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The priests despatched their emissaries far and wide; they settled in townships, swore blood brotherhood with the chiefs, and took part in local affairs. They planted farms, and traded and acquired enormous power. When disputes arose they got the matter sent for adjustment to the town in Aro within whose sphere of influence they lived, or to the Long Juju.
In reality, they were discussing the watch strapped to his wrist. They believed it was a powerful juju, to ward off evil spirits. They were afraid of it. One day, to pay the chief wood-boy for a carved paddle, Everett was measuring a bras of cloth. As he had been taught, he held the cloth in his teeth and stretched it to the ends of his finger-tips.
The field was quite level, though sandy, as might be expected so close to the big desert, and they had to dodge several clumps of small growths, presumably juju trees, before they could taxi to a stop. The man in linen now rushed up to them, and introduced himself as Mr. MacInnis.
No high land showing in any direction. Pagan tells me the extinguisher-shaped juju filled with medicine and made of iron is against drowning the red juju is "for keep foot in path." Beautiful effect of a gleam of sunshine lighting up a red sandbank till it glows like the Nibelungen gold. Indeed the effects are Turneresque to-day owing to the mist, and the sun playing in and out among it.
And to-day it almost seems as though the sins of the fathers were being visited upon the children; as though the juju of the African, under the spell of which his enemies languish and die, has been cast upon the white man. We have to look only at home.
Then some village accident made the chiefs believe that their juju was angry because the girls had forsaken their sacrifices and deserted the heathen plays, and they placed pressure on them to return. Some were flogged and made to pray before a clay-pot with an egg in it, and all were forced out on the moonlight nights to take part in the plays.
It was a strange experience to walk over these roads that had been trodden for centuries by countless feet on their way to the pens of the coast and the horrors of the "middle passage," and latterly to the Efik slave-market, and to gaze on the spot where the secret iniquities of the Long Juju had taken place; stranger still to receive a welcome from the men who had been responsible for these evils.
On another occasion the Government sent native agents with police escort to vaccinate the people, as small-pox was rife. They resented the white man's "juju," and there was much excitement. The conduct of the agents enraged the crowd, guns appeared, and bloodshed was imminent, when an appeal was made to "Ma."
Each village has its own god and sacred tree, but the main juju used to be about a mile from Arochuku." "But you haven't told me about the slaves," interrupted Miss Wright. "I am just coming to that," said Mary. "This main juju, called the Long Juju, was reached by a winding road that goes through a dense jungle and leads at last to a lake.
But my tribe beat me and punished me in other ways until I gave up the white man's religion and followed the juju religion of the tribe. I took part in Arochuku feasts where we ate 'long pig, that is, men and women." "But why do you want to talk to me?" asked Mary. "I never forgot what the missionary told me about Christ. Later I had troubles and sickness.
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