THE WOMAN WHO CONQUERED CANNIBALS
_Mary Slessor_
(Dates, b. 1848, d. 1915)
I. THE MILL-GIRL
_The Calabar Girls at the Station_
As the train from the south slowed down in Waverley Station,
Edinburgh, one day in 1898, a black face, with eyes wide open with
wonder, appeared at the window. The carriage door opened and a little
African girl was handed down onto the platform.
The people on the station stopped to glance at the strange negro face.
But as a second African girl a little older than the first stepped
from the carriage to the platform, and a third, and then a fourth
black girl appeared, the cabmen and porters stood staring in amused
curiosity.
Who was that strange woman (they asked one another), short and slight,
with a face like yellow parchment and with short, straight brown hair,
who smiled as she gathered the little tribe of African girls round her
on the railway platform?
The telegraph boys and the news-boys gazed at her in astonishment.
But they would have been transfixed with amazement if they had known
a tenth of the wonder of the story of that heroic woman who, just
as simply as she stood there on the Waverley platform, had mastered
cannibals, conquered wild drunken chiefs brandishing loaded muskets,
had faced hunger and thirst under the flaming heat and burning fevers
of Africa, and walked unscathed by night through forests haunted by
ferocious leopards, to triumph over regiments of frenzied savages
drawn up for battle, had rescued from death hundreds of baby twins
thrown out to be eaten by ants--and had now brought home to Scotland
from West Africa four of these her rescued children.
Still more would those Scottish boys at Waverley Station have
wondered, as they gazed on the little woman and her group of black
children, if they had known that the woman who had done these things,
Mary Slessor, had been a Scottish factory girl, who had toiled at her
weaving machine from six in the morning till six at night amid the
whirr of the belts, the flash of the shuttles, the rattle of the
looms, and the roar of the great machines.
Born in Aberdeen, December 2, 1848, Mary Slessor was the daughter of
a Scottish shoemaker. Her mother was a gentle and sweet-faced woman.
After her father's death Mary was the mainstay of the home. Working
in a weaving shed in Dundee (whither the family moved when Mary was
eleven) she educated herself while at her machine.
_The Call to Africa_
Like Livingstone, she taught herself with her book propped up on
the machine at which she worked. She read his travels and heard the
stories of his fight against slavery for Africa, till he became her
hero.
One day the news flashed round the world: "Livingstone is dead. His
heart is buried in Central Africa." Mary had thrilled as she read the
story of his heroic and lonely life. Now he had fallen. She heard in
her heart the words that he had spoken:
"I go to Africa to try to make an open door....; do you carry out the
work which I have begun. I LEAVE IT WITH YOU."
As Mary sat, tired with her week's work, in her pew in the church on
Sunday, and thought of Livingstone's call to Africa, she saw visions
of far-off places of which she heard from the pulpit and read in her
magazines--visions of a steaming river on the West Coast of Africa
where the alligators slid from the mud banks into the water; visions
of the barracoons on the shore in which the captured negroes were
penned as they waited for the slave-ships; pictures of villages where
trembling prisoners dipped their hands in boiling oil to test their
guilt, and wives were strangled to go with their dead chief into the
spirit-land; visions of the fierce chiefs who could order a score of
men to be beheaded for a cannibal feast and then sell a hundred more
to be hounded away into the outer darkness of slavery--the Calabar
where the missionaries of her church were fighting the black darkness
of the most savage people of the world.
Mary Slessor made up her mind to go out and give her whole life to
Africa. So she offered herself, a timorous girl who could not cross a
field with a cow in it, as a missionary for cannibal Calabar, in West
Africa.
For twelve years she worked at the centre of the mission in Calabar
and then flung herself into pioneer work among the terrible tribe
of Okoyong. No one had ever been able to influence them. They defied
British administration. For fifteen years she strove there, and won
a power over the ferocious Okoyong savages such as no one has ever
wielded. "I'm a wee, wee wifie," she said, "no very bookit, but I grip
on well none the less."
