The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

“Will my hand not go through?” she asked; and I assured her that it would not.

Then coming towards me gradually, taking a short step, then a fearful breath, then another step, she at last put her hand upon my arm and then not knowing what would happen to her she turned and ran down the street. But soon recovering herself she cried out: “He is solid just like us. My hand didn’t go through.” Then they all came, men, women and children, to investigate for themselves. Some pinched me, some pushed, and some pulled my hair, to the infinite amusement of Dr. Good. I made no protest against the more delicate experiments of the women and children; but the sense of touch on the part of the men was so obtuse that I turned on one of them and by the vigorous use of my fists undertook to convince him that my quality was more substantial than spirit, while the town shrieked with laughter. The rest were willing to take that man’s word that I was solid. “You’re flesh and bones,” they cried in a chorus.

“Yes,” said I, “I am flesh and bones and fists.”

When we first went among them our safety was in their fetishism and this we had counted upon. However kindly they may have felt, yet to them our poor bundles of goods were fabulous wealth; and it was our opinion then and afterwards that greed would have completely mastered them and they would have killed us for our goods if they had dared. Dr. Good, as I have said, had lived for years among the Fang, whose language is so much like the Bulu that he could understand the Bulu from the first, although he did not always let them know this. In the first Bulu town where we stayed over night Dr. Good heard them discussing us. The younger men were greatly excited and might have proved dangerous but for the counsel of the older men, who are always held in high respect. These elders argued that since we three strangers, with a few unarmed followers, had left our own tribe and had come boldly among them we must surely have very powerful fetishes—powerful enough to overcome theirs and inflict death on our enemies. Our very goods which they coveted was evidence of this; for it is only by fetishes that people acquire riches. Further evidence was afforded by the fact that we had meat in tins which our boys told them had been there for two years and it was not rotten. They had seen it, and it smelled delicious. But the convincing proof was Mr. Kerr’s gun, the most beautiful thing that ever had been seen, and which, according to the report of the boys, was never known to miss aim (which indeed was a fact when Mr. Kerr held it) and everybody knows that this depends entirely upon a man’s fetishes. These sage counsels prevailed. And before this belief in our fetishes and the fear of them was dissipated we had gained their friendship, and were safe on that basis.

A month after our arrival at Efulen, Dr. Good, having occasion to go to the coast, on the way bought something from a native to whom he gave a note addressed to me in which he requested me to give the bearer a red cap—a thing of yarn worth about five cents, much appreciated by the native, but more becoming to a monkey than a man. Dr. Good explained to him, as his eyes dilated with astonishment, that he would only need to go to Efulen and hand the note to me without saying a word, whereupon I would fetch out a red cap and give it to him. It was almost too great a strain upon his credulity, but he agreed. His entire town accompanied him to see this unheard-of miracle. It was a walk of half a day and they passed through several towns on the way, in which they told what was going to happen at Efulen. The population of each town, jerking the dinner off the fire, snatching up the baby and leaving the dead to bury their dead, joined in the procession. A great crowd presented themselves before the house. They had agreed not to invalidate the evidence of the miracle by letting me know what Dr. Good had said. The note was the fetish that must effect the result. They stood with their hands over their mouths for fear the secret would fly out. Despite their extraordinary efforts to keep silence for a minute they were only moderately successful. The leader handed me the note: I looked at it and without a word went into the house and immediately returned with the cap. They vented their astonishment in a great shout. Then each of them, yelling as loud as possible, began to repeat the entire incident from the beginning. They must have been telling the story to their dead ancestors in Europe and America, if one might judge by their evident distance, and by the fact that no one seemed to expect anybody else to listen to him. This incident increased our prestige.

In a certain trading-house a similar incident once occurred. A native presented a note to the trader who gave him a knife. Then all the young enterprising natives appropriated paper wherever they could find it, and cutting it into similar pieces presented it to the trader supposing that he would automatically produce a knife and give it to them; but when they witnessed his dumb ignorance they concluded that there were serious limitations to the white man’s magic.

I have said that they regarded our meagre stock of goods as fabulous wealth. They regarded us as we might regard a multi-millionaire. And, strange enough, we gradually fell into their way of thinking, and regarded their attitude as consonant with the facts. And why not? For, to be rich is to have a little more than your neighbours, and to be poor is to have less. There is no sense of privation in being compelled to do without those things which nobody else has; but however much we may have, we feel the pinch of poverty when there are additional comforts and enjoyments immediately around us which we cannot procure. Our privations were many and great, but they were for the most part inevitable. After the first few months we had the best procurable in our situation, and far more than those around us. So, every man in such a place will learn that wealth, after all, is a sentiment more than a condition, a feeling rather than a fact. But the return to civilization is like a sudden reversal of fortune, and in dire contrast a man experiences a very painful and oppressive sense of poverty when confronted with wealth so far beyond his own.

We gave out various goods in pay to workmen engaged upon our premises. We bought food for the workmen and some for ourselves. The staple article of exchange was salt: one might almost call it the currency. There is so little of it that there is a chronic hunger for it. Children like it better than sugar. A teaspoonful of salt is the price of an egg. We also gave in exchange beads, shirt-buttons, brass rods, red-caps, knives, gun-flints, and later in the year we began to sell a little cloth. We bought bananas, plantains, cassava (that which Stanley calls “manioc,” which is their principal food) and building-material. All exchange is by barter, and it is a very tedious and trying process, a long palaver being regarded as almost essential to propriety even in the purchase of the smallest article. In trading among themselves the man who can talk longest and loudest usually gets the best of the bargain. The maintaining of a fixed price is new to the African and is hateful to him, even if the price be good, for it tends to deprive him of the palaver, which is the joy of his life. He makes the best of the fixed price however and even discovers that it still has some dramatic and histrionic possibilities. He lays down his bamboo, or his thatch, before me, telling me in a neighbourly manner how far he has had to go for it and how exceedingly scarce it is becoming, how unusually good this particular material is and what lavish offers he received for it along the way, and how friendship for the white man prevailed over baser considerations. For, what were he and his people before the white man came? But now, as for himself, he has left behind all his vices, and that very morning has decided to be a Christian.

I interrupt this fine flow of sentiment by asking him what he wants in exchange for his thatch. He thinks he will take a little salt. I measure out with a spoon the exact amount—which he knew before he left his town. The dramatic moment is when I put away the spoon. He glances from the salt to myself several times with a fine simulation of disappointment and contempt, calculated to reduce me to pulp. He is no child in his art, but such an adept that my moral fortitude almost surrenders before that look. I seek to relieve the strain by saying with affected carelessness: “That’s all. Take your salt and get out.”