At one time a man named Ndinga was working for me. He was a faithful workman, except for one inexplicable fault. Occasionally he would stay away half a day or the entire day without asking to be excused, or notifying me. Several times he did this when I was about to make a trip up the river, and was depending upon him to make one of the crew. At length I dismissed him and he departed without explanation or complaint. But one of the other men came to me and told me Ndinga’s plight. He was really the slave of an Mpongwe chief, right under the eyes of the government. The master allowed him to work for himself, but I imagine he took part of his wages. He also exercised the right to call upon him at any time for personal services, and each time that he had stayed away from his work he had been called by the master, who ignored my claim upon Ndinga and the consequent inconvenience to me, though he claimed to be my personal friend. Ndinga was sufficiently civilized to feel the degradation of his position, and the poor fellow submitted to rebuke and final dismissal rather than tell me he was a slave. I learned also that he had lost several other positions in the same way and had usually been dismissed with cursing and abuse. I sent for him immediately, and without explanation told him that I had changed my mind and that he could return to work. Meantime, I called the master, and reminding him that slavery was strictly forbidden, I told him that if he should again call Ndinga away from work I would notify the government. There was no further trouble.
This man, Ndinga, was in pitiable need of a friend. It is extremely easy for a slave to get a bad reputation, and Ndinga was said to be a “leopard-man,” that is, a man who changes himself into a leopard—either in order to kill an enemy or devour a sheep. I have heard Ndinga accused of this frequently; and there were many who regarded him with great fear. Every hysterical woman who thought that she saw a leopard was ready to swear that it was Ndinga. If the leopards had been active in the community at that time all their doings would have been charged against him.
The Mpongwe women are regarded as the best-looking and most graceful women on the entire coast. Wherever there are communities of white men, even hundreds of miles north and south of Gaboon, there are Mpongwe women; for it is with them more than the women of any other tribe that white men form temporary alliances.
The Gaboon belle has a brown complexion and faultless skin, fine features and dreamy dark eyes with long lashes. She moves so easily that she carries her folded parasol, or bottle of gin, or other indispensable, on her head. She dresses her hair neatly and with great pains; usually parting it in the middle and arranging it in numerous small braids which she fastens behind. Her dress is a large square robe of bright colours, often of fine material, wound around her, immediately below her arms, reaching to her feet and kept in place by a roll around the top of it—a peculiar twist of leger de main which only a black hand can perform. Somewhere in this roll her pipe is usually hidden away. This dress leaves her graceful shoulders and arms uncovered. She wears slippers with white stockings, and upon her head a very large silk handkerchief of bright colour, beautifully arranged in a turban. Add to this a lace or silk scarf thrown over one shoulder, not forgetting her silk parasol carried unopened on her head; then add a lot of jewelry and plenty of perfume, and her attire is complete. Moreover, she has a soft voice, and does not yell except when she quarrels, and she seldom quarrels when she is dressed in her best. Most of the Christian women wear an unbelted wrapper, or Mother Hubbard.
The Mpongwe people are peculiarly gentle, and courteous in their manners; and in this respect the men even surpass the women. Travelling in a boat with an Mpongwe crew, one is always surprised at their courtesy and thoughtful consideration. Courtesy, indeed, which some one calls “benevolence in little things,” is a racial characteristic. I was once obliged to make a very hard journey from Batanga to Benito, a hundred miles down the coast. For this purpose I purchased a bicycle in a German trading-house at Dualla, the capital of Kamerun. The bicycle weighed fifty pounds, and cost me a dollar a pound. I did not realize what I was undertaking. The sea-breeze was against me; portions of the beach were of soft sand and parts of it were so rough and rocky that I had to climb steep banks and stretches of rock, carrying the fifty-pound wheel on my shoulders. I had been long in Africa and my strength was greatly reduced. Several times, almost overcome with exhaustion, I threw myself down upon the beach and lay there for half an hour before I could go on. There were various misadventures along the way and a sensational escape from quicksand. It was an opportunity, however, to test the kindness of the native.
I took no food, but depended upon the hospitality of those to whom I was a stranger; although if hospitality had failed, I could have paid for food; but not once did it fail along the way. Wherever there was a stream to be waded, if a native was anywhere in sight, either on the beach, or fishing out on the sea, in his canoe, I called or beckoned to him, and he came and carried me over—for a white man must not get wet when he is exposed to the wind; then he went back and got my wheel. In one place the water was to the man’s shoulders, and there was a current, but he held me in a horizontal position above his head, and exerting his whole strength, with firm, slow step he proceeded, and set me down dry on the other side. Then he cheerfully turned about and went after my wheel. In another place heavy crags projected into the sea and at high tide there was no beach for a quarter of a mile, so that I was compelled to carry the wheel. At this place, I met a native carrying a load who was evidently returning from a journey to the interior; and upon my request for help, he at once hid his load by the way and taking my wheel carried it over the rocks, nearly all this distance, to the better beach beyond. In every case I told the man beforehand that I did not expect to pay him for his service except in friendship, and friendship sufficed. Nor did I pay anything for my food; and not once on the entire journey had I the least difficulty in procuring it. Some of these people were of other tribes; but in courtesy the Mpongwe surpass them all.
They generally live at peace within the family and the village. The men, at least, rarely fight. Whenever I heard that an Mpongwe fight was in progress, I rushed to the scene; but I must confess to mixed motives. For a fight among Mpongwe men is decidedly picturesque and entertaining, since they fight by butting each other in the stomach with their heads. The women are much more quarrelsome, and these very belles, whose beauty I have praised, have frequent quarrels and occasional fights, the latter usually involving a number of women; for though the quarrel commences with two women, when it gets to a real fight the family and relations of each woman take part in it. From this moment it proceeds somewhat formally. They line up on two sides, and with a lively accompaniment of appropriate language, they rush upon each other, not usually striking, nor scratching, but each woman seeking to tear off her opponent’s robe. I witnessed such a fight in which eighteen women engaged. A woman, when her robe is taken off, admits defeat. For this reason, instead of preparing for a fight by donning her oldest clothes, she prepares by putting on her newest and strongest, which she doubles and ties about her waist, letting it fall to her knees, but she wears no upper garment.
There is a strange war-custom in all the tribes of West Africa unlike anything I have ever heard of elsewhere. Sometimes when one of their number is killed, or a woman stolen by an enemy, instead of avenging his death directly they will kill some one of a third town which has nothing whatever to do with the palaver. This third town is then expected to join with them in punishing the first town, which, being the original offender, was the cause of all the trouble. In The Jungle Folk of Africa I have described this custom thus:
“Among the Mpongwe, in the old days before the foreign power was established, and among the closely related tribes south of them, this custom prevailed in an extreme form. A woman being stolen, the people of the offended town would hurry to another town near by, before the news had reached them, and would kill somebody. This town would then hurry to the next and kill somebody there, each town doing likewise until perhaps five or six persons of as many different towns would be killed in one night. The last town would then, with the help of the others, demand justice from the first. It may be that the object of this frightful custom was to restrain men from committing the initial crime, that might be attended with such wide-spread death, bringing upon themselves the curses of many people. For above all things the African cannot bear to be disliked and cannot endure execration.”
The Mpongwe now have no war-customs. And I am not sure that peace has proved an unmixed blessing. They have lost something of courage and virility.