Among Congo cannibals

by John H. Weeks

The hippopotamus, however, never came again, consequently I had no further opportunity of testing the point at issue. I was much interested in learning from this incident that spirits not only took possession of hippopotami, but could thus communicate with their living relatives.

According to the native idea these spirits (mingoli) are everywhere, and are ever ready to pounce on any living person, and either carry him away captive or inflict a disease on him, or kill him; consequently his life is one long drawn-out fear of what the spirits may next do to him; and his many witch-doctors, fetishes, and ceremonies are to control, appease, circumvent, and perhaps conquer the spirits. The spirit of a deceased enemy can inflict an illness on a family, a member of which had wronged him when in the body. Fortunately, these spirits are limited in the area of their operations and can be deceived. The witch-doctor can cork them up in calabashes, can cover them with saucepans, and when necessary, if the fee is large enough, he can destroy them.

A man I knew well was sick for a long time with some internal complaint, and after other means had failed to cure him he was told by a witch-doctor that he was troubled by a bad spirit, and he advised him to go right out of the district beyond the sphere of its operations and remain there until he was better. The man had no friends to whom he might have safely gone, so he left his house at dead of night, taking only two of his wives with him, and telling no one of his destination lest the spirit should hear it. He went as far as he safely could from his own town and donned a woman’s dress, and assuming a woman’s voice he pretended to be other than he was, in order to deceive the spirit should it search for him.

This also failed to cure him, and in time he returned to his town, but continued to dress and speak as a woman, and every time he ate or drank he first scattered a portion of his food and drink behind him for the spirit to eat, and eating be appeased. The food best liked by these spirits is the heart of any animal, but it must be boiled, minced, and mixed with cassava.

The witch-doctor can see the disembodied spirits, and those persons who have the occult power (called likundu) can also see them. The natives tell me that these spirits are like people in appearance—they come into view, pass, and are lost to sight like ordinary beings. They have quiet voices, and eat monkey peppers (amomum), and drink sugar-cane wine; but if the stems of the monkey pepper are put across a path the spirits cannot pass over them. It is a curious belief that these spirits may eat the fruit of the monkey pepper, and yet cannot step over the stalks of the same plant. On the Lower Congo red peppers are used for the same purpose of blocking a road to spirits; and in ancient Britain the red holly berries were used for keeping evil spirits out of the huts and houses of those who feared them.

There are indications that the sight of the spirit is very defective, but its hearing is very keen, consequently a man’s name is never mentioned while he is fishing, for fear the spirits will hear and turn the fish from his traps. One would think that if the spirits can see and recognize a fish they could also recognize a fisherman; but there are many gaps in native logic.

As the spirit of a bush-man is supposed to wander in the bush after leaving the nether world, any human offering made to appease it is buried on the edge of the forest; but an offering to the spirit of a riverine man is thrown into the water.

These offerings are made with the object of gaining the good-will of a father or grandfather; but there is no ancestral worship, as beyond the fourth generation the ancestors are forgotten, or are regarded as being ineffective in their anger. There is no regularity in these offerings, but they are made when other means have failed to avert a calamity, such as the flooding of a river, or to ensure a positive good, such as a large catch of fish.

A homicide is not afraid of the spirit of the man he has killed when the slain man belongs to any of the neighbouring towns, as disembodied spirits travel in a very limited area only; but when he kills a man belonging to his own town he is filled with fear lest the spirit shall do him some harm. There are no special rites that he can observe to free himself from these fears, but he mourns for the slain man as though he were a member of his own family. He neglects his personal appearance, shaves his head, fasts for a certain period, and laments with much weeping.

Abnormal events are often placed to the credit of the spirit of a man recently deceased. A few hours after the death of a young man whom I knew a furious storm broke on the town, blowing down plantain trees and working great havoc in the farms. It was stated in all seriousness by the folk that the storm had been sent by Mopembe, the lad’s name. We had for dinner one day the shoulder of an antelope, the history of which will further illustrate the above statement: Three days before we had that piece of antelope on our table, Mumbamba, an old head-man, died. After his death his relatives came from various towns to mourn at his grave. On the morning of our antelope dinner three canoes of men and women were coming up-river, with the object of expressing their grief at the grave, when they happened upon a large antelope caught in the grass of an islet that had lodged against a fallen tree in the river. The mourners killed the antelope, dragged it into the canoe, and gave Mumbamba the credit of sending them an antelope to eat as an expression of his favour; thus spirits can send good as well as evil upon those who are left on the earth.