Fetichism in West Africa

by Robert Hamill Nassau

The difference between my old Pennsylvania-Dutch lady and my “Number 13” acquaintances, and my African Negro friend is that to the former, while they are somewhat influenced by their superstition, it is not their God. To the latter it is the practical and logical application of his religion. Theirs is a pitiable weakness; his a trusted belief.

It would be impossible to enumerate all the thousands of practices dominated by the superstitious beliefs of the Bantu,—practices which sometimes erect themselves into customs and finally obtain almost the force of law. Many of these are prevalent all over Africa; others are local.

Rules of Pregnancy.

Everywhere are rules of pregnancy which bind both the woman and her husband. During pregnancy neither of them is permitted to eat the flesh of any animal which was itself pregnant at the time of its slaughter. Even of the flesh of a non-pregnant animal there are certain parts—the heart, liver, and entrails—which may not be eaten by them. It is claimed that to eat of such food at such a time would make a great deal of trouble for the unborn infant. During his wife’s pregnancy a man may not cut the throat of any animal nor assist in the butchering of it. A carpenter whose wife is pregnant must not drive a nail. To do so would close the womb and cause a difficult labor. He may do all other work belonging to carpentering, but he must have an assistant to drive the nails.

In my early years on Corisco Island, and while I was expecting to become a father, I was one day superintending the butchering of a sheep. It was not necessary that I should actually use the knife; that was done by the cook; but I stood by to see that the work was done in a cleanly manner, and that in the flaying the skin should be rolled constantly away, so that the hair should not touch the flesh. In the dissection I assisted, so that the flesh should not be defiled by a carelessly wounded entrail. My servant was amazed, and said my child would be injured. He was still more shocked when Mrs. Nassau herself came to urge haste and to secure the liver for dinner.

Among the station employees on Corisco in 1864 was an ex-slave, a recent convert, whose freedom had been purchased by one of the missionaries. The native non-Christian freemen begrudged him his position as a mission employee; for his wages were now his own, and could no longer be claimed by his former master. Some of his fellow-servants, freemen, put off on him, as much as they could, the more menial tasks. It was incumbent, therefore, on the missionaries to see that he was not oppressed by his fellows. Clearing of the graveyard was a task no one liked to have assigned to him; and it was often thrown on poor Evosa. One day a newly arrived missionary, the Rev. George Paull, the noblest of my associates these forty years, who just then knew little of the language or of native thought or custom, ordered Evosa to take his hoe and clean the cemetery path. Evosa bluntly said, “Mba haye!” (I won’t). “You won’t! You refuse to obey me?” “Mba haye!” “Then I dismiss you.” Evosa went away, much cast down. Some of his fellow-Christians came to me saying they were sorry for him, and asked me to interfere. “But,” I said, “he should obey; the work is not hard.” “Oh! but he can’t do it!” “Why not?” “Because his wife is pregnant.” Immediately I understood. Evosa may not have believed in the superstition, but for all that, if he did the work and subsequently there should be anything untoward in his wife’s confinement, her relatives would exact a heavy fine of him. We had not required our converts to disregard these prohibitions, if only they did not actually engage in any act of fetich worship. I was careful to say nothing to the natives that would undermine my missionary brother’s authority; but privately I intimated to Mr. Paull that I thought that if he had been fully aware of the state of the case, he would not have dismissed the man. He was just, and reversed the dismissal. Evosa was pardoned also for the bluntness of his refusal; it was a part of his slavish ignorance. In conclusion, I warned him that he should have explained to Mr. Paull the ground of his refusal, and should have asked for other work. He had not supposed that the white man did not know; and the asking of excuse is a part of politeness that has to be taught. Almost every new missionary makes unwise or unjust orders and decisions before he learns on what superstitious grounds he is treading. Not all are willing to be rectified as was my noble brother Paull.

In the burial of a first-born infant the lid of the coffin is not only not allowed to be nailed down, but it must not entirely cover the corpse; a space must be left open (generally above the child’s head); the superstition being that if the coffin be closed, the mother will bear no more children.

Omens on Journeys.

Almost every traveller in Africa, in publishing his story, has much to say about the difficulties in getting his caravan of porters started on their daily journey. His detailed account of slowness, disobedience, and desertions is as monotonous to the reader as they were distressing to himself. Did he but know it, the fault was often largely his own. The man of haste and exactitude, that has grown up on railroad time-tables, demands the impossible of aborigines who never have needed to learn the value of time. Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, and even Latin diligence expects too much of the happy-go-lucky African. The traveller fumes, and frets, and works himself into a fever. He would gain more in the end if he would festina lente. He would save himself many a quarrel or case of discipline (for which he earns the reputation of being a hard master; and for which, further on in the journey, he may be shot by one of his outraged servants) if he only knew that superstition had met his servant, as the angel “with his sword drawn” met Balaam’s ass, “in a narrow place”; and that servant could no more have dared to go on in the way than could that wise ass who knew and saw what his angry master did not know.

Mr. R. E. Dennett, for many years a resident in Loango among the Bavili people, and author of “Seven Years among the Fjort,” recognizes this in “A Few Signs and Omens,” contributed recently to a Liverpool weekly journal, “West Africa.” What he says of the Fyât (Fiot) tribes is largely true of all the other West African tribes. “They have a number of things to take into consideration, when setting out upon a journey, which may account for many of those otherwise inexplicable delays which so annoy the white man at times when anxious to start ‘one time’ for some place or other.