POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST
the heads of important lineages when summoned to a royal audience would arrive at the royal court preceded by servants who carried a large cloth which would be spread out as a carpet for their master.Weavers in Ngoyo produced a cloth called in the Portuguese sources panos nsambes, which was also exported to the Sonyo province of the Kongo kingdom on the south side of the Zaire river. The name suggests that one of the royal families of the kingdom, Nsambo, may have originally commissioned the cloth or controlled its distribution. Another cloth, less elaborate but with a similar design, also had restricted circulation since only the wealthy could afford to buy it or have it made. Two other raphia cloths with a plain weave were worn by most of the population.
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POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST Phyllis M. Martin Indiana University Cloth was a basic resource for the peoples of the Loango Coast' throughout their precolonial history. It was used in daily life for furnishings and for clothing; it was essential in landmark events such as initiation and burial ceremonies; it was part of key transactions that cemented lineage and state alliances; and it served as a currency. The importation of European cloth from the sixteenth century began a transition from indigenous, domestically produced cloth to a reliance on foreign cloth, but cloth maintained its significance as a key resource at all levels of society. Access to sources of cloth and control of its distribution were closely associated with the wielding of power, whether by royal administrators, lineage elders, religious specialists or merchant-brokers. Raphia Cloth Production The great rainforests of Central Africa reach their western margins in the mountainous Mayombe region in the hinterland of the Loango Coast. This was also the inland limit of the three kingdoms that historically dominated the area - Ngoyo, Kakongo and, the largest, Loango. In these fringes of the equatorial forest, palm trees grew in such profusion that a late sixteenth- century account referred to the region as "the land of palms."2 Of the many varieties, several were important in cloth production. The fibers of the "bamboo" or wine palm, rafia vinifera or ntombe, were commonly used for the most basic cloth and for currency; and from the leaf fibers of the fan palm, hyphaene guineensis or nteva, cloths of particularly high quality were woven.3 The trees were both cultivated and grew wild. Andrew Battell, who lived on the Loango Coast in the first decade of the seventeenth century, wrote "of their palm trees which they keep watering and cutting every year, they make velvets, satins, taffetas, damasks, sarsenets and such like; out of the leaves, cleansed and purged, drawing long threads and even, for that purpose."4 Samuel Brun in 1612 indicated the care with which the trees were planted at the Loango capital, writing that they "were planted like grape vines," while Pieter van de Broecke about the same time described wine palm trees that had been planted around the royal court.5 Seventeenth- century sources are silent on who had rights to exploit the trees, but sources for related Bakongo groups in the lower Zaire region indicate that palm trees belonged to the families of those who had planted them and were inheritable property; others could request the right to use the trees, however, and rights PHYLLIS M. MARTIN would fall into abeyance if the site of a village was abandoned.6 The production of raphia cloth was in the hands of the men and boys who planted and tended the trees, cut the leaves, extracted and prepared the fibers, and wove the cloth on upright looms. Very simple cloths might also be woven without a loom. In the late eighteenth century, French missionaries described a "grass-cloth" that "they make on their knees without a shuttle or loom ... as our basket-makers do with their wattle."7 The craft of weaving was widely known as a part-time occupation, but there were also specialists who passed on their skills from master to junior family member. Certain provinces of Loango where palm trees grew abundantly were known for their cloth production. In mbanza Loango, the capital, royal weavers produced cloths for use by the ruler and by those authorized by him.8 The size of a woven piece of cloth was limited by the lengths of the palm fibers, since they were not joined together. The basic piece of cloth used for currency, a libongo (pl. mbongo), was about fourteen inches square and described as about the size of a large handkerchief. These or larger pieces made from the longest and finest