Dawn in darkest Africa

by John H. Harris

RELIC WORSHIP

Little remains in the social life of Africa as a result of the work of the early Roman Catholic missionaries. The tribes have no settled church organization based upon the devoted efforts of three centuries ago. Ruins may be seen in several parts and extremely interesting ones too. On the islands of San Thomé and Principe, we frequently saw the partial structure of churches, one of which must have been erected very early in the sixteenth century, for a tomb close to the chancel, grey with age and moss grown, was dated 1542. If the colonists of San Thomé were zealous slavers, they certainly gave much of their ill-gotten gain to the erection of churches. Fragments of these edifices are lying about in the tropical undergrowth and an examination will show that marble pillars, façades, altars, even common stone, had been gathered from the four corners of the earth to build ornate “Houses of God” on these isolated rocks in the Gulf of Guinea. Visiting one of these ruins we were struck by the pathetic reverence with which the natives regarded those crumbling walls; the priest had long since died, and there was none to lead those almost hopeless souls along the path of religious faith. Standing inside those four walls, gazing at the broken altar and the creeper-clad walls, we were forced to keep our heads covered, for the ruin had lost its roof generations before, and the equatorial sun was pouring its direct rays upon us. Directing a question to some of the natives standing near by, we were amazed to find that they refused to answer; two or three times we repeated our questions, but they all maintained immovable positions and refused to utter a single word. A man close at my elbow then informed me that no native could reply whilst the white man kept his hat on his head in the House of God! The silent rebuke of those simple natives forced us to leave the precincts of the old ruin and pass into the little chapel which still remains more or less watertight. Into this place, not more than ten feet square, the natives had moved the images of the Virgin and Apostles, and in the centre of the room a native palm oil lamp sent forth its unpleasant odour. This lamp was half African fetish and half salvation to those natives, for their worship had degenerated into a sort of corrupt Zoroastrianism, and the Alpha and Omega of their religion seemed to be the uninterrupted burning of this light. They were most insistent that since the foundation of the church, between 1500 and 1530, the light had never been allowed to go out!

This, however, was but one testimony to the relic worship of the slave islands. Along the roadsides, in secluded corners of out of the way roças, nestling in plantain groves, the traveller may see miniature chapels constructed from rustic forest tree branches, very similar to the fetish houses of the mainland of Africa. In most of these one also sees little prayer-stools, and in all of them a rude cross roughly cut out with the native axe and the cross pieces bound together with forest vines. Most of these crosses are surrounded by native pagan charms, and thus all that is least essential in Christianity is joined together in native religious fervour with the superstitions of paganism, and this gives a melancholy impression of the result of the years of toil and sacrifice by men and women devoted to the theory of the Christian Faith.

ICHABOD

Ichabod is written along every roadside and in every ruined chapel; the very images in decay seem to utter the word, and the mind is compelled to recall the fact that Christianity in creed only, without Christian practice, is foredoomed. Surely the curse of the miserable slaves of generations ago rests upon everything on those islands; by their agony and bloody sweat they toiled to erect those magnificent churches, the crack of the whip on the slave plantations extorted the gold which purchased the images of the Virgin, to add lustre to countless churches and to purchase images of the compassionate Christ for the cross roads and public places. One wonders what all this parade meant to the slaves at the time. They have long ceased to suffer the bonds of slavery, or the crack of the whip; those slaves whose toil built the churches and bought the crucifixes have gone, and though decay everywhere marks the one-time existence of an unholy Christianity, one element remains and flourishes—a slavery, without any hope beyond that which may be inspired by the hybrid of effete Christianity wedded to African superstition.

THE CRUCIFIX IN AFRICAN FETISH HUT ON THE ISLAND OF SAN THOMÉ.

RUIN OF ONCE IMPOSING CHURCH ON THE ISLAND OF PRINCIPE.

The results accruing to the second period of Christian propaganda have the unmistakable signs of a vitality which will revolutionize Central Africa. Whilst purely missionary zeal centres itself upon the heroic figure of Livingstone, recognition must be given to Henry Stanley, and also—though one hesitates to couple the name with these two heroes—to King Leopold. Looking back upon African history, one fact emerges above all others, that the work of Livingstone and Stanley together had created an international interest in the position of the peoples and the possibilities of the countries in those regions. This condition observed by King Leopold, his master mind promptly seized and exploited it. The crafty Belgian monarch saw that by preaching Christianity and civilization for the African, his long-awaited opportunity for colonial expansion and a place in history would be gratified,—a place in history he has that none assuredly will envy; his people, too, possess a colony, and though they do not see it to-day, they will yet heap their curses upon the sovereign who has fastened the millstone round their necks.