Mission work among the Azande

among the

AZANDE

Africa

233 «?enri? Street

MISSION WORK

AMONG

THE AZANDE

BV

KIP

By

J. W. JOHNSTON

^Missionary of the cdfrica Inland ^Mission

AFRICA INLAND MISSION

LONDON, NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, SYDNEY,
CAPETOWN, ABA (CONGO BELGE)

MORGAN & SCOTT LTD

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS
LONDON, E.C.4.

Foreword

" I 'HE Lord Jesus Christ has said that the Gospel
•*• must first be preached in all the world before
He comes. Therefore all who love His appearing
must love the work of the foreign missionary. The
Church of God is described as Catholic. This much
misused word implies that it is to include within its
pale members from the whole wide world. And
no one can presume to call himself a member of
God's Church, and ignore the will of God in this
matter. You cannot enter into partnership in a
firm and begin by repudiating its liabilities. The
liability which the Lord Jesus has left upon every
Christian is to go into all the world and preach the
gospel.

This little book tells how a few of God's dear
children linked together in the fellowship of the
Africa Inland Mission, are busy taking possession
of one part of the great dark Continent for Christ.
But if they go out on this errand for the sake of the
Name, we who are still at home owe it to their Lord
and ours to do all we can to help. During the war
people who couldn't join the fighting services went
to prepare munitions for those who could. And
in this warfare of the Cross the same thing ought to be
true. If we cannot go, we ought to be helpers of

Foreword

those who do go. Munitions both spiritual and
material, are needed, and it is the part and lot of
every Christian to help supply them. This book is
intended to stimulate faith and to evoke prayer. I
account it a high privilege to be allowed to add a
word of commendation to it. May our Divine
Master accept and use the book for His own glory
and the salvation of the Azande people.

J. RUSSELL HOWDEN.
Southborough,

Tunbridge Wells.

Contents

CHAPTER PAQB

FOREWORD 3

i THE AZANDE COUNTRY 7

ii THE AZANDE PEOPLE - 14

ill BEGINNINGS OF THE GOSPEL EFFORT - IQ

iv LANGUAGE PROBLEMS - 26

V SOCIAL PROBLEMS - 31

vi THE MISSIONARY DOCTOR'S OPPORTUNITY - - 37

vii VIGNETTES ------ 42

Illustrations

FACING PAGE

MAP OF THE AZANDE COUNTRY WITH NAMES

OF PRINCIPAL CHIEFS UNDERLINED - Foreword

A CARAVAN CROSSING A BRIDGE 7

CROSSING A BRIDGE ON THE WAY TO DUNGU IO

CROSSING AN AFRICAN RIVER - IO

DRESSING TIMBER FOR BUILDING 17

CROSSING THE RIVER DUNGU IN A DUG-OUT 22

BUILDING A HOUSE AT DUNGU 22

A GROUP OF TEACHERS AT DUNGU 28

CARRYING MUD FOR HOUSE-BUILDING - 28

NATIVES POUNDING RICE 34 •

GIRLS IN A MISSION HOME — DRILLING 38

SCHOOL-DAYS AT DUNGU - 38

CHRISTMAS SPORTS AT DUNGU - - 44

AZANDE BOYS — VILLAGE IN REAR - 48

A CARAVAN CROSSING A BRIDGE.

" My ambition has been all along to proclaim the Glad
Tidings, not in places where Messiah's name, Jesus, was
already known — I am not the man to usurp for my building
another man's foundation — but to act on the principle em-
bodied in these words of Scripture, ' They to whom no tidings of
Him were proclaimed shall see Him ; they who have not beard
of Him shall understand" (Isaiah Hi. 1 5)

Romans xv. 20, 21.

(Way's translation).

The Azande Country

NOT long ago, in a letter from a little girl in the
Homeland, a missionary on the Dungu
station was asked, " What large city are you near? "
We all laughed at this, but, when one begins to
answer the question, it isn't such a laughing
matter after all. And, since one little girl has asked
the question, there is no reason why it should not
be thoroughly answered for the sake of those who
may have but a vague idea of this section of the
Congo in which are situated the stations of the
Africa Inland Mission.

A line drawn from Cairo to Capetown divides
the Belgian Congo longitudinally east and west,
and passes just a little to the west of the Moto,
Dungu and Bafuka stations. Another line drawn
midway between the extremes of the continent
will intersect this line at a point near Basoko,
one hundred and twenty miles north-west of Stanley-
ville. These two intersecting lines divide the
Belgian Congo into four parts. The north-eastern
section is the one with which we have to deal,

Mission Work among the Azande

for in this part — the left ventricle of the heart of
Africa — are located all the present stations
of the Africa Inland Mission situated in the Congo.
These are all situated in the neighbourhood of a
curved line beginning at the southern end of Lake
Albert, running north through the government
posts of Mahagi and Aru to Aba, then west through
Farad je to Dungu, and then north-west towards
Ndoruma.

Three long arms go out from Dungu : one
south-east to the Moto station, another, sixty-five
miles north to Yakuluku, and another seventy
miles north-west to Bafuka. The Moto field is a
large one and the name applies to a considerable
territory. A short distance from Yak^uku one
enters the Anglo-Egyplian Sudan. A few miles
north-west of Bafuka the French Sudan is reached ;
and, continuing on into this region for over one
thousand miles to Lake Chad is a vast expanse of
country in which there is not a single Protestant
Mission station.

South and west from Dungu, the territory allotted
for the Africa Inland Mission stations meets that
of the Heart of Africa Mission. The Yakuluku
district completes the Africa Inland Mission
extension due north of Dungu, (right up to
the Nile-Congo watershed), and touches the
" parish " of the Church Missionary Society's
excellent station at Yambio, in the British Sudan.
Of the other proposed extensions, Mr. Hurlburt
writes : " We do not expect to push south from
Moto unless urgent need should require. It is
our present belief that we should push to the west,
along the high land in the French Sudan where
the waters flow north to Lake Chad and south to

The Azande Country

the Congo tributaries, thence north-west towards
a point in the Nigerian territory, where the land
projects east into French territory. If possible,
we should also like to push up north along the
continental divide between the British and French
Sudan, but do not expect to go farther east from
Yakuluku. We have no limit other than to take
the Gospel to every tribe that is destitute, and
as far as possible to avoid territory occupied by
other Missions."

Now the little girl wanted to know what large
city we are near. The nearest place that looks
like a town is Kampala in Uganda. Nairobi,
to which place we send orders for supplies,
is 1,089 miles to the south-east in Kenya Colony.
Goods ordered from this town reach us about
one year from date of order ! The late ex-
President Roosevelt, in writing of Nairobi says :
" Nairobi is a very attractive town and most
interesting, with its large native quarter and its
Indian colony. One of the streets consists of little
except Indian shops and bazaars. Outside the
business portion, the town is spread over much
territory, the houses standing isolated, each by
itself and usually bowered in trees, with creepers
shading the verandas and pretty flower gardens
round about."

Khartoum comes next, 1,843 miles to the north-
east— on the river Nile.

But, if there are no large towns near us, what
are such places as Mahagi, Aru, Aba, Dungu or
Farad je ? These are Government posts or small
military stations.

The Congo Beige is divided into several large
districts corresponding to states. One of these is the

lo Mission Work among the Azande

Haut Uelle, a section of the Uelle" (Welle) Valley, in
which are most of the present Africa Inland Mission
Congo Stations. These large districts are again
sub-divided into smaller territories corresponding
to counties. At the head of each of these small
territories is a Government post. These posts
are under the central station of the district, which,
in turn, is subject to the capital of the Congo at
Boma. Niangara is the central station of Aba,
Faradje, Dungu, Ndoruma, and other posts of the
Haut Uelle District. To these posts the natives
come to pay their taxes ; misdemeanours are judged
and penalties are inflicted by the administrates ;
but crimes of a more serious nature are referred to
the judge at the central station of the territory.

