Yet all these spirits were each a part of Nzambi Ampungu, which is the same as saying God Almighty, the supreme power. They do not worship Nzambi Ampungu directly, saying, he is too remote from human affairs, he is invisible and inaccessible, and cannot be rendered in the form of an idol to be worshipped. So they give their devotion in their hearts to Nzambi Ampungu, but say their special prayers and make their offerings to Ntadi or Nkondi or Mavena and such. Meseems that this is not immensely different from the Papist way of having one high god reigning far above, but making your prayers to Saint Mary or Saint Anthony or such, who do the real work of bringing favors to man. And perhaps that is why these pagans did take so easily to the Catholic faith that the Jesuits did bring unto them; but I think the Jesuits would not be greatly pleased, if they knew that their saints are only deemed new mokissos by the Africans.
I learned whatever I did about the faith of these people from a certain man-witch of Mofarigosat’s tribe, whose name was Mboma. In the language of these parts mboma is the black python serpent, and boma is the word that means “fear,” so this man-witch Mboma was of great power, and his name meant something like Lord of Fear. But he was not at all black: rather was he of the ndundu kind, what the Portugals call albino, with skin so fair it was fairer than an English maid’s, skin more the color of paper than the color of skin, and hair of a fair kind also, though not anything like mine, being more white than golden, and eyes that were pink where a Negro’s would be brown and mine are blue. This witch Mboma was a small man, very frail, who carried a sun-shade made of palm-fiber to protect himself against the scorching of the sun. And the people did seem frightened of him, and kept their distance. I recalled when I was at Loango in the beginning of my African life I did see one of these ndundus who seemed most fearsome, a veritable Hell-demon, and I was much disconcerted by his glares and threats; but this Mboma, for all his awesome name, did not frighten me at all. He came to me and touched me on the arm and along the beard and beckoned to me to stoop to let him touch my hair, which was beyond his reach. And he said to me, “Mokisso, mokisso” which I think was his way of telling me, “You are protected by the gods,” or maybe, “You are a holy man,” I am not sure which.
I went about the city with this man and he did show me the shrines of the mokissos and let me observe their ceremonies, and told me some few things of the meaning of what I was seeing. He treated me thus out of respect for my white skin and my golden hair, which had throughout my time in Africa unfailingly brought me such special attentions.
This ndundu, who was a nganga or priest or man-witch as I say, came to me each day and tugged at my arm and took me about to some new festival. One such was the circumcision rite; for all these blackamoors do practice circumcision except the Christian ones of the coastal territories, that have forsworn it. They do this thing not for holy reasons, I think, as it is done among the Jews and Mussulmen, but to show virility: a woman would not regard as fit for marriage any man who had his foreskin. Indeed foreskins are most strange to them, and often in my coupling with native women of the pagan tribes they would play with mine, rolling it back and forth like a toy, until I had perforce to remind them what business we were supposed to be performing with one another.
I did not take much joy in witnessing circumcisions. This was done upon boys of twelve years of age, who were smeared with white earth and did dance together a long while, looking most joyous and exalted, though I would think they should rather have looked frightened. Then they went into a dark house where they remained certain days with very hard diet; and when they came forth they were rubbed with a red earth, and animals were sacrificed, and the boys did dance about some more. The ndundu then spoke prayers, and the circumciser came forth, who was the blacksmith of the village, holding an iron sickle. The boys sat with their legs apart, and assistant circumcisers came up behind them and held them, and one by one the circumciser came to the novices, holding in his right hand the sickle, which was heated red-hot. With his left hand he did take each boy’s yard and pull at the foreskin and quite suddenly cut it off, which made me turn my head away each time it was done. And each time I also felt a fiery impact on my own member, that made me flinch, as if by sympathy with the initiated boy.
God’s wounds, what things we do to ourselves in the name of sanctity and piety!
The bleeding boys were given some potion to drink, and then older boys led them away to wash their wound, and there were other rites that I was not permitted to witness, which peradventure was no serious deprivation for me. The foreskins lastly were heaped up and taken off to the burial ground of the city and given interment with a high solemn rite. For my witch-friend did tell me that unless they were properly disposed of, they might become zumbis, that is, walking spirits, and return to bedevil the village.
I confess that I looked aside and did smother a laugh at those words, to think of ghosts in the form of foreskins. But later I thought it was not so foolish, to think a spirit might reconstruct itself out of a small part of a body, especially one that is removed with such a show of holy pomp. For if there are spirits at all, of which I am far from sure, why not have them emerge out of any merest scrap of humanity, and march zumbi thenceforth through all eternity?
The ndundu Mbomba did tell me something else on this subject of circumcision, that woke deep horror in me.
He said, “We cut only the boys. But I know that in the eastern lands, they do cut the girls as well.”
I thought I did mishear him, and asked him to repeat, but he said it all again carefully in the same words.
To which I replied, “God’s eyes, but what is there to cut on a girl?”
The white-skinned witch, by way of answer, did beckon to a girl of twelve or fourteen years who was passing by, and made her come to us, which she did in terrible palsy of terror at being summoned by such men as we. He took from her the little girdle of cloth that she wore, and bared her loins and parted her legs and the nether lips, only just mantled by the new hair, and showed me the pink hidden bud that is a woman’s most secret place of pleasure.
“This is what they cut,” he said.
“God’s death! God’s eyes! God’s wounds!”
“It is not done in this land. But there are tribes that say it is unclean for women to have such things on them, or that it is the site of sorcery, or that it makes a woman unchaste if it is not cut off. They do use a kind of stinging nettle to make the organ swell so that it is large enough to be cut, except those tribes that use the cautery, where—”
“Enough,” I said, and shuddered. “I will not hear more.”
It was the only time, in my gathering of the lore of these foreign peoples amongst whom I was thrown, that ever I did order a halt to a narrative. I suppose I should have had the information from him, which perhaps no other man of Europe has ever heard; but I wanted it not. For all I could think of was the poor mutilated women, deprived of their pleasure-zone, and I gave thanks to my own God that He had not inflicted upon us any such custom, that seems to me far more barbarous than cannibalism itself. The life of a woman is sufficiently hard as it is, I think, without her having to give up that thing, too.