foot of our hill. Several men of that village were at our station at the
time, and with a shout they started for home. I quickly followed them and
saw as I entered the village that a tragedy had occurred. I afterwards
learned that four of their prominent men had been shot. They were hunting
in the forest and not suspecting danger, when another party, who were
really friendly, mistook them for enemies in the dark forest, and shot
all four. This is a kind of mistake that occurs frequently. The native
would rather kill ten friends than let one enemy escape; so they often
kill first and investigate afterwards. The village was very small and
the loss of four stalwart men left them insufficiently protected against
their enemies. This day the four bodies had been found in the forest and
the news had just reached the village. Instantly, all the wives of those
men stripped off their scant clothing of leaves, smeared their bodies
with clay and running into the garden of bananas threw themselves on the
ground tearing their hair and screaming, while the other women of the
village gathered around and tried to comfort them. There was more than
one reason for this demonstration. In part it was probably genuine grief;
but there was also a strong element of fear, the fear of every wife whose
husband dies from any cause whatsoever, that she will be charged with
having bewitched him and suffer the penalty of death, perhaps by being
buried alive with the dead body of her husband. For in this instance of
the four men, it would be said, that they wore upon their necks certain
fetishes that would have made them invisible to any one attempting to
do them harm, and that evidently the spell of witchcraft had broken
the power of the fetish. The fact that a man’s wife, or wives, are the
first to be charged with his death, implying that they would be more
likely than others to desire it, throws a lurid light upon their social
relations and incidentally upon polygamy. The African wife everywhere is
an artist in the use of poison.
In that entire year at Efulen I do not remember that there was one
natural death, though we never ceased to hear their mourning for the
dead. In those tribes where no degree of civilization is yet established
it is estimated that nineteen out of twenty Africans die by violence.
And when one comes to know the people individually and by name, instead
of by impersonal figures, one realizes something of the enormity of wrong
and suffering covered by this record.
One of the friendliest of the natives who had been coming to see us
almost every day, a young man of splendid physique, was dragged up the
hill to our door, unconscious, a bullet from an enemy’s gun having
penetrated his forehead, breaking the skull and laying bare the brain.
With their coarse knives they had tried to dig the pieces of broken
bone out of the wound. That war began with the stealing of a woman, or
rather her elopement with a man of another town. The reason she gave
was that her husband was so homely she could not live with him. The man
probably had no wife and had no possible means of procuring the very
large dowry necessary for her purchase. The town from which the woman was
stolen, according to native custom, at the very first opportunity killed
a person belonging to the town to which the woman was taken. Then the
other town killed several of their people. During this war the people of
the more distant town could not reach Efulen, and those of the nearer
town brought their guns when they attended our service on Sunday and sat
with them in their hands, ready for instant action. The war between the
two towns continued until twelve persons had been killed, eight on one
side and four on the other. Then another woman was stolen, and another
war began and this first one was settled in a great palaver, which was
called in a neutral town, the people of the two opposing towns being
gathered together and sitting on opposite sides of the street. After
endless oratory, some of it weak enough and some of it eloquent, it was
agreed that one side, having killed four more than the enemy, should pay
over to them four women, and the town to which the man belonged who had
first stolen the woman should collectively pay a proper dowry. Having
thus agreed they returned to their respective towns and it remained only
to name the four women who should be given over to the other town. Dr.
Good and I were present when the old chief, after taking counsel with
the elders, named the four women. The whole town was assembled. As he
pronounced each name there was a shriek and a woman fled to the bush;
but a number of men knowing the name beforehand, caught her, dragged her
back into the street, while she struggled and threw herself on the ground
as if she were trying to kill herself. But it was useless. They bound
them with bush-rope and they were taken away. Upon reaching the other
town, they would become the wives of the chief, or others upon whom he
might magnanimously bestow them. My impression is that at first they are
usually regarded with ill-will. Sometimes, when a woman seems not to be
reconciled to her lot, her feet are put in stocks until she is brought
into subjection; but in time she submits to the inevitable and makes the
best of it. I have known instances among the Fang where such women were
regarded as slaves.
Yet in all their degradation there was still something childlike about
them. We found them always interesting and even lovable; and though so
far below our own moral level, our sympathy was not repelled by their
degradation. One upon the mountain top may seem far above his fellows;
but, when he looks up, the infinite stars are equally above them all. The
higher our ideals the more lowly our hearts, the more sane and broad our
sympathies.
