Chapter I: Front Matter

THE FETISH FOLK OF WEST AFRICA

AMVAMA, A FANG CATECHIST (See p. 316).
]

The Fetish Folk of West Africa

By
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
_Author of “The Jungle Folk of Africa”_

_ILLUSTRATED_

]

NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH

Copyright, 1912, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

Preface

In this book as in the one that preceded it, _The Jungle Folk of Africa_, the author endeavours to exhibit the _humanity_ of the African as it impressed himself.

The difference between the two books is chiefly a difference of emphasis, and is indicated in the titles. In the former the African is described in relation to his surroundings—his exterior world. Much is said about the forest—deep, solemn, vast, impenetrably mysterious—wherein he roams at large with nature’s own wild freedom; contending also with its mighty forces, and wresting from it the means of existence by his own resourcefulness of expedient. In the present volume the author essays the more difficult task of revealing the interior world of the African—his mental habits and beliefs. Much is said about _fetishism_ and _folk-lore_.

If, despite all that is said herein, the philosophy of fetishism should remain obscure—and there is no doubt of it; if the reader should close this book with the consciousness of a broad, comprehensive ignorance of the subject, it may be to some extent the fault of fetishism itself, which is the jungle of jungles, an aggregation of incoherent beliefs. The world of the African is as wild and strange as the weird world that we often visit on the brink of sleep. It was far from Africa that Siegfried thought it worth while to encounter the dread dragon, Fafner, and slay him for the possession of the magic tarnhelm forged by the Nibelung. In Africa everybody has a tarnhelm. Second-hand tarnhelms are for sale everywhere. I myself had a rare one; but I have lost it, or mislaid it. To us, who think of nature as the realm of law, order, and uniformity, the world of the African seems to have gone mad. This madness, however, is more apparent than real. The African thinks in terms of the miraculous; natural effects are explained by supernatural causes; supernatural, but not therefore unintelligible, still less irrational. Therefore, if we should not find the fabled thread out of this amazing labyrinth of fetishism, it may be possible to find a thread _into_ it; and not only possible, but also worth while, if within the labyrinth we shall find the African himself and come to know him, mind and heart, a little better.

One need not apologize for the space given to folk-lore so long as Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox retain their present popularity with old and young; for in African folk-lore we have the originals of the stories of Uncle Remus. Aside from the entertaining quality of folk-lore, its idealism has a human value. In Mr. Lecky’s essay, _Thoughts on History_, published since his death, the great historian pays the following remarkable tribute to idealism:

“Legends which have no firm historical basis are often of the highest historical value as reflecting the moral sentiments of their time. Nor do they merely reflect them. In some periods they contribute perhaps more than any other influence to mould and colour them and to give them an enduring strength. The facts of history have been largely governed by its fiction. Great events often acquire their full power over the human mind only when they have passed through the transfiguring medium of the imagination, and men as they were supposed to be have even sometimes exercised a wider influence than men as they actually were. Ideals ultimately rule the world; and each, before it loses its ascendency, bequeaths some moral truth as an abiding legacy to the human race.”

Inasmuch as the history of most African tribes must ever remain unknown to us, their legends and all that is included in their folk-lore possess additional anthropological value as a medium through which to study the African mind.

The African, despite his degradation, is interesting; and that, not merely as an object of religious endeavour, but on the human level, as a man. The testimony of Mr. Herbert Ward—traveller, adventurer, soldier and artist—who first went to Africa with Stanley, and afterwards went a second time and spent several years, is the testimony of all sound-hearted men who have lived in Africa. Mr. Ward, in _A Voice From the Congo_, says:

“There was a good side even to the most villainous-looking savage.... They appealed strongly to me by reason of their simplicity and directness, their lack of scheming or plotting, and by the spontaneity of everything they did.” And again: “It has been my experience that the longer one lives with Africans, the more one grows to love them. Prejudices soon vanish. The black skin loses something of its unpleasant characteristics, for one knows that it covers such a very human heart.”

Nevertheless, the degradation of the African is a fact. And it is being proved that there is no power of moral renovation for him inherent in material progress. Christianity, and nothing else, vitalizes his moral nature; and therefore it contains the potentialities of civilization. When Mr. Giddings, and other sociologists of a certain class, ignoring spiritual values, demand a gospel for the life that now is, we offer them the same Gospel of Christ, and point to its actual results in Africa; maintaining that the missionary is the chief agent in Africa’s civilization, and affirming that civilization is but the secular side of Christianity.

One of the stories in this volume appears also in Dr. Robert H. Nassau’s admirable book, _Fetishism in West Africa_; and two of the stories are told, in slightly different form, in Mr. R. E. Dennett’s interesting book on the folk-lore of the _Fjort_. Most of the illustrations are from photographs taken by Mr. Harry D. Salveter.

ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.

_New York._

Contents

I
THE WHITE MAN’S GRAVE 15

The Coast—The Old Coaster—His
obsession—Angom—Loneliness—Gaboon—The seasons—Ice that
burned—A _peculiar_ climate—The mosquito—Quinine—Frightened
into fever—A matter of coffins.

