James Greenwood

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”