Some nine months afterwards a Monsembe slave fell from a palm tree and was picked up dead. All that day and the next the other slaves of the town danced and sang at the funeral festivities of the dead man, and during the noise of their crying and chanting dirges some Bonjoko people entered the town, rushed into the stockade, and, killing one of the brothers there, they cut open the head of another, and chased a third one into the bush, where they speared him to death.
If only one brother had been killed the feud would have ended, and reconciliation between the families would have followed; but in affairs of this kind they have a credit and debit side, i.e. the chief of Bonjoko was a great man, so it needed two deaths to expiate his. The Bonjoko people had killed one brother before the family had escaped from the town, and now they desired to kill one other only to square the account; but being divided in their attack into two or three parties, acting independently, neither knew what the other had done or was doing, two brothers were killed, during the raid, instead of one. Thus the Bonjoko family owed one life to the brothers, and according to custom they should not have stopped hostilities until there was a clear balance-sheet. The remnant of the brothers could move about freely, and needed no longer to live enclosed in a stockade. It was now the turn of the other family to go in fear of their lives. The brothers took the bodies of their slain relatives to Bonjoko for burial; and a short time afterwards made blood-brotherhood with the other family, and the blood feud was thus finished.
It leaked out eventually that the Monsembe head-men, who had little or no sympathy with the brothers, had received 1000 brass rods not to oppose the Bonjoko family when they came for vengeance, although the head-men had accepted large presents from the brothers on the promise of protection and the right of asylum in their town. This treachery was condemned by public opinion, but those who condemned it only did so because they had had no share of the spoils.
The principal drink, apart from water, was manga = sugar-cane wine. The canes were cut into two-feet lengths and the outside skin peeled off. The juicy pith was put into a long, strong, canoe-shaped trough, where it was pounded into pulp with heavy pestles. By the side of the trough was a strong cross-stick fixed to two stout uprights, and from the cross-stick was suspended by many loops a cord-plaited mat about 16 inches wide and 2 feet 6 inches long. At the lower end of the mat was a stout stick hanging from the bottom loops of the mat. The operator took a large handful of crushed fibre from the trough, and placing it on the mat he gave a twist to the lower stick, folding the mat over on to the fibre, then with both hands he turned the lower stick again and again, until no more juice could be pressed from the enclosed fibre. The juice ran from the rope mat into a conduit below, and on into a large jar at the bottom. This process was repeated until all the crushed fibre had been pressed in the mat. This operation was generally begun about 4 a.m. and completed by 8 or 9 a.m. A little old sugar-cane wine was added to the new, and by 3 or 4 p.m. the whole jar, containing from eight to twelve gallons, would be fizzing with fermentation. A jar of four gallons could be bought for two yards of calico.
Photo by: Rev. C. D. Dodds
A Boloki Drinking-bout
Sugar-cane wine is made early in the morning, and by the afternoon it is well fermented. A native bell, or drum, is sounded, and the folk gather for the carouse. When a drinking-bout lasts several days the men have leaves fastened in their hair.
A man would buy a jar of wine and beat his drum in a certain way to call his friends, who, after a few minutes, began to gather from various parts of the town, each followed by a wife carrying a stool and some article out of which her husband was to drink. One had a bottle, another a saucepan, another an old coffee-pot, another a jug, another a glass or an enamel mug. A man was chosen to dole out the wine with a small wooden bailer, and no matter how large the vessel offered, the recipient only received so many dips of the bailer, and thus all shared alike.
During the sugar-cane season drinking-bouts were common and would last from eight to ten days. Different head-men would buy on succeeding days large jars of manga, and would beat their drums to call their cronies and friends to the “drink.” They would sit in a circle round the jar of sugar-cane wine, and one would solemnly ladle it out, but no one would drink until all were served. Women, who sat behind their husbands at these carousals, drank only what their husbands gave them, and I have seen only three drunken women. This was not because the women had any aversion to drinking or to drunkenness, but because they could not procure the liquor. The making of the “wine” was a laborious process, hence, while the women cultivated and prepared the canes, the men made the wine and took care to drink it. Drinking-bouts were always followed by a certain amount of sickness, as fever and diarrhœa, and a complete loss of appetite for a time. I think the rough, sharp pieces of fibre found in the unstrained wine irritated the bowels and brought on dysentery; and the irregular lives they lived during these bouts induced fever.
The majority drank in the ordinary way, but some in a manner peculiar to themselves. One sucked his wine through a reed; another had a cloth dropped over his head while drinking; another placed some fine-shredded grass over the mouth of his bottle and quaffed his wine through that; another took a piece of plantain leaf and, making a channel down the middle, put one end into his mouth and poured the wine out of his bottle on to the top end of his leaf, whence it ran down the groove into his mouth. All these various modes of drinking are rigidly followed out of regard to the strict injunctions of some “medicine man,” who has told them that in order to prevent the return of a sickness from which they have suffered, or to escape certain diseases, they must drink in such and such a manner, or not at all. When a man was “on the booze” he stuck a leaf in his hair to show it, and then no notice was taken of any stupid or insulting remarks he might make, or of any business transaction he might enter upon.
One day I saw an old woman whom I knew very well sitting in the centre of a ring of fire, and upon inquiry I found that she had had much to do with preparing a corpse for burial, and at the close of the ceremony she had to be purified. A ring of fire made of small sticks encircled her; she took a leaf, dried it, crunched it in her fist, and sprinkled it on the fire, moving her hands, palms downwards, over the fire ring. When the fire had died out a witch-doctor took hold of the little finger of her left hand with the little finger of his right hand, and, lifting her arm, he drew her out of the fire circle purified. She was now supposed to be cleansed from all contamination with the dead.