Spreading the word of God and Benga: the Presbyterian Church in Corisco Bay

ABSTRACT

Since its inception, the Presbyterian Church aimed to bring God’s word to the people in the native language of those they wished to convert, and that is the task it brought with determination to Corisco Bay in Equatorial Guinea. This article draws on historical documents of the Presbyterian Church in the USA, publications by Presbyterian reverends in the Corisco Mission from the nineteenth century, and fieldwork notes and interviews. I use these resources to first contextualize the establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Corisco Bay. Then, I explore the linguistic work of Presbyterian missionaries in the selection of Benga as the language of translation of the Bible. And, finally, I highlight the fundamental role that the American Bible Society played – thanks to their massive printing of the Holy Scriptures in Benga – in the spread and maintenance of the language, not only in Corisco but in the region more broadly.

RÉSUMÉ

Depuis sa création, l’Église presbytérienne s’est efforcée d’apporter la parole de Dieu aux populations dans la langue maternelle de ceux qu’elle souhaitait convertir, et c’est cette tâche qu’elle a menée avec détermination dans la baie de Corisco, en Guinée équatoriale. Cet article s’appuie sur la documentation historique de l’Église presbytérienne des États-Unis, sur les publications des révérends presbytériens de la mission de Corisco datant du dix-neuvième siècle, ainsi que sur des notes et des entretiens réalisés sur le terrain. J’utilise ces ressources pour tout d’abord contextualiser l’établissement de l’Église presbytérienne dans la baie de Corisco. Ensuite, j’explore le travail linguistique des missionnaires presbytériens dans la sélection du benga comme langue de traduction de la Bible. Enfin, je souligne le rôle fondamental que la Société biblique américaine a joué – grâce à l’impression massive des Saintes Écritures à Benga – dans la diffusion et le maintien de la langue, non seulement à Corisco mais aussi dans la région.

KEYWORDS:

• Missionary linguistics
• West Central Africa
• Presbyterian Church
• Ndowe group
• Corisco Island

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Linguistique missionnaire
• Afrique centrale occidentale
• Église presbytérienne
• Groupe Ndowe
• Île de Corisco

Acknowledgements

I thank the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and recommendations towards improving this article. Special thanks are due to Enenge A’Bodjedi, Gonzalo Álvarez Chillida, and Scott Smith for their suggestions, which helped to define the research and the article. This publication is part of the research project “Proceso y legado de la descolonización española en África,” financed by the Spanish Minister of Science and Innovation, 2021–2024 (PID2020-115502GB-I00).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Archival materials

Archivo General de la Administración (AGA), Alcalá de Henares, Spain, IDD 15, Fondo África; Caja 81.

Robert Hamill Nassau Manuscript Collection “Correspondence: Sept. 12, 1856-Dec. 23, 1920”, Box 14, File 14:1, Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Special Collections. Princeton, New Jersey. https://commons.ptsem.edu/id/correspondencese00unse_0

Robert Hamill Nassau Manuscript Collection. “Diary (December 1885 – August 1888)”, Box 1, File 1:4, Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Special Collections. Princeton, New Jersey. https://commons.ptsem.edu/id/diarydecember188114unse

Robert Hamill Nassau “Papers, 1856–1976”, series Personal and biographical materials, 1890–1976, box 3, folders 11–15. The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, New York.

Notes

1 The islands of Fernando Poo, Annobón, Elobey Chico, Elobey Grande, Corisco, and the mainland (Rio Muni) comprised the territories of Spanish Guinea (La Guinea Española). The status of Spanish Guinea was changed in 1959, and the region was reorganized into two provinces of overseas Spain (Rio Muni and Fernando Poo), each of which was placed under a civil governor. On 12 October 1968, the independence of Equatorial Guinea was granted.

2 Evangelization was not only in the hands of white male missionaries. Wives, unmarried female missionaries, and native Bible readers were the backbone of the Presbyterian Church (although it was men’s names that most endured, thanks to their work in translation and authoring books and reports). Meanwhile, women occupied their time with household duties, childcare, boarding schools, literacy for women and sewing classes. Missionaries’ wives and auxiliaries opened a sewing circle, introduced the Victorian dress code, and planted the religious ideas of Christianity. Penelope Campbell (1978) recognized and illustrated the work of women in the nineteenth century as converts and agents of social change. Most recently, Mary Carol Cloutier (2021) eloquently rescued the voices, presence, and work of foreign persons of African descent, reconstructing the multiple facets that anchor the pluri-ethnic Church and mission community in Gabon and Corisco.

