The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

Such a scene was quite new to me in those days, and the horror of it I have never forgotten. I had only the slightest knowledge of the language and it took me some time to find out what had happened. Several men, the husbands of these women, had gone hunting in the forest. Two other towns near by were at war with each other; but this town had nothing whatever to do with the war. A number of men from one of the two towns were hiding in the forest, lying in wait for the enemy, when they espied these men who were hunting. In the dim light of the forest they mistook their friends for their enemies and fired upon them. An African would rather kill ten friends then let one enemy escape. They killed all the men of the hunting-party. This was the news that had just reached the town. It was the more pitiable because the town was small, and the loss of several of its strongest men seriously weakened its defense.

There were the usual charges of witchcraft against the women; and when I in amazement pointed out to them that in this instance there was no mystery whatever; that those men, as they knew, had been killed by the bullets of those who had fired upon them, they replied that while this was doubtless true it was only half the truth; for those men wore protecting charms that would have made it impossible for bullets to injure them, and that the spell of witchcraft must have destroyed the power of the charms. I only convinced them that while I knew considerable about bullets I knew nothing about witchcraft and nothing about wives. The doubt, however, which had been thus suggested, was sufficient to enable us to protect the women from any fatal violence; although the restraints and sufferings imposed upon widows during their period of mourning is almost intolerable.

In contrast with that scene, where the elemental passions of fear, grief and rage fairly made demons of men and women, I think of another death that was not in any way horrible or revolting; it was the death of a Fang chief named Ndong, one of the first of the Fang Christians. Ndong and his people had come recently from the far interior and had settled on one of the branches of the Gaboon. He had lived all his life among such death scenes as I have just described, and himself had taken a leading part in punishing witchcraft. When I first knew him he had more fetishes than any man in his town; for he was in ill health and of course supposed that somebody was bewitching him. The fetishes were an attempt to protect himself; but they were a failure, and he was in terror of everybody around him. After several conversations with him he boldly renounced fetishism and threw away all his fetishes. He told the people that if God desired that he should live He would defend and protect him; and that if God was calling him he was ready to go. He lived six months to proclaim this new faith, and then died, having been sorely tried by constant suffering. I reached the town just as he died. There was not a fetish in his house. But it was more surprising that there was no heathen mourning. The town was strangely quiet when I arrived. An elderly woman said to me:

“Ndong has died. He died as one goes to sleep, without fear, and without blaming anybody. We never saw a death like this before. A new day is dawning.”

X
THE DOROTHY

In response to my urgent appeal, a gasoline launch, the Dorothy, was given for the work on the Gaboon River, by a friend of missions living in Orange, New Jersey. The gift was a memorial to a little daughter, Dorothy, who had died.

The arrival of the Dorothy was the most joyful event of all my years in Africa. Hitherto I had reached the Fang only by canoe or small sailboat, the latter depending upon oars more than sails. The area of the work was therefore circumscribed and the incidental exposure dreadful. But now we no longer regarded the heat by day nor the rains by night; for there was a large cabin provided with every comfort, including good beds. And this latter was a main consideration. After the arrival of the Dorothy I seldom stayed in a town over night nor slept in a native bed—a few straight poles laid side by side, sometimes with the additional luxury of a grass mat. Besides a bed of poles, I escaped stifling heat, infinite noise, rats, roaches, lizards, scorpions, centipedes, ants, fleas, lice and a staggering combination of odours. In the lower rivers that flow through the mangrove swamps I also escaped the vile atmosphere and the mosquitoes by running out to the bay at night. Added to these considerations, its speed was such that I could travel against wind and tide; and by means of it the former work was multiplied many times, and spread over the whole area of the Gaboon basin.

THE DOROTHY.

The Dorothy was a house-launch, and was intended only for the rivers. The walls of the cabin presented such an area to the wind that on the bay or at sea, unless in the calmest weather, it rolled as nothing else ever rolled; and in a storm it was dangerous.