1. Sleep-sickness is sadly only too well known at Lukolela. It is
prevalent in the whole of the riverine and inland districts. In the
inland districts I am not yet able to say whether it is more prevalent
than in the riverine one; that can only be ascertained by a more
prolonged residence there than as yet I have had opportunity to make. In
the riverine district I estimate that quite half of the deaths are from
sleep-sickness. The cases do not occur in batches like cases of
small-pox and measles do; there are too many in a given place unaffected
at one time. It will, however, gradually sweep away whole families. The
common notion among the natives is that the sickness came from
down-river; and it was prevalent, though not to such an extent as now,
as far back as the oldest people I have met can remember. Before our
Mission was founded here a suspected case would be thrown into the
river; but inland I do not think there is any evidence to show that they
did otherwise than to-day--nurse their sick perfectly, heedless of the
contagion in respect of them (the nurses) or their friends, and, as they
do on the beach, bury their dead close to their houses, and in some
cases live on the top of the graves.
2. From my own observation (since January 1891) the sickness is endemic;
in the riverine villages the death-rate slowly increased until 1894,
when the people quite lost heart and felt their homes were no longer
secure to them, and then hunger, improper food, fear, and homelessness
appeared to increase the death-rate from sleep-sickness and other causes
most appallingly, and the rate has still further increased, especially
during the last two years. The fewer the population becomes the
proportionate rate of death increases most fearfully.
3. The district of Lukolela may be described as follows: The beach line
is wooded, broken by one or two creeks, one of which winds for a
considerable distance inland to a district which can be reached overland
by a journey of at least three days at the shortest. There is more or
less of low-lying land connected with the creeks. The 6 miles below the
Mission station is lower than the 8 miles above. The highest point of
our land is about 19 metres above high-water level, and possibly there
is a further rise of 3 metres or so further up stream. The ground which
I suggest the people be removed to may be on an average about 12 to 15
metres above high-water level. This ridge of river bank shelves down
into low-wooded land and grass plains which are flooded at high water,
though for the most part dry at the lowest ebb; then behind these rise
small plateaus separated by low valleys of wooded and grassy land. From
the pools and streams of this low ground the people get most of their
fish; even when the river is at medium height a journey between the
various plateaus where the villages and farms are found requires about
half the time to be spent in wading, sometimes breast deep.
4. A large proportion of the population is comprised of slaves, mostly
from the tributaries of the Equator district, some from the Mobsi,
Likuba, and Likwala peoples on the north bank, some from Ngombe below
Irebu, some from as far as the district of Lake Léopold II and other
places. All the tribes represented seem equally affected, and neither
slave nor freeman seems to have preferential treatment.
5. To an ordinary observer the men, women, and children appear to be
affected alike. It is not easy to always differentiate the sickness from
other maladies, for often it may be that the malady gives rise to
various complications; these complications are extremely intractable if
sleep-sickness be present. When a man in the prime of life has his
prestige and spirit broken through fear and punishment he loses interest
in his home, refuses to take food and drink; a sleep-sickness patient
will do the same. With the women in all cases we have known there is
also present amenorrhœa; sometimes treatment for this has restored
the patient in this respect for a time, but there has in all cases we
have known of this sort been a relapse; so whether the patient died of
one or the other would be difficult to say.
6. The well-fed do not seem to fall before the scourge so rapidly as the
ill-fed. The progress of the disease seems to us considerably slower as
a rule with those who take care of their food and habits, but it attacks
even the most scrupulously attentive to these matters.
There is a very bad practice amongst them: they will go sometimes days
without eating, although they may have manioc and plantain, and other
foods from the soil at hand, simply because they have no fish or flesh
to eat with them; sometimes they pinch themselves in food to retain
their brass rods for the purchase of some coveted article. The natives
to-day are not so careful in the preparation of food, and it is more
hastily performed; the manioc is eaten as nearly the raw state as they
dare use it. The bitter manioc is mostly grown, as the yield from it is
greater than from any other kind. Plantains are largely eaten roasted,
and boiled, and beaten into a pudding. Palm-nuts, too, they are very
fond of, and the oil forms a good part of the cooked foods. They use,
especially in the absence of fish or flesh, the leaves of the manioc,
which are bruised and boiled; in nearly every case, however, head-and
stomach-ache follow, which pass off in a few days if bowels be active.
