BURYING A LIVE KING.
Title: Stirring scenes in savage lands
An account of the manners, customs, habits and recreations, peaceful and warlike, of the uncivilised world
Author: James Greenwood
Release date: August 28, 2023 [eBook #71512]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Ward, Locke & Co
Credits: Brian Coe, Karin Spence and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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STIRRING SCENES IN SAVAGE LANDS.
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BURYING A LIVE KING.
STIRRING SCENES
IN
AN ACCOUNT OF
THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, HABITS AND RECREATIONS, PEACEFUL AND
WARLIKE, OF THE UNCIVILISED WORLD.
BY
JAMES GREENWOOD,
AUTHOR OF “WILD SPORTS OF THE WORLD,”
“A NIGHT IN A WORKHOUSE,” ETC.
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DORSET BUILDINGS, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
THE WILD MAN AT HOME;
OR,
Pictures of Life in Savage Lands.
| PART VII. |
|---|
| SAVAGE KINGS AND COURTS. |
| Chap. XVII.—The savage considered as a child of nature—what he lives for—kings by birth—a king to be wished dead—Commander Forbes’ introduction to the King of Dahomey—formalities to be observed on approaching Dahoman royalty—the palace hedged in with human skulls—a saltatory welcome—Gezo king of kings—his majesty “stands a drain”—grand display of rum and gunpowder—the ceremony of Eh-bah-tong-ah-bah, or exhibition of the king’s wealth—the red pool at the threshold—Dahoman “half-heads”—King Gezo the “leopard” and the “hawk”—items of his majesty’s wealth—“One washing pan, seven pans of skulls, and a grandmother”—an umbrella ornamented with eighty jaw bones—the probable value of the whole lot—great cry and little wool—the ceremony of Ek-que-noo-ah-toh-meh or the throwing of presents—the king’s platform and the hungry mob below—how his majesty was dressed—rum and tobacco and cowries showered to the people—kings and ambassadors joining in the scramble—the human sacrifices and the expectant savages—feed us! “we are hungry”—the victims launched into the pit—a recent grand custom—“Little Popo, August 6th, 1862”—glad to see a Dutchman—the Dutchman’s reception by the king—exhibition of a crucified missionary—an earthquake in the midst of a “custom”—twenty-four live men thrown to the hungry ones—sixteen women, four horses, and one alligator sacrificed—Bullfinch Lamb—his evidence as to what Dahomey of old was like—£10,000 demanded by the king as Bullfinch’s ransom—he writes home describing his misery—he shows himself a fox rather than a Lamb—Bullfinch wins the king’s heart by making him a kite—the kingdom of Abó and its ruler—Mr. Baikie’s approach to the royal residence—a palace of mud and thatch—King Ishúkuma—royal robes—the king’s sister acts as “crier” to the “court”—King Ajé—his shoeless feet and his red nightcap—Ajé gives Mr. Baikie his “dash”—Baikie’s visit to the terrible Neam Nam—some of his followers flee at the mere sight of the town—the ogres surround the adventurers—prospects of a jolly feast—prospects blighted—a friend in need—“Look at the things they hold in their hands; touch them not”—wonderful effects of a gun shot—a ticklish moment—the good will of the cannibals secured—the Fernandian town of Issapoo and Browowdi the king—Mr. Hutchinson’s description of the Browowdi palace—the king’s rig: “a filthy old stool for a throne, an old bamboo-leaf hat for a crown”—a coronation at Issapo—what his newly-made majesty may eat, and what he must leave alone—royalty in Old Kalabar—King Eyamba—the State carriage alias “the white man’s cowhouse”—comical use of a carriage—the Egbo drum—Aqua-el-dere or chop-day at Duketown—a royal feast—ju-ju wood and palaver sauce—interesting mode of feeding at the royal table—“King Eyo Honesty”—how he keeps the Sabbath—his band—the order of Egbo—how it is constituted—its similitude to free-masonry—Idem and his terrible cow-hide whip—his outrageous privileges—Egbo bells—Brass Egbo day—Egbo trials and criminals—the “Bloodmen” of Duketown—the Mambo of Lunda—his magnificent attire and how he held court—his Muata Cazembe or prime minister—the Muata’s seven umbrellas—the Mambo’s wives—the election of a Jaga—singular ceremony attending it—how the Jaga selects a site for a palace—the novel rite of Sambamento—the unfortunate Nicango—his fate. Pages 1–137. |
| Chap. XVIII.—Royalty in Southern Africa—Doctor Livingstone and Shinte—King of Makololo—the king’s crown of beads and goose feathers—the doctor’s reception—his majesty’s hundred wives and his wife in chief—the royal piano and the four pianists—the doctor and his followers fall into the hands of Manembo, a South African chieftess—she gives her guests a bit of her mind—her advice to Dr. Livingstone—“now, my little man, do as the rest have done”—from South Africa to Abyssinia—Mr. Stern among the Falashas—he commits a grave breach of court etiquette—an Abyssinian cure for melancholy—Mr. Bruce’s experience of the cure—Bruce’s introduction to the Lady of Sittina—her splendid attire—Bruce’s gallantry by no means surprises the lady—he volunteers a piece of wholesome advice as a physician—a delicate conversation—the King of Seenaar—how he was greased—a cure for red hair—the throne in Madagascar—Madame Ida Pfieffer’s introduction to the queen—paying your “footing”—her majesty neither cordial nor over polite—a Malagasey palace—its chief pillar—five thousand labourers to bring it home—death of fifteen thousand builders—the silver palace—ceremony observed on the death of a Malagasey king—the feast of the queen’s bath—great rejoicing on the occasion—the Malagasey army and the military band—wretched condition of the soldiery—a handful of rice food for a day—a Malagasey court ball—ball dresses—the “Segu” dance—niggardly behaviour of her majesty. Pages 38–53. |
| Chap. XIX.—Borneo and the Borneans—installation of a Dayak-rajah—Hot council and Cold council—ceremony of election as described by Baiah Brooke—“may the government be cold”—a visit to the chief of the Grungs—capture by the old women—revolting customs—a Dayak dance—more physicking—Corea and the Great Loo Choo Islands—the chief of Corea—his visit to the British ship “Lyra”—dignified behaviour of the chief—his uproarious attendants—he orders an arrest—a cheap entertainment—punishment of the arrested one—the chief loses his temper and makes free use of his rod of office—the court of king Finow—marriage of his eldest daughter to the great chief Tooitonga—the bride’s anointing and her bridal robes of superfine mats—the bridesmaids—the marriage feast—twenty baked hogs—the music and dancing—King John of Adelaide, Australia—his death and trussing and roasting—horrible ceremony—The roast king’s dutiful lubras—a mummy “up a gum tree”—King John the thickest headed king ever known—his skull to prove it—dying fate of the common Bushman—enticing away the “spirit that kills”—the Bushman’s grave—Bushman mourning customs. Pages 54–66. |
| PART VIII. |
| SAVAGE M.D’s. |
| Chap. XX.—The science of surgery and medicine in savage lands—the M.D. in Polynesia—how to cure a broken neck—straightening a dislocated vertebra—trepanning with a bit of cocoa-nut shell—pigs’ brains a substitute for human—the sick man in Figi—summary method of disposing of troublesome invalids—“be reasonable and let some one help you out of your misery”—queer physic for a sick princess—the patient finally strangled—tender treatment of a shipwrecked mariner—singular malice of the Figian sick—the doctor in Samoa—no medicines used—strange predictions by dying Samoans—the Tokelau man who went up into the moon—a physician for every ailment—“confess, and throw out”—an infallible method of extracting a spear—Polynesian disease makers—the mystery of nohak burning—novel way of burning an enemy to death—how sickness is dealt with among the Namaquas of Southern Africa—The old women whom Moffat the missionary found—“I am old and feeble and no longer of any use”—the sick little Makalolo—nobody’s child—Galton and the calculating savage—unable to count over ten—how the difficulty is overcome—dentistry in Damara land—the traveller Galton nearly a victim—hauling till “something” gives way—the doctor in old Kalabar—how the Kalabeese takes his physic—Doctor Abiadiong—how he operates with his magic beads—burying a dog alive to save a sick man—how to cheat the demon of small-pox—the M.D. among the Indians of North America—qualifications of a Pawnee doctor—a case witnessed by the traveller Murray—how to cure hooping-cough—setting a broken arm and a few ribs—broken bones cured by smoke—a medicine dance—Indian sweating baths and sudatory—how to manufacture a cheap vapour bath—doctoring in Abyssinia—Mr. Bruce undertakes to cure three queens—our countryman’s description of his interesting patients—grave responsibilities of an Abyssinian physician—“what signifies your curing me if you turn me out like a beggar?”—some wholesome advice for eastern travellers—stimulants to be avoided—no water too cold to bathe in. Pages 67–87. |
| PART IX. |
| SAVAGE WARFARE. |
| Chap. XXI.—The most warlike savage—hereditary pirates in Borneo—a fleet of ninety-eight pirate ships—Rajah Brooke and the pirates—a visit to the fleet—hunting for pirates—the “Didos” excursion—the adventures of the “Jolly Bachelor”—“many a slip twixt the hand and the ship”—a startler for a pirate chief—no quarter with Dayaks—the victorious Jolly Bachelor—a pirate hero—the Dayak considered as a soldier—a council of war—preparations for a tremendous battle—swords and spears and muskets and ranjows—two gunners to one musket—how the engine is loaded—Bornean fighting tactics—advance of Sir J. Brooke’s troops—the rival armies chaff each other—the warrior Nacota recounts an instance of his able generalship—“you hit me, that’s all!”—the Dayak sumpitan—how it is carried, loaded, and discharged—poisoned arrows—the ilang-weapons of the Amazonian Indians—the pecuna and its use—its similitude to the Bornean sumpitan—the Indian blow-gun—a war dance among the Illanuns and Gillolos—head hunting in Borneo—fray between the Sigos and the Singé—a disgusting trophy—hanging up the heads—Sir J. Brooke’s defence of Bornean customs—the brain hunters of the Philippine Islands—La Gironiere’s experience of a brain feast—a horrible cup—the Bornean savage compared with others. Pages 88–106. |
| Chap. XXII.—Warfare among the North American Indians—wooing a war dream—companions in arms—the “squaw of sacrifice”—her horse, her medicine bag, and her pipe—on the march—no head scratching allowed—Indian war dances and speeches—bragging warriors—an exploit worth bragging of—what it is to be a “brave”—swallowing an Indian’s horse—shifting camp—praiseworthy care of the very old and very young—the belle of the party—“How, How”—an instance of Indian heroism—showing his enemies how a Chippewa can die—how the Sioux exhibited their admiration of said heroism—Mahtotopa the Mandan once more—How he fought a duel with the renowned Scheyenne—a precious scalp—another precious scalp and how it was obtained—the Indian warrior’s confidence in dreams—“where is my munedoo?”—wonderful power of a saw-bill munedoo—concerning the Indian canoe—its antiquity—the Algongian canoe—no nails or screws used in canoe building—boat building a job for a tailor—women boat builders—sea worthiness of the fragile vessels—warfare in Samoa—how to prevent hostilities—“we are come, and here are the knives to cut us up”—devotedness of the wives and sweethearts of Samoan braves—the Samoan’s war tools and symbols—his war tactics—four hundred prisoners burnt—the glorious distinction of cutting off a head—a remarkably close shave—dead warriors food for dogs—the brave Samoan mother—the king of Samoa’s great privilege—“Perhaps upwards the face”—imploring the royal clemency—a massacre of Christians—fate of the sandal wood getters—treachery of the Pine Islanders—the story of the capture of the “Sisters”—the avenging “powder”—settling accounts with a batch of convicts—two of the batch saved—their ingratitude—once more forgiven—the natives not as black as they are painted—a little story told by Mr. Coulter—the useful carronades—the remarks of the humane and outraged captain—considerable loss—very sorry, but couldn’t be helped!—a fancy picture, but a probable one. Pages 107–133. |
| Chap. XXIII.—Warfare in Figi—bole-bole or the challenging—“Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will”—Figian “fustian”—the missionary Williams’ opinion of the Figian as a man of war—war orators—battle field tactics—the fall of the first warrior—“the first rending of the root”—wearing a dead enemy as a necklace—fighting implements of the Figians—Tonga weapons—five-bladed swords—indignities practised on the bodies of the slain—how king Finow disposed of his warrior prisoners—the defiant Cacahoo—adopting the child of a dying enemy—heroism of Monfaho’s widow—Figian ship building—surprising skill of savage boat-builders—ordinary sea-women—superstition of Figian seamen—inviting the breeze—the warrior in New Zealand—confirmation of fighting men—pronouncing the Haha—“Go away, go away”—distribution of the locks of the slain—cooking the hearts of the warriors—cannibal feasts after the battle—the art of war in Australia—Australian war tools—the boomerang and its various uses—the “hicleman” and the “wammera”—celebrated victims to the Australian spear—Australian duels—thick heads and thin heads—the “satisfaction” of an Australian gentleman. Pages 134–155. |
| Chap. XXIV.—War among the savages of Africa—the tail-bearing heralds—great cry and little carnage—Caffre war dance—A Basuto’s war chant—the battle song of the renowned Cucutle—a Griqua Pitsho—a council of war—the chief’s address to the Barolongs and Batlapis—“Let every one speak his mind, and then I shall speak again”—some one speaks his mind rather freely—“you are rolled up in apathy; show yourself a man and a king”—a reproof to the kidney eaters—the African savage a better man than the American—Death before dishonour—archery in Eastern Africa—the cannibal Fans considered as bowmen—their war weapons generally—their poison darts, war knives and brain-hatchets—their shields of elephant hide—women warriors of Dahomey—a review of an army of the “fair” sex—King Gezo’s “fingers”—ambition of an elderly lady—“I long to kill an elephant to show the king my regard”—Gezo likened to a hen—the amazon standard-bearers—the lady soldiers indulge in parables—likewise in strong waters—the warrior in Abyssinia—pretty picture of a Galla chief—Omen birds—a non-believer in English gunnery—the sceptics convinced—a potent candle end—savage metallurgy—the value of a pair of bellows—the blacksmith in Papua—the king and the blacksmith—Le Vaillant turns bellows mender. Pages 156–182. |
| PART X. |
| INCIDENTS OF PERSONAL PERIL AND DISCOMFORT OF TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS. |
| Chap. XXV.—Pains and penalties of explorers and adventurers—the reader’s selfishness—Mr. Hutchinson’s experience of a night’s lodging at Brass, a western African town—his bed—his bedfellows—how stupid to have blown out the light!—the biting and scratching, and crawling within, and the everlasting cackle without—daylight, and the mystery solved—a night’s lodging on the banks of the Gambia—voices of the night—assailed by mosquitoes—“I smell the blood of an Englishman”—sleeping on ants and cockroaches—“Sitting up” for the night—an arboreal lodging—going up to bed—making oneself comfortable—half a cigar for supper—unpleasant neighbours—leopards and other gentle beasts below—mosquitoes above and around about—eleven hours’ roosting—the leafy couch abandoned—lost and starved—found and rejoiced—Doctor Livingstone’s savage experiences—one of many thousand nights—the grass cutter and the tent pitcher—the “kotla” or tent-fire—the sleepers, and the dogs who came and ate the blankets—the dish-washers and the cooks—every man his own washerwoman—the doctor’s strict cleanliness—“it is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever elevates a man in the eyes of the savage”—watchmen and watch-dogs—an alarming camping out incident—the African traveller’s greatest enemy, the little tsetse fly—its perfect harmlessness towards mankind and wild animals—its fatal affection for draught oxen and horses—symptoms of tsetse poison—the cattle of an entire tribe almost destroyed by the tsetse—the traveller in the desert of Eastern Africa—Mr. Burton’s experience—his account of a day’s march—rousing the camp—the porters loth to stir from the fire—“collect,” “pack,” “set out”—off at last—the African porter a stickler for prepayment—the privileges and perquisites of a Pagazi—his gorgeous attire and his insignia of office—how the Pagazi keeps tally of offenders on the road—mischievous firing of the huts—queer directions left by the Pagazi as to where water may be found—the ivory porters and how they carry their loads—average of the weights carried—no finery worn on the road—a use found for “bustles”—every man a bearer of weapons of defence—recreations on the road—signs of a halt—bravery of the porters—a hundred and fifty of them scared by a cow—rows on the road—broken heads no provocatives of ill blood—rammish modes of fighting—the African’s great objection to hurry—not used to it—daily life at home—quite happy on plenty of sleep, “pombe,” tobacco, and gossip—the domestic African given to gambling—“heads or tails”—high play—my grandmother against yours—eating, the sole aim of his life—forty winks after dinner—no admirer of the maxim of “early to bed”—the first approach of Europeans to a cannibal shore—three fish-hooks for a lobster—queer pockets to put fish-hooks in—smelling the place the white man touched—the chief’s distrust of a chair—gigantic savages—barefaced attempt to steal a cabin-boy—bent on thieving—an attempt to make off with a mastiff and his kennel—more successful with a kitten—the dog recovers his spirits and makes free with the calf of a thief’s leg—summary dismissal of the unscrupulous guests. Pages 183–203. |
| PART XI. |
| RELIGIOUS RITES AND SUPERSTITIONS. |
| Chap. XXVI.—Religion in savage lands—the mysterious “still small voice”—its existence indissociable from human nature—“incomprehensible” synonymous with “evil” in the savage mind—nothing so incomprehensive as death—nothing so much feared—death the savage’s poisoned honey-pot—the greegree-man must be patronized at any price—Samoan mythology—Tangaloa and his daughter—she descends and plants a creeping plant on the barren rock—what the plant grew to—the man who pushed the heavens up—the young men who resolved to visit the moon—the one was smoked up and the other climbed up—how the moon came down and took up a scoffing woman—the child of the sun —that great luminary in danger of being strangled with a rope—“Oh! have mercy on me and spare my life”—a Figian version of the flood—toilsome journey of the soul from earth to heaven—the savage charm—desperate endeavours to cheat the grim ferrymen—quarrelsome Figian gods—a singular case of abduction—the lonely Naiogabui and the daring Ravovonikaugawa—success of the expedition—Rokoua gets scent of the elopement and goes in pursuit—he disguises himself—all fair in love and war—failure of Rokoua’s stratagem—he tries once more—this time disguised as a fishwoman—the wicked Naiogabui betrays her father, who is knocked on the head—the Hades of the Samoans—miscellaneous gods of the Samoans—a deity for every village—Samoan form of oath—the cup of truth—mourning the destruction of a god’s image—the most fashionable god in Polynesia—human sacrifices—whole families set apart for this purpose, to be fetched when wanted—sudden death to the victim—Tapu—its ancient institution—universal influence of the tapu—Mr. Ellis’s opinion of the working of “tapu”—muzzled pigs and blindfolded chickens—tapued pigs—the ceremony of taking “tapu” off the porkers—the princes and noblemen exhibit their prowess in carrying pigs about—presenting his majesty with pig’s fry—a tremendous feast—The institution of Tapu in New Zealand—inconvenience of being tapued—a good jacket lost through the superstition—The terrible tinder box—how to secure a canoe—the chief’s sacred head—the sacred kumara grounds—the sacred pole and the missionaries—the chief’s backbone—the difference between noa and tapu—tapuing a river—the Pakeka and the iron pot—one of the best uses of tapu—its advantages and disadvantages—Tapu among the Samoans—snake and shark and thunder tapus—Born tapus—witchcraft in New Zealand—Introduction of an Englishman to a “retired” witch—how he found her—she declines to act, having given up the business and become a “praying” woman—she is persuaded, and sets about humbugging the visitors—the little beetle in the thatch—the god begging a blanket—the Englishman not perfectly convinced—Religion among the Dayaks of the land and sea—the supreme Tewata—extent of their religious system—“physic” for sacred anointing—the four chief spirits of the Dayak belief—how man became less than the spirits—what becomes of the Dayak when he dies—the artful “Umot Perusong”—“Mino Buau,” or warrior ghosts—alarming apparition of a headless dog—Dayak methods of propitiating the gods—lucky days, omens, and warnings—the ceremony of making brothers—how Singauding became the brother of Mr. St. John—a sanguinary cigarette—how the Kiniahs enter into the bands of brotherhood—making brothers in Western Africa—pledged in blood—Dayak good and evil spirits—what it is to dream of Singallong Burong the god of war—delicate way of alluding to small-pox—has “he” left you?—the Karam of Baram and his god Totadungan—the Dayak who went to heaven—what he saw—the sacred Bornean bull—Dayak superstitions concerning dogs and snakes—the legend of the painted dog—the savage of North America and his “happy hunting ground”—“Kitchi-manitou” and “Matchi-munedoo”—the North American Indians’ version of the flood—a savage Noah—how the earth was reformed—the loon, the beaver, and the musk-rat—a legend of Kitchi-Manitou—he meets the first man—pitying his disconsolate condition he finds him a mate, Mami by name—the happy meeting—their garden of Eden with its “tables and chairs and glass windows”—Kitchi-Manitou warns them against the fruit of the evil tree—Mami is tempted and falls—she invites her husband and his weakness is too strong for him—anger of Kitchi-Manitou—banishment of the erring pair—they begin their worldly cares—Mami’s husband finds a book—finding it too big to carry about he declines to appropriate it—he is furnished with one of convenient size in which he learns the art of medicine—the Indian who made a return trip to heaven—how he got there, what he saw, and how he got back to earth again—the man of the fire-stone—his great enemy Manabozho—they have a terrible fight and the fire-stone man is beaten—how Manabozho exerted himself for the good of mankind—his friend Chibiabos—the Manitous play Chibiabos a cunning trick—grief of Manabozho—the friends are united—discovering a “thunder’s nest”—Hans Hansom and the beaver trapper—“second sight” among the Winnebagos—the prophecy—its verification—the dream of Little Wasp—Indian picture-writing—signs of the different tribes—what stands for “kill”—a narration in pantomime—Crashey Jane’s compliments to the editor—Mr. Catlin’s Indian experiences—he paints the “old bear”—the artist is made much of and likes it—the benighted savages kiss the hem of Mr. Catlin’s swallow-tail—he does not get on quite so well with the ladies—all difficulties conquered—Mandan festival of the deluge—“seeking whom he may devour”—discomfiture and flight of the prince of darkness—covetousness of the North American Indians—Mr. Murray’s experience on this head—the old gentleman who coveted the elastic jacket—how he found it a tight fit—“a good creature in the ice-month”—the Ojibbeway nations of old—the Pawnees—the Delawares—the confederate six nations—the Shawnees—From North America to Abyssinia—religious ceremonies observed in that country—mothers of small account—purification of houses and platters—the Kalijas and the Lubas—concerning Boudas—Bouda exorcists—Mr. Stern makes the acquaintance of a Bouda—the woman’s tremendous struggles and arrival of the exorcist—his operations—he interrogates the Bouda and obtains from it some interesting information—its strange vagaries before it consents to take its departure—the Zar—Religion of the Dahoman—the food of the sacred buzzards—fetish snakes and the punishment for harming them—the Bonny people and the jewjews—popular superstitions—the king’s charms against witchcraft—the sacrifice to the bar—the unconscious victim—his doom—sacred pig’s jaws—“talk and pray”—devil worship—the “Sukia” of the Mosquito shore—her unprepossessing appearance—Mr. Bard gives her a piece of calico on condition she stands in the midst of a blazing fire—she earns the calico and lives to wear it—the belly gods of the Tinguians—Madagascar “the country without a god”—“Sikidy”—the ceremony of touching the bull—King Peppel’s religious convictions—a palaver unpalatable to his sable majesty—“Suppose God were here I must kill him”—a modest wish to live for ever—Mr. Moffat and the African king—startling news of a universal resurrection—“will all the slain in battle arise?”—a Namaqua chief’s religious ideas—frying the sun in a pot—“when we are dead we are dead”—Boles-ki-bo—a Basutos witch-finder—guessing made easy—end of the farce, commencement of the tragedy—unclean meats of the Damaras—on the manufacture of rain—drought at Kuruman—the rain-maker sent for—the commands of the great benefactor—he churns rain from a milk sack—goat rain and ox rain—the ceremony of the blighted tree—the sprinkling of the people with a zebra’s tail dipped in water—still no rain—he demands a baboon “perfect to a hair” and is not sorry that it cannot be procured—he must have the heart of a lion—he must have something else too horrible to name, and has it—still the heavens are inexorable—the last appeal, “It is the face of the white man that scares the rain clouds”—unpleasant predicament for a man with a white face—the impostor’s end—A fine day for a butcher’s knife—Figian coming of age—how Mr. Petherick “Barnumized” the natives as a rain-maker—perpetrates something not many degrees short of blasphemy—the artful device of the floured flies—a Sabbath in Equatorial Africa—The worship of Njambai—paying for peeping—“who bewitched the king?”—the appeal to Ilogo—an unlucky wizard—appalling end of a witch man—Mfumbo the all-powerful—what came of felling a “devil-tree”—the business of a Mganga—how he points out the road the traveller should travel—King Passol’s dancing fetish—his extraordinary performance on stilts—“he be de debil”—a bal-masqué—“dance, oh snake! for this is indeed a happy day”—old King Kalabar—“Nabikems”—Kalabar fash—A Yoruba man’s opinion of the chameleon. Pages 204–336. |
| PART XII. |
| SAVAGE DEATH AND BURIAL. |
| Chap. XXVII.—Disrespect for human life not synonymous with personal indifference to death—burial ceremonials in cannibal Figi—the Figians no respecters of persons as regards this custom—preparations for burying a living king—the “grave grass”—paving the king’s grave—an affectionate son—“see, his body moves, but it does so unconsciously”—Figian symbols of mourning—mourning suits of leaves—the “causing to laugh”—murder of the Figian sick—“pray don’t bury me”—sexton’s work—the poorest savage sure of a comfortable “narrow bed”—the howling of a dog considered ominous—ditto, a cat’s clawing on the grave of a woman—how death came into the world—the sacrifice of fingers—the token of the bloody apron—the art of embalming—the corpse-praying priest—the “sin hole”—ceremonies at the burial of King Finow—heroic appeals to the departed king by his warriors—the scene at the sepulchre—the journey of the sand bearers—shaving the head and burning the cheek bones—twenty days’ mourning—the Mee too Buggi—singular expression of fidelity—Finow’s faithful fishermen—the Sandwich Islander’s badge of mourning—knocking out the teeth—cutting the ears—putting the tongue in black—a melancholy procession—the house of Keave—a pitiful spectacle—no admittance to the sacred building—the Pahio tabu—Heathen cities of refuge. Pages 337–360. |
| Chap. XXVIII.—Burial rites in Samoa—burying alive—taking his pigs to a better market—a Samoan inquest—Samoan wakes—carrying a dead body about—Samoan coffins—dexterous embalming—the mysterious grave fires—a trap to catch a lost soul— burial customs of the New Zealanders—ornamenting the dead body—the sexton in Borneo—the weeping-stone of the Permujans—burning the dead in Western Sarawak—the burning less efficacious than burying—the hereditary office of sexton—difficulties of finding a sexton—sepulchral rites of the Sea Dayaks—useful things for consumption in the next world placed in the grave—Sea Dayaks who fall in battle not disturbed—Mourning among the Indians of North America—dirtiness the most favourite symbol—tombs in the air—exorcising an evil spirit—custom of the Sacs and Foxes—of the Tahkalis—of the New Caledonians—a New Caledonian suttee—barbarous treatment of the widow—her scorching, and her three years’ mourning and drudgery—the village of the dead—burial unknown among the Mandans—a Mandan place of skulls—praying to the dead—singular ceremonies attending the interment of an Ojibbeway—Ojibbeway mourners—disposing of the property of the dead—a Chippewa ghost story—an invisible presence—a spirited ghost—veneration for the dead—a royal funeral. Pages 361–385. |
| Chap. XXIX.—Funeral rites in Damara land—dutiful behaviour of the eldest son of the deceased—a Damara tomb—offering a pail of milk at the grave—the Koossan method of disposing of their dead—deserting the sick—duties of the dead Koossan’s wife—returning in the night to burn down the house—the ox-tail hair necklace worn by the Koossan widower—Koossan chiefs buried in the cattle-fold—the magic woman among the Koossans—no recovering spilt water—no cure, no pay—fate of the unlucky mortal whom the magic woman denounces—death in Central Africa—waking a defunct man—no half-mourning among savages—the guests who are invited to the wake—Bota woga—a tremendous boose—a slave barracoon at Santanga—the sight that M. Chaillu saw—a thousand bleaching skeletons—funeral ceremonies in Angola—a jollification in consequence of the death of his mother—the mortal remains of a Bechuana—planting the top of the head with grass—the burying-ground at Fetish point—disinclination of the natives to approach the place of graves—the tomb of old King Passol—a wealthy grave-holder—burying at Anbago, Western Africa—the bereaved wife carried a pick-a-back—security for “Gungo”—a Barrodo Beondo funeral—occupying the bed of the deceased—“making a cry” among the Bulloms and Timannecs—King Archibongo and his devil house—the painted widows—the “chop-nut” test—Malagasey burial rites—ceremonials observed on the death of Prince Razahooatrino—lying in state—the attendant slaves and the fly fanners—subscription among the mourners to pay the funeral expenses—1500 oxen slain and eaten at a funeral feast—stepping over dead oxen—no special places for burial in Madagascar—death in Australia—the name of the dead never mentioned by the surviving relatives—perching dead old women on tree boughs—“take that for dying!”—the Abyssinian a believer in the doctrine of purgatory—dancing and singing and face-scratching—funeral of an Ailat man—how the Sambo Indian is buried—the body in the pitpan—running away with the corpse to cheat the devil—artful device of the corpse-bearers—cutting down the palm trees—the way to find out if “Wulasha” has been cheated—what the traveller Stephens saw at La Rayas, in Mexico—a Christian burial—death in Dahomey—the very last grand custom—the king’s ingenious device for the more ready performance of human sacrifice—a victim saved—how a Dahoman king is buried—providing his majesty with means for paying his way in the next world. Pages 386–418. |
FROM DESIGNS BY HARDEN S. MELVILLE.
ENGRAVED BY H. NEWSOM WOODS.
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| FORBE’S RECEPTION BY THE KING OF DAHOMEY | 1 |
| A MALAGASEY BALL | 52 |
| BORNEO | 54 |
| AUSTRALIAN WEAPONS | 66 |
| POLYNESIAN WAR CANOE | 67 |
| WAR DANCE OF NEW ZEALANDERS | 88 |
| DAYAK AND MALAY WEAPONS | 93 |
| POLYNESIAN GOODS BOAT | 106 |
| NORTH AMERICAN WAR WEAPONS | 111 |
| A CHIPPEWA WARRIOR | 115 |
| POLYNESIAN WAR TOOLS | 122 |
| THE EUROPEAN’S HUT IN THE WILDERNESS | 133 |
| TORRES’ STRAITS CANOE | 147 |
| AN AUSTRALIAN DUEL | 154 |
| AFRICAN ARMS | 162 |
| THE UNIVERSAL WEAPON | 168 |
| A SAVAGE BOWMAN | 169 |
| PAPUAN BLACKSMITHS | 180 |
| THE EXPLORER’S HIGHWAY | 183 |
| THE TWO DOGS OR NONE | 192 |
| BOATMEN OF ROCKINGHAM BAY | 203 |
| THE TRUE WORD EXPOUNDED IN WESTERN AFRICA | 204 |
| SAMOAN IDOL WORSHIP | 218 |
| A POLYNESIAN IDOL | 221 |
| SPECTRE OF A HEADLESS DOG | 240 |
| MAKING BROTHERS | 243 |
| THE COVETOUS PAWNEE | 275 |
| AN IROQUOIS WARRIOR | 280 |
| A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF BOUDA | 289 |
| PUNISHMENT FOR KILLING FETISH SNAKES | 293 |
| CEREMONY OF TOUCHING THE BULL | 301 |
| DIVINATION SCENE | 307 |
| MAKING RAIN | 312 |
| DU CHAILLU’S PEEP INTO A HEATHEN TEMPLE | 321 |
| THE WIZARD IN THE STOCKS | 324 |
| INHABITANTS OF THE FAN COUNTRY | 336 |
| BURYING ALIVE IN FIGI | 337 |
| MOURNING SUIT OF LEAVES | 341 |
| FUNERAL OBSEQUIES OF KING FINOW | 354 |
| A SAMOAN SEPULCHRE | 364 |
| A MANDAN CHIEF | 374 |
| MANDAN PLACE OF SKULLS | 375 |
| “HE HEARD THEM RECOUNT THEIR VALIANT DEEDS” | 380 |
| DAMARA TOMB | 387 |
| AFRICAN WAKE | 392 |
| THE “MASTER OF LIFE” IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA | 395 |
| THE VERY LAST DAHOMAN “CUSTOM” | 414 |
[1]
Forbes’s Reception by the King of Dahomey.
The Savage considered as a child of nature—A saltatory welcome—Gezo, King of Kings—Items of Dahoman royal treasure—Distribution of the presents—Kings and Ambassadors joining in the scramble—The human sacrifices—A “Grand Custom” of the year 1862—The King of Abó—The terrible Neam Nam—Browowdi, King of Issapoo—A King of Old Kalabar—King Eyo Honesty—The order of Egbo—The Mambo of Lunda—The Jaga.
At first sight it would seem hard to show a greater anomaly than an unthinking instinct-obeying nation of savages consenting to be controlled and governed by a fellow barbarian, equally unthinking, and morally powerless; and the said[2] anomaly is the more striking when the savage is viewed as the vulgar view him,—as a free-born “child of nature,” intolerant of rule, and guided in all his behaviour by certain instinctive high-souled sentiments, and vast powers of mind, that require only cultivation to fit their possessor for the achievement of all that ever was yet successfully attempted by man. This, however, is very far from the fact. Without doubt, and as we have only to refer back to our own ancient barbarism to be convinced, the germ of perfect manhood lies in every savage, but like the ore of gold and iron, the true metal lies deep, and to free it from dross and make its lustre apparent is a process neither easy nor rapid. Again, like golden ore, in which the precious deposit shows here and there with a sheen that undoubtedly reveals its presence, does the savage’s mind manifest its existence in fitful flashes and glimmerings, that, alas! only reveal to him what a helpless wretch he is, and what a terribly responsible thing is life, with children and wife, and all its other precious belongings, and which, in an instant, may be spilt and vanish like a capsized gourd of water.
This—the end of life—is the end of everything with our brother the savage; life to him is only good according to the ease it enables him to get in the land he lives in. The first business of his life is to make himself comfortable; the second is how to hold such appurtenances to his comfort as he has gained. If he is a little man, any man a trifle bigger coming his way may strip him, seize his wife and children as slaves, knock him on the head, and appropriate his hut; if he is a big man any two big men who choose to conspire may serve him in the same cruel way: what then remains to be done, but to combine for the good of the common weal? which may be aptly likened to a common wheel—the chief being the stock, the various headmen, or councillors, the spokes, or spokesmen, and the fellowes, just as many savage fellows as the tribe, or band, or tire embraces.
Still, who is to be “king,” or “chief,” or “Jaga,” or “Mambo,” or whatever else you please, as representing the stock or common centre of the said wheel? About this question, however, we need not trouble ourselves, and simply because, just as the queen bee is born in a hive, so are men born commanders of men; that is, originally; the fact of their descendants degenerating, and being totally unfit to wield a sceptre is nothing to the purpose. Custom and Fashion then step in, and these two of themselves are monarchs potent enough to settle the gravest question[3] that could possibly arise, even in the most civilized countries in the world. Wherever a leader is wanted, a leader will be found; he may be a wrong-headed leader, or conceited, or cruel, or arbitrary; but so sure as he remains at the helm, for the short space only of a year, you may depend that he is no make-believe; and the very worst you can say of such an one is, that it is a pity that a king should possess so many bad qualities; that he deserves to die for them, if you please; nay, go as far as killing him, and how different are your feelings than though you had killed a merely contemptible upstart.
Of course I talk of “killing” as a figure of speech, in its extremest sense. There, however, is one king now existing whom, if with his life would end the hideous work of blood and carnage prevailing in his nation, might well be wished dead. I allude to the King of Dahomey, who, as a trafficker in human beings, dead and alive, is an ulcer on the face of the world; a man whose guilt is so black that it may never be washed away, though they laved him in rivers of water as deep as those of tears and blood that he has caused to flow.
We hear very little of this potentate. Now and then an adventurous European will penetrate his awful domains, and give to the world some account of the horrors he sees and hears; once in a while we read in the African News that “the King of Dahomey threatens a massacre on such or such a place,” or that the barbarous “annual custom” is about to commence, with an enumeration of the victims already secured, and whose blood is required to “water the late king’s grave.” Of all Englishmen who have witnessed the abominations of Dahomey, none have recorded them more graphically than Commander Forbes, and it is from his account chiefly that what is here related of Dahomey is derived.
Commander Forbes’s first introduction to the King of Dahomey was, to say the least, calculated to make a lasting impression on his memory. Within a short distance of the royal residence Mr. Forbes and his party halted at the house of a friend, and attired themselves in full uniforms, and then moved forward to some shady trees to await the arrival of the carbooceers who were to conduct them to the royal presence. After the adventurous Europeans came a crowd of hammock-men and other Dahoman followers. About a quarter of a mile from the halting place stood a vast assembly of carbooceers and soldiers with umbrellas of state, flat-topped and ornamented like those of the Chinese, and banners of every hue and most varied devices. Beside the Dahoman standards, each of[4] which was ornamented by a human skull, floated the national flags of France, England, Portugal, and Brazil, whilst every carbooceer had his own particular pennon.
The first chief who advanced towards Commander Forbes’s party from this gay crowd of carbooceers was Boh-peh, the governor of the capital, dressed in a country cloth wrapped round his body, a slouched hat, necklaces of coral and other beads, and armed with a handsome sword. Behind him came a retinue of soldiers, his standard, his umbrella of state, and his stool of rank; and, lastly, a band of most discordant music. Arriving in front of Forbes’s party, he bowed, and then marched from right to left round their seats three times, completing each circuit with a low obeisance. On his third round he discharged three muskets, and danced a short measure, then advanced and shook hands, and seated himself on his stool of office, which its bearer had placed on the Englishman’s right hand.
Ah-hoh-peh, the king’s brother, and Gaseh-doh, the chief of the carbooceers of Dahomey, followed, with similar attendants and ceremonies. When the whole party were seated, a body of the royal household, having half their heads shaved, took position in front, and sang a hymn of welcome to the Englishmen. The Dahoman guard were showily dressed in scarlet, trimmed with beads and other ornaments, with their heads covered by silver caps, some of which were distinguished by a pair of small silver horns. In his right hand, each carried a horse-tail whip, with which he beat time to the air of the chant. Next advanced Poh-neh-soo (at once a military officer, court-fool, and headsman) and his party of blunderbuss men, who likewise fired a salute, and then drank healths with the Europeans; after which, the latter entered their hammocks, and the entire party proceeded towards the palace, amid the firing of muskets and short brass guns.
The travellers found the palace of Dange-lah-cordeh surrounded at a distance of twenty feet with human skulls, many of which had crumbled with time, or had blown down. The square of the palace was filled with armed people sitting on their hams, the polished barrels of their muskets standing up like a forest. Under a thatched gateway sat the king surrounded by his immediate wives; while on each side sat the amazons all in uniform, armed and accoutred; and in the centre of the square squatted the males. Hundreds of banners and umbrellas enlivened the scene, and a constant firing from great guns and small arms increased the excitement.
[5]
When near the king’s seat, the European party came to a halt, while the carbooceers bowed down and kissed the dust. Passing before the throne, they bowed and made the circuit of the square three times, the carbooceers prostrating themselves each time. Then the Englishmen stept from their hammocks and approached the king, who had been reclining, but now rose, and several discordant bands struck up a quick step, whilst guns were fired, and all shouted, except the ministers and carbooceers, who prostrated and threw dust over their heads, as Mr. Forbes advanced and shook hands with the king.
King Gézo, of Dahomey, was about forty-eight years of age, good looking, with nothing of the negro feature, and his face wanting several shades of being black; his appearance was commanding, and his countenance intellectual, though stern in the extreme. Indeed, he is described as being short of positively handsome only by a slight squint. He was plainly dressed in a loose robe of yellow silk, slashed with satin stars, and half moons, Mandingo sandals, and a Spanish hat trimmed with gold lace.
Taking their seats facing the royal mat, the party entered into a complimentary conversation, after which the ministers were introduced by name to our countrymen. His Majesty then enquired if his guests would like to see a review of his amazons, and of course his guests were delighted at the offer. Three regiments were paraded, one being distinguished by a white cap ornamented with the blue alligator, another by a blue cross, and the third by a blue crown. The officers were recognized by their coral necklaces and superior dresses; while each carried a small whip which they freely plied when required. Firing, rushing hither and thither, and advancing to the throne to address the king, were the chief features of the review; at the conclusion of which two amazon heralds, bearing long trumpets, blew a blast and then blazoned forth the numerous names of Gézo, King of Kings.
The king having asked Commander Forbes to drink, rose, and with his glass in hand tapped that of each of his guests; then there thundered forth a salute of guns almost drowned by the shouts of the multitude. The ministers and carbooceers danced, and the ladies held clothes before the king. Men must not see the king eat or drink. On the whole it was Mr. Forbes’ distinct conviction that no king could have been more civil or more condescending.
The same gentleman had the good (?) fortune to be present at the[6] ceremony of Ek-bah-tong-ek-bah, or “display of the king’s wealth,” an exhibition of a perfectly unique character and finding no parallel throughout the world. The fundamental principle of the King of Dahomey’s government is profuse generosity to his subjects. His constant aim is to inculcate the notion that his riches are boundless and his good nature none the less so. How hollow and fictitious are both these assumptions was evident enough to Commander Forbes, although for his head’s sake he dare not express such a conviction while in the land of “Grand Customs.”
“It was little more than seven o’clock a.m. when we were informed that a royal messenger had arrived to summon us to witness the custom to be performed on this day—the Ek-bah-tong-ek-bah, or “display of the king’s wealth.” At a little distance from our gate the road was fenced off and a guard set on the temporary gate, so as to prevent any one entering who was not invited to bear a part in the proceedings of the day. They who wished to inspect the royal treasures which were to be shown to the people assembled in the Ahjahee market-place.
“When we arrived at the palace square at the foot of the ladder leading to the palace house, on each side were three human heads recently decapitated, the blood still oozing; on the threshold of the entrance gate was a pool of blood from six human sacrifices over which we had to step. In the square was a huge model of an elephant caparisoned on wheels, on which the king is drawn when going short journeys. The king never walks, nor rides on horseback, but is either carried in a hammock, or drawn on this elephant, or in a carriage or wheeled chair. In the centre of the court-yard stood a crimson tent or pavilion forty feet high, ornamented with emblems of human and bullock’s heads, skulls, and other devices equally barbarous and disgusting. On the top was the figure of a Dahoman standard-bearer (or half-heads, as they are called, having half their heads shaved) bearing a standard, having for a device a skull in a calabash standing on three other skulls. About the yard were many flags of all colours, some having as their devices men cutting off other’s heads, and others tying prisoners, and many national flags, amongst which were several Union Jacks. In and about the pavilion were the female host of ministers, carbooceers, amazons, wives, and virgins. The king had not arrived; all were gaily dressed, and armed, and accoutred.
“On the neutral ground where we stood facing the pavilion (while the mayo and ce-a-boo-gan grovelled in the dust like mandarins kow-towing to the royal chair) roamed an ostrich, an emu, several dwarfs, hunchbacks,[7] and albinoes, besides troops of dogs of almost every country and variety. All the ministers and carbooceers were arrayed in red-striped flowing robes laden with necklaces of coral and other beads. Each wore a scimitar, a short sword, and a club.
“Presently, under a salute fired from musketoons and small brass pieces within the court and cannon outside, the king arrived, dressed in a white silk flowing robe flowered in blue and a gold-laced hat, and took his seat in a sofa under the pavilion. Forthwith the bands struck up and the heralds proclaimed that Gézo, the Leopard and the Hawk, had taken his place; fifty-eight ministers and carbooceers at the same time marched three times in single file, and at the third time all prostrated and kissed the dust. So soon as this ceremony was concluded the business of the day commenced. This is a public display of the monarch’s wealth, carried on the heads of slaves through the town to the market and back again. The procession consisted of between six and seven thousand people.”
To enumerate, however, every item of “wealth” carried by these six or seven thousand individuals would certainly be to weary the reader, even though she were a lady, loving, next to possessing gold and gems, to hear and read about them; besides, there is much among the Dahomey “crown jewels” which the said lady reader could match in point of value in her wash-house or lumber-room. Let us take a few notes of the members of the procession:—
Head bunseh’s mother in scarlet, wearing a Life Guardsman’s helmet and plumes, and attended by a lady in Charles II. hat and plumes, both magnificently dressed.
[8]
8 Malam’s wives.
Band of 20.
Guard of 100.
Band of 12.
4 women carrying pans of skulls.
2 carrying jars surmounted with skulls.
1 carrying a large pan of skulls.
1 carrying a banner.
2 carrying umbrellas over the king’s women and attendants, in crimson cloth dresses and slouched hats trimmed with gold.
Band of 20.
Guard of 30.
2 women carrying pans of skulls.
2 carrying jars of skulls.
2 carrying a banner and two umbrellas each.
King’s grandmother, in head-dress of silver, crimson and silver robe and train, held by a maiden bearing a gold-headed stick.
One of the King’s grandfather’s widows in scarlet and gold.
1 man carrying a banner.
1 carrying a tray containing three human skulls.
The King’s washing-tub borne by 30 guards.
2 men carrying a scarlet and gold sedan chair.
300 carrying dishes with a basket in each.
55 carrying blue glass goblets.
50 carrying white glass goblets.
6 carrying a drum trimmed with skulls.
1 carrying umbrella ornamented with eighty human jaw-bones.
Men carrying a native sofa. Etc. etc. etc.
All the possessions of the king, in fact, from his grandmother to his washing-tub, were to be found, and made no doubt as a whole a tremendous display, though it is by no means unreasonable to say that the sum of the “king’s wealth” brought under the hammer of a London auctioneer would realize little more than would the contents of any first-rate villa-residence at Clapham or Richmond.
It should be stated, however, that as well as this household gear, the royal exchequer was brought out and carried in measures. In this again the king was fortunate as regards opportunity for display; cowries form the currency of Dahomey—and goodness knows the many thousands of[9] these it takes to make a single English sovereign—therefore it was easy enough to arrange that, although in form of money the king possessed no more than a little over a thousand pounds, porter after porter should go trooping past, each with such a load of money as made the mouths of the spectators water with envy.
Well, their longing was not to remain entirely ungratified. The king, although a vastly rich, is not a greedy man; and annually he makes presents to one and all of his loyal subjects; not in a hole and corner sort of way, but publicly—with the mob before him, and the riches, the cowries, the bales of cloth, the tobacco, and the kegs of rum in heaps and piles and pyramids at his elbow; and scrambles the astonishing gifts fairly and without favour—or so it seems. Let us, however, see what Mr. Forbes has to say on the subject.
“On the last day of May, commenced the custom of the Ek-que-noo-ah-toh-meh, or throwing the presents from the Ah-toh. It is on this day human sacrifices are offered by the king among his gifts to his people. In the centre of the market-place a platform was erected twelve feet in height, enclosed by a parapet breast high. The whole was covered with cloths of all colours, and surmounted by tents, gaudy umbrellas, and banners of varied hues and devices, among which, as usual, were several Union Jacks. On the west front of the Ah-toh, which must have been at least one hundred feet square, was a barrier of the prickly acacia, and within this were the victims for the day’s sacrifice, lashed in baskets and canoes as on yesterday. A dense naked mob occupied the area, whilst a guard of soldiers prevented them from bearing down the barrier. Beyond, in all directions, were groups of people collected round the banners and umbrellas of the different ministers and cabooceers. The naked mob consisted of the soldiers of the king, his brothers and sons, the ministers and higher cabooceers: each carried a grass-cloth bag round his waist; and the actual business of the day was a public display of the generosity of the king, who scrambles goods of all kinds among these warriors.
“The king had preceded us, and as we took our seats under a canopy to the right of the Ah-toh, His Majesty appeared on the platform under the shade of a handsome umbrella of crimson velvet and gold, dressed in an old black waistcoat, a white nightcap, and a cloth round his loins, and was greeted with loud shouts from the military expectants, who now formed into bands, and carrying their officers on their shoulders, marched past the royal position, the king’s own taking the lead. This they did three times,[10] and then halted immediately under the king’s position, who harangued them on the impropriety of fighting during the scramble, and having thrown a few cowries by way of trial, commanded us to join him.
“Ascending the ladder the appearance was truly novel: in three separate heaps in different parts of the platform were three thousand heads of cowries, several heaps of cloths, rum in kegs, and rolls of tobacco; one side was occupied by tents for the royal wives; while others were grouped about in different parts of the platform in gaudy dresses. At the upper end stood the king surrounded by his ministers, and at the lower were, under canopies of showy umbrellas, two tables bearing liquors and glasses, one for the cha-cha, the other for ourselves. After taking our seats we were directed to stand under an umbrella facing the mob, and now commenced in real earnest the scramble, the king labouring hard throwing down cowries, cloth, tobacco, etc. The cowries appeared to be the property of the lucky ones who caught them, but the cloths were instantly handed to the officers, and if not, a fight ensued that was terrible to behold.
“The naked multitude emitted an effluvium only to be compared to the fetid atmosphere of a slave ship, and as the mass oscillated, there arose a vapour like the miasma of a swamp, as they were perfectly bathed with perspiration.
“Besides throwing gifts to the soldiers, His Majesty was all smiles and liberality in his donations to the ministers and a number of others; but to no one was any large sum given. At one time he sent us a basket containing ten heads of cowries and two pieces of cloth as a present, and at another a constant supply of cowries and cloths to scramble among the mob.
“Among the recipients of the royal bounty were two kings and several ambassadors, including one from Ashantee called Cocoa Sautee.
“Towards noon the brigantine on wheels put off to discharge her cargo of rum, tobacco, and cowries, which were added to the heaps on the platform. The king’s party of soldiers keeping together, were evidently the principal recipients, and we soon found that something like an equal distribution among them was aimed at. A captain of musquetoon-men, named Poh-veh-soh, at once a military officer, court fool, and headsman, caught my attention, and I threw him three pieces of cloth full of cowries; on receiving the third he was ordered off the ground. Rum was distributed to the élite on the platform, and a breakfast provided for us, besides food for the ministers and wives.
[11]
“By two o’clock one of the heaps of one thousand heads of cowries had been thrown away and part of another given to the higher classes. Some three or four hundred pieces of cloth, a few kegs of rum, and rolls of tobacco, having all disappeared, His Majesty retired to rest awhile.
“Would to God that I could here close the account of this day’s proceedings, simply detailing the barbarous policy of raising the worst passions of man in order to make people believe in the profuse distribution of a pay which if doled out individually would be a mere pittance. The crowd can have no idea of the sum scrambled for; all they know is that a continuous shower is kept up for seven hours, and they consider it must be immense. Even if a man gets none he is content to know that he has been unfortunate, and should he proclaim his ill-luck he would not be believed, each supposing the other to be disguising the real quantity he has gained.
“During the royal absence a dead silence reigned as if by general consent; when by accident it was broken it was reinforced by the eunuchs sounding their metal bells, tolling the knell of eleven human beings. Out of fourteen now brought on the platform, we, the unworthy instruments of the Divine will, succeeded in saving the lives of three. Lashed in their baskets these sturdy men met the gaze of their persecutors with a firmness perfectly astonishing. Not a sigh was breathed. In all my life I never saw such coolness so near death. It did not seem real, yet it soon proved frightfully so. One monster placed his finger to the eyes of a victim who hung down his head, but finding no moisture drew upon himself the ridicule of his fiendish coadjutors. Ten of the human offerings to the bloodthirsty mob, and an alligator, and a cat, were guarded by soldiers, the other four by amazons.
“In the meantime the king returned, and calling us from our seats at the further end of the platform, asked if we should wish to witness the sacrifice. With horror we declined, and begged to be allowed to save a portion of them. After some conversation with his courtiers, seeing him wavering, I offered him a hundred dollars each for the first and last of the ten, while at the same time Mr. Beecroft made a similar offer for the first of the four, which was accepted, and the three were immediately unlashed from their precarious position, but forced to remain spectators of the horrid deed to be done on their less fortunate countrymen. What must have been their thoughts?
“The king insisted on our viewing the place of sacrifice. Immediately[12] under the royal stand within the break of acacia bushes stood seven or eight fell ruffians, some armed with clubs, others with scimetars, grinning horribly. As we approached the mob yelled fearfully and called upon the king ”to feed them—they were hungry.” It was at a similar exhibition that Achardee (President of Jena) while looking into the pit with the king was seized, thrown down, and murdered on the spot. Disgusted beyond the power of description we retired to our seats, where also the cha-cha had retreated; not so his brothers, for I regret to say they remained delighted spectators of the agonies of the death of these innocent victims. As we reached our seats a fearful yell rent the air. The victims were held high above the heads of their bearers, and the naked ruffians thus acknowledged the munificence of their prince. Silence again ruled, and the king made a speech, stating that of his prisoners he gave a portion to his soldiers, as his father and grandfather had done before. Having called their names, the one nearest was divested of his clothes, the foot of the basket placed on the parapet, when the king gave the upper part an impetus and the victim fell at once into the pit beneath. A fall of upwards of twelve feet might have stunned him, and before sense could return the head was cut off and the body thrown to the mob, who, now armed with clubs and branches, brutally mutilated and dragged it to a distant pit, where it was left as food for the beasts and birds of prey. After the third victim had thus been sacrificed the king retired and the chiefs and slave dealers completed the deed which the monarch blushed to finish.”
Again I would remind the reader that this horrible business is not a thing of the past but of the present. True it was in the years 1849–50 that Mr. Forbes witnessed the horrors he describes, but had he been in Dahomey in 1859–60 he would have witnessed as bad, or worse. Here indeed, and taken from the Times newspaper, is an account of the very last Dahoman “Grand Custom.”
“The following information from Dahomey has been received at the Church Missionary House, from the commander of Her Majesty’s ship Griffin, at Little Popo, August 6th, 1862:—
“Sir,—I think it my duty to lay before you, with as little delay as possible, the following information concerning Dahomey:
“On the 5th of August, when at anchor off Little Popo, I received a letter from the shore, stating that Mr. Euschart, a Dutch merchant, residing at Popo, had just returned from Dahomey, and that he had news[13] of great interest for my ear. This Mr. Euschart I have had frequent conversations with, and I have every reason to believe that his information is most accurate, trustworthy, and reliable. I therefore borrowed a surf boat from a Dutch brig in the roads, and, having manned her with ten of my own Kroomen, I with great difficulty effected a landing, two boats out of three that tried the beach that day being capsized, owing to the very heavy surf. I give the substance of Mr. Euschart’s information as closely as possible, having jotted it down in my note-book during our conversation.
“It appears that Mr. Euschart went to Whydah on business in the middle of June, and on the 24th of June, while still at Whydah, received the stick of the King of Dahomey, with an instruction that his presence was required at Abomey. Mr. Euschart tried every method of evading the journey, but without avail, the carbooceers of Whydah plainly telling him that he would be carried to Abomey as a prisoner if he did not at once willingly obey the King’s message.
“Accordingly at one p.m. on June 26th, having provided himself with six hammock men, he left Whydah for Abomey, escorted by an armed party of Dahomians, and reached Alada, the old residence of the King of Dahomey, the same evening; June 27th, one p.m., left Alada, and arrived at Tabour at ten p.m.; June 28th, 5.30 a.m., started for Kamos, through swamp, and easily passed; 9.30 a.m., started, and arrived outside Abomey at 7.30 p.m., the road on the way having been very good. He was at once shown into a very fair house, and told to remain there during the night. June 29th, received a message from the King that he was to be presented the next day. June 30th, entered walled part of town through Royal gate; received there by two head carbooceers, who saluted him, saying: ‘King had never seen a Dutchman; King’s father had never seen a Dutchman; and now they had plenty of people to kill they were very glad to see a Dutchman.’ He was then ordered to drink the King’s health four times, after which the carbooceers danced round him, singing and firing guns. He was then conducted to the King’s palace, and received there by the Prime Minister, who told him the King would receive him next day.
“July 1.—Received by the king, who was seated outside the palace on a raised dais, surrounded by amazons. He saluted the king in European style. The king at once got up and shook hands with him, said he was very glad to see a Dutchman, and continued talking in Portuguese for[14] about ten minutes. He was then ordered to return to his house and keep inside three days.
“July 5.—He was brought to the market-place, where he was told many people had been killed the night before. He first saw the body of Mr. William Doherty (a Sierra Leone man), late a missionary and church catechist at Ishagga. The body was crucified against a large tree—one nail through the forehead, one through the heart, and one through each hand and foot; the left arm was bent, and a large cotton umbrella in the grasp. He was then taken to the market, where the king was seated on a raised platform, from which he was talking to the people much ‘war palaver,’ and promising them an attack upon Abbeokuta in November. Cowries, cloth, and rum were then distributed. In front of the market-place, rows of human heads, fresh and gory, were ranged, and the whole place was saturated with blood, the heads evidently belonging to some of the Ishagga prisoners who had been killed during the night, after having been tortured in the most frightful manner.
“Until July 10th Mr. Euschart was ordered to remain quiet in his house, and not to move or look out after sundown.
“July 10.—The ground shook violently—evidently, from the date, the effect of the earthquake felt at Accra. Mr. Euschart was at once brought to the market-place, where he found the king again seated on the raised platform, surrounded by Amazons; the king told him that the ground shaking was his father’s spirit, complaining that ‘Customs were not made proper.’ Three Ishagga chiefs were then brought before the king, and told they were to go and tell his father that ‘Customs should be better than ever.’ Each chief was then given a bottle of rum and a head of cowries, and then decapitated. Twenty-four men were then brought out, bound in baskets, with their heads just showing out, and placed on the platform in front of the king; they were then thrown down to the people, who were dancing, singing, and yelling below; as each man was thrown down he was seized and beheaded, the heads being piled in one heap and the bodies in another; every man who caught a victim and cut off the head received one head of cowries (about 2s.). After all were killed Mr. Euschart was conducted home.
“July 11.—Taken to another part of the town, where exactly similar horrors were being perpetrated.
“July 12.—All the platforms were taken down, and the programme appeared to be firing guns, singing, and dancing all day; there were no[15] more public sacrifices for ten days, but it is supposed many took place during the nights.
“July 22.—Taken to see the ‘Grand Customs’ at the palace of the late king, at the gate of which two platforms had been erected; on each platform sixteen men and four horses were placed; inside the house was placed another platform, on which were placed sixteen women, four horses, and one alligator. The men and women were all Sierra Leone people captured at Ishagga, and were dressed in European clothes; each group of sixteen men seated, or rather bound, in chairs placed round a table, on which glasses of rum were placed for each. The king then ascended the platform, where he adored the Dahomian fetish, and seemed to make obeisance to the prisoners, whose right arms were then loosed to enable them to take up the glass to drink the king’s health. After the king’s health had been drunk, the effects of the late king were paraded and worshipped by the people as they passed; a grand review of the troops then commenced, and as each marched past the king harangued them, and promised the sack of Abbeokuta in November. Nearly the whole of the troops wore fire-arms; a few select corps had rifles, but the greater part were armed with flint-lock muskets. The artillery consisted of about twenty-four guns (twelve-pounders). The number of troops altogether could scarcely be less than 50,000, including 10,000 amazons, all apparently well disciplined troops. After the review was over the prisoners were beheaded, their heads being hacked off with blunt knives; at the same time the horses and alligator were dispatched, particular care being taken that their blood should mingle with that of the human prisoners.
“When all was finished Mr. Euschart was permitted to leave Abomey, which, it is needless to say, he immediately did, having received the magnificent viatica of eight heads of cowries (16s.), one piece of country cloth, and two flasks of rum.
“Mr. Euschart firmly believes that Abbeokuta will, without doubt, be attacked by the whole Dahoman army towards the end of November.
“T. L. Perry, Commander.
“To the Governor of Lagos.”
It is instructive to turn from this, one of the last reports from this land of human butchery, to another letter written as long ago as November 27, 1724, by one Bullfinch Lamb, a “guest by compulsion” of Trudo Andati, at the time in question King of Dahomey. The epistle appears in “Dahomey and the Dahomans,” and would seem to be the effusion of a gentleman[16] connected with the service of the British Crown, and who had got into a mess, rather through his urgent commercial spirit than through any unavoidable exigence of duty or voluntary adventure.
“November 17, 1724.
“Sir,—About five days ago the king of this country gave me yours of the 1st instant, and immediately required me to answer it in his presence, which I did, though in a very different manner, so that if I do not recall it, I hope that you will excuse that as well as this. As to the late conference I had with his majesty, on receiving your letter, I think he does not want to make a price to let me go, for when I pressed him much to tell me on what terms he would send me away, his answer was, he did not want to sell me, I was not a black man; but upon my again pressing him he made a sort of jesting demand to the sum of I think 700 slaves, about £10,000, or £14 a-head. Which strange ironical way of talking, as I told him, made my blood run cold in my veins; and, upon recovering myself, I asked him if he thought the king of my country would listen to such an outrageous proposal, and that you and the company would think that both he and I had lost our senses, should I have writ anything like what he said. Upon which he laughed, and told me not to put anything of that in the letter; for that he would order his head captain of trade to treat with you upon that subject, and that if you had not something very fine for him at Whydah you must write to the company. Upon which I told him I feared I must die in his country, and that I would only send for a few clothes and necessaries, which I desired he would let his people bring for me, and he agreed to it, so that I don’t find there is any other way of redeeming me than by the company sending him a present of a crown and sceptre, which must be paid for out of what remains due to the late King of Ardah. I know nothing else but what he will think mean, being stocked with great quantities of plate, wrought gold, and other rich things, and also all sorts of rich gowns, cloths, hats, caps, etc. He has likewise all sorts of common goods beyond measure, and gives away booges like dirt and brandy like water, for he is prodigiously vain and proud; but he is withal, I believe, the richest king and greatest warrior in this part of the world, and you may depend upon it in time will subdue most of the countries round him. He has already set his two chief palaces round with men’s skulls, as thick as they can lie on the walls, one by another, and are such as he has killed in war; each of which palaces are in circumference larger than St. James’s Park, about a mile and a half[17] round. I hope my royal masters will take my case into consideration, and think of the long and many sufferings I have had in their service, and what a miserable condition I am still in, as it were, banished all the pleasures of this life, not only from my wife, and other friends, but all conversation in general; so that I am like one buried alive from the world, and think nothing can come near my unhappy fate, to lose my time and spend my youth, as it were, for nothing in such a cursed place as this, and not see a likelihood of getting out of it, but that I must end my days here. To prevent all which, I hope that they and you, in their behalf, will use your utmost endeavours, by such means as are requisite, for my deliverance, which I shall very impatiently pray to God to bring to pass. Governor Baldwin promised me in his last, upon his arrival in London, he would lay my case before our royal masters. Therefore, when you, write, I beg you will remind him and them thereof, and note the contents of what I now write. If any letters come from England for me, I believe either them or anything else will come safe to my hands by the king’s people. He is very willing I should have letters come to me, or anything else. Nor will he be guilty of any mean action in keeping anything from me, if it were twenty slaves. Neither do I believe he would detain any white man that should come here, but me whom he deems a captive taken in his wars. He sets a great value upon me, he never having had a white man here before, only an old mulatto Portuguese, which he had bought of the Popoe people, at the rate of about £500, as near as I could compute. And though this white man is his slave, he keeps him like a great carboceer, and has given him two houses, and a heap of wives and servants. It may be that once in two or three months he mends (he being a tailor by trade) some trifle or other for his majesty, but after the devil of a manner. So that if any tailor, carpenter, smith, or any sort of white man that is free, be willing to come here, he will find very good encouragement, and be much caressed, and get money if he can be contented with his life for a time; his majesty paying everybody extravagantly that works for him. And then it might be one means of letting me go with a promise of returning to trade with him; but he now says, if I go, he does not know whether he shall see any more white men, thinking they add to his grandeur; so that if any fellow whatsoever comes up and goes down again, it will possess him with a notion that more white men will come, and so let me go in order to encourage their coming. Or, if my little servant, Henry[18] Tench, he at Whydah, and is willing to come to me, it may in time be much for his interest, as now being a boy, the king will be entirely fond of him, for, though I do nothing for him, he has put me into a house and given me half-a-dozen men and women servants, also a constant supply to maintain myself and them. If I loved brandy, I might soon kill myself, having enough of that, also of sugar, flour, and the like. And when he kills oxen, which is often, I am sure of a quarter, and sometimes a live hog, sheep, or goat; so that I shall not starve (but this is nothing, I still want content). And when he comes out in public, the Portuguese and I are called out to sit all day in the sun, only our boys are permitted to hold our kideysols or umbrellas over our heads; but then he pays us pretty well for it, sometimes giving us two, sometimes three or four grand cabess apiece, and a huge flask of brandy to drink there, besides one or two more for each to carry home. Most of the ink you sent me being unfortunately spilt, I beg you will send me a packet of ink powder. His Majesty has likewise got from me the greatest part of the paper, having a notion in his head of a kite, which, though I told him was only fit for boys to play with, yet he says I must make one for him and I to play with, so I beg you will send me two quires of ordinary paper and some twine for that use, and a score of matches, his majesty requiring me sometimes to fire his great guns; and I am much in fear of having my eyes put out with the splinters. He has twenty-five cannon, some of which are upwards of a thousand weight, so that a man would think the devil helped to bring them here, this place being about two hundred miles distant from Whydah, and at least one hundred and sixty from Ardah. His Majesty takes great delight in firing them twice round every market day, only now that his people are making carriages for them. And though he seems to be a man of as great natural parts and sense as any of his colour, yet he takes great delight in trifling toys and whims, so that if you have anything of that kind, I pray you will send them me, or any prints or pictures, he much loving to look in a book, and commonly carries a Latin mass book in his pocket, which he had from the mulatto; and when he has a mind to banter anyone out of their requests, he looks in his book as studiously as if he understood it, and could employ his thoughts on no other subject; and much affects scrawling on paper, often sending me his letters, but then he sends an interpreter with a good flask of brandy and a grand cabess or two.—Your humble servant,
“Bullfinch Lamb.”
[19]
So that on the whole one cannot help wondering why it is that Master Bullfinch—who in the course of his letter shows himself such a selfish individual—cannot settle down and make himself comfortable. Whether or no he ever escaped, the chronicle sayeth not; probably not; and no great matter either, perhaps, considering Mr. Lamb’s unscrupulous suggestion that half-a-dozen of his wretched countrymen might be induced to thrust their heads into the mouth of this Dahoman lion, that he, Master Lamb, might be enabled to escape.
Besides the King of Dahomey, there are many other monarchs big and little in this quarter of Africa; but though they be ten times more savage—if to be savage is to be remote from civilization and its influences—we find not one as treacherous and thirsty for blood. In the course of his explorations in Western Africa, Mr. Bakie had the honour to meet several kings, among others the monarchs of Abó and Igbo. Let us approach the former royal presence.
“We promised to come on shore the next morning and pay our respects. I accordingly made an early start, and accompanied by Mr. May, Mr. Crowther, and Dr. Hutchinson, proceeded in the gig and pinnace, the crews of which were dressed in flaming red caps and shirts. Abó is situated nearly a mile up a creek, the mouth of which is almost invisible from even a very short distance. On entering it we found it at first so extremely narrow that we had to lay in our oars and use paddles, but, after a time, it opened into a wide expanse, the surface of which was covered with canoes of various sizes. Numbers of inhabitants were to be seen gazing at us, and altogether there was more bustle and activity, and more signs of a trading people than anything we had previously witnessed. Having reached the landing-place, we marched in a kind of procession, headed by a Krú-man carrying the English ensign, and accompanied by a royal messenger bearing a gaudy flag. We had some little difficulty in keeping good order through the narrow lanes, densely crowded as they were by the populace; as natives, both men and women, were constantly coming towards us, and insisting on shaking hands with us, which ceremony is here performed by the two parties taking loose hold of the fingers of each other’s right hands, and then slipping them, making at the some instant a snapping noise with the aid of the thumb. We were not sorry to reach Ishúkuma’s palace, a low dwelling of mud and thatch, with a small court some twenty feet square in the centre. This was surrounded[20] by a kind of verandah, in which we were placed, a chair being brought for me, and mats for the remainder of the company. Near us was a fetish, composed of some old bones and a few trinkets, and close to this, under a canopy of white calico, was a huge mat for his royal highness. Presently he entered, accompanied by several of his wives, and other female relatives, who all sat on his left. He seemed a little oldish-looking man, of easy disposition, and not much intellect. He was attired in a woollen nightcap, a white shirt, and in home-built pantaloons of native cloth, shaped after an extreme Dutch design. The court was by this time completely filled with crowds of natives, whose incessant noise and chattering prevented us from commencing, and at last I had to request him to enforce silence. This he attempted to do, in vain, until at last, assisted by the more energetic of his spouses, and in particular by a strong-minded sister, whose shrill tones, heard high above the din, finally beat down all opposition, and produced a temporary calm. I seized the moment, and, by our interpreter, told Ishúkuma, that we had come to make his acquaintance and his friendship, and to ascertain if the people were willing to trade with us. I expressed our sorrow at hearing of the death of Obi, who had been the white man’s friend; also our regret at the absence of his brother. I said that we were desirous of fulfilling the promise made by the officers in the former expeditions, and that we should try to do good to his country. He replied by declaring his satisfaction at seeing white men here once more, thanking us for our compliments, and offering, if we could wait a few days, to send a special canoe for his brother. I told him that we had a long distance to go, and that we must proceed while there was plenty of water in the river, but that on our return we should again call.”
Impressive, however, as must have been an interview with such awful majesty, Mr. Bakie managed to survive it; indeed, so accustomed was he to the company of kings as to make nothing of meeting two, and even three, within a week. A day or so after his visit to the court of the King of Abó, he brought his ships to anchor off the dominions of King Ajé, and the result of a message to that august person was that he would visit our traveller aboard.
“Presently Ajé was seen to approach in a large canoe, with seventeen paddles of a side, and accompanied by several of his wives and some of his brothers and their wives. Another salute was fired, after which we received our visitors on board, and with some difficulty got them all seated[21] on the poop. Ajé is a tall, rather stout, young-looking man, very superior in appearance to his brother, and is said in manner and countenance greatly to resemble his father. He appeared dressed in home-made scarlet cloth trousers, a scarlet uniform coat, a pink beaver hat, under which, apparently to make it fit, was a red worsted nightcap; no shoes, beads round his neck, and in his hand a Niger-expedition-sword. After talking of general matters, I spoke of his father, of Captain Trotter (a former explorer), of trade, and of our wishes and intentions; on which he replied that he considered that whatever his father wished or promised was binding on him, adding, however, that we seemed very long in carrying out our part of the agreement. I gave him a double-barrelled gun, a large sabre, a scarlet robe, some cloth and beads, and some scissors, mirrors, and needles for his wives, and also three krus (27,000) of cowries. This last, he said, must be shared by his brother, on which I offered Tishukuma an equal amount and gave him also other presents. With all Ajé seemed dissatisfied, and asked why we did not give as much as Captain Trotter did, on which I mentioned our long voyage, the many presents we had given away, and our stock being exhausted. Still he asked for things I had not, until I was obliged to speak more plainly, telling him how unreasonable his behaviour was, and how unlike what I expected in a son of Obi. He then laughed, showing that he was merely trying to get as much as he could, a daily Abó practice. Ajé next asked for the traders, who were sent for, and showed them a quantity of firewood, yams, palm-oil, and a bullock he had for sale. He proved a very keen hand, and only parted with his articles at a high price; he looked to everything himself, saw things handed on board, and the cowries counted. He gave me his dash, a bullock, and two hundred yams, which latter were here, though very good, very small and rounded. I took him round the ship, fired a swivel off before him, and showed him the engine. I explained to him that as our provisions were nearly expended, I could offer him but little, on which he said he would merely ask for some biscuit, which I gave him. He was much amused with the shower-bath, which he called all his wives to look at, and was much pleased with a German accordion which I gave him.”
Mr. Bakie’s greatest adventure, however, was with the formidable King or Chief of Neam Nam, whose subjects were regarded by surrounding tribes as monsters of the blackest dye, and the chief himself as the Fe-fo-fum of ogres. The natives begged him not to think of visiting this nest of scorpions where he and his party would undoubtedly be slain and[22] eaten, and have to think themselves highly fortunate if they escaped the most cruel tortures into the bargain. Bakie wanted guides, but it was only on the most unheard-of terms that he was able to procure them, as well as porters to carry presents wherewith to propitiate the terrible Neam Nam. At last, however, these difficulties were overcome, and the adventurers, after a considerable march, came in sight of Mundo, a Neam Nam village. “I could not, however, induce them to enter it, and, throwing off their loads, they decamped, leaving only the interpreter in the firm grip of two of my followers. Nothing daunted, my men took up the rejected loads and we proceeded towards the village. On nearing it, the sound of several tom-toms and the shrill whistle of their calls plainly indicated that the Neam Nam were on the alert. A large party bearing their arms and shields issued forth to meet us, and, drawing up in line across our path, seemed determined to impede our progress. Heedless of the impediment, we proceeded on our way, and my khartoumers, in the best spirits, joined lustily in a song. The sight of the savages before us was imposing, each man guarded the greater part of his body with a large shield, holding a lance vertically in his right hand. The party were evidently surprised at the confidence and unoffending manner of our approach, and evinced a greater disposition to run away than to attack. On we went joyfully, and when within two yards of them, their ranks opened, allowing us a passage through them, of which as a matter of course we availed ourselves, and entered the village (apparently deserted by women and children), with the Neam Nam following in the rear, and passing through a street of huts rather distantly situated from one another, we reached a slight eminence commanding a fine view of a highly fertile country. During our march the tom-toms continued their noise, but, regardless of consequences, we took up our position under the shade of a magnificent sycamore tree in the vicinity of a couple of huts; and, disembarrassing ourselves of our baggage, we quietly seated ourselves in a circle round it, exposing our fronts to the natives, who in great numbers soon surrounded us, apparently astonished at the coolness we displayed; they gradually closed, and, the front rank seating themselves, their proximity became disagreeable, as they hemmed us in so closely that several of them actually seated themselves upon our feet, indulging at the same time in laughter and loud conversation which we could not understand. Enjoining patience on my men, and convinced that, in case of necessity, the harmless discharge of a gun or two would scatter our[23] visitors, I learnt with some difficulty, through the medium of the Baer and Dor interpreters, that these savages looked upon us in the light of bullocks fit for slaughter, and that they contemplated feasting upon us; but they disputed the propriety of slaying us until the arrival of their chief, who I learnt was not in the village. With this knowledge, a hearty laugh and many jokes as to their condition were indulged in by my brave companions, who, confident in their own arms, behaved admirably. The excessive joy of our would-be butchers ceased at the appearance of an aged grey-headed man, who, after a short intercourse with the Baer interpreter, in a loud voice addressed the mob in words to the following effect: ‘Neam Nam, do not insult these strange men; do you know whence they come?’ ‘No, but we will feast on them,’ was the rejoinder. Then the grey-headed old man, holding up his spear and commanding silence, proceeded thus: ‘Do you know of any tribe that would dare approach our village in so small a number as these men have done?’ ‘No,’ was again vociferated. ‘Very well, you know not whence they came, neither do I who am greatly your senior, and whose voice you ought to respect. Their country must indeed be distant, and to traverse the many tribes between their country and ours ought to be a proof to you of their valour. Look at the things they hold in their hands; they are neither spears, clubs, nor bows and arrows, but inexplicable bits of iron mounted on wood. Neither have they shields to defend their bodies from our weapons; therefore, to have travelled thus far, depend upon it their means of resistance must be so puzzling to us, and far superior to any arms that any tribe—ay, even our own—can oppose to them: therefore, Neam Nam, I, who have led you to many a fight, and whose counsels you have often followed, say, shed not your blood in vain, nor bring disgrace upon your fathers, who never have been vanquished. Touch them not, but prove yourselves worthy the friendship of such a handful of brave men, and do yourselves honour by entertaining them, rather than degrade yourselves by the continuance of your insults.’
“This address seemed to have a beneficial effect with the majority. The old man motioning two or three of them out of the way, seated himself near me and endeavoured to converse with me, but failing, he called the interpreter. His first wish was to examine my rifle: removing the cap, I handed it to him. Long and silent was his examination, the most inexplicable part seeming the muzzle, which, instead of being pointed, had a hole in it. Placing his finger therein, he looked at me with the greatest astonishment, and to give him a practical explanation, I seized a fowlingpiece[24] from the hands of my favourite hunter, and pointing to a vulture hovering over us, I fired: and before it touched the ground, the crowd were prostrate and grovelling in the dust, as if every man of them had been shot. The old man’s head, with his hands on his ears, was at my feet; and when I raised him his appearance was ghastly and his eyes were fixed on me with a meaningless expression. I thought he had lost his senses. After shaking him several times I at length succeeded in attracting his attention to the fallen bird quivering in its last agonies between two of his men. The first signs of returning animation he gave was, putting his hand to his head, and examining himself as if in search of a wound. He gradually recovered; and as soon as he could regain his voice, called to the crowd, who one after the other first raised their heads, and then again dropped them, at the sight of their apparently lifeless comrades. After the repeated call of the old man, they ventured to rise, and a general inspection of imaginary wounds commenced. I attempted to carry on a conversation with the old man, whose name was Murmangae, and learnt that the chief’s name was Dimoo, and that he had but lately succeeded his deceased father in the chieftainship. Gaining confidence, he again reverted to our arms, which, however, he expressed a fear of touching, and requested to know how the noise was produced; and whilst I was endeavouring to explain the gun to him, the chief, accompanied by numerous followers, arrived. To my disappointment, however, he treated us with great mistrust, and drawing up his men seemed inclined to attack us, on which a lengthened conversation between the old man and himself took place. At this stage of the proceedings, a single elephant was seen approaching the village. The chief, who had been standing, advanced towards me, and, pointing to the elephant, abruptly asked if our thunder could kill that. On my replying in the affirmative, ‘Do it,’ he said, ‘and I will respect you.’ The aspect of affairs had now assumed anything but a peaceful appearance; but relying upon my own resources and diplomacy, I resolved on gaining the good will of the chief, and despatched one half of my best shots to endeavour to bring down the elephant, whilst with the other half, in case of emergency, I knew I could defend our property. The brave fellows confidently sallied forth, although a few of them only possessed rifles, much too light for the work expected of them, whilst others had only double-barrelled fowling pieces loaded with ball. They were followed by the whole of the savages to within about three hundred yards of the elephant, when the hunters dispersed, and simultaneously[25] fired at the elephant, within a range of twenty yards, from various directions. On the first discharge, the Neam Nam and their chief exhibited every sign of fear, some by falling on the ground, and others by taking to their heels. The elephant, a young male with tusks about a foot long, received shot after shot in quick succession. He merely elevated his trunk and ears, and moved round as if on a pivot, until about two rounds had been discharged at his head and shoulders with double charges of powder; he fell, and our prestige was established. The chief and his followers recovering themselves, approached more in the guise of petitioners than aggressors, and stated that if we would only withhold our thunder, they would be our best friends. Presents of beads to Dimoo and our old friend closed the compact; and on being informed that similar valuables would be given away for provisions, the chief proclaimed aloud the fact to the bystanders, who declared they would furnish us with anything the village contained.”
Still lingering in Western Africa we arrive at the Fernandian town of Issapoo, whose king is named Browowdi. Mr. Hutchinson introduces us to his majesty as well as to his palace.
The monarchy here, as in all Fernandian towns, is hereditary, not from father to son, but from uncle to nephew. His palace was certainly a most extraordinary place for human residence. Yet, on my getting inside, his first exhibition to me was, as the interpreter explained it, his throne and crown, the former consisting of a filthy stool, that looked old enough and dirty enough to have been handed down in his family for several scores of generations; and the latter, an equally filthy old hat of bamboo leaf, with a monkey’s tail pendent from it. Inside the house, the light came in through dozens of crevices in the walls as well as the roof. The wall consists only of boards placed side by side, reaching from the ground to the roof, all of which are moveable, so that the inmate has only to shift one or two at any side, and he lets himself in or out as he pleases. Across the house inside are placed a number of poles, on which are suspended hats, skins, rusty guns, cloth, and calabashes; but no windows, stools, beds, or tables, save the old throne, and a tax-gatherer would find a great scarcity of available chattels in the place. The coronation of a king is a ceremonial that I have not yet had the pleasure of witnessing, but it has been reported to me as one possessing interesting features. It is so bound up with their notions of a spirit or devil, that I deem it necessary to explain the peculiarity of their belief on this latter point. Maaon is the[26] title given to the devil, and the botakimaaon (his high priest) is supposed to have influence with him through communication with the cobracapella, the koukarouko. Their faith in God, to whom the name of “Rupe” is given, is a loftier aspiration than that of the devil, but they believe that the Deity’s favour can be only obtained by intercession through the koukaroukos at the bottom, the candidate for regal honours standing alongside, and all his subjects in futuro being about. This conference is, I believe, carried on by means of ventriloquism, a faculty with which many of the Fernandians are reported to be endowed. The botakimaaon then delivers to the king the message from the koukarouko for his guidance in his high station, shakes over him a quantity of yellow powder, entitled “isheobo,” which is obtained by collecting a creamy coat that is found on the water at the mouths of some small rivers, evaporating the water, and forming a chalky mass of the residue. From the lightness as well as friability of this article, I believe it to be of a vegetable nature. He has then placed upon his head the hat worn by his uncle, and the crowning is accomplished. After becoming a king, his majesty is forbidden to eat cocoa, deer, or porcupine, which are the ordinary condiments of the people; and the ceremonial is concluded by the latter having some of the yellow powder rubbed over their foreheads by the botakimaaon, with instructions to use the same material in like manner every morning for seven days.
From Issapoo we accompany Mr. Hutchinson to Duketown, and on the road that gentleman tells us of the iron palace that was sent out some years since from Liverpool for the late king Eyamba; and which, though now utterly ruined, may be recollected in its prime, as well as King Eyamba, in the same enviable condition, and still another king, one Archibong, though whether Archibong was Eyamba’s successor, or vice versâ, is not quite clear. However, the reader may judge for himself.
“No man was more impressed with an idea of the dignity attachable to the trappings of royalty than Eyamba, and so he must have a carriage. But the horses soon died, after dragging out life for some time. The skeletons of two only were visible about Duketown, perfect anatomies vivantes, at the time of my first visit there. Horses not being native to this part of the country, it puzzled the lexicographers very much to find a name for them in their Etick tongue, the language spoken at Old Kalabar. At length they hit upon the term Euang makara, which signifies “white man’s cow;” and to carry the absurdity further, entitled[27] Eyamba’s carriage Efot euang makara, which literally means “white man’s cowhouse.” When I beheld the nature of the streets and roads in and around the town, it was a marvel to me how Eyamba could find a place broad or level enough for four wheels to roll upon. But he did make out a few yards meet for that purpose; and there it was his custom to have the carriage drawn before him by a number of slaves, whilst he walked after it, with his shining brass crown upon his head, and an immense party-coloured parasol held aloft by a strong-armed man. The Irishman who got into a sedan chair, and, finding the bottom out of it, said he might as well be walking, were it not for the grandeur of the thing, had a nearer semblance to state than this gander-brained monarch, who often used to boast of his desire to see Wellington and Napoleon, that he might shew his pre-eminence over them; and who was accustomed to sign all his letters and documents as Eyamba V., king of all black men. Everything in this once magnificent house was, on my visit to it, in a state of perfect ruin and decay, for his majesty died a few years after it had been constructed. This condition of affairs may be explained by the fact that there exists among the people of Old Kalabar, as amongst the majority of the heathen nations in western Africa, a silly superstition, that when a man dies he requires the spirit of all that belonged to him in this world, his wives, slaves, cloths, chattels, and furniture, for use in the unknown world to which he has gone. In proportion to what his competency was, and to the means of his friends to make a corresponding sacrifice for him, so is his anticipated comfort in the next state to be measured. I have been since informed that in a few hours after its fall there was not a single piece of its structure to be found on the site of its former location; for the inhabitants all acted as so many human turkey-buzzards; and the earliest bird of course picked up his choice of the best worms. Coming out of the palace, and not fifty yards from it, although I had a hill to go down, a rut to scramble through, and an eminence to ascend, I find myself in front of the Duketown palaver-house, a species of senatorial forum, where all the legislative matters of the country, the municipal affairs of the town, palavers on matters public or private, are discussed and settled by the king and the Egbos. The palaver-house consists of two walls running parallel for about forty yards, terminated by a transverse wall, about as many feet in length, and thatched with a stout bamboo roof. The end by which it is entered is opened from[28] side to side; a space of nearly eighteen inches intervene between the tops of the walls running lengthways and the roof; and there is an ascent from the road by half-a-dozen steps to the floor, which is hard and smooth. In the centre of the entrance is a huge hollow brass pillar reaching up to the roof, further in are two more of equally imposing diameter, whilst between them are a large bell and a piece of wood; the latter is drum-like in shape, with a slit longitudinally in it, and fixed to the pillar. This is the Egbo drum, which is beaten to alarm the inhabitants in case of fire, to give notice of the attack of an enemy, or to signify the fact of a leopard having been captured, each occurrence being indicated by a peculiarity of beating the drum, which is known as soon as the sound is heard. In the farthest corner of the house is a private sanctuary, into which none but the privileged are admitted on occasions of Egbo meetings, and outside the front are two flourishing ju-ju trees, with five pillars of stone before them, said to be solidified basaltic lava, brought from Prince’s Island, and erected there to the memory of five sovereigns of Old Kalabar. Not far from this palaver-house was the residence of the late king, Archibong I. There was nothing noticeable in it beyond that of any other gentleman trader’s abode; but the king was one of the most extraordinary specimens of sable humanity I ever met. He could neither read nor write the English language, but spoke it in a very imperfect gabble, and go to his house whenever you would, he was nearly always in the condition in which he might be expected to agree with the sentiment of Sancho Panza: blessings on the man who first invented sleep. On the first day of the week, which consists of eight days, he was accustomed to entertain all the supercargoes and surgeons in the river at dinner, and this was called Chop-day. Duketown Chop-day is entitled Aqua-el-dere, and is equivalent to our Sunday, but it is only as a day of rest—drinking rum and palm wine being their chief devotions. They wash their court-yards with cow-dung and water on that morning, and the largest market in the week is held on Aqua-el-dere. Eyamba, when king, adopted it as his chop-day because it was the most honoured in the week, and he wished to be considered the most consequential man in the country. King Archibong followed in his footsteps with reference to the same practice. A similar custom is adopted on the second day of the week, called Aqua-ibibio. The dishes served up at King Archibong’s were very creditable to his culinary establishment. They consisted of various kinds[29] of soup, containing goat’s flesh, fish, pork, cocoa leaf and root, plantains, bananas, with a variety of other dishes, such as Apicius, Meg Dod, or Alexis Soyer never smiled upon, and which are said to have contained “pepper enough in them to have scalded a silver spoon.” These were followed by roast maize, ground-nuts, and shrimps as a dessert. Mimbo or Mim-efick, the native name for palm wine, was the beverage at these dinners. It is a milky fluid, having sometimes an acid and sometimes a saccharine taste, and is procured from a particular species of the palm tree, by tapping it at the top and allowing the juice to exude into calabashes placed there to receive it. One dish relished very much by the king was a plate of pounded yam, made into the putty-like consistence of ju-ju wood, with a soup entitled palaver sauce. The mode of eating it was by grasping a lump from the dish, rolling it on the palm of the hand into the shape of a racket ball, putting the index finger into the centre, dipping it into the soup, and bolting it. The table was always neatly laid out with silver service, and the viands were brought up in large calabashes; covered with white cloths, on the head of a number of female slaves.
So much for departed Duketown kings and their eccentricities; now let us turn, for it is worth while, to the present ruler of that locality as well as of the neighbouring settlement of Creektown. It is worth while as furnishing one of a hundred instances that might be quoted of the good effected by the teachings of Christianity, as well as an answer to those wondrously wise folk who sneer at missionaries and their doings. “King Eyo Honesty” is the honourable title of the present monarch of Duketown.
“King Eyo is anxious for the civilization of his people and the cultivation of his country, but he has had no one to teach them anything of the latter, and so the fruitful soil of his dominion lies unproductive, save in the one material of palm oil. Those who agree with me in thinking Christianity and civilization to be cause and effect in Africa, as they are all over the world, will rejoice to hear that he has given every countenance and assistance to the body of Presbyterian missionaries settled at Old Kalabar. He speaks, reads, and writes the English language very well, keeps his own accounts, and translates the Rev. Mr. Waddell’s sermons into the Efick tongue for his congregation. The king’s sons are the only members of his family that have made an open confession of their belief in the doctrines of Christianity, but Eyo enjoins the sacred keeping[30] of the Lord’s day, has no dinner for the traders when it comes round in its eighth day rotation, has abolished the market formerly held on Sundays at Creektown, commands the weekly attendance of his people at the missionary service in the galvanised iron church, is most respectful and attentive during worship, and follows the preacher, translating sentence after sentence for the audience. He is a man past forty years of age, about five feet eight inches in height, of a stout muscular frame, with eyes and lips of the usual prominence observable in the Æthiopian face, and grey whiskers. His dress consists of a cloth, generally silk, tied round his loins, a silk handkerchief thrown over his shoulders, a black hat with a gold band and a binding of the same material about the edge. His ornaments are circlets of blue glass or coral beads round his neck, wrist, and ankles, with a massive gold ring on the index finger. He partakes freely of snuff, and this is carried by his slave in a silver box. It is the only luxury in which he indulges, for he never smokes, and from spirituous liquors no man can be more abstemious. When he goes in state to Duketown, as he always does on business occasions, to the trading ships in the river, he is invariably accompanied by a train of large canoes, from one of which a gun is fired to announce his approach as the royal party turns the angle opposite Oldtown. The king is always seated in a six-oared gig belonging to the ship to which he is proceeding, whilst the canoes contain his eldest son, young Eyo, and his three brothers, with an innumerable host of slave attendants. He has a gigantic parti-coloured parasol held over his head on these occasions, as he has whenever walking about his town, or seated in one of his court-yards, overlooking his trade books. The musical band accompanying the king consists of an Egbo drum, placed transversely in the canoe, which is not beaten on the ends as our drums are, but on the top of its longitudinal surface with a pair of sticks; an instrument formed of iron, as of the saucers of two shovels welded face to face, and struck with a piece of the same metal; a cow’s-horn, blown rather discordantly; and clattering-boxes made of bamboo matting, with a string to them held in the hands like Spanish castanets, and shaken vigorously to produce a noise by the agitation of the pebbles or pieces of broken crockery-ware they contain. Yet, with this primitive attempt at music, the banners flying from the canoes, the simultaneous hoisting of flags on all the ships in the river, and the return of a salute from the vessel to which he is proceeding, when the king’s party becomes visible, gives the whole scene a very animated appearance.”
[31]
By-the-by, mention has several times been made of the curious institution existing in this part of the world known as the order of “Egbo.” It is a sort of negro brotherhood of kings, chiefs, and free men, and the title is derived from “Ekpe,” the Efik name for tiger. There are eleven grades, the three superior of which are not purchaseable by slaves. In former times the Egbo title was confined entirely to freemen, the second or third generation of a slave born within the pale of an Egboman’s dwelling being liberated by this fact, and allowed to purchase it after their parents were dead. It cannot be compared to any institution familiar to European minds but to that of Freemasonry. Previous to initiation, the Egbo candidate is obliged to go through a number of ceremonial observances; as, for instance, on a “Brass Egbo”—one of the superior grades—applicant’s admission into that order, his body is daubed over with yellow dye to simulate brass, and there is a sacrifice of animals on the occasion. The secrets and meetings of Egbo men are strictly private. If a man, woman, or child have a complaint of grievance against a master or neighbour, he or she has only to give notification of it by slapping an Egbo gentleman on the front of his body, or by going into the market square and tolling the large Egbo bell. The gentleman apprised by the first-mentioned form of notice, is bound to have at once an Egbo meeting to redress the grievance complained of, and if this be found to be trivial the punishment is inflicted on the complainant. When an Egbo man wants to make a proclamation relative to a theft committed, or the recovery of a debt, he sends out into the town what is supposed to be Idem, or spiritual representation of Egbo, a man with a black vizard on his black face, and the whole of his body covered cap-a-pie with a fantastical dress of bamboo matting. This personage is sometimes preceded by a few drummers, and he always has a bell fastened to his side, which rings as he goes along. In his left hand he carries a bunch of green leaves (for he is believed to have been exorcised from the woods, and of course must keep up his sylvan character); in his right is an enormous cow-hide whip with which he flogs every slave, man or woman, whom he meets, as taste or inclination may suggest. A brutal peculiarity of the Egboship is this, that the want of a single variety of the title will expose him who is so unfortunate as to lack it, to the lashings of the Idem of that particular grade which he has not purchased. If an individual who is in possession of all the inferior grades, and of three of the superior ones, happens to be out on the day when the Idem of that particular Egbo that he was in want of is walking,[32] he is marked out from the common multitude and treated with extra severity. Should the Idem not meet any slave in the streets to whip on his rounds, he is at liberty to go into their houses and whip them to his heart’s content. The sound of Egbo bells, and the name of Egbo day, are enough to terrify all the slave population of Duketown, and when they hear it they hide in every available place. Latterly females have been permitted to buy Egbo privileges, but are not allowed to be present at the councils of the Egbo gentlemen, nor to enter at any time within the wall of the Egbo Palaver-house. When a yellow flag floats from the king’s house it is understood to be Brass Egbo day, and none but a few of the privileged are allowed to walk abroad. A strip of cloth of the same colour nailed to any man’s door implies that his house is under the powerful protection of Brass Egbo, the indication being significant of the master’s absence from home. If an Idem meets a European in his progress, where there are two roads or pathways available, the Idem walks off on the one different from that which the white man is approaching; if there be but one road, the latter is expected to turn his back and let the supposed spirit pass unnoticed and undisturbed. “Aqua Osong,” the last day of the Kalabar week, is grand Egbo day, on which there is a carnival and Egbo procession, with the usual amount of brutality. All legal and judicial proceedings in the country are ushered in and carried out under Egbo demonstrations, for the purpose evidently of keeping the law in terrorem over the slave population. And no stronger evidence of this can be adduced than that a man tried and condemned by Egbo law has to forfeit all his slaves and other property in his possession, no matter to whom this latter may belong. These are all divided as prey amongst the highest Egbo authorities. Persons sentenced to death by Egbo trial are allowed what is considered a privilege of leaving this world in a state of intoxication. There is a class of people called Bloodmen, who live in the interior at the plantations, and whose presence in Duketown does not give much comfort to the Egbo authorities. Sometime after the death of King Eyamba in 1846, a number of slaves belonging to the duke’s family ran away from their owners, and entered into a blood covenant for mutual protection. In a short time others joined them, and they now amount to several thousands. The present King of Duketown, Duke Ephraim, is the lineal descendant of the master of the original refugees, and consequently has considerable influence over them. Some time back they tried to be allowed the establishment of a separate Egboship for themselves, but were refused.[33] They come into town whenever any ceremonial is to be performed having reference to a deed of blood; but what their relation is to the Egbo order still remains a profound secret. The gentlemen at Old Kalabar have all private fetishes at their houses—the skulls of human beings, the bones of leopards, hippopotami, crocodiles, and manattis, arranged according to the owner’s taste and fancy. Peculiar species of food are not eaten by many families, from the fact that some members of them die after eating of such condiments, and their ju-ju consequently places an interdict on their use.
At Lunda, another settlement in Western Africa, the individual at the head of the State is called the “Mambo.” This gorgeous personage, together with his chief ministers, is thus described by the traveller Valdez, to whom audience was given:
“The Mambo sat on a number of tiger-skins, so arranged that all the tails radiated, thus forming the figure of a large star, and in the centre was spread an enormous lion-skin, which covered a portion of all the others. A stool, covered with green cloth and placed on the lion-skin, formed the throne of the Mambo. This dignitary was dressed in a most magnificent style, far surpassing in grandeur of display all the other potentates of the interior of Africa. His head was adorned with a mitre, about two spans high, in shape resembling a pyramid, and formed of feathers of a bright scarlet colour. His forehead was encircled by a diadem ornamented with a great variety of valuable jewels of great brilliancy; a sort of frill or fan of green cloth, supported by two small ivory arrows, was standing up from the back of his head; the neck and shoulders being covered with a kind of spencer or capuchin without sleeves. The upper part of this cape was ornamented with the bottom of cowrie shells, under which was a row of imitation jewels. The lower part had a most brilliant and dazzling effect, in consequence of a great number of small mirrors, or square and round pieces of looking-glass, being tastefully arranged alternately with the precious stones all round it. His shoulders, breast, and back, were thus covered with a garment at which no one in that resplendent sunshine could for one moment look fixedly.
“The arms above the elbows were ornamented with a band of cloth of about four inches broad, the borders and edges of which had attached to them strips of skin, with hair of about four or five inches long hanging down like a fringe. None but the Muata Cazembe, or prime minister, and his nearest relatives are allowed to wear this badge of royalty. From his[34] elbows to the wrist the arms were ornamented with sky-blue stones, while the yellow cloth, something similar to the Highlandman’s kilt, extended from the waist to the knees. This garment had two borders of about four inches wide, the upper one blue, and the lower red.
“He also had a kind of girdle or swathe of several yards long, which was worn in a rather peculiar manner; one end of it being fastened to the other cloth by a small ivory arrow a little below the waist, and the whole then wound round the body in small regular folds. A leather belt which is girt round the body preserves this garment in its place. Both are considered as the insignia of imperial authority.
“The insipo or girdle of hide is cut from the entire length of an ox’s skin, and is about five or six inches in breadth. When the insipo is girded on, the tassel of the tail is left trailing under a sort of fan, formed by the folds or plaits as before mentioned. The Muata Cazembe had hung from his insipo under his right hand a string of pearls, to the end of which a small bell was attached, which, knocking against his legs as he moved, rang at intervals. He had also pearls strung round his legs from his knees downwards, similar to those he wore on his arms. While the whole of his body was thus richly ornamented, his face, hands, and feet were left entirely uncovered.
“The Muata Cazembe had seven umbrellas, forming a canopy to shelter him from the sun. These varied in colour, and were fastened to the ground with long bamboos, covered with stuff of different hues manufactured by the natives. Twelve negroes simply clad, and each of them holding in his hand a nhumbo’s tail, were stationed round the umbrellas.
“The nhumbo is an antelope about the size of a three-year old ox, and of a chestnut colour, having a black cross along the back, and a great deal of hair about the shoulder-blades—about the same quantity as a horse has upon his mane and tail. It has cloven feet, head and horns like a buffalo, and the flesh is excellent food. The nhumbo tails held by the negroes were in the form of a broom, and the part which served as a handle was adorned with beads of various colours. All the tails were put in motion at the same time whenever the Muata Cazembe thought proper to make a sign with a small one of the same kind, which he used himself.
“At a short distance from him were negroes gravely employed in looking for and sweeping away whatever was unpleasant or offensive to the sight. After them came two other negroes, with baskets on their shoulders, to pick up anything which might be overlooked; but the place was so clear that not[35] one of them could find anything to do, although, according to custom, the appearance of being busy was kept up. Two curved lines issued from the extremities of the Muata’s chair, and met at the distance of twenty paces in front, opposite the Mambo. The line on the left was marked by the point of a stick which was trailed along the ground; that on his right by chalk. In front of these curved lines, forming an avenue of about three spans in width, were two files of figures resembling idols, beginning from the sides of the curved lines. The size of these figures, which were only half-lengths, was about twenty inches; they were nailed to sticks thrust in the ground, were very rudely made, had Kaffir features, and were ornamented with the horns of beasts. In the centre of the avenue was a cage in the form of a barrel, containing another smaller figure.
“Two negroes sat on the ground near the two outermost figures fronting the king, each having an earthen vessel full of live ashes before him, and were employed in throwing on the fire a quantity of leaves, which produced a dense aromatic smoke. The backs of the images being placed towards the Muata Cazembe, from under the last—the one nearest the earthen vessels—a rope was extended to the Mambo’s feet; for what purpose I could not by any means ascertain.
“The two wives of the Mambo were the only ones present in the Chipango, the gate of which was open. One of these ladies was sitting on a stool, covered with a green cloth; her arms, neck, and bosom ornamented with stones of different colours, and her head adorned with scarlet feathers, like the head-dress of the Mambo, but shorter and smaller.
“The second wife sat on a lion’s skin at the left-hand side of the gate, with no other dress than a cloth, which was entirely without ornaments. Behind the two wives stood more than four hundred women of different ages, all dressed in nhandas, a kind of interwoven cloth made of the bark of trees.”
In another part of this strange country the ruler is known by the euphonious title of “Jaga;” and whenever a vacancy occurs in the government by the death of the Jaga, the Tendalla or prime-minister convokes the heads of the electoral college, which comprises the Macotas or counsellors, the Cazas or noblemen, and the Catondo or commander-in-chief, who together with himself (the Tendella), compose the cabinet council. When this body is assembled they proceed to investigate the claims of the various individuals connected with the families who are considered as legitimate aspirants to the regal dignity.
[36]
Having first decided as to the family, their next inquiry has reference to the individual best qualified to bear the royal dignity; but it is seldom that matters proceed so far, for it is generally understood beforehand by the members of the electoral college who is the legitimate and popular claimant.
These important questions once settled, they next proceed to build a suitable house for a new Jaga, and to lay out the garden, etc., and also to erect houses for themselves around it. After these preliminary proceedings, they next direct their steps to the residence of the man of their choice, and unceremoniously entering, bring him out as if he were a malefactor and present him to the multitude, who, amidst the clang of marimbas and beating of drums, raise a simultaneous shout on his appearance. He is then conveyed on the shoulders of his sons, or of the people, to the Quilombo or fortified residence provided for him, where he remains for several days, none being allowed to visit him, with the exception of two relations and the Tendella. At the end of two months he removes to a house previously prepared on the borders of the River Undua, where he remains for twenty or thirty days. Here he may be said to form his new ministry—deposing some officers and appointing others. On this occasion he also selects his principal wife. When all these arrangements are finished, the Jaga returns to the locality where he intends to reside, and fixes the exact spot as follows:—Having formed his Quilombo, he takes his bow and discharges an arrow, and wherever it falls there he must erect his permanent residence, called Semba. Around it are built the houses of his wives, who in general amount to fifty in number. Next to these are located the senzales of the Macotas and their wives of the followers of the former Jaga, and lastly of those who were with the elected Jaga at the Senzald, where formerly he acted as Maquita.
