People of Africa Part 1

People of Africa.

by Edith A. How.

PREFACE

It is hoped that this book and its companion volume dealing with non-African peoples will be the beginning of a series of simple, readable accounts for Africans of some of the various objects of general interest in the world of to-day. There are many such works published for the use of English and American children. But the native African has a totally different experience of life, and much that is taken for granted by a child of a Northern civilized land needs explanation to one used to tropical uncivilized surroundings.

Again, the African knows the essential operations of everyday life in their simplest form, whereas the European knows them disguised by an elaborate industrial system. All this makes books written for English children almost unintelligible to a member of a primitive race.

These two volumes are far from perfect, but it has been difficult to know always how to select wisely from the ma.s.s of material at hand.

They will have served, however, a useful purpose if they form a basis for adaptations into the various African vernaculars, and afford an inspiration for other works of a similar nature. Thanks are due to Miss K. Nixon Smith, of the Universities Mission to Central Africa, for her kindness in criticizing the MSS. from her long experience of the African outlook.

EDITH A. HOW _June_, 1920.

I

INTRODUCTION

In this book we are going to read about some of the other people who live in our own great country--Africa. Africa is very, very large, so big that no one would be able to go to all the places in it. But different people have been to different parts, and have told what they saw where they went. Wherever our home in Africa may be, if we walked towards the sunrise--that is, towards the east--day after day, at last we should reach the great salt sea. Again, if we walked towards the sunset in the west, we should at last get to the sea. To the north, again, is the sea, and to the south, the sea. Whichever way we walked, at last, after many months, we should be stopped by the sea.

But on our journey we should have met many different kinds of people, and have seen many different customs. In some places there would be rivers, in some mountains, in some deserts, with no trees or gra.s.s to be seen. In these, people must make their homes in many ways, and have many kinds of food and clothes. Because we live in Africa, we want to know about Africa and the people in it. They are men and women and children like ourselves, though the colour of their skins may be lighter or darker than ours, and their languages quite different. But they, too, build houses and eat food and wear some kind of dress, and it is interesting to know about their customs. So in this book we shall read about some of them and of how they live; and, to help us to understand, we shall find with each part a picture of the people we are reading about. All the time we must remember that we could get to see them for ourselves if we were strong enough to walk so far, because they are all our own brothers and sisters in Africa.

Long ago most African peoples were shut off from the other people of the world by the sea and the great sandy desert. Only the people of Egypt could meet and learn from the people of Europe and Asia. So while the Egyptians grew wise and clever, all the other Africans, south of the desert, knew nothing except what they had learnt by themselves. Then Arabs began to cross the desert to get gold and slaves from the dark-skinned Africans. These Arabs taught them a little. But, later still, Europeans began to come in great s.h.i.+ps over the sea. These came at first like the Arabs to trade, and afterwards began to plant great fields of cotton and tobacco, which will not grow in their own lands. But they found the dark-skinned Africans were still ignorant, and afraid of people of other races. They were always fighting among themselves, and no one could settle among them until there was peace and safety. At last the European nations made agreements with the chiefs, so that now in nearly every part of Africa there is a European governor to prevent wars and fighting. Thus in North Africa the governors are sent by France, in the Congo lands by Belgium, in East Africa by England, in some other parts by Portugal.

These are different European nations who send men to keep peace, and to make it possible to carry on trade. Of course, the coming of the Europeans has made great changes in the lives of the Africans. In the old times all the men were busy fighting, and often whole villages of people were killed or made slaves. Now there is no fighting, but there is more need to work than before. There are more people, and less land for each family. Europeans want workmen to help on their great fields. The Africans want many things now, which they did not know about before, and they must have money to buy them. So work for money has taken the place of fighting. Again, in some ways the Europeans, enforcing peace and making many quick ways of travel, such as good roads and bridges, have helped to weaken the power of the chiefs. n.o.body likes changes to come, and the old people are always sorry when their children begin new customs; but on the whole it is good for Africans that other nations came to their country, because they have brought peace in the place of war, and safety and freedom instead of the old fear of death or slavery.

