The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 182

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182

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

The Sad Lot of Heathen Women.

Miss Jean Kenyon Mackenzie, in her fascinating
book An African Trail, has the following tale to tell
concerning the sad lot of the women of the Bulu
tribe of Western Africa: —

Bulu Woman a Slave.

“Tf the Bantu is master, his woman is slave. She
is slave to the Bantu triple obsession of goods and
sex and fetish. ‘A girl, says the Bulu proverb at
her birth, ‘is goods.’ She may be, among certain
tribes, the subject of a tentative bargain before she
is born. ‘A girl is not known,’ says another proverb,
‘till the day of her dowry.’ ”

The Things of Marriage.

“Ask of that. little nine-year-old, who is not yet
tattooed, whose young head is shaved in designs,
—the head-dress of the little girl,— whose sleek
body is belted with beads, tailed with dried grasses
and aproned with leaves, ask of that childish crea-
ture, ‘Who is giving goods on you? and she will
know. How many goats have been given, how many
dogs and dog-bells, how many sheets of brass, and
. whether any ivory or not. Or if she is to be given in
exchange for another woman, — a wife for her
father or a little girl for her brother, who must be
set up in the world, — she will know that. The
name of her tentative master she will know, who
comes to consider his bargain from time to time.
There will be long talks of dowry, arguments for
more or less. The little girl comes in out of the sun-
smitten street with food that her mother has cooked
for her father and his guest —a peanut porridge
steamed in a great leaf, a roll of cassava bread,
mashed plantains. She will put her wooden tray at
_ the feet of her masters. She is a precocious child,
born to the language of sex. If the buyer is old, she
will hate him. She need make no secret of this;
she may tell whom she pleases that, having ‘come
to her eyes,’ she hates the man who buys her. All
but her mother will laugh at the venom of the little
tongue, the heavings of the little chest. And the
day when the master brings the ivory or the woman
or the last articles of barter, that day there will be
a feast in her father’s town and the songs of mar-
riage. ‘If the little girl weeps, — why, so they
always do; the hearts of children are thus. And in
the evening, when the sun goes down the path to its
setting and she moves away in the caravan of her
husband’s people, you will not ask which of the
children in that caravan is the little bride; you will
know because she weeps.

“Tn her husband’s town they will be dancing the
marriage dances, they will be singing the songs of
marriage. Her husband’s kin will be singing little
songs of mocking: —

“There is a little goat capering in the clearing, —
A neglect of cooking,
A neglect of work!

There is a little kid capering in the clearing!

“O little bride, hurry in the house and grind the meal —
hurry!
Hurry and get your hoe, hurry!
O little bride, hurry!

“While the boiled greens are still quaking, she hides the

kettle behind the bed! — He-ye-e!
While the hot greens are still quaking.
You come to steal— He-ye-e!

You come to grudge — He-ye-e!
You come to deceive — He-ye-e!

“There is a weed in this town, there is a little weed — He!
There is a child with sharp eyes in this town — He!

the husband’s kin. And the bride’s
mother sings, too, little conventional petitions that
the child be adequately fed, that the tender child be
spared, little phrases of maternal solicitude: —

“Don’t send my child to fish in the stream;
There are little snakes —O!
Don’t send my child to fish in the stream!

“So sing

“They count the bananas they feed my child, —
They count them!

One, two bananas, as they feed my child, —
They count them!

“So sings the mother and so sing the child’s
kinsfolk before they leave her in the care of strange
women; and the little girl stands bewildered at the
heart of the circling dances.

“Or if it be her father’s pleasure to delay the
delivery of the goods, do not think that the girl is
bred in innocence under her mother’s roof. She was
not born to the possession of her body; this is hired
out to her father’s material advantage among young
bucks — prospective purchasers, men who bring
wealth to the town. Not her father only and her
elder brother may thus make profit of her person,
but her husband will do so in the times of the great
clearings, when a new town is to be built or a great
garden planted; she will then serve as hire to strong
young men. Through her use a successful hunter

-may be attached to her husband’s service, and she,

if she is desirable, may be a token of hospitality to
an honored guest.

In Her Maternal Experience.

“By way of being security, she may be lodged
with her husband’s creditors. How many women
wear out weary years in this friendless bondage!
Or, not having borne children to her husband, she