Gleanings from many fields;

Preface

TV /[" ANY and varied are the "fields" from which these gleanings are taken. But with few exceptions they are all fields in which the London Missionary Society works.

For one hundred years its missionaries have sowed and planted in different lands; and have also been permitted in some measure to reap and bind into sheaves.

And now gleaners have been at work, and selecting here a stalk and there a stalk, they have twisted them together into this little sheaf, which they offer to any who may be interested in bringing about the great Harvest of that Field which is the World.

The gleaners are especially indebted to Mrs. Bryson in " Child Life in China " ; to Miss Fielde in " Pagoda Shadows " ; to Mr. Herbert F. Standing in "The Children of Madagascar"; to Mr. Chunder Bose in " Hindoos as They Are " ; and to the following ladies and gentlemen, for information and stories : — Rev. C. W. Abel, Miss Bliss, Mrs. Du Bose, Miss Brown, Mrs. Bryson, Miss Budden, Rev. J. Chalmers, Miss H. Davies, Rev. J. Duthie, Mrs. Fry, Rev. H. J. Goffin, Rev. J. Gilmour (the late), Rev. I. H. Hacker, Rev. J. G. Hawker, Mr. Leonard Home, Captain Hore, Rev. A. S. Huckett, Rev. Dr. Griffith John, Rev. Dr. W. G. Lawes, Miss Linley, Dr.

iv PREFACE

Mather, Dr. McFarlane, Rev. W. E. McFarlane, Miss Olive Miller, Rev. J. Macgowan, Dr. Moffat (the late), Mrs. Moffat (the late), Rev. J. Mackenzie, Miss Rowe, Rev. J. Sadler, Mrs. Stevens, Mr. A. J. Swann, Dr. Southon (the late), Captain Turpie, Rev. J. Wallace Wilson, Rev. R. Stewart Wright, Rev. A. J. Wookey, and to other anonymous writers in the "Chronicle" and "Juvenile" magazines.

Contents

I. NATIVES AND NATIVE WAYS i

II. CRUEL CUSTOMS THAT CHRIST is CONQUERING 18

III. CHILD LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS 30

CHAPTER I NATIVES AND NATIVE WAYS Feasting in the South Seas

THE South Sea Islanders, like many of their more civilized fellowcreatures, are very fond of feasting. They believe in pies and puddings quite as much as you do, and not only at Christmas time, but at all seasons of the year. Theirs, however, are much larger than yours. Fancy a pie ten or twelve feet round! And a rolypoly three hundred feet long, and about as thick as a man's body ! You could not eat many of those Christmas pies, or many slices of those puddings, I am sure ! It would not be a very easy matter to make and cook such large pies and puddings in England, but the natives find no difficulty in making or eating them. To make the puddings, they simply dig a trench, fill it with wood, upon which they place stones. Whilst the men are doing this, the women are making the pudding (chiefly of arrowroot and bananas) upon beautiful banana leaves laid along the side of the trench. When it is made and rolled up carefully and securely in the leaves, and tied with vines, they set fire to the wood ; and when the stones are heated, some of them are taken out with wooden tongs. The pudding is then rolled in upon the bottom layer ; the hot stones are put on the top of it. These are covered with dry leaves, green leaves on the top of these, and the whole is covered in with soil.

Then the cooks and pudding-makers all go home to sleep, leaving the stars to watch the cookery.

B

Next morning the village is early astir, and men, women, and children appear in holiday attire. The pudding is taken up by means of long poles, and about a hundred men and boys raise it to their shoulders with a long lift, a strong lift, and a lift altogether, and with one tremendous shout they start towards the chiefs house, accompanied by the whole walkable village, singing songs as they go. Mr. Lawes says that on one occasion when he was asked to the village dinner, he measured this chieftain of the pudding tribe before carving, and found it was 204 feet long, that is two feet longer than the Monument in London is high. It was soon carved into slices four yards long, and some of these were sent to distant villages, big men carrying as much pudding as their strength would allow, while the rest was eaten up by the guests present before three days had gone.

Mr. Macfarlane says all cooking in the South Seas, twenty years ago, was done in the same way. Great holes were made for the pies, which were not made of mince-meat, but of fish, and fowl, and pigs whole. He says he has known a fowl-pie to contain about twenty whole birds, and a fish-pie to have more than fifty pretty large fish in it. A missionary was one day talking to a heathen native about heaven. The man listened for a time, and then said : " Is there any taro in heaven ? " And when told that there would not be any eating there, he turned away in disgust, saying he did not want to go to such a place. Not many years after, however, he changed his mind, and became a real "eater of the Word," and has since gone to heaven.