II

EGYPT

1. The Country and its River

Egypt is a country in the north of Africa. It has sea to the north and sea to the east. On the north it is called the Mediterranean Sea, and on the east the Red Sea. On the west is the great sandy desert called the Sahara, and to the south are great forests and mountains.

Egypt itself is the land of the great River Nile. There is very seldom any rain there, and everyone has to get water from the great river. So all the people live near the Nile or the ca.n.a.ls which lead out of it. A "ca.n.a.l" is a waterway, the channel of which has been dug by men. The big towns are where the river flows out into the sea, or where a ca.n.a.l meets the main stream, because the people bring their merchandise to market in boats. All over the land are little villages, where many people live and work in the fields to grow food.

Year by year when there is heavy rain in the mountains far away south, the River Nile rises and floods the fields. Then the people plant their seed quickly and get a good harvest. It is not difficult to understand why the Egyptians love their great river, which gives them water for their fields and carries them in their boats from place to place.

2. Its Past History

Egypt is the only part of Africa that could be reached easily by people in Europe and Asia, because in Egypt is the only place where men could walk from Asia and Europe into Africa. Even if they did not want to walk, the sea was not too wide to cross in small boats. In the Bible we read how Abraham, who lived in Asia, walked to Egypt, and later how Moses led the Children of Israel back to Asia. Since that time Europeans have cut a waterway for s.h.i.+ps through this narrow neck of land, which is called the Suez Ca.n.a.l. So now people can no longer walk from Asia to Africa, but in the old days the Egyptians grew wiser than others in Africa, because they were more able to meet men from other lands in Asia and Europe, and to learn something from them all.

So hundreds and hundreds of years ago there were people living in this country of the Nile who were wise and great. They built large cities and temples and houses. They knew how to write, and covered the walls of their houses with writing. Their letters were not like ours, but were pictures of the things they were writing about. They also built huge stone tombs for their kings to be buried in, and these were called "pyramids." The kings of Egypt were called "Pharaohs." When the old Egyptians wrote books, instead of paper they used the dried leaves of a reed called "papyrus," which grows in the Nile. Several leaves were fastened together to make a book. These old writings on reeds and on the walls have been found after lying buried in the sand, which has covered so much of old Egypt. The hot sand has kept them dry, and prevented them being destroyed during hundreds of years. By reading these writings we are able to find out how these people lived so long ago. They had also a wonderful way of taking the waters of the Nile in ditches over the whole land. There is hardly any rain in Egypt, and this Nile water prevented the country becoming so sandy and dry.

In those days Egypt was well-known for its wonderful harvests and stores of food.

But though these people were wise in many ways, yet they were proud and cruel to their enemies. In the Bible we read how they treated the Children of Israel in the time of Moses. Perhaps this was because they did not know G.o.d our Father, but wors.h.i.+pped many G.o.ds, whose pictures and images were like animals. Many of the great temples they built for these G.o.ds are still standing, and when we see pictures of them, we wonder at the skill of these people who lived so long ago.

Egypt was one of the first great countries to become Christian, and many of the old heathen temples were turned into churches. But at last the Arabs, who were Mohammedans, conquered Egypt, and forced most of the people to become Mohammedans too. But some remained faithful in spite of all, and these to-day are called "Copts," from the old name for Egypt. For hundreds of years these Copts have lived in a country ruled by Moslem Arabs, or Turks, who hated their religion, but they have been true to Christ through all.

There are people of all lands living in the towns of Egypt in these days, for there is a great deal of business to be done in them. But the people who work in the fields are the children of the old Egyptians, though they have forgotten their old wisdom and are now very ignorant.

3. The People of Egypt

The Egyptians are a race different both from the dark-skinned people of Africa and from Europeans. They have olive skins, very dark, almond-shaped eyes, and dark, straight hair. Most of the men shave their heads, and wear a turban or tarboosh as a covering. The women fasten a veil below their eyes, which falls over the lower part of their face. Both the men and the women wear several loose garments, which cover the whole body from the neck to the feet. All except the very poor wear shoes.