The last of these ceremonies is that called the Sambamento, after which the Jaga is considered qualified to exercise all the functions of his office.
The particular period at which this most cruel and barbarous custom originated is not known. Some of the Jagas have been known to dispense with it altogether.
When it is decided to celebrate the Sambamento, some of the Sovas or Maquitas are dispatched to find the Nicango or victim. The person selected is uniformly a black, who must have no relationship or connection with the Jaga or any of the Maquitas or Macotas. When the Nicango arrives, he is received at the Quilombo and treated in the same manner as[37] the Jaga; he is provided with everything he requires, and all his orders are obeyed with the same promptitude.
The day on which the Sambamento is to be celebrated being appointed, the Maquitas are informed of the fact, and as large a number of the people as can be accommodated at the Quilombo being invited, they all assemble in front of the residence of the Jaga. The Maquitas and the Macotas form themselves into a circle, the rest of the people assembling around. The Jaga then takes his seat in the centre of the circle, on an iron stool, in a circular concave form with a hole through the centre of the top. The Bansacuco is seated beside the Jaga, together with all the concubines. The Cassange-Cagongue then strikes the gong, which is of iron in the form of an arch, with two small bells attached, and with a bar across it. The Cassange-Cagongue continues to ring the bells during the ceremony.
The Nicango is then introduced and placed in front of the Jaga, but with his back towards him. The Jaga being provided with a cutlass of a semi-circular form, commences operations by cutting open the back of the Nicango until he reaches the heart, which he extracts, and having taken a bit of it he spits it out and gives it to be burned.
The Macotas in the meantime hold the corpse of the Nicango in such a manner that the blood from the wound in the back is discharged against the breast and belly of the Jaga, and falling through the hole in the iron stool is collected by the Maquitas in their hands; they then rub their breast and beard with it, at the same time making a great clamour vociferating “Great is the Jaga and the rites of the State.”
The corpse of the Nicango is next carried to some distance, where it is first skinned and then divided into small pieces and cooked with the flesh of an ox, a dog, a hen, and some other animals. The meal being prepared it is first served to the Jaga, next to the Maquitas and Macotas, and then to all the people assembled, and woe to the unhappy wight who has the temerity to refuse partaking of the repast from any repugnance to the ingredient, as in such case the law made and provided is that he and his family forfeit their liberty and are therefore at once sold into captivity.
Singing and dancing conclude the Sambamento.
[38]
Dr. Livingstone’s reception by Shinte—A South-African Chieftess—She gives her guests “a bit of her mind”—Breaches of Court etiquette—Abyssinian cure for melancholy—Mr. Bruce and the Lady Sittina—Greasing the King of Seenaar—Majesty in Madagascar—A Malagasey palace—The Feast of the Queen’s Bath—A Court ball in Madagascar.
Turning from Western to Southern Africa, let us see how royalty comports itself. As in the former case there is a wide choice of potentates, but we will take but two—Shinte, King of Makalolo, and Manenko, Chieftess of Balonda.
“We (Dr. Livingstone and party) were honoured with a grand reception by Shinte about eleven o’clock. The native Portuguese and Mambari went fully armed with guns, in order to give Shinte a salute, their drummer and trumpeter making all the noise their very old instruments would produce. The kotla, or place of audience, was about a hundred yards square, and two graceful specimens of a species of banian stood near the end. Under one of these sat Shinte on a sort of throne covered with a leopard’s skin. He had on a checked jacket and a kilt of scarlet baize edged with green; many strings of large heads hung from his neck, and his limbs were covered with iron and copper armlets and bracelets; on his head he wore a helmet made of beads woven neatly together, and crowned with a great bunch of goose-feathers. Close to him sat three lads with large sheaves of arrows over their shoulders.
“When we entered the kotla, the whole of Manenko’s party saluted Shinte by clapping their hands, and Sambanza did obeisance by rubbing his chest and arms with ashes. One of the trees being unoccupied I retreated to it for the sake of the shade, and my whole party did the same. We were now about forty yards from the chief and could see the whole ceremony. The different sections of the tribe came forward in the same way that we did, the head man of each making obeisance with ashes which he carried with him for the purpose; then came the soldiers, all[39] armed to the teeth, running and shouting towards us, with their swords drawn and their faces screwed up so as to appear as savage as possible for the purpose, I thought, of trying whether they could not make us take to our heels. As we did not, they turned round towards Shinte and saluted him, then retired. When all had come and were seated, then began the curious capering usually seen in pictures. A man starts up, and imitates the most approved attitudes observed in actual fight, as of throwing one javelin, receiving another on the shield, springing on one side to avoid a third, running backwards or forwards, leaping, etc. This over, Sambanza and the spokesman of Nyamoana stalked backwards and forwards in front of Shinte, and gave forth in a loud voice all they had been able to learn either from myself or people of my past history and connection with the Makololo; the return of the captives, the wish to open the country to trade, etc. Perhaps he is fibbing, perhaps not—they rather thought he was; but as the Balonda had good hearts, and Shinte had never done harm to any one, he had better receive the white man well and send him on his way. Sambanza was gaily attired, and, besides a profusion of beads, had a cloth so long that a boy carried it after him as a train.
“Behind Shinte sat about a hundred women clothed in their best, which happened to be a profusion of red baize. The chief wife of Shinte, one of the Matebele or Zulus, sat in front with a curious red cap on her head. During the intervals between the speeches these ladies burst forth into a sort of plaintive ditty; but it was impossible for any of us to catch whether it was in praise of the speaker, of Shinte, or of themselves. This was the first time I had ever seen females present in a public assembly. Generally the women are not permitted to enter the kotla, and even when invited to come to a religious service they would not enter until ordered to do so by the chief; but here they expressed approbation by clapping their hands and laughing to different speakers, and Shinte frequently turned round and spoke to them.
“A party of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four performers on the piano, went round the kotla several times, regaling us with their music. The drums are neatly carved from the trunk of a tree, and have a small hole in the side covered with a bit of spider’s web; the ends are covered with the skin of an antelope pegged on, and when they wish to tighten it they hold it to the fire to make it contract—the instruments are beaten with the hands.
“The piano, named marimba, consists of two bars of wood placed side by[40] side here quite straight, but farther north bent round so as to resemble half the tire of a carriage wheel; across these are placed about fifteen wooden keys, each of which is two or three inches broad, and fifteen or eighteen inches long—their thickness is regulated according to the deepness of the note required; each of the keys has a calabash beneath it from the upper part of each a portion is cut off to enable them to embrace the bars, and form hollow sounding-boards to the keys, which also are of different sizes according to the note required, and little drumsticks elicit the music. Rapidity of execution seems much admired among them, and the music is pleasant to the ear.
“When nine speakers had concluded their orations Shinte stood up, and so did all the people. He had maintained true African dignity of manner all the while; but my people remarked that he scarcely took his eyes off me for a moment. About a thousand people were present according to my calculation, and three hundred soldiers. The sun had now become hot, and the scene ended by the Mambari discharging their guns.
“As the river seemed to come from the direction in which we wished to go, I was desirous of proceeding farther up with the canoes, but Nyamoana interposed numerous objections, and the arrival of Manenko herself settled the point in the negative. She was a tall strapping woman, about twenty years of age, and distinguished by a profusion of ornaments and medicines, which latter are supposed to act as charms. Her body was smeared all over with a mixture of fat and red ochre as a protection against the weather, a necessary precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was in a state of frightful nudity, not so much from want of clothing as from her peculiar ideas of elegance in dress. When she arrived with her husband Sambanza, she listened for some time to the statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after which her husband commenced an oration, during the delivery of which he picked up a little sand, at intervals of two or three seconds, and rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest. This is a common mode of salutation in Londa; and when they wish to be excessively polite they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe-clay in a piece of skin and rub it on the chest and upper front part of each arm; others drum their ribs with their elbows, while others touch the ground with one cheek after the other and clap their hands. When Sambanza had finished his oration he rose up and showed his ankles ornamented with a bundle of copper rings. Had they been very heavy they would have impeded his walk; and some chiefs wore so many as to[41] be forced to keep one foot apart from the other, the weight being a serious inconvenience in walking. Gentlemen like Sambanza who wish to ape their betters adopt their gait, strutting along with only a few ounces of ornament on their legs just as if they had double the number of pounds. When I smiled at Sambanza’s walk the people remarked, ‘That is the way in which they show off high blood in these parts.’
“When erecting our sheds at the village, Manenko, the chieftess, fell upon our friends and gave us a specimen of her powers of scolding. Masiko had once sent to Samoana for a cloth, which is a common way of keeping up intercourse. After receiving it he returned it, because it had the appearance of having had witchcraft medicine on it. This was a grave offence; and Manenko had now a good excuse for retaliation, as Masiko’s ambassadors had slept in one of the huts of her village without asking leave. She set upon them furiously, advancing and receding in true oratorical style, belabouring her own servants for allowing the offence, and raking up the faults and failings of the objects of her ire ever since they were born; in conclusion, expressing her despair of ever seeing them become better until they were all killed by alligators. Masiko’s people received this torrent of abuse in silence, and as neither we nor they had anything to eat, we parted next morning. In reference to the sale of slaves they promised to explain to Masiko the relationship which exists between even the most abject of his people and our common Father, and that no more kidnapping ought to be allowed. We promised to return through his town when we came back from the sea-coast.
“Manenko gave us some manioc roots in the morning, and had determined to carry our baggage to her uncle Shinte. We had heard a sample of what she could do with her tongue, and as neither my men nor myself had much inclination to encounter this black virago we proceeded to make ready the packages; but she said the men whom she had ordered for the service would not arrive until to-morrow. I felt annoyed at this further delay and ordered the packages to be put into the canoes at once: but Manenko was not to be circumvented in this way; she came forward with her people, seized the baggage, and declared that she would carry it in spite of me. My men succumbed and left me powerless. I was moving off in high dudgeon to the canoes when she kindly placed her hand on my shoulder and, with a motherly look, said, “Now, my little man, just do as the rest have done.” My feeling of annoyance of course vanished, and I went out to try for some meat.
[42]
Ignorance of court etiquette in savage no less than in civilized countries is a fruitful source of danger, or at least unpleasantness, to the traveller ambitious to move in what the newspapers vaguely describe as “select circles.” Mr. Stern, in his recent travels among the Falashas of Abyssinia, was on one occasion advised of this fact in a rather astonishing manner. Breakfast was served in the royal tent, and it was during the progress of the meal that our traveller nearly lost the esteem and regard he had hitherto enjoyed. “According to the Abyssinian notion every man who claims to be of patrician descent, should emulate the noises made by a certain unclean animal whilst eating his meals. My ignorance of this elegant acquirement (for I had unfortunately not yet attained it) drew upon me the frowns as well as the whispered censures of the guests. Unconscious of the cause of this unexpected notoriety, I asked whether there was anything peculiar in my appearance or deportment that provoked criticism. ‘Certainly,’ was the rejoinder, ‘your conduct is so ungentlemanly that all the guests think you must be a very low fellow and quite unaccustomed to move in genteel society.’ ‘And to what am I indebted for this good opinion?’ returned I. ‘To the mode in which you eat; for if you were a gentleman you would show by the smacking of your lips the exalted station to which you belong; but since you masticate your food in this inaudible manner every one believes that you are a beggar and accustomed to eat in that unostentatious manner which pretended poverty prompts individuals to adopt.’ I assured them that any breach of etiquette must be attributed to the difference of the customs in my own country and not to the low motive they assigned, an apology which amply satisfied the most accomplished courtier in the royal tent.”
It is the constant practice in Abyssinia to beset the king’s doors and windows within his hearing, and there, from early morning to night, to cry for justice as loud as possible in a distressed and complaining tone, and in all the different languages they are master of, in order to their being admitted to have their supposed grievances heard. In a country so ill governed as Abyssinia is, and so perpetually involved in war, it may be easily supposed there is no want of people who have real injuries and violence to complain of: but if it were not so, this is so much the constant usage, that when it happens (as in the midst of the rainy season) that few people can approach the capital or stand without in such bad weather, a set of vagrants are provided, maintained, and paid, whose sole business it is to cry and lament, as if they had been really very[43] much injured and oppressed; and this, they tell you, is for the king’s honour, that he may not be lonely, by the palace being too quiet. This, of all their absurd customs, was the most grievous and troublesome to Mr. Bruce. Sometimes, while Mr. Bruce was busy in his room in the rainy season, there would be four or five hundred people, who all at once would begin, some roaring and crying, as if they were in pain, others demanding justice, as if they were that moment suffering, or if in the instant to be put to death; and some groaning and sobbing as if just expiring; and this horrid symphony was so artfully performed, that no ear could distinguish but that it proceeded from real distress. Mr. Bruce was often so surprised as to send the soldiers at the door to bring in one of them, thinking him come from the country, to examine who had injured him: many a time he was a servant of his own, or some other equally known; or, if he was a stranger, upon asking him what misfortune had befallen him he would answer very composedly, nothing was the matter with him; that he had been sleeping all day with the horses; that hearing from the soldiers at the door that Mr. Bruce was retired to his apartment he and his companions had come to cry and make a noise under his window, to do him honour before the people, for fear he should be melancholy by being too quiet when alone, and therefore hoped that he would order them drink that they might continue with a little more spirit.
In the course of his Abyssinian journeyings, the traveller just mentioned had occasion to pass through a place called Arendi, which was governed by a female named Sittina, or the Lady. Our traveller waited on this high and mighty personage. Upon entering the house, a black slave laid hold of him by the hand, and placed him in a passage, at the end of which were two opposite doors. Mr. Bruce did not well know the reason of this; but staid only a few minutes, when he heard one of the doors at the end of the passage open, and Sittina appeared magnificently dressed, with a kind of round cap of solid gold upon the crown of her head, all beaten very thin, and hung round with sequins; with a variety of gold chains, solitaires, and necklaces of the same metal, about her neck. Her hair was plaited in ten or twelve small divisions like tails, which hung down below her waist; and over her was thrown a common cotton white garment. She had a purple silk stole, or scarf, hung very gracefully upon her back, brought again round her waist, without covering her shoulders or arms. Upon her wrists she had two bracelets like handcuffs, about half an inch thick, and two gold manacles of the same at her feet, full an inch in[44] diameter, the most disagreeable and awkward part of her dress. Mr. Bruce expected she would have hurried through with some affectation of surprise. On the contrary, she stopped in the middle of the passage, saying, in a very grave manner, “Kifhalec,—how are you?” Mr. Bruce thought this was an opportunity of kissing her hand, which he did, without her shewing any sort of reluctance. “Allow me as a physician, Madam,” said Mr. Bruce, “to say one word.” She bowed with her head, and said, “Go in at that door, and I will hear you.” The slave appeared, and carried him through a door at the bottom of a passage into a room, while her mistress vanished in at another door at the top, and there was the screen he had seen the day before, and the lady behind it. She was a woman scarcely forty, taller than the middle size, had a very round plump face, her mouth rather large, very red lips, the finest teeth and eyes he had seen; but at the top of her nose, and between her eyebrows, she had a small speck made of antimony, four-cornered, and of the size of the smallest patches formerly worn by ladies of fashion; another rather longer upon the top of her nose, and one in the middle of her chin.
“Tell me what you would say to me as a physician.” “It was, madam, but in consequence of your discourse yesterday. That heavy gold cap with which you press your hair will certainly be the cause of a great part of it falling off.” “I believe so; but I should catch cold, I am so accustomed to it, if I was to leave it off. Are you a man of name and family in your own country?” “Of both, madam.” “Are the women handsome there?” “The handsomest in the world, madam; but they are so good, and so excellent in all other respects, that nobody thinks at all of their beauty, nor do they value themselves upon it.” “And do they allow you to kiss their hands?” “I understand you, madam, though you have mistaken me. There is no familiarity in kissing hands; it is a mark of homage and distant respect paid in my country to our sovereigns, and to none earthly besides.” “O yes! but the kings.” “Yes, and the queens too, always on the knee, madam. On her part, it is a mark of gracious condescension, in favour of rank, merit, and honourable behaviour; it is a reward for dangerous and difficult services, above all other compensation.” “But do you know that no man ever kissed my hand but you?” “It is impossible I should know that, nor is it material. Of this I am confident, it was meant respectfully, cannot hurt you, and should not offend you.” “It certainly has done neither,” replied Her Majesty—and so ended her first lesson on the etiquette of civilized life.
[45]
On another occasion, while in the neighbourhood of Seenaar, our traveller waited on the king; and about eight o’clock came a servant from the palace, telling Mr. Bruce that then was the time to “bring his present.” He sorted the separate articles with all the speed he could, and went directly to the palace. The king was sitting in a large apartment, as far as he could guess, at some distance from the former. He was naked, but had several clothes lying upon his knee, and about him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very stinking butter or grease, with which his hair was dropping as if wet with water. Large as the room was, it could be smelled through the whole of it. The king asked Mr. Bruce if he ever greased himself as he did? Mr. Bruce said, very seldom, but fancied it would be very expensive. He then told him that it was elephant’s grease, which made people strong, and preserved the skin very smooth. Our traveller said he thought it very proper, but could not bear the smell of it, though his skin should turn as rough as an elephant’s for the want of it. The king replied, that if Mr. Bruce had used it, his hair would not have turned so red as it was, and that it would all become white presently, when that redness came off. “You may see,” continued he, “the Arabs driven in here by the Daveina, and all their cattle taken from them, because they have no longer any grease for their hair. The sun first turns it red, and then perfectly white; and you will know them in the street by their hair being the colour of yours. As for the smell, you will see that cured presently.”
After having rubbed him abundantly with grease, the servants brought him a pretty large horn, and in it something scented, about the consistence of honey. It was plain that civet was a great part of the composition. The king went out at the door, Mr. Bruce supposes into another room, and there two men deluged him with pitchers of cold water. He then returned, and a slave anointed him with this sweet ointment; after which he sat down as completely dressed, being just going to his woman’s apartment where he was to sup. Mr. Bruce told him, he wondered why he did not use rose-water as in Abyssinia, Arabia, and Cairo. He said he had it often from Cairo, when the merchants arrived; but as it was now long since they came, his people could not make more, for the rose would not grow in his country, though the women made something like it of lemon-flower.
Making a skip from Abyssinia to Madagascar we there find the “Royal state” a ludicrous blending of gingerbread splendour and magnificent[46] muddle. By-the-by, things may have reformed here by this time, as the queen of whom this description treats is lately dead: let us hope that this is the case. Our business, however, is to recite the evidence of our witnesses—the witness in this case being the courageous and truthful Ida Pfieffer.
“Towards four o’clock our bearers carried us to the palace. Over the door is fixed a great gilt eagle with extended wings. According to the rule here laid down by etiquette we stepped over the threshold first with the right foot, and observed the same ceremony on coming to a second gate leading to a great court-yard in front of the palace. Here we saw the queen sitting on a balcony on the first storey, and were directed to stand in a row in the court-yard opposite to her. Under the balcony stood some soldiers, who went through sundry evolutions, concluding with a very comic point of drill which consisted in suddenly poking up the right foot as though suddenly stung by a tarantula.
“The queen was wrapped, according to the custom of the country, in a wide silk simbu and wore on her head a big golden crown. Though she sat in the shade a very large crimson umbrella was held up over head; this being, it appears, a point of regal state.
“The queen is of rather dark complexion, and sturdily built, and although already seventy-five years of age she is, to the misfortune of her poor country, still hale and of active mind. At one time she is said to have been a great drunkard, but she has given up that fatal propensity some years ago.
“To the right of the queen stood her son Prince Rakoto, and on the left her adopted son Prince Ramboasalama; behind her sat and stood sundry nephews and nieces and other relatives, male and female, and several grandees of the empire.
“The minister who had conducted us to the palace made a short speech to the queen; after which we had to bow three times and to repeat the words ‘Esaratsara tombokoe,’ equivalent to ‘We salute you cordially,’ to which she replied ‘Esaratsara,’ which means ‘well-good.’ Then we turned to the left to salute the tomb of Prince Radama lying a few paces on one side, with three similar bows; whereupon we returned to our former place in front of the balcony and made three more. Mr. Lambert (who accompanied Madam Pfieffer) on this occasion, held up a gold piece of fifty franks value and put it in the hands of the minister who accompanied us. This gift, which every stranger has to offer the first time he[47] is presented at court, is called ‘Monosina.’ It is not customary that it should consist of a fifty-franc piece; the queen contents herself with a Spanish dollar, or a five-frank piece. After the delivery of the gold piece, the queen asked Mr. Lambert if he wished to put any question to her, or if he stood in need of anything; to which he answered, ‘No.’ She also was condescending enough to turn to me and ask if I was well and if I had escaped the fever. After I had answered this question, we stayed a few minutes longer looking at each other, and then the bowings and greetings began anew. We had to take leave of Radama’s monument, and on returning were reminded not on any account to put the left foot first over the threshold.”
The royal palace of Madagascar is described by Mrs. Pfieffer as a very large wooden building, consisting of a ground floor and two storeys surmounted by a peculiarly high roof. The storeys are surrounded by broad galleries. Around the building are pillars, also of wood, eighty feet high, supporting the roof which rises to a height of forty feet above them, resting in the centre on a pillar no less than a hundred and twenty feet high. All these columns, the one in the centre not excepted, consist of a single trunk; and when it is considered that the woods which contain trees of sufficient size to furnish these columns are fifty or sixty English miles from the capital, that the roads are nowhere paved and in some places are quite impassable, and that all the pillars are dragged hither without the help of a single beast of burden or any kind of machine, and are afterwards prepared and set up by means of the simplest tools, the building of this place may with truth be called a gigantic undertaking, and the place itself be ranked among the wonders of the world. In bringing home the chief pillar alone five thousand persons were employed and twelve days were occupied in its erection.
“All these labours were performed by the people as compulsory service for which they received neither wages nor food. I was told that during the progress of the work fifteen thousand persons fell victims to the hard toil and the want of proper nourishment. But the queen is little disturbed by such a circumstance—half the population might perish if only her high behests were fulfilled.
“In front of the principal building a handsome and spacious court-yard has been left. Around this space stands several pretty houses, all of wood. The chief building is in fact uninhabited and contains only halls of state and banquetting rooms. On the left the ‘silver palace’ adjoins[48] the larger one. It takes its name from the fact that all the vandyked ends with which the roof is decorated are hung with innumerable little silver bells. Beside the silver palace stands the monument of King Radama—a tiny wooden house without windows; to this fact, however, and to the further circumstance of its being built upon a pedestal, it owes its sole resemblance to a monument.”
The singular custom prevails in Madagascar, that when a king dies all his treasures in gold and silver ware, and other valuables, are laid with him in the grave. In case of need, however, the king can dig up the treasure. “As far as I could ascertain,” says the observant Ida Pfieffer, “this had been done in several instances.”
The same lady favours us with a description of the chief national festival among the Malagaseys, the “Feast of the Queen’s Bath.” It takes place on New Year’s Day.
“On the eve of the feast all the high officers, nobles, and chiefs, appear at court invited by the queen. They assemble in a great hall; presently a dish of rice is carried round, each guest taking a pinch in his fingers and eating it. That is the whole extent of the ceremony on this first evening.
“Next morning the same company assemble in the same hall. As soon as they have all met, the queen steps behind a curtain which hangs in a corner of the room, undresses, and has water thrown over her. As soon as she has been dressed again she steps forward, holding in her hand an ox horn, filled with the water which has been poured over her. Part of this she pours over the assembled company. Then she betakes herself to a gallery overlooking the court-yard of the palace and pours the rest over the military assembled there for parade.
“On this auspicious day nothing is seen throughout the whole country but feasting, dancing, singing, and rejoicing, which is continued till late at night. The celebration is kept up for eight days dating from the day of the bath. It is the custom of the people to kill as many oxen on that day as they contemplate consuming during the other seven; whoever possesses any oxen at all kills at least one at this feast. The poor people get pieces of meat in exchange for rice, sweet potatoes, tobacco, etc. The meat is still tolerably fresh on the eighth day. It is cut into long thin strips, which are salted and laid one on the other. The preliminary celebration of the feast occurs a week earlier and consists of military processions. The votaries of pleasure then begin their feast and thus have a fortnight’s jollity—a week before the feast and a week after.
[49]
“The soldiers whom I saw in the procession pleased me well enough. They went through their manœuvres with tolerable accuracy, and, contrary to my expectation, I found the music not only endurable but positively harmonious. It appears that some years ago the queen sent for an European band-master and a complete set of instruments; and her worthy subjects were inducted into a knowledge of music probably by means of a stick. The soldiers were dressed in a simple, neat, and perfectly uniform manner. They wore a tight-fitting jerkin reaching to the chest and covering part of their loins. The chest was bare and covered by the gleaming white belts supporting the cartridge-box, which had a good effect in contrast to the black skins of the soldiers. Their heads are uncovered. Their arms consisted of a musket and the national lance called sagaya.”
According to the same authority, however, satisfactory as is the appearance of the Malagasey soldier, his lot is a very hard one. He receives no pay, and even his regimentals must be provided out of his own scanty means. To meet these expenses he is obliged, if he is a craftsman, to beg so much leave each day of his superior; or, if farm work be his avocation, he on certain days of the week abandons the barrack for the plough. The soldier, however, says Mrs. Pfieffer, who would obtain enough leave of absence to enable him to maintain himself in anything like comfort, must propitiate his captain by giving him part of his earnings. The officers are generally very little richer than the soldiers. They certainly receive, like the civil officials, a remuneration for their services from the customs’ revenues; but the pay is so small that they cannot live upon it, and are compelled to have recourse to other means, not always of the most honest description. According to the law a very small portion of the customs’ revenue should come to the common soldier; but so insignificant is the amount that neither common soldiers nor officers think it worth while to make any fuss about it.
So it comes about that the unlucky Malagasey soldier who can find no work, and is too far from his native village to receive assistance from his friends, is in danger of starvation. His leisure hours are spent in grubbing about the country in search of herbs and roots with which, and a little rice, he manages to keep life and soul together. The rice he throws into a pot filled with water, and after it has soaked for a time the rice-water serves him for a dinner; in the evening he banquets on the soddened grain remaining in the pot. But in war time, as soon as he is on an[50] enemy’s territory, he makes up for his protracted season of “short commons;” he plunders right and left and literally lives upon the fat of the land; his long training has provided him with an excellent appetite; indeed, it is said that four able-bodied Malagaseys are equal to the task of consuming an entire ox in the space of four days, and at the termination of the feast to be so little incommoded as to be able to flee from pursuit with the nimbleness of deer-hounds.
The Malagasey soldier at war, however, is only to be envied while his health remains unimpared, and while he is lucky enough to keep his carcase within a sound skin. His comrades are bound to take care of him in sickness—but how are they to do this when they themselves are pinched by poverty and are without even the common necessaries of life? It frequently happens on a march that the sick soldier’s companions will endeavour to rid themselves of him; not by killing him outright, but by the less charitable process of denying him food to eat or water to quench his thirst, till, preferring death to further torture, he begs to be laid under a tree and left, when his tender nurses readily yield to his solicitations, and he is left to die.
Let us wind up our notice of Royalty and its attributes in Madagascar by a description of a court ball.
The ball began soon after one o’clock in the day, and was not held in the apartments of the palace, but in front of the building, in the great fore-court in which we had been admitted to our audience. As on that former occasion, the queen sat on the balcony under the shade of her great parasol, and we were obliged to make the usual obeisances to her and to the tomb of King Radama. This time, however, we were not made to stand; comfortable arm-chairs were assigned to us. Gradually the ball company began to assemble; the guests comprised nobles of both sexes, officers and their wives, and the queen’s female singers and dancers. The nobles wore various costumes, and the officers appeared in European dress: all were obliged to make numerous obeisances. Those who appeared in costume had seats like ours given them; the rest squatted about as they liked, in groups on the ground.
“The queen’s female dancers opened the ball with the dreary Malagasey dance. These charming creatures were wrapped from top to toe in white simbus, and wore on their heads artificial, or, I should say, very inartificial flowers, standing up stiffly like little flagstaffs; they crowded into a group in such a way that they seemed all tied together. As often[51] as they staggered past the queen’s balcony or the monument of King Radama, they repeated their salutes, and likewise at the end of every separate dance. After the female dancers had retired, the officers executed a very similar dance, only that they kept somewhat quicker time, and their gestures were more animated—that is to say, they lifted their feet rather higher than the performers of the other sex. Those who had hats and caps, waved them in the air from time to time, and set up a sharp howling, intended to represent cries of joy.
“After the officers followed six couples of children in fancy dresses. The boys wore the old Spanish costume, or were attired as pages, and looked tolerably well; but the girls were perfect scarecrows. They wore old-fashioned French costumes—large, stiff petticoats, with short bodices—and their heads were quite loaded with ostrich feathers, flowers, and ribbons. After this little monkey community had performed certain polonaises, schottisches, and contre-danses, acquitting themselves, contrary to my expectation, with considerable skill, they bowed low and retired, making way for a larger company, the males likewise clad in the old Spanish, the females in the old French garb.
“All these various costumes are commanded by the queen, who generally gets her ideas from pictures or engravings that come in her way. The ladies add to the costume prescribed by royalty whatever their own taste and invention may suggest, generally showing great boldness and originality in the combination of colours. I will give my readers an idea of what these costumes are like, by describing one of them.
“The dress was of blue satin, with a border of orange colour, above which ran a broad stripe of bright cherry-coloured satin. The body, also of satin, with long skirt, shone with a brimstone hue, and a light sea green silk shawl was draped above it. The head was covered in such style with stiff, clumsily-made artificial flowers, with ostrich feathers, silk ribbons, glass beads, and all kinds of millinery, that the hair was entirely hidden—not that the fair one lost much thereby, but that I pitied her for the burden she had to carry.
“The costumes of the other ladies showed similar contrasts in colour, and some of these tasteful dresses had been improved by a further stroke of ingenuity, being surmounted by high conical hats, very like those worn by the Tyrolese peasants.
“The company, consisting exclusively of the higher aristocracy, executed various European dances, and also performed the Sega, which the[52] Malagaseys assert to be a native dance, though it is really derived from the Moors. The figures, steps, and music of the Sega are all so pleasing that, if it were once introduced in Europe, it could not fail to become universally fashionable.
Malagasey Ball.
“This beautiful dance was far from concluding the ball. After a short pause, during which no refreshments were offered, the élite of the company, consisting of six couples, stepped into the court-yard. The gentlemen were Prince Rakoto, the two Labordes, father and son, two ministers, and a general—all the ladies were princesses or countesses. The gentlemen were dressed in old Spanish costume, except Prince Rakoto, who[53] wore a fancy dress so tastefully chosen, that he might have appeared with distinction in any European Court ball. He wore trousers of dark blue cloth, with a stripe down the side, a kind of loose jerkin of maroon-coloured velvet, ornamented with gold stripes and the most delicate embroidery, and a velvet cap of the same colour, with two ostrich feathers, fastened by a gold brooch. The whole dress fitted so well, and the embroidery was so good, that I thought Mr. Lambert must have taken the prince’s measure with him to Paris, and that the clothes had been made there; but this was not the case. Everything, with the exception of the material, had been prepared at Tananariva—a proof that, if the people of Madagascar are deficient in invention, they are exceedingly clever in imitating models set before them.
“This group of dancers appeared with much more effect than their predecessors, for all the ladies and gentlemen were much more tastefully attired than the rest of the company. They only performed European dances.
“The whole of these festivities, which had occupied three hours, had not put the queen to the slightest expense. The court-yard was the dancing floor, the sun provided illumination, and every guest was at liberty to take what refreshment he chose—when he got home. Happy queen! How sincerely many of our ball-givers must envy her!”
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Borneo.
Installation of a Dayak Rajah—A visit to the Grungs—A Dayak dance—Captain Hall’s visit to Corea—The chief on board the “Lyra”—Entertained at one’s own expense—The chief loses his temper—The marriage of King Finow’s daughter—The marriage ceremonies—Mummying a king—King John’s skull—The Bushman’s mourning.
In Borneo we find the ruling power to be a Sultan, assisted in his rule by “Rajahs” and “Pangerans” and “Bandars,” and many others whose titles are equally unintelligible to us. Each of these minor rulers, however, appears to rule absolutely over the people in their immediate care; and much ceremony is observed at their installation. Sir James Brooke, himself a rajah, was once present at the election of three of these petty rulers.
With the Dayaks all council is divided into hot and cold—peace, friendship, good intentions, are all included under the latter head; war, etc., are under the former. Hot is represented by red, and cold by white. So in everything they make this distinction; and as the public hall is the place for war councils and war trophies, it is hot in the extreme, and unfit for friendly conference. A shed was therefore erected close to the Orang Kaya’s house wherein the ceremony was to take place. “About nine in the evening we repaired to the scene; loud music, barbarous but not unpleasing, resounded, and we took our seats on mats in the midst of our Dayak friends. A feast was in preparation, and each guest (if I[55] may call them such) brought his share of rice in bamboos and laid it on the general stock. As one party came up after another, carrying their burning logs, the effect was very good; and they kept arriving until the place and its vicinity was literally crammed with human beings. A large antique sīrih-box was placed in the midst, and I contributed that greatest of luxuries, tobacco.
“The feast in the meantime was in preparation, some of the principal people being employed in counting the number who were to eat and dividing the bamboos into exactly equal portions for each person. About six inches were allotted to every man, and it took a very long time to divide it, for they are remarkably particular as to the proper size and quantity to each share. The bamboos of rice being, however, at length satisfactorily disposed, the Orang Kaya produced as his share a large basin full of sauce composed of salt and chilis, and a small stock of sweetmeats, and then the ceremony of his installation commenced as follows:
“A jacket, a turban, a cloth for the loins, and a kris (all of white), were presented to the chiefs as a token of sejiek dingin, or cold (i.e. good). The chief then rose, and taking a white fowl and waving it over the eatables, repeated nearly the following words [The commencement, however, is curious enough to dwell upon: the opening is a sort of invocation beginning with the phrase ‘Samungut Samungi.’ Samungut is a Malay word, Samungi signifying the same in Dayak; the exact meaning it is difficult to comprehend, but it is here understood as some principal spirit or fortune which is in men and things. Thus the Dayaks in stowing their rice at harvest, do it with great care from a superstitious feeling that the Samungi of the padi will escape. They now call this principal to be present—that of men, of pigs (their favorite animal), of padi, and of fruits. They particularly named my Samungi, that of my ancestors, of the Pangeran from Borneo, of the Datus and of their ancestors, and of the ancestors of their own tribe. They call them—that is, their Samungi—to be present. They then call upon Jovata to grant their prayer that the great man from Europe and the Datus might hold the government for a length of time]:—‘May the government be cold (good). May there be rice in our houses. May many pigs be killed. May male children be born to us. May fruit ripen. May we be happy, and our goods abundant. We declare ourselves to be true to the great man and the Datus; what they wish we will do, what they command is our law.’ Having said this and much more the fowl was taken by a leading Malay who repeated the[56] latter words, whilst others bound strips of white cloth round the heads of the multitude. The fowl was then killed, the blood shed in a bamboo, and each man dipping his finger in the blood touched his forehead and breast in attestation of his fidelity. The fowl was now carried away to be cooked, and when brought back placed with the rest of the feast, and the dancing commenced. The chief coming forward uttered a loud yell ending in ‘ish,’ which was oftentimes repeated during the dance. He raised his hand to his forehead and, taking a dish, commenced dancing to lively music. Three other old chief-men followed his example, each uttering the yell and making the salute, but without taking the dish. They danced with arms extended, turning the body frequently, taking very small steps and little more than lifting their feet from the ground. Thus they turned backwards and forwards, passed in and out in the inner rooms, and frequently repeating a yell and making the salutation to me. The dish in the meantime was changed from one to the other; there was little variety, no gesticulation, no violence, and though not deficient in native grace, yet the movements were by no means interesting. The dance over the feast commenced, and everything was carried on with great gravity and propriety. I left them shortly after they begun to eat, and retired, very fagged, to my bed, or rather my board, for sitting cross-legged for several hours is surely a great affliction.”
Sir J. Brooke, in company with a modern writer on Bornean manners and customs—Mr. St. John—on another occasion paid a ceremonial visit to a chief of the Grungs, and with results that are worth chronicling.
“We found the village crowded with the representatives of all the neighbouring tribes; long strings of men, women, and children were continually arriving as we approached. Directly we ascended the notched tree that served as a ladder to the Orang Kaya’s house, we found that we were no longer free agents. A crowd of old women instantly seized us and pulled off our shoes and stockings and commenced most vigorously washing our feet: this water was preserved to fertilize the fields. We were then conducted to a platform but slightly raised above the floor and requested to sit down, but the mats were so dirty that we could scarcely prevail upon ourselves to do so—perhaps the only time it has occurred to us; generally the mats are charmingly neat and clean. The arrival of our bedding freed us from this difficulty.
“We were surrounded by a dense mass of men, women, and children who appeared all to be talking at once; in fact, more excitement was[57] shewn than I have before observed. We had to do so many things, and almost all at once,—to sprinkle rice about, to pour a little water on each child that was presented to us, until, from force of example, the women and even the men insisted upon the ceremony being performed on them.
“Silence being at last restored, Kasim explained in a long speech the object of Captain Brooke’s visit. He spoke in Malay, interlarding it occasionally with Dayak phrases—I say Malay, but Malay that is only used when addressing the aborigines,—clipping and altering words, changing the pronunciation, until I find that some have been deceived into believing this was the true Dayak language. It is to these people what the Lingua Franca is to Western Asia.
“We got a little respite while eating our dinner; but as soon as we had finished we were again surrounded. The priestesses of the place were especially active tying little bells round our wrists and ancles and bringing rice for us to—how shall I explain it?—in fact for us to spit on, and this delectable morsel they swallowed. No sooner had these learned women been satisfied than parents brought their children and insisted upon their being physicked in the same way, taking care to have a full share themselves. One horrid old woman actually came six times.
“The Orang Kaya now advanced and there was strict attention to hear what he was about to say. He walked to the window and threw some grains out, and then commenced a kind of prayer asking for good harvests, for fertility for the women, and for health to them all. During the whole invocation he kept scattering rice about. The people were very attentive at first, but soon the murmur of many voices almost drowned the old man’s tones. He did not appear very much in earnest, but repeated what he had to say as if he were going over a well-remembered but little understood lesson; in fact, it is said these invocations are in words not comprehended even by the Dayaks themselves—perhaps they are in some Indian language. Then a space was cleared for dancing; the old Orang Kaya and the elders commenced and were followed by the priestesses. They walked up to us in succession, passed their hands over our arms, pressed our palms, and then uttering a yell or a prolonged screech, went off in a slow measured tread, moving their arms and hands in unison with their feet, until they reached the end of the house and came back to where we sat; then another pressure of the palm, a few more passes to draw virtue out of us, another yell, and off they went again; at one time there were[58] at least a hundred dancing. Few of the young people joined in what appeared in this case a sacred dance.
“For three nights we had had little sleep on account of these ceremonies; but at length, notwithstanding clash of gong and beat of drum, we sank back in our beds and were soon fast asleep. In perhaps a couple of hours I awoke; my companion was still sleeping uneasily; the din was deafening, and I sat up to look around. Unfortunate movement! I was instantly seized by the hands of two priests and led up to the Orang Kaya who was leisurely cutting a fowl’s throat. He wanted Captain Brooke to perform the following ceremony, but I objected to his being awakened, and offered to do it for him. I was taken to the very end of the house and the bleeding fowl put in my hands; holding him by his legs I had to strike the lintels of the doors, sprinkling a little blood over each. When this was over I had to waive the fowl over the heads of the women and wish them fertility, over the children and wish them health, over all the people and wish them prosperity; out of the window and invoke good crops for them. At last I reached my mats and sat down preparatory to another sleep, when that horrid old woman led another detachment of her sex forward to recommence the physicking: fortunately but few came, and after setting them off dancing again I fell asleep and in spite of all the noises remained so till morning.”
When, in the year 1818, Captain Basil Hall undertook what was in those days considered a formidable undertaking—a voyage of discovery to the coast of Corea and the great Loo Choo Island—he was entertained at the former place by a potentate of so remarkable a character as to entitle him to a place among the necessarily few and consequently rare specimens of savage royalty which figure on these pages. It will be understood that Captain Hall’s ship, the “Alceste,” had anchored off Corea, and in the morning sent a boat ashore to feel the way to closer intimacy.
“The curiosity of the natives was already aroused; every boat was crowded with people, and ornamented with numerous flags and streamers; but one of them being distinguished by a large blue umbrella, we steered towards it, on the supposition that this was an emblem of rank, in which opinion we were soon confirmed by the sound of music, which played only on board this boat. On coming closer we saw a fine patriarchal figure seated under the umbrella; his full white beard covered his breast and reached below his middle; his robe or mantle, which was of blue silk and of an immense size, flowed about him in a magnificent style. His sword was[59] suspended from his waist by a small belt; but the insignia of his office appeared to be a slender black rod tipped with silver, about a foot and a half long, with a small leather thong at one end, and a piece of black crape tied to the other; this he held in his hand. His hat exceeded in breadth of brim anything we had yet met with, being, as we supposed, nearly three feet across. The old chief by signs expressed his wish to go to the ships. We accordingly rowed to the “Lyra,” which lay nearer to the shore than the “Alceste.” When the chief’s boat was within ten yards of the brig, they let go their anchor and threw a rope on board her by which they drew the boat alongside in a very seamanlike style. The old man did not find it an easy matter to get up the ship’s side, encumbered as he was with his splendid robes; he was no sooner on board, however, than we were crowded with the natives, who boarded us on all sides. Some climbed up the rigging so as to overlook the quarter-deck, others got on the poop, and a line was formed along the hammock netting from one end of the brig to the other. As the evening was fine, it was thought best to entertain the venerable chief upon deck, rather than give him the trouble of going down to the cabin, which, indeed, we had reason to fear would prove too small for the party. Chairs were accordingly placed upon deck, but the chief made signs that he could not sit on a chair, nor would he consent for a time to use his mat, which was brought on board by one of his attendants. He seemed embarrased and displeased, which we could not at the moment account for, though it has since occurred to us that he objected to the publicity of the conference. At length, however, he sat down upon his mat and began talking with great gravity and composure, without appearing in the smallest degree sensible that we did not understand a single word that he said. Meanwhile the crowd of natives increased, and their curiosity became so great, that they pressed round us in a way nowise agreeable. Some of them roved about the ship and appeared highly entertained with everything they saw. The chief himself, however, did not appear at ease, but continued giving directions to his officers and people about him with an air of impatience. He more than once ordered them all into their boats, but they always returned after a few minutes. One man persevered in climbing over the hammocks close to the chief to see what was going on; the noise made to keep him back attracted the chief’s attention, who immediately gave orders to one of the attendants for his being taken away: it will be seen by and by what was his fate. It was nearly dark when the[60] chief gave directions for preparing the boats, and at the same time to two of his attendants to assist him to get on his legs. Each took an arm, and in this way succeeded in raising him up, which was no sooner observed by the people, than they jumped into their boats with the utmost alacrity, and the chief, after many bows and salaams, walked into his boat. This did not give him so much trouble as he had experienced in coming on board, for a platform of grating and planks had been prepared for his accommodation during his visit, an attention with which he seemed much pleased. So far all seemed well; but there was still something amiss, for the old man, seated in state under his umbrella, remained alongside with his attendants ranged on deck about him, he and his people preserving the most perfect silence, and making no signs to explain. We were greatly puzzled to discover what the old gentleman wanted, till at length it was suggested that, having paid us a visit, he expected a similar compliment in return. This idea was no sooner started than we proceeded to pay our respects to him in his boat. He made signs for us to sit down, honouring us at the same time with a corner of his own mat. When we were seated he looked about as if in distress at having nothing to entertain us with, upon which a bottle of wine was sent for and given him. He ordered an attendant to pour it into several bowls, and putting the bottle away, made signs for us to drink, but would not taste it himself till all of us had been served. He was nowise discomposed at being obliged to entertain his company at their own expense; on the contrary, he carried off the whole affair with so much cheerfulness and ease as to make us suspect sometimes that he saw and enjoyed the oddity of the scene and circumstances as fully as we did ourselves. After sitting about ten minutes we left the chief in great good humour and returned on board, thinking of course that he would go straight to the shore; but in this we were mistaken, for we had no sooner left him than he pushed off to the distance of ten or twelve yards, and calling the other boats round him, gave orders for inflicting the discipline of the bamboo upon the unfortunate culprit who had been ordered into confinement during the conference. This exhibition, which it was evidently intended we should witness, had a very ludicrous effect, for it followed so much in train with the rest of the ceremony, and was carried on with so much gravity and order, that it looked like an essential part of the etiquette. During the infliction of this punishment a profound silence was observed by all the party, except by five or six persons immediately about the delinquent, whose cries they[61] accompanied by a sort of song or yell at each blow of the bamboo. This speedy execution of justice was, no doubt, intended to impress us with notions of Corean discipline. As it was now dark we did not expect the chief to pay any more visits this evening; but we underrated his politeness, for the moment the above scene was concluded he steered for the ‘Alceste.’ He was in great good humour, and seemed entertained with the efforts which were made to please him. He asked to look at a mirror which had caught his attention. When it was put into his hands he seemed very well satisfied with the figure which it presented, and continued for some time pulling his beard from side to side with an air of perfect complacency. One of the attendants thought there could be no harm in looking at the mirror likewise; but the chief was of a different opinion, and no sooner observed what he was doing, than he very angrily made him put down the glass and leave the cabin. The secretary, too, fell under his displeasure, and was reprimanded with much acrimony for overlooking our paper when we were writing. Scarcely five minutes elapsed in short during his stay, without his finding some cause of complaint against his people; but we could not determine whether this arose from mere captiousness, or was done to give us a higher notion of his consequence, because in the interval he was all cheerfulness and good humour. He was offered tea and cherry-brandy, which he took along with us, and appeared at his ease in every respect. We thought that he made signs implying a wish for us to visit him on shore; to this we cheerfully assented, and an arrangement for landing in the morning was made accordingly by means of similar signs, with which the chief appeared much pleased, and rose to go away. He had not got much beyond the cabin-door, however, before the serenity of his temper was once more overturned. On passing the gun-room skylight, he heard the voices of some of his people whom the officers had taken below, and who were enjoying themselves very merrily amongst their new acquaintance. The old chief looked down, and observing them drinking and making a noise, he called to them in a loud passionate voice, which made them leave their glasses and run up the ladder in great terror. From thence alarm spread along the lower deck to the midshipmen’s berth, where another party was carousing. The grog and wine with which they had been entertained was too potent for this party, as they did not seem to care much for the old chief, who, posting himself at the hatchway, ascertained by personal examination who the offenders were. On this occasion his little rod of[62] office was of much use; he pushed the people about with it to make them speak, and used it to turn them round in order to discover their faces. One man, watching his opportunity when the chief was punching away at somebody who had just come up, slipped past and ran off; but the quick eye of the old man was not so easily deceived, and he set off in chase of him round the quarter-deck. The man had an apron full of biscuits which had been given to him by the midshipmen; this impeded his running, so that the chief, nothwithstanding his robes, at last came up with him; but while he was stirring him up with his rod, the fellow slipped his cargo of bread into a coil of rope, and then went along with the chief quietly enough. The old man came back afterwards and found the biscuits, which he pointed out to us to show that they had not been taken away. He continued for some time at the hatchway, expecting more people, but finding none come up, he went below himself to the main-deck and rummaged under the guns and round the mainmast to discover whether any one was concealed, but finding no person there he came upon deck, and shortly after went into his boat.”
The reader has already made the acquaintance of King Finow; here are some further particulars of him and the manner of his court in connection with the marriage of his daughter. He had three daughters, the eldest of whom, about eighteen years of age, had been long betrothed to Tooitonga, who having expressed his wish that the marriage should take place, Finow gave orders for the necessary preparations. Tooitonga was now about forty years of age. The particulars of this chief’s marriage, which was somewhat different from those of other chiefs, shall be here described.
The young lady having been profusely anointed with cocoa-nut oil, and scented with sandal-wood, was dressed in the choicest mats of the Navigator’s Island, of the finest texture, and as soft as silk. So many of these costly mats were wrapped round her, perhaps more than forty yards, that her arms stuck out from her body in a ludicrous manner, and she could not, strictly speaking, sit down, but was obliged to bend in a sort of half-sitting posture, leaning upon her female attendants, who were under the necessity of again raising her when she required it. A young girl, about five years of age, was also dressed out in a similar manner to be her immediate and particular attendant; four other young virgins, about sixteen years of age, were also her attendants, and were dressed in a manner nearly similar, but not with quite so many mats. The lady and her five[63] attendants being all ready, proceeded to the marly of Tooitonga, who was there waiting for their arrival together with a number of other chiefs, two matabooles sitting before him. The lady and her attendants being arrived, seated themselves on the green before Tooitonga. After the lapse of a little time, a woman entered the circle with her face covered up with white gnatoo; she went into the house of the marly, and proceeded towards the upper end, where there sat another woman in waiting with a large roll of gnatoo, a wooden pillow, and a basket containing bottles of oil. The woman, whose face was veiled, took the gnatoo from the other, wrapped herself up in it, and laying her head upon the wooden pillow went, or pretended to go, fast asleep. No sooner was this done than Tooitonga rose up, and taking his bride by her hand led her into the house, and seated her on his left hand. Twenty baked hogs were now brought into the circle of the marly, and a number of expert cooks came in with knives (procured from European ships; formerly they used bamboo) to try their skill in carving with speed and dexterity, which is considered a great recommendation. A considerable part was shared out to the chiefs, each taking his portion and putting it in his bosom.
The remainder of the pork was then heaped up and scrambled for at an appointed signal. The woman who had laid herself down, covered over with gnatoo, now rose up and went, taking with her the gnatoo and the basket containing the bottles of oil as her perquisites. Tooitonga then took his bride by her left hand and led her to his dwelling, followed by the little girl and the other four attendants. The people now dispersed each to their home. Tooitonga being arrived with his bride at his residence, accompanied her into the house appropriated for her, where he left her to have her mats taken off and her usual dress put on, after which she amused herself in conversation with the women. In the meantime a feast was prepared for the evening, of pigs, fowls, yams, etc., and cava. This was got ready on the marly, where, about dusk, Tooitonga presiding, the company sat down to receive their portions, which the generality reserved to take home with them; the lower orders, indeed, who had but a small quantity, consumed theirs on the spot. After this cava was shared out and drunk. The musicians (if so they can be called) next sat down at the bottom of the ring, opposite to Tooitonga, in the middle of a circle of flambeaus, held by men who also held baskets of sand to receive the ashes. The musical instrument consisted of seven or eight bamboos of different lengths and sizes (from three to six feet long), so as to produce—held[64] by the middle, and one end being struck on the ground—different notes according to the intended tune (all the knots being cut out of the bamboo, and one end plugged up with soft wood). The only other instrument was a piece of split bamboo, on which a man struck with two sticks, one in each hand, to regulate the time. The music was an accompaniment to dancing, which was kept up a considerable time. The dancing being over, one of the matabooles addressed the company, making a moral discourse on the subject of chastity. The company then rose and dispersed to their respective homes. The bride was not present at this entertainment. Tooitonga being arrived at his house, sent for the bride, who immediately obeyed the summons. The moment they retired together, the lights were extinguished, and a man appointed at the door for the purpose announced it to the people by three hideous yells (similar to the war whoop), which he followed up immediately by the loud and repeated sounds of the conch.
For the accuracy of the following description of an Australian monarch Mr. W. H. R. Jessop is responsible:—
“King John, chief of the great Adelaide tribe, after reigning many years to the satisfaction of his numerous subjects, was taken ill and died. His body was not buried as would have been the fate of a common body, but disembowelled, thoroughly washed, and trussed like a fowl. Then a triangle was erected like that of a gipsey’s fire, and from it he was reverently suspended. Over all a tabernacle was made of green boughs and grass, something in the shape of a beehive. Beneath the venerated remains thus shrouded, a slow fire was kindled—so slow as to burn three weeks and not consume the body, against which calamity every precaution was taken by watching day and night.
“Meanwhile the subjects of the deceased monarch assembled, each one bearing in his hand a shell, and crowding round the enclosure where the body was roasting. Then followed a ceremony much too horrid for detail. It shall only be hinted at. Like all animal bodies subjected to the action of fire ... the saucer-like shells that were held beneath ... with which every subject anointed the tip of his tongue!
“Well, when the body had been duly smoked, and as far as possible mummied, the king’s dutiful lubras took it down, wrapped it up carefully, and for three months, by means of relief squads, carried it to and fro through the entire length and breadth of the defunct king’s domains. The bounds having thus been beaten they return to head-quarters, and[65] there having selected a gum-tree, proper and tall, they set the old man gently and firmly in a fork of the topmost bough. But he might get cold, for they don’t believe in his death while his body is to be seen, so they build over him a little tent of twigs and grass, and then leave him to his fate.”
In an earlier part of Mr. Jessop’s hook (Sturtland and Flindersland) mention is made of a certain “King John,” the proprietor of a skull of marvellous thickness, which was deposited as a natural curiosity in the “office” at the Sturtland station. Whether there were two monarchs of the same name, or this was the veritable skull of the king of Adelaide fallen from its nest in the gum-tree is not known, though as the latter monarch was renowned for shrewdness and intelligence, it is probable that the thick skull belonged to him. “Of his prowess and the difficulties of his position,” writes Mr. Jessop, “his skull is a lasting monument, more durable than brass or stone,” graven by art or man’s device. “Upon it I counted fourteen cavities, in each of which a marble would rest, all dents made by the waddies or clubs of enemies whom he had encountered.”
As already intimated the plebeian Bushman receives none of the sepulchral honours paid to the king. When he shows signs of giving up the ghost, his friends carry him out of his “wurley,” or hut, and one of them lays him straight along the ground as though he were already dead, with his hands by his side, and his feet close together. The dying man’s friend then commences what to a looker on would pass for a sort of mesmeric process: he strokes the patient from head to foot, carefully drawing his hands down the whole length of the body, and when arrived at the extremities pretending to throw something away. When this has gone on for the proper time, he pulls up stones and casts them with angry gestures at some imaginary spirit; not, however, to drive off any that he had just cast out, but to keep away the chief of evil spirits, who is always at hand to snatch away a Bushman’s life when he is so weakened by sickness as to be unable to take fast hold on it.
Should he recover, well and good; but should he die (and it is more than likely), he is wrapped in his opossum rug after the fashion of a mummy, strings being wound round his body from his neck to his feet; and when he is laid in the grave, stones are placed upon him till they reach the surface of the ground. In some cases, however, the body is buried upright, and in a bent or sitting posture. The grave is of an oval or elliptical shape, as might be expected; but what is very remarkable, the[66] body when laid straight always has its feet to the east and head to the west, as though to be able to welcome the rising sun.
Mourning seems to be a very prevalent custom among all the natives, and they show by their adoption of pretty nearly the same mode a common bond which seldom appears in any other of their ways and actions. There are two fashions which take the lead of all others, one in which red and blue colours are used, and the other in which white is most conspicuous. These colours are painted on the face in streaks of various forms, strongly suggestive of the tattooing of the New Zealanders; but sometimes laid on in such a way that the nose is half of one colour and half of another.
The women are said to restrict their exhibitions of grief to the colours alone, but the men extend their signs of woe to plastering the head with white clay, which their respect will not allow them to remove; time alone has the power of assuaging their sorrow by crumbling the nightcap to pieces. As the women work or hunt for food while the men sit in the wurley all day, this excess of pain and grief is probably nothing more than an excess of laziness, especially as it lasts from one to two months at a time. The red earth or ruddle is found in one spot only in the northern country, somewhere near the gorge in the Hayward Range. This is much celebrated, and is sought after by every tribe far and near; and although these tribes are hostile to each other, and on any other occasion to meet would be to fight, like the North-American Indian and his “Pipe-stone Quarry,” the Ruddle plain is neutral ground on which Bushmen foes may meet and dig in harmony.
Australian Weapons.
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Polynesian War Canoe.
Polynesian Surgeons—Figian treatment—A shipwrecked Figian—Samoan Priests and Doctors—Samoan physics—Polynesian Disease-makers—Namaquan cruelty—Left to die—Savage arithmetic—Bartering for Sheep—The Abiadiongs—A Pawnee M.D.—An Indian Sawbones—A medicine dance—An Indian vapour bath—Cupping three Queens—What is expected of a Physician—Hints to Travellers in the East—Stimulants to be avoided in the East—Cold water bathing in Nubia.
The science of surgery and medicine, as practised among savages, forms not the least curious and interesting feature in the story of their lives. Since they have as a rule no belief in natural or unavoidable death, it follows that natural or unavoidable sickness, as being the agents of death, are no more faithfully entertained. Unlike us, who have a name for the thousand ills that afflict us—from tooth-rash to elephantiasis—the savage has but one name for all the diseases he is acquainted with, and that one name is—the devil. Ague—and it is the devil within the man shaking his limbs; rheumatism, myriads of tiny imps are under the skin nibbling the[68] wretched sufferer’s bones; stomach-ache, tooth-ache, head-ache—it is the devil, and nobody and nothing else.
The business of the witch-doctor, or the greegree man, is to eject the devil from his patient—by fair means or foul as soon as possible. Dispersed through various preceding chapters instances of the way in which the ejection is attempted have already been given; we have witnessed how the Indian medicine-man operated on the sick baby, and on the unlucky little girl who had a stitch in her side; how the Dayak doctor cheated the devil and laid a trap for, caught, and replaced his patient’s departing spirit of life; how the Patagonian quack attempted the cure of the Patagonian infant. The medical and surgical customs of many savage nations, however, remain yet to be noticed. Let us see how they till lately managed such things in Polynesia.
A fractured limb they set without much trouble: applying splinters of bamboo cane to the sides, and binding it up till it was healed. A dislocation they usually succeeded in reducing, but the other parts of their surgical practice were marked by a rude promptness, temerity, and barbarism almost incredible. A man one day fell from a tree and dislocated some part of his neck. His companions, on perceiving it, instantly took him up; one of them placed his head between his own knees, and held it firmly, while the others, taking hold of his body, twisted the joint into its proper place.
On another occasion, a number of young men in the district of Faro, were carrying large stones suspended from each end of a pole across their shoulders (their usual mode of carrying a burden); one of them so injured the vertebræ as to be almost unable to move; he had, as they expressed it, fate te tua, broken the back. His fellow-workmen laid him flat on his face on the grass, one grasped and pulled his shoulders, and the other his legs, while a third actually pressed with both knees his whole weight upon the back where the bones appeared displaced. On being asked what they were doing, they coolly replied that they were only straightening the man’s back, which had been broken in with carrying stones. The vertebræ appeared to be replaced, they bound a long girdle repeatedly round his body, led him home, and without any other treatment he was in a short time able to resume his employment.
The operation of trepanning they sometimes attempted, and say they have practised with success. It is reported that there are persons living in the Island of Borabora, on whom it has been performed, or at least an[69] operation very much resembling it: the bones of the skull having been fractured in battle, they have cleared away the skin and coverings, and, having removed the fractured piece of bone, have carefully fitted in a piece of cocoa-nut shell and replaced the covering and skin, on the healing of which the man has recovered. I never saw any individual who had undergone this operation, but from the concurrent testimony of the people I have no doubt they have performed it.
It is also related by Stedman, that on some occasions when the brain has been injured as well as the bone, they have opened the skull, taken out the injured portion of the brain, and, having a pig ready, have killed it, taken out the pig’s brains, put them in the man’s head, and covered them up. They persist in stating that this has been done, but add that the persons always became furious with madness and died.
The sick man finds small compassion in Figi. If he is not very sick he is left to recover as he may, but the patience of his relations is soon exhausted. This does not seem to arise so much from inhumanity of disposition as from the miserable belief that some evil spirit has a hand in the business, and that as long as life remains in the ill conditioned body, the demon will be lurking about, and may presently attack another victim. They are a wonderfully matter-of-fact people, and do not scruple to make urgent representations to the invalid of the peril he is threatening his relations with by this vacillating temper—neither getting well nor dying: “You don’t seem to mend in the least, in fact you are looking disgustingly ill this morning, where’s the use of holding out? If you are to die, why not do it at once? Be reasonable and let some one help you out of your misery.”
Gentle and simple experience the same treatment. Mr. Williams relates the case of a Princess of Nakembo, who fell sick. The aid of the best native doctors was secured, large offerings made to the gods, and a temple begun, to secure their favour, but all was in vain. Rich puddings from sixteen to twenty-one feet in circumference were made, and through the priests sacrificed to the gods, but, despite all, the princess grew worse, and it was formally resolved to do her the charitable office of strangulation, when the missionaries interfered, took charge of and cured her. The same authority also quotes the case of a woman of Somosomo, who was in a very abject state through the protracted absence of her husband. For five weeks, though two women lived in the same house, she lay uncared for, becoming reduced to a mere skeleton. After this she had[70] food and medicine from the missionaries and improved. One morning, however, as a servant was carrying her her breakfast he met a funeral party who told him to take the breakfast back. The man could then remember that on the previous day he had found an old woman at the house of the invalid who made no secret of her errand but openly declared, “I came to see my friend and enquire if she was ready to be strangled, but as she is strong we will not strangle her yet.” As the sequel proved, the old murderess soon altered her mind.
Another instance given of the extraordinary treatment the sick and afflicted of Figi receive at the hands of their fellows concerns a native sailor. There was a violent storm, and the unfortunate in question with several others were spilt into the sea, and, as was thought, perished every one. This one man, however, managed to support himself by swimming till, utterly exhausted, he reached one of a fleet of canoes, and managed to pull himself aboard unperceived. One would have thought that his first act would have been to make himself known to his brother mariners, but he was a Figian among Figians and knew the probable fate that awaited him. As day broke the man was discovered; a short council was held, and it being universally agreed that there was something highly mysterious that this one should be saved while the rest, including the owner of the ship, who was a prince, should be lost, and that since he himself could give no better account of his escape than that “he swam,” the best course would be to knock him on the head and throw him overboard. One of the crew, however, presently recognized the wrecked man as a very skilful sailor, and the craft being short handed, it was finally resolved to let him live, provided he at once took the great steer oar and steered the vessel. To handle the steer oar of a Figian canoe is work for a very strong man. Nevertheless the poor man, weak and trembling from his long immersion, obeyed and steered the vessel through a long and tedious voyage, when, more dead than alive, he was carried ashore and housed in a shed. Here he remained till he was nearly well, when, unluckily, on the very eve of the ship putting to sea again he showed symptoms of a relapse. “No one could be spared to look after the invalid, and to take him on the canoe might give him pain and inconvenience his friends; they therefore concluded that it would be the best plan to strangle him, which purpose they, with his own consent, carried out. They kissed and wept over him! strangled, buried and mourned for him; and the next day set out on their voyage.”
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There is, however, a dreadful charge laid at the door of the Figian sick—a charge which Europeans who have lived amongst them declare to be not without foundation. Actuated by inexplicable motives they will, by lying on the mats of their friends, and by handling their clothing and cooking utensils, endeavour to communicate the disease with which they are afflicted. If this be true the anxiety of the Figian to see a sick relative comfortably entombed is in a great measure accounted for.
Turner, the Polynesian missionary, relates that when a Samoan falls sick his friends take a present to the priest: he says he will pray to the god for recovery; and then he goes to the sick person, and anoints with oil the part affected. He uses no particular oil. When he sits down he calls some one of the family to hand him some oil, and dipping his hand into the cup, passes it gently over the part two or three times. No medicines are used for the sick: if the body is hot, they go and lie down in cold water; if cold, they kindle a fire and warm themselves. After death the friends of the deceased are anxious to know the cause of death: they go with a present to the priest, and beg him to get the dead man to speak, and confess the sins which caused his death. The priest may be distant from the dead body, but he pretends to summon the spirit, and to have it within him. He speaks in his usual tone, and tells him to say before them all what he did to cause his death. Then he (the priest) whines out in a weak faltering voice a reply, as if from the spirit of the departed, confessing that he stole cocoa nuts from such a place, or that he fished at some particular spot forbidden by the king, or that he ate the fish which was the incarnation of his family god. As the priest whines out something of this sort, he manages to squeeze out some tears, and sob and cry over it. The friends of the departed feel relieved to know the cause, get up and go home. At death, one will say to his friend, “I’m going to the moon—think of me as being there.” Another will say, “I’m going to be a star;” and mentions the particular part of the heavens where they are to look for him. Another will say, “I shan’t go away—I shall remain in the grave, and be here with you.” Thus they seem to think they have only to choose where their disembodied spirits are to go after death. They tell of a Tokelau man who went up to the moon, and have their tale also of “the man in the moon.” They say, too, that the moon is the special residence of the kings and priests of Tokelau. The stars they believe to be the spirits of the departed. When the full moon begins to wane they suppose that it is being eaten by the[72] inhabitants of the region. From the new moon until the full they consider that the food is growing again. An eclipse of the moon is thought to be some sudden calamity destroying the food of the departed kings, and occasions special concern; and prayers and a meat offering of grated cocoa nut are immediately presented to their great god Tui Tokelau to avert the evil. As the eclipse passes off, they think it is all owing to their prayers.
The Samoans never had recourse to any internal remedy, except an emetic, which they sometimes tried after having eaten a poisonous fish. Sometimes, juices from the bush were tried; at other times, the patient drank water until it was rejected; and on some occasions, mud, and even the most unmentionable filth was mixed up, and taken as an emetic draught. Latterly, as their intercourse with Tongans, Figians, Tahitians, and Sandwich Islanders increased, they made additions to their pharmacopœia of juices from the bush. As in Egypt, each disease had its particular physician. Shampooing and anointing the affected part of the body with scented oil by the native doctors was common; and to this charms were frequently added, consisting of some flowers from the bush done up in a piece of native cloth, and put in a conspicuous place in the thatch, over the patient. Now, however, European medicines are eagerly sought after; so much so, that every missionary is obliged to have a dispensary, and to set apart a certain hour every day to give advice and medicine to the sick. As the Samoans supposed disease to be occasioned by the wrath of some particular deity, their principal desire, in any difficult case, was not for medicine, but to ascertain the cause of the calamity. The friends of the sick went to the high-priest of the village. He was sure to assign some cause; and, whatever that was, they were all anxiety to have it removed as the means of restoration. If he said they were to give up a canoe to the god, it was given up. If a piece of land was asked, it was passed over at once. Or if he did not wish anything from the party, he would probably tell them to assemble the family, “confess, and throw out.” In this ceremony each member of the family confessed his crimes, and any judgments which, in anger, he had invoked on the family, or upon the particular member of it then ill; and as a proof that he revoked all such imprecations, he took a little water in his mouth and spurted it out towards the person who was sick. The custom is still kept up by many; and the sick bed of a dear friend often forms a confessional, before which long-concealed and most revolting crimes are disclosed.
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In surgery they lanced ulcers with a shell or a shark’s tooth, and, in a similar way, bled from the arm. For inflammatory swellings, they sometimes tried local bleeding, but shampooing and rubbing with oil were and are still the more common remedies in such cases. Cuts they washed in the sea and bound up with a leaf. Into wounds in the scalp they blew the smoke of burnt chestnut wood. To take a barbed spear from the arm or leg, they cut into the limb from the opposite side, and pushed it right through. Amputation they never attempted. The treatment of the sick was, as it is now, invariably humane, and all that could be expected. They wanted for no kind of food, which they might desire by night or day, if it was at all in the power of their friends to procure it. In the event of the disease assuming a dangerous form, messengers were dispatched to friends at a distance that they might have an opportunity of being in time to see and say farewell to a departing relative. This is still the custom. The greater the rank, the greater the stir and muster about the sick of friends from the neighbourhood and from a distance. Everyone who goes to visit a sick friend supposed to be near death takes with him a present of a fine mat or some other kind of valuable property as a farewell expression of regard. Among the worldly minded, whose interests centre in this life, this heaping together of property by the bedside of a dying relative is still in high repute.
Of all classes of savage “Mystery-men,” rain-makers, thunder-makers, fly-makers, etc., the most singular of all, perhaps, are those denominated disease-makers. Amongst the Tannese, of Polynesia, these men are feared and worshipped as gods. They are supposed to be able to create disease and death by nohak burning. Nohak is literally rubbish, or refuse of food, which these disease-makers are continually searching after. The people therefore take every precaution, by burning or throwing into the sea all the rubbish they find lying about, to prevent those men from getting it. Should a disease-maker find the skin of a lanana, he rolls it up in a leaf, and wears it all day hanging round his neck, so that the people may see it; who say to each other, “He has got something; he will do for somebody at night.” After wearing it all day long, he takes it home in the evening, and scrapes some bark off a tree; he mixes this up with the lanana skin, and rolls it up tightly in a leaf, and then puts one end of it close enough to the fire to cause it to singe and smoulder, and burn away very gradually. How, when a Tannese falls ill, he is fully persuaded some disease-maker is burning his nohak, so that he provides[74] himself with a rude kind of horn, made out of some perforated shell. This shell he gets some one present to blow for him, and this is fully understood by the disease-maker to mean that the sick man wishes him to discontinue the burning, and also, that a present shall be sent to him the next morning; so that when the disease-maker hears the shell blown, he says to his friends, “That is the man whose rubbish I am burning, he is ill; let us stop burning, and see what present he will bring in the morning.” The sick man faithfully keeps his promise, and, in the morning, some present is made—pigs, mats, and such like. Whereupon the disease-maker promises he will do all he can to prevent the rubbish being again burned. Should a person die, his friends suppose that the disease-makers were not pleased with the presents made, and burned his rubbish to the end. When it is all burned they believe the person will die. Nor do the disease-makers seem to be the impostors, for should one of the craft fall ill, he fully believes some one is burning his nohak, and he blows the shell, and makes the presents as readily as the rest.
Cruel and abominable as are many of the Polynesian methods of disposing of their sick and aged, that there is “in lowest depths a deeper still,” many African tribes furnish an illustration. In an early part of this volume mention has been made of the poor old Bakalai, whom Du Chaillu met, and who was “turned out to die.” Such cases are not without parallel. Burchell quotes such a case, as does Moffat, as occurring among the Namaquas. This latter gentleman was informed that in a certain part of the forest there was an old woman squatting all alone and seemingly dying.
“On reaching the spot we beheld an object of heartrending distress. It was a venerable looking old woman, a living skeleton, sitting with her head leaning on her knees. She appeared terrified at our presence, and especially at me. She tried to rise, but, trembling with weakness, sunk again to the earth. I addressed her by the name which sounds sweet in every clime, and charms even the savage ear, ‘My mother, fear not, we are friends and will do you no harm.’ I put several questions to her, but she appeared either speechless or afraid to open her lips. I again repeated ‘Pray mother who are you and how do you come to be in this situation?’ to which she replied ‘I am a woman, I have been here four days, my children have left me here to die.’ ‘Your children?’ I interrupted. ‘Yes,’ raising her hand to her shrivelled bosom, ‘my own children, three sons and two daughters. They are gone,’ pointing with her finger, ‘to[75] yonder blue mountain, and have left me to die.’ ‘And pray why did they leave you?’ I enquired. Spreading out her hands she replied, ‘I am old, you see, and I am no longer able to serve them; when they kill game I am too feeble to help them carry home the flesh. I am not able to gather wood to make fire, and I cannot carry their children on my back as I used to do.’ This last sentence was more than I could bear, and though my tongue was cleaving to the roof of my mouth for want of water, this reply opened a fountain of tears. I remarked that I was surprised that she had escaped the lions which seemed to abound and to have approached very near the spot where she was. She took hold of the skin of her left arm with her fingers and raising it up as one would do a loose linen, she added, ‘I hear the lions, but there is nothing on me that they would eat; I have no flesh on me for them to scent.’ At this moment the waggon drew near which greatly alarmed her, for she supposed that it was an animal. Assuring her that it would do her no harm, I said that as I could not stay I would put her into the waggon and take her with me. At this remark she became convulsed with terror. Others addressed her, but all to no effect. She replied that if we took her and left her at another village they would do the same thing again. ‘It is our custom, I am nearly dead, I do not want to die again.’ The sun was now piercingly hot; the oxen were raging in the yoke and we ourselves nearly delirious. Finding it impossible to influence the woman to move without running the risk of her dying convulsed in our hands, we collected a quantity of fuel, gave her a good supply of dry meat, some tobacco, and a knife, with some other articles, telling her we should return in two days and stop the night, when she would be able to go with us; only she must keep up a good fire at night as the lions would smell the dried flesh if they did not scent her.”
Here is another case; the victim this time is a child, and her persecutors the Makalolo, likewise a South African tribe.
“The rich show kindness to the poor in expectation of services, and a poor person who has no relatives will seldom be supplied even with water in illness, and when dead will be dragged out to be devoured by the hyænas instead of being buried. Relatives alone will condescend to touch a dead body. It would be easy to enumerate instances of inhumanity which I have witnessed. An interesting looking girl came to my waggon one day in a state of nudity, and almost a skeleton. She was a captive from another tribe and had been neglected by the man who claimed her.[76] Having supplied her wants I made enquiry for him, and found that he had been unsuccessful in raising a crop of corn and had no food to give her. I volunteered to take her, but he said he would allow me to feed her and make her fat, and then he would take her away. I protested against this heartlessness, and as he said he would not part with his child I was precluded from attending to her wants. In a day or two she was lost sight of; she had gone out a little way from the town and being too weak to return had been cruelly left to perish. Another day I saw a poor boy going to the water to drink, apparently in a starving condition. This case I brought before the chief in council and found that his emaciation was ascribed to disease and want combined. He was not one of the Makalolo, but a member of a subdued tribe. I showed them that any one professing to claim a child and refusing proper nutriment would be guilty of his death. Sekeletu decided that the owner of this boy should give up his alleged right rather than destroy the child. When I took him he was so far gone as to be in the cold stage of starvation, but was soon brought round by a little milk given three or four times a day. On leaving Linyanti I handed him over to the charge of Sekeletu, who feeds his servants very well.”
One’s only source of consolation is that among this and neighbouring tribes intellect is at so low a par that it is more than probable that they are mainly influenced by a horror of the sight of death, and not by motives of selfishness or wanton inhumanity. Moreover, if it were attempted to impart a knowledge of medicine to them, it is doubtful if in their profound obtuseness they would not inflict much more injury than work good on a patient that might come under their hands. One thing is certain, if the following instance furnished by the traveller Galton may be relied on, their arithmetical capabilities would have to be greatly cultivated and improved before they could be entrusted with the admeasurement of drugs; a drop more or less of which kills or cures.
“They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pignut season. When inquiries are made about how many days’ journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding rule is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for units.[77] Yet they seldom lose oxen; the way in which they discover the loss of one is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too pat to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away. When a Damara’s mind is bent upon number it is too much occupied to dwell upon quantity; thus, a heifer is brought from a man for ten sticks of tobacco; his large hands being both spread out upon the ground and a stick placed upon each finger, he gathers up the tobacco; the size of the mass pleases him and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy a second heifer: the same process is gone through, but half sticks instead of whole ones are put upon his fingers; the man is equally satisfied at the time, but occasionally finds it out and complains the next day. Once while I watched a Damara floundering hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah my spaniel equally embarrased on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new born puppies which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was excessive as she tried to find out if they were all present or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them backwards and forwards but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Damara, and comparison reflected no great honour on the man.”
The same gentleman had a very narrow escape of falling into the merciless hands of a Damara dentist.
“I had occasion to make inquiries for a professional gentleman, a dentist, as one of my teeth had ached so horribly that I could hardly endure it. He was employed at a distance, but I subsequently witnessed,[78] though I did not myself undergo, the exercise of his skill. He brought a piece of the back sinew of a sheep, which forms a kind of catgut, and tied this round the unhappy tooth, and the spare end of the catgut was wound round a stout piece of stick, and this he rolled up tight to the tooth, and then pressed with all his force against the jaw till something gave way. I saw the wretched patient sitting for the rest of the day with his head between his knees and his hands against his temples.”
The Eboes and Kalabeese of Western Africa hold very curious notions respecting the administering of doctor’s drugs. When they bury their dead the sorrowing friends place a tube in the earth communicating with the body of the deceased, and down this tube they, in after times, pour palm wine and other liquids for the sustenance of the soul of the departed, and even medicines, which libations they imagine will produce the same effect upon the offerer as though absorbed by himself. Thus an Eboe will come to a surgeon, “Doctor, me sickee;” and when given the proper medicine, that official must watch the applicant take the dose on the spot, or he will administer it to the shade of his father, making the parental benefits to continue even after death; but strange to say, if given a bottle of rum he becomes suddenly oblivious of his father’s grave, and forgetting that the ashes of the departed may probably appreciate rum as much as palm wine and that the paternal clay may likewise require to be moistened, pours it down his own thorax with the most lively gestures expressive of satisfaction.
A person styled an Abiadiong, or sorcerer, is always consulted in cases of sickness, death, or capital crime, to find out the individual who has brought the malady on his neighbour. He is reputed to derive his knowledge by education, but is not the bearer of a diploma, save one in his title. The Abiadiong squats himself beside the sick man—repeats a number of incantations—tosses strings of beads he has in his hand as an appeal to the spirit he invokes—rubs the beads alternately on his own body and that of the sick man—cogitates and decides. Sometimes the decision is settled by a little copper Palarer beforehand; and, as the Eboe law gives to the possessor of its privileges an unlimited power in this respect, it may be imagined what scenes of blood the system creates and fosters. Alia-lok is the title which, in this country, is given to a doctor of medicine; but the Kalabeese have little faith in drugs, and surgical operations are generally performed by the soft sex. These are confined to two species of cupping—the dry and the[79] bloody—and to enema administering. The dry cupping is effected with a pyreform-calabash upon the breasts of women, whose bodies are chalked over at the same time, to force them to maturity. Razors are used as scarificators in moist cupping the side and temples of persons labouring under, what they suppose to be, congestive diseases. Ulcers are usually dressed by a piece of leaf passed round the diseased part, and fastened by a bamboo stem. A poison bean, with a string through a hole bored in it, is frequently worn as a curative ju-ju round a sore leg—only a modification of the similia similibus curantur system. Perhaps it is to carry out a like idea that dogs are buried in the ground with their heads above the ground, where the poor creatures spend three or four days before nature conquers their power of life, for during this time they are allowed no food. These dogs are generally impounded so before the door of the sick man. When small-pox prevails in some places they dot their bodies over with spots of chalk, perhaps to make the demon of disease believe that they have previously been visited with a skin affection, and that his ground is already occupied.
It seems easy to set up as M.D. among the Indians of North America.
“Any ignorant idler who takes it into his head to become a doctor gives notice of it to the Pawnee world, by assuming a solemn deportment, wearing his robe with the hair outwards, and learning to make a noise in the throat, which is distinctive of his profession and which resembles the sound made by a person who is gargling for the relaxed uvula. Here his medical studies and accomplishments end; and his reputation depends entirely upon the result of his first attempts, and must evidently be altogether fortuitous.”
This is the evidence of the traveller Murray, and he further goes on to back his opinion by quoting two instances of surgical practice that came under his personal observation.
“In great cases, such as a broken leg or mortal disease of a chief, the medicine-men are called in to assist with their mummery, but the treatment of ordinary diseases by these practitioners will be understood by my noting down accurately what took place at the daily and nightly visit of the doctor who attended our chief’s lodge. The patient was one of the children gradually and certainly dying from shameful maltreatment under the hooping-cough. It should however be remembered in exculpation of the Galen, that the parents fed the child three or four times a day with enormous meals of half boiled maize or buffalo meat, each of which[80] acting as an emetic enabled the wretched little sufferer to swallow its successor.
“The learned doctor stalked into the lodge with all the dignified importance of the most practised pulse-feeler, rarely deigning to salute the parents or other inhabitants. He then stooped down over the child, took a little earth in his hand which he moistened with saliva, and with the precious mixture thus formed, he anointed the shoulders, the forehead, and other parts of the child, especially the pit of the stomach; then approaching his mouth, to this last, and covering with his robe his own head and the person of his patient, he commenced the gargling operation, to which I have before alluded. This I have known him frequently to continue for three or four hours at the time, when he left the unfortunate sufferer as he found him without having used friction or embrocation, or administering medicine of any kind whatever.
“It only remains to add respecting the disciples of Æsculapius, that if the patient recovers, their fame is blazed abroad, and they receive in horses, meat, blankets, etc., a fee much higher in proportion to the wealth of any of the parties than was ever given to Sir Astley Cooper, or Sir Henry Halford. If the patient dies, the doctor is considered “bad medicine,” and generally leaves the profession for a year or two, during which time he pursues the ordinary avocations of stealing, hunting, or fighting, until his ill name is forgotten or some fortunate incident has obtained for him a whitewashed reputation.
“I learned that in a hunt a good many Indians had been bruised or wounded, and several horses killed. Among those who were hurt was a chief of some distinction; he had a few ribs and one of his arms broken. The setting of this last, together with the completion of his wound-dressing, was to be accompanied with much ceremony, so I determined to be a spectator. I went accordingly to his lodge where a great crowd was already assembled and with some difficulty made my way through to the inner circle. Not being quite sure that I was permitted to see these mysteries, and being fully aware of the danger of breaking even unintentionally any of their medicine rules, I kept myself as quiet and unobserved as possible. Before the lodge, and in the centre of the semi-circle, sat or rather reclined the wounded man, supported by one or two packs of skins. On each side of him were a row of his kindred; the elder warriors occupied the front, the younger the second places, and behind them, close to the lodge, the boys, squaws, etc. A profound[81] silence was observed, and when all the medicine men and relatives had arrived and taken their seats, a great medicine pipe was brought and passed round with the usual ceremonial observance of a certain number of whiffs to the earth, the buffalo-spirit, and the Great Spirit. The pipe was not handed to the wounded man, probably because he was supposed to be for the time under the influence of a bad spirit, and therefore not entitled to the privileges of the medicine. When this smoking ceremony was concluded, three or four of the doctors or conjurors and a few of the great medicine-men assembled round him; the former proceeded to feel his side and apply some remedy to it, while one of them set the arm, and bound it very strongly round with leather thongs. During this operation the medicine-men stooped over him and went through sundry mummeries which I could not accurately distinguish.
As soon as the bandages and dressings were completed they began a medicine dance around him. At first the movement was slow, and accompanied by a low ordinary chant, but gradually both acquired violence and rapidity, till at length they reached the height of fury and frenzy. They swung their tomahawks round the head of the wounded man, rushed upon him with the most dreadful yells, shook their weapons violently in his face, jumped repeatedly over him, pretending each time to give him the fatal blow, then checking it as it descended, and while once or twice I saw them push and kick his limbs, one of the most excited struck him several severe blows on the breast. On inquiry, I learned that all these gesticulations were intended to threaten and banish the evil spirit which was supposed to have possessed him. While this was going on a complete silence reigned throughout the crowd, none being permitted to dance or yell, except those actually engaged in the medicine ceremonies.
What, however, may be regarded as the Indian’s universal remedy for all ailments is the sweating bath and sudatory; these sudatories are always near the village, above or below it, on the bank of the river. They are generally built of skins, in the form of a Crow or Sioux lodge, covered with buffalo skins sewed tight together, with a kind of furnace in the centre; or, in other words, in the centre of the lodge are two walls of stone about six feet long, and two and a half apart, and about three feet high; across and over this space between the two walls are laid a number of round sticks, on which the bathing crib is placed. Contiguous to the lodge, and outside of it is a little furnace, something similar in the side of the bank, where the woman kindles a hot fire and heats to a red[82] heat a number of large stones, which are kept at these places for this particular purpose; and having them all in readiness, she goes home or sends word to inform her husband or other one who is waiting that all is ready, when he makes his appearance entirely naked, though with a large buffalo robe wrapped around him. He then enters the lodge, and places himself in the basket with his back towards the door of the lodge, when the squaw brings in a large stone red-hot, between two sticks lashed together somewhat in the form of a pair of tongs, and, placing it under him, throws cold water upon it, which raises a profusion of vapour about him. He is at once enveloped in a cloud of steam, and a woman or child will sit at a little distance and continue to dash water upon the stone, whilst the matron of the lodge is out, and preparing to make her appearance with another heated stone; or he will sit and dip from a wooden bowl with a ladle made of the mountain-sheep’s horn, and throw upon the heated stone, with his own hands, the water which he is drawing through his lungs and pores the next moment, in the delectable and exhilarating vapour, as it distils through the mat of wild sage and other medical and aromatic herbs which he had strewed over the bottom of his basket, and on which he reclines.
During all this time the lodge is shut perfectly tight, and he quaffs this delicious and renovating draught to his lungs with deep-drawn sighs, until he is drenched in the most profuse degree of perspiration that can be produced; when he makes a signal, at which the lodge is opened, and he darts forth with the speed of a frightened deer, and plunges headlong into the river, from which he instantly escapes again, wraps his robe around him, and makes as fast as possible for home. Here his limbs are wiped dry and wrapped close and tight within the fur of the buffalo robes, in which he takes his nap, with his feet to the fire, then oils his limbs and hair with bear’s-grease, dresses and plumes himself for a visit, a feast, a parade, or a council.
During Mr. Bruce’s travels through Abyssinia, and while he was sojourning in the dominions of her Majesty of Sennaar, one afternoon he was sent for to the palace, when the king told him that several of his wives were ill, and desired that he would give them his advice, which he promised to do. He was admitted into a large square apartment, very ill-lighted, in which were about fifty women, all perfectly black, without any covering but a very narrow piece of cotton rag about their waist. While he was musing whether or not all these might be queens, or whether there[83] was any queen among them, one of them seized him by the hand and led him into another apartment; this was much better lighted than the first. Upon a large bench, or sofa, covered with blue Surat cloth, sat three persons clothed from the neck to the feet with blue cotton shirts.
One of these, whom Mr. Bruce found to be the favourite, was about six feet high, and corpulent beyond all proportion. She seemed to him, next to the elephant and rhinoceros, to be the largest living creature he had ever met with. Her features were perfectly like those of a negro; a ring of gold passed through her under lip, and weighed it down, till, like a flap, it covered her chin, and left her teeth bare, which were very small and fine. The inside of her lip she had made black with antimony. Her ears reached down to her shoulders, and had the appearance of wings; she had in each of them a large ring of gold, somewhat smaller than a man’s little finger, and about five inches in diameter. The weight of these had drawn down the hole where the ear was pierced so much that three fingers might easily pass above the ring. She had a gold necklace of several rows, one above another, to which were hung rows of sequins pierced. She had on her ancles two manacles of gold, larger than any our traveller had ever seen upon the feet of felons, with which he could not conceive it was possible for her to walk; but afterwards he found they were hollow. The others were dressed pretty much in the same manner; only there was one who had chains which came from her ears to the outside of each nostril, where they were fastened. There was also a ring put through the gristle of her nose, and which hung down to the opening of her mouth. It had altogether something of the appearance of a horse’s bridle. Upon his coming near them, the eldest put her hand to her mouth and kissed it, saying at the same time, in very vulgar Arabic, “Kif-halek howajah?” How do you do, merchant? Mr. Bruce never in his life was more pleased with distant salutations than at this time. He answered, “Peace be among you! I am a physician, and not a merchant.” There was not one part of their whole bodies, inside and outside, in which some of them had not ailments. The three queens insisted upon being blooded, which desire Mr. Bruce complied with, as it was an operation that required short attendance; but, upon producing the lancets, their hearts failed them. They then all called out for the Tabange, which, in Arabic, means a pistol; but what they meant by this word was the cupping-instrument, which goes off with a spring like the snap of a pistol. He had two of these, but not then in his pocket. He sent his servant home,[84] however, to bring one, and, that same evening, performed the operations upon the three queens with great success. The room was overflowed with an effusion of royal blood, and the whole ended with their insisting upon his giving them the instrument itself, which he was obliged to do, after cupping two of their slaves before them, who had no complaints, merely to shew them how the operation was to be performed.
On another occasion there was recommended to his care a certain Welled Amlac. He had with him two servants, one of whom, as well as his master, was ill with an intermitting fever. As our traveller was abundantly supplied with every necessary, the only inconvenience he suffered by this was, that of bringing a stranger and a disease into his family. Being, however, in a strange country himself, and daily standing in need of the assistance of its inhabitants, he perceived the policy of rendering services whenever opportunity offered; and, accordingly, received his two patients with the best possible grace. To this he was the more induced as he was informed that Welled Amlac was of the most powerful, resolute, and best attended robbers in all Maitsha; that this man’s country lay directly in his way to the source of the Nile; and that under his protection he might bid defiance to Woodage Asahel, who was considered as the great obstacle to that journey. After several weeks’ illness the patient recovered. When he first came to Mr. Bruce’s house, he was but indifferently clothed; and having no change, his apparel naturally grew worse, so that when his disease had entirely left him he made a very beggarly appearance indeed. One evening Mr. Bruce remarked that he could not go home to his own country without kissing the ground before the Iteghe, by whose bounty he had been all this time supported. He replied, “Surely not;” adding that he was ready to go whenever Mr. Bruce should think proper to give him his clothes. The latter imagined that Welled Amlac might have brought with him some change of apparel, and delivered it into the custody of our traveller’s servant; but, on farther explanation, he found that his patient had not a rag but what was on his back, and he plainly told Mr. Bruce, that he would rather stay in his house all his life than be so disgraced before the world as to leave it after so long a stay, without his clothing him from head to foot; asking with much confidence: “What signifies your curing me, if you turn me out of your house like a beggar?” Mr. Bruce still thought there was something of jest in this, and meeting Ayto Aylo, told him, laughing, of the conversation that had passed. “There is do doubt,” answered he[85] very gravely, “that you must clothe him; it is the custom.” “And his servant too?” asked Mr. Bruce. “Certainly, his servant too: and if he had ten servants that eat and drank in your house, you must clothe them all.”—“I think,” rejoined our traveller, “that a physician, at this rate, had much better let his patients die than recover them at his own expense.”—“Yagoube,” said his friend, “I see this is not a custom in your country, but here it invariably is, and if you would pass for a man of consequence you cannot avoid complying with it, unless you would make Welled Amlac your enemy. The man is opulent, it is not for the value of the clothes, but he thinks his importance among his neighbours is measured by the respect shewn him by the people afar off. Never fear, he will make you some kind of return; and as for his clothes, I shall pay for them.” “By no means,” replied Mr. Bruce; “I think the custom so curious that the knowledge of it is worth the price of the clothes, and I assure you that, intending as I do to go through the Maitsha, I consider it as a piece of friendship in you to have brought me under this obligation.” After this explanation Mr. Bruce immediately procured the clothes; a girdle, and a pair of sandals, amounting in the whole to about two guineas, which Welled Amlac received with the same indifference as if he had been purchasing them for ready money. He then asked for his servants’ clothes, which he observed were too good, and that he should take them for his own use when he arrived at Maitsha.
In his capacity of physician Mr. Bruce lays down certain simple rules to be observed by persons about to travel into far eastern countries; and though a hundred years old, and more, the said advice is still wholesome, and may be used with advantage by whomsoever it may concern.
Mr. Bruce’s first general advice to a traveller, is to remember well what was the state of his constitution before he visited these countries, and what his complaints were, if he had any; for fear frequently seizes upon the first sight of the many and sudden deaths we see upon our first arrival; and our spirits are so lowered by perpetual perspiration, and our nerves so relaxed, that we are apt to mistake the ordinary symptoms of a disease, familiar to us in our own country, for the approach of one of those terrible distempers that are to hurry us in a few hours into eternity. This has a bad effect in the very slightest disorders; so that it has become proverbial—If you think you shall die you shall die.
If a traveller finds that he is as well after having been some time in this country as he was before entering it, his best way is to make no[86] innovation in his regimen, further than abating something in the quantity. But if he is of a tender constitution, he cannot act more wisely than to follow implicitly the regimen of sober healthy people of the country, without arguing upon European notions, or substituting what we consider succedaneums to what we see used upon the spot. All spirits are to be avoided; even bark is better in water than in wine. The stomach being relaxed by profuse perspiration, needs something to strengthen, not to inflame, and enable it to perform digestion. For this reason (instinct we should call it, if speaking of beasts) the natives of all eastern countries season every species of food, even the simplest and mildest rice, so much with spices, especially with pepper, as absolutely to blister a European palate. These powerful antiseptics providence has planted in these countries for this use; and the natives have, from the earliest time, had recourse to them. And hence, in these dangerous climates, the natives are as healthy as we are in our northern ones.
Our author lays it down, then, as a positive rule of health, that the warmest dishes the natives delight in are the most wholesome strangers can use in the putrid climates of Lower Arabia, Abyssinia, Sennaar, and Egypt itself; and that spirits, and all fermented liquors, should be regarded as poisons; and, for fear of temptation, not so much as be carried along with you, unless as a menstruum for outward applications. Spring or running water, if you can find it, is to be your only drink. You cannot be too nice in procuring this article. But as, on both coasts of the Red Sea, you scarcely find any but stagnant water, the way which our traveller practised, when at any place that allowed time and opportunity, was always this: he took a quantity of fine sand, washed it from the salt quality with which it was impregnated, and spread it upon a sheet to dry; he then nearly filled an oil-jar with water, and poured into it as much from a boiling kettle as would serve to kill all the animalcula and eggs that were in it. He then sifted the dried sand, as slowly as possible, upon the surface of the water in the jar, till the sand stood half a foot at the bottom of it; after letting it settle at night, he drew it off by a hole in the jar with a spigot in it, about an inch above the sand; then threw the remaining sand out upon the cloth, and dried and washed it again. This process is sooner performed than described. The water is as limpid as the purest spring, and little inferior to the finest Spa. Drink largely of this without fear, according as your[87] appetite requires. By violent perspiration the aqueous part of your blood is thrown off; and it is not spirituous liquor that can restore this, whatever momentary strength it may give you from another cause. When hot and almost fainting with weakness from continual perspiration, Mr. Bruce has gone into a warm bath, and been immediately restored to strength, as upon first rising in the morning.
In Nubia, never scruple to throw yourself into the coldest river or spring you can find, in whatever degree of heat you are. The reason of the difference in Europe is that when, by violence, you have raised yourself to an extraordinary degree of heat, the cold water in which you plunge yourself checks your perspiration, and shuts your pores suddenly; the medium is itself too cold, and you do not use force sufficient to bring back the perspiration, which nought but action occasioned: whereas, in these warm countries, your perspiration is natural and constant, though no action be used, only from the temperature of the medium; therefore, though your pores are shut the moment you plunge yourself into the cold water, the simple condition of the outward air again covers you with pearls of sweat the moment you emerge; and you begin the expanse of the aqueous part of your blood afresh from the new stock that you have laid in by your immersion. For this reason, if you are well, deluge yourself from head to foot, even in the house, where the water is plentiful, by directing a servant to throw buckets upon you at least once a day, when you are hottest; not from any imagination that the water braces you, as it is called, for your bracings will last only for a very few minutes: inundations will carry watery particles into your blood, though not equal to bathing in running streams, where the total immersion, the motion of the water, and the action of the limbs, all conspire to the benefit you are in quest of.
Do not fatigue yourself if possible. Exercise is not either so necessary or so salutary here as in Europe. Use fruits sparingly, especially if too ripe. The musa, or banana, in Arabia Felix, are rotten-ripe when they are brought to you. Avoid all sorts of fruits exposed for sale in the markets, as it has probably been gathered in the sun, and carried miles in it, and all its juices are in a state of fermentation. Lay it first upon a table covered with a coarse cloth, and throw frequently a quantity of water upon it; and, if you have an opportunity, gather it in the dew of the morning before dawn of day, for then it is far better.
[88]
War Dance of the New Zealanders.
Hereditary pirates—A Bornean pirate fleet—Rajah Brooke and the pirates—A tough job against the prahus—No quarter with the Dayaks—A freebooter captain—Dayak arms—Bornean fighting tactics—Advance of Sir J. Brooke’s troops—A debate about fighting—Poisoned arrows—Weapons of the Amazonian Indians—The blow-gun—A Bornean war dance—War trophies—Heads, scalps, and brains—Horrible festivity—The Savages of North America.
Amongst the most warlike savages on the face of the earth must be counted the natives of the coast of Borneo. It would have been more correct, however, to have alluded to these redoubtable barbarians as the most warlike on the face of the sea rather than the earth; for the majority of their[89] conflicts take place in their “prahus” and “sampans,” and in pursuit of their regular and hereditary calling of pirates. Nor are they insignificant in point of number; there are the Sarebus, the Sakarran, the Illanun, the Balagnini, each comprising a tribe many thousands strong, and sea-robbers to a man, woman, and child; and, besides these, a whole host of ragamuffin fellows, not respectable enough for the society of the great pirate community, and who, being joint-stock owners of a prahu, prowl round the coast, and snap up any trifle too insignificant for the commanders of the various fleets; for fleets they are beyond question. The prahus of which the fleets are composed are long, commodious vessels, propelled by rowers, and carrying sometimes as many as a hundred men each. Sir J. Brooke, the celebrated “Rajah of Sarawak,” once had an opportunity of counting ninety-eight boats about to start on a piratical cruise, the crews of which, reckoned at the low computation of twenty-five men each, gave a grand total of nearly two thousand five hundred men. On the same authority, the internal constitution of these rowers may be stated as follows:—Commanding each fleet is one man, who holds his high post either by virtue of high birth or riches; under any circumstances, however, he must possess bravery and cunning, otherwise, whatever his station or right conferred by birth, he would very soon be put down, and a proper leader elected in his place. To each prahu there is a captain and half a dozen petty officers, generally the captain’s relations, while all the rest—comprising about four-fifths of the whole—are slaves. Although, however, these latter are more or less compelled to serve, they are not without their privileges. They have the right of plunder, which is indiscriminate, with certain exemptions—viz., slaves, guns, money, or any other heavy articles, together with the very finest descriptions of silks and cloths, belong to the chiefs and free portion of the crew; with the rest the rule is first come first served.
These worthies are indifferent to blood-shedding, fond of plunder, but fonder than all of slaves; they despise trade, although its profits may be shown to be greater than those of sea-plunder, and look on their calling as the noblest occupation of chiefs and free men. Their swords they show with boasts, as having belonged to their ancestors, who were pirates, renowned and terrible in their day. Without doubt the chief support of the system are the slaves they capture on the different coasts. If they attack an island, the women and children and as many men as they require, are carried off. Every boat they take furnishes its quota of slaves;[90] and when they have collected a full cargo they visit another coast and dispose of it to the best advantage. For instance, a cargo of slaves captured on the east coast of Borneo is sold in the west, and the slaves of the south find ready purchasers in the north. As the woolly-haired Papuas are generally prized by the natives, constant visits are made to New Guinea and the easternmost islands where they are procured and afterwards sold at high prices amongst any Malay community. On one occasion Rajah Brooke met eighteen boats belonging to the Illanun pirates, and learned from their chiefs that they had been two years absent from home; and from the Papuan negro slaves on board, it was evident that their cruise had extended from the most eastern islands of the Archipelago to the north-western coast of Borneo.
Here is a picture of a pirate fleet drawn by Governor Brooke himself:
“At this time it was hinted that a large pirate fleet had been seen in the vicinity of the coast, and in a day or two afterwards we had certain news of their having taken the Sadung boats bound from Singapore; and Datu Pangeran was in consequence despatched to communicate with them. He returned, bringing the fleet along with him to the mouth of the river, whence they requested permission to visit Sarawak, and pay their respects to the Rajah. I was consulted on the subject, whether I would meet them, and as I preferred a pacific to a hostile rencontre, and had, moreover, a considerable curiosity to see these roving gentry, I consented without hesitation. Report stated that their intention was to attack the Royalist (a war ship of the English navy), as they had, it was averred, received positive accounts of her having fifty lacs of rupees on board, and that her figure-head was of solid gold. As, however, we had no such treasure, and the meeting was unavoidable and might be hostile, I put myself into a complete posture of defence, with a determination neither to show backwardness nor suspicion. The day arrived, and the pirates swept up the river; eighteen prahus, one following the other, decorated with flags and streamers, and firing both cannon and musketry; the sight was interesting and curious, and heightened by the conviction that these friends of the moment might be enemies the next. Having taken their stations the chief men proceeded to an interview with the Rajah, which I attended to witness. Some distrust and much ceremony marked the meeting; and both parties had numerous followers, who filled the hall of audience and the avenues leading to it. The pirates consisted of Illanuns and Malukus from Gillolo. The Illanuns are fine athletic men with haughty and[91] reserved bearing, and evidently quite ready to be friends or foes as best suited their purpose.
“Beyond the usual formalities the meeting had nothing to distinguish it; one party retired to their boats while the other went to their respective houses, and everything betokened quiet. In the evening I pulled through the fleet and inspected several of their largest prahus. The entire force consisted of eighteen boats, three Malukus and fifteen Illanuns; the smallest of these boats carried twenty men, the largest (they are mostly large), upwards of a hundred. These larger prahus are too heavy to pull well, though they carry twenty, forty, and even fifty oars; their armament consists of one or two six pounders in the bow, one four pounder, stern-chaser, and a number of swivels, besides musketry, spears, and swords. The boat is divided into three sections and fortified by strong planks, one behind the bow, one amidship, and one astern to protect the steersman. The women and children are crammed down below, as are the unlucky prisoners taken in the course of an action.
“Their principal plan is boarding a vessel if possible, and carrying her by numbers; and certainly if a merchantman fired ill, she would inevitably be taken, but with grape and canister fairly directed the slaughter would be so great that they would be glad to steer off before they had neared a vessel.”
Having given a description, though a necessarily brief one, of these savage sea-lions, as well as of their laws and government, it may be worth while to devote a little space to the narration of one of the very many fights that took place between them and the forces under Sir J. Brooke, whose chief business, be it understood, was to check and to do all in his power to suppress the predatory operations of the swarm of piratical prahus infesting the Malayan Archipelago, to the great danger not only of peaceful native and Chinese traders, but also of European merchantmen trading to Singapore and other Chinese ports.
