Chapters 10 to 14

Children in Luba, formerly called San Carlos, on the west side of Bioko Island. (January 2001/Truelsen)

The Bubis used two forms of tattoo in the old days, one more recent than the other. According to stories from the eldest Bubis, the more recent form of tattoo has its origin in the times when vessels visited these African coasts looking for slaves. The objective of the barbaric and cruel Bubi tattoo was for a Bubi person, if captured and enslaved, to be able to recognize others from his country or tribe while he was in exile.

All who have visited this picturesque country know that the Bubi tattoo consists of carving or grooving the children’s faces in a most horrible way. In some, one sees shallow facial grooves, with very small, deep cuts. These are done in such a way that they are imperceptible from a distance, so the person is less disfigured. In others, quite to the contrary, there are deep grooves, wide and protruding, that make the person appear horribly disfigured and repugnant. I do not know where this difference comes from. It may be from the awkwardness of whoever did the cutting, or negligence in treatment, or from bleeding.

Back when this was the custom, it was usually performed on children three to five years old; however, I have seen nursing babies with facial grooves.

Before the operation, the child’s family consults with the spirit or morimó protector to see if he advises the child be tattooed. Ordinarily, the morimó responds affirmatively, but sometimes he answers negatively. That boy or girl is an exception to the general rule, by the express will of the morimó. Here we have the reason why, in the old days when the law was in full force, one would meet in the Bubi population some adult person with no facial cuts.

The children, generally, don’t know when they will be cut. They are carried away through deception to the house of the carver, for no one, voluntarily, lets himself be mutilated. Several of the adults in our missions have smooth faces, without cuts, because they suspected that they were going to be tattooed and escaped their family, taking refuge in the mission.

Once at the carver’s house, when the little boy or girl is amused and off-guard, he or she is subdued by two or three men, stretched out on the floor and tied up by the feet, hands, and waist to a stake, which had been prepared in advance. Thus he remains as if caught in a trap. The carver begins the operation with no regard to the victim’s screams and desperation. To carve the cheeks and jaws, he puts two fingers of his left hand in the mouth, in a way that he can’t be bitten by the desperate creature, then pushes them softly against the side and, with a very sharp knife, begins cutting with great care so as not to cut an important vein. The rest of the face, such as the forehead, the cheekbones, and the chin, are cut without difficulty.

The first cures were simply made with cool palm oil; others, with a pomade made of sifted ashes, a leaf mashed from a bush by the name bontola or bondola, water, and palm oil. They take great care that the wounds do not close, but that they heal open. This is how their faces appear plowed in big furrows, which, in thirty days, are usually entirely healed.

In times before ours, all regions of the island tattooed their children. He who writes this has seen many old men and, still, many more old women, with their faces plowed in big furrows in Baney, Rebola, Basilé, Basupú of the West, Balveri, and Batokopo. This cruel and savage custom disappeared in all regions of the island a few years ago. In the north, now, there are no young ones tattooed, and fewer old people, and in the south, while there are still old people and young people with the tattoos, one finds no carved children.

The other form of tattoo, much more ancient among the Bubi, consists of taking the point of a knife or another sharp instrument and making flowers, branches, and other figures in different parts of the body, mainly in the arms, chest, and back. These tattoos beautifully adorn the body. No coloring substance is put in these tiny wounds, as is done in other African tribes. Generally, only the young women had them, though on rare occasion a man would tattoo himself. In the present day, as all Bubis dress decently, this custom has disappeared.

In the old days, they would pierce their ears in an extraordinary manner. In the holes, they would put toothpicks, hollow clay piping, metal rings, and enormous earrings made of strings of chibo or shellfish. This customs was common among men and women, but, in these days, is no longer in use because all strive to imitate European fashion.