fibers were sewn together with raphia or pineapple threads to form strips of equal length that were joined together for a waist-cloth. Several mbongo could be produced in a day once the loom was set up; fifteen or sixteen days were necessary to complete the finest royal cloths. The basic cloth was a plain weave, but a variety of colors could be achieved by exposing the fibers in the sun for different periods of time or through coloring them with takula (redwood), charcoal, and chalk.9 Men were also famous for their skills in making the high-status caps worn by chiefs throughout the Loango Coast and lower Zaire region. According to Andrew Battell, "the men of this kingdom make a good store of palm cloth of sundry sorts, very fine and curious. They are never idle for they make fine caps of need-lework as they go in the street."10 Uses of Raphia Cloth The multiple usage of cloth explains its significance for Loango Coast societies. Clothing itself was a visible reminder of a person's place in society. The display of prestige cloth whose production involved considerable investment of labor was part of what has been called the "politics of costume."" In Loango only the ruler, or one to whom he had granted the favor, could wear the most beautiful cloths and any attempt to sell these without royal permission was punishable by execution. The Loango ruler also displayed his wealth by receiving visitors while seated in a chair which was placed on a large carpet made from a "velvet" cloth about thirty yards in circumference, and 2 POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST the heads of important lineages when summoned to a royal audience would arrive at the royal court preceded by servants who carried a large cloth which would be spread out as a carpet for their master.12 Weavers in Ngoyo produced a cloth called in the Portuguese sources panos nsambes, which was also exported to the Sonyo province of the Kongo kingdom on the south side of the Zaire river. The name suggests that one of the royal families of the kingdom, Nsambo, may have originally commissioned the cloth or controlled its distribution. Another cloth, less elaborate but with a similar design, also had restricted circulation since only the wealthy could afford to buy it or have it made. Two other raphia cloths with a plain weave were worn by most of the population.13 Cloth was essential in many of the important events in an individual's life. The newborn was laid on a piece of raphia cloth; young people at initiation wore raphia cloth skirts; the suitor of a young girl carried palm wine and cloth as presents for her family; cloth was used to pay legal fees.14 The elders and the wealthy could manipulate power through controlling the circulation of raphia cloth and passing it on to their juniors and dependents who lacked cloth or the means to acquire it.15 At the same time, higher and lower chiefs in the administration of the kingdom celebrated their authority through the exchange of cloth on important political occasions. Thus, there was reciprocal cloth-giving at the installation of the rulers of Ngoyo and Loango; and in Kakongo, chiefs gave and received prestige goods, including cloth, when they were appointed.16 Those who could afford to do so hoarded baskets of cloth in their homes as savings for such extraordinary expenses and for times of crisis. It was reported of the Maloango in 1612, for example, that at his court there were "houses full of ivory, copper, and libongos."17 Cloth was important in the clothing of the dead as it was for the living, for it announced a person's rank on arrival in the next world and made the transition easier. The burial of prestige cloth was the ultimate disregard for the value of labor which dominated the lives of villagers.18 Seventeenth-century accounts of burials on the Loango coast describe procedures that varied with the rank or wealth of the individual and of his family. Distinctive features concerned the number of mourners, the length of the mourning period, the preparation of the body for burial, the number or type of objects buried with the body, but dressing the dead person well, wrapping the body in raphia cloth, and putting cloths from family and friends in the grave were common features of the ritual.19 The Loango Coast raphia cloth had many of the attributes of a sound currency. Its general acceptability and multiple usage kept it in constant demand. Mbongo could be used at once in local markets to buy foodstuffs and other items for household consumption; they could be made into clothes, wall-hangings, 3 PHYLLIS M. MARTIN bags, and floor or bed coverings; or they could be a store of value for future expense. Some raphia