Fetichism in West Africa Part 25

One day this woman had to go to her plantation; and she arranged for the journey, taking her little boy with her. Before she left the village to go to the plantation, she told the townspeople, "I will remain at the plantation for some days, to take care of my gardens; for I am tired of losses by the wild beasts spoiling my crops." But the other women said, "Ah! your plantation is too far; it is not safe for you to be by yourself." But she said, "I cannot help it; I have to go." She was brave, and persisted in her plan, and made all preparations. On a set day, with her basket on her back, her child on her left hip, and her machete in her right hand, she started. She went on, on, steadily; reached the plantation, and rested there the remainder of that day with her child.

After her evening meal she shut the door of the hut and went to bed. The door was fastened with strings and a bar, for the plantation hamlets had no locks.

She awoke suddenly about midnight, and thought she heard a noise outside.

She listened quietly. Then she heard the sound again. Presently she discovered by the noise that some one was trying to climb upon the top of the hut, for the roof was low. Soon, then, she observed that this person was trying to break open the palm-thatch of the low roof. She still lay quietly. But she remembered a big spear which the husband always kept in one of the rooms of that hut; so she slowly got out of bed, and very softly went to the corner of the room where the spear was standing, and returned to bed with it.

The breaking of the thatch continued. Soon she saw the room filled with a strange light, and then she saw a man trying to enter the roof head foremost. She bravely kept still, and watched his head and shoulders enter. She could not see his face, and did not know who he was. But she did not wait for certainty; she thrust the spear upward at the man's head.

Immediately the figure disappeared, and she heard a heavy thud as he fell to the ground into the street outside.

She now began to be frightened; she no longer felt safe, and dreaded what might happen before morning. So she began to get ready to return to town that very night. She girded her loin garment, fastened the cloth for carrying her child, took her machete, hasted out of the hut, and started for her village. In her fear she ran, and rested by walking. Thus, alternately running and walking, she reached the village so exhausted and weak with loss of sleep that when her husband's door was opened she fell fainting on the floor. He and others were alarmed, and asked, "What?

What's the matter?" As soon as she was able to speak, she told the whole story. They asked her, "Did you see the person? Do you know him?" She said, "No; only one thing I know: it was a man, and he fell into the street."

So, when daylight came, the husband and others went to the plantation to see whether they could find the man. When they reached the plantation, they were very much surprised to see that the man was this brother. He was lying dead, with the spear in his neck.

The husband was not vexed at his wife for the death of his brother; he was pleased that she had so well defended herself.

V. THE WIZARD MURDERER.

(My informant a.s.serted that this really happened in the Ogowe.)

The parties are a husband and wife, their two little children, and a younger brother of the husband. One of the children, a boy, was a lad old enough to understand affairs.

The brother-in-law loved the woman, and secretly tried to draw her affections to himself; but to all his solicitation she gave only persistent refusal. Thus matters went on, he asking and she refusing; and then his love turned to hatred.

It happened one day that the husband and wife had a big quarrel of their own. The wife was so angry that she said she would leave him, take the children, and go to her father's house. But that home was far away, and could not be reached in one day. Other women tried to prevent her going, as she would have to spend the night in the forest on the way; but she insisted.

Leaving her clothing and other goods, she started off with the two children, a little food, and her machete. Trying to make the journey in one day, she walked very fast. But when the sun had set, and soon darkness would fall, the lad said, "Mother, as we cannot reach there to-night, don't you think we'd better stop and arrange a sleeping-place before dark, and let the spot be a little aside from the public path?" The mother said, "Yes; that is good!" Then she gave the babe to the lad to hold, while she with her machete began to cut away bushes and clear the ground for a convenient sleeping-spot. After she had cut away some bushes, the lad watching her, saw that she was clearing a s.p.a.ce larger than was needed for herself. He asked her, "Do you intend that we all shall sleep in that one place,--you and baby and I?" The mother said, "Yes." But he said, "Why, no! Fix two places,--I by myself, and you and baby in another place." The mother replied, "No, I cannot let you sleep alone in this forest; I want you near me." However, the lad insisted: "But if anything happens to us in the night, then we will be lost all together. I am not willing that we should be all in the same place."

So the lad began to search for a place for himself, and came to a big tree which was not very far from his mother's chosen spot. He called her to him, and said, "I have found a good place. Just you clear for me behind this big tree, and dig a trench for me to lie in, just below the level of the ground." The mother did so.

