At the extreme end, on the spectator’s left, Mendam (see pp. 191, 198)
is the boy who is kneeling, and has his hands on another boy’s
shoulders.
]
In one town a father whose boy had been in my school refused to let him
come the second time, giving as his reason that I was teaching him not
to kill people, while he wished him to kill. The father had heard him,
after he had been in my school, teaching the people of the town a new
commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” I tried my best to get the boy back
again in the school in spite of his father; but I did not succeed. I
wonder how many he has killed by this time!
In a certain town at the head of one of the smaller rivers of the lower
Gaboon there was one of my boys, named Ekang, a little fellow whom I
regarded as the brightest boy in school; at least he led them all in
French. I reached the town about ten o’clock at night. The people were
all asleep; but Ekang soon heard my voice in the street and came
quickly. He approached making amusing and mysterious signs to me,
enjoining silence, which he explained when he came up by whispering:
“She’s asleep.”
There was no need to explain who “she” was. But even while he was
speaking “she” had awakened and was charging furiously down the street.
The boy proposed that I should take his hand and run; but the suggestion
did not appeal to me; so I turned and faced the foe. Ekang got behind
me, and for further safety put his arms around my waist. She made a dash
at him, but he circled around to the other side. Then began a gymnastic
performance of which I was literally the centre, the two revolving about
me, first one way, then the other, the boy’s arms still around my waist,
and both of them keeping up a lively and impressive conversation, which,
with the African, is inseparable from action. If I have the slightest
degree of that personal dignity that would seem to be the right of a man
who believes the first chapter of Genesis, neither mother nor son
recognized it. Failing to lay hold of him in this manner she then tried
to catch his hands at my waist; but here I asserted my rights and kept
her at full arms’ length. When I told her that I really could not have
her so near to me, she replied: “I’m not after you [which greatly
relieved me]: I’m after my boy; for I’m his mother.”
I said that it was impossible that she could be his mother; that mothers
love their children, and that she talked as if she wanted to kill this
child; and seeing that he was one of my favourite boys I must take him
away from her cruelty. A long and trying altercation followed, despite
the late hour, and a hard day’s work. At last she was so far reduced, or
so sleepy that it was only a matter of judging how much soap it would
take to complete the victory. It took nearly half a bar; but it sealed a
strong friendship.
I could almost write a poem on laundry soap. I had never before imagined
the intimate relation of soap and sentiment. Even in our own land it
ranks about next to godliness: but in Africa godliness usually takes a
second place to laundry soap. My own method was to try godliness first
and then to follow up the effect with laundry soap.
One mother, who was not in town when her husband let me have their boy,
having heard upon her return that the boy had gone, immediately followed
us in a canoe, and overtook us at the next town. She came close to the
launch and, shrieking like a maniac, took a rank poison which she had
provided for the purpose, and holding it up in her hand declared that if
I would not deliver the boy to her instantly she should swallow the
poison. I parleyed with her a while until I felt that she probably meant
what she said. After death, she assured me, she would haunt me and cause
me all kinds of trouble as long as I lived. My wives would fall in love
with other men and would run away; as fast as I could marry others they
also would leave me. This was an appalling prospect for a single man; so
I gave her the boy.
Towards the close of a tour of this kind the nights were uncomfortable
because of the many that had to be accommodated in the launch. I have
never laid claim to genius except on the ground that I could put more
boys into one bed than any man of my generation. The launch was supposed
to provide sleeping room for six persons. But more than once I made it
accommodate as many as thirty, ten of them being adults. The retiring of
such a company at bedtime was a strategic performance that required
strict and skilful oversight and called for some very precise manœuvres.
It was much more difficult to get boys from the towns of the upper
river. The people were more ignorant and savage. One day on one of these
trips, after several successive failures, I called at a certain town,
_Ikala_, where I held a service and asked for boys and after much
talking procured one boy. Then I went further up the river to a town
named _Mfu_, where I anchored for the night. It was the hot season of
the year. I had left Angom at daylight that morning, had done some hard
work on the engine, had called at several towns and had held a service
in each, preaching in undershirt, overalls and grease. Besides there was
the responsible work of navigating in these rapid waters of the upper
river—in short I was dead tired. After a hasty supper, I went ashore and
held a long service at Mfu. The attendance was very large and was
followed by endless conversation; for a white face was a rare sight and
the message of the Gospel quite strange. When I asked for boys one boy
said he wanted to come; but he had overlooked the consideration of his
mother’s consent. A little later she burst upon the scene in a tropical
rage. She was fairly crazed with anger. I tried to persuade her that I
had no intention of eating her boy, nor of turning him into a monkey or
a hobgoblin. On the matter of the monkey she was not easily convinced,
for she had heard of white men doing such things and selling the monkeys
on passing steamers. “Moreover (observing my eye-glasses), what was that
thing that I wore on my eyes,” she would like to know, “but the very
diabolical fetish by which I changed people into monkeys? and I had best
take care how I looked at her through that fetish, for she was not a
person to be trifled with, but very dangerous when roused, though
naturally good.”
She was so ugly with anger, and so ferocious that if my glasses had
really been endowed with power to change her into an average monkey I
might have been tempted to use them for the improvement of her looks and
her manners. There was no use in talking that night; she scarcely heard
me; and about ten o’clock I returned to the launch, without the boy, and
dreadfully tired.
In the interval of my absence, the man of Ikala who had given me his
boy, repenting of his goodness (the only thing the savage ever repents
of), had followed me up the river with several friends, all armed, and
had stolen the boy from the launch. Nor did he even have the good
manners to leave the two inches of soap that I had given him.
Next morning before breakfast I again landed, hoping by more substantial
eloquence to persuade the woman of Mfu. For the boy, whose name was
_Mfega_, was a very manly little fellow and wanted to come as much as I
wanted to have him. I took with me a pair of bright, brass arm-rings
that had cost seven cents—the largest present I ever made for the
purpose. I turned them about in the sunlight as I passed her house, and
indifferently rattled them. After a while I went straight to her house
and offered her the rings for the boy. Notwithstanding Paul’s contempt,
I found the eloquence of sounding brass more persuasive than the tongue
of an angel, which I had before assumed. She surrendered him to me, not
even prescribing how he should be cooked. Mfega returned to his town
after several months and he taught these same people to sing our hymns
and told them many things he had learned about the true God; and my
reception ever after that was friendly and cordial.
I then crossed the river to another town, called _Fula_, where the
government had lately established a post, which was in charge of two
black soldiers of Senegal, imported by the French. I visited in Fula a
while and then set out to a bush-town, or group of towns, called _Nkol
Amvam_, more than two hours from the river. I have said elsewhere that
there is no such thing as a _mile_ in Africa, and that periods of time
are used as terms of linear distance. The road was at the very worst,
much of the way knee-deep in mud, for it was the wet season. The boys
called it _ebol nzen_—_a rotten road_. The part of one that was above
ground was kept moist by the dripping undergrowth that met across the
path, which was also full of thorns and briers. Seldom had I travelled
on any such road, and not at all since the days, long past, when I had
walked with Dr. Good in the Bulu interior. I had now been in Africa a
long time, and this road was almost too much for me.
