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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



f 



WOODEN BOWL AND SPOON USED IN EATING 



DUMBOY 



As soon as the soup is added the dum- 

 boy is ready to be eaten ; and, while the 

 ingredients are somewhat bizarre, the 

 method of eating the dish strikes the 

 traveler as even more startling. The 

 mass of dumboy, which can best be de- 

 scribed as a sticky dough, will adhere 

 instantly to anything dry, but is readily 

 cut with a wooden spoon if the spoon is 

 kept moist with the soup. An incredibly 

 large piece is cut off with the moistened 

 spoon, taken up with a quantity of the 

 soup, and swallowed whole. No one 

 thinks of chewing it, and it is customary 

 to caution the novice by tales of the 

 frightful operation necessary to separate 

 the jaws once the teeth are buried in the 

 sticky mass. 



As might be expected, few 

 Europeans like dumboy on first 

 acquaintance; and, with some,, 

 the initial distaste prevents fur- 

 ther experiments. If a second 

 or third attempt is made, how- 

 ever, and the dish has been prop- 

 erly prepared, the habit is usually 

 formed, and before long every 

 night spent in the bush without 

 a meal of dumboy is counted 

 a privation. Among the white 

 residents of Liberia, fondness 

 for this dish amounts almost to 

 a cult. It is regarded as a sort 

 of guaranty that one's tenderfoot 

 days are over. 



While cassava is a staple food 

 throughout West Africa, dum- 

 boy seems to be peculiarly Li- 

 berian. The dish in no way 

 resembles the "fou fou" of the 

 neighboring colony of Sierra 

 Leone, though made of the same 

 material. It must be unknown 

 in the parts of Africa familiar 

 to Sir Harry Johnston, for the 

 account given in his work on 

 Liberia is erroneous. A dumboy 

 prepared in the way described 

 by him would be quite inedi- 

 ble* 



The great diversity in the methods of 

 preparing cassava for food that obtains 

 among the tribes of West Africa would 

 seem to argue against the generally ac- 

 cepted belief that cassava was unknown 

 in Africa until aftei the discovery of 

 America by Columbus. There can be no 

 doubt that the plant is of American 

 origin ; but, if introduced after the time 

 of Columbus, it must have been taken up 

 with marvelous rapidity, and the natives 

 must have evinced an ingenuity in invent- 

 ing new methods of preparing the food 

 in striking contrast to their present con- 

 servatism. 



* Johnston, Harry, Liberia, II, p. 990. 



