XIVA SCHOOL
The schools of the Congo Français are under the inspection of the government, and there is a law that the French language shall be the language of the school. It has been very difficult for an American mission to comply with this law, and when it was first enforced some of our schools had to be closed. It was mainly because of this difficulty that several stations on the Ogowé River were transferred to a French Protestant missionary society. Our missionaries then enlarged their work at Batanga, which is in German territory, and opened the several stations among the Bulu of the interior, a work that has greatly prospered. It was only a few years, however, until they were required to teach the German language in the schools; and the German law was as rigidly enforced as the French. There was also a similar law in the English colonies. This requirement had been regarded as unjust and as a great hindrance to the success of missionary work. Personally I have no quarrel with it in either respect, and I think that the mind of the whole mission in late years has undergone a change on that subject. Even if there were no such law, I believe that the ultimate success of the work would necessitate a European language; and that language must be and ought to be that of the governing power.
Of course the people of the various tribes must hear the Gospel preached in their own native tongue; as it was on the day of Pentecost, when every man heard the word inthe language in which he was born. The itinerating missionary must use the native dialects. But when the native becomes a student, seeking more extensive and more accurate knowledge, the native dialect is beggarly and wholly inadequate. If ideas require words for their conception, then the paucity of words and the poverty of expression make it impossible for the student using the native language to think as it would be required of him in the class-room. The acquisition of French is a cultural factor to the African in a sense that it is not to the American. For most of the French words have no exact equivalent in his own language, and such words present new thoughts. Moreover, education introduces him to the world of books, and without the foreign language he is confined to the very few and meagre translations that missionaries may make into an obscure dialect of a small tribe.
The future of the boys also, their material welfare, depends largely upon the knowledge of a European language. It is not to be expected, and is no way desirable, that the boys of the schools should return home only to “sit for town” all their lives according to native fashion. Idleness is the devil’s opportunity; and those who have been in the schools invariably desire to work. For most of those in the French Congo work means employment with white men—the government officials or the traders—and in either case the knowledge of French is necessary. But others of these boys become catechists and ministers in after years and, as I have said, if these are to be educated they must know French. It is fortunate for the missionary teacher that the Africans are very apt linguists. They have but small talent for some studies; in mathematics they are usually stupid, but in the acquisition of languages they are scarcely surpassed.
During my second year in the French Congo I openeda school at Baraka with a small class of boys, and gradually enlarged it until in my last year there were seventy-five boys. The whole plan as projected in my mind, which it took several years to establish, was to have one central boarding-school at Baraka, with primary day-schools in many of the towns. In these latter the people, old and young, boys and girls, as many as wished, were taught to read in their own language. Boys were required to be able to read in their own language before being admitted to the boarding-school. Religious teaching was an important part of the curriculum. Some of the most advanced Christian boys of the boarding-school became catechists and were sent to those towns where there were groups of professing Christians (catechumens) awaiting a course of instruction before being received into the church. For no converts were baptized inside of two years, during which time they received a careful course of instruction as nearly continuous as possible. Ultimately some of these catechists, I hoped, would become ministers.
The government inspection of the mission schools and the strictness of the law’s enforcement in regard to the language, depended, as I found, not much upon the amount of French taught in the school, but upon the good or ill will of the inspector. Shortly after I went to the French Congo the missionaries withdrew from the interior station, Angom, but a day-school in charge of a native teacher was kept open for some time afterwards, which was quite outside the theory of the plan I have outlined for the town schools. It was a regular primary school in hours and curriculum and was not taught by a catechist as a mere adjunct to his religious work. This school therefore came under the government inspection. It had been exceedingly difficult to keep a competent teacher in charge of it, as the government required. Those who knew sufficient French to teach were few and in great demandfor the government service, in which they received higher wages than we could afford to pay.
A certain Mpongwe man, Remondo, was left in charge of the school when the missionaries withdrew, but only as a temporary expedient, that the pupils might be kept together until a competent teacher could be procured. Remondo was a Roman Catholic, but he was quite willing to lay aside his scapulary, and his conscience for that matter, for the slight remuneration incident to the position. Remondo nearly always had a rag on his toe. Some of his pupils had not even that much clothing. He wrote his name without a capital letter, and in a line as nearly vertical as horizontal; and the obliquity of his writing was equalled by the iniquity of his French; while there was such an uncertainty about his addition that I used to say that mathematics was not an exact science in Remondo’s hands. Finally, not being able to procure a competent teacher, I decided to close the school. Remondo was amazed and he firmly protested. The fact that he was not doing the work made the position all the more congenial to his temperament, and made it also, in his opinion, the more ungenerous to disturb him. Why close the school? Was not the attendance good? Was not the discipline perfect? I admitted that he had all the accessories of a good teacher and lacked nothing but the essentials. Nevertheless, my mind being set upon it, I closed the school.