To-day over two thousand square miles of forest and rivers,
the dark savages, as they squat at night in the forest
around their palaver-fires, tell one another stories of the
Great-White-Ma-Who-Lived-Alone, and the stories they tell are like
these.
II. THE HEALING OF THE CHIEF
_Through the Forest in the Rain_
A strange quiet lay over all the village by the river. For the chief
lay ill in his hut. The Calabar people were waiting on the tip-toe of
suspense. For if the chief died many of them would be slain to go
with him into the spirit-world--his wives and some of his soldiers and
slaves.
Suddenly a strange African woman, who had come over from another
village, entered the chief's harem. She spoke to the wives of the
chief, saying, "There lives away through the forest at Ekenge a white
Ma who can cast out by her magic the demons who are killing your
chief. My son's child was dying, but the white Ma[57] saved her and
she is well to-day. Many other wonders has she done by the power of
her juju. Let your chief send for her and he will not die."
There was silence and then eager chattering, for the women knew that
their very lives depended on the chief getting well. If he died, they
would be killed.
They sent in word to the chief about the strange white Ma.
"Let her be sent for," he ordered. "Send a bottle and four rods (value
about a shilling) and messengers to ask her to come."
All through the day the messengers hurried over stream and hill,
through village after village and along the forest paths till at last,
after eight hours' journey, they came to the village of Ekenge. Going
to the courtyard of the chief they told him the story of their sick
chief, and their desire that the white Ma who lived in his village
should come and heal him.
"She will say for herself what she will do," said the chief.
So he sent a messenger to Mary Slessor. She soon came over from her
little house to learn what was needed of her.
The story of the sick chief was again told.
"What is the matter with your chief?" asked Mary Slessor. Blank faces
and nodding heads showed that they knew nothing at all.
"I must go to him," she declared. She knew that the way was full of
perils, and that she might be killed by warriors and wild beasts; but
she knew too that, if she did not go and if the chief died, hundreds
of lives might be sacrificed.
Chief Edem said, "There are warriors out in the woods and you will be
killed. You must not go."
Ma Eme, a tall fat African widow of Ekenge village, who loved Mary
Slessor, said, "No, you must not go. The streams are deep; the rains
are come. You could never get there."
But Mary Slessor said, "I _must_ go."
"Then I will send women with you to look after you, and men to protect
you," said Chief Edem.
Mary Slessor went back to her house to prepare to start on her long
dangerous journey in the morning. She could not sleep for wondering
whether she was indeed right to risk her life and all her work on the
off-chance of saving this distant sick chief. She knelt down and asked
God to guide her. Then she felt in her heart that she must go.
In the morning at dawn a guard of Ekenge women came to her door.
"The men will join us outside the village," they said.
The skies were grey. The rain was falling as they started. When the
village lay behind them the rain began to pour in sheets. It came down
as only an African rain can, unceasing torrents of pitiless deluge.
Soon Mary Slessor's soaked boots became impossible to walk in. She
took them off and threw them into the bush; then her stockings went,
and she ploughed on in the mud in her bare feet.
They had walked for three hours when, as the weather began to clear,
Mary Slessor came out into a market-place for neighbouring villages.
The hundreds of Africans who were bartering in the market-place turned
and stared at the strange white woman who swiftly passed through their
midst and disappeared into the bush beyond.
So she pressed on for hour after hour, her head throbbing with fever,
her dauntless spirit driving her trembling, timid body onward till
at last, when she had been walking almost ceaselessly for over eight
hours, she tottered into the village of the sick chief.
_The Healing Hand._
Mary Slessor, aching from head to foot with fever and overwhelming
weariness, did not lie down even for a moment's rest, but walked
straight to the chief who lay senseless on his mat on the mud floor.
Having examined him she took from her little medicine chest a drug and
gave a dose to the chief. But she could see at once that more of this
medicine was needed than she had with her. She knew that, away on the
other side of the river, some hours distant, another missionary was
working.
"You must go across the river to Ikorofiong for more medicine."
"No, no!" they said, "we dare not go. They will slay any man who goes
there."
She was in despair. Then someone said, "There is a man of that country
living in his canoe on the river. Perhaps he would go?"
