XIIFETISHES
The Fang, like other tribes of West Africa, have a name for God and they conceive that He is a personal being, who made the heavens and the earth, and created man. The one thing that they will say of God and the only fixed idea regarding Him is that He made everything. The world, even in the mind of the African, is an effect which demands a cause; and that cause is God. But since they have no conception of God’s eternity, by the same principle of causality they must account for God Himself. So God has a father and a grandfather. This notion of a divine ancestry is evidently an effort of the mind to grope its way back to a First Cause.
They do not fear God, and they certainly do not love or reverence Him. Nor do I know that they ever worship Him. The transient observer among them sees wooden images, evidently objects of worship, and supposes that they are images of God; but in most cases, if not in all, these are images of ancestors or imaginary personages. He figures in some of their fables; but His deeds are usually wanton, wicked, or immoral. Most of these fables would not bear repetition. God is simply a magnified African chief with a great number of wives, most of whom have been stolen in the first instance. God takes no interest in the world that He has made. He looks down with indifference upon all its cruelty, its sorrow, and its sin. If He interferes in human affairs itis perhaps to make mischief, or to confuse and distress men and women for His amusement. The most that the natives desire of God is that He will let them alone, and to this end they let Him alone.
Our teaching at this point is radical. They are surprised to learn that God always does right; that He loves right and hates wrong; that He loves them as a father loves his children; that their sins grieve Him and that He will punish their cruelties. We divest the character of God of all that is filthy and wicked, and teach them that God is such a one as Jesus was while on earth, even as He said to Philip: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” To them it is an entirely new conception.
Their belief in a future life is very clear, although there are individuals who will deny it. Their belief finds strong support in dreams. The African believes in dreams as actual occurrences, and they relate them one to another with great earnestness, which perhaps tends to make them more vivid and possibly more frequent. But no dreams are more common and none more vivid than those in which friends and loved ones appear who have recently died. Those who hold to the evolution of all our ideas from natural antecedents have in the dream as regarded by primitive people a plausible origin for the belief in a future life.
There were two Mpongwe women of Gaboon, Tito and Lucy, whom I used to invite regularly every Saturday to come to my Bible-class on Sunday morning. They were as regular in not coming as I was in inviting them, although they invariably promised to come and their parting salutation was usually: “Well, good-bye, till to-morrow morning.” The truth is that Tito and Lucy were not Bible-class women. They had been taught in our mission school in the early days before the French government forbade the use of English; so they bothspoke English fairly well. Lucy was sometimes called the Mpongwe queen, for she was head of the family that had ruled the entire tribe in former days. She became a victim of rum, which sent her to an untimely grave. Her family told me that during the last two years of her life it was doubtful whether she was ever sober. Tito had been the mistress of several white men in succession, who had either died or had gone home never to return, and as a result of her career had acquired heaps of clothes, a miscellaneous assortment of jewelry from glass to gold, and an awful temper.
At length one Sunday morning who should come to my Bible-class but Tito and Lucy!—half an hour before the time. I felt something must have happened, and probably something wrong. For I knew that my invitation had not brought them; still less their promise. That same afternoon I was passing through their town and I stopped to ask them why in the world they had come to Bible-class. Then Tito explained that she had not had any intention of coming and that she had promised me just because “it be proper fashion to say Yes, more than No,” but on Saturday night she had a dream in which an angel had appeared to her or at least had spoken to her from the next room and had told her that she and Lucy “must go to-morrow to Mr. Milligan’s Bible-class.” In the morning she told Lucy the dream and they both decided at once that they would come to the class. Without scruple they could disobey from week to week the mandate of normal conscience, and the moral law of truth, but they rendered absolute obedience to the invalid experience of a dream. Afterwards, however, Tito became a regular attendant and finally she was received into the Gaboon Church and became a faithful Christian. She was by nature generous and she was especially skillful and kind in caring for the sick.