The occupants of these posts include : A Belgian
Official, one or two Greek or Indian merchants,
and from fifty to three hundred natives comprising
the black soldiers and those in the employ of the
Government with their families, and the prisoners.
These last are made to do the odd jobs such as
repairing the roads and keeping the place in order.
The majority of the prisoners are men, who having
refused to pay the customary tax, are seized and
compelled to work a length of time equivalent
to the value of the tax, which, in the case of an
unmarried man is six francs and fifteen centimes —
about 55. If a man is ill for six months, he is
exempted from the tax for that year. If he has
four children, and only one wife he is free from
paying taxes, the Government in this way 'wishing
to discourage polygamy. Taxes vary in different
sections.

The buildings of the above posts consist usually
of the administrateur' s office, his residence, one or

CROSSING A BRIDGE ON THE
WAY TO DUNGU.

Hi ^ " ;

ml AwaH

CROSSING

AN

AFRICAN

RIVER.

The Azande Country n

more houses for white travellers, the prison, native
quarters, a Roman Catholic Church, and two
or more shops belonging to the merchants. Govern-
ment buildings as a rule are made of brick ; the
others are made of mud. All have thatched roofs.
A characteristic of these military stations is the
ever present parade ground with the high pole
flying the Belgian flag of black, yellow and red.

At the central stations of the districts, as
Niangara, reside the Provincial Commissioner, and
Judge for the section, the administrates of the
post and a representative of a branch of the Congo
Bank with their assistants.

At Kilo and Moto there are gold mines. These are
worked by the natives under white supervision.

Roads between government posts are good,
but unfortunately the paths connecting Africa
Inland Mission stations (excepting the Aba-Nian-
gara highway), are either old government routes
or native paths. In " African Game Trails," p. 86,
Mr. Roosevelt says : " Africa is a country of trails.
The great beasts of the marsh and the forest made
therein broad and muddy trails which often offer
the only pathway by which man can enter the
sombre depths. In wet ground and dry alike are
also found the trails of savage men. They lead
from village to village, and in places they stretch
for hundreds of miles. The trails made by the
men are made much as the beasts made theirs.
They are made simply by men following in one
another's footsteps, and they are never quite
straight. They bend now a little to one side,
now a little to the other, and sudden loops mark
the spot where some vanished obstacle once stood ;
around it the first trail makers went, and their

12 Mission Work among the Azande

successors have ever trodden in their footsteps,
even though the need for doing so has long passed
away."

In the district of one of the Africa Inland Mission
stations in the Congo, village work during the rainy
season necessitates wading through many swamps.
Whenever a Government official wishes to take a
journey over an old route, word goes forth to that
effect, and, as if by magic, an eight foot path is
cleared all along the way. This is done by the men
of the chiefs through whose territory the route lies.
The grass then grows as only African grass can grow,
until another herald announces the coming of a
Bulamatari.* On one occasion a path one hundred
and sixty miles long was cut in this manner over
an abandoned route, the streams and swamps
bridged, and eleven grass houses erected, all within
a period of less than four weeks.

So we are not near any large towns. If we want
to take a journey, we either go by bicycle or con-
tribute our shoe leather to the narrow, hard packed,
native path. Our luggage is carried on the heads
of powerful natives. There are no wayside inns.
If we do not carry our tables, chairs and bed with
us, we do without them. We generally remember
to take them with us. There are no restaurants
or grocery stores. If we get to the rest house
(situated every fifteen miles along the path),
ahead of our porters, we must await their arrival,
when our bed is unslung, chair and table unfolded
and food prepared. Upon arriving at a post
we usually avail ourselves of the thrill of going to
the Greek or Indian store to look over stalls of cheap
cotton cloth, native shirts, matches, beads, cheap
* Native name for Belgian Government Official

The Azande Country 13

soap and an occasional tin of salmon priced at
six' francs (about five shillings) — we just look at
it. We cannot take our watch to the watchmaker,
broken spectacles to the optician, diamond rings
to the pawnbroker, or worn out shoes to the shoe-
maker ! When the bad climate vitiates the bellows
of the little folding organ, we have to get out the
bicycle puncture-repairing outfit and renew them.
There are no drug stores, nor barber's shops, and
so we keep on using the old tooth brush (in spite
of the fast diminishing bristles), hone the razor
and clench our teeth while the sewing scissors cut
our hair.

Thus we have attempted to answer the little
girl's question.

14 Mission Work among the Azande

" We are those who went astray, but the Lord did not leave
us. He sought us with perseverance, and we heard His call and
answered. Now we are His slaves, having no other master at
all. Behold, we tell you a word of truth. We had three
teachers. One is in Europe ; another has gone to Ikung ; and
this one who stays with us, his furlough is due, and his works are
many. If he goes to rest in Europe, with whom are we left ?
We have a desire to hear your teachings in the
teaching of the Jehovah God, and we have a thirst to see you in
the eyes ; but we have not the opportunity . . ."

From a letter written from an African tribe, addressed to
the " teachers of Europe."

(Missionary Review of the World, Dec. 1906.)

II

The Azande People

THE most important tribe in the valley of the
Uelle river is the Zande. On the north
it reaches far into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
and French Congo. On the east it extends as far
as Faradje. Azande are found as far west as
Buta and as far south as the Bomokandi river.

These people do not build large villages. Instead
they are scattered over the country in separate,
isolated dwellings, family by family. The great
majority of these family settlements consist
merely of a mud house and grain store.

As the gardens seem always to thrive best in
wooded ground near a stream or swamp, this loca-
tion is sought out. The trees are then cut down,
leaving the stumps two or three feet out of the
ground. This work is done by the man. His
wife then scrapes the ground between the stumps

The Azande People 15

with a crude, native hoe, sows the grain and plants
the corn, potatoes, peanuts and manioc. In the
meantime the man builds the mud house. This
is a round hut with thin walls and straw roof.
The floor is a platform of solid mud about one foot
high. The little " two by four " door accordingly
has its sill one foot from the ground. To enter
the place requires an up-step and a down-bend,
for the high, cone-shaped, thatched roof comes
far down over the sides of the mud wall to protect
it from rain

The quaint grain store is then built. A big,
mud box is shaped on a platform held, five or more
feet high, by four heavy poles. Over this mud
box, like a hat, is placed a cone-shaped straw roof.
Whenever the Zande wants to store his grain,
peanuts, cooking pots or to keep other treasure
from mice and men, one edge of the hat-like roof
is lifted, and into this receptacle it goes.

If the man is industrious, he will have in addition
to the house and grain store, a shed under which
the women grind corn or prepare food. The ground
around and between the huts of his home is then
packed down hard, making a rather cosy little
court yard. Upon this is spread the grain for
drying and it is here that the moonlight dances
are danced to the songs that abound and overflow
with rhythm, measured by the staccato beatings
of the wooden drum. About the courtyard grow
a circle of banana or plantain trees. Thus we have
a typical Zande home : the plantain trees, a little
courtyard and two or more straw roofed houses,
according to the number of the man's wives. In
these little segregated settlements live the Azande,
family by family. Because of this, a little longer

i6 Mission Work among the Azande

time is required for village visitation, and the
attendance at the meetings is small, but the Gospel
is brought to the family in a much more personal
manner than in a large village-meeting.

Although the Azande live in individual villages,
their language is not cut up by dialects, but is
the same throughout the whole great tribe. It
is in itself expressive and from it the people take
directly their peculiar names. One is called,
" More Words," another, " You will die," another
" The spirits of his Father," or " Father of the old
man sorrow," " Father of nothing." " We are two,"
" He will arrive to-morrow," " Elephant tusk,"
" Only us ; " and they even have a name which
means literally, " What's his name." This is
used quite frequently in speaking of or calling one
whose name has been forgotten. The Azande
have difficulty in remembering names. Girls are
given similar names as, " The mother of chalk, "
or, " The mother of oil," etc., but, as soon as she
is married and has children, she is known as the
mother of her husband's favourite son.

