Mary Slessor started work in a jute factory in Dundee at the age of eleven to help support a large family whose father was a drunk. After years of studying while at her weaving machine, she became a missionary and in 1876 was sent to Calabar in Nigeria. Once there she was horrified by the widespread custom of killing twins at birth and of leaving the infants of mothers who had perished in childbirth to die. Greatly admired and loved by the tribespeople, she became known as ‘the Ma who loves babies’, not only because she campaigned against these cruelties, but because she adopted children who would otherwise have been killed. This letter, written to the Sunday School children in Dundee, describes the day the tribe decided to outlaw these practices.
Just as it became dark one evening I was sitting in my verandah talking to the children, when we heard the beating of drums and the singing of men coming near. This was strange, because we are on a piece of ground which no one in the town has a right to enter. Taking the wee twin boys in my hands I rushed out, and what do you think I saw? A crowd of men standing outside the fence chanting and swaying their bodies. They were proclaiming that all twins and twin-mothers could now live in the town, and that if any one murdered the twins or harmed the mothers he would be hanged by the neck. If you could have heard the twin-mothers who were there, how they laughed and clapped their hands and shouted, ‘Soson˜o! Soson˜o!’ (‘Thank you! Thank you!’). You will not wonder that amidst all the noise I turned aside and wept tears of joy and thankfulness, for it was a glorious day for Calabar.
A few days later the treaties were signed, and at the same time a new King was crowned. Twin-mothers were actually sitting with us on a platform in front of all the people. Such a thing had never been known before. What a scene it was! How can I describe it? There were thousands of Africans, each with a voice equal to ten men at home, and all speaking as loudly as they could. The women were the worst. I asked a chief to stop the noise. ‘Ma,’ he said, ‘how I fit stop them woman mouth?’ The Consul told the King that he must have quiet during the reading of the treaties, but the King said helplessly, ‘How can I do? They be women – best put them away’, and many were put away.