The fetish folk of West Africa

The difference between the two books is chiefly a difference of emphasis, and is indicated in the titles. In the former the African is described in relation to his surroundings—...

The name _Gaboon_ is used, especially by the English, in a general way to designate not only the river of that name but all the adjacent territory. Most people prefer it to the...

The Gaboon belle has a brown complexion and faultless skin, fine features and dreamy dark eyes with long lashes. She moves so easily that she carries her folded parasol, or bott...

Another factor in the extermination of the Mpongwe is the demoralization of domestic life incident to methods of trade. The Mpongwe man is a trader by instinct. In shrewdness an...

I have said that outside the pulpit Iguwi, with all his goodness, was utterly unpractical. Often, indeed, he seemed to lack common sense. I once gave him a book to read in which...

My fellow traveller, who may have felt somewhat chagrined at finding that the hearty reception accorded him was intended for me, turned to me and made some remarks that have no...

When these ants come to a place where there is food to their liking, they scatter and spread out over a large area. Then, of course, they are not so quickly discovered, and one...

The white ant lives underground in colonies of enormous numbers. It feeds chiefly on dead wood, and its presence is the explanation of the noticeable fact that there is very lit...

Yet one must admit that it is not eyes, nor noses, nor even faces, but legs, that are most in evidence in African society. I suppose it is because we are not used to seeing thos...

There is one other instinct besides that of matrimony that will stir the dormant energy of the native, and that is the love of driving a bargain. He is a born trader. But if pri...

Then Ogula sent her servants to her father, Ra-Nyambia, and bade them say to him that she had procured a husband and that she was coming to present him to her father. Ra-Nyambia...

One day, walking across the lonely _grass-field_ of Gaboon, the stillness broken only by the rustle of the long grass around me and the distant boom of the sea beyond the horizo...

On one occasion the _Dorothy_, in the interest of humanity, played the part of a man-of-war. We were out on the bay, at least a mile from the shore, when our attention was attra...

On my part, it was my knowledge of Lolo that first inspired me with a strong desire for a school, and enabled me to realize what a moral factor a school of such boys might becom...

We had great difficulty in turning the launch. The current was exceedingly swift, a roaring torrent, and the channel narrow and dangerous. As we began to turn, the bow necessari...

In a former chapter I have told at some length of the scourge of the jigger, and how the discipline of the school was concentrated in an effort to make the boys keep them out of...

A charm is not necessarily a physical object—like the amulet. In Africa, as among the superstitious everywhere else, it may be a word or action, a sign or symbol, a formula or i...

The former worship of snakes in Dahomy (nearly extinct by this time) throws a lurid light upon the African’s conception of the powers above him. According to the belief of the D...

“A man was hunting in the forest, when he discovered a woman of a neighbouring town alone in her garden. He decided to steal her and add her to the number of his wives. He caugh...

He winced perceptibly when I told him that the only work which I could give him at the time was that of cutting grass. This is the one kind of work, above all others, that the A...

The interdependence of civilization is largely the result of man’s increasing _conquest of nature_; and this is the next contrast between civilized society and that of Africa. T...

That prayer, _Thy Kingdom Come_, is being offered daily in every land and in every language of the world and everywhere it has the same meaning. It means that all those who sinc...

“To say that the stronger tends to become brutal because the weaker is brutal, or slovenly because the weaker is slovenly, is to touch the process only on its surface. The deepe...

Mb’Obam and his wife, Sara, had lived at Angom in the time of Mr. Marling and had there become Christians. After Mr. Marling’s death they had moved down the river to Makweña. Nd...

When I went to Gaboon I engaged Robert as my interpreter; for he knew Fang as well as he knew Mpongwe. Then, when I could speak Fang without him, I undertook the Mpongwe work an...