The Common-Sense Element In The Killing Of
Wives And Slaves Among Both The Tschwi And The Calabar Tribes
Consists In The Fact That It Discourages Poisoning.
A Calabar chief
elaborately explained to me that the rigorous putting down of
killing at funerals that was being
Carried on by the Government not
only landed a man in the next world as a wretched pauper, but added
an additional chance to his going there prematurely, for his wives
and slaves, no longer restrained by the prospect of being killed at
his death and sent off with him would, on very slight aggravation,
put "bush in his chop." It is sad to think of this thorn being
added to the rose-leaves of a West Coast chief's life, as there are
99.9 per cent. of thorns in it already.
I came across a similar case on the Gold Coast, when a chief
complained to me of the way the Government were preserving vermin,
in the shape of witches, in the districts under its surveillance.
You were no longer allowed to destroy them as of old, and therefore
the vermin were destroying the game; for, said he, the witches here
live almost entirely on the blood they suck from children at night.
They used, in old days, to do this furtively, and do so now where
native custom is unchecked; but in districts where the Government
says that witchcraft is utter nonsense, and killing its proficients
utter murder which will be dealt with accordingly, the witch
flourishes exceedingly, and blackmails the fathers and mothers of
families, threatening that if they are not bought off they will have
their child's blood; and if they are not paid, the child dies away
gradually - poison again, most likely.
I often think it must be the common-sense element in fetish customs
that enables them to survive, in the strange way they do, in the
minds of Africans who have been long under European influence and
education. In witching, for example, every intelligent native knows
there is a lot of poison in the affair, but the explanation he gives
you will not usually display this knowledge, and it was not until I
found the wide diffusion of the idea of the advisability of
administering an emetic to the bewitched person, that I began to
suspect my black friends of sound judgment.
The good ju-juist will tell you all things act by means of their
life, which means their power, their spirit. Dr. Nassau tells me
the efficacy of drugs is held to depend on their benevolent spirits,
which, on being put into the body, drive away the malevolent
disease-causing spirits - a leucocytes-versus-pathogenic-bacteria
sort of influence, I suppose. On this same idea also depends the
custom of the appeal to ordeal, the working of which is supposed to
be spiritual. Nevertheless, the intelligent native, believing all
the time in this factor, squares the commonsense factor by bribing
the witch-doctor who makes the ordeal drink.
The feeling regarding the importance of funeral observances is quite
Greek in its intensity. Given a duly educated African, I am sure
that he would grasp the true inwardness of the Antigone far and away
better than any European now living can. A pathetic story which
bears on this feeling was told me some time ago by Miss Slessor when
she was stationed at Creek Town. An old blind slave woman was found
in the bush, and brought into the mission. She was in a deplorable
state, utterly neglected and starving, her feet torn by thorns and
full of jiggers, and so on. Every care was taken of her and she
soon revived and began to crawl about, but her whole mind was set on
one thing with a passion that had made her alike indifferent to her
past sufferings and to her present advantages. What she wanted was
a bit, only a little bit, of white cloth. Now, I may remark, white
cloth is anathema to the Missions, for it is used for ju-ju
offerings, and a rule has to be made against its being given to the
unconverted, or the missionary becomes an accessory before the fact
to pagan practices, so white cloth the old woman was told she could
not have, she had been given plenty of garments for her own use and
that was enough. The old woman, however, kept on pleading and
saying the spirit of her dead mistress kept coming to her asking and
crying for white cloth, and white cloth she must get for her, and so
at last, finding it was not to be got at the Mission station, she
stole away one day, unobserved, and wandered off into the bush, from
which she never again reappeared, doubtless falling a victim to the
many leopards that haunted hereabouts.
To provide a proper burial for the dead relation is the great duty
of a negro's life, its only rival in his mind is the desire to avoid
having a burial of his own. But, in a good negro, this passion will
go under before the other, and he will risk his very life to do it.
He may know, surely and well, that killing slaves and women at a
dead brother's grave means hanging for him when their Big Consul
knows of it, but in the Delta he will do it. On the Coast, Leeward
and Windward, he will spend every penny he possesses and, on top, if
need be, go and pawn himself, his wives, or his children into
slavery to give a deceased relation a proper funeral.
This killing at funerals I used to think would be more easily done
away with in the Delta than among the Tschwi tribes, but a little
more knowledge of the Delta's idea about the future life showed me I
was wrong.
Among the Tschwi the slaves and women killed are to form for the
dead a retinue, and riches wherewith to start life in Srahmandazi
(Yboniadse of the Oji), where there are markets and towns and all
things as on this earth, and so the Tschwi would have little
difficulty in replacing human beings at funerals with gold-dust,
cloth, and other forms of riches, and this is already done in
districts under white influence.
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