Then the young man went to one of the witnesses, and taking him by the wrist, rubbed a bullet on the palm of the witness’s hand, and said: “I have heard all the words spoken, and if I destroy the marriage may I die by this bullet.”
The young woman then stepped forward and shyly took the same oath. This ceremony completed, the witnesses went into Sono’s house and arranged the hearthstones, and instructed the bride in the duties of a wife.
The young chief, in anticipation of his marriage, had built a house for his new wife, because every wife had her own house in which to live and be mistress. The Congo man is too ’cute to put two women in one house; perhaps he has learned by bitter experience the unwisdom of it, and no matter how many wives he may be fortunate enough to marry, he builds a house for each, and one for himself.
Sono, coming as she did from a town which was half a day’s journey from her new home, had no farm from which she could draw her supplies of food for herself and husband, in supporting whom she had now to take an eighth share. So a few days after the marriage she went with the other women, her fellow-wives, and they helped her to clear a patch of ground, hoe it, and plant it with seasonable seeds and roots. In return for their kindness she assisted them in weeding their farms.
It was the custom for the bridegroom to supply his bride with all the necessary food until her farm was matured and yielding; and from that time to give her meat and fish as frequently as possible, while she found her own vegetable food and a share of his. It was also the man’s duty to present each of his wives with at least one good cloth every year, and more if he were a wealthy man.
Sono settled down fairly comfortably with her husband and seven fellow-wives. She had her farm to cultivate, a house of her own, an occasional bit of meat or fish sent her from her husband; what more could she want?
One morning our town was aroused by the firing of guns and shouts of Nkombo! Nkombo! (Goat! Goat!)
Bakula ran out of the house and joined most vigorously in the shouting.
We saw a man covered with perspiration and panting with running. He hurried by to the chief’s lumbu or enclosure, and fell at the feet of Satu, where he paid most humble homage, covering his face with dirt.
As soon as he gained his breath he said: “I have been badly treated by my master Dimbula, who frequently beat me severely with his whip. See, here are the marks!” and he showed some deep wales across his back, legs and chest. “He not only thrashed me,” he continued, “but he robbed me of the small earnings to which by right of custom I am entitled. I have therefore run away from him to you. Will you accept of me?” and he looked beseechingly at Satu, for now his very life depended on the answer. If Satu refused him, and handed him back to Dimbula as a runaway slave, it was most probable that his master, in his rage and shame, would kill him.