THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



colour-tattooing is effected by making 

 small cuts in the skin, and then rubbing 

 in some dye or pigment, usually charcoal. 

 Cicatrisation, which is more common, is 

 caused by repeated cuts at the same 

 place, so that the skin in healing becomes 

 thickened, and forms a projecting lump. 

 These scars are usually in simple lines, 

 but are sometimes worked into elaborate 

 designs; in their simplest form they are 

 caste or tribal marks; but where best 

 developed, as among the Bangala of the 

 Congo, their object is personal adorn- 

 ment. The lobes of the ear and the lips 

 are often greatly extended by the insertion 

 of wooden disks, and the teeth filed to 

 points or some of them removed. 



The typical Negro weapon is the 

 spear; it varies from the light, barbed 

 throwing-assegai of the Zambesi tribes to 

 the massive, long-bladed, two-edged, heavy 

 thrusting-spear of the Masai. Bows and 

 arrows are widely distributed, and the 

 arrows are often poisoned. Clubs and 

 knobkerries are used for war, civil execu- 

 tions, and hunting. 



The dwellings are mostly huts of 

 bent sticks or poles, covered with thatch 

 or laced palm leaves. They are usually 

 small, but the palaces of the chiefs of 

 the more organised tribes may be very 

 large. The huts are mostly beehive- 

 shaped, but may be oval, square, or oblong. The nomadic tribes rely on temporary reed 

 screens or bivouacs, or huts of poles covered by skins. Where the Negroes have fallen under 

 the influence of other races, stone buildings are sometimes erected. The huts are usually built 

 on the ground; but in swampy districts they may be raised on piles, and where white ants 

 are troublesome the food-huts are perched like dovecots at the top of a single pole. .The 

 huts are typically circular; but some square or oblong houses occur among the Guinea 

 Negroes and in East Africa. 



The food of the Negroes consists mainly of vegetable products; the chief cereals are the 

 native grains eleusine and sorghum or dhurra, and various introduced grains, such as millet, 

 rice, maize, and occasionally wheat; tubers, such as yams, sweet potatoes, and cassava or 

 manioc, and various pumpkins and beans are also largely used. Some tribes live almost 

 entirely on plantains and bananas, and others on the coast are largely dependent on the 

 cocoanut. The pastoral tribes have large herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and live on meat 

 and milk; and some of them are forbidden by religious scruples from eating vegetable food. 

 Along the great rivers fish is an important article of diet, though some tribes avoid it 

 on considerations which are now religious, but which originally were probably sanitary. 

 Cannibalism is widely spread among the African Negro races, as it is among the Negroes of 

 Papuasia. The use of human flesh as food is almost confined to the Congo and Ogowe Basins; 

 but it is eaten as medicine or fetish over a much wider area; as in such cases it is taken 

 secretly, it probably occurs more widely than is thought. Cannibalism, in fact, probably arose 



Photo by the Trappist Monastery] [Mariann Hill, Natal. 



A KAFFIR WOMAN, NATAL. 



