Curiosities of Superstition Part 14

By-and-by he threw down one of the boy's hands, then a foot, then the other hand, the other foot, the trunk, and lastly, the head! Finally, he himself came down, all puffing and panting, and with blood-besmeared clothes kissed the ground before the Amir, addressing him in Chinese. The Amir made some reply; and straightway the juggler took the boy's _disjecta membra_, laid them in their places, gave a kick, and lo and behold, the boy arose and stood erect, "clothed and in his right mind." "All this,"

says Ibn Batuta, "astonished me beyond measure,"--and no wonder!--"and I had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a cordial, however, which cured the attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, 'Wallah! 'tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither maiming nor mending; 'tis all hocus pocus!'"

Impartial scientific observers have pa.s.sed a similar verdict on the proceedings of the "mediums," who, however, have never achieved anything so surprising as the feat here recorded. Before we incredulously reject the Arab traveller's narrative, let us compare it with an account furnished by Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of some Chinese conjurors, which he saw at Batavia. Pa.s.sing over the basket-murder trick, which Houdin and others have made familiar to the English public, we come to "a thing which surpa.s.ses all belief;" which, indeed, Mr. Melton would scarcely have ventured to relate had not thousands witnessed it at the same time as himself.

One of the gang took a ball of cord, and grasping one end in his hand hurled the other up into the air with such force that it was entirely lost to sight. He then climbed up the cord as rapidly as a sailor up his ship's rigging, and to such a height that he became invisible. Melton stood full of astonishment, and at a loss to know what next would happen; when, behold, a leg tumbled out of the air! A conjuror who was on the watch for it immediately s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, and threw it into a basket. Down came a hand, and then another leg, and, in short, all the members of the body successively fell from the air, to find shelter in the basket. The last of the ghastly shower was the head; and no sooner had it touched the ground than the man who had gathered the limbs and stowed them in the basket, turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Straightway they began to creep together, until they composed a whole man, who stood up and walked about just as before, having sustained apparently no damage! "Never in my life,"

says Melton, "was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful performance, and I doubted now no longer that those misguided men did it by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such things should be accomplished by natural means."[38]

The Emperor Jahangir in his "Memoirs" (cited by Yule) describes the exploits of some Bengali jugglers, who exhibited before him. Two of them bear a close resemblance to the foregoing. Thus: they produced a man whom they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the body.

These mutilated members they scattered along the ground, where they remained for some time. A sheet or curtain was extended over the spot, and one of the men placing himself under it, in a few minutes reappeared, in company with the individual supposed to have been so roughly dissected, in such perfect health and condition, that one might have safely sworn he had never received the slightest wound or injury.

Again: they produced a chain, fifty cubits long, and one end of it threw towards the sky, when it remained as if fastened to something in the air.

A dog was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the chain, ran up it to the other end, and immediately vanished. In the same manner a boy, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain to disappear, in their turn, at the other end of it. And, lastly, the chain was taken down and put away in a bag, without any of the spectators discovering in what manner the different animals had been spirited into s.p.a.ce!

The surprising dexterity of these jugglers is emulated by their descendants, and many of the Indian conjurors produce illusions scarcely less wonderful than any we have described.

Take the pretty mango-trick. The juggler who exhibits has no other drapery than half a yard of cotton, and no other apparatus than a handful of common toys. He has none of those elaborate mechanical contrivances, on which the European professors of legerdemain mostly rely for their effects.

He takes a mango-stone, buries it in a little mud, and covers it with a jar.

A few minutes later, the jar is lifted up; and lo, a tender green seed-leaf has delicately sprouted. Another peep into the magic hotbed, and we see that the tiny leaf has withered, and that a flourishing young tree has sprung into sudden existence.

Or we have the egg-trick, which an eye-witness thus describes:--[39]

"One of the party, a very handsome woman, fixed on her head a fillet of strong texture, to which were fastened, at equal distances, twenty pieces of string of equal length, with a common noose at the end of each. Under her arm she carried a basket, in which were carefully deposited twenty eggs. Her basket, the fillet, and the nooses were carefully examined by us. There was evidently no deception.

"The woman advanced alone, and stood before us. She then began to move rapidly round on one spot, whence she never for one instant moved, spinning round and round like a top.

"When her pace was at its height, she drew down one of the strings, which now flew horizontally round her head, and, securing an egg in the noose, she jerked it back to its original position, still twirling round with undiminished velocity, and repeating the process until she had secured the whole twenty eggs in the nooses previously prepared for them. She projected them rapidly from her hand the moment she had secured them, until at length the whole twenty were flying round her in an unbroken circle. Thus she continued spinning at undiminished speed for fully five minutes; after which, taking the eggs one by one from their nooses, she replaced them in her basket; and then in one instant stopped, without the movement of a limb, or even the vibration of a muscle, as if she had been suddenly transformed into marble. The countenance was perfectly calm, nor did she exhibit the slightest distress from her extraordinary exertions."

