Uganda by Pen and Camera/Chapter 8

by Charles W. Hattersley

Chapter VIII

Some Results of Christianity

Now I will try to show, with the help of a few pictures, the difference Christianity has made to the people. Books written by others have told of what the European Administration has done and is doing; and I desire to give the British Government Officials full credit for the vast number of improvements they have introduced, or helped the chiefs and missionaries to introduce, into the country. No doubt the imposition of the hut tax and the gun tax has made the people work to a limited extent; but the fact must not be overlooked that the native Governments have always imposed a hut or Poll tax on the people, and the values of this and the one imposed by the Administration are not very widely different.

It does always strike people very forcibly that, whilst coming from within ten miles of Mombasa at the coast, right up to Uganda, the whole of the inhabitants of the country are savages in appearance and in most of their habits; yet, when one comes to Uganda, the people are found to be clothed and in their right minds. When Sir H. M. Stanley saw the photographs of the two Christian boys here presented, he exclaimed, ‘Do you know, this is exactly what I have always noticed throughout Africa. The Christian natives have not the hunted, fearful expression of countenance that the heathen have. The Christians have a brighter, more intelligent, and more solid expression.’ These boys have been brought up as Christians for several years, though the one at the right hand, as a child, was carried away from

Bark cloth: 1. Stripping off the bark.
2. Beating it out.

Unyoro and sold as a slave in Uganda. It is always a joy to feel that one has been privileged to have the bringing up of such lads, and to think of what their future might have been, but for the influence of Christ in their lives. Certainly, they well repay the teaching expended on them.

In the faces of our Christian women, too, may be seen a difference, and the illustration will show that even at the very earliest age their children are taught to go to God’s House, for this picture was taken just outside a church. The kindly disposition of the lads could be instanced in many ways, but one will serve to show that they would set an example to English children in some things. One of them served a master who owned a dog. When the dog was taken with distemper and lying near to death, the lad sat beside it and moistened its mouth with water every few minutes until it died. It is a rare thing to see a Christian lad in Uganda ill-treat a dumb animal.

Then, Christianity has made an enormous difference in the dress of the people. Sir H. M. Stanley, on his first visit, noticed the people better clothed than their neighbours. Their clothing was, for the most part, the bark of a tree, just as is worn by the man in the illustration, which shows him stripping off the bark of a common wild fig tree, full of rubber sap, for the purpose of making one of these cloths. When stripped off, the bark is taken into a hut, laid on a log of wood let into the ground for solidity, and then is hammered out with a ribbed wooden mallet, which spreads it until it becomes, almost like cloth, though more like leather in texture. This was the national dress, varied by sheep and goat skins, which the natives are very clever at tanning. But these dresses will not wash, and Christians consider that they should dress

A Christian wedding group, showing the dress of the day.

in a more cleanly style. The picture of the wedding group shows the difference, and what they prefer. The cloths are mostly calico, the cheaper kind imported from America and India; the better kind, some from America, some from England. The picture shows a great deal more than an improvement in dress. The women, having been treated as slaves, were never, until recently, even on their wedding day, allowed to walk home with their husbands. The bride and her maids usually passed out of one door, and the bridegroom, with his followers, usually passed out of the opposite door of the church, each going to their respective homes. The bride was taken to the husband in the evening, after having been plentifully smeared with butter. Then for the next few weeks she spent her time in weeping, or pretending to weep, and receiving the condolences of her friends that she had become the slave of a man, notwithstanding the fact that in many instances the bride had made great efforts to secure the husband. That sort of thing is dying out under the influence of Christianity. The bride is allowed to take her husband s arm, and together they go to one home and one marriage feast, and receive the congratulations of their friends. Many chiefs now allow their wives to live in the same house as themselves, though the custom of the country is, that the wife of a chief shall occupy a separate house. She may never feed with her lord, though she may sit behind him and replenish his cup with beer when it is empty; but she may not call on him, except at certain times, and then she kneels down before him and asks him how he is and if he slept well—the customary salutation of the country. The chief whose photo is shown here regards his wife not as his slave, but as his wife, and to all appearances thinks as much

The Rev. and Mrs. Z. Kizito, a Christian chief and his wife.

of her as many Christian Englishmen think of their wives. She sits at table with him for meals, and together they eat with knives and forks and European table utensils generally. This is the result of Christianity. Polygamy was, and is, common amongst the heathen and Mohammedans. A Christian is married in church to one wife. Undoubtedly it is a very hard matter for a man who has had half a dozen wives to give them all up but one when he is baptized; but it is a remarkable and wonderful testimony to the power of Christ’s Gospel that such men receive strength to do this; and that strength is made perfect in weakness has been often borne out during the progress of the Gospel in Uganda. Unmarried men are not looked on with much respect in Uganda, and one boy quite decided that St. Paul must have been a married man, for, he said, ‘Otherwise he could never have obtained a seat on any council of the Jews. At least,’ said the boy, ‘that is so in our country. A bachelor is never listened to, in fact, he is scarcely known, and could not, in any case, get a chieftainship, or occupy any position of influence in the country.’

Christianity has also made the people work, because they feel that they must have better clothing, better houses to live in, some furniture, and a greater variety of food, and these things act as an incentive in making them work. Many of them are learning to be bricklayers and brickmakers, and numbers have been taught by the industrial missionaries in building the new cathedral in Mengo and in building houses. The Industrial Mission has also instructed a number of carpenters and joiners; some blacksmithing has been taught; and printers, who are now working in the Government printing office at Entebe, have learned their trade in the same way. The boys learn composing and making-up in printing very quickly, and a great deal of printing, including that of the books required in the Mission, is done at the Industrial Mission. There is also a monthly paper, called Uganda Notes, printed in English, though the boys do not know much of that language. Then, again, numbers of men are engaged in trade, selling cloth, and trading in various kinds of native products—baskets, skins, mats, growing fruit for sale, collecting eggs and fowls in the country and selling them in the towns, making harps and walking-sticks, a few of them weaving a common cotton, many of them growing cotton, collecting rubber, coffee beans, and in many ways trying to earn a respectable living. For many years there have been numbers of native blacksmiths. Iron is found in large quantities in the country, and the natives are very clever at smelting. As it is so often heated in charcoal, during the process it becomes carbonised, and of the nature of a soft steel. This the natives make into knives and what they call razors, the anvil being a stone, and the hammer a long piece of iron, the bellows very crude—just native pots, with pieces of goat skin and a stick to blow with attached to the top—the blast produced being very weak. These men are improving themselves in many ways, and getting taught by various Europeans in the country, and many men who knew a little of carpentering are taking lessons and endeavouring to extend that branch of their business. Many are engaged in making soap from the fat of animals killed in the market, mixed with a liquid which is obtained by burning plantain peelings, and straining the dust through a grass sieve. Many, again, make banana beer for sale in the markets; but the intoxicating kind is forbidden to be sold by the Native Council, and the European Administration has done its best to help the Council in this decision.

The Rev. Bartolom Ayo Musoke, with his wife and family.

For some time now, the sale of intoxicating drink has been entirely prohibited in all markets directly under the control of the Native Government. Under the Brussels Act, any trader found guilty of selling spirit or intoxicating drink to a native is liable to a heavy fine. It would not be at all a bad thing if the same rule were enforced with regard to Europeans and Indians. The Baganda have realised what an evil strong drink is to the country, and have tried to curtail the sale, though they cannot hope to stop its use.