The fetish folk of West Africa

John Stuart Mill · en
The African, despite his degradation, is interesting; and that, not
merely as an object of religious endeavour, but on the human level, as a
man. The testimony of Mr. Herbert Ward—traveller, adventurer, soldier
and artist—who first went to Africa with Stanley, and afterwards went a
second time and spent several years, is the testimony of all
sound-hearted men who have lived in Africa. Mr. Ward, in _A Voice From
the Congo_, says:

“There was a good side even to the most villainous-looking savage....
They appealed strongly to me by reason of their simplicity and
directness, their lack of scheming or plotting, and by the spontaneity
of everything they did.” And again: “It has been my experience that the
longer one lives with Africans, the more one grows to love them.
Prejudices soon vanish. The black skin loses something of its unpleasant
characteristics, for one knows that it covers such a very human heart.”

Nevertheless, the degradation of the African is a fact. And it is being
proved that there is no power of moral renovation for him inherent in
material progress. Christianity, and nothing else, vitalizes his moral
nature; and therefore it contains the potentialities of civilization.
When Mr. Giddings, and other sociologists of a certain class, ignoring
spiritual values, demand a gospel for the life that now is, we offer
them the same Gospel of Christ, and point to its actual results in
Africa; maintaining that the missionary is the chief agent in Africa’s
civilization, and affirming that civilization is but the secular side of
Christianity.

One of the stories in this volume appears also in Dr. Robert H. Nassau’s
admirable book, _Fetishism in West Africa_; and two of the stories are
told, in slightly different form, in Mr. R. E. Dennett’s interesting
book on the folk-lore of the _Fjort_. Most of the illustrations are from
photographs taken by Mr. Harry D. Salveter.

                                                     ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.

  _New York._




                                Contents


                                    I
 THE WHITE MAN’S GRAVE                                                15

    The Coast—The Old Coaster—His
      obsession—Angom—Loneliness—Gaboon—The seasons—Ice that
      burned—A _peculiar_ climate—The mosquito—Quinine—Frightened
      into fever—A matter of coffins.


                                   II
 “THE WISE ONES”                                                      29

    From palm-oil to trousers—Mpongwe and Fang—Making a
      king—Caste—Domestic slavery—Ndinga, a human leopard—A Gaboon
      belle—Native courtesy—A fight—A war-custom—The cause of the
      tide—A dying confession—A case of witchcraft—Curing the sick—A
      secret society.


                                   III
 A DYING TRIBE                                                        42