigners from direct dealings, has added new horrors to the tale; and yet nothing can exceed the reports of older travellers.

During my peregrinations I did not see a single [human] skull. The chiefs, stretched at full length, and wrapped in mats, are buried secretly, the object being to prevent some strong Fetish medicine being made by enemies from various parts of the body. In some villages the head men of the same tribe are interred near one another; the commonalty are put singly and decently under ground, and only the slave (Maka) is thrown as usual into the bush.

Mr. Tippet, who had lived three years with this people, knew only three cases of cannibalism; and the Rev. Mr. Walker agreed with other excellent authorities, that it is a rare incident even in the wildest parts–perhaps opportunity only is wanted. As will appear from the Fan’s bill of fare, anthropophagy can hardly be caused by necessity, and the way in which it is conducted shows that it is a quasi-religious rite practised upon foes slain in battle, evidently an equivalent of human sacrifice.

 If the whole body cannot be carried off, a limb or two is removed for the purpose of a roast. The corpse is carried to a hut built expressly on the outskirts of the settlement; it is eaten secretly by the warriors, women and children not being allowed to be present, or even to look upon man’s flesh; and the cooking pots used for the banquet must all be broken.

 A joint of “black brother” is never seen in the villages: “smoked human flesh” does not hang from the rafters, and the leather knife-sheaths are of wild cow; tanned man’s skin suggests only the tannerie de Meudon, an advanced “institution.”

 Yet Dr. Schweinfurth’s valuable travels on the Western Nile prove that public anthropophagy can co-exist with a considerable amount of comfort and, so to speak, civilization–witness the Nyam-Nyam and Mombattu (Mimbuttoo).

 The sick and the dead are uneaten by the Fan, and the people shouted with laughter when I asked a certain question. The “unnatural” practice, which, by the by, has at different ages extended over the whole world, now continues to be most prevalent in places where, as in New Zealand, animal food is wanting; and everywhere pork readily takes the place of “long pig.”

 The damp and depressing atmosphere of equatorial Africa renders the stimulus of flesh diet necessary. The Isangu, or Ingwanba, the craving felt after a short abstinence from animal food, does not spare the white traveller more than it does his dark guides; and, though the moral courage of the former may resist the “gastronomic practice” of breaking fast upon a fat young slave, one does not expect so much from the untutored appetite of the noble savage.

 On the eastern parts of the continent there are two cannibal tribes, the Wadoe and the Wabembe; and it is curious to find the former occupying the position assigned by Ptolemy (iv. 8) to his anthropophagi of the Barbaricus Sinus: according to their own account, however, the practice is modern.

 When weakened by the attacks of their Wakamba neighbours, they began to roast and eat slices from the bodies of the slain in presence of the foe. The latter, as often happens amongst barbarians, and even amongst civilized men, could dare to die, but were unable to face the horrors of becoming food after death: the great Cortez knew this feeling when he made his soldiers pretend anthropophagy.

 Many of the Wadoe negroids are tall, well made, and light complexioned, though inhabiting the low and humid coast regions– a proof, if any were wanted, that there is nothing unwholesome in man’s flesh. Some of our old accounts of shipwrecked seamen, driven to the dire necessity of eating one another, insinuate that the impious food causes raging insanity.

 The Wabembe tribe, occupying a strip of land on the western shore of the Tanganyika Lake, are “Menschenfresser,” as they were rightly called by the authors of the “Mombas Mission Map.” These miserables have abandoned to wild growth a most prolific soil; too lazy and unenergetic to hunt or to fish, they devour all manner of carrion, grubs, insects, and even the corpses of their deceased friends.

 The Midgan, or slave-caste of the semi-Semitic Somal, are sometimes reduced to the same extremity; but they are ever held, like the Wendigo, or man-eaters, amongst the North American Indians, impure and detestable. On the other hand, the Tupi- Guaranis of the Brazil, a country abounding in game, fish, wild fruits, and vegetables, ate one another with a surprising relish.

 This subject is too extensive even to be outlined here: the reader is referred to the translation of Hans Stade: old travellers attribute the cannibalism of the Brazilian races to “gulosity” rather than superstition; moreover, these barbarians had certain abominable practices, supposed to be known only to the most advanced races.

 Anthropophagy without apparent cause was not unknown in Southern Africa. Mr. Layland found a tribe of “cave cannibals” amongst the mountains beyond Thaba Bosigo in the Trans-Gariep Country.He remarks with some surprise, “Horrible as all this may appear, there might be some excuse made for savages, driven by famine to extreme hunger, for capturing and devouring their enemies. But with these people it was totally different, for they were inhabiting a fine agricultural tract of country, which also abounded in game. Notwithstanding this, they were not contented with hunting and feeding upon their enemies, but preyed much upon each other also, for many of their captures were made from amongst the people of their own tribe, and, even worse than this, in times of scarcity, many of their own wives and children became the victims of this horrible practice.”

