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The Poor Christ of Bomba  (1956; e-copy, 220) by Mongo Beti is a fascinating tale of a priest with a mission and passion to proselytise the natives in the forest region of Cameroon. Mongo Beti told of Father Superior Drumont's struggles, his conceptions, his failure, and a possibility of his own conversion. Like most Europeans and others who entered Africa, Father Superior believed that the natives did not really  know God. They faithfully believe that without the Christian God, the people were doomed and bound for hell. Reverend Father Superior Drumont therefore made it his life's mission, a decision that was set in motion twenty years before fifteen-year old Denis wrote about the events in his diary, to bring God's lost sheep into the fold.  Proselytization.  However, in doing this, Father Superior Drumont made the mistake that every Westerner makes when he meets an aborigine; he thought the people could not cogitate or reason for themselves, that they ...

Surely it isn't blasphemy...oh, no! It even fills me with joy to think that perhaps it was providence, the Holy Ghost himself, who whispered this advice in the Father's ear, 'Tell them that Jesus Christ and the Reverend Father are all one.' Especially when our village children, looking at the picture of Christ surrounded by boys, were astonished at his likeness to our Father. Same beard, same soutane, same cord around the waist. And they cried out, 'But Jesus Christ is just like the Father!' And the Father assured them that Christ and himself were all one. And since then all the boys of my village call the Father 'Jesus Christ'. [3] It seems the more money they have the less they think of God. [13] All along the way we heard women singing or calling to each other, and men laughing and slapping their thighs. We saw clearly enough how they were. Often we saw a bicycle or a sewing machine standing in a corner. Cocoa has made them rich here... In sh...