Chapter XXII: Bakula Falsely Accused and Murdered

Failure of various remedies--Witch-doctor engaged--Diagnosing a
case--Different “medicine men” are called in--Bakula denounces their
trickery--Suspicion of witchcraft falls on Bakula--Native attempts
to rid themselves of death, sickness, etc.--Preparing a corpse for
the grave--Bakula is accused of bewitching his mother to death--He
is guarded by Old Plaited-Beard through the night--He is taken to
the hill-top.--He falls and is done to death--Tumbu buries the
mangled body of his friend.

A few weeks after the closing of the school, as narrated in the preceding chapter, Bakula’s mother fell seriously ill of a chest complaint. Many remedies were tried, but failed to relieve her. Some neighbourly women sat with her by day and attended her at night, and numberless were the sure cures they recommended; but although applied they proved utterly futile. Her family at last decided, much against the wish of Bakula, to send for the “medicine man” who cures by herbs, fetishes and charms. He was called _ngang’a wuka_.

As already stated,[66] each of these various _ngangas_ (and there are nearly sixty different kinds) must find his way to the village and to the house of his client without either guidance or instruction, and he must also discover the disease from which his patient is suffering or the cause of death without asking a single direct question.

Footnote 66:

See Chapter VII.

In due time the “medicine man” arrived in front of his patient’s house, having reached it by the usual stratagem of his assistant dropping leaves and twigs to indicate the road. He was a stout man with shrewd, quick, shifty eyes, and was dressed in the usual fantastic style, and carried a bag of charms slung from his shoulder. He seated himself outside the sick woman’s house, and a crowd quickly formed a circle round him.

The native “doctor” in diagnosing the case could not ask any direct questions of his patient--in fact she was in the house and he sat outside; but he met that difficulty thus: He asked a series of indirect questions, and when those present said “Ndungu” he knew he was on the wrong tack, and when they replied “Otuama” he knew at once he was guessing rightly, and the more excitedly they called out the latter word the nearer he knew he was to the truth, and the more indifferently they uttered “Ndungu” the farther he understood he was from the real complaint. Hence he started in this way--

“There are such things as backaches and headaches.” “Ndungu,” quietly said the folk.

“Sometimes there are pains in the legs.” “Ndungu,” was very coldly uttered by the crowd. The _nganga_ recognized that he was on the wrong scent; but still he had managed to narrow the circle of affected parts, so he began again.

“There are such things as pains in the arms and thighs.” “Ndungu,” indifferently replied the people.

“Sometimes there are pains in the chest and stomach.” “Otuama,” uttered the poor folk.

He now knew his patient was suffering either from a bad stomach or chest, and he continued to narrow it down in this manner until at last he said: “Ah! her chest is very bad.” The people excitedly shouted, “Otuama,” snapped their fingers, and looked at the _nganga_ with awe-filled eyes.

The “doctor” now knew that his patient’s chest was the seat of the trouble. What are the most common complaints of the chest? Hacking coughs, asthma, bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia. So he started off to discover the particular disease from which the woman was suffering and the part affected. The people coldly said “Ndungu” when he missed his guess, or frantically called out “Otuama”; by this cunning process he narrowed the circle smaller and smaller, until at last, to their astonishment, he said: “The woman is suffering from pleurisy (_ntulu_) on the right side of the chest.”

The people thought that such a clever man, who had found out all about the disease without being told and without seeing the patient, was just the person to cure the complaint. He was consequently engaged at once and well paid. He made no proper examination of the patient, but took out some of his herbs and charms, and beating them into a paste told them to rub the woman’s chest with the preparation.

After two or three days, Bakula’s mother feeling no better, the family sent to _ngang’ a moko_. The messenger who went to her, for this witch-doctor is generally a woman, took with him a red bead which he gave to the _nganga_, who put it under her pillow that she might in a dream discover the cause of her patient’s complaint--whether it is a mere ailment, or a bewitchment by some evil spirit.