 Anthropophagy, either as a necessity, a sentiment, or a superstition, is known to sundry, though by no means to all, the tribes dwelling between the Nun (Niger) and the Congo rivers; how much farther south it extends I cannot at present say. On the Lower Niger, and its branch the Brass River, the people hardly take the trouble to conceal it.

 On the Bonny and New Calabar, perhaps the most advanced of the so-called Oil Rivers, cannibalism, based upon a desire of revenge, and perhaps, its sentimental side, the object of imbibing the valour of an enemy slain in battle, has caused many scandals of late years.

 The practice, on the other hand, is execrated by the Efiks of Old Calabar, who punish any attempts of the kind with extreme severity. During 1862 the slaves of Creek-town attempted it, and were killed. At Duke-town an Ibo woman also cut up a man, sun- dried the flesh, and sold it for monkey’s meat–she took sanctuary at the mission house. Yet it is in full vigour amongst their Ibo neighbours to the north-west, and the Duallas of the Camarones River also number it amongst their “country customs.” The Mpongwe, as has been said, will not eat a chimpanzee; the Fan devour their dead enemies.

 The Fan character has its ferocious side, or it would not be African: prisoners are tortured with all the horrible barbarity of that human wild beast which is happily being extirpated, the North American Indian; and children may be seen greedily licking the blood from the ground.

 It is a curious ethnological study, this peculiar development of destructiveness in the African brain. Cruelty seems to be with him a necessary of life, and all his highest enjoyments are connected with causing pain and inflicting death. His religious rites–a strong contrast to those of the modern Hindoo–are ever causelessly bloody. Take as an instance, the Efik race, or people of Old Calabar, some 6,000 wretched remnants of a once-powerful tribe. For 200 years they have had intercourse with Europeans, who, though slavers, would certainly neither enjoy nor encourage these profitless horrors; yet no savages show more brutality in torture, more frenzied delight in bloodshed, than they do.

 A few of their pleasant practices are– The administration of Esere, or poison-bean; “Egbo floggings” of the utmost severity, equalling the knout; Substitution of an innocent pauper for a rich criminal; Infanticide of twins; and Vivisepulture. And it must be remembered that this tribe has had the benefit of a resident mission for the last generation. I can hardly believe this abnormal cruelty to be the mere result of uncivilization; it appears to me the effect of an arrested development, which leaves to the man all the ferocity of the carnivor, the unreflecting cruelty of the child. The dietary of these “wild men of the woods” would astonish the starveling sons of civilization.

From Richard Burton – Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1, 1876 - 

Earlier than Burton, James Hingston Tuckey set out to explore the Congo in 1816 and had this to say of tribes in the delta of the Congo River, and cannibalism in general:

Extrait de l'atlas de jean-baptiste douville, 1831 voyage au congo...

This place is no doubt the St. Salva dor of the Portuguese. These chiefs have improperly been called kings : their territories, it would seem, are small in extent, the present expedition having passed at least six of them in the line of the river; the last is that of Inga, be yond which are what they call bush-men, or those dreadful cannibals whom Andrew Battel, Lopez, Merolla, and others, have denominated Jiigas, or Giagas, who consider human flesh as the most delicious food, and goblets of warm blood as the most exquisite beverage a calumny, which there is every reason to believe has not the smallest foundation in fact.

 From the character and disposition of the native African, it may fairly be doubted whether, throughout the whole of this great continent, a negro cannibal has any existence…

…it is probable, that the many idle stories repeated by the Capuchin and other missionaries to Congo, of the Giagas and Anzicas, their immediate neighbours, delighting in human flesh, may have had no other foundation than their fears worked upon by the stories of the neighbouring tribes, who always take care to represent one another in a bad hght, and usually fix upon cannibalism as the worst…

 Source: James Tukey, Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaier…1818

Os Filhos de Pindorama. Cannibalism in Brazil in 1557 as described by Hans Staden (b. around 1525). Stories of cannibalism in South America 'vied' with similar stories from Africa.

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Work and Life During The War Years in Burundi. 2004

From time to time I will be posting emails that i wrote during the war years to  friends and colleagues in other countries regarding our goat project and security and life in general – especially 2002 – 2006. Events have indeed improved!

Friday, August 20, 2004

Friends & Colleagues -

Many of you have written about recent fighting here in Burundi – that took place last Friday.

Indeed, over 160 refugees – mainly women and children – were brutally slaughtered in a transit refugee camp about 4 klms down the road from us towards the Congo border. This was a deliberate effort to derail current, delicate negotiations on power-sharing amongst contending ethnic and political groups that were to take place this week. Those responsible are amongst the desperate, who will go to many lengths to keep a real, power-sharing government from being finalized – but 99% of people here and in the region desperately do want it – and it will happen.

Gatumba, mass burial following the outrages.

This Monday evening saw 4 more hours of intense fighting near us, while email services, the internet and electricity were sporadically ‘down’ much of the week. Wednesday a mob stormed the Congo Embassy, which is just across from the Greek Butcher – which I was unfortunate enough to have entered.

