Africa

broad noses, lips but slightly everted, and small but usually sturdy

physique, though often considerably emaciated owing to insufficiency of

food. Another peculiar tribe, also of short stature, are the Vaalpens of

the steppe region of the north Transvaal. Practically nothing is known of

them except that they are said to be very dark in colour and live in holes

in the ground, and under rock shelters.

Principal ethnological zones.

Having indicated the chief races of which in various degrees of purity

and intermixture the population of Africa is formed, it remains to consider

them in greater detail, particularly from the cultural standpoint. This is

hardly possible without drawing attention to the main physical characters

of the continent, as far as they affect the inhabitants. For ethnological

purposes three principal zones may be distinguished; the first two are

respectively a large region of steppes and desert in the north, and a

smaller region of steppes and desert in the south. These two zones are

connected by a vertical strip of grassy highland lying mainly to the east

of the chain of great lakes. The third zone is a vast region of forest and

rivers in the west centre, comprising the greater part of the basin of the

Congo and the Guinea coast. The rainfall, which also has an important

bearing upon the culture of peoples, will be found on the whole to be

greatest in the third zone and also in the eastern highlands, and of course

least in the desert, the steppes and savannas standing midway between the

two. As might be expected these variations are accompanied by certain

variations in culture. In the best-watered districts agriculture is

naturally of the greatest importance, except where the density of the

forest renders the work of clearing too arduous. The main portion therefore

of the inhabitants of the forest zone are agriculturists, save only the

nomad Pygmies, who live in the inmost recesses of the forest and support

themselves by hunting the game with which it abounds. Agriculture, too,

flourishes in the eastern highlands, and throughout the greater part of the

steppe and savanna region of the northern and southern zones, especially

the latter. In fact the only Bantu tribes who are not agriculturists are

the Ova-Herero of German South-West Africa, whose purely pastoral habits

are the natural outcome of the barren country they inhabit. But the wide

open plains and slopes surrounding the forest area are eminently suited to

cattle-breeding, and there are few tribes who do not take advantage of the

fact. At the same time a natural check is imposed upon the desire for

cattle, which is so characteristic of the Bantu peoples. This is

constituted by the tsetse fly, which renders a pastoral life absolutely

impossible throughout large tracts in central and southern Africa. In the

northern zone this check is absent, and the number of more essentially

pastoral peoples, such as the eastern Hamites, Masai, Dinka, Fula, &c.,

correspondingly greater. The desert regions yield support only to nomadic

peoples, such as the Tuareg, Tibbu, Bedouins and Bushmen, though the

presence of numerous oases in the north renders the condition of life

easier for the inhabitants. Upon geographical conditions likewise depend to

a large extent the political conditions prevailing among the various

tribes. Thus among the wandering tribes of the desert and of the heart of

the forests, where large communities are impossible, a patriarchal system

prevails with the family as the unit. Where the forest is less dense and

small agricultural communities begin to make their appearance, the unit

expands to the village with its headman. Where the forest thins to the

savanna and steppe, and communication is easier, are found the larger

kingdoms and ``empires'' such as, in the north those established by the

Songhai, Hausa, Fula, Bagirmi, Ba-Hima, &c., and in the south the states of

Lunda, Kazembe, the Ba-Rotse, &c.

But if ease of communication is favourable to the rise of large states

and the cultural progress that usually accompanies it, it is, nevertheless,

often fatal to the very culture which, at first, it fostered, in so far as

the absence of natural boundaries renders invasion easy. A good example of

this is furnished by the history of the western Sudan and particularly of

East and South-East Africa. From its geographical position Africa looks

naturally to the east, and it is on this side that it has been most

affected by external culture both by land (across the Sinaitic peninsula)

and by sea. Though a certain amount of Indonesian and even aboriginal

Indian influence has been traced in African ethnography, the people who

have produced the most serious ethnic disturbances (apart from modern

Europeans) are the Arabs. This is particularly the case in East Africa,

where the systematic slave raids organized by them and carried out with the

assistance of various warlike tribes reduced vast regions to a state of

desolation. In the north and west of Africa, however, the Arab has had a

less destructive but more extensive and permanent influence in spreading

the Mahommedan religion throughout the whole of the Sudan.

The characteristic African culture.

The fact that the physical geography of Africa affords fewer natural

obstacles to racial movements on the side most exposed to foreign

influence, renders it obvious that the culture most characteristically

African must be sought on the other side. It is therefore in the forests of

the Congo, and among the lagoons and estuaries of the Guinea coast, that

this earlier culture will most probably be found. That there is a culture

distinctive of this area, irrespective of the linguistic line dividing the

Bantu from the Negro proper, has now been recognized. Its main features may

be summed as follows:—-a purely agricultural life, with the plantain, yam

and manioc (the last two of American origin) as the staple food;

cannibalism common; rectangular houses with ridged roofs; scar-tattooing;

clothing of bark-cloth or palm-fibre; occasional chipping or extraction of

upper incisors; bows with strings of cane, as the, principal weapons,

shields of wood or wickerwork; religion, a primitive form of fetishism with

the belief that death is due to witchcraft; ordeals, secret societies, the

use of masks and anthropomorphic figures, and wooden gongs. With this may

be contrasted the culture of the Bantu peoples to the south and east, also

agriculturists, but in addition, where possible, great cattle-breeders,

whose staple food is millet and milk. These are distinguished by circular

huts with domed or conical roofs; clothing of skin or leather; occasional

chipping or extraction of lower incisors; spears as the principal weapons,

bows, where found, with a sinew cord, shields of hide or leather; religion,

ancestor-worship with belief in the power of the magicians as rain-makers.

Though this difference in culture may well be explained on the supposition

that the first is the older and more representative of Africa, this theory

must not be pushed too far. Many of the distinguishing characteristics of

the two regions are doubtless due simply to environment, even the

difference in religion. Ancestor-worship occurs most naturally among a

people where tribal organization has reached a fairly advanced stage, and

is the natural outcome of patriotic reverence for a successful chief and

his councillors. Rain-making, too, is of little importance in a well-

watered region, but a matter of vital interest to an agricultural people

where the rainfall is slight and irregular.

Within the eastern and southern Bantu area certain cultural variations

occur; beehive huts are found among the Zulu-Xosa and Herero, giving place

among the Bechuana to the cylindrical variety with conical roof, a type

which, with few exceptions, extends north to Abyssinia. The tanged

spearhead characteristic of the south is replaced by the socketed variety

towards the north. Circumcision, characteristic of the Zulu-Xosa and

Bechuana, is not practised by many tribes farther north; tooth-mutilation,

on the contrary, is absent among the more southern tribes. The lip-plug is

found in the eastern area, especially among the Nyasa tribes, but not in

the south. The head-rest common in the south-east and the southern fringe

of the forest area is not found far north of Tanganyika until the Horn of

Africa is reached.

In the regions outside the western area occupied by the Negro proper,

exclusive of the upper Nile, the similarities of culture outweigh the

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