The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The Fang is a resourceful man, though he has no genius for mechanical invention. He wrests from nature all that he needs and does not depend upon his neighbour.

He lives in a house of bark or bamboo with a roof of thatch, for which he gathers the materials, and builds it all himself. In his primitive condition his only clothing is bark-cloth which he skillfully hammers out of fibrous bark. With the fibre of the pineapple, he weaves a powder-pouch, or other similar convenience. He makes himself an excellent canoe and is scarcely surpassed as an expert in its management. He is also a fisherman; and he knits his own fish-net. For the latter he now uses imported string; but without the imported string he could use some vegetable fibre. If he wishes to improve his primitive bed of poles he makes a grass mat. An old woman one day taught me the art of mat-making. I sat beside her at the loom, in the street, and worked under her supervision until she declared me quite proficient—so much so, she said with some anxiety, that there was no need of my doing any more. The African’s knowledge, too, however meagre, is as varied as his skill. As he becomes civilized he will specialize. There will be division of labour in the community and mutual dependence upon one another. No doubt he will gain much; but he will also lose something, he will lose in resourcefulness; he will lose something of freedom and the spirit of independence. And unless he gain much in that which is moral and spiritual, his loss will be a misfortune wholly grievous.

I venture the statement that the African is not lazy—at least not very lazy. He is idle not so much because he hates work, but rather because he is unambitious and the unfortunate victim of a habit of content. He will not work for the sake of working, because, unlike the white man, he can be supremely content in idleness. But offer him something that he really desires or deems worth while and he will work amazingly. There are only one or two things that the African will work for; that is to say there are only one or two things that he wants.

He will work to earn a dowry in order to marry; especially if he has in mind some particular woman as the prospective wife. Month after month he will labour and even for a year or two he will engage in the hardest work. But just as the white master is about to reverse his opinion of the whole black race and proclaim that they are the greatest workers in the world the man completes the amount of the dowry, and immediately he quits. No inducement will tempt him to continue. To offer him double wages would only lower his estimate of your intelligence. He will work for an end that he desires; but the ordinary motives of the white man do not appeal to him at all. He will never work for the mere sake of accumulating wealth.

The men do all the building, and when a new garden is made the men cut down the trees. Their hardest work is incident to war or hunting, but it is occasional, and most of their time is spent in absolute idleness. The regular work is done by the women. It is chiefly that of caring for the gardens (which are sometimes far from the town), carrying home the produce, gathering wood and carrying it from the forest, and cooking the food. They rise at daylight and start for the gardens, leaving the care of the babies to older children or to their husbands. I have seen the husband of six wives taking care of several hungry babies whose mothers have been long in the gardens; and it seemed to me that he, rather than the wives, had the heavier end of the domestic responsibilities.

There is one other instinct besides that of matrimony that will stir the dormant energy of the native, and that is the love of driving a bargain. He is a born trader. But if prices, however high, should become hopelessly fixed, and shrewdness have no advantage, I am not sure that he would care any more for the trade.

Wherever a foreign government has not interfered with African custom the produce of the interior, chiefly rubber and ivory, is carried from the far interior, in brief stages, by successive caravans. The original owners of the ivory start coastward in a company. Beyond a certain limit they cannot go, as the people will not allow them to pass. They must give over the ivory to others who will carry it over the next stage and in turn deliver it to others. There may be five or six stages in the journey to the coast. The first company when they deliver the produce to the next do not return home but remain in the town of the second company until their return, often assuming their marital relations in their absence. The second company does the same in regard to the third, and the others likewise. Since the goods received in payment must come from the coast, no bargain is made until the return journey. The last company carries the ivory to the coast and obtains goods in payment, returning to their town, where the preceding company is waiting. Then follows a great palaver and oceans of oratory. The company in possession seek to keep as large a portion as possible of the goods and to give as little as possible to the interior people. The palaver at last being settled, this company starts for home and again, after an exciting palaver, divides the goods with the next company, whom they find still waiting for them. This is repeated with each successive stage until at last the original owners, after weeks of waiting, get a small remainder of the goods, or at least a souvenir, for their ivory. The principal satisfaction is perhaps not the actual amount of the goods, but the big palaver, and the driving of a shrewd bargain.

With the establishment of the European government this trade method is sooner or later reversed. The white trader sends native sub-traders into the interior to buy produce as directly as possible from the original owners. This cuts off the people of the intermediate stages from what they regard as their exclusive right of participation as middlemen. The dissatisfaction usually grows until it ends in war. Germany in her various colonies is frequently engaged in this one-sided war; and she wages it ruthlessly.

Meantime the Fang of the lower Gaboon and some other tribes similarly situated have found far better employment. The Fang raise food—cassava and plantains—for the market at Libreville. For there are usually about seventy-five white men in Gaboon, all of whom eat plantains; and there are throngs of natives, servants of the white men, and others employed by the government. Besides, the Mpongwe women, except the Christians, are mostly unwilling to care for gardens and they must buy food for themselves and their families. The Fang therefore can easily sell all the food they can raise. In the morning looking from the mission-house one may see the bay covered with white sails like a flock of sea-gulls—the sails of the Fang canoes bringing food to the market. This is surely the best fortune that can fall to any people in West Africa. While it still gives opportunity for their trade instinct, it turns them to agriculture, the most wholesome of all occupations for such a people. It keeps them at home, provides healthful work, extends opportunity to all and distributes prosperity.