The manner in which they express themselves
is in many cases as odd as their names. The key
of a lock is referred to as the lock's son. A white
man is called, " The father of cloth," If a thing
is lost in the house, " Your house surpasses you."
A toothache is caused by " ants in the tooth."
An emphatic " Yes " is "It is no lie." Upon
being asked the reason for not planting paipai trees
in his village the owner responded, " Alas ! The
seed of the paipai will not hear my words ! " When
some kinky, grey haired men heard a little folding
organ for the first time, one said, " Spirits it is ! "
another exclaimed, " The thing talks angrily."

DRESSING TIMBER FOR BUILDING.

'The Azande People 17

It is a great sight to see a group of old Azande
fathers, men of mighty stature even in their bare
feet, walking the narrow native paths, clothed
with a big loin cloth of tree bark, a little rimless
straw hat on their massive, woolly heads, a long
spear on one shoulder, a folding chair slung over
the other, all in single file, and, as a rule, joking
and laughing as they go. Their possessions are
few. One of their salutations is, " I do not possess
one little thing wherewith to greet you." No
word for " excess baggage " mars the vocabulary
of one of these natives. Five minutes to roll up
his sleeping mat, fill the food skin, seize the long
spear or short throwing knife, give an indifferent,
lifeless handshake to his" people and he is off, grunt-
ing in response to many farewells. His clock is
the sun, his mile posts the streams and his calendar
the moon, together with the height and condition
of the grass. An injury or favour to him is an
injury or favour to all his relatives — and they are
many. When grateful he brushes the ground with
his hands about the feet of the benefactor. He
converses most casually while sawing off the head
of a chicken with a blunt knife.

The Azande native presents some striking con-
trasts : He can carry a fifty pound box fifteen miles
without a rest, but is not able to throw a stone
any appreciable distance. If he is asked to plant
corn or potatoes in straight rows, he is not likely
to make a success of it, but he will hoe a path
through the grass to a given distant point nearly
as straight as if it were marked and staked out.
While he is telling a flagrant lie, he will look the
embodiment of truth. In his dance songs he changes
from one complicated rhythm to another just as

1 8 Mission Work among the Azande

difficult with wonderful facility, but in singing
the scale from " fa " onwards, the sounds would
put a nervous music teacher into an asylum. And
these are the kind of people that make up the
great Zande tribe.

Writing of this tribe, Dr. J. Du Plessis in " Thrice
Through the Dark Continent/' says, " Before the
European occupation of the country the Azande
were passionately devoted to cannibalism, and
for this reason were known to their neighbours as
the Nyam-Nyam (Niam-Niam)." What the Azande
were is of small moment ; what they are to become
is a question vastly more important. For this great
tribe, that extends all over North Congoland, and
overflows into French territory and the Ariglo-
Egyptian Sudan, is still practically unevangelised.
In the approaching conflict between Christianity
and Islam it occupies a position of the highest strategic
value, lying as it does between the most advanced
outposts of both forces.

Beginnings of Gospel Effort 19

" Wherefore are ye come amongst us, from the glory to the

gloom ?
Christ in glory breathed within us life, His life, and bid us

come,

Here as living springs to be,
Fountains of that life are we.
He hath sent us highest honours of His Cross and shame to

win,
Bear his light ''mid deepest darkness, walk in white midst

foulest sin,

He hath sent us here to tell
Of His love unchangeable"

III

Beginnings of Gospel Effort

THE present (1921) Africa Inland Mission stations
among the Azande people are Yakuluku,
Bafuka with its one out-station, and Dungu with
its two out-stations. The work at Yakuluku is in
its infancy ; Bafuka is about four years old, while
Dungu is the oldest and largest.

Mission station schedules vary with localities,
conditions and superintendents, but the usual
week-day on Azande stations may be generalised
as follows : Morning service and prayer 6.30 a.m.,
followed by school which continues till about 8.30
a.m. The workmen, boys, women and girls are
then assigned work for the day. By this time,
breakfast is not at all out of place. At n o'clock,

2O Mission Work among the Azande

or when the drum sounds at 11.45 a.m. to stop
work, the dispensary .is open. From i p.m. to
1.15 or 1.30 p.m. the hollowed-out, wooden drum
is beaten for the men to resume work, which is
supposed to continue without a sleep till 5 o'clock
or 5.30. On the older stations, school is held in
the afternoon for the women and girls, and still
later those natives who teach in the early morning
classes, meet for more advanced instruction.

The evangelists' hour varies with every station.
At one place the two evangelists and those in train-
ing, meet for prayer every morning during the first
period of school. After school when the men and
others are given work, these go to the villages.
It is not a good rule to send those in training more
than one day's journey from the station, on account
of their proneness to yield to temptation, and the
necessity to be continually on the watch. These
daily morning prayers are an excellent barometer
of the power of God in their lives as well as an immedi-
ate revealer of personal sin. Ten definite answers
to prayer were given to three Azande boys, who met
in this way for one month. In the later afternoon
or evening they return. At times the reports are
most encouraging, then again humorous, or it may
seem as if they had gone out that day in vain.
When Penipeni came in to report his first day's
work, he said, " Father, I went to Kumbazingi's
village. There was no one there," — then after a
long pause he continued, " Just three women and
two girls." One day Modu arrived from the out-
station, thirty miles away and during the conversa-
tion said, " Bwana, those people up there have
not yet got over being surprised at hearing the
Gospel for the first time."

Beginnings of Gospel Effort 21

The morning service consists generally of a
hymn, the reading of the Scriptures and prayer.

The school then follows with reading, writing,
and arithmetic. One of the school periods is used
on certain week days for the singing class. The
less said about it the better.

After school the men are assigned to the various
jobs for the day. Sometimes it is building a new
house, re-roofing an old one, putting down a new
mud floor, working in the gardens or renewing falling
down buildings. Because of the white ants, houses
and things are continually going to pieces. A
church on one of the stations had been up just one
year when it collapsed from the posts being eaten
away by these little ants. A coat hung unwittingly
in a rest house reminded the owner the next morning
that it was time to give it away. Often the con-
tents of wooden boxes set carelessly on mud floors, are
destroyed in a very short time. It is for this reason
and others that mission buildings should be of brick.

Owing to the slowness with which bricks are made
under Congo conditions, however, it is necessary
to build houses of mud temporarily ; and, as many
missionaries do not know the " words of the brick,"
and as some stations are so far away from an
abundant wood supply, sufficient to burn them,
and as one's first year on the field is spent in thinking
about malaria, getting accustomed to living
tabloidly and from a chop box, and as it is expedient
to spend a little time in language study, etc., and
as it is necessary to have money enough to build
another brick house after you see your first attempt
topple over, brick houses are scarce. And so the
workmen are sent out to renew an eaten-off post
in the school house.

22 Mission Work among the Azande

~& Seeing that milk and butter help the leucocytes a
little bit in their fight against the red corpuscles
expanding to the bursting point with the deadly
malaria virus, it seems fitting and proper to have
cows. Oriental cattle are not like home cows, for
the supply of their milk varies in inverse ratio to the
square of their number. Tinned milk could be
used, but when one out of every two boxes reaches
the orderer one year from the date of the order,
there are times when mothers with babes would
be without it. Because of this, cattle are kept
in places where there is grass enough to keep
them alive by day, and high corrals* are built
to continue this good work till the morning. And
so the men are sent off to patch up the hole made
in the corral by a stray lion.

Those in charge of the women's and girls' work —
well, ask them about it. If they have not got their
hands full, no one has. Since native homes are
scattered at times great distances through the
grass, it is needful to keep on the station little
boys and girls who come to hear the Gospel. This
involves feeding them, giving them work sufficient
for their food, and looking after their interests
otherwise. The same is true of the single women.
The little girls for example are sent out to weed the
gardens and do similar work. The best sight on
the station is to see a group of these little darkies
with their small hoes making the dust fly and singing
a Gospel hymn. When the work settles down and
gets monotonous, the dust gets a rest and the song
drags off into a high, soft humming of some weird
Azande folk-tune repeated over and over again.

"Cattle Pen.

CROSSING THE RIVER DUNGU
IN A DUG-OUT.

BUILDING

A

HOUSE

AT

DUNGU.

