I had not gone far before I found a pile of brushwood, and, rejoicing at my success, I called out to the crew to come and carry it. While they were coming, I stooped down and laid hold of an eligible stick. But an odor startled me; and the other sticks that I had dislocated falling apart, there was revealed a human foot and shin, which, from the ornaments still remaining about the ankle, I suppose was a woman’s.My attendants fled; and I re-embarked in the boat, sufficiently unconscious of hunger to await a late meal that was not cooked until we reached a comfortable village a short distance beyond. My crew then explained their slowness to obey me at that clump of palm trees, by saying that they knew it looked like a burying-place.
A less respectful mode of burial (if, indeed, the term be not a misnomer) is applied to the poor, to the friendless aged who have wearied out the patience of relatives by a long sickness, and to those whose bodies are offensive by a leprous or otherwise ulcerous condition. Immediately that life seems extinct (and sometimes even before) the wasted frame is tied up in the mat on which it is lying, and, slung from a pole on the shoulders of two men, is flung out on the surface of the ground in the forest, to become the prey of wild beasts and the scavenger “driver” (Termes bellicosa) ants.
Of one tribe in the upper course of the Ogowe, I was told, who, in their intense fear of ghosts, and their dread of the possible evil influence of the spirits of their own dead relatives, sometimes adopt a horrible plan for preventing their return. With a very material idea of a spirit, they seek to disable it by beating the corpse until every bone is broken. The mangled mass is hung in a bag at the foot of a tree in the forest. Thus mutilated, the spirit is supposed to be unable to return to the village, to entice into its fellowship of death any of the survivors.
Some dead bodies are burned, particularly those of criminals. Persons convicted on a charge of witchcraft are “criminals,” and are almost invariably killed. Sometimes they are beheaded. I have often had in my possession the curved knives with which this operation is performed.
Sometimes torture is used: a common mode is to roast the condemned over a slow fire, which is made under a stout bed-frame built for the purpose. In such a case almost the entire body is reduced to ashes. When I was clearing a piece of ground at Belambila in the Ogowe in 1875, for thehouse which I afterward occupied, my workmen came on a pile of ashes, charcoal, and charred bones, where, they assured me, a criminal had been put to death.
A barely mentionable method of disposal of the bodies of the dead is to eat them. That is possible only in a cannibal country. That it was actual was known among the Gabun Fang fifty years ago, and among my Ogowe Fang twenty-five years ago. None ate of their own dead; adjacent towns exchanged corpses. Women were not allowed to partake. The practice was confined to the old men. One such was pointed out to me at Talaguga in 1882. He robbed graves for that purpose.
Among the coast tribes of the Gabun region of West Africa cremation is not known, nor are corpses thrown out on the ground. Under the influence of foreign example, the dead are coffined, more or less elaborately, according to the ability of the family; and the interment is made in graves of proper depth. In some of these tribes a locality of low, dark, tangled forest, not suitable as site for a village or for a plantation, is used as a public cemetery.
Among the tribes of Batanga in the German Kamerun territory, though the people are civilized, the old unsanitary custom of burying in the kitchen-gardens immediately in the rear of the village, and sometimes actually in the clay floor of the dwelling itself, is still kept up, even by the more enlightened natives. The Christians are not in numbers sufficiently large in any family to control all the burial ceremonies of its dead members. The strange spectacle is therefore presented of a mixture of Christian ritual and fetich custom. In my own experience at funerals of some children of church-members at Batanga, the singing of hymns of faith and hope by the Christian relatives alternated with the howling of half-naked heathen death-dancers in an adjoining house. And when I had read the burial service to the point of beginning the march of the procession to the grave, perhaps only a few rods distant, the heathen remained behind; and while I was reading the “dust to dust” at the grave-side, they would bebuilding a quick fire of chips and dried leaves on the exact spot where the coffin had last stood in the village street. The ashes they would gather and incorporate into their family fetiches, to insure fertility to the mother and other near female relatives of the dead child.
Also, in the Gabun region, there is the remains of a custom, practised especially by the Orungu tribe of Cape Lopez, of a pretended quarrel between two parties of mourners on a question whether or not the burial shall actually be made, even though there is no doubt that it will be, and the coffin is ready to be carried. This contest concluded, a second quarrel is raised on a question as to which of two sets of relatives, the maternal or the paternal, shall have the right to carry it. Very recently this actually occurred at the town of Libreville, and on the premises of the American Presbyterian Mission, the fight being shamefully waged by young men who formerly had been professing Christians. They had been given permission to bury a young man in our Protestant cemetery. The missionary in charge of the station heard a great hubbub on the path entering the mission grounds, as if a fight was in progress. Going to investigate, he found an angry contest was being carried on, under the old heathen idea that the spirit of the dead must see and be pleased by a demonstration of a professed desire to keep him with the living, and not to allow him to be put away from them. The contest of words had almost come to blows, and the victors had set up a disgraceful shout as they seized the coffin to bring it to the grave.
Another custom remains in Gabun,—a pleasant one; it may once have had fetich significance, but it has lost it now, so that Christians may properly retain it. Just before the close of the kwedi, friends (other than relatives) of the mourners will bring some gift, even a small one, make a few remarks appropriate to it and to the circumstances of the receiver, and give it to his or her mourning friend. It is called the “ceremony of lifting up,”i. e., out of the literal ashes, and from the supposed depths of grief. For instance, ifthe gift be a piece of soap, the speech of donation will be, “Sit no longer in the dust with begrimed face! Rise, and use the soap for your body!” Or if it be a piece of cloth, “Be no longer naked! Rise, and clothe yourself with your usual dress!” Or if it be food, “Fast no longer in your grief! Rise, and strengthen your body with food!”
A Civilized Family.—Gabun.
As to the status of the departed in the spirit-world, though all those African tribes from old heathen days knew of the name of God, of His existence, and of some of His attributes, they did not know of the true way of escape from the evils of this present life, of any system of reward and punishment in the future life, nor of any of the conditions of that life. That they had a belief in a future world is evidenced by survivors taking to the graves of their dead, as has been described in the preceding pages, boxes of goods, native materials, foreign cloth, food, and (formerly) even wives and servants, for use in that other life to which they had gone. Whatever may have been supposed about the locality or occupations of that life, the dead were confidently believed to have carried with them all their human passions and feelings, and especially their resentments. Fear of those possible resentments dominated the living in all their attempts at spiritual communication with the dead.
As to the locality of the latter, it was not believed that all of them always remained in that unknown other world. They could wander invisibly and intangibly. More than that, they could return bodily and resume this earthly life in other forms; for belief in metempsychosis is a common one among all these tribes. The dead, some of them, return to be born again, either into their own family or into any other family, or even into a beast.
Who thus return, or why they return, is entirely uncertain. Certainly not all are thus born again. Those who in this present life had been great or good or prominent or rich remain in the spirit-world, and constitute the special class of spirits called “awiri” (singular, “ombwiri”).
