Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

234 THINKING BLACK
of women chiefs to be found in the land. To this day
the common ruse of a crushed wife is to make a
gracefully turned allusion to that revolutionary deed of
a negress long ago, the covert threat in her hint being
that what woman has done, woman can and will do.
And the husband brute has the sense to wince truculently
at the very memory of that woman's treachery long ago,
his sheepish, discomfited look revealing that the woman
has struck home. Certes, there is nothing can move
a drowsy old African like a jag from past history.
Having no literature, the African as a consequence
clings tenaciously to the past precedents of his race,
the antiquity of a fact being its sanctity.
But there is mor^ to follow. Far more interesting
than this ascent of woman to the status of a Zenobia
queenship is her daring to combine, and form this great
secret society of theirs into which no man dare penetrate.
All pivoted on that one woman's wrong long ago when her
son was skinned to make a human carpet. These black
women let their unfettered fancies roam over the vast
sphere of their sex's wrongs, and this black Club of theirs
is the sacred confessional. Often a husband goes foodless
if Mrs. Amazon is attending a Club meeting, and oftener
the happy and harmless wife becomes, after initiation,
" a new woman " indeed.
'' Budindu" is the name of this female freemasonry,
and many a feminine titter can be overheard at the expense
of the men. The rites of initiation are nameless, but the
general idea is that of a Benefit Society, whose supreme