Riot police and military arrived, tear gas was lobbed. The iron gates & bars had been hastily raised at the butcher [all shops here have bars and/or steel doors]. We all patiently awaited mob, tear gas and law enforcers to leave – which finally did happen.

Waiting at the Greek butchers for the fighting to be controlled

In addition, the last month out here on Lake Tanganyika has been a period of MAJOR BREAKDOWN of just about everything: email; internet; electricity; water – sometimes;  phones – sometimes; etc.

Goat farming traditionally is low-input, and that’s just what our 150+ foundation/multiplication herds have been receiving during July and August! And they have have been doing just fine …. 42 new kids birthed  in July as a matter of fact, all dropped with no trouble; most twins and 2 sets of triplets. One death due to premature birth.

One of the two buck herds going out to the commonlands

Another kind of breakdown took place with a check that had to be signed by me before it could be deposited. I requested it be sent by DHL. But instead of sending the check THROUGH DHL, it was sent TO the address of DHL-Burundi by regular mail … and never arrived : ( .

These funds were to be used for air fare to South Africa and back to attend the 8th International Congress on Goats, where I was to deliver an invited paper.  So most unfortunately, I was unable to attend – or even notify colleagues and organizers at the University of Pretoria of this unhappy development due to power and email outages – until quite late.

Back to the goats during July: A couple of cases of pneumonia, a lot of soremouth of the young and of Theileria – a nasty tick-borne disease that purebred Central African Goats are genetically able to resist or tolerate. Another mysterious skin condition that began as what seemed to be soremouth but spread all over the body and visually is quite different from soremouth – a fine 87.5% Alpine-CAG doe with twins was most seriously affected.

The worse case of 'soremouth' in our herds, one of the German Alpine bucks that I brought over from Kenya with help from GTZ. This is a major reason exotic breeds have problems in coming to tropical Africa - lacking genetic ability to counteract effects of tropical diseases. That is why cross-breeding up to the 3rd. degree must be done.

Now that we’re [almost] back into 21st century-style operations, I will get samples sent down to the major vet lab in South Africa via the South Africa Military direct air flight for examination. But another hitch: there is no formalin in the country now – and new shipments won’t be arriving for another month …

Vet technician, paravets and herders - hands-on training key to success.

As for the skin problem, I’m beginning to think that the vast herds of cattle [1000s] with which our goats share the commonlands along Lake Tanganyika may be bringing in ‘new’ pathogens from the Congo or elsewhere – from which they are coming due to fighting.  Though also  it could be goat pox. With no operational vet lab in the country or updated training of vet staff here in Burundi – or livestock movement controls/disease monitoring – we’re really strapped in this kind of situation.

Some of the does that are being bred 'up' using our German Alpine and South African Boer bucks.

Oh, and for our cooking-colleagues – how about creature-comforts like cooking when ‘all’ systems fail? Once the gas ran out, we used charcoal and that works just fine. With no refrigeration, leftovers are put in pots or bowls loosely covered and then placed on a tray filled with water so that ants and other invaders can’t munch away. Even perishable foods will keep that way for at least 12 hours and then you re-boil to kill any bacteria and store again. Once boiled, the goat milk also keeps for at least 12 hours.

The does crossed up to 75% and above can be milked. The doll is from a school in Florida that asked if I'd organize a series of pix for the students, showing aspects of goat husbandry here in Burundi using 'Flat William', whom they sent.

Well, not to complain: 98% of the population in Burundi – i.e., everyone but persons living in the capital of Bujumbura and several small provincial towns – never have running water, electricity or other than dirt roads or paths + no glass windows and all cooking done by wood fires. These are our project clients – all eager and willing smallholder goat farmers.

Now that I’ll soon be downloading the many emails that have been accumulating, I’ll be skimming them over the next few days. Anyone who has sent me an email during the last 6 weeks should resend – TO THIS YAHOO ADDRESS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE – since I’m sure many emails have been refused in the ‘mailbox’ due to being full.

Diana,

Burundi-AFRICA

As for the paper I was to deliver at the University of Pretoria, it was published out of ILRI (International Livestock Research Centre, Nairobi) – topic was ‘The Role of Restocking in Crisis Mitigation‘.

More on our goat project here:  ‘ Heart of Africa’  Burundi Goat Rehabilitation Project

_________________________

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Cultural Collapse in Egypt

A while back, on Radio Germany [short wave], a program was aired on changes in women’s dress in Egypt over the past several decades – towards both western dress and veiling.  Although Egypt is a small country and one that has endured millennia of severely extractive domination by a variety of outside powers, rural communities have defied these attempted takeovers of local expression through a series of strategies that are often found in peasant societies – a determination to retain unique styles of local dress, cuisine, architecture, dance, accents/dialects, etc.

