THE PEOPLE OF THE CONGO. 289 
races, and the white is less bloodshot. The ears are rather 
large. The figures of these people are admirably modelled 
and developed, so that many of them, with their shining 
glossy skins and their simple nakedness, seem like 
antique statues cast in bronze. In certain examples 
the arms are very long, as in this Ba-teke woman here 
illustrated, but it is not a universal characteristic of the 
race. 
The women usually have better-shaped busts than in 
the Coast people, and in many of them the nipples have 
a curious tendency to turn up, and not hang down. The 
hands and feet are small and well proportioned. The 
second toe is the longest. 
In character the races of the Upper Congo are kindly, 
lighthearted and full of sensibility to beauty. They are 
fond of colour and of music, and indulge in dancing that 
has much meaning and grace. They are decidedly amorous 
in disposition, but: there is a certain poetry in their feelings 
which ennobles their love above the mere sexual lust of 
the negro. Husbands are fond of their own wives, as well 
as those of other people, and many a pretty family picture 
may be seen in their homesteads, when the father and 
mother romp with their children, or sit together in a 
munching group round the supper-pot. ~ 
The absence of gloominess in these pleasant folk may 
be partly accounted for by the absence or dearth of 
vexatious superstitions. Among them there is, as far as I 
can ascertain, no ordeal for witchcraft, they are not pestered 
_with initiative ceremonies, indeed, these people are posi- 
tively lacking in “medicine men ”—in the “nganga” of 
almost universal sway. Whenever this personage is 
needed for the performance of a few obligatory ceremonies, 
or for the adjudication of disputed legal questions, he is 
borrowed from the tribes of the interior. The Ba-yansi, 
for instance, generally make use of the ngangas of the 
Ba-nunu, a tribe to the south of them. 
In fact these people may be said to be almost without 
religion. They still retain a mild form of ancestor- 
worship, and they have a shadowy idea of a god, but, 
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