The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

Many of the boys when they came to Baraka had only the smallest rag of clothing and some had none. I got just boys—nothing more. I had their clothes made and ready for them before the school opened. The dress which a fellow missionary devised for them was a gingham shirt with a yoke, and loose sleeves to the elbow, and the usual cotton robe (a cloth they call it) of bright colours bound with red or white, fastened around the waist and falling below the knees. They wore only the cloth in the schoolroom, the shirts being kept for parade. I disliked to see trousers on the natives, with a few exceptions of those who were perfectly civilized in mind and manners and somewhat cultivated in taste. It immediately and unconsciously introduced a standard of dress and taste to which they could not measure up; a standard entirely different from that which was applicable to a primitive people in conditions of simplicity and freedom. Moreover, the natives, both men and women, as well as children, look by far the best in bright colours, not admissible in our style of clothing. They do not look well in white; and in black they are ugly. But red, yellow, blue, orange, purple, green—any of these colours, or all of them, are becoming and appropriate to their climate.

The day’s program for this school of seventy-five boys was as follows: At 5:45 A. M. the rising bell rang and at 6:15 I met the boys in the schoolroom for prayers, after which they had breakfast. From seven o’clock until nine they cut grass and did other necessary work in the yard. In the proper season they picked the oranges and gathered them. From nine o’clock until half-past three they were in school, with a recess of half an hour in the morning for taking jiggers out of their feet, and an hour at noon for dinner. At half-past three the dispensary was opened for the sick and ailing. From four o’clock till five they worked again in the yard, and at five they all took a bath in the sea. On Saturday morning the program was the same until ten o’clock. Then a small piece of soap was given to each boy and they all washed their clothing in a stream that passed near their house. Extravagance always goes with improvidence, and both are prominent characteristics of the African. But in nothing else is their extravagance more flagrant than in their use of soap, although they are so eager for it and have so little of it.

The cutting of grass is a constant labour. There is no such thing as a lawn; the grass is very coarse and rank, and does not form a sod. There is every condition of growth—good soil, heat and moisture; and the rapid growth of vegetation is astonishing. Here and there on the mission premises were large beds of the strange sensitive-plant, which at the least disturbance folds its petals together face to face. Before one, as he walks through it, its beautiful foliage is spread like a heavy green carpet, while behind him is nothing but scraggy, wilted vines and no foliage at all. But in a few minutes it opens again.

The Africans use a short, straight cutlass for cutting grass, which requires that they stoop to the ground. Even at the best, it is very slow work. I, like others before me, imported a scythe, and showed several of the workmen how to use it. But they did not take to it. As soon as I disappeared it was put carefully away for my own use.

Besides the cutting of grass, there were roads to keep in repair, cargo to land, or carry from the beach to the storeroom, and much other work. The work of the boys saved the necessity of hiring a number of men; and so the boys paid a large part of the expense of keeping them. As a matter of fact, the maintenance of each boy (his food and clothing) cost six or sometimes seven dollars for an entire year.

It required a vast expenditure of energy and continual oversight to get seventy-five boys to go to work promptly and to work well. They were just at the age when total depravity takes the concrete form of laziness; but they were not more lazy than so many white boys.

One day when they were cutting the very long grass in the back of the garden, there was a sudden cry, “Mvom!” (python). Lying in the grass was a monster python with several coils around a dog which it was preparing to swallow. It was a dog that we all knew, the only one of a respectable size in the community. Being preoccupied with the dog, and partly hidden in the grass, it did not seem to pay any attention to the boys. About twenty-five of them remained to watch it while fifty came to call me. Baraka was well provided with various firearms, but there was not a single piece that would actually shoot. As a rule the appearance was all that was really necessary. But in a real emergency this left something to be desired. Finding myself without a weapon I went to the garden and looked at the monster snake, and when I saw that it did not seem disposed to leave so fine a supper I cautioned the boys to keep away from it while I ran to an English trading-house—Hatton & Crokson’s—in search of a weapon. The traders were as defenseless as the mission. The manager, however, recalled that there was in his possession a pistol, a precious affair, belonging to the firm. I waited exactly half an hour while he put it “in perfect condition,” and loaded it. I kept on waiting while he stood with it in his hand telling me what a fine weapon it was, instructing me in its use, and especially requesting that I should bring it back myself and not entrust it to a native for reasons which he fully explained. I then returned to the mission wondering whether the python might not take a fancy to something more delicate than a poor dog, and how many boys a python would hold. But it was still coiled about the dog not having finished crunching his bones. I crept very close, took deadly aim and fired. Deafening silence! The pistol did not go off. Again I pulled the trigger, with the same result, and again, and again. I withdrew in disgust. It was the only big game that I had ever attempted to shoot; and I had already considered what I would do with the skin.

The older boys and several men who were present had been eager all the while to attack it with their cutlasses; and I now gave them permission. They formed in line. One man was to strike first, back of the head, and all the rest instantly to follow. It had lain quiet so long and was so very sluggish that one could hardly conceive that it was alert; but at the first stroke, before the other cutlasses fell, it had gone like a flash. We could only guess at its size; but I have vowed never to record my guess. Pythons have been actually measured in Gaboon at thirty feet.

One day the schoolboys killed a very young one twelve feet long, and immediately returned to search for the parents; for they said that a mere baby python like this would not yet have left its parents’ care to shift for itself. The next day after this several of the smaller boys were taken sick and I was called to the dormitory to see them. My immediate diagnosis was python, and I found that I was right. But none of the boys who had been in the school for more than one term joined in the feast; and some of them would no more have eaten it than I would.

The regular food of the boys was cassava and dried fish. Plantains were sometimes substituted for cassava. If we were out of fish I gave them sardines—one sardine to each boy as his allowance of meat for a whole day; I believe that no devout contributor to missions will charge me with extravagance. If I had neither fish nor sardines I gave them coconuts. The meat of a very ripe coconut is full of a strong oil and the natives like it. A boy’s food costs less than a cent a meal.