cloth which was used as currency remained just that for years and was never used for another purpose.20 Raphia cloth was also reasonably durable and portable. Soldiers in Angola who were paid in raphia cloth imported from Loango by the Portuguese found that they could not only use it to buy food and slaves but that they could sew pieces together and make tents which could withstand the wind and rain.21 Furthermore, mbongo could be packaged into different units of account, for example by joining the loose ends of the fibers together to form a "book" or by tying them together in bundles. Mbongo might be packaged together in units of four, ten, twenty, forty, or a hundred. A unit of account called a mukuta, which consisted of ten mbongo wrapped or sewn together in a strip, was commonly found on the Loango Coast, in the lower Zaire region and at Luanda. So essential was an adequate supply ofV Loango Coast raphia cloth for the smooth running of the Angolan slave-trade that the Portuguese issued a contract in Lisbon to an individual to maintain a factory at Loango for the export of mbongo to Luanda. He was granted a monopoly and the Angolan government further tried to control the value and circulation of the cloth currency by stamping the arms of Portugal once or twice on the imported raphia cloth, thus creating new "denominations."22 Raphia cloth was essentially what has been termed a "self- regulating" currency, that is, a currency that will maintain its value through being in common usage even where no strong government can guarantee its worth.23 In the case of the Loango ruler in the early seventeenth century, however, he may have been able to influence supply and demand of the best quality cloths through maintaining large reserves at the royal court and through controlling who could make and use the highest quality cloths. The Transition to Imported Cloth, c. 1650-1900 Decline in the use of raphia cloth started in the seventeenth century with the importation of cloth from Europe and the Indies. The same Portuguese ships which sailed from Angola to buy raphia cloth brought foreign cloth to the Loango Coast. The trickle became a flood with the arrival of Dutch traders, who had no interest in raphia cloth and who exchanged European and Indian cloth for ivory, copper, and slaves.24 These foreign prestige goods were quickly adopted by the Loango Coast notables. In Loango, by the mid-seventeenth century, the king and his administrators were dressing in European cloth while continuing to wear the distinctive animal furs and jewelry which were the more traditional marks of their status.25 In the smaller kingdoms of Kakongo and Ngoyo, however, rulers were 4 POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST prohibited from wearing imported cloth and continued to wear raphia cloths into the nineteenth century. For Kakongo an eighteenth-century source commented: the Kakongo people do not know the origins of this custom. It is presumed that the first legislators of the nation imposed this regulation on their sovereigns to retard the progress of luxury items and to encourage the people by the example of their master to seek the remedy for their needs, not in foreign articles but in their own industry. But it has no effect since the law only applies to the King, and people and Ministers alike trade indiscriminately in all European merchandize having developed tastes for the European goods....26 A few years later a French trader confirmed that most people now dressed in European cloth: "their pagne was previously of macoute, the word that means a cloth made from straw; but since European trade has introduced luxury goods, the waist cloth is made of linen, cotton, silk, or even velvet...."27 By 1826, it was reported from Cabinda, the Ngoyo port, that only slaves and those who lived in the interior wore raphia cloth and that such people were despised by coastal communities.28 Although the use of raphia cloth declined, the conspicuous consumption of cloth and its association with power persisted. By the late eighteenth century, the central government in each of the three kingdoms had been considerably weakened through the challenge of a class of merchant-brokers who had access to imported goods, independently of royal administrations in capital cities. Indeed, the prohibition that prevented Kakongo and Ngoyo rulers from wearing imported fabrics was symbolic of their growing weakness and isolation in inland courts. And even in the case of Loango, interregnums became common as the center of power passed from the office of ruler into the hands of his administrators, who were also great brokers in the slave trade.29 The association of cloth and power is