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A CAMERA ACTRESS IN THE WILDS OF TOGOLAND
A CAMERA ACTRESS IN THE WILDS OF TOGOLAND
By permission of Maj. H. Schomburgk, F.R.G.S. Konkombwa Warrior in Full Gala Dress The helmet is a calabash, elaborately ornamented with cowrie shells, and surmounted by a fine pair of roan antelope horns. Other less lucky warriors, or less clever hunters, content themselves with the smaller horns of the commoner puku antelope. Note the beautifully ornamented quiver filled with poisoned arrows. A CAMERA ACTRESS IN THE WILDS OF TOGOLAND THE ADVENTURES, OBSERVATIONS & EXPERIENCES OF A CINE
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
By Major H. Schomburgk , F.R.G.S. It was after my return from my first West African cinema expedition, in June 1913, that I made up my mind to try and film native dramas in their true and proper settings. My aim was to visualise, as it were, for the European public, scenes from African native life as it once was all over the continent, and as it is even now in the more remote and seldom-visited parts; and it was further my object to so present the various incidents as to ensure their being pleas
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FOREWORD
FOREWORD
In the beginning, when I first went out to West Africa, it had never entered into my head for a single instant that my experiences there might form the subject of a book. But I fell into the habit of keeping a diary of my journeyings, and afterwards many of my friends, as also other people in a position to judge, seemed to think it almost a pity that the adventures and impressions of the first white woman to travel through Togoland from the sea to the northern border and back again, should go un
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CHAPTER I LONDON TO LOME
CHAPTER I LONDON TO LOME
Actresses who, like myself, specialise in cinema productions, frequently find themselves "up against" all sorts of queer propositions of a business character; and we are not, therefore, easily surprised out of that orthodox professional calm, which we all try, more or less successfully, to cultivate. When, however, it was suggested to me, early last summer, that I should take a trip into the far interior of Africa, in a district where no white woman had ever been before, in order to play "leadin
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CHAPTER II HOW WE FILMED "THE WHITE GODDESS OF THE WANGORA"
CHAPTER II HOW WE FILMED "THE WHITE GODDESS OF THE WANGORA"
Oh that railway journey! Shall I ever forget it? The dust and heat were awful, and owing to some unaccountable oversight, nobody had thought to lay in any provisions for the trip, which lasted from six o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon. The only food we were able to obtain en route consisted of monkey nuts. Our thirst, however, we quenched quite satisfactorily with luscious, juicy pine-apples, of which the natives brought us unlimited supplies at every stopping-place, offering th
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CHAPTER III LIFE AT KAMINA
CHAPTER III LIFE AT KAMINA
There seems to be no end to trouble when filming cinema plays in equatorial Africa. No sooner had I recovered from my bout of malarial fever than our leader and producer, Major Schomburgk, was stricken down with it, and everything was at sixes and sevens once more. However, I employed my interval of enforced leisure in making my temporary home as comfortable as possible, and in getting acquainted with the natives, and so managed to pass the time pleasantly and profitably enough. My nicest hours
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CHAPTER IV STARTING "ON TREK"
CHAPTER IV STARTING "ON TREK"
The first few days of November were spent in packing up our belongings and making ready to start up-country away from the rail-head, and into "the back of beyond," as Schomburgk put it. The packing process interested me greatly; partly, I suppose, because it gave my housewifely instincts full play. It was like making preparations for a glorified picnic on a gigantic scale. Piles of provender, pyramids of stores of all kinds, cumbered the camp, and it fell to my lot to bring order out of chaos. N
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CHAPTER V ATAKPAME TO SOKODE
CHAPTER V ATAKPAME TO SOKODE
I forgot to say that shortly after leaving Kamina, at a village called Anâ, we were overtaken by another caravan convoying a European, a certain Dr. Berger, who was travelling up-country as far as Sokode, with a view to vaccinating the natives there. The meeting came about in this wise. On arriving at Anâ, we discovered that the rest-house there was already occupied by a Mr. Lange, an engineer, who was building a bridge across the Anâ river. He was away at work when we got there, and Schomburgk
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CHAPTER VI IN THE CAPITAL OF TSCHAUDJOLAND
