The Casement Report 13

The Casement Report 13

There is also a large plantation of coffee-trees, a telegraph office,

and a trading store, but I could see no indications of native life

beyond those dependent on these establishments. The once villages and

their fields had been converted into a very well-laid-out and

admirably-maintained military station. From the Commandant and his

officers a cordial welcome was received. The camp as a military centre

is excellently chosen, the situation of Irebu commanding not only the

Lake Mantumba waterway, but one of the chief navigable channels of the

Congo; and it is, moreover, situated opposite the estuary of the great

Ubangi River, which is probably the most important Congo affluent. The

Commandant informed me that a very large supply of native food, amply

sufficient for the soldiers under his command, was supplied weekly by

the natives of the surrounding district.

 

It is difficult to exactly estimate the number of soldiers enrolled and

maintained by the Congo Government. There are, I think, four separate

“camps d’instruction” upon the Upper Congo, each of which should have an

effective of 700 men. The effective strengths of the companies of

Manyuema, Lake Léopold II, Lualaba-Kasai, Aruwimi, and Ruzizi-Kivu were

fixed respectively by Circular of the Governor-General, dated the 25th

June, 1902, at 750, 475, 850, 450, and 875 men. There are many other

companies of the “Force Publique” in the Congo State, and I think it

might safely be estimated that the number of men with the colours does

not amount to less than 18,000. By a Circular addressed to the local

authorities, dated the 26th May last, the Governor-General stated that

it was necessary to add 200 men to each of the camps in the Upper Congo.

In the same Circular a proposed increase of the general strength of the

army was indicated in the following terms:--

 

“Notre programme militaire est très vaste et sa réalisation exige

une attention soutenue et de grands efforts, mais sans son

exécution intégrale notre situation demeurera précaire.

 

“S’il le fallait, mais je ne pense pas même que ce soit nécessaire,

le Gouvernement se montrerait disposé à augmenter dans une certaine

mesure le contingent pour 1903.”

 

The same Circular added that:--

 

“Certains districts en effet ne remplacent pas les miliciens

décédés, désertés en cours de route et ceux réformés à leur arrivée

au camp.

 

“De plus, pendant la période d’instruction dans les camps un grand

nombre de déchets se produisent aussi parmi ces recrues, les

transports de miliciens laissant encore a désirer.”

 

The Commandant informed me that some of the natives who had fled into

the French territory opposite ten years ago, when the Irebu tribes had

deserted their homes, were now gradually returning to Congo State

territory. I found, subsequently, that this was the case, the people

alleging that since the rubber tax had been dropped in the Mantumba

district they preferred returning to their home lands to remaining on

the strange sites in French territory, to which they had fled when that

tax was at work.

 

From Irebu I proceeded some 25 miles to Ikoko, once a large village on

the north shore of Lake Mantumba. I remained in Lake Mantumba seventeen

days visiting, during that time, the Government post at Bikoro on the

east shore of the lake, and many native towns scattered around the lake

side. I also ascended by boat one of the rivers falling into the lake,

and visited three native villages in the forest situated along this

waterway. Lake Mantumba is a fine sheet of water about 25 or 30 miles

long and some 12 or 15 miles broad at the broadest part, surrounded by a

dense forest. The inhabitants of the district are of the Ntomba tribe,

and are still rude savages, using very fine bows and arrows and ill-made

spears as their weapons. There are also in the forest country many

families or clans of a dwarf race called Batwas, who are of a much more

savage and untameable disposition than the Ntombas, who form the bulk of

the population. Both Batwas and Ntombas are still cannibals, and

cannibalism, although repressed and not so openly indulged in as

formerly, is still prevalent in the district. The Mantumba people were,

in the days before the establishment of Congo State rule, among the most

active fishermen and traders of the Upper Congo. In fleets of canoes

they used to issue out upon the main waters of the Congo and travel very

great distances, fighting their way if necessary, in search of

purchasers of their fish or slaves, or to procure these latter. All this

has ceased and, save for small canoes used in catching fish, I saw

neither on the lake itself nor at the many villages I touched along its

shores, any canoes comparable to those so frequently seen in the past. A

man I visited told me that a fine canoe he bought for 2,000 brass rods

(100 fr.), in which to send the weekly imposition of fish to the local

State post, had been kept by the official there, had been used to

transport Government soldiers in, and was now attached to a Government

wood-cutting post, which he named, out on the main river. He had

received nothing for the loss of this canoe, and when I urged him to lay

the matter before the local official responsible, who had doubtless

retained the canoe in ignorance, he pulled up his loin cloth and,

pointing to where he had been flogged with a chicotte, said: “If I

complained I should only get more of these.” Although afraid to complain

locally, he declared he would be perfectly willing to accompany me if I

would take him before one of the Congo Judges or, above all, down to

Boma. I assured him that a statement such as that he had made to me

would meet with attention at Boma, and that if he could prove its truth

he would get satisfaction for the loss of the canoe.