Whoever has seen the Bubis half-dressed may have observed knife cuts of various sizes in the style of their faces on other parts of their bodies. Such cuts are not part of their tattoos. They were made to open some tumor, to free some acute rheumatism, or to cure a sickness that appears to be their own and peculiar to them, called bajaba, majama, mahama, and in English is translated “illness of grease or fat.” When the incision or cut is vertical on the head or forehead, it proves that it was a bloodletting. The Bubi, in order to set free a migraine or sharp pain in the head, practices blood-letting on top of the forehead. Small cuts seen around the neck are evidence that a scrofula or other small tumor was extracted, which the Bubi believe are the main cause of sleeping sickness. To take precautions from such a frightful ailment, they extract the tumors by means of a boring tool made from palm or bamboo. Those tumors they call bichikó biotoló, which is, “sleeping glands.”

The customs of the Bubis were, in times long past, barbaric, savage, and cruel. In a book written by a German merchant from the Gold Coast, translated into English and printed in London in 1703, one reads this text: “The island of Fernando Po is inhabited by a savage and cruel sort of people,” in such manner that no one dared dock at those beaches. And, a Portuguese memoir dealing with the inhabitants of Fernando Po tells that, in the year 1810, an English boat moored in San Carlos Bay to replenish its fresh water from its springs. In arriving in a row-boat on the beach, they came upon a patrol of entirely nude Bubis armed with darts called bechika or mechicha.

Throwing them at the mariners in the rowboat, they killed them all. This is how foreigners developed such fear of the island.

The clear proof of their old barbaric customs lies in the continuous and bloody wars between some districts, some towns in the same district, some families, and the never-ending private vengeances. One often hears that the old Batetes, in the woods of Boloko where today one finds the property of Vivour[1] in San Carlos, preferred this site to ambush the Baloketos. There, in the not-too-distant past, they executed cruelties in most horrific scenes. Hiding in the thickets, the Batetes waited for the Baloketo to come down to the beach, where they would spring from their hiding places and attack the defenseless Baloketos, killing the male adults and carrying away women and children. Surprise attacks on travelers and treacherous murders were a common thing, so much so that for a chief to gain more power and influence, to be able to have the title boana or boabí, equivalent to our “hero” or “illustrious man,” he had to kill a personal enemy or an enemy of the tribe. There was a condition attached that the homicide involve stealth and deception.

The villages of western Boloko, Moeri, and Risule, which were larger in male population than female, once in the past asked for virgins from the Basakatos. They refused. Angry, the Baeris and Basules began cruel and incessant harassment of the Basakatos. The Basakatos, considering the superior numbers of their opponents, avoided them, shrinking from combat and patiently suffering their abuses. But the insults, assaults, and insolence of the Baloketos came to such an extreme that the Basakatos accepted the challenge. Both sides met on a plain high above the path off the old road to San Carlos. The Basakatos fought in desperation, determined to conquer or to die. They attacked with such ferocious courage that they broke the enemy’s ranks, throwing them into confusion. But soon the enemy was rallying. That innumerable multitude of Baeri and Basules fell upon the Basakatos, decimating their army. There was such carnage that the plain was literally filled with bodies. With this, the Basakatos were forced to surrender and beg for peace. The Baloketos granted this with two conditions: first, the surrender of the land included between the rivers Balóhó and Rupé. We Spanish call the river Balóhó or Malóhó the Rio Grande, and others, who seek to English-ize all, give it the name Big River. Second, the Basakatos were required to pay an annual tribute of virgins of marriageable age. To such great humiliation were the Basakatos subjected. In the various visits I made in 1897 from the Musola mission to the villages of Risule and Moeri I investigated the truth of what I have just told.

There once was in Bokoko two girls who were a wonder of perfection and beauty. The main mochuku of the Batetes, named Mai, was in love with them and asked their family for them. However, as Mai was a declared enemy of the Bokokos, the family refused to give them up. Mai, in a rage, swore to avenge himself and to seize the beauties by force. He called together his most loyal subjects, armed them, and went to the outskirts of the village where the girls lived. This happened in the field-working season. The Bokokos, off-guard and unaware of what was about to happen, went about their daily work, leaving at home little ones under the care of the old women and mothers with nursing babies. They also left at home the aforementioned girls, who were so beautiful and graceful they never worked in the fields, as they might mar their extraordinary beauty.

Later, when the other people went to the yam fields, the Batetes came out for the ambush. They easily seized the virgins and carried them away to the rijata or ritaka of Mai, making a great show of their victory.

