There is nothing that can be said to take the place of a religion throughout the whole region of the Congo. There is no idolatry, no system of worship; nothing but a vague superstition, a groping in the dark, the deepest, saddest ignorance, without a hope of light. The people have the name of God, but know nothing further about Him. The idea is not, however, of an evil being, or they would wish to propitiate him. A mild and gentle chief gets little respect or honour. A man who is hard and stern, reckless of life, is feared and respected. Hence, as they fear no evil from God, they do not trouble themselves about Him in any way—never even invoke Him. Perhaps it may be because they regard Him as beyond their reach and ken, or careless of them.

Nzambi, or some slightly modified form, such as Nyambi or Anyambie, is the name by which God is known over the explored regions of the western portion, while the Bayansi of the upper river use also Molongo, which is the same as Mulungu and Muungu of the east coast. Of the derivation of Nzambi we cannot speak definitely or even approximately. Suffice it to say that the word has a sense of greatness, and conveys a definite idea of a Supreme Being. It cannot be connected with a vague notion of sky, having nothing common with the word Ezulu (heaven).

There is a decided idea of personality, and the Congos generally speak of Nzambi-ampungu, the Most High (Supreme) God. The name of God is all that they know, and certainly they have no notion of any means of communication between God and man. They regard Him as the Creator, and as the sender of rain, but would never under any circumstances think of their voice being heard in heaven. So, having no helper, they betake themselves to charms to avert evil and for general protection.

The knowledge of the name of God gives us a good basis to work upon. We can tell them that we bring them a message from Nzambi Himself, not a story of a white man’s God, but their God and ours, and at once we get a ready and deeply interested hearing.

‘Have we seen Nzambi? Does He live in the white man’s land under the sea? How did we hear this news?’ Such are the questions they are ever ready to ask.

On one occasion, at Stanley Pool, a lad from the far upper river sold by Zombo traders to the Bayansi, asked me, ‘But, Mundele, all joking apart, what do you really come here for if you do not want to trade? Tell me truly.’ I told him that we had been commissioned with the message of good news from Nzambi, and that was our real and sole business. ‘What! Nzambi, who lives in the heavens? (Nzambi kun’Ezulu).’ As he said this he pointed up into the sky. Poor boy! I wondered how he knew that there was a God, and that he so instinctively pointed up to the blue sky. I saw him once or twice after that. He soon returned to his distant home, but could tell his people that he had seen white men, who were coming soon to bring them a good message from Nzambi.

They have a very decided idea of a future state, but as to what and where the opinion is much divided. Indeed, there is not the remotest notion that death can be a cessation of being. If any one dies they think that some one, living or dead, has established a connection with the unseen world, and somehow, and for some purpose, has ‘witched away’ the deceased. When a man is sick he first resorts to bleeding and simple remedies. If no relief is obtained, a native doctor is called. The man’s friends and relatives help him to pay the fee, if large. Having agreed as to the fee, the doctor may fetch aromatic or bitter leaves from the woods, and make a decoction of them, wring them in water, or in some way extract their properties. Perhaps he may add a small scraping of a snake’s head, of a few nuts or seeds, or of some mysterious articles in his bundle of charms. There is an endless variety of procedure.

Mr. Comber was recently watching a ‘doctoring’ at Ngombe. A chief, Lutete, was sick, and the people were very anxious about him. The doctor called for a fowl, a string was tied to its leg, and the other end to Lutete’s arm. After some mysterious actions, and placing some white marks with pipeclay upon the body of the sufferer, he proceeded to push the complaint from the extremities into the body, from the body into the arm, and finally succeeded in drawing the disease down the arm, through the string, and into the unfortunate fowl, which doubtless was little the worse for its vicarious position, until the doctor had it killed for his evening meal.

There is far more knavery than skill in all their doctoring. If the disease does not yield to such treatment, other doctors are called in; and as matters become more serious, it is evidently not a simple case of sickness, for it will not yield to skilful physicians; it must be a case of witchcraft. The sufferer now becomes terribly anxious, and Nganga-a-moko (the charms doctor) is called in. His duty is to tell what and why the patient ails. He may say that it is a simple sickness, and prescribe accordingly. Or if he deems it really serious, he declares it to be a case of witchcraft. He professes to be able to ascertain who is ‘witching’ the sufferer; but as it is not his business to mention names, he does not do so, neither do people inquire. Having made thorough diagnosis, he shouts to the witch, who is spoken of as Nximbi (x = sh), to let his patient alone, to let him live. ‘Does he not know that this wicked course will bring its deserts? If he persists in destroying his victim the witch doctor will surely find him out.’ Then all the people join in calling upon the unknown Nximbi to relinquish his victim. The agony of mind of the sufferer, and of those dear to him, can be imagined.

