The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

But it was not long after this that they found the house unguarded one morning just at daylight when I was alone at Efulen. I was awake but not yet ready to rise when I heard a low, rustling sound upon the floor of my room. After a few minutes, observing that it was becoming more distinct, I drew back my mosquito-net and looked out. Almost the entire floor was black with the drivers, and they were close to the bed. From the foot of the bed towards the door it was still possible for me to escape by a good jump; and in a moment I found myself shivering out in the yard while my clothes were still in the house.

One day, as Dr. Good and I were entering a native village, Dr. Good walked through some stray drivers. He began to preach to the people, who as it happened were already gathered in the street where they had been taking a palaver. Before he had been preaching more than a minute I observed that his gestures were more animated than I had ever seen before. Soon they became violent, noticeably irrelevant and even of questionable propriety. It was a little like Brer Rabbit, one evening when the mosquitoes were bad, telling the wolf about his grandfather’s spots. I looked on with increasing amazement and consternation, until at last even Dr. Good’s indomitable will was overborne, and he shouted: “Drivers!” and bolted abruptly for the bush. I tried to go on with the service, but it was almost impossible because of the laughter of the audience. Each one insisted upon telling his neighbours all about it, to the accompaniment of a broad caricature of Dr. Good’s gestures.

There was once a native man in Gaboon who was slightly deranged in his mind. The government advised, and at last insisted, that he should not be allowed at large. His family, being averse to confining him, chiefly, I imagine, because of the care it would entail upon them, sent him to a village of their relations across the river ten miles distant. There he remained for some time. The people there bound him at night lest he might set fire to the town while they slept. He objected to this and at last became troublesome by calling out continually during the night. Then they improvised a rude shelter back a short distance from the town, where they placed him at night and as usual bound him. One night he was more noisy than ever before, yelling and screaming hideously so that he wakened the people. They thought that he had become demented but no one went to him until morning, and then they made the horrible discovery that the drivers had attacked and devoured him.

In some tribes criminals are sometimes punished by being bound to the ground in the track of the drivers. One can hardly conceive of anything more horrible; for they would enter ears and eyes and nostrils. But I believe this is very rarely done. When death is decided upon, the Africans usually accomplish it by quick means.

There is another ant which I would say is worse than the driver, were it not that as yet its distribution is limited and it may be only transient. It is a very small red ant difficult to see with the naked eye except in a good light and on a white surface. It takes to dark closets, upholstered furniture, hair mattresses and those who would sleep upon them. It has not been long known in those portions of West Africa that are familiar to the white man. It has come from the southeast towards the coast. In 1900 it took possession of our mission-house at Angom, which was not occupied at that time.

It is doubtful whether this ant would be likely to infest a house when the grass around it is kept closely cut and the house well opened to the light and air; but when once infested it is not clear that these precautions would drive it out. One of Woermann’s trading-houses on the Ogowè had to be abandoned because of it.

My first experience with it was in 1900 when I visited Angom and slept in the mission-house that had been occupied only occasionally for more than a year. I was no sooner asleep than I was awakened by an extremely painful sensation, as if red-hot pepper had been sprinkled all over me. I felt no sharp bite, but only this intolerable smarting pain. It occurred to me that I might have been poisoned during the day by some violently poisonous herb in the bush or the overgrown garden; but I remained in bed never thinking that the cause of it was there. The natives told me in the morning what it was. My flesh was badly inflamed and I had fever all that day. After that I always slept in the boat, or in later years, the launch, when I visited Angom.

Among African pests there is another red ant, very small, though not so small as the last. It does not bite nor attack the person, but is nevertheless a great nuisance, particularly to housekeepers. All table food must be kept out of its way. Any food remaining on the table even an hour is covered with them. They are especially fond of sugar; and if it is left on the table or unprotected from one meal to the next, it is found a living red mass. By what powerful instinct they immediately discover the place where food is, and where they come from in such numbers, are among the mysteries that the white man will often ponder. Most of our food is imported, in tins, and once a tin is opened it is kept away from these ants by being placed in a safe suspended from the ceiling by tarred rope. The safe is a light frame of wood covered with wire screen or netting.

Besides these, there are numerous other varieties of ants, less harmful, or altogether harmless. The ground is so infested with them that neither white man nor native ever thinks of sitting down upon it, as we might sit upon the grass in this country. Altogether, more than five thousand varieties of ants have been described and classified; and most of these are found in Africa.

Among the worst of the African pests is the jigger. Those who are most sensitive to it would without doubt call it the worst of all. If the pest of the small ant travels from the interior towards the coast, this pest began at the coast and is extending towards the interior. It has evidently been imported—tradition says from Brazil, in the cargo and sand ballast of sailing vessels. The older inhabitants along the coast remember when it first became known, and I am sure that it made itself known very soon after it arrived. The jigger is a tiny species of flea, so small that the naked eye sees it with difficulty. It has all the reprehensible habits of its kind. The males hop all over one’s person in a playful manner, giving him a nip here and a nip there; but the females burrow beneath the skin. The favourite place is the feet, especially under the nails, but they are frequently found also under the finger nails and sometimes in the elbows and knees. Here the female, unless discovered and removed, forms a sac which expands to the size of a small pea, and which contains hundreds of little jiggers who soon begin to “jig” for themselves, and burrow again in the same flesh. Many of them however are scattered on the ground; those that remain keep multiplying, until if neglected the whole foot becomes a festering sore.