Dawn in darkest Africa

A lifetime spent amongst a single African tribe would scarcely exhaust its folklore and customs. Awaiting scientific investigation there is throughout the African continent a wealth of lore and superstition.

To him who would discover the hidden life of the African infinite patience is essential. It is useless to force information; the best plan is to wait until the “spirit moves” the old woman or chief to tell you something of the inner life of the tribe. Perhaps the time and conditions which most contribute to a flow of talk are a moonlight evening around the log fires and cooking pots.

I see them now—these simple Africans, seated around the great earthenware pot awaiting the meal of boiled cassava, pounded leaves or steamed Indian corn. I hear that grey-headed old chief, with low musical voice, passing on the traditions of past generations, so “that the boys may know something of the early history of their race.” All the old stories familiar to civilization are there. They all know that “man first went wrong through woman gathering fruit in the forest,” the only variation is that the kind of fruit differs in different parts of West Africa, but it is always a forest fruit, always the woman tempted the man; always man succumbed! Then the old chief will turn to the oft-told story—the sacrificial efficacy of the young kid. It is remarkable how closely this custom resembles even to-day that institution of the Pentateuch. The young kid must be free from all disease, a perfect animal in every respect. When killed the blood is carefully sprinkled on the lintel and on each door-post. Other familiar sacred institutions are passed under review. Then the animal kingdom comes under discussion, and the whole series of Uncle Remus, with but slight variations, secures the rapt attention of the listeners. It is at such times as these that the student gets beneath the surface of polygamy, burial and marriage dances, cicatrization and the more serious subjects of land tenure, tribal laws, social ties and domestic slavery.

Not all tribes are equally interesting, probably the Baketi tribes on the upper reaches of the Kasai river provide the greatest wealth of interesting customs and folklore. Their grotesque images, carved in wood, grin at the traveller from the door-posts of the houses, and passing through the villages one has to be extremely careful not to tread upon one of the fetishes which are scattered along the walks in great profusion. One day I saw three separate fetishes within a single square yard, and these, the father explained to us in his simple way, he had purchased at, to him, a heavy cost, hoping thereby to restore to health his only daughter. Not only does the Baketi fill his town with fetishes and wooden images, but in the forests which separate village from village, almost every tree along the pathway has rudely carved on its trunk the grinning face of some impossible human being.

The Baketi, too, is probably unique in his memorial grounds. Most African tribes bury the dead in the heart of the forest, but at the same time near the village a memorial ground is set apart on which are erected tiny memorial huts, which the restless spirits of the departed may inhabit if they so choose. There, when the spirit pays such visits—as all good spirits do nightly—he finds his loin cloth ready, the spoon with which he ate his food, the bottle from which he drank, his battle axe and cross bow which played havoc in many an affray; there is generally too a spread of Indian corn or other food, which the thoughtful and sorrowing wives have placed in readiness for his return visit to earth. How safe these memorial tombs are from desecration may be gathered from the fact that very frequently considerable sums of native currency are strewn upon the floor. These little tombs are also surrounded with numerous carved images erected on poles. The Baketi have another custom which is, I believe, quite unique in West Central Africa. Outside every village are large forest clearings covered with grass, and dotted over these meadow-like lands may be seen the strange sight of trees rooted up and planted upside down—the branches having been lopped off or the tree trunk cut through the middle and planted with the roots in the air. The sight of these clearings, involving a considerable expenditure of labour, covered with scores—sometimes hundreds—of these symbolic monuments, is most impressive.

The Baketi have elaborate ceremonials at births and marriages. A special house is always built for the birth of a child, the mother being conveyed to the dwelling an hour or so before the expected time, as is likewise the case with a dying person. Another curious custom which prevails amongst these people, and strangely enough we found precisely the same custom a thousand miles north amongst the Ngombe tribes of Bopoto, yet nowhere in the intervening territories, forbids any young woman to definitely enter into marriage relations until one end of the interior of her house is closely packed with neatly cut logs of firewood! This usually means about three hundred logs, measuring eighteen inches in length and two feet in circumference. The idea appears to be that of demonstrating the domestic capacity of the bride-elect.