If in spite of all the man dies, in grief and rage the family call for the witch doctor, Nganga-a-ngombo. Space prevents a detailed description of his methods of procedure. He is a cunning rogue, and has his agent, who ascertains whether any one is in special disfavour, or whom it will be safe to declare a witch. He may decide haphazard, or he may ascertain that the deceased man dreamed of some one. He consults Nganga-a-moko. At early dawn the sound of his ding-winti drum startles the town. Who knows whether he may not be accused of the crime?

After working people into the wildest frenzy by a protracted series of dances and mystery, the doctor at last selects one or two of those present, and declares him or them to be guilty of the devilish crime. The excitement culminates; the victim declares his innocence and ignorance; but the rascally doctor tells a long story of the way in which the crime was accomplished, till all feel the guilt fully established, and would like to tear the witch to pieces on the spot.

However, there is a regular course of things, and a market-day is appointed when the ordeal poison shall be taken. On the day decided, all the people of the district assemble in vast crowds, as they used to do in this country before executions were performed in private.

The poor victim believes his innocence will be established, and fearfully, but still generally willingly, he drinks the poisonous draught. His stomach may reject the noxious compound. If he vomits, the man is declared innocent, and the witch-doctor loses his fee—indeed, in some parts is heavily fined for a false charge. More often, if he has not avoided the risk by referring the death to some charm, or to some person recently dead, he does his work too surely. His victim staggers and falls. With a wild yell the bystanders rush at him and beat him to death; shoot him, burn or bury him alive, throw him over a precipice, or in some way finish the terrible work, with a savage ferocity equal to their deep sense of the enormity of the crime with which he is charged.

One could gather hundreds of terrible stories of the like kind with much variety of detail; but the same principle runs through all. We heard of a case where, on the Nganga making his declaration, the witch-man went into his house close by, fetched his gun, and shot the witch-doctor dead on the spot. He had to pay twenty slaves to the friends of the Nganga; but no one ventured further to trouble that witch.

Sometimes, and in some places, the witch-doctor is called in in case of sickness only, and witches are killed to stay the sickness; and again at the death of the person, sometimes even in the case of a baby. A serious accident—as drowning, a fall from a palm-tree, or the death of a chief—is considered the work of several witches; one alone could not accomplish such a thing. Six men of the Vivi towns were drowned through the upsetting of a canoe in the rapids, and three witches were found for each man; eighteen victims had to suffer for the death of those six men—twenty-four deaths in all.

Even when the victim vomits, and should be free, they sometimes find an excuse to finish the work.

‘But why,’ you ask, ‘did you kill Mpanzu? What did he do to the man who died? Did any one see him do it?’

‘Oh, Mundele! why do you ask such questions? Did not Nganga-a-ngombo ascertain by his witch-charms? Did he not tell us how he did it? And when he took the ordeal and swooned, was not his guilt proved? Why, we should all say that any one who dared to question such a decision must be himself a witch!’

‘But what does a witch do—how does he do it?’

‘How do I know? I am not a witch. Why, if we did not kill our witches we should all die in no time! What would check them?’

You cannot get much further than this with young people or common folk, all except the dictum of the Nganga ex cathedrÂ. Indeed, many of them have been accused, and have been fortunate enough to reject the poison. Those who may escape by vomiting the draught are generally confirmed in the truthfulness of the ordeal that established their innocence.

However, I have never discussed the matter privately with an intelligent native who did not acknowledge the wickedness and deplore the custom. The fear of being dubbed a witch compels generosity, and here lies the strength of the custom.

Nga Mbelenge, one of the chiefs of the district of Leopoldville, Stanley Pool, has told me how it fared with him.

‘I had a town of my own when quite young. You know how the Bayansi sell to the Bakongo, and we act as middlemen, and interpret for them. I pushed business, and many traders came to me because they had so much trouble with the other old chiefs about here. I soon became very rich, married several wives, bought many slaves out of my profits, and my town grew large.

‘The other old chiefs, instead of pushing their trade, grumbled that I got so much. They would say, “Look at young Nga Mbelenge; how rapidly he is growing rich! It seems only yesterday he was a boy, and now to-day look at his town, see how rich he is! No doubt he is selling souls also.” Without any warning or trial, they came down on me suddenly, accused me of witchcraft, and in my own town compelled me to drink the ordeal poison. I vomited, and thus my innocence was established.’ He acknowledged that the whole custom is very wicked. ‘But what am I to do? If I say that I will have no more of it in my town, my people will say that I am myself a witch, and therefore I do not wish further execution for witchcraft. If I try to stop it, I bring it upon myself.’

As a sequel to this, I learned that a fortnight after, another man was killed in his town as a witch.

The question is naturally asked, What is this crime of witchcraft? Those people who do any trading imagine that a witch is able by means of some fell sorcery to possess himself of the spirit of his victim. He can then put the spirit into a tusk of ivory, or among his merchandise, and convey it to the coast, where the white men will buy it. In due course, if not at the time, the ‘witched’ man dies. Then the white man can make him work for him in his country under the sea. They believe that very many of the coast labourers are men thus obtained, and often when they go to trade look anxiously about for dead relatives. Sometimes when we are travelling they look on with wonder and disgust as we open our tinned provisions, ‘calculating’ that that at least must be one of the uses to which we put their dead relatives.

