has been killed long ago, leaving not even a name behind him, but only
this haunting cry, that keeps ringing in one’s heart.
So they all are crying to us with outstretched hands; a people who call
the white man, _Father_, and trust him with pathetic confidence until he
betrays their trust and smites them with the rod of tyranny. I think I
can hear their piteous cry wafted on the winds that wander over the great
forest: “We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!”
XI
THE FANG
During my second and much longer term in Africa I lived at Baraka, a
mission station two miles south of Libreville, in the Congo Français, on
the great estuary of the Gaboon River, or, the _bay_, as I always called
it. The coast tribe of the Gaboon is called the _Mpongwe_. But my work
was almost entirely with the interior tribe—the _Fang_.
The Fang is probably the largest of all the tribes of West Africa.
The Bulu of the Cameroon interior are a branch of the Fang, and there
are several other branches. They occupy the interior of Cameroon and
the Congo Français, extending north and south behind at least twelve
coast tribes occupying three hundred miles of coast. M. de Brazza after
extended travel among the Fang estimated that there were more than ten
millions, and perhaps fifteen millions of them; but I think it unlikely
that further knowledge will confirm this calculation. M. de Brazza is
usually a most reliable authority; but he probably travelled through the
more densely populated parts of the Fang territory.
Since most of my work was done among the Fang, along the Gaboon River,
they are the tribe that I know best. I am very partial to them, and
therefore, before going further I must say a word in regard to the
pronunciation of this word, “Fang,” and beg the reader not to speak of
them as if they were a generation of vipers. The name is not pronounced
in the least like our word “fang,” and indeed the vowel sound in the
latter word is unknown in the African dialects; the sound of the letter
“a” is like that in the word “father.”
The whole Fang tribe has been moving towards the coast for many years,
and they have already emerged at several points, notably Gaboon. Dr.
Leighton Wilson, writing about 1860, speaks of them as having just
appeared west of the Sierra del Crystal Mountains, one hundred miles
east of the Gaboon Coast. Dr. Wilson, who had a more extended knowledge
of the coast than any man of his time, speaks of the Fang as the most
remarkable and most forceful people he had met in West Africa. They now
have villages among the Mpongwe, and along the entire length of the
Gaboon River and the tributaries of the river and estuary. This for
years was my mission field, a territory one hundred and twenty miles
east and west, and fifty miles north and south. The entire area is a
network of waterways, which are also the highways; for there are very few
bush-roads, and they are of the worst kind. I know of no more attractive
field in West Africa. It combines the far more comfortable home of the
coast, and the more hopeful work of the interior. By the use of a launch,
or even a sailboat, the towns on the watercourses are easily and quickly
accessible.
Thus, also, it allows for expansion and concentration of influence in
their proper relation. Instead of the influence of the missionary being
concentrated in an immediate community where he becomes practically a
pastor, in such a field as that of the Gaboon watercourses he is rather
as a bishop among native pastors, and influential in many communities.
For the native, however meagre his education, if he be otherwise worthy,
is always a better pastor than the foreigner, and needs only counsel. The
church also is likely to be more independent in spirit, and resourceful.
In a single community where the white missionary is ever present,
Christianity shares his prestige, and a few leaders being converted, the
movement becomes popular, and many follow without deep convictions or
earnest purpose. But in a community with which no white man is identified
Christianity cannot acquire an artificial popularity; converts are
earnest,—are leaders, not followers, and each group becomes the centre
of a strong influence, exerted in service from the beginning, and the
nucleus of a native church.
At the same time there may be a proper concentration of influence in
boarding-schools and classes for religious training, and especially in
a seminary for the training of catechists and ministers. This withal
approaches most nearly to the method of our Master, who preached to
multitudes in various places widely separated, the while He concentrated
His influence in the training of the twelve. He who of all men might have
dispensed with methods, was really a master of methods.
Before my time the only work of our mission among the Fang was at Angom
Station, on the upper river, seventy miles above Baraka; but the work
though faithfully done had been restricted to one town, which was a small
factor in the great field that I have described, which larger field
had never been opened to missionary work. When our missionary at Angom
died, and his successor after a short period withdrew, the station was
abandoned; and the little church not yet established in the faith, unable
to stand alone, soon collapsed. A few years later, in 1902, when little
remained but the name, the Angom church was formally dissolved by the
Corisco Presbytery.
I have written at some length of the Bulu of the interior. The Fang of
the interior, at the head waters of the Gaboon, are like the Bulu, while
some of those at the coast are quite civilized.
The Fang village in this territory is built close to the river or stream.
