The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

I said: “Bojedi, is it true that you are living with Antyandi?”

He replied: “It is true that I am married to Antyandi.”—So he had tried to make himself believe.

Antyandi would be regarded by any native as a very attractive woman. Although she looked younger than Bojedi she was really several years older and was artful according to her years. She had some education and spoke and wrote French. She could boast of having lived with several white men, one of them at least of high rank in the government, and from these associations she had acquired a manner that was decidedly smart and foreign, not to speak of trunks filled with fine clothes. She was girlish in form and light in motion and had the reputation of being a great dancer. It happened once that she danced before King Adandi; not however for the head of a missionary on a charger, although afterwards she would doubtless have been glad to have had my head thus presented to her. A bottle of champagne was all she asked. Adandi was head of the whole Mpongwe tribe. He was dressed when I saw him last in white shoes, white flannel trousers and shirt, black velvet coat with a heavy gold chain suspended from his neck, and a white hat. He had received part of his education in France. He claimed the dignified distinction of martyrdom, having been twice imprisoned by the French and once exiled. He was a convert of the Jesuits and was profoundly religious—barring such discrepancies as drunkenness, gambling and adultery. King Adandi saw Antyandi dance and he declared that he would die if he could not add her to the number of his wives. She refused him however on the ground that Adandi being a king the relation would involve a degree of constancy on her part to which she was not accustomed. Then he organized a band of young men to seize the lady and carry her off, as they do in books. This had a fine flavour of romance about it. But the chocolate heroine had two invisible leopards, according to her claim, which attended her day and night, and with these she dispersed the brigands.

But Bojedi is still in the schoolhouse making a passionate but sorry defense. He really loved the woman with a fatuous regard, and I believe she was in love with him. He had first asked her uncle if he could marry her, and the uncle, the head of her family, although he was supposed to have absolute authority over her, replied that he had nothing to say in the matter, for Antyandi would do as she pleased anyway. Others of her relations had said that no Mpongwe woman would ever be allowed to marry a Kombi (to which tribe Bojedi belonged) and that the whole Mpongwe tribe would rise to prevent it. An open marriage was therefore impossible. And, on the other hand, mere publicity is the only marriage ceremony there is among Christians of Gaboon, and to forego publicity was to dispense with all ceremony. But how could a public announcement be called a ceremony? And how could mere publicity constitute a marriage bond?

This latter is in need of some explanation. Everybody knows that in France only those marriages are legal which are made by the state. The Roman Catholic Church insists upon a church marriage also, but it must follow that of the state, and cannot precede it, the one being a legal and the other a religious ceremony. In the colonies this same law is enforced, and the church is not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony until after the legal ceremony of the state. It happens also that there are serious impediments to the legal ceremony and sometimes deplorable consequences. The contracting parties must know their ages—which the African never knows; must know where they were born—which they have never thought of asking and everybody has forgotten; must know their parents, both father and mother. The African knows his mother; but as for his father, he may never have asked his mother that personal question. They could easily have recourse to lies and invent a father, but unfortunately they are required to produce the parents that their verbal consent to the marriage may be obtained. If the parents are not in the country a written consent is required; and if they are dead the proofs of their death must be produced in the form of a burial certificate.

These and other requirements may be good for France, but in Africa they are puerile nonsense. Moreover, these legal bonds are very hard to break; and that were well enough if only the moral bonds were strengthened thereby, but they are not, and in the case of marital infidelity the law binds only the innocent. For instance two of the very best women in Gaboon, or in West Africa for that matter, were thus bound to husbands who deserted them. One of those men took six other wives in utter disregard of the legal marriage, but that outraged woman could not get a divorce from him without a difficult and expensive process of law; nor, being a Christian, was she willing to marry without a divorce. We could not therefore advise, still less insist, that the Christians be married by the state, though of course we did not advise to the contrary. And without the legal marriage we were not allowed to perform the religious ceremony.

I performed a few such ceremonies for those who had already been married by the state official. On one occasion the young couple had decided to be married with a ring. But I knew nothing of their intention, and I was surprised when the groom, after the ceremony was entirely ended, produced the ring and asked me what he was supposed to do with it. The bride on that occasion was dressed in a Mother Hubbard of bright blue calico decorated with white lobsters. But I officiated at another marriage in which the bride was beautifully attired, and in good taste that would have done credit to any white woman.

As the natives objected to the legal form of marriage, and we could not conscientiously urge it upon them, there was no recognized or satisfactory form. Of course there are heathen ceremonies, but some of them are drunken orgies which the Christian conscience cannot allow; and others are so silly that the civilized natives would regard with abhorrence any suggestion of their observance. It is said that in some of the tribes far east of us the bride and groom are required to climb two young saplings, which are then swayed back and forth until their heads knock together, whereby the marriage is constituted. One wonders what the form for divorce would be like!

The want of a fixed form is very unfortunate. For it is only in such a chaotic period of social transition that we learn the moral value of the so much derided forms and ceremonies, and that without them the marriage tie becomes so loose that it is practically abandoned by many. Gradually it came to be recognized that the payment of the dowry constituted the marriage. For there must be something to differentiate marriage from unlawful relations. This served, though poorly, until the enlightened Christian conscience pronounced against the dowry, and the best people voluntarily refused to accept it and abandoned the custom. Since that time there is no distinct ceremony among the Christian natives at Gaboon, which is deplorable.

In lieu of a ceremony a useful custom has been introduced into the church, namely, that shortly after marriage the man and woman shall rise in their places in the weekly prayer-meeting, voluntarily, and without the minister saying a word shall announce their marriage, the man saying that he has taken this woman to be his wife and promising to be faithful to her; likewise the woman. Well do I remember one night in the Mpongwe Church when Barro and Anuroguli came to the prayer-meeting which I was conducting, expecting to announce their recent marriage. Barro rose at the end of the service and without the least embarrassment announced his marriage and made his vows in most appropriate words. But Anuroguli, sitting on the other side of the house, was seized with panic and sat motionless with her finger in her mouth. Barro stood waiting for her response while the women near her motioned to her, pulled her dress, punched her in the ribs, until gradually the whole congregation was remonstrating in loud whispers, which only increased the poor little woman’s embarrassment, until, seeing that it would be a physical impossibility for her to make her announcement, I took the risk of the law, and rose and said: “Anuroguli wishes to announce,” etc.; and having made her announcement for her, I closed the meeting. But, while all recognize the propriety of this custom, it does not constitute the marriage; for it takes place after marriage, sometimes long afterwards, and it is not possible unless both parties are Christians.