The notion of the land under the sea has its origin in their faculty of observation. They see ships coming in from sea appear, first the mast, then the hull; and thus at a decent distance out, so as not to reveal the trick, we white men emerge from the ocean. Travellers love to enlarge upon the wonders they have seen, and so the story grows, and the people have been brought up in the belief that away under the sea their relatives make cloth, etc., for us white folk.

This is, however, a new idea, comparatively. The old notion still prevails in many parts, that away in some dark forest land departed spirits dwell. The witches, they think, have some interest in sending away their fellows to the spirit land. Perhaps they get pay from the spirits, no one knows or questions why. Who can know a witch’s business but a witch?

Even if a man dies in war, or is taken by a wild beast or crocodile, it is witchcraft. To such an extent is this believed, that people will bathe in streams where crocodiles abound. So long as there are plenty of people together, the cowardly reptiles are not likely to attack. In this way the idea has come about that real crocodiles will not eat men; but if such a thing occurs it is proof positive that either a witch has transformed himself into a crocodile to obtain his victim, or induced the reptile to do it for him. If you ask how, ‘I do not know; I am not a witch.’ At Lukunga, Mr. Ingham, of the Livingstone Mission, shot a huge crocodile which came out at night after his pigs. In the stomach of the reptile were the anklets of a woman, which were at once recognised by the townsfolk. Yet they told me that the crocodile cannot have eaten the woman.

‘But how about those anklets?’

‘Very likely crocodiles have a fancy for such things. You see what a lot of stones he had in his stomach. Perhaps he took off those anklets when he had done as he was told to do.’

This was no ghastly joke. I discussed the matter further, and asked a more intelligent companion whether he could really believe as he asserted. He replied that the man was not joking.

A lad, who was for some time a scholar at our school at Underhill Station, died in his own town a month or two after leaving us. The people said that our Mr. Hughes had stolen the boy’s soul, and sent it away to the white man’s land to be converted into Krooboys to work for us. The Ngombe people told us that once on the market near their town, some travellers halted to buy palm wine, and all the people heard a hoarse voice proceed from a tusk of ivory, ‘Give me a drink of wine, I am fearfully thirsty.’ Some wine was poured into the tusk, there was a sound of drinking, and after rest the travellers passed on. Everyone believed the story, but I could never see any one who was present. It was of course a spirit in transit to the coast.

Witch doctors are up to all manner of tricks in their wicked business. Sometimes they declare that a dead man is the witch, and will dig in the grave, and as they get near the corpse suddenly tell the people to get out of the way. The doctor is going to shoot the witch, then throwing down a little blood which he has secreted, he fires a gun and points triumphantly to the blood of the escaped witch.

One of our boys told us how he had helped to unmask one of these tricks. His mother was ill, and the doctor said that there was a witch in the ground under the head of the bed on which she slept. The people all went out of the house; but the boy, who was anxious to witness the destruction of the witch, begged to remain, and while the doctor was busy digging, he found a bundle under the bed, and took it out. It was the doctor’s charms, and among them he found the gizzard of a fowl full of blood. He took it to the chief, who examined it, and the doctor, discovering his loss, emerged to say that the witch had been too sharp for him; he was obliged to run away, the people were so angry with him for trying thus to deceive them. It might seem too much to believe that, once discovered, he would venture the same trick again; yet some time after he was sent to inquire as to the death of a man in the town, and declared that there were two witches, one he pointed out, the other was a dead man. He proceeded to dig up the dead witch, and the chief, remembering at once the old dodge of this very man, sent some one to fetch his bundle, which he was more carefully watching. There was another gizzard ready. This was too much for them. They seized the wretched man, and, breaking his arms and legs, threw him over the precipice, the fate intended for his victim.

There is a story which explains the cruelty of breaking the arms and legs. A man had been accused of witchcraft, and thrown down into the great chasm, a distance of over one hundred feet. He fell into some soft mud at the bottom, and was able the next day to return to the town. The people broke his arms and legs, to make sure of him, and threw him down again; and such is the rule now.

Witch stories without end there are, but they still leave unsolved the question, What is a witch? Some say a man who knows how to weave the spell; others that an evil spirit takes up its abode in a man to accomplish this; in either case, it is held to be an imperative duty to kill the men. The spirit world is either under the sea or in a dark forest land; but how the spirits live, and what they do, is not known, since no one has ever returned to tell the story. But ghouls and evil spirits are said to lurk about in the neighbourhood of graves and uncanny places.

There is a natural fear of death—the spirit world is an unknown land—but there is no apprehension of meeting Nzambi, nor is there a burden of sin.

There is a sense of right and wrong. To steal, to lie, or to commit other crimes is considered wrong, but only a wrong to those who suffer thereby—there is no thought of God in it.