The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

I have told elsewhere how that, when Mb’Obam was dying, he called the people around him and begged them to be good to his wife, Sara, and not to accuse her of bewitching him when he was gone. He also reminded them how in late years he had protected the women against whom this charge was made. They promised, of course, and they meant it; for they revered him; but as soon as he was dead old beliefs prevailed and old customs asserted tyrannous authority. They charged Sara with having caused Mb’Obam’s death by witchcraft. They dared not kill her; for they were in the vicinity of the French government. But they drove her on her hands and knees up and down the street with two men sitting on her back. From this cruelty I rescued her one day with a stout stick which I used somewhat freely; otherwise it might have ended in her death. When Sara was sufficiently recovered I said to her: “Sara, what can I do to protect you against further cruelty?”

She replied: “Mr. Milligan, I think you had better find me a husband.”

It wasn’t entirely out of my line—if there’s any such thing as a line in a missionary’s work—for, as an essential part of my pastoral duty, I found it necessary to run a kind of matrimonial bureau. Well, we found a husband for Sara, which was not difficult, for they all knew that she was a good woman. A Christian man married her and I hope they may still be living happily together.

One night Mb’Obam came to an Mpongwe prayer-meeting in Gaboon and brought a number of his Fang friends. The Mpongwe being a coast tribe, all but the Christians among them despise the Fang. The meeting was in an Mpongwe village and there were many present who were not Christians. It happened that I was conducting the meeting; and after telling the Mpongwe who Mb’Obam was I asked him to address them, which he did in their own language. In the course of his talk he referred to the ark that “Adam” built. Ndong Koni was sitting not far from him, and when Mb’Obam referred a second time to “Adam’s ark,” before these better-informed Mpongwe, Ndong Koni quietly said to him: “Father, you mean Noah.”

Mb’Obam, without the least embarrassment, replied: “Was it Noah? Thank you, my son. I thought it was Adam that built the ark; but it does not affect what I was going to say.”

The simplicity of it was so beautiful that we scarcely thought of its being amusing. Then he went on and made a most fitting and touching comparison between his own life and that of Noah, preaching through all those years the while he was preparing the ark, a lonely believer in the midst of unbelief and ridicule and wickedness that rends a believer’s heart. “Yet Noah’s words came to pass because they were God’s words; so God will in His own time justify us. Meanwhile we will go on preaching; and may we be faithful and uncomplaining.”

He made a profound impression on the Mpongwe Christians; and often afterwards when I returned from my journeys some of them would ask me if I had been to Mb’Obam’s town and if he was well. When I heard that he was very sick I sent a boat and brought him to Baraka. I took him to the French hospital for a few days. But nothing could save his life. It was only at his death that I realized how much he was loved and respected. He himself never knew.

Another man, Angona, had been an important man in his town, having had several wives, and a great variety of powerful and well-tried fetishes. Angona, on one occasion staying over night at Gaboon, took the opportunity of spending the evening at Baraka and advising with me on certain matters, moral and religions. He told me how that recently he had nearly lost his life by his refusal to observe a certain Fang custom which I venture to mention. Angona had been visiting a friend in another town and had refused to assume the marital relations of his host, according to their friendly custom. The friend was angry, suspecting that something was lacking in his friendship, and not liking to see an old custom discarded. His anger subsided however at Angona’s explanation that he was a Christian. But not so the woman’s anger. She tried to kill him by putting poison in his food.

Angona at the time of his conversion put away all of his wives but one. He had paid a very large dowry for each of them; so that in putting them away he had also put away his wealth and to a large extent had surrendered influence and social position. But the surrender of his famous collection of fetishes, which he had gathered among many tribes, to which no doubt he owed his success and his possessions, occasioned greater surprise than anything else. By the virtue of one of these fetishes he had been successful in matrimony, and by the virtue of another his wife had not deserted him; one fetish had procured him success in trade, another had made him successful in war; by means of one he had recovered from a dangerous illness, and by another his gardens had prospered; by the virtue of one he could cause an aggressive enemy to “swell up and burst,” and by another build an invisible fire around himself when he slept, through which no witch could pass. And most powerful of all was the sacred skull of his father. All the people of the town stood by and stared as Angona delivered to me all these fetishes; but at last when he went to fetch the skull the women were warned to flee lest by any mischance the casket might open and they should see what was inside and die. Angona by this renunciation gained the reputation of being a particular fool. But he at once began preaching to the people and before many months there was a class of sixteen Christians in that town.

As soon as I received this report of Angona’s work I visited the town. After a brief service at which all the people were present, I asked whether there were any sick people in the town, and they directed me to the house of a woman who was recovering from a long illness. While I was talking to her another woman, one of the Christians, came in and setting a pot on the ground beside the sick woman, said: “The pot is yours. I am a Christian. The palaver is finished.”