The Casement Report 32
S S’s mother was killed by soldiers, and her father died of starvation,
or rather, he refused to eat because he was bereaved of his wife and all
his children.
(Signed) S S.
Signed by S S before me,
(Signed)
ROGER CASEMENT,
_His Britannic Majesty’s Consul_.
_T T’s Statement._
States she belonged to the village of R*, where she lived with her
grandmother. R* was attacked by the State soldiers long ago. It was in S
T’s time. She does not know if he was with the soldiers, but she heard
the bugle blow when they were going away. It was in the afternoon when
they came, they began catching and tying the people, and killed lots of
them. A lot of people--she thinks perhaps fifty--ran away, and she was
in the crowd with them, but the soldiers came after them and killed them
all but herself. She was small, and she slid into the bush. The people
killed were many, and women--there were not many children. The children
had scattered when the soldiers came, but she stayed with the big
people, thinking she might be safe.
When they were all killed she waited in the grass for two nights. She
was very frightened, and her throat was sore with thirst, and she looked
about and at last she found some water in a pot. She stayed on in the
grass a third night, and buffaloes came near her and she was very
frightened--and they went away. When the morning came she thought she
would be better to move, and went away and got up a tree. She was three
days without food, and was very hungry. In the tree she was near her
grandmother’s house, and she looked around and, seeing no soldiers, she
crept to her grandmother’s house and got some food and got up the tree
again. The soldiers had gone away hunting for buffaloes, and it was then
she was able to get down from the tree. The soldiers came back, and they
came towards the trees and bushes calling out: “Now we see you; come
down, come down!” This they used to do, so that people, thinking they
were really discovered, should give themselves up; but she thought she
would stay on, and so she stayed up the tree. Soon afterwards the
soldiers went, but she was still afraid to come down. Presently she
heard her grandmother calling out to know if she was alive, and when she
heard her grandmother’s voice she knew the soldiers were gone, and she
answered, but her voice was very small--and she came down and her
grandmother took her home.
That was the first time. Soon afterwards she and her grandmother went
away to another town called U U*, near V V*, and they were there some
days together, when one night the soldiers came. The white man sent the
soldiers there because the U U* people had not taken to the State what
they were told to take. Neither her own people nor the U U* people knew
there was any trouble with the Government, so they were surprised. She
was asleep. Her grandmother--her mother’s mother--tried to awaken her,
but she did not know. She felt the shaking, but she did not mind because
she was sleepy.
The soldiers came quickly into the house--her grandmother rushed out
just before. When she heard the noise of the soldiers around the house,
and looked and saw her grandmother not there, she ran out and called for
her grandmother; and as she ran her brass anklets made a noise, and some
one ran after and caught her by the leg, and she fell and the soldiers
took her.
There were not many soldiers, only some boys with one soldier
(_Note._--She means a corporal and some untrained men.--R. C.), and they
had caught only one woman and herself. In the morning they began robbing
the houses, and took everything they could find and take.
They were taken to a canoe, and went to V V*. The soldier who caught her
was the sentry at V V*. At V V* she was kept about a week with the
sentry, and when the V V* people took their weekly rations over to P*
she was sent over. The other woman who was taken to V V* was ransomed by
her friends. They came after them to V V*, and the sentry let her go for
750 rods. She saw the money paid. Her friends came to ransom her too,
but the sentry refused, saying the white man wanted her because she was
young--the other was an old woman and could not work.
* * * * *
(Signed) T T.
Signed by T T before me.
(Signed)
ROGER CASEMENT,
_His Britannic Majesty’s Consul_.
_U U’s Statement._
When we began to run away from the fight, we ran away many times. They
did not catch me because I was with mother and father. Afterwards mother
died; four days passed, father died also. I and an older sister were
left with two younger children, and then the fighting came where I had
run to. Then my elder sister called me: “U U, come here.” I went. She
said: “Let us run away, because we have not any one to take care of us.”
When we were running away we saw a lot of W W* people coming towards us.
We told them to run away, war was coming. They said: “Is it true?” We
said: “It is true; they are coming.” The W W* people said: “We will not
run away; we did not see the soldiers.” Only a little while they saw the
soldiers, and they were killed. We stayed in a town named X X*. A male
relative called me: “U U, let us go;” but I did not want to. The
soldiers came there; I ran away by myself; when I ran away I hid in the
bush. While I was running I met with an old man who was running from a
soldier. He (the soldier) fired a gun. I was not hit, but the old man
died. Afterwards they caught me and two men. The soldiers asked: “Have
you a father and mother?” I answered, “No.” They said to me, “If you do
not tell us we will kill you.” I said: “Father and mother are dead.”