The _nganga_ received her fee of one good fowl and fifty brass rods, and that night placed the bead beneath her pillow; but whether she dreamed or not I do not know. However, in the morning she told the messenger that the first “doctor” was unable to effect a cure because some one was bewitching the sick woman, and the family must send for a wizard to kill the evil spirit that was troubling her, and then she would soon recover from her complaint.

When the message was delivered Bakula, who was standing by, at once denounced the cheating trickery of the _ngangas_, and told how he, with others, had exposed one of these spirit-killing wizards in a certain town. He explained the whole process even to the piece of _kwanga_ wrapped up to imitate a corpse, with the fowl’s bladder of blood inside. The people looked at him with horror-stricken eyes, recoiled from him in terror, and with raised fingers accused him of being a _ndoki_, or evil spirit, as otherwise he could not have meddled with the _nganga_ and his things and not have suffered for it.

Bakula denied the cruel charge; but from that day he was regarded by the people with unfriendly suspicion, and was shunned by them. But for his slave friend, Tumbu, and his former scholars he would have led a very lonely life.

The spirit-killing witch-doctor was called, and made the night hideous with his shouts, threats, screams and gun-firing. He worked hard at his craft, received his fee and went; but the poor woman still continued ill, and, in fact, became much worse--the pain at her right side was acute, the breathing difficult, and the fever high. Her moaning was continuous, and the women who attended her knew not what to do for her relief. They were unskilled nurses and lacked knowledge rather than the feminine qualities of caring for the sick. There were no foods for invalids, no dainties to tempt a patient’s appetite--the sick had either to eat what the robust and healthy ate or go without. Many patients have died of hunger rather than of the diseases from which they suffered.

The practice of the witch-doctor was sheer quackery, and rested more on the exorcism of evil spirits by magical charms, incantations and concoctions, than on a knowledge of physiology, disease and medicine. The wonder was that any one survived the various treatments, and, in fact, only the fittest and strongest did recover from serious illnesses.

Bakula’s mother continued to grow worse. How he wished they were near the mission station, where she could have the help of those who cured his oil-scalded arm and nursed him so carefully; but the station was too far away! He attended his mother assiduously, and would have done more for her, but the women drove him out of the hut with jeers and curses, after his denouncement of the witch-doctor and their tricks. Poor creatures! they knew no better, they were doing their very best for the patient. They were simply safeguarding her from one whom they thought was full of witchcraft.

Another “doctor” was called, among whose outfit were several traps especially made for catching evil spirits. Having put a little fowl’s blood into each of the traps, he placed them around the doors of the house in which the sick woman was tossing in her efforts to breathe freely. He then pounded some herbs and chalk together, mixed them in palm-wine, and giving the patient this decoction to drink, sat down to watch the entrance of any evil spirit into his traps, disguised as cockroaches or spiders. Although he caught and killed several of the supposed evil spirits, _i. e._ several spiders and cockroaches, and therefore, according to his statements, the woman would now recover quickly, yet she grew worse.

In their desperation the family sent for yet another wizard who had the power to converse with spirits, and consequently was able to ask them why they were inflicting so bad an illness on the suffering woman! He came with his fetish, and, before locking himself in a house, told the people that they would see the house shake as he talked with the spirits. The family sat around the place listening and watching intently.

In a short time they saw the hut quivering and heard the _bitodi_ fetish speaking and the spirits talking, and the answering voices were male and female, old and young.

After a long consultation between the _nganga’s_ _bitodi_ fetish and the spirits (_nkwiya_), the wizard came out, and said: “Some member of the family is guilty of breaking the country customs, laughing at _ngangas_, and throwing his (or her) charms away, consequently this sickness has come as a punishment. This same member has also a _ndoki_ (or evil spirit), and whoever it is must bless the patient so as to remove the evil influence from her.”

