As to the use of fetich by those who did not really believe in it, it was

true that some Europeans, non-Christian men in their trade with the

natives, seeing what a power the fetich was in the native thought, and

knowing that it was exercised against themselves, deemed it a matter

simply of sharp practice to adopt a fetich themselves, and play the native

at his own game. To my knowledge this was done by an Englishman now dead.

I was intimately acquainted with him; and though his morals were

objectionable and his religion agnosticism, I enjoyed his society. He was

a gentleman in manners, intelligent, well-read, interested, in common with

myself, in African philology and ethnology, and his river steamers often

generously helped me in my itinerations. His trade interests were large;

he spoke the native language well, was practically acquainted with native

customs and native mode of thought. He was a good hater and a firm

friend, strict with subordinates to the point of severity, but on

occasions free-handedly generous. Naturally such a character, while it

made for him many friends, developed some enemies. A few hated him, most

liked him, even while all feared him. To checkmate them on their own

ground and to carry prestige in dealing with the heathen chiefs of wild

tribes, he caused to be made for himself, and allowed it to be known in

advance that he carried, a powerful fetich. The effect was very decided in

increasing his power, influence, and trade success, so successful that I

am not sure but that he grew himself to have some faith in it,--an

illustration of the oft-noted fact in moral philosophy that non-Christian

credulity often leads men's beliefs further than does Christian faith. The

after history of my trader friend is a sad illustration of the wings that

ill-gotten wealth develops. His fetich assisted in amassing a fortune

several times over, but it did not retain it for him. He died in pitiful

want.

Practice of this white art holds all over South Africa and among all its

tribes. "They believe in charms, fetiches, and witchcraft. The latter is

the source of great dread to a Mashona, who fears that death or accident

may overtake him through the instrumentality of some fellow-being who may

perchance hold against him a grudge. For the purpose of avoiding these

calamities, charms are worn about the person, usually around the neck.

Divining bones or blocks of wood called 'akata' are thrown by the

witch-doctors to discover a witch or evil spirit, and they are also

employed to ascertain the probable results of a journey, a hunt, or a

battle,--in short, any and all of the events of life."[45]

"The tribes we have passed through seem to have one common religion, if it

can be called by that name. They say there is one great spirit, who rules

over all the other spirits; but they worship and sacrifice to the spirits

of ancestors, so far as I can learn, and have a mass of fetich medicines

and enchantments. The hunter takes one kind of charm with him; the

warrior another. For divining they have a basket filled with bones, teeth,

finger-nails, claws, seeds, stones, and such articles, which are rattled

by the diviner till the spirit comes and speaks to him by the movement of

these things. When the spirit is reluctant to be brought up, a solemn

dirge is chanted by the people. All is attention while the diviner utters

a string of short sentences in different tones, which are repeated after

him by the audience."[46]

CHAPTER IX

THE FETICH--WITCHCRAFT--A BLACK ART--DEMONOLOGY

The distinction sought to be made by the half-civilized Negro between a

white art and a black art, as a justification of his practice of fetich

enchantments, lies in the object to be obtained by their use. He vainly

tries to find a parallel to them in Christian use of fire-arms,--proper

for defence, improper for unprovoked assault. The black art he admits is

wrong, its object being to kill or injure some one else; the white he

thinks allowable, because with it he acts simply on the defensive. He

wishes to ward off a possible blow of an unseen foe aimed at himself. He

professes his intention not to strike or take otherwise active measures to

injure any known person. After every allowance made, the distinction

between the arts as moral and immoral is not a clear one. They differ only

in their degree of immorality. The means both use are immoral, not

justified by the possible goodness of the desired end, and not sanctified

by the intention of the user. Both use fetiches. Fetich, if it has power

at all, is not of God; if it is powerless, it is folly. Thus, in every and

any case, it dishonors God.

But whatever doubt there might have been as to the allowability of white

art practice, there is no doubt as to the immorality of black art. It

always contemplates a possible taking of life.

The term "witchcraft," which attaches itself to all fetichism, localizes

itself in the black art practice, which is thus pre-eminently known as

"witchcraft." Its practitioners are all "wizards" or "witches." The user

of the white is not so designated. He or she does not deny the use; it is

open and without any sense of criminality in the eyes of the community,

however much he or she may endeavor to suppress the fact from the

knowledge of church officers. But a practitioner of the black art denies

it and carries on his practice secretly.

The above distinction is observed by travellers in other parts of Africa,

as will be seen by the following quotations, which give also an

interesting exposition of the ceremonies and practices of the black art in

different regions:

"Among the Matabele of South Africa," says Declè, "it is well understood

that there were two kinds of witchcraft. One was practised by the

witch-doctors and the king, such as, for instance, the 'making of

medicine' to bring on rain, or the ceremonies carried out by the

witch-doctors to appease the spirits of ancestors.[47] The other

witchcraft was supposed to consist of evil practices pursued to cause

sickness or death.

"According to native ideas, all over Africa, such a thing as death from

natural causes does not exist. Whatever ill befalls a man or a family, it

is always the result of witchcraft, and in every case the witch-doctors

are consulted to find out who has been guilty of it. In some instances the

witch-doctors declare that the evil has been caused by the angry spirits

of ancestors; in which case they have to be propitiated through the medium

of the witch-doctors. In other cases they point out some one or several

persons as having caused the injury by making charms; and whoever is so

accused by the witchcraft doctor is immediately put to death, his wife and

the whole of his family sharing his fate. To bewitch any one, according to

Matabele belief, it is sufficient to spread medicine on his path or in his

hut. There are also numerous other modes of working charms; for instance,

if you want to cause an enemy to die, you make a clay figure that is

supposed to represent him. With a needle you pierce the figure, and your

enemy, the first time he comes in contact with a foe, will be speared.

"The liver and entrails of a crocodile are supposed to be most powerful

charms, and whoever becomes possessed of them can cause the death of any

man he pleases. For that reason, killing a crocodile is a very heinous

crime.[48]

"While I was in Matabele-land, a crocodile was one day found speared on

the bank of a river. The witch-doctors were consulted in order to find out

who had been guilty of the deed; and six people were denounced as the

offenders and put to death with their families.

"Of witch-doctors there are two kinds.[49] The first deliver oracles by

bone-throwing. They have three bones carved with different signs; these

they throw up, and according to the position they assume when falling, and

the side on which they fall, they make the prediction. The other kind

deliver their oracles in a slow and very shrill chant. Both are supposed

to be on speaking terms with spirits. They are in constant request, but

are usually poorly paid. Their influence, however, is tremendous; and in

Lo-Bengula's time their power was as great as, if not greater than, the

king's. Lo-Bengula always kept two or three of them near him. Chief among

their works was that of rain-making; this was done with a charm made from

the blood and gall of a black ox. No witch-doctors, however, could make

rain except by the orders of the king. It was a risky trade; for they were

put to death if they failed in their endeavors to produce rain. Dreams are

considered of deep significance by the witch-doctors. Madmen are supposed

to be possessed of a spirit, and were formerly under the protection of the

king.

"One of the most remarkable ceremonies that used to be performed by the

witch-doctors was that of 'smelling out' the witches (wizards?). On the

first moon of the second month of the year all the various regiments

gathered at Buluwayo, and held a big dance in which the king took part;

usually, from 12,000 to 15,000 warriors assembled for this ceremony. After

the dance the smelling of witches began. The various regiments being

formed in crescent shape, the king took his stand in front surrounded by

the doctors, usually women. Then began a slow song accompanied by a dance;

they carried in their hand a small wand. Gradually the song and the dance

became quicker; they seemed to be possessed. They rushed madly about,

passing in front of the soldiers, pretending to smell them. All of a

sudden they stopped in front of a man, and touching him with their wands,

began howling like maniacs; the man was immediately removed and put to

death. In this way hundreds of people were killed every year during the

big dance. No one, however high his position, was protected against the

mandate of the witch-doctors, usually the tools of the king, who found in

this a way of getting rid of his enemies, or of doing away with those in

high station whose loyalty he had reason to doubt. Other crimes are few

except the ever-present witchcraft. To bewitch an enemy on the Tanganika

plateau, you scatter a red powder round his hut and a white one near his

door; this never fails to kill.

"Ordeal by muavi is, of course, flourishing; with the enlightened

modification that, if the accused does not die, he can recover damages

from the accuser. In the Mambwe district the muavi is made of a poisonous

bean."[50]

The same "medicines," the same dances, the same enchantments used in the

black art, are used in the professedly innocent white art; the chief

difference being in the mission that the utilized spirit is entrusted to

perform.

Similarity in witchcraft practices is one of the several grounds held by

ethnologists, as proving identity in origin of the African Negro and the

Australian black. To quote from Dr. Carl Lumholtz's book, "Among

Cannibals": "In the various [Australian] tribes are so-called wizards, who

pretend to communicate with the spirits of the dead and get information

from them. They are able to produce sickness or death whenever they

please, and they can produce or stop rain and many other things. Hence

these wizards are greatly feared. Attention is called to the influence of

this fear of witchcraft upon the character and customs of the natives. It

makes them bloodthirsty, and at the same time darkens and embitters their

existence. An Australian native is unable to conceive death as natural

except as the result of an accident or of old age; while diseases and

plagues are always ascribed to witchcraft and to hostile blacks. In order

to practise his arts against any black man, the wizard must be in

possession of some article that has belonged to him. On Herbert River the

natives need only to know the name of the person in question, and for this

reason they rarely use their proper names in addressing or speaking of

each other, but simply their class names. I once met a black man who told

me that he personally had been the victim of strange wizards, and that

ever since that time he had been a sufferer from headache. One afternoon

many years ago, two wizards had captured and bound him; they had taken out

his entrails and put in grass instead, and had let him lie in this

condition till sunrise. Then he suddenly recovered his senses and became

tolerably well; a result for which he was indebted to a wizard of his own

tribe, who thus proved himself more powerful than the two strangers. The

blacks call an operation of this kind kobi, and a man who is able to

perform it, as a matter of course, is very much respected and feared."

"The Ovimbundu race," says Arnot, "of Bihe and the country to the west are

most enterprising traders and imitators of the Portuguese. They seem,

however, to retain tenaciously their superstitions and fetich worship.

"In Chikula's yard there is a small roughly cut image, which I believe

represents the spirit of a forefather of his. One day a man and woman came

in and rushed up to this image, dancing, howling, and foaming at the

mouth, apparently mad. A group gathered round, and declared that the

spirit of Chikula's forefather had taken possession of this man and woman,

and was about to speak through them. At last the 'demon' began to grunt

and groan out to poor Chikula, who was down on his knees, that he must

hold a hunt, the proceeds of which must be given to the people of the

town; must kill an ox, provide so many pots of beer, and proclaim a great

feast and dance. Furthermore, all this was to be done quickly. The poor

old man was thoroughly taken in, and in two days' time the hunt was

organized.

"Thus I find, as among the Barotse, that divining and prophesying, with

other religious and superstitious means, are resorted to in order to

secure private ends and to offer sacrifice to the one common god, the

belly.

"At another time a man came to Senhor Porto's to buy an ox. He said that

some time ago he had killed a relation by witchcraft to possess himself of

some of his riches, and that now he must sacrifice an ox to the dead man's

spirit, which was troubling him. This killing by witchcraft is a thing

most sincerely believed in; and on hearing this man's cold-blooded

confession of what was at least the intent of his heart, it made me

understand why the Barotse put such demons into the fire.

"Among the Ovimbundu, old and renowned witches (wizards?) are thrown into

some river, though almost every man will confess that he practises

witchcraft to avenge himself of wrong done and to punish his enemies. One

common process is to boil together certain fruits and roots, with which

the wizard daubs his body, in order to enlist the aid of the demons; and

the decoction is then thrown in the direction of the victim, or laid in

his path, that he may be brought under the bewitching spell."[51]

We quote again from Dr. J. L. Wilson, "Western Africa": "Witchcraft, and

the use of fetiches as a means of protection against it, is carried to a

greater extent here [Southern Guinea] than in Northern Guinea, owing, no

doubt, to the greater imaginativeness of the people. The marvels performed

by those who are supposed to possess this mysterious art transcend all the

bounds of credulity. A man can turn himself into a leopard, and destroy

the property and lives of his fellow-men. He can cause the clouds to pour

out torrents of rain, or hold back at his pleasure.

