VIII MANNERS AND CUSTOMS The Fang is a resourceful man, though he has no genius for mechanical invention. He wrests from nature all that he needs and does not depend upon his neighbour. He lives in a house of bark or bamboo with a roof of thatch, for which he gathers the materials, and builds it all himself. In his primitive condition his only clothing is bark-cloth which he skillfully hammers out of fibrous bark. With the fibre of the pineapple, he weaves a powder-pouch, or other similar convenience. He makes himself an excellent canoe and is scarcely surpassed as an expert in its management. He is also a fisherman; and he knits his own fish-net. For the latter he now uses imported string; but without the imported string he could use some vegetable fibre. If he wishes to improve his primitive bed of poles he makes a grass mat. An old woman one day taught me the art of mat-making. I sat beside her at the loom, in the street, and worked under her supervision until she declared me quite proficient—so much so, she said with some anxiety, that there was no need of my doing any more. The African’s knowledge, too, however meagre, is as varied as his skill. As he becomes civilized he will specialize. There will be division of labour in the community and mutual dependence upon one another. No doubt he will gain much; but he will also lose something, he will lose in resourcefulness; he will lose something of freedom and the spirit of independence. And unless he gain much in that which is moral and spiritual, his loss will be a misfortune wholly grievous. I venture the statement that the African is not lazy—at least not _very_ lazy. He is idle not so much because he hates work, but rather because he is unambitious and the unfortunate victim of a habit of content. He will not work for the sake of working, because, unlike the white man, he can be supremely content in idleness. But offer him something that he really desires or deems worth while and he will work amazingly. There are only one or two things that the African will work for; that is to say there are only one or two things that he wants. He will work to earn a dowry in order to marry; especially if he has in mind some particular woman as the prospective wife. Month after month he will labour and even for a year or two he will engage in the hardest work. But just as the white master is about to reverse his opinion of the whole black race and proclaim that they are the greatest workers in the world the man completes the amount of the dowry, and immediately he quits. No inducement will tempt him to continue. To offer him double wages would only lower his estimate of your intelligence. He will work for an end that he desires; but the ordinary motives of the white man do not appeal to him at all. He will never work for the mere sake of accumulating wealth.