The Natives of New Guinea

The name "Papua" means, they tell us, "woolly-haired"; and1 certainly the first thing which strikes one in pictures of the inhabitants of New Guinea is their enormous mops of frizzy hair, often adorned with bits of bone or shell, bamboo combs, cockatoo feathers, and scarlet flowers. In colour the Papuans seem to range from sooty black to dusky brown. Probably the colour is not in all cases natural, for one has heard of a white baby becoming

THREE NEW GUINEA BOYS.

quite black after being handad about from one to another of a crowd of New Guinea women anxious to see and nurse the curiosity. The coast districts of New Guinea seem to be inhabited by a race that is partly Papuan and partly Polynesian, much taller and finer in body than the inland tribes. They have prominent brows, the nose large and somewhat curved, thick lips, and projecting jaws. They wear very few clothes — the men a girdle of string, and the women a grass petticoat. But like many savages, what they lack in dress they often make up for in ornament, especially at times of festival. Then the men — for in New Guinea it is the men, and not the women, who put on finery — dress their hair, deck themselves with ear-rings, nose ornaments, necklaces, armlets, and belts. They smear their faces with red ochre and sometimes put on hideous masks. Altogether, they are as unpleasant and forbidding-looking people as any in the world; and it must at first be very hard for English people to live among them, and try to love them and do them good.

They are wild, noisy, and boisterous; easily pleased, and as easily offended. The women seem to do most of the hard work — cultivating the plantations, making pottery, etc. ; while the men hunt, fish, ornament their canoes, houses, and weapons, or go fighting. There is a terrible lot of fighting in New Guinea. The country seems to be divided up into a countless number of little tribes, constantly at war with their neighbours, and keeping up feuds from generation to generation. Then, too, some tribes are regular pirates, robbers, and head-hunters; and among them those men are most thought of who have the largest number of the skulls of their enemies with which to decorate their dwellings.

The houses of Papuans are very strangely built. Sometimes a village will consist of great barrack-like sheds, a hundred yards or more long, with a path down the middle, and on either side pens divided off as the homes of different families, who thus dwell together for safety. Other villages are built on piles in the water, or close by the sea-shore ; so that, if attacked by land, the inhabitants may escape by the back door into their canoes. In inland districts houses of refuge are built in lofty trees, and reached by long ladders, which can at need be pulled up into the branches. Owing to the influence of our missionaries and teachers, and of the British Government, the constant fighting which used to prevail is gradually dying out, as is also cannibalism, which in some parts was much practised.

One result of the wars, which has greatly hindered missionary work in New Guinea, is that there is no common language. Often the inhabitants of villages only a few miles distant cannot understand each other ; and the number of different dialects in which the work of teaching has to be carried on is very great. It was surely in the good providence of God that our chief mission station was planted at Port Moresby: for the Motu tribe who live there are great traders, and their language is more or less understood at the different places along the coast to which they go to exchange their pottery, arm-shells, and necklaces for sago and canoes. On these trading voyages the Christian Motuans can tell what they have learnt of the Gospel. Mr. Chalmers has sometimes accompanied them, and thus made friends with distant tribes, and prepared them to receive teachers.

When our missionaries first went to New Guinea they found that the cannibals living in one part of that great island looked down with contempt upon the cannibals of another district. Those in the east end considered themselves quite respectable compared with some of their neighbours, who, they said, " ate every part of the human body, even the hair being boiled and devoured." The ovens used for the cannibal feasts are never used for cooking anything else, and while every other kind of food is eaten with the fingers, forks made of hard wood are used for eating human flesh. These forks are handed down from father to son as heirlooms, and are greatly valued.

The cannibals in the western branch of our Mission, the Tugarians, are the most savage, warlike, and cruel. They are pirates, and make raids upon the villages along the coast. They use long, fleet canoes, and in these paddle up the rivers and creeks, plundering, murdering, and making prisoners as they go. They break the arms and legs of their prisoners to prevent them fighting or escaping, and then keep them until they are required for food, cooking one or two bodies at a time.

Their weapons are clubs, spears, bows and arrows, stones, and wooden swords, which are generally made of ebony, and carved. Their tools are few and very poor, and made from stones or bones. On these they carve images of birds, fish, and men.