The basket-murder trick, to which we have already referred, is as follows:--

The juggler stepping forward, invites your examination of a light wicker basket, and when you profess yourself satisfied, he places it over a child, about eight years old, who is perfectly naked. He then asks the child some indifferent question, and you hear her reply to it from the basket. Question and answer are repeated frequently, each time in a louder and more impa.s.sioned manner, until the juggler, in a seeming fit of rage, threatens to kill the girl, who vainly supplicates for mercy.

The dramatic character of the scene is as perfect in its realism as it is horrible. The man plants his foot furiously on the frail basket, and plunges his sword into it again and again, while the ears of the spectators are rent and their hearts touched by the child's cries of agony. For a moment it is impossible to believe that you are witnessing a deception, as you listen to the pa.s.sionate shrieks and watch the man's furious face. Blood flows in a stream from the basket, and by degrees the groans of the victim grow fainter and fainter, until all is hushed in a silence so intense that you hear your heart beat. You are about to rush on the murderer, and inflict summary punishment, when he mutters a few cabalistic words, takes up the basket, and shows you--only a little blood-stained earth; while the child, you know not how or whence, has come to mingle with the crowd, and ask for baksheesh.

Two simpler exploits may be recorded:--

Taking a large, wide-mouthed, earthen vessel, filled with water, the conjuror turns it upside down, and, of course, the contents run out.

He then reverses the jar, which to your amazement is seen to be perfectly full, while all the earth round about is--dry! The jar is again emptied, and submitted to the inspection of the spectators. He asks you to fill it to the brim; after which he reverses it: not a drop of water flows, and yet when you look into it, it is perfectly empty. At last the conjuror breaks the jar by way of a practical demonstration of the fact that it is made of common earthenware.

A large basket is produced: the conjuror raises it, and a Pariah dog appears crouching on the ground. The basket-cover is replaced; and a second examination shows you a b.i.t.c.h with a litter of seven puppies. A goat, a pig, and various other animals, come forth in due time from this inexhaustible cornucopia.

All these exploits are performed by a single exhibitor, who stands quite alone, and at a distance of several feet from the crowd, so that collusion with confederates would seem to be impossible.

CHAPTER IX.

_SOME AFRICAN SUPERSt.i.tIONS._

Africa is the land of superst.i.tion,--dark, cruel, ghastly superst.i.tion. It accompanies its victim from the cradle to the grave; throws its fell shadow over every scene and incident of life. We cannot attempt, nor do we desire, to paint it in all its horrors. For our purpose it will be sufficient to glance at some of the ceremonies, hideous or grotesque, which are practised by the Equatorial Savage.

In his childhood he has to be initiated into certain mysteries. What those are Mr. Winwood Reade learned from a negro steward, who informed him that he was taken into a fetich, or idol house, severely flogged, and plastered with goat-dung: this ceremony, like the rites of masonry, being conducted to the sound of music. Afterwards from behind a kind of screen or shrine issued uncouth and terrible sounds such as he had never before heard.

These, he was told, emanated from the spirit called Ukuk. He afterwards brought to Mr. Winwood Reade the instrument with which the fetich-man produces the noise. It may be described as a whistle made of hollowed mangrove wood, about two inches long, and covered at one end with a sc.r.a.p of bat's wing. For a period of five days after initiation the novice wears an ap.r.o.n of dry palm leaves.

He is next instructed in the science of fetich; and afterwards he learns what kinds of food are forbidden to his tribe, for one tribe may not eat crocodile, another hippopotamus, nor a third buffalo. He learns to reverence and dread the spirit _Ukuk_, which dwells, it is said, in the bowels of the earth, and visits the upper world only when he has some business to perform. On the occasion of his visits, he abides in the fetich-house, which is built in a peculiar form, roofed with dry plantain leaves, and always kept in darkness. Thence strange dread sounds, like the growling of a tiger, are heard to proceed, so that the women and children shudder as they listen. When the mangrove-tube is thus at work, the initiated hasten to the house, and a "lodge" or "council" is held.

"The natives of Equatorial Africa worship also the spirits of their ancestors; a worship for which their minds are prepared by the veneration which they pay to old age. Young men never enter the presence of an aged person without curtseying (a genuine curtsey like that of a charity-school girl), and pa.s.sing in a stooping att.i.tude, as if they were going under a low door. When seated in his presence, it is always at a humble distance.

If they hand him a lighted pipe, or a mug of water, they fall on one knee.

If an old man, they address him as _rora_--father; if an old woman as _ngwe_--mother. It is customary for only the old people to communicate bad news to one another; and it is not to be wondered at that we find the negroes such perfect courtiers, since it is the etiquette of the country that the aged should only be addressed in terms of flattery and adulation.

