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

48
THINKING BLACK
being indebted to his slave in the meeting of his lawsuit
liabilities. For like all " woman " tribes who dread blood-
spilling, the great Bihean terror (and substitute for blood)
is this network of Ovimhu = lawsuits, the curious compli-
cations arising being a prize conundrum in jurisprudence.
Certainly if colour has ever been given to the statement
that slavery has something good in it, the most specious
side is the domestic servitude. It is a bold assertion to
make, but such is the equipoise of events that it may be
asserted that the average chief is almost on a par with
the average slave. Kex sleeps on the same sort of reed
mat as his Onesimus :
Rex
drinks the same beer : Rex
wears the same apology for a garment, and eats the same
sundown supper of mush. Nay, the scales go tilt on the
wrong side, for often at nightfall a slave slips in a red-
legged partridge or parakeet to his guidwife ; contrast
the chief who has gone to sleep on vegetables, and his
slave sneaking a late game supper !
The
same abundance
of firewood, too, for master and bondsman alike ; same
cooking utensils ;
same blend of tobacco, with a communistic
whiflf from the same gourd pipe. Flowing like a tide, the
royal slaver pours into my left ear, defying me to gainsay
the fact that his slaves are freer than their lord : " Has
not a slave only one master, and is not a king servant of
all ? " Besides, the slave has a hidden weapon all the
time in the institution of Ohuliturribika, i.e. the choice of
any master he chooses. Here is an instance where a
leathery-lunged slave, "The Creator," they call him,
yawned and said he had had quite enough of his master's