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Title: The fetish folk of West Africa
Author: Robert H. Milligan
Release date: December 22, 2023 [eBook #72480]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Fleming H. Revell company, 1912
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Peter Becker, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FETISH FOLK OF WEST AFRICA ***
THE FETISH FOLK OF WEST AFRICA
[Illustration:
AMVAMA, A FANG CATECHIST (See p. 316).
]
The Fetish Folk of West Africa
By
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
_Author of “The Jungle Folk of Africa”_
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration: [Logo]]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
Preface
In this book as in the one that preceded it, _The Jungle Folk of
Africa_, the author endeavours to exhibit the _humanity_ of the African
as it impressed himself.
The difference between the two books is chiefly a difference of
emphasis, and is indicated in the titles. In the former the African
is described in relation to his surroundings—his exterior world.
Much is said about the forest—deep, solemn, vast, impenetrably
mysterious—wherein he roams at large with nature’s own wild freedom;
contending also with its mighty forces, and wresting from it the
means of existence by his own resourcefulness of expedient. In the
present volume the author essays the more difficult task of
revealing the interior world of the African—his mental habits and
beliefs. Much is said about _fetishism_ and _folk-lore_.
If, despite all that is said herein, the philosophy of fetishism should
remain obscure—and there is no doubt of it; if the reader should close
this book with the consciousness of a broad, comprehensive ignorance of
the subject, it may be to some extent the fault of fetishism itself,
which is the jungle of jungles, an aggregation of incoherent beliefs.
The world of the African is as wild and strange as the weird world that
we often visit on the brink of sleep. It was far from Africa that
Siegfried thought it worth while to encounter the dread dragon, Fafner,
and slay him for the possession of the magic tarnhelm forged by the
Nibelung. In Africa everybody has a tarnhelm. Second-hand tarnhelms are
for sale everywhere. I myself had a rare one; but I have lost it, or
mislaid it. To us, who think of nature as the realm of law, order, and
uniformity, the world of the African seems to have gone mad. This
madness, however, is more apparent than real. The African thinks in
terms of the miraculous; natural effects are explained by supernatural
causes; supernatural, but not therefore unintelligible, still less
irrational. Therefore, if we should not find the fabled thread out of
this amazing labyrinth of fetishism, it may be possible to find a thread
_into_ it; and not only possible, but also worth while, if within the
labyrinth we shall find the African himself and come to know him, mind
and heart, a little better.
One need not apologize for the space given to folk-lore so long as Brer
Rabbit and Brer Fox retain their present popularity with old and young;
for in African folk-lore we have the originals of the stories of Uncle
Remus. Aside from the entertaining quality of folk-lore, its idealism
has a human value. In Mr. Lecky’s essay, _Thoughts on History_,
published since his death, the great historian pays the following
remarkable tribute to idealism:
“Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the highest
historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their time. Nor
do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute perhaps
more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to give them
an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely governed by
its fiction. Great events often acquire their full power over the human
mind only when they have passed through the transfiguring medium of the
imagination, and men as they were supposed to be have even sometimes
exercised a wider influence than men as they actually were. Ideals
ultimately rule the world; and each, before it loses its ascendency,
bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy to the human race.”
Inasmuch as the history of most African tribes must ever remain unknown
to us, their legends and all that is included in their folk-lore possess
additional anthropological value as a medium through which to study the
African mind.
The African, despite his degradation, is interesting; and that, not
merely as an object of religious endeavour, but on the human level, as a
man. The testimony of Mr. Herbert Ward—traveller, adventurer, soldier
and artist—who first went to Africa with Stanley, and afterwards went a
second time and spent several years, is the testimony of all
sound-hearted men who have lived in Africa. Mr. Ward, in _A Voice From
the Congo_, says:
“There was a good side even to the most villainous-looking savage....
They appealed strongly to me by reason of their simplicity and
directness, their lack of scheming or plotting, and by the spontaneity
of everything they did.” And again: “It has been my experience that the
longer one lives with Africans, the more one grows to love them.
Prejudices soon vanish. The black skin loses something of its unpleasant
characteristics, for one knows that it covers such a very human heart.”
Nevertheless, the degradation of the African is a fact. And it is being
proved that there is no power of moral renovation for him inherent in
material progress. Christianity, and nothing else, vitalizes his moral
nature; and therefore it contains the potentialities of civilization.
When Mr. Giddings, and other sociologists of a certain class, ignoring
spiritual values, demand a gospel for the life that now is, we offer
them the same Gospel of Christ, and point to its actual results in
Africa; maintaining that the missionary is the chief agent in Africa’s
civilization, and affirming that civilization is but the secular side of
Christianity.
One of the stories in this volume appears also in Dr. Robert H. Nassau’s
admirable book, _Fetishism in West Africa_; and two of the stories are
told, in slightly different form, in Mr. R. E. Dennett’s interesting
book on the folk-lore of the _Fjort_. Most of the illustrations are from
photographs taken by Mr. Harry D. Salveter.
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.
_New York._
Contents
I
THE WHITE MAN’S GRAVE 15
The Coast—The Old Coaster—His
obsession—Angom—Loneliness—Gaboon—The seasons—Ice that
burned—A _peculiar_ climate—The mosquito—Quinine—Frightened
into fever—A matter of coffins.
II
“THE WISE ONES” 29
From palm-oil to trousers—Mpongwe and Fang—Making a
king—Caste—Domestic slavery—Ndinga, a human leopard—A Gaboon
belle—Native courtesy—A fight—A war-custom—The cause of the
tide—A dying confession—A case of witchcraft—Curing the sick—A
secret society.
III
A DYING TRIBE 42
Women who cannot marry—The slave-trade—The
rum-traffic—Elida—Augustus—Trade and polygamy—Too proud to
speak—Destruction of authority—Customs not irrational—The
dowry—The foreign governments—The whipping-post—A fatal
defect.
IV
A LIVING REMNANT 56
A difficult work—The Jesuits—Iguwi—Single blessedness—A chicken
breakfast—Buttons—A remarkable illustration—A
service—Fluency—Toko Truman—Izuri—Ntyango—Sara—Lucina—Uncle
Remus—_The Tortoise and his Creditors_—_The Wag_—A battle in
canoes—A captive father—A graveyard.
V
AFRICAN MUSIC 72
A taste for comic opera—An organ and an organist—The origin of
music—Musical instruments—The sense of melody—A decomposed
tune—Unfamiliar scales—Mourning—Rhythm—Extremely musical—Three
songs.
VI
PESTS 85
_The Ten Plagues_—Killing flies—The driver ant—Other ants—The
jigger—The sandfly—The mosquito—The centipede—The
cockroach—The white ant—Divers other pests—Internal
parasites—Rats—Snakes.
VII
THE “CANNIBAL” FANG 110
A discriminating palate—Not the worst cannibals—Appearance—The
Negro face and the Greek face—Legs—The wheel—Dress—An
overdressed woman—Food—Cannibalism—An affair of honour—Native
art—Curiosity—Turning them into monkeys.
VIII
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 125
The native resourceful—Unambitious—Trade—Communism—Boiling the
Bible—A quarrel—Marriage—The dowry—A case of torture—The
head-wife—The tongue a woman’s weapon—Polygamy—_Ogula and her
Ngalo_—_Tragedy_—Dancing—The story-teller—An interesting liar.
IX
FUNERAL CUSTOMS 145
A talking corpse—A world of magic—Sympathy and expectoration—The
dirge—Premature burial—A funeral incident—Death
customs—Conventional mourning—An incident of the
_grass-field_—A horrible burial custom—Two death scenes, a
contrast.
X
THE “DOROTHY” 158
A godsend—A gasoline palaver—Canoeing—The rapids—A pilot—A
sudden stop—Passengers—The mangrove swamp—A wheelman and a
bottle—Pirates—Towing a town—Nkogo—Ndutuma—Ndong Bisia—A
saucepan and a ball of twine.
XI
SCHOOLBOYS 179
Lolo—Unwashed—Washed—A flying bucket—A little friend—The blessed
Melchisedec—A parting—_Ko-ko-ko-ko_—The centre of a fight—The
poetry of soap—A threat of suicide—The eloquence of sounding
brass—A “rotten road”—Savages as soldiers—Ngema’s
father—Across our bow—A tornado.
XII
A SCHOOL 198
Mendam, the _big brother_—Clothing—A day’s program—Cutting
grass—A python—Rations—A collapse—The dormitory—The
dispensary—The jigger-palaver—Not stupid—A head that got
hit—Singing—Interruptions—A picnic—Games—War-dances—Stories—_A
Tug-of-War_—_A Race_—_The Leopard and the Antelope_—An
evangelistic force.
XIII
THE MENTAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM 219
The horseshoe—The charm—The fetish—The relic—The fetish-doctor—A
psychological consequence—The African idea of
nature—Incredible beliefs—Confession of a chief’s son—Two
babes—The idea of God—The mental atmosphere—Making the
rainbow—A problem—First lessons—Why the river is crooked—An
old woman’s illustration.
XIV
THE MORAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM 233
A lost child—Worship of snakes—Demoralizing factors—A chief’s
fetish—Ingredients—Human sacrifice—A royal death—Wives and
witchcraft—Concluding a war—Destiny—Man’s nature—New
conceptions—A revolt from cannibalism—Heaps of
skulls—Deliverance.
XV
FETISHISM AND THE CROSS 246
A precocious boy—Killed his friend—Essentially moral—Cure for
lying—The ordeal—A trial and death—The sense of
guilt—Expiatory rites—The new ideal—The
atonement—Self-sacrifice and self-assertion—Ndong Koni builds
a church—Onjoga cuts grass—Makuba’s rheumatism—What is a
missionary?—Onjoga’s wife—Children at play.
XVI
MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 264
The _noble savage_—Story of a feud—Society and the
individual—Progressive and
unprogressive—Interdependence—Conquest of
nature—Education—Authority of custom—Work—Trustworthiness—A
civilizing experiment—A communion service—Equality of woman—A
salutation—Attitude towards nature—A thirst for
knowledge—Service—Legitimacy in government—The home—_Thy
kingdom come_.
XVII
THE CRITICS 286
The missionary blamed for everything—Bewildering
inconsistency—Professor Starr—Misfits—Criticism
unjust—Unbelief—Antipathy towards the
native—Cruelty—Vice—Lowering of ideals—Missions sociologically
sound—The let alone policy too late—Miss Kingsley.
XVIII
SAINTS AMONG SAVAGES 310
The best apologetic—Mb’Obam—Sara—A matrimonial bureau—Angona—A
pot-palaver—A narrow escape—Amvama—A clean knife—A bet—Proving
himself—A dowry palaver—Opposing a chief—Robert Boardman—Son
of a “prince”—Blindness—Incident of a pipe—His love of
music—His wife—A near-elopement—Walking in the light.
Illustrations
AMVAMA, A FANG CATECHIST _Frontispiece_
_Facing page_
MISSION HOUSE AT BARAKA 22
WOMEN’S SECRET SOCIETY 41
TRADING-HOUSE AT GABOON 54
AN MPONGWE WEDDING 65
A FANG FAMILY 110
FANG TRADERS WITH IVORY 128
THE _DOROTHY_ 158
CREW OF THE _DOROTHY_ 171
THE PRIMARY CLASS 179
A LITTLE SCHOLAR 187
THE DAILY CLINIC 187
SCHOOLHOUSE AND DORMITORY AT GABOON 205
SEVERAL STRIDES TOWARDS CIVILIZATION 264
A FASHIONABLE WEDDING IN KAMERUN 283
ANYOROGULI 306
RETURNING FROM THE GARDENS 306
FANG CHRISTIANS 323
I
THE WHITE MAN’S GRAVE
For that matter the whole west coast of Africa is called by the natives
_The White Man’s Grave_; and everywhere the fever stalks along the beach
like a grim sentinel warning the stranger to stay away and ready to beat
him into delirium and death if he lands. But the name, _The White Man’s
Grave_, is especially attached to several of the oldest of the coast
settlements. Notable among these is Gaboon, in the French Congo, almost
exactly at the equator, where I lived for nearly six years, the period
of my second term in Africa.
On the long voyage of five weeks from Liverpool to Libreville I had been
duly prepared for the worst by the Old Coasters on board, who deem it
their duty to instruct all newcomers in regard to the evils of the
climate and the certainty of an early death. This duty constitutes a
daily exercise during the entire voyage and is discharged faithfully and
conscientiously. Each morning at the breakfast-table the young
missionary is told that the African fever is inevitable, and to expect
it will bring it on in two days. The healthy die first. “Missionaries
die like flies.” The abnormal mortality among missionaries is due to
several persistent delusions; chief among them, the temperance delusion,
and the quinine delusion. According to the Old Coaster, everybody whose
mind is open to conviction knows that temperate habits are no defense
and that total abstinence is a quick method of suicide. Quinine only
aggravates the fever; everybody knows that also; but missionaries will
not admit it. Then there is the minor delusion of the umbrella. All
those people who regularly carried umbrellas are dead. Those who didn’t
carry them are dead too, but they lived longer.
The dreadful racking pain of the fever is adequately described, and then
there is added the consoling thought that a man may sometimes escape
having it _fatally_ by having it _frequently_. “Fatally, or frequently:”
the poets among them dwell fondly on the alliteration.
After we have begun to call at the African ports this elementary
instruction is reinforced by a circumstantial and realistic account of
the death of the “poor chaps” who have “pegged out” since the last
voyage. The number is large: I did not know there were so many white men
on the coast. Many among them were of my particular build, complexion
and general appearance—I was told.
It is not that the Old Coaster is indulging a barbarous sense of humour
in trying to frighten the newcomer, but he has become fairly obsessed
with the thought of the climate. Sooner or later this morbid distemper
seizes upon most of those who live for any length of time in West
Africa.
After such an unappetizing conversation at the breakfast-table, a
certain young missionary escaped to the upper deck where he was soon
joined by an Old Coaster who asked him if he happened to have a
prayer-book. Delighted that the conversation had taken a turn (and such
a _good_ turn) he replied that he hadn’t a prayer-book, not being an
Anglican, but that he might procure one from a fellow passenger.
“I’d be ever so much obliged,” says the Old Coaster, “if you would; for
I want to write down the burial service. You see, no matter how a man
may have lived, it’s a comfort to him out here on the coast to think
that he’ll have a decent burial; so we’re neighbourly, and we read the
service for one another.”
In one last desperate effort to turn the conversation from the dead to
the living, the missionary remarked, with considerable force: “But
people don’t all die of fever out here! What about those that don’t?”
“Oh, no,” he replies; “they die of many other things besides fever.
Let’s see;”—and he counts them off on his fingers:
“There’s kraw-kraw. Kraw-kraw is an awful nasty disease that just
decomposes a man’s legs and nothing can stop it.
“There’s dysentery. A lot of people die of that. There’s every kind of
tuberculosis. There’s abscesses. There’s pneumonia. There’s ulcers——”
“And kraw-kraw,” says another Old Coaster, coming up behind him. “Why,
there was my friend So-and-so——”
“I’ve already said kraw-kraw,” says the other, and he passes on to the
next finger.
“There’s Portuguese itch. Maybe you think you know what itch is, but you
don’t if you’ve never had the Portuguese itch of the coast.
“There’s the Guinea worm. It favours the leg and is sometimes ten feet
long. You may possibly get it out if you don’t try to wind it from the
tail; but anyway it leaves a wound that doesn’t heal in this climate.
“There’s enlarged spleen. There’s——”
“Kraw-kraw,” says another arrival. “Why, there was So-and-so——”
“I _said_ kraw-kraw,” answers the leader.
“There’s smallpox—in frequent epidemics,” he continues.
“And there are so many other parasites feeding on a man, inside and out,
that one who has lived on this coast for several years ought to be able
to furnish in his own body a complete course for a class of medical
students.”
“Did you mention kraw-kraw?” says a late arrival.
“Kraw-kraw?” interposed the missionary. “I know all about kraw-kraw. The
highest authorities on tropical diseases have declared that it is not a
physical, but a mental, malady that attacks the Old Coaster. The victim
imagines that he is an old crow, and he goes around flapping his wings
and crying, ‘Kraw-kraw.’”
One morning at the breakfast-table, when the conversation turned for a
moment to the cheerful subject of cocktails, a youngster exclaimed:
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, I protest against this cheerfulness. For a whole
minute the conversation has been utterly irrelevant. Men are mortal and
the dead are accumulating. Let us therefore return to the obsequies.”
A solemn-eyed Old Coaster leaned towards his neighbour and in a loud,
sepulchral whisper remarked: “I give _him_ a month.”
“I give him two weeks,” replied the other.
Many of those who came aboard, especially those from the more lonely
places, looked like haunted men. Extreme isolation invites madness.
There were moments when the heart of the traveller faltered or stood
still, almost crushed by the pathos and tragedy of it all.
At the annual mission-meeting I was appointed not to Gaboon, but to
Angom, seventy miles up the Gaboon River. Angom had a peculiarly evil
reputation even in Africa, and the appointment was made only after a
prolonged discussion in which some contended that the place ought to be
abandoned and the climate of that particular station pronounced
impossible. The facts arrayed in support of this opinion presented such
a gloomy outlook that when, in conclusion, a missionary physician and
his wife and myself were assigned to Angom, the appointment sounded in
our ears somewhat like an order for our execution.
Three weeks after we reached Angom I stood one morning on the bank of
the river, exceedingly lonely as I gazed after the boat that bore away
the physician and his wife, both of them sick and returning to the
United States. I remained alone at Angom only a few months, but I was
expecting to remain for the entire year, sixty miles from the nearest
white man, and unable as yet to speak the language of the jungle folk
around me. And besides the barrier of an unknown language between them
and me, there was at first such a mental and moral aloofness from the
natives that their presence, and especially the sound of their constant
laughter, only drove me to the centre of a vaster solitude.
Often in those first days I fought against loneliness and fever
together, each aggravating the other. When loneliness would make its
most terrible onslaught it assumed a disguise—and invariably the same
disguise. More than half the battle was fought when I had penetrated the
disguise and learned to recognize the foe even from afar. It invariably
approached in the form of discouragement—the intolerable feeling that
all I was doing was useless; that I was the fool of a pathetic delusion
whose only redeeming feature was a good intention. The doubt suddenly
emptied life of all that was worth while and left an aching void; and
nothing in the whole world can ache like a void. In our nobler aims and
enthusiasms doubt is the worst foe of courage—the thought that one may
be making a fool of himself; the highest courage is to resist the doubt,
and the highest wisdom is to know when to resist it. I think Hawthorne
said something like that.
Let me anticipate the years so far as to say that, although I was always
more or less alone in Africa, and drank the cop of solitude to the
dregs, I completely outlived these attacks. And, strange enough, the
very question which had been my dreaded foe became my strongest ally and
defense, namely, the question, Is it worth while? For I fought that
question out to a sure affirmative. In later years the dominant feeling,
that which constituted the irresistible attraction of missionary life,
and made its privations as nothing, was the constant feeling that life
in Africa was infinitely worth while, and that nowhere else in the world
could my life count for so much to so many.
The first letters from missionaries at the coast advised that I should
not think of staying alone at Angom, but should move to the coast and
join them at Baraka, our Gaboon station. This did not seem to me
advisable, since it would separate me from the interior tribe, the wild
Fang, among whom I was expecting to work and whose language I was
learning. The coast tribe, the Mpongwe, were already provided for and
did not need me. But as time passed letters came from all over the
mission making so strong a protest that it seemed inadvisable to “insist
upon being a martyr”—as my fellow missionaries expressed it, with naïve
candour. One friend added that if I died, or rather _when_ I died, I
would have no one to blame for it but myself. That settled it. The idea
of dying with no one to blame for it, after the lonely life at Angom,
was entirely too unsensational; so I moved to Baraka, where some one
could be blamed when I died.
The name _Gaboon_ is used, especially by the English, in a general way
to designate not only the river of that name but all the adjacent
territory. Most people prefer it to the name _Libreville_, because it is
of native origin; and they like the far-away sound of it. If we would be
strictly accurate, however, the name belongs only to the great estuary
of the river. The Gaboon River is not long, but it receives many
tributaries and for the last hundred miles from the sea it is
magnificent. Forty miles before it reaches the sea it bends northward by
northwest and widens out into a broad estuary from five to fifteen miles
in width and forty miles long, which I have always called the _bay_. It
is one of the few, and one of the best, harbours on the entire coast of
Africa. Libreville, the old French capital of the Congo Français, and
Baraka, our mission station, are situated on the east bank of the
estuary and opposite its broad mouth. They look therefore directly over
the sea.
Gaboon was known in the Middle Ages and probably in the early centuries.
Travellers and adventurers of a superstitious age, passing upon the high
seas, reported that it was a dreadful land where at night strange fires
bursting from the earth leaped to the clouds and reddened the sky, fires
which probably came from “inferno” not far beneath. It is quite possible
that the fire which they saw may have issued from Mount Kamerun, farther
to the north, which is now an extinct volcano; but there is a more
likely explanation. The country around Gaboon is more open than most
parts of West Africa. A dense undergrowth of shrubbery and long grass
grows up each year, which towards the end of the dry season is burned
off by the natives, in some places to clear their gardens, and in some
places for the fun of seeing it burn. As seen from the mission hill the
fires are seldom extensive, though the effect is a ruddy glow upon the
clouds and is beautiful. But as I have seen them when out upon the bay
at night, and upon the sea, the effect of their full extent, the glowing
sky and its reflection in the sea, were sufficient to inspire awe and
impress deeply the superstitious mind of a sailor gazing on a strange
land of savage people.
Libreville as it is approached from the sea is one of the most beautiful
places on the entire West Coast. The government buildings stand upon a
hill, the _Plateau_, from which a handsome boulevard runs to the south
parallel with the beach, between rows of giant coco-palms. On this
boulevard are the trading-houses, French, Portuguese, German and
English. The buildings are nearly all white, including the iron roofs;
but some of them have roofs of red tile. There are many beautiful trees.
The houses are only half visible through screens of foliage; and along
the walks every unsightly thing, every deserted building or decaying hut
is overgrown with vines of delicate beauty and the wildest profusion of
scarlet, purple and lavender flowers.
The beach is strewn with logs of African mahogany of great value, which
the traders are preparing to ship. For these they have exchanged a
variety of goods. They carry a large stock of flint-lock guns especially
for the interior trade. The average price of a trade-gun is five
dollars. They are called “gas-pipe” guns in the vernacular of the coast.
The barrel is three feet four inches long, and the bore Mr. Richard
Harding Davis compares to an artesian well. “The native fills four
inches of this cavity with powder and the remaining three feet with
rusty nails, barbed wire, leaden slugs, and broken parts of iron pots.”
This dreadful weapon “kicks” so violently in the recoil that it is
always a question as to which is the more dangerous end. Of course, if
the contents of the barrel should actually enter a man’s body it would
tear him all to pieces. But there is always a doubt about the aim, and
there is no doubt about the kick.
Two miles south of the Plateau there is another hill nearly as high, and
having the finest outlook towards the sea. On this hill is the mission
station, Baraka.
[Illustration:
MISSION HOUSE AT BARAKA, GABOON.
The roof is of palm thatch, upon which poles of bamboo are placed.
]
The house, as one approaches it, appears through a screen of palms and
orange-trees, of the strong-scented frangipani, the scarlet hibiscus,
and oleander growing as high as the house. There is an abundance of
roses everywhere. There are also a few coffee-trees in the yard, and one
exquisite cinnamon.
The view from the veranda of the mission house at Baraka is a scene of
magic beauty. The joyous lavishness of colour excludes from the mind the
thought of the deadly serpent and the relentless fever-fiend that
stealthily glide within the shadows. The long hillside sloping to the
beach is half covered with mangoes and palms, oleander and orange-trees,
and the graceful plumes of the bamboo that wave to and fro and tumble in
the breeze like children at play. In front is the open sea. On the left,
looking up the estuary, one sees in the bright morning light a fairy
island of deep emerald set in a silver sea, and beyond it a distant
shore in dim purple and gold. And even while one is looking, the island,
the silver sea and the golden-purple shore gradually dissolve and
disappear in the haze that gathers and deepens as the day advances. But
again, and always, it appears in the clear evening light, more beautiful
than ever.
I found it impossible to persuade my friends that Gaboon is not the
hottest place in the world, since it is not only in Africa, but at the
equator. This was also my own idea of Gaboon until it was corrected by
experience. It is not as hot at the equator as it is several hundred
miles north or south of it. The thermometer ranges between 72° and 86°,
seldom going above or below this range. But the humidity is extreme (not
surpassed, I believe, in the world) and this makes it seem hotter than
these figures would indicate. The atmosphere feels as if it were about
fifty per cent. hot water. At the coast there is the delightful
sea-breeze—but as soon as one says it is “delightful” he is reminded
that it is very dangerous.
One hears from the natives of the coast more complaints of cold than of
heat and in the hottest weather their black skin is always cool. The hot
months are December and January; and the coolest are June and July.
The wet and dry seasons of Gaboon are very distinct. The dry season
begins in May and lasts for four months, during all which time there is
not a shower. Then the wet season begins in September and lasts four
months, during which it rains almost incessantly. This is followed by a
short dry season of two months and a short wet season of two months,
thus completing the year. This succession of the seasons is as regular
and distinct as our winter and summer. The effect of the long dry season
corresponds in some respects to our winter, giving vegetation a rest.
Europeans delight in the dry season, although towards the last they long
for the rain. But the natives dislike the dry season, which is too cool
for their comfort; and since the land-breeze is very strong, and their
bodies but slightly protected with clothing, there is much sickness
among them in these months.
I never told the Africans about ice, nor described snow, lest it would
overtax their credulity and discredit me; for if they should doubt I had
no way of proving it. But after the French hospital was built the Gaboon
people not only heard about ice but many of them actually saw it. One
day we obtained a piece of ice at Baraka, sufficient to make ice-cream.
When we had finished eating I took some of it out to the men of my
boat-crew and after telling them that it was something which we liked
very much, I gave a teaspoonful to Makuba, the captain. No sooner had it
entered his mouth than he leaped into the air with a wild yell—wild even
for Africa. He shouted: “I’m killed! I’m burned to death! I’m burned to
death!”
The extremest sensation of cold seems to be not distinguishable from
that of extreme heat. Never having tasted anything cold, it is
positively painful to them.
Despite the exaggeration of the Old Coaster we are constantly reminded
that, after all, Gaboon is _The White Man’s Grave_. There were a number
of Anamese prisoners of war whom the French had transported from Anam.
They were employed in the construction of two miles of road along the
beach. During the few months of work seventy out of one hundred died. In
this dreadful death rate there were probably unusual factors. The road
crosses a marsh that is a first-class incubator for mosquitoes. And
besides, it is not likely that the men were reasonably provided with
food or medical attendance.
Even upon the subject of the climate opinions differ. There are some
persons—very few—who, after living in West Africa a number of years,
become so used to its death record that they seem to think that every
other place is just the same. One or another of these occasionally
becomes an indignant champion of the climate. At one of our annual
mission meetings I offered a resolution appealing to the Board of
Missions in New York for an extra allowance for health changes, in view
of the “hostile climate.” A veteran missionary, whose many years in
Africa made him the wonder of the coast, objected to the word _hostile_,
declaring that unless it were stricken out he would vote against the
resolution. But with charming inconsistency he added that he fully
realized the need of the extra allowance and he would gladly vote for it
if only, for the word _hostile_, we would substitute the word
_peculiar_.
Next morning after breakfast, Mr. Gault, in whose home I was staying,
said to me: “Apropos of the objection made yesterday to the word
_hostile_ as applied to this salubrious climate, have you observed that
every one who asks a blessing at the breakfast-table seems to be
thankful—and surprised—that none of us has been stricken down during the
night and that we are all again able to get to the table?
“The more remarkable,” he added, “when we recall that we were chosen by
the Board not because we were either good or clever, but chiefly because
of our constitutions.”
It was only a short time afterwards that Mr. Gault himself one morning
was not able to get to the breakfast-table. Two days later they buried
him at Batanga. He was one of the truest and best men I have ever known.
There is less fever now than there was a few years ago, and the death
record is decreasing. Not that the conditions are much improved; but
common sense has prevailed, and men as soon as they become seriously ill
hasten away on the first steamer. Besides, the proper use of quinine as
a preventive is better understood as the result of the knowledge of the
sources of malaria and its various stages.
The mosquito theory—that the Anopheles mosquito is the carrying agent of
the malaria parasite—is of course generally accepted. The late Dr. Koch
advised that a liberal dose of quinine every eighth or ninth day ought
to be an effective preventive with most persons. Major Ronald Ross, head
of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, advised the destruction of
the mosquito, chiefly by drainage, and the segregation of white people
from the natives. The natives have become at least partially immune; but
there are numerous malaria parasites in their blood constituting the
source from which it is carried by the mosquito, which after biting a
native bites a white person; and when the white man’s blood is malarious
a little exposure to the tropical sun, a slight chill, even a mental
shock or undue strain, anything that lowers the vitality, is likely to
precipitate the fever.
I myself, after several years of frequent fever, at last gained
practical immunity by taking five grains of quinine every night, which I
did without omission for three years, until I left the coast. If my
vitality had not been already reduced to the minimum I would not have
required so much quinine. Many persons, instead of taking quinine
regularly, wait until the fever actually comes and then take very large,
nerve-shattering doses for successive days, from thirty to sixty or even
ninety grains a day. One may recover from the fever, but one does not
entirely recover from the quinine until he leaves the coast.
Sometimes the newcomer is fairly frightened into a fever by those who
have lived in Africa long enough to have become obsessed with the
thought of the climate and whose conversation it completely absorbs.
Near the end of my voyage to Africa I spent a night ashore at a certain
mission, where a good lady who was in a very sociable mood, having shown
me to my room, stood in the doorway telling me of the various
persons—not a few—who had died in that particular room, and giving some
graphic detail of each death. It was gradually borne in upon me that
there must be some horrible fatality attached to that room. Finally she
advised me not to lock my door. “For,” said she, “Mr. P——, who always
locked his bedroom door, was found dead in bed one morning in this very
room, although he went to bed looking as well as you do now. About noon
next day they broke the door open, and sure enough there he was—lying
right there!”
I replied: “My dear lady, won’t you please knock on my door very early
in the morning, and if I do not answer, open the door and walk in; for I
fully expect to be dead.”
A certain American lady, who was a missionary for some years in Liberia,
tells how that when she landed, expecting to proceed to a station some
distance inland, where she would join several other missionaries, she
was met with the news that the missionaries of that station (four, I
believe) had all died of fever a few days before she landed, one
immediately after another. Nevertheless, the person who had the
authority for her appointment escorted her to that desolate station and
left her there alone. A partition of boards in the house was nearly all
gone; it was only a few feet from the floor. She asked the explanation
of this appearance and was told that the boards had been used to make
coffins. Having received this interesting, though somewhat curious
information, she was left alone to find what comfort she could in the
reflection that there was enough of the partition left for one more
coffin.
She told me about it herself—many years afterwards.
II
THE WISE ONES
At Gaboon, in the French Congo, one sees all the successive stages in
the process of civilization. First, there is the savage, whose whole
apparel is a little palm-oil and a bit of calico half the size of a
pocket-handkerchief; then there is the man who wears “two fathoms” of
cloth wound about him gracefully and falling below his knees; next,
there is the man who wears this same robe with a shirt; then the man who
discards the native robe and wears a shirt and trousers, but with the
shirt always outside the trousers; and, last of all, the gentleman who
wears his shirt inside his trousers. These several classes are somewhat
distinct. One does not classify the man with a taste for simplicity who
wears a rice-sack with holes for his head and arms; nor the untutored
dude who wears a pink Mother Hubbard or a lady’s undergarment. These
freakish modes represent attempts to hasten the process of civilization
and to pass prematurely from one of the above classes to another.
In general, the distinction of _culotte_ and _sansculotte_ indicates the
difference between the Mpongwe—the old coast tribe—and the Fang—the
interior tribe, who have only reached the coast in recent years. The
Mpongwe is the most civilized of all the tribes south of the Calabar
River. Many of them, besides wearing trousers, live in _deck-houses_,
that is, houses with wooden floors. The first floor ever seen by the
natives was the deck of an English ship; hence the name _deck-house_. It
was also from contact with English sailors that the native learned to
speak of a “fathom” of cloth.
The Mpongwe are the proudest people of West Africa. An African woman is
never allowed to marry into an inferior tribe; although the men may do
so. And since the Mpongwe have no social equals among the adjacent
tribes, it follows that no Mpongwe woman can marry outside of her own
tribe, unless with a north-coast man or a white man. The Fang, the great
interior tribe, are mere “bush-animals” in the mind of the Mpongwe. A
Fang man, though he were perfectly civilized, and even educated in
France, would not be allowed the social status of the meanest Mpongwe.
The coast women can all speak Fang; for they trade with them and buy
their daily food from them; but they are ashamed to be heard speaking
it. Often when I addressed them in Fang they would shake their heads as
if they had never heard the language before; whereupon I nearly always
asked them a question on some matter of interest to themselves; the
price of a parrot, for instance, if I knew that the lady was anxious to
sell it. Such a question invariably made the dumb to speak.
The Mpongwe call themselves _The Wise Ones_. And other tribes generally
admit their claim and take them at their own self-estimate. In former
days, when they had real kings, they buried their kings in secret, not
more than ten persons knowing the hidden grave, lest some other tribe
might steal the body, for the sake of obtaining the brains, which would
be a very powerful fetish and would make them wise like the Mpongwe.
The king was chosen from among the people by the elders and was selected
for his wisdom. The ceremonies of his enthronement were such that he
required not only wisdom, but also courage, physical strength and a
superb digestion. The man’s first intimation that he had been chosen by
the elders was an onrush of the people—not to do him honour, but to
abuse and insult him. They would hurl opprobrious epithets at him, curse
him, spit upon him, pelt him with mud and beat him. For, they said, from
this time he would do all these things to them, while they would be
powerless to retaliate. This, therefore, was their last chance. They
also reminded him of all his failings in graphic and minute particulars.
If the king survived this treatment, he was then taken to the former
king’s house, where he was solemnly invested with the insignia of the
kingly office, in the shape of a silk hat. No one but the king was
permitted to wear a silk hat.
Following the inauguration ceremony, the people came and bowed before
the new king in humble submission, while they praised him as
enthusiastically as they had before reviled him. Then he was fed and
fêted for a week, during which time he was not allowed to leave his
house, but was required to receive guests from all parts of his dominion
and eat with them all. These ceremonies ended, he turned to the
comparatively easy and commonplace duties of his kingly office. This
custom, like many others, has passed away under the influence of
civilization.
In former days the Mpongwe were divided into three distinct classes.
There were, first, the slaves, the largest class of all. Then there was
a middle class, of those who although free were of slave origin, or had
some slave blood in their veins—even a drop. And then there was a very
small aristocracy of pure Mpongwe.
Of these three classes the middle class probably had the hardest time.
They had freedom enough for initiative and trade enterprise and they
often became rich. But so sure as they did, they were at once an object
of envy and class hatred on the part of the aristocracy, with the result
that they were in constant danger of being accused of witchcraft and put
to death, their goods being confiscated for the benefit of the governing
class—the aristocracy.
Since slavery has been formally abolished by the French government the
line between slaves and this middle class has almost disappeared—but not
quite, for slavery has not been entirely abolished. But the
“aristocracy” is as distinct as ever.
Domestic slavery is rarely attended with the usual horrors of alien
enslavement. Mpongwe slaves were serfs rather than slaves. Until the
advent of the white slaver they were rarely sold or exchanged. Mpongwe
slaves were sometimes taken for debt and sometimes stolen from other
tribes.
Several Mpongwe men have told me that their slaves were children of the
interior whom they had rescued when their parents had thrown them away,
either into the bush to perish by the beasts, or into the river. They
must have been driven to this by some cruel superstition; for the
African loves his children, and the mother of his children is his
favourite wife. Perhaps the children were twins. In many tribes there is
such a fear of twins that they are often put to death and their mother
with them. In some of these tribes they are believed to be the result of
adultery with a spirit.
Many former slaves have chosen to maintain the old relationship—somewhat
modified—rather than accept full freedom, and be left without friends,
family or possessions; a peculiar misfortune for those who have never
had an opportunity to acquire a habit of independence.
At one time a man named Ndinga was working for me. He was a faithful
workman, except for one inexplicable fault. Occasionally he would stay
away half a day or the entire day without asking to be excused, or
notifying me. Several times he did this when I was about to make a trip
up the river, and was depending upon him to make one of the crew. At
length I dismissed him and he departed without explanation or complaint.
But one of the other men came to me and told me Ndinga’s plight. He was
really the slave of an Mpongwe chief, right under the eyes of the
government. The master allowed him to work for himself, but I imagine he
took part of his wages. He also exercised the right to call upon him at
any time for personal services, and each time that he had stayed away
from his work he had been called by the master, who ignored my claim
upon Ndinga and the consequent inconvenience to me, though he claimed to
be my personal friend. Ndinga was sufficiently civilized to feel the
degradation of his position, and the poor fellow submitted to rebuke and
final dismissal rather than tell me he was a slave. I learned also that
he had lost several other positions in the same way and had usually been
dismissed with cursing and abuse. I sent for him immediately, and
without explanation told him that I had changed my mind and that he
could return to work. Meantime, I called the master, and reminding him
that slavery was strictly forbidden, I told him that if he should again
call Ndinga away from work I would notify the government. There was no
further trouble.
This man, Ndinga, was in pitiable need of a friend. It is extremely easy
for a slave to get a bad reputation, and Ndinga was said to be a
“leopard-man,” that is, a man who changes himself into a leopard—either
in order to kill an enemy or devour a sheep. I have heard Ndinga accused
of this frequently; and there were many who regarded him with great
fear. Every hysterical woman who thought that she saw a leopard was
ready to swear that it was Ndinga. If the leopards had been active in
the community at that time all their doings would have been charged
against him.
The Mpongwe women are regarded as the best-looking and most graceful
women on the entire coast. Wherever there are communities of white men,
even hundreds of miles north and south of Gaboon, there are Mpongwe
women; for it is with them more than the women of any other tribe that
white men form temporary alliances.
The Gaboon belle has a brown complexion and faultless skin, fine
features and dreamy dark eyes with long lashes. She moves so easily that
she carries her folded parasol, or bottle of gin, or other
indispensable, on her head. She dresses her hair neatly and with great
pains; usually parting it in the middle and arranging it in numerous
small braids which she fastens behind. Her dress is a large square robe
of bright colours, often of fine material, wound around her, immediately
below her arms, reaching to her feet and kept in place by a roll around
the top of it—a peculiar twist of _leger de main_ which only a black
hand can perform. Somewhere in this roll her pipe is usually hidden
away. This dress leaves her graceful shoulders and arms uncovered. She
wears slippers with white stockings, and upon her head a very large silk
handkerchief of bright colour, beautifully arranged in a turban. Add to
this a lace or silk scarf thrown over one shoulder, not forgetting her
silk parasol carried unopened on her head; then add a lot of jewelry and
plenty of perfume, and her attire is complete. Moreover, she has a soft
voice, and does not yell except when she quarrels, and she seldom
quarrels when she is dressed in her best. Most of the Christian women
wear an unbelted wrapper, or Mother Hubbard.
The Mpongwe people are peculiarly gentle, and courteous in their
manners; and in this respect the men even surpass the women. Travelling
in a boat with an Mpongwe crew, one is always surprised at their
courtesy and thoughtful consideration. Courtesy, indeed, which some one
calls “benevolence in little things,” is a racial characteristic. I was
once obliged to make a very hard journey from Batanga to Benito, a
hundred miles down the coast. For this purpose I purchased a bicycle in
a German trading-house at Dualla, the capital of Kamerun. The bicycle
weighed fifty pounds, and cost me a dollar a pound. I did not realize
what I was undertaking. The sea-breeze was against me; portions of the
beach were of soft sand and parts of it were so rough and rocky that I
had to climb steep banks and stretches of rock, carrying the fifty-pound
wheel on my shoulders. I had been long in Africa and my strength was
greatly reduced. Several times, almost overcome with exhaustion, I threw
myself down upon the beach and lay there for half an hour before I could
go on. There were various misadventures along the way and a sensational
escape from quicksand. It was an opportunity, however, to test the
kindness of the native.
I took no food, but depended upon the hospitality of those to whom I was
a stranger; although if hospitality had failed, I could have paid for
food; but not once did it fail along the way. Wherever there was a
stream to be waded, if a native was anywhere in sight, either on the
beach, or fishing out on the sea, in his canoe, I called or beckoned to
him, and he came and carried me over—for a white man must not get wet
when he is exposed to the wind; then he went back and got my wheel. In
one place the water was to the man’s shoulders, and there was a current,
but he held me in a horizontal position above his head, and exerting his
whole strength, with firm, slow step he proceeded, and set me down dry
on the other side. Then he cheerfully turned about and went after my
wheel. In another place heavy crags projected into the sea and at high
tide there was no beach for a quarter of a mile, so that I was compelled
to carry the wheel. At this place, I met a native carrying a load who
was evidently returning from a journey to the interior; and upon my
request for help, he at once hid his load by the way and taking my wheel
carried it over the rocks, nearly all this distance, to the better beach
beyond. In every case I told the man beforehand that I did not expect to
pay him for his service except in friendship, and friendship sufficed.
Nor did I pay anything for my food; and not once on the entire journey
had I the least difficulty in procuring it. Some of these people were of
other tribes; but in courtesy the Mpongwe surpass them all.
They generally live at peace within the family and the village. The
_men_, at least, rarely fight. Whenever I heard that an Mpongwe fight
was in progress, I rushed to the scene; but I must confess to mixed
motives. For a fight among Mpongwe men is decidedly picturesque and
entertaining, since they fight by butting each other in the stomach with
their heads. The women are much more quarrelsome, and these very belles,
whose beauty I have praised, have frequent quarrels and occasional
fights, the latter usually involving a number of women; for though the
quarrel commences with two women, when it gets to a real fight the
family and relations of each woman take part in it. From this moment it
proceeds somewhat formally. They line up on two sides, and with a lively
accompaniment of appropriate language, they rush upon each other, not
usually striking, nor scratching, but each woman seeking to tear off her
opponent’s robe. I witnessed such a fight in which eighteen women
engaged. A woman, when her robe is taken off, admits defeat. For this
reason, instead of preparing for a fight by donning her oldest clothes,
she prepares by putting on her newest and strongest, which she doubles
and ties about her waist, letting it fall to her knees, but she wears no
upper garment.
There is a strange war-custom in all the tribes of West Africa unlike
anything I have ever heard of elsewhere. Sometimes when one of their
number is killed, or a woman stolen by an enemy, instead of avenging his
death directly they will kill some one of a third town which has nothing
whatever to do with the palaver. This third town is then expected to
join with them in punishing the first town, which, being the original
offender, was the cause of all the trouble. In _The Jungle Folk of
Africa_ I have described this custom thus:
“Among the Mpongwe, in the old days before the foreign power was
established, and among the closely related tribes south of them, this
custom prevailed in an extreme form. A woman being stolen, the people of
the offended town would hurry to another town near by, before the news
had reached them, and would kill somebody. This town would then hurry to
the next and kill somebody there, each town doing likewise until perhaps
five or six persons of as many different towns would be killed in one
night. The last town would then, with the help of the others, demand
justice from the first. It may be that the object of this frightful
custom was to restrain men from committing the initial crime, that might
be attended with such wide-spread death, bringing upon themselves the
curses of many people. For above all things the African cannot bear to
be disliked and cannot endure execration.”
The Mpongwe now have no war-customs. And I am not sure that peace has
proved an unmixed blessing. They have lost something of courage and
virility.
Despite the veneer of civilization, I fear that this amiable and
graceful people—excepting only the few Christians—are as superstitious
as ever. Nature is still inhabited by myriad spirits to whose activity
natural phenomena are due. They still speak of the great spirit who
causes the flow and ebb of the tide by dropping an enormous stone into
the sea and again removing it. Trial by ordeal is common even among the
most intelligent. And not a death occurs among them that is not
attributed to witchcraft.
A man dying in the hospital at Gaboon turns his solemn, beautiful eyes
towards one who sits beside him, and tells in confidence what has
brought about his death. It is strange how approaching death, as if to
testify to man’s divine origin in the hour of his most appalling defeat,
dignifies the features and countenance of the lowest with a mysterious
dignity that transcends all differences of colour, transforms even
natural ugliness, and brings all men to one level. The greatest is no
more than human; the lowest is no less. This dying man tells how that
some weeks past, having gone on a journey to a certain town forty miles
north, and during the night having wondered what his friends at home
might be doing, he thought he would visit Gaboon, leaving his body while
his spirit alone travelled through the air. But on the way he met a
company of spirits making a similar journey, one of whom was an enemy;
who, recognizing him, gave him a fatal thrust in the side. He quickly
returned to his body; but in the morning he felt the weakness resulting
from the fatal stroke, and from that day had grown weaker and weaker
until death was upon him.
I was present at the trial of a slave, in a leading Mpongwe town, who
was accused of causing the death of one of the relations of the chief, a
man who had been ill for a long time with tuberculosis. I had been
calling on the sick man regularly. One day, going again to the town, I
saw a crowd of people gathered in the street who were very much excited.
The man had just died, and as usual the panic-stricken people were
determined to blame somebody. The chief who was trying the case was a
well-educated man who had been closely associated with white people all
his life and was prominent in trade. Arbitrary suspicion had about
settled upon this slave—for slaves are always the first to be
suspected—when a boy came forward and said that on the preceding night
he had discovered the slave standing behind the sick man’s house and
that he had watched him while he opened a bundle of leaves which he had
in his hand and in which was a piece of human flesh like a fish in size
and form. No more evidence was necessary. No one asked the boy how he
knew that it was not a fish which he had seen; nor how he knew that it
was human.
They would have killed the man instantly but for their fear of the
French government; for the town was close beside the capital. When I
tried to reason with them, they answered me with the all-sufficient
exclamation: “Ask the boy! Ask him yourself!” Those who took the leading
part in this trial were dressed like Europeans.
Sickness and death, they believe, may be caused by fetish medicine,
which need not be administered to the victim, but is usually laid beside
the path where he is about to pass. Others may pass and it will do them
no harm. The parings of finger-nails, the hair of the victim and such
things are powerful ingredients in these “medicines.” An Mpongwe, after
having his hair cut, gathers up every hair most carefully and burns it
lest an enemy should secure it and use it to his injury. When sickness
continues for a length of time they usually conclude that some offended
relation has caused an evil spirit to abide in the town.
An Mpongwe man, Ayenwe, had a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism.
I was going to see him regularly and doing what little I could for him.
But his mother’s people, who lived in a town four miles away, concluded
that it was a spell of witchcraft, inflicted by his father’s people. So
they came one stormy night at midnight and stealing him out of his
house, put him in a canoe and carried him on the rough sea to their
town. The patient can always be prevailed upon by his relations, if
there are enough of them to wear out his resistance. However strongly he
may object at first he will finally throw up his hands and say: “Kill me
if you will then. The responsibility is yours; I have nothing more to do
with it.” A man’s very soul is not his own in Africa.
An Mpongwe woman, Paia, was suffering greatly from salivation, through
the injudicious use of calomel. She was a Christian woman and a member
in the Mpongwe Church, although her relations were all heathen. She was
in agony and a fellow missionary and myself had already reached the
point where we could do nothing more for her. The numerous heathen
relations were all present. They sat on the floor smoking and
expectorating in gloomy silence, with the windows closed, and filled the
house so that I could hardly pass in and out. I tried my best to get
them to take Paia to the French hospital, but they were horrified at the
bare suggestion. The tales in free circulation concerning the
hospital—poisons administered by the doctor, mutilation, and death by
slow torture—would fill a volume. Several days passed: Paia was worse.
They concluded that the house was bewitched—and perhaps the whole
town—and resolved to carry her away to another town, across the river.
In such cases it is advisable to put a body of water between the victim
and the bewitched town. Paia told me that she was more than willing to
go to the hospital if they would let her; but she said they would never
consent. Next morning about daylight I suddenly appeared before her door
with four strong men and a hammock swung on a pole. Before her relations
knew what had happened one of the men had carried her out to the
hammock, and we started to the hospital. The French doctor, one of the
very best on the coast, at my request gave her special attention, and in
a few days she was well.
[Illustration:
WOMEN’S SECRET SOCIETY OF GABOON.
]
The lowest reach of Mpongwe degradation is represented by the woman’s
secret society, to which a majority of the Mpongwe women
belong—practically all, except the Christians, who regard it with
abhorrence. I know of nothing in any interior tribe more degrading and
immoral. In former times of cruelty and oppression the society probably
served for the protection of women against their husbands; but in these
times it is the husbands who need protection, and the society, having
outlived its usefulness, has degenerated. The women of the society
frequently meet together at night, usually in an arbour of palms, and
sing unspeakably lewd songs—phallic songs—which are heard all over the
village. There is always a crowd of young men gathered around the
arbour; and the badinage which passes between them and the women is
shocking. And yet these same persons, on all other occasions in their
daily intercourse, observe a degree of decorum which would astonish
those who think that there is scarcely any such thing as decorum in
Africa.
III
A DYING TRIBE
This amiable and attractive people, the Mpongwe tribe, is now but a
dying remnant, hurrying to extinction. It is not long since they were
numbered by tens of thousands; now there are probably not more than five
hundred pure Mpongwe. There are women among them for whom marriage is
impossible. For, as I have already said, their social superiority makes
it impossible for them to marry into other tribes; but, within their own
tribe, many Mpongwe women are related, nearly or remotely, to every
surviving family, and the very strict laws of consanguinity forbid the
marriage of related persons. It is expected, therefore, that these women
will make their alliances with white men; that is, that they will not
marry at all.
The first exterminating factor was slavery. Sir Harry Johnston, in _The
Civilization of Africa_, has this to say in regard to the fatal
adaptability of the Negro to a condition of slavery:
“The Negro in general is a born slave. He is possessed of physical
strength, docility, cheerfulness of disposition, a short memory for
sorrows and cruelties, and an easily aroused gratitude for kindness and
just dealing. He does not suffer from homesickness to the overbearing
extent that afflicts other peoples torn from their homes, and, provided
he is well fed, he is easily made happy. Above all, he can toil hard
under the hot sun and in the unhealthy climates of the torrid zone. He
has little or no race-fellowships—that is to say, he has no sympathy for
other Negroes; he recognizes and follows his master independent of any
race affinities, and as he is usually a strong man and a good fighter,
he has come into request not only as a labourer but as a soldier.”
Sir Harry, speaking as an eye-witness of the capturing and the
exportation of slaves, gives a lurid description of their sufferings,
which, he says, “were so appalling that they almost transcend belief.”
He makes a conservative estimate that in the modern period of the
slave-traffic twenty million Africans must have been sold into slavery.
The Mpongwe was one of the tribes that suffered most. A large portion of
their country was depopulated. The slave-traffic was frightfully
demoralizing to the Africans themselves. It excited fiendish passions,
stifled every instinct of humanity and inspired craft and cruelty far
surpassing anything hitherto known. It was said that three men of the
same family dared not leave their town together lest two of them should
combine to sell the third.
More than half a century has passed since the last slave ship sailed out
of Gaboon harbour and disappeared over the western horizon with its
cargo of grief and rage, many of them wailing vengeance in a mournful
chant, improvising the words as they sang. For the African sings his
bitterest grief as well as his joy. He sings where the white man would
weep, or curse; but to the accustomed ear no cry could equal the pity of
his song.
It was in this region that Du Chaillu hunted the gorilla and gathered
much of the material for his famous books. An interior chief, in
appreciation of Du Chaillu’s visit to his town, once presented him with
a fat slave; and when Du Chaillu kindly declined the offer, protesting
that he would not know what to do with him, the chief exclaimed in
astonishment: “You must kill him and eat him, of course.”
Du Chaillu spat violently upon the ground—the African way of expressing
disgust and abhorrence.
“Then,” said the bewildered chief, “what do you do with all our people
who are sent down the river and far away to your country? We have
believed that you fatten them and eat them.”
It is supposed that our present mission station was formerly the site of
a slave pen, where slaves were kept until they were shipped—a
_barracoon_; hence the name _Baraka_.
The slave-traffic was succeeded by the rum-traffic; and it would not be
easy to say which of the two has proved the greater evil for Africa.
There is more drunkenness in Gaboon, among the Mpongwe, than in most
places on the coast. Except among the few Christians, an abundance of
rum is used at every marriage and every funeral and both men and women
drink to drunkenness. The women drink as much as the men, and there are
a greater number of hopeless dipsomaniacs among them.
One day, as I was walking along the beach, I met a bright-looking
Mpongwe woman who surprised me by addressing me in English. I was eager
to know who she was. She said her name was Elida Harrington, and that
when she was very young the wife of one of our missionaries, for whom
she had been working, took her to America when she went on furlough and
that during the period of the furlough she had attended school in
America. Those early days were evidently a sweet memory, and Elida’s
face was aglow with pleasure as she told me. Finally I asked her why I
had never seen her at the mission. The glow faded from her face, and
after a moment of gloomy silence she replied: “You’ll know soon enough.”
I afterwards learned that Elida, when she was young, was married to a
man who was given to _nagging_. He was continually making petty and
groundless charges of infidelity against his wife. There is no surer way
to inspire the dislike of the African. They are wonderfully generous in
forgiving impulsive cruelty, but continual nagging will alienate them.
At last, just to spite her husband, Elida told him that all his charges
were true; that she had done all those things, and much worse—such
things as he had never thought of charging against her. Her husband,
when he recovered from a paroxysm of rage and astonishment, told her to
pack her things and leave his house; to which she quietly replied that
she would be glad to do so, since she had already decided upon that very
course.
Soon after my first meeting with Elida I called at her house. It was
then that I learned why she kept away from the mission. She was so
intoxicated that she could not get to the door. And this was habitual.
One day Elida went to see her sister Jane, who was sick in bed. Jane
wanted some bread and gave her the price of a loaf and asked her to go
out and buy it for her. Poor Jane never got the bread. And poor Elida!
She went only as far as the first rum-shop.
I think of another, a young man who bore an honoured name, _Augustus
Boardman_, and who from his childhood was closely connected with the
mission. He spoke English not like an African but as if it were his
native tongue. I never knew a native who understood the finer feelings
of white people as Augustus did. I never knew a native who had in
himself so much of what we call _sentiment_. On one occasion he went
with me to Angom where Mr. Marling was buried. Mr. Marling, who had been
dead for five years, was the missionary whom Augustus had known best and
loved most. In the evening, just before leaving for the coast, I
happened to pass Mr. Marling’s grave, and there I saw a beautiful wreath
of flowers carefully woven, which Augustus had laid upon the grave. The
African is strangely indifferent to flowers, and I have never known
another who would have done what Augustus did.
On another occasion I received a letter from him when he was up the
Ogowè River. He wrote that while visiting at our old mission on the
Ogowè he had come across an English song-book, in which he had found a
song, the words of which were the most beautiful he had ever read in his
life; so beautiful that he had committed them to memory; and he was
wondering whether it was well known and commonly sung among
English-speaking people. He copied the words of the entire song and
enclosed them in the letter. The song was _The Lost Chord_. The anguish
of the lost chord in his own life was the secret of the deep impression
that the song made upon him.
In America a child can be kept out of the way of the worst temptations
until he has reached years of discretion, but such separation is
impossible in Africa. This boy, when he was a little child, was taught
to drink rum; his mother died a hopeless victim of it; and by the time
he was a young man the appetite for it was insatiable and complete
master of him. The finer feelings which characterized him seemed to make
him all the more the victim of this inordinate desire. He fought it as
he might have fought a python of his native jungles, but in vain. On one
occasion, in the presence of Mr. Marling, he pledged himself with the
solemnity of an oath never to taste it again. A few days afterwards he
was walking down the street of an interior town when most unexpectedly
he met a boy with a bottle of rum. He sprang at the boy, snatched the
bottle from him and drank the contents. Other efforts ended similarly.
He afterwards made such promises to me, weeping and fairly prostrated
with shame and humiliation; yet he soon fell again. He became at length
quite hopeless, and it was necessary to dismiss him from all service in
the mission. He got several good positions, but lost them immediately.
When I last saw him he was a moral wreck and almost an outcast even in
Africa, where there are no outcasts. Augustus has since died; one more
victim of poisoned rum.
_He is full of compassion and plenteous in mercy._ And, knowing Augustus
as I knew him, I dare to hope that he has again at last heard the
long-lost chord, and the sound of the great _Amen_.
The native is constitutionally incapable of being a moderate drinker.