With every West African tribe there are customs peculiar to the individual community, but they are generally trivial, or variations of customs prevailing amongst the surrounding tribes. Amongst Congo tribes only the Baketi apparently possess customs so completely unique.

(a) Cicatrization

Cicatrizing is practised more or less over the whole of West Central Africa. In some parts like the Bangalla and Equatorial regions of the Congo, the patterns are extremely elaborate and involve much patient labour on the part of the artist and prolonged suffering by the individual.

Cicatrizing is often confounded with tattooing, but the latter process is entirely different, and is of course most largely in vogue amongst the Maoris and seafaring men. The word cicatrization is derived from the French medical term which designates the scars left by a healed wound and implies a raised portion of the flesh, whereas tattooing is an indentation coupled with the insertion of indelible dyes. Strangely enough the Baluba tribes south of the Congo tattoo themselves, and in this respect are unique in West Africa. Both men and women readily subject themselves to the cicatrizing knife, but generally speaking women are more liberally marked than men.

In the Bangalla regions of the Congo, the facial markings resemble the surface of a coarse rasp, whilst the women content themselves with large shell patterns on the lower part of the stomach. Along the main Congo and some of the tributaries, the marking which finds most favour is the “coxcomb” in the centre of the forehead; this is sometimes cut quite deeply. The hinterland tribes of the Equatorial rivers almost without exception adopt the oyster shell pattern just below the temple, but the women, in addition, are prodigally marked with “knobs,” small “oyster shells” and “bead strings” all over the body, particularly on the thighs. Amongst the Batetela, the forearm is usually covered with a pattern identical with the Cornish “one and all” motto, often also with a sunflower pattern running from the navel up to the shoulder, sometimes to the right, but more often to the left. In the Kasai territories there is first the one general cicatrice imposed on the people by the historic northern conqueror Wuta, a “white” chieftain of prodigious valour and energy, who, apparently more than five hundred years ago, swept through the whole region founding new dynasties and placing the tribes under tribute of soldiers and money. This hustling personage, it is said, reached what is now Rhodesia, but so great was, and is, the fear of his spirit that everyone to-day bears his cicatrice. The Bakuba, Bashilele, Baketi, Bushongos and Lulua, all bear their distinctive marks, many of the women having the whole thigh covered with a “herring bone,” and the men carrying a mark similar to the Grecian “key” pattern. In the Portuguese Enclave and the Mayumbe territory of the Congo, the whole of the back is frequently covered by a single pattern and on the back of one woman we found a marking which is clearly the Swastika.

The operation is, of course, distinctly painful. The subject sits on the ground or on a log of wood, whilst the operator cuts deeply into the flesh with the knife held at such an angle that a considerable wound will result. Think of sitting still whilst this crude hand-made piece of native steel is dug into the flesh something like twenty or thirty times within half an hour! Once I was able to watch the process; the woman desired a “lace pattern” made from the shoulder blades to the waist, involving altogether four lines, which meant nearly two hundred cuts. She sat outside her hut, and bending down slightly to stretch the skin, the intended pattern was marked in chalk, and then the operator, taking his small cicatrizing knife in his right hand, proceeded to grasp between the thumb and forefinger of the left successive small portions of flesh, gashing each till the blood flowed freely. Then he started the other side of the body, returning again to cut the third line, and back to the second to link the pattern up with the fourth.

I watched the woman closely, and as the knife dipped into the flesh she made a grimace, but between the cuts, laughingly and with considerable spirit replied to my comments. At the conclusion of the operation, she calmly walked to the nearest tree and gathered a few leaves to wipe up the blood which by this time was streaming down her body. The operator, according to custom, threw over the wounds a handful of powdered camwood which, however, has less antiseptic than drying properties.