clearly shown in the evolution of burial customs. Raphia cloth had been intrinsic to such customs, but its use was not lavish in funerals of the seventeenth century. By the late eighteenth century the burial of the dead with large amounts of cloth was mandatory for those who could afford it. The account of the French trader, Degrandpr6, who observed funerals on the Loango Coast in 1786 and 1787, is particularly striking. At the death of a great man, the family removed the body to a special house where it lay in state. The preparation for the burial continued through the period of mourning, which could take months or years. Every day family members, friends, and dependents arrived, bringing with them tributes of raphia cloth in which the body was then wrapped. Once the heir had 5 PHYLLIS M. MARTIN decided that sufficient cloth had been used, the outer wrapping or "packing" with imported cloth could begin. The more wealthy the dead man, the more the wrapping added. The mass might become so great that the walls of the hut would have to be knocked down to allow the transfer of the wrapped body to a larger shelter. Degrandpr6 graphically described the mourning of a deceased great man of Cabinda who held the position of mafuka, the official at Cabinda Bay responsible for oversight of foreign trade. The wrapping of the body had taken a year and the final mass, ready for burial, was twenty feet long, fourteen feet high and eight feet thick. European carpenters from ships anchored in the harbor were called in to help construct a trestle on wheels on which the body could be transported. Some captains loaned cables which were attached to the "vehicle" for its journey to the gravesite some three miles distant. Five hundred young men helped to pull the body to its destination, a task that took four days.30 Such funerals not only assured a secure and dignified arrival in the next world. They were an extravagant reminder that access to foreign goods was now the essence of power. Similar burial practices were reported in the nineteenth century. At Landana near Cabinda, for example, Catholic missionaries reported in 1896: "They wrap the corpse in an enormous quantity of cloth. They judge the wealth of the heirs by the quantity of the cloth and by the thickness of the roll. The corpses of important people can end by being eight to nine meters in circumference."31 Nor was the practice limited to the Loango Coast region. Similar practices were reported for other Bakongo people and for the Teke. In the 1890s one report suggested that two-thirds of all cloth imported into the lower Congo and region of the cataracts was used for burials.32 Another concluded: Contradictory as it may seem, the strong incentive among people to industry, to travel and to trade, is not so much to procure the money with which to buy food (their wives can supply that), but to hoard enough cloth ... for a grand funeral that will be the talk of the district; for they believe that the grander their funeral, the better will be their reception in the spirit land....33 Pressures to give family members as decent a burial as possible were felt by ordinary people who had not the means to hoard cloths for such occasions. A report from Malemba, the port of Kakongo, told how poor villagers who could not find the materials to give their relations a good burial were forced to go to the local mafuka, who gave them the cloth to bury their dead. Such actions put the individual and his family under an 6 POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST obligation to the administrator and show how the powerful could use their access to cloth to reinforce their authority.34 Cloth as Currency, c. 1650-1900 By the mid-seventeenth century, the substitution of imported cloth for domestic cloth had upset the functioning of the "self-regulating" currency. Its value dropped sharply.35 By 1649, the Angolan administration was so concerned that it proposed the introduction of a new copper currency to supplement the Loango Coast mbongo, whose value and supply they could not adequately control. It was not until 1694, however, that copper replaced raphia cloth in the Luanda currency and even after that, the cloth "money" remained in circulation into the eighteenth century.36 The expansion of the slave trade at the Loango Coast ports after about 1670 further accelerated the decline of the raphia currency, as Dutch, English, and French ships unloaded a wide variety of cotton, linen, and woollen cloths onto African markets. Mongo continued in use in local markets to buy foodstuffs such as manioc, palm nuts, dried fish, and salt. In the Kakongo capital about 1770, a libongo could buy a day's supply of manioc for one