Another woman, Ayenwa, lived in Tito’s town, who had been educated in the mission school but was now living as the mistress of a white man. Ayenwa was a good-looking woman and she had the soft, pleasant voice that is characteristic of the cultivated Mpongwe woman and distinguishes her from other African women. I had talked to Ayenwa more than once and had remonstrated with her in regard to the life she was living. But although she was troubled about it, she had made no change. At length a brother of hers died, and she was greatly afflicted by his death. He was a devout Christian, and before he died he had pleaded with Ayenwa to abandon her present way of living. Much as she loved him she did not yield to his desire and counsel. But not long after his death she came to me and said that she had left the white man and had renounced forever that kind of life; although she was friendless since her brother’s death and did not know how she would get a living. It was owing to a dream.
She told me very earnestly and in beautiful language how that she had seen her brother in a dream. She had seen him in a forest, but the forest was very beautiful and it was like a great church. He smiled when he saw her and he called her by her name. She cried when she saw him and she told him how she missed him. He told her not to weep for he was very happy and was never sick any more. But he told her to remember his dying words to her, and so to live that when she died she would come to him and then they would never be separated any more. For several days the dream was always in her mind. Then she resolved that at any cost she would forsake evil and do right. And surely God would take care of her.
Ancestor-worship is the highest form of African fetishism, and it is only called fetishism because the ancestor’sskull or other part of the body is the medium of communication. In general it indicates reverence towards age; and this is a striking characteristic of the African. Yet I have known of an instance where an old woman was afraid that her son would kill her in order to procure the help and favour which she could render him after death. It is quite likely that such things really happen. At any rate love is not the apparent motive in ancestor-worship; it is simply the hope of gain by obtaining their favour.
The usual fetish of ancestor-worship is the skull of the father, which the son keeps in a box. The father occasionally speaks to the son in dreams and frequently communicates with him by omens. He helps him in all his enterprises, good and evil, and secures his success in love, in hunting and in war. All those who have these skulls are a secret society, which, as I have said, is powerful to rule and to tyrannize over others.
Young boys are initiated into this society by rites and ceremonies that are revolting. The initiation varies widely in different tribes and even in the same town there is no uniform ceremony. No white man could ever witness the ceremony, and there are very few natives that would tell him all about it. But a general idea he may get from some; and single details from others at different times. In the mild ceremony of the more civilized Fang towns, the boy who is to be initiated is made very drunk and taken blindfolded to the bush, to a place set apart for the use of the society. The ceremony continues several days. In one part of it the bandage is removed from his eyes at midnight, a low fire is burning which gives a feeble light, and he finds himself surrounded by the members of the society with faces and bodies frightfully distorted and all the skulls of their ancestors exposed to view, together with the heads of persons whohave recently died. Some one asks him what he sees. He replies that he sees only spirits and solemnly declares that these are not men.
Boys are often initiated against their will. One of my schoolboys, a handsome lad of about fifteen, during a vacation was initiated and died before it was over. It is his initiation that I have just described—at least the very small part of it that I was able to find out. His death made them more unwilling to tell me. His initiation lasted several days during which he was compelled to remain in the bush. Further up the river a boy, during the initiation, is usually placed for several days in a house alone, after being made to look at the sun so long that sometimes he faints, and when he is taken into the house he cannot at first see anything. Meantime the door is closed and they all go away. Gradually he sees things around him and at length discovers opposite him a corpse, in an early stage of decomposition. He is kept there day and night during the ceremony. The men visit him and subject him to all sorts of indignities in order to impress him with the necessity of absolute obedience to the society. They defile him with filth, and that the vilest of filth. But I presume that the reader will gladly excuse me from any further description of this disgusting practice. One cannot omit all reference to such things if he would describe the African as he really is.
They believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor when it has been properly prepared becomes the residence of the ancestor, who, however, is not confined to it, but wanders about returning to it as to his home. The son, in order to avoid the wrath of the departed father, and to obtain his help, will keep the skull comfortably warm and dry, occasionally rubbing it with oil and redwood powder, and will feed it bountifully. Theprocess of feeding it is interesting. The son before going on a hunting expedition will open the box, and addressing his father in audible words will ask his favour and will promise that in return for success he will give him a goodly portion of the game. If he should neglect this duty for a length of time he may find when he meets an animal in the forest that his gun will not fire, and he may even find himself helpless before his enemies. The white man knowing the kind of guns they use, does not think it necessary to go so far for an explanation of the fact that they often fail in a critical moment. When the son returns with game he will again open the box and place the meat before the skull. Then he will close the house against all possibility of intrusion and he himself will go away while the father eats. After a while he comes back, and although he finds the meat exactly as he left it, he supposes that in some mysterious way his father has eaten it and yet left it, that is, has eaten the spirit of it. He then eats it himself, sharing it also with the men of the society. But since it has been offered to the dead father it is now sacred, and he cannot allow his wife or children to taste it under any circumstances. The men, being of a religious turn of mind, offer to the father, all, or nearly all, the game they procure, and if women and children are left hungry they can at least admire the fervent piety of husbands and fathers.
It is only the skulls of men, not of women, that are used by the Secret Society. But the spirits of women return after death, like those of men, and frequently become very troublesome. On Corisco Island there lives a man who has been in contact with civilization all his lifetime and is fairly educated though he is not a Christian. His wife died; and shortly afterwards she began playing pranks in his town and even in his house. She broke nearly all his dishes. Then, one night, she struck him inthe neck, and he instantly recognized her. His neck was stiff in the morning. That proved it! Not being able to strike back in this unequal warfare and preferring an enemy whom he could kick (for this individual wore shoes and scarcely anything else) he lost spirit and finally pulled down the entire town and built in another place. Women and children never possess the skulls of ancestors. The power of the ancestor is more often used against women than others. Among the Mpongwe and some other tribes a woman may worship her ancestors; for which purpose she uses not skulls but wooden images, which she never exhibits.
The African conception of nature may be inferred from what we have said of their view of God and their worship of ancestors. God having made the world seems to take no more interest in it. Other spirits innumerable control it and continually interfere with its normal operations. Since there is no single intelligence ever present and presiding it follows that there is no uniformity in nature and no reign of law. Those phenomena which attract the African’s attention he ascribes immediately to a supernatural cause. He does not look for a natural cause. If a tree falls across his path, somebody threw it. The activity of spirits accounts for everything. There is no line between nature and the supernatural; miracles are always happening. The causes of natural phenomena being supernatural are also inscrutable. The study of nature and the investigation of her laws is precluded by this conception.
If then we would understand the African, if we would distinguish between his mentality and a state of imbecility, we must bear in mind that, since according to his conception innumerable spirits at variance with each other preside over nature, uniformity, constancy and dependability are not to be expected. The rainbow, hesays, is a serpent, which has the power of making itself visible or invisible at will. If a mountain disappear behind the clouds he has no difficulty in believing that a spirit who inhabits the mountain has removed it, and that he brings it back when the sun shines. The white man who does not accept this explanation and demands a natural and knowable cause does not thereby manifest a knowledge of nature but an ignorance of spirits. The canoe which carries him safely to-day may lose its buoyancy and sink beneath the waves to-morrow. In some of their fables, at the utterance of a magic word a ship may sink, a house may fall, a man be reduced to physical and mental impotence; and such fables are scarcely distinguishable from fact in his conception. At their first contact with the white man they suppose that the beads, cloth and other goods which he displays are made by himself, by some magic process, as easy when known as the utterance of a word; and they suppose that we could without effort make them as rich as ourselves. If a house or a town should burn down there is little use in looking for the cause, as it may have been set on fire by some ancestor who is angry at being neglected.
When Du Chaillu visited a certain town in which the people had never before seen a white man, regarding him as a spirit, they all declared that a great rock near the town had been moved by him and was not in the same place it had been before. This inspired them with dread. But when the smallpox broke out among them and the scourge followed him with the persistency of fate, there was no doubt in their minds but that he had caused it; and meanwhile they made not the slightest effort to protect themselves against the contagion. They regarded him with increasing fear and hostility until at last his journey came to a disastrous end. He and his party turned and fled while the natives pursued with poisonedarrows. But they soon desisted from the pursuit; for, they declared, their arrows rebounded harmless from his body, and sometimes even passed through him and did him no injury. In all this let it not be supposed for a moment that the native is a fool. He is true to his philosophy of nature: but his philosophy is wrong. He knows nothing of the doctrine of God,—of one Intelligence presiding over all nature, and that natural laws are therefore persistent and uniform.
