The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

I have written at some length of the Bulu of the interior. The Fang of the interior, at the head waters of the Gaboon, are like the Bulu, while some of those at the coast are quite civilized.

The Fang village in this territory is built close to the river or stream. The population of a village varies from fifty to three hundred; the average population is probably not more than a hundred persons. Those of the same village are closely related, usually brothers or first cousins, and their wives and children, with the elders, or grandfathers. They regard themselves as one family, and all the children of the village as brothers and sisters. Under no circumstances would they intermarry. The child addresses ever so many men as “Father,” and ever so many women as “Mother.” Parental authority is not exclusive; the whole town has more or less to say in the control and discipline of each child. The result is that while a score of parents are adding zest to existence in a fine squabble as to whether the child shall sit here, or there, shall do this, or that, the child, heedless of conflicting orders, does as he likes and goes where he pleases. Yet, one finds, as he knows them better, that the real parents are always distinguished and exercise the final authority.

The village consists of a single street running away from the river, though sometimes there is a second street, at right angles with the first, and occasionally even a third. On either side of the street the houses are built in straight rows, close together, and almost exactly the same. Among the Bulu the houses are detached; but among the Fang they are under one continuous roof. This arrangement is convenient for an enemy in time of war. For, to set fire to the first house is to burn the whole town; and nothing could burn more rapidly than dry thatch. Nearer the coast the enemy will often saturate the end of the first roof with kerosene—it is the only use they make of kerosene. Across each end of the street is a “palaver-house,” which is the public place, where the men spend most of the day in talking, eating, sleeping and quarrelling. This is the club-house of the men, and the women enter it only on privilege. A missionary entering a town will nearly always be sure of an audience in the palaver-house.

The houses have bark walls held by horizontal strips of bamboo tied with rope of vine, and supported by upright poles two feet apart, which are sharpened at the lower end and stuck in the ground. The roof is of palm thatch, and there is no floor. Not a nail is used in the entire construction of the house. Nearer the coast, bark is not used for walls. They are made of split bamboo, attached horizontally to upright poles.

The interior is a single room with beds around the walls. The bed consists of straight round poles laid lengthwise upon two cross-poles, the head being supported by a wooden pillow. Upon these beds the natives sleep with nothing under them and nothing over them. But they usually keep a fire at night, which is made on the earth floor. There is no outlet for the smoke, but it escapes through a narrow open space between the walls and the roof. The door is tight closed at night, and often a family will enjoy themselves around a smouldering fire in smoke so dense that a white man could scarcely enter.

Their houses are kept as clean inside as their construction allows. But they are always in a state of disorder. The native mind has no categories. The native’s knowledge consists of isolated facts which he feels no mental compulsion to classify; neither do the women take pleasure in household order; and the notion of each article having a regular and proper place is foreign to their minds. However civilized they may become in the future, I can hardly think that the teapot under the bed or the pig in the parlour would ever offend their sense of propriety.

In the middle of the front wall is a rectangular hole, that looks like a window, but it is both door and window. At night it is closed by propping a piece of bark against it. The successful entrance of this door is a gymnastic feat requiring long practice for its performance, and we can afford to watch the white man’s first attempt. He has seen the black man pass through it so easily that he does not suspect any difficulty. Approaching with assurance he lifts one leg quite high and passes it over the sill, only to find that he cannot get his head in; for not only is the door very low but the ragged thatch eaves of the roof project immediately in front of it. In the attempt his helmet, striking the eaves, rolls into the street. He goes after the helmet, brushes off some of the dirt, and approaching a second time, though with less assurance, he puts the other leg through the door, which is no improvement whatever upon the first effort, and he loses his helmet again. A third time he essays to enter, but with a step that indicates a rise of temperature. He thrusts his head and shoulders through the door, then tries to bring a foot in after him; but, invariably failing to get his foot nearly high enough to pass the sill he trips, falls forward, and goes plunging into the house sprawling on all fours, and only by extraordinary exertion escapes the fire in the middle of the room. The children, if they are not accustomed to the white man, scream with fright, and the grown people laugh without restraint. Those in the street laugh still louder and afford every evidence that the rear view of the performance—the unintelligible exertions, the sudden disappearance and the feet lingering on the door-sill—was an entertainment which they would greatly enjoy a second time. The white man gets up out of the dust and the ashes, glares fiercely around and asks if anybody knows where his helmet is. Some time in the future, after an extended and distressing experience he may chance to observe exactly how the black man enters his small door. He neither halts nor hesitates; but throwing up one leg, he throws his head down at the same time, probably extending an arm in front of him, and thrusting both head and leg through together, he bolts into the house. Near the coast the houses are better. There are often several rooms in a house. They have doors that swing on hinges, and windows the same, but unglazed. They have grass mats upon the beds. But all this is the result of the imported civilization.

The idle life of the Fang, especially in the interior, and his freedom from responsibility, seem to the impatient white man to have obliterated from his mind the idea of time. The more prosperous people near the coast have a passion for clocks, but it is because they like to hear them tick and strike. A Fang cannot conceive that he has wronged you if he comes several days late to keep an engagement. This unreliableness in everything where time is a factor is one of the chief trials of the white man in Africa. But he ought to regard the native’s viewpoint and consider how very irritating and really discouraging to the native must be the white man’s incessant hurry. “We are not in a hurry,” says the black man. “Why should you come to Africa to set us all hurrying? Has it made your own people so very happy that you want to share with us the blessing of haste?”

The African is the most sociable man in the world. He could not easily be killed with work even the hardest: he is not much afraid of it. But isolate him, take him away from his people, and he could easily die of homesickness. He is strongly emotional and warmly affectionate by nature. He loves his children, and sometimes embraces them tenderly, but he never kisses them. The kiss is meaningless to the African. They have never seen any such thing except between white people. I am almost ashamed to tell their interpretation of it as some of them have seen it executed and have reported to their people; but I presume it will do no harm. They think that white people, in kissing, expectorate into each other’s mouths. The word by which they designate the kiss is a compound which means “to exchange saliva.”—No wonder it is not popular! When those at the coast begin the practice of this fine art, it is usually accompanied by a sound loud enough to start a team of horses.