girls went home with their vessels of water, with a nice piece
of palm leaf put on the top of the water to prevent it
splashing as they went up the hill side of the bluff on which
the town stands. “ Where is your brother ? ” said the mother,
and they said they did not know; they thought he was
playing with the other children. As the dusk came down
and he did not return, the mother went down to the riverside
and found all the other children had gone home. She made
inquiries but no one knew of him save that he had been
playing on the beach. A thorough search was started, but
it was five long days before the boy was found, and then
his body, decorated with palm leaves, suddenly appeared
lying on the beach. It was slit all over longitudinally with
long cuts on the face, head, legs, and arms. The crime could
not be traced by means convincing to white man’s law, but
had the witch doctors had the affair in their hands a near
relative of the dead boy would have been killed. Those
natives who did not share the opinion of this man’s guilt
said it was the people in the water who had done the thing.
These people in the water are much thought of in Cameroon.
They are just the same as people on land, only they live in
water.”
Doctor Nassau seems to think that the tribal society of
the Corisco regions is identical with the leopard societies.
He has had considerable experience of the workings of
the Ukuku, particularly when he was pioneering in the
Benito regions, when it came very near killing him. I will
not quote the grand account he gave me of his adventures
with it, because I should wish every one to read for themselves
the biography he wrote of his first wife, Crowned in Palm
Land, for they will find there a series of graphic descriptions of
what life really is in the Corisco region, and certainly one of
the most powerful and tragic bits of writing in any literature_
the description of his wife’s death in an open boat out at sea,
when he was trying to take her to Gaboon for medical aid.
In reference to Ukuku, he says the name signifies a departed
spirit. It is a secret society into which all the males are
initiated at puberty, whose procedure may not be seen by
females, nor its laws disobeyed by any one under pain of death,
a penalty which is sometimes commuted to a fine, a heavy
fine. Its discussions are uttered as an oracle from any secluded
spot by some man appointed for the purpose. nprsonate
“ On trivial occasions any initiated man m y p
Ukuku or issue commands for the family. On other occasions
as in Shiku, to raise prices, the society lays its commands on
f0l l gl trcadsee s ’of Ukuku proceedings against white Haders
have come under my own observation. A friend of m ,
trader in the Batanga district, in some way
animosity of the society’s local branc . h
in the South-West Coast trade, several sub-factones in t
bush. He found himself under taboo ; no native^ came in^o
his yard to buy or sell at the store, not even to sell food. He
took no notice and awaited developments. 0ne eve^ J ®
he was sitting on his verandah, smoking and ^
thought he heard some one singing softly under the hou
this like most European buildings hereabouts being
elevated just above the earth. He was attracted to the song
and listened : it was evidently one of the natives singing,
Tot one of his own Kruboys, and so,
and having nothing else particular to do, he attended
o f T q i y .
It was the same thing sung softly over and - e r ^ s o
softly that he could hardly make out the words B u M jB l i
catching his native name among them, he is ene
intently than ever, down at a knot-hole m the wooden
floor ‘ The song w a s - “ They are going to attack your factory
at to-morrow. They are going to attack your factory
at ' ' to-morrow,” over and over again, until it ceased g and
then he thought he saw something darker than the darkness
round it creep across the yard and disappear m the bush
Very early in the morning he, with his Kruboys and som
guns went and established themselves in that threatened
factory in force. The Ukuku Society turned up m the evening,
and reconnoitred the situation, and finding there was more m
it than they had expected, withdrew.
t ¡ ¡S ~nlirqp f-Uo npvf 1-wentv-four hours he succeeded in