S-Vove-r, J3 • D. ^ 
 
 CHILD LIFE IN WEST CENTRAL 
 AFRICA. ^ 
 
 MRS. BERTHA D. STOVER. 
 
 the African child opens his eyes 
 to the light of this world, he finds 
 no soft garments awaiting him—only a 
 bed of leaves or a reed mat on the earth 
 floor, by the side of a smoking fire. After 
 an excuse for a bath, his tiny mouth is 
 filled and refilled with corn meal gruel, 
 made with sweet beer. And this is con¬ 
 tinued till he is old enough to eat mush. 
 Sometimes, when a little one’s skull is 
 soft and open, a plaster made of red clay, 
 charcoal, oil and hen’s feathers is stuck 
 on the top of the cranium, where it re¬ 
 mains till the hair grows and lifts it up. 
 
 The child is not supposed to wear any 
 clothing till three or four years of age, 
 and then a half yard is quite sufficient. 
 
 When the baby is two or three days old it 
 is tied on the back of its mother or some 
 child, the little legs spread apart so the 
 feet will reach around the hips, and with 
 a cloth drawu tightly over its body, its 
 
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 little head is left to dangle. The face is 
 rarely ever washed and the flies fill its 
 mouth and eyes. And often the whole 
 body is covered with filthy sores. All 
 weakly children die early. Indeed it is a 
 source of wonderment to us that one ever 
 recovers from a fit of sickness. 
 
 As a rule children are not abused. They 
 have enough to eat (except in cases of dis¬ 
 cipline—which are rare—when food is 
 withheld as a punishment) and are allowed 
 to do much as they please, and wallow in 
 the dirt with the pigs and chickens. But 
 sometimes if a mother dies and her little 
 ones have no older sister or aunts, they 
 suffer with hunger and are cuffed and 
 scolded by the other wives of their father. 
 
 As soon as a girl is old enough to be 
 useful, her life-work begins, i. e. carrying 
 a basket on her head and a baby on her 
 back. Their chief amusements are imi¬ 
 tating their mother's work. They pound 
 up dirt instead of corn, make clay pots 
 and tie an ear of corn on the back instead 
 of a doll. The boys make pop-guns, 
 bows and arrows, and spend much time 
 fishing and hunting. They play several 
 games not unlike those played by school 
 children in my day. 
 
 So far, yon do not think their lives can 
 
A Christian Home and Family. 
 
 WEST CENTRAL AFRICA. 
 
be very dark, do you? But thus far you 
 have seen only the fairest side of it. What 
 is the other side? 
 
 Utterly void of everything good and 
 pure. They are not only from the earliest 
 age taught to lie and steal, but mothers 
 and grandmothers teach theii little boys 
 practices too vile to mention. Their lit¬ 
 tle hearts are ruled by fear, not love. If 
 they hear a bird cry at night, they believe 
 it an evil spirit. If they are ill, some one 
 has bewitched them. They dare not go 
 out in the woods alone for fear some one 
 will catch them. If the father becomes 
 angrv, his first act is to threaten to shoot 
 them, and they must keep in hiding till 
 his anger has cooled off. 
 
 Their father has no more claim or con¬ 
 trol over them than any stranger. They 
 are subject to the caprice of their mother’s 
 brothers who may sell them for a debt at 
 any time. No matter what cruel deed is 
 being done, nothing is kept from the 
 children. They see and hear things which 
 you, my friends, never dreamed of. 
 
 When a little boy is ten years old—or 
 old enough to carry a load—his real hard¬ 
 ships begin. He must accompany his 
 master or relatives on long journeys, carry¬ 
 ing his meals, tramping through the hot 
 
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 sun day after day, sleeping out of doors 
 in the cold and wet. When his little legs 
 become stifE and swollen and refuse to 
 carry him farther, nine chances ont of ten 
 he is knocked in the head and left for the 
 hyenas to devour. 
 
 The girl must have her body tattooed in 
 various designs—a most painful operation. 
 The skin is pricked with needles and the 
 juice of an herb injected, which leaves 
 raised scars. Her chief education is that 
 she must marry and bear children. Little 
 girls of eight and ten years are often en¬ 
 gaged to old men, but seldom are married 
 younger than sixteen or seventeen. Young 
 men rarely marry younger than twenty. 
 
 One of the saddest things about child- 
 life here is that there is nothing in pros¬ 
 pect for the child but to grow to be what 
 his father and his grand-father were be¬ 
 fore him. And Oh! the anxiety we feel to 
 get hold of these little ones and teach 
 them better things before their hearts be¬ 
 come hardened in sin. Our work is more 
 directly with and for the young. Circum¬ 
 stances have made it so in a measure, 
 though we do all we can for the older peo¬ 
 ple. But if you could realize the differ¬ 
 ent lives the children of our Christians 
 live—the different atmosphere they are 
 
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 brought np in! And those who live at the 
 villages are wise in bringing their little 
 folks to the mission compound to stay 
 while their mothers are absent in the 
 fields. 
 
 This little anecdote will speak' for it¬ 
 self. 
 
 Our Cato has a little daughter four 
 years old—very shy and quiet. One day 
 her mother asked her, ‘'Rebecca, where is 
 Jesus?” 
 
 “In Heaven.” 
 
 “And who is with Him there?” 
 
 “May; and May is all beautiful, beauti¬ 
 ful.” (May is my little lamb, safe in the 
 upper fold.) 
 
 “Do you wish to go and live with May?” 
 
 “I can’t, for I have sins. Dora (her 
 baby sister) has no sin for she is a baby, 
 but I am older and I have sins.” 
 
 “Where are your sins,” asked her 
 mother. 
 
 “In my heart.” “Have I sins?” again 
 she asked, “0 yes, and so has father.” 
 
 Her mother said in repeating the con¬ 
 versation to me, “Where did she learn all 
 that? I have never taught her—such a 
 child!” 
 
 I told the mother she must understand 
 
 that now is the time to teach her the 
 
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 truths—that the Catholics say “Give me 
 a child till seven years of age. and you 
 may have him afterwards.” Rebecca says 
 little, but she hears and understands much 
 more than her elders realize. How von 
 would enjoy hearing these little tots sing! 
 It is worth living in Africa just to feel 
 that in these children is dawning a new 
 era. May God own and bless His work! 
 
 They are coming from the dark Soudan 
 That lies by the Niger's shore, 
 
 And the glory of the Sou of man 
 O’er its hills and plains shall pour. 
 
 Land of deepest, darkest heathen night.. 
 Thou shalt yet be called the Land of Light, 
 And in that Millennial morn so bright, 
 Africa's sons at last shall weep no more. 
 
 — Selected. 
 
 All the ends of the world shall remember and 
 turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the 
 nations shall worship before thee. 
 
 —Psalms xxii. 27 . 
 
 The Womans Board of Missions of the Inlerioi, 
 Boom O03, 59 Dearborn St., Chicago,