But these awiri are at liberty to revisit the earth if theychoose, taking a local habitation in some prominent natural object, or coming on call to aid in ceremonies for curing the sick. Other spirits, as explained in a previous chapter, are sinkinda, the souls of the common dead; and ilâgâ, unknown spirits of other nations, or beings who have become “angels,” all of these living in “Njambi’s Town.”
As to Father Njambi Himself, the creator and overseer of all, both living and dead, every kind of spirit—ombwiri, nkinda, olâgâ, and all sorts of abambo—is under His control, but He does not often exercise it.
FETICHISM—SOME OF ITS PRACTICAL EFFECTS
Depopulation.
Oneof the effects of witchcraft beliefs in Africa is the depopulation of that continent. Over enormous areas of the country the death rate has exceeded the birth rate. Much of Africa is desert—the Sahara of the north, and the Kalahari of the south—with estimated populations of only one to the square mile. Another large area is a wilderness covered by the great sub-equatorial forest,—a belt about three hundred miles wide and one thousand miles long, with an estimated population of only eighteen to the square mile (among whom are the Pygmy tribes); and these not scattered uniformly, but gathered chiefly on the banks of the watercourses, the only highways (except narrow footpaths) through that dismal forest.
The entire population of Africa, including all nationalities,—Copts of Egypt, Moors and Berbers of the north, Arabs of the east, Abyssinians, Pygmies, and Cannibals of the centre, Negroes, both Bantu and Negroid, of the west, south, centre, and east,—probably do not number two hundred million. Of these, the Negroes probably do not amount to one hundred million. German authorities variously estimate the population of their Kamerun country at from two to five million, and they have been vigorously reducing it by their savage punitive expeditions in the interior. The French authorities of the Kongo-Français estimate theirs at from five to ten million.
The population of the great Kongo River was much overestimated after the opening of that river by Stanley. Its people were massed on the river banks, and gave animpression of density which subsequent interior travel has not verified. To walk slowly in an hour over a mile of road that constitutes the one street of a town; to count the huts, and allot such or such a number to each, would give a sufficiently accurate census of one thousand or perhaps two thousand to that town. But that place is the centre of travel or traffic of that region. A half-day’s journey on any radius from that town through the surrounding forest would confront the traveller with scarcely any other evidences of human habitation. Towns of the thousands are not the usual sight; rather the villages of one hundred, and the hamlets of twenty, excepting in the Sudan, in the Yoruba and other countries of the Niger, and in the large capitals of Dahomey and other Guinea kingdoms. There walled cities of from fifty to one hundred thousand inhabitants are known.
These congested districts help to lift the average that would be made low by the paucity in the wilderness and desert portions. Probably the population of the entire continent was much greater two hundred years ago. Depopulation was hastened by the export slave-trade. Livingstone estimated that, on the East Coast, for every slave actually exported, nineteen others died on the way. The foreign slave-trade has long ceased, except from the Upper Nile down through Egypt and Arabia, and from the Sudan across the Sahara to Morocco. But far worse than Arab slave-trade are the diabolical atrocities, committed during the last fifteen years and actually at the present time, in the Kongo, under white officers of the miscalled “Free State,” and with the knowledge and allowance of the King of Belgium.
But, aside from all these and other civil and political causes, the fetich religion of Africa has been a large part of its destruction. It has been a Moloch, whose hunger for victims was never satisfied: as illustrated in the annual sacrifice of hundreds and thousands by the priests of the kings of Dahomey and Ashanti; and the burial victims at the funerals of great kings, as in Uganda and all over the continent. If the destruction of such human victims is notso great to-day as it was twenty years ago, due to enlightenment by Christian missions and forceful prohibition by civilized governments, the spirit of and disposition to destruction is not eradicated; it is only suppressed. It is so deep seated and ingrained as a part of religion, that it is among the very last of the shadows of heathenism to disappear after individuals or tribes are apparently civilized and enlightened. Under transforming influences the native has been lifted from dishonesty to honesty, from untruth to truth, from immorality to virtue, from heathenism to Christianity; and yet there still clings to him, though he no longer worships the fetich, a belief in and fear of it. The presence of foreign governments can and does prevent witchcraft murder for the dead; but if these governments were withdrawn from English Sierra Leone, French Kongo-Français, and other partitions of Africa, the witchcraft ordeal and murder would be at once resumed. And no wonder. Inbred beliefs, deepened by millenniums of years of practice, are not eliminated by even a century of foreign teaching. Costume of body and fashion of dress are easily and voluntarily changed; not so the essence of one’s being.
Under the assurance that a consecrated charm can be made for the accomplishment of any purpose whatever, it results that almost every native African heathen, in hours of fear or anger or revenge, has made, or has had made, for himself amulets, or has performed rites intended to compass an injury to, and perhaps the death of, some other person. Should that other die, even as long a time as a year afterward, it will be believed that that fetich amulet or act caused the death.
It follows, therefore (although even heathen natives do, in rare cases, say of a death, “Yes, Anzam took this one,”i. e., that he died a natural death), that almost universally at any death which we would know as a natural one, surviving relatives and friends make the charge of witchcraft, and seek the witch or wizard, by investigation involving, in the trial, torture, or ordeal by poison, fire, or other tests. For everynatural death at least one, and often ten or more, have been executed under witchcraft accusation.
I have pleaded for the lives of accused when I believed them innocent, and whenever I was informed that an investigation was in progress, I said to the crowd assembled in the street, “When you kill these three people to-day, do I see three babies born to take their place in the number of the inhabitants of your village?”
The Balengi on the Benita River, among whom I travelled in 1865-70, were then a large tribe. It is now very small, exterminated largely by witchcraft murders for the dead. The aged, defenceless, and slaves are generally selected as victims. But no one is secure. Relatives of a chief who during his life may have seemed envious of his power, are often suspected and put to death.
For the determination of a doubtful cause of decease post-mortems are made, but not on any rational basis or with any knowledge of anatomy. In the autopsy of an ordinary person the object is to find among the bowels or other internal organs some sign which the doctor-priest may declare to be the path of the supposed sorcery-injected destroying spirit. In case of a magician, the object is to see whether his own “familiar” had “eaten” him. Cavities in the lungs are considered proof positive that one’s own power has destroyed him. The fimbriated extremities of the fallopian tubes of a uterus are also declared to be “witch.” Their ciliary motions on dissection are regarded as a sign that the woman was a witch. In proof, the native doctor said to me, “See! those are the spirit-teeth. Don’t you see how they move and extend in desire to catch and eat?” It was in vain that I declared to him that if that was true then every woman all over the world was a witch, and that he was bound to go ahead and kill them all; for that God had made no woman without those things. (Was this “doctor’s” idea the same reason for which the old anatomists called those fimbriæ “morsus Diaboli”?)
