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Mary Slessor of Calabar (1848-1915)
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Mary Slessor
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Mary Slessor, the daughter of a shoemaker was born in Aberdeen Scotland. Her earliest pretend games involved teaching school, but her students were always African, and her brother intended to go to Calabar , Nigeria to the mission field. Her father slid into drunkenness early in her life and left the family in poverty. Their situation became desperate when Mary was 14, so she went to work in the factory to support her family until she was 28 and her mother and sisters were well provided for. She offered her services to the Foreign Mission Board of the Scottish Presbyterian Church, which sent her to Calabar. One of Mary Slessor's primary concerns in Africa was for the abandoned twins who were left in the forest to die of exposure because they were considered unlucky and cursed. Mary collected these abandoned waifs and adopted them if their parents refused to take them. The following passage is the story of a woman, Iye, a handsome slave from Bende, the property of one of the women in the village, who treated her well until she gave birth to twins. This selection was written by a Miss Kingsley who arrived to visit Mary the day the events described occurred.
from W.P. Livingstone Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary New York: George H. Doran, Co, n.d.
She was subjected to torrents of virulent abuse, her things were torn from her, her English china basins, possessions she valued most highly, were smashed, her clothes were torn, and she was driven out as an unclean thing. Had it not been for fear of incurring Miss Slessor's anger, she would at this point have been killed with her children, and the bodies thrown to the bush. As it was, she was hounded out of the village. The rest of her possessions were jammed into an empty gin- case and cast to her. No one would touch her, as they might not touch to kill. Miss Slessor had heard of the twins' arrival and had started off, barefooted and bareheaded, at that pace she can go down a bush path. By the time she had gone four miles she met the procession, the woman coming to her, and all the rest of the village yelling and howling behind her. On the up of her head was the gin-case, into which the children had been stuffed, on the top of them the woman's big brass skillet, and on the top of that her two market Calabashes. Needless say, on arriving Miss Slessor took charge of affairs, relieving the unfortunate, weak, staggering woman from her load and carrying it herself, for no one else would touch it, or any-thing belonging to those awful twin things, and they started back together to Miss Slessor's house in the forest-clearing, saved by that tact which, coupled with her courage, has given Miss Slessor an influence and a power among the negroes unmatched in its way by that of any other white.
She did not take the twins and their mother down the villa-ge path to her own house, for though, had she done so, the people of Okoyong would not have prevented her, yet so pollu-ted would the path have been and so dangerous to pass down, that they would have been compelled to cut another, no light risk in that bit of forest, I assure you. So Miss Slessor stood waiting in the broiling sun, in the hot season's height, while a path was being cut to enable her just to get through to her own grounds. The natives worked away hard, knowing at it saved the polluting of a long stretch of market road.
When it was finished Miss Slessor went to her own house it, and attended with all kindness, promptness, and skill the woman and children. I arrived in the middle of this affair for my first meeting with Miss Slessor, and things at Oyong were rather crowded, one way and another, that afternoon. All the attention one of the children wanted -- the boy, for there were a boy and a girl -- was burying, for people who had crammed them into the box had utterly smashed the child's head. The other child was alive, and is still a member of that household of rescued children, all of whom owe their lives to Miss Slessor.
The natives would not touch it, and only approached it after some days, and then only when it was held by Miss Slessor at me. If either of us wanted to do or get something, and handed over the bundle to one of the house children to hold there was a stampede of men and women off the verandah, out of the yard, and over the fence, if need be, that was exceedingly comic, but most convincing as to the reality of the terror and horror in which they held the thing. Even its own mother could not be trusted with the child; she would have killed it. She never betrayed the slightest desire to have it with her, an after a few days' nursing and feeding up she was anxious go back to her mistress, who, being an enlightened woman, was unwilling to have her if she came without the child.
The woman's own lamentations were pathetic. She would sit for hours singing or rather mourning out a kind of dirge over herself: "Yesterday I was a woman, now I am a horror, a thing all people run from. Yesterday they would talk with me, now they spit on me. Yesterday they would talk to me with sweet mouth, and now they greet me only with cursing and execrations. They have smashed my basin, they have torn my clothes," and so on, and so on. There was no complaint against the people for doing these things, only a bitter sense of injury against some superhuman power that had sent withering curse of twins down on her.
