SERVILE TRIBES. 203 The chief Monbuttu tribes are as follows :—Meaje-Majé (fifteen tribes), Maudu, Mabisanga, Majo, Bamba, Mabode, Mamberé, Nyapu, Abarambo, Abre, Mberi, Bote, and Mayanga. They now speak the same language, although perhaps different dialects, but some of them at least have languages of their own. The Mabisanga are credited with having been the first to cultivate the oil-palm, which they introduced from the south-west.

The Bamba and the Mayanga have a special interest for us. The former are found again in the Makraka district as “ Mundu,” and there speak their own language, which differs entirely from the surrounding Makraka idiom. ‘The A-Zande call them Abangba, and I am inclined to identify them with | Schweinfurth’s Abanga. It is remarkable, however, that a long residence in the Makraka district should have transformed these cannibals into industrious tillers of the soil. The Mayanga, too, are already known to us, for they are identical with the Babukur, who live on the western border of Makraka, and in the Bahr-el-Ghazal district, and are still dreaded cannibals. We have here, therefore, to do with two southern tribes, whom the Zandé invasion not only cut off from their kinsmen in the south, but drove far to the northward, where, up to the present day, they occupy an isolated position in the midst of other tribes.

The Momvu, who are smaller and considerably blacker than the Monbuttu, are found as servants in the households of the wealthier Monbuttu. Almost all agricultural occupations devolve upon them, and both sexes enjoy a high and well-merited reputation as field-hands. They occupy large territories to the east and south-east of the country, where agriculture flourishes, but their possessions are plundered by the Monbuttu con amore, especially when they are wanting meat.

The constitution of the Monbuttu is an extremely simple one. The great chiefs are hereditary dignitaries, the royal power descending from father to son, whom the younger brothérs are bound to, and usually do, obey. If there is no grown-up son, the brother or next male relation succeeds; this arrangement also holds good during the minority of heirs proper. Instances are said to have happened in which the