No paramount chiefs—Head-man rules his own family—Stanley’s “Lord of many guns”—Monanga, a term of respect—The alien is robbed—The guest protected—Arrival of canoes—Estimation of native character—Good memories—Learning to read pictures—Timid and superstitious—Lack of reverence—Pride—Greedy and mean.
Among the Boloki there are no paramount chiefs. Each town has its set of families that prefer living together, and each family has its head called mata, who is the eldest son, and who as eldest takes the title and the largest share of the estate. At any time a family is at liberty to break away from the rest and live by itself on a new site. The mata may be a man with wives, slaves, and followers numbering from 200 to 300 and even more, or the mata may not be able to muster more than fifteen or twenty people; yet as head of his family he possesses the same title (mata) as the more powerful ones.
Stanley in his books on the Congo uses many phrases about Mata Bwiki of Diboko (now Nouvelles Anvers) that favour the idea that he was an overlord, or lord paramount of the district; but that was not so. Mata bwiki simply means Head-man Plenty, or Plentifulness. Stanley, I think, gives as its meaning, “Lord of Many Guns,” but his name then should have been, Monanga wa bibau biki = lord of guns many. Stanley on his memorable journey happened to go ashore at the landing-place belonging to Bwiki’s family, and he as head of his family took the lead in Stanley’s reception. If Stanley had landed half a mile above or half a mile below that particular spot he might never have heard of Mata Bwiki.
The word monanga is used in a restricted way as meaning a free-born person, either male or female. It also is employed as a term of respect and means “lord,” and frequently is equivalent to Mr., Monsieur, etc. It is attached to the name of any man to whom or of whom you wish to speak with deference and respect. We are always addressed as monanga, but never as mata; and many of the more wealthy natives who are not mata are spoken of as monanga, and all who are entitled to be called mata have a right to be addressed as monanga, but they prefer the former title. Mata is distinctly the hereditary designation of the eldest son and points to him as the head of his family, and monanga a courtesy title of respect.
The mata then governs all matters relating to his own family, and from his decisions there is no appeal. Undoubtedly he calls together the elder folk of his family to counsel him on important affairs; and these head-men of the village meet under the wild fig tree, or in the palaver house, and decide village matters as between family and family, and also their policy towards other villages in the district. There is an unwritten code of laws dealing with most offences, and by these the heads of the families judge each other and the members of their own families.
The status of a person in the family and town council depends on whether he is entirely free-born, or slave-born, or partly so. A child of slaves is a slave, and as such his advice is never sought; a child of a slave father by a free woman, or of a slave woman by a free father, is a semi-slave (mbotela), but the position of the latter in the family life is much higher than that of the slave, yet of course he does not rank so high as the child born of free parents. Birth alone constitutes membership of the family and tribe. A slave who redeems himself (a very rare occurrence, for all that a slave earns belongs to his master) will be tolerated in his attempts to pass himself off as a member of the tribe; he may affect the tribal mark, and also plait his beard, etc., and his wealth may win respect, but being of no family he will have no influence in the palavers of the village.
In dealing with an alien it is not considered wrong to rob, beat, abuse, or even murder him, unless he has come on a visit, for trade or other purposes, to someone in the town. He will then be under the protection of his host, and receiving the hospitality of his host he will also receive the hospitality of the town and neighbourhood. The host will have a casus belli against anyone who molests his guest; and a village, on the other hand, will hold a host responsible for the offensive actions of his guest. Men and women travelling alone, or in twos and threes in places where they are not known, run the risk of being captured. Such defenceless travellers hide by day and travel by night to their destinations.
Green, in his Shorter History of England, says that “in ancient times the painted British savage on approaching a village sounded a horn to warn the villagers of his coming, otherwise he would have been treated as an enemy who tried to surprise them by stealth.” Among the Boloki it is the custom that when a canoe containing six or more men approaches a town they have to beat a drum and sing to notify the folk of their coming, otherwise they are treated as enemies and lay themselves open to an attack. For a canoe of strangers from other towns and districts to approach a town unannounced by drum and song is regarded as an act of war. If their coming is peaceful, why are they afraid to drum and sing? I have seen the crew of such a canoe badly handled for omitting these courtesies, and but for our presence some of the travellers would have been speared.
