IXFUNERAL CUSTOMS
A Kru workman died at an English trading-house, it is said—or was supposed to have died—and his uncoffined form was being borne to the grave upon an open bier by his fellow workmen, when he suddenly embarrassed the funeral cortège by addressing the bearers and demanding that he be instantly informed of what they were intending to do—and why.
The affrighted bearers hastily dropped their load and set out for the interior of Africa. Encountering a body of water on the way they plunged into it and submerged themselves as long as nature would allow, in order to effect a disconnection with talking spirits—which are supposed to have an aversion to water—and their fear being thus quenched, they returned. The corpse meanwhile got off the bier and went home.
Premature burials are common enough in Africa, for reasons which I shall mention later. But the African might offer an easier explanation and say that the Kruman was really dead and came to life again. For the African lives in a world of confusion and disorder, where there is scarcely any such thing as a “course of nature”; but, rather, a succession of unrelated wonders. Elsewhere every effect has a cause; but Africa is run by magic, and things happen without a cause. Elsewhere, as some sage has remarked, every beginning has anend—implying that the end bears a logical relation to the beginning and may even be foreseen; but in Africa a beginning is just a beginning, and affords no clue to the end—ifthere should be any end. One goes to a wedding, and it turns out that the groom is a leopard in the form of a man, who in the midst of the ceremony carries off the bride. One goes to a funeral and the corpse sits up and talks or breaks loose and runs away. This is the atmosphere in which the African lives.
Among the semi-civilized Mpongwe of Gaboon, when sickness seems likely to prove fatal, the friends and relations from far and near gather into the house of the sick, as many as can crowd inside, and sit about on the floor, quietly expectorating, or smoking and expectorating, but always expectorating. The effect of sympathy upon the salivary glands has not been duly considered by physiologists. There is more than one reason for their hastening to the bedside of the sick. It is, of course, expected as an expression of sympathy; and if the sick one should recover he will resent the omission of this customary courtesy. But if he should die there are sure to be charges of witchcraft, and suspicion is likely to fall first on any who did not come to sympathize, the supposition being that they were kept away by a sense of guilt.
The low wail of mourning starts as soon as it appears that the sick one is dying, although he may still be conscious. Then when the death is announced there is a great outburst of cries and shrieks, accompanied by frantic actions of grief and protest. But this wild outburst soon subsides into the regular wail of the mourning dirge.
The mother is always the chief mourner. However formal the mourning of others, hers is a poignant anguish that rends the hearer’s heart. As she chants she breaks forth into a rhapsody in which she recites the story of her loved one’s life, dwelling upon those incidents the memory of which only a mother cherishes. She sings because she must. No other expression would be adequate; and certainlyno other would be so affecting to the hearer. One reflects that the strongest emotions naturally resort to music for their expression, and that singing is as natural as laughter or tears; and one understands how that ancient orators—accounted the world’s greatest—chanted, or intoned their orations without lessening, but rather deepening the impression of sincerity and passionate conviction.
The mourning continues without interruption until the burial, except while the coffin is being made—for the Mpongwe use coffins. The coffin is made in the street, in front of the house. If there should be any wailing at that time the departed spirit will not like his new house, and some of those who helped to make it will surely die before the year is over. I have seen a man, who heard the least sound of a wail while he was working on the coffin, fling his hammer on the ground in great anger and refuse to continue the work. The mourning is also suspended during the digging of the grave, if it is near by. The making of the grave must not be interrupted, but continued until it is finished. Upon its completion a stick or other object is thrown into it to keep other spirits from taking possession before its proper resident comes to occupy it.
The corpse, having been prepared for burial by being dressed in its best robe, is laid upon the floor, the mother or nearest relation taking the head upon her lap and leading in the mourning. But, before this, all the relations put on their oldest rags and as few of them as decency will allow. The most civilized among them, unwilling to disrobe, often turn their dresses inside out. Owing to the peculiar climate bodies are not usually kept long. The funeral sometimes takes place within twelve or even eight hours after death.
