Fetichism in West Africa Part 28

Ogwedembe said to the Orungu chief, "It is impossible. The law is sacred.

I will not give him up." But in his heart he felt, "I am protecting a sorcerer who has tried to kill me; better I take the money for his extradition, and send him away." He and the chief went on discussing. The point was made that the sorcerer having himself broken his obligation, by attempting to injure his adopted father, relieved that father of his Ukuku duty of protection.

Ogwedembe began to yield, and to name the number of slaves that should be given him as the price of giving up the man. The Orungu chief demurred to the price: "It is too much!" So Ogwedembe brought down the price to six slaves,--three slaves, and three bundles of goods equal to the price of three slaves. And it was so settled. Then the Orungu chief said, "I will go in haste to my town to get you the goods; but as to the three slaves, this man's boy must be counted as one of them."

There was a dispute over this, Ogwedembe claiming that the boy was not guilty of any crime, and that his right to protection still existed. The Orungu insisted that the boy, being a slave, must follow the fortunes of his master, must be extradited as one with him, and then would of their own will be released by them from the penalty of his master's guilt.

Ogwedembe consented. So the Orungu chief and his people went to get the goods, on the promise that Ogwedembe would have the man caught and ready to be delivered to them.

At once Ogwedembe sent word to the man to fulfil his promise of returning to the town, and told his sons to be ready early next day to have the man caught and tied, ready for delivery on arrival of the goods.

Next day Ogwedembe, seeing the man coming to him, came out of his house to meet him, and speaking ewiria (hidden meaning), called out to his people, "Sons, have you tied up the bundle of bush-deer meat?" "Oh yes, father, we'll have it ready just now," as they came running to him. Then they suddenly fell upon the man, dragged him inside the house, began to strip off his clothing, and tied him. He at once knew that there was no mercy, and he did not resist; but he said to his boy, "Call me Adova and her husband."

But she knew he was naked, so she told her husband to go and hear what the man had to say. Owondo went, and the man said, "Owondo, I have no friends here; only you and Adova have been kind to me, so I call you my friend.

Untie this small strip of cloth I have about my waist. I have four silver dollars there. I am going to die. These dollars are of no use to me; you and your wife take them. My box is in Adova's care; she must have the few things in it." So Owondo untied the girdle, took the money, and went out.

Shortly afterward the Orungu people came, bringing the goods and slaves, and took away the man. He was taken by the three messengers to the half-way camp, where they had left their attendants. There were no houses there for shelter, and only their mosquito-nets as tents. They stopped there with the intention of pa.s.sing the night, and next day of going on to their Orungu town.

When it came evening they began to prepare their sleeping-places, and at bedtime one by one they went to lie down. A large branch from an overhanging tree fell very near the bed of one of the Orungu leaders, which was adjoining that of the sorcerer. So they all said, "Ah! we see what is being done by his arts. If this has begun so soon, who knows what will happen before morning? Let us start at once."

So they all made ready that very night, and went out of the forest, down to the beach, and got into their boat (as they had come part of the way by sea).

Not long after they had started the sea became very rough. Soon the boat capsized, broke to pieces, and all their goods were lost. They all escaped ash.o.r.e, but the sorcerer was missing. They waited on the beach until daylight, and then found his loin cloth washed ash.o.r.e. (His hands had been tied.) They believed that he had caused the storm, and was willing to die with them in the general destruction rather than survive to be put to death by the torture to which sorcerers were usually subjected.

So these people sent back word to Ogwedembe and to the nearer villages to let them know what had happened to them, and they returned to their Orungu country by land.

The little slave boy, who had been left with Ogwedembe as one of the three to be given as the price of extradition, was shortly afterward given by him as a present to the sick friend I was visiting that day. She stated that he was a most faithful servant and affectionate attendant on her infant daughter. He stayed with her, and died in her service a few years later, about 1883; and she mourned for him, for she had treated him, not as a slave, but as a son.

XI. UNAGO AND EKELA-MBENGO.

(In the presence of theosophy, telepathy, thought-transference, astrophysics, and wireless telegraphy, the following Benga legend has at least a standing-place. It was written more than forty years ago by an educated native in the Benga dialect. I translate it into English, preserving some of the native idiom.)

Unago and Ekela were great friends. They lived, Unago at Mbini in Eyo (Benito River); Ekela at Jeke in Muni (the river Muni, opposite Elobi islands in Coris...o...b..y. The two rivers are at least forty miles apart; Ekela is supposed to make the journey in two hours.)

They were accustomed, if one killed a wild animal, to send for the other.

One day Unago killed a hog. Then he sent for his friend Ekela. He at Mbini said, "Oh, Chum Ekela! start you out very early in the morning hither.

Come to eat a feast of pig." And his children would say, "Father, your friend at Jeke, and you right here, will he hear?" Said he, "Yes, he will hear." And so Ekela, off there, would say to his children, "Do you hear how my friend is calling to me?" His children answered, "We do not hear." Says he, "Yes, my friend has called me to eat pig there to-morrow."

