Africa's Dark Sects
Description
It is made of green cloth over paperboard about 6" by 8 1/4"; 328 pages, with the title: "Africa's Dark Sects" stamped on the spine. Despite the date of publication being listed as 1921, the book is in very poor condition with a broken spine, cracked back cover, multiple dog-eared pages, and notes in the margin. The author is given as Nigel Blackwell and there is no publisher listed. The bookplate on the inside cover indicates it belongs to Harvard University's Widener Library
Text
Beyond the reach of the great Abrahamic faiths, Africa retains the primal truths of human society and religion; society is as raw and unformed as the landscape. The Gods are known by their old names and not prettied up by hymns and incense. It is here in this great continent of the Id that Man may truly know himself. That Man, as a whole, is so brutal and untamed at his heart, only shocks the unlettered or those blinded by the false trapping of the prison we have built for ourselves in our so-called civilization.
The cult, named in whispers by the natives ‘The Bloody Tongue,’ is supposedly based far in the interior, but has followers in Mombassa, Nairobi, and even Muslim Zanzibar. Their idols are human shaped though surmounted with a long red trunk instead of a head, and it is rumoured that more than one missionary has discovered that when the whites leave, the natives swap a head topped by a crown of thorns for one with a bloody ‘tongue’.
The sorcerer would then rend flesh from his own body, usually the arm, and spit the bloody offering into the mouth of the body supposed to be raised. A great chanting would be then undertaken by both sorcerer and his audience. The words are not in the native Yoruban. I have attempted to capture them phonetically: “Hu ning lui mugluwal naf wugah nagal atzu tuti yok sog tok foo takun. Atzu tuti fu takun! Hu ning lui. (Compare viz. Waite and Zimmerman)”
Chapter 8 - The Bloody Tongue
Our expedition traveled east, across the Rift Valley and into the mountainous highlands of central Kenya. There, Kamau said he would endeavor to take us to a region where a small cult worshipped a god known as the Bloody Tongue. The members of this cult were reviled by all the local tribes in the area. Legend held that the cult of the Bloody Tongue was able to conjure something villagers called the Black Wind. It was a literal wind but infused with evil spirits such that it brought plague, famine, and death upon any in its path. The conjuration of the Black Wind was a rite celebrated by the members of the cult to honor the god of the Bloody Tongue. I asked Kamau about the god's name, assuming that it was named for some kind of bloodletting or sacrifice carried out by the celebrants, akin to the self mutilation we saw carried out in the mad rites of the Pain Dream sect in Congo. But Kamau was hesitant to speak more about how this cult came to be so known. Rather, he said this was something we should see for ourselves.
Stealth was paramount in attempting to witness a rite of the Bloody Tongue, and in the end we determined that Kamau and I should go alone as we'd be less likely to draw the attention of the cultists, whose thirst for blood sacrifice is legendary in the region. We traveled two days into the highlands, the mountains growing larger and the trails becoming steeper as we worked our way up from the savannah into the verdure of the Kenya's great mountainous peaks. The final miles were difficult travel as we needed to stay off the game paths to avoid making ourselves known to the cult members. We traversed the side of a low peak and eventually climbed into a large tree which provided a decent, but shielded, view of a clearing below. We covered ourselves with large branches and leaves and waited for nightfall. Kamau reiterated the need for silence if we were successful to bear witness to the cult's rites.
As darkness fell perhaps a hundred celebrants came to the clearing, many busying themselves in building a large bonfire and many more shepherding a group of clearly terrified captives. The captives were forced to stand with the arms and feet as far apart as possible, and in this posture the were bound to each other, wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle. From where I sat, the looked a bit like a fence - there were perhaps twenty of the bound in this fashion.
A priestess of sorts entered the scene. I was surprised to see that she appeared to be young and had strikingly attractive features. Still, it was clear that the other members of the cult feared her and gave her great deference. To one side of the bonfire sat a group of four drummers, three with large djembe drums and one with a smaller, higher pitched drum. When the victims were fully prepared, the priestess gave a nod to the drummers who began beating in a frenzied pitch, sounding out a rhythm the likes of which I had never before heard.
As the priestess whirled around the fire-lit circle, chanting dim words from an ancient spell, the cult executioners busied themselves with their screaming sacrifices. As the blood flowed, a chill wind sprang up, and I felt a flash of fear: the wind had become visible, a black vapour against the gibbous, leering Moon, and slowly my terror grew as I comprehended the monstrous thing taking form. The corrosive stench of it hinted at vileness beyond evil. When I saw the great red appendage which alone constituted the face of the thing, my courage died, and I fled unseeing into the night.
It was indeed fortunate that the following morning I was found by the ever-capable Kamau, for had the cult members found me I have no doubt I'd have been among their next victims, being white or not. As we returned to the lowland to meet the others, Kamau told me that the priests and priestess of the Bloody Tongue practice a form of magic which allows them to bring the dead back to life again. The practice seemed in keeping with the Voodoun...
Notes
One of the only known copies was at Harvard University's Library. It disappeared one afternoon leaving behind only the smell of rotting meat.
We discovered the tome in the Juju House after Silas's Death.
Describes Africa as a place where Man can be his brutal and untamed Id and see beyond the false trappings of civilization. There are notes on the "Cult of the Bloody Tongue" that is based far in the interior of Africa, but that has followers in many cities. The idols are described as human shaped but surmounted with a long red trunk instead of a head.
Experiences with Ancient Text
Mary Elise St. Dennis read the text, which has instructions for a ritual intended to raise the dead as a zombies which we saw the results of at the Juju House which Mary Elise learned as a spell.