"A different article is used here for the detection of witchcraft from

that used in Northern Guinea. The root of a small shrub, called akazya, is

employed, and is more powerful than that used in the other section of the

country. A person is seldom required to drink more than half a pint of the

decoction. If it acts freely as a diuretic, it is a mark of innocence; but

if as a narcotic, and produces dizziness and vertigo, it is a sure sign of

guilt. Small sticks are laid down at the distance of eighteen inches or

two feet apart, and the suspected person, after he has swallowed the

draught, is required to walk over them. If he has no vertigo, he steps

over them easily and naturally; but, on the other hand, if his brain is

affected, he imagines they rise up before him like great logs, and in his

awkward effort to step over them, is apt to reel and fall to the ground.

In some cases this draught is taken by proxy; and if a man is found

guilty, he is either put to death or heavily fined, and banished from the

country. In many cases post-mortem examinations are made with the view of

finding the actual witch; I have known the mouth of the aorta to be cut

out of a corpse, and shown as unanswerable proof that the man had the

actual power of witchcraft.[52] No one expects to resent the death of a

relative under such circumstances. He is supposed to have been killed by

his awkward management of an instrument that was intended for the

destruction of others; and it is rather a cause of congratulation to the

living that he is caught in a snare of his own," and that his own "witch"

has killed him.[53]

Not every one who uses white art is able also to use the black. Any one

believing in fetich can use white arts, and not subject himself to the

charge of being a wizard. Those who desire to go beyond the arts of

defence, and gratify their revenge or any other passion by killing or

injuring some one else, have generally to purchase the agency of a doctor

or some one skilled in the black art. Should the means thus employed be

efficient in causing a death (or seemingly so, by the coincidence of their

use and the death itself) and the facts become known, both the doctor and

the man who employed him would probably be put to death. Yet,

inconsistently, the very men who would execute them have themselves used,

or will some day use, these same black arts for the same murderous

purpose, and the native doctors will continue in their risky business.

And yet, again, inconsistently, every man and woman in the community

dreads such a charge, and looks askance on those who are suspected of

belonging to the Witchcraft Company. For there is such a society, not

distinctly organized. It has meetings at which they plot for the causing

of sickness or even the taking of life. These meetings are secret;

preferably in a forest, or at least distant from a village. The hour is

near midnight. An imitation of the hoot of an owl, which is their sacred

bird, is their signal call. They profess to leave their corporeal body

lying asleep in their huts, and claim that the part which joins in the

meeting is their spirit-body, whose movements are not hindered by walls or

other physical objects. They can pass with instant rapidity through the

air, over the tree-tops. At their meetings they have visible, audible, and

tangible communication with evil spirits. They partake of feasts; the

article eaten being the "heart-life" of some human being, who, in

consequence of this loss of his "heart," becomes sick, and will die,

unless it be restored. The early cock-crowing is a warning for them to

disperse; the advent of the morning star they fear, as it compels them to

hasten back to their bodies. Should the sun rise upon them before they

reach their corporeal "home," their plans would fail, and themselves would

sicken. They dread cayenne pepper. Should its bruised leaves or pods have

been rubbed over their body-home by any one during their absence, they

would be unable to re-enter it, and would die or miserably waste away.

The attitude of all missionaries toward executions on a charge of being a

witch or a wizard has uniformly been distinctly in opposition to them. We

characterize them as murder. The European governments which have taken

possession of Africa also put down witchcraft, medicine-making, and

execution of supposed witchcraft murderers with a strong hand. The natives

submit under pressure of force, but unwillingly. Each man or woman is glad

of the strong foreign power that protects himself or herself from being

put to death on a witchcraft charge; but they each complain that the

government does not execute, nor will allow them to execute, others

against whom they make the same charge. It is undeniably true that were

the European governments that have partitioned Africa to withdraw to-day,

the witch-doctors, with poison ordeal and fetich killing and witchcraft

execution, would promptly re-establish themselves and soon would become

rampant again. The Christian churches and communities already established

would barely hold their own, and would not have an influence extensive

enough to restrain the forces of evil.

I quote from a recent issue of a Freetown, Sierra Leone, newspaper, edited

by a Negro, an article written by a Negro on this subject: "The subject of

'witchcraft' has been agitating of late the minds of this community, and

much sense and more nonsense has been heard from those who take upon

themselves to elucidate the matter. It is a very difficult and delicate

question to tackle at all times, especially when knowledge, which is

always the foundation of eloquence, is absent. From the statement of Holy

Scriptures we know that there is such a thing as witchcraft, and the

theory is confirmed by the records of English history. It will be a most

desirable thing if any person guilty of witchcraft could be convicted by

means that would be convincing in the legal investigation of other crimes;

it will save the community from many heart-burnings and mistakes.

"A writer in a local journal recently made the assertion that in any case

of poisoning in the cities of Europe, steps are taken to trace the poison

by eminent physicians and detectives employed to hunt up the accused, but

in our opinion the cases are not analogous. In the case of suspected

poisoning post-mortem examinations by competent authorities will disclose

the fact whether the deceased died of poisoning; unfounded, and in some

instances gratuitous, assertions are not without proofs allowed to cloud

the life of individuals. A _prima facie_ case once established, the

suspect is pursued with the utmost vigor of the law.

"In this colony [Sierra Leone] most deaths are attributed to the influence

of witches, and accusation of witchcraft is at once made against

individuals without attempt at obtaining evidence.

"How can it be proved that there is a band of these wicked ones, so as to

attach credence to the confession of a conscience-stricken member who

implicates also a number of coadjutors? The problem is an intricate one,

and requires thoughtful investigation."

The slaves exported from Africa to the British possessions in the West

Indies brought with them some of the seeds of African plants, especially

those they regarded as "medicinal," or they found among the fauna and

flora of the tropical West Indies some of the same plants and animals held

by them as sacred to fetich in their tropical Africa. The ceiba, or

silk-cotton tree, at whose base I find in Africa so many votive offerings

of fetich worship, they found flourishing on Jamaica. They had established

on their plantations the fetich doctor, their dance, their charm, their

lore, before they had learned English at all. And when the British

missionaries came among them with school and church, while many of the

converts were sincere, there were those of the doctor class who, like

Simon Magus, entered into the church-fold for sake of whatever gain they

could make by the white man's new influence, the white man's Holy Spirit!

Outwardly everything was serene and Christian. Within was working an

element of diabolism, fetichism, there known by the name of Obeah, under

whose leaven some of the churches were wrecked. And the same diabolism,

known as voodoo worship, in the Negro communities of the Southern United

States has emasculated the spiritual life of many professed Christians.

It must be admitted, as to this whole matter of witchcraft belief and

witchcraft murder and witchcraft execution, however wrong the Negro

belief, his sense of justice is aggrieved by the attitude of the foreign

missionary and the foreign government. Something should be allowed to that

sense of justice. Both missionary and government err sometimes, in their

judgment of individual or tribal crime and in their punishment of it, by

arbitrarily following only civilized law and the civilized point of view;

ignoring or not giving proper weight, in the make up of their judgment, to

the degree to which the fetich enters as a factor in native motives and

acts, and the power with which it influences native thought.

In Matabele-land, South Africa, after the defeat and death of the king

Lo-Bengula, and the occupation of his country by Great Britain, there was

an outbreak, the cause of which was not fully appreciated until it was

traced to the witch-doctors, who seized the occasion of the ravages of the

rinderpest, which was at that time devastating the cattle of South Africa,

to make use of their power. "Naturally they must have felt, more than

anybody else, the occupation of Matabele-land by the whites, as it meant

the disappearance of their former power. When the rinderpest broke out,

they probably persuaded the natives, who understood nothing about an

epidemic and attributed whatever ill befalls them to witchcraft, that it

was the spirit of Lo-Bengula, which was dissatisfied with them and which

caused their cattle to die. To appease Lo-Bengula's spirit, it was

necessary to fight the whites. They, the witch-doctors, would make

medicine to turn the bullets of the white men into water, so that the

Matabele could not be hurt by them."[54]

Similarly Great Britain with difficulty has suppressed several risings of

the Ashantees, and the late so-called "Hut-Tax" rebellion in Sierra Leone.

The actual force of the natives, in organization, arms, and skill, was

almost ridiculous in its inferiority as compared with the thoroughly armed

and disciplined troops of the British Empire; but the final result, though

never doubtful, was attained with much loss of men and funds. The fetich

doctor and fetich belief were a _vis a tergo_ with the native horde. Its

value as a factor in the contest had not been reckoned on by the

foreigner. Whatever motives influenced the native in the contest, in

patriotism, cupidity, revenge, bravery, they were minor. The grand

influence that nerved his arm and made him perfectly fearless in his

assaults against weapons of precision, was his deep conviction, more

complete than Christian faith, that he would win. Had not the fetich

doctor told him so? Though there had been some apparent failures, in his

belief they were only apparent. The real failure was in his own self, his

not having followed minutely all the fetich directions. Those directions

followed rightly in the next battle, he _could not_ fail.

The faith of a Christian does not assure him, in any emergency of life,

that he will be successful in his plan; it only certifies him that,

whatever be the result, success or failure, of any single act or series of

acts in life's drama, his own will must be subordinated to God's, who, if

not granting his specific wish to-day, will overrule everything in the

final _dénouement_ for his best spiritual good.

Similarly the heathen fetich, mixed with the fatalism of Islam, is an

explanation of the splendid recklessness with which the followers of the

Mahdi flung themselves against the sabres and maxims of General

Kitchener's army at Omdurman.

Faith in fetich is a power as long as its devotee believes in its

infallibility. When that is gone, his flight or conquest is instant.

Fetich power therefore cannot be invariably relied upon as a motive to

action. It may sometimes be magnificent. Only Christian faith or civilized

discipline can be sublime, as compared with it.

But a fetich devotee who has lost his faith in his fetich could never have

stood with Christian martyrs who knew perfectly well that within an hour

they would be torn to pieces in the arena. Their sublime faith looked

beyond that arena to the eternal promise. A fetich soldier who has lost

his faith in his fetich could never have gone with those who stood head

erect before certain death in the Alamo fort or who rode in the charge at

Balaklava. Their elevated motives of patriotism, implicit soldierly

obedience to order, and the sweet scent of human glory made them discount

the value of their own blood. These were motives not only powerful in

force, but great in character. The Negro's fetich faith is powerful, but

never great.

Something cognate to this in the comparison of the power and the greatness

of a motive will explain the persistent fatuity of the Boer in protracting

his contest with Great Britain. From the very first, whatever the world

may have thought of essential right or justice in the case, the world knew

that England would win. The Boer would have been wise to have accepted

defeat earlier and made terms with a conqueror who generally has been

magnanimous and rarely cruel, rather than invite, by guerilla warfare,

measures severer, harsher, and possibly exterminative. The Boer is a

Christian, but his faith was of the Mosaic kind that expected the God of

battles to interfere visibly in his behalf. The president of the republic

had preached that he would do so. The Boer looked on the president as a

prophet, and believed him. But his faith was an unreasonable one; it was

fatuous. His bravery, patriotism, marksmanship, and endurance could not

avail. These all tell well for a martyrdom, if martyrdom were desirable or

necessary, but they did not tell well for assertion of success.

France, overcome by Germany, still was brave and patriotic; but she was

wise in accepting the inevitable,--wiser than the Negro or the Boer.

France believed in God; so did Germany. But the faith of neither was of

the fetich kind. Nevertheless, the fetich faith is magnificent, even if it

be fatuous.

For the apparently cruel side of the black art, _viz._, the killing of

those guilty of witchcraft, there is some allowance to be made.

To the believer in fetich the killing is a judicial act. He does not call

it a murder, but an execution; and he tries to justify it by an argument

which even the missionary has to admit is correct if the Negro's premises

in the argument are admitted. As we do not admit both of them, his

argument falls. But it is difficult to show him that his second premise is

wrong, and he is unconvinced.

