The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

While we were struggling in the sea fifty schoolboys had reached the beach in a state of panic. The crying of the smaller boys was hysterical and they could not stop even when I was safe on land. They continued to cry, saying the while, “O Mr. Milligan, what would we have done? For you are our father.”

At last I dried their tears by saying: “Look here, boys, I know what you are crying for: you are sorry that I was not drowned.” Every face was for a moment transfixed with amazement, as they stared at one another. Then they all laughed.

Next day they dragged for my trunk which contained most of the useful things that I had in Africa. At last when the tide was at the ebb they found it. Among other things which lay in the sea over night was a French Testament that I used to carry with me. I still have this relic.

The kindness of such a boy as Ndong Koni is only appreciated when contrasted with the awful cruelty which is the outstanding feature of all heathenism. And the cruelty of anger or fear is not so revolting as that of their deliberate practice and ordinary customs, dissociated from passion. In a certain town at which we anchored the Evangeline one day while we waited for the turn of the tide, we found a woman sick and evidently dying, whose wasted form suggested long suffering. Ndong Koni knew her history and repeated it to me. She did not belong to the town, but had been a prisoner there for five years. A petty war had taken place between this town and the one to which she had belonged. A woman, I believe, had been stolen, and then some killing followed. At the close of the war the people of her town had to pay a dowry and they agreed to send a woman as hostage until it should be paid. This poor woman who had nothing whatever to do with the palaver, was taken from her family and given as a prisoner to the other town, while the guilty man and woman enjoyed themselves and paid no penalty. Her husband had probably married other wives and had ceased to care for her, and he was willing that she should be sent. They never ransomed her, but left her there, a prisoner and slave in the town, with no protection and no rights, until at the end of five years she died. To many such have I tried to tell the story of the Son of Man, who came to give His life “a ransom for many.”

One day we visited a certain town which was not far away. Expecting that we would return that evening I took no extra clothing. On the way we were caught in a storm and my clothes were drenched with rain. I could hot spend the afternoon in these wet clothes, and the town possessed no clothes that I could wear. But the chief had a table and a table-cloth. He kindly loaned me the latter and a pair of shoes that had perhaps been discarded by some white man. I did not preach in a table-cloth and a pair of shoes, but I sat and visited with the people.

Mb’Obam, Ndong Koni’s uncle, died not long after the visit to his town, the incidents of which I have recounted. He and his wife, Sara, had for a long time lived a pure and exemplary life in the midst of the darkest heathenism. When he died the people accused Sara of having made medicine to kill him. This medicine is a fetish and acts supernaturally: it is not necessary that it should come in physical contact with the victim. Mb’Obam had died of a lingering disease well known to them. But such is the mental degradation incident to the belief in magic and witchcraft that effects are referred to a supernatural cause even when the natural and physical cause is before their eyes. Every death is attributed to magic or witchcraft, and if they are not forward in avenging it the spirit of the dead one will inflict misfortune and even death upon them. Mb’Obam had completely broken with fetishism and had discarded all these beliefs and had bravely defended the victims of native cruelty. At his approaching death he charged the people not to touch Sara nor to charge her with witchcraft, reminding them what a faithful wife she had been and how differently they both had lived since they became Christians. But though they had regarded him with respect and reverence during his life, yet at his death old customs and beliefs asserted tyrannous authority, and they charged Sara with having killed him. It fell to Esona, the succeeding chief, to decree the punishment of Sara. In the vicinity of the French government he would not dare to kill her. So he led her into the middle of the street before all the people, placed her on her hands and knees, and bound upon her back a heavy load of plantain-stocks. Then two men sat upon the load, on her back, and all the men of the town drove her thus up and down the street on her hands and knees until they nearly killed her. As soon as she had sufficiently recovered from the effect of the awful ordeal they repeated the performance, and repeated it again, until Sara managed through a Christian boy to get a message to me. Leaving the school I made ready the Evangeline and went with all haste to the town, thirty miles distant, where I arrived just in time to stop another repetition of the outrage. The sight was too much for me. Mb’Obam and Sara had been the very first of my Fang friends. Whether the impulse was noble indignation or a very mortal temper, the reader may decide. With a stick which I carried I flogged Esona the chief before all the people, and there was blood on the stick when I got through.

One may wonder how a white man could do this in a town of savages without sacrificing his own life. I may say that there was perhaps not another town on the river in which I could have done any such thing and have escaped with my life. Safety in such a situation depends upon the extent of a man’s influence and personal authority in the particular town. It is the part of wisdom for him to know the extent of his influence in each town and the part of discretion never to overreach it. In this instance Esona, breaking away from me like an animal frantic with rage, shouted for his gun and ran towards his house to get it. But a cry of alarm was raised, as I expected, and half a dozen men rushing upon him, held him fast. He broke loose from them and others joined him. For a moment it looked as if my own life and that of the crew (except Ndong Koni, who was related in the town) were forfeited, and the fate of the Evangeline were like that of the famous ship which was left—

“With one man of her crew alive,

What put to sea with seventy-five.”

But they caught Esona again and threw him to ground, shouting at me the while to leave the town as quickly as possible. To their mingled entreaties and curses I yielded a tardy compliance, which however was not nearly as reluctant as it seemed.