In Garenganze, among the Barotse,[80]“the trial forwitchcraft is short and decisive. If one man suspects another of having bewitched him,—in fact, if he has a grudge against him,—he brings him before the council, and the ordeal of the boiling pot is resorted to. My proposal is that if they consider it a fair trial of ‘whiteness’ or ‘blackness’ of heart, as they call it, then let both the accuser and the accused put their hands into the boiling water. The king is strongly in favor of this proposal, and would try any means to stop this fearful system of murder which is thinning out many of his best men; but the nation is so strongly in favor of the practice that he can do nothing. An old friend of mine, Wizini, who took quite a fatherly care and interest in me, for some peculiar reason of his own, was charged with witchcraft. He pleaded earnestly to be spared the terrible trial, and was reprieved because of his years, but banished from his people and country for life, for no other reason than that a neighbor had an ill feeling against him. Had he been first to the king with his complaint, he might have gotten his neighbor burned or banished instead of himself.... Their punishments are very cruel. Burning alive is, among the Barotse, a common occurrence; also tying the victim hand and foot and laying him near a nest of large black (‘driver’) ants, which in a few days pick his bones clean.”
But it is well to repeat my own qualification of most statements about “African” customs, which Arnot makes in connection with the above, that, “when manners and customs are referred to, the particular district must be borne in mind. Africa is an immense continent, and there is as much variety in the customs of the different tribes as in their languages. Certain tribes take delight in cruelty and bloodshed; others have a religious fear of shedding human blood, and treat aged people with every kindness, to secure their good-will after death. By other tribes the aged would be cast out as mere food for wild animals.”
The testimony of Declè[81]as to the tribes of South-CentralAfrica is: “You would suppose that the African expected everybody to live forever, since his one explanation of death is an immediate recourse to witchcraft. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that every natural death entails a violent one as its consequence. Along with witchcraft and the inevitable accusation of sorcery when one dies, goes the custom of ‘muavi,’ the ordeal by poison.... It is plain what complete domination this practice has got over the native mind. The reason is that he thoroughly believes in its efficiency. My own porters have constantly offered to submit to the ordeal on the most trivial charges. Of course, this thorough belief in ‘muavi’ hands the native over completely defenceless to the witch doctor. The doctor can get rid of anybody he likes to. Besides this, he is a kind of public prosecutor; that is to say, that when he accuses any man or woman of sorcery, he is not obliged, like any ordinary accuser, to take the poison himself.”
The “ordeal” or test of the innocence of a person accused of practising witchcraft or of having caused the death of any one (except in places where Christianity has attained power), is almost the same now as that described by Rev. Dr. J. L. Wilson, and subsequently by Du Chaillu, as existing fifty years ago on the entire West Coast of Africa. On the Upper Guinea coasts it is called the “red water.” “It is a decoction made from the inner bark of a large forest tree of the mimosa family.” At Calabar a bean was used, an extract of which since has been employed in our pharmacopœia, in surgical operations of the eye.
In the Gabun country the bark and leaves of a small tree called “akazya” are used. Farther south, in the Nkâmi (miswritten, “Camma”) country, it is called “mbundu.”
The decoction itself is supposed to have almost sentience,—an ability to follow, in the various organs of the body, like a policeman, and detect and destroy the witch-spirit supposed to be lurking about.
Accused persons sometimes even demand that they be given the ordeal. This an innocent person could fearlesslydo, feeling sure of his innocence, and thinking, as any honest person in a civilized country charged with theft would feel, that it was perfectly safe to have his house searched, sure that no stolen article was secreted there. So here the ignorant native is willing to take this poison, not looking on it as what we call “poison.”
People who know that they have at times used witchcraft arts will naturally be unwilling to undergo the test; but if the charge is made after a death, an accused is compelled to drink. “If it nauseates and causes him to vomit freely, he suffers no injury, and is at once pronounced innocent. If, on the other hand, it causes vertigo, and he loses his self-control, it is regarded as evidence of guilt; and then all sorts of indignities and cruelties are practised on him.... On the other hand, if he escapes without injury his character is thoroughly purified, ... and he arraigns before the principal men of the town his accusers, who in their turn must submit to the same ordeal, or pay a large fine to the man whom they attempted to injure.... There is seldom any fairness in the administration of the ordeal. No particular quantity of the ‘red water’ is prescribed.” The doctor, by collusion and family favoritism, may make the decoction very weak; or, influenced by public feeling inimical to the accused, he may compel him to swallow a fatal amount; or he may save his life by a subsequent emetic.[82]
Cannibalism.
African cannibalism has been regarded as only a barbarism; but for many years I have strongly suspected that it had some connection with the Negro’s religion. It may be a corollary of witchcraft.
Declè intimates the same:[83]“I do not mean such cannibalism as that of certain Kongo tribes, or of the Solomon Islanders, who kill people to eat them, as we eat game. With such tribes I did not come in contact. But there is another form of cannibalism less generally known toEuropeans, and perhaps even more grisly, which consists in digging up dead bodies to feast on their flesh. This practice exists largely among the natives in the region of Lake Nyasa.[84]I know of a case in which the natives of a village in this region seized the opportunity of a white man’s presence to break into the hut of one of these reputed cannibals, and found there a human leg hanging from the rafters. This incident shows that cannibalism is practised; but also that it is not universal with the tribes among whom it is found, and is condemned by the public opinion of those who do not practise it. But public opinion in Africa is not a highly developed power.... The real public opinion is witchcraft. And, indeed, in the case of cannibalism, the real public opinion tends to shield the perpetrators, because they are reputed to be sorcerers of high quality.”
Rev. Dr. H. C. Trumbull, in his “Blood Covenant” (1893), while gathering testimony from all nations to illustrate his view of the universality of blood as representinglife, and theheartas the seat of life, as a part of the religious rite of a covenant, comes incidentally on this same idea of cannibalism as having a religious significance, or at least, as I have expressed above, as a corollary of witchcraft. This will explain why the African cannibal, in conquering his enemy, also eats him; why the heart is especially desired in such feasts; and why the body of any one of distinguished characteristics is prized for the cannibal feast. His strength or skill or bravery or power is to be absorbed along with his flesh.
Trumbull[85]quotes from Réville, the representative comparative religionist of France: “Here you will recognize the idea so widely spread in the two Americas, and indeed almost everywhere amongst uncivilized people (nor is it limited to the uncivilized), that the heart is the epitome,so to speak, of the individual,—his soul in some sense,—so that to appropriate his heart is to appropriate his whole being.”
A constant charge against sorcerers in West African tribes is that they have made a person sick by stealing and eating the sick one’s “heart,” and that the invalid cannot recover till the “heart” is returned.
Also, see Trumbull:[86]“The widespread popular superstition of the Vampire and of the ghoul seems to be an outgrowth of this universal belief that transfused blood is revivifying. The bloodless shades, leaving their graves at night, seek renewed life by drawing out the blood of those who sleep, taking the life of the living to supply temporary life to the dead.... An added force is given to all these illustrations of the universal belief that transferred blood has a vivifying power, by the conclusions of modern medical science concerning the possible benefits of blood-transfusion. The primitive belief seems to have had a sound basis in scientific fact.”