But to the native chaotic conception of nature we must add another idea of fearful import. To the mind of the African nature presents a frowning aspect, from which he naturally infers that the spirits which rule or reside within it are mostly hostile to him. It is only to the reflecting mind that nature seems beneficent. Her greatest forces, her constant ministry, are not obvious. That which is normal and regular does not attract attention. A man thinks more of the one month of sickness than the eleven months of health; he is more observant of the storm than of sunshine, more conscious of adversity than prosperity. The laws of growth, seed-time and harvest, rain and sunshine—all the kindly ministry of nature is quiet and unobtrusive, while her cruelty thrusts itself upon the attention because it is her unaccustomed mood. The conception of nature in the African mind is derived from the devastating tornado and the storm upon the sea that threatens to engulf him, from the hard work necessary to procure his food and the scarcity of meat, from sickness that disables him and death that bereaves him of his friends. It is therefore a part of his philosophy that the spirits are at enmity with him. His own ancestors are among them and they may be placated and even rendered favourable, but a far greater number are hostile; and the motive of his worship is not devotion but fear. He worships the spirits of his ancestorsthat he may obtain their help against all other spirits.
Contrary to all this Jesus teaches him to call God, Father; and God’s Fatherhood includes His care, which at once relates God to nature, for it is largely through nature that God’s care is exercised. To believe in God’s care over us is to believe that nature’s laws are the operation of His will. The mind awakens to the beneficence of nature, and we learn that even storm, disease and death are under the control of a sympathetic Power. The fear of the native is changed to confidence and trust.
Next to the ancestral relic is a lower form of fetishism in which the external object is the vessel or residence of a spirit, which is under the control of the possessor of the object. A still lower form of fetishism is pure animism, in which the various objects of nature have each a life analogous to that of man to which their phenomena are due. Witchcraft is a supernatural power obtained by a person through a compact with an evil spirit. In Africa witchcraft is also fetishism inasmuch as it is usually, and perhaps always, supposed that there is within the witch’s body a physical object which is the residence of the evil spirit.
The skull or other relic of the ancestor differs from the common fetish in that the possessor of the former cannot compel the ancestor to do his will; he can only persuade him, or induce his help and favour by offerings and kind treatment. But the possessor of the common fetish does not make offerings to it; the fetish is under his control and he can compel the spirit within it to serve him. If it should disobey him he will punish it. The usual punishment is to hang it in smoke. Fetishes have a horror of smoke. I do not know that the native ever punishes his ancestor for refusing a favour. If he should leave the skull in a cold or wet place, or should neglect offerings offood, the ancestor will suffer discomfort, but the discomfort is slight compared with the evil that he will send upon his undutiful son as a punishment for such neglect.
In the proper fetish (if the word fetish be restricted in its meaning) the spirit resides within the object but is not a part of it, and may leave it, the fetish being then of no more use. A still lower form of fetish, implying animism, is that in which the spirit of the fetish is its own life, and is related to it as the soul to the body. This latter fetish however is different from a mere amulet or charm; for the charm operates not by any intelligence within itself but by some sympathetic influence without. Such, for instance, is the horseshoe which the negro in our South hangs over his door for luck. The charm, the fetish, and the relic represent ascending grades of belief. But they are all confused in the mind of the African, just as we confuse them under the one termfetishism.
As long as we live in Africa, however, we do not often speak of fetishes, but ofmedicines: for this is in strict accord with native usage. The native calls his fetishes medicines, and his medicines fetishes, and in his mind there is no difference. The remedial power of medicine is supernatural, due either to magic or to a spirit residing within it. Upon swallowing the medicine, the spirit of the medicine, like a policeman, chases through the body after the spirit of the disease until it strangles it or drives it out. Of course the white man’s medicines are fetishes also.