From the stories of natives one must conclude that premature burial is far from uncommon. The short intervalwhich custom allows between death and burial is a partial explanation. And it may also be accounted for among many tribes by the frequency of religious trance, mistaken for death. The trance is usually self-induced, for the purpose of reading the future, or when they commune with the spirit of the moon; but the practice would probably make them subject to involuntary trance. They have abundant opportunity of proving the fact of premature burial, since they so frequently exhume the bodies of the dead; sometimes they find the body in an altered position. There are various reasons for exhuming the bodies of the dead. Sometimes the spirit of the departed is dissatisfied with the grave and becomes troublesome to the living, subjecting them to annoyance and injury until the body is placed in another grave. If the departed was a person of small importance the people may resent these posthumous activities and seek to disable the spirit by exhuming the body and throwing it into the sea, after cutting off the head. Among the interior tribes the body is frequently exhumed in order to obtain the brains or the skull for fetish purposes. Thus the evidences are found of premature burial.
But, besides the haste with which they bury their dead, and the frequency of the trance, there is still another explanation of premature burial. They are disposed to regard a person as dead as soon as he becomes unconscious, although the heart may still be perceptibly beating. They cannot dissociate the personal spirit from seeing, hearing and feeling. They will therefore say of the unconscious one that he, the person, is gone, and that only the life of the body is left; and they will lose no time in preparing for the funeral.
The spirit of the deceased knows all that is going on and is supposed to be very sensitive in regard to the amount of mourning and the details of the funeral.Among the Fang, the wives of a man who has died, when they are not put to death, are often beaten severely to augment their sorrow, and they are compelled to go entirely naked for a length of time—sometimes a whole year. No one must speak to them, nor give them food.
It is especially respectful to the dead to manifest reluctance in burying the body. And to act unreasonably at such a time, or to seem a little foolish, is very pleasing to the departed. The bearers usually belong half to the father’s family and half to the family of the mother. The coffin is of plain boards covered with blue cotton. There are no handles: the bearers carry it on their heads. The practice in former times, but not so common now, was for some of the bearers on the way to the grave to refuse to go further, as if unwilling to bury the body of their friend and relation. The others would insist upon burial, and a strange altercation would take place, with some pushing, the bearers halting and starting, and halting again, but at last yielding to necessity and mastering their feelings.
A short time before I left Gaboon there was a peculiar revival of this custom. A woman had died who was a member of the church. According to our custom, they were allowed to bury her in the mission cemetery. The cemetery is on the back part of the premises and it is necessary to pass through the front yard to reach it. The family of this particular woman were all heathen, and I presume they had been drinking; for rum is now regarded as a necessity at an Mpongwe funeral, except among the Christians. During the procession of the funeral, as they were entering the cemetery, some of the bearers objected to going further, and began to push the other bearers back, according to the good old custom. But in this instance custom was outdone. The two parental families to whom the bearers belonged had notbeen friendly. The pushing of some was resented by the others, and soon each party, under the guise of conventionality and revered custom, delivered real blows upon the other and paid off some old scores. In the ensuing fight the coffin was precipitated to the ground. Leaving it where it fell, the whole funeral procession started for the police court. And experience with French justice having taught them that much depends upon getting there first, each party tried to outrun the other. Some of the mourners, however, fearing trouble with the officials if the body were not buried immediately, dissuaded them from their purpose before they reached the court, and they all came back together and buried the body.
The coast tribes have regular burying places. But most interior tribes bury in the street, or in the garden, and sometimes even beneath the earthen floor of the house. A prominent man in Batanga, whom I knew, buried his favourite wife under his door-step. In such burials probably something more is sought than merely to honour the dead. They may also intend to procure health and protection for the household. This idea is borne out by the customs of certain far-interior tribes, among whom when a great chief would build a house he first kills a number of slaves and buries them beneath the foundation.
Among the Fang, back from the coast, who have not been influenced by contact with the white man, all the funeral customs are more rude and barbarous, and often revolting. The dead are buried without coffins, usually in a sitting posture, and in very shallow graves. Some of the tribes adjacent to the Fang on the south do not bury at all. They have regular cemeteries in which they leave the bodies above the ground and cover them with palm branches or woven mats. In most tribes offeringsof food and drink are placed beside the grave. As the drink evaporates and the food wastes they say the spirit is consuming it. Fire-wood is left on the grave that the body may be kept warm. In the case of those accused of witchcraft they often seek to disable the spirit by burning the body. For the spirits of the dead still retain some connection with the body. For this same reason when slaves die, or others whom they have especial reason to fear, they sometimes beat the body with heavy clubs until they break every bone and reduce it to a shapeless mass.