Before daybreak Ekela takes his staff and his fly-brush and starts. When the sun is at the point of shining at Corisco, he reaches Mbini. Unago says to his children, "Did I not say to you that he can hear?"

And so they eat the feast; the feast ended, they tell narratives. In the afternoon Ekela says, "Chum, I'm going back." Unago says, "Yes."

Having left him after escorting him part of the way, this one goes on, and that one returns. When Ekela, going on and on, reaches clear to Jeke, then day darkens. When his children see the lunch which he brings, then they believe that he has been at Mbini.

A PROVERB: MANGA MA EKELA.

(Manga means "the sea"; secondarily, "the sea-beach"; thirdly, by euphemism, "a latrine," or "going to a latrine." For the sea-beach is used by the natives for that purpose, they going there immediately on rising in the morning. They stay, of course, but a short time. If one should stay very long, this proverb would be used of him, because Ekela, when he went, stayed and made a journey of fifteen or twenty miles.)

Ekela was accustomed, if he started out early to the seaside in the morning, to say, "I am going to manga"; then he went on and on, clear on to Hondo (a place at least fifteen miles distant). Pa.s.sing Hondo, his "manga" would end only wherever he and his friend Unago met. There having told their stories, they then each returned. This one went to his village, and that one to his village. When Ekela was about to go back to his village, then he would leave his fly-brush at the spot where he and his friend had been; and when he would arrive at home, he would say to his children, "Go, take for me the fly-brush which was forgotten of me, there at the sea, on the place where I was. Follow my foot-tracks." When the children went, it was step by step to Hondo, and the foot-tracks were still farther beyond.

The children, wearied, came back together unto their father, and said, "We did not see the brush." When he went another morning, then he himself brought it.

XII. MALANDA--AN INITIATION INTO A FAMILY GUARDIAN-SPIRIT COMPANY.

(Manjana was my cook at Batanga in 1902. He is a young married man with several small children. He is of a mild, kindly disposition, obliging and smiling, without much force of character, slightly educated, civilized in manner and dress, but without even a pretence of Christianity; at heart a heathen, though a member of the Roman Catholic church, into which he consented to be baptized as the means of obtaining in marriage his wife, who had been raised in that church.

His Romanism sat lightly on him, for he voluntarily attended my Protestant evening-prayers, taking his turn with others in reading verses around in the chapter of Scripture for the day; then he liked to take part in the general conversation which followed about native beliefs and native customs.

Yaka, or family fetich, is no longer, at Batanga, a matter of dread, even to the heathen; so Manjana was not afraid to tell me freely what happened when he was initiated into it as a lad. I wrote down his story hastily, as soon as he left that evening. I later wrote it out in full, while it was all fresh in my memory. I could not exactly reproduce his graphic native words, so I did not attempt them. The description is my own. But I followed exactly the line of his story, and used only his thoughts. He said:)

"I knew that a house was being built on the edge of the forest, a short distance from our village. I and other lads and young men a.s.sisted the strong adult men who were building it. But I did not then know for what purpose or why it was being built. I remembered afterward that no girls or women were either a.s.sisting or even lounging about it, watching the process of building and chatting with the workmen, as when other houses were built. I did not know that they had been told not to look there. I remembered afterward that the house was located separately from the other houses of the village, but that did not just then strike me as strange.

Somewhat similar houses had been built, as temporary sheds in making a boat or canoe. Such houses are built rapidly, and not with the same care as is used in the erection of dwellings. So it did not occur to me as noticeable that this house was finished in the short time of two weeks.

One gable of it was left open.

Nor did I connect its erection with the fact that a prominent man of our family had died just two weeks before. I know now that, in the manner of his death, or in things that happened immediately afterward, the elders of the family had seen inauspicious signs that made them fear that evil was being plotted against us. As I now know, some six or eight of our leading adult male members of the family had had a secret consultation, and had decided that Malanda should be invoked.

I did not then know much about Malanda. I knew the name, that it was a power, that it was dreaded; but how or why I had not been told.

I know now that while this house was being built one or two other men were carving an image of a male figure; also, that when the house was completed, that very night some of those elders had secretly disinterred the corpse that had been already two weeks in its grave, and had brought it to that house. There they had extracted two teeth, and had fastened them in the hollowed-out cavities representing the eyes of the image, and had hidden them there by fastening over them, with a common resinous gum of the forest, two small pieces of gla.s.s. And they had stood the image, painted hideously, on the cover of a large box, made of the flexible inner bark of a tree, at the closed end of the house.

Then they had cut off the head of the corpse and had scooped out its rotten brains. These they had mixed with chalk and powdered red-wood and the ashes of other plants, and had tied up the mixture carefully in a bundle of dry plantain leaves. I already knew and had seen such things regarded as very valuable "medicine," used to rub on the forehead or other parts of the body. Then they had tied the headless corpse erect against a side wall of the house, keeping its arms extended by cross pieces of wood.