To support Sir J. Brooke in his difficult task, our government in 1843 despatched the “Dido” man-of-war, Captain Henry Keppel, commander. The “Dido” had been cruising about for a considerable time, and had performed many toughish jobs in the way of subjugating pirates, when the time came for the arrival of the English mail at Singapore, which also included the Bornean letter bags. These were to be forwarded by a small schooner, but knowing that the said schooner would probably be anxiously looked for by the pirates, Captain Keppel agreed with Sir J. Brooke, that[92] it might be as well to send out some assistance to cruise about the road the schooner must come. It was scarcely worth while for the “Dido” herself to set out on such an errand, and the “Dido’s” pinnace was under repair, so it was resolved to man a large native-built boat, belonging to Sir J. Brooke, and called the “Jolly Bachelor.” She was fitted with a brass six-pounder long gun, and a volunteer crew of a mate, two midshipmen, six marines, and twelve seamen, with a fortnight’s provisions, the whole being under the command of Mr. Hunt, the “Dido’s” second lieutenant.
After proceeding on her leisurely course for some time, the “Jolly Bachelor” made out three boats a long way in the offing, to which they gave chase, but soon lost sight of them owing to their superior sailing. They, however, appeared a second and a third time after dark, but without the “Jolly Bachelor” being able to get near them, and it now being late and the crew being both fatigued and hungry, they pulled in shore, lighted a fire, cooked their provisions, and then hauled the boat out to her grapnel near some rocks, for the night; lying down to rest with their arms by their sides and their muskets round the mast ready loaded. Having also placed sentries and look-outs near, and appointed an officer of the watch, they one and all (including the watch and the look-out it seems), fell fast asleep.
Lieutenant Hunt was the first to awake, and a very considerable surprise greeted his still sleepy eyes. It was about three o’clock, and the moon had just risen; the lieutenant disturbed by a slight noise, raised his head, and lo! there was a savage brandishing his kris and performing a war dance on the bit of a deck, in an ecstasy of delight, thinking, in all probability, of the ease with which he had got possession of a fine trading boat, and calculating the cargo of slaves he had to sell, but little dreaming of the hornet’s nest into which he had fallen.
Dayak and Malay Weapons.
Lieutenant Hunt’s face meeting the light of the moon was the first intimation conveyed to the pirate that he had made a mistake. He immediately plunged overboard, and before the officer had sufficiently recovered his astonishment to know whether he was dreaming or waking, or to rouse his crew, a discharge from three or four cannon within a few yards, and the cutting through the rigging by the various missiles with which the guns were loaded, soon convinced him that it was stern reality. It was well that the men were lying down when this discharge took place, as not one of them was hurt; but on jumping to their legs they found themselves closely pressed by two large war prahus, one on either side.
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To return the fire, cut the cable, man the oars, and back astern to gain room, was the work of a minute; but now came the tug of war; it was a case of life and death. The crew of the “Bachelor” fought, says Captain Keppel quaintly, “as they ought.” Quarter was not expected on either side; and the quick deadly aim of the marines prevented the pirates reloading their guns. The Illanun pirate vessels were built in the peculiar fashion already noticed, that is with partitions through which ports are bored for working the guns, and these barriers had to be cut away by round shot before the musketry could be brought to bear effectually. This done, the grape and canister of the “Jolly Bachelor” told with fearful execution. In the meantime the prahus had been pressing forward to board, while the English boat backed astern; but as soon as this service was achieved, the men of the latter dropped their oars and seizing their muskets dashed on. The work was sharp, but short, and the slaughter great. While one pirate boat was sinking and an effort made to secure her the other escaped by rounding a point of rocks, where a third and larger prahu, hitherto unseen, came to her assistance, and putting fresh hands on board and taking her in tow, succeeded in getting off, although chased by the “Jolly Bachelor,” after setting fire to the crippled prize which blew up and sank before the conquerors got back to the scene of action.
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The sight that presented itself to the victors on boarding the captured prahu must indeed have been a frightful one; none of the pirates waited on board for even the chance of receiving either quarter or mercy, but all those capable of moving had thrown themselves into the water. In addition to the killed, some lying across the thwarts with their oars in their hands at the bottom of the prahu, in which there was about three feet of blood and water, were seen protruding the mangled remains of eighteen or twenty bodies.
Detestable, however, as is the trade of war, especially when carried on from mercenary motives, it is hard for us, with so much of the salt of the sea in our blood, to regard these savage Dayak rovers without something very like sympathy. Certain it is that they possess the chief elements of a great people, perseverance, courage, and a restless yearning for adventure—much the same sort of folks, dear reader, as those from which you and I sprang. But our freebooting ancestors were heroes and led by heroes, say you. Well, here is a Dayak hero, pictured by one who is himself a hero—a true British man of war and one little likely to over estimate valour, or to mistake it on the score of sentimentality.
“Among the mortally wounded lay the young commander of the prahu, one of the most noble forms of the human race; his countenance handsome as the hero of oriental romance, and his bearing wonderfully impressive and touching. He was shot in front and through the lungs, and his end was rapidly approaching. He endeavoured to speak, but could not. He looked as if he had something of importance to communicate, and a shade of disappointment and regret passed over his brow when he felt that every effort was unavailing and that his manly strength and daring spirit were dissolving into the dark night of annihilation. The pitying conquerors raised him gently up and he was seated in comparative ease, for the welling out of the blood was less distressing, but the end speedily came; he folded his arms heroically across his wounded breast, fixed his eyes on the British seamen around, and casting one long glance at the ocean—the theatre of his daring exploits, on which he had so often fought and triumphed—expired without a sigh.”
It is not a little singular, however, that although they display so much courage and indifference to death in naval warfare, their military tactics are of the very meanest order and are executed with such lukewarmness that to see them as soldiers and nothing else would be to conceive them to be the greatest curs on the face of the earth. Of this Rajah Brooke had[95] most rueful yet ludicrous experience. Thanks to his own indomitable pluck and the assistance (sparse enough at best) granted him by the British government, together with that of the various Bornean tribes whom Brooke had won over to his interest, the marauding Dayaks were very considerably lessened in numbers and, better still, damped in piratical ardour; still there were a few very formidable bodies inhabiting forts along the coast whose interest it was to favour piracy and who were known to do their earnest best to thwart the endeavours of the European Rajah. Therefore a grand council of war was held, at which were present various Malay, Chinese, and Dayak leaders, and Sir J. Brooke, and it was formally resolved to combine the various forces and to proceed to storm and carry the obnoxious forts in a regular way.
All were willing enough to give their word; but our countryman seems from the very onset to have had a dismal foreboding of what would be the result. “To judge,” says he, “by the sample of the council, I should form a very unfavourable expectation of their conduct in action. Macota (a chief, as are the rest whose names are here mentioned) is lively and active, but, either from indisposition or want of authority, undecided. The Capitan China is lazy and silent; Abong Mia and Datu Naraja stupid.... I may here state my motives for being a spectator of, or participator (as may turn out) in, this scene. In the first place, I must confess that curiosity strongly prompted me; since to witness the Malays, Chinese, and Dayaks in warfare was so new that the novelty alone might plead an excuse for this desire. But it was not the only motive, for my presence is a stimulus to our own party, and will probably depress the others in proportion.”
Besides swords and spears and muskets and some sort of artillery, both parties availed themselves of other favorite Bornean arms, including the ranjow; “these ranjows are made of bamboo pointed fine and stuck in the ground; and there are, besides, holes about three feet deep filled with these spikes and afterwards lightly covered, which are called patabong. Another obstacle consists of a spring formed by bending back a stiff cane, with a sharp bamboo attached to it, which, fastened by a slight twine, flies forcibly against any object passing through the bush and brushing against it: they resemble the mole traps in England. The Borneans have a great dread of these snares; and the way they deal with them is by sending out parties of Dayaks during the night to clear the path of such dangers. “The Sambas Chinese (adherents of the Brooke party) were wretchedly[96] armed, having no guns and scarcely any muskets; but swords, spears, and shields, together with forty long thin iron tubes with the bore of a musket and carrying a slug. These primitive weapons were each managed by two men, one being the carrier of the ordnance, the other the gunner; for whilst one holds the tube on his shoulder the other takes aim, turns away his head, applies his match, and is pleased with the sound. Their mode of loading is as curious as the piece and its mode of discharge. Powder is poured in, the end knocked on the ground, and the slug with another knock sent on the powder without either ramming or cartridge. Indeed it is difficult to imagine any weapon more rude, awkward, or inefficient. The Borneans in fighting wear a quilted jacket or spenser which reaches over the hips, and from its size has a most unserviceable appearance, the bare legs and arms sticking out from under this puffed-out coat like the sticks which support the garments of a scarecrow.”
Setting sail with a fleet of vessels containing his gallant army, in course of time the enemy’s neighbourhood was reached and a fort built about a mile from the stronghold of their foes. It should be stated that to supply themselves with materials for this fort another near home was taken down and the timbers loaded into spare boats. No opposition was offered. The ground was cleared of jungle; piles driven in a square about fifteen yards to each face; and the earth from the centre, scooped out and intermixed with reeds, was heaped up about five feet high inside the piles. At the four corners were small watch-houses, and along the parapet of earth a narrow walk connecting them. While some of the army was thus employed another portion of it surrounded this the main body of the defence by an outer work made by slight sticks run into the ground, with cross binding of split bamboos, and bristling with a chevaux de frise of sharpened bamboos about breast high. The fastenings of the entire work were of ratan, which is found in plenty. The entire fortress was commenced and finished within eight hours.
Knowing the weakness of the enemy, Sir J. Brooke now proposed that they should sally out and attack them, and in case of pursuit or severe repulse it was only a matter of ten minutes’ run to regain the fort, where they could defy further molestation. But the proposition took the army aghast. What! walk right up to the brass guns? Surely the English Rajah must be mad. The attack must be made from behind a wall, or not at all; and why not, when to build forts was so easy? and it was only a matter of so many seven hours’ labour to build fort after fort[97] as they advanced and until they had arrived within convenient musket range of the enemy. So the Grand Army retired to bed.
Next morning they were up and doing, hammering and tinkering at the new stockade. In the midst of the work, however, there was a tremendous commotion—the enemy was advancing. There could be no mistake about it: you could hear their shouts and the banging of their war gongs approaching nearer and nearer. The Brooke army, nothing daunted replied with yells just as furious and defiant, and by way of refreshing their courage, several charges of powder and shot were expended in the air. The enemy approach within hail, and the excitement is grand. “We are coming! we are coming!” shouted the rebels; “lay aside your muskets, and come out and fight us with swords.”—“Come on,” replied the others; “we are building a stockade and want to fight you.” Things having arrived at this critical pass, there is no knowing what might have been the result, when merciful nature, to avert the horrors of blood and carnage, interposed with a heavy shower of rain, before which the rebels retreated, followed by the derisive shouts of the Borneans, who were under cover, and whose leaders immediately proceeded to offer a fervent thanksgiving for the victory gained, the soldiers responding with edifying earnestness, and then all retired to rest calmly as on the preceding night.
Next morning, however, Sir J. Brooke, whose curiosity was long since satisfied, and who began to grow tired of witnessing this novel mode of warfare, encouraged the troops to make an advance, to proceed indeed to within three hundred yards of the enemy’s stronghold, and there to erect a new stockade, backing his urging with the promise to send aboard for two six-pounder carronades with which to mount it. During the progress of this work Sir J. Brooke took occasion to inquire of the Dayak commander, Macota, if this was the way a battle was always conducted in these parts. Macota was very eager to set our countryman right on a point that so closely affected the honour of his nation. The enemy, he declared, during his last campaign were much more courageous than now. Stockade was opposed to stockade, and the fighting constant and severe; and so ably had Macota generalled his troops, that during two months he had not lost a single man, while five of the enemy were stretched upon the field.
By the time the fort was finished and the guns arrived, the Brooke army had been reinforced, so that it numbered five hundred men of one sort and another. While the guns were being fixed the enemy opened fire, but were speedily checked, and in a quarter of an hour had to bewail[98] a breach in the walls of their fortress large enough to admit several men together. “Seeing the effect,” says Rajah Brooke, “I proposed to Macota to storm the place with one hundred and fifty Chinese and Malays. The way from one fort to the other was protected. The enemy dared not shew themselves, for the fire of the grape and canister, and nothing could have been easier; but my proposition caused a commotion as difficult to describe as forget. The Chinese consented, and Macota, the commander-in-chief, was willing; but his inferiors were backward, and there arose a scene which shewed me the full violence of Malay passions, and their infuriated madness when once roused. Pangeran Houseman (one of the leaders) urged with energy the advantage of the proposal, and in the course of a speech lashed himself into a state of fury; he jumped to his feet, and with demoniac gestures stamped round and round, dancing a war dance after the most approved fashion. His countenance grew livid, his eyes glared, his features inflamed, and for my part, not being able to interpret the torrent of his oratory, I thought the man possessed of a devil, and about to ‘run a muck.’ But after a minute or two of this dance he resumed his seat, furious and panting, but silent. In reply, Subtu urged some objections to my plan, which was warmly supported by Illudeen, who apparently hurt Subtu’s feelings; for the indolent, the placid Subtu leapt to his feet, seized his spear, and rushed to the entrance of the stockade with his passions desperately aroused. I never saw finer action than when, with spear raised and pointing to the enemy’s fort, he challenged any one to rush on with him. Houseman and Surrudeen (the bravest of the brave) like madmen seized their swords to inflame the courage of the rest. It was a scene of fiends: but in vain; for though they appeared ready enough to quarrel and fight amongst themselves, there was no move to attack the enemy. All was confusion; the demon of discord and madness was among them, and I was glad to see them cool down, when the dissentients to the assault proposed making a round to-night and attacking to-morrow.”
And so this precious game of “if you will I will,” and “you hit me first,” was continued for many days,—more days indeed than the reader would guess if he were left to his own judgment. The row between Subtu and Illudeen took place on the 31st of October, and on the 18th of the following January the enemy was routed and his forts destroyed.
One of the most favourite of Dayak war weapons is the “sumpitan,” a long hollow reed, through which is propelled by the breath small darts or arrows, chiefly formidable on account of the poison with which their[99] tips are covered. According to Mundy and other writers on Bornean manners and customs, the arrows are contained in a bamboo case hung at the side, and at the bottom of this quiver is the poison of the upas. The arrow is a piece of wood sharp-pointed, and inserted in a socket made of the pith of a tree, which fits the tube of the blow-pipe. The natives carry a small calabash for these arrow heads, and on going into action prepare a sufficient number, and fresh dip the points in the poison, as its deadly influence does not continue long. When they face an enemy the box at the side is open; and, whether advancing or retreating, they fire the poisoned missiles with great rapidity and precision: some hold four spare arrows between the fingers of the hand which grasps the sumpitan, whilst others take their side case.
In advancing, the sumpitan is carried at the mouth and elevated, and they will discharge at least five arrows to one compared with a musket. Beyond a distance of twenty yards they do not shoot with certainty, from the lightness of the arrow, but on a calm day, the range may be a hundred yards. The poison is considered deadly by the Kayans, but the Malays do not agree in this belief. “My own impression is,” says Captain Mundy, “that the consequences resulting from a wound are greatly exaggerated, though if the poison be fresh death may occasionally ensue; but, decidedly, when it has been exposed for any time to the air it loses its virulence. My servant was wounded in the foot by an arrow which had been kept about two months; blood flowed from the puncture, which caused me considerable alarm; but sulphuric acid being applied in conjunction with caustic directly afterwards, he felt no bad effects whatever.”
All the tribes who use the sumpitan, from their peculiar mode of fighting, and the dread of the weapon, are called Nata Hutan, or “Wood Devils.” Besides the sumpitan they also wear the “ilang,” or sword, which is carved at the angle in the rude shape of a horse’s head, and ornamented with tufts of hair, red or black; the blades of these swords are remarkable, one side being convex, the other concave. They are usually very short, but of good metal and fine edge. These warriors wear coats of deer hide, and caps of basket work, some fantastically decorated; and a shield hung over their backs of stout wood, in addition to the weapons already mentioned, forms their equipment for service. It is really curious to witness their movements when the order is given to go out to skirmish—one by one, with a quick pace, yet steady and silent[100] tread, they glide into the bushes or long grass, gain the narrow paths, and gradually disappear in the thickest jungle.
The chief weapon used by the Amazonian Indians closely resembles the Dayak sumpitan, and is called “pucuna.” Its manufacture and use is thus graphically described by Captain Reid:—
“When the Amazonian Indian wishes to manufacture for himself a pucuna he goes out into the forest and searches for two tall straight stems of the ‘pashiuba miri’ palm. These he requires of such thickness that one can be contained within the other. Having found what he wants, he cuts both down and carries them home to his molocca. Neither of them is of such dimensions as to render this either impossible or difficult. He now takes a long slender rod—already prepared for the purpose—and with this pushes out the pith from both stems, just as boys do when preparing their pop-guns from the stems of the elder-tree. The rod thus used is obtained from another species of Iriartea palm, of which the wood is very hard and tough. A little tuft of fern-root, fixed upon the end of the rod, is then drawn backward and forward through the tubes, until both are cleared of any pith which may have adhered to the interior; and both are polished by this process to the smoothness of ivory. The palm of smaller diameter, being scraped to a proper size, is now inserted into the tube of the larger, the object being to correct any crookedness in either, should there be such; and if this does not succeed, both are whipped to some straight beam or post, and thus left till they become straight. One end of the bore, from the nature of the tree, is always smaller than the other; and to this end is fitted a mouthpiece of two peccary tusks to concentrate the breath of the hunter when blowing into the tube. The other end is the muzzle; and near this, on the top, a sight is placed, usually a tooth of the ‘paca’ or some other rodent animal. This sight is glued on with a gum which another tropic tree furnishes. Over the outside, when desirous of giving the weapon an ornamental finish, the maker winds spirally a shining creeper, and then the pucuna is ready for action.
“Sometimes only a single shank of palm is used, and instead of the pith being pushed out, the stem is split into two equal parts throughout its whole extent. The heart substance being then removed, the two pieces are brought together, like the two divisions of a cedar-wood pencil, and tightly bound with a sipo.
“The pucuna is usually about an inch and a half in diameter at the[101] thickest end, and the bore about equal to that of a pistol of ordinary calibre. In length, however, the weapon varies from eight to twelve feet.
“This singular instrument is designed, not for propelling a bullet, but an arrow; but as this arrow differs altogether from the common kind, it also needs to be described.
“The blow-gun arrow is about fifteen or eighteen inches long, and is made of a piece of split bamboo; but when the ‘patawa’ palm can be found, this tree furnishes a still better material, in the long spines that grow out from the sheathing bases of its leaves. These are eighteen inches in length, of a black colour, flattish though perfectly straight. Being cut to the proper length—which most of them are without cutting—they are whittled at one end to a sharp point. This point is dipped about three inches deep in the celebrated ‘curare’ poison; and just where the poison mark terminates, a notch is made, so that the head will be easily broken off when the arrow is in the wound. Near the other end a little soft down of silky cotton (the floss of the bombax ceiba) is twisted around into a smooth mass of the shape of a spinning-top, with its larger end towards the nearer extremity of the arrow. The cotton is held in its place by being lightly whipped on by the delicate thread or fibre of a bromelia, and the mass is just big enough to fill the tube by gently pressing it inward.
“The arrow thus made is inserted, and whenever the game is within reach the Indian places his mouth to the lower end or mouthpiece, and with a strong ‘puff,’ which practice enables him to give, he sends the little messenger upon its deadly errand. He can hit with unerring aim at the distance of forty or fifty paces; but he prefers to shoot in a direction nearly vertical, as in that way he can take the surest aim. As his common game—birds and monkeys—are usually perched upon the higher branches of tall trees, their situation just suits him. Of course it is not the mere wound of the arrow that kills these creatures, but the poison, which in two or three minutes after they have been hit, will bring either bird or monkey to the ground. When the latter is struck he would be certain to draw out the arrow; but the notch, already mentioned, provides against this, as the slightest wrench serves to break off the envenomed head.
“These arrows are dangerous things—even for the manufacturer of them—to play with: they are therefore carried in a quiver, and with great care—the quiver consisting either of a bamboo joint or a neat wicker case.”
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To return, however, to our savage friends the Borneans. Like almost all savages under the sun, they have their war dances:—
“We had one day a dance of the Illanuns, and Gillolos; they might both be called war dances, but are very different. The performer with the Illanuns is decked out with a fine helmet (probably borrowed from our early voyagers) ornamented with bird-of-paradise feathers. Two gold belts crossed like our soldiers, over the breast, are bound at the waist with a fantastical garment reaching half-way down the thigh, and composed of various coloured silk and woollen threads one above another. The sword or kempilan is decorated at the handle with a yard or two of red cloth, and the long upright shield is covered with small rings, which clash as the performer goes through his evolutions. The dance itself consists of a variety of violent warlike gestures; stamping, striking, advancing, retreating, turning, falling, yelling, with here and there bold stops, and excellent as to aplomb, which might have elicited the applause of the opera-house; but generally speaking, the performance was outrageously fierce, and so far natural as approaching to an actual combat; and in half an hour the dancer, a fine young man, was so exhausted that he fell fainting into the arms of his comrades. Several others succeeded, but not equal to the first, and we had hardly a fair opportunity of judging of the Maluku dance, from its short continuance; but it is of a more gentle nature, advancing with the spear, stealthily casting it, then retreating with the sword and shield. The Maluku shield, it should be observed, is remarkably narrow, and is brandished somewhat in the same way as the single-stick player uses his stick, or the Irishman his shillalah, that is to say, it is held nearly in the centre, and whirled every way round.”
The following extract from Sir J. Brooke’s Bornean Journal will serve to initiate the curious reader in the peculiarly horrid custom of “head-hunting,” as observed in this part of the world. Close to the Rajah’s residence were located a party of Sigo Dayaks, who happily discovered in good time an incursion of their deadly enemies the Singés into their territory:—
“The Sigos taking the alarm, cut off their retreat and killed two of the Singé Dayaks, and obtained altogether five heads, though they lost two, and those belonging to their principal warriors. This news reaching me, I hurried up to the hill and arrived just after part of the war party had brought the heads. On our ascending the mountain we found the five heads carefully watched about half a mile from the[103] town, in consequence of the non-arrival of some of the war party. They had erected a temporary shed close to the place where these miserable remnants of noisome mortality were deposited, and they were guarded by about thirty young men in their finest dresses, composed principally of scarlet jackets ornamented with shells, turbans of the native bark cloth dyed bright yellow and spread on the head, and decked with an occasional feather, flower, or twig of leaves. Nothing can exceed their partiality for these trophies; and in retiring from the war path, the man who has been so fortunate as to obtain a head, hangs it about his neck, and instantly commences his return to his tribe. If he sleep on the way, the precious burden, though decaying and offensive, is not loosened, but rests in his lap, whilst his head (and nose) reclines on his knees.
“On the following morning the heads were brought up to the village, attended by a number of young men, all dressed in their best, and were carried to Parembam’s house, amid the beating of gongs and the firing of one or two guns. They were then disposed of in a conspicuous place in the public hall of Parembam. The music sounded, and the men danced the greater part of the day, and towards evening carried them away in procession through all the campongs except three or four just above me. The women in these processions crowd round the heads as they proceed from house to house, and put sirih and betel-nut in the mouths of the ghastly dead, and welcome them. After this they are carried back in the same triumph, deposited in an airy place, and left to dry. During this process, for seven, eight, and ten days, they are watched by the boys of the age of six to ten years, and during this time they never stir from the public hall: they are not permitted to put their foot out of it whilst engaged in this sacred trust. Thus are the youths initiated.
“For a long time after the heads are hung up, the men nightly meet and beat their gongs, and chant addresses to them, which were rendered thus to me. ‘Your head is in our dwelling, but your spirit wanders to your own country. Your head and your spirit are now ours; persuade, therefore, your countrymen to be slain by us! Speak to the spirits of your tribe; let them wander in the fields, that when we come again to their country we may get more heads, and that we may bring the heads of your brethren, and hang them by your head,’ etc. The tone of this chant is loud and monotonous, and I am not able to say how long it is sung, but certainly for a month after the arrival of the heads, as one party here had had a head for that time, and were still exhorting it.
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“These are their customs and modes of warfare, and I may conclude by saying, that though their trophies are more disgusting, yet their wars are neither so bloody, nor their cruelties so great, as those of the North American Indian. They slay all they meet with of their enemies, men, women, and children; but this is common to all wild tribes. They have an implacable spirit of revenge as long as the war lasts, retort evil for evil, and retaliate life for life: and as I have before said, the heads are the trophies, as the scalps are to the red men. But on the contrary, they never torture their enemies, nor do they devour them, and peace can always be restored amongst them by a very moderate payment. In short, there is nothing new in their feelings or in their mode of showing them, no trait remarkable for cruelty, no head hunting for the sake of head hunting. They act precisely on the same impulses as other wild men: war arises from passion or interest, peace from defeat or fear. As friends they are faithful, just, and honest; as enemies, bloodthirsty and cunning; patient on the war path, and enduring fatigue, hunger, and the want of sleep with cheerfulness and resolution. As woodmen, they are remarkably acute, and on all their excursions carry with them a number of ranjows, which, when they retreat, they stick in behind them at intervals at a distance of twenty, fifty, or a hundred yards, so that a hotly-pursuing enemy gets checked, and many severely wounded. Their arms consist of a sword, an iron-headed spear, a few wooden spears, a knife worn at the right side, with a sirih pouch or small basket. Their provision is a particular kind of sticky rice boiled in bamboos. When once they have struck their enemies, or failed, they return without pausing to their homes.”
Among the Dayaks and the Samoans heads are the precious war trophies; among the Indians of North America the scalp alone suffices; the Tinguian of the Philippine Islands, with a refinement of barbarism far excelling his brother savage, must have his enemy’s brains. While La Gironiere was sojourning at Palan, one of the seventeen villages of which Tinguia is composed, news arrived that a battle had been fought and several renowned warriors captured. Therefore there was to be a brain feast.
“Towards eleven o’clock the chiefs of the town, followed by all the population, directed their steps towards the large shed at the end of the village. There every one took his place on the ground, each party headed by its chiefs, occupying a place marked out for it beforehand. In the middle of the circle formed by the chiefs of the warriors were[105] large vessels full of basi, a beverage made with the fermented juice of the sugar-cane, and four hideous heads of Guinans entirely disfigured,—these were the trophies of the victory. When all the assistants had taken their places, a champion of Laganguilan y Madalag, took one of the heads and presented it to the chiefs of the town, who showed it to all the assistants, making a long speech comprehending many praises for the conquerors. This discourse being over, the warrior took the head, divided it with strokes of his hatchet, and took out the brains. During this operation so unpleasant to witness, another champion got a second head and handed it to the chiefs; the same speech was delivered, then he broke the skull to pieces in like manner and took out the brains. The same was done with the four remaining skulls of the subdued enemies. When the brains were taken out, the young girls pounded them with their hands into the vases containing the liquor of the fermented sugar-cane; they stirred the mixture round, and then the vases were taken to the chiefs, who dipped in their small osier goblets through the fissures of which the liquid part ran out, and the solid part that remained at the bottom they drank with ecstatic sensuality. I felt quite sick at this scene so entirely new to me. After the chieftains’ turn came the turn of the champions. The vases were presented to them and each one sipped with delight this frightful drink, to the noise of wild songs. There was really something infernal in this sacrifice to victory.
“We sat in a circle, and these vases were carried round. I well understood that we were about undergoing a disgusting test. Alas! I had not long to wait for it. The warriors planted themselves before me and presented me with the basi and the frightful cup. All eyes were fixed upon me. The invitation was so direct that to refuse it would perhaps be exposing myself to death. It is impossible to describe the interior conflict that passed within me. I would rather have preferred the carbine of a bandit five paces from my chest, or await, as I had already done, the impetuous attack of the wild buffalo. I shall never forget that awful moment; it struck me with terror and disgust; however, I constrained myself, nothing betraying my emotion. I imitated the savages, and dipping the osier goblet into the drink, I approached it to my lips and passed it to the unfortunate Alila (Gironiere’s servant and companion), who could not avoid this infernal beverage. The sacrifice was complete, the libations were over, but not the songs. The basi is a very spirituous and inebriating liquor, and the assistants who had[106] partaken rather too freely of it sang louder to the noise of the tom-tom and the gong, while the champions divided the human skulls into small pieces destined to be sent as presents to all their friends. The distribution was made during the sitting, after which the chiefs declared the ceremony over. They then danced. The savages divided themselves into two lines, and howling as if they were furious madmen, or terribly provoked, they jumped about, laying their right hand upon the shoulder of their partners and changing places with them. These dances continued all day; at last night came on, each inhabitant repaired with his family and some few guests to his abode, and soon afterwards tranquillity was restored.”
In defending the system of warfare practised by the Dayaks, Rajah Brooke specially instances the thirst for blood and general cruelty evinced by the savage Indian warrior of North America. Like other barbarians the North-American Indian has his European and American champions—Catlin among the latter—who profess to see in this savage nothing vile or mean or cruel, but, on the contrary, all that is brave, generous, and hospitable. The said champions, however, overlook the fact that bravery and generosity as exhibited amongst one’s friends are but insignificant virtues as compared with what they are when displayed towards an enemy; indeed, in the former case they may scarcely be reckoned virtues at all, but merely social amenities, lacking which, man ceases to be companionable. As enemies, how do North-American savages treat each other? Let what has already been said on this subject in these pages, as well as what here follows, furnish an answer to the question.
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Wooing a war dream—Companions in arms—The squaw of sacrifice—On the march—Bragging warriors—Deeds of Indian men of war—Swallowing an Indian’s horse—The belle of the party—An instance of Indian heroism—How to serve an enemy—Savage Duelists—A story of a precious scalp—The Indian warrior’s confidence in dreams—Concerning Indian canoes—A boat made up with stitches—Women boat-builders—Samoan warfare—The Samoans’ war tools and symbols—A narrow escape—“Perhaps upward the face!”—A massacre of Christians—Treachery of the Pine Islanders—The fate of “The Sisters”—The scoundrelly Norfolk Island men—A little story told by Mr. Coulter—The useful carronades—The “one unnecessary shot”—How it might have been.
Mr. Kohl informs us that, when a chief of the North-American Indians is meditating a war expedition, it is of the first importance that he should “dream” about it. He does not, however, choose to wait for his dream in the ordinary manner, but seats himself for the express purpose, concentrates his every thought on the subject, and seeks to gain good dreams for it before he proceeds to carry his war project into execution.
He keeps apart from his family, and, like a hermit, retires to a solitary lodge built expressly for the purpose. There he sits whole evenings on a mat, beating the drum and muttering gloomy magic songs, which he will break off to sigh and lament. He has all sorts of apparitions while lying in his bed; the spirits of his relatives murdered by the enemy visit him, and incite him to revenge. Other spirits come and show him the way into the enemy’s camp, promise him victory, tell him at times accurately where and how he will meet the foe and how many of them he will kill. If his drum and song are heard frequently in the evenings, a friend will come to him, and sitting down on the mat by his side will say: “What is the matter with thee, Black Cloud? Why dreamest thou? What grief is oppressing thee?” The Black Cloud then opens his heart, tells him how his father’s brother was scalped three years back by their hereditary enemies, the Sioux, his cousin last year, and so on, and how thoughts of his forefathers has now come to him. They have often appeared to him in his dreams and allowed him no rest with their entreaties for vengeance. He will tell him, too, a portion of the auguries and signs he has received in his dream about a brilliant victory he is destined to gain and of the ways and means that will conduct him to it. Still only a portion, for he[108] generally keeps the main point to himself. It is his secret, just as among us the plan of the campaign is the commander-in-chief’s secret.
The friend, after listening to all this, if the affair seems promising, will take to the drum in his turn, and aid his friend with his dreams. The latter, if placing full confidence in him, appoints him his associate or adjutant, and both place themselves at the head of the undertaking. They always consider it better that there should be two leaders, in order that if the dreams of one have not strength enough the other may help him out.
These two chefs-de-guerre now sit together the whole winter through, smoke countless pipes, beat the drum in turn, mutter magic songs the whole night, consult over the plan of operations, and send tobacco to their friends as an invitation to them to take part in the campaign. The winter is the season of consultation, for war is rarely carried on then, partly because the canoe could not be employed on the frozen lakes, and partly because the snow would betray their trail and the direction of their march too easily.
If the two are agreed on all points, if they have assembled a sufficient number of recruits and allies, and have also settled the time of the foray—for instance, arranged that the affair shall begin when the leaves are of such a size, or when such a tree is in blossom, and this time has at length arrived, they first arrange a universal war dance with their relatives and friends, at which the women are present, painted black like the men. The squaws appear at it with dishevelled hair, and with the down of the wild duck strewn over their heads. A similar war dance is also performed in the lodges of all the warriors who intend to take part in the expedition.
If the undertaking and the band of braves be at all important, it is usually accompanied by a maiden, whom they call “the squaw of sacrifice.” She is ordinarily dressed in white: among the Sioux, for instance, in a white tanned deer or buffalo robe, and a red cloth is wrapped round her head. Among several prairie tribes, as the Black-feet, this festally adorned sacrifice squaw leads a horse by the bridle, which carries a large medicine-bag, and a gaily decorated pipe. Among the Ojibbeways, who have no horses, and usually make their expeditions by water, this maiden is seated in a separate canoe.
When all have taken their places in full war-paint, they begin their melancholy death-song and push off.
If the expedition is really important—if the leader of the band is very[109] influential—he will have sent tobacco to other chiefs among his friends; and if they accept it, and divide it among many of their partisans, other war bands will have started simultaneously from the villages, and come together at the place of assembly already arranged.
They naturally take with them as little as possible, and are mostly half naked in order to march easily. They do not even burden themselves with much food, for they starve and fast along the road, not through any pressure of circumstances, but because this fasting is more or less a religious war custom.
They also observe all sorts of things along the road, which are in part most useful, precautionary measures, in part superstitious customs. Thus, they will never sit down in the shade of a tree, or scratch their heads, at least not with their fingers. The warriors, however, are permitted to scratch themselves with a piece of wood or a comb.
The young men who go on the war trail for the first time, have, like the women, a cloth or species of cap on the head, and usually walk with drooping head, speak little, or not at all, and are not allowed to join in the dead or war songs. Lastly, they are not permitted to suck the marrow from the bone of any game that is caught and eaten during the march. There are also numerous matters to be observed in stepping in and out of the canoes on the war trail. Thus, the foot must not on any condition be wetted.
The only things they carry with them, besides their arms and pipes, are their medicine-bags. These they inspect before starting, as carefully as our soldiers do their cartridge-boxes, and place in them all the best and most powerful medicines, and all their relics, magic spells, pieces of paper, etc., in order that the aid of all the guardian spirits may be ensured them.
The same authority gives us a sample of Indian war dances and speeches:
“By the afternoon all were ready, and the grand pipe of peace, they intended to hand to the great father, was properly adorned with red feathers, blue drawings, strings of wampum, etc.
“It occurred to me that although it was after all but a ceremony, the Indians regarded the matter very solemnly and earnestly. According to traditional custom the pipe of peace passed from tent to tent and from mouth to mouth among the warriors. When each had smoked, the procession started and marched with drums beating, fluttering feather-flags and flying-otter, fox, and skunk tails through the village, to the[110] open space before the old fort of the North West Company. Here they put up a wooden post, and close to it their war flag, after which the dances, speeches, and songs began.
“A circle of brown skinned dancers was formed, with the musicians and singers in the centre. The musicians, a few young fellows, cowered down on the ground, beat a drum, and shook a calabash, and some other instruments, which were very primitive. One had only a board, which he hammered with a big knife, while holding his hollow hand beneath it as a species of sounding board. The principal singers were half a dozen women wrapped up in dark cloaks, who uttered a monotonous and melancholy chant, while keeping their eyes stedfastly fixed on the ground. The singing resembled the sound of a storm growling in the distance. To the music the warriors hopped round in a circle, shaking the otter, fox, and beaver tails attached to their arms, feet, and heads.
“At times, the singing and dancing were interrupted; adorned with flying hair and skins, a warrior walked into the circle, raised his tomahawk, and struck the post a smart blow, as a signal that he was going to describe his hero deeds. Then he began to narrate in a loud voice, and very fluently, some horrible story in which he had played the chief part. He swung the tomahawk, and pointed to the scars and wounds on his naked body in confirmation of his story, giving the post a heavy blow now and then. Many had painted their scars a blood-red colour, and their gesticulations were most striking when they described the glorious moment of scalping. Although surrounded by many kind interpreters, who translated all that was said at once into English or French, I fear it would lead me too far were I to write down all that was said. Here is a specimen, however:—
“Many speeches were begun in a humorous fashion. One little fellow bounded into the circle, and after striking the post, went on, ‘My friends, that I am little you can all see, and I require no witnesses to that. But to believe that I, little as I am, once killed a giant of a Sioux, you will need witnesses.’ And then he plucked two witnesses out of the circle. ‘You and you were present;’ and then he told the story just as it had occurred. Another with a long rattlesnake’s skin round his head, and leaning on his lance, told his story objectively, just as a picture would be described:
“‘Once we Ojibbeways set out against the Sioux. We were one hundred. One of ours, a courageous man, a man of the right stamp, impatient for[111] distinction, separated from the others, and crept onward into the enemy’s country. The man discovered a party of the foe, two men, two women, and three children. He crept round them like a wolf, he crawled up to them like a snake, he fell upon them like lightning, cut down the two men and scalped them. The screaming women and children he seized by the arm and threw them as prisoners to his friends who had hastened up at his war yell; and this lightning, this snake, this wolf, this man, my friends, that was I. I have spoken.’
North American Weapons.
“In most of the stories told us, however, I could trace very little that was heroic. Many of them, in fact, appeared a description of the way in which a cunning wolf attacked and murdered a lamb.
“One of the fellows, with one eye painted white, the other coal-black, was not ashamed to tell loudly, and with a beaming face, how he once fell upon a poor solitary Sioux girl and scalped her. He gave us the minutest details of this atrocity, and yet at the end of his harangue, he was applauded, or at least behowled, like the other orators. All the Indians stamped and uttered their war yell as a sign of applause, by holding their hands to their mouths trumpet fashion. At the moment the man appeared to me little less ferocious than a tiger, and yet when I formed his acquaintance at a latter date, he talked most reasonably and calmly like an honest farmer’s lad. Such are what are called the contradictions in human nature.
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“Very remarkable in all these harangues, was the unconcealed and vain self-laudation each employed about himself. Every speaker considered his deed the best and most useful for the whole nation. Each began by saying that what his predecessors had told them was very fine, but a trifle when compared with what he had to say about himself. It was his intention to astonish them once for all. His totem was the first in the whole land, and the greatest deeds had always been achieved by the spotted weasels (or as the case may be) and so he, the younger weasel, not wishing to be the inferior to his forefathers, had gone forth and performed deeds the description of which would make their hair stand on end,” etc.
Among other tribes of North-American warriors, the braves were armed with small tomahawks, or iron hatchets, which they carried with the powder-horn in the belt on the right side, while the long tobacco pouch of antelope skin hung by the left side. Over their shoulders were leather targets, bows and arrows, and some few had rifles—both weapons were defended from damp in deer-skin cases—and quivers with the inevitable bead-work, and the fringes which every savage seems to love.
Speaking of an army of Indian warriors “shifting camp,” Burton says, in his curious book “The City of the Saints”:—“Their nags were lean and ungroomed; they treat them as cruelly as do the Somal; yet nothing short of whiskey can persuade the Indian warrior to part with a favourite steed. It is his all in all,—his means of livelihood, his profession, his pride. He is an excellent judge of horse-flesh, though ignoring the mule and ass; and if he offers an animal for which he has once refused to trade, it is for the reason that an Oriental takes to market an adult slave—it has become useless. Like the Arab, he considers it dishonourable to sell a horse: he gives it to you, expecting a large present, and if disappointed he goes away grumbling that you have swallowed his property.
“Behind the warriors and braves followed the baggage of the village. The lodge-poles in bundles of four or five had been lashed to pads or packsaddles girthed tight to the ponies’ backs, the other ends being allowed to trail along the ground like the shafts of a truck. The sign easily denotes the course of travel. The wolf-like dogs were also harnessed in the same way; more lupine than canine, they are ready when hungry to attack man or mule; and sharp-nosed and prick-eared, they not a little resemble the Indian pariah dog. Their equipments, however, were of course on a diminutive scale. A little pad girthed round the barrel with a breastplate to keep it in place, enabled them to drag two short light lodge-poles[113] tied together at the smaller extremity. One carried only a hawk on its back; yet falconry has never, I believe, been practised by the Indian. Behind the ponies the poles were connected by cross sticks upon which were lashed the lodge-covers, the buffalo robes, and other bulkier articles. Some had strong frames of withes or willow basket-work, two branches being bent into an oval, garnished below with a network of hide-thongs for a seat, covered with a light wicker canopy, and opening like a cage only on one side; a blanket or a buffalo robe defends the inmate from sun and rain. These are the litters for the squaws when weary, the children and the puppies, which are part of the family till used for beasts. It might be supposed to be a rough conveyance; the elasticity of the poles, however, alleviates much of that inconvenience. A very ancient man, wrinkled as a last year’s walnut, and apparently crippled by old wounds, was carried probably by his great-grandsons in a rude sedan. The vehicle was composed of two pliable poles, about ten feet long, separated by three cross-bars twenty inches or so apart. In this way the Indians often bear the wounded back to their villages. Apparently they have never thought of a horse litter, which might be made with equal facility, and would certainly save work.
“Whilst the rich squaws rode, the poor followed their pack-horses on foot, eyeing the more fortunate as the mercer’s wife regards what she terms the carriage lady. The women’s dress not a little resembles their lords’—the unaccustomed eye often hesitates between the sexes. In the fair, however, the waistcoat is absent, the wide-sleeved skirt extends below the knees, and the leggings are of somewhat different cut; all wore coarse shawls, or white, blue, or scarlet cloth-blankets around their bodies. Upon the upper platte, we afterwards saw them dressed in cotton gowns after a semi-civilized fashion, and with bowie knives by their sides. The grandmothers were fearful to look upon; horrid excrescences of nature, teaching proud man a lesson of humility. The middle aged matrons were homely bodies, broad and squat like the African dame after she has become mère de famille; their hands and feet are notably larger from work than those of the men, and the burdens upon their back caused them to stoop painfully. The young squaws—pity it is that all our household Indian words, papoose for instance, tomahawk, wigwam, and powwow, should have been naturalised out of the Abenaki and other harsh dialects of New England—deserved a more euphonious appellation. The belle savage of the party had large and languishing eyes and teeth[114] that glittered, with sleek long black hair like the ears of a Blenheim spaniel, justifying a natural instinct to stroke or pat it, drawn straight over a low broad quadroon-like brow. Her figure had none of the fragility which distinguishes the higher race, who are apparently too delicate for human nature’s daily food. Her ears and neck were laden with tinsel ornaments, brass wire rings adorned her wrists and fine arms, a bead-work sack encircled her waist, and scarlet leggings fringed and tasselled, ended in equally costly mocassins. When addressed by the driver in some terms to me unintelligible, she replied with a soft clear laugh—the principal charm of the Indian, as of the smooth-throated African woman—at the same time showing him the palm of her right hand as though it had been a looking-glass. The gesture I afterwards learned simply conveys a refusal. The maidens of the tribe, or those under six, were charming little creatures with the wildest and most piquant expression, and the prettiest doll-like features imaginable; the young coquettes already conferred their smiles as if they had been of any earthly value. The boys had black beady eyes like snakes, and the wide mouths of young caymans. Their only dress when they were not in birthday suit was the Indian laguti. None of the braves carried scalps, finger-bones, or notches on the lance, which serve like certain marks on saw-handled pistols further east, nor had any man lost a limb. They followed us for many a mile, peering into the hinder part of our travelling wigwam, and ejaculating “How, How,” the normal salutation.”
Here is an instance at once of Indian warrior heroism on the one side and fiendish ferocity on the other that occurred at the late engagement between a small war party of the Chippewas and a greatly superior party of Sioux, near Cedar Island Lake. The Chippewas, who were en route for a scalping foray upon the Sioux villages on the Minnesota, here fell into an ambuscade, and the first notice of danger which saluted their ears was a discharge of fire-arms from a thicket. Four of their number fell dead in their tracks. Another, named the War Cloud, a leading brave, had a leg broken by a bullet. His comrades were loth to leave him, and, whilst their assailants were reloading their guns, attempted to carry him along with them to where they could gain the shelter of a thicket a short distance to the rear. But he commanded them to leave him, telling them that he would show his enemies how a Chippewa could die.
Chippewa.
At his request they seated him on a log, with his back leaning against[115] a tree. He then commenced painting his face and singing his death-song. As his enemies approached he only sang a louder and a livelier strain; and when several had gathered around him, flourishing their scalping-knives, and screeching forth their demoniac yells of exultation, not a look or gesture manifested that he was even aware of their presence. At lengthy they seized him and tore his scalp from his head. Still seated with his back against a large tree, they commenced shooting their arrows into the trunk around his head, grazing his ears, neck, etc., until they literally pinned him fast, without having once touched a vital part. Yet our hero remained the same imperturable stoic, continuing to chant his defiant strain, and although one of the number flourished his reeking scalp before his eyes, still not a single expression of his countenance could be observed to change. At last one of the number approached him with a tomahawk,[116] which, after a few unheeded flourishes, he buried in the captive’s skull, who sank in death, with the war song still upon his lips. He had, indeed, succeeded well in teaching his enemies “how a Chippewa could die.”
The reader has already made the acquaintance of that renowned Mandan chief Mahtotopa; here is another episode in that hero’s history:
A party of 150 Scheyenne warriors had invaded the territory of the Mandans; Mahtotopa, the young but already famous warrior of whom we have spoken, went in pursuit of them at the head of fifty of the bravest of his tribe. At the end of two days he came up with them. The Mandans, inferior in number, hesitated to engage in combat, when by a sudden impulse, Mahtotopa planted his lance, ornamented with a piece of red stuff, in the ground in token of defiance. The Scheyennes who were approaching to attack the party were arrested by the sight of this courageous act, and their chief advancing alone to meet the young Mandan warrior enquired who he was who defied alone the enemy?
“It is Mahtotopa, second chief in command of the brave and valiant Mandans.”
“I have often heard him spoken of,” replied the Scheyenne; “he is a great warrior. Would he dare to advance and fight against me alone while our warriors look on?”
“Is it a chief who speaks to Mahtotopa?”
“See the scalp which hangs from the bit of my horse,” answered the Scheyenne; “see my lance ornamented with the fur of the ermine and the feather of the eagle of war.”
“You have spoken enough,” said the Mandan.
The Scheyenne chief set off at full gallop and planted his lance by the side of that of Mahtotopa. The warriors of the two tribes drew near and formed a great circle. The two champions advanced into the middle of these lists formed by human warriors. They were on horseback, decorated with feathers and wearing their finest garments. They each fired a shot without effect; Mahtotopa then showed his adversary his powder-flask, which had been pierced by a ball, and threw it on the ground as well as his gun, which had thus become useless. The Scheyenne chief in order to fight with equal arms did the same, and for some moments they galloped one round the other discharging arrows with incredible rapidity. The horse of the Mandan rolled on the ground pierced by an arrow, and when Mahtotopa arose to continue the fight his adversary sprang from his horse and once more the combat became equal. Soon the[117] warriors were exhausted. Then the Scheyenne drew his knife and brandished it in the air. “Yes,” answered Mahtotopa, who understood this unspoken invitation. The two warriors disencumbered themselves of their quivers and shields; but the Mandan had not his knife; he had forgotten it in his cabin; this did not stop him; he parried the blows of his adversary with the wood of his bow, which he wielded like a club. He soon succeeded in forcing his enemy to relax his hold on his weapon; the knife fell, the combatants threw themselves on each other and tried to get possession of the weapon which lay at their feet; it was taken and wrenched back again several times by both adversaries, and each time it was dyed with the blood of one or the other. At length Mahtotopa seized it a last time and plunged it to the hilt in the heart of the Scheyenne chief, then drew it out, took off his adversary’s scalp and showed the trophy of his victory to the spectators. Such a scalp as this would be more precious in the eyes of Mahtotopa than any dozen of such bloody trophies he might previously have possessed. Few Indian warriors of the “old school” but who could point in the same fashion to one poor scrap of skin and hair with special exultation, while with pomp and pride they describe to the curious listener the peculiar circumstances under which the trophy was obtained. Take the following little anecdote related by a somewhat celebrated Ojibbeway “brave” as an example:
“This scalp I nailed separately because I took it under curious circumstances and like to recall it to my memory. I went on the war trail just ten years ago against the Sioux band of the chief Wabasha. There were eighty of us Ojibbeways, and we went down the Chippeway River in canoes. When we found ourselves close to the enemy we turned into an arm of water which we thought was the main channel; but it was only a bayou which lost itself in swamp and rushes, and on attempting to push through all our canoes stuck in the mud. The Sioux fleet was coming up to cut us off in our hole, and we left our canoes and went on foot. The Sioux fired on us from the water and we replied from land; but the distance was too great, and no one was wounded. One of the boldest and bravest of the Sioux, however, pushed on far in advance in order to cut us off. He came too near the bank and was shot by one of our men and he fell back in his canoe which began drifting down the stream. His body hung over the side of the boat into the water. I saw this, and feeling desirous to have his scalp I leaped into the water and swam after the canoe. There was plenty of risk, for the other Sioux were now paddling[118] up; besides, it was not at all certain the man was really dead. I did not care though, but swam on, seized the canoe and the man, and had his scalp with a couple of cuts. Ha, ha! I waved it once to the Sioux, pushed the canoe with the half-dead quivering fellow towards them, and soon joined my party again. We all escaped, and only our enemies had cause to lament. He was their best warrior, and so I nailed his scalp, the only one taken that time, here on my hatchet which I carry about with me.”
The following tradition of a war exploit of the same tribe, recorded by the Rev. P. Jones, will show the confidence they place in dreams:
“A canoe manned with warriors was once pursued by a number of others, all filled with their enemies. They endeavoured to escape, paddling with all their might, but the enemy still gained upon them; then the old warriors began to call for the assistance of those things they had dreamt of during their fast-days. One man’s munedoo was a sturgeon, which being invoked, their speed was soon equal to that of this fish, leaving the enemy far behind; but the sturgeon being short-winded was soon tired, and the enemy again advanced rapidly upon them. The rest of the warriors, with the exception of one young man who, from his mean and ragged appearance, was considered a fool, called the assistance of their gods, which for a time enabled them to keep in advance. At length, having exhausted the strength of all their munedoos, they were beginning to give themselves up for lost, the other canoes being now so near as to turn to head them, when just at this critical moment the foolish young man thought of his medicine-bag, which in their flight he had taken off from his side and laid in the canoe. He called out, ‘Where is my medicine-bag?’ The warriors told him to be quiet; what did he want with his medicine-bag at this perilous time? He still shouted, ‘Where is my medicine-bag?’ They again told him to paddle and not trouble them about his medicine-bag. As he persisted in his cry, ‘Where is my medicine-bag?’ one of the warriors seeing it by his side took it up and threw it to him. He, putting his hand into it, pulled out an old pouch made of the skin of a saw-bill, a species of duck. This he held by the neck to the water. Immediately the canoe began to glide swiftly at the usual speed of a saw-bill; and after being propelled for a short time by this wonderful power, they looked back and found they were far beyond the reach of the enemy, who had now given up the chase. Surely this Indian deserved a patent for his wonderful propelling power, which would have superseded[119] the use of the jarring and thumping steam-boats, now the wonder and admiration of the American Indian. The young man then took up his pouch, wrung the water out of it, and replaced it in his bag; telling the Indians that he had not worn his medicine-bag about his person for nothing,—that in his fast he had dreamt of this fowl, and was told that in all dangers it would deliver him, and that he should possess the speed and untiring nature of the saw-bill duck. The old warriors were astonished at the power of the young man whom they had looked upon as almost an idiot, and were taught by him a lesson, never to form a mean opinion of any persons from their outward appearance.”
The canoe of the Indian has been several times mentioned in these pages, and as it plays a very important part in the career of the savage in question, in times of peace as well as of war, it may not be amiss here to furnish some particulars as to its construction. Of its antiquity there is very little doubt; for being of a simple construction, and the materials for it at hand, we suppose that it would occur to the simplest savage, that if it was necessary to go some distance on the water, he must have something to float upon, and that wood or the lightest part of it—bark—was just the thing that was required. So that if it can exactly be computed how long it is since the North American Indian first took up his abode in those vast regions which he so long possessed undisturbed, and deduct a few years for him to look about his new home, we shall have the exact age of the canoe; at any rate, the discoverers of America found the canoe along with the Indians, and the natives called them canoas, which were hollowed out of trees. The way that the tribes belonging to the Algongian stock, who are essentially fishermen and sailors, build their canoes is as follows:—
The birch is the tree selected for the purpose, and the bark is that part of it of which the skeleton of the canoe is built. The Indians select the largest and smoothest trees; so that they can obtain large pieces of bark and prevent too much sewing. The inner side of the bark is scraped with knives, and it is then given over to the women to sew. The men then get ready the framework of the boat, which is of cedar. “They have usually a sort of model, or a frame of the figure and size of a canoe, round which the branches or ribs are bent. In the centre the arches are large, growing smaller towards either end. These ribs are peeled wonderfully thin, because lightness and easy carriage are the chief qualities of a canoe. Between the upper end of the ribs or rarangues, as they are[120] called, a thin cross-piece is fastened, to keep them in a horizontal position. This is for the purpose of giving strength to the sides.” These boats have no keel, but the rarangues, and lanes, or cross-pieces, are tied to a piece of wood at the top.
The Indians use neither nails nor screws in the manufacture of the canoe; everything about it is either tied or sewn together. This, however, does not seem to deteriorate its strength or utility. When the framework is completed, the bark covering, previously alluded to, and which is made by the women, is spread over it, and the edge turned down over the “maître” and firmly bound to it. The interior of the canoe is then lined with thin boards, laid across the ribs, which they call les lisses. These protect the bottom from the feet of the passenger, and injury from the sails. They are remarkably thin and light, and not much stouter than the sides of a cigar-box. Of course the canoes are not suited for the nailed boots of a European or the transport of ironshod boxes, but only for the soft mocassined feet of the Indians, and the still softer bundles of fur.
“All the wood-work in the canoe is derived from the cédre blanche, for this wood is very elastic, does not split, has but light specific gravity, and is easily cut with a knife. The material for the cords and strings is also obtained from the same tree, though they also use the bark taken from the root of the epinetee blanche, a species of spruce. All this is prepared by the women, who are always busy in twisting ‘watals,’ owing to the large quantities used. They can make either twine or stout cords out of it, and for their fishing nets, the ropes often reach a length of fifty yards. These cords last a long time, and resist the influence of water, and they can be laid up for two years without deteriorating. If damped, they become as supple as leather.
“The canoe is sharp, front and back, and the ends stand up a little: these ends are often gaily decorated in the large canoes. A small piece of wood is inserted in either end to give it increased strength. This, too, is often carved and painted into the shape of a queer-looking manikin.
“After the canoe is completed, the material is left to dry. For this purpose pieces of wood are inserted in every part to keep it well extended, and it is then hung up in the air. Botching all the little holes, seams, and stitches is the final process. For this purpose the resin of the pine or fir is used, and is laid on in thick patches wherever a hole would allow the water entrance. The weak parts of the bark or the holes of branches are also covered with this resin.”
[121]
In the canoe building, as, indeed, in all labours, a great part of the work falls to the women. They do all the sewing and tying, and often are compelled to take part in the hammering and botching. When the little craft is afloat, the squaws assist in the paddling; and very often are more skilful in this respect than the men. Usually, however, when a family is moving about, the man and wife paddle side by side. In the primitive mode of sailing, one sits at the stern and one at the bow, both paddling with short broad paddles. The one in the bow looks out for shallow rocks and rapids, which might prove dangerous; he then signals to the one in the stern, to whose care the propelling of the boat is principally entrusted, who directs the boat accordingly. The lightness of the canoe, and the extraordinary skill of the Indians in guiding it, enables it to skim over the surface of the water with marvellous rapidity. The most surprising part of the business is the great load these canoes can carry. Mr. Kohl makes mention of one he saw, which contained a family of twenty persons, with their goods and chattels! They had come some hundred and fifty miles in their little boat,—over cataracts and rapids; besides they had a quantity of deer and bear skins with them, and several live dogs. The whole weight must have exceeded a ton!
Throughout the whole of Polynesia, as in savage North America, the native, wherever you find him, regards war as the first business of his life, as the only means of earning fame and riches. Without doubt this yearning for perpetual strife has now somewhat subsided, but within the memory of the still young, the said yearning was at its highest. Samoa furnishes an apt instance; and even within the last few years, when Mr. Turner was there located as missionary, he found that the murder of a chief, a disputed title, or a desire on the part of one, two, or more of the districts to be considered stronger and of more importance than the rest, were frequent causes of war. Hostilities were often prevented by such acts as giving up the culprit, paying a heavy fine, or bowing down in abject submission, not with ropes round their necks, but carrying firewood and small stones used in baking a pig, or perhaps a few bamboos. The firewood, stones, and leaves were equivalent to their saying, “Here we are your pigs to be cooked if you please; and here are the materials with which to do it.” Taking bamboos in the hand was as if they said, “We have come, and here are the knives to cut us up.” A piece of split bamboo was of old the usual knife in Samoa.
[122]
If, however, the chiefs of the district were determined to resist, they prepared accordingly. The boundary which separated one district from another was the usual battle field, hence the villages next to that spot on either side were occupied at once by the troops. The women and children, the sick and the aged, were cleared off to some fortified place in the bush, or removed to some other district which was either neutral or could be depended upon as an ally. Moveable property was either buried or taken off with the women and children. The wives of the chiefs and principal men, generally followed their husbands wherever they might be encamped, to be ready to nurse them if sick or wounded. A heroine would even follow close upon the heels of her husband in actual conflict, carrying his club or some other part of his armour; it was common for chiefs to take with them a present of fine mats when they went to another district to solicit help in war, but there was no standing army or regularly paid soldiers anywhere.
Polynesian Weapons.
When the chiefs decided on war, every man and boy under their jurisdiction old enough to handle a club, had to take his place as a soldier, or risk the loss of his lands and property and banishment from the place. In each district there was a certain village or cluster of villages known as the advance troops. It was their province to take the lead and in battle their loss was double the number of that of any other village. Still they[123] boasted of their right to lead, and would on no account give it up to others, and talked in the current strain of other parts of the world, about the glory of dying in battle. In a time of peace the people of these villages had special marks of respect shown to them, such as the largest share of food at public feasts, flattery, etc. While war was going on the chiefs and heads of families united in some central spot, and whatever they decided on, either for attack or defence, the young men endeavoured implicitly to carry out. Their weapons were of old, clubs, spears, and slings; subsequently, as iron was introduced, they got hatchets, and with these they made their most deadly weapon, viz., a sharp tomahawk with a handle the length of a walking stick. After that again, they had the civilized additions of swords, pistols, guns, and bayonets. Around the village where the war party assembled, they threw a rough stockade, formed by any kind of sticks or trees cut into eight feet lengths and put close to each other upright, with their ends buried two feet in the ground. The hostile parties might be each fortified in this way, not more than a mile from each other, and now and then venture out to fight in the intervening space, or to take each other by surprise at weak or unguarded points. In their war canoes they had some distinguishing badge of their district hoisted on a pole, a bird it might be, or a dog, or a bunch of leaves. And for the bush-ranging land forces, they had certain marks on the body by which they knew their own party, and which served as a temporary watchword. One day the distinguishing mark might be blackened cheeks, the next two strokes on the breast, the next a white shell suspended from a stripe of white cloth round the neck, and so on; before any formal fight they had a day of feasting, reviewing, and merriment. In action they never stood in orderly ranks to shoot at each other. According to their notions that would be the height of folly. Their favourite tactics were rather of the surprise and bush skirmishing order. Prisoners, if men, were generally killed; if women, distributed among the conquerors. In the battle which was fought in 1830, to avenge the death of Tamafainga, a fire was kindled, and prisoners to the extent of four hundred, some say, were burned, but probably it did not reach the half of that number.
Their heroes were the swift of foot, like Achilles or Asahel; men who could dash forward towards a crowd, hurl a spear with deadly precision; and stand for a while, tilting off with his club other spears as they approached him within an inch of running him through. They were[124] ambitious also to signalize themselves by the number of heads they could lay before the chief. No hero at the Grecian games rejoiced more over his chaplet than did the Samoan glory in the distinction of having cut off a man’s head. As he went along with it through the villages on the way to the place where the chiefs were assembled, waiting the hourly news of the battle, he danced and capered and shouted, calling out every now and then the name of the village, and adding, “I am so and so, I have got the head of such a one.” When he reached the spot where the chiefs were met, he went through a few more evolutions and then laid down the head before them. This, together with the formal thanks of the chiefs before the multitude for his bravery and successful fighting, was the very height of a young man’s ambition. He made some giddy frolicsome turns on his heels and was off again to try and get another victim. These heads were piled up in a heap in the mapae or public assembly. The head of the most important chief was put on the top, and as the tale of the battle was told they would say, “There were so many heads surmounted by the head of so-and-so,” giving the number and the name. After remaining for some hours piled up they were either claimed by their relatives or buried on the spot.
A rare illustration of this ambition to get heads occurred about ten years ago. In an unexpected attack upon a village one morning, a young man fell stunned by a blow. Presently he recovered consciousness, felt the weight of some one sitting on his shoulders and covering his neck, and the first sounds he heard was a dispute going on between two as to which of them had the right to cut off his head. He made a desperate effort, jostled the fellow off his back, sprang to his feet, and with his head all safe in his own possession, soon settled the matter by leaving them both far behind him.
The headless bodies of the slain scattered about in the bush after a battle, if known, were buried, if unknown left to the dogs. In some cases the whole body was pulled along in savage triumph, and laid before the chiefs. One day when Mr. Turner was in a war-fort, endeavouring to mediate for peace, a dead body of one of the enemy was dragged in, preceded by a fellow making all sorts of fiendish gestures, with one of the legs in his teeth, cut off by the knee.
If the war became general, and involved several districts, they formed themselves into a threefold division of highway, bush, and sea fighters. The fleet might consist of three hundred men in thirty or forty canoes.[125] The bushrangers and the fleet were principally dreaded, as there was no calculating where they were or when they might pounce unawares upon some unguarded settlement. The fleet met apart from the land forces and concocted their own schemes. They would have it all arranged, for instance, and a dead secret, to be off after dark to attack a particular village belonging to the enemy. At midnight they land at an uninhabited place some miles from the settlement they intend to attack. They take a circuitous course in the bush, surround the village from behind, having previously arranged to let the canoes slip on quietly and take up their position in the water in front of the village. By break of day they rush into the houses of the unsuspecting people before they have well waked up, chop off as many heads as they can, rush with them to their canoes, and decamp before the young men of the place have had time to muster or arm. Often they are scared by the people who during the war keep a watch night and day at all the principal openings in the reef; but now and then the plot succeeds and there is fearful slaughter. In one of these early morning attacks from the fleet the heads of thirteen were carried off. One of them was that of a poor old man who was on his knees at his morning devotions, when off went his head at a blow. In another house that same morning there was a noble instance of maternal heroism in a woman who allowed herself to be hacked from head to foot bending over her son to save his life. It is considered cowardly to kill a woman, or they would have dispatched her at once. It was the head of her little boy they wanted, but they did not get it. The poor woman was in a dreadful state, but, to the surprise of all, recovered.
To the king of Samoa was reserved the power of sparing life. When led to the king’s presence the captive warriors usually prostrated themselves before him, and exclaimed: make paha e ora paha-i runa te ars? i raro te aro. “To die, perhaps to live, perhaps upward the face!” If the king did not speak, or said “The face down,” it was sentence of death, and some one in attendance either despatched the poor captive in his presence or led him away to be slaughtered. But if the king said, “Upward the face,” they were spared only to be slaves or to be sacrificed when the priests should require human victims.
When the king, or any chief of high rank, was known to be humane, or any of the vanquished had formerly been on terms of friendship with him, avoiding carefully the warriors, an individual risking his life on the conqueror’s clemency would lie in wait for him in his walks, and prostrating[126] himself in the path, supplicate his compassion, or rush into his house and throw himself on the ground before him. Though anyone might have killed him while on his way thither, none dared touch him within the king’s enclosure without his orders. When the king did not speak, or directed the fugitive to be carried from his presence, which was very unusual, he was taken out and slain. Generally the prince spoke to the individual who had thus thrown himself into his power; and if he did but speak, or only recognise him, he was secure. He might either join the retinue of the sovereign, or return to his own house. No one would molest him, as he was under maru shade or the screening protection of the king. These individuals, influenced by feelings of gratitude, generally attached themselves to the person or interest of the prince by whom they had been saved, and frequently proved through subsequent life the most faithful attendants on his person and steady adherents to his cause.
The gentleman just mentioned furnishes us with an account of the massacre of the teachers which some few years since took place at the Isle of Pines. There were three of them. They were blamed for causing sickness. Mantungu, the chief, ordered them away, and as Captain Ebrill, of the brig “Star,” was there at the time and offered to take them to Samoa, they left in his vessel. Captain Ebrill first went to Sydney, came back, was on his way to Samoa with the teachers, but touched at the Isle of Pines to procure some more sandal-wood. He anchored at Uao, some little distance from the residence of the chief. The natives went off to the vessel. “Where are Mantungu and his sons?” said a person on board. “Dead,” replied the natives in a joke. “Dead, dead; that is good,” said the same person; “let such chiefs be dead, and let the common folk live, and help us cut sandal-wood.” For some reason which we cannot ascertain, Captain Ebrill and his crew were angry with the old chief, and as a further proof of it, when he sent a present of food to the teachers, who he heard were in the vessel, it was not allowed to be received on board. Those who took it had pieces of wood thrown at them and two musket shots fired at them. None were killed, but one man was wounded in the knee. “What can this mean,” said Mantungu, “wishing me and my sons dead in our own land? and why commit such outrages upon my people who went with a present?” Whether he had any intentions previously to take the vessel we know not; but any one who knows the old despot can imagine how such treatment would make his savage heart flame with revenge. Next morning thirty select men were off, determined[127] to kill all on board. They took some sandal-wood with them to sell; and as a further trick did not arm themselves with clubs or axes, but with the adzes which they use in dressing off the bark and sap from the wood. They reached the vessel. The sandal-wood pleased all on board, was immediately bought, and the natives were allowed to go up on deck to grind their adzes on pretence that they were going off for more wood. One of the crew was turning the handle of the grindstone, a native grinding an adze, and the captain close by. Seizing a favourable moment the native swung his adze and hit the captain in the face between the eyes,—this was instant death to Captain Ebrill, and the signal for attack all over the vessel. In a few minutes seventeen of the crew were killed—viz., ten white men, including the captain, two Marquesans, two Mangarans, one Aitutakian, one New Zealander, and a Karotongan teacher. The cook fought desperately for awhile with an axe and killed one man, but was at length overpowered and fell. This occurred on the afternoon of the 1st of November, 1842. A young man named Henry, two Samoan teachers, and a native of the New Hebrides made their escape below. Henry loaded muskets and fired up the companion, but without effect. It only exasperated the natives on deck, who threw down upon them billets of sandal-wood. The teachers then collected their property, six red shirts, eight axes, etc., called up and offered all for their lives, but there was no mercy. Night came on. The natives divided; a party went on shore in the boat, and the rest remained on deck to guard those below. In the morning the natives called down to Henry and the Samoans to come up, take the vessel further in, and then go on shore, as Mantungu had come and declared they were to live. The poor fellows felt they were entirely in the hands of the natives, came up, ran close in shore, and again dropped anchor. They were then taken to the shore. A son of Mantungu, with a tomahawk in his right hand, met Henry as he stepped out of the boat, held out his left hand with a feigned grin of friendship to shake hands; but the moment he got hold of Henry’s right hand, the villain up with his axe and laid the poor fellow dead at his feet. Others were up and at the remaining three. Lengolo, the New Hebrides native, and the Samoan Taniela, were killed at once. Mantangu and a party of natives were sitting under the shade of the cocoa-nuts looking on. Lasalo, the other Samoan teacher, escaped streaming with blood, threw himself at the feet of the old chief and begged for life. Mantungu was silent for a minute or two, but soon gave the wink to a Lifu man. Lasalo[128] was now dragged away to be killed, but he sprang from the fellow as he lifted his axe and darted off to sea. The savages were at his heels, he was hit repeatedly, but escaped to the deep water, struck out and swam off to a little island. Four men jumped into a canoe and after him; he climbed a pine tree and talked for awhile with them; they assured him Mantungu had determined to spare him, and at last he came down. It was treachery again. They sprang upon him like tigers; but again he extricated himself, and rushed to the canoe; there, however, at length the poor fellow was overpowered and fell.
After the massacre the bodies were divided. There were people there from Caledonia, Mare, and Lifu, and each had a share. Then followed the plundering of the vessel; deck, cabins, and forecastle were stripped of everything. They cut down the masts to get at the sails and rigging, and then set fire to her without opening the hold. As the fire reached the powder there was a terrific explosion, but no lives lost. She burned to the water’s edge and then sank.
Another curious story is related of these people in connexion with their warlike disposition. On one occasion they captured a European ship called the “Sisters,” and having massacred the crew, proceeded to rifle the vessel of everything portable. Some kegs of gunpowder came under this category, and being unacquainted with its nature, after conveying it ashore, they amused themselves by sprinkling pinches of it in the fire to “make sparks.” The result may be easily imagined; the whole bulk of powder became ignited and scattered the amazed savages right and left; many were maimed and a few killed, and among the latter was a chief of some renown. The calamity was of course attributed to the evil spirits of the murdered crew of the “Sisters,” and the Samoans vowed to take dire revenge on the first batch of white men who fell into their clutches. They had not long to wait. A large boat with seven men in her put in not long after near the same place. This was a party of runaway convicts from Norfolk Island. Five of them were killed and the boat broken to pieces. The other two had gone off to forage in the bush, and happily met with old Jeni (the chief) and his sons, who were travelling there that very day about some war affairs. The murderers of the five who were in search of the other two found them with Jeni and his sons and proposed to kill them. Jeni refused and took them home with him. They lived for two months under the wing of the old chief and our teachers, and were kindly treated. But the fellows were out-and-out Norfolk Islanders. One night[129] they got up and robbed old Jeni of four muskets, ten hatchets, four felling axes, and a saw. They went to the teachers’ house, took four shirts, two knives, and an axe, and off they set in the teachers’ canoe to join some white men reported to be at Lifu. At daylight the things were missed and the place in an uproar. Suspicion fell on the teachers. Their canoe is away—they must have helped the fellow to lift it into the water. “No,” said Tataio, “how can that be? We are robbed too, and our canoe gone to boot. But I’ll tell you they cannot be far away, let us be off after them: I go for one, who will join me?” A party was made up in a twinkling, and off they went, hard drive at their paddles, out to sea in the direction of Lifu. Soon they sighted something rising now and then on the top of the waves. Two men in it—just the fellows. A little further and they were in sight of each other. The thieves loaded their muskets and fired two or three shots. No one was hurt. Their pursuers paddle steadily on and are determined to be at them. Then they threw the stolen property into the sea towards them, but who could pick up sinking axes? All were lost. The two scoundrels knew what they deserved, thought it was a choice of deaths, and jumped into the sea to drown themselves. “Poor fellows,” said Tataio, “they think we are going to kill them. Let us save them if we can.” He got his hand into the mouth of one of them when he had but almost sunk, and pulled him up. The other was also secured and laid flat in the bottom of the canoe half dead. The sea was running high, the outrigger broke, and all had to jump out except the two vagabonds who were lying senseless in the bottom of the canoe. But it was hard work to swim and drag the disabled canoe through a heavy sea. “What are we doing?” said the natives to each other. “By and by we shall be all dead. Why should we be drowned in trying to save these fellows? It is their own doing. Let us tilt the canoe over, pitch them out and save ourselves.” “No,” said Tataio; “see the current is drifting us fast to that little island. Let us try it a little longer.”
They reached the little island, landed, and rested, and scolded the two scoundrels as they recovered and were able to listen to what was going on. Some natives of the island, when they heard the tale, would have them killed, but the votes with Tataio carried it for their lives. “Well then spare their lives, but we must punish them.” They stripped them naked, besmeared them from head to foot with a mixture of mud and ashes, and then said, “Now you must go about so.” Native like,[130] however, they repented next day, washed the fellows clean, and gave them back their clothes. After resting a day or two the party returned to Mare.
The Mare people were delighted to see the party return, but when they heard the story, and knew that all the property was thrown away, they could hardly keep their clubs off the vagabonds. But old Jeni united with the teachers and forbade. “What good,” said he, “will it do to kill them? It won’t bring back my property.” Here again they were allowed to live, and were fed too by the people, as if nothing had happened, until they had an opportunity of leaving in a vessel which touched at the place some time after.
Justice demands some few words of explanation concerning the reputed “wanton massacres” by the natives of these islands. Without doubt they set but little value on human life, and are treacherous in the extreme; naturally, they are suspicious and likely to regard the actions of men so totally different in manner and habit from themselves, as are white men, with constant uneasiness; added to this, it is an ascertained fact that in numerous instances European and American ships trading to this part of the world have not scrupled to cheat and ill-use the ignorant savages with whom they had to deal, and though the aggressors have succeeded in sailing off with impunity, such behaviour could not fail to plant seeds of ill-feeling, the crop of which would certainly be garnered for the next batch of “white cheats” who touched their shores.
The following little story of this South Sea traffic, related by a traveller named Coulter (who relates it rather as a joke than a disgrace) will illustrate what the above lines are meant to convey:
“There was some firewood collected on the beach which had yet to be got off, as we were in actual want of it. The natives were offered some trifling presents to bring it to the schooner, but acted so slowly that the captain got out of patience and dispatched his boat with four men and the interpreter to effect the desired object; he gave them every caution not to mix with the natives, but work quick and get off the wood at once, and if there should be any attempt to attack them on the part of the natives, to run to the water’s edge and the guns of the schooner would cover them.
“I may here remark, that it is a usual plan with almost all the islanders in the Pacific, who are treacherously disposed, to obtain first as much as they can by fair trade, and if the suspicions of the captain, or any vessel[131] trading with them, should be lulled so as to throw him off his guard by this apparent honesty and safety, to take advantage of such a state of things and either cut off a boat’s crew or attempt to board and plunder the ship, if possible.
“Trainer, the mate, who knew these people well, had no confidence in any of them; though he seemed to take matters easy enough he was well prepared for any surprise that might be attempted, and he was doubly particular in his means of defence, as the interpreter informed him that the natives were laying plans to board the schooner, thinking as she was small the capture of her would be an easy matter. Two boat’s load of the firewood was gone off and the boats sent for the third and last. The wood was about forty yards from the beach and had to be carried down by the men to the boat. A number of canoes were rapidly shoved into the water and filled with men. This was the critical time, and we all kept ready and an anxious watch on the boat.
“In a few minutes the four men on shore were observed to run with all their might down to the water’s edge followed by a crowd of armed natives. They had scarcely time to get into the boat and push her off from the beach when the natives were close on, throwing a number of spears at them, one of which took effect on one of the men. However, the remaining three got her off into deep water. The interpreter, who could not get into the boat, stole into the water at another point unperceived by the natives and swam off. They were all taken quickly on board; but there was no time to hoist the boat up as the canoes filled with armed men were fast approaching.
“The seaman who was wounded in the boat died in a few minutes after reaching the deck—the spear had passed right through his chest. The men, who were all enraged at the loss of an excellent man and an esteemed messmate, were burning for revenge, and were waiting with impatient eagerness for the orders to slap at them. Trainer was at the gangway and his eye on the advancing fleet of canoes; I was with him. We were well prepared. The short carronades were the most useful articles on the present occasion and were loaded with grape. The crew were also armed. ‘Well,’ said the captain, ‘I have been here several times, and have always treated them fairly and kindly, and now, without cause, they have killed one of our best men and want to take my vessel and murder us all. They shall catch it.’ Thus spoke a really humane man, but he was irritated beyond all patience by the treachery of the natives and loss of his man.[132] ‘Now, my lads, are you ready?’ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ ‘Remember, if we let these savages board us not a man will be alive in ten minutes.’ ‘Never fear, sir; we’ll pay them.’ On the canoes came; they separated into two divisions, one advancing to the bows the other towards the stern.
“Trainer keenly eyed them, whilst he made frequent exclamations, such as ‘Well, you want the schooner, I suppose,’ etc. The natives in the canoes were yelling and screaming loudly enough and brandishing their spears with as threatening an aspect as they could make, seemingly with the intention of cowing us. They approached within twenty yards, when the captain ordered the guns at the bow to be pointed fair for the batch of canoes ahead, while he arranged for those approaching the stern. ‘Are you ready, men, fore and aft?’ ‘Ay, ay, sir.’ ‘Let go, then.’ The two carronades discharged their fatal showers of grape, and before the smoke had rightly cleared away they were loaded and again fired amongst the savages. ‘Load again, my lads,’ said the captain. There was scarcely any wind, and the smoke which hung low on the water was a few minutes in clearing away. The screaming of the wounded people was appalling; some canoes were sunk or capsized and numbers of natives were swimming towards the shore. Nevertheless, there were many of them yet that kept their ground and had the reckless daring to make another bold push for the vessel’s side. ‘Fire,’ said the captain again, and another volley of grape flew amongst them. This discharge had not the great effect of the former ones, as the canoes were closer and the contents of the guns had not distance enough to scatter. The savages seemed to comprehend this, and in another moment were clinging to the schooner’s sides endeavouring to board; but the rapid use of muskets and pistols ultimately drove them away in an indescribable confusion, with, I am sorry to say, considerable loss.
“The whole affair was caused by the natural treachery of the natives. The part we played was unavoidable; in fact, our lives were at stake, and there was only one unnecessary shot fired after the final retreat of the natives. The men who had charge of the bow gun loaded it again unperceived by the captain, and before they could be stopped fired it after the savages who were making for the shore. This parting shot was, as they said, to revenge Tom Staples, the seaman who was speared. There was no one on board the schooner hurt during the affray but the carpenter, whose arm was broken by the blow of a heavy club wielded by a huge savage who was endeavouring to board.”
[133]
To repeat Mr. Coulter’s words, “The whole affair was caused by the natural treachery of the natives.” As the gentleman was on the spot he of course should know all about it. Still one cannot help suspecting that the captain’s “impatience” had not a little to do with the carnage which ensued. It would be interesting to be informed what were the orders of the impatient captain to the boat’s crew sent ashore to hurry the unwilling natives. Why were they unwilling? Was the firewood piled on the beach already paid for, or did that “really humane man,” the American captain, expect the oft-deluded barbarians to trust to his honour for payment when the cargo was fairly aboard. The first boatful was allowed to depart—the second—then came the third and last. “Where’s the price?” “Price be hanged, you precious lot of niggers! guess the only price you’ll get for this yer freight will be pitched at you from our big guns. Hands off the boat there, and let us shove her off!” This of course is a fancy picture; but there is a possibility that it is not very wide of the mark. If so, the niggers who, after they had seen their comrades mangled and torn by the murderous grape “made another bold push for the ship’s side,” showed themselves brave men, and compels us to reflect with abhorence on the firers of that “one unnecessary shot.”
[134]
Figian “fustian”—Figian battle-field tactics—The first rending of the root—Fighting implements of the Figians—Five-bladed swords—Execution of Tahitian Prisoners—The obdurate Cacahoo—Heroism of Nonfaho’s widow—Figian ship-building—Surprising skill of savage boat-builders—Ordinary sea-women—Superstitions of Figian sailors—The warrior of New Zealand—The sacred wind of Tu—Distribution of the locks of the slain—Cooking the warriors’ hearts—Australian weapons—Throwing the boomerang—The Australian spear—Thick and thin heads—Remarkable mode of Duelling.
In Figi the disposition to quarrel and fight is no less rife than in Samoa. A very trifling matter constitutes a casus belli, and their forces are gathered by the taga, a kind of review. Of these there is a series,—one at every place where the army stops on its way to the scene of action. If any part of Figian warfare has interest, it is this, and to the parties engaged it is doubtless glorious. They defy an enemy that is far away, and boast of what they will do on a day which has not yet come, and all this in the midst of their friends. The boasting is distinct from, though associated with, the taga, which means “ready” or “on the move,” namely, for challenging. The challenging is called bole-bole, and the ceremony, when complete, is as follows:—If the head of the party of allies just arrived is a great chief, his approach is hailed with a general shout. Taking the lead, he conducts his followers to a large open space, where the chief to whose help he comes waits with his men. Forthwith, shouts of respect are exchanged by the two companies. Presently a man, who is supposed to represent the enemy, stands forth and cries out, “Cut up! cut up! the temple receives;” intimating probably that the enemy will certainly be cut up, cooked, and offered to the gods. Then follow those who bole or challenge. First comes the leader, and then others, singly at the beginning, but afterwards in companies of six, or ten, or twenty. It is impossible to tell all that is said when many are speaking at once; but there is no lack of bragging, if single challengers may he taken as specimens. One man runs up to the chief, brandishes his club, and exclaims, “Sir, do you know me? Your enemies soon will.” Another, darting forward, says, “See this hatchet! how clean! To-morrow it will be[135] bathed in blood!” One cries out, “This is my club!—the club that never yet was false!” The next, “This army moves to-morrow; then you shall eat dead men till you are surfeited!” A man striking the ground violently with his club, boasts, “I cause the earth to tremble; it is I who meet the enemy to-morrow!” “See,” exclaims another, “I hold a musket and a battle-axe; if the musket miss fire the hatchet will not!” A fine young man stepped quietly towards a king, and, holding a pole used as an anchor for a canoe, says, “See, sire, the anchor of Natewa (the name of the locality threatened); I will do thus with it,” and he breaks the pole across his knee. A man swinging a ponderous club says, “This club is a defence: a shade from the heat of the sun and the cold of the rain.” Glancing at the chief, he adds, “You may come under it.” A fiery youth runs up as though breathless, crying out, “I long to be gone; I am impatient.” One of the same kind says, “Ah! ah! these boasters are deceivers; I only am a true man in the battle; you shall find me so.” These great swelling words are listened to with mingled laughter and applause. Although the speeches of the warriors are marked with great earnestness, there is nothing of the horrifying grimace in which the New Zealander indulges on similar occasions. The fighting men have their bodies covered with black powder; some, however, confine this to the upper part only. An athletic warrior, thus powdered, so as to make his skin wear a velvet-like blackness, has a truly formidable appearance, his eyes and teeth gleaming with very effective whiteness.
Figians, says Williams, make a show of war at the taga, do no mischief, and incur no danger; and this is just what they like. The challenging is their delight; beyond it their ambition does not reach, and glory is without charms.
Notwithstanding the boasts of the braves, the chief will sometimes playfully taunt them, intimating, that from their appearance he should judge them to be better acquainted with spades than clubs, and fitter to use the digging stick than the musket.
With taunting scorn the antagonist would reply much in the same strain, sometimes mingling affected pity with his denunciations. When they had finished their harangue, the omoreaa club of insult or insulting spear was raised and the onset commenced. Sometimes it was a single combat fought in the space between two armies and in sight of both.
At other times several men engaged on both sides, when those not[136] engaged, though fully armed and equipped, kept their seat on the ground. If a single combat, when one was disabled or slain, the victor would challenge another, and seldom thought of retreating so long as one remained. When a number were engaged and one fell, a warrior from his own party rose and maintained the struggle; when either party retreated, the ranks of the army to which it belonged, rushed forward to sustain it; this brought the opposing army on, and from a single combat or a skirmish, it became a general engagement. The conflict was carried on with the most savage fury, such as barbarous warriors might be expected to evince—who imagined the gods on whom their destinies depended had actually entered into their weapons, giving precision and force to their blows, direction to their missiles, and imparting to the whole a supernatural fatality.
The din and clamour of the deadly fury were greatly augmented by the efforts of the Rauti. These were the orators of battle. They were usually men of commanding person and military prowess, arrayed only in a girdle of the leaves of the ti-plant round their waist, sometimes carrying a light spear in the left, but always a small bunch of green ti-leaves in the right hand. In this bunch of leaves the principal weapon, a small, sharp, serrated and barbed airo fai (bone of the sting-ray), was concealed, which they were reported to use dexterously when in contact with the enemy. The principal object of these Rautis was to animate the troops by recounting the deeds of their forefathers, the fame of their tribe or island, and the interests involved in the contest. In the discharge of their duties they were indefatigable, and by night and day, went through the camp rousing the ardour of the warriors. On the day of battle they marched with the army to the onset, mingled in the fury, and hurried to and fro among the combatants, cheering them with the recital of heroic deeds or stimulating them to achievements of daring and valour.
Any attempt at translating their expressions would convey so inadequate an idea of their original force as to destroy their effect. “Roll onward like the billows,—break on them with the ocean’s foam and roar when bursting on the reeds,—hang on them as the forked lightning plays above the frothing surf,—give out the vigilance, give out the strength, give out the anger, the anger of the devouring wild dog, till their line is broken, till they flow back like the receding tide.” These were the expressions sometimes used, and the recollection of their spirit-stirring[137] harangues is still vivid in the memory of many who, when anything is forcibly urged upon them, often involuntarily exclaim, tini Rauti teia—“this is equal to a Rauti.”
If the battle continued for several successive days, the labours of the Rautis were so incessant by night through the camp, and by day amid the ranks in the field, that they have been known to expire from exhaustion and fatigue. The priests were not exempted from the battle; they bore arms and marched with the warriors to the combat.
The combatants did not use much science in the action, nor scarcely aim to parry their enemy’s weapons; they used no shield or target, and, believing the gods directed and sped their weapons with more than human force upon their assailants, they depended on strength more than art for success. Their clubs were invariably aimed at the head, and often with the lozenge-shaped weapon they would cleave the skulls of their opponents. When the first warrior fell on either side a horrid shout of exultation and of triumph was raised by the victors, which echoed along the line, striking a panic through the ranks of their antagonists, it being considered an intimation of the favour of the gods towards the victorious parties. Around the body the struggle became dreadful, and if the victors bore him away, he was despoiled of his ornaments, and then seized by the priests or left to be offered to the gods at the close of the battle.
The first man seized alive was offered in sacrifice, and called te mata-ahaetumu Taaroa, the first rending of the root. The victim was not taken to the temple, but laid alive upon a number of spears, and thus borne on men’s shoulders along the ranks in the rear of the army, the priest of Ora walking by the side, offering his prayer to the god, and watching the writhings and involuntary agitation of the dying man. If these agonies were deemed favourable, he pronounced victory as certain. Such indications were considered most encouraging, as earnests of the god’s cooperation.
They sometimes practised what they called tiputa taata. When a man had slain his enemy, in order fully to satiate his revenge and intimidate his foes, he sometimes beat the body flat, and then cut a hole with a stone battle-axe through the back and stomach, and passed his own head through the aperture, as he would through the hole of his tiputa or poncho; hence the name of this practice. In this terrific manner, with head and arms of the slain hanging down before and the legs behind, he[138] marched to renew the conflict. A more horrible act and exhibition it is not easy to conceive, yet there once lived a man in Fare, named Tavara, who, according to his own confession, and the declaration of his neighbours, was guilty of this deed during one of their recent wars.
In times of war, all capable of bearing arms were called upon to join the forces of the chieftain to whom they belonged; and the farmers, who held their land partly by feudal tenure, were obliged to render military service whenever their landlord required it. There were, besides these, a number of men celebrated for their valour, strength, or address in war, who were called aito, fighting-men or warriors. This title was the result of achievements in battle; it was highly respected, and proportionably sought by the courageous and ambitious. It was not, like the chieftainship and other prevailing distinctions, confined to any class, but open to all, and many from the lower ranks have risen as warriors to a high station in the community.
Tonga Weapons.
Originally their weapons were simple and formed of wood; they consisted of the spear, which the natives called patia or tao, made with the wood of the cocoa-nut tree or of the aito, iron-wood or casuarina. It was twelve or eighteen feet long, and about an inch or an inch and a half in diameter at the middle of the lower end, but tapering off to a point at the other. The spears of the inhabitants of Rurutu and other of the Austral Islands are remarkable for their great length and elegant shape, as well as for the high polish with which they are finished. The omore or club was another weapon used by them; it was always made of the aito or iron-wood, and was principally of two kinds, either short and heavy like a[139] bludgeon, for the purpose of close combat, or long and furnished with a broad lozenge-shaped blade. The Tahitians did not often carve or ornament their weapons; but by the inhabitants of the Southern Islands they were frequently very neatly though partially carved. The inhabitants of the Marquesas carve their spears, and ornament them with human hair; and the natives of the Harvey Islands, with the Friendly and Figian islanders, construct their weapons with taste and carve them with remarkable ingenuity.
The pacho was a terrific sort of weapon, although it was principally used at the heva or seasons of mourning. It resembled in some degree a club; but having the inner side armed with large sharks’ teeth, it was more frequently drawn across the body, where it acted like a saw, than used for striking a blow. Another weapon of the same kind resembled a short sword, but instead of one blade, it had three, four, or five. It was usually made of a forked aito branch; the central and exterior branches, after having been pointed and polished, were armed along the outside with a thick line of sharks’ teeth, very firmly fixed in the wood. This was only used in close combat, and, when applied to the naked bodies of the combatants, must have been a terrific weapon. The bowels or lower parts of the body were attacked with it, not as a dagger is used, but drawn across like a saw. Some of the fighting men wore a kind of armour of network formed by small cords wound round the body and limbs so tight as merely to allow of the unencumbered exercise of the legs and arms, and not to impede the circulation of the blood. This kind of defence was principally serviceable in guarding from the blows of a club, or force of a stone, but was liable to be pierced by a spear. In general, however, the dress of the Tahitian warriors must have been exceedingly inconvenient. To make an imposing appearance, and defend their persons, seem to have been the only ends at which they aimed, differing greatly in this respect from the Hawaians, who seldom thought of guarding themselves, but adopted a dress that would least impede their movements.
The Tahitians went to battle in their best clothes, and often had the head not only guarded by an immense turban, but the body enveloped in folds of cloth, until the covering was many inches in thickness, extending from the body almost to the elbows, where the whole was bound round the waist with a finely braided sash or girdle. On the breast they wore a handsome military gorget ingeniously wrought with mother-of-pearl[140] shells, feathers, and dog’s hair, white and coloured. The captives taken in war called ivi or titi were murdered on the spot, or shortly afterwards, unless reserved for slaves to the victors. The bodies of the slain were treated in the most savage manner. They were pierced with their spears and at times the conduct of the victors towards their lifeless bodies was inconceivably barbarous.
On the day following the battle the bure taata was performed. This consisted in collecting the bodies of the slain and offering them to Oro as trophies of his prowess, and in acknowledgment of their dependence upon his aid. Prayers were preferred, imploring a continuance of his assistance.
The bodies were usually left exposed to the elements and to the hogs or wild dogs that preyed upon them. The victors took away the lower jaw-bones of the most distinguished among the slain as trophies, and often some of the bones, converting them into tools for building canoes with, or into fish hooks. Sometimes they piled the bodies in a heap, and built the skulls into a kind of wall around the temple, but they were commonly laid in rows near the shore, or in front of the camp, their heads all in the same direction. Here the skulls were often so battered with the clubs that no trace of the countenance or human head remained.
As to the manner of disposing of prisoners towards whom the king, when supplicated for forgiveness, preserves silence, the following brief account of a warrior execution as related by Mariner may be offered:—
“About mid-day, or a little after, the large canoe, in which were the prisoners lashed hand and foot, pushed out to sea under the command of Lolo Hea Malohi, an adopted son of Finow. They had on board three old small canoes, in a very leaky, rotten state, in which the prisoners were destined to be put and thus to be left gradually to sink, leaving the victims to reflect on their approaching dissolution, without having it in their power to help themselves.
THE CONCLUSION OF THE TERRIBLE FARCE.
“The distance they had to go was about two leagues, and the weather being calm the canoe was obliged to be paddled most of the way. In the meanwhile, some conversation passed between the prisoners, particularly Nonfaho and Booboonoo. Nonfaho observed to Booboonoo, that it would have been much better if they had never made a peace with Finow, and to a certain degree, he upbraided Booboonoo with not having followed his advice in this particular: to this the latter replied that he did not at all regret the late peace with Finow, for being his relation, he felt himself attached to his interests, and as to his own life, he thought it of no value [141]since the king did not think his services worth having. Nonfaho stated that he had a presentiment of his fate that very morning; for as he was going along the road from Feletoa to Macave, he met a native woman of Hapai, and as he passed, he felt a strong inclination, he knew not from what cause, to kill her, and this bias of his mind was so powerful, that he could not help turning back and effecting his purpose; at the same time he felt a secret presentiment that he was going to die, and this murder that he had committed appeared now to be a piece of vengeance on the Hapai people, weak indeed in itself, yet better than no revenge at all. Nonfaho, among other things lamented that his friend Booboonoo had not repaired to the Figi Islands when peace was first made, and by that means have preserved his life. As to his own safety, he said it was not a matter of much consequence; he only lamented that he was not about to die in an honourable way. Booboonoo expressed sentiments to the same purpose. Cacahoo now and then joined in the conversation, remarking that he only lamented his death inasmuch as no opportunity had been afforded him of revenging himself upon his enemies by sacrificing a few of them.
There were eighteen prisoners on board, of whom the greater part, before they arrived at the place where they were to be sunk, begged that the manner of their death might be changed to the more expeditious one of having their brains knocked out with a club, or their heads cleaved with an axe: this was granted them, and the work of execution was immediately begun. Having dispatched a number in this way, it was proposed, for the sake of convenience, that the remainder who begged to be thus favoured, should be taken to a neighbouring small island to be executed; which being agreed on they disputed by the way who should kill such a one and who another. Such was the conversation, not of warriors—for knocking out brains was no new thing to them—but of others not so well versed in the art of destruction, who were heartily glad of this opportunity of exercising their skill without danger; for, cowardlike, they did not dare to attempt it in a field of battle. The victims being brought on shore, nine were dispatched at nearly the same moment, which, with the three killed in the canoe, made twelve who desired this form of death. The remaining six, being chiefs and staunch warriors of superior bravery, scorned to beg any favour of their enemies, and were accordingly taken out to sea, lashed in two rotten canoes which they had on board, three in each, and left to reflect on their fate, whilst their destroyers remained at a little distance to see them sink. Booboonoo,[142] whilst in this situation, said that he only died unhappy on account of his infant son, who would be left friendless and unprotected; but calling to a younger chief in the larger canoe, of the name of Talo, begged, for the sake of their gods, that he would befriend his child, and never see him want either clothes or food suitable to the son of a chief: upon which Talo made a solemn promise to take the most attentive care of him, and Booboonoo seemed quite satisfied. Nonfaho lamented the sad disasters of that day, saying how many great and brave men were dying an ignominious death, who some time before were able to make the whole army of Finow tremble: he lamented, moreover, that he had ever retreated from his enemies, and wished that on such an occasion he had faced about, however inferior in strength, and sold his life at a high price, instead of living a little longer to die thus a shameful death: he earnestly requested them to remember him in an affectionate manner to his wife. Cacahoo swore heartily at Finow and all the chiefs of Hapai, cursing them in the most bitter manner, and their fathers for begetting them, and heaping maledictions upon all their generation. He went on in this manner, cursing and swearing at his enemies, till the water came up to his mouth, and, even then, he actually threw back his head for the opportunity of uttering another curse, spluttering the water forth from his lips till it bereft him for ever of the power of speech. They were about twenty minutes sinking, after which the large canoe returned immediately to Vavaoo.
The widows of those who were executed on the beach in the morning and of those who were dispatched at the small island in their way out to sea, petitioned Finow to grant them leave to perform the usual rites of burial in behalf of their deceased husbands, which the king readily acceded to: and they accomplished the ceremony with every mark of unfeigned sorrow and regret. When the last affectionate remembrances of Nonfaho were made to his widow, she appeared greatly moved; for, though she scarcely wept, her countenance betrayed marks of violent inward agitation: she retired to her house, and arming herself with a spear and a club, went about to seek for the other widows who had lost their husbands in the same way, and urged them to take up arms, as she had done, and go forth to revenge their husbands’ death, by destroying the wives of Finow and his principal chiefs; finding, at length, that none of the others were willing to follow her example, she was obliged to give up altogether. It was suspected that Finow would have been very angry on hearing her intention, but, on the contrary, he praised it much, and[143] approved of it as being not only a meritorious act of bravery, but a convincing proof that her affection for her deceased husband was great and genuine.
Four classes of canoes are found in Figi: the velovelo, the camakau, the tabilai, and the drua. All these have various modifications of outrigger (cama), and are distinguished by peculiarities in the hulk. The velovelo, or more properly the takia, is open throughout its length like a boat, and the spars to which the cama is secured rest on the gunwale. The camakau, as its name imports, has a solid spar for its cama: the hulk has a deck over the middle third of its length, twice its own width, and raised on a deep plank built edgeways on each gunwale. Between the edge of this deck and the outrigger all is open. The projecting ends of the canoe, which are lower than the main-deck or platform, as much as the depth of the plank on which it is raised, are each covered with one solid triangular piece of wood, hollowed underneath, and thickest at the broad end next the centre deck, to which it thus forms a gradual ascent. The two ridges, formed by the hollowing underneath on the sides of the triangle, are united to the edge of the hulk, so as completely to box it up. The rig of the camakau is the same as that of the double canoe described presently; and from the small resistance this build offers to the water, it is the “clipper” of Figi, and the vessel described under the name of pirogue in the Imperial Dictionary.
The tabilai is a link between the camakau and drua, and is made with the outrigger of either. It is often of great length, several feet at each end being solid wood, cut away something like the hull of a ship stern-ward, the sternpost of the ship representing the cut-water of the canoe, which, instead of being sharp, presents a square perpendicular edge to the water. This is the same at both ends, and is distinctive of the class.
The drua, or double canoe, differs from the rest in having another smaller canoe for its outrigger, and the deck is laid across both.
When not more than thirty or forty feet long, canoes are often cut out of a single tree, and require comparatively little skill in their construction. When, however, a first-class canoe is to be built, the case is far otherwise, and its creditable completion is a cause of great triumph.
A keel is laid in two or three pieces carefully scarfed together. From this the sides are built up, without ribs, in a number of pieces varying in length from three to twenty feet. The edge of each piece has on the inside a flange; as the large pieces are worked in, openings of very irregular[144] form are left to be filled in, as suitable pieces may be found. When it is recollected that the edges of the planks are by no means straight, it will be seen that considerable skill is required in securing neat joints; yet the native carpenters effect this with surprising success. After the edges are fitted together, holes of about three-eighths of an inch in diameter are bored a hand-breadth apart in them, having an oblique direction inwards, so as to have their outlet in the flange: the holes in the edge of the opposite board are made to answer these exactly. A white pitch from the bread-fruit tree, prepared with an extract from the cocoa-nut kernel, is spread uniformly on both edges, and over this a strip of fine masi is laid, which is burnt through with a small fire-stick where it covers the holes. The piece or vono is now ready for fixing, which is done by what is commonly but wrongly called “sewing;” the native word better describes the process, and means, “to bind.” The vono being lifted to its place, a well dressed but not large sinnet is passed through the hole in the top flange, so as to come out through the lower one: the end is then inserted in the sinnet further on, and the sinnet runs rapidly through the hole, until eight or twelve loose turns are taken: the inserted end is then sought and laid on the round projection formed by the united flanges, and fastened there by drawing one turn of the sinnet tightly over it; the other turns are then tightened, the last but one being made a tie to the last. The spare sinnet is now cut off close, and the operation repeated at the next hole. The bindings, already very strong, have their power increased by fine wedges of hard wood, to the number of six or seven, being driven in opposite directions under the sinnet, whereby the greatest possible pressure is obtained. The ribs seen in canoes are not used to bring the planks into shape, but are the last things inserted, and are for securing the deep side-boards described below, and uniting the deck more firmly with the body of the canoe. The outside of the vono is now carefully adzed into form, and the carpenter has often to look closely to find the joint. When the body of the canoe is cleaned off and rubbed down with pumice stone, the surface is beautifully smooth. Of course no signs of the fastenings are seen outside. This process is not used in fixing the deep planks which support the main deck, or the triangular coverings of the two ends already described. These being on the top of the gunwale, and above the water-mark, the sinnet is seen, at regular intervals, passing, like a band, over a flat bead which runs the whole length of the canoe, covering the joint and making a neat finish. Into the upper[145] edge of planks, two or three feet deep, fixed along the top of the sides perpendicularly, the cross beams which join on the outrigger are let and lashed down, and over these a deck of light wood is laid. The scuttle holes for baling are left at each corner. The deck also has six holes forward, and six aft, through which to work the sculling-oars, used in light winds to help the sail, or when dead calm or foul wind makes the sail useless. A small house or cuddy is built amid-ships, on which boxes or bales are stowed, and on a platform over it persons can sit or lie; a rack behind it receives guns, and spears, and clubs, or baskets are hung upon it. Any aperture inside not filled with the sinnet is tightly caulked with cocoa-nut husk, and such as are next the water are flushed up with the white pitch or resin.
Women, as well as men, discharge the duties of “ordinary seamen.” When ready for sea the mast, which is “stepped on deck in a chop,” stands erect, except that it is hauled to bend towards the outrigger. It is secured by fore and back stays, the latter taking the place of shrouds: when the sail is hoisted the halyards also become back stays; these ropes as long as the canoe is under sail may be called her standing rigging, not being loosed in tacking. The halyards are bent on the yard at less than a third of its length, at the upper end, and passed over the top of the mast, which has generally a crescent form. The great sail is allowed to swing a few feet from the deck till orders are given to get it under weigh. The yard is now hoisted hard up to the mast-head, but as the length of the yard from the halyards to the tack is longer than the mast, the latter is slacked off so as to incline to that end of the canoe to which the tack is fixed, thus forming with the lower length of the yard a triangle, of which the line of deck is the base.
The ends of the deck beams on the cama side serve for belaying pins, on which a turn of the halyards is taken, the loose ends being passed round the “dog” or belaying pole. The steersman, holding a long oar, stands nearly on a line with the tacks on the far edge of the main deck; while in the opposite corner is the man who tends the sheet. The sheet is bent on the boom about two-thirds, and by giving it a couple of turns on a beam one man can hold it even in a breeze. Like the felucca of the Mediterranean the helm is used at either end, and on tacking is put up instead of down, that the outrigger may be kept to windward: the wind being brought aft the tack is carried to the other end, which is thus changed from stern to bow, the mast being slacked back again to suit the[146] change; the helmsman and sheet-holder change places, and the canoe starts on a new tack.