I had with me for guide one of my schoolboys, Mendam, who lived in a
town a little further down the river. Mendam was one of the characters
of the school, independent and original, a chucklesome boy with the best
laugh in the school. Mendam thought that the walk over such a road was
too much for “his white man” in his present state of health, and I was
touched by the feeling of regard and sympathy that he showed. We came to
a running stream almost to our knees, clear and cool, so grateful and
refreshing that I halted and stood in the middle of it for some time,
quite tired. Immediately Mendam was on his knees washing the mud off my
feet and trousers.
Though I had never before been in Nkol Amvam I had had five of their
boys in my school the preceding year. The chief had brought them out to
the river. I was therefore not entirely a stranger, and as usual the
exceedingly kind reception which I received from all the people was in
striking contrast to that of those towns from which I had never had boys
in the school; and the boys themselves fairly shouted for joy. This time
they wanted me to take all the boys in the town. I held a service and
then started back to the river taking nine boys from Nkol Amvam.
I reached Fula at noon, just in time to prevent a quarrel between my
crew and the two soldiers who were in charge of the government post.
These natives of Senegal, although they know French, and many of them
have some education, are still savages; and it is a pity that they
should ever be armed and left among a people who are foreign to them
without the supervening authority of a white man. They are cruel and
bestial. These two men were a terror to all the husbands in the
surrounding towns. This day they had come into the town, and seeing two
of my men, Ndong Koni and Toko, who were chatting freely with the people
and naturally attracting a good deal of attention, they thought they
would let the townspeople see that they were the superiors of these
coastmen. To their insolence my men responded with contempt, and the
quarrel had gone about as far as mere words could go when I arrived. I
soon settled that palaver and we hurried on board, and started down the
river.
We had great difficulty in turning the launch. The current was
exceedingly swift, a roaring torrent, and the channel narrow and
dangerous. As we began to turn, the bow necessarily came close to the
bank into slack water, while the stern was in the strong middle-current.
And before we could get sufficient way on her the stern would be carried
down leaving her bow still up-stream and headed for the bank. Twice we
had to drop the anchor. Then we threw out a line from the stern and
passed it around a tree, and weighing the anchor let the bow turn with
the current. We were soon rushing down the river through rapids and
whirlpools, and swirling currents. We called at one or two towns on the
way, and reached Angom about three o’clock, where I had work for the
rest of the day. It was a great relief to get back into the well-known
channel of the broad deep river that “flows unvexed to the sea.”
On the way up the river the preceding day, we had stopped at a town
where one of my former schoolboys, Ngema, whose father refused to let
him come again, said that he would like to go up the river with me to
the towns beyond, expecting to stop on the way back. I told him that I
could not stop at his town coming down; so he took a small canoe in tow.
Next day, when we made our last stop before passing his town, he got
into the canoe and was towed behind us; but when he was near home he
suddenly scrambled upon the launch and as we passed by he cut the
tow-line and called out to the people to send some one after the canoe,
that he was going back to school with me. I of course consented to his
coming, for he had already been in my school two terms and I had a claim
on him. I was delighted with the plan and greatly enjoyed carrying him
swiftly past his town while a concourse of his scandalized parents stood
on the bank executing fantastic gestures of remonstrance; for, standing
beside the engine, I could not hear their words. I waved back at them
pleasantly as we swept around a curve out of their sight.
Later in the day, when we were at Angom, Ngema came to me with a
peculiar expression that combined amusement and annoyance, with his head
inclined to one side as if he were too weak to hold it up, being quite
overcome by some piece of intelligence. He said, “Mr. Milligan, father
has come.” At the same time a loud noise, increasing as it approached,
confirmed the news. But I was not alarmed, as I had the man at a
disadvantage, away from his own town. Supposing that we might stop at
Angom, he had followed us in a canoe. The boy kept close to me, while I
went on with my work, not paying much attention to the father’s loud
remonstrance, but occasionally jesting with him on the score of the
boy’s success in getting away from his town. The African likes to be
teased; it is the consummate expression of brotherly love. In the
evening when I was about to start for the coast I went to him and said:
“Now don’t you think you have cursed me enough for this trip? Can’t we
be friends before I go?”
Looking somewhat abashed, but no longer unfriendly, he replied quietly:
“A bar of soap would settle the palaver.”
The African savage is more than “half child.” I was sure that when I
would take these boys back to their towns, no matter what might have
been the circumstances under which I obtained them, their parents would
be the best friends I had in the town.
That evening I started down the river with the _Evangeline_ in tow,
which had been at Angom while we were up the river. I made two short
stops to take on more boys. An entertaining episode occurred at one of
these places. Eight boys, seeing the _Dorothy_ coming down the river,
came out in a large canoe, some of them expecting to go with me to
Baraka. They had not the least idea of the speed or the momentum of the
_Dorothy_, and they ran straight across her bow. It was an exciting
moment when the river suddenly closed over a canoe and eight boys and a
terrific yell. I scarcely knew which of the submerged elements formed
the largest bubbles on the surface. But they all came up—boys, canoe,
and yell—and we secured them.
I had in all fifty-one persons on board the _Dorothy_ and the
_Evangeline_. I ran all that night and reached Baraka in the early
morning. But I must tell the story of that night; for we encountered a
tornado on the way.
I usually left Gaboon in the morning so as to have the first thirty
miles of the journey past and get into the river before the sea breeze
became strong. In returning it was not so easy to choose the time for
this part of the journey; and I sometimes encountered a rough sea. On
this occasion I had intended to anchor over night at a point sixty miles
from Gaboon and finish the journey in the early hours of the next day.
But I felt the strain of responsibility for this big human cargo and I
was anxious to reach home. Sleep would be impossible for me in the
crowded launch. When I considered also that the sea is usually more
quiet at night, I decided to go on the remaining sixty miles to Gaboon.
The moon and the stars were shining brightly above us, and almost as
brightly in the depths of the swift, silent river. When we reached the
sea it was as smooth as satin, and it continued so for a few hours. The
air was so still that at length the stillness became ominous, and I
began to fear that it was the calm that precedes a storm.
A black cloud loomed up from the horizon which we recognized as the
signal of the tornado. As usual there seemed to be two skies, the one
revolving within the other, in opposite directions. But the black cloud
hurried towards the zenith, spreading abroad, until in the course of a
few minutes it covered the entire sky, blotting out every star. We
hastily closed all the windows and shutters and carried down some of the
stuff from the top of the launch; but there was not time to save all.