II
“THE WISE ONES” 29

From palm-oil to trousers—Mpongwe and Fang—Making a
king—Caste—Domestic slavery—Ndinga, a human leopard—A Gaboon
belle—Native courtesy—A fight—A war-custom—The cause of the
tide—A dying confession—A case of witchcraft—Curing the sick—A
secret society.

III
A DYING TRIBE 42

Women who cannot marry—The slave-trade—The
rum-traffic—Elida—Augustus—Trade and polygamy—Too proud to
speak—Destruction of authority—Customs not irrational—The
dowry—The foreign governments—The whipping-post—A fatal
defect.

IV
A LIVING REMNANT 56

A difficult work—The Jesuits—Iguwi—Single blessedness—A chicken
breakfast—Buttons—A remarkable illustration—A
service—Fluency—Toko Truman—Izuri—Ntyango—Sara—Lucina—Uncle
Remus—_The Tortoise and his Creditors_—_The Wag_—A battle in
canoes—A captive father—A graveyard.

V
AFRICAN MUSIC 72

A taste for comic opera—An organ and an organist—The origin of
music—Musical instruments—The sense of melody—A decomposed
tune—Unfamiliar scales—Mourning—Rhythm—Extremely musical—Three
songs.

VI
PESTS 85

_The Ten Plagues_—Killing flies—The driver ant—Other ants—The
jigger—The sandfly—The mosquito—The centipede—The
cockroach—The white ant—Divers other pests—Internal
parasites—Rats—Snakes.

VII
THE “CANNIBAL” FANG 110

A discriminating palate—Not the worst cannibals—Appearance—The
Negro face and the Greek face—Legs—The wheel—Dress—An
overdressed woman—Food—Cannibalism—An affair of honour—Native
art—Curiosity—Turning them into monkeys.

VIII
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 125

The native resourceful—Unambitious—Trade—Communism—Boiling the
Bible—A quarrel—Marriage—The dowry—A case of torture—The
head-wife—The tongue a woman’s weapon—Polygamy—_Ogula and her
Ngalo_—_Tragedy_—Dancing—The story-teller—An interesting liar.

IX
FUNERAL CUSTOMS 145

A talking corpse—A world of magic—Sympathy and expectoration—The
dirge—Premature burial—A funeral incident—Death
customs—Conventional mourning—An incident of the
_grass-field_—A horrible burial custom—Two death scenes, a
contrast.

X
THE “DOROTHY” 158

A godsend—A gasoline palaver—Canoeing—The rapids—A pilot—A
sudden stop—Passengers—The mangrove swamp—A wheelman and a
bottle—Pirates—Towing a town—Nkogo—Ndutuma—Ndong Bisia—A
saucepan and a ball of twine.

XI
SCHOOLBOYS 179

Lolo—Unwashed—Washed—A flying bucket—A little friend—The blessed
Melchisedec—A parting—_Ko-ko-ko-ko_—The centre of a fight—The
poetry of soap—A threat of suicide—The eloquence of sounding
brass—A “rotten road”—Savages as soldiers—Ngema’s
father—Across our bow—A tornado.

XII
A SCHOOL 198

Mendam, the _big brother_—Clothing—A day’s program—Cutting
grass—A python—Rations—A collapse—The dormitory—The
dispensary—The jigger-palaver—Not stupid—A head that got
hit—Singing—Interruptions—A picnic—Games—War-dances—Stories—_A
Tug-of-War_—_A Race_—_The Leopard and the Antelope_—An
evangelistic force.

XIII
THE MENTAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM 219

The horseshoe—The charm—The fetish—The relic—The fetish-doctor—A
psychological consequence—The African idea of
nature—Incredible beliefs—Confession of a chief’s son—Two
babes—The idea of God—The mental atmosphere—Making the
rainbow—A problem—First lessons—Why the river is crooked—An
old woman’s illustration.

XIV
THE MORAL DEGRADATION OF FETISHISM 233

A lost child—Worship of snakes—Demoralizing factors—A chief’s
fetish—Ingredients—Human sacrifice—A royal death—Wives and
witchcraft—Concluding a war—Destiny—Man’s nature—New
conceptions—A revolt from cannibalism—Heaps of
skulls—Deliverance.

XV
FETISHISM AND THE CROSS 246

A precocious boy—Killed his friend—Essentially moral—Cure for
lying—The ordeal—A trial and death—The sense of
guilt—Expiatory rites—The new ideal—The
atonement—Self-sacrifice and self-assertion—Ndong Koni builds
a church—Onjoga cuts grass—Makuba’s rheumatism—What is a
missionary?—Onjoga’s wife—Children at play.

XVI
MISSIONS AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 264

The _noble savage_—Story of a feud—Society and the
individual—Progressive and
unprogressive—Interdependence—Conquest of
nature—Education—Authority of custom—Work—Trustworthiness—A
civilizing experiment—A communion service—Equality of woman—A
salutation—Attitude towards nature—A thirst for
knowledge—Service—Legitimacy in government—The home—_Thy
kingdom come_.

XVII
THE CRITICS 286

The missionary blamed for everything—Bewildering
inconsistency—Professor Starr—Misfits—Criticism
unjust—Unbelief—Antipathy towards the
native—Cruelty—Vice—Lowering of ideals—Missions sociologically
sound—The let alone policy too late—Miss Kingsley.