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(I}. Mo dsia appear to exist for the accurate delimitation of tribal boundaries, and thii Hap is only approximate. (2J. The boundaries of Vai. Goto. Kiai, are unknown ; the trim, and Bulsm (Sherbro), are virtually swallcu/td up tj Vie Uendi. North of Frietou/n there are only scattered communities of Butsm
ANTHROPOLOGICAL REPORT
ON .
SIERRA LEONE.
BY
NORTHCOTE W. THOMAS, M.A., F.RA.I.
Government Anthropologist.
PART I.
LAW AND C
OF THE
TIMNE AND OTHER TRIBES.
LONDON :
HARRISON AND SONS.
„\6
1916 (Copyright.)
LONDON :
HARBISON AND SONS, PEINTEES IN OEDINAEY TOj-HIS MAJESTY,
ST. MARTIN'S LANE.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
IV. — Religion
V. — Cult of the Dead
VI. — Witchcraft
VII.— Satka, Wanka, etc. VIII.— Ritual Prohibitions ... IX.— Divination, Ordeals, Omens
page
14
I. — Introductory
II. — Demography
III. — Paramount Chief -°
29
41
46
52
69
80
X. — Marriage 91
103 108 118
XL — Kinship
XII. — Birth, Twins, Circumcision
XIII.— Burial
XIV.— Totemism 13-
XV. — Secret Societies 143
XVI. — Law, Criminal 1)3
XVIL— Slavery
XVIIL— Inheritance, Land, Debt
XIX.— Farming and Crops !"-
XX. — Technology and Science 1<<
Note on Botanical Features, by Dr. O. Staff... 181
Glossary •■• 1°"
Index 189
138 162
LIST OF PLATES.
Map — Showing Distribution of Tribes, by Major (now Lieutenant-Colonel) C. E. Palmer, D.S.O., R.A., formerly attached to the Sierra Leone Battalion, West African Frontier Force... ... ... Frontispiece
Facing page
I. — (a) Susu "Weaving; (b) Suspension Bridge ... 11
II. — (a) Timne House; (b) Limba Stone House ... 12
III.— (a) Konten ; (b) Timne Girl 20
IV. — (a) Sanko ; (b) Satimaka 28
V. — (a) Koranko Image; (b) Maskers (Timne) ... 39
VI. — Sacrifice : (a) For Health ; (b) For Good Sleep 41
VII. — Sacrifice : (a) For Bad Dead ; (b) For Farm ... 43
VIII.— Susu Boy 60
IX. — (a) Atettot ; (b) Sena 84
X. — Timne Man (Sanda) 90
XL— Timne Man (Yoni) 96
XII.— Timne Woman (Sanda) 110
XIIL— (a) Bundcj "Devil"; (b) Circumcision Mask ... 117
XIV.— Graves : (a) Timne ; (b) Susu 129
XV. — Timne Woman (South) 140
XVI. — Yalunka Man and Woman 146
XVII.— Limba Girl 152
XVIII.— Koranko Man 160
XIX, XX.— Pot Making (Sanda) 177
L— INTRODUCTORY.
The colony and protectorate of Sierra Leone lie between 7° N. and 10° N. in latitude, and 10° 50' W. and 13° 50' W. in longitude, with a total area of about 31,000 square miles, and a native population of more than a million and a quarter.
The area near the coast is, with the exception of the mountainous region near Freetown, uniformly flat and, in the rainy season, in many parts swampy. Higher ground is found eastwards towards the Liberia n border, and hill country is entered soon after crossing the Seli on the road to Kaballa, which lies fully 1,200 feet above the sea, with surrounding hills perhaps 800 feet higher still, some of them occupied by Limba villages built in part of stone.
The rivers run in the main from north-east to south-west, the Moa, Sewa, Taia, Seli (Eokelle), Kabba (Little Scarries), and Kolente (Great Scarries) being the most important, though rapids often make navigation impossible not far from the mouth. The Seli takes its rise not far from the head- waters of the Niger, here known as the . Joliba.
Except in the hill country in the north-central area vegetation is exceedingly rich, and there are more than 1,500 species of trees and plants, exclusive of rice and cultivated vegetables.
Among the animals may be mentioned the chimpanzee, on the Scarries and in the area between Freetown and the Liberian borders, the hippopotamus and pigmy hippo- potamus, elephant, bongo, cob, bush buck, and a number of duiker ; leopard and many kinds of cat, dwarf buffalo, and wild pig.
Among the birds, guinea fowl, francolin, greater and lesser plantain eaters, bustard, and many kinds of duck are found ;
snares are set for birds, especially near the marshy areas in the south, where spur-winged geese are plentiful.
Snakes are abundant, but apparently not dangerous as a rule, though the spitting cobra is not uncommon.
Scorpions and land crabs are found, and fish are plentiful in the rivers, though until recently only eleven species were known from the whole area.
There were comparatively few opportunities of ascertaining facts as to the prevalence of disease, but the natives do not suffer to the same extent as the Nigerian peoples from indolent ulcers. The various tribes showed a marked difference of character in respect of the readiness with which they submitted to treatment. Except in Susu villages it was very rare for patients to accept an invitation to come for medicine ; but Susus were everywhere ready to come forward, even when the tribe among whom they resided showed no inclination to do so.
Old men seemed far less frequent than in Nigeria, but no exact estimate of age was possible in the absence of historical events of known date as a starting-point. There can be no doubt that the wars, which went on till some twenty years ago, swept off masses of the population ; in one town I was told by an old man that seven of his nine wives had dis- appeared in this way.
In physical appearance there appears to be a well-marked difference between the Mandingo peoples and the other tribes. The Susus and the Mencli are more lightly built than the Timne ; the Limba type is different from either, and they are perhaps somewhat darker.
Many of the natives in the south appear to be very capable traders ; in one family, four of whose members received part of the farming capital for trading purposes, more than £2,500 wTas banked in seven years from the surplus profits. In general, however, the native appears to be unintelligent and singularly lacking in initiative ; it is a rare occurrence to give an order to a man and find it carried out promptly and intelligently, or even carried out at all.
The Limba is perhaps rather superior to the other tribes in this respect.
The Mendi is a better carrier than the Timne , and he seems to be generally more resolute, though he is at the same time more light-hearted. On one occasion Timne carriers, who were called upon to wade a river in Hood, which was no more than chest deep, gave themselves up for lost, when the Mendi hammock boys were quite unperturbed.
The cheerfulness of the Mendi, on the other hand, makes him less prudent.
Freetown itself is inhabited by the descendants of liberated Africans, who, fifty years ago, spoke hundreds of different languages, as Koelle has left on record in his Polyglotta Africana ; to-day Yoruba (Aku) and possibly Ibo survive.
Of the languages of the Protectorate, Fulfulde (Fula) is spoken by scattered sections of the tribe, covering over a large part of the area, who are in most cases sedentary, sometimes in their own villages, and mainly occupied with cattle-keeping.