During this interval while Remondo was in charge, I was in constant dread of an official visit from thechef de posteof the district, who would naturally be the government inspector for that school. This dread had become chronic when one day I was amazed at the receipt of a very kind letter from the governor himself, informing me that thechef de poste, whom he had directed to visit the school at Angom, had reported that he had examined thepupils and conversed with the teacher and that the school was highly satisfactory in every way and a credit to the mission. The governor hoped that we might open other schools of the same kind! Goodness gracious! I lost no time in making inquiry of a certain official as to who was thechef de posteof that district—for I knew there had been a change lately. He replied: “M. de la R⸺.” Then I understood it all.
The late M. de la R⸺ had already been in the service of the Congo Français for thirteen years when I first met him. He endured the climate remarkably well and only at long intervals returned to France on furlough. He belonged to a good family. He also had a wife and children in France. His wife once went to Africa with him but she soon returned home; I was told that she was a fine woman; he himself when I met him was the pitiful remains of a gentleman who had been ruined by the two vices which have made West Africa in many minds a synonym for perdition. During his first years he was faithful in his official duties and he rose in the service. He was at one time administrator at Bata, not far from our mission station, Benito. It was under the administration of this very man that our long-established schools at Benito were closed by the government on the ground that the law in regard to the French language was not being strictly observed. But our missionaries of that station believed that the action of M. de la R⸺ was due to the influence of the French priests.
After many years of increasing dissipation he was dismissed from the service for various discrepancies. His health was not good, and he was prematurely old. He had not been in France for many years, and he said that he would never go there again. Thus he was an outcast and without means of support in a foreign and hostile climate. At length a certain trader of Libreville tookpity on him. Eight miles back in the bush, the trader had a coffee-farm that had about petered out; and there he sent the ex-administrator, and gave him employment for which he paid him enough to keep him alive. He lived alone there for more than a year, separate from all white men, a black mistress his only companion.
One day visiting some interior towns, I followed a road that passed through the farm. I was greatly surprised at seeing a white man there, but not at all surprised that in such a place he was dressed only in pajamas. Leaving the road I went to the house to salute him. He told me who he was and urged me not to hurry on but to stay with him awhile; it was so good to see a white man. I felt so sorry for him that I thought I could do no better missionary work for that day than to visit with him; so I changed my plans accordingly, remained with him all morning and ate dinner with him, the table being served by his black mistress. I thought he would probably live but a short time and I felt as if I were performing his obsequies. It is strange how a man whose dignity resides not within himself, but wholly in outward circumstances, in social position, in pecuniary abundance, or the tawdry pomp of authority,—it is strange how such a man, when these all fail, sinks in his self-respect to the level of abject prostration. M. de la R⸺ had been fastidiously regardful of his dress and his personal appearance; but now he spent his days in shabby pajamas and even shunned the acquaintance of soap and water.
He spent the whole time of my visit in telling me of the wrongs done him by fellow officials, that had culminated in his dismissal from the government service. He shed some tears and I fancied that they made clean streaks down his face. He told me what a respectable life he had lived; and I declare that I should never have suspected it. But when he also claimed sobriety as one ofhis chief virtues, nothing but the odour of his breath kept me from becoming an anti-temperance fanatic on the spot. Several of the men who had informed against him had since died, and in this he saw the finger of God; for of course they would never have died if they had not been his enemies. He, the animated remains of M. de la R⸺, was still the centre and explanation of the government of the universe, and God was simply a convenient instrument of vengeance. To that extent he was quite religious. And I ought to add that he believed in forgiving his enemies—but only after they were dead. But I pitied him greatly, and stayed with him most of the day. When I left him I had not the least expectation that I would ever see him again.
A year after this, by a strange turn of the wheel of fortune, this man was reinstated, and was appointed achef de poste. He easily resumed his former dignity of manner and care of dress. But he lived only a few months to enjoy his recovered prestige. During those months, however, he was appointed to inspect the school at Angom and his enthusiastic report (for which I hope he may have been forgiven) was the expression of his gratitude for the visit I had made him when he was without position, without money and without friends. Thus the bread of a little kindness cast upon the waters returned after many days multiplied into loaves. And he was the man who, years before, had closed our splendid school at Benito, because, forsooth, the missionaries were not diligent enough in teaching the French language. I also learned from Remondo that at the close of his inspection of the school at Angom he gave each of the little boys and girls a present of some tobacco.
When I opened the school at Baraka I found it very difficult to procure boys. There were many boys who desired to come, but their parents would not consent. Atthe beginning of the term I gathered the boys with the launch,Dorothy. The red-hot contentions between me and the fathers and mothers made this work of opening the school the most exhausting and trying of the whole year. Often I was constrained to regard the parental institution as an intolerable nuisance and the orphan estate as a consummation that the African child might devoutly wish for.
