Help - Manyema Warriors - what did they look like?

[Dr. Moebius]

Hello Gentlemen,

for my Congo Arab army I like to include Manyema warriors. Though what would be the historically right choice of Darkest Africa Foundry miniatures for them?

Does someone out there have some pictures that depict them?

Many thanks.

[Plynkes]

Pre-Arab influence (pre-1880s) I think the "silly hairdo" tribal figures are the closest (the ones with all the crazy spikes and shit) and the big square shields that look like they're made from planks of wood. Armament is a spear.

Under Arab influence (1880s-1890s) just your bog-standard Wangwana askari types (African guy with a bath-towel around his waist and a musket), or possibly some of the more African-looking of the Arab figures. Arab fashion influence seems to have totally over-written the native stylings of the guys who fought for the Arabs.


You could mix and match the above two types for a kind of "transition period" approach. The Foundry book on Central Africa has three types and plenty of crazy hairstyle suggestions. One of the fellows depicting the later dress actually looks like he's going to a fancy dress party as a pirate (he has a musket pistol and a headscarf and everything, all he's lacking is a wooden leg, hook and an eye-patch).

[Dr. Moebius]

Cheers Plynkes,

that's a very helpfull and detailed answer.

In 'Death in the dark Continent' one can field up to nine units of 'Wangwana' (swahili and 'freed' slaves) armed with muskets. So I already started to paint up the bath towel askari guys and mix them up with some more less fashioned Ruga Ruga's and the more poor looking arab figures from the range.

The Manyema choice is marked as warriors, so that means spear and shield and no muskets.
I think it makes sense to field the warriors only before 1880 and just go for the Wangwana after that. Maybe the Wangwana troop choice could also be assimilated Manyema during the period after 1880.

Makes sense?

[Plynkes]

Yep, makes perfect sense.

The Manyema sculpted their hair into "cones", "plates" and "flakes" using clay. The cones are reasonably similar to the ones in this pack -

The sculpted hair is lightly-hued in the picture, I think meant to be the colour of the clay, rather than the hair itself. The loin-cloths these guys are wearing look about right, too.



This is the kind of shield they used, it would seem (described as similar to Mangbetu shields - the Mangbetu painted their shields with designs like the one my figure below has, but I don't know if the Manyema did the same or not):




Finally this guy's hair is almost identical to one of the examples of Manyema hairstyles, except the one in the picture has no feather:


Hope that helps.

[Dr. Moebius]

Jep,

that helps a lot. Thanks Plynkes.

[Dr. Moebius]

Ooh,

forgot about it. Is there any information about war paint, body painting? Or just the typical fashion of scars as a lot of central african people had?

[Plynkes]

No mention of body painting or scarification, just the sculpting of hair with clay. One other detail I have is that the chiefs replaced their loin cloths with long kilts of 'gaily-coloured' cloth.

[Dr. Moebius]

Thanks!

[Ivan DBA]

In Forbath's novel "The Last Hero," they are described as having sliced their lips into fleshy fringes... some careful brushwork could hint at that.  But I've no idea what Forbath's source was, and he certainly took artistic license with quite  few facts in that book....

(Not a criticism of the book as a novel, it is very entertaining).