The reputation of the Lagos powder as a powerful agent in destroying life has been known for years among the equatorial coast tribes. Reports of it are well known among white men on the steamers. It is believed in, not as a superstition, nor as a fetich, but as a powerful poison. Clerks and other workmen from Lagos are not welcomed in the Gabun region, as are clerks from other parts of Upper Guinea, for fear of their carrying that poison with them.
Distrust.
As a result of the universal employment of fetiches in African tribes, there is no confidence between man and man. Every one is in distrust of his neighbor; every man’s hand against his fellow.
“The natives of Africa, though so thoroughly devoted to the use of fetiches, acquire no feeling of security in consequence of using them. Perhaps their only real influence is to make them more insecure than they would have been withoutthem. There is no place in the world where men feel more insecurity. A man must be careful whose company he keeps, what path he walks, whose house he enters, on what stool he seats himself, where he sleeps. He knows not what moment he may place his foot or lay his hand upon some invisible engine of mischief, or by what means the seeds of death may be implanted in his constitution.”[89]
Because of this lack of confidence, the natural affections and the duties of the dearest relations are perverted. Wives afraid of husbands, and husbands afraid of wives; children afraid of parents, and parents afraid of children; the chief of the village uncertain of his people; and the entire community that must live and eat and associate together, living and eating and associating with a constant secretly entertained suspicion of each other.
Jugglery.
While in some of the rites performed by the native doctor-priest there is real diabolism,i. e., communication with Satan, and certain wonders are performed through the Prince of the Power of Darkness, I am disposed to believe that in most cases the “doctor” is self-deceived, certainly in many cases I believe him to be a deliberate deceiver. The native so-called “prophet” is probably an artful mind-reader; and the fortune-teller, like our own fortune-tellers, a skilful observer of the subject’s tones, manner, and unguarded admissions in conversation which give ground for shrewd guessing.
Arnot[90]says: “These professional diviners are no doubt smart fellows, arch-rogues though they be. The secret of their art lies in their constant repetition of every possibility in connection with the disaster they are called upon to explain until they finally hit upon that which is in the minds of their clients. As the people sit around and repeat the words of the diviner, it is easy for him to detect in their tone of voice or to read in their faces the suspected source of the calamity.
“A man had a favorite dog which was attacked by a leopard,but succeeded in escaping with one of its eyes torn out. To ascertain the reason of this calamity, the owner sent to call one of these diviners. When he arrived, to test him, he was told that a disaster had befallen my acquaintance, and was asked to find out by divination what it was. The diviner with his rattles and other paraphernalia, and dances, and other movements to occupy attention, after the manner of jugglers, asked leading questions of the spirit he was professing to consult, but really he was watching the faces of his audience for their unconsciously given assent or dissent. Thus, in succession, he found that the misfortune, whatever it was, was not to a human being; then not to certain families; then to some object possessed by a certain man; then that it was not about an ox nor about a goat; then that it was about a dog; then, after certain other possibilities, was it connected with a leopard? So excited were the audience that they forgot that they had been ‘giving themselves away,’ and when the diviner asked the spirit, ‘Was it a leopard?’ they shouted with admiration at his supposed skill. After a whole day of such proceedings the diviner triumphed by announcing ‘that the spirit of the father of one of the man’s wives had been grieved at the man’s long absence from his town and family, and had employed the leopard to tear the dog’s eye as a gentle reminder that it was time he should go back to his own village.’”
In connection with the Yoruba custom of parents of twins having images carved of their dead twins, “the carving of those images is a flourishing and money-making trade. If the parents of the dead child are in comfortable circumstances, the carvers tell them that they have seen in their dreams the dead twin, and that he or she has asked them to send such and such clothes, articles of food, money, etc.
“Sometimes they say the twins appeared to them in the forest when they went to cut the Ire-wood to be carved, and bade them not to venture it. In such cases special sacrifices must be offered before taking any steps. In this way months pass before the carving is complete; during which time thecarvers demand of the parents whatever they feel they are capable of supplying them with.”[91]
In the Corisco region, some thirty years ago, I knew a native sorcerer who achieved quite a reputation because he could perform the thimble-rig juggler-trick of making a leaf appear and disappear between two plates.
One of my associates in the Ogowe, the late H. M. Bachelor, M.D., had brought with him from the United States a few tricks of “parlor magic.” He quite astonished my school-children by swallowing and subsequently vomiting up a penknife, and by passing a threaded needle through the thigh of one of the boys. Dr. B. did the tricks so artistically that even I did not detect the deception about the penknife; and the boy solemnly asserted that he felt the needle travelling through his leg. The exhibition was a happy one in revealing to the natives how an evil-disposed sorcerer would be able to deceive them.
A lady of the West African Mission of the American Board says: “I once witnessed the performance of a witch-doctor on one of my visits among the villages. The chief of the country was sick, and the doctor was giving him a massage treatment. By sleight of hand he seemed to draw from the patient’s side chicken’s claws, feathers, bones, sticks, pebbles, etc. Some “witch,” it was supposed, had caused these things to grow in the man’s body with intent to kill. It was evident to the astonished crowd which had gathered around, that their king would probably get well, now these things were removed. The doctor’s bill was promptly paid,—a thousand balls of rubber, ten pieces of cloth, and a large pig. An ox was slaughtered, and a beer drink indulged in to celebrate the occasion and to appease any offended spirit.”
Treatment of Lunatics.
The insane being supposed to be physically and mentally possessed by an intruding spirit, their actions are necessarilynot considered to be the outcome of their own volitions. This view does not always, in the native mind, relieve a lunatic of the burden of the consequences of his acts.
