But There Is Yet Another Danger, Which No Quantity Of Wives,
Nor Local Jealousies Avail To Guard Him Through.
This danger arises
from the nomadic habits of the bush tribes, notably the Fan.
For
when a village has made up its mind to change its district, either
from having made the district too hot to hold it, with quarrels with
neighbouring villages; or because it has exhausted the trade stuff,
i.e. rubber and ivory in reach of its present situation; or because
some other village has raided it, and taken away all the stuff it
was saving to sell to the black trader; it resolves to give itself a
final treat in the old home, and make a commercial coup at one fell
swoop. Then when the black trader turns up with his boxes of goods,
it kills him, has some for supper, smokes the rest, and takes it and
the goods, and departs to found new homes in another district.
The bush trade I have above sketched is the bush trade with the
Fans. In those districts on the southern banks of the Ogowe the
main features of the trade, and the trader's life are the same, but
the details are more intricate, for the Igalwa trader from
Lembarene, Fernan Vaz, or Njole, deals with another set of trading
tribes, not first hand with the collectors. The Fan villages on the
trade routes may, however, be regarded as trade depots, for to them
filters the trade stuff of the more remote villages, so the
difference is really merely technical, and in all villages alike the
same sort of thing occurs.
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