DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0158
Nungu
85
There arises here the same problem which is offered in the whole of West Africa south
of the bend of the Niger, namely, that although there appear to be great numbers of neo-
lithic axes,2 none of the other tools usual in neolithic cultures, such as scrapers, etc. occur.
Moreover no paleolithic types of implements have been found.
To return to the present inhabitants of the particular area under consideration, they
are grouped into loosely knit village and tribal communities which until the establishment
of the British protectorate had no common system of rule. Even the authority of the
nominal village headman depended mainly on his being able by the size and prowess of
his family to enforce it. The power of the local medicine man was often greater than his.
All these tribes are primitive and unruly savages, and addicted to head-hunting. Some,
until quite recently when the Government intervened, were cannibals.
The limits within which a person could roam were, and practically still are, mainly
restricted, both as to place and occasion, to those villages with which he customarily joined
in beer-drinks, or with which his village intermarried. Even these villages might have
periodic hostilities which would often revive without warning during the advanced stages
of a “friendly” beer-drink.
Disputes were settled either by private arrangement, if the parties were on sufficiently
friendly terms, or by force if they were not. Every member of a community was held
responsible for the wrongs done by any other member, and revenge could be exacted from
any available member of the wrongdoer’s community. Thus if a woman of one village
was enticed away from her husband to live with a man in another village, any member of
the second village was liable to be shot or kidnaped by the aggrieved husband and his
friends.
The chief sources of disputes are women, beer, and (much less frequently) boundaries.
In all these cases some means of settling the matter by compromise is usually found, and
recourse to violence is avoided. The chief reason for disputes in the first case is the fact,
well attested by several independent censuses, that the men far outnumber the women.
Therefore there always are numbers of men who have no wives, but are trying by hook
or by crook to get them. This makes the women very independent. If a sufficient
inducement is offered a woman, or if she is dissatisfied with her husband’s treatment, or if
2 Neolithic celts have been found in various parts of the Sudan. For Ashanti, cf. FI. Balfour, ‘Notes on a col-
lection of ancient stone implements from Ejura, Ashanti’ (Jour. Afr. Soc., vol. 12, no. 45, Oct. 1912, p. 1); for Baghirmi,
cf. Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg, From the Congo to the Nile, London, 1913, vol. 1, p. 93; for Kordofan,
H. A. MacMichael, The tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan, Cambridge, 1912, pl. 19, fig. 5; for the Upper Nile,
R. Virchow, ‘ Prahistorische Eisenbeile aus dem Lande der Monbuttu’ (Zeit. f. Ethnol., vol. 16, Berlin, 1884, Verhand-
lungen, p. 294-297). For the occurrence of celts in Nubia and Sennar the Editor can vouch personally. From
Selimah Oasis comes a small nephrite (?) celt now in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, in Cairo (no. 45387).
These implements do not seem to have been associated to a marked extent with the other common artifacts of the
neolithic age, such as scrapers, arrowheads, knives, etc. This is remarkable since casual observation in the Sahara
and in North Africa has led to the discovery of many chipped implements but only a few axes. Ed.)
85
There arises here the same problem which is offered in the whole of West Africa south
of the bend of the Niger, namely, that although there appear to be great numbers of neo-
lithic axes,2 none of the other tools usual in neolithic cultures, such as scrapers, etc. occur.
Moreover no paleolithic types of implements have been found.
To return to the present inhabitants of the particular area under consideration, they
are grouped into loosely knit village and tribal communities which until the establishment
of the British protectorate had no common system of rule. Even the authority of the
nominal village headman depended mainly on his being able by the size and prowess of
his family to enforce it. The power of the local medicine man was often greater than his.
All these tribes are primitive and unruly savages, and addicted to head-hunting. Some,
until quite recently when the Government intervened, were cannibals.
The limits within which a person could roam were, and practically still are, mainly
restricted, both as to place and occasion, to those villages with which he customarily joined
in beer-drinks, or with which his village intermarried. Even these villages might have
periodic hostilities which would often revive without warning during the advanced stages
of a “friendly” beer-drink.
Disputes were settled either by private arrangement, if the parties were on sufficiently
friendly terms, or by force if they were not. Every member of a community was held
responsible for the wrongs done by any other member, and revenge could be exacted from
any available member of the wrongdoer’s community. Thus if a woman of one village
was enticed away from her husband to live with a man in another village, any member of
the second village was liable to be shot or kidnaped by the aggrieved husband and his
friends.
The chief sources of disputes are women, beer, and (much less frequently) boundaries.
In all these cases some means of settling the matter by compromise is usually found, and
recourse to violence is avoided. The chief reason for disputes in the first case is the fact,
well attested by several independent censuses, that the men far outnumber the women.
Therefore there always are numbers of men who have no wives, but are trying by hook
or by crook to get them. This makes the women very independent. If a sufficient
inducement is offered a woman, or if she is dissatisfied with her husband’s treatment, or if
2 Neolithic celts have been found in various parts of the Sudan. For Ashanti, cf. FI. Balfour, ‘Notes on a col-
lection of ancient stone implements from Ejura, Ashanti’ (Jour. Afr. Soc., vol. 12, no. 45, Oct. 1912, p. 1); for Baghirmi,
cf. Adolf Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg, From the Congo to the Nile, London, 1913, vol. 1, p. 93; for Kordofan,
H. A. MacMichael, The tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan, Cambridge, 1912, pl. 19, fig. 5; for the Upper Nile,
R. Virchow, ‘ Prahistorische Eisenbeile aus dem Lande der Monbuttu’ (Zeit. f. Ethnol., vol. 16, Berlin, 1884, Verhand-
lungen, p. 294-297). For the occurrence of celts in Nubia and Sennar the Editor can vouch personally. From
Selimah Oasis comes a small nephrite (?) celt now in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, in Cairo (no. 45387).
These implements do not seem to have been associated to a marked extent with the other common artifacts of the
neolithic age, such as scrapers, arrowheads, knives, etc. This is remarkable since casual observation in the Sahara
and in North Africa has led to the discovery of many chipped implements but only a few axes. Ed.)