CHAPTER VIII
OTHER CHANGES. HOPE DEFERRED
A change of labour—We become hunters—A new demand—And new difficulties—Failure—The sentry’s demand—The old men’s plea—Murder—We tell the men of God—And complain to the rubber man—The white chief—The things written in a book—And no remedy comes—Hunting again—The English visitor—The white woman—Results of making complaints—The sentries’ threats—The one way of escape—“Better to be with the hunters than the hunted”—Another sorrow—The sleeping-sickness—“Just a little while, and they die”—We cry to the white people.
As I was telling you before, many of our people died of the “sickness from above,” including a number of the young men who worked rubber. Of necessity the supply of rubber became very small when there were so few to collect it in the forest.
After the sickness was finished, and the white men found that it was really true that so many of our people were dead, and that others were still sick and unfit for work, they called us young men of Ekaka together and told us some very good news. It was this. That they had decided that we should make no more rubber, but be freed entirely from that work on condition that we men would hunt antelopes for the white man’s table, and bring smoked meat for his workmen’s rations, and that our women would supply tökö (manioca cooked ready for eating) at stated intervals.
We agreed with much joy, and all the way home that day we were singing and shouting, so as to let every one know of our good fortune. We went also to tell the white men of God our news; they were glad to hear about it, and gave us much good advice as to keeping up a regular supply of food, and not bringing palavers upon ourselves by failing to do our part. We heartily assented to all they said, for we were ready to do anything if only we might be freed from rubber work.
The hunting was started at once, and we kept up the supply of one or two antelopes weekly, and smoked rations for a long time; but by and by a new white man came to us from up-country and he made new rules for us.
An order was given that we must procure four living antelopes every week, and in order to do this all of us who were strong enough to hunt had to be in the forest almost all the time, just sending in the antelopes as we caught them.
It was not so bad in dry weather—then we were used to go on long hunts in the old days of freedom—but now it was all the year round, wet season as well as dry, night and day; for antelopes began to get scarce as the rubber had done, and we had to penetrate a long way into the forest in order to get them. We found to our cost that hunting was not play under such circumstances; but even so, it was better than rubber, and we tried to fulfil the white man’s requirements.
But one day—the day for taking an antelope to the white man—we failed to procure one in time for the usual morning visit, when we were in the habit of sending it in.
I suppose the white man became impatient and dispatched a sentry—a native of our country who was known to us all as a fool—armed with a gun and cartridges, to inquire why the animal had not been sent in.
When this sentry, Kebocu, arrived in our village, he found it almost deserted. Only one or two old men and a few women were there; but, my father not being present, his friend, Bomoya, went out to meet the white man’s messenger and inquire what he wanted. Bomoya was closely followed by Isekasofa, another old friend and associate of my father’s.
They exchanged greetings with Kebocu and asked his business.
“Where is the antelope for the white man’s soup?” he asked.
They explained that we had failed to catch any on the day previous, and that they were expecting our arrival at any time, and then the animal would be dispatched immediately.
His answer was to raise and load his gun, an action not understood by the old men, who simply stood still waiting. Calling to a woman who was crossing the road to get out of the way, he fired. The shot passed through Bomoya’s thigh, disabling him; but old Isekasofa, stooping down to hide behind his friend, received the bullet in his breast, and dropped dead on the spot.
Just as the deed was done, we all rushed into the village with our antelopes, proving the truth of what the old men had said. We heard all about the shooting from the woman who had seen it all, and whose husband was a workman of the white men of God. Kebocu himself ran away when he saw us all come into the village.
Basofa, the son of Isekasofa, and another man picked up the corpse, put it on a bier of forest poles, and set off with many others of us to tell our sorrowful story to the white man of God.
We arrived first at the school-house where Mama, the white woman, was teaching the children; when she saw us and our burden she was much grieved, for Isekasofa was a friend of the white people and had visited them only a few days previously. We went on to the dwelling-house, and told our story to the two white men of God, who sympathised with us in our sorrow, and wrote a letter to the white man of rubber about the outrage.
We went on to the rubber compound, and waited there a long time, because the white man had gone to the river. He kept us so long waiting to show him the corpse of Isekasofa (he knew why we were there, for messengers had been sent to tell him) that, sitting there in the heat of the midday sun, we became very angry, and some of our people even set out to attack the village of which Kebocu, the sentry, was a native.
At last the white man came and listened to our story, but he seemed so strange that we thought—of course we did not know—that he had been drinking the strong palm-wine of Europe which makes people dizzy in their heads. Once a white man gave some to one of our people, and he was quite foolish after it.
We were persuaded not to attack Kebocu’s village, as the white man would see that he was punished; and we went back to our own place to weep for and bury our dead, and attend to the wounded man.
It was but a few days after this episode that a great chief called a judge came from down-country to make inquiries about our part, and hear palavers.
This was the first time a white man had come on such an errand, and numbers of our people gathered at the house of the white man of God and told our troubles to the chief. He listened and questioned us, and made inquiries of other people who had seen the things we brought forward, and another white man wrote many, many words in a book. That book, they said, would go down-country to another great chief, and then everything would be settled satisfactorily.
As Kebocu had not been punished or even arrested for causing the death of Isekasofa, that affair was also talked about, and Bomoya was carried in from his home that the white man might see for himself the truth of our statements. His wound was in a terrible condition, and was turning green inside. All this was also written in the book.
The book was sent down-country; the white men both went their way; and we never heard any more. Kebocu was never punished, but lived in his own village a free man. Bomoya recovered, because the white men of God made medicine for his wounds, but he was always lame.