The Betsileo, a tribe in Madagascar

" Betsileo," says some one ; " what a strange name that is ! It sounds like the name of a young lady — Betsy Le"o." It is not, however, the name of a young lady, but of a large province and people in south-central Madagascar: a strong, stalwart race, somewhat of the negro type, and strikingly different from the Hovas, the ruling tribe, who occupy the Imerina province. Moreover, they have not had so many advantages as the latter, and therefore have not made so much progress in the arts of civilized life. Perhaps if a comparison were made, there is the same difference as in boys brought up in large towns and boys brought up in country districts. The former are sharper, keener, less liable to deception, but the latter more plodding and persevering.

They live in small huts, about ten feet long and eight broad, made chiefly of wood and bamboo, which are, as a rule, very dirty places. There is no proper door, but a square opening of various sizes about two feet from the ground. There is also a small hole on the north or east side called a window. The huts are thatched with grass, with no chimney nor outlet for the smoke excepting through these holes; and as everything has to be done in this one room, such as cooking, eating, sleeping, etc., the whole interior is very black, sooty, and anything but inviting. Yet missionaries spend many a happy hour in them, talking with the natives.

When you enter one of these huts, the inhabitants of the village seem to think they have a right to come in too, and sometimes as many as twenty crowd in to look at you, and who are very desirous in the morning to see you wash, dress, and perform your toilet.

They are very clannish in their habits. They care for their children, visit their sick, pay respect to their dead, and sometimes a young man may be seen carrying his aged father or mother on his back ; but home, in our sense of the word, there is none, until they are brought under Christian influence.

Many great changes have been and are still being wrought in their home life ; and if social improvements are any evidence of true Christian progress, we have reason for encouragement in this respect. Many of the people are building better dwellings, and have less love for soot than formerly. They are seeking for themselves and their families better clothing, no longer being content with the old rush garments they used to wear.

The Betsileo have not a variety of occupations such as you find in this country; they are few and exceedingly simple. First we notice their rice-fields, to which they devote a great deal of time and attention, and in cultivating which they excel.

They are also rich in farm stock, especially oxen, which they tend most carefully, and many a Betsileo lives a hard life, wearing nothing but a mat or a piece of old rag, in order that he may own a few oxen to be slain at his funeral. The women, in addition to their household duties, devote themselves to making baskets, mats, jackets, etc., of rushes, while some of them are engaged in the cultivation of .the silkworm, the weaving of silk, and the manufacture of various kinds of robes, all done entirely by hand, without even the assistance of a native loom.

The People of India

The natives of India are always dignified under any circumstances. Even when you have found them out in any sin, such as telling lies or cheating you, they still remain dignified and self-possessed. Now, when you are accused of wrong-doing, and you know you are guilty, your eyes fall, your head droops, and you feel thoroughly ashamed of yourself; but it is not so with a Hindu, because he has no idea of sin. To his thinking, the more he can lie and cheat and steal the cleverer he is.

Religion is the first thing with them. They say their prayers regularly morning and evening, they do not neglect public worship in the temples, they keep the Hindu festivals very carefully, and they give away a good deal of money to the Brahman priests and to the poor in order to gain merit. It is part of their religion to bathe often, and always before meals. Keeping their teeth clean is said to be a religious duty.

There is one thing in which we should do well to imitate the Hindus. It is this : they are never by any chance ashamed of their religion. You will see the natives praying in public places. I have often seen Mohammedan coachmen kneeling on the tops of

HINDU BARBER.

their cabs at sundown, saying their prayers in the public streets. If you go out boating, the boatmen will stop twice a day to pray ; and if you go into a shop when the shopkeeper happens to be saying his prayers, you must wait until he has finished before you can be served ; and it is all done as a matter of course. There is no show about it, neither are they at all ashamed of it. The Hindus have no comfort or love in their religion. They believe that the gods are angry with them, and it is their one aim in life to try and please them by good works. And so, to escape the punishment of their sins and to obtain merit, they sacrifice goats, or give alms to the poor, or make a feast for the Brahman priests, or, if they are rich, build temples and shrines and bathing ghats. In India we have a large number of half-built temples and ghats, and also of temples and ghats in ruins. I will tell you why that is. It is supposed to be a virtuous act and very pleasing to the gods to build a temple or bathing ghat (a ghat is a landing or bathing-place with steps leading down to the water for bathers) ; but as the man who builds it gets all the merit, no one else will keep it in repair. Sometimes a man may die before the ghat is completed, and in that case no one else will finish it, because he would get no virtue for doing so, and so the thing is allowed to fall into decay.

