thinlsTh^h lT d ' She herS6lf WaS smeared with ^ from the
s l a v e ? , ! ! Cume ? C° ntaCt With in the dark> a" d the
she D i c k ! ff uVG Slttlng “ P°ols of [t The things
them t-h UP taWe and Shdf left rims of it behind
Dalm n'l )6re W? *n tbe skillets> and the oil in the open
Slowed ! ! ? ! , ° f k fl° ating ° n the oik Investigation
showed that the whole of the rest of her house was in a similar
hold f, 1 g° ° f y gave a c°mplete catalogue of the house-
T h e . r 1 ltS COnditi° n’ Whkh 1 need ™t give here,
t h ! g lds when the light came were terrified at what
askid and,She Called ln the aristocracy of the village, and
asked them their opmion on the blood palaver. They said
S ° ? 6 n? hing ° f k at first- but' subsequently
formed the opinion that it meant something was going to
happen, and suggested with the kind, helpful cheerfulness!
of relatives and friends, that they should not wonder if it were
a prophecy of her own death. This view irritated the already
tried lady, and she sent them about their business, and started
the slaves on house-cleaning. The blood cleaned up all right
when you were about it, but kept on turning up in other
places and m the one you had just cleaned as soon as you
I ? ° ff. and went elsewhere; and the morning came and
ound things in much the same state until “ before suntime,
say about io o’clock, when it faded away.
d „ rkCaUtf10USly, ^ t0 g6t my Stately’ touchy dowager
duchess to explain how it was that there was such a lot of
blood, and how it was it got into the house. She just said “ it
had to go somewhere,” and refused to give rational explanans
as Chambers s Journal does after telling a good ghost
■f « aftemards that * was quite decided it was a
case of blood come before,” and at Okyon, Miss Slessor told
me, in regard to the similar case there, that this was the
opmion held regarding the phenomenon. It is always
held uncanny Africa if a person dies without shedding
blood. You see the blood is the life, and if you see it com!
out, you know the going of the thing, as it were! I f you do
not, it is mysterious. A t Okyon, a few days after the blood
appeared a. nephew of the person whose house it came into
was killed while felling a tree in the forest; a bough struck
him and broke his neck, without shedding a drop of blood,
and this bore out the theory, for the blood having “ to go somewhere
” came before. In the Bantu case I did not hear of
such a supporting incident happening.
Certain African ideas about blood puzzle me. I was told by
a Batanga friend, a resident white trader, that a short time previously
a man was convicted of theft by the natives of a village
close to him. The hands and feet of the criminal were tied
together, and he was flung into the river. He got himself free,
and swam to the other bank, and went for bush. He was
recaptured, and a stone tied to his neck, and in again he was
thrown. The second time he got free and ashore, and was
recaptured, and the chief then, most regretfully, ordered that
he was to be knocked on the head before being thrown
in for a third time. This time palaver set, but the chief knew
that he would die himself, by spitting the blood he had spilt,
from his own lungs, before the year was out. I inquired
about the chief when I passed this place, more than eighteen
months after, and learnt from a native that the chief was dead,
and that he had died in this way. The objection thus was
not to shedding blood in a general way, but to the shedding
in the course of judicial execution. There may be some idea
of this kind underlying the ingenious and awful ways the
negroes have of killing thieves, by tying them to stakes in the
rivers, or down on to paths for the driver ants to kill and eat,
but this is only conjecture; I have not had a chance yet to
work this subject u p ; and getting reliable information about
underlying ideas is very difficult in Africa. The natives will
say “ Y e s ” to any mortal thing, if they think you want them
t o ; and the variety of their languages is another great
hindrance. Were it not for the prevalence of Kru English
or trade English, investigation would be almost impossible;
but, fortunately, this quaint language is prevalent, and the
natives of different tribes communicate with each other in it,
and so round a fire, in the evening, if you listen to the gossip,
you can pick up all sorts of strange information, and gain
strange and often awful lights on your absent white friends’
characters, and your present companions’ religion. For example,
the other day I had a set of porters composed of four