The population of a village varies from fifty to three hundred; the
average population is probably not more than a hundred persons. Those of
the same village are closely related, usually brothers or first cousins,
and their wives and children, with the elders, or grandfathers. They
regard themselves as one family, and all the children of the village as
brothers and sisters. Under no circumstances would they intermarry. The
child addresses ever so many men as “Father,” and ever so many women as
“Mother.” Parental authority is not exclusive; the whole town has more
or less to say in the control and discipline of each child. The result
is that while a score of parents are adding zest to existence in a fine
squabble as to whether the child shall sit here, or there, shall do this,
or that, the child, heedless of conflicting orders, does as he likes and
goes where he pleases. Yet, one finds, as he knows them better, that the
real parents are always distinguished and exercise the final authority.
The village consists of a single street running away from the river,
though sometimes there is a second street, at right angles with the
first, and occasionally even a third. On either side of the street the
houses are built in straight rows, close together, and almost exactly
the same. Among the Bulu the houses are detached; but among the Fang
they are under one continuous roof. This arrangement is convenient for
an enemy in time of war. For, to set fire to the first house is to burn
the whole town; and nothing could burn more rapidly than dry thatch.
Nearer the coast the enemy will often saturate the end of the first roof
with kerosene—it is the only use they make of kerosene. Across each end
of the street is a “palaver-house,” which is the public place, where the
men spend most of the day in talking, eating, sleeping and quarrelling.
This is the _club-house_ of the men, and the women enter it only on
privilege. A missionary entering a town will nearly always be sure of an
audience in the palaver-house.
The houses have bark walls held by horizontal strips of bamboo tied
with rope of vine, and supported by upright poles two feet apart, which
are sharpened at the lower end and stuck in the ground. The roof is of
palm thatch, and there is no floor. Not a nail is used in the entire
construction of the house. Nearer the coast, bark is not used for walls.
They are made of split bamboo, attached horizontally to upright poles.
The interior is a single room with beds around the walls. The bed
consists of straight round poles laid lengthwise upon two cross-poles,
the head being supported by a wooden pillow. Upon these beds the natives
sleep with nothing under them and nothing over them. But they usually
keep a fire at night, which is made on the earth floor. There is no
outlet for the smoke, but it escapes through a narrow open space between
the walls and the roof. The door is tight closed at night, and often a
family will enjoy themselves around a smouldering fire in smoke so dense
that a white man could scarcely enter.
Their houses are kept as clean inside as their construction allows.
But they are always in a state of disorder. The native mind has no
categories. The native’s knowledge consists of isolated facts which
he feels no mental compulsion to classify; neither do the women take
pleasure in household order; and the notion of each article having a
regular and proper place is foreign to their minds. However civilized
they may become in the future, I can hardly think that the teapot under
the bed or the pig in the parlour would ever offend their sense of
propriety.
In the middle of the front wall is a rectangular hole, that looks like a
window, but it is both door and window. At night it is closed by propping
a piece of bark against it. The successful entrance of this door is a
gymnastic feat requiring long practice for its performance, and we can
afford to watch the white man’s first attempt. He has seen the black
man pass through it so easily that he does not suspect any difficulty.
Approaching with assurance he lifts one leg quite high and passes it
over the sill, only to find that he cannot get his head in; for not only
is the door very low but the ragged thatch eaves of the roof project
immediately in front of it. In the attempt his helmet, striking the
eaves, rolls into the street. He goes after the helmet, brushes off some
of the dirt, and approaching a second time, though with less assurance,
he puts the other leg through the door, which is no improvement whatever
upon the first effort, and he loses his helmet again. A third time he
essays to enter, but with a step that indicates a rise of temperature.
He thrusts his head and shoulders through the door, then tries to bring
a foot in after him; but, invariably failing to get his foot nearly high
enough to pass the sill he trips, falls forward, and goes plunging into
the house sprawling on all fours, and only by extraordinary exertion
escapes the fire in the middle of the room. The children, if they are
not accustomed to the white man, scream with fright, and the grown
people laugh without restraint. Those in the street laugh still louder
and afford every evidence that the rear view of the performance—the
unintelligible exertions, the sudden disappearance and the feet lingering
on the door-sill—was an entertainment which they would greatly enjoy a
second time. The white man gets up out of the dust and the ashes, glares
fiercely around and asks if anybody knows where his helmet is. Some time
in the future, after an extended and distressing experience he may chance
to observe exactly how the black man enters his small door. He neither
halts nor hesitates; but throwing up one leg, he throws his head down at
the same time, probably extending an arm in front of him, and thrusting
both head and leg through together, he bolts into the house. Near the
coast the houses are better. There are often several rooms in a house.
They have doors that swing on hinges, and windows the same, but unglazed.
They have grass mats upon the beds. But all this is the result of the
imported civilization.