Histories of our American Indians are full of incidents showing how the heart of a captive who in dying had exhibited bravery in the endurance of torture, was promptly cut in pieces and eaten, to absorb his courage.
“The Ashanti fetichmen of West Africa, apparently acting on a kindred thought, make a mixture of the hearts of enemies mingled with blood and consecrated herbs, for the vivifying of the conquerors.”
“In South Africa, among the Amampondo, one of the Kaffir tribes, it is customary for the chief, on his accession to authority, to be washed in the blood of a near relative, generally a brother, who is put to death on the occasion, and has his skull used as a receptacle for blood.”[87]
Secret Societies.
Another outcome of witchcraft belief is the formation of secret societies, both male and female, of crushing powerand far-reaching influence, which, in one aspect of their influence, the governmental, were the only authority, before the intrusion of foreign powers, which could settle a fierce personal dispute or enforce intertribal peace. But their possibilities for good were overbalanced by their actualities of evil.
Among these societies I have, in a previous chapter, mentioned as governmental agencies the Egbo of the Niger Delta, Ukuku of the Corisco region, and Yasi of the Ogowe. There is also in the Gabun region of the equator, among the Shekani, Mwetyi; among the Bakele, Bweti; among the Mpongwe-speaking tribes, Indâ and Njĕmbĕ; and Ukuku and Malinda in the Batanga regions.
A detailed account of the ceremonies of an initiation into Malinda is contained in Chapter XVI.
In a previous chapter I have mentioned my own coming in contact with Ukuku and Yasi.
All these societies had for their primary object the good one of government, for this purpose holding the fetich in terror; but the means used were so arbitrary, the influences employed so oppressive, and the representations so false, that they almost all were evil. Most of them are now discontinued as a tribal power by the presence of foreign governments, the foreign power having actually come in conflict with some of them, as in the case of England recently with the Aro of Nigeria; or, where they still exist, they have degenerated to mere amusement, as Ukukwe, in Gabun; or are kept up as a traditional fashion, as Njĕmbĕ.
But they all exist, as described by Rev. Dr. Wilson a generation ago, and are at this very present among the tribes of the interior, where foreign government is as yet only nominal.
Mwetyi “is a great spirit, who is supposed to dwell in the bowels of the earth, but comes to the surface of the ground at stated seasons, or when summoned on any special business. A large flat house of peculiar form is erected in the middle of the village for the temporary sojourn of this spirit.The house is always kept perfectly dark, and no one is permitted to enter it, except those who have been initiated into all the mysteries of the order, which includes, however, almost the whole of the adult male population of the village.... When Mwetyi is about to retire from a village, the women, children, uninitiated lads, and any strangers who may be there at the time, are required to leave the village.”
“Indâ is an association whose membership is confined to the adult male population. It is headed by a spirit of that name, who dwells in the woods, and appears only when summoned by some unusual event,—at the death of a person connected with the order, at the birth of twins, or at the inauguration of some one into office.... If a distinguished person dies, Indâ affects great rage, and comes the following night with a large posse of men to seize the property of the villagers without discrimination. He is sure to lay hands on as many sheep and goats as are necessary to make a grand feast, and no man has any right to complain.... The institution of Indâ, like that of Mwetyi, is intended to keep the women, children, and slaves in subjection.”
“Njĕmbĕ is a pretty fair counterpart of Indâ, but there is no special spirit nor any particular person representing it.” Its power resides in the society as a body, and rests on the threat of the employment of fetich medicines to injure recalcitrant persons. Only women are admitted to it. A very considerable fee is demanded for admission to membership. Formerly it was considered an honor to be allowed to be initiated; now, to perpetuate itself, it compels young women to enter it, especially if they have made derogatory remarks about Njĕmbĕ. The initiation then becomes a kind of punishment. Strange to say, young women thus compelled to enter accept the society, and become zealous to drag others in. The initiation occupies about two weeks, and is accompanied with harsh treatment. Njĕmbĕ has no special meeting-house. They assemble in a cleared place in the centre of a jungle, where their doings are unseen by outsiders by night or day. Nothing is known of their rites,except that they dance in a nude state, and the songs of their dances are openly heard, and are often of the vilest character.
“They pretend to detect thieves, to find out the secrets of their enemies,” to direct women in pregnancy, and in other ways claim to be useful.
“The object of the institution originally, no doubt, was to protect the females from harsh treatment on the part of their husbands.”
As a rule, the Mpongwe women say that every woman should be in the Njĕmbĕ Society; so, at a certain age of a girl, they decide that she shall “go in.” But she is not always put through all the ceremonies at once. She may be subjected to only a part of the initiation, the remainder to be performed at another time.
The special occasion for an initiation may be perhaps because the spirit of some recently dead member wants a new one to take her place; or if any young woman has escaped being initiated during her youth or if she is charged with having spoken derisively of Njĕmbĕ, she may be seized by force and compelled to go through the rite.
The entire process so beats down the will of the novices and terrorizes them, that even those who have been forced into it against their will, when they emerge at the close of the rite, most inviolably preserve its secrets, and express themselves as pleased.
Just before the novices or “pupils” are to enter, they have to prepare a great deal of food,—as much as they can possibly obtain of cassava, fish, and plantains. Two days are spent, before the ceremonies begin, in cooking this food. They make big bundles of ngândâ (gourd seed) pudding, others of ground-nuts and odika (oily kernel of the wild mango), pots of odika and fish boiled, boiled hard plantains, and ripe plantains beaten into rolls called “fufu.” This food is to be eaten by them and the older members of the society the first night.
Those older ones, as a part of the hazing which they always practise, deceive the new ones by advising them inadvance: “Eat no supper this evening. Save up your appetite. All this food you have prepared is your own, and you will be satiated at the feast to-night.” This is said in order to play a hard joke on them. But sometimes a more tender-hearted relative will pity them, and will privately warn them to eat something, knowing that they will be up all night, and that the older members intend to seize and eat what these “pupils” had prepared for themselves, allowing the latter to be faint with hunger.
That evening the society goes into the adjacent jungle, the spot selected including a small stream of water. There they clear a small space for their ceremonies. They dance all night, part of the time in this camp, and part of the time in the street of the town, but always going back to the camp at some early morning hour.
On the second day they come to town, dance there a little while, and then go back to the forest. They beat constantly and monotonously, without time, a short straight stick on a somewhat crescent-shaped piece of board (orĕga) that is slightly concave on one side. It makes a clear but not a musical note; is heard quite far, and is the distinctive sign of the Njĕmbĕ Society. No other persons own or will strike the orĕga music.
In the part of the ceremonies that are public in the village street, a man is invited to assist by beating on a drum, a matter in which women here are not expert. This drum does not exclude the orĕga, several of which may be beaten at the same time; at least one must be kept sounding during the whole two weeks by one or another of the candidates, or if these become exhausted, by some other member of the society.