The following story (although I do not vouch for its truth) illustrates very well the magical operation of medicine. A certain chief, it is said, induced a German trader to order for him a chest of medicines prepared in Germany. The bottles of medicine are all numbered and the chest is accompanied by a book of directions, competent for the diagnosis of any particular case. Everyliable symptom and combination of symptoms is recorded together with the prescription for each. The prescription refers to the bottles by their numbers. One day the chief fell sick. He found his symptoms accurately described in the book, followed by the direction to take one spoonful of No. 15. The bottle of that particular number was missing; so he took one spoonful of No. 7 and one of No. 8. But the result was so alarming that as soon as he was sufficiently recovered from the shock he consigned the chest to the spirit of the deep sea with the hope that it might do Neptune more good than it had done him; and to this end he was careful to send the book of directions with it.
There is a large class of fetishes in which the ancestor is the agent. If a man is expecting to ask a favour of another he will be sure of a generous compliance if he scrape the skull of his ancestor and succeed in putting a little of the powder into the other man’s food. Du Chaillu was highly incensed when he found that this was the explanation of a certain chief’s generosity who had been feeding him lavishly for several days.
A man walking in the forest usually carries suspended from his neck a medicine, contained in a goat’s horn, the effect of which is to make him invisible to an enemy if he should meet him in the path. He often carries another, somewhat similar, which will turn the bullets of an enemy’s gun into water if the enemy should see him and shoot at him; or sometimes the bullets will pass through his body and do him no harm. He wears a band, a “kaga,” about his neck, which tightens at the approach of danger. The explanation of the latter may be a physical fact, namely, that fear distends the cords of the neck so that the band would really be tighter. He carries another medicine in a horn which, if danger overtake him in the forest, or he should be in need of help, will whistlein his town, however far away, and summon the people. It is obvious that several of these fetishes are quite superfluous if the others are to be relied upon. The native therefore does not fully trust his fetishes; and there is always the fear that some enemy may have a stronger fetish than his own. There are fetishes to protect a man against theft. One of these will cause a person who steals from its owner to “swell up and burst.” Indeed there are a great many fetishes used for various purposes which have this same effect of causing persons to swell up and burst. Another fetish is kept in the box containing the owner’s cloth, tobacco and other goods. If a thief should open the box this fetish will spring out and go right through him.
Before entering upon a war several days are sometimes spent in the preparation of war-medicine. The best fetish-doctors unite their skill in the preparation. It is medicine that makes the gun shoot straight; it is medicine that makes the bullets kill; it is medicine that makes a man fearless; it is medicine that makes cowards of the enemy. The French government brought into the Congo Français native soldiers of Senegal, armed with first-rate guns and skilled in the use of them. The Fang were of course eager to know the secret of their powerful gun-medicine. Two of the soldiers who were in personal contact with the Fang sold them little tin boxes filled with mud, which they said was their gun-medicine. The two enterprising soldiers were “getting rich quick” when the government required their prompt attendance at the capital.
Some of the war-medicines are repulsive. On extreme occasions they will sprinkle upon the forth-going warriors an admixture of the decomposing brains of men recently deceased and the blood of fowls or of animals, with other disgusting ingredients. With this medicine besidesothers which are suspended about his neck, the smell of such a hero would detract somewhat from the glamour of his exploits; and one can imagine, upon his return from the war, the people holding their noses and singing, “Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes.”
There are other fetishes which are used more commonly to avenge private wrongs.
When a man cuts his hair or trims his beard, he carefully guards it and then burns it, lest a single hair should fall into the hands of an enemy. So he does with the cuttings of his nails. The possession of these would give an enemy power over him; for they are the common ingredients of a fetish-medicine. A piece of his clothing may also be used in this way. Such medicine, if buried before his doorway or placed beside the path where he will pass, even without coming in contact with him, will inflict sickness or disease, misfortune or death. Most of the evils that befall the native he attributes to the power of these hostile fetishes. Only the most devout and consecrated Christians are entirely freed from this superstition. Even in the Mpongwe Church of Gaboon, the oldest in the Mission, there are many cases of discipline for such beliefs.