Until recently, it was possible to determine where a rural woman [bint al-balad]or man [ibn al-balad] came from by the dress style of the woman and the gallabia and cap style of the man.  There are [or were] numerous styles throughout the Nile Valley, I can’t remember the exact number but certainly over 20.  In the late 70s and 80s, while working in different areas of the country, I collected dresses that embodied some of these different styles.  These were lovely, simple cotton frocks, long and long-sleeved, open at the neck and with a variety of styles of embroidery and/or ruffles and folds – and many different colors and patterns.  For the winter, heavier cotton was used than for summer dresses.  The best reserved for celebrations; others of a more work-a-day nature:

A style that was found in Upper Egypt

Daily work dresses, Upper Egypt

At the same time Andrea Ruch wrote a book [illustrated] on these different dress styles, published by the American University in Cairo Press, I think.  Also, an Egyptian woman began a systematic purchase of them throughout Egypt, opening a little shop in her home in Cairo which I used to visit – Shahira Mahriz, I think was her full name; she was interviewed on the German radio program and explained that she now has some of the last remaining styles made in some of the areas.

Now, as reported by Radio Germany, many of these local styles have already disappeared as peasant women take up more western styles of dress as well as the hijab [Islamic head covering].

Disappearance of regional differences is relevant also to variations in food.  Although not as distinct as dress, unique cooking styles or cuisines are [were] found in different areas of Egypt, especially in relation to cheese types and bread.  Of cheeses, there is [were] gibna rumi, gibna bayda, karish, mish, rahseer, and daani – in addition to the dairy/grain product of kishk. Many are linked to specific areas of Egypt and their different agro-ecological conditions.

As for bread, the different types vary considerably as one travels south from Alexandria on the Medeterranian – different varieties of bread and bread-baking as they are linked to specific agro-ecological conditions moving down the Nile Valley from Egypt through Sudan and into the tropics of Central Africa. In Egypt, in addition to aysh baladi, one finds aysh nashif, aysh shamsy, and others.

aysh as-shamsy, or 'sun bread', baked in Upper Egypt

aysh an-nashif, or 'dry bread', also made in Upper Egypt. Suzan Weeks

While I cannot speak for cheese types, it is the case that regional breads are being replaced by the ubiquitous ‘aysh baladi bread that is heavily subsidized by the government.

An early form of commercial bread production in Cairo

In France, by contrast, the process of homogenizing food types is apparently being prevented through commercialization of regional cuisines - terroir – and, as aysh baladi in Egypt, also  heavily subsidized, I believe.

Here’s an interesting difference between the Egyptian and French examples:

In Egypt, on the one hand there is a continuation of top-down strategies that began 5 millennia ago – now expressed as regularized/standardized subsidizing of breads [with a view to preventing bread riots!], and on the other hand [as part of economic incorporation into a globalizing economy] there is the introduction of fast foods and western style dress and related imports.  These dynamics are eroding regional differences in the country leading to a flatness/sameness.

In France, by contrast, local differences of dress and cuisine are celebrated and have been commercialized, perhaps thus helping to assure their continuation alongside fast foods, standardized dress, and so forth.

Very different trajectories?

 

Monkey Business – 19th. Century and Now

Monkeys and gorillas in the 19th century were – and continue to be – found throughout tropical and sub-tropical Africa.  When colonial explorers began to encounter them, it was thought they might be somehow related to humans, and it was Huxley who, in 1863, coined the term ‘missing link‘ to account for a type of being that would be intermediary between apes and man.

One of the monkey family that was  encountered both by David Livingston and Henry Stanley during their explorations of central Africa was large, and was thought by Stanley to possibly be the ‘missing link‘*.

Manuema Hunters killing 'Sokos' - the term used by the Manuema for the small apes of central Africa, which appear to have been a branch of the monkey family called bonobos

*Oxford English Dictionary: ‘Missing Link’:  1862 Caledonian Mercury 11 Jan. 7/6 Until the existence of some animal was discovered which should supply the missing link between man and the gorilla, there was a great gap even in Mr Darwin’s theory of the origin of species. 1864 T. H. HUXLEY Further Remarks Human Remains Neanderthal in Nat. Hist. Rev. (Electronic ed.),”

Livingstone gives this description of what he calls ‘sokos’ – which, I propose, were bonobo,  of the great ape family (see chart towards the end of the blog):

24th August, 1870.—Four gorillas or ‘sokos’ were killed yesterday: an extensive grass-burning forced them out of their usual haunt, and coming on the plain they were speared. They often go erect, but place the hand on the head, as if to steady the body. When seen thus, the soko is an ungainly beast. The most sentimental young lady would not call him a “dear,” but a bandy-legged, pot-bellied, low-looking villain, without a particle of the gentleman in him.

Other animals, especially the antelopes, are graceful, and it is pleasant to see them, either at rest or in motion: the natives also are well made, lithe and comely to behold, but the soko, if large, would do well to stand for a picture of the Devil.

He takes away my appetite by his disgusting bestiality of appearance. His light-yellow face shows off his ugly whiskers, and faint apology for a beard; the forehead villainously low, with high ears, is well in the back-ground of the great dog-mouth; the teeth are slightly human, but the canines show the beast by their large development. The hands, or rather the fingers, are like those of the natives. The flesh of the feet is yellow, and the eagerness with which the Manyuema devour it leaves the impression that eating sokos was the first stage by which they arrived at being cannibals; they say the flesh is delicious.

