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The Land of Footprints-Part22_Stewart Edward White(1873-1946)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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great many thousands of years. From childhood to old age he

performs his every act in accord with prohibitions and



requirements. He must remember them all; for ignorance does not

divert consequences. He must observe them all; in pain of



terrible punishments. For example, never may he cultivate on the

site of a grave; and the plants that spring up from it must never



be cut.* He must make certain complicated offerings before

venturing to harvest a crop. On crossing the first stream of a



journey he must touch his lips with the end of his wetted bow,

wade across, drop a stone on the far side, and then drink. If he



cuts his nails, he must throw the parings into a thicket. If he

drink from a stream, and also cross it, he must eject a mouthful



of water back into the stream. He must be particularly careful

not to look his mother-in-law in the face. Hundreds of omens by



the manner of their happening may modify actions, as, on what

side of the road a woodpecker calls, or in which direction a hyena



or jackal crosses the path, how the ground hornbill flies or

alights, and the like. He must notice these things, and change



his plans according to their occurrence. If he does not notice

them, they exercise their influence just the same. This does not



encourage a distrait mental attitude. Also it goes far to explain

otherwise unexplainable visitations. Truly, as Hobley says in his



unexcelled work on the A-Kamba, "the life of a savage native is a

complex matter, and he is hedged round by all sorts of rules and



prohibitions, the infringement of which will probably cause his

death, if only by the intensebelief he has in the rules which



guide his life."

*Customs are not universal among the different tribes. I am



merely illustrating.

For these rules and customs he never attempts to give a reason.



They are; and that is all there is to it. A mere statement: "This

is the custom" settles the matter finally. There is no necessity,



nor passing thought even, of finding any logical cause. The

matter was worked out in the mentalevolution of remote



ancestors. At that time, perhaps, insurgent and Standpatter,

Conservative and Radical fought out the questions of the day, and



the Muckrakers swung by their tails and chattered about it.

Those days are all long since over. The questions of the world



are settled forever. The people have passed through the struggles

of their formative period to the ultimate highest perfection of



adjustment to material and spiritualenvironment of which they

were capable under the influence of their original racial force.



Parenthetically, it is now a question whether or not an added

impulse can be communicated from without. Such an impulse must



(a) unsettle all the old beliefs, (b) inspire an era of

skepticism, (c) reintroduce the old struggle of ideas between the



Insurgent and the Standpatter, and Radical and the Conservative,

(d) in the meantime furnish, from the older civilization,



materials, both in the thought-world and in the object-world, for

building slowly a new set of customs more closely approximating



those we are building for ourselves. This is a longer and slower

and more complicated affair than teaching the native to wear



clothes and sing hymns; or to build houses and drink gin; but it

is what must be accomplished step by step before the African



peoples are really civilized. I, personally, do not think it can

be done.



Now having, a hundred thousand years or so ago, worked out the

highest good of the human race, according to them, what must they



say to themselves and what must their attitude be when the white

man has come and has unrolled his carpet of wonderful tricks? The



dilemma is evident. Either we, as black men, must admit that our

hundred-thousand-year-old ideas as to what constitutes the



highest type of human relation to environment is all wrong, or




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