It ought not to be expected that we would accomplish any individual or
social transformation in a brief year. Only with length of time can
even a divine religion, so long as it leaves men free, transform the
customs of ages, and in minds knowing only animal desires, create new and
noble ideals. Without doubt the new truth that we taught had become more
intelligible and above all, they grasped its practical import. We not
only preached but practiced justice, honesty, truthfulness, and kindness
(to their amazement), and they interpreted our creed by our practice. For
they themselves were preachers of righteousness before they ever heard of
the white man; but it was in _doing_ that they lacked. We felt at the end
of the year that they understood us, and recognized our moral principles
as right: and this was a great advance.
But the actual reforms among them were for the most part merely
superficial and scarcely moral. Some of them developed a passion for
clothes, which they regarded as mere ornamentation. It is sometimes
said that we missionaries preach a “Gospel of cloth” mistaking clothes
for morality. And a superficial observer at Efulen would probably have
supposed that the ludicrous effort of the people to clothe themselves
was the result of our teaching and advice. But it was due only to their
ready habit of imitation; and as a matter of fact we were disposed to
discourage it. For one of the first lessons that the white man learns in
Africa is that clothes and morality are not so nearly related as he had
supposed. It is preferable in this as in everything else that knowledge
should precede practice: otherwise, the results will be at least
grotesque and often injurious to health. One man is dressed in the crown
or the brim of a hat; another wears a pair of cast-off shoes, or perhaps
one shoe, while his friend wears the other; and even when they are new he
is indifferent about shoe-strings. One man will wear as his entire outfit
a ragged coat of inhuman proportions; another wears a pair of trousers
that have outworn all the buttons, while his whole time and attention are
occupied in keeping them on, and with indifferent success. Such rags of
clothing turn these fine and manly-looking fellows into low-down rowdies
or even into the semblance of apes. Nor do they always know the _gender_
of the garments shown them in the trading-houses, and not all the traders
will assist their taste. One may sometimes see a tall chief dressed
in a pink or blue Mother Hubbard. At the coast I once saw a stalwart
bushman, who had just disposed of an ivory, “dressed to kill” in a lady’s
under-garment, fresh from the box, snow-white and trimmed with delicate
embroidery. He was so proud as he strutted along that he could scarcely
speak.
But clothes, until they have learned to take proper care of them, are
often injurious to their health. They will keep these garments on night
and day, wet or dry, and may not take them off till they fall off.
It is worse with shoes. The feet of the native are shod with natural
sole-leather; and if they were not, the bush-paths would be impassable
for him. But he wears his shoes through mud and water, and keeps them on
at night. The result is that they make his feet tender, besides injuring
his health.
Shortly after we went to Efulen, such was the passion for clothes that if
one should throw away an old pair of socks instead of burning them, no
matter where they might be thrown, one might count on it that somebody,
probably a boy, would soon appear in the yard wearing those socks,
sometimes on his hands instead of his feet, thinking that they would
last longer. One day when I decided that a certain pair of shoes were
no longer fit to wear, I took them out into the yard and placing them
on a block, took an axe, and proceeded to chop them into small pieces.
All the natives in the yard, visitors and workmen, came running to me
and loudly begged for the shoes with outstretched hands. But oblivious
to their clamorous entreaties, I kept swinging the axe and compelling
them to stand back. When I had finished I asked them what they wanted,
explaining that I could not swing an axe and listen to them at the same
time, especially when they were all talking at once. They turned away
with looks of disgust.
A certain chief at Efulen succeeded in procuring a suit of bright blue
denim. The following Sunday the family came to our service with the suit
divided between them, the women having divested themselves of the native
attire. The old man wore the coat, his wife followed with the trousers,
and a grown daughter brought up the rear with the vest. Of course they
came late, and walked to a front seat. The missionaries were supposed to
maintain their gravity. I was not there myself and am indebted to Mr.
Kerr for the incident.
My visits to the coast were like coming back to civilization; such was
the contrast of Batanga and Efulen. And, besides, there was a white
child at the coast, little Frances, a dear little girl about a year old,
whom I carried in my arms much of the time that I was there. For I have
already told how one longs for the sight of a white child. During those
visits to the coast I often preached in the Batanga Church and I became
well acquainted with that congregation. By their progress of a few years
and by the Christian character of many individuals known to me, I was
accustomed to measure the possibilities of the Bulu and the prospect of
our work.
[Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH AT BATANGA.