I have several times been thoroughly worsted in my discussion with native

chiefs on this matter of witchcraft executions. In the early years of my

missionary life, while resident on Corisco Island, I followed the practice

of my predecessor, the Rev. J. L. Mackey, in the effort to prevent such

executions, which were then (about 1863) common. We directed the native

Christians to notify us of any death, and we would at once go to the

village and endeavor to forestall the almost invariable witchcraft

investigation. The headman, Kombenyamango, of an adjacent village, was a

large, strong, influential, cruel man. There was so little about him to

command my respect that I had shown him but slight deference. Having thus

his _amour propre_ wounded, he was unfortunately not on very good terms

with me. His aged mother had been failing in health for a long time, and

finally had died. Her position, as mother of a chief, had given her much

respect in native eyes. The concourse of mourners gathered from a distance

was large. Feeling for her death was deep; threats of vengeance for her

taking off were loud. I was soon informed that one of her female slaves

had been seized under pure suspicion because of her proximity as the dead

woman's servant. In her case as a means of finding whether or not she was

guilty, there had been no ordeal test of drinking the mbundu poison. (On

the Upper Guinea Coast it is sassa-wood; at Calabar, the Calabar bean; at

the equator, the akazya leaf.) Under torture, being beaten and lacerated

by thorn bushes, she had confessed herself guilty, was in chains, and was

soon to be executed.

On such occasions, on arriving at the village, there was often an effort

on the part of the chief to deceive the missionary. The chief would either

assert that he had had no intention of making a witchcraft investigation,

or would consent now, in deference to his white friend the missionary, to

abandon his intention, and would forbid any execution. But it would be

revealed to us afterwards that at that very moment a victim was in chains

in that very village, and had subsequently been secretly put to death.

This day Kombenyamango, though receiving me with sufficient respect, was

nonchalant. He did not lie. He promptly, in answer to my question, said,

"Yes, I have a prisoner here, and I intend to put her to death." "Why?"

"Because she has killed my mother!" I told him I did not believe his

mother had died by unnatural means, and I preached to him the usual sermon

on the Sixth Commandment. I was at that time young in my knowledge of

native thought and fetich belief. I can see now that to every sentence of

my address he could have said Amen, in his believing, as he did, that his

mother had been murdered, and that this slave woman had broken the Sixth

Commandment. But, after listening awhile, he became impatient, and said,

"Look here! in your country, when a person kills your mother, don't you

tie a rope about his neck and hang him up, and don't you say you are doing

right in so doing?" "Yes." "Well, that's just what I am going to do to

this woman, and I am right." "Yes, you would be right if she has killed

your mother; but she has not. The bewitching with which you charge her is

foolish." (As to the folly, I know now that that was a matter of opinion

between him and me; and he had reason for his opinion.) He replied, "But

she has confessed that she is guilty." "Quite possibly; but still a lie on

her part, for she would say anything to obtain temporary relief from your

torture." "But ask her yourself." "No use to do so in your presence; she

is afraid of you, and she will not dare to speak to me or contradict you."

"Well, then, I will bring her; and you take her off there among the

plantains by yourself, and see what she will say." This sounded fair; but

even so, I had my doubts, for she did not know me. Perhaps they would lie

to her, and tell her I was confederate with her master, and would order

her not to alter her confession. And she, in her dazed condition, was

really not responsible for anything she might say. She was brought from a

hut. She was in chains, and yet with her limbs free to walk. There was no

possibility of her escape; nor of my being able to abduct her, had I been

unwise enough to attempt it. I led her out of Kombenyamango's hearing, but

still plainly in his sight, and kindly said to her, "Did you do this?" To

my amazement, she said, "Yes." "But what did you do? If you say you killed

her, how did you do it?" She described minutely how, being in attendance

on the old woman, she was often vexed at her petulance, and had been

beaten by her for small neglects; how, in her anger, she had desired her

mistress's death; had collected crumbs of her food, strands of her hair,

and shreds of her clothing; how she had mixed these with other substances,

and had sung enchantments with drum and dance, aided by others; had tied

all these things together on a stick which she had secretly buried at the

threshold of the old woman's door, desiring and expecting that she should

thereby die. By an unfortunate coincidence the old woman had died a month

or two later; and the slave believed that what she had done had been

efficient to accomplish the taking of life.

Baffled, I returned to Kombenyamango, and admitted her confession. But I

told him that, even so, both he and she were under a delusion; that what

she had done had no efficiency for accomplishing a murder; that it was

impossible. (Here again was a difference of opinion as to possibility; he

believed his senses. In his life he had seen witchcraft mysteries; I had

not.)

It was useless, even inconsistent, to plead for mercy; I retired

heartsick. I was morally certain the old woman had died a natural death.

Yet this poor slave woman had had murder in her heart, and had tried to

make her murderous thought effective. She was, before God, guilty. She had

confessed herself, before man's bar, guilty. (Well for the thousands of us

who know ourselves guilty in thought, that we are not to be held by our

fellow-sinners as guilty in act!) I knew that she was really innocent, but

I could not prove it. She was taken to sea in a boat, and decapitated; her

remains were thrown into the sea.

On another occasion, a year later, also on Corisco Island, a certain

heathen headman of a village, Osongo, had died. A female slave who was

suspected had fled. Her flight was regarded as proof positive of her

guilt. Our mission premises had always been accorded by the native chiefs

the right of sanctuary. A refugee for any offence could not be seized on

our premises till we saw just reason for "extraditing" him. This slave

woman had hidden herself in our jungle-thicket adjoining a forest; just

where I did not know. Two freemen--my personal employees, good

Christians--knew, and secretly at night with my connivance fed her. My

school-girls also learned of it. Such a secret is difficult to hide. One

of the girls, a niece of Osongo, revealed it to another of my workmen,

Matoku, a slave also of Osongo, and a professed Christian. He, with the

traitorous cowardice that makes many slaves informers on each other as a

means of enhancing their own safety with their masters, revealed it to

Ajai, Osongo's brother. Ajai, with a retinue of servants, came to visit me

in my study. He, with a wily talk about the sadness of his brother's

death, detained me, while the servants broke into the mission premises,

and, led by Matoku, captured the woman, faint with her days and nights of

exposure. I discharged Matoku from my employ, and dismissed the niece from

school. But the heathen regarded these punishments as slight; they had

obtained their object. My attempts to plead with Ajai for the woman's life

were met with undisguised admission of his fixed purpose to kill her. With

a family as prominent on the island and as wedded to heathenism as was

Osongo's, and in face of the current that set against the woman, the

influences I was able to employ, and which had at other times resulted in

saving some lives accused of witchcraft, proved ineffectual. I was

privately told that she was to be put into a boat and carried out to sea

so as to prevent any interference I might possibly attempt. With a

spy-glass I saw a native boat shoot rapidly out from beyond a point of

land half a mile distant. The rowers rested on their oars when they

reached deep water. She was seized; her head held over the gunwale, her

throat cut, and her lifeless body cast into the sea.

She had a son, a stout lad. Ajai, fearing that he might live to avenge his

mother's death, had ordered him also to be killed as an accomplice with

her in the bewitching of Osongo. The tragedy that was being enacted on the

beach behind the point of land from which had issued the boat I did not

see; but I was told that the lad was seized, his hands and limbs tied to a

stake, where he was slowly burned to death. A crowd sat on the beach

jeering him, and amused themselves by tying little packets of gunpowder to

different parts of his body, enjoying the sight of his struggles as the

packets exploded in succession.

Undeniably there is much jugglery and conscious deception on the part of

the magic doctors. How much they really believe in what they say or do no

one has been able to discover; they assert that they are under

supernatural influences, and have power given from supernatural sources.

Rarely are any of this priest class converted to Christianity. A few have

professed conversion, and have made a general acknowledgment of

sinfulness; but they did not like to talk about their divinations; they

called them "foolishness." But evidently there was something about those

divinations of which they seemed ashamed and which they wished to forget.

Only one have I met who would talk on the subject, and she believed she

had been under satanic influence,--not simply as all wicked thoughts are

satanic in their character and inspiration, but that she had actually been

under satanic possession, and was given by the devil more than mere human

power. Certainly, if there is in civilized jugglery, fortune-telling,

clairvoyance, divining, spirit-rappings, theosophy, _et id omne genus_,

nothing more than sleight of hand, alert observation of facial

expression, and mind-reading, the African conjurer almost equals the

civilized professional. The native magician does and tells some wonderful

things. In one of my congregations an educated woman, a widow, who had

only one child, a son grown to young manhood, had subsequently lived in

succession with four other men, three of whom were white, who had either

died or deserted her; and she supposed herself past child-bearing. She

contracted a secret marriage with a white gentleman, but of it positively

nothing was known or even suspected by any one. She confessed to me that

one day, being a visitor in a distant place where she was not known, she,

out of mere curiosity, hired a magician to divine her future. He looked

into his magic mirror, and, among many other things which he could

shrewdly have guessed in a quick study of her character as revealed in her

looks, manner, and language, surprised her by describing a white man (whom

he had never seen) who, he asserted, was deeply attached to her, and by

whom she would become the mother of two children. She suppressed her

surprise, and told him that though married four times, she had borne no

child in eighteen years. He nevertheless asserted, "I see them in your

womb."

Within five years from that time she did have two untimely births by her

white husband. She told me in her confession that he knew nothing of them,

they being miscarriages. She had suppressed from him the fact of her

pregnancy. When subsequently she united with the church, she made these

revelations only to me as her pastor, to save herself from public rebuke.

At another time a woman in Gabun became very anxious about a brother of

hers who was trading on the Ogowe River, at a place at least three hundred

miles distant; no news had come of him. Evil news always flies fast and is

always spread publicly. She went to a magician. Divining, he said, "Your

brother is dead." "But where? What? When did he die?" "Only recently. I

see his body lying bleeding." And he described the wounds, the locality on

the river, the time, and other details of a country where he had never

been. Two months later news did come, and it agreed in time, place, and

circumstances with the divination.

Such things occur in civilized lands. They are accounted for without any

reference to, or belief in, demoniac or even supernatural causes or

influences. We call such recondite knowledge telepathy, and leave it for

psychologists to study its character and application. It has no religious

significance or use. The most devout Christian may believe in it or be

subject to its operation. Other cases of telepathy in Africa I have been

told of, that had no fetich nor any divination of magic doctor connected

with them; but the natives attributed them to some unknown

spirit-influence.

An outcome of the witchcraft of fetichism, demonolatry, though not

necessarily identical with demoniacal possession, intimately associates

itself with it as a part of its development. For the Negro belief in such

possession there is good basis. The Bible recognizes the possibility of

human beings in their free agency making pacts with the devil, in virtue

of which he was allowed, under divine administration, to share with them

some of his supernatural power as prince of the power of darkness, and god

of this world. Such pacts were condemned by Jehovah as unholy. Those who

made them were called witches and wizards; such transgressors were

directed to be destroyed. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"[55] (a

command that does not necessarily prove that the professed diabolical

compact was always a real one. The mere professing to have satanic

companionship and aid was an offence heinous to Jehovah's theocratic

government of his people.)

But the witch of Endor[56] certainly was a reality; she did "bring up"

real departed spirits; perhaps only on that one occasion, and then only by

direct divine and not satanic power and will, and for a divine object. She

herself seems to have been surprised[57] at the real success of

divinations which formerly may have been, in her hands, only deceptions.

My native heathen chiefs have good precedent for their witchcraft

executions. New England history cannot wipe out the fact of the Salem

witchcraft trials.

Demoniac possessions in supposed lunatics are possible; they were actual

and numerous in Palestine during the ministry of Christ. Satan was

"loosed" with unusual power, that the Son of God in his contest with him

could give to the world convincing proof of his divine origin and

authority, even the devils being subject to him. If demoniacal possessions

are possible during a term of years, they are equally possible for a few

hours; they never were nor are made by Satan for a good purpose. God, in

the days of Christ, for the special purpose of the time, overruled them

for the defence of his kingdom; since then, in the hearts of evil men,

their advent is only for evil and by evil.