One of the first public preparations is the bending of a limber pole (ilala) as an arch, or two branches, their tops woven together, over the path entering the village. They are wreathed with lycopodium ferns, and at their bases are stuck a young, short, recently half-unfolded palm-leaf, painted with Njĕmbĕ dots of white, red, and black. At thedistance of a few hundred feet may be another ilala; indeed, there may be several of them on the way to the camp.
While dancing during the first few days, the society occupies itself with preparations, unknown to the public, for their “work” in the camp. Thither come older members from afar, especially those related to the candidates.
Certain women skilled in the Njĕmbĕ dances and rules are called “teachers.” The first step which an already initiated member takes to become a “teacher” is to find and introduce a new recruit, with whom she must again go through all the rites of initiation more severely than at her first experience. She makes herself perfect in the lessons impressed on her by impressing them on the new pupil. The prospective “teacher” has thus to endure, in this second passage through the rites, all and more than is put on the novice. Little as is known of these rites, it is certain they are severe.
In the singing, each song is known by its own descriptive motions. The motion mentioned is to be actually performed, however difficult or immodest it may be. Generally the immodest portions are reserved for the seclusion of their camp; but the words sung at the camp can be heard at the village, so that all hear them,—men, women, and little children.
One common public song has for its refrain, “Look at the sun”; while that song is being danced, the candidate must gaze steadily at the hot sun, even if it be blinding. Most of the “rules” (and the teacher may invent as many new ones as she chooses) are purposely hard in order to make the candidate suffer, and as part of the process of breaking her will, and ensuring secrecy by a reign of terror.
Also most of the nights the candidate (or several of them if there are a number) must spend hours in keeping a fire burning in some part of the forest. That fire, once started, must be kept burning day and night during the whole two weeks. A girl who in ordinary times would be afraid to go out into the forest alone at night, will, under the Njĕmbĕ initiation, go out in storm and rain to see that the fire is not extinguished. Sometimes the teacher will lighten thetask for her by accompanying her; or some one, pitying, will help to gather the dead wood with which the fire is kept smouldering.
There are also rules for the breaking of which there are fines,e. g., “When you are dancing in public during the initiation, do not laugh aloud.” Another rule is that no salutation is to be given or received, nor the person or even the clothing of a visitor touched by a candidate.
The teacher must be quick to imitate, in this her second “degree” or passage through the rites, the rapid motions of the skilled older one who is teaching her and her new recruit.
In order to increase the severity, the pupil, though she may be already wearied, is required to repeat her dance before every newcomer or spectator. The teacher will start the beat of the orĕga and take a few steps of the dance, and then stop and rest comfortably, the tired pupil taking the orĕga and continuing the dance.
If pupils are sulky or shy, their teacher and other older members will scold them: “Go on! dance! You may not stand or rest there! Go on! You! this girl with your awkwardness! Do you own the Njĕmbĕ?” Sometimes a pupil is sulky or stubborn, or, disheartened, begins to cry. No mercy is shown her. Others, in anxiously trying to follow motions, will make absurd mistakes, and bring down on themselves the derision of the spectators. Some pupils really like the dancing, and endeavor to learn quickly. Such as these are praised: “This one knows, and she will some day be a teacher.”
It is expected that the relatives of the pupils will be present and encourage them with some little gifts.
It is remarkable how well the secrets of the society are kept. No one has ever been induced to reveal them. Those who have left the society and have become Christians do not tell. Foreigners have again and again tried to bribe, but in vain. Traders and others have tried to induce their native wives to reveal; but these women, obedient to any extent onall other matters, maintain a stubborn silence. Nothing is known outside of the society of their doings in their camp, except that they are all naked, lay aside all modesty, make personal examinations of each other’s bodies, sing phallic songs, and indulge in the hardest, severest, and most violent insults and curses heaped up in assumed wrath as jokes on each other. It is really a school in which to learn the fine art of using insults and curses which will be utilized outside the society, upon other persons on occasions of real anger. No man can equal these women in their volubility and bitter tirades when really angry. It is Billingsgate in its glory.
After keeping up the ceremonies for a number of days, the society chooses one for their “last.” The day preceding it, they go out in procession with baskets, kettles, and basins, from village to village, still singing, the song being adapted for their errand of begging, and still beating the orĕga, to get offerings of food, or gifts of rum, tobacco, plates, and cloth. (In a civilized religious worship this would be the taking up of the collection.) At each village on their route any member of the society will direct one of the new pupils to dance, as an exhibition of her recently acquired ability. She does not hesitate, but asks, “Which dance?” The teacher replies, “I will show you,” and starting a few steps measured, she stops, and the designated pupil takes it up.
During the initiation the pupils are required to go bare-footed; and if they have been wearing dresses, the dresses are taken off and only a native cloth worn. But a slight concession has occasionally been made in favor of some mission-school girls when forced into Njĕmbĕ, who, accustomed to dresses, were allowed to wear them when walking in this public collecting procession.
The night of the day on which they come back from this collecting of gifts is the “last night.” Dancing is then done by all, both by the teachers and the pupils.
It is not known who is leader. One is spoken of as the“Mother,” but it is not known who she is. The chief teacher is seen whenever they come from their camp, and is known by the colored chalk markings different from others.
Njĕmbĕ. Female Secret Society.—Mpongwe, Gabun.
The next morning, the morning of the “last day,” all go out fishing, young and old, along the river or sea beach. This fishing is done among the muddy roots of the mangrove trees. They gather shell-fish of different kinds. But whatever they do or do not obtain, they do not return till each one has caught a small common snake which lives in holes at the mangrove roots. The sound of the orĕga (which is still constantly beaten) seems to act as a charm, and the snake emerges from its hole and is readily caught; or the hand is boldly thrust into the hole in search of the reptile. In starting out on this fishing the new members do not know that they are to handle snakes. They go as on a happy fishing excursion. Really, it is their final test. They are told to put their hands into these holes, and not to let go of the “fish” they shall seize there. The novice obeys, but presently screams in alarm as she feels a snake-like form wriggling about her hand. Her teacher terribly threatens her; she begs to be excused, dares not let go, and is compelled to pull out the snake twining about her arm. They all then return to the camp, each with her snake in her basket. It is not known what is done with these snakes.
The teacher is to be paid for her services. As the pupils come from different villages, each one has to ask her teacher’s permission to go to her relatives to collect the fee. This is done a few days before the final day. They are allowed to go, but with an escort to watch them that they break no rule of the initiation. They do not go into the houses, nor do they speak. They stand in the street. Those who escort them have to do the talking, thus: “We have come to collect our money, as the Njĕmbĕ will soon be done.” If they get a plenty, the pupils are glad; otherwise they have to stand in the hot sun uncovered, except by their crown-like wreath of lycopodium fern. It is a trying and humiliating position for any girl whose people are poor or unwilling. She must standthere till some one of her people shall contribute what the escort deems sufficient.