The mata in the performance of his duties as head-man has to guard, in the interests of his family, all those palm trees and nsafu (canuarensis) trees that have been planted by his forebears. The proprietary rights in these trees are by inheritance, or by planting them, and the rights in them are handed on from father to son in the proper line of heirship. They are sources of wealth to a family, and the members of a family support their chief man when those rights are infringed.
The head-man in the government of his family holds a very difficult position when sitting in judgment on a relative, for such is the character of the family life that if he fines the delinquent he will be punishing himself indirectly—the family stands or falls together. Robbery, adultery, wounding, and murder when committed within the limits of one’s own family will receive the strong disapprobation of the other members, but there is no punishment that the mata can inflict unless the offender is a boy, and then a sound thrashing will be administered; for will they not be punishing themselves if they insist on the infliction of a fine and to whom can the fine be paid? The fine imposed would have to be paid by the family to itself. The mata, therefore, in ruling his family exercises his greatest tact in maintaining the various units of which it is composed in the friendliest relation to each other and to himself. Then he has to keep a strong hand on the family slaves, for he and his family will be held responsible for whatever offences they commit against other families; and if they fight and quarrel amongst themselves, his only wise course is to sell them and buy others who may not be so contentious.
I never came across a more democratic form of government on the Congo than that of the Boloki tribe. There is no prestige of birth to help, as among the Lower Congo chiefs, for his subjects are of the same blood as himself—except his slaves, and they are his property and not his subjects. He has no position of priesthood (as the family “medicine man”) to inspire with awe those who owe fealty to him as head-man; and there is no position he can gain in any secret society that will inspire with fear of him the other members of his family. His position is no sinecure, and while his trouble is great his perquisites are few.
Perhaps this will be the best place to attempt an estimate of the Boloki folk who thus live in families each under the rule of a head-man, and in village communities governed by elders or head-men. Their memories are exceedingly good respecting the debts owing to them, but with regard to the debts they owe they have, or pretend to have, very bad memories—it is for the creditor to keep in mind the debts owing to him, and to bring the proofs at the proper time.
There are occasionally cases of insanity among them, some caused by uterine trouble, and others are the results of sleeping-sickness. If insanity is of long duration and the patients are destructive or troublesome, they are quietly put out of the way. I only met with one man who ran amok. He had had a very serious illness, and either the illness or the decoctions given to him to effect his cure made him temporarily mad. He cut down all the plantain trees in his path, and destroyed everything he came near; the people cleared out of his way, but being a man of importance he got off without any payment of damages.
When I went first to live among the people of Monsembe I had with me a roughly bound volume of the Illustrated London News. It was very interesting to watch the development of their artistic faculties. At first they looked at a picture and asked what the marks were; they held the picture anyhow, and looked at it from any point that might be convenient to them without any regard to the picture being right side up, or upside down, or any other way. By and by they began to pick out the features, one by one, and say, “Why, it is a man!” They would pick out the doors, windows, walls, etc., and remark, “Why, it is a house!” After a time they would drop this spelling out, as it were, of the picture and say, “A man, a woman, a house,” etc., at once. Later on, they would take in the whole of a picture at a glance. I suppose it is in this way we learn pictures in our childhood—spell them out. It was interesting to watch the same process in young men, women, and adults.
I remember one day a man was looking at a picture of the members of the L.C.C. gathered in their council chamber. He asked what it meant, and I explained the significance of the assembly. He could only see well with one eye, and with that one he very carefully scanned the whole of the picture for two or three minutes, and then he asked in an incredulous tone of voice: “This is a picture of men met to talk palavers, but where are their spears and knives?” The natives never talked palavers without having their spears and knives ready to hand, hence the doubt expressed in his question and voice.