And, besides, drunkenness is not disgraceful; they have not the spirit
that revolts from it. I have personally seen little children
intoxicated. I have seen them intoxicated in the schoolroom. I have
known of parents getting their own children to drink to intoxication for
their amusement. It is doubtful whether there is another tribe in all
West Africa so besotted with alcoholism as the Mpongwe. Physicians agree
that it is one of the chief causes of their increasing sterility.
Another factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe is the demoralization
of domestic life incident to methods of trade. The Mpongwe man is a
trader by instinct. In shrewdness and diplomacy I doubt whether he has a
superior among all the tribes of West Africa. This shrewdness he
expresses in many homely proverbs; as, for example, when he says: “If
you must sleep three in a bed, sleep in the middle.” White traders all
along the coast employ the Mpongwe as middlemen between them and the
interior people, who possess the export products. The white man gives
the middleman a certain quantity of goods on trust. With these he goes
to the interior and establishes a small trading-post in one or several
towns. It is a life of privation and danger, a lonely, miserable
existence, but he endures it with patience for the joyful hope that at
the end of a year or two he may return to his beloved town and family in
Gaboon, so rich that he can afford to “rip” for six months; to dress so
that the women will adore him and the men hate him. His goods being soon
exhausted by his numerous relations as well as himself, he starts off
for another year or two. He has a wife, or wives, at Gaboon, and he
takes to himself a wife or two at each of his interior trading-centres.
In the dangers of these middlemen and the necessities of trade Miss Mary
H. Kingsley finds a plausible argument for polygamy, amounting, in Miss
Kingsley’s opinion, to a full justification. Indeed, for various
reasons, the majority of traders defend and advocate native polygamy.
The journeys of these native traders to the interior are dangerous, and
I agree with Miss Kingsley that they deserve credit for their courage.
“Certainly they run less risk of death from fever than a white man
would; but, on the other hand, their colour gives them no protection;
and their chance of getting murdered is distinctly greater; the white
governmental powers cannot revenge their death in the way they would the
death of a white man, for these murders usually take place away in some
forest region, in a district no white man has ever penetrated.”
There are two reasons why so many of them nevertheless survive. The
first is that trade follows definite routes and the trader is expected
about once in six months by all the towns along the way, in which the
people are eager for trade-goods, the men “fairly wild for tobacco” and
the women impatient for beads and other ornaments. Under these
circumstances, for the people of any one town to kill the trader would
mean trouble between that town and the other towns along the route.
But this consideration alone is not sufficient; and Miss Kingsley gives
us the means that he employs for his further safety, as follows: “But
the trader is not yet safe. There is still a hole in his armour, and
this is only to be stopped up in one way, namely, by wives; for you see,
although the village cannot safely kill him and take all his goods, they
can still let him die safely of a disease, and take part of them,
passing on sufficient stuff to the other villages to keep them quiet.
Now the most prevalent disease in the African bush comes out of the
cooking-pot, and so to make what goes into the cooking-pot—which is the
important point, for earthen pots do not in themselves breed poison—safe
and wholesome, you have got to have some one who is devoted to your
health to attend to the cooking affairs; and who can do this like a
wife?—one in each village of the whole of your route. I know myself one
gentleman whose wives stretch over 300 miles of country, with a good
wife base in a coast town as well. This system of judiciously conducted
alliances gives the black trader a security nothing else can, because
naturally he marries into influential families at each village, and all
the wife’s relations on the mother’s side regard him as one of
themselves and look after him and his interests. That security can lie
in woman, especially so many women, the so-called civilized man may
ironically doubt, but the security is there, and there only, and on a
sound basis; for remember that the position of a travelling trader’s
wife in a village is a position that gives the lady prestige, the
discreet husband showing little favours to her family and friends, if
she asks for them while he is with her; and then she has not got the
bother of having a man always about the house, and liable to get all
sorts of silly notions into his head, if she speaks to another
gentleman, and then go and impart these notions to her with a cutlass,
or a kassengo, as the more domestic husband, I am assured by black
ladies, is prone to.”[1]
Footnote 1:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 252.
This picture is not untrue to the facts. And yet some of us who have
old-fashioned ideas of morality are not convinced that polygamy is
thereby justified with its beastly immorality on the part of those men
and of all those women who prefer not to have husbands hanging about the
house with silly notions—that is to say, _moral_ notions—about the
behaviour of women. And however heartrending may be the condition of
those interior men and women, without tobacco and without beads, we
cannot agree that their necessity justifies any such degrading practice
for its relief. As for the slight excess of rubber and ivory that
civilized folks obtain by this means, it may soothe the civilized breast
to know that all, or nearly all, this trade produce would reach the
coast in other and more legitimate ways without these middlemen, whose
presence is a curse to the interior people, whose absence is a curse to
their own tribe, and who are above all a curse to themselves.
This demoralization of domestic life is even worse for the Mpongwe women
than for their absent husbands. There is a large settlement of white men
in Gaboon, most of them government officials. And because of the climate
the white population is always rapidly changing. Nearly all the Mpongwe
women become the mistresses of those men. And the worst of it is that
instead of being deemed disgraceful this only gives them social prestige
among their own people. A woman said to me one day:
“Iga is so proud she won’t speak to me any more.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Oh, she is living with a white man now,” was the reply.
The marriage tie in Gaboon has long ceased to be a “tie.” It was much
more binding before the advent of the white man, and it is more binding
to-day among the uncivilized Fang.
The dreadful diseases that have been imported into Africa are certainly
a factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe. But the subject is too
unpleasant to discuss at length in this place.
Again, the disregard of native institutions and the destruction of
tribal authority by the foreign government tends to break down all
authority and remove all moral restraints. This is more or less true in
all West Africa. The native form of government among the Mpongwe is
somewhat patriarchal; authority belongs to the head of the family, the
head of the clan and the head of the tribe. The native reverence for the
authority of these men is the saving virtue that sustains the tribe. But
the chief’s authority and this reverence are destroyed together when the
people see him tied up occasionally and flogged; or ruthlessly flung
into prison; or his authority superseded by that of a native policeman.
The kingly office goes begging for an occupant when men find that the
grandeur of royalty consists in being held more or less responsible for
all the misdoings of all the tribe, while, perhaps, some black mistress
of a government official has more real power than the native king.
The authority of custom, in former times, even exceeded the authority of
kings. But the foreigner ignores native customs, or ridicules them, or
even condemns and forbids them—often without understanding them. The
tribal customs of Africa, from the most trivial to the most revolting,
are not arbitrary, but have a moral meaning and significance; though
they sometimes outlive their usefulness. They either embody such rude
justice as the African has attained; or else they represent the
operation of the law of self-preservation. One can give a rational
explanation even of the most cruel and revolting custom that I have ever
known in Africa, namely, the custom of burying a man’s wives alive with
him when he dies. Africa abounds with deadly poisons, and African wives
frequently contract an unpleasant habit of using them in the
cooking-pot. How common the practice is may be judged by the African
proverb: “We don’t eat out of the same dish,” used for instance as
follows: “So-and-so is angry but what do I care? We don’t eat out of the
same dish.” The wife prepares her husband’s food and has the daily
opportunity of using this deadly weapon. But this burial custom—the fact
that when he dies she will be buried with him—gives her a personal
interest in keeping him alive. It is scarcely necessary to say that I
think that this custom ought to be suppressed and its observance
severely punished. But meantime something ought to be done to improve
the morals of the African wife.
The dowry paid for a wife among the Mpongwe is forty dollars. Among the
uncivilized Fang it is several times this amount, although the Fang are
very poor in comparison. The Mpongwe dowry was reduced by the French
government as a step in the direction of its abolishment; for it is
nothing more than a purchase price. But the result of this forced
reduction of the dowry has been demoralization rather than civilization.
The custom among all tribes is that if a wife desert her husband her
family must pay back the dowry or send back the wife. It is not easy to
send back a large dowry, and the people, being unable or unwilling to do
it, will send the woman back unless she has a very strong case against
her husband. But forty dollars can easily be raised, especially if there
should be several white men to help. So there is nothing to prevent the
Mpongwe woman from leaving her husband when she pleases; and it pleases
her to change him frequently. Until the African attains the moral
sentiment that makes the marriage bond sacred it is better that there
should be the bond of outright purchase and ownership rather than no
marriage at all.
It is so with the whole body of custom. It expresses the inward life of
the people. It contains such rudimentary morality as they know, or
embodies a principle that is necessary for the preservation of society.
It is on the level of the African’s moral culture. It corresponds with
his beliefs and has the consent of his mind. The foreigner may by sheer
force change his outward condition, but unless there be also a
corresponding inward change he does not respond to the new obligations;
his moral responsibility is not equal to the new demands, and the result
is moral degeneration followed inevitably by physical degeneration.
This very matter of the dowry illustrates the different method of the
missionary and, I believe, the true principle of progress. Our early
missionaries made no church laws against the dowry, but they faithfully
preached the equality of woman and the higher idea of marriage; and as
the Christians became imbued with this sentiment they themselves
abolished the dowry within their own society. But they did it at the
instance of a moral sentiment which made marriage more secure than ever.
The inward preceded the outward change. The missionary does as much harm
as anybody else when he adopts the easy method of ruthless and
indiscriminate assaults upon native customs and beliefs. It was not the
Master’s method. Even slavery Jesus did not attack with violence; that
were as vain—if I may use the illustration of Dr. Richard Storrs—as vain
as to attack an Arctic ice-field with pick and drill; but He turned upon
it the summer sunshine and it slowly melted away. He inspired men with a
sentiment of human brotherhood and destroyed slavery by expelling the
spirit that made it possible. The African has a rooted antipathy to the
pick and drill, but he loves the sunshine; he is responsive to truth and
capable of high and transforming affections.
It is said on the coast that England rules her African colonies for
_commerce_, France for _revenue_ and Spain for _plunder_. The English
policy gives the utmost encouragement to native enterprise and thrift,
and on the whole the English colonies are the most prosperous and
promising. The French policy of revenue imposes such a burden of
taxation that life no longer consists in eating and drinking and talking
palavers, but in paying taxes. And the enormous import and export duty
stifles enterprise and in the end defeats its own purpose. But it must
be said that the French officials, of all classes, in their personal
intercourse with the natives, are free and friendly, and in consequence
are much better liked than the English officials, who, though usually
just, are often arrogant, and, while they care for the welfare of the
native, care nothing for his feelings. One recalls that in the early
days of America the French got on with the Indians much better than the
English.
The German policy cannot be described in one word. Their policy is
commercial; but they love government for its own sake and they govern
far too much. There is an element of militarism in their rule that is
entirely too rigorous for the African, and must ultimately destroy him
unless it becomes modified through knowledge and experience. It is
certain that Germany has not yet solved the problems of colonial
government in Africa. Some years have passed since I lived in Kamerun
and it may be that conditions have improved—though I doubt it; but it
used to be that the first visible institution of government in a new
district was the whipping-post. Whatever Germany does she does with all
her might, and the activity of this institution made the proximity of a
government station an undesirable neighbourhood if one chanced to have a
human heart. The outpost of civilization in Africa is frequently a
whipping-post.
[Illustration:
TRADING-HOUSE AT GABOON.
The beach strewn with logs of mahogany in preparation for shipment.
]
The fatal defect, both of trade and government, as independent
civilizing agencies, is that they have forcibly altered the outward
conditions of the native without changing the inward man. The African is
somewhat in the position of the poor Indian in our own country a few
generations ago. He was a hunter in a land stripped of game, a warrior
deprived of arms and obliged henceforth to seek his rights by legal
technicalities—while he was still the very same old Indian, inwardly not
a whit better, and by no means equal to the demands and moral
obligations which the new conditions imposed upon him. One may clip the
claws of the tiger and even pull his teeth, but he is still a tiger; and
a French uniform on an African cannibal does not make him a vegetarian.
IV
A LIVING REMNANT
The diminishing number of the Mpongwe, the hostility of the climate, the
insistence by the government that French must be the language of the
schools, the great difficulty of procuring a corps of French-speaking
missionaries, the curse of rum, the presence of a large community of
white men and the natural irresponsibility of the white man in
Africa—all these have combined to limit the work of our mission among
the Mpongwe and to make it exceedingly difficult. And besides, there is,
especially, the strong opposition of the French Jesuits who have a large
mission in Gaboon and any number of missionaries that the work may
demand. Their hostility makes coöperation impossible. Their methods, of
course, are Jesuitical. We have the authority of certain historians for
the statement that in the early days of missions among the American
Indians the Jesuit Fathers taught the Iroquois of Canada that Jesus was
a big Indian Chief who scalped women and children. If that was ever
true—and I doubt it—their object of course was to gain first the outward
adherence of the Indian, submission to their authority, with the
intention of afterwards instructing him in the full content of
Christianity, as they understood it. The French Jesuits, perhaps with
the same good intention, have baptized nearly all the polygamy,
drunkenness, immorality and fetishism of Gaboon, and they call it
_Christianity_. But I believe it is more inaccessible to moral and
spiritual influence than it was before.
One day shortly after the news of the death of Pope Leo XIII reached
Gaboon, and before I had heard of it, I was passing along the beach when
I heard in a small village the _ululu_ of women who were wailing for the
dead. Their mourning has usually a local occasion, and I had no doubt
but that somebody was dead in their own village; so I hurried over. The
mourning ceased abruptly at my approach—a triumph of curiosity over
grief. When I asked who was dead, the leader answered: “The Pope!” She
followed the answer with a prolonged howl in which they all joined, and
the tearless mourning proceeded. That is how I learned of the death of
Leo XIII.
The Protestant Christians of Gaboon are a very small community; but they
are the best Christians, and the dearest people, I have known in Africa.
They alone, of the Mpongwe, have good-sized families of healthy
children. They are the living remnant of a dying tribe.
When I moved to Baraka the Mpongwe work, the oldest in the mission, was
in charge of a fellow missionary, Mr. Boppell, and I had not expected to
take any part in it. But before the first year had passed, Mr. Boppell’s
health compelled him to leave Africa, his wife having died at the
beginning of the year. From that time I had charge of the Gaboon Church,
besides the work among the Fang. In particular I undertook the training
of an Mpongwe candidate for the ministry, who since Mr. Boppell’s
departure was occupying the pulpit and preaching very acceptably. This
man, Iguwi, I instructed four hours each week; but after most of the
year had passed, I felt that I could perhaps spend the time to better
advantage.
Iguwi was the best educated and the most eccentric man of the entire
Mpongwe tribe. He was a monk by nature. The African is distinctly a
marrying man. He is usually very much married. But Iguwi at the age of
forty-five was still single and was therefore a mystery to the natives.
He and myself were the only two single men in the entire region of
Gaboon. My own case seemed strange enough to the natives. They never
lost an opportunity of asking me for an explanation. “Mr. Milligan,”
says a wistful and sympathetic inquirer, “you nebber get wife?”
“No, I nebber get one.”
After a period of silence:
“Well, Mr. Milligan, why you nebber get wife? You no have money for buy
her? or she done lef’ you and run ’way wid odder man?”
In reply to these frequent queries, I gave so many answers that I have
almost forgotten which was the right one.
Iguwi was the only African I have ever known who was not a marrying man.
I have known other single men among them, but they were either busy
laying plans to run away with some other man’s wife, or were working day
and night and stealing, according to opportunity, to obtain sufficient
dowry.
Iguwi was extremely bashful; and in this also he was an exception to his
race. On one occasion, an elder of the church and his wife, intimate
friends of Iguwi, invited him to a chicken breakfast. They lived beside
him and he passed their house several times a day. Nevertheless, he
replied in a letter that he hoped they would excuse him on account of
his bashfulness; but that he would be very grateful if they would send
him his portion of the chicken. Iguwi was born in slavery, and as he
became educated and somewhat cultivated he was very sensitive in regard
to his birth. This indeed may account largely for his bashfulness.
But quite as prominent as Iguwi’s bashfulness and quaint eccentricities
was his transparent sincerity and goodness. His religion had not the
African tendency to exhaust itself in mental transports. The poor always
had a friend in him. I have had to remonstrate with him for giving away
all that he had. On one occasion, he came to me and asked the monthly
payment of his salary in advance. I expressed surprise at his need of
it, seeing that only a few days before I had paid him for the past
month. But I found afterwards that he had expended the whole mouth’s
payment in helping a poor widow to repair her house. She was not in any
way related to him; and she had relations who were able to help her; but
she had a sharp tongue and had turned them away from her, and when
poverty and distress came there was none to help her. The most degraded
of the heathen believed in Iguwi and would never have doubted his
honesty or truth. In this sense, indeed, he was a “living epistle” of
Christ which all could read and which none misunderstood. For so gentle
a spirit he had a set of categories that were especially drastic. On one
occasion, when I asked him how many persons had attended his village
prayer-meeting, he replied: “Fifteen Christians and six sinners.” The
attendance on the preceding Sunday was “ninety Christians and
twenty-five sinners.”
Iguwi was a remarkably good preacher. He had been taught in the mission
school at Baraka in the old days when English was still permitted, but
at best he received there only the equivalent of a primary-school
education. After he decided to study for the ministry he received
further training in a theological class. It was a mystery to me how a
man so bashful and diffident had ever chosen the ministry for a
profession. But when Iguwi stood on the platform his diffidence
disappeared entirely and his speech was perfectly free and courageous.
The people all enjoyed his preaching and were helped by it. He was so
absent-minded, however, in regard to his dress, that a committee should
have been appointed to look him over before he went into the pulpit, in
order to see that nothing essential had been omitted, and that his
clothes were fastened on him securely. A perpetual problem to the native
mind is how to get clothes to stay on without buttons—a problem of which
polite African society anxiously awaits the solution. Even with buttons,
the imported garments of civilization are still uncertain, when worn by
those who are not to the manner born. Sometimes, as if by a sudden act
of disenchantment, the buttons simultaneously unfasten, strings untie
and clothes fall off. Iguwi’s trousers were supported by a red sash,
which often got loose and began to unwind slowly as he preached. When
the loose end of the sash touched the floor, it was a question as to
what the climax of the sermon would be. I finally advised him either to
preach shorter sermons or wear a longer sash.
Iguwi’s sermons were thoughtful and spiritual. It was strange how so
unpractical a man could preach such practical sermons. They must have
come to him by intuition rather than by any exercise of judgment. It was
also indicative of a remarkable intellect that a man without any
library, who had read only a few books that he had borrowed from
missionaries, could preach sermons that were always well constructed and
thoughtful. I happen to recall an outline which he submitted to me one
day on the text, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are
sons of God.” His three main points were: First, The Spirit leads to the
cross of Christ; second, He leads to moral conflict (Iguwi probably said
to “war”); third, He leads to victory.
When I was leaving Africa, I gladdened Iguwi’s heart with a set of
Matthew Henry’s commentaries—which more than doubled his library. The
quaintness, the homely simplicity and spirituality of Matthew Henry were
not unlike Iguwi himself.
I have said that outside the pulpit Iguwi, with all his goodness, was
utterly unpractical. Often, indeed, he seemed to lack common sense. I
once gave him a book to read in which the writer, by way of illustrating
the evanescence of human glory, referred to the gorgeous palace of ice
which was built by Catherine of Russia, and so soon dissolved beneath
the sun. Iguwi had heard of ice and knew very well what it was, but
being unfamiliar with its resources of illustration he was deeply
impressed. While he was still reading this book, one night in
prayer-meeting he offered a prayer in which I, who did not understand
the Mpongwe language, was suddenly startled by the English words, _ice_,
_palace_, _Catherine_, _Russia_.
Even if the congregation had known English the illustration would still
have been unintelligible to them. For aught they knew _Russia_ might be
the name of an African tribe, or a river in America, and they were as
ignorant of the other words; and since those four words comprised the
whole illustration, the force and beauty of it must have been somewhat
lost upon them. It occurred to me at the time that a library, instead of
being a help to Iguwi, would probably have spoiled his preaching.
Iguwi was so unpractical it seemed best not to ordain him. If the worst
heathen of Gaboon had asked admission to the membership of the church
Iguwi would have received him with a _God-bless-you_. But he continued
to visit the sick and to give away his living to the poor. His goodness
shone along all the lowly paths of service.
A service in the Gaboon Church is much like a service in one of our best
coloured churches in America. There is perfect order and good attention,
and we need not labour too much to be simple, for they listen
intelligently. Occasionally, however, one is reminded that it is really
Africa and not America. I have seen a man, in the first pair of shoes
that he ever possessed, come to church unusually late, tramp as heavily
as reverence would allow in coming up the aisle, and then sit in the end
of the seat, assuming an unnatural and uncomfortable position in order
to keep his feet in the aisle. What is the use of spending money for
shoes and wearing them with so much discomfort if people are not to know
that you have them? Shoes for the African trade are purposely made with
loud-squeaking soles; the African will not buy shoes that do not “talk.”
Sometimes, in localities further from the coast, the head of the family
will enter the church alone, wearing the shoes, and upon reaching his
seat will throw them out of the window to his wife, who also will wear
them into the church, and perhaps others of the family after her.
Among the Mpongwe it was deeply impressed upon me that the sincerity of
piety is not to be judged by its fluency. Most white people who acquire
the art of public speaking, especially in religious meetings, are
obliged to cultivate it; and only a small minority of Christians can
offer a prayer in public. But the African speaks with perfect freedom
and entire absence of selfconsciousness. He can offer a public prayer
long before he becomes Christian, or has any such intention. It took me
a long time to put the proper estimate upon fluency. One day I visited a
woman, Nenge, who was going further and further astray through rum and
other Mpongwe vices. I was so greatly impressed by her eloquent
expression of ideals and aspirations that I inferred a great change in
her life. I prayed with her and asked her if she would pray for herself.
Without the slightest hesitation she began a prayer of considerable
length that almost brought tears to my eyes. She prayed for herself and
me. But I found out afterwards that she had not the least intention of
parting with either of her great sins, and she was surprised that I had
so misunderstood her. She had not meant to deceive me. The truth is that
any native could offer such a prayer. After several such experiences I
became wary. It is a great gift, however, when it is truly consecrated.
An Mpongwe prayer-meeting never lags.
The Gaboon Church in its early history was ministered to for many years
by Toko Truman, probably the most eloquent native preacher who was ever
trained in the West Africa Mission. He was entirely blind for seven
years before he died. The first time I visited Gaboon Toko was still
living. I was on my way home to America and was detained several days at
Gaboon, waiting for a French steamer. I had heard much of Toko, and I
visited him every day. Among ever so many incidents of interest which he
related I recall his reply to a certain white trader, a very profane
man, who took pleasure in mocking at Toko’s faith and self-denial. One
day the trader remarked that if there was any such place as heaven, he
himself was as sure of an entrance there as anybody.
Toko replied: “I have read the words of Jesus, ‘Not every one that saith
unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,’ that is to
say, not even all those who pray shall enter; and the chances would seem
to be small for you, who do not pray at all. Heaven is not as cheap as
you think.”
Izuri is an elderly woman, a member in the Mpongwe Church, whose charity
towards the Fang of the interior presents a striking contrast to the
spirit of the coast people generally. I have already said that, in the
mind of the coast people, the Fang belong to the orders of lower
animals, and that the coast women are ashamed to be heard speaking Fang,
though they all speak it; for they trade with them daily. Izuri, when I
had charge of the Mpongwe Church, was sewing for a trading-house one
whole day each week, thereby earning twenty cents, which she gave to
help support a native missionary among the Fang. The Fang come down the
river long distances to sell food and building material in the Gaboon
market. They must travel with the tide, and often they remain at the
coast all night. It is sometimes hard for them to obtain shelter; and,
moreover, they are subjected to every form of temptation by those who
would get from them the money or goods they have procured for their
produce. Izuri might often be seen going along the beach in the evening,
inviting these homeless people to her town where she gave them shelter
in a house which she owned but did not occupy. And often in the evening,
sitting down in their midst, she would talk to them in their own
language, fairly scandalizing her neighbours. I presume Izuri still
continues her ministry to the poor Fang.
An Mpongwe man, Ntyango, showed this same spirit towards the Fang and
went among them and preached to them. He died about the time I went to
Gaboon, and was buried in the mission graveyard. Some years afterwards
the workmen were cutting grass in the graveyard. Among them was a Fang
man named Biyoga, whom Ntyango had taught to read when he was a small
boy. As Biyoga was cutting grass and occasionally spelling out the names
on the tombstones he found Ntyango’s name on one of them. Sacred
memories stirred the heart of the wild Fang. The next day he came to me
and told me that since the days, long ago, when he had known Ntyango he
had never met another man like him. All the time since finding his name
and while working beside his grave he had been thinking of him,
recalling his kindness to the Fang, especially to the children, and his
Christian teaching, and now he wished only to be the kind of man that
Ntyango was.
[Illustration:
AN MPONGWE WEDDING.
The bride is a daughter of Lucina, who stands at the left of the
bride.
]
I think of Sara whose honesty and goodness had beautified her face. Left
a widow with five young children, and very poor, she often felt the
burden of care too heavy for her shoulders; but she went bravely on.
When her daughter was married and the customary dowry of forty dollars
was offered Sara by the young husband, she refused to take it, believing
that it was not in accord with Christian principle. The king of the
Mpongwe tribe, being jealous for old customs, resented Sara’s action,
and having invited her to his town made her a prisoner, thinking to
intimidate her; but he failed even to pick a quarrel with her, and after
a few days he released her.
I think of Lucina, than whom the Mpongwe Church never had a more
faithful member. Lucina’s husband, preferring a dissolute life of
drunkenness and polygamy, left her with five young children. Indeed,
when he took other wives he had to leave her; for her character embraced
the sensibility as well as the faithfulness of Christian wifehood. She
brought up her children under great difficulties, working for them like
a very slave; and though she was young, educated and extremely
attractive, the breath of scandal never tarnished her reputation. When
her husband accepted a dowry for their daughter and sent a portion of it
to Lucina, she sent it back to him saying that if he had sold their
daughter for a price, her conscience would not allow her to share it
with him.
And, among others, there was Sonia, a white-haired old man with the
heart of a child. Sonia had as many stories as _Uncle Remus_; but his
best stories were the incidents and adventures of his own life.
One still night as we lay at anchor, in the middle of the swift-rolling
river, with the moonshine lying in silver ringlets across its surface,
the boat-boys asked Sonia to tell them a story. As usual his first reply
was that he did not know any stories—excepting a few foolish old stories
that they had heard till they were tired of them. But at length—as
usual—he thought of one, and then another, and still another.
He first told a typical story about the tortoise and his creditors. The
tortoise in African folk-lore is notorious for unscrupulous cunning.
Once upon a time there was a great famine in the land and food was very
dear. So the tortoise called upon his friends, the worm, the cock, the
bushcat, the leopard and the hunter, and borrowed from each a box of
brass rods, promising to pay them at the end of the season on different
days. On the day appointed the worm appeared and asked for the payment
of the loan. Then the tortoise asked him to wait until he should go and
fetch the money. So the tortoise went off to get the money, and the next
day he came back with the cock, who also came according to appointment
for the payment of his loan. Then the worm and the cock met, and the
cock ate the worm.
Then the cock asked for his money and the tortoise asked him to wait
until he should go and fetch it. And he went off again, and came back
next day with the bushcat, who had come for the payment of his loan.
Then the cock and the bushcat met and the bushcat killed the cock and
ate him.
Then the bushcat asked for his money and the tortoise asked him to wait
until he should go and fetch it. And he went off again, and came back
the next day with the leopard, and the leopard killed the bushcat and
ate it.
Then the leopard asked for his money, and the tortoise asked him to wait
until he should go and fetch it. And he went off again, and came back
with the hunter. And the hunter and the leopard killed each other.
Then the tortoise laughed at them all for being fools. And the moral is
that it is not wise to lend to a man lest he may wish you evil and seek
to kill you. But Sonia reminds the boys that the story contains only the
wisdom of the heathen, and that Jesus teaches us to help those who need
our help even if we should lose by it.
After various comments on the moral of the story, to the effect that
“loan oft loses both itself and friend,” Sonia tells a story of two
friends and a wag.
There were two friends who had been friends from childhood, and who were
more than brothers to each other; and these two friends had never been
known to quarrel. Now there was a wag in a neighbouring town, who one
day, when he heard the people talking about these two friends who had
never quarrelled, declared that he would make them quarrel. That day he
put on a coat of which one side was blue and the other side red and then
walked down the road that ran between the two men’s houses. In the
evening the friends met as usual and one of them said: “Did you see the
wag pass to-day with a red coat on?”
“Yes,” said the other, “I saw him pass; but it wasn’t a red coat. It was
blue.”
“I am sure it was red,” said the first.
“But it wasn’t. It was blue,” said the other.
And so they disputed until one of them called the other a fool; and then
they fought.
“Take that,” said one.
“And that,” said the other.
So they fought until their wives came running to them and parted them.
But they went to their houses with heavy hearts. For they had been
friends for a lifetime and now their friendship was broken. And all the
people felt sorrow. But the wag, when he came along, laughed and told
them how he had worn a coat which was red on one side and blue on the
other. And the friends and their wives ever afterwards hated the wag.
Sonia’s stories were most interesting when he recounted real incidents
in his own life. When a young man, he told us, he had lived as a trader
at this Fang town opposite which we were anchored. The noise of
drumming, dancing and singing had ceased and the town was wrapped in
untroubled sleep. There is no stillness in the world like that of an
African town in the night.
Sonia told us about a battle he had witnessed, which was fought upon the
river, at this very place where we lay; a battle between this town and a
town which then stood on the opposite bank, but of which nothing now
remained. This town was already old at the time of the war but the other
was new, the people having come recently from the far interior, being
driven forth by the hostility of more powerful clans behind. There was
no quarrel between the towns; but the people of the old town thought
that it would be good policy to give their new neighbours a whipping
upon their arrival in order to insure a wholesome respect.
First, I believe, they stole a woman. Then followed a guerrilla warfare,
in which each side killed as they had opportunity, waylaying
individuals, or rushing from ambush upon a party of venturesome
stragglers from the enemy’s town. In this way a number were killed on
each side; and the war, which was first undertaken more as a vain
exploit or adventure than from any serious motive, was soon prosecuted
with feelings of deadly hate and a purpose of revenge. Every night, from
each town, the wail of mourning for the dead was wafted across the
river; and curses were mingled with the mourning.
At length one canoe attacked another in the river, where they had been
fishing. Immediately other canoes came to their help, and still others,
ever so many of them, pushing off rapidly from each side until all the
men of the two towns, young and old, were in the middle of the river
where they fought to a finish. When fighting in canoes, whatever other
weapons they may have, they carry a small battle-ax, which is used
especially to prevent the capsizing of the canoe by those who are
already in the water. Sonia told how that, again and again, at a blow
they severed a man’s hand, or completely disabled him. They swim so well
that they could still make a strong fight after being capsized. The
battle was long, and the river ran red with their blood. Those who were
killed were carried by the current out to the sea to feed the sharks.
The people of the new town lost. Those of them who were left pulled down
their town and moved to another place. In a few years nothing remained
of it but one or two skeletons with the grass growing through their
ribs. But for years afterwards the superstitious native passing along
the river in the dead of night heard again the noise of battle—fierce
cries and dying groans. And whenever this sound is heard, they say,
again the river runs red like blood.
One incident of the war, prior to the final battle, I recall, as Sonia
told it that night.
The people of the old town captured a man of the other side, and his
son, a little boy. They bound the father, and before his eyes
deliberately killed his son—and ate his flesh. The main motive of
cannibalism, under such circumstances, would be neither wanton cruelty
nor a vicious appetite, but _fetishism_. By eating one of their number
they render the enemy powerless to do them any farther injury. Some time
afterwards they slew the father. But already they had broken his heart,
and with hands uplifted he welcomed the death-blow.
The emotion with which old Sonia told this whole story indicated how his
own heart had been wrung. He said not a word about any effort of his to
dissuade the people from their cruelty; but I knew him well, and I was
confident that the part he had taken was not unheroic. That is a story
that was never told.
Sonia in his latter years, between long intervals of sickness, was a
missionary to the Fang. They all regarded him with love and reverence.
The oldest savage among them, and the wildest, were as children when
they addressed him.
In the little graveyard, on the mission hill at Baraka, are the graves
of those who have thought that life itself was not too great a price to
pay for the saving of such men and women from degradation. Henry
Drummond said that while in Africa he had been in an atmosphere of death
all the time, and that he realized, as never before, the awful fact of
death and its desolation as something calling for an answer. One of my
first experiences in Gaboon reminded me that I was again in the land of
death, when I assisted in the burial service of the beautiful young wife
and bride of a fellow missionary, less than three months after their
arrival in Africa. So far away from home we enter deeply into each
other’s sorrows. I was standing by in the last hour, when with pale face
the stricken but silent husband stepped to the open door and nervously
plucked a flower growing there, a large crimson hibiscus, the beauty of
the tropics, which he laid on the pillow beside his unconscious wife,
and the two broken flowers drooped and died together, while the shadows
darkened around us and the night came on. In the unconscious act there
was something more affecting than in any words of grief. It seemed to
relate this death to all death everywhere, in a world where forms of
life appear only to vanish into darkness and day hurries to the night.
Soon after our patient sufferer had ceased to breathe, in the midst of
the stillness that followed the prolonged struggle with the fever, a
storm that had been gathering with the darkness broke forth with great
violence that shook the house. I had only arrived in Africa. I went out
into the storm unspeakably oppressed with doubt, to which it was a kind
of relief. Was it a noble sacrifice? or an appalling waste? In the
intervals of the storm, and mingling with it, there came the sound of a
dirge, the hopeless death-wail, from a village close by, where the poor
natives were mourning for one of their number who had died that day, a
young man at whose bed I had stood a few hours earlier, the only son of
a heart-broken mother. Those who have always known the words of One who
brought life and immortality to light cannot realize the heathen view of
death, and the abysmal darkness of the invisible world. There is no
sound so well known in Africa, and none that so haunts the memory in
after years, as the mourning dirge, in which with united voices they
chant their sorrow for the dead—their despair and desolation; the sound
that is borne upon every night-wind and becomes to the imagination the
very voice of Africa. The groaning of the palm-trees in the darkness of
that night, as they bent beneath the tempest, and in the distance the
sound of the troubled sea, were the fitting accompaniment and interlude.
But in our house, beside our dead, there was light—and doubt was
vanquished. There, hope was whispering to a stricken heart sweet
promises of life; and faith was saying: “Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid.”
V
AFRICAN MUSIC
It was many years ago, among the Bulu, in Kamerun. Dr. Good and myself
were holding a religious service in the town of a great chief, Abesula,
whose thirty-five wives were seated around him. After we had sung
several hymns Dr. Good began to preach, but had not proceeded as far as
_secondly_ when Abesula, interrupting, exclaimed: “Say, white man, won’t
you stop talking and sing again? And I wish you would dance with your
singing; for I don’t care for singing without dancing; and I don’t like
preaching at all.”
We found that Abesula’s whole family were united in this preference for
comic opera. But Dr. Good and I were in hopeless disagreement as to
which of us should do the dancing. Besides, the Africans themselves are
expert dancers and qualified judges; and if our music had “charms to
soothe the savage breast,” I am afraid that our dancing would have made
more savages than it would have soothed.
After a few months among the Bulu I had an organ brought up from the
coast, a baby-organ, which when folded a man could carry on his head.
The people had heard that something wonderful was coming with the next
caravan; and on the day of its arrival it seemed as if the whole Bulu
tribe had assembled on our hill. Having unpacked the organ I set it on
the porch while they all stood on the ground below. The tension of
suspense during the slow progress of preparation was a test of
endurance. At last, everything being ready, I sat down at the organ,
filled the bellows, and amidst profound silence suddenly sounded a loud
chord. Instantly the crowd bolted. Nothing was to be seen but
disappearing legs. The men, being more fleet of limb, reached the
hiding-places first; then the women and larger children, the smaller
children being left to their fate. To them the organ was of course a
fetish, and full of talking spirits. Gradually they came out from their
hiding-places. Then, as fear subsided, each one began to laugh at the
others and to tell his ancestors all about it. In the ensuing noise the
organ had a rest. They soon became devotedly fond of it, and it was a
great help in our mission work. Regularly on Sunday morning after the
service I would set the organ on the porch and play for them until I was
tired—and that was not very long; for in that climate the bellows were
soon in such condition that the playing was prominently spectacular,
done with the feet, reinforced by all the muscles of the body. In after
years, among the Fang of the French Congo, I always carried an organ
with me.
To all the interior natives, Bulu and Fang, and even to the coast tribe
of Batanga, my playing of that little organ was much the most wonderful
thing about me. In going to Africa a second time, after four years’
absence, on my way to Gaboon I landed at Batanga for a few hours. The
natives remembered me as having a beard, and I was now shaved. But there
was with me a fellow traveller who had just such a beard as mine had
been; so that, to the natives, he looked more like me than I did myself.
They of course mistook him for me; and the stranger got a friendly
reception which pleased him as much as it surprised him. He said he
never had met such friendly natives. But upon my protest they discovered
their mistake and began to pay me some attention. I insisted that they
had forgotten me and that my feelings were hurt; at which they made the
most excited remonstrance. They remembered that I had played the organ.
One of the boys, in his eagerness to convince me that they had not
forgotten me, began to imitate my motions at the organ, which he
exaggerated to an outlandish caricature in which hands, feet, head,
mouth and eyes were equally active, saying as he performed: “Look me,
Mr. Milligan; this be you.” Following his example, they all engaged in a
performance that would have scandalized any company of self-respecting
monkeys, saying the while: “This be you, Mr. Milligan; this be you.”
My fellow traveller, who may have felt somewhat chagrined at finding
that the hearty reception accorded him was intended for me, turned to me
and made some remarks that have no rightful place here.
We are all familiar with the legend that Pythagoras invented the first
musical instrument after listening to the blacksmith’s hammers.
Longfellow repeats it in the poem, “To a Child”:
“As great Pythagoras of yore,
Standing beside the blacksmith’s door,
And hearing the hammers, as they smote
The anvils with a different note,
Stole from the varying tones that hung
Vibrant on every iron tongue
The secret of the sounding wire,
And formed the seven-corded lyre.”
Shakespeare also refers to this reputed origin of music in “The Two
Noble Kinsmen.” Pirithous, relating the death of Arcite, tells how he
rode the pavement on a horse so black that the superstitious would have
feared to buy him, a prancing steed whose iron-shod feet seemed only to
touch the stones—as if counting them, rather than trampling them, and—
“thus went counting
The flinty pavement, dancing as ’twere to the music
His own hoofs made—for, as they say, from iron
Came music’s origin.”
Nevertheless, this story—like many others that cluster about the name of
Pythagoras, as, for instance, that he was seen in two cities at the same
time—is seriously vulnerable, and is probably pure myth, without enough
of fact to qualify as a legend. The obvious objection, that various
hammers striking upon an anvil give out, not different notes, but the
same—for the notes vary with the anvil and not with the
hammers—Longfellow meets by using the plural, _anvils_.
In the latest of Mr. H. E. Krehbiel’s learned and interesting books,
_The Pianoforte and Its Music_, the writer holds that the first of all
stringed instruments was the bow. Every boy knows the musical twang of
the bowstring at the moment that the arrow flies. In the _Iliad_,
Apollo, the god of music, is also the god of archery, and is called the
“bearer of the silver bow.” Mr. Krehbiel also recalls the passage in the
_Odyssey_ in which Ulysses tries his bow, after the suitors of Penelope,
one by one, had tried and failed; and when Ulysses drew the arrow to its
head and let it go, the string rang shrill and sweet as the note of a
swallow. This theory of the origin of musical instruments is strikingly
supported by the instruments in present use among the savage and
primitive tribes of West Africa.
A Kombe cook, at Gaboon, each day after dinner, lay down for a nap and
played himself to sleep upon an instrument which was nothing but a bow
with a single string. The string was made of a certain runner, the fibre
of which is very tough and gives a resonant note. The cook found that by
plucking the string with a metal, rather than with his fingers, he
produced a better note; so for this purpose he regularly used the
bread-knife and took it to bed with him. When I first heard this
unclassical music I thought he was playing on a Jew’s-harp.
The native improves this instrument when he attaches to one end of it a
gourd or calabash, in the shape of a bowl, to augment the sound—the
first sound-box. When he plays he places the flat side of the gourd
against his chest. He improves the instrument immensely when he adds
three strings, making four in all, successively shorter. The four
strings pass over a central bridge, which is notched at different
heights for the different strings. This makes eight strings and produces
eight different notes. The gourd, or sound-box, is placed in the middle
of the bow, opposite the bridge. This instrument is usually made from
the midrib of a palm-leaf. The bent midrib itself forms the bow; while
the strings are the loosened fibres of its own tough skin. These are
made taut by the vertical bridge, and their vibrating length is
regulated by strong bands passing around the ends of the strings and the
bow.
Another native instrument is a harp, both in shape and in principle. The
upper end is a bow, or half-bow; the lower end is an oblong sound-box
covered with a perforated skin—monkey-skin or goatskin. The upper ends
of the strings are attached to pegs inserted in the bow, by which the
strings may be tuned. There is also a five-stringed lyre, with a
sound-box somewhat like the harp, but instead of a single bow at the
end, there are five bent fingers, each with its string. There is a very
rudimentary dulcimer, and a xylophone, and various modifications of the
instruments which I have described.
The favourite of all these instruments, and the one of largest musical
capacity, is the harp. The native uses it most frequently to accompany
his singing. There are professional singers among them, whose position
is somewhat analogous to that of minstrels several centuries ago in
Europe. The songs of these professional singers are usually lengthy
ballads—traditional tales in lyric form. The monotony of the solo, which
is a dramatic recitative, is broken by a somewhat regular and frequent
choral response. The singer half closes his eyes and sways his body as
he sings. He seems oblivious of time and place. I have sometimes thought
that there was an element of hypnotism in his influence upon his
audience. Upon the instrument he plays a running and unvaried
accompaniment to his song. But it would be a great mistake to judge the
song, or the African capacity for melody, by the miserably inadequate
instrument. The singer’s voice far exceeds the instrument, both in range
and in the division of intervals.
The fact is, however, that the only one of his musical instruments which
the African regards with profound respect is his dearly-beloved
_tom-tom_—the drum to which he dances. From this some have inferred
that, to the African savage, rhythm without melody is music, which of
course is a mistake. It is even doubtful whether his sense of melody be
not altogether as keen as his sense of rhythm, though not equally
appealed to. The drum is very easy to construct; but not so the harp or
viol; and the Negro is so lacking in mechanical genius that he cannot
invent an instrument capable of reproducing his melodies. Therefore the
melodies are always vocal. They do not dance to the drum, by itself; for
they invariably sing when they dance. Dancing without singing is almost
impossible; at least I have never seen it during seven years in Africa.
They are passionately fond of singing and have good voices. The voices
of the men are much better than those of the women and have sometimes
the resonant sonority of a deep organ-tone, or an exquisite melancholy,
which it is to be hoped they may never lose through future conditions of
civilization.
The native songs are elementary but fascinating. Few white men, however,
can sing them; for the scales, or tone-systems, upon which most of them
are based, are entirely different from our major and minor modes. Their
scales have not a distinct tonic, that is, a basal tone from which the
others in the system are derived, as, for instance, the first tone,
_do_, of our major scale. It follows that the cadences of their music
are not clearly defined; or, as a friend of mine would say, “They don’t
taper off to an end like ours.”
Although their music is so difficult for the white man, the natives
learn our music with astonishing ease, even their oldest men and women,
and sing it well—if they have half a chance. But is it surprising
that—since our scales are new to them—they at first need a little
careful training, or at least the lead of a clear-toned organ reasonably
well played? Otherwise they are not unlikely to substitute the tones of
their own scales. The result is indescribable. Imagine a large
congregation singing the doxology with all their might, and about half
of them singing it in G minor instead of G major! But the comparison is
inadequate. The singing in some mission congregations is enough to cause
a panic. The first Sunday that I spent in Africa was at Batanga, where
the people had learned the hymns before any white missionaries went to
live among them. I was near the church when the large congregation
started the first hymn. It was a translation of “God is the Refuge of
His saints, When storms of sharp distress invade.” The tune of this
_storm of sharp distress_ was good old _Ward_, but, alas, in such a
state of _decomposition_ that I did not recognize it until they had sung
it through twice. And so it was with many of the tunes. Their own music
has no extended range of high and low notes; and so, in these hymns,
whenever they came to a high passage, or even a single high note, they
sang it an octave lower, and the low notes they sang an octave higher.
It was a vocal feat, and no audience of white people could have done it
without training; but it did not sound much like music, still less like
worship.
So great a musician as Dvorak, when he came to America, was profoundly
moved by the original melodies of the American Negro, and became their
enthusiastic champion. Indeed, they inspired the most beautiful of all
his symphonies, the one entitled, “Aus der Neuen Welt.” I do not refer,
of course, to the so-called Negro melodies composed by white men. Some
of these are beautiful; but they are not Negro melodies. They do not
express the Negro’s emotional life and he does not care much for them.
Those wonderful songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers are the real thing.
Some of those very melodies may have originated in Africa. Others are
more developed than any that I heard in Africa; but they are very
similar, and they use the same strange scales, which makes them
unfamiliar to our ears and difficult to acquire. Among them, I really
believe, are occasional motives as capable of development as those of
Hungary.
For a long time the music of Africa defied every attempt on my part to
reduce it to musical notation. Very few persons have made the attempt;
for it is easier to reduce their language to writing than their music.
At first it seemed as inarticulate and spontaneous as the sound of the
distant surf with which it blended, or the music of the night-wind in
the bamboo.
The melody of African music is strange to our ears, because, as I have
said, it is usually derived from tone-systems that are unlike either our
major or minor scales. They have the _pentatonic_ scale, that is, a
major scale without the fourth and the seventh notes, thus avoiding the
use of semitones; but their other scales are strange to most people.
Among them are some of the scales of the _plain-song_ of the Roman
Catholic Church—the _Gregorian chant_. The plain-song is the only
survival (among ourselves) of ancient music. Modern music is based upon
harmony, and consists essentially in a progression of chords. The
successive tones of a modern melody acquire their character not chiefly
from their own sequence, as do ancient melodies, but from the chords to
which they belong; and the chords even when they are not voiced are
always understood. But harmony itself is modern, dating from about the
thirteenth century. African melodies cannot always be harmonized, and
when the harmony is added it is not usually effective.
But in African music another scale is employed which is not Gregorian,
but oriental. It is a minor scale with an augmented interval—a tone and
a half—between the sixth and seventh notes, that is, with a minor sixth
and a major seventh. This peculiarly effective interval imparts an
intense melancholy. Verdi, with delightful propriety, makes use of this
very scale in Aïda, in the hymn of the Egyptian priestesses in the first
act, where an extant Arab melody is introduced. This scale is probably
the oldest tone-system in the world and may have come originally from
the banks of the Ganges, in the far-distant past.
The African, like the oriental, conceives of the scales, and the
melodies derived from them, as moving downward, instead of upward like
our own. All African music sings downward. Another striking peculiarity
is that they lack _tonality_, as the musician would say; that is, they
seem not to be in any particular key. The strong feeling of the key-note
which characterizes our major scale is entirely absent; and this, of
course, accounts for the absence of a well-defined cadence, to which I
have alluded. The weird fascination of the African dirge is largely due
to this absence of tonality. Musical genius could hardly surpass this
instinctive expression of despair—the desolation of an everlasting
farewell.
The emotion which it represents, however intense, is rather
disappointingly transient. Sometimes it is even unreal; I mean to say
that it is sometimes indulged for its own sake. And this is true of the
Negro everywhere. A few days ago I came upon an article in an old
magazine, in which a Southern woman, in “Rambling Talks About the
Negro,” tells of a mourning party of Negroes that assembled one night
beside her house to finish a mourning ceremony that ought to have been a
part of a funeral a few days earlier; but a storm had interrupted it.
The unearthly mournfulness of their music was intensified by their
beautiful voices until it became unbearable, and the woman bowed her
head upon the window sill and cried without restraint, while imagination
conjured up fictitious woes, such as the sudden death of her children
and of all her friends, until she was alone in a bleak world. Then it
occurred to her that it was wrong for people to indulge a voluntary
anguish and make a luxury of misery; so she sent a servant to offer a
barrel of watermelons to the party of mourners on condition that,
instead of mourning, they should dance and jollify; to which they
heartily responded, after first making sure that the melons were in good
condition, for they really preferred to mourn.
When, to the peculiar scales which Africans employ, one adds the further
fact that in African music (and indeed in the Negro melodies of our
South) the note which corresponds to our seventh in the scale (a step
below the tonic) is seldom a true seventh, but is slightly flatted,
enough to make a distinct note with a character of its own, one has
probably accounted for the peculiar plaintiveness, the elusiveness, the
vague mysteriousness, which constitutes the charm of all true Negro
music.
The rhythm of African music is a further impediment to our appreciation.
In the music of the dance the rhythm is of necessity somewhat regular.
But even in this music it is variable and does not conform throughout to
any one time-scheme but changes back and forth from duple to triple
within the same melody. This also is characteristic of oriental music.
In most African music the rhythm is regulated by the words, like the
recitative, the rhythmic imitation of declamatory speech. But it has the
symmetry that feeling secures. The best way to learn the African’s song
is to watch the swaying of his body and imitate it, and if the words
have meaning let their feeling possess one. Mr. William E. Barton, the
compiler of a small collection of choice Negro melodies, tells how that
“Aunt Dinah,” who had been trying to teach a Negro hymn to a young lady,
at last seeing her begin to sway her body slightly and pat her foot upon
the floor, exclaimed: “Dat’s right, honey! Dat’s de berry way! Now you’s
a-gittin’ it sho nuff! You’ll nebber larn ’em in de wuld till you sings
’em in de sperrit.”
The African sings not only his joy, but his grief; not only his love,
but his anger, his revenge and his despair. Livingstone was greatly
surprised, upon approaching a slave caravan, to hear some of them
singing. But as he listened he found that they were singing words of
grief and vengeance—for usually they were betrayed and sold by some of
their own people. So it was everywhere, as old men of Gaboon have told
me; they went away chanting their desolation and their curses upon those
who had betrayed them.
There is no doubt that music is the art-form of the Negro. He is the
most musical person living. His entire emotional life he utters in song.
He has not yet done any great thing. His day is still future. But I
believe that when he comes, he will come singing.
[Illustration:
DANCE SONG OF MPONGWE
The time signature is only approximately correct, and forces a
rhythmic symmetry which African music does not possess. The
energetic momentum is characteristic of African dance music.
]
[Illustration:
CANOE SONG OF GABOON
All African music, like Oriental music, sings downward.
]
[Illustration:
A MOURNING DIRGE
This is chanted by an individual, or a succession of individuals, and
is not the usual wail in which all join, though it is much like it.
African music is not always based upon harmony; nor does harmony
always improve it.
]
VI
PESTS
It is part of the squalid commonplace of life in Africa that the most
exciting adventures are not with elephants but with ants, and our worst
danger is not the leopard but the mosquito. And this struggle against
minute enemies requires more patience than the fight with beasts, both
because it is not occasional, but an unremitting warfare, and because it
does not appeal to our love of the heroic, nor stimulate with the
promise of praise. When Paul tells us that he fought with beasts at
Ephesus, our hearts swell with admiration; but if he had said: “I have
fought with the mosquitoes in Africa,” he would have elicited no
sympathy and some ridicule; although the latter is also a fight for
life, and attended by greater danger and weariness and pain.
It is significant that it was in Africa that Moses summoned the ten
plagues to his aid in humbling the haughty Pharaoh. If ten had not been
sufficient he might have summoned ten times ten, and without exhausting
the domestic resources.
We are grateful that common houseflies are not sufficiently numerous to
constitute a pest, except where cattle are bred in large numbers. In
Gaboon there was no need for screens on doors and windows.
But there are many kinds of flies, and the natives who have not learned
to wear clothing commonly carry a fly-brush made of a bunch of stiff
grass about two feet long, that they may defend the whole area of the
back, where the fly usually makes its attack. When one sees a fly on a
neighbour’s back it is regarded as a duty of friendship to come up
behind that neighbour slowly and stealthily, giving the fly full time to
bite his worst and so be deserving of death, then to strike an awful
blow on the neighbour’s back, fit to bring him to his feet with a yell.
It seldom harms the fly, but it expresses great indignation, and, by
implication, sympathy with your neighbour. The habit of killing flies,
or attempting to kill them when they alight, is an obsession with the
native, and it seems a physical impossibility for him to resist. He does
it in church. When I first preached in Batanga, to a large congregation,
I was very much disturbed by this unlooked-for and constant slapping on
bare backs. And whenever I saw a man creep quietly across the aisle or
forward several seats to perform this friendly office, I could not help
watching until I heard the slap, when I always felt like stopping the
discourse long enough to ask: “Did you kill it?” For in the mind of all
those around there seemed to be nothing else going on in that church but
this exhibition of applied Christianity.
Forgetting that the white man is protected by his clothing, they vie
with each other in the discharge of this courtesy; and the exasperating
blows that the white man receives from his black friends are the chief
discomfort that he suffers from the larger flies. One day shortly before
leaving Africa I was riding in an open boat when a native man sitting
behind me suddenly gave me a slap on the back that actually hurt, and so
startled me that I did some fool thing a little short of leaping into
the sea. I turned around and asked the man in a tone of cold politeness
whether he was trying to make my back the same colour as his.
“Why, no,” said he, “I am killing flies.”
“I’m no fly,” I replied frigidly.
A few minutes later, when I was indulging in a somnolent reverie, he
struck me again—I think it must have been in the same place, it hurt so
much worse than the first time; whereupon I turned about and, striking a
very dangerous attitude (for a missionary), I threatened that if he did
it again I would land him a blow in the stomach whether there was a fly
there or not. My boat-boys, who knew the uses of clothing and
appreciated the immunity of my back from fly-bites as well as the
greater tenderness and sensitiveness of the white man’s body, laughed at
this interesting diversion. Then they undertook to enlighten their
friend from the bush as to the white man’s view-point, combining
theoretical instruction with practical sense by removing him to another
seat: for they well knew that if he should see another fly on my back,
even while they were talking, he would strike again. He cannot help it:
the habit is coercive.
Among the worst pests, and peculiar to Africa, is the driver ant. They
go together in countless and incomprehensible numbers. The first sight
that one gets of them is a glistening black, rapid-running stream about
two inches wide crossing the path before him. Upon closer inspection he
finds that the stream is composed of ants; and recognizing the driver
ant of which he has heard many incredible stories on the way to Africa,
he feels like shouting “Fire!” and running for his life. But as a matter
of fact he may with impunity examine them as closely as he pleases so
long as he does not touch them. They are so occupied with their own
serious purpose that they will take no notice of him.
In the middle of the black stream are the females, about the size of our
common, black wood-ant, while along the sides run the soldiers guarding
from attack, and these are about four times the size of the others. The
defense of the females is no matter of necessity, but rather gallantry,
for those female viragoes are abundantly able to defend themselves. No
creature so small ever had such a bite. They are all provided with jaws
and with stings and they know how to work both vigorously. Some fine day
as the newcomer saunters along, his eyes engaged with the beauty of the
landscape, he walks into the ants. It may be one minute, perhaps two,
and possibly five, before he knows anything of the serious mistake he
has made. Then suddenly he experiences a sensation which is usually
compared to numerous red-hot pincers applied implacably; for these ants
do not let go. If he follows the course prescribed by ardent advisers,
he will do either of two things: he will instantly strip off his
clothing, even if he should be in the governor’s courtyard, yelling the
while at the top of his voice so that those who object may go some other
way; or he will make a dash for the nearest rain-barrel and tumble into
it. Fortunately, their bite is not poisonous and leaves no bad effects
afterwards. After this experience he will never allow more than one eye
to dwell upon the charm of the landscape; the other will be directed to
the path before him. If a man must go out at night he always carries a
lantern.
When these ants come to a place where there is food to their liking,
they scatter and spread out over a large area. Then, of course, they are
not so quickly discovered, and one may easily walk into them. They are
one of the trials of bush-travel, and the worst living nuisance of the
bush, where the undergrowth hides them even from the keen eye of the
native. There is seldom a day on a bush journey that the caravan does
not march into the drivers. Then there is some wild yelling by those in
the lead; the cry, “Drivers!” goes all along the line and each man as he
comes to them makes a lively dash through them, stamping heavily as he
runs; for it is possible thus to keep them off or to shake them off
before they get a hold. All other insects and animals flee before them,
including the python and the leopard.
Travellers have frequently told how that the silent, sleeping forest has
suddenly become all astir and vocal, the angry boom of the gorilla or
the frightened bleat of the gazelle alternating with a cry of the
leopard and the scream of the elephant; all forgetful of their mutual
hostility and vying with one another in the speed of their escape from
the driver ant, abroad on a foraging expedition, to the number of
infinity.
