IITHE WISE ONES
At Gaboon, in the French Congo, one sees all the successive stages in the process of civilization. First, there is the savage, whose whole apparel is a little palm-oil and a bit of calico half the size of a pocket-handkerchief; then there is the man who wears “two fathoms” of cloth wound about him gracefully and falling below his knees; next, there is the man who wears this same robe with a shirt; then the man who discards the native robe and wears a shirt and trousers, but with the shirt always outside the trousers; and, last of all, the gentleman who wears his shirt inside his trousers. These several classes are somewhat distinct. One does not classify the man with a taste for simplicity who wears a rice-sack with holes for his head and arms; nor the untutored dude who wears a pink Mother Hubbard or a lady’s undergarment. These freakish modes represent attempts to hasten the process of civilization and to pass prematurely from one of the above classes to another.
In general, the distinction ofculotteandsansculotteindicates the difference between the Mpongwe—the old coast tribe—and the Fang—the interior tribe, who have only reached the coast in recent years. The Mpongwe is the most civilized of all the tribes south of the Calabar River. Many of them, besides wearing trousers, live indeck-houses, that is, houses with wooden floors. The first floor ever seen by the natives was the deck of an English ship; hence the namedeck-house. It was alsofrom contact with English sailors that the native learned to speak of a “fathom” of cloth.
The Mpongwe are the proudest people of West Africa. An African woman is never allowed to marry into an inferior tribe; although the men may do so. And since the Mpongwe have no social equals among the adjacent tribes, it follows that no Mpongwe woman can marry outside of her own tribe, unless with a north-coast man or a white man. The Fang, the great interior tribe, are mere “bush-animals” in the mind of the Mpongwe. A Fang man, though he were perfectly civilized, and even educated in France, would not be allowed the social status of the meanest Mpongwe. The coast women can all speak Fang; for they trade with them and buy their daily food from them; but they are ashamed to be heard speaking it. Often when I addressed them in Fang they would shake their heads as if they had never heard the language before; whereupon I nearly always asked them a question on some matter of interest to themselves; the price of a parrot, for instance, if I knew that the lady was anxious to sell it. Such a question invariably made the dumb to speak.
The Mpongwe call themselvesThe Wise Ones. And other tribes generally admit their claim and take them at their own self-estimate. In former days, when they had real kings, they buried their kings in secret, not more than ten persons knowing the hidden grave, lest some other tribe might steal the body, for the sake of obtaining the brains, which would be a very powerful fetish and would make them wise like the Mpongwe.
The king was chosen from among the people by the elders and was selected for his wisdom. The ceremonies of his enthronement were such that he required not only wisdom, but also courage, physical strength and a superb digestion. The man’s first intimation that he had beenchosen by the elders was an onrush of the people—not to do him honour, but to abuse and insult him. They would hurl opprobrious epithets at him, curse him, spit upon him, pelt him with mud and beat him. For, they said, from this time he would do all these things to them, while they would be powerless to retaliate. This, therefore, was their last chance. They also reminded him of all his failings in graphic and minute particulars. If the king survived this treatment, he was then taken to the former king’s house, where he was solemnly invested with the insignia of the kingly office, in the shape of a silk hat. No one but the king was permitted to wear a silk hat.
Following the inauguration ceremony, the people came and bowed before the new king in humble submission, while they praised him as enthusiastically as they had before reviled him. Then he was fed and fêted for a week, during which time he was not allowed to leave his house, but was required to receive guests from all parts of his dominion and eat with them all. These ceremonies ended, he turned to the comparatively easy and commonplace duties of his kingly office. This custom, like many others, has passed away under the influence of civilization.
In former days the Mpongwe were divided into three distinct classes. There were, first, the slaves, the largest class of all. Then there was a middle class, of those who although free were of slave origin, or had some slave blood in their veins—even a drop. And then there was a very small aristocracy of pure Mpongwe.
Of these three classes the middle class probably had the hardest time. They had freedom enough for initiative and trade enterprise and they often became rich. But so sure as they did, they were at once an object of envy and class hatred on the part of the aristocracy, with the result that they were in constant danger of being accusedof witchcraft and put to death, their goods being confiscated for the benefit of the governing class—the aristocracy.
Since slavery has been formally abolished by the French government the line between slaves and this middle class has almost disappeared—but not quite, for slavery has not been entirely abolished. But the “aristocracy” is as distinct as ever.
Domestic slavery is rarely attended with the usual horrors of alien enslavement. Mpongwe slaves were serfs rather than slaves. Until the advent of the white slaver they were rarely sold or exchanged. Mpongwe slaves were sometimes taken for debt and sometimes stolen from other tribes.