It is not easy to light upon such operations, which are generally carried out more or less privately, and in all my years of residence in Africa, this was the only occasion on which I have been able to watch throughout an elaborate cicatrization. It is, however, a familiar sight to meet natives with their bodies newly cut. On the day after the incisions have been made the wounds swell and suppurate, greatly to the delight of the hosts of insect life which swarm everywhere in Central Africa. These surround the wounded body of the native and only by a continuous flicking of grass or twig brushes can the suffering victim obtain even comparative freedom from the tortures which every movement of the body imposes, but in the course of a few months the pattern originally cut in the body stands out firm and clear. In those cases where still more emphatic designs are desired, the cicatrice will be re-opened and raised higher still until the prominence is quite pronounced, in others, after a lapse of a few months, still more lines and still more “knobs” will be added until the age of twenty to thirty. After this the desire for adornment ceases and the body rests from its tortures.

What is it that attracts? What power is it which buoys up the spirit under these painful operations? What is the secret which gives this insatiable desire for fleshy adornment?—a desire firmly rooted in the breast of every section of the community and shared by young and old alike. I well remember an orphan child, of about three summers, standing in the roadway crying bitterly, and upon my asking the cause, she told me that being an orphan no one had enough interest in her to cut a “coxcomb” on her forehead. Secreting a small bottle of red ink, I told her to sit on the table, and by a series of pinchings and finger-nail marks on her forehead, coupled with a smearing of red ink over my white hands, calmed the little mite into the belief that her heart’s desire was being gratified. After about ten minutes she was supremely happy in the thought that she too possessed a “coxcomb.” Her delight was unbounded, until the little mischief caught sight of her natural forehead in a mirror!

No doubt the principal motive for this passion is the love of personal adornment, of which the African assuredly does not retain a monopoly. Hitherto the hinterland tribes have had no access to those artificial aids to personal adornment, which are laid so temptingly before the youth of civilization. They will tell you they have had no alternative but to “adorn” their only garb—nature’s dusky skin, and none would deny, that there is a certain beauty even in these barbarous forms of embellishment. The critic may observe that the beauty of womanhood is obviously not enhanced by the bold use of the cicatrizing knife, but I would remind that critic that the wife without a body fairly well covered with cicatrization finds but scant favour with the other sex. In Africa the European youths of fashion have their counterpart, and in the direction of the most daintily cicatrized maiden, are cast the most amorous glances, and offers of handsome dowries to the admiring parents for the hand of their captivating daughter.

Other reasons doubtless play a part, among them the question of tribal ownership of wives, and the necessity of placing a distinctive and indelible mark upon the body. Constant internecine warfare, too, demanded a mark which would make easy the task of discriminating the warriors of the respective combatants.

Patriotism, relationship and love of adornment, combine in giving to the African the extraordinary fortitude which this prolonged operation demands, but the disappearance of internal warfare, the increasing importation of cheap jewellery and gaudy clothing, and the advance of Christian civilization, is robbing this custom of its raison d’être, and in another generation the little African boys and girls will only learn from books of this curious custom of their grandfathers and grandmothers, for cicatrization, as practised to-day, will have perished within another twenty-five years.

(b) Personal Adornment

Left to nature, the African, dissatisfied with his personal charms, looks about him for some means for adding adornment to his body. In the absence of finely woven cloths and silks, he covers his person with ornamental markings, and his woolly hair he makes to take the place of head-gear. In two respects only his tastes accord with those of the European—metal ornaments and rouge powder.

Most African tribes wear some cloth. The wild Ngombe on the southern banks of the main Congo, skilled in ironwork but ignorant of weaving, wear a vegetable cloth which they strip from the inner side of the coarse bark of a forest tree. Many of their women content themselves with only a few cicatrized patterns, and this is most noticeable in the hinterland of Bangalla, north of the Congo. A peculiar feature, however, is that all these women, though completely nude, wear a thin piece of string round the loins. When photographing a group, I suggested the removal of these strings, because they seemed to imply that normally a cloth or leaf was thereby suspended; but the women, at this, to me, most innocent suggestion, all became exceedingly angry and threatened to run away. Finally, I managed to restore good relations, and we succeeded in obtaining an excellent photograph. It was evident that some deep significance attached to wearing this almost invisible cord, but what that significance was I could not discover.

