The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

The whole thing is a mystery. Mr. Reade, who frankly confesses that if he had not with his own eyes seen the nghal and its still open door he would have refused to believe the whole story, is of opinion that the “fetish” in question is threefold. He suggests that the first fetish was a preparation of some plant for which the elephants have the same mania that cats have for valerian and pigeons for salt, and thinks that they may have been enticed into the nghal by means of this herb. Then, after they had been induced to enter the enclosure, that they were kept from approaching the fence by means of drugs distasteful to them, and that the “fetish” which prevented them from being angry when killed was simply a sort of opiate thrown to them. The well-known fastidiousness of the elephant may induce some readers to think that this last suggestion is rather improbable. But it is also known that, in some parts of Africa, elephants are usually drugged by poisoned food, and that the Indian domesticated elephant will do almost anything for sweetmeats in which the intoxicating hemp forms an ingredient.

That the elephants are prevented from approaching the fence by means of a distasteful preparation seems likely from a piece of fetishism that Mr. Reade witnessed. At a certain time of the day the medicine man made his round of the fence, singing in a melancholy voice, and daubing the posts and rails with a dark brown liquid. This was acknowledged to be the fetish by which the elephants were induced to remain within the enclosure, and it is very probable that it possessed some odor which disgusted the keen-scented animals, and kept them away from its influence.

Mr. Reade also suggests that this method of catching elephants may be a relic of the days when African elephants were taken alive and trained to the service of man, as they are now in India and Ceylon. That the knowledge of elephant training has been lost is no wonder, considering the internecine feuds which prevail among the tribes of Africa, and prevent them from developing the arts of peace. But that they were so caught and trained, even in the old classical days, is well known; and from all accounts the elephants of Africa were not one whit inferior to their Indian relatives in sagacity or docility. Yet there is now no part of Africa in which the natives seem to have the least idea that such monstrous animals could be subjected to the sway of man, and even in Abyssinia the sight of elephants acting as beasts of burden and traction filled the natives with half incredulous awe.

When the Fans have succeeded in killing an elephant, they proceed to go through a curious ceremony, which has somewhat of a religious character about it. No meat is touched until these rites have been completed. The whole hunting party assembles round the fallen elephant, and dances round its body. The medicine man then comes and cuts off a piece of meat from one of the hind legs and places it in a basket, there being as many baskets as slain elephants. The meat is then cooked under the superintendence of the medicine man and the party who killed the elephant, and it is then carried off into the woods and offered to the idol. Of course the idol is supposed to eat it, and the chances are that he does so through the medium of his representative, the medicine man. Before the baskets are taken into the woods, the hunters dance about them as they had danced round the elephant, and beseech the idol to be liberal toward them, and give them plenty of elephants so that they may be able to give him plenty of meat.

The spirits being thus propitiated, the flesh is stripped off the bones of the elephant, sliced, and hung upon branches, and smoked until it is dry, when it can be kept for a considerable time.

The reader may remember that one of the principal ornaments of the idol temple is the skull of the gorilla, and the same object is used by several of the tribes for a similar purpose. The fact is, all the natives of those districts in which the gorilla still survive are horribly afraid of the animal, and feel for it that profound respect which, in the savage mind, is the result of fear, and fear only. A savage never respects anything that he does not fear, and the very profound respect which so many tribes, even the fierce, warlike, and well-armed Fans, have for the gorilla, show that it is really an animal which is to be dreaded.

There has been so much controversy about the gorilla, and the history of this gigantic ape is so inextricably interwoven with this part of South Africa, that the present work would be imperfect without a brief notice of it. In the above-mentioned controversy, two opposite views were taken—one, that the gorilla was the acknowledged king of the forest, supplanting all other wild animals, and even attacking and driving away the elephant itself. Of man it had no dread, lying in wait for him and attacking him whenever it saw a chance, and being a terrible antagonist even in fair fight, the duel between man and beast being a combat à l’outrance, in which one or the other must perish.

Those who took the opposite view denounced all these stories as “old wives’ fables, only fit to be relegated to your grandmother’s bookshelves.”—I quote the exact words—saying that the gorilla, being an ape, is necessarily a timid and retiring animal, afraid of man, and running away when it sees him. It is hardly necessary to mention that M. du Chaillu is responsible for many of the statements contained in the former of these theories—several, however, being confessedly gathered from hearsay, and that several others were prevalent throughout Europe long before Du Chaillu published his well-known work.

The truth seems to lie between these statements, and it is tolerably evident that the gorilla is a fierce and savage beast when attacked, but that it will not go out of its way to attack a man, and indeed will always avoid him if it can. That it is capable of being a fierce and determined enemy is evident from the fact that one of Mr. W. Reade’s guides, the hunter Etia, had his left hand crippled by the bite of a gorilla; and Mr. Wilson mentions that he has seen a man who had lost nearly the whole calf of one leg in a similar manner, and who said that he was in a fair way of being torn in pieces if he had not been rescued by his companions. Formidable as are the terrible jaws and teeth of the gorilla when it succeeds in seizing a man, its charge is not nearly so much to be feared as that of the leopard, as it is made rather leisurely, and permits the agile native to spring aside and avoid it.

On account of the structure common to all the monkey tribe, the gorilla habitually walks on all-fours, and is utterly incapable of standing upright like a man. It can assume a partially erect attitude, but with bent knees, stooping body, and incurved feet, and is not nearly so firmly set on its legs as is a dancing bear. Even while it stands on its feet, the heavy body is so ill supported on the feeble legs that the animal is obliged to balance itself by swaying its large arms in the air, just as a rope-dancer balances himself with his pole.