After the two spots were cleared, they ate their little evening meal, and night came. Then the lad said, "Now I go to lie in the trench, and you sprinkle leaves over me to hide me, and then you go to your sleeping-place. And if anything happens to me at night, I promise I will not cry out; I will remain silent. And you promise that if anything happens to you, you also will not cry out, nor call to me." The mother agreed, and both went to sleep.

Not long after this, both were awakened by a strange flas.h.i.+ng light, and the mother saw some one coming to the place where she was lying. Then the light was suddenly extinguished; and she saw a man near her, and recognized that he was her brother-in-law. She was exceedingly alarmed, knowing that he did not come with good intent. In her fright she hoped to gain time by pretending to be friendly with him. So she exclaimed, "Oh! My young husband! Now you have come after me, so that your brother's wife will not have to sleep in the forest alone. Now we will make friends.h.i.+p and be good friends." But he replied in anger: "Friends, you say? You shall see what kind of friends I will make with you to-night! You, the woman who hates me! Where is the lad?" She, determined to s.h.i.+eld the child, said, "The lad did not come with me; he preferred to stay in town with his father." The man replied, "You are not telling me the truth. Tell me where the lad is!" But she persisted in her statement, "He is left in town with his father."

Then the man walked about in search of the lad, going even very near to where he was lying awake in the trench. But the leaves hid him, and his uncle did not discern that the ground had been disturbed. Returning to the woman, he said, "Good! you are telling the truth. I don't see the lad. But now I am ready to attend to you. You shall see." So he approached the woman to seize her. She was so paralyzed with fear that she neither attempted to run away, nor, though her machete was lying near, did she lay hold of it. Even had she done so, she was too weak with her journey to defend herself. The man s.n.a.t.c.hed up the babe that still was sleeping, and looking around for a rough, projecting root, violently flung the babe against it. It made no cry; and both he and the mother supposed it was instantly killed. Then he drew his machete, which he had made very sharp, and began to cut and slash the woman. She pleaded and cried for help; but there was no help near. She fell, covered with wounds, and died on the spot. All this the lad saw and heard. After killing the mother, the man began again to search for the lad, but did not find him; and, as it was now after midnight, he left the place to go back to town.

Soon after he was gone, the lad, exhausted with terror and fatigue, fell asleep. But he awoke again in the early daylight. Arising from his trench, he went with grief and distress to see the two corpses. Looking at his mother's blood-covered form, he saw that she was dead. Looking at his baby brother lying on the root, he took up the little form, sobbing, "Only I am alive. Even this little child was not spared. Am I to go on my journey all alone?" Examining the limp body still further, it seemed still to show signs of life; and he said to himself, "I think I will try to save it. I am strong enough to carry it to my mother's people, to whom I shall tell this whole story."

So he took up the cloth in which his mother had carried the child, adjusted it for himself, placed the unconscious form in it, and started on his journey. A short distance beyond brought him to a brook. Before he crossed it, he stooped to take a drink of water. Then examining the little body again, he felt that it was not stiff and was still warm. Said he, "Ah! perhaps it has a little life! I better give it a drink." So he tried; and the baby drank. He rejoiced. "So perhaps it will be alive. I better bathe it." And he did so. Then he crossed the brook, and journeyed on.

Before he reached his grandfather's village, he crossed another brook, and bathed the babe, and gave it a drink as at the first brook.

On his arrival at the village the people were surprised to see him without his mother. His grandfather at once wanted to know his story and why he had come there alone. Said he, "Please, before I tell my story, try to save this baby."

After the people had looked to the baby's needs and saw that it might live, they gathered together to listen to what the lad had to say. When they had heard his account, they started back with him to find his mother's corpse. They took it up and carried it to her husband's village, there to hold palaver over the death. As soon as they reached the village, instead of announcing themselves as visitors to the husband, they went straight to the brother-in-law's house. They found him sitting in the veranda. They laid the corpse at his feet. This so startled him that a look of guilt showed on his face. Looking at the party who had brought the corpse, he saw among them the lad; and at once he felt sure that this lad had been a witness of his crime. He lost his self-control, and began to scold, "What do you put this thing at my feet for? Take it away!"

Then all the townspeople gathered around him, being horrified at the news of the woman's death. The husband called them all to a council, and the palaver was held at his house. There the grandfather and the lad told the whole story.

The brother-in-law began to enter a denial; but the husband said, "No, you are guilty! and because we are brothers, and we are one, the guilt is also mine; and I will confess for you. You are guilty. Your actions show it.