The remaining languages are Soudanese, and fall into two main groups, prefix and non-prefix tongues. To the former, which may be called the old group, belong (a) Timne, (b) Limba (with several dialects), and (c) Bulam (Mampa Sherbro), Krim, and Kisi, which are closely related.
The non-prefix languages are : (a) Gola, an isolated tongue on the Liberian border with no known affinities beyond those existing between all Soudanese languages, and (b) the Mandingo group, of which the following are included in British territory : Susu, Yalunka, Koranko, Kono, Yai, Loko, and Me,ndi, of which the last differs in a somewhat marked degree from the normal Mandingo type.
Me,ndi is and has for some time been swallowing up its smaller neighbours, Bulam (Sherbro), Krim, and Yai ; it is by no means improbable that some of the features of MQndi are due to the fact that the Mandingo element in the tribe is far smaller than in the other tribes mentioned above ; this
8
is borne out by the fact that Mendi has several well-marked dialects.
On the north-west of Freetown Bulom, of which the Timne name is Mampa, is being swallowed up by Timne, and is only found in isolated groups.
It is certain that considerable changes have taken place in comparatively recent times in the distribution of the tribes ; for Port Loko is now a Timne area, but from its name it is clear that it has been in recent times in Loko hands. The Timne occupation of the Butam shore is also comparatively recent, if the maps published at the end of the eighteenth century can be accepted as a guide. Even in 1854 Koelle says that Timne territory is south of the " Sierra Leone " river. It must, however, be remembered that the treaty of cession of the colony proves that the Freetown area was in Timne bauds in 1788.
As to the conditions previous to this period we have little or no information save from tradition, which goes to show that at no very remote era the Protectorate was covered with virgin forest, of which the remains are found on the Liberian boundary and between the Timne and Northern Mendi areas; south of the forest lay the Bulom, but the forest itself seems to have been mainly uninhabited. One curious fact, however, possibly not without significance in this connection, may be quoted. The German word for parrot is " papagei," the English word " popinjay " is from the same root, and cognate words are found in Portuguese and other European languages ; both have been traced to Arabic and other roots, but without any great certainty. The Timne, Limba, and Loko word for parrot is pampakei, and it seems clear that the German and Timne words are genetically connected. We know that words for pine-apple (ananas), tomato (tambatis), etc., have been introduced with the objects themselves ; but there is no reason to suppose that parrots, which are comparatively rare even in the southern Timne area, and quite unknown in the northern portions, so far as my observation goes, were ever introduced in the same
way, still less that they were introduced by Portuguese or other white men, as must have been the case if the Timne adopted a European word.
If, however, parrots were introduced into Europe by some- one who visited the West Coast in the Middle Ages and brought back some of the birds, the puzzle is to explain why they should have adopted a name from tribes of which two — Limba and Loko — have never, so far as we know, been on the coast, nor on a navigable creek save at Port Loko, and the third penetrated to the coast in all probability long after the word reached Europe.
There are other tribes nearer the Gambia which have a cognate name for parrot, and it may be that it is from them and not the Sierra Leone tribes that the word is borrowed. In any case no certain inference can be drawn from the facts. Tradition states that the Timne came from the east, and not only have they isolated the Loko from the Mendi, sub- sequently flowing round them to the west, but the Limba mass, north and east of the northern Timne, has the appear- ance of having been pushed on one side by an incursive people, but the fact that the Baga and other tribes speaking Timne dialects are in French territory suggests that the people came from the west ; perhaps only the chief came from the east.
As regards the old group, Limba is definitely a prefix language, as the following forms show : —
Singular. Plural. English.
hutiti tatiti tooth
kutai natai foot
te hate fowl
hurak inarak stone
wali mbali slave
but names of animals, with few exceptions, seem to have a suffix plural : —
Singular. Plural. English.
kanrpa kampan elephant
kosa koseh pis;
10
The principal prefix is ku, hu (ta, na); fo (ta), fa (nip, na), w (b), are also found.
Tlie situation as to Timne is perfectly clear. The prefixes serve to form the plural, and at the same time indicate whether the noun is in the definite or indefinite form, i.e., whether it corresponds to the noun with the definite or with the indefinite or no article.
As regards Bulom, Krim, and Kisi, the situation is less clear. There can be no doubt that the languages are closely allied in vocabulary, as the following specimens show : —
|
Bui 'nil. |
Krim. |
Kisi. |
English. |
|
rin |
ede |
yinde |
hair |
|
pal |
depande |
paleh |
sun |
|
pah |
yipaii |
pahge |
moon |
|
mwen |
m^n |
mtmdah |
water |
|
kil |
boxi |
keyo |
house |
|
matulun |
maicoi |
k^iyan |
fat |
|
[pie] |
wis |
visio |
meat |
|
kulun |
bilih |
kulin |
goat |
|
can |
kucan |
kinde |
tooth |
|
mo |
kamo |
melin |
breast |
|
su |
kusu |
so |
finger |
|
kwQn |
lekin |
knife |
|
|
tauh |
hotin |
eye |
ijulam forms the plural in some cases by prefix, e.g.. can, ncan, tooth; rin, irin, hair; rok, nrok, grandchildren; and the same is true of Krim, which is obviously a prefix language in the above list: — tanye, munye, ear; kuca, nine a, tooth; kusu, in usu,' finger. Even Kono seems to have the prefix plural in a few forms, e.g., moya, eya, eye.
When, however, we turn to Kisi, the plural is formed by suffix or change of vowel in the last syllable : — hotin, hotan, eye; kinde, kindon, tooth; ba, balah, hand; keyo, kerah. house; bqngo, behgulah, foot.
It seems, however, evident that there is no prefix change to form the plural ; yet the forms yinde (hair), hotin (eye)
Plate I.
susu weaving. See page 1 2.
SUSPENSION BRIDGE OF creepers; See page 12.
11
when we compare them with the forms in the other languages suggest that prefixes are not unknown.
In some cases the Kisi suffix change seems to he clearly a change of form in the determinative do, kinde, kindo, tooth ; yomdo, yomde, tree; but in the case of ba, balan, hand; keyo, keran, house; kamao, kamani, elephant, we have the addition of 1(a), r(a) or n, which apparently indicates the plural.
On the whole it seems probable that Kisi, which is isolated among the Mandingo group, has lost its old prefix methods and adopted suffix change, in a certain number of cases only, as a means of indicating the plural.
Articles, or forms of the noun taking the place of articles, are not a normal feature of Mandingo languages. It is therefore worthy of note that Mendi, and Lqko, have suffixes i with, in Mendi at least, different forms for the plural to indicate the definite and indefinite forms of the noun.
Kisi appears to use do, o, with a plural ni; Bulam and Krim have a form de, winch is apparently determinative, while Limba and Gola use yo, ho; the Limba plural in n is perhaps connected with the form ni.
Tones play a considerable part in Mendi, Limba, and Bulam ; and their importance in Mandingo languages may be regarded as probable. In Timne, on the other hand, owing, no doubt, largely to the development of prefixes, which vastly diminish the possibility of homonyms, they play a very subordinate role.
