There Were Eight
Elephants Killed That Day, But Three Burst Through Everything,
Sending Energetic Spectators Flying, And Squashing Two Men And A
Baby As Flat As Botanical Specimens.
The subsequent proceedings were impressive.
The whole of the people
gorged themselves on the meat for days, and great chunks of it were
smoked over the fires in all directions. A certain portion of the
flesh of the hind leg was taken by the witch doctor for ju-ju, and
was supposed to be put away by him, with certain suitable
incantations in the recesses of the forest; his idea 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. They are brave and so you can respect them,
which is an essential element in a friendly feeling. They are on
the whole a fine race, particularly those in the mountain districts
of the Sierra del Cristal, where one continually sees magnificent
specimens of human beings, both male and female. Their colour is
light bronze, many of the men have beards, and albinoes are rare
among them. The average height in the mountain districts is five
feet six to five feet eight, the difference in stature between men
and women not being great. Their countenances are very bright and
expressive, and if once you have been among them, you can never
mistake a Fan. But it is in their mental characteristics that their
difference from the lethargic, dying-out coast tribes is most
marked. The Fan is full of fire, temper, intelligence and go; very
teachable, rather difficult to manage, quick to take offence, and
utterly indifferent to human life. I ought to say that other
people, who should know him better than I, say he is a treacherous,
thievish, murderous cannibal. I never found him treacherous; but
then I never trusted him, remembering one of the aphorisms of my
great teacher Captain Boler of Bonny, "It's not safe to go among
bush tribes, but if you are such a fool as to go, you needn't go and
be a bigger fool still, you've done enough." And Captain Boler's
other great aphorism was: "Never be afraid of a black man." "What
if I can't help it?" said I. "Don't show it," said he. To these
precepts I humbly add another: "Never lose your head." My most
favourite form of literature, I may remark, is accounts of
mountaineering exploits, though I have never seen a glacier or a
permanent snow mountain in my life. I do not care a row of pins how
badly they may be written, and what form of bumble-puppy grammar and
composition is employed, as long as the writer will walk along the
edge of a precipice with a sheer fall of thousands of feet on one
side and a sheer wall on the other; or better still crawl up an
arete with a precipice on either. Nothing on earth would persuade
me to do either of these things myself, but they remind me of bits
of country I have been through where you walk along a narrow line of
security with gulfs of murder looming on each side, and where in
exactly the same way you are as safe as if you were in your easy
chair at home, as long as you get sufficient holding ground: not on
rock in the bush village inhabited by murderous cannibals, but on
ideas in those men's and women's minds; and these ideas, which I
think I may say you will always find, give you safety. It is not
advisable to play with them, or to attempt to eradicate them,
because you regard them as superstitious; and never, never shoot too
soon. I have never had to shoot, and hope never to have to; because
in such a situation, one white alone with no troops to back him
means a clean finish. But this would not discourage me if I had to
start, only it makes me more inclined to walk round the obstacle,
than to become a mere blood splotch against it, if this can be done
without losing your self-respect, which is the mainspring of your
power in West Africa.
As for flourishing about a revolver and threatening to fire, I hold
it utter idiocy. I have never tried it, however, so I speak from
prejudice which arises from the feeling that there is something
cowardly in it. Always have your revolver ready loaded in good
order, and have your hand on it when things are getting warm, and in
addition have an exceedingly good bowie knife, not a hinge knife,
because with a hinge knife you have got to get it open - hard work in
a country where all things go rusty in the joints - and hinge knives
are liable to close on your own fingers.
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