The darkness above and around us seemed palpable like smoke, and beneath
us the sea was like ink. There was not a light on sea or land to guide
us and of course we could not see the shore-line, which we had always
followed instead of steering by the compass. We could only take the
soundings and keep out in deep water. I do not want to frighten my
readers as I was frightened that night; so I hasten to say that nothing
came of it except the fright. But, having the sole responsibility for
the lives of those fifty persons, the strain was great and I could have
taken Jonah’s place and have been flung overboard for the safety of the
rest. We moderns are more practical, however, and I took the soundings,
myself heaving the lead. In such a moment I could not trust a native to
do it—except Ndong Koni, and he was at the wheel. For the native is
accustomed to the canoe, and in a storm his instinct would be to go to
the shore. In a moment of peril he would be not unlikely to follow his
own instinct instead of my orders.
Suddenly the wind came; the tempest was unchained. We first heard its
roar in the distance; and in a moment the tornado was on. I fairly lost
my breath at the first swoop of it. The launch quivered and trembled
like a frightened horse. Once or twice she swayed so far over that the
small boys screamed, and then realizing that this was a life-and-death
struggle, and that it depended entirely upon her, she braced herself for
the battle. The poor _Dorothy_! Like some of her fellow missionaries she
was overworked. Intended only for inland waters, she was not only
greatly overloaded, but also required to fight her way through a
tropical tornado on a wide sea. We gave her half speed and steered right
into the storm. The first blast carried away all that was on top of the
launch. The wind raged fiercer and louder; but the _Dorothy_ somehow
held right on. Fortunately she had to contend only with the wind; and
not with wind and wave, for the sea was not yet rough. At last the
welcome rain came, falling as it falls only in the tropics. Soon
afterwards the wind died down, but the rain continued to fall for hours,
and it seemed ice-cold.
Through all that storm, when the _Dorothy_ was toiling in the sea, and
afterwards through the rain, for more than two hours, I stood outside on
the small forward deck throwing the heavy lead without stopping, and
directing the man at the wheel. As we anchored the day was breaking,
which made twenty-four hours of continuous work. But all the following
day, whether at work or rest, I was thinking of the long overdue
furlough.
XII
A SCHOOL
I said that Mendam had the best laugh in the school; and a good heart
went with it. A much younger boy, Mba, came from a town near where
Mendam lived. But they were not of the same clan. Both boys were from
towns far up the river and neither of them had ever seen the sea until
they came to my school. Like all interior people they thought that the
whole world was one great “bush.” Mba was shy and sensitive and Mendam
became a _big brother_ to him through the school year. I think the _Big
Brother_ idea, now popular in America, must have come from Africa. The
two boys became devotedly attached to each other. Mendam helped Mba with
his lessons; helped him also to take the jiggers out of his feet.
One day just before dinner several boys were down in the gully behind
the school when they suddenly came upon a python. They announced it with
a shout that brought the entire school stampeding down the hill. Mba had
his whole dinner of rice and smoked fish on his plate at the moment when
he heard the shout. He ran with it in his hand until he came to the path
leading down into the gully, and then, naturally, he set the plate down
in the path while he hurried on. But how was Obiang to know that Mba’s
dinner was right in the middle of the path when he came tearing down the
hill to kill the python? Obiang planted his foot fair on the plate,
leaving a large track and not much else. Mba, after a vain hunt for the
python, came back to enjoy his dinner. I hope we shall never get so old
that we cannot sympathize with the pangs of a hungry boy. Mba was as
inconsolable as the mother bird whose “brood is stol’n away.” But it
only lasted till Mendam arrived.
“Never mind, Mba,” he said, “I’ll give you half of my dinner. I’ll give
you _more_ than half.” That was some sacrifice for a healthy, hungry boy
who was much bigger than Mba.
But the tragedy of life begins early in Africa. One day the news came
that war had broken out between neighbouring towns up the river and that
Mba’s father had killed Mendam’s father.
It was a bitter grief for both boys, and a hard struggle on the part of
Mendam; for the blood of countless generations in his veins cried
vengeance. By all the codes and customs that ever he had heard of before
he came to school he should have hated Mba with a hatred that would last
for life. It was a hard struggle; but if the Christian faith in him had
not triumphed—if the friendship of the two boys had been broken—I don’t
think I would have told the story.
Many friendships were formed in the school which in after years would
surely become a power for the prevention of war and the shedding of
blood. Boys of neighbouring clans, mutually hostile, clans between which
there were old feuds; clans which are bred in the belief that it is a
virtue to hate each other—in that schoolboys of such clans found
themselves side by side; and in the social alignments of the school
these very boys were drawn together by the fact that, coming from
neighbouring communities, they had much in common. These school
friendships were exceedingly strong; for the African’s affections are
his substitute for moral principles. It is impossible that such boys
should afterwards contract the mutual hate of their fathers, or without
compunction shed each other’s blood.
Many of the boys when they came to Baraka had only the smallest rag of
clothing and some had none. I got just boys—nothing more. I had their
clothes made and ready for them before the school opened. The dress
which a fellow missionary devised for them was a gingham shirt with a
yoke, and loose sleeves to the elbow, and the usual cotton robe (a
_cloth_ they call it) of bright colours bound with red or white,
fastened around the waist and falling below the knees. They wore only
the cloth in the schoolroom, the shirts being kept for parade. I
disliked to see trousers on the natives, with a few exceptions of those
who were perfectly civilized in mind and manners and somewhat cultivated
in taste. It immediately and unconsciously introduced a standard of
dress and taste to which they could not measure up; a standard entirely
different from that which was applicable to a primitive people in
conditions of simplicity and freedom. Moreover, the natives, both men
and women, as well as children, look by far the best in bright colours,
not admissible in our style of clothing. They do not look well in white;
and in black they are ugly. But red, yellow, blue, orange, purple,
green—any of these colours, or all of them, are becoming and appropriate
to their climate.
The day’s program for this school of seventy-five boys was as follows:
At 5:45 A. M. the rising bell rang and at 6:15 I met the boys in the
schoolroom for prayers, after which they had breakfast. From seven
o’clock until nine they cut grass and did other necessary work in the
yard. In the proper season they picked the oranges and gathered them.
From nine o’clock until half-past three they were in school, with a
recess of half an hour in the morning for taking jiggers out of their
feet, and an hour at noon for dinner. At half-past three the dispensary
was opened for the sick and ailing. From four o’clock till five they
worked again in the yard, and at five they all took a bath in the sea.
On Saturday morning the program was the same until ten o’clock. Then a
small piece of soap was given to each boy and they all washed their
clothing in a stream that passed near their house. Extravagance always
goes with improvidence, and both are prominent characteristics of the
African. But in nothing else is their extravagance more flagrant than in
their use of soap, although they are so eager for it and have so little
of it.
The cutting of grass is a constant labour. There is no such thing as a
lawn; the grass is very coarse and rank, and does not form a sod. There
is every condition of growth—good soil, heat and moisture; and the rapid
growth of vegetation is astonishing. Here and there on the mission
premises were large beds of the strange sensitive-plant, which at the
least disturbance folds its petals together face to face. Before one, as
he walks through it, its beautiful foliage is spread like a heavy green
carpet, while behind him is nothing but scraggy, wilted vines and no
foliage at all. But in a few minutes it opens again.