The small dialectical differences in Timne may point to its being, in its present form, of late origin, which no doubt favoured the dropping out of tones.
The mode of life and native products of the tribes, of whatever group, show singularly little variation over the whole area. The Yalunka and Koranko are perhaps the most diversified as regards manufactures, though the Koranko products on sale in Freetown are confined to a small area of the Koranko country.
12
Of important ethnographical features the xylophone (Kor b a Ian ye,) is confined to the Koranko, the loom (Plate I) to Susu, Mendi and Limba with few exceptions, pottery mainly to the Mendi, though this is due principally to the introduction of European pots, mainly of iron.
The general form of the house is everywhere the same, save where the rectangular house has penetrated, coming from Freetown. It is circular with, as a rule, small rooms outside the main wall, but under the main roof. The thatch is of grass tied down on poles secured to each other by a series of circular rings (Plate II) . The substructure of the walls is of wood, upright poles sunk in the ground with horizontal pieces to give rigidity. The portion of the house outside the main wall which is not taken up with the kohko, or small room, is often fenced with a low wall and forms a veranda in front and behind, which is sometimes on a level with the ground, sometimes raised above and approached by steps.
In the Limba country near Kaballa is found a feature very unusual in West Africa — the use of stone in the con- struction of houses (Plate II). At present there are no data to show whether this was sporadic or derived from some other area ; possibly the use of sun-dried bricks at Falaba may have suggested the idea; but it is more probably clue to the scarcity of suitable material for house-building on the tops of the hills.
The double gong is characteristic of the Limba.
In this area we also find large mud rice-bins built inside the house, two or three feet in diameter, and sometimes as much as seven feet high.
Native suspension bridges (Plate I), in use on the Seli and other rivers, are perhaps of Koranko origin, though they are also found in the Timne country to the south of this tribe.
The hammock and sling are in general use among all tribes ; loads, especially rice, are carried with a pack and head band.
Secret societies flourish, especially in the Mendi and adjacent Timne areas, but the Susu and Limba have important
Plate IT.
house building at mapori. See page 12.
STONE house (limba) at yakala. See page 1 "_'.
13
societies. The woman's society, Bundu, is not known to all the Limba, nor is clitoridectomy practised west of Kaballa ; but there is nothing to show by which tribe it was introduced or how it originated in this part of West Africa. According to a MS. of Schlenker, who was in the Tinine country sixty years ago, Bundu was learned by the Timne from the Meridi.
Circumcision appears to be universal.
Various dialects of Timne are distinguished but the differences are small. The northern branch are known as Sanda Timne ; it was in this area that most of my enquiries were made.
n
n.— DEMOGRAPHY.
In order to ascertain the proportions of the sexes at birth and in mature life, and to obtain information as to the effect of polygyny on fecundity, the sex ratio of the first- born, the relative mortality of males and females and other matters, genealogies were collected giving details of the families of over two hundred and seventy men, including one with fifty wives, who was himself the son of a man who had sixty wives and one hundred children.
Fifty-three daughters in these families had gone to husbands, but there was no information as to whether they were monogamous marriages or not. There was, however, a tendency to omit or overlook their dead children, and the same was true in a more marked degree of the information about older generations of my informants' families. These data are therefore not as a rule included.
In addition to these genealogies a few villages were completely counted and random samplings were made of chance assemblages of men at various places. For my genealogies were mainly derived from sub-chiefs and were apt to show an undue proportion of polygynous marriages, and might introduce other errors into the data.
On the whole, however, it was found that the systematic census could not be carried out with success even with the support of the paramount chief ; in more than one place the information vouchsafed in his presence was plainly erroneous and deliberately falsified. In other cases the paramount chief refused to give any assistance in the enquiry. On the whole, therefore, the data collected in this way were in bulk con- siderably less than those obtained by the genealogical method, and the reliability was inferior ; the glaringly erroneous data have, however, been omitted.
On the whole, the two sets of statistics show such close
15
agreement as regards the sex ratio in the total births that there can be little doubt of their reliability. As might perhaps be expected, the mortality, both among males and females, was higher in the general count than in the genealogies.
Generally speaking, in the genealogies there were 422 male births to 258 female, a ratio of 100 to 61 ; in the census 294 to 206, a ratio of 100 to 69. Males surviving were to females surviving in the ratios of 100 to 55-6 and 100 to 64.
Taking the children and grouping together those of the first wife, whether in polygynous or monogynous families, and so on, we find, though with very small numbers, a small drop in the percentage of females from the third wife onwards, — only 54 per cent.
It is interesting to note that this proportion held good in the large polygynous family mentioned above, in which thirty males were borne by the wives numbered seven and upwards on my list, and only fifteen females. There is, however, some uncertainty as to the precise order of the wives, as my informant was a junior member of the family and no senior member was available, and it is quite possible that some of the thirty-five unfertile wives should have been included among the first six.
Generally speaking, however, the data confirm the results obtained in Nigeria that polygyny favours an excess of male births ; but having regard to the small numbers and to the natural excess of male births even in monogynous marriages — a condition that does not prevail in Nigeria — the result is less important than might appear at first sight.
In the census it was impossible to establish in every case which was the first wife ; and similar figures can only be given therefore under great reservations. So far as they go, the numbers being still smaller than in the genealogies, there is hardly any difference between the numbers of the two sexes born by wives numbered from four upwards ; but the total number of children was less than fifty.
16
If we now group the children by patrilineal families instead of by the numerical order of their mothers, we find in the genealogies no marked law in the proportion of females which is 60, 62, 53, 74, 79, 43, in ascending order of families according to the number of wives per family up to six.
In the census the proportion of females is 75, 45, 50, 109, 75, 63. Here again, therefore, there is no evidence of the operation of any law.
Taking now the sex ratio of the first-born, for which the genealogies alone are available, we find the proportion of females is for the wives in order 39, 60, 40, 115, 0, 200 (or, for the last three, 66) ; and by families, 43, 44, 54, 60, 55, 21 (for six and all above). Here again there is no evidence of law,but the generalratio, 46 females to 100 males, is markedly different from the ratio for all births ; the difference is less marked if we add the families of the daughters mentioned above (p. 14), in which the ratio was 76 per cent. The first ratio by wives then becomes 47, and by families 54.
As regards sterility, it is natural that in the case of men with one wife a considerable proportion should be recently married and therefore appear, unjustly, among the sterile. Out of a total of 191 monogamous marriages, including those of daughters, 27 were unfertile, nearly one-seventh. As, however, 36 out of 193 non-monogynous marriages were sterile, a proportion of three-sixteenths, it is not certain that one-seventh is too high a ratio. It must of course be recog- nised that the causes that made three out of five wives sterile in one case are very possibly not the same as those which made a monogamous wife sterile ; in the case of one large family in which, in the first generation, one man had 100 children, and one of his sons had 67 by 50 wives, no less than thirty-five of these wives had no children, and if data were available as to his father the proportion would probably be equally great.