Hairdressing ranks almost equal in importance with cicatrization, and practically any day the traveller passing through the villages may see some native stretched lazily upon a mat on the ground, the head resting on the lap of the hairdresser—generally one of the opposite sex. In Spanish Guinea, and on the islands off Batanga, the style of hairdressing is that of long plaits, sometimes a dozen in number, running out in all directions from the top of the head. In French and Belgian Congo the style most favoured is the helmet and in some cases the mitre form; in these the hair is braided up until it adds apparently about five or six inches to the stature. In many parts of the Cameroons, as well as in French and Belgian Congo, the hair thus built up is covered with a mixture of oil and camwood powder, and thus offers a solid protection against the fierce rays of the tropical sun.

Amongst the Boela people of Bangalla, the custom prevails of binding the crown of an infant’s head with tough cord soon after birth, and this head-binding is maintained throughout life. The effect is that of an elongated or sugar-loaf skull which is greatly emphasized when the hair is prominently braided around it. We observed men of all ages with their heads bound in this manner, but they did not appear to suffer any discomfort, and the mental powers of the tribe were in no sense below the average.

Rouge finds great favour in the personal adornment of the African. The powder is obtained from the camwood tree, and in almost every well-regulated household in the forest regions may be seen let into the ground a log of wood some eighteen inches in diameter, while a piece of smaller dimensions lies near at hand. The housewife, in order to obtain the colouring, rubs—or more correctly grinds—one piece on the other, which, with the aid of either water or oil, causes a thick red paste to exude, which is then made into cones and placed in the sun. When thoroughly dry, it is either pressed into a powder and sprinkled over the body, or the person is anointed with a mixture of the powder and palm oil; in either case imparting a bright red appearance.

In war times, at festivals, and on feast days, an enormous amount of rouge is used, and the red bodies of the tribes are rendered extremely grotesque by the addition of white clay markings which stand out very clearly on the red background.

For the most part the West African tribes extract all the hair from the body with the exception of the head, the beard and moustache. The task is almost a daily one, and in the case of a man is generally undertaken by one or more of his wives. Little boys and girls submit willingly to the removal of their eyebrows and eyelashes.

Brass anklets and necklaces are much prized by the natives throughout West Africa. The Mongo tribes of the Congo wear anklets weighing sometimes 10 pounds on each ankle, and the whole set of ornaments, including the collar, will turn the scale at 35 pounds. In the Leopoldian régime these valuable ornaments were a contributory cause to the atrocities, for the rubber soldiery would always seek out the women in possession of such anklets and collars, and, as they were welded on the body, would not hesitate to chop off the foot, the hand, or even the head in order to obtain the ornaments.

I once heard a neat retort from an African woman. The questioner was a white lady who had been pointing out the pain caused by wearing these heavy articles of adornment. The dialogue ran as follows:—

How far these simple customs should be checked has always seemed to me a matter of doubt, but in the internal government of missions they cause serious dissensions among the staff. Not a few missionaries, and some government officials, seem to feel called upon to place these old-time customs almost on the level of criminal offences.

In one mission no natives may sit down to Holy Communion with their hair braided and oiled, nor may they enjoy the full privileges of Church membership if they use camwood powder on their bodies; this is the more outrageous when, within a few days’ canoe journey, there is another Christian mission where one lady missionary at least is evidently well acquainted with the use of delicately scented rouge. In another mission, cicatrizing, the extraction of the eyelashes, men dressing the hair of women or vice versâ, are sufficient to warrant suspension from Church membership.