The Africans use a short, straight cutlass for cutting grass, which
requires that they stoop to the ground. Even at the best, it is very
slow work. I, like others before me, imported a scythe, and showed
several of the workmen how to use it. But they did not take to it. As
soon as I disappeared it was put carefully away for my own use.
Besides the cutting of grass, there were roads to keep in repair, cargo
to land, or carry from the beach to the storeroom, and much other work.
The work of the boys saved the necessity of hiring a number of men; and
so the boys paid a large part of the expense of keeping them. As a
matter of fact, the maintenance of each boy (his food and clothing) cost
six or sometimes seven dollars for an entire year.
It required a vast expenditure of energy and continual oversight to get
seventy-five boys to go to work promptly and to work well. They were
just at the age when total depravity takes the concrete form of
laziness; but they were not more lazy than so many white boys.
One day when they were cutting the very long grass in the back of the
garden, there was a sudden cry, “Mvom!” (python). Lying in the grass was
a monster python with several coils around a dog which it was preparing
to swallow. It was a dog that we all knew, the only one of a respectable
size in the community. Being preoccupied with the dog, and partly hidden
in the grass, it did not seem to pay any attention to the boys. About
twenty-five of them remained to watch it while fifty came to call me.
Baraka was well provided with various firearms, but there was not a
single piece that would actually shoot. As a rule the appearance was all
that was really necessary. But in a real emergency this left something
to be desired. Finding myself without a weapon I went to the garden and
looked at the monster snake, and when I saw that it did not seem
disposed to leave so fine a supper I cautioned the boys to keep away
from it while I ran to an English trading-house—_Hatton & Crokson’s_—in
search of a weapon. The traders were as defenseless as the mission. The
manager, however, recalled that there was in his possession a pistol, a
precious affair, belonging to the firm. I waited exactly half an hour
while he put it “in perfect condition,” and loaded it. I kept on waiting
while he stood with it in his hand telling me what a fine weapon it was,
instructing me in its use, and especially requesting that I should bring
it back myself and not entrust it to a native for reasons which he fully
explained. I then returned to the mission wondering whether the python
might not take a fancy to something more delicate than a poor dog, and
how many boys a python would hold. But it was still coiled about the dog
not having finished crunching his bones. I crept very close, took deadly
aim and fired. Deafening silence! The pistol did not go off. Again I
pulled the trigger, with the same result, and again, and again. I
withdrew in disgust. It was the only big game that I had ever attempted
to shoot; and I had already considered what I would do with the skin.
The older boys and several men who were present had been eager all the
while to attack it with their cutlasses; and I now gave them permission.
They formed in line. One man was to strike first, back of the head, and
all the rest instantly to follow. It had lain quiet so long and was so
very sluggish that one could hardly conceive that it was alert; but at
the first stroke, before the other cutlasses fell, it had gone like a
flash. We could only guess at its size; but I have vowed never to record
my guess. Pythons have been actually measured in Gaboon at thirty feet.
One day the schoolboys killed a very young one twelve feet long, and
immediately returned to search for the parents; for they said that a
mere baby python like this would not yet have left its parents’ care to
shift for itself. The next day after this several of the smaller boys
were taken sick and I was called to the dormitory to see them. My
immediate diagnosis was _python_, and I found that I was right. But none
of the boys who had been in the school for more than one term joined in
the feast; and some of them would no more have eaten it than I would.
The regular food of the boys was cassava and dried fish. Plantains were
sometimes substituted for cassava. If we were out of fish I gave them
sardines—one sardine to each boy as his allowance of meat for a whole
day; I believe that no devout contributor to missions will charge me
with extravagance. If I had neither fish nor sardines I gave them
coconuts. The meat of a very ripe coconut is full of a strong oil and
the natives like it. A boy’s food costs less than a cent a meal.
The food for an entire day was given out at noon. They cooked their fish
all together in a large kettle. During the entire year there was never a
quarrel over the division of their food. I provided knives and forks and
a beautiful service of tin plates and spoons, all of which was new to
them as well as eating off a table—in this instance a broad shelf around
the outside of the house covered by the projecting eaves. The only
plates that they had ever known were leaves; so they called the plates
_leaves_, and had no other name for them. But I was rather puzzled the
first time a boy came and asked me for a “leaf”—“a white man’s leaf.”
The schoolhouse was an old discarded residence, which had been used by
native ministers and others connected with the mission. It had been good
in its day, and it had a board floor; but it was now in an advanced
stage of decay. It was divided into two rooms. One day I was in the
smaller room teaching a class of fifteen little boys seated on three
long benches when suddenly the floor gave way and the whole class fell
through. White ants were probably responsible for the collapse. The
floor was elevated on posts and the ground was several feet below. One
side of the room went down before the other, declining the benches so
that the boys slid to the lower end and fell off all in a heap. They got
up after a while and having crawled out they went around the schoolhouse
and marched in at the front door. Nduna, who was teaching a class, being
surprised at their entrance, said: “I thought you boys were in this
other room.” Esona, the wittiest boy in the school, replied: “We thought
so too but we were mistaken.”
[Illustration:
SCHOOLHOUSE AND DORMITORY AT GABOON.
]
The dormitory was a long, low building with earth floor, walls of bamboo
and roof of palm thatch. The teacher lived in one end of it, in a large
room separated by a partition. The bed was a bunk five feet wide which
ran around the walls of the whole interior. This bunk was a simple
device of my own. I made it with the assistance of a native carpenter
out of boxes, of which there was always a great pile on hand, in which
shipments of goods had been received. The bare boards with nothing else
would have been by far the best beds that the boys from the interior and
many of the others had ever slept upon. But there were rolls of
discarded matting in the storeroom which had been accumulating for a
generation. I had this washed, and spread on the beds, and even doubled,
which made them positively luxurious. Their house was kept as clean as
such a house could be kept. They did their cooking outside under a roof
without walls, and the house was very little used except for sleeping.
This all may seem very simple—ludicrously simple. But _the simple life_
is a popular vogue in these days, at least in theory; and we were only
practicing what others preached. For those boys it was such a change as
cannot easily be imagined. They were taught habits of order and
cleanliness, self-respect and consideration for others, to work and to
think, all that is essential to civilization, and the great religious
truths which are its foundation and which centre in the cross of Christ.
Even if they do not become professed followers of Christ they are far
removed from their former life. That life and its surroundings will
never be the same to them, and will never again satisfy them.
Parents were more willing to give me sick children than any others,
because these were of little or no use at home, and they soon learned
that those who went away sick were more than likely to return well.
Each day after school hours I opened the dispensary. At the beginning of
the term there were usually twenty or thirty boys who were treated
daily. None of them, of course, were very serious cases. Most of them
had itch, all of them had worms, many had ulcers, and there were a few
fevers and a few fits. In my last year in Africa a fellow missionary
relieved me of most of this medical work. Some of the ulcers were
dreadful, for the blood of many of these children, especially those who
live near the coast, is so tainted with venereal disease that a small
cut or scratch is liable to become an ugly sore, and such wounds are
rarely cleansed. Long before the close of the term, however, they were
nearly all well and their bodies clean and smooth.