They ran down to the river and found him. After much persuading he at
last went, and returned next day with the medicine.
The chief, whom the women had believed to be almost dead, gradually
recovered consciousness, then sat up and took food. At last he was
quite well. All the village laughed and sang for joy. There would be
no slaying. They gathered round Mary Slessor in grateful wonder at
her magic powers. She told them that she had come to them because
she worshipped the Great Physician Jesus Christ, the Son of the
Father--God who made all things. Then she gathered them together in
the morning and evening, and led them as with bowed heads they all
thanked God for the healing of the chief.
III. VALIANT IN FIGHT
Years passed by and Mary Slessor's name was known in all the villages
for many miles. She was, to them, the white Ma who was brave and wise
and kind. She was mad, they thought, because she was always rescuing
the twin babies whom the Calabar people throw out to die and the
mothers of twins whom they often kill. But in some strange way they
felt that her wisdom, her skill in healing men, and her courage, which
was more heroic than that of their bravest warriors, came from the
Spirit who made all things. She would wrench guns from the hands of
drunken savage men who were three times as strong as she was. At last
she used to sit with their chief as judge of quarrels, and many times
in palavers between villages she stopped the people from going to war.
_Through the Forest Perilous_
One day a secret message came to her that, in some villages far away,
a man of one village had wounded the chief in another village and that
all the warriors were arming and holding councils of war.
"I must go and stop it," said Mary Slessor.
"You cannot," said her friends at Ekenge, "the steamer is coming to
take you home to Britain because you are so ill. You will miss the
boat. You are too ill to walk. The wild beasts in the woods will kill
you. The savage warriors are out, and will kill you in the dark--not
knowing who you are."
"But I must go," she answered.
The chief insisted that she must have two armed men with lanterns with
her, and that she must get the chief of a neighbouring village to send
out his drummer with her so that people might know--as they heard the
drum--that a protected person was travelling who must not be harmed.
It was night, and Mary Slessor with her two companions marched out
into the darkness, the lanterns throwing up strange shadows that
looked like fierce men in the darkness. Through the night they walked
till at midnight they reached the village where they were to ask for
the drum.
The chief was surly.
"You are going to a warlike people," he said. "They will not listen to
what a woman says. You had better go back. I will not protect you."
Mary Slessor was on her mettle.
"When you think of the woman's power," she said to the chief, "you
forget the power of the woman's God. I shall go on."
And to the amazement of the savages in the villages she went on into
the darkness. Surely she must be mad. She defied their chief who had
the power to kill her. She had walked on into a forest where ferocious
leopards abounded ready to spring out upon her, and where men were
drinking themselves into a fury of war. And for what? To try with a
woman's tongue to stop the fiery chiefs and the savages of a distant
warlike tribe from fighting. Surely she was mad.
_Facing the Warriors_
She pressed on through the darkness. Then she saw the dim outlines
of huts. Mary Slessor had reached the first town in the war area. She
found the hut where an old Calabar woman lived who knew the white Ma.
"Who is there?" came a whisper from within.
But even as she replied there was a swift patter of bare feet. Out of
the darkness leapt a score of armed warriors. They were all round her.
From all parts dark shadows sprang forward till scores of men with
their chiefs were jostling, chattering and threatening.
"What have you come for?" they asked.
"I have heard that you are going to war. I have come to ask you not to
fight," she replied.
The chiefs hurriedly talked together, then they came to her and said--
"The white Ma is welcome. She shall hear all that we have to say
before we fight. All the same we shall fight. For here you see are men
wounded. We _must_ wipe out the disgrace that is put upon us. Now she
must rest. Women, you take care of the white Ma. We will call her at
cock-crow when we start."
This meant an hour's sleep. Mary Slessor lay down in a hut. It seemed
as though her eyes were hardly shut before she was wakened again. She
stood, tottering with tiredness, when she heard the cry--
"Run, Ma, run!"
The warriors were off down the hill away to the fight. She ran, but
they were quickly out of sight on the way to the attack. Was all her
trouble in vain? She pressed on weak and breathless, but determined.