Several Mpongwe men have told me that their slaves were children of the interior whom they had rescued when their parents had thrown them away, either into the bush to perish by the beasts, or into the river. They must have been driven to this by some cruel superstition; for the African loves his children, and the mother of his children is his favourite wife. Perhaps the children were twins. In many tribes there is such a fear of twins that they are often put to death and their mother with them. In some of these tribes they are believed to be the result of adultery with a spirit.
Many former slaves have chosen to maintain the old relationship—somewhat modified—rather than accept full freedom, and be left without friends, family or possessions; a peculiar misfortune for those who have never had an opportunity to acquire a habit of independence.
At one time a man named Ndinga was working for me. He was a faithful workman, except for one inexplicable fault. Occasionally he would stay away half a day or the entire day without asking to be excused, or notifying me. Several times he did this when I was about to makea trip up the river, and was depending upon him to make one of the crew. At length I dismissed him and he departed without explanation or complaint. But one of the other men came to me and told me Ndinga’s plight. He was really the slave of an Mpongwe chief, right under the eyes of the government. The master allowed him to work for himself, but I imagine he took part of his wages. He also exercised the right to call upon him at any time for personal services, and each time that he had stayed away from his work he had been called by the master, who ignored my claim upon Ndinga and the consequent inconvenience to me, though he claimed to be my personal friend. Ndinga was sufficiently civilized to feel the degradation of his position, and the poor fellow submitted to rebuke and final dismissal rather than tell me he was a slave. I learned also that he had lost several other positions in the same way and had usually been dismissed with cursing and abuse. I sent for him immediately, and without explanation told him that I had changed my mind and that he could return to work. Meantime, I called the master, and reminding him that slavery was strictly forbidden, I told him that if he should again call Ndinga away from work I would notify the government. There was no further trouble.
This man, Ndinga, was in pitiable need of a friend. It is extremely easy for a slave to get a bad reputation, and Ndinga was said to be a “leopard-man,” that is, a man who changes himself into a leopard—either in order to kill an enemy or devour a sheep. I have heard Ndinga accused of this frequently; and there were many who regarded him with great fear. Every hysterical woman who thought that she saw a leopard was ready to swear that it was Ndinga. If the leopards had been active in the community at that time all their doings would have been charged against him.
The Mpongwe women are regarded as the best-looking and most graceful women on the entire coast. Wherever there are communities of white men, even hundreds of miles north and south of Gaboon, there are Mpongwe women; for it is with them more than the women of any other tribe that white men form temporary alliances.
The Gaboon belle has a brown complexion and faultless skin, fine features and dreamy dark eyes with long lashes. She moves so easily that she carries her folded parasol, or bottle of gin, or other indispensable, on her head. She dresses her hair neatly and with great pains; usually parting it in the middle and arranging it in numerous small braids which she fastens behind. Her dress is a large square robe of bright colours, often of fine material, wound around her, immediately below her arms, reaching to her feet and kept in place by a roll around the top of it—a peculiar twist ofleger de mainwhich only a black hand can perform. Somewhere in this roll her pipe is usually hidden away. This dress leaves her graceful shoulders and arms uncovered. She wears slippers with white stockings, and upon her head a very large silk handkerchief of bright colour, beautifully arranged in a turban. Add to this a lace or silk scarf thrown over one shoulder, not forgetting her silk parasol carried unopened on her head; then add a lot of jewelry and plenty of perfume, and her attire is complete. Moreover, she has a soft voice, and does not yell except when she quarrels, and she seldom quarrels when she is dressed in her best. Most of the Christian women wear an unbelted wrapper, or Mother Hubbard.
The Mpongwe people are peculiarly gentle, and courteous in their manners; and in this respect the men even surpass the women. Travelling in a boat with an Mpongwe crew, one is always surprised at their courtesy and thoughtful consideration. Courtesy, indeed, whichsome one calls “benevolence in little things,” is a racial characteristic. I was once obliged to make a very hard journey from Batanga to Benito, a hundred miles down the coast. For this purpose I purchased a bicycle in a German trading-house at Dualla, the capital of Kamerun. The bicycle weighed fifty pounds, and cost me a dollar a pound. I did not realize what I was undertaking. The sea-breeze was against me; portions of the beach were of soft sand and parts of it were so rough and rocky that I had to climb steep banks and stretches of rock, carrying the fifty-pound wheel on my shoulders. I had been long in Africa and my strength was greatly reduced. Several times, almost overcome with exhaustion, I threw myself down upon the beach and lay there for half an hour before I could go on. There were various misadventures along the way and a sensational escape from quicksand. It was an opportunity, however, to test the kindness of the native.