The soko is represented by some to be extremely knowing, successfully stalking men and women while at their work, kidnapping children, and running up trees with them—he seems to be amused by the sight of the young native in his arms, but comes down when tempted by a bunch of bananas, and as he lifts that, drops the child: the young soko in such a case would cling closely to the armpit of the elder. One man was cutting out honey from a tree, and naked, when a soko suddenly appeared and caught him, then let him go: another man was hunting, and missed in his attempt to stab a soko: it seized the spear and broke it, then grappled with the man, who called to his companions, “Soko has caught me,” the soko bit off the ends of his fingers and escaped unharmed. Both men are now alive at Bambarré.

The soko is so cunning, and has such sharp eyes, that no one can stalk him in front without being seen, hence, when shot, it is always in the back; when surrounded by men and nets, he is generally speared in the back too, otherwise he is not a very formidable beast: he is nothing, as compared in power of damaging his assailant, to a leopard or lion, but is more like a man unarmed, for it does not occur to him to use his canine teeth, which are long and formidable.

Numbers of them come down in the forest, within a hundred yards of our camp, and would be unknown but for giving tongue like fox-hounds: this is their nearest approach to speech. A man hoeing was stalked by a soko, and seized; he roared out, but the soko giggled and grinned, and left him as if he had done it in play. A child caught up by a soko is often abused by being pinched and scratched, and let fall.

The soko kills the leopard occasionally, by seizing both paws, and biting them so as to disable them, he then goes up a tree, groans over his wounds, and sometimes recovers, while the leopard dies: at other times, both soko and leopard die. The lion kills him at once, and sometimes tears his limbs off, but does not eat him.

The soko eats no flesh—small bananas are his dainties, but not maize. His food consists of wild fruits, which abound: one, Staféné, or Manyuema Mamwa, is like large sweet sop but indifferent in taste and flesh. The soko brings forth at times twins. A very large soko was seen by Mohamad’s hunters sitting picking his nails; they tried to stalk him, but he vanished. Some Manyuema think that their buried dead rise as sokos, and one was killed with holes in his ears, as if he had been a man. He is very strong and fears guns but not spears: he never catches women.

A male and female Bonobo

Sokos collect together, and make a drumming noise, some say with hollow trees, then burst forth into loud yells which are well imitated by the natives’ embryotic music. If a man has no spear the soko goes away satisfied, but if wounded he seizes the wrist, lops off the fingers, and spits them out, slaps the cheeks of his victim, and bites without breaking the skin: he draws out a spear (but never uses it), and takes some leaves and stuffs them into his wound to staunch the blood; he does not wish an encounter with an armed man. He sees women do him no harm, and never molests them; a man without a spear is nearly safe from him. They beat hollow trees as drums with hands, and then scream as music to it; when men hear them, they go to the sokos; but sokos never go to men with hostility. Manyuema say, “Soko is a man, and nothing bad in him.”

25th February, 1871.—Katomba presented a young soko or gorillah that had been caught while its mother was killed; she sits eighteen inches high, has fine long black hair all over, which was pretty so long as it was kept in order by her dam. She is the least mischievous of all the monkey tribe I have seen, and seems to know that in me she has a friend, and sits quietly on the mat beside me.

In walking, the first thing observed is that she does not tread on the palms of her hands, but on the backs of the second line of bones of the hands: in doing this the nails do not touch the ground, nor do the knuckles; she uses the arms thus supported crutch fashion, and hitches herself along between them; occasionally one hand is put down before the other, and alternates with the feet, or she walks upright and holds up a hand to any one to carry her. If refused, she turns her face down, and makes grimaces of the most bitter human weeping, wringing her hands, and sometimes adding a fourth hand or foot to make the appeal more touching.

Grass or leaves she draws around her to make a nest, and resents anyone meddling with her property. She is a most friendly little beast, and came up to me at once, making her chirrup of welcome, smelled my clothing, and held out her hand to be shaken. I slapped her palm without offence, though she winced. She began to untie the cord with which she was afterwards bound, with fingers and thumbs, in quite a systematic way, and on being interfered with by a man looked daggers, and screaming tried to beat him with her hands: she was afraid of his stick, and faced him, putting her back to me as a friend.

She holds out her hand for people to lift her up and carry her, quite like a spoiled child; then bursts into a passionate cry, somewhat like that of a kite, wrings her hands quite naturally, as if in despair. She eats everything, covers herself with a mat to sleep, and makes a nest of grass or leaves, and wipes her face with a leaf.

Portrait of a Young Soko by Livingstone

They live in communities of about ten, each having his own female; an intruder from another camp is beaten off with their fists and loud yells. If one tries to seize the female of another, he is caught on the ground, and all unite in boxing and biting the offender. A male often carries a child, especially if they are passing from one patch of forest to another over a grassy space; he then gives it to the mother.

