The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The reply to this delicate suggestion is a prolonged yell of many mingled emotions: and then he grabs,—not the salt, but his thatch and starts down the hill cursing the white man. I have not so much affronted his judgment as I have wounded his feelings, and perhaps have put a stumbling-block in the way of his salvation. He thinks better of it, however, and comes back, takes the salt and goes away blessing me.

It was hard to procure eggs. The natives do not eat eggs but always set them. At first they asked the price of a chicken for an egg, because, they said, the egg would become a chicken, with proper treatment. The time element is always eliminated in every consideration. But most of the eggs that they brought us would never have become chickens under any circumstances; and this they knew, for they had given them a thorough trial. When I pronounce an egg to be bad a man always wants it back; for he or his friend will try to sell it to me again, watching an opportunity when I am very busy and have not time to examine it closely. I have probably refused the same egg half a dozen times in one morning, and then perhaps have bought it, and the successful vender has amused the people of his town by relating the transaction at my expense.

The women bring their garden produce in heavy loads carried on their backs in large baskets. I stand on the porch as I buy and they on the ground, their produce lying on the porch at my feet. They always rise very early, and they usually reach the hill about daylight. We cannot buy more than half of the food they bring; so there is a noisy and animated scramble for first place. They are there before we are up in the morning and they wait in a shed occupied by our men a little way down the hill and in front of our house. There they indulge in chatter and laughter, and one might think they had forgotten their errand. But the moment I open the door and step outside (for it fell to me to do the buying) every woman, with a yell, snatches her basket and pitches it on her back, or perhaps comes dragging it along the ground, thinking in this way to gain a moment over her sisters, and pushing and pulling each other, some of them laughing, more of them cursing, and all of them yelling, the whole fanfare sweeps up to the door. Not having been accustomed to rise so early, my sense of humour is still dormant at that hour; life is always a serious matter to me and a doubtful boon until after breakfast. I yawn, and yawn again, and heave a weary sigh, as I reflect that the clamorous noise which has thus ushered in the day will continue through the long hours until its close.

Soon after our arrival at Efulen Dr. Good and I visited the town of an old chief of some fame, named Abesula. Abesula’s claim to greatness was based upon the possession of thirty-five wives and any man who could endure life with thirty-five African wives must be made of uncommon stuff. He was old and most of them were young and unruly, and each one seemed disposed to do her full duty in reconciling him to death by making his present life intolerable. As we entered the town an old woman who knew Dr. Good and was very glad to see him came forward to salute him, calling him his usual name, Ngoot. She was covered thick with redwood powder, like red oxide, from head to feet, and he was dressed in light-coloured clothes and was quite trim, for we had travelled by a good road. In a salutation of “linked sweetness long drawn out”—“Ay! Ngoo-t, Ngoo-t, Ngoo-t,” she threw her arms around him and embraced him affectionately, leaving him covered with redwood powder. Other women, evidently thinking that this was the proper way to receive a white man, followed her example. Now, one of Dr. Good’s peculiarities was an insuperable aversion to effusions of emotion. But he always considered the effect of his actions upon the mind or the feelings of the natives; so he submitted to this tender ceremony, but he looked as miserable as ever Abesula did with his thirty-five wives all calling him names at once. Then the old woman, not wishing to show partiality, approached me with an amiable, toothless smile and all the redwood that was not on Dr. Good’s clothes; but regardless of consequences I took to my heels and bestowed myself at a safe distance down the street, feeling that I had made sacrifices enough for the black race to be morally excusable for declining this unsavoury embrace.

In the evening we sang several hymns to draw the people together. They all came and Abesula sat in the midst. Then Dr. Good preached to them, and some paid close attention. But after a while Abesula, interrupting, said: “Ngoot, won’t you soon be through preaching? For I wish that you two white men would sing and dance for the people; I don’t care for singing without dancing, and I don’t like preaching at all.” But we did not resort to this sensational method of holding a congregation.

