The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

In addition to such a dowry a man is required to make frequent presents to his wife’s relations, who may be expected to arrive at any time, and in any number, for an indefinite visit. If he should fail in this they will induce his wife to run away and return to her town, and it will cost him many presents and perhaps a war to get her back again.

A dowry is often kept intact so as to do service repeatedly. A man is fortunate if he have one or several sisters; for with the dowry which he procures for them he will get himself as many wives. Children are frequently betrothed to each other by their parents. A girl thus betrothed is taken to her husband’s town and raised by his mother. Little girls, even infants, are sometimes betrothed to old men. I knew of an instance where a child was betrothed before it was born, the dowry being kept intact so that it could be returned in case the child should not be a girl. The frequent betrothal of little girls is partly due to the fact that less dowry is paid for a child than for “a whole woman,” as the Fang would say.

For those who are not so fortunate as to inherit a dowry or to have a sister the proper thing is to steal a woman from some adjoining town. Most women are glad to be stolen and the affair is often an elopement. This will precipitate a war between the two towns. At least nine out of ten wars among the Fang begin this way. After several or many have been killed the “palaver” is settled by the whole town paying the dowry.

If a man have many wives it is regarded as magnanimous for him to take little notice of infidelity. Seldom, however, does he rise to this level of magnanimity and many wives mean constant palavers. In either case it means boundless immorality.

The aggrieved husband, in a case of adultery, may punish with terrible severity, if he feel so disposed. In some tribes it is punishable with death. In a tribe immediately south of the Fang the injured husband frequently cuts off the ears and even the nose of the guilty woman. In one instance that I knew of, on the Ogowè River, a man cut off his wife’s nose and lips. Among the Fang I have never seen such mutilations, but in the far interior the practice is probably not unknown. A man suspecting his wife of wrong-doing, especially after a prolonged absence from town, may upon the impulse of his own suspicion and without a shred of evidence resort to torture to compel a confession. And this recalls to my mind an occasion upon which I administered physical chastisement. I may say that there were three such occurrences during more than twice so many years, and that in each instance the occasion of my wrath was the outrageous treatment of a woman.

One Sunday morning in a town named Angon Nzok, on a branch of the upper Gaboon, I was about to hold a religious service when I heard, in the other end of the town, a woman crying. For a long time she had been moaning and crying in a low tone which had escaped my attention, though I heard it. But now there followed an outburst of piteous cries. I sprang to my feet and ran quickly in the direction of the cries and to the house from which they seemed to issue, but the door was closed as if no one were within.

At first I thought that I had not rightly located the sound, but I was told that a man and his wife were within the closed house, the man torturing his wife to extort a confession of unfaithfulness, and the name of the partner in the wrong. The closed door was a sign, almost sacred to the Fang, that no man must enter, but I disregarded it. The man had returned from a journey, and without the least evidence had accused the woman and had then resorted to torture to extort a confession.

He bound the woman’s hands together, palm to palm, by means of two bamboo sticks, which passed across the back of the hands, the ends being tightly bound together. Her hands were then raised above her head and kept there by a cord which was attached to the roof. This mode of torture may not seem horrible as one tells it; but it really is exceedingly painful, and if long continued is enough to drive a woman mad. The man at the moment when I entered was probably tightening the cords or making them more secure; wherefore the screams of the poor woman. In the animated exercise which followed the revelation of what was occurring behind that closed door my mind retains a vivid recollection of three prominent and important movements. The first movement was a kick that broke the door in and landed me in the middle of the cabin; the second was another kick that carried the man to the door; the third was another kick that lifted him into the street, where he stood paralyzed with astonishment and rubbing his injuries. It took only a moment to cut the cords and set the woman free. I then went out and found the man, who of course was not much hurt but was greatly humiliated.

“Now,” I said to him, “if you will solemnly promise never to do this again, the palaver will be finished and you and I will be friends.”

After a brief conversation we vowed eternal friendship and he came to the service. But long after the service the woman was still crying with the pain, while other women poured warm water upon her tortured hands, and murmured their sympathy.