They make frequent visits to the native villages and the white man’s
premises, usually in the night, spreading over the whole place,—the
ground, the houses, inside and out, and through the roofs. Here they act
as scavengers, driving before them all other insect nuisances, such as
the cockroaches and centipedes, which especially infest the thatched
roofs. Nevertheless, if one should hear the language of the average
white man, upon the occasion of one of these nocturnal visitations, when
the drivers have wakened him rudely and driven him headlong out into the
dark, and perhaps the rain, there to shiver during this untimely
house-cleaning, one would not for a moment mistake it for an expression
of gratitude.
Setting hens must be kept carefully out of their way. In one instance I
knew of the drivers visiting a nest one night when the young chickens
were just coming out of the shells. The empty shells were there in the
morning, but no chickens. If they should gain undiscovered access to a
chicken-house in the night, they would leave nothing but bones and
feathers. At Efulen we built our chicken-house against the workmen’s
house, on the side away from the bush, so that the drivers on their
approach should first visit the workmen and we should be warned in time
to save our chickens.
We had been there only a short time when we were awakened one night by
the familiar outcry as the men were driven out of their house. But the
drivers had come from a different direction that night, and when we went
to the chicken-house we found it already in their possession. It was but
the work of a minute or two to tuck our pajamas inside our socks, bind
our sleeves with handkerchiefs around the wrists, tie another
handkerchief around the neck and pull a cap down over the head. Thus
prepared I entered the chicken-house, the ground and walls of which were
a glistening black mass. Stamping my feet all the time, I snatched the
chickens one by one from the roost, stripped the handful of loose ants
from their legs and handed them out to Dr. Good and Mr. Kerr, who picked
off the remaining ants, after which we brought the chickens into our
house and put them on the pantry shelves until morning, meanwhile
building a line of fire around the house to keep the drivers back.
But it was not long after this that they found the house unguarded one
morning just at daylight when I was alone at Efulen. I was awake but not
yet ready to rise when I heard a low, rustling sound upon the floor of
my room. After a few minutes, observing that it was becoming more
distinct, I drew back my mosquito-net and looked out. Almost the entire
floor was black with the drivers, and they were close to the bed. From
the foot of the bed towards the door it was still possible for me to
escape by a good jump; and in a moment I found myself shivering out in
the yard while my clothes were still in the house.
One day, as Dr. Good and I were entering a native village, Dr. Good
walked through some stray drivers. He began to preach to the people, who
as it happened were already gathered in the street where they had been
taking a palaver. Before he had been preaching more than a minute I
observed that his gestures were more animated than I had ever seen
before. Soon they became violent, noticeably irrelevant and even of
questionable propriety. It was a little like Brer Rabbit, one evening
when the mosquitoes were bad, telling the wolf about his grandfather’s
spots. I looked on with increasing amazement and consternation, until at
last even Dr. Good’s indomitable will was overborne, and he shouted:
“Drivers!” and bolted abruptly for the bush. I tried to go on with the
service, but it was almost impossible because of the laughter of the
audience. Each one insisted upon telling his neighbours all about it, to
the accompaniment of a broad caricature of Dr. Good’s gestures.
There was once a native man in Gaboon who was slightly deranged in his
mind. The government advised, and at last insisted, that he should not
be allowed at large. His family, being averse to confining him, chiefly,
I imagine, because of the care it would entail upon them, sent him to a
village of their relations across the river ten miles distant. There he
remained for some time. The people there bound him at night lest he
might set fire to the town while they slept. He objected to this and at
last became troublesome by calling out continually during the night.
Then they improvised a rude shelter back a short distance from the town,
where they placed him at night and as usual bound him. One night he was
more noisy than ever before, yelling and screaming hideously so that he
wakened the people. They thought that he had become demented but no one
went to him until morning, and then they made the horrible discovery
that the drivers had attacked and devoured him.
In some tribes criminals are sometimes punished by being bound to the
ground in the track of the drivers. One can hardly conceive of anything
more horrible; for they would enter ears and eyes and nostrils. But I
believe this is very rarely done. When death is decided upon, the
Africans usually accomplish it by quick means.
There is another ant which I would say is worse than the driver, were it
not that as yet its distribution is limited and it may be only
transient. It is a very small red ant difficult to see with the naked
eye except in a good light and on a white surface. It takes to dark
closets, upholstered furniture, hair mattresses and those who would
sleep upon them. It has not been long known in those portions of West
Africa that are familiar to the white man. It has come from the
southeast towards the coast. In 1900 it took possession of our
mission-house at Angom, which was not occupied at that time.
It is doubtful whether this ant would be likely to infest a house when
the grass around it is kept closely cut and the house well opened to the
light and air; but when once infested it is not clear that these
precautions would drive it out. One of Woermann’s trading-houses on the
Ogowè had to be abandoned because of it.
My first experience with it was in 1900 when I visited Angom and slept
in the mission-house that had been occupied only occasionally for more
than a year. I was no sooner asleep than I was awakened by an extremely
painful sensation, as if red-hot pepper had been sprinkled all over me.
I felt no sharp bite, but only this intolerable smarting pain. It
occurred to me that I might have been poisoned during the day by some
violently poisonous herb in the bush or the overgrown garden; but I
remained in bed never thinking that the cause of it was there. The
natives told me in the morning what it was. My flesh was badly inflamed
and I had fever all that day. After that I always slept in the boat, or
in later years, the launch, when I visited Angom.
Among African pests there is another red ant, very small, though not so
small as the last. It does not bite nor attack the person, but is
nevertheless a great nuisance, particularly to housekeepers. All table
food must be kept out of its way. Any food remaining on the table even
an hour is covered with them. They are especially fond of sugar; and if
it is left on the table or unprotected from one meal to the next, it is
found a living red mass. By what powerful instinct they immediately
discover the place where food is, and where they come from in such
numbers, are among the mysteries that the white man will often ponder.
Most of our food is imported, in tins, and once a tin is opened it is
kept away from these ants by being placed in a safe suspended from the
ceiling by tarred rope. The safe is a light frame of wood covered with
wire screen or netting.
Besides these, there are numerous other varieties of ants, less harmful,
or altogether harmless. The ground is so infested with them that neither
white man nor native ever thinks of sitting down upon it, as we might
sit upon the grass in this country. Altogether, more than five thousand
varieties of ants have been described and classified; and most of these
are found in Africa.
Among the worst of the African pests is the _jigger_. Those who are most
sensitive to it would without doubt call it the worst of all. If the
pest of the small ant travels from the interior towards the coast, this
pest began at the coast and is extending towards the interior. It has
evidently been imported—tradition says from Brazil, in the cargo and
sand ballast of sailing vessels. The older inhabitants along the coast
remember when it first became known, and I am sure that it made itself
known very soon after it arrived. The jigger is a tiny species of flea,
so small that the naked eye sees it with difficulty. It has all the
reprehensible habits of its kind. The males hop all over one’s person in
a playful manner, giving him a nip here and a nip there; but the females
burrow beneath the skin. The favourite place is the feet, especially
under the nails, but they are frequently found also under the finger
nails and sometimes in the elbows and knees. Here the female, unless
discovered and removed, forms a sac which expands to the size of a small
pea, and which contains hundreds of little jiggers who soon begin to
“jig” for themselves, and burrow again in the same flesh. Many of them
however are scattered on the ground; those that remain keep multiplying,
until if neglected the whole foot becomes a festering sore.
To the African child the jigger is the occasion of its worst suffering.
I have seen children who could not walk, some with toes eaten away, and
several with nearly the whole foot gone. For, to the African and to some
white men, they are not irritating while boring beneath the skin, and
afterwards they are very hard to see, especially in the black skin of
the native. One may know nothing of their presence for several days,
after which they are so hard to remove that the native child will bear
the irritating itch that they first occasion rather than submit to the
pain of removing them; and when the itch has become a painful sore, no
child could remove them. Some African mothers watch their children’s
feet closely but others neglect them cruelly. I am glad to say that
those who allow their feet to get full of jiggers, or mothers who
neglect the care of their children’s feet, are looked down upon, as
lousy persons would be among us, though not to the same extent.
The jiggers are less troublesome in the wet season. But with the dry
season their numbers increase rapidly, and towards the close of the
season the soil and the sand are fairly alive with them. If possible,
missionary boarding-schools ought to have vacation at this time; for the
white missionary is sure to get them in the schoolroom; and the
dormitories, which usually have only earthen floors, become so infested
with them that even native children are often kept awake at night, and
the amount of discipline necessary to make them keep their feet in order
may demoralize the school. There are always children, large and small,
who need no supervision, and are sufficiently self-respecting to keep
their feet clean; but their task is made exceedingly difficult by the
presence in the same dormitory of those who breed jiggers by thousands.
As a rule, with but few exceptions, the children who keep their feet
clean are those who have been in the school before and are known as
mission-boys and mission-girls.
In my boys’ boarding-school of later years one would see a strange sight
each day during the dry season. The whole school filed out at recess and
sat down along either side of the path leading to the mission-house. A
committee of boys examined the feet of the others and reported to me the
name of every boy who had jiggers in his feet; while I stood with
note-book in hand and wrote down their names. Then when the food was
given out at noon these boys were left without food until their feet
were pronounced clean. The larger boys were responsible for those of
their own town or family who were too small to attend to their own feet.
I once kept a boy more than a day without food until he removed his
jiggers, and one hopeless boy I at last expelled from the school for the
offense. For rigid insistence upon this discipline, I felt, lay close to
moral instruction.
The white man of course suffers from jiggers, but not so much as the
native, because of his shoes, his cleaner house, and because his feet
are more sensitive, so that he becomes aware of them after several days
at the most, when they can be removed without injury, if it is very
carefully done. After one has been in Africa a length of time he will
detect their presence as soon as they begin to burrow. Some white men
have a native boy examine their feet every night or morning; for the boy
has very sharp eyes, and he removes the jigger with surprising skill. It
can be done with a pin; a needle is better and a pair of tweezers is
still better. If the sac that is formed after several days be broken in
the removal, it may cause a sore that will take some time to heal.
Indeed, if one be greatly reduced in health and the blood in bad
condition, it may not heal at all until he leaves the country on
furlough. I have known men who for weeks were not able to wear a shoe
because of jigger sores.
After I had been a few months in Africa, one day, while in bed with
fever, I said to a friend that in allowing my feet to touch the floor
beside the bed where natives had been standing, I must have caught the
itch; for a most irritating itch had been troubling me for several days.
My friend at once suggested jiggers as the cause. I answered with great
assurance that it certainly was not jiggers, for I had watched my feet
very closely, having determined from the first that I should get no
jiggers—which of course was true, but I suppose I had been watching for
creatures the size of potato-bugs crawling over my feet I at once called
a native boy, however, wishing perhaps to assure my friend, and the boy
found seven colonies of jiggers. It took my feet a long time to heal.
But it never happened again.
The male jigger, as I have said, does not burrow in the flesh, but
disports himself upon the surface and makes himself very numerous. He is
one of the great variety of influences that keep the white man
constantly scratching. The native scratches too, scratches most of the
time, and often with both hands, but he does not get excited about it,
nor attract so much attention. But the habit is disgusting in the white
man, and after all it is a habit rather than a necessity. A minority
exercise the strongest self-restraint, a larger number exercise
restraint sometimes; many white men, however, exercise no restraint at
all, but scratch continually, regardless of the occasion.
The sandfly, or _midge_, not known at the coast, but widely distributed
in the interior, must be counted among the worst of African pests. They
also are exceedingly small. They do their utmost to make life
intolerable in the early morning hours after daylight, and again in the
evening before dark. Some are more sensitive to them than others. When I
was living in the interior, I bathed my hands and face in kerosene or
turpentine each morning and evening as their hour approached and
sometimes repeated it once or twice before they retired.
The mosquitoes are so bad, especially in the low places along the coast,
that even the natives must sleep under mosquito nets.
In the song of our childhood we were impressed with the possibilities of
such minutiæ—as little drops of water, little grains of sand and little
moments of time, when these are multiplied by infinity. But infinity is
the status of all insect life in Africa. In order to realize the pest of
the mosquito in towns adjacent to mangrove swamps one must multiply the
insect until it seems to compose about fifty per cent. of the
atmosphere. Its music too is impressive.
Wherever possible the white man builds his house upon a well-cleared
hill and so escapes them, sometimes almost entirely as at Baraka. But
this is not always possible. Many missionaries have told of writing
letters while sitting cross-legged on their beds with the mosquito-net
drawn down around the bed.
The centipede is common, especially in those houses that have thatch
roofs. The African centipede is very large, and its bite is poisonous,
though rarely fatal. My first experience with it was one morning, in my
bedroom, when I took a bouquet of flowers off the table and held them to
my face. A large centipede glided out of the flowers, and running
swiftly across my hand and along my arm to the elbow, dropped to the
floor. Fortunately, my sleeve was short, else I should have been bitten.
But one morning that I shall not forget I put on a sock, and there was a
centipede in the toe of it. Unfortunately the sock was in a state of
good repair; there was no hole in the toe. I was badly bitten, for it
was some time before I could get the sock off; and the sickening feeling
of repulsion was worse than the bite. I afterwards acquired the habit of
shaking socks and shoes and clothing before putting them on. It is well
worth while; for if one is disappointed in the matter of centipedes, one
may perhaps shed a scorpion or several roaches, or sometimes even a
snake. There are scorpions in all parts of Africa and in some places
they abound. Their bite is always bad, and that of some varieties is
dangerous.
But if I were asked my opinion as to the very worst pest in Africa, I
would name the roach, or _cockroach_, and I think that the majority of
white men would agree with me. My aversion to this creature is so strong
that I do not pretend to be able to give a dispassionate judgment. It is
a _beast_ of an insect. It is much larger than the familiar cockroach of
this country and is often two inches long; and all its powers and
qualities of disposition are proportionately developed. It multiplies
with amazing rapidity. It has an odour that for real nastiness takes
preëminent rank even in malodorous Africa. It has a voracious appetite,
eats almost everything and seems to get fat on arsenic, which I have fed
to it in large quantities; though some persons declare that it thrives
on arsenic by not eating it and by detecting it even when mixed with
sugar or anything else. It is found in the pantry, in clothing, in the
library, in furniture, in every drawer and every corner, and a thatch
roof is soon full of them. Even in bed one is not always free from them,
for during sleep they often nibble one’s nails and hair. The only way to
kill the cockroach is to crush it, and the result is so disgusting that
one will feel that it has more than avenged its death. Once in a while
in the evening all the cockroaches take to flying, as if seized with a
panic or madness. And when they do this they make one forget all the
other pests of Africa.
If the least bit of butter or grease should touch a suit, one may depend
upon it that unless it is put in a roach-proof trunk the roach will find
that spot, and in the morning a hole will be eaten through. They devour
wool as a horse eats hay; but they will leave both wool and grease for
the starch contained in cloth bookbindings. They show a decided
preference for new books, the starch being softer in these. If, in a
moment of supreme folly, one should leave a book uncovered on a table
over night, he will find it in the morning with several spots upon it
the size of a dime, where the starch and colour are eaten out and the
bare gray threads exposed. This happened to my _Memoirs of Tennyson_;
both volumes were badly defaced in one night. Of course one will cover
with heavy paper—when he _has_ the paper—every book in his library, or,
at least, those that are not already spoiled by the time he gets round
to them; but books so covered lose their identity, like friends in
masquerade. Besides, books thus kept in paper in that damp atmosphere
will soon be covered with mould. If one adds to this that while roaches
or mould are destroying the outside of his books white ants are doing
their best to get at the inside, he will see that the obstacles incident
to literary pursuits in Africa are well-nigh insuperable.
I cannot dismiss the white ant with this passing notice, for it also is
one of the pests of Africa; indeed, there are many who regard it as the
worst of the African pests. It is characteristic of the impudent
hypocrisy of this stealthy insect that it should somehow get itself
called a _white ant_, when, as a matter of fact, it is not an ant at
all, and is not white. It is a dirty-yellow _termite_, a soft-bodied
insect, in appearance like a very small piece of impure tallow. It is
commonest in Africa, but is also found in South America, India and
Ceylon, and one species, it is said, is even found as far north as
Bordeaux.
The admirable and interesting features of the white ant (and it has
some) have nowhere been better described than in Henry Drummond’s
charming chapter in _Tropical Africa_.
The white ant lives underground in colonies of enormous numbers. It
feeds chiefly on dead wood, and its presence is the explanation of the
noticeable fact that there is very little dead wood—rotting logs or
fallen branches—in an African forest. It does not wait until dead
branches fall, but climbs the trees in search of them. But as its body
is choice food for birds and other insects, and as it is defenseless and
even blind, it protects itself whenever it comes above ground by
building an earthen tunnel over itself as it climbs. This yellowish
brown tunnel, a half tube in form, and half an inch wide, one will see
running up trees and posts everywhere in Africa. In building it they
carry the earth in grains or little pellets from below the ground
through the tunnel to the open end of it; then having covered the pellet
thoroughly with a sticky secretion they place it firmly in its proper
position and hurry away for another. The soldiers of the colony, which
are very few comparatively, are armed with formidable jaws. Two or three
of these guard the open end of the tunnel where the work is being done.
They take no part in the work of construction. But if an enemy, usually
in the form of an ant, draw near with the object of capturing a worker,
the soldier in an instant will be upon him. He may pound him to death,
or thrust him through, or using his mandibles like a pair of scissors
may cut him in two, or hurl him from the battlement as with a catapult;
these different methods representing different species. After this the
workers again proceed with the building of the tunnel. These tunnels are
for temporary use and are not nearly as substantial as the nests. They
crumble into dust after a few weeks and are blown away by the wind or
washed down by the rain.
The ant-hills and the ground below are filled with an intricate network
of tunnels. Professor Drummond tells us that in the elevated plains of
Central Africa these ant-hills are mounds ten or fifteen feet high and
thirty or forty feet in diameter, and even then the greater part of the
ant habitation is underground; and that the amount of reddish-brown
earth plastered upon the trees is sufficient to give tone to the
landscape. And this he says is the great agricultural process of the
tropics, which in temperate zones is accomplished by the earthworm
carrying the under soil to the surface, transposing the upper and the
lower layers, doing thoroughly what man does rudely with the plough. In
the lower plains of West Africa, the white ant is not so abundant, nor
the ant-hills nearly so large as those which Professor Drummond saw. Nor
is there any such need of them, for the earthworm is common enough. The
more numerous ant-hills are two or three feet high and are often shaped
like a series of bowls turned upside down one on top of another; but the
shape varies. A good way to provide for young chickens is to send a boy
to the bush to get an ant-hill, then break off several small pieces at a
time and give to the chickens. It will be full of ants, and the
happiness of the chickens will be ample reward: there is nothing that
they like better.
And that reminds me that Schweinfurth, in _The Heart of Africa_, relates
that he himself ate white ants in unlimited quantities. He says they are
especially good with corn. And then he recommends them as best when they
are “partly boiled and partly fried.” I never tried them that way.
The most painstaking study and the most elaborate description of the
white ant that has ever been made is probably that of Karl Escherich,
whose book, _Termitenleben auf Ceylon_, has recently been published.
Escherich spent three months in Ceylon studying the white ant. He
describes thirty-five species of termite existing in Ceylon.
In the nest (the _termetarium_) of many of the species of white ants
there are tunnels and chambers devoted to the growing of a certain
fungus—real fungus gardens. Sometimes two different species of termite
inhabit the same nest, or termites and ants. They live in different
galleries which intermingle but never open into each other. If by the
breaking of a wall they should come together fierce battles ensue.
Sometimes other insects, certain beetles, for instance, live with the
termites as guests, to whom they even feed the larvæ. Their presence is
probably a protection against their enemies; and they seem to have many.
An army of marauding ants will sometimes invade the nest and seek to
carry off the occupants.
There are several distinct castes in the social organization of the
termites; the queen, the males, the soldiers, the workers and the larvæ.
The queen is enormous in size as compared with the workers; sometimes
three inches long. And exalted to the throne she never moves again, but
confines her activities to the laying of eggs, which she deposits at the
rate of several thousand a day. But more remarkable than either her size
or her ugliness is the fact (stated by Escherich) that she sweats out to
the surface of her body a substance which is eagerly devoured by the
workers. It is this “exudate” which binds them to her and for which they
feed and cherish her. The workers are continually licking her and
Escherich declares that he saw one worker tear out a piece of the
mother’s hide and eagerly drink the liquid which flowed from the wound.
And as her body was scarred in many places it would seem that this was
not uncommon.
A certain “ant-exterminator” has been used successfully in destroying
the white ant. It consists of a charcoal stove on one side of which is a
hand-pump and on the other a hose. A powder of eighty-five parts of
arsenic and fifteen parts of sulphur is thrown upon the glowing charcoal
and by means of the pump and the hose the fumes are forced into the
nest. Then the entrance is plugged and the nest is left thus for several
days.
But perhaps somebody is asking why an insect so wonderful and
interesting should be destroyed at all. And that reminds me that I
classified the white ant as a pest—and one of the worst pests in Africa.
When the white ant devours an object, a dead branch, for instance, it
works inside, consumes the whole interior and leaves the thinnest shell
of an exterior, an empty shape, which yields at a touch and falls into
dust or nothing. And unless one watches very closely, or provides some
special protection, it will do this same thing with his house or the
furniture in it, or the wooden posts under it. White men’s houses are
built upon posts and elevated several feet from the ground. A post
beneath the house, though of the hardest wood, and appearing to the eye
to be quite sound, may in fact be a hollow cylinder which will collapse
at a kick. Iron pillars are now generally used instead of wood, iron
being about the only substance which the white ant cannot eat. But one
must watch the iron pillars closely for the earthen tunnel leading from
the ground to the wooden beams above; for once they get into a house
they can never be gotten out. A board in the floor will collapse, or a
trunk, of which they have left only a shell. They are very fond of
paper; so one must especially watch his library, or some day he will
take down his favourite poet only to find that there is nothing of it
but cover and the edges of the leaves. I know this very thing to have
happened.
I contracted a special prejudice against them when they came out of the
floor into my barrel of sermons—and I remembered the particular quality
of food they are supposed to relish. I was not using those sermons in
Africa and it is not likely I should ever have used them again anywhere;
neither am I the victim of any delusion in regard to the loss that the
world sustained in their destruction. The loss was mine alone, and was
chiefly sentimental. But a minister usually has a unique regard for his
sermons, a regard proportioned to the extent that they represent the
sweat of the brain and the heart. In this instance the destruction was
only partial; for by a mere accident I discovered them before they had
entirely chewed and digested all my sermons.
These are a few of the most troublesome insect pests, and there are
others.
There is the big flying beetle, purblind and stupid, that comes in the
evening and looks the size of a bat; that circles around the table
several times, with a noisy boom, tumbles at length into the gravy and
then flops into your face. There is the hippo fly, like an enormous
horsefly, that thrusts a stiletto into one through his clothing. In the
upper part of the Gaboon River, where navigation with a launch was
dangerous and I stood constantly by the engine, I had a boy, sometimes
two boys, standing beside me with fly-brushes to keep them off.
There are caterpillars the very touch of whose hair is poisonous and
produces an irritation of the skin. There are wasps that daub nests of
mud on frames and furniture and even on clothing if it is left hanging
for a while without being disturbed. In many parts there are myriads of
may-flies that swarm about sunset, that is, about dinnertime. Sir Harry
Johnston complains that these may-flies give soup an aromatic flavour.
There is the boring beetle that burrows into the rafters, reducing them
to dust. There is the _walking-stick_, a slender dead twig, six or eight
inches long, with lateral stems, which you sometimes find hanging to
your curtains or mosquito-net, and which, when you take it in your
fingers to throw it out, suddenly spreads aborted wings, nearly
transparent and of purple hue, and flies around you, a creature of only
one magnitude—length without breadth; a conglomeration of dark lines
plunging through the air. Then, startled out of your wits, you think you
have seen the devil for sure.
I have not touched upon the numerous internal parasites that prey upon
humanity. Only a scientific expert ought to risk telling extensively of
these incredibilities. Among them is the _eye-worm_, one of the
_Filaria_, which in spite of its euphonious name is an abomination. It
is a white, thread-like worm, an inch long, that goes all through the
body beneath the epidermis. It becomes visible only in the white of the
eye, and while there a doctor can remove it. But it must be done, not
only with extreme care, but promptly, for it does not stay long in one
place. It is extremely irritating in the eye, but in other parts of the
body, although it causes distressful itching, it is not so irritating as
one would expect. It sometimes causes swelling, especially in the back
of the hand. Every few days my forearm or my hand was swollen from the
presence of this worm. I have seen a ridge across the nose where a
colony was passing. I have been told that the eye-worm and the worm that
circulates beneath the epidermis are not identical. I am not sure about
it; but I hope there are not two of them.
The guinea worm belongs to the same family, with the beautiful name, the
_Filaria_. The larva enters the human body in drinking-water and makes
its way to the subcutaneous tissue of its host’s leg, where it often
causes serious abscesses. It grows rapidly, curling round and round and
raising the skin. It often reaches a length of ten feet and sometimes
more.
All African houses are infested with rats and mice. The white man has
introduced the cat. But there are still very few and they are so highly
valued that among the Fang in late years a cat has been made a part of
the dowry which a man pays for his wife. It was several months after our
first house was built at Efulen before we were able to procure a cat
from the coast. In that time the rats had full possession of the house
and merely tolerated us. They gambolled all night over the beds in which
we were sleeping, and over ourselves, sometimes even getting under the
cover. I had always abhorred them, and I was led to use a mosquito-net,
not for mosquitoes, but to keep the rats out. I never got so used to
them but that I sprang out of bed whenever they got into it. Finding
that the mosquito-net did not altogether suffice, I hit upon the happy
expedient of keeping a lamp lighted in my room all night. This was
effective to some extent, but only by driving them into the rooms
occupied by my fellow missionaries, Dr. Good and Mr. Kerr, whose
abhorrence of them, however, was not equal to mine. They wondered why I
kept the lamp burning, but I did not tell them; for if we all had lamps
the rats would have no choice of room, and surely a man has some right
to profit by his own discovery. I desisted from this practice as soon as
Dr. Good solved my purpose, which he did one night after he had gone to
bed, and instantly announced it with a shout.
But at last a new missionary arrived in the shape of a gray cat, and we
welcomed her with a lavish entertainment of sport and feast, delicately
adapted to the instinct and the palate of her feline ladyship. All that
night there was wild riot in the pantry where we had put her. In the
morning that cat was the shape of a beer-barrel; and, besides, there lay
on the pantry floor nine dead rats.
When I slept in native houses I always wore socks at night. The natives
declare that the rats attack them during sleep, especially their feet.
And they say that the rat blows upon the wound that it makes so that the
sleeper will not feel it. From this belief there is a current proverb
which they apply to a flatterer, or to one who, while using smooth
words, would inflict an injury: “He blows upon the wound that he makes.”
The natives are perhaps more afraid of snakes than anything else, and
with good reason. Africa is the home of deadly snakes. Most of them are
nocturnal, and as the white man stays within doors at night, he may be
in Africa many months before he realizes how abundant they are. Whenever
it was necessary to go out at night, I always carried a long staff which
I pushed along the path ahead of me.
One of our schoolboys at Gaboon, one night about eight o’clock, was
walking down towards the beach in the middle of a wide road, when he
stepped on a small snake. It bit him, and in about half an hour he died
in great agony. At Batanga a woman one night, stepping out of her door,
placed her foot on a snake that was coiled upon the door-step. She was
bitten and died immediately. Sometimes they get into the thatch roofs of
the houses, and between the bamboo walls; but this rarely happens in the
better houses in which the white man lives. One of our missionary ladies
at Benito, while she was sick in bed with fever, found a snake coiled
under her pillow.
The natives upon being bitten by a snake immediately cauterize the wound
with a red-hot iron; or, when that is not procurable, they will cut out
a piece of the flesh around it, often cutting off a finger or a toe to
save a life. They seem to have the idea that all snakes are deadly, and
if one ask, in regard to a particular snake, whether it is poisonous,
the certain response will be an exclamation of astonishment at his
ignorance. They solemnly declare in regard to many varieties that they
will spring at a man and go straight through his body. This is a strange
delusion, considering their usual accuracy of observation and knowledge
in regard to animals. It is probably accounted for by the superstitions
that attach to snakes. In many African tribes the snake is sacred. In
those tribes they are frequently used by the priests as an ordeal in
discovering criminals. The people are ranged about the priest, who is a
snake-charmer. He passes around bringing the snake into contact with
each person. The person whom it bites is adjudged guilty.
The characteristic snakes, especially the deadly vipers which abound,
are of bright and variegated colours, green, red, yellow and black. Some
call them beautiful, but in most of us the association of ideas makes it
impossible for us to see any beauty in a snake. Their colours are the
very colours of nature around them; and therefore, instead of making
them conspicuous, are really an approximation to invisibility—though I
believe that the protective colouration of animals, as a principle, has
been exaggerated.
A recent traveller says that in crossing the entire continent of Africa
he saw only two snakes, and he adds that since he succeeded in killing
both of them there are now no snakes in Africa, so far as he knows. I am
reminded of a vivid experience when an American friend, Mr. Northam,
stayed some months in Gaboon and collected biological specimens. Mr.
Northam asked me whether there were many snakes around Gaboon. I told
him that there were very few. At his suggestion I told my schoolboys
that he wished to collect snakes and would give them something for all
the valuable snakes they would bring to him. The immediate result was
enough to make a man think that he had been suddenly precipitated into a
state of delirium tremens. I had not supposed that there were so many
snakes in all Africa. A continual procession of boys passed my door,
each with some horrible kind of snake dangling from a stick, or dragging
along the ground. And I had said there were but few snakes in Gaboon!
The explanation is that I kept to the paths while abroad, and snakes are
seldom found in the paths in the daytime; for they are mostly nocturnal
in their habits, and I was not. But the boys know where to find them at
any time.
After all, life in Africa is quite tolerable. As I think back over this
formidable array of pests, I am somewhat surprised that I was not more
conscious of them while in Africa, and that I had leisure to do anything
else but fight them. The explanation is that, although one is fighting
some of them all the time, one is never fighting them all at the same
time.
VII
THE “CANNIBAL” FANG
“The Mpongwe have plenty of salt in them,” said one of my boat-boys. He
was a Fang, and he was speaking of the coast tribe.
“The Mpongwe have plenty of salt,” he repeated. I drew out my note-book
and credited the boy with a very interesting and expressive designation
of a moral quality. Such an improvement on our word _sand_! It was not
less interesting, however, when I found that he meant it not morally,
but literally—that he was speaking not metaphorically, but
gastronomically. As a matter of fact, not one of these boat-boys had
ever tasted human flesh, and they would have been insulted at the
imputation of cannibalism; but it is not long since their fathers
emerged from cannibalism, and tradition still distinguishes the flesh of
the various surrounding tribes, ascribing a preferable flavour to this
or that tribe. It is generally understood that the coast tribes are
better flavoured than those of the interior.
The Fang are nearly always referred to as the _cannibal_ Fang; and the
casual reader might suppose that they were the worst cannibals in
Africa. But the cannibalism of the Fang does not compare, either in
extent or hideousness, with that of the Congo tribes, as we shall see.
[Illustration:
A FANG FAMILY.
]
The Fang is one of the largest and most important of the West African
tribes. For many years they have been moving from the far interior
towards the coast, burning, killing and even eating their way through
the older coast tribes. They have now emerged at many points along the
coast, of which Gaboon was probably the first. The tributaries of the
Gaboon form a network of waterways, which are also the highways. There
are but few bush roads in this part of the jungle and they are of the
worst kind; in the wet season mud to the knees alternating with water to
the waist, and deeper. Along the rivers and streams the Fang have built
their towns. The population of a town varies from fifty to two hundred.
Most of my work was done among the Fang. From Baraka I reached their
towns by boat and canoe, in later years by the launch _Dorothy_.
The Fang are brown, not black in colour, and are several shades lighter
than the coast tribes. Their colour is quite to their liking. They
regard themselves as far better looking than white people. The men are
usually tall, athletic and remarkably well formed, though not as full in
the chest as a perfect physique would require. Most of the younger men
are fairly good looking. Many of the younger women have pretty faces,
but they are not nearly as intelligent looking as the men. Many of the
children are beautiful, with sweet faces and lovely eyes.
“They think they are better looking than white people.” And why not? I
myself do not so regard them; but I may be wrong. Questions of beauty
are decided by reference to some standard in the mind; but whether the
standard depends upon custom, and varies with it, is a matter of doubt
and dispute. My own judgment, like that of others, was modified as I
lived among the black people. Sir Joshua Reynolds advanced the notion,
according to Hazlitt, that beauty was entirely dependent on custom. I
feel, with Hazlitt himself, that custom, though powerful, is not the
only principle of our preference for the appearance of certain objects
more than others; that what constitutes beauty is in some way inherent
in the object, and that “if custom is a second nature there is another
nature which ranks above it.” Hazlitt in his argument contrasts the
Greek and the African face, doing injustice, I believe, to the latter.
Yet in general one must admit that Hazlitt is right. In the Greek face
he finds a conformity to itself, a symmetry of feature with feature and
a subtle, involuted harmony of lines, which he says is wholly wanting in
the African face. The Greek face is beautiful, “because it is made up of
lines corresponding with or melting into each other;” the African face
is not so, “because it is made up almost entirely of contradictory lines
and sharp angular projections.”
“The general principle of difference between the two heads is this: The
forehead of the Greek is square and upright, and, as it were, overhangs
the rest of the face, except the nose, which is a continuation of it
almost in an even line. In the Negro, or African, the tip of the nose is
the most projected part of the face; and from that point the features
retreat back, both upwards towards the forehead, and downwards towards
the chin. This last form is an approximation to the shape of the head of
the animal, as the former bears the strongest stamp of humanity.”
The African physiognomy, he further observes, is made up of jagged,
cross-grained lines, starting out in every oblique direction, and in
fact appears “splitting in pieces.”
But the African physiognomy is also consistent with itself; its
abruptness is uniform. There is regularity in the violence of its
changes; and may not this also constitute beauty to an accustomed eye?
It is certain that there is in such a face the possibility of an
extraordinary expression of grandeur and moral force; and these also are
aspects of beauty, as well as the intellectual and affectional elements
that constitute the expression of the Greek face. There is a beauty of
mountains as well as of meadows.
However it may be, we who have lived long among the Africans, and
without the distemper of racial prejudice, do invariably find that our
ideas, or our standards, gradually undergo such a change that the
African face appears to us in varying degrees of beauty, much as that of
the white; beauty which at first we did not see. Even the nose, which
bears a striking resemblance to the ace of clubs, at length, with
custom, ceases to appear ugly, and seems the absolutely proper nose for
the African physiognomy. And they surely have beautiful eyes.
Yet one must admit that it is not eyes, nor noses, nor even faces, but
legs, that are most in evidence in African society. I suppose it is
because we are not used to seeing those honourable and useful members
exposed that they are so conspicuous. Looking at an African crowd,
especially when seated on the ground as in a village service or
listening to a native “palaver,” with their knees elevated in front of
them, there seems to be ten times as many legs as people. Their variety
also commands attention. There are long legs and short legs, lean legs
and fat legs, straight legs and crooked legs, gnarled legs, knotted
legs, brown legs and black legs.
Probably nowhere in the world is life more primitive. How little a man
can live on! How much he can do without! An African can be happy with a
pot, a pipe and a tom-tom. I have shown some of them a wheel for the
first time, making use of a toy, and have explained its use while they
wondered. At Vivi, on the Congo, they tell that when they began to build
the railroad they unloaded a shipment of wheelbarrows and ordered the
workmen to use them in removing the débris. A little later they observed
the workmen marching in single file with the loaded wheelbarrows on
their heads. They have only the vaguest idea of passing time. They never
know their own ages, of course; neither can they understand why anybody
should want to know. A man of middle age makes a serious guess that he
is ten years old. A French judge in Senegal tells how that a man,
brought before him, gave his age as five years—when he had been weaned
at least twenty-five.
The Fang when they first come from the interior go almost entirely
naked. The men wear a bit of bark-cloth, the women a few leaves,
children to the age of nine or ten years wear nothing. But as soon as
they come in contact with coast people they all begin to wear imported
cloth. A chief soon attains the dignity of a shirt. If they have little
use for clothes they are passionately fond of ornamentation. When they
first come from the interior they are fairly loaded with beads and
brass, the latter made into heavy arm-rings, leg-rings, neck-rings and
coiled bracelets which cover the entire forearm. At first they regard
clothes also as ornamentation and they think that white people, in
comparison with them, are exceedingly vain.
I was holding a service in a Bulu town when a woman entered and
immediately engaged the attention of the feminine portion of the
audience. On the preceding day she had visited the mission and I had
dressed and bandaged an ulcer on her leg. The white bandage had caught
her fancy and she removed it that she might keep it clean; and now she
came to the service with it round her neck. The women looked at her,
drew a long loud breath and nudged their neighbours. It was very plain
that in their opinion she was much overdressed. And, strange to say, she
impressed me in that same way. At least, compared with the others, she
looked as if she might be dressed for a sleigh-ride.
The staple food of the Fang is cassava—that which Stanley calls
_manioc_—which is the root of a shrub, a little like our elder in
appearance, from which our tapioca is prepared. They use it however in a
much coarser form than tapioca. The root is left macerating in water for
several days which has the effect of removing certain poisonous
principles. Then it is placed in a wooden trough and beaten into a mass
with a wooden pestle. After this it is made into straight slender rolls
a foot long, wrapped in plantain leaves, bound around with fibre and
boiled. It tastes a little like boiled tapioca. But whereas we are
accustomed to eat the tasteless tapioca with cream and sugar, the native
has neither of these and thinks himself very fortunate if he has a
little salt to season it. Sometimes in travelling I have used it for
several days; but I have improved it by frying it in butter. The cassava
when properly prepared is evidently wholesome; but one may frequently
see it soaking in a dirty, stagnant pool, the same pool that the whole
town has used, for that and other purposes, week after week and month
after month. No one can imagine the variety of germs that it may soak up
during the several days that it lies in such a pool. The native is
chronically full of worms. He knows it and attributes most pain to their
presence. In declaring that he has a headache he places his hand on his
forehead and says: “Worms are biting me.” A little kind teaching in the
better preparation of their food would be good missionary employment.
Besides cassava, they have plantains, bananas, sweet potatoes, corn,
groundnuts and a few other foods that are less common. None of these
food products are indigenous. Most of them, including even cassava, it
is said, were introduced by the Portuguese, at intervals within the last
three hundred years. Meat is not regarded as a necessity, although there
is a chronic hunger for it, to which some have attributed their practice
of cannibalism. In most towns there are a few goats and sheep and
chickens; but they are reserved for feasts and festive occasions. They
hunt and trap all the wild animals of the forest and are not averse to
eating any of them, including snakes, even in an advanced stage of
decomposition. On the lower Gaboon they have abundance of fish, which
they catch with various baskets, nets, and seines. There are certain
insects, grubs and caterpillars which they also eat. One day a boy
reported to me that the natives of a near-by town had found a bee-tree,
and they wished to know whether I would buy the honey. Buy it? I should
think so! I could scarcely wait for it. They brought it at length; but
instead of smoking the bees _out_, they had smoked them _in_; they
offered me a great mass of honey and grubs and dead bees.
They do not eat eggs; neither do they ever drink milk or use it in any
form and our use of it is somewhat disgusting to them. A friend once
offered milk to a Kru-boy just to try him, and he replied
contemptuously: “Milk be fit only for piccaninny; I no be piccaninny.”
They have seen white men milk the goat, which always requires a number
of natives to hold the animal. And once when Mr. Gault of Batanga was
explaining to a group of natives about the cow, which gives the milk
that we import in tins, describing her size and her great horns, one of
the natives suddenly turning to the others exclaimed: “Say, he is lying.
How could they hold her?” Since that time most of them have seen cattle.
The Fang wife prepares the food for her husband and sets it in the
_palaver-house_, or public-house of the town, where he eats with the
other men. She does not eat with them. There is no regular time in the
day for eating; and when they have begun to eat there is no regular time
for stopping. The quantity of food is the only limit. On a journey they
can go without food a very long time, far surpassing the endurance of
the white man. And they are often compelled to travel with empty
stomachs from their habit of eating all their food the first day. But
afterwards they will make up for this abstinence, however prolonged.
Indeed, it is by their gluttony, rather than in other ways, that they
first exhibit their degradation to the white man. I have said that the
children were usually pretty; but sometimes they are dreadfully
misshapen by a distended stomach. The last mail brought me a charming
picture of a little three-year-old missionary boy of Gaboon, prodding
the stomach of a native child with his finger, and with eyes of wonder,
asking: “Is dat your tummy?”
One of their first efforts, after coming in contact with the white man,
is an attempt to acquire the noble art of eating with a spoon. But in
the first practice of it if they forget themselves for a moment they are
very likely to put the hand to the mouth in the old way and drive the
spoon round to the ear. Considering their ignorance they are
surprisingly cleanly in their persons and their habits. After eating
they invariably rinse their mouths with water and they regularly brush
their teeth. For the latter purpose they commonly use a brush of soft
wood with transverse ridges. They are very particular about this. Often
a carrier in the bush will carry his brush along with him. Sometimes it
is the sum-total of his personal effects. Everybody knows that the
African has beautiful teeth. But in some tribes, and even among the Fang
of the far interior, they often file the front teeth to a point,
thinking to add to their beauty, but in fact adding greatly to their
ugliness.
I have said that the Fang are cannibals. But this loathsome custom is
not as common among them as travellers have generally reported. I doubt
whether the Fang eat any but their enemies—captives taken in war. And
their chronic meat-hunger is not the only reason for eating their
enemies. It is done as an insult to the enemy, the most deadly insult
that can be offered, and means that the war will be fought to a finish,
or at least until the other side has eaten one of the enemy. But the
practice of cannibalism in war is intimately related to fetishism. It is
believed that after eating one of the enemy, the latter can do them no
harm. Their bullets will glance harmlessly off their bodies, or will
even go through them without hurting, if indeed they hit them at all.
Cannibalism affords them the strongest possible fetish protection.
The cannibalism of the Upper Congo tribes is much worse than this and is
almost indescribable. Some of them eat their own dead. Sir Harry
Johnston tells us that the Basoko tribe bury none but their chiefs.
Others, who would not eat their own dead, exchange them for the dead of
a neighbouring clan.
This vicious taste often becomes a mania with the African, an obsession,
like the ungovernable appetite for rum, until he thinks of man chiefly
as food to satisfy this craving. Among such tribes raids are made on
their neighbours for the express purpose of cannibalism. Sir Harry
Johnston speaks of the son of a celebrated chief who once exclaimed:
“Ah! I wish I could eat everybody on earth!” and also of a Bangala chief
who ate his seven wives in succession, inviting his friends and close
associates to the feast. It is more than possible that these lowest
forms of cannibalism are due to the demoralization incident to the
slave-raids of the Arabs. The Arabs were succeeded by the Belgians; but
some of those who are best qualified to judge think that the régime of
the Belgians has been worse than that of the Arabs.
Among tribes to whom such forms of cannibalism would be revolting, there
are probably individual inhuman ghouls, who exhume the bodies of the
dead in the night and eat them. And it may be from this fact that
witches are always accused of eating people.
If it be true, then, throughout the entire Fang tribe, that they eat
only their enemies it will be seen that their cannibalism is very
different in extent and even in loathsomeness from that of some other
tribes. It is a fact, however, that the cannibal tribes are not
necessarily lower than the others, but may be quite as gentle and
tractable and quite as capable. And from this some have argued that,
after all, our horror of cannibalism is purely conventional, due to
custom and training; and that there is no essential difference between
eating human flesh and that of the lower animals, except in imagination.
But the readiness with which whole tribes renounce the custom, become
ashamed of it, and contract the white man’s abhorrence for it, confirms
the belief that it is never legitimate and must always be regarded as a
vice. In such matters imagination may be closer to our moral natures
than we know.
A certain town on the Gaboon named _Alum_—when I left Africa I knew
personally most of the men, women and children of the town—is populated
by one of the most intractable clans of the Fang. Though peculiarly
fierce in war, they are otherwise gentle and courteous. The venerable
chief I regarded as a particular friend. He had a long beard—somewhat
rare among the Fang and highly esteemed. It was braided tightly and tied
on the end with a string as venerable as the beard itself. The braid was
not for fashion or beauty. It was intended to prevent the possible loss
of stray hairs that might fall into the hands of an enemy and be used as
a powerful fetish against him. Upon my leaving the town at the
conclusion of a visit it was in accord with custom for him to express
his personal regard for me by taking my hand in his and spitting in it.
In order to appreciate this beautiful custom one must regard it
spiritually—if he can. It is called “blowing a blessing.” The blessing
is blown with the breath and the spitting is a trivial accessory.
It was when these people first migrated from the interior bush that the
following incident occurred—which was told to me by Sonia of Gaboon who
knew all the persons concerned. A certain man’s wife having several
times eloped with a man of another town and having caused the husband
much trouble and humiliation, he at last became so enraged that instead
of seeking to procure her return he determined upon a bloody revenge.
With several companions he immediately started in a canoe for the town
where her father and mother lived, arriving before they had heard the
news of their daughter’s latest elopement. At some distance from the
town they left the canoe and entered the forest. All the others of the
party hid themselves near the path while the man himself went on to the
town and professed to have come just to make his mother-in-law a
friendly visit. Addressing her as _Mother_, he told her that he had
killed a bush-pig in the forest and that he had come to ask her to go
with him to get some of it before he should take it home. The woman,
without doubting, followed him along the path.
After a while she said: “Son, it is far and I am old.”
He told her that it was only a short distance ahead; so she went on.
Soon again she exclaimed: “Ah, son, it is very far and I am old.”
He replied that it was now very near, thus enticing her far from town.
At last he exclaimed: “Mother, here it is!”
At his word the party in ambush sprang upon her and with their swords
killed her. They then cut from her body one entire leg, which they took
to their town and ate. He had avenged his injured dignity and had
removed his shame. He had no longer any reason to feel ashamed!
He sent a brief message to the unfaithful wife: “Stay where you are; the
palaver is finished.”
I must say that this incident is not fairly representative of the
African savage. Not that it exaggerates his brutality, when he is
enraged; but there is in it an element of treachery which is oriental
rather than African. He does not usually conceal his anger, but hastens
to express it in passionate words. And when one has succeeded in
allaying his passion and soothing his feelings, and he has again smiled
and sworn friendship, one may reckon assuredly that the palaver is ended
and that the smile does not conceal malice nor intent of revenge. He is
passionate but not vindictive, cruel but not treacherous.
A few years have made such changes that the Fang of the Gaboon, instead
of boasting of cannibalism, would indignantly deny it. In the interior
they still practice it as an insult to the enemy. But on the Gaboon they
insult the enemy by charging it against them.
“The African,” says Booker T. Washington, “lives like a child, in the
realm of emotion and feeling.” And a white man among Africans lives much
in that same realm. His experience is largely a succession of
contrasting emotions. Sick with disgust and hopelessness, when brought
into contact with such loathsome features of degradation as we have been
considering, he consigns the whole black race to perdition, and anon
some pathetic circumstance reveals a wealth of moral possibilities,
which touches the heart and makes him ashamed; some unconscious action
of real friendship and confidence in the white man, it may be; some
expression of the profound affection on the part of a savage towards his
mother and children; or some rude work of art which he displays with
pride, something upon which he has expended astonishing labour for
beauty’s sake alone—crude enough, to be sure, but giving “thoughts that
do often lie too deep for tears.” He has a shapely stool which he cuts
out of a solid block of light mahogany, with only one tool, a rude adz
of his own making. He has absolutely no knowledge of joinery, so he cuts
it out of the solid block, expending upon it an amount of patient labour
of which he is usually considered incapable. He also pyrographs it with
artistic decorations. Why all this labour when the solid block itself is
quite as serviceable, and far more stable? He has an inward sense of
beauty to which he must make it conform, an ideal which commands him and
which he strives to execute. The brass handle of his sword he decorates
by ingenious and not unskillful repoussé designs. The mats that the
women weave are decorated with patterns in colours, requiring care and
skill in their making.
The curiosity of those who have not seen a white man before, or are not
used to seeing him, is unbounded and at first attaches to everything
that he possesses. Magic is their easy explanation of everything they do
not understand. A match (until they become accustomed to it) will
scatter a crowd as quickly as a Gatling gun. It is the supernatural of
which they are most afraid; as with us, those who believe in ghosts are
more afraid of them than the worst of living enemies.
Nothing of ours is more wonderful or more desired than the
looking-glass. Yet they are not always conceited in regard to their
appearance. One poor interior woman, seeing her face in the
looking-glass for the first time, sank to the ground with a little cry,
and said: “I did not think I was so ugly.”
Their wonder is not always directed as we would expect. It is not the
greatest achievement that excites the greatest wonder. One day, after my
return to America, in company with a friend I was passing one of the
greatest buildings of Chicago, when the friend said: “What would your
Africans think of such a building?”
“My Africans,” I replied (pointing to a man on the corner with a tin
monkey climbing a string), “would be so entirely occupied with that tin
monkey climbing a string that you could not get them to look at the
building.”
In the invention of the monkey they would have some comprehension of the
difficulties to be overcome, while not knowing how it had been
accomplished; hence the mystery. But in the case of the great building
they have no present knowledge which would enable them in any measure to
realize the difficulties, or the principles involved. The African
wonders most at those things which bear some relation to his present
knowledge. For wonder is not exactly an expression of ignorance, as it
has been called, but rather an expression of imperfect knowledge.
All things in our possession of which they did not know the use were
regarded as fetishes. I wore glasses when studying. One day at Efulen I
came out of the house with the glasses on. A group of women were
standing in front of the house; and several of them, seeing me look at
them through the glasses, fell flat on the ground; whereupon I
discovered that they supposed my glasses were a fetish by which I might
(as one of them said) turn them into monkeys. They supposed that we were
“spirits,” and so they called us. Looking at my black shoes one of them
exclaimed: “The spirit’s hands and face are white, but his feet are
black, and I suppose the rest of his body is black.”
Another said: “The spirit has feet, but he has no toes.”
Another said: “What an ugly colour! But he would be a beauty if he were
black.”
Dear reader: Were you ever an object of curiosity? Of course you have
been on some single occasion—for a passing moment, or even a whole
evening. But I mean day after day, and all the time, for an indefinite
period. If so, you have my profound sympathy.
VIII
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS
The Fang is a resourceful man, though he has no genius for mechanical
invention. He wrests from nature all that he needs and does not depend
upon his neighbour.
He lives in a house of bark or bamboo with a roof of thatch, for which
he gathers the materials, and builds it all himself. In his primitive
condition his only clothing is bark-cloth which he skillfully hammers
out of fibrous bark. With the fibre of the pineapple, he weaves a
powder-pouch, or other similar convenience. He makes himself an
excellent canoe and is scarcely surpassed as an expert in its
management. He is also a fisherman; and he knits his own fish-net. For
the latter he now uses imported string; but without the imported string
he could use some vegetable fibre. If he wishes to improve his primitive
bed of poles he makes a grass mat. An old woman one day taught me the
art of mat-making. I sat beside her at the loom, in the street, and
worked under her supervision until she declared me quite proficient—so
much so, she said with some anxiety, that there was no need of my doing
any more. The African’s knowledge, too, however meagre, is as varied as
his skill. As he becomes civilized he will specialize. There will be
division of labour in the community and mutual dependence upon one
another. No doubt he will gain much; but he will also lose something, he
will lose in resourcefulness; he will lose something of freedom and the
spirit of independence. And unless he gain much in that which is moral
and spiritual, his loss will be a misfortune wholly grievous.
I venture the statement that the African is not lazy—at least not _very_
lazy. He is idle not so much because he hates work, but rather because
he is unambitious and the unfortunate victim of a habit of content. He
will not work for the sake of working, because, unlike the white man, he
can be supremely content in idleness. But offer him something that he
really desires or deems worth while and he will work amazingly. There
are only one or two things that the African will work for; that is to
say there are only one or two things that he wants.
He will work to earn a dowry in order to marry; especially if he has in
mind some particular woman as the prospective wife. Month after month he
will labour and even for a year or two he will engage in the hardest
work. But just as the white master is about to reverse his opinion of
the whole black race and proclaim that they are the greatest workers in
the world the man completes the amount of the dowry, and immediately he
quits. No inducement will tempt him to continue. To offer him double
wages would only lower his estimate of your intelligence. He will work
for an end that he desires; but the ordinary motives of the white man do
not appeal to him at all. He will never work for the mere sake of
accumulating wealth.
The men do all the building, and when a new garden is made the men cut
down the trees. Their hardest work is incident to war or hunting, but it
is occasional, and most of their time is spent in absolute idleness. The
regular work is done by the women. It is chiefly that of caring for the
gardens (which are sometimes far from the town), carrying home the
produce, gathering wood and carrying it from the forest, and cooking the
food. They rise at daylight and start for the gardens, leaving the care
of the babies to older children or to their husbands. I have seen the
husband of six wives taking care of several hungry babies whose mothers
have been long in the gardens; and it seemed to me that he, rather than
the wives, had the heavier end of the domestic responsibilities.
There is one other instinct besides that of matrimony that will stir the
dormant energy of the native, and that is the love of driving a bargain.
He is a born trader. But if prices, however high, should become
hopelessly fixed, and shrewdness have no advantage, I am not sure that
he would care any more for the trade.
Wherever a foreign government has not interfered with African custom the
produce of the interior, chiefly rubber and ivory, is carried from the
far interior, in brief stages, by successive caravans. The original
owners of the ivory start coastward in a company. Beyond a certain limit
they cannot go, as the people will not allow them to pass. They must
give over the ivory to others who will carry it over the next stage and
in turn deliver it to others. There may be five or six stages in the
journey to the coast. The first company when they deliver the produce to
the next do not return home but remain in the town of the second company
until their return, often assuming their marital relations in their
absence. The second company does the same in regard to the third, and
the others likewise. Since the goods received in payment must come from
the coast, no bargain is made until the return journey. The last company
carries the ivory to the coast and obtains goods in payment, returning
to their town, where the preceding company is waiting. Then follows a
great palaver and oceans of oratory. The company in possession seek to
keep as large a portion as possible of the goods and to give as little
as possible to the interior people. The palaver at last being settled,
this company starts for home and again, after an exciting palaver,
divides the goods with the next company, whom they find still waiting
for them. This is repeated with each successive stage until at last the
original owners, after weeks of waiting, get a small remainder of the
goods, or at least a souvenir, for their ivory. The principal
satisfaction is perhaps not the actual amount of the goods, but the big
palaver, and the driving of a shrewd bargain.
With the establishment of the European government this trade method is
sooner or later reversed. The white trader sends native sub-traders into
the interior to buy produce as directly as possible from the original
owners. This cuts off the people of the intermediate stages from what
they regard as their exclusive right of participation as middlemen. The
dissatisfaction usually grows until it ends in war. Germany in her
various colonies is frequently engaged in this one-sided war; and she
wages it ruthlessly.
Meantime the Fang of the lower Gaboon and some other tribes similarly
situated have found far better employment. The Fang raise food—cassava
and plantains—for the market at Libreville. For there are usually about
seventy-five white men in Gaboon, all of whom eat plantains; and there
are throngs of natives, servants of the white men, and others employed
by the government. Besides, the Mpongwe women, except the Christians,
are mostly unwilling to care for gardens and they must buy food for
themselves and their families. The Fang therefore can easily sell all
the food they can raise. In the morning looking from the mission-house
one may see the bay covered with white sails like a flock of
sea-gulls—the sails of the Fang canoes bringing food to the market. This
is surely the best fortune that can fall to any people in West Africa.
While it still gives opportunity for their trade instinct, it turns them
to agriculture, the most wholesome of all occupations for such a people.
It keeps them at home, provides healthful work, extends opportunity to
all and distributes prosperity.
[Illustration:
FANG TRADERS WITH IVORY.
]
The white man in setting out for Africa divests himself of every
superfluous possession and provides only for the bare necessities of
life. If he is bound for the interior he must feel that he has
consecrated himself to poverty. It is strange, therefore, and surprising
to find the natives regarding his meagre stock of goods as fabulous
wealth and himself as a sort of multi-millionaire. But it is stranger
still that he himself should gradually accept their judgment and regard
himself as rich. For the sense of wealth depends upon having more than
one’s neighbours; and there is no feeling of privation in not being able
to procure those things that nobody else has. The white man’s privations
may be many, but they are inevitable; he has all that is procurable in
his situation, and far more than those around him. He therefore has a
comfortable feeling of wealth, the more pleasant because unexpected.