Beginnings of Gospel Effort 23

The dispensary hour varies at different stations.
At Dungu when the hour was changed from 12
noon back to n a.m., it was noticed that some
of the workmen automatically developed severe
attacks of sickness to evade the last hour of morning's
woik. The cases mostly are ulcers, burns, indiges-
tion, malaria, colds, sore throats and headaches.
The people have no warm clothing and sleep beside
fires in their huts. At times when sleep is " working
them much," they roll into the fire and wake up
smelling of burnt flesh. Some of the little boys
are fearfully burned in this way. At one of the
stations the daily giving of food to the little boys
just after the dispensary hour was found to keep
them better able to fight off ulcers, and to make
them more susceptible to treatment when these did
appear. If paid on Saturdays and told to buy
their own food, the little fellows would gorge the
first part of the week and starve the rest. Spear
wounds and knife cuts are not uncommon. Then
also, it is useful to be able to draw teeth. Many
come for extraction, and when the work seems to
drag anything is a diversion and even a pleasure.
Some of the teeth come out as if they belonged
to the old stqne age.

Once or twice a week the market is held. The
people come in from the little, one-family villages
through the surrounding country bringing native
flour, bananas, plantains, eggs, an occasional
chicken, and other odds and ends. Before the market
begins, all take their food into the enclosure,
leave it under guard and go to the church or the
place where the Gospel is preached, the men and
boys to one meeting, the women and girls to
another. At the Bafuka market there are those

24 Mission Work among the Azande

who are hostile to the Gospel and will not come
to this service. These are told to remain along the
road till the meeting is over. We thus have those
outside, who leer, snarl and laugh as we preach to
the others who are respectful and attentive. To
these gatherings the men are forbidden to bring
their spears, for when they do, there are some
wounds to tie up. One of the characters of this
big market is the giant " Comoro " (Hunger). It
is his duty to stand by the gate of the fenced off
area and allow only those with wares for sale to
enter. He is armed with a blacksnake whip, and
as his friends like to say, " Only Comoro under-
stands the wisdom of that whip." Every now
and then as the people enter, the crack of this
famous whip is heard on the back of some too bold
man, and looking around one sees Comoro smiling
or looking very bored. When the missionary
finishes buying, the bugle sounds and it is the natives'
turn. The shouting and babble can be heard a
long way as those in the enclosure sell to those
outside.

Mission stations are not always places where the
natives kiss the ground you walk on. Sometimes
Satan roars around so that it is necessary to flee
to the prayer meeting. There are times when the
demons seem to look at you through the natives,
and j'ou cry to Cod to sustain and help. Then there
are times of great blessing. No one can know the
joy, unless he be a missionary. The native char-
acter is a remarkable one. The longer one stays
on the field and deals with them, the less one knows
how to advise others. Methods of punishment
must be used to maintain decency and order.
The best one found for little boys and girls is the

Beginnings of Gospel Effort 25

Bible method. For men, each case is a law unto
itself, and only the -wisdom that comes from above
ever solves the difficulty. Then there are many
cases coming up for trial. Some of these are
complicated, involving one or two chiefs with a
Government official. It means a close walk with
God, or one is useless.

The evening is the time appointed for talking
with those who wish to enquire about the things
of the Gospel, for confessions of sin, and decisions
to confess Jesus Christ. The reason that this
opportunity is not given in the Gospel meetings
is that many of the natives are so eager to get in
the limelight that they revel in chances to make
a public speech, even to the confession of sins.
It is in the quiet, evening hour that the prayers
are answered as they come in one by one and are
born again, never to be taken from His hand.

" O ! But I thought all you had to do on an
African Mission station was to preach the Gospel 1 "
Where are all the consecrated brickmakers, masons,
carpenters, printers, foremen, and farm hands ?
The reason why so many missionaries go home
broken in health and nervous wrecks is due to the
fact that others who should have been at hand
to help, were not there because they disobeyed
God's call.

26 Mission Work among the Azande

" The hundreds of tribes in Africa whose language has
never been reduced to writing, await (as they have been waiting
through a whole generation since their needs and accessibility
were known to the entire Christian world), for men of sufficient
training and leadership to reduce their language to writing,
to found educational institutions and to train and equip teachers
and leaders from among their own people. Surely the appeal
for missionaries for Africa of the widest training and capacity
must equal that of any other continent."

REV. C. E. HURLBURT.

IV

Language Problems

PAZANDE, or " the words of the Azande,"
is spoken by thousands upon thousands of
natives, scattered over a vast amount of territory
in innermost Africa.

" These people have no writing, yet they keep
accurately their historical records. This they do
by means of old men who memorise the records,
and teach these to others chosen for the purpose.
A high official who has been in the Congo for ten
years, has told us that he has found chiefs of the
Azande separated by great distances yet having
coinciding records. The Azande language is a very
difficult one. This official is a linguist and knows
many languages, but though he has been learning
Pazande for several years, he says he cannot yet
talk it fluently. A Roman Catholic priest has been
learning it for eighteen months and still cannot
manage it." These quotations are from an arcicle
written in 1913.

Language Problems 27

It was about this time that missionaries of the
Church Missionary Society and Africa Inland
Mission began the study of Pazande. To-day,
thanks to their patient perseverance through
many trials and disappointments, such as are the
portion of those who tackle similar undertakings,
Pazande is reduced to writing. A tentative edition
of the Gospel of Mark is already in the hands of
native Christians. The Gospels of Luke and
John are now read in the meetings, and all these
have been translated with an accuracy and exact-
ness that is refreshing. New missionaries now
have the advantage of vocabulary helps, and a
grammar, in addition to the above translations.
They can thus appreciate in a very little way, the
stupendousness of the task accomplished.

A beginner is not infrequently tempted to be
satisfied to catch a word here and there of a
conversation, piece these together and so get the
gist of the talk ; in other words, to be satisfied to
hear only part of the words, on account of the
extreme difficulty of hearing all. To hear all the
particles and sounds intelligently requires much
time in patient daily study, speaking and hearing.
Then, too, there is the matter of correct
pronunciation. This is not as easy as " rolling
off a log ! " The speaking apparatus of a white
man is different in many respects from that of
the native African with his big, thick lips,
filed away teeth, large broad tongue, wide palate,
and mouth of no small dimensions. The same
air through a trumpet sounds different through a
trombone.

A missionary stood for nearly an hour listening
to a great Azande chief " summing up " an important

28 Mission Work among the Azande

case. At the end of the lengthy harangue she
was much troubled because of not being able to
understand what he was talking about. Another,
when he had finished a village talk, had the encourag-
ing experience of hearing one of his listeners ask
" What was he speaking, Pazande or Bangala i* "
Both of these missionaries are experts in their
ability to speak and hear Pazande, and have
studied this language for more than four years.

Some natives have little difficulty in understand-
ing the missionary ; others seem to require a little
time to get used to hearing their language spoken
with a foreign accent. Talking to natives on the
mission station is a different thing from conversing
with the people in the villages. Then, again, (for
the sake of encouraging those of us who are learning),
it seems as if some natives understand thoroughly
what is said to them, but are so amazed to hear
a white man speaking their language that they
refuse to believe their ears. These people expect
white men to address them in Bangala. This is
a crude tongue, the court language of the country,
and is understood from Rejaf in the Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan all the way down the Congo river to the west
coast. There are many natives who believe that
Bangala is the white man's one and only language.
Consquently missionaries speaking Pazande have
been a great curiosity in strange villages, the
people calling to their relatives and friends to come
and see the " Father of clothes " who speaks
Pazande.

Although the Azande syntax is, for the most
part, the same as the English — subject, predicate,
object — peculiarities of sentence construction exist
which are very strange.

A GROUP OF TEACHERS AT DUNGU.

CARRYING MUD FOR HOUSE BUILDING.

Language Problems 29

Sometimes three prepositions are used to express
the English word " in." At other times just one
woid is used. The equivalent of our preposition
" to " is four short words. " To him " would be,
Ko yo du, "him" ni. In speaking of - a place as
the object of the preposition " to," a still different
method of expressing the word would be used.
Certain verbs will take only certain prepositions.
Sometimes in a Pazande sentence the prepositions
pile one upon the other in astonishing profusion.