If in Christian lands the enchantments of the hoodoo are only jugglery and

nothing else, it may be that Satan's power is limited under the broad

light of Christianity. But in heathen lands, where for ages Satan's power

has not only been accepted but also sought, I am disposed to believe that

some apparent cases of lunacy are real possessions by Satan, in which

cases both the physical disease and its associated mental aberration are

the effect of the possession. In lunacy pure and simple the mental

aberration is the effect of disease alone,--some mental or physical

injury.

The possibility of a permanent possession by Satan being admitted, it is

easily possible that the fetich doctors or priestesses may be temporarily

entered into by satanic power, and that some wonderful things they do and

say while endowed with that power are used by the devil to blind men's

minds against the truth.

It may be, therefore, that the missionary in his contest with heathenism

has literally to fight with the devil, with principalities and powers in

high places, and needs weapons more subtle than Martin Luther's inkstand.

If so, he puts his preaching and his work at a disadvantage in deriding

the witchcraft side of fetichism, revealed in black art, as simply

"folly," and reprehensible only as a superstition. It is more than that;

it is wickedness,--spiritual wickedness in high places. While it is true

that it has much that is mere jugglery and charlatanism, it is quite

possible that it may have something that is diabolically real.

But all this does not fully justify my Negro chief in putting to death his

slave, who may or may not have been more than self-deceived and deceiving,

who may or may not have had a temporary satanic possession, who may or may

not have been guilty of murder before the bar of God or man. That chief

and all his assistants in the execution, and all other users of the black

art, had, in the beginning of their fetich life, been users of only the

defensive white art; had inevitably grown into the use of the offensive

black art, and in all probability at some time or other had used

divinations, with and by the aid of witchcraft doctors, for the

destruction of others in a similar way and under the same motives as those

admitted by my poor slave woman.

My chief's argument syllogized would be: Whoever kills should be killed;

this woman has killed; therefore she should be killed. His first premise

stands; but neither he nor any of his people had a right to use it;

consistently, he and all his should themselves have been at the same bar

with the woman; they either had done, or would some day be doing, just

what they were charging her with doing. His second premise may or may not

have been true; certainly, the only one who could know whether it was true

was the accused herself, and she may have been self-deceived; and her

confession should have no standing in court, having been forced under

torture. I could not therefore admit his conclusion; and I think that, had

the Master stood visibly on Corisco Island that day, He would have said,

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

CHAPTER X

FETICHISM--A GOVERNMENT

In civilization, under governments other than autocratic, law being made

and executed, at least professedly, with the consent of the governed, all

enactments find not only their justification, but also the possibility of

their enforcement, in their support by public opinion. It is the general

consensus as to the need of an enactment regarding certain conditions

affecting the lives or happiness or rights of the majority, that

crystallizes opinions into a form of words, and gives authority for the

enforcement of the decisions expressed by those words.

This is also partly true even under governments more or less despotic,

where the will of the ruler, not of the ruled, is made the basis of law.

Few despots are so utterly tyrannical as deliberately to arouse opposition

on the part of their subjects. Even a Nero, who would refuse a petition if

it happened to run counter to his whim or caprice of the day, would grant

that same petition if it happened to coincide with his own whim of another

day. Even he thought it desirable to pander to the public taste for the

butcheries of the amphitheatre, not simply because he himself enjoyed

them. Though he could initiate no measure for the real good of Rome, he

recognized the necessity of responding to the cry, "panem et circenses."

In all governments fear is recognized as one of the grounds for the

enforcement of law. In even the freest nations and under the highest form

of civilization the public opinion that administers law makes its demand

partly in the interest of essential right, partly with the instinct of

self-preservation against the forces of evil, and partly for the

punishment of wrong. Punishment in itself is not reformatory; it is

retributive; it is deterrent; it plays upon fear.

In the native African tribal forms of government, while it would not be

true to say that there is no justice in the customs they recognize, it is

true that the only sentiment appealed to, in the enforcement and even in

the enactment of supposed needed measures, is that of fear. Their religion

being one of fear, it is therefore appealed to to lend its sanction and

aid.

"Fetiches are set up to punish offenders in certain cases where there is

an intention to make a law specially binding; this refers more

particularly to crimes which cannot always be detected. A fetich is

inaugurated, for example, to detect and punish certain kinds of theft;

persons who are cognizant to such crimes, and who do not give information,

are also liable to be punished by the fetich. The fetich is supposed to be

able not only to detect all such transgressions, but has power, likewise,

to punish the transgressor. How it exercises this knowledge, or by what

means it brings sickness and death upon the offender, cannot, of course,

be explained; but, as it is believed in, it is the most effectual

restraint that can possibly be imposed upon evil-disposed persons."[58]

Among the Negro tribes of the Bight of Benin and the Bantu of the region

of Corisco Island and of the Ogowe River, in what is now the

Kongo-Français, there was a power known variously as Egbo, Ukuku, and

Yasi, which tribes, native chiefs, and headmen of villages invoked as a

court of last appeal, for the passage of needed laws, or the adjudication

of some quarrel which an ordinary family or village council was unable to

settle.

In those councils an offender could be proved guilty of a debt or theft,

or other trespass, and when it was no longer possible for him by audacity

or mendacity to persist in his assertion of innocence, he would yield to

the decision of the great majority against him. But there was no central

government to enforce that decision or exact from him restitution. The

only authority the native chiefs possessed was based on respect due to

age, parental position, or strength of personal character. If an offender

chose to disregard all these considerations, an appeal was then made to

his superstitious fear.

Egbo, Ukuku, Yasi, was a secret society composed only of men, boys being

initiated into it about the age of puberty. Members were bound by a

terrible oath and under pain of death to obey any law or command issued by

the spirit under which the society professed to be organized. The actual,

audible utterance of the command was by the voice of one of the members of

the society chosen as priest for that purpose. This man, secreted in the

forest, in a clump of bushes on the outskirts of the village, or in one of

the rooms of the Council House, disguised his voice, speaking only

gutturally. The whole proceeding was an immense fiction; they believed in

spirits and in the power of fetich charms, and they made such charms part

of the society's ceremonies; but, as to the decisions, all the members

knew that the decision in any case was their own, not a spirit's. They

knew that the voice speaking was that of their delegate, not of a spirit.

Yet for any one of them, or for any woman, girl, or uninitiated boy, to

assert as much would have been death. And those men who would not have

submitted to the same decision if arrived at in open council of themselves

as _men_, and known before the whole village to be speaking only as men,

would instantly submit when once the case had been taken to Ukuku's Court.

They carried out that fiction all their lives. Let a man order his wives

and other slaves to clear the overgrown village paths, they might hesitate

to obey by inventing some excuse that they were too much occupied with

other work, or that they would do it only when other people who also used

the same path should assist; or if under the sting of a kasa-nguvu (lash

of hippopotamus hide or manatus skin) they started to do the work, they

might do it only partly or very unsatisfactorily. But let the man call in

the other men of the village and summon a meeting of the society, the

recalcitrants would submit instantly, and in terror of Ukuku's voice; much

as they might possibly have suspected it was a human voice, they would not

dare whisper the suspicion. They helped to carry on a gigantic lie. They

taught their little children, both girls and boys, that the voice belonged

to a spirit which ate people who disobeyed him. When the society walked in

procession to or from their appointed rendezvous, they were preceded by

runners who, with a well-recognized cry and with kasa-nguvu in hand,

warned all on the path of the coming of the spirit. Women and children

hastened to get out of the way; or, if unable to hide in time, they

averted their faces. The penalty when a woman even saw the procession was

a severe beating; that, however, might be commuted to a fine.

About thirty-nine years ago, on the island of Corisco, the then

headquarters of the Corisco Mission, there was a long-standing feud

between the Benga tribe, inhabiting that island, and the Kombe tribe,

dwelling at the mouth of the Eyo River, of the Benita country, fifty miles

to the north. Benita was also a part of the mission field. The quarrel

between the two tribes greatly obstructed our mission work. Missionaries

were entirely safe in travel between the two places, respect being given

them as foreigners, and their presence in a boat protected their crews;

but it was often difficult to obtain a crew willing to go on the journey

without the presence of a white man. The difficulties caused by the feud

fell heavily also on the Benga people themselves. The island itself had no

products for trade; ivory, dye-woods, and rubber came from the Benita

mainland. Many Kombe women had married Benga men, and needed frequently to

revisit their own country. Finally, to end the feud, it was agreed that

the Kombe Ukuku Society, whose power was held in even greater fear than

that of Benga, should come to Corisco and settle the affair.

It was a day of terror at the Girls' Boarding School, of which I was then

superintendent. As the long, blood-curdling yell of the forerunners on

the public path, that ran only one hundred feet from the school dwelling,

announced the approach of the procession, the girls fled, affrighted, to

the darkness of the attic of the house. After the procession had passed,

they ran away secretly in byways to their own villages, feeling safer in

the darkness of their mother's huts than in the mission-house; for it had

been reported that Ukuku, besides settling the tribal feud, intended to

attack the mission work that had been successfully making converts among

the Kombe, because any native who became a Christian immediately withdrew

from membership in the society. It had therefore begun to feel a little

anxious about its safety. I stood at my door and saw the procession pass;

they saw me, but, because of my sex, they did not show any displeasure.

They were painted with white and other colored chalks that gave a horrible

expression to their faces; their look was defiant, and a hoarse, muttered

chant had, even on myself, a depressing effect. I could well imagine that

to a superstitious native mind the _tout ensemble_ would be terrifying.

The procession on its way chose to pass over a road that had by use become

somewhat public, but which was owned by the mission; it was only fifty

feet past the front door of the house of the senior missionary, the Rev.

James L. Mackey. Mrs. Mackey was standing at the door of the house; not

being a Benga woman, she saw no reason why she should retire before Ukuku,

and stood her ground. Ukuku went to their rendezvous in a rage, and the

Kombe portion demanded the life of the woman who not only had not hidden

her face in their presence, but had dared persistently to look upon them.

This demand was modified by the Benga portion to a fine; its alternative,

whipping, not even they daring to suggest for a white lady. This demand

for a fine was actually brought to Mr. Mackey, who gave a dignified reply,

pointing out that, as foreigners, white people were not subject to Ukuku;

that Ukuku had trespassed on mission private property, and was itself

responsible for being seen; that, as a Christian, in no case could he

recognize the authority of Ukuku to order or fine him. In reply, Ukuku

made the point that it was the government of the country, and that even

foreigners were bound to obey law. (Corisco actually belonged to Spain,

but Spain in no way exercised any visible authority over it.)

They admitted their trespass on private property, but still demanded the

fine. Mr. Mackey made no further reply; and of course, as a matter of

conscience, refused to pay the fine. But it transpired afterwards that

native friends, fearful lest matters should come to an ugly pass through

his refusal, privately paid the fine themselves. The missionary, unaware

of this, thought he had triumphed; really Ukuku had, but not

unqualifiedly, for it was a shock to its power that it should have been

disputed at all, even by a white man.

About the same time a young slave man who was beginning to attend church

with desire to become a Christian, was sitting in a village where was

being held a meeting of the local Ukuku Society. The object of the meeting

was to alarm and drive back to a more constant performance of fetich

observances some of the villages on which heathenism was beginning to lose

its hold. In the course of his oracular deliverances the Ukuku priest

mentioned by name this young man. In his fresh zeal as a convert he made a

protest; perhaps duty did not call for even that just at the time, but he

even went beyond. As he was able to recognize the voice, though disguised,

and knew who its owner was, he made a fatal mistake in saying, "You,

such-a-one, I know who you are; you are only a man; why are you troubling

me?" He was promptly dragged to the seaside and decapitated.

