Stopping the rain—Causing the river to subside—Appeasing water-spirits—Saved by his wit—Debit and credit in killing—Methods of drinking—Purification by fire—Preventing spirits following their relatives—Burying women alive with their husband’s corpse—Killing a man for a feast—Honouring the dead—Ceremonies at a grave—A monument to a chief.

It was raining one day for about three hours when I noticed a rain-doctor standing on our beach trying to stop the continuous downpour. He was a tall, upright, old man of very kindly disposition, and we had often had joking conversations on this very subject of his power to stop the rain. He had frequently, with much emphasis, asserted his possession of such a power, and assured me that one day he would prove it to me. It was now raining one of those kinds of rain that seem as if it had begun at the Creation and would continue to the crack of doom. From the verandah of my house I saw the rain-doctor pluck a leaf, and going to the bank of the river, he placed the leaf on the closed fist of his left hand, and after extending the arm towards the quarter from which the wind was blowing, he waved it to and fro in a semicircle, and then struck the leaf with the open palm of his right hand. This operation he repeated several times, and at the end of an hour or so the rain began to abate and at last ceased. He then came smilingly up to my house, and said, “You see, white man, I can stop the rain.”

Of course he could when there was no more rain to fall. I reminded him of his many failures, and the frequency with which he himself had been caught in the rain; but such reminders neither shook his own faith, nor the people’s, in his power to stop the rain.

If a family were troubled with much sickness, and a witch-doctor said it was due to the dissatisfaction of So-and-so’s spirit (mentioning the name of an important and recently deceased member of the family), because no offering had lately been made to him, then the family would kill a slave and send him with a message to their troublesome deceased relative, requesting that he would not cause them any further misfortune. If the deceased belonged to a “bush” or inland tribe, the slave would be killed and buried; but if the departed one was a member of a riverine tribe, then the slave was tied up and thrown into the river. We induced them to stop this custom, but the more timorous ones for a time compromised the matter either by burying brass rods, equal to the price of a slave, in the grave, or scattering them in the river.

The occasion was as follows: The river was rising rapidly and flooding the low-lying town of Monsembe, and as the water rose higher and higher the head-men met together to decide what was to be done to cause the river to subside. Passing that way at the time and hearing the subject of their discussion, I listened to the conference, which lasted about three hours. They suggested one reason after another for the flood, but at last they were unanimously of the opinion that the father of one of the men present was angry with his family for slighting him so long, and to show his disapprobation, he had caused the river (River Congo) thus to rise, and the only method of securing its subsidence was to throw a human sacrifice into the river.

When they arrived at this decision I asked for permission to speak, which was readily granted. With my walking-stick I drew an outline of the Congo River, and, putting in some of the larger tributaries, I told them how the rain was falling incessantly in those parts, and that if they wanted to keep the river from rising, the best way was to send their rain-doctor to Stanley Falls to stop the rain, and thus end their anxiety. And as I spoke I pointed to the old man who was sitting among the other head-men.

“Oh,” they exclaimed in chorus, “our rain-doctor can stop the rain falling in these parts; but his powers will not act in another district. Our only remedy is to throw an old man into the river.” Old men were cheaper than young ones.

“Well,” I replied, “old Mata Bwata (the old chief who was credited with the rise of the river) was a little man, and I am a big man; but one day I shall die and shall be buried here in Monsembe, and if so little a man can cause the river to rise so much because he is angry with you about a ceremony, how high do you think I shall cause the water to rise when I shall be angry with you about murdering men and women in this manner?”

“Why,” they answered, “you will be able to make the water come right above our heads, and we shall all be drowned. All right, white man,” they continued, “we know what you mean, and we promise not to throw anyone into the river.”

We found afterwards that they compromised the matter, for when they held a mimic “naval” battle (with canoes) in honour of Mata Bwata’s memory, to appease his dissatisfied spirit, they scattered six hundred brass rods in the river—the price of a slave—in lieu of a human sacrifice.