In a former chapter I have told at some length of the scourge of the
jigger, and how the discipline of the school was concentrated in an
effort to make the boys keep them out of their feet. A boy who had
jiggers got no food until his feet were clean. It was hard discipline,
but it would have been cruel to have done otherwise. The whole of the
morning recess was spent in examining their feet. Without exception the
boys who had been long in the school kept themselves perfectly clean
from jiggers, and they in turn were willing to examine the other boys’
feet and report to me. It was a measure of self-protection; for one boy
whose feet were full of jiggers would scatter thousands of them.
Sometimes in the dry season, when they are worst, I had the boys haul
barrels of salt water from the sea and flood the house with it.
The program of daily studies covered the subjects usually taught in
primary schools, besides French and the Bible. With the help of a
missionary friend I translated into Fang a simple catechism of fifty
questions and answers and a number of hymns. They committed to memory
both catechism and hymns. These they invariably taught in their towns
upon their return home. Some few of the boys are very bright in all
their studies and learn fast—as fast as American boys; others are stupid
in everything—as stupid as some American boys. The average African
schoolboy, however, is not as clever as the average American boy. In the
acquisition of a foreign language the African boy far surpasses the
American. Yet this is not now regarded as a high order of faculty. It
rather belongs to the elementary mind and the highly civilized nations
tend to lose it.
I have never known an American school in which there was better order
and so little exercise of discipline as in my African school. There was
no flogging at all. The entire matter of discipline was confined to the
jigger-palaver. Yet these boys were not by any means dull or lacking in
humour. Indeed, the humour of the Negro is far more keen than that of
any Asiatic race, and is nearest to our own.
But even in the best-ordered schools there will be an occasional lapse
of discipline, and my school was no exception. One day in the class I
called on a certain boy, Toma, to read. A knife had been stolen from my
room that morning—probably by a workman—and the boys had been talking
about it and wondering if any of their number could have done it. Toma
was one of the larger boys and was dull at his books. Moreover, he was
conscious of being backward and was easily embarrassed when he was
reciting. This day as he rose to recite, a certain smart boy, Esona,
whom I have already mentioned, said in a loud whisper: “Now, if anybody
can’t recite his lesson that will be a sign that he has stolen Mr.
Milligan’s knife.”
The effect of the remark on Toma—as Esona expected and intended—was that
it embarrassed him and made it impossible for him to recite. He stumbled
on from bad to worse, to the ill-concealed amusement of the class, until
at last he came to a dead stop, paused for a moment, and then suddenly
turned and flung his book across the room at Esona’s head. It was well
aimed, and it hit. Toma evidently knew some things about books that
Esona had never thought of.
In singing they excelled. I am sure that only a choir of well-trained
American boys could sing as well as those boys of my school. They soon
acquired a reputation on the coast, and visitors, from passing steamers,
having heard of them from the captains and others, asked to hear them
sing; and I do not think that they were ever disappointed. There was a
quartette of boys who sang beautifully. I made some phonograph records
of their singing, but after bringing them all the way to New York in
safety, where I used them a few times, they got broken between New York
and Chicago.
The hymn, if well used, is the form in which the Christian religion will
reach more people than can be reached by any other means. When these
boys returned to their towns the people old and young were eager to
learn the hymns, and had soon committed many of them to memory. In
far-away towns that no white man had ever visited before, I have held a
service, and when I started a hymn the people all joined heartily in
singing. _He Leadeth Me_ was the favourite of all the hymns, and was
always the first one that they learned.
The routine of the day’s work was liable to various interruptions.
Sometimes a boy was enticed by his relations to run away from the
school. I always followed, and at any cost brought him back, for fear of
the demoralization of the school. I had always exacted a promise of each
boy when I received him that he would stay until the end of the term.
And they never ran away except when induced to do so by people of their
town whom they happened to meet. One day word was brought to me that two
of the boys had run away, having been persuaded to do so by a relation
who came selling food. I set out in hot pursuit with several attendants,
and soon we met the man who had been overheard asking the boys to go
with him. He denied all knowledge of them, but I had proof. I brought
him to Baraka, bound him hands and feet and said that he would be
released as soon as the boys were returned to me. In a few hours the
boys arrived.
There were other interruptions. For instance, while I am engaged in the
absorbing task of unfolding the implications of monotheism to a class of
theological students whom I am preparing for the work of catechists, a
naked Fang from the bush stalks into the room unannounced and says:
“White man, what’s good for worms? I’m full of them.”
“Santonine and castor oil,” roars the whole class in concert, with such
alacrity and assurance that I wish it were one of the implications of
monotheism.
“Well, I’ve brought two eggs,” says the Fang; “good eggs—both of them
laid this morning—and I want some of that medicine.”
I leave the class and first spend considerable time testing the eggs.
One of them is probably the oldest egg in the world. I complain to the
man, and he tells me that he took his wife’s word for its being laid
that morning; but that he might have known better, for she is the worst
liar that ever lived, and he—a lover of truth—is going to send her home
to her father and demand the dowry which he paid for her. And if it be
refused war will be declared between that town and his own.
I advise him that the matter of the egg is hardly worth going to war
over. The other egg is middling good; and I give him the medicine. Then
I resume the theological lecture.
The most noticeable feature of this _simple life_ is its bewildering
complexity. There is no mental perspective. The clamour of the small but
immediate interest constantly claims the attention, as a mote may bolt a
landscape. Emerson’s observation, that Isaac Newton was as great while
engaged in tying his shoe-string as in computing the magnitude of the
fixed stars, was comforting when much of my time was occupied in tying
shoe-strings. Yet, after all, such a life is exactly as great, or as
petty, as a man himself makes it. The shoe-string is the equivalent of a
cup of cold water. And it is a fact that these small matters afford the
very best kind of opportunity for personal contact and personal
influence with the native.
But the worst annoyance was due to parents coming to visit their
children. Sometimes half a dozen men and women would come from a distant
town to visit one small boy, all of them claiming the parental relation.
In the first place, such visitors could not understand why the boys
should not be kept out of school while they were there. And then they
could not understand why they should not stay over night or several
nights, at my expense, and sleep in the boys’ dormitory. Each of these
matters involved a long contention. Then they could not understand why
their boys should not be allowed to return home with them and spend a
few days. Then they could not understand why I should not give each of
them a present when they were about to take their leave. Sometimes the
boys, themselves, who had been happy and content, became unsettled and
wanted to go home. About every second or third day such visitors were
announced. Parents were always my chief trouble in Africa. Even in
fevered dreams they haunted me. At first these contentions, which
usually occurred in the morning, fairly wore me out before the day’s
work was well begun, but I afterwards learned to regard them as
inevitable and to bear them with the least mental expense possible. My
answers and protests became stereotyped, and I could carry on a vigorous
contention while thinking of something else. But I tried hard not to
offend these people, and somehow we always parted on friendly terms.
Within a month I might meet them in some distant town, and an unkindly
reception or unkindly report would defeat the purpose of my preaching.