Susi and Chuma, who took the cadavre of Livingstone  from Africa to England, were shown a stuffedGorilla at the British Museum, but declined to identify them as gorillas.  Horace Waller, editor of ‘Last Journals of David Livingstone’ had this to say:

“…Neither Susi nor Chuma can identify the soko of Manyuema with the gorilla, as we have it stuffed in the British Museum. They think, however, that the soko is quite as large and as strong as the gorilla, judging by the specimens shown to them, although they could have decided with greater certainty, if the natives had not invariably brought in the dead sokos disembowelled; as they point out, and as we imagine from Dr. Livingstone’s description, the carcase would then appear much less bulky. Livingstone gives an animated sketch of a soko hunt.]

Source: The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, vol II, edited by Horace Waller

——————

Several years after Livingstone died, Henry Morton Stanley continued his own safaris throughout Africa, and in what is now the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo came across skulls and bones that seemed ‘almost human’:

The most singular feature of Kampunzu village were two rows of skulls ten feet apart, running along the entire length of the village, imbedded about two inches deep in the ground, the ” cerebral hemispheres ” uppermost, bleached, and glistening white from weather. The skulls were 186 in number in this one village. To me they appeared to be human, though many had an extraordinary projection of the posterior lobes, others of the parietal bones, and the frontal bones were usually low and retreating; yet the sutures and the general aspect of the greatest number of them were so similar to what I believed to be human, that it was almost with an indifferent air that I asked my chiefs and Arabs what these skulls were.

They replied, ** sokos ** — chimpanzees (?)

” Sokos from the forest ?” ” Certainly,’* they all replied.

” Bring the chief of Kampunzu to me immediately,**

I said, much interested now because of the wonderful reports of them that Livingstone had given me, as also the natives of Manyema……Evidences of cannibalism were numerous in the human and “soko’* skulls that grinned on many poles, and the bones that were freely scattered in the neighbourhood, near the village garbage heaps and the river banks, where one might suppose hungry canoe-men to have enjoyed a cold collation on an ancient matron’s arm.

Source: Henry Morton Stanley-Through the Dark Continent

Stanley took several of the bones back to England, where they were examined by  Thomas Huxley, who proclaimed them to be human – not monkey bones.  I don not know if they were ever re-examined more recently to decide on this, because if they were human it meant that the Manyema had indeed been eating their enemies.

More recently, several bonobos were taken to the States, and some have been born in captivity.  One in particular – Kanzi – has shown remarkable intelligence and interest in learning from humans:

The bonobo Kanzi

“According to Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaug of the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines (Iowa), Kanzi, a 31-year-old bonobo in her care, became fascinated with making fire after watching the film Quest for Fire when he was only a year old.

“The movie was released about a year after Kanzi was born and was about early man struggling to control fire,” says Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh. “Kanzi watched this spellbound over and over hundreds of times.”

The chimp soon began collecting firewood and attempting to ignite it. “His demeanour when he focused on making fire was just like when he watched the movie,” says the doctor, who has clearly not watched enough movies herself to know this couldn’t possibly end well.

Kanzi breaking up wood and building a fire

Collecting wood for a fire

Kanzi roasting a marshmallow

Kanzi eating his toasted marshmallow

In addition to his fire-making skills, Kanzi also understands some 2,000 words through a system of symbols called lexigrams.

Kanzi with Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh senior primate scientist at the Great Ape Trust working the lexigram symbols

For more information on Kanzi see the Great Ape Trust

Pictures Sources (above): The Telegraph

Here in Burundi, we have no bonobos, but we do have chimps and baboons.

Here I am working with the chimp Dragon, who is asking to be picked up. We were moving him to another location, and he was quite anxious, wanting reassurance.

The chimps before relocation - I've just given them some popcorn, a favorite treat.

Here is a family tree of the apes:

source: Frans de Waal

Another program is currently working with Orangutans, and is introducing iPads as part of their training:

Orangutan and an iPad

The nonprofit Orangutan Outreach is collecting donated iPads for its new Apps for Apes program, which is matching primates at Milwaukee County Zoo with the tablet computers. The apes don’t get to hold the iPads themselves—the devices aren’t strong enough to withstand the full strength of an orangutan—but they do get to interact with the computers through glass walls or the mesh of their cages. So far, the animals have been watching videos of themselves and playing with simple games or an app for finger painting. They might one day also be able to connect to animals in other parts of the zoo—or even other zoos—through Skype or programs like it.

Related articles

• Kanzi the chimp can light fires, flip burgers and toast marshmallows – watch the video (mirror.co.uk)
• Experts shed light on lost diary (bbc.co.uk)

 

Christmas in Africa: Village-Style in Burundi

Christmas in Burundi: Celebrations in the nearby village

The village is about 15 minutes from Hotel Club du lac Tanganyika (see last blog), and many of the residents work for the hotel. There is no electricity, but that should change in a few months.

