Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary Part 13

Induce them to come forward. If there be the call from the Holy Spirit do not let mere accomplishments be a _sine qua non_. Help them to come forward. Take them to your own homes and let them have the benefit of all the conversation and refinement and beauty which fill these, and so gently lead them out of their timidity and accustom them to society that they may meet out in the world, and hand them on to us. Up in a station like mine they want to teach the first principles of everything, and they need to help in times of trouble in the home or in the town palaver. They will not need fine English, for there is none to admire it. No one knows other than native languages, and I would gladly hail any warm-hearted woman from any sphere if she would come to me. I cannot pretend to work this station: the school work is simply a scramble at the thing, mostly by the girls of the house. I can't overtake it. It is because I am not doing it efficiently that I am grieved.

On her visits to Calabar she was an object of much interest. One who knew her then says: "She had the power of attracting young men, and she had great influence with them. Whether they were in Mission work, or traders, or government men, they were sure to be attracted by her vigorous character and by the large-hearted, understanding way she would talk to them or listen to their talk of their work or other interests. She loved to stir them to do great things."

It was sometimes remarked by visitors that her surroundings had not the spick-and-span appearance which usually characterises a Scottish Mission station. She had, nevertheless, a real appreciation of order and beauty, and liked to have everything clean and tidy about her. How to accomplish this was her daily problem, and perhaps only those who have lived in tropical lands can understand the position. The difficulty there is not how to make things grow, but how to prevent them growing. She waged as fierce and incessant a war with vegetation as she did with man, but it proved too much for her strength. "I think," she wrote, "if I left alone some of the outdoor work, even it the place did go to bush and dirt, I would not be so tired, and I could do more otherwise. But I can't help it. I must put my hands in wherever there is work to be done." The task had not become easier for her, for the new trade with Calabar had brought about a demand for Okoyong yams, and the people were so busy planting at their farms that she was unable to hire labour. The bush would creep up swiftly and stealthily to the edge of the dwellings and become a covering for beasts of prey, and, then she and her girls would sally out and cut it down and burn it and dig out the roots. And in its place would be planted corn and cocos and yams and other products, the children each having a plot to tend. A private pathway to the spring which she had constructed in order that the girls might not mix with the village women and hear their talk had also to be kept clear. It was hard work in the hot sunshine, and she and her bairns literally watered the soil with their perspiration. But no tears were shed at the work save those caused by merry jokes and laughter. She often surveyed the scene with pride, revelling in the wild beauty of form and colour, the brilliancy of the flowering trees, the tender green of the yams on their supports, the starry jasmine with its keen perfume. She loved flowers, and taught her scholars to bring them to school. They had never been conscious of these before, and the fact that they began to appreciate them was, she considered, a step forward in their educational development.

Often she longed for the power to bring out thousands of the slum people from the cities at home to enjoy the open life, and to work the rich lands. Not that she used the word "slum"; it seemed to reflect on the poor, many of whom she regarded as the heroes and heroines of G.o.d; in her humility she believed that many of them would have been far ahead of her if they had had the same advantages. One of her day-dreams was to inherit a fortune and to spend it all on the poor. "If only"-- but she would check herself and say, "Mary Slessor! as if G.o.d does not know what to give and how to give it, and as if He did not love and think for all these poor creatures who are so mercilessly pushed aside in the race of life."

XXIV. MAIDEN-MOTHER AND ANGEL-CHILD

Of all the tasks to which she put her hand the sweetest as well as the saddest was the care of the babes of the bush. Her house was the refuge of little children: sickly ones that were left with her to nurse and return; discarded ones that were taken to her; outcast ones that she rescued from injury and death. So many came, received names, were described in her letters, and then pa.s.sed out of sight, that her friends in Scotland were unable to keep abreast of her efforts in this direction.

They arrived in all stages of sickness, but usually the last. With many a broken body she had never a chance, but with marvellous patience and tenderness she washed them and nursed them and loved them and fought the dark shadow that was ever ready to hover over the tiny forms. Night after night she would sit up watching a face that was wasted and twisted with pain, or walk to and fro crooning s.n.a.t.c.hes of song to soothe a restless mite in her arms. Sometimes a hammock was slung up beside her into which they were placed, so that if they awoke during the night she could touch it with her foot and swing them to sleep again. More than once, when the supply of condensed milk ran out, she strapped her latest baby to her body and tramped the long miles to Creek Town through the bush, and returned next day with the child and the tins.