The first that I knew that anything unusual was about to occur was early one morning, just after the completion of the house, when the voices of the elders were heard in the street, "Malanda has come!" The women and girls were frightened. They knew they were not to look at Malanda. And we lads were oppressed with a vague dread that subdued us from our usual boisterous plays. We knew the name "Malanda." It was a power, it was mysterious. Mystery is a burden; it might be for good or for evil.

Immediately all the adult men went into the forest. In about an hour they returned, bearing on their shoulders a long, large log of a tree. They cast it into the middle of the street, facing the sun. The hour was about 8 A. M.

They sternly ordered about twenty of the young men and lads to sit down on the log. The mystery that had burdened me now fell heavier. Our mothers and sisters were afraid to look on us, even with sympathy. These men were our fathers and uncles and elder brothers, but their voices were harsh, their faces set with severity, their eyes had no light of recognition as relatives, and their hands handled us roughly. I was dazed and helpless in my own village and among my own relatives, but not a word of pity nor a look of even kindness from a single person! Each of the twenty also was too occupied with his own destiny to speak to a fellow victim. As far as our treatment was concerned we might have been slaves in another tribe.

With no will of our own we blindly did as we were bidden.

We were told to throw our heads back, bending our necks to the point of pain, and to stare with unblinking eyes at the sun. As the sun mounted all that morning, hot and glaring, toward the zenith, we were sedulously watched to see that we kept our heads back, arms down, and eyes following the burning sun in its ascent. My throat was parched with thirst. My brain began to whirl, the pain in my eyes became intolerable, and I ceased to hear; all around me became black, and I fell off the log.

As each one of us thus became exhausted or actually fainted, we were blindfolded and taken to that house. On reaching it still blindfolded I knew nothing that was there. I smelled only a horrible odor. The same rough hands and hard voices had possession of me. Though blindfolded, I could feel that the eyes that were looking on me were cruel.

It was useless to resist, as they began to beat me with rods. My outcries only brought severer blows. I perceived that submission lightened their strokes. When finally I ceased struggling or crying, the bandage was removed. The horror of that headless corpse standing extending its rotting arms toward me, and the staring gla.s.s eyes of the image overcame me, and I attempted to flee. That was futile. I was seized and beaten more severely than before, until I had no will or wish, but utter submission to the will of whatever power it might be, natural or supernatural, into whose hands I had fallen.

When all twenty of us had been thus reduced to abject submission, we were treated less severely. Some kindness began to be shown. Our physical wants were looked after and regarded. Food and drink were supplied us. I observed an occasional look of recognition. I began to feel that I was being admitted into a companionship. There was something manly in the thought of being entrusted with a secret to which younger lads were not admitted and from which all of womankind were debarred. This gave me a sense of elevation. There were some people whom I could look down upon! It began to be worth while to have suffered so much. I began to be accustomed to the corpse of my relative. True, I was a prisoner; but the days were relieved by a variety of instructions and ceremonies practised over us by the doctor.

At first we were, in succession, solemnly asked whether we were possessed of any witchcraft power ("o na jemba?" Have you a witch?) Elsewhere we all would have indignantly denied having any such evil doings. But in the face of that corpse, under the presence of the unknown power to which we were being introduced, in the hands of a pitiless inquisition, and with the obliteration of our own wills, we did not dare lie. Would not the power know we were lying? We told what we imagined to be the truth; some admitted, some denied.

The Yaka bundle was opened; some of its dust was added to the brain-mixture (already mentioned). Of this compound an ointment was made.

On the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who denied were drawn commendatory longitudinal lines of that ointment. On the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who admitted were drawn corrective horizontal lines with the same mixture. Instructions appropriate to our respective condition, as witch possessed or non-possessed, were given by the doctor.

We were interested also in watching the digging of a pit in the floor of the house. When this had reached a depth of over six feet, a tunnel was driven laterally under one of the side walls, and opening out, a rod or two beyond, where a low hut was built to conceal it. Into this tunnel the doctor and three or four of the strongest of the elders carried the corpse, and left it there for about ten days, the doctor pa.s.sing much of that time with it.

After we had been in the house almost twenty days, although still confined, I did not feel that I was a prisoner; I was deeply interested in seeing and taking part in this great mystery. I no longer dreaded the dead. Even if physical pain were yet to be inflicted on me, I would take it gladly as the price of a knowledge which ministered to manly pride. I was being made a sharer in the rights and possession of the family guardian-spirit.

A few days after this the corpse, now reduced almost to a skeleton, was brought up from the tunnel, and bisected longitudinally. The halves were laid a few feet apart, parallel and a short distance away from the two sides of the house. We were gathered in two companies against the walls, and were told to advance toward each other, carefully stepping over, and by no means to tread on, our half of the remains. And the two companies met in the centre.