Why did you become so angry as soon as you saw the corpse at your feet?"

But the wife's family said to the husband, "We have no quarrel with you.

We want only the person who killed our sister, and a fine of money for our loss."

Then the husband said, "You are right; this man killed her. Take him, and for a fine take his slaves and other property. He has deliberately deprived me of a wife, and my children of a mother. Take all he owns." It was so done; and the a.s.semblage dispersed.

VI. THE WIZARD AND HIS INVISIBLE DOG.

(This, my informant a.s.serted, actually happened at the town of Libreville, Gabun.)

One night a young woman was alone in her house. She was married; but, that particular night, the husband was absent.

After she had gone to her bed for the night, she slept, but not very soundly. Half awake, she thought she heard something moving in the front reception-room (ikenga). She had lowered the lamp in her bedroom, but it still gave enough light for her to see. She slightly opened the mosquito-net on one side and began to look and listen. But she saw no one nor anything unusual in her room. But as the door between her bedroom and the reception-room was slightly ajar, she looked toward its opening, and thought she saw a figure moving in that room. She felt sure there was some one there. So she stepped softly out of the bed, and peeped through the narrow opening of the door. Sure enough, there was a man.

She was frightened, but controlled herself. She was puzzled to know how he had got into that room, whose outer door she knew she had fastened before she went to bed. She crept quietly back to her bed, and then began to shout, "Who is that? How did you get in? I see you!" There was no answer.

The figure ceased moving, and stood still. The woman again cried out, "Who are you? When did you come in? What do you want?" The man replied in a low voice, "It is I!" She rejoined, "Who is 'I'? Are you only 'me'? Who are you? How did you succeed in entering? Go out!" So he apparently opened the door and went out. She was so frightened that she did not immediately follow him, nor did she make a public outcry.

Awhile afterward she recovered self-control, and arose and went into the outer room, and a.s.sured herself that the outside door was fast, as she had left it. She believed he had entered the closed door by witchcraft art.

The next morning she told her village people the story; but she was afraid to mention the man's name (for she knew who he was), because many people thought he possessed power as a wizard, and she feared he would revenge himself on her. She told his name only to her mother.

Not long afterward he came again to her house when she was alone at night, but did not enter. He came to the outside wall against which he knew her bedstead stood. Lying there, she could see his form through the cracks in the bamboo wall. She saw this as she happened to awake from sleep. She saw his figure standing still, and she heard a sound as of the tinkling of a bell moving about, such as natives tie to the necks of their dogs in hunting. The wizard had brought with him this time a small invisible beast to whose neck the invisible but audible bell was attached; and she heard a sound along the bottom of the wall, as if the animal was scratching a hole for its master's entrance. This time she was so alarmed that she screamed aloud to the people of the village; and then, through the c.h.i.n.ks in the wall, she saw pa.s.sing by in the street the figure of the same man.

The very next day the woman began to be sick of a fever. For several days she was quite ill, and people began to be alarmed for her. Her sickness grew very much worse. Her people sent for a Senegal man, living in Libreville, who had quite a reputation as a doctor in that kind of sickness. When this doctor came, she was able to speak only in a low voice, and she recounted to him what had happened. He asked her to mention the precise spot on which the man had stood outside of the wall of her house. She described to her mother the particular spot, and the mother took the doctor to show him. He sc.r.a.ped up clay from the place and mixed it in a small bowl of cold water. He directed that after she had been given a bath morning and evening this muddy water should be rubbed over her body. She said that when it was thus rubbed over her skin, her flesh temporarily felt as if it was paralyzed.

Her sickness continued more than a month, and then she recovered. Soon after her recovery the man who had attempted to enter her room, and who was suspected of having caused her sickness by witchcraft art, suddenly left Gabun, and went to another country.

VII. SPIRIT-DANCING.

Antyande, a Mpongwe woman of the town of Libreville, Gabun, is a leader of a company of ten or a dozen women in a certain native dance called "ivanga," which is performed only by women. Some dance it only as an exhibition of their gymnastic skill; others mix with it fetich and witchcraft arts, and claim that their movements are under spirit power.

Antyande, more than the other women of the company, uses witchcraft in her performances. She seems almost to glide through the air, alighting on the knees of sitting spectators without giving them the impression of weight, gyrating on small stools without moving the stools from their position, and making many other wonderful physical contortions in an exceedingly graceful and easy manner. She even goes to graveyards at night, accompanied by three or four men and women, to get what they call the spirits of the dead. It is said by some of the men who have gone there with her that they do not understand what she does, but that it is so very strange and awful that they are afraid. The reason why she goes for these abambo (ghosts) of the graves is that she may be spry and alert, and able to do with her body whatever she pleases. She claims also to be accompanied by a leopard and a bush-cat that are visible to her but not to others. As these animals are noted for their quick and agile movements, and are under her witch-power control, they are able to impart to her these qualities.

