ENDING A PRACTICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 15, 12 October 1927, Page 16

ENDING A PRACTICE

MUTILATION OF NATIVES MISSIONARY STORY A description of how the practice of mutilation, wide-spread in Central Africa 30 years ago, suffered its first modification in the country south of Lake Tanganyika, was given to the Rotary Club yesterday bv the Rev. A. Johnson, Moderator of the Union of Congregational Churches, and pioneer missionary in that territory. After describing how two men from his village had been mutilated, one losing his nose for accepting a pinch of snuff from a chieftain’s wife, the other having his eyes gouged out for fleeing from a chieftain’s retinuo after receiving appointment as official musician, Mr. Johnson I old bow be had heard that a boy was to have, his thumb cut off at one eud of his village. In the street he had found a crowd surrounding the boy and a tall fellow with an axe, who was about to chop off the lad’s thumb. Making inquiries, he had been told that the boy was to be punished for smashing the thumb of a girl. It appeared that the boy had taken some sheep away and sold them, purchasing a gun. This consisted of an old piece of piping stuck into a wooden stock, with a very tricky hammer. On arrival back at the village the first person to whom he had bean able to display liis newlv acquired gun was the girl,’and while They were handling it the hammer had fallen, the full charge of powder had exploded and the girl’s thumb had been smashed. So, according tq the custom of the country, they werq about to punish the bov. Facing tha jyitives, the missionary had made an ftyfeal to them and had been s h nl , c k zrf an idea. Finding the parents of t-rfi) girl ho had asked them what she was worth. Every girl in Africa was real property and had a price. The answer had boon "Forty yards of calico." This was a high price—he had employed men on labouring work and had never paid them more than two yards of calico a day, which was a goocl/union rate, and the girl was being set down as worth five months’ earnings. lie had then offered the parents 20 yards of calico for tho thumb, they had taken it, and the boy had been glad to come with him and work out tho advanqo made on his behalf by the missionary. From that day a new principle had begun to be understood among the natives—the principle of complication. Tho injured party had come to see that it was better to be paid than to have revenge and the other would do anything rather than suffer mutilation, so both sides had been pleased. It was due to the work of the white men that this had Happened and that tho other practice of slaughter at funerals had been ended, due .to good government officials and missionaries, whose work ran along parallel lines. If ever they had doubts about the usefulness of the work in these regions, this should bo remembered. It was well worth while on humanitarian grounds, for King George bad over 40 millions of African subjects.