January 31, 1907.
PEOPLE in this country seem to expect that every traveler in the Congo
must meet with crowds of people who have had one or both hands cut off.
We have all seen pictures of these unfortunates, and have heard most
harrowing tales in regard to them. Casement, the English consul, whose
report to the British government has caused so much agitation, and who
described many cases of mutilation, himself saw[A] but a single case;
and that case, though put forward by the missionaries as an example of
state atrocities, was finally withdrawn by them, as the subject had not
been mutilated by human assailants, but by a wild boar. Casement
traveled many miles and spent much time in securing the material for his
indictment, and yet saw[B] but this one case. We saw a single case of
mutilation. It was a boy at Ikoko, probably some twelve years old. He
had been found, a child of three or four years, by the side of his dead
mother, after a punitive expedition had visited the town. His mother’s
body had been mutilated and the child’s hand cut off. We might have seen
a second case of this sort at this place if we had searched for her.
There is a second there.
No one, I think, would desire to excuse the barbarity of cutting off the
hands of either dead or living, but we must remember that the soldiers
in these expeditions are natives, and in the excitement and bloodthirst
roused by a military attack they relapse to ancient customs. There has,
indeed, been considerable question recently whether the cutting off of
hands is really a native custom. Sir Francis de Winton, himself an
Englishman, and Stanley’s successor in the administration of the Congo
State, says that it was. And Glave says: “In every village in this
section (Lukolela) will be found slaves of both sexes with one ear cut
off. This is a popular form of punishment in an African village. It is
not at all unusual to hear such threats as ‘I will cut your ear off,’ ‘I
will sell you,’ or ‘I will kill you,’ and often they are said in
earnest.” Where such customs were constant in native life it is not
strange that they have lasted on into the present.
Of course, in this connection we must not forget that mutilation of dead
bodies is not by any means confined to the Congo Free State, nor to its
natives. Only a few months ago, in Southern Africa, the British force
cut off the head of a hostile chief. When the matter was investigated,
the excuse given was that it was done for purposes of identification,
and that the body was afterwards brought in and buried with it.
The most of the difficulty with the natives of the Congo Free State, of
course, comes in connection with the demand to gather rubber. The native
hates the forest; he dislikes to gather rubber; it takes him from his
home, and comfort, and wife. We have never accompanied a party of
natives gathering rubber, but we have seen them started and have also
seen them bringing in their product. The best rubber of the Congo is
produced by vines which frequently grow to several inches in diameter.
The same vine may be tapped many times. The milky juice, which exudes
abundantly, promptly coagulates into rubber; as it hardens it is rolled
into balls between the palm and some portion of the body, such as the
chest or leg.
The place where we have seen most of rubber production is in the High
Kasai, where the famous red rubber is produced, which sells for the
highest price of any African caoutchouc. My missionary friends have told
me that conditions in the Kasai are not bad and that they have no
special fault to find with the Kasai company. While there were things
that might be criticised, there was apparent fairness in the business.
The natives waited several days after they had gathered their balls of
rubber before bringing them in. This was for the reason that the
company’s agent had but an unattractive stock of goods in his magazine
at the moment; they preferred to wait until a new stock should come up
on the expected steamer. As soon as it appeared they sent word that they
might be expected the following day.
The old Bachoko chief, Maiila, was brought in state, in his blue
hammock; his people came singing and dancing with the baskets full of
balls of rubber on their heads. All proceeded to the magazine, where the
great steelyards were suspended and the rubber weighed; each man looked
carefully to see that his stock balanced evenly, and one of their
number, who understood the instrument and could figure, stood by to see
that all went fair. While the rubber was a demanded tax, a regular price
of 1 franc and 25 centimes the kilo was paid. This was given in stuffs,
of course, and the native selected what he pleased from the now abundant
stock of cloths, blankets, graniteware, and so forth. It may truly be
said that they came in singing gayly and went home glad.
At Mobandja we saw a large party setting out to the forest to gather
rubber, different from any that we had seen before in that a
considerable number of women formed a part of it. This feature I did not
like, although I presume it is an effort to meet the criticisms of the
report of the royal commission of investigation. The commission
particularly criticised the fact that the men, in going into the forest,
were deprived of the company of their women—a hardship strongly
emphasized. It is surely a mistake, however well it may be meant, to
send the women into the forest with the men to gather rubber. Such a
procedure involves the neglect of her fields and interrupts the woman’s
work.
And here we touch upon the thing which in my opinion is the worst
feature of the whole Congo business. Anything that affects the woman’s
work necessarily brings hardship. I have seen many heart-rending
statements in regard to the loss of work time which the man suffers by
going to the forest to gather rubber. We are told that by the time he
has gone several days’ journey into the dense forest, gathered his balls
of rubber, and returned again to his village, he has no time left for
work, and his family and the whole community suffers as a consequence.
But from what work does this gathering of rubber take the man?
We have already called attention to the fact that the support of the
family and the actual work in any village fall upon the woman. The man,
before he went into the forest to gather rubber, had no pressing duties.
His wife supported him; he spent his time in visiting, dancing, lolling
under shelters, drinking with his friends, or in palavers, sometimes of
great importance but frequently of no consequence; in other words, he
was an idler, or a man of leisure. I feel no sorrow on account of the
labors from which he is restrained. Personally, I should have no
objection to his idling. If he does not want to work and need not work,
I see no reason why he should not idle. But my readers are practical
men, who talk much of the dignity of labor and the elevation of the lazy
negro. Very good; if work is dignified and the elevation of the negro
necessary, let him collect rubber, but do not mourn over the fact that
he is deprived of opportunity to earn a living for himself and family.