There was one particular case that came up in some form at nearly every meeting of the session of the church for more than a year. A young woman, named Anuriguli, was married and a short time afterwards was received into the church. It was said by certain of the heathen that an envious woman of a town near by, who was also a member of the church, had made medicine to prevent Anuriguli from having children. For this is a great affliction and reproach to an African woman. Some half dozen families, men and women, became entangled in this quarrel, most of them however being heathen. The Christians among them were several times summonedbefore the session of the church. Each told his story in his own way; the native way is to begin as far back towards the creation of the world as their knowledge of history extends, and leave to the very last all reference to the matter in hand. There is a notable absence of embarrassment in such a discussion, even on the part of the women; nor are they in the least forward; in fact they are not self-conscious at all; for no native ever hesitates for a word or experiences the slightest difficulty in expressing himself in appropriate language. Anuriguli declared she had never accused the other woman of making medicine against her. She had heard it from others, but she did not fear such medicines since she had become a Christian; although if the woman had done so it would indicate a feeling of extreme hostility towards her however powerless her efforts might be, and this enmity was making her heart sore. The other woman declared her innocence, and that for years she had not believed in this superstition; nor had she any hostile feelings that would prompt her to such a wicked action; but she had heard that Anuriguli accused her, and the accusation was hurting both her feelings and her reputation; and her heart was very sore, for the heathen had cast bitter reproaches upon her.
Having given much advice, but too little sympathy, I fear, I exacted a promise from each and all of them that they would stop talking about the matter, and I dismissed them; for the session had endless work ahead of them, some of it more serious than this. The result was that it broke out afresh, and three months later they were all before the session again, when the matter was more complicated than at first. Three months later it again came before the session for the third time. Anuriguli’s position had somewhat altered. She had heard that the other woman said that she said that the other woman said thatshe said ... that the other woman had made medicine to injure her! And still there are those who assert that the African is not intellectually competent! I did then what I wished I had done in the first place—gave them all the time they wanted and took time myself to realize that fetishism is a terrible reality in Africa, that public opinion recognizes it and can inflict as heavy penalties as anywhere else upon those who fall into disrepute; for the African, because his social instincts are strong, is very sensitive regarding his reputation. A patient and sympathetic hearing ended the whole matter.
The ingredients of a fetish are usually objects associated with that which is desirable or that which is fearful—the strong, the swift, the gruesome, the repulsive, the mysterious and objects associated with death. The eagle’s talon is commonly used, the wing feathers of any bird, the claw of the leopard, the teeth of all animals and their blood, dried bits of their flesh and their offal. When Shakespeare describes the contents of the witches’ caldron and their invocation of trouble, one might think that he had been a missionary to the Fang.
“Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”“Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
“Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”“Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
“Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
“Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
“Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
When the fetish is not merely for protection, but is intended to injure a particular person, it must include such personal ingredients as the cuttings of the hair or nails of that person, or a shred of his clothing.
Fetishism and witchcraft inevitably go together. A witch is in league with an evil spirit by which she can leave the body, and return to it, for her spirit is “loose from her body.” She “eats” the spirit, or life, of her enemies, and all people are her enemies, innocent or guilty alike. She is sold to evil. The African does not regard the spirit or soul of a person as immaterial. It is a thin vaporous material which resembles the body in form and appearance. This is perhaps everywhere the conception that underlies the belief in ghosts. Primitive people generally associate this spirit with the shadow, and sometimes with the breath. The African believes that a man may lose his shadow. Soon afterwards he will die. An enemy may also injure it. Many an African has sought to kill another by driving a nail into his shadow. A man’s shadow is big in the morning because it is fresh and strong. It shrivels up with the heat of the sun. It is evident that the sun afflicts it for it always keeps on the cooler side, away from the sun.
Many tribes—whether all tribes I cannot say—believe that a person has several spirits. It is always the spirit that gets sick, and any one of a man’s spirits may get sick, or may leave him. In the latter case a skillful doctor will be able to catch the spirit and put it back in the man. Madness is always imputed to a malignant spirit inhabiting a man’s body; such a spirit may be born with the man.
Their chief fetishes, however, are for protection against witches. In many houses, immediately inside the door there hangs a fetish which at night builds a fire around the sleeping inmate, a fire invisible to all others but witches, and through which no witch can pass. Another has the power to change the bamboo cabin into a house of stone, through which witches cannot pass. It retains the appearance of bamboo in every respect, and one cansee the light between the pieces, but in reality it is solid stone, with no openings at all, not even for the door. We are reminded of another miracle whereby bread is changed into something which is not bread, the change being non-apparent since it takes place not in the accidents but in the essence of the material. So, the bamboo is transubstantiated into stone.
