AN AFRICAN VILLAGE
Shall we go round the village now? Well come away and we’ll have a walk
through it. But as we are strangers and white, I must warn you that
many pairs of curious eyes will be watching us when we know not, and
all we do and say will be the talk of the village for a long time to
come. It is not every day that the villagers get such a good look at
a white person, and they will take advantage of their chance to-day.
Babies on backs will cry if we come near them, and little mites that
can run will disappear behind their mothers and peep out at us, feeling
safe but very much afraid. In fact, many of the women frighten their
naughty children by telling them that if they do not behave better they
will send them to the white people, who will eat them. Consequently
when a white man comes along the children often scatter in terror as
from a wild beast. And would not white children do just the same from a
black man if they were told that he might eat them.
In a certain African Mission not long after school had been started for
the first time, it was found necessary to build a kiln for the burning
of bricks. But the eyes of the children had been watching the building,
and whatever could it be but a large oven in which to cook them. So the
whole school fled pell-mell to their homes. Of course you must remember
that in several different parts of Africa some of the tribes were
cannibals, and even in our day there are still tribes among which the
eating of human flesh is not unknown.
Here we come to a house not unlike the one we have already described to
you, but smaller and not so neatly finished. The owner will not be so
well-off as the owner of that we occupied. Let us go near along this
path. Here comes an old lady to receive us, and there go the children
round the corner, and off goes baby yonder into tears, and even the
dogs begin to bark. Banana trees grow all round the house, and yonder
is a small grove of them on the other side of the courtyard. They are
waving a welcome to us with their large ragged leaves. The fruit is
hanging in bunches here and there on the old trees, and is evidently
not yet ripe.
But before we are introduced to the old lady, who is coming to meet
us, let us take a hasty glance round about. First we see that the
children are getting braver, and are, beginning to show themselves
now. Ragged looking little things they are, who do not look overclean.
The skin of their bodies is too white to have been washed recently.
Isn’t it strange that a black boy when he is dirty looks white; just
the opposite from a white boy, who, when he is dirty, looks black. The
mother of the crying child has turned round so as to shut us off from
baby’s frightened gaze. In one corner of the courtyard is a pot on a
fire, the contents of which are boiling briskly. This we are informed
is to be part of the evening meal which is in preparation. It seems to
us but a mass of green vegetable. Really it consists of juicy green
leaves of a certain kind plucked in the bush. Over there in the shade
of the bananas stand one or two mortars in which the women pound their
grain, and without which no village, however small, is complete. On the
verandah of the house stands the mill--a very primitive one. A large
flat stone slightly hollowed out holds the grain which is ground down
by another stone, a round one, being rubbed backwards and forwards
over the hollow one. Snuff too is ground from tobacco in this way, for
many of the men enjoy a pinch of snuff and not a few of the women like
to smoke a pipe. A fierce-looking little cat is blinking up at us,
watching us narrowly through the dark slits in its large yellow-green
eyes, seeming in doubt whether to run off or to put up its back at us.
A sleeping mat, made of split reeds, and spread out on the ground near
the mortars, is covered with maize ready to be pounded. Two or three
baskets are lying about, some shallow, some deep, some large, and some
small. That stump of a tree there serves as a seat when the shade of
the bananas is thrown on it. And down on the whole is pouring a flood
of tropical sunshine, so hot that we are glad to retire into the shade
of a friendly tree.
But the old lady is come and offers us her left hand. Her arms from
the wrist almost to the elbow are covered with heavy bracelets, and
her legs, from the ankles half way to her knees, are laden with great
heavy anklets of the same metal. Clank! clank! clank! like a chained
prisoner goes the poor old soul when she walks. Long ago she would
carry these huge ornaments with no difficulty, and not a little joy.
But now, although proud of them still, no doubt, they must be a trouble
to her slipping up and down on her withered arms and legs, for she has
tried to protect her old ankles by wrapping round them a rag of calico
to keep the brass from hurting. She is dressed in a single calico,
none too new, but, we are pleased to see, very clean. Other calicoes
doubtless she will possess, carefully stored away and hidden in a
basket in the darkest corner of her house.
Her old face is a mass of wrinkles and she has lost nearly all her
teeth. But her upper lip! What a sight! Poor old creature, what a huge
ring there is in it. Why, we can see right into her mouth when she
speaks, and to us it is not a pleasant sight. This ring, seen in many
old women, is called here a “pelele.” Men do not wear it. When a girl
is young her upper lip is bored in the middle and a small piece of
bone is put into the hole to keep it open. Gradually larger and larger
pieces are put in until the full sized “pelele” is reached. Sometimes
these rings are as much as two inches in size, and the upper lip is
fearfully stretched by wearing them. It hangs away down over the lower
lip, and the tongue and inside of the mouth are seen when the old
“pelele” wearer speaks.
