his mentality and a state of imbecility, we must bear in mind that,
since according to his conception innumerable spirits at variance with
each other preside over nature, uniformity, constancy and dependability
are not to be expected. The rainbow, he says, is a serpent, which has
the power of making itself visible or invisible at will. If a mountain
disappear behind the clouds he has no difficulty in believing that a
spirit who inhabits the mountain has removed it, and that he brings
it back when the sun shines. The white man who does not accept this
explanation and demands a natural and knowable cause does not thereby
manifest a knowledge of nature but an ignorance of spirits. The canoe
which carries him safely to-day may lose its buoyancy and sink beneath
the waves to-morrow. In some of their fables, at the utterance of a magic
word a ship may sink, a house may fall, a man be reduced to physical and
mental impotence; and such fables are scarcely distinguishable from fact
in his conception. At their first contact with the white man they suppose
that the beads, cloth and other goods which he displays are made by
himself, by some magic process, as easy when known as the utterance of a
word; and they suppose that we could without effort make them as rich as
ourselves. If a house or a town should burn down there is little use in
looking for the cause, as it may have been set on fire by some ancestor
who is angry at being neglected.
When Du Chaillu visited a certain town in which the people had never
before seen a white man, regarding him as a spirit, they all declared
that a great rock near the town had been moved by him and was not in the
same place it had been before. This inspired them with dread. But when
the smallpox broke out among them and the scourge followed him with the
persistency of fate, there was no doubt in their minds but that he had
caused it; and meanwhile they made not the slightest effort to protect
themselves against the contagion. They regarded him with increasing fear
and hostility until at last his journey came to a disastrous end. He
and his party turned and fled while the natives pursued with poisoned
arrows. But they soon desisted from the pursuit; for, they declared,
their arrows rebounded harmless from his body, and sometimes even passed
through him and did him no injury. In all this let it not be supposed
for a moment that the native is a fool. He is true to his philosophy of
nature: but his philosophy is wrong. He knows nothing of the doctrine of
God,—of one Intelligence presiding over all nature, and that natural laws
are therefore persistent and uniform.
But to the native chaotic conception of nature we must add another idea
of fearful import. To the mind of the African nature presents a frowning
aspect, from which he naturally infers that the spirits which rule or
reside within it are mostly hostile to him. It is only to the reflecting
mind that nature seems beneficent. Her greatest forces, her constant
ministry, are not obvious. That which is normal and regular does not
attract attention. A man thinks more of the one month of sickness than
the eleven months of health; he is more observant of the storm than
of sunshine, more conscious of adversity than prosperity. The laws of
growth, seed-time and harvest, rain and sunshine—all the kindly ministry
of nature is quiet and unobtrusive, while her cruelty thrusts itself upon
the attention because it is her unaccustomed mood. The conception of
nature in the African mind is derived from the devastating tornado and
the storm upon the sea that threatens to engulf him, from the hard work
necessary to procure his food and the scarcity of meat, from sickness
that disables him and death that bereaves him of his friends. It is
therefore a part of his philosophy that the spirits are at enmity with
him. His own ancestors are among them and they may be placated and even
rendered favourable, but a far greater number are hostile; and the motive
of his worship is not devotion but fear. He worships the spirits of his
ancestors that he may obtain their help against all other spirits.
Contrary to all this Jesus teaches him to call God, Father; and God’s
Fatherhood includes His care, which at once relates God to nature, for
it is largely through nature that God’s care is exercised. To believe in
God’s care over us is to believe that nature’s laws are the operation of
His will. The mind awakens to the beneficence of nature, and we learn
that even storm, disease and death are under the control of a sympathetic
Power. The fear of the native is changed to confidence and trust.
Next to the ancestral relic is a lower form of fetishism in which the
external object is the vessel or residence of a spirit, which is under
the control of the possessor of the object. A still lower form of
fetishism is pure animism, in which the various objects of nature have
each a life analogous to that of man to which their phenomena are due.
Witchcraft is a supernatural power obtained by a person through a compact
with an evil spirit. In Africa witchcraft is also fetishism inasmuch as
it is usually, and perhaps always, supposed that there is within the
witch’s body a physical object which is the residence of the evil spirit.
The skull or other relic of the ancestor differs from the common fetish
in that the possessor of the former cannot compel the ancestor to do
his will; he can only persuade him, or induce his help and favour by
offerings and kind treatment. But the possessor of the common fetish
does not make offerings to it; the fetish is under his control and he
can compel the spirit within it to serve him. If it should disobey him
he will punish it. The usual punishment is to hang it in smoke. Fetishes
have a horror of smoke. I do not know that the native ever punishes his
ancestor for refusing a favour. If he should leave the skull in a cold or
wet place, or should neglect offerings of food, the ancestor will suffer
discomfort, but the discomfort is slight compared with the evil that he
will send upon his undutiful son as a punishment for such neglect.
