Congo life and folklore

by John H. Weeks

It was very late when Bakula left the white man’s house, but it was quite early when he arose next morning from a refreshing sleep. The sun was shining not only on the hills and valleys around him, but also into his heart, and he could not repress one hymn he had learned in school, though he had never fully realized its beauty and meaning until now: “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so.”

The boys who occupied the dormitory with him turned and asked: “What is the matter with you?”

“Oh, I had a long talk with the white man last night about God’s palaver,” he answered cheerfully, “and I feel very happy now.” And at once he told them of the address, and pleaded with them to prepare for the coming of Christ, so that He might know them on His arrival.

Several months passed, during which time Bakula took part in the prayer meetings, and at the services of the Christian Band he often gave a short address. He was eager to accompany the teacher to the various towns in the neighbourhood, and frequently used the scars on his arm as a text. He then, with soul-earnestness and much eloquence, declaimed against the trickery and lies of the witch-doctors, the uselessness of their charms, and the deception of their ordeals.

On one occasion the white man, Bakula, and some other lads were spending the evening in a town. The service was over, the teacher had retired to his hut, and Bakula and his companions had stretched themselves upon their mats in another hut that had been lent to them. During the night they were disturbed by the entrance of a witch-doctor, who hid something in a saucepan. Thinking he was up to one of his tricks, Bakula removed the thing and put it in another place.

In the morning the nganga, who was employed to destroy the power of an evil spirit that was troubling a family in the town, was up early shouting at the spirit to desist. He threatened it, fired his gun repeatedly at it, and after much rushing about and wild gesticulations, he declared at last that he had caught the evil spirit. He led the suffering family to the hut he had visited during the previous night, and entering it triumphantly, prepared his clients, by his boastful talk, for a great dénouement; but, behold, the entrapped spirit was gone.

When the lads, later in the day, brought out the “something,” they found it was tied up in imitation of a corpse, and on opening it, discovered inside a piece of kwanga, or native bread, and inside that a fowl’s bladder full of blood. The lads had a hearty laugh over the incident, and their disbelief in ngangas was greatly strengthened by this exposure of their trickery.

If the witch-doctor had found the bundle where he had placed it, he would, after much incantation and dancing, have pierced it with his knife, and as the blood flowed from it he would have claimed to have trapped and killed the evil spirit. The deluded family would have paid him a large fee, and after a time, feeling no better, would have sent for another nganga and been deceived in another way. They were saved at least the payment of one large fee by the lads to whom they had lent the house.

The white men on the station watched Bakula very carefully, and often spoke about him to each other as one whose life and conduct showed that he was fully fit to be a member of the Church that had recently been formed there. But no pressure was put on him, as it was felt desirable, on account of the persecution all native Christians then suffered, that the request for baptism and Church membership should be entirely spontaneous.

After many months Bakula applied for baptism and entrance to the Church. He was told of all it might mean to him--persecution, ridicule, and perhaps death. But his answers were such that he was duly received into the little Church, and with quivering heart and tears of joyous amazement in his eyes he partook for the first time of the Lord’s Supper.