The negative is expressed by the word nga
following the verb with the word te placed at the
end of the sentence.

The prohibition would be written in English
something like this, Ka subject verb nga object
adverb ya.

The conditions are still more complicated, not
so much from an addition of particles as from the
fact that an omission of one means life or death
to an expression.

In English, the Pazande temporal clause would
be written, 0 subject, ka verb, ni, subject to resultant
clause ki verb, etc. For example, " When the sun
has set, you come to me." This would be written,
" 0 the sun ka has set ni, you ki come to me."

The number and names of the pronouns, the
manner of expressing the relative clause, rules
concerning the definite article, the different moods,
tenses and irregularities of construction, the various
queer adverbs and uses of many odd words, all bear
out the quotation saying the language of the
Azande is not easy. But there are other languages
that are now being reduced to writing in the tribes
reached by the Africa Inland Mission. Nearly
all these are as difficult as Pazande. The Logo

30 Mission Work among the Azande

and Lugbara languages, if anything, may be more
difficult.

Let us remember those to whom, by His grace,
has been assigned the stupendous task of reducing
to writing unwritten languages, not only in the
Africa Inland Mission, but also in South America
and many other mission fields.

Social Problems 31

" Brothers, sisters, pray for us.
From afar rf sounds our call,
Leagued 'gainst sin and Satan's thrall,
Christ Himself our all in all :
Brethren, fray for us.

Brothers, sisters, praise for us !

We are weak, the foe is strong,

Dark the heathen night and long,

Yet of victory our song :
Brethren, praise for us."

V
Social Problems

THE Azande girls and women are bound to their
villages and native heathen ways with many
chains. One of these is the Zande marriage custom.
In the marriage of a girl or woman no account
usually is taken of her choice, wish or preference
in the matter. In fact, many little tots of twenty,
thirty or forty months are betrothed to men of as
many years of age, and those men already have two
or more wives of their own. The root of the evil
of the Azande selling their daughters is to be
traced to the age-long custom of compensating the
clan for the loss of a woman by the payment of her
equivalent in money. It is an inflexible rule that
the woman may not marry in her clan. If the price
for a wife were all settled, agreed upon and paid
before or on the day the girl is taken from her
village, then many of the difficulties would be
eliminated, but this is not the case. Instead, a
Zande father-in-law sets up a kind of perpetual
blackmail over his son-in-law. This is done as

32 Mission Work among the Azande

follows : — The price of the wife varies from thirty-
five to sixty irons made specially for this traffic.
If the man is so ambitious as to choose a wife of the
Avungvra or chiefs' clan, he pays proportionately
for this costly aspiration. The reason the sum
asked for the average Zande girl does not exceed
sixty irons is that by the time thirty, forty or
sixty of these are paid in, the wife is either dead
or too old to be of any financial value to her husband.
The rule seems to be that fifteen or twenty irons
are paid before the wife can be taken. It generally
takes a man five or more years to pay this amount.
Therefore they often become engaged while the girl
is very little, probably because this ensures for them
a wife sometime in the future, and also gives
them plenty of time to pay the first necessary
instalment. They also seem to think that a girl
who opens her eyes upon a world in which there
is a man to whom she is already betrothed, makes
the best wife and does not so easily fall into the
Azande woman's national habit of running away
from her husband. Thus the payments are made as
the little girl grows up, iron upon iron, iron upon
iron, and each one is a link in a chain that binds her
more and more to the Azande customs and keeps
her away from the Gospel. After the girl is taken
to the husband's village, the father soon appears to
collect additional irons. If the husband demurs,
thinking that his father-in-law has appeared too
soon after the last payment, the young wife in-
variably runs away to her former home until her
husband changes his mind. And so the life of a
Zande husband is just one iron alter another, and
his troubles so increase as to exceed the square of
the number of his wives.

Social Problems 33

" If the child refuses to be the wife of the man
agreed by her father, no one can oblige her to
marry the man against her will." This is the
Government law. And so the Azande are continu-
ally haggling, wrangling and haranguing about
their runaway wives, unjust fathers-in-law or slow
paying sons-in-law. Whenever a girl runs from
her husband or father to seek shelter at a mission
station, all this snapping and snarling concentrates
on that station.

But there is a peculiar phase to the wife traffic
which makes it still more difficult to free a bound
one from this chain. If, for any reason, a wife
should permanently leave her husband, the very
same irons paid for her must be returned by the
father. This complicates the affair most hopelessly
when it is considered that irons paid for a daughter
are not kept by the father, but are in turn passed
on to another in payment for a wife whom this father
himself may intend to add to his household. When
this sort of thing is scattered over a period of ten
years, it is almost impossible to return the price
of a wife identical iron for identical iron. It can
be seen from this that a single iron paid for a girl
(many irons have already been paid for the average
girl of ten years) can be the cause of no end of
wrangling and confusion. The tenacity with which
the natives adhere to this custom is most pronounced.
In extreme cases where it would, humanly speaking,
seem best to make an exception to the policy of our
Mission not to buy girls or women, the entire pro-
ceedings would be blocked, locked and bound by
this cold, reasonless, devilish chain.

If OME had been only an ordinary Zande girl
she would have been chained as tight and fast as

34 Mission Work among the Azande

the above-described custom could chain her, but
being the daughter of an Azande chief she was
doubly shackled. More than sixty irons had been
paid for her and she had not yet been taken by
her husband.

One day this girl came from her home, thirty
miles away, to the Bafuka station. It could easily
be seen that she was above the average native.
When asked why she left her village she replied,
" The words of my village do not give me peace.
The words that you tell us give me peace." And so
the missionaries were in for seeing with their own
eyes and hearing with their own ears the proof
that God does break chains — even those fetters
that were ages in making, patented by Satan and
improved and gloated over by all the demons of
hell.

In two weeks RENZI, the greatest of the Azande
chiefs, sent word to Chief BAFUKA, the next greatest,
that the husband of OME wanted her to return to
her village and that the case was of the utmost
importance as many many irons had been paid
for her. With the messenger that announced the
will of RENZI came Ome's mother, her husband's
mother and all the royal relatives on both sides of
the house. The test for OME was a severe one,
but to her relatives and friends she said firmly
that she wanted to remain with the missionaries.
One of the greatest hindrances to the spread of
the Gospel in Congo can be the ill will of native
chiefs. There was no worldly wisdom to deal with
this case so pregnant with possibilities of causing
their displeasure. If there had been wisdom to
cope with the situation, no power other than God's
own could have made the issue pleasing to Him.

NATIVES POUNDING RICE.

Social Problems 35

Two of the most powerful of the station natives
were summoned. OME was given into their charge
and instructed to state her wish before Chief BAFUKA.
Word was then sent to him that the girl was to
decide herself. If, before all her relatives, her
husband's relatives and BAFUKA'S court she should
still express her desire to hear the Gospel and remain
with the missionaries, then the station would always
be open to her and she should be considered as one
of its people. If, however, she listened to the
entreaties of her relatives, then she was to go home
with them. The test was a fearful one. There
was on the part of the missionaries no suspense
as to BAFUKA'S decision, for the peace of God was
" garrisoning " their hearts. The thousand and
one fetters that bound this girl were to be snapped
and smashed by the One Who bringeth out those
which are bound with chains.

So the girl left for the Chief's village with her two
big guards, all her relatives and their friends
exhorting, coaxing and pleading that she should
return with them. One hour passed. Then all
BAFUKA'S nobles came up to the station. It was
a very impressive gathering, without the slightest
spark of bitterness or hatred. The solemnity
of the counsellors was increased by the importance
of the message which the delegation bore. After
all were seated in the order of the brightness of their
glare in BAFUKA'S eyes, the delegation were asked
the reason for all this honour bestowed upon the
missionaries. The spokesman cleared his throat,
stood up, arranged the folds of his bark cloth to
become his dignity, and said, " BAFUKA has sent
me to you to say that the girl Ome does not lie
when she says that she wants to hear God's words.

