Chapter XXVI (7)

The following is a fair sample of “witch-test,” as practised in this region. A Gaboon black trader in the employment of a white supercargo, died suddenly. His family thinking that the death had resulted from witchcraft, two of his sisters were authorised to go to his grave and bring his head away in order that they might test the fact. This testing is effected in the following manner: An iron pot with fresh water is placed on the floor; at one side of it is the head of the dead man, at the other side is seated a fetish doctor. The latter functionary then puts in his mouth a piece of herb, supposed to impart divining powers, chews it, and forms a magic circle by spitting round the pot, the head, and himself. The face of the murderer, after a few incantations, is supposed to be reflected on the water contained in the pot. The fetish man then states he sees the murderer, and orders the head to be again put back to its proper grave, some days being then given to him for deliberation. In the mean time he may fix on a man who is rich enough to pay him a sufficient bribe to be excused of the charge, and if so he confesses that the fetish has failed.

In the central regions of Eastern Africa all that is sacerdotal is embodied in individuals called Mganga or Mfumbo. They swarm throughout the land; are of both sexes: the women, however, generally confine themselves to the medical part of the profession. The profession is hereditary; the eldest or the cleverest son begins his education at an early age, and succeeds to his father’s functions. There is little mystery, says Burton, in the craft, and the magicians of Unyamwezi have not refused to initiate some of the Arabs. The power of the Mganga is great; he is treated as a sultan, whose word is law, and as a giver of life and death. He is addressed by a kingly title, and is permitted to wear the chieftain’s badge, made of the base of a conical shell. He is also known by a number of small greasy and blackened gourds filled with physic and magic hanging round his waist, and by a little more of the usual grime, sanctity and dirt being closely connected in Africa. These men are sent for from village to village, and receive as spiritual fees sheep and goats, cattle and provisions. Their persons, however, are not sacred, and for criminal acts they are punished like other malefactors. The greatest danger to them is an excess of fame. A celebrated magician rarely, if ever, dies a natural death; too much is expected from him, and a severe disappointment leads to consequences more violent than usual.

The African phrase for a man possessed is _ana’p’hepo_, he has a devil. The Mganga is expected to heal the patient by expelling the possession. Like the evil spirit in the days of Saul, the unwelcome visitant must be charmed away by sweet music; the drums cause excitement, the violent exercise expels the ghost. The principal remedies are drumming, dancing, and drinking till the auspicious moment arrives. The ghost is then enticed from the body of the possessed into some inanimate article which he will condescend to inhabit. This, technically called a _Keti_ or stool, may be a certain kind of bead, two or more bits of wood bound together by a strip of snake’s skin, a lion’s or a leopard’s claw, and other similar articles worn round the head, the arm, the wrist, or the ankle. Paper is still considered great medicine by the Wasukuma and other tribes, who will barter valuable goods for a little bit: the great desideratum of the charm in fact appears to be its rarity, or the difficulty of obtaining it. Hence also the habit of driving nails into and hanging rags upon trees. The vegetable itself is not worshipped, as some Europeans, who call it the devil’s tree, have supposed; it is merely the place for the laying of ghosts, where by appending the keti most acceptable to the spirit, he will be bound over to keep the peace with man. Several accidents in the town of Zanzibar have confirmed even the higher orders in their lurking superstition. Mr. Peters, an English merchant, annoyed by the slaves, who came in numbers to hammer nails and to hang iron hoops and rags upon a devil’s tree in his court-yard, ordered it to be cut down, to the horror of all the black beholders. Within six months five persons died in that house--Mr. Peters, his two clerks, his cooper, and his ship’s carpenter. Salim bin Raschid, a half caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar, avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyamzembe, the possession occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his companions, of whom one was a child, fell without apparent cause into the fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously the master became as one intoxicated; a dark mass--material, not spiritual--entered the tent, threw it down, and presently vanished, and Salim bin Raschid was found in a state of stupor, from which he did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave boy, who was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by possession, even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was met in the jungle, wandering absently, like an idiot, and with speech too incoherent to explain what had happened to him. The Arabs of Iman who subscribe readily to transformation, deride these tales; those of African blood, believe them. The transformation belief, still so common in many countries, and anciently an almost universal superstition, is, curious to say, unknown amongst these East African tribes.

