Among Congo cannibals

Moral way of procuring land—Ground measured—Price asked—Amount accepted—Signing the agreement—Buying a house—An exorbitant price—A house for five shillings and a penny—Well-populated hut—Making ourselves comfortable—Cooking difficulties overcome—Present of two goats—Inveterate thieves—Afraid of our “books.”

The authorities of the Congo Free State had informed us that we could take possession of any plot of land in the district that we cared to select. We did not, however, believe in accepting from a State that which they had no moral right to give, but in buying from the people the ground they only had a right to sell us for our station. A few hours after our return to Monsembe we measured out a piece of land one hundred paces along the river front by three hundred paces deep, and said that in the morning we would buy it of them.

Next morning at six o’clock we found a large crowd gathered to witness the novel transaction of buying and selling land. They formed a motley assemblage. Most of the men had two or more spears gripped tightly in their hands, and broad-bladed, ugly knives of various shapes were strapped in sheaths around their chests with the handles level with the breast-bone. Some wore gaudy cloths, while others had bark-cloth or rags that scarcely covered their nakedness. The women were dressed in petticoats made from palm fibres, and these fringes were so numerous and short that the wearers had every appearance of black ballet girls. Their faces were streaked with different coloured pigments, or dusted with camwood powder; and their bodies were rubbed with palm-oil. Beneath the paint, the powder, and the grease one found agreeable faces often lit up with really pleasant smiles.

We asked them how much they wanted for the piece of land, and without hesitation they replied, “Five thousand brass rods.”

“No,” we said, “we cannot pay you so large a sum as that, but we will give you one thousand rods now, and another five hundred in six months’ time, if you behave yourselves.”

The head-men consulted apart for a time, and then their spokesman said: “We will accept your offer of one thousand rods now and another five hundred in six months’ time, if you will put on top some bottles, some knives, spoons, tin plates, looking-glasses, forks, cowries, beads, cloth, fish-hooks,” etc. etc., in fact samples of everything they had either ever heard about or could recall to mind at so short a notice.

Unfortunately for them we had not such a variety of barter goods as they demanded, and we frankly told them so; but we promised to add some of the articles we did have with us. We cut and counted out the thousand rods,^[5] tied them up in bundles of one hundred each, and then raked out two empty pickle bottles from our store and, putting some fathoms of cloth, a packet of brass chair nails, a few iron spoons, some trade knives, a dozen zinc-framed looking-glasses, a few empty meat tins, the ground became the property of our Society for about 38s. worth of goods, reckoning them at invoice price.

We then thought it wise to draw up a paper stating we had bought the land of the people, the price we had given, and the amount we had promised in six months’ time. The document was duly written out, and my colleague and I signed it on behalf of the B.M.S. We then asked two of their head-men to put their marks against their names on the paper as witnesses to the fact that we had purchased the ground, so that there could not be any future possible dispute about our possession of the site.

At first they demurred greatly to having anything to do with the white man’s “book”; they were extremely superstitious about the matter; it was something uncanny, and for all they knew some mysterious evil might be the result of touching that “book.” It needed much persuasion, and it was only when we pointed out to them that they would have no proof that we owed them five hundred rods that their cupidity overcame their fears, and they consented to put their marks.

Mata Bombo was the first head-man chosen for this onerous duty. He was the oldest head-man in the town, and had been foremost in the negotiations for the land, in counting the goods, and most clamorous for his share of them. The people therefore rightly thought that he should be the first to undertake the unpleasant duty of putting his mark on the “book,” so they laughingly pushed him forward much against his will. When he reached the table he was trembling all over from very fear of that “book” lying there upon it. His hand shook so much that I had to put my hand upon his and help him to make his mark. On finishing it he put the pen down with a dab, drew himself to his full height, carefully stretched out his arms, and finding that nothing had happened to him, he went away apparently satisfied that it was possible to have contact with that mysterious “book” of the white man’s and not suffer for it. The next witness was a much younger man, who, seeing that nothing had happened to the first, came forward without any urging, picked up the pen, made his mark and went his way as though he were used to signing contracts every day of his life. Thus the land became ours on behalf of our Society.

Having settled about the site, our next requirement was a house into which we could move our goods from the steamer, and in which we could live, for it was necessary that the Peace should return immediately to Bolobo. Looking over the ground we had bought, we saw a native hut that would suit us until we could build a larger and better one. We had purchased the land and the trees upon it; but we had arranged with the people that all the houses on our newly acquired site should be removed. To them this was a trifling affair: they ran a knife along a few strings, a dozen men got under the roof, and in a few minutes you would see it walking down the road; a few more men shook the walls, uprooted the posts, and in an hour or so the house was rebuilt on another site.

