A Visit to the Somabula Mission
By R. C. Porter
ON Sunday we had the privilege of baptizing twenty-one students who had decided to renounce heathenism and accept Christ. Of this company twelve were young men and nine were girls. They were all of mature age, and it was a blessed sight to see so many thus turning from heathen darkness to the light of the gospel. Seven of this company had come from the Que Que Reserve, forty miles distant, for the purpose of baptism. This is a sample of the influence of our out-schools in proclaiming the gospel. On Wednesday we were asked to unite in Christian marriage four couples of our oldest students and workers. It was a great day for our students and the neighbors in the near-by kraals. There were one hundred fifty in attendance at our Sabbath service, and it was estimated that there were as many in attendance at the weddings. The brides and grooms were as neatly dressed as many Europeans on similar occasions. They made a very neat appearance in contrast with their heathen neighbors, who still dress like the aboriginal American Indian. The marriage feast is a great occasion for the natives. They are extremely fond of feasting. Among some of the tribes they have a feast when a child is born, another at the time of marriage, and a great feast at the time of the death of a member of the family. A sheep or a goat is sufficient for a birth or wedding feast or for the death of a child. For a grown person an ox is required for the death feast, and a headman is supposed to have several fat oxen in readiness for his death feast. An important chief will keep as many as sixteen fat oxen in readiness for his death feast. He holds these oxen above price, and will not part with them for any consideration. These death feasts sometimes last a month. The women wail and eat and drink and smoke. The men smoke and drink and eat, but do not wail for the dead. It is the same old custom of the women weeping for Tammuz in ancient heathen times. The wailing is unnatural and forced. Sometimes there are held annual wailing feasts for years after the death of prominent chiefs or other important persons. As the people become more civilized they drop these customs. One marked feature of the wedding feast at the mission was the contrast between the appearance of the Christian natives and that of the half-naked heathen who came from the kraals in the vicinity of the mission. Some of the guests of the wedding party came with their babies tied on their backs, in the skins of animals. They were as happy in their half-clothed state as any members of the wedding party, as long as they received their full share of the wedding feast. On Friday Brother Hutchinson and the writer, mounted on two of the best riding donkeys, set out for a ten-mile ride to the farm where Brother and Sister Butterfield make their home. After spending a quiet Sabbath and holding a service for the benefit of the family and their native help, we returned a distance of two miles, when we were joined by Brother Gibson and his family with the ox-team, and we trekked the greater part of the night in order to catch the morning train for Salisbury. Although this station has to do its work under some disadvantages on account of being unable to procure a title to property in the reserves, yet the results of its work are very satisfactory. The influence of this mission is extending, and there is an urgent call from different sections for the establishing of more out-schools. We are confident that the workers in this mission will wear crowns that will sparkle with as bright jewels in evidence of souls won for the kingdom of God, as will those of workers who labor in more civilized countries for the conversion of more enlightened people. Let all pray for the success of the work in these dark regions where the light of the gospel has never penetrated.