The Mganga, Mr. Burton further informs us, is also a soothsayer. He foretels the success, or failure of commercial undertakings, of wars, and of kidnapping; he foresees famine and pestilence, and he suggests the means of averting calamities. He fixes also before the commencement of any serious affair fortunate conjunctions, without which, a good issue cannot be expected. He directs, expedites, or delays the march of a caravan; and in his quality of augur, he considers the flight of birds, and the cries of beasts like his prototype of the same class, in ancient Europe, and in modern Asia.

The principal instrument of the Mganga’s craft is one of the dirty little buyou, or gourds, which he wears in a bunch round his waist, and the following is the usual programme when the oracle is to be consulted. The magician brings his implements in a bag of matting; his demeanour is serious as the occasion, he is carefully greased, and his head is adorned with the diminutive antelope horns, fastened by a thong of leather above the forehead. He sits like a sultan, upon a dwarf stool in front of the querist, and begins by exhorting the highest possible offertory. No pay no predict. The Mganga has many implements of his craft. Some prophesy by the motion of berries swimming in a cup full of water, which is placed upon a low stool, surrounded by four tails of the zebra, or the buffalo, lashed to stakes planted upright in the ground. The Kasanda is a system of folding triangles, not unlike those upon which plaything soldiers are mounted. Held in the right hand, it is thrown out, and the direction of the end points to the safe and auspicious route; this is probably the rudest appliance of prestidigitation. The shero is a bit of wood, about the size of a man’s hand, and not unlike a pair of bellows, with a dwarf handle, a projection like a muzzle, and in a circular centre a little hollow. This is filled with water, and a grain, or fragment of wood placed to float, gives an evil omen if it tends towards the sides, and favourable if it veers towards the handle or the nozzle. The Mganga generally carries about with him, to announce his approach, a kind of rattle. This is a hollow gourd of pine-apple, pierced with various holes prettily carved, and half filled with maize grains, and pebbles; the handle is a stick passed through its length, and secured by cross-pins.

The Mganga has many minor duties. In elephant hunts he must throw the first spear, and endure the blame if the beast escapes. He marks ivory with spots disposed in lines and other figures, and thus enables it to reach the coast, without let or hindrance. He loads the kirangoze, or guide, with charms to defend him from the malice which is ever directed at a leading man, and sedulously forbids him to allow precedence even to the Mtongi, the commander and proprietor of the caravan. He aids his tribe by magical arts, in wars by catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an army of its fellows and disperse a host however numerous. This belief well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural. The land being full of swarms, and man’s body being wholly exposed, many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy of swarming bees. Similarly in South Africa the magician kicks an ant-hill, and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight.

Here is an account of a queer dance witnessed in this land of Mgangas and Mfumbos and fetishes, furnished by the celebrated explorer Bakie:--“A little before noon Captain Vidal took leave of King Passol, in order to prosecute his observations. I remained, but shortly afterwards prepared to leave also. Passol, however, as soon as he perceived my intention, jumped up, and in a good-humoured way detaining me by the arm, exclaimed, ‘No go, no go yet; ‘top a little; bye-bye you look im fetish dance; me mak you too much laugh!’ It appeared that the old man had heard me some time before, on listening to the distant tattoo of a native drum, express a determination to the young midshipman who was with me to go presently to see the dance, with which I had little doubt that it was accompanied. The noise of the drum, almost drowned by the singing, whooping, and clamour of a multitude of the natives, was soon heard approaching. When close to us the procession stopped, and the dancers, all of whom were men, ranged themselves in parallel lines from the front of an adjoining house, and commenced their exhibition. They were specially dressed for the purpose, having suspended from their hips a complete kilt formed of threads of grass-cloth, manufactured by the natives of the interior, and likewise an appendage of the same kind to one or both arms, just above the elbow. Some had their faces and others their breasts marked with white balls, given to them by the fetish as a cure or safeguard against some disease which they either had or dreaded. The dancing, although not elegant, was free from that wriggling and contortion of body so common on the east coast. It consisted principally in alternately advancing and drawing back the feet and arms, together with a corresponding inclination of the body, and, at stated times, the simultaneous clapping of hands, and a loud sharp ejaculation of ‘Heigh!’ Although I have remarked that it was not elegant, yet it was pleasing, from the regularity with which it was accompanied. There were two men who did not dance in the line among the rest, but shuffled around, and at times threaded the needle among them: one was termed the master fetish, and the other appeared to be his attendant; neither wore the fancy dress, but they were both encircled by the usual wrapper round the loins. The former had on a French glazed hat, held in great request by the natives, and the other, chewing some root of a red colour, carried a small ornamented stick, surmounted at the end like a brush with a bunch of long and handsome feathers. At times one of these men would stop opposite a particular individual among the dancers, and entice him by gestures to leave the line and accompany him in his evolutions, which finally always ended where they began, the pressed man returning to his former place. For some time I had observed the master fetish dancing opposite to the house, and with many gesticulations apparently addressing it in a half threatening half beseeching tone. Old Passol, who was standing close by me, suddenly exclaimed, ‘Now you laugh too much; fetish he come!’

