Le panos nsambos est un pagne de raphia vili de qualité resistant, mélangé de raphia et de fibres d'ananas, motifs de dessins dessus , pagnes reservés aux notables.Nsambos peut etre un terme qui s'applique avec peut etre une correlation avec la religion, osambos ou nzambi signifie, ou Nzambi pungu signifie le premier le chef, souverain qui reçoit ses pouvoirs du ciel.
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.
222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222
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.
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