There is great diversity, therefore, in the treatment of the insane in different districts and in different tribes. In some regions a tribe holds to the following reasoning: This person is possessed by a spirit. That spirit is occupying his body and using his voice and limbs for some reason. If we interfere with this person’s doings, then we will be interfering with the spirit and may bring evil on ourselves. Therefore it is considered proper to make offerings and some degree of worship to the incarnated spirit. But it is not true that the lunatic himself is an object of worship. The gifts and sacrifices are made solely to and for the spirit; the prayer of the petitioners being that it may refrain from inciting the possessed person to do them evil, and in the hope that it may conclude to depart and leave the patient and them alone.
In other places this same belief of possession leads to a very different logical conclusion. The thought is: This person is possessed by an evil spirit; if we allow him to remain, that evil spirit will do us only evil; let us put this man, who is thus being utilized for evil, out of the way, and perhaps in so doing we may get rid of the possessing spirit also. So the lunatic is put to death. The manner of death sometimes chosen is a cruel one, as if thereby the spirit itself might also be injured or incapacitated to do further evil. Observe that this cruelty is not directed against the demented human being, but against the indwelling spirit. The maniac in being put to death is sometimes beaten with clubs, sometimes burned, sometimes drowned, as if the evil possessing spirit might itself be fractured or charred or sunk.
The forms of lunacy I have seen are mild, rarely maniacal. The lunatics I have met in the Gabun region were both men and women. Among women I have thought a cause was uterine complications; among both men and women, excessive use of tobacco; in two cases of men the cause was hashish-smoking. These last were characterized by a deepmelancholy; all the others were marked by absurd hallucinations. Undeniably, in two cases in Gabun, the paroxysms were influenced by the stage of the moon.
The only medication of which the natives know is exorcism by fetich with drum and dance, baths and purgatives. When a person is discovered to be crazy, he is taken to the doctor, who gathers medicinal barks and leaves, makes a very hot decoction, and puts it under a seat on which is placed the patient. Both seat and patient are covered by a cloth, and he is subjected to a severe sweating process. During this time the doctor calls out to the supposed possessing spirit, “Who are you? who are you?” Perhaps the sick man will say (his voice supposed to be under control of nkinda), “I am So-and-so.” The doctor replies, “Eh! you So-and-so! leave him, or I will catch you and put you in prison.” The prison is a section of sugar-cane stalk with its leaves twined together; and the doctor is believed to be able to confine the nkinda there. And it remains there indefinitely; but it may be released by the will of the doctor, who will choose to free it some day unless he is paid not to do so. Sometimes the crazy person has so many sinkinda that he becomes a maniac, losing all sense of shame or even of hunger. In such a case he is tied till he becomes quiet and the doctor announces that the sinkinda have all gone out. The patient is then washed, and the doctor with song and drum calls on good sinkinda to come and enter, and directs them to take care of the man’s body.
The American Negro Voodoo.
When the Negro was brought to America as a slave, he brought with him a variety of African things, some good, some bad.
When hurried upon the slave-ships in the Kongo or at Lagos, the slave tied into a little package, hung among his other fetich treasures, seeds of his favorite foods. At least one of these seeds survived, in the West Indies and thence tothe United States, with a native name “gumbo.” It is the okra (Abelmoschus esculentus), that exists all over Africa, and has spread over the United States.
Ground-nuts—“pea-nuts” (Arachis hypogea), which botanists claim to be a native of South America—have been grown from time immemorial all over Africa, and, in the Loango country bordering on the Kongo River, by the Ashira and some other tribes are used as their staple article of food, rather than the plantain (Musa sapientum), or “manioc,” cassava (Jatropha manihot). It is an important export from those regions and from the Gambia to-day. If the nut itself was not carried from Africa to America, its native name was; that name is “mbenda,” and it was corrupted to “pindar” in parts of the Southern States.
The evil thing that the slave brought with him was his religion. You do not need to go to Africa to find the fetich. During the hundred years that slavery in our America held the Negro crushed, degraded, and apart, his master could deprive him of his manhood, his wife, his child, the fruits of his toil, of his life; but there was one thing of which he could not deprive him,—his faith in fetich charms. Not only did this religion of the fetich endure under slavery; it grew. None but Christian masters offered the Negro any other religion; and, by law, even they were debarred from giving him any education. So fetichism flourished. The master’s children were infected by the contagion of superstition; they imbibed some of it at their Negro foster-mother’s breast. It was a secret religion that lurked thinly covered in slavery days, and that lurks to-day beneath the Negro’s Christian profession as a white art, and among non-professors as a black art; a memory of the revenges of his African ancestors; a secret fraternity among slaves of far-distant plantations, with words and signs,—the lifting of a finger, the twitch of an eyelid,—that telegraphed from house to house with amazing rapidity (as to-day in Africa) current news in old slave days and during the late Civil War; suspected, but never understood by the whitemaster; which, as a superstition, has spread itself among our ignorant white masses as the “Hoodoo.” Vudu, or Odoism, is simply African fetichism transplanted to American soil.