In one town a handsome boy was determined to come with me, and by prolonged talking I had subdued his father and was hurrying away when suddenly the mother appeared upon the scene, cursing me, and threatening to take the boy’s life. Another contention followed, which I won by many words and a small piece of laundry soap. The victory seemed complete; the father and mother were sending the boy away with their blessing, and speaking kind words to me; we were about to get into the canoe to go to the launch, which was in the middle of the river, when an old and very ugly woman, grand-aunt or something of that sort, came rushing towards us, shrieking and flinging her arms about her, cursing me, and altogether presenting such a spectacle as might suggest that one of Macbeth’s witches had escaped from the underworld. Quickly, and in great alarm, we sprang into the canoe and pushed off; for I would rather fight with ten men than one woman. But there were many of us, we were standing up in the canoe, and before we had sufficient way on she had waded after us up to her neck in water, and laying hold of the canoe with both hands, she tried to capsize it—which would be easily done. The state of my health made it advisable that I should try to avoid being thrown into the river. Besides, the whole town was now gathered on the bank, rending the air with laughter, and if I failed they would continue to laugh for a year or two. I caught her hands and tried to wrenchthem from the side of the canoe; but I did not wish to use all my strength against an old woman, and moreover she had the advantage of standing on the ground, while I had to balance the canoe; so I failed in the effort. A second more and we would have been in the river, when I caught her by the back of the neck, and, ducking her head under the water, I held her there as solemnly as I could until she so far weakened as to let go her hold on the canoe, and we moved on, while the audience on the bank cheered. But I had a most unheroic feeling all the rest of that day.
In another town, a father who refused to let his boy go, said: “I don’t want my boy coming back here knowing more than his father, his skin all clean, while his old father sits around with the itch scratching himself. Why, the boy would despise me! I won’t let him go.”
For more than a year I taught the school daily without any assistance except that one or two of the advanced boys sometimes taught the junior classes. Then I engaged, as an assistant, a Mpongwe, named Nduna, a boy of seventeen years, whose father, Rekwangi, was quite civilized and an old friend of our mission. Poor Nduna’s life ended very tragically less than two years later. He was a handsome boy, of quiet disposition and kind-hearted. He was with me so much in the schoolroom and was so faithful in his work that I came to know him well and to like him. At the end of the year he told me that he had the offer of a better-paying position in one of the bureaus of the government at Libreville and I advised him to accept it. I understood that he gave good satisfaction to his employer. After several months a sum of money was stolen from a safe that had accidentally been left open. There were French clerks in the same office, but Nduna was the only native. He was immediately arrested. There was not a shred of evidence against himexcept that the money had been stolen from that particular office and that he was the only native there. It was hard for me to believe that he was guilty even before I had heard the evidence, and when I supposed that it must be strongly against him. But when upon inquiry I learned all that was known, I concluded with a great many others that he was innocent. And the others did not know him personally as I did.
A native may be capable of committing a very clever theft, but I never knew a native who could cleverly conceal it. A certain workman, Ndinga, stole a coat from me, and a few days later walked into the yard with it on. Ndinga was not intelligent like Nduna. But I knew another boy who about the same time stole a considerable amount of cash from a white man. He was a very clever rascal, and proved himself so in the procuring of the money. Yet he carried it in his pocket as long as it lasted (which was only a few days) and treated all his friends with lavish generosity. Among themselves the detective faculty is dull. And this is probably because they so readily resort to supernatural means of discovering a criminal, instead of following a natural clue, or weighing the evidence of circumstances against a suspected person. While the white man racks his brains with mere probabilities, the native goes to the witch-doctor, who promises him certainty. The witch-doctor names several persons, often personal enemies to himself, and they are forced to undergo some ordeal, such as dipping their hands in boiling oil, which will burn only the guilty. It is an easy and expeditious method, and especially remunerative for the witch-doctor. But it involves none of those mental operations whereby facts are weighed, comparisons made and conclusions reached. The judgmatical faculty lies dormant. It would not therefore be expected that thethief would be as careful of his tracks as if he lived in the land of Sherlock Holmes.
In the case of Nduna no money was found either with him or his relations. Neither had he spent an extra centime. The natives themselves never believed Nduna guilty, and there were others also who thought him a victim of foul play. The natives of Libreville and the immediate vicinity are treated with humanity and justice, as a rule; but there have been exceptions to the rule. Nduna was tried and sentenced to imprisonment. I have forgotten the term of his sentence. He was not strong; his lungs were weak, and after several months in the noisome prison he developed tuberculosis. He failed rapidly, and when several more months had passed it was very plain that he had not long to live. His father, Rekwangi, and his mother, Aruwi, pleaded piteously for his release, but the request was sternly refused. I shall never forget the grief of those unhappy parents, grief mingled inevitably with bitterness against the white man; for they had no doubt that their boy was innocent. The weeks passed and still the same message came: “A little worse to-day.”