The native has immense respect for force, but totally despises gentleness. He likes to be treated with kindness and consideration, but instead of regarding such treatment as an expression of your goodness he considers it a sign of your weakness, and will behave accordingly. If you point out to him that you treat him with kindness and expect some consideration in return, he will acknowledge that that is fair and right, and will for a time try to act more thoughtfully, but soon the better feeling will pass away unless you constantly remind him of his many deficiencies—of all that he has to learn and all that he needs to become.
To teach a native that he is your equal in all things is not to incite a desire on his part to emulate you, but rather tends to cause him to regard you with disrespect and contempt. The native knows he is not your equal, and he thinks you must have a despicable twist in your vision, and some bad, ulterior motive, if you think that he is your equal and wish him also to believe the same. I teach him that he is a creature of God as I am, that the Redeemer died as much for him as for me, and that God will judge him righteously, and will show neither of us favour or disfavour on account of the colour of our skins. At the same time, the relation between teacher and taught must be maintained, and he must be made to understand in how many ways he must be changed—morally, intellectually, and socially; and that before he can take his place among civilized and Christian men he must rise out of his degrading superstitions, control his lusts, govern his passions, and strive after all that is good, noble, and beautiful. He will admit that you are his superior in every way, but unless you firmly insist on his taking his right position as a learner he will conduct himself towards you with less respect than he pays to the smallest and poorest chief in his district, and in a short time your influence will be gone and you will wonder why.
Treat the native with respect, and insist on receiving the same from him; treat him with firmness, decision, masterfulness, and he will go as a rule as far as you want him to go. Faithfully keep all your promises and fulfil all your threats, therefore never make a promise you do not intend to redeem, and never threaten a thing you are not able, on the face of it, to perform, i.e. treat the native with gentle firmness, persuasive force, and masterful consideration, and you will get the best out of him, and cause him to respect himself while respecting you.
The native can love and he can hate; but he is neither a good lover nor a strong hater. His affections are neither steady nor permanent. He will, however, remember a wrong committed against him much longer than a good deed done to help him. He is moved more by fear of pain, by loss of material profit, and by public opinion than swayed by principles and arguments. He will float with the stream rather than continually struggle against it; but at the same time he can obstinately and doggedly follow a course that will result in physical pain, financial loss, and ridicule if he is once persuaded that his ultimate interests lie in that direction.
He is not lacking in gratitude, but he is afraid of displaying it lest a favour be asked of him in return. When you visit him he will remind you of the fact that you mended his broken leg or cured his disease, not to make it the basis of a generous act towards you, but rather as a plea to procure something extra out of you by awakening your further interest in him.
In some districts you will find he is more a liar than a thief, and if you investigate you will discover that the fines imposed for thieving are such as to deter him from following his inclination to steal. In other districts, where the native laws are more lax, he will excel both in thieving and lying, but he will readily admit they are vices worthy of stringent punishment, and will express his regret that the thief stole either from you or from himself, and at the same time he will be doing his best to rob you.
Before the unknown and mysterious he is timid and very superstitious. He will regard you as a god, and yet try to fight you; he will superstitiously believe that you have wonderful occult powers that can stop the rain, cause pestilence and plagues, and yet he will not attempt to conciliate you, but will savagely shout at you to clear out of his town and take your witchcraft elsewhere. When fighting with a gun he is timid, nervous, and apparently very cowardly, because he does not understand the mysteries of gunpowder; but give him a shield and a spear and his bravery is evidenced by his boldness in a fight, and his utter indifference to wounds and death. The mysterious overawes, paralyses him, but superstitious fears will often arouse the very demon of cruelty and vindictiveness, and incite to boldness and recklessness.