“It is almost impossible for persons who have been brought up under this system ever to divest themselves fully of its influence. It has been retained among the blacks of this country, and especially at the South, though in a less open form, even to the present day, and probably will never be fully abandoned until they have made much higher attainments in Christian education and civilization. In some of the plantations of the South, as well as in the West Indies, where there has been less Christian culture, egg-shells are hung up in the corners of their chimneys to cause the chickens to flourish; an extracted tooth is thrown over the house or worn around the neck to prevent other teeth from aching; and real fetiches, though not known by this name [perhaps “mascots”?], are used about their persons to shield them from sickness or from the effects of witchcraft.”[92]
While on a furlough in the United States in 1891, I visited a town in Southern Virginia, and by invitation of the Negro pastor of the African church addressed them on foreign missions. Somewhat at a loss what attitude to take toward a Negro audience in speaking to them of Africa, I candidly asked the pastor what I should say. He bade me speak exactly as if I was addressing an educated white assembly. I did so. In describing native African virtues and vices, I mentioned their fetichism, and remarked that it was the same that obtained in the United States; and lest my hearers might think I was personally attacking them, I added, “down South in Georgia and Louisiana.” The bench of elders sitting just in front of me broke out, “And jist around hyar, too.”
I had read Cable’s “Creole Tales.” One of his characters is sick with a strange vague affection whose symptoms medicine had failed to reach. He is superstitious, and one morning he wakes in horror at finding a dead frog secreted under hispillow. That fetich was no novelist’s conjecture; it was true to life. About 1894 or 1895, while I was alone in charge of Gabun Station, for three successive mornings when I opened the front door, I found a dried frog leaning against the threshold. I did not care enough about it to inquire its significance or to ascertain who put it there. Since then I have found that it is not used as a fetich by people of the Gabun region, but probably by Upper Coast people. I remember that at that time I had three Bassa workmen from Liberia whom I suspected of stealing and who then suddenly deserted my service. I think they placed the frog there, either to injure me or to prevent my following up their theft.
Folk-Lore.
An attractive survival of African life in America are “Uncle Remus’s” mystic tales of “Br’er Rabbit.” They are the folk-lore that the slave brought with him from his African home, where in village hut and forest camp often have been told to my own ears similar weird personifications before Harris had actually written them. There being no rabbits in West Africa, “Br’er Rabbit” is an American substitution for “Brother” Njâ (Leopard), or Brother Ihĕli (Gazelle), in Paia Njambi’s (the Creator’s) council of speaking animals.
TALES OF FETICH BASED ON FACT
Theview-point of the native African mind, in all unusual occurrences, is that of witchcraft. Without looking for an explanation in what civilization would callnaturalcauses, his thought turns at once to the supernatural. Indeed, the supernatural is so constant a factor in his life, that to him it furnishes explanation of events as prompt and reasonable as our reference to the recognized forces of nature. Mere coincidences are often to him miracles.
In the large mass of materials which I gathered from all native sources of information for the formulation of the philosophy of fetichism, as presented in the former part of this work, I found many remarkable tales some of whose incidents were probable, and which to me were explicable on natural grounds, but which my native friends believed were the effect of witchcraft power. I did not dispute them. To do so would either have closed their lips or made them omit the witchcraft element from any subsequent stories they might narrate to me. I thus secured these tales as a purely native product.
I did not use a note-book, fearing that its presence would hamper the freedom of the story-teller, but listened carefully and wrote down the interview immediately at its close. Not all knew that I was writing for publication. That knowledge would have interfered with the simplicity of their utterances. Of my several informants, some were ignorant, some heathen, some Christian, only a few well educated. Of the most intelligent of my informants, two allowed me to take notes as they were speaking, and I really wrote from dictation; they considerately spoke slowly, so that I should miss nothing, whileI wrote rapidly and at the same time had to translate their language into English. Of those two, one was able to give part of the interview in English. The thoughts in these stories are entirely native. So are most of the words. I tried to retain the narrators’ own structure of sentences, sacrificing a little of English for the sake of native idioms. The prevalence of short words is due to my effort at exact translation of their own words. Occasionally I have used longer words of Latin origin because I had forgotten their word, and in an effort to repeat their idea. The shortness of the sentences is due to the natives’ graphic and animated style of speaking. Long sentences are foreign to their mode of speech.
The following two stories are illustrative of the native belief, mentioned in Chapter IV, that we possess not only our physical body, but also an essential or “astral” form, in shape and feature like the body. This form, or “life,” with its “heart,” can be stolen by magic power while one is asleep, and the individual sleeps on unconscious of his loss. If the life-form is returned to him before he awakes, he will be unaware that anything unusual has happened. If he awakes before that portion of him has been returned, though he may live for a while, he will sicken and eventually die. If the magicians who stole the “life” have eaten the “heart,” he sickens at once, and will soon die.
I.A Witch Sweetheart.
A certain man loved a woman whom he expected to marry. He visited her regularly. Whenever he intended to visit her, he always notified her thus: “I will be coming such a day” or “such an hour.” Then she would say, “Yes.” But it happened on a particular day when he told her, “I’ll be coming to-night,” she said, “No, not to-night, wait till next night.” He replied, “No, for I will come to-night.” But she refused, “No, I do not want you to come to-night.” Then he asked, “What is your objection? Hitherto you have let me come when I pleased. What is the matter to-night?” So she said, “I do not want you to come, because I will beabsent to-night.” “Where are you going?” he asked. To this she gave as answer only, “Don’t come! I don’t want you to come!” So the man said, “All right! I will not come. If you don’t want me, then I’m not coming.” So he left her, very much surprised at what she had said, and began to think something was going wrong; he thought he would like to know for himself what it was.
This woman was one of those who belonged to the Witch Society, and engaged in its plays. But the man had not suspected this, and did not know that she was one of those who played.
