34-6 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



f/toto by Lekeglan & Co.] 



WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF EQUATORIAL AFRICA. 



flat and square, the lips very thick, and the chin round. The colour of the skin is of a 

 chocolate-brown hue. As a race they are remarkably adroit and agile. Schweinfurth stated 

 that " nowhere in any part of Africa have I ever come across a people that in every attitude 

 and every motion exhibited so thorough a mastery over all the circumstances of war or of 

 the chase as these Niam-niam. Other nations in comparison seemed to me to fall short in 

 the perfect ease I might almost say in the dramatic grace that characterised their every 

 movement." 



Their dress usually consists of a mantle of untanned leather or undressed skins, and strips 

 of the beautiful black-and-white skin of the Colobus monkey are frequently hung from the 

 girdle. The chiefs wear a head-dress of the skin of leopard or wild cat. The arrangement of 

 the hair among the men is very elaborate; it is plaited into tufts, ridges, rolls, or knots; or 

 into rays, connected at the end to a circular hoop. The body is stained red and further 

 ornamented by various scar-patterns; but the tribal mark is a set of squares filled with dots, 

 placed on the cheeks or forehead. Their ornaments consist chiefly of strings of the teeth of 

 dogs and other animals and of blue beads. 



The Niam-niam are armed with lances, two-edged swords, knives, and large painted shields ;. 

 but their peculiar weapon is the throwing-axe ; it is made of wood or iron and curved like a 

 boomerang, and is used for killing birds and game as well as in war. The huts are large and 

 well built: the roofs are as a rule simply conical, but they may be double-pointed; the eaves- 

 project beyond the walls, which are decorated with black-and-white patterns. About ten or a 

 dozen huts occur together in a circle round an open space, in which is a pole adorned with 

 trophies of war and the chase. 



