Reveals Disco’s Opinions about Savages, and the Savages’ Opinions of Disco, and Other Weighty Matters.
As two or three of Harold’s people were not very well just at that time, he resolved to remain at Kambira’s village for a few days to give them rest, and afterwards to push on to the country of his friend Chimbolo.
This arrangement he came to the more readily that he was short of provisions, and Kambira told him that a particular part of the country near the shores of a lake not far distant abounded with game of all sorts.
To Disco Lillihammer he explained his plans next day, while that worthy, seated under the shade of a banyan-tree, was busily engaged with what he styled his “mornin’ dooties”—namely, the filling and smoking of his cutty-pipe.
“You see, Disco,” he said, “it won’t do to knock up the men with continuous travel, therefore I shall give them a spell of rest here. Kambira tells me that there is plenty of game, large and small, to be had not far off, so that we shall be able to replenish our stock of meat and perchance give the niggers a feast such as they have not been accustomed to of late, for it is not too much to expect that our rifles will do more execution, at all events among lions and elephants, than native spears. Besides, I wish to see something of the people, who, being what we may call pure out-and-out savages—”
“Savages!” interrupted Disco, removing his pipe, and pointing with the stem of it to the village on an eminence at the outskirts of which they were seated; “d’ee call them folk savages?”
Harold looked at the scene before him, and paused for a few moments; and well he might, for not fifty yards off the blacksmith was plying his work energetically, while a lad sat literally between a pair of native bellows, one of which he blew with his left hand, the other with his right and, beyond these, groups of men and women wrought at their primitive looms or tilled their vegetable gardens and patches of land.
“Savages!” repeated Disco, still pointing to the village with the stem of his pipe, and gazing earnestly at his companion, “humph!”
It is probable that Disco might have said more, but he was an accurate judge of the precise moment when a pipe is about to go out, and delay will prove fatal. He therefore applied himself diligently to suck and cherish the dying spark. Having revived its powers to such an extent that clouds enveloped his visage, and his nose, being red, loomed luridly through them, he removed the pipe, and again said, “Humph! They ain’t a bit more savages, sir, than you or me is.”
“Perhaps not,” replied Harold. “To say truth, it would be difficult to point out any peculiarity that justifies the name, except the fact that they wear very little clothing, and neither go to school nor church.”
“They wears no clothin’,” rejoined Disco, “’cause they don’t need for to do so; an’ they don’t go to church or school, ’cause they hain’t got none to go to—that same bein’ not the fault o’ the niggers, but o’ them as knows better.”
“There’s truth in what you say, Disco,” returned Harold, with a smile, “but come, you must admit that there is something savage in the custom they have of wearing these hideous lip-rings.”
The custom to which he referred is one which prevails among several of the tribes of Africa, and is indeed so utterly hideous and outrageous that we should be justified in refusing to believe it, were we not assured of the fact by Dr Livingstone and other missionaries and travellers of unquestionable integrity. The ring is worn in the upper lip, not hanging from it but fitted into a hole in it in such a manner as to thrust the lip straight and far out from the face. As the ring is about the size of an ordinary napkin-ring, it may be easily believed, that time is required for the formation of the deformity. At an early age the middle of the upper lip of a girl is pierced close to the nose, and a small pin introduced to prevent the hole closing up. After it is healed the pin is taken out and a larger one forced into its place, and so for weeks, months, and years the process of increasing the size of the lip goes on, until a ring of two inches in diameter can be introduced. Nearly all the women in these parts use this ring, or, as it is called, pelele. Some make them of bamboo, others of ivory or tin. When a wearer of the pelele smiles, the action of the cheek muscles draws the lip tight which has the effect of raising the ring towards the eyebrows, so that the nose is seen in the middle of it, and the teeth are exposed, a revelation which shows that the latter have been chipped to sharp points so as to resemble the teeth of a cat or crocodile.