3 Reverend Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ was the most well known and vocal of these young men. He came from the adjacent coast of Rio Muni to be trained at the boarding school. He was ordained in 1870, and his son was ordained in 1909 in Baraka, Gabon. Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ dedicated his life to aggressively reforming the morals and customs of his people, which he did from the pulpit and with the pen. This resulted in his rejection by the Coriscan people.

4 Archivo General de la Administración (AGA). Caja 81/6947. In 2019, the population of Corisco Island was approximately three hundred people; tourism development brought many “expatriados” (foreigners) and increased transit with Gabon, Bata and Kogo, yet many Bengas left the island in search of success. There is no official data regarding the people of Corisco (see Anuario Estadístico de Guinea Ecuatorial, 2020; census based on fieldwork done in 2019).

5 Ikúmĕmbângâ means “the gathering of the multitude,” a gathering of all the patrilineages or family groups (Uganda Beholi 2014, 7). There are many versions of the Ndòwĕ origin and exodus stories, embellished with names of kings and places, which, according to scholars, have been orally transmitted and reproduced as the history of the Ndòwĕ people – such as Enènge A’Bodjedi’s Ndòwē Tales I (1999). There is a consensus on linguistic and ethnic relations amongst groups belonging to the Ndòwĕ people described in this section, and regarding the fact that the Ndòwĕ people arrived at the west coast at the end of the eighteenth century (Ebŏmbébómbé, 1963, 58; Carlos González 1964).

6 Those horsemen, faces covered with a turban, were called “palabatiti,” meaning half-animal (Ebŏmbébómbé, 1993, 61).

7 Based on the map of migrations in González Echegaray (1964, 24).

8 Another explanation that comes from oral tradition is that bo is a plural prefix and umba and ngwé are the personal pronoun “I” for the ethnic groups of Boùmba and Bòngwé (Ebŏmbébómbé, 1993; Iyanga Pendi 2020).

9 In Spanish colonial literature, the concept/term appears for the first time in the Catholic missionary journal La Guinea Española from 11 October 1924, “Religión y moral de los Ndowes de nuestro continente.” Unzueta (1945) does not use it when talking about the islanders of the Gulf of Guinea. However, Veciana (1956) would use it later to describe the Kombe group.

10 In the second edition, from 1972, Kombe is included with a translation of Mark (with some Spanish) by Gustavo Envela in 1958. For Benga, the first publication dated from 1858 (Matthew) (cited in Nida [1939] 1972).

11 The name “playeros” has been contested by Ndòwĕ scholars, arguing that it was used in colonial times as a loosely defined term that could include Fang and people who migrated to the coast. Ndòwĕ call themselves momu a manga, ngamanga, bomanga, which means “men of the sea” (Iyanga Pendi 2020, 44).

12 For more detailed information on poblados and location, see González Echegaray (1964, 32–52); Iyanga Pendi (1991a, 37–38); Ethnologue (2020).

13 Rev. Wilson, in his observations about the Pongo country (Cameroon up to Corisco Bay), provided a more specific account of the groups he encountered or had known about, as well as their respective localities. Regarding the Banâkâ language: “so far as it is understood, [it] shows that they belong to the same great family which have spread themselves over the whole of the southern half of Africa; but whether they are more nearly related to the tribes [sic] on the eastern or western coast of the continent remains to be proved” (Wilson 1856, 287).

14 Shekiyani and Sheke were classified in the B.20 Kele group (coast of Gabon, the north of Libreville) by Malcom Guthrie in his book The Bantu Languages of Western Equatorial Africa: Handbook of African Languages (Linguistic Surveys of Africa) (Guthrie [1953] 2019, 589). According to Johnston (1919), Basek-Basiki was classified in the subgroup 003 Lower Sanagá – identified with Bimbi, with Banek being closer to the Mabea and Nguma and extending north to the Nyong River – and Sheke-Bulu (Shekiyani) was classified in the 001 Benga subgroup. González Echegaray disputed these classifications, arguing that Basek groups moved from Nyong River to the Spanish Guinea, and that there is not enough evidence to classify Basek in the Kele group, closer to Fang. In conversation, S. Smith, a member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL International) and a contributor to Ethnologue, said that Seki is more vigorous in the Bantu B Kele region of Gabon. However, there has been some misinformation in listing it as a dialect of Gabon Seki (B20), because Guthrie never made it to Equatorial Guinea, so he made his classifications based on survey interviews in Cameroon. Smith hopes that Basek will be re-classified in the Bantu A40 group, where it should have been originally.

