Their
First Tutors Were The Slavers, Who Initiated Them Into The Habit,
And Instructed Them In Ship's Work, That They
Might have the benefit
of their services in working their vessels along the Slave Coast.
And in order to prevent
Any Kruboy being carried off as a slave by
mistake, which would have prejudiced these useful allies, the
slavers persuaded them always to tattoo a band of basket-work
pattern down their foreheads and out on to the tip of their broad
noses: this is the most extensive bit of real tattoo that I know of
in West Africa, and the Kruboys still keep the fashion. Their next
tutors were the traders, who have taught and still teach them beach
work; how to handle cargo, try oil, and make themselves generally
useful in a factory, - "learn sense," as the Kruboy himself puts it.
To religious teaching the Kruboy seems for an African singularly
impervious, but the two lessons he has learnt - ship and shore work -
are the best that the white has so far taught the black, because
unattended with the evil consequences that have followed the other
lessons. Unfortunately, the Kruman of the Grain Coast and the
Cabinda of the South West Coast, are the only two tribes that have
had the benefit of this kind of education, but there are many other
tribes who, had circumstances led the trader and the slaver to turn
their attention to them, would have done their tutors quite as much
credit. But circumstances did not, and so nowadays, just as a
hundred years ago, you must get the Kruboy to help you if you are
going to do any work, missionary or mercantile, from Sierra Leone to
Cameroon.
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