The children that were brought back to health and strength and restored to their parents it was always a pang to part with. She wished she could have kept them and trained them up away from the degraded influences of their homes. Those who died she dressed and placed among flowers in a box, held a service over them, and buried them in a little cemetery, which by and by became full of tiny graves. She mourned over them as if they had been blood of her blood. Mr. Ovens used to say to her, "Never mind, la.s.sie, you'll get plenty mair"--and indeed there were always plenty,

Of all the African children that pa.s.sed through her hands none endeared itself so much to her as Susie, her first Okoyong twin. The mother, Iye, was a slave from Bende, light in colour and handsome, and was the property of one of the big women, who treated her with kindness and consideration. When the twins arrived all was changed. Miss Kingsley, who arrived at Ekenge the same day on a visit to Mary, thus describes the scene:

She was subjected to torrents of virulent abuse, her things were torn from her, her English china basins, possessions she valued most highly, were smashed, her clothes were torn, and she was driven out as an unclean thing. Had it not been for the fear of incurring Miss Slessor's anger, she would, at this point have been killed with her children, and the bodies thrown into the bush. As it was, she was hounded out of the village. The rest of her possessions were jammed into an empty gin-case and cast to her. No one would touch her, as they might not touch to kill. Miss Slessor had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off, barefooted and bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path. By the time she had gone four miles she met the procession, the woman coming to her, and all the rest of the village yelling and howling behind her. On the top of her head was the gin-case, into which the children had been stuffed, on the top of them the woman's big bra.s.s skillet, and on the top of that her two market calabashes. Needless to say, on arriving Miss Slessor took charge of affairs, relieving the unfortunate, weak, staggering woman from her load and carrying it herself, for no one else would touch it, or anything belonging to those awful twin things, and they started back together to Miss Slessor's house in the forest-clearing, saved by that tact which, coupled with her courage, has given Miss Slessor an influence and a power among the negroes unmatched in its way by that of any other white.

She did not take the twins and their mother down the village path to her own house, for though, had she done so, the people of Okoyong would not have prevented her, yet so polluted would the path have been and so dangerous to pa.s.s down, that they would have been compelled to cut another, no light task in that bit of forest, I a.s.sure you. So Miss Slessor stood waiting in the broiling sun, in the hot season's height, while a path was being cut to enable her just to get through to her own grounds. The natives worked away hard, knowing that it saved the polluting of a long stretch of market road, and when it was finished Miss Slessor went to her own house by it, and attended with all kindness, promptness, and skill to the woman and children. I arrived in the middle of this affair for my first meeting with Miss Slessor, and things at Okoyong were rather crowded, one way and another, that afternoon. All the attention one of the children wanted--the boy, for there were a boy and a girl--was burying, for the people who had crammed them into the box had utterly smashed the child's head. The other child was alive, and is still a member of that household of rescued children, all of whom owe their lives to Miss Slessor.

The natives would not touch it, and only approached it after some days, and then only when it was held by Miss Slessor or me. If either of us wanted to do or get something, and we handed over the bundle to one of the house children to hold, there was a stampede of men and women off the verandah, out of the yard, and over the fence, if need be, that was exceedingly comic, but most convincing as to the reality of the terror and horror in which they held the thing. Even its own mother could not be trusted with the child; she would have killed it. She never betrayed the slightest desire to have it with her, and after a few days' nursing and feeding up she was anxious to go back to her mistress, who, being an enlightened woman, was willing to have her if she came without the child.

The woman's own lamentations were pathetic. She would sit for hours singing or rather mourning out a kind of dirge over herself: "Yesterday I was a woman, now I am a horror, a thing all people ran from.