The old dame is very polite but you can see that she is afraid of us
and will be quite glad when we go elsewhere. She says her cat is not a
bit fierce but is a first-rate ratter, so much so that there isn’t a
single rat in her house.
Now to the next house through the bananas. It is like the last and very
much the same kind of things are lying about. But instead of a cat we
are met by the usual African yellow-haired dog. He, too, is suspicious
of us, but retires growling. A hen is busy scraping among the rubbish
at the side of the house to provide food for her numerous offspring
that chirping follow her motherly cluck! cluck!
Between this house and the last stand the grain stores, round giant
basket-like things with thatched roofs. The largest ones are for
holding the maize, and the small ones for storing away the beans.
That low building there built of very strong poles is the goat house.
It needs to be strong as the hyæna and leopard, and even the lion
sometimes pay the village a visit at night. And woe betide the poor
goats if a fierce leopard should get in among them. Not satisfied with
killing and eating one he will tear open as many as he can, simply for
the pure love of killing.
The houses in the village are all much the same as that you have
already read about and number about twenty. They are built here, there,
and everywhere with no regard to plan or regularity. The corner of
the verandah of this one projects out over the footpath, and we have
actually to cross the verandah to get down to the well. The owner only
laughs when we ask him why he built his house so near to, and partly
upon the path. Some day he says he will hoe a new path to go round
about his house. That is African all over. He will do things some day.
He thinks the European mad to be such a slave to time.
The owner of each house greets us with a smile, and we are well
received by all except some of the old people who are really afraid of
white people, and who, while glad to see them when they come to visit
their village, are still more glad when they go away. We have gathered
quite a crowd of little people about us, and they follow us round very
respectfully, watching all we do, and looking at all we have on. Many
of them you see suffer from ulcers.
Here and there are patches of tobacco and sweet potatoes, but most
of the gardens are outside the village proper. Their chief crops are
maize, millet, sweet potatoes and cassava root. Paths twist about and
cross one another in a marvellous manner. This one leads down to the
stream, that to the next village; this to the graveyard in yonder
thicket, a place shunned by the children, that to the hill. A white
stranger promptly gets lost in African paths and has to give himself
up to the guidance of the native. The whole country is a vast net-work
of such snake-like paths, and I verily believe you could pass from one
coast to the other along them.
[Illustration: AN AFRICAN VILLAGE]
But just as we get to the far end of the village there is something to
interest us. It is a very small house well fenced in. On the roof and
exposed to the sun and rain are spread and tied down a blanket and
various calicoes. This must be the grave of someone important. It is,
and we ask to be allowed to see inside. Permission is given because it
would not be polite to refuse it, not because it is given willingly. It
proves to be the grave of the headman of the village who died about a
year ago. His clothes and blanket, of no further use, have been spread
over the roof covering the grave, and on the grave itself are lying his
pots and baskets and drinking cups. In a small dish some snuff has been
placed.
His house which was only a few yards away had been destroyed with much
ceremony after the death of the owner, and the site is now heavily
overgrown with castor oil plants and self-sown tomatoes. Not far from
where his house had been is the tree at the foot of which he had
offered up sacrifices to the spirits of his forefathers. Being the
chief of the village he was buried beside his house and not away in the
bush where the common people are laid to rest. I asked the children if
they were not afraid of this grave in the middle of the village, and
they said that during the day they were not afraid because the noises
of the village kept the spirits away. All the time we were visiting
this sacred place the old woman with the “pelele” was following us at a
short distance, not at all too pleased to see us pry into such places,
but too afraid to tell us so. She was much relieved when our steps were
turned elsewhere.
Such is the home of the African children. Here they are born and
grow up and play and laugh and cry to their heart’s content. It is
a careless, easy life with nothing beyond food and clothing to be
interested in, and not a thought for the morrow. But we are here to
give them a new interest in life. In this large courtyard we gather all
the people of the village together, and with the western sun shining
upon the little crowd we tell them of Jesus and give them something
more to talk about than ourselves and our clothes. Here in the quiet of
this African village, surrounded by the banana trees, is told once more
the story of the love of Jesus. The old woman with the ring in her lip
says our words are only white men’s tales, and will go on in her own
way teaching the children the superstitions of her forefathers.
The seed we sow will not all fall on stony places. Some of it will fall
on good ground and bear fruit in the lives of these simple village
people.