Having collected each her fee for the teacher, the pupils go back to her at the village, and seat themselves on the ground under the eaves of the houses on one side of the street, each with her pile of goods near her. The teacher eyes these piles, and selects the girl who apparently has the most, to be the first to begin to pay. Just previous to this, stalks of amomum are laid down in the street, parallel to each other, about eighteen inches apart, in number according with the teacher’s random guess of the number of articles in the chosen pile. Then she lays the articles of the pile, one by one, on the amomum stalk. Then another of the teachers seizes the hand of the girl who owned these goods, and swinging her from side to side, runs with her rapidly over that line of goods, herself stepping carefully on the interspaces, but apparently trying to confuse the girl into stepping on and breaking some one of the articles,e. g., a mirror or a plate. This ordeal safely passed, the goods of that girl are accepted and put aside near the teacher. The goods of each of the other new girls are treated in the same way, and laid, one by one, on the amomum stalks.
The number of some girl’s articles may not equal the standard set by the first, and there may be not enough to cover every stalk. In that case the teacher will allow some article,e. g., a head of tobacco-leaves, to be opened and its separate leaves used to piece out the number. Nevertheless, she will demand that something be added. It is an anxious time for the pupils, watching to see whether their fee is accepted. Sometimes the teacher, seeing that a girl’s pile of goods is small, will not even attempt to count or divide it, but, looking at it, sneeringly says, “I see nothing here! Sit you there in the sun till some one brings you more!”
The last act of the “last day,” before adjourning, is a public dance called Njĕgâ (Leopard). For that, the members of the society, and most spectators, dress up in fineclothes. It is performed in the afternoon, and visitors go to see it. The “Leopard” is done by the teachers, two at a time. All these pairs must have their faces painted, each in a different style, no piece of skin left untouched.
In beginning the Leopard dance, one of the pair imitates a leopard sneaking around the corners of the houses; while the other one, waiting, has collected perhaps a dozen of the members as her “children,” whom she as their “mother” is to guard from the “leopard.” This teacher-mother begins a song, “Children! there is the leopard in shape of a person,” adding as a refrain the word, “Mbwero! mbwero! mbwero!” which is repeated rapidly as a warning that the leopard is coming, ending with, “my children!” They sing, and step backward and forward to a drum accompaniment. While these “children” are in great pretended excitement, the leopard is advancing slowly, steadily, and nearer from the ogwĕrina (rear of the houses) into the street, with extended tongue, and growling. When the mother sees this, her dance step grows quicker, and she backs and motions to her children behind her, they imitating all her steps. The leopard advances with a swaying step in time with the music, and then suddenly dashes forward, and catches one of the children, and sets her aside. This is kept up by the leopard till most of the children are caught, only one or two being left. The mother then seems very much exhausted, with a sad slow step; but the leopard at last catches the others. Now that her children are all dead, the mother is aroused to fury. The conflict remains between her and the leopard. And “mother” must finally kill “leopard.” The dance becomes very much more rapid; the two approach nearer and nearer. Mother has a stick like a sword, and finally she kills leopard with a light blow. This coup is received by a shout from the spectators of “o-lo-lo!”
Then another pair are selected to go through the parts of mother and leopard again. Sometimes one will refuse to act, or to be mated with the other one. Then, like a singer in civilized lands, she is met with entreaties from the crowd,“Do act! You know so well how to do it!” And then she yields. If at the last there is remaining only one teacher who has not done the act, one of those who has already performed will mate with her.
At night, the last work of the society is to put out their fire. If the leader has come from a distant village, she wants to go, and she will extinguish the fire that night; or, if she lives near, she may choose to wait several days longer. But during that time the dancing and singing are not kept up, for the society has adjourned.
Whatever else is unknown of the objects of Njĕmbĕ, it is known that it is a government. It was formerly much more powerful than it is now. At Libreville, Gabun, thirty years ago, no woman dared to speak against it. Mission school-girls, feeling themselves secure on the mission premises, sometimes in their school-girl talk foolishly made disparaging remarks about it. When this reached the ear of Njĕmbĕ, those girls would some day be caught when they were visiting their villages, and forced through the rites. Parents did not dare interfere, and missionaries had no authority to do so.
In one case, however, a missionary did make a successful interference. The girl did not belong to Mpongwe (the tribe of Gabun); she was a slave-waif that had been picked up by the mission, and therefore, in a sense, the mission’s daughter. The senior missionary, Rev. William Walker, was a tall, powerful, utterly fearless man, and his custom was always to carry a heavy cane. That day, the Njĕmbĕ lessons that were being given to the abducted girl had only begun in the village street; she had not yet been taken to their secret camp. Mr. Walker strode among the women and laid hold of the unresisting girl. When some women attempted to drag her away, he brought down his cane heavily at random over any head or shoulder within reach of his long arm; and the girl was glad to be led back to the mission. The rescue was successful. Mr. Walker’s use of force was justifiable as against Njĕmbĕ’s forcible abduction of the girl; and hisparental position in the case would have justified him if the women had made any complaint against him before the local French magistrate on charge of assault.
In a somewhat similar case, more recently, Njĕmbĕ sued a missionary, he having assaulted them when they refused to remove their distressingly noisy camp from a too great proximity to the mission grounds. The magistrate dismissed the case, resenting Njĕmbĕ’s existence as a secret society, and its assumption of exercise of governmental authority.
Recently also a native man was successful in thwarting Njĕmbĕ. A certain native Christian woman had escaped being forced into Njĕmbĕ during her youth; and by her being very much in mission employ during her adult years, Njĕmbĕ had ceased to threaten her. Her daughter, of about eighteen years of age, though not a Christian, had also, by her mother’s care of her, escaped, though often threatened. A cousin of this daughter had been put through the rite while her father was away on a journey. And now this cousin was trying to induce the daughter to enter. The daughter refused, and perhaps may have made some slighting remark. This remark her cousin reported to Njĕmbĕ; and some intimations were made that the young woman would be seized. The father of the cousin had formerly been a church-member, is educated and gentlemanly. Though he had fallen away from the church, he had no desire to see his niece dragged down. He spoke severely to his daughter about the excitement she was trying to raise, and threatened to call in the aid of the French Chief of Police. The firm stand taken by him and also by the young woman’s mother was efficient in preventing her seizure by Njĕmbĕ. Both these parents are of unusual strength of character and advance in civilization. Without their efficient backing, this young woman would have been forced into Njĕmbĕ.
Rev. J. L. Wilson,[88]wrote of Njĕmbĕ almost fifty years ago: “There is no spirit, so far as is known, connected with this association, but all its proceedings are keptprofoundly secret. The Njĕmbĕ make great pretensions, and as a body are really feared by the men. They pretend to detect thieves, to find out the secrets of their enemies; and in various ways they are useful to the community in which they live, or, at least, are so regarded by the people. The object of the institution originally, no doubt, was to protect the females from harsh treatment on the part of their husbands; and as their performances are always veiled in mystery, and they have acquired the reputation of performing wonders, the men are, no doubt, very much restrained by the fear and respect which they have for them as a body.”
