The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

“Well, Mr. Milligan, why you nebber get wife? You no have money for buy her? or she done lef’ you and run ’way wid odder man?”

In reply to these frequent queries, I gave so many answers that I have almost forgotten which was the right one.

Iguwi was the only African I have ever known who was not a marrying man. I have known other single men among them, but they were either busy laying plans to run away with some other man’s wife, or were working day and night and stealing, according to opportunity, to obtain sufficient dowry.

Iguwi was extremely bashful; and in this also he was an exception to his race. On one occasion, an elder of the church and his wife, intimate friends of Iguwi, invited him to a chicken breakfast. They lived beside him and he passed their house several times a day. Nevertheless, he replied in a letter that he hoped they would excuse him on account of his bashfulness; but that he would be very grateful if they would send him his portion of the chicken. Iguwi was born in slavery, and as he became educated and somewhat cultivated he was very sensitive in regard to his birth. This indeed may account largely for his bashfulness.

But quite as prominent as Iguwi’s bashfulness and quaint eccentricities was his transparent sincerity and goodness. His religion had not the African tendency to exhaust itself in mental transports. The poor always had a friend in him. I have had to remonstrate with him for giving away all that he had. On one occasion, he came to me and asked the monthly payment of his salary in advance. I expressed surprise at his need of it, seeing that only a few days before I had paid him for the past month. But I found afterwards that he had expended the whole mouth’s payment in helping a poor widow to repair her house. She was not in any way related to him; and she had relations who were able to help her; but she had a sharp tongue and had turned them away from her, and when poverty and distress came there was none to help her. The most degraded of the heathen believed in Iguwi and would never have doubted his honesty or truth. In this sense, indeed, he was a “living epistle” of Christ which all could read and which none misunderstood. For so gentle a spirit he had a set of categories that were especially drastic. On one occasion, when I asked him how many persons had attended his village prayer-meeting, he replied: “Fifteen Christians and six sinners.” The attendance on the preceding Sunday was “ninety Christians and twenty-five sinners.”

Iguwi was a remarkably good preacher. He had been taught in the mission school at Baraka in the old days when English was still permitted, but at best he received there only the equivalent of a primary-school education. After he decided to study for the ministry he received further training in a theological class. It was a mystery to me how a man so bashful and diffident had ever chosen the ministry for a profession. But when Iguwi stood on the platform his diffidence disappeared entirely and his speech was perfectly free and courageous. The people all enjoyed his preaching and were helped by it. He was so absent-minded, however, in regard to his dress, that a committee should have been appointed to look him over before he went into the pulpit, in order to see that nothing essential had been omitted, and that his clothes were fastened on him securely. A perpetual problem to the native mind is how to get clothes to stay on without buttons—a problem of which polite African society anxiously awaits the solution. Even with buttons, the imported garments of civilization are still uncertain, when worn by those who are not to the manner born. Sometimes, as if by a sudden act of disenchantment, the buttons simultaneously unfasten, strings untie and clothes fall off. Iguwi’s trousers were supported by a red sash, which often got loose and began to unwind slowly as he preached. When the loose end of the sash touched the floor, it was a question as to what the climax of the sermon would be. I finally advised him either to preach shorter sermons or wear a longer sash.

Iguwi’s sermons were thoughtful and spiritual. It was strange how so unpractical a man could preach such practical sermons. They must have come to him by intuition rather than by any exercise of judgment. It was also indicative of a remarkable intellect that a man without any library, who had read only a few books that he had borrowed from missionaries, could preach sermons that were always well constructed and thoughtful. I happen to recall an outline which he submitted to me one day on the text, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” His three main points were: First, The Spirit leads to the cross of Christ; second, He leads to moral conflict (Iguwi probably said to “war”); third, He leads to victory.

When I was leaving Africa, I gladdened Iguwi’s heart with a set of Matthew Henry’s commentaries—which more than doubled his library. The quaintness, the homely simplicity and spirituality of Matthew Henry were not unlike Iguwi himself.

I have said that outside the pulpit Iguwi, with all his goodness, was utterly unpractical. Often, indeed, he seemed to lack common sense. I once gave him a book to read in which the writer, by way of illustrating the evanescence of human glory, referred to the gorgeous palace of ice which was built by Catherine of Russia, and so soon dissolved beneath the sun. Iguwi had heard of ice and knew very well what it was, but being unfamiliar with its resources of illustration he was deeply impressed. While he was still reading this book, one night in prayer-meeting he offered a prayer in which I, who did not understand the Mpongwe language, was suddenly startled by the English words, ice, palace, Catherine, Russia.

Even if the congregation had known English the illustration would still have been unintelligible to them. For aught they knew Russia might be the name of an African tribe, or a river in America, and they were as ignorant of the other words; and since those four words comprised the whole illustration, the force and beauty of it must have been somewhat lost upon them. It occurred to me at the time that a library, instead of being a help to Iguwi, would probably have spoiled his preaching.