268 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
CHAPTER XVI. 
THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO, 
Tut Dwarr Race-—TuHe Urrer Congo Races—Ture AsHIRoxgo— 
THe Bakonco—Conpuct axp Moratitry—PHALLIC WorsHIPp— 
THe Nximpa—TnHe Sacred LANGUAGE—ART or MEDICINE— 
Domestic LiIFE—HAIRINESS OF AFRICAN RAcES—EHARLY MAN 
— CLOTHING — CICATRIZATION — HAIRDRESSING — FEATURES — 
CHARACTRR — CEREMONIES — EpuUcCATION—M aRRIAGE—BuURIAL — 
Foop—Domestic ANIMALS—CRops—Houses—MusicaL InstTRu- — 
MENTS—POoOPULATION, 
THE races of man that inhabit the basin of the Congo 
throughout its entire course—certainly in all that part of — 
it that I have visited —belong almost exclusively to that 
creat Bantu family which, when seen in its purest 
exemplars, the Ova-herero and Ova-mpo of the South- 
west, the tribes of the Zambezi, the people of the great 
lakes of Tanganyika and Nyasa, and the western shores 
of Victoria Nyanza, and finally of the Upper Congo, is so 
distinct physically and linguistically from the divers 
negro, negroid, and Hamitic populations to the north of 
it, and from the Hottentot-Bushman group to the south. 
I have just written that the inhabitants of the Congo 
basin belong “almost” exclusively to this great homo- 
geneous Bantu family. The qualifying “almost” is 
introduced for two reasons. Firstly, because we know 
that about the Upper Congo and Lualaba there are 
certain dwarf races, encountered both by Stanley, Wiss- 
mann, and many other travellers ; and besides this I have 
certainly seen myself two specimens of a dwarf type 
living as slaves among the Ba-yansi, and differing wholly 
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