In the middle of the term I had a picnic. Taking the _Lafayette_ or the
_Evangeline_ in tow behind the _Dorothy_ we went to a beach twelve miles
away and spent the day. We had many of the usual picnic sports. But
nearly all the prizes were soap, the pieces ranging from one to six
inches. Their deficiency in real sportsmanship is not surprising, but it
is rather amusing. A boy’s effort to win a race consisted largely in
attempting to disable his competitors.
They showed more of the true spirit of the sportsman in their native
games and sports.
They are fond of wrestling, and they wrestle fairly well. There is a
game in which two sides are chosen, and a boy of the first side,
standing opposite a boy of the second side, raises his arms above his
head—which the other boy must do at the same time—then claps his hands
together rapidly, as often as he pleases, at length suddenly thrusting
either arm in front of him as if striking a blow. The other boy must
keep with him as nearly as possible, and at the right moment thrust out
the corresponding arm. A certain number of “wins” makes a chief. The
chief retires honourably from the game and becomes a spectator. This
game is a training both for mind and muscle.
In their own towns, where they have spears, men and boys play a game in
which some object, perhaps a piece of plantain stock, is hurled along
the ground, while from either side they throw their spears at it and try
to “wound” it.
They have an interesting variation of _Hide and Seek_. One of their
number is sent into the bush to hide. In his absence some one “curses”
him. Then they all call to him and vociferously ask him: “Which of us
cursed you? Which of us cursed you?” His only guide is their
countenances, which he studies. If he names the right one, then the
latter must hide.
They have a “laugh” game in which a boy, standing before his fellows,
bids them laugh and tries in every legitimate way to compel them. He
mimics various animals, or well-known persons, especially persons of
great dignity. The boy who laughs exchanges places with him and in turn
bids his fellows laugh. They have a mocking song which they sing to one
who fails to make anybody laugh. This is a good training for oratory,
which occupies a large and important place in all Africa, the land of
the _palaver_. It is also a training in facial control, in which, as it
seems to me, the African is no amateur.
They also have gambling games in their towns; but I do not know that
habitual gambling is common.
Some of the games of the schoolboys, like some of their stories and
fables, may have been borrowed from adjacent tribes. For the Fang, whom
I know best, are in contact with other tribes south of them and also
with the people of Gaboon, where many tribes intermingle.
The boys were very fond of dancing, in which they often indulged in the
cool evening after supper. African dances are not in the least degree
effeminate; and they have nothing like our round dances. Their dancing
is as vigorous and masculine as their wrestling, and as a gymnastic
exercise is far better than wrestling. They dance with the whole body,
keeping time with the feet, while they wag the head, sway the shoulders,
rotate the thighs, agitate the muscles of the stomach until it seems to
gyrate. The African dance is distinctly a “stunt.” In many of the dances
they follow one another round and round in Indian file.
But they also have hunting-dances and war-dances with sham fights. Some
terrific battles, with uncomputed casualties, have been fought in my
school yard. In one of these battles they impressed into service an
enormous brass kettle which I had provided for their cooking. This and a
number of old kerosene tins did noble service as a military band and
reinforced their yelling battle-song. They seriously damaged the brass
kettle. But I forgave them; for it was the only instance of destruction
of which they were guilty during the whole year. One would scarcely
expect them to study economy when a battle was raging upon which—if I
might judge by the evidence of wild enthusiasm—the future of their tribe
was depending. Will it seem credible, or even possible to the American,
that never once did a real fight occur as an incident in these battles?
When the grass was rankest, however, or when the torrential rains had
excoriated the hillside roads, and there was plenty of hard work for the
schoolboys each day, they usually substituted story-telling and singing
for dancing and games in the cool of the evening.
Boys in Africa and everywhere else are fond of animal stories. The
story-teller imitates all the animals of his story, and as this talent
differs in different individuals, the story loses nothing, but rather
gains by repetition. Mendam, Nkogo, Esona and Ekang were all good
story-tellers. The following stories are known widely in West Africa:
The tortoise (which corresponds to Uncle Remus’s _Brer Rabbit_)
challenged the hippopotamus to a tug-of-war. The hippopotamus at first
refused to believe that the tortoise was serious, but at length he
accepted the challenge. Then the tortoise challenged the rhinoceros to a
tug-of-war. The rhinoceros at first did not believe that the tortoise
was serious, but at length he, too, accepted the challenge.
At the appointed time the tortoise was on hand with an enormous
bush-rope (liana), and when the hippopotamus arrived he fastened one end
of it to him and brought him to the bank of the river.
“Now,” said the tortoise, “I shall fasten the other end to myself and we
shall keep on pulling until you pull me into the river or I pull you
into the bush.”
Just then the rhinoceros came along to keep his appointment, and the
tortoise fastened the end of the rope to him and said: “Now, I shall
fasten the other end to myself and we shall keep on pulling until you
pull me into the bush, or I pull you into the river.”
Then the hippopotamus and the rhinoceros pulled against each other, and
pulled and pulled. Sometimes the rhinoceros was dragged almost into the
river and again the hippopotamus was dragged to the bush. At length they
became completely exhausted and each of them decided to give up to the
tortoise and admit defeat. For this purpose they came walking towards
each other until they met. They looked at each other for a moment in
surprise, and then they both cursed the tortoise.
The chameleon, despite its innocence, is an object of superstitious fear
to the African, and they are disposed to regard it as superwise.
The chameleon challenged the elephant to run a race. The elephant was
amused, for the chameleon is one of the slowest creatures in the forest.
But finding that the chameleon was really in earnest, the elephant
accepted the challenge. So the chameleon and the elephant set out on a
long race through the forest. The chameleon only started and then
immediately turned back; for he had arranged with different members of
his family that one of them should be present at the end of each stage
of the race. So at the end of the first stage when the elephant came
dashing in, all out of breath, he found the chameleon already there.
“What? You here?” exclaimed the astonished elephant.
“Yes,” said the panting chameleon, “I just got in.”
“Aren’t you very tired?” said the elephant.
“Not very,” said the chameleon.
So they set out again. But the chameleon only started and came back,
while the elephant ran on.
At the end of the next stage the elephant was again surprised to find
that the chameleon had arrived a little ahead of him. And so it happened
at the end of each stage until at last the elephant gave up, and
confessed that the chameleon had outrun him.
In all African fables the various animals are but thinly disguised human
beings.
The leopard bet his life to the antelope that if he would hide the
antelope would not be able to find him. The antelope agreed, and the
leopard went and hid in the forest. But the antelope found him very
quickly. Then the leopard was very angry. So he told the antelope to
hide and see how quickly he could find him. The antelope agreed, but he
told the leopard that he would surely have his life.
Then the antelope hid and the leopard searched for him and searched and
searched, but could not find him. Then he said: “I am too tired to walk
any more, and I am hungry; so I shall pick some of these nuts and take
them to town to eat.”
