I f they have not, their state is, like that of all old childless
women in Africa, a very desolate one.
Infant marriage is now in vogue among the Igalwa, and to
my surprise I find it is of quite recent introduction and adoption.
Their own account of this retrograde movement in
culture is that in the last generation— some of the old people
indeed claim to have known,himjjjthere was an exceedingly
ugly and deformed man who could not get a wife, the women
'being then, as the men are now, great admirers of physical
beauty. So this man, being very cunning, hit on the idea of
becoming betrothed to one before she could exercise her own
'choice in the matter; and knowing a family in which an interesting
event was likely to occur, he made heavy presents in
the proper quarters and bespoke the coming infant if it should
be a girl. A girl it was, and thus, say the Igalwa, arose the
„■custom; and nowadays, although they do not engage their
wives so early as did the founder of the custom, they adopt
infant marriage as an institution.
I inquired carefully, in the interests of ethnology, as to what
methods of courting were in vogue previously. They said
people married each other because they loved each other. I
think other ethnologists will follow this inquiry up, for we
may here find a real golden age, which in other races of
humanity lies away in the mists of the ages behind thè
kitchen middens and the Cambrian rocks. My own opinion
in this matter is that the earlier courting methods of the Igalwa
involved a certain amount of effort on the man’s part, a thing
abhorrent to an Igalwa. It necessitated his dressing himself
■up, and likely enough fighting that impudent scoundrel who
was engaged in courting her too ; and above all serenading her
at night on the native harp, with its strings made from the tendrils
of a certain orchid, or on the marimba, amongst crowds
-of mosquitoes. Any institution that involved being out at
night amongst crowds of those Lembarene mosquitoes would
have to disappear, let that institution be what it might.
The Igalwa are one of the dying-out coast tribes. As well
as on Lembarene Island, their villages are scattered along the
banks of the Lower Ogowé, and on the shores and islands of
Eliva Z ’oniange. On the island they are, so far, undisturbed
by the Fan invasion, and laze their lives away like
lotus-eaters. Their slaves work their large plantations, and
bring up to them magnificent yams, ready prepared agooma,
sweet-potatoes, . papaw, &c., not forgetting that delicacy'
Odeaka cheese; this is not an exclusive inspiration of theirs,
for the M’pongwe and the Benga use it as well. It is made
from the kernel of the wild mango, a singularly beautiful tree
of great size and stately spread of foliage. I can compare it
only in appearance and habit of growth to our Irish, or evergreen,
oak, but it is an idealisation of that fine tree. Its leaves
are a softer, brighter, deeper green, and in due season (August)
it is covered— not ostentatiously like the real mango, with
great spikes of bloom, looking each like a gigantic head of
mignonette— but with small yellow-green flowers tucked away
under the leaves, filling the air with a soft sweet perfume,
and then falling on to the bare shaded ground beneath to make
a deep-piled carpet. I do not know whether it is a mango tree
at all, for I am no botanist: but anyhow the fruit is rather like
that of the mango in external appearance, and in internal still
more so, for it has a disproportionately large stone. These
stones are cracked, and the kernel taken out. The kernels
are spread a short time in the shade to d r y ; then they are
beaten up into a pulp with a wooden pestle, and the pulp put
into a basket lined carefully with plantain leaves and placed
in the sun, which melts it up into a stiff mass. The basket
is then removed from the sun and stood aside to cool. When
cool, the cheese can be turned out in shape, and can be kept a
long time if it is wrapped round with leaves and a cloth, and
hung up inside the house. Its appearance is that of almond
rock, and it is cut easily with a knife ; but at any period of its
existence, if it is left in the sun it melts again rapidly into an
oily mass.
The natives use it as a seasoning in their cookery, stuffing
fish and plantains with it and so on, using it also in the preparation
of a sort of sea-pie they make with meat and fish.
To make this, a thing well worth doing, particularly - with
hippo or other coarse meat, reduce the wood fire to embers, and
make plantain leaves into a sort of bag, or cup ; small pieces of
the meat should then be packed in layers with red pepper and
Q 2