CHAPTER V

THE CAPTURE OF THE TARKARS

The slaves who constituted the _Clotilde’s_ cargo and who have become historic by being the last brought into the United States were captured by Dahomey’s warriors and Amazons on one of their cruel excursions. For many years the tribe of Dahomey had been a scourge to the weaker and more peaceable tribes whose domains lay near the Gold Coast or in the interior away from the coast of Guinea. Cruel, stealthy war was their occupation--a war of surprise which aroused sleeping villages to the horrors of fire, plunder, and capture. The older victims were usually killed. Sometimes they were permitted to live and to see their young and strong overpowered, bound, and led into captivity--a captivity from which there could be no hope of return, for the prisoners were conveyed to the coast, sold to the slavers, and carried across the sea to strange, alien lands. The King of Dahomey’s house was built of skulls and his drinking cups were the skulls of fallen chiefs. In the early part of the nineteenth century one of the Dahomey kings organized a battalion of women warriors--a race rare in history but not especially unique in African annals. Early cosmographies record of the King of Inhamban: “It is affirmed that he hath a strong battalion of Amazons, a warlike race of women who inhabit about the Lake of Zambre, and the outskirts of Zanzibar; compared by some for their fidelity and prowess to the Turkish Janizaries.”[19] Like the Greek Amazons those of Inhamban and Dahomey were recruited by incursions upon neighboring tribes.

The Tarkar village was situated many miles inland. Poleete, one of the old survivors, says it was “many days from the water,” meaning thereby the sea. They were a peace-loving, agricultural people, raising hogs, sheep, and cows, and planting corn, beans, and yams. Their chief industry was the production of palm oil. Nature had been lavish--the lands were wonderfully fertile, requiring little work and no fertilizer; the fragrance of ripening fruits filled the forests. The Tarkar dwellings were of superior quality and had the advantage of withstanding fire. They were built of mud; the process of construction has been described by two of the survivors--Poleete and Kazoola. First a circular trench was dug and a wall of mud four feet high and a foot and a half thick laid; this was left until thoroughly dry. Another four feet was laid upon this, which was also left to dry. Then a third layer of four feet was laid making their dwellings about twelve feet high. When thoroughly dry, branches were cut, the roof thatched and covered with mud.

The Tarkars were not without laws, and had a sort of court of justice over which the King presided. Each of the old survivors lays especial stress upon honesty as a tribal characteristic. Stealing was almost unknown; all worked and had what was needed; houses were never locked and possessions seldom disturbed. All an individual’s wealth “might be hung upon a tree or accidentally left--others of the tribe knew they had not put it there--that it was not theirs--so disturbed it not.” “Suppose I had left my purse in town in the public square. To-day I have not the time to go for it--nor to-morrow--am I worried? No, for I know when I go I will find it where I left it. Could you do that in America?” (Kazoola). As there was no reason or excuse for stealing, when one among them committed a theft, it was more through a spirit of braggadocio. The culprit would be taken before the King who would say, “You are strong--you have two arms to work--you suffer for nothing--why have you stolen?” The defendant would be imprisoned, and the Tarkars say that if he lived to get out he would steal no more.

Death was always meted to the murderer--rank having no weight with justice. Poleete explained that if the King’s son committed murder, death would fall to him as to the commoner. “Money don’t plea you there” (Poleete). The manner of execution was decapitation--the implement a sword. To illustrate the inexorable nature of their laws, the following was narrated by Kazoola: “The Law in Tarkar. If it would be my son. He kills a man. I have money--I want to buy my son. I go before the King, and say ‘Oh, King, my son has killed, but I have money.’ The King would reply, ‘Here is the Law, read.’ I read and say, ‘Yes, King, the Law says Death.’ And the King would answer, ‘That is the Law, and I am the King. Shut your eyes, give up your son--money cannot buy.’”