But this attitude of the natives towards the white man, especially in
new tribes, forebodes trouble. There is not much danger of robbery or
violence, but there is danger to his moral influence. A kind of
communism obtains among them. A man having our “abundance” would divide
with the men of his town, all of whom are related to him. If a man
hunting in the forest should kill a monkey or a python he will bring it
to his town before he cuts it up and it will be divided equally. For
this reason it is very hard to buy any game from them; no one person has
authority to sell it. Even at the coast and in the old semi-civilized
settlements, when a native, after being employed by a white man, returns
to his town with his wages he will be expected to assist everybody in
the town who happens to want anything and has not the price—and there
are always some of them who want to get married and have not succeeded
in raising the dowry. So the wages of a hard year’s work are dissipated
in less than a month. It is hard, but it is custom. It cannot be denied
that the custom fosters an easy-going content and precludes the
unhappiness and cruelty of worldly ambition. But, with ambition, energy
also and industry are discouraged and a premium is put upon laziness.
The tyranny of custom in Africa and other uncivilized lands is not easy
for those to realize who have not witnessed it. It is “the only
infallible rule of faith and practice.”
The people of the interior, when the white man first goes among them,
invariably expect him to divide his goods with them just as soon as they
understand that he professes to be their friend. Such a profession seems
hypocrisy while he keeps his goods. They can yield intellectual assent
when he reasons that the white man has a right to his own customs; but
in the consideration of a particular custom it still remains that theirs
is right and his is wrong; and when they actually see the goods, greed
masters reason and they are often enraged.
All worldly prosperity in Africa depends upon the possession of proper
fetishes. They are therefore quick to conclude that we have very
powerful fetishes; and it is inevitable that before long they should
conclude that the Bible is the missionary’s fetish. At Efulen, among the
Bulu, when we had been there but a short time, a band of men, setting
out upon the war-path with their guns upon their shoulders, marched up
to our hill and asked if we would give them a Bible to take with them to
make their guns shoot straight and procure their success. One day Dr.
Good missed a Bible. It had been stolen. He heard nothing of it for a
month; after which he was one day walking through a native village where
the people, expecting to go to war next day, were preparing a very
powerful fetish or “war-medicine” by boiling together in a pot several
of their most reliable fetishes; and in the boiling pot he found his
Bible.
Perhaps it is the frequency of war between towns that keeps the people
within a town, or in a company, generally at peace among themselves. It
is surprising how one can trust workmen or carriers or schoolboys to
divide their food without quarrelling. In this respect they far surpass
white workmen, or white schoolboys. Where we would expect a quarrel no
quarrel occurs.
And then again, just when one has declared that “Africans never
quarrel,” a scandalous quarrel breaks out over some infinitesimal
matter. Individuals, especially women, often have a reputation for
quarrelling. Some towns are notorious. I once visited such a town, where
no white man had been before. I found the stormiest people I ever met in
the jungles. During the two days that I remained in the town there
occurred an almost continuous succession of palavers, each of which
seemed to involve the whole population of the town—men, women and
children. Long after they went into their houses for the night some of
them continued yelling their anger loud enough to be heard by all whom
it concerned. The occasion of a general quarrel the day that I arrived
was this: A certain man’s hen had laid an egg in another man’s house,
and the latter man had kept the egg. The town was rent in twain over the
ownership of that egg. Forcible arguments were presented on either side
but without avail. Before it was settled something else had happened
that required a vigorous exercise of lungs for its adjustment, and the
egg palaver was laid on the table. There was not a spare moment in which
to resume it before I left, and it may be undecided to this day. Even
while I was preaching, a woman in the congregation, sitting immediately
in front of me, continued the palaver, occasionally yelling unladylike
remarks to some other woman whom she evidently supposed to be at the end
of the universe. In all such quarrels there is much of bluff and
bluster, but not so much anger as one might suppose. Such a quarrel, if
anything should appeal to their keen sense of the ridiculous during its
progress, might break up in a laugh.
When two Fang women engage in a prolonged quarrel—usually sitting
immediately within the door of their respective houses and cursing each
other in shrill tones, heard all over the town—the people sometimes
become impatient and demand that they shall come out into the street and
fight. I have witnessed such a fight. They prepare for it by throwing
off even the shred of clothing that they wear. They fight more like men
than women—if it be true that women usually scratch and pull each
other’s hair when they fight. When one of them is repeatedly thrown to
the ground she confesses defeat. At least it may be said to their credit
that this usually ends the matter; and the next day they may be as
friendly as ever.
The marriage relation, of course, dominates all customs and is the
foundation of the whole social structure. With the Africans love is not
so closely linked with sex as among most modern races. Friendship is
deemed nobler than romantic love. This of course is due to the
inequality of the sexes; woman is not regarded as fit for companionship
with men. A wife is expected to love her own people more than her
husband. A man loves his brothers and his friends at least as much as
his wife; his children he loves far more, and his mother he loves most
of all. Indeed, his love of his mother is the deepest emotion of his
heart and his best moral quality. The African young and old thinks he
has fully justified the most violent assault upon another when he says:
“He cursed my mother.” Any uncomplimentary reflection more or less
serious is a “curse.”
A wife is bought with a price and is part of a man’s wealth. A man’s
wealth is always reckoned by the number of his wives. The chief of the
town is the man who has the most wives. But most men have only one wife
and some have none, because they cannot procure a dowry. The size of the
dowry differs in different tribes. Among the Fang it is enormous,
considering their very primitive condition. The following dowry was paid
by a Fang near the coast: ten goats, five sheep, five guns, twenty
trade-boxes (plain wooden chests of imported material), one hundred
heads of tobacco, ten hats, ten looking-glasses, five blankets, five
pairs of trousers, two dozen plates, fifty dollars’ worth of calico,
fifty dollars’ worth of rum, one chair (with one leg missing) and one
cat.
In addition to such a dowry a man is required to make frequent presents
to his wife’s relations, who may be expected to arrive at any time, and
in any number, for an indefinite visit. If he should fail in this they
will induce his wife to run away and return to her town, and it will
cost him many presents and perhaps a war to get her back again.
A dowry is often kept intact so as to do service repeatedly. A man is
fortunate if he have one or several sisters; for with the dowry which he
procures for them he will get himself as many wives. Children are
frequently betrothed to each other by their parents. A girl thus
betrothed is taken to her husband’s town and raised by his mother.
Little girls, even infants, are sometimes betrothed to old men. I knew
of an instance where a child was betrothed before it was born, the dowry
being kept intact so that it could be returned in case the child should
not be a girl. The frequent betrothal of little girls is partly due to
the fact that less dowry is paid for a child than for “a whole woman,”
as the Fang would say.
For those who are not so fortunate as to inherit a dowry or to have a
sister the proper thing is to steal a woman from some adjoining town.
Most women are glad to be stolen and the affair is often an elopement.
This will precipitate a war between the two towns. At least nine out of
ten wars among the Fang begin this way. After several or many have been
killed the “palaver” is settled by the whole town paying the dowry.
If a man have many wives it is regarded as magnanimous for him to take
little notice of infidelity. Seldom, however, does he rise to this level
of magnanimity and many wives mean constant palavers. In either case it
means boundless immorality.
The aggrieved husband, in a case of adultery, may punish with terrible
severity, if he feel so disposed. In some tribes it is punishable with
death. In a tribe immediately south of the Fang the injured husband
frequently cuts off the ears and even the nose of the guilty woman. In
one instance that I knew of, on the Ogowè River, a man cut off his
wife’s nose and lips. Among the Fang I have never seen such mutilations,
but in the far interior the practice is probably not unknown. A man
suspecting his wife of wrong-doing, especially after a prolonged absence
from town, may upon the impulse of his own suspicion and without a shred
of evidence resort to torture to compel a confession. And this recalls
to my mind an occasion upon which I administered physical chastisement.
I may say that there were three such occurrences during more than twice
so many years, and that in each instance the occasion of my wrath was
the outrageous treatment of a woman.
One Sunday morning in a town named Angon Nzok, on a branch of the upper
Gaboon, I was about to hold a religious service when I heard, in the
other end of the town, a woman crying. For a long time she had been
moaning and crying in a low tone which had escaped my attention, though
I heard it. But now there followed an outburst of piteous cries. I
sprang to my feet and ran quickly in the direction of the cries and to
the house from which they seemed to issue, but the door was closed as if
no one were within.
At first I thought that I had not rightly located the sound, but I was
told that a man and his wife were within the closed house, the man
torturing his wife to extort a confession of unfaithfulness, and the
name of the partner in the wrong. The closed door was a sign, almost
sacred to the Fang, that no man must enter, but I disregarded it. The
man had returned from a journey, and without the least evidence had
accused the woman and had then resorted to torture to extort a
confession.
He bound the woman’s hands together, palm to palm, by means of two
bamboo sticks, which passed across the back of the hands, the ends being
tightly bound together. Her hands were then raised above her head and
kept there by a cord which was attached to the roof. This mode of
torture may not seem horrible as one tells it; but it really is
exceedingly painful, and if long continued is enough to drive a woman
mad. The man at the moment when I entered was probably tightening the
cords or making them more secure; wherefore the screams of the poor
woman. In the animated exercise which followed the revelation of what
was occurring behind that closed door my mind retains a vivid
recollection of three prominent and important movements. The first
movement was a kick that broke the door in and landed me in the middle
of the cabin; the second was another kick that carried the man to the
door; the third was another kick that lifted him into the street, where
he stood paralyzed with astonishment and rubbing his injuries. It took
only a moment to cut the cords and set the woman free. I then went out
and found the man, who of course was not much hurt but was greatly
humiliated.
“Now,” I said to him, “if you will solemnly promise never to do this
again, the palaver will be finished and you and I will be friends.”
After a brief conversation we vowed eternal friendship and he came to
the service. But long after the service the woman was still crying with
the pain, while other women poured warm water upon her tortured hands,
and murmured their sympathy.
It may be supposed that this man would carry out his purpose when I had
left the town, and perhaps with increased severity. But this he would
not do. The African is peculiarly superstitious in regard to
interruptions. And an interruption so extraordinary in the performance
of such an act would be regarded by him as a sign that the act would be
attended by misfortune to himself, and he would not repeat it.
Nevertheless I thought it well to keep myself carefully informed for
some time, so that in case he should act in defiance of superstition he
might not be disappointed in his expectation of misfortune.
A man may punish his wife for any misdemeanour or neglect of duty; and
many of them bear upon their backs ugly scars and wounds inflicted by
the sword of an enraged husband. However abused, it is vain for her to
appeal to the town; for it is the town of the husband’s family, and she
is the stranger. And, besides, the saying among them is that you must
never tell a woman that she is right, lest she despise her husband.
A source of injustice, in the case of polygamy, is the influence of the
head-wife; for every man who has several wives recognizes one of them as
the favourite, and head over the others. Not that she sits in idleness
while the others work; for it is more likely that she is the favourite
because she works well and cooks well. But she has every opportunity to
tyrannize over the other wives and make their lives a bitter bondage. If
they desire anything from the husband there is but little chance of
obtaining it unless the head-wife favours the request. In a dispute
between two of them the husband’s judgment would depend upon the
head-wife. She exercises authority over all his children, even the
children of other wives.
Yet, not to leave an exaggerated impression, it must be said that there
is much less quarrelling than one would expect between wives of the same
husband. The African wife also has far more independence in actual life
than their theories allow. She owns the garden, and her husband is
dependent upon her for his food. If she runs away she leaves him much
the poorer; at least there is always a risk that he will not recover
either her or the dowry. And, then, he is mortally afraid of her tongue,
her chief resource; and well he may be; for in an outburst of passion it
is the tongue of a fiend, and scorches like hell fire. Frequent storms
of unrestrained passion give to the face of the woman of middle age a
permanent expression of weakness and dissipation. She is the victim of
so much oppression and cruel wrong that one would like to depict her as
innocent; for it is human nature to attribute virtue to those who
suffer. But it most be confessed that the African woman is at least as
degraded as the man. He is more cruel; but she is more licentious.
It is exceedingly difficult to learn the attitude of the African woman
towards polygamy. Still, I believe it is contrary to her natural
instinct. I have known instances of heathen women cursing Christian
husbands because they would not marry other wives, and it happens—though
infrequently—that women leave their husbands for this reason. But in all
such cases I believe that the woman acts upon the impulse of some lower
motive and at the expense of her better self. In civilized lands are
there not those who marry for wealth or social position, even without
love? In Africa, wealth and social position are represented by a
plurality of wives. The wife of a monogamist is a “nobody,” and,
besides, has an unusual amount of work to do. But I believe that the
majority of women in Africa have in them enough of the true woman to
hate polygamy. Their fables and folk-lore are full of this hatred.
Certain phases of polygamy one cannot discuss frankly. Children are not
weaned until the age of two or three years. During this period of
lactation the husband and wife observe absolute continence in regard to
each other. But he has other wives and this continence imposes no
restraint upon him. And to the woman it is a source of so much
unhappiness and jealousy that she frequently refuses to bear children,
and resorts to abortion. This practice of abortion, and its relation to
polygamy, is curiously overlooked by those who advocate polygamy for
Africa. It is doubtless more common in some tribes than in others.
But while polygamy is obnoxious to the woman’s instinct, it is impressed
upon her that the instinct is selfish and ought to be suppressed, and
that it is right to be willing to share her husband with other wives. It
is just at this point that the teaching of Christianity makes so strong
an appeal to the African woman; and her response is whole-hearted. It
truly “finds” her. I know women in Gaboon who have suffered
inexpressible humiliation and grief when their husbands took other
wives, and who immediately separated from them and lived their remaining
years in widowhood.
The Orungu tribe, immediately south of Gaboon, from whom I often
obtained workmen, have a peculiarly large body of stories and legends,
which form a kind of commentary on all their customs. The following is
an example:
Once upon a time there was a very great king, Ra-Nyambia, who had many
sons and daughters, and whose servant was Wind. Now, one of this king’s
daughters, Ogula, had an _ngalo_. The ngalo is a very powerful fetish.
Some favoured persons are born with it. It is never acquired by others.
Ogula, when she became a “whole” woman, declared that she was not
willing to have a husband who would have other wives, but must have one
who would be all her own. She waited a long time, but found no man who
was fit to be her husband. Then she consulted her ngalo, who told her
what to do. One day shortly after this, when her father’s people were
going hunting, she said to them: “Find for me a wild goat, and do not
kill it, but bring it to me alive.”
So the hunters brought her a wild goat; and when Ogula saw it she said:
“It is well.”
She then requested one of the hunters to kill the wild goat and skin it
most carefully. She also requested another hunter to fill her canoe with
water. The skin she burned in the fire till all that was left was ashes,
and the ashes she carefully wrapped in plantain leaves and put away in a
safe place. Then she commanded that the entire body of the wild goat
should be placed in the canoe, which was full of water. There she left
it for three days. On the third day, standing beside the canoe, she
addressed her ngalo and said: “Oh, ngalo mine, turn this goat into a
handsome and stylish man.”
Immediately there leaped out of the canoe a very handsome and stylish
man.
Then Ogula sent her servants to her father, Ra-Nyambia, and bade them
say to him that she had procured a husband and that she was coming to
present him to her father. Ra-Nyambia made ready to receive them
properly. He called his servant, Wind, and told him to clean up the
street; whereupon Wind got busy and swept the street clean. And
Ra-Nyambia put on his best ornaments. Soon Ogula appeared with her new
husband walking by her side, while all the people followed in
astonishment and admiration, saying to one another: “Where did Ogula get
this handsome and stylish husband?”
Ra-Nyambia was greatly pleased; and Ogula and her husband returned to
her house. But everywhere, through all the towns, there went out a
report of Ogula’s handsome and stylish husband.
Now there lived in a town not far away a beautiful woman, named
Ogondaga, the daughter of a king; and Ogondaga had no husband. At length
Ogondaga said: “I am tired of hearing of Ogula’s handsome and stylish
husband. This day I shall go and see him for myself.”
She ordered her father’s servants to take her in a canoe to Ogula’s
town, saying also to her father that she would return that same day.
This, however, she did not intend to do; for she had determined to win
the love of Ogula’s husband. Ogula received Ogondaga very kindly, and
when her husband returned from the forest she said to him: “This is my
friend Ogondaga.”
In the evening Ogondaga’s servants came and said to her: “It is time to
go home.”
But she replied: “You must go without me; for I am going to visit my
friend Ogula.”
Then they asked her when they should return for her, and she said: “You
need not come for me at all. I shall go home when I please.”
Ogula treated Ogondaga very kindly, and gave her plenty to eat and a
good bed. The next day Ogula’s husband said to her: “I love Ogondaga;
you must speak to her for me. Will you do so?”
And Ogula, though her heart was sore, said: “I shall speak to her.”
This she did; and her husband went with Ogondaga and neglected her. The
next day they had work to do together and she called him; but he was
angry. And so it was the next day, and the next.
Now this continued for four days; whereupon Ogula, taking some of the
ashes of the goatskin, which she had so carefully kept, came upon her
husband while he was washing, and suddenly rubbed the ashes upon his
feet. Instantly his feet were changed to hoofs. He stamped upon the
ground and cried out: “What is this? What is this?”
His wife replied: “It is nothing at all. Why don’t you go out on the
street?”
Then he pleaded with Ogula until she relented and by the power of her
ngalo changed his hoofs again into feet. But again he abandoned her.
Then Ogula, taking all the ashes of the goatskin, and watching her
opportunity, while he was washing threw the ashes over her husband’s
body, saying: “Go back where you came from.”
Immediately her handsome and stylish husband was changed into a wild
goat and began leaping around the room. Ogula opened the door, outside
of which Ogondaga was sitting, and the goat sprang through the door into
the street and scampered off into the forest, while all the people
laughed and shouted, saying one to another: “So, Ogula’s handsome and
stylish husband was only the wild goat which Ra-Nyambia’s people caught
in the forest.”
But Ogula turned to Ogondaga and said: “Do you see your man? Call him to
you. He always comes when you call.”
Then Ogula called Ogondaga’s people to her town. She also told her
father, Ra-Nyambia, to prepare for a big palaver. So Ra-Nyambia called
Wind and told him to sweep the town clean. When Ogondaga’s people came
Ogula brought them before Ra-Nyambia, together with all Ra-Nyambia’s own
people. Then Ogula told the whole story: How she had got a handsome and
stylish husband for herself; how Ogondaga came; how kindly she had
received her; how she was even willing that Ogondaga should share her
husband’s heart; and how Ogondaga had taken, not a part, but his whole
heart.
Finally she said to her visitors: “You may go back now to your town; but
Ogondaga is not going with you. She must stay here and be my slave as
long as she lives.”
And Ra-Nyambia and all the people said that the judgment was just. So
Ogondaga became Ogula’s slave.
And that’s the end of the story.
The African woman is not cynical enough to mean that the difference
between a man and a goat is chiefly a matter of the skin. But the wild
goat of the story reminds one inevitably of the ancient _satyr_, which
was half man and half goat; which men also imitated in pagan festivals,
covering themselves with goatskins, and singing and dancing. Hence the
origin of the word _tragedy_, which means a _goatsong_, and which came
to us by way of the Greek drama, which was developed from those early
religious festivals.
The Fang have a variety of amusements to which they are devoted. They
have many games. A few of these are always associated with gambling. But
their chief and constant amusements are music, dancing and
story-telling. Of music I have already said enough.
The tom-tom supplies the rhythm for dancing, but the melodies are vocal.
The songs are solos with responsive chants sung in chorus. They dance
with the whole body, setting in motion the limbs, head, shoulders,
thighs and stomach. In many of their dances they simulate love-making or
hunting, and the various animals they pursue. Sometimes the movements of
the dance are very obscene. Among the women there are professional
dancers; and these are nearly always women of low reputation. Men and
women sometimes—not often—dance simultaneously, but never in couples,
nor is there any physical contact between them. There are solitary
dancers, men and women, who dance themselves into a frenzy, leaping into
the air or whirling round and round until they fall in a swoon, or a
trance, during which, or immediately upon recovering, they name persons
who are guilty of witchcraft.
But no person is more popular among the Africans than a good
story-teller. There are professional story-tellers whose performances
correspond to those of the theatre among civilized people. One of these
takes his place in the middle of the street with the whole population of
the town sitting on the ground before him.
“Shall we tell a story?” he says.
“A story!” they respond in chorus.
“Then let us away!”
“Away!”
In such a story as that of “Ogula and her Ngalo,” already told in this
chapter, the story-teller would occasionally break into song or
chanting; whereupon the audience will take up the chant as a refrain and
repeat it over and over, until he is ready to proceed with the story.
The African is a born story-teller. And we should expect this from the
fact that he is the most sociable man in the world. He cannot easily be
killed with work; but isolation will kill him quickly. The old men sit
in the palaver-house all their spare time (that is, all the time between
naps and meals) entertaining and amazing the younger generation with the
narration of their past exploits—how many women have gladly eloped with
them, how many others they have captured, how many enemies they have
killed in war, and how they have fought wild animals with unheard-of
bravery. The conversation is often a lying-match. But they turn out
interesting tales.
An old man—a famous hunter in former days, according to his own
story—tells at great length of a fierce fight between a leopard and a
gorilla which he witnessed; and having at last exhausted his resources
of invention, but utterly unwilling that the story should end in an
anticlimax, he tells how the gorilla, watching an opportunity, suddenly
seized the leopard’s tail and swung him around his head so swiftly that
the leopard was hurled into space leaving his tail in the gorilla’s
hand. Observing the look of incredulity in the faces of his audience, he
gravely adds:
“And this I saw with my own eyes. And when both the leopard and the
gorilla had gone I picked up the tail and brought it home to my town,
thinking that I would use it to keep the flies off my back. Many people
of the town saw this tail; but all those who saw it are dead. For, you
see, it was a human leopard (a leopard that was formerly a man) and it
haunted the town so long as the tail was there, and inflicted a plague
upon the people, so that every one who saw the tail died. And at length,
for the sake of the town and the health of the people, I carried the
tail to the forest and left it where the leopard would find it.
“And that’s the end of the story.”
IX
FUNERAL CUSTOMS
A Kru workman died at an English trading-house, it is said—or was
supposed to have died—and his uncoffined form was being borne to the
grave upon an open bier by his fellow workmen, when he suddenly
embarrassed the funeral cortège by addressing the bearers and demanding
that he be instantly informed of what they were intending to do—and why.
The affrighted bearers hastily dropped their load and set out for the
interior of Africa. Encountering a body of water on the way they plunged
into it and submerged themselves as long as nature would allow, in order
to effect a disconnection with talking spirits—which are supposed to
have an aversion to water—and their fear being thus quenched, they
returned. The corpse meanwhile got off the bier and went home.
Premature burials are common enough in Africa, for reasons which I shall
mention later. But the African might offer an easier explanation and say
that the Kruman was really dead and came to life again. For the African
lives in a world of confusion and disorder, where there is scarcely any
such thing as a “course of nature”; but, rather, a succession of
unrelated wonders. Elsewhere every effect has a cause; but Africa is run
by magic, and things happen without a cause. Elsewhere, as some sage has
remarked, every beginning has an _end_—implying that the end bears a
logical relation to the beginning and may even be foreseen; but in
Africa a beginning is just a beginning, and affords no clue to the
end—if there should be any end. One goes to a wedding, and it turns out
that the groom is a leopard in the form of a man, who in the midst of
the ceremony carries off the bride. One goes to a funeral and the corpse
sits up and talks or breaks loose and runs away. This is the atmosphere
in which the African lives.
Among the semi-civilized Mpongwe of Gaboon, when sickness seems likely
to prove fatal, the friends and relations from far and near gather into
the house of the sick, as many as can crowd inside, and sit about on the
floor, quietly expectorating, or smoking and expectorating, but always
expectorating. The effect of sympathy upon the salivary glands has not
been duly considered by physiologists. There is more than one reason for
their hastening to the bedside of the sick. It is, of course, expected
as an expression of sympathy; and if the sick one should recover he will
resent the omission of this customary courtesy. But if he should die
there are sure to be charges of witchcraft, and suspicion is likely to
fall first on any who did not come to sympathize, the supposition being
that they were kept away by a sense of guilt.
The low wail of mourning starts as soon as it appears that the sick one
is dying, although he may still be conscious. Then when the death is
announced there is a great outburst of cries and shrieks, accompanied by
frantic actions of grief and protest. But this wild outburst soon
subsides into the regular wail of the mourning dirge.
The mother is always the chief mourner. However formal the mourning of
others, hers is a poignant anguish that rends the hearer’s heart. As she
chants she breaks forth into a rhapsody in which she recites the story
of her loved one’s life, dwelling upon those incidents the memory of
which only a mother cherishes. She sings because she must. No other
expression would be adequate; and certainly no other would be so
affecting to the hearer. One reflects that the strongest emotions
naturally resort to music for their expression, and that singing is as
natural as laughter or tears; and one understands how that ancient
orators—accounted the world’s greatest—chanted, or intoned their
orations without lessening, but rather deepening the impression of
sincerity and passionate conviction.
The mourning continues without interruption until the burial, except
while the coffin is being made—for the Mpongwe use coffins. The coffin
is made in the street, in front of the house. If there should be any
wailing at that time the departed spirit will not like his new house,
and some of those who helped to make it will surely die before the year
is over. I have seen a man, who heard the least sound of a wail while he
was working on the coffin, fling his hammer on the ground in great anger
and refuse to continue the work. The mourning is also suspended during
the digging of the grave, if it is near by. The making of the grave must
not be interrupted, but continued until it is finished. Upon its
completion a stick or other object is thrown into it to keep other
spirits from taking possession before its proper resident comes to
occupy it.
The corpse, having been prepared for burial by being dressed in its best
robe, is laid upon the floor, the mother or nearest relation taking the
head upon her lap and leading in the mourning. But, before this, all the
relations put on their oldest rags and as few of them as decency will
allow. The most civilized among them, unwilling to disrobe, often turn
their dresses inside out. Owing to the peculiar climate bodies are not
usually kept long. The funeral sometimes takes place within twelve or
even eight hours after death.
From the stories of natives one must conclude that premature burial is
far from uncommon. The short interval which custom allows between death
and burial is a partial explanation. And it may also be accounted for
among many tribes by the frequency of religious trance, mistaken for
death. The trance is usually self-induced, for the purpose of reading
the future, or when they commune with the spirit of the moon; but the
practice would probably make them subject to involuntary trance. They
have abundant opportunity of proving the fact of premature burial, since
they so frequently exhume the bodies of the dead; sometimes they find
the body in an altered position. There are various reasons for exhuming
the bodies of the dead. Sometimes the spirit of the departed is
dissatisfied with the grave and becomes troublesome to the living,
subjecting them to annoyance and injury until the body is placed in
another grave. If the departed was a person of small importance the
people may resent these posthumous activities and seek to disable the
spirit by exhuming the body and throwing it into the sea, after cutting
off the head. Among the interior tribes the body is frequently exhumed
in order to obtain the brains or the skull for fetish purposes. Thus the
evidences are found of premature burial.
But, besides the haste with which they bury their dead, and the
frequency of the trance, there is still another explanation of premature
burial. They are disposed to regard a person as dead as soon as he
becomes unconscious, although the heart may still be perceptibly
beating. They cannot dissociate the personal spirit from seeing, hearing
and feeling. They will therefore say of the unconscious one that he, the
person, is gone, and that only the life of the body is left; and they
will lose no time in preparing for the funeral.
The spirit of the deceased knows all that is going on and is supposed to
be very sensitive in regard to the amount of mourning and the details of
the funeral. Among the Fang, the wives of a man who has died, when they
are not put to death, are often beaten severely to augment their sorrow,
and they are compelled to go entirely naked for a length of
time—sometimes a whole year. No one must speak to them, nor give them
food.
It is especially respectful to the dead to manifest reluctance in
burying the body. And to act unreasonably at such a time, or to seem a
little foolish, is very pleasing to the departed. The bearers usually
belong half to the father’s family and half to the family of the mother.
The coffin is of plain boards covered with blue cotton. There are no
handles: the bearers carry it on their heads. The practice in former
times, but not so common now, was for some of the bearers on the way to
the grave to refuse to go further, as if unwilling to bury the body of
their friend and relation. The others would insist upon burial, and a
strange altercation would take place, with some pushing, the bearers
halting and starting, and halting again, but at last yielding to
necessity and mastering their feelings.
A short time before I left Gaboon there was a peculiar revival of this
custom. A woman had died who was a member of the church. According to
our custom, they were allowed to bury her in the mission cemetery. The
cemetery is on the back part of the premises and it is necessary to pass
through the front yard to reach it. The family of this particular woman
were all heathen, and I presume they had been drinking; for rum is now
regarded as a necessity at an Mpongwe funeral, except among the
Christians. During the procession of the funeral, as they were entering
the cemetery, some of the bearers objected to going further, and began
to push the other bearers back, according to the good old custom. But in
this instance custom was outdone. The two parental families to whom the
bearers belonged had not been friendly. The pushing of some was resented
by the others, and soon each party, under the guise of conventionality
and revered custom, delivered real blows upon the other and paid off
some old scores. In the ensuing fight the coffin was precipitated to the
ground. Leaving it where it fell, the whole funeral procession started
for the police court. And experience with French justice having taught
them that much depends upon getting there first, each party tried to
outrun the other. Some of the mourners, however, fearing trouble with
the officials if the body were not buried immediately, dissuaded them
from their purpose before they reached the court, and they all came back
together and buried the body.
The coast tribes have regular burying places. But most interior tribes
bury in the street, or in the garden, and sometimes even beneath the
earthen floor of the house. A prominent man in Batanga, whom I knew,
buried his favourite wife under his door-step. In such burials probably
something more is sought than merely to honour the dead. They may also
intend to procure health and protection for the household. This idea is
borne out by the customs of certain far-interior tribes, among whom when
a great chief would build a house he first kills a number of slaves and
buries them beneath the foundation.
Among the Fang, back from the coast, who have not been influenced by
contact with the white man, all the funeral customs are more rude and
barbarous, and often revolting. The dead are buried without coffins,
usually in a sitting posture, and in very shallow graves. Some of the
tribes adjacent to the Fang on the south do not bury at all. They have
regular cemeteries in which they leave the bodies above the ground and
cover them with palm branches or woven mats. In most tribes offerings of
food and drink are placed beside the grave. As the drink evaporates and
the food wastes they say the spirit is consuming it. Fire-wood is left
on the grave that the body may be kept warm. In the case of those
accused of witchcraft they often seek to disable the spirit by burning
the body. For the spirits of the dead still retain some connection with
the body. For this same reason when slaves die, or others whom they have
especial reason to fear, they sometimes beat the body with heavy clubs
until they break every bone and reduce it to a shapeless mass.
Wives charged with witchcraft are usually buried alive with the dead
body of the husband. In one instance, in a certain town that I knew
well, a very large grave was dug in the middle of the street, and the
body of the man—a chief—was placed in the middle of it. Then his seven
wives, charged with having bewitched him, were brought forward, and they
were about to break their legs and throw them into the grave, when the
timely arrival of the missionary prevented the deed and saved the
women’s lives. He interposed no physical force; but, knowing his
feelings, they were not willing to commit such an atrocity in his
presence.
The human shrinking from the dead with them takes the form of fear that
the dead will harm them, even their own nearest relations. No matter how
they may have loved one while he was alive, yet they will not desire
that his spirit should linger; but rather in their mourning they often
entreat the dead one to depart. It is heartrending to hear a mother in
the midst of her grief entreat her child to stay far from her and not to
touch her. They resort to various expedients to get rid of the spirits
of the dead. Sometimes, upon the announcement of a death, while the
women indulge in frantic shrieks, or the mourning wail, the men beat
drums or fire off their guns to frighten the spirit away. Nevertheless,
the spirit remains in the house as long as the body is there and
accompanies it to the grave. Therefore the bed that the deceased lay
upon is occupied continually between death and burial to the supposed
discomfort of the spirit. After the burial they hurry home, sometimes
running, in order to escape from the spirit, which may not be able to
find its way back to the town alone. On the way home it is advisable, if
possible, to plunge into water. If one should fall while thus running he
will die within a year. Sickness and other troubles are often attributed
to the spirits of those who have recently died. Little children whose
mothers have died often die themselves soon after; it is because the
dead mother cannot resist the temptation to embrace them.
Among the Mpongwe blue is worn as mourning. The men also shave their
heads. The mourning chant is continued at night, usually for a month
after the funeral. Near relations remain as visitors in the town during
the period of mourning. The usual activities are suspended and children
are neglected. The white man’s rum is now regarded as a necessary factor
in relieving hearts surcharged with sorrow. As time passes gossip
becomes incessant and engenders estrangements and hatreds. There are
also criminal intimacies. Indeed, a period of mourning is perhaps the
most demoralizing experience through which a community can pass.
With most of the mourners the mourning wail itself is purely
conventional, serving only for the assumption of a sham grief rather
than the relief of a real one. But no one forgets the possible charges
of witchcraft; and to avert suspicion it is wise to be prompt and eager
in the mourning, especially on the part of those who were known to be
estranged from the deceased. A certain Mpongwe woman, entering a house
of mourning where a friend had just died, asked the husband of the
deceased to excuse her from mourning because she had a sore ear and it
hurt her to mourn.
Grief, however, is often very deep and real among the Africans; and it
can never in any land be measured by conventionalities. The grief of
parents for the loss of children is, as I have said, the most poignant
grief of the African heart. Again and again, when I have asked a father
or mother to explain to the session of the church their long absence
from its services, they have confessed in tears that they had been
unable to believe in the Christian’s God since He had taken away their
little child—sometimes an only child—and had left the parent heart cold
and joyless.
One day, walking across the lonely _grass-field_ of Gaboon, the
stillness broken only by the rustle of the long grass around me and the
distant boom of the sea beyond the horizon, I met a man of Gaboon who
was returning home after a trading expedition into the forest. He was a
shrewd man who had traded successfully both with white and black and who
seemed to care for nothing else but trade, a man of materialistic mind
and peculiarly inaccessible to any spiritual message. We sat down and
talked for some time, first of course about trade; but gradually the
conversation became more intimate and he talked about himself, at length
revealing a great sorrow that years ago had darkened his life and left
it dark, like the setting of the sun. He had lost in succession three
little children—all he had. He tried to tell me about it, but he had not
accustomed himself to speaking of it, and the story ended half-way in a
flood of tears. I told him that little story that every minister tells
more than once in the course of his ministry—the story of the kind
shepherd, and the willful mother sheep that would not cross the stream
to the good pasture and the safe fold on the other side; and how the
shepherd took the lamb in his arms and carried it across, and how the
mother sheep stood a while and looked after it with longing and then
followed her lamb to the other side. It was a familiar incident to
him—some such thing he had done himself—and the simple story moved him
deeply. I never saw him again; for I left Africa shortly afterwards. But
I have not forgotten the human tenderness that was revealed beneath the
surface hardness of the man’s heathen heart; and I hope that if he be
still alive he may not have forgotten the vision of the “sweet fields
beyond the swelling floods,” and the message of God’s love and kindness
which he heard that day, like a still, small voice sounding across the
storms that had wrecked his life.
The tribes north of the Calabar River—the real Negro tribes—are more
cruel in all their customs than the tribes further south. Even apart
from any accusation of witchcraft, when a man dies a number of persons
are frequently put to death to accompany his spirit to the other world.
When a great chief dies wives and slaves are killed that the chief may
enter the spirit world as a person of consequence. For it is supposed
that slaves sent with him will still be his slaves and wives will still
be wives. I have known an instance of a native dying on shipboard, and
when the body was cast into the sea, the female relations actually tried
to leap after it in order to accompany the spirit of the deceased to the
other world.
Among some of the tribes of the Niger it was the custom (until the
English government suppressed it) that when a chief died a number of
persons, perhaps twelve or more, usually women and slaves, were buried
alive with him, and without any accusation against them. An enormous
grave was dug; and all these persons were lowered into it together with
the dead body of the chief. Then the grave was covered over with a roof,
a small opening being left, upon which a stone was placed. Each day the
stone was removed and the question was asked of those below whether they
had yet followed the chief—each day until at last no voice replied.
Among the Fang I have not known of any such practice. The only persons
put to death on such occasions are those who have been charged with
witchcraft. But multitudes die daily on this charge.
My first contact with death in Africa was among the Bulu, at a little
town called Mon Nlam (if I remember correctly) close to Efulen. One
afternoon when I was alone at Efulen I was startled by the firing of
guns in the little village at the foot of our hill. There were cries
also and shrieks such as I had never before heard. Several of the many
natives around me belonged to Mon Nlam; and these started for home as
fast as they could run. I caught something of their alarm and ran after
them to the town. Following the lead of the natives I ran through the
town into the banana garden immediately beyond, where all the people
were gathered. There in the midst were a number of women (I forget how
many) shrieking frantically and throwing themselves madly upon the
ground. They were entirely naked and their bodies were smeared with
white clay, even their faces and their hair. Other women were vainly
trying to restrain them, while the crowd looked on.
Such a scene was quite new to me in those days, and the horror of it I
have never forgotten. I had only the slightest knowledge of the language
and it took me some time to find out what had happened. Several men, the
husbands of these women, had gone hunting in the forest. Two other towns
near by were at war with each other; but this town had nothing whatever
to do with the war. A number of men from one of the two towns were
hiding in the forest, lying in wait for the enemy, when they espied
these men who were hunting. In the dim light of the forest they mistook
their friends for their enemies and fired upon them. An African would
rather kill ten friends then let one enemy escape. They killed all the
men of the hunting-party. This was the news that had just reached the
town. It was the more pitiable because the town was small, and the loss
of several of its strongest men seriously weakened its defense.
There were the usual charges of witchcraft against the women; and when I
in amazement pointed out to them that in this instance there was no
mystery whatever; that those men, as they knew, had been killed by the
bullets of those who had fired upon them, they replied that while this
was doubtless true it was only half the truth; for those men wore
protecting charms that would have made it impossible for bullets to
injure them, and that the spell of witchcraft must have destroyed the
power of the charms. I only convinced them that while I knew
considerable about bullets I knew nothing about witchcraft and nothing
about wives. The doubt, however, which had been thus suggested, was
sufficient to enable us to protect the women from any fatal violence;
although the restraints and sufferings imposed upon widows during their
period of mourning is almost intolerable.
In contrast with that scene, where the elemental passions of fear, grief
and rage fairly made demons of men and women, I think of another death
that was not in any way horrible or revolting; it was the death of a
Fang chief named _Ndong_, one of the first of the Fang Christians. Ndong
and his people had come recently from the far interior and had settled
on one of the branches of the Gaboon. He had lived all his life among
such death scenes as I have just described, and himself had taken a
leading part in punishing witchcraft. When I first knew him he had more
fetishes than any man in his town; for he was in ill health and of
course supposed that somebody was bewitching him. The fetishes were an
attempt to protect himself; but they were a failure, and he was in
terror of everybody around him. After several conversations with him he
boldly renounced fetishism and threw away all his fetishes. He told the
people that if God desired that he should live He would defend and
protect him; and that if God was calling him he was ready to go. He
lived six months to proclaim this new faith, and then died, having been
sorely tried by constant suffering. I reached the town just as he died.
There was not a fetish in his house. But it was more surprising that
there was no heathen mourning. The town was strangely quiet when I
arrived. An elderly woman said to me:
“Ndong has died. He died as one goes to sleep, without fear, and without
blaming anybody. We never saw a death like this before. A new day is
dawning.”
X
THE _DOROTHY_
In response to my urgent appeal, a gasoline launch, the _Dorothy_, was
given for the work on the Gaboon River, by a friend of missions living
in Orange, New Jersey. The gift was a memorial to a little daughter,
_Dorothy_, who had died.
The arrival of the _Dorothy_ was the most joyful event of all my years
in Africa. Hitherto I had reached the Fang only by canoe or small
sailboat, the latter depending upon oars more than sails. The area of
the work was therefore circumscribed and the incidental exposure
dreadful. But now we no longer regarded the heat by day nor the rains by
night; for there was a large cabin provided with every comfort,
including good beds. And this latter was a main consideration. After the
arrival of the _Dorothy_ I seldom stayed in a town over night nor slept
in a native bed—a few straight poles laid side by side, sometimes with
the additional luxury of a grass mat. Besides a bed of poles, I escaped
stifling heat, infinite noise, rats, roaches, lizards, scorpions,
centipedes, ants, fleas, lice and a staggering combination of odours. In
the lower rivers that flow through the mangrove swamps I also escaped
the vile atmosphere and the mosquitoes by running out to the bay at
night. Added to these considerations, its speed was such that I could
travel against wind and tide; and by means of it the former work was
multiplied many times, and spread over the whole area of the Gaboon
basin.
[Illustration:
THE _DOROTHY_.
]
The _Dorothy_ was a house-launch, and was intended only for the rivers.
The walls of the cabin presented such an area to the wind that on the
bay or at sea, unless in the calmest weather, it rolled as nothing else
ever rolled; and in a storm it was dangerous.
Ndong Koni, who had been long in my service, was captain of the
_Dorothy_; the rest of the crew I had to choose with greater care than
in former days, and it was difficult to find men who were qualified both
by intelligence and trustworthiness. I discharged one man for
disobedience in smoking a pipe over an open tank from which they were
drawing gasoline.
On one occasion when I was preparing for a long trip up the river, Ndong
Koni was absent; and not having time myself to look after every detail
of the preparation, I entrusted to one of the crew, a boy named _Toko_,
the work of filling the tank with gasoline. Toko was not a Fang, but a
coastman. He was so black that he seemed to radiate darkness and create
a kind of twilight in his neighbourhood. The Fang were like mulattoes
beside him. He had worked some time for an English trader and had picked
up a smattering of very original English. On this occasion Toko assured
me that he “done fill the tank proper full.” But on the return trip the
engine suddenly stopped one morning at daylight: the gasoline was
exhausted. We were thirty miles from home: and it was the rough bay, not
the river, that stretched between. There was only one thing to do; and
in a few minutes we had anchored the _Dorothy_, and had started for
Gaboon in a canoe, our purpose being to get the gasoline we required and
return immediately.
The canoe was large and there were plenty of paddles, so I took with me
every man on board except Toko, whom I left in charge of the _Dorothy_,
to spend what I supposed would be the longest and most miserable day of
his life. For I knew that we would not be back before midnight; and
although the bay was now like glass the sea-breeze would rise about ten
o’clock and increase all day long. The _Dorothy_ was anchored in a very
bad place and it was enough to make one sick in anticipation. But it was
necessary that some one should remain in charge, and I was so indignant
at Toko for his neglect that I had no compunction of conscience, but
inwardly gloated like a cannibal over a feast. We are all cannibals by
instinct when it comes to eating our enemies.
The sea-breeze later in the day became almost a gale, and was directly
against us; the waves were soon crested with whitecaps and grew bigger
and bigger. It took the combined strength of six men with paddles to
make any headway in the last several hours. I felt quite safe, for Ndong
Koni whom we had picked up along the way was steersman. The skill of the
natives in canoeing—their instinctive balancing, their knowledge of the
waves, and the proper way to receive each wave is marvellous; for of a
hundred waves no two may be alike. The degree of tendency to careen at
the stroke of each wave, or (if the sea is abeam) as the peak of the
wave passes under the canoe, must be met by a dexterous stroke of the
paddle of the steersman, or the counterpoise of the body. It is very
exhilarating. Mind and muscle must act instantly. No sooner is one wave
passed than the mind, dismissing it, leaps to the next encounter. One
finds himself personifying the waves and regarding them as personal
enemies whom he must fight or die. But our canoe was large, and strength
as much as skill kept us from being swamped.
We reached Gaboon late in the afternoon and having procured gasoline and
rigged our largest sailboat, the _Lafayette_, we immediately started
back to the _Dorothy_. It was a wild night and very dark; but the wind
was favourable, and there was not on all the coast of West Africa a
better sailing boat of its size than the _Lafayette_. Many a night I
have sailed in her on the open sea, to Corisco and Benito, sometimes
when the night was pitch dark and the wind howling. Such a situation is
far from conducive to sleep. But I had great confidence in the
_Lafayette_. She combined speed and daring with amiability and was a
boat to admire and love.
But we are now on our way back to the _Dorothy_ and to the rescue of
poor Toko. We reached the _Dorothy_ at midnight. Long before this I had
relented towards Toko. Indeed, soon after the sea-breeze arose in the
morning, and I knew the _Dorothy_ was rolling in the trough of the sea,
I was disappointed to find that I was not really enjoying his
discomfiture as much as I had anticipated. As the wind blew harder I
experienced an emotional reaction, and I felt more and more sorry for
him. When night came on the loneliness of his situation, far from land,
on a rough sea, added another appealing element, and it would have been
the easiest thing in the world to have obtained a promise from me to
raise his wages if we should succeed in rescuing him from his miserable
plight. Many hours before we reached him we saw the dim solitary light,
indicating that the _Dorothy_ was at least afloat. Then we could see the
light swaying from side to side with the rolling and plunging of the
vessel. On we sped, while the light seemed far away as ever; then, all
at once, it flashed with sudden nearness, and in a few minutes we were
at the gangway.
I called to Toko as we approached, but received no answer. Even as we
came alongside there was no response to our united call. I sprang on
board and rushed into the cabin only to stumble over some unwonted
obstacle that nearly pitched me on my head. The obstacle was the living
body of Toko, who to my question replied: “Mastah, I done pass fine day.
I been sleep all time. All this day and all this night I no wake, only
for eat and for make them head-light.”
I muttered in reply: “You incorrigible rascal! You ought to have been
sick. You know you ought.”
Several times I ascended the upper Gaboon, called the _Como_; further
than any launch had ever gone, to a town thirty miles above Angom, and
one hundred miles from the sea. The Como on its way to the sea cuts
through the Sierra del Crystal Mountains. The course of the river
through the mountains is tortuous and through deep gorges. The current
is exceedingly swift; and the channel, which is deep but narrow, is
filled with projecting rocks and hidden snags. The water pours through
these gorges in a succession of rapids, or waltzes down in whirling
eddies, or, again, coils and twists like an angry serpent. In contrast
to the repulsive and evil-smelling mangrove swamps of the lower river,
the scenery of the upper river is magnificent and exquisitely beautiful.
The hills part before us as if by magic; while with each short curve the
scene is changed. The high banks, from the tops of the trees even to the
water, are draped with a veil of delicate vines, covered with flowers of
white and lavender, and festooned upon the banks with long, drooping
ferns, all swinging in the wind. A picturesque native town, perched upon
a high summit, is named _Home of the Moon_.
Navigation through this channel is difficult and dangerous. Ndong Koni
had charge of the wheel, and no white man could have surpassed him. A
momentary glance at the surface of the water was sufficient to tell him
what was beneath. He knew exactly the allowance to make for the strength
of a whirlpool, or the force of the current in a short curve. An error
of judgment, or a moment’s hesitation, in some places might have been
our destruction.
The first time I ascended this dangerous part of the river I engaged a
pilot from one of the oldest towns; a man who had known the river all
his life, who had seen it frequently at the lowest, and was therefore
familiar with the channel; for the native does not forget a channel, but
has a peculiarly tenacious memory for each snag and boulder that has
occasionally been exposed to view. This pilot was picturesque, being
dressed in a nondescript felt hat and scarcely anything else. We haggled
for some time over the price of his services, but at last he agreed to
come for a bar of soap and a dose of salts.
As we ascended the river Ndong Koni stood at the wheel, in the bow,
while the pilot stood immediately behind him, indicating with
outstretched arms the channel and the dangers on either side. I stood
bending over the engine, with one hand on the lever and the other on the
throttle, in an attitude of strained attention. Several times we touched
hidden snags that sent a shiver through the launch and strangely
affected my own vertebræ; and once or twice we struck with such force as
to disconnect the propeller. Suddenly the pilot began to “take on” like
a maniac, yelling and calling to his ancestors, throwing his precious
hat and pursuing it from one end of the cabin to the other, as if his
mind had given way under the weight of responsibility. I left the engine
long enough to rush forward, seize him by the neck and throw him into a
corner. Then the truth dawned upon me: he had seen a fly and was trying
to kill it. I have already said that this disposition towards the fly is
an obsession with the native. In no other matter is he such a fool. But
if he were engaged in a life-and-death combat with an enemy a sudden
opportunity to kill a fly might prove his undoing.
Upon our return we were sweeping down the river with the speed of a
locomotive when I chanced to look out and found that we were passing
Atakama, where we were intending to call. I shouted to the mate to stand
by, and added some ungentle words of remonstrance at his stupidity in
not observing that we had reached Atakama, where I had told him we were
going to stop. I probably overdid the matter of remonstrance, for the
mate got excited. He sprang to the anchor, and without a moment’s
hesitation threw it overboard, while we were still going at nearly full
speed with the swift current. The ensuing jar was such that it took me
some time to realize that we were still afloat, and I could never
afterwards pass the place without emotion.
Further down the river we were enlivened by the presence of several
passengers going to the coast to work, or perhaps to visit. Visiting is
a passion with the African. It is regulated by custom, which prescribes
a limit (though a very generous one) beyond which it is not lawful to
extend a visit. More than once I have known of a long-suffering host
speeding the departing guest by an appeal to this law. Upon every
journey with the _Dorothy_ we were besieged with applications for a
passage. No tickets were issued, but the fare was always a chicken,
regardless of distance or destination. Ndong Koni was purser and looked
after the chickens, collecting them before we started and feeding them
on the journey. The people would not sell chickens to me, but would give
them in pay for passage, since I would not accept anything else. I was
therefore glad enough to have a few passengers, as it meant that I ate
chicken instead of sardines or Armour’s sausage. Toko, who often
officiated as cook, was always glad when he could make the announcement:
“Mr. Milligan, I go burn a chicken for your chop.” When there were no
chickens he had to “kill a tin.”
The basin of the Gaboon with its network of small rivers filled by the
tide, as I have said, is a contrast to the scenery of the upper river.
When the tide is high the foliage of the mangrove lies upon the water
and the appearance is not displeasing except for its unapproachable
monotony. But when the tide is out these streams are empty or nearly so
and the receding water leaves the mangroves standing up six or eight
feet out of the water on their mass of vertical roots as if on tiptoe.
The dripping roots are usually covered with small oysters. Below this
lies the deep, black, slimy mud, sometimes only half seen through the
brooding vapour and stretches forth uncanny fingers and creeps from root
to root. The ugliness of it is only equalled by the smell. There is
nothing more hideous in the world, and I am sure that the Styx itself
flows through a mangrove swamp. Sometimes the receding tide left us
stranded in this black batter for several hours, and the night consigned
us to mosquitoes. But as soon as the rising tide floated us we sped to
the bay, leaving mosquitoes and heat and fœtid banks behind us, and
blessing the _Dorothy_.
On several occasions I ventured out upon the open sea with the
_Dorothy_. Twice I went to Benito, one hundred miles north of Gaboon. On
the first of these journeys my old captain, Makuba, was with me instead
of Ndong Koni. But Makuba’s home was at Benito, and he decided to remain
there. I hired an intelligent coast man in his place, one who had had
years of experience in sailing-craft and knew the intervening coast
perfectly. The sea was so heavy that we kept as close to the shore as we
dared, although it was fringed with rocks and reefs. The night we chose
for our return was exceedingly dark and the sea rough. The engine was in
an obstinate mood and my entire attention was occupied with it.
Suddenly I became conscious that the sea was abeam, instead of on our
starboard bow. Leaving the engine, I ran forward, and looked at the
compass. We were going directly towards the shore. I actually heard the
sound of the breakers on the reef. My intelligent wheelman, in order to
render me the best possible service, had thought to stimulate his mind
and muscle with a few swags from a bottle of rum, which he had
thoughtfully brought with him. But, owing perhaps to the lurching of the
vessel, he swallowed more than he intended, with the result that he was
soon comfortably sleeping while the _Dorothy_ sped towards destruction.
“Be ye angry, and sin not,” is the twofold injunction of Scripture. I
may as well confess that I concentrated upon the first part of the
injunction and clean forgot the second part.
The wind blew harder, and we realized that we were out on a stormy sea
with a house-launch. On this occasion a friend, Mr. Northam, was with
me. The rough sea made very hard work at the wheel, but the erstwhile
pilot lay on the floor in a somnolent drunk. Mr. Northam and I took the
wheel alternately an hour at a time, all that night. For a while it was
not a matter of making progress but of weathering the gale. We were
seventeen hours running fifty miles, from Hanje to Corisco, and when at
last, next morning, we reached shelter and dropped anchor, we all three,
Mr. Northam, myself and the _Dorothy_ were about done out.
On one occasion the _Dorothy_, in the interest of humanity, played the
part of a man-of-war. We were out on the bay, at least a mile from the
shore, when our attention was attracted by the strange manœuvres of a
large number of canoes all equipped with sails. They were far from us,
and were between us and the shore. We soon saw that it was a case of
piracy. In all, there were six canoes. Five of them were sailing in a
wide circle around the other; but the circle became narrower, and still
narrower, as they closed in upon their victim like white-winged birds of
prey. The poor canoe in the centre turned first one way, then another,
only each time to find its escape cut off by the revolving circle of
canoes. Ndong Koni understood every move they made and explained it to
me. He begged me to interfere. I consented, and he sprang to the wheel
with a shout. It was necessary at first to conceal our intention lest
the canoes should escape to the shore. So he took a course towards a
point beyond them, going towards the shore, but at such an angle that
they supposed we were passing on. Then suddenly he turned towards them
and at full speed bore down upon them.
By the time we had reached them they had closed in upon the central
canoe and had taken everything that was in it. There were thirty men
against five. The five men in the single canoe had been to Gaboon with
their garden produce, or perhaps a raft of mahogany logs, for which they
had bought several guns, one or two whole bolts of calico, a web of
sail-cloth, and a heap of sundry cheap ornaments for their wives, which
might have been sold by the pound or bushel. The robbers took all these
goods and even took some of the paddles the men were using. I was now at
the wheel. I kept the _Dorothy_ under way and cut a circle around them,
while I ordered them to return all the stolen goods. They resented it as
much as if the goods were actually their own and I the plunderer. But
while they hesitated I ran against their largest canoe, in which sat the
chief, striking it at an angle, near the bow, so as not to break it, but
to send a shiver through it that showed them how completely they were at
my mercy. They were willing to do anything in the world if I would only
agree not to repeat that last manœuvre. They restored all the stolen
goods; and since the single canoe was going my way, I took it in tow to
the delight of the occupants.
One day, calling at a town seventy miles from the coast, I found it
almost torn down and the people in great distress. They had decided,
months before, to move the entire town to the coast, and therefore had
not planted their gardens that season. A month previous to my visit the
people of the town, with all their goods and chattels, including
chickens, goats and sheep, and in some cases even the material of their
houses, had been loaded in a fleet of canoes of every size—some so small
that a single man sitting in one of them found it necessary to straddle
it and let his legs hang in the water, and some large enough for a chief
and half a dozen wives and twice as many children, besides a few goats,
and a few bunches of plantains and bananas. When they were ready to
start a messenger arrived telling them that the people of Alum, a large
town thirty miles down the river, were lying in wait for them, intending
to kill some of them or take them prisoners. These two towns had been
friendly of late; but the people down the river, knowing that the
up-river people with their families and possessions would be at an
extreme disadvantage, knowing also that they could not long delay their
journey because of their limited supply of food, bethought them of some
old score resulting from a former war, and resolved to lie in wait and
take several prisoners in the hope of extorting a ransom. So they kept
men watching day and night on the river.
The unfortunate people of the upper town proved their resourcefulness by
proposing to me that I should tow the whole town down the river behind
the _Dorothy_—and do it at night. I, for some reason, was fascinated
with the idea, and it took only twelve chickens to persuade me.
Taking the entire town in tow, I started down the river about nine
o’clock at night. Shortly after midnight I realized that we were
approaching the enemy because of the extraordinary silence of those in
the canoes, who hitherto had maintained a deafening noise, but now were
hushed, having put out their torches, and were lying down flat in their
canoes for safety. The enemy was on the watch; many canoes were on the
river. It was pitch dark, not a single light or sign of life visible.
The _Dorothy_ as she suddenly burst upon their sight with all her
lights, and going full speed, must have looked very formidable to people
who had never seen anything of the kind, for she had not before passed
at night. They may have supposed that a whole battalion of spirits of
all kinds and colours were coming against them. The effect was an
immediate panic. Calling loudly to each other and to their ancestors
they hastened to the bank. It was only after we had passed that they
discovered the canoes in tow and suspected that their enemies had
outwitted them.
I visited the town soon afterwards for the purpose of laughing at them.
And they laughed with me; laughed as only Africans can laugh.
One morning just at the break of day Toko burst into my bedroom all out
of breath and cried: “Oh, Mr. Milligan, _Doroty_ done loss! _Doroty_
done loss! I look him: he live for beach. I fear he never be good no
more.”