15 For the Bujeba language, see González Echegaray (1960).

16 Rabat Makambo (2006) pointed out that Mambo-Matala and Oko Kongwe’s (2009) Ndòwĕ grammar is based on the northern variety (One), while Ebombebombe’s (1993) Ndòwĕ grammar is based on the Kombe spoken in Bata and Mbini (informal conversation with Oko Kongwe, June 2018).

17 As the story goes, King Imùnga ja Nyèmbanyango of the Bobunja clan of Benga was walking with Revs. Mackey and Simpson in Mandji (Corisco) when they spoke of the area as “a good bay.” Trying to reproduce the English words, the king said “u gobe.” Since then (June 1850), that town has been known as “Ugobe” (A’Bodjedi 2006, 49–74).

18 The three natives, ruling elders Andekĕ, Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ and Ubĕngi, all spoke English because the Benga people were in contact with English and American traders. However, since the meeting on 5 January 1886, the rule requiring even a minimal knowledge of English as a prerequisite for licensure was relaxed for certain native labourers (Nassau 1910, 179). The need to license ruling elders turned out to be a pragmatic solution for the American Church’s self-interest: “the final reason for the ordination of Licentiate Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ, on April 5th, 1870, was for the salvation of the Presbytery’s organic life” (Nassau 1888, 12). For more on Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ, see Jean Kenyon Mackenzie (1901) and Dj’Ikĕngĕ ([1872] 1999).

19 Oppositions to this opinion were made known at the core of the Presbyterian Church (Mandeng 1970). Among Presbyterians, “Robert and Isabella Nassau were the progressives (for their time) in theology and practice” (Bucher 2014, x). They defended the role of locals as pastors and the practice of treating Africans as equals. This and other disagreements (see Bucher 2014 and Teeuwissen 1973, 182–184) caused Nassau’s resignation from service in Batanga in 1904.

20 Elders Andekĕ, Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ and Ubĕngi were under the tutelage of reverends and had to pass exams in Latin, Greek or Hebrew for licensure (A’Bodjedi 2006, 73–100).

21 Robert Hamill Nassau Papers, 1856–1976, series Personal and biographical materials, 1890 – 1976, box 3, folders 11–15. The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, New York.

22 Ugovi was the first place occupied by the mission. Near it were Ulato, Ngelapindi and other native villages with many inhabitants. On the large island of Elobi (Elobey), the Mission had an outstation called “McQueen,” occupied by a native licentiate, who afterwards became Rev. Ibìya Dj’Ikĕngĕ. In 1870 and beyond, the island population largely died out.

23 Robert Hamill Nassau. “Correspondence: Sept. 12, 1856-Dec. 23, 1920”, Box 14, File 14:1, Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Special Collections. Princeton, New Jersey.

24 Baraka was organized by Revs. John Leighton Wilson and Benjamin Griswold and their wives. Rev. Leighton was trained in the Arabic language, and during their time in Cape Palmas the Scriptures were translated into the Grebo language (https://thisday.pcahistory.org/?s=leighton-wilson/, accessed 4 August 2020).

25 Like the Church, boarding schools took time to gain momentum, because Africans were reluctant to send their children with missionaries, or they could not afford the economic burden. Missionaries also encouraged male Scripture readers and catechists to marry women educated at the mission. In this way, a group of Christian families would be the seed to maintain the Church. In this vein, polygamy (along with alcohol and slavery) was considered a sin to be eradicated, and boarding schools were instrumental in the missionaries’ crusade against it (as they would not accept a polygamist Christian man into the Church). By 1896, the American Presbyterian Church had successfully facilitated couples’ education at boarding schools to guarantee the parish’s growth and negotiate the local custom of betrothing girls at an early age. Dowries to the girls’ families were also reduced (Campbell 1978, 124).

26 Nassau’s diaries were collected by Dr. Campbell Wycott with the help of the Presbyterian Historical Society and the Speer Library of the Princeton Theological Seminary (Robert Hamill Nassau Manuscript Collection Box 10. File 10:1). Microfilms of diaries, correspondence, publications and other selected documents are now accessible at various libraries in the US.

27 Rev. De Heer arrived to Corisco in 1855 and served the Church for twenty-three years.

28 Dates for manuscripts and translations are unknown, and more research needs to be done on this subject.

29 Nassau also translated parts of fifteen books of the Old Testament into two dialects of Mpongwe and wrote about his days at the Corisco Mission (Nassau 1874; Robert and Adams 1881).

