THE FOLKLORE OF THE FJORT

By the Fjort I mean the tribes that once formed the great kingdom of Congo. From the Quillo river, north of Loango, to the River Loge, south of Kinsembo, on the south-west coast of Africa, and as far almost as Stanley Pool in the interior, this kingdom is said to have extended. My remarks refer chiefly to the KaCongo and Loango provinces: that is to say, to the two coast provinces north of the great river Congo or Zaire.

Loango, KaCongo, and Ngoio are now all spoken of as nFumu nsi; and their existence is admitted, although, as a matter of fact, their thrones are vacant, and each petty prince, or head of a family, governs his own little town or towns. Each little town or collection of towns or better perhaps each family, has now its patch of ground sacred to the spirit of the earth (Nkissi nsi),[1] its Nganga nsi, the head of the family, and its Nganga Nkissi (charm or fetish doctor), and its Nganga bilongo (medicine-doctor or surgeon). Nzambi-Mpungu. is what we should call the Creator. Nzambi (wrongly called God) is Mother Earth, literally Terrible Earth. In all the Fjort legends that treat of Nzambi she is spoken of as the "mother," generally of a beautiful daughter, or as a great princess calling all the animals about her to some great meeting, or palaver; or as a poor woman carrying a thirsty or hungry infant on her back, begging for food, who then reveals herself and punishes those
..

The Nganga Nkissi has his hut apart from his holy ground; and there he keeps his image, into which nails, spear-points knives, etc., are driven by the suppliant who seeks the help of the mysterious spirit to kill his enemies or to protect him against any evil. The Nganga Nkissi also sells charms, such as little wooden images charged with medicines, bracelets, armlets, bead-bands, waistbands, little bits of tiger's skin to keep the small-pox away, the little horns of kids, and other pendants for the necklace.
The Nganga bilongo is the doctor and surgeon. Each surgeon or doctor keeps the secret of his cure in the family, so that the sick have sometimes to travel great distances to be cured of certain diseases. After most sicknesses or misfortunes the native undergoes a kind of thanksgiving and purification according to the rites of Bingo, who has a Nganga in almost every family. This is not the same as the form of going through the "paint-house."
The Nkissi, the spirit, as it were, of mother earth, is met with in mountains and rocks. Thus, in the creek that flows behind Ponta da Lenha in the River Congo there is a rock falling straight down into the water, which the natives fear to pass at night; and even in the daytime they keep close to the far side of the creek. They declare that the Nkissi will swallow them up. The story of the four young men who left their town early in the morning to visit their lovers across the mountains, and after a long visit, at about four o'clock wished to return, proves the power of the terrible spirit of the earth. For their lovers determined to see the four young men part of the way home, and so went with them up the mountain. Then the young men saw the young women back to their town. The young women again went up the hill with their lovers, and again the young men came back with them. The earth-spirit got vexed at such levity and turned them all into pillars of clay, as can be proved, for are not the eight pillars visible to this day (white-ant pillars taking the shape of four men and four women)? And the lying woman who said she had no peas for sale when she had her basket full of them, did not the earth-spirit turn her into a pillar of clay, as can be seen in the woods near Cabinda behind Futilla even to this day?
The mountain Mongo is spoken of at times as a person, as in the story of the old lady who, after many exchanges, secured a drum in exchange for the red wood she had given the image-maker, to keep for her. For the old lady took this drum to Mongo and played upon it until Mongo broke it. But she wept and Mongo was sorry for her and gave her some mushrooms and told her to go away.
Islands in the River Congo are spoken of as the home of the men who turn themselves into crocodiles, so that they may upset canoes and drag their prisoners to them and eventually sell them. Monkey Island, just above Boma, in the River Congo, is used as the burial-place of princes of that part of the country.
The names of the rivers are also the names of the spirits of the same. These spirits, like those of the Chimpanzu and Mlomvu, kill those who drink their waters; others get angry, and swell, and overflow their banks like the Lulondo, and drown many people; while some punish those who fish in their waters for greediness by causing them to become deaf and dumb, as Sunga did in one of the stories I have given on a subsequent page.
Then the great Chamma (rainbow) is described as a huge snake that enters rivers at their source and swells them up, and carries everything before it, grass, trees, at times whole villages, in its way to the sea.
Any place, either in the hills or along the banks of rivers (near fishing places), or near wells, can be reserved by any one by his placing shells, strips of cloth, or other charms there. The nearest approach that we have to these charms in England is the scarecrow, or the hat which the Member of Parliament leaves on his seat to show that the place is his.
The dead bodies of witches are either thrown down precipices or into the rivers.
The sun, Ntangu, and moon, Ngonde, are generally described as two brothers. There is a legend which tells us that two brothers, Ntangu and Ngonde, lived in a village by the sea and Ntangu bet Ngonde that he could not catch him up, so they set off racing. Ngonde caught up Ntangu; and then Ntangu got vexed and said he could catch up Ngonde, but he never did, so Ngonde won the bet. The fact of the moon's being seen during the day, together with the sun, and the sun's never being seen at night in company with the moon has, no doubt, given rise to this story. I have also collected two versions of a story of two brothers setting out, one after the other, to the land whence no man returns, which also are sun-myths.
I have heard very little about the stars. The new moon is greeted with a cry of "Lu lu lu lu," in a high key, the native beating his mouth with his hand as he cries.
Lightning is said to be made by a blacksmith (Funzi) who lives in the centre of KaCongo. Nzassi means thunder; Lu siemo, lightning; and they are both spoken of as persons, Nzassi being used often for both thunder and lightning. Thus, they say that if it comes on to rain when you are in the woods, and it thunders, and you try to run away, Nzassi runs after you and kills you.
A man named Antonio one day told me a story of how he had .seen Nzassi's dogs. It was raining, he declared; and he and his companions were under a shed playing at marbles when it began to thunder and lighten. It thundered frightfully; and Nzassi sent his twenty-four dogs down upon them. They seized one of the party who had left the shed for a moment, and the fire burnt up a living palm tree.
The sky is spoken of in certain stories as something to be bored through, as in the story where Nzambi on earth promises her beautiful daughter in marriage to anyone who should go to Nzambi above, and bring down a little of Nzambi Mpungu's fire from heaven. The woodpecker bores the hole through which all those anxious to compete for Nzambi's daughter's hand creep, after having climbed up the silken cord made by the spider from heaven to earth.[1]
The clouds they call Ituti, or rather Matuti (pl.), They rise from where the walls of heaven touch the earth, and sail across the sky to the other side, or round and round about.