Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/59

Rh otherwise native traders would make wide detours to avoid exorbitant chiefs.

In the old days some trade was done in ivory, but not much, as it was thought that the person who sold ivory sold in the hollow part of the tusk the spirit of the people of his town. If a man took a tusk to the coast, and while he was away a person died in his town, the trader on his return would be accused of witchcraft, and have to drink the ordeal. A powerful and cruel chief would sell ivory in spite of this superstition, but even he would not be able to sell large quantities for fear of public opinion, and the above consequences of ordeal drinking.

During the rainy season of 1883 and 1884 not much rain fell on the towns and farms behind Ennoki and Ango-ango (about 100 miles up the Congo on the south bank), and the folk of that district said that those carrying ivory to the white traders at the above places were carrying in the cavities of the tusks the bodies of dead people to sell to the traders, and the said dead bodies destroyed their luck, and consequently they had no rains. (Their idea was that white traders bought the dead bodies of natives, and sent them to Europe, where, by some means, they were resuscitated, and became our slaves.) They stopped all trade between the hinterland and the above trading factories. The writer was on the road between San Salvador and Ennoki, travelling towards the latter place, when his carriers heard that the Ennoki people had caught a carrier taking ivory to a trading house for sale. They took the ivory away, and cut the man's mouth literally from ear to ear. The writer's carriers were so alarmed at this that he had to make a wide detour and pass through Mpalapala to reach his station at Underhill. This shutting of the road continued so long and injured trade so much that the traders at Ennoki and Ango-ango joined forces, marched on the towns, and burnt them out.