In a certain number of polygynous marriages the most recent wife might have been married within the year and therefore figure as sterile. But obviously this proportion, if
17
we take the case of a man with two wives, will probably not be more than one-half what it is in monogynous marriages, one-third in the case of the man with three wives and so on. On the whole, therefore, allowing for the fact that a certain proportion of the women are naturally sterile, it is clear that the proportion of sterility among polygynons wives is enor- mously in excess of what it is in the monogynons family.
Turning now to the number of children per wife, we find that, even excluding sterile marriages, there is a progressive diminution as the number of wives increases. The married life of the second and later wives has ex hypothesi been shorter than that of the first wives ; but this fact hardly seems to explain entirely the diminution in fertility, which descends from 2'7 for the first wife to 1*8 for two, 16 for three, and 1*4 for four to six.
No stress can, however, be laid upon these data, in view of the small numbers involved, and especially in view of the fact that the census figures do not confirm them, the numbers being 2-3, 2'5, 2'4, 3*9 (mainly owing to two families, one of 27, one of 17), 3, and 26.
It has, however, been noted above that the census figures were demonstrably unreliable in some cases, and it is by no means improbable that while some unduly diminished the numbers of their children, others unduly magnified them.
It seems clear from the census that males are slightly in excess of females. The results show 360 living males of all ages and 348 females, exclusive of casual lodgers in a house with only remote relationship to the head, or, at any rate, no direct relationship of descent. These include a certain number of women who have lost their husbands, and if they are included they would be nearly, if not quite, counterbalanced by the males, more especially younger brothers, who had lost their fathers and were without homes of their own. The ao-e of marriage being much lower for the woman, the number of females living under corresponding circumstances is also much lower.
On the whole the proportion of twin births appears to be
C
18
exceedingly low. Twins are not regarded as unlucky, and there is no reason to suppose that any twin births were concealed. The fact that in many cases special names are given to twins, such as Sento and Sino, and that the child next after twins is often called 'Bese (to be distinguished from another name similarly spelt but with different tone — 'Bese), makes it comparatively easy to detect the presence of twins, even if the actual information is erroneous or defective.
Excluding the descendants of Seni Kabia of Magbile, only six or seven cases of twin births are recorded in the genealogy, a far lower proportion than appeared to prevail in Nigeria, where twins are, or were, systematically exposed by many tribes, and, prima facie, the twin-bearing stock correspondingly depleted.
In the family of Seni Kabia, on the other hand, twins were far more numerous, though not perhaps exceptionally so in comparison with the normal European stock.
Seni Kabia was himself a twin ; among his children were two pairs of twins ; and one of his children, not himself a twin, had also two pairs, as to whom no further information was obtained.
Fode Kabia, son of Seni Kabia, had by his first wife three sets of twins among his twelve children, all but one of the twins being males. One of these twins was himself the father of twins, born prematurely. One other son of Fode was also the father of twins. There were in all ten pairs among 250 names recorded in the genealogies of the descendants of Seni Kabia ; only six or seven were recorded, on the other hand, among the 750 names in the remainder of the genealogies.
In Tables I and III square brackets show the number of dead wives, round brackets the number of unfertile wives.
19
|
_3 |
If o |
co •<* |
CO CN |
M |
00 CM |
-* 00 C5 |
CO o CM |
|
o |
CM |
lO C9 |
00 CN |
CN |
00 |
CN CM rH CM i— i |
OS CM |
|
■9}\ja q^9 |
o |
1 ° |
|||||
|
'8JIAY TtfQ |
CN |
1— 1 |
1 " |
||||
|
•ajiAv nit |
T)< |
00 |
o |
1 - |
|||
|
•ajiAv pjg |
i— I |
TJ< |
00 |
~ |
1 « |
||
|
•8JIM. pug |
^ |
iO |
CO |
Tj< |
I— 1 |
1 5 |
|
|
•ajiA ^si |
OS i— l |
06 |
-# |
1^ |
CN |
00 |
1 5 |
|
•p-eap sapauiaj |
a> 1— 1 |
co |
o 1— 1 |
oo i— i |
1— 1 |
O CM |
i—i X |
|
■ZjiJA q-}9 |
CN |
M |
|||||
|
'ajp*. q-jg |
CN |
-1 |
1 M |
||||
|
SJIJA qaf |
co |
00 |
CM |
1 °° |
|||
|
•8JIA1 pjg |
oo |
rr |
00 |
CM |
i a |
||
|
•8iiay pug |
O r— 1 |
-tf |
«o |
-* |
O |
1 s |
|
|
■Q}IJ& ^S[ |
oo |
o CM |
CO |
«o |
CN |
CN |
i g |
|
•8Aip3 saparaa^j |
CO |
o m |
CO |
1— 1 |
cs oo t- |
X 1— 1— 1 ° |
|
|
■SJT* ^9 |
o |
||||||
|
■ajTAv q^Q |
o |
o |
1 ■» |
||||
|
•8jiay q^, |
co |
o |
1— 1 |
1 * |
|||
|
•aipa. pjg |
«Q |
1-1 |
CN |
o |
1 °° |
||
|
•8JU4. pug |
i—i f— i |
oo |
CN |
■<# |
l-H |
, - |
|
|
•aim (jsx |
CO CN |
i— i |
CN |
00 |
CN |
s |
|
|
•prop sap3j\r |
CN |
CO |
CI |
X |
1— ( |
■"# CO |
09 CM |
|
•siiay qig |
CN |
||||||
|
■8JIM i{]<j |
00 |
^ |
1 - |
||||
|
•8JTM. q^ |
CN |
<N |
CN |
1 « |
|||
|
•9JIAV pjg |
CN |
oo |
t^ |
i—i |
1 2 |
||
|
•aiu&..pug |
i— I cn |
-* |
r- |
•n |
-* |
5 |
|
|
•ajiAi ^si |
oo |
co |
oo |
JC~ |
CO |
O |
.-i |
|
•9Aip3 S8[Bp\[ |
QC |
00 lO |
CM |
00 CM |
00 CN 00 r— 1 |
oa i— i |
|
|
33 y |
28 § |
2g§ |
§«£ |
5?iSE |
31 -* rH riT1! — 1 £? |
co "^ ^ -* ~ CO |
|
|
O |
J |
/ |
*s |
||||
|
o H |
ID HP |
o |
Six Nine* Ten |
c 2
20
Table II. Wives and Childeen (Genealogies).
The wives are given in each case in the order in which they were married.
Plate J II.
21
Table III.
Wives and Children (by Families). Sex Eatio of First-born, etc.
|
Number of wives. |
Children. |
Number per marriage. |
First- born male. |
First- born female. |
||
|
Males. |
Females. |
|||||
|
188 \ (38) J |
296 |
174 |
2-5 |
121 |
48 |
First wife. |
|
50 \ (12) J |
64 |
50 |
1-8 |
33 |
20 |
Second wife. |
|
29 I (8) / |
45 |
16 |
1-6 |
18-5* |
7'5* |
Third wife. |
|
14 \ (7) J |
16 |
12 |
1-3 |
6-5* |
7 '5* |
Fourth wife. |
|
o6)} |
10 |
1 |
1-6 |
5 |
0 |
Fifth wife. |
|
(?)} |
1 |
5 |
1-5 |
1 |
2 |
Sixth wife. |
|
290 (67) |
432 |
258 |
185 |
85 |
* Twins. In this table round brackets show the number of unfertile wives.