In the towns there are a great many people, some very rich and others very poor. Often a city looks very beautiful, because the houses are built of white or light-coloured stone or brick. But they are close together, and the streets are very narrow and dirty, and so the poor people are often ill. The houses are built in "storeys," one room on the top of another, with steps leading to the upper rooms. Often there is a courtyard in the middle of the house, so that all the rooms can have windows and light. One part of the house is separated from the rest for the women to use. This is called the "hareem," and no man, except the master of the house, is allowed to go into it. All rich Mohammedans have a separate part of their house for the women. A poor woman in all countries has plenty of work to do, but a rich lady in Egypt has many servants, or slaves, to do the work, and, as she is kept shut up in the "hareem" from the time she is ten or eleven years old, she can learn very little, except how to do beautiful needlework.

She cannot help her husband and her sons to be wise and good, because she does not know enough about life and work outside the "hareem." So the Egyptian ladies have little to do and little to think about all the day while their husbands are away, and they are often very dull.

But the town-people love their children very much, and Egyptian children are taught always to love, honour, and obey their father and mother. An Egyptian man may have four wives, but generally he has only one.

Until a few years ago, all Egyptians who had enough money used to buy slaves to do their work. Slaves could be bought or sold, or married or given away, as if they were things instead of people. Masters could illtreat or even kill their slaves and not be punished, because it was only as if they had broken their water-jar in a temper, and that was no one else's business. Often slaves were happy if they had good masters, but it is a bad custom to take away a person's freedom and treat him as if he had no soul. During the last few years many Europeans have been helping the Egyptians to improve their country, and one of the changes has been to do away gradually with slavery. No one is now allowed to buy a slave, and anyone born in slavery can become free if he wishes to do so. Instead of slaves, people now have servants who receive wages for their work. These are free to leave their master if he does not treat them well. Although slavery is dying out of Egypt, there are other parts of North Africa where the old bad customs still exist, though the great European nations try to prevent the public markets for slaves being held. People are happiest in countries where there are no slaves and everyone is free to do the work for which he is best fitted.

In Egyptian households where there is more than one wife there is often quarrelling. The wives of one man all live in one "hareem," and cannot help being jealous if they see their husband likes one better than another. Then there is quarrelling and ill-will among them. As the children grow up there is a further cause for jealousy, because the mothers of boys are more important than those who have only girl-children. Children cannot respect their mothers if they often see them quarrelling and jealous. Again, there is always a possibility that a husband may divorce his wife. He is not likely to do so if she has a boy-baby, but until she has, her position as a wife is not very secure. These bad marriage customs lead to much unhappiness, and prevent the women of Egypt from doing so much good as the women of some other lands are able to do. We must not, of course, think that all Egyptian homes are unhappy; probably many poor women are quite glad when their husband brings another wife to help with the work. But where servants do the work, there are only the pleasures of the home to be shared, and then jealousy will be likely to come.

4. The Big Towns

If we went for a walk in the narrow streets of an Egyptian city or big town, we should see on either side open shops, each with its owner ready to sell his goods. Many of the people of the towns have shops or trades. They sell jewellery, furniture, cloth, and everything that is wanted in the house for cooking. In the streets there are some men carrying drinking-water for sale, because it is hot walking about and people get thirsty. Others will be selling sweet-stuff made of sugar, which everyone likes. Others wait about ready to write letters for people who cannot write for themselves, and there are always many beggars. Great steamers from other countries--England, France, India, j.a.pan--bring merchandise to Alexandria and Port Said, the seaports of Egypt, and so people from these countries have shops and offices in those towns. Then the goods are taken by boats or trains to the capital, Cairo, where the Sultan lives, and to other large towns. In all these towns there are hundreds of people, so that a man can only know those who live near him or work with him. Most of them are unknown to one another and are like strangers, although they all live in one town and can all speak Arabic.