In this second selection, Mary writes a report back to the mission board reporting on the progress of her work.
"In these days of high pressure," she says, "men demand large profits and quick returns in every department of commercial and national life, and these must be served up the definiteness and precision of statistics. This abnormal and feverish haste has entered to some extent into our religious work, and is felt more or less in all the pulses of our Church. Whatever may be the reasons for such a course in regard worldly callings, its methods and standards are utterly foreign to the laws of Christ's kingdom, and can only result in distortions and miscalculations when applied to His work. While thanking God for every evidence of life and growth, we shrink from reducing the throes of spiritual life, the develop and workings of the conscience, or the impulse and trend toward God and righteousness, to any given number of figures on table. Hence it is with the greatest reluctance that we endeavour to sum up some tangible proof of the power of the Word among our heathen neighbours. While to our shame and confusion of face it has not been what it might, and have been had we been more faithful and kept more in line with the will and spirit of God, it has to the praise of the glory His grace proved stronger than sin and Satan.
"We do not attempt to give in numbers those who are nominally Christian. Women, lads, girls, and a few men profess to have placed themselves in God's hands. All the children within reach are sent to the school without stipulation. One lady of free birth and good position has borne persecution for Christ's sake. We speak with diffidence; for as no ordained minister has ever been resident or available for more than a short visit, no observance of the ordinances of Baptism or Lord's Supper have been held and we have not had the usual definite offers of persons as candidates for Church membership. We have just kept on sowing the seed of the Word, believe that when God's time comes to gather them into the visible church there will be some among us ready to participate in the privelege and honour.
"Of results as affecting the condition and conduct of our people generally, it is more easy to speak. Raiding, plunder- the stealing of slaves, have almost entirely ceased. Anyone from any place can come now for trade or pleasure, and wherever they choose, their persons and property being as safe as in Calabar. For fully a year we have heard of nothing of violence from even the most backward of our people. They have thanked me for restraining them in the past, and begged me to be their consul, as they neither wished black man nor white man to be their king. It would be impossible, apart from a belief in God's particular and personal providence in answer to prayer, to account for the ready obedience and submission to our judgment which was accorded to us. It led sometimes to be almost miraculous that hordes of armed, drunken, passion-swayed men should give heed and chivalrous homage to a woman, and one who had neither wealth nor outward display of any kind to produce the slightest sentiment in her favour. But such was the case, and we do not recollect one instance of insubordination.
"As their intercourse with the white men increased through trade or otherwise, they found that to submit to his authority did not mean loss of liberty but the opposite, and gradually objections cleared away, till in 1854 they formally met bound themselves to some extent by treaty with the Consul. Again, later, our considerate, patient, tactful Governor, Sir Claude Macdonald, met them, and at that interview the last objection was removed, and they promised unconditional surrend-er of the old laws which were based on unrighteousness cruelty, and cordial acceptance of the just and, as they phrased it, 'clean' code which he proffered them in return. Since he has proclaimed them a free people in every respect among neighbouring tribes, and so, placing them on their honor so to speak, has made out of the roughest material a lot of self-respecting men who conduct their business in a fashion from which Europeans might take lessons. Of course they need superintendence and watching, for their ideas are not nicely balanced as ours in regard to the shades and degrees of right and wrong, but as compared with their former ideas and practice they are far away ahead of what we expected.
