To the candid student of ethnography, it must be conclusive that the Negro is but the most degraded and disfigured type of the primeval African.  And still, with all his interminable woes and wrongs, the Negro on the west coast of Africa, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, as well as in the southern part of the United States, shows that centuries of savagehood and slavery have not drained him of all the elements of his manhood.  History furnishes us with abundant and specific evidence of his capacity to civilize and Christianize.  We shall speak of this at length in a subsequent chapter.

FOOTNOTES: 

[63] See Keith Johnson’s Map of Africa, 1863.

[64] Savage Africa, pp. 403, 404.

[65] Savage Africa, p. 400.

[66] Savage Africa, p. 412.

[67] Savage Africa, p. 430.

CHAPTER VII.

AFRICAN IDIOSYNCRASIES.

     PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT.—­CONSTRUCTION OF VILLAGES.—­NEGRO
     ARCHITECTURE.—­ELECTION OF KINGS.—­CORONATION
     CEREMONY.—­SUCCESSION.—­AFRICAN QUEENS.—­LAW, CIVIL AND
     CRIMINAL.—­PRIESTS.—­THEIR
     FUNCTIONS.—­MARRIAGE
.—­WARFARE.—­AGRICULTURE.—­MECHANIC
     ARTS.—­BLACKSMITHS.

All the tribes on the continent of Africa are under, to a greater or less degree, the patriarchal form of government.  It is usual for writers on Africa to speak of “kingdoms” and “empires;” but these kingdoms are called so more by compliment than with any desire to convey the real meaning that we get when the empire of Germany or kingdom of Spain is spoken of.  The patriarchal government is the most ancient in Africa.  It is true that great kingdoms have risen in Africa; but they were the result of devastating wars rather than the creation of political genius or governmental wisdom.

“Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende.  Sandia and Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja.  The country north of the mountains, here in sight from the Zambesi, is called Senga, and its inhabitants Asenga or Basenga; but all appear to be of the same family as the rest of the Manganja and Maravi.  Formerly all the Manganja were united under the government of their great chief, Undi, whose empire extended from Lake Shirwa to the River Loangwa; but after Undi’s death it fell to pieces, and a large portion of it on the Zambesi was absorbed by their powerful Southern neighbors, the Bamjai.  This has been the inevitable fate of every African empire from time immemorial.  A chief of more than ordinary ability arises, and, subduing all his less powerful neighbors, founds a kingdom, which he governs more or less wisely till he dies.  His successor, not having the talents of the conqueror, cannot retain the dominion, and some of the abler under-chiefs set up for themselves; and, in a few years, the remembrance only of