In this Google map, the Hotel Club du Lac Tanganyika is on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, and the village is located up the straight road and to the left

The hotel has organized a contract farming project in which villagers grow vegetables to order for the hotel, which bypasses merchant middle-men and thus increases profits of the growers. These ladies are harvesting amaranth that will go to the hotel. See this link for more information.

First task, is to select a goat for the Christmas feast. A little doe was donated from our herd (shown here).

Off to be slaughtered and prepared

Preparing the goat for a stew with red peppers

Cassava (manioc) leaves are pounded into a paste with green peppers and some other ingredients to make sombé - a favorite vegetable

Palm oil nuts are collected to make fresh oil for cooking

Cooking - on charcoal burners

Banana beer has been made, and is enjoyed by guests

Children are washed up

Others enjoy Premus Beer while chatting

It is now against the law in Burundi to cut down trees for Christmas, and so a tree was made using palm fronds and banana leaves.

After eating, more visiting with family members - here, grandfather with granddaughter

Women show off their new outfits

And Nona gives me a wonderful present... -

A jar of wild bee honey!! Delicious!

Sunset through the oil palms

Related articles

• Batwa Pots in Burundi: Traditional Clay Pot Cuisine, Pt. 2 of 2 (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• African Beef Stew with sweet potatoes and mangos, cooked and served in a Pumpkin (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• Using the Fruits of the Earth: Feasting in Burundi (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• Notes on Dairy Goats and Artisan Cheese Production in Central Africa (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• It’s That Time of the Year Again: Rice Harvesting and Processing (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• Sombé – Manioc (Cassava) Leaves and Goat Meat in a Hot Sauce, Served with Manioc porridge (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• The Life of Monitor Lizards along Lake Tanganyika (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• More Pig and Pork Stories (dianabuja.wordpress.com)

 

An African Christmas, Burundi-Style

Christmas celebrations at the Hôtel Club du Lac Tanganyika:

Christmas at the Hotel Club du Lac Tanganyika. Guests relax by the lake, where snacks can be ordered

In the kitchen of the hotel, vegetables are being prepared on the right side and salads in the middle island

Mid-day, preparing brochettes and frites for single orders by the pool

Chef Arnold prepares cakes and other dessert treats

Meats are prepared in an adjoining room.

The central stove has room for cooks to work on 'all sides'

One of the two large ovens

Fresh fruits are organized - we have a wonderful collection of year-round fruits

Maitre Emmanuel and his staff arrange the buffet

The roast pig is ready

Belgian beer on tap

Guests at the buffet have a very large choice of foods

the roast goose is going fast

Dessert table

Popular dress for the season

Meanwhile, guards hang out by the lake

Many guests enjoy the pools and the sun and eating snacks from the kitchen

Finally, Père Noel and his assistant come to visit with goodies for the kids

Chef Richard and his senior team wish you Happy Holidays!

Looking south, down lake Tanganyika. Source-Burundi Accdess Tours & Safari

Related articles

• Batwa Pots in Burundi: Traditional Clay Pot Cuisine, Pt. 2 of 2 (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• Using the Fruits of the Earth: Feasting in Burundi (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• African Beef Stew with sweet potatoes and mangos, cooked and served in a Pumpkin (dianabuja.wordpress.com)
• Notes on Dairy Goats and Artisan Cheese Production in Central Africa (dianabuja.wordpress.com)

 

Holiday Greetings to our Friends and Colleagues

Holiday greetings to all our friends and colleagues – and may 2012 bring you joy and blessings!

From the village Kajaga

From Chef Richard and his staff at the Hotel Lac du Club Tanganyika

Project staff of Burundigoats.tripod.com

Drawing by Tharssis, one of the Buundigoats staff

Lake Tanganyika. Wikipedia

Related articles

• African Beef Stew with sweet potatoes and mangos, cooked and served in a Pumpkin (dianabuja.wordpress.com)

 

Kingmakers, Invention of the Modern Middle East | mideastposts.com

Via Scoop.it – Africa and Beyond

Colonial views of ethnic diversity in the Middle East. Wikipedia

Over twelve chapters Meyer and Brysac provide short biographies of Britons and Americans who have shaped the Middle East over the past century and a half – as imperial proconsuls, agents provocateurs, spies and politicians…
Via mideastposts.com

Related articles

• Arab Spring and the Middle East: 2012 preview (telegraph.co.uk)
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Eating Animals

Via Scoop.it – Africa and Beyond

Why a group of longtime vegetarians and vegans converted to the idea that flesh and other food from animals can be healthful, environmentally appropriate, and ethical…  Via www.theatlantic.com

Vegan food pyramid via Wikipedia

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• Reinventing Vegan (ecoethicalvegan.wordpress.com)
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Managing Pain – Epiphanies of Childhood & Now

The past few weeks I’ve been miserable from a terrible ‘attack’ of hive-like itchy-skin, which my doctor thinks is linked to the ophthalmic shingles of some months back. It is getting better – and in the meantime, I’ve returned to my own advice given in the latter part of this blog on pain management.