Wives charged with witchcraft are usually buried alive with the dead body of the husband. In one instance, in a certain town that I knew well, a very large grave was dug in the middle of the street, and the body of the man—a chief—was placed in the middle of it. Then his seven wives, charged with having bewitched him, were brought forward, and they were about to break their legs and throw them into the grave, when the timely arrival of the missionary prevented the deed and saved the women’s lives. He interposed no physical force; but, knowing his feelings, they were not willing to commit such an atrocity in his presence.
The human shrinking from the dead with them takes the form of fear that the dead will harm them, even their own nearest relations. No matter how they may have loved one while he was alive, yet they will not desire that his spirit should linger; but rather in their mourning they often entreat the dead one to depart. It is heartrending to hear a mother in the midst of her grief entreat her child to stay far from her and not to touch her. They resort to various expedients to get rid of the spirits of the dead. Sometimes, upon the announcement of a death, while the women indulge in frantic shrieks, or the mourning wail, the men beat drums or fire off their gunsto frighten the spirit away. Nevertheless, the spirit remains in the house as long as the body is there and accompanies it to the grave. Therefore the bed that the deceased lay upon is occupied continually between death and burial to the supposed discomfort of the spirit. After the burial they hurry home, sometimes running, in order to escape from the spirit, which may not be able to find its way back to the town alone. On the way home it is advisable, if possible, to plunge into water. If one should fall while thus running he will die within a year. Sickness and other troubles are often attributed to the spirits of those who have recently died. Little children whose mothers have died often die themselves soon after; it is because the dead mother cannot resist the temptation to embrace them.
Among the Mpongwe blue is worn as mourning. The men also shave their heads. The mourning chant is continued at night, usually for a month after the funeral. Near relations remain as visitors in the town during the period of mourning. The usual activities are suspended and children are neglected. The white man’s rum is now regarded as a necessary factor in relieving hearts surcharged with sorrow. As time passes gossip becomes incessant and engenders estrangements and hatreds. There are also criminal intimacies. Indeed, a period of mourning is perhaps the most demoralizing experience through which a community can pass.
With most of the mourners the mourning wail itself is purely conventional, serving only for the assumption of a sham grief rather than the relief of a real one. But no one forgets the possible charges of witchcraft; and to avert suspicion it is wise to be prompt and eager in the mourning, especially on the part of those who were known to be estranged from the deceased. A certain Mpongwe woman, entering a house of mourning where a friend hadjust died, asked the husband of the deceased to excuse her from mourning because she had a sore ear and it hurt her to mourn.
Grief, however, is often very deep and real among the Africans; and it can never in any land be measured by conventionalities. The grief of parents for the loss of children is, as I have said, the most poignant grief of the African heart. Again and again, when I have asked a father or mother to explain to the session of the church their long absence from its services, they have confessed in tears that they had been unable to believe in the Christian’s God since He had taken away their little child—sometimes an only child—and had left the parent heart cold and joyless.
One day, walking across the lonelygrass-fieldof Gaboon, the stillness broken only by the rustle of the long grass around me and the distant boom of the sea beyond the horizon, I met a man of Gaboon who was returning home after a trading expedition into the forest. He was a shrewd man who had traded successfully both with white and black and who seemed to care for nothing else but trade, a man of materialistic mind and peculiarly inaccessible to any spiritual message. We sat down and talked for some time, first of course about trade; but gradually the conversation became more intimate and he talked about himself, at length revealing a great sorrow that years ago had darkened his life and left it dark, like the setting of the sun. He had lost in succession three little children—all he had. He tried to tell me about it, but he had not accustomed himself to speaking of it, and the story ended half-way in a flood of tears. I told him that little story that every minister tells more than once in the course of his ministry—the story of the kind shepherd, and the willful mother sheep that would not cross the stream to the good pasture and the safe fold on theother side; and how the shepherd took the lamb in his arms and carried it across, and how the mother sheep stood a while and looked after it with longing and then followed her lamb to the other side. It was a familiar incident to him—some such thing he had done himself—and the simple story moved him deeply. I never saw him again; for I left Africa shortly afterwards. But I have not forgotten the human tenderness that was revealed beneath the surface hardness of the man’s heathen heart; and I hope that if he be still alive he may not have forgotten the vision of the “sweet fields beyond the swelling floods,” and the message of God’s love and kindness which he heard that day, like a still, small voice sounding across the storms that had wrecked his life.