The Hindus believe that they are born again and again, perhaps millions of times, according to their works, whether they have been good or bad. If they perform some good action in their life, they will probably be born again as a rajah (king) or as some great or rich man. If they do something very bad, they will be born again as an animal or an insect.

But though they believe in the transmigration of souls, or the passage of the soul from one body to another, they have no hope of ever seeing their friends again after death. I remember one day a mother was crying and telling me of the death of her eldest son, a boy eight years of age. I said to her : " Well, if you love Jesus you may meet your son in heaven." She looked so astonished ; and I explained to her that we hoped to meet our dear ones again after death, and that she might meet her boy again if she believed in Jesus. I believe the words came as a revelation to her, and they seemed to bring comfort to her heart.

The Hindus do not bury their dead. Their bodies are burned. A large quantity of wood is piled up, some " ghee," a sort of butter, is poured upon it, then the body is placed upon the pile—

II the eldest son places a piece of burning wood in the mouth of the corpse — the pile of wood is also set fire to, and the body is burned. When a wealthy Hindu dies, sweet-smelling sandal wood is used for burning his body. This, of course, costs a great deal of money

HINDU CARPENTERS.

When a very poor man dies — if the relatives cannot afford to pay for sufficient wood to burn the corpse to ashes — the body is burned a little and is then thrown into the Ganges, where it is soon eaten by sharks and crows and vultures. I have seen dead bodies floating down the Ganges with crows sitting on them and tearing the flesh from off the bones.

When a Hindu boy is eleven years of age a certain ceremony takes place, offerings are made to the gods, relatives and friends are feasted, a Brahmanical thread is given to him, and he is said to be " born again." When an English boy becomes a Christian, or is " born again," he becomes a new creature, he is more loving, more humble, more holy ; but it is not so with a Hindu boy : he becomes more proud and vain and conceited, and also more sinful, and he thinks himself better than everybody else.

The Brahmanical cord is worn by Brahmans only.

Perhaps you would like to know what a Brahman is. The Hindus are divided into four classes or " castes." The word "caste" means "separation." The four castes are (i) the Brahmans or priests ; (2) the Khatriyas or the soldiers ; (3) the Boishayas or the merchants ; and (4) the Sudras or the servants. These foui castes, like the Jews and the Samaritans of old, have " no dealings with each other " — that is, they would not eat together or intermarry. If a Brahman were to eat with a Sudra he would be unclean, and his caste would be broken. A Brahman must marry a Brahmani.

Mothers in India teach their children to tell stories and to cheat. They themselves do not know it is wrong, and so how can they teach their children better? We missionaries have to teach both the parents and the children. We do not argue about their gods — we simply preach Christ to them. And we try, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to show them what sin is in God's sight, and to lead them to the one true Saviour. Our work has not been in vain. Some have at least renounced idolatry, others have believed in Jesus, and have given their hearts to Him.

African Medicine Men

One day a man came from a place about seven miles from Kuruman, and began to boast that he was clever in healing all kinds of diseases. A native there whom I knew was very ill at the time, and sent for the new doctor to go and see him. He went, and this is how he treated him. He first of all dug up some roots and boiled them, and then gave the sick man the water to drink. He then pounded up the dried skin of a snake, some stuff the natives call " tupa," together with the feathers of a vulture burnt to ashes. These things having been properly mixed, he made a number of cuts on the man's skin, and plastered them all over with this mixture. Some more of it was then mixed with water, which was sprinkled over the house, both inside and out, and also the houses close by. This was done to keep away lightning or anything else which might harm the sick man while in the doctor's hands. The next thing was to get a small bundle of sticks split up into many thin pieces and smeared over with the above medicine. Some goat fat was then got, melted and poured over this bundle of medicine sticks. The bundle was now set on fire. When it was in a good blaze, the doctor commenced blowing the flames towards the sick man, sprinkling his body with the drops of hot fat. However, all this did not make the poor fellow any better, and so the doctor resolved to bleed him.

This he did by making a large cut on the front part of his head, and letting a quantity of blood run away. After this, as you may suppose, the sick man became much worse. His head swelled up and was very sore. But for this work the doctor was paid a young ox.

I heard he was also sent for to see a sick woman, whose arm he burnt from the hand to the shoulder with his fire medicine, besides nearly setting the house on fire. But the people still believed in him, and I heard he had received several cattle as payment in this way.

