THE SAS TOWN TRIBE OF WEST AFRICA.
“The officers of this tribe are as follows:
“The ‘town master’ is really emperor, as in him is vested the power of life and death. If the tribe wishes to disobey a town
master’s commands, they must kill him first. This is done in so many instances that few town masters die a natural death.
“The ‘ground king’ is their weather prophet, and he is supposed to manufacture the weather. He may be king for only a month or two, seldom long, as the weather he makes may not suit.
“Their ‘soldier king’ answers to our general in the army.
“They have three ‘butchers,’ who do all the killing for the feasts.
“Their ‘town lawyer’ answers to our attorney-general.
“The duty of their ‘peace-maker’ is what his name indicates.
“They have thirty old men or chiefs, whose duties are to watch the town and people, and to act as the king’s cabinet.
“The laws of the tribe are made by the king and his cabinet. Some of them are curious, and sometimes severe. For instance, one law forbids the town master and the butchers from ever leaving the town, on pain of death. Another is that when a person is accused of witchery, he or she must drink the deadly saswood, or have their brains knocked out. This tea is a potion from the saswood tree, which grows all over this country and is a deadly poison. To make sure of its full effect, the suspected person is made to drink a copious draft. As this is likely to produce emesis, the large quantity is often their salvation.
“These people are so superstitious that they will not leave a hole in their house open at night for fear of being witched.
“Here polygamy has all the evils of that life. If a wife is dissatisfied with her husband, she can run away to any man she chooses, and he must receive her, and pay to her former husband the price he paid for her. This may put the second man to quite a disadvantage, often giving him more wives than he can pay for. The lot of a wife is very hard. She must make the farm, grow all the rice, carry all the wood, seven or eight miles, on her head, and do all the cooking. Besides this she must stand all the ill-temper of her jealous husband, and this, perhaps, with a baby strapped on her back.
“When a man thinks one of his wives is unchaste, he gets a pan of palm-oil, and heating it as hot as he can, he makes the wife put her hand in and pick up a stone from the bottom of the pan; his
theory being, that, if his charge be true, the oil will catch fire and burn her hand. If this does not satisfy him, the poisonous draught of the saswood is resorted to.
“These people eat nearly everything that grows, animal or vegetable. I have seen them eat elephant lungs, green ants, chicken heads and intestines. When they kill a bullock, they eat all of him, even cooking the hide with the hair on. As I said, everything goes for food, even rotten bananas. But with all of their rotten chop, they are healthy, strong and vigorous men, women and children.
“Their only garment is about four feet of cloth, for all those above sixteen years of age; those younger go entirely naked.
“They all sleep on the bare ground with a stick for a pillow, and of course, skin diseases are quite prevalent.
“They are a kind people to one another. I have stood at the spring, when the women were coming after water, which they carry in four-gallon pots on the top of their head, and one always helps the other to lift her load up, and so it is in everything. If a party of natives are together, and you give them a banana, it is divided between every one of them. I very seldom hear a baby cry; and I must say that here babies have a chance to live, as they are not weaned for two years, and are humored in every way.
“The Sas-Town tribes work hard for the white man, for very little pay. I have seen a woman carry a box, weighing 120 pounds, two and a half miles for two leaves of tobacco, worth one and one-eighth cents.
“These people are ignorant, but willing and quick to learn. They have some natural orators among them, as I have seen at their ‘palavers.’” C. E. Gunnison.