The tribes north of the Calabar River—the real Negro tribes—are more cruel in all their customs than the tribes further south. Even apart from any accusation of witchcraft, when a man dies a number of persons are frequently put to death to accompany his spirit to the other world. When a great chief dies wives and slaves are killed that the chief may enter the spirit world as a person of consequence. For it is supposed that slaves sent with him will still be his slaves and wives will still be wives. I have known an instance of a native dying on shipboard, and when the body was cast into the sea, the female relations actually tried to leap after it in order to accompany the spirit of the deceased to the other world.
Among some of the tribes of the Niger it was the custom (until the English government suppressed it) that when a chief died a number of persons, perhaps twelve or more, usually women and slaves, were buried alive with him, and without any accusation against them. An enormous grave was dug; and all these persons were lowered into it together with the dead body of the chief. Then the grave was covered over with a roof, a small openingbeing left, upon which a stone was placed. Each day the stone was removed and the question was asked of those below whether they had yet followed the chief—each day until at last no voice replied. Among the Fang I have not known of any such practice. The only persons put to death on such occasions are those who have been charged with witchcraft. But multitudes die daily on this charge.
My first contact with death in Africa was among the Bulu, at a little town called Mon Nlam (if I remember correctly) close to Efulen. One afternoon when I was alone at Efulen I was startled by the firing of guns in the little village at the foot of our hill. There were cries also and shrieks such as I had never before heard. Several of the many natives around me belonged to Mon Nlam; and these started for home as fast as they could run. I caught something of their alarm and ran after them to the town. Following the lead of the natives I ran through the town into the banana garden immediately beyond, where all the people were gathered. There in the midst were a number of women (I forget how many) shrieking frantically and throwing themselves madly upon the ground. They were entirely naked and their bodies were smeared with white clay, even their faces and their hair. Other women were vainly trying to restrain them, while the crowd looked on.
Such a scene was quite new to me in those days, and the horror of it I have never forgotten. I had only the slightest knowledge of the language and it took me some time to find out what had happened. Several men, the husbands of these women, had gone hunting in the forest. Two other towns near by were at war with each other; but this town had nothing whatever to do with the war. A number of men from one of the two towns were hiding in the forest, lying in wait for the enemy,when they espied these men who were hunting. In the dim light of the forest they mistook their friends for their enemies and fired upon them. An African would rather kill ten friends then let one enemy escape. They killed all the men of the hunting-party. This was the news that had just reached the town. It was the more pitiable because the town was small, and the loss of several of its strongest men seriously weakened its defense.
There were the usual charges of witchcraft against the women; and when I in amazement pointed out to them that in this instance there was no mystery whatever; that those men, as they knew, had been killed by the bullets of those who had fired upon them, they replied that while this was doubtless true it was only half the truth; for those men wore protecting charms that would have made it impossible for bullets to injure them, and that the spell of witchcraft must have destroyed the power of the charms. I only convinced them that while I knew considerable about bullets I knew nothing about witchcraft and nothing about wives. The doubt, however, which had been thus suggested, was sufficient to enable us to protect the women from any fatal violence; although the restraints and sufferings imposed upon widows during their period of mourning is almost intolerable.
In contrast with that scene, where the elemental passions of fear, grief and rage fairly made demons of men and women, I think of another death that was not in any way horrible or revolting; it was the death of a Fang chief namedNdong, one of the first of the Fang Christians. Ndong and his people had come recently from the far interior and had settled on one of the branches of the Gaboon. He had lived all his life among such death scenes as I have just described, and himself had taken a leading part in punishing witchcraft. When I first knewhim he had more fetishes than any man in his town; for he was in ill health and of course supposed that somebody was bewitching him. The fetishes were an attempt to protect himself; but they were a failure, and he was in terror of everybody around him. After several conversations with him he boldly renounced fetishism and threw away all his fetishes. He told the people that if God desired that he should live He would defend and protect him; and that if God was calling him he was ready to go. He lived six months to proclaim this new faith, and then died, having been sorely tried by constant suffering. I reached the town just as he died. There was not a fetish in his house. But it was more surprising that there was no heathen mourning. The town was strangely quiet when I arrived. An elderly woman said to me:
“Ndong has died. He died as one goes to sleep, without fear, and without blaming anybody. We never saw a death like this before. A new day is dawning.”