While on this subject of appeasing water-spirits I may relate a very amusing incident that came to my knowledge, the chief actor in which was well known to me. The folk in the Bombilinga district had been very unsuccessful in their fishing, and putting the cause of their non-success down to the wrath of the water-spirits who had turned aside the fish from their traps and nets, they desired to conciliate them. With this object they decided to buy a man and throw him into the river. They bought a man with one eye, who, on account of that deformity, was sold cheap, and, tying him, as they thought, securely, they hurled him from a canoe into the river.

By some means, however, he got loose and swam ashore, and on his landing the surprised people asked him why he had returned after being sacrificed to the water-spirits. His smart reply was: “The water-spirits did not want any one-eyed folk down there, so they loosened the ropes and sent me ashore.” By his wit he saved his life, but another and more perfectly formed person was bought and thrown into the river in his stead. This happened some years before we went to live in the district, but the one-eyed man I knew very well, and more than one person told me of the incident.

Up to the early months of 1890 eight brothers lived at Bonjoko—a town three miles below Monsembe. For some unknown reason their slaves beat to death the chief of that town. Now slave-owners were held responsible for the actions of their slaves, so the brothers had to flee for their lives; but one of them was killed before he could escape, and the others came to Monsembe and built a set of houses with a strong palisade round them. They lived thus for nine months in apparent security. A chief, however, is worth two ordinary men, and the family of the murdered head-man did not forget that one more life was owing to them, but they waited their time and opportunity.

Some nine months afterwards a Monsembe slave fell from a palm tree and was picked up dead. All that day and the next the other slaves of the town danced and sang at the funeral festivities of the dead man, and during the noise of their crying and chanting dirges some Bonjoko people entered the town, rushed into the stockade, and, killing one of the brothers there, they cut open the head of another, and chased a third one into the bush, where they speared him to death.

If only one brother had been killed the feud would have ended, and reconciliation between the families would have followed; but in affairs of this kind they have a credit and debit side, i.e. the chief of Bonjoko was a great man, so it needed two deaths to expiate his. The Bonjoko people had killed one brother before the family had escaped from the town, and now they desired to kill one other only to square the account; but being divided in their attack into two or three parties, acting independently, neither knew what the other had done or was doing, two brothers were killed, during the raid, instead of one. Thus the Bonjoko family owed one life to the brothers, and according to custom they should not have stopped hostilities until there was a clear balance-sheet. The remnant of the brothers could move about freely, and needed no longer to live enclosed in a stockade. It was now the turn of the other family to go in fear of their lives. The brothers took the bodies of their slain relatives to Bonjoko for burial; and a short time afterwards made blood-brotherhood with the other family, and the blood feud was thus finished.

It leaked out eventually that the Monsembe head-men, who had little or no sympathy with the brothers, had received 1000 brass rods not to oppose the Bonjoko family when they came for vengeance, although the head-men had accepted large presents from the brothers on the promise of protection and the right of asylum in their town. This treachery was condemned by public opinion, but those who condemned it only did so because they had had no share of the spoils.

The principal drink, apart from water, was manga = sugar-cane wine. The canes were cut into two-feet lengths and the outside skin peeled off. The juicy pith was put into a long, strong, canoe-shaped trough, where it was pounded into pulp with heavy pestles. By the side of the trough was a strong cross-stick fixed to two stout uprights, and from the cross-stick was suspended by many loops a cord-plaited mat about 16 inches wide and 2 feet 6 inches long. At the lower end of the mat was a stout stick hanging from the bottom loops of the mat. The operator took a large handful of crushed fibre from the trough, and placing it on the mat he gave a twist to the lower stick, folding the mat over on to the fibre, then with both hands he turned the lower stick again and again, until no more juice could be pressed from the enclosed fibre. The juice ran from the rope mat into a conduit below, and on into a large jar at the bottom. This process was repeated until all the crushed fibre had been pressed in the mat. This operation was generally begun about 4 a.m. and completed by 8 or 9 a.m. A little old sugar-cane wine was added to the new, and by 3 or 4 p.m. the whole jar, containing from eight to twelve gallons, would be fizzing with fermentation. A jar of four gallons could be bought for two yards of calico.

A man would buy a jar of wine and beat his drum in a certain way to call his friends, who, after a few minutes, began to gather from various parts of the town, each followed by a wife carrying a stool and some article out of which her husband was to drink. One had a bottle, another a saucepan, another an old coffee-pot, another a jug, another a glass or an enamel mug. A man was chosen to dole out the wine with a small wooden bailer, and no matter how large the vessel offered, the recipient only received so many dips of the bailer, and thus all shared alike.

