Preface
In this book as in the one that preceded it,The Jungle Folk of Africa, the author endeavours to exhibit thehumanityof the African as it impressed himself.
The difference between the two books is chiefly a difference of emphasis, and is indicated in the titles. In the former the African is described in relation to his surroundings—his exterior world. Much is said about the forest—deep, solemn, vast, impenetrably mysterious—wherein he roams at large with nature’s own wild freedom; contending also with its mighty forces, and wresting from it the means of existence by his own resourcefulness of expedient. In the present volume the author essays the more difficult task of revealing the interior world of the African—his mental habits and beliefs. Much is said aboutfetishismandfolk-lore.
If, despite all that is said herein, the philosophy of fetishism should remain obscure—and there is no doubt of it; if the reader should close this book with the consciousness of a broad, comprehensive ignorance of the subject, it may be to some extent the fault of fetishism itself, which is the jungle of jungles, an aggregation of incoherent beliefs. The world of the African is as wild and strange as the weird world that we often visit on the brink of sleep. It was far from Africa that Siegfried thought it worth while to encounter the dread dragon, Fafner, and slay him for the possession of the magic tarnhelm forged by the Nibelung. In Africa everybody has a tarnhelm.Second-hand tarnhelms are for sale everywhere. I myself had a rare one; but I have lost it, or mislaid it. To us, who think of nature as the realm of law, order, and uniformity, the world of the African seems to have gone mad. This madness, however, is more apparent than real. The African thinks in terms of the miraculous; natural effects are explained by supernatural causes; supernatural, but not therefore unintelligible, still less irrational. Therefore, if we should not find the fabled thread out of this amazing labyrinth of fetishism, it may be possible to find a threadintoit; and not only possible, but also worth while, if within the labyrinth we shall find the African himself and come to know him, mind and heart, a little better.
One need not apologize for the space given to folk-lore so long as Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox retain their present popularity with old and young; for in African folk-lore we have the originals of the stories of Uncle Remus. Aside from the entertaining quality of folk-lore, its idealism has a human value. In Mr. Lecky’s essay,Thoughts on History, published since his death, the great historian pays the following remarkable tribute to idealism:
“Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely governed by its fiction. Great events often acquire their full power over the human mind only when they have passed through the transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they actually were. Ideals ultimately rule theworld; and each, before it loses its ascendency, bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy to the human race.”
Inasmuch as the history of most African tribes must ever remain unknown to us, their legends and all that is included in their folk-lore possess additional anthropological value as a medium through which to study the African mind.
The African, despite his degradation, is interesting; and that, not merely as an object of religious endeavour, but on the human level, as a man. The testimony of Mr. Herbert Ward—traveller, adventurer, soldier and artist—who first went to Africa with Stanley, and afterwards went a second time and spent several years, is the testimony of all sound-hearted men who have lived in Africa. Mr. Ward, inA Voice From the Congo, says:
“There was a good side even to the most villainous-looking savage.... They appealed strongly to me by reason of their simplicity and directness, their lack of scheming or plotting, and by the spontaneity of everything they did.” And again: “It has been my experience that the longer one lives with Africans, the more one grows to love them. Prejudices soon vanish. The black skin loses something of its unpleasant characteristics, for one knows that it covers such a very human heart.”
Nevertheless, the degradation of the African is a fact. And it is being proved that there is no power of moral renovation for him inherent in material progress. Christianity, and nothing else, vitalizes his moral nature; and therefore it contains the potentialities of civilization. When Mr. Giddings, and other sociologists of a certain class, ignoring spiritual values, demand a gospel for the life that now is, we offer them the same Gospel of Christ, and point to its actual results in Africa; maintaining thatthe missionary is the chief agent in Africa’s civilization, and affirming that civilization is but the secular side of Christianity.
One of the stories in this volume appears also in Dr. Robert H. Nassau’s admirable book,Fetishism in West Africa; and two of the stories are told, in slightly different form, in Mr. R. E. Dennett’s interesting book on the folk-lore of theFjort. Most of the illustrations are from photographs taken by Mr. Harry D. Salveter.
Robert H. Milligan.
Robert H. Milligan.
Robert H. Milligan.
Robert H. Milligan.
New York.
New York.
New York.
New York.