An African Adventure

by Isaac Frederick Marcosson

The Father was in his fifth year of service in the Congo and his analysis of the native situation was accurate and convincing. Among other things he said, "The great task of the Colonial Government is to provide labour for the people. In many localities only one native out of a hundred works. This idleness must be stopped and the only way to stop it is to initiate highway and other improvements, so as to recruit a large part of the native population."

Father Brandsma is devoting some of his energy to a change in copal gathering. This substance, which is found at the roots of trees in swampy and therefore unhealthy country, is employed in the manufacture of varnish. To harvest it the natives stand all day in water up to their hips and they catch the inevitable colds from which pneumonia develops. Copal gathering is a considerable source of income for many tribes and usually the entire community treks to the marshes. In this way the lives of the women and children are also menaced. The Father believes that only the men should go forth at certain periods for this work and leave their families behind.

Father Brandsma was the central actor in a picturesque scene. One Sunday morning I heard a weird chanting and I arose to discover the cause. I found that the priest was celebrating mass for the natives on the main deck of the boat. Dawn had just broken, and on the improvised altar several candles gleamed in the half light. In his vestments the priest was a striking figure. All about him knelt the score of naked savages who made up the congregation. They crossed themselves constantly and made the usual responses. I must confess that the ceremony was strangely moving and impressive.

As soon as I reached the Congo River I saw that the natives were bigger and stronger than those of the Katanga and other sections that I had visited. The most important of the river tribes are the Bangalas, who are magnificent specimens of manhood. In Stanley's day they were masters of a considerable portion of the Upper Congo River region and contested his way skilfully and bitterly. They are more peacefully inclined today and hundreds of them are employed as wood-boys and firemen on the river boats.

The Bangalas practice cicatrization to an elaborate extent. This process consists of opening a portion of the flesh with a knife, injecting an irritating juice into the wound, and allowing the place to swell. The effect is to raise a lump or weal. Some of these excrescences are tiny bumps and others develop into large welts that disfigure the anatomy. Extraordinary designs are literally carved on the faces and bodies of the men and women. Although it is an intensely painful operation,—some of the wounds must be opened many times—the native submits to it with pleasure because the more ornate the design the more resplendent the wearer feels. The women are usually more liberally marked than the men.

Cicatrization is popular in various parts of Central Africa but nowhere to the degree that it prevails on the Congo River and among the Bangalas, where it is a tribal mark. I observed women whose entire bodies from the ankles up to the head were one mass of cicatrized designs. One of the favorite areas is the stomach. This is just another argument against clothes. Cicatrization bears the same relation to the African native that tattooing does to the whites of some sections. Human vanity works in mysterious ways to express itself.

In this connection it is perhaps worth while to point out one of the reasons why the Congo atrocity exhorters found such ready exhibits for their arguments. The Central African native delights in disfigurement not only as a sign of "beauty," but as a means of retaliation for real or fancied wrongs among his own. In the old days dozens of slaves, and sometimes wives, were sacrificed upon the death of an important chief. Their spirits were supposed to provide a bodyguard to escort the departed potentate safely into the land of the hereafter. One of the former prerogatives of a husband was the sanction to chop off the hand or foot of a wife if she offended or disobeyed him. Hence Central Africa abounded in mutilated men, women and children. While some of these barbarities may have been due to excessive zeal or temper in State or corporation officials there is no doubt that many instances were the result of native practices.

The reference to cicatrization brings to mind another distinctive Central African observance. I refer to the ceremony of blood brotherhood. When two men, who have been enemies, desire to make the peace and swear eternal amity, they make a small incision in one of their forearms sufficiently deep to cause the flow of blood. Each then licks the blood from the other's arm and henceforth they are related as brothers. This performance was not only common among the blacks but was also practiced by the whites and the blacks the moment civilization entered the wild domains. Stanley's arms were one mass of scars as the result of swearing constant blood brotherhood. It became such a nuisance and at the same time developed into such a serious menace to his health, that the rite had to be amended. Instead of licking the blood the comrades now merely rub the incisions together on the few occasions nowadays when fealty is sworn. I am glad to say that I escaped the ordeal.

Much to my regret I saw only a few of the much-described pygmies who dwelt mainly in the regions northeast of Stanleyville, where Stanley first met them. They are all under three feet in height, are light brown in colour, and wear no garments when on their native heath. They are the shyest of all the tribes I encountered. These diminutive creatures seldom enter the service of the white man and prefer the wild life of the jungle. I was informed in the Congo that the real pygmy is fast disappearing from the map. Intermarriage with other tribes, and settlement into more or less permanent villages, have increased the height of the present generation and helped to remove one of the last human links with Stanley's great day.

The Congo River native is perhaps the shrewdest in all Central Africa. He is a born trader, and he can convert the conventional shoe-string into something worth while. One reason why the Bangalas take positions as firemen and woodboys on the river boats is that it enables them to go into business. The price of food at the small settlements up river is much less than at Kinshassa, where navigation from Stanleyville southward ends. Hence the blacks acquire considerable stores of palm oil and dried fish at the various stops made by the steamers and dispose of it with large profit when they reach the end of the journey. I have in mind the experience of a capita on the "Comte de Flandre." When we left Stanleyville his cash capital was thirty-five francs. With this he purchased a sufficient quantity of food, which included dozens of pieces of chikwanga, to realize two hundred and twenty francs at Kinshassa.