In all conscience there is enough that is evil in humanity, both white and coloured, to make the decalogue sufficiently hard of attainment, without human agencies arbitrarily introducing non-essentials which make it grievous to be borne.

(c) “The Angel of Death”

The wildness of the African hinterland, the frequency of bloody feuds, the ever present unhealthiness, almost daily materializes the hand of death. From the moment the traveller touches the coast of Sierra Leone, he is never far from the tragedy of early and violent deaths, accounts of which reach him at every port.

The native’s fear of death is immortalized in his many boat songs, his legends and traditions, as well as in those elaborate systems of fetishism which are used to ward off the imaginary proximity of Death’s angel.

This was the feature of African life which so impressed Du Chaillu on his first visit to West Africa. “Are you ready for death?” he sometimes asked the natives. “No,” would be the hasty reply, “never speak of that,” and then, says Du Chaillu, “a dark cloud settled on the poor fellow’s face; in his sleep that night he had horrid dreams, and for a few days he was suspicious of all about him, fearing for his poor life lest it should be attacked by a wizard.”

Cursing in West Africa, which almost invariably takes the form of invoking death upon some relative, is one of the most frequent causes of trouble. A curse hurled at himself, the African merely resents, and returns the compliment, but let a man invoke death upon another’s mother or sister, and the dagger leaps instantly from its scabbard, or the spear goes hurtling through the air with deadly precision.

“May you die” is the most common form of cursing, which brings the sharp retort, “And you also.” The curses, “May the leopard catch your mother,” “May the crocodile eat your sister,” call forth instant battle. The explanation of this strong resentment and intensity of feeling is found in the fact that the African firmly believes that when a curse is pronounced the unfortunate person is thereby accursed.

No man ever goes on a journey, no matter how short, without a string of charms about his neck, to ward off the grim form of death, which he believes lurks in every forest, along every river, in every home. There is one charm to protect from violent death through wild animals, there is one to protect from death at the hands of strangers, but chiefest of all is that little charm stuffed away in the ram’s horn, which is a perfect safeguard against the death curse of strangers whom the traveller may meet when on his way from village to village.

The traveller cannot escape the sorrow and despair of death which surely is nowhere so marked as at the death of the African. For days, maybe, the sufferer has lain without any perceptible change, either for better or worse; then, perhaps, the watcher observes a sign which shews that the end is not far off, and the word goes round the village that Bomolo cannot live long.

Silently, one after another, the relatives creep into the hut and sit upon cooking pots, mats, stools and logs of wood, until the hut is filled with men and women knit together with a common sorrow. The strong man they have remembered in the sylvan chase, the keen fisherman, or possibly the courageous warrior they have known and admired, and in their beautiful simplicity loved, is stretched upon the hard bamboo bed which his busy hands had made. The watchers can see that it is only a matter of hours and the general weeping is at first silent, occasionally ceasing when the sick one speaks or calls for something. The nearer relatives rub and bathe the limbs which begin to chill; one or two affectionately hold a foot, a hand, or a finger; the favourite wife, as her right and duty, tenderly nurses the head.

In proportion as the weakness increases, the crying becomes more audible; then louder still the women cry, invoking all the spirits of the other world to surrender their grip and restore to life and vigour their beloved tribesman. Some momentarily cease crying and call to Bomolo to “speak words of farewell,” and the fact that the dying man is unable to reply is a signal for louder wailing still. At last comes the dreadful moment when their friend ceases to breathe. For the space of a few seconds, a breathless and awful silence prevails, whilst brother and wife listen to the heart beat; then, with a terrible shriek which rends the air, the wife cries, “He is gone!”

Words fail to describe this scene! How can the pen adequately portray the bursting of the pent-up misery of these scores of relatives as, in their agony, they twist and writhe in the dust. Wildly despairing, they grasp in frenzy the corpse or the bed, and then releasing their hold, they throw up their arms and again roll in the dust, not infrequently into the log fire which smoulders on the floor of the hut, scattering the embers amongst the tumbling and twisting mass of wailing humanity. What matter those burning scars?—the frenzy of a terrible sorrow consumes reason and chases into oblivion the pains of cut, bruised, scalded and burnt bodies.