I took no food, but depended upon the hospitality of those to whom I was a stranger; although if hospitality had failed, I could have paid for food; but not once did it fail along the way. Wherever there was a stream to be waded, if a native was anywhere in sight, either on the beach, or fishing out on the sea, in his canoe, I called or beckoned to him, and he came and carried me over—for a white man must not get wet when he is exposed to the wind; then he went back and got my wheel. In one place the water was to the man’s shoulders, and there was a current, but he held me in a horizontal position above his head, and exerting his whole strength, with firm, slow step he proceeded, and set me down dry on the other side. Then he cheerfully turned about and went after my wheel. In another place heavy crags projected into the sea and at high tide there was no beach for a quarter of a mile, so that I was compelled to carry thewheel. At this place, I met a native carrying a load who was evidently returning from a journey to the interior; and upon my request for help, he at once hid his load by the way and taking my wheel carried it over the rocks, nearly all this distance, to the better beach beyond. In every case I told the man beforehand that I did not expect to pay him for his service except in friendship, and friendship sufficed. Nor did I pay anything for my food; and not once on the entire journey had I the least difficulty in procuring it. Some of these people were of other tribes; but in courtesy the Mpongwe surpass them all.
They generally live at peace within the family and the village. Themen, at least, rarely fight. Whenever I heard that an Mpongwe fight was in progress, I rushed to the scene; but I must confess to mixed motives. For a fight among Mpongwe men is decidedly picturesque and entertaining, since they fight by butting each other in the stomach with their heads. The women are much more quarrelsome, and these very belles, whose beauty I have praised, have frequent quarrels and occasional fights, the latter usually involving a number of women; for though the quarrel commences with two women, when it gets to a real fight the family and relations of each woman take part in it. From this moment it proceeds somewhat formally. They line up on two sides, and with a lively accompaniment of appropriate language, they rush upon each other, not usually striking, nor scratching, but each woman seeking to tear off her opponent’s robe. I witnessed such a fight in which eighteen women engaged. A woman, when her robe is taken off, admits defeat. For this reason, instead of preparing for a fight by donning her oldest clothes, she prepares by putting on her newest and strongest, which she doubles and ties about her waist, letting it fall to her knees, but she wears no upper garment.
There is a strange war-custom in all the tribes of West Africa unlike anything I have ever heard of elsewhere. Sometimes when one of their number is killed, or a woman stolen by an enemy, instead of avenging his death directly they will kill some one of a third town which has nothing whatever to do with the palaver. This third town is then expected to join with them in punishing the first town, which, being the original offender, was the cause of all the trouble. InThe Jungle Folk of AfricaI have described this custom thus:
“Among the Mpongwe, in the old days before the foreign power was established, and among the closely related tribes south of them, this custom prevailed in an extreme form. A woman being stolen, the people of the offended town would hurry to another town near by, before the news had reached them, and would kill somebody. This town would then hurry to the next and kill somebody there, each town doing likewise until perhaps five or six persons of as many different towns would be killed in one night. The last town would then, with the help of the others, demand justice from the first. It may be that the object of this frightful custom was to restrain men from committing the initial crime, that might be attended with such wide-spread death, bringing upon themselves the curses of many people. For above all things the African cannot bear to be disliked and cannot endure execration.”
The Mpongwe now have no war-customs. And I am not sure that peace has proved an unmixed blessing. They have lost something of courage and virility.
Despite the veneer of civilization, I fear that this amiable and graceful people—excepting only the few Christians—are as superstitious as ever. Nature is still inhabited by myriad spirits to whose activity natural phenomena are due. They still speak of the great spiritwho causes the flow and ebb of the tide by dropping an enormous stone into the sea and again removing it. Trial by ordeal is common even among the most intelligent. And not a death occurs among them that is not attributed to witchcraft.
A man dying in the hospital at Gaboon turns his solemn, beautiful eyes towards one who sits beside him, and tells in confidence what has brought about his death. It is strange how approaching death, as if to testify to man’s divine origin in the hour of his most appalling defeat, dignifies the features and countenance of the lowest with a mysterious dignity that transcends all differences of colour, transforms even natural ugliness, and brings all men to one level. The greatest is no more than human; the lowest is no less. This dying man tells how that some weeks past, having gone on a journey to a certain town forty miles north, and during the night having wondered what his friends at home might be doing, he thought he would visit Gaboon, leaving his body while his spirit alone travelled through the air. But on the way he met a company of spirits making a similar journey, one of whom was an enemy; who, recognizing him, gave him a fatal thrust in the side. He quickly returned to his body; but in the morning he felt the weakness resulting from the fatal stroke, and from that day had grown weaker and weaker until death was upon him.