The idle life of the Fang, especially in the interior, and his freedom
from responsibility, seem to the impatient white man to have obliterated
from his mind the idea of time. The more prosperous people near the
coast have a passion for clocks, but it is because they like to hear
them tick and strike. A Fang cannot conceive that he has wronged you if
he comes several days late to keep an engagement. This unreliableness in
everything where time is a factor is one of the chief trials of the white
man in Africa. But he ought to regard the native’s viewpoint and consider
how very irritating and really discouraging to the native must be the
white man’s incessant hurry. “We are not in a hurry,” says the black man.
“Why should you come to Africa to set us all hurrying? Has it made your
own people so very happy that you want to share with us the blessing of
haste?”
The African is the most sociable man in the world. He could not easily
be killed with work even the hardest: he is not much afraid of it. But
isolate him, take him away from his people, and he could easily die of
homesickness. He is strongly emotional and warmly affectionate by nature.
He loves his children, and sometimes embraces them tenderly, but he never
kisses them. The kiss is meaningless to the African. They have never
seen any such thing except between white people. I am almost ashamed to
tell their interpretation of it as some of them have seen it executed
and have reported to their people; but I presume it will do no harm.
They think that white people, in kissing, expectorate into each other’s
mouths. The word by which they designate the kiss is a compound which
means “to exchange saliva.”—No wonder it is not popular! When those at
the coast begin the practice of this fine art, it is usually accompanied
by a sound loud enough to start a team of horses.
All their spare time they sit in the palaver-house and talk, stopping
for an occasional nap. The old men as they sit scratching themselves
with the itch relate wonderful tales and tell infinite lies about their
achievements when young, how many women eloped with them, how many
enemies they had killed in war, and how they had fought wild animals with
unheard-of bravery. But they turn out interesting tales and are always
listened to respectfully because of their years.
The chief factor in the social life is the marriage customs and the
relations of husband and wife. The woman is regarded as inferior in every
way to the man. It would be disgraceful to a man to be caught eating with
his wife. Her duty is to work for him and to provide for him. She is
bought with a price and is a part of his wealth; indeed, a man’s wealth
and influence are measured by the number of his wives. The son inherits
the father’s wives, all but his own mother. Frequently in the forest one
may see a woman staggering along the rough bush-path under a load of
forty or fifty pounds, and perhaps carrying her poor babe in a strap hung
at her side, while her lordly husband walks before her with only his gun
or a knife. In some tribes a wife must keep a certain distance behind
her husband as they walk. If he should fall she must also fall, lest she
laugh at him.
[Illustration: MAN AND WIFE.
_The woman always carries the load._]
[Illustration: TWO MEN DANCING.
_The music, supplied by various drums, may have charms to soothe the
savage breasts; it certainly would soothe no other kind._]
A man and his wife once came to me from a distant town, the woman
carrying a load of food which they wished to sell, the man carrying
nothing. I told them that I had no use for the food and could not buy it;
whereupon the man appealed to my pity and urged that the poor woman, who
was exhausted, and who was suffering with an ulcer on her foot, was not
able to carry the load back home. I replied that I knew how to relieve
her, and I asked them both to turn their backs and close their eyes. They
did as I asked, probably expecting that I would perform some miracle that
would make the burden light. But, taking the burden from the woman’s
back, I suddenly put it upon the man, and threw the strap over his
shoulder. He flung it upon the ground with an angry protest at the great
indignity I had put upon him in the presence of his wife.
Inconsistent with this is his love of his mother, of which I have spoken
before; but it may be mentioned again, for it is the strongest sentiment
and the deepest emotion in the mind and heart of the African. He always
loves his mother more than his wife. The wife is also expected to love
the members of her own family more than her husband; but the love of
mother is strongest in the men. She is the one who will defend him
against the machinations of his wives and be true to him when all others
combine to denounce or to injure him. One day on an English steamer a
traveller who was standing on deck and teasing some Kruboys in a boat
below remarked to an Old Coaster how very good-natured they were. The
Old Coaster told him something to say to one of them that involved a
reflection on his mother. The traveller made the remark and was startled
and somewhat frightened when the “good-natured” Kruboy turned upon him in
a rage, cursed him and threatened to kill him. If he had been ashore he
might have paid the penalty with his life. The African, old and young,
thinks he has fully justified any violent assault upon another when he
says: “He cursed my mother.” Any reflection whether it be more or less
serious is called a “curse.”
A man also loves his children more than his wife. Often the head-wife is
the one who bears the most children. Children are not weaned until the
age of three years or thereabouts. During all this period of lactation
the husband and wife observe absolute continence in regard to each other,
though not necessarily in regard to others.
A man has as many wives as he can afford to buy. The idea of marrying
“just for love” is laughable. Such an act is sometimes cited as
indicating weakness of character. Marriages of “strong-minded” men
are controlled by expediency and convenience. In the territory of the
Gaboon I know of no man that has more than ten wives; but in the farther
interior some chiefs have half a hundred. Yet, though the possession of
many wives is the ambition of every man, most of them never possess more
than one. The dowry which a man pays for a wife is enormous; and none but
the most successful traders are able to earn the amount. A dowry is often
kept intact and passed from father to son, doing repeated service. A man
may also procure a dowry by the sale of a sister. I have heard Fang boys
boasting that they were rich because they had several sisters.