In the proper fetish (if the word fetish be restricted in its meaning)
the spirit resides within the object but is not a part of it, and may
leave it, the fetish being then of no more use. A still lower form of
fetish, implying animism, is that in which the spirit of the fetish is
its own life, and is related to it as the soul to the body. This latter
fetish however is different from a mere amulet or charm; for the charm
operates not by any intelligence within itself but by some sympathetic
influence without. Such, for instance, is the horseshoe which the negro
in our South hangs over his door for luck. The charm, the fetish, and the
relic represent ascending grades of belief. But they are all confused
in the mind of the African, just as we confuse them under the one term
_fetishism_.
As long as we live in Africa, however, we do not often speak of fetishes,
but of _medicines_: for this is in strict accord with native usage.
The native calls his fetishes medicines, and his medicines fetishes,
and in his mind there is no difference. The remedial power of medicine
is supernatural, due either to magic or to a spirit residing within
it. Upon swallowing the medicine, the spirit of the medicine, like a
policeman, chases through the body after the spirit of the disease until
it strangles it or drives it out. Of course the white man’s medicines are
fetishes also.
The following story (although I do not vouch for its truth) illustrates
very well the magical operation of medicine. A certain chief, it is said,
induced a German trader to order for him a chest of medicines prepared
in Germany. The bottles of medicine are all numbered and the chest is
accompanied by a book of directions, competent for the diagnosis of any
particular case. Every liable symptom and combination of symptoms is
recorded together with the prescription for each. The prescription refers
to the bottles by their numbers. One day the chief fell sick. He found
his symptoms accurately described in the book, followed by the direction
to take one spoonful of No. 15. The bottle of that particular number
was missing; so he took one spoonful of No. 7 and one of No. 8. But the
result was so alarming that as soon as he was sufficiently recovered from
the shock he consigned the chest to the spirit of the deep sea with the
hope that it might do Neptune more good than it had done him; and to this
end he was careful to send the book of directions with it.
There is a large class of fetishes in which the ancestor is the agent.
If a man is expecting to ask a favour of another he will be sure of a
generous compliance if he scrape the skull of his ancestor and succeed in
putting a little of the powder into the other man’s food. Du Chaillu was
highly incensed when he found that this was the explanation of a certain
chief’s generosity who had been feeding him lavishly for several days.
A man walking in the forest usually carries suspended from his neck a
medicine, contained in a goat’s horn, the effect of which is to make
him invisible to an enemy if he should meet him in the path. He often
carries another, somewhat similar, which will turn the bullets of an
enemy’s gun into water if the enemy should see him and shoot at him; or
sometimes the bullets will pass through his body and do him no harm. He
wears a band, a “kaga,” about his neck, which tightens at the approach
of danger. The explanation of the latter may be a physical fact, namely,
that fear distends the cords of the neck so that the band would really be
tighter. He carries another medicine in a horn which, if danger overtake
him in the forest, or he should be in need of help, will whistle in his
town, however far away, and summon the people. It is obvious that several
of these fetishes are quite superfluous if the others are to be relied
upon. The native therefore does not fully trust his fetishes; and there
is always the fear that some enemy may have a stronger fetish than his
own. There are fetishes to protect a man against theft. One of these will
cause a person who steals from its owner to “swell up and burst.” Indeed
there are a great many fetishes used for various purposes which have this
same effect of causing persons to swell up and burst. Another fetish is
kept in the box containing the owner’s cloth, tobacco and other goods.
If a thief should open the box this fetish will spring out and go right
through him.
Before entering upon a war several days are sometimes spent in the
preparation of war-medicine. The best fetish-doctors unite their skill
in the preparation. It is medicine that makes the gun shoot straight;
it is medicine that makes the bullets kill; it is medicine that makes a
man fearless; it is medicine that makes cowards of the enemy. The French
government brought into the Congo Français native soldiers of Senegal,
armed with first-rate guns and skilled in the use of them. The Fang were
of course eager to know the secret of their powerful gun-medicine. Two of
the soldiers who were in personal contact with the Fang sold them little
tin boxes filled with mud, which they said was their gun-medicine. The
two enterprising soldiers were “getting rich quick” when the government
required their prompt attendance at the capital.
Some of the war-medicines are repulsive. On extreme occasions they will
sprinkle upon the forth-going warriors an admixture of the decomposing
brains of men recently deceased and the blood of fowls or of animals,
with other disgusting ingredients. With this medicine besides others
which are suspended about his neck, the smell of such a hero would
detract somewhat from the glamour of his exploits; and one can imagine,
upon his return from the war, the people holding their noses and singing,
“Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes.”
There are other fetishes which are used more commonly to avenge private
wrongs.
