January 26, 1907.
AT Yakusu great stress is laid upon the work of teaching. The mission
property adjoins an important Lokele village. Within easy reach are
villages of three or four other tribes. It is an area of rather dense
population. Villages in number occur all along the shores of the river
for miles downstream. Other villages of inland folk lie behind these.
Thousands of people are within easy reach. The mission maintains a
liberal force of houseboys for the four houses of missionaries; it has
also a corps of excellent workmen, who make brick, do carpentering,
build houses, and keep the grounds in order. These are not from the
local tribe, but are Basoko from down the river. Children from the
immediate village flock to the mission school, but this is only the
least significant portion of the work. More than 200 teachers are in the
employ of the mission, teaching in village schools throughout the
country around. To supply text-books, the mission press at Bolobo turns
out editions of four or five thousand copies.
Similar in its plan of sending out native teachers to outlying villages
is the great work at Wathen, in the Lower Congo. This was once on the
main caravan route from Matadi to Leopoldville. Since the building of
the railroad it is completely off of beaten lines of travel, and only
one who specifically desires to visit it will see it. The main feature
of this work, marking it off from all the other mission work in the
Congo State, is a central boarding school for native children, where a
definite course for study, extending through several years, is
continuously carried on. Boys graduating from this school go out as
teachers. And the mission demands that the villages thus supplied shall
meet the expense of conducting their schools. This seems to me the best
educational experiment in the Congo, and scores of villages throughout
the district of the cataracts have self-supporting schools with Wathen
boys for teachers.
In the official report of the royal commission of inquiry sent to
investigate conditions in the Congo Free State recently, there is found
this passage:
“Often, also, in the regions where evangelical stations are
established, the native, instead of going to the magistrate, his
rightful protector, adopts the habit, when he thinks he has a
grievance against an agent or an executive officer, to confide
in the missionary. The latter listens to him, helps him
according to his means, and makes himself the echo of all the
complaints of a region. Hence, the astounding influence which
the missionaries possess in some parts of the territory. It
exercises itself not only among the natives within the purview
of their religious propaganda, but over all the villages whose
troubles they have listened to. The missionary becomes, for the
native of the region, the only representative of equity and
justice. He adds to the position resulting from his religious
zeal the influence which in the interest of the state itself
should be secured to the magistrate.”—_Translation._
It is true that the Congo native carries all his grievances to the
missionary. On one occasion, when we had been in Leopoldville but a day
or two and had seen but little of native life and customs, we noticed a
line of fifty people, some with staves of office showing them to be
chiefs or chiefs’ representatives, filing in a long line to the mission.
They squatted under the palaver-tree, awaiting the attention of the
missionary. Their errand was in reference to the local market. Formerly
there was a market at Leo, important alike to the people of the town and
to the producing natives of the country around. There had been disorders
and disturbances; the sellers lost their goods through theft and
seizure, and for several years it had been discontinued.
After repeated petitions on the part of the people to the government,
Bula Matadi yielded, promised restoration of the market, assigned a
place, and put up a building. Though apparently all had been done that
they had asked, the people were not satisfied, and this delegation had
presented itself to the missionary to ask him to present their complaint
and desires. The place selected was not a good one; a different one
close by the railroad station and the English traders, was requested.
The missionary brought the matter to the attention of the local
government, which yielded to the people’s suggestion, and gave
permission for the opening of the market on the following Sunday in the
place of preference.
We became interested in this matter, and on the following Sunday the
missionary, my companion, and myself made our way to the spot to see how
matters were progressing. A considerable number of sellers had come in
with produce, mostly kwanga and other foodstuffs. They were beginning to
display these upon the ground. Would-be purchasers were gathered in
numbers, and among them crowds of Bangala women from the workmen’s camp.
The sellers seemed suspicious lest attack might be made upon their
wares. Their suspicions were, unfortunately, well founded. For a little
time things appeared to go well but at last Bangala women, standing by,
swooped down upon the piles of stuff temptingly offered for sale, and
seizing handfuls, started to run away. One soldier-policeman, who, a few
moments before, seemed to be fully occupied with his duty of guarding
the railway station, and several idle men and boys joined in the
looting. The thing was done as quickly as if there had been
pre-concerted plotting and a given signal.