After that my oldest sister was caught, too, in the bush, and they left
my little brother and sister alone in the bush to die, because heavy
rain came on, and they had not had anything to eat for days and days. At
night they tied my hands and feet for fear that I should run away. In
the morning they caught three people--two had children; they killed the
children. Afterwards I was standing outside, and a soldier asked me,
“Where are you going?” I said, “I am going home.” He said, “Come on.” He
took his gun; he put me in the house; he wanted to kill me. Then another
soldier came and took me. We heard a big noise; they told us that the
fighting was over, but it was not so. When we were going on the way they
killed ten children because they were very, very small; they killed them
in the water. Then they killed a lot of people, and they cut off their
hands and put them into baskets and took them to the white man. He
counted out the hands--200 in all; they left the hands lying. The white
man’s name was “C D.” After that C D sent us prisoners with soldiers to
P* to S T. S T told me to weed grass. When I was working outside a
soldier came and said: “Come here;” and when I went he wanted to cut my
hand off, and so I went to the white man to tell him, and he thrashed
the soldier.
On our way, when we were coming to P*, the soldiers saw a little child,
and when they went to kill it the child laughed so the soldier took the
butt of the gun and struck the child with it, and then cut off its head.
One day they killed my half-sister and cut off her head, hands, and feet
because she had on rings. Her name was Q Q Q. Then they caught another
sister, and they sold her to the W W* people, and now she is a slave
there. When we came to P* the white man said to send word to the friends
of the prisoners to come with goats to buy off some of their relatives.
A lot were bought off, but I had no one to come and buy me off because
father was dead. The white man said to me, “You shall go to....” The
white man (S T) gave me a small boy to care for, but I thought he would
be killed, so I helped to get him away. S T asked me to bring the boy to
him, but I said: “He has run away.” He said he would kill me, but....
* * * * *
(Signed) U U.
Signed by U U before me.
(Signed)
ROGER CASEMENT,
_His Britannic Majesty’s Consul_.
Inclosure 4 in No. 3.
(See p. 34.)
_Notes in the Case of V V, a Native of L L* in the Mantumba
District, both of whose hands have been hacked or beaten off, and
with reference to other similar cases of Mutilation in that
District._
I found this man in the ... station at Q* on [blank space in text], and
learned that he had been kept by the missionaries for some years, since
the day when a party of native teachers had found him in his own town,
situated in the forest some miles away from Q*. In answer to my inquiry
as to how he came to lose his hands, V V’s statement was as follows:--
“State soldiers came from P*, and attacked the R R* towns, which they
burned, killing people. They then attacked a town called A B* and burned
it, killing people there also. From that they went on to L L*. The L L*
people fled into the forest, leaving some few of their number behind
with food to offer to the soldiers--among whom was V V. The soldiers
came to L L*, under the command of a European officer, whose native name
was T U. The soldiers took prisoner all the men left in the town, and
tied them up. Their hands were tied very tight with native rope, and
they were tied up outside in the open; and as it was raining very hard,
and they were in the rain all the time and all the night, their hands
swelled, because the thongs contracted. His (V V’s) hands had swollen
terribly in the morning, and the thongs had cut into the bone. The
soldiers, when they came to L L*, had only one native a prisoner with
them; he was killed during the night. At L L* itself eight people,
including himself (V V) were taken prisoners; all were men; two were
killed during the night. Six only were taken down in the morning to Y
Y*. The white man ordered four of the prisoners to be released; the
fifth was a Chief, named R R R. This Chief had come back to L L* in the
night to try secretly to get some fire to take back into the forest,
where the fugitives were hiding. His wife had become sick during the
heavy rain in the forest, and the Chief wanted the fire for her; but the
soldiers caught him, and he was taken along with the rest. This Chief
was taken to P*, but he believes that on the way, at Z Z*, he tried to
escape, and was killed. V V’s hands were so swollen that they were quite
useless. The soldiers seeing this, and that the thongs had cut into the
bone, beat his hands against a tree with their rifles, and he was
released. He does not know why they beat his hands. The white man, T U,
was not far off, and could see what they were doing. T U was drinking
palm-wine while the soldiers beat his hands with their rifle-butts
against the tree. His hands subsequently fell off (or sloughed away).
When the soldiers left him by the waterside, he got back to L L*, and
when his own people returned from the forest they found him there.
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