We called the owner of the house that we thought would temporarily answer our purpose, and asked him how much he wanted for it. “Five hundred brass rods,” was his quick reply. Natives generally ask about two or three times the value of an article, and I fancy this custom is not altogether peculiar to African people.

“That is too much,” was our answer to his extravagant demand. “We will give you two hundred rods for the house, and then you will be well paid.”

He cogitated on our offer for a few minutes, and then lifting his head, he said: “If you put a tin plate on top of the two hundred rods you can have the house.” So we paid him two hundred brass rods, and a penny tin plate; and for the first time in our lives became the owners of house property.

Directly we had paid the price the man called his wives (he was the happy (?) possessor of six) to remove their belongings. They brought out their saucepans, hoes, baskets, mats, drinking-pots, firewood, and the rest of their miscellaneous effects; the man carried out his paddles, spears, knives, shield, and a few precious glass bottles that had contained pickles, lime-juice, and drinks of stronger brew, and then told us the house was ready for us.

We really could not expect a mansion for the amount we had paid, viz. 5s. 1d.; and we found that in order to enter it we had to stoop low, lift our feet high, and, being unfortunately stout, we had to turn sideways to effect an entry. Arriving inside, by putting up the hand we could touch the ridge-pole, by spreading out the arms and swaying slightly we could touch both walls, a few paces took us from one end to the other of the central room, and if we had gone against the wall and wanted to stand upright we should have had to put our heads through the roof, for the walls were only just four feet high.

The house, however, had the advantage of two small rooms—one at either end of the larger central room. In one of these small rooms we stored our tools, nails, and various materials for building our station; into the other small room we put our barter goods and our scanty stock of provisions; and in the central room we arranged our two camp bedsteads, a table, a trunk or two, our chairs, and when we went in ourselves there was not very much room to spare. That night when we went to bed we discovered that although the women had removed their pots, hoes, mats, etc., they had left behind them a large population which we wished they had also taken with them.

To make our hut more habitable was our first object. We cut away the high door-sill of sticks, canes, and grass; then in the eaves above the doorway we made a gap in the roof by shortening a few rafters and removing the palm-frond thatch—this gave us an easy means of entrance and exit. Then we placed two poles about eight feet from the front of our hut, and six feet from each other; a small pole was tied to the posts about six feet from the ground, and other thin poles were run from the cross-piece to the roof, and on these we arranged and tied a large number of fronds from a small species of palm tree—this gave us a fine shady porch to our house, which we used as dining-room, study, pantry, and reception-room. We routed out a good percentage of the surplus population from our hut, and on fine days we were not so uncomfortable as to have any real ground for complaint.

But alas on wet days! The discomfort of them has left a lasting impression on my memory. With a tornado the temperature often dropped from 90° down to 65° in less than two hours; the strong, stormy winds whistled through the grass walls of our hut; and the rain that fell in torrents percolated through our roof, and in some places, along the ridge especially, it ran in gentle cascades, anything but pleasant to the owners of such house property to behold. To have made a fire in the house to warm ourselves, as the natives did, would have meant being more than half choked and blinded by the smoke that would have filled the chimneyless house. We eventually found that the best way to weather the storms comfortably was to lie on our camp beds, pull a waterproof sheet over us, light a candle, and putting it on a dry spot read until the tornado had spent itself.

There was another difficulty that we had to meet, viz. cooking. It was easy enough to boil and fry our food; but boiled meat and fowls after a few weeks somewhat pall; and we had not sufficient fat or lard to fry much. There was palm-oil in abundance to be bought for a few brass rods, but we had too frequently watched the natives make it to relish food fried in it. We therefore bought two native saucepans for a penny each; these were about 10 inches in diameter, 6 inches deep, and semicircular in shape. One we stood on three stones, placed an empty sardine tin in the bottom, and, laying a fowl on a tin dish, arranged it on the sardine tin, and then turned the second saucepan upside down on the first, fitting their edges together. Our fowls baked beautifully in this improvised oven; but the saucepan had a tendency to crack.

Later on we procured an empty paraffin-oil drum, cut out the top with a hammer and chisel, laid the drum down, and put in a layer of clay along the bottom side. This clay not only gave us a level surface on which to stand our dishes, but also kept the food from burning, and retained the heat. We then nailed some tin, procured by flattening out a few empty meat tins, over some pieces of wood, and there we had an admirable door for our new oven. It cooked fowls, puddings, and bread^[6] splendidly. No patent has yet been sought for these inventions, so all those placed in a similar predicament are free to use them.

