The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 88

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88 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

sider whether you should not be moved to respond
in a similar manner to Treasurer Eckhart’s appeal?
‘Do this for your sake and for the sake of the Lord’s
cause. F.J.L.

Death and Funeral Rites in Congo
Africa.

The following interesting account was written
by a medical missionary of a Congo mission in
Africa. His account makes it very evident in how
great need these people are physically and spirit-
ually. He writes: —

Death rarely fails to inspire the awe of any
people, regardless of their scale of civilization. The
Otetela tribe in Africa has. various customs and
rites in dealing with death, which are very gen-
erally followed by the people. When a person falls
acutely or mortally ill, a number of his friends will
gather at his house in a sort of token of respect and
await his death. It is hard to say how much of this
is sincere and how much of it is mere curiosity.
On a number of occasions I have been to see an
acutely ill person and have found him in his small
house crowded with friends. Usually the wife or
husband or some close relative supports the sick
person in a half sitting posture; for when one is
very ill, it is considered a very bad policy for him
to recline. To add to the already overcrowded con-
dition of the small room, there is a fire burning in
the center, and this fills the room with smoke.
Thus the patient, especially if he has pneumonia,
is deprived of an ordinary chance for his life.

Furthermore, the friends often resent the sug-
gestion of getting the patient to the hospital, and
when death seems certain, they have a sort of mania
for taking him home. Perhaps this is only natural,
but it is hardly natural that they should risk every

chance of recovery by moving the patient at a crit- .

ical period. ‘The father of the family is perhaps
the most insistent about having his children at
home when he expects them to die, especially if the
child is a daughter. He may even go counter to
the wishes of the daughter’s husband. Some time
ago a woman who was very ill and limped badly
because of a condition which I afterwards diag-
nosed as tuberculosis of the hip, was moved four or
five miles away from the mission on account of the
contrariness of the father. When she returned a
‘month or s0 later, her condition was practically
hopeless.

The crowd which gathers in the sick man’s room

just sits there, usually without any especial mani-
festation of grief; but as soon as the patient dies,
with one accord they set up aloud wail or chant,
which seems quite stereotyped and according to
form and ceremony rather than as a result of grief.
Some, of course, are grieved, and they weep, but
others seem to be yelling as a matter of custom.
Whether they think they are scaring away bad
spirits or pleasing the spirit of the departed one,
it is difficult to say; but they do think the loud
wailing and crying is essential for appearance’ sake,
if for no other. On several occasions, upon going
into a room of wailers, I noticed that they were able
to stop immediately when I requested quiet, and
they started the noise again in a mechanical man-
ner when I left.

One night, about 1 a.m, a rather prominent
man of Wembo Nyama’s village died at our hos-
pital. His son and a relative awoke me and in-
formed me that they wanted to take his body to
the village. I gave my permission. All was quiet
for a half hour, and then a loud wailing broke out
at a point about half a mile from my house. One
can hardly mistake such a sound as being other
than the lamentation following a death if once he
has heard it before, and on this particular night it
sounded rather weird as I lay awake in the early
morning, listening. They kept up the wailing more
or less continuously for about an hour. For that
matter, mournings often last a long time, the near
relatives wailing afresh at intervals weeks and even
months after the funeral.
people holding a lamentation for one who had been
dead as long as six months!

Once I was called to see a man who was mor-
tally ill and unconscious. Realizing that death was
near, I said that I knew of nothing to give in the
way of medicine that would help, whereupon a man
in the party approached me and said that they
understood that, but they wanted something to
“finish the breath” of the sick man. I was rather
shocked at such a request and pressed him to tell
me whether he meant some medicine to kill him.
He finally admitted that he did mean this. I told
him that it was not for us, but for God alone, to
take the man’s life. The man died, probably from
his disease, but I have been informed that it some-
times occurs that poison is given to a hopelessly ill
person when he has become helpless and a burden,
as in the case described above.

As has been stated, mournings are often very

much prolonged, and they may be fairly compli- .

I have been told of.