Mrs. Sutherland turned to Mary and sighed. “It’s the same old problem. So many of the men make their living selling rum to their fellow tribesmen, who then drink it and lie around for a day or so before they have to go and buy more. In the end, the money runs out, and they have to steal or loot from others to get more.”
“What did you say to them?” Mary asked curiously.
“I told them God wants them to live good lives and look after their families, but they always reply with the same answer,” Mrs. Sutherland said dejectedly.
“What?” asked Mary.
“They always say that white men bring them the rum and then white men tell them not to drink it. They say if rum is not a good thing, why would the same ships that bring the missionaries also bring the rum? It doesn’t make any sense to them, and why should it? They think all white men are Christians, and then they see greedy traders selling them as much alcohol as possible. It’s a difficult problem.”
Mary could see that it was.
As the women continued down the path to Duke Town, mud huts came into view. Some of them were grouped together with fenced-off yards. At the first house the women stopped at they heard wailing. Mrs. Sutherland opened the gate in the fence and stepped into the bare yard. Mary followed. What she saw horrified her. Four people were lying around; they were filthy and thin. The yard stank, and Mary could see why. In the corner a group of huge flies buzzed in circles around a pile of human waste. The people were using the yard as a toilet!
Again Mrs. Sutherland spoke in Efik, her voice soft and gentle. When she had finished, she beckoned Mary to follow her inside the thatched hut. Mary ducked her head and entered. Inside, a ragged muslin curtain fluttered in the breeze. On the ground was spread a rectangle of cloth that was covering some kind of mound. Around the cloth was a variety of fruits and vegetables.
Mrs. Sutherland pointed to the cloth. “This family is in mourning,” she explained. “They lost a little boy last week. This is his grave.”
Mary shuddered. She couldn’t imagine having a person’s grave right beneath the living room floor.
“The Efik mourn by starving themselves and their families while they leave large amounts of food in the house for the dead person’s spirit to eat,” Mrs. Sutherland informed her.
Mary looked at the food. She supposed it would be rotten in a couple of days.
“The father is very angry,” Mrs. Sutherland went on. “The Efik believe everyone is meant to die of old age, and if a person dies young, it is because someone else has put a curse on him. The father thinks he knows who ‘killed’ his son, and as soon as the mourning is over, he’s going to kill the person. I was trying to tell him that sometimes young people die and it isn’t anyone’s fault. But he won’t believe me. Their belief that evil spirits control everything that happens to humans is very strong.”
Mary began to see that being a missionary here was not going to be so easy after all.
The two women reemerged into the bright sunlight. Mrs. Sutherland said a few words in Efik, and then she and Mary left the yard. Mary took some deep breaths of fresh air once she thought she was far enough away from the hut.
“Well,” said Mrs. Sutherland, “why don’t I show you something a little more cheerful? How would you like to meet a bride?”
“It sounds interesting,” replied Mary, “as long as she’s not surrounded by dead bones!”
The women walked past several more huts until they reached a hut surrounded by a high wall.
“This is the fattening hut,” said Mrs. Sutherland. “The people of Calabar have an unusual tradition; they fatten up their brides before they get married.”
Mrs. Sutherland yelled a few words through the stick fence, and a gate opened from the inside. She smiled and motioned for Mary to step through.
Inside, Mary saw two enormous African women. She imagined they must weigh at least two hundred fifty pounds each. The women sat on low stools that were partially engulfed in the folds of their flesh. Between the two women sat a huge platter of fried fruit. Several older women came out of the hut and greeted the missionaries. Once again, Mrs. Sutherland spoke in Efik. This time, though, she took out her Bible and read several verses to one of the fattening brides.
Mary could scarcely take her eyes off the two brides-to-be. She found it hard to believe they were deliberately making themselves fat. Mrs. Sutherland explained to her that in Calabar, a fat bride meant that her father had enough wealth to supply his daughter with endless amounts of food and that he had so many slaves she didn’t have to do any work. The brides were to stay secluded in the fattening hut for up to a year, with only the old women to keep them company.
It made some sort of sense to Mary, though she could hardly believe that any man would find a woman that enormous attractive. Mrs. Sutherland assured her that the brides would not stay that fat. Once they were married, their husbands would not feed them so well.
By the time Mary left the fattening hut, her mind was spinning. Seeing the African people in church or school was one thing. It was quite another to see them in their own huts, following their own customs and way of life.
The two missionaries decided to make one more stop before heading back to the mission house. For Mary, this third visit was the most disturbing of all. The women were met at the gate by an old man who was chewing and spitting some sort of white fiber. Mrs. Sutherland spoke a few words to the man, who disappeared inside.
“It’s ironic,” Mrs. Sutherland said as she and Mary waited by the gate, “but slave women are free to move around Duke Town and talk to whomever they wish, but married women and widows have to ask their husband or their guardian if they can talk to anyone, and they are virtually never allowed out of their yards.”
Mary sighed and looked around. The yard was a square about twenty feet by twenty feet. A small shrine was at the far end, with some yams on a low table and a dead chicken dangling upside down from a hook. It was the same thing Mary had seen in each of the other yards—an altar to placate the demons who tormented the house and the people living in it.
