Fetichism in West Africa

by Robert Hamill Nassau

The other king felt he was conquered by some unseen power, and did not resist. He agreed to give up the murderer and pay a fine. The next day he had the murderer caught and brought before a council. He told them that the old king of the other tribe wanted the life of that man and a sum of money for the lives of his two chiefs.

They began to collect on the spot goods and food of all kinds, and many things of little value, with which to make simply the appearance of a full canoe. They tied the prisoner, put him in the canoe, and went with him and the goods to the old king. He received them.

But at night he went again to the other king, and began to rebuke him, saying that what he had sent was not sufficient. The other made a protest: “I have given you enough,—the lives of the two women, the one man, and goods equivalent to two more lives. I have thus given you five for your two.”

But the old king, in tribal pride, reckoned the sex and social position of his two men greater than any five of an inferior tribe, and said, “How dare you speak to me like that? You shall surely die!” He struck him with his okove, and went away.

The next day the other king was not able to leave his bed and sent for many of his people to come, saying that he had a special word to speak to them. They came, and he told them all about the death of the two women, and all that had occurred between him and the old king. “And now,” he said, “I am dying. We are overcome. It is useless to resist. I want you to remember, as long as the world stands, never to fight or quarrel with the tribe of that king.”

Then he turned his face to the wall and died.

X. The Family Idols.

(To a village on the St. Thomè or left bank of Gabun Bay, or “River,” away up a winding mangrove stream, and on the edge of the forest that was broken by pieces of prairie, I went, in February, 1903, to visit a friend, a sick Christian woman, who was in the care of a relative of hers named Adova.

There were only five huts in the village. At the first one from the edge of the prairie, which was assigned to me in which to sleep, on a bench outside under the low eaves, was a roughly carved wooden idol, about fourteen inches in height. From the dressing of the hair of its head, I supposed it to be intended for a female. Its loins were covered with a narrow strip of cloth. Near it was what could scarcely be recognized as a dog, its head looking more like a pig’s, and its tail more like an alligator’s. The figures were chalked and painted; and near them were a few gourd utensils for eating and drinking, and some medicinal barks.

Subsequently, at night, in a curtained-off corner of my room, I saw three low baskets, in each of which was a pair of wooden images not six inches high. They were chalked, and adorned with strips of various-colored cloth. In each basket also was a wooden hourglass-shaped article that seemed intended for a double bell. Pieces of medicinal barks filled up the spaces in the baskets. The images were relics of ceremonies held over twins born long ago in the family.