One is sometimes mentally staggered and feels that he is losing his hold on reality by the stories of Africans recounting their own experiences and what their eyes have seen, stories told soberly and with every evidence of sincerity. A man tells how that while his wife’s body was in her bed he looked out into the street and saw her spirit form, with that of others whom he recognized, armed with knives and cutting up the form of a person and eating it. The victim whose life they have eaten sickens soon afterwards and dies a lingering death.
One day walking along the Batanga beach with a fellow missionary, we passed a large, flat rock almost submerged beneath the rising tide, which recalled to my companion the following story. Some years ago at Batanga there lived a man who had long suspected his wife of witchcraft. One night he had occasion to speak to her, but she did not answer. He tried to rouse her from sleep, but could not. He concluded that she was away on some witch errand leaving her body behind her, as witches do. He himself had some knowledge of witchcraft though he employed this knowledge only in self-defense. He anointed her body with red pepper. Witches abhor red pepper; and they cannot reënter a body thus anointed. Towards morning the woman returned to her body only to find that she was undone; groans and sighs told her distress to the ear of the husband who lay quiet as if asleep. She lingered until the day began to dawn. Now, witches are afraid of light even more thanof pepper. She retired and hid herself near the house to await the next night. Meantime, the husband related the whole story to the assembled people, and they accepted it nothing doubting. They resolved to burn the body immediately. They dragged it through the street to the beach in the sight of her own family and her children, amidst execrations and insults, and burned it on the rock while the tide was low, and soon afterwards the rising waves swept the ashes into the sea.
The Africans do not say of a woman that sheisa witch, but that shehasa witch. She commits witchcraft by means of the witch which she possesses. And since everything has a material body of some kind, the witch can be found within the woman. Often a witch rebels against its possessor and “eats” her. This is the frequent explanation of convulsions, and a convulsion is enough to bring suspicion and a charge of witchcraft against a woman. A sure way to find out the truth of the matter and relieve the strain of suspense is to kill the woman, open the body and make a conscientious and impartial investigation. In this manner, executing the sentence first and afterwards finding a verdict of “guilty” or “not guilty,” the verdict is more likely to be just, while they also avoid a prolonged and scandalous trial, and evince a delicate regard for the woman’s reputation. Any old thing that they may find in the body not consistent with their ideas of anatomical propriety is identified as the witch.
Sometimes a hen is set on eggs and the accused person is pronounced guilty, or not guilty, according as the greater number of chickens hatched are male or female. But this kind of ordeal is more common in deciding cases of adultery. More commonly in the case of witchcraft a certain mild poison is administered to the accused in a drink. Sometimes she vomits it, or it passes withoutany serious effect. But if she becomes dizzy and staggers, they instantly leap upon her with knives and kill her. There seems to be no such thing in the African opinion as a natural death. All deaths that we call natural are imputed to witchcraft. As soon as the cry of witchcraft is raised, the people, panic stricken with fear, are transformed to ferocious demons. With wild eyes they rush up and down the street in a body crying out for blood. This is the opportunity of the witch-doctor, either to levy blackmail, or to rid himself of his enemies. When a woman is accused by him, no matter in what esteem she may have been held hitherto, and regardless of her family connections, the people turn upon her in cruel rage and can scarce wait for the ordeal. Such scenes, and the violent death following are very common among them; yet the white man rarely witnesses anything of the kind. They are altogether different when he is present.
One of our missionaries has told me how that, in the early days, on Corisco Island, he once saw a condemned woman, one whom he knew, taken out to sea in a boat. A short distance from the shore they cut her throat and flung her into the sea. Meanwhile, behind a rock which hid them from his view, they burned at the stake the condemned woman’s son, a young boy, lest growing up he should avenge his mother’s death. Their motive in inflicting such a horrible death upon an innocent boy was probably to disable his spirit and prevent it from returning to trouble them.