 

Statements of a similar character, often supported by many witnesses,

were made to me more than once during my journey around the lake, some

of them pointing to far greater derelictions of duty. The same man told

me, on the same occasion, that one of the Government officials of the

district (the same man, indeed, who had retained the canoe) had recently

given him three wives. The official, he declared, had been “making war”

on a town in the forest I was then in, for failing to bring in its fixed

food supply, and as a result of the punitive measures undertaken the

town had been destroyed and many prisoners taken. As a result, several

women so taken were homeless, and were distributed. “Wives were being

given away that day,” said my informant, “he gave me three, but another

man got four.” The man went on to say that one of these “wives” had

since escaped, aided, as he complained, by one of his own townsmen, who

was a slave from her own native town.

 

The population of the lake-side towns would seem to have diminished

within the last ten years by 60 or 70 per cent. It was in 1893 that the

effort to levy an india-rubber imposition in this district was begun,

and for some four or five years this imposition could only be collected

at the cost of continual fighting. Finding the task of collecting

india-rubber a well nigh impossible one, the authorities abandoned it in

this district, and the remaining inhabitants now deliver a weekly supply

of food-stuffs for the up-keep of the military camp at Irebu, or the big

coffee plantation at Bikoro. Several villages I visited supply also to

the latter station a fortnightly tax of gum-copal, which the surrounding

forests yield abundantly. Gum-copal is also exposed and washed up on the

shores of the lake. The quantity of this commodity supplied by each

village on which it is assessed is put at 10 bags per fortnight. Each

bag is officially said to contain 25 kilog., so that the imposition

would amount to a quarter of a ton weight per fortnight. I found, when

trying to lift some of these bags I saw being packed at a native village

I was in, that they must weigh considerably more than 25 kilog., so that

I concluded that each sack represents that quantity net of gum-copal.

There is a considerable loss in cleaning, chipping, and washing crude

gum as collected. The quantity brought by each village would thus work

out at 6-1/2 tons per annum. When I visited the Government station at

P*, the chief of that post showed me ten sacks of gum which he said had

been just brought in by a very small village in the neighbourhood. For

this quarter of a ton of gum-copal he said he had paid the village one

piece of blue drill--a rough cotton cloth which is valued locally, after

adding the cost of transport, at 11-1/2 fr. a-piece. By the Congo

Government “Bulletin Officiel” of this year (No. 4, April 1903) I found

that 339-1/2 tons of gum-copal were exported in 1902, all from the Upper

Congo, and that this was valued at 475,490 fr. The value per ton would,

therefore, work out at about 56_l._ The fortnightly yield of each

village would therefore seem to be worth a maximum of 14_l._ (probably

less), for which a maximum payment of 11-1/2 fr. is made. At one village

I visited I found the majority of the inhabitants getting ready the

gum-copal and the supply of fish which they had to take to P* on the

morrow. They were putting it into canoes to paddle across the lake--some

20 miles--and they left with their loads in the night from alongside my

steamer. These people told me that they frequently received, instead of

cloth, 150 brass rods (7-1/2 fr.) for the quarter of a ton of gum-copal

they took fortnightly.

 

The value of the annual payment in gum-copal made by each town would

seem to be about 360_l._, while at an average of 9 fr. as the

remuneration each receives fortnightly, they would appear to receive

some 10_l._ in annual return.

 

In the village of Montaka, at the south end of the lake, where I spent

two days, the people seemed, during my stay, to be chiefly engrossed in

the task of chipping and preparing the gum-copal for shipment to Bikoro,

and in getting ready their weekly yield of fish for the same post. I saw

the filling with gum of the ten basket-sacks taking place under the eyes

of the Chief--who himself contributed--and a State sentry who was posted

there. Each household in the town was represented at this final task,

and every adult householder of Montaka shared in the general

contribution. Assuming the population of Montaka at from 600 to 800--and

it cannot now be more although a town of 4,000 souls ten years

ago--fully 150 householders are thus directly affected by the collection

and delivery, each fortnight, of this “impôt en nature,” and are

affected for the great majority of the days throughout the year.

 

Since for the 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal which the 150 householders of

Montaka contribute annually, they are seen to receive not more than a

total payment of 10_l._ in the year--viz., 26 fortnightly payments of,

on an average, say 9 fr. 50 c., giving 247 fr. annually--it follows that

the remuneration each adult householder of Montaka receives for his

entire year’s work is the one hundred and fiftieth part of that

total--or just 1_s._ 4_d._ This is just the value of an adult fowl in

Montaka. I bought ten fowls, or chickens rather, the morning of my going

away, and for the only reasonably sized one among them I gave 30 rods (1

fr. 50 c.), the others, small fledglings, ranging from 15 to 20 rods

each (75 cents. to 1 fr.).

 

The 6-1/2 tons of gum-copal supplied annually by these 150 householders

being valued at about 364_l._, it follows that each householder had

contributed something like 2_l._ 8_s._ per annum in kind.