Being
apparently either to give rise to more elephants, or to induce the
forest spirits to bring more elephants into the district.
Dr. Nassau tells me that the manner in which the ivory gained by one
of these hunts is divided is as follows: - "The witch doctor, the
chiefs, and the family on whose ground the enclosure is built, and
especially the household whose women first discovered the animals,
decide in council as to the division of the tusks and the share of
the flesh to be given to the crowd of outsiders. The next day the
tusks are removed and each family represented in the assemblage cuts
up and distributes the flesh." In the hunt I saw finished, the
elephants had not been discovered, as in the case Dr. Nassau above
speaks of, in a plantation by women, but by a party of rubber
hunters in the forest some four or five miles from any village, and
the ivory that would have been allotted to the plantation holder in
the former case, went in this case to the young rubber hunters.
Such are the pursuits, sports and pastimes of my friends the Fans.
I have been considerably chaffed both by whites and blacks about my
partiality for this tribe, but as I like Africans in my way - not a
la Sierra Leone - and these Africans have more of the qualities I
like than any other tribe I have met, it is but natural that I
should prefer them.