In an instant all was turmoil. Some of the sellers were hastily packing
away in cloths what was left of their stores; others grappled with the
thieves, some of whom, however, were making good escape with their
plunder. We all three rushed in to help the robbed to stay the thieves,
and for a few minutes there was a free-for-all fight. Most of the stolen
stuff was retaken, and the angry sellers, with all that was left to them
packed away, refused to again open up their stores. The missionary
suggested that they should move nearer to the trading-post of the
English traders and ensconce themselves behind a fence, buyers being
allowed to approach only upon the other side, while we three and the
white men from the traders should guard to prevent further attack and
thieving. Finally, this scheme was put into operation. One or two
soldier-police were summoned, the stores were again opened up, though
trading had to stop every now and then to permit of the dispersal of the
crowd which thronged around awaiting the opportunity for another attack.
Under these difficulties, in which the missionary and my Mexican
companion performed prodigies of valor, the market was conducted with a
fair degree of success. I was interested in the further history of this
market. Our missionary friend shortly wrote me that things had been
reduced to order; that the government had built a market-house and
supplied regular guards to maintain order; that the number of sellers
had increased, and that purchasers flocked to buy.
But all this brilliant promise came to a sad end. When we again reached
Leopoldville the market-house was closed; there were no signs of
interest. It seems that Bula Matadi thought the market presented an
admirable chance for getting even. One day, when the stock of kwanga and
other foodstuffs was exceptionally large, the representatives of the law
swooped down upon the sellers, claimed that they were in arrears in
payment of their kwanga tax, and seized their stock in trade. The result
was that the market died.
Among the laws which in their intention, perhaps, were good, but in
their application vicious, is one regarding orphan and abandoned
children. In native life, unaffected by white influence, there could be
no difficulty regarding such children. If a native child were left
without a mother it would at once be taken over by the mother’s family.
There would be no feeling that it was a burden, and it would suffer no
deprivation.
Such a thing as an abandoned child, in strictly native condition, is
scarcely conceivable. According to state law, an orphan or abandoned
child less than 14 years of age may be turned over by the court to
missions for care and education. The mission, of course, is entitled to
the child’s services through a term of years. Advantage of this law has
never been taken by Protestant missions, but Catholic missions have at
different times had numbers of children committed to their charge and
have used their services in the development of property. A child of 14,
the limit of the law’s application, is better than a child of 12,
because capable of immediate service. A boy of 15, 16, 17, 18, would be
still better, but, of course, it is illegal to seize a young fellow of
that age and employ him at such labor. Once committed, the child remains
in the mission’s power until manhood.
There is no question that the missions, taking advantage of this law,
many times seize boys who are beyond the age limit and many others who
are neither orphans nor abandoned. I myself have seen a young man who
could not have been less than 19 or 20 years of age, who was married and
a member of the Protestant church, who had been taken by the peres under
this law. He was brought before the state authorities and immediately
set at liberty.
It is due to this fact, that the native goes constantly to the
missionary with his complaints—that he looks upon him as the proper
person to represent his cause before the state officials; that the
missionary, himself, feels it his duty to bring abuses to the attention
of the authorities—that the feeling already mentioned between the
missionary and the state official has arisen. There have been,
unfortunately, abundant occasions for intervention; there have been
flagrant and cruel things which the missionary has felt called upon to
report.
I do not doubt the honesty of the missionary. I have sometimes felt,
however, that they have become so filled with a complaining spirit that
they are incapable of seeing any good. I have heard them for hours
complain of things that neither in themselves nor in their results were
really open to criticism. I have heard them carp and find fault with any
matter with which the name of the government could be connected. If
their attention is called to some apparent purpose to reform abuses,
they shake their heads and say it will come to nothing; it is a
subterfuge. If, as time passes, the thing assumes the appearance of
reality, they say there is some hidden and mysterious purpose back of
it; the state would never do so well unless it were preparing some new
iniquity. The attitude of complaint becomes habitual: the ability to see
improvement seems completely lost.
The first time that I attended family prayers in a missionary home I
waited with some interest to hear the petition in favor of the
government. When it came, it assumed this form: “O Lord, stay the hand
of the oppressor. Pity and aid the oppressed and overburdened. Prevent
cruelty from destroying its victims. Interfere with the wicked and
designing schemes of the oppressor.”
A dozen such expressions and petitions were uttered, but no request for
divine wisdom and enlightenment for the rulers. It can easily be
conceived that, where godly and pious men cherish such sentiments toward
representatives of the state, the feelings of state officials toward
missionaries are little likely to be completely friendly.
[Illustration: BACHOKO BRINGING IN RUBBER, DJOKO PUNDA]