When a man cuts his hair or trims his beard, he carefully guards it and
then burns it, lest a single hair should fall into the hands of an enemy.
So he does with the cuttings of his nails. The possession of these would
give an enemy power over him; for they are the common ingredients of a
fetish-medicine. A piece of his clothing may also be used in this way.
Such medicine, if buried before his doorway or placed beside the path
where he will pass, even without coming in contact with him, will inflict
sickness or disease, misfortune or death. Most of the evils that befall
the native he attributes to the power of these hostile fetishes. Only
the most devout and consecrated Christians are entirely freed from this
superstition. Even in the Mpongwe Church of Gaboon, the oldest in the
Mission, there are many cases of discipline for such beliefs.
There was one particular case that came up in some form at nearly every
meeting of the session of the church for more than a year. A young
woman, named Anuriguli, was married and a short time afterwards was
received into the church. It was said by certain of the heathen that an
envious woman of a town near by, who was also a member of the church,
had made medicine to prevent Anuriguli from having children. For this
is a great affliction and reproach to an African woman. Some half dozen
families, men and women, became entangled in this quarrel, most of them
however being heathen. The Christians among them were several times
summoned before the session of the church. Each told his story in his
own way; the native way is to begin as far back towards the creation of
the world as their knowledge of history extends, and leave to the very
last all reference to the matter in hand. There is a notable absence of
embarrassment in such a discussion, even on the part of the women; nor
are they in the least forward; in fact they are not self-conscious at
all; for no native ever hesitates for a word or experiences the slightest
difficulty in expressing himself in appropriate language. Anuriguli
declared she had never accused the other woman of making medicine against
her. She had heard it from others, but she did not fear such medicines
since she had become a Christian; although if the woman had done so
it would indicate a feeling of extreme hostility towards her however
powerless her efforts might be, and this enmity was making her heart
sore. The other woman declared her innocence, and that for years she
had not believed in this superstition; nor had she any hostile feelings
that would prompt her to such a wicked action; but she had heard that
Anuriguli accused her, and the accusation was hurting both her feelings
and her reputation; and her heart was very sore, for the heathen had cast
bitter reproaches upon her.
Having given much advice, but too little sympathy, I fear, I exacted a
promise from each and all of them that they would stop talking about the
matter, and I dismissed them; for the session had endless work ahead of
them, some of it more serious than this. The result was that it broke
out afresh, and three months later they were all before the session
again, when the matter was more complicated than at first. Three months
later it again came before the session for the third time. Anuriguli’s
position had somewhat altered. She had heard that the other woman said
that she said that the other woman said that she said ... that the
other woman had made medicine to injure her! And still there are those
who assert that the African is not intellectually competent! I did then
what I wished I had done in the first place—gave them all the time they
wanted and took time myself to realize that fetishism is a terrible
reality in Africa, that public opinion recognizes it and can inflict as
heavy penalties as anywhere else upon those who fall into disrepute; for
the African, because his social instincts are strong, is very sensitive
regarding his reputation. A patient and sympathetic hearing ended the
whole matter.
The ingredients of a fetish are usually objects associated with that
which is desirable or that which is fearful—the strong, the swift, the
gruesome, the repulsive, the mysterious and objects associated with
death. The eagle’s talon is commonly used, the wing feathers of any bird,
the claw of the leopard, the teeth of all animals and their blood, dried
bits of their flesh and their offal. When Shakespeare describes the
contents of the witches’ caldron and their invocation of trouble, one
might think that he had been a missionary to the Fang.
“Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
When the fetish is not merely for protection, but is intended to injure
a particular person, it must include such personal ingredients as the
cuttings of the hair or nails of that person, or a shred of his clothing.
Fetishism and witchcraft inevitably go together. A witch is in league
with an evil spirit by which she can leave the body, and return to it,
for her spirit is “loose from her body.” She “eats” the spirit, or life,
of her enemies, and all people are her enemies, innocent or guilty alike.
She is sold to evil. The African does not regard the spirit or soul of a
person as immaterial. It is a thin vaporous material which resembles the
body in form and appearance. This is perhaps everywhere the conception
that underlies the belief in ghosts. Primitive people generally associate
this spirit with the shadow, and sometimes with the breath. The African
believes that a man may lose his shadow. Soon afterwards he will die.
An enemy may also injure it. Many an African has sought to kill another
by driving a nail into his shadow. A man’s shadow is big in the morning
because it is fresh and strong. It shrivels up with the heat of the sun.
It is evident that the sun afflicts it for it always keeps on the cooler
side, away from the sun.
Many tribes—whether all tribes I cannot say—believe that a person has
several spirits. It is always the spirit that gets sick, and any one of
a man’s spirits may get sick, or may leave him. In the latter case a
skillful doctor will be able to catch the spirit and put it back in the
man. Madness is always imputed to a malignant spirit inhabiting a man’s
body; such a spirit may be born with the man.