5. Life in the Villages

The country-people of Egypt are very poor, and have to work very hard all the year round in their fields. Their houses are built of bricks dried in the sun, plastered together with mud, and the roof is made of plaited palm leaf. Inside there is only one room, which has a big oven made of mud with a flat top on which the father and mother sleep.

The work in the fields is very hard, as the ground has to be made fertile by digging ca.n.a.ls and ditches all over it to bring the water from the Nile, because, you remember, there is no rain in Egypt. When the Nile begins to fall, the water has to be raised in baskets fastened to a wheel or pole, and thrown on the ground. In order to get enough money, the people plant another kind of seed as soon as one harvest is gathered; first, perhaps, planting wheat, then millet, or cotton, then maize. So the country-people in Egypt are always working hard from sunrise to sunset all the year in their fields, and their little children have to learn to mind sheep, goats, or cattle, and to help in other ways as soon as they can walk alone.

Other men work on the Nile, carrying people or goods up and down the river in boats from place to place. This, again, is hard work, but the boatmen seem very happy and often sing as they pa.s.s along. People in the country villages are ignorant, and very few can read or write.

Sometimes when the harvest has been bad and food is dear and scarce, the people get deeply into debt. There is a great deal of illness and disease, but there are very few doctors and nurses to help people to get well. So the life of an Egyptian peasant is a hard one--a great deal of work and very little time to rest, or play, or learn. But everyone has something to make him happy, and, unless there is famine or pestilence, these people have their wives and children and home, just as people have in England and other countries. The only person who need be unhappy is the one who has no one to love.

So we have learnt a little about that part of Africa called Egypt--the land of the Nile--and about the people who live in it. We must remember that all the other people who live on the North Coast of Africa, in Tunis, Algeria, and Morocco, are something like the Egyptians, also speaking Arabic, and different from the dark-skinned people who live farther south where it is very hot.

III

THE SAHARA, THE GREAT SANDY DESERT

1. What the Desert is Like

In the last chapter we were reading about Egypt, and we said that on the West of Egypt lay the Great Desert. Now a desert is a place where for some reason no food will grow. In some deserts the soil is too bad; in some the ground is covered with salt; in others, like the Sahara, there are no rivers. In some places in the Sahara there is water coming up through a crack in the rocks. This water is called a "spring," and wherever one is found, trees and gra.s.s and food will grow. Such a place is called an "oasis." In the big oases there are villages and towns. But the sun is so hot that before the water from the spring has flowed very far it is dried up, and beyond that nothing will grow. So when we think of the Sahara we have to try and picture to ourselves a very big country, full of hills and valleys, but with no rivers or lakes. It is a journey of many months to cross the Sahara, and day after day there is nothing to see but sand--sand, not flat, but in ridges of hills like great waves of the sea. When people are travelling across this desert, they get very tired of looking at nothing but sand all day. Then, at last, as the sun sets, they reach an oasis where there is water and bananas and date-trees, and perhaps houses and people. Sometimes great winds blow in the desert and bring a sandstorm. Then the sand beats hard against everything. If travellers meet a sandstorm, they have to throw themselves face downwards on the ground to keep the sand out of their eyes and mouth.

Very often people who live in the desert have bad eyes, and many are blind because of the sandstorms.

2. How the Desert Came

Long, long ago, the Sahara was not quite so dry as it is now. There were rivers then, which have dried up since. When there was water, food would grow, and people could keep sheep and cattle. In those days there were several large cities there. But when the water began to dry up, the ground became sandy and nothing would grow. Then, whenever the wind blew, the sand was carried along and began to cover up the houses and temples. The people had moved away because their food would not grow, and soon the sand completely covered the old cities. For a long time they were buried, until some Europeans went to see what they could find out about the people who lived there long ago. Then they dug and dug in the sand, and found the old houses and temples. But digging in the desert is very hard work, because it is very hot, and there is very little water and food. Often, too, a great wind arises and brings a sandstorm. Then the sand drifts back again to the places already cleared.

