Thus they sang and danced round till towards morning, when I made them go to sleep.
Next morning there was great quarrelling among my men. What could be the matter? I found that Niamkala was declaring his determination to have the end of my leopard's tail, while the rest of the hunters asserted their equal right to it. Aboko said he did not care, as he would have the tail of the one he had killed.
I skinned the two leopards in the most careful manner, and gave the end of the tail to Niamkala, and I promised Fasiko to give him the tail of the next one I should kill. They all shouted, "I hope you will kill leopards enough to give to each of us a tail!"
Poor Fasiko looked very down-hearted. When I inquired why, he said, "Don't you know that when a man has the end of a leopard's tail in his possession he is sure to be fortunate in winning the heart of the girl he wants to marry?"
I said, "Fasiko, you have one wife, what do you care for a leopard's tail?"
He replied, "I want a good many wives."
The palaver about the tail was hardly over when another quarrel broke out. This time it was about the brains. Aboko, Niamkala, and Fasiko each wanted the whole brain of the animal. The others said they must have some too; that there was only one end to each tail, but that the brains could be divided among them all. For a few minutes a fight seemed imminent over the head of the leopard.
I said, "You may quarrel, but no fighting. If you do you will see me in the fight; and I will hit everybody, and hit hard too." At the same time I pointed out to them a large stick lying by my bedside. This immediately stopped them.
They all wanted the brain, they said, because, when mixed with some other charms, it makes a powerful monda (fetiche), which gives its possessors dauntless courage and great fortune in the hunt. Happily, I was able to persuade my three best hunters that they wanted no such means to bolster up their courage.
The dispute over the brains being settled, Aboko, in the presence of all the men, laid the liver before me. As this had no value or interest for me, since I was certainly not going to eat the liver of the leopard for my dinner, I was about to kick it aside, when they stopped me, and entreated me to take off the gall and destroy it, in order to save the party from future trouble. These negroes believe the gall of the leopard to be deadly poison, and my men feared to be suspected by their friends or enemies at Sangatanga of having concealed some of this poison. So I took off the gall, put it under my feet and destroyed it, and then, taking the earth in which it had been spilled, I threw it in every direction, for I did not want any of these poor fellows to be accused of a crime, and lose their lives by it. I intended to inform the king, on my return, that we had destroyed the liver. But I told my men that their belief was all nonsense, and a mere superstition. They said it was not. As I could not prove their notion to be false, I stopped the discussion by saying I did not believe it.