Concerning the people of Madagascar the missionary Ellis writes:—“Whether the noble and generous feeling of gratitude has much place amongst the Malagasy has been questioned. Though often characterised by extreme apathy, they are certainly susceptible of tenderness of feeling, and their customs furnish various modes of testifying their sense of any acts of kindness shewn them, and their language contains many forms of speech expressive of thankfulness. The following are among those in most general use: ‘May you live to grow old—may you live long—may you live sacred—may you see, or obtain, justice from the sovereign.’” Moreover, with all their expressions of thankfulness, considerable action is used: sometimes the two hands are extended open as if to make a present; or the party stoops down to the ground, and clasps the legs, or touches the knee and the feet of the person he is thanking.[69] Ingratitude, again, is expressed by many strong metaphors, such as “son of a thunderbolt,” or “offspring of a wild boar.”[70] The Bushmans, according to Burchell, are not incapable of gratitude.[71] The statement made by certain travellers or colonists that the Zulus are devoid of this feeling, is contradicted by Mr. Tyler, who asserts that “many instances might be related in which a thankful spirit has been manifested, and gifts bestowed for favours received.”[72] The Basutos have words to express gratitude.[73] Among the Bakongo, says Mr. Ward, “evidences of gratitude are rare indeed, although occasionally one meets with this sentiment in odd guises. Once, by a happy chance, I saved a baby’s life. The child was brought to me by its mother in convulsions, and I was fortunate enough to find in my medicine chest a drug that effected an almost immediate cure. Yet the service I rendered to this woman, instead of meeting with any appreciation, only procured for me the whispered reputation of being a witch.” But twenty months afterwards, at midnight when all the people were sleeping, the same woman came to Mr. Ward and gave him some fowl’s eggs in payment. “I come,” she said, “in the darkness that my people may not know, for they would jeer at me if they knew of this gift.”[74] A traveller tells us that the inhabitants of Great Benin “if given any trifles expressed their thanks.”[75] Writing on the natives of Accra, Monrad states that gratitude is among the virtues of the Negroes, and induces them even to give their lives in return for benefits conferred on them.[76] The Feloops, bordering on the Gambia, “display the utmost gratitude and affection towards their benefactors.”[77] As regards the Eastern Central Africans, Mr. Macdonald affirms without any hesitation that they have gratitude, “even though we define gratitude as being much more than an ‘acute sense of favours to come.’”[78] The Masai and Wadshagga have “a curious habit of spitting on things or people as a compliment or sign of gratitude”[79]—originally, I presume, with a view to transferring to them a blessing. The Barea are said to be thankful for benefits.[80] According to Palgrave, “gratitude is no less an Arab than a European virtue, whatever the ignorance or the prejudices of some foreigners may have affirmed to the contrary”;[81] and Burckhardt says that an Arab never forgets the generosity shown to him even by an enemy.[82]
[69] Ellis, History of Madagascar, i. 258. See also Rochon, Voyage to Madagascar, p. 56.
[70] Ellis, op. cit. i. 139 sq.
[71] Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, ii. 68, 86, 447.
[72] Tyler, Forty Years among the Zulus, p. 194.
[73] Casalis, Basutos, p. 306.
[74] Ward, Five Years with the Congo Cannibals, p. 47 sqq.
[75] Punch, quoted by Ling Roth, Great Benin, p. 45.
[76] Monrad, Skildring af Guinea-Kysten, p. 8.
[77] Mungo Park, Travels in the Interior of Africa, p. 14.