A petty chief had been ill for some time, and a woman had been convicted, by her own confession, of having bewitched him. It is true that the confession had been extorted by flogging, but this fact made no difference in the minds of the natives, who had also forced her to accuse her son, a boy only seven years old, of having been an accomplice in the crime. This was done lest he should grow up to manhood, and then avenge his mother’s death upon her murderers.
“On the ground in their midst crouched the child, the mark of a severe wound visible on his arm, and his wrists bound together by a piece of withy. I shall never forget that child’s face. It wore that expression of dogged endurance which is one of the traditional characteristics of the savage. While I was there, one of the men held an axe before his eyes—it was the brute’s idea of humor. The child looked at it without showing a spark of emotion. Some, equally fearless of death, would have displayed contempt, anger, or acted curiosity; but he was the perfect stoic. His eye flashed for a moment when his name was first mentioned, but only for a moment. He showed the same indifference when he heard his life being pleaded for, as when, a little while before, he had been taunted with his death.”
Both were killed. The mother was sent to sea in a canoe, killed with an axe, and then thrown overboard. The unfortunate boy was burnt alive, and bags of gunpowder were tied to his legs, which, according to the account of a spectator, “made him jump like a dog.” On being asked why so cruel a death had been inflicted on the poor boy, while the mother was subjected to the comparatively painless death by the axe, the man was quite astounded that any one should draw so subtle a distinction. Death was death in his opinion, however inflicted, and, as the writhing of the tortured child amused the spectators, he could not see why they should deprive themselves of the gratification.
“This explains well enough the cruelty of the negro: it is the cruelty of the boy who spins a cockchafer on a pin; it is the cruelty of ignorance. A twirling cockchafer and a boy who jumps like a dog are ludicrous sights to those who do not possess the sense of sympathy. How useless is it to address such people as these with the logic of reason, religion, and humanity! Such superstitions can only be quelled by laws as ruthless as themselves.”
Another curious example of this lack of feeling is given by the same author. Sometimes a son, who really loves his mother after his own fashion, thinks that she is getting very old, and becoming more infirm and unable to help him. So he kills her, under the idea that she will be more useful to him as a spirit than in bodily form, and, before dismissing her into the next world, charges her with messages to his friends and relatives who have died. The Camma do not think that when they die they are cut off, even from tangible communication with their friends. “The people who are dead,” said one of the men, “when they are tired of staying in the bush (i. e. the burying-ground), then they come for one of their people whom they like. And one ghost will say, ‘I am tired of staying in the bush; please to build a little house for me in the town close to your house.’ He tells the man to dance and sing too; so the men call plenty of women by night to dance and sing.”
In accordance with his request, the people build a miniature hut for the unquiet spirit, then go to the grave and make an idol. They then take the bamboo frame on which the body was carried into the bush, and which is always left on the spot, place on it some dust from the grave, and carry it into the hut, the door of which is closed by a white cloth.
Among the Camma, as with many savage tribes, there is a ceremony of initiation into certain mysteries, through which all have to pass before they can be acknowledged as men and women. These ceremonies are kept profoundly secret from the uninitiated, but Mr. Reade contrived to gain from one of his men some information on the subject.
On the introduction of a novice, he is taken in a fetish house, stripped, severely flogged, and then plastered with goat’s dung, the ceremony being accompanied by music. Then he is taken to a screen, from behind which issues a strange and uncouth sound, supposed to be produced by a spirit named Ukuk. There seems, however, to be a tacit understanding that the spirit is only supposed to be present in a vicarious sense, as the black informant not only said that the noise was made by the fetish man, but showed the instrument with which he produced it. It was a kind of whistle, made of hollowed mangrove wood, and closed at one end by a piece of bat’s wing.
During five days after initiation an apron is worn, made of dry palm leaves. These ceremonies are not restricted to certain times of the year, but seem to be held whenever a few candidates are ready for initiation. Mr. Reade had several times seen lads wearing the mystic apron, but had not known its signification until Mongilomba betrayed the secrets of the lodge. The same man also gave some information regarding the initiation of the females. He was, however, very reticent on the subject, partly, perhaps, because the women kept their secret close, and partly because he was afraid lest they might hear that he had acted the spy upon them, and avenge their insulted rites by mobbing and beating him.
Some of the ceremonies are not concealed very carefully, being performed in the open air. The music is taken in hand by elderly women, called Ngembi, who commence operations by going into the forest and clearing a space. They then return to the village, and build a sacred hut, into which no male is allowed to enter. The novice, or Igonji, is now led to the cleared space—which, by the way, must be a spot which she has never before visited—and there takes her place by a fire which is carefully watched by the presiding Ngembi, and never suffered to go out. For two days and nights a Ngembi sits beside the fire, feeding it with sticks, and continually chanting, “The fire will never die out.” On the third day the novice is rubbed with black, white, and red chalk, and is taken into the sacred hut, where certain unknown ceremonies are performed, the men surrounding it and beating drums, while the novice within continually responds to them by the cry, “Okanda! yo! yo! yo!” which, as Mr. Reade observes, reminds one of the “Evoe!” of the ancient Bacchantes.