At length one night some one brought word to Rekwangi that Nduna was dying. The father hurried to the prison, two miles away. But the guard told him that the white man would not admit him. If I had only known it in time I could probably have procured his admission. Or if not, I at least might have afforded the parents some relief by going in myself and staying with Nduna. For many of the officials who are bold in dealing with defenseless black people are abjectly compliant when they confront a white man. For hours that night the father walked outside the prison wall crying aloud: “O Nduna, Nduna, my only son, how can I give you up! It is not God, but the white man who has taken you fromme. Is he still living? Tell him that his poor old father is close to him, standing just outside the prison wall. O Nduna, my son, my son!”
At last, towards morning, the guard cried out: “Your son is dead.”
Then the wretched man, overwhelmed with grief and frenzied with bitterness, gave way to doubt of the Christian’s God, and running to the house of a friend near by asked for rum. “Give me rum,” he cried, “lest I kill myself.” The rum was given him and he drank till he was drunk.
That morning Nduna’s body was carried home. All the family and many friends were gathered together. They laid him on a pile of mats on the floor of the room, with his feet towards the door, and covered him completely with a coloured robe. As soon as I heard that the body had come I went to the house. While I was yet a great way from the town I heard the wail of their mourning dirge; that weird, unceasing cry of hopeless grief, which I had heard so often, but never before under such harrowing circumstances, and it smote upon my heart. As many as could enter the house were sitting on the floor and many on the ground outside. All the women who were in civilized dress had turned their clothes inside out as a sign of grief. Aruwi sat on the floor at Nduna’s head, piteously sobbing. As I entered the door they all stopped mourning and there was a deep silence. For once, in Africa, I felt that I could not speak. No words could do justice to that heartrending scene. I stood a long time before the covered body, as silent as themselves. At last I said: “Aruwi, I want to see Nduna’s face.”
She turned down the covering and when I had looked at him a while I said: “It is a good face, Aruwi,—a beautiful face. Nduna was a good boy. You will notforget, Aruwi, that there was one white man who knew him and who loved him.”
They remained silent as I withdrew, until I reached the end of the village street, and then again, they all began to chant the mourning dirge.
When the members of the Gaboon Church die they are buried in the mission graveyard on Baraka hill. The reason of this concession on the part of the mission was probably to enable them to control the burial service of Christians that it might be a Christian and not a heathen ceremony. They regard it as a sacred privilege. Nduna was not a member in the church, and none but members had ever been buried at Baraka. But I broke the rule, and told Aruwi that, if she wished, Nduna would be buried at Baraka. And there we buried him that evening. The civilized Mpongwe have a funeral custom that I like. When the casket is lowered and immediately after the benediction, coming forward, they drop a handful of earth into the grave. It is a simple and affecting ceremony and has no superstitious significance. But during all my years at Gaboon there was no other funeral at which so many came forward in silence and dropped a handful of earth into the grave as they seemed to say: “Good-bye, Nduna; you suffered greatly; may you rest in peace.”
BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL.He frankly admits the superiority of the white man, but thinks that the black man is far better-looking.
BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL.He frankly admits the superiority of the white man, but thinks that the black man is far better-looking.
BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL.
He frankly admits the superiority of the white man, but thinks that the black man is far better-looking.
But by far the best teacher I ever had in the school, and without doubt the best native teacher in the entire mission, was Bojedi, a Kombi of Benito, to which tribe Makuba also belonged. Bojedi was twenty years old when I engaged him as a teacher and he stayed with me two years, until I left Africa. He was so well qualified by education and so competent in mind and disposition that I gradually put the whole work of the school upon him, except the religious teaching, which left me more time for itinerating and the oversight and care of theChristians scattered in many towns. Bojedi had faults that I do not mean to pass by, but without him the greatly enlarged work of those last two years could never have been done; and there was probably not in West Africa a native who could have taken his place. Of all the natives who taught or assisted in the school he was the only one whom the schoolboys respected and obeyed as they would a white man. His interest and his efforts far exceeded his prescribed duties. He had charge of the seventy-five boys, both in the schoolroom and out of it, twenty-four hours a day. He was there when they rose and when they went to bed. He insisted upon cleanliness as to their persons, their beds, their food and the manner of eating it. He oversaw their work in the yard, chiefly that of cutting grass, and would not allow any boy to shirk his work. Their most serious disputes he referred to me, but most of them he settled himself, to my immense relief, and they all recognized him as fair. Under his constant supervision these boys, fresh from the worst heathenism, were compelled to live a civilized life. And this he accomplished without force. I never knew him to strike a boy, nor ever did I know him to lose his temper. If he kept a boy in school after hours for not knowing his lesson he stayed with him himself and helped him with his study. Without my asking it he gathered them into the school in the evening for an hour’s study, himself helping the duller boys. He had faults, as I have said, but there were none in his teaching or his discipline of the boys.