Well-peppered food they enjoy, and rotten fish and flesh they do not, as
a rule, despise. Their dried fish, of which a large quantity is eaten,
is not by any means always free from maggots. Elephant meat seems to
give them diarrhœa; dog-headed bats similarly; hippo meat generally
produces slight constipation. I am afraid a good deal of disease is
passed from person to person in the preparation of food. There is a
great deal of eating together and drinking together from one and the
same vessel; they dip their hands in the mess prepared as they sit round
the pot, and I cannot say that they are too careful of the condition of
their hands at the time. Clothing is usually scant except for
decoration; hence the colder the weather the less the clothing, the
brighter and warmer the more they carry. Washing is not a very frequent
exercise among the natives. They like, as a rule, teeth kept clean,
washing them every day and after every meal. They like to smear their
bodies with oil and camwood. The hair is left undressed or dressed as
the case may be for weeks at a time without further cleansing. Sleeping
is mostly done on raised constructions of sticks, varying from half
a-foot from the ground to about 3 feet or so. I am afraid that not much
in the way of covering is used while sleeping, a blanket being mostly
worn during the day as an article of fine clothing. Many, especially
those in temporary residence, sleep on the ground floor with only a mat
intervening. Jiggers, bugs, mosquitos, and vermin abound in their houses
on the beach, but jiggers are not so plentiful, and mosquitos very rare
inland. The inland people take great care of their water sources, but on
the beach the river water is largely used, and this is of a dark brown
colour; some is taken from the creeks, but it is very impure, abounding
with decayed vegetation and clay, and some from springs, such as they
are, and these are only surface drainings over the clayey subsoil. The
sweepings of their huts and refuse from their food is not thrown far
away, sometimes even being quite close up against one of the walls of
the hut. In the daytime they relieve themselves in the nearest sheltered
spot without further discrimination, and these places, in the present
uncleared character of their surroundings, are very close at hand; in
the night time they are not so particular, but will even relieve
themselves in the open, and on the paths trod by every one. The common
belief is that the disease is communicated by means of the secretions,
and yet, strange to say, the natives take scarcely any precautions.
7. All the cases we have known have been fatal. We have thought
sometimes we have done good with iodide of potassium and cod-liver oil,
but if it did any good at all it was only very temporary. We judge from
our observations that from the first symptoms which appear to be mental
ones, the best cared for cases last for from one to three years. Others
in which food is soon refused and neglect is suffered may speedily
terminate in a few months, or even weeks, from the first certain
indications. The first symptoms seem to be mental, the balance of
thought fails at intervals, then come the physical signs of pain in the
lower part of the back; often thought here to be piles, and they seek
the usual remedies for this; later the pain extends to the whole back
and then to the head, especially at the back of the neck, and drowsiness
steals over the patient at inconvenient times, often the eyes become
staring, the face assumes a haggard appearance, and anæmia casts its
pallor over the whole body; intelligence rapidly diminishes, and often
the patient dies foaming at the mouth; if burial does not take place
quickly maggots soon make their appearance in the body. When the natives
begin to stuff their remedies up their patient’s nostrils to take away
the “confusion of eyes” (a phrase which they use to describe a person
going out of his senses) the patient will very likely become violently
deranged, and then he has to be forcibly restrained in stocks or
otherwise.
Isolation is undoubtedly the first thing to do, but when to begin the
isolation is a difficulty, and when that is settled to maintain the
isolation is still a greater one. The patients could not be left to die,
they would need food, attending to (for they become so helpless
latterly) and burying, and almost all who undertook that work would be
sure eventually to succumb. To get a person here, however, to look after
somebody else’s relative is a well nigh impossibility by moral suasion.
I should have noted above that the experiment of better houses, such as
the youths and workmen have built in the little village adjoining the
Mission station (wattle and daub, with good high roofs), have given no
benefit whatever. Very few of them will be able to remain for more than
one or two years; the occupants are showing signs that are ominous; we
shall need to burn them down at the decease of the occupants.
Apologizing for trespassing on your attention at so great a length, I
beg you to accept, &c.
