The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions

Note 278 — Extracts from “The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Antonie Knivet, which went with Master Thomas Candish in his Second Voyage to the South Sea, 1591,” published in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part IV, lib. vi, c. 7. London, 1625.

Reading edition

The cowrie-shells fished up at Luanda Island (the old “treasury” of the Kings of Kongo) are called njimbu in Angola, but nsungu in Kongo. Njimbu in Kongo means beads, or money generally, and hence the author’s “gullgimbo” evidently stands for ngulu anjimbu, red beads.

Return to Extracts from “The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Antonie Knivet, which went with Master Thomas Candish in his Second Voyage to the South Sea, 1591,” published in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Part IV, lib. vi, c. 7. London, 1625.