Africa's Dark Sects

Written in 1916-1917 by the English author and anthropologist Nigel Blackwell, Africa’s Dark Sects was published in London in 1921. It was immediately banned under the Obscene Publications Act, and all but 13 copies were seized and destroyed.

The real reason for the ban is unknown - there is indeed some obscenity, and the book is disturbing. However, the reason may be political - it was detested by politicians of all persuasions. Liberals viewed it as a sensationalist attempt to demonise Africans, while Conservatives regarded it as an anti-Colonial tract, so any ban would have had almost universal parliamentary support.

The book itself details Blackwell’s investigations into a number of alleged African Death Cults.

He deals with the Voodoo and Santeria religions of West Africa, including the description of a "spell" cast by a "magician" to create Zombie servants from the dead.

He covers “Leopard-Man” death cults which seem to occur all over the continent, usually involving the butchering of natives by other natives.

He discusses the ‘Cult of The Floating Horror’ in Nigeria. According to Blackwell, these cultists worship a jelly-like floating mass which is summoned to Earth through a specially chosen and prepared human vessel called the Host. When ritually killed, the Host transforms into the Floating Horror. The dark rites involve frenzied dancing and conclude with elderly devotees gouging themselves to death with sharp stones.

He talks of even stranger cults within the Congo, including the Cult of The Spiraling Worm, whose members practise self-mutilation, and the Cult of the White Ape, whose members worships a legendary creature some believe to be the “missing link”, but the details in all these cases are sketchy, apparently Blackwell did not manage to penetrate any such cult. He also quotes information from various other sources, and references Sir Wade Jermyn's Observations on Several Parts of Africa.

The last chapter of the book details what Blackwell learned of the Cult of the Bloody Tongue during his 1915/16 visit to British East Africa (renamed Kenya in 1920).

“The Kikuyu told me a strange tale concerning the ‘Mountain of the Black Wind’. This desolate peak is supposed to be inhabited by a ‘terrible god’, who unleashes a black wind which brings pestilence, famine, and death in its wake. The face of this "god", they said, is a great bloody tongue. This "god" is served by a priesthood known as the ‘Servants of the Bloody Tongue’. They propitiate their "god" through abominable rites, which include human sacrifice, the victims having been abducted from surrounding villages. The leader of these miscreants is a woman, said to be chosen at birth and tutored in the practice of foul arts and magicks by the ‘god’”.

He describes the Mountain of the Black Wind in further detail:

“A dank conical mountain arises abruptly from the broadening plain. Everywhere else the forest has thinned and the grass taken hold, but on the slopes of the Mountain of the Black Wind a dark and lurid green forest persists. Here the god of the mountain holds sway over nature.”

Blackwell’s investigation uncovered dark allegation and suspicions among many outlying villages in the Nairobi region: tales of abductions during the night, and of the beheadings or ritual mutilations of any who dared cross the feared cult’s path. In all cases the skin of the victim’s forehead would be inscribed with the Cult’s rune. An illustration of the Cult’s rune is identical to the one carved into Jackson’s forehead by his murderers. Although he doesn’t witness any violence, or victims firsthand, Blackwell writes that he was taken to the scene of a recent murder – that of a local religious leader who dared stand up to the Bloody Tongue Cult. The body of the victim had already been cremated, but Blackwell wrote that the scene of the attack itself still bore the stains of the poor priest’s murder. The murder took place right in the centre of the village – a sign of the Cult’s power, and of the villagers’ fear.

There is a large amount of information about the Kenyan cult in the chapter, although a great deal of it is conjecture, born out of the superstitious fears of the tribal villagers. While discussing the dark rumours about the Cult, Blackwell makes no mention of the “great winged” creatures quoted in Jackson’s Nairobi notes.

He does cover the details of ceremonies of worship. In particular he describes and illustrates the cult knife (pranga), cult masks (red strip dangling from forehead - worn by executioners) and the priests robes - lion claw gloves and kingfisher feather robes.

He also states that the British Authorities, preoccupied with their own conflicts against the German forces of Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck from neighbouring German East Africa, had no interest in dealing with what they called “tribal infighting.”

The final section of the chapter refers to a trip made by Blackwell in February of 1916. Blackwell, accompanied by several native guides from the Kikuyu tribe, journeyed deep into the Rift valley, north of Nairobi, and into the foothills of the mountains that overlooked the valley. His tribal guides bravely promised to take him to a ritual site of the Cult of the Bloody Tongue. Fortune(?) was with the author, for a rite took place on the very night that he visited the site:

“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.”

The Cult of the Bloody Tongue appears to be the last such cult investigated by Mr Blackwell.