True to his nature, a Vey bushman rises in the morning to swallow his rice and cassava, and crawls back to his mat which is invariably placed in the sunshine, where he simmers till noontide, when another wife serves him with a second meal. The remainder of daylight is passed either in gossip or a second siesta, till, at sundown, his other wives wash his body, furnish a third meal, and stretch his wearied limbs before a blazing fire to refresh for the toils of the succeeding day. In fact, the slaves of a household, together with its females, form the entire working class of Africa, and in order to indoctrinate the gentler sex in its future toils and duties, there seems to be a sort of national seminary which is known as the Gree-gree-bush.
The Gree-gree-bush is a secluded spot or grove of considerable extent in the forest, apart from dwellings and cultivated land though adjacent to villages, which is considered as consecrated ground and forbidden to the approach of men. The establishment within this precinct consists of a few houses, with an extensive area for exercise. It is governed chiefly by an old woman of superior skill and knowledge, to whose charge the girls of a village are intrusted as soon as they reach the age of ten or twelve. There are various opinions of the use and value of this institution in the primitive polity of Africa. By some writers it is treated as a religious cloister for the protection of female chastity, while by others it is regarded as a school of licentiousness. From my own examination of the establishment, I am quite satisfied that a line drawn between these extremes will, most probably, characterize the “bush” with accuracy, and that what was originally a conservative seclusion, has degenerated greatly under the lust of tropical passions.
As the procession of novices who are about to enter the grove approaches the sanctuary, music and dancing are heard and seen on every side. As soon as the maidens are received, they are taken by the gree-gree women to a neighboring stream, where they are washed, and undergo an operation which is regarded as a sort of circumcision. Anointed from head to foot with palm-oil, they are next reconducted to their home in the gree-gree bush. Here, under strict watch, they are maintained by their relatives or those who are in treaty for them as wives, until they reach the age of puberty. At this epoch the important fact is announced by the gree-gree woman to the purchaser or future husband, who, it is expected, will soon prepare to take her from the retreat. Whenever his new house is ready for the bride’s reception, it is proclaimed by the ringing of bells and vociferous cries during night. Next day search is made by females through the woods, to ascertain whether intruders are lurking about, but when the path is ascertained to be clear, the girl is forthwith borne to a rivulet, where she is washed, anointed, and clad in her best attire. From thence she is borne, amid singing, drumming, shouting, and firing, in the arms of her female attendants, till her unsoiled feet are deposited on the husband’s floor.[9]
I believe this institution exists throughout a large portion of Africa, and such is the desire to place females within the bush, that poor parents who cannot pay the initiatory fee, raise subscriptions among their friends to obtain the requisite slave whose gift entitles their child to admission. Sometimes, it is said, that this human ticket is stolen to effect the desired purpose, and that no native power can recover the lost slave when once within the sacred precincts.
The gree-gree-bush is not only a resort of the virgin, but of the wife, in those seasons when approaching maternity indicates need of repose and care. In a few hours, the robust mother issues with her new-born child, and after a plunge into the nearest brook, returns to the domestic drudgery which I have already described.
In the time of Fana-Toro, Toso was the royal residence where his majesty played sovereign and protector over six towns and fifteen villages. His government was generally considered patriarchal. When I bought Cape Mount, the king numbered “seventy-seven rains,” equivalent to so many years;—he was small, wiry, meagre, erect, and proud of the respect he universally commanded. His youth was notorious among the tribes for intrepidity, and I found that he retained towards enemies a bitter resentment that often led to the commission of atrocious cruelties.
It was not long after my instalment at the Cape, that I accidentally witnessed the ferocity of this chief. Some trifling “country affair” caused me to visit the king; but upon landing at Toso I was told he was abroad. The manner of my informant, however, satisfied me that the message was untrue; and accordingly, with the usual confidence of a “white man” in Africa, I searched his premises till I encountered him in the “palaver-house.” The large inclosure was crammed with a mob of savages, all in perfect silence around the king, who, in an infuriate manner, with a bloody, knife in his hand, and a foot on the dead body of a negro, was addressing the carcass. By his side stood a pot of hissing oil, in which the heart of his enemy was frying!
My sudden and, perhaps, improper entrance, seemed to exasperate the infidel, who, calling me to his side, knelt on the corpse, and digging it repeatedly with his knife, exclaimed with trembling passion, that it was his bitterest and oldest foe’s! For twenty years he had butchered his people, sold his subjects, violated his daughters, slain his sons, and burnt his towns;—and with each charge, the savage enforced his assertion by a stab.
I learned that the slaughtered captive was too brave and wary to be taken alive in open conflict. He had been kidnapped by treachery, and as he could not be forced to walk to Toso, the king’s trappers had cooped him in a huge basket, which they bore on their shoulders to the Cape. No sooner was the brute in his captor’s presence, than he broke a silence of three days by imprecations on Fana-Toro. In a short space, his fate was decided in the scene I had witnessed, while his body was immediately burnt to prevent it from taking the form of some ferocious beast which might vex the remaining years of his royal executioner!