Bojedi was educated in our mission school at Benito. Among the missionaries of that station there was a French teacher, Mr. Presset, from whom Bojedi received much of his education. Unlike most Africans he was a student by nature, and afterwards while he was so busy teaching in my school he was also pursuing his studies inmathematics and astronomy. The most that he got from me was music, which was always his pastime. He had received some instruction in music from Mr. Presset, who gave him access to his organ. When he came to Gaboon I placed in his house a baby-organ of my own, and finding that he had unusual musical talent I began to give him occasional lessons. He made much progress and played so well that when I was leaving Africa I left the organ and most of my organ music with him. He played for the singing in school and also in the Mpongwe Sunday-school.
While Bojedi was still in the school at Benito he was brought into undue prominence with the French government in a way that reflected credit upon his scholarship and incidentally landed him in jail with hard labour. France, it is said, rules for revenue, and this would seem to be her policy in the Congo Français. A heavy duty is levied on imports and exports for the purpose of revenue, resulting soon in commercial stagnation—and no revenue. The Congo Français is a large and increasing expense to France. The natives pay taxes upon their houses according to the size and improvements. Each door and each window is taxed. A certain native of Gaboon, an enterprising young man, who wished to live in civilized fashion, put a floor in his house. But he was taxed so much for it that he took it out and went back to the earth floor.
The taxes at Benito were heavy enough, but the localchef de postehad been collecting far more than was required. The man was probably full of malaria and had become very irritable; like many of the government officials he was in need of a long furlough home. Burning native towns was a favourite pastime. If the people did not pay their taxes promptly he burned their towns, leaving men, women and children without shelter. Ifthey paid promptly he required more and when it was not immediately forthcoming he burned their towns. If he called them to him, and they were afraid to come, he burned their towns. If for any reason, or no reason, he doubted that they loved him dearly, he burned their towns. The illumination was a superb entertainment for his friends. He burned towns not in the execution of law, but of his own degenerate will, governed only by a malarious temper.
At last a number of local chiefs addressed a complaint to the administrator at Bata, who was superior to thechef de poste. Bojedi, at the request of the chiefs, composed and wrote the letter, which I believe they signed. The administrator sent the letter to thechef de postewho upon reading it did not think for a moment that any native could have written it. There was only one white man in the region of Benito to whom it could possibly be attributed; and that was Mr. Presset of our mission at Benito. To make sure of the matter he compared the writing with that of Mr. Presset, from whom he had received letters, and found that it was the same. The result was that our mission at Benito suffered considerable ill-treatment at his hands. At length, one day, he referred to the letter in speaking to Mr. Presset, and was surprised and almost affronted when the latter denied all knowledge of it. Mr. Presset asked to see it, and upon looking at it immediately recognized Bojedi’s writing. Bojedi was arrested and sent to jail, although he was only a boy who had done what the chiefs had required of him; the letter was theirs, not his. For months (or perhaps only one—I have forgotten the length of time) he remained in jail and worked at hard labour carrying stone. When at last one morning he was released he had scarcely a stitch of clothing on him and he hid in a bush all day, and walked home to Benito, twenty miles, during the night.
This latter story also has a sequel. While Bojedi was teaching school in Gaboon, this samechef de postewho had put him in jail, was there in Gaboon a few days before sailing for France. Bojedi went to see him, and did him several kindly services. The day he sailed (it happened to be Saturday); Bojedi took charge of all his baggage and saw it safely placed on the steamer, which took the whole afternoon. Thus easily does the native forgive and forget.
Bojedi was very simple in manners and direct in speech. It never occurred to him that the purpose of language was “to conceal thought.” One day shortly before I left Gaboon he remarked that the schoolboys would miss me greatly. I expressed a doubt on that subject. “O yes, Mr. Milligan,” said he, “they will feel badly; for I remember that when I was a schoolboy and Mr. X. left us, we all felt sorry and some of us cried, although we had called him a beast every day.”
I have said that to commiserate the African for his colour is a waste of sympathy. One day when I was talking to Bojedi something in the course of the conversation prompted me to ask him whether he would like to be a white man. He replied respectfully but emphatically in the negative. I wished to know his reason; for he acknowledged and fully appreciated the white man’s superiority. He hesitated to tell me; but I was insistent, and at length he replied: “Well, we think that we are better-looking.”