"When they die their relics are honoured. In the Congo country their bodies are dried into mummies. Here, their bones are sometimes stored up and visited at set periods. Or, when a person noted for his wisdom has died, his head, when partially decomposed, is often cut off and suspended, so as to drip upon a ma.s.s of chalk placed underneath. This matter is supposed to be the wisdom which formerly animated the brain, and which, rubbed upon the foreheads of others, will communicate its virtue."

It can easily be understood how this reverence paid to the relics of one's ancestors would develope into the worship of their spirits. The Equatorial Savage believes that the manes of his forefathers influence his life and fortunes entirely to his advantage, and by a dying friend or relative will often send messages to them. Mr. Reade adds that a son has been known to kill his aged mother from a conviction that her spirit would be of more service to him than her substance; a reason for matricide which would hardly be accepted as conclusive in civilised countries! The savage lives, however, in constant communion and sympathy with the spirit-world. The visions which come to him in his dreams, and the sounds which he fancies himself to hear, are those of the Unseen. And as he is always brooding upon his dreams and relating them to his friends, he necessarily dreams the more, until it becomes difficult for him to draw a line between the dream and the reality.

When any calamity befalls the tribe, or at the approach of any imminent danger, they gather together on the brink of some lofty bluff, or on the forest's haunted threshold, and stretching their arms towards the sky, while the women wail and the children weep, they call upon the spirits of the departed to come and help them.

They have a remarkable ceremony which ill.u.s.trates the force and vividness of their belief in spirits:

When the dead are weary of staying in the bush, they come for one of their people whom they most affect. And the spirit will say to the man: "I am tired of dwelling in the bush; please to build for me in the town a little house as close as possible to your own." And he tells him to dance and sing too; and accordingly the man a.s.sembles the women at night to join in dance and song.

Then, next day, the people repair to the grave of the _Obambo_, or ghost, and make a rude idol; after which the bamboo bier on which the body is conveyed to the grave, and some of the dust of the ground, are carried into a little hut erected near the house of the visited, and a white cloth is draped over the door.

It is a curious fact, which seems to show that they have a legend something like the old Greek myth of Charon and the Styx, that in one of the songs chanted during this ceremony occurs the following line: "You are well dressed, but you have no canoe to carry you across to the other side."

According to Mr. Reade, these savages have their Naiads and Dryads; their spirits of the mountains and the forests, the lakes and the streams, and the high places. They have also their Typhon and their Osiris, their Good and Evil Genius; thus recognising, in common with almost every other race, the enduring antagonism between the Principles and Powers of Good and Evil. The Evil Spirit, _Mbwiri_, they worship with a special homage; his might is to be dreaded, and his anger, if possible, averted. He is the lord of earth; and before him, as before a tyrant whose hand can grasp their lives and fortunes, they bend in humble adoration. But as the Good Spirit will do them no injury, they conceive it unnecessary to address to it any regular or formal prayer. "The word by which they express this Supreme Being answers exactly to our word of G.o.d. Like the Jehovah of the Hebrews, like that word in masonry which is only known to masters, and never p.r.o.nounced but in a whisper and in full lodge, this word they seldom dare to speak; and they display uneasiness if it is uttered before them.

Twice only," says Mr. Reade, "I remember having heard it. Once when we were in a dangerous storm, the men threw their clenched hands upwards and cried it twice. And again, when I was at Ngambi, taking down words from an Ashira slave, I asked him what was the word for G.o.d in the language of his country. He raised his eyes, and pointing to heaven, said in a soft voice, _Njambi_."

Epileptic diseases, in almost all uncivilised countries, are a.s.sumed to be the result of demoniac possession. In Africa the sufferer is supposed to be possessed by Mbwiri, and he can be relieved only by the intervention of the medicine-man or fetich. In the middle of the street a hut is built for his accommodation, and there he resides until cured, or maddened, along with the priest and his disciples. There for ten days or a fortnight a continuous revel is held; much eating and drinking at the expense of the patient's relatives, and unending dances to the sound of flute and drum.

For obvious reasons the fetich gives out that Mbwiri regards good living with aversion. The patient dances, usually shamming madness, until the epileptic attack comes on, with all its dreadful concomitants--the frenzied stare, the convulsed limbs, the gnashing teeth, and the foam-flecked lips. The man's actions at this period are not ascribed to himself, but to the demon which has control of him. When a cure has been effected, real or pretended, the patient builds a little fetich-house, avoids certain kinds of food, and performs certain duties. Sometimes the process terminates in the patient's insanity; he has been known to run away to the bush, hide from all human beings, and live on the roots and berries of the forest.