The Batetes were so prosperous in their raid that they decided to repeat it. This second double-turn ended in one of the great misfortunes recorded in Bubi history. This time while the Batetes took the road to the mountain, the news came to the Bokokos that the Batetes were returning. The Bokokos armed themselves and hid in the dense jungle on both sides of a ravine where the Batetes must cross. When the Batetes were in the depths of that ravine, quite confident and secure in their plans, they found themselves caught between two fires, as we might say, unable to defend themselves or to escape on either side. The Bokokos were merciless to the Batetes. In the massacre of that terrible day, the mochuku Mai himself was destroyed.

Even with Mai’s death the fights and wars between the two villages continued. There was no peace until the Bacha, more brave and skilled in warfare than the Batetes, rushed beyond the Ndaha River to take possession of Bokoko terrain encompassed between the Okó and Ndaha rivers. The Bacha abandoned their old homeland, which was east of Ríobanda, and settled in the place occupied by the Bokokos.

The Bacha are, as I said, better fighters than the Batetes, and were nicknamed bualatokolo by Vivour, which means “brave and fierce troop.”

This state of perpetual island wars lasted a long time, until the supreme mochuku of Biapa, named Moka, whose dominion extended across all boundaries of the island, gave an edict prohibiting any village or individual from taking self-justice. He threatened severe penalties to those who did not comply. Moka considered that if these private wars continued, the extermination of the Bubi race would be swift and certain. All were required to bring their complaints to his tribunal. To this end, he instituted a body of swift troops charged with punishing those villages and districts that were rebellious of his edicts. They called this troop the Lohúa or Lojúa. At the end of 1888, Reverend Father Jaime Pinosa, Superior of the Mission of María Cristina, impeded the execution of the sentence dictated by Moka that the chief of Ruiché de Balacha, by the name of Mohale, be decapitated. Moka had great veneration and respect for the missionaries. The last foray of the Lojúa for the population of San Carlos Bay took place in January 1895. Rev. Father Sala, Superior of Batete, communicated immediately to Governor General José Puente that squads of the Lojúa were on patrol. The esteemed José sent a body of armed sailors in their pursuit. The Lojúa escaped to the heights of Biapa. Since then, the Lojúa has made no more forays. The great mochuku Moka died in March 1899 and with his death, so died the Lojúa. Fathers Pardina and Abad were present at the death of Moka, but they did not see him.

In times past, a Bubi woman was condemned to be man’s perpetual slave and act as his beast of burden. Although in her infancy and first years of adolescence she enjoyed entertainment and the delight of her young state, much too soon she was seen as enough grown with sufficient strength to be put to hard work, at times more than her strength allowed. Here is the reason one finds, even today, a certain aire propios of the stronger sex in some places of the island.

Of those of us who have lived a long time in the colony, who has not seen the caravans of children, young maidens, and women arriving at the beach carrying large, heavy loads of yams and palm oil. They return to their besé (village) the same way, carrying cargoes of salt and other articles purchased from the bapotó. They are led by a man with his walking stick perched on his shoulder, like a muleteer with his herd, who arrives at his house tranquil and temperate, as if there were nothing to it.

When the women arrive at their village, they should do nothing but rest, even if they had been carrying less weight under less difficult conditions. However, quite the opposite happens. They arrive home from the beach sweating and worn out, yet everyone understands that a day at the beach is no treat for Bubi women. Now they must transport water and firewood. Of these two things, the water in particular is usually quite remote from their homes. They immediately begin to cook food for their husband and children, then set about making the ointment peculiar to them called ntola or ndola, with which they must anoint their husbands before they retire for the night. While the woman is busy in these chores, the man goes for a walk, or to obtain some exquisite palm wine, or to entertain himself with his companions talking in the boecha or boencha, which is “meeting house.”

The woman similarly helps her husband in field work. After finishing her daily tasks, she returns to the house with a heavy bundle of firewood or a giant bowl filled with yams, malangas or plantains, or different types of their good and flavorful edible plants.

In making palm oil, the Bubi men remove the cuttings and clear any remaining debris from the olives and pulp, but the rest of the operation is the women’s responsibility. The women must also secure the planting, cultivation, gathering, and storage of the malanga.

