I want to tell you some of the things which happened during this time of oppression. It is not only we men who go into the forest who suffer; but also those who are left at home in the villages, our old fathers and mothers, our wives and little children.
The white man wanted fresh meat for his table, so he ordered the old men in the villages to hunt antelopes in the forest for him, and bring them in alive. The hunting was easy, but not so the catching of animals alive. That meant great care in dealing with such animals as were inside our enclosures of nets, so as not to allow their escape while endeavouring not to kill them.
Then other kinds, the water antelopes especially, are dangerous, and cannot be caught alive without the captor receiving wounds from their sharp teeth. When once caught, their legs were broken in order to prevent their escape on the [[64]]journey to the white man’s compound, and thus our fathers supplied the white man’s table with fresh meat.
Some of the villages had to supply one, two, or even four animals weekly, and one white man would not take them with broken legs because he wanted to keep them alive on his own place.
I have been told also that some of the white men of God and their wives remonstrated with the carriers of these broken-legged animals who happened to pass their houses, with regard to the cruelty of breaking the legs. They say they feel pity for the antelopes! Of course, the men laughed at that, because who pities animals? They are not men, or we should pity them. White men are strange kind of people!
Again, when the white man’s compound grew large and he had many people working for him, he needed food with which to provide for their needs. Not only his actual servants but their wives and families, and sometimes others went and sat down, as we say, on the white man’s place, for there they had an easy time.
In order to supply all that was needed the women in the villages had to work very large gardens, much larger than would otherwise [[65]]have been necessary; then dig the roots of the manioca; peel and steep it in the river for four or five days; carry it back again to their homes in heavily laden baskets up steep hillsides; pound, mould into long strips, wrap in leaves, bind with creeper-string, and finally boil the tökö or kwanga, our native bread. All this meant much work for our women; firewood must be cut and carried from the forest, special leaves sought and gathered, and creeper cut for string; and every week the food must be taken to the white man’s place punctually.
And for a large bundle of ten pieces one brass rod (5 centimes) is paid to the women!
What seems hardest of all is that much of the food goes to supply families in which are plenty of strong women, who are perfectly well able to cook for themselves and their husbands.
These women live a life of idleness, and very often of vice, on the land of the white man, and frequently treat the village women with disdain and shower contumely upon them. If, as sometimes happens, high words ensue, the village women have no chance whatever, for the others can say a word to their husbands or paramours, who are armed with guns, and it is an easy thing for them to avenge such quarrels on their next [[66]]visit to the village of which the women happen to be natives.