A steer oar for a large canoe is twenty feet long, with an eight feet blade, sixteen inches wide. Being made of heavy wood, the great difficulty of handling it is eased by a rope, which is passed through the top of the blade, and the other end of which is made fast to the middle beam of the deck.
Figian canoe sailing, we are informed by the missionary Williams (from whose interesting account the above description of Figian naval architecture and canoe management is mainly taken), is not silent work. The sail is hoisted and the canoe put about with merry shouts; a brisk interchange of jest and raillery is kept up while sailing over shoal reefs, and the heavier task of sculling is lightened by mutual encouragement to exertion, and loud thanks to the scullers as each set is relieved at intervals of five or ten minutes. A dead calm is enlivened by playful invitations to the wind most wanted, the slightest breath being greeted with cries of “Welcome! welcome on board!” If there should be drums on board their clatter is added to the general noise.
The announcement to the helmsman of each approaching wave, with the order to lavi—keep her away—and the accompanying “one, two, three, and another to come,” by which the measured advance of the waves is counted, with passing comments on their good or ill demeanour, keep all alive and in good humour.
Figian sailors, like all other sailors throughout the world, are very superstitious. Certain parts of the ocean, through fear of the spirits of the deep, they pass over in silence, with uncovered heads, and careful that no fragment of wood or part of their dress shall fall into the water. The common tropic bird is the shrine of one of their gods, and the shark of another; and should the one fly over their heads, or the other swim past, those who wear turbans would doff them, and all utter some word of respect. A shark lying athwart their course is an omen which fills them with fear. A basket of bitter oranges on board a vessel is believed to diminish her speed. On one sort of canoe it is “tapu” (sacrilege) to eat food in the hold; on another in the house on deck; on another on the platform near the house. Canoes have been lost altogether because the crew, instead of exerting themselves in a storm, have quitted their posts to soro to their gods, and throw yagona and whales’ teeth to the waves to propitiate them.
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Very different from the elaborate Figian vessel is the canoe of the native of Torres Straits. This latter, which is often ninety feet in length, is constructed out of a single tree, obtained from the mainland of New Guinea. It is burnt out or hacked out, according to the New Guinean’s convenience; it has a raised gunwale, and in the centre is a platform. The stem and stern are closed, the head being shaped to the rude resemblance of a shark or some other marine monster, and in the stern is generally to be found a projecting pole from which is dangling a bunch of emu feathers. They carry a mat sail set forward between two poles hooked to the gunwale, bringing the heads of the poles to the wind as required.
Torres Straits Canoe.
To return, however, to the “war path.” No less superstitious than the Figian is his savage brother the New Zealander, who, as we are informed by Taylor and other trustworthy authorities, did not dare to go to war before he had undergone a sort of confirmation at the hands of the priest. Each priest, on the declaration of war, assembled his own party, and went to a sacred water. At first they all sat down, but after a time they stood up naked in the water, which they heaped up against their bodies, and threw over their heads. After they had been sprinkled by the priest, he said:
Here the ceremony terminated, and the assembly, as if inspired, jumped up, and rushed to the fight, while the priest repeated the following karakia, standing on some elevated spot, from which he could command a view of the battle:
After the battle was over the priest called those who survived, and enquired of each if he had killed anyone, or taken any prisoners. All who had been in battle before delivered up their weapons to him, who deposited them in the house where they were kept. Those who had fought for the first time were called and asked if they had killed anyone. If the person addressed replied in the affirmative, the priest demanded his mere—stone battle-axe—and broke it into pieces. This was the invariable custom with young warriors when they had imbued their hands in the blood of their enemies. The priest having afterwards assembled them together, used the following words, which were called the Haha:
The natives regard the wind as an indication of the presence of their god, if not the god himself. After this ceremony the youths were considered as men, though they were narrowly watched for some time by the priest, and they were liable to be put to death if they broke any of the sacred rules of the tapu. They could not carry a load, cut their own hair, or plait a woman’s. If one of them was discovered by the priest doing any of these things, he assumed his authority, and pronounced the sentence of[149] death by saying “Go away, go away.” This so affected the person to whom it was addressed, that it was quite sufficient to kill him.
There was another ceremony performed after fighting, which was supposed to confer a benefit on all who had been engaged in the battle, and were successful in killing or making slaves. It was called he pureinga, which means a taking off of that sacredness which had been put upon them before the fight, or, in other words, the taking off the tapu:
When they went to war, they were separated from their wives, and did not again approach them until peace was proclaimed. Hence, during a period of long-continued warfare, they remarked that their wives were widows.
When a party attacking a pa had forced an entrance, they generally killed all within it. At the time of the slaughter the victors pulled off a lock of hair from each victim, and also from those they saved as slaves, which they stuck in their girdles. When the carnage was over, they assembled in ranks, generally three deep, each party being headed by its own tohunga, to thank their gods, and also to propitiate their favour for the future. When all the necessary arrangements were made, they each gave the tohunga a portion of the hair they had collected, which he bound on two small twigs; these he raised above his head, one in each hand, the people doing the same, except that they used twigs without any hair. They remained in this posture whilst the priest offered a prayer for the future welfare of the tribe. He then cast the twigs with the hair bound to them from him, as did the warriors with theirs, and all joined in a puha or war song. Then, standing quite naked, they clapped their hands together and struck them upon their thighs in order to take off the tapu from their hands which had been imbued in human blood. When they arrived within their own pa, they marched slowly, and in order,[150] towards the house of the principal tohunga, who stood in his waho tapu or sacred grove ready to receive them. As soon as they were about one hundred yards from him, he called out, “Whence comes the war party of Tu?” Whereupon he was answered by the tohunga of the party. “The war party of Tu comes from the search.” “From whence comes the war-party of Tu?” “The war party of Tu comes from the stinking place.” “From whence comes the war party of Tu?” “It comes from the south; it comes from the north; it comes from the thicket where birds congregate; it comes from the fortifications: it made speeches there; it heard news there.”
New Zealand Arms.
When they got near the principal tohunga, the warriors gave the remaining locks of hair to their own priests, who went forward and presented them to the chief one: he offered them to the god of war, with many prayers. They then performed the tupeke, or war dance, and clapped their hands a second time. The slave of the tohunga belonging to the war party then made three ovens, in which he cooked a portion of the hearts of the principal warriors of the conquered party. “When they were done, the chief tohunga took a portion, over which he uttered a harakia, and then threw it towards his god as an offering. Having eaten all the food of the three ovens, he took the tapu off the warriors, and they were permitted to “tangi,” or cry with their relations. The women came out armed, and if any of the attacking party had been lost in the assault, they fell upon the slaves and killed as many as they could.[151] Among the Taupo tribes it was not lawful for women and girls to eat human flesh, though this restriction does not appear to have extended to other parts of the island.
Australian Weapons.
As we are now as close to Australia as we are likely for some time to be, we may as well take a voyage over and see what sort of man of war our dirty little friend the Bushman is. He is not at a loss for weapons, nor for skill to use them. They may be enumerated as follows:—The spear, nine or ten feet long, rather thicker than one’s finger, tapered to a point, hardened in the fire and sometimes jagged. The wammera or throwing stick, shows considerable ingenuity of invention; about two and a half feet long, it has a hook at one end which fits a notch on the heel of the spear, in whose projection it acts, much like a third joint of the arm, adding very greatly to the force. A lance is thrown with ease and accuracy sixty, eighty, and a hundred yards. The waddy is a heavy knobbed club about two feet long, and is used for active service, foreign or domestic. It brains the enemy in the battle, or strikes senseless the poor gin in cases of disobedience or neglect. In the latter instance a broken arm is considered a mild martial reproof.
Throwing the Boomerang.
The stone tomahawk is employed in cutting opossums out of their holes in trees, as well as to make notches in the bark, by inserting a toe into which, the black can ascend the highest and largest gums in the bush. One can hardly travel a[152] mile in New South Wales without seeing these marks, old or new. The quick eye of the native is guided to the retreat of the opossum by the slight scratches of its claws on the stem of the tree. The boomerang, the most curious and original of Australian war implements, is, or was, familiar in England as a toy. It is a paradox in missile power. There are two kinds of boomerang, that which is thrown to a distance straight ahead, and that which returns on its own axis to the thrower. “I saw,” says Mr. Mundy, “a native of slight frame throw one of the former two hundred and ten yards and much further when a ricochet was permitted. With the latter he made several casts truly surprising to witness. The weapon after skimming breast high, nearly out of sight, suddenly rose high into the air, and returning with amazing velocity towards its owner, buried itself six inches deep in the turf, within a few yards of his feet. It is a dangerous game for an inattentive spectator. An enemy or a quarry ensconced behind a tree or bank safe from spear or even bullet, may be taken in the rear and severely hurt or killed by the recoil of the boomerang. The emu and kangaroo are stunned and disabled, not knowing how to avoid its eccentric gyrations. Amongst a flight of wild ducks just rising from the water, or a flock of pigeons on the ground, this weapon commits great havoc. At close[153] quarters in fight the boomerang, being made of very hard wood with a sharp edge, becomes no bad substitute for a cutlass.
The hieleman or shield, is a piece of wood about two and a half feet long, tapering to the ends with a bevelled face not more than four inches wide at the broadest part, behind which the left hand passes through a hole perfectly guarded. With this narrow buckler the native will parry any missile less swift than the bullet.
In throwing the spear after affixing the wammera, the owner poises it, and gently shakes the weapon so as to give it a quivering motion which it retains during its flight. Within fifty or sixty paces the kangaroo must, I should conceive, have a poor chance of his life.
Hurling the Spear.
The spear is immeasurably the most dangerous weapon of the Australian savage. Many a white man has owed his death to the spear; many thousands of sheep, cattle, and horses have fallen by it. Several distinguished Englishmen have been severely wounded by spear casts; among whom I may name Captain Bligh, the first governor of New South Wales, Sir George Grey, and Captain Fitzgerald, the present governors of New Zealand and Western Australia, and Captain Stokes, R.N., long employed on the survey of the Australian coasts. The attack by the blacks upon the Lieut.-Governor of Swan River, occurred so lately as December 1848. In self-defence he was compelled to shoot his ferocious assailants just too late to save himself, being seriously hurt by a spear passing through his thigh.
Our artist, Mr. Harden S. Melville, while attached to the Australian exploring expedition, in H.M.S. “Fly,” had a narrow escape from making a disagreeably close acquaintance with one of these formidable barbed[154] war tools. The ship’s boat had put ashore at a spot where there was a congregation of native huts, though not a solitary human inhabitant could be distinguished. With a spirit, however, which evinced more devotion to the cause of science than to the usages of polite society, our friend must needs penetrate to the interior of one of the kennel-like abodes, though to effect this purpose he had to crawl on all fours. Whether he found anything to repay him for his pains I don’t recollect; I only know that he had barely scrambled to the perpendicular, with his back to the bush, when the seaman who was with him, with laudable promptitude, called his attention to an interesting object in the distance. It was a native—the owner of the house Mr. Melville had so unceremoniously ransacked, no doubt—and there he stood with his spear nicely adjusted to the wammera and all a-tremble for a cast. The instant, however, that our artist (who I may tell the reader is a perfect giant) turned his face instead of his back to the native, the spear was lowered and the danger at an end.
Australian Duel.
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Lax as is the native Australian’s morality still he has his code of honour and should one of its articles be infringed he will not be content to lay wait for the aggressor and drive a spear through his back, or strike him dead with his boomerang while he is safe concealed and secure from observation; no, he must have “the satisfaction of a gentleman,” he must call his man “out,” and compel him to be murdered or commit a murder. So in this respect the bushman, “the meanest specimen of humanity,” is as respectable an individual as many a noble born and highly educated Englishman, who lived in the reign and basked in the friendship of the “first gentleman in Europe.” He shows himself even more respectable; for whereas gentlemen of a past generation would meet and fire bullets or dash and stab at each other with naked swords about ever so trifling a matter, as a dispute about the cut of a coat or the character of a sweetheart, the bushman never appeals to the honourable institution of duelling, except an enemy be guilty of the heinous offence of denying that he has a thick head. “He no good, his scull no thicker than an emu’s egg-shell.” If a bushman brook such an insult as this he is for ever the scoff and jest of all who know him; but the chances are that he will not brook the insult; he will send a friend to the slanderer to bid him bring his stoutest “waddy,” that it may be shivered on the thick head of the warrior he had traduced.
The combatants meet and a select party of friends are invited to see fair. The weapons are the familiar “waddys,” and the men stand opposite each other with their heads bare. There is no tossing for position or any other advantage; indeed there is no advantage to be gained excepting who shall have first “whack,” and that is always allowed to the challenger. The man who is to receive first whack, if he is a person of experience, knows the hard and soft parts of his cranium and takes care so to manœuvre that the former shall be presented to the up-raised club. Down comes the weapon with a thud that makes the recipient’s teeth chatter, but beyond that he has sustained no inconvenience, and now he straightens his back and grins, for it is his turn. His opponent lowers his head as he had done and a loud hollow noise follows, which the man’s friends hail with delight, as it indicates that though his skull may be dented it is not yet cracked. And so the duel proceeds, whack for whack, until one mightier than before, or on a “sore place,” stretches one of them on the grass.
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Caffre warfare—Great cry and little carnage—A Caffre war chant—War song of the renowned Cucutle—A Griqua Pitsho—An African council of war—The chiefs speech—The chief accused of apathy—A reproof to the kidney-eaters—Death before dishonour—Archery in Eastern Africa—Fan bowmen—War weapons of cannibal Fans—War knives and brain hatchets—The women warriors of Dahomey—The king’s fingers—King Gezo likened to a hen—Amazon parables—Pretty picture of an Abyssinian warrior—Omen birds—A non-believer in English gunnery—The sceptic convinced—A potent candle end—Savage metallurgy—The king and the blacksmith—Le Vaillant turns bellows mender.
Turning to Southern Africa, we find that among the Caffres the trade of war is conducted with a method and precision seldom found among savages. The most common causes of warfare are, what is proper tribute to the chief, grazing privileges, and territorial boundaries; no body of men, however, ever fall upon another body of their inimical countrymen without certain formalities are observed, with a view to warn the enemy what he may shortly expect, and to prepare himself accordingly. Bearing in their hands the tail either of a lion or a panther, ambassadors are sent to enquire whether the other side still persist in their obstinacy; if so, the tails are flourished threateningly, which is equivalent to a declaration of war.
The declaration made, all the vassal chiefs with their dependants are summoned to assemble. Everyone must implicitly obey this mandate, and follow his leader; whoever does not, is in danger of having his whole property confiscated. As soon as the army is collected at the habitation of the king, a number of deer are killed, that the warriors may be strengthened for the fight by eating abundantly of their flesh; at the same time they dance, and deliver themselves up entirely to rejoicing. The king presents the most distinguished and the most valiant among the Caffres with plumes of feathers from the wings of a sort of crane, and these they wear upon their heads as marks of honour. These plumes are regarded as official badges, and those wearing them are looked on as officers; and it is expected that every man so distinguished will not only manœuvre his company, but, spear or club in hand, head it and do battle[157] with the leading warrior on the opposing side. If a leader shirks his duty, he is condemned by the Caffre law to an ignominious death. Among the followers, too, whoever forsakes his leader is slain as soon as captured.
When the army moves, it takes with it as many deer as are deemed necessary for its support; and when the stronghold is approached, the “tail-bearers” are once more sent forward to give a last notice of the intended attack, repeating the motives which have given occasion to the war. If the enemy declares that at present he is not quite prepared,—that he has not yet collected his fighting men; or that it would be much more convenient if the other party would wait till the blacksmiths had made a few more assagies and sharpened the old ones,—the attacking party is content to squat down and kill and eat their bullocks and smoke their pipes till the enemy notifies his readiness to begin. A wide open place, without bushes and without rocks, is chosen as the field of battle, to avoid all possibility of an ambush, which is considered as wholly degrading.
The two armies, raising a loud war cry, approach in two lines till they are within seventy or eighty paces of each other. They now begin throwing their assagies, at the same time endeavouring to turn aside those of the enemy. The king or commander-in-chief, whoever he may be, remains always in the centre of the line, and takes an active part in the fight. Some of the inferior commanders remain near him, the rest remaining at the heads of their divisions. By degrees the two bands approach nearer and nearer to each other, till at length they come hand to hand, when the spears are thrown aside, reliance being placed on the clubs to decide the fortunes of the day.
Should night surprise the combatants, hostilities are suspended, the chiefs of either party meeting and endeavouring to bring about a treaty of peace; but should this be found impracticable, the fight commences again in the morning. If one of the armies takes to flight, the commander alone is blamed: everything depends on his personal bravery; and his falling back is the signal for the whole body to do the same. A flying enemy is immediately pursued; and above all things the conquerors seek to possess themselves of their women and children and cattle. If the vanquished party agrees to submit, his submission is immediately accepted, on condition that he acknowledges his conqueror from that time forward as his sovereign, and solemnly promises obedience to him. When[158] this is done, the captured women and children are sent back, as well as part of the cattle taken, it being a household maxim among these people that “we must not let even our enemies die with hunger.”
In these Caffre fights, however, the loss of life is never very considerable; the assagie is the principal weapon, and with it the Caffre is a not very certain marksman. To see the dancing and yelling, and the air thick with spears, one would suspect the bloodiest carnage; but it will often happen that after a few hours’ battle, in which say two thousand are engaged, it is a great chance if more than about twenty on each side are slain and about double that number wounded.
Caffre warfare, too, is merciful, as well from deliberation as from ignorance; and one falling unarmed into the hands of the enemy is seldom or never put to death; the women and children equally have nothing to fear for their lives. For this reason, women are sometimes employed as ambassadors, when there is danger that matters have been pushed too far, and that a male negotiator may be put to death before he has time to explain his errand.
“The Basutos and the Caffres,” says Mr. Cassalis, “are passionately fond of a kind of war-dance, at which the women are only present to aid by their songs and cries. A circle is formed by some hundreds of robust men, having the head adorned with tufts and plumes, and a panther’s skin thrown over the left shoulder. The signal is given, the war-song commences, and the mass moves simultaneously as if it were but one man. Every arm is in motion; every head turns at once; the feet of all strike the ground in time with such force that the vibration is felt for more than two hundred yards. Every muscle is in movement; every feature distorted; the most gentle countenance assumes a ferocious and savage expression. The more violent the contortions, the more beautiful the dance is considered. This lasts for hours; the song continues as loud and the frantic gestures lose none of their vigour. A strange sound is heard during the short intervals when the voices are silent in accordance with the measure; it is the panting of the dancers, their breath escaping with violence, and sounding afar off like an unearthly death rattle. This obstinate prolongation of so fatiguing an exercise arises from the challenges made to each other by the young men, which are even sent from one village to another. The question is, Who can keep up the longest? The gain of an ox depends upon a few more leaps. Dancers have been seen to fall down dead upon the spot; others receive injuries which are[159] difficult to cure. There is another war-dance which is less fatiguing. In this they form themselves in a straight line, and then run forward singing as if they were about to attack an enemy. When they have reached a certain distance, they halt, some men leave the ranks, fence from right to left, and then return to their comrades, who receive them with great acclamations. As soon as the line is again unbroken they return in the same manner to their starting point.
Besides war dances the savages of this region have war songs, of which the two following will serve as samples:—
Here is another in which a warrior having fought his country’s battles thinks it not unbecoming to be his own trumpeter:
During Mr. Moffat’s missionary sojourn among the natives of Southern Africa it frequently fell to his lot to become pleader and arbitrator in most important public matters. Once, when among the Griquas, the neighbouring tribe of Mantatees threatened war; and the fiery Griquas were eager to accept the challenge. The English missionary, however, was against the whole business, and did not hesitate so to express himself at the war council.
Orders were sent off to the different towns and villages that a pitsho, or parliament, be convened on the following day. As subjects of great[162] national interest were to be discussed, all were in motion early. About 10 a.m. the whole body of armed men, amounting to about one thousand, came to the outskirts of the town, and returned again to the public fold, or place of assembly, some singing war-songs, others engaged in mock fights, with all the fantastic gestures which their wild imaginations could invent. The whole body took their seats lining the fold, leaving an arena in the centre for the speakers.
African Arms.
A few short extracts from some of the speeches will serve to show the manner in which these meetings are conducted. Although the whole exhibits a very grotesque scene, business is carried on with the most perfect order. There is but little cheering, and still less hissing, while every speaker fearlessly states his own sentiments. The audience is seated on the ground, each man having before him his shield, to which is attached a number of spears; a quiver containing poisoned arrows is hung from the shoulder; and a battle-axe is held in the right hand. Many were adorned with tiger skins and tails, and had plumes of feathers waving on their heads. In the centre a sufficient space was left for the privileged—those who had killed an enemy in battle—to dance and sing, in which they exhibited the most violent and fantastic gestures conceivable, which drew forth from the spectators the most clamorous applause. When they retire to their seats the speaker commences by commanding silence—“Be silent, ye Batlapis. Be silent, ye Barolongs”—addressing each tribe[163] distinctly, not excepting the white people if any happen to be present, and to which each responds with a groan. He then takes from his shield a spear, and points it in the direction in which the enemy is advancing, imprecating a curse upon them, and thus declaring war by repeatedly thrusting his spear in that direction, as if plunging it into the enemy. This receives a loud whistling sound of applause. He next directs his spear towards the Bushman-country, south and south-west, imprecating also a curse on those “ox-eaters,” as they are called. The king on this, as on all similar occasions, introduced the business of the day by, “Ye sons of Molehabangue”—viewing all the influential men present as the friends or allies of his kingdom, which rose to more than its former eminence under the reign of that monarch, his father—“the Mantatees are a strong and victorious people; they have overwhelmed many nations and they are approaching to destroy us. We have been apprised of their manners, their deeds, their weapons, and their intentions. We cannot stand against the Mantatees; we must now concert, conclude, and be determined to stand; the case is a great one. You have seen the interest the missionary has taken in your safety; if we exert ourselves as he has done the Mantatees can come no farther. You see the white people are our friends. You see Mr. Thompson, a chief man of the Cape, has come to see us on horseback; he has not come to lurk behind our houses as a spy, but comes openly, and with confidence; his intentions are good, he is one on whom the light of day may shine, he is our friend. I now wait to hear what the general opinion is. Let everyone speak his mind, and then I shall speak again.” Mothibi manœuvred his spear as at the commencement, and then pointing it towards heaven, the audience shouted “Pula” (rain), on which he sat down amidst a din of applause.
Between each speaker a part or verse of a war-song is sung, the same antics are then performed, and again universal silence is commanded. The second speaker, Moshume, said, “To-day we are called upon to oppose an enemy, who is the enemy of all. Moffat has been near the camp of the enemy; we all opposed his going; we are to-day all glad that he went; he did not listen to us; he has warned us and the Griquas. What are we now to do? If we flee, they will overtake us; if we fight, they will conquer; they are as strong as a lion; they kill and eat; they leave nothing. [Here an old man interrupted the speaker, begging him to roar aloud that all might hear.] I know ye, Batlapis,” continued[164] Moshume, “that at home and in the face of women ye are men, but women in the face of the enemy; ye are ready to run when you should stand; think and prepare your hearts this day; be united in one; make your hearts hard.”
Incha, a Morolong, commenced his speech by recommending that the Batlapis should wait till the Mantatees arrived and then attack them. He had scarcely said this, when he was interrupted by Isite, a young chief, who sprang up calling out, “No, no; who called upon you to speak foolishness? Was there ever a king or chief of the Batlapis who said you must stand up and speak? Do you intend to instruct the sons of Molehabangue? Be silent. You say you know the men, and yet you wish us to wait till they enter our town. The Mantatees are conquerors, and if we flee we must lose all. Hear, and I will speak:—Let us attack the enemy where they are, and not wait till they approach our town; if we retreat there will be time for those in the rear to flee. We may fight and flee, and at last conquer; this we cannot do if we wait till they approach our town.” This speech was loudly cheered, while Incha silently sat down. A chief considerably advanced in years afterwards addressed the assembly. “Ye sons of Molehabangue! ye sons of Molehabangue! ye have done well this day. You are now acting wisely, first to deliberate, and then to proceed. The missionary has discovered our danger, like the rising sun after a dark night; a man sees the danger he was in when darkness shut his eyes. We must not act like Bahuanas; we must act like Makovas (white people). Is that our pitsho? No; it is the pitsho of the missionary; therefore we must speak and act like Makovas.” Taisho arose, and having commanded silence, was received with reiterated applause, on which an old warrior rushed furiously up to him, and holding forth his arm, called out, “Behold the man who shall speak wisdom! Be silent, be instructed; a man—a wise man—has stood up to speak.” Taisho informed the preceding speaker that he was the man who charged his people with desertion in time of war. “Ye cowards; ye vagabonds!” he exclaimed, “deny the charge if you can. Shall I count up how often you have done so? Were I to repeat the instances, you would decamp like a chastened dog, or with shame place your head between your knees.” Addressing the assembly, he said, “I do not rise to-day to make speeches; I shall wait till the day of mustering. I beseech you to reflect on what is before you, and let the subject sink deep into your hearts, that you may not turn your backs in the day[165] of battle.” Turning to the king, he said, “You are too indifferent about the concerns of your people; you are rolled up in apathy; you are now called upon to show that you are a king and a man.”
When several other speakers had delivered their sentiments, chiefly exhorting to unanimity and courage, Mothibi resumed his central position, and after the usual gesticulations commanded silence. Having noticed some remarks of the preceding speakers, he added, “It is evident that the best plan is to proceed against the enemy, that they come no nearer; let not our towns be the seat of war; let not our houses be the scenes of bloodshed and destruction. No; let the blood of the enemy be spilt at a distance from our wives and children.” Turning to the aged chief, he said: “I hear you, my father; your words are true, they are good for the ear: it is good that we be instructed by the Makovas. I wish those evil who will not obey; I wish that they may be broken in pieces.” Then addressing the warriors: “There are many of you who do not deserve to eat out of a bowl, but only out of a broken pot; think on what has been said, and obey without muttering. I command you, ye chiefs of the Batlapis, Batlaros, Bamaires, Barolongs, and Bakotus, that you acquaint all your tribes of the proceedings of this day; let none be ignorant. I say again, ye warriors, prepare for the battle; let your shields be strong, your quivers full of arrows, and your battle-axes as sharp as hunger. Be silent, ye kidney-eaters (addressing the old men [among these people only the aged eat kidneys; the young avoid them from superstitious motives]), ye who are of no farther use but to hang about for kidneys when an ox is slaughtered. If your oxen are taken where will you get any more?” Turning to the women, he said: “Prevent not the warrior from going out to battle by your cunning insinuations. No; rouse the warrior of glory, and he will return with honourable scars, fresh marks of valour will cover his thighs, and we shall then renew the war song and dance, and relate the story of our conquest.” At the conclusion of this speech the air was rent with acclamations, the whole assembly occasionally joining in the dance, the women frequently taking the weapons from the hands of the men and brandishing them in the most violent manner; people of all ages using the most extravagant and frantic gestures for nearly two hours.
The warrior of Southern Africa would seem to be a man of different mettle to the South-Sea Islander, whose bark is so much more formidable than his bite. The instance about to be quoted in proof of this may, in its singleness, seem not much; there is, however, about it a tone that is significant[166] of the magnanimity of a race, rather than of an isolated case of barbarous heroism. The nature of this noble African’s offence is not mentioned by the missionary who relates the story; but that it was not monstrous, may be fairly assumed from the criminal’s behaviour:—
“He was a man of rank, and wore on his head the usual badge of dignity. He was brought to head-quarters. His arm bore no shield, nor his hand a spear; he had been divested of these, which had been his glory. He was brought into the presence of the king and his chief council, charged with a crime for which it was in vain to expect pardon, even at the hands of a more humane government. He bowed his fine elastic figure and kneeled before the judge. The case was investigated silently, which gave solemnity to the scene. Not a whisper was heard among the listening audience, and the voices of the council were only audible to each other and the nearest spectators. The prisoner, though on his knees, had something dignified and noble in his mien. Not a muscle of his countenance moved, but his bright black eyes indicated a feeling of intense interest, which the moving balance between life and death only could produce. The case required little investigation; the charges were clearly substantiated, and the culprit pleaded ‘Guilty.’ But alas! he knew it was at a bar where none ever heard the heart-reviving sound of pardon, even for offences small compared with his. A pause ensued, during which the silence of death pervaded the assembly. At length the monarch spoke, and addressing the prisoner, said: ‘You are a dead man; but I shall do to-day what I never did before; I spare your life for the sake of my friend and father,’ pointing to the spot where I stood. ‘I know his spirit weeps at the shedding of blood; for his sake I spare your life. He has travelled from a far country to see me, and he has made my heart white; but he tells me that to take away life is an awful thing, and never can be undone again. He has pleaded with me not to go to war, nor destroy life. I wish him when he returns to his own home again to return with a heart as white as he has made mine. I spare you for his sake, for I love him, and he has saved the lives of my people. But,’ continued the king, ‘you must no more associate with the nobles of the land, nor enter the towns of the princes of the people, nor ever again mingle in the dance of the mighty. Go to the poor of the field, and let your companions be the inhabitants of the desert.’ The sentence passed, the pardoned man was expected to bow in grateful adoration to him whom he was wont to look upon and exalt in songs applicable only to one to whom belongs universal sway and the[167] destinies of man. But no; holding his hands clasped on his bosom he replied: ‘O king, afflict not my heart! I have merited thy displeasure; let me be slain like a warrior; I cannot live with the poor.’ And, raising his hand to the ring he wore on his brow, he continued, ‘How can I live among the dogs of the king and disgrace these badges of honour which I won among the spears and shields of the mighty? No, I cannot live. Let me die, O Pezoolu!’ His request was granted, and his hands tied direct over his head. How my exertions to save his life were vain. He disdained the boon on the conditions offered, preferring death with honours he had won at the point of his spear—honours which even the act that condemned him did not tarnish—to exile and poverty among the children of the desert. He was led forth, a man walking on each side. My eye followed him till he reached the top of a precipice, over which he was precipitated into the deep pool of the river beneath, where the crocodiles, accustomed to such meals, were yawning to devour him ere he could reach the bottom.”
Turning to Eastern Africa, we are somewhat surprised to find the native “a good archere and a fayre.” “The cubit-high Armiger,” Mr. Burton tells us, “begins as soon as he can walk with miniature weapons, a cane bow and reed bird-bolts tipped with wood, to practise till perfect at gourds and pumpkins; he considers himself a man when he can boast of iron tips. The bow in East Africa is invariably what is called a self-bow, that is to say, made of a single piece, and backed weapons are unknown. It is uncommonly stiff. When straight it may measure five feet from tip to tip. It is made with the same care as the spear from a branch of the matta tree laboriously cut and scraped so as to taper off towards the horns and smeared with oil or grease, otherwise it is easily sprung, and it is sometimes adorned with plates of tin and zinc with copper or brass wire and tips. The string is made of gut, the tendons of a bullock’s neck or hock, and sometimes of tree fibre; it is nearly double the bow in length, the extra portion being whipped for strength as well as contingent use round the upper horn. In shooting, the bow is grasped with the left hand; but the thumb is never extended along the back, the string is drawn with the two bent forefingers, though sometimes the shaft is held after the Asiatic fashion with the thumb and index. The bow is pulled with a jerk and not let fly, as the Europeans, with a long steady loose. The best bows are made by the tribes near the Pufyi River.
The Universal Weapon.
“The arrow is about two feet in length; the shaft is made of some light[168] wood and often the reed. Its fault is want of weight; to inflict damage upon an antelope it must not be used beyond point-blank fifteen to twenty paces, and a score will be shot into a bullock before it falls. The musketeer, despising the arrow at a distance fears it in close quarters, knowing that for the one shot the archer can discharge a dozen. Fearing the action of the wind upon the light shafts, the archer inserts into the cloven end three or four feathers. The pile or iron head is curiously and cruelly barbed with long waving tails, the neck is toothed and edged by denting the iron when hot with an axe, and it is sometimes half sawed that it may break before extraction. The East Africans also have ‘forkers’ or two-headed shafts and bird-bolts, or blunt arrows tipped with some hard wood, used when the weapon is likely to be lost. Before loosing an arrow the archer throws into the air a pinch of dust, not to find out the wind, but for good luck, like the Tartars of Tibet before discharging their guns. In battle the heavy-armed man holds his spear and a sheaf of spare arrows in the bow hand, whilst a quiver slung to the left side contains reserve[169] missiles; and a little axe stuck in the right side of the girdle is ready when the rest fail. The ronga or quiver is a bark case neatly cut and stained. It is of two forms, full length and provided with a cover for poisoned, and half length for unpoisoned, arrows.”
A Savage Bowman.
The Fans of Equatorial Africa have a great diversity of arms. “Among the crowd to-day,” says M. Du Chaillu, writing in a Fan village in which he was lodging, “I saw men armed with cross-bows, from which are shot either iron-headed arrows or the little insignificant-looking, but really most deadly poison-tipped arrows. These are only slender reeds, a foot long, whose sharpened ends are dipped into a deadly vegetable poison which these people know how to make. The arrows are so light that they would blow away if simply laid in the grove of the bow. To prevent this they use a kind of sticky gum, a lump of which is kept on the under side of the bow, and with which a small spot in the grove is slightly rubbed. The handle of the bow is ingeniously split, and by a little peg, which acts as a trigger, the bow-string is disengaged, and as the spring is very strong it sends the arrow to a great distance, and, light as it is, with great force. But the merest puncture kills inevitably. They are good marksmen with their bows, which require great strength to bend. They have to sit on their haunches and apply both feet to the middle of the bow, while they pull with all their strength on the string to bend it back. The larger arrows have an iron head something like the sharp barbs of a[170] harpoon. These are used for hunting wild beasts, and are about two feet long. But the more deadly weapon is the little insignificant stick of bamboo, not more than twelve inches long, and simply sharpened at one end. This is the famed poison-arrow, a missile which bears death wherever it touches, if only it pricks a pin’s point of blood. The poison is made of the juices of a plant, which was not shown me. They dip the sharp ends of the arrows several times in the sap, and let it get thoroughly dried into the wood. It gives the point a red colour. The arrows are very carefully kept in a little bag made neatly of the skin of some wild animal. They are much dreaded among the tribes about here, as they can be thrown or projected with such power as to take effect at a distance of fifteen yards, and with such velocity that you cannot see them at all till they are spent; this I have often proved myself. There is no cure for a wound from one of these harmless-looking little sticks—death follows in a very short time. Some of the Fans bore on their shoulders the terrible war-axe, one blow of which quite suffices to split a human skull. Some of these axes, as well as their spears and other iron-work, were beautifully ornamented with scroll-work and wrought in graceful lines and curves, which spoke well for their artisans.
Fan Weapons.
“The war-knife which hangs by the side is a terrible weapon for a hand-to-hand conflict, and, as they explained to me, is designed to thrust through the enemy’s body: they are about three feet long. There is another huge knife also worn by some of the men in the crowd before me. This is over a foot long, by about eight inches broad, and is used to cut down[171] through the shoulders of an adversary. It must do tremendous execution. Then there is a very singular pointed axe which is thrown from a distance as American Indians use the tomahawk. When thrown it strikes with the point down and inflicts a terrible wound. They use it with great dexterity. The object aimed at with this axe is the head. The point penetrates to the brain and kills the victim immediately; and then the round edge of the axe is used to cut the head off, which is borne off by the victor as a trophy.
“The spears, which are six or seven feet in length, are thrown by the natives with great force and with an accuracy of aim which never ceased to surprise me. They make the long slender rod fairly whistle through the air. Most of them can throw a spear effectively to the distance of from twenty to thirty yards.
“Most of the knives and axes were ingeniously sheathed in covers made of snake-skins, or human skin taken from some victim in battle. Many of these sheaths are ingeniously made, and are slung round the neck by cords which permit the weapon to hang at the side out of the wearer’s way. Though so warlike they have no armour; in fact, their working in iron is as yet too rude for such a luxury. The only weapon of defence is the huge shield of elephant’s hide; but this is even bullet-proof: as it is very large, three and a half feet long by two and a half broad, it suffices to cover the whole body.
“Besides their weapons many of the men wore a small knife, but rather unwieldy, which served the various offices of a jack knife, a hatchet, and a table-knife. But though rude in shape they used it with great dexterity.”
Africa, South and East, having come in for their shares of notice, let us turn to Western Africa and see how there is managed the terrible game of war. Anything connected with bloodshed in this portion of the globe at once suggests Dahomey. Very well, Dahomey let it be; let us, with Mr. Forbes, attend a review of King Gezo’s “women” soldiers:
“At noon we attended the parade of the amazon army, ostensibly the taking the oath of fidelity by those extraordinary troops, and a most novel and exciting scene it proved. Under a canopy of umbrellas on the south side of the Ahjahee market-place, surrounded by ministers, carbooceers, dwarfs, hunchbacks, etc., all militaire, on a skull-ornamented war-stool sat the king, in front sat the too-noo-noo, whilst on the right, under a similar canopy, similarly attended, was a female court, in front of which was the man-hae-pah. In different parts of the field bivouacked[172] the amazon regiments. As I arrived and took my seat on the king’s right hand, one regiment was marching off, and a herald called—
A regiment of bushrangers now advanced. As a mark of distinction, each amazon had three stripes of whitewash round each leg. As soon as they arrived in front of the throne, they saluted the king, when one of the officers stepped forward and swore in the name of the regiment, if they went to war, to conquer or die. ‘Have we not conquered,’ exclaimed she, ‘all the province of Mahea? So will we always conquer or die.’ Then a second officer stepped forward and said: ‘When the Attahpahans heard we were advancing, they ran away. If we go to war, and any return not conquerors, let them die. If I retreat, my life is at the king’s mercy. Whatever the town to be attacked, we will conquer, or bury ourselves in its ruins.’ As soon as this officer had thus sworn, a third came from the ranks and said: ‘We are eighty, and of the right brigade, never yet known to turn our backs to the enemy. If any one can find fault with us, young or old, let us know it.’ A male officer standing near the king was about to address this amazon, when he was told by a fetish man, ‘that woman is fetish, you are not; you must not interfere with her.’ After saluting the male and female courts, one of the amazons said: ‘I have no promise to make. As I have behaved, and will behave, so I am ready to be judged: let my actions prove me!’ Then another added: ‘By the king’s offspring, I swear never to retreat!’ whilst a third continued, ‘War is our great friend; without it there is no cloth nor armlets: let us to war, and conquer or die!’ The speaking was then taken up by a fourth, saying: ‘I am a wolf—the enemy of all I meet, who are the king’s enemies—and if I do not conquer, let me die.’ And a fifth, who added: ‘I am mother of Antonio (Da Souza). I long to kill an elephant for him to show my regard; but the Attahpahans must be exterminated first. One of the male soldiers sent us Guinea pepper to excite us to war: such is an insult.’ A sixth amazon, having first recited the names of all the countries and towns conquered by the Dahomans, to Ee-ah-wae (the English mother, an amazon general), the latter repeated them to two female heralds, who proclaimed them aloud. When this recitation was concluded, the amazon said to the king: ‘If we go to war, we cannot come back empty handed; if we fail to catch elephants, let us be content with flies. The king only knows where the war shall be.’[173] Ah-koh-yoh (colonel of amazons) then began her address: ‘Cloths,’ she said, ‘are made by fingers—we are the king’s fingers!’ Whilst Ah-koong-ah-dah (colonel of amazons) added: ‘Carriages cannot be drawn without wheels—we are the wheels!’ And then both together cried: ‘We have destroyed Attahpahan, let us go to Abeahkeutah, where we will conquer or die.’ A dance of the whole regiment followed; and then crawling on their hands and knees, suddenly with a yell they rose and retired at a rapid pace. Another regiment followed, about 300 strong. Fetish women in advance carried the fetish images, which were placed on the ground between the two courts. All kneeling, raised their muskets and saluted, after which they were again joined by about 200, in the dress of amazons, retainers of the late Cha-cha, raised in 1848, who introduced themselves as young soldiers, anxious to witness the glory of kings. The colonel then advanced, and said: ‘The Attahpahans wanted courage to fight against Dahomey. Give us Abeahkeutah, and if we do not conquer our heads are at your disposal. If the Abeahkeutahs run into the water we will follow them; if into fire, we will follow also.’ Another amazon added: ‘As sure as Abeahkeutah now stands, we will destroy it.’ Whilst a third took up the theme: ‘Attahpahan is destroyed! Give us Abeahkeutah: that is a strong place.’ Anrou entered a room in which lay a corpse; he lifted the sheet, and was asked why? ‘Because (he answered) I am anxious to go where that man has gone. Let us go there, or conquer Abeahkeutah.’ A fourth amazon concluded the address thus: ‘Talk of Attahpahan—it is gone—not worth speaking of: Abeahkeutah is worthy of my consideration: if ordered there, we will bring back a good report. As grass is cut down to clear the road, so will we cut off the Abeahkeutahs.’ The amazon standard-bearer next came forward, and said: ‘These standards are in our charge; we swear to protect them, or die.’ All then saluted and marched off at the double-quick step. Another regiment of 160 advanced, and, sitting down, saluted, their fetish gear being placed in front. Some women belonging to Souza family, in military costume, joined them. An amazon of this regiment then commenced the usual address, thus: ‘The king is like a hen spreading out her wings to protect her young from the rain. We are under the king’s protection: if we do not fight, let us die.’ (The king having drank health with me, handed a tumbler of liquor to the Possoo.) After which another of the amazons continued the speaking in these words: ‘Possoo, if you head us in this war, may we die. Send us to Abeahkeutah, and we will destroy it or die.’[174] One of the male courtiers here said: ‘If you do not you will lose your name.’ On which the amazon replied: ‘We are newly-born by the king: we have and will uphold him.’ And another added, with emphasis: ‘Where the king sends us, thence comes a good report. I am the king’s daughter, under his protection: he gave me to the late Da Souza: death seized him. I now belong to Antonio. My name is Ah-gae-see; and all I want is to go to war upon Abeahkeutah.’ Another amazon then stepped forward and asked: ‘What came we here for? Not to show ourselves, but to ask the king for war. Give us Abeahkeutah, and we will destroy it or die.’ Followed by another, who said: ‘Fetish men never initiate the poor. Give us Abeahkeutah: there is plenty. Attahpahan is destroyed and unworthy of our future care.’ At this part Souza’s women advanced and sang:
All the female court then left their stools, and, heading the amazons, advanced and saluted the king, and then retiring, resumed their positions: whilst, from the midst of the amazon army, a little girl of six years of age advanced and said: ‘The king spoke thrice when he spoke of war: let the king speak once now: let it be on Abeahkeutah.’ Again all the amazons advanced, and shouting, called on Da Souza to emulate his father. ‘As the porcupine shoots a quill a new one grows in its place, so let matters be in the port of Whydah: let one ship replace another.’ All again prostrated themselves and threw dirt on their heads: while two amazon heralds recited the names of the king, and added one from the Attahpahan war, the glah-glash, or Chimpanzee. Again all rose, whilst an amazon chief makes the following speech: ‘As the blacksmith takes an iron bar and by fire changes its fashion, so have we changed our nature. We are no longer women, we are men. By fire, we will change Abeahkeutah. The king gives us cloth, but without thread. If corn is put in the sun to dry and not looked after, will not the goats eat it? If Abeahkeutah be left too long some other nation will spoil it. A cask of rum cannot roll itself; a table in a house becomes useful when anything is placed thereon: the Dahoman army without the amazons are as both, unassisted. Spitting makes the belly more comfortable, and the outstretched hand will be the receiving one: so we ask you for war, that our bellies may have their desire and our hands be filled.’ At the conclusion of this harangue the female court again rose, and, heading the[175] amazons, saluted the king, when, pointing to the hearers, all sang in chorus:
The king now left the tent, amid cries of ‘Kok-pah-sah-kree’ (a peculiarly fierce eagle); whilst all fell prostrate. The king received a handsome ebony club, and danced with it. Then the amazons rose, and the king thus addressed them: ‘The hunter buys a dog, and having trained him, he takes him out hunting without telling him the game he expects to meet. When in the bush he sees a beast, and by his teaching the dog pursues it. If the dog returns without the game, the huntsman in his anger kills him, and leaves his carcass a prey to the wolves and vultures. If I order you to clear the bush and you do not do it, will I not punish you? If I tell my people to put their hands in the fire, they must do it. When you go to war, if you are taken prisoners, you will be sacrificed, and your bodies become food for wolves and vultures.’ Having concluded his oration, the king again danced and drank; then handed round rum in a large pewter basin to the amazon officers. On his return to his tent all the amazons, in number about 2,400, marched off,—and thus ended the parade.”
Although the African warrior has already occupied rather more than his fair share of our space, we must still find room for a description of an Abyssinian chief as he was witnessed by our countryman Mr. Bruce. His name was Guangoul, and he was chief of the eastern Galla. He came one day, accompanied by about 500 foot and 40 horse, to pay his respects to the king. He was a little, thin, cross-made man, of no apparent strength or swiftness, so far as could be conjectured; his legs and thighs being small for his body, and his head large. He was of a yellow, sickly colour, neither black nor brown, had long hair plaited and interwoven with the bowels of oxen, and so knotted and twisted together as to render it impossible to distinguish the hair from the bowels, which hung down in long strings, part before and part behind, forming the most extraordinary ringlets ever seen. He had, likewise, a wreath of ox bowels hung about his neck and several rounds of the same about his middle which served as a girdle, under which was a short cotton cloth dipped in butter, and all his body was wet, and running down with the same. In his country, when he appears in state, the beast he rides upon is a cow. He was then in full dress, and mounted upon one not of the largest size, but which had monstrous horns;[176] and rode without saddle. He had short drawers, which did not reach to the middle of his thighs; his knees, legs, feet, and all his body, being bare. He had a shield of a single hide, warped by the heat in several directions, and much in the shape of a large high-crowned hat. He carried a short lance in his right hand, with an ill-made iron head, and a shaft that seemed to be of thorn-tree, but altogether without ornament, which is seldom the case with the arms of barbarians. Whether it was necessary for poising himself on the sharp ridge of the beast’s back, or whether it was meant for graceful riding, Mr. Bruce could not determine, being quite unskilled in cowmanship; but this barbarian leaned exceedingly backwards, pushing out his belly, and holding his left arm and shield extended on one side, and his right arm and lance in the same way on the other, like wings. The king was seated on his ivory chair, almost in the middle of his tent. The day was very hot, and an intolerable stench announced the approach of the filthy chieftain to all in the tent, before they saw him. The king, when he perceived him coming, was so struck with his whole figure and appearance, that he was seized with an immoderate fit of laughter, which he found it impossible to stifle. He therefore rose from his chair, and ran as fast as he could into another apartment, behind the throne. The savage alighted from his cow, at the door of the tent, with all his tripes about him; and while the officers in attendance were admiring him as a monster, seeing the king’s seat empty, he imagined that it had been prepared for him, and down he sat upon the crimson silk cushion, with the butter running from every part of his body. A general cry of astonishment was raised by every person in the tent, on which he started up; and before he had time to recollect himself, they all fell upon him, and with pushes and blows drove this greasy chieftain to the door of the tent, staring with wild amazement, not knowing what was the matter. It is high treason and punishable with immediate death, to sit down in the king’s chair; and Guangoul owed his life to his ignorance alone. The king had beheld the scene through the curtain; if he laughed heartily in the beginning, he laughed ten times more at the catastrophe. The cushion was thrown away, and a yellow India shawl spread on the ivory stool; and ever afterwards, when it was placed, and the king not there, the stool was turned on its face upon the carpet, to prevent similar accidents.”
Before starting on any war expedition, the Abyssinians, like the ancient Romans, listen for the voice of certain birds, and according to whether[177] their notes are heard on the right hand or on the left, so do they anticipate a prosperous or unfavourable journey. Many expeditions for the purposes of war or hunting are postponed at the moment, when, if undertaken, success seemed nearly certain, simply because a little bird called from the left-hand side at starting. Similarly, many a wife has been kept for several days anxiously expecting her husband because the bird chose to perch on the right hand, the right hand omen being propitious for setting out from home, and left for returning. The black and white falcon, called here gaddy-gaddy, is considered a bird of omen in some parts of Tigre. If this bird fly away at the approach of travellers, the sign is unfavourable, while on the contrary, if it remained perched and looking at them, they count upon a most prosperous journey. “Hunters on the Mareb,” says a recent traveller, “follow much the warning of a small bird as to the direction they should take, and I have known parties turn back from pursuing the fresh trail of a herd of buffaloes and take an opposite direction, merely because its chirp was heard on the wrong side. Once a party of about thirty Barea having been reported to be in the neighbourhood, a large force collected, perhaps a hundred and fifty men; but after arriving in sight of the enemy, the gallant army returned peaceably home, and considered such a course not only justifiable, but right, because when halting to reconnoitre, the omen had been heard on the side favourable to their adversaries. On another occasion I had started on a hunting and foraging expedition, with some fifteen tried and picked men. We had remained a fortnight in the frontier woods, and had seen nothing of the Barea; one day, however, a bird gave us an omen of success, and the night following we discovered their fires on a hill, scarce a mile distant from where we lay. Our party was in a moment on the qui vive, primings were looked to, edges of knives felt, and rubbed on a stone, and each one anticipated the glory he was to gain for himself in butchering a few of the enemy. Some were even so much excited that they began to strut about and count their deeds of valour in expectancy of what they would have to do on their return home, and to use a Yankee expression the whole felt themselves “half froze for hair,” or rather for the still more cruel trophies which Abyssinians take from their slaughtered enemies, But a night bird’s voice settled the whole business, and instead of waiting as had been our intention for a few hours before sunrise to strike the coup, we all sneaked off homeward like so many whipped dogs, for the vain-glory of the warriors had oozed out of their finger ends at this intimation[178] of the beaked augur, that they would be safest in the bosoms of their family circles. In advancing, signs of the Barea were eagerly sought for; in retreating, so great was the panic caused by the unwitting bird, that we kept the sharpest look out lest they should come upon us unawares.”
During his sojourn in Abyssinia, the renowned traveller Bruce found himself on one occasion the guest of a vain, bragging officer of the king’s army, one Guebra Mascal. In Guebra’s estimation no one was so good a fellow or marksman as himself, and when some one happened to praise Mr. Bruce’s skill with the gun, Guebra Mascal greeted the remark with an annoying and contemptuous laugh. Our traveller was angry, and told him, that in his gun the end of a tallow-candle would do greater execution than an iron ball in the best of Guebra Mascal’s, with all his boasted skill. The Abyssinian called him a liar, and a Frank; and, upon his rising, immediately gave him a kick with his foot. Mr. Bruce, in a transport of rage, seized him by the throat, and threw him on the ground. Guebra drew his knife; and attempting our traveller, gave him a slight cut near the crown of his head. Hitherto Mr. Bruce had not struck him; he now wrested the knife from him and struck him on the face so violently with the handle, as to mark him with scars which continued discernible even amid the deep pitting of the small-pox. All was now confusion and uproar. An adventure of so serious a nature overcame the effects of the wine (for there had been drinking) upon our countryman. He wrapped himself in his cloak, returned home, and went to bed. His friends were eager to revenge the insult which he had received; and the first news he heard in the morning was that Guebra Mascal was in irons at the house of the Ras. Mr. Bruce, though still angry, was at a loss what measures to take. The Ras would probably hear his complaints; but his adversary was formidable. Instead, therefore, of demanding justice, Mr. Bruce excused and palliated the conduct of Guebra Mascal, and obtained his liberty.
Mr. Bruce, however, was sensible that the cause of his quarrel with Guebra Mascal was not immediately forgotten at court. The king, one day, asked him whether he was not drunk himself, as well as his opponent, when that quarrel arose. Mr. Bruce replied that he was perfectly sober; for their entertainer’s red wine was finished, and he never willingly drank hydromel. His Majesty, with a degree of keenness, returned: “Did you then soberly say to Guebra Mascal, that an end of a tallow-candle in a gun in your hand would do more execution than an iron bullet in his?” “Certainly, sir, I said so.” “And why?” “Because it was[179] truth.” “With a tallow-candle you can kill a man or a horse?” “Pardon me, sir; your Majesty is now in place of my sovereign; it would be great presumption in me to argue with you, or urge a conversation against an opinion in which you are already fixed.” The king’s kindness and curiosity, and Mr. Bruce’s desire to vindicate himself, carried matters at length so far, that an experiment with a tallow-candle was proposed. Three courtiers brought each a shield; Mr. Bruce charged his gun with a piece of tallow-candle, and pierced through three at once, to the astonishment, and even the confusion, of the Abyssinian monarch and his courtiers. A sycamore table was next aimed at, and as easily perforated as the shields. These feats the simple Abyssinians attributed to the power of magic; but they made a strong impression on the mind of the monarch in favour of our traveller.
Before we quit the subject of Savage Warfare, it may not be out of place to say a word or two concerning the manufacture of savage war tools. Turning back these pages we may find that, as a man of battle, our brother the barbarian, despite his profound ignorance, is by no means a bungling craftsman. His business is to knock his enemy on the head—to knock his life out, in fact; and this operation may be performed as neatly with the iron-wood meré of the New Zealander, or the waddi of the Australian Aborigine, as by a leaden pellet from the mouth of the modern Minié or Whitworth—at least if not as neatly, quite as effectively. The savage has no notion of refinement in killing; give him a revolver, perfected with the very latest improvements, and explain to him how that it will send a man to death with as fine a hole in his carcass that the grim extinguisher of life himself shall be almost puzzled to discover his title to the slain one, and he—the savage—will reject it; it is a “witch thing,” and he would rather let such alone. At the same time, if you will make him the present, untrammelled by conditions, he will accept it; as by thrusting a tough stick up one of the barrels the revolver may be converted into a handy club, with which a man may kill his enemy in such a way that half a glance will show the manner of his death.
The club, then, is the universal weapon among the utterly savage; it is a weapon which may be procured without trouble; a round stone lashed to the end of a stick, the thigh-bone of a buffalo,—anything in fact of a handy length and with a heavy knob to it will suffice. As soon, however, as the savage advances a step—as soon as he learns the nature of iron and what sort of thing a sharp-edged chopper is—his blunt-headed club ceases[180] to give him satisfaction. It is much more satisfying to slash an enemy than to simply bruise him—to poke and stab him full of red holes than to thump him—therefore there follows an immediate demand for sharp spikes and edged knives, and at least one member of every family sets up as a blacksmith.
Papuan Blacksmiths.
But to be a blacksmith in ever so rude and humble a way, certain tools are absolutely necessary; the ambitious one must have a fire, a hammer, an anvil, and last, though most important of all, a pair of bellows. A fire he has; for a hammer his old stone-headed club does service; a handy bit of rock serves as an anvil; it is the bellows which is the toughest obstacle; and there can be little doubt that many a grand notion of blacksmithery has been nipped in the bud because of the projector’s inability to find anything[181] animate or inanimate of so accommodating a nature as to hold and husband for his convenience so slippery a thing as the wind. Wonderful are the devices resorted to, all however more or less tedious and imperfect; of all sorts and sizes, from the bottle-like bag which the blacksmith holds under his arm, extracting therefrom a feeble blast as a Highlander manufactures bag-pipe music, to the elaborate machine in vogue in certain parts of Polynesia. Take that used by the Papuans as an example. Here we find two hollow pillars of wood fixed close together and furnished within a foot of the ground with a connecting pipe terminating in a nozzle. The interior of the pillars are perfectly smooth and furnished each with a “sucker” consisting of a sort of mop of finely-shredded bark; squatting on the top of these pillars the bellows-blower takes the mop-handles in hand and works them up and down, causing a tolerably strong and regular blast to emit from the nozzle.
It is related by the missionary Ellis, that King Pomare entering one day the shed where an European blacksmith was employed, after gazing a few minutes at the work, was so transported at what he saw that he caught up the smith in his arms and, unmindful of the dirt and perspiration inseparable from his occupation, most cordially embraced him, and saluted him according to the custom of the country by touching noses.
Le Vaillant, while travelling in Southern Africa, on one occasion saw a number of Caffres collected at the bottom of a rocky eminence, round a huge fire, and drawing from it a pretty large bar of iron red-hot. Having placed it on the anvil they began to beat it with stones exceedingly hard and of a shape which rendered them easy to be managed by the hand. They seemed to perform their work with much dexterity. But what appeared most extraordinary was their bellows, which was composed of a sheepskin properly stripped off and well sewed. Those parts that covered the four feet had been cut off, and placed in the orifice of the neck was the mouth of a gun-barrel around which the skin was drawn together and carefully fastened. The person who used this instrument, holding the pipe to the fire with one hand, pushed forwards and drew back the extremity of the skin with the other, and though this fatiguing method did not always give sufficient intensity to the fire to heat the iron, yet these poor Cyclops, acquainted with no other means, were never discouraged. Le Vaillant had great difficulty to make them comprehend how much superior the bellows of European forges were to their invention, and being persuaded that the little they might catch of his explanation would be of[182] no real advantage to them, resolved to add example to precept and to operate himself in their presence. Having dispatched one of his people to the camp with orders to bring the bottoms of two boxes, a piece of a summer kross, a hoop, a few small nails, a hammer, a saw, and some other tools, as soon as he returned our traveller formed in a very rude manner a pair of bellows about as powerful as those generally used in kitchens. Two pieces of hoop placed in the inside served to keep the skin always at an equal distance, and a hole made in the under part gave a readier admittance to the air, a simple method of which they had no conception, and for want of which they were obliged to waste a great deal of time in filling their sheepskin. Le Vaillant had no iron pipe; but as he only meant to make a model he fixed to the extremity a toothpick case after sawing off one of its ends. He then placed the instrument on the ground near the fire, and having fixed a forked stick in the ground, laid across it a kind of lever, which was fastened to a bit of packthread proceeding from the bellows, and to which was fixed a piece of lead weighing seven or eight pounds. The Caffres with great attention beheld all these operations, and evinced the utmost anxiety to discover what would be the result; but they could not restrain their acclamations when they saw our traveller by a few easy motions and with one hand give their fire the greatest activity by the velocity with which he made his machine draw in and again force out the air. Putting some pieces of iron into the fire he made them in a few minutes red-hot which they undoubtedly could not have done in half an hour. This specimen of his skill raised their astonishment to the highest pitch: they were almost convulsed and thrown into a delirium. They danced and capered around the bellows, each tried them in turn, and they clapped their hands the better to testify their joy. They begged him to make them a present of this wonderful machine and seemed to wait for his answer with impatience, not imagining that he would readily give up so valuable a piece of furniture. To their extreme satisfaction he granted their request, and they undoubtedly yet preserve a remembrance of that stranger who first supplied them with the most essential instrument of metallurgy.
[183]
A night’s lodging at Brass—Delightful bedfellows—Sleeping out on the Gambia—“Voices of the Night”—Lodging “up a tree”—Half a cigar for supper—The “leafy couch” abandoned—The bright side of the picture—Dr. Livingstone no washerwoman—An alarming “camping out” incident—The terrible tsetse—The camp in the wilderness—The privileges and perquisites of a Pagazi—No finery worn on the road—Recreation on the march—Daily life of an Eastern African—His sports and pastimes—Approaching a cannibal shore.
It may be safely asserted that, as a rule, the inhabitants of all civilized countries “who live at home at ease” have but a very inadequate notion of the pains and penalties endured by those explorers and adventurers whose pleasure or business it is to undertake pilgrimages more or less perilous, and on whom the said easyliving[184] folk are dependent for all their knowledge of the ways and means of peoples barbarous and remote. Nor is it very surprising that it should be so. First of all comes in the traveller’s delicacy and disinclination to parade his personal affairs (which for by far the greater part mean his discomforts and dangers and sicknesses) in a narrative exclusively concerning other people and things, only in as far as he is associated with them in a manner too intimate for his presence to be ignored. Nor will the selfish book-buyer tolerate the adoption of any other course; it is the mysteries revealed, and not the medium revealing them, that he takes an interest in, and in most cases cares as little for the personal sensations of traveller Brown or Robinson as that the leather casing of his telescope is incommoded by the heat while he is making solar observations. Even in the case of the humane reader, there is danger that the interest excited by a book of wonders, savage or otherwise, will shut the author from his consideration from the time of scanning the title-page to the perusal of the last line. With this view of the matter before us some small measure of justice may be effected and the reader at the same time be edified by a select few instances of personal adventure and mishap that have occurred to sundry of the brave men whose records have assisted the compilation of this work. Let Mr. Hutchinson speak first as to the delights of a night’s lodging in Brass, a Western African town, as the reader will recollect, of unenviable celebrity:
“King Keya meets us in the street and offers an invitation to his country house to spend the night there; as evening is approaching we accept his hospitality and forthwith proceed to the royal suburban residence.
“If I were not alive now, and conscious of writing this in the cabin of H.M.S. V——, I could not believe that I ever should have been fortunate enough to enjoy such an uninterrupted continuation of delights as those experienced during that night’s stay in the royal abode at Brass.
“My bedroom was about twelve feet by four, with holes in the bamboo roof about eight feet high that let the rain and rats come in, and holes in the floor, probably to allow both to make their exit. There was neither stool, chair, nor table, nor any article of furniture except the bed. This was made of two empty gun chests, covered with a native country mat, and having no pillow save a log of wood. The creek by which we voyaged up was within five yards of the door, and when the tide was low bull frogs, crocodiles, and mud fish could gambol about in their native parterre in the remorseless swamp, on which a human being trying to walk would[185] certainly be swallowed up. The odour from this place at the time of our visit was indescribable, and the sensation that it brought to my olfactory nerves was far from being like that of the south wind breathing o’er a bed of violets, stealing, and giving odour.
“As soon as I had seated myself on the bed (?), with a cigar in my mouth (for to sleep with all those accessories would have been a vain attempt), and had blown out my palm-oil lamp, down came the mosquitoes in showers, followed by some rats, which descended after them without waiting for an invitation. A few of the latter fell near to where I was sitting, and I made a furious tilt at them with a stick I had placed near me. This of course alarmed them and made them beat a retreat for some time. But as if in mockery of my chivalry within doors, outside the bull frogs commenced croaking in dozens, communicating as agreeable a sensation by their music as a rasping of a file over a rusty saw. I lay down and tried to sleep, but it was no use. In a few moments the rats were again gambolling on the roof. A slight shuffling movement which I heard on the floor made me fearful that at any minute I might be rendered conscious of something slimy in contact with my hand or face, probably a mud fish (or jump fish, as it is called by Kroomen), a kind of amphibious reptile that appears like a cross-breed between a conger-eel and a chameleon. How stupid I was to have blown out my light.
“What noise is that? Female voices outside. Who in the name of goodness are they, passing and repassing in the king’s harem—ever gabbling, gabbling, gabbling! This amusement going on during the whole livelong night with the companionship of the rats, musquitoes, and bull-frogs put a thousand strange notions into my head. Can they be going to the creek-side to sacrifice, perhaps infants? Are they on their way to undergo the process of laving in that sweet stream? If the former be their purpose, they must be out-Heroding Herod; if the latter, a Turkish bath with shampooing of curry comb would seem very appropriate for the majority of the ladies whom I saw to-day in the streets, and whose bodies were daubed over with a greasy cosmetic of red (styled in the Nimbe language Umbia), which gives the anointed the semblance of a highly tinged red Indian. But down they go and back they come, never tiring, never relenting, never showing compassion, till morning dawned, when I opened the door cautiously, and looked out.
“Some were standing in the mud, others were lifting fish and nets out of canoes. They were the king’s fisherwomen. Following their[186] professional pursuits during the night, they had kept me in this condition of restless curiosity. Talk of Billingsgate indeed! I looked at them and there they were, wet, muddy, and slimy, like so many ebony mermaids, but still prattling and talking, their tongues clattering as if these organs were so many untirable steam engines.
“There was no use in giving them a bit of my mind, for I did not understand a word of their language, and they did not comprehend mine. It may be useless to record that I did not go down on my knees in the mud to pray for them. I was unheroic enough to imagine that a wiser thing than that, as far as my own comfort was concerned, would be to quit the Nimbe country as soon as I could: so my boys having got into the boat, I gave his sable majesty a more fervent than friendly shake of the hand, and turned my back on his territory with feelings in which I cannot say there were any sentiments of regret.”
Another night’s lodging, this time on the banks of the river Gambia. If any good Catholic wishes to perform an act of penance, second only to the tortures of purgatory, let him take a voyage to the Gambia, and let him sleep at Bathurst, if only for one night, at a certain season of the year. The traveller, on extinguishing his candle and stretching his wearied limbs, hears a distant roaring, which apparently proceeds from the ceiling of his chamber, and he, wondering what this may be, composes himself for slumber. Next he distinguishes a perpetual dull thump, thump, totally antagonistic to rest, sounding from all parts of the town far and near, and marvelling yet more what this may portend, concludes—if speculative—that the natives are celebrating some barbarous orgie, and that the noise is the music of the tom-tom. But while thus reasoning, the roaring approaches nearer and nearer, till it is as audible and like a thousand fairy fiddles playing excruciatingly out of tune. But the problem soon is solved. The note of a little shrill trumpet penetrates the inmost recesses of the ear; a sting is felt, the trumpeter performs now at one ear, now at the other, then adds a sting on the eye, which organ is damaged by the victim’s frantic attempts to crush the foe. He now finds that he is assailed by mosquitoes, and becomes so irritated by the constant buzzing and biting of his unseen foes darting now here, now there, within the mosquito curtain,—he seizes his pillow, flings it at the spot whence the sound last proceeded, but the missile, breaking the mosquito curtain, admits a bloodthirsty cloud, which, “smelling the blood of an Englishman,” settles on him, whizzing, buzzing, and biting, causing the unfortunate[187] to suffer tortures worse than those with which Tantalus was afflicted. Sleep is near, but continually eludes his grasp, and as a last resource, stifling hot as it is, he covers himself from head to foot with the sheet. Woe if he leaves an inch of flesh exposed! Again he endeavours to sleep, but the infernal mysterious pounding, together with the horrid yells of the enemy, effectually preclude that desirable consummation, and, swearing lustily, he resigns himself with a groan to hold a nocturnal vigil, congratulating himself at least he has been enabled to out-manœuvre the ravenous foe. But his gratulations are premature, for soon he experiences sharp pricking sensations all over his body; the heat of the protecting sheet is insufferable, the agony is intense; he kicks off the sheet, the mosquitoes settle on him, again he seizes his pillow, and, until he sinks exhausted, frantically swings it round his head in the hope of overwhelming some of his unseen assailants. Wearily he rises, lights his candle, examines his limbs, and discovers minute black spots, each one itching mortally, and which are only sand flies. He also examines his bed, and, behold! it is full of ants, and probably cockroaches, several of which unpleasant animals he discovers scudding away on all sides. The only defence available is to light a cigar and envelope himself in a cloud of smoke, and when the fumes of the tobacco has driven away the hostile forces, and the mysterious thumping has ceased, about twelve o’clock the unfortunate traveller, unable to keep his eyes open any longer, falls into an uneasy sleep, unconscious of the hungry flock fastening on his prostrate form. He reposes for a space of two hours, at the expiration of which time the thumping recommencing, he awakes, and as it continues until daylight, when it is mingled with a continual hooting, like that of an owl, and a species of unearthly chanting and the tropical emulative crowing of a thousand cocks, he remains awake. The traveller now looks out of his window, and discovers that the diabolical pounding arises from the court-yard, where he beholds most of the female inhabitants (having children fastened on behind after the gipsy fashion) standing over wooden mortars energetically pulverizing something with pestles six feet in length. These dames are engaged in the manufacture of “hous,” the only edible substance to be procured in this inhospitable region, and which demands in preparation such a vast deal of labour, that the women are employed day and night, relieving one another by turns, and resting only between twelve at night and two in the morning. Other noises proceed from the marabouts in the mosques, calling the faithful to prayers, and the dismal[188] chanting from blind men, of which there is a remarkable number, who go from yard to yard singing prayers and receiving the alms on which they subsist.
Here is another variety of night’s lodging, preferable to the preceding, perhaps, but still one which cannot be for a moment compared with the comforts of a vulgar flock bed or even a straw palliasse. Mr. Bakie, the celebrated traveller and explorer, is this time the victim:—“I managed to start our kruboys with the baggage by half-past one, and then, as only one horse was brought, Mr. Guthrie, as the oldest of the party, was mounted, while Dr. Hutchinson and I agreed to walk on, in the hopes of others being brought after us. “When, however, we had got about a mile on our way, seeing no signs of the steeds, Dr. Hutchinson declared that he would return and inquire about them, while I resolved to proceed, telling him that he might overtake me. Having got to the bottom of the hill, and finding the road, as before, very wet, I pulled off my shoes and stockings and went barefooted, that being by far the easiest mode of progression along a path of this description. In this way I had walked alone for seven or eight miles, when I lost almost all trace of the path. Having ascertained by my compass the position of the river, I endeavoured to work my way in that direction, but soon got more entangled than ever. I climbed up several trees to look around, but could not discover a single guiding mark. I was completely in the bush, the grass and brushwood being so long, thick, and close, that every step I took was a severe exertion. It was now past sunset and getting rapidly dark, and as it was only too evident that I had lost my way without any chance of bettering myself, the next question came to be, how I should pass the night. The most comfortable and the safest spot seemed to be up a tree, so I tried one, and got as high as I could, but did not much relish my quarters. All the others near me were too small; but I recollected having observed some time before a tall baobab, which I determined again to search after. I took a good mark, so that, if unsuccessful in my cruise, I still might have something to fall back upon; and starting with a good run to clear the grass, was fortunate enough in a few minutes to get a glimpse of the wished-for harbour of refuge. Luckily for me it had a double trunk, with a distance between of about two feet, so, tying my shoes together and casting them over my shoulder, I placed my back against the one trunk and my feet against the other, and so managed to climb until I got hold of a branch, by which I swung myself further up, and finally got into a spot about twelve or fifteen feet from the ground.[189] Here I placed myself on a branch about a foot in diameter, projecting at nearly right angles, and by leaning against the main trunk and stretching out my legs before me, I found I had a tolerably comfortable seat, whence I might peer into the surrounding obscure. The night, fortunately, was not very dark, the stars gleamed overhead, while vivid flashes of lightning over the neighbouring hills enabled me from time to time to cast a momentary glance around me. I got on my shoes and stockings as a protection against insects, then passed a piece of cord loosely round the branch, so that I could pass my arm through it and steady myself, and finally made preparations for repose by kicking two places in the bark of the tree for my heels to rest in. About eight o’clock I distinctly heard in the distance the hum of human voices, and shouted to try and attract attention, but to no avail; believing, however, that there were some huts near, I marked the direction by a large tree. Feeling rather tired, I lay down on my face along the branch, throwing my handkerchief over my head, and passing each of my hands into the opposite sleeve, to prevent them from being bitten, I was soon in a state of oblivion. I must have slept upwards of four hours, when I awoke rather stiff, from my constrained position, and had to try a change of attitude. To pass the time I lit a cigar, and as I had but one, I only smoked half of it, carefully putting back the remainder to serve for my breakfast. A dew was now falling, crickets and frogs innumerable were celebrating nocturnal orgies; huge mosquitoes, making a noise as loud as bees, were assaulting me on all sides, and some large birds were roosting in the tree over my head. I tried in vain to dose away the hours, but I had had my usual allowance of sleep, and not being a bigoted partizan of the drowsy god, now that I really required his aid, he refused to attend to my invocations. I watched with most painful interest the rising and setting of various constellations, and was at length delighted with the appearance of Venus, showing that morning was now not far off. A fresh novelty next presented itself, in the form of sundry denizens of the forest, crowding to pay homage to their visitor. Howls of various degrees of intensity continually reached my ears, some resembling more the high notes of the hyæna with occasional variations, and others, very close to me, being unquestionably in the deep bass of the leopard. I once fancied that I saw a figure moving not far from me, but could not be positive. As light began to suffuse itself over the eastern sky, my nocturnal companions gradually retired, until at last I was left alone, yet not solitary,[190] for that I could not be as long as the incessant buzzing in my ears told me that my Lilliputian winged antagonists were yet unwearied in their attacks, and still unsatiated with blood. At length as gray dawn was being supplanted by brighter daylight, I ventured to descend from my roosting place, where I had spent, not altogether without comfort, upwards of eleven hours. My first endeavour was to find a footpath, and after a little search, I stumbled over a little track, which, however, as it led in a wrong direction, I had to abandon. A more prolonged investigation discovered another, very narrow, and almost hidden by long grass, which after the heavy rain, was lying right over it. To prevent my again straying, I was obliged to bend forward and walk, almost creep, along a kind of tunnel, pulling up a few stalks and letting them fall, as a guide in case I should have to return. Though in my elevated quarters the dew had been slight, on the ground it had been very heavy, and in a few minutes I was completely drenched. When I emerged at the other extremity of this path, which was about half-a-mile long, and was again enabled to look round, I saw a little curling smoke, towards which I immediately made and found a few huts. Some Aborigines appeared, and, after their surprise had subsided, I managed to explain by means of a few broken Hausa words, that I had lost my way, had spent the night in a tree, and now wished to get to Wuza. They pointed out the way to me, but as it was not very evident to my European senses, I induced one to come with me as a guide, and we accordingly trudged along through mud and water by a route, which, to any but a thorough-bred native, would have been impossible to keep to. After walking, or rather wading in this manner for two or three miles, we fell in with my black servant and a couple of men armed to the teeth, going in search of me. They could hardly believe me, especially when I told them how I had passed the night, for they had already consigned me to the jaws of the wild beasts which abound in this neighbourhood. I accordingly dismissed my guide, a happy man, with my pocket handkerchief, which was all I had to give him, and continued my walk to Wuza, at which I arrived about nine o’clock, after a morning’s jaunt of nine or ten miles. The natives who were three in number, were astonished at my appearance and my story, and were no less surprised when they saw me devouring, with great gusto, my breakfast, which the steward had very considerately provided for me, and which was the first food I had tasted for twenty hours.”
[191]
It may be worth while to enquire how that renowned sojourner among the most savage people on the face of the earth, Dr. Livingstone, spends one of his many thousand nights in barbarous company. The worthy doctor thus responds:
“As soon as we land some of the men cut a little grass for my bed, while my servant Mashauana plants the poles of the little tent. These are used by day for carrying burdens, for the Barotse fashion is exactly like that of the natives of India, only the burden is fastened near the ends of the pole, and not suspended by long cords. The bed is made and boxes ranged on each side of it, and then the tent is pitched over all. Four or five feet in front of my tent, is placed the principal or “kotla” fire, the wood for which must be collected by the man who occupies the post of herald, and takes as his perquisite the heads of all the oxen slaughtered and of all the game too. Each person knows the station he is to occupy, both in eating and sleeping, as long as the journey lasts. But Mashauana my head boatman makes his bed at the door of the tent as soon as I retire. The rest, divided into small companies according to their tribes, make sheds all round the fire, leaving a horse-shoe shaped space in front sufficient for the cattle to stand in. The fire gives confidence to the oxen, so the men are always careful to keep them in sight of it; the sheds are formed by planting two stout forked poles in an inclined direction, and placing another over these in a horizontal position. A number of branches are then stuck in the ground in the direction to which the poles are inclined, the twigs drawn down to the horizontal pole and tied with strips of bark. Long grass is then laid over the branches in sufficient quantity to draw off the rain, and we have sheds open to the fire in front but secure from beasts behind. In less than an hour we were usually all under cover. We never lacked abundance of grass during the whole journey. It is a picturesque sight at night when the clear bright moon of these climates glances on the sleeping forms around, to look out upon the attitudes of profound repose both men and beasts assume. There being no danger from wild animals in such a night the fires are allowed almost to go out, and as there is no fear of hungry dogs coming over sleepers and devouring the food, or quietly eating up the poor fellows’ blankets, which at best were but greasy skins, which sometimes happened in the villages, the picture was one of perfect peace.
“The cooking is usually done in the natives’ own style, and as they carefully wash the dishes, pots, and the hands before handling food, it is[192] by no means despicable. Sometimes alterations are made at my suggestion, and they believe that they can cook in thorough white man’s fashion. The cook always comes in for something left in the pot, so all are eager to obtain the office.
“I taught several of them to wash my shirts, and they did it well, though their teacher had never been taught that work himself. Frequent changes of linen and sunning of my blanket kept me more comfortable than might have been anticipated, and I feel certain that the lessons of cleanliness rigidly instilled by my mother in childhood, helped to maintain that respect which these people entertain for European ways. It is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever elevates a man in the eyes of savages.”
The Two Dogs or None.
The explorer’s greatest care, however, while camping out in the forest at night—his fires, his watchmen, and his watch-dogs—will not invariably secure him from danger, if there happen to be wild animals in the neighbourhood; leopards especially, insignificant in size as compared with the lion and the tiger,—there are few things so daring that a hungry leopard will not attempt them. As instanced elsewhere (see “Wild[193] Sports of the World”), he will not scruple to enter a house and drag off a sleeping man; he has no fear of one dog, or even of two. The scene depicted on the preceding page is illustrative of a fact, and happened to a well-known Indian hunter. The labours of the day were at an end and all made snug and right in “camp.” So little apprehension did there exist of an attack by savage beasts, that the hounds set to keep guard were coupled together with a short length of chain. In the night, however, a tremendous uproar suddenly broke in on the stillness, and it was speedily discovered that a leopard had surprised the canine guard and pounced on one with the intention of carrying him off; even when the daring brute discovered that he must take both dogs, or none, he was nothing daunted, but hauled the pair of them along and was so discovered and shot.
There must not be omitted from the catalogue of evils likely to accrue to the African traveller—at least he of Southern Africa—the terrible tsetse fly, which in a single hour may devastate the explorer’s necessary cattle and leave him utterly helpless.
This insect, “Glossina morsitans” of the naturalist, is not much larger than the common house fly, and is nearly of the same brown colour as the honeybee. The after part of the body has three or four yellow bars across it. It is remarkably alert and evades dexterously all attempts to capture it with the hand at common temperatures.
In the cool of the mornings and evenings it is less agile. Its peculiar buzz when once heard can never be forgotten by the traveller whose means of locomotion are domestic animals, for its bite is death to the ox, horse, and dog. In one of Dr. Livingstone’s journeys, though the traveller watched the animals carefully and believed that not a score of flies were ever upon them, they destroyed forty-three fine oxen. A most remarkable feature is the perfect harmlessness of their bite in man and wild animals, and even calves, so long as they continue to suck the cows, though it is no protection to the dog to feed him on milk.
The poison does not seem to be injected by a sting, or by ova placed beneath the skin, for when the insect is allowed to feed freely on the hand it inserts the middle prong of the three portions into which the proboscis is divided somewhat deeply into the true skin. It then draws the prong out a little way and it assumes a crimson colour as the mandibles come into brisk operation. The previously shrunken belly swells out, and if left undisturbed the fly quietly departs when it is full. A slight itching[194] irritation follows the bite. In the ox the immediate effects are no greater than in man, but a few days afterwards the eye and nose begin to run, and a swelling appears under the jaw and sometimes at the navel, and although the poor creature continues to graze, emaciation commences accompanied with a peculiar flaccidity of the muscles. This proceeds unchecked until perhaps months afterwards, purging comes on, and the victim dies in a state of extreme exhaustion. The animals which are in good condition often perish soon after the bite is inflicted, with staggering and blindness as if the brain were affected. Sudden changes of temperature produced by falls of rain seem to hasten the progress of the complaint, but in general the wasting goes on for months.
When the carcase is opened the cellular tissue beneath the skin is found injected with air, as if a quantity of soap bubbles were scattered over it. The blood is small in quantity, and scarcely stains the hands in dissection. The fat is of a greenish yellow colour and of an oily consistence. All the muscles are flabby and the heart is often so soft that the fingers may be made to meet through it. The lungs and liver partake of the disease. The stomach and bowels are pale and empty, and the gall bladder is distended with bile. These symptoms seem to indicate poison in the blood, the germ of which enters when the proboscis is inserted.
The mule, ass, and goat enjoy the same immunity from the tsetse as man. Many large tribes on the Zambesi can keep no domestic animals except the goat in consequence of the scourge existing in their country. Human beings are frequently bitten yet suffer no harm, and zebras, buffaloes, pigs, pallahs, and other antelopes feed quietly in the very habitat of the fly. There is not so much difference in the natures of the horse and zebra, the buffalo and ox, the sheep and antelope, as to afford any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Is not man as much a domestic animal as a dog? The disgust which the tsetse shows for animal excreta is turned to account by some of the doctors. They mix droppings of animals, human milk, and some medicines together, and smear the animals that are about to pass through an infested district. This though a preventive at the time is not a permanent protection. Inoculation does not insure immunity, as animals which have been slightly bitten in one year may perish by a greater number of bites in the next. It is probable that with an increase of guns the game will perish as has happened in the south, and tsetse[195] deprived of food may become extinct simultaneously with the larger animals. The ravages it commits are sometimes enormous. Sebituane once lost nearly the entire cattle of his tribe, amounting to many hundreds, by unwittingly intruding upon the haunts of this murderous insect.
Every day, and all day long, has the traveller to contend with the ignorance and obstinacy and superstitions of the heathen he finds himself among—oftentimes alone—on whom he is dependent not only for the success of his enterprise, but, alas! for his very life. They will work when and as easily as they choose, and should they rebel against his just remonstrance and desert, he is a doomed man. Even when the explorer has plenty of money and companions and influence, his journeyings are not invariably through paths of roses, as may be gathered from the following account of a day’s march in Eastern Africa, by Burton:
“About 5 a.m. the camp is fairly roused, and a little low chatting becomes audible. This is a critical moment. The porters have promised overnight to start early and make a long wholesome march. But, ‘uncertain, coy and hard to please,’ they change their minds, like the fair sex; the cold morning makes them unlike the men of the warm evening, and perhaps one of them has fever. Moreover, in every caravan there is some lazy, loud-lunged, contradictory, and unmanageable fellow, whose sole delight is to give trouble. If no march be in prospect they sit obstinately before the fire, warming their hands and feet, inhaling the smoke with averted heads, and casting quizzical looks at their fuming and fidgety employer. If all be unanimous, it is vain to tempt them, even soft sawder is but ‘throwing comfits to cows.’ We return to our tent. If, however, there be a division, a little active stimulating will cause a march. Then a louder conversation leads to cries of ‘Collect,’ ‘pack,’ ‘set out,’ ‘a journey, a journey to-day,’ and some peculiarly African boasts, ‘I am an ass,’ ‘a camel,’ accompanied by a roar of bawling voices, drumming, whistling, piping, and the braying of horns. The sons of Ramji come in a body to throw our tents and to receive small burthens, which, if possible, they shirk; sometimes Kidogo does me the honour to inquire the programme of the day. The porters, however, hug the fire till driven from it, when they unstack the loads piled before our tents, and pour out of the camp or village. My companion and I, when well enough to ride, mount our asses led by the gun-bearers, who carry all necessaries for offence and defence; when unfit for exercise we are borne in hammocks slung to long poles and carried by two men at a time. The[196] Baloch tending their slaves, hasten off in a straggling body, thinking only of escaping an hour’s sun. The jemadar, however, is ordered to bring up the rear, with Said-bin-Salim, who is cold and surly, abusive, and ready with his rattan. Four or five packs have been left upon the ground by deserters or shirkers who have started empty handed, consequently our Arab either double loads more willing men or persuades the sons of Ramji to carry a small parcel each, or that failing, he hires from some near village a few porters by the day. This, however, is not easy; the beads have been carried off, and the most tempting promises without prepayment have no effect upon the African mind.
“When all is ready the guide rises and shoulders his load, which is never one of the lightest. He deliberately raises his furled flag—a plain blood red, the sign of a caravan from Zanzibar—much tattered by the thorns, and is followed by a privileged Pagazi tom-toming upon a kettle-drum much resembling a European hour-glass. This dignitary is robed in the splendour of scarlet broadcloth, a narrow piece about six feet long with a central aperture for the neck, and with streamers dangling before and behind; he also wears some wonderful head-dress, the spoils of a white and black monkey on the barred skin of a wild cat crowning the head, bound round the throat, hanging over the shoulders, and capped with a tall cup-shaped bunch of owl’s feathers or the glorious plumes of the crested crane. His insignia of office are the kipungo or fly-flapper, the tail of some beast, which he affixes to his person as if it were a natural growth, the kome, or hooked iron spit, decorated with a central sausage of parti-coloured beads, and a variety of oily little gourds containing snuff, simples, and medicine for the road, strapped round his waist. He leads the caravan, and the better to secure the obedience of his followers he has paid them in a sheep or a goat the value of what he will recover by fees and rations: the head of every animal slaughtered in camp and the presents at the end of the journey are exclusively his. A man guilty of preceding the Pagazi is liable to fine, and an arrow is extracted from his quiver to substantiate his identity at the end of the march. Pouring out of the kraal in a disorderly mob, the porters stack their goods at some tree distant but a few hundred yards, and allow the late and lazy and the invalids to join the main body. Generally at this conjuncture the huts are fired by neglect or mischievousness. The khambi, especially in winter, burns like tinder, and the next caravan will find a heap of hot ashes and a few charred sticks still standing. Yet by[197] way of contrast, the Pagazi will often take the trouble to denote by the usual signposts to those following them that water is at hand; here and there a little facetiousness appears in these directions, a mouth is cut in the tree trunk to admit a bit of wood simulating a pipe, with other representations still more waggish.
“After the preliminary halt, the caravan forming into the order of march, winds like a monstrous land serpent over hill, dale, and plain. The kirangozi is followed by an Indian file; those nearest to him are heavily laden with ivory. When the weight of the tusk is inordinate it is tied to a pole and is carried palanquin fashion by two men. The ivory carriers are succeeded by the bearers of cloth and beads, each man poising on either shoulder, and sometimes raising upon the head for rest, packs that resemble huge bolsters, six feet long by two in diameter, cradled in sticks which generally have a forked projection for facility in stacking and reshouldering the load. The sturdiest fellows are usually the lightest loaded in Eastern Africa; as elsewhere, the weakest go to the wall. The maximum of burden may be two farasilah, or seventy pounds avoirdupois. Behind the cloth bearers straggles a long line of porters and slaves laden with the lighter stuff—rhinoceros teeth, hides, salt, tobacco, brass wire, iron hoes, boxes and bags, beds and tents, pots and water gourds, mats, and private stores. With the Pagazi, but in separate parties, march the armed slaves, who are never seen to quit their muskets; the women and the little toddling children, who rarely fail to carry something, be it only of a pound weight; and the asses neatly laden with saddle-bags of giraffe and buffalo hide. A Mganga also universally accompanies the caravan, not disdaining to act as a common porter. The rear is brought up by the master, or the masters, of the caravan, who often remain far behind for the convenience of walking and to prevent desertion.
“All the caravan is habited in its worst attire; the East African derides those who wear upon a journey the cloth which should be reserved for display at home. If rain fall they will doff the single goat-skin hung round their sooty limbs and, folding it up, place it between the shoulders and the load. When grain is served out for a long march, each porter bears his posho or rations fastened like a large ‘bustle’ to the small of his back. Upon this again he sometimes binds, with its legs projecting outwards, the three-legged stool, which he deems necessary to preserve him from the danger of sitting upon the damp ground. As may be imagined, the barbarians have more ornament than dress. Some wear[198] a strip of zebra’s mane bound round the head with the bristly parti-coloured hair standing out like a saint’s gloria, others prefer a long bit of stiffened ox-tail rising like a unicorn’s horn at least a foot above the forehead. Other ornaments are the skins of monkeys and ocelots, roleaus and fillets of white, blue, or scarlet cloth, and huge bunches of ostrich, crane, and jay’s feathers crowning the heads like the tufts of certain fowls. Their arms are decorated with massive ivory bracelets, heavy bangles of brass and copper, and thin circlets of the same metal, beads in strings and bands adorn their necks, and small iron bells strapped below the knee or round the ancle by the more aristocratic. All carry some weapon; the heaviest armed have a bow and a bark quiver full of arrows, two or three long spears and assegais, and a little battle-axe, borne on the shoulder.
“The normal recreations of a march are whistling, singing, shouting, hooting, horning, drumming, imitating the cries of birds and beasts, repeating words which are never used except on journeys. There is gabble enough and abundant squabbling; in fact, perpetual noise, which the ear, however, soon learns to distinguish for the hubbub of a halt. The uproar redoubles near a village where the flag is unfurled and where the line lags to display itself. All give vent to loud shouts: ‘Hopa, hopa! go on, go on—Mgogolo! a stoppage—food, food—don’t be tired—the kraal is here—home is near—hasten, Kirangozi—oh! we see our mothers—we go to eat.’ On the road it is considered prudent, as well as pleasurable, to be as loud as possible, in order to impress upon plunderers an exaggerated idea of the caravan’s strength; for equally good reasons silence is recommended in the kraal. When threatened with attack, and no ready escape suggests itself, the porters ground their loads and prepare for action. It is only self-interest that makes them brave. I have seen a small cow trotting up with tail erect break a line of 150 men carrying goods not their own. If a hapless hare or antelope cross the path, every man casts his pack, brandishes his spear, and starts in pursuit; the animal, never running straight, is soon killed and torn limb from limb, each hunter devouring his morsel raw. When two parties meet, that commanded by an Arab claims the road. If both are Wanyamwezi, violent quarrels ensue; fatal weapons, which are too ready at hand, are turned to more harmless purposes, the bow and spear being used as whip and cudgel. These affrays are not rancorous till blood is shed. Few tribes are less friendly for so trifling an affair as a broken head; even a slight[199] cut, or a shallow stab, is little thought of; but if returned with interest great loss of life may arise from the slenderest cause. When friendly caravans meet, the two Kirangozis sidle up with a stage pace, a stride and a stand, and with sidelong looks prance till arrived within distance, then suddenly and simultaneously ducking, like boys ‘give a back,’ they come to loggerheads and exchange a butt violently as fighting rams. Their example is followed by all with a crush which might be mistaken for the beginning of a faction; but it ends, if there be no bad blood, in shouts of laughter. The weaker body, however, must yield precedence and offer a small present as blackmail.”
After all, however, there is some reason in the African’s objection to be hurried on a march, or to exert himself overmuch in the interests of a traveller, whose private affairs are nothing to him and whom, when discharged, he will in all probability never see again. He does not particularly wish to see him, as he is perfectly comfortable at home. According to the last quoted authority he rises with the dawn from his couch of cow’s-hide. The hut is cool and comfortable during the day; but the barred door, impeding ventilation at night, causes it to be close and disagreeable. The hour before sunrise being the coldest time, he usually kindles a fire and addresses himself to his constant companion the pipe. When the sun becomes sufficiently powerful, he removes the reed-screen from the entrance and issues forth to bask in the morning beams. The villages are populous, and the houses touching one another enable the occupants, when squatting outside and fronting the central square, to chat and chatter without moving. About 7 a.m., when the dew has partially disappeared from the grass, the elder boys drive the flocks and herds to pasture, with loud shouts and sounding applications of the quarter staff. They return only when the sun is sinking behind the western horizon. At 8 p.m. those who have provisions at home enter the hut to refection with ugali or holcus-porridge, those who have not join a friend. Pombe, when procurable, is drunk from the earliest dawn.
After breaking his fast, the African repairs, pipe in hand, to the Iwanza, the village public previously described. Here in the society of his own sex he will spend the greater part of the day talking and laughing, smoking, or torpid with sleep. Occasionally he sits down to play. As with barbarians generally, gambling in him is a passion. The normal game is our “heads and tails,” the implement, a flat stone, a rough circle of tin, or the bottom of a broken pot. The more civilised have[200] learned the “bas” of the coast, a kind of “tables” with counters and cups hollowed in a solid plank. Many of the Wanyamwezi have been compelled by this indulgence to sell themselves into slavery after playing through their property; they even stake their aged mothers against the equivalent of an old lady in these lands,—a cow or a pair of goats. As may be imagined, squabbles are perpetual, they are almost always, however, settled amongst fellow-villagers with bloodless weapons. Others, instead of gambling, seek some employment which, working the hands and leaving the rest of the body and the mind at ease, is ever a favourite with the Asiatic and the African; they whittle wood, pierce and wire their pipe sticks—an art in which all are adepts,—shave one another’s heads, pluck out their beards, eyebrows, and eyelashes, and prepare and polish their weapons.
“At about one p.m., the African, unless otherwise employed, returns to his hut to eat the most substantial and the last meal of the day, which has been cooked by his women. Eminently gregarious, however, he often prefers the Iwanza as a dining room, where his male children, relatives, and friends meet during the most important hour of the twenty-four. With the savage and the barbarian food is the all and all of life, food is his thought by day, food is his dream by night. The civilized European who never knows hunger nor thirst without the instant means of gratifying every whim of appetite, can hardly conceive the extent to which his wild brother’s soul is swayed by stomach; he can scarcely comprehend the state of mental absorption in which the ravenous human animal broods over the carcase of an old goat, the delight which he takes in superintending every part of the cooking process, and the jealous eye with which he regards all who live better than himself. After eating, the East African invariably indulges in a long fit of torpidity from which he awakes to pass the afternoon as he did the forenoon, chatting, playing, smoking, and chewing sweet earth. Towards sunset all issue forth to enjoy the coolness; the men sit outside the Iwanza, whilst the women and the girls, after fetching water for household wants from the well, collecting in a group upon their little stools, indulge in the pleasures of gossiping and the pipe. This hour, in the more favoured parts of the country, is replete with enjoyment. As the hours of darkness draw nigh, the village doors are carefully closed, and after milking his cows, each peasant retires to his hut, or passes his time squatting round the fire with his friends in the Iwanza. He has not yet learned the art of making[201] a wick, and of filling a bit of pottery with oil. When a light is wanted he ignites a stick of the oleaginous msásá-tree—a yellow, hard, close-grained, and elastic wood with few knots, much used in making spears, bows, and walking staves—which burns for a quarter of an hour with a brilliant flame. He repairs to his hard couch before midnight and snores with a single sleep till dawn. For thorough enjoyment, night must be spent in insensibility, as the day is in inebriety, and though an early riser he avoids the ‘early to bed’ in order that he may be able to slumber through half the day.
“Such is the African’s idle day, and thus every summer is spent. As the wintry rains draw nigh, the necessity of daily bread suggests itself. The peasants then leave their huts about six or seven a.m., often without provision which now becomes scarce, and labour till noon or two p.m., when they return home, and find food prepared by the wife or the slave girl. During the afternoon they return to work, and sometimes, when the rains are near, they are aided by the women. Towards sunset all wend homeward in a body, laden with their implements of cultivation, and singing a kind of ‘dulce domum’ in a simple and pleasing recitative.”
Let us conclude this brief sketch of the perils and inconveniences that menace the explorer of savage shores by presenting the reader with a picture of the approach of one of the ships bearing some of the earliest English visitants to the cannibal shores of the Southern Seas:
“Notwithstanding,” says Mr. Ellis, “all our endeavours to induce the natives to approach the ship, they continued for a long time at some distance viewing us with apparent surprise and suspicion. At length one of the canoes, containing two men and a boy, ventured alongside. Perceiving a lobster lying among a number of spears at the bottom of the canoe, I intimated by signs my wish to have it, and the chief readily handed it up. I gave him in return two or three middle-size fish-hooks, which, after examining rather curiously, he gave to the boy, who having no pocket to put them in, or any article of dress to which they might be attached, instantly deposited them in his mouth, and continued to hold with both hands the rope hanging from the ship.
“The principal person in the canoe appeared willing to come on board. I pointed to the rope he was grasping and put out my hand to assist him up the ship’s side. He involuntarily laid hold of it, but could scarcely have felt my grasp when he instantly drew back his hand and raising it to his nostrils smelt at it most significantly as if to ascertain with what[202] kind of being he had come in contact. After a few moments’ pause he climbed over the ship’s side, and as soon as he had reached the deck our captain led him to a chair on the quarter-deck, and pointing to the seat signified his wish that he should be seated. The chief, however, having viewed it for some time, pushed it aside and sat down on the deck. Our captain had been desirous to have the chief aboard that he might ascertain from him whether the island produced sandal-wood, as he was bound to the Marquesas in search of that article. A piece was therefore procured and shown him, with the qualities of which he appeared familiar, for after smelling it and calling it by some name he pointed to the shore.
“While we had been thus engaged, many of the canoes had approached the ship, and when we turned round a number of the natives appeared on deck, and others were climbing over the bulwarks. They were certainly the most savage-looking natives I had ever seen; and these barbarians were as unceremonious as their appearance was uninviting. A gigantic, fierce-looking fellow seized a youth as he was standing by the gangway and endeavoured to lift him over the deck, but the lad struggling escaped from his grasp. He then seized our cabin-boy, but the sailors coming to his assistance and the native finding that he could not disengage him from their hold, pulled his woollen shirt over his head and was about to leap into the sea when he was arrested by the sailors. We had a large ship-dog chained to his kennel on the deck, and although this animal was not only fearless but savage, yet the appearance of the natives seemed to terrify him. One of them caught the dog in his arms and was proceeding over the ship’s side with him, but perceiving him fastened to his kennel by the chain he was obliged to relinquish his prize, evidently much disappointed. He then seized the kennel with the dog in it, when, finding it nailed to the deck, he ceased his attempts to remove it and gazed round the ship in search of some object which he could secure. We had brought from Port Jackson two young kittens; one of these now came up from the cabin, but she no sooner made her appearance on the deck, than a native, springing like a tiger on its prey, caught up the unconscious animal and instantly leaped over the ship’s side into the sea. Hastening to the side of the deck I looked over the bulwarks and beheld him swimming rapidly towards a canoe which lay about fifty yards from the ship. As soon as he had reached this canoe, holding the cat with both hands, he exhibited it to his companions with evident exultation.
“Orders were given to clear the ship. A general scuffle ensued between[203] the islanders and the seamen, in which many of the former were driven headlong into the sea, where they seemed as much at home as on solid ground; while others clambered over the vessel’s sides into their canoes. In the midst of the confusion and the retreating of the natives the dog, which had hitherto slunk into his kennel, recovered his usual boldness and not only increased the consternation by his barking, but severely tore the leg of one of the fugitives who was hastening out of the ship near the spot where he was chained. The decks were now cleared; but as many of the people still hung about the shrouds and chains the sailors drew the long knives with which, when among the islands, they were furnished, and by menacing gestures, without wounding any, succeeded in detaching them altogether from the ship. Some of them seemed quite unconscious of the keenness of the knife, and I believe had their hands deeply cut by snatching at the blades.”
Boatmen of Rockingham Bay.
[204]
The True Word expounded to a Potentate of Western Africa.
The mysterious “still small voice”—Samoan mythology—The man who pushed the Heavens up—The child of the Sun—A Figian version of the “Flood”—The Paradise of the Figian—Lying Ghosts—Singular case of abduction—The disobedient Naiogabui—All fair in love and war—The fate of poor Rokoua—The Samoan hades—Miscellaneous gods of the Samoans—A god for every village—The cup of truth—Mourning the destruction of a god’s image—The most fashionable god in Polynesia—Families marked for human sacrifice—“Tapu” or “tabu”—Its antiquity and wide-spread influence—Muzzled pigs and blindfolded chickens—Ceremony of releasing the porkers—Tremendous feast of baked pig—The tapu in New Zealand—A terrible tinder box—The sacred pole and the missionaries—The chief’s backbone—The Pakeka and the iron pot—One of the best uses of tapu—Its general advantages and disadvantages—Tapu among the Samoans—Witchcraft in New Zealand—Visit of a European to a “retired” witch—The religion of the Dayak—“Tapa,” “Tenahi,” “Iang,” and “Jirong”—Warriors’ ghosts—Religious rites and superstitions of the Sea Dayaks—The great god Singallong Burong—Belief in dreams among the Sea Dayaks—Story of the stone bull—Of the painted dog.
Religion, as signifying reverence of God and a belief in future rewards and punishments, may be said to have no existence among people who are absolutely savage. Belief[205] in life hereafter is incompatible with non-belief in the existence of the soul, and difficult indeed would it be to show a thorough barbarian who did not repudiate that grand and awful trust. He is too much afraid of the mysterious thing to confess to being its custodian. Undoubtedly he is quite conscious of a power within him immensely superior to that which gives motion to his arms and legs, and invites him to eat when he is hungry. He “has ears and hears,” and “the still small voice” that speaks all languages and fits its admonitions to the meanest understanding bears the savage no less than the citizen company all the day long, noting all his acts and whispering its approvals and its censures of them; and when the savage reclines at night on his mat of rushes, the still small voice is still vigilant, and reveals for his secret contemplation such vivid pictures of the day’s misdoing, that his hands ache with so fervently clasping his wooden greegree, and he is rocked to sleep and horrid dreams with trembling and quaking fear.
But the savage, while he acknowledges the mysterious influence, has not the least notion as to its origin. To his hazy mind the word “incomprehensible” is synonymous with “evil,” and the most incomprehensible thing to him, and consequently the most evil, is death. With us it is anxiety as to hereafter that makes death terrible; with the savage death is detestable only as a gravedigger, a malicious spirit who snatches him away from the world—where his children and his wives are, and where tobacco grows, and palm-trees yield good wine,—who snatches him away from all these good things and every other, and shuts him in the dark damp earth to decay like a rotten branch.
Death therefore is, in his eyes, the king of evil, and all minor evils agents of the king, and working with but one aim though with seeming indirectness. This it is that makes the savage a miserable wretch—despite nature’s great bounty in supplying him with food without reaping or sowing, and so “tempering the wind” that the shelter of the boughs makes him a house that is warm enough, and the leaves of the trees such raiment as he requires. Through his constant suspicion he is like a man with a hundred jars of honey, of the same pattern and filled the same, but one—he knows not which—is poisoned. Taste he must or perish of hunger, but taste he may and perish of poison; and so, quaking all the time, he picks a little and a little, suspecting this jar because it is so very sweet, and that because it has a twang of acid, and so goes on diminishing his ninety-nine chances of appeasing his hunger[206] and living, to level odds, that he will escape both hunger and poison and die of fright. Death is the savage’s poisoned honey-pot. He may meet it in the wind, in the rain; it may even (why not? he has known such cases) come to him in a sunray. It may meet him in the forest where he hunts for his daily bread! That bird that just now flitted by so suddenly and with such a curious cry may be an emissary of the king of evil, and now hastening to tell the king that there is he—the victim—all alone and unprotected in the forest, easy prey for the king if he comes at once! No more hunting for that day though half-a-dozen empty bellies be the consequence; away with spear and blow-gun, and welcome charms and fetiches to be counted and kissed and caressed all the way home—aye, and for a long time afterwards, for that very bird may still be perched a-top of the hut, peeping in at a chink, and only waiting for the victim to close his eyes to summon the grim king once more. In his tribulation he confides the secret of his uneasiness to his wife, who with affectionate zeal runs for the gree-gree-man, who, on hearing the case, shakes his head so ominously, that though even the very leopard-skin that hangs before the doorway be the price demanded for it, the most powerful charm the gree-gree-man has to dispose of must be obtained.