I gasped when I thought of some of the vastly ill-looking faces I had seen in the jungles, and in apology for myself (and for my race, by implication) I said: “But you have not seen us in our own country, where there is no malaria, and where we are not yellow and green.”
He quietly asked what colour we were in our owncountry; to which I promptly replied: “Pink and white.”
Looking at me steadily for a moment he remarked: “Mr. Milligan, if I should see you in your own country I am doubtful whether I should know you.”
The moral weaknesses of the black race are salient and uniform and Bojedi was far from being an exception to the rule. An imperious sexual impulse is the racial characteristic; and their surroundings are such that they cannot escape the temptation. One might think that African society, with all its tyranny of social law and custom, were contrived with the sole purpose of immoral indulgence. Many wives is much wealth. Courage, which is held in highest esteem, is displayed chiefly in stealing other men’s wives. And under certain circumstances this immorality is even a part of hospitality. The women are more licentious than the men. A woman boasts of her elopements. To become the mistress of a white man is a matter of honour and gives social prestige. The wife of an elder in the Gaboon Church, speaking of a certain young woman, the daughter of a friend, said: “Iga is so ‘stuck up’ that she scarcely speaks to me now because she is living with a white man.” The more glory therefore to missions, that it is able to establish purity and honour in all the social and domestic relations of native converts! Even in half-Christian communities those heathen standards do not entirely prevail.
The Mpongwe women of Gaboon who have long been in contact with the French are without comparison the most cultivated, best-looking, most artful, and most dissolute women of the entire coast. The story of their licentiousness, as Tertullian once said of the women of the ancient stage, had best remain hid in its own darkness lest it pollute the day. Most young men of other tribes coming among them as Bojedi did are like country boysarriving in the city, and are easy quarry. He was especially an object of pursuit because, having a good position, he had money; and their need of money is equal to their love of it.
It was during Bojedi’s second year as teacher that I found that he was living in illicit relations with a certain woman. It was a grief to me. He was a lovable boy; excepting Ndong Koni and Amvama, none were nearer to me than Bojedi. I had come to expect almost as much of him as a white man. Moreover the matter was fraught not only with possible ruin to himself but also with evil influence for the school. For although it was only lately that he had made any profession of being a Christian, he stood before the boys as a Christian in a marked way; had offered a prayer each morning in opening the school; had talked with them personally; and had exercised an influence for good that was the more profound because of their love of him. I wailed until night, after hearing this report, and then called him into the schoolhouse, where we would not be disturbed, and there we talked for hours.
I said: “Bojedi, is it true that you are living with Antyandi?”
He replied: “It is true that I ammarriedto Antyandi.”—So he had tried to make himself believe.
Antyandi would be regarded by any native as a very attractive woman. Although she looked younger than Bojedi she was really several years older and was artful according to her years. She had some education and spoke and wrote French. She could boast of having lived with several white men, one of them at least of high rank in the government, and from these associations she had acquired a manner that was decidedly smart and foreign, not to speak of trunks filled with fine clothes. She was girlish in form and light in motion and had thereputation of being a great dancer. It happened once that she danced before King Adandi; not however for the head of a missionary on a charger, although afterwards she would doubtless have been glad to have had my head thus presented to her. A bottle of champagne was all she asked. Adandi was head of the whole Mpongwe tribe. He was dressed when I saw him last in white shoes, white flannel trousers and shirt, black velvet coat with a heavy gold chain suspended from his neck, and a white hat. He had received part of his education in France. He claimed the dignified distinction of martyrdom, having been twice imprisoned by the French and once exiled. He was a convert of the Jesuits and was profoundly religious—barring such discrepancies as drunkenness, gambling and adultery. King Adandi saw Antyandi dance and he declared that he would die if he could not add her to the number of his wives. She refused him however on the ground that Adandi being a king the relation would involve a degree of constancy on her part to which she was not accustomed. Then he organized a band of young men to seize the lady and carry her off, as they do in books. This had a fine flavour of romance about it. But the chocolate heroine had two invisible leopards, according to her claim, which attended her day and night, and with these she dispersed the brigands.
But Bojedi is still in the schoolhouse making a passionate but sorry defense. He really loved the woman with a fatuous regard, and I believe she was in love with him. He had first asked her uncle if he could marry her, and the uncle, the head of her family, although he was supposed to have absolute authority over her, replied that he had nothing to say in the matter, for Antyandi would do as she pleased anyway. Others of her relations had said that no Mpongwe woman would ever be allowed tomarry a Kombi (to which tribe Bojedi belonged) and that the whole Mpongwe tribe would rise to prevent it. An open marriage was therefore impossible. And, on the other hand, mere publicity is the only marriage ceremony there is among Christians of Gaboon, and to forego publicity was to dispense with all ceremony. But how could a public announcement be called a ceremony? And how could mere publicity constitute a marriage bond?
