If a family were troubled with much sickness, and a witch-doctor said it was due to the dissatisfaction of So-and-so’s spirit (mentioning the name of an important and recently deceased member of the family), because no offering had lately been made to him, then the family would kill a slave and send him with a message to their troublesome deceased relative, requesting that he would not cause them any further misfortune. If the deceased belonged to a “bush” or inland tribe, the slave would be killed and buried; but if the departed one was a member of a riverine tribe, then the slave was tied up and thrown into the river. We induced them to stop this custom, but the more timorous ones for a time compromised the matter either by burying brass rods, equal to the price of a slave, in the grave, or scattering them in the river.
The occasion was as follows: The river was rising rapidly and flooding the low-lying town of Monsembe, and as the water rose higher and higher the head-men met together to decide what was to be done to cause the river to subside. Passing that way at the time and hearing the subject of their discussion, I listened to the conference, which lasted about three hours. They suggested one reason after another for the flood, but at last they were unanimously of the opinion that the father of one of the men present was angry with his family for slighting him so long, and to show his disapprobation, he had caused the river (River Congo) thus to rise, and the only method of securing its subsidence was to throw a human sacrifice into the river.
When they arrived at this decision I asked for permission to speak, which was readily granted. With my walking-stick I drew an outline of the Congo River, and, putting in some of the larger tributaries, I told them how the rain was falling incessantly in those parts, and that if they wanted to keep the river from rising, the best way was to send their rain-doctor to Stanley Falls to stop the rain, and thus end their anxiety. And as I spoke I pointed to the old man who was sitting among the other head-men.
“Oh,” they exclaimed in chorus, “our rain-doctor can stop the rain falling in these parts; but his powers will not act in another district. Our only remedy is to throw an old man into the river.” Old men were cheaper than young ones.
“Well,” I replied, “old Mata Bwata (the old chief who was credited with the rise of the river) was a little man, and I am a big man; but one day I shall die and shall be buried here in Monsembe, and if so little a man can cause the river to rise so much because he is angry with you about a ceremony, how high do you think I shall cause the water to rise when I shall be angry with you about murdering men and women in this manner?”
“Why,” they answered, “you will be able to make the water come right above our heads, and we shall all be drowned. All right, white man,” they continued, “we know what you mean, and we promise not to throw anyone into the river.”
We found afterwards that they compromised the matter, for when they held a mimic “naval” battle (with canoes) in honour of Mata Bwata’s memory, to appease his dissatisfied spirit, they scattered six hundred brass rods in the river—the price of a slave—in lieu of a human sacrifice.
While on this subject of appeasing water-spirits I may relate a very amusing incident that came to my knowledge, the chief actor in which was well known to me. The folk in the Bombilinga district had been very unsuccessful in their fishing, and putting the cause of their non-success down to the wrath of the water-spirits who had turned aside the fish from their traps and nets, they desired to conciliate them. With this object they decided to buy a man and throw him into the river. They bought a man with one eye, who, on account of that deformity, was sold cheap, and, tying him, as they thought, securely, they hurled him from a canoe into the river.
By some means, however, he got loose and swam ashore, and on his landing the surprised people asked him why he had returned after being sacrificed to the water-spirits. His smart reply was: “The water-spirits did not want any one-eyed folk down there, so they loosened the ropes and sent me ashore.” By his wit he saved his life, but another and more perfectly formed person was bought and thrown into the river in his stead. This happened some years before we went to live in the district, but the one-eyed man I knew very well, and more than one person told me of the incident.
Up to the early months of 1890 eight brothers lived at Bonjoko—a town three miles below Monsembe. For some unknown reason their slaves beat to death the chief of that town. Now slave-owners were held responsible for the actions of their slaves, so the brothers had to flee for their lives; but one of them was killed before he could escape, and the others came to Monsembe and built a set of houses with a strong palisade round them. They lived thus for nine months in apparent security. A chief, however, is worth two ordinary men, and the family of the murdered head-man did not forget that one more life was owing to them, but they waited their time and opportunity.