While converts felt the propriety of abandoning their membership in the

society and any participation in its ceremonies, the mission had not

required of them nor deemed it desirable that they should make a

revelation of its secrets. But it had occurred in the early history of the

mission that one young man, Ibia, a freeman, member of a prominent

family, had felt that in breaking away from heathenism and becoming a

Christian he should cast off the very semblance of any connection with

evil or even tacit endorsement of it. He knew the society was based on a

great falsehood. As a lad he had believed Ukuku was a spirit; on his

initiation he had found that this was not so; but loyal to his heathenism

and to his oath, he had assented to the lie and had assisted in

propagating it. He was known for the fearlessness of his convictions, and

in his conversion he to a rare degree emerged from all superstitious

beliefs. Few emerge so utterly as he. He therefore publicly began to

reveal the ceremonies practised in the Ukuku meetings. At once his life

was in danger. The two pioneer missionaries, Rev. Messrs. Mackey and

Clemens, were men of exceptional strength of character and wise judgment,

and had obtained a very strong hold on the respect and affection even of

the heathen. Their influence, united with a small party of Ibia's own

family and a few of the more civilized chiefs, was able to save his life,

he being guarded in the mission-house until the fierceness of heathen rage

should abate. But, though his enemies presently ceased from open efforts

to kill him by force, they proclaimed that they would kill him by means of

the very witchcraft power he was despising. They said they would concoct

fetich charms which would destroy the life of his child, and that they

would curse the ground on which he trod so that it should sicken his feet.

Not long afterwards his infant child did die, and one of his feet for more

than a year had a painful ulcer. The coincidence was startling, and

somewhat triumphant for the heathen; but infant mortality is large even

among natives, and phagedenic ulcers of the leg are very common. Ibia

recognized his afflictions as a trial of his faith permitted by God. He

came out of his fiery trial strong, and his life since has been that of a

reformer, uncompromising with any evil, earning from his own people their

ill-will by his scathing denunciations of anything that savored of

superstition. He became the Rev. Ibia j'Ikenge, member of Corisco

Presbytery and pastor of the Corisco church; and Ukuku has long since

ceased to exist as a power on the island.

Like all government intended for the benefit and protection of the

governed, Ukuku, when it happened to throw its power on the side of right,

was occasionally an apparent blessing. It could end tribal quarrels and

proclaim and enforce peace where no individual chief or king would have

been able to accomplish the same result. In this connection I quote from

an editorial in a Sierra Leone newspaper:

"Much of the ideas of our western civilization as to native African

institutions have been crude and uninformed, based on misconception and a

predisposition to consider such institutions as an outcome of barbarism

and savagery, to be treated with unmitigated contempt. But as the light of

modern researches is reflected on the question by sympathetic students who

have brought an unprejudiced mind to bear on the subject, if haply they

might discover the hidden truths underlying the fabric which age, custom,

and intellect have combined to construct into a national system, it is

becoming more and more apparent to those who are interested in the

material progress of Africa and the Africans and who are believers in the

fact that native races have a civilization of their own capable of

development and expansion on right lines, that the study of such questions

should be intelligently and scientifically pursued, and with a purpose to

help those concerned in their onward progress towards the attainment of

moral, social, and intellectual liberty.

"That [some] native [governmental] institutions have wielded, and are

wielding, a power for good in the several communities belonging to each

distinctive tribe, is a fact that cannot be disputed or contested, in the

past as well as in the present. The Aro of the Yorubas [in the Niger

Delta], the Porroh of the Mendis [of Sierra Leone], and the Bondo of the

mixed mass who inhabit Sherbro-land, have and exercise judicial functions

exemplary and disciplinary in their effects. By their means law and order

are observed to such an extent that many of the unrestrained and rowdy

outbursts cowardly indulged in by so-called civilized communities and

people are practically unknown.

"These institutions are connected with and govern the agencies that work

in the sociology of all communities, such as the marriage laws; the

relation of children to parents and of sex to sex; social laws; the

position of eldership and the deference to be paid to age and worth;

native herbs and medicines, and the duties of the native doctor to the

other members of the community."

On one occasion in 1861 the Rev. William Clemens took a young Benga man

from Corisco Island to locate him as evangelist in the bounds of a

mainland heathen tribe where there was some doubt as to the young man's

safety. The village chief, though a heathen and entirely uninterested in

the religious aspect of the case, was alive to the fact that the presence

among his people of this young protégé of the white man would increase his

tribal importance, and that his people themselves would derive a pecuniary

benefit from even the small amount of money that would be spent on the

evangelist's food. He therefore voluntarily offered to call an Ukuku

meeting and have a law enacted that no one should machinate against the

Benga's life by fetiches of any kind. Mr. Clemens declined the offer. If

he accepted Ukuku's authority to defend him, he might some day be called

on to submit to the same power as an authority to punish him. He wisely

avoided an entangling alliance. He told the chief that he preferred to

entrust his protégé to his care and to rely on his promise rather than on

Ukuku's. This compliment put the chief on his mettle; the evangelist's

protection became to him a case of _noblesse oblige_.

The power of this society was often used as a boycott to compel white

traders as to the prices of their goods, using intimidation and violence

after the manner of trades unions in civilized countries. This was true

all along the West Coast of Africa wherever no white government had been

established. It ceased at Libreville, in the Gabun country, after the

establishment of a French colony in 1843, with a white governor, a squad

of soldiers, police, and a gunboat. Also at other trade centres such as

Libreville, Ukuku early lost its position, for the population was too

heterogeneous and there were too many diverse interests. At the large

trading-houses were gathered native clerks and a staff of servants as

cooks, personal attendants, boatmen, etc., representing a score of tribes

from distant parts of the coast. Whatever obedience they gave to similar

societies in their tribes, they did not feel bound by the local one, to

which they were strangers; and they were disposed, under a community of

trade interests with their employers, to disregard the society of the

local tribe, to many of whom they felt themselves socially superior.

But at Batanga, in what is now the Kamerun colony of the German

Government, the Ukuku Society forty years ago carried itself with a high

hand. Batanga was not then claimed by any European nation, and the number

of white men were few. Its trade in ivory was one of the richest on the

West Coast of Africa,--so rich that the Batanga people became arrogant.

Some of them disdained to make plantations of native food supply, and

lived almost entirely on foreign imported provisions, taking in exchange

for their abundant ivory barrels of beef, bags of rice, and boxes of

ship's biscuit. It was a case of demand and supply. The native got what he

wanted in goods, and the white man obtained the precious ivory. But in the

competitions of trade, fluctuations in the market, and the growing demand

of the natives for a higher price, there came days when some white man,

seeing the margin of his per cent of gain becoming too narrow, refused the

current price. Doubtless often the white men were arbitrary, not only in

prices but also in other matters. Doubtless, also, the natives were often

exorbitant in their demands. When the differences became extreme, the

native chiefs called in the aid of Ukuku. The phrase was to "put Ukuku" on

the white man's house. The trader was boycotted. He stood as under a major

excommunication. No one should buy from, or sell to him. No one should

work for him. He was deserted by cook, steward, washerman, and all other

personal attendants. Sentinels stood on guard to prevent food being

brought to him, or even to prevent his lighting a fire in his own kitchen

if he should attempt to cook for himself.

The white trader generally succeeded in breaking down the interdict put

upon him by these means, _viz._ (1) He had in his house a supply of canned

goods and ship's biscuit, with which he would not starve. (2) His Negro

mistress almost always remained faithfully with him, secretly assisting

him, divulging to him the plans of her own people,--as in the history of

Cortes and the conquest of Mexico. She dared to do this, being tacitly

upheld by her own family. The position of "wife" to a white man was

considered by the natives an honorable one, and was sought by parents for

their daughters. It was an exceptional source of wealth for them. (3) If

other means failed, the trader could almost always break the boycott by

bribes of rum. Time was money to him; often, indeed, in a malarial country

it was life to him. Though time was worth nothing to the natives, the rum

they had learned to love became a necessity to them. In cutting the white

man from their ivory, they had cut themselves from the white man's rum. A

judicious expenditure of demijohns in proper quarters generally enabled

Ukuku to revoke his own law. Then, perhaps, the white man would make some

slight concession.

I had an experience of this kind in the Benita country in 1868. I had been

there several years. There was growth in the desire for the good things

that money can buy, but wages and prices had remained unchanged. I was

obtaining all I needed of both labor and food without difficulty. Had I

had any difficulty, I should naturally have offered more inducement. I was

not aware that there was any discontent. None of my employees had asked

for a rise, nor had people, in selling their produce, complained of the

price I gave.

[Illustration: ELEPHANTS' TUSKS AND PALM-LEAF THATCH. TWO HUNDRED MILES UP

THE OGOWE RIVER.]

Suddenly, one morning, a company of about twenty men, led by an ambitious

heathen whose manner had always been dictatorial to me and to whom I had

shown no favor, filed into the public meeting-room of our mission-house. I

knew them all; none were in my employ, nor were any of them Christians.

As if they thought it was hopeless to attempt to obtain anything from me

by petition or respectful request, they seemed to have decided to stake

all on a demand and threat. They suddenly and harshly began, "We've come

to order you to change prices." Naturally I felt nettled and replied that

I saw no reason why I should take orders from them. They rose in a rage

and said, "Then we'll put Ukuku on you--(1) no one shall work for you; (2)

no one shall sell you food or drink; (3) you shall not go yourself to your

spring;" and with a savage yell they left the house. Instantly a great

terror fell on the native members of my household. Those who were heathen

dropped work and went to their villages. Those who were Christians came to

me distressed, saying that they desired to obey me, but they feared the

interdict. I relieved the situation for them by excusing them from further

work "till I should call them," and refrained from ringing the call-bell

at the usual work hour.

With me were Mrs. Nassau, our child's nurse, my sister Miss I. A. Nassau,

and two native girls, members of another tribe. Nurse was a foreigner, a

Christian Liberian woman, who was not amenable to the interdict. Some of

my Christian employees, though not working, remained on the premises. A

few visitors came in the afternoon,--some, as sincere friends, to

sympathize; some in curiosity, to see how we were feeling; and some as

spies, to see what we were doing. The interdict, except as an expression

of ill-will and a possible check to my mission work, did not trouble me.

As to food, I had an ample supply of canned provisions, sufficient for a

long siege. In refusing to sell me their native products, the people would

miss more than I should. As to work, the cleaning of the premises was not

pressing and could safely be neglected. As to drinking-water, enough could

be caught from the roof in the almost daily rains. Food and labor were

their own, to refuse if they chose. But the spring was on my premises and

belonged to me. To refrain from going to it might be deemed cowardice; at

least it would be obeying an order of what Ukuku claimed was a spirit. An

order from men I might submit to under compulsion; to submit to this

spirit went against my conscience. After prayer and consideration

overnight, Mrs. Nassau fully agreed with me that it was right I should

make a demonstration at the spring. In parting with her next morning, as I

took up a bucket to go to the spring, she knew I might not return alive. A

sandy path led through low bushes to the spring, several hundred yards

distant. I saw no one on the way nor at the spring. I filled the bucket

and was turning homeward, when a spy, armed with a spear, jumped out of

his ambush and ordered me to leave the water. As I did not do so, but

started to walk over the path, he stabbed at my back. I thrust the spear

aside and faced him, but walking backward all the time kept my eye

steadily on his. He feared my eye (most native Africans cannot stand a

white man's fixed look) and did not attempt to stab me in front, but tried

to spill the water in the bucket and stab me from behind. But the bucket

and its contents I guarded, as he struck at it from right to left, by

rapidly changing it from left to right with one hand and warding off the

spear with the other. Still walking backward, and keeping my eye on him,

the bucket and I reached the house in safety.

He hastened to the native villages, whence soon I heard a great outcry. A

company of Christian natives came in haste, saying that Ukuku was on his

way to assault the house, and that they and other young men, even some who

were not Christians, would fight for me against their heathen parents if I

could provide them powder. I supplied them. Then they bade me hasten and

fasten all doors and windows.

The mission dwelling consisted of two houses joined by a covered

veranda,--one, a one-storied bamboo; the other framed of boards, one and a

half story. Mrs. Nassau was in the latter, closing it. Before I had

finished closing the former, the enemies came, and I was alone in the

bamboo house. Shots rattled against the walls. Through the chinks I could

see the young men were guarding all entrances and firing. I think that in

this difficult situation, defending me against their own people, they

purposely fired wide, for no one was even wounded. But their armed stand

checked the enemies, who then soon retired. In after years these were

ashamed of their assault, and tried to minimize it, when it was related to

new missionaries, by representing that they did not intend to kill me. I

accepted that as a kindly after-thought. Certainly the spy at the spring

intended, and tried hard, to kill me. Certainly, also, their gunshots left

their marks on the walls of the bamboo house, and, for aught they knew,

had penetrated the thin walls and might have struck me.

