File:A voice from the Congo - comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes (1910) (14596996509).jpg

Identifier: voicefromcongoco00ward (find matches)
Title: A voice from the Congo : comprising stories, anecdotes, and descriptive notes
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919
Subjects: Ward, Herbert, 1863-1919 Africa, Central -- Description and travel Africa, Central -- Social life and customs
Publisher: New York : Charles Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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reels. Sir Harry Johnston has dealt fully with an inter-esting fact in relation to the subject of food.1 Itappears obvious, as he remarks, that the presentinhabitants of the Upper Congo cannot have occu-pied the country until within comparatively recenttimes. At no very distant date the physical condi-tions of the Great Forest region were such as to pre-vent extensive settlement, entire regions being largelysubmerged. A consideration of the native diet aloneindicates that great changes have taken place in thispart of the African continent within the last fewcenturies. The staple food of the present inhabi-tants of the Congo region, with the exception of fish,is almost all of American origin. The dwarf tribesof the Great Forest region are the only natives whoappear able to subsist entirely upon indigenous foods. In the event of the failure of their crop of exoticfood, a Bantu tribe will be reduced to a condition of 1 George Grenfell and the Congo, by Sir Harry Johnston, G.C.M.G.,K.C.B.
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A Lukolela £irl with firewood From a bronze statuette by the Author IN GENERAL 293 absolute starvation. Many instances of this latterfact can be cited. In the far interior, in districts situated around theAruimi and Lomami rivers, the staple food con-sists of plantains, manioc, and fish. Towards thewest coast, the natives cultivate in addition toplantains and manioc, maize, sweet potatoes, sugarcane, peanuts, egg fruit, bananas, pumpkins, yams,pineapples, and tobacco, and obtain nuts, oil, andwine from the oil-palm. They use also many wildplants, whose leaves when bruised and stewed,are utilised as vegetables, resembling spinach inflavour. With regard to the unfortunate Congo fowls, muchmight be written of their suffering and exposure tothe sun and rain. Carried in bondage from onetown to another, from one market to another, andliving only upon what they can peck within a twelve-inch radius of their tether-stick, they present a de-plorable appearance. Pigs are sold alive, and also in

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