“No doubt,” said Disco, in reply to Harold’s remark, “the lip-rings are uncommon ugly, but the principle o’ the thing, sir, that’s w’ere it is, the principle ain’t no wuss than ear-rings. The savages, as we calls ’em, bores holes in their lips an’ sticks rings into ’em. The civilised folk, as we calls ourselves, bores holes in their ears an’ sticks rings into ’em. W’ere’s the difference? that’s wot I want to know.”
“There’s not much difference in principle,” said Harold, laughing, “but there is a great difference in appearance. Ear-rings hang gracefully; lip-rings stick out horribly.”
“H’m! it appears to me that that’s a matter o’ taste, now. Howsoever, I do admit that lip-rings is wuss than ear-rings; moreover it must make kissin’ somewhat difficult, not to say onpleasant, but, as I said before, so I says again, It’s all in the principle w’ere it lies. W’y, look here, sir,—savages, as we call ’em, wear brass rings round their necks, our women wear gold and brass chains. The savages wear anklets, we wear bracelets. They have no end o’ rings on their toes, we have ’em on our fingers. Some savages shave their heads, some of us shaves our faces. Their women are raither given to clothin’ which is too short and too narrer, ours come out in toggery far too wide, and so long sometimes, that a feller daren’t come within a fathom of ’em astarn without runnin’ the risk o’ trampin’ on, an’ carrying away some o’ the canvas. The savage women frizzes out their hair into most fantastical shapes, till the very monkeys has to hold their sides sittin’ in the trees larfin’ at ’em—and wot do we do in regard to that? W’y, some of our women puts on a mixture o’ hairy pads, an’ combs, an’ pins, an’ ribbons, an’ flowers, in a bundle about twice the size o’ their heads, all jumbled together in such a way as to defy description; an’ if the monkeys was to see them, they’d go off into such fits that they’d bu’st altogether an’ the race would become extinct in Afriky. No, sir; it’s my opinion that there ain’t no such thing as savages—or, if you choose to put it the tother way, we’re all savages together.”
Disco uttered the last part of his speech with intense energy, winding it up with the usual slap on the thigh, delivered with unusual fervour, and then, becoming aware that the vital spark of the cutty had all but fled, he applied himself to its resuscitation, in which occupation he found relief to his feelings, and himself formed a brilliant illustration of his remarks on savage customs.
Harold admitted that there was much truth in what he said, but rather inclined to the opinion that of the two sets of savages the uncivilised were, if anything, the wildest. Disco however, contrary to his usual habits, had nailed his colours to the mast on that point and could not haul them down. Meanwhile Harold’s opinion was to some extent justified by the appearance of a young man, who, issuing from the jungle close at hand, advanced towards them.
Most of the men at the village displayed a good deal of pride, if not taste, in the arrangement of their hair. Some wore it long and twisted into a coil which hung down their backs; others trained and stiffened it in such a way that it took the form of buffalo horns, while some allowed it to hang over the shoulders in large masses, and many shaved it either entirely, or partially in definite patterns. But the young dandy who now approached outdid all others, for he had twisted his hair into innumerable little tails, which, being stiffened by fillets of the inner bark of a tree, stuck straight out and radiated from the head in all directions. His costume otherwise was simple enough, consisting merely of a small kilt of white calico. He was accompanied by Antonio.
“We’ve be come from Kambira,” said the interpreter, “to tell you for come to feast.”
“All right,” said Disco, rising; “always ready for wittles if you only gives us an hour or two between times.—I say, Tony,” (he had by that time reduced the interpreter’s name to this extent), “ask this feller what he means by makin’ sitch a guy of hisself.”
“Hims say it look well,” said Antonio, with a broad grin.
“Looks well—eh? and ask him why the women wear that abominable pelele.”
When this question was put to the black dandy, he looked at Disco evidently in surprise at his stupidity. “Because it is the fashion,” he said.
“They wear it for beauty, to be sure! Men have beards and whiskers; women have none, and what kind of creature would woman be without whiskers, and without a pelele? S............