22
O
h
O
J-
o < o
road
4 O'- The above is the ground plan of a typical village in the Sanda country. The houses were all small, but, almost without exception, had verandas.
The occupants were as follows : —
1. KQmbo, father's brother's son of No. 4.
2. 10. Ke,nani, father's brother of No. 4.
3. Drisa, father's father's son's son of No. 4.
4. Pa Woso, head man of the village.
5. Karefala, father's father's son's son.
6. Bokari I, sister's son to No. 4.
7. Bainya, brother of 12 and father's father's son of 4.
8. Basi, „ „ „ „
9. Bankara, „ „ „ „
11. Moino, „ „ „ „
12. Bokari II, brother of 7, „ „ „ „
13. Held in trust by Pa Woso for the prospective second
husband, Bonka, of the late owner's widow ; she was "Woso's brother's daughter, and lived with Bokari in No. 12 ; [this thirteenth house was untenanted.]
One house was building, houses were : —
The other inmates of these
23
Table IV.
|
s |
9 |
||||
|
Alive. Dead. |
Alive. |
Dead. |
|||
|
1. |
Three of K's father's wives. Also Baki (son). |
||||
|
(1) (2) 2.(1) (2) (3) |
1 :h 1 2 1 1 3 2 2 1 Also brother's wife, childless, in No |
1 5 1 10. |
|||
|
3.(1) (2) 4.(1) (2) (3) |
3 1 1 (marrie Also B |
2 d in preced . " " asi (son). |
2 3 1 ing year). n |
1 1 2 |
|
|
(1) (2) 5. (1) |
1 2 |
— |
1 |
— |
|
|
(2) |
(married preceding year). Also one brother. |
||||
|
(1) 6. (1) (a widow) |
Also his mother. |
1 |
|||
|
7.(1) (2) (3) (4) 8.(1) (2) |
2 (recent 2 |
3 1 1 ly married and pregnai |
t) |
3 |
|
|
Also Morlai (son), one wife, no childien. |
|||||
|
9.(1) |
— |
— . |
. — ■ |
— |
|
|
(2) (dead) (3) „ |
Also m |
other and a |
2 mall brothe |
r. |
— |
|
11.(1) |
— 1 |
— |
— |
||
|
12. (1) |
3 1 |
— |
— |
||
|
(2) (3) |
1 l Also a widow, Binki, |
in this hous 1 |
e. |
1 |
Totals 15 men, 27 (+ 2 dead)
24 | 13 21 16
and two mothers, two brothers, one brother's wife, and four widows.
24
From the close relationship of all the men of the village, it might be imagined that it was founded by Pa Woso's grandfather, but this did not appear to be the case, for it was said to be the oldest in the district. Possibly the explanation lies in part in the fact that four of the men had died in the previous months, and four more were gone away to work. This accounts also to some extent for the large proportion of wives — nearly two per adult male exclusive of the widows.
25
III. -PARAMOUNT CHIEF.
The kande or paramount chief seems to be a comparatively recent figure in many areas; some, it is true, trace their power back to Bai Farama (or Farama Tami), who lived perhaps four hundred years ago ; but in many cases the chieftainship seems to go back only a few generations, and the original chief is said to have gained his position by his wealth ; for in olden days it appears to have been the duty of a paramount chief to compose differences by liberal presents to both sides. Where two tribes were fighting, a chief might spend £15 to £20 and send money to both parties. If they agreed to stop hostilities, an oath was taken and a cow, given by the chief, was sacrificed. This was divided into three parts, one for each of the contending parties and one for the chief.
In other cases, especially where there are now two "families " {i.e., a bun a, clans) which share the succession to the chieftainship, there is a tradition that the second family gained its position owing to assistance given in war to the original family. The rule of succession is, of course, not in the direct male line where there are two or more houses, which sometimes represent, not original clans, but des- cendants of the same male ancestor; the term for '"house" in this case is kunte. In some cases at least the two-clan rule is traced back to the fact that a sister of the original chief or one of his successors was the mother of a man elected to the chieftainship. Under the rule of exogamy this necessarily involves a change of clan.
It is, however, clear that the simple dying out of the original family or the youth of its eldest male members when the time came for them to succeed, is not an adequate
26
explanation of succession through the female line ; for in some cases there is a record of a chief's daughter helping him and being the overseer of his house. This suggests that she probably attained some authority and was able to influence the election.
In some cases the two houses are actually of different tribes ; at Kamalu there is a Loko and a Timne line, though it must be remembered that, owing to the suzerainty claimed by Brama Sanda, Kamalu was never recognised as a full chieftaincy.
The original chiefs were by no means necessarily of the same blood as the people whom they governed. It is, indeed, not quite clear how far the country was populated, nor how far the travellers from the east brought their own people with them ; but tradition makes it clear that Koranko, Mandingo, Loko, and Limba houses are now among the Timne chiefs.
The paramount chief is supreme in his own district, and can in theory decide law cases as he chooses ; if, however, his decisions are glaringly opposed to recognised law, the aggrieved suitor has, at least in theory, the power to go to another chief, of repute as a judge, and, after paying a fee, state his case to him ; the chief would then send to the chief who tried the case originally, and request him to remit it to him for re-trial ; this, of course, in order to secure the presence of the other party and the witnesses. It appears to be held that a chief cannot, without loss of reputation, refuse to allow a fellow-chief to review his decisions ; but whether a suitor would gain anything in the long run by appealing against his chief's law is quite another matter.
His authority over his sub-chiefs appears to be almost absolute.
The customs with regard to the election, crowning, burial, etc., of the chief differ widely from place to place, and no generalised account of the matter can be given. Many of these customs are regarded as secret, and it was impossible to check the information, which appeared to be given in good
27
faith and with the tacit consent of the chief ; in more than one case, in fact, the chief's son himself gave me the facts, evidently on his father's behalf.
The chiefs are subject to many ritual prohibitions over and above those incumbent on the mass of the people (see p. 69) ; and it is a matter of some interest to discover how these arose. A natural idea would be that those chiefs who came from other tribes brought with them their tribal customs and retained them unchanged ; but of this there does not seem to be any evidence ; on the contrary, Koranko chiefs in their own country are singularly unhampered by ritual restrictions. It appears far more probable that the prohibi- tions were developed, at least in part, by the contact between a foreign chief and an indigenous people, precisely as the contact between two races has a tendency to cause the development of secret societies.
In the Sanda country, corresponding to the subordinate position of the chiefs, the mas am and the customs generally are of minor importance. At Kanialu the choice of a new chief, always from the other house, i.e., from the alternative one to that of the last chief, appears to rest with the men of sixty or over. A man of the second house appears to act as adviser to a chief of the first house. The chief is known as Bai Samura.