_The walls are of split bamboo and the roof of palm thatch. The
triangular openings serve both for ventilation and expectoration._]
The first Sunday after my arrival in Africa I preached in the church at
Batanga. I had carefully packed away every article of better clothing,
including all starched linen, and all my shirts, and was wearing a suit
which I had purchased at a trading-house for two dollars. I have reason
to remember this from what Dr. Good said afterwards. He told me that when
I landed from the steamer he surveyed me with eager curiosity, and that
I had somehow impressed him with a doubt as to whether I would be able to
adapt myself to our bush-life. But when he entered the Batanga Church the
following Sunday and saw me standing in the pulpit divested of collar,
cuffs and shirt, and dressed in a suit that everybody knew had cost
exactly two dollars, doubt was banished, and to a fellow missionary he
expressed his changed mind in the emphatic words: “He’ll do.” But surely
in Africa and everywhere else our dress should be that which is proper to
our work and our surroundings.
The Batanga Church had a membership of four hundred, and the attendance
was very large. The present edifice is a hideous and expensive structure
of foreign material, altogether inappropriate to native conditions and
a disfigurement in the landscape. But the old church of those days,
while not sufficient in size, was admirable in other respects and
picturesque—elevated on posts and with a board floor, bamboo walls, and
roof of palm thatch. Along the base of the walls, at regular intervals,
were large triangular openings for ventilation. But the people being
accustomed to leave all matters of ventilation and sanitation to
providence, evidently supposed that these openings were intended for
their accommodation in expectorating. For the habit of expectoration is
fixed and constant, and is as characteristic of Africa as noise. One does
not object to it so much among bush people, who usually assemble outside,
and in whose houses there are only ground floors. But when they begin to
be civilized it is more noticeable and becomes offensive. The majority of
the Batanga people, with the native instinct of good manners, were just
sufficiently civilized to know that it is bad form to spit on the floor,
but _not_ sufficiently civilized to break off the habit entirely. During
the service they continually expectorated through the openings in the
walls, and especially the women. It seemed that the more interested they
became in the sermon the more fluently they expectorated. My attention
was arrested and almost diverted by the uncertainty and suspense whenever
I saw an old woman on the inside end of a pew, lean forward, twist her
head to one side, take deliberate aim, and fire past six persons. She
never missed the hole—unless some one of those between her and the wall
should happen to move or lean forward just at the wrong moment, which
of course was not her fault. The appearance which this habit presented
outside the church always recalled what Dickens said of this same habit
in America—that the appearance outside the windows of a railway coach was
as if some one inside were ripping open a feather tick.
The men and women sit on different sides of the church and I believe
that in their stage of civilization it is best that they should thus
be separated, though sometimes it is attended with inconvenience. For
instance, a father may have charge of a baby that wants its mother; and
if so it may be passed from one to another across the entire church, as
I have seen, dangling by one little arm, and with no covering but that
which nature has provided in its black skin. The large majority are
dressed and there is nothing grotesque or foolish in their costumes. Most
of the men wear a white undershirt and a large square robe of cotton,
usually of bright colours, bound around the waist and falling almost to
the feet. This is the most becoming male dress in Africa; and the black
man in his own climate always looks best in bright colours. A few of the
men, in too great haste to be civilized, wear shirts and trousers, the
trousers a manifest misfit and the shirt outside the trousers. This mode
of wearing the shirt, however, I would not criticise; it is charmingly
naive, and rather sensible when one becomes accustomed to it. The women
wear a similar square robe of bright cotton, or better material, bound
around immediately below the arms, leaving the shoulders bare, and
falling to their feet. But among them are many, both men and women, who
wear a smaller cloth, bound around the waist and falling to the knees,
with nothing on the upper body. Individuals have different costumes but
these are the types; and the types are so established that anything
eccentric or much out of style would occasion a smile. People of the
bush sometimes straggle into the service so absurdly dressed that the
gravity of the entire congregation is upset. It was so one Sunday when
the following incident occurred.
While I had fever at Efulen, being obliged to change clothing frequently,
I discarded pajamas for nightshirts. They were long ones that reached to
my feet. These when taken off were usually hung near the fire to dry,
where the smoke stained and discoloured them. When I was well I discarded
them. Mr. Kerr, for some reason, presented one to a Bulu man. Soon
afterwards the man visited the coast and of course took this wonderful
garment with him. What is the use of having fine clothes if one is not to
show them off? The Bulu man, looking very grand in my stained nightshirt,
attended the service in the Batanga Church, came late, of course, and
walked up the long aisle to a front seat, while the large congregation
made an agonizing effort to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”
But there were a number of missionaries present and they had heard me
speak of those garments and their extreme discolouration by the smoke;
and when they saw the Bulu enter they immediately recognized the garment.