Fowls were plentiful, such as they were; but fresh meat (beef, mutton, or goat) was a rarity. Consequently we were not at all sorry when two head-men brought us, one day, a goat each as a present. Up to that time we had not received a single present from them, not because the natives had not brought any to us—they would have loaded us with their so-called gifts—but we had persistently refused them on principle, knowing as we did that the offerings were simply presented that the givers might receive two or three times their value in return presents, and we had no desire to foster such a spirit of selfishness, and no money to waste on foolish amenities. We had refused so many “gifts” that when these two head-men brought their goats and offered one to Mr. Stapleton and the other to myself, we decided to accept them. We had, however, no enclosure in which to keep goats, so putting a private mark on them we sent them to herd with the other goats of the town.

We arranged that as the goats were of the same size, we would give exactly the same return presents. We reckoned the goats at fifty brass rods each—the market value of them; but we decided to give in barter goods the equivalents of one hundred rods each, which we thought was sufficiently generous for the occasion.

Mr. Stapleton called Dintela, the head-man who had presented him with his goat, and spreading out the goods he made the usual speech of good-will, etc., that the event demanded.

Dintela gave him to understand that the present was too small, that white men who were so rich should give a much larger quantity of goods, and that he could not accept such a paltry present. As Mr. Stapleton would not increase the offering, Dintela demanded the return of the goat, and tying a string round its neck he led it away, much disgusted that he had not made so good a bargain out of his present to the white man as he had anticipated.

A few days later as Bololi, the head-man who had given me the other goat, was passing across the station I called him into the house, and spreading out the goods identically the same as my colleague had offered to his head-man, I asked him to accept them as a token of our friendliness, etc., in return for his goat. He made some gestures expressive of his depreciation of the gift, and after a haggling attempt to procure an increase of goods, he, to my surprise in view of the action of Dintela, collected the articles, put them in his shoulder pouch, and went off apparently satisfied. The next day when we wanted to kill the goat it had disappeared, and we never again set eyes upon it. Dintela refused the goods and took his goat away; but evidently they had talked over the matter with the other men in the town, and the result was that Bololi accepted the articles and afterwards stole the goat, which in the eyes of the natives was much the smarter action of the two. After this, when head-men were too pressing in their offers of friendly presents, we related the story of the two goats, and it never failed to cure them of their fits of generosity.

We found them at that time, as the above incident of the goats indicates, most inveterate thieves; but a few years later when three young men of the town broke into our store and stole goods to the value of sixteen thousand brass rods, the mass of the people arose in such indignation on learning the facts that they tied up the thieves, although they were free men and not slaves, and, bringing them to us ignominiously bound, laid them at our feet. And public opinion was so unmistakable in denouncing the act, that the young men and their families disgorged the whole of what they had stolen from us to the last brass rod.

At first they absolutely refused to trust us even with the value of an egg—we had to put the price in their hands as we took the article; but gradually they became less suspicious of us. During the early months at Monsembe our steamer failed to arrive at the expected time, consequently our small supply of barter goods became exhausted; and to be without these articles of exchange in such a country was like being a foreigner in a strange land without money. Food, however, was necessary, both for ourselves and those dependent on us. We told the natives that our store was practically empty, and that we could not pay them then, but would do so when we received our goods from down-river. We offered them papers stating what we had bought, the price agreed upon, the date, and the seller’s name—a kind of promissory note which we promised to redeem on the arrival of our steamer.

The natives said: “We will let you have the food supplies that you need, but we will not accept your books.” They called any piece of paper at that time a “book.”

“Why will you not take our books?” we inquired; “for we may forget how much we owe, and to whom we owe it.”

“Oh, you will not forget your debts,” they replied; “and if there were any fear of that we should not even then accept your books, but should refuse to let you have the food without the money.”

“Why will you not take our books, then?” we again asked in amazement.

“Well,” they said, “if we were to accept your books, and put them in our houses, no rain would fall on our farms, and we should all be starved to death.”

Argue as we would, we could not move them from their superstitious position in relation to our poor little pieces of paper. By that time they knew our intentions towards them were good, or they would not have trusted us with their fowls, eggs, plantain, and native bread without receiving the barter goods at once, yet they were afraid of the evil effects our “books” would have on their farms. They thought the magic was in the “book,” and in spite of our good motives that that magic would work against them directly the “books” had passed from us into their possession. While the “books” were in our house we controlled or nullified their evil magic, but when they had passed out of our hands we had no further power over their wicked forces, and the natives were afraid of not being able to counteract their black art, hence their continued refusal to accept them. It was a curious belief that obsessed them: that men who they firmly believed were kindly disposed towards them should yet have in their possession such “books” as would work mischief to those for whom they had nothing but friendly feelings. We therefore entered their names in a notebook as we bought the food supplies, and thus keeping an account of what money we owed, and to whom, we were able to settle our accounts with them at a later date.