The Casement Report 31

The Casement Report 31

He

handed me over to another soldier, and as we went we saw some Q* people

fishing, and the soldiers took a lot of fish from them and a Q* woman,

and we went to P*, and they took me to the white man.

 

* * * * *

 

(Signed) Q Q.

 

Signed by Q Q before me,

(Signed) ROGER CASEMENT,

_His Britannic Majesty’s Consul_.

 

 

_R R’s Statement._

 

I, R R, came from N N*. N N* and R* fought, and they killed several R*

people, and one R* man O O O took a man and sent him to L L L to go and

tell the white man to come and fight with Nkoho. The white man who

fought with N N* first was named Q R.* He fought with us in the morning;

then I ran away with my mother. Then the men came to call us back to our

town. When we were returning to our town, as we were nearing, we asked

how many people were killed, and they told us three were killed. Q R had

burned down all the houses, so we were scattered to other places again;

only some of the men were left to build again. After a while we returned

to our town and began to plant our gardens. I have finished the first

part of the story.

 

We stayed a long time at our town, then the white man who fought with N

N* first went and told R S that the N N* people were very strong, so R S

made up his mind to come and fight us. When he came to O* we heard the

news; it was high-water season. We got into our canoes to run away, but

the men stayed behind to wait for the soldiers. When the white man came

he did not try to fight them during the day, but went to the back and

waited for night to come. When the soldiers came at night the people ran

away, so they did not kill anybody, only a sick man whom they found in a

house, whom they (the soldiers) killed and disfigured his body very

much. They hunted out all the native money they could get, and in the

morning they went away. After they went away we came back to the town,

but we found it was all destroyed. We remained in our town a long time;

the white man did not come back to fight with us. After a while we heard

that R S was coming to fight us. R S sent some Q* men to tell the N N*

people to send people to go and work for him, and also to send goats.

The N N* people would not do it, so he went to fight our town. When we

were told by the men that the soldiers were coming, we began to run

away. My mother told me to wait for her until she got some things ready

to take with us, but I told her we must go now, as the soldiers were

coming. I ran away and left my mother, and went with two old people who

were running away, but we were caught, and the old people were killed,

and the soldiers made me carry the baskets with the things these dead

people had and the hands they cut off. I went on with the soldiers. Then

we came to another town, and they asked me the way and the name of the

place, and I said “I do not know;” but they said, “If you do not tell us

we will kill you,” so I told them the name of the town. Then we went

into the bush to look for people, and we heard children crying, and a

soldier went quickly over to the place and killed a mother and four

children, and then we left off looking for the people in the bush, and

they asked me again to show them the way out, and if I did not they

would kill me, so I showed them the way. They took me to R S, and he

told me to go and stay with the soldier who caught me. They tied up six

people, but I cannot tell how many people were killed, because there

were too many for me to count. They got my little sister and killed her,

and threw her into a house and set fire to the house. When finished with

that we went to OO*, and stayed there four days, and then we went to P

P*, and because the people there ran away, they killed the P P* Chief.

We stayed there several days; then we came to P*, and from there we came

on to Q Q*, and there they put the prisoners in chains, but they did not

put me in chains, and then he (R S) went to fight with L L*, and killed

a lot of people and six people tied up. When he came back from L L* we

started and came on to Q*.

 

* * * * *

 

My father was killed in the same fight as I was captured. My mother was

killed by a sentry stationed at N N* after I left.

 

(Signed) R R.

 

Signed by R R, before me,

(Signed) ROGER CASEMENT,

_His Britannic Majesty’s Consul_.

 

 

_S S’s Statement._

 

S S came from the far back R R*. One day the soldiers went to her town

to fight; she did not know that the soldiers had come to fight them

until she saw the people from the other side of the town running towards

their end, then they, too, began to run away. Her father, mother, three

brothers, and sister were with her. About four men were killed at this

scare. It was at this fight that one of the station girls P P P was

taken prisoner. After several days, during which time they were staying

at other villages, they went back to their own town. They were only a

few days in their own town when they heard that the soldiers who had

been at the other towns were coming their way too, so the men gathered

up all their bows and arrows and went out to the next town to wait for

the soldiers to fight them. Some of the men stayed behind with all the

women and children. After that S S and her mother went out to their

garden to work; while there S S told her mother that she had dreamed

that Bula Matadi was coming to fight with them, but her mother told her

she was trying to tell stories. After that S S went back to the house,

and left her mother in the garden. After she had been a little while in

the house with her little brother and sister she heard the firing of

guns. When she heard that she took up her little sister and a big basket

with a lot of native money[22] in it, but she could not manage both, so

she left the basket behind and ran away with the youngest child; the

little boy ran away by himself. The oldest boys had gone away to wait

for the soldiers at the other town. As she went past she heard her

mother calling to her, but she told her to run away in another

direction, and she would go on with the little sister. She found her

little sister rather heavy for her, so she could not run very fast, and

a great number of people went past her, and she was left alone with the

little one. Then she left the main road and went to hide in the bush.