"These fetich-men are priest doctors, like those of the ancient Germans.

They have a profound knowledge of herbs, and also of human nature, for they always monopolize the real power in the state. But it is very doubtful whether they possess any secrets save that of extracting virtue and poison from plants. During the first trip which I made into the bush I sent for one of these doctors. At that time I was staying among the Shekani, who are celebrated for their fetich. He came attended by half-a-dozen disciples. He was a tall man, dressed in white, with a girdle of leopard's skin, from which hung an iron bell, of the same shape as our sheep bells. He had two chalk marks over his eyes. I took some of my own hair, frizzled it with a burning gla.s.s, and gave it to him. He popped it with alacrity into his little gra.s.s bag; for white man's hair is fetich of the first order. Then I poured out some raspberry vinegar into a gla.s.s, drank a little of it first, country fashion, and offered it to him, telling him that it was blood from the brains of great doctors. Upon this he received it with great reverence, and dipping his fingers into it as if it was snap-dragon, sprinkled with it his forehead, both feet between the two first toes, and the ground behind his back. He then handed his gla.s.s to a disciple, who emptied it, and smacked his lips afterwards in a very secular manner. I then desired to see a little of his fetich. He drew on the ground with red chalk some hieroglyphics, among which I distinguished the circle, the cross, and the crescent. He said that if I would give him a fine 'dush,' he would tell me all about it. But as he would not take anything in reason, and as I knew that he would tell me nothing of very great importance in public, negotiations were suspended."

The fetich-man seldom finds a native disposed to question his claim to supernatural powers. He is not only a doctor and a priest,--two capacities in which his influence is necessarily very powerful; he is also a witch-finder, and this is an office which invests him with a truly formidable authority. When a man of worth dies, his death is invariably ascribed to witchcraft, and the aid of the fetich-man is invoked to discover the witch.

"When a man is sick a long time," said Mongilombas, "they call _Ngembi_, and if she cannot make him well, the fetich-man. He comes at night, in a white dress, with c.o.c.k's feathers on his head, and having his bell and little gla.s.s. He calls two or three relations together into a room. He does not speak, but always looks in his gla.s.s. Then he tells them that the sickness is not of Mbwiri, nor of Obambo, nor of G.o.d, but that it comes from a witch. They say to him, 'What shall we do?' He goes out and says, 'I have told you: I have no more to say.' They give him a dollar's worth of cloth; and every night they gather together in the street, and they cry, 'I know that man who witch my brother. It is good for you to make him well.' Then the witch makes him well. But if the man do _not_ recover, they call the bush doctor from the Shekani country. He sings in the language of the bush. At night he goes into the street; all the people flock about him. With a tiger-cat skin in his hand, he walks to and fro, until, singing all the while, he lays the tiger skin at the feet of the witch. At the conclusion of his song the people seize the witch, and put him, or her, in chains, saying, 'If you don't restore our brother to health, we will kill you.'"

One evening, as Mr. Reade was sitting in a mission house at Corisco, with the windows open, he heard a wild and piteous cry rising from a village at a short distance. A sudden silence fell upon his friends. The school was in the next room, and two girls who belonged to that village lifted up their voices and wept. It was the death-knell, and the knell of more lives than one. A chieftain for some time had been lying in a hopeless condition, and a woman had been denounced for having bewitched him. She had a son of about seven years of age, and fearing lest when he reached manhood, he should become her avenger, the accusers included him also in their denunciation. Both had been made prisoners, and on the death of the chief would be killed.

The following day was Sunday, and Mr. Reade accompanied Mr. Mackay, the missionary, to the village. The man was not dead; but he had suddenly become speechless, and his attendants had concluded that the spirit had departed. Entering the house, Mr. Reade found him lying on the bamboo bedstead in a state of stupor. The house was thronged with women, who had stripped off their garments and shaved the heads in token of mourning, and were "raining tears" in their purchased and admirably acted grief.

Sometimes one of them would sit by his side, and flinging her arms around him, would shriek--almost in the very words of the Irish death-wail,--"Why did ye die, darling? why did ye die?" For they regarded him as really dead, when he could neither look at them nor speak to them.

In contrast to their loud sorrow was the silent mourning of the men who, hushed and fasting, sat in the chief house of the town. In their midst crouched the seven years old boy, the marks of a severe wound visible on his arm, and his wrists securely bound together. The dogged expression of the child's face was something wonderful. It wore that look of stolid endurance which seems natural to the negro. One of the men with horrible pleasantry held an axe below his eyes; but the boy contemplated it without emotion--he displayed all the cold indifference of the ancient Stoicism.

When his name was first mentioned, his eyes flashed; but this indication of pa.s.sion was only momentary. He showed the same indifference when a plea was put in for his life, as when, just before, he had been threatened and taunted with death.