THE AFRICAN CHILD
Inside such a house as has been described, and in many a smaller one,
are born the children of Africa. At first and for a few days they are
not black. I am told they are pink in colour and quite light, but
that they soon darken. The mothers and grandmothers are very pleased
to welcome new babies and bath and oil them carefully. Nearly all the
women one meets about a village have children tied on their backs, or
are followed by them toddling behind. These mites glisten in the sun as
they are well oiled to keep their skins in good condition.
In some tribes very little children have no names. You ask the
mother of an infant what she calls her baby, and she replies, “Alibe
dzina”--It has no name. I once asked the father of a plump little
infant what the name of his child was. He told me that it had not been
named yet but that when the child would begin to smile and recognise
people it would get a name. “Well,” I said, “when he smiles call him
Tommy.” Months after I saw the child again, a fine boy he was too, and
Tommy was his name. But alas! Tommy did not live more than two years.
He took some child trouble and died.
[Illustration: HIS FIRST SUIT]
Sometimes the father or the mother may give a child its name, or
sometimes a friend may name it. Many of the names have no special
meaning, but some of them refer to things that happened or were seen
at the time the child was born. Boys’ and girls’ names differ from
one another although the difference is not clear to the white man.
But if he stays long enough among the black children he will begin to
know what are boys’ names and what are girls’. I know a bright boy who
is called “Mang’anda.” In English you would have to call him Master
Playful. Another child I can recall is called “Handifuna,” which means
“Miss they don’t want me.” But wherever the white man is settling in
Africa the people are picking up European names; and it is a pity, I
think, that the old names will pass away.
Little black children are not nursed and tended so carefully as white
children are. From a very early age they are tied on to their mother’s
backs and are taken everywhere. It is seldom that an accident happens
through a child falling out, for the black children seem to have an
extraordinary power of holding on. If mother is too busy another back
is soon found for baby to show his sticking-on ability. In any village
you may see a group of women pounding corn in their mortars under a
shady tree. It is hard work, this daily pounding of corn. Up and down
go the heavy wooden pestles. Backwards and forwards go the heads of
the babies tied on the mothers’ backs. At each downward thud baby’s
neck gets a violent jerk, but he is all unconscious of it, and sleeps
through an ordeal that would kill his white brother. Again a woman with
an infant on her back may go a journey of many miles exposed to the
full blaze of the African sun. Yet baby is quite comfortable and never
gives a single cry unless when he is hungry.
Then black children have no cribs and cradles as have white ones. When
mother is tired of baby, and there is no other back at hand, she simply
lays him down on a mat and leaves him to himself to do as he likes. If
he makes a noise, well he can just make it. He will disturb nobody,
and is allowed to cry until he is tired. Unless he is known to be ill,
his squalling, be it never so loud, will attract no attention. Most of
the mothers are very proud of their children, and oil them and shave
their woolly heads with great care. But in spite of all this care on
the mother’s part, great numbers of the babies die. Very often they are
really killed through their mother’s ignorance of how they ought to be
fed and nursed when sick. Then diseases like smallpox pass through the
villages at intervals and carry off hundreds of children.
A black infant is not clothed like a white one. If his mother is very
proud of him he will have a string of beads round his neck or waist.
Round his fat little wrist or neck you will often see tied on by string
a small medicine charm, put there by his fond mother to protect him
against disease or evil influence. When the babies are big enough to
toddle they begin to look out for themselves, and when they have fairly
found their legs they go everywhere and do almost anything they like so
long as they do not give trouble.
A little boy’s first article of clothing may be made of different
coloured beads carefully woven into a square patch, which he wears
hanging down before him from a string of beads encircling his waist. Or
it may perhaps be only the skin of a small animal worn in the same way
as the square of beads. He may, however, begin with a cloth from the
beginning. If so his mother provides him with a yard of calico, rolls
it round him, and sends him out into the world as proud as a white boy
with his first pair of trousers.
He gets no special food because he is a child. He eats whatever is
going and whatever he can lay his hands upon. Thus he grows up not
unlike a little animal. There is not much trouble taken with him. If he
lives, he lives; and if he dies--well, he is buried. No fond lips have
bent over him and kissed him asleep, for kissing is not known to his
people. Nor has he learned to lisp the name of Jesus at his mother’s
knee. It is not that his mother does not love him, for she does in her
own peculiar way. But all are shrouded in ignorance, father, mother and
children, all held in the grip of dark superstitions from which nothing
but the light of the Gospel of Love can free them.