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In Lower Guinea the Portuguese held an advantage, partly through the influence of the Catholic priests. The Capuchin missionary Merolla, for example, relates that while he was in service at the mouth of the Congo in 1685 word came that the college of cardinals had commanded the missionaries in Africa to combat the slave trade.
During their "country nursing," the children run about wholly nude, except the coating of red wood applied by the mothers, or the dust gathered from the ground. I could not hear of the weaning custom mentioned by Merolla, the father lifting the child by the arm, and holding him for a time hanging in the air, "falsely believing that by those means he will become more strong and robust."
That the Nzadi is capable of supplying something better than slaves may be shown by a list of what its banks produce. Merolla says in 1682: "Cotton here is to be gathered in great abundance, and the shrubs it grows on are so prolific, that they never almost leave sprouting."
I stayed three days at Chinguvu finishing my sketches, but to have recovered anything from the guide would have required three weeks. The old villain relaxed his vigilance over the women, who for the first time were allowed to enter the doors without supervision: Merolla treats of this stale trick, and exclaims, "Ah pereat! didicit fallere si qua virum." "Mulher que engana tropeiro."
Promptly deciding this to be a hopeless project, Merolla and his colleagues compromised with their instructions by attempting to restrict the trade to ships of Catholic nations and to the Dutch who were then supplying Spain under the asiento.
Merolla calls these men Musilongo or Sonhese. Mushi-Longo would perhaps mean Loango-people; but my ear could not detect any approach to "Loango" in "Musulungu." They inhabit the islands, own a part of the north bank, and extend southwards to Ambriz: eastward they are bounded by the Fiote or Congo-speaking peoples, to whom their tongue is intelligible.
Father Cavazzi da Monte Cuccoli, Denis de Carli, and Merolla, themselves missioners, have left us ample accounts of the ecclesiastical rule which, during its short tenure of office, bore a remarkable family resemblance to that of the Jesuit missions in South America.
He has charge of the "Kizila," the "Chigella" of Merolla and the "Quistilla" of James Barbot Anglice putting things in fetish, which corresponds with the Tahitian tapu or taboo. The African idea is, that he who touches the article, for instance, gold on the eastern coast of Guinea, will inevitably come to grief.
Yet old travellers declare that when the missionaries succeeded, the people "lived so Christian-like and lovingly together, that the wife would suffer herself to be cut to pieces rather than deceive her husband." Merolla, indeed, enlarges on the constancy of women, whether white or black, when lawfully married to their mates; and praises them for living together in all manner of love and amity.
Father Merolla talks of a breed in the Cabo Verde Islands "between bulls and she-asses, which they compassed by binding a cow's hide upon the latter:" it would be worth inquiring if this was ever attempted, and it might add to our traditions about the "Jumart." And the tale of the elephant-hunters deceiving the animals by anointing themselves with their droppings deserves investigation.
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