Chapter XXI: Bakula’s Work checked

The conservatism of the Congo people--Bakula and his scholars build a
school-house--A missionary visits his town--He encourages Bakula in
his work--A “luck fowl” dies--Its death is put to the credit of the
missionary’s visit and teaching--The school-house is pulled
down--Satu is afraid to interfere--Native way of punishing an
unpopular chief.

Bakula had not been back many days before he asked Satu for permission to open a school for the boys in the town. The chief gave his consent, but was very doubtful how the townsfolk would regard the innovation.

For untold generations they, their fathers, and their forefathers had gone on in the same way. They had built their huts with either grass, mud, or rough plank walls; they had scratched the ground on their farms with little hoes; and when ill in health, unlucky in fighting, trading, hunting or in domestic affairs, they had nearly sixty wizards, or “medicine men,” to reverse their luck by their ceremonies, charms, fetishes and magical decoctions. They had kept their accounts with knots tied in strings, or notches cut on tallies; they had always hunted in the same way, fished in the same way, traded, travelled, lived and died in the same way. What, therefore, was the use of changing now?

They were a very conservative people that had always killed off the progressives--those troublesome fellows who wanted to introduce new methods of building, new articles of trade, new ideas, and new ways of using old materials. Men who in other countries were called inventive geniuses were accounted horrible witches in Satu’s town. The man who discovered the method of tapping palm-trees for palm-wine was killed as a witch; the men who first traded in rubber and ivory were regarded with suspicion, and treated as folk full of witchcraft; and the man who took the first load of gum copal to the traders was told never to take another, or he “would see plenty trouble.”

It was in the midst of such a people that Bakula started his school. Tumbu, of course, attended it. Many other boys came out of curiosity, and finding no magic in it, no short-cut to book learning, their ardour cooled, and they dropped away; and there were no school inspectors to inflict fines and penalties for non-attendance. A few had sufficient courage and perseverance to attend regularly, and these made some progress in the mastery of their letters and syllables.

Bakula so enthused his few scholars that at the end of the dry season they decided to band together and build a grass hut in which to hold their school during the coming rains. It was no small bit of work for a few lads, with poor tools, to undertake. Rafters, king posts, stanchions, and wall plates had to be cut in the forests and conveyed into the town on their heads or shoulders; grass must be cut, dried, combed and carried from the bush to the site; and string had to be prepared from forest vines and swamp reeds.

Then there was a floor to be raised and beaten, holes to be dug, and all the materials fitted and tied together to form the hut. It was a simple structure with no windows, but a large door that answered all purposes, and the boys were proud of it. If you had seen it you might have laughed at it; but could you have built a better one with the same tools and materials?

Every morning the school was opened with prayer, singing, and the reading of a portion from the Gospel of Matthew--the only Gospel then translated into the language of the people. Occasionally men and women came, and, standing about the door, listened to the simple service. Many ridiculed the whole palaver; a few, however, were impressed, and came repeatedly; and, encouraged by them, Bakula started a Sunday service; but out of more than 1,500 people in the town, only from ten to twenty attended it.

One day Bakula’s heart was gladdened by the arrival of one of the missionaries on his way from the Ngombe district to the King’s town. He was trying to open up the country, visiting the towns and preaching in them as opportunity offered. Satu welcomed him heartily, and Bakula and his small class of scholars were delighted to see him. The missionary examined the school, and by his presence and words of praise encouraged the teacher and his pupils to continue their efforts.

The white man had long talks with Satu, and suggested that the next day a crier should be sent through the town to invite the people to come and hear God’s palaver. The time, however, was not ripe for such a service, for only a few responded, and they came more to ingratiate themselves with their chief than to listen to the white man.

This white man was a zealous teacher, thoroughly in earnest and well acquainted with the people’s language. No opportunity was missed by him of speaking to the twos and threes. Here he was to be found in conversation with some swaggering young men, there talking to a few old men, and again in another place arguing with some of the head men. He was a man of great attainments and wide knowledge, yet he exhibited no annoyance as he dealt with their puny reasoning, and unfolded the weak places in their arguments. He was like a giant handling pigmies, tenderly and persuasively. Bakula was sorry when his visitor had to pass on his way to other towns, and to open up the road across country upon which his heart was set; but the young teacher never forgot the words of encouragement he received from the white man in their private talks.

A short time after this visit the “luck fowl” (or _nsusu a zumbi_) belonging to one of the head men died without any apparent reason. It had probably eaten unwisely, or had been bitten by a snake; but the owner put it to the credit of the white men who had just visited their town. Everybody remembered that, immediately after the promised visit of the white man whom they had previously driven out of the town, a pig died.

They argued thus: "A white man came to us with God’s palaver, and a pig died soon after he left; another white man came on the same errand, and before many days had passed a ‘luck fowl’ died, therefore it was most foolish to have anything to do with God’s palaver." They conveniently forgot all the pigs and “luck fowls” that had died before the white men ever came near them, and only remembered these two that had died after their visits.

There was a great to-do in the town over the unfortunate death of this “luck fowl.” The owner raved against the school that had been opened by Bakula, against the visits of the white men, and against the introduction of new ideas of any kind. The more superstitious folk in the place combined to close the school and pull down the school-house. Many were indifferent to the whole matter, and a few were for letting the boys alone. There was much discussion; but the party for the “medicine men,” the fetishes, the charms, and for maintaining the _status quo_ being the larger, the noisier, and more dominant faction, gained their point, and, while demolishing the school, destroyed as many books and slates as fell into their possession.

Poor Bakula was nonplussed by this calamity, and the other boys for a time were disheartened; but there is a great amount of grit and determination in the Congo character, and before long the lads were meeting in Bakula’s house for their lessons and for such teaching as their young tutor could give them.

Satu, the chief, tried to stem the current of popular feeling and turn it away from Bakula, but he failed even to save the school-house. Native chiefs have power only to make the people do what they want to do; and they generally have to bow their heads before the whirlwinds of popular sentiment and feeling. This was Satu’s case. Neither his heart nor his intellect had been awakened by the new teaching, consequently he was not yet prepared to suffer either abuse or unpopularity for the sake of God’s palaver and all that it meant.

The natives have a way of their own in punishing an unpopular chief, as the following incident will show, which I heard a man relate one day to Bakula with much laughter: There was a chief of a neighbouring village who treated his people very contemptuously, and was always, on one pretext or another, exacting fowls, cloth or other goods from them. They bore patiently with him as long as possible, but at last his unreasonable demands became too excessive; so one day they bound him securely, placed him on a shelf in his own house, made a fire under him, and having sprinkled a quantity of red pepper on the fire, went out and shut the door.

The chief sneezed tremendously, and would have died if sufficient pepper had been put on the fire. After a time they took him out of the smoke and tied his extended arms to a cross-stick, and would have punished him further; but he paid a heavy fine, and has been much better since the sneezing cure was tried on him.