"No tribe was formerly so feared because of their utter disregard of human life, but human life is now safe. No chief ever died without the sacrifice of many lives, but this custom has now ceased. Only last month the man who, for age, wealth, and general influence, exceeded all the other chiefs in Okoyong, died from the effects of cold caught three months before. We trembled, as they are at some distance from us, and every drop of European drink which could be bought front all the towns around was bought at once, and canoes were sent from every hamlet with all the produce at command to Duke Town for some more, and all was consumed before the people dispersed from the funeral. But the only death resulting has been that of a man, who, on being blamed by the witch-doctors, went and hanged himself because the chiefs in attendance -- drunk as they were -- refused to give him the poison ordeal. Some chiefs, gathered for palaver at our house on the day of his death, in commenting on the wonderful change, said, Ma, you white people are God Almighty. No other power could have done this.' "With regard to infanticide and twin-murder we can speak hopefully. It will doubtless take some time to develop in them the spirit of self-sacrifice to the extent of nursing the vital spark for the mere love of God and humanity among the body of the people. The ideals of those emerging from heathenism are almost necessarily low. What the foreigner does is all very well for the foreigner, but the force of habit or something more subtle evidently excuses the practice of the virtue among themselves. Of course there are exceptions. All the evidence goes to show that something more tangible than sentiment or principle determines the conduct of the multitude, even among those avowedly Christian. But with all this there has dawned on them the fact that life is worth saving, even at the risk of one's own: and though chiefs and subjects alike, less than two years ago, refused to hear of the saving of twins, we have already their promise and the first installment of the it fidelity to their promise in the persons of two baby girls aged six and five months respectively, who have already won the hearts of some of our neighbours and the love of all the school children. Seven women have literally touched them, and all the people, including the most practical of the chiefs, come to the house and hold their palavers in full view of where the children are being nursed. One chief who, with fierce gesticulations, some years ago protested that we must draw the line at twins, and that they should never be brought to light in his lifetime, brought one of his children who was very ill, two months ago, and laid it on our knee alongside the twin already there, saying with a sob in his voice, 'There! They are all yours, living or dying, they are all yours. Do what you like with mine.
"Drinking, especially among the women, is on the decrease. The old bands of roving women who came to us at first are now only a memory and a name. The women still drink, but it is at home where the husband can keep them in check. In our immediate neighbourhood it is an extremely rare thing to see a woman intoxicated, even on feast days and at funerals. None of the women who frequent our house ever taste it at all, but they still keep it for sale and give it to visitors. Indeed it is the only thing which commands a ready sale and brings ready money, and their excuse is just that of many of the Church members at home, that those who want it will get it elsewhere, and perhaps in greater measure. But we have noted a decided stand being taken by several of the young mothers who have been our friends and scholars against its being given by hus-bands or visitors to their children. We have also thankfully noted for long that on our making an appearance anywhere here is a run made to hide the bottles, and the chief indignantly threatens any slave who brings it into our presence.
"All this points to an improvement in the condition of the people generally. They are eager for education. Instead of the apathy and incredulous laugh which the mention of the Word formerly brought, the cry from all parts is for teachers; and there is a disposition to be friendly to any one who will help them towards a higher plane of living. But it brings vividly before us the failures and weaknesses in our work; for instance, the desultoriness of our teaching, which of necessity stultifies the results that under better conditions would be sure follow. School teaching has been carried on under great difficulties owing to the scattered population, the family quar-rels which made it formerly a risk to walk alone, the fear of sorcery and of the evil spirits which are supposed to dwell the forest, the denseness of the forest itself, which makes it dangerous for children to go from one place to another without armed escort, the withdrawing of girls when they have been able to read in order to go to their seclusion and fattening, and the consequent drafting of them to great dis-tances to their husbands' farms, the irregular attendance of boys who accompany their masters wherever they go, and who take the place of postmen and news-agents-general to the country.
"There have been difficulties on our own side -- the distances consume time and strength, the multifarious claims made on the Mission House, the household itself which is usually a large one having in addition to servants those who are training for future usefulness in special spheres -- as the Mission House has been until quite lately the only means of getting such train-ing -- and having usually one or more of the rescued victims of heathen customs. The Dispensary work calls also for much time and strength, nursing often having to accompany the medicine; the very ignorance and superstition of the patients and their friends making the task doubly trying. Then one must be ever at hand to hear the complaint of and to shelter and reconcile the runaway slave or wife or the threatened victim of oppression and superstition. Visitors are to be received, and all the bothersome and, to European notions, stupid details of native etiquette are to be observed if we are to win the favour and confidence of the people.