An hour later, the storm having spent its fury, the body is washed and prepared for the grave, but the wailing still goes on rising and falling in a monotonous cadence like the moan of a dying gale at sea. There is no escape from that never-ceasing death wail until the body is buried, which, in most villages, is generally within forty-eight hours. Then the tide of weeping turns. A reaction sets in and the weird dancing to drive away the evil spirits continues throughout the night, until mourners and relatives revive sufficiently for the task of partitioning the wives and other worldly goods of the deceased.

The death customs differ with almost every tribe. In the watershed of the Lopori, Aruwimi and Maringa rivers of the Congo towards the Egyptian and Uganda borders, the corpse is frequently hung for weeks over a fire and thoroughly smoke dried. A similar custom prevails in certain parts of the middle and lower Congo. The corpse, however, is dressed in the best clothes and placed for a day or two in a life-like sitting posture—a gruesome and unnerving sight for the passing European. A hut in which a traveller was resting on his journey was seen to have suspended from the roof a deep wicker basket, from which a dark round object protruded. This, on inquiry, he found to be the head of a child whose body, after being smoke-dried, was hung there by the mother that she might look upon the features of her cherished infant. Amongst the Bakwala tribe, the custom prevails of smoking the body of a deceased wife who may be the daughter of a distant tribe, in order that she may be sent home and find burial amongst her own people.

Some of the Bakuba tribes on the Kasai, before life is actually extinct, seize the body, bundle it unceremoniously out of the hut, and then raising it shoulder high rush off to a distant and unoccupied hut that the spirit may there take flight, and not from the home which they believe the spirit would henceforward haunt. It is there prepared for burial, the whole village meanwhile gathering at the house of the deceased to take part in the general wailing.

(d) Peace and Arbitration

Most African tribes set the civilized world an example in their unwritten methods of preventing war, or, after war has been declared, of bringing it to an early termination. If it were possible to exile the Foreign Ministers of the Great Powers of Europe to the hinterland of their respective colonies—Sir Edward Grey to remote Barotseland, Baron von Kilderlen Waechter to the Sanga in German Cameroons, and Monsieur De Sélves to the Ubangi—where they could divide their time between fishing and studying the peace principles of barbarous tribes, I have little doubt they would return to civilization with more practical ideas upon peace than they will ever learn in the despatch encrusted offices of London, Berlin and Paris.

The African detests war and will make great sacrifices to prevent the outbreak of hostilities. The two principal causes of war are (1) land; (2) wives. Slave raiding does not belong to the African; the Arab imported it. Before war breaks out there is first the “palaver,” which may last many days or weeks. In palaver the debates differ but little from the parliaments of the world, except perhaps that custom keeps womanhood out of general debates, although where the particular interests of women are concerned, I have seen them throw themselves into the debates in a manner no whit less collected and impressive than the men.

The African revels in debate, and possibly this accounts to some extent for the admitted passion for litigation which now animates the civilized centres of the African colonies. The orators of the primitive tribes are no less masters of the art than their eloquent compeers at Lagos and Freetown. I was once asked to visit a first-class palaver and found a huge semi-circle of people closely massed together. Soon after my arrival the chief took his seat and one could almost hear the policemen of St. Stephen’s calling out, “Speaker in the chair!” for a similar signal was given for the palaver to commence.