Finally the man, who Mary supposed was a guard, returned and motioned for the two missionaries to go inside the hut.
The hut was almost pitch black inside, and it took a moment for Mary’s eyes to adjust. As they did, Mary began to make out the shape of a tiny, wizened old woman at the far end of the room. The woman smiled a toothless smile and beckoned the missionaries to come closer. Mary shuddered. The old woman reminded her of a witch in one of her childhood fairy stories. She was surrounded by human skulls and all sorts of tiny pouches and bones. Mary guessed it all had something to do with demons, but she wasn’t sure what.
For once Mary was glad she did not speak Efik, because it meant she would not have to say anything to this strange old woman. Mrs. Sutherland talked to the woman for a while. The old woman spat on the floor as she listened.
Mary began to look around the room. In the far corner lay a large pile of rags, or so Mary thought, until the top layer began to move. Mary walked over to see what was there. Suddenly, a young woman sat up, and then two others. They were all very thin and looked half drugged. Mary smiled as best she could and said hello. The three young women made no attempt to answer her. Even when Mrs. Sutherland came over, they would not talk to her.
Ten minutes later, the visit was over, and Mary was glad to be out in the open again. Something about the hut had made it feel more oppressive than the others they’d visited.
“What was that all about?” Mary asked as she and Mrs. Sutherland began the walk back up the hill to the mission house.
“Those women are the widows of one of the richest men in town. The old one I was talking to was the senior widow, and since her husband died, she has been putting evil spells on the younger wives,” Mrs. Sutherland replied.
“And starving them to death, it looks like,” Mary added.
“I wouldn’t be one bit surprised,” agreed Mrs. Sutherland. “The senior wife has all the power over the younger ones. Often they stay in mourning for years, and many of them do die. There’s not much we can do about it, I’m afraid. Only thirty years ago, they would all have been killed along with their husband and buried in his grave so they could keep him company in the afterlife.”
The women walked on in silence for a while, Mary trying to take in everything she had seen that afternoon. The family in mourning, the brides in the fattening hut, the old widow holding the younger ones captive. “But don’t most of these people go to church?” she finally asked, struggling to make sense of it all.
Mrs. Sutherland stopped and turned to face Mary. “Yes, it’s true they do. We have over a thousand people coming to church, but in all the years the mission has been open, we’ve had only 174 natives actually say they wanted to become Christians.”
“Why so few?” asked Mary.
“Well,” continued Mrs. Sutherland thoughtfully, “most of the men have more than one wife—some have twenty or thirty—and they don’t want to give them all up as the church would require them to do. And…,” she paused to swat a mosquito that had landed on the back of her hand, “they want enough white man’s religion to educate their children and make them look respectable, but deep down, most of them are still afraid of evil spirits.”
Mary thought about Mrs. Sutherland’s words. It had been thirty years since the mission in Calabar had opened, and in that time, about twenty missionaries, including Mrs. Sutherland’s husband, had died there and been buried in the little cemetery. Another twenty missionaries had gone home to Scotland with their health and, in many cases, their spirits broken. And all for fewer than two hundred converts! As she climbed the hill to the mission house, Mary was beginning to understand the enormity of the task ahead of her. Africa was every bit as foreign as she had imagined it would be. Mary wondered how she’d ever be able to get the gospel message across to these people.
Chapter 7
The Steady Plod
Splash. Splash. Mary shut her eyes and listened to the rhythmic movement of the paddles as they hit the water. It was almost too good to be true. She had been at the mission compound in Duke Town for three months now, and at last she was free. She was on her way upriver to visit Creek Town. Best of all, she was away from the confines of mission compound life, with its endless afternoon teas with government officials and formal dinners with the captains and officers of the trading ships anchored in the river. It was all too restrictive for Mary, who loved to be out with the local people learning their language, which she was picking up surprisingly fast. Mary didn’t like dressing up in her maroon skirt and white blouse with the prickly collar and discussing the weather or the latest gossip from England. Such activity seemed pointless when there was missionary work to be done!
It had taken Mary several weeks to convince the Reverend Ross that she should be allowed to take a trip upriver. In the past, women missionaries had never been allowed to venture inland alone, but Mary was persistent, and in the end her persistence won out.
Now, away from Duke Town, everything around Mary felt fresh and wonderful. Even the crocodiles that glided menacingly around the canoe did not worry Mary. Of course, it helped to know that the boys paddling the canoe knew how to handle themselves around crocodiles. Mrs. Sutherland had also instructed Mary on how to avoid leopards and recognize deadly snakes!
The group arrived upriver in Creek Town in time for church on Sunday. Mary was eager to attend and meet the legendary King Eyo Honesty VII. The king had been one of the Reverend Hope Waddell’s earliest converts, and Mary had read about him often in the Missionary Record.
King Eyo welcomed Mary and the boys and gave them seats of honor at the church service. The king looked very handsome in his silk waistcoat and gray pinstriped trousers, though he was not wearing a shirt or shoes. Mary envied him. Given the oppressive heat, she wished she could take off a few layers of clothing, but doing so would not have been proper for a Victorian woman.