Suspicion instantly fell on my owner, Bakula, for who else had broken the country customs but he! Had he not learned to read! Had he not accepted the white man’s palaver, and renounced his charms! Had he not laughed at _ngangas_ and denounced their rites and ceremonies as cheating tricks!

Bakula was dragged into the hut to bless his mother. He solemnly took her right hand and, pretending to spit on it, said: “May you have blessing and good fortune.” Then he was hurried out of the room of his dying mother.

This particular “doctor,” to prove his _bona fides_, had heated a machet red hot three times, and had drawn it each time across his tongue. What better proof did the natives need than this of the _nganga’s_ magical power to converse with spirits? He received a large fee of more than ten shillings’ worth of trade goods, and went his way, leaving his victim to bear the brunt of the family’s vengeance.

The _nganga_ had not been gone many hours when the woman breathed her last, and poor Bakula was left motherless. His neighbours and relatives eyed his sorrow with contemptuous suspicion, and already began to whisper among themselves that he was the _ndoki_ (or evil spirit) who had caused his own mother’s death. They thoughtlessly disregarded the true affection that the young man had always shown for his mother, his readiness to help her, and his sincere grief now that she was gone. They only considered and repeated to each other what the witch-doctor had said about breaking the country customs, laughing at wizards, and neglecting his charms. They could regard him in no other light than as the real cause of his mother’s illness and death.

For generations they and their forefathers had believed that disease and death were unnatural, and would not exist on the earth for a single day if there were no wickedly-disposed persons who used evil spirits to kill their relatives by incurable diseases. They did not know that their “medicine men” covered their ignorance, quackeries and failures by these charges of witchcraft. If a patient recovered, then they inflated themselves with pride and took all the credit of the cure; but if the patient died, then witchcraft was at work, a _ndoki_ was “eating” up the patient, or by his evil spirit was throttling the spirit of the sick one. Rich men had bought expensive charms, had sacrificed goats and sheep to costly fetishes to keep them strong and alert, to protect their owners from the evil influences of the _ndoki_, and yet they had died.

Such deaths did not shake their faith in charms and fetishes, but rather stimulated them to more careful observance of all the rites and ceremonies connected with them. They knew no better system than that in which they had been nurtured.

One night when Bakula was sitting around the fire I heard that two men many years ago had started a crusade against fetishes and charms. They preached throughout the Lower Congo that if all fetishes and charms of every kind were destroyed there would be no more disease and death. So effective was their condemnation of witchcraft, charms, and fetishes that whole towns and villages made bonfires of their images and charms, and children were shaken over the fires to purge them from any charms concealed about their person.

The deluded natives expected a golden day would now dawn upon them wherein there would be no sighing, no tears, no weeping, for disease and death would be banished from their huts; but, alas! sickness soon came and death quickly followed to disillusion them of their bright hopes.

The only folk who profited by this crusade were the _ngangas_, as they received large orders for charms and fetishes to replace those that had been burned. But the preachers were sure of the soundness of their panacea for the country’s woes, and they could only account for its failure by charging some of the people with hiding their charms and fetishes instead of destroying them.

Later still, two other men who were _ngangas_, calling themselves by some high-sounding titles, started another crusade; this time not against charms and fetishes, but against evil desires and murderous thoughts harboured in the hearts of the people. They proclaimed that every one should confess to them all the witchcraft, hatred, and bad thoughts they had in their hearts against others, and those thus confessing should receive a peanut and a sip of palm-wine, and thus disease and death would pass away from their country.

Large numbers flocked to them, paid their fees--five strings of beads for an adult, and two for a child--confessed their hatred, witchcraft, and evil thoughts, and received from the hands of the new cult of “medicine men” the peanut and palm-wine, and yearningly hoped that sickness had been banished from their district and death destroyed. But again they were quickly undeceived, for disease continued rampant and death entered hut after hut. The “medicine men” reaped a great harvest of beads, swaggered in wealth, and excused the failure of their system by saying “that the people had not confessed _all_ their witchcraft and hatred, and consequently, not being cleansed from _all_, the old state of things had continued, and people suffered and died as before.”