Yesterday they would eat with me, now they spit on me. Yesterday they would talk to me with sweet mouth, and now they greet me only with curses and execrations. They have smashed my basin, they have torn my clothes," so on, and so on. There was no complaint against the people for doing these things, only a bitter sense of injury against some superhuman power that had sent this withering curse of twins down on her,

The surviving infant, Susie, was not commonplace in feature like the other black children; she was not in reality a negress, but fair, shapely, and clean-skinned, with a nose like a white child's and a sweet mouth--a mouth which Miss Kingsley called the "b.u.t.ton-hole."

Every one loved her, and she was queen of the household.

When she was fourteen months old Miss Slessor one day went to the dispensary and left her in charge of Mana, who put down a jug of boiling water on the floor beside her. Susie thought it a plaything, and, seizing it, pulled it over upon herself. Instead of calling for "Ma" Mana ran with the child to the bathroom and poured cold water over the wounds. For thirteen days and nights she was never out of Mary's hands. Fortunately Miss Murray, a lady agent who, at her own request, had been stationed at Okoyong for a time, and whose companionship she valued, helped her greatly. "She was like a sister to me," she wrote.

Thinking more might be done by a medical man she started off with the child in her arms, arrived at Creek Town at midnight, and woke up the doctor, who, however, said he could not do more than she had done. She returned at once to Ekenge, and again watched the suffering babe by day and night. In the darkness and silence, when all were asleep, she would hear the faint words, "Mem, Mem, Mem!"--the child's name for her--and the wee hand would be held up for her to kiss. Early one Sunday morning she pa.s.sed away in her arms. Robed in a pinafore, with her beads and a sash, and a flower in her hand, she looked "like an angel child."

The event caused a strange stir in Okoyong. None of the villagers went to their farms or market while the child was hovering on the brink of death, and when she pa.s.sed away they came and mourned with "Ma."

She was buried in the cemetery where so many other hapless waifs were already at rest. In her anguish Mary could not conduct the service, but sat at the window and looked out while Miss Murray bravely took her place. The people, respectful and sad, gathered round the grave--the grave of a twin!--and one of the women, a leader in heathenism, praised the white Mother's G.o.d for the child, and prayed that they might all have her hope in the Beyond. "Surely," was Mary's comment, "they all felt the vast difference between their burials with all their drink and madness, and ours so full of quiet hope and expectant faith."

The slave-mother had often come to visit her, and had actually got to love the child, and when it died she was heartbroken. "Ma," she said, "don't cry. I have done this. G.o.d hates me. I shall go away and not bring any more evil on you." With that she went back to her hut in the bush.

"If I were a wealthy woman," said "Ma," "I would buy her; but I cannot afford it, so we must do our best to cheer her up."

Although she objected to buying slave-women, even to restore them to freedom, on account of the wrong impression it left on the native mind, she made an exception in the case of Iye, and not long afterwards she was able to purchase her liberty for 10, and she became an inmate of the Mission House, Miss Slessor's intention being to train her so that she might be useful to any lady who lived at the station during her absences in Scotland. To the natives Iye was an outcast, and had "no character." "_Etubom_," Mary said to Mr. Ovens, "If a slave-dealer came round I would not get 6 for her." "Why?" said he. "She has no character." "But he would buy her and take her up country." "What for?"

"To feed her for chop!"...

For some time she suffered physically from the shock she had received.

No mother could have grieved more bitterly over the loss of a beloved child. "My heart aches for my darling," she wrote. "Oh the empty place, and the silence and the vain longing for the sweet voice and the soft caress and the funny ways. Oh, Susie, Susie!"

XXV. MARY KINGSLEY'S VISIT

Miss Kingsley paid her visit to the West Coast in 1893. Like all who travelled in West Africa, she heard of the woman missionary who lived alone among the wild Okoyong, and made a point of going up to see her.

Miss Slessor welcomed so capable and earnest a worker, "She gave me,"

says Miss Kingsley, "some of the pleasantest days of my life." In some respects these two brilliant women were much akin, though they were poles asunder in regard to their outlook on spiritual verities. They had long discussions on religious subjects, and would sit up late beating over such questions as the immortality of the soul. Miss Kingsley was profoundly impressed. "I would give anything to possess your beliefs," she said wistfully, "but I can't, I can't; when G.o.d made me He must have left out the part that one believes with."