36 Mission Work among the Azande

The girl has spoken the truth. She shall stay with
you." — and since that time there has not been a
single word about those " many, many irons "
paid for her.

Perhaps you had a part in breaking the fetters
that bound Ome. There are thousands upon
thousands of other fetters yet to be broken.

The Missionary Doctor's Opportunity 37

" The medical missionary who is true to bis divine com-
mission cannot for one moment rest content with the mere
patching up of bodies and cheering up of minds. The com-
mission is, ' Make Disciples ! Heal if you like, teach, if
you can ; plant trees and plough fields, if that is your bent ;
preach if you are so impelled ; but, by any means and by all
means, achieve the true end, viz. : make disciples, save men
and women, boys and girls from spiritual death, which in
horror, hatefulness and pathos, far exceeds the mere corruption
of flesh and blood.' The command is plain, but it is appallingly
easy to put time and brains and strength into the medico-
scientific side of one's work to such an extent that the command is
all hut forgotten. 'This is, at any rate the experience of the
writer, and may possibly be true in the experience of others
too. Therefore, to avoid the catastrophe of failing in our
commission, we must give time and brains and strength to the
Christian scientific side of our work, i.e., the Soul Quest."
DR. DOUGLAS GIBSON, of Kaifeng,

VI

The Missionary Doctor's Opportunity

pHE medical missionary in Africa has been
* called the ' advertising agent ' for the Gospel
because so often it is for him to overcome prejudice,
break down superstition, and, in general, prepare
the way for the Lord?' In addition to this he is
used to the sure exposure of the deceptions and
barbarity of witch-doctors and native medical
men.

The witch-doctors kill more people and scatter
more villages than did the slave-traders. They
are often set up by chiefs, who, unable to compel
submission by force, rule by taking advantage of

38 Mission Work among the Azande

the native fear of black art, ignorance and super-
stition. Again, many chiefs set up a witch-doctor
in order to enrich themselves with the spoil of those
who die at their hands. The mission station is
often a refuge for a man robbed of wife and all
possessions by a covetous chief, and then decreed
to die by witch-craft. To go into detail here would
involve a long treatise on secret societies, super-
stitious practices, rites, customs, and a lot of loath-
some, depressing, heartbreaking reading which is
better left unwritten. The medical missionary
can be used to expose these deceptions to those who
want to believe.

A plague breaks out in a tribe. The people begin
to die. The witch-doctors start their wild orgies,
dances and superstitious practices. A missionary
surgeon arrives on the scene, and it may be,
in every case of the many scores which he treats
the patients recover; • this indeed has actually
occurred. Things like this do not come by chance ;
and the natives are wise.

Rare is it that a tribe spontaneously opens its
arms to receive the missionary. There has not yet
been an instance of this. They stone him at Lystra,
mock him at Athens, hound him out at Jerusalem,
and jail him at Rome. In civilised countries a
surgical operation means money : in Africa it
is a time of rejoicing when a native from an untouched
tribe condescends to run the risk. The following
are two incidents showing how a surgeon was used
to break down prejudice and turn away suspicion.
One evening a man came to an Africa Inland
Mission station with a forty pound growth of
elephantiasis. He had the depressed, discouraged,
hopeless, and haggard look peculiar to these cases.

GIRLS

IN

A

MISSION

HOME — DRILLING.

SCHOOL-DAYS AT DUNGU.

The Missionary Doctor's Opportunity 39

When asked why he had come, he exclaimed,
" I only heard from my chief this morning that you
could cure me ! " The next day, Christmas day,
at 12.30 the operation was finished. After he was
well out of the anaesthetic, though still suffering pain,
he said, " You have worked me good. Good very
much ! I have carried my load for eight years and
now it is all gone. Good very much ! " — the
eyes were no longer heavy nor haggard, the dis-
couraged look was gone and there was a chance
to tell him of the One who carried all our burdens
and " bore our sins in His own Body on the
tree."

When this man could walk, he went in search of
others and returned with six men suffering from
all manner of diseases.

Kitambala is one of the " big three " Logo
chiefs. He is a giant of six feet four inches, and
one of those who can speak quietly and cause
men to hurry this way and that in obedience to
orders.

" You'll never get a hold on Kitambala " — was
the statement of one who knew pretty well how
things were going. But God makes opportunities —
and a doctor was on the job. The big chief was
struck down by disease. He tried everything
available, but was not cured. He was dying slowly
with a trouble that could only be remedied by an
operation. The operation was successfully made
and the patient did not die. Before returning
to his village he said to the doctor, "You are
now my relative. I will build a rest house for
you in my village " and he did. Through this
means a first foothold was obtained with the Logo
in the Aba district.

40 Mission Work among the Azande

The hardest man to get for Africa is the medical
missionary. Here is the proof : In Africa there
are said tentatively to be 150,000,000 people
Of these 80,000,000 are pagans. There are
40,000,000 Mohammedans ; most of the 523
distinct languages have not yet been touched
by a white man. " In North Africa the
Christian forces are well under way in just one
section." The Sudan is the largest unevangelised
field in the world. Even in Uganda, the best
occupied African field, nearly one-half of the people
have not been reached. One million natives live
without a missionary in Portuguese East Africa.
Seven million people in Portuguese West Africa
are without the Gospel. In the Belgian Congo
are 29,700,000 who are not Christians. From
Nigeria to the Nile river is a stretch of country
1,500 miles long without a single missionary.
From the heart of the continent running north and
west are five lines none of which are less than 1,000
miles long. There is not one Protestant missionary
on any one of these lines. If 5,000 missionaries
were to leave London to-day, and, in some miracu-
lous way, could be at the required, assigned places
within five years and speaking the languages,
still thousands upon thousand of old men and women
would have gone down with grey hairs to heathen
graves without having heard of Jesus the Messiah.
All missionaries of all societies in Africa would
not equal the total of any one of the " London,"
" Guy's " and " Bart's " medical schools. Yet if all the
surgeons of these schools were dropped into Africa,
there would not be a ripple. African gold is more
plentiful than the missionaries — but only 2\ per
cent, of the missionaries are missionary surgeons.

The Missionary Doctor's Opportunity 41

The hardest man to get for Africa is the missionary
surgeon and he is the one most influential in opening
up the work in new tribes.

There are no problems more fundamental
than those which confront the medical men in
Africa. With sleeping sickness depopulating large
areas in the lake country and along the Congo,
with diseases of civilisation speaking among the
tribes and with malaria and black-water fever
wrecking many a missionary career, the physician
who invests his life in this continent will not lack
for a challenging task.

42 Mission Work among the Azande

Look on a missionary map (of Africa] and see our beacons of
light, and think and pray over the regions of darkness between . .
. . . . The wrongs and sins and sorrows of this land are
heart-breaking. It is these things that must often break
missionaries down, things that could never be put into missionary
reports. . . . Friends at home, when you pray .
pray for us who are missionaries. Pray that our work may be
done in the energising power of the Holy Ghost. Pray that
life — life abundant may flow through us to the souls with whom
we come in contact day by day, that out of us may flow rivers of
living water. Pray that our work may spring out of a life
of loving close fellowship with Christ and that we may have the
daily renewing of the Holy Spirit. Pray that all which hinders
the full iide of God's life flowing through us may be removed.
(From " Led forth with joy.")

VII
Vignettes

OLD FARAGI is so fascinatingly ugly that he is
good looking. Day in and day out he sweeps
the paths on the Dungu station. Even to a Zande
the job becomes monotonous, and Faragi himself
says, " The rains rain and Faragi sweeps the paths.
The rains rain and Faragi sweeps the paths."
One day, in answer to this veiled complaint, he
was told that the rains brought food for Faragi.
To this he replied enthusiastically, " That's no
lie ! That is no lie !"

He is as simple as he is ugly and as faithful as
he is simple. He wears just three things — a strip
of bark cloth, the remains of the crown of a small
Zande straw hat, and a black, heavy cane — more
club than cane. All three are necessary. If one

Vignettes 43

of these were missing, it would not be Faragi.
A terrible disease is eating away his old body, the
sores of which are very distressing. Because of this
he does not go into the church, but sits outside a
little distance from the door.