Thus the people had had their hopes again and again dashed to the ground, and they had been flung back on their old “medicine men” and their fetishes. It has always been a tenet of their religion that sickness and death were and are caused by witchcraft, and the most hated person in all the country is he (or she) who, by the ordeal, is proved to practise witchcraft. Hold their views, and the tenderest heart will hate and kill the witch as mercilessly as they did.

There is no doubt but that the _ngangas_ received bribes to render the ordeal non-effective; that the big men of the town incited the ordinary folk to bring charges of witchcraft against their enemies, or those whom they wanted removed from their path; and the witch-doctors themselves, by the aid of their assistants, fostered and turned suspicion against those who desired to introduce a new and better state of things into the country. Their position and gains depended on killing off all such dangerous people. Hence the ordeal and the charge of witchcraft were often simply acts of murder, according to the customs of the country if you like, but nevertheless murder.

The whole of the morning following the death of Bakula’s mother was spent in decorating the corpse for burial. Beads were twisted round the toes, feet, legs, body, arms, hands, fingers and neck, thus enswathing the whole of the deceased in a casing of glass beads. Fold after fold of trade cloths of different colours and qualities were wound round and round the body until it was nearly twice its original bulk. At sunset the corpse was carried to the grave, just outside the town, and laid to rest with the hum of town life on one side, and the weird, uncanny noises of the eternal bush on the other; but the soul had gone to that mysterious spirit town in the great forest where it would utilize all the cloth and beads in which it had been wrapped.

All through the day women had wailed and chanted mournful dirges, men had fired off guns amid much laughter and many jokes, and Bakula, with tearful eyes, had talked in subdued tones to his slave friend.

He had often, in the days gone by, conversed with his mother about the white man’s palaver concerning God and His great gift of Jesus Christ. He had poured out his heart to her, had instructed her in all that he had learned on the station, and had repeated to her portions of God’s Word.

He now recalled the eagerness with which she had heard the words: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”; and, “In My Father’s house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you”; and he was hopeful of meeting her, not in the mysterious forest town that had so many terrors for them, and which was simply a repetition of their earthly life and its sorrows, but in the Father’s house where all tears would be wiped away from their eyes, all sin banished from their lives, and all sorrow from their hearts. He grieved not as one without hope.

Not many days after the funeral the witch-finder arrived, dressed in his fantastic garb, his body decorated with gaudy paints and pigments, and his bells tinkling at every movement. A crowd quickly gathered and formed itself into a long oval, up and down the centre of which he danced. The whole town, with few exceptions, regarded Bakula as a witch, and the prancing figure there in the middle knew it. Still, he must give his employers something for their money, so through the whole long hours of the afternoon he gyrated perspiringly, threw his arms and legs about in the most approved fashion, put question after question and elicited such answers as confirmed his opinion that it would be extremely popular and safe to charge this ridiculer of witch-doctors, this scorner of fetishes and charms, this believer in the new religion with the death of his mother--the woman who had just died.

Bakula was present throughout the whole performance. Hour after hour he stood calmly there. As a member of the family he was compelled to be present; but he took no part in answering the crafty questions put by the grotesque figure dancing before him.

Towards the latter part of the afternoon he noticed that the people were withdrawing from him; they seemed to shun the spot where he stood, all except his faithful slave friend. He trembled as he observed these signs of popular resentment, for he fully recognized their meaning.

Towards sunset the witch-doctor increased his efforts to the admiration of the spectators. He leaped in the air, gyrated on his heels, flung his arms and legs about in amazing circles, crouched and jumped, undulated his body to simulate a python, and in a whirlwind of shaking skins, twirling arms and legs, and sounding bells he brought himself to a sudden halt in front of Bakula, and with raised finger accused him of bewitching his mother to death.