person, and goods were divided into equal portions each worth a makuta.37 At the same time, a slave trader reported that he had seldom seen sufficient "cloth money" to buy a slave. It was only on exceptional occasions, for example, when an inland trader arrived at a coastal market when there were no ships in port and foreign trade goods were in short supply, that he might accept part payment in salt and raphia cloth.38 Just as imported cloth came to take over from domestically produced cloth in social and political contexts, so it was integrated into the currency system as well. At Luanda in the 1660s, for example, ten makuta equalled about six yards of coarse cotton cloth from the East Indies in the 1660s.39 By the eighteenth century new systems of reckoning had come into existence that were based on cloth but adapted to the exigencies of the slave trade. At Loango Bay traders used an abstract numerical unit of account based on a makuta, one mukuta being equal to 10. The unit may have developed from the older association of the mukuta with ten mongo. Thus a slave-trader at Loango in 1701 wrote, "we bought men slaves from 3,600-4,000, and women, boys and girls in proportion." The goods to be exchanged were also valued in the numerical unit of account- for example, a piece of "blue baft" or cotton cloth from India counted as 1,000, a piece of painted calico was 600, a small keg of powder was 300, and a gun was 300.40 At Kakongo and Ngoyo a slightly different system, had developed, which was also adopted at Loango by the mid- 7 PHYLLIS M. MARTIN eighteenth century. This was derived from the value of six yards of cloth, probably the "blue baft" or "guinea blue," cotton cloths that were consistently popular.41 As the selection of trade goods became more varied and the volume of traffic increased in the course of the eighteenth century, the pihce became the standard unit of account. The unit carried the cloth term but the currency itself did not physically exist; rather the cloth currency had become a "ghost-money."42 A French trader summed up the situation succinctly, "it is the custom to reduce everything to pisces and to relate everything to this ideal measure."43 At Cabinda in 1700, for example, six yards of "blue baft" equalled one piece; six yards of tapseils, another cotton cloth, equalled one piece; a musket equalled one piece; eight brass basins weighing one pound each equalled a pi6ce; and two Dutch cutlasses equalled one pi6ce.44 The assortment of goods, or "bundle," exchanged for a slave was valued in pi&ces, as was the slave. The paramount importance of cloth as the most significant part of any transaction is shown in the fact that the bundle was divided into two parts, termed "large goods" and "small goods." "Large goods" referred to the various types of cloth in the bundle and "small goods" referred to the remaining items such as arms, powder, spirits, and hardware.45 A method of reckoning tied to cloth and cloth terminology continued in use on the Loango Coast and throughout the lower Zaire region in the period of commodity trade during the nineteenth century. Transactions over palm products, and the payment of factory servants and porters, for example, were reckoned in the "long" or cortado. The terminology for the unit of account had changed with the decline of French trade and the predominance of English cloth and Portuguese influence on the Loango Coast, but the basic unit remained six yards of a medium- quality cotton cloth. Thus, at the Dutch factory on the Kwilu River on the northern Loango Coast in 1879, a gun was valued at 5 "long," 4 knives at one "long," and a gallon of rum at one "long."46 As European coinage became more common in the second half of the century, the "long" and the cortado also had equivalencies in French francs, Portuguese reis, German marks and English shillings.47 The end of the cloth as a means of reckoning came with the monetary economy and the spread of wage labor in the colonial period. The history of cloth among the societies of the Loango Coast is, like so many other African stories, one of continuity and change. The use of raphia cloth declined, but the significance of cloth did not, as the transition was made to European imports. Access to cloth remained an essential attribute of power throughout the precolonial history of the Loango Coast, perhaps more so than access to the firearms that were once thought to be the key to understanding the changing basis of power within and between African societies. Now in the 8 POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST later twentieth century, raphia cloth is seldom used on the Loango coast, except in a religious or ceremonial context in