Not a few have prayed much for our old friend,
but he never showed interest other than his irregular
church attendance. One day he was asked why
he carried the big, heavy cane. He replied, " For
bad leopards and bad people." " Where would
Faragi go, if a bad leopard should kill him ? "
asked the missionary. But Faragi did not answer —
probably because he was thinking, a rare occur-
rence for him.

One evening, not long afterwards, at the end of a
day of wrestling against what seemed all the powers
of darkness, Faragi came hurriedly up the path to
the mission house. We never saw him walk so
fast, for he generally walked slowly on account of
his sores. He came as if he were afraid to trust
himself to walk slowly — as if in fear of an unseen
power about to call him back. Before he came
within the usual speaking distance, he called out
in his childlike simplicity, " Can I confess my sins
and follow Jesus ? "

The next day Faragi was cursed because he asked
another man to follow Jesus too.

The rains rain and Faragi still sweeps the station
paths, but now he knows Whom he is believing and
asks you to pray for him.

The big, Azande chiefs in the present range of
the Africa Inland Mission stations are RENZI and
BAFUKA and their sons.

44 Mission Work among the Azande

Of these, WANDO is the most educated in the
ways of the white man. Belgian officials agree that
he is the most shrewd and intelligent. He is a
tall, fine-looking man between thirty and thirty-
five years of age. Addressing his people, his
eloquence, personality and stately bearing are most
fascinating. When he gets interesting news, he
generally calls together his people and tells them
about it. If the news, as received, is ungarnished
and devoid of local colour, red fire, or high lights,
leave it to WANDO.

There is no missionary to this chief and his people.
His village is located near the Gangara rest house,
forty-five miles from Faradje on the Dungu road.
Three missionaries travelling towards Faradje were
visited by WANDO at this rest house.

He came in the evening with twenty-five of his
men. He wore a felt hat, well-fitting khaki coat
and trousers, very respectable looking shoes and
polished leather puttees. One of the men placed
Wando's chair in the porch of the rest house, his
counsellors taking their places in order of rank just
outside. The other natives, porters and boys
then came up and filled in the circle around the
little low porch. Thus as the missionaries were
sitting looking out from the rest house, Wando sat
facing them with his back to the circle of natives,
having his counsellors seated on his right. Of
the natives, only the four counsellors were allowed
to be seated. All the rest stood.

After the usual exchange of greetings and intro-
ductory talk, the conversation turned to the mission
and its missionaries. To our surprise, Wando asked
if some of our missionaries did not come from
different countries than the others. He was much

CHRISTMAS SPORTS AT DUNGU.

Vignettes 45

impressed when told that England and America
were separated by a large expanse of water, that
people and goods were taken from one country to the
other by means of ships, that one country was
small, with many people, while the other was very
large with plenty of elbow room. The speed and
size of the ships were a marvel to him. as well as
the fact that steam ran the engines instead of
petrol — he thought all engines were run by
petrol as the only self-moving conveyance that
he had seen was a motor cycle.

At this point in the conversation he turned to his
counsellors — he always addressed himself to them —
and said. " The words of the world."

He then asked whether there were any wild
animals in our countries as in his. One of the
missionaries told him of the Zoo in London where
the animals of the world were kept in cages. Where-
upon he turned to his men and said, " The Fathers of
Cloth are very strong."

The Gospel Story was then told him very
thoroughly from beginning to end. He knew
it, for he had heard it not a few times before.
We then showed him our Bibles ; and taking the
little book of the Gospel of Mark written in
Pazande, in one hand, and gathering the pages
of the book of Mark in our Bibles between
thumb and fingers of the other, we explained to
him that much of the Bible was in the little
Zande Gospel by Mark. The same was done with
the books of Luke and John. This was very
pleasing to him and caused many ejaculations of
surprise.

Then one of the missionaries told him of a big
chief in Jerusalem, who came to talk with Jesus at

46 Mission Work among the Azande

night. Wando's attention was assured, and the
account of Jesus and Nicodemus was read.

After a few words, the big chief became very
much excited. The missionary stopped reading,
wondering what was the cause. The chief pointed
his finger at the book and exclaimed in delight,
" I can hear your words ! I can hear your words ! "
It was the first time any one had read to him in
Pazande. The words, " Ye must be born again "
must have sounded as strange to Wando as they
ever did to Nicodemus.

Now the Azande are no strangers to the simile,
metaphor and parable. Their interest is held
when a teaching is so presented. Accordingly,
when the missionary read, " The wind bloweth
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither
it goeth ; so is every one that is born of the Spirit."
Wando, as quick as a flash, turned to his men and
held up his hand. Then he began one of his famous
discourses. Never before were the first eight
verses of the third of John expounded so thoroughly
in Pazande. Even the missionaries listened as if
they were hearing it for the first time. When the
chief had finished, he turned to the missionaries
and said, " Go on. You have not finished it yet."
So greatly did the Holy Spirit bear witness to the rest
of the chapter that the head counsellor interrupting
asked, " What shall we do ? "

By this time it was dark, but the chief's interest
continued. A lantern was brought and lighted
and the Parable of the Sower was read from Mark's
account. While it was being read, the chief's
interest became so great that he left his chair and
stood near the table. Two of his counsellors came

Vignettes 47

up to the porch and joined him. As the parable
finished, a snap-shot of the natives would have been
a striking testimony to the power of the Word.
For, although Wando and his two head advisers
with many natives were highly interested, the
two lower counsellors were hostile and passed
scoffing remarks to the crowd.

When Wando resumed his seat after the reading
one could have heard a pin drop. He had heard this
parable for the first time. It had been read to him
just once. After a short silence, he gave a quick
ejaculation, which meant, " I will explain." And
he did explain — went through everything that had
been read, giving each kind of soil in its proper
order, and then repeated the metaphors and drew
the lessons exactly as in the narrative.

Pray for Wando's conversion, and for a white

missionary to be sent to him and his people.
* * * *

The first we saw of PENIPENI was at the dis-
pensary. He had been on the station two years
and the missionary in charge pronounced the
disease leprosy. One of his feet was so eaten away
that he could scarcely walk. His courtesy and
deference were noticeable. His answer to the
inquiry concerning the name of his sickness revealed
that he was not yet entirely away from the Azande
customs, for he said, " The evil has shot my foot,
father.'7

The days went on and Penipeni confessed sins
before the small group of Christians, and renounced
all the ways and customs of the Azande.

Again he came to our attention through rumours
that he was hobbling along the paths to the villages
to preach the Gospel. This was indeed amazing,

48 Mission Work among the Azande

for it was well-known the pain it caused him to
walk even from the native quarters to the open
space set apart for the dispensary. As he con-
tinued to go repeatedly to the villages, it was
thought best to dissuade him, but he replied,
" Bwana, I would walk the paths to tell God's
words as long as He gives me strength " ; this he
said after returning from a fifteen mile trip.

He was then put on for training with the two
evangelists, and went out with them long distances.
It seemed the more he walked, the better he could
walk. It was not long before his sore was nearly
healed. Now, he averages seven or eight miles
every other day as he bears witness faithfully and
fearlessly to the Gospel message. The other boys
on the station like to laugh at Penipeni, who is
quiet in the land, but he knows wherein is his

peace.

* * * *

A.I.M. Bafuka,

Congo Beige.
2nd sleep of the week,

June 22nd, 1920.
BWANA X.

Sene. I write this letter for Chief Bafuka. I
am not writing this at the mission. I am writing
this letter at the foot of Bafuka under his yepu
(grain store). Bafuka tells me to write it.

I am, KONDO.

(The following is the old Chief's dictation. It
can be relied upon as being just what he said, —
leave that to him ! )

I am BAFUKA. I greet you very much. Alas
a great love for you is working me — it surpasses.

AZANDE

BOYS — VILLAGE IN

REAR.

