B. Then Pleads This As His
Own Defence In The Case Of A. And B. (Authorities Cited In Support
Of This View); He Also Pleads He Is Not Liable, Because C. Is A Free
Man, And Not His Slave.
The case went on for a week; the judge was drunk for five days in
his attempt to get his head clear.
The decision finally was that B.
was to pay A. full compensation. B. v. C. is still pending.
The laws against adultery are, theoretically, exceedingly severe.
The punishment is death, and this is sometimes carried out. The
other day King Bell in Cameroon flogged one of his wives to death,
and the German Government have deposed and deported him, for you
cannot do that sort of thing with impunity within a stone's throw of
a Government head-quarters. But as a general rule all along the
Coast the death penalty for murder or adultery is commuted to a
fine, or you can send a substitute to be killed for you, if you are
rich. This is frequently done, because it is cheaper, if you have a
seedy slave, to give him to be killed in your stead than to pay a
fine which is often enormous.
The adultery itself is often only a matter of laying your hand, even
in self-defence from a virago, on a woman - or brushing against her
in the path. These accusations of adultery are, next to witchcraft,
the great social danger to the West Coast native, and they are often
made merely from motives of extortion or spite, and without an atom
of truth in them.
It is customary for a chief to put his wives frequently to ordeal on
this point, and this is almost always done after there has been a
big devil-making, or a dance, which his family have been gracing
with their presence. The usual method of applying the ordeal is by
boiling palm-oil - a pot is nearly filled with the oil, which is
brought to the boil over a fire; when it is seething, the woman to
be tried is brought out in front of it. She first dips her hands
into water, and then has administered to her the M'biam oath saying
or having said for her that long elaborate formula, in a form
adjusted to meet the case. Then she plunges her hand into the
boiling oil for an instant, and shakes the oil off with all possible
rapidity, and the next woman comes forward and goes through the same
performance, and so on. Next day, the hands of the women are
examined, and those found blistered are adjudged guilty, and
punished. In order to escape heavy punishment the woman will accuse
some man of having hustled against her, or sat down on a bench
beside her, and so on, and the accused man has to pay up. If he
does not, in the Calabar district, Egbo will come and "eat the
adultery," and there won't be much of that man's earthly goods left.
Sometimes the accusation is volunteered by the woman, and frequently
the husband and wife conspire together and cook up a case against a
man for the sake of getting the damages. There is nothing that
ensures a man an unblemished character in West Africa, save the
possession of sufficient power to make it risky work for people to
cast slurs on it.
The ownership of children is a great source of palaver. The law
among Negroes and Bantus is that the children of a free woman belong
to her. In the case of tribes believing in the high importance of
uncles considerable powers are vested in that relative, while in
other tribes certain powers are vested in the father.
The children of slave wives are the only children the father has
absolute power over if he is the legal owner of the slave woman.
If, as is frequently the case, a free man marries a slave woman who
belongs to another man, all her children are the absolute property
of her owner, not her husband; and the owner of the woman can take
them and sell them, or do whatsoever he chooses with them, unless
the free man father redeems them, as he usually does, although the
woman may still remain the absolute property of the owner,
recallable by him at any time.
This law is the cause of the most brain-spraining palavers that come
before the white authorities. There is naturally no statute of
limitations in West Africa, because the African does not care a row
of pins about time. The wily A. will let his slave woman live with
B. without claiming the redemption fees as they become due - letting
them stand over, as it were, at compound interest. All the male as
well as the female children of the first generation are A.'s
property, and all the female children of these children are his
property even unto the second and third generation and away into
eternity. A. may die before he puts in his claim, in which case the
ownership passes on into the hands of his heir or assignees, who may
foreclose at once, on entering into their heritage, or may again let
things accumulate for their heirs. Anyhow, sooner or later the
foreclosure comes and then there is trouble. X., Y., Z., etc., free
men, have married some of the original A.'s slave woman's
descendants. They have either bought them right out, or kept on
conscientiously redeeming children of theirs as they arrived. Of
course A., or his heirs, contend that X., Y., Z., etc. have been
wasting time and money by so doing, because the people X., Y., Z.
have paid the money to had no legal title to the women. Of course
X., Y., Z. contend that their particular woman, or her ancestress,
was duly redeemed from the legal owner.
Remember there is no documentary evidence available, and squads of
equally reliable and oldest inhabitants are swearing hard - all both
ways.
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