Before he had finished I had jumped out of bed, and in pajamas and bare
feet was running to the beach where I discovered the _Dorothy_ nearly a
mile down the beach, stranded and lying on her side. It was the worst
part of the whole beach, full of rocks, a place where no one would think
of beaching even a small boat. It was a mystery how she ever got there
without breaking to pieces. There had been a violent tornado during the
night and her cable had parted. Very fortunately she was first carried
out to sea. A calm followed and the sea gradually became very quiet.
With the turning tide she drifted towards the shore. By the time she was
near the beach there was neither wind nor wave and she drifted with the
current which of course was strongest where it was deepest and unimpeded
by rocks. So she wound in and out, where no human pilot could have
glided her, until she stranded. Then the tide receded before the wind
again arose; else she would have pounded on the beach. When I found her
she was high and dry. I could not tell how much damage she had received
and wondered whether she would ever float again. It was a day of
suspense as well as hard work.
It took until three o’clock in the afternoon to get her straightened up
and ready for the incoming tide to float her. I stayed there all day,
having sent a boy to the house to fetch my breakfast and a pair of
trousers. When the tide was low we carefully marked the channel; and
when she floated we towed her until we were past the last rock and then
I sprang to the engine, started her up and she was soon going full
speed, nothing the worse for her visit ashore and evidently glad to get
back to sea.
It was a trying day. I was standing in water most of the time. But the
suspense was the hardest of all. It is not easy to imagine all that the
launch meant to me. Every part of my work depended upon it. I gathered
the schoolboys from many towns, some of them far away, and at the end of
term returned them to their homes. I visited regularly the various
groups of Christians scattered in widely separated towns, and by means
of the launch was preaching in all the towns on the Gaboon and its
tributaries. Its loss would have undone my work. And besides, there was
a sentimental attachment which I can hardly explain. In that prolonged
exile, this commodious, and almost luxurious, launch represented
civilization—fine buildings, libraries, music, hotels, porterhouse
steak, ice-cream and so forth, besides friends, home and all that. Well,
when the suspense was completely relieved and the _Dorothy_ was going at
full speed back to her anchorage—but no one could understand who has not
been an exile from home and civilization.
[Illustration:
CREW OF THE _DOROTHY_.
At the end of the line, on the left, is Toko; the tall man at the
other end is Ndutuma; the small boy is Nkogo.
]
At last and before very long, I had the kind of crew I desired. Besides
Ndong Koni and Toko, there were three others in the crew of the
_Dorothy_, Ndutuma, Ndong Bisia and a small boy, Nkogo.
Nkogo was one of the brightest of my schoolboys. He sang remarkably well
and often led the singing in the school. His beautiful voice was a great
help to me in holding services in the towns. He was the most energetic
boy I have ever known in Africa. The rest of us grew tired once in a
while, but Nkogo never. He was steward, and my personal attendant
besides. In the intervals of his own work he was always relieving
somebody else, Ndong Koni at the wheel, or Toko at the engine, or the
cook in the galley.
Often we had to anchor a mile, or even two miles, from a town, because
of shallow water, and go the remaining distance in a canoe, perhaps
against a strong current. Nkogo was always the first to volunteer for
this extra work, except when it was necessary several times in one day,
and then it taxed the strength of the men. Nkogo was opposed to letting
another canoe pass us, even if they had twice our number of paddles. He
thought it was not loyal to the white man. At such times he would still
be racing when all his companions had eased up, or until, as he used to
say, “the canoe began to get hot.” Life always presented its humorous
side to Nkogo. It was one of my few entertaining diversions to hear him
each night recount, to those who had remained on board the _Dorothy_,
the incidents of our visits in the towns and all that we had seen and
heard, while his audience laughed. I myself had usually seen the
sickness, the suffering, the ignorance, the cruelty and all that saddens
the heart. But the real truth of African life required that my account
should be supplemented by Nkogo’s observations.
Ndutuma was the willing horse that was often overworked. The heavy end
always came to him. It was he who cast the anchor and weighed it; which
was exceedingly hard work, until, when the _Dorothy_ had been in Africa
more than a year, we got a small anchor for the river and used the heavy
one only in the bay. He also had charge of the canoe which we towed. If,
upon reaching a town at the ebb of the tide, an acre of black mud of any
or every depth separated us from the town, it was always Ndutuma who
carried me on his shoulders. He was a large, homely, coarse-featured
man, with a good eye and a gentle voice that was the perfect expression
of his kindness and good-nature. And he was a direct product of
missionary effort. For he belonged to one of the most savage clans of
the Fang. His town was burned several times by the French, and some of
the people killed, because of their unprovoked attacks upon their
neighbours. Ndutuma was one of Ndong Koni’s converts and was a Christian
before he ever saw a white missionary. He was at that time about twenty
years old.
About two years after his conversion there occurred an event in his life
which revealed the quality of his faith. Until that time he was the only
Christian in his town and the way was hard for him; but shortly
afterwards there were more Christians in that town than in any other.
Ndutuma’s wife, preferring a more warlike husband, managed to get
herself stolen by a man of another tribe. The chief of Ndutuma’s town,
with some of his allies, made war on the offending tribe; but Ndutuma
himself did not join them in the war. The result was strange enough,
from the American point of view—a whole community enraged over an
elopement and hotly pursuing the offenders, while the forsaken husband
sat quietly at home singing hymns. In Africa the interest of each man
belongs to the whole community, including his interest in his wife.
It was not that Ndutuma was glad to be rid of her. For he certainly did
want a wife, and any other that he would get would probably be as bad.
Moreover he paid a very large dowry for her and had no dowry with which
to procure another. It was Christian principle alone that restrained
him. He said he would use all peaceable means to get her back, and even
if such means failed he would not shed blood. The hard part of it for
him was the brand of cowardice and the bitter reviling from his people
for enduring such an insult, and for resigning the woman and the goods
he had paid for her. It required far more bravery for him to stay at
home than to join in the war. But he was firm; and in their hearts they
knew he was no coward. They also learned the meaning of Christian faith.
They were still more willing to learn the lesson when several of their
young men were killed in this very war, notwithstanding the fetishes
which they wore for their protection.
Ndutuma never recovered his wife nor the dowry he had paid for her; so
he was left a poor man. But most unexpectedly a rich uncle died and left
him four wives. This was wealth indeed, and most young men in such luck
would have strutted intolerably before their fellows. But Ndutuma coolly
announced that he was not a heathen any more; that he would take one of
these women for his wife, whichever of them wanted him, and give the
others to his poor relations. He was not a noisy man, and that was
remarkable in Africa; but he was a man without a price; who was ready at
any time to act upon his faith without regard to consequences. He made
enemies among those who were tenacious of heathen customs. Not long
after I left Africa he died. His death was wrapped in mystery; and in
Africa such mysteries are usually related to poison. I do not know that
Ndutuma was a martyr. But he was made of martyr stuff. And many a
bloodthirsty man and adulterous woman he led into ways of peace and
purity.
Ndong Bisia was one of the most interesting boys that I met in Africa.
He was not with me very long, but he was one of those occasional
Africans that appeal directly to the affectional side of one’s nature. I
have said that the Mpongwe tribe have an instinct for good manners, and
are the most courteous people in West Africa. But this Fang boy
surpassed them all. He first came to me as a schoolboy. When the school
closed at the end of the year I took the boys home with the _Dorothy_,
and I was obliged to stay two days at Fula where Ndong and several of
the boys lived. I had asked the Fula boys to do my cooking on the
journey. When we arrived at this town, early in the morning, the boys
hastened ashore pell-mell to see their friends—all but Ndong. He
remembered that I would need breakfast and he stayed to prepare it.
When he had set everything in order, he said: “Mr. Milligan, I am going
to town to see my people but I shall come back and have your dinner
ready for you when you return from the town.”
He did this for two days. Some few of the other boys would have done the
same thing if I had asked them, but Ndong did it without being asked:
and it was always so. He was also my best assistant in medical work.
Afterwards he worked on the launch and was with me all the time, often
in trying circumstances, but he always presented the same contrast to
the ingratitude and selfishness of the heathenism around him.
The two boys, Ndong Bisia and Ndong Koni, are associated with an
incident in which they displayed a heroism of devotion that may perhaps
enable the reader to understand how it is that a white man can love the
people of the jungles.
One day we started on a journey with the _Dorothy_ and had gone
twenty-five miles, across the bay, when an accident occurred which
stopped the engine. The remainder of that day, and a considerable part
of the night and all the next day, I tried in vain to make the repair. I
then decided to leave the launch and go home in a canoe, returning
immediately with the _Lafayette_ and crew to tow the _Dorothy_ back to
Libreville. An approaching fever also warned me not to work any longer
at the engine. It chanced that I had only a very small canoe in tow. I
was therefore dependent upon being able to procure a larger one from
some native who might pass that way; and we were in an out-of-the-way
place.
At last a canoe came in sight, in which was one solitary woman. I called
loudly to her across the water, but she was afraid and would not come
near. Among the heterogeneous and somewhat outlandish variety of goods
which I always carried there happened to be a dress which had once
belonged to a white woman and which had been discarded years before,
when the woman returned to America. It was a gorgeous purple affair,
much the worse for wear. The native woman (to whom I offered it),
yelling at the very top of her voice, answered: “What do I want with a
dress? I’m all right as I am; I never had any such thing on in my life.”
I told her that this was a very fine dress which had once been worn by a
white woman.
She hesitated, but again answered: “It would only cover my ornaments so
that people would not know that I have them; and besides it would not
fit me.”
Her “ornaments” were half a dozen large brass leg-rings which she wore
between her ankles and her knees.
But necessity in this instance was not only loud, but eloquent. I
pleaded that she could rattle her ornaments as she walked—which they
know well how to do—and the people would think that she had ever so
many; and, besides, when they were covered she would not need to keep
them polished. As to its fitting, I yelled to her that I had scissors,
needle and thread, and that I would make it fit perfectly. Being at
various times engineer, carpenter and blacksmith, it was easy enough to
be a dressmaker.
There was some persuasion in my arguments, for again she hesitated. But,
after further reflection, she moved on, replying: “I’m all right as I
am;” in which mind I presume she continues to this day.
Two hours after nightfall another canoe approached, in which were
several men whom on a former occasion I had towed across the bay, and
they were now eager to do anything possible to help me. I borrowed their
canoe and engaged one of their men. The canoe was a lamentable and
ancient affair. One side was badly split, and in the other side there
was a part so rotten that I thought I could have thrust my foot through
it. The sail was a mosaic of old shirts and other cast-off garments. The
sheet was a bit of rotten rope pieced out with vine. After a thorough
inspection I was unable to pronounce the craft seaworthy, but I decided
to risk it; and, in case of emergency, I provided myself with a saucepan
and a ball of twine: the former to bail out water, and the latter for a
variety of uses.
Ndong Koni and Ndong Bisia, besides the stranger, returned with me. Both
boys made humorous comments upon the canoe and begged me not to attempt
to cross the bay in it. But I did not see that I had any alternative. So
we set out upon the deep with no other material resources than a
saucepan and a ball of twine. At first we were in quiet water; but after
a few minutes, having turned a point of land, we were suddenly out on
the bay. As we got further out the wind increased and blew hard, and the
sea, though not really bad, was far too rough for such a canoe. Nothing
but sheer exhaustion saved me from a state of fright. But, what was more
significant, the two Ndongs were also alarmed for our safety.
I was in the bottom of the canoe, reclining against a thwart, on the
verge of sleep, but conscious of all that was going on. With the
increasing wind and the straining of the whole canoe I felt that
something must soon happen by way of climax. The only question was
whether the collapse, when it came, would be particular or general.
Suddenly a gust of wind was followed by a crash. The boom was gone, the
sheet broken, the sail torn. A passing wave drenched us and almost
swamped the canoe. Then I plied the saucepan diligently, while Ndong
Koni dexterously managed the canoe—for we were in the trough of the
sea—and Ndong Bisia and the other man, using the ball of twine, made a
new sheet and tied the torn sail. Before long we were again speeding
ahead, though not so fast, for we had no boom. We had other startling
experiences during the night; but at length we reached the land shortly
before daylight.
I have told more than enough for my purpose and have admitted irrelevant
details. We were in extreme danger that night, and more than once we
doubted whether we would reach land. But through all the long night,
with its mischances and dangers, nothing else so impressed me even at
the time, and nothing else still remains with me so vividly, as the
devotion of those two boys, Ndong Koni and Ndong Bisia; their anxiety
for my safety and their utter disregard of their own danger. And if
occasion had come, I know that they would have sacrificed their lives to
save mine. Such boys are worth labouring for and worth living for.
[Illustration:
THE PRIMARY CLASS IN MELVIN FRASER’S BULU SCHOOL.
]
XI
SCHOOLBOYS
Upon my first arrival in Africa—at Batanga—Dr. Good, Mr. Kerr and myself
immediately prepared for an overland journey to the Bulu interior.
Early one morning, the caravan being ready and in form, we were about to
move, when, at the last moment, a small boy, frightfully dirty, came
bounding out of the dark forest, all out of breath as if chased by
cannibals, and throwing himself at my feet, entreated me to take him to
the interior as my personal attendant. Every white man is supposed to
have a “boy.” I had expected to engage a Bulu boy upon reaching the
interior. But the African has a remarkable talent for importunity. This
boy said his name was _Lolo_, and I half relented at the sound of it.
Lolo might have been ten or eleven years old; although, as Dr. Good
remarked at the time, it was not easy to understand how he could get so
much dirt on him in only ten years.
“Go and wash yourself in the Atlantic Ocean,” I said; “and when I see
what colour you are I shall consider the matter of engaging you.”
As a matter of feet, the African is surprisingly clean—for a savage; and
this boy had probably accumulated most of his dirt in his desperate
plunge through the jungle-paths that he might reach Batanga before the
caravan should set out. He proved to be a very handsome boy, of delicate
features and intelligent expression, and with irresistibly beautiful
eyes. He was lighter in colour than the average. And I take this
opportunity of saying that there are as many shades of complexion among
Africans as among other people. There are differences between tribes and
between individuals of the same tribe. As one goes towards the interior
the tribal colour is decidedly lighter. The Mpongwe people are
black—sometimes almost coal-black—beside the light-brown Fang. There are
individual Fang who are yellow. Ndong Koni is as fair as an average
mulatto. And when the skin is smooth and soft this colour is the
favourite complexion. But the albino (and they are not uncommon) is an
abhorrence.
Lolo’s eyes danced with joy when I engaged him. African eyes as compared
with others, besides being remarkable organs of sight, serve a great
variety of secondary uses. They can laugh, or sing, or plead, or weep;
they can love, or they can break all the commandments. But the most
beautiful and expressive eyes in Africa are those of the boys. Lolo at
once regarded this new relationship as a kind of fatherhood on my part;
and he amply repaid me, not only in faithful service, but also in
personal devotion which was quite pathetic, and which in the course of
events was put to an extreme test. He was both brave and affectionate—a
typical African boy.
On my part, it was my knowledge of Lolo that first inspired me with a
strong desire for a school, and enabled me to realize what a moral
factor a school of such boys might become in transforming the life of
the people. The African baby is a beautiful, solemn-eyed little
creature, who looks out at the world as if he were undecided whether to
stay. About half of them decide not to stay. The African baby is cunning
and bright, but it seldom cries, and it is not given to play nearly as
much as the white child. As the child grows older he cheers up. It has
been said that only when he reaches years of indiscretion does the
African become joyful. From that time on he is joyful to the end. But
the African boy, before he becomes stupidly happy, bears the strongest
stamp of humanity and is more interesting than at any other stage in his
career.
On the first long march into the forest, Lolo easily kept up with the
caravan and when we arrived in camp busied himself in waiting upon “his
white man”—opening my box of clothing and getting everything that I
wanted, taking off my shoes, bringing water, making my bed, helping the
cook, waiting at supper and a score of other duties. On the first day of
this journey we passed through Lolo’s town, about two or three hours
from the coast. The chief was Lolo’s own father and there was some
likelihood of trouble; for the boy had slipped away without his father’s
knowledge. Lolo hid in the bush while I sat down in the palaver-house
and called for the chief, thinking it best to tell him that I had
employed his boy and in some way to win his consent. He kept me waiting
an unusually long time. But when he appeared no explanation was
necessary; it was evident that he had been making his toilet. He was
dressed in a pink calico Mother Hubbard, which came about to his knees
and was longer in front than behind. I thought he had it on wrong side
to the front, but I was not sure. It was the more incongruous because he
was very tall and strongly built. He was so preoccupied with this new
robe of state that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to part
with a son; and there was no need of a present, nor even of diplomacy.
During my first term in Africa, a year and a half, Lolo was with me all
the time.
He had been with me a whole month, and I had about concluded that I had
ensnared an angel, when one day I discovered in him a large inheritance
of latent savagery. There was another boy at Efulen about the same age
as Lolo. They used the same bucket to fetch water. A dispute arose as to
who should have the bucket first. The dispute developed by rapid stages
into a quarrel, and then a fight. An extreme unwillingness to part with
the bucket was followed by excessive willingness; and when I came in
sight, they were passing it back and forth to each other with deplorable
vivacity, which threatened to put the bucket out of service for all
time. But their savage yells and distortions of countenance were so
amazing and impressive that the flying bucket was reduced to an
insignificant detail. As I approached they closed in upon each other,
then fell to the ground each with his arms tight around the other’s neck
and intent upon nothing short of murder. Having rolled over several
times, they came to the edge of a very steep hill that had been cleared
for a road. Down this hill they rolled together at such a rate that they
continued to cling to each other for safety and because there was
nothing else to cling to. They received so many jolts and bruises on the
way that about the time they reached the bottom, or soon after, a bond
of sympathy united them and they were friends.
Shortly afterwards I fell sick with a fever and lay in bed several
weeks, first in a tent and then in a native hut. It was through those
long, weary weeks that I fully tested the patience and the devotion of
Lolo, and the little servant of the jungles became a friend whom I shall
never forget. As I grew worse the people when approaching had to be
warned not to make a noise, and warned again after their arrival, and
warned once a minute while they remained. When Lolo was not doing this
or engaged in some other urgent service he was sitting beside my bed,
sometimes keeping cold water on my head, or fanning me, and if no
immediate service was necessary he still sat there so as to be on hand
when I required him. There was nothing to look at but bark walls and an
earthen floor and he could not even see those very well, for empty
salt-bags had been hung over the windows to darken the room. I marvelled
at his devotion, which I had done nothing in the world to earn, except
that I was fond of him. It was no sense of duty that impelled him, nor
any moral obligation—the African is not strong on morals—but it was
purely a service of love, and it would have done credit to any white
friend. Often when he thought I was asleep I felt his hand laid on my
forehead to see if the fever was high. Often, indeed, the little African
boy in the service of the white man regards him with an abandoned
devotion peculiar to his race, and with a love which his own father has
never awakened, although there is bound up with it all the moral
possibilities of the boy.
After leaving Kamerun I still kept track of Lolo. Others followed me who
were at least as good to him as I was; and it is a great satisfaction to
know that he did not grow up into a savage. And yet of such stuff are
savages made. Hamlet, in the churchyard, reflecting sadly upon the base
uses to which our bodies may return, observes that imagination may trace
the noble dust of Alexander till one finds it stopping a bung-hole; and
that “Imperius Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, May stop a hole to keep
the wind away.” It is a matter for at least as grave reflection that out
of the same living boy may be made the bloodthirsty savage, or the kind
of man which is called “the noblest work of God.” Which of the two a boy
is destined to become depends somewhat on whether his name happens to be
_Lolo_, or _John_.
It was years after that I opened, at Baraka, in the French Congo, a
boarding-school for Fang boys. At the beginning of the term I gathered
the boys and brought them to Baraka with the _Dorothy_. The mountain
does not come to Mahomet, so Mahomet goes and fetches it. As they were
scattered over the entire area of the great Fang field, the opening of
the school was a formidable labour of two weeks; and it was also the
most exhausting and trying experience of the whole year. For these two
weeks were spent not in actual travel, but nearly all of it in the towns
in red-hot contentions with the parents of the boys, who at the first
were always unwilling to let them come to the school. In the more remote
towns many of them suspected that I wanted to sell the boys into
slavery, or even to kill them for some unknown purpose. There were days,
before the school was well known, when I was utterly disheartened by
their continual refusal, in town after town, to let me have their boys,
though there were many bright lads in most of the towns.
The boys themselves would have come; the trouble was with their parents.
Sometimes I was constrained to say that the parental institution was an
intolerable nuisance; or, at least, that the African child might well
envy the blessed Melchizedek who was without father or mother. But
orphans are not to be found. Each child has a score of parents; for a
child’s parents include all his uncles and aunts even several degrees
removed. The child of course knows his own parents and makes a
difference between them and the rest; but he addresses them all as
“Father” or “Mother,” and they divide parental authority among them, all
taking a hand in the child’s bringing-up: and it must be admitted that
no better way could be devised for bringing up a first-class savage.
I usually held a service in the town. Then I asked the people for boys
for my school, explaining the purpose of the school. The first reply was
always a loud general consent—which did not deceive me; for I knew that
it was only general and did not apply to any particular boy. As soon as
a boy jumps up and says, “I want to go,” immediately several fathers and
a score of mothers order him to sit down; another boy expresses his
desire to come, and another score of parents protest. Then the war is
on; and during its progress I usually receive a goodly share of cursing
and abuse. With some I argue, with some I plead; sometimes I flatter,
sometimes I scold—anything to get the boy. Besides diplomacy, a present
of a piece of laundry soap was a necessity. I carried the yellowest kind
of it, in long bars which I cut off by the inch.
I would not take any boy, whom I had not had before, without his
parents’ consent. And if I failed to obtain their consent, however
unreasonable they might be, I declined to take the boy, though I often
left him crying on the bank, or sometimes fighting a whole mob of his
numerous relations single-handed. But if the boy had been in my school
before and I had expended months of labour upon him the question was
quite different. I then felt that I had a claim upon him, and I would
take him if I possibly could, even in spite of his parents.
In one town I met a fine boy, Ndong Nzenye, a tiny and handsome child,
who had already been in my school. Of course he wished to return, and I
was delighted that there seemed to be no parental objections. But at the
last moment the inevitable mother appeared, and on general principles
vetoed his coming. When she saw that she was unable to prevail she flew
at him to give him a parting blow. He ran the length of the street—the
woman following at his heels—and back again, and towards me for
protection. I also ran towards him; but she was gaining on him, and just
before we met she struck him, on the back, a blow with her fist that
hurt him badly, and with a cry he fell into my arms. She said: “Now you
can go with your white father;” and she went into the house looking as
if she thought she had done a good deed.
He was leaving home for six months and that was his farewell. One
naturally wonders whether there are any moral possibilities for a boy
who comes of such stock and from such a home. Yet that boy, as I knew
him for two years, in the school and out of it, was gentle, obedient and
lovable; though if he had remained in that town he would have grown up a
savage like his people.
Although such mothers are not uncommon, yet as a rule when it was
settled that the boy was coming to school his mother would prepare him
some little delicacy to eat on the way; and occasionally, though seldom,
I have been touched by evidences of real tenderness. In a certain
far-away bush-town, more than one hundred miles in the interior, I
approached an old woman to plead her consent for her boy who was eager
to come with me. The Fang word for _no_ is _koko_ (kaw-kaw). As soon as
I had spoken she began shaking her head, in regular time with her words,
and repeating in a continuous monotone: “Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko,” on
and on, like an agitated crow, all the time I was talking, and seeming
not to stop for breath. I talked loud however, and she heard. I told her
how much the other boys who belong to that town would in future surpass
her boy, until at length I saw that her judgment was convinced and was
gaining a slow victory over her feelings. She was still shaking her
head, and she continued the ceaseless “Ko-ko-ko-ko”; but big tears were
rolling down her cheeks, for she knew that she was going to yield. She
was gradually lowering her voice, while I went on to say that I would
take good care of her boy and that I could teach him many things that
she did not know. By this time, though she was still shaking her head
very slowly, her voice had died out. I gave the woman a big piece of
laundry soap—four inches perhaps.
[Illustration:
EKANG.
A little scholar.
]
[Illustration:
DISPENSARY—THE DAILY CLINIC.
At the extreme end, on the spectator’s left, Mendam (see pp. 191, 198)
is the boy who is kneeling, and has his hands on another boy’s
shoulders.
]
In one town a father whose boy had been in my school refused to let him
come the second time, giving as his reason that I was teaching him not
to kill people, while he wished him to kill. The father had heard him,
after he had been in my school, teaching the people of the town a new
commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” I tried my best to get the boy back
again in the school in spite of his father; but I did not succeed. I
wonder how many he has killed by this time!
In a certain town at the head of one of the smaller rivers of the lower
Gaboon there was one of my boys, named Ekang, a little fellow whom I
regarded as the brightest boy in school; at least he led them all in
French. I reached the town about ten o’clock at night. The people were
all asleep; but Ekang soon heard my voice in the street and came
quickly. He approached making amusing and mysterious signs to me,
enjoining silence, which he explained when he came up by whispering:
“She’s asleep.”
There was no need to explain who “she” was. But even while he was
speaking “she” had awakened and was charging furiously down the street.
The boy proposed that I should take his hand and run; but the suggestion
did not appeal to me; so I turned and faced the foe. Ekang got behind
me, and for further safety put his arms around my waist. She made a dash
at him, but he circled around to the other side. Then began a gymnastic
performance of which I was literally the centre, the two revolving about
me, first one way, then the other, the boy’s arms still around my waist,
and both of them keeping up a lively and impressive conversation, which,
with the African, is inseparable from action. If I have the slightest
degree of that personal dignity that would seem to be the right of a man
who believes the first chapter of Genesis, neither mother nor son
recognized it. Failing to lay hold of him in this manner she then tried
to catch his hands at my waist; but here I asserted my rights and kept
her at full arms’ length. When I told her that I really could not have
her so near to me, she replied: “I’m not after you [which greatly
relieved me]: I’m after my boy; for I’m his mother.”
I said that it was impossible that she could be his mother; that mothers
love their children, and that she talked as if she wanted to kill this
child; and seeing that he was one of my favourite boys I must take him
away from her cruelty. A long and trying altercation followed, despite
the late hour, and a hard day’s work. At last she was so far reduced, or
so sleepy that it was only a matter of judging how much soap it would
take to complete the victory. It took nearly half a bar; but it sealed a
strong friendship.
I could almost write a poem on laundry soap. I had never before imagined
the intimate relation of soap and sentiment. Even in our own land it
ranks about next to godliness: but in Africa godliness usually takes a
second place to laundry soap. My own method was to try godliness first
and then to follow up the effect with laundry soap.
One mother, who was not in town when her husband let me have their boy,
having heard upon her return that the boy had gone, immediately followed
us in a canoe, and overtook us at the next town. She came close to the
launch and, shrieking like a maniac, took a rank poison which she had
provided for the purpose, and holding it up in her hand declared that if
I would not deliver the boy to her instantly she should swallow the
poison. I parleyed with her a while until I felt that she probably meant
what she said. After death, she assured me, she would haunt me and cause
me all kinds of trouble as long as I lived. My wives would fall in love
with other men and would run away; as fast as I could marry others they
also would leave me. This was an appalling prospect for a single man; so
I gave her the boy.
Towards the close of a tour of this kind the nights were uncomfortable
because of the many that had to be accommodated in the launch. I have
never laid claim to genius except on the ground that I could put more
boys into one bed than any man of my generation. The launch was supposed
to provide sleeping room for six persons. But more than once I made it
accommodate as many as thirty, ten of them being adults. The retiring of
such a company at bedtime was a strategic performance that required
strict and skilful oversight and called for some very precise manœuvres.
It was much more difficult to get boys from the towns of the upper
river. The people were more ignorant and savage. One day on one of these
trips, after several successive failures, I called at a certain town,
_Ikala_, where I held a service and asked for boys and after much
talking procured one boy. Then I went further up the river to a town
named _Mfu_, where I anchored for the night. It was the hot season of
the year. I had left Angom at daylight that morning, had done some hard
work on the engine, had called at several towns and had held a service
in each, preaching in undershirt, overalls and grease. Besides there was
the responsible work of navigating in these rapid waters of the upper
river—in short I was dead tired. After a hasty supper, I went ashore and
held a long service at Mfu. The attendance was very large and was
followed by endless conversation; for a white face was a rare sight and
the message of the Gospel quite strange. When I asked for boys one boy
said he wanted to come; but he had overlooked the consideration of his
mother’s consent. A little later she burst upon the scene in a tropical
rage. She was fairly crazed with anger. I tried to persuade her that I
had no intention of eating her boy, nor of turning him into a monkey or
a hobgoblin. On the matter of the monkey she was not easily convinced,
for she had heard of white men doing such things and selling the monkeys
on passing steamers. “Moreover (observing my eye-glasses), what was that
thing that I wore on my eyes,” she would like to know, “but the very
diabolical fetish by which I changed people into monkeys? and I had best
take care how I looked at her through that fetish, for she was not a
person to be trifled with, but very dangerous when roused, though
naturally good.”
She was so ugly with anger, and so ferocious that if my glasses had
really been endowed with power to change her into an average monkey I
might have been tempted to use them for the improvement of her looks and
her manners. There was no use in talking that night; she scarcely heard
me; and about ten o’clock I returned to the launch, without the boy, and
dreadfully tired.
In the interval of my absence, the man of Ikala who had given me his
boy, repenting of his goodness (the only thing the savage ever repents
of), had followed me up the river with several friends, all armed, and
had stolen the boy from the launch. Nor did he even have the good
manners to leave the two inches of soap that I had given him.
Next morning before breakfast I again landed, hoping by more substantial
eloquence to persuade the woman of Mfu. For the boy, whose name was
_Mfega_, was a very manly little fellow and wanted to come as much as I
wanted to have him. I took with me a pair of bright, brass arm-rings
that had cost seven cents—the largest present I ever made for the
purpose. I turned them about in the sunlight as I passed her house, and
indifferently rattled them. After a while I went straight to her house
and offered her the rings for the boy. Notwithstanding Paul’s contempt,
I found the eloquence of sounding brass more persuasive than the tongue
of an angel, which I had before assumed. She surrendered him to me, not
even prescribing how he should be cooked. Mfega returned to his town
after several months and he taught these same people to sing our hymns
and told them many things he had learned about the true God; and my
reception ever after that was friendly and cordial.
I then crossed the river to another town, called _Fula_, where the
government had lately established a post, which was in charge of two
black soldiers of Senegal, imported by the French. I visited in Fula a
while and then set out to a bush-town, or group of towns, called _Nkol
Amvam_, more than two hours from the river. I have said elsewhere that
there is no such thing as a _mile_ in Africa, and that periods of time
are used as terms of linear distance. The road was at the very worst,
much of the way knee-deep in mud, for it was the wet season. The boys
called it _ebol nzen_—_a rotten road_. The part of one that was above
ground was kept moist by the dripping undergrowth that met across the
path, which was also full of thorns and briers. Seldom had I travelled
on any such road, and not at all since the days, long past, when I had
walked with Dr. Good in the Bulu interior. I had now been in Africa a
long time, and this road was almost too much for me.
I had with me for guide one of my schoolboys, Mendam, who lived in a
town a little further down the river. Mendam was one of the characters
of the school, independent and original, a chucklesome boy with the best
laugh in the school. Mendam thought that the walk over such a road was
too much for “his white man” in his present state of health, and I was
touched by the feeling of regard and sympathy that he showed. We came to
a running stream almost to our knees, clear and cool, so grateful and
refreshing that I halted and stood in the middle of it for some time,
quite tired. Immediately Mendam was on his knees washing the mud off my
feet and trousers.
Though I had never before been in Nkol Amvam I had had five of their
boys in my school the preceding year. The chief had brought them out to
the river. I was therefore not entirely a stranger, and as usual the
exceedingly kind reception which I received from all the people was in
striking contrast to that of those towns from which I had never had boys
in the school; and the boys themselves fairly shouted for joy. This time
they wanted me to take all the boys in the town. I held a service and
then started back to the river taking nine boys from Nkol Amvam.
I reached Fula at noon, just in time to prevent a quarrel between my
crew and the two soldiers who were in charge of the government post.
These natives of Senegal, although they know French, and many of them
have some education, are still savages; and it is a pity that they
should ever be armed and left among a people who are foreign to them
without the supervening authority of a white man. They are cruel and
bestial. These two men were a terror to all the husbands in the
surrounding towns. This day they had come into the town, and seeing two
of my men, Ndong Koni and Toko, who were chatting freely with the people
and naturally attracting a good deal of attention, they thought they
would let the townspeople see that they were the superiors of these
coastmen. To their insolence my men responded with contempt, and the
quarrel had gone about as far as mere words could go when I arrived. I
soon settled that palaver and we hurried on board, and started down the
river.
We had great difficulty in turning the launch. The current was
exceedingly swift, a roaring torrent, and the channel narrow and
dangerous. As we began to turn, the bow necessarily came close to the
bank into slack water, while the stern was in the strong middle-current.
And before we could get sufficient way on her the stern would be carried
down leaving her bow still up-stream and headed for the bank. Twice we
had to drop the anchor. Then we threw out a line from the stern and
passed it around a tree, and weighing the anchor let the bow turn with
the current. We were soon rushing down the river through rapids and
whirlpools, and swirling currents. We called at one or two towns on the
way, and reached Angom about three o’clock, where I had work for the
rest of the day. It was a great relief to get back into the well-known
channel of the broad deep river that “flows unvexed to the sea.”
On the way up the river the preceding day, we had stopped at a town
where one of my former schoolboys, Ngema, whose father refused to let
him come again, said that he would like to go up the river with me to
the towns beyond, expecting to stop on the way back. I told him that I
could not stop at his town coming down; so he took a small canoe in tow.
Next day, when we made our last stop before passing his town, he got
into the canoe and was towed behind us; but when he was near home he
suddenly scrambled upon the launch and as we passed by he cut the
tow-line and called out to the people to send some one after the canoe,
that he was going back to school with me. I of course consented to his
coming, for he had already been in my school two terms and I had a claim
on him. I was delighted with the plan and greatly enjoyed carrying him
swiftly past his town while a concourse of his scandalized parents stood
on the bank executing fantastic gestures of remonstrance; for, standing
beside the engine, I could not hear their words. I waved back at them
pleasantly as we swept around a curve out of their sight.
Later in the day, when we were at Angom, Ngema came to me with a
peculiar expression that combined amusement and annoyance, with his head
inclined to one side as if he were too weak to hold it up, being quite
overcome by some piece of intelligence. He said, “Mr. Milligan, father
has come.” At the same time a loud noise, increasing as it approached,
confirmed the news. But I was not alarmed, as I had the man at a
disadvantage, away from his own town. Supposing that we might stop at
Angom, he had followed us in a canoe. The boy kept close to me, while I
went on with my work, not paying much attention to the father’s loud
remonstrance, but occasionally jesting with him on the score of the
boy’s success in getting away from his town. The African likes to be
teased; it is the consummate expression of brotherly love. In the
evening when I was about to start for the coast I went to him and said:
“Now don’t you think you have cursed me enough for this trip? Can’t we
be friends before I go?”
Looking somewhat abashed, but no longer unfriendly, he replied quietly:
“A bar of soap would settle the palaver.”
The African savage is more than “half child.” I was sure that when I
would take these boys back to their towns, no matter what might have
been the circumstances under which I obtained them, their parents would
be the best friends I had in the town.
That evening I started down the river with the _Evangeline_ in tow,
which had been at Angom while we were up the river. I made two short
stops to take on more boys. An entertaining episode occurred at one of
these places. Eight boys, seeing the _Dorothy_ coming down the river,
came out in a large canoe, some of them expecting to go with me to
Baraka. They had not the least idea of the speed or the momentum of the
_Dorothy_, and they ran straight across her bow. It was an exciting
moment when the river suddenly closed over a canoe and eight boys and a
terrific yell. I scarcely knew which of the submerged elements formed
the largest bubbles on the surface. But they all came up—boys, canoe,
and yell—and we secured them.
I had in all fifty-one persons on board the _Dorothy_ and the
_Evangeline_. I ran all that night and reached Baraka in the early
morning. But I must tell the story of that night; for we encountered a
tornado on the way.
I usually left Gaboon in the morning so as to have the first thirty
miles of the journey past and get into the river before the sea breeze
became strong. In returning it was not so easy to choose the time for
this part of the journey; and I sometimes encountered a rough sea. On
this occasion I had intended to anchor over night at a point sixty miles
from Gaboon and finish the journey in the early hours of the next day.
But I felt the strain of responsibility for this big human cargo and I
was anxious to reach home. Sleep would be impossible for me in the
crowded launch. When I considered also that the sea is usually more
quiet at night, I decided to go on the remaining sixty miles to Gaboon.
The moon and the stars were shining brightly above us, and almost as
brightly in the depths of the swift, silent river. When we reached the
sea it was as smooth as satin, and it continued so for a few hours. The
air was so still that at length the stillness became ominous, and I
began to fear that it was the calm that precedes a storm.
A black cloud loomed up from the horizon which we recognized as the
signal of the tornado. As usual there seemed to be two skies, the one
revolving within the other, in opposite directions. But the black cloud
hurried towards the zenith, spreading abroad, until in the course of a
few minutes it covered the entire sky, blotting out every star. We
hastily closed all the windows and shutters and carried down some of the
stuff from the top of the launch; but there was not time to save all.
The darkness above and around us seemed palpable like smoke, and beneath
us the sea was like ink. There was not a light on sea or land to guide
us and of course we could not see the shore-line, which we had always
followed instead of steering by the compass. We could only take the
soundings and keep out in deep water. I do not want to frighten my
readers as I was frightened that night; so I hasten to say that nothing
came of it except the fright. But, having the sole responsibility for
the lives of those fifty persons, the strain was great and I could have
taken Jonah’s place and have been flung overboard for the safety of the
rest. We moderns are more practical, however, and I took the soundings,
myself heaving the lead. In such a moment I could not trust a native to
do it—except Ndong Koni, and he was at the wheel. For the native is
accustomed to the canoe, and in a storm his instinct would be to go to
the shore. In a moment of peril he would be not unlikely to follow his
own instinct instead of my orders.
Suddenly the wind came; the tempest was unchained. We first heard its
roar in the distance; and in a moment the tornado was on. I fairly lost
my breath at the first swoop of it. The launch quivered and trembled
like a frightened horse. Once or twice she swayed so far over that the
small boys screamed, and then realizing that this was a life-and-death
struggle, and that it depended entirely upon her, she braced herself for
the battle. The poor _Dorothy_! Like some of her fellow missionaries she
was overworked. Intended only for inland waters, she was not only
greatly overloaded, but also required to fight her way through a
tropical tornado on a wide sea. We gave her half speed and steered right
into the storm. The first blast carried away all that was on top of the
launch. The wind raged fiercer and louder; but the _Dorothy_ somehow
held right on. Fortunately she had to contend only with the wind; and
not with wind and wave, for the sea was not yet rough. At last the
welcome rain came, falling as it falls only in the tropics. Soon
afterwards the wind died down, but the rain continued to fall for hours,
and it seemed ice-cold.
Through all that storm, when the _Dorothy_ was toiling in the sea, and
afterwards through the rain, for more than two hours, I stood outside on
the small forward deck throwing the heavy lead without stopping, and
directing the man at the wheel. As we anchored the day was breaking,
which made twenty-four hours of continuous work. But all the following
day, whether at work or rest, I was thinking of the long overdue
furlough.
XII
A SCHOOL
I said that Mendam had the best laugh in the school; and a good heart
went with it. A much younger boy, Mba, came from a town near where
Mendam lived. But they were not of the same clan. Both boys were from
towns far up the river and neither of them had ever seen the sea until
they came to my school. Like all interior people they thought that the
whole world was one great “bush.” Mba was shy and sensitive and Mendam
became a _big brother_ to him through the school year. I think the _Big
Brother_ idea, now popular in America, must have come from Africa. The
two boys became devotedly attached to each other. Mendam helped Mba with
his lessons; helped him also to take the jiggers out of his feet.
One day just before dinner several boys were down in the gully behind
the school when they suddenly came upon a python. They announced it with
a shout that brought the entire school stampeding down the hill. Mba had
his whole dinner of rice and smoked fish on his plate at the moment when
he heard the shout. He ran with it in his hand until he came to the path
leading down into the gully, and then, naturally, he set the plate down
in the path while he hurried on. But how was Obiang to know that Mba’s
dinner was right in the middle of the path when he came tearing down the
hill to kill the python? Obiang planted his foot fair on the plate,
leaving a large track and not much else. Mba, after a vain hunt for the
python, came back to enjoy his dinner. I hope we shall never get so old
that we cannot sympathize with the pangs of a hungry boy. Mba was as
inconsolable as the mother bird whose “brood is stol’n away.” But it
only lasted till Mendam arrived.
“Never mind, Mba,” he said, “I’ll give you half of my dinner. I’ll give
you _more_ than half.” That was some sacrifice for a healthy, hungry boy
who was much bigger than Mba.
But the tragedy of life begins early in Africa. One day the news came
that war had broken out between neighbouring towns up the river and that
Mba’s father had killed Mendam’s father.
It was a bitter grief for both boys, and a hard struggle on the part of
Mendam; for the blood of countless generations in his veins cried
vengeance. By all the codes and customs that ever he had heard of before
he came to school he should have hated Mba with a hatred that would last
for life. It was a hard struggle; but if the Christian faith in him had
not triumphed—if the friendship of the two boys had been broken—I don’t
think I would have told the story.
Many friendships were formed in the school which in after years would
surely become a power for the prevention of war and the shedding of
blood. Boys of neighbouring clans, mutually hostile, clans between which
there were old feuds; clans which are bred in the belief that it is a
virtue to hate each other—in that schoolboys of such clans found
themselves side by side; and in the social alignments of the school
these very boys were drawn together by the fact that, coming from
neighbouring communities, they had much in common. These school
friendships were exceedingly strong; for the African’s affections are
his substitute for moral principles. It is impossible that such boys
should afterwards contract the mutual hate of their fathers, or without
compunction shed each other’s blood.
Many of the boys when they came to Baraka had only the smallest rag of
clothing and some had none. I got just boys—nothing more. I had their
clothes made and ready for them before the school opened. The dress
which a fellow missionary devised for them was a gingham shirt with a
yoke, and loose sleeves to the elbow, and the usual cotton robe (a
_cloth_ they call it) of bright colours bound with red or white,
fastened around the waist and falling below the knees. They wore only
the cloth in the schoolroom, the shirts being kept for parade. I
disliked to see trousers on the natives, with a few exceptions of those
who were perfectly civilized in mind and manners and somewhat cultivated
in taste. It immediately and unconsciously introduced a standard of
dress and taste to which they could not measure up; a standard entirely
different from that which was applicable to a primitive people in
conditions of simplicity and freedom. Moreover, the natives, both men
and women, as well as children, look by far the best in bright colours,
not admissible in our style of clothing. They do not look well in white;
and in black they are ugly. But red, yellow, blue, orange, purple,
green—any of these colours, or all of them, are becoming and appropriate
to their climate.
The day’s program for this school of seventy-five boys was as follows:
At 5:45 A. M. the rising bell rang and at 6:15 I met the boys in the
schoolroom for prayers, after which they had breakfast. From seven
o’clock until nine they cut grass and did other necessary work in the
yard. In the proper season they picked the oranges and gathered them.
From nine o’clock until half-past three they were in school, with a
recess of half an hour in the morning for taking jiggers out of their
feet, and an hour at noon for dinner. At half-past three the dispensary
was opened for the sick and ailing. From four o’clock till five they
worked again in the yard, and at five they all took a bath in the sea.
On Saturday morning the program was the same until ten o’clock. Then a
small piece of soap was given to each boy and they all washed their
clothing in a stream that passed near their house. Extravagance always
goes with improvidence, and both are prominent characteristics of the
African. But in nothing else is their extravagance more flagrant than in
their use of soap, although they are so eager for it and have so little
of it.
The cutting of grass is a constant labour. There is no such thing as a
lawn; the grass is very coarse and rank, and does not form a sod. There
is every condition of growth—good soil, heat and moisture; and the rapid
growth of vegetation is astonishing. Here and there on the mission
premises were large beds of the strange sensitive-plant, which at the
least disturbance folds its petals together face to face. Before one, as
he walks through it, its beautiful foliage is spread like a heavy green
carpet, while behind him is nothing but scraggy, wilted vines and no
foliage at all. But in a few minutes it opens again.
The Africans use a short, straight cutlass for cutting grass, which
requires that they stoop to the ground. Even at the best, it is very
slow work. I, like others before me, imported a scythe, and showed
several of the workmen how to use it. But they did not take to it. As
soon as I disappeared it was put carefully away for my own use.
Besides the cutting of grass, there were roads to keep in repair, cargo
to land, or carry from the beach to the storeroom, and much other work.
The work of the boys saved the necessity of hiring a number of men; and
so the boys paid a large part of the expense of keeping them. As a
matter of fact, the maintenance of each boy (his food and clothing) cost
six or sometimes seven dollars for an entire year.
It required a vast expenditure of energy and continual oversight to get
seventy-five boys to go to work promptly and to work well. They were
just at the age when total depravity takes the concrete form of
laziness; but they were not more lazy than so many white boys.
One day when they were cutting the very long grass in the back of the
garden, there was a sudden cry, “Mvom!” (python). Lying in the grass was
a monster python with several coils around a dog which it was preparing
to swallow. It was a dog that we all knew, the only one of a respectable
size in the community. Being preoccupied with the dog, and partly hidden
in the grass, it did not seem to pay any attention to the boys. About
twenty-five of them remained to watch it while fifty came to call me.
Baraka was well provided with various firearms, but there was not a
single piece that would actually shoot. As a rule the appearance was all
that was really necessary. But in a real emergency this left something
to be desired. Finding myself without a weapon I went to the garden and
looked at the monster snake, and when I saw that it did not seem
disposed to leave so fine a supper I cautioned the boys to keep away
from it while I ran to an English trading-house—_Hatton & Crokson’s_—in
search of a weapon. The traders were as defenseless as the mission. The
manager, however, recalled that there was in his possession a pistol, a
precious affair, belonging to the firm. I waited exactly half an hour
while he put it “in perfect condition,” and loaded it. I kept on waiting
while he stood with it in his hand telling me what a fine weapon it was,
instructing me in its use, and especially requesting that I should bring
it back myself and not entrust it to a native for reasons which he fully
explained. I then returned to the mission wondering whether the python
might not take a fancy to something more delicate than a poor dog, and
how many boys a python would hold. But it was still coiled about the dog
not having finished crunching his bones. I crept very close, took deadly
aim and fired. Deafening silence! The pistol did not go off. Again I
pulled the trigger, with the same result, and again, and again. I
withdrew in disgust. It was the only big game that I had ever attempted
to shoot; and I had already considered what I would do with the skin.
The older boys and several men who were present had been eager all the
while to attack it with their cutlasses; and I now gave them permission.
They formed in line. One man was to strike first, back of the head, and
all the rest instantly to follow. It had lain quiet so long and was so
very sluggish that one could hardly conceive that it was alert; but at
the first stroke, before the other cutlasses fell, it had gone like a
flash. We could only guess at its size; but I have vowed never to record
my guess. Pythons have been actually measured in Gaboon at thirty feet.
One day the schoolboys killed a very young one twelve feet long, and
immediately returned to search for the parents; for they said that a
mere baby python like this would not yet have left its parents’ care to
shift for itself. The next day after this several of the smaller boys
were taken sick and I was called to the dormitory to see them. My
immediate diagnosis was _python_, and I found that I was right. But none
of the boys who had been in the school for more than one term joined in
the feast; and some of them would no more have eaten it than I would.
The regular food of the boys was cassava and dried fish. Plantains were
sometimes substituted for cassava. If we were out of fish I gave them
sardines—one sardine to each boy as his allowance of meat for a whole
day; I believe that no devout contributor to missions will charge me
with extravagance. If I had neither fish nor sardines I gave them
coconuts. The meat of a very ripe coconut is full of a strong oil and
the natives like it. A boy’s food costs less than a cent a meal.
The food for an entire day was given out at noon. They cooked their fish
all together in a large kettle. During the entire year there was never a
quarrel over the division of their food. I provided knives and forks and
a beautiful service of tin plates and spoons, all of which was new to
them as well as eating off a table—in this instance a broad shelf around
the outside of the house covered by the projecting eaves. The only
plates that they had ever known were leaves; so they called the plates
_leaves_, and had no other name for them. But I was rather puzzled the
first time a boy came and asked me for a “leaf”—“a white man’s leaf.”
The schoolhouse was an old discarded residence, which had been used by
native ministers and others connected with the mission. It had been good
in its day, and it had a board floor; but it was now in an advanced
stage of decay. It was divided into two rooms. One day I was in the
smaller room teaching a class of fifteen little boys seated on three
long benches when suddenly the floor gave way and the whole class fell
through. White ants were probably responsible for the collapse. The
floor was elevated on posts and the ground was several feet below. One
side of the room went down before the other, declining the benches so
that the boys slid to the lower end and fell off all in a heap. They got
up after a while and having crawled out they went around the schoolhouse
and marched in at the front door. Nduna, who was teaching a class, being
surprised at their entrance, said: “I thought you boys were in this
other room.” Esona, the wittiest boy in the school, replied: “We thought
so too but we were mistaken.”
[Illustration:
SCHOOLHOUSE AND DORMITORY AT GABOON.
]
The dormitory was a long, low building with earth floor, walls of bamboo
and roof of palm thatch. The teacher lived in one end of it, in a large
room separated by a partition. The bed was a bunk five feet wide which
ran around the walls of the whole interior. This bunk was a simple
device of my own. I made it with the assistance of a native carpenter
out of boxes, of which there was always a great pile on hand, in which
shipments of goods had been received. The bare boards with nothing else
would have been by far the best beds that the boys from the interior and
many of the others had ever slept upon. But there were rolls of
discarded matting in the storeroom which had been accumulating for a
generation. I had this washed, and spread on the beds, and even doubled,
which made them positively luxurious. Their house was kept as clean as
such a house could be kept. They did their cooking outside under a roof
without walls, and the house was very little used except for sleeping.
This all may seem very simple—ludicrously simple. But _the simple life_
is a popular vogue in these days, at least in theory; and we were only
practicing what others preached. For those boys it was such a change as
cannot easily be imagined. They were taught habits of order and
cleanliness, self-respect and consideration for others, to work and to
think, all that is essential to civilization, and the great religious
truths which are its foundation and which centre in the cross of Christ.
Even if they do not become professed followers of Christ they are far
removed from their former life. That life and its surroundings will
never be the same to them, and will never again satisfy them.
Parents were more willing to give me sick children than any others,
because these were of little or no use at home, and they soon learned
that those who went away sick were more than likely to return well.
Each day after school hours I opened the dispensary. At the beginning of
the term there were usually twenty or thirty boys who were treated
daily. None of them, of course, were very serious cases. Most of them
had itch, all of them had worms, many had ulcers, and there were a few
fevers and a few fits. In my last year in Africa a fellow missionary
relieved me of most of this medical work. Some of the ulcers were
dreadful, for the blood of many of these children, especially those who
live near the coast, is so tainted with venereal disease that a small
cut or scratch is liable to become an ugly sore, and such wounds are
rarely cleansed. Long before the close of the term, however, they were
nearly all well and their bodies clean and smooth.
In a former chapter I have told at some length of the scourge of the
jigger, and how the discipline of the school was concentrated in an
effort to make the boys keep them out of their feet. A boy who had
jiggers got no food until his feet were clean. It was hard discipline,
but it would have been cruel to have done otherwise. The whole of the
morning recess was spent in examining their feet. Without exception the
boys who had been long in the school kept themselves perfectly clean
from jiggers, and they in turn were willing to examine the other boys’
feet and report to me. It was a measure of self-protection; for one boy
whose feet were full of jiggers would scatter thousands of them.
Sometimes in the dry season, when they are worst, I had the boys haul
barrels of salt water from the sea and flood the house with it.
The program of daily studies covered the subjects usually taught in
primary schools, besides French and the Bible. With the help of a
missionary friend I translated into Fang a simple catechism of fifty
questions and answers and a number of hymns. They committed to memory
both catechism and hymns. These they invariably taught in their towns
upon their return home. Some few of the boys are very bright in all
their studies and learn fast—as fast as American boys; others are stupid
in everything—as stupid as some American boys. The average African
schoolboy, however, is not as clever as the average American boy. In the
acquisition of a foreign language the African boy far surpasses the
American. Yet this is not now regarded as a high order of faculty. It
rather belongs to the elementary mind and the highly civilized nations
tend to lose it.
I have never known an American school in which there was better order
and so little exercise of discipline as in my African school. There was
no flogging at all. The entire matter of discipline was confined to the
jigger-palaver. Yet these boys were not by any means dull or lacking in
humour. Indeed, the humour of the Negro is far more keen than that of
any Asiatic race, and is nearest to our own.
But even in the best-ordered schools there will be an occasional lapse
of discipline, and my school was no exception. One day in the class I
called on a certain boy, Toma, to read. A knife had been stolen from my
room that morning—probably by a workman—and the boys had been talking
about it and wondering if any of their number could have done it. Toma
was one of the larger boys and was dull at his books. Moreover, he was
conscious of being backward and was easily embarrassed when he was
reciting. This day as he rose to recite, a certain smart boy, Esona,
whom I have already mentioned, said in a loud whisper: “Now, if anybody
can’t recite his lesson that will be a sign that he has stolen Mr.
Milligan’s knife.”
The effect of the remark on Toma—as Esona expected and intended—was that
it embarrassed him and made it impossible for him to recite. He stumbled
on from bad to worse, to the ill-concealed amusement of the class, until
at last he came to a dead stop, paused for a moment, and then suddenly
turned and flung his book across the room at Esona’s head. It was well
aimed, and it hit. Toma evidently knew some things about books that
Esona had never thought of.
In singing they excelled. I am sure that only a choir of well-trained
American boys could sing as well as those boys of my school. They soon
acquired a reputation on the coast, and visitors, from passing steamers,
having heard of them from the captains and others, asked to hear them
sing; and I do not think that they were ever disappointed. There was a
quartette of boys who sang beautifully. I made some phonograph records
of their singing, but after bringing them all the way to New York in
safety, where I used them a few times, they got broken between New York
and Chicago.
The hymn, if well used, is the form in which the Christian religion will
reach more people than can be reached by any other means. When these
boys returned to their towns the people old and young were eager to
learn the hymns, and had soon committed many of them to memory. In
far-away towns that no white man had ever visited before, I have held a
service, and when I started a hymn the people all joined heartily in
singing. _He Leadeth Me_ was the favourite of all the hymns, and was
always the first one that they learned.
The routine of the day’s work was liable to various interruptions.
Sometimes a boy was enticed by his relations to run away from the
school. I always followed, and at any cost brought him back, for fear of
the demoralization of the school. I had always exacted a promise of each
boy when I received him that he would stay until the end of the term.
And they never ran away except when induced to do so by people of their
town whom they happened to meet. One day word was brought to me that two
of the boys had run away, having been persuaded to do so by a relation
who came selling food. I set out in hot pursuit with several attendants,
and soon we met the man who had been overheard asking the boys to go
with him. He denied all knowledge of them, but I had proof. I brought
him to Baraka, bound him hands and feet and said that he would be
released as soon as the boys were returned to me. In a few hours the
boys arrived.
There were other interruptions. For instance, while I am engaged in the
absorbing task of unfolding the implications of monotheism to a class of
theological students whom I am preparing for the work of catechists, a
naked Fang from the bush stalks into the room unannounced and says:
“White man, what’s good for worms? I’m full of them.”
“Santonine and castor oil,” roars the whole class in concert, with such
alacrity and assurance that I wish it were one of the implications of
monotheism.
“Well, I’ve brought two eggs,” says the Fang; “good eggs—both of them
laid this morning—and I want some of that medicine.”
I leave the class and first spend considerable time testing the eggs.
One of them is probably the oldest egg in the world. I complain to the
man, and he tells me that he took his wife’s word for its being laid
that morning; but that he might have known better, for she is the worst
liar that ever lived, and he—a lover of truth—is going to send her home
to her father and demand the dowry which he paid for her. And if it be
refused war will be declared between that town and his own.
I advise him that the matter of the egg is hardly worth going to war
over. The other egg is middling good; and I give him the medicine. Then
I resume the theological lecture.
The most noticeable feature of this _simple life_ is its bewildering
complexity. There is no mental perspective. The clamour of the small but
immediate interest constantly claims the attention, as a mote may bolt a
landscape. Emerson’s observation, that Isaac Newton was as great while
engaged in tying his shoe-string as in computing the magnitude of the
fixed stars, was comforting when much of my time was occupied in tying
shoe-strings. Yet, after all, such a life is exactly as great, or as
petty, as a man himself makes it. The shoe-string is the equivalent of a
cup of cold water. And it is a fact that these small matters afford the
very best kind of opportunity for personal contact and personal
influence with the native.
