The African Himself Has Not A Shadow Of A Doubt On The
Point, And Some Form Of Alcohol He Will Have.
When he cannot get
white man's spirit - min makara, as he calls it in Calabar - he takes
black man's spirit min effik.
This is palm wine, and although it
has escaped the abuse heaped on rum and gin, it is worse for the
native than either of the others, for he has to drink a disgusting
quantity of it, because from the palm wine he does not get the
stimulating effect quickly as from gin or rum, and the enormous
quantity consumed at one sitting will distribute its effects over a
week. You can always tell whether a native has had a glass too much
rum, or half a gallon or so too much palm wine; the first he soon
recovers from, while the palm wine keeps him a disgusting nuisance
for days, and the constitutional effects of it are worse, for it
produces a definite type of renal disease which, if it does not cut
short the life of the sufferer in a paroxysm, kills him gradually
with dropsy. There is another native drink which works a bitter woe
on the African in the form of intoxication combined with a brilliant
bilious attack. It is made from honey flavoured with the bark of a
certain tree, and as it is very popular I had better not spread it
further by giving the recipe. The imported gin keeps the African
off these abominations which he has to derange his internal works
with before he gets the stimulus that enables him to resist this
vile climate; particularly will it keep him from his worst
intoxicant lhiamba (Cannabis sativa), a plant which grows wild on
the South-West Coast and on the West for all I know, as well as the
African or bowstring hemp (Sanseviera guiniensis). The plant that
produces the lhiamba is a nettle-like plant growing six to ten feet
high, and the natives collect the tops of the stems, with the seed
on, in little bundles and dry them. It is evidently the seeds which
are regarded by them as being the important part, although they do
not collect these separately; but you hear great rows among them
when buying and selling a little bundle, on the point of the seeds
being shaken out, "Chi! Chi! Chi!" says A., "this is worthless,
there are no seeds." "Ai, Ai," says B., "never were there so many
seeds in a bunch of lhiamba," etc. It is used smoked, like the
ganja of India, not like the preparation bhang, and the way the
Africans in the Congo used it was a very quaint one. They would
hollow out a little hole in the ground, making a little dome over
it; then in went a few hemp-tops; and on to them a few stones made
red hot in a fire. Then the dome was closed up and a reed stuck
through it. Then one man after another would go and draw up into
his lungs as much smoke as he could with one prolonged deep
inspiration; and then go apart and cough in a hard, hacking
distressing way for ten minutes at a time, and then back to the reed
for another pull. In addition to the worry of hearing their coughs,
the lhiamba gives you trouble with the men, for it spoils their
tempers, making them moody and fractious, and prone to quarrel with
each other; and when they get an excessive dose of it their society
is more terrifying than tolerable. I once came across three men who
had got into this state and a fourth man who had not, but was of the
party. They fought with him, and broke his head, and then we
proceeded on our way, one gentleman taking flying leaps at some
places, climbing up trees now and again, and embedding himself in
the bush alongside the path "because of the pools of moving blood on
it." ("If they had not kept moving," he said as he sat where he
fell - "he could have managed it") - the others having grand times
with various creatures, which, judging from their description of
them, I was truly thankful were not there. The men's state of mind,
however, soon cleared; and I must say this was the only time I came
across this lhiamba giving such strong effects; usually the men just
cough with that racking cough that lets you know what they have been
up to, and quarrel for a short time. When, however, a whiff of
lhiamba is taken by them in the morning before starting on a march,
the effect seems to be good, enabling them to get over the ground
easily and to endure a long march without being exhausted. But a
small tot of rum is better for them by far. Many other intoxicants
made from bush are known to and used by the witch doctors.
You may say: - Well! if it is not the polygamy and not the drink
that makes the West African as useless as he now is as a developer,
or a means of developing the country, what is it? In my opinion, it
is the sort of instruction he has received, not that this
instruction is necessarily bad in itself, but bad from being
unsuited to the sort of man to whom it has been given. It has the
tendency to develop his emotionalism, his sloth, and his vanity, and
it has no tendency to develop those parts of his character which are
in a rudimentary state and much want it; thereby throwing the whole
character of the man out of gear.
The great inferiority of the African to the European lies in the
matter of mechanical idea. I own I regard not only the African, but
all coloured races, as inferior - inferior in kind not in degree - to
the white races, although I know it is unscientific to lump all
Africans together and then generalise over them, because the
difference between various tribes is very great.
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