BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
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tribes from the very far interior—those about the Upper Luapula and the 
Luangwa Valley—who really seem to be of slow and brutish understanding, as 
a tribal characteristic, and there may also be exceptionally stupid individuals in 
the cleverest tribes ; still, taken as a whole, I think it must be admitted that 
the average negro of British Central Africa is not a born fool. His mental 
powers are not much developed by native training, but I am certain that 
he has in him possibilities in the present generation as great as those of 
the average Indian ; and there is really no saying what he may come to 
after several generations of education. I think it is truly remarkable the way 
in which a little savage boy can be put to school and taught to read in a 
few months and subsequently become a skilful printer or telegraph clerk, or 
even book-keeper. The little boys are much sharper and shrewder than the 
grown-up male. When the youth arrives at puberty there is undoubtedly 
the tendency towards an arrested development of the mind. At this critical 
period many bright and shining examples fall off into disappointing nullity. 
As might be imagined, the concentration of their thoughts on sexual inter¬ 
course is answerable for this falling away. 
This is the negro’s great weakness. Nature has probably endowed him 
with more than the usual genetic faculty. After all, to these people almost 
without arts and sciences and the refined pleasures of the senses, the only 
acute enjoyment offered them by nature is sexual intercourse. Yet the negro 
is very rarely knowingly indecent or addicted to lubricity. In this land of 
nudity which I have known for seven years, I do not remember once having 
seen an indecent gesture on the part of either man or woman and only 
very rarely (and that not amongst unspoilt savages) in the case of that most 
shameless member of the community—the little boy. An exception must 
be made to this statement where the native dances are concerned, and yet 
here, also, the statement is really equally true, for although most tribes have 
initiation ceremonies or dances which are indecent to our eyes since they 
consist of very immodest gestures and actions, they can scarcely be called 
wantonly indecent, because they almost constitute a religious ceremony and are 
performed by the negroes with a certain amount of seriousness. These dances 
are never thrust on the notice of the European; it is with the greatest 
reluctance that they can be brought to perform in his presence. Indeed in 
many cases tribes will stoutly deny the existence of any such dances amongst 
them, and as to their initiation ceremonies, I believe I am right in saying 
that they have never yet been witnessed by a European, that is to say any 
portion of them that may be indecent or coarse. Our only knowledge is 
derived from the more or less trustworthy accounts of educated natives. So 
far as I know, the only dance of a really indecent nature which is indigenous 
to Central Africa and has not been introduced by low caste Europeans or 
Arabs, is one which represented originally the act of coition, but it is so 
altered to a stereotyped formula that its exact purport is not obvious until 
explained somewhat shyly by the natives. 1 
1 Nevertheless, it is reported to me that after these dances (especially where a large quantity of 
native beer has been drunk) orgies of what are conventionally called a “shameful” character ensue. 
These, however, are seriously entered upon at certain seasons of the year just as they are at fairs in 
Egypt, a custom which has been handed down from remote antiquity through different forms of religion 
and under many different practices, but originating undoubtedly in the worship of the phallus , as a symbol 
of creative power. It may safely be asserted that the negro race in Central Africa is much more truly modest, 
is much more free from real vice than are most European nations. It is absurd to call misuse or irregularity 
of sexual intercourse “vice.” It may be wrong, it may he inexpedient, it may conflict with the best 