3. The Desert Peoples (_a_) Berbers

It is surprising to find that there are a great many people living in this desert region of North Africa. There are three kinds of people there. Firstly, there are the Berbers, who live always in a little town or village on a big oasis, and grow their own food. Secondly, there are the Bedouin, who live in large wandering tribes. These keep sheep and goats and camels, and stay on a small oasis until their herds have eaten all the gra.s.s on it, and then move on to another place. Thirdly, there are the Arab traders, whose business is to go south of the desert to get ivory and gold, and to take these back to Egypt and to the great cities north of the desert to sell. All these people speak Arabic and are Mohammedans.

The Berbers who live in the towns on the great oasis, where there is a large spring of water, are a different race from the Arabs, the Egyptians, or the dark-skinned people of farther south. They are much darker-skinned than the Egyptians and the Bedouin. In the past many different races of South Europe, as well as the Arabs, have conquered them and intermarried with them, but they still remain a distinct race, though their customs are like those of other Moslems. They make their houses of bricks dried in the sun, and build them so close together that people can step from one roof to another across the street. The roofs are flat, so that they can sit or sleep on them at night when it is very hot inside the house. All round the outside of the towns are brick walls with gates that are shut at night for fear of robbers.

These people live very much like the town-people in Egypt, only they are much poorer. They can buy things from the traders in the caravans which stop at their village for the night, but as they cannot grow or make many things to give in exchange, most people have to be content with the earthenware cooking-pots and the cloth they can make themselves. The women draw water and prepare the food and look after the children. Then they weave flax and wool into cloth. Their dress is something like that of the poor Egyptians. The children have to herd the sheep and goats, which at night sleep in the house with their owners. The men hoe the gardens and grow the millet and barley for food, and the flax for cloth. The chief food of these people is bread made of millet-flour kneaded with milk and baked in a hole in the ground. The flour is ground between two stones placed one on the top of the other, the upper one having one or two handles by which it can be moved round. The people in these small, crowded towns in the middle of the desert must live very narrow lives, and they do not know much about anything outside their own village. Journeys in the desert are very dangerous because of sandstorms and the difficulty of finding the way where there are no roads, and more especially because of robbers. So people never go on journeys unless they can join a big company with plenty of men ready to fight if the robbers attack them.

4. The Desert Peoples (_b_) Bedouin

The second kind of people who have their home in the desert are the Bedouin. These are Arabs who once lived in another desert in Arabia, but long, long ago many of them came to live in the Sahara. The Bedouin live in tents made of poles with dark cloth of goats' hair or camels' hair spread across them for walls and roof. They travel in large tribes, and put up their tents on a small oasis where there is no town. These people still live as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived long ago, before the Israelites built their towns. On the oasis their camels, horses, sheep, and goats can find water to drink and gra.s.s to eat. When all the food has been eaten they pack up the tents and everything they have and put it on the backs of the animals. Then the men and women and children all mount camels and horses and donkeys, and the whole tribe moves to another oasis. These people drink camels' milk and eat the dates and bananas and other fruit they find where they pitch their tents. They also bring these fruits to the Berber towns, and exchange them for flour to make bread and for coffee to drink. Coffee is a berry which is first roasted, then, when water is boiled and poured on to it, it makes a strong, brown liquid which Arabs and Europeans like to drink. The women weave camels' hair into clothes and blankets, and goats' hair into tent-covers. The Bedouin men are always ready to fight with their guns and lances; sometimes they are robbers, but most of them travel from place to place, only fighting if others attack them. There is always a chief in each tribe of Bedouin, and in each village of the Berbers, but away in the desert there are many bands of robbers who will not obey any law, and everyone has to fight for himself against these people. The Bedouin love their animals, especially their camels and their horses. It is quite natural that they should do so, because often a man would die in the desert if his horse or camel would not work well and carry him faithfully until they reached water. Sometimes when the people lose their way in the pathless sand, the horses and camels can find it.

5. The Desert Peoples (_c_) Traders

The third kind of people who are found in the Sahara are the traders.