It is only, however, to the perfect savage—the Fan and Ougbi of Central Africa, the Andamaner of Polynesia, and some others—that the above remarks apply. If we take belief in the soul and its immortality as the test, we shall find the number of absolute barbarians somewhat less than at first sight appears; indeed, the mythological traditions of many savage people, wrapped as they invariably are in absurdity, will frequently exhibit in the main such close resemblance to certain portions of our Scripture history as to fill us with surprise and wonder. Take, for instance, the following examples occurring in Samoa, furnished by the Rev. George Turner:
“The earliest traditions of the Samoans describe a time when the heavens alone were inhabited and the earth covered over with water. Tangaloa, the great Polynesian Jupiter, then sent down his daughter in the form of a bird called the Turi (a snipe), to search for a resting-place. After flying about for a long time she found a rock partially above the surface of the water. (This looks like the Mosaic account of the deluge; but the story goes on the origin of the human race.) Turi went up and told her father that she had found but one spot on which she could rest. Tangaloa sent her down again to visit the place. She went to and fro[207] repeatedly, and, every time she went up, reported that the dry surface was extending on all sides. He then sent her down with some earth, and a creeping plant, as all was barren rock. She continued to visit the earth and return to the skies. Next visit, the plant was spreading. Next time it was withered and decomposing. Next visit it swarmed with worms. And the next time had become men and women! A strange account of man’s origin. But how affectingly it reminds one of his end: ‘They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.’
“They have no consecutive tales of these early times; but we give the disjointed fragments as we find them. They say that of old the heavens fell down, and that people had to crawl about like the lower animals. After a time, the arrow-root and another similar plant pushed up the heavens. The place where these plants grew is still pointed out, and called the Te’engga-langi, or heaven-pushing place. But the heads of the people continued to knock on the skies. One day, a woman was passing along who had been drawing water. A man came up to her and said that he would push up the heavens, if she would give him some water to drink. ‘Push them up first,’ she replied. He pushed them up. ‘Will that do?’ said he. ‘No, a little further.’ He sent them up higher still, and then she handed him her cocoa-nut-shell water bottle. Another account says, that a person named Tütü pushed up the heavens; and the hollow places in a rock, nearly six feet long, are pointed out as his footprints. They tell about a man called Losi, who went up on a visit to the heavens. He found land and sea there, people, houses, and plantations. The people were kind to him and supplied him with plenty of food. This was the first time he had seen or tasted taro. He sought for some in the plantations and brought it down to the earth; and hence they say the origin of taro. They do not say how he got up and down. When the taro tree fell, they say its trunk and branches extended a distance of nearly sixty miles. In this and the following tale we are reminded of Jacob’s ladder.
“Two young men, named Punifanga and Tafalin, determined one afternoon to pay a visit to the moon. Punifanga said he knew a tree by which they could go up. Tafalin was afraid it might not reach high enough, and said he would try another plan. Punifanga went to his tree, but Tafalin kindled a fire, and heaped on cocoa-nut shells and other fuel so as to raise a great smoke. The smoke rose in a dense straight column, like a cocoa-nut tree towering away into the heavens. Tafalin then jumped[208] on to the column of smoke, and went up and reached the moon long before Punifanga. One wishes to know what they did next, but here the tale abruptly ends, with the chagrin of Punifanga when he got up and saw Tafalin there before him, sitting laughing at him for having been so long on the way.
“In another story we are told, that the man came down one evening and picked up a woman, called Sina, and her child. It was during a time of famine. She was working in the evening twilight, beating out some bark with which to make native cloth. The moon was just rising, and it reminded her of great bread-fruit. Looking up to it she said, ‘Why cannot you come down and let my child have a bit of you?’ The moon was indignant at the idea of being eaten, came forthwith, and took up her child, board, mallet, and all. The popular superstition of ‘the man in the moon, who gathered sticks on the Sabbath-day,’ is not yet forgotten in England, and in Samoa, of the woman in the moon. ‘Yonder is Sina,’ they say, ‘and her child, and mallet and board.’
“We have a fragment or two, also, about the sun. A woman called Manquamanqui became pregnant by looking at the rising sun. Her son grew, and was named ‘Child of the Sun.’ At his marriage he asked his mother for a dowry. She sent him to his father the Sun, to beg from him, and told him how to go. Following her directions, he went one morning, with a long vine from the bush, which is the convenient substitute for a rope, climbed a tree, threw his rope, with a noose at the end of it, and caught the Sun. He made his message known and (Pandora like) got a present for his bride. The Sun first asked him what was his choice, blessings or calamities? He chose, of course, the former, and came down with his store of blessings done up in a basket. There is another tale about this Samoan Phaeton, similar to what is related of the Hawaiian Mani. They say that he and his mother were annoyed at the rapidity of the sun’s course in those days—that it rose, reached the meridian, and set ‘before they could get their mats dried.’ He determined to make it go slower. He climbed a tree one morning early, and with a rope and noose all ready, watched for the appearance of the sun. Just as it emerged from the horizon, he threw, and caught it; the sun struggled to get clear, but in vain. Then fearing lest it should be strangled, it called out in distress, ‘Oh! have mercy on me, and spare my life. What do you want?’ ‘We wish you to go slower, we can get no work done.’ ‘Very well,’ replied the Sun; ‘let me go, and for the future I will walk slowly, and never go[209] quick again.’ He let go the rope, and ever since the sun has gone slowly, and given us longer days. Ludicrous and puerile as this is, one cannot help seeing in it the wreck of that sublime description in the book of Joshua, of the day when that man of God stood in the sight of Israel, and said: ‘Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies.’
“There are but few tales in Samoa in which we can trace the deluge; nor are these circumstantial as those which obtain in some other parts of the Pacific. It is the universal belief, however, ‘that of old, the fish swam where the land now is;’ and tradition now adds, when the waters abated, many of the fish of the sea were left on the land, and afterwards were changed into stones. Hence, they say, there are stones in abundance in the bush and among the mountains which were once sharks and other inhabitants of the deep.”
The Figians, islanders of the same group, have an advantage over the Samoans in this last mythological matter of the deluge. They have at least half-a-dozen versions of the great flood, of which the two following, furnished by Ellis and Williams, will serve:
“They speak of a deluge which, according to some of their accounts, was partial, but in others is stated to have been universal. The cause of the great flood was the killing of Turukana—a favourite bird belonging to Udengei—by two mischievous lads, the grandsons of the god. These, instead of apologizing for their offence, added insolent language to the outrage, and fortifying, with the assistance of their friends, the town in which they lived, defied Udengei to do his worst. It is said, that although it took the angry god three months to collect his forces, he was unable to subdue the rebels, and, disbanding his army, resolved on more efficient revenge. At his command the dark clouds gathered and burst, pouring streams on the devoted earth. Towns, hills, and mountains were successively submerged; but the rebels, secure in the superior height of their own dwelling-place, looked on without concern. But when at last the terrible surges invaded their fortress, they cried for direction to a god, who, according to various accounts, sent them a shaddock punt, or two canoes, or taught them to build a canoe themselves. However, all agree the remnant of the human race was saved: the number was eighty.”
So says Mr. Williams. Now for a literal translation, furnished by Mr. Osmond to Mr. Ellis:
[210]
“Destroyed was Otaheite by the sea; no man, nor dog, nor fowl remained. The groves of trees and the stones were carried away by the wind. They were destroyed, and the deep was over the land. But these two persons, the husband and the wife (when it came in), he took up his young pig, she took up her young chickens; he took up the young dog, and she the young kitten. They were going forth, and looking at Orofena (the highest hill in the island), the husband said, ‘Up both of us to yonder mountain high.’ The wife replied, ‘No, let us not go thither.’ The husband said, ‘It is a high rock and will not be reached by the sea;’ but the wife replied, ‘Reached it will be by the sea yonder: let us ascend Opitohito, round as a breast; it will not be reached by the sea.’ They two arrived there. Orofena was overwhelmed by the waves: Opitohito alone remained and was their abode. There they watched ten nights; the sea ebbed, and they saw the two little heads of the mountains in their elevation. When the waters retired, the land remained without produce, without man, and the fish were putrid in the holes of the rocks. The earth remained, but the shrubs were destroyed. They descended and gazed with astonishment: there were no houses, nor cocoa-nuts, nor palm-trees, nor bread-fruit, nor grass; all was destroyed by the sea. They two dwelt together; and the woman brought forth two children, a son and a daughter. In those days covered was the land with food; and from two persons the earth was repeopled.”
The Figian believes in a future state of perpetual bliss, but not that the soul, as soon as it leaves the body, is absolved of all care. Indeed, according to popular belief, the journey of the soul from earth to heaven is a very formidable business.
“On the road to Nai Thombothombo, and about five miles from it, is a solitary hill of hard reddish clay spotted with black boulders, having on its right a pretty grove, and on the left cheerless hills. Its name is Takiveleyaiva. When near this spot the disembodied spirit throws the whale’s tooth, which is placed in the hand of the corpse at burial, at a spiritual pandanus; having succeeded in hitting this, he ascends the hill and there waits until joined by the spirits of his strangled wife or wives. Should he miss the mark he is still supposed to remain in this solitary resting-place, bemoaning the want of affection on the part of his wife and friends, who are depriving him of his expected companions. And this is the lone spirit’s lament: ‘How is this? For a long time I planted food for my wife, and was also of great use to her friends. Why, then, is she[211] not allowed to follow me? Do my friends love me no better than this after so many years of toil? Will no one in love to me strangle my wife?’
“Blessed at last with the company of his wife or wives, who bear his train, or sad because of their absence, the husband advances towards Nai Thombothombo, and, club in hand, boards the canoe which carries spirits to meet their examiner. Notice of his approach is given by a paroquet which cries once, twice, and so on, according to the number of spirits in the canoe, announcing a great number by chattering. The highway to Mbulu lies through Nambanggatai, which, it seems, is at once a real and unreal town, the visible part being occupied by ordinary mortals, while in the unseen portion dwells the family who hold inquest on departed spirits. Thus the cry of the bird answers a twofold purpose, warning the people to set open the doors that the spirit may have a free course, and preventing the ghostly inquisitors from being taken by surprise. The houses in the town are built with reference to a peculiarity in the locomotion of spirits, who are supposed at this stage to pass straight forward: hence all the doorways are opposite to each other, so that the shade may pass through without interruption. The inhabitants speak in low tones, and if separated by a little distance communicate their thoughts by signs.
“Bygone generations had to meet Samu or Ravuyalo; but as he died in 1847 by a curious misfortune, his duties now devolve upon his sons, who, having been long in partnership with their illustrious father, are quite competent to carry on his office. As it is probable that the elder son will shortly receive the paternal title, or an equivalent, we will speak of him as Samuyalo the Killer of Souls. On hearing the paroquet, Samu and his brothers hide themselves in some spiritual mangrove bushes just beyond the town and alongside of the path in which they stick a reed as a prohibition to the spirit to pass that way. Should the comer be courageous, he raises his club in defiance of the tabu and those who place it there, whereupon Samu appears to give him battle, first asking, ‘Who are you, and whence do you come?’ As many carry their inveterate habit of lying into another world, they make themselves out to be of vast importance, and to such Samu gives the lie and fells them to the ground. Should the ghost conquer in the combat, he passes on to the judgment seat of Ndengei; he is disqualified for appearing there and is doomed to wander among the mountains. If he be killed in the encounter, he is cooked and eaten by Samu and his brethren.
[212]
“Some traditions put the examination questions into the mouth of Samu, and judge the spirit at this stage; but the greater number refer the inquisition to Ndengei.
“Those who escape the club of the soul-destroyer walk on to Naindelinde, one of the highest peaks of the Kauvandra mountains. Here the path of the Mbulu ends abruptly at the brink of a precipice, the base of which is said to be washed by a deep lake. Beyond this precipice projects a large steer-oar, which one tradition puts in the charge of Ndengei himself, but another more consistently in the keeping of an old man and his son, who act under the direction of the god. These accost the coming spirit thus: ‘Under what circumstances do you come to us? How did you conduct yourself in the other world?’ If the ghost should be one of rank, he answers: ‘I am a great chief; I lived as a chief, and my conduct was that of a chief. I had great wealth, many wives, and ruled over a powerful people. I have destroyed many towns, and slain many in war.’ To this the reply is, ‘Good, good. Take a seat on the broad part of this oar, and refresh yourself in the cool breeze.’ No sooner is he seated than they lift the handle of the oar, which lies inland, and he is thus thrown down headlong into the deep waters below, through which he passes to Murimuria. Such as have gained the special favour of Ndengei are warned not to go out on the oar, but to sit near those who hold it, and after a short repose are sent back to the place whence they came to be deified.”
The gods of the Figians would, however, seem to cling with considerable tenacity to the weaknesses that distinguish the most ordinary mortals. They quarrel, they fight, and worse still, descend to act the part of lady-stealers, and this even when the booty is the daughter of a neighbouring god. The last “pretty scandal” of this character is related by Mr. Seeman in his recently published work on Figi:
“Once upon a time there dwelt at Rewa a powerful god, whose name was Ravovonicakaugawa, and along with him his friend the god of the winds, from Wairna. Ravovonicakaugawa was leading a solitary life, and had long been thinking of taking a wife to himself. At last his mind seemed to be made up. ‘Put mast and sail into the canoe,’ he said, ‘and let us take some women from Rokoua, the god of Naicobocobo.’ ‘When do you think of starting?’ inquired his friends. ‘I shall go in broad daylight,’ was the reply; ‘or do you think I am a coward to choose the night for my work?’ All things being ready, the two friends set sail and anchored towards sunset off Naicobocobo. There they waited, contrary[213] to Figian customs, one, two, three days without any friendly communication from the shore reaching them, for Rokoua, probably guessing their intention, had strictly forbidden his people to take any food to the canoe. Rokoua’s repugnance, however, was not shared by his household. His daughter, the lovely Naiogabui, who diffused so sweet and powerful a perfume, that if the wind blew from the east the perfume could be perceived in the west, and if it blew from the west it could be perceived in the east, in consequence of which, and on account of her great personal beauty, all the young men fell in love with her—Naiogabui ordered one of her female slaves to cook a yam and take it to the foreign canoe, and at the same time inform its owner that she would be with him at the first opportunity. To give a further proof of her affection she ordered all the women in Naicobocobo to have a day’s fishing. This order having been promptly executed, and the fish cooked, Naiogabui herself swam off with it during the night and presented it to the Rewa god.
“Ravovonicakaugawa was charmed with the princess and ready to start with her at once. She, however, begged him to wait another night to enable Naimilamila, one of Rokoua’s young wives, to accompany them. Naimilamila was a native of Naicobocobo, and, against her will, united to Rokoua, who had no affection whatever for her, and kept her exclusively to scratch his head or play with his locks—hence her name. Dissatisfied with her sad lot, she had concocted with her stepdaughter a plan for escape, and was making active preparations to carry it into execution. On the night agreed upon, Naimilamila was true to her engagement. ‘Who are you?’ asked the god as she stepped on the deck. ‘I am Rokoua’s wife,’ she rejoined. ‘Get your canoe under weigh; my lord may follow closely on my heels; and Naiogabui will be with us immediately.’ Almost directly afterwards a splash in the water was heard. ‘There she comes,’ cried Naimilamila, ‘make sail;’ and instantly the canoe, with Ravovonicakaugawa, his friend, and the two women, departed for Rewa.
“Next morning, when Rokoua discovered the elopement, he determined to pursue the fugitives, and for that purpose embarked in the ‘Vatateilali,’ a canoe deriving its name from his large drum, the sound of which was so powerful that it could he heard all over Figi. His club and spear were put on board, both of which were of such gigantic dimensions and weight that it took ten men to lift either of them. Rokoua soon reached Nukuilailai, where he took the spear out, and making a kind of bridge of it walked over it on shore. Taking spear and club in his hand, he musingly[214] walked along. ‘It will never do to be at once discovered,’ he said to himself. ‘I must disguise myself. But what shape shall I assume? that of a hog or a dog? As a hog I should not be allowed to come near the door; and as a dog I should have to pick the bones thrown outside. Neither will answer my purpose; I shall therefore assume the shape of a woman.’ Continuing his walk along the beach he met an old woman carrying a basket of taro and puddings ready cooked, and without letting her be at all aware of it, he exchanged figures with her. He then enquired whither she was going, and being informed to the house of the god of Rewa, he took the basket from her, and leaving club and spear on the beach, proceeded to his destination. His disguise was so complete that even his own daughter did not recognize him. ‘Who is that?’ she asked as he was about to enter. ‘It is I,’ replied Rokoua in a feigned voice; ‘I have come from Monisa with food.’ ‘Come in, old lady,’ said Naiogabui, ‘and sit down.’ Rokoua accordingly entered and took care to sit like a Figian woman would do, so that his disguise might not be discovered. ‘Are you going back to-night?’ he was asked. ‘No,’ the disguised god replied, ‘there is no occasion for that.’ Finding it very close in the house, Rokoua proposed a walk and a bath, to which both Naiogabui and Naimilamila agreed. When getting the women to that spot of the beach where club and spear had been left, he threw off his disguise and exclaimed, ‘You little knew who I was; I am Rokoua, your lord and master;’ and at the same time taking hold of their hands, he dragged the runaways to the canoe and departed homewards.
“When the Rewa god found his women gone he again started for Naicobocobo, where, as he wore no disguise, he was instantly recognised, his canoe taken and dragged on shore by Rokoua’s men, while he himself and his faithful friend, who again accompanied him, were seized and made pig drivers. They were kept in this degrading position a long time until a great festival took place in Vanua Levu which Rokoua and his party attended. Arrived at the destination the Rewa god and his friends were left in charge of the two canoes that had carried the party thither, whilst all the others went on shore to enjoy themselves; but as both friends were liked by all the women they were kept amply supplied with food and other good things during the festival. Nevertheless Ravovonicakaugawa was very much cast down, and taking a kava root he offered it as a sacrifice, and despairingly exclaimed, ‘Have none of the mighty gods of Rewa pity on my misfortune?’ His friend’s body became instantly possessed[215] by a god, and began to tremble violently. ‘What do you want?’ asked the god within. ‘A gale to frighten my oppressors out of their wits.’ ‘It shall be granted,’ replied the god, and departed.
“The festival being over, Rokoua’s party embarked for Naicobocobo; but it had hardly set sail when a strong northerly gale sprung up, which nearly destroyed the canoes and terribly frightened those on board. Still they reached Naicobocobo, where the Rewa god prayed for an easterly wind to carry him home. All Rokoua’s men having landed and left the women behind to carry the goods and luggage on shore, the desired wind sprang up, and the two canoes, with sails set, started for Rewa, where they safely arrived, and the goats and other property were landed and distributed as presents among the people. But Rokoua was not to be beaten thus. Although his two canoes had been taken there was still the one taken from Ravovonicakaugawa on his second visit to Naicobocobo: that was launched without delay and the fugitives pursued. Arriving at Nukuilailai, Rokoua laid his spear on the deck of the canoe and walked on shore, as he had done on a previous occasion. Landed, he dropped his heavy club, thereby causing so loud a noise that it woke all the people in Viti Levu. This noise did not escape the quick ear of Naimilamila. ‘Be on your guard,’ she said to her new lord; ‘Rokoua is coming; I heard his club fall; he can assume any shape he pleases, be a dog, or a pig, or a woman; he can command even solid rocks to split open and admit him; so be on your guard.’ Rokoua, meanwhile, met a young girl from Nadoo on the road, carrying shrimps, landcrabs, and taro to the house of the god of Rewa, and without hesitation he assumed her shape, and she took his without being herself aware of it. Arriving with his basket at his destination, Naiogabui asked, ‘Who is there?’ To which Rokoua replied, ‘It is me; I am from Nadoo, bringing food for your husband.’ The supposed messenger was asked into the house, and sitting down he imprudently assumed a position not proper to Figian women; this and the shape of his limbs was noticed by Naiogabui, who whispered the discovery made into her husband’s ear. Ravovonicakaugawa stole out of the house, assembled his people, recalled to their minds the indignities heaped upon him by Rokoua, and having worked them up to a high pitch of excitement, he informed them that the offender was now in their power. All rushed to arms, and entering the house they demanded the young girl from Nadoo. ‘There she sits,’ replied Naiogabui, pointing to her father; and no sooner had the words been spoken than a heavy blow with a club felled Rokoua[216] to the ground. A general onset followed in which the head of the victim was beaten to atoms. This was the end of Rokoua.”
According to the evidence of Turner and other reliable Polynesian travellers, the entrance to the Hades of the Samoans was supposed to be a circular basin among the rocks at the west end of Savaii. Savaii is the most westerly island of the group. When a person was near death, it was thought that the house was surrounded by a host of spirits, all waiting to take the soul away to their subterranean home at the place referred to; if at night the people of the family were afraid to go out of doors, lest they should be snatched away by some of these invisible powers. As soon as the spirit left the body, it was supposed to go in company with this band of spirits direct to the west end of Savaii. If it was a person residing on one of the more easterly islands of the group—on Upolu, for example—they travelled on by land to the west end of the island, not to a Charon, but to a great stone called “the stone to leap from.” It was thought that the spirits here leaped into the sea, swam to the island of Monono, crossed the land to the west point of that island, again leaped from another stone there, swam to Savaii, crossed fifty miles of country there again, and, at length, reached the Hafa, or entrance to their imaginary world of spirits. There was a cocoa-nut tree near this spot, and it was supposed that if the spirit happened to come in contact with the tree it returned, and the person who seemed to be dead revived and recovered. If, however, the spirit did not strike against the tree, it went down the Hafa at once. At this place, on Savaii, there are two circular basins, not many feet deep, still pointed out as the place where the spirits went down. One, which is the larger of the two, was supposed to be for chiefs, the other for common people. These lower regions were reported to have a heaven, an earth, and a sea, and people with real bodies, planting, fishing, cooking, and otherwise employed, just as in the present life. At night their bodies were supposed to change their form, and become like a confused collection of sparks of fire. In this state, and during the hours of darkness, they were said to ascend and revisit their former places of abode, retiring at early dawn, either to the bush or back to the lower regions. It was supposed these spirits had power to return and cause disease and death in other members of the family. Hence all were anxious as a person drew near the close of life to part on good terms with him, feeling assured that, if he died with angry feelings towards any one, he would certainly return and bring some calamity upon[217] that very person, or some one closely allied to him. This was considered a frequent source of disease and death, viz., the spirit of a departed member of the family returning, and taking up his abode in the head, or chest, or stomach of the party, and so causing sickness and death. The spirits of the departed were also supposed to come and talk through a certain member of the family, prophesying various events, or giving directions as to certain family affairs. If a man died suddenly, it was thought that he was eaten by the spirits that took him. His soul was said to go to the common residence of the departed; only it was thought that such persons had not the power of speech, and could only, in reply to a question, beat their breasts. The chiefs were supposed to have a separate place allotted them, and to have plenty of the best food and other indulgences. Saveasuileo was the great king, or Pluto, of these subterranean regions, and to him all yielded the profoundest homage. He was supposed to have the head of a man, and the upper part of his body reclining in a great house in company with the spirits of departed chiefs. The extremity of his body was said to stretch away into the sea, in the shape of an eel or serpent. He ruled the destinies of war, and other affairs. His great house or temple was supported, not by pillars of wood or stone, but by columns of living men.
Samoan Idol Worship.
At his birth every Samoan was supposed to be taken under the care of some tutelary or protecting god, or aitu, as it was called. The help of perhaps half a dozen different gods was invoked in succession on the occasion; but the one who happened to be addressed just as the child was born, was marked, and declared to be the child’s god for life. The gods were supposed to appear in some visible incarnation, and the particular thing in which his god was in the habit of appearing was to the Samoan an object of veneration. It was in fact his idol, and he was careful never to injure it or treat it with contempt. One, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard, and so on throughout all the fish of the sea, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In some of the shell fish even gods were supposed to be present. A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he would consider it death to injure or to eat. The god was supposed to avenge the insult by taking up his abode in that person’s body, and causing to generate there the very thing which he had eaten, until it produced death. This class[218] of genii, or tutelary deities, they call aitu-fule, or god of the house. The father of the family was the high priest, and usually offered a short prayer at the evening meal, that they might all be kept from sickness, war, and death. Occasionally, too, he would direct that they have a family feast in honour of their household gods; and on these occasions a cup of their intoxicating ava-draught was poured out as a drink-offering. They did this in their family house, where they all assembled, supposing that their gods had a spiritual presence there, as well as in the material objects to which we have referred. Often it was supposed that the god came among them, and spoke through the father or some other member of the family, telling them what to do in order to remove a present evil, or avert a threatened one. Sometimes it would be that the family should[219] get a canoe built, and keep it sacred to the god. They might travel in it and use it themselves, but it was death to sell or part with a canoe which had been built specially for the god. Another class of Samoan deities may be called gods of the town or village. Every village had its god, and every one born in that village was regarded as the property of that god. “I have got a child for so and so,” a woman would say on the birth of her child, and name the village god. There was a small house or temple also consecrated to the deity of the place. Where there was no formal temple, the great house of the village where the chiefs were in the habit of assembling was the temple for the time being, as occasion required.
In their temples they had generally something for the eye to rest upon with superstitious veneration. In one might be seen a conch shell suspended from the roof in a basket made of sinnet network, and this the god was supposed to blow when he wished the people to rise to war. In another, two stones were kept. In another, something resembling the head of a man, with white streamers flying, was raised on a pole at the door of the temple, on the usual day of worship. In another, a cocoa-nut shell drinking cup was suspended from the roof, and before it prayers were addressed and offerings presented. This cup was also used in oaths. If they wished to find out a thief, the suspected parties were assembled before the chiefs, the cup sent for, and each would approach, lay his hand on it and say, “With my hand on this cup, may the god look upon me and send swift destruction if I took the thing which has been stolen.” They firmly believed that it would be death to touch the cup and tell a lie. The priests in some cases were the chiefs of the place; but in general some one in a particular family claimed the privilege, and professed to declare the will of the god. His office was hereditary. He fixed the days for the annual feasts in honour of the deity, received the offerings, and thanked the people for them. He decided also whether or not the people might go to war. The offerings were principally cooked food. The first cup was in honour of the god. It was either poured out on the ground or waved towards the heavens. The chiefs all drank a portion out of the same cup, according to rank; and after that, the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten, “there before the Lord.” This feast was annual, and frequently about the month of May. In some places it passed off quietly, in others it was associated with games, sham fights, night dances, etc., and lasted for days. In time of war special feasts were ordered by the priests. Of the offerings on war occasions,[220] women and children were forbidden to partake, as it was not their province to go to battle. They supposed it would bring sickness and death on the party eating who did not go to the war, and hence were careful to bury or throw into the sea whatever food was over after the festival. In some places the feasts, in honour of the god, were regulated by the appearance in the settlement of the bird which was thought to be the incarnation of the god. Whenever the bird was seen, the priest would say that the god had come, and fixed upon a day for this entertainment. The village gods, like those of the household, had all some particular incarnation; one was supposed to appear as a bat, another as a heron, another as an owl. If a man found a dead owl by the roadside, and if that happened to be the incarnation of his village god, he would sit down and weep over it, and beat his forehead with stones till the blood flowed. This was thought pleasing to the deity. Then the bird would be wrapped up, and buried with care and ceremony, as if it were a human body. This, however, was not the death of the god. He was supposed to be yet alive and incarnate in all the owls in existence. The flight of these birds was observed in the time of war. If the bird flew before them it was a signal to go on; but if it crossed the path, it was a bad omen, and a sign to retreat. Others saw their village god in the rainbow, others saw him in the shooting star; and in time of war the position of a rainbow and the direction of a shooting star were always ominous.
Throughout Polynesia the ordinary medium of communicating or extending supernatural powers was the red feather of a small bird found in many of the islands and the beautiful long tail-feathers of the tropic or man-of-war-bird. For these feathers the gods were supposed to have a strong predilection: they were the most valuable offerings that could be presented to them; the power or influence of the god was imparted, and through them transferred to the objects to which they might be attached. Among the numerous ceremonies observed, the palatua was one of the most conspicuous. On these occasions the gods were all brought out of the temple, the sacred coverings removed, scented oils were applied to the images, and they were exposed to the sun. At these seasons the parties who wished their emblems of deity to be impregnated with the essence of the gods, repaired to the ceremony with a number of red feathers which they delivered to the officiating priest.
Polynesian Idol.
The wooden idols being generally hollow, the feathers were deposited in the inside of the image, which was filled with them. Many idols,[221] however, were solid pieces of wood bound or covered with finely braided cinnet of the fibres of the cocoa-nut husk; to these the feathers were attached on the outside by small fibrous bands. In return for the feathers thus united to the god, the parties received two or three of the same kind, which had been deposited on a former festival in the inside of a wooden or inner fold of a cinnet idol. These feathers were thought to possess all the properties of the images to which they had been attached, and a supernatural influence was supposed to be infused into them. They were carefully wound round with very fine cinnet, the extremities alone remaining visible. When this was done, the new made gods were placed before the larger images, from which they had been taken, and, lest their detachment should induce the god to withhold his power, the priest addresses a prayer to the principal deities, requesting them to abide in the red feathers before them. At the close of his ubu, or invocation, he declared that they were dwelt in or inhabited (by the god), and delivered them to the parties who had brought the red feathers. The feathers taken home were deposited in small bamboo canes, excepting when addressed in prayer. If prosperity attended their owner, it was attributed to their influence, and they were usually honoured with an[222] image, into which they were enwrought, and subsequently perhaps an altar and a rude temple were erected for them. In the event, however, of their being attached to an image, this must be taken to the large temple, that the supreme idols might sanction the transfer of their influence.
Animals, fruits, etc., were not the only articles presented to the idols: the most affecting part of their sacrificing was the frequent immolation of human victims. These sacrifices, in the technical language of the priests, were called fish. They were offered in seasons of war, at great national festivals, during the illness of their rulers, and on the erection of their temples. Travellers have been informed by the inhabitants of the town of Maeva, that the foundation of some of the buildings for the abode of their gods was actually laid in human sacrifices, that every pillar supporting the roof of one of the sacred houses at Maeva was planted upon the body of a man who had been offered as a victim to the sanguinary deity about to be deposited there. The unhappy wretches selected, were either captives taken in war or individuals who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the chiefs or the priests. When they were wanted, a stone was, at the request of the priest, sent by the king to the chief of the district from which the victims were required. If the stone was received, it was an indication of an intention to comply with the requisition. It is a singular fact that the cruelty of the practice extended, not only to individuals, but to families and districts. When an individual has been taken as a sacrifice, the family to which he belonged was regarded as tabu, or devoted; and when another was required, it was more frequently taken from that family than any other; and a district from which sacrifices had been taken was in the same way considered as devoted, and hence, when it was known that any ceremonies were near on which human sacrifices were usually offered, the members of tabu families or others who had reason to fear they were selected, fled to the mountains and hid themselves in the dens and caverns till the ceremony was over.
In general the victim was unconscious of his doom until suddenly struck down by a blow from a club or a stone, sometimes from the hand of the very chief on whom he was depending as a guest for the rights of hospitality. He was usually murdered on the spot, his body placed in a long basket of cocoa-nut leaves, and carried to the temple. Here it was offered, not by consuming it with fire, but by placing it before the idol. The priest in dedicating it, took out one of the eyes, placed it on a plantain leaf, and[223] handed it to the king, who raised it to his mouth as if desirous to eat it, but passed it to one of the priests or attendants stationed near him for the purpose of receiving it. At intervals, during the prayers, some of the hair was plucked off and placed before the god, and when the ceremony was over, the body was wrapped in the basket of cocoa-nut leaves, and frequently deposited on the branches of an adjacent tree. After remaining a considerable time it was taken down, and the bones buried beneath the rude pavement of the marae or temple. These horrid rites were not unfrequent, and the number offered at their great festivals was truly appalling.
The most remarkable institution prevailing among the inhabitants of the islands of the southern seas is that known as tabu or tapu. Although it could only be imposed by a priest, and a religious motive was invariably assigned for its imposition, there can be little doubt that its chief use was civil; and though, as in all state engines, the component parts of which are multitudinous and of as diverse a character as selfish interest can make them, abuse and depravity will appear, still there can be no question that in its working the tabu is an institution not to be hastily thrown aside or abolished. To quote the words of Ellis, “the tabu forms an important and essential part of a cruel system of idolatry, and is one of the strongest means of its support.” This may be so far true, but at the same time, inasmuch as it affects the proper government, the tranquillity, the very daily bread of an idolatrous country, it is a thing to meet with tender consideration, unless, indeed, because a nation is idolatrous, it is to be straight stirred to rebellion, and driven to famine and death. It is fair to regard tabu, not as a purely religious institution, but as a political institution, propped and upheld by the most influential men in the country, the priests, who, in their turn, are backed by the kiaimoku (island keepers), a kind of police officers, who are appointed by the king, and empowered to carry out the commands of the priest, though the lives of offenders be blotted out at the same time. Thus blended, does “Church and State” form a quickset hedge, pleasant to the sight,—for the profusion of the “rewards” to come, promised by the holy men to the faithful, cover it as it were with green leaves, hidden among which are the thorns—the spears of the king’s servants, not insolently thrust out, but modestly retiring and challenging a brush with no man; altogether, however, it is a hedge that no savage may break, and which, for heaven knows how many hundreds of years, myriads of savages have been content to regard harmlessly, passing their lives in the shadow of it.
[224]
In most of the Polynesian dialects the usual meaning of the word tabu is sacred. “It does not, however,” says Ellis, “imply any moral quality, but expresses a connection with the gods or a separation from ordinary purposes and exclusive appropriation to persons or things considered sacred.” Those chiefs who trace their genealogy to the gods are called arii tabu chiefs, sacred from their supposed connection with the gods. It is a distinct word from rahui, to prohibit, and is opposed to the word, noa, which means general or common. Hence the system which prohibited the females from eating with the men, and from eating, except on special occasions, any part of animals ever offered in sacrifice to the gods, while it allowed the men to partake of them, was called the ai tabu, eating sacred.
This appears to be the legitimate meaning of the word tabu, though the natives when talking with foreigners use it more extensively, and apply it to everything prohibited or improper. This, however, is only to accommodate the latter, as they use kaukau (a word of Chinese origin) instead of the native word for eat, and picaninny for small, supposing they are better understood.
The antiquity of tabu was equal to the other branches of that superstition, of which it formed so component a part, and its application was both general and particular, occasional and permanent. Speaking of the custom as observed in Figi, Mr. Williams says, “It is the secret of power and the strength of despotic rule. It affects things both great and small. Here it is seen tending a brood of chickens, and there it directs the energies of a kingdom. Its influence is wondrously diffused. Coasts, lands, rivers, and seas; animals, fruits, fish, and vegetables; houses, beds, pots, cups, and dishes; canoes, and with all that belong to them, with their management, dress, ornaments, and arms; things to eat, and things to drink; the members of the body, manners and customs; language, names, temper, and even the gods also; all come under the influence of the tabu. It is put into operation by religious, political, or selfish motives, and idleness lounges for months beneath its sanction. Many are thus forbidden to raise their hands or extend their arms in any useful employment for a long time. In this district it is tabu to build canoes; on that island it is tabu to erect good houses. The custom is much in favour with chiefs, who adjust it so that it sits easily on themselves, while they use it to gain influence over those who are nearly their equals: by it they supply many of their wants, and command at will all who are beneath them. In imposing a tabu, a chief need only be checked by a care that he is countenanced[225] by ancient precedents. Persons of small importance borrow the shade of the system, and endeavour by its aid to place their yam beds and plantain plots within a sacred prohibition.”
Ellis continues in the same tone of banter. “The tabu seasons were either common or strict. During a common tabu the men were only required to abstain from their usual avocations and attend at the temple, when the prayers were offered every morning and evening; but during the season of strict tabu, every fire and light on the island must be extinguished, no canoe must be launched on the water, no person must bathe; and except those whose attendance was required at the temple, no individual must be seen out of doors; no dog must bark, no pig must grunt, no cock must crow, or the tabu would be broken and fail to accomplish the object designed. On these occasions they tied up the mouths of the dogs and pigs, and put the fowls under a calabash or fastened a piece of cloth over their eyes. All the common people prostrated themselves with their faces touching the ground before the sacred chiefs when they walked out, particularly during tabu; and neither the king nor the priests were allowed to touch anything; even their food was put into their mouths by another person. The tabu was imposed either by proclamation, when the crier or herald of the priests went round, generally in the evening, requiring every light to be extinguished, the path by the sea to be left for the king, the paths inland to be left for the gods, etc. The people, however, were generally prepared, having had previous warning, though this was not always the case. Sometimes it was laid on by fixing certain marks, called unu unu, the purport of which was well understood, on things tabued. When the fish of a certain part are tabued, a small pole is fixed in the rocks on the coast in the centre of the place, to which is tied a bunch of bamboo leaves on a piece of white cloth. A cocoa-nut leaf is tied to the stem of the tree when the fruit is tabued. The hogs which were tabued, having been devoted to the gods, had a piece of cinnet woven through a perforation in one of their ears. The females in particular must have felt the degrading and humiliating effects of the tabu in its full force. From its birth the child, if a female, was not allowed a particle of food that had been kept in the father’s dish or cooked at his fire; and the little boy, after being weaned, was fed with his father’s food, and as soon as he was able sat down to meals with his father, while his mother was not only obliged to take her meals in the outhouse, but was interdicted from tasting the kind of which he ate.”
[226]
At the time when Mariner was traversing Polynesia and became a guest of King Finow’s, he happened to witness the ceremony of removing a tapu, which for certain reasons had been laid on hogs. The places appropriated for this ceremony were two marleys and the grave of Tooitonga. For distinction’s sake, we shall call the first marley Tooitonga’s, and the second Finow’s. Tooitonga’s marley is near Finow’s residence, and on this were erected four columns of yams in the following manner:—Four poles about eighteen feet long were fixed upright in the ground, to the depth of a few feet, at about four feet distance from each other, in a quadrangular form, the spaces between them all the way to the top being crossed by smaller poles about six inches distant from each other, and lashed on by the bark of the fow (species of the Hibiscus), the interior of this erection being filled up as they went with yams; and afterwards other upright poles were lashed on to the top, with cross pieces in like manner, still piling up the yams; then a third set of poles, etc., till the column of yams was about fifty or sixty feet high, when on the top of all was placed a cold baked pig. Four such columns were erected, one at each corner of the marley, the day before the ceremony, and three or four hundred hogs were killed and about half baked. The following day the hogs were carried to the king’s marley, about a quarter of a mile off, and placed upon the ground before the house, as well as four or five wooden cars or sledges full of yams, each holding about five hundred. While this was doing, the people assembling from all quarters, those who were already arrived sat themselves down round the king’s marley. Occasionally some of them got up to amuse themselves, and the rest of the company, by wrestling with one another. The king and his chiefs, all dressed in plaited gnatoo, were already seated in the house, viewing what was going forward. The company being at length all arrived, and having seated themselves, the king gave notice that the ceremony was to begin. The young chiefs and warriors, and those who prided themselves in their strength, then got up singly and endeavoured in turns to carry off the largest hog. When one failed, another tried, then a third, and so on till every one that chose had made a trial of his strength. To carry one of the largest hogs is not a thing easy to be done, on account of its greasiness as well as its weight, but it affords a considerable share of diversion to see a man embracing a large fat, baked hog, and endeavouring to raise it on his shoulder. As the hog was found too heavy for one man’s strength, it was carried away by two, whilst a third followed with its liver. They were deposited on the ground[227] near Tooitonga’s marley, where the men waited till the other hogs were brought. In the mean time the trial was going on with the second hog, which being found also too heavy for one man, was carried away by two in like manner, and so on with the third, fourth, etc., the largest being carried away first and the least last. The second, third, fourth, etc., afforded more sport than the first, as being a nearer counterbalance with a man’s strength. Sometimes he had got it nearly upon his shoulder, when his greasy burden slipped through his arms, and his endeavour to save it brought him down after it. It is an honour to attempt these things, and even the king sometimes put his hand to it. The small hogs and pigs afforded no diversion, as they were easily lifted and carried away, each by one man, and deposited, not at the outside of Tooitonga’s marley along with the largest hogs, but carried at once into it, where the cars of yams were also dragged, one at a time. When everything was thus cleared from the king’s marley, the company got up and proceeded to the other marley, where they again seated themselves, whilst Tooitonga presided, and the king and his chiefs, out of respect, sat on the outside of the ring among the great body of the people. The large hogs which had been deposited in the neighbourhood of the marley were now to be brought in each by one man, and as it had been found that one man’s strength was not sufficient to raise any of them upon his shoulders, two others were allowed to lift the hog and place it upon his shoulders for him, and then he tottered in with his load, followed by another man with the liver; and in this manner all the hogs and their livers were carried in and deposited in two or three rows before Tooitonga. Their number was then counted by the head cooks of Tooitonga and Finow, and announced aloud to Tooitonga by his own head cook; the number of cars and piles of yams was also announced at the same time.
This being done, about twenty of the largest hogs were carried to Tooitonga’s burying-place, nearly a hundred yards distant; those which were too heavy for one man to lift being put upon his shoulders by two others, etc., as before, and deposited near the grave; one car of yams was also taken and left in like manner. This portion of pork and yam being disposed of, the remainder was shared in the following manner: one column of yams was allotted to the king, to be removed in the afternoon, and to be disposed of as he pleased (he always shares it among his chiefs and fighting men); another column was allotted to Veachi and two or three other chiefs; the third was given to the gods (the priests always take[228] care of this portion); and the fourth Tooitonga claimed for his own share. As to the cars of yams, they were never inquired after. Tooitonga generally takes care of them, and appropriates them to his own use and that of his numerous household, not that he has any legal right to them beyond custom and silent consent. The hogs were disposed of in like manner; the greatest quantity to the greatest chiefs, who share them out to the chiefs immediately below them in rank, and these again to their dependants, till every man in the island gets at least a mouthful of pork and yam. The ceremony now concluded with dancing, wrestling, etc.; after which every person present having secured his portion retired to his home to share it with his family. From this moment the tabu, or prohibition upon hogs, fowls, and cocoa-nuts, was null and void.
In New Zealand, although the principle of the institution of tapu is much the same as in other islands of the Polynesian group, its application differs in so many and such essential particulars as to make it worth while to devote a few pages, chiefly supplied from Taylor, Thompson, and other New Zealand missionaries and travellers of distinction.
During the time of tapu a man could not be touched by any one, or even put his own hand to his head himself; but he was either fed by another who was appointed for the purpose, or took up his food with his mouth from a small stage, with his hands behind him, or by a fern stalk, and thus conveyed it to his mouth. In drinking, the water was poured in a very expert manner from a calabash into his mouth, or on his hands when he needed it for washing, so that he should not touch the vessel, which otherwise could not have been used again for ordinary purposes. Places were tapued for certain periods—rivers until the fishing was ended, cultivation until the planting or reaping was completed, districts until either the hunting of the rat or catching of birds was done, woods until the fruit of the kie-kie was gathered.
A person became tapu by touching a dead body or by being very ill; in this respect it appears to bear a very close resemblance to the Mosaic law relating to uncleanness.
The garments of an ariki, or high chief, were tapu, as well as everything relating to him; they could not be worn by any one else lest they should kill him. “An old chief in my company,” says Mr. Williams, “threw away a very good mat because it was too heavy to carry; he cast it down a precipice. When I inquired why he did not leave it suspended on a tree, that any future traveller wanting a garment might take it, he gravely told me that[229] it was the fear of its being worn by another which had caused him to throw it where he did, for if it were worn by another his tapu would kill the person. In the same way the tinder-box of a great chief killed several persons who were so unfortunate as to find it, and light their pipes from it without knowing it belonged to so sacred an owner; they actually died from fright. If the blood of a high chief flows (though it be a single drop) on anything, it renders that tapu. A party of natives came to see Te Hewhew, the great chief of Taupo, in a fine large new canoe. Te Hewhew got into it to go a short distance; in doing so he struck a splinter into his foot, the blood flowed from the wound into the canoe, which at once tapued it to him. The owner immediately jumped out and dragged it on shore opposite the chief’s house, and there left it. A gentleman entering my house, struck his head against the beam and made the blood flow; the natives present said that in former times the house would have belonged to that individual. To draw blood, even from a scratch, was a very serious matter, and often was attended with fatal consequence.”
A chief’s house was tapu; no person could eat therein, or even light his pipe from the fire, and until a certain service had been gone through, even a woman could not enter. The chief being sacred had his food to himself, generally in his verandah, or apart from the rest. No chief could carry food, lest it should occasion his death by destroying his tapu, or lest a slave should eat of it, and so cause him to die. A chief would not pass under a stage or wata (a food store). The head of the chief was the most sacred part; if he only touched it with his fingers, he was obliged immediately to apply them to his nose, and snuff up the sanctity which they had acquired by the touch, and thus restore it to the part from whence it was taken. For the same reason a chief could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred communicated his sanctity with the fire, and a brand might be taken from it by a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used for other purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death. The chief power, however, of this institution was principally seen in its effects on the multitude.
In former times, life in a great measure depended upon the produce of their cultivations; therefore it was of the utmost importance that their kumara and taro should be planted at the proper season, and that every other occupation should be laid aside until that necessary work was accomplished. All, therefore, who were thus employed were made tapu, so that they could not leave the place, or undertake any other work, until that[230] was finished. So also in fishing and hunting; and this applied not only to those thus employed, but to others. The kumara grounds were tapu; no strange natives could approach them. Even the people of the place, if not engaged in the work, were obliged to stand at a distance from the ground thus rendered sacred by solemn karikia. Doubtless this was a wise precaution to avoid interruptions, and to keep them from stealing. No one but the priest could pass in front of the party engaged in gathering in the kumara; those who presumed to do so would be either killed or stripped for their temerity. The woods in which they hunted the rat were tapu until the sport was over, and so were the rivers; no canoe could pass by till the rabue (generally a pole with an old garment tied to it) was taken down. In the early days of the mission, this was a great annoyance; the members of the mission were often unable to communicate with each other until the dreaded pole was removed; but at last they determined to observe the tapu no longer: the boat was manned, and they rowed along in defiance of the sacred prohibition. They had not gone far, however, before they were pursued, the boat was taken ashore, and all the articles in it were seized, amongst which were some bottles of medicine and pots of preserves. These were immediately eaten, and great wrath and indignation expressed; but by preserving a firm deportment, the natives were conquered; the medicine perhaps had its share in obtaining the victory, as they found they could not meddle with the Europeans with impunity. They held a meeting, and it was then resolved that, for the future, as Europeans were a foreign race and subject to a different religion, the tapu should not apply to them; and afterwards, as their converts increased, the permission was enlarged to take them in as well.
Those who were tapued for any work could not mix again in society until it was taken off, or they were waka noa, that is, made common or deprived of the sanctity with which they had been invested. This was done by the priest, who repeated a long karakia and performed certain rites over them.
If any one wished to preserve his crop, his house, his garments, or anything else, he made it tapu: a tree which had been selected in the forest for a canoe, a patch of flax or raupo in a swamp which an individual might wish to appropriate to himself, and which he could not then do, he rendered tapu by tying a band round the former, with a little grass in it, or by sticking up a pole in the swamp with a similar bunch attached. If a person had been taken prisoner in war, and a feeling of pity arose in[231] the breast of one of his captors, though it may have been the general determination to put him to death, the desire of the merciful individual would prevail, by throwing his garment over him; he who then touched the prisoner with a hostile intention, touched also his preserver. An instance of this kind occurred during the late war at Wanganui. One of the inhabitants was captured by the hostile natives; he was on the point of being put to death, when an old chief rushed forward and threw his blanket over him. The man was spared, and afterwards was treated with great kindness, as though he were one of the tribe.
Formerly every woman was noa, or common, and could select as many companions as she liked, without being thought guilty of any impropriety, until given away by her friends to some one as her future master; she then became tapu to him, and was liable to be put to death if found unfaithful. The power of the tapu, however, mainly depended on the influence of the individual who imposed it. If it were put on by a great chief, it would not be broken; but a powerful man often broke through the tapu of an inferior. A chief would frequently lay it on a road or river, so that no one could go by either, unless he felt himself strong enough to set the other at defiance.
The duration of the tapu was arbitrary, and depended on the will of the person who imposed it, also the extent to which it applied. Sometimes it was limited to a particular object, at other times it embraced many; some persons and places were always tapu, as an ariki or tohunga and their houses, so much so that even their very owners could not eat in them, therefore all their meals were taken in the open air. The males could not eat with their wives, nor their wives with the male children, lest their tapu or sanctity should kill them. If a chief took a fancy for anything belonging to another who was inferior, he made it tapu for himself by calling it his backbone, and thus put as it were his broad arrow upon it. A chief anxious to obtain a fine large canoe belonging to an inferior who had offended him, merely called it by his own name, and then his people went and took it.
If a chief wished to hinder any one from going to a particular place or by a particular road, he made it tapu. During the disturbances between the Government and the natives, they tapued the sea coast, and would not permit any Europeans to travel that way, and so compelled some of the highest functionaries to retrace their steps.
Some years ago a German missionary located himself at Motu Karamu,[232] a pa up the Mokan: the greater part of the natives there, with their head chief, Te Kuri, were members of the Church of Rome, but his head wife, however, became his warm patron. When the priest arrived there on his way down the river, he scolded Te Kuri for suffering an heretical missionary to become located in his district, and applied many opprobrious epithets to the intruder. This very much incensed the chief’s lady. She said her teacher should not be abused, and therefore, next morning, when his reverence was preparing to continue his journey, she made the river tapu, and to his annoyance there was not a canoe to be found which dare break it. After storming for some time, he was obliged to return by the way he came, the lady saying it would teach him to use better language another time, and not insult her minister.
To render a place tapu, a chief tied one of his old garments to a pole, and stuck it up on the spot he intended to be sacred. This he either called by his own name, saying it was some part of his body, as Te Hewhew made the mountain Tongariro sacred by speaking of it as his backbone, or he gave it the name of one of his tupuna, or ancestors; then all descended from that individual were bound to see the tapu maintained, and the further back the ancestors went the greater number of persons were interested in keeping up the tapu, as the credit and influence of the family was at stake, and all were bound to avenge any wanton infringement of it.
Another kind of tapu was that which was acquired by accidental circumstances, thus: An iron pot which was used for cooking purposes was lent to a Pakeka; he very innocently placed it under the eaves of his house to catch water in; the rain coming from a sacred dwelling rendered the utensil so likewise. It was afterwards removed by a person to cook with, without her knowing what had been done. When she was told it was sacred, as it had caught the water from the roof, she exclaimed, “We shall die before night.” They went, however, to the tohunga, who made it noa again by uttering the tupeke over it.
Sickness also made the persons tapu. All diseases were supposed to be occasioned by atuas, or spirits, ngarara or lizards entering into the body of the afflicted; these therefore rendered the person sacred. The sick were removed from their own houses, and had sheds built for them in the bush at a considerable distance from the pa, where they lived apart. If any remained in their houses and died there, the dwelling became tapu, was painted over with red ochre, and could not again be used, which[233] often put a tribe to great inconvenience, as some houses were the abode of perhaps thirty or forty different people.
The wife of a chief falling ill, the missionaries took her into their hospital, where she laid for several days. At last her husband came and carried her away, saying, he was afraid of her dying there, lest the house should be made tapu, and thus hinder the missionaries from using it again.
During the war, Maketu, a principal chief of the hostile natives, was shot in the house belonging to a settler, which he was then plundering; from that time it became tapu, and no heathen would enter it for years.
The resting-places of great chiefs on a journey became tapu; if they were in the forest, the spots were cleared and surrounded with a fence of basket work, and names were given to them. This custom particularly applied to remarkable rocks or trees, to which karakia was made, and a little bundle of rushes was thrown as an offering to the spirit who was supposed to reside there, and the sacred object was smeared over with red ochre. A similar custom prevailed when corpses were carried to their final places of interment. The friends of the dead either carved an image, which they frequently clothed with their best garments, or tied some of the clothes of the dead to a neighbouring tree or to a pole; or else they painted some adjacent rock or stone with red ochre, to which they gave the name of the dead, and whenever they passed by addressed it as though their friend were alive and present, using the most endearing expressions, and casting some fresh garments on the figure as a token of their love. These were a kind of memorial similar to the painted windows in churches.
An inferior kind of tapu exists, which any one may use. A person who finds a piece of drift timber secures it for himself by tying something round it or giving it a chop with his axe. In a similar way he can appropriate to his own use whatever is naturally common to all. A person may thus stop up a road through his ground, and often leaves his property in exposed places with merely this simple sign to show it is private and generally it is allowed to remain untouched, however many may pass that way; so with a simple bit of flax, the door of a man’s house, containing all his valuables, is left, or his food store; they are thus rendered inviolable, and no one will meddle with them. The owner of a wood abounding with kie-kie, a much prized fruit, is accustomed to set up a pole to preserve it until the fruit be fully ripe; when it is thought to be sufficiently so, he sends a young man to see if the report be favourable.[234] The rahue is then pulled down; this removes the tapu, and the entire population go to trample the wood. All have liberty to gather the fruit, but it is customary to present some of the finest to the chief owner.
“When,” says a missionary, “Te Hewhew and nearly sixty of his tribe were overwhelmed by a landslip, in the village of Te Rapa, where they resided, the spot was for a long time kept strictly tapu, and no one was allowed to set foot on it. I was determined to make the effort, and as several who were Christians had lost their lives in the general destruction, I told the natives I should go and read the burial service over them. Viewing me as a tohunga (or priest), they did not dare to offer any opposition. I went on the sacred spot, under which the entire population of a village lay entombed, and there I read the burial service, the neighbouring natives standing on the verge of the ruins and on the surrounding heights.”
It is evident therefore that the tapu arises from the will of the chief; that by it he laid a ban upon whatever he felt disposed. It was a great power which could at all times be exercised for his own advantage, and the maintenance of his power, frequently making some trifling circumstance the reason for putting the whole community to great inconvenience, rendering a road to the pa, perhaps the most direct and frequented, or a grove, or a fountain, or anything else tapu by his arbitrary will. Without the tapu he was only a common man, and this is what long deterred many high chiefs from embracing Christianity, lest they should lose this main support of their power. Few but ariki, or great tohungas, claimed the power of the tapu; inferior ones indeed occasionally used it, but the observance of it was chiefly confined to his own retainers, and was often violated with impunity, or by giving a small payment. But he who presumed to violate the tapu of an ariki, did it at the risk of his life and property.
The tapu in many instances was beneficial, considering the state of society, the absence of law, and the fierce character of the people; it formed no bad substitute for a dictatorial form of government, and made the nearest approach to an organised state of society, or rather it may be regarded as the last remaining trace of a more civilised polity possessed by their remote ancestors. In it we discern somewhat of the ancient dignity and power of the high chief, or ariki, and a remnant of the sovereign authority they once possessed, with the remarkable union of the kingly and sacerdotal character in their persons. It rendered them a distinct[235] race, more nearly allied to gods than men, their persons, garments, houses, and everything belonging to them being so sacred, that to touch or meddle with them was alone sufficient to occasion death.
Their gods being no more than deceased chiefs, they were regarded as living ones, and thus were not to be killed by inferior men, but only by those who had more powerful atuas in them. The victorious chief who had slain numbers, and had swallowed their eyes and drank their blood, was supposed, to have added the spirits of his victims to his own, and thus increased the power of his spirit. To keep up this idea and hinder the lower orders from trying whether it were possible to kill such corporeal and living gods, was the grand work of the tapu, and it did succeed in doing so. During bygone ages it has had a wide-spread sway, and exercised a fearful power over benighted races of men; until the “stone cut without hands” smote this mighty image of cruelty on its feet, caused it to fall, and, like the chaff of the summer’s thrashing floor, the wind of God’s word has swept it away.
Among the Samoans tangible shapes are given to the mysterious things. There is the snake-tapu, the shark-tapu, the thunder-tapu, and very many others. If I am a Samoan, therefore, and have yams, or chickens, or plantains to preserve, I make a tapu according to my fancy—if thunder, I make a small mat and tack to it streamers of coloured cloth; if a shark, I plait cocoa-leaves to as close a resemblance to the terrible fish as my ingenuity is capable—and hang it to a tree where my chickens roost, or where my plantains grow. Nobody misunderstands my meaning. There is my shark-tapu, and sure as ever you pilfer the goods that lie in the shadow of it, the very next time you go out to fish a shark will devour you. There is my thunder-tapu; despise its protective influence, and before you reach home with your plunder the lightning will overtake you and strike you dead. No one can remove a tapu but he who imposes it.
To this extent there can be no doubt that the tapu is a wholesome institution—indeed, only such a one could at all control the savage or bring him to distinguish between “mine and thine.” This, however, is but the simplest form of tapu. It is where at the caprice of a brutal chief or king, or an ignorant and malicious priest, the tapu is applied to individuals or communities, that its pernicious influence is at once evident. During the time that an individual is tapu, he is not allowed to touch anything, or even himself, but is fed by another, or takes food from off a stage with his mouth. When he drinks, the vessel is placed at his lips[236] and tilted as he gulps; and if the tapu is lasting and the banned wretch grows dirty, nobody must wash him, and he must not wash himself—water is dashed over him, and where the water falls the ground is tapu, and no one dare tread on it. Whatever he touches, whatever he wears is immediately destroyed, for fear that by merely handling it death in some horrible shape should be the result.
The institution, although still acknowledged among the Polynesians, is not carried the length it was in former times. A century ago certain men were supposed to be born tapu, and so to remain through their entire lives. Such individuals must have had a wearisome time of it. No one dare sit in their company, or eat with them, or talk with them. When such a one walked abroad, people slunk tremblingly to the wall, or took to their heels and run, for fear the merest hem of their garments might come in contact with the dress of the sacred one, and the awful strength of the tapu might kill them. The vessels in which the born tapu’s food was cooked and served, were never used but once. A man who lit his pipe at such a tapu’s fire would be regarded as one certainly doomed to death, or, if he did not die, as one possessed of a devil, and only fit to be clubbed or strangled; nay, if a born tapu but blew into a fire, it was straightway a tapu fire, and any one but the tapu himself partaking of food cooked thereat would surely die.
In common with all other savage countries, New Zealand recognises witchcraft as indispensable, and places the most perfect reliance on witch trials and verdicts.
A gentleman who resided several years amongst the natives, had once an opportunity of seeing this pretended power exercised. He was in company with two young natives, one an heathen chief of some rank, who expressed his firm belief, not only in the existence of their gods, but likewise in their willingness to appear to their own relatives when asked to do so. He was told by the European that he could not believe such to be possible; but if he actually saw one of their gods, then he should cease to doubt their existence. The young chief immediately offered to give the proof demanded; he invited the unbelieving European to accompany him to an old lady who formerly had exercised this power. It was in the evening when the conversation took place: they went directly to her abode. She was then living in a little cultivation at some distance from the village. They found her sitting in a long shed by the side of the fire.
After some general conversation, the young chief made her acquainted[237] with the object of their visit, telling her that their companion, the European, did not believe in the existence of native gods, or that they could hold intercourse with men, and therefore he wished her to show him that such was really the case, by giving him an actual proof. For some time she hesitated, stating that she had given up such things and had become a praying woman; at last, however, after much entreaty, she consented, and bid one of the party take away some of the brands from the fire and throw them outside, as “the gods did not like too much light.” This was accordingly done. The old woman sat crouched down by the fire with her head concealed in her blanket, swaying her body to and fro. The young chief laid himself full length on the ground with his face downwards; he began by calling on the different gods by name who were considered to be his relatives, addressing them as though present; his being the eldest son of the eldest branch of his family was supposed to confer this privilege upon him. At first they appeared to pay no attention to their relative; he thereupon spoke to them in a louder tone, but still without success; at last he called to them in an angry tone, telling them if they did not speak, the European would go away and disbelieve in their existence. The old woman sat still and appeared to take no notice of anything. The European kept his eye steadily fixed upon her and went and sat by her side; suddenly he heard a scratching as of a rat running up the wall and along the roof of the house, until the sound seemed to come from the spot exactly over their heads; he thought it was done by some accomplice outside, but he was not aware of any one being there besides the party in the house; he detected no movement of the old woman beyond that of rocking her body to and fro. Then he heard a low whistle, and could distinguish the enquiry, “what did they want with him?” The Maori gods always speak in a whistling tone. The young chief replied, that they wanted him to come and show himself to the European. He said he should kill him if he came. The chief insisted that he should render himself visible; the god held back, but the chief would not allow his divine relative to escape; at last he consented to assume the form of a spider, and alight on his head. The European said if he descended straight on his head he would believe he was actually present; but if he only saw a spider on his side or legs he should not be satisfied. The old woman then got up and went to the other side of the hut, and fumbled about in the thatch of the house as though she was searching for a spider to act the god; but her search was vain, she only[238] found a little beetle which consumes the raupo. She then came and sat by his side; but he narrowly watched her. The chief reproached the god for not descending at once upon his head. The god replied, it was from an unwillingness to injure the European. He demanded a blanket for having spoken to him, and said he had seen him before in the Bay of Islands; which was false, as he had never been there; but he at once assented to see whether the god might not tell some further lies, when he found that the first was agreed to. The make-believe god then imitated the Naga-puhi dialect and said he had seen such and such chiefs with him and several other things equally untrue, again repeating his request for a present; but though urged to render himself visible, he obstinately refused, to the great mortification of the chief, who still believed he actually heard a god speak, when the interview terminated.
The religion of the savage Land Dayaks of Borneo, says Mr. St. John, consists solely of a number of superstitious observances; they are given up to the fear of ghosts, and in the propitiation of these by small offerings and certain ceremonies, consist the principal part of their worship. Nevertheless, they seem to have a firm, though not particularly clear, belief in the existence of one Supreme Being above all and over all. This supreme being is among the Land Dayaks, called “Tapa;” among the Silakan and Saras, “Tewata;” and among the Sibuyans, “Batara.”
In common with many other barbarous tribes, their religious system relates principally to this life. They are like the rest of mankind, continually liable to physical evils, poverty, misfortune, and sickness, and these they try to avert from themselves by the practice of ancient customs which are supposed to be effectual for the purpose. This system may be classed as follows:—
The killing of pigs and fowls, the flesh of which is eaten, small portions being set aside with rice for the spiritual powers; and from the blood being mixed with spittle, turmeric, and cocoa-nut water, a filthy mess is concocted and called physic, with which the people attending the feast are anointed on the head and face. Dancing by the elders and the priestesses round a kind of bamboo altar, erected on these occasions either in the long room or on the exterior platform of one of the houses round which the offerings are placed, always accompanied by the beating of all the gongs and drums of the tribe by the young lads, and singing, or rather chanting, by the priestesses. The “Parneli” or tabu of an apartment, house, or village for one, two, four, eight, and even sixteen days,[239] during which, in the case of a village, no stranger can enter it; in the case of a house, no one beside the family residing therein; and in the case of an apartment, no one out of the family.
The Dayaks acknowledge four chief spirits: “Tapa,” who created men and women, and preserves them in life; “Tenahi,” who made the earth and, except the human race, all things therein, and still causes it to flourish; “Iang,” or “Iing,” who first instructed the Dayaks in the mysteries of their religion, and who superintends its performance; “Jirong,” who looks after the propagation of the human species, and causes them to die of sickness or accident. They believe that when Tapa first made the world, he created Iang, then the spirits “Triee” and “Komang,” and then man. That man and the spirits were at first equal and fought on fair terms, but that on one woeful occasion the spirits got the better of man, and rubbed charcoal in his eyes, which rendered him unable any longer to see his spirit foes, except in the case of some gifted persons, as the priests, and so placed him at their mercy.
With respect to a future state, the common Dayak belief is, that when a man dies, he becomes a spirit and lives in the jungle, or (this Mr. Chalmers heard from one of the body-burning tribes) that as the smoke of the funeral pyre of a good man rises, the soul ascends with it to the sky, and that the smoke from the pyre of a wicked man descends, and his soul with it is borne to the earth, and through it to the regions below. Another version is, that when a man dies a natural death, his soul, on leaving the body, becomes a spirit, and haunts the place of burial or burning. When a spirit dies—for spirits too, it would seem, are subject unto death—it enters the hole of Hades, and coming out thence again becomes a “Bejawi.” In course of time the Bejawi dies, and lives once more as a “Begutur;” but when a Begutur dies, the spiritual essence of which it consists enters the trunks of trees, and may be seen there damp and blood-like in appearance, and has a personal and sentient existence no longer.
The Land Dayaks point to the highest mountains in sight as the abode of their departed friends. The spirits they divide into two classes—“Umot,” spirits by nature, and “Mino,” ghosts of departed men. The former are said to live amid the forests that cap the hills. They delight in war and bloodshed, and always come down to be present at the Dayak “head-feast.” They are described as of a fierce and wild appearance, and covered with hair like an ourang-outang. The Umot spirits are divided into classes. There is the “Umot Sisi,” a harmless[240] kind of spirit which follows the Dayak to look for the fragments of food which have fallen through the open flooring of their houses, and who is heard at night munching away below; “Umot Perubak,” who causes scarcity among the Dayaks by coming invisibly and eating the rice from the pot at meal time; and “Umot Perusong,” who comes slily and devours the rice which is stored within a receptacle made of the bark of some gigantic tree, and is in the form of a vat. It is kept in the garrets of the houses, and a large one will contain a hundred and fifty bushels, and the family live in constant fear that these voracious spirits will visit their store and entirely consume it.
Spectre of Headless Dog and Dayak.
“Mino Buau” are the ghosts of those who have been killed in war. These are very vicious and inimical to the living; they live in the jungle, and have the power of assuming the form of headless beasts and men. A[241] Quop Dayak once met with one. He was walking through the jungle and saw what he thought was a squirrel sitting on the large roots of a tree which overhung a small stream. He had a spear in his hand. This he threw at the squirrel, and thought he had struck it: he ran towards the spot where it had apparently fallen, when, to his horror, it faced him, rose up, and was transformed into a dog. The dog walked on a few paces, and then turning into a human shape, sat down on the trunk of a tree—head there was none. The spectre body was parti-coloured, and at the top drawn up to a point. The Dayak was smitten with great fear and away he rushed home and fell into a violent fever; the priest was called, and he pronounced that the patient’s soul had been summoned away from its corporeal abiding-place by the spirit, so he went to seek it, armed with his magic charms. Midway between the village and the place where the Buau had appeared, the fugitive soul was overtaken, and induced to pause, and, having been captured by the priest, was brought back to its body and poked into its place through an invisible hole in the head. The next day the fever was gone.
To propitiate the superior spirits the Dayaks shut themselves in their houses a certain number of days, and by that, among other means, hope to avert sickness, to cure a favorite child, or to restore their own health. They also have recourse to it when the cry of the gazelle is heard behind them, or when their omen-birds utter unfavorable warnings. They likewise place themselves under this interdict at the planting of rice, at harvest-home, and upon many other occasions. During this time they appear to remain in their houses in order to eat, drink, and sleep; but their eating must be moderate, and often consists of nothing but rice and salt. These interdicts are of different durations and importance. Sometimes, as at the harvest-home, the whole tribe is compelled to observe it, and then no one must leave the village; at other times it only extends to a family or a single individual. It is also considered important that no stranger should break the tabu by entering the village, the house, or apartment placed under interdict. If any one should do so intentionally, he is liable to a fine. People under interdict may not bathe, touch fire, or employ themselves about their ordinary avocations. The religion of the Dayak prohibits the eating of the flesh of horned animals, as cattle and goats, and many tribes extend the prohibition to wild deer. In some tribes none but the elders and the women and children may partake of eggs; in others, they, and no one else, may dine off venison: the young[242] men and the warriors abstaining from it lest it should render them timid as the animal that supplies the last-mentioned meat. It is also strictly commanded to all those intending to engage in a pig hunt to abstain from meddling with oil; but whether for any more important reason than that the game may not slip through their fingers is not exactly known.
A singular custom of a religious character prevails among certain Dayak tribes, and which is known as making brothers. The offer to become the “brother” of one of these savages was made, and what is more accepted, to the gentleman who furnishes the foregoing account of the Dayak religion, as well as the following:
“Singauding sent on board to request me to become his brother by going through the sacred custom of imbibing each other’s blood. I say imbibing, because it is either mixed with water and drunk, or else it is placed within a native cigar and drawn in with the smoke. I agreed to do so, and the following day was fixed for the ceremony. It is called Berbiang by the Kayans; Bersabibah by the Borneans. I landed with our party of Malays, and after a preliminary talk to give time for the population to assemble, the affair commenced. We sat in the broad verandah of a long house, surrounded by hundreds of men, women, and children, all looking eagerly at the white stranger who was about to enter their tribe. Stripping my left arm, Kum Lia took a small piece of wood, shaped like a knife-blade, and slightly piercing the skin brought blood to the surface; this he carefully scraped off; then one of my Malays drew blood in the same way from Singauding; and a small cigarette being produced, the blood on the wooden blades was spread on the tobacco. A chief then arose, and walking to an open place, looked forth upon the river and invoked their god and all the spirits of good and evil to be witness of this tie of brotherhood. The cigarette was then lighted and each of us took several puffs, and the ceremony was concluded. I was glad to find that they had chosen the form of inhaling the blood in smoke, as to have swallowed even a drop would have been unpleasant, though the disgust would only arise from the imagination. They sometimes vary the custom, though the variation may be confined to the Kiniahs who live farther up the river, and are intermarried with the Kayans. There a pig is brought and placed between the two who are to be joined in brotherhood. A chief offers an invocation to the gods, and marks with a lighted brand the pig’s shoulder. The beast is then killed, and after an exchange of[243] jackets, a sword is thrust into the wound and the two are marked with the blood of the pig.”
Making Brothers.
This curious ceremony of “making brothers” is not confined to Borneo; it is practised in Western and Eastern Africa. In the latter region the ceremony is invested with much importance, especially when the individuals concerned are two chiefs who have long been at variance. Squatting before each other in the presence of the chiefs and elders with their implements of war on their laps, and having each in his hands a sharp knife and a small cup, the would-be brothers make a slight gash in each other’s breast and, catching the blood in the cup, drink it to their eternal friendship, the oldest man of the tribe standing over them to witness the reconciliation and waving his sword over them.
The Sea Dayaks, whose customs differ widely in many respects from[244] those of the Land Dayaks, have a clear idea of one omnipotent being who created and now rules over the world. They call him Batara. Beneath him are many good and innumerable bad spirits, and the fear of the latter causes them to make greater and more frequent offerings to them than to the good spirits. The awe with which many of them are named has induced a few, among others Mr. Chambers, to imagine that their religion is a species of polytheism. But this, according to Mr. St. John’s way of thinking, is a mistake; and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gomez, who have much knowledge of the Sea Dayaks, agree with the gentleman formerly mentioned.
The Sea Dayaks pay homage to evil spirits of various kinds, who reside in the jungles, in the mountains, and in the earth; all sicknesses, misfortunes, or death, proceed from them; while to Batara is attributed every blessing. When they make offerings, however, both are propitiated and, as usual, the wicked ones have the larger share. The priests offer a long prayer and supplicate them to depart from the afflicted house or from the sick man. Of the seven platesful of food, four are given to the evil spirits and cast forth or exposed in the forest, while the others are offered to the good spirits, who are implored to protect and bless them. The food offered to the latter is not considered to be interdicted, but may be, and always is eaten.
The Lingga Dayaks, besides Batara, have various good spirits—as Stampandei, who superintends the propagation of mankind; Pulang Ganah, who inhabits the earth and gives fertility to it, and to him are addressed the offerings at the feasts given whilst preparing the rice for cultivation: Singallong Burong, the god of war, excites their utmost reverence, and to him are offered the Head feasts. On these occasions he comes down and hovers in the form of a kite over the house, and guns are fired and gongs beaten in his honour. His brave followers married to his daughters appear in the form of his omen birds. No wonder he is honoured; he gives success in war and delights in their acquisitions of the heads of their enemies. Nattiang inhabits the summits of the hills and is one of their demigods. The Linggas tell many stories of his exploits. The most famous was his expedition to the skies to recover his wife who had been caught in a noose and hoisted up there by an old enemy of his. To dream of him is to receive the gift of bravery.
When the small-pox was committing dreadful havoc among the Sakarangs the villagers would not allow themselves to be innoculated; they ran into the jungle in every direction, caring for no one but themselves,[245] leaving their houses empty and dwelling far away in the most silent spots in parties of two and three and sheltered only by a few leaves. When these calamities come upon them they utterly lose all command over themselves and become as timid as children. When the fugitives become short of provisions a few of the old men who have already had the complaint creep back to the houses at night and take a supply of rice. In the daytime they do not dare to stir or speak above a whisper for fear the spirits should see or hear them. They do not call the small-pox by its name, but are in the habit of saying, “Has he left you?” at other times they call it jungle-leaves or fruit; at other places the Datu or chief.
Their priests frequently use the names of invisible spirits, and are supposed to be able to interpret their language as well as to hold communion with them; and in ordinary times they pretend to work the cure of the sick by means of incantations, and after blinding the patient’s eyes pretend, by the aid of the spirits, to draw the bones of fish or fowl out of their flesh. When the Dayaks are questioned as to their belief in these easily-exposed deceits, they say, No; but the custom has descended to them from their ancestors, and they still pay their priests heavy sums to perform the ancient rites.
They believe in a future state—considering that the Simaūgat or spiritual part of man lives for ever; that they awake shortly after death in the Sabayan or future abode, and that there they find those of their relatives and friends who have departed before them. Some tribes divide their Sabayan into seven distinct stories which are occupied by the souls of the departed according to their rank and position in life. The really wicked occupy the lowest, but whether happy or miserable they acknowledge ignorance.
The Kayans of Baram have some singular ideas concerning a future state. The name of their god is Totadungan and he reigns over all; they say he has a wife but no children, and beneath him are many gods of inferior power. They believe in a future state with separate places for the souls of the good and the bad, and that both heaven and hell are divided into many distinct residences—that those who die from wounds, or sickness, or drowning, go to separate places. If a woman dies before her husband they hold that she goes to heaven and marries again; but that if when her earthly husband dies he goes to heaven the celestial match is broken off and the old husband claims his partner.
Among both Land and Sea Dayaks dreams are regarded as actual[246] occurrences. They think that in sleep the soul sometimes remains in the body and sometimes leaves it and travels far away, and that both when in and out of the body it sees and hears and talks and altogether has a presence given it which when the body is in a natural state it does not enjoy. Fainting fits or a state of coma are thought to be caused by the departure of the soul on some expedition of its own. Elders and priestesses often assert that in their dreams they have visited the mansion of the blessed and seen the Creator dwelling in a house like that of a Malay, the interior of which was adorned with guns and gongs and jars innumerable, Himself being clothed like a Dayak.
A dream of sickness to any member of a family always ensures a ceremony; and no one presumes to enter the priesthood, or to learn the art of a blacksmith, without being or pretending to be warned in a dream that he should undertake to learn it. A man has been known to give one of his two children to another who has no children because he dreamed that unless he did so the child would die.
In dreams also, “Tapa” and the spirits bestow gifts on men in the shape of magic stones, which being washed in cocoa milk the water forms one of the ingredients in the mass of blood and tumeric which is considered sacred and is used to anoint the people at the harvest-feasts. They are ordinary black pebbles, and there is nothing in their appearance to give a notion of their magic power and value.
On the banks of one of the rivers Mr. St. John discovered the effigy of a bull cut in a sort of stone said to be unknown in the country; its legs and part of its head had been knocked off. Its history is as follows:—Many years ago on being discovered in the jungle the Malays and Dayaks removed it to the banks of the river preparatory to its being conveyed to the town, but before it could be put into a prahu they say a tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, wind and rain, arose, which lasted thirty days. Fearing that the bull was angry at being disturbed in his forest home they left him in the mud, and there Sir James Brooke found it and had it removed to his own house. Several of the Dayak tribes sent deputations to him to express their fears of the evil consequences that would be sure to ensue—everything would go wrong, storms would arise, their crops would be blighted, and famine would desolate the land. Humouring their prejudices, he answered that they were mistaken, that the bull on the contrary would be pleased to be removed from the dirty place in which the Malays had left him, and that now he was kept dry and comfortable[247] there would be no show of his anger. This reply satisfied them. Occasionally the Dayaks would come and wash the stone bull, taking away the precious water to fertilize their fields.
Amongst some of the Bornean aborigines there is a superstition that they must not laugh at a dog or a snake crossing their path. Should they do so they would become stones. These Dayaks always refer with respect and awe to some rocks scattered over the summit of a hill in Sadong, saying that they were originally men. The place was a very likely one to be haunted—a noble old forest but seldom visited. Many years ago they say a great chief gave a feast there, in the midst of which his lovely daughter came in; she was a spoilt child who did nothing but annoy the guests. They at first tried to get rid of her by mixing dirt with her food: finding she still teazed them, they gave her poison. Her father in his anger went back to his house, shaved his dog and painted him with alternate streaks of black and white. Then giving him some intoxicating drink he carried him in his arms into the midst of the assembly and set him on the ground. The dog began to caper about in the most ludicrous manner which set them all off laughing, the host as well as the guests, and they were immediately turned into stone.
With one giant stride of our any-number-of-league boots we step from Borneo into North America and among the many semi-savage tribes that there reside. As a rule the North-American savage believes in one Supreme Being whom he knows as the Great Spirit, and whose abode is Paradise, or the “happy hunting ground.” This Supreme Being, however, they regard as much too exalted to trouble himself about the petty businesses of the world, and therefore governs by deputy. There are, according to Indian belief, numerous subordinate deities, the business of each of whom it is to govern and control the earth, the forests and the game there abounding, the winds, the air, and the water, together with its finny denizens. Besides those—at least in the case of the Ojibbeway, who may fairly be taken as the type of the North-American Indian—they have a host of evil spirits or munedoos, or manitou, headed by one arch Matchi-munedoo, and who, it is to be feared on account of their predilection for mischief, occupy a greater portion of the Indian’s time and attention in the way of propitiation and friendly peace-offering, than ever is devoted to Kitchi-manitou, the Great Spirit to whom, if the Indian’s religion is worth a straw, it should be sufficient to obey to render one self-defiant of Matchi-munedoo and all his works.
[248]
As might be expected the Indian language is rich in mythological lore, and is often found to be a curious tangle of what we acknowledge as Biblical truth, and nonsense, remarkable chiefly for its quaint grotesqueness. Take the following narrative of the Deluge:
“Before the general deluge there lived two enormous creatures, each possessed of vast power. One was an animal with a great horn on his head; the other was a huge toad. The latter had the whole management of the waters, keeping them secure in its own body, and emitting only a certain quantity for the watering of the earth. Between these two creatures there arose a quarrel, which terminated in a fight. The toad in vain tried to swallow its antagonist, but the latter rushed upon it, and with his horn pierced a hole in its side, out of which the water gushed in floods, and soon overflowed the face of the earth. At this time Nanahbozhoo was living on the earth, and observing the water rising higher and higher, he fled to the loftiest mountain for refuge. Perceiving that even this retreat would be soon inundated, he selected a large cedar tree which he purposed to ascend, should the waters come up to him. Before they reached him he caught a number of animals and fowls, and put them into his bosom. At length the water covered the mountain. Nanahbozhoo then ascended the cedar tree, and as he went up he plucked its branches and stuck them in the belt which girdled his waist. When he reached the top of the tree he sang, and beat the tune with his arrow upon his bow, and as he sang the tree grew and kept pace with the water for a long time. At length he abandoned the idea of remaining any longer on the tree, and took the branches he had plucked, and with them constructed a raft, on which he placed himself with the animals and fowls. On this raft he floated about for a long time, till all the mountains were covered, and all the beasts of the earth and fowls of the air, except those he had with him, perished.
“At length Nanahbozhoo thought of forming a new world, but how to accomplish it without any materials he knew not, till the idea occurred to him that if he could only obtain a little of the earth, which was then under water, he might succeed in making a new world out of the old one. He accordingly employed the different animals he had with him that were accustomed to diving. First, he sent the loon, a water fowl of the penguin species, down into the water in order to bring up some of the old earth; but it was not able to reach the bottom, and after remaining in the water some time, came up dead. Nanahbozhoo then took it, blew upon[249] it, and it came to life again. He next sent the otter, which also failing to reach the bottom, came up dead, and was restored to life in the same manner as the loon. He then tried the skill of the heaver, but without success. Having failed with all these diving animals, he last of all took the musk-rat; on account of the distance it had to go to reach the bottom, it was gone a long time, and came up dead. On taking it up, Nanahbozhoo found, to his great joy, that it had reached the earth, and had retained some of the soil in each of its paws and mouth. He then blew upon it, and brought it to life again, at the same time pronouncing many blessings on it, saying, that as long as the world he was about to make should endure, the musk-rat should never become extinct. This prediction of Nanahbozhoo is still spoken of by the Indians when referring to the rapid increase of the musk-rat. Nanahbozhoo then took the earth which he found in the musk-rat’s paws and mouth, and having rubbed it with his hands to fine dust, he placed it on the waters and blew upon it; then it began to grow larger and larger, until it was beyond the reach of his eye. In order to ascertain the size of the world, and the progress of its growth and expansion, he sent a wolf to run to the end of it, measuring its extent by the time consumed in his journey. The first journey he performed in one day, the second took him five days, the third ten, the fourth a month, then a year, five years, and so on, until the world was so large that Nanahbozhoo sent a young wolf that could just run, which died of old age before he could accomplish the journey. Nanahbozhoo then said the world was large enough, and commanded it to cease from growing. After this Nanahbozhoo took a journey to view the new world he had made, and as he travelled he created various tribes of Indians, and placed them in different parts of the earth; he then gave them various religions, customs, and manners.
“This Nanahbozhoo now sits at the North Pole, overlooking all the transactions and affairs of the people he has placed on the earth. The Northern tribes say that Nanahbozhoo always sleeps during the winter; but, previous to his falling asleep, fills his great pipe, and smokes for several days, and that it is the smoke arising from the mouth and pipe of Nanahbozhoo which produces what is called ‘Indian summer.’”
They have, however, legends that relate to times anterior to the flood, even to the beginning of Time itself and the days of Adam and Eve. Mr. Kohl, of “Lake Superior” celebrity, contributes the following:
“On Torch Lake it is said, that Kitchi-Manitou (the Good Spirit) first[250] made the coast of our lake. He strewed the sand and formed a fine flat dry beach or road round the lake. He found that it was splendid walking upon it, and often wandered along the beach. One day he saw something lying on the white sand. He picked it up. It was a very little root. He wondered whether it would grow if planted in the ground, and made the trial. He planted it close to the edge of the water in the sand, and when he came again, the next day, a thick and large reed-bed had grown out of it through which the wind rustled. This pleased him, and he sought for and collected more little roots and other seeds from the sand and spread them around so that they soon covered the rocks and land with grass and fine forests, in which the birds and other animals came to live. Every day he added something new to the creation, and did not forget to place fish and other creatures in the water.
“One day when Kitchi-Manitou was again walking along the sand, he saw something moving in the reeds, and noticed a being coming out of the water entirely covered with silver-glistening scales like a fish, but otherwise formed like a man. Kitchi-Manitou was curious to see on what the being lived and whether it ate herbs, especially as he saw it constantly stooping and plucking herbs which it swallowed. The man could not speak, but at times when he stooped he sighed and groaned.
“The sight moved Kitchi-Manitou with compassion in the highest degree, and as a good thought occurred to him, he immediately stepped into his canoe and paddled across to the island, which still lies in the centre of the lake. Here he set to work providing the man the company of a squaw. He formed her nearly like what he had seen the man to be, and also covered her body with silver-glistening scales. Then he breathed life into her, and carried her across in his canoe to the other bank of the lake, telling her that if she wandered busily along the lake and looked about her, she would perhaps find something to please her. For days the squaw wandered about one shore of the lake, while the man was seeking herbs for food on the other. One day the latter went a little further, and, to his great surprise, saw footsteps in the sand much like those he himself made. At once he gave up seeking herbs and followed these footsteps, as he hoped there were other beings like himself on the lake. The squaw during her long search had left so many footsteps that the man at first feared they might belong to a number of Indians, and they might perhaps be hostile. Hence he crept along carefully in the bush, but always kept an eye on the trail in the sand.
[251]
“At last he found the being he sought sitting on a log near the shore. Through great fatigue she had fallen asleep. He looked around to the right and left but she was quite alone. At length he ventured to come out of the bushes; he approached her with uncertain and hesitating steps; he seized her and she opened her eyes.
“‘Who art thou?’ he said, for he could now suddenly speak, ‘Who art thou, what is thy name, and whither dost thou come?’
“‘My name is Mami,’ she replied, ‘and Kitchi-Manitou brought me here from that island, and told me I should find something here I liked. I think that thou art the promised one.’
“‘On what dost thou live?’ the man asked the woman.
“‘Up to this time I have eaten nothing, for I was looking for thee. But now I feel very hungry; hast thou anything to eat?’
“Straightway the man ran into the bushes, and collected some roots and herbs he had found good to eat, and brought them to the squaw, who greedily devoured them.
“The sight of this moved Kitchi-Manitou, who had watched the whole scene from his lodge. He immediately came over in his canoe, and invited the couple to his island. Here they found a handsome large house prepared for them, and a splendid garden round it. In the house were glass windows, and in the rooms tables and chairs and beds and conveniences of every description. In the garden grew every possible sort of useful and nourishing fruits, potatoes, strawberries, apple-trees, cherry and plum trees; and close by were large fine fields planted with Indian corn and beans.
“They ate and lived there for days and years in pleasure and happiness; and Kitchi-Manitou often came to them and conversed with them. ‘One thing,’ he said, ‘I must warn you against. Come hither; see, this tree in the middle of the garden is not good. I did not plant it, but Matchi-Manitou planted it. In a short time this tree will blossom and bear fruits which look very fine and taste very sweet; but do not eat of them, for if ye do so ye will die.’ They paid attention to this, and kept the command a long time, even when the tree had blossomed and the fruit had set. One day, however, when Mami went walking in the garden, she heard a very friendly and sweet voice say to her, ‘Mami, Mami, why dost thou not eat of this beautiful fruit? it tastes splendidly.’ She saw no one, but she was certain the voice did not come either from Kitchi-Manitou or her husband. She was afraid and went into the house. The next day[252] though, she again went into the garden, and was rather curious whether the same pleasant voice would speak to her again. She had hardly approached the forbidden tree, when the voice was heard once more, ‘Mami, Mami, why dost thou not taste this splendid fruit? it will make thy heart glad.’ And with these words a young handsome Indian came out of the bushes, plucked a fruit, and placed it in her hand. ‘Thou canst make famous preserves of it for thy household,’ the friendly Indian added.
“The fruit smelled pleasantly, and Mami licked it a little. At length she swallowed it entirely, and felt as if drunk. When her husband came to her soon after she persuaded him also to eat of it; he did so, and also felt as if drunk. But this had scarce happened ere the silver scales with which their bodies had been covered, fell off; only twenty of these scales remained on, but they had lost their brilliancy,—ten on the fingers and ten on the toes. They saw themselves to be quite uncovered, and began to be ashamed, and withdrew timidly into the bushes of the garden.
“The young Indian had disappeared, but the angry Kitchi-Manitou soon came to them, and said ‘It is done; ye have eaten of Matchi-Manitou’s fruit, and must now die. Hence it is necessary that I should marry you, lest the whole human race might die out with you. Ye must perish, but shall live on in your children and children’s children.’ Kitchi-Manitou banished them also from the happy isle, which immediately grew wild, and bore them in his canoe to the shores of the lake. But he had mercy on them still. He gave the man a bow and arrow, and told him he would find animals which were called deer. These he was to shoot, and Mami would get ready the meat for him, and make mocassins and clothing of the hide.
“When they reached the other shore, Mami’s husband tried first of all this bow and the arrows. He shot into the sand, and the arrows went three inches deep into the ground.
“Mami’s husband then went for the first time to hunt, and saw in the reeds on the lake an animal moving, which he recognised for a deer, as Kitchi-Manitou had described it to him. He shot his arrow, and the animal straightway leaped from the water on shore, sank on its knees, and died. He ran up and drew his arrow from the wound, examined it, found that it was quite uninjured, and placed it again in his quiver, as he thought he could use it again. When he brought the deer to his squaw, she cut it into pieces, washed it, and laid the hide aside for shoes[253] and clothing; but soon saw that they, as Indians, could not possibly eat the meat raw, as the barbarous Eskimos in the north do: she must cook it, and for that purpose have fire.
“This demand embarrassed the man for a moment, as he had never yet seen any meat boiling or roasting before the fire. But he soon knew how to help himself. He took two different descriptions of wood, rubbed them against each other, and soon made a bright fire for his squaw. The squaw in the meanwhile had prepared a piece of wood as a spit, placed a lump of meat on it, and held it in the fire. They both tasted it, and found it excellent. ‘As this is so good, the rest will be famous,’ she said, and cut it all up and put it in the kettle, and then they ate nearly all the deer that same evening. This gave Mami’s husband strength and courage, and he went out hunting again the next morning, and shot a deer; and so he did every day, while his squaw built a lodge for him, and sewed clothes and mocassins.
“One day when he went a-hunting again, the man found a book lying under a tree. He stopped and looked at it. The book began speaking to him, and told him what he was to do, and what to leave undone. It gave him a whole series of orders and prohibitions. He found this curious, and did not much like it; but he took it home to his squaw.
“‘I found this book under a tree,’ he said to her, ‘which tells me to do all sorts of things, and forbids me doing others; I find this hard, and I will carry it back to where I found it.’ And this he did too, although his squaw begged him to keep it. ‘No,’ he said, ‘it is too thick; how could I drag it about with me in my medicine bag?’ And he laid the book again, the next day, under the tree, where he had taken it up; and so soon as he laid it down, it disappeared. The earth swallowed it up.
“Instead of it, however, another book appeared in the grass. That was easy and light, and only written on a couple of pieces of birch bark. It also spoke to him in the clear and pure Ojibbeway language; forbade him nothing, and ordered him nothing; and only taught him the use and advantages of the plants in the forest and on the prairie. This pleased him much, and he put the book at once in his hunting bag, and went into the forest, and collected all the plants, roots, flowers, and herbs which it pointed out to him.
“Quite loaded with herbs of fifty different sorts, he returned to his squaw Mami. He sorted them out, and found they were all medicine, good in every accident of life. As he had in this way become a great[254] medicine man, as well as a mighty hunter, he wanted but little more to satisfy his earthly wants. The children his wife bore him he brought up as good hunters; taught them the use of the bow; explained to them the medicine book; and told them, shortly before his and Mami’s death, the history of their creation and their former mode of life on the Torch Lake island with Kitchi-Manitou, who now, after so much suffering and sorrow, was graciously pleased to receive them again.”
The following story was communicated to Mr. Jones, a native minister, by an Ojibbeway Indian named Netahgawineneh, and will serve to illustrate the source whence they derive their ideas of a future state:—
“In the Indian country far west an Indian once fell into a trance, and when he came to life again, he gave the following account of his journey to the world of spirits.
“I started, said he, my soul or spirit in company with a number of Indians who were travelling to the same spirit land. We directed our footsteps towards the sun-setting. On our journey we passed through a beautiful country, and on each side of our trail saw strawberries as large as a man’s head. We ate some of them, and found them very sweet; but one of our party who kept loitering behind, came up to us and demanded, ‘Why were we eating a ball of fire?’ We tried to persuade him to the contrary, but the foolish fellow would not listen to our words, and so went on his way hungry. We travelled on until we came to a dark, swollen and rapid river, over which was laid a log vibrating in a constant wavering motion. On this log we ventured to cross, and having arrived at the further end of it, we found that it did not reach the shore; this obliged us to spring with all our might to the land. As soon as we had done this, we perceived that the supposed log on which we had crossed was a large serpent, waving and playing with his huge body over the river. The foolish man behind was tossed about until he fell off, but he at length succeeded in swimming to shore. No sooner was he on land than a fierce and famished pack of wolves fell on him and began to tear him to pieces, and we saw him no more. We journeyed on, and by and by came within sight of the town of spirits. As soon as we made our appearance there was a great shout heard, and all our relatives ran to meet us and to welcome us to their happy country. My mother made a feast for me, and prepared everything that was pleasant to eat and to look upon; here we saw all our forefathers; and game and corn in abundance; all were happy and contented.
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“After staying a short time, the Great Spirit of the place told me that I must go back to the country I had left, as the time had not yet arrived for me to dwell there. I accordingly made ready to return; and as I was leaving, my mother reproached me by all manner of foolish names for wishing to leave so lovely and beautiful a place. I took my departure, and soon found myself in the body and in the world I had left.”
The allegorical traditions of the North American Indians regarding the introduction into the world of the art of medicine and of religious mysteries are still more extravagant than their theogony. We will cite from Dominech the principal among them, to give an idea of all the others of the same kind.
“A great Manitou of heaven came once on earth and married a woman, who died, after giving birth to four children. The first was called Manabozho, and was the protector and friend of men; the second Chibiabos, took care of the dead and ruled over the empire of shadows, that is to say, of souls; the third, called Onabasso, fled towards the north as soon as he saw the day, and was metamorphosed into a white rabbit without ceasing to be a Manitou; the last of the four brothers was called Chokanipok, that is to say, the man of the fire-stone.
“When Manabozho grew up, he declared war against Chokanipok, whom he accused of being the cause of their mother’s death. The struggle was long and terrible. The surface of the earth still preserves traces of the battles which were fought between them. Chokanipok was conquered by his brother, his entrails were taken out, and changed into vines, and the fragments of his body became fire-stones, which were scattered all over the globe, and supplied man with the principle of fire. Manabozho it was who taught the Red Indians the mode of manufacturing axe blades, arrow points, traps, nets, how to turn stones and bones to use to capture wild animals, fish, and birds. He was very much attached to Chibiabos, with whom he lived in the desert, where they conferred together for the good of humanity. The material power and the extraordinary intelligence of these two superior beings excited the jealousy of the Manitous, who lived in the air, on earth, and in the water. This jealousy gave rise to a conspiracy against the life of Chibiabos. Manabozho warned him to be on his guard against the machinations of the Manitous, and never to quit him. But one day Chibiabos ventured alone during the winter on one of the great frozen lakes; when he arrived in the middle of the lake the[256] Manitous broke the ice, and Chibiabos sank to the bottom of the water, where his body remained buried.
“Manabozho wandered for a long time on the banks of the lake, calling his beloved brother; his voice trembling with fear and hope, was heard from afar. When he had no longer any doubt of the misfortune which had befallen him, his fury knew no bounds; he declared war against the wicked Manitous, killed a great number of them, and his rage no less than his despair spread consternation through the whole desert. After the first moments devoted to revenge, he painted his face black, covered his head with a veil of the same colour, then sat down on the shore of the lake and mourned the deceased for six years, making the neighbouring echoes incessantly ring with the cherished name of Chibiabos. The Manitous deeply moved by his profound grief, assembled to consult on the means they should take to console the unhappy mourner. The oldest and wisest of them all, who had not been concerned in the death of Chibiabos, took the task of reconciliation on himself. Aided by the other spirits, he built a sacred lodge near that of Manabozho, and prepared a great feast. He procured the best tobacco imaginable, and put it in a beautiful calumet; then placing himself at the head of the Manitous, who walked in procession, each carrying under his arm a bag made of the skins of various animals, and filled with precious medicine, he went to invite Manabozho to the festival. Manabozho uncovered his head, washed his face, and followed the Manitous to the sacred lodge. On his entrance he was offered a drink composed of the most exquisite medicines, a rite initiatory to propitiation. Manabozho drank it in a single draught, and immediately felt the grief and sadness lifted from his soul. The Manitous then began their dances and songs, which were succeeded by several ceremonies and by feats of address and magic, performed with the intention of restoring serenity of mind to the unconsolable protector and friend of the human race. It was thus the mysteries of the dance and of medicine were introduced on the earth.
“The Manitous then united all their powers to recall Chibiabos to life, which they did without difficulty. He was, however, forbidden to enter the sacred lodge; but receiving a flaming brand, he was sent to preside over the empire of the dead. Manabozho, quite consoled, ate, drank, danced, and smoked the sacred pipe, went away to the Great Spirit, and returned to earth to instruct men in the useful arts, in the mysteries of dancing and medicine, and in the curative properties of plants. It is he[257] who causes the medicinal plants to grow which cure sickness and wounds; it is he who killed all the monsters with which the desert was peopled. He placed spirits at the four cardinal points to protect the human race: that of the north sends snow and ice to facilitate the chase in winter; that of the south causes the maize to grow, as well as all kinds of fruit and tobacco; that of the west gives rain; and that of the east brings light, by commanding the sun to move round the globe. Thunder is the voice of these four spirits, to whom tobacco is offered in thanksgiving for the various blessings which they confer on the inhabitants of the earth.”
Among the more ignorant tribes of North American Indians the god of thunder is believed to be the eagle. The Rev. Peter Jones asserts this to be the belief of the Ojibbeways. When a thunderbolt strikes a tree or the ground, they fancy that the thunder has shot his fiery arrow at a serpent and caught it away in the twinkling of an eye. Some Indians affirm that they have seen the serpent taken up by the thunder into the clouds. They believe that the thunder has its abode on the top of a high mountain in the west, where it lays its eggs and hatches its young, like an eagle, and whence it takes its flight into different parts of the earth in search of serpents.
The following is a story related by an Indian who is said to have ventured, at the risk of his life, to visit the abode of the thunders: “After fasting, and offering my devotions to the thunder, I with much difficulty ascended the mountain, the top of which reached to the clouds. To my great astonishment, as I looked I saw the thunder’s nest, where a brood of young thunders had been hatched and reared. I saw all sorts of curious bones of serpents, on the flesh of which the old thunders had been feeding their young; and the bark of the young cedar trees peeled and stripped, on which the young thunders had been trying their skill in shooting their arrows before going abroad to hunt serpents.”
Another thunder tradition says: “That a party of Indians were once travelling on an extensive plain, when they came upon two young thunders lying in their nest in their downy feathers, the old thunders being absent at the time. Some of the party took their arrows, and with the point touched the eyes of the young thunders. The moment they did so their arrows were shivered to pieces, as if a young thunder arrow had struck them. One of the party, more wise than his companions, entreated them not to meddle with them, warning them that if they did they would pay dearly for their folly. The foolish young men would not listen, but[258] continued to teaze and finally killed them. As soon as they had done this a black cloud appeared, advancing towards them with great fury. Presently the thunder began to roar and send forth volumes of its fiery indignation. It was too evident that the old thunders were enraged on account of the destruction of their young—soon, with a tremendous crash, the arrows of the mighty thunder-god fell on the foolish men and destroyed them, but the wise and good Indian escaped unhurt.”
In proof of the American Indian’s suspicious nature, especially as regards matters connected with a religion differing from his own, Dr. Franklin furnishes the following little story:—
“Conrad Weiser, the Indian interpreter, who had gone to Ouondago with a message from Government, demanded hospitality of one of his old friends, the famous Canastatego, one of the chiefs of the six nations. Happy to meet after a long separation, the two friends were joyous and chatty. Conrad was soon seated on furs spread on the ground, with a meal of boiled vegetables, venison, and rum and water before him. After dinner Canastatego asked how the years since they had parted had passed with his friend, whence he came, where going, and what the aim of his journey. When all these questions were answered, the old Indian said, ‘Conrad, you have lived a great deal among white people, and know their customs. I have myself been several times to Albany, and have observed that once every seven days they shut up their shops and assemble in a large house; tell me wherefore, and what they do there?’—‘They assemble to hear and learn good things,’ replied Conrad.—‘I have no doubt,’ said the Indian, ‘that they have told you that; but I do not much believe in their words, and I will tell you why. Some time ago I went to Albany to sell furs and to buy blankets, powder, and knives. You know I am in the habit of dealing with Hans Hanson, but on that day I had a mind to try another merchant, but first went to Hans Hanson and asked what he would give for beaver skins. He answered that he could not pay a higher price than four shillings a pound. “But,” added he, “I cannot talk of such affairs to-day; it is the day of our meeting to hear good things, and I am going to the assembly.” I then reflected that as there was no possibility of my transacting business on that day, I too might as well go to the great house and hear good things.
“‘There was a man in black who seemed in a great passion while speaking to the people. I did not understand what he said, but perceiving that he looked a good deal at me, I thought that perhaps he was angry at[259] seeing me in the house. I therefore hastened to leave it, and went and seated myself outside on the ground against the wall, and began to smoke till the end of the ceremony. I fancied that the man in black had spoken about beavers, and I suspected that that was the motive of the meeting, so that as the crowd was coming out, I stopped my merchant, and said to him, “Well, Hans Hanson, I hope you will give me more than four shillings a pound.”—“No,” answered he, “I can only give you three shillings and a half.”
“‘I then spoke to other merchants, but all were unanimous in the price. This proved clearly that I was right in my suspicions, and that the pretended intention of meeting to hear good things was only given out to mislead opinions, and that the real aim of the meeting was to come to an understanding to cheat the Indians as to the price of their goods. Reflect, Conrad, and you will see that I have guessed the truth; for if white people meet so often to hear good things, they would have finished by knowing some long since, but on that head they are still very ignorant. You know our ways when white men travel over our lands and enter our colonies: we treat them as I treat you; when wet we dry them, we warm them when they are cold, we give them food and drink, and spread our best furs for them to repose on, asking for nothing in return. But if I go to a white man and ask for eat and drink, he answers me, “Begone, Indian dog!” You thus see that they have as yet learned very few good things, which we know, because our mothers taught them to us when we were little children, and that the subject of all these assemblies is to cheat us in the price of our beavers.’”
Here is a strange story of North American Indian “second sight” and not the less remarkable as it is recorded by a highly respectable Wesleyan Missionary who had it from a Government Indian Agent in Upper Canada.
