Divisions Of Time The Bubi Can Hardly Be Said To Have, But This Is A
Point Upon Which All West Africans Are Rather Weak, Particularly The
Bantu.
He has, however, a definite name for November, December, and
January - the dry season months - calling them Lobos.
The Fetish of these people, although agreeing on broad lines with
the Bantu Fetish, has many interesting points, as even my small
knowledge of it showed me, and it is a subject that would repay
further investigation; and as by fetish I always mean the governing
but underlying ideas of a man's life, we will commence with the
child. Nothing, as far as I have been able to make out, happens to
him, for fetish reasons, when he first appears on the scene. He
receives at birth, as is usual, a name which is changed for another
on his initiation into the secret society, this secret society
having also, as usual, a secret language. About the age of three or
five years the boy is decorated, under the auspices of the witch
doctor, with certain scars on the face. These scars run from the
root of the nose across the cheeks, and are sometimes carried up in
a curve on to the forehead.
Tattooing, in the true sense of the word, they do not use much, but
they paint themselves, as the mainlanders do, with a red paint made
by burning some herb and mixing the ash with clay or oil, and they
occasionally - whether for ju-ju reasons or for mere decoration I do
not know - paint a band of yellow clay round the chest; but of the
Bubi secret society I know little, nor have I been able to find any
one who knows much more. Hutchinson, {61} in his exceedingly
amusing description of a wedding he was once present at among these
people, would lead one to think the period of seclusion of the
women's society was twelve months.
The chief god or spirit, O Wassa, resides in the crater of the
highest peak, and by his name the peak is known to the native.
Another very important spirit, to whom goats and sheep are offered,
is Lobe, resident in a crater lake on the northern slope of the
Cordilleras, and the grass you sometimes see a Bubi wearing is said
to come from this lake and be a ju-ju of Lobe's. Dr. Baumann says
that the lake at Riabba from which the spirit Uapa rises is more
holy, and that he is small, and resides in a chasm in a rock whose
declivity can only be passed by means of bush ropes, and in the wet
season he is not get-at-able at all. He will, if given suitable
offerings, reveal the future to Bubis, but Bubis only. His priest
is the King of all the Bubis, upon whom it is never permitted to a
white man, or a Porto, to gaze. Baumann also gives the residence of
another important spirit as being the grotto at Banni. This is a
sea-cave, only accessible at low water in calm weather. I have
heard many legends of this cave, but have never had an opportunity
of seeing it, or any one who has seen it first hand.
The charms used by these people are similar in form to those of the
mainland Bantu, but the methods of treating paths and gateways are
somewhat peculiar. The gateways to the towns are sometimes covered
by freshly cut banana leaves, and during the religious feast in
November, the paths to the villages are barred across with a hedge
of grass which no stranger must pass through.
The government is a peculiar one for West Africa. Every village has
its chief, but the whole tribe obey one great chief or king who
lives in the crater-ravine at Riabba. This individual is called
Moka, but whether he is now the same man referred to by Rogoszinsky,
Mr. Holland, and the Rev. Hugh Brown, who attempted to interview him
in the seventies, I do not feel sure, for the Bubis are just the
sort of people to keep a big king going with a variety of
individuals. Even the indefatigable Dr. Baumann failed to see Moka,
though he evidently found out a great deal about the methods of his
administration and formed a very high opinion of his ability, for he
says that to this one chief the people owe their present unity and
orderliness; that before his time the whole island was in a state of
internecine war: murder was frequent, and property unsafe. Now
their social condition, according to the Doctor's account, is a
model to Europe, let alone Africa. Civil wars have been abolished,
disputes between villages being referred to arbitration, and murder
is swiftly and surely punished. If the criminal has bolted into the
forest and cannot be found, his village is made responsible, and has
to pay a fine in goats, sheep and tobacco to the value of 16 pounds.
Theft is extremely rare and offences against the moral code also,
the Bubis having an extremely high standard in this matter, even the
little children having each a separate sleeping hut. In old days
adultery was punished by cutting off the offender's hand. I have
myself seen women in Fernando Po who have had a hand cut off at the
wrist, but I believe those were slave women who had suffered for
theft. Slaves the Bubis do have, but their condition is the mild,
poor relation or retainer form of slavery you find in Calabar, and
differs from the Dualla form, for the slaves live in the same
villages as their masters, while among the Duallas, as among most
Bantu slave-holding tribes, the slaves are excluded from the
master's village and have separate villages of their own. For
marriage ceremonies I refer you to Mr. Hutchinson. Burial customs
are exceedingly quaint in the southern and eastern districts, where
the bodies are buried in the forest with their heads just sticking
out of the ground.
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