During the sugar-cane season drinking-bouts were common and would last from eight to ten days. Different head-men would buy on succeeding days large jars of manga, and would beat their drums to call their cronies and friends to the “drink.” They would sit in a circle round the jar of sugar-cane wine, and one would solemnly ladle it out, but no one would drink until all were served. Women, who sat behind their husbands at these carousals, drank only what their husbands gave them, and I have seen only three drunken women. This was not because the women had any aversion to drinking or to drunkenness, but because they could not procure the liquor. The making of the “wine” was a laborious process, hence, while the women cultivated and prepared the canes, the men made the wine and took care to drink it. Drinking-bouts were always followed by a certain amount of sickness, as fever and diarrhœa, and a complete loss of appetite for a time. I think the rough, sharp pieces of fibre found in the unstrained wine irritated the bowels and brought on dysentery; and the irregular lives they lived during these bouts induced fever.

The majority drank in the ordinary way, but some in a manner peculiar to themselves. One sucked his wine through a reed; another had a cloth dropped over his head while drinking; another placed some fine-shredded grass over the mouth of his bottle and quaffed his wine through that; another took a piece of plantain leaf and, making a channel down the middle, put one end into his mouth and poured the wine out of his bottle on to the top end of his leaf, whence it ran down the groove into his mouth. All these various modes of drinking are rigidly followed out of regard to the strict injunctions of some “medicine man,” who has told them that in order to prevent the return of a sickness from which they have suffered, or to escape certain diseases, they must drink in such and such a manner, or not at all. When a man was “on the booze” he stuck a leaf in his hair to show it, and then no notice was taken of any stupid or insulting remarks he might make, or of any business transaction he might enter upon.

One day I saw an old woman whom I knew very well sitting in the centre of a ring of fire, and upon inquiry I found that she had had much to do with preparing a corpse for burial, and at the close of the ceremony she had to be purified. A ring of fire made of small sticks encircled her; she took a leaf, dried it, crunched it in her fist, and sprinkled it on the fire, moving her hands, palms downwards, over the fire ring. When the fire had died out a witch-doctor took hold of the little finger of her left hand with the little finger of his right hand, and, lifting her arm, he drew her out of the fire circle purified. She was now supposed to be cleansed from all contamination with the dead.

Walking one day in Monsembe I saw an incident that recalled Burns’ “Tam o’Shanter” to my mind. There had been a death in a family, and the relatives had just performed all the necessary rites and ceremonies, and were returning to their homes. A small trench some twenty feet long was dug with a hoe. The relatives took up their position on the side of the trench nearest to the grave, the medicine-man stood on the other side, and his assistant was placed at the end of the trench with a large calabash of water. At a signal the water was poured into the trench, and while it was running the medicine-man took each person by the hand, and mumbling an incantation he pulled him, or her, over the running water. When all had been pulled over, one by one, the water was allowed to run until the calabash was empty. I asked the reason of the ceremony, and they told me it was to keep the spirit of their deceased, and buried, relative from following them. It was very evident from the rites observed that they thought the spirits could not cross running water.

One evening I heard a considerable amount of shouting and screaming, and on going to the scene of the excitement I found two women strongly bound who were weeping most bitterly, and begging to be set free. I asked them the reason for being thus tied, and they replied, “You know our husband, Mangwele, is dead. He is to be buried to-morrow morning, and we are to be buried alive with his body. Untie us, white man, and save us from such a death.”

I knew the custom of the district very well, but had never been brought into contact so closely with it. In every family of importance there were one or two women called mwila ndaku, which meant that when their husband died they were to be buried alive with his corpse, unless in the meantime they bore children, when other women took their place. Every time they heard their name it was a reminder of the awful fate that awaited them.

From my heart I pitied the women, and turning to the members of the family I pleaded and remonstrated with them in such a way, and with such God-given eloquence, that they at last said, “All right, white man, we will give up this custom.” They untied the women, who at once began to dance about us, relieved that they had been rescued from such a horrible fate.