As soon as a woman has given birth, all of her relatives, friends, and close neighbors are required to serve her. Some supply water to the new mother, others obtain firewood, others provide yams, malangas and other edibles, and still others stay in her house to prepare her food and care for the newborn and mother. This solicitous care of mother and child lasts while the mother lacks sufficient strength to do her ordinary domestic chores. While she is in seclusion, she receives many visitors, all offering congratulations, presenting small gifts, and showering blessings on the child and mother. Each visitor gives the newborn a name that, to him, appears to go best with the infant’s characteristics or future outstanding deeds, which, as time goes on, will distinguish him, and make him outstanding among his countrymen.[2]

When the birth is twins, the family and neighborhood’s enthusiasm and joy increase. Then they aren’t satisfied with offering merely small gifts to the mother, as she is a person so dear and favored by the family spirits, but prefer to give her goat kids and lambs. They consider twins one of the biggest exceptional favors received from their ancestors.

About one week after a birth, they celebrate a modest feast. The family takes the newborn out of the house to ask the medicine man or prophet, mojiammó, which member of the family’s deceased bought its soul. Obtaining the answer, they give the child the name of his purchaser, who will be his protector and patron during his mortal life. This is the reason the same names repeat throughout the branches of family trees — one ancestor purchased all the souls. The naming complete, they celebrate a warm and joyful family feast.

It is general belief among the Bubis that God, himself, creates men’s souls, but when a woman conceives and God makes the soul of the fetus, a morimó, or deceased member of the family of the woman’s spouse, presents himself to God and asks that he be allowed to buy that soul. God, as he is so good and generous, sells it for a very small price. From this moment, he loses all rights that he had to that recently created soul and passes it to be the inalienable property of the morimó who bought it. It is from this that the Bubis deny they have obligations to God, except to keep for him their true respect and reverential fear. All of their duties and obligations are for the morimó who bought them, who, as owner and absolute and perpetual master, they must always serve. To him they will appeal in all their undertakings, prosperity and adversities, in health and sickness, in their profits and losses, and in all the principal acts of life. To him they will offer their gifts, libations, and sacrifices. And of him they will hope to receive their rewards, if they live in conformance with the laws and customs they received from their ancestors, and the punishment deserved if they fail in their duties to the same. From this one can understand the reason the Bubis have continued to use the words baribó or barimó, and so often comes from their lips invocations such as: “Ala Baribó! Ela Baribó!” They never invoke the name of God or call on his help or aid, unless it is an extreme case, at which times even atheists will instinctively invoke God’s name. Whoever claimed that the Bubis are true atheists, in as much as one couldn’t find evidence of adoration of the Supreme Being, was totally incorrect. As we will see later, they acknowledge a Creator Being of the world of all the things and even of their own baribó or barimó.

The ancient Bubis were unfamiliar with circumcision, and it never crossed their mind to circumcise anyone. If today the majority of children are circumcised, it is from long and continual dealings with the Mendes, Timenes, Fulas[3] and other bapoti. Those foreigners usually circumcise the Bubi children since the Bubis are not experts in this operation.

The Bubis, during the time a child is nursing, permit the woman complete freedom from her duties and obligations. This may continue until the infant can stand and begins to walk. If the husband, being a little drunk, or some other person asks something of her, she pretends ignorance, saying, N’ta la paha o bola a te eba (N); N’da la paha, o mona a te ema (S): “I cannot, my child still cannot stand.” The Bubi distinguish themselves with their extreme solicitude in raising children. As far as possible, they never leave them but for brief moments. They wash or bathe them once or twice a day and keep them clean and decent.

It is the general opinion among them that if the woman, while nursing and before she begins relations with her spouse, commits adultery, will remain permanently sterile as punishment for her crime. Hence, if a young woman who has given birth to some children suddenly stops conceiving, everyone assures that someone gave her kobo. That means she had committed adultery during the lactation of her last child before having renewed relations with her spouse and the barimó who granted her fertility has punished her with sterility.

How many quarrels I have witnessed between spouses for similar suspicions! The woman who has been given kobo is met with dishonor.