The Tarkars were polygamists, sometimes having as many as three wives, but never any more. The conditions of life were so easy they could afford the luxury. There was no need to support the wives, for the women had the same amount of property as the men and did the same work. Jealousy among the wives was unknown; the first wife selected the second and the second the third, etc. This custom has been lucidly explained by Kazoola and Olouala. “Kazoola has been married about three years. His wife says, ‘Kazoola, I am growing old--I am tired--I will bring you another wife.’ Before speaking thus, she has already one in mind--some maid who attracts her and who Kazoola has possibly never seen. The wife goes out and finds the maid--possibly in the marketplace--and asks, ‘You know Kazoola?’ The maid answers, ‘I have heard of him.’ The wife then says, ‘Kazoola is good--he is kind--I would like you to be his wife.’ The maid answers, ‘Come with me to my parents.’ They go together; questions are exchanged and if these are satisfactory, the parents say, ‘We give our girl into your keeping--she is ours no more--be good to her.’” The wife and the maid return together to Kazoola’s house. The wife introduces the maid to Kazoola, shows her how to look after things as she has done, then sits down to take her days of rest and works no more. The relation of the husband to the wives was that of protector. Once married, a man dared not look upon women other than his wives, for the punishment was very great. To justify their native custom of polygamy, the Christianized Tarkars now cite the example of David and Solomon.

[Illustration: Abaché and Kazoola.]

They believed in the spirits of departed relatives; to these the “day was as night and the night as the day.” To these spirits their actions were known. The Tarkars also possessed dualistic ideas of a future life. There was a Spirit of Good--Ahla-ahra, to whom by doing right their actual, daily life would be something of a consecration; and there was a Spirit of Evil--Ahla-bady-oleelay. “Do right and you will go to Ahla-ahra; do wrong, you go to Ahla-bady-oleelay.” While not exactly Nature-worshipers, they were Nature-fearers; they did not propitiate by prayer or any kind of ceremonial these Spirits of Good and Evil, but believed their powers were manifested in the wind, the cloud that covered the sun, and in the thunder and the lightning. Before these last the Tarkars trembled, and were filled with fear; they would cross their arms over their breasts and cowering, cry out, “We will be good!”

“In Africa different places, like Mobile, Montgomery, New Orleans--each have a different tribe speaking a different language. Suppose the tribe at New Orleans comes to the one at Mobile and says, ‘You have fruit and corn and cattle--you must give me half.’ You at Mobile say, ‘No, go back and raise your own cattle and corn.’ And they say, ‘If you do not give us cattle and corn, we will make war on you.’ They go back to their own country and talk among themselves. ‘You know that tribe at Mobile. We demanded half their crops and cattle--they refused; we will make war upon them. But they have strong soldiers. We will go through the country, surround the village at the break of day.’”[20] Thus did the Dahomeyans plan their attack upon the Tarkars. One morning just at the break of day, the fiends of Dahomey--and the female warriors were the most cruel--broke upon the unsuspecting Tarkars. Some of the men were already astir and had gone into the fields to work while the day was yet cool. These were all killed; had one escaped he would have aroused the sleeping village, and the women and small children might have made their escape. They were aroused from slumber and in a few minutes death or captivity was upon them; even the infants were torn from their mothers’ breasts and carried away. Those who were not killed were overpowered. Dahomey’s Amazons vanquished the most stalwart men and bound them as captives. The Tarkars relate that in their paint and war clothes Dahomey’s women soldiers could not be distinguished from the men. The Dahomeyans cut off the heads of their dead victims, leaving the bodies where they had fallen. The heads were to be taken home as evidence of individual valor and as trophies to be hung on the Dahomey huts. Human faces could express no more anguish than those of the old Tarkars when they speak of this awful experience. One of the trials and tragedies of their march to the coast was the dangling heads of their relatives and friends. When these grew offensive the Dahomeyans stopped the march that they might smoke the heads. As they passed near one of Dahomey’s villages, at a curve in the big road, they caught sight of fresh heads raised on poles above the huts and of skulls, grinning white. With the captives there were some people of other tribes--friends who had been visiting in the Tarkar village--Tarkbar, Goombardi, Filanee, and Ejasha. (These tribal names are spelled as pronounced by the surviving Tarkars.) Kazoola has drawn a map of the route taken by Dahomey and of the march to the sea, which he claims any of his tribe would recognize. The towns they passed through on their march to the sea were Eko, Budigree (Badragy?), Adaché, and Whydah. This last the Tarkars sometimes call Gréfé. There they remember a white house on the river-bank; behind this was a stockade wherein they were held prisoners about three weeks, at the end of which time Captain Foster came.