I am glad to find that Dr. Weule stands up for the native in respect of the old accusation of laziness. He shows that the people of the Makonde Plateau, at any rate, work pretty hard (in some points, as in their water-carrying, unnecessarily hard) for a living. He also defends them against the charge of improvidence, making it quite plain that they take infinite pains in storing their seed-corn for next season, and that, if they do not save more of their crops against a year of famine, instead of making the surplus into beer, it is because they have, under present circumstances, absolutely no means of keeping them. It is true that, in one passage, he seems to depreciate the industry of native women, by comparison with the work done by German maid-servants and farmers’ wives. But he forgets to make allowance for the difference of climate—and, perhaps, one may be permitted to doubt whether any human being really ought to work as hard as most German women do in town or country.
On the whole, Dr. Weule is kindly disposed towards the native. He does not seem entirely to have escaped the danger deprecated on p. [41]—at least it strikes one that some of the (doubtless not unmerited) castigations bestowed in the course of his pages might have been dispensed with by the exercise of a little more patience and tact; but he remained throughout on the best of terms with his carriers, and appears to have parted from Moritz, Kibwana and Omari, in spite of the trials to which they had subjected him in the exercise of their several functions, with no ill-feeling on either side. More than once he bears testimony to the uniform good manners of the people whose villages he visited, and to their homely virtues—their unfailing cheerfulness, their family affection, and their respect for parents. At the same time, he relates various incidents calculated to leave a less pleasant impression, though it must be remembered that the proportion they bear to the whole of native life is probably less than that borne by the criminal cases reported in our newspapers to the daily life and conduct of our population in general. Dr. Weule’s stay in Africa was surely long enough for him to see that the Bantu native is not in general bloodthirsty or ferocious; that, on the contrary, when not maddened by terror or resentment, he is gentle, reasonable, and even somewhat lacking in vindictiveness compared with other races. Yet, in the scientific report on the expedition (a publication several times alluded to in the course of the work before us) the author is, it seems to me, guilty of a grave injustice.
The reader will note that, on his return to the coast (see pp. [27]–9), he spent some time in studying the records of the Criminal Court at Lindi, though he does not here tell us anything about the results of his examination. Now these records certainly afford valuable material for the study of social conditions; but they should be used with discrimination. Dr. Weule does not give what is of the very first importance, the number of criminal cases and their proportion to the population, especially as the serious cases, which are brought for trial to Lindi, represent the whole of an extensive province. But he mentions two atrocities as a proof of the ignorance shown by certain German newspapers, which “during the last two years have thought it necessary to insist, over and over again, on the noble traits in the negro character,” and of the “predominance of low instincts in those sons of untamed nature” who have “an innate disposition to violence.” One of the cases in question was that of a woman who killed her own mother by a blow with the pestle used for pounding corn. But it is hardly fair to place this murder on the same footing as a crime committed out of mere brutal passion: the woman’s children had died, and she believed her mother to have caused their death by witchcraft. We know what horrible cruelties this belief has induced people not otherwise depraved to commit: an instance occurred only twelve or thirteen years ago, no further off than Clonmel. The other case, which is certainly revolting enough, was the revenge of a husband on a guilty wife. But both of them together prove absolutely nothing without information which would enable us to see whether they are to be regarded as exceptional, or as in any sense typical. The other incident given by way of proving that violence and brutality are “in the blood” of the native, is that of an unfortunate woman who, unsuspiciously passing through the bush, fell in with a band of unyago boys, and was by them seized and put into a slave-stick “out of mere mischief and enjoyment of violence.” The comment on this is that, unless the woman had been a stranger from a distance (who, under ordinary circumstances would not be very likely to travel alone), she must have known that there was an unyago in the neighbourhood, that if she traversed the bush in that direction she would do so at her peril, and that her trespassing on the forbidden ground was an act of the grossest impropriety combined with sacrilege. As for “delight in violence”—surely that, in one form or another, is an inherent attribute of the “human boy” in every part of the world, above all when he conceives himself to have a legitimate excuse?
The mention of the unyago mysteries suggests a subject on which Dr. Weule has obtained fuller information than any previous writer—at any rate on this part of Africa. It is surprising that he should have been able to secure so many photographs of the dances—especially those of the women—but these only constitute the more public part of the ceremonial. As to the instruction given to the younger generation, he does not seem to have got beyond generalities except in the case of the two old men who, when very drunk, began to dictate the actual formula in use, though they did not get to the end of it. Whether any tribal traditions, any myths, embodying the religious ideas of a far distant past, are handed down along with such practical teaching about life as the elders are able to give, does not appear—but from what we know about other tribes it seems highly probable. Among the Anyanja (Wanyasa) of Lake Nyasa, e.g., a story accounting for the origin of that lake is told. But perhaps many of the Makonde and Makua traditions have by this time been forgotten. It is evident that they have led a very unsettled life for the past forty or fifty years, besides being decimated by the slave-trade. (This circumstance, by the by, should always be remembered in connection with Dr. Weule’s pictures of native life, which leave a painfully squalid impression. I am far from wishing to idealize the “state of nature”; but neither the Zulus, nor the Anyanja, nor the Yaos of the Shire Highlands are so ignorant and careless of hygiene or so neglectful of their babies as the poor women of Chingulungulu and Masasi are represented by him to be.)
