The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-08-03
WEST AFRICAN PROPERTY.

my own Knowledge goes and as Tar as
 extensive reading of the works of eX- plorers in central and east Africa ena- bles. me to judge, by the same set of ideas, and is divisible into three kinds: l. Ancestral property connected With the office of headmanship-the stool, as | the true negroes call it, the cap, as 1t l is called in the Wreckage of the king dom of Kongo. 2. Family property, in which every member of the family has a certain share. 3. Private property | that which is acquired or made by a man or a woman's own personal exer- ! tion, that gained by gifts, and that ! made in trade, by the exercise of supe- | rior ability. Every one of these forms of property is equally sacred in the eyes of the African law.
 The property of the stool must be
 worked for the stool. Working it well,
 adding to it increases the importance
 of the stool and makes the king who oc- cupies it popular, but every profit made on it, like it itself belongs to the stool. 1 No individual king or oceupier of the
 headmanship can alienate that proper | ty for his personal advantage-hence comes one of the reasons why 1t does not matter much whether it be freeman or slave who is king. The same holds good for family property. As for pri- ] vate property, which is the urstoff-as the Germans would call it--out of which
 other forms of property spring, that is | equally legally sacred in the African
 state. I do not know from my own in- vestigations, any king, priesthood or l man who would openly be able to inter-
 fere with the private property of the | Veriest slave in his district or diocese or household. This may seem a risky thing to say, but it is not; and feel
 could make quite a little fortune by getting people to bet on it. Such an ar engagement is impossible in the columns 1 of ''The Morning Post" however so 1 have to sacrifice this golden opportuni- 1 ty, and to reveal the secret whereby l should have won, namely, that when a ! persons private property is taken, dur | ing peace, it is always taken under the 1 justification of it's being already for | feited. Doubtless should have had, if I could have arranged that betting l transaction, dozens of cases wherein | people knew of all kinds and conditions of Africans having everything they pos- | sessed cleared out by their fellow citi- | Zens or owners; but investigation | would have shown that the individual | so cleared out had already reduced himself or herself legally to a bank | rupt before he or she fell into the hands | of the official receiver.
 l He or she-the sex is not behindhand
 in such matters-had been convicted of bewitching somebody, whereby it fell
 out that his or her estate was forfeited I to the state. Every form of property | in Africa is liable to be called on to
 meet its just debts and the witch's | debt is heavy one. For not only does
 the witch owe to the family of the per i son for whose killing he or she is con- | victed the price of that life, but it is | felt by the community that he or she
 has not been found out in the first of | fense; every miscellaneous aff1iction
 that has recently happened has been
 his or her work. Mind you, I do not
 say these claims are paid out of the es- tate of the witch deceased-witches are | always deceased with the utmost dis
 patch by the authorities after convic-
 tion-because the said property has by
 this time got into the hands of official
 dom during the trial, and has a natural
 tendency to stay there. But one thing
 is certain about the estate of a witch,
 and this is that none of it is left for for
 his relatives. Not that they would, for
 the matter of that, dare to claim it, on
 account of the fear of being involved
 with him or her in the accusation of witchcraft. Still, legally, the witch's l relatives have the consolation of know
 ing that-if things go smoothly, and if
 they evade being accused of complicity
 in the crime-they cannot be called on
 to meet the debts incurred by the witch
 The reason of this delicate little point
 I am ashamed to say gave me more
 trouble to find out than it ought to have
 done, for the explanation was simple
 namely, that the witch's body had beer
 taken over by the creditors.
 According to African law, if you take
 a mans life-or his body, dead or ally
 in settlement of debt your claim or
 him is satisfied You have got lega1
 tender for it. In any case, legally, the
 relatives can redeem, if they choose
 the man or his body by paying the
 debt off with interest-thirty-t and
 one-half per cent. is the proper west
 African rate of interest, approximately
 But what set of relatives would wish {
 redeem a witch, a convicted witch
 mostly in bits, badly damaged, and
 dead at that? "No; society has got
 him." say members of the family, "we
 have done with him, and we are mor- ally certain he must have been highly
 illegitimate, for such a thing as a
 witch never happened in our family before. As for involving ourselves, by showing the least interest in him we simply will not, or we shall get suspect
 ed of being his accomplices and share his fate" Of course, if a man or a woman's life is taken on any other sort 7 of accusation of crime or malice the thing is different. The family forms a
 higher estimate of it's lost ones value , than you would have dreamed it was capable of possessing, and tries tc
 screw that value to the uttermost far l thing out of the person who killed 8 , knsman. Yet that is on a different
 footing from witchcraft, and the worst society at large will say of you is that you are fool to think so highly of the
 departed, whom 1t knew to be far below F your estimation of him. In the case ot your taking living man for debt he is
 a slave to you, but not on the same | footing as A. hollpbt one for ba con he