The chief, surrounded by his advisers, called upon the speakers in turn; first to the right, then to the left, so that all sides might be heard. The “palaver” had commenced about nine o’clock, and at mid-day sun only four speakers had been heard. The fifth, who was an orator of some repute, rose from his stool where he had been reclining, drank from the calabash of water handed him by his wife, and then adjusting his loin cloth and picking up his notes—a bundle of twigs as remembrancers of the various points—he stepped forward. With an air of complete mastery of his facts, he sped on quietly for the first quarter of an hour; at the close of every period he turned to his supporters for approving applause, which was given in a chorus of assenting “Oh’s.” From calm and reasoned recital of facts, he then passed on to his deductions, and for another quarter of an hour he drove his points home amid the now increasing interest and applause of his own side and the derisive laughter of the opposition.

At the end of half an hour, excitement was beginning to run high. The orator now threw himself into a final effort; gathering up his facts and deductions, he charged the other side with every species of deception and fraud, and as he did so he danced to and fro with his body bathed in perspiration. Every sentence now was punctuated by the almost frenzied applause of his supporters. In his concluding sentences he made a fervid appeal for justice, all the while moving backward towards his expectant friends and wives. He uttered his concluding sentence with arms waving aloft and then swooned into the arms of half a dozen wives who emptied their calabashes over that quivering perspiring body. This man had never read the trial of Warren Hastings, but I could not help recalling Sheridan as the African orator lay there apparently in a dead swoon—I knew of course that he was inwardly rejoicing in his great feat and in the applause which awoke the echo and re-echo in the great forests immediately behind us.

If this “full dress” palaver fails to secure an amicable settlement, the tribes in the Congo basin do not abandon their efforts. They surround the villages with sentinels and adopt various defensive measures, but before hostilities actually begin, they select a sort of “daysman,” who, to act in this capacity, must be of peculiar relationship to both tribes; that is to say he must be able to claim parentage in both dissentient communities.

The daysman goes forth wearing a fringed and partially dried plantain leaf sash thrown over the shoulder so that the sentinels of both tribes immediately recognize him and his sacred office. It is very seldom this arbitrator fails to secure a peaceful termination of the dispute. If he does fail and hostilities break out causing loss of life, he immediately renews his efforts; indeed he never ceases that constant passing to and fro on his errand of peace and goodwill.

The proposal to sheathe the sword, or, more accurately, to unstring the bows and cleanse the poisoned arrow heads, is followed by another palaver. It was once my good fortune to be invited to act as arbitrator at one of these interesting proceedings.

The drums in all the surrounding country were beaten at cockcrow and immediately the two tribes, under their respective chiefs and headmen, began marching towards the rendezvous—a clearing in the forest outside the village at which we were staying.

I was rather alarmed at the fact that though this was a peace conference, every member of that great concourse carried not only spears, but bows and arrows, and I knew that the slightest indiscretion would precipitate a bloody fight.

All the old history was retailed again through that long and burning hot day. Once or twice a speaker raised the devil in his opponents; spears were gripped and arrows snatched from their quivers, but at last better counsels prevailed and terms were agreed upon. The question at issue was a boundary dispute, but lives had been lost and prisoners taken on both sides. The boundary was readjusted to the apparent satisfaction of both parties, prisoners exchanged and compensation paid for the killed on either side—this latter surely an advance on “civilized” terms of peace by the way!

The ceremony of “signing the peace” is not the least interesting part. First a strip of leopard skin was secured and then a bunch of palm nuts. The skin was pinned to the ground by a dagger, and each chief and headman followed me in driving the dagger deeper into the earth. When it was firmly fixed the leopard skin was drawn first one way, then the other, until it had been completely severed. A half was given to a young chieftain of each tribe, and they were instructed to “haste to the river, young men, throw the separated skins upon the waters that all men may know the quarrel is now cut in pieces (i.e., is destroyed).” This done, the bunch of palm nuts was taken and a spear from each party driven into the head of nuts. Two more men were selected, again from each tribe, and instructed to “Carry that head of nuts carefully, young men, throw them into the river that all men may know that our spear heads are buried, that fighting is over and peace made for ever and for ever.”

In this exceptional case the “for ever and for ever” only lasted three months! but in the great majority of such cases peace though threatened is maintained for many a year.