The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-07-03
SKULL OF AFRICAN NEGRO.
Why a Certain Paragraph in the
Peace Treaty.

Germany is to restore within sIS
months the skull of the Sultan
Okwawa, formerly in German East
Africa, to his Britannia majesty's gov
ernment.'
s'This sentence from the official
summary of the peace treaty present
ed to the Germans at Versailles set
official Washington wondering and
swamped libraries and scientific insti-
tutions in the capital with inquiries, D
says a bulletin from the National Geo.
graphic society.
among some tribes of Africa, in
Guiding German East Africa. skulls OF
former rulers. called sultans, are held
in high veneration, and their posses
sion often is of political val
ue.
''There are numerous tribes of
German East Africa alone and as
many of these sultans as there are
tribes. 1t is apparent that Sultan
Okwawa was a sort of Mohammed or
Confucius among his clansmen, and
that the nation which assumes SOW
ereignty \over the people who revere
his memory, and probably worship
his skeletal remains, will be received
with greater friendship if it can re-
store the precious talisman.
t'Furthermore the removal of the
skull sheds sidelight upon the long
army of German propaganda, reach
ing even into darkest Africa in con-
temptation of def tag of Prussia's S
day under the scorching equatorial
sun.
The German government contrib
uted goodly sum for an expedition
headed by Adolphus Frederick, Duke
of MeckIenburg, which ostensibly
made scientific study of the German
protectorate in Africa in 1097-0S.
'eThere is a good reason to believe
that the explorers were not wholly
unaware of political advantages and
by way of tribal coup d'etat took
away with them the skull which now
has gained much unlocked for pub
licity.
.'The duke wrote book about his
travels in W hich he states, in sum-
marizing the results of his expedi-
tion, that 1,017 skulls and about A.
600 ethnographica were collected.
'sHe describes visits to various sui
tans.' At one point he digresses from
botany and linguistics to give this
naive comment on German policy:
1T is desired to strengthen and en-
rich the sultan and persons in author
ity. and to increase thereby their in
terest in the continuance of German
rule =. At the same time, by steadily
controlling and directing the sultan
and using his powers civilizing inf1u-
ences would be introduced. Thus by
degrees, and almost imperceptible to
the sultan himself, he eventually be-
comes nothing less than the executive
instrument Of the resident (German)
governor
"But Germany's early policy in her
African policy expansion was mark
ed by no such adroit methods; rath-
er by such disregard of native GUS
toms and ruthless measures as that
indicated by her removal of'the skull
referred to in the treaty. Karl Peters,
one of the first Germans to seek to
exploit African resources, Instituted
such a reign of terror among the ma
tiyes by inhuman treatment and es-
pecially by wholesale murders of their
women that the German government
was compelled to remove his COM
mission until the storm Of civilized
protest blew over.
,"But Peters was soon restored and
other bureaucratic German officials
rudely deposed native rulers, instead
of cooperating with them as did the
British, and thus melted numerous
native uprisings. One of these, in
1905, cost nearly 125, 700 native lives
before the Africans succumbed to the
same sort of terrorism as that insti-
tuted in Belgium in 1914.
*sThe duke commented on the gen
erosity of the natives in presenting
gifts but noted that yet the purchase
of ethnographical material met with
obstinate opposition He explained
that each clan reveres some totem,
believing that the spirit of the de-
ceased enters these objects OF rever-