“Sure enough, forthwith rushed from the house among the dancers a most extraordinary figure. It was a man mounted on stilts at least six feet above the ground, of which from practice he had acquired so great a command that he certainly was as nimble in his evolutions as the most active among the dancers. He was sometimes so quick that one stilt could hardly be seen to touch the earth before it was relieved by the other. Even when standing still he often balanced himself so well as not to move either stilt for the space of two or three minutes. He wore a white mask with a large red ball on each cheek, the same on his chin, and his eyebrows and the lower part of his nose were painted with the same colour. Over his forehead was a sort of vizor of a yellow colour, having across it a line of small brass bells; it was armed in front by long alligator’s teeth, and terminated in a confused display of feathers, blades of grass, and the stiff hairs of elephants and other large animals. From the top of his head the skin of a monkey hung pendant behind, having affixed to its tail a wire and a single elephant’s hair with a large sheep’s bell attached to the end. The skin was of a beautiful light green, with the head and neck of a rich vermilion. From his shoulders a fathom of blue dungaree with a striped white border hung down behind; and his body and legs and arms were completely enshrouded in a number of folds of the native grass-cloth, through which he grasped in each hand a quantity of alligator’s teeth, lizard’s skins, fowl’s bones, feathers, and stiff hairs, reminding me strongly of the well-known attributes of Obi, the dread of the slave-owners of Jamaica.

“The fetish never spoke. When standing still he held his arms erect, and shook and nodded his head with a quick repetition; but when advancing he extended them to their full length before him. In the former case he appeared as if pointing to heaven, and demanding its vengeance on the dancers and the numerous bystanders around; and in the latter as one who, finding his exhortations of no avail, was resolved to exterminate, in the might of his gigantic stature and superior strength, the refractory set. The master fetish was his constant attendant, always following, doubling, and facing him, with exhortations uttered at one minute in the most beseeching tone, accompanied hat in hand by obsequious bows, and in the next threatening gestures, and violent, passionate exclamations. The attendant on the master fetish was likewise constantly at hand, with his stick applied to his mouth, and in one or two instances when the masquerader approached, he crouched close under him, and squirted the red juice of the root he was chewing into his face. For upwards of an hour I watched the dance, yet the fetish appeared untired; and I afterwards heard that the same ceremony was performed every day, and sometimes lasted three or four hours. I at first thought that it was merely got up for our amusement, but was soon undeceived; and when, under the first impression, I inquired of a bystander what man it was who performed the character, he answered, with a mixture of pique at the question and astonishment of my ignorance, ‘He no man; no man do same as him; he be de diable! he be de debil!’ Still I was a little sceptic as to their really holding this belief themselves, though they insisted on the fact as they represented it to me; and therefore, after I had received the same answer from all, I used to add in a careless way to try their sincerity, ‘In what house does he dwell?’ ‘What! fetish! I tell you he de debil; he no catch house; he lib (live) in dat wood,’ pointing to a gloomy-looking grove skirting the back of the village. It was in vain that I attempted to unravel the origin or meaning of this superstition; to all my questions the only answer I could obtain was that such was the fashion of the country--a reason which they always had at hand when puzzled, as they always were when the subject related to any of their numerous superstitions. The fact is, that these practices still remain, though their origin has long since been buried in oblivion.”