Also, yesterday I had an epiphany following my reading of a provocative article about Flinders Petrie, grandfather of modern archaeological excavations in association with his work in the Nile valley. After reading the article, several strands of thought really quite suddenly coalesced:

• Flinders Petrie and his work on the development of urban culture in the Nile valley (origins of the Egyptian state),
• T.E. Lawrence, who at one time worked briefly with Petrie in Egypt, then worked with Arabs in WWI
• Sir Richard Burton on populations that he visited in Africa – attitudes shared also by other colonial explorers, and a few other strands.

So, in a day or two I will do a little blog on this recent epiphany, and in the meantime leave you to think about the rest of this blog…

Major Protagonists in Yesterday’s Epiphany:

 

Flinders Petrie – ‘the father of ‘scientific’ archaeology’. Petrie Museum, Univ. College London

T.E. Lawrence, of WWI fame in the Middle East

Sir Richard Burton, 19th century explorer. Burtoniana.org

******

Last year’s Blog:

While in the hospital late 2009 and into 2010, recovering from ophthalmic shingles, one train of thought that I pursued, to get my mind away from the constant pain, was to think back on childhood events – what kinds of things I remembered and why I remembered them.

After a while it occurred to me there was a group of events that could be termed `minor epiphanies’ – shocking events of learning – that took place in the process of growing up.  Thinking about them helped to redirect my thoughts from the pain, to these events. Here are a few of them, which are in the order of age:

Toilet training

My memory extends back to just when I began to talk coherently – somewhere in the 2nd-3rd year I think – and it was the time my mother thought toilet training should seriously begin.  One day, I made a ‘mistake’ on the carpet.  Turning around and looking at the puddle, I suddenly realized that the liquid came from ME and that I could control it …  a minor epiphany, but probably major for my mother.

Chewing with your mouth closed

Sitting in the high chair during dinner, my aunt explained to me that food must be chewed with one’s mouth closed.  I tried it, then turned to her and said “It’s hard to do!”  And silently I thought:  “How strange!”  Closed mouth was apparently more important than not eating with your fingers…  This closed-mouth-business seemed to be useless to me.  As I was still in my high chair, I would have been in my 3rd year.

Blankets aren’t warm – it’s your body that gives the heat

In my 4th or 5th year, during winter, I asked my mother for another blanket – a warm one!  Mom explained to me that blankets aren’t warm – it’s our body that is warm, and the ‘cold’ blankets trap our body heat and keep it in the bed.  The same with clothes.  This was amazing to me and I had to totally rearrange my way of thinking about such fundamental aspects of heat and cold s they relate to the body..

Broken bracken ferns heal themselves

In my 4th or 5th year, at the family country place, I was playing in some of the overgrown area where bracken ferns grew in profusion.  I broke the stems of several ferns but left them attached and then straightened each one, carefully wrapping the ‘repaired’ stem with long dandelion leaves and leaving them for a couple of weeks.  When I unwrapped them, they were all ‘healed’! Straight and with no damage done.  I was happily amazed.

This ‘experiment’ was conducted the summer that I put my forefinger in the spoke of the spinning wheel of my tricycle, cutting the first digit of my finger off except for a flap of skin that kept the finger from falling off completely.  (I wanted to see if I could stop the wheel from spinning by doing this.)

My mother wrapped my finger/hand in a kitchen towel and took me to the country doctor, who claimed he could not sew it on, that it would not grow back together; but my mother insisted he do so.  And it worked!  As the broken brackens, my finger grew back together – albeit a little crooked…  Hoorah for moms!

Bracken ferns Source: library-illinois-edu

The road goes back to the beginning

When I was in the 3rd grade my father was driving me back to our house from school.  One of the roads was very long and straight, before we turned off of it.  I asked my father where did the long road go, and what would happen if we kept following it?

He explained that we would come all the way back to where we were, because the world is round, and so forth.  That was amazing to me.  The thought of going all around the world…  And perhaps that notion fed into later years of working all around the world…

Maybe I had more epiphanies after the 3rd grade, but I don’t remember them…

Falling into Pain – Another tactic to help reduce pain:

Another tactic that helped to decrease pain was to imagine I was ‘leaning’ into it – acknowledging the pain and at the same time thinking of the prettiest views around Lake Tanganyika – which is truly a beautiful lake – and wrapping the views and how they made me feel around the pain; smothering it, so to speak.

The Congo Hills from Burundi

Beach in front, towards Rusizi Wetlands

Rain clouds on their way

Sometimes I still do this, though I can now walk down to the lake in the evenings and enjoy both the views as well as the sounds and sights of many formations of birds, heading towards the Rusizi Wetlands.  We’re on a major bird migration route and many bird flocks take a while to rest in these lush surroundings of the Rusizi Wetlands on their way either North or South.

Rusizi river and wetlands, just down the lake

[First posted Sept. 2010, revised 14 Dec. 2011]

Related articles

• The UCL Petrie Collection Online (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)