The native belief is that when a witch or wizard has seized some one to “eat” his “life” or do him other harm, if there be a non-society witness hidden or in the open, the odor of that witness weakens the witch power, and the attempt at witchcraft fails.
This man, not suspecting the real state of the case, but in order to know what was going on with the woman, came softly and hid near her house, where he might be able to see whether any one went in or came out. Soon he heard the door of her house open. He saw her come out of the house without any clothing, and she quietly pulled the door to after her and closed it, and then walked away from the place. All this the man saw, but he said nothing. He stood outside waiting, waiting until she should return. After a long while, as he was tired standing, he thought he would go into the house and hide himself somewhere. It was not long after this that he heard a little noise outside, and looking through the apertures of the bamboo wall saw her and others with her, men and women. Some of them were carrying the form of a man on their shoulders. Others spread out on the ground green plantain leaves, and stretched the form on the leaves. Each of the party had a knife, and they began their work of cutting the form into pieces. While thus occupied, they saw that their knives would not penetrate. Some of them began to step around, peeping into recesses as if they were looking for something. Still trying to cut, their knives seemed dulled;no one of them could succeed in cutting out a single piece. So they stopped, and began to sharpen their knives, and again tried to cut, using more force in their efforts. They worked rapidly, for they had to hasten, as there were signs of approaching day.
As they still were unable to make any incisions after the sharpening of the knives, they thought it very strange, and began to suspect that some one was near witnessing what they were doing. So some of them began to search in different directions; they sniffed to detect the odor of a person. This they did over and over again, and came back, and again sharpened their knives, and again they failed. And then they would again go around, sniffing for a human being.
At last, as it was near morning, they had to give up their intention of cutting into this form. So they had to take it up again on their shoulders and carry it back to where they had brought it from, and lost their feast.
Then the woman came back to her house, very much disappointed and excited. Though it was still dark, it was so near daybreak that she did not go to bed, but took a light, and began to hunt all through her house, having at last begun to suspect that perhaps her lover was there. Finally she found him where he was hiding. She was very angry, saying, “Who told you to come here? What brought you? And when did you come? Did I not tell you not to come to-night?” But he turned on her, saying, “But where have you yourself been? And what have you yourself been doing? I came here expecting to find another man here. But that is not what I saw!”
She trembled, saying, “Have you been here a long time?” And he significantly said, “Yes, I have!” Then, furious, she said, “Now you have seen all that we were doing, and you have found me out! And as you have discovered that I am engaged in witchcraft, and lest you tell others about it, you shall see that I will put an end to your life! You shall not go out of this house alive!” So she pulled out her knife. But the man was quite strong, and though he had no weapon,made a hard fight. He was stronger than the woman, was able to get away from her, and left the house just before daylight.
From that day their friendship was broken; neither cared again to see the face of the other. The man informed on the woman. But she was not prosecuted; for no one was able to make specific complaint that they had lost their “heart-life.” That form had been restored to its person unrecognized and uninjured. No one out of the society, not even the victim himself, knew of the attempt that had been made on him.
II.A Jealous Wife.
A man of the Orungu tribe in the Ogowe region had several wives, of whom the chief, commonly called the “queen” or head-wife, had no children. This was a grief to her and a disappointment to the husband. But one of his younger women, who had now become his favorite, had a baby, and the head-wife was jealous of her.
The husband still retained the older one as the bearer of the keys and in direction of the other women, though he was beginning to doubt her, as he suspected her of witchcraft. But he said nothing about it, not being sure.
It is believed that witches can enter houses without opening doors or breaking walls, and can do what they please without other people knowing of it at the time. So one night this man and his young wife were sleeping in the same bed with their little babe. Suddenly, after midnight, the mother happened to wake up startled. She missed her baby from the bed. She looked and looked all over the bed from head to foot, and did not find it. Then she was frightened, woke up her husband gently, and told him in a whisper, “The child is missing! I don’t see the child!”
The husband told her to get up and light a gum-torch (for there were coals smouldering on the clay hearth used as a fireplace), that they might look for the child. She did so, and both hunted, looking under the bedstead and elsewhere, but did not find the child. Then they examined the windowsand door; for perhaps the child had been taken out by some one. The door and windows were all properly fastened. The mother was very much troubled; but her husband, keeping his own counsel, advised her not to scream or make a noise, but said, “Let us go back to bed, but not to go to sleep; and let the room be dark again.” So the wife put out the torch, leaving the room in darkness; and they returned to bed. Then the husband said, “Maybe we can prove or see something before morning” (for he suspected); and he added, “Whoever or whatever has taken the child out so secretly, will secretly bring it back. So we must not sleep, but watch.”
So both lay awake in bed for a few hours. Then, just before morning, while it was still dark, they heard a little noise outside near the house, like the rustling of wings and the panting of breath. They were both anxious, and had their eyes wide open. Soon they saw the room flashed full of a bright light from the roof. [Witchcraft people are noted for having a light which they can thus flash.] Then the wife, as soon as she saw the light, quietly nudged her husband; and he returned the pressure, to let her know that he was aware, and also to intimate that she should continue silent as himself; and they pretended to be sleeping soundly.
Soon they saw the figure of a woman descend from the low roof, but with no hole in the roof. The figure came to the bedside and lifted up the edge of the mosquito-net with one hand, in the other holding a child. As soon as she attempted to put the baby back in its place, between the father and mother, the father, as he was the stronger, and nearer to the figure on the outside of the bed, got up quickly, and seized both hands of the woman before she had time to let go of the child and escape from the room. He said aloud to the mother, “Get up! Your baby has been missing. Now light the light, and we will see the person face to face who has taken the child out!”