Next morning the men came and asked me to attend the funeral, to see for myself that they really intended to keep their promise. I went, and for the first time in the history of that district a man of importance was buried without living women being inhumed with the corpse. Now I knew all the wives, children, and slaves of that man, and whenever I asked for them, they were able to show them—a proof that they had not secretly buried any after I had left the grave; and as only members of the family, or slaves owned by the deceased, would follow and attend upon the spirit of the departed, I felt sure that no outsiders had been surreptitiously substituted. From that time they used to request that either I or one of my colleagues would attend important funerals, to see that they kept their promise. We were exceedingly glad to stop such a cruel custom.

We were not always successful in our efforts to save life, as the following incident will show: The people at Bonjoko determined to have a great feast. They bought as fat a slave as they could procure, broke his legs and arms, and fed him for three days, while they made a great quantity of sugar-cane wine. I made every possible endeavour to save him, but utterly failed to do so, and on the third day he was killed and the horrible orgy was held. That was in the early years of our Mission; but in after years they became heartily ashamed of the whole affair.

When a man of any position died his wives would throw off their dresses and wear old rags (sometimes they would go absolutely naked), pick up anything belonging to him—his chair, spear, pipe, mug, knife, shield, or blanket—anything that first came to hand, and having covered their bodies with a coating of clay, they would parade the town in ones, or twos, or threes, crying bitterly and calling upon him to return to them. They would stop at times in their crying and say, “He is gone to So-and-so, we will go and find him,” and away they would start off in a business-like fashion in their pretended search for him. This parading they would keep up for a day or two, and then women of the town would bedeck themselves with climbing plants, vines, leaves, and bunches of twigs, and forming themselves into a procession they would march through the town chanting the praises of the deceased. Men would paint and arm themselves as for a fight, and would imitate the daring acts of the departed as a warrior; and if he had been remarkable for fighting on the river, they would arrange a sham canoe fight in his honour. Fifteen or twenty canoes, filled with men armed with spears, shields, and guns, would go through all the manœuvres of a mimic river fight, firing their guns, pretending to throw their spears, or deflect them with their shields, circling round each other amid shouts of their prowess, or laughter at those who, losing their balance, fell into the river. Those ashore would crowd along the bank and yell out directions, approbation, and encouragement to their friends in the canoes. It was an amusing and interesting sight, and seemed to be thoroughly enjoyed both by actors and spectators alike. They called this praising or honouring the dead.

I was asked on one occasion to attend the burial of a prominent man of the district, and was interested in seeing the following rites performed: After the coffin had been lowered into the grave, men came forward, and, taking a spear, they called upon the spirits of those whom the deceased had killed in times of war to attend their conqueror in the spirit-world, and every time a name was mentioned or an order given a thrust was made with a spear. The deceased had killed seven persons, and their skulls were arranged round the base of the wild fig tree just in front of his house. Different men called on the different spirits, and so far as I could ascertain it was those who knew all the particulars of the slain, and the circumstances attending their death, that had to call on them to attend and obey the deceased. It seemed to me that he gave details of the person killed in order that the spirits should make no mistake as to who was meant, and described the manner of death that there might be no misapprehension about a claim on their service being established. Some spears and knives were put in the coffin, and some brass rods (the currency) were laid in the grave for the use of the departed.

Some months later a shelter was built over the grave, with a rough table under it. On this table mugs, bottles, saucepans, plates, etc., were arranged; and at the sides, and under the table, stools, chairs, large wine-jars were put; but everything was “killed,” i.e. broken. All the natives told me that the articles were “killed” to keep people from stealing them, yet they had an idea that the things thus displayed not only served as a memorial to the deceased, but helped him in some indefinable way in the spirit-land. Undoubtedly they had forgotten the reason for “killing” the articles. The stealing reason was not sufficient to meet the case, for there was too wholesome a fear of the revenge the spirits could inflict, and detection was too easy for anyone to be so foolhardy as to rob a grave. No, this display of useful goods served three purposes: it was a “monument” to the important man buried beneath it; it was a proof of his own, and his family’s, wealth; and lastly, and probably the original object of the articles being placed on the grave, they were conveniences to increase his comfort and prestige in the spirit world to which he had gone.