The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

I have never known an American school in which there was better order and so little exercise of discipline as in my African school. There was no flogging at all. The entire matter of discipline was confined to the jigger-palaver. Yet these boys were not by any means dull or lacking in humour. Indeed, the humour of the Negro is far more keen than that of any Asiatic race, and is nearest to our own.

But even in the best-ordered schools there will be an occasional lapse of discipline, and my school was no exception. One day in the class I called on a certain boy, Toma, to read. A knife had been stolen from my room that morning—probably by a workman—and the boys had been talking about it and wondering if any of their number could have done it. Toma was one of the larger boys and was dull at his books. Moreover, he was conscious of being backward and was easily embarrassed when he was reciting. This day as he rose to recite, a certain smart boy, Esona, whom I have already mentioned, said in a loud whisper: “Now, if anybody can’t recite his lesson that will be a sign that he has stolen Mr. Milligan’s knife.”

The effect of the remark on Toma—as Esona expected and intended—was that it embarrassed him and made it impossible for him to recite. He stumbled on from bad to worse, to the ill-concealed amusement of the class, until at last he came to a dead stop, paused for a moment, and then suddenly turned and flung his book across the room at Esona’s head. It was well aimed, and it hit. Toma evidently knew some things about books that Esona had never thought of.

In singing they excelled. I am sure that only a choir of well-trained American boys could sing as well as those boys of my school. They soon acquired a reputation on the coast, and visitors, from passing steamers, having heard of them from the captains and others, asked to hear them sing; and I do not think that they were ever disappointed. There was a quartette of boys who sang beautifully. I made some phonograph records of their singing, but after bringing them all the way to New York in safety, where I used them a few times, they got broken between New York and Chicago.

The hymn, if well used, is the form in which the Christian religion will reach more people than can be reached by any other means. When these boys returned to their towns the people old and young were eager to learn the hymns, and had soon committed many of them to memory. In far-away towns that no white man had ever visited before, I have held a service, and when I started a hymn the people all joined heartily in singing. He Leadeth Me was the favourite of all the hymns, and was always the first one that they learned.

The routine of the day’s work was liable to various interruptions. Sometimes a boy was enticed by his relations to run away from the school. I always followed, and at any cost brought him back, for fear of the demoralization of the school. I had always exacted a promise of each boy when I received him that he would stay until the end of the term. And they never ran away except when induced to do so by people of their town whom they happened to meet. One day word was brought to me that two of the boys had run away, having been persuaded to do so by a relation who came selling food. I set out in hot pursuit with several attendants, and soon we met the man who had been overheard asking the boys to go with him. He denied all knowledge of them, but I had proof. I brought him to Baraka, bound him hands and feet and said that he would be released as soon as the boys were returned to me. In a few hours the boys arrived.

There were other interruptions. For instance, while I am engaged in the absorbing task of unfolding the implications of monotheism to a class of theological students whom I am preparing for the work of catechists, a naked Fang from the bush stalks into the room unannounced and says: “White man, what’s good for worms? I’m full of them.”

“Santonine and castor oil,” roars the whole class in concert, with such alacrity and assurance that I wish it were one of the implications of monotheism.

“Well, I’ve brought two eggs,” says the Fang; “good eggs—both of them laid this morning—and I want some of that medicine.”

I leave the class and first spend considerable time testing the eggs. One of them is probably the oldest egg in the world. I complain to the man, and he tells me that he took his wife’s word for its being laid that morning; but that he might have known better, for she is the worst liar that ever lived, and he—a lover of truth—is going to send her home to her father and demand the dowry which he paid for her. And if it be refused war will be declared between that town and his own.