The young mother did so, and they discovered that it was the head-wife who had brought in the child.
Then, when the father felt the body of the babe, it was limp and burning with fever.
As it was so near daylight the father did not delay, but began at once to make a fuss, and shouted for the people of the village to gather together. And he began a “palaver” (investigation) immediately. When all the people had assembled to hear the palaver, both the father and the mother related what had passed during the night, about their missing the child, and its return.
The head-wife, being accused, was silent, having nothing to say for herself; for she was both ashamed and afraid to confess that she had been eating the life of the baby. But all the people knew that such things were done, and they believed that this woman had done with the baby whatever she wanted to do while she had it outside that night.
Then the father of the child tied up the head-woman, and said to her, “Now I have you in my hands, I will not let you go until you give back the baby’s life, and make it well again.” [The belief is that if the “heart-life” has not been eaten the victim can recover.] This she was not able to do, for she had eaten its “heart.” So the next day the baby died. And the husband executed that head-woman by cutting her throat.
The above incident was told me at Libreville by a very intelligent Mpongwe as having actually occurred in the Gabun region. It is fully believed that walls are no obstacle to the passage of the bodies of those possessing the power of sorcery. The “light” spoken of I have seen. I do not know what it was. From a small point it would flash with starlike rays. It was carried by a man, who disappeared when pursued. A Christian native told me that he once pursued it, and caught the bearer with a torch concealed in a hollow cylinder; the flashing was caused by his thrusting it in and out of the cylinder.
III.Witchcraft Mothers.
(On an itineration in my boat on the Ogowe interior, in 1890, I came to a village of the Akĕle tribe, whose inhabitants were in an intense state of excitement. All the men were brandishing guns and spears or daggers; women were gesticulating and screaming; the loins of all were girded for fight; and a few only of the older men and some strangers were appealing for quiet.
Among the latter was a native trader of the Mpongwe coast tribe. His trade interests made for peace. I knew him, as he had received some education in our Gabun school.
I saw that in such confusion it would be useless to attempt to ask a hearing for my gospel message. I did not wait to inquire the cause of the day’s commotion, and passed on to another village.
Subsequently the Mpongwe man told me the story. Though slightly educated and enlightened, he was not a Christian and believed in fetiches. His account, therefore, was from the heathen standpoint. I cannot repeat his own wording, but the outline of the story is exactly his.)
In that village were two slave women, each married to a free husband. Each was expecting to become a mother,—No. 1 in three months, and No. 2 in six months. They were friends; and, unknown to their husbands, were members of the Witchcraft Society, and were accustomed secretly to attend and take part in the society’s midnight meetings and plays. Just what is the nature of those plays is not quite certain, but it is known that wild orgies of dancing constitute a part of them.
These two women, that they might be freer for their dancing and other movements, were accustomed, in going to the meetings, to divest themselves temporarily of their unborn babes. This they were able to do by witchcraft power, in virtue of which the possessor can pass, or cause any oneelse to pass, uninjured through any material object, as a ray of light passes through glass.
This they did on their way to the meeting-place on the edge of the forest. They laid their babes on the grass in a secluded spot, and resumed them on their return. As they did so, No. 1 observed that hers was a male, and No. 2 that hers was a female. They did this many nights in succession.
Subsequently No. 2 began to be envious of No. 1 in the possession by the latter of a male child. The husband of No. 2 had been very anxious for a son. She knew that if she could present him with a son he would be very proud, and would enlarge her position and privileges in the family. So, one night, she did not wait for her friend No. 1 to return with her, but, excusing herself from the play, came back on the path alone. Coming to where the two babes were lying, she deliberately exchanged her own girl for the boy of No. 1.
The latter stayed very late at the play,—so late that, as she hasted home, fearful lest the morning light should find her on the path (a dangerous thing to a witch-player), on coming to where the babes had been deposited, she snatched up the remaining one without examining it, and, supposing it to be hers, resumed the natural possession of it.
Shortly after this, the nine months of No. 1 were fulfilled, and she bore a child which, to her surprise, she saw was a female. She made no remark, as she immediately suspected what had been done. She waited three months, until the days of No. 2 also were fulfilled. At the birth of the child of No. 2 there was great rejoicing by the husband in the possession of a son. He made a great feast, and called together a large gathering of people. Among them was not invited the woman No. 1; for she and No. 2 were no longer friendly, though neither of them had said anything.
In the midst of the rejoicings No. 1 made her appearance, though uninvited, and striding among the guests, went silently into the bedroom, carrying a three-months-old femalebabe. She went to the side of the bed of No. 2, laid down the female child, saying, “There’s your baby!” snatched up the male infant, saying, “This is mine!” and strode out of the room into the street and on the way to her house.
A scream from No. 2 startled the crowd of guests; word was passed that the boy was being stolen, and No. 1 was pursued and brought back; but she desperately refused to give up the boy. The whole village was at once thrown into confusion.
That was the state of affairs on the day that I arrived there. My informant told me that he and others induced the crowd to quiet, by saying that the matter could better be settled by a talk than by guns, by sitting down in council than by standing up in fight.
On being brought before the council or palaver, No. 1 was calm and firm. She still held to the boy-baby. She said she was willing to be judged, but demanded that No. 2 should also be made to confront the council. The sense of guilt of the latter made her weak and unable to face the friend she had wronged.