These “mysteries” are universal—or practically so—among the Bantu tribes of Africa, and no doubt most others as well. Usually they are spoken of as an unmixed evil, which Christian missionaries do all in their power to combat, and some are not backward in calling out for the civil power (in countries under British administration) to put them down. The subject is a difficult and far-reaching one, and cannot adequately be discussed here. My own conviction, which I only give for what it is worth, is that it is a great mistake to interfere with an institution of this sort, unless, perhaps, when the people themselves are ceasing to believe in it, in which case there is danger of its becoming a mere excuse for immorality. Otherwise, even the features which to our feelings seem most revolting are entwined with beliefs rooted in a conception of nature, which only the gradual advance of knowledge can modify or overthrow. And we must remember that the problem which these poor people have tried to solve in their own way is one which presses hardly on civilized nations as well. Parents and teachers have discovered the evil of keeping the young in ignorance, or leaving them to discover for themselves the realities of life; but many of them appear helplessly perplexed as to the best way of imparting that instruction.
As regards missions, Dr. Weule has not very much to say, but I am sorry to find that he cannot refrain from the cheap sneer about “Christianity not suiting the native,” which seems to be fashionable in some quarters. It seems to be a mere obiter dictum on his part—perhaps unthinkingly adopted from others—for he brings no arguments in support of his view, beyond remarking that Islam suits the African much better, as it does not interfere with his freedom. But some excuse may be found for those who hold that view in the erroneous conceptions of Christianity which have prompted various mistakes on the part of missionaries. It is quite true that such or such a system of complicated doctrinal belief, the product of long ages and a special environment, may not suit the African. It is also true that, if Christianity means Europeanisation—if it means that the African is to be made over into a bad imitation of an Englishman or German—it is impossible that it should gain any real hold on him. But it is no exaggeration to say that no people on earth are more capable—many are not so capable—of appreciating and acting on the spirit of the Gospel, of simple love and trust in the Eternal Goodness and goodwill towards their fellow-men.
The question is a wide one, which cannot be fully discussed within these limits. Missionaries have often made mistakes and acted injudiciously; they have in some cases done serious harm, not from failure to act up to their principles, but from error in those very principles and a fatal fidelity to them. They may have interfered between chiefs and people, and broken down customs better left alone, or may unwittingly have encouraged the wrong sort of converts by welcoming all and sundry, including fugitives from justice or people discontented with their home surroundings for reasons quite unconnected with high spiritual aspirations. Or again, they may incur blame for the deficiencies of alleged converts who, after honouring the mission with their presence for a time, depart (usually under a cloud) and victimise the first European who can be induced to employ them.
But there is another side to the matter. A man—whether consciously a follower of the Nietzschean doctrine or not—who thinks that “the lower races” exist to supply him with labour on his own terms, is naturally impatient of a religion which upholds the claims of the weak, and recognizes the status of man as man. Hinc illæ lacrymæ, in a good many cases. Honestly, I do not think this is Dr. Weule’s view. But I cannot quite get rid of the suspicion that he was repeating what he had heard from a planter, and that it was, in strict accuracy, the planter’s convenience, and not the native, that Christianity failed to “suit.” Anyone who has read a certain pamphlet by Dr. Oetker, or Herr von St. Paul Illaire’s Caveant Consules, or Herr Woldemar Schütze’s Schwarz gegen Weiss will not think this remark too strong.
It would be deplorable, indeed, if those writers had to be taken as typifying the spirit of German colonial administration in Africa, or indeed anywhere else. But I do not think we have any right to suppose that this is so. There has been, I think, too much militarism—and very brutal militarism, in some cases—in that administration; but this is an evil which appears to be diminishing. There is a tendency, perhaps, to worry the native with over-minute government regulations, which, no doubt, will as time goes on be corrected by experience. And there is no lack of humane and able rulers who bring to their task the same conscientious, patient labour which their countrymen have bestowed on scientific research; who are trained for their posts with admirable care and thoroughness, and grudge no amount of trouble to understand and do justice to the people under their care. They shall in no wise lose their reward.
A. WERNER.