Forgotten - it is the Krawkraw,
and of that you shall die.'
"A tribe named Ndiva was then strong but now none remain (Winwood
Reade says four remain). They gave Raychow's son a canoe and forty
men, to take him back to his father's town, and when he saw his
father he did not speak. His father said, 'My son, if you are
hungry eat.' He did not answer, and his father said, 'Do you wish
me to kill a goat?' He did not answer; his father said, 'Do you
wish me to give you new wives?' He did not answer. Then his father
said, 'Do you want me to build you a fetish hut?' Then he answered,
'Yes,' and the hut was built, and the medicines he had brought back
from the Hole were put into it.
"'Now,' said the son of King Raychow, 'I go to make Moondah enter
the Orongo' (Gaboon); so he went and dug a canal and when this was
finished all his men were dead. Then he said, 'I will go and kill
river-horse in the Benito.' He killed four, and as he was killing
the fifth, the people descended from the mountains against him. So
he made fetish on his great war-spear and sang
My spear, go kill these people,
Or these people will kill me;
and the spear went and killed the people, except a few who got into
canoes and flew to Fernando Po. Then said their King, 'My people
shall never wear cloth till we have conquered the M'pongwe,' and to
this day the Fernando Poians go naked and hate with a special hatred
the M'pongwe."
Now this is a noble story - there is a lot of fine confused feeding
in it, as the Scotchman said of boiled sheep's head.
You learn from it -
A. The name of the first man, and also that he was filled with a
desire for topographical nomenclature.
B. You hear of the Hole Wonga Wonga, and this is most interesting
because to this day, apart from the story, you are told by the
natives of a hole that emits fire, and Dr. Nassau says it is always
said to be north of Gaboon; but so far no white man has any
knowledge of an active volcano there, although the district is of
volcanic origin. The crater of Fernando Po may be referred to in
the legend because of the king's son being sent home in a canoe; but
I do not think it is, because the Hole is known not to be Fernando
Po, and it has got, according to local tradition, a river running
from it or close to it.
C. The kraw-kraw is a frightfully prevalent disease; no one has a
remedy for it, presumably owing to Raychow's son's forgetfulness.