She heard wild yells and the roll of the war drum. The warriors she
had followed were feverishly making ready to fight, a hundred yards
distant from the enemy's village.
She went up to them and spoke sternly.
"Behave like men," she said, "not like fools. Do not yell and shout.
Hold your peace. I am going into the village there."
She pointed to the enemy. Then she walked forward. Ahead of her stood
the enemy in unbroken ranks of dark warriors. They stood like a solid
wall. She hailed them as she walked forward.
There was an ominous silence. She laughed.
"How perfect your manners are!" she exclaimed. She was about to walk
forward and force them to make way for her when an old chief stepped
out toward her and, to her amazement, knelt down at her feet.
"Ma," he said, "we thank you for coming to us. We own that we wounded
the chief over there. It was only one of our men who did it. It was
not the act of all our town. We ask you that you will speak with our
enemy to bring them to peace with us."
_The Healed Chief_
She looked into the face of the chief. Then she saw to her joy that
this was the very chief whom she had toiled through the rain to heal
long ago. Because of what she had done then, he was now at her feet
asking her to make peace. Should she run back and tell the warriors,
who a hundred yards away were spoiling for a fight? That was her first
joyful thought. Then she saw that she must first make her authority
stronger over the whole band of warriors.
"Stay where you are," she said. "Some of you find a place where I can
sit in comfort; and bring me food. I will not starve while men fight.
Choose two or three men to speak well for you, and we will have two
men from your enemies."
These grim warriors, so sullen and threatening a few moments ago,
obeyed her every word. At length two chiefs came from the other side
and stood on one side of her, while the two chiefs chosen in the
village came and threw down their arms and knelt at their feet.
"Your chief," they said, "was wounded by a drunken youth. Do not let
us shed blood through all our villages because of what he did. If
you will cease from war with us, we will pay to you any fine that the
white Ma shall say."
She, too, pressed them to stop their fighting. Word went back to the
warriors on both sides, who became wildly excited. Some agreed, others
stormed and raged till they were in a frenzy. Would they fight even
over her body? Furious warriors came moving up from both sides. But
by arguing and appealing at last she persuaded the warlike tribe to
accept a fine.
_The Promise of Peace_
The town whose drunken youth had wounded the enemy chief at once paid
a part of the fine. They used no money. So the fine was paid in casks
and bottles of trade gin. Mary Slessor trembled. For as the boxes of
gin bottles were brought forward the warriors pranced with excitement
and made ready to get drunk. She knew that this would make them fight
after all. What could she do? The roar of voices rose. She could
not make her own voice heard. A daring idea flashed into her mind.
According to the law of these Egbo people, clothes thrown over
anything give it the protection of your body. She snatched off her
skirt and all the clothing she could spare and spread them over the
gin. She seized the one glass that the tribe had, and doled out
one portion only to each chief to test whether the bottles indeed
contained spirit. At last they grew quieter and she spoke to them.
"I am going," she said, "across the Great Waters to my home, and I
shall be away many moons. Promise me here, on both sides, that you
will not go to war with one another while I am away."
"We promise," they said. They gathered around her and she told them
the story of Jesus Christ in whose name she had come to them.
"Now," she said, "go to your rest and fight no more." And the tribes
kept their promise to her,--so that when she returned they could say,
"It is peace."
* * * * *
For nearly forty years she worked on in Calabar, stricken scores of
times with fever. She rescued her hundreds of twin babies thrown out
to die in the forest, stopped wars and ordeal by poison, made peace,
healed the sick.
At last, too weak to walk, she was wheeled through the forests and
along the valleys by some of her "twins" now grown to strong children,
and died there--the conquering Queen of Calabar, who ruled in the
hearts of even the fiercest cannibals through the power of the Faith,
by which out of weakness she was made strong.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 57: The African uses the word "Ma" as mother, (_a_) to
name a woman after her eldest son, _e.g._ Mrs. Livingstone was called
Ma-Robert; and (_b_) as in this case, for a woman whom they respect.]
Book Four: HEROINES AND HEROES OF PLATEAU AND DESERT