In January, 1902, she was dancing her ivanga, and there was a woman among the spectators who had been drinking to the point of intoxication. In her foolishness she determined to help Antyande by a.s.suming to be directress to keep the spectators in order. But, being drunk, she could not do so; she only made disorder. In attempting to make matters straight she only made them crooked. Antyande asked her to get out of her way. Many, also, of the spectators begged the woman to cease interfering; but she would not, and finally she vexed Antyande by spoiling her movements in getting too close in front of her. Antyande's patience was exhausted, and she suddenly revealed a secret that astonished many even of her intimate acquaintances, saying, "Whoever is related to this drunken woman, please tell her to get out of my way while I am dancing, because my dance is not a mere gymnastic exercise. I have leopards and bush-cats about me, and if she comes too near me, and the tails of these animals should twist around her legs, then she will get a sickness: and if that happens, her people must not hold me responsible for it, for I have given you this warning."

This surprised many of the people; for they had supposed she was nothing more than an unusually graceful dancer, and that her success was purely physical. Now, publicly, she admitted that the power in her limbs and body causing her graceful undulations was a supernatural one. So some of the women laid hold of the drunken woman, and induced her to get out of the way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EKOPE OF THE IVANGA DANCE.--GABUN.]

While dancing, Antyande wears a wide belt called "ekope," which is made with white and red stripes, and adorned with fringes of small bells in bands like sleigh-bells. It is known that her ekope has been heard and seen moving as if in the rhythm of a dance in her own room when she was not visibly there. Those who heard the sound of its bells would think she was there practising the dance; but when they went to look, they saw it moving, but did not see her. A few months afterward, a report came at night to the villages that Antyande was very much excited and could not sleep; that she had gone to her room for the ekope, and that it was not there. So she began to make a great fuss, and begged her a.s.sociates to keep watch and go with her to search for the missing ekope. Some of these friends were willing; others were not, and these went to their beds. She then went to other villages and told the people there: "My ekope has gone out on a promenade. Have you seen it?" These people were among the chief dancers of her band. But they told her they did not know where the ekope was. So she began to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e a prayer: "Oh, please, you went out for a walk; come back to me, for if you do not return, then I am lost. It will be death to me." Just before daylight, as she was still wandering about with her friends, and singing ivanga songs to attract her ekope, suddenly she and two of her friends heard the tinkling of the bells among the bushes lining a certain road which pa.s.ses by a Roman Catholic chapel. They all went in the direction of the sound of the bells, and entering a cl.u.s.ter of the bushes, they saw the ekope moving to and fro. She was so glad to see it, and she bade one of her companions to go and get it. But the woman was afraid, and refused, saying, "Me! Oh, no! Go and get it yourself!" So she went to it, singing her ivanga song, seized it, and brought it to her house.

As she is noted for her grace and skill in that particular dance, another woman, by name Ekamina, asked her to give her power such as hers, as she also wished to be leader of another band of ivanga dancers. Antyande a.s.sented, saying, "Well, do you want spirits with it?" The other replied, "Yes, I want two." So the two women, with a young man to escort them, went at night to the graves and obtained the two desired spirits. It is these which give them spirit power. When under their influence, their bodies are thrilled with a new essence which makes them very light and causes them to act and speak as if insane. The two women came back to Antyande's village, and she performed all the magic ceremonies that Ekamina wanted.

Some time after this, when Ekamina had practised much and had danced publicly several times, people began to say to her that she danced very well, and soon she was invited to give exhibitions in various places.

One day it happened that the two women had arranged to dance on the same night, each with her own party, at villages quite distant from each other.

Antyande asked Ekamina to give up her play for that night and join with her, "for," said she, "I want to make mine grand; and you wait for yours another day." But Ekamina was not willing. Antyande tried to get her to change her mind, and was very much displeased because she refused. Ekamina said, "I will not give up, for my dance is by special invitation at Anwondo village, so I have to go." (Libreville is three miles long; one end is called "Gla.s.s," and Anwondo is at the other end.) Ekamina lived at Gla.s.s, and on her way to Anwondo she had to pa.s.s the village of Antyande.