Stanley, Henry Morton (1878) Through the Dark Continent, Vol. 2, Sampson Low & Marston, pp. 143-145

The most singular feature of Kampunzu village were two rows of skulls ten feet apart, running along the entire length of the village, imbedded about two inches deep in the ground, the "cerebral hemispheres" uppermost, bleached, and glistening white from weather. The skulls were 186 in number in this one village. To me they appeared to be human, though many had an extraordinary projection of the posterior lobes, others of the parietal bones, and the frontal bones were unusually low and retreating; yet the sutures and the general aspect of the greatest number of them were so similar to what I believed to be human, that it was almost with an indifferent air that I asked my chiefs and Arabs what these skulls were. They replied, "sokos"–chimpanzees (?).
"Sokos from the forest?"
"Certainly," they all replied.
"Bring the chief of Kampunzu to me immediately," I said, much interested because of the wonderful reports of them that Livingstone had given me, as also the natives of Manyema.
The chief of Kampunzu–a tall, strongly built man of about thirty-five years of age–appeared, and I asked,
"My friend, what are those things with which you adorn the street of your village?"
He replied, "Nyama" (meat).
"Nyama! Nyama of what?"
"Nyama of the forest."
"Of the forest! What kind of thing is this Nyama of the forest?"
"It is about the size of this boy," pointing to Mabruki, my gun-bearer, who was 4 feet 10 inches in height. "He walks like a man, and goes about with a stick, with which he beats the trees in the forest, and makes hideous noises. The Nyama eat our bananas, and we hunt them, kill them, and eat them."
"Are they good eating?" I asked.
He laughed, and replied that they were very good.
"Would you eat one if you had one now?"
"Indeed I would. Shall a man refuse meat?"
"Well, look here. I have one hundred cowries here. Take your men, and catch one, and bring him to me alive or dead. I only want his skin and head. You may have the meat."
Kampunzu's chief, before he set out with his men, brought me a portion of the skin of one, which probably covered the back. The fur was dark grey, an inch long, with the points inclined to white; a line of darker hair marked the spine. This, he assured me, was a portion of the skin of a "soko." He also showed me a cap made out of it, which I purchased.
The chief returned about evening unsuccessful from the search. He wished us to remain two or three days that he might set traps for the "sokos," as they would be sure to visit the bananas at night. Not being able to wait so many days, I obtained for a few cowries the skull of a male, and another of a female.
These two skulls were safely brought to England, and shown to Professor Huxley, who has passed judgment upon them as follows:–
"Of the two skulls submitted to me for examination, the one is that of a man probably somewhat under thirty years of age, and the other that of a woman over fifty.
"The man's skull exhibits all the characteristic peculiarities of the negro type, including a well-marked, but not unusual, degree of prognathism. In the female skull the only point worth notice is a somewhat unusual breadth of the anterior nasal aperture in proportion to its height, indicating that the nostrils may have been slightly farther apart, and the extremity of the nose a little flatter than usual.
"In both skulls the cephalic index is 75. Nothing in these skulls ustifies the supposition that their original possessors differed in any sensible degree from the ordinary African negro."
Professor Huxley, by the above, startles me with the proof that Kampunzu's people were cannibals, for at least one half of the number of skulls seen by me bore the mark of a hatchet, which had been driven into the head while the victims were alive.