But the worst annoyance was due to parents coming to visit their
children. Sometimes half a dozen men and women would come from a distant
town to visit one small boy, all of them claiming the parental relation.
In the first place, such visitors could not understand why the boys
should not be kept out of school while they were there. And then they
could not understand why they should not stay over night or several
nights, at my expense, and sleep in the boys’ dormitory. Each of these
matters involved a long contention. Then they could not understand why
their boys should not be allowed to return home with them and spend a
few days. Then they could not understand why I should not give each of
them a present when they were about to take their leave. Sometimes the
boys, themselves, who had been happy and content, became unsettled and
wanted to go home. About every second or third day such visitors were
announced. Parents were always my chief trouble in Africa. Even in
fevered dreams they haunted me. At first these contentions, which
usually occurred in the morning, fairly wore me out before the day’s
work was well begun, but I afterwards learned to regard them as
inevitable and to bear them with the least mental expense possible. My
answers and protests became stereotyped, and I could carry on a vigorous
contention while thinking of something else. But I tried hard not to
offend these people, and somehow we always parted on friendly terms.
Within a month I might meet them in some distant town, and an unkindly
reception or unkindly report would defeat the purpose of my preaching.
In the middle of the term I had a picnic. Taking the _Lafayette_ or the
_Evangeline_ in tow behind the _Dorothy_ we went to a beach twelve miles
away and spent the day. We had many of the usual picnic sports. But
nearly all the prizes were soap, the pieces ranging from one to six
inches. Their deficiency in real sportsmanship is not surprising, but it
is rather amusing. A boy’s effort to win a race consisted largely in
attempting to disable his competitors.
They showed more of the true spirit of the sportsman in their native
games and sports.
They are fond of wrestling, and they wrestle fairly well. There is a
game in which two sides are chosen, and a boy of the first side,
standing opposite a boy of the second side, raises his arms above his
head—which the other boy must do at the same time—then claps his hands
together rapidly, as often as he pleases, at length suddenly thrusting
either arm in front of him as if striking a blow. The other boy must
keep with him as nearly as possible, and at the right moment thrust out
the corresponding arm. A certain number of “wins” makes a chief. The
chief retires honourably from the game and becomes a spectator. This
game is a training both for mind and muscle.
In their own towns, where they have spears, men and boys play a game in
which some object, perhaps a piece of plantain stock, is hurled along
the ground, while from either side they throw their spears at it and try
to “wound” it.
They have an interesting variation of _Hide and Seek_. One of their
number is sent into the bush to hide. In his absence some one “curses”
him. Then they all call to him and vociferously ask him: “Which of us
cursed you? Which of us cursed you?” His only guide is their
countenances, which he studies. If he names the right one, then the
latter must hide.
They have a “laugh” game in which a boy, standing before his fellows,
bids them laugh and tries in every legitimate way to compel them. He
mimics various animals, or well-known persons, especially persons of
great dignity. The boy who laughs exchanges places with him and in turn
bids his fellows laugh. They have a mocking song which they sing to one
who fails to make anybody laugh. This is a good training for oratory,
which occupies a large and important place in all Africa, the land of
the _palaver_. It is also a training in facial control, in which, as it
seems to me, the African is no amateur.
They also have gambling games in their towns; but I do not know that
habitual gambling is common.
Some of the games of the schoolboys, like some of their stories and
fables, may have been borrowed from adjacent tribes. For the Fang, whom
I know best, are in contact with other tribes south of them and also
with the people of Gaboon, where many tribes intermingle.
The boys were very fond of dancing, in which they often indulged in the
cool evening after supper. African dances are not in the least degree
effeminate; and they have nothing like our round dances. Their dancing
is as vigorous and masculine as their wrestling, and as a gymnastic
exercise is far better than wrestling. They dance with the whole body,
keeping time with the feet, while they wag the head, sway the shoulders,
rotate the thighs, agitate the muscles of the stomach until it seems to
gyrate. The African dance is distinctly a “stunt.” In many of the dances
they follow one another round and round in Indian file.
But they also have hunting-dances and war-dances with sham fights. Some
terrific battles, with uncomputed casualties, have been fought in my
school yard. In one of these battles they impressed into service an
enormous brass kettle which I had provided for their cooking. This and a
number of old kerosene tins did noble service as a military band and
reinforced their yelling battle-song. They seriously damaged the brass
kettle. But I forgave them; for it was the only instance of destruction
of which they were guilty during the whole year. One would scarcely
expect them to study economy when a battle was raging upon which—if I
might judge by the evidence of wild enthusiasm—the future of their tribe
was depending. Will it seem credible, or even possible to the American,
that never once did a real fight occur as an incident in these battles?
When the grass was rankest, however, or when the torrential rains had
excoriated the hillside roads, and there was plenty of hard work for the
schoolboys each day, they usually substituted story-telling and singing
for dancing and games in the cool of the evening.
Boys in Africa and everywhere else are fond of animal stories. The
story-teller imitates all the animals of his story, and as this talent
differs in different individuals, the story loses nothing, but rather
gains by repetition. Mendam, Nkogo, Esona and Ekang were all good
story-tellers. The following stories are known widely in West Africa:
The tortoise (which corresponds to Uncle Remus’s _Brer Rabbit_)
challenged the hippopotamus to a tug-of-war. The hippopotamus at first
refused to believe that the tortoise was serious, but at length he
accepted the challenge. Then the tortoise challenged the rhinoceros to a
tug-of-war. The rhinoceros at first did not believe that the tortoise
was serious, but at length he, too, accepted the challenge.
At the appointed time the tortoise was on hand with an enormous
bush-rope (liana), and when the hippopotamus arrived he fastened one end
of it to him and brought him to the bank of the river.
“Now,” said the tortoise, “I shall fasten the other end to myself and we
shall keep on pulling until you pull me into the river or I pull you
into the bush.”
Just then the rhinoceros came along to keep his appointment, and the
tortoise fastened the end of the rope to him and said: “Now, I shall
fasten the other end to myself and we shall keep on pulling until you
pull me into the bush, or I pull you into the river.”
Then the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros pulled against each other, and
pulled and pulled. Sometimes the rhinoceros was dragged almost into the
river and again the hippopotamus was dragged to the bush. At length they
became completely exhausted and each of them decided to give up to the
tortoise and admit defeat. For this purpose they came walking towards
each other until they met. They looked at each other for a moment in
surprise, and then they both cursed the tortoise.
The chameleon, despite its innocence, is an object of superstitious fear
to the African, and they are disposed to regard it as superwise.
The chameleon challenged the elephant to run a race. The elephant was
amused, for the chameleon is one of the slowest creatures in the forest.
But finding that the chameleon was really in earnest, the elephant
accepted the challenge. So the chameleon and the elephant set out on a
long race through the forest. The chameleon only started and then
immediately turned back; for he had arranged with different members of
his family that one of them should be present at the end of each stage
of the race. So at the end of the first stage when the elephant came
dashing in, all out of breath, he found the chameleon already there.
“What? You here?” exclaimed the astonished elephant.
“Yes,” said the panting chameleon, “I just got in.”
“Aren’t you very tired?” said the elephant.
“Not very,” said the chameleon.
So they set out again. But the chameleon only started and came back,
while the elephant ran on.
At the end of the next stage the elephant was again surprised to find
that the chameleon had arrived a little ahead of him. And so it happened
at the end of each stage until at last the elephant gave up, and
confessed that the chameleon had outrun him.
In all African fables the various animals are but thinly disguised human
beings.
The leopard bet his life to the antelope that if he would hide the
antelope would not be able to find him. The antelope agreed, and the
leopard went and hid in the forest. But the antelope found him very
quickly. Then the leopard was very angry. So he told the antelope to
hide and see how quickly he could find him. The antelope agreed, but he
told the leopard that he would surely have his life.
Then the antelope hid and the leopard searched for him and searched and
searched, but could not find him. Then he said: “I am too tired to walk
any more, and I am hungry; so I shall pick some of these nuts and take
them to town to eat.”
So the leopard filled a bag with the nuts, and when he had carried them
to town he called all his people together to eat them, and he told a
slave to crack the nuts for the people to eat. But, lo, out of the first
nut there jumped a fine dog. Now, the leopard was married and had four
wives, and each wife had her own house in which she cooked. The dog ran
to the first house and asked the wife for something to eat. But the wife
beat the dog and drove it out. Then the dog ran to the second house and
asked for something to eat. But the second wife beat the dog and drove
it out. Then the dog asked the third wife, and she also beat it. Then
the dog asked the fourth wife, and she beat it and tried to kill it. But
just as it was dying the dog changed into a beautiful maiden. Then the
leopard wanted to marry the maiden.
“All right,” she said, “but you must first kill those four wives who
beat the dog and tried to kill it.” And the leopard was so much in love
with the maiden that he killed his four wives for her sake.
Then he asked the maiden to marry him; but she said: “I cannot marry a
husband with such dreadful nails. Won’t you please have them cut?” Then
the leopard cut his nails.
But again the maiden said: “I can’t marry a husband with such awful
eyes. Won’t you please take them out?” And the leopard tore out his
eyes.
Then the maiden said: “I can’t marry a husband with such clumsy feet.
Won’t you please chop them off?” And the leopard had his feet chopped
off for he loved the maiden and wanted to marry her.
But again the maiden said: “There is just one more thing that I wish you
would do for me. Your teeth are frightfully ugly. Won’t you have them
knocked out?” And then the leopard sent to the fireplace for a stone and
had his teeth knocked out.
Then the maiden was suddenly changed into the antelope; who said to the
dying leopard: “You thought to outwit me, but I have outwitted you and
have taken your life and the life of your whole family.”
Towards the middle of the term the boys began to come to me voluntarily,
one by one, saying that they desired to be Christians; and before the
term had closed nearly all, at least four out of five, had professed
faith in Christ. How many of these would prove faithful no one could
tell; but very few of them gave me reason to doubt their sincerity. They
were not baptized, nor received into the church, until they had been two
years on probation. At first my confidence in their profession of faith,
compared with that of adults, hesitated; but it grew stronger with
experience each passing year. The boys were not the weakest, but the
best Christians in Africa. Their minds had never been warped with
fetishism; and they had a more intelligent grasp of Christian
principles.
Separated from the heathen environment during a portion of their
formative years—from its degrading beliefs as well as its immoral
practices—and having that intimate contact with the missionary which
only a boarding-school provides, the impression was nearly always
lasting. “As the twig is bent the tree is inclined.”
The very towns in which these boys lived became different from all other
towns. A stranger travelling with me from town to town would surely
notice the difference. These boys became without doubt the greatest
evangelistic force in the Fang field. Africans are natural orators; and
even the small boy has not the least difficulty in expressing his
thoughts appropriately. Whatever religious truth I taught the schoolboys
they in turn taught their people when they returned home. They did what
neither myself, nor any other white man, could ever have done. Boys of
twelve years, or even ten, gathered the people of their towns around
them, both old and young and taught them reading and whatever they had
learned of arithmetic. This is a matter of observation and astonishment
in all mission fields in Africa.
And all Africans have this beautiful childlike quality that they are
teachable—a quality that Jesus must have had in mind when He set a child
in the midst of the disciples as the symbol of Christian attainment. The
biggest African chief will sit on the ground and listen to the small
boy, so long as the small boy knows anything worth while that the chief
does not know.
XIII
THE MENTAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM
No; it was not among the Negroes, but among the peasants of Germany that
the horseshoe acquired its power of luck.
One day very long ago, in a German village, an honest blacksmith was
hard at work making a horseshoe when the devil, strolling about the
village, was attracted by the hammering. While looking on at the
blacksmith it occurred to him that it might be a very good thing to get
his own hoofs shod. Thereupon he made a bargain with the blacksmith, and
the blacksmith set to work to put horseshoes on the devil. Now the
honest blacksmith knew very well that it was the devil and nobody else.
So he put on each of his feet a red-hot shoe, and drove the nails
straight into the devil’s hoofs. The devil then paid him and went his
way; but the honest blacksmith threw the money into the fire. Meanwhile,
the devil, after walking some time, began to suffer pain from his shoes,
and as he went on the pain became worse and worse. In his torment he
danced and he kicked and he raged and he swore, and still the pain
became worse. Then at last, in agony, he tore the shoes off and threw
them away. From that day to this whenever the devil sees a horseshoe he
runs away as fast as he can go.
The superstition of the horseshoe has been so eagerly embraced by the
Negro that most people seem to think that it originated with him. It is
precisely like many of his own superstitions, and it shows that
ignorance and superstition in Africa are like ignorance and superstition
anywhere else, and that the African mind is essentially like our own.
The charm, the fetish and the relic represent ascending grades of
belief. They are all associated together in what we call _fetishism_.
The charm operates not by reason of any intelligence within itself but
by some influence from without. The horseshoe is such a charm. One of
the numerous African charms is the string which a mother ties around the
waist of her child and which is worn throughout childhood. This fetish
is for health. The Roman Catholic priests, in the early history of their
missions on the Congo, substituted for this health-fetish a string made
from the fibres of a palm that had been blessed on Palm Sunday. There is
no evidence, however, that the substitution of the Roman fetish for the
African fetish resulted in any marked improvement in the health of the
natives.
A charm is not necessarily a physical object—like the amulet. In Africa,
as among the superstitious everywhere else, it may be a word or action,
a sign or symbol, a formula or incantation. To count the number of
persons present on certain occasions will cause the death of at least
one of them within the year. The utterance of the word _salt_ at the
wrong moment has been known to produce appalling consequences.
The fetish proper represents a more intelligible form of belief than the
charm or amulet. One common kind of fetish implies animism; that is,
that the various objects of nature have each a life analogous to that of
man to which their phenomena are due. This life is inseparable from the
object. The eagle’s talon, the wing feathers of any bird, the claw of
the leopard, the teeth of animals, and all those objects which are
associated with that which is desirable or that which is fearful are
valuable fetishes, because one may avail himself of the powers inherent
in such objects. The African sometimes says that the surf is in a nasty
temper; and when he uses this expression he is not speaking
figuratively. The wind talks to the forest, and the forest talks to the
wind. The tornado is often nothing more than a quarrel between mountain
and forest, lightning against wind; and, as one writer expresses it, we
ourselves may get hit with the bits. Not that they are angry at us, but
at each other, and we had best keep out of the way.
Closely related to this class of fetishes is a kind somewhat higher than
the animistic fetish. In this the relation of the physical object and
the power within it is not that of body and spirit but that of a house
and a tenant residing in it. The spirit may leave the fetish, and then
it will be of no more use. But the skill of a fetish-doctor may compel
the spirit to remain. As long as it remains it is under the control of
the possessor of the fetish and must do his bidding. If it should
disobey he will punish it, usually by hanging it in the smoke. It is
such a fetish, contained in a goat’s horn, that a man walking in the
forest carries suspended from his neck to make him invisible to an
enemy. Another he hangs among his plantains to keep the wind from
blowing them down.
But the most powerful and sacred fetish is the ancestral relic,
possessed by every grown man. It is the skull of the father or other
ancestral relation. Here fetishism becomes ancestor-worship. The skull
is the residence of the dead father, and if it be treated well, that is,
kept in a warm and dry place, the father will confer every kind of
favour—success in hunting and in war, in stealing and attracting other
men’s wives. For death has not improved the morals of these ancestors.
The son never punishes the ancestral fetish. Indeed, if he neglect it—if
he let it get cold or wet—the ancestor will punish him. Many a hunter’s
gun has refused to fire just at the critical moment because of such
neglect. He often talks to the dead father and tells him his affairs and
asks his help. This fetish is only for men, not for women. If a woman
should see it she will surely die. If she even be heard talking too
curiously about it she is liable to die. This is no imaginary fear on
her part. For the ancestral anger, like much of the occultism of Africa,
has a material basis of secret poison administered by living agents.
The fetish-doctor, or medicine-man, is to be feared. He is more powerful
in some tribes than in others; but within his own tribe his reputation
depends upon himself. Any shrewd fellow, should good fortune attend him
for a while, may persuade the people that he can make powerful fetishes.
There will be application for various fetishes at good prices. Every
success enhances his reputation; and if he is very clever he will even
convert failure into success. If a man return a fetish and tell him it
has failed—that his goods have been stolen, his hens have not laid, his
wives have eloped, or his canoe has capsized with him—the doctor will
not usually dispute the failure, but will discover the reason, and more
than ever impress his customer with his skill and knowledge. Sometimes
as soon as he looks at it he will say that it is dead; that the spirit
has escaped from it and it may as well be thrown away. Then by some
occult means he discovers how this has happened. The owner, it may be,
has not taken proper care of it; or an enemy has lured it away from him
into his own service; or a witch has killed it. Thereupon he offers to
make him another fetish at a reasonable price.
The fetish-doctor soon acquires the power of detecting witchcraft and
sometimes even of discovering the witch. His diagnosis and treatment of
the bewitched are interesting and varied. One particular treatment is as
follows: Having discovered that the patient has really been bewitched,
he makes several incisions on the breast. Then, after an exercise of
howls and incantations, he applies his lips to the incision and sucks
the wound until the patient screams; whereupon, he takes out of his
mouth some article, perhaps a goat’s horn, which he is supposed to have
sucked out of the body of the patient, and which had been witched into
him. He again applies his lips, and when the patient screams a second
time he takes another article out of his mouth and displays it before
the credulous people. Having thus removed a miscellaneous assortment of
articles—roots, pebbles, broken pottery and other objects entirely out
of place in a human anatomy—the patient is left in a fair way to
recover; and if he should not it is surely not the fault of the doctor.
It is always a question to what extent the fetish-doctor is a conscious
hypocrite. He usually begins practice by exploiting some particular
fetish in which he really believes and whose power he has proved.
Finding the trade lucrative he invents other fetishes upon the same
principle—for there _is_ a principle, that is to say, there is always
some apparent relation between the ingredients of a fetish and the
purpose for which it is designed. If some of his first fetishes should
be successful and gain him a reputation he may come to believe in his
own power. He may consciously abuse that power—and physicians in other
lands have been known to do the same; but he still believes in the
power—believes in fetishes and in witchcraft and in the possibility of
its detection.
Africa presents to the psychologist an unexplored and inviting field. A
man who possesses a fetish-skull usually invokes its aid to prevent
secret unfaithfulness on the part of his wife. He compounds a certain
fetish the ingredients of which include a lock of his wife’s hair,
cuttings of her nails, or her saliva. This fetish he puts into the box
with the father’s skull; and now, it is believed, if his wife be
unfaithful she will surely die; death being inflicted by the ancestor.
It seems to be a fact that this fetish frequently proves effective
without the aid of poison; that is to say, the woman dies. Fear often
drives her to a tardy confession, which, however, affords her but small
relief; for everybody tells her that she is going to die.
“You’re a corpse,” says one. “You’re failing every day,” says another.
And the poor woman, as if yielding to some occult compulsion, fails
rapidly and dies. She dies, presumably, as a psychological consequence
of her belief in the fetish.
One must never tell a sick person that he is going to die lest one be
charged with wishing his death. In some tribes it is equivalent to a
curse designed to effect death, and is liable to severe punishment.
The following dying confession was made by a woman in a Fang town of
Gaboon: Years ago, when she was a child, a man of her town had given her
a certain fetish medicine, concealing it in her food. After she had
eaten it he told her what he had done, and said that this medicine would
effect her death at the birth of her first child. She must keep this
matter secret from everybody, even from her parents, lest the medicine
kill her immediately. This gloomy prospect darkened her life for years,
and just before the birth of her first child she sickened and
died—probably as a psychological consequence of her belief in the
fetish. Such confessions are not uncommon.
The mental degradation of the African is often overlooked through the
deeper regard for his moral degradation. Therefore it is my present
purpose to depict the mental degradation of fetishism, and to set over
against it the new and transforming conception of God and nature which
Christ imparts to the African mind.
Carlyle has said: “What notion each forms of the universe is the
all-regulating fact with regard to him.” Looking out upon nature and
knowing of no divine intelligence ever present and presiding, the
African does not discover the reign of law nor the uniformity of nature.
Those phenomena of which the cause is not as obvious as the effect he
relates to a supernatural cause. And since _will_ is the cause that he
knows by experience, he instinctively attributes natural phenomena to a
personal will; not to _one_ will, however, but to many; for natural
phenomena are various and the moods of nature are inconsistent. He hears
the crash of thunder, and if he says, “Somebody threw something,” he is
not very far from the ancient conception of Jupiter hurling
thunderbolts. And, since that which is normal and regular does not
attract attention like that which is unusual and fearful, therefore to
the unreflecting mind the beneficence of nature is far less obvious than
its terrors; since the laws of growth, seedtime and harvest, rain and
sunshine,—all the kindly ministry of nature, is quiet and unobtrusive,
while her cruelty thrusts itself upon the mind, the African concludes
that the innumerable spirits which rule nature or constantly interfere
with it are mostly evil and hostile.
From this view it is not a long stride to the belief that the spirits
reside _in_ the objects of nature, each in its appropriate object; and
this is fetishism. We are all fetishists by instinct; though we may hear
it with the astonishment of Molière’s hero when he found that he had
been talking prose all his life. Every time one slams a door in anger or
kicks at a bucket—as if such things had sentience and could be hurt—he
exhibits a fetish instinct.
If we bear in mind, then, that the very axioms of the African’s belief
obliterate the line between nature and the supernatural, and, further,
that habitual lying makes the character of truth vague and uncertain,
and also that he has an imagination almost as vivid as reality, we may
be somewhat enabled to understand the degraded mental condition
indicated by such incidents as the following, which I repeat because
they are representative:
A certain woman, knowing that the penalty would be death, confessed—and
with undoubted sincerity—that by witchcraft she had caused another
woman’s death, and was herself killed by the people.
A certain man, evidently without the slightest intention of
untruthfulness, tells how that journeying one day in the forest he had
met two strange men who by fetish power had thrown him to the ground,
had opened his body, and removing his intestines, had stuffed him with
dry grass instead, which would have injured him for life, but that a
doctor of his own tribe found him, reopened him, removed the hay and put
real intestines in its place. I know a woman in Gaboon who claims and
evidently believes that she is constantly attended by several leopards,
invisible to all others but herself. There is a man in Gaboon of whom
the whole community believes that he frequently changes himself into a
leopard in order to steal sheep and to devour a whole sheep at a meal.
This he does also when he would avenge himself upon his enemies. This
particular man denies that he has any such power. But sometimes men
confess or claim that they themselves possess it; and in some cases they
seem to believe it. A broken-hearted chief once told Du Chaillu how that
his son, who had been his joy and hope, had been accused of killing two
men of the town by turning into a leopard. The old man at first
passionately defended his son. But to his horror, the son, stepping
forward, confessed the charge, and that he had turned himself into a
leopard and killed the two men—he did not know why. With the chief’s
consent the son was burnt to death over a slow fire. And the sight of
that horrible death was ever in the old man’s eyes.
One day the Rev. Dr. Nassau (who relates this incident in his book,
_Fetishism in West Africa_) arrived in a native village where he found
an extraordinary commotion, the people panic-stricken with fear. Upon
making an inquiry as to the cause, he was told that on the preceding day
the wife of the chief had borne a son, the only son of the chief, who in
his joy had this day made a great feast, which they were about to
celebrate, when suddenly another woman of the village, carrying at her
side a baby girl three months old, passed through the crowd straight to
the house in which was the new-born boy, and exchanging the children,
came out bearing the baby boy. Upon the loud protest of the people and a
demand for an explanation she told them the following story:
This baby boy, she said, although borne by the chief’s wife, really
belonged to her; while the baby girl which she had borne three months
ago belonged to the chief’s wife. She and the other woman, she said,
were both witches. Until recently they had been intimate friends and had
been accustomed to go off together in the night to witch-feasts and
witch-dances in neighbouring villages. Their unborn babes they were
accustomed to leave upon the grass while they joined in the dance. Her
babe, she said, was a boy, and the other was a girl. But one morning the
other woman, leaving the dance before her, took the male child and left
the other, thinking that she would not know the difference. After that
they had never gone out together; a coolness had sprung up between them,
and she had waited her time and kept her secret. In due time she had
borne the baby girl, which really belonged to the chief’s wife; and now
the chief’s wife had borne the baby boy, which belonged to her.
The chief’s wife stood dumb, as if in self-condemnation. No one doubted
the story; and the woman bore the child away.
The trial for witchcraft is by ordeal. In most cases poison is
administered. If the accused dies or is seized with vertigo this is
sufficient evidence of guilt; if no such result follows, it is a sign of
innocence.
The African believes in a God, who made all things; but his idea of God
is grossly anthropomorphic. God is a very big African chief with a great
many wives. Some of their fables in which God figures are not
repeatable. He regards men and women with contempt, and as a rule
ignores them. I do not know that they ever worship Him. Their worship is
directed to the innumerable spirits about them who infest the air, among
whom are their ancestors. The spirits are generally disposed to do them
harm; but they may be placated, and their own dead may even be rendered
favourable by certain ceremonies. But an incomparably greater number of
spirits are always hostile, and the impulse of African worship is fear.
Here, then, is a state of mental degradation that to us looks almost
like insanity. I have only touched upon the salient points of their
belief. One can never convey to others any adequate impression of the
stifling mental atmosphere of an African community, with its stagnation
and torpor, depressing even the mind of the missionary and in some
instances fairly threatening his faith. My experience of that atmosphere
has been such that I have the deepest sympathy and compassion for
traders and government officials living often solitary in such
communities; whose beliefs and morals are often not the result of
personal convictions, but merely a reflection of the beliefs, traditions
and moral restraints of the social community in which they have lived.
Upon the beliefs of such men there is a power of gravitation in the
mentality of an African community that acts like the Magnetic Mountain
of the Arabian fable, which, as ships approached it from the sea, drew
out of them every nail, bolt and rivet, and left them a wreck of
floating timbers, to be flung at random upon the lonely shore or buried
in its sand.
At the first approach the mind of the African seems utterly
inaccessible. His mental powers are paralyzed; he has forgotten how to
think. If his mental redemption is possible where must it begin?
One day long ago, when a fellow missionary and myself were together in
the Bulu interior, a native young man, in response to our inquiry,
expressed the African belief that the rainbow is a snake. It has the
power—which many men also have—of making itself invisible. The
missionary, reflecting that superstition is simply ignorance of nature
and nature’s laws, resolved to undertake immediately the boy’s
education. The sun was shining brightly, and the missionary, having sent
the native to fetch a bucket of water, told him that he himself would
then and there make a rainbow. He asked me to stand on the porch and
throw the bucketful of water in a certain direction, while he took his
stand on the ground with the boy by his side. Now it happens that in
matters of science I have an inveterate inclination to be content with
theory. I never attempted a practical experiment in my life that did not
miscarry. Besides, everybody knows that a bucket is an exceedingly
awkward instrument with which to take accurate aim. The water came down
on the upturned faces of the two eager scientists. The black man has an
abiding antipathy to the fourth element; and this native evidently
regarded the performance as a punishment for his unbelief in regard to
the substance of the rainbow. He ducked his head and shouted: “I
believe; I believe; master, please don’t do it again.”
Later in the day he might have been heard telling his friends not to let
the white man hear them say that the rainbow is a snake—if they did not
want a bucket of water thrown on them. So we made a conversion after the
Mohammedan fashion. But that native must have wondered what might be the
essential difference between the _reign of law_ and the _law of rain_.
A million such experiments, even if perfectly successful, would not be
worth while except as amusement; for the native mind is wrong not merely
in particulars, but fundamentally. The idea of God must be injected into
nature, as a basis for law, before a scientific attitude is possible.
Only the idea of God can expel the multitude of spirits whose activities
make of nature a haphazard warfare of conflicting forces. And how shall
we convey this idea to the degraded mind of the African?
Of course we should change his idea of nature if we could persuade him
of God’s _unity_, and that nature, therefore, is the product of a single
mind; His _spirituality_, and that He is therefore present everywhere,
in nature and the hearts of men; His _holiness_, and that God and nature
are therefore on the side of righteousness; His _love_, and that God and
nature are therefore benevolent and sympathetic with man. But to talk to
the African about God’s attributes is to speak in an unknown tongue. And
besides, God’s personality is something more than the sum of His
attributes, which no more make God, as some one has said, than arms and
legs and head and trunk make my father. But we can present to the
African mind the personal Christ—God incarnate—and the African heart
responding can love Him; and loving Him he can know Him; for love is
more knowing than reason. The African is, above all, still capable of
strong personal affection; and looking into the face of Jesus he sees
God—the _One God_ of conscience—and learns to call Him _Father_, a word
which even to the African mind implies _love_ and _care_. He knows
nothing of attributes, but like a child he can discern his Father’s
will.
God’s fatherhood includes His care. And this relates God to nature,
through which that care is largely exercised. His first lessons on
nature the African learns not from science, but directly from Jesus.
Jesus multiplies the loaves, and the value of the miracle for the
African, and for us, is not the wonder of it, but the lesson that it is
God who gives us our daily bread. Jesus stills the storm on Galilee and
thus teaches that the Father is present in all storms and always rules
the sea and the wind, which are not under the control of demons. Jesus
heals the leper, and we learn His power over all disease, and that a
loving will afflicts and heals. He raises Lazarus from the dead, and
reveals that death is never in the hands of a malignant foe, but under
the control of a sympathetic Power. The thought of the African is
completely reversed by this knowledge of God. Nature is not the result
of myriad spirits hostile to himself, but the product of one single
mind, and its laws, the expression of a constant and loving Will. It is
as if the forked lightning at which he trembles in the darkness should
flash upon the storm-cloud the word _Father_; and fear becomes faith. In
Jesus the _One God_ of conscience, the _Father_, becomes supreme over
nature.
A certain native named _Toko_, of the Mpongwe coast tribe, who had been
for some years a Christian, went back into the interior among the Fang,
preaching the Gospel. The Fang were notorious robbers, who at every
opportunity plundered the cargo of traders as it passed in boats up and
down the river. While Toko was preaching one day, some one interrupting
him said: “I don’t believe that God is good, as you say. For why did He
make this river so crooked that in order to reach the coast we have to
travel nearly twice the straight distance?”
“My friend,” replied Toko, “God knew that you wicked Fang were going to
live along this river and that you would plunder passing boats; and He
made the river crooked so that you can’t see the boat coming until it is
so near that you have not time to get out to it before it is past.”
The wit aside, and however defective the teleology, observe the
underlying attitude towards nature, and the fundamental change it
implies. God is in nature, which is therefore under law, is sympathetic
towards man, and working on the side of righteousness—a view that
excludes and dooms fetishism and witchcraft. This simple man, and his
fellow Christians with him, had the right basis for a scientific
knowledge of nature.
It is truly astonishing how the African mind, despite its rude
materialism, beginning with the idea of love, as revealed in Jesus,
grasps ultimately the spirituality of God and the spiritual nature of
true worship. One instance must suffice for illustration:
The women of West Africa, in preparing their food, bury it in the ground
beside a stream for several days. A fellow missionary, one day examining
an old woman who presented herself for baptism, and careful lest she
might regard the water of baptism as a fetish, asked her a question
regarding its significance, to which she replied:
“When I bury my food in the ground I mark the place. What use would the
mark be if there were no food there? Baptism is but the mark: God dwells
in the heart.”
XIV
THE MORAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM
An African woman was one day walking through the forest to her garden
when she found a little child who was apparently lost and was crying
with hunger. She took pity on the child and immediately carried him back
to her town where she comforted him and nursed him. The child remained a
few days and then mysteriously disappeared. Immediately a dreadful
plague broke out in the town and many people died and there was much
mourning. Then they knew that it was not a real child whom the woman had
found, but a spirit in the form of a child, who had appealed to the
woman’s pity and had lain on her bosom in order to bring death and
desolation upon the people.
With such spirits, wanton and wicked, the African mind has filled the
invisible world. The powers above him are hostile—all except the spirits
of his immediate ancestors.
The former worship of snakes in Dahomy (nearly extinct by this time)
throws a lurid light upon the African’s conception of the powers above
him. According to the belief of the Dahomians snakes were spirits
incarnate. The Dahomians have a peculiar interest for Americans since
the World’s Fair of Chicago, where the chief attraction of the Midway
Plaisance was an African village of real Dahomians, who regularly
entertained a gazing throng with war-songs and war-dances and also
scandalized feminine modesty. In one respect, however, the Chicago
village had been modernized, as we shall see.
When Leighton Wilson first went to Dahomy he found in each village a
house in the middle of the street, provided for the “exclusive” use of
snakes—there was probably not much difficulty in keeping it “exclusive”
considering the deadliness of many African snakes. The snakes, Dr.
Wilson tells us, were fed and better cared for than the inhabitants of
the town. If they were seen straying away they were brought back. At the
sight of them the people prostrated themselves upon the ground. It is
not improbable that during the World’s Fair Dahomians in far-away Africa
were offering prayers to snakes for the safety of their friends in
Chicago.
The snakes are spirits; and such are all the innumerable spirits which
infest the air, excepting only a man’s ancestors, who are more or less
kindly disposed towards him. The African, therefore, is not merely, like
the Mohammedan, the victim of inexorable fate; nor merely the plaything
of nature. But he is subject to the caprice of evil spirits, or the
object of their malignant hostility.
The following are chief factors in the demoralization of African
character: _first_, the African’s attitude towards the powers above him
is that of fear, for he deems them hostile to him; _second_, his
consequent attitude towards his fellow men is that of distrust,
culminating in the belief in witchcraft; _third_, his conception of his
own destiny is not hopeful nor ennobling: the future life is not better,
but worse, than this life.
Against the hostility of the spirits a man’s ancestors (especially his
immediate father) afford him some protection. But even such protection
is uncertain; for the ancestors themselves are very petulant and easily
offended, and when they are displeased they are as much to be feared as
other spirits. The favours which a son seeks from his father are not
spiritual blessings of any kind, but temporal benefits. It cannot be
said that the motive of this worship is entirely filial reverence. A
father is much more useful dead than living; and aged parents are
sometimes even afraid that their sons will put them to death in order to
procure the benefits which they could afterwards confer. The skull of
the father is the commonest ancestral fetish, but not the only one.
An old chief, one day when I was visiting in his town for the first
time, came and laid at my feet his most sacred fetish. It was contained
in a small cylindrical box of bark made for the express purpose of
holding this kind of fetish. The women, when they saw the box, screamed
with fear and fled for their lives, putting their hands on their ears
lest they should hear the old man’s words and die. They are not supposed
to know the contents of the box, and they are ready at any moment to
take a solemn oath that they do not know, though as a matter of fact
they know very well.
The following were the interesting if somewhat repulsive ingredients of
this very powerful fetish. There was first, and chiefly, the brains of
the old man’s father, who had gained eminence and success according to
Fang ideals. Some days after the father’s death, when the body was
partly decomposed, the son visited his grave at midnight—entirely
naked—opened the shallow grave, severed the head from the body, and hung
it up in a house, letting the decomposing brain drip upon some white
chalk. To this he added one of the old man’s teeth and a bit of his hair
and cuttings of his nails, also a strip of flesh cut from the dead man’s
arm and dried over the fire. When the owner of such a fetish is about to
engage in any considerable enterprise he rubs a portion of the brains
upon his forehead and thereby possesses himself of all the serviceable
qualities of the deceased—his adroitness in lying, his skill in
cheating, his cleverness in stealing goods or other men’s wives or in
killing his enemies. If he is going to talk a big palaver he places the
strip of dried flesh in his mouth, and keeps it there all the time he is
talking, that he may be eloquent and successful. A man possessing this
kind of fetish, if he were going to a trading-house, would not hesitate
to rub a portion of the brains and chalk upon his hand, so that in
shaking hands with the white man it might pass to the white man’s hand
and make him benevolent. Some of them think that having thus put
medicine on the white man’s hand he will give them anything they ask.
The hostility of spirits other than ancestors is appeased in various
ways. Arbitrary restraints and prohibitions are frequently imposed upon
children soon after birth, to be observed through life. Such
prohibitions usually have reference to a particular spirit which is
always present with the inhibited person. The commonest prohibition is
that of some particular food. Among my schoolboys there were always
several who could not eat plantain, although it is the food that they
like best. It was often difficult to provide other food for them; but
they would have died rather than eat plantain. Women are prohibited from
eating certain kinds of meat, or certain parts of an animal—usually (by
a strange coincidence) the very parts that the men like best. There is
scarcely a limit to the self-denial sometimes involved in the observance
of these arbitrary restrictions.
Among the Fang the offering of human sacrifice to placate the spirits is
not customary. Witchcraft probably usurps the place of this form of
human sacrifice. But among the more highly organized tribes of the
Calabar and the Niger, where individuals wield despotic power,
multitudes have been offered in sacrifice to appease the hostility of
the spirits: and they would still be offered but for the presence of
foreign governments. It took the English many years to suppress the
annual sacrifice of human beings to the crocodiles of the Niger. I once
had the pleasure of travelling with that great man and great missionary,
Mr. Ramseyer (_Father Ramseyer_, all white men called him), a member of
the Basle Mission, who for thirty years lived at Kumassi in the Ashantee
Territory; and I heard from Mr. Ramseyer himself the story of Prempeh,
that beastly king of Kumassi, whose fetish-trees were regularly watered
with the blood of human beings; and who, when at length his lust for
blood had become insatiable, had a slave put to death each night for his
entertainment—and probably, also, to appease the hostility of the
spirits. King Prempeh was finally captured by the English, and not long
afterwards died in the prison at Sierra Leone.
Next to fear of the spirits the most demoralizing factor is the
African’s distrust of his fellow men. The one is a corollary of the
other. The African, like other savages, before giving one a drink
swallows a mouthful of it himself to prove that it is not poisoned. In
some of the large tribes of the Niger, where a king _is_ a king, it was
the practice (until the English government interfered with custom) for a
king, upon his accession to the throne, to put to death all his brothers
and half-brothers. In one of those tribes the blood royal was held in
such reverence that under no circumstances would they shed it; so they
used to put the royal brothers to death by stuffing the mouth and
nostrils full of cotton. It was a far more horrible death than cutting
the throat; but it was respectful.
On one occasion, when my heart had been rent by the dreadful cruelty
inflicted upon a certain woman whom I knew very well, who had been
charged with witchcraft because of the death of her husband, I addressed
the whole population of the town, and after holding forth for some time
in wrathful denunciation of their unreasoning suspicion, I asked why a
man’s wives must always be the first to be charged with his death. An
elderly chief; rising to his feet, gently interrupted me, and using my
native name, _Mote-ke-ye_ (_Man-who-never-sleeps_), he said:
“Ah, Mote-ke-ye, I would like to ask one question: Are you a married
man?”
I was well aware, when I answered No, that the shrewd old man had routed
me. The guilty men looked at one another with a relieved and peculiarly
significant smile which said politely but unmistakably: “Then you are
not qualified to judge us; for you know nothing about the natural
hostility of wives, and we know all about it.”
A man’s wives are the first to be charged with his death, even without
evidence, because they are supposed to have a latent desire for it. As I
have already said, much of the witchcraft of Africa is straight poison
usually administered in food. Africa abounds with deadly poisons and
many Africans are skillful in their use. Wives do the cooking, and so
have the constant opportunity to inflict death by this powerful but
invisible weapon. One often finds that one bad custom is nothing more
than a pitiful attempt to correct another. And this may explain the
custom of killing wives at the death of the husband. At any rate it
tends to restrict a wife’s use of poison and to inspire an earnest
effort to keep her husband alive.
It has been estimated that, in those tribes that are beyond the
restraints of foreign governments, nineteen out of twenty Africans die
by violence. This accounts for the sparse population of Africa. For
although the African race is prolific, and the land in most parts
capable of sustaining a dense population, it is the most sparsely
populated country in the world.
Many of this number are killed in war, which is a chronic condition.
Nothing is too trivial to occasion a war. The usual beginning, however,
is the stealing of a woman by a man of another tribe or village.
Following this, the people of the two villages wage an aggressive
guerrilla warfare, killing each other at every opportunity, not sparing
women or children. The war usually continues until on either side
another woman is stolen by a third party and another war begins. Then
the first war is closed: a great palaver is talked between the two
parties in some neutral town; and after oceans of oratory it is usually
agreed that the side that has done the most killing shall pay over to
the other side a corresponding number of women and much goods, including
a proper dowry for the woman first stolen.
One of the first scenes that I witnessed in Africa was that in which, at
the end of a war, four women were thus delivered to the enemy. The
people were all gathered together when the chief announced the names of
the four women. Each woman, as she heard her name, sprang from the
ground with a shriek and tried to escape into the forest; but several
men were on hand to catch her. She struggled until they bound her. Then
the next name was called, and we heard another shriek. Finally the four
women were led away, all of them crying bitterly. In the town to which
they were taken they would be given as wives to certain men, and soon
they would begin to make the best of the situation, would probably form
new attachments and forget the old.
Women are thus bought and sold. A man’s wealth is reckoned by the number
of his wives. On one occasion in a native town a conversation with the
chief led me to preach on the future life; and I preached both heaven
and hell. The chief evidently inferred that he was bound for the latter
place. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him candidly that I
thought so too. For a moment he seemed troubled, and then his
countenance brightened with relief, and he exclaimed: “I know what I’ll
do. I’ll send my head-wife in my place.”
Belief in witchcraft is the extreme expression of mutual distrust. It is
supposed that as many Africans are put to death for witchcraft as those
who die in war. The African seems not to believe that there is any such
thing as a natural death. Even when a man is killed in war some one is
usually charged with having bewitched him; for it will be said that he
wore a fetish for safety, but that a witch had broken the spell of the
fetish. A witch’s spirit is “loose from her body.” In the night she
leaves her body and goes off to foregather with other witches with whom
she joins in wild and unspeakably wicked revels, during which they feast
upon the “hearts” of people. The people whose hearts have thus been
eaten sicken soon afterwards and die. A witch is always careful to
return to her body before daylight. If the vacant body be found during
her absence it would be wise to destroy it immediately.
When a number of deaths occur in close succession a council is held in
the presence of the witch-doctor. When he announces witchcraft as the
cause a panic ensues in which the people become fairly dehumanized with
fear and a thirst for vengeance. Each one suspects everybody else. The
witch-doctor sometimes names the guilty persons. And woe to any enemies
that he may have in that town! Usually, however, they resort to the
ordeal to find the guilty ones. The spectacle of such a panic is very
revolting. The horrors of war, even at the worst, are never comparable
to the horrors of witchcraft. It is the constant fear of the African,
and his most powerful fetishes are those which protect him against it.
Except in the vicinity of the foreign governments witches are put to
death and always by cruel means, wives charged with witchcraft being
buried alive with the dead body of the husband. In one town that I know
ten women, wives of one man, were thus buried with him; in another town,
twenty women. Their legs were broken before they were thrown into the
grave.
Even cannibalism, regarded as the lowest reach of degradation, is not
only a natural consequence of fetishism, but is one of its logical
forms. I doubt whether, among the Fang, it is ever practiced on the mere
impulse of hunger. It is rather the last desperate resort of fear
seeking fetish protection. The strongest protection against an enemy in
war is to eat one of their number. After that the enemy can do no harm
and need not be feared; unless (always this same dreadful
qualification)—unless some traitor in one’s own town should break the
spell even of this fetish by witchcraft.
The African is further demoralized by his idea of man’s destiny. He
believes in a future life. I never encountered a doubt on this subject.
But his belief is not ennobling, nor a source of moral inspiration.
Death is an unmitigated evil, and the dead are always wishing to be back
in the flesh. The future does not hold rewards or punishments for the
good or evil of the present life; nor has present goodness any future
advantage. There, as here, to have a great many wives and plenty to eat
are chief factors in happiness. They have big palavers there as well as
here. Sometimes palavers left unfinished here are settled there. In some
tribes (the Kru tribe, for instance) when smallpox or other scourge
visits a town, and many people die about the same time, it is supposed
that an unfinished palaver has been resumed in the other world and these
persons were needed as witnesses.
It will be perceived that beneath all this moral degradation of the
African, beneath his cruelty and licentiousness, there lies a degrading
conception of man’s nature. Man has no divine origin and no noble
destiny; therefore he has no intrinsic value and human nature has no
inherent worth.
But to this seeming hopeless ruin of humanity Christ in His own person
imparts a new conception, _first_, of the dignity of man’s nature;
_second_, of the possibilities of his character; _third_, of the
greatness of his destiny.
In Jesus, God takes upon Himself this despised human nature, and reveals
the divine character in a human life. That same life is at once a
revelation of God and an example to men; and without incongruity Jesus
could say, in words perhaps the sublimest ever uttered in the ears of
men: “Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Man,
therefore, even the most degraded and the slave, is akin to God and the
object of His tender regard. The light of this revelation extinguishes
all minor differences between men; a human soul is of more value than
the whole world, and neither wealth nor power can add anything to a
man’s worth.
Much is added to this new conception of man when Jesus reveals in
Himself the possibilities of human character. It was always a surprise
to me to find how readily the African recognizes in Jesus the human
ideal; how he accepts Him as the true moral standard, by which
henceforth he judges himself and realizes what he is and what he ought
to be.
The great destiny of man which Jesus discloses seems not only credible,
but even natural, in the light of man’s kinship with God and the
possibilities of human character. Instead of the poor African’s fear of
death and his degrading conception of the future life, Jesus sets before
him a hope that thrills his heart with joy. Man has many present faults
and frailties, but he does not belong to the present. He is not a
finality, but a possibility; a possibility to be realized only in the
perspective of an infinite future, in which death itself is but an
incident, the end of nothing worth while; and beyond it is the
consummation of all our hopes, a consummation which language becomes
rhapsody when it would describe.
Is it wonderful that this new conception of humanity should be morally
transforming? that, for instance, it should impress even the African
mind with the sanctity of human life?
Cannibalism disappears as soon as the Gospel becomes intelligible, and
long before they accept it as individuals. A war arose between two
villages, in a community where I had preached not more than a year, for
the people had recently come from the far interior where cannibalism was
commonly practiced. The town making the attack came on a very dark
night, intending to set fire to the other town, which only required that
the blaze be started in one place, the houses being so close that all
must burn together. They were led by two young men whom I knew. While
the rest of the party were hiding, these two, going forward, saturated
the thatch roof of the first house with kerosene, and were striking a
match, when the noise was heard by the man inside. He quietly arose,
moving stealthily as a cat, opened the door, and discovered the two
young men standing a few yards in front of him. He took deliberate aim
and fired twice. One man fell dead instantly; the other, frightfully
wounded, reached his friends, who put him in a canoe and took him back
to his town, where he died a few days later. I have said that one of the
two fell in the street. A few years ago they would have eagerly devoured
the body, both as a feast, and as a fetish protection against the enemy.
The fetish belief still remained strong as ever, but they revolted from
the practice; and having cut the body in pieces and boiled it, they
smeared the grease upon their foreheads and breasts, hoping that it
would thus avail for their protection. But they did not taste it. In
former times they would actually boast of eating an enemy; now these
same people are ashamed to confess it, and it is the most offensive
charge that one town can make against another.
The old chief to whom I have already referred, who laid at my feet the
sacred fetish of his father’s brains, told me how that he was persuaded
to give it up by a neighbouring chief (one whom I had instructed) who
had come to his town, not to make war and kill, as formerly, but in a
spirit of peace, and had stayed many days in order to tell the people
the things which he had recently learned. He had said that he and they
must stop making war with each other; that one God was Father of them
all, who also loved them all; that they must throw away their fetishes,
entrust themselves to God’s care, believe in His Son and do right; and
even if they suffered for it in this world there was a life to come in
which they would be fully rewarded. This same chief, who was speaking to
me, had had seven wives; but at the instance of his new faith he put
away six of them and refused to accept a dowry for those whom he put
away.
The Christians among them refuse to accept the dowry for daughter or
sister; and polygamy of course is forbidden. Wars are less and less
frequent; and the sanctity of human life has taken such a hold of mind
and heart that it must henceforth be a governing principle among them.
How completely the Gospel of Christ can transform the invisible world to
the mind of the African and vanquish his abject and demoralizing fear of
spirits was proved by the numbers of men who began coming to me, some of
them from towns far away, in order to surrender the skulls of their
fathers, the most potent fetish known to the African for protection
against the hostility of the spirits. I found myself in possession of
heaps of these uncanny skulls, and I did not quite know what to do with
them. One day, a man, having heard that I was going to bring them to
America, came to me in alarm to ask whether I had considered the
possible consequences of confusion at the resurrection if the heads of
these Africans should be transported to the other side of the sea.
The voluntary surrender of a father’s skull is the strongest possible
evidence of the sincerity of an African’s faith in Christ, and his
salvation from the paralyzing fear of spirits.
The disciples, that stormy night on Galilee, thought they saw a ghost,
and in their fear of the ghost they forgot their fear of the tornado
that was threatening to engulf them. But at the sound of a well-known
voice, “It is I; be not afraid,” their fear becomes joy, and Peter even
cries out: “Lord, bid me come unto Thee.”
The story is one that always appealed to the Fang of the Gaboon. For, in
bringing their garden produce to the morning market, they must cross the
bay at night in their frail canoes, and they all know what it means to
be overtaken by the sudden fury of a tropical storm until they have
despaired of reaching the land. And it is with the African as with the
disciples, his fear of the supernatural is always greater than his fear
of the natural, and confidence in Christ casts out all fear. So also in
the last hour, when about to pass out of this life into the dread world
of spirits, I have seen him meet death without fear. For he hears the
voice of Jesus saying: “It is I; be not afraid,” and he responds: “Lord,
bid me come unto Thee.”
XV
FETISHISM AND THE CROSS
During my study of the language of the Fang I was one day talking to a
young boy and searching for a better word for _mercy_ than the very
vague word in general use. He was a bright lad, with beautiful eyes and
frank manner. I said to him:
“A man was hunting in the forest, when he discovered a woman of a
neighbouring town alone in her garden. He decided to steal her and add
her to the number of his wives. He caught her and tied a bush-rope
around her, and himself holding the end of it he made her walk ahead of
him through the forest towards his town. On the way, the woman,
recovering from her first fright, began to cry and to plead with him to
let her go. She told him that she had three little children and that the
youngest was sick and would probably die without its mother. The man for
some time hardened his heart, but the woman continued to plead and to
cry more bitterly. Then at last the man’s heart was softened. He began
to think that perhaps two wives were enough for the present; and he let
the woman go.
“Now, when he reaches his town and tells the people what he has done
what will they say about him?”
Promptly came the answer: “They will call him a fool.”
“Why will they call him a fool?” I asked.
“Because he is not a real man. He has a soft heart like a woman’s heart.
All women are fools.”
“And how about small boys?” I asked.
“Oh,” said he, “small boys are very much like women; but of course we
will be real men when we grow up.”
Not that the African is destitute of the instinct of humanity—by no
means; but a false ideal calls for the repression of his best instincts.
In the course of a war between two villages, in which I knew nearly all
the people, a young man named _Minkoa_, a bright and rather manly young
fellow, was one day out in the forest hunting when he was shot to death
by a party who were in hiding near the path. Minkoa’s sister was married
to the very man who first shot him, and they had been intimate friends,
like brothers in each other’s regard, and had visited much together; but
the man did not know that it was Minkoa when he fired the shot in the
dark forest. Having wounded him, and seeing him fall to the ground, he
sprang forward to complete the work, and instantly recognized his friend
Minkoa. The savage heart is never wholly savage. With a cry of grief he
fell beside the wounded man and with his own body would have saved him
from further injury; but the rest of the party having come up, they
dragged him back, flung him aside with a curse, and standing over
Minkoa, fairly riddled his body with bullets. Compassion, or even
natural affection, under such circumstances, is a weakness and must be
suppressed as incompatible with what they regard as manly courage.
All heathendom suffers for want of a perfect human ideal. The first
result is a variety of ideal and type in different nations and different
religions. Not only does the Confucian type, the Mohammedan type, the
Buddhist type, differ from the Christian type, but they also differ
essentially from each other. In each, some one virtue, parental
authority, for instance, or courage, occupies almost the entire
foreground, while other virtues recede in the perspective of character.
In Africa virtue is almost identified with courage, and power is
worshipped. Woman, therefore, who in all lands represents the gentler
virtues—compassion, devotion, patience—is contemptible; and the child
also; for where power is worshipped feebleness can have no claim. Woman,
thus relegated to a place of inferiority and contempt, sinks to a lower
level of degradation than the man. Cruelty is the characteristic of the
men; licentiousness, of the women.
But notwithstanding the imperfection of his ideal the African is
essentially moral. He knows the difference between right and wrong; he
knows that it is wrong to lie and to steal. Sometimes I was disposed to
doubt it; when he told me lies for no possible advantage, or when he
committed wanton wickedness.
For instance, I ask a man what town he comes from, and he answers that
he comes from Jamanen, when he really came from Atakama; and there is no
conceivable reason why he should deceive me, except that he lies by
preference. In the first days among the Bulu, before there was an
established friendship between them and ourselves, when I have asked the
road to a certain town the men have directed me the opposite way, and I
have inferred the truth from the suppressed exclamations of the
tittering women. A man steals a woman, instead of offering a proper
dowry; and when I remonstrate, indignant that he should precipitate a
war with all its bloodshed and suffering rather than pay a dowry, he
amazes me by confessing that he expects to pay the dowry all the
same—after the war. Why not pay it in the first place and save the lives
of his people? And why does the African tell me a lie when the truth
would serve his purpose better? Has he sunken to such a depth that “Fair
is foul, and foul is fair?” So it sometimes seemed. But a more intimate
knowledge of him always compels one to abandon this theory. It is never
the love of bloodshed that leads him to act thus, but an excessive
admiration of courage. His attitude of distrust towards his fellow men
has bred in him a disposition to secretiveness and deception, so that he
lies even when there is no occasion, not from preference but from force
of habit.
Let him discover that another has lied to him, or stolen from him, and
he will resent it as readily and as naturally as ourselves. On occasion
I have heard him preach a fairly good extemporaneous sermon on these
subjects. In Old Calabar I was shown the leaf of a certain tree, the
lower side of which is like sandpaper, and I was assured that it is
frequently used upon the lips of persons convicted of lying—though I did
not observe that trees of this kind were being rapidly defoliated by
reason of this custom. The African lies in self-defense, and steals in
the interest of success; but what he practices himself he condemns in
others; for he knows that it is wrong.
Again, the universal practice of the _ordeal_ is evidence of the moral
nature of the African; though at first sight it would seem rather to
indicate moral imbecility. Sometimes a hen is set on eggs and the
accused person is adjudged guilty or innocent according as the greater
number of chickens hatched are male or female. This is a mode of trial
for less serious offenses. More commonly in the case of witchcraft a
mild poison is administered to the accused in a drink. Sometimes it only
produces vomiting and does him no harm. But if he is seized with vertigo
and staggers, he is adjudged guilty.
Since the establishment of foreign governments it is seldom that a white
man is allowed to witness this ordeal; but in earlier days they
witnessed it frequently. Du Chaillu tells of such a trial at which he
was present, in a town near Gaboon. There lived in the town a woman,
Ogondaga, an unusual woman among her people, he says; the one also who
had kept his house and cooked his food and had been exceedingly kind to
him. A number of deaths occurred in the town, and when the witch-doctor
was consulted he announced witchcraft as the cause. The usual panic
ensued. The terrified people, exclaiming, “There are those among us who
eat people,” ran through the streets with drawn swords, athirst for
blood. The witch-doctor named three persons as possible witches; and
last among them he named Ogondaga. As they dragged her from her house
towards the river she caught sight of her white friend and piteously
begged him to save her. The lonely white man, pale and trembling, looked
on, but could do nothing. They made her drink the poison. There was a
moment’s terrible suspense; then she was seized with vertigo and
staggered. But even before she fell they sprang upon her with savage
yells, cut her body to pieces, and with curses flung it piece by piece
into the river. And yet I am citing the ordeal as evidence of a moral
nature!
The roots of certain shrubs, the bark of certain trees, and, above all,
the notorious Calabar bean are used as ordeal poisons. Sometimes both
the accused and the accuser are compelled to submit to the ordeal. In at
least one African tribe, when one person charges another with certain
serious offenses they are both (accused and accuser) tied to stakes some
distance apart, on the brink of the river in the neighbourhood of
crocodiles, and whichever of the two is seized first is adjudged guilty.
The other is then set free.
The ordeal is a form of judicial trial in which supernatural aid is
relied upon to take the place of evidence and to determine guilt or
innocence. We must not forget that the ordeal was a medieval practice in
Europe; and that our fathers were required to prove their innocence by
dipping their hands into boiling water, or carrying a red-hot iron nine
paces. But our fathers believed in a righteous God, and when evidence
was wanting the ordeal was a direct appeal to His judgment. It is very
different, and more strange, to find the African relying upon the
ordeal, who does not believe in a righteous God. The God of African
belief made the world; but in character He is no better than the
Africans themselves; and, moreover, he is a God afar off and inactive,
while the spirits who are near and active are also evil and hostile.
