United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Mandengas, locally called 'gold strangers, manage the traffic with the interior, probably the still mysterious range called the 'Kong Mountains. They are armed with knives, sabres, and muskets; and for viaticum they carry rude rings of pure gold, which, I am told, are considered more valuable than the dust.
The Mumbo-Jumbo of the Mandengas; the Semo of the Susus; the Tassau or "Purrah-devil" of the Mendis; the Egugun of the Egbas; the Egbo of the Duallas; and the Mwetye and Ukukwe of the Bakele, is represented in Pongo-land by the Nda, which is an order of the young men.
Here stray Moslems, mostly Mandengas, occasionally bring down the Melakori River ring-gold and dust from the interior. The colonists of Liberia assert that at times they have come upon a pocket which produced fifty dollars; the country-people also occasionally offer gold for sale. From the Bassam coast middle-men travel far inland and buy the metal from the bushmen.
The Mandengas, whom Mungo Park calls Mandingoes and characterises as a 'wild, sociable, and obliging people, soon waxed turbulent and unruly. This is to be expected; a race of warriors must be governed by the sword. They would prefer for themselves military law to all the blessings of a constitution or a plebiscite.
Blacksmiths, weavers, and spinners work out of doors. Contrary to the general Moslem rule, these Mandengas honour workers in iron and leather, and the king's blacksmith and cobbler are royal councillors.
Factory is divided by a narrow strait from Tumbo Island, and the latter faces the lands occupied by the Susus. These equestrian tribes, inhabiting a grassy plain, were originally Mandengas, who migrated south to the Mellikuri, Furikaria, and Sumbuyah countries, and who intermarried with the aboriginal Bulloms, Tonko-Limbas, and Baggas.
Besides the gypsy-like Pulo, the 'brown race, our older Fulahs and Fellalahs, whose tongue is said to be a congener of the Nubian; and the wild, half-naked pagan Jolu, the principal tribes, are two, the Mandengas and the Wolofs. In old Mohammedan works their territory is called Wangara.
Word Of The Day