Some of the Batanga people had begun to wear shoes, though there is no
need of them and they look better without them. They have a preference
for heavy shoes that will make a noise as they walk up the aisle,
otherwise people might not know that they had them. But above all,
they must have shoes with “squeaking” soles,—or, as the natives say,
shoes that “talk”; and the first question a native asks when he would
buy a pair of shoes is: “Do they talk proper loud?” They wear black
shoe-strings when they cannot get pink or white. Some of them are so
uncomfortable that they remove their shoes during the service.
The collection at the Batanga service was gathered only occasionally and
was unique in quality and quantity—chickens, bananas, cassava, sweet
potatoes, dried fish, pieces of cloth, shirts, hats, knives, boards, etc.
But I had occasion frequently to review the records of the session of
the church, and of realizing the undercurrents of the lives of those
people; and there I found nothing amusing. It was a sad, sad story of
pathos and dire tragedy. There were confessions of weak failure; but
there were other confessions of defeat only after long and brave fighting
against temptations which those in Christian lands cannot conceive
and which I cannot relate. There were stories of domestic sorrow. A
Christian man tells the session that he did not partake of the communion
because his heart was full of bitterness against his heathen wife for
her unfaithfulness and immorality. A Christian woman declares that she
refused to marry a man who had other wives. She was tied hands and feet
and carried to his house. Another woman tells the wrongs she endured
from a heathen husband. A broken-hearted father tells that he had not
lately attended the services because the death of his only son had filled
him with doubt of God’s goodness. A widowed mother also confesses doubt
because God had taken away her only son. These are the _weak_ Christians
who have been called before the session; and these are the men and women
at whose weaknesses travellers and other critics would laugh and point
the finger of scorn, and because of them condemn the entire congregation
of those who profess to be Christians. The majority of white men in
Africa judge the native Christians without mercy, and they judge the
whole native church by its weakest member. At Las Palmas, on Grand Canary
Island, I tasted a fresh fig for the first time in my life and pronounced
it “disgusting,” whereupon a native Spaniard, a judge of figs, looking at
me, said: “O, sir, you are eating a bad one!” He was right. I was eating
a bad fig and judging the whole species by that one. It is thus that many
white men judge the native Christians of Africa.
Prominent in the Batanga Church, and always present at the service, was
a woman, Bekalida, noted in her tribe for her good looks, but in these
latter years smitten with a disease that had horribly disfigured her,
and had eaten away her entire nose. When this calamity befell her she
was so overwhelmed with grief and shame that for a long time she could
not bear to be seen in public. But at last, with her face covered, she
appeared in the little prayer-meeting of women conducted by her great
friend, Miss Nassau, and there, in pathetic and eloquent words, she
poured out her heart while they wept, and told them how that she had
been vain and proud until the Lord in His love had smitten her; how that
during the long weeks of her affliction faith forsook her. Her heart was
hard and rebellious and she felt that she could not bear her shame; but
she yearned for that comfort that only God could give; she came to Jesus
again in penitence and He received her and her heart was filled with the
peace of God; for it was better to be disfigured than to be vain and
proud.
In that same congregation there was one Mbula, who afterwards became a
minister; a young man of simple manners and godly life. Growing up in
the midst of African degradation, he was yet pure, strong and manly. He
developed unusual gifts as a preacher, simplicity and force, fluency of
speech and a charming grace of manner that many white ministers might
envy. There was another young man, Eduma, who also became a minister and
is to-day an influential leader among those who are striving to live
in a higher and better way than they have hitherto known. Already from
that congregation missionaries have gone to the Bulu, whom they formerly
despised. At least one of those missionaries, Ndenga, has lived a life,
and done a work, of faith and devotion that is fitted to surprise and
to convince all those who have seriously doubted whether the African is
capable of a high ideal and of patient performance.
Towards the end of our first year among the Bulu it was very plain that
a change had taken place in our relations to them. They had become
convinced that our persons were not inviolable as they had first thought
and that we had no fetishes to serve us as a potent protection; while, on
the other hand, though we had steadily gained their regard, it might be
doubted whether their friendship was yet sufficient for our security. If
there is ever any danger of violence it is in this period of transition.
One or two incidents will illustrate the change of feeling.
In a certain town which Dr. Good and I once visited, much farther in the
interior and where no white man had ever been before, a young Bulu man
came to us at the close of the service and addressing us in English said:
“I sabey English mouf.” Imagine our surprise! He gave us some account of
himself.
[Illustration: PASTOR AND ELDERS OF THE BATANGA CHURCH.]