(Signed) JOHN WHITEHEAD
(B.)
_The Rev. J. Whitehead to Governor-General of Congo State._
_Baptist Missionary Society, Lukolela, Haut Congo,
September 7, 1903._
Dear Sir,
I have recently paid a visit, along with my wife, to the inland district
of Lukolela, and I have had related to me such accounts, and have myself
seen such evidence of what seems to me both illegal and cruel
occurrences, that my blood had been made to boil with indignation and
abhorrence. I take upon myself the humanitarian duty, which is truly the
call of God, to supplement my letter to you on the subject of
sleep-sickness and the general decline of these peoples, and confirm
some of my statements by the presentation of facts of which I have the
knowledge. It may be that in some of my statements I may be trusting to
bruised reeds, but, as far as possible, I am persuaded of the truth of
what I present to your consideration.
On the 16th August, 1902, I called the attention of the
Commissaire-Général at Léopoldville to a murder which had been committed
by a soldier by shooting two men while still in the chain. They had
been sent, in addition, to a youth who was walking unchained to draw
water from a pool some 2 kilom. distant from the lower post of Lukolela
by a telegraph clerk named M. Gadot (M. de Becker being the Chef de
Poste resident at the upper station). The unchained youth was flogged by
the soldier by a chicotte taken from a house on the way, and the youth
fled, and the soldier shot the two men left. My letter was taken down
river by a steamer which passed here in course of a week. Nothing was
done by the men in charge of the posts here until, by letter of the 15th
September, 1902, I was requested by the Chef de Poste to send up my
witnesses. Those witnesses could have been had the same day of the deed
if the officers had done their duty. I went up with such witnesses as I
was able to get together, and their evidence was taken. Nothing more was
heard of the matter until the 24th April of this year, when I received a
note from the State Agent here asking for certain people attached to our
station, whose names he gave. He did not mention the reason of their
being required at Léopoldville, but I guessed the reason. I was only
able to send one of them, one other having returned to his home, and
another being near to death. The man resident in the village, who was
one of the witnesses I took up previously, was sent for to the State
post and detained, and not allowed to return to make any provision of
his journey to the pool. My apprentice and this man went down to the
pool to bear witness concerning that murder; on the way the captain of
the steamer ordered them off to carry and cut firewood; they demurred,
naturally, but for peace sake did a little. In a storm of rain the
shelter of the large steamer was denied them, and they spent the night
sitting on the beach--the two of them beneath one frail umbrella. When
they arrived at the pool, no one seemed to know why they had come; they
were sent from pillar to post, then there seems to have been discovered
some reason or other to interrogate them. The soldier concerned was with
his fellows just the same as though there was no trial, and had, indeed,
been no wrong done. But for the friendly offices of a sister Mission
these two witnesses would have fared very badly during the six weeks
they were detained at Léopoldville; they were practically shelterless
and unfed; even as it was, they were hungry enough. At length they
returned by our Mission steamer. It seems that the only sufferers in the
matter were myself, in the loss of my apprentice for six weeks, and his
loss of six weeks’ wages, together with his considerable discomfort and
the loss of the man from the village--not much, perhaps, in the eyes of
the officials of the State, but much to them; then all their suffering
is easily traceable to myself, for if I had not drawn the Commissaire’s
attention to the murder no witnesses would have been necessary, for who
would have mentioned it? Considering the way in which this matter was
dealt with, and the witnesses I produced were treated, I hesitate to
bring other matters to light. The treatment these witnesses received
only strengthens the distrust of the State, which, in this place,
everywhere abounds. I therefore appeal for just treatment of witnesses
and those who bring wrong-doing to light.
On the 6th March, 1903, I reported to the State Agent here (M. Lecomte)
that I had seen at Mibenga a Chief, named Mopali, of Ngelo, who had been
carried from the Lukolela post, where he had been imprisoned, so as to
induce his village to bring more rubber. His head was wounded as with an
iron instrument of some kind, his lips were swollen as if from a severe
blow, and his legs were damaged as with blows from sticks. He and his
bearer asserted that these wounds were given him while he was chained
and made to carry firewood. M. Lecomte replied that the man had been
seen by him before he left, and he was then all right and asked for my
witnesses. I replied that the man himself and bearer were my informants.