“In the year 1804, wintering with the Winebagos on the Rock river, I had occasion to send three of my men to another wintering house, for some flour which I had left there in the fall on my way up the river. The distance being about one and a half day’s journey from where I lived, they were expected to return in about three days. On the sixth day after their absence I was about sending in quest of them, when some Indians, arriving from the spot, said that they had seen nothing of them. I could now use no means to ascertain where they were: the plains were extensive, the paths numerous, and the tracks they had made were[260] the next moment covered by the drift snow. Patience was my only resource; and at length I gave them up for lost.
“On the fourteenth night after their departure, as several Indians were smoking their pipes, and telling stories of their war parties, huntings, etc., an old fellow, who was a daily visitor, came in. My interpreter, a Canadian named Felix, pressed me, as he had frequently done before, to employ this conjuror, as he could inform me about the men in question. The dread of being laughed at had hitherto prevented my acceding to his importunities; but now, excited by curiosity, I gave the old man a quarter-pound of tobacco and two yards of ribbon, telling him that if he gave me a true account of the missing ones, I would, when I ascertained the fact, give him a bottle of rum. The night was exceedingly dark and the house situated on a point of land in a thick wood. The old fellow withdrew, and the other Indians retired to their lodges.
“A few minutes after, I heard Wahwun (an egg) begin a lamentable song, his voice increasing to such a degree that I really thought he would have injured himself. The whole forest appeared to be in agitation, as if the trees were knocking against each other; then all would be silent for a few seconds; again the old fellow would scream and yell, as if he were in great distress. A chill seized me, and my hair stood on end; the interpreter and I stared at each other without power to express our feelings. After remaining in this situation a few minutes the noise ceased, and we distinctly heard the old chap singing a lively air. We expected him in, but he did not come. After waiting some time, and all appearing tranquil in the woods, we went to bed. The next morning I sent for my friend Wahwun to inform me of his jaunt to see the men.
“‘I went,’ said he, ‘to smoke the pipe with your men last night, and found them cooking some elk meat, which they got from an Ottawa Indian. On leaving this place they took the wrong road on the top of the hill; they travelled hard on, and did not know for two days that they were lost. When they discovered their situation they were much alarmed, and, having nothing more to eat, were afraid they would starve to death. They walked on without knowing which way they were going until the seventh day, when they were met near the Illinois river by the Ottawa before named, who was out hunting. He took them to his lodge, fed them well, and wanted to detain them some days until they had recovered their strength; but they would not stay. He then gave them some elk meat for their journey home, and sent his son to put them into the right[261] road. They will go to Lagothenes for the flour you sent them, and will be at home in three days.’ I then asked him what kind of place they were encamped in when he was there? He said, ‘they had made a shelter by the side of a large oak tree that had been torn up by the roots, and which had fallen with the head towards the rising sun.’
“All this I noted down, and from the circumstantial manner in which he related every particular, though he could not possibly have had any personal communication with or from them by any other Indians, I began to hope my men were safe, and that I should again see them. On the appointed day the interpreter and myself watched most anxiously, but without effect. We got our suppers, gave up all hopes, and heartily abused Wahwun for deceiving us. Just as we were preparing for bed, to my great joy the men rapped at the door, and in they came with the flour on their backs. My first business was to enquire of their travels. They told me the whole exactly as the old Indian had before stated, not omitting the tree or any other occurrence; and I could have no doubt but that the old fellow had got his information from some evil or familiar spirit.”
As has already been mentioned in this book, belief in dreams is very intimately associated with North-American Indian religious belief; and when an Indian dreams anything that seems to him important, he does not fail to enter in his birch bark “note book” the most salient points of it. Being, as a rule, however, incapable of giving his thoughts a tangible appearance by the ordinary caligraphic process, he draws the pictures just as he sees them in his vision. From the birch bark of a brave, by name the “Little Wasp,” Mr. Kohl copied the picture which appears on the next page: and this is the explanation of it:—
“The dreamer lying on his bed of moss and grass is dreaming the dream of a true hunter, and there are the heads of the birds and beasts which his guardian spirit promises that he shall not chase in vain. The man wearing the hat is a Frenchman, which the Little Wasp also dreams about.
“The Indians picture themselves without a hat because they usually have no other head gear than their matted hair, or, at most, a cloth wound turban-wise round the head. The hat, however, appears to them such a material part of a European—as much a part of their heads as the horse to the Centaur—that a hat in a picture-writing always indicates a European.
“It was not at all stupid of Little Wasp to dream of a Frenchman, for[262] of what use would a sky full of animals prove to him unless he had a good honest French traiteur to whom he could sell the skins and receive in exchange fine European wares? The vault of the sky is represented by several semi-circular lines in the same way as it is usually drawn on their gravestones. On some occasions I saw the strata or lines variously coloured—blue, red, and yellow, like the hues of the rainbow. Perhaps, too, they may wish to represent that phenomenon as well. But that the whole is intended for the sky is proved by the fact that the ordinary colour is a plain blue or grey. The bird soaring in the heavens was meant for the kimou which so often appears in the dreams of these warlike hunters.
“When I asked the dreamer what he meant by the strokes and figures at the foot of the drawing, he said: ‘It is a notice that I fasted nine days on account of this dream. The nine strokes indicate the number nine, and a small figure of the sun over them means days.’
“His own self he indicated by the human figure. It has no head but an enormous heart in the centre of the breast.
“Though the head is frequently missing, the heart is never omitted in Indian figures, because they have as a general rule, more heart than brains, more courage than sense. ‘I purposely made the heart rather large,’ the author of the picture remarked, ‘in order to show that I had so much courage as to endure a nine days’ fast.’ He omitted the head, probably because he felt that sense was but little mixed up with such nonsensical fasting.
“‘But why hast thou painted the sun once more, and with so much care over it?’ asked I. ‘Because,’ replied he, ‘the very next morning after my fast was at an end, the sun rose with extraordinary splendour, which I shall never forget, for a fine sunrise after a dream is the best sign that it will come to pass.’”
The superstitions, in fact, of all Indians, are singularly wild, poetic, and primitive. Catlin, in his “Descriptive Catalogue,” gives some strange and interesting particulars. He says, for instance, the Sioux have a superstitious belief that they will conquer their enemy if they go through the following ceremony:—A dog’s liver and heart are taken raw and bleeding and placed upon a sort of platform, and, being cut into slips, each man dances upon it, bites off and swallows a piece of it, in the certain belief that he has thus swallowed a piece of the heart of his enemy whom he has slain in battle. Again, it is supposed that he most is in the favour of the Great Spirit who can throw most arrows from an Indian bow before the first cast reaches the ground, and Catlin says: “So eager are the Indians for this supremacy that I have known men who could get eight arrows in[263] the air, all moving at the same time.” Another superstition takes the shape of a belief in dancing compelling a flock of buffaloes to turn upon the path of the dancers. This superstitious gyration is only resorted to when a tribe is absolutely starving, and it is accompanied by a song to the Great Spirit, imploring Him to help them, promising, at the same time, a burnt sacrifice, or, as they themselves generally put it, that the Great Spirit shall have the best of the meat cooked for himself.
A far more charming use of the superstitious, or rather religious, dances is that of the warriors upon their return from battle, when, if they can exhibit scalps, they are justified in dancing and wailing in front of the wigwams of the widows of their companions who have been killed. If the widow is one of a man of any importance in the tribe, especially if he has been a medicine man, they cast presents upon the ground for the use of the widowed woman.
Another strange superstition is the green corn dance—the sacrifice of the first kettle to the Great Spirit. Four medicine men, whose bodies are painted with white clay, dance around the kettle until the corn is well boiled, and they then burn it to cinders as an offering to the Great Spirit. The fire is then destroyed, and new fire created by rubbing two sticks together, with which the corn for their own feast is cooked.
Again, there is a snow-shoe dance, performed at the first fall of snow, and which is as solemn a rite as any in the Indian faith.
Another strange superstition is that by which an Indian becomes a medicine or mystery man. Splints of wood are thrust through his flesh and by these he hangs from a pole, and gazes, medicine bag in hand, at the sun, from its rising to its setting. This voluntary torture entitles him to great respect for the remainder of his life as a medicine or mystery man—in another word, an astrologer. The history of Indian superstition has yet to be written.
The North American is no less adept at picture “talking” than at picture writing. Burton, while sojourning among the Prairie Indians, devoted considerable attention to this art as practised among them. He describes it as a system of signs, some conventional, others instinctive or imitative, which enables tribes who have no acquaintance with each other’s customs and tongues to hold limited but sufficient communication, An interpreter who knows all the signs, which, however, are so numerous and complicated that to acquire them is the labour of years, is preferred by the whites even to a good speaker. The sign system doubtless arose from the necessity of a communicating medium between races speaking many different dialects and debarred by circumstances from social intercourse.
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The first lesson is to distinguish the signs of the different tribes, and it will be observed that the French voyageurs and traders have often named the Indian nations from their totemic or masonic gestures.
The Pawnees imitate a wolf’s ears with the two forefingers—the right hand is always understood unless otherwise specified—extended together, upright, on the left side of the head.
The Araphos, or Dirty Noses, rub the right side of that organ with the forefingers; some call this bad tribe the Smellers, and make their sign to consist of seizing the nose with the thumb and forefinger.
The Comanches imitate by the waving of the hand or forefinger the forward crawling motion of a snake.
The Cheyennes, Piakanoves, or Cut Wrists, draw the lower edge of the hand across the left arm, as if gashing it with a knife.
The Sioux, by drawing the lower edge of the hand across the throat; it is a gesture not unknown to us, but forms a truly ominous salutation, considering those by whom it is practised; hence the Sioux are called by the Yutas Hand-cutters.
The Hapsaroke, by imitating the flapping of the bird’s wings with the two hands, palms downwards, brought close to the shoulders.
The Kiowas, or Prairie-men, make the signs of the prairie, and of drinking water.
The Yutas, they who live on mountains, have a complicated sign which denotes “living in mountains.”
The Black-feet, called by the Yutas Paike or Goers, pass the right hand, bent spoon-fashion, from the heel to the little toe of the right foot.
The following are a few preliminaries indispensable to the prairie traveller:
Halt! Raise the hand, with the palm in front, and push it backward and forward several times, a gesture well known in the East.
I don’t know you. Move the raised hand, with the palm in front, slowly to the right and left.
I am angry. Close the fist, place it against the forehead, and turn it to and fro in that position.
Are you friendly? Raise both hands, grasped as if in the act of shaking hands, or lock the two forefingers together, while the hands are raised.
See. Strike out the two forefingers forward from the eyes.
Smell. Touch the nose-tip. A bad smell is expressed by the same sign, ejaculating at the same time, “pooh,” and making the sign of bad.
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Taste. Touch the tongue-tip.
Eat. Imitate the actions of conveying food with the fingers to the mouth.
Drink. Scoop up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth.
Smoke. With the crooked index describe a pipe in the air, beginning at the lips, then wave the open hand from the mouth to imitate curls of smoke.
Speak. Extend the open hand from the chin.
Fight. Make a motion with both fists to and fro like a pugilist of the eighteenth century who preferred a high guard.
Kill. Smite the sinister palm earthwards, with the dexter fist sharply, the sign of going down, or strike out with the dexter fist towards the ground, meaning to “shut down,” or pass the dexter index under the left forefinger, meaning to “go under.”
Some of the symbols of relationship are highly appropriate and not ungraceful or unpicturesque. Man is denoted by a sign which will not admit of description; woman by passing the hand down both sides of the head, as if smoothing or stroking the long hair. For a child, a bit of the index held between the antagonised thumb and medius is shown. The same sign expresses both parents, with additional explanations. To say, for instance, my mother, you would first pantomime “I,” or, which is the same thing, my, then woman, and finally, the symbol of parentage. My grandmother would be conveyed in the same way, adding to the end, clasped hands, closed eyes, and like an old woman’s bent back. The sign for brother and sister is perhaps the prettiest; the two first finger-tips are put into the mouth, denoting that they fed from the same breast. For the wife—squaw is now becoming a word of reproach amongst the Indians—the dexter forefinger is passed between the extended thumb and index of the left.
Of course there is a sign for every weapon. The knife—scalp or other—is shown by cutting the sinister palm with the dexter ferient downward and towards oneself: if the cuts be made upward with the palm downwards, meat is understood. The tomahawk, hatchet, or axe, is denoted by chopping the left hand with the right; the sword by the motion of drawing it: the bow by the movement of bending it, and a spear or lance by an imitation of darting it. For the gun the dexter thumb or fingers are flashed or scattered, i.e. thrown outwards and upwards, to denote fire. The same movement made lower down expresses a pistol. The arrow is[266] expressed by knocking it upon an imaginary bow, and by snapping with the index and medius. The shield is shown by pointing with the index over the left shoulder where it is slung ready to be brought over the breast when required.
The pantomime, as may be seen, is capable of expressing detailed narratives. For instance, supposing an Indian would tell the following tale:—“Early this morning I mounted my horse, rode off at a gallop, traversed a ravine, then over a mountain to a plain where there was no water, sighted bisons, followed them, killed three of them, skinned them, packed the flesh upon my pony, remounted, and returned home,”—he would symbolize it thus:
Touches nose—“I.”
Opens out the palms of his hand—“this morning.”
Points to east—“early.”
Places two dexter forefingers astraddle over sinister index—“mounted my horse.”
Moves both hands upwards and rocking-horse fashion towards the left—“galloped.”
Passes the dexter hand right through thumb and forefinger of the sinister, which are widely extended—“traversed a ravine.”
Closes the finger-tips high over the head and waves both palms outwards—“over a mountain to a plain.”
Scoops up with the hand imaginary water into the mouth, and waves the hand from the face to denote no—“where there was no water.”
Touches eye—“sighted.”
Raises the forefingers crooked inwards on both sides of the head—“bison.”
Smites the sinister palm downwards with the dexter first—“killed.”
Shows three fingers—“three of them.”
Scrapes the left palm with the edge of the right hand—“skinned them.”
Places the dexter on the sinister palm and then the dexter palm on the sinister dorsum—“packed the flesh upon my pony.”
Straddles the two forefingers on the index of the left—“remounted.”
Finally, beckons towards self—“returned home.”
“While on the subject of savage modes of correspondence, it may not be out of place to quote an amusing incident furnished by the Western African traveller Hutchinson. There was, it seems, a newspaper established in the region in question for the benefit of the civilized inhabitants,[267] and an old native lady having a grievance, “writes to the editor.” Let us give her epistle, and afterwards Mr. Hutchinson’s explanation of it:
“To Daddy Nah, Tampin Office.
“Ha Daddy,—Do yah nah beg you tell dem people for me make dem Sally own pussin know—Do yah. Berrah well. Ah lib nah Pademba Road—one buoy lib dah ober side lakah dem two docta lib overside you Tampin office. Berrah well. Dah buoy head big too much—he say nah Militie Ban—he got one long long ting—so so brass someting lib da dah go flip flap dem call am key. Berry well. Had dah buoy kin blow she—ah na marnin, oh na sun time, oh na evenin, oh nah middle night oh—all same—no make pussin sleep. Not ebry bit dat more lib dah One Boney buoy lib overside nah he like blow bugle. When dem two woh woh buoy blow dem ting de nize too much to much. When white man blow dat ting and pussin sleep he kin tap wah make dem buoy carn do so. Dem buoy kin blow ebry day, eben Sunday dem kin blow. When ah yerry dem blow Sunday ah wish dah bugle kin blow dem head bone inside. Do nah beg you yah tell all dem people bout dah ting, wah dem to buoy dah blow. Tell am Amstrang Boboh hab feber bad. Tell am Titty carn sleep nah night. Dah nize go kill me two picken oh. Plabba done—Good by, Daddy.
“Crashey Jane.”
“For the information of those not accustomed to the Anglo-African style of writing or speaking, I deem a commentary necessary in order to make this epistle intelligible. The whole gist of Crashey Jane’s complaint is against two black boys who are torturing her morning, noon, and night—Sunday as well as every day in the week—by blowing into some ‘long, long brass ting,’ as well as a bugle. Though there might appear to some unbelievers a doubt as to the possibility of the boys furnishing wind for such a lengthened performance, still the complaint is not more extravagant than those made by many scribbling grievance-mongers amongst ourselves about the organ nuisance.
“The appellative Daddy is used by the Africans as expressive of their respect as well as confidence. ‘To Daddy in the stamping (alias printing) office,’ which is the literal rendering of the foregoing address, contains a much more respectful appeal than ‘To the Editor’ would convey, and the words ‘Berrah well’ at the end of the first sentence are ludicrously expressive of the writer’s having opened the subject of complaint to her own satisfaction and of being prepared to go on with what follows without any dread of failure.
“The epithet ‘woh-woh’ applied to the censured boys means to entitle them very bad; and I understand this term, which is general over the coast, is derived from the belief that those persons to whom it is applied have a capacity to bring double woe on all who have dealings with them.[268] ‘Amstrang Boboh,’ who has the fever bad, is Robert Armstrong, the stipendiary magistrate of Sierra Leone, and the inversion of his name in this manner is as expressive of negro classicality as was the title of Jupiter Tonans to the dwellers on Mount Olympus.”
It is probable that to his passion for “picture making” Mr. Catlin is indebted for his great success among North-American children of the wilderness. A glance through the two big volumes published by that gentleman shows at once that he could have little time either for eating, drinking, or sleeping; his pencil was all in all to him. No one would suppose it by the specimens Mr. Catlin has presented to the public, but we have his word for it, that some of the likenesses he painted of the chiefs were marvels of perfection—so much so, indeed, that he was almost tomahawked as a witch in consequence. He says:
“I had trouble brewing from another source; one of the medicines commenced howling and haranguing around my domicile amongst the throng that was outside, proclaiming that all who were inside and being painted were fools and would soon die, and very naturally affecting thereby my popularity. I, however, sent for him, and called him in the next morning when I was alone, having only the interpreter with me, telling him that I had had my eye upon him for several days and had been so well pleased with his looks that I had taken great pains to find out his history, which had been explained by all as one of a most extraordinary kind, and his character and standing in his tribe as worthy of my particular notice; and that I had several days since resolved, that as soon as I had practised my hand long enough upon the others to get the stiffness out of it (after paddling my canoe so far as I had) and make it to work easily and succesfully, I would begin on his portrait, which I was then prepared to commence on that day, and that I felt as if I could do him justice. He shook me by the hand, giving me the Doctor’s grip, and beckoned me to sit down, which I did, and we smoked a pipe together. After this was over he told me that he had no inimical feelings towards me, although he had been telling the chiefs that they were all fools and all would die who had their portraits painted; that although he had set the old women and children all crying, and even made some of the young warriors tremble, yet he had no unfriendly feelings towards me, nor any fear or dread of my art. ‘I know you are a good man (said he), I know you will do no harm to any one; your medicine is great, and you are a great medicine-man. I would like to see myself very well, and so would[269] all of the chiefs; but they have all been many days in this medicine-house, and they all know me well, and they have not asked me to come in and be made alive with paints. My friend, I am glad that my people have told you who I am; my heart is glad; I will go to my wigwam and eat, and in a little while I will come and you may go to work.’ Another pipe was lit and smoked, and he got up and went off. I prepared my canvass and palette, and whistled away the time until twelve o’clock, before he made his appearance, having employed the whole forepart of the day at his toilette, arranging his dress and ornamenting his body for his picture.
“At that hour then, bedaubed and streaked with paints of various colours, with bear’s-grease and charcoal, with medicine-pipes in his hands, and foxes’ tails attached to his heels, entered Mah-to-he-bah (the old bear) with a train of his profession, who seated themselves around him, and also a number of boys whom it was requested should remain with him, and whom I supposed it possible might have been his pupils whom he was instructing in the mysteries of his art. He took his position in the middle of the room, waving his evil calumets in each hand and singing the medicine song which he sings over his dying patient, looking me full in the face until I completed his picture at full length. His vanity has been completely gratified in the operation; he lies for hours together day after day in my room in front of his picture gazing intently upon it, lights my pipe for me while I am painting, shakes hands with me a dozen times each day, and talks of me and enlarges upon my medicine virtues and my talents wherever he goes, so that this new difficulty is now removed, and instead of preaching against me he is one of my strongest and most enthusiastic friends and aids in the country.
“Perhaps nothing ever more completely astonished these people than the operations of my brush. The art of portrait painting was a subject entirely new to them and of course unthought of, and my appearance here has commenced a new era in the arcana of medicine or mystery. Soon after arriving here I commenced and finished the portraits of the two principal chiefs. This was done without having awakened the curiosity of the villagers, as they had heard nothing of what was going on, and even the chiefs themselves seemed to be ignorant of my designs until the pictures were completed. No one else was admitted into my lodge during the operation, and when finished it was exceedingly amusing to see them mutually recognizing each other’s likeness and assuring each other of the[270] striking resemblance which they bore to the originals. Both of these pressed their hand over their mouths awhile in dead silence (a custom amongst most tribes when anything surprises them very much); looking attentively upon the portraits and myself and upon the palette and colours with which these unaccountable effects had been produced.
“Then they walked up to me in the most gentle manner, taking me in turn by the hand with a firm grip, and, with head and eyes inclined downwards, in a tone of a little above a whisper, pronounced the words te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee, and walked off.
“Readers, at that moment I was christened with a new and a great name, one by which I am now familiarly hailed and talked of in this village, and no doubt will be as long as traditions last in this strange community.
“That moment conferred an honour on me which you, as yet, do not understand. I took the degree (not of Doctor of Law, nor Bachelor of Arts) of Master of Arts—of mysteries, of magic, and of hocus pocus. I was recognized in that short sentence as a great medicine white man, and since that time have been regularly installed medicine, or mystery,—which is the most honourable degree that could be conferred upon me here, and I now hold a place amongst the most eminent and envied personages, the doctors and conjurati of this titled community.
“Te-ho-pe-nee Wash-ee—pronounced ‘tup’penny’—is the name I now go by, and it will prove to me no doubt of more value than gold, for I have been called upon and feasted by the doctors, who are all mystery-men, and it has been an easy and successful passport already to many strange and mysterious places, and has put me in possession of a vast deal of curious and interesting information which I am sure I never should have otherwise learned. I am daily growing in the estimation of the medicine-men and the chiefs, and by assuming all the gravity and circumspection due from so high a dignity (and even considerably more), and endeavouring to perform now and then some art or trick that is unfathomable, I am in hopes of supporting my standing until the great annual ceremony commences, on which occasion I may possibly be allowed a seat in the medicine lodge by the doctors, who are the sole conductors of this great source and fountain of all priestcraft and conjuration in this country. After I had finished the portraits of the two chiefs and they had returned to their wigwams and deliberately seated themselves by their respective firesides and silently smoked a pipe or two (according to an universal custom), they[271] gradually began to tell what had taken place; and at length crowds of gaping listeners, with mouths wide open, thronged their lodges, and a throng of women and girls were about my house, and through every crack and crevice I could see their glistening eyes which were piercing my hut in a hundred places, from a natural and restless propensity—a curiosity to see what was going on within. An hour or more passed in this way and the soft and silken throng continually increased until some hundreds of them were clung and piled about my wigwam like a swarm of bees hanging on the front and sides of their hive. During this time not a man made his appearance about the premises; after awhile, however, they could be seen folded in their robes gradually sidling up towards the lodge with a silly look upon their faces, which confessed at once that curiosity was leading them reluctantly where their pride checked and forbade them to go. The rush soon after became general, and the chiefs and medicine-men took possession of my room, placing soldiers (braves, with spears in their hands) at the door, admitting no one but such as were allowed by the chiefs to come in. The likenesses were instantly recognized, and many of the gaping multitude commenced yelping; some were stamping off in the jarring dance, others were singing, and others again were crying; hundreds covered their mouth with their hands and were mute; others, indignant, drove their spears frightfully into the ground, and some threw a reddened arrow at the sun and went home to their wigwams.
“The pictures seen, the next curiosity was to see the man who made them, and I was called forth. Readers, if you have any imagination, save me the trouble of painting this scene. I stepped forth and was instantly hemmed in in the throng. Women were gazing, and warriors and braves were offering me their hands, whilst little boys and girls by dozens were struggling through the crowd to touch me with the ends of their fingers, and while I was engaged from the waist upwards in fending off the throng and shaking hands my legs were assailed (not unlike the nibbling of little fish when I have been standing in deep water) by children who were creeping between the legs of the bystanders for the curiosity or honour of touching me with the end of their finger. The eager curiosity and expression of astonishment with which they gazed upon me plainly showed that they looked upon me as some strange and unaccountable being. They pronounced me the greatest medicine-man in the world, for they said I had made a living being; they said they could see their chief alive in two places—those that I had made were a little alive; they could see their[272] eyes move, could see them smile and laugh; they could certainly speak if they should try, and they must therefore have some life in them.
“The squaws generally agreed that they had discovered life enough in them to render my medicine too great for the Mandans, saying that such an operation could not be performed without taking away from the original something of his existence, which I put in the picture, and they could see it move, see it stir.
“This curtailing of the natural existence for the purpose of instilling life into the secondary one they decided to be an useless and destructive operation, and one which was calculated to do great mischief in their happy community, and they commenced a mournful and doleful chant against me, crying and weeping bitterly through the village, proclaiming me a most dangerous man, one who could make living persons by looking at them, and at the same time could, as a matter of course, destroy life in the same way, if I chose; that my medicine was dangerous to their lives and that I must leave the village immediately; that bad luck would happen to those whom I painted, and that when they died they would never sleep quiet in their graves.
“In this way the women and some old quack medicine-men together had succeeded in raising an opposition against me, and the reasons they assigned were so plausible and so exactly suited for their superstitious feelings, that they completely succeeded in exciting fears and a general panic in the minds of a number of chiefs who had agreed to sit for their portraits, and my operations were of course for several days completely at a stand. A grave council was held on the subject from day to day, and there seemed great difficulty in deciding what was to be done with me and the dangerous art which I was practising and which had far exceeded their original expectations. I finally got admitted to their sacred conclave and assured them that I was but a man like themselves, that my art had no medicine or mystery about it, but could be learned by any of them, if they would practice it as long as I had; that my intentions towards them were of the most friendly kind, and that in the country where I lived brave men never allowed their squaws to frighten them with their foolish whims and stories. They all immediately arose, shook me by the hand, and dressed themselves for their pictures. After this there was no further difficulty about sitting, all were ready to be painted; the squaws were silent, and my painting-room was a continual resort for the chiefs and braves and medicine-men, where they waited with impatience for the[273] completion of each one’s picture, that they could decide as to the likeness as it came from under the brush, that they could laugh and yell and sing a new song, and smoke a fresh pipe to the health and success of him who had just been safely delivered from the hands and the mystic operation of the white medicine.”
The Mandans celebrate the anniversary of the feast of the deluge with great pomp. During the first four days of this religious ceremony they perform the buffalo dances four times the first day, eight the second, twelve the third, and sixteen the fourth day, around the great canoe placed in the centre of the village. This canoe represents the ark which saved the human race from the flood, and the total-number of the dances executed is forty, in commemoration of the forty nights during which the rain did not cease to fall upon the earth. The dancers chosen for this occasion are eight in number and divided into four pairs corresponding to the four cardinal points. They are naked and painted various colours; round their ankles they wear tufts of buffalo hair; a skin of the same animal with the head and horns is thrown over their shoulders; the head serves as a mask to the dancers. In one of their hands they hold a racket, in the other a lance, or rather a long inoffensive stick. On their shoulders is bound a bundle of branches. In dancing they stoop down towards the ground and imitate the movements and the bellowing of buffaloes.
Alternating with these pairs is a single dancer, also naked and painted, and wearing no other garments than a beautiful girdle and a head-dress of eagles’ feathers mingled with the fur of the ermine. These four dancers also carry each a racket and a stick in their hands; in dancing they turn their backs to the great canoe. Two of them are painted black with white spots all over their bodies to represent the sky and stars. The two others are painted red to represent the day, with white marks to signify the spirits chased away by the first rays of the sun. None but these twelve individuals dance in this ceremony of solemnity. During the dance the master of the ceremonies stands by the great canoe and smokes in honour of each of the cardinal points. Four old men also approach the great canoe, and during the whole dance, which continues a quarter of an hour, the actors sing and make all the noise possible with their instruments, but always preserving the measure.
Besides the dancers and musicians there are other actors who represent symbolical characters and have a peculiar dress during this festival. Near the great canoe are two men dressed like bears who growl continually and[274] try to interrupt the actors. In order to appease them women continually bring them plates of food, which two other Indians disguised as eagles often seize and carry off into the prairie. The bears are then chased by troops of children, naked and painted like fawns and representing antelopes, which eagerly devour the food that is served. This is an allegory, signifying that in the end Providence always causes the innocent to triumph over the wicked.
All at once on the fourth day the women begin to weep and lament, the children cry out, the dogs bark, the men are overwhelmed with profound despair. This is the cause: A naked man painted of a brilliant black like the plumage of a raven and marked with white lines, having a bear’s tusk painted at each side of his mouth, and holding a long wand in his hand, appears on the prairie running in a zigzag direction, but still advancing rapidly towards the village and uttering the most terrific cries. Arriving at the place where the dance is performing he strikes right and left at men, women, and children, and dogs, who fly in all directions to avoid the blows of this singular being, who is a symbol of the evil spirit.
The master of the ceremonies on perceiving the disorder quits his post near the great canoe and goes toward the enemy with his medicine-pipe, and the evil spirit, charmed by the magic calumet, becomes as gentle as a child and as ashamed as a fox caught stealing a fowl. At this sudden change the terror of the crowd changes to laughter, and the women cease to tremble at the evil spirit and take to pelting him with mud; he is overtaken and deprived of his wand and is glad to take to his heels and escape from the village as quickly as he can.
It is to be hoped that the North-American Indian when communicating with Kitchi-Manitou does not forget to pray to be cured of his intolerable vice of covetousness. He can let nothing odd or valuable pass him without yearning for it, or so says every traveller whose lot it has been to sojourn among Red men. So says Mr. Murray, and quotes a rather ludicrous case in support of the assertion:
“While I was sitting near my packs of goods, like an Israelite in Monmouth Street, an elderly chief approached and signified his wish to trade. Our squaws placed some meat before him, after which I gave him the pipe, and in the meantime had desired my servant to search my saddle bags, and to add to the heap of saleable articles everything of every kind beyond what was absolutely necessary for my covering on my return. A spare shirt, a handkerchief, and a waistcoat were thus drafted, and among[275] other things was a kind of elastic flannel waistcoat made for wearing next to the skin and to be drawn over the head as it was without buttons or any opening in front. It was too small for me and altogether so tight and uncomfortable, although elastic, that I determined to part with it.
The Covetous Pawnee.
“To this last article my new customer took a great fancy and he made me describe to him the method of putting it on and the warmth and comfort of it when on. Be it remembered that he was a very large corpulent man, probably weighing sixteen stone. I knew him to be very good-natured, as I had hunted once with his son and on returning to the lodge the father had feasted me, chatted by signs, and taught me some of the most extraordinary Indian methods of communication. He said he should like to try on the jacket, and as he threw the buffalo robe off his huge shoulders I could scarcely keep my gravity when I compared their dimensions[276] with the garment into which we were about to attempt their introduction. At last by dint of great industry and care, we contrived to get him into it. In the body it was a foot too short, and fitted him so close that every thread was stretched to the uttermost; the sleeves reached a very little way above his elbow. However, he looked upon his arms and person with great complacency and elicited many smiles from the squaws at the drollery of his attire; but as the weather was very hot he soon began to find himself too warm and confined, and he wished to take it off again. He moved his arms, he pulled his sleeves, he twisted and turned himself in every direction, but in vain. The old man exerted himself till the drops of perspiration fell from his forehead, but had I not been there he must either have made some person cut it up or have sat in it till this minute.
“For some time I enjoyed this scene with malicious and demure gravity, and then I showed him that he must try and pull it off over his head. A lad who stood by then drew it till it enveloped his nose, eyes, mouth, and ears; his arms were raised above his head, and for some minutes he remained in that melancholy plight, blinded, choked, and smothered, with his hands rendered useless for the time. He rolled about, sneezing, sputtering, and struggling, until all around him were convulsed with laughter and our squaws shrieked in their ungovernable mirth in a manner that I had never before witnessed. At length I slit a piece of the edge and released the old fellow from his straight-waistcoat confinement; he turned it round often in his hands and made a kind of comic-grave address to it, of which I could only gather a few words: I believe the import of them was that it would be ‘a good creature’ in the ice-month of the village. I was so pleased with his good humour that I gave it to him to warm his squaw in the ‘ice-month.’”
As this will probably be the last occasion of discussing in this volume the physical and moral characteristics of the North American Indian, it may not be out of place here to give a brief descriptive sketch of the chief tribes with an account of their strength and power in bygone times and their present condition. The names of Murray, Dominech, Catlin, etc., afford sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of the information here supplied.
The Ojibbeway nation occupies a large amount of territory, partly within the United States, and partly within British America. They are the largest community of savages in North America: the entire[277] population, in 1842, amounted to thirty thousand. That part of the tribe occupying territory within the United States inhabit all the northern part of Michigan, the whole northern portion of Wisconsin Territory, all the south shore of Lake Superior, for eight hundred miles, the upper part of the Mississippi, and Sandy, Leech, and Red Lakes. Those of the nation living within the British dominions occupy all Western Canada, the north of Lake Huron, the north of Lake Superior, the north of Lake Winnibeg, and the north of Red River Lake, about one hundred miles. The whole extent of territory occupied by this single nation, extends one thousand nine hundred miles east and west, and from two to three hundred miles north and south. There are about five thousand in British America, and twenty-five thousand in the United States. Of their past history nothing is known, except what may be gathered from their traditions. All the chiefs and elder men of the tribe agree that they originally migrated from the west. A great number of their traditions are doubtless unworthy of credence, but a few that relate to the foundation of the world, the subsequent disobedience of the people,—which, the Ojibbeways say, was brought about by climbing of a vine that connected the world of spirits with the human race, which was strictly forbidden the mortals below, and how they were punished by the introduction of disease and death, which before they knew not;—all this and much more of the same nature, is a subject of more than ordinary interest to the contemplative mind.
Their first intercourse with Europeans was in 1609, when they, as well as many of the other tribes belonging to the Algonquin stock, met Champlain, the adventurous French trader. They were described by him as the most polished in manners of the northern tribes; but depended for subsistence entirely on the chase, disdaining altogether the more effeminate occupation of the cultivation of the soil. From that time they eagerly sought and very soon obtained the friendship of the French. The more so that their ancient and inveterate foes, the Iroquois, were extremely jealous of the intrusive white men. With the help of the French they gained many bloody and decisive battles over the Iroquois, and considerably extended their territories. The history of the nation from this time is not very interesting. From the ravages of war and disease the tribe, as may be perceived from a comparison with many others, has escaped with more than ordinary success; partly owing to the simplicity and general intelligence of the tribe in guarding against these evils.
[278]
Their religion is very simple, the fundamental points of which are nearly the same as all the North American Indians. They believe in one Ruler or Great Spirit—He-sha-mon-e-doo, “Benevolent Spirit,” or He-ehe-mon-edoo, ”“Great Spirit.” This spirit is over the universe at the same time, but under different names, as the “God of man,” the “God of fish,” and many others. It is supposed by many travellers that sun-worship was a part of their mythology, from the extreme respect which they were observed to pay to that luminary. But we find the reason of this supposed homage is, that the Indian regards the sun as the wigwam of the Great Spirit, and is naturally an object of great veneration. In this particular, perhaps, they are not greater idolaters than civilized people, who have every advantage that art and nature can bestow. The Indian, because the sun doesn’t shine to-day, won’t transfer his adoration to the moon to-morrow; and in this respect at least is superior to many a wise and educated “pale face.”
In addition to the good spirit they have a bad spirit, whom, however, they believe to be inferior to the good spirit. He is supposed to have the power of inflicting all manner of evils, and, moreover, to take a delight in doing so. This spirit was sent to them as a punishment for their original disobediences. They have, besides these, spirits innumerable. In their idea every little flower of the field, every beast of the land, and every fish in the water, possesses one.
Pawnees.—This tribe, which is scattered between Kansas and Nebraska, was at one time very numerous and powerful, but at the present time numbers no more than about ten thousand. They have an established reputation for daring, cunning, and dishonesty. In the year 1832 small-pox made its appearance among the Pawnees, and in the course of a few months destroyed fully half their numbers. They shave the head, all but the scalp lock. They cultivate a little Indian corn, but are passionately fond of hunting and adventure. The use of the Indian corn is confined to the women and old men. The warriors feed on the game they kill on the great prairies, or on animals they steal from those who cross their territory. The Pawnees are divided into four bands, with each a chief. Above these four chiefs is a single one, whom the whole nation obey. This tribe has four villages, situated near the Nebraska. It is allied with the neighbouring tribe of the Omahas and Ottoes. It was till recently the custom of these people to torture their prisoners, but it is now discontinued, owing to the fact of a squaw of the hostile tribe being snatched[279] from the stake by a white man. The circumstance was regarded as a direct interposition of the Great Spirit, and as an expression of his will that torture should he discontinued. They do not appear to possess any historical traditions, but on certain other subjects preserve some curious legends. The “sign” of the Pawnees is the two forefingers held at the sides of the head in imitation of a wolf’s ears.
The Delawares.—This ancient people, once the most renowned and powerful among American Indians, has of late years so dwindled that were the entire nation to be gathered, it would scarcely count one thousand souls. They are now settled in the Valley of the Canadian river, and their pursuits are almost strictly agricultural. According to their traditions, several centuries ago they inhabited the western part of the American continent, but afterwards emigrated in a body to the banks of the Mississippi, where they met the Iroquois, who, like themselves, had abandoned the far west and settled near the same river. In a short time, however, the new comers and the previous holders of the land, the Allegavis, ceased to be on friendly terms, and the combined Delawares and Iroquois declared war against them to settle the question. The combined forces were victorious, and divided the land of the Allegavis between them. After living peaceably for two hundred years, another migration was resolved upon, and, according to some accounts, the whole of both nations, and according to others, but part of them, settled on the shores of the four great rivers, the Delaware, the Hudson, the Susquehanna, and the Potomac. Up to this time the Delawares remained, as they had ever been, superior to the Iroquois, and by-and-by the latter grew jealous of their powerful neighbours, and by way of thinning their numbers sought to breed a deadly feud between the Delawares and certain other near-living tribes, amongst which were the warlike Cherokees. This was an easy matter. The arms of every tribe are more or less peculiar and may be safely sworn to by any other. Stealing a Delaware axe, an Iroquois lay wait for a Cherokee, and having brained him with the weapon laid it by the side of the scalpless body. The bait took, and speedily the Delawares and the Cherokees were plunged into deadly strife.
An Iroquois Warrior.
The Iroquois, however, were not destined to escape scot free for their diabolical trick. The Delawares discovered it, and swore in council to exterminate their malicious neighbours. But the latter were much too wise to attempt a single-handed struggle with their justly incensed foes, so soliciting the attention of the other tribes they set out their grievances[280] in so artful a manner that the others resolved to help them, and there was straightway formed against the unoffending Delawares a confederation called the Six Nations. “This,” says the Abbé Dominech, “was about the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century, and from this period dates the commencement of the most bloody battles the New World has witnessed. The Delawares were generally victorious. It was during this war that the French landed in Canada, and the Iroquois not wishing them to settle in the country took arms against them; but finding themselves thus placed between two fires, and despairing of subduing the Delawares by force of arms, they had recourse to a stratagem in order to make peace with the latter, and induce them to join the war against the French. Their plan was to destroy the Delawares’ fame for military bravery, and to make them (to use an Indian expression) into old women.[281] To make the plan of the Iroquois understood, we must mention that most of the wars between these tribes are brought to an end only by the intervention of the women. They adjure the warriors by all they hold dear to take pity on their poor wives and on the children who weep for their fathers, to lay aside their arms and to smoke the calumet of peace with their enemies. These discourses rarely fail in their effect and the women place themselves in an advantageous position as peace-makers. The Iroquois persuaded the Delawares that it would be no disgrace to become “women,” but that on the contrary, it would be an honour to a nation so powerful, and which could not be suspected of deficiency in courage or strength, to be the means of bringing about a general peace and of preserving the Indian race from further extermination. These representations determined the Delawares to become “women” by asking for peace. So they came to be contemptuously known by other tribes as “Iroquois Squaws,” and losing heart, from that time grew more few.
Shawnees.—The ancient “hunting grounds” of this important tribe were Pennsylvania and New Jersey; but they are now found in the Valley of the Canadian. “Some authors are of opinion,” says the author of “The Deserts of North America,” “that these Indians come from Eastern Florida, because there is in that country a river called Su-wa-nee, whence the word Shawanas, which is also used to design the Shawnees, might be derived. It is certain, however, that they were known on the coast of the Atlantic, near Delaware and Chesapeak, subsequent to the historical era: that is to say, after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons in the land. The Shawnees, as well as the Aborigines of whom they formed part, held a tradition of their transatlantic origin. It is but a few years ago that they ceased to offer animal sacrifices to render thanks to the Great Spirit for their happy arrival in America. The Shawnees and their neighbours the Delawares were alternately friends and enemies. They frequently made war on each other, and retreated to the west in consequence of the invasion of the whites. The present Shawnees are as much civilized as the Chactas; they are perhaps less rudely attired; with the exception of rings, earrings, and brooches of their own manufacturing, they care little for the ornaments by which other Indians set so much store. Their features are peculiar; their nose has a Grecian cut not devoid of beauty; their hair is short to the neck and parted in the front; the men wear moustaches; the women are rather good looking, and notwithstanding the dark colour of their complexion their cheeks show signs of robust health. Some of the[282] most renowned of American chiefs are found among the Shawnees. The present actual population is 1,500.”
And now, having so long endured the trying climate of North America, let us turn to a warmer country—to one of the warmest and quaintest—to Abyssinia. Not the least quaint of its features is the fact that there are more churches there than in any other country; and, though it is very mountainous, and consequently the view much obstructed, it is very seldom you see less than five or six; and, if you are on a commanding ground, five times that number. Every Abyssinian that dies thinks he has atoned for all his wickedness, if he leaves a fund to build a church, or has built one in his lifetime. The king builds many. Wherever a victory is gained, there a church is erected in the very field—and that before the bodies of the slain are buried. Formerly this was only the case when the enemy was Pagan or Infidel; now the same is observable when the victories are over Christians. The situation of a church is always chosen near running water, for the convenience of their purifications and ablutions, in which they strictly observe the Levitical law. They are always placed on the top of some beautiful round hill, which is surrounded entirely with rows of the oxycedrus, or Virgin cedar, which grows here in great beauty and perfection, and is called Arz. Nothing adds so much to the beauty of the country as these churches, and the plantations about them. In the middle of this plantation of cedars is interspersed, at proper distances, a number of those beautiful trees called Cuffo, which grow very high, and are all extremely picturesque.
The churches are all round, with thatched roofs; their summits are perfect cones; the outside is surrounded by a number of wooden pillars, which are nothing else than the trunks of the cedar-tree, and are placed to support the edifice, about eight feet of the roof projecting beyond the wall of the church, which forms an agreeable walk or colonnade around it in hot weather or in rain. The inside of the church is in several divisions, according as is prescribed by the law of Moses. The first is a circle somewhat wider than the inner one; here the congregation sit and pray. Within this is a square, and that square is divided by a veil or curtain, in which is another very small division answering to the holy of holies. This is so narrow, that none but the priests can go into it. You are barefooted, whenever you enter the church, and, if barefooted, you may go through every part of it, if you have any such curiosity, provided you are pure, that is, have not had connexion with woman for[283] twenty-four hours before, or touched carrion or dead bodies (a curious assemblage of ideas), for in that case you are not to go within the precincts, or outer circumference, of the church, but stand and say your prayers at an awful distance among the cedars.
Every person, of both sexes, under Jewish disqualifications, is obliged to observe this distance; and this is always a place belonging to the church, where, except in Lent, you see the greatest part of the congregation; but this is left to your own conscience; and, if there was either great inconvenience in the one situation, or great satisfaction in the other, the case would be otherwise.
On your first entering the church, you put off your shoes: but you must leave a servant there with them, or else they will be stolen, if good for anything, by the priests and monks, before you come out of the church. At entering you kiss the threshold and the two door-posts, go in and say what prayer you please; that finished you come out again, and your duty is over. The churches are full of pictures, painted on parchment, and nailed upon the walls a little less slovenly than you see paltry prints in beggarly country ale-houses. There has been always a sort of painting known among the scribes, a daubing much inferior to the worst of our sign-painters. Sometimes, for a particular church, they get a number of pictures of saints, on skins of parchment, ready finished from Cairo, in a style very little superior to these performances of their own. They are placed like a frieze, and hung in the upper part of the wall. St. George is generally there with his dragon, and St. Demetrius fighting a lion. There is no choice in their saints; they are both of the Old and New Testament, and those that might be dispensed with from both. There is St. Pontius Pilate and his wife; there is St. Balaam and his ass; Samson and his jawbone; and so of the rest. But the thing that surprised Mr. Bruce most was a kind of square miniature upon the head-piece or mitre of the priest, administering the sacrament at Adowa, representing Pharaoh on a white horse plunging in the Red Sea, with many guns and pistols swimming upon the surface of it around him.
Nothing embossed, or in relief, ever appears in any of their churches; all this would be reckoned idolatry, so much so that they do not wear a cross, as has been represented, on the top of the ball of the sendick or standard, because it casts a shade; but there is no doubt that pictures have been used in their churches from the very earliest ages of Christianity.
The primate or patriarch of the Abyssinian Church is styled Abuna.[284] The first of these prelates mentioned in history is Tecla Haimanout, who distinguished himself by the restoration of the royal family, and the regulations which he made both in church and state. A wise ordinance was then enacted that the Abyssinians should not have it in their power to raise one of their own countrymen to the dignity of Abuna. As this dignitary of the church very seldom understands the language of the country, he has no share in the government. His chief employment is in ordinations, which ceremony is thus performed:—A number of men and children present themselves at a distance, and there stand from humility, not daring to approach him. He then asks who these are, and they tell him that they wish to be deacons. On this he makes two or three signs with a small cross in his hand, and blows with his mouth twice or thrice upon them, saying, “Let them be deacons.” Mr. Bruce once saw the whole army of Begemder, when just returned from shedding the blood of 10,000 men, made deacons by the Abuna, who stood about a quarter of a mile distant from them.
The Abyssinians neither eat nor drink with strangers, though they have no reason for this; and it is now a mere prejudice, because the old occasion for this regulation is lost. They break, or purify, however, every vessel a stranger of any kind shall have eaten or drunk out of. The custom, then, is copied from the Egyptians; and they have preserved it, though the Egyptian reason does no longer hold.
The Egyptians made no account of the mother what her state was; if the father was free, the child followed the condition of the father. This is strictly so in Abyssinia. The king’s child by a negro-slave, bought with money, or taken in war, is as near in succeeding to the crown as any one of twenty children that he has older than that one, and born of the noblest women of the country.
In Abyssinia, once every year they baptize all grown people, or adults. Mr. Bruce here relates what he himself saw on the spot, and what is nothing more than the celebration of our Saviour’s baptism:—“The small river, running between the town of Adowa and the church, had been dammed up for several days; the stream was scanty, so that it scarcely overflowed. It was in places three feet deep, in some perhaps four, or little more. Three large tents were pitched the morning before the feast of the Epiphany; one on the north for the priests to repose in during the intervals of the service, and, besides this, one to communicate in: on the south there was a third tent for the monks and priests of another church[285] to rest themselves in their turn. About twelve o’clock at night the monks and priests met together, and began their prayers and psalms at the water-side, one party relieving each other. At dawn of day, the governor, Welleta Michael, came thither, with some soldiers, to raise men for Ras Michael, then on his march against Waragna Fasil, and sat down on a small hill by the water-side, the troops all skirmishing on foot and on horseback around them.
“As soon as the sun began to appear, three large crosses of wood were carried by three priests dressed in their sacerdotal vestments, and who, coming to the side of the river, dipped the cross into the water, and all this time the firing, skirmishing, and praying, went on together. The priests with their crosses returned, one of their number before them carrying something less than an English quart of water in a silver cup or chalice; when they were about fifty yards from Welleta Michael, that general stood up, and the priest took as much water as he could hold in his hands, and sprinkled it upon his head holding the cup at the same time to Welleta Michael’s mouth to taste; after which the priest received it back again, saying at the same time, “Gzier y’barak,” which is simply, “May God bless you.” Each of the three crosses was then brought forward to Welleta Michael, and he kissed them. The ceremony of sprinkling the water was then repeated to all the great men in the tent, all cleanly dressed as in gala. Some of them, not contented with aspersion, received it in the palms of their hands joined, and drank it there; more water was brought for those that had not partaken of the first; and after the whole of the governor’s company was sprinkled, the crosses returned to the river, their bearers singing hallelujahs, and the skirmishing and firing continuing.”
Mr. Bruce observed, that, a very little time after the governor had been sprinkled, two horses and two mules, belonging to Ras Michael and Ozoro Esther, came and were washed. Afterwards the soldiers went in and bathed their horses and guns; those who had wounds bathed them also. Heaps of platters and pots, that had been used by Mahometans or Jews, were brought thither likewise to be purified; and thus the whole ended.
The men in Egypt neither bought nor sold; the same is the case in Abyssinia to this day. It is infamy for a man to go to market to buy any thing. He cannot carry water or bake bread; but he must wash the clothes belonging to both sexes; and, in this function, the women cannot[286] help him. In Abyssinia the men carried their burdens on their heads, the women on their shoulders: and this difference, we are told, obtained in Egypt. It is plain that this buying in the public market by women must have ended whenever jealousy or sequestration of that sex began. For this reason it ended early in Egypt; but, for the opposite reason, it subsists in Abyssinia to this day. It was a sort of impiety in Egypt to eat a calf; and the reason was plain, they worshipped the cow. In Abyssinia, to this day, no man eats veal, although every one very willingly eats beef. The Egyptian reason no longer subsists, as in the former case, but the prejudice remains, though they have forgotten their reason.
The Abyssinians eat no wild or water-fowl, not even the goose, which was a great delicacy in Egypt. The reason of this is, that, upon their conversion to Judaism, they were forced to relinquish their ancient municipal customs, as far as they were contrary to the Mosaical law, and the animals in their country not corresponding in form, kind, or name with those mentioned in the Septuagint, or original Hebrew, it has followed that there are many of each class that know not whether they are clean or not, and a wonderful confusion and uncertainty has followed through ignorance or mistake, being unwilling to violate the law in any one instance, though not understanding it.
Among the Gallas of Abyssinia, the Kalijas (magicians) and the Lubas (priests) reign supreme. It is the business of the latter to determine whether any impending war will be successful, and for this purpose the entrails of a goat are consulted. With his long hair streaming wildly, a bright copper circlet decorating his brow, and with a sonorous bell, which he beats to enjoin the silence and attention of the assembled multitude, he plunges his naked arm into the bowels of the freshly-slaughtered animal, and withdrawing part of the intestines, according to their colour declares the prospects of the savage army. In such matters, however, the Kalijas never interferes. His business is to cast out from sick men the evil spirits that torment them. There are eighty-eight evil spirits, say the Kalijas, divided into two bands of forty-three each and ruled and directed by a chief. The Kalijas is untiring in his efforts to hunt out this formidable army of eighty-eight. He goes about with a bell in one hand and a whip in the other, and with a festoon of dried goat’s entrails about his neck. Sent for by a patient he rubs him well with grease, smokes him with aromatic herbs, cries out at the top of his voice, rings his bell with a deafening din, and then lays into the sick person with the whipthong.[287] If all these powerful remedies fail to drive out the Sao or evil spirit, why, the Kalijas resignedly takes his fee and goes away, leaving the victory to the doughty soldier of the eighty six.
In debating on the ills the Abyssinian is heir to the Bouda and Zar must not be forgotten, since they occupy a most prominent place in the catalogue of evils which torture the brown-skinned children of the sun. Of the two the Bouda, or sorcerer, as the word signifies, is the most dreaded. His powers in the black art are reported to be of a most varied character. At one time he will enslave the objects of his malice, at another he will subject them to nameless tortures, and not unfrequently his vengeance will even compass their death. Like the genii and egrets of the Arabian Nights the Bouda invariably selects those possessed of youth and talent, beauty and wit, on whom to work his evil deeds.
A variety of charms have been invented to counteract the Bouda’s power, but the most potent are the amulets written by the pious deleteras and worn round the neck. The dread of the sorcerer has introduced a whole tribe of exorcists who pretend both to be able to conjure the evil spirit and also to detect his whereabout; and these are accordingly held in great awe by the people. Their traffic resembles that of the highwayman; with this difference only—that the one in bold and unblushing language calls on his victim to stand and deliver, the other stealthily creeps into the midst of a troop of soldiers, or amongst a convivial party of friends, and pronounces the mystical word Bouda. The uncouth appearance and sepulchral voice of the exorcist everywhere produce the deepest sensation, and young and old, men and women, gladly part with some article to get rid of his hated and feared presence. If, as sometimes happens, one or two less superstitious individuals object to these wicked exactions, the exorcist has a right to compel every one present to smell an abominable concoction of foul herbs and decayed bones which he carries in his pouch; those who unflinchingly inhale the offensive scent are declared innocent, but those who have not such strong olfactory nerves are declared Boudas and shunned as allies of the evil one.
“During the rainy season,” says Mr. Stern, the most recent of Abyssinian travellers, “when the weather, like the mind, is cheerless and dull, the Boudas, as if in mockery of the universal gloom, celebrate their saturnalia. In our small settlement at Gaffat the monotony of our existence was constantly diversified by a Bouda scene. Towards the close of August, when every tree and shrub began to sprout and blossom, the[288] disease degenerated into a regular epidemic; and in the course of an evening two, three, and not unfrequently every hut occupied by the natives would ring with that familiar household cry. A heavy thunderstorm by some mysterious process seemed invariably to predispose the people to the Bouda’s torturing influence.
“I remember one day about the end of August we had a most tremendous tempest: it commenced a little after mid-day and lasted till nearly five o’clock. During its continuance the air was completely darkened, except when the lightning’s blaze flashed athwart the sky and relieved for a few seconds the almost midnight gloom. No human voice could be heard amidst the thunder’s deafening crash and the torrent’s impetuous rage.
“The noise and tumult of the striving elements had scarcely subsided when one of the servants, a stout, robust, and masculine woman, began to exhibit the Bouda symptoms. She had been complaining the whole noon of langour, faintness, and utter incapacity for all physical exertion. About sunset her lethargy increased, and she gradually sank into a state of apparent unconsciousness. Her fellow servants who were familiar with the cause of her complaint at once pronounced her to be possessed. To outwit the conjuror I thought it advisable to try the effect of strong liquid ammonia on the nerves of the evil one. The place being dark, faggots were ignited; and in their bright flickering light we beheld a mass of dark figures squatted on the wet floor around a rigid and apparently dead woman. I instantly applied my bottle to her nose; but although the potent smell made all near raise a cry of terror, it produced no more effect on the passive and insensible patient than if it had been clear water.
“The owner of Gaffat, an amateur exorcist, almost by instinct, as if anticipating something wrong in that part of his dominion occupied by the Franks, made his appearance in the very nick of time, and no sooner had the bloated and hideous fellow hobbled into the hut, than the possessed woman, as if struck by a magnetic wire, burst into loud fits of laughter and the paroxysms of a maniac.
“Half-a-dozen stalwart fellows caught hold of her, but frenzy imparted vigour to her frame which even the united strength of these athletics was barely sufficient to keep under control. She tried to bite, kick, and tear every one within reach; and when she found herself foiled in all these mischievous attempts she convulsively grasped the unpaved wet floor and, in imitation of the hyæna, gave forth the most discordant sounds. Manacled and shackled with leather thongs, she was now partly dragged, and partly[289] carried, to an open grassy spot; and there in the presence of a considerable number of people the conjuror, in a business-like manner, began his exorcising art.
A Woman under the Influence of Bouda.
“The poor sufferer, as if conscious of the dreaded old man’s presence struggled frantically to escape his performance; but the latter disregarding her entreaties and lamentations, her fits of unnatural gaiety and bursts of thrilling anguish, with one hand laid an amulet on her heaving bosom, whilst with the other he made her smell a rag in which the root of a strong-scented plant, a bone of a hyæna, and some other abominable unguents, were bound up. The mad rage of the possessed woman being[290] instantly hushed by this operation, the conjuror addressed himself to the Bouda, and in language unfit for polite ears, requested him to give him his name. The Bouda, speaking through the medium of the possessed, replied:
“‘Hailu Miriam.’
“‘Where do you reside?’
“‘In Damot.’
“‘What is the name of your father and confessor?’
“‘My father’s name is Negouseye, and my Abadre’s, Oubie.’
“‘Why did you come to this district?’
“‘I took possession of this person on the plain of Wadela, where I met her on the road from Magdala.’
“‘How many persons have you already killed?
“‘Six.’
“‘I command thee, in the name of the blessed Trinity, the twelve apostles, and the three hundred and eighteen bishops at the council of Nicæa, to leave this woman and never more to molest her.’
“The Bouda did not feel disposed to obey the conjuror; but on being threatened with a repast of glowing coals, he became docile, and in a sulky voice promised to obey the request.
“Still anxious, however, to delay his exit, he demanded something to eat; and to my utter disgust his taste was as coarse as the torments inflicted on the young woman were ungallant. Filth and dirt of the most revolting description, together with an admixture of water, were the choice delicacies he selected for his supper. This strange fare, which the most niggardly hospitality could not refuse, several persons hastened to prepare; and when all was ready, and the earthen dish had been hidden in the centre of a leafy shrub, the conjuror called to the Bouda, ‘As thy father did, so do thou.’ These words had scarcely escaped the lips of the exorcist when the possessed person leapt up and, crawling on all fours, sought the dainty repast, which she lapped up with a sickening avidity and greediness. She now laid hold of a stone which three strong men could scarcely lift, and raising it aloft in the air, whirled it round her head, and then fell senseless to the ground. In half an hour she recovered, but was quite unconscious of what had transpired.
“Next in importance to the Bouda is the Zar. This malady is exclusively confined to unmarried women, and has the peculiar feature, that during the violence of the paroxysm it prompts the patient to imitate the sharp[291] discordant growl of the leopard. I recollect that the first time I saw a case of this description it gave me a shock that made my blood run cold. The sufferer was a handsome, gay and lively girl of fifteen. In the morning she was engaged, as usual, with her work, when a quarrel ensued between her and the other domestics. The fierce dispute, though of a trifling character, roused the passions of the fiery Ethiopian to such a pitch that it brought on an hysterical affection. Her companions cried out, ‘She is possessed;’ and certainly her ghastly smile, nervous tremor, wild stare, and unnatural howl, justified the notion. To expel the Zar, a conjuror, as in the Bouda complaint, was formerly considered indispensable; but, by dint of perseverance, the medical faculty of the country, to their infinite satisfaction, have at length made the discovery that a sound application of the whip is quite as potent an antidote against this evil as the necromancer’s spell.”
Turning from Abyssinia to Dahomey we find, as might be expected from all that one hears of that most sanguinary spot on earth, that religion is at a very low ebb. Leopards and snakes are the chief gods worshipped by the Dahomans, and surely the mantle of these deities must have descended to their worshippers, who possess all the cunning of the one and the bloodthirstiness of the other. Besides these, the Dahoman worships thunder and lightning, and sundry meaningless wooden images. The sacrifices are various. If of a bullock it is thus performed: the priests and priestesses (the highest of the land, for the Dahoman proverb has it that the poor are never priests) assemble within a ring in a public square, a band of discordant music attends, and, after arranging the emblems of their religion and the articles carried in religious processions, such as banners, spears, tripods, and vessels holding bones, skulls, congealed blood, and other barbarous trophies, they dance, sing, and drink until sufficiently excited. The animals are next produced and decapitated by the male priests with large chopper knives. The altars are washed with the blood caught in basins; the rest is taken round by the priests and priestesses, who strike the lintel and two side posts of all the houses of the devotees with the blood that is in the basin. The turkey buzzards swarm in the neighbourhood, and with the familiarity of their nature gorge on the mangled carcass as it is cut in pieces. The meat is next cooked and distributed among the priests, portions being set aside to feed the spirits of the departed and the fetishes. After the sacrifice the priesthood again commence dancing, singing, and drinking, men,[292] women, and children grovelling in the dirt, every now and then receiving the touch and blessing of these enthusiasts. Among the priesthood are members of the royal family, wives and children. The mysteries are secret, and the revelation of them is punished with death. Although different fetishes are as common as the changes of language in Central Africa, there is a perfect understanding between all fetish people. The priests of the worship of the leopard, the snake, and the shark, are initiated into the same obscure forms. Private sacrifices of fowls, ducks, and even goats, are very common, and performed in a similar manner: the heads are taken off by the priests, and the altars washed with the blood, and the lintels and sides of the door posts are sprinkled; the body of the animal or bird is eaten or exposed for the sacred turkey buzzards to devour. The temples are extremely numerous, each having one altar of clay. There is no worship within these temples, but small offerings are daily given by devotees and removed by the priests.
Sickness is prevalent among the blacks, small-pox and fever being unattended, except by bad practitioners in medicine. And here let me remark that, after teachers of the Gospel and promoters of education, there is no study that would so well ensure a good reception in Africa as that of medicine. The doctor is always welcome, and, as in most barbarous countries, all white men were supposed to be doctors. If an African sickens, he makes a sacrifice first, a small one of some palm oil food. Dozens of plates of this mixture are to be seen outside the town, and the turkey buzzards horribly gorged, scarcely able to fly from them. If the gods are not propitiated, owls, ducks, goats, and bullocks are sacrificed; and if the invalid be a man of rank, he prays the king to permit him to sacrifice one or more slaves, paying a fee for each. Should he recover, he in his grateful joy liberates one or more slaves, bullocks, goats, fowls, etc., giving them for ever, to the fetish, and henceforward they are fed by the fetish-men. But should he die, he invites with his last breath his principal wives to join him in the next world, and according to his rank, his majesty permits a portion of his slaves to be sacrificed on the tomb.
Should any one by design or accident—the former is scarcely likely—hurt either a leopard or snake fetish, he is a ruined man. But a very few years ago a cruel and lingering death was the penalty; but Dahoman princes of modern times are more tender-hearted than their predecessors, and are content with visiting the culprit with a thorough scorching. Mr. Duncan instances such a case:
Punishment for Killing Fetish Snakes.
[293]
“May 1st.—Punishment was inflicted for accidentally killing two fetish snakes, while clearing some rubbish in the French fort. This is one of the most absurd as well as savage customs I ever witnessed or heard of. Still it is not so bad as it was in the reign of the preceding King of Dahomey, when the law declared the head of the unfortunate individual forfeited for killing one of these reptiles, even by accident. The present king has reduced the capital punishment to that about to be described. On this occasion three individuals were sentenced as guilty of the murder of the fetish snakes. A small house is thereupon made for each individual, composed of dry faggots for walls, and it is thatched with dry grass. The fetish-men then assemble, and fully describe the enormity of the crime committed. Each individual is then smeared over, or rather[294] has a quantity of palm-oil and yeast poured over him, and then a bushel basket is placed on each of their heads. In this basket are placed small calabashes, filled to the brim, so that the slightest motion of the body spills both the oil and the yeast, which runs through the bottom of the basket on to the head. Each individual carries a dog and a kid, as well as two fowls, all fastened together, across his shoulders. The culprits were then marched slowly round their newly-prepared houses, the fetish-men haranguing them all the time. Each individual is then brought to the door of his house, which is not more than four feet high. He is then freed from his burthen, and compelled to crawl into his house on his belly, for the door is only eighteen inches high. He is then shut into this small space with the dog, kid, and two fowls. The house is then fired, and the poor wretch is allowed to make his escape through the flames to the nearest running water. During his journey there he is pelted with sticks and clods by the assembled mob; but if the culprit has any friends, they generally contrive to get nearest to him during his race to the water, and assist him, as well as hinder the mob in their endeavours to injure him. When they reach the water they plunge themselves headlong into it, and are then considered to be cleansed of all the sin or crime of the snake-murder. After the lapse of thirteen days, “custom” or holiday is held here for the deceased snakes.
“The superstitions of the Bonny People are very extraordinary. Whatever animal or other thing they consider sacred they term a “jewjew,” and most common and apparently the principal of these jewjews is the guana, a reptile which in their country obtains a very large size. Several which I saw exceeded three feet and a half in length, and in their appearance were particularly disgusting, being of an unvaried dirty tawny hue. Those which live in the towns are very tame, and several as I passed through the narrow alleys approached and amused themselves in licking the blacking from my shoes. The masses of filth scraped and deposited in corners appeared to be their favourite haunts when no pools were near. There they were observed watching the flies carousing and darting at them their long slender tongues with extraordinary quickness and dexterity. For these, as well as snakes, which are likewise jewjews, small spaces are enclosed and diminutive huts erected in various parts near the sea and in the interior of the country. To kill either is considered by the natives as a capital offence and punished with death; yet towards whites so offending they do not resort to such a severe measure, but merely content themselves[295] by strongly censuring them for their profane conduct. When, however, a very flagrant instance occurs, and the white man is not individually known by those of the natives witnessing the act, it is likely that in the first transport of their anger he may be made to atone for his offence with his life; for though the whites themselves are termed jewjews, this, in all probability, is merely a nominal title confered as a compliment.”
The king of Bonny, though often invited, will never venture on board a man-of-war, but sometimes visits the merchant vessels, proceeding from the shore in a war canoe in great form, but as he approaches he always keeps aloof till the compliment of a heavy salute is paid him. He then goes close to the ship’s side and breaks a new-laid hen’s egg against it, after which he ascends the deck fully persuaded that by the performance of this ceremony he has fortified himself against any act of treachery. For other reasons, or perhaps none that he can explain, he likewise takes with him a number of feathers and his father’s arm bone, which, on sitting down to dinner, he places on the table beside his plate. He also has at the same time a young chicken dangling by one leg (the other being cut off) from his neck.
The bar of the river Bonny has sometimes proved fatal to vessels resorting thither, and being therefore injurious to the trade of the place, the inhabitants, considering it as an evil deity, endeavour to conciliate its good will by sacrificing at times a human victim upon it. The last ceremony of this sort took place not a very long time before our arrival. The handsomest and finest lad that could be procured was chosen for the purpose, and for several months before the period fixed for the close of his existence he was lodged with the king, who on account of his mild demeanour and pleasing qualities soon entertained a great affection for him, yet, swayed by superstitious fanaticism, he made no attempt to save him, but on the contrary regarded the fate to which the unfortunate lad was destined as the greatest honour that could be conferred upon him. From the time that he was chosen to propitiate by his death the forbearance of the bar he was considered as a sacred person; whatever he touched, even while casually passing along, was thenceforth his, and therefore when he appeared abroad the inhabitants fled before him to save the apparel which they had on or any articles which at the time they might be carrying. Unconscious, as it was affirmed, of the fate intended for him, he was conveyed in a large canoe to the bar and there persuaded to jump overboard to bathe, while those who took him out immediately turned their backs upon him and paddled[296] away with the utmost haste, heedless of the cries of the wretched victim, at whom, pursuant to their stern superstition, not even a look was allowed to be cast back.
In Abo, says Mr. Bakie, every man and every woman of any consequence keeps as “dju-dju,” or jewjew, the lower jaw of a pig, or, until they can procure this, a piece of wood fashioned like one. This is preserved in their huts, and produced only when worshipped or when sacrifices are made to it, which are at certain times, at intervals of from ten days to three weeks. The particular days are determined by the dju-dju, with palm wine and touching it with a kola-nut; they speak to it and ask it to be good and propitious towards them. It is named Agba, meaning pig, or Agba-Ezhi, pig’s jaw; but when as dju-dju, it is also termed Ofum, or “my image.” People also select particular trees near their huts, or if there are none in the neighbourhood, they transplant one; these they worship, and call Tuhukum, or “my God.” They hang on these, bits of white baff (calico) as signs of a dju-dju tree, and as offerings to the deity. No one ever touches these, and if they rot off they are replaced. Little wooden images are also used, and are styled Ofo Tuhuku, “talk and pray.” When a man is suspected of falsehood, one of these is placed in his right hand, and he is made to swear by it, and if he does so falsely, it is believed that some evil will speedily befall him. Sacrifices, principally of fowls, are made to these latter as to the former. At Abo one large tree is held as dju-dju for the whole district; it is covered with offerings, and there is an annual festival in honour of it, when sacrifices of fowls, sheep, goats, and bullocks are made. When a man goes to Aro to consult Tshuku he is received by some of the priests outside of the town, near a small stream. Here he makes an offering; after which a fowl is killed, and if it appears unpropitious, a quantity of a red dye, probably camwood, is spilt into the water, which the priest tells the people is blood, and on this the votary is hurried off by the priests and is seen no more, it being given out that Tshuku has been displeased, and has taken him. The result of this preliminary ceremony is determined in general by the amount of the present given to the priests; and those who are reported to have been carried off by Tshuku are usually sold as slaves. Formerly they were commonly sent by canoes to Old Kalabar, and disposed of there. One of Mr. Bakie’e informants met upwards of twenty such unfortunates in Cuba, and another had also fallen in with several at Sierra Leone. If, however, the omen be pronounced to be favourable, the pilgrim is permitted to draw[297] near to the shrine, and after various rites have been gone through, the question, whatever it may be, is propounded of course through the priests, and by them also the reply is given. A yellow powder is given to the devotee, who rubs it round his eyes. Little wooden images are also issued as tokens of a person having actually consulted the sacred oracle, and these are known as Ofo Tshuku, and are afterwards kept as dju-dju. A person who has been at Aro, after returning to his home is reckoned dju-dju, or sacred, for seven days, during which period he must stay in his house, and people dread to approach him. The shrine of Tshuku is said to be situated nearly in the centre of the town, and the inhabitants of Aro are often styled Omo Tshuku, or “God’s children.”
Mondzo is a bad or evil spirit in this country. The worst of evil spirits is named Kamallo, possibly equivalent with Satan. His name is frequently bestowed on children, and in some parts of Igbo, especially in Isuama, Kamallo is worshipped. No images are made, but a hut is set apart in which are kept bones, pieces of iron, etc., as sacred. Persons make enquiries of this spirit, if they wish to commit any wicked action, such as murder, when they bring presents of cowries and cloth to propitiate this evil being and render him favourable to their designs. If the individual intended as the victim suspects anything, or gets a hint of his adversary’s proceedings, he also comes to worship, bringing with him, if possible, more valuable offerings to try to avert the impending danger, and this is called Erise nao, or “I cut on both sides.” In Isuama, if a man is sick, the doctor often tells the friends to consult an evil spirit called Igwikalla, and he is also worshipped by persons wishing to injure others. His supposed abode is generally in a bush, which has been well cleared all round; but occasionally huts are dedicated to him, and priests execute his decrees.
Among savages who have no conception of the existence of a Supreme Being must be enumerated the “Sambos,” a race of Indians residing on the shores of the Mosquito River. The only person who is dreaded as a priestess, or “medicine-woman,” is the Sukia. This woman possesses more power than the king or chiefs. Her orders, even though of the most brutal and inhuman kind (as often they are), are never disputed nor neglected. When Mr. Bard visited the Sambos he saw a Sukia, whom he describes as a person hideous and disgusting in the extreme. “Her hair was long and matted, and her shrivelled skin appeared to adhere like that of a mummy to her bones; for she was emaciated to the last degree. The nails of her fingers were long and black, and caused her hands to look like[298] the claws of some unclean bird. Her eyes were bloodshot, but bright and intense, and were constantly fixed upon me, like those of some wild beast of prey.” These women, before they assume the office, wander away into the forest and live for a considerable time, without arms or clothing of any kind as a defence against the wild beasts and still wilder elements of the tropics. It is during their residence in the woods that they become initiated into the mysteries of nature, and doubtless obtain their antidotes for serpent charming and other wonderful performances for which they are so famous, such as standing in the midst of flames uninjured. The author of “Waikna” gives a very interesting and amusing account of one of these ceremonies as witnessed by him. “The Sukia made her appearance alone, carrying a long thick wand of bamboo, and with no dress except the ule tourno. She was only inferior to her sister of Sandy Bay in ugliness, and stalked into the house like a spectre, without uttering a word. He cut off a piece of calico and handed it to her as her recompense. She received it in perfect silence, walked into the yard, and folded it carefully on the ground. Meanwhile a fire had been kindled of pine splints and branches, which was now blazing high. Without any hesitation the Sukia walked up to it and stepped in its very centre. The flames darted their forked tongues as high as her waist; the coals beneath and around her naked feet blackened, and seemed to expire; while the tourno which she wore about her loins cracked and shivered with the heat. There she stood, immovable and apparently as insensible as a statue of iron, until the blaze subsided, when she commenced to walk around the smouldering embers, muttering rapidly to herself in an unintelligible manner. Suddenly she stopped, and placing her foot on the bamboo staff, broke it in the middle, shaking out, from the section in her hand, a full-grown tamagesa snake, which on the instant coiled itself up, flattened its head, and darted out its tongue, in an attitude of defiance and attack. The Sukia extended her hand, and it fastened on her wrist with the quickness of light, where it hung dangling and writhing its body in knots and coils, while she resumed her mumbling march around the embers. After awhile, and with the same abruptness which had marked all her previous movements, she shook off the serpent, crushed its head in the ground with her heel, and taking up the cloth which had been given to her, stalked away, without having exchanged a word with any one present.”
Perhaps the secret of it lies in the non-existence of the sting, which[299] may be extracted, as is frequently done by the Arab serpent-charmer. Anyhow, such powers are greatly dreaded by the simple and superstitious savage, who regard the Sukia as a supernatural person.
The Tinguians of the Phillipine Islands are in an almost equally benighted condition. They have no veneration for the stars; they neither adore the sun, nor moon, nor the constellations; they believe in the existence of a soul, and pretend that after death it quits the body, and remains in the family of the defunct.
As to the god that they adore, it varies and changes form according to chance and circumstances. And here is the reason: “When a Tinguian chief has found in the country a rock, or a trunk of a tree, of a strange shape—I mean to say, representing tolerably well either a dog, cow, or buffalo—he informs the inhabitants of the village of his discovery, and the rock, or trunk of a tree, is immediately considered as a divinity—that is to say, as something superior to man. Then all the Indians repair to the appointed spot, carrying with them provisions and live hogs. When they have reached their destination they raise a straw roof above the new idol, to cover it, and make a sacrifice by roasting hogs; then, at the sound of instruments, they eat, drink, and dance until they have no provisions left. When all is eaten and drank, they set fire to the thatched roof, and the idol is forgotten, until the chief, having discovered another one, commands a new ceremony.”
It has been already noticed in these pages, that the Malagaseys are utterly without religion. Their future state is a matter that never troubles them; indeed, they have no thought or hope beyond the grave, and are content to rely on that absurd thing “sikidy” for happiness on this side of it. Thanks, however, to Mr. Robert Drury (whom the reader will recollect as the player of a neat trick on a certain Malagasey Umossee), we are informed that a century or so back there prevailed in this gloomy region a sort of religious rite known as the “Ceremony of the Bull,” and which was performed as follows:
The infant son of a great man called Dean Mevarrow was to be presented to the “lords of the four quarters of the earth,” and like many other savage rite began and ended with an enormous consumption of intoxicating liquor. In this case the prime beverage is called toak, and, according to Mr. Drury, “these people are great admirers of toak, and some of the vulgar sort are as errant as sots and as lazy as any in England; for they will sell their Guinea corn, carravances—nay, their very spades and[300] shovels—and live upon what the woods afford them. Their very lamber (a sort of petticoat) must go for toak, and they will go about with any makeshift to cover their nakedness.”
Now for the ceremony. “The toak was made for some weeks beforehand by boiling the honey and combs together as we in England make mead. They filled a great number of tubs, some as large as a butt and some smaller; a shed being built for that purpose, which was thatched over, to place them in. On the day appointed, messengers were despatched all round the country to invite the relations and friends. Several days before the actual celebration of the ceremony there were visible signs of its approach. People went about blowing of horns and beating of drums, both night and day, to whom some toak was given out of the lesser vessels as a small compensation for their trouble. They who came from a long distance took care to arrive a day or two before, and were fed and entertained with toak to their heart’s content. On the evening preceding the feast I went into the town and found it full of people, some wallowing on the ground, and some staggering; scarcely one individual sober, either man, woman, or child. And here one might sensibly discern the sense of peace and security, the people abandoning themselves without fear or reserve to drinking and all manner of diversions. My wife” (Mr. Drury got so far reconciled to his state as to marry a fellow slave) “I found had been among them indeed, but had the prudence to withdraw in time, for she was fast asleep when I returned home.
“On the morning of the ceremony I was ordered to fetch in two oxen and a bull that had been set aside for the feast, to tie their legs, and to throw them along upon the ground. A great crowd had by this time collected around the spot where the child was, decked with beads, and a skin of white cotton thread wound about his head. The richest of the company brought presents for the child—beads, hatchets, iron shovels, and the like, which, although of no immediate value to him, would doubtless be saved from rusting by his parents. Every one was served once with toak, and then the ceremony began.
“For some time the umossee had been, to all appearance, measuring his shadow on the ground, and presently finding its length to his mind, he gave the word. Instantly one of the child’s relatives caught him up and ran with him to the prostrate bull, and putting the child’s right hand on the bull’s right horn, repeated a form of words of which the following is as nigh a translation as I can render: ‘Let the great God above, the lords[301] of the four quarters of the world, and the demons, prosper this child and make him a great man. May he prove as strong as this bull and overcome all his enemies.’ If the bull roars while the boy’s hand is on his horn they look upon it as an ill omen portending either sickness or some other misfortune in life. All the business of the umossee is nothing more than that above related; for as to the religious part of the ceremony he is in nowise concerned in it, if there be any religion intended by it, which is somewhat to be questioned.
Ceremony of Touching the Bull.
“The ceremony being over the child is delivered to its mother, who all this time is sitting on a mat, with the women round her; and now the merriment began: the thatch was all pulled off the toak house, and I was ordered to kill the bull and the oxen; but these not being sufficient my master sent for three more which had been brought by his friends, for[302] there was abundance of mouths to feed. Before they began to drink he took particular care to secure all their weapons, and no man was permitted to have so much as a gun or a lance; and then they indulged themselves in boiling, broiling and roasting of meat, drinking of toak, singing, hollowing, blowing of shells, and drumming with all their might and main; and so the revel continued through that night and the next day.”
It is very curious, and were it not so serious a matter, could scarcely fail to excite the risible faculties of the reader, to read the outrageous notions entertained by African savages concerning religion generally. Take the case of King Peppel, a potentate of “Western Africa, and the descendant of a very long line of kings of that name (originally “Pepper” or “Pepperal,” and so named on account of the country’s chief trade being, in ancient times, nearly limited to pepper). Thanks to the missionaries, King Peppel had been converted from his heathen ways and brought to profess Christianity. As to the quality of the monarch’s religious convictions, the following conversation between him and a well-known Christian traveller may throw a light:
“What have you been doing, King Peppel?”
“All the same as you do—I tank God.”
“For what?”
“Every good ting God sends me.”
“Have you seen God?”
“Chi! No; suppose man see God he must die one minute” (He would die in a moment).
“When you die won’t you see God?”
With great warmth, “I know no savvy (I don’t know). How should I know? Never mind, I no want to hear more for that palaver” (I want no more talk on that subject).
“What way?” (Why?)
“It no be your business; you come here for trade palaver.”
I knew, says the missionary in question, it would be of no use pursuing the subject at that time, so I was silent, and it dropped for the moment.
In speaking of him dying I had touched a very tender and disagreeable chord, for he looked very savage and sulky, and I saw by the rapid changes in his countenance that he was the subject of some internal emotion. At length he broke out using most violent gesticulations, and exhibiting a most inhuman expression of countenance, “Suppose God was here I must kill him, one minute.”
[303]
“You what? You kill God?” exclaimed I, quite taken aback and almost breathless with the novel and diabolical notion, “You kill God? why you talk all some fool (like a fool); you cannot kill God; and suppose it possible that He could die, everything would cease to exist. He is the Spirit of the Universe. But he can kill you.”
“I know I cannot kill him; but suppose I could kill him I would.”
“Where does God live?”
“For top.”
“How?” He pointed to the zenith.
“And suppose you could, why would you kill him?”
“Because he makes men to die.”
“Why, my friend,” in a conciliatory manner, “you would not wish to live for ever, would you?”
“Yes; I want to stand” (remain for ever).
“But you will be old by-and-by, and if you live long enough will become very infirm, like that old man,” pointing to a man very old for an African, and thin, and lame, and almost blind, who had come into the court during the foregoing conversation to ask some favour, “and like him you will become lame, and deaf, and blind, and will be able to take no pleasure; would it not be better, then, for you to die when this takes place, and you are in pain and trouble, and so make room for your son as your father did for you?”
“No, it would not. I want to stand all same I stand now.”
“But supposing you should go to a place of happiness after death, and——”
“I no savvy nothing about that. I know that I now live and have too many wives and niggers (slaves) and canoes” (he did not mean it when he said he had too many wives, etc.; it is their way of expressing a great number), “and that I am king, and plenty of ships come to my country. I know no other ting, and I want to stand.”
I offered a reply, but he would hear no more, and so the conversation on that subject ceased, and we proceeded to discuss one not much more agreeable to him, the payment of a very considerable debt which he owed me.
Getting round to the south of Africa we find but little improvement in the matter of the religious belief of royalty, at least according to what may be gleaned from another “conversation,” this time between the missionary Moffat and an African monarch:
[304]
“Sitting down beside this great man, illustrious for war and conquest, and amidst nobles and councillors, including rain-makers and others of the same order, I stated to him that my object was to tell him my news. His countenance lighted up, hoping to hear of feats of war, destruction of tribes, and such-like subjects, so congenial to his savage disposition. When he found my topics had solely a reference to the Great Being, of whom the day before he had told me he knew nothing, and of the Saviour’s mission to this world, whose name he had never heard, he resumed his knife and jackal’s skin and hummed a native air. One of his men sitting near me appeared struck with the character of the Redeemer, which I was endeavouring to describe, and particularly with his miracles. On hearing that he raised the dead he very naturally exclaimed, ‘What an excellent doctor he must have been to make dead men alive.’ This led me to describe his power and how the power would be exercised at the last day in raising the dead. In the course of my remarks the ear of the monarch caught the startling news of a resurrection. ‘What,’ he exclaimed with astonishment, ‘what are these words about; the dead, the dead arise?’ ‘Yes,’ was my reply, ‘all the dead shall arise.’ ‘Will my father arise?’ ‘Yes,’ I answered, ‘your father will arise.’ ‘Will all the slain in battle arise?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And will all that have been killed and devoured by lions, tigers, hyænas, and crocodiles, again revive?’ ‘Yes, and come to judgment.’ ‘And will those whose bodies have been left to waste and to wither on the desert plains, and scattered to the winds, arise?’ he asked with a kind of triumph, as if he had now fixed me. ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘not one will be left behind.’ This I repeated with increased emphasis. After looking at me for a few moments he turned to his people, to whom he spoke with a stentorian voice: ‘Hark, ye wise men, whoever is among you the wisest of past generations, did ever your ears hear such strange and unheard-of news?’ and addressing himself to one whose countenance and attire showed that he had seen many years and was a personage of no common order, ‘Have you ever heard such strange news as these?’ ‘No,’ was the sage’s answer; ‘I had supposed that I possessed all the knowledge of the country, for I have heard the tales of many generations. I am in the place of the ancients, but my knowledge is confounded with the words of his mouth. Surely he must have lived long before the period when we were born.’ Makaba then turning and addressing himself to me, and laying his hand on my breast, said: ‘Father, I love you much. Your visit and your presence have[305] made my heart white as milk. The words of your mouth are sweet as honey, but the words of a resurrection are too great to be heard. I do not wish to hear again about the dead rising; the dead cannot arise; the dead must not arise.’ ‘Why,’ I enquired, ‘can so great a man refuse knowledge and turn away from wisdom? Tell me, my friend, why I must not speak of a resurrection.’ Raising and uncovering his arm, which had been strong in battle, and shaking his hand as if quivering a spear, he replied, ‘I have slain my thousands, and shall they arise?’ Never before had the light of divine revelation dawned upon his savage mind, and of course his conscience had never accused him; no, not for one of the thousands of deeds of rapine and murder which had marked his course through a long career.
“Addressing a Namaqua chief, I asked, ‘Did you ever hear of a God?’ ‘Yes, we have heard that there is a God, but we do not know right.’ ‘Who told you that there is a God?’ ‘We heard it from other people.’ ‘Who made the sea?’ ‘A girl made it on her coming to maturity, when she had several children at once. When she made it the sweet and bitter waters were separated. One day she sent some of her children to fetch sweet water whilst the others were in the field, but the children were obstinate and would not fetch the water, upon which she got angry and mixed the sweet and bitter waters together; from that day we are no longer able to drink the water, and people have learned to swim and run upon the water.’ ‘Did you ever see a ship?’ ‘Yes, we have seen them a long time ago.’ ‘Did you ever hear who made the first one?’ ‘No, we never heard it.’ ‘Did you never hear old people talk about it?’ ‘No, we never heard it from them.’ ‘Who made the heavens?’ ‘We do not know what man made them.’ ‘Who made the sun?’ ‘We always heard that those people at the sea made it; when she goes down they cut her in pieces and fry her in a pot and then put her together again and bring her out at the other side. Sometimes the sun is over our head and at other times she must give place to the moon to pass by.’ They said the moon had told to mankind that we must die and not become alive again; that is the reason that when the moon is dark we sometimes become ill. ‘Is there any difference between man and beast?’ ‘We think man made the beasts.’ ‘Did you ever see a man that made beasts?’ ‘No; I only heard so from others.’ ‘Do you know you have a soul?’ ‘I do not know it.’ ‘How shall it be with us after death?’ ‘When we are dead, we are dead; when we have died we go over the sea-water at that side where the[306] devil is.’ ‘What do you mean by devil?’ ‘He is not good; all people who die run to him.’ ‘How does the devil behave to them, well or ill?’ ‘You shall see; all our people are there who have died (in the ships). Those people in the ships are masters over them.’”
With such rulers it is not surprising to find the common people woefully ignorant and superstitious. The crocodile figures prominently in their religious belief. In the Bamangwato and Bakwain tribes, if a man is either bitten, or even has had water splashed over him with a reptile’s tail, he is expelled his tribe. “When on the Zouga,” says Dr. Livingstone, “we saw one of the Bamangwato living among the Bayeye, who had the misfortune to have been bitten, and driven out of his tribe in consequence. Fearing that I would regard him with the same disgust which his countrymen profess to feel, he would not tell me the cause of his exile; but the Bayeye informed me of it; and the scars of the teeth were visible on his thigh. If the Bakwains happened to go near an alligator, they would spit on the ground and indicate his presence by saying “Boles ki bo,” There is sin. They imagine the mere sight of it would give inflammation of the eyes; and though they eat the zebra without hesitation, yet if one bites a man he is expelled the tribe, and is obliged to take his wife and family away to the Kalahari. These curious relics of the animal worship of former times scarcely exist among the Makololo. Sebituane acted on the principle, “Whatever is food for men is food for me,” so no man is here considered unclean. The Barotse appear inclined to pray to alligators, and eat them too, for when I wounded a water antelope, called onochose, it took to the water. When near the other side of the river, an alligator appeared at its tail, and then both sank together. Mashauana, who was nearer to it than I, told me that though he had called to it to let his meat alone, it refused to listen.”
Divination Scene.
The Southern African has most implicit belief in witch power. Whatever is incomprehensible to him must be submitted to a “witch man,” and be by him construed. While Mr. Casalis was a guest among the Basutos, he had opportunity of witnessing several of these witch ceremonies. Let the reader picture to himself a long procession of black men almost in a state of nudity, driving an ox before them, advancing towards a spot of rising ground, on which are a number of huts surrounded with reeds. A fierce-looking man, his body plastered over with ochre, his head shaded by long feathers, his left shoulder covered with a panther skin, and having a javelin in his hand, springs forwards, seizes the animal, and after[307] shutting it up in a safe place, places himself at the head of the troop, who still continue their march. He then commences the song of divination, and every voice joins in the cry. “Death, death, to the base sorcerer who has stolen into our midst like a shadow. We will find him, and he shall pay with his head. Death, death to the sorcerer.” The diviner then brandishes his javelin, and strikes it into the ground as if he were already piercing his victim. Then raising his head proudly, he executes a dance accompanied with leaps of the most extraordinary kind, passing under his feet the handle of his lance, which he holds with both hands. On reaching his abode, he again disappears, and shuts himself up in a hut[308] into which no one dare enter. The consulters then stop and squat down side by side, forming a complete circle. Each one has in his hand a short club. Loud acclamations soon burst forth, the formidable diviner comes forth from his sanctuary where he has been occupied in preparing the sacred draught, of which he has just imbibed a dose sufficient to enable him to discover the secrets of all hearts. He springs with one bound into the midst of the assembly: all arms are raised at once, and the ground trembles with the blows of the clubs. If this dismal noise does not awake the infernal gods whom he calls to council, it serves at least to strike terror into the souls of those wretches who are still harbouring sinister designs. The diviner recites with great volubility some verses in celebration of his own praise, and then proceeds to discover of what the present consists, which he expects in addition to the ox he has already received, and in whose hands this present will be found. This first trial of his clairvoyance is designed to banish every doubt. One quick glance at a few confederates dispersed throughout the assembly apprises them of their duty.
“There are,” cries the black charlatan, “many objects which man may use in the adornment of his person. Shall I speak of those perforated balls of iron which we get from Barolong?”
The assembly strike the ground with their clubs, but the confederates do it gently.
“Shall I speak of those little beads of various colours which the whites as we are told pick up by the sea side?”
All strike with equal violence.
“I might have said rather that you had brought me one of those brilliant rings of copper.”
The blows this time are unequal.
“But no, I see your present; I distinguish it perfectly well.... It is the necklace of the white men.”
The whole assembly strike on the ground violently. The diviner is not mistaken.
But he has disappeared; he is gone to drink a second dose of the prepared beverage.
Now he comes again. During the first act the practised eye has not failed to observe an individual who seemed to be more absorbed than the rest, and who betrayed some curiosity and a considerable degree of embarrassment. He knows therefore who is in possession of the present; but[309] in order to add a little interest to the proceedings, he amuses himself for an instant, turns on his heel, advances now to one, now to the other, and then with the certainty of a sudden inspiration, rushes to the right one and lifts up his mantle.
Now he says, “Let us seek out the offender. Your community is composed of men of various tribes. You have among you Bechuanas (unequal blows on the ground), Batlokoas (blows still unequal), Basias (all strike with equal violence), Bataungs (blows unequal). For my own part, I hate none of those tribes. The inhabitants of the same country ought all to love one another without any distinction of origin. Nevertheless, I must speak. Strike, strike, the sorcerer belongs to the Basias.”
Violent and prolonged blows.
The diviner goes again to drink from the vessel containing his wisdom. He has now only to occupy himself with a very small fraction of the criminated population. On his return he carefully goes over the names of the individuals belonging to this fraction. This is very easy in a country where almost all the proper names are borrowed from one or other of the kingdoms of nature. The different degrees of violence with which the clubs fall upon the ground give him to understand in what order he must proceed in his investigation, and the farce continues thus till the name of the culprit is hit on, and the farce of trial is brought to an end, and the tragedy of punishment begins.
The Damaras of South Africa have some curious notions about the colour of oxen: some will not eat the flesh of those marked with red spots; some with black, or white; or should a sheep have no horns, some will not eat the flesh thereof. So, should one offer meat to a Damara, very likely he will ask about the colour of the animal; whether it had horns or no. And should it prove to be forbidden meat, he will refuse it; sometimes actually dying of hunger rather than partake of it. To such an extent is this religious custom carried out, that sometimes they will not approach any of the vessels in which the meat is cooked; and the smoke of the fire by which it is cooked is considered highly injurious. For every wild animal slain by a young man, his father makes four oblong incisions in front of his body; moreover, he is presented with a sheep or cow, the young of which, should it have any, are slaughtered and eaten; males only are allowed to partake of it. Should a sportsman return from a successful hunt, he takes water in his mouth, and ejects it three times over his feet, as also in the fire of his own hearth. When cattle are[310] required for food, they are suffocated; but when for sacrifices, they are speared.
One of the most lucrative branches of a heathen priest’s profession is the “manufacture” of rain; at the same time, and as may be easily understood, the imposture is surrounded by dangers of no ordinary nature. If the rain fall within a reasonable time, according to the bargain, so delighted are the people, made as they are in droughty regions contented and happy, whereas but yesterday they were withering like winter stalks, that the rain maker is sure to come in for abundant presents over and above the terms agreed on. But should the rain maker fail in the terms of his contract, should he promise “rain within three days,” and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth, and the seventh day arrive, and find the brilliant sky untarnished, and the people parched and mad with thirst, what more horrible position can be imagined than his whose fault it appears to be that the universal thirst is not slaked? “There never was yet known a rain maker,” writes a well-known missionary, “who died a natural death.” No wonder! The following narrative of the experiments and perplexities of a rain maker furnished by Mr. Moffat may be worth perusal.
Having for a number of years experienced severe drought, the Bechuanas at Kuruman held a council as to the best measures for removing the evil. After some debate a resolution was passed to send for a rain maker of great renown, then staying among the Bahurutsi, two hundred miles north-east of the station. Accordingly commissioners were dispatched, with strict injunctions not to return without the man; but it was with some misgiving as to the success of their mission that the men started. However, by large promises, they succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations.
During the absence of the ambassadors the heavens had been as brass, and scarcely a passing cloud obscured the sky, which blazed with the dazzling rays of a vertical sun. But strange to relate the very day that the approach of the rain maker was announced, the clouds began to gather thickly, the lightning darted and the thunder rolled in awful grandeur, accompanied by a few drops of rain. The deluded multitude were wild with delight; they rent the sky with their acclamations of joy, and the earth rang with their exulting and maddening shouts. Previously to entering the town, the rain maker sent a peremptory order to all the inhabitants to wash their feet. Scarcely was the message delivered before[311] every soul, young and old, noble and ignoble, flew to the adjoining river to obey the command of the man whom they imagined was now collecting in the heavens all his stores of rain.
The impostor proclaimed aloud that this year the women must cultivate gardens on the hills and not in the valleys, for the latter would be deluged. The natives in their enthusiasm saw already their corn-fields floating in the breeze and their flocks and herds return lowing homewards by noonday from the abundance of pasture. He told them how in his wrath he had desolated the cities of the enemies of his people by stretching forth his hand and commanding the clouds to burst upon them; how he had arrested the progress of a powerful army by causing a flood to descend, which formed a mighty river and stayed their course. These and many other pretended displays of his power were received as sober truths, and the chief and the nobles gazed on him with silent amazement. The report of his fame spread like wildfire, and the rulers of the neighbouring tribes came to pay him homage.
In order to carry on the fraud, he would, when clouds appeared, command the women neither to plant nor sow, lest the seeds should be washed away. He would also require them to go to the fields and gather certain roots of herbs, with which he might light what appeared to the natives mysterious fires. Elate with hope, they would go in crowds to the hills and valleys, collect herbs, return to the town with songs, and lay the gatherings at the magician’s feet. With these he would sometimes proceed to certain hills and raise smoke; gladly would he have called up the wind also, if he could have done so, well knowing that the latter is frequently the precursor of rain. He would select the time of new and full moon for his purpose, aware that at those seasons there was frequently a change in the atmosphere. But the rain maker found the clouds in these parts rather harder to manage than those of the Bahurutsi country, whence he came.
One day as he was sound asleep a shower fell, on which one of the principal men entered his house to congratulate him on the happy event; but to his utter amazement he found the magician totally insensible to what was transpiring. “Hela ka rare (halloo, by my father)! I thought you were making rain,” said the intruder. Arising from his slumber, and seeing his wife sitting on the floor shaking a milk sack in order to obtain a little butter to anoint her hair, the wily rain maker adroitly replied, “Do you not see my wife churning rain as fast as she can?”[312] This ready answer gave entire satisfaction, and it presently spread through the town that the rain maker had churned the rain out of a milk sack.
The moisture, however, caused by this shower soon dried up, and for many a long week afterwards not a cloud appeared. The women had cultivated extensive fields, but the seed was lying in the soil as it had been thrown from the hand; the cattle were dying for want of pasture, and hundreds of emaciated men were seen going to the fields in quest of unwholesome roots and reptiles, while others were perishing with hunger.
Making Rain.
All these circumstances irritated the rain maker very much, and he complained that secret rogues were disobeying his proclamations. When urged to make repeated trials, he would reply, “You only give me sheep and goats to kill, therefore I can only make goat rain; give me fat slaughter oxen, and I shall let you see ox rain.”
[313]
One night a small cloud passed over, and a single flash of lightning, from which a heavy peal of thunder burst, struck a tree in the town. Next day the rain maker and a number of people assembled to perform the usual ceremony on such an event. The stricken tree was ascended, and roots and ropes of grass were bound round different parts of the trunk. When these bandages were made, the conjuror deposited some of his nostrums, and got quantities of water handed up, which he poured with great solemnity on the wounded tree, while the assembled multitude shouted. The tree was now hewn down, dragged out of the town and burned to ashes. Soon after the rain maker got large bowls of water, with which was mixed an infusion of bulbs. All the men of the town were then made to pass before him, when he sprinkled each person with a zebra’s tail dipped in water.
Finding that this did not produce the desired effect, the impostor had recourse to another stratagem. He well knew that baboons were not very easily caught amongst rocky glens and shelving precipices, and therefore, in order to gain time, he informed the men that to make rain he must have a baboon. Moreover, that not a hair on its body was to be wanting; in short the animal should be free from blemish. After a long and severe pursuit, and with bodies much lacerated, a band of chosen runners succeeded in capturing a young baboon, which they brought back triumphantly and exultingly. On seeing the animal, the rogue put on a countenance exhibiting the most intense sorrow, exclaiming, “My heart is rent in pieces! I am dumb with grief!” pointing at the same time to the ear of the baboon that was slightly scratched, and the tail, which had lost some hair. He added, “Did I not tell you I could not bring rain if there was one hair wanting?”
He had often said that if they could procure him the heart of a lion he would show them he could make rain so abundant, that a man might think himself well off to be under shelter, as when it fell it might sweep whole towns away. He had discovered that the clouds required strong medicines, and that a lion’s heart would do the business. To obtain this the rain maker well knew was no joke. One day it was announced that a lion had attacked one of the cattle out-posts, not far from the town, and a party set off for the twofold purpose of getting a key to the clouds and disposing of a dangerous enemy. The orders were imperative, whatever the consequences might be. Fortunately the lion was shot dead by a man armed with a gun. Greatly elated by their success, they forthwith[314] returned with their prize, singing the conqueror’s song in full chorus. The rain maker at once set about preparing his medicines, kindled his fires, and, standing on the top of a hill, he stretched forth his hands, beckoning to the clouds to draw near, occasionally shaking his spear and threatening them with his ire, should they disobey his commands. The populace believed all this and wondered the rain would not fall.
Having discovered that a corpse which had been put into the ground some weeks before had not received enough water at its burial, and knowing the aversion of the Bechuanas to the dead body, he ordered the corpse to be taken up, washed, and re-interred. Contrary to his expectation, and horrible as the ceremony must have been, it was performed. Still the heavens remained inexorable.
Having exhausted his skill and ingenuity, the impostor began to be sorely puzzled to find something on which to lay the blame. Like all of his profession, he was a subtle fellow, in the habit of studying human nature, affable, acute, and exhibiting a dignity of mien, with an ample share of self-complacency which he could not hide. Hitherto he had studiously avoided giving the least offence to the missionaries, whom he found were men of peace who would not quarrel. He frequently condescended to visit them, and in the course of conversation would often give a feeble assent to their opinions as to the sources of that element over which he pretended to have sovereign control. However, finding all his wiles unavailing to produce the desired result, and, notwithstanding the many proofs of kindness he had received from the missionaries, he began to hint that the reverend gentlemen were the cause of the obstinacy of the clouds. One day it was discovered that the rain had been prevented by Mr. Moffat bringing a bag of salt with him from a journey that he had undertaken to Griqua town. But finding on examination that the reported salt was only white clay or chalk, the natives could not help laughing at their own credulity.
From insinuations he proceeded to open accusations. After having kept himself secluded for a fortnight, he one day appeared in the public fold and proclaimed that he had at last discovered the cause of the drought. After keeping the audience in suspense for a short time, he suddenly broke forth: “Do you not see,” he asked, “when the clouds cover us, that Hamilton and Moffat look at them? Their white faces scare them away, and you cannot expect rain so long as they are in the country.” This was a home stroke. The people became impatient, and poured forth[315] their curses against the poor missionaries as the cause of all their sorrows. The bell which was rung for public worship, they said, frightened the vapours; the prayers even came in for a share of the blame. “Don’t you,” said the chief one day rather fiercely to Mr. Moffat, “bow down in your houses and pray, and talk to something bad in the ground?”
But to shorten a long story, after exposing the missionaries to much risk and danger by his insinuations and accusations, the tables were turned in their favour. The rain-maker now was suspected, his gross impositions were unveiled, and he was about to pay the penalty of death,—the well-merited reward for his scandalous conduct, when Mr. Moffat generously interfered, and through his presence of mind and humanity succeeded in saving the life of one who had so often threatened his own, and who would not have scrupled to take it could he thereby have served his purpose. Death, however, soon overtook him, for he was eventually murdered amongst the Bauangketsi nation.
There is scarcely a savage country on the face of the earth but has its professional rain-makers; Figi has; and these, like other players of a game of chance, occasionally win in a manner that seems surprising even to an educated European.
During Mr. Seeman’s stay in Figi, one of the days was rainy, preventing him from making an excursion. On expressing his regret to that effect, a man was brought who may be called the clerk of the weather. He professed to exercise a direct meteorological influence, and said that, by burning certain leaves and offering prayers only known to himself, he could make the sun shine or rain come down; and that he was willing to exercise his influence on Mr. Seeman’s behalf if paid handsomely. He was told that there was no objection to giving him a butcher’s knife if he could make fine weather until the travellers returned to the coast; but if he failed to do so, he must give something for the disappointment. He was perfectly willing to risk the chance of getting the knife, but would not hear of a forfeit in case of failure; however, he left to catch eels. “When returning,” says Mr. Seeman, “the clouds had dispersed, and the sun was shining brilliantly, and he did not fail to inform me that he had ‘been and done it.’ I must farther do him the justice to say, that I did not experience any bad weather until I fairly reached the coast; and that no sooner had I set my foot in Navua than rain came down in regular torrents. This man has probably been a close observer of the weather,[316] and discovered those delicate local indications of a coming change with which people in all countries living much in the open air are familiar; and he very likely does not commence operations until he is pretty sure of success.”
