File:Life and light for woman (1873) (14591639370).jpg

Identifier: lifelightforwoma19woma (find matches)
Title: Life and light for woman
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Woman's Board of Missions
Subjects: Congregational churches
Publisher: (Boston : Woman's Boards of Missions
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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r nations. Like a new-bornchild the germs are there, but the surrounding conditions have tended ratherto dwarf than to develop. Even the little children know the names andcharacteristics of the plants and trees. Many, too, have a good knowledge•of native herbs, and some diseases are successfully treated by the native 484 LIFE AND LIGHT. doctors. The children are familiar with the names and habits of insects,birds, snakes, and animals. I suppose this is partly owing to their out-of-door life, and because they are in a more literal sense, children of Nature.They have a good knowledge of the geography of the country for milesaround, knowing the names and situations of all the villages, rivers, hills,and mountains. To them the narrow foot-paths, which seem like net-work,are as familiar as the plain highways in other lands. As far as a knowledgeof the civilized world is concerned they are almost totally ignorant. Itseems to end with the sea, for they know there is an ocean, but they know
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NATIVE VILLAGE, WEST CENTRAL AFRICA. of nothing beyond. Their firm belief has been that the white man came outof the sea, and this accounts for the difference in color between the whiteand black man. Even now many regard us with fear, think we have powerover their lives, and know the time of death. Those nearest to us, andespecially the boys in our family, have no longer any superstitious fears inregard to us ; and as the light shines in, the dark superstitions and beliefsseem as absurd to them as to us. (7) Is there nothing manufactured, or is everything made each for himself in his home ? LKTTER FROM MRS. W. E. FAY. 485 Necessity is the mother of invention with these people, as with those ofmore civilized lands. I am often impressed with their ingenuity in adaptingto their needs that which nature has brought to their hands. If a man is inneed of a rope or string, he runs out a few steps to the woods, and with hisknife, which is always at his side, he strips from a tree a .piece of b

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