He said he wished to trace the doers of the deed. Nothing more was heard
of the matter, so later I acquainted the Directeur-Général at
Léopoldville by letter, dated the 10th July, of the facts. Meanwhile, up
to the present, I have heard of nothing being done in the matter, only a
repetition of a similar case.
I was at the village of Mopali on the 18th August, and I inquired for
the poor fellow; some said he was dead, but most said that he had been
carried by his wife, at his own request, away out of the way, so that he
should not be found. He was afraid of the State chaining him again. From
them I heard he had been even worse maltreated than at first I knew;
they told me that his feet had been cut so that he despaired of walking
again, and those who had seen him last said he got along by dragging
himself along on his buttocks. I asked them pointedly whether they heard
from Mopali where he got his wounds; was it not after he left the white
man’s presence? With one voice the little crowd I asked replied, “No; he
received those wounds while in the chain.” I gathered also that at first
they were forced to take five baskets of rubber, and to make them take
ten they had chained up Mopali, and that two more baskets had been
recently added.
I learnt also that the youth who had run away from the soldier on the
occasion of the murder of the two chained prisoners was dead. I asked
how it was he was imprisoned at the post; they explained that he was
taken to free his master from the chain, which had been put round his
neck, to get more rubber from his village, and both youth and master
were since dead. They recounted these things to me, and asked me if they
were just. A case-hardened Jesuit would find it difficult to say yes. I
could only blush with shame and say they were unjust.
On the 17th August, at Mibenga, the Chief, Lisanginya, made a statement
to me in the presence of others, to the following effect: They had taken
the usual tax of eight baskets of rubber, and he was sent for (I think
it was the 8th June when he passed on his way through our station), and
the white man (M. Lecomte, M. Gadot also being present) said the baskets
were too few, and that they must bring other three; meanwhile, they put
the chain round his neck, the soldiers beat him with sticks, he had to
cut firewood, to carry heavy junks, and to haul logs in common with
others. Three mornings he was compelled to carry the receptacle from the
white man’s latrine and empty it in the river. On the third day
(sickening to relate) he was made to drink therefrom by a soldier named
Lisasi. A youth named Masuka was in the chain at the same place and
time, and saw the thing done. When the three extra baskets were produced
he was set at liberty. He was ill for several days after his return. I
referred to this in my letter of the 28th July, but it was too horrible
a thing to write the additional item until I had heard the thing from
the man’s own lips. I blush again and again as I hear the fame of the
State wherever I go, that when they chain a man now at the post they may
make the chained unfortunate drink the white man’s defecations.
In the evening of the 21st August, on returning to Mibenga, from a more
inland town Bokoko, Mrs. Whitehead and myself saw Mpombo of Bobanga,
village of Mbongi, some distance inland. He was in a horrible state. He
stated that he had taken ten baskets of rubber to the post, and they
wanted one more, so they chained him up to get it. He stated that he had
been roughly treated by Mazamba, who had charge of him. In his utter
weakness, he had stayed at Libonga (which was a village on the way), to
get stronger, for about thirteen days. What must have been his condition
when he arrived there I cannot imagine; he was so bad when I saw him at
Mibenga. His left wrist appeared to be broken (broken by a log of wood,
too heavy for him, slipping from his shoulder), one finger of the right
hand was severely bruised, and had developed a large sore (this had been
done he said with a stick with which he had been beaten), his back was
badly bruised, the left shoulder was much bruised, and had been
evidently slit with a knife, the left knee was bruised and feet swollen
from being badly beaten, and altogether he was in a very disordered
condition.
Later, I met Mabungikindo, a Chief from Bokoko, a large town inland, who
was also returning from the chain in which he had been detained to get
three more baskets of rubber. Their tax of rubber I understand had been
doubled this year, and this was to get three more on the top of that.
Poor fellow! How thin his thick-set frame had become! He was wearing his
State Chief’s medal. He took it in his hand and asked me to look at it.
I cringed with shame. He asked me if we did that sort of thing in our
country. I replied we did not. And this he said is how the State treats
us: gives us this, and chains up the wearer and beats him. Is that good?