Nevertheless Miss Slessor said that for all her beliefs and unbeliefs she was one of the most truly Christian women she had ever met. On her return to England Miss Kingsley spoke often of her in terms of affection and admiration, and acknowledged to friends that she had done her much spiritual good. Mary, on her part, poured into her possession all her treasures of knowledge concerning the fetish ideas and practices of the natives, and probably none knew more about these matters than she. Most missionaries confess that they never get to the back of the negro mind, and one who worked in a neighbouring field once said that after nineteen years' careful study he had yet to master the intricacies of native superst.i.tion. The information that Mary supplied was therefore of great value, and much of it was utilised in Miss Kingsley's books. In _Travels in West Africa_ she gives the following considered view of the missionary:

This very wonderful lady has been eighteen years in Calabar; for the last six or seven living entirely alone, as far as white folks go, in a clearing in the forest near to one of the princ.i.p.al villages of the Okoyong district, and ruling as a veritable white chief over the entire district. Her great abilities, both physical and intellectual, have given her among the savage tribe a unique position, and won her, from white and black who know her, a profound esteem. Her knowledge of the native, his language, his ways of thought, his diseases, his difficulties, and all that is his, is extraordinary, and the amount of good she has done, no man can fully estimate. Okoyong, when she went there alone--living in the native houses while she built, with the a.s.sistance of the natives, her present house--was a district regarded with fear by the Duke and Creek Town natives, and practically unknown to Europeans. It was given, as most of the surrounding districts still are, to killing at funerals, ordeal by poison, and perpetual internecine wars. Many of these evil customs she has stamped out, and Okoyong rarely gives trouble to its nominal rulers, the Consuls, in Old Calabar, and trade pa.s.ses freely through it down to the seaports. This instance of what one white can do would give many important lessons in West Coast administration and development. Only the sort of man Miss Slessor represents is rare. There are but few who have the same power of resisting the malarial climate, and of acquiring the language and an insight into the negro mind, so perhaps after all it is no great wonder that Miss Slessor stands alone, as she certainly does.

With all her robust ability Miss Kingsley's mental range was curiously narrow. She wrote strongly against Protestant missionary aims and methods in West Africa, her views being entirely opposed to those of the White Woman of Okoyong, who had a much greater right to speak on the subject. But the latter, nevertheless, loved her, and when the news of her death came, some years later, she was plunged into grief. "The world held not many so brave and so n.o.ble," she wrote. "Life feels very cold and seems grey and sunless." Hearing of a proposed memorial to the intrepid traveller she sent a guinea as her mite towards it.

XXVI. AN ALL-NIGHT JOURNEY

An outburst of fighting had taken place amongst the factions around Ekenge. Women were the cause of it, and a number had been herded into a stockade near the Mission House, where a band of men were proceeding to murder them. Mary came on the scene and held them at bay. All day she stood there and all night, her girls handing her from time to time a cup of tea through the poles of the enclosure. Next night matters had become quieter, a tornado of rain and wind having eased the situation, but she was soaked, whilst the mats of the Mission House had blown up and the interior had been flooded, so that both the girls and herself needed dry garments. Then the condensed milk was nearly done, she was told, and the baby she was nursing would suffer without it. Both clothing and milk could only be procured from Calabar, and as she had no messenger to despatch there, she resolved to go herself.

After dark she stole out of the stockade, placed the child in a basket, secured a woman as guide, and with a lantern started out to walk through the bush to Creek Town. She reached Adiabo on the Calabar River about half-past ten, obtained a cup of tea from the native pastor, and pushed on. Her guide lost the way, a deluge of rain fell, and they wandered aimlessly for a time through the dripping forest, before again striking the track.

Creek Town was reached at four o'clock in the morning. She knocked up Miss Johnstone, who sent her to bed for an hour, and sought for some tins of milk. As soon as two had been procured Mary was eager to be off. Miss Johnstone gave her some changes of clothing, and King Eyo put his canoe and a strong crew at her disposal, and she was soon speeding up-river. On her arrival she found to her satisfaction that her absence had not been discovered, and she was able eventually to restore peace without the shedding of blood.