There is, indeed, one set of circumstances under which the man may
really be deprived of opportunity to aid in the work of gaining a
living. Where the men in a community are really fishermen—they are not
always so—to take them from their fishing entails a hardship.
The thing which seems to me the worst is the kwanga tax on women and the
fish tax on men. The former is at its worst, perhaps, in Leopoldville;
the latter is bad enough at Nouvelle Anvers. Leopoldville is situated in
a district which yields much less for food than necessary. It has always
been so. Even in the days before the white man came, the people in the
native villages on Stanley Pool were obliged to buy food supplies from
outside, as they themselves, being devoted to trading, did no
cultivation. With the coming of the white man, and the establishing of a
great post at Leopoldville, with thousands of native workmen and
soldiers to be fed, the food question became serious. The state has
solved the problem by levying a food tax on the native villages for many
miles around.
The women are required to bring a certain amount of kwanga—native
cassava bread—to Leopoldville within a stated period of time. To do
this involves almost continuous labor, and really leaves the women
little time for attending to the needs of their own people. Some of them
are forced to come many miles with the supply of bread. When they have
cared for the growing plants in their fields, prepared the required
stint of kwanga, brought it the weary distance over the trails, and
again come back to their village, they must begin to prepare for the
next installment. For this heavy burden there must certainly be found
some remedy. Personally, it seems to me that the women belonging to the
workmen and the soldiers might be utilized in cultivating extensive
fields to supply the need. The condition of the men who pay the fish tax
is analogous to that of these kwanga-taxed women.
The question of the population of the Congo is an unsettled one. Stanley
estimated it at 29,000,000 people; Reclus, in 1888, estimated it at
something over 20,000,000; Wagner and Supan claimed 17,000,000, and
Vierkandt sets the figure at 11,000,000. The governor-general, Baron
Wahis, who has several times made the inspection of the whole river, is
inclined to think that even Stanley’s figure is below the true one.
Between these limits of 11,000,000 and 29,000,000 any one may choose
which he prefers. No one knows, or is likely for many years to know.
Those who believe that Stanley’s figure was true in its time, and that
Vierkandt’s is true at present, may well insist, as they do, that
depopulation is taking place.
Personally, I have no doubt that depopulation is going on. Of course,
the enemies of the Free State government attribute the diminution in
population chiefly to the cruelties practiced by the state, but it is
certain that many causes combine in the result.
The distribution of the Congo population is exceedingly irregular. From
Stanley Pool to Chumbiri there has been almost no population during the
period of our knowledge. On the other hand, from Basoko to Stanley Falls
the population is abundant and there is almost a continuous line of
native villages along the banks for miles. Practically, the state of
population is really known only along the river banks. Back from the
riverines are inland tribes, the areas of which in some cases are but
sparsely settled, while in others they swarm. They are, however, little
known, and just how the population is distributed is uncertain. The
district which we personally best know—the Kasai—is one of the most
populous of all the Congo State, and around the Sankuru, one of the main
tributaries of the Kasai, we perhaps have the densest population of the
country. If we take Stanley’s estimate as accurate, the population would
average twelve to the square kilometer.
Among known causes for the diminution of Congo population we may mention
first the raiding expeditions of the Arabs. These were numerous and
destructive in the extreme, throughout the region of the Upper Congo and
the Lualaba. Organized for taking slaves and getting booty, they
destroyed ruthlessly the adult male population and deported the women
and children. Towns were burned and whole districts left unoccupied.
There is no question that many of the punitive expeditions of the state
have been far more severe than necessity demanded; “the people must be
shown the power of Bula Matadi.” It is said that Vankerckhoven’s
expedition destroyed whole towns needlessly in the district of Chumbiri
and Bolobo. Certainly, the population in this section was formerly
abundant. Everywhere along the shores one sees the groups of palm trees
marking the sites of former villages; probably the present population is
no more than one fourth that which existed formerly.
Throughout the whole district, where the French Congo touches on the
river, it is a common thing for timid or disgruntled villagers to move
_en masse_ across the river into French territory. These wholesale
removals are an advantage to the natives, as that portion of the French
Congo is less well occupied by white posts and government officials than
the corresponding part of the Congo Free State. The natives who have
thus removed unquestionably have an easier time in the French colony.
This, however, can hardly be called depopulation, as it involves no loss
in persons, but merely a transfer from the Free State side to the other.
It does not at all affect the actual number of the race.
Sleeping-sickness is carrying off its tens of thousands.
But after we suggest these causes we are still far from a full solution
of the problem of depopulation, which is a mysterious thing. In
Polynesia we have another example of it on a prodigious scale. In
Polynesia we have neither slave raids, nor punitive expeditions, nor
sleeping-sickness. Yet, adults die and children are not born. If things
continue in the future as in the past, the time is not far distant when
the Polynesian—one of the most interesting and attractive of human
races—will be a thing completely of the past.
The case of our own American Indians is similar. Whole tribes have
disappeared; others are dying out so rapidly that a few years will see
their complete extinction. I am familiar with the arguments which, from
time to time, are printed to demonstrate that the number of American
Indians is as great as ever. It seems, however, that it is only rich
tribes that hold their own; the reason is not far to seek, but we may
not here pursue the argument further.
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[A] I am here in error. Casement _saw_ more than one case of mutilation;
he carefully _investigated_ but one.
[B] See footnote A.