DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.66493#0024
face, very little to say. No one lives who can tell about their origin,
and were it not for the thought which gave rise to the search for their
like in Africa, their silence might well have been eternal. At the
beginning my hope was so small that I could hardly have backed it
with a positive: “I am sure.” But, since then, our rich experience has
enabled us to say: “That 'which existed, once in Europe lives on among
its epigones in Africa today.”
In the Homburi Mountains in the Sudan, Desplagnes found rock
pictures which were made by novices in the course of their initiation
rites, something which we ourselves were able later to investigate
further. Southward, this time in the forest of Liberia, Dr. German
found more novice paintings which, since there were no rocks, had
been made on mud walls erected for the purpose. In 1905 we obtained
further evidence from a Congo race, hunting tribes, later famous as
the “pygmies,” which had been driven from the plateau to the refuge
of the Congo. We met them in the jungle district between Kassai and
Luebo. Several of their members, three men and a woman, guided
the expedition for almost a week and were soon on friendly terms
with us. One afternoon, finding our larder rather depleted, I asked
one of them to shoot me an antelope, surely an easy job for such an
expert hunter. He and his fellows looked at me in astonishment and
then burst out with the answer that, yes, they’d do it gladly, but that
it was naturally out of the question for that day since no preparations
had been made. After a long palaver they declared themselves ready
to make these at sunrise. Then they went off as though searching for a
good site and finally settled on a high place on a nearby hill.
As I was eager to learn what their preparations consisted of, I left
camp before dawn and crept through the bush to the open place which
they had sought out the night before. The pygmies appeared in the
twilight, the woman with them. The men crouched on the ground,
plucked a small square free of weeds and smoothed it over with their
hands. One of them then drew something in the cleared space with
his forefinger, while his companions murmured some kind of formula
22
and were it not for the thought which gave rise to the search for their
like in Africa, their silence might well have been eternal. At the
beginning my hope was so small that I could hardly have backed it
with a positive: “I am sure.” But, since then, our rich experience has
enabled us to say: “That 'which existed, once in Europe lives on among
its epigones in Africa today.”
In the Homburi Mountains in the Sudan, Desplagnes found rock
pictures which were made by novices in the course of their initiation
rites, something which we ourselves were able later to investigate
further. Southward, this time in the forest of Liberia, Dr. German
found more novice paintings which, since there were no rocks, had
been made on mud walls erected for the purpose. In 1905 we obtained
further evidence from a Congo race, hunting tribes, later famous as
the “pygmies,” which had been driven from the plateau to the refuge
of the Congo. We met them in the jungle district between Kassai and
Luebo. Several of their members, three men and a woman, guided
the expedition for almost a week and were soon on friendly terms
with us. One afternoon, finding our larder rather depleted, I asked
one of them to shoot me an antelope, surely an easy job for such an
expert hunter. He and his fellows looked at me in astonishment and
then burst out with the answer that, yes, they’d do it gladly, but that
it was naturally out of the question for that day since no preparations
had been made. After a long palaver they declared themselves ready
to make these at sunrise. Then they went off as though searching for a
good site and finally settled on a high place on a nearby hill.
As I was eager to learn what their preparations consisted of, I left
camp before dawn and crept through the bush to the open place which
they had sought out the night before. The pygmies appeared in the
twilight, the woman with them. The men crouched on the ground,
plucked a small square free of weeds and smoothed it over with their
hands. One of them then drew something in the cleared space with
his forefinger, while his companions murmured some kind of formula
22