CHAPTER VI IN THE CAPITAL OF TSCHAUDJOLAND
Paratau, where our camp was situated, is the residence of Uro Djabo, the paramount chief of the important Tschaudjo tribe. Uro means "king," and it is indeed virtually as King of the Tschaudjo that Djabo is recognised, and subsidised, by the German Government. In Togo it is customary for white strangers to visit a really big chief like this before proceeding to the Government rest-house, and although I was very, very tired, West African etiquette had to be observed. I found the Uro a most charmi
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CHAPTER VII ALEDJO-KADARA—THE SWITZERLAND OF TOGO
CHAPTER VII ALEDJO-KADARA—THE SWITZERLAND OF TOGO
The march from Paratau to Aledjo-Kadara, or Aledjo, as it is generally called for short, was a very tedious one, and took us two days. One reason for this was that the men so kindly provided for us by the officials at Sokode were ordinary station labourers and not used to carrying; consequently they made but slow progress. I was carried all the way to our camp at Amaude by hammock, reaching there at two o'clock, accompanied by Schomburgk as escort, but it was getting dark before the rest of the
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CHAPTER VIII AMONG THE BAFILO FOLK
CHAPTER VIII AMONG THE BAFILO FOLK
Besides the films mentioned in the last chapter, we also took advantage of there being an unusually large market at Bafilo in order to photograph a series of unique moving pictures of this side—a very important one—of the natives' daily life. It was my business, as well as Hodgson's and Schomburgk's, to be constantly on the look-out for fresh scenes and incidents in this connection, and between us we managed to secure a complete representative collection. To mention but a few of them. In one fil
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CHAPTER IX ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE
CHAPTER IX ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE
On December the 16th, at five o'clock in the morning, we left Bafilo, where we had been since the first day of the month, and started on trek again, bound for Dako and the north. On the road an incident occurred that upset me greatly. A certain Dr. Engelhardt had died in Togo about three weeks previously of some malignant malady of the fever type. They—Schomburgk and the rest—had given me to understand that he died at Sokode. Now it transpired that he had really died at Bafilo, and in the very h
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CHAPTER X CHRISTMAS AT SANSANE-MANGU
CHAPTER X CHRISTMAS AT SANSANE-MANGU
Mangu, the northernmost Government station in Togo, is in charge of a District Commissioner, Captain von Hirschfeld, who is assisted in his duties, which are arduous and important, by two other white men, one of whom is a non-commissioned officer, the other a civilian. Between them, these three representatives of a dominant race, carry on from year's end to year's end administrative and executive duties over a tract of country as big as half a dozen English counties, and larger by far than many
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CHAPTER XI OUR "FARTHEST NORTH"
CHAPTER XI OUR "FARTHEST NORTH"
On January 11th, 1914, we left Mangu, where we had been since December the 23rd, and resumed our journey northward. Beyond Mangu, Togo has not yet been opened up, nor is the country considered altogether safe for Europeans. We only went there by special permission of the Government, obtained through H.H. the Duke of Mecklenburg, and he only granted it because Schomburgk was personally known to him as an old and experienced African traveller, who could be trusted to treat the natives well, to nei
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CHAPTER XII AMONG THE SUMBU SAVAGES
CHAPTER XII AMONG THE SUMBU SAVAGES
We carried out our intention, as narrated at the end of the last chapter, and stayed at Sumbu several days, making short excursions into the surrounding country, and a dash north-east as far as the French frontier. We have now traversed Togoland from end to end, and I can flatter myself that I am at all events the first white woman to go farther than Sokode, and only one or two, at most, have ever been so far as that. The people about here are a very wild and mixed lot. Besides the native Tschok
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CHAPTER XIII BACK TO MANGU
CHAPTER XIII BACK TO MANGU
While in camp at Sumbu I had another adventure with a puff-adder, which is, as I have explained elsewhere, one of the most venomous snakes in all Africa. We were sitting outside my tent after dinner, enjoying our coffee and cigarettes as usual, when my personal boy had occasion to go inside on some errand or other. A moment or two later there came the sound of a wild commotion from within. The boy was threshing about with a stick, and calling out excitedly something we could not understand. We j