I was present at the trial of a slave, in a leading Mpongwe town, who was accused of causing the death of one of the relations of the chief, a man who had been ill for a long time with tuberculosis. I had been calling on the sick man regularly. One day, going again to the town, I saw a crowd of people gathered in the street who were very much excited. The man had just died, and as usual the panic-stricken people were determined to blame somebody. The chief who was trying the case was a well-educatedman who had been closely associated with white people all his life and was prominent in trade. Arbitrary suspicion had about settled upon this slave—for slaves are always the first to be suspected—when a boy came forward and said that on the preceding night he had discovered the slave standing behind the sick man’s house and that he had watched him while he opened a bundle of leaves which he had in his hand and in which was a piece of human flesh like a fish in size and form. No more evidence was necessary. No one asked the boy how he knew that it was not a fish which he had seen; nor how he knew that it was human.
They would have killed the man instantly but for their fear of the French government; for the town was close beside the capital. When I tried to reason with them, they answered me with the all-sufficient exclamation: “Ask the boy! Ask him yourself!” Those who took the leading part in this trial were dressed like Europeans.
Sickness and death, they believe, may be caused by fetish medicine, which need not be administered to the victim, but is usually laid beside the path where he is about to pass. Others may pass and it will do them no harm. The parings of finger-nails, the hair of the victim and such things are powerful ingredients in these “medicines.” An Mpongwe, after having his hair cut, gathers up every hair most carefully and burns it lest an enemy should secure it and use it to his injury. When sickness continues for a length of time they usually conclude that some offended relation has caused an evil spirit to abide in the town.
An Mpongwe man, Ayenwe, had a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism. I was going to see him regularly and doing what little I could for him. But his mother’s people, who lived in a town four miles away, concluded that it was a spell of witchcraft, inflicted byhis father’s people. So they came one stormy night at midnight and stealing him out of his house, put him in a canoe and carried him on the rough sea to their town. The patient can always be prevailed upon by his relations, if there are enough of them to wear out his resistance. However strongly he may object at first he will finally throw up his hands and say: “Kill me if you will then. The responsibility is yours; I have nothing more to do with it.” A man’s very soul is not his own in Africa.
An Mpongwe woman, Paia, was suffering greatly from salivation, through the injudicious use of calomel. She was a Christian woman and a member in the Mpongwe Church, although her relations were all heathen. She was in agony and a fellow missionary and myself had already reached the point where we could do nothing more for her. The numerous heathen relations were all present. They sat on the floor smoking and expectorating in gloomy silence, with the windows closed, and filled the house so that I could hardly pass in and out. I tried my best to get them to take Paia to the French hospital, but they were horrified at the bare suggestion. The tales in free circulation concerning the hospital—poisons administered by the doctor, mutilation, and death by slow torture—would fill a volume. Several days passed: Paia was worse. They concluded that the house was bewitched—and perhaps the whole town—and resolved to carry her away to another town, across the river. In such cases it is advisable to put a body of water between the victim and the bewitched town. Paia told me that she was more than willing to go to the hospital if they would let her; but she said they would never consent. Next morning about daylight I suddenly appeared before her door with four strong men and a hammock swung on a pole. Before her relations knew what had happened one of the men had carried her out to the hammock, and we started to the hospital. The French doctor, one of the very best on the coast, at my request gave her special attention, and in a few days she was well.
WOMEN’S SECRET SOCIETY OF GABOON.
WOMEN’S SECRET SOCIETY OF GABOON.
WOMEN’S SECRET SOCIETY OF GABOON.
The lowest reach of Mpongwe degradation is represented by the woman’s secret society, to which a majority of the Mpongwe women belong—practically all, except the Christians, who regard it with abhorrence. I know of nothing in any interior tribe more degrading and immoral. In former times of cruelty and oppression the society probably served for the protection of women against their husbands; but in these times it is the husbands who need protection, and the society, having outlived its usefulness, has degenerated. The women of the society frequently meet together at night, usually in an arbour of palms, and sing unspeakably lewd songs—phallic songs—which are heard all over the village. There is always a crowd of young men gathered around the arbour; and the badinage which passes between them and the women is shocking. And yet these same persons, on all other occasions in their daily intercourse, observe a degree of decorum which would astonish those who think that there is scarcely any such thing as decorum in Africa.