The principle of the African ordeal is that there is an eternal
connection between guilt and retribution; and knowing of no righteous
God to execute vengeance, they attribute wrath to the dumb forces of
nature; these, they conceive, are in league against the wrong-doer and
will execute vengeance. The belief is the more impressive because it is
directly contradicted by the facts of experience. Fire burns the
innocent; the lightning-stroke is no respecter of persons; the fury of
the tornado is not partial to the good. And yet the belief persists. It
persists because of the irrepressible instinct that wrong-doing deserves
punishment, and that somewhere at the heart of the universe there is a
moral power that connects guilt and retribution.
The same instinct accounts for the sleepless Nemesis and the whips and
scorpions of the Furies of ancient mythology. There is a peculiar and
striking instance of it in the Scriptures: Paul, having been shipwrecked
on the island of Melita, gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on
the fire which the natives had kindled; but a viper, by reason of the
heat, came out and fastened on his hand. Then the natives said one to
another: “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped
the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.”
But when, instead of falling dead suddenly, they saw no harm come to
him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.
One still night, as we lay at anchor in the middle of the broad river,
amidst profound darkness, a deep-voiced man related to the crew a story
of how a certain man, whose father and sisters had been killed by
another man in a tribal war, not being able to avenge himself, at last
“threw his face on his enemy.” It is not necessary to repeat the
unpleasant details of how this is done; but in many tribes they believe
that where a great wrong has been unavenged it really can be done, and,
intentionally or otherwise, it illustrates in a gruesome manner a
principle of remorse of which some suppose that the African is
incapable. Ever after the man threw his face on his enemy the enemy saw
that face. It haunted him in the midst of all his joys, made his sorrows
the heavier, and poisoned all the pleasures of his life. Fetishes,
prayers, incantations were all in vain; he still saw it, saw it alike in
the darkness and the light, and saw it always. At last, when madness
threatened him because of this haunting face, he killed himself to
escape from it. But it is very doubtful whether he would escape it even
in death; for there are those who say that a face thrown upon a man will
continue to haunt him in the next life even as in this.
Again, even more clearly does the African prove that he is essentially
moral by the ceremonies which he has instituted for the relief of a
sense of guilt. I once witnessed a peculiar ceremony of this kind in a
native town. A series of dire misfortunes, which had exhausted the usual
resources of fetishism, led them at length to search their own hearts
for the cause. By some means it was concluded that the infidelity of the
wives of the town was the cause of their calamities. Thereupon a fetish
medicine was prepared in a large bucket. An individual who played the
part of priest was hidden in a green booth in the middle of the street.
He was supposed by the women to be a spirit, and not a human being. He
spoke in a false voice that was inhuman enough for any spirit. The women
as he called them by name, one by one, approached and sat down on a seat
a few yards from the booth. The “spirit” within the booth held one end
of a rope of vine, while the woman seated without held the other. Then
he asked her whether she was guilty of the sin that had wrought so much
evil. The women believed that the spirit already knew their guilt or
innocence, and they were afraid to lie. They all confessed their guilt
in the hearing of the people—probably every woman in the town. Then an
assistant, at the command of the priest, dipped a bunch of grass into
the medicine and sprinkled it upon the guilty, thereby removing the
curse.
Since that time they have all heard of the blood that was shed on
Calvary; and by its sprinkling some of those some women, I trust, have
been cleansed from a guilty conscience.
Blood itself is often used in these ceremonies; the fresh blood of
fowls, or of sheep or goats. In such a ceremony the people are seated on
the ground, one behind another, and the priest passing along pours the
blood over their heads and shoulders. To most of them it is a mere
ceremonial and removes the curse without reference to the heart. Such a
scene often recalled the observation of George Adam Smith, that the
essence of heathenism is not idolatry but ritualism. Many of them shrink
from the blood, lowering their heads to keep it off their faces and
evidently desiring as little of it as possible. But occasionally one may
see a woman welcome it with eager, upturned face, and eyes of infinite
and pathetic longing; in the spirit of that disciple who said: “Lord,
not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”
“Out of the depths,” said the psalmist—“Out of the depths have I cried
unto Thee, O Lord.” And must we not believe that this inarticulate cry
from the abysmal depths of the poor African woman’s darkness and
degradation is heard by the attentive ear of Him who sitteth upon the
throne of the heavens and is very nigh unto them that are of a contrite
heart?
In nothing else does the African reveal his essentially moral nature
more than in his immediate recognition and acceptance of the character
of Jesus as the human ideal; although it is an ideal that traverses all
his former conceptions, that subverts those ideas which are the basis of
his dearest social customs, and condemns utterly that conduct which has
been his very boast. Jesus is so immediately understood by the African
that we are often asked whether Jesus was a black man. He is understood
by every tribe and nation, because He unites in Himself the ideals of
all. He also unites in Himself individual qualities of seeming
incompatibility. In Him the most masculine qualities are united with
those which are usually regarded as feminine, such as gentleness,
patience, devotion. Christ redeems woman from oppression and bondage by
rescuing from contempt those virtues in which she excels, and even
giving them preëminence. He is the ideal of woman as well as man.
But that which concerns us just now is the strange fact that the African
immediately accepts the new ideal. He recognizes the character of Jesus
as the authoritative standard even when he refuses to conform to it; and
its authority is based wholly on his perception of its intrinsic
superiority. The African finds in Jesus the complete definition of his
own conscience. We shall not find a better explanation of this fact than
that of the Bible; that he was made in the image of God and has not
forgotten his origin.
If this depiction of the mind and heart of the African be true, it will
be almost a foregone conclusion that the gospel which inspires his faith
and becomes the power of God unto his salvation is the gospel of the
cross and the atoning Saviour. Those who are called to preach Christ to
the most degraded of mankind are ever in accord with the persistent
instinct of the Church in all ages, embodied in the beautiful tradition
that the spear which wounded our Saviour’s side on Calvary had
henceforth the power to heal every wound that it touched.
This gospel of the atonement, in the first place, relieves his sense of
guilt. His sense of guilt is very vague, indeed; but the ceremonies
which he has instituted for its removal are the most concrete expression
of his moral nature. He knows nothing of the theological implications of
the atonement, nor does he understand the philosophy of his own
salvation; but he knows that the crucified Christ satisfies his heart
and relieves his conscience. For man is always greater than his
reasoning faculty, and sometimes when it is impotent he still may know
the truth by faith direct. The justice of vicarious atonement is not
incredible to the African because he already has the idea. In common
with most oriental races he has an idea of human solidarity which the
occidental has lost (though he is regaining it) by reason of his
excessive emphasis upon individualism. The African represents the
opposite extreme. Each member of a family or tribe may be held justly
accountable for any misdeed of any other member. If, for instance, in
conducting a caravan through the forest one of them should desert, it
would be in strict accord with African justice to shoot all the
remaining members of that man’s tribe. White men (including some
missionaries) have occasionally won a reputation for generosity by
foregoing their rights in this respect. The human mind will never
exhaust the divine mystery of the cross; but somewhere in its
neighbourhood society will probably find the true mean between the two
extremes of individualism and social solidarity. The voluntary sacrifice
of Christ as our representative and its procurement of our pardon is
credible to the African and relieves his sense of guilt.
Again, it is Christ as the atoning Saviour who secures his repentance.
Nowhere else but at the cross have men united the ideas of holiness and
love, God’s hatred of sin and love of men. In heathen religions, when
love is attributed to God, as in some forms of Hinduism, He is indulgent
and indifferent to sin; when holiness is attributed to Him, as in
Mohammedanism, He is remote and indifferent to men, because they are
sinful. And even the Pharisees were scandalized, not understanding how
that Jesus, while professing to be holy, could receive sinners and eat
with them. But the atoning death of Jesus, in which the divine goodness
is concreted, unites holiness and love, hatred of sin and love of
righteousness, and makes them inseparable.
Those who have acquired an intimate knowledge of the mind and heart of
the heathen know that it is the consequences of sin, rather than sin
itself, which they would escape. There is but little real abhorrence of
sin. And the missionary feels instinctively that to proclaim to such an
audience a gospel of forgiveness on a basis of repentance alone, without
either penalty or atoning sacrifice, would only give license to
indulgence, and make repentance itself impossible. The atonement of
Christ, while offering free pardon, impresses even the mind of the
African with the enormity of sin and the impossibility of pardon to the
impenitent.
And again, Christ the atoning Saviour is the highest impulse to
self-sacrificing service. The love of the atonement is more than the
love of complacence. The atonement is love actualized as service.
It seems to me one must have lived among the heathen in order to realize
how this principle of self-sacrifice stands over against the world’s
principle of self-assertion. It is claimed, and with some truth, that
Buddhism also has this principle of self-sacrifice. But, according to
that religion, self-sacrifice leads to death, practical annihilation,
which is therefore more desirable than life. In Christianity
self-sacrifice leads to more abundant life and is the way not to a grave
but to a throne. In Revelation a Lamb slain from the foundation of the
world is seated upon the throne and rules: self-sacrifice is the
principle not of death but of life, the way to power and glory; and this
is not merely a temporal discipline, but an eternal principle—“from the
foundation of the world.”
The African has a capacity for devotion not surpassed in the world. And
he easily construes Christian duty in terms of service.
Ndong Koni was one of the first of the Fang Christians. He chose Christ
early in life, and his mind was as completely purged of fetishism as was
his heart of heathen cruelty. He was gentle and affectionate; and
through all the years in which he was my constant companion, in frequent
sickness, and in toils long and hard, I received from him so much
kindness and affection that my heart still grows tender when I think of
him. Ndong Koni was accounted very poor because he had no sisters. A man
gives his sisters in marriage, and with the dowry which he obtains he
procures for himself as many wives as he has sisters. Ndong Koni had not
even one sister; and since he would not elope with another man’s wife
his domestic future was a problem which neither he nor his friends could
solve. Therefore, when he came to the mission and asked for work, I
supposed that he had resolved to procure a dowry by working for it—which
would require the labour of years. But I found, when I visited his town,
that, with only the assistance of an old uncle, Ndong Koni had built a
little church in his town; and in order that it should be far better
than any house in town they had decided that it should have real
carpenter-made windows and doors swinging on real hinges. This grandeur
would be very costly, and Ndong Koni had sought work at the mission in
order to earn money to pay for it. From that time, as long as I remained
in Africa, he never left me, except for an occasional brief interval. He
rose from one position to another until he was captain of the crew of
the _Dorothy_, and, finally, a catechist. Many of the towns near Ndong
Koni’s home were new, the people having come recently from the interior.
I was the first white man to visit most of these; but I always found
that Ndong Koni had preceded me and was the first missionary.
One of Ndong Koni’s converts was Onjoga, a remarkable man, who
afterwards became an elder in the Fang church. Onjoga had reached middle
age when he became a Christian, and for a long time he was the only
Christian in his town. It was a peculiarly bad town. Soon after his
conversion he came to the mission to ask me if I could send a teacher to
his town; for, he said, he would like to learn to read the Bible that he
might instruct his people. I had no teacher whom I could send; but
Onjoga was so determined that I concluded to keep him at Baraka for a
while and give him special instruction. He remained several months
during which I taught him daily; and half of each day he worked in the
yard to earn the price of his food.
He winced perceptibly when I told him that the only work which I could
give him at the time was that of cutting grass. This is the one kind of
work, above all others, that the African soul abhors. The coarse, rank
grass grows with astonishing rapidity in that moist, hot climate. But
for reasons of health it must be kept down. A lawn-mower is useless: it
is cut with a short, straight cutlass—the English matchet—and in
wielding this cutlass one must stoop to the very ground. It is extremely
hard work, and regarded also as peculiarly menial. To keep half a dozen
natives working at it steadily for half a day is the final test of the
white man’s power of command in Africa.
One day I set the crew of the _Evangeline_ at this work. Makuba, the
captain, was very resentful; and the next day when I ordered him to get
the boat ready for a missionary journey he was still resentful—so much
so that he could scarcely walk. In answer to my stare of amazement at
his snail pace he informed me that he had rheumatism as a result of
cutting grass. Makuba was an incomparable boatman and a faithful friend;
but in that mood he was sufficiently exasperating to demoralize both
crew and missionary and to make the heathen rage. When we got well under
way, and the _Evangeline_ had spread her white wings to the wind, the
other men began to eat; but Makuba would not even touch his food. At
length I said to him:
“Makuba, I am very sorry that your rheumatism is so bad you can’t eat;
for I am going to have a fried chicken for my dinner and I was expecting
to give you a portion of it—about half, perhaps.”
I had already learned that the chicken is the one African fetish whose
potency survives all changes. Makuba’s countenance was a study; but he
replied:
“Mr. Milligan, chicken no be same as other chop. I be fit to eat
chicken.” (Makuba was not a Fang, so he always addressed me in English.)
“But do you think it would cure your rheumatism?” I asked; “I am not
sure that I can spare it unless it is going to effect a complete cure.”
Makuba assured me that fried chicken was the specific for his kind of
rheumatism. And he was right; for it cured him completely. We had a
successful missionary tour, Makuba doing extra service at every
opportunity and singing as he held the helm.
The reader will understand, therefore, that Onjoga, the Fang Christian,
a man of middle age, and of real importance in his town and tribe, did
an extraordinary thing when he consented to cut grass that he might stay
at Baraka and be instructed in the Christian religion. He was distinctly
a man of brains. Before I left Africa I saw him stand before a large
audience and read a chapter from the Gospel of Matthew; and he read it
well. It was he, by the way, who, after one of our missionary tours,
first gave me my African name, _Mote-ke-ye_: _Man-who-never-sleeps_.
While Onjoga was living at Baraka I often took him as one of the
boat-crew in my work of itinerating. On one occasion, after a long
journey and a futile effort to reach a certain town during the
afternoon, we lost our way; for there was a network of small rivers. We
could neither find that particular town nor any other. Our predicament
became serious when darkness approached and the air became dense with
mosquitoes. At length we espied a canoe in the distance with several
persons in it. We pulled as fast as possible in order to overtake them;
but they evidently thought that we were pursuing them and they tried to
escape from us. Then Onjoga, rising in the boat and calling to them as
loud as he could yell (loud enough to be heard at any finite distance)
told them that we were lost and that we would like to go with them to
their town for the night. Having observed my helmet, they knew that
there was a white man in the boat and they were afraid, and refused to
take us to their town; for the French had recently burned some of their
towns. Onjoga assured them that I was not a government officer. Then
they asked who I was.
Onjoga shouted back: “He is a missionary.”
Across the distance came the question: “What is a missionary?”
Then Onjoga, shouting with all the strength of his powerful lungs, gave
them an outline of my work, a brief character-sketch of myself, and a
rapid synopsis of the Gospel which would have laid the world under
lasting obligation if I could have preserved it. Much to my surprise it
had the desired effect. They waited for us and took us to their town,
one of considerable size of which I had not before known the existence.
We spent the night there and preached to the people. In the evening,
when all the people were assembled, one of their own number started a
Fang hymn (one that I had translated) in which they all joined, to my
astonishment. Then they sang another, and another. The explanation was
that Ndong Koni had frequently visited the town in order to teach them.
Onjoga’s wife, Nze, was a great trial to him after he became a
Christian. At length he told me that he was going to put her away and
asked me to come to his town and judge the palaver. For he wished me to
know that he was folly justified. I went to his town and held a great
palaver and heard many witnesses. I listened half a day to the very
unpleasant story of Nze’s infidelity. Onjoga said that he did not care
so much about it before he became a Christian, but now it was revolting
to him and intolerable. After a long talk with Nze I asked Onjoga to
take her back once more. He was at first very unwilling. I said:
“I know it is hard; but she promises to do right in the future; and
besides, if you put her away you will probably marry some one else just
as bad; for they are all alike, or nearly so.” This was before there
were any conversions among the women.
“I know it,” he replied; “but I shall procure a very young wife and I am
going to beg you to take her to Baraka and raise her for me.”
His heart was so set upon this project that I had some difficulty in
persuading him that training wives for other men was not exactly my
specialty.
At last he consented to take Nze back once more. “But,” he said, “I know
she will not keep her promise.”
He was right. It was only a little while until Nze was living as badly
as ever. He put her away and remained single for some time. Then he
married a woman who had become a Christian under his teaching, and they
lived most happily together. Shortly before I left Africa I went to his
town and baptized their infant daughter. That service is still a sweet
memory.
It was not a great move for Nze. She married a man in the same town and
lived next door to Onjoga. Onjoga was a natural leader of men, and the
influence of his life transformed that town. Each time I visited him he
told me of men and women who had renounced their fetishes, together with
their cruelties and adulteries, and had confessed the Christian faith.
But the last time I visited his town he came walking down the street to
greet me, leading by the hand none other than Nze, whom he presented
saying: “She is now a Christian; and she is in the class that I am
teaching.” When I left Africa Nze was still a faithful member of
Onjoga’s class.
He was a man of evangelistic fervour. He regarded himself as a debtor to
all his people to make known the gospel of Christ crucified, which was
always the burden of his preaching. There were but few towns on the
Gaboon where his voice was not heard. Ndong Koni was gentle and winsome;
but Onjoga was aggressive and forceful. They represented extreme types;
and there are other types among the Fang equally pronounced. For Christ
lifted up upon the cross draws all men unto Him.
Onjoga’s own town instead of being one of the worst became one of the
best towns on the Gaboon. In the early days when I first visited it the
characteristic sound which greeted me as I approached it (usually in the
early night) was perhaps the bitter cry of a woman who was being
tortured for witchcraft; or the uncouth howling of a leopard-man whom
women and children may not see lest they die; or the weird wail of their
mourning for the dead; or the noise of war-drums and the savage shouts
of warriors who were keeping an expected enemy warned that they were on
the watch. Such were the sounds that ascended in the darkness like the
smoke of their torment. A few years later, in that town one would hear
every evening at a regular hour the people, young and old, singing
hymns, and singing them as they ought to be sung, from the heart. Nor
was there any cry of torture, nor any howl of a leopard-man, nor beating
of war-drums, nor any other sound that would strike fear into the heart
or quench the laughter of children at play.
XVI
MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS[1]
The “untutored child of nature” whom we meet in the pages of Rousseau
and Cooper, the “noble savage” of sentimental fiction, is not the savage
of missionary literature.
Henry George, while repudiating the sentimental view, contrasts the
personal independence of the savage with the dependence of the labourer
of civilization whose skill is specialized until his labour becomes but
an infinitesimal part of the varied processes which are required to
supply even the commonest wants. The following is Mr. George’s
attractive picture of the savage:
“The aggregate produce of the labour of a savage tribe is small, but
each member is capable of an independent life. He can build his own
habitation, hew out or stitch together his own canoe, make his own
clothing, manufacture his own weapons, snares, tools and ornaments. He
has all the knowledge of nature possessed by his tribe—knows what
vegetable productions are fit for food, where they may be found; knows
the habits and resorts of beasts, fishes and insects; can pilot himself
by the sun or the stars, by the turning of blossoms or the mosses on the
trees; is in short capable of supplying all his wants. He may be cut off
from his fellows and still live.”[2]
Footnote 2:
_Progress and Poverty_, p. 256.
[Illustration:
SEVERAL STRIDES TOWARD CIVILIZATION.
A Group of Bulu.
]
This personal independence is a fact and it is one that appeals strongly
to the imagination of those who see the savage at a distance and who
think of him only as _primitive_, instead of savage. His state seems
closely akin to that social condition, described by an ancient poet, in
which law, commerce, literature, science and religion are not
specialized, but implicit in the daily life of each individual. Man
loves the exercise of liberty for its own sake, regardless of aim and
consequence. It seems to be a condition of manhood—of moral spontaneity
and development. But the personal independence of the savage (when we
see him not with the imagination but with the eyes) is the expression of
his brute selfishness. Even his wife has no share in it; nor anybody
else if he can help it; for the desire for liberty is but a step from
the desire for power. There is no word in his vocabulary to express the
idea of justice. And when we pass from his social condition to the
inward man, himself, we find him the victim of a thousand abject fears
and cruel tyrannies that enslave him.
Mr. George L. Bates, a naturalist, who spent several years among the
Fang and gave me both sympathy and assistance in missionary work, tells
a story of a Fang feud, the last incident of which took place a few
months before I left Africa. I repeat the story told by Mr. Bates,
almost in his own words:
Nzwi Amvam, a man of the Esen clan, had been killed by Bibane, chief of
the Amvom clan, the enemies of the Esen. After some days a palaver was
held to divide the dead man’s estate and decide to whom his seven widows
should be given. These seven women were seated on the ground, in the
middle of the street, while the assembled company, a miscellaneous crowd
from that and surrounding villages, were seated on either side of the
street in the shade of the low projecting palm-leaf roofs. The important
men of the clan sat in the open palaver-house at the end of the street.
After much oratory it was agreed that Ngon, eldest son of Nzwi Amvam,
should receive two of his father’s wives, the other five being
distributed among the near relations. Then the palaver broke up to be
followed in the evening by a great dance with much drumming.
When young Ngon lay down that night he considered that he had become an
important man. Before his father’s death he had one wife; now he had
three. He had also received from his father’s estate a store of iron
rods and spearheads sufficient to purchase another wife. And, besides,
he had a gun—the only one in his town—which, it is said, had come from
the land of white men, beyond the great sea. He was in a fair way to
become a great man. But Ngon was not happy. He was thinking of the man
who killed his father; he was thinking of Bibane, and a passion stronger
than the desire for wealth and greatness took possession of him. He felt
_olun_, that is _shame_, _grief_, _rage_, an intolerable thirst for
_revenge_—he felt _olun_.
Many moons Ngon waited his opportunity. Many times he had his men
conceal themselves along the forest paths that led to the village of the
Amvom; but the enemy was too wary for them. At length, the day came that
Ngon levelled his gun from behind a tree at the son of his enemy, who
was passing alone and unsuspecting, and sent a rude fragment of an iron
pot tearing into his chest. The wound was mortal. In a few hours they
heard the wailing of the women of old Bibane’s village. Then the
death-drum of the Amvom boomed through the forest and Ngon heard it with
fierce delight. The _olun_ was removed from his breast. And, besides, he
was now a great man beyond question, for he had killed an enemy with his
own hands.
In Ngon’s village, however, when the shouting was over they reflected
that Bibane was a man to take revenge with interest; and the Amvom were
a powerful clan. It was the beginning of a period of alarms. Often at
dead of night the whole town was terrorized when the cry was raised,
“The Amvom are coming!” For many moons the women never went to the
plantations except when armed men went before and behind them in the
path. Ngon himself usually headed the company. He also kept strict watch
of the gloomy border of the forest surrounding the plantation while his
wives dug cassava and filled their baskets, or cut bunches of plantains
and bananas to carry home. But as time passed and the Amvom did not
appear Ngon began to keep less strict watch.
One day his most faithful wife, young Asangon, went to a plantain grove
under her care, far from the village, and came back reporting other
enemies to be watched besides the Amvom. The plantain stocks were
twisted and eaten off and all the bushes around trodden flat. Elephants!
A few nights and their depredations would cause famine in the village.
So with some of his young men, Ngon went to the place, built a booth of
palm branches, prepared a bed, gathered fuel for a fire, and returned to
the village. At dusk he set out for the plantain grove, accompanied by
his wife, Asangon, and their little son, whom Asangon carried astride
her right hip, sitting in a wide strap of monkey-skin which was slung
over her shoulder. Ngon walked ahead with his gun and a gum torch
lighted to show the way and to frighten evil spirits in the dark forest.
They were going to sleep in the booth among the plantains for the
purpose of scaring away the elephants. As he set out his white-haired
mother cautioned him to look out for the Amvom. “They’re a crafty lot,”
she said, “and want to cut your throat and eat you.” But the young man
declared that Bibane’s people were far away on a hunt.
Four nights they slept among the plantains and scared the elephants
away. It was noticed also that Asangon seemed to enjoy going out thus,
and spending the night with only her husband and her baby. It had
probably never occurred to her to form a distinct wish to be Ngon’s only
wife, but her happiness in the present arrangement was none the less
keen, and was made all the keener by the apprehension that it would not
last long.
The fourth morning, as they went through a bit of uncleared forest,
suddenly at a turn in the path a spear whizzed past Ngon, and he saw
among the trees the face of Bibane and the Amvom. He raised his gun and
pulled the trigger; but the white man’s weapon failed him this time. The
powder flashed in the pan and that was all. At the same moment hearing a
cry behind him, he turned to see his little son pierced with the spear
that had missed himself, and dying in his mother’s arms. The Amvom
sprang out upon him; and it was all he could do to break from them and
escape into the forest, leaving his wife a captive and his son dead. It
was now in the Esen villages that the wailing was heard; while there was
dancing and drumming among the Amvom.
But Ngon Nzwi again felt _olun_. In the dusk of the following morning
while the people were still in their beds, his voice was heard in the
street, rousing them from their sleep.
“People of this village,” he cried, “descendants of Ndong Amvam, who
first came from the east and founded this settlement, I am Ngon Nzwi,
son of Nzwi Amvam, son of Amvam Ndong, son of Ndong Amvam; I am head man
of this village. Bibane of the Amvom killed my father, Nzwi Amvam, and
now he has killed my child, captured my wife, and tried to take my own
life. May that man of the family of Amvam who fails to help me in my
revenge see his own people dead corpses! And my revenge will not be
complete until I have eaten the flesh of the arm that threw the spear
yesterday.”
The gruesome threat was literally fulfilled. Many seasons passed before
the opportunity came; but it came at last and the dead body of Bibane
lay at his feet. His wives knew what was to be done with the right arm
and they prepared the feast for Ngon. Some of his closest friends joined
him in it, but there was no dancing or story-telling, and not many words
were spoken about it by his people. For the memory of it weighed upon
their spirits.
The personal independence of the savage does not constitute the _simple
life_ of our idealizing imagination. There still are foes without and
_olun_ within,—not to speak of hostile spirits and the fear of
witchcraft.
Guizot in his _History of Civilization_ defines civilization as
_progress_, the progress of _society_, and the progress of
_individuals_; the melioration of the social system and the expansion of
the intellectual and moral faculties of man. And these two elements,
according to Guizot, are so intimately connected that they reciprocally
produce one another. When we speak of the authority of example and the
power of habit we admit, perhaps unconsciously, that a world better
governed, a world in which justice more fully prevails, renders man
himself more just.
That is true; but society is moralized by ideas; and ideas must work
through the brains and the arms of good and brave men. Therefore
Christianity addresses itself primarily to the individual; though it
does not ignore social conditions. It is easier to love men, especially
alien men, in the mass than to love them individually. Rousseau, it is
said, loved mankind but hated each particular man; and there are those
among us who would fight for the freedom of the Negro race but would not
walk a block with an individual Negro. The love of Jesus is an aggregate
of individual and personal loves. It was _one sheep_ that went astray
whom the shepherd followed weary and footsore till he found it; it is
_one_ sinner over whose return there is joy in heaven. The missionary is
first of all an evangelist, not a social reformer. Christianity aims at
the redemption of man, first in his individual character, and then in
his associate life.
Christianity is so intricately interwoven with our own civilization, its
influence upon our characteristic institutions is so subtle, that it is
not easy to say where its beneficence begins or ends; and many among us
are constantly attributing its social effects to other causes. But
introduced into Africa its power as a social force at once becomes
obvious. It comes in contact with a social condition which presents the
extremest contrast to that of our civilization, a condition which is
hostile at almost every point to the spirit of Christianity and that has
remained unchanged probably for ages; it comes as an evangelistic
agency, not working directly for social reforms; but within the lifetime
of one man society is transformed almost beyond recognition by the
abolishment of social evils, the implantation of institutions of
education and philanthropy, and the beginning of all that is highest and
best in our civilization.
Let us not exaggerate the difference between civilization and savagery.
It is always necessary to check the dramatic instinct, which for the
sake of a telling contrast would set the worst aspects of heathen
barbarism over against the best or even ideal aspects of Christian
civilization. Civilization is still far from perfect and savagery is not
wholly savage.
The interval between civilization and the savage state is never so great
as that between the latter and an animal state. No animal uses fire;
though I recall that Emin Pasha declared that he had witnessed a
procession of African monkeys carrying torches;—but we didn’t see it. No
animal cooks its food; no animal wears clothing; no animal makes either
tools or weapons; no animal breeds other animals for food; no animal has
an articulate language. Moreover without a certain degree of order,
intelligence and justice, human society, even that of the savage, could
not continue to exist.
But one going from America to Africa is impressed only by the contrast;
and he necessarily reflects upon it and seeks to define it.
The first contrast between civilized society and that of Africa which
impresses one is that of _interdependence_ and _independence_. I lived
very simply in Africa, and yet the whole world contributed to my simple
fare. On my table there was butter from Denmark, milk from Switzerland,
rice from India, sugar from Cuba, coffee from Brazil, dates from Arabia,
other fruits from France or from California, vegetables from England,
meats from America—and so forth. I did not even know where the wheat was
grown from which my bread was made; nor whether the cattle that supplied
beef had first grazed in Argentina or on the prairies of the Canadian
Northwest. It was the same with the materials and furnishings of the
house I lived in and the clothing I wore. The whole world contributes to
the material well-being of each civilized man. In contrast to this the
native African—before conditions are modified by civilization—supplies
all his own needs. He has the assistance only of his wife and he could
dispense with that. The entire provision for his material well-being is
furnished within the area of his visible horizon or within the radius of
an hour’s walk from his village. There is no regular buying or selling
and no money.
In this social condition men are very much alike, and there is a close
approximation to equality. Each man possesses all the knowledge of his
tribe and can do what any other man can do; there is no “differentiation
of function,” and no interdependence. There is only nature’s own
difference of male and female; the only real society is that of the
family. The village is an enlarged family the maximum size of which
depends upon the necessity of combining against a common foe. African
society, therefore, beyond the family, has scarcely more coherence than
a herd of gregarious animals. It is not an organism but a mere
aggregation of individuals.
The interdependence of civilization is largely the result of man’s
increasing _conquest of nature_; and this is the next contrast between
civilized society and that of Africa. The difference between the canoe
and the steamship is typical. Improved means of transportation,
beginning with the use of steam, has made possible the exchange of
products between remote countries. The ever-increasing knowledge of
nature, resulting in mechanical inventions, has made near neighbours of
the nations. We read the news of the world each morning. Money
contributed in New York to-day for the relief of a famine in China is
distributed there to-morrow. The whole world is embraced in our daily
thought and interest. The African, unless he lives by a river, knows
nothing of the world beyond the farthest village to which he has walked.
Not even the invention of the wheel has reached him. The civilized man
has made nature supplement himself; has made himself swifter than the
swiftest of animals and stronger than the strongest, and has multiplied
a thousandfold the product of his labour. In order to disseminate the
benefits of this increasing conquest of nature there arises a demand for
skilled labour; and upon the principle that a man can do but one thing
in a lifetime and do it well, different classes appear, performing
different functions in the social body, dependent upon one another as
the various organs of the body depend upon one another, and society
becomes an organism developing from simplicity to complexity.
The _intellectual development_ of the civilized man as compared with the
savage—his knowledge of the world in which he lives, and of man
himself—his science and philosophy, his refining enjoyments of
literature and music—all that is embraced in _education_ creates even a
greater difference than that of material well-being. As steam and
electricity have annihilated space so the printing-press has annihilated
time. The knowledge and the wisdom of the past are recorded for our
benefit. A pigmy standing on a giant’s shoulders (Macaulay observes) can
see further than the giant; and a schoolboy of our times knows more
astronomy than Galileo. Each generation stands upon the shoulders of the
preceding generation. There is nothing in any way corresponding to this
in Africa. There is no increase of knowledge and no expanding
intelligence. The intellectual stagnation, the stifling mental torpor of
an African community must be experienced in order to be realized.
Another striking difference between America and Africa is the _authority
of custom_ in Africa, and its resulting social immobility. Returning to
America after only a few years in Africa one is surprised and somewhat
bewildered by the changes that have taken place. It takes considerable
time to adjust oneself to altered conditions. In Africa there is no
trace of any change in customs, or any alteration of methods, from time
immemorial. Conduct, even in its details, is governed by custom. Nobody
questions its authority; nobody violates it. The appeal to custom is
final.
For instance, the rite of circumcision is universally practiced and
rigidly regarded, but nobody knows why. There may be a good reason for
it—I believe there is—but they have forgotten it. Or, to give an example
of its authority even in trivialities, the slavers in the old days
trained the men of the Kru tribe to work on ships and thereafter finding
them useful allies persuaded them to put a distinguishing mark upon
themselves so that none of them might be taken and enslaved by mistake.
The mark is a tattooed band running down the middle of the forehead to
the tip of the nose. With the suppression of the slave-trade the
usefulness of this ugly disfigurement of course became obsolete; but the
fashion was meanwhile established and to this day every Kruman is thus
tattooed. He has forgotten its origin. If you ask him the reason for
this mark he thinks that he gives a perfect explanation when he says:
“It be fashion for we country.” To ask him the reason for the custom is
equivalent to asking why right is right. The finality of the appeal to
custom is like our appeal to the ten commandments. Of course the
authority of custom in Africa serves to check personal tyranny and to
modify the principle that might is right. It thus prevents society from
going backward; but it also prevents it from going forward; a thousand
years are as a day. Mobility is a condition of progress.
A more radical difference between the civilized man and the African than
any we have yet mentioned is that of _work_. It is not merely a contrast
between actual work and idleness, but a contrast of attitudes that
constitutes this difference. “Use, labour of each for all,” says
Emerson, “is the health and virtue of all beings. _Ich dien_, I serve,
is a truly royal motto. And it is the mark of nobleness to volunteer the
lowest service, the greatest spirit only attaining to humility. Nay, God
is God, because He is the servant of all.... All honest men are daily
striving to earn their bread by their industry. And who is this who
tosses his empty head at this blessing in disguise, and calls labour
vile, and insults the workman at his daily toil?”
This is everywhere the sentiment of the truly civilized man. He may be
lazy but he still recognizes the dignity of labour. But the African
recognizes only the dignity of idleness and deems it the true badge of
superiority. Work is not so obnoxious to his laziness as it is to his
self-respect. It is the brand of inferiority. It is not _exertion_ that
he hates: he exerts himself in war and in hunting. It is when work
assumes the form of _service_ that it offends him. Manhood, he believes,
consists in self-assertion as contrasted with self-sacrifice. His ideal
is not to minister but to be ministered unto. Therefore work is
relegated to women, who are weaker and cannot resist the imposition.
It is only necessary to point out one more difference between Africa and
civilization; and in this last, it seems to me, we have before us the
difference that is really fundamental: it is _trustworthiness_.
Civilization depends upon this quality in men. To the entire social
structure of civilization each individual contributes strength or
weakness according to his trustworthiness. In New York it has sometimes
been found, upon investigation, that in the steel frame of certain high
buildings many of the rivet holes were filled with soap and putty
instead of rivets. In the same city not long ago, in the family of a
prominent physician, the maid who had the care of the children went
calling on a friend and found that in the friend’s home there was
scarlet fever. The maid considered only that she had already had scarlet
fever and was therefore safe from it. So she made the call, but she
carried the fever back to the physician’s home and his children died
from it. Such exceptions prove the rule, namely, that trustworthiness is
the social cement of civilization.
A Fang village of a hundred persons can hold together constituting a
society; but as soon as it grows to a group of about two hundred it goes
to pieces and forms new villages. The men of the smaller village are
more closely related, are brothers, and affection, a sentiment of
brotherhood, insures a certain amount of honesty in their mutual
relations. As the relationship widens this sentiment weakens and
distrust takes the place of confidence. And the worst of it is that they
distrust each other because they really know each other; because they
are _untrustworthy_. Distrust is the dissolution of society.
Some years ago at Batanga the white traders introduced a “trust
system,” whereby a quantity of goods were entrusted to a native, that
he might go to the interior and trade with the expectation of paying
for the goods with ivory or other trade produce upon his return to the
coast. This simple arrangement was regarded by the trader as extremely
satisfactory. He charged enormous prices in ivory for his goods, and
besides—theoretically—he got the ivory, which otherwise was difficult
to procure. He did not worry about the payment; for the German
governor, being an obliging gentleman, and wishing to stimulate trade,
threatened long imprisonment and lavish flogging to any and every
native who should betray his trust; who, for instance, would spend the
goods in buying a number of wives for the time being, in giving large
presents to all his relations, or in making merry with the whole
community and wasting his substance in riotous living. The iron hand
of the Kaiser would prevent all that, and the trust-system would soon
make Batanga a centre of commerce and civilization. Of course all the
enterprising young natives hurried to get goods that they did not have
to pay for until some other time, realizing only the foolishness of
worrying about the future, and that possession is ten-tenths of the
law in Africa.
Well, after a great while they all came back accompanied by the Kaiser’s
soldiers. When the old matter of the goods was mentioned to them and a
longing for ivory was expressed, the response was uniform: “Dem goods?
Dem goods you done give me? Why, mastah, all dem goods done loss.”
At the very earnest appeal of the missionaries, reinforced by the
limited capacity of the jail at Kribi, a law was finally passed
abolishing the trust-system in that particular form.
It was not fair. The poor native’s sense of moral responsibility was
unequal to the demand made upon it. For the same reason a high form of
civilization cannot be superimposed upon a morally degraded people.
Their moral responsibility would not be equal to its demands; it would
bear too hard upon them even as upon children; it would crush them.
In thus recording the successive contrasts between civilization and the
savage state, I am not conscious of exploiting a theory, but have rather
recorded the differences that impressed me in the course of actual
experience in Africa; and I have recorded them somewhat in the order of
their importance, passing from outward and manifest differences to those
that are less obvious and more fundamental. But we find that we have
gradually passed from social conditions to individual qualities and that
the fundamental difference is _personal character_.
A short time after the organization of a church among the Fang, the
_Ayol Church_, I held a communion service in which about sixty persons,
some of them from distant towns, sat together at the “Lord’s Table.” Let
the reader imagine himself at that service with me; and let us consider
briefly the social energy of the new moral forces represented by that
service.
The very first thing that we observe in contrast to the surrounding
heathenism is that both men and women are partaking together of this
symbolic feast. The Fang man does not eat with his wife; so here
immediately a custom is violated and the equality of woman is
recognized. This same principle has abolished polygamy, and there is not
a polygamist at this table. The authority of custom in its chief
stronghold is challenged and overthrown by a divine law that judges all
customs, however ancient, and which is henceforth the highest authority.
The sacred institution of the family is purified. It is not by
ecclesiastical enactment that polygamy is abolished; the enactment would
be ineffective but for the higher estimate of woman which Christianity
has introduced by exalting those qualities in which she especially
excels, and establishing a mutual relation as incompatible with polygamy
as with polyandry.
We also observe that these sixty persons represent many various clans of
the Fang, and even different tribes, for there are two Mpongwe women
present. The heathen Mpongwe despise the Fang. And between the different
clans of the Fang themselves there are ancient feuds and relentless
hatreds. But the very meaning of this service is _fellowship_.
The heathen Fang have no salutation, and need none; their instinct is to
hide rather than to meet. But the people who meet at this service salute
each other with the word _monejang_—_brother_, or _sister_. And they did
not learn this salutation from me; for I had never used it thus; but
where the Spirit of Christ is, there is the instinct of brotherhood.
This Christian society, therefore, although scattered far and wide, and
having no material interests in common, is yet drawn together by an
invisible bond which is already stronger than all the disintegrating
forces of the savage state. When the population of a Fang village
reaches the number of two hundred its dissolution is imminent. But each
member of this Christian society has pledged himself to the conversion
of others; and as the society grows its coherence increases.
In their worship also, as well as in their fellowship, we find certain
principles of social energy. Their view of God and of the world makes
possible the _conquest of nature_, which is the basis of our material
civilization. These men and women have all parted with their fetishes.
That means that they have defied the multitude of evil spirits in whom
they once believed and have definitely committed themselves to faith in
one God, the Father of all, in whom mankind are brothers.
But it means more than this. The spirits of evil in whom they believed
were localized in the objects of nature and to their presence all
natural phenomena were due. Nature was therefore lawless and hostile.
But these demons have all been cast out by the presence and power of God
in nature. They now thank Him for the fruitfulness of their gardens and
they pray to Him in the midst of the storm. One mind, a divine
intelligence, presides over nature and the world is not run by magic,
but governed by law. They do not comprehend the full content of their
faith; neither do we. But they are fundamentally right and education
will do the rest. They already have that knowledge upon which the
_conquest of nature_ depends.
We observe that many of those present in this service have books. The
books are the Gospel of Matthew and the book of Genesis, which have been
translated into their own language—the first Fang books. Nearly all the
younger persons present and some of those who are old have learned to
read that they might read these books. We are never quite prepared for
the thirst for knowledge, the intellectual awakening, incident to their
spiritual birth. They live in a new world; they are citizens of a
world-wide kingdom and they want to know all about it. Poor as they are
they will soon be giving of their slender means for the spread of the
Gospel among people whom they have never seen. We are bound to respond
to this desire for knowledge and to encourage it to the utmost.
Education is not a mere expedient by which the missionary obtains the
good-will of the people and secures a hearing for the Gospel; it is a
demand created by the Gospel itself and henceforth the necessary adjunct
of evangelistic work. Many, like myself, have gone to Africa intent upon
evangelistic work, and before long have chosen to spend most of their
time in the schoolroom.
Again, in this service, they celebrate, in the death of Christ, a
_self-sacrificing service_; and to this same spirit of self-sacrifice as
against self-assertion, they all are solemnly pledged. This attitude of
mutual service is another strong factor of coherence. It constitutes not
only the best society possible, but also the most progressive, and it
is, for our purpose, especially significant in that it implies an
altered attitude towards work. They still have to contend with natural
laziness, but they are no longer the victims of a false ideal. Service
is not a disgrace, but a duty.
In the organization represented in this service, as well as in its
fellowship and its worship, we shall find principles of social progress;
we shall find this Christian society a model of organization for all the
social institutions and native governments that progress may in the
future demand.
Guizot, speaking of legitimacy in government, says:
“The conditions of legitimacy are the same in the government of a
religious society as in all others. They may be reduced to two: the
first is, that authority should be placed and constantly remain, as
effectually at least as the imperfection of all human affairs will
permit, in the hands of the best, the most capable; so that the
legitimate superiority, which lies scattered in various parts of
society, may be thereby drawn out, collected and delegated to discover
the social law,—to exercise its authority. The second is that the
authority thus legitimately constituted should respect the legitimate
liberties of those whom it is called to govern. A good system for the
formation and organization of authority, a good system of securities for
liberty, are the two conditions in which the goodness of government
resides, whether civil or religious. And it is by this standard that all
should be judged.”
And to this standard the government of this mission church conforms. The
two elders who officiate in this service have been chosen by the members
of the church themselves, and for no reason whatever except their moral
worth and wisdom. One of the elders is Mb’Obam, a noted chief, a man of
wide influence even among the heathen. The other, Okeh, is in all,
except moral worth, the opposite extreme from Mb’Obam; diminutive and
weak in body, he is useless for war and non-combative in disposition,
the kind of a man whom the heathen despise and ridicule—but so kind, so
pure in heart, so humble, that none was more worthy to be exalted and
these Christians proved themselves by their perception of his worth. The
progress of this African community, implied in the choice of such a one
as Okeh for leader, has leaped across uncounted centuries.
The man whom the Mpongwe church has recognized as pastor for many
years—though he was never ordained—was born a slave. The place of
highest authority is attainable to those in every rank; no class is
especially privileged; no privileges are hereditary; there is no such
thing as _caste_ within this society; and therefore it is more likely to
be progressive and not stationary. In short, superiority, wherever
found, is recognized, drawn out, and invested with authority to govern.
For the _security of liberty_ it is only needful to mention the Bible,
the authoritative word, to which all have equal access. But there is
another factor. This government uses no force. It declares that temporal
and spiritual authority are essentially different and must be kept
forever separate; that physical force has rightful authority only over
the actions of men, but never over the mind or its convictions. This
declaration of the _liberty of conscience_ is the parent of civil and
political liberty.
It is difficult for the American, accustomed to the separation of
spiritual and temporal power, to realize the utter confusion in the
African mind—and in heathen minds elsewhere—of moral authority and
physical force. Tyranny is the inevitable consequence of this confusion.
It is easy to object that Europe at one period in her history had to
contend against the Church itself for this very principle of separation
and the liberty of conscience which it involves. But at an earlier
period, it was the Church which first instructed Europe in this
principle by insisting upon the separation of the two authorities, and
which implanted the idea of liberty; and when it became obscured it was
by rebellion within the Church that it was recovered. The Church is not
repeating on the field of missions the mistakes of its history in
Europe; and therefore as a social force it progresses with accelerated
velocity.
Such then are the forces of social progress which are inherent in this
Christian society, forces which are altogether new and strange in
Africa, forces which place this society in the line of continuous and
indefinite progress towards civilization.
[Illustration:
A FASHIONABLE WEDDING IN KAMERUN.
]
Already we may see the beginning of civilization in material things. The
first thing that emerges from the inchoate society is the home. I have
already spoken of the abolishment of polygamy; but a home also implies a
house. The houses of a Fang village are built on either side of one
narrow street, under one continuous roof, and consist of a single room
separated from the next dwelling by a half-open bamboo partition. But
the Christian wants a better house, because he is a better man. It is
noticeable that the Christian man separates himself from this common
village life and builds a single house of several rooms for himself and
his family. All Christians do not immediately do so; but the tendency is
sufficiently marked to insure the certainty that the idea of the home
will prevail. These better houses have windows, and doors on hinges, and
sometimes even a board floor. There is therefore a demand for carpenters
and other skilled workmen. Here is where the industrial school responds
to an exigent need and is both an adjunct and a direct result of
evangelization. Here also is the beginning of a division of labour and
that interdependence which characterizes civilization.
The Fang Christians are all clothed; for decency is a Christian
instinct. The cloth which they now wear is imported from England and
America. They pay for it with the produce of their gardens. For this
purpose they raise more than they need for their own consumption. Their
gardens are therefore much larger than they used to be, and both men and
women work in them. Having better clothing they must take care of it;
therefore they want to sit on chairs, instead of on the ground. Neither
can they keep their clothing decently clean if they eat their food with
their hands. Knives and forks and plates and tables are soon added to
the household furnishings. One thing demands another; each added comfort
requires more work. Those men now expend in productive labour the energy
which they formerly wasted in conflict.
Such is the general course of development towards a social community
having intercourse with the civilized world; receiving much, and adding
its increment to the material welfare of the race and the sum of
happiness.
All the constitutive elements of civilization may be summed up in two
things: a condition of interdependence in material things, and a
sentiment of human brotherhood. But we have seen that the progressive
interdependence of civilization is based upon an increasing knowledge of
nature, and that this knowledge of nature becomes possible to the
African through the Christian view of God and the world. We have seen
that faith in Christ effects a mental and moral regeneration of the
individual from which springs a sentiment of brotherhood and spirit of
mutual trust which is the coherence of society without which it becomes
a heap of sand. The saying is reasonable, therefore, that civilization
is but the secular side of Christianity; and all the good which social
progress comprehends is embodied in the prayer which these Fang
Christians unitedly offer: _Ayong dia nzak_—_Thy kingdom come_.
Commerce and government in our day are making the claim that they are
the all-sufficient forces of civilization throughout the world. But
however much they have accomplished that is beneficial, we cannot forget
the evils which have attached to them; that in Africa and elsewhere
commerce is responsible for the sale of rum and for other evils as
degrading; and that government by the civilized powers, despite such
grandiloquent phrases as “the onward march of civilization,” has
consisted very much in taking territory from those to whom it belonged,
because, forsooth, “they have a darker complexion or a flatter nose.”
Both commerce and government are invaluable adjuncts of Christianity;
but it has within itself the potentialities of both.
That prayer, _Thy Kingdom Come_, is being offered daily in every land
and in every language of the world and everywhere it has the same
meaning. It means that all those who sincerely offer it, however great
the contrast of their history and traditions, are a community, united by
the stronger bonds of aims and ideals. It means that they have a vision
of a united race of mankind; a vision of all nations drawn into one
common brotherhood in commerce, government and religion, and that they
believe in the abounding adequacy of the Gospel of Christ for its
realization. Society resounds with the cry of the oppressed and the
dissonance of human passion; but still they cherish the vision of unity
and peace; and they believe that this _kingdom of God_ is the end
towards which all social progress moves.
XVII
THE CRITICS
Elsewhere I have represented the _climate_ as the theme of the Old
Coaster whom the voyager meets after leaving Liverpool, or some other
European port, for West Africa. He makes free use of all the adjectives
that have usually been appropriated to the characterization of sin and
death.
But I may not have said that the Old Coaster has what musicians call a
_sub-theme_. His sub-theme is _Missions_. The unity of his conversation
is secured by the use of the same adjectives. If the missionary is
coddled at home or foolishly praised, the severe and relentless
criticism to which he is subjected after leaving Europe may be regarded
as a providential discipline. According to the Old Coaster every evil
that infests West Africa is due directly or indirectly to the
missionary. I have heard him blamed for the Belgian atrocities of the
Congo, and for the Hut Tax War of Sierra Leone, and even for the
fatality of the climate. For, it is said, everybody knows that it is not
malaria but quinine that kills the white man in Africa; the belief in
quinine is simply fatuous, and its use is criminal; and the missionary
alone is responsible. Rum, which is the only protection against malaria,
would keep the traders alive, but sooner or later, following the example
of the missionary, they take quinine and die.
These criticisms serve to while away the time, and do no harm unless
there should be on board a smart traveller who is bent upon learning all
about Africa from the deck of a steamer and then giving his knowledge to
the world in a book. The Old Coaster (and the name often includes the
captain and officers of the ship) is obsessed with the desire to impart
information. The missionary has magazines through which his voice is
heard: but the smart traveller is the Old Coaster’s opportunity and he
makes the best of it and pours forth a volume of misinformation
sufficient to fill the most capacious mental vacuum. The Old Coaster
thus employed is not more than half malicious. He sometimes winks at a
missionary standing by, as much as to say: “The joke’s on you.” He
generally divides missionaries into two classes, _deliberate impostors_
and _well-meaning fools_, generously assuming that the missionary
present belongs to the latter class, so that the relation of
good-fellowship on board is not necessarily disturbed by the
anti-missionary acrimony.
One of these travelling critics was so wrought upon by the reported
misdoings of missionaries and their destructive influence upon the
religion and the morals of the natives that before he reached the Congo
he went clean crazy—as witness the following from his book: “What
religions furies with unholy rage have demolished those weird gods, and
disturbed fervent but unobtruding piety in the exercise of its duties?”
It may have been the result of going ashore without an umbrella. I never
heard whether this man recovered; but let travellers take warning and
not trifle with the dangers of the coast and the Old Coaster.
One is impressed by the bewildering inconsistency of the criticisms, so
contradictory that if all were published no further answer would be
necessary than to cite critic against critic. The more numerous class of
critics contend that the native is so morally inferior that he cannot be
improved; and a profession of Christian faith only adds to his heathen
vices a more disgusting hypocrisy. The other class of critics, less
numerous, but more intelligent and reputable, contend, on the contrary,
that the native is all right as he is, his pristine morality becomes
him; there is no need to improve him and we ought not to try.
Not long ago Prof. Frederick Starr after a brief visit to the Congo
published his opinions in the Chicago _Tribune_ and made many strictures
upon missionary work. He wrote under the rather complacent caption, “The
truth about the Congo,” quite confident that his word and hasty
observations were sufficient to discredit the hundreds who had gone
before him, as able and as honest as himself, and who had lived many
years in the Congo. Professor Starr confesses at the outset that he
personally “dislikes the effort to elevate, civilize, and remake a
people,” and that he “should prefer to leave the African as he was
before the white contact.” It is his opinion that civilized folk have no
right to change the customs, institutions or ideas of any tribe, even
with the purpose of saving their souls. Such critics regard the African,
not at all with a human and sympathetic interest, as a fellow man,
capable of progress, and possibly endowed with an immortal soul; but
with an esthetic and historical interest, as constituting a link between
us and our ape-ancestry, an object to be appraised like a piece of
antique art, not for its present or future use, but for the past. To
change him shows a want of good taste and historical imagination, even
if the change relieve his suffering and improve his morals; that were a
small compensation if we thereby impoverish the variety of human types
and leave the world less interesting to the connoisseur. Incidentally,
Professor Starr denied categorically the reported atrocities of the
Belgians in the Congo Free State. He had asked the Belgians themselves
about the matter.
In seeking to explain the wide-spread criticism of missions and of
missionaries it ought to be frankly admitted that among missionaries
there are misfits and occasional freaks whose misconduct scandalizes the
well deserving. If we have any knowledge of human nature, and realize
that in every society there are unworthy and false members, we should
not even expect that the ranks of missionaries alone would be exempt. By
denying a palpable fact we only exasperate our critics and lead them to
doubt the sincerity of all instead of a very few. It is always wholesome
to admit the truth, and indiscriminate praise is as foolish and
misleading as wholesale criticism.
On one of my voyages to Africa a certain missionary was regarded as “the
biggest liar on board.” What in the world ever attracted him to the
mission field it were hard to imagine. Criticism of other and all
missionaries was his favourite employment, especially when conversing
with those who were hostile to the work. While we were anchored at Accra
I heard him say to a trader, as he pointed ashore towards the splendid
English mission: “That is where the missionaries take in heathen and
turn out devils.” He did not stay long in the mission but he did
considerable harm in a short time and created painful misunderstandings
that were by no means removed by his departure. Imagine the position of
a missionary placed perhaps alone with such a man, with no other
companionship and no escape from his neighbourhood! Moreover the report
of the missionary’s work, and even his reputation, depends upon the
other man; he is therefore at his mercy. For the reputation of one who
labours in a lonely and distant field may be indefinitely greater or
less than he deserves. The man of whom I speak, after his return to
America, figured in the police courts in New York City, where he was
arrested on a very serious and odious charge. His record there is still
accessible.
Well-meaning missionaries sometimes make themselves ridiculous in the
eyes of white men by their attitude and manner towards the natives. I
once witnessed such a scene, when a missionary standing on deck, in the
presence of white men, conversed with a group of natives in a manner so
unseemly and so silly that the comments of the white men were chiefly
oaths and ribald laughter. When at last the natives after an hour on
board were about to go ashore, one of them, a young savage about sixteen
or seventeen years of age with scarcely a stitch of clothing on him,
came to the missionary and said: “Me, I go for shore;” whereupon the
missionary extended his hand and lifting his huge helmet exclaimed in a
very loud voice accompanied by a sweeping bow: “Goodbye, sir; good-bye;
and I’m happy to have met you, sir.”
The captain in a voice of thunder turned to me and said: “Who is that
fool?” I have weakened the captain’s forceful language by omitting his
expletive, which the average reader will easily supply.
More frequently, yet perhaps not often, the missionary errs in his
attitude towards his worldly-minded fellow passengers on these long
voyages—is unamiable, or indulges in moral strictures in a way that
cannot possibly do good, and is calculated to create prejudice and
antipathy.
I recall one Sunday when two army officers thought to kill time by
playing ball on deck. Like others of their class, they regarded all
civilians with contempt and missionaries with abhorrence. They were
interesting when drunk, but extremely stupid when sober. A lady
missionary came and sat down in her chair on the side of the deck where
they were playing ball. As the man at the bat began to strike more
vigorously the ball occasionally flew past the lady at an uncomfortably
short distance. There were chairs on the other side of the deck where
she could have been quite as comfortable, and there was only one place
where there was room to play ball; but those men were breaking the
Sabbath, and she must protest by staying there and looking righteous,
that is to say, very cross. She was naturally modest as well as
kind-hearted, and she remained there wholly from a sense of duty. She
was a small, scanty person, with a prominent nose, and she sat bolt
upright, her nose looking like an intentional target for the ball. Once
when it whizzed past her one of the men said, “Aren’t you afraid you
will get hit with this ball if you stay there?” It never seemed to occur
to him that there was another alternative, namely, for them to stop
playing.
She seemed not to hear, but looked more cross than ever, and appeared as
if she wanted to get hit, so as to be a martyr to her principles; or at
least so as to have a better reason for looking so cross. The captain
came along and after contemplating for a moment the smiling levity of
those worldly men and the contrasting acerbity of the Christian woman’s
countenance, as she sat there keeping the Sabbath day holy, he went to
the side and laughed overboard. At length a fellow missionary approached
her and asked if she would go with him to the other side of the deck,
adding that he wanted to talk with her on a matter of missionary
interest. She was a real good woman with a mistaken sense of duty. We
must surely seek to be amiable to people as we find them, and try to
like people as they are. Such conduct is a source of irritation to those
who indulge in it, and it inspires dislike and consequent criticism.