He lacks reverence, but is easily filled with awe and overcome by wonder. The stars in their courses make for him no song around the eternal throne; but the smoke ascending from his great bush-fires forming a halo round the sun will make him quake with fear because it is an omen of evil. The movements of the sun and the moon awaken no admiration in him; but exhibit some poor conjuring trick, or a shilling mechanical toy, and his eyes and mouth are not big enough to express his wonder.
He is prouder than Lucifer is reputed to be, and will resent the smallest slight put upon his so-called dignity. In a fit of overweening vanity he will sacrifice everything he possesses, and destroy all his future prospects to satisfy the pride of the moment. His family may be insignificant, his town paltry, himself small and dirty, but touch his pride and he will act as though he were un grand seigneur. He himself must be the judge of what hurts his pride, not you. He has his own code of honour and etiquette, difficult at times for you to understand, hence you wonder at some of the exhibitions of his pride.
His memory is well trained, and his powers of observation keen and minute; his ability to adapt himself to his surroundings is wonderful, and his imitative faculties are remarkable; but he lacks power of mental concentration and logical thought. His physical powers are highly developed—he will carry a heavy load, from 70 lbs. to 80 lbs., up and down hill and across broken country, or paddle a heavy canoe hour after hour, without exhibiting much fatigue; but he cannot, or will not, follow a line of thought, metaphorically speaking, for twenty yards. His reasoning and reflective faculties are stunted, undeveloped, for they have been exercised upon nothing more profound than the very alphabet of existence. He knows that two and two make four—that certain results follow certain causes, but that a series of causes will produce a series of results complicated and wide-spreading in their effect he cannot grasp. He has no power of deduction, and little or no faculty for producing a well-developed plot or involved plan.
With those who have a right to a share of meat or cloth, etc., he will be most scrupulous in dividing the article into equal portions, forgetting no one; but to those who have no right to a share he will be niggardly, mean, selfish, and grasping. His apparent generosity is innate selfishness, for he only gives that he may receive more in return, and be the giver black or white he will complain bitterly if the return present is not so large as his greed imagined it should be. Perhaps this trait in his character may be accounted for by his desire to have a grand funeral—the talk of the village or the countryside. For this he will save and scheme, lie and steal, rob his neighbours, his wives, and his children to hoard up cloth, etc., for his own burial, that he may have a good start in the spirit-land.
He has a wonderful power of imitation, but he lacks invention and initiative; but this lack is undoubtedly due to suppression of the inventive faculty. For generations it has been the custom to charge with witchcraft anyone who has commenced a new industry or discovered a new article of barter. The making of anything out of the ordinary has brought on the maker a charge of witchcraft that again and again has resulted in death by the ordeal. To know more than others, to be more skilful than others, more energetic, more acute in business, more smart in dress, has often caused a charge of witchcraft and death. Therefore the native to save his life and live in peace has smothered his inventive faculty, and all spirit of enterprise has been driven out of him.
In the foregoing sketch I have generalized, and have not allowed for the exceptions that are always to be found to every rule. Anyone who has lived among the natives, and has known them intimately, will supply examples of those who were kind, generous, grateful, of others who were affectionate, devoted, unselfish, and again of others who were patient, brave, faithful, and persevering; but these exceptions show that they are capable of being possessed by the noblest virtues and swayed by the highest and purest motives. Generations of superstition and moral degradation have not entirely obliterated from among them examples of kindness of heart and generosity of feeling, and these examples assure us that with proper care and cultivation such virtues and graces may become more widespread.
Those of us who teach the native in the workshop and the school find through stirring up his moral and mental depths many undesirable qualities coming to the top, and these we repress; but, on the other hand, pleasant traits also exhibit themselves, and these we try to cultivate. The beneficial results may not be obvious to the unseeing eye in the first generation, and perhaps not in the second, but they will manifest themselves in due course. The civilization of England is the outcome of a thousand years’ teaching and training, and you cannot expect us to attain the same results in a generation or two. It is, at least, unfair of those who boast of their “superiority” to criticize us for not accomplishing in a generation with “inferior” material what it has taken a score of generations to accomplish in their own case.