Charged with stealing, No. 1 made a bold speech. She said, “Yes; I have taken my own! If that be stealing, I have stolen!” And then she told the whole truth of the witchcraft plays of herself and No. 2. The latter, overcome with shame for her crime, did not deny; she admitted all. And No. 1 closed her defence by saying, “So this other woman has nothing about which to make complaint. She has her child, and I have mine, and that settles the matter.”
The crowd was amazed, and the husbands were ashamed at finding that their wives were witches. The husband of No. 2 was no longer disposed to fight after his wife had admitted that the boy-baby was not her own. The matter was dropped, as no one was really harmed. Neither husband was disposed to fine the wife of the other for her witchcraft, as both were guilty.
The guests ate the feast, but the host had no satisfactionin its now useless expenditure except that it was considered sufficient reparation to the husband of No. 1 for his own wife’s original theft.
IV.The Wizard House-Breaker.
(The incidents narrated in the following three stories, The Wizard House-Breaker, The Wizard Murderer, The Wizard and his Invisible Dog, my informant asserted were actual occurrences; Nos. IV. and VI. occurring in the Gabun region, and the parties known. The witchcraft part of the stories consists in the strange light which wizards and witches are said to possess; it is under their control to display or hide, and it gives them power to overcome time and space. The scene of No. V. is on the Ogowe River.)
There were a husband and wife who had been married a number of years. She had a child, a little boy. The husband had a brother; and this brother had taken a strong fancy to the woman, and wanted to possess her. Secretly he was asking her to live with him. But the woman always refused, saying, “No, I do not want it!” Then this brother’s love began to change to anger. He cherished vexation in his heart toward the woman, and asked her, “Why do you always refuse me? You are the wife, not of a stranger, but of my brother. He and I are one, and you ought to accept me.” But she persisted, “No, I don’t want it!”
The brother’s anger deepened into revenge. He possessed nyemba (witchcraft power), and determined to use it.
One day this woman had to go to her plantation; and she arranged for the journey, taking her little boy with her. Before she left the village to go to the plantation, she told the townspeople, “I will remain at the plantation for some days, to take care of my gardens; for I am tired of losses by the wild beasts spoiling my crops.” But the other women said, “Ah! your plantation is too far; it is not safe for you to be by yourself.” But she said, “I cannot help it; I have to go.” She was brave, and persisted in her plan, and madeall preparations. On a set day, with her basket on her back, her child on her left hip, and her machete in her right hand, she started. She went on, on, steadily; reached the plantation, and rested there the remainder of that day with her child. After her evening meal she shut the door of the hut and went to bed. The door was fastened with strings and a bar, for the plantation hamlets had no locks.
She awoke suddenly about midnight, and thought she heard a noise outside. She listened quietly. Then she heard the sound again. Presently she discovered by the noise that some one was trying to climb upon the top of the hut, for the roof was low. Soon, then, she observed that this person was trying to break open the palm-thatch of the low roof. She still lay quietly. But she remembered a big spear which the husband always kept in one of the rooms of that hut; so she slowly got out of bed, and very softly went to the corner of the room where the spear was standing, and returned to bed with it.
The breaking of the thatch continued. Soon she saw the room filled with a strange light, and then she saw a man trying to enter the roof head foremost. She bravely kept still, and watched his head and shoulders enter. She could not see his face, and did not know who he was. But she did not wait for certainty; she thrust the spear upward at the man’s head. Immediately the figure disappeared, and she heard a heavy thud as he fell to the ground into the street outside.
She now began to be frightened; she no longer felt safe, and dreaded what might happen before morning. So she began to get ready to return to town that very night. She girded her loin garment, fastened the cloth for carrying her child, took her machete, hasted out of the hut, and started for her village. In her fear she ran, and rested by walking. Thus, alternately running and walking, she reached the village so exhausted and weak with loss of sleep that when her husband’s door was opened she fell fainting on the floor. He and others were alarmed, and asked, “What? What’sthe matter?” As soon as she was able to speak, she told the whole story. They asked her, “Did you see the person? Do you know him?” She said, “No; only one thing I know: it was a man, and he fell into the street.”
So, when daylight came, the husband and others went to the plantation to see whether they could find the man. When they reached the plantation, they were very much surprised to see that the man was this brother. He was lying dead, with the spear in his neck.
The husband was not vexed at his wife for the death of his brother; he was pleased that she had so well defended herself.
V.The Wizard Murderer.
(My informant asserted that this really happened in the Ogowe.)
The parties are a husband and wife, their two little children, and a younger brother of the husband. One of the children, a boy, was a lad old enough to understand affairs.
The brother-in-law loved the woman, and secretly tried to draw her affections to himself; but to all his solicitation she gave only persistent refusal. Thus matters went on, he asking and she refusing; and then his love turned to hatred.
It happened one day that the husband and wife had a big quarrel of their own. The wife was so angry that she said she would leave him, take the children, and go to her father’s house. But that home was far away, and could not be reached in one day. Other women tried to prevent her going, as she would have to spend the night in the forest on the way; but she insisted.
Leaving her clothing and other goods, she started off with the two children, a little food, and her machete. Trying to make the journey in one day, she walked very fast. But when the sun had set, and soon darkness would fall, the lad said, “Mother, as we cannot reach there to-night, don’t you think we’d better stop and arrange a sleeping-place beforedark, and let the spot be a little aside from the public path?” The mother said, “Yes; that is good!” Then she gave the babe to the lad to hold, while she with her machete began to cut away bushes and clear the ground for a convenient sleeping-spot. After she had cut away some bushes, the lad watching her, saw that she was clearing a space larger than was needed for herself. He asked her, “Do you intend that we all shall sleep in that one place,—you and baby and I?” The mother said, “Yes.” But he said, “Why, no! Fix two places,—I by myself, and you and baby in another place.” The mother replied, “No, I cannot let you sleep alone in this forest; I want you near me.” However, the lad insisted: “But if anything happens to us in the night, then we will be lost all together. I am not willing that we should be all in the same place.”