As with us, “to astonish the natives” is an almost universal weakness, so is it the sable savage’s delight and ambition to “astonish the white man;” and should he succeed, and the odds are manifestly against him, there are no bounds to his satisfaction. The traveller Laing, while travelling through Timmanee, a country not very far from that over which old King Passol held sway, experienced an instance of this. He was invited by the chief to be present at an entertainment resembling what we recognize as a “bal masqué,” as it embraced music and dancing. The music, however, was of rather a meagre character, consisting of a single instrument made of a calabash and a little resembling a guitar. The player evidently expected applause of the white man, and the white man generously accorded it. The musician then declared that what our countrymen had as yet witnessed of his performance was as nothing compared with what he had yet to show him. Holding up his guitar, he declared that with that potent instrument, the like of which was not to be found throughout the length and breadth of Timmanee, he could cure diseases of every sort, tame wild beasts, and render snakes so docile that they would come out of their holes and dance as long as the music lasted. Mr. Laing begged the enchanter to favour him with a specimen of his skill. The enchanter was quite willing. Did anything ail the traveller? Was any one of his party afflicted with disease? no matter how inveterate or of how long standing, let him step forward, and by a few twangs on the guitar he should be cured. Mr. Laing, however, wishing perhaps to let the juggler off as lightly as possible, pressed for a sight of the dancing snakes, on the distinct understanding that they should be perfectly wild snakes, and such as had never yet been taken in hand by mortal. The musician cheerfully assented, and, to quote the words of the “eye-witness,” “changed the air he had been strumming for one more lively, and immediately there crept from beneath the stockading that surrounded the space where we were assembled a snake of very large size. From the reptile’s movements, it seemed that the music had only disturbed its repose, and that its only desire was to seek fresh quarters, for without noticing any one it glided rapidly across the yard towards the further side. The musician, however, once more changed the tune, playing a slow measure, and singing to it. The snake at once betrayed considerable uneasiness, and decreased its speed. ‘Stop snake,’ sung the musician, adapting the words to the tune he was playing, ‘you go a deal too fast; stop at my command and show the white man how well you can dance; obey my command at once, oh snake, and give the white man service.’ Snake stopped. ‘Dance, oh snake!’ continued the musician, growing excited, for a white man has come to Falaba to see you! dance, oh snake, for indeed this is a happy day!’ The snake twisted itself about, raised its head, curled, leaped, and performed various feats, of which I should not have thought a snake capable. At the conclusion the musician walked out of the yard followed by the reptile, leaving me in no small degree astonished, and the rest of the company not a little delighted that a black man had been able to excite the surprise of a white one.”

In no part of Africa do we find a greater amount of religious fanaticism than in Old Kalabar. The idea of God entertained by the Kalabarese is confined to their incomprehensibility of natural causes, which they attribute to Abasi-Ibun, the Efick term for Almighty God; hence they believe he is too high and too great to listen to their prayers and petitions. Idem-Efick is the name of the god who is supposed to preside over the affairs of Kalabar, and who is connected mysteriously with the great Abasi, sometimes represented by a tree, and sometimes by a large snake, in which form he is only seen by his high priest or vice-regent on earth--old King Kalabar. Mr. Hutchinson, who resided in an official capacity in this queer heathen country, once enjoyed the honour of an acquaintance with a representative of Abasi-Ibun. “He was a lean, spare, withered old man, about sixty years of age, a little above five feet in height, grey-headed, and toothless. He wore generally a dressing-gown, with a red cap, bands of bamboo rope round his neck, wrists, and ankles, with tassels dangling at the end. In case of any special crime committed, for the punishment of which there is no provision by Egbo law, the question was at once referred to King Kalabar’s judgment, whose decision of life or death was final. King Ergo and all the gentlemen saluted him by a word of greeting peculiar to himself, ‘Etia,’ meaning in English, you sit there, which, amongst persons of the slave order, must be joined with placing the side of the index fingers in juxtaposition, and bowing humbly, as evidence of obeisance. He offered up a weekly sacrifice to Idem of goats, fowls, and tortoise, usually dressed with a little rum. When famine was impending, or a dearth of ships existed at old Kalabar, the king sent round to the gentlemen of the town an intimation of the necessity of making an offering to the deity, and that Idem-Efick was in want of coppers, which of course must be forwarded through the old king. He had a privilege that every hippopotamus taken, or leopard shot, must be brought to his house, that he may have the lion’s share of the spoil. Since my first visit to Kalabar this old man has died, and has yet had no successor, as the head men and people pretend to believe ‘twelve moons (two years) must pass by before he be dead for thrice.’ Besides this idea of worship, they have a deity named Obu, made of calabash, to which the children are taught to offer up prayer every morning, to keep them from harm. Idem-Nyanga is the name of the tree which they hold as the impersonation of Idem-Efick; and a great reverence is entertained for a shrub, whose pods when pressed by the finger explode like a pistol. In all their meals they perform ablution of the hands before and after it; and in drinking, spill a teaspoonful or so out as a libation to their deity before imbibing. When they kill a fowl or a goat as a sacrifice, they do not forget to remind their god of what ‘fine things’ they do for him, and that ‘they expect a like fine thing in return.’ Ekponyong is the title given to a piece of stick, with a cloth tied round it at the top, and a skull placed above the cloth, which is kept in many of their yards as a sort of guardian spirit. In nearly all their courts there is a ju-ju tree growing in the centre, with a parasitic plant attached to it, and an enclosure of from two to four feet in circumference at the bottom of the stem, within which skulls are always placed, and calabashes of blood at times of sacrifice. At many of the gentlemen’s thresholds a human skull is fastened in the ground, whose white glistening crown is trodden upon by every one who enters.

