The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

But to this seeming hopeless ruin of humanity Christ in His own person imparts a new conception, first, of the dignity of man’s nature; second, of the possibilities of his character; third, of the greatness of his destiny.

In Jesus, God takes upon Himself this despised human nature, and reveals the divine character in a human life. That same life is at once a revelation of God and an example to men; and without incongruity Jesus could say, in words perhaps the sublimest ever uttered in the ears of men: “Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Man, therefore, even the most degraded and the slave, is akin to God and the object of His tender regard. The light of this revelation extinguishes all minor differences between men; a human soul is of more value than the whole world, and neither wealth nor power can add anything to a man’s worth.

Much is added to this new conception of man when Jesus reveals in Himself the possibilities of human character. It was always a surprise to me to find how readily the African recognizes in Jesus the human ideal; how he accepts Him as the true moral standard, by which henceforth he judges himself and realizes what he is and what he ought to be.

The great destiny of man which Jesus discloses seems not only credible, but even natural, in the light of man’s kinship with God and the possibilities of human character. Instead of the poor African’s fear of death and his degrading conception of the future life, Jesus sets before him a hope that thrills his heart with joy. Man has many present faults and frailties, but he does not belong to the present. He is not a finality, but a possibility; a possibility to be realized only in the perspective of an infinite future, in which death itself is but an incident, the end of nothing worth while; and beyond it is the consummation of all our hopes, a consummation which language becomes rhapsody when it would describe.

Is it wonderful that this new conception of humanity should be morally transforming? that, for instance, it should impress even the African mind with the sanctity of human life?

Cannibalism disappears as soon as the Gospel becomes intelligible, and long before they accept it as individuals. A war arose between two villages, in a community where I had preached not more than a year, for the people had recently come from the far interior where cannibalism was commonly practiced. The town making the attack came on a very dark night, intending to set fire to the other town, which only required that the blaze be started in one place, the houses being so close that all must burn together. They were led by two young men whom I knew. While the rest of the party were hiding, these two, going forward, saturated the thatch roof of the first house with kerosene, and were striking a match, when the noise was heard by the man inside. He quietly arose, moving stealthily as a cat, opened the door, and discovered the two young men standing a few yards in front of him. He took deliberate aim and fired twice. One man fell dead instantly; the other, frightfully wounded, reached his friends, who put him in a canoe and took him back to his town, where he died a few days later. I have said that one of the two fell in the street. A few years ago they would have eagerly devoured the body, both as a feast, and as a fetish protection against the enemy. The fetish belief still remained strong as ever, but they revolted from the practice; and having cut the body in pieces and boiled it, they smeared the grease upon their foreheads and breasts, hoping that it would thus avail for their protection. But they did not taste it. In former times they would actually boast of eating an enemy; now these same people are ashamed to confess it, and it is the most offensive charge that one town can make against another.

The old chief to whom I have already referred, who laid at my feet the sacred fetish of his father’s brains, told me how that he was persuaded to give it up by a neighbouring chief (one whom I had instructed) who had come to his town, not to make war and kill, as formerly, but in a spirit of peace, and had stayed many days in order to tell the people the things which he had recently learned. He had said that he and they must stop making war with each other; that one God was Father of them all, who also loved them all; that they must throw away their fetishes, entrust themselves to God’s care, believe in His Son and do right; and even if they suffered for it in this world there was a life to come in which they would be fully rewarded. This same chief, who was speaking to me, had had seven wives; but at the instance of his new faith he put away six of them and refused to accept a dowry for those whom he put away.

The Christians among them refuse to accept the dowry for daughter or sister; and polygamy of course is forbidden. Wars are less and less frequent; and the sanctity of human life has taken such a hold of mind and heart that it must henceforth be a governing principle among them.

How completely the Gospel of Christ can transform the invisible world to the mind of the African and vanquish his abject and demoralizing fear of spirits was proved by the numbers of men who began coming to me, some of them from towns far away, in order to surrender the skulls of their fathers, the most potent fetish known to the African for protection against the hostility of the spirits. I found myself in possession of heaps of these uncanny skulls, and I did not quite know what to do with them. One day, a man, having heard that I was going to bring them to America, came to me in alarm to ask whether I had considered the possible consequences of confusion at the resurrection if the heads of these Africans should be transported to the other side of the sea.

The voluntary surrender of a father’s skull is the strongest possible evidence of the sincerity of an African’s faith in Christ, and his salvation from the paralyzing fear of spirits.