Before you is a picture of two Fan blacksmiths. Look at the curious bellows they have. It is made of two short, hollow cylinders of wood, surmounted by skins, very well fitted on, and having an appropriate valve for letting in the air. As you see, the bellows-blower is on his knees, moving down these coverings with great rapidity. There are two small wooden pipes, connected with two iron tubes which go into the fire.
The anvil, as you see in the picture, is a solid piece of iron. The sharp end is stuck into the ground; and the blacksmith sits alongside his anvil, and beats his iron with a singular-looking hammer, clumsy in form, and with no handle; in fact it is merely made of a heavy piece of iron.
The blacksmiths sometimes spend many days in making a battle-axe, knife or spear. They make, also, their own cooking utensils and water-jugs. These are of the shape you see in the picture before you. They also make their own pipes, for they are great smokers. Some of their pipes are not at all ungraceful in shape.
Besides the water-jug, they frequently use the calabash, as a vessel to carry water in; and some of their calabashes are really pretty, and very nicely ornamented. Some of the spoons, with which they eat their human broth, are very beautiful. They are made of various woods, and sometimes of ivory.
It is quite sickening to think what horrible people these Fans are! Such inveterate cannibals are they, that they even eat the poor wretches who die of disease. As I was talking to the king one day, some Fans brought in a dead body, which they had bought or bartered for, in a neighbouring town, and which was to be divided among them. I could see that the man had died of some disease; for the body was very lean. They came round it with their knives; and Ndiayai left me to superintend the distribution. I could not stand this; and when I saw them getting ready, I left the spot, and went to my hut. Afterwards, I could hear them growing noisy over the division of their horrid spoil.
In fact, the Fans seem to be perfect ghouls. Those who live far in the interior practise unblushingly their horrid custom of eating human flesh. It appears they do not eat the dead of their own family, but sell the corpse to some other clan, or make an agreement that when one of their number dies they will return the body in exchange.
Until I saw these things I could not believe a story I had often heard related among the Mpongwe tribe, which is as follows: A party of Fans once came down to the seashore to view the ocean. While there, they actually stole a freshly-buried body from the cemetery, and cooked and ate it. Another body was taken by them and conveyed into the woods, where they cut it up, and smoked the flesh. These acts created a great excitement among the Mpongwes.
But you must not think that the Fans are continually eating human flesh. They eat it when they can get it, but not every day. They kill no one on purpose to be eaten.
One day Ndiayai took me to an Osheba town, the king of which tribe was his friend; and let me tell you that the Oshebas were also great man-eaters, like the Fans, whom they greatly resemble in appearance. The chief of that Osheba village was called Bienbakay.
The Fans are the handsomest and most resolute-looking set of negroes I have ever seen in the interior. Eating human flesh does not seem to disagree with them, though I have since seen other Fan tribes whose men had not the fine appearance of these mountaineers. Here, as everywhere else, the character of the country doubtless has much to do with the matter of bodily health and growth. These cannibals were living among the mountains, and had come from still higher mountain regions, and this accounts for their being so robust and hardy.