Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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In Only One Other Instance Were They Allowed To Employ
This Mode Of Conversion.
The smith, in consequence of the skill,
strange in the eyes of a rude people, with which he manufactured
Various arms and implements, was supposed to possess a measure of
superhuman power, and he had thus been encouraged to advance
pretensions to the character of a divinity, which were very generally
admitted. The missionaries appealed to the king, respecting this
impious assumption, and that prince conceiving that it interfered
with the respect due to himself, agreed to deliver into their hands
the unfortunate smith, to be converted into a mortal in any manner
they might judge efficacious. After a short and unsuccessful
argument, they had recourse to the same potent instrument of
conversion, as they had applied to the back of the queen. The son of
Vulcan, deserted in this extremity by all his votaries, still made a
firm stand for his celestial dignity, till the blood began to stream
from his back and shoulders, when he finally yielded, and renounced
all pretensions to a divine origin.
A more intimate acquaintance discovered other irregularities amongst
the natives, against which a painful struggle was to be maintained.
According to the custom of the country, and it were well if the same
custom could be introduced into some particular parts of Europe, the
two parties, previously to marriage, lived together for some time, in
order to make a trial of each other's tempers and inclinations,
before entering into the final arrangement. To this system of
probation, the natives were most obstinately attached, and the
missionaries in vain denounced it, calling upon them at once either
to marry or to separate. The young ladies were always the most
anxious to have the full benefit of this experimental process; and
the mothers, on being referred to, refused to incur any
responsibility, and expose themselves to the reproaches of their
daughters, by urging them to an abridgment of the trial, of which
they might afterwards repent. The missionaries seem to have been most
diligent in the task, as they called it, of "reducing strayed souls
to matrimony." Father Benedict succeeded with no fewer than six
hundred, but he found it such "laborious work," that he fell sick and
died. Another subject of deep regret, respecting the many
superstitious practices still prevalent, even among those who
exhibited some sort of Christian profession, was, that sometimes the
children, brought for baptism, were bound with magic cords, to which
the mothers, as an additional security from evil, had fastened beads,
relics, and figures of the Agnus Dei. It was a compound of paganism
and Christianity, which the priests turned away from with disgust;
but still the mothers seemed more inclined to part with the beads,
relics, and figures of the Agnus Dei, than their magic cords. The
chiefs, in like manner, while they testified no repugnance to avail
themselves of the protection promised from the wearing of crucifixes
and images of the Virgin, were unprepared to part with the enchanted
rings and other pagan amulets with which they had been accustomed to
form a panoply round their persons. In case of dangerous illness,
sorcery had been always contemplated as the main or sole remedy, and
those who rejected its use were reproached, as rather allowing their
sick relations to die, than incur the expense of a conjuror. But the
most general and pernicious application of magic was made in judicial
proceedings: when a charge was advanced against any individual, no
one ever thought of inquiring into the facts, or of collecting
evidence - every case was decided by preternatural tests. The
magicians prepared a beverage, which produced on the guilty person,
according to the measure of his iniquity, spasm, fainting, or death,
but left the innocent quite free from harm. It seems a sound
conclusion of the missionaries, that the draught was modified
according to the good or ill will of the magicians, or the liberality
of the supposed culprit. The trial called Bolungo, was indeed
renounced by the king, but only to substitute another, in which the
accused was made to bend over a large basin of water, when, if he
fell in, it was concluded that he was guilty. At other times, a bar
of red hot iron was passed along the leg, or the arm was thrust into
scalding water, and if the natural effect followed, the person's head
was immediately struck off. Snail shells, applied to the temples, if
they stuck, inferred guilt. When a dispute arose between man and man,
the plan was, to place shells on the heads of both, and make them
stoop, when he, from off whose head the shell first dropped, had a
verdict found against him. While we wonder at the deplorable
ignorance on which these practices were founded, we must not forget
that "the judgments of God," as they were termed, employed by our
ancestors, during the middle ages, were founded on the same
unenlightened views, and were in some cases absolutely identical.
Other powers, of still higher name, held sway over the deluded minds
of the people of Congo. Some ladies of rank went about beating a
drum, with dishevelled hair, and pretended to work magical cures.
There was also a race of mighty conjurors, called Scingilli, who had
the power of giving and withdrawing rain at pleasure; and they had a
king called Ganja Chitorne, or God of the earth, to whom its first
fruits were regularly offered. This person never died, but when tired
of his sway on earth, he nominated a successor, and killed himself;
a step, doubtless, prompted by the zeal of his followers, when they
saw any danger of his reputation for immortality being compromised.
This class argued strongly in favour of their vocation, as not only
useful, but absolutely essential, since without it the earth would be
deprived of those influences, by which alone it was enabled to
minister to the wants of man. The people accordingly viewed, with the
deepest alarm, any idea of giving offence to beings, whose wrath
might be displayed in devoting the land to utter sterility.
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