The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

A man also loves his children more than his wife. Often the head-wife is the one who bears the most children. Children are not weaned until the age of three years or thereabouts. During all this period of lactation the husband and wife observe absolute continence in regard to each other, though not necessarily in regard to others.

A man has as many wives as he can afford to buy. The idea of marrying “just for love” is laughable. Such an act is sometimes cited as indicating weakness of character. Marriages of “strong-minded” men are controlled by expediency and convenience. In the territory of the Gaboon I know of no man that has more than ten wives; but in the farther interior some chiefs have half a hundred. Yet, though the possession of many wives is the ambition of every man, most of them never possess more than one. The dowry which a man pays for a wife is enormous; and none but the most successful traders are able to earn the amount. A dowry is often kept intact and passed from father to son, doing repeated service. A man may also procure a dowry by the sale of a sister. I have heard Fang boys boasting that they were rich because they had several sisters.

For those who are not so fortunate as to inherit a dowry or to have a sister, there are two alternatives; first they may remain unmarried, with the result that they will be regarded as contemptibly poor, and will be engaged in endless palavers with all the husbands of the town; or, they may boldly steal a woman of some other town, which will cause war between the two towns, and in the end, after several or many persons have been killed, the whole town will have to pay the dowry. Sometimes a man may have an incomplete dowry and may by working earn sufficient to complete it. The following would be an ordinary dowry among the Fang living near the coast: Ten goats, five sheep, five guns, twenty trade-boxes (plain wooden chests), one hundred heads of tobacco, ten hats, ten looking-glasses, five blankets, five pairs of trousers, two dozen plates, fifty dollars’ worth of calico, fifty dollars’ worth of rum, one chair and one cat. In addition to the above he must make frequent presents to his wife’s relations, who may be expected to arrive at any time and in any number for an indefinite visit. If there is any hatred in the heart of the African man it is usually directed towards his wife’s relations. A man is all his lifetime subject to bondage by reason of his wife.

A certain fellow missionary was married to another missionary. Some of the African boys, knowing that the white man had paid no dowry, expressed envious regrets at the ease with which a white man marries a wife. “All you white men have to do,” they said, “is simply to ask a woman; and the whole palaver is finished.” This also made my celibacy the more incomprehensible.

When a wife dies without having borne children the husband has the right to insist that the dowry be returned. A part of it and sometimes all of it will have been spent, and the people are reluctant to make up the loss; so the request that the dowry be returned after the death of a wife nearly always leads to war, though they do not question the right of the custom. If the wife runs away either to her own or another town, the dowry paid for her must be returned, if the woman is not sent back. In nearly every case her people will find it more convenient to send her back than to restore the dowry; so their bad passions of greed and immorality are balanced the one against the other, and the large dowry serves the purpose of keeping husband and wife together. But if the woman runs away not to her own town, but to some other town, eloping with another man, her people will often prevent war between the two towns by inducing her to return. Otherwise they themselves will become involved in the war. Nearly all the wars between different communities of the same tribe begin with a “woman-palaver.”

A woman after an attempt to run away, or upon being brought back, is usually put in stocks until she becomes submissive. Her foot is passed through a hole in a heavy block of wood about four feet long, the hole then being closed by a bolt. She is kept thus night and day. The irritation of the rough wood often produces a very bad ulcer. A woman in stocks is a common sight in the Fang towns. One day while I was in a Fang town on the river, I heard a woman crying in the next town as if in great pain. I asked an explanation and said I must go and see what was the matter. Some men of her town being present tried to persuade me not to go by telling a variety of conflicting lies that made me suspicious. I went to the town, and found in the palaver-house a withered old savage punishing his young wife by putting her hand in a large and heavy block, with the help of his younger brothers. He had made a small hole in the block and was dragging her hand through it. The hole was so small that he thought she would not be able to get her hand out, and it would not require the usual bolt. The hand was about one-third of the way through the hole and was already badly bruised. I knew the Fang towns, and just how far I could safely venture to use force in each, for they differ widely. The individual counts for nothing; everything depends upon the feeling or attitude of the whole town towards the white man. The sight of the woman and her crying were unbearable; I ordered the old chief to withdraw her hand immediately. He knew just how to do it and I did not. He began to argue, but I said: “Argument afterwards: remove her hand instantly.” Still he talked, and the woman cried. But a moment later my hand clutched his throat and he found himself pinioned against the opposite wall. Thereupon he indicated his readiness to comply with my request. He dragged her hand out of the block; the women of the town, all assembled, led her away as they moaned pathetically in sympathy, the woman herself still crying. A little later I followed them into the house and found them pouring warm water over the bruised hand to soothe the pain; but the woman still cried.

Meantime, the old man told me the story. It was typical of the extreme injustice often committed against the African woman: A young woman married against her will to a very old man, with the inevitable consequence that she despised him and cared too much for somebody else. I made the incident the text of my sermon and preached an up-to-date sermon on Woman’s Rights.

The old man’s cupidity, always alert, suggested a happy expedient. In a suave manner he deliberately proposed that since I knew so well how to treat a woman, he would as a favour accept a proper dowry from me, renounce his claim upon her and let me marry her. But I exclaimed, at least to myself: “This is so sudden!”

But would not the old man immediately carry out his purpose when I had left the town? No, he would not. An unexpected interruption in the performance of such an act he would regard as a sign that the act would be attended by misfortune to himself, and he would not repeat it. And that particular act, if he had repeated it, would certainly have been attended by misfortune; inflicted not by any invisible power, but by a white man. For, having undertaken to prevent the wrong, if I should afterwards allow it, I would lose influence and be despised in that town. But lest the reader should think of me as a very warlike individual, with a Bible in one hand and a big stick in the other, I hasten to say that, except in self-defense, I have only three times, in more than twice so many years, laid violent hands upon a native; and all three times the outrageous treatment of a woman was the occasion.

Less dowry is paid for a child than for “a whole woman,” as the Fang would say. A man frequently pays the dowry for a very young girl, who is then taken to his town and given in charge to his mother to raise, and the mother will probably “raise” her very early in the morning. She trains the girl for her son, and at a proper age delivers his wife to him. Children are often betrothed to each other, the boy’s father paying the dowry to the girl’s father, the children of course having nothing to say in the matter. I am inclined to think that these latter are the happiest marriages in Africa. A man once came to Efulen in great distress saying that his little daughter, a mere baby, was very ill and that if we did not help her she would surely die and, he added, the worst of it was that she was betrothed and he had received a portion of the dowry which he would be obliged to return if she should die. His grief was truly pitiable. I have known instances where a child was betrothed before it was born, the dowry to be kept intact and returned in case the child should not be a girl.