"Moreover we must be both able and willing to help ourselves in regard to the wear and tear in our dwelling and station buildings. We must make and keep in repair buildings, fences, drainage, etc., and all amid surroundings in which the climate and its forces are leagued against us.
"Add to all this the cares of housekeeping when there is no baker supply, no butcher supply, no water supply, no gas supply, no coal supply, no laundry supply, no trained-servant supply, nor untrained either for that matter, except when some native can and will lend you a slave to help you or when you can buy one -- which, under ordinary circumstances is a very doubtful practice, as, though in buying the person you are literally freeing him, the natives are apt to misinterpret the; motive, and unless you are very fortunate in your purchase, the slave may bring you into conflict with the powers that be, owing to their law which recognises no freedom except that conferred by birth. After all this is seen to day by day, where is the time and strength for comprehensive and consecutive work of a more directly evangelistic and teaching type -- specially when the latter is manned year by year by the magnificent total of one individual. Is it fair to expect results under such circumstances?
As a result of these difficulties, Mary sent a letter back to the mission board, requesting workers of the following sort for the mission field:
...Consecrated, affectionate women who are not afraid of work or of filth of any kind, moral or material. Women who can nurse a baby or teach a child to wash and comb as well as to read and write, women who can tactfully smooth over a roughness and for Christ's sake bear a snub, and take any place which may open. Women who can take everything to Jesus and there get strength to smile and persevere and pull on under any circumstance. If they can play Beethoven and paint and draw and speak French and German so much the better, but we can want all these latter accomplishments if they have only a loving heart, willing hands and common sense. Surely such women are not out of our reach. There are thousands of them in our churches, and our home churches have no monopoly of privelege in choosing to keep them. Spare us a few. Induce them to come forward. If there be the call from the Holy Spirit, do not let mere accomplishments be a sine qua non. Help them to come forward. Take them to your own homes, and let them have the benefit of all the conversation and refinement and beauty which fill these, and so gently lead them out of their timidity and accustom them to society that they may meet out in the world, and hand them on to us.
Up in a station like mine they want to teach the first principles of everything, and they need to help in times of trouble in the home or in the town palaver. They will not need fine English, for there is none to admire it. No one knows other than native languages, and I would gladly hail any warm-hearted woman from any sphere if she would come to me. I cannot pretend to work this station: the school work is simply a scramble at the thing, mostly by the girls of the house. I can't overtake it. It is because I am not doing it efficiently that I am grieved.
She sent another, this time directly to the young women of England:
Don't grow up a nervous old maid! Gird yourself for the battle outside somewhere, and keep your heart young. Give up your whole being to create music everywhere, in the light places and in the dark places, and your life will make Melody. I'm a witness to the perfect joy and satisfaction of a single life -- with a tail of human tag-rag hanging on. It is rare! It is as exhilarating as an aeroplane or a dirigible or whatever they are that are always trying to get up and are always coming down! . . .
Mine has been such a joyous service, God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble way. I cannot thank Him enough for the hon-our He conferred upon me when He sent me to the Dark Continent."
And, finally, she reported on the fruits of her labors in the following extract from a letter she sent to the mission board when the local church had finally built a building in which to worship. The Scottish word for "church" is "kirk."
"A bonnie kirk it is," she wrote. "Mr. Cruickshank officiated, and was at his very best. Miss Peacock, my dear com-rade, and her young helper Miss Couper -- a fine lassie -- came and spent the whole day, so we had a grand time, the biggest Christmas I've ever had in Calabar. Three tall flag-poles with trade cloth flags in the most flaming colours hung over the village from point to point embracing the old and the new churches. The people provided a plain breakfast in their sev-eral homes for over eighty of our visitors, who therefore stayed over the forenoon. It made our Christian population look fairly formidable, and certainly very reputable as a force for uplifting and regenerating society. It looks but yesterday that they were a horde of the most unlikely and unresponsive people one could approach, and yet the Gospel has made of them already something to prove that it is the power of God unto salvation to a people and to an individual everywhere and anywhere."