Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/383

 GABOON

329

GABOON

and immorality and alcohiol have almost wiped them out. Not more than a few hundred of them remain, many of whom go as traders far into the interior. The point of the Gaboon peninsula is occupied by the Bengas; the creeks or inlets of the Manda and the Muni by the Baseki, usually known as the Boulous (Bulu); both tribes live by fishing and are dying out from alcoholism. Their languages differ from each other and equally from that of the Mpongwe. How- ever the three tribes settled towards the South in the delta of the Ogowai, the Orongous (Orongu), the Galoas, and the Nkomis use a slightly modified form of Mpongwe, follow the same customs, have the same vices as the Mpongwe of the estuary, and engage in the rubber trade as well as in fishing. The second group is made up of one single tribe, the Fans or Pahouins (Pawin) who inhabit aU the northern portion of Gaboon as far as the I\nndo, and in places are to be foimd along the left bank of the Ogowai. Tliej^ are true barbarians and are an invading race, whose progress towards the coast goes on unceasingly. They do not deserve all that former travellers have said as to their ferocity, but they are yery fierce- looking, muscular, warlike, and above all vindictive. They are not. however, slave-dealers, nor do they, properly speaking, own slaves; their ■n-ives are really their slaves, and polygamy is more in vogue and more bestial among them than elsewhere. Nevertheless they are not victims to the grosser forms of immoral- ity, in the same measure as other tribes are, but along the great rivers and at the coast alcoholism works terrible havoc among them. Those of them who dwell in the interior still practise cannibalism on their prisoners of war.

A third group of peoples is to be foimd in the south- ern part of the country ; in this territory live tribes still given over to slavery. Thus, for instance, the Es- teiras and the Balkalai, who act as middlemen in trading with the tribes dwelling in the mountains, tlie Bayakas, Bapunus, Ndjavis, Ishogos, Mbetes, Shakes, Adumas, who in e.xchange for articles of commerce sell their children as slaves. These slaves are brought secretly to the coast, but are no longer shipped to the Antilles or Brazil, instead they are bought by the Mpongwe and Nkomis who are thus enabled to lead lives of idleness. All these groups of tribes practise fetiehism. They believe in a God who made the world, in an immortal soul and in retribution for evil; they worship spirits and ghosts, and are under the sway of sorcerers and secret societies, to which even the author- ity of their chiefs must yield.

The early evangelization of the country by Capu- chins from Italy left no permanent traces. About 1840 an American prelate, Monsignor Barron, was the first to answer the appeal made for a priest of the Catholics among the freed negroes that the United States Government had shipped back to the coast of Africa. Monsignor Barron gave up an important post which he held under the Archbishop of Phila- delphia and made two voyages to the Guinea Coast between 1840 and 184.3. The Venerable Pere Liber- mann had just at this date founded at Amiens his new congregation of the Sacred Heart of Mary, which later was united with that of the Holy Ghost; he furnished the first missionaries to Monsignor Barron. In the first year si.x out of seven of the missionaries died as much of starvation as of sickness; the seventh, after increditable adventures, succeeded in reaching Cape Palm on the Gaboon. This was Pere Bessieux and the date, 29 September, 1884. The French navy had set up a small fort there intended as a lookout for vessels engaged in the slave trade, and consequently Pere Bessieux was able to erect the first station at this spot. The following year brought him many helpers, and among them Pere Le Berre. In 1848 a slave dhow was captured by the French and forty-nine slaves were located near the mission station on a little

plateau which was thereupon called Libreville (Free- town). Pere Le Berre was given the official title of " Professor of Morals" and began instructing them. The ne.xt year the first nuns arrived, the French Sis- ters of the Immaculate Conception. In 1849 Pere Bessieu.x was recalled to Europe, consecrated bishop, and sent back to Gaboon as Vicar Apostolic of the Two Guineas, with jurisdiction over a coast line 2000 leagues long, where to-day there are twenty-five ecclesiastical divisions.

About this time the Libreville mission made many attempts to set up stations elsewhere; only one was a success, that among the Bengas of Cape Esteiras, and it was called St. Joseph's Mission. To-day nearly all of this small tribe are Catholics. While the Libre- ville mission was in process of organization, building a suitable church, enlarging its schools, and clearing its grounds, the little government station about a mile away was gradually becommg a small town. In ISGO it became necessary to erect a parish there, and thus was foimded the mission of Saint-Pierre, having for special object the conversion of the Mpongwe. The work of the sisters was transferred to this place as well as the school for girls and a native hospital; later the colony built a church and at present the parish con- tains about 3000 faithful. Monsignor Bessieux died in 1876 after having spent 33 years in Africa; he was succeeded by his early companion, Monsignor Le Berre. Under the new bishop new stations were rapidly founded, and the Congregation of the Holy Ghost continued to supply the necessary missionaries. In 1879 a mission to the Pahouins of the Como was attempted for the first time, and the Station of Saint- Paul (le Dongliila was opened; after great hardships it is now a flourishing mission counting more than 1000 Catholics. Soon afterwards the missionaries began to move inwards from the coast and the estuary and in 1881 the mission of Saint- Fran^ois-Xavier was founded at Lambarene on the Ogowai; in 1883 that of Saint-Pierre-Claver among the Adumas, which was afterwards moved to Franceville near the source of that river. In 1886 at Fernando Vaz in the Nkomi country the mission of Sainte-Anne was organized. These three places are now great mission centres and are thoroughly equipped. It would be only fitting to add to this list Monsignor Le Berre 's new stations in the Kamerun and in Spanish Guinea; but they now form part of new ecclesiastical divisions. In 1891, after 45 years of missionan,' life, the holy bishop died. His works had increased tenfold and his memory is blessed. He was succeeded by Monsignor Le Roy. During the three years which the new bishop spent at Gaboon three new stations were created. One arose on the banks of the Rio Muni, first at Kogo, then at Butika, at the present frontier of Spanish Guinea, among the Fans of the north. Another was estab- lished below the first rapids of the Ogowai, also in the Fan countrj-. This station was Saint-Michel of Ndjole. The third station, Sainte-Croix, is surrounded by the Esteira peoples of the south-west. At the same time a fresh impulse was given to the evangeliz- ing movement, for this was the period of the principal labour on the languages, of translations, of relations, of very useful journeys of exploration, of ordinances favouring the work of the catechists, of agreements with the tribes concerning the reform of their family customs, etc.

The active direction of Monsignor Le Roy ceased in 1896 when he was elected Superior General of the Fathers of the Holy Ghost. He was replaced at Gaboon by Monsignor Adam, the present bishop, who has established three new stations: Notre-Dame-des- Trois-Epis, at Samba on the Ngume, a tributary of the left bank of the Ogowai, and Saint-Martin, a little further up the same river, both of them in the midst of the mixed populations of the south. The third post, of quite recent foundation, is Okano near