So the leopard filled a bag with the nuts, and when he had carried them
to town he called all his people together to eat them, and he told a
slave to crack the nuts for the people to eat. But, lo, out of the first
nut there jumped a fine dog. Now, the leopard was married and had four
wives, and each wife had her own house in which she cooked. The dog ran
to the first house and asked the wife for something to eat. But the wife
beat the dog and drove it out. Then the dog ran to the second house and
asked for something to eat. But the second wife beat the dog and drove
it out. Then the dog asked the third wife, and she also beat it. Then
the dog asked the fourth wife, and she beat it and tried to kill it. But
just as it was dying the dog changed into a beautiful maiden. Then the
leopard wanted to marry the maiden.
“All right,” she said, “but you must first kill those four wives who
beat the dog and tried to kill it.” And the leopard was so much in love
with the maiden that he killed his four wives for her sake.
Then he asked the maiden to marry him; but she said: “I cannot marry a
husband with such dreadful nails. Won’t you please have them cut?” Then
the leopard cut his nails.
But again the maiden said: “I can’t marry a husband with such awful
eyes. Won’t you please take them out?” And the leopard tore out his
eyes.
Then the maiden said: “I can’t marry a husband with such clumsy feet.
Won’t you please chop them off?” And the leopard had his feet chopped
off for he loved the maiden and wanted to marry her.
But again the maiden said: “There is just one more thing that I wish you
would do for me. Your teeth are frightfully ugly. Won’t you have them
knocked out?” And then the leopard sent to the fireplace for a stone and
had his teeth knocked out.
Then the maiden was suddenly changed into the antelope; who said to the
dying leopard: “You thought to outwit me, but I have outwitted you and
have taken your life and the life of your whole family.”
Towards the middle of the term the boys began to come to me voluntarily,
one by one, saying that they desired to be Christians; and before the
term had closed nearly all, at least four out of five, had professed
faith in Christ. How many of these would prove faithful no one could
tell; but very few of them gave me reason to doubt their sincerity. They
were not baptized, nor received into the church, until they had been two
years on probation. At first my confidence in their profession of faith,
compared with that of adults, hesitated; but it grew stronger with
experience each passing year. The boys were not the weakest, but the
best Christians in Africa. Their minds had never been warped with
fetishism; and they had a more intelligent grasp of Christian
principles.
Separated from the heathen environment during a portion of their
formative years—from its degrading beliefs as well as its immoral
practices—and having that intimate contact with the missionary which
only a boarding-school provides, the impression was nearly always
lasting. “As the twig is bent the tree is inclined.”
The very towns in which these boys lived became different from all other
towns. A stranger travelling with me from town to town would surely
notice the difference. These boys became without doubt the greatest
evangelistic force in the Fang field. Africans are natural orators; and
even the small boy has not the least difficulty in expressing his
thoughts appropriately. Whatever religious truth I taught the schoolboys
they in turn taught their people when they returned home. They did what
neither myself, nor any other white man, could ever have done. Boys of
twelve years, or even ten, gathered the people of their towns around
them, both old and young and taught them reading and whatever they had
learned of arithmetic. This is a matter of observation and astonishment
in all mission fields in Africa.
And all Africans have this beautiful childlike quality that they are
teachable—a quality that Jesus must have had in mind when He set a child
in the midst of the disciples as the symbol of Christian attainment. The
biggest African chief will sit on the ground and listen to the small
boy, so long as the small boy knows anything worth while that the chief
does not know.
XIII
THE MENTAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM
No; it was not among the Negroes, but among the peasants of Germany that
the horseshoe acquired its power of luck.
One day very long ago, in a German village, an honest blacksmith was
hard at work making a horseshoe when the devil, strolling about the
village, was attracted by the hammering. While looking on at the
blacksmith it occurred to him that it might be a very good thing to get
his own hoofs shod. Thereupon he made a bargain with the blacksmith, and
the blacksmith set to work to put horseshoes on the devil. Now the
honest blacksmith knew very well that it was the devil and nobody else.
So he put on each of his feet a red-hot shoe, and drove the nails
straight into the devil’s hoofs. The devil then paid him and went his
way; but the honest blacksmith threw the money into the fire. Meanwhile,
the devil, after walking some time, began to suffer pain from his shoes,
and as he went on the pain became worse and worse. In his torment he
danced and he kicked and he raged and he swore, and still the pain
became worse. Then at last, in agony, he tore the shoes off and threw
them away. From that day to this whenever the devil sees a horseshoe he
runs away as fast as he can go.
The superstition of the horseshoe has been so eagerly embraced by the
Negro that most people seem to think that it originated with him. It is
precisely like many of his own superstitions, and it shows that
ignorance and superstition in Africa are like ignorance and superstition
anywhere else, and that the African mind is essentially like our own.
The charm, the fetish and the relic represent ascending grades of
belief. They are all associated together in what we call _fetishism_.
The charm operates not by reason of any intelligence within itself but
by some influence from without. The horseshoe is such a charm. One of
the numerous African charms is the string which a mother ties around the
waist of her child and which is worn throughout childhood. This fetish
is for health. The Roman Catholic priests, in the early history of their
missions on the Congo, substituted for this health-fetish a string made
from the fibres of a palm that had been blessed on Palm Sunday. There is
no evidence, however, that the substitution of the Roman fetish for the
African fetish resulted in any marked improvement in the health of the
natives.
A charm is not necessarily a physical object—like the amulet. In Africa,
as among the superstitious everywhere else, it may be a word or action,
a sign or symbol, a formula or incantation. To count the number of
persons present on certain occasions will cause the death of at least
one of them within the year. The utterance of the word _salt_ at the
wrong moment has been known to produce appalling consequences.
The fetish proper represents a more intelligible form of belief than the
charm or amulet. One common kind of fetish implies animism; that is,
that the various objects of nature have each a life analogous to that of
man to which their phenomena are due. This life is inseparable from the
object. The eagle’s talon, the wing feathers of any bird, the claw of
the leopard, the teeth of animals, and all those objects which are
associated with that which is desirable or that which is fearful are
valuable fetishes, because one may avail himself of the powers inherent
in such objects. The African sometimes says that the surf is in a nasty
temper; and when he uses this expression he is not speaking
figuratively. The wind talks to the forest, and the forest talks to the
wind. The tornado is often nothing more than a quarrel between mountain
and forest, lightning against wind; and, as one writer expresses it, we
ourselves may get hit with the bits. Not that they are angry at us, but
at each other, and we had best keep out of the way.
Closely related to this class of fetishes is a kind somewhat higher than
the animistic fetish. In this the relation of the physical object and
the power within it is not that of body and spirit but that of a house
and a tenant residing in it. The spirit may leave the fetish, and then
it will be of no more use. But the skill of a fetish-doctor may compel
the spirit to remain. As long as it remains it is under the control of
the possessor of the fetish and must do his bidding. If it should
disobey he will punish it, usually by hanging it in the smoke. It is
such a fetish, contained in a goat’s horn, that a man walking in the
forest carries suspended from his neck to make him invisible to an
enemy. Another he hangs among his plantains to keep the wind from
blowing them down.
