It has been estimated that, in those tribes that are beyond the restraints of foreign governments, nineteen out of twenty Africans die by violence. This accounts for the sparse population of Africa. For although the African race is prolific, and the land in most parts capable of sustaining a dense population, it is the most sparsely populated country in the world.
Many of this number are killed in war, which is a chronic condition. Nothing is too trivial to occasion a war. The usual beginning, however, is the stealing of a woman by a man of another tribe or village. Following this, the people of the two villages wage an aggressive guerrilla warfare, killing each other at every opportunity, not sparing women or children. The war usually continues until on either side another woman is stolen by a third party and another war begins. Then the first war is closed: a great palaver is talked between the two parties in some neutral town; and after oceans of oratory it is usually agreed that the side that has done the most killing shall pay over to the other side a corresponding number of women and much goods, including a proper dowry for the woman first stolen.
One of the first scenes that I witnessed in Africa was that in which, at the end of a war, four women were thus delivered to the enemy. The people were all gathered together when the chief announced the names of the four women. Each woman, as she heard her name, sprang from the ground with a shriek and tried to escape into the forest; but several men were on hand to catch her. She struggled until they bound her. Then the next name was called, and we heard another shriek. Finally the four women were led away, all of them crying bitterly. In the town to which they were taken they would be given as wives to certain men, and soon they would begin to make the best of the situation, would probably form new attachments and forget the old.
Women are thus bought and sold. A man’s wealth is reckoned by the number of his wives. On one occasion in a native town a conversation with the chief led me to preach on the future life; and I preached both heaven and hell. The chief evidently inferred that he was bound for the latter place. He asked me what I thought about it. I told him candidly that I thought so too. For a moment he seemed troubled, and then his countenance brightened with relief, and he exclaimed: “I know what I’ll do. I’ll send my head-wife in my place.”
Belief in witchcraft is the extreme expression of mutual distrust. It is supposed that as many Africans are put to death for witchcraft as those who die in war. The African seems not to believe that there is any such thing as a natural death. Even when a man is killed in war some one is usually charged with having bewitched him; for it will be said that he wore a fetish for safety, but that a witch had broken the spell of the fetish. A witch’s spirit is “loose from her body.” In the night she leaves her body and goes off to foregather with other witches with whom she joins in wild and unspeakably wicked revels, during which they feast upon the “hearts” of people. The people whose hearts have thus been eaten sicken soon afterwards and die. A witch is always careful to return to her body before daylight. If the vacant body be found during her absence it would be wise to destroy it immediately.
When a number of deaths occur in close succession a council is held in the presence of the witch-doctor. When he announces witchcraft as the cause a panic ensues in which the people become fairly dehumanized with fear and a thirst for vengeance. Each one suspects everybody else. The witch-doctor sometimes names the guilty persons. And woe to any enemies that he may have in that town! Usually, however, they resort to the ordeal to find the guilty ones. The spectacle of such a panic is very revolting. The horrors of war, even at the worst, are never comparable to the horrors of witchcraft. It is the constant fear of the African, and his most powerful fetishes are those which protect him against it.
Except in the vicinity of the foreign governments witches are put to death and always by cruel means, wives charged with witchcraft being buried alive with the dead body of the husband. In one town that I know ten women, wives of one man, were thus buried with him; in another town, twenty women. Their legs were broken before they were thrown into the grave.
Even cannibalism, regarded as the lowest reach of degradation, is not only a natural consequence of fetishism, but is one of its logical forms. I doubt whether, among the Fang, it is ever practiced on the mere impulse of hunger. It is rather the last desperate resort of fear seeking fetish protection. The strongest protection against an enemy in war is to eat one of their number. After that the enemy can do no harm and need not be feared; unless (always this same dreadful qualification)—unless some traitor in one’s own town should break the spell even of this fetish by witchcraft.
The African is further demoralized by his idea of man’s destiny. He believes in a future life. I never encountered a doubt on this subject. But his belief is not ennobling, nor a source of moral inspiration. Death is an unmitigated evil, and the dead are always wishing to be back in the flesh. The future does not hold rewards or punishments for the good or evil of the present life; nor has present goodness any future advantage. There, as here, to have a great many wives and plenty to eat are chief factors in happiness. They have big palavers there as well as here. Sometimes palavers left unfinished here are settled there. In some tribes (the Kru tribe, for instance) when smallpox or other scourge visits a town, and many people die about the same time, it is supposed that an unfinished palaver has been resumed in the other world and these persons were needed as witnesses.
It will be perceived that beneath all this moral degradation of the African, beneath his cruelty and licentiousness, there lies a degrading conception of man’s nature. Man has no divine origin and no noble destiny; therefore he has no intrinsic value and human nature has no inherent worth.