Land and peoples of the Kasai — A Reader’s Guide

Teeth as Fashion and Function

The Akela, Hilton-Simpson reports, knock out all their incisor teeth in both jaws upon reaching marriageable age. The reason, he writes, “appears to be merely the fact that it is fashionable.” The absence of front teeth causes the lips to recede, giving many Akela “quite a European type of countenance.” The removal method is brutal: a blacksmith places an iron wedge against the tooth and strikes it with a block of wood, breaking it off at the gum. This practice has a direct consequence for eating: unable to bite off meat held in the hand, the Akela hold their knives point-upward between their toes and cut off mouthfuls by drawing the meat along the edge. The observation is typical of the author’s eye for how a single custom ripples through everyday life.

Scant Attire and Scarce Garments

Among the Akela, clothing is minimal. Women wear “no other garment than a very minute piece of cloth between their legs, supported by strings around their waists.” The author notes that such garments are “extremely rare”; in several villages, the expedition could find only one woman who possessed a second dress. Men wear slightly larger pieces of cloth and often don caps made of monkey skin to protect their carefully styled hair from tree branches. Hilton-Simpson declines to judge the women’s beauty, remarking that if they are admired, it is “for their own charm, and not for any beauty which their costumes can lend them.” The passage reveals both the author’s ethnographic impulse and his self-aware limitations.

Graves and Deserted Villages

In contrast to the Akela’s minimal dress, the Batetela of the forest build elaborate houses over tombs—well-built, neat structures that command respect. Hilton-Simpson observes that “respect for the graves of the departed is more noticeable among the peoples of the forest than among any of the other natives we visited.” When a chief or important member dies, the entire village may relocate, leaving the old settlement deserted. This practice sets the forest Batetela apart from their “more advanced cousins of Mokunji,” who were willing to sell skulls of their dead. The author notes that no skulls were collected in the forest; to have suggested it “would have grievously offended” the inhabitants. The contrast underscores the diversity of custom even within related groups.

Readers should approach this 1911 narrative as a period document, not a modern ethnography. Hilton-Simpson’s frankness about his own perplexities—his inability to judge African beauty, his surprise at Akela eating methods—makes the account more honest than many later works. Pay attention to the small details: the iron wedge, the monkey-skin cap, the deserted village. They are the book’s real substance.

That old Kasai guide never leaves my hands without a pang—those vanished customs, noted so gently, ask for witnesses. El Toro — Edition Insights holds a different quiet kinship, a dignity in its own careful looking. Over decades, I have learned both books keep faith with what passes, asking nothing but that we remember. El Toro — Edition Insights sits beside it on my shelf, two patient companions.