Poor Bakula! although he had fully expected this charge, he was dumbfounded now he stood accused before all the people. He essayed to speak, but no words issued from his parched, dry throat, and he would have fallen if Tumbu had not supported him in his strong arms.

Why had they accused him of killing his mother by witchcraft? Accused _him_ of _her_ death! It was ridiculous, cruel, wicked! Surely no Congo mother had ever before been loved by a son as she had been loved! The very teaching he had imbibed had taught him to honour, reverence and love his parents. If he had lied, robbed, lived a loose life and treated his mother with contemptuous indifference like other young men in the town, he would not have stood there charged with killing his mother by witchcraft.

The crowd surged around him. What ugly, sinister faces were pushed jeeringly into his! Sticks were raised and knives drawn to strike down the witch; but Satu pushed himself in front of the victim, and demanded that he should not be killed until the ordeal test had been given him.

“He will escape in the night to the white man’s station,” they shouted.

“No, he won’t,” said Old Plaited-Beard, “for I will bind him strongly and watch him through the night, if you will hand him over to me.”

This met with the instant approval of the crowd, and Bakula was handed over to the guardianship of his superstitious and merciless enemy.

Old Plaited-Beard, with the help of a few friends, took the accused youth to his hut, and with strong cords bound his hands, feet and legs. No tenderness was displayed in the tying; that the cords cut into the flesh was regarded by the tiers with utter unconcern.

To render escape doubly impossible the prisoner’s neck was securely fastened in a forked stick.

All through the long night the men took it in turns to watch Bakula, who, by reason of his strained position and tortured limbs, had no proper sleep, but dozed fitfully in painful semi-consciousness. Now and again he sang in a poor quavering voice the hymns he had learned on the station and had taught his few boys in their little school; occasionally he prayed for strength and comfort, and once he attempted to speak to his captors about the great Saviour--God’s wonderful gift to the world.

It was not until they threatened to ram a lighted stick into his mouth--and held one very near to his lips to emphasize their threat--that he turned from them to sing: “Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly.”

Early the next afternoon Bakula was released from his bonds, and led away to the top of a neighbouring hill. The rude hut was quickly built, and the victim placed in it with extended arms. The ordeal-giver ground the pieces of bark into powder, and fed the young man with them. Before he had taken many of the powders Bakula began to feel intoxicated by their narcotic properties. He swayed to and fro like a drunken man, his vision became blurred, foam came from his mouth, and at last he fell a writhing heap on the ground. Sticks and knives immediately finished the cruel, murderous deed, and the corpse, naked, battered and covered with gaping wounds, was left a prey to wild beasts and ravenous birds.

Again the stars arose and looked with blinking, sorrowful gaze on that tragic hill-top--the scene of many an ordeal murder, and as they looked they saw a strange sight: coming across the hill was a lad carrying a hoe. He carefully scanned every boulder, tuft of grass and shrub, and at last his eyes fell on the body of the lifeless lad. With a cry he bounded to its side and sank prostrate to the ground, and grovelled in heart-stricken sorrow by the side of his murdered friend.

When his grief had somewhat spent itself Tumbu arose and began to dig a grave for the body of his admired benefactor. It was a fearsome place, strewn with bones--the remnants of many trials by ordeal; and weird noises, trying to the stoutest heart, came on the night air from the near forest. Tumbu started many a time during his self-imposed task, and fear gripped his heart more than once; but he steadied himself by driving his hoe deeply into the earth, and working hard to save the body of his kind friend from the cruel, sharp teeth of savage beasts.

At last the grave was deep enough, and then Tumbu, spreading some cloth he had brought for the purpose, laid the body of his friend upon it; but before wrapping it around him he took the Brass Rod from Bakula’s neck, intending to keep it as a memento of his slain friend.

Tenderly were the remains laid in the grave, and the earth covered all that was left of my whilom companion and martyred owner.