30 Robert Hamill Nassau Manuscript Collection. “Diary (December 1885 - August 1888)”, Box 1, File 1:4, Princeton Theological Seminary Library. Special Collections. Princeton, New Jersey.

31 No additional names were provided for Ibolo.

32 In the letter, he said that he was “in her inquirer’s class,” something described by A’Bodjedi as a class held by the MINISĒ (American Presbyterian missionaries or ministers) in which they introduced the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to the “heathens” of Ikùmēmbângâ (personal communication with A'Bodjedi). Myongo mya Ivina (ca. 1850–ca. 1929, baptized Frank Sherrard Myongo), of the Bomanongo clan of Kombē from the village of Hànjĕ, was ordained a Presbyterian pastor in 1886. Benga and Kombe Presbyterians were baptized with “civilized and respectable Christian names” in order to be accepted into heaven with Jesus for eternity by Saint Peter at the pearly gates.

33 “This handsome little book owes its existence to the patient work of Mrs. Cornelius De Heer. Like the works noticed above it is based on the industry and intimate Benga knowledge of the author, added to the previous vocabularies in manuscript of several missionaries” (Board of Foreign Missions 1880, 113).

34 Nassau in a letter to the Assembly Herald wrote: “All my preaching and teaching was in Benga. And that, too, is the position taken by all the brethren at Batanga; their preaching and teaching is entirely in Benga.” According to Nassau, even for the Maheyo people, Mr. Roberts, in his zeal for his Mabeya among whom he did evangelistic work, wanted to have a book printed in their dialect. But the Mission and missionaries were unanimously against him. “Mabeya trade with, travel among, and speak with Batanga people, even living there and working there; and we said they should be satisfied with the Benga Bible,” wrote Nassau. (Bible Society Record. The Assembly Herald 1899, 21).

35 Andekĕ ya Injĕnji was Rev. Paull’s interpreter and guide to the interior of the continent (Wilson 1872).

36 “ … ser el benga como la raíz y clave de todos los idiomas que se usan desde el río Munda, cruzando las riberas del Muni, con las tribus de los vicos, pámues, belengues, bapucus, hasta el río Benito: circunstancia que es digna de consideración y que acrece su importancia” (Salvadó y Cos 1891, 6, my emphasis).

37 As told by Mary Cloyd Latta Nassau in a letter to Rev. Clark from Philadelphia, in which she informed him that the Benga Primer arrived and that she was very much pleased with the publication (Nassau 1874, 147, 371, 372).

38 The Spanish Claretian Father Salvadó y Cos translated the readings of the Gospel into Kombe in 1927 (Salvadó y Cos 1927a,b). In 1958, Mark was translated into Kombe by Gustavo Envela, Samuel E. Ipuwa and Luisa Ipuwa based on a translation prepared earlier by the Ipuwa family (Nida [1939] 1972, 283). Gustavo Envela (Mbela) Makongo was a Presbyterian pastor from Bolondo. Spanish was the official language and the colonial language in the territories of Spanish Guinea. Envela Makongo translated the Gospel into Kombe with the help of the Ipuwa family to avoid the mixing of Spanish and Kombe (conversation with A. Iyanga Pendi, September 2020).

39 The 26th Annual Report of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church (1863, 21) mentions the work at the outstations, with native preachers and Scripture readers like Bombango, Belevi, Jumbe and Yume working in the Kombe towns of Hànjĕ, Mavika and Medume.

40 Parishioners of the Reformed Church in Corisco celebrate service on Sundays and sing the hymns from this book. The church is located at Elongo, approximately two miles from the original church, which is now abandoned. Santiago Hinestrosa (“Papá Medievo”) is the oldest member of the congregation, and Leopoldo Beholi runs the church (author’s field notes, July 2019).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susana Castillo-Rodríguez

Susana Castillo-Rodríguez is an associate professor at SUNY Geneseo. She teaches Spanish socio/linguistics courses. She is the co-coordinator of the Black Studies/Africana Programs and the faculty leader of the study-abroad programme in Equatorial Guinea. Her research focuses on colonial and decolonial linguistics in Central-Western Africa. Among her latest publications are: “Official Press in Equatorial Guinea: Tracing Colonial and Postcolonial Governance in Ébano,” in Creating and Opposing Empire: The Role of the Colonial Periodical Press, ed. by A. Vieira Machado, I. de Ataíde Fonseca and S. Ataíde Lobo (Routledge Studies in Cultural History, 2023), and “Estudios lingüísticos en Guinea Ecuatorial: de la dominancia del español a los repertorios multilingües” QVR 59–60 (2022).