Assuming the birth to take place at home, and in her own village, which, however, by no means always happens, she is taken in hand by her female friends and relations when the critical moment arrives, and as a general rule all is over in two hours or thereabouts, and the mother is frequently up and about again an hour or so later. They are as a rule, skilful and careful midwives, with two exceptions. The umbilical cord is nearly always severed in an exceedingly primitive, not to say rough and ready, fashion, leaving a disfiguring protuberance, which in after life, amongst peoples who almost invariably go nude, or nearly so, is unpleasantly noticeable. The other exception has to do with the observance of a proper degree of cleanliness on the part of the mother, and those attendant on her, which is largely lacking. On the other hand, the new-born baby is always well looked after, being given a warm bath directly after it first enters the world, and otherwise carefully tended.
When, as not infrequently happens, the birth takes place while the woman is on a journey, or at work in the fields, the mother does not allow the incident to unduly distress her. She is quite capable of looking after herself in her "trouble," and does so, much as do the wild bush animals amongst whom she lives, and from whom she has learnt and adopted many practices. In such an eventuality she simply rests for an hour or two, or perhaps three at the outside, then wraps the baby in her lavelap, bunches it in a heap behind her back between the shoulders, and goes on with her work or resumes her journey, as though nothing untoward had happened. Nor does she appear to suffer any after ill-effects; although that is not to say that they do not result. And this is where white women in Africa might do a lot of good on lines similar to those achieved by the Zenana missions in India; teaching the native mothers, that is to say, the importance of personal hygiene at this critical time, of obstetric cleanliness; and likewise impressing upon native husbands—this is vital—the necessity of permitting women with new-born babies to be released for a time from their hard domestic duties.
The native mother suckles her child for from three to four years, during which time she separates herself entirely from her husband, who has, almost perforce, to take to himself another wife, assuming him to be still a monogamist. One reason for this custom, no doubt, is that the ordinary native food is not sufficiently sustaining for a very young child, or rather it cannot assimilate enough of it, because its little stomach is not big enough to hold a sufficient quantity. The poor little mite does its best, and is assisted thereto by its mother, who practises regularly upon it a system of forcible feeding of so drastic and unpleasant a nature as would, I should imagine, quickly break down the resolution of even the most stubborn of suffragettes.
The thick millet gruel, or thin porridge, called fu-fu, which is the staple diet of the Togoland negro, is simply poured and crammed down its little throat whenever feeding-time comes round, giving rise to the peculiar pot-bellied appearance so noticeable in all native children. One result of this lengthy suckling, coupled with an insufficiency of any other sort of nourishing food, is a very high rate of infantile mortality. The mother gets careless as time goes on, does not properly attend to the cleanliness of her nipples, is guilty herself of all sorts of imprudences of diet, with the result that the youngster sickens and dies.
The negro baby at birth is not black. It is either white, or of a very light yellowish colour; but this gradually darkens, until by the time it is a month old, it has assumed a chocolate tint, which afterwards deepens rapidly to the ordinary jet-black of the full-blooded negro. Another peculiarity I noticed, in the new-born native baby, is its long, straight hair. This, however, rapidly falls out, to be replaced in due course by the well-known thick woolly thatch that does duty for hair on the cranium of the African adult native.
African children learn to walk at a later age than do European children. This is probably due to the fact that they have, comparatively speaking, very little practice. As soon as the youngster is born it is taken to the local ju-ju man, who bestows upon it, for a consideration, certain charms, or fetishes—a small piece of bone, a fragment of wood, or a bit of glass, say. These are carefully placed in the middle of different-sized strings of beads, which are then made into bracelets for its wrists, into anklets for its legs, and into a waist-belt. So long as it wears these, which it does constantly, it is supposed to be secure from the influence of the evil eye. But in order to make assurance doubly sure, the mother rarely lets the little one out of her sight. She carries it about with her constantly on her back, shrouded in her lavelap, from the folds of which, in the case of a very young child, not even the head protrudes. This method of carrying the child is rendered easier, owing to the fact that all native women wear round their waists big bead belts, drawn quite tight with a view to making their hips look larger and more prominent; a greatly admired feature. Into these belts the lower edge of the head lavelap is tucked, affording a comfortable support to baby.
As soon as it does begin to toddle, however, it is, assuming it to be a girl, given a tiny calabash, and taught to balance it, filled with water, upon its little head. From now on it becomes a useful unit in the tribal, or village, organisation. It accompanies its mother regularly to the river when she goes with the other women to get water; is taught to sweep out the hut with a little broom, to prepare fu-fu, is taken into the forest and instructed what herbs and wild vegetables are good for food, and which must be avoided. In short, the child is trained in the ordinary domestic and other duties that fall to the lot of the average native woman.
At about the age of ten or twelve, assuming her parents are able to afford the expense, the little girl undergoes an extraordinary ordeal, generally referred to euphemistically as being "sent into the bush." This means that she quits her home and her parents, and is placed in charge of a fetish woman, who leads her away to a hut, or rather a collection of huts, in the forest, far from the habitations of men. Here is a very important personage, a "mammy," generally referred to as the "Women's Queen," and under her care and tuition, and that of her assistant fetish women, the little girl remains for a period varying from two to five or six months, or even longer.
During this period she receives instruction in the art and practice of midwifery, and has to undergo the painful, and to our minds revolting, operation of introcision, corresponding to the rite of circumcision, to which her brothers, if she has any, are called upon to submit themselves at about the same age. This much is known; but what other practices are carried on in these women's fetish groves cannot be told. No man may approach anywhere near any of them under penalty of instant death, and the women's lips are sealed regarding them. Even to their husbands, it is said, they dare not speak concerning them, nor to any uninitiated women. I made several attempts to get them to tell me personally something concerning the matter, but without result. At Atakpame I made the acquaintance of one of these "women's queens," a charming old pagan, rejoicing in the very Christianlike name of Maria. She bore herself with the dignity of the abbess of a cloister, as indeed in a sense she was, and she had the smallest and most beautifully formed hands, wrists, and ankles I ever beheld in a negress. She was most affable and courteous, and I tried hard to get her to tell me something of herself and her work. Beyond, however, telling me that her high office was hereditary, her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother having held it before her, and that she "taught the girls for their good," she would vouchsafe me no information whatever.
One thing, however, is certain; the woman who, either owing to the poverty of her parents or from any cause, has not been "sent into the bush" as a girl, is looked down upon as an inferior by all the other women of her tribe. So much is this so, that women of twenty, or even thirty years of age, who have been long married, and perhaps borne two or three children, are not infrequently handed over to the fetish women by their husbands, who themselves pay the initiation fees, in order that the stigma may be removed from them.