Among Congo cannibals

by John H. Weeks

By July 11th we had packed on board our little steamer the nails, provisions, tools, barter goods, and medicines that could be collected for our new project. A better outfit would have been welcome; but we thought it was wiser to start with what we could get together than to wait an indefinite period for larger supplies.

Two days after leaving Bolobo we arrived at Lukolele, and in due time Lulanga was reached. Lulanga was a large town at the mouth of the Lulongo River, a fine tributary of the Congo. There our search began. It took us fifty minutes to walk through the town, the houses of which were built closely together. We estimated the population at 3000 people. There was then less than a mile of bush, and another town of over 1000 inhabitants, and about an hour’s walk back from the river were other clumps of villages containing, we were informed, more than 2000 persons. It was a good centre for our purpose; but the Congo Bololo Mission had established some stations up the Lulongo River, and after consulting with their senior missionary at Bonginda (30 miles up the Lulongo), we decided that the town at the mouth of the river they were working should really be their base of operations, and as they promised to occupy it, if we did not build there, we left it to them.

At Lulanga we left the south bank of the Congo, and after two hours’ steaming and winding among the numerous islands we had the large district of Bungundu stretching before us on the north shore of the river. Picking out the biggest town we could see from the deck of our steamer, we steered our way towards it, and as we drew near we could see the women seizing hold of their children and their fowls, and scurrying away with them into the bush as fast as possible; the men also were tugging at their goats and sheep to hide them in the bush and woods that surrounded their town, for it was their unfortunate experience that the white men who came on steamers took fowls, goats, and sheep without paying for them.

When we landed we could not see a single person. We walked up and down the roads calling upon the people to come out of hiding, to come and talk with us, or sell us some fowls. After a considerable amount of shouting an old man put his head round a corner of a house and said: “White men, if you want to buy any fowls of us, sit down where you are, and send your boys; we will sell to them, but not to you.”

We thereupon handed some looking-glasses, knives, bells, beads, and cloth to our boys, and told them that after they had bartered for some fowls they were to try to persuade the people to have some conversation with us. After buying a few fowls our lads said: “Come and talk with our white men. See, they are perfectly harmless, for they are sitting down where you told them. They are not bula matadi (= State officers). They neither desire to fight you nor tie you up. They are mindele mia Njambi (= the white men of God, i.e. missionaries). Come and palaver with them.”

After much hesitation on the part of the native, and much persuasion by our lads, the old man drew near to us, and as he came closer he put out his hand to greet us; but on seeing our white hands approaching his, fear took possession of him, and he drew his hand quickly back. At last, however, we heartily shook his hand and his courage returned. He then went over to a large drum, and beating upon it the women quickly returned from the bush with their children and their fowls, the men came back with their goats and sheep, and the town resumed its usual lively appearance.

Directly they learned the purpose of our visit they begged us to live in their town; they took us up and down the various streets, and pointed out all the advantages we should enjoy if we would only build amongst them. We had to allay their importunity by telling them that we could not decide at once to live in their midst, as we wished to go higher up the river and visit other towns and tribes; but if we found their town the most central for our work, we would return to them. And we concluded by saying: “We do not desire, wherever we go in this district, that the people should run away from us as you did; cannot you therefore lend us one or two of your young men to go with us to reassure the people? We promise to return them safely in due time.”

It was astonishing to us that these nervous, fearful folk who had run helter-skelter from us about two hours before should bring two of their young men to us, and in their trustful simplicity place their hands in ours, saying: “Here are two of our people to accompany you, and when you have done with them bring them back again.”

After that, whenever we arrived opposite a town, these two men would go into the bows of the steamer and, shouting loudly to the people ashore, would tell them not to be afraid, not to run away, that we were good sort of white men, that we were buying fowls at a very good price, and if they only stayed they could make some profit out of us. For we were giving the enormous sum of about threepence each in barter goods for the fowls, instead of the usual price of twopence.

Throughout the rest of that district we received a hearty welcome from the people, and many pressing invitations to settle in their midst. We had no illusions about these invitations. We fully recognized that the people desired us to live in their towns for reasons quite different from those that actuated us: our presence would give prestige to their district, and especially to the town in which we built; we should be, more or less, a guarantee of security, and freedom from the lootings and raids of State soldiers who were already beginning to trouble the people on the Upper Congo; and it would be an immense advantage to them to be able to exchange their food-stuffs, etc., for barter goods at a store in their neighbourhood, rather than have such weary journeys to take in their canoes, or go without the needed articles. We understood perfectly well that we were not so boisterously invited because of our message, for of that they knew absolutely nothing, and in their then savage and ignorant state cared perhaps less than nothing for it.