remote villages. Funerals are still times of enormous expense as even the poorest families struggle to give the deceased an honorable burial, but most people are now buried in a wooden coffin and the consumption of cloth on such occasions has declined. Yet cloth still changes hands on important occasions, for example, at the conclusion of a marriage contract. Births, marriages, the end of the mourning period, the formation of a new association in the city, and a religious or state festival are all occasions for lavishing resources on new cloths, even by those who can little afford it. The close association between cloth and power has gone, but cloth remains an outward expression of friendship, respect, status and prosperity. NOTES 1. A term used to describe the coastal regions between southern Gabon and the Zaire river. 2. Willy Ball, ed., Description du Royaume de Congo et des Contr6es Environnantes par Filippo Pigafetta et Duarte Lopes (1591) (Louvain, 1963), 64. 3. Olfert Dapper, Naukeurige Beschrijvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten, 2nd ed. (Amsterdam, 1676), 149, 199; J. Merolla, "A Voyage to Congo and Several other Countries in Southern Africa," trans. from the Italian in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, compiled by A. Churchill (London, 1732), I, 634-635; E. Pechuel-Loesche, Die Loango Expedition (Leipzig, 1882), III, 167-168; J. Weeks, Among the Primitive Bakongo (London, 1914), 91. 4. E. G. Ravenstein, The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell in Angola and the Adjoining Regions (London, 1901), 69. 5. S.P.H. Naber, ed., Samuel Brun's Schiffarten (1624) (The Hague, 1924), 9; K. Ratelband, ed., Reizen naar West-Afrika van Pieter van den Broecke, 1605-1614 (The Hague, 1950), 64. 6. Weeks, Among the Primitive Bakongo, 97; K. Laman, The Kongo (Uppsala, 1957), II, 100. 7. L. B. Proyart, Histoire de Loango, Kakongo et autres Royaumes d'Afrique (Paris, 1776), 108, 149. 8. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 149; Brun, Schiffarten, 10, 13; J. Cuvelier, Documents sur une Mission Frangaise au Kakongo, 1766-1776 (Brussels, 1953), 52. For further information on raphia cloth production, see Andr6 Pandi, "La Place et le Role du Palmier dans le Civilisation de l'ancien Royaume Kongo du XVe au XIXe Si6cle," M6moire de DES, 1984, Marien Ngouabi University, 27; HelUne Loir, "Le 9 PHYLLIS M. MARTIN Tissage du Raphia au Congo Belge," Annales du Mus6e du Congo Belge, III, 1 (1935), 1-68; Laman, The Kongo, I, 71, 130-131. 9. Brun, Schiffarten, 22; Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 155, 158; Weeks, Among the Primitive Bakongo, 92-93; Laman, The Kongo, I, 144-145; Maurice Briault report, cited in J. Fourneau and L. Kravetz, "Le Pagne sur la C6te de Guin6e et au Congo du XVe Si6cle A nos Jours," Bulletin d'Institut d'Etudes Centrafricaines, 7-8 (1954), 9; Pandi, "La Place et le Role du Palmier," 29. 10. Battell, Strange Adventures, 50; see also Gordon D. Gibson and Cecilia R. McGurk, "High-Status Capes of the Kongo and Mbundu Peoples," Textile Museum Journal, 4,4 (1977), 71-96. For a survey of Bakongo cloth, see Angelika von Stritzl, "Raffiaplusche aus dem Konigreich Kongo," Wiener ethnohistorische blatter, 3 (1971), 37-55. 11. J. Picton and J. Mack, African Textiles: Looms, Weaving and Design (London, 1979), 175. 12. Brun, Schiffarten, 13; Battell, Strange Adventures, 47; Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 149. 13. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 159, 184, 194, 200-201; Carlos Serrano, Os Senhores da Terra e os Homens do Mar (Sio Paulo, 1983), 76. Also, A. Brisio, ed., Monumenta Missionmria Africana - Africa Ocidental (Lisbon, 1956), VI, 52, account of Pedro Sardinha, 1611; Louis Jadin, ed., Rivalit6s luso-n6erlandaises au Sohio, Congo, 1600-1675 (Brussels, 1966), 94; and T. Obenga, "Habillement, Cosmetique et Parure au Royaume de Kongo, XVe - XVIIIe Si6cles," Cahiers Congolais d'Anthropologie et d 'Histoire, 4 (1979), 21-38. 14. Cuvelier, Documents, 49; Frank Hagenbucher-Sacripanti, Les Fondements Spirituels du Pouvoir au Royaume de Loango (Paris, 1973), 39, 72; John M. Janzen, Lemba, 1650-1930 (New York, 1982), 33, 35; Serrano, Os Senhores, 111. 15. On lineage and other social relations that were influenced by the circulation of prestige goods, see, for example, Serrano, Os Senhores, 109ff; K. Ekholm, Power and Prestige: The Rise and Fall of the Kongo Kingdom (Uppsala, 1972), 99- 133; P.-P. Rey, Colonialisme, N6o-Colonialisme et Transition au Capitalisme (Paris, 1971), 253ff. 16. Adolf Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition an der Loango Kuste (Jena, 1874), I, 156-159, 199, 262; I. Martins, "Monarquia do Ngoio," Portugal em Africa, n.s., 13 (1956), 199. 