Puberty usually manifests in the indigenous of Fernando Po at age sixteen or seventeen in males, and at fourteen or fifteen in young women. There are a few instances of this occurring earlier, but more commonly some occur later.

Young men celebrate their entrance into puberty, in particular in the northern regions, in the following manner: The day arrives and the young man takes a bath, spreads himself with ntola pomade, then adorns himself with bipa and besori or mesorí (cords from palm leaves) and other items. Supplied with traveling calabashes of palm wine, he presents himself to the village botuku. He offers the botuku one of these filled with the exquisite and tasty liquor and the botuku receives the calabash with signs of gratitude.

The botuku then gives him a new name, with which from now on he must be recognized. With a certain ceremony, they accept him into the category of the village’s young men of marriageable age. He presents himself to the chief of the young men, botuku boa baseseppe, under whose orders he will be while he remains single. The botuku boa baseseppe convenes a general meeting of the single adults of the village, presents the new candidate to them, and they all welcome him and congratulate him for having arrived at this happy and joyful age, so fervently desired by the girls and the source of nostalgic regret and envy by the old people. Later, amicably, they finish the remaining calabashes of the delicious liquor.

In reference to the new name that now distinguishes the pubescent, we note that they call the name of the youth ilá ro baseseppe, and the name that he had before this age the ilá ro bola, or name of the child. In the future, no one who is younger or equal to his age may call him with his childhood name.

On one occasion, I encountered a man who was already the father of a family, whom I hadn’t seen in years since he left the school. Naturally, I called him by the name that he had as a boy, as I was ignorant of the name of his young manhood. Hearing my words, another young man of his same age, who was ignorant of the custom’s particulars, asked him: “How is it that Father calling you with the name of your infancy doesn’t make you mad, but if I call you with it you are indignant and angry?” Replied the adult: “The Father can call me with it because he is much older than I; he instructed me, educated, and baptized me, and you are simply an equal, not superior to me.”

There are neither festivities nor particular ceremonies for girls entering puberty. As soon as a girl becomes capable, which they place at about fourteen to fifteen years, the parent lets her suitor know he may come for her as soon as he pleases.

The man, before taking his purchased spouse into his house, requires an inspection of the young lady to assure that she remains a virgin. This inspection is practiced in the villages on the north side of the island; in the south it is falling out of practice. In the south, they have another method to determine if the maiden still keeps her eótó, or virginity, which they claim to be more reliable. Both results are uncertain, because there is no certain sign of a “criminal” loss of virginity.

Two or three old women from both families take the responsibility of inspecting the girl. If from their inspection they deduce she still remains a virgin, the two families congratulate each other and heap blessings and praise on the girl; but if they confirm she has been violated, oh, the poor child! What sad and bitter days await her.

The Bubis, when they give a dowry to acquire a wife, strive expressly to buy the eótó, or virginity. A maiden who has lost her virginity, even if it has been taken violently, has lost all her value and beauty. Such esteem and value the Bubi of antiquity had for virginity!

They anoint the maiden virgin with ntola, or ndola, making whimsical decorations and figures on her entire body, adorning her with bipa, besori or mesorí and a thousand varieties of beads. Thus adorned and beautified, they take her to her parents, or those who stand in for them, at her spouse’s house. She will lodge in a hut joined to his, which they give the name of bula or buna, which is, forbid or forbidden, and in it she will live a certain amount of time depending on the district.

Her daily occupation in seclusion will be to eat well, be meticulous in her personal cleanliness and the adornment of her person, and cultivate a small garden of ntola, ndola. She may not leave without urgent necessity, nor move even a little ways from the hut, until the solemn appearance at her wedding. In this confinement her spouse visits her, and ordinarily she leaves pregnant. During this time, the spouse works without resting in procuring the necessities for the solemnity of the wedding.

[1][Guillermo (or William Allen) Vivour, an immigrant from Sierra Leone and early island settler. Trans.]

[2] Upon the birth of a baby, it is placed at the feet of the woman’s husband, and if he lifts it from the ground, he is recognized as its father.

[3] [Three tribes from the neighboring West African coastal areas of Sierra Leone and Cotê D’voire. Trans.]