532 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Okondo !'■' A large deputation greeted 

 us about a mile from the royal resi- 

 dence, and we soon discovered the king 

 — poor slave to fashion — clad in an 

 officer's old, shabby uniform. Although 

 satisfied that, in this part of Africa at 

 least, the days of kings had passed, we 

 had no reason to complain. We were 

 fortunate ! The medicine man's oracle 

 had favored us and Okondo unhesitat- 

 ingly announced that our relations 

 would be friendly. The reception was 

 most enthusiastic and his behavior was 

 as stately as could be expected of a man 

 with 180 wives. His queens craved salt 

 — as much esteemed in Mangljetuland 

 as candy in America— and were far less 

 dignified than His Majesty. For a 

 pinch of it they parted gladly with 

 their entire costumes, small pieces of 

 bark cloth and decorative aprons twice 

 the size of a hand, substituting the de- 

 lightfully cooling leaves of banana 

 trees. I was not surprised when the 

 king ordered them to their huts and, as 

 an excuse, pointed to his garden, re- 

 marking that "a swarm of grasshop- 

 pers might have visited the banana 

 trees." I gave his foremost queens "as 

 much salt as he could not lick away in 

 the next month." 



Although we thoroughly enjoyed the 

 horseplay of the first day, we did not 

 realize the admirable resources of this 

 people. Great dances were given in our 

 honor, sham battles^ were fought, hunt- 

 ing parties sent out, and artists con- 

 voked to court. And to such an extent 

 did they all exert themselves that the 

 splendor soon rivaled that of Munza's 

 time. When we expressed our regret at 

 the lack of the great halls made famous 

 by Schweinfurth's account, the arclii- 

 tects were bidden to proceed at once. 

 We had to start northward toward the 

 southern Sudan, and laughed incredu- 

 lously as we handed the king, in ad- 

 vance, the gifts we had promised to 

 assure his domestic peace during the 



^American Museum Journal, Vol. XI (1911), 

 pp. 190-191. 



undertaking. Two loads of salt and 

 one of brass wire for anklets and brace- 

 lets for his queens proved satisfactory. 

 His promise was kept; one year as 

 many as 500 men worked at the struc- 

 ture, of course with continual interrup- 

 tions for dancing and drinking. 



One might hope to find within the 

 court large stores of ivory treasures ac- 

 cumulated for hundreds of years, as 

 ivory by right belonged to the king. 

 But at the death of a ruler barbarian 

 custom demanded immediate destruc- 

 tion of his residence and all his prop- 

 erty. ^ So it happens that only recent 

 objects are found at the royal headquar- 

 ters, and the Museum party was fortu- 

 nate that, because of some superstition, 

 the famous Okondo, last of these kings, 

 was willing to part with the best he 

 had, ordering other objects to be made 

 by his most skilled artists. Old Queen 

 ISI^enzima readily offered her advice in 

 this task. 



The great carved horns made of huge 

 tusks naturally attract the attention 



- Unfortunately tradition also required the 

 wholesale butchery of the queens who did not 

 succeed in escaping. Some of these intimate as- 

 sociates were buried with him to furnish cheer in 

 the fields beyond, while others were served as the 

 main course at the new king's inaugural feast. 

 So great was the popular regard for Queen Nen- 

 zima, formerly one of the powers behind King 

 Munza's throne, and now a dignified matron 

 past her sixtieth year, that three times she had es- 

 caped death at the massacre of queens, following 

 the demise of rulers. Most pathetic and signifi- 

 cant was her answer to my reiterated question 

 whether no art treasures remained from the three 

 former kings over whose harems she had presided : 

 "There is nothing left, not a single object, except 

 myself. I am the only thing, such a very old 

 thing. Do you want to take me home?" As a 

 result of this interview, I was presented with a 

 necklace of her extremely long finger and toe 

 nails, an emblem of dignity, and especially cut to 

 show her high regard. In their belief, even a 

 single hair falling into the hands of an enemy 

 gives him power over them. Courteously reveal- 

 ing this, she shrewdly added that were I to give 

 her all the loads the expedition owned, I had but 

 badly repaid her trust. I quickly offered part of 

 my thumb nail, regretting its comparative short- 

 ness but assuring her that now she would have 

 the same powers over my person that I enjoyed 

 over her. Upon my return two years later, her 

 nails had grown again to a considerable length, 

 and a second necklace cost me another finger nail 

 which she wears on her bracelet (concealed in the 

 hollow of a small wooden cylinder) ; her gifts to 

 me are destined to show Museum visitors how 

 long the nails of Mangbetu queens can grow. 