This latter is in need of some explanation. Everybody knows that in France only those marriages are legal which are made by the state. The Roman Catholic Church insists upon a church marriage also, but it must follow that of the state, and cannot precede it, the one being a legal and the other a religious ceremony. In the colonies this same law is enforced, and the church is not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony until after the legal ceremony of the state. It happens also that there are serious impediments to the legal ceremony and sometimes deplorable consequences. The contracting parties must know their ages—which the African never knows; must know where they were born—which they have never thought of asking and everybody has forgotten; must know their parents, both father and mother. The African knows his mother; but as for his father, he may never have asked his mother that personal question. They could easily have recourse to lies and invent a father, but unfortunately they are required to produce the parents that their verbal consent to the marriage may be obtained. If the parents are not in the country a written consent is required; and if they are dead the proofs of their death must be produced in the form of a burial certificate.
These and other requirements may be good for France, but in Africa they are puerile nonsense. Moreover, these legal bonds are very hard to break; and that were wellenough if only the moral bonds were strengthened thereby, but they are not, and in the case of marital infidelity the law binds only the innocent. For instance two of the very best women in Gaboon, or in West Africa for that matter, were thus bound to husbands who deserted them. One of those men took six other wives in utter disregard of the legal marriage, but that outraged woman could not get a divorce from him without a difficult and expensive process of law; nor, being a Christian, was she willing to marry without a divorce. We could not therefore advise, still less insist, that the Christians be married by the state, though of course we did not advise to the contrary. And without the legal marriage we were not allowed to perform the religious ceremony.
I performed a few such ceremonies for those who had already been married by the state official. On one occasion the young couple had decided to be married with a ring. But I knew nothing of their intention, and I was surprised when the groom, after the ceremony was entirely ended, produced the ring and asked me what he was supposed to do with it. The bride on that occasion was dressed in a Mother Hubbard of bright blue calico decorated with white lobsters. But I officiated at another marriage in which the bride was beautifully attired, and in good taste that would have done credit to any white woman.
As the natives objected to the legal form of marriage, and we could not conscientiously urge it upon them, there was no recognized or satisfactory form. Of course there are heathen ceremonies, but some of them are drunken orgies which the Christian conscience cannot allow; and others are so silly that the civilized natives would regard with abhorrence any suggestion of their observance. It is said that in some of the tribes far east of us the bride and groom are required to climb two young saplings,which are then swayed back and forth until their heads knock together, whereby the marriage is constituted. One wonders what the form for divorce would be like!
The want of a fixed form is very unfortunate. For it is only in such a chaotic period of social transition that we learn the moral value of the so much derided forms and ceremonies, and that without them the marriage tie becomes so loose that it is practically abandoned by many. Gradually it came to be recognized that the payment of the dowry constituted the marriage. For there must be something to differentiate marriage from unlawful relations. This served, though poorly, until the enlightened Christian conscience pronounced against the dowry, and the best people voluntarily refused to accept it and abandoned the custom. Since that time there is no distinct ceremony among the Christian natives at Gaboon, which is deplorable.
In lieu of a ceremony a useful custom has been introduced into the church, namely, that shortly after marriage the man and woman shall rise in their places in the weekly prayer-meeting, voluntarily, and without the minister saying a word shall announce their marriage, the man saying that he has taken this woman to be his wife and promising to be faithful to her; likewise the woman. Well do I remember one night in the Mpongwe Church when Barro and Anuroguli came to the prayer-meeting which I was conducting, expecting to announce their recent marriage. Barro rose at the end of the service and without the least embarrassment announced his marriage and made his vows in most appropriate words. But Anuroguli, sitting on the other side of the house, was seized with panic and sat motionless with her finger in her mouth. Barro stood waiting for her response while the women near her motioned to her, pulled her dress, punched her in the ribs, until gradually the whole congregationwas remonstrating in loud whispers, which only increased the poor little woman’s embarrassment, until, seeing that it would be a physical impossibility for her to make her announcement, I took the risk of the law, and rose and said: “Anuroguli wishes to announce,” etc.; and having made her announcement for her, I closed the meeting. But, while all recognize the propriety of this custom, it does not constitute the marriage; for it takes place after marriage, sometimes long afterwards, and it is not possible unless both parties are Christians.