When the time comes for crowning, the chosen man is shut up in the kanta for six days or more ; his wife cooks for him, and the important men may also see him.
The house is " opened " for the chief to come out by the or ok, or resent, who is often his sister's son. The chief is taken to the grass field and they name his clan, and ask the other clansmen if they are glad ; thereupon they put con- tributions in a calabash, and a mo, rim an puts a white cloth on the chief's head and takes the money given. The end of this cloth must hang down to the chief's waist from the back of his head ; for a sub-chief it is on the right side.
When he sends for a town to work for him, they work for one day ; four days later another town comes, and so on.
28
In the remainder of the Timne area we find the para- mount chiefs proper, who are divided into Poro and Kagbenle chiefs (see p. 143). All, or nearly all, are subject to special ritual prohibitions, the origin of which is obscure. Although tradition says that the chiefs came from the east, and some, at least, were Korankos, ritual prohibitions of this kind were not found among the Koranko chiefs visited.
In some chiefdoms there is a man who represents the " chiefship kri.fi."
At Mamaka he is called Sanko (Plate IV) ; Sanko and the chief, Satimaka, must be in separate houses ; like the chief, he may not go where bundu implements are kept, nor where tli ere is a new-born child. It is significant that at the chief's death his Sanko retires and is replaced by another man after offering a sacrifice.
Sanko wears a helmet of leather surmounted by a tuft ; the face is of brass and there is a brass plate behind ; strips of leopard skin are attached to the base, and over the skin is fibre that reaches to the waist. He has fibre ruffles round his wrists and net anklets with fibre tops. Four sticks tied together (bonkQloma) are in his hand ; they are the chief's staff ; in point of fact the staff actually used by the chief is quite different, long and forked at the top.
The chiefship mask of Magbile is known as arqn arabai; like Sanko the wearer cannot come out when the chief is dead ; the mask is kept in the chief's house. The dress is formed of skins, and he has palm-fibre trousers.
When he goes out to walk through the land he carries a broom and whips to flog people who do not come out when he dances. He can judge cases and pay the money received to the chief.
Plate IV.
r.
29
IV.— RELIGION.
Although the coming of Mohammedanism doubtless modi- fied profoundly in some directions the traditional belief and customs of the natives, especially in the direction of decad- ence, without any corresponding influx of new ideas or rites to take the place of those that fell into desuetude, it does not seem difficult to descry the main features of the pre- Mohammedan religion. This did not differ very widely from what is found, with larger or smaller variations, in many other parts of the negro area.
(1) The main deity, known as Kuru, or Kurumasaba, appears to have been a sky god ; he occasionally receives sacrifices, and this is possibly a Mohammedan innovation, for in the prayers that are the main feature of the satka (see p. 52) Kurumasaba is clearly regarded as the equivalent of Alia. Though Alia is doubtless the deity invoked and approached in the mosque, where the moriman's influence is supreme, it is Kurumasaba who is addressed, even by the good Mussulman, as soon as the literary influence is left behind.
The mere fact that the satka comprehends so many and so diverse elements is a proof, if any were needed, that the religious life has been little influenced by Mohammedanism ; but the name satka is clearly due to its influence, and may have been extended to cover many rites not originally embraced under one name or regarded as identical in their nature ; we need not, however, suppose that Kurumasaba was originally called upon in all these diverse ceremonies.
In addition to Kurumasaba, we find at least one, and, perhaps, more than one, shadowy figure that suggests a heathen pantheon in former days. It was formerly the
30
custom, and the practice still survives sporadically, to weep for Kumba at the beginning of the farming season.
A long shed was made near the town and hoed with hooked sticks instead of iron hoes ; then rice was planted in the ground thus hoed. All the little children in the town went out repeating, " We cry for Kumba ; they are planting his rice to-day."
Some of the people in the town danced and sang : " Abok Kumban o, abok Kumban o" — "We cry for Kumba, 0, we cry for Kumba." Xo one did any other work on this day.
The rice was left uncut, for it was Kumba's ; he was said to be a very bad man wrho spoiled all the rice in the world, and they had to plant his rice, they believed, when they began farming.
This account of a custom now almost forgotten suggests that Kumba was a vegetation god of the type of Adonis ; nothing could, in that case, be more accurate than the state- ment that he owns all the rice in the world ; and when the custom began to fall into desuetude, the belief might well take the form that Kumba had to be propitiated in order that he might not spoil the rice, his rites being regarded as on all fours with those that are directed towards preserving the rice from the krifi and animals.
In a neiohbourincr town, though of another tribe, Kumba was mentioned in another connection ; when no rain fell, all people who had farms went out singing, "We Kumba." The meaning of this was unknown, nor was anyone able to inform me who Kumba was, though it was suggested that he was a witch.
The rice gardens in this town, which belongs to the Loko tribe, were made in the same way as in the Sanda (Timne) country, and the additional information was vouchsafed that the hooked sticks used as hoes were hung in the roof of the long hut.
The custom appears to be known asTubahga; it was associated in their minds with their " old people who died," for they interfered with the farming; the hoes they used
31
were the hooks hung in the roof, and it was believed that they would use them again in cultivating the rice sown for them under the long roof.
It was added that rice had to be offered on the graves, for otherwise dead men would catch the hoes, and there would be no good rice. The rice sown in the huts was left uncut ; it was masom.
These accounts, perhaps, hardly add to the probability that Kumba was a vegetation deity, though it is true that powers over rain are ascribed to these beings in European folk-lore, and it is a Loko belief, apparently, that Kumba withholds the rain, or that an appeal to him will cause rain to fall.
It might be argued that the rice gardens were connected with the cult of ancestors when the Kumba belief fell into the background ; but it might equally well be argued that the belief in Kumba's connection with rice was secondary. This explanation seems more probable in view of the fact that farther south in the Tinme country Kumban was not mentioned in connection with the custom, which was called Atobankere. Two small huts were built with a path between, and rice was sown in this and left to fall. It was universal some fifty years ago, but is now obsolete.
(2) Below the main deity or deities come, as might be expected, a mass of minor spirits.
(a) Some, and these form by far the majority, are name- less and known only by the generic term krifi, which in some tribes are not unnaturally equated by the learned with the Arab jin, and among the Susu are actually known by the name yina.
(V) Others have definite names of their own, though apparently localised in more than one place, and therefore far from being single individuals.
The nameless krifi are vaguely divided into good and bad ; sacrifices are offered to the former, especially in connection with farming, sometimes in association with Kurumasaba and the ancestors ; these good krifi are often supposed to
32
live near the town, whereas the bad krifi live in the middle of the grass field or in the hush. But it happened to me more than once that some of my staff described a krifi whom they had seen in the neighbourhood of the town (actually a somewhat dwarfish native of the town), and obviously stood in tenor of him.
Some physical malformation is often attributed to the bad' krifi : their fingers are bent and they are wry-necked ; but it is dangerous for anyone to laugh at them, for the krifi kills the disrespectful onlooker. Other krifi are "born" with hands against their heads. Krifi are both male and female, and according to one informant men see the female krifi, women the male krifi ; they are also supposed to be succ.ubi and incubi.