That same evening a score of Abesula’s wives engaged in a general quarrel with each other. An African family has no skeletons in the closet. They all hang outside the front door. The quarrel began with two of them, who, earlier in the evening, sat each within the door of her own house, on opposite sides of the street, reviling each other in language of loathsome indecency, until at last, when their intellectual resources of warfare were exhausted, the other women told them to come out into the street and fight it out. Whereupon the two women came out into the street and throwing off even their scant apparel of leaves, began to fight. To our surprise they did not scratch nor pull each other’s hair, as we had heard that women do when they fight. It was more like wrestling, although blows were delivered according to opportunity. They were fairly matched; but at last one was thrown to the ground, the other falling on top, and then clasping each other and fighting they rolled over and over in the street. When one of them was beaten the other women began to take sides and a large number became involved. Then the indiscreet Abesula interfered and they all joined together against him. To say that this large and unhappy family washed the dirty linen of their domestic infelicity in the street is putting it too mildly. The linen was foul and fit only for the fire. The women sought to shame the old savage out of countenance by the revelation of filthy secrets—but there are no secrets in Africa. Abesula replied with a shocking history of their immoralities which I fear was too true. He raged like an infuriated beast. He asked for a stick. Some one brought him one about ten feet long. As he talked he beat the ground with the stick and when it broke in his hands he called for another. He cursed them and threatened them with the hostility of supernatural powers by which they would die various sudden deaths in surprising forms, and suffer frightful penalties in another world. All this while he was pounding the ground, in which performance it was supposed that his wives were beaten by proxy. It was a very forcible way of expressing his opinion of them, and of showing them what their conduct deserved, while it was safer for himself and more conducive to good health and a long life, than a personal attack upon them, seeing that it was one against thirty-five.

But finding at length that this bloodless flogging even when accompanied with awful language produced no other result than self-exhaustion and violent perspiration, he resolved to kill himself without actually dying—a simple paradox to the African mind. He brought out of his house a long knife and a lighted torch, and carefully arranging a seat in the middle of the street where all could witness the shedding of his blood, he sharpened the knife, made his last speech, in which he told his wives how he would haunt them after death, then raised the knife above him, threw back his head, and pointed the knife towards his breast. This tragical performance requires that at this interesting moment some one, preferably a wife, should rush towards him in terrible alarm and excitement and wrench the knife from his hand just in time to save his life. This touching evidence of regard is a first measure of reconciliation and is usually followed by a truce of hostilities. But Abesula had made life so bitter for these women that their contempt was unbounded and they desired no armistice. Not one of them moved to save his life. He still held the knife above him, as if to say: “Is no one going to interfere? Is it possible that you would allow a great man like me to take his own life when you could so easily prevent it? At least think of the trouble it will entail, the grave-digging, the burial, a month of mourning, and perhaps charges of witchcraft.” Still no one moved. Abesula suddenly resolved to sharpen his knife again so as to make death quite certain. This being done he again raised it and pointed it towards his heart. A native man said to Dr. Good: “Stop him! white man, stop him! Take the knife from him!” And it may be that the women had been expecting a white man to perform this obliging duty. But neither of us moved. At last the knife descended, and with such terrible force that it would have been driven into his heart and clean through his back if it had not been that his arm was trembling with excessive determination, and the descending knife, missing aim, struck the ground, penetrating nearly to the hilt. Poor Abesula, inconsolable at finding himself still alive, and feeling that his dignity, if not his life, was gone forever, rose from the ground and sneaked away. But he cast a baleful look backward, as if to say, “For two beads I’d destroy this world and make another where great men could be appreciated. As for you black creatures, you don’t know a great man when you see him.”

Later that night when all had retired to sleep, Dr. Good and I were still discussing polygamy, that some white people assert is right and necessary for Africa.

Mr. E. D. Morel points to the triumphs of Mohammedanism in Africa as a proof of its better adaptation to the moral and material welfare of the people than Christianity, attributing its success to its allowance of polygamy. But Mr. Morel’s friend, Sir Harry Johnston, than whom perhaps no man living knows more about Central Africa and its people, accounts for the rapid spread of Mohammedanism in a very simple and obvious manner, when he says: “Mohammedanism, as taught to the negro, demands no sacrifice of his bodily lusts.” Mohammedanism does improve the African—there is nothing gained by denying it. But, at best, it only “moves the masses to a cleaner stye,” which, though cleaner, is still a “stye”; while the aim of Christianity is a household, in which the law is love, not lust. It is natural that it should take the negro longer to learn this lesson and that he should be slow in making the sacrifices that it demands.