Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

There is one binding form of marriage that is absolutely indissoluble. If the man and woman, in the presence of witnesses, drink a drop or two of each other's blood, nothing can part them; they are bound for ever, a binding which tells more heavily upon the woman than the man, because he is always free to marry as many wives as he likes, while she is bound only to him, and whatever he does, no one, after such a ceremony, would give her shelter should she wish to leave him. All other marriages are quite easily dissolved, and very often the partings occasion but little heart-burnings on either side. The great desire of everyone is children, and once that is attained, the object of the union is accomplished, wherefore I fancy it is very seldom couples, or rather women, take the trouble to bind themselves so indissolubly. The most respectable form of marriage is for a man to take a girl and seclude her with an old woman to look after her for from five to nine months after marriage. She does no work, but gives herself up to the luxury and enjoyment of the petted, spoiled wife. Her brothers and sisters and her friends come and see her, but she does not pass outside the threshold, and being thus kept from the strong sunlight, she becomes appreciably lighter in colour, and is of course so much the more beautiful. He may take several women after this fashion, and all the marriages are equally binding, but of course this means that he must have a little money. Another kind of marriage is when the man simply gives the woman presents of cloths, and provides her with a house. It is equally binding but is not considered so respectful; there is something of the difference we see between the hasty arrangement in a registry office and the solemn ceremony at St George's, Hanover Square.

One thing is certain, that when an Awuna man asks a girl to marry him, she will most certainly say “No.” Formerly the parents were always asked, and they invariably said “No,” and then the man had to ask again and again, and to reason away their objections to him as a suitor. Now, as women are getting freer under English rule, the girl herself is asked, and she makes a practice of saying “No” at least two or three times, in order to be able to tell him afterwards she did not want him. Even after they are Christians, says Sister Minna, the women find it very hard to give up this fiction that they do not want to marry, and the girl finds it very difficult to say “Yes” in church.

She likes to pretend that she does not want the man. As a rule this is, I believe, true enough. There is no trust or love between the sexes; you never see men and women together. A woman only wants a man in order that she may have children, and one would do quite as well as another.

After marriage the woman has a free time for a little. She does not have to begin cooking her husband's meals at once, and this also holds good after the first baby is born. A man is considered by public opinion a great churl if he does not get somebody to wait on his wife and fetch her water from the well at this time. After the second baby they are not so particular, and a woman must just make her own arrangements and manage as best she may. It is a woman's pride to bear children, and to the man they are a source of wealth, for the boys must work for the father for a time at least, and the girls are always sold in marriage, for a wife costs at least five or six pounds.

With all due deference to these kindly missionaries, I cannot think that Christianity has made much progress, for these Awuna people have the reputation of being great poisoners. One of the Chief's wives offered me beer, stuff that looked and tasted like thin treacle, and she tasted it first to show me, said the Sister, that it was quite safe; but also she explained they insert a potent poison under the thumb nail, drink first to show that the draft is innocuous, and then offer the gourd to the intended victim, having just allowed the tip of the thumb nail to dip beneath the liquid.

The early morning is the correct time to do the most important things. Thus if a man wants a girl in marriage he appears at her parents' house at the uncomfortable hour of four o'clock in the morning, and asks her hand. The morning after the Chief had given me a dash, I sent Grant round early, not at four o'clock I fear, when in the Tropics it is quite dark, with a box of biscuits and two boxes of chocolates and the next morning early he sent me his ring as a sign that he had received my dash and was pleased. If by any chance they cannot come and thank you in the morning, they say, “To-morrow morning, when the cock crows, I shall thank you again.” They use rather an amusing proverb for thanking; where we should say, “I have not words to thank you,” they say, “The hen does not thank the dunghill,” because here in these villages, where they do not provide food for the fowls, the dunghill provides everything. Sister Minna once received a very large present of ducks and yams from a man, so she used this proverb in thanking him, as one he would thoroughly understand. Quick came the response, “Oh please do not say so. I am the hen, and you are the dunghill,” which does not sound very complimentary translated into English.

It was delightful staying here at the Mission House, and seeing quite a new side of African life, seeing it as it were from the inside. Every day at seven o'clock in the morning the little girls came to school, and I could hear the monotonous chant of their learning, as I sat working on the verandah. Somewhere about nine school was out and it was time for the second breakfast. The second breakfast was provided by the little markets that were held in the school grounds, where about a dozen women or young girls came with food-stuffs to sell at a farthing, or a copper, for they use either English or German money, a portion. They were rather appetising I thought, and quite a decent little breakfast could be bought for a penny. There were maize-meal balls fried in palm oil, a sort of pancake also made of maize meal and eaten with a piece of cocoa-nut, bananas, split sections of pine-apple, mangoes, little balls of boiled rice served on a plantain leaf, and pieces of the eternal stink-fish. Every woman appears to be a born trader, and I have seen a little girl coming to school with a platter on her head, on which were arranged neatly cut sections of pine-apple, She had managed to acquire a copper or two, and began her career as a trader by selling to the children for their school breakfast. She will continue that career into her married life, and till she is an old old woman past all work, when her children will look after her, for they are most dutiful children, and Christian or heathen never neglect their parents, especially their mother.