PERSONAL RIGHTS AND OFFENCES AGAINST THEM.
77. PERSONAL RIGHTS—SLAVERY.
“For he (_i.e._, the slave) is his money”—_Exodus_ xxi. 21.
“If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him
sons and daughters, the wife and her children shall be her
master’s.”—_Exodus_ xxi. 4.
I once heard a native remark in a village assembly, “A fowl is a fowl,
a goat is a goat,—well, what am I?” It is often maintained that among
savages no rights are recognised except rights of property. But although
native jurisprudence deals mainly with questions of property, here was a
savage using as strong an argument for personal rights as any philosopher
could employ.
There is a great difference between the treatment of a free-man, and
the treatment of the “thing” or “flesh” called a slave. The following
sections (78-102) apply chiefly to freemen, and many points have no
application to slaves, for instance, the goods of a deceased slave (if
“goods” can be said to possess goods), do not go to his brother but to
his master.
The word for “free” (mlukosyo) literally means “belonging to the tribe
or family,” and shows how slavery was originally viewed—the slaves did
not belong to the “family”. A freeman becomes a slave when _captured_.
He may be captured by an enemy or by one that has a quarrel either with
himself or with the village that he belongs to. Freemen may be _enslaved
by relatives_ or by superiors. Often a man will pay a debt by giving up
his own kindred to his prosecutor. Those most liable to this treatment
are his sisters, after that his daughters, then his brothers, and then
his father and mother. In clearing off a heavy debt a native first pays
over his slaves, next his inferior wives, and then his relatives in the
above order. Sometimes one pawns his relatives only, if he cannot redeem
his pledges promptly, he may find them sold. A freeman may become a slave
_voluntarily_, as when he is in want during a time of scarcity. A man may
also become the slave of a master that possesses many females in order to
get a wife from him. A person may be a slave by _birth_. If his parents
be both slaves he belongs to their master. When a female slave bears
a child to a freeman, the child belongs not to its father, but to its
mother’s master.
Slaves become free when redeemed or when their master grants them
liberty. Persons that have been long in slavery may be redeemed by
relatives. Some say that a slave may redeem himself by presenting to
his master another slave whom he may have bought or captured in war.
Other native authorities, especially the older men, deny this most
strongly, and no doubt correctly, as everything that a slave can
possess belongs really to his master. But the older views are now being
modified by contact with English Missionaries. Before the arrival of the
missions, slaves could obtain nothing except from their master himself,
who supplied them with clothing; when the missions came they had an
opportunity of working for pay.
When a slave earns wages, his owner may no doubt claim the whole of
it, but some masters among the Yao are said not to exercise this right
to the full extent. They allow the slave to retain a great part of his
earnings, so much so that he will occasionally remark, “Ah! my master
is poor to-day, I must give him some cloth”. Such masters look with
satisfaction on the increasing hoards of their slaves in the same way
as an English employer delights to see his labourer in a condition of
comfort. They will even boast of the rich slaves that they possess. Every
owner of property finds slavery the most profitable investment. One of
the slave’s duties is to procure other slaves (_i.e._, more property) for
his master. Each male slave is allowed to build a house for himself. He
may also get a wife (59) who, however, may be taken from him again. He is
politely called his master’s “child” (mwanache), the more offensive word
“slave” (mkapolo) being seldom used. Still the time, the talents, and the
very lives of slaves are entirely in their master’s hand. However great
a ransom they may offer, if the master refuse to take it, no one in the
country can legally set them free. The master’s power is absolute. The
only check that he feels is this,—he says, “If I treat my slaves badly,
one day they will find me alone, take courage (mbilimo) and kill me”.
But a slave would think twice before adopting such a desperate measure.
If he murdered a freeman he would run as fast as Moses ran to Midian, and
with as good reason.
78. KILLING SLAVES OR WARDS.
If a master kill one of his slaves, no one can bring a complaint against
him. People that hear of the matter merely say, “That man is very stupid
to destroy his own property”. The companions of the deceased—his fellow
slaves—may venture to plead, “Why did you kill him, he did no adultery?”
but the master silences them, by pointing out that the deceased was
his “goods” (chipanje), or his “flesh” (nyama). But after killing a
slave, the master is afraid of _Chilope_. This means that he will become
emaciated, lose his eyesight, and ultimately die a miserable death. He
therefore goes to his chief and gives him a certain fee (in cloth or
slaves or such legal tenders), and says, “Get me a charm (_luasi_),
because I have slain a man”. When he has used this charm, which may be
either drunk or administered in a bath, the danger passes away. In the
same manner, if a man kill his younger brother, or anyone under his
charge, there is no case against the murderer. For one thing, there is no
prosecutor, and moreover, relatives may be treated as slaves (77). If a
man have a fatal quarrel with his ward, he finds it a sufficient excuse
to say, “The deceased began it”. But if his ward or even his slave be
killed by another party, the guardian at once becomes prosecutor, and
does not rest till he obtains the fullest compensation.
79. KILLING ENEMIES.
When an enemy is killed, there is a desire to secure portions (_ikawo_)
of his body (36), which is mutilated accordingly. The parts[10] generally
taken are the eyebrows, nose, little finger or toe, and the pudenda. If
there be no danger of interruption, the man or woman thus mutilated, will
be also disembowelled and the heart plucked out. The portions thus cut
from a body, are roasted or burned till quite reduced to ashes (_sile_).