That their interdict had been successfully broken, and that, too, by the

aid of their own sons, was a great blow to the Ukuku party. It was the

beginning of the end of its power. Four years later, while I was absent on

my furlough, the number of the church-members having largely increased,

two young men, themselves of strong character and imbued with the courage

of my able successor at Benita, Rev. Samuel Howell Murphy, deliberately

determined to "reveal Ukuku." They walked through a village street openly

shouting to the women that "Ukuku is only a man." At once their lives were

demanded; but so many of their companions stood up for them, and said to

their fathers, "The day you kill those two you will have to kill all of

us, for we all say also that Ukuku is only a person," that Ukuku was

amazed. Nevertheless the society met. But when the members looked in each

other's faces, each one knew that in voting to put to death the other

men's sons, he was voting also against his own son. The society could have

dared to kill one or two, but to kill a score! They shrank from it. Every

one thought of his own son thus involved, and the great lie was exposed

and died.

In 1879, on the Ogowe River, at my interior station, Kângwe, near the town

of Lambarene, one hundred and thirty miles up the course of the river, I

had a similar experience with that same society, known there in the Galwa

tribe by the name of Yasi.

In my new work on the Ogowe, I pursued toward that society the same course

I had followed with Ukuku at Benita. I preached simply the gospel of

Christ; but it is true that the gospel touches mankind in all their human

relations. I therefore was not silent about such sins as slavery and

polygamy, any more than I would be silent about the sins of drunkenness or

theft. All these were practices the evil of which in serious moments most

natives would admit, however much they chose still to persist in them. But

witchcraft was their religion; they believed in it. To attack it openly

would only offend, and I would lose the personal influence which I was

able to exercise in quiet, private discussions. Yasi, though a falsehood,

was their government. To attack it would have simply emptied my church of

every heathen auditor, and would have debarred any women or children from

receiving further instruction. I could afford to bide my time, for the

entering wedge of Christian principles to overthrow what I could never

have removed by direct onslaught. In conversations with my heathen

friends, the native chiefs, in their own houses, when no women or children

happened to be present, I would expostulate with them against such a mode

of government. I told them I would render them respect and even obedience,

if as persons they should enact laws affecting me as a person, but that I

could give neither respect nor obedience to what they knew I knew was a

lie. They looked troubled, and replied, "Yes, that's so, but don't tell it

to the women." And I did not. Nevertheless, in my untrammelled

conversations in the mission-house with my own Christian male employees, I

was not careful to be silent if our school-boys happened to be present;

and these same employees in their own dormitories deliberately and

intentionally told the boys of the falsities of their tribal

superstitions. They were right. This was Christian principle, working as I

desired it should. Inevitably there grew up a generation of lads who began

to deride Yasi, and said that they would never join the society.

There came one day a delegation of them led by two Christian young men,

Mâmbâ and Nguva, asking my permission to play a mock Yasi meeting. I asked

them, "Will you dare to play that same play in your own villages?" "No, we

would be afraid." "Then don't do here what you are unable to carry out

elsewhere. I cannot defend you in your own villages. You are safe here;

wait until you are stronger and more numerous. Just now your play will

create confusion." Nevertheless they did play, with the result which I had

foretold. The chiefs were deeply enraged. They "put Yasi" on my house,

which meant that I was not to be visited nor sold any food. There was a

report, also, that the mission premises were to be assaulted with guns.

The loss of food supply was a serious difficulty. I did not need any for

myself and sister, nor for the two young missionaries, both of them laymen

who were visiting me from a sea-coast station, and who could not

understand the case in all its aspects, for they had never met with the

society's power; it did not exist at their station, having been broken

before they came to Africa. But how was I to feed thirty hungry

school-boys? I had to send most of them away to their distant homes down

the river; and my canoes returned with a temporary food supply that they

had been able to buy at places on the route where news of the interdict

had not as yet been officially carried.

The dozen young men who remained with me I armed with guns obtained from a

neighboring trading-house, and I posted sentinels every night to guard

against sudden assault. I went to the native villages and met a council of

several chiefs. They seemed desirous to keep on friendly terms with

myself, but they were angry at their own children. They took me to task

for my warlike preparations. These I told them were for defence, that I

would use the guns only when they compelled me to do so. Then they

complained that I had taught their children to disobey them. I denied,

stating that one of the greatest of God's commands which I had taught them

was to honor their parents. But I added that the Father in Heaven claimed

priority even to an earthly parent; and how could children really honor

parents who were persistently deceiving them about Yasi, who they knew was

only a person? They winced, and looking towards some women who were

passing by, said, "Don't speak so loud, the women will hear you." They

made another complaint, _viz._, that I was trying to change their customs;

they bade me leave them alone in their customs; I could keep my white

customs, and they would keep theirs. I frankly told them that I would be

pleased to see some of their customs which were evil changed, but that

neither I nor any other missionary could compel them to change; that,

nevertheless, these customs would be changed in their and my own lifetime.

They were terribly aroused, and swore, "Never! never! You can't change

them." "No, not I; but they will be changed." "Never! Who can or who will

do it?" "Your own sons." "Then we will kill our own sons."

They seemed to transfer their anger against me to their own children. The

interdict against my house was not formally removed, but it was not

rigidly enforced. I no longer felt it necessary to post sentinels at

night, and secretly, at night, a sister of one of these very chiefs sold

me food for my family. But the heathen rage spread down the river to the

villages of the disbanded school children and native Christians. One of

these, Nguva, was seized, chained, and offered to Yasi "to be eaten." He

was rescued by a daring expedition made by my two lay missionary visitors,

who went in my six-oared gig with my twelve enthusiastic young native

Christian workmen. They went fifteen miles down river, were secretly

directed by one of the little school-boys to the village where Nguva was

chained in stocks, assaulted the village at the mid-afternoon hour, when

almost all the men were away, cut Nguva from the stocks, and brought him

in triumph to my house. But in their retreat up the river they had for a

distance of five miles been subjected to a fusillade of native guns from

both sides of the river. The river was wide, and they kept in mid-stream,

and no one was injured. But the consequences of that resort to arms made

me much trouble after my visitors had safely returned to their seaside

station. According to native law, I, and not my guests, was held as the

responsible party, and the affair was not satisfactorily settled until

some months afterward.

My prophecy came true; less than ten years later little children were

playing Yasi as amusement in the village streets. Nguva became an elder in

the church. He is now dead. His chain is a trophy in the Foreign Board's

Museum, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Mâmbâ still lives, working faithfully as a church elder and evangelist.

CHAPTER XI

THE FETICH--ITS RELATION TO THE FAMILY

In most tribes of the Bantu the unit in the constitution of the community

is the family, not the individual. However successful a man may be in

trade, hunting, or any other means of gaining wealth, he cannot, even if

he would, keep it all to himself. He must share with the family, whose

indolent members thus are supported by the more energetic or industrious.

I often urged my civilized employees not to spend so promptly, almost on

pay-day itself, their wages in the purchase of things they really did not

need. I represented that they should lay by "for a rainy day." But they

said that if it was known that they had money laid up, their relatives

would give them no peace until they had compelled them to draw it and

divide it with them. They all yielded to this,--the strong, the

intelligent, the diligent, submitting to their family, though they knew

that their hard-earned pay was going to support weakness, heathenism, and

thriftlessness.

Not only financial rights, but all other individual rights and

responsibilities, were absorbed by the superior right and duty of the

family. If an individual committed theft, murder, or any other crime, the

offended party would, if convenient, lay hold of him for punishment. But

only if it was convenient; to this plaintiff justice in the case was fully

satisfied if any member of the offender's family could be caught or

killed, or, if the offence was great, even any member of the offender's

tribe.

Families recognized this custom as proper, and submitted to it; for the

family expected to stand by and assist and defend all its members,

whether right or wrong. Each member relied upon the family for escape from

personal punishment, or for help in their individual weakness or

inability.

In getting a wife, for instance, no young man had saved up enough to buy

one. His wages or other gains, year after year, beyond what he had

squandered on himself, had been squandered on members of his family. The

family therefore all contributed to the purchase of the wife. Though he

thenceforth owned her as his wife, the family had claims on her for

various services and work which neither he nor she could refuse.

If in the course of time he had accumulated other women as a polygamist,

and, subsequently becoming a Christian, was required to put away all but

one (according to missionary rule), it was difficult for him to do so, not

because of any special affection for the women involved in the dismissal,

nor for pity of any hardship that might come to the women themselves.

True, they would be a pecuniary loss to him; but his Christianity, if

sincere, could accept that. And the dismissal of the extra women does not,

in Africa, impose on them special shame, nor any hardship for

self-support, as in some other countries. The real trouble is that they

are not his to dismiss without family consent. The family had a pecuniary

claim on them, and the heathen members thereof are not willing to let them

go free back to their people. If this man puts them away, he must give

them to some man or men in the family pale who probably already are

polygamists. The property must be kept in the family inheritance. Thus,

though attempting to escape from polygamy himself, this man would be a

consenting party in fastening it on others. His offence before the church

therefore would still be much the same.

For such concentrated interests as are represented in the family, there

naturally would be fetiches to guard those interests separate from the

individual fetich with its purely personal interests.

Respect for the family fetich is cognate to the worship of the spirits of

ancestors. Among the Barotse of South Africa, for this worship, "they have

altars in their huts made of branches, on which they place human bones,

but they have no images, pictures, or idols."

Among the Mpongwe tribes of Western Equatorial Africa, "the profound

respect for aged persons, by a very natural operation of the mind, is

turned into idolatrous regard for them when dead. It is not supposed that

they are divested of their power and influence by death, but, on the

contrary, they are raised to a higher and more powerful sphere of

influence, and hence the natural disposition of the living, and especially

those related to them in any way in this world, to look to them, and call

upon them for aid in all the emergencies and trials of life. It is no

uncommon thing to see large groups of men and women, in times of peril or

distress, assembled along the brow of some commanding eminence or along

the skirts of some dense forest, calling in the most piteous and touching

tones upon the spirits of their ancestors.

"Images are used in the worship of ancestors, but they are seldom exposed

to public view. They are kept in some secret corner, and the man who has

them in charge, especially if they are intended to represent a father or

predecessor in office, takes food and drink to them, and a very small

portion of almost anything that is gained in trade.

"But a yet more prominent feature of this ancestral worship is to be found

in the preservation and adoration of the bones of the dead, which may be

fairly regarded as a species of relic worship. The skulls of distinguished

persons are preserved with the utmost care, but always kept out of sight.

I have known the head of a distinguished man to be dissevered from the

body when it was but partly decomposed, and suspended so as to drip upon a

mass of chalk provided for the purpose. The brain is supposed to be the

seat of wisdom, and the chalk absorbs this by being placed under the head

during the process of decomposition. By applying this to the foreheads of

the living, it is supposed they will imbibe the wisdom of the person whose

brain has dripped upon the chalk."[59]

In the Benga tribe, just north of the equator, in West Africa, this family

fetich is known by the name of Yâkâ. It is a bundle of parts of the bodies

of their dead. From time to time, as their relatives die, the first joints

of their fingers and toes, especially including their nails, a small

clipping from a lobe of the ear, and perhaps snippings of hair are added

to it. But the chief constituents are the finger ends. Nothing is taken

from any internal organ of the body, as in the composition of other

fetiches. This form descends by inheritance with the family. In its honor

is sacredly kept a bundle of toes, fingers, or other bones, nail

clippings, eyes, brains, etc., accumulated from deceased members of

successive generations. This is distinctly an ancestor worship.

