Among Congo cannibals

by John H. Weeks

Among the Lower Congo people the belief exists that when there is a halo round the moon it is a sign that the Supreme Being is there confirming the residence in that cool place—hence state of happiness of some spirits which have just arrived; and when the halo is round the sun, then those who have recently lost relatives or friends by death will tremble and wail, because that halo round the sun is an indication to them that the Supreme Being (Nzambi) is there confirming the punishment that has consigned the late departed to the hot place—hence state of unhappiness. There is a proverb that shows the lastingness of this punishment: “The bad people are tortured like a locust on the burning grass; it wants to die, but is kept alive.” These comprise the only ideas concerning the Supreme Being that I have ever heard expressed, either on the Lower Congo or among the Boloki natives.

On the other hand, there is a seeming contradiction of the moon and sun theory, as stated in the preceding paragraph, by another belief extant among the Lower Congo people, viz. that all the souls of the departed go to a great spirit-town in the forest, and that is the reason why burials take place at sunset. The natives argue thus: During the day folk go to farms, to market, to work in the forests, etc., and the town is left empty; in the evening the inhabitants have returned from their different occupations, and are ready to accord a welcome to any visitor; thus also the spirit-town: all the spirits are away at their different employments and do not return until the evening, and if the deceased were buried during the morning or early afternoon there would be no one in the town to welcome him. These differing beliefs appear to be co-existent, and the natives, if they perceive their inconsistency, have not offered any explanation. I once pointed out the contradictory nature of these beliefs to a smart native with whom I was conversing on the subject, and his reply was: “Some believe one thing, some believe the other, and some people believe both.”

Among the Boloki people there is a general and firm belief in a spirit-world, or nether region (called longa). It is supposed to be somewhere down below. From many natives I have received the same direction, always accompanied by the same action and words, viz. they have pointed with their fingers to the ground, saying, “It is down underneath there.” In the nether regions the conditions of existence appear to be similar to those in the villages and town, with this exception, that a man may be too high in the social scale to be punished on earth, but he cannot escape punishment in the nether regions for the disagreeable qualities he has exhibited on earth. Within a few hours of an unpopular head-man’s death, I have heard the ordinary natives laughingly say to one another as they have snapped their fingers in glee: “He is being punished now.” Who allotted the punishment and saw to its infliction I could never ascertain. Juries of head-men on earth sat to decide difficult cases; and it may be that they thought juries in the nether region sat on cases and allotted the necessary punishment.

The firing of guns, shouting, wailing, beating of drums and such noises are heard in the nether regions, and give notice to the inhabitants there of the approach of another disembodied spirit. The louder the noise the greater is the expectation of those in the spirit-land of seeing a great man arrive. The spirits of the departed wait about the entrance to the nether regions to greet the one about whose departure for their abode so much fuss is being made.

The soul of a living person is called elimo, but on the person’s death his soul becomes a disembodied spirit named mongoli; and the Boloki spirits after sojourning for a time in the nether regions leave that place and wander about the rivers and creeks, doing all the harm they can to the living by flooding their villages and keeping the fish from entering the nets and traps. The spirits of the Bomuna people, and of the bush-people generally, are supposed to roam about the forests, turning the animals from the traps and nets set to snare them, not to save them from death, but to show their hatred of the folk living in the towns.

Are these disembodied spirits turned out of the spirit-land as a punishment? Natives believe that the spirits of bad men are punished in the nether region—by bad they mean a disagreeable, unsociable, disobliging, greedy, rude, discourteous person. The ghost of such a one will return to trouble his whilom neighbours, and it is against his disagreeable qualities as a man that they have to guard now that he is a spirit. There are many stories about the doings of the disembodied spirits—their tricks and their mode of revenge—which will be related in subsequent chapters. The foregoing paragraphs give, I trust, a clear statement of the natives’ ideas of the Supreme Being and their views of existence after death, so far as I have been able to collect their thoughts and beliefs during a long and intimate intercourse with the people.

We now come to a larger subject—larger because it holds a more important place in the life and thought of the native—I refer to fetishism. If fetishism is a form of religion, then the Boloki people, like all other tribes on the Congo, are a very religious folk. In obedience to fetish taboo and custom they exhibit a devotion and persistency worthy of a better cause; in subjection to the demands of their witch-doctors they cut themselves, deny themselves many kinds of pleasant food, and pay heavy fees, even to the impoverishment of themselves and families. But all this is done through their abject fear of the various malignant spirits who, so their medicine men inform them, have power over them for the time being. It may be one spirit to-day and an entirely different one next month, according to the sickness, misfortune, or particular kind of bad luck from which the man is suffering; or a man may for twenty years possess good health and good fortune, and consequently he will need neither the medicine man nor his rites and ceremonies; or it may be that a man thinks “prevention is better than cure,” and in such a case he will fee the medicine men to appease on his behalf such evil spirits over whom they profess to exercise control, or to prepare for him certain charms to destroy their wicked designs.

No single witch-doctor pretends to control all the evil spirits, or confer immunity from all diseases, or remove all misfortunes, or impart every kind of good luck. Hence on the Lower Congo there are about fifty different kinds of medicine men,[^[32]] and among the Boloki some eighteen varieties of them, each supreme in his own particular branch. The order is not confined to men only, for many women are to be found in its ranks. Some medicine men are supposed to be stronger than others, and, controlling more powerful spirits, they either avert greater evils or confer larger benefits, and consequently receive more respect and richer fees for their services.

[32]. See Folk-Lore for Dec. 31st, 1910, p. 447, for a complete list of Lower Congo medicine men and their various functions written by the author.

It is a misrepresentation to depict the Congo native as “bowing down to wood and stone.” He never worships his fetishes; he exhorts them to do his bidding; he commands them to do that for which they were made, and he is not backward in arousing them to alertness by whistles and explosions of gunpowder, or to activity by whacking them with a stick.