Vignettes 49

Thus, one word : The father of cloth that is here,
it is Bwana Y., he works my word very well. He
gives me sugar and tea. I say to myself that you
told him to do my requests. Alas ! this is very
pleasing to me. You (meaning the Bwanas X and
Y.) are fathers of cloth, very merciful to me.

Yes, but I want you to tell me the name of that
country to which you are going. I want you to
send me some sugar, an axe and a razor. Send me
some medicine, it is like soap.

I greet the Madam. I salute the little child
very much.

I sinned one bad word. I now sit only on the
ground.

You write me and I write you. Give me a nice
present. Baka and his three children are only here.
No word is working them ; they are therefore in
peace.

Your friend am I, — CHIEF BAFUKA.
* * * *

One morning sitting on the back seat in the
church at Dungu, a missionary after having worked
all the evening before and most of the early morning,
was congratulating himself on what a good message
he had for the natives, who were then down on the
football field drilling prior to the service.

Just as the first few came panting up the steep
hill and into the church, the man was referred to
the account of the Rich Young Ruler. It seemed
as if God said, " Drop that fine sermon and read
this passage of Scripture." And so the prepared
message was put aside, not without much grace,
and the Word of God read with but little comment.

After the service Bagine's wife went to one
of the lady missionaries and told the following

50 Mission Work among the Azandf

story : " Last year Mrs. M. asked us women in
the POCO meeting to leave all and follow Jesus
Christ. As I went home after the market, these
words worked me very much, but I threw them
down for I wanted to be a rich woman. And so
I threw down the words Mrs. M. asked us to do,
and planted my moru fields, for I was going to make
beer and sell it to the people on the path as they
came by my village. But my gardens did not grow
well ; I thought God was angry with me because
of this. This morning I have decided to leave
off being a rich woman, for I want to follow Jesus
Christ."

Old Bagine still remained at a distance from the
Gospel and associated himself with Station activi-
ties only so far as was really necessary. Later his
little boy developed a very grave condition of
hernia. An operation would save his life. The
one who could do this operation was at Aba, and
was one of those Christians too. So Bagine (Father
of the Path) put the wee boy on his great shoulders,
grasped his long spear and started the 135 miles
to Aba followed by Mrs. Bagine with the household
utensils.

The operation proved to be one of those that
taxes the ability to meet emergencies and the
resourcefulness of the best surgeons anywhere.
But there is a daily prayer meeting up on the rocks,
and, " The Lord of Hosts is with us ; the God
of Jacob is our refuge." One month later
Bagine came up and wanted some paper francs
changed for centimes. His face was radiant and
his joy contagious He was going home with his
little boy, who otherwise would have died in a few
years.

Vignettes 51

We don't know what Bagine thought as he
returned with the little fellow sound and well ;
but maybe Mrs. Bagine agrees with Noah, Abraham,
Rahab, Joshua, the Nobleman, Cornelius, Lydia,
Stephenas, Zaccheus, Onesiphorus, and the Philipp-
ian jailor that one can claim on the ground of the

Word of God the salvation of the entire household.
* * * *

As the sun was just about to go down, a missionary
sat on a high rock at the foot of the great Bondupur
mountain which is in the Belgian Congo, near the
British Sudan border. A short distance down
at the right lay the little, straw camp. The man
was talking to a native trying to get a word in the
Pazande other than the usual " ripe " of fruit to
describe the red sunset.

Suddenly from behind one of the rocks near by
came the roar of a big lion. The native ran like
a deer to the camp. The missionary did not run
as fast, but this was not his fault. The lion viewed
the flight with approval.

At the camp, to the surprise of the fleeing, two
natives, their wives and many children were calmly
waiting to sell the food which they had brought for
the porters. Moreover, they asked to hear " The
words of God " again ; and, since the lion seemed
agreeable, Ifuru interpreted to them the Gospel
Story.

It was a quaint meeting. The lion was very near —
— too near. Ifuru would punctuate the message
by turning around to make sure that everything
was all right. The missionary stood near a tree
that was conducive to a speedy ascent.

After the meeting, the porters were afraid to go
for water and had to cook their food without it.

52 Mission Work among the Azande

About ii p.m. the visitor went roaring off into the
high grass. His departure ushered in three
elephants who made a temporary play-ground of
the back yard. All during this time the natives
would continually say to one another, " Alas !
We are about to die ! Alas ! my mother ! "

In the morning the missionary was abashed to
hear Ifuru telling a group of people, " The father of
clothes prays, and the lions and elephants run off

into the grass."

* * * *

The greatest Azande chief is RENZI. Next to
him in power is BAFUKA his younger brother,
sixty years old. When Bafuka sends a word of
unusual importance to Renzi, the man called to go
with the verbal message is TURUGBA. He lives in
his little village up on the Congo-Sudan Border,
two days journey from Bafuka, and has lived in
that neighbourhood for over three score years.

This old man is one of Bafuka's dearest friends.
That this chief chooses a man of Turugba's char-
acter as a friend and for important duties is not
only a tribute to the chief's ability to read men,
but also one of the many proofs we have had of his
respect for and open avowal of the right. " The
birds-of-a-f eather " saying is not so far from the
truth after all.

Not long ago one of these important messages had
to be sent to Renzi. Turugba was the man
summoned. When the word was delivered, the old
messenger returned and stayed many days with his
friend and chief. During this period he visited
the mission station at different times.

Before returning home to his village he stepped
in to say good-bye. This time, instead of interesting

Vignettes 53

him with tales of the white man's country, he was
told of Jesus and the necessity of accepting Him
as his Saviour. One of the little boy Christians
was called in to tell him the Gospel Story^and the
Holy Spirit bore witness to the account. After the
Good News had been given, a deep silence followed.
Then the old man leaned down to the little fellow
sitting at his feet and said earnestly, " You tell
the White Man this : You tell him that I believe
all that you have told me. I believe it with my
mouth. I believe it with my heart," and he
placed his knotted old hand over his heart. Three
weeks later he walked three streams from his
village to a neighbouring chief with one of our
evangelists, just for the purpose of vindicating the
message and adding his testimony.

Thousands of old men like Turugba are now
going down with grey hairs to their graves without
hearing of Jesus.

" How shall they hear without a preacher ? "

AFRICA INLAND MISSION.

THE MISSION.

The Africa Inland Mission is an interdenominational and
international Mission which has for twenty-six years] {been
carrying the life giving message of the Lord Jesus Christ to
the needy tribes in Central Africa ; and is extending on into
the Upper Belgian Congo from the East through the dark
Sudan toward Lake Chad. In these regions there are still
numerous untouched tribes, with millions of heathen people
without Light.

Both men and women whom God has called, drawn from
almost every Section of the Christian Church, have banded
themselves together to carry the Gospel to " every creature "
tin these vast fields as God leads and enables.

ITS BASIS.

The Missionaries of the Africa Inland Mission tenaciously
believe that the Gospel is " the power of God unto salvation
to every one that belie veth " ; they glory in the Cross and
reverently hold to the Deity of our Lord. They believe in
the integrity of Holy Scriptures and, while obeying the last
behest of the Saviour, they eagerly wait and ardently look
for that Blessed Hope, " the glorious appearing of the Great
God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."

ITS METHODS.

Mission Stations are located on the high water-sheds wherever
possible.

School and industrial work is organized on most Stations ;
Medical work is introduced where and when medical aid can
be given.

The Mission aims at thoroughness in all its departments
and seeks to lay a solid foundation on which the native Church
may build.

ITS SUFFICIENCY.

In humble dependence on God the Mission has proved His
faithfulness in supplying its need.

Its workers have rejoiced in the shining of His face when
prayer has been heard and the answer given. They have
gloried too in the more humbling and testing experiences
when the seeming needs have been withheld, and when in
helplessness have been cast upon their Master, and on the
troubled sea have known the music ana sweetness of His
voice : " Fear not, it is I."

As a Mission it has learned that the successful spreading
of the message of redeeming Love, depends upon Christians
both on the Field and in the homeland walking with God
in harmony with the divine plan : praying, giving, and working
as God directs.