This was not the only singular ceremony witnessed by the gentleman just quoted, and who is the most recent of Figian travellers. While out one day he and his friends met a company of natives, and were struck with the fact that all the young lads were in a state of absolute nudity; and, on inquiry, learned that preparations were being made to celebrate the introduction of Kurudwadua’s eldest son into manhood; and that until then neither the young chieftain nor his playmates could assume the scanty clothing peculiar to the Figians. Suvana, a rebellious town, consisting of about five hundred people, was destined to be sacrificed on the occasion. When the preparations for the feast were concluded, the day for the ceremony appointed, Kurudwadua and his warriors were to make a rush upon the town and club the inhabitants indiscriminately. The bodies were to be piled into one heap, and on the top of all a living slave would lie on his back. The young chief would then mount the horrid scaffold, and standing upright on the chest of the slave, and holding in his uplifted hands an immense club or gun, the priests would invoke their gods, and commit the future warrior to their especial protection, praying he may kill all the enemies of the tribe, and never be beaten in battle; a cheer and a shout from the assembled multitude concluding the prayer. Two uncles of the boy were then to ascend the human pile, and to invest him with the malo or girdle of snow white tapa; the multitude again calling on the deities to make him a great conqueror, and a terror to all who breathe enmity to Navua. The malo for the occasion would be, perhaps, two hundred yards long, and six or eight inches wide. When wound round the body the lad would hardly be perceivable, and no one but an uncle can divest him of it.
“We proposed,” says Mr. Seeman, “to the chief that we should be allowed to invest his son with the malo, which he at first refused, but to which he consented after deliberation with his people. At the appointed hour the multitude collected in the great strangers’ house or bure ni sa. The lad stood upright in the midst of the assembly guiltless of clothing, and holding a gun over his head. The consul and I approached, and in due form wrapped him up in thirty yards of Manchester print, the priest and people chanting songs and invoking the protection of their gods. A[317] short address from the consul succeeded, stirring the lad to nobler efforts for his tribe than his ancestors had known, and pointing to the path of fame that civilization opened to him. The ceremony concluded by drinking kara, and chanting historical reminiscences of the lad’s ancestors; and thus we saved the lives of five hundred men. During the whole of this ceremony the old chief was much affected, and a few tears might be seen stealing down his cheeks; soon, however, cheering up, he gave us a full account of the time when he came of age, and the number of people that were slain to celebrate the occasion.”
To return, however, to the rain-making business. Lucky is it for the dim-minded heathen that these false priests of his have not the advantage of studying for their profession either in England or America; if it were so, heaven only knows the awful extent to which they would be bamboozled. Rain-makers especially would have a fine time of it, at least, if they were all as clever as Mr. Petherick, who, in his “Egypt and the Soudan,” unblushingly narrates how he “Barnumized” the Africans as a rain-maker.
“The rainy season was now approaching, and still no tidings of my men, and the natives daily continued to surround my encampment, and attempted, sometimes by the report of the murder of my men, and at others by night attacks upon ourselves when in the darkness we could not see them, to induce us to return to our boats and abandon our property. This they more strenuously insisted on, as they were convinced that as long as we remained in the country the rain would not fall, and both themselves and their cattle would be reduced to starvation. This idea being seriously entertained, I one day plainly stated to the chief and several of the principal men the absurdity of their assertions, and endeavoured to explain that God alone,—who had created heaven and earth,—could exercise any power over the elements. The attention with which my discourse was received induced me to prolong it, but to my discomfiture, at its close, it was treated as a capital joke, and only convinced them the more that I endeavoured to conceal from them my own powers. Finding no relief from their increasing persecutions, I at length was reduced to a ruse; and after a reference to an antiquated Weekly Times, I told them that the Supreme Being whose it was to afford them the so much-required rains, withheld them in consequence of their inhospitality towards myself; this, although it had the effect of procuring increased temporary supplies, could not induce them to furnish me with porters. Endless were the straits[318] and absurdities to which I had recourse in order to obtain a respite, but the one creating the greatest amusement to myself and my followers was the following. A deputation of several hundred men, headed by a subchief, from their kraals some miles distant, in the most peremptory manner demanded rain or my immediate departure; the latter they were determined at whatever sacrifice to enforce. Placing my men under arms in an enclosure, and with a pair of revolver pistols at my waist, and a first-rate Dean and Adams’ revolver rifle in my hand, I went into the midst of them, and seated myself in the centre of them, opposite to the subchief, a man fully six feet six inches high, and proportionably well made. I stated that no intimidation could produce rain, and as to compelling me to withdraw, I defied them; that if I liked, with one single discharge of my gun, I could destroy the whole tribe and their cattle in an instant; but that with regard to rain, I would consult my oracle, and invited them to appear before me to-morrow, upon which, with as much dignity as I could command, I withdrew. Various were the feelings of the savages. Some expressed a wish to comply with my desire, whilst others showed an inclination to fall upon me. Although I was convinced that the chief, Tschol, secretly encouraged his men, he in the present instance made a demonstration in my favour; he threatened them with a curse unless they dispersed. Some device now became necessary to obtain a further respite for the desired rains; and setting my wits to work, I hit upon an expedient which I at once put in execution. Despatching some men to catch half-a-dozen large flies, bearing some resemblance to a horse-fly, but much larger, which infested a temporary shed where my donkey had been kept; the men, confident in the success of anything I undertook, set about the task with a will. In the course of the afternoon they were fortunately obtained, and were consigned to an empty bottle. At the appointed time my persecutors did not fail to appear, and shaking a little flower over my flies, I sallied out amongst them, bottle in hand. Referring to their wants, I treated them to a long harangue, touching the depredations which I had learnt in conversation with the chief they had committed upon the cattle of neighbouring tribes, and assassinations of unoffending men who had fallen into their power; also to several abstractions of girls from poor unprotected families of their own tribe, without the payment of the customary dowry in cattle, and dwelt upon the impossibility of their obtaining rain until restitution and satisfaction were made. They unanimously denied the charges; when I told them that it was nothing less[319] than I had expected, but that I was furnished with the means of satisfying myself of the veracity of their assertions. The proof would consist in their restoring to me the flies, which I intended to liberate from the bottle I held. In the event of their succeeding, they should be rewarded with abundant rain; but if one fly escaped, it was a sign of their guilt, and they would be punished with a continuation of drought until restitution was made; therefore it was in their own power to procure rain or otherwise. Hundreds of clubs and lances were poised high in the air, amidst loud shouts of ‘Let them go! let them go! let them go!’ With a prayer for the safety of my flies, I held up the bottle, and smashing it against the barrel of my rifle, I had the satisfaction of seeing the flies in the enjoyment of their liberty. Man, woman, and child gave chase in hot pursuit, and the delight of my men at the success of the stratagem may be imagined. It was not until after the sun had set that the crest-fallen stragglers returned, their success having been limited to the capture of two of the flies, though several spurious ones, easily detected by the absence of the distinctive flour badge, were produced. A long consultation ensued, and in the firm belief of my oracle they determined to adopt measures for the carrying out of its requirements, but with a threat that if the promised rain did not follow, I should incur their vengeance. Aware of the difficulties in store for them from their unwillingness to part with cattle under any circumstances, I promised myself a long cessation from their molestations. I was not disappointed.”
Further still into the country, and still no sign of amendment; not that it should be expected, as in this region—Equatorial Africa—the Christian crusader never yet penetrated, unless indeed we so regard Mr. Du Chaillu, who certainly appears to have done his best by example, at least, to convince the barbarous people among whom he found himself of the advantages of Christianity. Here is a sample of one of many Sabbaths spent by the renowned gorilla hunter amongst the savages here abiding.
“The next day was Sunday, and I remained quietly in my house reading the Scriptures, and thankful to have a day of rest and reflection. My hunters could scarcely be prevailed upon not to hunt; they declared that Sunday might do for white people, but the blacks had nothing to do with it. Indeed, when customs thus come in contact, the only answer the negro has to make—and it applies to everything—is, that the God who made the whites is not the God who made the blacks.
“Then the king and a good many of his people gathered about me, and[320] we astonished each other with our talk. I told them that their fetishes and greegrees were of no use and had no power, and that it was absurd to expect anything of a mere wooden idol that a man had made, and could burn up. Also that there was no such a thing as witchcraft, and that it was very wrong to kill people who were accused of it; that there was only one God, whom the whites and blacks must alike love and depend on. All this elicited only grunts of surprise and incredulity.
“Then the king took up the conversation, and remarked that we white men were much favoured by our God, who was so kind as to send guns and powder from heaven.
“Whereupon the king’s brother remarked that it must be very fine to have rivers of alougou (rum) flowing through our country all the year round, and that he would like to live on the banks of such a river.
“Hereupon I said that we made our own guns, which no one present seemed to believe; and that there were no rivers of rum, which seemed a disappointment to several.”
It would appear that our traveller betrayed at least as much curiosity respecting the singular rites and superstitions of these Equatorial African heathens as they evinced in the matter of Christianity.
“One day the women began their peculiar worship of Njambai, which it seems is their good spirit: and it is remarkable that all the Bakalai clans and all the females of tribes I have met during my journeys, worship or venerate a spirit with this same name. Near the seashore it is pronounced Njembai, but it is evidently the same.
“This worship of the women is a kind of mystery, no men being admitted to the ceremonies, which are carried on in a house very carefully closed. This house was covered with dry palm and banana leaves, and had not even a door open to the street. To make all close, it was set against two other houses, and the entrance was through one of these. Quengueza and Mbango warned me not to go near this place, as not even they were permitted so much as to take a look. All the women of the village painted their faces and bodies, beat drums, marched about the town, and from time to time entered the idol house, where they danced all one night, and made a more outrageous noise than even the men had made before. They also presented several antelopes to the goddess, and on the 4th, all but a few went off into the woods to sing to Njambai.
“I noticed that half-a-dozen remained, and in the course of the morning entered the Njambai house, where they stayed in great silence. Now my[321] curiosity, which had been greatly excited to know what took place in this secret worship, finally overcame me. I determined to see. Walking several times up and down the street past the house to allay suspicion, I at last suddenly pushed aside some of the leaves, and stuck my head through the wall. For a moment I could distinguish nothing in the darkness. Then I beheld three perfectly naked old hags sitting on the clay floor, with an immense bundle of greegrees before them, which they seemed to be silently adoring.
Du Chaillu’s Peep into a Heathen Temple.
“When they saw me they at once set up a hideous howl of rage, and rushed out to call their companions from the bush; in a few minutes these came hurrying in, crying and lamenting, rushing towards me with gestures of anger, and threatening me for my offence. I quickly reached my house, and seizing my gun in one hand and a revolver in the other, told them I would shoot the first one that came inside my door. The house was surrounded by above three hundred infuriated women, every one shouting out curses at me, but the sight of my revolver kept them back. They adjourned presently for the Njambai house, and from there sent a deputation of the men, who were to inform me that I must pay for the palaver I had made.
“This I peremptorily refused to do, telling Quengueza and Mbango that I was there a stranger, and must be allowed to do as I pleased, as their[322] rules were nothing to me, who was a white man and did not believe in their idols. In truth, if I had once paid for such a trangression as this, there would have been an end of all travelling for me, as I often broke through their absurd rules without knowing it, and my only course was to declare myself irresponsible.
“However, the women would not give up, but threatened vengeance, not only on me, but on all the men of the town; and as I positively refused to pay anything, it was at last, to my great surprise, determined by Mbango and his male subjects, that they would make up from their own possessions such a sacrifice as the women demanded of me. Accordingly Mbango contributed ten fathoms of native cloth, and the men came one by one and put their offerings on the ground; some plates, some knives, some mugs, some beads, some mats, and various other articles. Mbango came again, and asked if I too would not contribute something, but I refused. In fact, I dared not set such a precedent. So when all had given what they could, the whole amount was taken to the ireful women, to whom Mbango said that I was his and his men’s guest, and that they could not ask me to pay in such a matter, therefore they paid the demand themselves. With this the women were satisfied, and there the quarrel ended. Of course I could not make any further investigations into their mysteries. The Njambai feast lasts about two weeks. I could learn very little about the spirit which they call by this name. Their own ideas are quite vague. They know only that it protects the women against their male enemies, avenges their wrongs, and serves them in various ways, if they please it.”
Before Chaillu left Goumbi a grand effort was made by the people to ascertain the cause of their king’s sufferings. Quengueza had sent word to his people to consult Ilogo, a spirit said to live in the moon. The rites were very curious. To consult Ilogo, the time must be near full moon. Early in the evening the women of the town assembled in front of Quengueza’s house and sang songs to and in praise of the moon. Meantime a woman was seated in the centre of the circle of singers, who sung with them and looked constantly towards the moon. She was to be inspired by the spirit and to utter prophecies.
Two women made trial of this post without success. At last came a third, a little woman, wiry and nervous. When she seated herself, the singing was redoubled in fury—the excitement of the people had had time to become intense; the drums beat, the outsiders shouted madly. Presently[323] the woman who, singing violently, had looked constantly towards the moon, began to tremble. Her nerves twitched, her face was contorted, her muscles swelled, and at last her limbs straightened out, and she lay extended on the ground insensible.
The excitement was now intense and the noise horrible. The songs to Ilogo were not for a moment discontinued. The words were little varied, and were to this purport:
These words were repeated again and again with little variation. The woman who lay for some time as she had fallen was then supposed to be able to see things in the world of Ilogo, and was brought to after half an hour’s insensibility; she looked very much prostrated. She averred that she had seen Ilogo, that he had told her Quengueza was not bewitched.
Chaillu heard one day by accident that a man had been apprehended on a charge of causing the death of one of the chief men of the village, and went to Dayoko, the king, and asked about it. He said yes, the man was to be killed; that he was a notorious wizard, and had done much harm.
Chaillu begged to see this terrible being, and was taken to a rough hut, within which sat an old, old man, with wool white as snow, wrinkled face, bowed form, and shrunken limbs. His hands were tied behind him, and his feet were placed in a rude kind of stocks. This was the great wizard. Several lazy negroes stood guard over him, and from time to time insulted him with opprobrious epithets and blows, to which the poor old wretch submitted in silence. He was evidently in his dotage.
When asked if he had no friends, no relatives, no son or daughter or wife to take care of him, he said sadly, “No one.”
Now here was the secret of this persecution. They were tired of taking care of the helpless old man, who had lived too long, and a charge of[324] witchcraft by the greegree man was a convenient pretext for putting him out of the way.
The Wizard in the Stocks.
Chaillu went, however, to Dayoko, and argued the case with him, and tried to explain the absurdity of charging a harmless old man with supernatural powers; told him that God did not permit witches to exist, and dually made an offer to buy the old wretch, offering to give some pounds of tobacco, one or two coats, and some looking-glasses for him, goods which would have bought an able-bodied slave.
Dayoko replied that for his part he would be glad to save him, but that the people must decide; that they were much excited against him, but that he would, to please Chaillu, try to save his life.
During the night following our travellers heard singing all over the town all night, and a great uproar. Evidently they were preparing themselves[325] for the murder. Even these savages cannot kill in cold blood, but work themselves into a frenzy of excitement first, and then rush off to do the bloody deed.
Early in the morning the people gathered together with the fetish man, the rascal who was at the bottom of the murder, in their midst. His bloodshot eyes glared in savage excitement as he went round from man to man getting the votes to decide whether the old man should die.
In his hands he held a bundle of herbs, with which he sprinkled three times those to whom he spoke. Meantime a man was stationed on the top of a high tree, whence he shouted from time to time in a loud voice, “Jocoo! Jocoo!” at the same time shaking the tree strongly.
Jocoo is devil among the Mbousha, and the business of this man was to keep away the evil spirit, and to give notice to the fetish-man of his approach.
At last the sad vote was taken. It was declared that the old man was a most malignant wizard, that he had already killed a number of people, that he was minded to kill many more, and that he must die. No one would tell Chaillu how he was to be killed, and they proposed to defer the execution till his departure. The whole scene had considerably agitated Chaillu, and he was willing to be spared the end. Tired and sick at heart, Chaillu lay down on his bed about noon to rest and compose his spirits a little. After a while he saw a man pass his window, almost like a flash, and after him a horde of silent but infuriated men. They ran towards the river. Then in a little while was heard a couple of sharp piercing cries, as of a man in great agony, and then all was still as death. Chaillu got up, guessing the rascals had killed the poor old man, and turning his steps toward the river, was met by the crowd returning, every man armed with axe, knife, cutlass, or spear, and these weapons and their own hands and arms and bodies all sprinkled with the blood of their victim. In their frenzy they had tied the poor wizard to a log near the river bank, and then deliberately hacked him into many pieces. They finished by splitting open his skull and scattering the brains in the water. Then they returned; and to see their behaviour, it would have seemed as though the country had just been delivered from a great curse.
By night the men, whose faces for two days had filled Chaillu with loathing and horror, so bloodthirsty and malignant were they, were again as mild as lambs, and as cheerful as though they had never heard of a witch tragedy.
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The following is a fair sample of “witch-test,” as practised in this region. A Gaboon black trader in the employment of a white supercargo, died suddenly. His family thinking that the death had resulted from witchcraft, two of his sisters were authorised to go to his grave and bring his head away in order that they might test the fact. This testing is effected in the following manner: An iron pot with fresh water is placed on the floor; at one side of it is the head of the dead man, at the other side is seated a fetish doctor. The latter functionary then puts in his mouth a piece of herb, supposed to impart divining powers, chews it, and forms a magic circle by spitting round the pot, the head, and himself. The face of the murderer, after a few incantations, is supposed to be reflected on the water contained in the pot. The fetish man then states he sees the murderer, and orders the head to be again put back to its proper grave, some days being then given to him for deliberation. In the mean time he may fix on a man who is rich enough to pay him a sufficient bribe to be excused of the charge, and if so he confesses that the fetish has failed.
In the central regions of Eastern Africa all that is sacerdotal is embodied in individuals called Mganga or Mfumbo. They swarm throughout the land; are of both sexes: the women, however, generally confine themselves to the medical part of the profession. The profession is hereditary; the eldest or the cleverest son begins his education at an early age, and succeeds to his father’s functions. There is little mystery, says Burton, in the craft, and the magicians of Unyamwezi have not refused to initiate some of the Arabs. The power of the Mganga is great; he is treated as a sultan, whose word is law, and as a giver of life and death. He is addressed by a kingly title, and is permitted to wear the chieftain’s badge, made of the base of a conical shell. He is also known by a number of small greasy and blackened gourds filled with physic and magic hanging round his waist, and by a little more of the usual grime, sanctity and dirt being closely connected in Africa. These men are sent for from village to village, and receive as spiritual fees sheep and goats, cattle and provisions. Their persons, however, are not sacred, and for criminal acts they are punished like other malefactors. The greatest danger to them is an excess of fame. A celebrated magician rarely, if ever, dies a natural death; too much is expected from him, and a severe disappointment leads to consequences more violent than usual.
The African phrase for a man possessed is ana’p’hepo, he has a devil.[327] The Mganga is expected to heal the patient by expelling the possession. Like the evil spirit in the days of Saul, the unwelcome visitant must be charmed away by sweet music; the drums cause excitement, the violent exercise expels the ghost. The principal remedies are drumming, dancing, and drinking till the auspicious moment arrives. The ghost is then enticed from the body of the possessed into some inanimate article which he will condescend to inhabit. This, technically called a Keti or stool, may be a certain kind of bead, two or more bits of wood bound together by a strip of snake’s skin, a lion’s or a leopard’s claw, and other similar articles worn round the head, the arm, the wrist, or the ankle. Paper is still considered great medicine by the Wasukuma and other tribes, who will barter valuable goods for a little bit: the great desideratum of the charm in fact appears to be its rarity, or the difficulty of obtaining it. Hence also the habit of driving nails into and hanging rags upon trees. The vegetable itself is not worshipped, as some Europeans, who call it the devil’s tree, have supposed; it is merely the place for the laying of ghosts, where by appending the keti most acceptable to the spirit, he will be bound over to keep the peace with man. Several accidents in the town of Zanzibar have confirmed even the higher orders in their lurking superstition. Mr. Peters, an English merchant, annoyed by the slaves, who came in numbers to hammer nails and to hang iron hoops and rags upon a devil’s tree in his court-yard, ordered it to be cut down, to the horror of all the black beholders. Within six months five persons died in that house—Mr. Peters, his two clerks, his cooper, and his ship’s carpenter. Salim bin Raschid, a half caste merchant, well known at Zanzibar, avers, and his companions bear witness to his words, that on one occasion, when travelling northwards from Unyamzembe, the possession occurred to himself. During the night two female slaves, his companions, of whom one was a child, fell without apparent cause into the fits which denote the approach of a spirit. Simultaneously the master became as one intoxicated; a dark mass—material, not spiritual—entered the tent, threw it down, and presently vanished, and Salim bin Raschid was found in a state of stupor, from which he did not recover till the morning. The same merchant circumstantially related, and called witnesses to prove, that a small slave boy, who was produced on the occasion, had been frequently carried off by possession, even when confined in a windowless room, with a heavy door carefully bolted and padlocked. Next morning the victim was not found although the chamber remained closed. A few days afterwards he was[328] met in the jungle, wandering absently, like an idiot, and with speech too incoherent to explain what had happened to him. The Arabs of Iman who subscribe readily to transformation, deride these tales; those of African blood, believe them. The transformation belief, still so common in many countries, and anciently an almost universal superstition, is, curious to say, unknown amongst these East African tribes.
The Mganga, Mr. Burton further informs us, is also a soothsayer. He foretels the success, or failure of commercial undertakings, of wars, and of kidnapping; he foresees famine and pestilence, and he suggests the means of averting calamities. He fixes also before the commencement of any serious affair fortunate conjunctions, without which, a good issue cannot be expected. He directs, expedites, or delays the march of a caravan; and in his quality of augur, he considers the flight of birds, and the cries of beasts like his prototype of the same class, in ancient Europe, and in modern Asia.
The principal instrument of the Mganga’s craft is one of the dirty little buyou, or gourds, which he wears in a bunch round his waist, and the following is the usual programme when the oracle is to be consulted. The magician brings his implements in a bag of matting; his demeanour is serious as the occasion, he is carefully greased, and his head is adorned with the diminutive antelope horns, fastened by a thong of leather above the forehead. He sits like a sultan, upon a dwarf stool in front of the querist, and begins by exhorting the highest possible offertory. No pay no predict. The Mganga has many implements of his craft. Some prophesy by the motion of berries swimming in a cup full of water, which is placed upon a low stool, surrounded by four tails of the zebra, or the buffalo, lashed to stakes planted upright in the ground. The Kasanda is a system of folding triangles, not unlike those upon which plaything soldiers are mounted. Held in the right hand, it is thrown out, and the direction of the end points to the safe and auspicious route; this is probably the rudest appliance of prestidigitation. The shero is a bit of wood, about the size of a man’s hand, and not unlike a pair of bellows, with a dwarf handle, a projection like a muzzle, and in a circular centre a little hollow. This is filled with water, and a grain, or fragment of wood placed to float, gives an evil omen if it tends towards the sides, and favourable if it veers towards the handle or the nozzle. The Mganga generally carries about with him, to announce his approach, a kind of rattle. This is a hollow gourd of pine-apple, pierced with various[329] holes prettily carved, and half filled with maize grains, and pebbles; the handle is a stick passed through its length, and secured by cross-pins.
The Mganga has many minor duties. In elephant hunts he must throw the first spear, and endure the blame if the beast escapes. He marks ivory with spots disposed in lines and other figures, and thus enables it to reach the coast, without let or hindrance. He loads the kirangoze, or guide, with charms to defend him from the malice which is ever directed at a leading man, and sedulously forbids him to allow precedence even to the Mtongi, the commander and proprietor of the caravan. He aids his tribe by magical arts, in wars by catching a bee, reciting over it certain incantations, and loosing it in the direction of the foe, when the insect will instantly summon an army of its fellows and disperse a host however numerous. This belief well illustrates the easy passage of the natural into the supernatural. The land being full of swarms, and man’s body being wholly exposed, many a caravan has been dispersed like chaff before the wind by a bevy of swarming bees. Similarly in South Africa the magician kicks an ant-hill, and starts wasps which put the enemy to flight.
Here is an account of a queer dance witnessed in this land of Mgangas and Mfumbos and fetishes, furnished by the celebrated explorer Bakie:—“A little before noon Captain Vidal took leave of King Passol, in order to prosecute his observations. I remained, but shortly afterwards prepared to leave also. Passol, however, as soon as he perceived my intention, jumped up, and in a good-humoured way detaining me by the arm, exclaimed, ‘No go, no go yet; ‘top a little; bye-bye you look im fetish dance; me mak you too much laugh!’ It appeared that the old man had heard me some time before, on listening to the distant tattoo of a native drum, express a determination to the young midshipman who was with me to go presently to see the dance, with which I had little doubt that it was accompanied. The noise of the drum, almost drowned by the singing, whooping, and clamour of a multitude of the natives, was soon heard approaching. When close to us the procession stopped, and the dancers, all of whom were men, ranged themselves in parallel lines from the front of an adjoining house, and commenced their exhibition. They were specially dressed for the purpose, having suspended from their hips a complete kilt formed of threads of grass-cloth, manufactured by the natives of the interior, and likewise an appendage of the same kind to one[330] or both arms, just above the elbow. Some had their faces and others their breasts marked with white balls, given to them by the fetish as a cure or safeguard against some disease which they either had or dreaded. The dancing, although not elegant, was free from that wriggling and contortion of body so common on the east coast. It consisted principally in alternately advancing and drawing back the feet and arms, together with a corresponding inclination of the body, and, at stated times, the simultaneous clapping of hands, and a loud sharp ejaculation of ‘Heigh!’ Although I have remarked that it was not elegant, yet it was pleasing, from the regularity with which it was accompanied. There were two men who did not dance in the line among the rest, but shuffled around, and at times threaded the needle among them: one was termed the master fetish, and the other appeared to be his attendant; neither wore the fancy dress, but they were both encircled by the usual wrapper round the loins. The former had on a French glazed hat, held in great request by the natives, and the other, chewing some root of a red colour, carried a small ornamented stick, surmounted at the end like a brush with a bunch of long and handsome feathers. At times one of these men would stop opposite a particular individual among the dancers, and entice him by gestures to leave the line and accompany him in his evolutions, which finally always ended where they began, the pressed man returning to his former place. For some time I had observed the master fetish dancing opposite to the house, and with many gesticulations apparently addressing it in a half threatening half beseeching tone. Old Passol, who was standing close by me, suddenly exclaimed, ‘Now you laugh too much; fetish he come!’
“Sure enough, forthwith rushed from the house among the dancers a most extraordinary figure. It was a man mounted on stilts at least six feet above the ground, of which from practice he had acquired so great a command that he certainly was as nimble in his evolutions as the most active among the dancers. He was sometimes so quick that one stilt could hardly be seen to touch the earth before it was relieved by the other. Even when standing still he often balanced himself so well as not to move either stilt for the space of two or three minutes. He wore a white mask with a large red ball on each cheek, the same on his chin, and his eyebrows and the lower part of his nose were painted with the same colour. Over his forehead was a sort of vizor of a yellow colour, having across it a line of small brass bells; it was armed in front by long[331] alligator’s teeth, and terminated in a confused display of feathers, blades of grass, and the stiff hairs of elephants and other large animals. From the top of his head the skin of a monkey hung pendant behind, having affixed to its tail a wire and a single elephant’s hair with a large sheep’s bell attached to the end. The skin was of a beautiful light green, with the head and neck of a rich vermilion. From his shoulders a fathom of blue dungaree with a striped white border hung down behind; and his body and legs and arms were completely enshrouded in a number of folds of the native grass-cloth, through which he grasped in each hand a quantity of alligator’s teeth, lizard’s skins, fowl’s bones, feathers, and stiff hairs, reminding me strongly of the well-known attributes of Obi, the dread of the slave-owners of Jamaica.
“The fetish never spoke. When standing still he held his arms erect, and shook and nodded his head with a quick repetition; but when advancing he extended them to their full length before him. In the former case he appeared as if pointing to heaven, and demanding its vengeance on the dancers and the numerous bystanders around; and in the latter as one who, finding his exhortations of no avail, was resolved to exterminate, in the might of his gigantic stature and superior strength, the refractory set. The master fetish was his constant attendant, always following, doubling, and facing him, with exhortations uttered at one minute in the most beseeching tone, accompanied hat in hand by obsequious bows, and in the next threatening gestures, and violent, passionate exclamations. The attendant on the master fetish was likewise constantly at hand, with his stick applied to his mouth, and in one or two instances when the masquerader approached, he crouched close under him, and squirted the red juice of the root he was chewing into his face. For upwards of an hour I watched the dance, yet the fetish appeared untired; and I afterwards heard that the same ceremony was performed every day, and sometimes lasted three or four hours. I at first thought that it was merely got up for our amusement, but was soon undeceived; and when, under the first impression, I inquired of a bystander what man it was who performed the character, he answered, with a mixture of pique at the question and astonishment of my ignorance, ‘He no man; no man do same as him; he be de diable! he be de debil!’ Still I was a little sceptic as to their really holding this belief themselves, though they insisted on the fact as they represented it to me; and therefore, after I had received the same answer from all, I used to add in a careless[332] way to try their sincerity, ‘In what house does he dwell?’ ‘What! fetish! I tell you he de debil; he no catch house; he lib (live) in dat wood,’ pointing to a gloomy-looking grove skirting the back of the village. It was in vain that I attempted to unravel the origin or meaning of this superstition; to all my questions the only answer I could obtain was that such was the fashion of the country—a reason which they always had at hand when puzzled, as they always were when the subject related to any of their numerous superstitions. The fact is, that these practices still remain, though their origin has long since been buried in oblivion.”
As with us, “to astonish the natives” is an almost universal weakness, so is it the sable savage’s delight and ambition to “astonish the white man;” and should he succeed, and the odds are manifestly against him, there are no bounds to his satisfaction. The traveller Laing, while travelling through Timmanee, a country not very far from that over which old King Passol held sway, experienced an instance of this. He was invited by the chief to be present at an entertainment resembling what we recognize as a “bal masqué,” as it embraced music and dancing. The music, however, was of rather a meagre character, consisting of a single instrument made of a calabash and a little resembling a guitar. The player evidently expected applause of the white man, and the white man generously accorded it. The musician then declared that what our countrymen had as yet witnessed of his performance was as nothing compared with what he had yet to show him. Holding up his guitar, he declared that with that potent instrument, the like of which was not to be found throughout the length and breadth of Timmanee, he could cure diseases of every sort, tame wild beasts, and render snakes so docile that they would come out of their holes and dance as long as the music lasted. Mr. Laing begged the enchanter to favour him with a specimen of his skill. The enchanter was quite willing. Did anything ail the traveller? Was any one of his party afflicted with disease? no matter how inveterate or of how long standing, let him step forward, and by a few twangs on the guitar he should be cured. Mr. Laing, however, wishing perhaps to let the juggler off as lightly as possible, pressed for a sight of the dancing snakes, on the distinct understanding that they should be perfectly wild snakes, and such as had never yet been taken in hand by mortal. The musician cheerfully assented, and, to quote the words of the “eye-witness,” “changed the air he had been strumming for one more lively, and[333] immediately there crept from beneath the stockading that surrounded the space where we were assembled a snake of very large size. From the reptile’s movements, it seemed that the music had only disturbed its repose, and that its only desire was to seek fresh quarters, for without noticing any one it glided rapidly across the yard towards the further side. The musician, however, once more changed the tune, playing a slow measure, and singing to it. The snake at once betrayed considerable uneasiness, and decreased its speed. ‘Stop snake,’ sung the musician, adapting the words to the tune he was playing, ‘you go a deal too fast; stop at my command and show the white man how well you can dance; obey my command at once, oh snake, and give the white man service.’ Snake stopped. ‘Dance, oh snake!’ continued the musician, growing excited, for a white man has come to Falaba to see you! dance, oh snake, for indeed this is a happy day!’ The snake twisted itself about, raised its head, curled, leaped, and performed various feats, of which I should not have thought a snake capable. At the conclusion the musician walked out of the yard followed by the reptile, leaving me in no small degree astonished, and the rest of the company not a little delighted that a black man had been able to excite the surprise of a white one.”
In no part of Africa do we find a greater amount of religious fanaticism than in Old Kalabar. The idea of God entertained by the Kalabarese is confined to their incomprehensibility of natural causes, which they attribute to Abasi-Ibun, the Efick term for Almighty God; hence they believe he is too high and too great to listen to their prayers and petitions. Idem-Efick is the name of the god who is supposed to preside over the affairs of Kalabar, and who is connected mysteriously with the great Abasi, sometimes represented by a tree, and sometimes by a large snake, in which form he is only seen by his high priest or vice-regent on earth—old King Kalabar. Mr. Hutchinson, who resided in an official capacity in this queer heathen country, once enjoyed the honour of an acquaintance with a representative of Abasi-Ibun. “He was a lean, spare, withered old man, about sixty years of age, a little above five feet in height, grey-headed, and toothless. He wore generally a dressing-gown, with a red cap, bands of bamboo rope round his neck, wrists, and ankles, with tassels dangling at the end. In case of any special crime committed, for the punishment of which there is no provision by Egbo law, the question was at once referred to King Kalabar’s judgment, whose decision of life or death was final. King Ergo and all the gentlemen saluted him by a word of greeting peculiar to[334] himself, ‘Etia,’ meaning in English, you sit there, which, amongst persons of the slave order, must be joined with placing the side of the index fingers in juxtaposition, and bowing humbly, as evidence of obeisance. He offered up a weekly sacrifice to Idem of goats, fowls, and tortoise, usually dressed with a little rum. When famine was impending, or a dearth of ships existed at old Kalabar, the king sent round to the gentlemen of the town an intimation of the necessity of making an offering to the deity, and that Idem-Efick was in want of coppers, which of course must be forwarded through the old king. He had a privilege that every hippopotamus taken, or leopard shot, must be brought to his house, that he may have the lion’s share of the spoil. Since my first visit to Kalabar this old man has died, and has yet had no successor, as the head men and people pretend to believe ‘twelve moons (two years) must pass by before he be dead for thrice.’ Besides this idea of worship, they have a deity named Obu, made of calabash, to which the children are taught to offer up prayer every morning, to keep them from harm. Idem-Nyanga is the name of the tree which they hold as the impersonation of Idem-Efick; and a great reverence is entertained for a shrub, whose pods when pressed by the finger explode like a pistol. In all their meals they perform ablution of the hands before and after it; and in drinking, spill a teaspoonful or so out as a libation to their deity before imbibing. When they kill a fowl or a goat as a sacrifice, they do not forget to remind their god of what ‘fine things’ they do for him, and that ‘they expect a like fine thing in return.’ Ekponyong is the title given to a piece of stick, with a cloth tied round it at the top, and a skull placed above the cloth, which is kept in many of their yards as a sort of guardian spirit. In nearly all their courts there is a ju-ju tree growing in the centre, with a parasitic plant attached to it, and an enclosure of from two to four feet in circumference at the bottom of the stem, within which skulls are always placed, and calabashes of blood at times of sacrifice. At many of the gentlemen’s thresholds a human skull is fastened in the ground, whose white glistening crown is trodden upon by every one who enters.
“A strange biennial custom exists at old Kalabar, that of purifying the town from all devils and evil spirits, who, in the opinion of the authorities, have during the past two years taken possession of it. They call it judok. And a similar ceremony is performed annually on the gold coast. At a certain time a number of figures, styled Nabikems, are fabricated and fixed indiscriminately through the town. These figures are made of[335] sticks and bamboo matting, being moulded into different shapes. Some of them have an attempt at body, with legs and arms to resemble the human form. Imaginative artists sometimes furnish these specimens with an old straw hat, a pipe in the mouth, and a stick fastened to the end of the arm, as if they were prepared to undertake a journey. Many of the figures are supposed to resemble four-footed animals, some crocodiles, and others birds. The evil spirits are expected, after three weeks or a month, to take up their residence in them, showing, to my thinking, a very great want of taste on the part of the spirit vagrant. When the night arrives for their general expulsion, one would imagine the whole town had gone mad. The population feast and drink, and sally out in parties, beating at empty covers, as if they contained tangible objects to hunt, and hallooing with all their might and main. Shots are fired, the Nabikems are torn up with violence, set in flames, and thrown into the river. The orgies continue until daylight dawns, and the town is considered clear of evil influence for two years more. Strange inconsistency with ideas of the provision necessary to be made for the dead in their passage to another world. But heathenism is full of these follies, and few of them can be more absurd than their belief that if a man is killed by a crocodile or a leopard, he is supposed to have been the victim of some malicious enemy, who, at his death, turned himself into either of these animals, to have vengeance on the person that has just been devoured. Any man who kills a monkey or a crocodile is supposed to be turned into one or the other when he dies himself. On my endeavouring to convince two very intelligent traders of Duketown of the folly of this, and of my belief that men had no more power to turn themselves into beasts than they had to make rain fall or grass grow, I was met with the usual cool reply to all a European’s arguments for civilization, ‘It be Kalabar fash(ion), and white men no saby any ting about it.’ The same answer, ‘white men no saby any ting about it,’ was given to me by our Yoruba interpreter when up the Tshadda, on my doubting two supposed facts, which he thus recorded to me. The first was, that the Houessa people believe in the existence of the unicorn, but his precise location cannot be pointed out. He is accredited to be the champion of the unprotected goat and sheep from the ravages of the leopard; that when he meets a leopard he enters amicably into conversation with him, descants upon his cruelty, and winds up, like a true member of the humane society, by depriving the leopard of his claws. On my asking if a clawless leopard had ever been discovered,[336] or if the unicorn had proposed any other species of food as a substitute, observing me smile with incredulity, he gave me an answer similar to that of the Kalabar men, in the instance mentioned. The second, to the effect that a chameleon always went along at the same pace, not quickening his steps for rain or wind, but going steadily in all phases of temperature, changing his hue in compliment to everything he met, turning black for black men, white for white, blue, red, or green, for any cloth or flowers, or vegetables that fall in his way; and the only reason he gives for it when questioned on the subject is, that his father did the same before him, and he does not think it right to deviate from the old path, because ‘same ting do for my fader, same ting do for me.’”
Quite by accident it happens that this answer of the Yoruba man to Mr. Hutchinson’s arguments forms the concluding line of the many examples of Savage Rites and Superstitions quoted. It is, however, singularly apropos. In this single line is epitomised the guiding principle of the savage’s existence—“Same ting do for my fader, same ting do for me.” This it is that fetters and tethers him. He is born to it, lives by it, and he dies by it.
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Burying Alive in Figi.
Killing to cheat death—Preparing the king’s “grave grass”—The tomb and its living tenant—Figian mourning symbols—Murder of sick Figians—“Pray don’t bury me!”—The ominous cat clawing—The sacrifice of fingers—The token of the bloody apron—The art of embalming—The sin-hole—Ceremonies at King Finow’s funeral—Heroic appeals to the departed king—The scene at the sepulchre—The journey of the sand bearers—The Mée too Buggi—Devotion of Finow’s fishermen—The Sandwich Islanders’ badge of mourning—Putting the tongue in black—A melancholy procession—The house of Keave—The pahio tabu.
It by no means follows that a disrespect for human life is synonomous with a personal indifference to death. To whatever savage land we turn—to the banks of the Mosquito, where lives the barbarous Sambo Indian; to the deserts of Africa, the abode[338] of the Griqua and Damara; to the shores of solitary lakes far away in Northern America—we find a horror of death, or rather of the work of death’s hands, singularly incompatible with the recklessness of life observable in the countries named.
No country on the face of the earth, however, can vie in the matter of death and burial ceremonials with Figi. Here it would seem at first sight that fear of death was unknown, so much so that parents will consent to be clubbed to death by their children, and mothers murder and with their own hands bury their children—where even the grave has so few terrors that people will go down alive into it. It may, however, be worth considering whether this apparent trifling with life may not have for its source dread of the grim reaper in such blind and ignorant excess as to lead to killing to save from dying—to cheat death in fact, and enable the cunning cannibal to slink out of the world unmissed and unquestioned as to the errors of his life. This may seem the wildest theory; but it should be borne in mind that in Figi, as in many other barbarous countries, it is believed that all that is evil of a man lives after him, and unless necessary precautions are adopted, remains to torment his relations; it is not improbable, therefore, that these latter, if not the ailing one himself, may favour this death-cheating system.
As regards burying alive, this at least may be said in favour of the Figians: they are no respecters of persons. The grey hairs of the monarch are no more respected than those of the poorest beggar in his realm. Indeed, according to the testimony of an eye-witness—Mr. Thomas Williams—the king is more likely to be sent quick to the grave than any one else. Here is an instance:—
“On my first going to Somosomo, I entertained a hope that the old king would be allowed to die a natural death, although such an event would be without precedent. The usage of the land had been to intimate that the king’s death was near by cleaning round about the house, after which, his eldest son when bathing with his father took a favourable opportunity, and dispatched him with his club.
“I visited him on the 21st, and was surprised to find him much better than he had been two days before. On being told, therefore, on the 24th that the king was dead, and that preparations were being made for his interment, I could scarcely credit the report. The ominous word preparing urged me to hasten without delay to the scene of action, but my utmost speed failed to bring me to Nasima—the king’s house—in time.[339] The moment I entered it was evident that as far as concerned two of the women I was too late to save their lives. The effect of that scene was overwhelming. Scores of deliberate murderers in the very act surrounded me: yet there was no confusion, and, except a word from him who presided, no voice—only an unearthly, horrid stillness. Nature seemed to lend her aid and to deepen the dread effect; there was not a breath stirring in the air, and the half subdued light in that hall of death showed every object with unusual distinctness.
“All sat on the floor; the middle figure of each group being held in a sitting posture by several females, and hidden by a large veil. On either side of each veiled figure was a company of eight or ten strong men, one company hauling against the other on a white cord which was passed twice round the neck of the doomed one, who thus in a few minutes ceased to live. As my self command was returning to me the group furthest from me began to move; the men slackened their hold and the attendant women removed the large covering, making it into a couch for the victim.... One of the victims was a stout woman and some of the executioners jocosely invited those who sat near to have pity and help them. At length the women said ‘she is cold.’ The fatal cord fell and as the covering was raised I saw dead the oldest wife and unwearied attendant of the old king.”
These victims are used to pave the king’s grave. They are called grass, and when they are arranged in a row at the bottom of the sepulchre the king’s corpse is couched on them. It is only, however, great chiefs who demand so extensive a human couch; a dignitary of minor importance is content with two bodies as his grave floor: sometimes a man and a woman, sometimes two women. If an important personage dies it is considered intolerable if his confidential man—his bosom friend and adviser—should object to accompany his master as grass. It is very common, too, when a great man dies in Figi to strangle and bury with him an able bodied man, who takes with him his club to protect the exalted one from the malicious attacks of his enemies in the land of spirits. For the same purpose a bran new and well oiled club is placed in the dead hand of the chief himself. To return, however, to the dead king of Somosomo and Mr. Williams’ narrative:
“Leaving the women to adjust the hair of the victims, to oil their bodies, cover their faces with vermilion, and adorn them with flowers, I passed on to see the remains of the deceased Tnithaken. To my astonishment[340] I found him alive. He was weak but quite conscious, and whenever he coughed placed his hand on his side as though in pain. Yet his chief wife and a male attendant were covering him with a thick coat of black powder, and tying round his arms and legs a number of white scarfs, fastened in rosettes with the long ends hanging down his sides. His head was turbaned in a scarlet handkerchief secured by a chaplet of small white cowries, and he wore armlets of the same shells. On his neck was the ivory necklace formed in long curved points. To complete his royal attire according to the Figian idea, he had on a very large new masi, the train being wrapped in a number of loose folds at his feet. No one seemed to display real grief, which gave way to show and ceremonies. The whole tragedy had an air of cruel mockery. It was a masquerading of grim death—a decking as for a dance bodies which were meant for the grave.
“I approached the young king whom I could not regard without abhorrence. He seemed greatly moved and embraced me before I could speak. ‘See,’ said he, ‘the father of us two is dead! His spirit is gone. You see his body move, but that it does unconsciously.’” Knowing that it would be useless to argue the point the missionary ceased to care about the father, but begged of the young king that no more victims might be sacrificed, and after some little show of obstinacy gained his point.
Preparations were then made for conveying the still living man to the grave. The bodies of the women—the grave grass—were fastened to mats and carried on biers; they were carried behind the king, whose stirring body was not brought out at the door of the house, but the wall being knocked down he was carried through that way (Mr. Williams is unable to account for this singular proceeding). The funeral procession moved down to the sea-side and embarked in a canoe which was silently paddled to the sepulchre of Figian royalty. Here arrived, the grave was found ready dug, the murdered grass was packed at the bottom, and after the king’s ornaments were taken off him he too was lowered into the hole, covered with cloth and mats and then with earth, and “was heard to cough after a considerable quantity of soil had been thrown into the grave.”
Although this is an end to the body, many other ceremonies remain for performance. The most ordinary way to express sorrow for the dead in Figi is to shave—the process being regulated according to the affinity of[341] the mourner to deceased. Fathers and sons will shave their heads and cheeks as bare as pumpkins; nephews and cousins shave merely the summit of the cranium. Among the women, however, the mourning customs are much more horrible and lasting in effect. Some burn fantastic devices on their bodies with hot irons, while others submit to have their fingers chopped off. On the occasion of the royal death and burial above narrated, “orders were issued that one hundred fingers should be cut off; but only sixty were amputated, one woman losing her life in consequence. The fingers being each inserted in a slit reed were stuck along the eaves of the king’s house.”
“Mourning Suit of Leaves.”
Among the various modes of expressing grief among the Figians, Mr. Williams records that of lying out night after night along the grave of a friend; allowing the great mop of hair to go untouched for months; abstinence from oiling the body (a tremendous mortification); and the wearing garments of leaves instead of cloth. These practices, however, are optional; others there are that are imperative, and among them one almost unmentionable from its loathsome character. The ceremony is called Vathavidiulo, or “jumping of worms,” and consists of the relatives of deceased assembling the fourth day after the burial, and minutely discussing[342] the present condition of the body of the departed. The next night, however, is not passed in so doleful a manner; for then takes place the Vakadredre, or “causing to laugh,” when the most uproarious fun is indulged in for the purpose of enabling the mourners to forget their grief. On the death of a man high in station, a ludicrous custom is observed, says Williams:—“About the tenth day, or earlier, the women arm themselves with cords, switches, and whips, and fall upon any men below the highest chiefs, plying their whips unsparingly. I have seen grave personages, not accustomed to move quickly, flying with all possible speed before a company of such women. Sometimes the men retaliate by bespattering their assailants with mud; but they use no violence, as it seems to be a day on which they are bound to succumb.”
It will be easily understood that since so little respect is paid to the lives of kings and great warriors, bloodshed and barbarous murder are rife enough among the poorer classes. And there can be no doubt that, although the various frightful customs peculiar to the Figians have their foundation, and are still upheld as a rule in a purely religious spirit, extensive advantage is taken of the same in furthering mercenary and spiteful ends. The brother of a dead Figian of considerable means, might, for instance, find it convenient to persuade the widows—the heirs to the property—to show their devotedness by consenting to be strangled and buried with their husband, that he may, as next of kin, take immediate possession of the goods and chattels, etc. Where the dead man was poor, his relatives would probably rather be at the pains to convince the widow of her duty than at the expense of maintaining her.
The murder of the sick among the Figians is regarded as a simple and proper course, and one that need not be observed with anything like secrecy. A fellow missionary of the Rev. Mr. Williams found a woman in Somosomo who was in a very abject state through the protracted absence of her husband. For five weeks, although two women lived in the same house, she lay uncared for, and was reduced to a mere skeleton, but being provided with food and medicine from the mission-house, began to get well. One morning, as an attendant was carrying the sick woman’s breakfast, he was met and told by her relations that he could take the food back—the woman was buried. The man then related to the missionaries that while he was at the sick house the previous day, an old woman came in, and addressing the patient, said, “I came to see my friend, and inquire whether she was ready to be strangled yet; but as[343] she is strong we will let her he a while.” It would seem, however, that in the course of an hour or so the woman’s barbarous nurses saw fit to alter their plans.
This is not the only instance of the kind quoted by travellers familiar with the manners and customs of the Figians. Take the following:—“Ratu Varam (a chief) spoke of one among many whom he had caused to be buried alive. She had been weakly for a long time, and the chief, thinking she was likely to remain so, had a grave dug. The curiosity of the poor girl was excited by loud exclamations, as though something extraordinary had happened, and on stepping out of the house she was seized and thrown into the grave. In vain she shrieked with horror, and cried out, ‘Do not bury me! I am quite well now!’ Two men kept her down by standing on her, while others threw the earth in upon her until she was heard no more.”
If a Figian ceases to exist, towards the evening a sort of wake is observed. Parties of young men sit and “watch” the body, at the same time chaunting the most melancholy dirges. Early the next morning the preparations for the funeral and the funeral feast commence. Two go to dig the grave, others paint and dress the body, while others prepare the oven, and attend to culinary matters. The two grave diggers seated opposite each other make three feints with their digging sticks, which are then stuck into the earth, and a grave rarely more than three feet deep is prepared. Either the grave-diggers or some one near repeat twice the words “Figi Tonga.” The earth first thrown up is laid apart from the rest. When the grave is finished mats are laid at the bottom, and the body or bodies, wrapped in other mats or native cloths, are placed thereon, the edges of the mats folding over all; the earth is then thrown in. Many yards of the man’s masi are often left out of the grave and carried in festoons over the branches of a neighbouring tree. The sextons go away forthwith and wash themselves, using during their ablution the leaves of certain shrubs for purification, after which they return and share the food which has been prepared for them. Mr. Williams further relates that a respectable burial is invariably provided for the very poorest of the community, and that he has repeatedly seen poor wretches unable to procure a decent mat to lie on while alive, provided with five or six new ones to lie on in the grave. Moreover, the fact of a person dying far out at sea, or even being killed in battle with a distant tribe, whose horrid maws have provided him a sepulchre, does not diminish the responsibility[344] of his relations in the matter of his funeral obsequies. The koloku, as the after-death ceremonies are named, takes place just as if the man had died at home, and the desire to make sacrifice is even more imperative. For instance, a bold and handsome Figian chief, named Ra Nibittu, was drowned at sea. As soon as the doleful news reached the land, seventeen of his wives were straightway strangled, and their bodies used as grass in a grave dedicated to the dead Ra Nibittu. Again, after the news of the massacre of the Namena people at Vicca in 1839, eighty women were strangled to accompany the spirits of their murdered husbands.
In Figi, as in England, the popular superstition concerning the midnight howling of a dog is prevalent, and thought to betoken death. A cat purring and rubbing against the legs of a Figian is regarded just as ominously. If, where a woman is buried, the marks of cat scratchings are found on the soil, it is thought certain evidence that while in life the woman was unchaste. Should a warrior fail after repeated efforts to bring his complexion by aid of various pigments to the orthodox standard of jetty blackness, he regards himself, and is regarded by others, as a doomed man, and of course the more he frets and fumes about the matter, the more he perspires, and the less chance he has of making the paint stick.
A proper winding up of this string of curious horrors connected with Figian death and burial, will be the Figian doctrine of the universal spread of death, as furnished to Mr. Williams, from whom it is only justice once more to remark these particulars are chiefly derived. “When the first man, the father of the human race was being buried, a god passed by this first grave and enquired what it meant. On being informed by those standing by that they had just buried their father, he said, ‘Do not inter him; dig the body up again.’—‘No,’ was the reply, ‘we cannot do that; he has been dead four days, and is unfit to be seen.’—‘Not so,’ said the god, ‘disinter him, and I promise you he shall live again.’ Heedless, however, of the promise of the god, these original sextons persisted in leaving their father’s remains in the earth. Perceiving their perverseness, the god said, ‘By refusing compliance with my demands, you have sealed your own destinies. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found him alive, and yourselves also as you passed from this world, should have been buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which you should have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishment for your disobedience, you shall die and rot.’—‘Ah!’ say the[345] Figians, after tearing this legend recounted, ‘Ah! if those children had dug up that body!’”
On this and many adjacent islands, cutting off a portion of the little finger as a sacrifice to the gods for the recovery of a superior sick relation is very commonly done; indeed there is scarcely a person living at Tonga but who has lost one or both or a considerable portion of both little fingers. Those who can have but few superior relations, such as those near akin to Tooitonga, or the king, or Veachi, have some chance of escaping, if their relations are tolerably healthy. It does not appear that the operation is painful. Mr. Mariner records that he has witnessed more than once little children quarrelling for the honour (or rather out of bravado) of having it done. The finger is laid flat upon a block of wood, a knife, axe, or sharp stone is placed with the edge upon the line of the proposed separation, and a powerful blow given with a mallet or large stone, the operation is finished. From the nature and violence of the action the wound seldom bleeds much. The stump is then held in the smoke and steam arising from the combustion of fresh plucked grass; this stops any flow of blood. The wound is not washed for two days; afterwards it is kept clean, and heals in about two or three weeks without any application whatever. One joint is generally taken off, but some will have a smaller portion, to admit of the operation being performed several times on the same finger, in case a man has many superior relations.
In certain islands of the Polynesian group there was observed at the approaching dissolution of a man of any importance a rite terribly fantastic and cruel. As soon as the dying man’s relatives were made acquainted with the impending calamity, they straightway and deliberately proceeded to act the part of raving mad men. “Not only,” says Ellis, “did they wail in the loudest and most affecting manner, but they tore their hair, rent their garments, and cut themselves with knives or with shark’s teeth in the most shocking manner. The instrument usually employed was a small cane about four inches long, with five or six shark’s teeth fixed in on opposite sides. With one of these instruments every female provided herself after marriage, and on occasions of death it was unsparingly used.
“With some this was not sufficient: they prepared a sharp instrument, something like a plumber’s mallet, about five or six inches long, rounded at one end for a handle, and armed with two or three rows of shark’s teeth fixed in the wood at the other. With this, on the death of a relative[346] or friend, they cut themselves unmercifully, striking the head, temples, cheeks, and breast, till the blood flowed profusely from the wounds. At the same time they uttered the most deafening and agonizing cries; and the distortion of their countenances, their torn and dishevelled air, the mingled tears and blood that covered their bodies, their wild gestures and unruly conduct, often gave them a frightful and almost inhuman appearance. I have often conversed with these people on their reasons for this strange procedure, and have asked them if it was not exceeding painful to cut themselves as they were accustomed to do. They have always answered that it was very painful in some parts of the face, that the upper lip or the space between the upper lip and the nostrils was the most tender, and a stroke there was always attended with the greatest pain.... The females on these occasions sometimes put on a kind of short apron of a particular sort of cloth, which they held up with one hand, while they cut themselves with the other. In this apron they caught the blood that flowed from these grief-inflicted wounds until it was almost saturated. It was then dried in the sun and given to the nearest surviving relations, as a proof of the affection of the donor, and was preserved by the bereaved family as a token of the estimation in which the departed had been held.
“I am not prepared to say that the same enormities were practised here as in the Sandwich Islands at these times, but on the death of a king or principal chief, the scenes exhibited in and around the house were in appearance demoniacal. The relatives and members of the household began; the other chiefs of the island and their relatives came to sympathize with the survivors, and on reaching the place joined in the infuriated conduct of the bereaved. The tenantry of the chiefs came also, and giving themselves to all the savage infatuation which the conduct of their associates, or the influence of their superstitious belief inspired, they not only tore their hair and lacerated their bodies till they were covered with blood, but often fought with clubs and stones till murder followed.”
As soon as an individual of the islands above alluded to died, a ceremony known as “tahna tertera” was performed, with a view of discovering the cause of death. In order to effect this the priest took his canoe, and paddled slowly along on the sea near the house where the body was lying, to watch the passage of the spirit, which they supposed would fly upon him with the emblem of the cause for which the person died. If he had been cursed by the gods, the spirit would appear with a flame,[347] fire being the agent employed in the incantations of the sorcerers; if killed by the bribe of some enemy given to the gods, the spirit would appear with a red feather, an emblem signifying that evil spirits had entered his food. After a short time the tahna or priest returned to the house of the deceased, and told the survivors the cause of his death, and received his fee, the amount of which was regulated by the circumstances of the parties. To avert mischief from the dead man’s relations, the priest now performed certain secret ceremonies, and in a day or two he again made his appearance with a cheerful countenance, to assure them that they need no longer go in fear, received another fee, and took his departure.
The bodies of the chiefs and persons of rank and affluence were embalmed. The art of embalming, generally thought to indicate a high degree of civilization, appears to have been known and practised among the Polynesians from a very remote period, and however simple the process, it was thoroughly successful. The intestines, brain, etc., were removed, and the body fixed in a sitting posture, and exposed to the direct rays of the sun. The inside was, after a while, filled with shreds of native cloth, saturated with perfumed oil, with which the exterior was plentifully and vigorously anointed. This, together with the heat of the sun and the dryness of the atmosphere, favoured the preservation of the body.
Under the influence of these causes, in the course of a few weeks the muscles were dried up, and the whole body appeared as if covered with a kind of parchment. It was then clothed, and fixed in a sitting posture; a small altar was erected before it, and offerings of fruit, food, and flowers daily presented by the relatives or the priest appointed to attend the body. In this state it was kept many months, when the body was buried, and the skull preserved by the family.
In commencing the process of embalming, and placing the body on the bier, another priest was employed, who was called the tahna lure tiapapau, or “corpse-praying priest.” His office was singular. When the house for the dead had been erected, and the corpse placed upon the bier, the priest ordered a hole to be dug near the foot of it. Over this hole the priest prayed to the god by whom it was supposed the spirit of the deceased had been required. The purport of his prayer was, that all the dead man’s sins, and especially that for which his soul had been called away, might be deposited there; that they might not attach in any degree to the survivors; and that the anger of the god might be appeased. After[348] the prayer, the priest, addressing the deceased, exclaimed, “With you let the guilt now remain.” Then a pillar of wood was planted in the “sin-hole,” and the earth filled in. Then the priest, taking a number of small slips of plantain leaf-stalk, approached the body, and laid some under the arms, and strewed some on the breast, saying, “There are your family; there are your children, there is your wife, there is your father, and there is your mother. Be contented in the world of spirits. Look not towards those you have left in the world.” And—or so thought the benighted creatures among whom this singular rite was performed—the dead man’s spirit being hoodwinked into the belief that the chief of his relations were no longer inhabitants of the world, ceased to trouble itself further about mundane affairs, and never appeared in ghostly shape at the midnight couches of living men.
All who were employed in the embalming, which was called muri, were during the process carefully avoided by every person, as the guilt of the crime for which the deceased had died was supposed in some degree to attach to such as touched the body. They did not feed themselves, lest the food defiled by the touch of their polluted hands should cause their death, but were fed by others. As soon as the ceremony of depositing the sin in the hole was over, all who had touched the dead man or his garments fled precipitately into the sea, where for a long time they bathed, and came away leaving their contaminated clothes behind them. At the conclusion of their ablutions they dived, and brought from the sea-bed some bits of coral. Bearing these in their hands, their first journey was to the sin-hole of the defunct, at which the bits of coral were cast, with the adjuration, “With you may all pollution be!”
On the death of Finow, King of Tonga, Mr. Mariner informs us, the chiefs and grand company invited to take part in his funeral obsequies, seated themselves, habited in mats, waiting for the body of the deceased king to be brought forth. The mourners (who are always women), consisting of the female relations, widows, mistresses, and servants of the deceased, and such other females of some rank who chose out of respect to officiate on such an occasion, were assembled in the house and seated round the corpse, which still lay out on the blades of gnatoo. They were all habited in large old ragged mats—the more ragged the more fit for the occasion, as being more emblematical of a spirit broken down, or, as it were, torn to pieces by grief. Their appearance was calculated to excite pity and sorrow in the heart of anyone, whether accustomed or not to such[349] a scene; their eyes were swollen with the last night’s frequent flood of grief, and still weeping genuine tears of regret; the upper part of their cheeks perfectly black, and swollen so that they could hardly see, with the constant blows they had inflicted on themselves with their fists.
Among the chiefs and matabooles who were seated on the marly, all those who were particularly attached to the late king or to his cause evinced their sorrow by a conduct usual indeed among these people at the death of a relation, or of a great chief (unless it be that of Tooitonga, or any of his family), but which to us may well appear barbarous in the extreme; that is to say, the custom of cutting and wounding themselves with clubs, stones, knives, or sharp shells; one at a time, or two or three together, running into the middle of the circle formed by the spectators to give these proofs of their extreme sorrow for the death, and great respect for the memory of their departed friend.
The sentiments expressed by these victims of popular superstition were to the following purpose. “Finow, I know well your mind; you have departed to Bolotoo, and left your people under suspicion that I or some of those about you are unfaithful; but where is the proof of infidelity? where is a single instance of disrespect?” Then inflicting violent blows and deep cuts in the head with a club, stone, or knife, would again exclaim at intervals, “Is this not a proof of my fidelity? does this not evince loyalty and attachment to the memory of the departed warrior?” Then perhaps two or three would run on and endeavour to seize the same club, saying with a furious tone of voice, “Behold the land is torn with strife, it is smitten to pieces, it is split by revolts; how my blood boils; let us haste and die! I no longer wish to live: your death, Finow, shall be mine. But why did I wish hitherto to live? it was for you alone; it was in your service and defence only that I wished to breathe; but now, alas! the country is ruined. Peace and happiness are at an end; your death has insured ours: henceforth war and destruction alone can prosper.” These speeches were accompanied with a wild and frantic agitation of the body, whilst the parties cut and bruised their heads every two or three words with the knife or club they held in their hands. Others, somewhat more calm and moderate in their grief, would parade up and down with rather a wild and agitated step, spinning and whirling the club about, striking themselves with the edge of it two or three times violently upon the top or back of the head, and then suddenly stopping and looking stedfastly at the instrument spattered with blood, exclaim,[350] “Alas! my club, who could have said that you would have done this kind office for me, and have enabled me thus to evince a testimony of my respect for Finow? Never, no never, can you again tear open the brains of his enemies. Alas! what a great and mighty warrior has fallen! Oh, Finow, cease to suspect my loyalty; be convinced of my fidelity! But what absurdity am I talking! if I had appeared treacherous in your sight, I should have met the fate of those numerous warriors who have fallen victims to your just revenge. But do not think, Finow, that I reproach you; no, I wish only to convince you of my innocence, for who that has thoughts of harming his chiefs shall grow white headed like me (an expression used by some of the old men). O cruel gods to deprive us of our father, of our only hope, for whom alone we wished to live. We have indeed other chiefs, but they are only chiefs in rank, and not like you, alas! great and mighty in war.”
Such were their sentiments and conduct on this mournful occasion. Some, more violent than others, cut their heads to the skull with such strong and frequent blows, that they caused themselves to reel, producing afterwards a temporary loss of reason. It is difficult to say to what length this extravagance would have been carried, particularly by one old man, if the prince had not ordered Mr. Mariner to go up and take away the club from him, as well as two others that were engaged at the same time. It is customary on such occasions, when a man takes a club from another, to use it himself in the same way about his own head; but Mr. Mariner, being a foreigner, was not expected to do this; he therefore went up and, after some hesitation and struggle, secured the clubs one after another, and returned with them to his seat, when, after a while, they were taken by others, who used them in like manner.
After these savage expressions of sorrow had been continued for nearly three hours, the prince gave orders that the body of his father should be taken to Felletoa to be buried. In the first place, a bale of gnatoo was put on a kind of hurdle, and the body laid on the bale; the prince then ordered that, as his father was the first who introduced guns in the wars of Tonga, the two carronades should be loaded and fired twice before the procession set out, and twice after it had passed out of the marly; he gave directions also that the body of Finow’s daughter, lately deceased, should be taken out in the model of a canoe, and carried after the body of her father; that during his life, as he wished always to have her body in his neighbourhood, she might now at length be buried with him.
[351]
Matters being thus arranged, Mr. Mariner loaded the guns and fired four times with blank cartridge. The procession then went forward, and in the course of two hours arrived at Felletoa, where the body was laid in a house on the marly at some distance from the grave, till another and smaller house could be brought close to it; and this was done in course of an hour. The post being taken up, the four pieces which compose the building (a kind of shed in a pyramidal form, the eaves reaching within four feet of the ground) were brought by a sufficient number of men, and put together at the place where it was wanted. This being done, the body was brought on the same hurdle or hand-barrow to the newly-erected building (if it may be so termed); and then being taken off the hurdle, it was laid within, on the bale of gnatoo, and the house was hung round with black gnatoo, reaching from the eaves to the ground.
The women, who were all assembled and seated round the body, began a most dismal lamentation. In the mean time a number of people, whose business it is to prepare graves, were digging the place of interment under the direction of a mataboole, whose office is to superintend such affairs. Having dug about ten feet, they came to the large stone covering a vault; a rope was fastened double round one end of the stone, which always remains a little raised for the purpose, and was raised by the main strength of 150 or 200 men, pulling at the two ends of the rope towards the opposite edge of the grave till it was brought up on end. The body being oiled with sandal-wood oil, and then wrapped in mats, was handed down on a large bale of gnatoo into the grave; the bale of gnatoo was then, as is customary, taken by the before-mentioned mataboole as his perquisite. Next, the body of his daughter, in the model of a canoe, was let down in like manner, and placed by his side. The great stone was then lowered down with a loud shout. Immediately certain matabooles and warriors ran like men frantic round about the place of sepulture, exclaiming, “Alas! how great is our loss! Finow, you are departed: witness this proof of our love and loyalty!” At the same time they cut and bruised their own heads with clubs, knives, axes, etc.
The whole company now formed themselves into a single line, the women first, and afterwards the men, but without any particular order as to rank, and proceeded towards the back of the island for the purpose of getting a quantity of sand in small baskets.
They sang loudly the whole way, as a signal to all who might be in the road or adjacent fields to hide themselves as quickly as possible, for it is[352] sacrilegious for any body to be seen abroad by the procession during this part of the ceremony; and if any man had unfortunately made his appearance, he would undoubtedly have been pursued by one of the party, and soon dispatched with the club. So strictly is this attended to, that nobody in Mr. Mariner’s time recollected a breach of a law so well known. Even if a common man was to be buried, and Finow himself was to be upon the road, or in the neighbourhood of the procession whilst going to get sand at the back of the island, he would immediately hide himself; not that they would knock out the king’s brains on such an occasion, but it would be thought sacrilegious and unlucky, the gods of Bolotoo being supposed to be present at the time. The chiefs are particularly careful not to infringe upon sacred laws, lest they should set an example of disobedience to the people. The song on this occasion, which is very short, is sung first by the men and then by the women, and so on alternately; and intimates (though Mr. Mariner has forgotten the exact words) that the fala (which is the name of this part of the ceremony) is coming, and that every body must get out of the way.
When they arrived at the back of the island, where anybody may be present, they proceeded to make a small basket of the leaves of the cocoa-nut tree, holding about two quarts, and to fill it with sand; this being done, each of the men carried two upon a stick across the shoulder, one at each end: while the women only carried one, pressed in general against the left hip, or rather upon it, by the hand of the same side, and supported by the hand of the opposite side, brought backwards across the loins, which they consider the easiest mode for women to carry small burdens; they then proceeded back the same way, and with ceremony, to the grave. By this time the grave above the vault was nearly filled with the earth lately dug out, the remaining small space being left to be filled by the sand, which is always more than enough for the purpose. It is considered a great embellishment to a grave to have it thus covered, and is thought to appear very well from a distance, where the mound of clean sand may be seen; besides which it is the custom, and nobody can explain the reason why—which is the case with several of their customs. This being done, all the baskets in which the sand was brought, as well as the remaining quantity of earth not used in filling up the grave, are thrown into the hole out of which the earth was originally dug. During the whole of this time the company was seated, still clothed in mats, and their necks strung with the leaves of the ifi tree; after this they arose and went to their respective[353] habitations, where they shaved their heads, and burnt their cheeks with a small lighted roll of tápa, by applying it once upon each cheek bone; after which, the place was rubbed with the astringent berry of the matchi, which occasioned it to bleed, and with the blood they smeared about the wound in a circular form, to about two inches in diameter, giving themselves a very unseemly appearance.
They repeat this friction with the berry every day, making the wound bleed afresh; and the men in the meantime neglect to shave and to oil themselves during the day: they do it, however, at night, for the comfort which this operation affords. After having, in the first place, burnt their cheeks and shaved their heads, they built for themselves small temporary huts for their own accommodation during the time of mourning, which lasts twenty days. Early in the morning of the twentieth day, all the relations of the deceased chief, together with those who formed his household, and also the women who were tabooed by having touched his dead body whilst oiling and preparing it, went to the back of the island (without any particular order or ceremony) to procure a number of flat pebbles, principally white, but a few black, for which they made baskets on the spot to carry them in, as before mentioned, when they went to procure sand. With these they returned to the grave, strewed inside of the house with the white ones, as also the outside, as a decoration to it; the black pebbles they strewed only upon the white ones which covered the ground directly over the body. After this the house over the tomb was closed up at both ends with a reed fencing, reaching from the eaves to the ground; and at the front and back with a sort of basket-work made of the young branches of the cocoa-nut tree, split and interwoven in a very curious and ornamental way, which remains till the next burial, when they are taken down, and after the conclusion of the ceremony new ones are put up in like manner. A large quantity of provisions was now sent to the marly by the chiefs of the different districts of the island, ready prepared and cooked, as also a considerable quantity prepared by Finow’s own household: among these provisions was a good supply of cava root. After the chiefs, matabooles, and others were assembled, the provisions and cava were served out in the usual way. During this time no speech was made, nor did any particular occurrence take place. The company afterwards repaired each to his respective house, and got ready for a grand wrestling-match and entertainment of dancing the Mée too Buggi (literally, “the dance, standing up with paddles”).
[354]
Funeral Obsequies of King Finow.
During the intervals of the dances, several matabooles, warriors, and others, indulged in bruising and cutting their heads with clubs, axes, etc., as proofs of their fidelity to the late chief; among them two boys, one about twelve, the other about fourteen years of age (sons of matabooles), made themselves very conspicuous in this kind of self-infliction; the youngest in particular, whose father was killed in the service of the late chief, dining the great revolution at Tonga, after having given his head two or three hard knocks, ran up to the grave in a fit of enthusiasm, and dashing his club with all his force to the ground, exclaimed, “Finow! why should I attempt thus to express my love and fidelity towards you? My wish is that the gods of Bolotoo permit me to live long enough to prove my fidelity to your son.” He then again raised his club, and running about bruised and cut his little head in so many places, that[355] he was covered with streams of blood. This demonstration on the part of the young hero was thought very highly of by every one present, though, according to custom, nothing at that time was said in his praise; agreeable to their maxim, that praise raises a man’s opinions of his own merit too high, and fills him with self-conceit. The late Finow’s fishermen now advanced forward to show their love for their deceased master in the usual way, though instead of a club or axe, each bore the paddle of a canoe, with which they beat and bruised their heads at intervals, making similar exclamations to those so often related. In one respect, however, they were somewhat singular, that is, in having three arrows stuck through each cheek in a slanting direction, so that while their points came quite through the cheek into the mouth, the other ends went over their shoulders, and were kept in that situation by another arrow, the point of which was tied to the ends of the arrows passing over one shoulder, and the other end to those of the arrows passing over the other shoulder, so as to form a triangle; and with this horrible equipment they walked round the grave, beating their heads and faces as before stated with the paddles, or pinching up the skin of the breast and sticking a spear quite through: all this to show their love and affection for the deceased chief.
After these exhibitions of cruelty were over, this day’s ceremony (which altogether lasted about six hours) was finished by a grand wrestling match, which being ended, every one retired to his respective house or occupation; and thus terminated the ceremony of burying the King of the Tonga Islands.
The Sandwich Islanders observe a number of singular ceremonies on the death of their kings and chiefs, and have been till very recently accustomed to make these events occasions for the practice of almost every enormity and vice.
“The people here,” writes Mr. Mariner, “had followed only one fashion in cutting their hair, but we have seen it polled in every imaginable form; sometimes a small round place only is made bald just on the crown, which causes them to look like Romish priests; at other times the whole head is shaved or cropped close, except round the edge, where, for about half an inch in breadth, the hair hangs down its usual length. Some make their heads bald on one side, and leave the hair twelve or eighteen inches long on the other. Occasionally they cut out a patch in the shape of a horse*-shoe, either behind or above the forehead; and sometimes we have seen a number of curved furrows cut from ear to ear, or from the forehead to the[356] neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend had his own hair cut after any particular pattern, his followers and dependants usually imitated it in cutting theirs. Not to cut or shave off the hair indicates want of respect towards the deceased and the surviving friends; but to have it cut close in any form is enough. Each one usually follows his own taste, which produces the endless variety in which this ornamental appendage of the head is worn by the natives during a season of mourning.
“Another custom, almost as universal on these occasions, was that of knocking out some of the front teeth, practised by both sexes, though perhaps most extensively by the men. When a chief died, those most anxious to show their respect for him or his family, would be the first to knock out with a stone one of their front teeth. The chiefs related to the deceased, or on terms of friendship with him, were expected thus to exhibit their attachment; and when they had done so, their attendants and tenants felt themselves, by the influence of custom, obliged to follow their example. Sometimes a man broke out his own tooth with a stone; more frequently, however, it was done by another, who fixed one end of a piece of stick or hard wood against the tooth, and struck the other end with a stone till it was broken off. When any of the men deferred this operation, the women often performed it for them while they were asleep. More than one tooth was seldom destroyed at one time; but the mutilation being repeated on the decease of every chief of rank or authority, there are few men to be seen who had arrived at maturity before the introduction of Christianity to the islands with an entire set of teeth; and many by this custom have lost the front teeth on both the upper and lower jaw, which, aside from other inconveniences, causes a great defect in their speech. Some, however, have dared to be singular, and though they must have seen many deaths, have parted with but few of their teeth.
“Cutting one or both ears was formerly practised on these occasions, but as we never saw more than one or two old men thus disfigured, the custom appears to have been discontinued.
“Another badge of mourning, assumed principally by the chiefs, is that of tatooing a black spot or line on the tongue, in the same manner as other parts of their bodies are tatooed.
“The Sandwich islanders have also another custom almost peculiar to themselves, viz., singing at the death of their chiefs, something in the manner of the ancient Peruvians. I have been peculiarly affected more than once on witnessing this ceremony.
[357]
“A day or two after the decease of Keeaumoku, governor of Maui, and the elder brother of Kuakina, governor of Hawaii, I was sitting with the surviving relatives, who were weeping around the couch on which the corpse was lying, when a middle-aged woman came in at the other end of the large house, and, having proceeded about half way towards the spot where the body lay, began to sing in a plaintive tone, accompanying her song with affecting gesticulations, such as wringing her hands, grasping her hair, and beating her breasts. I wrote down her monody as she repeated it. She described in a feeling manner the benevolence of the deceased, and her own consequent loss. One passage was as follows:—
“Other exhibitions of a similar kind I witnessed at Mani. After the death of Keopuolani we frequently saw the inhabitants of a whole district that had belonged to her coming to weep on account of her death. They walked in profound silence, either in single file or two or three abreast, the old people leading the van and the children bringing up the rear. They were not covered with ashes, but almost literally clothed in sackcloth. No ornament, or even decent piece of cloth, was seen on any one. Dressed only in old fishing nets, dirty and torn pieces of matting, or tattered garments, and these sometimes tied on their bodies with pieces of old canoe ropes, they appeared the most abject and wretched of human beings I ever saw. When they were within a few hundred yards of the house where the corpse was lying they began to lament and wail. The crowds of mourners around the house opened a passage for them to approach it, and then one or two of their number came forward and, standing a little before the rest, began a song or recitation, showing her birth, rank, honours, and virtues, brandishing a staff or piece of sugar-cane,[358] and accompanying their recitation with attitudes and gestures, expressive of the most frantic grief. When they had finished they sat down and mingled with the thronging multitudes in their loud and ceaseless wailing.”
Though these ceremonies were so popular, and almost universal, on the decease of their chiefs, they do not appear to have been practised by the common people among themselves. The wife did not knock out her teeth on the death of her husband, nor the son his when he lost his father or mother, neither did parents thus express their grief when bereaved of an only child. Sometimes they cut their hair, but in general only indulged in lamentations and weeping for several days.
Ellis, the Polynesian traveller, makes mention of a singular building seen by him in Hawaii, called the Hare o Keave (the House of Keave), a sacred depository of the bones of departed kings and princes, probably erected for the reception of the bones of the king whose name it bears, and who reigned in Hawaii about eight generations back. It is, or was when Mr. Ellis saw it, a compact building, twenty-four feet by sixteen, constructed with the most durable timber, and thatched with ti leaves, standing on a bed of lava that runs out a considerable distance into the sea. It is surrounded by a strong fence or paling, leaving an area in the front and at each end about twenty-four feet wide. The pavement is of smooth fragments of lava, laid down with considerable skill. Several rudely-carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water. “A number stood on the fence at unequal distances all round; but the principal assemblage of these frightful representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians of the mighty dead reposing in his house adjoining. A pile of stones was neatly laid up in the form of a crescent, about three feet wide and two feet higher than the pavement, and in this pile the images were fixed. They stood on small pedestals three or four feet high, though some were placed on pillars eight or ten feet in height, and curiously carved. The principal idol stood in the centre, the others on either hand, the most powerful being placed nearest to him; he was not so large as some of the others, but distinguished by the variety and superior carvings of his body, and especially[359] of his head. Once they had evidently been clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent nakedness. A few tattered shreds round the neck of one that stood on the left hand side of the door, rotted by the rain and bleached by the sun, were all that remained of numerous and gaudy garments with which their votaries had formerly arrayed them. A large pile of broken calabashes and cocoa-nut shells lay in the centre, and a considerable heap of dried and partly rotten wreaths of flowers, branches and shrubs, and bushes and fragments of tapa (the accumulated offerings of former days), formed an unsightly mound immediately before each of the images. The horrid stare of these idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, seemed to us no improper emblems of the system they were designed to support, distinguished alike by its cruelty, folly, and wretchedness.”
Mr. Ellis endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of the house, but was told it was tabu roa (strictly prohibited), and that nothing but a direct order from the king or high priest could open the door. However, by pushing one of the boards across the doorway a little on one side, he looked in, and saw many large images, some of wood very much carved, and others of red feathers, with distended mouths, large rows of sharks’ teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. He also saw several bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned carefully, tied up with cinet made of cocoa-nut fibres, and placed in different parts of the house, together with some rich shawls and other valuable articles, probably worn by those to whom the bones belonged, as the wearing apparel and other personal property of the chiefs is generally buried with them. When he had gratified his curiosity, and had taken a drawing of the building and some of its appendages, he proceeded to examine other remarkable objects of the place.
Adjoining the Hare o Keave to the southward, he found a Pahio tabu (sacred enclosure) of considerable extent, and was informed by his guide that it was one of the Pohonuas of Hawaii, of which he had often heard the chiefs and others speak. There are only two on the island—the one which he was then examining, and another at Waipio on the north-east part of the island, in the district of Kohala.
These Pohonuas were the Hawaiian cities of refuge, and afforded an inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from the avenging spear, was so favoured as to enter their precincts. They had several wide entrances, some on the side next the sea, the others facing the mountains. Hither the manslayer, the man who had broken a tabu,[360] or failed in the observance of its rigid requirements, the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers, and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever part he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to be pursued even to the gates of the enclosure. Happily for him, those gates were perpetually open; and, as soon as the fugitive had entered, he repaired to the presence of the idol, and made a short ejaculatory address, expressive of his obligations to him in reaching the place with security. Whenever war was proclaimed, and during the period of actual hostilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of a tall spear at each end of the enclosure; and until the conclusion of peace waved the symbol of hope to those who, vanquished in fight, might flee thither for protection. It was fixed a short distance from the walls on the outside, and to the spot on which this banner was unfurled the victorious warrior might chase his routed foes, but here he must himself fall back; beyond it he must not advance one step, on pain of forfeiting his life; the priests and their adherents would immediately put to death any one who should have the temerity to follow or molest those who were once within the pale of the pahio tabu, and, as they expressed it, under the shade or protection of the spirit of Keave, the tutelar deity of the place.
In one part of the enclosure, houses were formerly erected for the priests, and others for the refugees, who, after a certain period, or at the cessation of war, were dismissed by the priests, and returned unmolested to their dwellings and families, no one venturing to injure those who, when they fled to the gods, had been by them protected. Mr. Ellis could not learn the length of time it was necessary for them to remain in the Pohonuas, but it did not appear to be more than two or three days. After that they either attached themselves to the service of the priests, or returned to their homes.
[361]
A Samoan inquest—Carrying a body about—Embalming in Samoa—Samoan grave fires—Catching a spirit—New Zealand burial customs—The Sexton in Borneo—Dayak funerals—Funeral customs of the Sea Dayaks—Tombs in the air—Exorcising the evil spirit—Cruel treatment of widows—The “village of the dead”—The place of skulls—Praying to the dead—Ojibbeway mourners—Disposing of the property of the dead—A Chippewa ghost story—An invisible presence—A spirited ghost—Veneration for the dead—A royal funeral—The death dance—The last of the “Stung Serpent.”
In Samoa, another of the Polynesian islands, it is considered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he is not buried alive· “When an old man feels sick and infirm,” says the missionary Turner, “and thinks he is dying, he deliberately tells his children and friends to get all ready and bury him. They yield to his wishes, dig a round deep pit, wind a number of fine mats round his body, and lower down the poor old heathen into his grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs are then brought and tied, each with a separate cord, the one end of the cord to the pig and the other to the arm of the old man. The cords are then cut in the middle, leaving the one half hanging at the arm of the old man, and off the pigs are taken to be killed and baked for the burial feast. The old man, however, is still supposed to take the pigs with him to the world of spirits. The greater the chief the more numerous the pigs, and the more numerous the pigs the better the reception in their Hades of heathenism. The poor old man thus wound up, furnished with his pig strings, and covered over with some more mats, is all ready. His grave is then filled up, and his dying groans are drowned amid the weeping and the wailing of the living.
“This revolting custom of burying alive is, as I have noted, not confined to infants and the aged. If a person in sickness shows signs of delirium, his grave is dug, and he is buried forthwith, to prevent the disease spreading to other members of the family. A young man in the prime of life was thus buried lately. He burst up the grave and escaped. He was caught[362] and forced into the grave again. A second time he struggled to the surface, and they led him to the bush, lashed him fast to a tree, and left him there to die.
“Whenever the eye is fixed in death the house becomes a scene of indescribable lamentation and wailing. ‘Oh! my father, why did you not let me die, and you live here still?’ ‘Oh! my brother, why have you run away and left your only brother to be trampled upon?’ ‘Oh! my child, had I known you were going to die! Of what use is it for me to survive you?’ These and other doleful cries may be heard two hundred yards from the house; and as you go near you find that they are accompanied by the most frantic expressions of grief, such as rending garments, tearing the hair, thumping the face and eyes, burning the body with small piercing firebrands, beating the head with stones till the blood runs; and this they called an ”offering of blood for the dead.” Every one acquainted with the historical parts of the Bible will here observe remarkable coincidences. After an hour or so, the more boisterous wailing subsides, and, as in that climate the corpse must be buried in a few hours, preparations are made without delay. The body is laid out on a mat oiled with scented oil, and, to modify the cadaverous look, they tinge the oil for the face with a little turmeric. The body is then wound up with several folds of native cloth, the chin propped up with a little bundle of the same material, and the face and head left uncovered, while for some hours longer the body is surrounded by weeping relatives. If the person has died of a complaint which has carried off some other members of the family, they will probably open the body to search for the disease. Any inflamed substance they happen to find they take away and burn, thinking that this will prevent any other members of the family being affected with the same disease. This is done when the body is laid in the grave.
“While a dead body is in the house no food is taken under the same roof. The family have their meals outside, or in another house. Those who attended the deceased were formerly most careful not to handle food, and for days were fed by others as if they were helpless infants. Baldness and the loss of teeth were supposed to be the punishment inflicted by the household, if they violated the rule. Fasting was common at such times, and they who did so, ate nothing during the day, but had a meal at night, reminding us of what David said when mourning the death of Abner: ‘So do God to me and more also, if I taste bread or aught else till the sun be down.’ The fifth day was a day of purification. They bathed the[363] face and hands with hot water, and then they were clean, and resumed the usual time and mode of eating.
“The death of a chief of high rank was attended with great excitement and display: all work was suspended in the settlement; no stranger dared to pass through the place. For days they kept the body unburied, until all the different parties connected with that particular clan assembled from various parts of the island, and until each party had in turn paraded the body, shoulder high, through the village, singing at the same time some mournful dirge. The body, too, was wrapped up in the best robe, viz., the most valuable fine mat clothing which the deceased possessed. Great respect is still shown to chiefs on these occasions, and there was a recent instance of something like a thirty days’ mourning; but the body is seldom paraded about the settlements now-a-days.
“The burial generally takes place the day after death. As many friends as can be present in time attend. Every one brings a present; and the day after the funeral, these presents are all so distributed again as that every one goes away with something in return for what he brought. Formerly, the body was buried without a coffin, except in the cases of chiefs; but now it is quite common to cut off the ends of some canoe belonging to the family, and make a coffin of it. The body being put into this rude encasement, all is done up again in some other folds of native cloth, and carried on the shoulders of four or five men to the grave. The friends follow, but in no particular order; and at the grave again there was often further wailing, and exclamations such as, “Alas! I looked to you for protection, but you have gone away! why did you die! would that I had died for you!” Since the introduction of Christianity, all is generally quiet at the grave. The missionary, or some native teacher appointed by him, attends, reads a portion of Scripture, delivers an address, and engages in prayer, that the living may consider and prepare for the time to die. The grave is called the last resting place; and in the case of chiefs the house is thatched with the leaves of sandal wood, alluding to the custom of planting some tree with pretty foliage near the grave. Attempts have been made to get a place set apart as the village burying-ground, but it is difficult to carry it out. All prefer laying their dead among the ashes of their ancestors, on their own particular ground. As the bones of Joseph were carried from Egypt to Canaan, so did the Samoans carry the skulls of their dead from a land where they had been residing during war, back to the graves of their fathers as soon as possible[364] after peace was proclaimed. The grave is often dug close by the house. They make it about four feet deep; and, after spreading it with mats like a comfortable bed, there they place the body, with the head to the rising of the sun and the feet to the west. With the body they deposit several things which may have been used to answer the purpose of a pickaxe in digging the grave; not that they think these things of any use to the dead, but it is supposed that if they are left and handled by others, further disease and death will be the consequence. Other mats are spread over the body, on these a layer of white sand from the beach, and then they fill up the grave.
A Samoan Sepulchre.
“The spot is marked by a little heap of stones a foot or two high. The grave of a chief is nearly built up in an oblong slanting form, about three feet high at the foot and four at the head. White stones or shells are intermixed with the top layer; and if he has been a noted warrior, his grave may be surrounded with spears, or his gun laid loosely on the top.”
Embalming, the same authority informs us, is known and practised with surprising skill in one particular family of Samoan chiefs. Unlike the Egyptian method, as described by Herodotus, it is performed in Samoa exclusively by women. The viscera being removed and buried, they day after day anoint the body with a mixture of oil and aromatic juices, and they continue to puncture the body all over with fine needles. In about two months the process of desiccation is completed. The hair, which had been cut off and laid aside at the commencement of the operation, is now[365] glued carefully on to the scalp by a resin from the bush. The abdomen is filled up with folds of native cloth, the body is wrapped up with the same material, and laid out on a mat, leaving the hands, face, and head exposed.
A house is built for the purpose, and there the body is placed with a sheet of native cloth loosely thrown over it. Now and then the face is oiled with a mixture of scented oil and turmeric, and passing strangers are freely admitted to see the remains of the departed. At present there are four bodies laid out in this way in a house belonging to the family to which we refer—viz., a chief, his wife, and two sons. They are laid on a platform, raised on a double canoe. It must be upwards of thirty years since some of them were embalmed, and although thus exposed they are in a remarkable state of preservation. They assign no particular reason for this embalming, further than that it is the expression of their affection to keep the bodies of the departed still with them as if they were alive.
On the evening of the burial of any important chief, his friends kindled a number of fires at a distance of some twenty feet from each other, near the grave, and there they sat and kept them burning till morning light. This was continued sometimes for ten days after the funeral; it was also done before the burial. In the house where the body lay, or out in front of it, fires were kept burning all night by the immediate relatives of the departed. The common people had a similar custom. After burial they kept a fire blazing in the house all night, and had the space between the house and the grave so cleared as that a stream of light went forth all night from the fire to the grave. Whether this had its origin in any custom of burning the dead body, like the ancient Greeks, it is impossible now to ascertain. The probability, however, is that it had not. The account the Samoans give of it, is, that it was merely a light-burning in honour of the departed, and a mark of tender regard: just as we may suppose the Jews did after the death of Asa, when it is said they made a very great burning for him. Those commentators who hold that this and one or two other passages refer to a Jewish mark of respect, and not to the actual burning of the body, have in the Samoan custom which we have just named a remarkable coincidence in their favour.
The unburied occasioned great concern. “No Roman,” says Mr. Turner, “was ever more grieved at the thought of his unburied friend wandering a hundred years along the banks of the Styx than were the Samoans, while they thought of the spirit of one who had been drowned, or of another[366] who had fallen in war, wandering about neglected and comfortless. They supposed the spirit haunted them everywhere night and day, and imagined they heard it calling upon them in a most pitiful tone, and saying, ‘Oh! how cold; oh! how cold.’ Nor were the Samoans, like the ancient Romans, satisfied with a mere tumulus-inanis (or empty grave), at which to observe the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the beach, near where a person had been drowned, or on the battle-field, where another fell, might be seen sitting in silence a group of five or six, and one a few yards in advance, with a sheet of native cloth spread out on the ground before him. Addressing some god of the family, he said, ‘Oh! be kind to us; let us obtain without difficulty the spirit of the young man.’ The first thing that happened to light upon the sheet was supposed to be the spirit. If nothing came, it was supposed that the spirit had some ill-will to the person praying. That person after a time retired, and another stepped forward, addressed some other god, and waited the result. By-and-bye something came—grasshopper, butterfly, ant, or whatever else it might be; it was carefully wrapped up, taken to the family, the friends assembled, and the bundle buried with all due ceremony, as if it contained the real spirit of the departed.”
The burial, like all other customs of the New Zealanders, are very singular. Very little, however, was known concerning them until a recent date. At the time Captain Cook visited the country, everything connected with the disposal of their dead was concealed from him by the natives.
It is now known, however, that the dead bodies of slaves were thrown into holes or into the sea, or buried under the poles supporting houses; but the dead bodies of free persons were ever held in high respect. It was only, however, at the death of chiefs that the funeral rites of the people were celebrated. A chief on his death bed was surrounded by most of his relatives, his last words were treasured up, and the resignation with which the dying man submitted to his fate suggested to the mind that he died of his own will. The moment the vital spark fled, its departure was bewailed with doleful cries: abundance of water was shed in the form of tears, and the spectators groaned, sighed, and seemed inconsolable. But all was hollow, except with the immediate relatives of the deceased, and a specimen of the talent of the New Zealanders for dissimulation. Men, women, and children cut themselves with shells, and slaves were slain to[367] attend on the dead in the next world, and in revenge for his death. Since the introduction of fire-arms, guns are fired off at the death of chiefs.
Twenty-four hours after death the body was washed and beaten with flax-leaves, to drive away evil spirits. Priests then dressed the corpse. The legs were bent, the body placed in a sitting attitude, the hair tied in a lump on the crown of the head, and ornamented with albatross feathers; garlands of flowers were wound round the temples, tufts of white down from a sea-bird’s breast were stuck in the ears, the face was smeared with red ochre and oil, and the whole body, save the head, enveloped in a fine mat. In this condition, surrounded with his weapons of war, the bones and preserved heads of his ancestors, the dead chief sat in state; and as the complexion of the skins of the natives alters little after death, there was a life-like appearance in the whole scene. Certain birds were sacrificed to the gods. Tribes from a distance visited the dead. Wisps of the long toitoi grass placed in the dead warrior’s hands were grasped by friends, and flattering laments, of which the following is a good specimen, were sung in his honour:—
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Dead chiefs sat in state until they gave out an ill odour. Then their bodies were wrapped in mats, put into canoe-shaped boxes along with their meris, and deposited on stages nine feet high, or suspended from trees in the neighbourhood of villages, or interred within the houses where they died. Here, after daylight, for many weeks the nearest relatives regularly bewailed their death with mournful cries. Persons tapued from touching the dead were now made clean. Carved wooden ornaments, or rude human images twenty or forty feet high, not unlike Hindoo idols, were erected on the spots where the bodies were deposited. Mourning head dresses made of dark feathers were worn; some mourners clipped half their hair short, and people talked of the dead as if they were alive.
The bodies were permitted to remain about half a year on the stages, or in the earth, after which the bones were scraped clean, placed in boxes or mats, and secretly deposited by priests in sepulchres, on hill tops, in forests, or in caves. The meris and valuable property of chiefs were now received by their heirs. To witness this ceremony of the removal of bones neighbouring tribes were invited to feasts, called the hahunga; and for several successive years afterwards hahungas were given in honour of the dead, on which occasions skulls and preserved heads of chiefs were brought from sepulchres, and adorned with mats, flowers, and feathers. Speeches and laments delivered at hahungas kept chiefs’ memories alive, and stimulated the living to imitate the dead.
In Borneo when a Dayak dies the whole village is tabooed for a day; and within a few hours of death the body is rolled up in the sleeping mat of the deceased, and carried by the “Peninu,” or sexton of the village, to the place of burial or burning. The body is accompanied for a little distance from the village by the women, uttering a loud and melancholy lament. In one tribe—the Pemujan—the women follow the corpse a short way down the path below the village to the spot where it divides, one branch leading to the burning ground, the other to the Chinese town of Siniawau. Here they mount upon a broad stone and weep, and utter doleful cries till the sexton and his melancholy burden have disappeared from view. Curiously enough, the top of this stone is hollowed, and the Dayaks declare that this has been occasioned by the tears of their women, which, during many ages, have fallen so abundantly and so often as to wear away the stone by their continual dropping.
In Western Sarawak the custom of burning the dead is universal. In the district near the Samarahan they are indifferently burnt or buried, and[369] when the Sadong is reached, the custom of cremation ceases, the Dayaks of the last river being in the habit of burying their dead. In the grave a cocoa nut and areca nut are thrown; and a small basket and one containing the chewing condiments of the deceased are hung up near the grave, and if he were a noted warrior a spear is stuck in the ground close by. The above articles of food are for the sustenance of the soul in his passage to the other world.
The graves are very shallow, and not unfrequently the corpse is rooted up and devoured by wild pigs. The burning also is not unfrequently very inefficiently performed. “Portions of bones and flesh have been brought back by the dogs and pigs of the village to the space below the very houses of the relatives,” says Mr. St. John. “In times of epidemic disease, and when the deceased is very poor, or the relatives do not feel inclined to be at much expense for the sexton’s services, corpses are not unfrequently thrown into some solitary piece of jungle not far from the village, and there left. The Dayaks have very little respect for the bodies of the departed, though they have an intense fear of their ghosts.
“The office of sexton is hereditary, descending from father to son; and when the line fails, great indeed is the difficulty of inducing another family to undertake its unpleasant duties, involving, as it is supposed, too familiar an association with the dead and with the other world to be at all beneficial. Though the prospect of fees is good, and perhaps every family in the village offers six gallons of unpounded rice to start the sexton in his new and certainly useful career, it is difficult to find a candidate. The usual burying fee is one jav, valued at a rupee; though if great care be bestowed on the interment, a dollar is asked; at other places as much as two dollars is occasionally demanded.”
On the day of a person’s death a feast is given by the family to their relations: if the deceased be rich, a pig and a fowl are killed; but if poor, a fowl is considered sufficient. The apartment and the family in which the death occurs are tabooed for seven days and nights, and if the interdict be not rigidly kept, the ghost of the departed will haunt the place.
Among the Sea Dayaks, as we are likewise informed by Mr. St. John, human bodies are usually buried, although, should a man express a wish to share the privilege of the priests, and be, like them, exposed on a raised platform, his friends are bound to comply with his request.
Immediately after the breath has left the body, the female relations commence loud and melancholy laments; they wash the corpse and dress[370] it in its finest garments, and often, if a man, fully armed, and bear it forth to the great common hall, where it is surrounded by its friends to be mourned over. In some villages a hireling leads the lament, which is continued till the corpse leaves the house. Before this takes place, however, the body is rolled up in clothes and fine mats, kept together by pieces of bamboo tied on with rattans, and taken to the burial-ground. A fowl is then killed as a sacrifice to the spirit who guards the earth, and they commence digging the grave from two and a half to four and a half feet deep, according to the person’s rank: deeper than five feet would be unlawful. Whilst this operation is going on others fell a large tree, and cutting off about six feet, split it in two, and hollow out the pieces with an adze. One part serves as a coffin and the other as the lid; the body is placed within, and the two are secured together by means of strips of pliable cane wound round them.
After the coffin is lowered into the grave, many things belonging to the deceased are cast in, together with rice, tobacco, and betel-nut, as they believe they may prove useful in the other world.
It was an old custom, but now falling into disuse, to place money, gold and silver ornaments, clothes, and various china and brass utensils in the grave; but these treasures were too great temptation to those Malays who were addicted to gambling, and the rifling of the place of interment has often given great and deserved offence to the relations. As it is almost impossible to discover the offenders, it is now the practice to break in pieces all the utensils placed in the grave, and to conceal as carefully as possible the valuable ornaments.
The relatives and bearers of the corpse must return direct to the house from which they started before they may enter another, as it is unlawful or unlucky to stop, whatever may be the distance to be traversed. Sea Dayaks who fall in battle are seldom interred, but a paling is put round them to keep away the pigs, and they are left there. Those who commit suicide are buried in different places from others, as it is supposed that they will not be allowed to mix in the “Seven-storied Sabayau,” or Paradise, with such of their fellow-countrymen as come by their death in a natural manner, or through the influence of the spirits.
Black is the sign of mourning among the Indians of North America, as among us; but among these savage populations grief is manifested by other signs than the gloomy colour of the dress. The Crows cut part of their hair on the death of a relation. The widows of the Foxes, as a sign[371] of mourning, remain several months without changing their clothes, or paying any other attention to their dress. This custom is common to many tribes of the north. Among the Shahonees and several other of the western population, those who have lost one of their relatives manifest their grief by inflicting on themselves mutilations and wounds. The mourning of an Indian for the loss of a relative continues for at least six months. It generally consists in neglecting his person, and painting his face black. A widow will generally mourn the loss of her husband for a year. During all this time she appears sincerely affected, never speaking to any one unless she is forced to do so from necessity or propriety. She always seeks solitude, and desires to remain alone, in order to abandon herself more freely to her affliction. After her mourning is over, she resumes her best garments, and paints herself as coquettishly as possible, in order to find another husband.
The customs observed in the burial of the dead differ in different tribes. The only observance common to them all is the singular one of painting the corpses black. The Omahas swathe the bodies with bandages made of skins, giving them the appearance of Egyptian mummies. Thus enveloped they are placed in the branches of a tree, with a wooden vase full of dried meat by their side, and which from time to time is renewed. The Sioux bury their dead on the summit of a hill or mountain, and plant on the tomb a cedar tree, which may be seen from afar. When no natural elevation exists, they construct a scaffolding two or three yards high.
The Chinooks, says the Abbé Dominech (from whose account of Indian burial customs this description is chiefly derived), and some other populations of Columbia and Oregon, have a more poetical custom. They wrap the bodies of their dead in skins, bind their eyes, put little shells in their nostrils, and dress them in their most beautiful clothes; they then place them in a canoe, which is allowed to drift at the pleasure of the winds and currents, on a lake, a river, or on the Pacific Ocean.
When there is neither lake nor river nor sea near the village, the funeral canoe is attached to the branches of the loftiest trees. These aërial tombs are always so placed that the wild animals cannot reach them; the favourite spots are solitary and wooded islands. These sepulchral canoes are often moored in little bays, under shady trees whose thick foliage overhang them like a protecting dome. There are islands on the large rivers of Columbia where as many as twenty or thirty of these canoes are attached to the cedars and birches on the banks.
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Not far from Columbia is a rock which serves as a cemetery for the people of the neighbourhood. One perceives, on examining this village of death, that the tribes of fishermen bestow the same religious care on the dead as do the various tribes of hunters. In one case, as in the other, the favourite objects he used while alive are placed by his side in death. In Columbia, the oar and the net lie by the fisherman in his funereal canoe; in the Great Prairies, the lance, the bow and arrows, and often the war-horse, are buried in the grave with the hunter. To the east as to the west of the Rocky Mountains, the savages venerate, respect, and take care of their friends and relatives even after death. The lamentations and prayers of the survivors are heard each day at dawn and dusk wherever there are tombs.
In New Mexico the whites have singularly modified the customs of the Indians; what remains of their ancient practices bears the impress at once of the superstitious character of the natives, and of the habits of the Spaniards. Thus, the inhabitants of Pueblo de Laguna, who are half Christians, half followers of Montezuma, wrap the body of the deceased in his ordinary garments, lay him in a narrow grave of little depth, and place bread and a vase of water near him. They then throw huge stones upon him with such violence as to break his bones, with the notion that any evil spirit remaining in the carcase may be driven out in the process.
The Sacs and Foxes place their dead, wrapped in blankets or buffalo skins, in rude coffins made out of old canoes or the bark of trees, and bury them; if the deceased was a warrior, a post is erected above his head, painted with red lines, indicating the number of men, women, and children he has killed during his life, and who are to be his slaves in the land of shadows.
