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Handout #191 |
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Mission journal of Fra Luca Caltanisetta, Capucin, in the Congo |
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On 14 July 1695 A.D., during the mission to
Damma, a merchant wanted to buy a female slave and the small child who, she
was still breast-feeding. Seeing her master talking with the merchant, this
"woman rightly suspected that she was going to be sold. She took her
child and, full of rage, threw him on a stone. Then she took several arrows
from a man's hand and furiously thrust them into her belly; and in this way,
in her despair, she died without baptism. In the course of this mission I
had much to do and say against the fetishists.
(1696 A.D.) I destroyed an altar made by the priests (or fetishists) of the pagans of Nzonzo. This altar was a place surrounded by stakes with animal skulls set on top of them: one large and four small. Some woman complained at my destroying these objects; they said to me: 'Does not the father have his practices when he says the mass: We have ours, too.' (1697 A.D.) In the course of my first septennial I have administered a total of 20,981 baptisms and blessed 110 marriages. Luca da Caltanisetta, Diaire congolais (1690-1701 A.D.). |