Bad krifi carry off the children to the bush; they are recovered by " swearing " on an oath medicine (see p. 80) ; this alarms the krifi, and the children come back; but they become crazy if they talk about their experiences.
Krifi akant (bush krifi) are not the same as those that spoil the rice ; they live in ant-hills, which have insects inside. Abempa must be performed for them or they will cause big sores, or a man will wound himself in the farm. As they are bush krifi, cassava that is planted in the bush is put near them. This kind of krifi causes erotic dreams, and when it is really angry it punishes a man by bringing his real sister, with whom he commits incest in the night unknowingly. If a woman is followed by a krifi, she offers cassava, bread, a stone and an ant-heap. The krifi is told to look after the cassava till it grows, as it is his ; if he does not do so, thieves may come.
For the b^mpa rice must be provided and rubbish cleared away. After splitting a kola nut the man says : " Lout a, lonta" (as people do to the chief before discussing a palaver in his bare). Then they put the kola together again, saying : " I come to you ; I have brought you food." "When the kola is thrown, if the sections lie face up, the man says : •' "VVe beg, we beg," and eats it on the ground. A fowl is
33
then killed by cutting its throat on the top of the ant-hill, and rice cooked. Water is brought by two people and the rice and fowl are divided between the krifi and the man who offers the b qui pa. He says : " This is the rice ; I come to beg you that when I walk I may not wound myself."
One krifi is specially appropriated to women; it is called asar (stone), and is said to bring children. For the be, in pa a small cup is used with bread inside and white shirting round it, and is offered by a woman who has not conceived for a whole twelvemonth. When a child is born, two white fowls are offered and sickness is thus averted.
Girls who go fishing have a krifi ; thev kill a smooth lizard (k ok on to) and give it to the krifi, which is represented by a white stone ; then all eat, or they will catch no fish.
In Like manner boys who set traps cook and offer to the trap itself the first handful of food on a cassava leaf ; the trap is beaten with two sticks to make it catch game, for otherwise it will not kill.
This krifi differs from all others in being a manufactured object, thus coming near many of the personal tutelary deities of Nigeria. The detail as to the beating of the trap is a singular one and recalls the many stories current in literature about the " fetish " that is beaten or thrown away if it does not profit the owner. In the present case the information was volunteered, not given in answer to a question. It is not, however, clear that the beating is ever repeated ; and clearly a beating when the trap is first made is not precisely on all fours with a beating administered because it has failed to catch game.
There is of course nothing impossible or inherently absurd in the idea of chastising gods ; but in the present case there is at least a possibility that the original purpose of the rite was not chastisement.
Whatever may be the case with the bad krifi, it seems probable that the good krifi are confused with, if they did not originate in, the " old dead people." After talking about
D
34
krifi one informant went on to deal with the cult of ancestors and said that when a man died, they took a stone to represent him (in the boromasar) and "worshipped" him in this form. They were told to do this by the morinian, who talks to the krifi and is commonly supposed to be able, after shutting himself up for seven days and living on rice-bread, to tell people all about heaven and hell.
Among the good krifi are the tambara ant^f, who " have " the country ; all towns collect fowls and rice and all head men go to this abempa. These krifi live in every big tree on the roads, never in the towns.
The term krifi is, however, used in a still wider sense. In addition to tutelary spirits (possibly ancestral) associated with towns, and others of uncertain nature connected with certain chiefs (see p. 28), all secret societies have associated with them a krifi (actually represented by a human being- like some of those just mentioned) which holds the same position, so far as can be seen, as the masked figures in Nigerian societies ; that is to say, for the uninitiated, especially the women, there is something mysterious and perhaps awful about such a being, who may perhaps be regarded as having been originally a kind of tutelary deity of the society ; on the other hand, it is also possible that, the aim of the societies being, in some cases, to educate or to exercise judicial functions, the krifi was originally a mere bugbear.
Among the krifi that possess personal names must be mentioned Aronso, the hunter krifi ; it carries a gun and kills people and cows, using stolen powder ; its shouts can be heard but the krifi itself is said to be invisible, according to one account. It has clothes of iron, which rattle at night ; a bag containing hammers and pieces of iron, a matchet, keys and traps for birds and fish are also among the properties carried.
Aronso is said to shoot at animals and suck their blood and fat, so that they are tasteless when men try to eat them. In like manner when an animal is offered to a krifi, its
35
acceptance is shown by its falling dead and people know the krifi has taken it ; the krifi takes the ankolo (real sheep) and leaves the amfos (empty husk).
Another account of Aronson says that he is a thief that steals and brings to his master ; he has a hag with a rope, " chisel," and purse (see Part III, p. 55) ; if he is caught stealing fish and threatened, he offers the contents of his bag ; the man who chooses the rope always has cows; the man who chooses the " chisel " digs bush yams ; and the man who chooses the purse is always rich. If a man grabs the whole bag, the krifi goes at night with his gun, making a whistling sound, and forces the man to disgorge.
The krifi that make men rich must be paid, or they burn a man's house ; but if the man "begs " them, he will be even richer than before. The man himself must not eat of the sheep that he sacrifices or he will die ; other men may eat of it. Some men kill the sheep under a big tree, putting a stone down to represent the krifi; this is not an ordinary stone but one chosen by a " four-eyed " man, who sees the krifi ; it lives in the stone.
A krifi of this sort, that lives under a tree, will be worried if a man takes moss from the tree and will make the man's house leaky by removing the thatch, stalk by stalk.
According to another account, in the esoteric view the krifi does not live in the stone but is the stone. If this is correct, it is in curious contradiction to the accounts given me in Nigeria, where the common man says that the stone is the demi-god, while the priest says the stone represents him.
Another krifi is known as (Ain)Yaro ; he lives in the water and can be seen by a man with good eyes ; he makes a bargain and agrees to make a man rich in return for a cow or a sheep ; if the bargain is not kept, he kills the man. Sometimes, if the man has no cow or sheep, the krifi sets the town on fire and reckons that as his reward ; some men say to him : " Burn only my house." Yaro gives his son or daughter to a man, who must follow their advice ; if the
d 2
36
man gets another child, the first one, which sits and talks like a human being, but can be seen only by a " four-eyed " person, will go away ; on no account should a man take a child from a second krifi or the first krifi will kill him.
Yaro is said to have a body covered with shining scales, which are sometimes picked up ; on examination these scales turned out to be flakes of mica.
Another krifi, whose name is generic rather than individual, is Asipromantr (water leopard) ; he kills people indiscriminately, and not only those who. see him. If he lives in a deep pool, he catches those who fall in.
Kumpamatir is also said to be a krifi that lives near water, though in point of fact he resembles far more the krifi of a society and conies out when the rice is growing to drive away witches who take the form of birds and animals in order to steal the rice. Kumpamatir is said to be called by beating sticks together. He parades the town and utters a peculiar groan or growl like that of a satisfied animal. A witch is said to fall sick and moan in the same way ; blood also issues from his nose (hence perhaps the name Kumpamatir). Kesmatir (catch the blood) is a name used by the Kagbenle when they come out on account of the rites.