Their chief fetishes, however, are for protection against witches. In
many houses, immediately inside the door there hangs a fetish which at
night builds a fire around the sleeping inmate, a fire invisible to all
others but witches, and through which no witch can pass. Another has
the power to change the bamboo cabin into a house of stone, through
which witches cannot pass. It retains the appearance of bamboo in every
respect, and one can see the light between the pieces, but in reality
it is solid stone, with no openings at all, not even for the door. We
are reminded of another miracle whereby bread is changed into something
which is not bread, the change being non-apparent since it takes place
not in the accidents but in the essence of the material. So, the bamboo
is transubstantiated into stone.
One is sometimes mentally staggered and feels that he is losing his hold
on reality by the stories of Africans recounting their own experiences
and what their eyes have seen, stories told soberly and with every
evidence of sincerity. A man tells how that while his wife’s body was in
her bed he looked out into the street and saw her spirit form, with that
of others whom he recognized, armed with knives and cutting up the form
of a person and eating it. The victim whose life they have eaten sickens
soon afterwards and dies a lingering death.
One day walking along the Batanga beach with a fellow missionary, we
passed a large, flat rock almost submerged beneath the rising tide, which
recalled to my companion the following story. Some years ago at Batanga
there lived a man who had long suspected his wife of witchcraft. One
night he had occasion to speak to her, but she did not answer. He tried
to rouse her from sleep, but could not. He concluded that she was away on
some witch errand leaving her body behind her, as witches do. He himself
had some knowledge of witchcraft though he employed this knowledge only
in self-defense. He anointed her body with red pepper. Witches abhor red
pepper; and they cannot reënter a body thus anointed. Towards morning the
woman returned to her body only to find that she was undone; groans and
sighs told her distress to the ear of the husband who lay quiet as if
asleep. She lingered until the day began to dawn. Now, witches are afraid
of light even more than of pepper. She retired and hid herself near the
house to await the next night. Meantime, the husband related the whole
story to the assembled people, and they accepted it nothing doubting.
They resolved to burn the body immediately. They dragged it through the
street to the beach in the sight of her own family and her children,
amidst execrations and insults, and burned it on the rock while the tide
was low, and soon afterwards the rising waves swept the ashes into the
sea.
The Africans do not say of a woman that she _is_ a witch, but that
she _has_ a witch. She commits witchcraft by means of the witch which
she possesses. And since everything has a material body of some kind,
the witch can be found within the woman. Often a witch rebels against
its possessor and “eats” her. This is the frequent explanation of
convulsions, and a convulsion is enough to bring suspicion and a charge
of witchcraft against a woman. A sure way to find out the truth of the
matter and relieve the strain of suspense is to kill the woman, open
the body and make a conscientious and impartial investigation. In this
manner, executing the sentence first and afterwards finding a verdict of
“guilty” or “not guilty,” the verdict is more likely to be just, while
they also avoid a prolonged and scandalous trial, and evince a delicate
regard for the woman’s reputation. Any old thing that they may find in
the body not consistent with their ideas of anatomical propriety is
identified as the witch.
Sometimes a hen is set on eggs and the accused person is pronounced
guilty, or not guilty, according as the greater number of chickens
hatched are male or female. But this kind of ordeal is more common in
deciding cases of adultery. More commonly in the case of witchcraft a
certain mild poison is administered to the accused in a drink. Sometimes
she vomits it, or it passes without any serious effect. But if she
becomes dizzy and staggers, they instantly leap upon her with knives and
kill her. There seems to be no such thing in the African opinion as a
natural death. All deaths that we call natural are imputed to witchcraft.
As soon as the cry of witchcraft is raised, the people, panic stricken
with fear, are transformed to ferocious demons. With wild eyes they
rush up and down the street in a body crying out for blood. This is the
opportunity of the witch-doctor, either to levy blackmail, or to rid
himself of his enemies. When a woman is accused by him, no matter in what
esteem she may have been held hitherto, and regardless of her family
connections, the people turn upon her in cruel rage and can scarce wait
for the ordeal. Such scenes, and the violent death following are very
common among them; yet the white man rarely witnesses anything of the
kind. They are altogether different when he is present.
One of our missionaries has told me how that, in the early days, on
Corisco Island, he once saw a condemned woman, one whom he knew, taken
out to sea in a boat. A short distance from the shore they cut her throat
and flung her into the sea. Meanwhile, behind a rock which hid them from
his view, they burned at the stake the condemned woman’s son, a young
boy, lest growing up he should avenge his mother’s death. Their motive
in inflicting such a horrible death upon an innocent boy was probably to
disable his spirit and prevent it from returning to trouble them.