Liberia ^ 



fact, of this description is widely spread throughout Negro Africa 

 from Seneo:ambia to Ucranda and Nyasaland. It is a form of 

 covering which preceded woven cloth, and succeeded the use 

 of skins as a body-covering amongst the Negroes. 



The Negro's earliest overing^ as indeed that of primitive 

 man all over the world, was the skin of a beast. The first 

 modification that man adopted to improve this form of covering 

 was to rub and tear the under-surface of the skin so as to render 

 it supple. In rubbing these skins bark and twigs were 

 employed, together with sand and fat. By the use ot bark 

 (no doubt moistened with water), the first idea of tanning skins 

 arose. Then followed the idea of vegetable covering, or adorn- 

 ments for the person, when an idea of decency arose. The 

 filaments of palm fronds and dried grass were tied together to 

 make aprons or cloaks or head-dress. Then occurred the idea 

 of stripping off the bast or the inner bark of thick trees ; and 

 it was found that by soaking this in water and beating it out 

 with wooden mallets, it could be fused or felted out and rolled 

 out in long, narrow strips. These strips were sufficient for the 

 simple tegi-pudenda used by the Negroes (who also before and 

 since that period have, like the legendary Adam and Eve, 

 resorted frequently to bunches ot leaves for this purpose) ; 

 while increasing civilisation taught the Negroes to sew strips 

 of bark-cloth together, so that some races, like the Baganda, 

 acquired the fiishion tor this voluminous clothing before they 

 learnt the art of weavinof 



The plaiting of vegetable fibre is no doubt an ancient art 

 in Africa, but -iveavinj can only have been recently introduced 

 into the land of the bhick man. It came unquestionably from 

 the regions ot the Nile, or Kgypt, and was carried westwards 

 across the Sucian to the valley of the Niger, and southwards 

 through East Africa into parts of the Congo, Abyssinia, and 



1016 