A man’s wives are the first to be suspected of having caused his death, as they are usually supposed to have a latent desire for it. As a matter of fact they are very skillful in the use of the deadly poisons which abound in Africa, and which they often administer in food. Much of the witchcraft in Africa is straight poison. A nativeoffering you drink or food always tastes it first himself in your presence to show that it is not poisoned. It is an unsavoury custom, but it is wise to observe it strictly. The use of poison is a peculiarly unpleasant habit on the part of a wife since she has a constant opportunity. Slaves also, and sometimes white men’s servants, contract this same habit. Truly, life in Africa, in its every aspect, is a fight with death. It is possible, as some say, that the practice of killing wives at the death of their husbands has this origin; in any case it serves to restrict the use of poison and to induce wives to try to keep their husbands alive.
Wives accused of having caused the death of a husband by witchcraft, are often buried alive with his dead body. A Bulu chief near Efulen died leaving seven wives. They were charged with having bewitched him and were about to be buried alive with him when Dr. Good reached the town and saved their lives. A very large grave was already dug in the street and the body was laid in the middle. The women lay naked and trembling upon the ground. But the people would not perform the atrocious deed in the presence of the white man. Dr. Good stayed in the town even against their protest, and would not leave it until they had filled the grave, and he knew that the women were safe. In one of the Bulu towns, ten women, wives of one husband, were buried alive with the body of the husband. In another town twenty women were buried thus with the body of the husband. A large grave was dug and the body placed in the middle; the women’s legs were broken with clubs and then they were flung into the grave.
The belief in witchcraft has been more prolific of cruelty than any other in the history of the world. It dehumanizes men with fear. The story of the power which a remnant belief in witchcraft has exercised incivilized and even Christian communities is the darkest page in their history, and we will need to remember that in Africa there is no restraint of civilization and no light of Christianity. I am always afraid that the depiction of the diabolical cruelty incident to the belief in witchcraft may cause the civilized to recoil from the African as if he were less than human, and hopelessly brutal. It is therefore well that we should insistently remember the facts of history and the slow emancipation of civilization from this same belief with its horror of cruelty. Between the promulgation of the bull of Pope Innocent VIII against sorcery, in 1484, and the last judicial execution for witchcraft, in 1782, it is estimated that 300,000 women perished in Europe on this charge. The last execution in England was that of Mrs. Hickes and her nine-year-old daughter, in 1716.
Since a particular incident makes a more adequate impression than a general statement, I quote entire a brief story told by Froude in one of his historical essays,The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character, which he takes from the official report of the proceedings in the case:
“Towards the end of 1593 there was trouble in the family of the Earl of Orkney. His brother laid a plot to murder him, and was said to have sought the help of a ‘notorious witch,’ Alison Balfour. When Alison Balfour’s life was looked into, no evidence could be found connecting her either with the particular offense or with witchcraft in general; but it was enough in these matters to be accused. She swore she was innocent; but her guilt was only held to be aggravated by perjury. She was tortured again and again. Her legs were put in caschilaws—an iron frame which was gradually heated till it burned into the flesh—but no confession could be wrung from her. The caschilaws failed utterly, andsomething else had to be tried. She had a husband, a son, and a daughter, a child seven years old. As her own sufferings did not work upon her, she might be touched, perhaps, by the sufferings of those who were dear to her. They were brought into court and placed at her side; and the husband first was placed in the ‘lang irons’—some accursed, I know not what. Still the devil did not yield. She bore this; and her son was next operated on. The boy’s legs were set in ‘the boot’—the iron boot you may have heard of. The wedges were driven in, which, when forced home, crushed the very bone and marrow. Fifty-seven mallet strokes were delivered upon the wedges. Yet this, too, failed. There was no confession yet. So, last of all, the little daughter was taken. There was a machine called the piniwinkies,—a kind of thumb-screw, which brought blood from under the finger-nails, with a pain successfully terrible. These things were applied to the poor child’s hands, and the mother’s constancy broke down, and she said she would admit anything they wished. She confessed her witchcraft—so tried, she would have confessed to the seven deadly sins—and then she was burned, recalling her confession, and with her last breath protesting her innocence.”
We civilized folk have a way of forgetting our own history, and the pit from which we have been digged.