"The worship of ancestors is a marked and distinguishing characteristic of

the religious system of Southern Africa. This is something more definite

and intelligible than the religious ceremonies performed in connection

with the other classes of spirits."[60]

What was described by Dr. Wilson as respect for the aged among the tribes

of Southern Guinea forty years ago, is true still, in a large measure,

even where foreign customs and examples of foreign traders and the

practices of foreign governments have broken down native etiquette and

native patriarchal government. "Perhaps there is no part of the world

where respect and veneration for age are carried to a greater length than

among this people. For those who are in office, and who have been

successful in trade or in war, or in any other way have rendered

themselves distinguished among their fellow-men, this respect, in some

outward forms at least, amounts almost to adoration, and proportionately

so when the person has attained advanced age. All the younger members of

society are early trained to show the utmost deference to age. They must

never come into the presence of aged persons or pass by their dwellings

without taking off their hats and assuming a crouching gait. When seated

in their presence, it must always be at a 'respectful distance,'--a

distance proportioned to the difference in their ages and position in

society. If they come near enough to hand an aged man a lighted pipe or a

glass of water, the bearer must always fall upon one knee. Aged persons

must always be addressed as 'father' (rera, lale, paia) or 'mother' (ngwe,

ina). Any disrespectful deportment or reproachful language toward such

persons is regarded as a misdemeanor of no ordinary aggravation. A

youthful person carefully avoids communicating any disagreeable

intelligence to such persons, and almost always addresses them in terms of

flattery and adulation. And there is nothing which a young person so much

deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and especially that of a

revered father."

The value of the Yâkâ seems to lie in a combination of whatever powers

were possessed during their life by the dead, portions of whose bodies are

contained in it. But even these are of use apparently only as an actual

"medicine," the efficiency of the medicine depending on the spirits of the

family dead being associated with those portions of their bodies. This

efficiency is called into action by prayer, and by the incantations of the

doctor.

"In some cases all the bones of a beloved father or mother, having been

dried, are kept in a wooden chest, for which a small house is provided,

where the son or daughter goes statedly to hold communication with their

spirits. They do not pretend to have any audible responses from them, but

it is a relief to their minds in their more serious moods to go and pour

out all the sorrows of their hearts in the ear of a revered parent.

"This belief, however much of superstition it involves, exerts a very

powerful influence upon the social character of the people. It establishes

a bond of affection between the parent and child much stronger than could

be expected among a people wholly given up to heathenism. It teaches the

child to look up to the parent, not only as its earthly protector, but as

a friend in the spirit land. It strengthens the bonds of filial affection,

and keeps up a lively impression of a future state of being. The living

prize the aid of the dead, and it is not uncommon to send messages to them

by some one who is on the point of dying; and so greatly is this aid

prized by the living that I have known an aged mother to avoid the

presence of her sons, lest she should by some secret means be despatched

prematurely to the spirit world, for the double purpose of easing them of

the burden of taking care of her, and securing for themselves more

effective aid than she could render them in this world.

"All their dreams are construed into visits from the spirits of their

deceased friends. The cautions, hints, and warnings which come to them

through this source are received with the most serious and deferential

attention, and are always acted upon in their waking hours. The habit of

relating their dreams, which is universal, greatly promotes the habit of

dreaming itself, and hence their sleeping hours are characterized by

almost as much intercourse with the dead as their waking hours are with

the living. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons of their excessive

superstitiousness. Their imaginations become so lively that they can

scarcely distinguish between their dreams and their waking thoughts,

between the real and the ideal, and they consequently utter falsehood

without intending, and profess to see things which never existed."[61]

All that is quoted above from Dr. Wilson is still true among tribes not

touched by civilization. What he relates of the love of children for

parents and the desire to communicate with their departed spirits is

particularly true of the children of men and women who have held honorable

position in the community while they were living. And it is also all

consistent with what I have described of the fear with which the dead are

regarded, and the dread lest they should revenge some injury done them in

life. The common people, and those who have neglected their friends in

any way, are the ones who dread this. The better classes, especially of

the superior tribes, hold their dead in affectionate remembrance.

I have met with instances of the preservation of a parent's brains for

fetich purposes, as mentioned above by Dr. Wilson. As honored guest, I

have been given the best room in which to sleep overnight. On a flat

stone, in a corner of the room, was a pile of grayish substance; it was

chalk mixed with the decomposed brain-matter that had dripped on it from

the skull that formerly had been suspended above. I then remembered how,

on visiting chiefs in their villages, they frequently were not in the

public reception-room on my arrival, but I was kept awaiting them. They

had been apprised of the white man's approach, had retired to their

bedrooms, and when they reappeared, it was with their foreheads, and

sometimes other parts of their bodies, marked with that grayish mixture.

The objects to be attained were wisdom and success in any question of

diplomacy or in a favor they might be asking of the white man.

Around the doctor and his power is always a cloak of mystery which I have

not been able to solve entirely, and of which the natives themselves do

not seem to have a clear understanding. The other factors in their fetich

worship have to them a degree of clearness sufficient to make them able to

give an intelligible explanation. It is plain, for instance, that the

component parts of any fetich are looked upon by them as we look upon the

drugs of our _materia medica_. It is plain, also, that these "drugs" are

operative, not as ours, by certain inherent chemical qualities, but by the

presence of a spirit to whom they are favorite media. And it is also clear

that this spirit is induced to act by the pleasing enchantments of the

magic doctor. But beyond this, what? Whence does the doctor get his

influence? What is there in his prayer or incantation greater than the

prayer or drum or song or magic mirror of any other person? For,

admittedly, he himself is subject to the spirits, and may be thwarted by

some other more powerful spirit which for the time being is operated by

some other doctor; or he may be killed by the very spirit he is

manipulating, if he should incur its displeasure.

Belief in the necessity of having the doctor is implicit, while the

explanation of his _modus operandi_ is vague, and he is feared lest he

employ his utilized spirit for revenge or other harmful purpose. A patient

and his relatives who call in the services of a doctor are therefore

careful to obey him, and avoid offending him in any way.

The Yâkâ is appealed to in family emergencies. Suppose, for instance, that

one member has secretly done something wrong, _e. g._, alone in the

forest, he has met and killed a member of another family, devastated a

neighbor's plantation, or committed any other crime, and is unknown to the

community as the offender. But the powerful Yâkâ of the injured family has

brought disease or death, or some other affliction, on the offender's

family. They are dying or otherwise suffering, and they do not know the

reason why. After the failure of ordinary medicines or personal fetiches

to relieve or heal or prevent the continuance of the evil, the hidden Yâkâ

is brought out by the chiefs of the offender's family. A doctor is called

in consultation; the Yâkâ, is to be opened, and its ancestral relic

contents appealed to. At this point the fears of the offender overcome

him, and he privately calls aside the doctor and the older members of the

clan. He takes them to a quiet spot in the forest and confesses what he

has done, taking them to the garden he had devastated, or to the spot

where he had hidden the remains of the person he had killed. If this

confession were made to the public, so that the injured family became

aware of it, his own life would be at stake. But making it to his Yâkâ,

and to only the doctor and chosen representatives of his family, they are

bound to keep his secret; the doctor on professional grounds, and his

relatives on the grounds of family solidarity. The problem, then, is for

the doctor to make what seems like an expiation. The explanation of this,

as made to me, is vague. I am uncertain whether the Yâkâ of the injured

family is to be appeased or the offender's own Yâkâ aroused from dormant

inaction to efficient protection, or both. The Yâkâ bundle is solemnly

opened by the doctor in the presence of the family; a little of the dust

of its foul contents is rubbed on the foreheads of the members present; a

goat or sheep is killed, and its blood sprinkled on them, the while they

are praying audibly to the combined ancestor-power in the Yâkâ. These

prayers are continued all the while the doctor, who makes his incantations

long and varied, is acting. The sanctifying red-wood powder ointment is

rubbed over their bodies, and the Yâkâ spirit having eaten the life

essence of the sacrificed animal, its flesh is eaten by the doctor and the

family. The Yâkâ bundle is tied up again, and again is hidden away in one

of their huts, care being taken to add to it from the body of the member

who next dies. The curse that had fallen on them is supposed to be wiped

out, and the affliction under which they were lying is believed to be

removed.

Recently (1901) a Mpongwe man had gone as a trader into the Batanga

interior. He was sick at the time of his going, one of his legs being

swollen with an edematous affection, so much so that people in the

interior, natives of that part of the country, and fellow-traders,

wondered that he should travel so far from his home in that condition. He

said he was seeking among different tribes for the cure he had failed to

obtain in his own tribe. Later on, he died. He happened to die alone,

while others who lived with him, one of them a relative, were temporarily

out of the house. The suddenness of the death aroused the superstitious

beliefs of the relative, and he rushed to the conclusion that it had been

caused by black art machinations of some enemy. But of the whereabouts or

the personality of that enemy he had not even a suspicion. He cut from the

dead man's body the first joints of his fingers and all the toe-nails, put

them in the hollow of a horn, and closed its opening, intending to add its

contents to his family Yâkâ when he should return to Gabun. Then he waved

the horn to and fro toward the spirits of the air, held it above his head,

and struck it on the back of his own neck, uttering at the same time an

imprecation that as his relative had died, so might die that very day,

even as he had died, the unknown enemy who had caused his death.

There is another family "medicine," still used in some tribes, that was

formerly held in reverence by the Banâkâ and Bapuku tribes of the Batanga

country of the German Kamerun colony. It was called "Malanda." For

description of it see Chapter XVI.

Another medicine similar to the Yâkâ in its family interest is called by

the Balimba people living north of Batanga, "Ekongi." The following

statement is made to me by intelligent Batanga people who know the

parties, and who believe that what they report actually occurred.

At Balimba, in the German Kamerun territory, lived a man, by name Elesa.

He possessed a little bundle containing powerful fetich medicines, so

compounded that they constituted the kind of charm known as Ekongi. Like

Aladdin's lamp, and almost as powerful, it warned him of danger, helped

him in all his wishes, assisted him in his emergencies, and when he was

away from it, as it was hidden in one of his chests in his house, caused

him to be able to see and hear anything that was plotted against him. Only

he could handle it aright; no one else would be able to manage it.

A brother-in-law of Elesa, husband of his sister, knew of this Ekongi, and

asked Elesa to loan it to him in order that he also might be successful in

some of his projects.

Now, the peculiarity of the Ekongi medicine is that it acts for and

assists only the family of the person who owns it. Elesa refused his

brother-in-law, telling him that as they did not belong to the same

family, he would not know what to do with a strange Ekongi, nor would

Ekongi be willing to answer a stranger.

The brother-in-law knew perfectly well that this was the manner of all

Ekongi medicine; but he was so covetous and so foolishly determined that

he hoped that in some way this Ekongi might be of use to him if only he

could possess himself of it.

One day Elesa went off into the forest on a hunting trip, leaving his

Ekongi safely locked in a chest in his house. The brother-in-law obtained

a number of keys, and going secretly to Elesa's house, tried them on the

various chests stored in the back room. Finally a key fitted, and a lock

turned. Suddenly the lid flew up, and out of the now opened chest jumped

the little Ekongi bundle, followed by all the goods that had been packed

in the chest; and these spread themselves at his feet,--yards of cloth,

and hats, and shirts, and coats, and a multitude of smaller articles. He

rejoiced at the success of his effort. His covetousness overcame him. He

said to himself that he would put back Ekongi into the chest, would lock

it, gather up all this wealth and carry it away; and no one would see

them, or know that the chest had been opened by him.

He started to step forward, but his feet were held fast by some invisible

power. He tried to stoop down to lay hold of some of the goods within

reach, but his arms and back were held fast and stiff by the same

invisible power. And he realized that he was a prisoner in Ekongi's hands.

Off in the forest Elesa, in his chase, was enabled by his Ekongi to see

and know what was going on in his house. He saw his brother-in-law's

attempt at theft, and that his unlawful eyes had looked on the sacred

Ekongi. He abandoned the chase that day, and came back in great anger to

his house. There was his brother-in-law rooted to the spot on which he

stood, the chest open and empty, and the goods scattered on the floor.

Elesa controlled his anger, and at first said nothing. He quietly took a

chair from the room out into the street and sat down on it, opposite to

the doorway, as if on guard. Then he spoke: "So! now! You have looked on

my Ekongi! And you have tried to steal! I will not speak of the shameful

thing of stealing from a relative.[62] That is a little thing compared

with the sin you have done of looking on what was not lawful for your

eyes. We are of different families. I will punish you by taking away my

sister, your wife. You shall stand there until you agree to deliver up

your wife, and also an amount of goods equal to what you paid for her."