“A strange biennial custom exists at old Kalabar, that of purifying the town from all devils and evil spirits, who, in the opinion of the authorities, have during the past two years taken possession of it. They call it judok. And a similar ceremony is performed annually on the gold coast. At a certain time a number of figures, styled Nabikems, are fabricated and fixed indiscriminately through the town. These figures are made of sticks and bamboo matting, being moulded into different shapes. Some of them have an attempt at body, with legs and arms to resemble the human form. Imaginative artists sometimes furnish these specimens with an old straw hat, a pipe in the mouth, and a stick fastened to the end of the arm, as if they were prepared to undertake a journey. Many of the figures are supposed to resemble four-footed animals, some crocodiles, and others birds. The evil spirits are expected, after three weeks or a month, to take up their residence in them, showing, to my thinking, a very great want of taste on the part of the spirit vagrant. When the night arrives for their general expulsion, one would imagine the whole town had gone mad. The population feast and drink, and sally out in parties, beating at empty covers, as if they contained tangible objects to hunt, and hallooing with all their might and main. Shots are fired, the Nabikems are torn up with violence, set in flames, and thrown into the river. The orgies continue until daylight dawns, and the town is considered clear of evil influence for two years more. Strange inconsistency with ideas of the provision necessary to be made for the dead in their passage to another world. But heathenism is full of these follies, and few of them can be more absurd than their belief that if a man is killed by a crocodile or a leopard, he is supposed to have been the victim of some malicious enemy, who, at his death, turned himself into either of these animals, to have vengeance on the person that has just been devoured. Any man who kills a monkey or a crocodile is supposed to be turned into one or the other when he dies himself. On my endeavouring to convince two very intelligent traders of Duketown of the folly of this, and of my belief that men had no more power to turn themselves into beasts than they had to make rain fall or grass grow, I was met with the usual cool reply to all a European’s arguments for civilization, ‘It be Kalabar fash(ion), and white men no saby any ting about it.’ The same answer, ‘white men no saby any ting about it,’ was given to me by our Yoruba interpreter when up the Tshadda, on my doubting two supposed facts, which he thus recorded to me. The first was, that the Houessa people believe in the existence of the unicorn, but his precise location cannot be pointed out. He is accredited to be the champion of the unprotected goat and sheep from the ravages of the leopard; that when he meets a leopard he enters amicably into conversation with him, descants upon his cruelty, and winds up, like a true member of the humane society, by depriving the leopard of his claws. On my asking if a clawless leopard had ever been discovered, or if the unicorn had proposed any other species of food as a substitute, observing me smile with incredulity, he gave me an answer similar to that of the Kalabar men, in the instance mentioned. The second, to the effect that a chameleon always went along at the same pace, not quickening his steps for rain or wind, but going steadily in all phases of temperature, changing his hue in compliment to everything he met, turning black for black men, white for white, blue, red, or green, for any cloth or flowers, or vegetables that fall in his way; and the only reason he gives for it when questioned on the subject is, that his father did the same before him, and he does not think it right to deviate from the old path, because ‘same ting do for my fader, same ting do for me.’”

Quite by accident it happens that this answer of the Yoruba man to Mr. Hutchinson’s arguments forms the concluding line of the many examples of Savage Rites and Superstitions quoted. It is, however, singularly apropos. In this single line is epitomised the guiding principle of the savage’s existence--“Same ting do for my fader, same ting do for me.” This it is that fetters and tethers him. He is born to it, lives by it, and he dies by it.