Henry Baudesson

“ We find this same custom among the Bohindu of the Belgian Congo, where the girls indulge in promiscuous prostitution until conception takes place. This event guarantees them a husband, for sterility is a ground for divorce, and the man looks upon fertility as the highest virtue in a woman. Thus, calculated prostitution, if I may use the phrase, is not regarded with disfavour by some primitive peoples. Where the motive is other than the desire for maternity it is regarded merely as mental aberration or weakness of mind. If a woman gives herself without love, she is not a criminal but an idiot. ”

“ The sword flashes once more and a groan escapes from the victim in its death agony. The great body oscillates and falls to the ground with a thud. The ceremony is consummated. One of the assistants now dips a small broom in the jar and takes up some of the blood, and the members of the family gather round the carcase. The women crouch on the ground with their hands before their faces and utter hollow groans. The dead beast is now covered with the clothing of the deceased, consisting of the cloak, the skirt, a pipe, or some other object he has cherished in life. ”

“ The Sorcerer seeks out the place where it lies hidden and once a year on the fifteenth day of the seventh moon he takes it a few grains of maize, which constitute its sole nourishment. The creature rises from its hole, rears itself aloft, swallows the gift, and if it finds it to its taste leaves a few drops of poison on the ground as a sign of gratitude. ”

“ This is done after consultation [155] with the Spirits, during which she takes the rice out of the bowl at the rate of three grains at a time. Then she takes a mouthful of water, which she returns over the patient's body in driblets while she presses his stomach as if she were attempting to squeeze the life out of something. Just as the last of the candles is on the point of going out she utters a cry of triumph and holds up a stone of about the size of a nut before the eyes of her astonished and admiring audience. ”

“ More noble occupations, such as war and the chase, are reserved to the men, and their wives, proud of their husbands' glorious duties, are quite content to play the part of beast of burden. The difference is illustrated in many humble actions. A woman must carry a burden on her head or her back. A man submits to no such indignity. He divides the load into two parts, hangs one on each end of a bamboo pole and balances them across his shoulder. It is again necessary to recall that Europe shows traces of this conception which have hitherto remained unexplained. ”

“ Imagine our rage after a hard day's march under a tropical sun or soaked by torrential rains when we found ourselves condemned to spend the night perched in trees for fear of tigers, with the fires of a tabooed village burning almost under our noses! ”

“ In many of the cemeteries the traveller will find figures of seated women, their hair lank and dirty, supporting their elbows on their knees and covering their faces with their hands. These are the widows, who, in a truly life-like attitude of desolation, weep for the departed. The impression of reality is heightened by covering their heads with human hair and their bodies with ragged clothing.
There is a close kinship between the art of the Moï and that of the uncivilized peoples of the Malay Peninsula, another proof that all these races are branches of the same stock. ”

“ The Cham are extremely fond of their children and spare no pains to keep them amused. Indeed, their affection goes the length of leaving them in complete ignorance of soap and water, an omission for which the babies are duly grateful. It is especially gratifying to the benevolent spirits if the mother smears her child's face with a mixture of flour and saffron, a substance the yellow colour of which meets with the particular approval of the deities whose own visages are of that colour if we are to credit tradition. ”

“ The most expensive jewellery is of copper, the finest coiffures are the superb orchids which abound in the forests. There is no need to save up for the children to come. Books are unknown. The sons will learn to hunt, their sole education, and the girls will be taught to spin and weave. Far from being a burden to her husband a wife is his most valuable assistant, so it is only fair that the husband should make some compensation to her parents for the loss he occasions to them. ”

“ The former once spent four days watching over the corpse of a buffalo with a torn ear which had been killed by a tiger. The animal never returned to carry away its prey. Now we know that the habit of this carnivorous beast is to return nightly to devour its victims when their weight is too great to permit of their being carried off immediately to its lair. So was it simple caprice which prompted this strange behaviour or had the tiger perhaps been wounded in the encounter? It is impossible to bring the question out of the realm of surmise. ”

“ Five or six straw huts had been erected on stakes some ten feet above the earth, less to avoid dampness than to secure immunity from the raids of wild beasts.
Some women were pounding paddy (a preparation of rice) for the evening meal in mortars of ironwood. The measured beat of a metronome and the regular thuds of the pestles set the time for the wailing chant with which the women beguiled their work. ”

“ The lobe, unnaturally distended, sometimes reaches the shoulder, in which case it is accounted a feature of the greatest beauty, and a husband with every talent and virtue is assured to its fortunate possessor. But it is of prime importance that the ear should remain unbroken. Should the skin give way, the two hanging pieces will be an eternal reproach. No husband will want a woman thus degraded, and a hopeless spinsterhood will be her lot in life. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true that the savage mind seems entirely preoccupied with the concrete, and entirely incapable of comprehending abstract ideas. It is equally true that we have changed our methods of teaching the natives in the light of this discovery and that the results obtained illustrate the inevitable failure of our old system. No one doubts that a child learns to reproduce a drawing of some familiar object far more easily than a symbol, such as a letter of the alphabet, which is not identified with anything having a concrete existence.
The art of the Moï is nothing if not realistic. ”