Do you wonder, Sir, that the natives hate the State, and that its fame
is almost impossible of cleansing in this part? Again and again I had
the painful fortune to meet men coming back from imprisonment on account
of rubber. The State through its Agents at Lukolela is driving these
undisciplined people to desperation and rebellion. There is a rumour set
abroad from the State post that the soldiers are coming from Yumbi to
fight the inland people because of some words which have been brought
back from Bolebe and Bonginda. If we are going to have another war, it
will be one which has been engendered by this sort of treatment.
Allow me to trespass on your patience with another story of injustice
which can scarcely be equalled by any of these barbarians. At Mibenga
the Chiefs on the 14th August had great difficulty in getting their
young men to carry down the tax of 500 mitakos’ worth of manioc bread.
This was owing to the fact that a youth named Litambala had run away
from the post. The carriers usually returned the following day, but it
was not till the morning of Sunday, the 16th, that they arrived, and it
was found that one of them, named Mpia, had been chained up for
Litambala. To deal thus with what is called a market is in the native
eyes (and not unjustly so) pure treachery. Why had been Litambala
detained? I will explain. Sometime ago a youth named Yamboisele was
living on the river side, although a native of Mibenga; he fell ill of
small-pox, and I nursed him through it--it was very bad. And it was only
with diligent and careful nursing that he was saved from imminent death.
After his recovery he did odd jobs about the station and, unfortunately,
began to be dishonest. When he was found out he was dismissed. I
presumed he would return to his own home, but he engaged himself at the
State. After some time he ran away, and although he had engaged himself
without his people’s knowledge his Chief, Lisanginya, was sent for, and
they chained him up as a hostage for a replace for Yamboisele; after a
brief space, the same day, on a promise of sending someone, he was
released, and he sent a youth named Bondumbu. Presently Yamboisele
turned up at Mibenga, and they took him to the post and asked for the
release of Bondumbu. They refused to release Bondumbu, and retained also
Yamboisele. Presently Yamboisele (report says) was sent with 2,000
mitakos and 10 demijohns for water to the lower post, some distance down
river, and he made off with the lot to the French side. When the
carriers came down from Mibenga on the Saturday (this was the 16th May)
they chained up Moboma, and he was beaten by the soldiers; I myself saw
the weals from the strokes. The rest of the youths pleaded that he
should not be tied up, as he did not belong to the same Chief, so they
released him and chained up Manzinda. Next week they released him and
chained up Mola, who had come down also as a carrier.
After two weeks the white man (the natives say it was M. Gado) sent
Mango (a native of the village of Lukolela, not then in the employ of
the State) to tie up a man to come and work in place of Mola.
Lisanginya, the Chief, was away at time, but the man tied up Litambala
and took him to the State, and Mola was set at liberty. Litambala
continued a little time, till at length he was given some work to do,
which he thought he was not strong enough for, and so ran away. Then in
the week following the chaining of Mpia, so much trouble seemed likely
to ensue in getting carriers for the manioc bread, and much
recrimination of one another in the village, that Mombai, an able-bodied
and diligent man, went to the post and gave himself up to free Mpia. But
Yamboisele has not been heard of.
I have had several cases brought to my knowledge lately of the mode of
slavery adopted at the post. Briefly, it is as follows: a man for some
reason (sometimes his own and sometimes not) commences work at the post;
he completes his term, and he is told he cannot have his pay unless he
engages himself another term or brings another in his place. I know
those who have left the earnings in the hands of the Chef de Poste
rather than begin again. Such compulsion is contrary to civilized law,
and is rightly termed slavery, and is utterly illegal. I quote one case
in point--a recent one. On the 26th August I noticed a lad, Ngodele, at
Mibenga; I noticed he was a lad from the State post, and I inquired why
he was not at his work. The information was given that his term was
finished, and the white man had sent him to say that when they sent
another in his place he would give him his pay. I learnt that Ngodele
had been compelled to go by his Chief, because the Chef de Poste had
demanded some one to fill the place of another named Mokwala, who had
died at the post.
I appeal to you, Sir, that these things may cease from being perpetrated
on your subjects, and this defaming of the name of the State.
Accept, &c.
(Signed) JOHN WHITEHEAD.
Inclosure 3 in No. 3.
(See p. 33.)