So the lad began to search for a place for himself, and came to a big tree which was not very far from his mother’s chosen spot. He called her to him, and said, “I have found a good place. Just you clear for me behind this big tree, and dig a trench for me to lie in, just below the level of the ground.” The mother did so.
After the two spots were cleared, they ate their little evening meal, and night came. Then the lad said, “Now I go to lie in the trench, and you sprinkle leaves over me to hide me, and then you go to your sleeping-place. And if anything happens to me at night, I promise I will not cry out; I will remain silent. And you promise that if anything happens to you, you also will not cry out, nor call to me.” The mother agreed, and both went to sleep.
Not long after this, both were awakened by a strange flashing light, and the mother saw some one coming to the place where she was lying. Then the light was suddenly extinguished; and she saw a man near her, and recognized that he was her brother-in-law. She was exceedingly alarmed, knowing that he did not come with good intent. In her fright she hoped to gain time by pretending to be friendly with him. So she exclaimed, “Oh! My young husband!Now you have come after me, so that your brother’s wife will not have to sleep in the forest alone. Now we will make friendship and be good friends.” But he replied in anger: “Friends, you say? You shall see what kind of friends I will make with you to-night! You, the woman who hates me! Where is the lad?” She, determined to shield the child, said, “The lad did not come with me; he preferred to stay in town with his father.” The man replied, “You are not telling me the truth. Tell me where the lad is!” But she persisted in her statement, “He is left in town with his father.”
Then the man walked about in search of the lad, going even very near to where he was lying awake in the trench. But the leaves hid him, and his uncle did not discern that the ground had been disturbed. Returning to the woman, he said, “Good! you are telling the truth. I don’t see the lad. But now I am ready to attend to you. You shall see.” So he approached the woman to seize her. She was so paralyzed with fear that she neither attempted to run away, nor, though her machete was lying near, did she lay hold of it. Even had she done so, she was too weak with her journey to defend herself. The man snatched up the babe that still was sleeping, and looking around for a rough, projecting root, violently flung the babe against it. It made no cry; and both he and the mother supposed it was instantly killed. Then he drew his machete, which he had made very sharp, and began to cut and slash the woman. She pleaded and cried for help; but there was no help near. She fell, covered with wounds, and died on the spot. All this the lad saw and heard. After killing the mother, the man began again to search for the lad, but did not find him; and, as it was now after midnight, he left the place to go back to town.
Soon after he was gone, the lad, exhausted with terror and fatigue, fell asleep. But he awoke again in the early daylight. Arising from his trench, he went with grief and distress to see the two corpses. Looking at his mother’s blood-covered form, he saw that she was dead. Looking at hisbaby brother lying on the root, he took up the little form, sobbing, “Only I am alive. Even this little child was not spared. Am I to go on my journey all alone?” Examining the limp body still further, it seemed still to show signs of life; and he said to himself, “I think I will try to save it. I am strong enough to carry it to my mother’s people, to whom I shall tell this whole story.”
So he took up the cloth in which his mother had carried the child, adjusted it for himself, placed the unconscious form in it, and started on his journey. A short distance beyond brought him to a brook. Before he crossed it, he stooped to take a drink of water. Then examining the little body again, he felt that it was not stiff and was still warm. Said he, “Ah! perhaps it has a little life! I better give it a drink.” So he tried; and the baby drank. He rejoiced. “So perhaps it will be alive. I better bathe it.” And he did so. Then he crossed the brook, and journeyed on. Before he reached his grandfather’s village, he crossed another brook, and bathed the babe, and gave it a drink as at the first brook.
On his arrival at the village the people were surprised to see him without his mother. His grandfather at once wanted to know his story and why he had come there alone. Said he, “Please, before I tell my story, try to save this baby.”
After the people had looked to the baby’s needs and saw that it might live, they gathered together to listen to what the lad had to say. When they had heard his account, they started back with him to find his mother’s corpse. They took it up and carried it to her husband’s village, there to hold palaver over the death. As soon as they reached the village, instead of announcing themselves as visitors to the husband, they went straight to the brother-in-law’s house. They found him sitting in the veranda. They laid the corpse at his feet. This so startled him that a look of guilt showed on his face. Looking at the party who had brought the corpse, he saw among them the lad; and at once he felt surethat this lad had been a witness of his crime. He lost his self-control, and began to scold, “What do you put this thing at my feet for? Take it away!”
Then all the townspeople gathered around him, being horrified at the news of the woman’s death. The husband called them all to a council, and the palaver was held at his house. There the grandfather and the lad told the whole story.
The brother-in-law began to enter a denial; but the husband said, “No, you are guilty! and because we are brothers, and we are one, the guilt is also mine; and I will confess for you. You are guilty. Your actions show it. Why did you become so angry as soon as you saw the corpse at your feet?”
But the wife’s family said to the husband, “We have no quarrel with you. We want only the person who killed our sister, and a fine of money for our loss.”
Then the husband said, “You are right; this man killed her. Take him, and for a fine take his slaves and other property. He has deliberately deprived me of a wife, and my children of a mother. Take all he owns.” It was so done; and the assemblage dispersed.
VI.The Wizard and his Invisible Dog.