But the most powerful and sacred fetish is the ancestral relic,
possessed by every grown man. It is the skull of the father or other
ancestral relation. Here fetishism becomes ancestor-worship. The skull
is the residence of the dead father, and if it be treated well, that is,
kept in a warm and dry place, the father will confer every kind of
favour—success in hunting and in war, in stealing and attracting other
men’s wives. For death has not improved the morals of these ancestors.
The son never punishes the ancestral fetish. Indeed, if he neglect it—if
he let it get cold or wet—the ancestor will punish him. Many a hunter’s
gun has refused to fire just at the critical moment because of such
neglect. He often talks to the dead father and tells him his affairs and
asks his help. This fetish is only for men, not for women. If a woman
should see it she will surely die. If she even be heard talking too
curiously about it she is liable to die. This is no imaginary fear on
her part. For the ancestral anger, like much of the occultism of Africa,
has a material basis of secret poison administered by living agents.
The fetish-doctor, or medicine-man, is to be feared. He is more powerful
in some tribes than in others; but within his own tribe his reputation
depends upon himself. Any shrewd fellow, should good fortune attend him
for a while, may persuade the people that he can make powerful fetishes.
There will be application for various fetishes at good prices. Every
success enhances his reputation; and if he is very clever he will even
convert failure into success. If a man return a fetish and tell him it
has failed—that his goods have been stolen, his hens have not laid, his
wives have eloped, or his canoe has capsized with him—the doctor will
not usually dispute the failure, but will discover the reason, and more
than ever impress his customer with his skill and knowledge. Sometimes
as soon as he looks at it he will say that it is dead; that the spirit
has escaped from it and it may as well be thrown away. Then by some
occult means he discovers how this has happened. The owner, it may be,
has not taken proper care of it; or an enemy has lured it away from him
into his own service; or a witch has killed it. Thereupon he offers to
make him another fetish at a reasonable price.
The fetish-doctor soon acquires the power of detecting witchcraft and
sometimes even of discovering the witch. His diagnosis and treatment of
the bewitched are interesting and varied. One particular treatment is as
follows: Having discovered that the patient has really been bewitched,
he makes several incisions on the breast. Then, after an exercise of
howls and incantations, he applies his lips to the incision and sucks
the wound until the patient screams; whereupon, he takes out of his
mouth some article, perhaps a goat’s horn, which he is supposed to have
sucked out of the body of the patient, and which had been witched into
him. He again applies his lips, and when the patient screams a second
time he takes another article out of his mouth and displays it before
the credulous people. Having thus removed a miscellaneous assortment of
articles—roots, pebbles, broken pottery and other objects entirely out
of place in a human anatomy—the patient is left in a fair way to
recover; and if he should not it is surely not the fault of the doctor.
It is always a question to what extent the fetish-doctor is a conscious
hypocrite. He usually begins practice by exploiting some particular
fetish in which he really believes and whose power he has proved.
Finding the trade lucrative he invents other fetishes upon the same
principle—for there _is_ a principle, that is to say, there is always
some apparent relation between the ingredients of a fetish and the
purpose for which it is designed. If some of his first fetishes should
be successful and gain him a reputation he may come to believe in his
own power. He may consciously abuse that power—and physicians in other
lands have been known to do the same; but he still believes in the
power—believes in fetishes and in witchcraft and in the possibility of
its detection.
Africa presents to the psychologist an unexplored and inviting field. A
man who possesses a fetish-skull usually invokes its aid to prevent
secret unfaithfulness on the part of his wife. He compounds a certain
fetish the ingredients of which include a lock of his wife’s hair,
cuttings of her nails, or her saliva. This fetish he puts into the box
with the father’s skull; and now, it is believed, if his wife be
unfaithful she will surely die; death being inflicted by the ancestor.
It seems to be a fact that this fetish frequently proves effective
without the aid of poison; that is to say, the woman dies. Fear often
drives her to a tardy confession, which, however, affords her but small
relief; for everybody tells her that she is going to die.
“You’re a corpse,” says one. “You’re failing every day,” says another.
And the poor woman, as if yielding to some occult compulsion, fails
rapidly and dies. She dies, presumably, as a psychological consequence
of her belief in the fetish.
One must never tell a sick person that he is going to die lest one be
charged with wishing his death. In some tribes it is equivalent to a
curse designed to effect death, and is liable to severe punishment.
The following dying confession was made by a woman in a Fang town of
Gaboon: Years ago, when she was a child, a man of her town had given her
a certain fetish medicine, concealing it in her food. After she had
eaten it he told her what he had done, and said that this medicine would
effect her death at the birth of her first child. She must keep this
matter secret from everybody, even from her parents, lest the medicine
kill her immediately. This gloomy prospect darkened her life for years,
and just before the birth of her first child she sickened and
died—probably as a psychological consequence of her belief in the
fetish. Such confessions are not uncommon.
The mental degradation of the African is often overlooked through the
deeper regard for his moral degradation. Therefore it is my present
purpose to depict the mental degradation of fetishism, and to set over
against it the new and transforming conception of God and nature which
Christ imparts to the African mind.
Carlyle has said: “What notion each forms of the universe is the
all-regulating fact with regard to him.” Looking out upon nature and
knowing of no divine intelligence ever present and presiding, the
African does not discover the reign of law nor the uniformity of nature.
Those phenomena of which the cause is not as obvious as the effect he
relates to a supernatural cause. And since _will_ is the cause that he
knows by experience, he instinctively attributes natural phenomena to a
personal will; not to _one_ will, however, but to many; for natural
phenomena are various and the moods of nature are inconsistent. He hears
the crash of thunder, and if he says, “Somebody threw something,” he is
not very far from the ancient conception of Jupiter hurling
thunderbolts. And, since that which is normal and regular does not
attract attention like that which is unusual and fearful, therefore to
the unreflecting mind the beneficence of nature is far less obvious than
its terrors; since the laws of growth, seedtime and harvest, rain and
sunshine,—all the kindly ministry of nature, is quiet and unobtrusive,
while her cruelty thrusts itself upon the mind, the African concludes
that the innumerable spirits which rule nature or constantly interfere
with it are mostly evil and hostile.
From this view it is not a long stride to the belief that the spirits
reside _in_ the objects of nature, each in its appropriate object; and
this is fetishism. We are all fetishists by instinct; though we may hear
it with the astonishment of Molière’s hero when he found that he had
been talking prose all his life. Every time one slams a door in anger or
kicks at a bucket—as if such things had sentience and could be hurt—he
exhibits a fetish instinct.
If we bear in mind, then, that the very axioms of the African’s belief
obliterate the line between nature and the supernatural, and, further,
that habitual lying makes the character of truth vague and uncertain,
and also that he has an imagination almost as vivid as reality, we may
be somewhat enabled to understand the degraded mental condition
indicated by such incidents as the following, which I repeat because
they are representative:
A certain woman, knowing that the penalty would be death, confessed—and
with undoubted sincerity—that by witchcraft she had caused another
woman’s death, and was herself killed by the people.