West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

The mission here is the United Presbyterian Mission of Scotland,[92] and a great deal of good has been done by it for these people, and is being done now, and great hopes are expected from their industrial mission, started only a few years ago, therefore, it would be unfair to make further comment on the latter; it is a step in the right direction.

Some of the missionaries to Old Calabar have put in about forty years of active service, most of it passed on the coast. Amongst others who have lived to a great age in this mission should be mentioned the Rev. Mr. Anderson, who lived to the advanced age of between eighty and ninety years, greatly respected by both the European and native population. Amongst the lady missionaries the name of Miss Slessor stands out very prominently, and, considering the task she has set herself, viz., the saving of twin children and protection of their mothers, her success has been marvellous, for the Calabarese is, like his neighbours, still a great believer in the custom that says twin children are not to be allowed to live. This lady has passed about twenty years in Old Calabar, a greater part of the last ten years all alone at Okÿon, a district which the people of Duke Town and the surrounding towns preferred not to visit, if they could manage any business they had with the people of Okÿon without going amongst them. Many of these old customs will now be much more quickly stamped out than in the past, owing to the fact that it is in the power of the Consul-General to punish the natives severely who practise them. The preaching and exhortation of the missionaries to the people in the past was met by the very powerful argument, in a native’s mind, that “it was a custom his father had kept from time immemorial, and he did not see why he should not continue it,” the Ju-Ju priests being clever enough to point out to the natives that, though the missionaries preached against Ju-Juism, they could not punish its votaries. But that is all changed now, and even the Ju-Ju priests begin to feel that the power of the Consul-General is much greater than that of their grinning idols and trickery.

Though these people have been in communication with Europeans for at least two centuries, and under British influence for upwards of sixty years, and a mission has been established in their principal town for the best part of fifty years, it was a common thing to see human flesh offered for sale in the market within a very few years of the establishment of the British Protectorate.

In judging the result of missionary effort in this river, or, in fact, any other part of Western Africa, one is apt to exclaim, “What poor results for so much expenditure in lives and money!” The cause is not far to seek if one knows the native, and has sufficiently studied his ways and customs as to be able to understand or read what is working in his brain.

The upper or dominant classes, consisting of the kings, the chiefs, the petty chiefs and the trade boys (the latter being the traders sent into the far distant markets to buy the produce for their masters, and it is from this class that many of the chiefs in most of these rivers spring) are all, to a man, working either openly or secretly against the missionaries. Even when they have become converts and communicants, in very many cases they are as much an opponent as ever of the missionary. I can fancy I see some enthusiastic missionary jumping up with indignation depicted in every feature to tell me I am not telling the truth about his particular converts. Well, as I expect to be called a liar, I have taken care to admit that a very few converts are not opposed to the missionary, in order that I may say to any missionary that particularly wishes to wipe the floor with me that perchance his special converts are included in the minority that is represented by the very few cases where the convert is wholly and solely for the mission.

What are the causes that lead these people to work against the missions? First and foremost is Ju-Ju and its multifarious ramifications, consisting of Ju-Ju priests of the district, the Ju-Ju priests of the surrounding country, and the travelling Ju-Ju men, described by the natives as witch doctors, who keep up a communication of ideas and thought from end to end of the pagan countries of West and South-West Africa.

Secondly, not only is the teaching of Christianity opposed to Ju-Juism, but it is also opposed to the whole fabric of native customs other than Ju-Juism. Polygamy, for example, is an actual necessity, according to native custom, thus a wife after the birth of an infant retires from the companionship of her husband and devotes herself for the following two years to the cares of nursing. Then, again, at certain times, according to native custom, a woman is not allowed to prepare food that has to be eaten by others than herself. This would place the man with only one wife in a peculiar position, as it is a general custom in all these rivers, from the kings downwards, to have their food cooked by one of their wives. This custom arises from the fact that poisoning is known to be very much practised amongst all the Pagan tribes, and experience has taught the men that their greatest safety lies in the faithfulness of their wives, for the wives are aware that they have all to lose and nothing to gain by the death of their husbands.

Many people who have visited Western Africa will say that the reports of secret poisoning on the coast are travellers’ yarns; but to refute that I will here describe a custom met with still in many places on the coast, and invariably practised amongst all natives in the purely native towns in the immediate vicinity of the coast towns. Even the coast towns people practise it still in every case amongst themselves and in some cases with the Europeans. Of course, I don’t say that the educated negro or coloured missionary will do it with Europeans, but many of the educated natives will do it with the uneducated native, and this custom is that your native host will never offer you food or drink without first tasting it to show you it is not poisoned. While I am on this topic, let me give any would-be travellers amongst the Pagans a bit of advice. Once they strike in amongst the purely native, always follow this custom; it will do no harm and may save them from unpleasant experiences.

Thirdly, the native instinct of self-preservation is as much the first law of nature to the negro as it is to the rest of mankind. At first sight it might be said, “Where is the link between self-preservation and missionary effort, and how comes it to work against the missions?” I will try to explain this point as clearly as possible.

Naturally the first people the missionary came in contact with were the coast tribes. These people, in almost if not every case, are non-producers, being simply the brokers between the white man and the interior; in not a few cases behind the coast tribes are other tribes who are again non-producers and are the brokers of the coast brokers, or make the coast brokers pay a tribute to them for passing through their country. No place so well illustrated this system as the trade on the lower Niger as it used to be conducted by the Brass, New Calabar and Bonny men. Previous to the advent of the Royal Niger Company in that river, these people paid a small tribute to perhaps a dozen different towns on their way up to Abo on the Niger—some of the Brass men used even to get as far as Onicha or Onitsha. Now that the Royal Niger Company is trading on the Niger, none of these people can go to the Niger to trade. Well, there you have one of the great objections to mission effort. Each of these small tribes who were non-producers have lost the tribute they used to exact from the Brass, Bonny and New Calabar native brokers, therefore all the non-producers are averse to the white man passing beyond them, be he missionary or trader. Of course, the greatest objectors to the white man penetrating into the interior are the coast middlemen, for it strikes at once at the source of all their riches, all the grandeur of their chieftainship, and for the rising generation all hope of their ever arriving to be a chief like their father or their masters, and have a large retinue of slaves, for the favourite slaves are in no way anxious to see slavery abolished, because with its abolition they only foresee ruin to their ambitious views.