The blood covenant : a primitive rite and its bearing on scripture / by H. Clay Trumbull.

  • Henry Clay Trumbull
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The blood covenant : a primitive rite and its bearing on scripture / by H. Clay Trumbull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    intentions. By means of these people, he says, we succeeded in checking the warlike demonstrations of the islanders, and in finally persuading them to make blood-brotherhood; after which we invited canoes to come and receive [these hostages] their friends. As they hesitated to do so, we embarked them in our own boat, and conveyed them across to the island. The news then spread quickly along the whole length of the island that we were friends, and as we resumed our journey, crowds from the shore cried out to us, * Mwende Ki-vuke-vuke' (' Go in peace!') ^ Once more it was at the conclusion of a bloody conflict, in the district of Vinya-Njara, just below Mpika Island, that peace was sealed by blood. When practical victory was on Stanley's side, at the cost of four of his men killed, and thirteen more of them wounded, then he sought this means of amity. With the aid of our interpreters, he says, we communi- cated our terms, viz., that we would occupy Vinya- Njara, and retain all the canoes unless they made peace. We also informed them that we had one prisoner, who would be surrendered to them if they availed themselves of our offer of peace: that we had suffered heavily, and they had also suffered; that war was an evil which wise men avoided; that if they came with two canoes with their chiefs, two canoes
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