Most of the above description is, after so many years, true now, except that the power of and respect for the society is lessened by the permeating leaven of a Christian mission and by the dominance of a foreign government; but even in that same region, in portions where these two forces are not in immediate contact with the community, Njĕmbĕ still is feared.
It is true, also, that there is no special spirit belonging to Njĕmbĕ, but when the society has occasion to investigate a theft or other crime, it invokes the usual ilâgâ and other spirits.
It is also still true that in the tribes where Njĕmbĕ exists women have much more freedom from control by men than in tribes where it does not exist. But even if it has been thus a defence to women against man’s severity, it undeniably has been an injury to them by its indecent ceremonies and phallic songs. Such things may make men fear them, but also make it impossible for men to respect them.
Those songs I myself have heard when the Njĕmbĕ camp was in a jungle near to a village. The male generative organ was personified, and, in the song addressed to it, the name of a certain man, who was known by the singers to be at that very time in the adjacent village, was tauntingly referred to. Even immoral men were overwhelmed with shame at the shamelessness of the women. And yet those same women, when their Njĕmbĕ adjourned, resumed in their individual capacities their usual apparent modesty which, as a collectivebody, they had cast aside. Little has been printed of Njĕmbĕ’s secret proceedings more than Dr. Wilson wrote fifty years ago.
Paul Du Chaillu makes a short statement that he was allowed to witness a part; and he describes a hut containing a few almost nude old women sitting around some skulls and other fetiches. Doubtless he saw what he asserts. But, unusual as were his opportunities, and large as was his personal influence with his “Camma” (Nkâmi) native chiefs, it is positive that what was shown him was only a little of Njĕmbĕ, if indeed it was Njĕmbĕ at all.
Other white men, with, indeed, perhaps less tact than he, but of greater money power and larger trade opportunities, failed to see anything.
Some twenty-five years ago two Germans (now dead) trading in the Gabun determined secretly to spy out Njĕmbĕ.
The merchant, the head of the trading-house, was a well-educated gentleman, and his clerk was an active, intelligent young man. Both knew native customs well, and both spoke the Mpongwe language fluently. Each had a native wife, and being generous and liberal-handed, had many native friends; but they had been unable to bribe any Njĕmbĕ women, even their own wives, to reveal anything.
One dark night when the society was in session in a small jungle not far from their trading-house, they went secretly and cautiously through the bushes. They had not approached near enough to the circle of women around the camp-fire to actually recognize any of them (it would have been difficult to recognize their painted faces even by daylight); and they really did not see anything of what was being done. Somehow their approach was discovered, either by information treacherously carried from some one in their retinue of household servants, or by being seen by one of the pickets of the camp, or by the breaking of a branch as they crept through the trees, or, possibly, by their white odor carried on the wind,—odor which to Africans is almost as distinct as is Negro odor to the white race.
Njĕmbĕ raised a frenzied cry, and started to seize them. The two men fled desperately through the thick bushes. The clerk was recognized, and his name was called out, and the other was assumed to be his employer. They escaped to the safety of their house. Njĕmbĕ did not dare assault it, French policemen being within call; but next day word was sent by the society denouncing them both, laying a curse on them, and plainly saying that they should die. If the threat had been that the means of death would be magic, these gentlemen would have laughed; but the women did not hesitate to say that they would poison them in their food. This would be entirely possible, even without collusion among the several men and boys that ranged from steward to cook and waiters as their household servants; though, if need were, some of these servants would sooner be treasonable to the white master than dare to refuse Njĕmbĕ. The case was serious. The older man, as a dispenser of wealth to the entire community, was, even in Njĕmbĕ’s eye, too valuable to be killed; his wife, herself a Njĕmbĕ woman, interceded for him, and the curse was removed from him on the payment of a large fine. But the curse was doubled over the poor clerk. Njĕmbĕ would listen to no appeal, nor accept any bribe for him, as they had actually seen him at their camp.
It is a fact that shortly after this this clerk did fall into a decline, with strange symptoms which no doctor understood nor any medicines seemed to touch. He became weaker and weaker, and his life was despaired of. Njĕmbĕ openly boasted that it was killing him.
I do not know why an appeal was not made to the local French authorities. Perhaps because the merchant did not wish to give more publicity to his escapade; perhaps because it would be difficult to prosecute a society, no individual Njĕmbĕ woman appearing to be responsible.
To save his clerk, the merchant offered to pay a very large sum. Njĕmbĕ having had a partial revenge, having demonstrated its power, and standing victorious before the community, was induced to accept. It was never known publiclyhow much was paid. The curse was withdrawn, and the clerk immediately began to recover; but it was some months before the evil was entirely eradicated from his system.
Beyond Dr. Wilson’s and Du Chaillu’s short statements about Njĕmbĕ, I have seen nothing else in print, except the mere mention of the existence of the society by several African travellers. What I have written in the above I have obtained piecemeal at various times from different men and women, Christian and heathen; but all of them spoke with hesitation, and under promise that I should mention no names.
Poisoning for Revenge.
There are native poisons. It is known that sometimes they are secretly used in revenge, or to put out of the way a relative whose wealth is desired to be inherited. This much I have to admit, as to charges of “bewitching” and so-called “judicial executions,” therefore, that in the case of some deaths they are actual murders, and that the perpetrator deserves to be executed. But it is rare that the proof of guilt is clear. I have to be guarded in my admission of an accused person’s guilt, lest I give countenance to the universal belief in death as the result of fetich agencies. I explain to my native questioner: If what the accused has done in fetich rite with intent to kill had any efficiency for taking away life, I allow that he shall be put to death; if he made only fetiches, even if they were intended to kill, he is not guilty of this death, for a mere fetich cannot kill. But if he used poison, with or without fetich, then he is guilty.
But even so, the distinction between a fetich and a poison is vague in the thought of many natives. What I call a “poison” is to them only another material form of a fetich power, both poison and fetich being supposed to be made efficient by the presence of an adjuvant spirit.
Not all the deaths of foreigners in Africa are due to malaria. Some of them have been doubtless due to poison, administered by a revengeful employee. Very many whiteresidents in Africa treat their servants in oppressive and cruel ways. Even those who are not cruel are often autocratic and arbitrary. In a country that has little law to hinder, and no public opinion to shame them, some white men treat the natives almost as slaves, cheating them of their wages, cursing, kicking, striking, beating, and otherwise maltreating and even mutilating them. Some are kind and just; but even they are at times severe in enforcing their authority. So it could occur that even a kindly-disposed foreigner might have his life attempted by an evil-disposed employee whose anger he had aroused.
In general, the Bantu natives of Africa are patient, long-suffering, and not easily aroused to violence, but taking their revenge, if finally their endurance is exhausted, by robbing their master of his goods or otherwise wasting his trade; abandoning him in sickness, so that he dies really of neglect, or, when his boat upsets in the surf of the sea, making no effort to rescue him.
The Bantu tribes are less revengeful and more amiable than the Negroes of Upper Guinea, or the tribes of Senegal and of the Sudan, with their mixture of Arab blood and Mahometan beliefs.
