Note 5 — Chapter II · SETTLING AT MONSEMBE

Brass rods. A brass rod at Monsembe at that time was 15 inches long, and not quite so thick as a slate pencil. These rods were the currency of the district and, in fact, of the whole of the Upper Congo. Everything had its price in brass rods—one egg = one brass rod; a fowl = ten brass rods; two yards of cloth = twenty brass rods; a male slave = 600 brass rods; and a female slave = 2500 brass rods. The brass wire for these rods was originally melted down for their brass ornaments—anklets, necklaces, armlets, leg rings, hafts of spears, paddles, and handles of knives, etc. It was using the brass for this purpose that first gave it any real value to them; and then they exchanged certain lengths of the brass wire at a fixed price—so many fathoms for a goat, etc.; and gradually the lengths of brass wire became the medium of exchange, the unit of value, the currency of the country. In 1890 the brass rods still retained their value not so much as a medium of barter, although they were convenient for that purpose, but as the metal from which they made their most popular ornaments. It is quite possible that the rods changed hands in fathom lengths, and those who came into possession of these lengths, each cut off a little piece to procure a bit of brass for nothing, and hence the length was gradually shortened, until in 1890 it was 15 inches. The process of shortening continued, and in 1905 the standard length was only 11 inches. In Bolobo it was about 9½ inches, and on the Lower Congo, where brass wire was used long before it filtered through to the tribes on the Upper Congo, it was from four to five inches only in 1905. Of course, with the shortening of the rod, a larger number was given for the article to be purchased. Every white man imported his brass wire in coils, and cut the rod to the length used in the district where he resided. Brass rods are now almost a drug in the market, for not only have they been poured into the country in a steady stream for the last thirty years, but the custom of melting down brass for the manufacture of ornaments has been slowly dying out during the last ten years. They desire other things than simply ornaments now.