“ The small canals which intersect the plain seem to be engaged in a perpetual chase and in the distance the lofty Annamite chain rears its proud head as if to shut off this smiling land from the rest of the world. ”

“ In most cases if he does not consume it himself he will lend it to some less thrifty neighbour who finds his store exhausted. If the day for repayment comes round and the liability is not discharged, the borrower, his wife and children, become the absolute property of the lender whose sole obligation is to support them. The debtor thus becomes a slave, or rather, to speak more accurately, a servant for life. It is not at all unusual in times of great scarcity for the Moï to sell both themselves and their families when faced with the prospect of starvation. ”

“ Of course, it is very unusual to meet this ferocious creature by daylight, even in regions where its ravages are the most frequent. Every traveller will pass by its lair in the bamboo groves, but it is quite exceptional to see the beast itself, except at nightfall, when it comes forth to seek its prey. Once a tiger has tasted human flesh it prefers it to all other food. Accordingly, the natives live in a state of chronic fear of the man-eater and will willingly abandon their villages rather than make the least effort to rid themselves of the pest. ”

“ This is a striking example of sympathetic magic, of which I have spoken before.
In Africa the village blacksmith is the appointed minister to perform the rite of dressing the teeth. He places a small iron ring against the tooth and strikes it with a light hammer. It would be natural to suppose that this process would be even more painful than the filing. What matter! In the eyes of the savage the suffering involved is the most meritorious part of the operation. Our coolies could hardly contain their indignation at the suggestion that an anæsthetic should first be administered. ”

“ They are formidable foes and never wait to be attacked, [41] but charge with lowered head at a prodigious speed. The tiger seems to have no terrors for them and many are the stories of their triumphs over the king of the forest himself.
Now, as a rule, a tiger is not dangerous unless it takes the initiative itself, which it seldom fails to do in these regions, where its supremacy has hardly yet been seriously challenged. Hence the saying which experience has abundantly justified: "In Indo-China the tiger is the hunter and man the hunted." ”

“ Retrogression is exhibited in other ways also, for although their ancient civilization must have been highly advanced, little trace of it remains in their present low level of intellect. All ambition to renew the glories of the past has long since evaporated. The ruins of many monuments tell of the ancient splendours, but the living representatives are quite content to recount the triumphs without any desire to emulate them. Is it incapacity or merely universal apathy? The indolence of the Cham is notorious. Even the building of their houses they leave to their neighbours the Annamites. ”

“ The Moï is not nomadic by nature, but moves his habitation periodically as soon as he has exhausted the natural resources of the soil he occupies. Other causes of this periodical exodus are serious misfortunes, such as a fire, an epidemic, or unpleasantly frequent raids by the tiger. Such mishaps are invariably attributed by the Moï to the evil influence of the genius of the place. To dispute the possession of the ground with so powerful a divinity would be sheer madness, and accordingly he yields with grace and betakes himself elsewhere without regret. ”

“ Louis, administers justice beneath a sacred fig-tree—the most majestic object conceivable—beneath whose all-embracing branches a concourse, vaster than any that throngs our courts at a sensational trial, could find shelter. The chiefs surround their President and form a truly imposing tribunal. ”

“ Hidden behind its bamboo barrier the tiger had watched them threading their way, and fallen upon them at the moment they presented their backs to it. We saw several fragments of human clothing and many bones to prove, if proof were needed, that we were on the site of a veritable man-trap. ”

“ I was told that among a few groups adultery is not considered criminal if the woman's accomplice is a relation of her husband. The Batua of the Congo also seem to regard this as an extenuating circumstance, but their neighbours, the Medgé and the Mangbetù, take a precisely opposite view and rigorously forbid brothers to seduce each other's wives. All the Moï consider it a gross aggravation of the offence if the seducer takes advantage of the husband's absence in war or the hunting-field. ”

“ The favourite objects for decoration are pipes, quivers and drinking horns. When the artist has finished his design he smears blood over the subject, both to throw up the outlines of the figure and also to add a touch of violent colour. ”

“ With the first signs of day the husband and wife go to the field and after making three furrows in silence return home. When morning comes they walk to the place and profess the greatest astonishment that the work of ploughing has already begun. "Who is the kindly Spirit," they exclaim, "who has worked for us while we slept?" Without loss of time they run back to their house to fetch suitable offerings. [299] So great a marvel as a field which cultivates itself is worthy to be consecrated with a sacrifice. ”

“ In the beginning a Genius incarnated in a kite disputed with one of his colleagues incarnated in a crab, and a lively quarrel ensued, in the course of which the latter had his shell broken by the beak of the bird, an insult of which he bears the mark to-day. Casting about for some means of revenge, the Crab-Genius conceived the idea of raising the waters of the sea until they covered the high mountain on which the Kite-Genius was perched. Every human being perished with the exception of a young couple, brother and sister, who saved their lives by taking refuge in a huge pumpkin. ”

“ The Sorcerers, for example, impose the most exorbitant fines on those who have failed to carry out the least detail of the rites. A penalty thus inflicted constitutes the delinquent to all intents and purposes a slave of the offended Spirit. He has to place himself at the disposal of the Sorcerer, the representative of the deity. Another species of slavery is created by the capture of prisoners of war. There are no provisions in law or custom for their redemption or liberation except by way of exchange. ”