_Statement in regard to the Condition of the Natives in Lake Mantumba
region during the period of the Rubber Wars which began in 1893._
The disturbance consequent on the attempt to levy a rubber tax in this
district, a tax which has since been discontinued, appears to have
endured up to 1900.
The population during the continuance of these wars diminished, I
estimate, by some 60 per cent., and the remnant of the inhabitants are
only now, in many cases, returning to their destroyed or abandoned
villages.
During the period 1893-1901 the Congo State commenced the system of
compelling the natives to collect rubber, and insisted that the
inhabitants of the district should not go out of it to sell their
produce to traders.
The population of the country then was not large, but there were
numerous villages with an active people--very many children, healthy
looking and playful. They had good huts, large plantations of plaintains
and manioc, and they were evidently rich, for their women were nearly
all ornamented with brass anklets, bracelets, and neck rings, and other
ornaments.
The following is a list of towns or villages--giving their approximate
population in the year 1893 and at the present time. These figures are
very carefully estimated:--
----------+-------+-------+-----------------------------------
| 1893. | 1903. | Remarks.
+-------+-------+--------------------------------
Botunu | 500 | 80 |
Bosende | 600 | --- |
Ngombe | 500 | 40 | These are not in the old village,
| | | but near it.
Irebo | 3,000 | 60 | Now a State camp with hundreds
| | | of soldiers and women.
Bokaka | 500 | 30 |
Lobwaka | 200 | 30 |
Boboko | 300 | 35 |
Mwenge | 150 | 30 |
Boongo | 250 | 50 |
Ituta | 300 | 60 |
Ikenze | 320 | 20 |
Ngero | 2,500 | 300 | In several small clusters of huts.
Mwebe | 700 | 75 |
Ikoko | 2,500 | 800 | Including fishing camps.
----------+-------+-------+-----------------------------------
This list can be extended to double this number of villages, and in
every case there has been a great decrease in the population. This has
been, to a very great extent, caused by the extreme measures resorted to
by officers of the State, and the freedom enjoyed by the soldiers to do
just as they pleased. There are more people in the district near the
villages mentioned, but they are hidden away in the bush like hunted
animals, with only a few branches thrown together for shelter, for they
have no trust that the present quiet state of things will continue, and
they have no heart to build houses or make good gardens. In all the
villages mentioned there are very few good huts, and when the natives
are urged to make better houses for the sake of their health, the reply
is, that there is no advantage to them in building good houses or making
extensive gardens, as these would only give the State a greater hold
upon them and lead to more exorbitant demands. The decrease has several
causes:--
1. O* was deserted because of demands made for rubber by M. N O and
several others were similar cases. The natives went to the French
territory.
2. “War,” in which children and women were killed as well as men. Women
and children were killed not in all cases by stray bullets, but were
taken as prisoners and killed. Sad to say, these horrible cases were not
always the acts of some black soldier. Proof was laid against one
officer who shot one woman and one man, while they were before him as
prisoners with their hands tied, and no attempt was made by the accused
to deny the truth of the statement. To those killed in the so-called
“war” must be added large numbers of those who died while kept as
prisoners of war. Others were carried to far distant camps and have
never returned. Many of the young were sent to Missions, and the
death-rate was enormous. Here is one example: Ten children were sent
from a State steamer to a Mission, and in spite of comfortable
surroundings there were only three alive at the end of a month. The
others had died of dysentery and bowel troubles contracted during the
voyage. Two more struggled on for about fifteen months, but never
recovered strength, and at last died. In less than two years only one of
the ten was alive.
3. Another cause of the decrease is that the natives are weakened in
body through insufficient and irregular food supply. They cannot resist
disease as of old. In spite of assurances that the old state of things
will not come again, the native refuses to build good houses, make large
gardens, and make the best of the new surroundings--he is without
ambition because without hope, and when sickness comes he does not seem
to care.
4. Again a lower percentage of births lessen the population. Weakened
bodies is one cause of this. Another reason is that women refuse to bear
children, and take means to save themselves from motherhood. They give
as the reason that if “war” should come a woman “big with child,” or
with a baby to carry, cannot well run away and hide from the soldiers.
Confidence will no doubt, be restored, but it grows but slowly.