Stirring scenes in savage lands

by James Greenwood

“But we were not alone. We found dozens of pitpans, filled with men and women, starting for the same destination. It is impossible to imagine a more picturesque spectacle than these light and graceful boats, with occupants dressed in the brightest colours, sailing over the placid waters of the river. There was a keen strife among the rowers, who, with shouts and screeches, in which both men and women joined, exerted themselves to the utmost.

“Less than an hour brought us in view of a little collection of huts, grouped on the shore under the shadow of a cluster of palm trees, which from a distance presented a picture of entrancing beauty. A large group of natives had already collected on the shore, and as we came near we heard the monotonous heating of the native drum, relieved by an occasional low and deep blast on a large hollow pipe. In the pauses we distinguished suppressed wails, which contained for a minute or so, and were then followed by dreary music of the drum and pipe.

“On advancing towards the huts and the centre of the group, I found a small pitpan cut in a half, in one part of which, wrapped in cotton cloth, was the dead body of a man of middle age. Around the pitpan were stationed a number of women with palm branches to keep off the flies. Their frizzled hair started from their heads like snakes from the brow of the fabled Gorgon, and they swayed their bodies to and fro, keeping a kind of treadmill step to the measure of the doleful tum-tum. With the exception of the men who beat the drum and blew the pipe, these women appeared to be the only persons at all interested in the proceedings. The rest were standing in groups, or squatted at the roots of the palm trees. I was beginning to grow tired of the performance, when, with a suddenness which startled even the women, four men, entirely naked excepting a cloth tied round their loins and daubed over with variously-coloured clays, rushed from the interior of one of the huts, and hastily fastening a piece of rope to the half of the pitpan containing the corpse, dashed away towards the woods, dragging it after them like a sledge. The women with the Gorgon heads, and the men with the drum and trumpet, followed them on the run, each keeping time on his respective instrument. The spectators all hurried after in a confused mass, while a big negro, catching up the remaining half of the pitpan, placed it on his head, and trotted behind the crowd.

“The men bearing the corpse entered the woods, and the mass of spectators jostling each in the narrow path, kept up at the same rapid pace. At the distance of perhaps two hundred yards, there was an open space, covered with low, dark, tangled underbrush, still wet from the rain of the preceding night, and which, although unmarked by any sign, I took to be the burial-place. When I came up, the half of the pitpan containing the body had been put in a shallow trench. The other half was then inverted over it. The Gorgon-headed women threw in their palm-branches, and the painted negroes rapidly filled in the earth. While this was going on, some men were collecting sticks and palm-branches, with which a little hut was hastily built over the grave. In this was placed an earthen vessel, filled with water. The turtle-spear of the dead man was stuck deep in the ground at his head, and a fantastic fellow, with an old musket, discharged three or four rounds over the spot.

“This done, the entire crowd started back in the same manner it had come. No sooner, however, did the painted men reach the village, than, seizing some heavy machetes, they commenced cutting down the palm-trees which stood around the hut that had been occupied by the dead Sambo. It was done silently, in the most hasty manner, and when finished, they ran down to the river and plunged out of sight in the water—a kind of lustration or purifying rite. They remained in the water a few moments, then hurried back to the hut from which they had issued, and disappeared.

“This savage and apparently unmeaning ceremony was explained to me, by Hodgson, as follows:—Death is supposed by the Sambos to result from the influences of a demon, called ‘Wulasha,’ who, ogre-like, feeds upon the bodies of the dead. To rescue the corpse from this fate, it is necessary to lull the demon to sleep, and then steal away the body and bury it, after which it is safe. To this end they bring in the aid of the drowsy drum and droning pipe, and the women go through a slow and soothing dance. Meanwhile, in the recesses of some hut, where they cannot be seen by Wulasha, a certain number of men carefully disguise themselves, so that they may not afterwards be recognized and tormented; and when the demon is supposed to have been lulled to sleep, they seize the moment to bury the body. I could not ascertain any reason for cutting down the palm-trees, except that it had always been practised by their ancestors. As the palm-tree is of slow growth, it has resulted, from this custom, that they have nearly disappeared from some parts of the coast. I could not learn that it was the habit to plant a cocoa-nut tree upon the birth of a child, as in some parts of Africa, where the tree receives a common name with the infant, and the annual rings on its trunk mark his age.

“If the water disappears from the earthen vessel placed on the grave—which, as the ware is porous, it seldom fails to do in the course of a few days—it is taken as evidence that it has been consumed by the dead man, and that he has escaped the maw of Wulasha.”

Last in this melancholy chapter on African funerals comes Dahomey. And having at length arrived at the end of our task, we would once more impress on the reader’s mind that, with very few exceptions, the illustrations of savage life here given are not affairs of the past—they exist now, at the present day and hour. At the very moment the reader is perusing our account of Dahoman blood-rule, blood-rule is dominant. Only that so many thousands of miles part the reader from the scene of these atrocities, he might still hear the wail of the victims as he reads. That we are authorised in making these remarks, we will prove to the reader by placing before him the very last report from this horrible country—that furnished to Government by Commodore Wilmot, January, 1863. As already narrated in this book, once a year the whole of the king’s possessions are carried through the town, that the people may see and admire.

It was during the procession of the king’s treasures that the “human sacrifices” came round, after the cowries, cloths, tobacco, and rum had passed, which were to be thrown to the people. A long string of live fowls on poles appeared, followed by goats in baskets, then by a bull, and lastly half-a-dozen men with hands and feet tied, and a cloth fastened in a peculiar way round the head.