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Donna nel Regno di Singa, ò Nbaca. Si furano sotto le narici per portarvi due penne come sbarbi,1 e pigliano tabacco. anco la labra si furano per appendervi cosa bella, etcet.

Woman from the Kingdom of Njinga, or Ambaca. They pierce under their nose to be able to wear there two feathers because they are beardless, and they smoke tobacco. They also pierce their lip to hang there something pretty, etc.

 

  • 1. This detail refers to the female soldiers who surrounded Queen Njinga and to the manipulations of gender on which the Queen buttressed her legitimacy. See Heywood, Njinga of Angola. Cathy Skidmore-Hess, "Queen Njinga, 1582-1663: Ritual, Power, and Gender in the Life of a Precolonial African Ruler" (Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1995).
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