The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

Sometimes famous dancers from different towns, in fantastic and absurd decorations and dress, will contend for the championship in a contest of several days. They dance in the middle of the street before an audience of almost the entire population of the different towns seated on the ground on either side of the street. The music is not adapted to the dance, but the dance to the changing music. The musicians have hard work, and they make it harder. Streaming with perspiration they beat the drums with changing time and increasing rapidity until they are almost as nearly exhausted as the dancers, and one might think that the music had gone mad. Without doubt the native dance is a fine bodily exercise; and they dance so much that the exercise is perhaps the chief factor in the development of the strength and athletic form of the native.

The women dance on the moonlight nights, and often through the entire night. They all sing as they dance, most of them standing in a circle while individuals one after another step into the middle of the circle and lead the performance. The men are standing around looking on and when a leader finishes her part one or several of her gentlemen friends will step into the circle and embrace her. These dances have always appeared innocent enough to me. But the native Christians, who know better than I, and who also know the side-scenes that invariably attend the dance though not a part of it, uniformly condemn the dance, and say that no Christian ought to take part in it.

They dance on all festive occasions—a betrothal, a marriage, a victory in war, the end of a war, or the end of a term of mourning for the dead. The men decorate themselves with paint and feathers, and often they wear around their ankles strings of native bells, consisting of the dried hull of a certain nut, into which while still green they insert small stones, which make a peculiarly metallic and pleasant noise.

They usually form in two long lines in the street, with the drums across one end. Some great dancer will perform in the middle, down the lines and back, sometimes in graceful movements, and sometimes in contortions almost fiendish until his body seems to have no shape at all “distinguishable in member, joint or limb.” Sometimes they all move with him down the street and back. They sing and shout as they dance, shaking the bells on their ankles, and occasionally all together suddenly stamping upon the ground. They mark the time to perfection, and the effect of so many men keeping the time perfectly while their movements differ, together with the volume of wild song and shouting is quite fascinating.

The chief dance of the men is that of their Secret Society, which is performed only on very dark nights, the women being compelled to retire to their houses and close the door lest they see it and die. In this dance they deliberately try to be unhuman and hideous in their movements. I once witnessed this dance when I had been but a short time in Africa and did not know the serious nature of my intrusion; and I suppose I came much nearer suffering violence at their hands than I knew at the time. It is the height of indiscretion to show unnecessary contempt for native customs, or to disregard their feelings for the sake of satisfying mere curiosity. But I was not aware of their feelings until it was too late to retreat.

Hearing the drumming and the roar of the gorilla-man I knew they were having a characteristic dance and with a lantern in my hand I started along the bush-path to see it and entered the town before they were aware of my approach. The offense was double. I had turned the light upon the performance, possibly allowing women to see the gorilla-man through the chinks of the houses; and I myself had defied him by looking upon him with uninitiated eyes, for which according to custom I ought to die. He approached me whirling about and contorting his body, roaring the while like a gorilla, and brandished his sword very close to my face, to one side and then the other. But I was not intimidated for the sufficient reason that I did not believe he would touch me. Then, as I stood my ground, he thought to terrorize me by his supernatural powers, which the native would fear far more than a sword. He brought out a number of human bones and laying them on the ground before me he performed a ceremony which was supposed to bring down upon me the wrath of his ancestors. But of the two dangers I was rather more afraid of the sword than the ancestors. They all saw my indifference and concluded that I had with me some fetish stronger than theirs and powerful for my protection; and they resumed the dance while I looked on, having first accommodated them by turning down the light. It was a strange sight, these black phantom-forms darting to and fro in the dark, like flitting shadows often with a wriggling, reptile motion, and shrieking the while like hobgoblins.

I have already spoken at length of the African’s love of story-telling, and have given many examples. The following two stories are types of a large class.

The elephant and the gorilla hate each other, for each thinks himself king of the forest. Meeting one day in the bush-path, each refused to step aside to let the other pass.

“Let me pass,” said the elephant; “for these woods belong to me.”

The gorilla beat his breast and made a noise like the sound of a drum. Then he replied: “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh! These woods do not belong to you. I am master here.”