An English traveller recently, in the Igbo country of Nigeria, in discussing the native belief in occult forces, says: “It is impossible for a white man to be present at their gatherings of ‘medicine men,’ and it is hard to get a native to talk of such things; but it seems evident to me that there is some reality in the phenomena one hears of, as they are believed everywhere in some degree by white men as well as black. However that may be, the native doctors have a wide knowledge of poisons; and if one is to believe reports, deaths from poison, both among white and black men, are of common occurrence on the Niger. One of the white man’s often quoted proverbs is, ‘Never quarrel with your cook’; the meaning of which is that the cook can put something in your food in retaliation if you maltreat him.
“There is everywhere a belief that it is possible to putmedicine on a path for your enemy which, when he steps over it, will cause him to fall sick and die. Other people can walk uninjured over the spot, but the moment the man for whom the medicine is laid reaches the place, he succumbs, often dying within an hour or two. I have never seen such a case myself; but the Rev. A. E. Richardson says he saw one when on the journey with Bishop Tugwell’s house-party. He could offer no explanation of how the thing is done, but does not doubt that it is done. Some of the best educated of our native Christians have told me that they firmly believe in this ‘medicine-laying.’”
The most distinct instance of attempt at poisoning which I have met was related to me in March, 1902, by Mr. H. L. Stacey, of the English trading-house of J. Holt & Co. Ltd. I took the following statement from his own lips, and he gave me liberty to use it publicly. He has since died, and his death was sudden.
Mr. Stacey was a gentleman of courteous manner and of good education; fearless, universally kind, and generally just in his treatment of the natives. He was a Christian in his belief, and endeavored to be one in his life. His truthfulness is beyond doubt, thus making his statement entirely reliable.
He had his headquarters at Bata, with native sub-traders scattered north and south and up the Benita River, some twenty-three miles south of Bata. There came to him for employment a Lagos man, by name Croly or Crowley. He spoke English well, could read and write, had quite a display of manner, and made himself very useful by his apparent devotion, faithfulness, and honesty. All this deceived Mr. Stacey, who thought he had obtained a valuable servant; and rewarded him by giving him a sub-factory at Lobisa, a few miles up the Benita River. To have a factory of one’s own is the goal of the ambition of every white trader’s employees.
Mr. Stacey had also a Benga sub-trader on the river at Sĕnje, some ten miles above Lobisa. This Benga went toBata and reported to Mr. Stacey that Crowley was wasting his goods in riotous living and extravagant giving. While the Benga was away, Crowley falsely told the native Fang, who had been paid in advance by the former to collect india-rubber for him, that the Benga had been dismissed, was in jail, and would never come back, and induced them to sell to himself the rubber they had collected for the Benga. When the Benga returned to his post, and asked his Fang to pay their debt, they told him of the deception Crowley had practised on them. There was, therefore, a triangular quarrel, the Benga suing the Fang for their debt to him, the Fang denouncing Crowley for his cheat, and Crowley angry at the Benga for informing Mr. S. on him.
Just at this stage of affairs Mr. S. came on one of his usual visits of inspection to Sĕnje. The Fang immediately sent secretly a deceptive message down to Crowley, saying that Mr. S. wished to see him. As soon as he came, the Fang began to fight him. Notwithstanding Crowley’s dishonesty to him, Mr. S. magnanimously defended his life, locked him for safety in the Benga’s bedroom, and then made the quarrel a quadrilateral by protesting to the Fang against their assaulting his premises. His contention with them was “talked” in public “palaver,” and finally was amicably settled. During the “talk” a lad came to Mr. S. excitedly, saying that Crowley was spreading “medicine” in the bed of the Benga, with intent to kill the latter. This aroused again the indignation of the Fang. But Mr. S. laughed down their anxiety, telling them that he was not afraid of “medicine” (he thought it was only fetich); that fetich could not kill a white man; and that, to prove it, he would that night sleep in that bed, and the Benga should sleep elsewhere. When all was settled, he got Crowley quietly away, and sent him down river to his Lobisa house, with expectation of dismissal. At night Mr. S. awoke with a great pain in his abdomen, a great sense of constriction in his chest, skin hot, and body tortured with shooting pains. Only his head was clear and free from any distress. The symptoms were notthose of malarial fever. The next day his limbs were paralyzed. The natives said that Crowley had scattered in the bedding and through the mosquito net a poisonous powder.
Mr. S. was taken helpless in his canoe down river, on the way passing very near Lobisa, to a house on the sea-beach near the river’s mouth. Believing that Crowley had attempted the life of the Benga, Mr. S., while lying sick, sent word to the adjacent Spanish Government Post for two soldiers to come and arrest Crowley. (Mr. S. had been informed that C. was on his way to him.) For C., when he saw Mr. S. lying sick in his passing canoe, surmised what had happened, and was afraid the Fang would follow him to Lobisa and assault him there. So he had closed his house and fled, following Mr. S. He was coming with a double purpose: first, to plead with Mr. S. against dismissal; second, as he promptly had heard of Mr. Stacey’s sleeping in the poisoned bed and being sick, he feared arrest and was ready also to make the murder plan complete, if his plea for mercy was denied. To this end he came prepared with a handful of the powder.
Before he had reached the house where Mr. S. was, the two soldiers had met and arrested him, and were taking him to jail. He asked permission first to be allowed to see his “master.” So they brought him to the sick-room, where he made many protestations of friendship and devotion, and plead for mercy. Mr. S. rebuked the soldiers for hesitating in their duty, and for having brought their prisoner there, and bade them take him away to the magistrate; then he fell back on his pillow exhausted, and lay with closed eyes, only semi-conscious. The soldiers went out of the room, leaving C. clinging to the bed. He fell on his knees by Mr. S.’s head, as if still to beg for pardon. Mr. S. felt C.’s hand insinuated under the bed cover near his pillow, and suddenly opened his eyes, to find C.’s closed hand near his face. He struck away the hand. A quantity of dark powder fell on the pillow near his nose. Half suffocated, by an effort he shouted to the soldiers, who came and took C.away. Mr. Stacey’s little waiter-boy, who had also come in at the shout, was horrified to see the poison-powder on the pillow. He snatched away the pillow, threw the powder out of doors, and told the soldiers. They, without waiting for official judgment at the Post, gave C. twenty-five lashes at once. Farther blows, twenty-five at a time, were given him while waiting in jail for Mr. S. to get well enough to appear against him. Subsequently theChef de Posteappointed a day for the hearing; but Mr. S., in his devotion to the trade interests of his employers, asked that the day be postponed, as his sub-traders needed just then much supervision. So theChefdismissed the matter, seeming to think that if Mr. S. regarded his trade as of more importance than the defence of his life, it was no business of the government to hold the prisoner; and took no farther interest in it.
Having been given, in instalments, an aggregate of two hundred lashes, C. was discharged. He wandered about that region gathering a little food, without friends, feared and hated, and not allowed by some even to enter their villages.