17. Pieter van de Broecke, 64. 18. For a discussion of this point in relation to the Kuba and raphia cloth production, see Jan Vansina, The Children of Woot (Madison, 1978), 185. 19. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 156-157, 168; Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," I, 675. 10 POWER, CLOTH AND CURRENCY ON THE LOANGO COAST 20. Pieter van den Broecke, 66; Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 157; L. B. Proyart, Histoire de Loango; C. van Overberghe, Les Mayombe, Brussels, 1907, 385. 21. Pieter van den Broecke, 45, 72; Bal, Description de Royaume de Congo, 37. 22. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 158, 233; Paivo Manso, Hist6ria do Congo (Documentos) (Lisbon, 1877), 270; R. E. Dennett, At the Back of the Black Man's Mind or Notes on the Kingly Office in West Africa (London, 1906), 48-49, 158; Laman, The Kongo, I, 152. 23. Marion Johnson, "Cloth as Money: the Cloth Strip Currencies of Africa," in Dale Idiens and K. G. Ponting, eds., Textiles of Africa (Bath, 1980), 193-197; D. W. Ames, "The Use of Transitional Cloth Money among the Wolof," American Anthropologist, 57, 5 (1955), 1016-1017. 24. Battell, Strange Adventures, 7, 9. For an account of Dutch trade on the Loango Coast in the seventeenth century, see Phyllis Martin, The External Trade of the Loango Coast, 1576-1870 (Oxford, 1972), 33-72. For a consideration of some of the factors which influence decisions to change to foreign cloth or to continue using domestically produced cloth, see Marion Johnson, "Cloth Strip Currencies," paper presented at the ASA annual meetings, Houston, 1976. 25. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 161; L. Degrandpr6, Voyage 4 la C6te Occidentale d'Afrique fait dans les annres 1786 et 1787 (Paris, 1801), I, 71. 26. Proyart, Histoire de Loango, 145-146. Also, Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 183; Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," I, 654; Bastian, Die Deutsche Expedition, I, 216. 27. Degrandpr6, Voyage, I, 71. 28. W.F.W. Owen, Narrative of a Voyage to Explore the Shores of Africa, Arabia and Madagascar (New York, 1833), 173. 29. For Loango, see Martin, External Trade, 158-174; for Ngoyo, see Serrano, Os Senhores, passim, and Phyllis M. Martin, "Family Strategies in Nineteenth-Century Cabinda," Journal of African History, 28, 1 (1987). 30. Degrandpr6, Voyage, I, 116-119, 141-154; Proyart, Histoire de Loango, 198-201; Cuvelier, Documents, 49. 31. "Miss&o de Landana," Portugal em Africa, 3, 27 (1896) 16. 32. Alfred Mahieu, Numismatique du Congo, 1485-1924, (Brussels, n.d.), 15; also Jan Vansina, The Tio Kingdom of the Middle Congo, 1880-1892 (London, 1973), 207-220. 33. Weeks, Among the Primitive Bakongo, 266. 34. D. Jos6 Franque, N6s, os Cabindas (Lisbon, 1940), 187; A. Buttner, Reizen im Kongoland (Berlin, 1888), 91. 35. Dapper, Beschrijvinge, 158. 36. Brisio, Monumenta Missiongria, IX, 376, n. 10; Lopes de Lima, Ensaios sobre a Estatistica das Possessoes Portuguezas: III, Angola e Benguela (Lisbon, 1846), part 1, 54, 81-82. 11 PHYLLIS M. MARTIN 37. Cuvelier, Documents, 47; Proyart, Histoire de Loango, 98, 108, 160. 38. British Parliamentary Accounts and Papers, XXIX, Evidence of James Fraser to the Select Committee ... on the Slave Trade, 1790. 39. M. Angelo de Gattino and Dennis de Carli de Piacenza, "A Voyage to Congo in the Years 1666 and 1667," in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, compiled by A. Churchill (London, 1732), I, 561; Merolla, "Voyage to Congo," 740. 40. N. Uring, The Voyages and Travels of Captain Nathaniel Uring (London, 1928), 40. 41. James Barbot and John Casseneuve, "An Abstract of a Voyage to the Congo River or the Zaire, and to Cabinda in the Year 1700," in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, compiled by A. Churchill (London, 1732), V, 513. See also Martin, External Trade, 107, 108 fn. 4. 42. Johnson, "Cloth as Money," 193. 43. Degrandpr6, Voyage, I, 58. 44. Barbot and Casseneuve, "Voyage to the River Congo," 513. 45. See Martin, External Trade, 106-114. 46. 0. Z. van Sandick, Herinneringen van de Zuid-West Kust van Afrika (Deventer, 1881), 40. For further discussion of the use of the "long" and the cortado, see Norm Schrag, "Mboma and the Lower Zaire: A Socio-Economic Study of a Kongo Trading Community, c. 1783-1885" (Ph.D. thesis, Indiana University, 1985). 47. P. Gissfeldt, Die Loango Expedition (Leipzig, 1879), 62-63; Van Sandick, Herinneringen, 50; J. Dybowsky, La Route du Tchad:du Loango au Chari (Paris, 1883), 16; F. A. Pinto, Angola e Congo (Lisbon, 1888), 411. 12
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