It made us very angry when, some time after his partial recovery, he was imprisoned for some weeks—because he was found in his village, and not out in the forest hunting antelopes for the white man’s soup! Just as if a lame man would be of any use in a hunt with nets and spears!
We continued our hunting week after week, not only to supply the white man’s table, but also to provide rations (either of meat or fish) for his sentries and workmen, and our women had to provide manioca for the same reason.
It meant much work for us all; not only work, but constant exposure to the cold and damp of the forest. It was worse in the wet season, when many of our people contracted a sickness of the chest which is most painful and often ends in death. In fact, the providing of food was getting to be almost as great a tax upon us as the rubber had been. And we thought, “If the rubber work never ends, the food work will not; they will never give up calling for food!”
We had no comfort at home, for we were rarely there. We had nothing to look forward to in the future but work—either rubber or food—so we gave up hoping; our hearts were broken; we were as people half dead!
Two or three times white people came again to ask about our affairs. One was a very tall Englishman with a wonderful dog such as we had never seen before. He was very kind to us, made many inquiries about our treatment, and gave us presents before he left. We asked him to come back to us again, but he never did. We were told that he was talking about our troubles and writing them in a book in England, but that is all we know about him.
Another who came was a white woman. She stayed for a little while at the rubber place, and used to ask us many questions and talked much to us and to the white men. But we could never really understand about her; why should a woman come to see about palavers—how could she settle them? She soon went away, and we did not think any more about her.
Others came at intervals—great chiefs from down-river, I suppose they were—to some of whom we told our grievances; but we soon found that the rubber white men did not like us to do so, and sometimes we were punished or even imprisoned after the departure of the white men to whom we had made reports. So you will not be surprised when I tell you that we got to hide our troubles, and did not tell even when an opportunity presented itself.
Many times we have been asked by other white men of God who have come on visits, “Why do you not tell these bad doings of which we hear? Why do you not report to the white chiefs?” It was like this: we were afraid to tell—afraid of the consequences to ourselves afterwards; we had been threatened with such dreadful things by the sentries if we dared to speak of their doings.
I do not wonder that they did not want their doings talked about, for I have not told you one-tenth of the bad things they did, and the worst of the things cannot be even mentioned. And then, so many promises which had been made to us by white men had been broken, of what use was it to get more promises from them? They would only be broken like the rest, we thought, and so we gave up, and when the white men tried to find out things we even ran away and hid, rather than tell them, and so bring greater trouble on ourselves and our families.
There was just one way out of our slavery, and some of our young men availed themselves of it. It was to become a sentry oneself. Only a few had the opportunity, and those who took it soon became as bad as the other sentries with whom they came in contact. They found that the only way to please the white man was to get plenty of rubber; and in order to do that they were obliged to use the same means as the others and become cruel oppressors of their own people.
When they were remonstrated with they would say, “It is better to be with the hunters than with the hunted. We have the chance to join the hunters: what more?” I never had the chance myself; perhaps if I had I might have done the same; for if you compare our lives with the lives of the sentries, I do not think that even a white man can wonder that some of us chose the easy way.
There is one thing of which I have not yet told you; we think it is one of the worst of all our trials. We scarcely know about the beginning of it, but it seems to have been soon after the end of the “sickness of heaven” that this other sickness began to come amongst us. We call it “nkangi ea iló” (“sickness of sleep”), and many refer to it as “this desolation,” “losilo lóne.”
Both names describe it. When a person has the disease, he gradually gets more and more languid until at last he sleeps all the time, and the disease destroys him. We have no hope for the future on account of this disease, as well as our other troubles; no one ever recovers, but generally the whole family take it, and die one after the other, until whole villages are almost wiped out.
At first only a few people had it; and though we did not understand it, we thought that, like other sicknesses, it would be cured. But in a very few years it has spread from house to house and village to village, away into the back towns and far up-river; it seems as if it had no ending!
Numbers of people who are weak and sickly contract it, and many more who are exposed to all weathers rubber seeking, hunting, or fishing, and who come back home with some simple malady, get the sleep sickness as well, and then—just a little while—and they die!
Some of the largest and best populated villages are now reduced to a few huts, the majority of which are inhabited by sick folk. Men and women of all ages and little children all alike take the disease, and all alike die.
In the old days, if a person died in one hut, a child was born in another to take his place and name; but now—every day the death wail is heard, every day funerals are taking place—but it is a rare event for a child to be born. You see just one baby here, and another there, and that is all! And therefore we have come to say, “We shall all be finished soon, all get the disease, none recover. If we are to have it, we shall have it: what more?”
Perhaps you think we should take medicine for this sickness, but we can find none of any use. The white men of God have tried many kinds of medicine: medicine to drink, and also the kind which they put into one’s arm with a needle; but these only did good for a little while, and then the sickness was as bad as ever. Our own people have tried their own medicines, our witch-doctors also have tried to cure it by means of their fetishes; but all alike are useless. We often ask the white men if their doctors have found the medicine; but we always get the same answer, “No, not yet.” We wonder that the white men with all their wisdom have not found it: if they have not, who can?
The white men of God are continually teaching us that in view of all this sickness, now is the time for us to settle the palaver between us and God by believing in His Son Jesus, so as to be ready if death comes to us. And then our witch-doctors step in and say, “Is not this closing of the eyes in prayer, which these white men have taught our people, the cause of the sickness of sleep?”
What can we do? We go and hear the teaching, and it is good: we agree to it. Then we hear what the witch-doctors say, and for a while we absent ourselves. And all the time the sickness goes on and increases. O white people, will you not pray to your God for the medicine? will you not try and send it to us soon, that this desolation may be ended, and some of us be saved alive?