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Updated: May 7, 2025
The Dagombas alone comprised Omar's body-guard, and I found on my return to the palace that they had exchanged their scanty clothes of native bark-cloth for the rich bright-coloured silk uniforms of those who had acted in a similar capacity to the Naya.
Omar, attired only in a small garment of bark-cloth, took no heed of his toilet, therefore we at once announced our readiness to leave the loathsome place with its myriad creeping things, and it was with a feeling of intense relief that a few minutes later we ascended to the blessed light of day.
Another piece of bark-cloth is passed between the legs and tied, in front and behind, to this belt.
One kind of fig-tree is often seen hacked all over to get the sap, which is used as bird-lime; bark-cloth is made of it too. I like to see the men weaving or spinning, or reclining under these glorious canopies, as much as I love to see our more civilized people lolling on their sofas or ottomans.
This wood was exactly adapted for the purpose, as it was easy to cut, and at the same time it was undying when once planted in the ground. Any log of the bark-cloth tree will take root if watered. The axes with which the men were provided now came into play, and the clicking of so many tools at work at once surprised the natives.
Insects kill or dwarf some trees, and men maim others for the sake of the bark-cloth; elephants break down a great number, and it is only here and there that gigantic specimens are seen: they may be expected in shut-in valleys among mountains, but on the whole the trees are scraggy, and the varieties not great.
He mouthed some sentences in the pompous Lunda style, but would not show us the path; so we left him, and after going through a forest of large trees, 4-1/2 hours south, took advantage of some huts on the Kifurwa River, built by bark-cloth cutters. 15th November, 1867.
The man wears in addition when out of doors a coat of bark-cloth or white cotton stuff, and a wide sun-hat of palm leaves, in shape like a mushroom-top or an inverted and very shallow basin, which shelters him from both sun and rain; many wear also a small oblong mat plaited of rattan-strips hanging behind from a cord passed round the waist, and serving as a seat when the wearer sits down.
A few indulge their curiosity in sight-seeing, but go on steadily weaving nets, or by beating bark-cloth, or in spinning cotton, others smoke their big tobacco pipes, or nurse a baby, or enjoy the heat of the bright morning sun.
"Keedja explains that he and his people have been obliged to fly from the depredations of the companies of Abou Saood, thus they have settled in the forest on the north side of the river, and have cultivated farms. They have very few clothes, as their bark-cloth trees are on the south side of the river in their old plantations.
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