For those who are not so fortunate as to inherit a dowry or to have a
sister, there are two alternatives; first they may remain unmarried, with
the result that they will be regarded as contemptibly poor, and will be
engaged in endless palavers with all the husbands of the town; or, they
may boldly steal a woman of some other town, which will cause war between
the two towns, and in the end, after several or many persons have been
killed, the whole town will have to pay the dowry. Sometimes a man may
have an incomplete dowry and may by working earn sufficient to complete
it. The following would be an ordinary dowry among the Fang living
near the coast: Ten goats, five sheep, five guns, twenty trade-boxes
(plain wooden chests), one hundred heads of tobacco, ten hats, ten
looking-glasses, five blankets, five pairs of trousers, two dozen plates,
fifty dollars’ worth of calico, fifty dollars’ worth of rum, one chair
and one cat. In addition to the above he must make frequent presents to
his wife’s relations, who may be expected to arrive at any time and in
any number for an indefinite visit. If there is any hatred in the heart
of the African man it is usually directed towards his wife’s relations. A
man is all his lifetime subject to bondage by reason of his wife.
A certain fellow missionary was married to another missionary. Some of
the African boys, knowing that the white man had paid no dowry, expressed
envious regrets at the ease with which a white man marries a wife. “All
you white men have to do,” they said, “is simply to ask a woman; and
the whole palaver is finished.” This also made my celibacy the more
incomprehensible.
When a wife dies without having borne children the husband has the right
to insist that the dowry be returned. A part of it and sometimes all of
it will have been spent, and the people are reluctant to make up the
loss; so the request that the dowry be returned after the death of a
wife nearly always leads to war, though they do not question the right
of the custom. If the wife runs away either to her own or another town,
the dowry paid for her must be returned, if the woman is not sent back.
In nearly every case her people will find it more convenient to send
her back than to restore the dowry; so their bad passions of greed and
immorality are balanced the one against the other, and the large dowry
serves the purpose of keeping husband and wife together. But if the woman
runs away not to her own town, but to some other town, eloping with
another man, her people will often prevent war between the two towns by
inducing her to return. Otherwise they themselves will become involved in
the war. Nearly all the wars between different communities of the same
tribe begin with a “woman-palaver.”
A woman after an attempt to run away, or upon being brought back, is
usually put in stocks until she becomes submissive. Her foot is passed
through a hole in a heavy block of wood about four feet long, the
hole then being closed by a bolt. She is kept thus night and day. The
irritation of the rough wood often produces a very bad ulcer. A woman
in stocks is a common sight in the Fang towns. One day while I was in a
Fang town on the river, I heard a woman crying in the next town as if in
great pain. I asked an explanation and said I must go and see what was
the matter. Some men of her town being present tried to persuade me not
to go by telling a variety of conflicting lies that made me suspicious.
I went to the town, and found in the palaver-house a withered old savage
punishing his young wife by putting her hand in a large and heavy block,
with the help of his younger brothers. He had made a small hole in the
block and was dragging her hand through it. The hole was so small that
he thought she would not be able to get her hand out, and it would not
require the usual bolt. The hand was about one-third of the way through
the hole and was already badly bruised. I knew the Fang towns, and just
how far I could safely venture to use force in each, for they differ
widely. The individual counts for nothing; everything depends upon the
feeling or attitude of the whole town towards the white man. The sight
of the woman and her crying were unbearable; I ordered the old chief to
withdraw her hand immediately. He knew just how to do it and I did not.
He began to argue, but I said: “Argument afterwards: remove her hand
instantly.” Still he talked, and the woman cried. But a moment later
my hand clutched his throat and he found himself pinioned against the
opposite wall. Thereupon he indicated his readiness to comply with my
request. He dragged her hand out of the block; the women of the town,
all assembled, led her away as they moaned pathetically in sympathy, the
woman herself still crying. A little later I followed them into the house
and found them pouring warm water over the bruised hand to soothe the
pain; but the woman still cried.
Meantime, the old man told me the story. It was typical of the extreme
injustice often committed against the African woman: A young woman
married against her will to a very old man, with the inevitable
consequence that she despised him and cared too much for somebody else. I
made the incident the text of my sermon and preached an up-to-date sermon
on _Woman’s Rights_.
The old man’s cupidity, always alert, suggested a happy expedient. In
a suave manner he deliberately proposed that since I knew so well how
to treat a woman, he would as a favour accept a proper dowry from me,
renounce his claim upon her and let me marry her. But I exclaimed, at
least to myself: “This is so sudden!”