Another source of criticism is the missionary magazines of the various
societies engaged in missionary work. These magazines fall into the
hands of the trader; and sometimes he finds a glowing account of the
great work being done by Missionary A who happens to be his neighbour,
and he is unable to reconcile the report with the work which he has seen
with his own eyes. Usually his eyes are at fault. He is blind to
spiritual values. There are old traders in Gaboon who do not know that
there is a native Christian in the community.
But we cannot dismiss the whole matter in this cavalier manner, and I
feel like adding that the missionary magazine, however necessary, is not
an unmixed good. It is not good that a man should let his left hand know
all that his right hand does. The missionary magazine reports to the
world what the missionary chooses to write about his own work. If his
letters are interesting and report large success they are eagerly sought
and published; and he of course is not callously indifferent to his
reputation. But, inasmuch as there are few or no witnesses but himself,
the magazine puts a premium on egotism and immodesty; and it sometimes
fosters a kind of spiritual impotence which needs the stimulus of
publicity. One of the bravest and best missionaries it has ever been my
privilege to know, the Rev. William Chambers Gault, was seldom mentioned
in a missionary magazine and little known to the church at home, though
he laboured for many long years in Africa and is buried there. Mr. Gault
was incorrigibly modest.
But even with the utmost margin of excuse—admitting the foolishness of
fulsome and indiscriminate praise; admitting that missionaries are
mortal, and some few of them _desperately_ mortal—it remains that the
wholesale criticism and violent denunciation that one hears on the
voyage is unjust and outrageous. We must look for the reason of it in
the critics themselves—the non-missionary white men residing in Africa.
And in themselves we will find reason enough.
First of all, many or most of these men, according to their own
confession, are not men of personal faith in Christ, but men who deride
the Gospel in which we believe. Of all those who have criticized
missions, I have only known of one man who himself professed to be a
Christian; his criticism was rather mild and was due more to what he had
heard than what he had seen.
Carlyle has said: “Unbelief talking about belief is like a blind man
discussing the laws of optics.” How can a man think it worth while to
expend lives and money in preaching to the heathen a Gospel which he
himself rejects? If the Gospel itself is foolishness those who preach it
must be fools, and the greatest fools are those who preach it at the
greatest sacrifice. What does cynicism know about enthusiasm? It was not
“much learning,” but much Christianity, that made Paul seem mad to
Festus. Manifestly the first question to ask the disbeliever in missions
is whether he is also a disbeliever in Christianity and in Christ. It is
really astonishing that so many critics of missions, and so many of
their readers, should treat this latter question as entirely irrelevant.
Racial antipathy towards the black man is also a reason of hostility to
missions. The intensity of this feeling where the inferior race is in
the majority is surprising, even in men who in all their other relations
are generous and considerate. In the opinion of many a white man in
Africa the black man is little better than a beast, and they treat him
accordingly. To speak of him as a brother man is to insult the white
man.
This antipathy actually prefers that the black man should remain in his
present degradation—perhaps to justify itself. It resents every effort
to elevate him; and as it sees him actually rising to the moral level of
the white man it is only intensified into hatred. One soon perceives
that the object of the white man’s greatest aversion is not the lowest
native, but the best. The critic may therefore be sincere when he
declares that he can see no good in the native product of missions, for
he is blinded by this special prejudice. Racial antipathy is much more
marked in the government official than in the trader; yet even the
traders when they live in communities often have a code of arrogant
manners according to which they ostracize any of their number who may
extend to the native a degree of social recognition.
This antipathy must necessarily be hostile to missionary work. For the
work of the missionary implies that he regards the black man as a
brother man; one who is also capable of moral elevation. He is not
necessarily blind to the present degradation of the native; but he
insists that he does not belong to the present, but to the future; that
he is endowed with an immortal soul and the moral possibilities which
immortality implies. He admits the worst but “sees the best that
glimmers through the worst,” and “hears the lark within the songless
egg.” And experience has justified his faith.
The missionary treats the native according to this belief, and as he
rises gives him exactly the social place to which his character as an
individual entitles him. He takes very little interest in the abstract
question of equality, or whether the black man is inherently inferior
and different in kind from the white man. But he believes that in
Christian brotherhood there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither black nor
white. This attitude and the behaviour which comports with it are
obnoxious to many white men, and are inevitably a source of much
hostility to missions.
To the impulse of racial antipathy there is often added that of angry
passion unchecked by social restraints, and stimulated by the
irritability of a malaria-infected temper.
One day during a sea voyage a white man was telling a number of us how
the native workman ought to be managed. Addressing a missionary he said:
“You missionaries make a great mistake in being kind to the native
workman. To let him know that you value him is to spoil him; to praise
him is to make him impudent; to trust him is to make him a thief. The
proper way to manage him is never to speak to him without swearing; and
to curse him even when he does his best. They are all misbegotten sons
of rum-puncheons, whose highest idea of heaven is idleness and drink.
They hate us all, and the only way to get any service out of them is to
use the club. Every man who has ever worked for me bears the mark of my
club, and some of them I have maimed for life. It is the only way to get
the brutes to do anything.”
The missionary replied: “I believe every word that you say in regard to
your treatment of the native. But this much at least is to be said for
my method, as against yours, that mine is a complete success, and yours
a complete failure, even according to your own confession. Most men do
not brag about their failures, nor try to teach others what they
themselves have not yet learned. In spite of kicks and curses you do not
get the natives to work. One must conclude, therefore, that you like
kicking and cursing more than you like success. Now my method succeeds
to the extent that I usually get from the native all the service for
which I pay him; and, besides, they have nursed me when I was sick; and
they have vied with each other in protecting me from the sun by day and
storms by night; they have exposed themselves to danger for my sake, and
they have even saved my life at the extremest peril of their own. But
would you therefore exchange your method for mine? No; not even for the
sake of success.”
But the worst cruelty of the foreigner towards the native results from
the union of trade and government—when the government official is also a
trader. This is what happened in the miserable Congo Free State, when
the king of the Belgians became the king of traders. The concession
system of the Belgians was afterwards introduced into the French Congo.
But at length a voice was heard that had long been silent, and De
Brazza, rival of Stanley and founder of the French Congo, came forth
from his well-earned retirement, and France was stirred with the
eloquence of a great man’s indignation. The result was that the worn-out
explorer himself was appointed the head of a commission that was sent to
investigate the conditions in those parts of the French Congo in which
the concession system was in operation. De Brazza died at Dakar on his
return, a martyr to his efforts for justice and humanity in Africa. But
his report was already written, in which he charged M. Gentil,
Commissioner General of the French Congo, with maladministration and
great cruelty towards the natives. He reported a number of natives
flogged to death with knotted whips. He stated that on one occasion, at
the colonial office at Bangui, in order to force the natives to bring
trade produce—called taxes—fifty-eight women and ten children were taken
and held as prisoners and that within five weeks forty-seven of these
died of starvation. Is it any wonder that to certain white men the usual
methods of the missionary seem very slow and ineffective?
The missionary is the champion of the helpless native against the white
man’s cruelty, and if he sometimes oversteps the limit of discretion, as
is often said (though I do not know of a single instance), his excessive
zeal is at least on the side of justice and humanity, and it is also in
behalf of the weak against the strong. The government official seldom
burns down native towns for pastime in the community where there is a
missionary. When remonstrance is unavailing the missionary will at
length report the matter to a higher official, and even the highest. And
if such cruelty be general and atrocities abound, he even carries his
remonstrance to the governments of Europe, or appeals to the civilized
world, as he has done in regard to the Belgian Congo.
Again, there is no doubt that the particular vices which so many white
men practice in Africa are a source of estrangement between them and the
missionaries and a reason for hostility and consequent criticism of
missions.
It is easy to be uncharitable and even unjust when writing on this
subject. The contrast between the _selfish_ motives of the trader and
the unselfish motives of the missionary has been overworked. It is not
necessarily greed for gold that takes the trader to Africa, but often a
perfectly honourable ambition. Besides, I have known traders who went to
Africa chiefly because it offered the most immediate opportunity in
sight for them to help out at home when younger brothers and sisters
were to be educated and the family was in straitened circumstances. The
pity is that they did not know the subtlety of the temptations awaiting
them. They were strong enough to live up to their moral standards, but
they did not see that those standards themselves would imperceptibly be
lowered. Yet this is what happens.
In a recent book, _The Basis of Ascendancy_, the author, Mr. Edgar
Gardner Murphy, speaking of the small proportion (as it seems to him) of
the nation’s brains which the Southern white man of the United States
supplies as compared with the New Englander, sets forth most earnestly
the danger to the white man in the Southern states of contact with the
low standards of an inferior race. The significant fact, Mr. Murphy
says, is not the mere pressure of a lower racial standard, but the white
man’s cumulative modification of his own standards of self-criticism and
self-direction:
“Through the conditions of his familiar contact with less highly
developed habits of efficiency, with forms of will more immature than
his, he is deprived of that bracing and corrective force, resident in
the standard of his peers, which, manifesting itself within every
personal world as one of the higher forms of social coöperation, is, in
fact, the moral equivalent of competition. He may sin and not die. His
more exacting expectations of himself are not echoed from without. Of
himself, as he would prefer to see himself, there is no spiritual
mirror. The occasional tendency to take himself at his second best is
socially unchecked, and both his powers and his inclinations tend to
assume the forms of approximation imposed by a life of habitual
relationship with a mind lower than his own.
“To say that the stronger tends to become brutal because the weaker is
brutal, or slovenly because the weaker is slovenly, is to touch the
process only on its surface. The deeper fact is not that of imitation,
nor yet that of contagion. It is that tragedy of recurrent
accommodations, of habitual self-adjustment to lower conceptions of life
and to feebler notions of excellence, which is nothing less than
education in its descending and contractive forms.”
This is incomparably more true in Africa than it ever has been or ever
can be in the Southern states. The worst of the remote possibilities
which Mr. Murphy describes are fully realized in Africa. The velocity of
the process is accelerated by the depressing effect of the climate.
The missionary too is more or less sensible of this influence upon
himself; but he is guarded by the fact that his very purpose in Africa
is to introduce and teach his own standards to the natives and he is
constantly occupied in pointing out the superiority of his own and the
inferiority of theirs. Moreover any definite accommodation to native
standards would mean disgrace and failure; to other white men it means
neither. Indeed the white man, other than the missionary, who proposes
to maintain the home standards in Africa will sometimes find himself
ostracized by his fellows.
The use of rum by the natives the missionary is bound to denounce and
within the membership of the church it is absolutely forbidden. But in
doing this the missionary by implication reflects very seriously upon
many white men. For the excessive drinking of the majority of white men
in Africa, with its appalling consequences, is so well known that there
is no need to exploit it. And when the native connected with the mission
church refuses either to drink rum or to sell it, thereby professing
moral superiority to those white men, the latter are exasperated. And
shall the missionary not teach the native the strict observance of the
seventh commandment because the white man so flagrantly violates it? The
discord arising from this source is greatly aggravated by the fact that
so many girls educated in mission schools are enticed by the
extraordinary temptations of the white men to a life that the
missionary, if he be true to his Christian standards, must condemn; for
the girls of the mission are the most intelligent and attractive.
These various reasons are ample explanation of the hostility to missions
and the consequent criticisms that are heard all along the coast, and
which are occasionally disseminated over the world by some writer who
has made a brief stay in Africa and who is so ignorant of the whole
subject of missions that it ought not to require much discretion to be
silent.
Those who condemn missions on sociological grounds—who, like Professor
Starr, think that civilized folk have no right to change the customs,
institutions or ideas of any tribe, even with the purpose of saving
their souls—are easily answered. For not only does such a view utterly
repudiate the claim of Christ to be the world’s Saviour—the “Light of
the world,” to which every man and nation has a right—but it is also
contrary to the accepted principles of sociology. It is untrue and
unscientific to say that the social structure of any given people has
been fashioned by the people themselves, and therefore meets their
needs; and that progressive changes must be brought about by the people
themselves without the introduction of outside elements. The student of
social evolution knows that the social structure is not always fashioned
by the people themselves: it is sometimes altered radically by conquest.
Neither does it always meet the people’s needs. The first need of a
people is bread; and wherever the population is pressing too hard
against the means of subsistence, as in India and China, with their
recurring famines, there is a sure sign of weakness and defect in the
social structure. Neither is it true that progressive changes must be
brought about by the people themselves; for there may be social
evils—impediments to progress, or tendencies to degeneration—which can
only be corrected by the introduction of new ethical elements from
without. Mohammedanism, a foreign religion, has become perfectly
naturalized in a large portion of Africa, and our critics—most of
them—vie with each other in proclaiming the good it has wrought. The
spread of Buddhism in the Orient introduced new ideals. Christianity,
originating in the Orient, brought new ideals to Europe. In Japan many
of the elements worked out by Western civilization have been adopted and
naturalized.
Besides, the let alone policy for Africa even if it were rational is
hopelessly late. Foreign trade and government have long been established
and show no sign of withdrawing. And the question is whether we shall
send to Africa our civilization, with all its burden of new demands and
moral responsibilities, without disclosing to its primitive and
childlike people that which alone supports our material civilization and
enables us to bear its moral weight—that which is deepest and best in
our thought and life.
One of unusual gifts and attainments, who in all probability would have
occupied a position of great influence in the church in America if he
had remained at home, after labouring more than forty years in Africa,
speaks thus of the temporal benefits consequent upon the spread of
Christianity:
“For the feeling with which I was impressed on my very first contact
with the miseries of the sociology of heathenism, entirely aside from
its theology and any question of salvation in a future life, has been
steadily deepened into conviction that, even if I were not a Christian,
I still ought to, and would, do and bear and suffer whatever God has
called or allowed me to suffer or bear or do since 1861 in my
proclamation of His Gospel, simply for the sake of the elevation of
heathen during their present earthly life from the wrongs sanctioned by
or growing out of their religion.”[3]
Footnote 3:
Rev. Robert Hamill Nassau, D. D., _Fetishism in West Africa_, p. 26.
But to this apologetic the missionary adds his confident belief that the
Christian faith affects not only the Africans’ redemption from “the
miseries of the sociology of heathenism,” but also and chiefly the
salvation of their souls; for he has seen the evidence in the lives of
many who have been morally transformed by the power of a new and
transcendent hope. Christian missions have made high claims, but their
self-estimate has been justified by their achievement.
When I was on the voyage to Africa for the first time it chanced that
Miss Mary H. Kingsley, the famous English traveller and writer, had just
made one of her journeys down the West Coast and her name was in
everybody’s mouth. Expressions of opinion were remarkable for lack of
moderation, and oscillated between extremes of praise and criticism.
When I went to Africa the second time Miss Kingsley had finished her
travels on the coast and written her books, with their strong indictment
of missions. I was amazed at the frequency and assurance with which Miss
Kingsley was everywhere quoted. The captain of the steamer upon which I
travelled knew her books almost by heart. He could repeat whole pages;
which he did with as much reverence as if he were quoting from _Science
and Health_. He had no doubt but that she had dealt the final death-blow
to missions, and that the era of missionary activity was already drawing
to an inglorious close by reason of her indictment. The captain himself
seemed to feel real bad about it.
Some years have passed since Miss Kingsley wrote; but she is quoted as
much as ever, especially in England. _The African Society_ was founded
as a memorial to her, and the organ of this society, _The African
Society Journal_, bears a medallion portrait of her on its title-page.
In short, in English trade circles Miss Kingsley is a kind of religious
cult.
Besides being a remarkably clever woman and a brilliant writer, she had
the prestige of a great name, being the niece of Charles Kingsley and
the daughter of George Kingsley; a name of such historical significance
in the Church of England that we should naturally expect Miss Kingsley
to be in intellectual and moral sympathy with the Christian religion.
Such however is by no means the case. She avows her disbelief in
Christianity and frankly tells us that Spinoza is the exponent of her
creed,[4] which is therefore pure pantheism. God does not transcend
nature; nor is He separable from it. Moreover, Miss Kingsley does not
hold this opinion dispassionately. For instance, the effort to draw
moral inspiration from our relation to a personal God (which she chooses
to call “emotionalism”), she tells us she regards with “instinctive
hatred.”[5]
Footnote 4:
_West African Studies_, p. 112.
Footnote 5:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 506.
With such views Miss Kingsley finds, when she comes to the study of
fetishism, that she half believes in it herself, and she is reluctant to
speak against it. She says: “It is a most unpleasant thing for any
religious-minded person to speak of a religion unless he either
profoundly believes or disbelieves in it. For if he does the one he has
the pleasure of praise; if he does the other, he has the pleasure of
war, but the thing in between these is the thing that gives neither
pleasure; it is like quarrelling with one’s own beloved relations. Thus
it is with fetish and me!”[6]
Footnote 6:
_West African Studies_, p. 113.
We need not be surprised, then, when Miss Kingsley frankly says: “I am
unsympathetic, for reasons of my own, with Christian missions.”[7]
Footnote 7:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 214.
And not only was there a want of intellectual sympathy with the
Christian religion, but a want of moral sympathy as well.
Miss Kingsley says: “An American magazine the other day announced, in a
shocked way, that I could evidently ‘swear like a trooper.’ I cannot
think where it got the idea from.”[8] I _can_. And I venture the simple
guess that the editor had read Miss Kingsley’s books—for instance, the
interesting _preface_ to _West African Studies_.
Footnote 8:
_West African Studies_, p. 299.
But there are several more serious phases of this want of sympathy with
the spirit of Christianity which would militate against Miss Kingsley’s
competence as a critic of missions, namely, her avowed belief in
_slavery_, in _polygamy_, and in the _liquor traffic_. Miss Kingsley,
after contending that domestic slavery is “for divers reasons essential
to the well-being of Africa,” appends the following opinion in a
foot-note: “I am of the opinion that the suppression of the export slave
trade to the Americas was a grave mistake.”[9] Even more vehemently does
Miss Kingsley defend native polygamy; and still more vehemently the
liquor traffic.
Footnote 9:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 514.
We are grateful for the perfect frankness with which she expresses her
views on these three subjects, as it makes it an easier task to
discredit her opinion on Christian missions; for, in this day and
generation, to believe in these three social evils of Africa and at the
same time to believe in missions were impossible. If these are not evils
it is a foregone conclusion that the missionary, who is fighting them to
the death, is doing more harm than good, is wasting both blood and
money, and is at the best a “well-meaning fool.”
Miss Kingsley assures us that she went to Africa in the belief that the
missionary represented everything that was good and the trader
everything that was evil. But on shipboard, long before she reached
Africa, when Miss Kingsley was mistaken for a missionary she thought it
the greatest joke of modern times—and I rather agree with her. This is
the one joke that she repeats with infinite laughter every time that it
occurs. Her laughter of course measures her inward sense of utter
incongruity and want of sympathy. Her fellow passengers knew her
attitude before she reached the first African port.
Another marked feature about Miss Kingsley’s books is the author’s want
of sympathy for the sufferings of the natives, and her want of pity when
they bleed under the cruel lash of the white man. Though written by a
woman, they are books without tears.
For instance, a story of heartrending wrong and suffering was told me by
a trader of Fernando Po, who, although he had been on the coast for
years, and, one would think, had been hardened by cruel sights, was yet
deeply affected as he related it. I was able to verify it afterwards. It
was a story of the cruelty of Portuguese planters to certain Krumen,
whom by a false contract they enticed to San Thomé Island and then
compelled them to remain and labour on the coco plantations as slaves.
The conduct of the Portuguese in Africa justifies the opinion of the
Kruman, who says: “God done make white man and God done make black man
but dem debil done make Portuguee.” These enslaved Krumen, watching
their opportunity, after two years escaped from San Thomé in canoes by
night. They did not know that they were one hundred and fifty miles from
the mainland, and they hoped that by some unforeseen means they might
reach their own country. They all perished; most of them by hunger and
thirst. After many days one or two canoes drifted to Fernando Po. In
these the men were still alive—but scarcely alive, and they died after
being rescued.
This story Miss Kingsley tells, in substance, though in abridged form,
and with no comment except the following apology for the Portuguese: “My
Portuguese friends assure me that there never was a thought of
permanently detaining the boys, and that they were only just keeping
them until other labourers arrived to take their place on the
plantation. I quite believe them, for I have seen too much of the
Portuguese in Africa to believe that they would in a wholesale way be
cruel to natives.”[10] Surely the quality of Miss Kingsley’s charity is
not strained! I scarcely know a white man in West Africa who would offer
any apology for those men, or who would call them his “friends.” If the
poor Krumen had been captured, Miss Kingsley’s friends would probably
have flogged them to death. As a matter of fact, there are always a
number of escaped slaves leading a wretched existence in the deep forest
of San Thomé. And the Portuguese have been known to go hunting them as
we would hunt wild animals. They sometimes find them hiding in the tops
of the tall trees, and it is considered uncommonly fine sport to shoot
them in the trees and bring them crashing to the ground.
Footnote 10:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 49.
Miss Kingsley disliked any and every change that threatened to improve
the native and thus to mar the picturesque wildness of his savage state.
She is perfectly consistent with her anti-mission views when she tells
us the kind of native that she admires, as follows: “A great, strong
Kruman, for example, with his front teeth filed, nothing much on but
oil, half a dozen wives, and half a hundred jujus [fetishes], is a sort
of person whom I hold higher than any other form of native.”[11] Well,
it is proverbial that tastes differ; but the missionary thinks that, as
compared with this, the Christian ideal is higher and nobler. Miss
Kingsley informs us (through the words of another whom she quotes with
approval) of the treatment received, at the hands of these same Krumen,
by shipwrecked and half-drowned passengers cast helpless upon the shore:
“If you get ashore you don’t save the things you stand up in—the natives
strip you.” “Of course they are cannibals; they are all cannibals when
they get a chance.”[12] And this is the sort of person whom Miss
Kingsley holds “higher than any other form of native”!
Footnote 11:
_West African Studies_, p. 385.
Footnote 12:
_Ibid._, p. 42.
[Illustration:
A CONTRAST.
Anyoroguli, a Christian woman of Gaboon.
]
[Illustration:
WOMEN OF THE INTERIOR RETURNING FROM THE GARDENS WITH CASSAVA AND
FIREWOOD.
]
That the native Christians should inspire aversion is exactly what we
should expect; and yet we are scarcely prepared for the inveterate
animosity, the almost fierce hostility, that she everywhere reveals when
she comes in contact with a native Christian. Miss Kingsley’s attacks
upon the African Christians are the most unworthy of all the things she
has said. To give a single instance, I would refer to her story told in
_Travels in West Africa_ (p. 557) of a night which she spent in the
house of a Bible teacher of the Basle Mission. Two mission teachers,
together with a great many others, came into the room. The teachers, she
says, “lounge around and spit in all directions.” Next morning again,
she says, “the mission teachers get in with my tea, and sit and smoke
and spit, while I have my breakfast. Give me the cannibal Fang!”
Are we to conclude that cannibalism in Miss Kingsley’s opinion is a less
grievous offense against society than smoking and spitting? For that
matter, cannibals spit too. And I should think they would! And, then,
were the other natives who were present, the untutored savages, not
smoking and spitting? It may be regarded as certain that they were
smoking if they had tobacco; and whether or not they were smoking I am
sure they were spitting; for that nasty habit is racial and continental.
Even white men in Africa contract the habit; and, what’s more, they
_scratch_: they spit and scratch—the effect perhaps of the climate. I
have known a few native Christians who neither smoke nor spit; but I
have not known a savage, either man or woman, who did not do both. Why,
then, single out these two poor boys from the rest of the company? And
why visit upon their heads all the odium of a racial habit? If, at the
instance of the preaching of the Gospel, they have left off cannibalism,
and killing, and adultery, and stealing, and lying, I think they will
scarcely be damned for spitting; and I am sure they will leave that off
too before they enter heaven.
I well know the manners of native boys who have been in the mission long
enough to become teachers. They have an instinct for good manners. It
would be far easier to criticize their morals than their manners. At
this same place Miss Kingsley sent an attendant to ask the teacher for
wood to make a fire. The attendant returned and said that the teacher
would not give him wood unless it was paid for. Knowing the cordial
hospitality and eager attention that would be given to a white woman by
any and every mission teacher that I have met in Africa, I am compelled,
from the extraordinary behaviour of this teacher, to doubt whether Miss
Kingsley was a gracious guest. But we need not remain in doubt; for Miss
Kingsley, while she was the guest of this teacher, in a mission house,
had with her a demijohn of rum, which she dispensed to the natives in
pay and barter, as was her custom everywhere; and it is more than
possible that the teacher’s message that his wood was for sale was a
moral protest, not only against the violation of hospitality, but also
against the violation of those moral and religious principles to which
his life and honour were committed, and upon which depended, as he
sincerely believed, the salvation of his people.
It would be my duty to show that Miss Kingsley received most of her
so-called facts directly from the traders, and that all that came under
her own observation she saw through the medium of their opinions. But
Miss Kingsley has forestalled the necessity by the following frank
confession: “All I know that is true regarding West Africa, I owe to the
traders.”[13] Miss Kingsley must have felt that she owed an enormous
debt of gratitude to the traders: for through two large volumes she
sings a continual pæan to the trader’s praise. I might by the citation
of facts within my own knowledge show that in some instances Miss
Kingsley was mistaken; but I have not the least disposition to do so.
For the life of the trader on the far-away beaches of West Africa is so
cheerless and loveless—sometimes, indeed, an unremitting and lonely
fight with temptation, fever, delirium and death—that sympathy is more
becoming than criticism.
Footnote 13:
_Travels in West Africa_, p. 7.
But my deepest sympathy and highest praise must be for those who have
gone to Africa not for gold, but at the sacrifice of gold and other
interests; who left home and social pleasures not indifferently and
impatient of restraint, but with tears and aching hearts, that they
might carry the Gospel of peace to the most miserable of human beings;
whom they are not ashamed to call brethren. Many such are now working in
the unwholesome jungles; but a far greater number lie in the grass-grown
cemeteries, who fell in the fight with a deadly but invisible foe, a foe
which became visible only in the incarnations of delirium, when the
fever like fire was coursing through their veins. To them belongs the
greater praise, for they died not in seeking their own interest, but for
others.
XVIII
SAINTS AMONG SAVAGES
Carlyle remarks: “If there are depths in man as deep as hell, there are
also heights as high as heaven; are not both heaven and hell made out of
him?”
The final argument and the best apologetic for missions in Africa is the
native Christian. He is not much on exhibition but he is there. The
traveller does not find him; for his voice is not heard in the streets.
Many a white resident in Africa is unaware of him and is incredulous
when he is pointed out; even as the people of Nazareth did not know that
there was any essential difference between themselves and Jesus though
He had lived thirty years in their midst. But the spiritual eye of John
the Baptist discerned in Him one who had no need of repentance. And the
“seeing eye” will easily discover the native Christian in Africa; and it
is really worth while, for at his best he is as much like his Master as
any that can be found anywhere, and particularly in that gentleness that
would not break the bruised reed.
The first elder of the Fang Church was Mba Obam (shortened to Mb’Obam),
chief of Makweña, and uncle of Ndong Koni. He was tall, good looking,
very quiet and of strong personality.
On one occasion when I was staying in his town over night it happened
that there was a great celebration. A month before this a big man of the
town, more important than popular, had died; and having mourned for him
every night for a whole month, the people thought they had done their
full duty. It remained only to give him a good “send-off” in a great
dance and feast, which released all his friends and relations from
further obligation of mourning. All the men from the neighbouring towns
had been invited and there was a great crowd and infinite noise. In the
midst of the furious dancing of the men some untoward incident occurred
that precipitated a general row, in which every man drew his sword, and
they instantly divided, according to their tribal relationships, into
two lines of glaring, dangerous savages. Before I had fully comprehended
the situation Mb’Obam, who had taken no part in the celebration, came
from his house down the street in long strides, every inch a chief, as
much so as the last of the Mohicans, but carrying no sword. At the
extreme risk of his life, as it seemed to me, he pushed into the middle,
between the lines of thrusting and parrying swords, and commanded
silence. To my surprise, they obeyed him and became quiet, the sudden
silence contrasting strangely with the former uproar and confusion.
Mb’Obam, with the gentleness of a father, reminded them that they were
no longer savages, but brothers, and that if they should hastily shed
each other’s blood they would be sure to regret it afterwards. There was
no more quarrelling that night.
Mb’Obam and his wife, Sara, had lived at Angom in the time of Mr.
Marling and had there become Christians. After Mr. Marling’s death they
had moved down the river to Makweña. Ndong Koni and Mb’Obam built a
beautiful chapel at Makweña. I have already told how that Ndong Koni
paid for the windows and doors by working in the yard at Baraka. In this
chapel Mb’Obam held a service every Sunday, besides early morning
prayers each day, at which all the people assembled before going away to
their gardens and their various occupations of work or pleasure.
I have told elsewhere how that, when Mb’Obam was dying, he called the
people around him and begged them to be good to his wife, Sara, and not
to accuse her of bewitching him when he was gone. He also reminded them
how in late years he had protected the women against whom this charge
was made. They promised, of course, and they meant it; for they revered
him; but as soon as he was dead old beliefs prevailed and old customs
asserted tyrannous authority. They charged Sara with having caused
Mb’Obam’s death by witchcraft. They dared not kill her; for they were in
the vicinity of the French government. But they drove her on her hands
and knees up and down the street with two men sitting on her back. From
this cruelty I rescued her one day with a stout stick which I used
somewhat freely; otherwise it might have ended in her death. When Sara
was sufficiently recovered I said to her: “Sara, what can I do to
protect you against further cruelty?”
She replied: “Mr. Milligan, I think you had better find me a husband.”
It wasn’t entirely out of my line—if there’s any such thing as a _line_
in a missionary’s work—for, as an essential part of my pastoral duty, I
found it necessary to run a kind of matrimonial bureau. Well, we found a
husband for Sara, which was not difficult, for they all knew that she
was a good woman. A Christian man married her and I hope they may still
be living happily together.
One night Mb’Obam came to an Mpongwe prayer-meeting in Gaboon and
brought a number of his Fang friends. The Mpongwe being a coast tribe,
all but the Christians among them despise the Fang. The meeting was in
an Mpongwe village and there were many present who were not Christians.
It happened that I was conducting the meeting; and after telling the
Mpongwe who Mb’Obam was I asked him to address them, which he did in
their own language. In the course of his talk he referred to the ark
that “Adam” built. Ndong Koni was sitting not far from him, and when
Mb’Obam referred a second time to “Adam’s ark,” before these
better-informed Mpongwe, Ndong Koni quietly said to him: “Father, you
mean Noah.”
Mb’Obam, without the least embarrassment, replied: “Was it Noah? Thank
you, my son. I thought it was Adam that built the ark; but it does not
affect what I was going to say.”
The simplicity of it was so beautiful that we scarcely thought of its
being amusing. Then he went on and made a most fitting and touching
comparison between his own life and that of Noah, preaching through all
those years the while he was preparing the ark, a lonely believer in the
midst of unbelief and ridicule and wickedness that rends a believer’s
heart. “Yet Noah’s words came to pass because they were God’s words; so
God will in His own time justify us. Meanwhile we will go on preaching;
and may we be faithful and uncomplaining.”
He made a profound impression on the Mpongwe Christians; and often
afterwards when I returned from my journeys some of them would ask me if
I had been to Mb’Obam’s town and if he was well. When I heard that he
was very sick I sent a boat and brought him to Baraka. I took him to the
French hospital for a few days. But nothing could save his life. It was
only at his death that I realized how much he was loved and respected.
He himself never knew.
Another man, Angona, had been an important man in his town, having had
several wives, and a great variety of powerful and well-tried fetishes.
Angona, on one occasion staying over night at Gaboon, took the
opportunity of spending the evening at Baraka and advising with me on
certain matters, moral and religions. He told me how that recently he
had nearly lost his life by his refusal to observe a certain Fang custom
which I venture to mention. Angona had been visiting a friend in another
town and had refused to assume the marital relations of his host,
according to their friendly custom. The friend was angry, suspecting
that something was lacking in his friendship, and not liking to see an
old custom discarded. His anger subsided however at Angona’s explanation
that he was a Christian. But not so the woman’s anger. She tried to kill
him by putting poison in his food.
Angona at the time of his conversion put away all of his wives but one.
He had paid a very large dowry for each of them; so that in putting them
away he had also put away his wealth and to a large extent had
surrendered influence and social position. But the surrender of his
famous collection of fetishes, which he had gathered among many tribes,
to which no doubt he owed his success and his possessions, occasioned
greater surprise than anything else. By the virtue of one of these
fetishes he had been successful in matrimony, and by the virtue of
another his wife had not deserted him; one fetish had procured him
success in trade, another had made him successful in war; by means of
one he had recovered from a dangerous illness, and by another his
gardens had prospered; by the virtue of one he could cause an aggressive
enemy to “swell up and burst,” and by another build an invisible fire
around himself when he slept, through which no witch could pass. And
most powerful of all was the sacred skull of his father. All the people
of the town stood by and stared as Angona delivered to me all these
fetishes; but at last when he went to fetch the skull the women were
warned to flee lest by any mischance the casket might open and they
should see what was inside and die. Angona by this renunciation gained
the reputation of being a particular fool. But he at once began
preaching to the people and before many months there was a class of
sixteen Christians in that town.
As soon as I received this report of Angona’s work I visited the town.
After a brief service at which all the people were present, I asked
whether there were any sick people in the town, and they directed me to
the house of a woman who was recovering from a long illness. While I was
talking to her another woman, one of the Christians, came in and setting
a pot on the ground beside the sick woman, said: “The pot is yours. I am
a Christian. The palaver is finished.”
Another woman arose, and going over to the woman who had brought the
pot, put her arm around her in a half embrace and said:
“Yes, you are a Christian indeed.”
The sick woman had been cared for by the other woman during her illness
and had given her this pot for her kindness. Afterwards, when she was
nearly well she repented and asked for the pot. When it was refused she
gave free rein to a very sharp tongue and roundly cursed the other
woman. The whole community had evidently become involved in the quarrel,
which was becoming more bitter, when this Christian woman suddenly
brought it to an end, as I have told.
A few weeks after this one of my catechists, Amvama, visited Angona’s
town. While there it was recalled by the heathen people of the town that
a party belonging to Amvama’s town, in the days of cannibalism, and many
years before Amvama was born, had killed a man of their tribe and had
devoured him. In Africa, it is considered a great insult to a man to eat
him, an insult also to his friends, such an insult as may never be
forgotten until it is avenged. During the night, while Amvama was
sleeping in Angona’s house, the people, having surrounded the house,
called Angona out and told him they were going to kill Amvama. It would
have been a great loss to the work and a grief to me if they killed him,
for Amvama was one of the best boys in all Africa. The handful of
Christians and their sympathizers, with Angona at their head, replied
that they would lay down their lives in defense of him. The heathen
probably did not expect any such thing; for it is seldom that a town is
divided thus. They usually act as if by one impulse; but Christianity
draws new lines, makes new friends and new foes. The Christian’s friends
are sometimes those of a hostile tribe, while his foes are “they of his
own household.” The Christians, with Angona at their head, gathered
close around Amvama and soon showed that they meant what they had said.
They were few of course as compared with with the heathen; but the
latter were not willing to kill their own people. Before they had time
to plan for action the Christians had escorted Amvama to a canoe and got
him away in safety. The next time I visited that town I had a “war
palaver” with those people. But I was greatly elated over the conduct of
Angona and the handful of Christians whom he had taught.
This boy Amvama, who was rescued from savage bloodthirst in Angona’s
town, was the very first of those African boys whom I gathered around me
in the French Congo and was also with me the day that I left Africa,
nearly six years afterwards. In that time he grew from a small boy to a
young man of probably eighteen years. I used to say that he was the
best-loved boy in Africa.
Amvama never was a heathen. He was born close to Angom, and in his
childhood never even saw the worst forms of heathenism. He was received
into the church by Mr. Marling while he was still a child; altogether
too young, some thought; but the years fully justified Mr. Marling’s
judgment. Among the most impulsive people in the world, Amvama was
peculiarly deliberate and thoughtful. I have seen him in many trying
situations, but I never saw him angry. Among a people who live in the
realm of emotion, Amvama’s distinguishing characteristic was common
sense. In school he was not as quick to learn as many others, but such
was his faithfulness and persistence that in the end he surpassed them
all, and he had a saving sense of humour that always added gaiety to any
company. On one occasion, on a journey up the river, when I was
accompanied by a white man with an extremely bald head—the first that
the crew had ever seen—Amvama caused the natives and one white man to
smile by comparing it to a fresh-laid egg—a comparison that was quite
new in Africa.
In the early days before the _Dorothy_, Amvama was my “boy,” or personal
attendant, when I travelled about in the _Evangeline_. He was always a
cleanly boy, according to Fang ideals, but the Fang ideal leaves
something to be desired. One day, in the _Evangeline_, the crew, after a
long pull at the oars, were eating oranges, of which I had brought a
supply from the orchard at Baraka. I gave them my table-knife to cut
their oranges. While they were still eating I helped myself to an orange
and asked for the knife. It was passed to Amvama who handed it to me;
but, observing that it was dripping with the orange juice, he wiped it
carefully on his bare leg. A short time before I left Africa I told
Amvama of this incident, which he had forgotten. Looking at me in
astonishment he said: “I? Did I do that?”
It seemed incredible to him. In after years he would no more have done
any such thing than a white man.
However sincere the African Christian may be, the knowledge of Christian
morality in minute particulars is a long, slow growth. One day, out on
the bay in the _Evangeline_ and running before a fair wind, we sighted
the sails of a schooner coming towards the harbour but still far out at
sea. Amvama and Captain Makuba disputed as to the name of the schooner.
Makuba became impatient and said to me: “Mr. Milligan, I wish you would
tell Amvama that he must not contradict me; for he is a small boy and I
am an old man.” I had always thought that Makuba was a very young man.
Finally, these two, both of them Christians, and perfectly sincere,
decided to bet on the name of the schooner. The bet was a franc cash and
they asked me to hold the money; whereupon I delivered my sermon on
gambling.
I had hoped that Amvama would be the first ordained minister among the
Fang; but when he was about sixteen the need of catechists became
imperative and I felt compelled to cut off his further education and
send him out into the whitening field of the harvest. This was a great
disappointment. For although he proved himself a faithful and invaluable
worker, he could never be as efficient as if he had had adequate
training, and could never be entirely independent of the missionary’s
supervision.
I placed Amvama in a large town, called _Ndumentanga_, where there were
a number of newly-professed Christians who were eager to be taught. The
work was difficult and trying and he was a young boy and inexperienced;
and, as I have said, had never seen the worst of African heathenism. It
was with strange feelings that I left him in the street of that town one
very dark night when the rain was pouring down,—left him to prove
himself. For four months I did not see him; but I had the fullest report
of his work, and it was most satisfactory. He conducted a daily class
for religious instruction, teaching hymns and catechism and on each
question of the latter giving explanations and practical talks. He also
held a service on Sunday; and, besides, taught a day-school each morning
in which all who desired might learn to read the Bible. He also
regularly visited other towns that were not too far away. It was on one
of these latter visits that he had the narrow escape in Angona’s town.
For the next two years Amvama spent most of his time at Ndumentanga.
Shortly after his first arrival, a man of the town, who had been
visiting another town, returned home very sick. Amvama called on him,
and finding that he and his wife had become Christians while away from
home, he instructed them daily in their house, frequently calling all
the Christians of the town to go with him, and sing and pray with the
sick man. He was with him when he died, seeking to strengthen his faith;
and the people, perhaps for the first time, saw a man die without fear.
Then the heathen wished to open the body, in order to see whether the
man had been bewitched. But Amvama with quiet authority took possession
of the body until it should be given a Christian burial. I marvel that a
young boy was able to hold out against them and induce them to forego
all their heathen rites; but he had won the love and confidence of all
these people. He held a brief service at the house; and when the body
was placed in the grave he called upon the people to be quiet while he
offered a prayer. They all stood by, some in mute astonishment at a
Christian burial service, others laughing and falling against each other
in that weak abandon everywhere characteristic of the very ignorant.
What a scene for an artist! A young boy standing in the midst of a crowd
of carnal and degraded men and women, some of them aged; holding fast to
the things that are spiritual, contending for the reality of those
things that are not seen!
For several years Amvama had been betrothed to a young girl, who died
when he was about seventeen. The dowry, which included all that he had
ever earned, had been paid and the girl was living with Amvama’s mother
until she should be of marriageable age. It is the universal custom
among the Fang that when a girl dies before reaching that age the dowry
paid for her must be returned. So Amvama was entitled to the dowry which
he had paid; and it was the more urgent because there was no dowry for
him anywhere else within sight. But the girl’s people, probably taking
advantage of the fact that Amvama was a Christian, refused to return the
dowry. Such a refusal is always a matter of war.
One evening when he was back at Baraka for a few days, he came to see me
desiring my advice on this matter of the dowry, wishing to know what he
as a Christian ought to do, but not wishing to ask me directly.
Politeness among some African tribes is reduced to a fine art. One of
its chief elements is indirection. I ask a boy whether he will work for
me; and he replies: “Did I say I wouldn’t?”
Sometimes the third person is used instead of the first; one is
occasionally reminded of the French _On dit_.
After an interval of silence Amvama remarked: “Those people ought to pay
me back that dowry.”
I made no reply; and after a pause he said: “Those people are treating
me very badly.”
Another pause, and then: “My people all want to go to war, and there are
five or six towns of my people.”
Another pause, and he said: “I tell you there will be blood spilled!”
At this I spoke and said: “We don’t need the help of your people,
Amvama; you and I will go, ourselves alone, and will kill all the people
of that town. Upon our arrival in the town we will hold a service, and
of course everybody will come, and they will come unarmed. After singing
one or two hymns I will ask you to offer a prayer; and while you are
praying I’ll open fire on the congregation and we’ll make short work of
them.”
He laughed and said: “I only wished to know what you thought.”
“Why, then, did you not ask me?” I said.
He replied: “I think I have been asking you ever since I came in.”
The people would not give back the dowry, and Amvama would not let it
come to a clash of arms; so he surrendered it. But about a year later
his brother (more likely a cousin) died, leaving two wives, who by the
law of inheritance became Amvama’s property. Both of them were eager to
marry him. One of the two was as good a woman as he could have found,
and he afterwards married her. The other he gave, with her consent, to a
cousin who was single.
In the examination of candidates for baptism I had to rely very much
upon Amvama’s judgment in regard to those whom he had taught. In one of
the towns where he had taught there was a young man who had been a
Christian for more than two years and who had attended the classes
faithfully; and yet Amvama did not recommend him for baptism. I asked
him the reason, and he said that there was only one thing against him,
and nothing else; he was lazy—so lazy that he was ridiculed in the whole
town. Amvama said: “He will bring reproach on his religion. And I think
that since his faith enables him to do other things that he did not do
before, it ought also to enable him to do a little work.”
A few months before Amvama left Ndumentanga, war broke out between that
town and a town of the Bifil people, a clan of the Fang who had come but
recently from the far interior and were very savage. A Bifil man had
stolen a woman of Ndumentanga. The old chief, who was a bloodthirsty
heathen, told the town to prepare for war. But he found a rival in
Amvama who advised that they must first make every effort to get the
woman back without shedding blood, which could probably be done through
her father’s influence. Amvama also told them that the fetishes upon
which they were depending for protection were useless.
The chief was disgusted at the suggestion of a peaceful settlement of
the affair, and passionately cried for war; and the people eagerly
responded. The most that Amvama could do was to hold the Christians firm
to their duty. As the chief exhorted Amvama exhorted too, but without
the least passion or excitement. The town was divided between these two:
an old chief, the very embodiment of the heathenism of the past; and the
young boy, representing the future—the authority of a Christ-enlightened
conscience and the power of a Christian life. The heathen went to war;
but the Christians refused to go and so broke with an immemorial custom.
They attacked the town of the Bifil, but the only result was that
several of their own men were killed. The Bifil secured the body of one
of them, and it was reported to me that they followed the interior
custom and cut the body in pieces, sending a piece of it to each of
their towns. If they did this it would be a call to arms. The pieces of
the body would be boiled and eaten, and thus it would become a strong
fetish protection against the enemy. The people of Ndumentanga returned
home from the war with sore hearts and with less faith in their
fetishes.
The war went on more desperately and it became unsafe for Amvama; so I
went after him and brought him back to Baraka. But he returned from the
field of his labours bringing his sheaves with him, in men and women
rescued from degradation and sin, and in the love of many.
[Illustration:
FANG CHRISTIANS.
In the middle of the front row stands Amvama. Behind him, on his
right, is Ndong Koni. The tall young man is Robert Boardman, the
blind catechist.
]
When I left Africa I felt that I was leaving many friends behind me;
humble friends but true, and I cherish the memory of their devotion.
Some of them I loved because they were lovable, and others for the
labour and anxiety expended upon them—the sweat of the brow, and the
brain and the heart. But there were none whom I loved more, and there
are none whom I more often long to see, than Amvama and Ndong Koni.
I cannot close these sketches without some reference to another who was
an invaluable helper in the work among the Fang. He was totally blind.
He bore an English name, _Robert Boardman_, and had no African name. The
natives called him _Bobbie_. He was not a Fang but an Mpongwe, and his
mother was an American Negress. His father was educated at Baraka away
back in the early days when the missionaries were allowed to use
English, and he spoke English well. When he was a young man he came to
America. In those days Africa, to Americans, was a romance rather than a
reality. Any chief of a village or head of his own family coming here
was called a _prince_. So young Boardman (Robert’s father) passed
himself off as a prince, and probably without any intentional deception.
He married a Negress of the South, who supposed that by her marriage she
became a princess. She left family and friends all behind and went to
Africa. The disillusionment was very hard and very bitter; and at last,
inevitably, she sought relief in drink. She was evidently a woman of
superior mind, if one might judge by her children, of whom there were
five. One of these was poor Augustus Boardman, of whom I have written in
another chapter, and whom drink brought to an early grave.
Robert was the youngest child. He was a very interesting boy, and
intellectually far above the average. As a young man he lived the
dissolute life that was general among the Mpongwe of Gaboon. His
blindness was the last result of his dissipation, and was also the cure.
He never walked alone again; a little boy led him by the hand. Blindness
is a more terrible affliction in Africa, where the helpless are
neglected, and where roads are rough and often infested with ants or
snakes.
He was extremely unhappy after his blindness. There were times when it
seemed that it would drive him mad. In his misery he made others
miserable around him. Poor material, one would surely say, for the grace
of God or any other moral influence to work upon—this physical and moral
wreck. But, as I once heard a reclaimed outcast say, “Jesus loves to
walk by the seashore where the wrecks come in.”
When I went to Gaboon I engaged Robert as my interpreter; for he knew
Fang as well as he knew Mpongwe. Then, when I could speak Fang without
him, I undertook the Mpongwe work and I used him as my interpreter to
the Mpongwe; so he continued in my service. The first year, when I was
itinerating among the Fang and travelling in the _Evangeline_, he went
everywhere with me. I recall one evening when we were setting out from
the beach in a very heavy sea and had got beyond the surf we saw
Robert’s little attendant on the beach very much excited and waving to
us to come back. He was yelling something to us which we could not hear
distinctly across the roaring surf, but I thought he was trying to tell
us something about “Bobbie’s wife.” Very reluctantly I told the crew to
go back. We were already in the surf and were going ashore as if pulled
by wild horses when at last we made out what the boy was saying, namely:
“Bobbie has forgotten his pipe.”
The African has no mental perspective, according to our ideas; things
great and small, the most momentous and the most trivial, appear upon a
flat surface of equality. But it would scandalize an African to hear one
speak of a pipe in this disrespectful way.
Robert had an unusual mind and was athirst for knowledge. His
interpreting was a kind of education for him and he made the most of it.
He was always alert for new words and their exact meaning, and he had an
excellent memory. There was also a vein of poetry in him. I once heard
him, in offering an evening prayer, ask God that Satan might not sow the
tares of bad dreams in our sleep—the more appropriate because of the
native regard for dreams and the habit of vivid dreaming.
But his chief love was music. He was passionately fond of it, and he had
a good tenor voice. Shortly after I first knew him, when he was so
unhappy, I began to give him some instruction on the organ each day
after class. My only intention was to lighten his misery and relieve his
solitude. I had not the least thought of any return in missionary
service. The little organ which I used in itinerating I left with him
between journeys. It was a new and delightful way of spending the hours,
and he became more cheerful. In two years a very great change had taken
place in him. He was both cheerful and devout. When the time of harvest
came in the Fang field and I had need of catechists he was well equipped
for the work and I sent him. He took the organ with him; for he played
the Fang hymns and played them well. When a secretary of the Board of
Foreign Missions afterwards visited Africa he found Robert Boardman
among the Fang, preaching and singing, and he made special mention of
him on his return to America.
Robert, through the agency of my _matrimonial bureau_, married a Fang
woman, Nze, who loved him devotedly. She was a remarkably good-looking
woman—almost beautiful. Poor blind Robert never saw her; and one day,
after he had been married for some time, I delighted him—and saddened
him too—by giving him a minute description of her. For a while after his
marriage I placed him at Ayol, which was Nze’s town. After several
months, when I was at Ayol, I decided to take him to another town. Then
the heathen relations of Nze suddenly discovered that he had not given
sufficient dowry, although he had given all they asked. It was never
half so hard to get my African friends married as to _keep_ them
married.
The family of Nze secured her in a house while they talked the palaver
with Robert, telling him that he had not paid what they had asked. The
street was filled with people and there was the wildest excitement. The
chief of the town was not there, and when I saw that my powers of
persuasion were not adequate for the occasion, I told Robert that as it
was now late in the night we would go without Nze, and that I myself
would afterwards talk the palaver with the chief and would do all that I
possibly could to get Nze back. He yielded, but he was almost
broken-hearted.
We got into our canoe and started for the _Dorothy_, which was anchored
a little below the town. When we came alongside whom should we find in
the launch but Nze! She had broken out of her prison-house when night
came—but I can’t imagine how, unless some Christian woman helped her—and
stealing through the dreadful mangrove swamp, had reached her canoe and
had gone to the launch. At the very moment that I saw her we heard the
wildest yelling behind us. The people of the town had just discovered
her escape; and they, of course, thought that we had stolen her. I
shouted to the crew to “stand by” for their lives. We sprang aboard, and
while weighing the anchor put out all the lights. What if the anchor
should be fouled, as it was last time, when it delayed us half an hour!
Our pursuers were rapidly drawing nearer and were almost upon us. They
included, I presume, every heathen savage in the town, each of them
yelling like ten, and perhaps engaged meanwhile in loading their guns
with such deadly material as broken pots and barbed wire. At last, “All
right,” shouted the mate; and we moved off just as the enemy in a fleet
of canoes came round the last curve of the narrow river. I had made our
party, including Nze, lie down flat in the bottom of the launch; only
Ndong Koni at the wheel and myself at the engine remained standing.
Despite rage and excitement I did not expect that they would fire upon
us. But I very much feared that a stray shot, intended only to
intimidate us, might do us as much damage as the “bow drawn at a
venture” did to a certain king a long time ago. We were soon beyond
their range; and then Robert’s gladness and the unbounded joy of Nze
were a sufficient reward for us all. For my part, I was exceedingly glad
that Nze’s husband was present; otherwise an elopement would have been
credited to me.
A short time before I left Africa I was conducting a prayer-meeting in
an Mpongwe town, at which Robert was present. He rose and told the
people about his work among the Fang and what great changes were taking
place through the preaching of the Gospel, which must surely be the
power of God. Then in closing he told them something of the new joy that
had come into his own life. He said that although at first he had been
bitter and rebellious against the fate that had turned his day into
night, yet he had lived to thank God for sending even this affliction;
for, in his blindness, he had wearied of the “far country,” and like the
prodigal had come home. In Christ he had found pardon and peace; and
finally he had been permitted to go as a missionary to the Fang, whom he
had learned to love, and many of whom, he was sure, loved him.
“I know,” said he, “that I shall never see this world again, nor the
faces of my friends; but I am walking in the light of heaven.”
In a deep undertone, full of wonder, full of sympathy, full of tears,
they all responded: “A-y, Bobbie! A-y, Bobbie!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Jungle Folk of Africa
_Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50_
“A personal narrative, most realistic, most truthful, most
fascinating—the author knows extremely well what he is writing
about.”—_Chicago Tribune._
“As one reads, the mystery and terror of the jungle seem to penetrate
his soul, yet he reads on reluctant to lay down a book so grimly
fascinating.”—_Presbyterian._
“A book that is remarkable for its vitality, picturesqueness, candor and
literary quality. Mr. Milligan saw a lot during his seven African
years.”
—_N. Y. Times._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFRICA
The Redemption of Africa
=FREDERIC PERRY NOBLE=
Illustrations, Maps and Tables, 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $4.00.
The subtitle of this book. “A Story of Civilization,” is a most fitting
supplement to the distinctive title. “No book on any land surpasses this
in thoroughness of preparation, wealth of citation, impartiality of
judgment, and the predominant desire to tell nothing but the truth.”—_N.
Y. Sun._
Dawn in the Dark Continent: Or Africa and its Missions.
=JAMES STEWART, M. D., D.D.=
Colored Maps, 8vo, Cloth, $2.00 net.
There has probably been no man more competent to outline the missionary
work in Africa than the veteran founder of the famous Lovedale
Institute. This is just what he has done in this volume, supplementing
it by some invaluable comments on the training of a missionary.
The Egyptian Sudan
=REV. JOHN KELLY GIFFEN=
Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1.00 net.
This new mission field of the American United Presbyterian Church has
been recently brought into prominence by John D. Rockefeller’s gift to
it of $100,000. Mr. Giffen’s book describes, in a most interesting
style, the unique problems faced in such a country. _The Interior_ knows
of “no other book so full of information as to a great military and
economic center on the Cape-to-Cairo railway.”
On the Borders of Pigmy Land
Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1.25 net. =RUTH B. FISHER=
Mrs. Fisher is a successful author and has written a book which commands
the enthusiastic approval of “all sorts and conditions” of papers,
missionary, religious and secular. The Mountains of the Moon, the Great
Lakes, the Uganda Railway, Pigmies and other tribes combine to give a
rare and significant setting to the work of the missionary.
Pioneering on the Congo
=REV. W. HOLMAN BENTLEY=
Illustrated, 2 vols., 8vo, Cloth, $5.00 net.
The Jungle Folk of Africa
With introduction by Robert Mackenzie, D.D., LL.D.
Illustrated, net, $1.50. =ROBERT H. MILLIGAN=
“A book that is remarkable for its vitality, picturesqueness, humor and
literary quality. Mr. Milligan saw a lot during his seven African years,
and saw it all very clearly, so that he came away with a pretty thorough
knowledge of the folk among whom he had lived.”—_N. Y. Times._
Bishop Hannington and The Story of the Uganda Mission
Illustrated, net, $1.00. =W. GRINTON BERRY=
“One always reads the romance of Bishop Hannington’s life with
fascination. This record deals with the early life of the martyr
missionary and of the influences that led to his giving his life to the
cause. It is a graphic, racy and altogether stimulating volume.”—_United
Presbyterian._
Daybreak in Livingstonia
=JAMES W. JACK, M. A.=
Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1.50 net.
“One of the best missionary histories, combining possibilities of
romance almost as thrilling as King Solomon’s Mines, with a calm
presentation of visible and tangible results that ought to open the eyes
of any who still consider Christian Missions a failure.”—_Glasgow
Herald._
In Africa’s Forest and Jungle
Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1.00. =REV. R. H. STONE=
A record of Six Years Among the Yorubans on the West Coast of Africa,
with numerous tales of thrilling experiences growing out of the wars
between the great African tribes. “A vivacious and deeply interesting
volume.”
The Sign of the Cross in Madagascar
=REV. J. J. KILPIN FLETCHER=
Illustrated, 12mo, Cloth, $1.00.
With remarkably vivid touch the author describes the early conditions,
the coming of the “strange messengers,” the “mighty faith,” the bitter
persecution, the divine interposition, the changes and the victory of
the Cross.
The Personal Life of David Livingstone
=W. GARDEN BLAIKIE, D. D.=
Portrait and maps, 8vo, Cloth, $1.50.
This standard life of the great missionary and explorer has the peculiar
advantage of the special authorization by his family to use unpublished
journals and correspondence. There is thus a peculiar power in its
presentation of what the _S. S. Times_ calls his “simple but noble life
of self-surrender to a great motive.”
Pilkington of Uganda
=C. F. HARFORD-BATTERSBY, M. A., M. D.=
Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, $1.50.
A fitting sequel to the biography of Alexander Mackay, covering with
that a moral transformation equal perhaps to anything recorded even in
apostolic days.
A Life for Africa
=ELLEN C. PARSONS=
Illustrated, 12mo, 1.25.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
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