The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1931, Sheet 68

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

Things African.

Driver Ants.

A missionary’s wife writes about these pests:
“When the drivers come in one door, the inhabi-
tants generally go out the other. It was after
supper one evening. Our baby David was asleep
in his little screen bed. We went for a few minutes
to our neighbors in the next house. We returned
to find such screaming as we have never heard
before in our lives. We hurried in to find our baby
covered with drivers. They had come during our
absence and had taken full possession of the house.
It was like chasing through fire, but we rushed in
and brought him out. He was almost hysterical.
His head and hair were black with them. We im-
mediately dipped his head in a solution of carbolic-
acid water, and they finally let loose.

~ “The moral is: Never go out and leave baby
in the house alone.”

More Driver Ants!

This also comes from Africa: “What would you
think of callers at one o’clock in the morning?
Rude, you say; yes, very rude callers indeed. They
don’t even knock at the door, but walking right
into your bedroom, the first intimation you have
of their presence is to find them getting into bed
with you. You may indignantly tell them to ‘GO’;
but the more fuss and fume you put into your com-
mands, the more attentive they become, yes, even
vicious, for they dearly love a fight. So ferocious
are they that you decide you will give them your
bed. But bed is not what they are after, but you,
and ‘out you go, without the usual ceremony of
redressing.

“Thousands, yes, ten of thousands, of these
guests are covering your floors, walls, ceilings, roof,
and bed-net; they are raining down like a gentle
summer-shower, and each with a pair of pincers just
teady to take a bite out of you upon first contact.
These driver ants are among the most interesting as
well as annoying of African insects. They live in
huge tunneled colonies in the ground, from which
they go out daily or nightly on systematic food-
gathering expeditions. Their journeyings are like
the spokes of a wheel, going systematically around
until they have covered the entire land area for
a good quarter of a mile. Each individual expedi-

tion covers from twenty to sixty feet in breadth.
They travel or march abreast in lines about an inch
in width until they reach the point where the
foraging is to begin, when they break up into one

“lobola, or ‘cattle.’

moving mass, all going one way. They cover every
inch of ground, tree, house, or hole in the ground
until nothing escapes their search. One night re-
cently they visited us. They rained down from the
roof like a shower. They took possession of the
house. They caught and quartered their prey,
formed into lines, and carried it away — roaches,
spiders, a lizard or two. In an hour they left us.”

African Marriage Customs.

A missionary in Africa, some time ago, wrote
a very interesting article on African native mar-
riage customs, from which we take the following : —

“The only one of my four apprentices who was
single came to me one day and asked for leave of
absence to get married. ‘But,’ I hesitated, ‘when
did you decide on the right girl?’ ‘I have not yet
seen her,’ he replied, ‘but my brothers at Metet
wrote me a letter and said that she was pretty, had
never been married, and no one had started to pay
money on her yet.’? Again I hesitated, and finally
it was agreed that he should wait until a letter was
sent to the missionary in charge of the girls’ school
at Metet to see what she had to say.

“After about a week a letter came, saying that
this girl was too young. But the young man
wanted to go there anyway to see if some other
girl would do. At last I consented and also agreed
to give him $20 on the purchase of the girl if the
missionaries in Metet would superintend the affair.
He went, saw a girl in the school, and liked her
looks; then she looked at him, and he was also
good to look upon, they both agreed, and the pre-
liminaries were on.

“That wives in Africa are not given with all
good wishes and congratulations, but sold for a price
is well known throughout the world. The purchase-
price is known in many parts of South Africa as
Thus when the purchase-price
is spent, they speak of the ‘cattle’ as having been
‘eaten.’

“Some of the better-educated natives object to
this lobola system’s being called ‘a commercial
transaction.’ ‘It is an insult to say that we sell
our daughters, writes one. But when asked to
explain remarks like, ‘I bought you with my cattle,’
or, ‘What, shall a cow refuse to go where it is
driven?’ their only excuse is: ‘Of course, the cus-
tom has lost some of its value with the present
generation, but as it forms a bedrock of native
social life, it would be absolute folly to invite the
government to legislate against it.’

“Complications rising from lobola affairs are