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CHAPTER XIV THROUGH THE KONKOMBWA COUNTRY
CHAPTER XIV THROUGH THE KONKOMBWA COUNTRY
I found that the change in temperature at Mangu was very marked indeed since we had left it not so very many days ago. The harmattan was lifting, and the nights, as well as the days, had begun to get very oppressive, so that I had no longer any difficulty in believing the stories that had been told me concerning the tropical intensity of the heat in the rainy season. This harmattan, by the way, is a bit of a meteorological mystery. In the reference books it is generally described as a hot dry wi
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CHAPTER XV NAMBIRI TO TSCHOPOWA
CHAPTER XV NAMBIRI TO TSCHOPOWA
The chief of Nambiri turned out to be a charming little old man; one of Nature's gentlemen. He wore a long grey beard, and not much else beside, but his manners were courtly and kindly, and he bore himself with a certain savage stateliness, tempered by a deference that had in it no trace of cringing or servility. Since parting with the old Uro of Bafilo, I have met no African potentate who has impressed me so favourably. Unlike so many village chiefs, he was not unduly intrusive. He waited until
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CHAPTER XVI THE WOMEN MINERS OF BANJELI
CHAPTER XVI THE WOMEN MINERS OF BANJELI
From Nambiri as far as Kugnau, our next stage, there is no road, nor practically any trail; only an immense variety of native tracks, leading anywhere and everywhere. The country is so thickly populated, that to pick out the right route is very difficult, and well-nigh impossible without a guide. I went on ahead, with the guide, from Tschopowa; and Schomburgk, who was to follow on later, instructed him to "close the road." This means that whenever the guide came to a cross trail, or a fork in th
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CHAPTER XVII IN A MOUNTAIN COUNTRY
CHAPTER XVII IN A MOUNTAIN COUNTRY
I forgot to say that owing to the forethought of the chief of Banjeli, in making all arrangements beforehand for us to film the iron industry there, we were enabled to get away one day earlier than we anticipated. According to the itinerary which we had drawn up, we should have left there on February the 12th, whereas we got away early on the morning of the 11th. Up to now, from at all events as far north as Nambiri, my journey had been one long triumphal progress, of a kind somewhat different f
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CHAPTER XVIII A WOMAN "PALAVER"
CHAPTER XVIII A WOMAN "PALAVER"
I have entitled the following chapter "A Woman Palaver," and this it is—no more. Men may skip it, if they like. Women, I venture to think, will find it interesting. In what I have set down there is, I suppose, little that is of real ethnographical or anthropological value. Nevertheless, the facts were obtained at first hand, and are the result of many long and confidential talks with the women of many diverse native tribes, and of my own observations and deductions, taken and recorded on the spo
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CHAPTER XIX BACK IN SOKODE
CHAPTER XIX BACK IN SOKODE
The first stage of our journey to Malfakasa, the half-way house, so to speak, between Bassari and Sokode, led us down to the Kamaa River along a beautiful, well-kept road, planted on either side with mango trees. The Kamaa in the dry season is, like most West African rivers, practically without water; but during the rainy season it is frequently quite unfordable, and many a poor native, I was informed, has lost his life in its treacherous whirlpools, while attempting a crossing that looks perhap
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CHAPTER XX KAMINA—LOME—HOME
CHAPTER XX KAMINA—LOME—HOME
We were expected in Kamina by our old friend Baron Codelli von Fahnenfeld, and by the baroness, his wife, a young woman of about my own age, whom he had recently brought out from Europe, a new-wed bride, to share his home and fortunes in this out-of-the-way corner of the German colonial empire. All the week long I had been looking forward to this meeting with the wife of one of my best friends, and picturing it in the rosiest colours. We should have so much to say to each other, I said to myself
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Transcribers' Notes
Transcribers' Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed. Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; inconsistent hyphenation retained when there was no predominant usage. Original book spelled "Ramadan" as "Ramadam" three times, and as "Ramadan" once; none changed. In the Foreword , "Woermamm" is a misspelling for "Woer
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