These river natives are genuine profiteers. They invariably make it a rule to charge the white man three or four times the price they exact from their own kind. No white man ever thinks of buying anything himself. He always sends one of his servants. As soon as the vendor knows that the servant is in the white employ he shoves up the price. I discovered this state of affairs as soon as I started down the Lualaba. In my innocence I paid two francs for a bunch of bananas. The moment I had closed the deal I observed larger and better bunches being purchased by natives for fifty centimes.
This business of profiteering by the natives is no new phase of life in the Congo. Stanley discovered it to his cost. Sir Harry Johnston, the distinguished explorer and administrator, who added to his achievements during these past years by displaying skill and brilliancy as a novelist, tells a characteristic story that throws light on the subject. It deals with one of the experiences of George Grenfell, the eminent British missionary who gave thirty years of his unselfish life to work in the Congo. On one of his trips he noticed the corpse of a woman hanging from the branches of a tree over the water of the great river. At first he thought that she had been executed as a punishment for adultery, one of the most serious crimes in the native calendar. On investigation he found that she had been guilty of a much more serious offense. A law had been imposed that all goods, especially food, must be sold to the white man at a far higher price than the local market value. This unhappy woman had only doubled the quotation for eggs, had been convicted of breaking the code, and had suffered death in consequence.
Since I have referred to adultery, let me point out a situation that does not reflect particular credit on so-called civilization. Before the white man came to Africa chastity was held in deepest reverence. The usual punishment for infidelity was death. Some of the early white men were more or less promiscuous and set a bad moral example with regard to the women. The native believed that in this respect "the white man can do no wrong" and the inevitable laxity resulted. When a woman deserts her husband now all she gets is a sound beating. If a man elopes with the wife of a friend, he is haled before a magistrate and fined.
THE HEART OF THE EQUATORIAL FOREST
III
On the Congo I got my first glimpse of the native fashion in mourning. It is a survival of the biblical "sackcloth and ashes." As soon as a death occurs all the members of the family smear their faces and bodies with ashes or dirt. Even the babies show these rude symbols of woe. It gives the person thus adorned a weird and ghastly appearance. When ashes and dust are not available for this purpose, a substitute is found in filthy mud. The mourner is not permitted to wash throughout the entire period of grief, which ranges from thirty to ninety days.
Like the Southern Negro in America these African natives are not only born actors but have a keen sense of humour. They are quick to imitate the white man. If a Georgia darkey, for example, wants to abuse a member of his own race he delights to call him "a fool nigger." It is the last word in reproach. In the Congo when a native desires to express contempt for his fellow, he refers to him as a basingi, which means bush-man. It is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
Up the Kasai I heard a story that admirably illustrates the native humour. A Belgian official much inclined to corpulency came out to take charge of a post. After the usual fashion, he received a native name the moment he arrived. It is not surprising that he became known as Mafutta Mingi. As soon as he learned what it meant he became indignant. Like most fat men he could not persuade himself that he was fat. He demanded that he be given another title, whereupon the local chief solemnly dubbed him Kiboko. The official was immediately appeased. He noticed that a broad smile invariably illumined the countenance of the person who addressed him in this way. On investigation he discovered that the word meant hippopotamus.
The Congo native delights in argument. Here you get another parallel with his American brother. A Bangala, for example, will talk for a week about five centimes. One day at Dima I heard a terrific shouting and exhorting down at the native market which is held twice a week. I was certain that someone was being murdered. When I arrived on the scene I saw a hundred men and women gesticulating wildly and in a great state of excitement. I learned that the wife of a wood-boy on a boat had either secreted or sold a scrap of soap, and her husband was not only berating her with his tongue but telling the whole community about it.