The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The personal independence of the savage does not constitute the simple life of our idealizing imagination. There still are foes without and olun within,—not to speak of hostile spirits and the fear of witchcraft.

Guizot in his History of Civilization defines civilization as progress, the progress of society, and the progress of individuals; the melioration of the social system and the expansion of the intellectual and moral faculties of man. And these two elements, according to Guizot, are so intimately connected that they reciprocally produce one another. When we speak of the authority of example and the power of habit we admit, perhaps unconsciously, that a world better governed, a world in which justice more fully prevails, renders man himself more just.

That is true; but society is moralized by ideas; and ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men. Therefore Christianity addresses itself primarily to the individual; though it does not ignore social conditions. It is easier to love men, especially alien men, in the mass than to love them individually. Rousseau, it is said, loved mankind but hated each particular man; and there are those among us who would fight for the freedom of the Negro race but would not walk a block with an individual Negro. The love of Jesus is an aggregate of individual and personal loves. It was one sheep that went astray whom the shepherd followed weary and footsore till he found it; it is one sinner over whose return there is joy in heaven. The missionary is first of all an evangelist, not a social reformer. Christianity aims at the redemption of man, first in his individual character, and then in his associate life.

Christianity is so intricately interwoven with our own civilization, its influence upon our characteristic institutions is so subtle, that it is not easy to say where its beneficence begins or ends; and many among us are constantly attributing its social effects to other causes. But introduced into Africa its power as a social force at once becomes obvious. It comes in contact with a social condition which presents the extremest contrast to that of our civilization, a condition which is hostile at almost every point to the spirit of Christianity and that has remained unchanged probably for ages; it comes as an evangelistic agency, not working directly for social reforms; but within the lifetime of one man society is transformed almost beyond recognition by the abolishment of social evils, the implantation of institutions of education and philanthropy, and the beginning of all that is highest and best in our civilization.

Let us not exaggerate the difference between civilization and savagery. It is always necessary to check the dramatic instinct, which for the sake of a telling contrast would set the worst aspects of heathen barbarism over against the best or even ideal aspects of Christian civilization. Civilization is still far from perfect and savagery is not wholly savage.

The interval between civilization and the savage state is never so great as that between the latter and an animal state. No animal uses fire; though I recall that Emin Pasha declared that he had witnessed a procession of African monkeys carrying torches;—but we didn’t see it. No animal cooks its food; no animal wears clothing; no animal makes either tools or weapons; no animal breeds other animals for food; no animal has an articulate language. Moreover without a certain degree of order, intelligence and justice, human society, even that of the savage, could not continue to exist.

But one going from America to Africa is impressed only by the contrast; and he necessarily reflects upon it and seeks to define it.

The first contrast between civilized society and that of Africa which impresses one is that of interdependence and independence. I lived very simply in Africa, and yet the whole world contributed to my simple fare. On my table there was butter from Denmark, milk from Switzerland, rice from India, sugar from Cuba, coffee from Brazil, dates from Arabia, other fruits from France or from California, vegetables from England, meats from America—and so forth. I did not even know where the wheat was grown from which my bread was made; nor whether the cattle that supplied beef had first grazed in Argentina or on the prairies of the Canadian Northwest. It was the same with the materials and furnishings of the house I lived in and the clothing I wore. The whole world contributes to the material well-being of each civilized man. In contrast to this the native African—before conditions are modified by civilization—supplies all his own needs. He has the assistance only of his wife and he could dispense with that. The entire provision for his material well-being is furnished within the area of his visible horizon or within the radius of an hour’s walk from his village. There is no regular buying or selling and no money.

In this social condition men are very much alike, and there is a close approximation to equality. Each man possesses all the knowledge of his tribe and can do what any other man can do; there is no “differentiation of function,” and no interdependence. There is only nature’s own difference of male and female; the only real society is that of the family. The village is an enlarged family the maximum size of which depends upon the necessity of combining against a common foe. African society, therefore, beyond the family, has scarcely more coherence than a herd of gregarious animals. It is not an organism but a mere aggregation of individuals.

The interdependence of civilization is largely the result of man’s increasing conquest of nature; and this is the next contrast between civilized society and that of Africa. The difference between the canoe and the steamship is typical. Improved means of transportation, beginning with the use of steam, has made possible the exchange of products between remote countries. The ever-increasing knowledge of nature, resulting in mechanical inventions, has made near neighbours of the nations. We read the news of the world each morning. Money contributed in New York to-day for the relief of a famine in China is distributed there to-morrow. The whole world is embraced in our daily thought and interest. The African, unless he lives by a river, knows nothing of the world beyond the farthest village to which he has walked. Not even the invention of the wheel has reached him. The civilized man has made nature supplement himself; has made himself swifter than the swiftest of animals and stronger than the strongest, and has multiplied a thousandfold the product of his labour. In order to disseminate the benefits of this increasing conquest of nature there arises a demand for skilled labour; and upon the principle that a man can do but one thing in a lifetime and do it well, different classes appear, performing different functions in the social body, dependent upon one another as the various organs of the body depend upon one another, and society becomes an organism developing from simplicity to complexity.