Besides giving medicine to the sick, the native doctor has also other kinds of work to do. Sometimes he is a rainmaker, or he prepares medicines to make the gardens bear good crops, and sometimes medicines to put round the town to keep evil things away. He also prepares medicines for bewitching people or making them sick. Then again, the doctor may often be seen throwing his dice. I once saw a doctor doing so to see whether his patient should take some medicine through his nose or through his mouth. The dice turned up for the nose, and the medicine was taken that way! While very many people no longer believe in these things, there are many hundreds, even thousands, who know but little, if anything, about the great Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Central Africa the natives on Lake Tanganyika, when in trouble, from a drought or a cloud of locusts which have eaten up their crops, usually call to the spirits of their dead relatives for help. They have a name for God, but they do not know much about Him. As for Jesus Christ, His name was unknown to them when we went. One thing they fear very much is witchcraft. When anybody is suddenly taken ill, they will say he or she has been bewitched. But how can they find out who has done this thing ? Only through their medicine-man, who divines, and after a time finds a person. These people have curious notions. They say that if you want to work in iron, well, you must make medicine to help you to do so ; or if you want to hunt with success you must do the same. When they are ill and are in pain they will go to the medicine-man and tell him where the pain is.

He will then ask what they intend to give, and when he sees he will be paid, he gives them a charm — say a goat's horn filled with little pieces of wood, an insect or two, and the blood of one or two animals. This he hands over to the patient, and receives payment. The man who receives it fastens it on the place where he feels the pain, and quite believes it will cure him. But ' he finds it does not ; so he comes to the white doctor, who asks a few questions, gives the proper medicine, and the pain or sickness is healed ; but often they say the white man's medicine has not done the good, but the charm.

A Butcher's Shop in Africa

Right away in the heart of tropical Africa is the little town (if we may call it so) of Ujiji on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The picture on the preceding page shows you the butcher's shop in the market, where all manner of food and wares are brought for barter.

A few years ago the goats, sheep, and oxen were sold as living animals, but now they are killed and the meat sold in joints and portions, which is a sign that the natives are getting more civilized. The very poor people now can buy small quantities, when before they could not get any meat.

Captain Hore, who has told us so much about life in Central Africa, says that this Ujiji meat shop is carried on very much as here in England, except that the animals are brought to the market and there killed, as there are no means of transport.

You see the large joints are hung up, just as in butchers' shops at home, and the little joints and tit-bits are spread in tempting array upon the counter below, fresh cool banana leaves in this case taking the place of a marble slab. You will notice the gentleman in the picture who has come to buy has just stuck his spear in the ground, as we should place our umbrella in the stand of the shop. The butcher, too, faces the public pathway when he has got his wares all arranged, and calls out some strange words, which are really the same as the old cry of " Buy ! buy ! "

NATIVES AND NATIVE WAYS IJ

The Worship of Ancestors in China

One of the first things a Chinese child is taught is that it is its duty to worship its grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-grandfather, and other ancestors. What ! worship the dead ? Yes ; the Chinese often keep their dead unburied until they get money enough to pay for a grand funeral, and all this time the corpse will be worshipped. When they bury the dead, too, they pretend to send houses, furniture, clothes, servants, money, etc., to the other world for their use. These things are made of paper and burnt. One of our missionaries in China was once allowed to witness the rite of worshipping the ancestors, and he has told us what he saw. Picture to yourselves a large dining-room with curious windows in the shape of oyster-shells, with moral sentences painted in red letters upon the wall, and gaily coloured lanterns hanging from the roof. In this stood a large table loaded with many dishes of rice, fowl, fish, fruits, tea, and a pipe of tobacco. There was also a good supply of sweetmeats. At the head of the table was a large handsome chair, and in front of it six or eight red candles were burning. At the foot of the table lay a beautiful cushion, and around it pieces of paper, cut into the shape of gold and silver coins, were hanging. Some loud crackers were let off. This was to inform the spirits of their dead friends that the feast was ready. After a time the eldest son came, took his place at the foot of the table opposite to the empty arm-chair, and bowed several times. At last he lay down and knocked his head on the floor. Next came the sons in order, then the grandchildren, and so on, one after another, till all the male relatives had performed the same act. Then incense was burned, and the paper money lighted. The last spark was scarcely out when there was a perfect scramble among the boys and girls for the good things on the table, and each ran off with his favourite dish and enjoyed it greatly.