The brother-in-law began to plead against the hard terms, and offered to

put his father into Elesa's hand instead of the wife. But Elesa insisted.

The brother-in-law's father, at a distant village, possessed also his own

family Ekongi, which enabled him to see and know what was being said and

done at Elesa's house. He was angry at the hard terms demanded; according

to native view, he would defend any one of his family, even if he were in

the wrong. A native eye does not look at essential wrong or right; it

looks at family interest. His son's attempt at theft did not disturb him.

It was enough that Elesa had seized his son as prisoner. He snatched up

his spear, and hasted away to quarrel with his marriage relative Elesa.

On reaching the house, he saw his son still standing helpless, and Elesa

seated, still pressing his hard terms on him. The father said to Elesa,

"You are not doing well in this matter. Let my son go at once!"

Elesa refused, saying, "He wanted that which was sacred to me. He has

looked upon it and has desecrated it. I will not agree that the angry

Ekongi shall let him go free. He shall pay his ransom." After a long

discussion Elesa changed his terms, and demanded a money substitute of one

thousand German marks in silver ($250). The father also receded from his

demand that the son should be released unconditionally. And after further

discussion the father, having saved both his son and himself from the

first terms of the ransom, returned again to the question of a person

instead of money, and offered his daughter in marriage instead of the

$250. Elesa accepted. He picked up the now satisfied Ekongi, and put it

back into the chest; and all the scattered goods followed it, drawn by its

power. And when the lid was again closed down and locked, the

brother-in-law felt his limbs suddenly released from constriction, and was

able to walk away.

This was gravely told me by my cook, a member of the Roman Catholic

church, and was endorsed by a woman of my own church, who was present

during the recital.

My friend the late Miss Mary H. Kingsley, on page 273 of her "Travels in

West Africa," mentions an incident which shows that she had discovered one

of these Yâkâ bundles, though apparently she slid not know it as such and

suspected it to be a relic of cannibalism. It is true, however, that she

did come in contact with cannibalism. She had been given lodging in a room

of a house in a Fang village in the country lying between the Azyingo

branch of the Ogowe River and the Rembwe branch of the Gabun River. On

retiring at night, she had observed some small bags suspended from the

wall. "Waking up again, I noticed the smell in the hut was violent, from

being shut up, I suppose, and it had an unmistakably organic origin.

Knocking the end off the smouldering bush-light that lay burning on the

floor, I investigated, and tracked it to those bags; so I took down the

biggest one, and carefully noted exactly how the tie-tie (rattan rope) had

been put around its mouth; for these things are important, and often mean

a lot. I then shook its contents out in my hat for fear of losing anything

of value. They were a human hand, three big toes, four eyes, two ears, and

other portions of the human frame. The hand was fresh, the others only

so-so and shrivelled. Replacing them, I tied the bag up, and hung it up

again." It was well she noticed a peculiarity in the tying of the

calamus-palm string or "tie-tie." A stranger would not have been put in

that room of whose honesty or honor there was doubt. White visitors are

implicitly trusted that they will neither steal nor desecrate.

Another family medicine in the Batanga region is known by the name of

Mbati. An account of the mode of its use was given me in 1902 by a Batanga

man, as occurring in his own lifetime with his own father. The father was

a heathen and a polygamist, having several wives, by each of whom he had

children. One day he went hunting in the forest. He observed a dark object

crouching among the cassava bushes on the edge of a plantation. Assuming

that it was a wild beast wasting the cassava plants, he fired, and was

frightened by a woman's outcry, "Oh! I am killed!" She was his own niece,

who had been stooping down, hidden among the bushes as she was weeding the

garden. He helped her to their village, where she died. She made no

accusation. The bloodshed being in their own family, no restitution was

required, nor any investigation made. The matter would have passed without

further comment had not, within a year, a number of his young children

died in succession; and it began to be whispered that perhaps the murdered

woman's spirit was avenging itself, or perhaps some other family was using

witchcraft against them. A general council of adjacent families was

called. After discussion, it was agreed that the other families were

without blame; that the trouble rested with my informant's father's

family, which should settle the difficulty as they saw best, by inflicting

on the father some punishment, or by propitiation being made by the entire

family. The latter was decided on by the doctors. They gathered from the

forest a quantity of barks of trees, leaves of parasitic ferns, which were

boiled in a very large kettle along with human excrement, and a certain

rare variety of plantain, as small as the smallest variety of banana. To

each member of the family present, old and young, male and female, were

given two of these unripe plantains. The rind does not readily peel off

from unripe plantains and bananas; a knife is generally used. But for this

medicine the rinds were to be picked off only by the finger-nails of those

handling them, and then were to be shredded into the kettle in small

pieces, also only by their finger-nails. A goat or sheep was killed, and

its blood also mixed in. This mess was thoroughly boiled. Then the doctor

took a short bush having many small branches (a tradition of hyssop?), and

dipping it into the decoction, frequently and thoroughly sprinkled all the

members of the family, saying, "Let the displeasure of the spirit for the

death of that woman, or any other guilt of any hidden or unknown crime, be

removed!" The liquid portion of the contents of the kettle having been

used in the propitiatory sprinkling, the more solid pottage-like debris

was then eaten by all members of the family, as a preventive of possible

danger. And the rite was closed with the usual drum, dance, and song. My

informant told me that at that time, and taking part in the ceremonies,

was his mother, who was then pregnant with him. The Mbati medicine seems

to have been considered efficient, for he, the seventh child, survived;

and subsequently three others were born. The previous six had died. Though

two of those three have since died, in some way they were considered to

have died by Njambi (Providence), _i. e._, a natural death; for it is not

unqualifiedly true that all tribes of Africa regard all deaths as caused

by black art. There are some deaths that are admitted to be by the call of

God, and for these there is no witchcraft investigation.

The father also is dead. My informant and one sister survive. They think

the Mbati "medicine" was satisfactory, notwithstanding that the sister

believes that their father was secretly poisoned by his cousins, they

being jealous of his affluence in wives and children.

The last step in the Mbati rite is the transplanting of some plant. A

suitable hole having been dug at one end, or even in the middle of the

village street, each person takes a bulb of lily kind, probably a crinum

or an amaryllis, such as are common on the rocky edges of streams, and

pressing it against their backs and other parts of their body, and with a

rhythmic swaying of their bodies plant it in the hole. Thereafter these

plants are not destroyed. They are guarded from the village goats by a

small enclosure, and should at any time the village remove, the plants are

also removed and replanted on the new site. Such plants are seen in almost

every village.

CHAPTER XII

THE FETICH--ITS RELATIONS TO DAILY WORK AND OCCUPATIONS AND TO THE NEEDS

OF LIFE

In the great emergencies of life, such as plagues, famines, deaths,

funerals, and where witchcraft and black art are suspected, the aid or

intervention of special fetiches is invoked, as has been described in the

Yâkâ and other public ceremonies. The ritual required in such cases is

often expensive, as money is needed for the doctor's fee, for purchase of

ingredients and other materials for the "medicine," and in the

entertainment of the assemblage that always gather as participants or

spectators.

There is also loss in time, little as the native African values time, and

slow as he is in the expedition of any matter. Houses that should be

erected and gardens that should be planted are neglected while the rite to

be performed is in hand. It may require even a month. During that time

either the favorable season for building or planting may have passed, or

the work has only partly been completed. The division of the seasons into

two rainy (of three months each) and two dry (a short hot and a long cool)

make it desirable, as in the temperate zones, for certain work to be done

in certain seasons.

But for the needs of life, day by day, with its routine of occupations,

whose outgoings and incomings are known and expected, the Bantu fetich

worshipper depends on himself and his regular fetich charms, which,

indeed, were made either at his request by a doctor (as we would order a

suit of clothes from a tailor), or by himself on fetich rule obtained from

a doctor; and when paid for, the doctor is no longer needed or

considered. The worshipper keeps these amulets and mixed medicines hanging

on the wall of his room or hidden in one of his boxes. But he gives them

no regular reverence or worship, no sacrifice or prayer, until such times

as their services are needed. He knows that the utilized actual spirits

(or at least their influence), each in its specific material object, is

safely ensconced and is only waiting the needs of its owner to be called

into action.

These needs come day by day. Almost daily some one in the village is

hunting, warring, trading, love-making, fishing, planting, or journeying.

_For Hunting._ The hunter or hunters start out each with his own fetich

hanging from his belt or suspended from his shoulder; or, if there be

something unusual, even if it be not very great, in the hunt about to be

engaged in, a temporary charm may be performed by the doctor or even by

the hunters themselves. This is the more likely to be done if there is an

organized hunt including several persons. Such ceremonies preliminary to

the chase are described by W. H. Brown[63] as performed by an old

witch-doctor among the Mashona tribe: "Fat of the zebra, eland, and other

game was mixed with dirt and put into a small pot. Then some live coals

were placed on the grease, which caused it to burn, so that clouds of

thick smoke arose. The huntsmen sat in a circle around the pot, with the

muzzles of their old flint-locks and cap-guns sticking into the smoke. In

unison they bent over and took a smell of the fumes, and at the same time

called out the name of the 'medicine' or spirit they were invoking, which

was Saru, saying thus, 'Saru, I must kill game; I must kill game, Saru!

Now, Saru, I must kill game!'

"After this performance was finished, each of the candidates in turn sat

down near the doctor, to be personally operated upon by him. He placed a

bowl of medicated water upon the huntsman's head, and stirred it with a

stick while the latter repeated the names of all the kinds of game he

wished to kill. This was to ascertain whether or not the hunt was to be

successful. If any of the water splashed out and ran down over the

patient's head and face, success was assured. If not a drop had left the

bowl, then the huntsman might as well have laid aside his gun and assegai,

for his efforts would have been doomed to failure."

Among the Matabele of Southeast Africa, "when they are about to start for

the chase, they arrange themselves in a circle at sunset, and the doctor

comes with the bark of a tree filled with medicine, and with his finger

marks the chiefs on the forehead, in order to give them authority over the

animals."

_For Journeying._ No journey of importance is made without preparation of

a fetich, to which more forethought and time and care are given than to

the preparation of food, clothing, etc., for the way. Arnot[64] describes

the process: "On behalf of a caravan to start for Bihe, Msidi and his

fetich priests have been at work a whole month, preparing charms and so

forth. The process in such a case is first to divine as to the dangers

that await them; then to propitiate with the appointed sacrifices to

forefathers (in this case two goats were killed); afterwards to prepare

the charms necessary either as antidotes against evil or to secure good.

The noma or fetich spear to be carried in front of the caravan, with

charms secured to it, was thus prepared. The roots of a sweet herb were

tied around the blade; then a few bent splinters of wood were tied on,

like the feathers of a shuttle-cock. In the cage thus formed, there were

placed a piece of human skin, little bits of the claws of a lion, leopard,

and so forth, with food, beer, and medical roots; thus securing,

respectively, power over their enemies, safety from the paws of fierce

animals, food and drink, and finally health. A cloth was sewn over all,

and finally the king spat on it and blessed it. After all these

performances they set out with light hearts, each man marked with sacred

chalk."

"Before starting on a journey a man will spend perhaps a fortnight in

preparing charms to overcome evils by the way and to enable him to destroy

his enemies. If he is a trader, he desires to find favor in the eyes of

chiefs and a liberal price for his goods."

[Illustration: WAR CANOE.--CALABAR, WEST AFRICA.]

_For Warring._ So implicit is African faith in signs, charms, and

auspices, that when the sign before going into war is inauspicious, the

natives' hopelessness of success sometimes makes them seem almost

cowardly. Among the people of Garenganze in Southeast Africa, "when the

chiefs meet in war, victory does not depend on merely strength and

courage, as we should suppose, but on fetich 'medicines.' If some men on

the side of the more powerful chief fall, they at once retire and

acknowledge that their medicines have failed, and they cannot be induced

to renew the conflict on any consideration."[65]

Among the Matabele, "before a war the doctors concoct a special medicine,

and taking some of the froth from it, mark with it the forehead of those

who have already killed a man."