They are then used as charms in various ways. The savage makes tatoos
(_malaka_) in his arm and rubs the ashes into them. Or he cooks gruel
(likoko) and stirs the ashes into it. This dreadful mixture of flour and
flesh, must be lapped with the tongue, as it would be “unlucky” to eat it
with the hands. There are several devices for facilitating the lapping
process, such as pouring the mixture from one dish to another and licking
the bottom of the emptied dish. Another way of using this weird and
awful charm, is as an amulet (njilīsi)—the ashes are mixed with castor
oil and sewed up in a small bag, which is worn round the neck or about
the loins. I knew one headman whose great success in war was attributed
to the fact that he had eaten “the whole body of a strong young man”.
But if he had not been protected by powerful charms, such cannibalism
might have been dangerous to him. The person that eats a human being is
believed to run a great risk. Even the person that kills a human being,
though the victim be only a slave (78), must take certain steps to quiet
his conscience. In most cases the murderer tells the chief of the country
who procures a charm from his medicine man. Of this charm the chief
himself also partakes that he may not be unlucky “because of the blood
that has been shed in his land”. If the chief sent the person to kill the
deceased, he now presents him with a slave or some such reward. So when
a headman makes an attack and kills a party on his own responsibility
(72), the chief if approving rewards all that went on the expedition.
He also kills a goat for them. At this feast they must not eat salt
until a charm is first put in the food. If the chief disapprove of the
attack, he exacts a heavy fine, which he usually settles as follows:—When
the injured parties retaliate, and kill or capture some of the chief’s
subjects, he makes this headman pay the relatives for their loss. So when
the chief wants to dissuade a headman from dangerous wars, he says to
him, “Remember you will have to pay for all the slain”.
80. PUNISHMENT OF MURDER.
If one man slay another, the friends of the deceased are justified in
killing the murderer on the spot (76). But if they catch him alive they
put him in a slave-stick, till compensation be made by a heavy fine of
from 4 to 20 slaves. When the fine is paid the life of the murderer is
not demanded, but several of the slaves obtained in compensation are
killed to accompany the deceased (39). The rest of them are retained:
indeed, the friends of the murdered man look not so much to his sad fate
as to the possibility of making gain by it. If the murderer escape, some
one connected with him is captured, and a message is sent to the friends
in this form, “You have slain our brother, we have caught yours, and we
will send him after our brother unless you pay a ransom”. The ransom is
expected to include some slaves to accompany the deceased. The captive if
not redeemed is entirely at the disposal of the injured party and that
for life or death. The above applies to murders occurring among parties
friendly toward each other, and living perhaps in the same village. But
should a man go to another village and commit murder, the act, if no
explanation be granted, is held to be a declaration of war. When the
injured village is strong, the other villagers will all be killed or
enslaved without delay. Where the village is not so sure of its strength,
its headman goes to the chief of the country and presents him with a
slave, saying, “I desire your help, I want to punish that other village”.
If the chief has already failed to bring the aggressors to reason, he
receives the present, promises help, and soon the guilty village is
annihilated.
81. PUNISHMENT OF HOMICIDE.
The natives are aware of the difference between murder and homicide,
but the punishment of the two crimes is often the same. A man enters a
village, puts down his gun which goes off and kills a person. The gun
is claimed by the friends of the deceased. It is worth several slaves,
and the owner may be as anxious to redeem it as he would have been to
redeem his brother. When there is no gun to pledge, the homicide is put
in a slave-stick and retained just as in murder (80), and the surviving
relatives are equally anxious to slay persons to accompany the deceased.
Some native authorities take a more lenient view of homicide. Instead of
seizing the party or his gun, they pronounce him quite blameless, and go
to the sorcerer to discover the bewitcher who has been the real cause of
the death. They hold that it is this being that must bear the whole of
the responsibility. They use a simile here that is borrowed from hunting
customs. The hunter that first wounds a buck claims it, even though it be
ultimately brought down by another man. The man that brings the buck down
is only the finder, as it were, of another man’s game (juakupakanila):
so the homicide only found or brought down the victim that the witch had
already destroyed; he is not the cause but the occasion of the death.
Some insist that although the homicide may protest his innocence and
affirm that he is the victim of some witch, he must pay damages all the
same. I once saw two men tried for a disturbance committed while they
were drunk. The person that had supplied them with beer was also brought
up, and was afraid that he should be supposed to have bewitched the
beer. A still deeper terror hovered over his speech, “Perhaps he himself
and his beer were both bewitched, and used as a cat’s paw by some other
person”.
82. PUNISHMENT OF UNCHASTITY.
We already mentioned (56) that a man may have an opportunity of
contracting a marriage with an adult female and that he may ascertain her
sentiments privately. Long ago I was told by one qualified to speak on
African customs, that a native man would not pass a solitary woman, and
that her refusal of him would be so contrary to custom that he might kill
her. Of course, this would apply only to females that are not engaged.
A girl with no claim upon her readily agrees to marriage, and the man
will marry her although he have several wives already. But if a betrothed
girl be seduced, the crime is treated as adultery and may be punished by
death. Her intended husband has a right to kill the guilty man. In cases
of adultery the injured husband may in like manner kill the seducer. As
for the woman, her first offence may be condoned, but subsequent offences
cause divorce or death. When a wife has been guilty, her husband will
die if he taste any food that she has salted. As a consequence of this
superstition a wife is very liable to be accused of killing her husband.
When women are preparing their husband’s food they may ask a little girl
to put the salt in it. With a faithless wife the husband cannot live
until a third party (mjinjila nyumba) has been with her. The name of this
party is concealed from the husband who, from jealousy, might kill him.
After the ceremony, the husband and wife may live together again. Several
of these observances are explained and enjoined at the mysteries (52). As
adultery is a crime not easily proven, the native appeal to the sorcerer,
or the ordeal in such charges has a peculiar significance—it always leads
to a definite decision.