The Tahkalis burn the bodies of their dead. The medicine-man who directs the ceremony makes the most extraordinary gesticulations and contortions, for the purpose, as he pretends, of receiving into his hands the life of the deceased, which he communicates to a living person by laying his hands on his head, and blowing on him; the person thus endowed takes the rank of the deceased, whose name he adds to that he bore previously. If the dead man had a wife, she is obliged to lay down on the funeral pyre while it is set on fire, and to remain there till she is almost suffocated with smoke and heat. Formerly, when a woman endeavoured to escape this torture, she was carried to the fire and pushed in, to scramble out how she might. When the corpse is consumed it is the[373] duty of the widow to collect the ashes, place them in a basket and carry them away. At the same time she becomes the servant of her husband’s family, who employ her in all sorts of domestic drudgery, and treat her very ill. This servitude continues during two or three years, at the expiration of which period the relatives of deceased assemble to celebrate the “feast of deliverance.” At this solemnity a pole five or six yards in height is fixed in the ground, to sustain the basket containing the ashes of the deceased, which remain thus exposed till the pole, destroyed by time and the elements, falls down. The widow then recovers her liberty, and can marry again.
Mr. Paul Kane, in his “Wanderings of an Artist,” describes much such a ceremony as observed by him in New Caledonia, which is east of Vancouver’s Island and north of Columbia. Among the tribe called “Taw-wa-tius,” and also among other tribes in their neighbourhood, the custom prevails of burning the bodies, with circumstances of peculiar barbarity to the widows of the deceased. The dead body of the husband is laid naked upon a large heap of resinous wood; his wife is then placed upon the body, and covered over with a skin; the pile is then lighted, and the poor woman is compelled to remain until she is nearly suffocated, when she is allowed to descend as best she can through the flames and smoke. No sooner, however, does she reach the ground, than she is expected to prevent the body from becoming distorted by the action of the fire on the muscles and sinews; and wherever such an event takes place, she must with her bare hands restore the burning body to its proper position, her person being the whole time exposed to the intense heat. Should she fail in the performance of this indispensable rite, from weakness or the intensity of her pain, she is held up by some one until the body is consumed. A continual singing and beating of drums is kept up throughout the ceremony, which drowns her cries.
Afterwards she must collect the unconsumed pieces of bone and the ashes, and put them in a bag made for the purpose, and which she has to carry on her back for three years; remaining for a time a slave to her husband’s relations, and being neither allowed to wash nor comb herself for the whole time, so that she soon becomes a very unpleasant object to behold. At the expiration of three years a feast is given by her tormentors, who invite all the friends and relations of her and themselves. At the commencement they deposit with great ceremony the remains of the burnt dead in a box, which they affix to the top of a high pole, and[374] dance round it. The widow is then stripped and smeared from head to foot with fish-oil, over which one of the bystanders throws a quantity of swans’-down, covering her entire person. After this she is free to marry again, if she have the inclination and courage enough to venture on a second risk of being roasted alive and the subsequent horrors.
It has often happened that a widow, who has married a second husband in the hope perhaps of not outliving him, commits suicide in the event of her second husband’s death, rather than undergo a second ordeal.
A Mandan Chief.
Among the Mandans, another tribe of North American Indians, burial is unknown. A tract of land is set apart, and is known to all the tribes as the “village of the dead.” When a Mandan dies he is wrapped in the hide of a freshly-slaughtered buffalo, which is secured by thongs of new hide. Other buffalo skins are soaked until they are soft as cloth, and in[375] these the already thoroughly enveloped body is swathed till the bulk more resembles a bale of goods packed for exportation than a human body. Within the bundle are placed the man’s bow and quiver, shield, knife, pipe and tobacco, flint and steel, and provisions enough to last him some time “on his long journey.” Then his relatives bear him on their shoulders, and carry him to the cemetery, “where,” says Catlin, “are numerous scaffolds, consisting of four upright poles some six or seven feet in height. On the top of these are small poles passing around from one corner post to another; across these are placed a row of willow rods, just strong enough to support the body.”
Mandan Place of Skulls.
On this scaffold, and with his feet towards the rising sun, the Mandan is laid, and he is not disturbed till the scaffold poles decay, and the buffalo coffin, still containing the Mandan’s bones, falls to the earth. Then the relatives of the deceased, having received notice of the circumstance, once more assemble at the cemetery and, digging a hole, bury the bones—all except the skull; for this is reserved a separate ceremony.
Apart from the willow biers may be seen circles of skulls, numbering from fifty to a hundred, each about nine inches from its neighbour, and with the face turned towards the centre. In this ghastly cordon room is made, and the newly fallen skull added thereto, and ever after regarded with the rest as an object of veneration, not only by those who can claim with it family acquaintance, but by the whole tribe. “Very frequently,” says Catlin, “the traveller may observe a wife, or maybe a mother, of this sad[376] remnant of mortality sitting down by the side of the skull of its departed husband or child, talking to it in the most endearing tones, and even throwing herself down to embrace it, the while bewailing with loud and incessant cries; very often too they will cut and hack themselves with knives as a punishment for any offence they may have given their relative while alive.”
Among the Ojibbeways, as soon as the man is dead, they array him in his best clothes, and as soon as possible place him in a coffin. If this latter article is not available, he is wrapped in the best skins or blankets the tent furnishes. A hole about three feet deep is dug, and generally within twelve hours of his decease the man is buried, with his head towards the west. By the side of his body is placed his former hunting and war implements, such as his bow and arrow, tomahawk, gun, pipe and tobacco, knife, pouch, flint and steel, medicine-bag, kettle, trinkets, and other articles which he carried with him when going on a long journey. The grave is then covered, and on the top of it poles or sticks are placed lengthways, to the height of about two feet, over which birch bark or mats form a covering to secure the body from the rain. The relations or friends of the deceased then sit on the ground in a circle round the head of the grave, when the usual offering to the dead, consisting of meat, soup, or the fire-waters, is made. This is handed to the people present in bowls, a certain quantity being kept back for a burnt offering. While this is preparing at the head of the grave, the old man, or speaker for the occasion, makes a prayer to the soul of the departed, enumerating his good qualities, imploring the blessing of the dead that his spirit may intercede for them, that they may have plenty of game; he also exhorts his spirit to depart quietly from them. They believe that the soul partakes of a portion of the feast, and especially that which is consumed by fire. If the deceased was a husband, it is often the custom for the widow, after the burial is over, to spring or leap over the grave, and then run zigzag behind the trees, as if she were fleeing from some one. This is called running away from the spirit of her husband, that it may not haunt her. In the evening of the day on which the burial has taken place, when it begins to grow dark, the men fire off their guns through the hole left at the top of the wigwam. As soon as this firing ceases, the old women commence knocking and making such a rattling at the door as would frighten away any spirit that would dare to hover near. The next ceremony is to cut into narrow strips like ribbon, thin birch bark. These[377] they fold into shapes, and hang round inside the wigwam, so that the least puff of wind will move them. With such scarecrows as these, what spirit would venture to disturb their slumbers? Lest this should not prove effectual, they will also frequently take a deer’s tail, and after burning or singeing off all the hair, will rub the necks or faces of the children before they lie down to sleep, thinking that the offensive smell will be another preventive to the spirit’s entrance. “I well remember,” says the Rev. Peter Jones, a Christianised Ojibbeway and missionary, “when I used to be daubed over with this disagreeable fumigation, and had great faith in it all. Thinking that the soul lingers about the body a long time before it takes its final departure, they use these means to hasten it away.
“I was present at the burial of an old pagan chief by the name of Odahmekoo, of Muncey Town. We had a coffin made for him, which was presented to his relatives; but before they placed the body in it, they bored several holes at the head, in order, as they supposed, to enable the soul to go in and out at pleasure.
“During the winter season, when the ground is frozen as hard as a rock two or three feet deep, finding it almost impossible to penetrate through the frost, having no suitable tools, they are obliged to wind up the corpse in skins and the bark of trees, and then hang it on the fork of a large tree, high enough to be beyond the reach of wolves, foxes, and dogs, that would soon devour it. Thus the body hangs till decomposition takes place, and the bones, falling to the ground, are afterwards gathered up and buried.
“Immediately after the decease of an Indian all the near relatives go into mourning, by blackening their faces with charcoal, and putting on the most ragged and filthy clothing they can find. These they wear for a year, which is the usual time of mourning for a husband or wife, father or mother.
“At the expiration of a year the widow or widower is allowed to marry again. Should this take place before the year expires, it is considered, not only a want of affection for the memory of the dead, but a great insult to the relations, who have a claim on the person during the days of the mourning. The first few days after the death of the relative are spent in retirement and fasting; during the whole of their mourning they make an offering of a portion of their daily food to the dead, and this they do by putting a part of it in the fire, which burns while they are eating. I have seen my poor countrymen make an offering of the fire-waters to the[378] departed: they deem this very acceptable, on account of its igniting the moment it touches the fire. Occasionally they visit the grave of the dead, and there make a feast and an offering to the departed spirit: tobacco is never forgotten at these times. All the friends of the dead will for a long time wear leather strings tied round their wrists and ankles, for the purpose of reminding them of their deceased relative.”
It is a custom always observed by widows to tie up a bundle of clothes in the form of an infant, frequently ornamented with silver brooches. This she will lie with and carry about for twelve months, as a memorial of her departed husband. When the days of her mourning are ended, a feast is prepared by some of her relatives, at which she appears in her best attire. Having for the first time for a twelvemonth washed herself all over, she looks once more neat and clean.
The Shahonees bury their dead with everything belonging to them. The Comanches generally bury a warrior with his arms and his favourite horse; formerly his wives also shared the same fate, but this custom has disappeared. Whilst the Sioux put striking marks on their tombs that they may be easily distinguished, the Comanches cover them with grass and plants to keep them concealed. Among the tribes of the west the warriors are still sometimes buried on horseback, wrapped in their richest dress, with bow in hand, buckler on arm, the quiver full of arrows slung behind, the pipe and the medicine-bag hanging to the belt, and supplied with a provision of tobacco and dried meat sufficient for the voyage to the enchanted prairies.
The Assineboins, like several other tribes of the great American desert, never bury their dead, but suspend them by thongs of leather between the branches of the great trees, or expose them on scaffoldings sufficiently high to place the body out of reach of the voracious wild animals. The feet of the corpse are turned towards the rising sun; and when the scaffoldings fall through old age, the bones are collected and burned religiously within a circle formed of skulls. The sacred deposit is guarded, as among the Mandans, by medicine-trees or posts, from which amulets or medicine-bags are suspended.
On the death of a member of their tribe, the Potowatomies, the Ottawas, and several other people of the north, distribute all the things which belonged to the deceased to his friends. Some of them are Catholics, and these fix on the tomb a great pole, at the summit of which floats a banner ornamented with a black cross. Among these same tribes, when a married[379] man or woman dies, the survivor pays the debt of the body by giving money, horses, and other presents to the relatives of the deceased. The Ottawas sacrifice a horse on the tomb of the dead; they strangle the animal by means of a noose, then cut off its tail and suspend it to stakes fixed on the tomb. The women of the Crows also pay the debt of the dead by making incisions deep in their own flesh. The Chippewas are in the habit of lighting large fires on the tombs of members of their family for several nights after the funeral.
As to the origin of this last-mentioned custom nothing is known; but there exists among the Chippewas a legend which may be worth the reader’s perusal as throwing some light on the subject.
“Once upon a time, many years ago, a war raged between the Chippewas and their enemies, and the lands of the hostile tribes were red with blood. It was then that a party of the Chippewas met a band of their foes upon an open plain in the country of the Great Lakes. Meteewan, the leader of the Chippewas, was a brave; his martial deeds were the song of every youth who looked to obtain renown in the warpath; and the young squaws talked of them at the fires. And never did the chief act with more bravery or prudence than on this occasion. After he had, by the strength of his arm, turned the battle against his enemies, and while he was giving the great shout of victory, an arrow quivered in his breast, and he fell upon the plain. No Indian warrior killed thus is ever buried. According to old custom, he was placed in a sitting posture upon the field of battle, his back supported by a tree, and his face turned towards the path in which his enemies had fled. His spear and club were placed in his hands, and his bow and quiver leaned against his shoulder. So they left him.
“He heard them recount their valiant deeds.”
“But was he gone to the land of spirits? Though he could not move, nor speak, he heard all that had been said by his friends. He heard them bewail his death and could not comfort them; he heard them speak of his great deeds; he heard them depict the grief of his wife when she should be told he was dead. He felt the touch of their hands, but his limbs were bound in chains of strength, and he could not burst them. His thoughts flowed as free as the great rivers; but his limbs were like the fallen branches. His anguish, when he felt himself thus abandoned, was heavy; but he was compelled to bear it. His wish to follow his friends who were about to return to their wigwams so filled his mind, that, after making a violent exertion, he rose, or seemed to rise, and followed them.
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But he was invisible; they neither saw his form nor heard his voice. Astonishment, disappointment, rage filled him, while he attempted to make himself heard, seen, or felt, and could not; but still he followed on their track. “Wherever they went, he went; when they walked, he walked; when they ran, he ran; when they built their fires, and sat down, his feet were in the embers; when they slept, he slept; when they awoke, he awoke. He heard them recount their valiant deeds, but he was[381] unable to tell them how much his own exceeded theirs; he heard them paint the joys which awaited their return to their wigwams, but could not say how much peace and how much love was in his.
“At length the war-party reached their village, and the women and children came out to welcome their return. The old warrior whom weakness had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy who was fast hastening to take them up, did each his part in making joy. The wife came forward with embraces, the timid maiden with love weighing on her eyelids, to meet their braves. And if an old warrior found not his son, he knew he had fallen bravely, and grieved not; and if the wife found not her husband, she wept only a little while: for was he not gone to the great Hunting Grounds?
“Still no one seemed conscious of the presence of the wounded chief. He heard many ask for him; he heard them say that he had fought, conquered, and fallen, pierced through his breast with an arrow, and that his body had been left among the slain.
“‘It is not true,’ replied the indignant chief with a loud voice. ‘I am here; I live! I move! See me! touch me! I shall again raise my spear and bend my bow in the war path; I shall again sound my drum at the feast.’ But nobody knew of his presence; they mistook the loudest tones of his voice for the softest whisperings of the winds. He walked to his own lodge; he saw his wife tearing her hair, and bewailing him. He endeavoured to undeceive her, but she also was insensible to his presence or his voice. She sat despairing, with her head upon her hands. He told her to bind up his wounds, but she made no reply. He then placed his mouth close to her ear and shouted, ‘Give me food.’ The wife said, ‘It is a fly buzzing.’ Her enraged husband struck her upon the forehead. She placed her hand to her head and said, ‘It is a little arrow of pain.’
“Foiled thus in every attempt to make himself known, the chief began to think upon what he had heard the priests and wise men say, that the spirit sometimes left the body, and might wander. He reflected that possibly his body had remained upon the field of battle, while his spirit only accompanied his returning companions. He determined then to return upon their track, though it was four days’ journey. He went. For three days he pursued his way, and saw nothing; but on the fourth, at evening, as he came to the skirts of the battle-field, he saw a fire in the path. He walked on one side to avoid stepping into it, but the fire also[382] went aside, and was still before him. He went another way, but the fire still burned in his path. ‘Demon!’ he exclaimed at length, ‘why dost thou keep my feet from the field of battle, where my body lies? Knowest thou not that I am a spirit also, and seek again to enter that body? Or dost thou say I shall return and do it not? Know that I am a chief and a warrior, well tried in many a hard battle—I will not be turned back.’
“So saying, he made a vigorous effort, and passed through the flame. In this exertion he awoke from his trance, having lain eight days on the field. He found himself sitting on the ground, with his back to a tree, and his bow leaning against his shoulder, the same as they had been left. Looking up, he beheld a large canieu, a war-eagle, sitting upon the tree above his head. Then he knew this bird to be the same he had dreamed of in his youth, and which he had taken as his guardian spirit, his Manitou. While his body had lain breathless, this friendly bird had watched it. He got up and stood upon his feet; but he was weak, and it was a long time before he felt that his limbs were his. The blood upon his wound had stanched itself; he bound it up. Possessing, as every Indian does, the knowledge of medicinal roots, he sought diligently in the woods for them, and obtained sufficient for his purpose. Some of them he pounded between stones and placed upon the wound, others he ate. So in a short time he found himself so much recovered as to commence his journey. With his bow and arrows he killed birds in the day, which he roasted before the fire at night. In this way he kept hunger from him until he came to a water that separated his wife and friends from him. He then gave that whoop which says a friend is returned. The signal was instantly known, and a canoe came to bring him across; and soon the chief was landed amidst many shouts. Then he called his people to his lodge, and told them all that happened. Then ever after it was resolved to build a fire by the dead warrior, that he might have light and warmth, if he only dreamed as the chief had dreamed.”
The Indians of Natchez carried to a still higher point their profound veneration for those who were no more. At the funerals of their relatives or friends they gave unequivocal signs of extreme and most sincere grief. They did not burn the body, like the Greeks, the Romans, and several American nations, but they placed it for a time in a coffin of reed, and regularly brought it food in token of their love and solicitude. This they continued till nothing remained of the body but dry bones, which were then collected and placed in the funeral temple. These temples of the dead only[383] differed from the ordinary dwellings of the Natchez in having a wooden head suspended over the entrance door. Nothing could surpass their attachment to these relics of the departed beings they had lost, and when they emigrated they generally carried away the bones of their ancestors.
The interment of their sovereigns, or one of his near relations, assumed with the Natchez the proportions of a public calamity. Such funereal ceremonies were accompanied by a real voluntary massacre, in which a multitude of individuals allied to the family of the deceased, his friends or servants, were immolated. We will give, still through the Abbé Dominech, a few examples of this custom, by citing some details related in history concerning the death of the “Stung Serpent,” brother of the “Great Sun.” As the number of victims to be sacrificed during the funeral ceremony was very considerable, the officers of Port Rosalie repaired to the village where the deceased had dwelt, in order to save from death as many people as they could. Thanks to the charitable intervention of the French, the number of victims was limited to the two wives of the deceased, the chamberlain, physician, servant, pipe-bearer, and a remarkably beautiful young Indian girl, who had loved him greatly, and some old women, who were to be strangled near the mortal remains of the noble dead.
The body of the “Stung Serpent” was clothed in beautiful garments, and placed on a bed of state; his face was painted vermilion, on his feet were beautiful embroidered mocassins, and on his head he wore a crown of red and white feathers, as a prince of blood. By his side was placed his gun, his pistol, his bow and a quiver full of arrows, and his best tomahawk, with all the calumets of peace which had been offered to him during his life. At the head of the bed was a red pole supporting a chain of reeds also painted red, and composed of forty-six rings, indicating the number of enemies he had killed in battle.
All the persons composing the household surrounded the deceased, serving him from time to time as when in life; but as of course all the food remained untouched, his servant called out, “Why do you not accept our offerings? Do you no longer love your favourite meats? Are you angry with us, and will you allow us no longer to serve you? Ah! you speak to us no more as you used to do. You are dead! all is finished! Our occupation is ended; and since you abandon us, we will follow you to the land of spirits.” Then the servant uttered the death shout, which was repeated by all present, and spread from village to village to the farthest extremities of the country like a tremendous funeral echo.
[384]
The beautiful young Indian, who would not survive her lover, raised her voice in the midst of the general lamentations, and, addressing the officers, said, “Chiefs and nobles of France, I see how much you regret my husband. His death is indeed a great calamity for you, as well as for your nation, for he carried them all in his heart. How he has left us for the world of spirits; in two days I shall be with him, and I will tell him that your hearts swelled with sadness at the sight of his mortal remains. When I am no more, remember that our children are orphans, remember that you loved their father, and let the dew of your friendship fall in abundance on the children of him who was friendly to you.”
The following day the grand master of the ceremonies came to fetch the victims for the death dance, and led them in procession to the place where they were to die. Each of them was accompanied by eight of his nearest relatives, who were to perform the office of executioners: one carried a tomahawk, and threatened every instant to strike the victim; another carried the mat on which the sacrifice was to be made; a third the cord which was to serve for the execution; a fourth bore the deer skin which was to be placed on the head and shoulders of the condemned; the fifth carried a wooden bowl containing the pills of tobacco which the patient swallowed before dying; the sixth an earthen bottle full of water, to facilitate the passage of the pills. The office of the last two was to render the strangulation as speedy as possible, by drawing the cord to the right and to the left of the patient.
These eight persons became noble after the execution: they walked two and two after the victims, whose hair was painted red. On arriving at the public place where the temple stood, all began to shout out the death cry; the persons who were to be sacrificed placed themselves on the mats, and danced the death dance. Their executioners formed a circle round them, and danced the same dance; then all returned in procession to the cabin of the deceased.
The inauspicious day of the funeral ceremony having arrived, the legitimate wife of the “Stung Serpent” took leave of her children with the following words. “The death of your father is a great loss. He wills that I accompany him into the world of spirits, and I must not let him wait for me in vain. I am in haste to depart, for since his death I walk the earth with a heavy step. You are young, my children; you have before you a long path, which you must pursue with a prudent spirit and a courageous heart. Take care you do not tear your feet on the thorns of[385] duplicity and the stones of dishonesty. I leave you the keys of your father’s inheritance, brilliant and without rust.”
The body of the prince was borne by eight guardians of the temple, and preceded by a multitude of warriors, who, in walking, described continual circles until they reached the temple where the body of the “Stung Serpent” was deposited. The victims, after having been strangled according to custom, were buried in the following order: the two widows in the same tomb as their husband, the young Indian woman to the right of the temple, and the chamberlain to the left. The other bodies were removed to the different villages to which they belonged. Then the dwelling of the “Stung Serpent” was fired, and burnt to its foundations. Such were the barbarous and touching ceremonies observed by the Natchez on the death of the highest dignitaries of their ancient nation.
Dacotah Chief.
[386]
Funeral rites in Damara land—The Koossan method of disposing of the dead—The grave in the cattle fold—No recovering spilt water—Coming out of mourning—No half mourning among savages—The feast of release—The slave barracoon—A thousand skeletons—The mortal remains of a Bechuana—The burying ground at Fetich Point—The grave of old King Pass-all—A Barrodo Beondo funeral—The late King Jemmy—Respect of the Timannees for their dead—A Religious impostor—A funeral at Mandingo—Strange behaviour of the mourners—By whose “Griffee” did you die?—Burial of King Archibongo—His devil-house—Funeral ceremonies in Madagascar—How the poor Malagasey is disposed of—“Take that for dying”—Sepulchral rites in Abyssinia—Burying in Sambo land—The demon “Wulasha”—Blood rule in Dahomey—The very last grand custom—Devil’s work—How a Dahoman king is buried—A pot for the king’s bones.
Among the Damaras of South Africa the mode of disposing of the dead is somewhat different from that practised by those who dwell in the more remote parts of that country. Andersson tells us, that in the case of the Damara, as soon as he dies (sometimes, indeed, it is horridly rumoured, before animation has ceased), his nearest kinsfolk fetch a big stone and break the backbone, the more conveniently to bundle and tie him nose and knees together. This accomplished, the body is wrapped in the hide of an ox, a hole dug in the earth, and the defunct squatted in with his face towards the north. This is done, say the natives, to remind them where they originally came from.
When a poor Bechuana or Damara woman, having a helpless baby, dies, it is no uncommon thing for the little creature to be placed with her alive in the hole dug for the reception of the adult body. Mr. Rath, a missionary, happened on one occasion to approach a burial party at which this atrocity was about to be committed, and was successful in releasing the poor little thing.
“After having consigned the remains of a chief to his last resting-place,” says Andersson, “they collect his arms, war-dress, etc., and suspend them to a pole or to a tree at the head of the grave. The horns of such oxen as have been killed in commemoration of the occasion are hung up in a like manner. The tomb consists of a large heap of stones surrounded by thorn bushes, no doubt to keep hyænas and other carnivorous animals from extracting the corpse. Sometimes, however, the chief,[387] should he have expressed a wish to that effect, instead of being buried is placed in a reclining position on a slightly raised platform in the centre of his own hut, which in such a case is surrounded by stout and strong palisadings.
Damara Tomb.
“When a chief feels his dissolution approaching, he calls his sons to his bedside and gives them his benediction, which consists solely in wishing them an abundance of the good things of this world. The eldest son of the chief’s favourite wife succeeds his father; and as soon as the obsequies are over he quits the desolate spot, remaining absent for years. At last, however, he returns, and immediately proceeds to his parent’s grave, where he kneels down, and in a whispering voice tells the deceased that he is there with his family and the cattle that he gave him. He then prays for a long life; also that his herds may thrive and multiply: and, in short, that he may obtain all those things that are dear to a savage. This duty being performed, he constructs a kraal on the identical spot where once the ancestral camp stood; even the huts and the fireplaces are placed as near as possible in their former position.
“The flesh of the first animal slaughtered here is cooked in a particular vessel; and when ready the chief hands a portion of it to every one present.[388] An image consisting of two pieces of wood, supposed to represent, the household deity, or rather the deified parent, is then produced and moistened in the platter of each individual. The chief then takes the image, and after affixing a piece of meat to the upper end of it, he plants it in the ground on the identical spot where the parent was accustomed to sacrifice. The first pail of milk produced from the cattle is also taken to the grave; a small quantity is also poured over the ground, and a blessing asked on the remainder.
Among the Koossas, a tribe of South African natives, as soon as they perceive a sick man near his end, he is carried from his hut to some solitary spot beneath the shade of a tree. A fire is then made, and a vessel and water set near him. Only the husband or wife, or some near relation, remains with him. If he appear dying, water is thrown over his head, in hopes of its reviving him; but should this fail, and it becomes apparent that death is approaching, he is left by everybody but his wife; or should the sick person be a woman, then it is her husband alone who stays with her. The relations, however, do not retire to their homes; they gather at a distance, and from time to time the dying person’s nurse calls out and lets them know how matters are progressing, till comes the final announcement “he is dead.” When all is over, the dead man’s relatives proceed to the nearest stream, and, having purified themselves, return home.
The wife, however, who must pay the last duties to her husband, cannot do this. She leaves the body, about which no one is any longer solicitous, to become a prey to beasts and birds, and goes with a firebrand taken from the fire that had been kindled near the dying man, to some other solitary place, where she again makes a fire, and though it should rain ever so hard, she must not suffer it to be extinguished. In the night she comes secretly to the hut where she had lived with her husband, and burns it, and then returns back to her solitude, where she must remain a month entirely secluded from the world, and living the whole time on roots and berries. When this period of solitary mourning has expired, she divests herself of her clothes, which she destroys, bathes, lacerates her breasts and her arms with a sharp stone, and having made her a long petticoat of rushes returns at sunset to the kraal.
At her desire a youth of the tribe brings her a lighted firebrand, and exactly on the spot where her husband’s hut formerly stood she builds a fire; some one of her tribe then brings her some new milk, with which she rinses her mouth, and she is then acknowledged as completely purified,[389] and is received once more among her relations and friends. Singularly enough, however, the cow from which the milk is drawn is, on the contrary, rendered impure, and though not killed, is neglected entirely and left to die a natural death. The day following the widow’s return an ox is killed, and after feasting on its flesh, the skin is given to her to make her a new mantle. Immediately after this her sisters-in-law assist her in building a new hut, and she is completely reinstated in social life.
A widower has nearly the same mourning ceremonies to observe, only with this difference, that his seclusion lasts but half a month. He then throws his garments away and prepares himself a new garment from the skin of an ox. He takes besides the hair the tail of the ox, with which he makes himself a necklace and wears it as long as it will last. If a person dies suddenly the whole colony will shift, judging that no further luck will attend them if they stay, and the body of the suddenly defunct is allowed to remain exactly as it fell, and with the hut for its sepulchre. If, however, the individual suddenly dying is a young child, impurity is supposed to attach only to the hut in which it died, and which is either pulled down or closed up for ever.
It is only the chiefs and their wives who are buried. They are left to die in their huts; the corpse is then wrapped in the folds of their mantle and a grave is dug in the cattle-fold. After the earth is thrown in some of the oxen are driven into the fold and remain there, so that the earth is entirely trodden down and indistinguishable from the rest. The oxen are then driven out; but they by this process become sacred oxen, and must by no man be slain for his eating.
The widows of the deceased have all the household utensils which they and their husbands had used together; and after remaining three days in solitude purify themselves according to the usual manner. They then each kill an ox, and each makes herself a new mantle of its hide. The kraal is then entirely deserted by the tribe and is never chosen as a building site, even though it be highly eligible and the horde in search of a site is entirely unknown to that belonging to which the chief died. A chief whose wife dies has the same ceremonies to observe as any other man, excepting that with him the time of mourning is only three days. The place where the wife of a chief is buried is forsaken in the same manner as in the case of the chief himself.
The Koossas have no priests or religious ceremonies, and consequently but few traditions. They know of no power superior to that with which[390] ordinary mortals are invested except that professed by enchanters, which are of two sorts—good and bad; the former being the more powerful and able to frustrate the designs of the latter, provided that he be called on in time and the transaction be made worth his while. The Koossan enchanters are, as a rule, old women—poor wretches who, doubtless, finding themselves past labour and objects of contempt and impatience among their tribe, avail themselves of their long experience of the weaknesses and superstitions of those by whom they are surrounded, and boldly set up as witches as the most certain means of gaining not only the goodwill of the people but also their awe and respect.
Should a Koossan find himself at what he has reason to suspect to be death’s door, he sends for an enchantress. The “magic woman,” after hearing his case—never mind what it may be—proceeds to cure him; she makes some pellets of cow-dung, and laying them in rows and circles upon the man’s stomach, chants certain mysterious airs and dances and skips about him; after a while she will make a sudden dart at her patient and hold up to her audience a snake or a lizard, which the said audience is to infer was at that moment, through her force of magic, extracted from the seat of the patient’s ailment. If the sick man should die the excuse is that the appointed time of life had expired and that “there was no recovering spilled water,” or else she puts a bold face on the matter and declares that at least two evil enchanters were working against her, and that against such odds success was hopeless. In his dealings with these enchanters, however, the Koossan has this substantial security that no stone will be left unturned to effect his cure—the fee is agreed on beforehand and posted with a friend; should the patient grow well the friend delivers the ox, or whatever the fee may consist of, to the doctress; if the patient should die, or after a reasonable time find himself no better for the old lady’s services, he fetches home his ox and there is an end to the matter.
If, however, the patient be an exacting individual and inclined to avail himself to the fullest of Koossan law, he, although quite restored to health through the witch’s agency, may still refuse to pay her her fee till she discovers and brings to justice the person who enchanted him. As this, however, is a mere matter of hard swearing, combined with a little discrimination in the selection of the victim, the witch-doctress is seldom averse to undertake this latter business. The whole tribe is collected on a certain day, and in their midst a hut is built. To this hut the witch retires on the pretence that before she can reveal the name of the malefactor[391] she must sleep, that he may appear before her in a dream. The people without in the meantime dance and sing for a while, till at length the men go into the hut and beg the enchantress to come forward. At first she hesitates; but they take her a number of assagais as a present, and in a little while she makes her appearance with the weapons in her hand. While staying in the hut she has busied herself in painting her body all sorts of colours, and with scarcely any other covering she stalks into the midst of the assembled throng.
With loud compassion for her nudity the people hasten to pluck their ox-hide mantles from their own shoulders and cast them on those of the witch, till she is nearly overwhelmed by these demonstrations of their solicitude. Suddenly, however, she starts up, flings off the cover of mantles, and makes a rush towards a certain man or woman, striking him or her with the bundle of assagais. For the unlucky wretch to protest his innocence it is utterly useless. The rabble, chafing like other beasts, seizes the evil doer and impatiently await the good witch’s decision as to what had best be done with him—whether, for instance, he shall be buried under an ant heap or put in a hole in the ground and covered with large hot stones. Should the ant hill be his doom, lingering torture and death are certain; but if he be a very strong man he may resist the hot stone torture, and when night arrives may force the terrible weights from off him, and dragging his poor scorched body out of the hole make his escape. Never again, however, must he venture among the people, who in all probability number among them his wife and children; for should he do so he would be executed off hand and his body thrown out to the hyænas.
In certain parts of the interior of Africa the custom of “waking” the defunct is ordinarily practised. Du Chaillu had a serving man named Tonda, and one day Tonda died, and the traveller having a suspicion of the ceremony that would be performed visited the house of Tonda’s mother, where the body lay. The narrow space of the room was crowded; about two hundred women were sitting and standing around, singing mourning songs to doleful and monotonous airs. “They were so huddled together that for a while I could not distinguish the place of the corpse. At last some moved aside, and behold! the body of my friend. It was seated in a chair, dressed in a black tail coat and a pair of pantaloons, and wore round its neck several strings of beads. Tonda’s mother approaching her dead son, prostrated herself before him and begged him to speak to[392] her once more. A painful silence followed the of course fruitless adjuration; but presently it was broken by the loud hopeless wailing uttered by the bereaved woman, the rest of the company making dolorous chorus.”
African Wake.
The savages of Central Africa do not wear black for their departed relatives, unless indeed an accumulative coat of dirt may be so called; for it is a fact that among these people the way to express extreme sorrow is to go unwashed and very dirty. Besides, they wear about their bodies any ragged cloth that comes handy, and altogether evidently endeavour to convey the idea that now so-and-so is dead their relish for life is at an end, and that the frivolous question of personal appearance is no longer worth discussing. To their credit be it named, however, they are not guilty of the monstrous civilized custom of half-mourning. They don’t immediately on the death of a friend don attire and virtually proclaim,[393] “See how sorry I am!—see my jetty gown or coat and the black studs in my shirt-front!” nor do they, when the deceased has passed away three months or less, streak their black with white and proclaim, “I am a little more cheerful—you may see how much by the breadth of the white stripe in my ribands.” The African is happily ignorant of these grades of grief; when he sorrows he sorrows to the very dust, but between that mood and boisterous merriment is with him but a single skip. Thus when the mourning period has expired (it varies from one to two years) a day is appointed for the breaking-up of mourning-time and a return to the bright side of the world. The friends and relatives and the widows (there are often six or seven of them) come in gangs of ten or a dozen from villages far off—some by the road, and some in their canoes, and none empty-handed. Each one is provided with a jar of mimbo or palm wine, and something that will make a row—gunpowder, kettles with round stones to shake in them, drums, tom-toms, and whistles made of reed. The row is the leading feature of the breaking-up, and is called bola woga. Virtually the mourning is over the evening before the ceremony commences, for the company have all arrived, as has the dead man’s heir (who, by-the-by, can, if he chooses, claim and take home every widow on the establishment), and the bereaved wives, albeit as yet uncleansed from their long-worn and grimy mourning suit, are full of glee and giggle, and have pleasant chat among themselves concerning the gay rig out they will adopt to-morrow.
To-morrow comes. Early in the morning the village is informed that the widows are already up and have already partaken of a certain magic brew that effectually divorces them from their weeds. The gun firing is likewise the signal for as many as choose to come and take part in the jollification, and as it invariably happens that as many as like unlimited mimbo accept the invitation, the entire population may presently be seen wending one way—toward the feast house. There they find mats spread not only about the house, but down the street that leads to it, and there they find the cleanly-washed widows decked in spotless calico and wearing anklets and wristlets heavy enough to account for their sedate mien. Then all the guests, having taken care that floods of mimbo are within easy reach, take their seats, and more guns are fired, and the orgie commences, and concludes not till every jar of palm wine has been broached, all the gunpowder expended, every drum-head beaten in, and every kettle hammered into a shapeless thing by the banging of the stones within.[394] The rising moon finds them to a man huddled in every possible attitude about the wine-stained mats, helplessly drunk and with each other’s carcases, and cooking pots, and jars, and fractured drums as pillows. Next day the house of the deceased is razed to the ground, and the mourning for the rich man with many wives is at an end.
While Du Chaillu was sojourning at Sangatanga, the domains of a certain African king named Bango, whose chief revenue is derived from dealing in slaves and by taxing the slave “factors” whose “barracoons” (as the slave warehouses are called) are situated on the coast there; he was witness to the disposal of the body of a poor wretch who had fortunately died before he could be bought, hauled aboard a slaver, and “traded-off” anywhere where the market was briskest. If anything can be told in connexion with the hideous system further to disgust its enemies—which happily includes every man in England’s broad dominions—it is such stories as the following:
“During my stay in the village, as I was one day shooting birds in a grove not far from my house, I saw a procession of slaves coming from one of the barracoons towards the further end of my grove. As they came nearer I saw that two gangs of six slaves each, all chained about the neck, were carrying a burden between them, which I presently knew to be the corpse of another slave. They bore it to the edge of the grove, about three hundred yards from my house, and there throwing it down upon the bare ground returned to their prison, accompanied by their overseer, who with his whip had marched behind them hither. Here, then, is the burying-ground of the barracoon, I said to myself sadly, thinking, I confess, of the poor fellow who had been dragged away from his home and friends to die here and be thrown out as food for the vultures, who even as I stood in thought began already to darken the air above my head and were presently heard fighting over the remains.
“The grove, which was in fact but an African aceldama, was beautiful to view from my house, and I had often resolved to explore it and rest in the shade of its dark-foliaged trees. It seemed a ghastly place enough now, as I approached it to see more closely the work of the disgusting vultures. They fled when they saw me, but only a little way, sitting upon the lower branches of the surrounding trees watching me with eyes askance, as though fearful I would rob them of their prey.
“As I walked towards the body I felt something crack under my feet, and looking down saw that I was already in the midst of the field of[395] skulls. I had inadvertently stepped into the skeleton of some poor creature who had been thrown here long enough ago for the birds and ants to pick his bones clean and the rains to bleach them. I think there must have been a thousand such skeletons lying within my sight. The place had been used for many years, and the mortality in the barracoons is sometimes frightful. Here the dead were thrown, and here the vultures found their daily carrion. The grass had just been burned, and the white bones scattered everywhere gave the ground a singular, and when the cause was known, a frightful appearance. Penetrating a little farther into the bush, I found great piles of bones.
The “Master of Life” as represented in Equatorial Africa.
“Here was the place where, when years ago Cape Lopez was one of the great slave markets on the west coast and barracoons were more numerous than now, the poor dead were thrown one upon another till[396] even the mouldering bones remained in high piles as monuments of the nefarious traffic.”
In Angola, in cases of death the body is kept several days, and there is a grand concourse of both sexes, with beating of drums, dances, and debauchery kept up with feasting, etc., according to the means of the relatives. The great ambition of many of the blacks of Angola is to give their friends an expensive funeral. Often when one is asked to sell a pig he replies, “I am keeping it in case of the death of any of my friends.” A pig is usually slaughtered and eaten on the last day of the ceremonies, and its head thrown into the nearest stream or river. A native will sometimes appear intoxicated on these occasions, and if blamed for his intemperance will reply, “Why, don’t you know that my mother is dead,” as if he thought it a sufficient justification. The expenses of funerals are so heavy that often years elapse before they can defray them.
The Bechuanas of Southern Africa generally bury their dead. The ceremony of interment, etc., varies in different localities and is influenced by the rank of the deceased. But the following is a fair specimen of the way in which these obsequies are managed:
On the approaching dissolution of a man, a skin or net is thrown over the body, which is held in a sitting posture with the knees doubled up under the chin, until life is extinct. A grave is then dug—very frequently in the cattle-fold—six feet in depth and about three in width, the interior being rubbed over with a certain large bulb. The body, having the head covered, is then conveyed through a hole made for the purpose in the house and the surrounding fence and deposited in the grave in a sitting position, care being taken to put the face of the corpse against the north. Portions of an ant-hill are placed about the feet, when the net which held the body is gradually withdrawn. As the grave is filled up the earth is handed in with bowls, while two men stand in the hole to tread it down round the body, great care being taken to pick out anything like a root or pebble. When the earth reaches the height of the mouth, a small twig or branch of an acacia is thrown in, and on the top of the head a few roots of grass are placed. The grave being nearly filled, another root of grass is fixed immediately over the head, part of which stands above ground. When this portion of the ceremony is over, the men and women stoop, and with their hands scrape on to the little mound the loose soil lying about. A large bowl of water, with an infusion of bulbs, is now brought, when the men and women wash their hands and the upper part of their[397] legs, shouting “Pùla, pùla” (rain, rain). An old woman, probably a relation, will then bring the weapons of the deceased (bows, arrows, war-axe, and even the bone of an old pack ox), with other things. They finally address the grave, saying, “These are all your articles.” The things are then taken away and bowls of water are poured on the grave, when all retire, the women wailing, “Yo, yo, yo,” with some doleful dirge, sorrowing without hope.
Here is another singular picture of an African burying-ground:
“Near Fetich Point is the Oroungou burying-ground, and this I went to visit the following morning. It lay about a mile from our camp, toward Sangatanga, from which it was distant about half-a-day’s pull in a canoe. It is in a grove of noble trees, many of them of magnificent size and shape. The natives hold this place in great reverence, and refused at first to go with me on my contemplated visit, even desiring that I should not go. I explained to them that I did not go to laugh at their dead, but rather to pay them honour. But it was only by the promise of a large reward that I at last persuaded Niamkala, who was of our party, to accompany me. The negroes visit the place only on funeral errands, and hold it in the greatest awe, conceiving that here the spirits of their ancestors wander about, and that these are not lightly to be disturbed. I am quite sure that treasure to any amount might be left here exposed in perfect safety.
“The grove stands by the seashore. It is entirely cleared of underbush, and as the wind sighs through the dense foliage of the trees and whispers in the darkened and somewhat gloomy grove, it is an awful place, even to an unimpressible white man. Niamkala stood in silence by the strand while I entered the domains of the Oroungou dead. They are not put below the surface; they lie about beneath the trees in huge wooden coffins, some of which by their new look betokened recent arrival, but by far the greater number were crumbling away. Here was a coffin falling to pieces, and disclosing a grinning skeleton within. On the other side were skeletons already without covers, which lay in dust beside them. Everywhere were bleached bones and mouldering remains. It was curious to see the brass anklets and bracelets in which some Oroungou maiden has been buried still surrounding her whitened bones, and to note the remains of goods which had been laid in the same coffin with some wealthy fellow now mouldering to dust at his side. In some places there remained only little heaps of shapeless dust, from which some copper or iron or[398] ivory ornament gleamed out to prove that here too once lay a corpse. Passing on to a yet more sombre gloom, I came at last to the grave of old King Pass-all, the brother of his present majesty. The coffin lay on the ground, and was surrounded on every side with great chests, which contained the property of his deceased majesty. Among these chests, and on the top of them, were piled huge earthenware jugs, glasses, mugs, plates, iron pots and bars, brass and copper rings, and other precious things, which this old Pass-all had determined to carry at last to the grave with him. And also there lay around numerous skeletons of the poor slaves who were, to the number of one hundred, killed when the king died, that his ebony kingship might not pass into the other world without due attendance. It was a grim sight, and one which filled me with a sadder awe than even the disgusting barracoon ground.”
In matters of death and burial, as in all other matters pertaining to savagery, Western Africa stands conspicuous. “At the town of Ambago,” says Hutchinson, “when all preliminaries are arranged, they carry the corpse to its last resting-place, accompanied by the surviving relatives, male and female, who bear in a small package a portion of the hair, nails, etc., of the deceased. When arrived at the secluded place which has been prepared to receive the body they deposit it in its last resting-place. Over this they erect a tomb, on which, in a sort of niche, are placed various small earthen or hardware figures, plates, mugs, bottles, etc., together with a variety of edibles; the receptacle prepared to receive these being called quindumbila. After the ceremony, the survivor—husband or wife—is carried from the grave on the back of a person of the same sex, and thrown into the river for ablution or purification. On coming up out of the river, the individual is conveyed back to his residence, where he is obliged to remain secluded for eight days, during which time he must not converse with any person of the opposite sex, nor eat anything that has been boiled, nor wash himself during these days of obit. The friends, meanwhile, enjoy a feast of fowls and other delicacies which has been prepared for the occasion, after which they each make a present to the mourner of something preparatory to the celebration of the great batuque, or dance. If unable to provide for the expense of the funeral, some relative or friend generally becomes security for its payment; this is called “gungo.” After the eight days have elapsed the room is swept, and the mourner is permitted to enjoy comfortable and warm food. On this occasion the eldest child or heir (if any) is brought in and made to[399] sit down on a benza,—a small square seat made of bamboos. They then place upon his head a caginga, or calotte, a kind of hat or cap made of palm straw interwoven, and demand that all the papers belonging to the deceased be produced, that they may learn what his will was in reference to the disposal of his property, and whether he had given liberty to any of his slaves. The nearest of kin is looked upon as the legitimate heir, and accordingly takes possession of all the moveable property.”
Valdez, the African traveller, furnishes some curious examples of the death and funeral ceremonials of the inhabitants of many remote Western African towns. As for instance at Barrodo Beondo:
“Attracted by a strange noise proceeding from the river, I went to ascertain what it was. On arriving at the landing-place I learned that it proceeded from a number of persons who formed an itame, or funeral procession, of a Muxi Loanda who had just died. When any person dies the mourners commence a great lamentation and manifest apparently the most extravagant grief. The corpse is first wrapped in a number of cloths with aromatics and perfumes; it is then conveyed to the place of interment, followed by a large cortege of the relatives and friends of the deceased, the females who accompany the funeral procession being dressed in a long black cloak with a hood which covers the head.
“On the present occasion the Muxi Loanda not being a Christian was buried in a place not far distant from the road, and the grave covered with small stones, a paddle or oar being placed on it in commemoration of the profession of the deceased. Many graves are thus marked by the distinctive insignia of office of those interred in them.
“There is another singular custom amongst these people, that of one of the survivors, the nearest of kin to the deceased, being obliged to lie in the bed that was lately occupied by him for the space of three days from the time of removal. During this period the mourning relatives make lamentation at stated intervals each day—namely, at day-break, sunset, and midnight. At the expiration of eight days the relatives and friends reuniting, resume their lamentations and recount the virtues and good deeds of the deceased, occasionally exclaiming ‘Uafu!’ (he is dead), all present at the same time joining in a chorus and exclaiming ‘Ay-ú-é (woe is me). At the expiration of the eighth day they go in solemn procession, headed by the chief mourner, to the sea-side, river, or forest, whichever is nearest, bearing the skull of the pig upon which they had feasted, and on this occasion they suppose that the zumbi or soul of[400] the deceased enters eternal happiness. One month after death the relatives and friends again assemble together and hold a great feast, at which they consume great quantities of cachassa or rum, and which they terminate with that lascivious dance the bateque.”
Among the Bulloms and the Timannees, we are informed by Winterbottom, the chief solemnity and magnificence of their funerals consists in the quantity of rum and tobacco expended upon the occasion, which they call “making a cry.” Among the poorer sort this ceremony is sometimes deferred for several months after the body is buried, until they can procure a sufficient quantity of these indispensable articles to honour the memory of the deceased. The funeral or “cry” of Mr. James Cleveland (a favourite European official), owing to some considerations of policy in his successor, was not solemnized until near three years after the body had been buried. During the time which elapsed from his death until the “cry” was celebrated a bed was kept constantly prepared for him in the palaver house, water was placed by the bedside for his hands, and also meat for him to eat. Upwards of twenty puncheons of rum, together with a large quantity of tobacco, were consumed at the celebration of his “cry.”
“King Jemmy,” a native chief who resided within a mile of the settlement of Sierra Leone, died at a town on the river Bunch, whither he had been removed about ten days for the benefit of medical aid, and probably to escape from the witchcraft which he conceived to be practised against him. The body was removed to his own town the day after his death and placed in the palaver house. A message was sent to the governor of Sierra Leone to solicit him to help the people to cry for king Jemmy. About half-past four in the afternoon the body was taken from the palaver house, where it was attended by a number of women, to the grave, which was dug about four feet deep, just without the town. The corpse being placed by the side of the grave, a number of questions were put to it by different persons who stooped down to the coffin for that purpose. Pa Denba (a neighbouring head man), in a speech of some minutes, which he addressed to the deceased as if he had been still alive, expressed his great grief in having lost so good a father; he further added that he and all the people had wished the deceased to stay with them; but as he had thought proper to leave them they could not help it, but he and all the people wished him well. Some others of the head men expressed themselves in a similar manner. The umbrella belonging to the deceased was[401] put into the coffin because, they said, he liked to walk with it. The pillow which he commonly used was laid in the grave beneath the head of the coffin. The queen or head woman stood sorrowing by the side of the grave, having his hat in her hand, which she was going to put into the grave, but was prevented by one of the head men, who probably reserved it for his own use. When the corpse was let down into the grave, which was done with great care, each of the spectators took a handful of earth and threw it on the coffin—most of them threw it backwards over their shoulder. When the speeches were finished, a friend of Mr. Winterbottom, who represented the governor upon the occasion, was asked if he would not “shake king Jemmy by the hand.” Upon requesting an explanation, he was desired to say a prayer white man’s fashion, which was done, not for the dead but for the living, by the chaplain of the colony, who was also present. Several pieces of kola were put into the grave for the king to eat, and his neckerchief for him to wear.
The Timannees are, it would seem, mighty particular as to the care of their graves. When Mr. Laing was exploring their country, a man belonging to his party had unconsciously committed a trifling indignity upon the supposed grave of a Timannee’s father, who immediately brought a palaver against him. The man charged with the offence protested that he was ignorant that the ground on which he had stood had covered the remains of any one, as there was no apparent mark to distinguish it from other ground, and that had he known it he would have been more circumspect; but the apparently injured Timannee insisted on satisfaction, and, according to the custom of the country, demanded a fine of two “bars,” one of cloth and the other of rum. These Mr. Laing immediately paid, being always desirous to conciliate (as far as he could) the goodwill of the natives. The Timannee, however, being ignorant of the motive, and supposing by his easy compliance that the traveller might be still further imposed upon, made an extra demand of two additional bars, on the ground that if a poor man would be obliged to pay two, the follower of a rich white man ought to pay four. This additional demand was, however, not only refused, but the previous presents were taken back; Mr. Laing stating that he had no objection to conform to their customs, but when he saw that the object was extortion and not satisfaction for a supposed injury done to the dead, he would give nothing, being well convinced that no man belonging to his party would do any wrong in the country intentionally. “The head men, who were[402] judges of the palaver, were satisfied, and gave their voice against their own countryman, who, on retiring, went to his household greegree, and making sacrifice of a fowl and some palm wine, addressed it for more than an hour, requesting that it would kill the man who had defiled his father’s grave; ‘If he eats, make his food choke him; if he walk, make the thorns cut him; if he bathes, make the alligators eat him; if he goes in a canoe, make it sink with him; but never, never, let him return to Sierra Leone.’ This curious anathema was sung to a sort of tune so pathetic that had I heard its mournful intonation, accompanied by the earnest gesticulation of the Timannee, without knowing the cause, it must have excited my most sincere commiseration; as it was, I regretted that the powers of mimicry, with which this people are gifted, should aid them so much in the art of dissimulating as to enable them frequently to impose even upon one another. The appeal had nearly turned the tables against our countryman, and probably would have done so effectually, had not a greegree man come forward and declared the whole affair an imposition fabricated for the sake of procuring money, for he knew that my man had never been near the grave of the supplicant’s father.”
While the gentleman who relates the above incident was at Mabung a young girl died rather suddenly, and previous to her interment, the following practices were observed:
“The moment that life fled from the body, a loud yell was uttered from the throats of about a hundred people who had assembled to watch the departing struggles of nature, after which a party of several hundred women, some of them beating small drums, sallied through the town, seizing and keeping possession of every moveable article which they could find out of doors; the cause or origin of this privilege I could not ascertain. A few hours after the death of the girl, the elders and the greegree men of the town assembled in the palaver-hall and held a long consultation or inquest as to the probable cause of the death. It was enquired whether any one had threatened her during her lifetime, and it was long surmised that she might have been killed by witchcraft. Had the slave trade existed, some unfortunate individual might have been accused and sold into captivity; but its suppression in this country permitted the Magi, after a tedious consultation of three days, to decide that the death had been caused by the agency of the devil. During the two first nights of those days large parties paraded the town, yelling, shouting, and clapping hands to keep away the wrath of the greegrees, and on the third,[403] being the night on which the body was interred, considerable presents of rice, cassada, cloth, and palm wine were deposited at the greegree houses to appease the evil spirits, and to beg they would kill no more people. At midnight five or six men, habited in very singular and unsightly costumes, made their appearance, and taking away the presents, intimated that all the evil spirits were satisfied, and that nobody should die in the town for a long period. Dancing and revelry then took place, and continued till long after daylight.”
Again he tells us—“A young Mandingo negro was celebrating the funeral of his mother, who had been dead about a fortnight. On the very day of her death I had been attracted to the neighbourhood by the sound of the music. I saw in the court-yard two large drums, made like ours, and some persons were beating them and clashing cymbals. The cymbals consist of two pieces of iron, about five inches long and two and a half wide. The two negroes who were beating the drums held these cymbals in their left hands. Each of the pieces of iron has a ring, one is passed over the thumb and the other over the forefinger, and by a movement of the hand they are struck together in regular time. The women of the neighbourhood brought little presents by way of showing respect to the deceased. A large circular basket was placed exactly in the centre of the yard to receive the offerings. The women having deposited their presents assumed a grave look, and ranging themselves in a file, marched along, keeping time to the music, and making motions with their hands and heads expressive of sorrow. Sometimes they beat time by clapping their hands while they sang a melancholy song. The scene continued the whole of the day. I enquired whether the presents which had been brought in honour of the deceased were to be buried with her, for the Bambaras observe this superstitious custom.
“Four little boys, whose bodies were covered with leaves of trees well arranged, and whose heads were adorned with plumes of ostrich feathers, held in each hand a round basket with a handle, in which were bits of iron and pebbles. They kept time with the music, jumping and shaking their baskets, the contents of which produced a strange jingling. There were two leaders of the band who regulated the intervals when the performers were to play. They wore beautiful mantles of cotton network, very white and fringed round. On their heads they had black caps edged with scarlet and adorned with cowries and ostrich feathers. The musicians[404] stood at the foot of a baobab. The assemblage was numerous and all were well dressed. The men were tricked out in all their finery. I saw several with little coussabes of a rusty colour and almost covered with amulets rolled up in little pieces of yellow cloth. Some were armed with muskets, and others with bows and arrows, as if prepared for combat. They also wore large round straw hats of their own native manufacture. They walked all together round the assembled circle, leaping and dancing to the sound of the music, which I thought very agreeable. Sometimes they appeared furious, firing their muskets and running about with threatening looks. The men with bows and arrows appeared as if on the point of rushing on an enemy, and they pretended to shoot their arrows. The men were followed by a number of women, all neatly dressed, having about their shoulders white pagones, or mantles of native cloth, which they tossed about from side to side, while they walked to the sound of the music and observed profound silence. Those who were fatigued withdrew and their places were immediately supplied by others. When they left the party they ran away very fast and were followed by some of the musicians, who accompanied them playing as far as their huts, where they received a small present. About the middle of the festival all the male relatives of the deceased made their appearance, dressed in white. They walked in two files, each carrying in his hand a piece of flat iron which they struck with another smaller piece. They walked round the assembly, keeping time, and singing a melancholy air. They were followed by women who repeated the same song in chorus and at intervals clapped their hands. Next came the son of the deceased, who was well dressed and armed with a sabre. He did not appear much affected, and after having walked round the assembly he withdrew, and the warlike dancers were renewed. The whole festival was arranged by two old men, relatives of the deceased. They addressed the assembled party and delivered an eulogium on the good qualities of their departed kinswoman. The festival ended with a grand feast, during which the goat which was killed in the morning was eaten. I remarked with pleasure the good order which prevailed throughout the entertainment, which was kept up with great merriment. The young people danced almost the whole of the night. The son of the deceased withdrew from the supper which he had provided for his friends, and came to partake of ours.”
In Sierra Leone when any one dies, if it be a man, the body is stretched[405] out and put in order by men; if a woman, that office is performed by females. Before the corpse is carried out for interment, it is generally put upon a kind of bier composed of sticks formed like a ladder, but having two flat pieces of board for the head and feet to rest upon. This is placed upon the heads of two men, while a third standing before the body, and having in his hand a length of reed called cattop, proceeds to interrogate it respecting the cause of its death. He first advances a step or two towards the corpse, shakes the reed over it, and immediately steps back; he then asks a variety of questions, to which assent is signified by the corpse impelling the bearers, as is supposed, towards the man with the reed, while a negative is implied by its producing a kind of rolling motion. It is first asked, “Was your death caused by God on account of your great age and infirmities, or (if a young person) because he liked to take you?” If this question be answered in the affirmative, which is seldom if ever the case, the inquest closes and the burial takes place; if not, the examiner proceeds to enquire, “Was your death caused by your bad actions?” (in other words, on account of your being a witch). If assent be signified, the next question is “By whose griffee (witchery) was it caused—was it by such an one’s or such an one’s?” naming a number of persons in succession, until, at last, an affirmative reply is obtained. The reply generally attributes to the griffee of the head man of the place the merit of destroying the man,—a circumstance which enhances the dread of the power of the head man’s demon, and is supposed to operate in deterring others from evil practices. If it should appear, however, that the decease was not put to death for being “bad,” an expression synonymous with being a witch, the body is asked, “Was your death caused by a man or a woman in such a town (naming a number of towns), belonging to such a family,” naming as many as the enquirer chooses, until an answer has been obtained which fixes the guilt of killing the deceased by witchcraft on one or more individuals. These, if they have friends to plead for them, are allowed the privilege of appealing to one of their witchcraft ordeals in proof of their innocence; but if not, they are sold. A confession of the crime is also followed by being sold for slaves.
The reader has already been made aware of the many curious ceremonies finding favour at Old Kalabar, but on the authority of Mr. Hutchinson, who was frequently an eye-witness of them, the rites connected with their funeral obsequies are the most singular of all:
“At the death of ‘Iron Bar,’ a very respectable trader, and of the late[406] king Archibongo, I saw the absurdity of these rites carried out to their fullest extent. At ‘Iron Bar’s,’ as I went into the yard, there was a dense crowd gathered round what was supposed to be his grave, which was made in the room where he died, and sunk to a depth of ten or twelve feet, that it might hold all the things put into it for his use in the next world. At the head of his grave a palm oil light was burning with a livid flame, and cast a dim shade over a man who had descended into it for the purpose of arranging his furniture—brass pans, copper rods, mugs, jugs, pots, ewers, tureens, plates, knives, forks, spoons, soap, looking-glasses, and a heap of Manchester cloth, all impaired in their integrity by a slight fracture or a tear. In the evening I visited the place again. The grave was filled up and levelled. Over it was placed a number of mats, on which were squatted a score of women. In all the apartments of the court numbers of the soft sex were in a like position, and kept up the most dismal and dolorous mourning it is possible for the imagination to conceive. I find it out of my power to convey any idea of the sensation it communicated to me. It was not harsh, it was not loud, it was not crying, nor was it shrieking; it bore no resemblance to an Irish wake, or to the squalling of a congregation of cats; but it was a puling, nauseating, melancholy howl, that would have turned my stomach long before it could have affected my brain. Over the grave, and suspended by a string from the roof, was a living cock, tied up by his legs, with its beak pointed downward. There is always a hole left in the side of the grave, through which, from time to time, rum or mimbo is poured for the spirit’s refreshment. With this there are also erected, within the house, or on the public road, or by the river’s side, what are called ‘devil houses,’ of which Iron Bar’s were good specimens. There were three structures of this kind constructed for him; one in the court attached to the house, one outside, and one on the beach, adjoining the canopy, overspread the bamboo roof placed to shelter the table, and over this again was a trio of parasols, two crimson and one blue, of silk material, and white fringe to each. Around the table were three large sofas, and at either end of the roof a pendant glass lamp. But the greatest display was on the table. In the centre was a large mirror, with a huge brass jug behind it; on either side, and covering every spare inch of the table, heaped over each other as high up as an equilibrium could be sustained, were monster jugs, decanters, tumblers, soup tureens, flower vases, bottles and mugs of all shapes and[407] sizes, china and glass articles, as much as would stock a large shop; all being damaged like the articles placed in the graves, perhaps on the supposition that their materiality should be destroyed in order to allow the spirit to escape with them, for the ghostly company they were intended to serve, or perhaps, and more likely, to render them useless to any of the thieving fraternity, who in the practice of their science might stray in the road of these establishments. In another of the ‘devil-houses’ a quantity of cooked meat, cooked plaintain, and the pounded yam called foo-poo, were placed in calabashes for the refreshment of himself and those who were to be his fellow-travellers in the world of spirits. It shows clearly that they have a belief in a future existence, because these ‘devil-houses’ are always furnished as profusely as their means will allow, from the conviction that of whatever quality his comforts may have been to the defunct when he was in this world, they will be similar in the next. The houses erected for King Archibongo, to entertain his devil in, were superior in their furniture to those of Iron Bar. That on the beach, particularly, contained a quantity of the productions of native art. The women always go in mourning by painting patterns of deep black on their foreheads, and the men by covering their bodies over with ashes. When the mourning time is over a general smash is made of all the things in the devil house, the house itself is pulled down, and nothing but the wreck of matter left behind. Together with the widows and slaves, who in former times were sacrificed at the death of a gentleman, there were added to the list a number of persons who were accused by the friends of the deceased as being accessory to his death, and obliged to undergo what is called the ‘chop-nut’ test. They cannot believe, or at least they will not try to understand, how natural causes create disease, and attribute them and subsequent death to ‘ijod,’ or witchcraft. Hence a plan is adopted to find out the perpetrator by fixing on a number of persons, and compelling them to take a quantity of a poisonous nut, which is supposed to be innocuous if the accused be innocent, and to be fatal if he be guilty.”
In Madagascar, that dark “country with no God,” the burial rites are on a much more splendid and elaborate scale—at least as regards royalty—than would be expected, considering that the Malagaseys’ belief is that death is the end of all things, and the animated clay called man is of no more account than an empty earthen pitcher as soon as evil passions have ceased to stir it and it lies cold and still.
[408]
While Madame Pfieffer was sojourning at the court of Queen Ranavola, her majesty’s brother-in-law, Prince Razakaoatrino gave up the ghost, and was buried. “The death of this grand lord,” says Madame Pfieffer, “will give me an opportunity of seeing a new and interesting rite; for the funeral of such an exalted personage is conducted at Madagascar with the greatest solemnity.” After the body has been washed it is wrapped in a simbus of red silk, often to the number of several hundred, and none of which must cost less than ten piastres, though they generally cost much more. Thus enshrouded, the corpse is placed in a kind of coffin, and lies in state in the principal apartment of the house, under a canopy of red silks. Slaves crouch around it as closely as possible, with their hair hanging loose, and their heads bent down, in token of mourning. Each of them is furnished with a kind of fan to keep off the flies and mosquitoes from the deceased. This strange occupation continues day and night; and as high personages are frequently kept unburied for weeks, these slaves have to be continually relieved by others.
“During the time the corpse is lying under the canopy, envoys come from every caste of the nobility, and from every district of the country, accompanied by long trains of servants and slaves, to present tokens of condolence from themselves and in the names of those by whom they are sent. Each of the envoys brings an offering of money, varying according to his own fortune and the amount of popularity enjoyed by the deceased, from half a dollar to fifty or more. These presents are received by the nearest relation to the dead man, and are devoted to defraying the expenses of the burial, which often come to a very large sum; for besides the large number of simbus to be purchased, a good many oxen must be killed. All visitors and envoys stay until the day of the funeral, and are entertained, as well as their servants and slaves, at the expense of the heirs. When the funeral ceremonies extend over several weeks, and the number of guests is large, it may be easily imagined that a goodly stock of provisions is consumed, especially as the people of Madagascar, masters and servants, are valiant trenchermen when they feed at the cost of another. Thus at the death of the last commander of the army, the father of Prince Raharo, no fewer than fifteen hundred oxen were slain and eaten. But then this man had stood very high in the queen’s favour, and his funeral is recorded as the most splendid in the memory of man. He lay in state for three weeks, and young and old streamed in from the farthest corners of the kingdom to pay him the last honours.
[409]
“When the corpse is carried out of the house a few slaughtered oxen must be laid at the door, and the bearers have to step over their bodies. The period of lying in state, and of mourning generally, is fixed by the queen herself. For the prince in question the time was fixed at four days. If he had been a near relation of the queen—a brother or uncle—or one of her particular favourites, he would not have been buried under from ten to fourteen days, and the period of mourning would have extended to twenty or thirty days at least. The body is prevented from becoming offensive by the number of simbus in which it is wrapped.
“We did not follow the funeral procession, but saw it pass. Its extent was very great, and it consisted of nobles, officers, women, mourning women, and slaves in large numbers. From the highest to the lowest all wore their hair loose as a token of mourning; and with this loosened hair they looked so particularly ugly—so horribly hideous—that I had never seen anything like them among the ugliest races of America and India. The women especially, who let their hair grow longer than the men wear it, might have passed for scarecrows or furies.
“In the midst of the procession came the catafalque, borne by more than thirty men. Like the costumes at the court ball, so this catafalque had been copied from some engraving, for its ornamentation was quite European in character, with this one difference, that the machine was hung with red and variegated silk stuffs instead of the customary black cloth. The prince’s hat and other insignia of rank and honour were placed on it, and on both sides marched slaves with clappers to scare away the flies from the catafalque.
“The corpse was conveyed to the estate of the deceased, thirty miles away, to be buried there. The greater number of officers and nobles only escorted it for the first few miles, but many carried their politeness so far as to go the whole distance. In all Madagascar there is no place exclusively set apart for the burial of the dead. Those who possess land are buried on their own estates. The poor are carried to some place that belongs to nobody, and are there frequently thrown under a bush or put into a hollow, no one taking the trouble even to throw a little earth over them.”
“Among the aborigines of Australia,” says a modern traveller, “when an individual dies they carefully avoid mentioning his name; but if compelled to do so they pronounce it in a very low whisper, so faint that they imagine the spirit cannot hear their voice. The body is never buried with the head on, the skulls of the dead being taken away and[410] used as drinking-vessels by the relations of the deceased. Mooloo, the native whom I met near the junction of the lake, parted with his mother’s skull for a small piece of tobacco. Favourite children are put into bags after death, and placed on elevated scaffolds, two or three being frequently enclosed beneath one covering. The bodies of aged women are dragged out by the legs, and either pushed into a hole in the earth or placed in the forked branches of a tree, no attention whatever being paid to their remains. Those of old men are placed upon the elevated tombs and left to rot until the structure falls to pieces; the bones are then gathered up and buried in the nearest patch of soft earth. When a young man dies, or a warrior is slain in battle, his corpse is set up cross-legged upon a platform with his face towards the rising of the sun; the arms are extended by means of sticks, the head is fastened back, and all the apertures of the body are sewn up; the hair is plucked, and the fat of the corpse, which had previously been taken out, is now mixed with red ochre and rubbed all over the body. Fires are then kindled underneath the platform, and the friends and mourners take up their position around it, where they remain about ten days, during the whole of which time the mourners are not allowed to speak; a native is placed on each side of the corpse, whose duty it is to keep off the flies with bunches of emu feathers or small branches of trees. If the body thus operated upon should happen to belong to a warrior slain in fight his weapons are laid across his lap and his limbs are painted in stripes of red and white and yellow. After the body has remained for several weeks on the platform it is taken down and buried, the skull becoming the drinking-cup of the nearest relation. Bodies thus preserved have the appearance of mummies; there is no sign of decay, and the wild dogs will not meddle with them, though they devour all manner of carrion.
“When a friend or an individual belonging to the same tribe sees for the first time one of these bodies thus set up, he approaches it, and commences by abusing the deceased for dying, saying there is plenty of food and that he should have been contented to remain; then after looking at the body intently for some time, he throws his spear and his wirri at it, exclaiming—‘Why did you die?’ or ‘Take that for dying!’”
Mr. Parkyns, the Abyssinian traveller, thus relates his observation of the death and burial custom prevailing in this part of the world.
“A plaintive and melancholy wail which suddenly broke on my ear induced me to return to the square to witness the funeral ceremonies of a[411] young woman who had died on the previous night. The priests and deacons had mustered in strong force, and came fully robed, and their flaring and tawdry ceremonials ill accorded with the mournful ceremony they were about to perform. Some of the priests went into the house where the deceased lay to comfort the bereaved relatives, but the greater number continued outside waving incense and chanting. The corpse, which meantime had been washed and dressed, was brought out on its bier, and the procession formed. On seeing this, the relatives and friends gave vent to their uncontrollable griefs in the most violent and agonizing lamentations. Some frantically grasped the bier, as if they would still retain the beloved object; others gave utterance to the heart’s intense despair by sobs and sighs, by tearing their hair, rending their clothes, and even by dashing their nails into their neck and face till the blood trickled down in copious streams. The most affecting and touching sight was the mother, the old grandmother, and two sisters, who each with some trifling memento of the departed in their hands, ran distractedly about the court, telling every one some story or incident connected with those precious relics of an undying love, which they continually pressed to their lips.
“The prayers being ended, the bier was lifted on the shoulders of the bearers, and preceded by the priests moved towards the grave-yard. Here arrived, after a psalm had been chanted, the fees paid to the priests, and the deceased formally absolved, the friends and relatives are allowed to gaze for the last time on the face of the dead, which is coffined or not, according to the means of the surviving friends. Then another psalm is chanted and the body lowered into the grave.
“The mourners now retire to the house of the deceased, where every morning for a whole week the lesko or waking ceremony is repeated. During this period no fire may be kindled in the house, nor any food prepared; but all the wants of the bereaved must be provided for by the friends and neighbours, who willingly do this, as it is considered a good and meritorious work.”
We have already presented the reader with a coloured picture of the manner in which the Sambo Indian of the Mosquito shore is carried, or rather dragged, to his final resting-place. We will now, with the permission of Mr. Bard, who was an eye-witness of the curious scene, give the details:—
“My friend Hodgson informed me that a funeral was to take place at a settlement a few miles up the river, and volunteered to escort me thither[412] in the pitpan, if Antonio would undertake the business of paddling. The suggestion was very acceptable, and after dinner we set out.
“But we were not alone. We found dozens of pitpans, filled with men and women, starting for the same destination. It is impossible to imagine a more picturesque spectacle than these light and graceful boats, with occupants dressed in the brightest colours, sailing over the placid waters of the river. There was a keen strife among the rowers, who, with shouts and screeches, in which both men and women joined, exerted themselves to the utmost.
“Less than an hour brought us in view of a little collection of huts, grouped on the shore under the shadow of a cluster of palm trees, which from a distance presented a picture of entrancing beauty. A large group of natives had already collected on the shore, and as we came near we heard the monotonous heating of the native drum, relieved by an occasional low and deep blast on a large hollow pipe. In the pauses we distinguished suppressed wails, which contained for a minute or so, and were then followed by dreary music of the drum and pipe.
“On advancing towards the huts and the centre of the group, I found a small pitpan cut in a half, in one part of which, wrapped in cotton cloth, was the dead body of a man of middle age. Around the pitpan were stationed a number of women with palm branches to keep off the flies. Their frizzled hair started from their heads like snakes from the brow of the fabled Gorgon, and they swayed their bodies to and fro, keeping a kind of treadmill step to the measure of the doleful tum-tum. With the exception of the men who beat the drum and blew the pipe, these women appeared to be the only persons at all interested in the proceedings. The rest were standing in groups, or squatted at the roots of the palm trees. I was beginning to grow tired of the performance, when, with a suddenness which startled even the women, four men, entirely naked excepting a cloth tied round their loins and daubed over with variously-coloured clays, rushed from the interior of one of the huts, and hastily fastening a piece of rope to the half of the pitpan containing the corpse, dashed away towards the woods, dragging it after them like a sledge. The women with the Gorgon heads, and the men with the drum and trumpet, followed them on the run, each keeping time on his respective instrument. The spectators all hurried after in a confused mass, while a big negro, catching up the remaining half of the pitpan, placed it on his head, and trotted behind the crowd.
[413]
“The men bearing the corpse entered the woods, and the mass of spectators jostling each in the narrow path, kept up at the same rapid pace. At the distance of perhaps two hundred yards, there was an open space, covered with low, dark, tangled underbrush, still wet from the rain of the preceding night, and which, although unmarked by any sign, I took to be the burial-place. When I came up, the half of the pitpan containing the body had been put in a shallow trench. The other half was then inverted over it. The Gorgon-headed women threw in their palm-branches, and the painted negroes rapidly filled in the earth. While this was going on, some men were collecting sticks and palm-branches, with which a little hut was hastily built over the grave. In this was placed an earthen vessel, filled with water. The turtle-spear of the dead man was stuck deep in the ground at his head, and a fantastic fellow, with an old musket, discharged three or four rounds over the spot.
“This done, the entire crowd started back in the same manner it had come. No sooner, however, did the painted men reach the village, than, seizing some heavy machetes, they commenced cutting down the palm-trees which stood around the hut that had been occupied by the dead Sambo. It was done silently, in the most hasty manner, and when finished, they ran down to the river and plunged out of sight in the water—a kind of lustration or purifying rite. They remained in the water a few moments, then hurried back to the hut from which they had issued, and disappeared.
“This savage and apparently unmeaning ceremony was explained to me, by Hodgson, as follows:—Death is supposed by the Sambos to result from the influences of a demon, called ‘Wulasha,’ who, ogre-like, feeds upon the bodies of the dead. To rescue the corpse from this fate, it is necessary to lull the demon to sleep, and then steal away the body and bury it, after which it is safe. To this end they bring in the aid of the drowsy drum and droning pipe, and the women go through a slow and soothing dance. Meanwhile, in the recesses of some hut, where they cannot be seen by Wulasha, a certain number of men carefully disguise themselves, so that they may not afterwards be recognized and tormented; and when the demon is supposed to have been lulled to sleep, they seize the moment to bury the body. I could not ascertain any reason for cutting down the palm-trees, except that it had always been practised by their ancestors. As the palm-tree is of slow growth, it has resulted, from this custom, that they have nearly disappeared from some parts of the[414] coast. I could not learn that it was the habit to plant a cocoa-nut tree upon the birth of a child, as in some parts of Africa, where the tree receives a common name with the infant, and the annual rings on its trunk mark his age.
“If the water disappears from the earthen vessel placed on the grave—which, as the ware is porous, it seldom fails to do in the course of a few days—it is taken as evidence that it has been consumed by the dead man, and that he has escaped the maw of Wulasha.”
Last in this melancholy chapter on African funerals comes Dahomey. And having at length arrived at the end of our task, we would once more impress on the reader’s mind that, with very few exceptions, the illustrations of savage life here given are not affairs of the past—they exist now, at the present day and hour. At the very moment the reader is perusing our account of Dahoman blood-rule, blood-rule is dominant. Only that so many thousands of miles part the reader from the scene of these atrocities, he might still hear the wail of the victims as he reads. That we are authorised in making these remarks, we will prove to the reader by placing before him the very last report from this horrible country—that furnished to Government by Commodore Wilmot, January, 1863. As already narrated in this book, once a year the whole of the king’s possessions are carried through the town, that the people may see and admire.
It was during the procession of the king’s treasures that the “human sacrifices” came round, after the cowries, cloths, tobacco, and rum had passed, which were to be thrown to the people. A long string of live fowls on poles appeared, followed by goats in baskets, then by a bull, and lastly half-a-dozen men with hands and feet tied, and a cloth fastened in a peculiar way round the head.
The Very Last Dahoman “Custom.”
A day or two after these processions, the king appeared on the first platform: there were four of these platforms, two large and two small. His father never had more than two, but he endeavours to excel him in everything, and to do as much again as he did. If his father gave one sheep as a present, he gives two. The sides of all these platforms were covered with crimson and other coloured cloths, with curious devices, and figures of alligators, elephants, and snakes; the large ones are in the form of a square, with a neat building of considerable size, also covered over, running along the whole extent of one side. The ascent was by a rough ladder covered over, and the platform itself was neatly floored with dried grass, and perfectly level. Dispersed all over this were chiefs under the[415] king’s umbrellas, sitting down, and at the further end from the entrance the king stood, surrounded by a chosen few of his Amazons. In the centre of this side of the platform was a round tower, about thirty feet high, covered with cloths, bearing similar devices as the other parts. This is a new idea of the king’s, and from the top of this tower the victims are thrown to the people below. When the king is ready, he commences by throwing cowries to the people in bundles, as well as separately. The scramble begins, and the noise occasioned by the men fighting to catch these is very great. Thousands are assembled with nothing on but a waist-clout, and a small bag for the cowries. Sometimes they fight by[416] companies, one company against the other, according to the king’s fancy; and the leaders are mounted on the shoulders of their people. After the cowries, cloths are thrown, occasioning the greatest excitement. While this lasts, the king gives them to understand that if any man is killed, nothing will be done to the man who is the cause of it, as all is supposed to be fair fighting with hands, no weapons being allowed. Then the chiefs are called, and cowries and cloths are given to them. The king begins by throwing away everything himself; then his Amazons take it up for a short time, when the king renews the game and finishes the sport, changing his position from one place to another along the front part of the platform. When all that the king intends throwing away for the day is expended, a short pause ensues, and, by and by, are seen inside the platform the poles with live fowls (all cocks) at the end of them, in procession towards the round tower. Three men mount to the top, and receive, one by one, all these poles, which are precipitated on the people beneath. A large hole has been prepared, and a rough block of wood ready, upon which the necks of the victims are laid, and their heads chopped off, the blood from the body being allowed to fall into the hole. After the fowls come the goats, then the bull, and, lastly, the men, who are tumbled down in the same way. All the blood is mixed together in the hole, and remains exposed with the block till night. The bodies of the men are dragged along by the feet, and maltreated on the way, by being beaten with sticks, hands in some cases cut off, and large pieces cut out of their bodies, which are held up. They are then taken to a deep pit and thrown in. The heads alone are preserved by being boiled, so that the skull may be seen in a state of great perfection. The heads of the human victims killed are first placed in baskets and exposed for a short time. This was carried on for two days. Mr. Wilmot would not witness the slaying of these men on the first day, as he was very close to them, and did not think it right to sanction by his presence such sacrifices. He therefore got up and went into a tent, and when all was over returned to his seat. One of the victims was saved:—
“While sitting in the tent a messenger arrived, saying, ‘The king calls you.’ I went and stood under the platform where he was. Tens of thousands of people were assembled; not a word, not a whisper was heard. I saw one of the victims ready for slaughter on the platform, held by a narrow strip of white cloth under his arms. His face was expressive of the deepest alarm, and much of its blackness had disappeared;[417] there was a whiteness about it most extraordinary. The king said, ‘You have come here as my friend, have witnessed all my customs, have shared goodnaturedly in the distribution of my cowries and cloths; I love you as my friend, and you have shown that an Englishman, like you, can have sympathy with the black man. I now give you your share of the victims, and present you with this man, who from henceforth belongs to you, to do as you like with him, to educate him, take him to England, or anything else you choose.’ The poor fellow was then lowered down, and the white band placed in my hands. The expression of joy in his countenance cannot be described: it said, ‘The bitterness of death, and such a death, is passed, and I cannot comprehend my position.’ Not a sound escaped from his lips, but the eye told what the heart felt; and even the king himself participated in his joy. The chiefs and people cheered me as I passed through them with the late intended victim behind me.”
And now let us describe the burial of a Dahoman king; would it were of the last king of this accursed nation of fanatics and murderers:
On the death of a king, a description of cenotaph, surrounded by iron rails, is erected in the centre of this catacomb. On the top of this they place an earthen coffin, cemented together by the blood of one hundred of the captives taken in the last wars, who are sacrificed on the occasion of the king’s death that they may attend on their sovereign in the next world. The corpse of the king is then deposited in this coffin, with the head resting on the skulls of other conquered kings, and as many relics of royalty, such as the skulls and bones, as can be placed beneath the cenotaph are put there as trophies of the deceased sovereign. When all is arranged, the doors of this subterraneous catacomb are thrown open, and eighty of the female dancers connected with the court, together with fifty soldiers of the royal guard, are compelled to enter. All these are supplied with provisions, and are destined to accompany their sovereign to the land of shades—in other words, they are offered as a living sacrifice to the manes of their departed king; and, strange as it may appear, there is always a sufficient number of volunteers of both sexes who consider it an honour thus to immolate themselves.
The entrance of the catacomb having remained open for three days, to receive the deluded votaries, the prime minister covers the coffin with a black velvet pall, and then divides, between himself, the grandees, and the surviving women, the various presents of jewels and clothes made by the new king to the shade of the departed.
[418]
During eighteen moons, or months, the heir acts as regent, governing with two of his ministers in the name of the deceased king. At the expiration of the above period, he convenes the whole court at the palace of Ahome, whence they proceed to the subterraneous tomb, when the coffin is opened, and the skull of the deceased king is taken out. The regent, taking it in his left hand, and holding a hatchet in his right, for the first time proclaims aloud the fact, of which the people are supposed to be ignorant, that the king is dead, and that he has hitherto governed only in his name. The company present, on hearing this, fall prostrate, covering themselves with earth in token of profound grief, which, however, does not continue long; for, laying aside the skull and hatchet, the regent draws a sword from its scabbard, and proclaims himself their king. The people immediately make a loud noise with their rude instruments of music, and dancing and other manifestations of mirth follow.
On this occasion all the grandees of the principal white men, who conduct the sarames, or factories, present valuable gifts. This is what is termed the “great custom,” to distinguish it from the six months’ custom. Even on this festive occasion some hundreds are immolated that they may convey to the deceased king the tidings of his successor’s coronation. The blood of the victims being mixed with clay; a kind of large pot, something in the shape of an oven, and perforated with holes, is formed. Into this the skull and bones of the deceased king are put, and it is filled up with silk and other articles. On a certain day he goes to pay a visit to his father’s skull, to which he makes an offering, by pouring in, through the holes, brandy, zumbi, and cowries, the current medium of exchange in the kingdom. The latter are presented in order that the deceased may pay his way in the next world, and not disgrace his successor by getting into debt.
THE END.
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Aunt Fanny’s Pretty Picture Book. With full-page Illustrations printed in Colours. 4to, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
The Book of Animals. With Nine Coloured Illustrations by Harrison Weir (printed by Leighton Brothers) and other Engravings. Folio, cloth plain, 3s. 6d.
Ann and Jane Taylor’s Poetry for Children. Containing the Original Poems, Hymns for Infant Minds, and Rhymes for the Nursery. With many Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
Sacred Stories for Sunday Hours; or, Scripture Narratives from the Old Testament. With Coloured Pictures. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
The Children’s Forget-me-Not. A Book of Pictures and Stories for the Young. Royal 4to, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
Webster’s Universal Pronouncing and Defining Dictionary of the English Language. Condensed from Noah Webster’s Large Work, with numerous Synonyms, carefully discriminated by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Professor In Yale College. To which are added, Walker’s Key to the Pronunciation of Classical and Scriptural Proper Names, a Vocabulary of Modern Geographical Names, Phrases and Quotations from the Ancient and Modern Languages, Abbreviations used in Writing, Printing, &c. 664 pages. Demy 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.
Getting On in the World; or, Hints on Success in Life. By William Mathews. Series I. and II., complete. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
Beeton’s Public Speaker. Containing the Remarkable Speeches of the World’s Greatest Orators. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 3s. 6d.
Religious and Moral Gift Books.
The Christian Life Series.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, handsome binding, 3s. 6d. each.
1. The Christian Year. Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. By John Keble.
2. Life Thoughts. By Henry Ward Beecher. Red border lines.
3. The Christian Life. Bible Helps and Counsels for Every Day throughout the Year. Red border lines.
4. Religion and Science. A Series of Sunday Lectures on the Relation of Natural and Revealed Religion; or, The Truths Revealed in Nature and Scripture. By Joseph le Conte.
5. The Perfect Life. By William E. Channing.
6. Sacred Heroes and Martyrs. By J. T. Headley. Revised and Edited by J. W. Kirton.
BOOKS AT THREE SHILLINGS.
Golden Childhood for Christmas, 1875. Beautiful Pictures, Pretty Stories, Songs for the Little Ones, Fairy Tales, Nursery Rhymes, with Music for the Piano. With a set of Paper Patterns for a Complete Dolly’s Outfit. Imperial 16mo, boards, 3s.
Merry Sunbeams: The “Golden Childhood” Annual for Christmas, 1876. With Charming Pictures, Pretty Stories, Fairy Tales, Children’s Songs with Music, &c. Imperial 16mo, boards, 3s.
Golden Childhood. 1877 Volume. Much Enlarged and Improved. Imperial 16mo, picture boards, 3s.
The Child’s Famous Picture Book. With many Illustrations. Folio, cloth gilt or wrapper boards, 3s.
BOOKS AT TWO SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.
The Young Ladies’ Library.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d. each.
1. Sunshine and Rain; or, Blanche Cleveland. By A. E. W. With Eight full-page Illustrations.
2. Roses and Thorns; or, Five Tales of the Start in Life.
3. Bible Narratives; or, Scripture Stories. By the Rev. Frederick Calder, M.A. Illustrated.
4. Pleasure and Profit; or, Lessons at Home. With Eight Illustrations.
5. Country Pleasures; or, The Carterets. By A. E. R. With Eight full-page Illustrations.
6. Stories of Courage and Principle; or, Fit to be a Duchess. By Mrs. Gillespie Smyth. 8 full-page Illustrations.
7. Who are the Happy Ones? or, Home Sketches. By the Author of “Quiet Thoughts for Quiet Hours,” &c. With Eight full-page Illustrations.
8. The Progress of Character; or, Cliffethorpe. By H. Power. With Eight full-page Illustrations.
9. What can She Do? By the Rev. E. P. Roe, Author of “From Jest to Earnest,” &c.
Entertaining Presentation Volumes.
BOOKS AT TWO-AND-SIXPENCE—continued.
Beeton’s Erckmann-Chatrian Library.
Handsomely bound in cloth gilt, plain edges, 2s. 6d. Those volumes marked thus (*) are beautifully Illustrated.
Beeton’s Library of Humour.
Post 8vo, cloth, price 2s. 6d. each.
1. The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress. By Mark Twain.
2. Bret Harte. Complete Tales.
3. Out of the Hurly-Burly. By Max Adeler. With 400 humorous Illustrations by A. B. Frost.
4. Artemus Ward: His Book, and Among the Mormons.
5. Hood’s Whims and Oddities. Illustrated.
7. Lowell’s Biglow Papers and Saxe’s Poems.
8. Back Log Studies, and My Summer in a Garden. By C. D. Warner.
9. Riddles and Charades.
10. American Drolleries. Containing The Jumping Frog and Screamers. By Mark Twain.
11. Artemus Ward’s Letters to Punch, and Mark Twain’s Practical Jokes.
12. Funny Stories, and Humorous Poems. By Mark Twain and O. W. Holmes.
13. Josh Billings’ Sayings, and Major Jack Downing.
18. Elbow Room. By the Author of “Out of the Hurly-Burly.” Humorously Illustrated by A. B. Frost.
19. Helen’s Babies, and Other People’s Children. By John Habberton. With 16 full-page Illustrations.
20. Grown Up Babies, and Other People. By John Habberton. Illustrated.
Good Tone Books.
BOOKS AT TWO-AND-SIXPENCE—continued.
The Good Tone Library.
Post 8vo, elegantly bound, cloth gilt, price 2s. 6d. each.
1. The Prince of the House of David. By Rev. J. H. Ingraham. New Edition, with Coloured Frontispiece.
2. The Wide, Wide World. By Miss Wetherell, Author of “Queechy,” &c. New Edition, Coloured Frontispiece.
3. Queechy. By Miss Wetherell, Author of “The Wide, Wide World.” New Edition. Coloured Frontispiece.
4. Melbourne House. By Miss Wetherell, Author of “Queechy,” &c. New Edition. With Coloured Frontispiece.
The Children’s Forget-me-Not. A Book of Pictures and Stories for the Young. Royal 4to, boards, handsome floral design, 2s. 6d.
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that which is to Come. With a Memoir of the Author by H. W. Dulcken, Ph.D. 100 page and other Illustrations by Thomas Dalziel, engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. Cloth, bevelled boards, gilt, 2s. 6d.
Christian Year (The). Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. By John Keble.
Webster’s Improved Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. Condensed and Adapted to English Orthography and Usage, with Additions from various Accredited Sources, by Charles Robson. To which are added, Accentuated Lists of Scriptural, Classical, and Geographical Proper Names. Fcap. 4to, cloth, 2s. 6d.
Webster’s Dictionary of Quotations: A Book of Ready Reference to all the Familiar Words and Phrases in the English Language. With a copious Index. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.
The Good Shepherd: or, The Story of Jesus and His Apostles, for the Young. With Coloured Pictures. Imperial 16mo, cloth gilt, 2s. 6d.
Charles Lamb’s Elia and Eliana. New Edition, with Portraits. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 2s. 6d.
The Language and Poetry of Flowers. With a Complete Vocabulary, Quotations, Meanings, Flower Language, and a Collection of Poems illustrating the Nature, Beauty, Sentiments, Teachings, and Associations of the Floral World, &c. Coloured Pictures and other Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, red edges, 2s. 6d.
Ward, Lock, & Co.’s 2s. 6d. Novels.
In neat cloth gilt binding, 2s. 6d. each.
1. The Scottish Chiefs. By Miss Jane Porter.
2. Never Again. By W. S. Mayo.
3. Margaret Catchpole. By Rev. R. Cobbold.
4. The Improvisatore. By Hans Christian Andersen.
5. Arthur Bonnicastle. By J. G. Holland.
6. Margaret. By Sylvester Judd.
7. Evelina. By Madame D’Arblay.
8. Gambler’s Wife. By Mrs. Grey.
9. Kiddle-a-Wink; or, The Three Guests. By the Author of “Olive Varcoe,” &c.
10. The Berber. By W. S. Mayo.
11. Barriers Burnt Away. By Rev. E. P. Roe.
Useful Works and Children’s Present Books.
BOOKS AT TWO-AND-SIXPENCE—continued.
Beeton’s “All About It” Books.
Now Ready, handsomely bound, price 2s. 6d. each.
1. All about Cookery: Being a Dictionary of Every-day Cookery. By Mrs. Isabella Beeton.
2. All about Everything: Being a Dictionary of Practical Recipes and Every-day Information. An entirely New Domestic Cyclopædia, arranged in Alphabetical Order, and usefully Illustrated.
3. All about Gardening: Being a Dictionary of Practical Gardening.
4. All about Country Life: A Dictionary of Rural Avocations, and of Knowledge necessary to the Management of the Farm, &c.
5. All about Hard Words: Being a Dictionary of Every-day Difficulties in Reading, Writing, &c. &c.
BOOKS AT TWO SHILLINGS.
The Little Pet Series.
Imperial 16mo, half cloth, picture boards, 2s.; or neat cloth, 2s. 6d.
1. Our Little Pet’s Own Picture Book. 160 Illustrations.
2. New Comical Nursery Rhymes and Stories to make Children Laugh. With numerous Engravings.
3. Pretty Little Lessons for Pretty Little Children. With 250 Illustrations.
4. Easy Tales and Pleasant Stories for our Young Friends. With upwards of 200 Engravings.
5. Bible Sketches from the Old and New Testaments, adapted for Juvenile Reading. With about 80 Illustrations.
6. Sacred Readings for Young Children. Selected from the Old Testament. With about 60 Illustrations.
8. The Child’s Own Book of Pictures, Tales, and Poetry. With numerous Illustrations.
9. Favourite Nursery Rhymes for Nursery Favourites. With about 200 Illustrations.
10. Merry Rhymes and Stories for Merry Little Learners. With about 90 humorous Illustrations.
11. Little Fanny’s Nursery Picture Book. Super-royal 16mo. With Coloured Illustrations.
The Children’s Picture Annual. The Story of a United Family, with their Travels and Adventures at Home and Abroad. By Mercie Sunshine. With numerous Illustrations. Imperial 16mo, cloth gilt, 2s.
Books for Young Men and Women.
BOOKS AT TWO SHILLINGS--continued
The Friendly Counsel Series.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s.; those marked thus (*) extra cloth gilt, bevelled boards, gilt edges, 2s. 6d.
*1. Timothy Titcomb’s Letters addressed to Young People, Single and Married.
*2. Beecher’s (Henry Ward) Lectures to Young Men.
*3. Getting On in the World; or, Hints on Success in Life. By William Mathews, LL.D. First Series.
*4. Cobbett’s Advice to Young Men, and incidentally to Young Women.
5. Christians in Council. Author of “Stepping Heavenward.”
6. How to Make a Living. By George Cary Eggleston.
7. The Art of Prolonging Life. Translated from the celebrated work by Hufeland.
*8. Foster’s Decision of Character, and other Essays. With Life of the Author.
*9. Getting On in the World. Second Series. By William Mathews, LL.D.
*10. How to Excel in Business; or, The Clerk’s Instructor. By James Mason.
*11. Todd’s Student’s Manual.
The Rose Library.
Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, gilt edges, 2s.
1. The Autobiography of a £5 Note. By Mrs. J. B. Webb.
2. Zenon, the Roman Martyr. By the Rev. R. Cobbold, Author of “Margaret Catchpole.”
3. The Pilgrims of New England. By Mrs. J. B. Webb.
4. Mary Ann Wellington. By the Author of “Margaret Catchpole.”
5. The History of the Fairchild Family. By Mrs. Sherwood.
6. Sceptres and Crowns. By Author of “The Wide, Wide World.”
7. Nidworth, and his Three Magic Wands. By E. Prentiss, Author of “Stepping Heavenward.”
8. Freston Tower. A Tale of the Times of Cardinal Wolsey. By the Rev. R. Cobbold, Author of “Margaret Catchpole.”
9. The Mysterious Marriage; or, Sir Edward Graham. By Catherine Sinclair. (Sequel to “Holiday House.”)
10. Jane Bouverie, and How She became an Old Maid. By Ditto.
11. Modern Flirtations; or, A Month at Harrowgate. By Ditto.
12. The Star and the Cloud. By A. S. Roe.
13. Nellie of Truro. A Tale from Life.
14. The Nun. By Mrs. Sherwood.
Stirring Stories and High-Class Fiction.
BOOKS AT TWO SHILLINGS--continued
The Youth’s Library of Wonders & Adventures
Including Jules Verne’s Startling Stories, with Coloured Plates, cloth gilt, 2s.
1. A Journey into the Interior of the Earth. By Jules Verne.
2. The English at the North Pole. By Jules Verne.
3. The Ice Desert. By Jules Verne.
4. Five Weeks in a Balloon. By Jules Verne.
5. The Mysterious Document. By Jules Verne.
6. On the Track. By Jules Verne.
7. Among the Cannibals. By Jules Verne.
8. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. By Jules Verne. Part I.
9. —— Part II.
10. Two Years Before the Mast. By R. H. Dana.
11. From the Earth to the Moon. By Jules Verne.
12. Round the Moon. By Jules Verne.
13. History of Sandford and Merton. By Thomas Day.
14. Baron Munchausen (The Life, Travels, and Extraordinary Adventures of). By the Last of his Family.
The Country House Library.
of Fiction, Travel, Essay, Biography, &c.
BY STANDARD LIVING AUTHORS. COPYRIGHT EDITIONS.
Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 2s.
1. The Mad Willoughbys, and other Tales. By Mrs. Lynn Linton, Author of “Patricia Kemball,” &c.
2. False Beasts and True. By Francis Power Cobbe.
3. The Blossoming of an Aloe. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey, Author of “Out of Court,” &c.
4. Country House Essays. By John Latouche, Author of “Travels in Portugal,” &c.
5. No Sign, and other Tales. By Mrs. Cashel Hoey, Author of “The Blossoming of an Aloe.”
6. Grace Tolmar. By John Dangerfield.
Ward and Lock’s Useful Series.
BOOKS AT ONE-AND-SIXPENCE.
The Lily Series. Sixty-six Books. In new cloth gilt binding, plain edges. For List see Books at 2s.
The Rose Library. Fourteen Books. In cloth gilt binding, plain edges. For List see Books at 2s.
The Good Aim Series. Twenty-five Books. In cloth gilt, bevelled boards, gilt edges. For List see Books at 1s.
Beeton’s Englishwoman’s Cookery Book. 255th Thousand. By Mrs. Isabella Beeton. Being a collection of Economical Recipes, taken from her “Household Management.” The Best Shilling Cookery. New Edition. Illustrated by a large number of appropriate and useful Engravings. With 4 Coloured Plates, post 8vo, half bound, cloth, 1s. 6d.
Beeton’s Gardening Book. Containing full and Practical Instructions concerning Garden Operations, the Fruit, Flower, and Kitchen Garden, Pests of the Month, and a Monthly Calendar of work to be done in the Garden. With 4 Coloured Plates. Post 8vo, half bound, cloth, 1s. 6d.
The Christian Year. Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. By John Keble. Small fcap. 8vo, cloth, gilt back and sides, red burnished edges, 1s. 6d.
Now Ready, New Volume, Edited by the Author of “Buy your Own Cherries.”
Kirton’s Standard Temperance Reciter. An entirely New Volume of Readings and Recitations, for Band of Hope Meetings, Good Templar Gatherings, and General Reading. Containing many Original Pieces by the Editor, J. W. Kirton, Author of “Buy your Own Cherries.” Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s. 6d.
Also, shortly will be published, uniform with the above.
Kirton’s Standard Band of Hope Reciter.
BOOKS AT ONE SHILLING.
Beeton’s Pictorial Speller. The Cheapest Illustrated Spelling Book published. 196 pp. 430 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth plain, 1s.
Webster’s Pocket Pronouncing Dictionary of the English Language. Condensed from the Original by Noah Webster. With accentuated Vocabularies of Classical, Scriptural, and Modern Geographical Names. Revised by Wm. G. Webster, son of Noah Webster. Royal 16mo, cloth, 1s.
Webster’s Shilling Bookkeeping, in Single and Double Entry. Post 8vo, cloth plain, 1s.
The Language of Flowers. With numerous Engravings, and a Coloured Frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s.
The Poetry of Flowers. An entirely New Selection of appropriate Poems, carefully edited. With Coloured Frontispiece and many Illustrations. Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s.
The Christian Year. Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holy Days throughout the Year. By John Keble. Small fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, plain edges, 1s.
The Children’s Picture Annual: The Story of a United Family, with their Travels and Adventures at Home and Abroad. By Mercie Sunshine. With numerous Illustrations. Imperial 16mo, picture boards, 1s.
National Reference Books.
BOOKS AT ONE SHILLING.--continued.
S. O. Beeton’s National Reference Books,
FOR THE PEOPLE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
The Cheapest and Best Reference Books in the World.
Each Volume complete in itself, and containing from 512 to 590 Columns. Price 1s. in strong cloth binding.
Beeton’s British Gazetteer: A Topographical and Historical Guide to the United Kingdom. Compiled from the Latest and Best Authorities. It gives the most Recent Improvements in Cities and Towns; states all the Railway Stations in the Three Kingdoms, the nearest Post Towns and Money Order Offices.
Beeton’s British Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Accession of George III.
Beeton’s Modern Men and Women: A British Biography from the Accession of George III. to the Present Time.
Beeton’s Bible Dictionary. A Cyclopædia of the Geography, Biography, Narratives, and Truths of Scripture.
Beeton’s Classical Dictionary: A Cyclopædia of Greek and Roman Biography, Geography, Mythology, and Antiquities.
Beeton’s Medical Dictionary. A Safe Guide for every Family, defining with perfect plainness the Symptoms and Treatment of all Ailments, Illnesses, and Diseases. 592 columns.
Beeton’s Date Book. A British Chronology from the Earliest Records to the Present Day.
Beeton’s Dictionary of Commerce. A Book of Reference. Containing an Account of the Natural Productions and Manufactures dealt within the Commercial World; Explanations of the principal Terms used in, and modes of transacting Business at Home and Abroad.
Beeton’s Modern European Celebrities. A Biography of Continental Men and Women of Note who have lived during the last Hundred Years, or are now living.
Price 1s., cloth, containing 208 pages, 477 Recipes, and Formulæ for Mistresses and Servants.
MRS. BEETON’S ENGLISHWOMAN’S COOKERY BOOK. Comprising Recipes in all branches of Cookery, and accurate Descriptions of Quantities, Times, Costs, Seasons, for the various Dishes.
⁂ The capital Coloured Plates render the Eighteenpenny Edition of The Englishwoman’s Cookery Book absolutely unapproachable in point of excellence and cheapness. There are infinitely more Recipes in this volume than in any other Cheap Cookery Book, their accuracy is beyond question, and the addition of these Coloured Plates removes all possibility of successful rivalry which may be attempted by imitative and meretricious displays.
Price 1s., cloth, containing 252 pages.[**centered]
BEETON’S GARDENING BOOK: Containing such full and Practical Information as will enable the Amateur to manage his own Garden. Amply Illustrated.
BEETON’S READY RECKONER. A Business and Family Arithmetic. With all kinds of New Tables, and a variety of carefully digested Information, never before collected. Cloth, 1s.
Story Books for the Young.
BOOKS AT ONE SHILLING.—continued.
Beeton’s Good-Aim Series.
Pott 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s.
1. The Original Poems for Children. By the Taylor Family, M. E. B., and others.
2. The Basket of Flowers; or, Piety and Truth Triumphant.
3. Ellen’s Idol. By the Author of “Tiny,” and “Trotty’s Book.”
5. Sermons on the Wall. By John Tillotson.
6. Goldy and Goldy’s Friends. By Mary Densel.
7. The One Thing Needful; or, Ethel’s Pearls.
8. I Don’t Know How. By the Author of “The Gates Ajar.”
9. Sayings and Doings of Children. By the Rev. J. B. Smith.
10. Tiny. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
11. Tiny’s Sunday Night. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.
12. The Orphan Boy; or, From Peasant to Prince.
13. Tom, Tom, the Printer’s Son: A Boy’s Story. Related by Himself.
14. Only a Dandelion. By the Author of “Stepping Heavenward.”
15. Follow Me. By the Author of “Stepping Heavenward.”
16. New Year’s Bargain.
17. In the Beginning; or, From Eden to Canaan.
18. Conquerors and Captives; or, From David to Daniel.
19. The Star of Promise; or, From Bethlehem to Calvary.
20. History of the Robins. By Mrs. Trimmer. Coloured Front.
21. Hymns for Infant Minds. By Ann and Jane Taylor.
22. Rhymes for the Nursery. By the same.
23. Little Susy’s Six Birthdays. By Mrs. E. Prentiss.
24. Little Susy’s Little Servants. By the same.
25. Little Susy’s Six Teachers. By the same.
The Hans Andersen Story Books for the Young:—
Fcap. 8vo, cloth gilt, 1s.
Child’s First Book of Natural History. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s.
Easy Steps for Little Learners. Many Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, 1s.
Published by Ward, Lock, and Co.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.