When night came on she tried to find the road again and follow the

people who had passed her, but she could not find them, so she had to

sleep in the bush alone. She wandered about in the bush for six days,

then she came upon a town named S S*[22]. At this town she found that

the soldiers were fighting there too. Before entering the town she dug

up some sweet manioc to eat, because she was very, very hungry. She went

about looking for a fire to roast her sweet manioc, but she could not

find any. Then she heard a noise as of people talking, so she hid her

little sister in a deserted house, and went to see those people she had

heard talking, thinking they might be those from her own town, but when

she got to the house where the noise was coming from she saw one of the

soldier’s boys sitting at the door of the house, and then also she could

not quite understand their language, so she knew that they were not her

people, so she took fright and ran away in another direction from where

she had put her sister. After she had reached the outside of the town

she stood still, and remembered that she would be scolded by her father

and mother for leaving her sister, so she went back at night. She came

upon a house where the white man was sleeping; she saw the sentry on a

deck chair outside in front of the house, apparently asleep, because he

did not see her slip past him. Then she came to the house where her

sister was, and took her, and she started to run away again. They slept

in a deserted house at the very end of the town. Early in the morning

the white man sent out the soldiers to go and look for people all over

the town and in the houses. S S was standing outside in front of the

house, trying to make her sister walk some, as she was very tired, but

the little sister could not run away through weakness. While they were

both standing outside the soldiers came upon them and took them both.

One of the soldiers said: “We might keep them both, the little one is

not bad-looking;” but the others said “No, we are not going to carry her

all the way; we must kill the youngest girl.” So they put a knife

through the child’s stomach, and left the body lying there where they

had killed it. They took S S to the next town, where the white man had

told them to go and fight. They did not go back to the house where the

white man was, but went straight on to the next town. The white man’s

name was C D.[23] The soldiers gave S S something to eat on the way.

When they came to this next town they found that all the people had run

away.

 

In the morning the soldiers wanted S S to go and look for manioc for

them, but she was afraid to go out as they looked to her as if they

wanted to kill her. The soldiers thrashed her very much, and began to

drag her outside, but the corporal (N N N) came and took her by the hand

and said, “We must not kill her; we must take her to the white man.”

Then they went back to the town where C D was, and they showed him S S.

C D handed her over to the care of a soldier. At this town she found

that they had caught three people, and among them was a very old woman,

and the cannibal soldiers asked C D to give them the old woman to eat,

and C D told them to take her. Those soldiers took the woman and cut her

throat, and then divided her and ate her. S S saw all this done. In the

morning the soldier who was looking after her was sent on some duty by C

D, and before the soldier went out he had told S S to get some manioc

leaves not far from the house and to cook them. After he left she went

to do as he had told her, and those cannibal soldiers went to C D and

said that S S was trying to run away, so they wanted to kill her; but he

told them to tie her, so the soldiers tied her to a tree, and she had to

stand in the sun nearly all day. When the soldier who had charge of her

came back he found her tied up. C D called to him to ask about S S, so

he explained to C D what he had told S S to do, so he was allowed to

untie her. They stayed several days at this place, then B D asked S S if

she knew all the towns round about, and she said yes, then he told her

to show them the way, so that they could go and catch people. They came

to a town and found only one woman, who was dying of sickness, and the

soldiers killed her with a knife. At several towns they found no people,

but at last they came to a town where several people had run to as they

did not know where else to go, because the soldiers were fighting

everywhere. At this town they killed a lot of people--men, women, and

children--and took some as prisoners. They cut the hands off those they

had killed, and brought them to C D; they spread out the hands in a row

for C D to see. After that they left to return to Bikoro. They took a

lot of prisoners with them. The hands which they had cut off they just

left lying, because the white man had seen them, so they did not need to

take them to P*. Some of the soldiers were sent to P* with the

prisoners, but C D himself and the other soldiers went to T T* where

there was another white man. The prisoners were sent to S T. S S was

about two weeks at P*, and then she ran away into the bush at P* for

three days, and when she was found she was brought back to S T, and he

asked her why she had run away. She said because the soldiers had thrashed her.