Two days later a canoe which came down-river to Duke Town brought word that she was ill with dysentery. Dr. Laws of Livingstonia, who was then visiting the Mission as a deputy, happened to be at Creek Town and was asked to go and see her with Mr. Manson, one of the industrial staff, as guide. Their canoe was nearly swamped by rain, and they had to change their clothing when they arrived. She was soon up and through to the hall to provide hospitality for her guests, supporting herself by the table the while. A peremptory order came from Dr. Laws to return to bed at once. She gave him a long curious look, and then without a word went and lay down. He noticed that his companion appeared both astonished and amused, and it was not until he returned to Calabar, and heard Mr. Manson telling how "Ma" Slessor had been taken in charge for once, that he realised how bold he had been. Dr. Laws thought that few women, or even men, could have stood the isolation that she endured.

XXVII. AKOM: A FIRST-FRUIT

Although force of circ.u.mstances made her the instrument of law and order her chief aim was to win the people to Christ, and all her efforts were directed to that end. It was for souls she was always hungering, and the lack of conversions was her greatest sorrow.

Nevertheless she was making progress. The people were becoming familiar with the name of G.o.d and Christ and the principles underlying the Gospel, and there were many who leant more to the new way than to the old, whilst some in their hearts believed. The boys that were being trained at school and service were perhaps the most cheering element in the situation, and upon them she set her hopes.

It was wonderful that she achieved what she did in view of the conditions that prevailed. How difficult it was for a native to break away from habits and customs ingrained in them through centuries of repet.i.tion may be gathered from the story of Akom, a freewoman, one of the most self-righteous of the big ladies of the district. She had been betrothed, when a year old, to a young and powerful chief, and had been brought up in the harem and was a zealous upholder of all superst.i.tious practices. On her lord's death she escaped the poison ordeal, and was active in placing wives and slaves into the grave. By and by Ekpenyong made her his wife and mistress of the harem, and for twenty years she held undisputed sway.

When Edem's son was killed by the falling of a log it will be remembered that Ekpenyong was blamed for the event and retired to the bush. Not long afterwards a young chief there fell sick, and the witch- doctor on consulting his oracle declared that he saw Akom and her son dancing the whole night long, and gaily piercing the sick man with knives and spears. Akom was charged with sorcery, and asked to take the poison ordeal. Her friends advised her to flee, and she and her son disappeared during the night and took refuge in Umon, where the people gave them the protection of their _ibritam_ or juju.

"Ma" was in Scotland at the time. When she returned Ekpenyong begged her to interfere and have his wife brought back. This she managed to do after Akom had taken _mbiam_--the strongest and most dreaded of native oaths, which included the drinking of blood shed from the wrist. The woman came to see her, but stood outside. "What?" exclaimed "Ma," "you cannot come within my gate?" "No," was the reply; "you had a twin- mother once living in the yard, and I cannot come in lest I touch the place she touched," Those who took the _mbiam_ oath, believed that they would die if they came in contact in any way with a twin-mother. "Ma"

pretended to be hurt, and said, "If my house is polluted you had better go home, as I do not receive visitors on the road." After a time Akom ventured in, and she was kind to her and gave her an order for mats, at the making of which she was an adept.

She then came regularly and listened intently to "Ma's" teaching, although she said nothing. By and by she began to remark on the purity of the Gospel religion and show increased reverence at the services.

Twins came, and she mastered her fear and went into the house. But alas! a mysterious pain straightway developed in her foot, and this surely was _mbiam_ punishing her; and when a skin disease followed, her faith nearly failed her, and she wailed and mourned in despair. "Ma"

spoke strongly to her; and at last she rose and said, "I am a fool; my G.o.d, my Father, listen not to my foolishness. Kill me if Thou wilt, but do not leave me."

The disease was checked, and a native medicine effected a cure. But she stood out against any sacrifice, saying very sensibly, "My Father owns the bush and gives us the knowledge of the medicine, and as the Master knows what He has made He knows also how to bless it apart from any outsider."

Ekpenyong all this while had ignored his wife, expecting that the _mbiam_ would do its work. He looked grimly on, and when she injured her foot against a root he believed the end had arrived. All the people watched the struggle between the white woman's prayers and the _mbiam's_ power, and when the wound healed they were nonplussed, but quaintly explained the miracle by saying that their Mother was different from other white people, and so had prevailed.