Bojedi’s argument therefore was not without plausibility, and all these facts that I have related he marshalled to his defense very ably and with intense feeling, as we sat there in the dark schoolhouse. It was plain that he had thought of all this before, and that before entering on this relationship he had argued long with his conscience as he now argued with me. But it was also plain that he argued in his defense and not his justification, and that he had allowed his reason to coerce his conscience. I replied that where there was nothing outward except a public announcement to distinguish marriage from an illicit relation, then the announcement became a duty binding on the conscience quite as much as a ceremony; and that if marriage be not so distinguished we have a society of “free love.” And again, as to the inwardness of the marriage relation, upon which he dwelt, that it implied always, whether with or without a ceremony, a sincere intention ofpermanency. I added: “From the regard that you have expressed for Antyandi you would probably desire that your present relation be permanent. But desire is not sufficient without expectation also; and you know as well as I do that when you leave Gaboon to return to your own people Antyandi will never go with you, and even if she should remain here she would not be true to you. You have therefore, withfull knowledge, entered into a temporary relationship; which is no marriage in any sense that a Christian can admit.”
As repentance is the chief act of man, so it is also the hardest. To make the admission of wrong to me was not so hard as to admit it to himself, with all its consequences. But at last the admission came: a moment later he was on his knees, in tears and sobs. He said: “It is not that I cannot give up Antyandi; it will be hard enough, but I’ll do it. But it is the wrong I have already done and the loss to myself that I feel. These two years while I have been teaching your school I have lived differently from all the other years of my life. Many things that I used to do I had stopped doing. I was happy because my heart was clean, and because the schoolboys all loved me and believed in me. And now all that I have built up in these two years is pulled down. And what will the boys think of me?”
It would be cruel to repeat all that was said in that conversation. He wept until I felt that tears could do no more, and then I tried to quiet and comfort him. It was midnight when I left him.
Next day he sent a brief letter to Antyandi telling her that he had done wrong, that he was very much ashamed, and that she must not expect him ever to enter her house again. He fully realized that there was a hard fight ahead of him and he thought best not to see her at all. She made many attempts and plied her arts to get him again in her power. She wrote him letters in which she professed to be dying for love of him. I went to her and ordered her not to set her foot on the mission premises. She regarded the order by day, but she came at night. She came to his window waking him suddenly out of his sleep. She tried his door. She came at all hours of the night. One night he found that he could not lock his door. Shehad probably tampered with it; but he did not think of that, for she had not been there for several nights. That night at midnight she came. He broke loose from her and ran straight for my room, where I was in bed asleep. He knocked and entered; then told me what had happened and begged me to protect him. I told him he must stay in my room the rest of that night; which he did, and slept on the floor. I kept him there every night for a week; for more than once he had wavered though he had not fallen. Thus she continued to do for two months; but the subject is not a pleasant one, and we need not follow the course of events during that period.
After two months we heard that she was in Libreville, the mistress of a dignitary of the government, and Bojedi supposed that that would be the last of her; but it was not. A month later the white man suddenly left Libreville or died—I have forgotten which—and Antyandi returned home. A few days afterwards, returning from the beach one morning, I observed that in my absence some one had closed the door of my study which I had left open; the windows also were closed and the blinds down. I hurried in with a vague apprehension of something wrong. There sat Bojedi in the darkened room, his face buried in his hands and sobbing as if his heart would break. I knew instantly what had happened.
“How can I tell you!”
“There is no need to tell me,” I replied; “go to your own house, Bojedi, and I shall follow you in a little while.”
I went to his house and he told me the whole story of his temptation and fall, a story that I cannot repeat here. He told it with a broken voice and crying all the time. The school had been closed two weeks before, the boys were all gone and nobody around. Bojedi was waiting for the English steamer, on which he was going home.This complete idleness after his responsible and constant work was perhaps the devil’s opportunity. Still crying he rose at length and opening a box took out all sorts of native riches, presents from Antyandi, native robes which must have been paid for by white men, a fancy bed-quilt and embroidered pillow-covers. Without saying a word, but still sobbing, he made a pile of these things just outside his door, while I looked on not knowing what he was going to do, until he struck a match and set fire to them. Then he remarked: “I should have done that long ago;” which I fully admitted; or else he should have returned them, which would have been better. The next day he left for home.
I felt that this moral fall was peculiarly serious, much more so than some sin of sudden impulse. It was no doubt the very crisis of his life, a long deliberate battle in which all his moral resources were called out and all his moral energy engaged. Victory in such a fight transforms temptation into a purifying alembic; but to fall in such a fight means usually to be maimed for life.
Very soon after this I left Africa. Bojedi remained at home the following year. He was married during the year. The last letter that I received from him was dated at Brazzaville, in the very heart of Africa, on the Upper Congo, where he had a good position with theCommissaire Général. He says: “Your letter dated at Lebanon, Indiana, August 21, 1906, was received March 20, 1907,” after which he tells me that just before he left his home in Benito a son was born to him, whom he has named Robert Milligan! May his tribe increase!