Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/60

46 One white trader was killed. The road was eventually opened again.

The writer, while living at San Salvador, was visited by some Zombo native traders, and after much persuasion he induced some of the bolder ones to enter his house. One of the first things they did was to carefully look round the walls of the rooms. On being asked what they were looking for, they replied: "We are looking for the shelves where you store the dead bodies until you have an opportunity of sending them for shipment at the coast." Hence their fear to enter, their close scrutiny of the walls for shelves, and their surprise at seeing no dead bodies. The fact of our being missionaries did not allay their suspicions; and the fact that we never traded in ivory or anything else did not disarm their fears. They regarded us with greater dread, as they thought we were so subtle as to hide our real reason for living there, (the buying of dead bodies), under a show of kindness and goodness. It took a weary time to disarm suspicion and gain their confidence.

With regard to rubber, the natives did not know that it was of any value, and consequently they were slow to take it as an article of trade, although there were numerous vines in the forests around San Salvador. They thought it was simply a gum of no commercial value. As soon as they found it was saleable, they tapped the vines, boiled the sap, and carried it, at first secretly, to the trader. The reason for this secrecy was that those who introduced any new article of trade, etc., had to pay for their cleverness by becoming the objects of a suspicion that often ended in a charge of witchcraft and death. There is a legend that the man who first discovered palm wine was killed as a witch. There is a district of which the writer knows where a certain article (not rubber) was found to have a commercial value. Through superstitious fear a prohibition was put on its sale by the chiefs and majority of the people. Through teaching they have become enlightened,