Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-04-25
SACRIFICED FOR KINGS.
Victims That Accompany Savage
African Monarchs to the Grave.

From the LONDON Standard.
The book Of his twenty-three years. ex-
perience in Central Africa which D.
Crawford, the Scottish missionary, is
now writing promises to be as entranc-
ing as any ever penned by traveller In
the dark continent. Mr.. Crawford has
been so long accustomed to using the
Bantu language that it has become al
most more natural to him than his
mother tongue. He has a great admira-
ton for the Laban people. among whom
he has spent so many years.
1.-THE streams Of blood that flow at q
kings death in the far interior Of Africa
are in q sad, sinister sense. real red sun
SETS" he told one Of our representatives.
TT is quite certain that, apart from
specialties in the article Of DEATH every
African chiefet demands his legal right
to drag down with him to the neither
world at least one or two splendid speci-
mems of the human kind. Mpaki is the
dread technical term for this institution.
These are mostly woman folk. and the
demand is that the living sacrifice must
have no blemish. No wonder when an
African hears that line of the Bible,
The rich man died and was buried he
shudders. Instinctively he thinks of a
sacrifice with its streams Of blood. In
these ceremonial murders we have au-
thentic history. Two Of the prettiest
wives are sloriousty dressed and anointed
with oil to accompany the corpse to the
West Coast of Africa'-that IL, thor spirit
world. Kumbonshi-and they never come
back again.
"They always say that these go to their
own death with alacrity, and when
49, <nA Ind NR
known to me by a personal link. That
was the Bogo senior incident down in the
Sera Plain. At the Mpaki ceremony. and
against all entreaty to the contrary, the
infirm old wife Of his youth insisted upon
accompanying her own consort into the
tomb of suffocation. She brushed aside
the younger folk and ordered the catch
ing and cooking OF the best barnyard
fowl for her own last supper. She as
sisted at her own last death toilet: her
own burial. Who should 60 with my
lord but me?' she said In response to
the watling OF the mourning women. And
then. when the first sough Of the night
old living sacrifice hobbled along. with
her gourd tobacco pipe in its little bas-
ket. to attend her own funeral. There
was not even q wall from her.
rs this kind Of thing really authentic?
bled over in the grass. Down in that
very Sera Plain put up for the night in
q random hamlet on the edge Of q bull
rush bog. At sunset I had q crowd Of
little children round me. one Of them
being more strikingly dressed than the
others. naturally presumed she was
the local magnate's daughter. Then I
quixsed her about her nice beads, calico
and fantastic hair couture, but 1t soon
began to dawn on me that this was en-
barrassing to her. Then q dozen little
chatterers told me the tale graphically;
that she was no chiefs daughter, and
that she had only been paid SO much
hush money for her mothers death in
blue beads and fancy calico Her mother
had gone on the long. lone journey with
the chief. and the orphan child had re-
ceived solatium and damages for her
mothers sacrificial death. She herself
would grow up only to be one day fuel
for the same fire.
"One of the curses Of the natives" said
Mr.. Crawford. lis smoking hemp. II Is
worse than opium. knew q case where
native tied his wife up In q parcel and
sold her for smoke Of hemp. was
told OF the sensations Of hemp smokers
by a chief who had conquered the habit.
1t causes peculiar glaxelike enamel to
come into the eyes, and has the effect
of making man quite friendly one mo-
ment and the next he would like to
stab YOU"