(This, my informant asserted, actually happened at the town of Libreville, Gabun.)
One night a young woman was alone in her house. She was married; but, that particular night, the husband was absent.
After she had gone to her bed for the night, she slept, but not very soundly. Half awake, she thought she heard something moving in the front reception-room (ikenga). She had lowered the lamp in her bedroom, but it still gave enough light for her to see. She slightly opened the mosquito-net on one side and began to look and listen. But she saw no one nor anything unusual in her room. But as the door between her bedroom and the reception-room was slightlyajar, she looked toward its opening, and thought she saw a figure moving in that room. She felt sure there was some one there. So she stepped softly out of the bed, and peeped through the narrow opening of the door. Sure enough, there was a man.
She was frightened, but controlled herself. She was puzzled to know how he had got into that room, whose outer door she knew she had fastened before she went to bed. She crept quietly back to her bed, and then began to shout, “Who is that? How did you get in? I see you!” There was no answer. The figure ceased moving, and stood still. The woman again cried out, “Who are you? When did you come in? What do you want?” The man replied in a low voice, “It is I!” She rejoined, “Who is ‘I’? Are you only ‘me’? Who are you? How did you succeed in entering? Go out!” So he apparently opened the door and went out. She was so frightened that she did not immediately follow him, nor did she make a public outcry.
Awhile afterward she recovered self-control, and arose and went into the outer room, and assured herself that the outside door was fast, as she had left it. She believed he had entered the closed door by witchcraft art.
The next morning she told her village people the story; but she was afraid to mention the man’s name (for she knew who he was), because many people thought he possessed power as a wizard, and she feared he would revenge himself on her. She told his name only to her mother.
Not long afterward he came again to her house when she was alone at night, but did not enter. He came to the outside wall against which he knew her bedstead stood. Lying there, she could see his form through the cracks in the bamboo wall. She saw this as she happened to awake from sleep. She saw his figure standing still, and she heard a sound as of the tinkling of a bell moving about, such as natives tie to the necks of their dogs in hunting. The wizard had brought with him this time a small invisible beast to whose neck the invisible but audible bell was attached; and she heard asound along the bottom of the wall, as if the animal was scratching a hole for its master’s entrance. This time she was so alarmed that she screamed aloud to the people of the village; and then, through the chinks in the wall, she saw passing by in the street the figure of the same man.
The very next day the woman began to be sick of a fever. For several days she was quite ill, and people began to be alarmed for her. Her sickness grew very much worse. Her people sent for a Senegal man, living in Libreville, who had quite a reputation as a doctor in that kind of sickness. When this doctor came, she was able to speak only in a low voice, and she recounted to him what had happened. He asked her to mention the precise spot on which the man had stood outside of the wall of her house. She described to her mother the particular spot, and the mother took the doctor to show him. He scraped up clay from the place and mixed it in a small bowl of cold water. He directed that after she had been given a bath morning and evening this muddy water should be rubbed over her body. She said that when it was thus rubbed over her skin, her flesh temporarily felt as if it was paralyzed.
Her sickness continued more than a month, and then she recovered. Soon after her recovery the man who had attempted to enter her room, and who was suspected of having caused her sickness by witchcraft art, suddenly left Gabun, and went to another country.
VII.Spirit-Dancing.
Antyande, a Mpongwe woman of the town of Libreville, Gabun, is a leader of a company of ten or a dozen women in a certain native dance called “ivanga,” which is performed only by women. Some dance it only as an exhibition of their gymnastic skill; others mix with it fetich and witchcraft arts, and claim that their movements are under spirit power. Antyande, more than the other women of the company, uses witchcraft in her performances. She seems almost to glide through the air, alighting on the knees ofsitting spectators without giving them the impression of weight, gyrating on small stools without moving the stools from their position, and making many other wonderful physical contortions in an exceedingly graceful and easy manner. She even goes to graveyards at night, accompanied by three or four men and women, to get what they call the spirits of the dead. It is said by some of the men who have gone there with her that they do not understand what she does, but that it is so very strange and awful that they are afraid. The reason why she goes for these abambo (ghosts) of the graves is that she may be spry and alert, and able to do with her body whatever she pleases. She claims also to be accompanied by a leopard and a bush-cat that are visible to her but not to others. As these animals are noted for their quick and agile movements, and are under her witch-power control, they are able to impart to her these qualities.
In January, 1902, she was dancing her ivanga, and there was a woman among the spectators who had been drinking to the point of intoxication. In her foolishness she determined to help Antyande by assuming to be directress to keep the spectators in order. But, being drunk, she could not do so; she only made disorder. In attempting to make matters straight she only made them crooked. Antyande asked her to get out of her way. Many, also, of the spectators begged the woman to cease interfering; but she would not, and finally she vexed Antyande by spoiling her movements in getting too close in front of her. Antyande’s patience was exhausted, and she suddenly revealed a secret that astonished many even of her intimate acquaintances, saying, “Whoever is related to this drunken woman, please tell her to get out of my way while I am dancing, because my dance is not a mere gymnastic exercise. I have leopards and bush-cats about me, and if she comes too near me, and the tails of these animals should twist around her legs, then she will get a sickness: and if that happens, her people must not hold me responsible for it, for I have given you this warning.” This surprised many of the people; for they had supposedshe was nothing more than an unusually graceful dancer, and that her success was purely physical. Now, publicly, she admitted that the power in her limbs and body causing her graceful undulations was a supernatural one. So some of the women laid hold of the drunken woman, and induced her to get out of the way.