Although by the native it is reckoned among the wanka (see p. 60), the ate, ttQ t (Plate IX) is really a woman's krifi, put up in order to procure children ; but as it descends to her children and a woman " joins " it like a secret society, the fact that the krifi is regarded as the enemy of thieves, like the wanka, may well be neglected in classifying the atgtto, t.
One informant told me that her mother had no children and was told by the diviner to "join the wanka." She bore a daughter, and the woman who had initiated her said the child must bear her name.
When the child grew up and married, her husband put up the hut for the atQttot; and the woman put in the stones which represent the krifi, whose name was Bandu.
In the hut were kept four stones to represent Bandu, and
■ 37
sixteen a tun k a shells as ambai, kings of the wanka, who serve as messengers. All these were in a basin covered with cloth. Over the door were two fans as a satka to keep evil from the " medicine " ; outside was a pole with fans, a satka that money might come.
The " kings " are said to decide cases, i.e., catch thieves ; when the owner puts rice mixed with palm oil on the stones, she says : " Eat, call for money."
If a man enters the hut, the wanka will follow him; whatever he does will fail and disgrace him.
This wanka helps to bring rice, and the owner of an atqttQt begins to eat new rice after sacrificing ; this is done in March for six years, after that for twelve years new rice can be eaten at once ; then for six years the rites are performed in March ; and so on, the time being reckoned by the farms.
According to another account a girl joins the anfam nate,t atot (people of the small house) before her marriage, and has medicines rubbed on her body. In order to conceive, a woman offers a fowl: "My good krifi, I have come to you to-day, I come and ask you to-day to get me children ; I give you this fowl for food." The fowl is killed, cooked with rice and left in the ate, t tot for a short time ; then the sacrificer eats and gives to other members.
In one atgttQt that I examined I found two tortoise shells, two small brooms, a mat, a stick, two whisky bottles, and a box containing one basket and a few stones and cowries in it.
Another had feathers of the plantain eater ; sacrifice (? satka) was offered to them ; they seem, therefore, to represent the krifi.
Leopard. — When a hunter kills a leopard, a strip of cloth is tied round his waist to show that he is a prisoner ; he has killed the king's cat, which is masam. When he reaches the town he is tied with a strip of country cloth to a post of the house.
Grass is tied round the leopard's head and the hunter's
38
face : young boys cut whips, and in each town that they pass through on their way to the chief there is a struggle for the body of the leopard; if the bearers are driven off, the winners take possession and carry in their
turn.
When they get in, the chief rewards them ; they say, "We have brought the king's meat." Then the boys run round the town with whips. The hunter is released and looses the grass from the leopard's head; when the body is cut up, there is a fight for the meat, which is not shared out in the ordinary way.
In some places, when a leopard is killed, all the people m the town beat themselves with banana leaves, because the leopard is a warrior. It is said that formerly when a warrior died there was swordplay at the funeral.
The head and skin of the leopard go to the chief. A paramount chief is called " leopard," and a leopard is one of the totems of the Bangura, Sise, and Kuruma clans.
Hunters' Traps.— A hunter who wishes to make a trap prepares by getting akent and piassava and puts them on the rubbish heap for a night ; in the morning he breaks cassava and okro leaves and puts with them ground nut plants, alligator pepper, chewed spices and camwood, saying " When I set a trap, let it kill many animals."
Okro and cassava are put in a big pot, the piassava coiled in it and water poured on and brought to the boil The hunter must not sit down but walk round the fire so that the animals may be afoot when he sets his net.
Then the piassava is put on the rubbish heap again and sticks a finger thick prepared: finally the piassava is
twisted. ,
Any animal caught with the trap is skinned on the rubbish heap and the water used to wash it is thrown there with the blood ; " we put the rope here, we come and give you a
present."
Susu.-The name by which the krifi are known is yina ; bad yina live in the big cotton trees, good yina are under
Plate A'
KORANKO IMAGE. See page 39.
MASKERS AT MAK A: ARON ATOMA: NK.MAXKKKA. See paffe 148.
39
stones ; they receive a sacrifice of rice bread and kola ; every five years in October a sheep is offered. The good yina give children, rice, etc.
A yin comes with a strong wind and can knock a man down. Only certain people can see them ; a man who sees a bad yin goes mad or falls sick : they walk in the big bush at midday. They can paralyse a man or make him dumb ; a woman who dreams of bad yina becomes sterile ; a yin sets fire to a house sometimes.
To keep away the bad yina, the Koran is washed and the water poured on sand, which is scattered round the town.
A child born with teeth is a yin ; it is carried to the river and put in; if it is a yin, it goes down the river in about half an hour ; if not, it is a human child, which is buried in the river if it dies. A child with a long head is also a yin.
Koranko. — Carved stone images (Plate V) or heads are not uncommon in tins area ; and they seem to be regarded with veneration. At Yarawaya is a carved female head with closed eyes, standing perhaps some six inches high.
It is said that twins have spirits behind them and there- fore they may not be with people who are reaping or thresh- ing rice. One bunch should be cut and put on the road leading to the town : the twin takes this and says : " I have taken ours ; those who are behind me don't take from the farm " ; then the crop is safe.
Witches appear to be less feared in the farm than malicious spirits. Three balls of rice bread are made after reaping ; one is put where the rice will be heaped, one on the road to the town, and one on a heap of sand ; these are for the krifi. Straw and pepper are burnt on the road on the day on which they thresh the rice.
Yalunka.— The word used for krifi is n'inena.
Loko. — The word for krifi is ns;ofo.
Limba. — There are various names for God — Kanu (Safroko Limba), Masala ( Sella), Masaranka (Tohko) ; but no informa- tion was obtained to show the precise position of this deity. Ninety-five per cent, of Limbas are said to be pagan, and it
40
is significant that the different names mentioned above are in use.
Various wali are known. Sokoso shoots people behind the shoulder, like Aronson, and to cure the resulting craw- craw a leech must take the shot out. TintryomQ is very long, with a head like a duck and bells at the end of its tail ; its scales are mica. Either this wali catches a man, or the man catches him, according to which has the better eyes ; and its captor becomes rich.
Stones are kept in boxes and people cook for them ; they say they take them that they may get good crops. When- ever they see a nice-looking stone, they take it. None of these stones were shown to me ; but if the account is correct, we have here a practice not very remote from that which is commonly called fetishism.
One way of procuring rain is to throw water on a wali.
Only witches can appear as ghosts ; if others appear it is " only a dream " ; they come to ask for sacrifice. They live in kat'iQ, which must be in the ground, for the bodies are put there.
Plate VI.
SACRIFICE (MAT) FOE HEALTH.
SACRIFICE FOE GOOD SLEEP.
41
V.— CULT OF THE DEAD
In dealing with the subject of the krifi (p. 33) it was mentioned that there was no clear line of demarcation between the non-human and the human spirit. It is quite possible that there has been a certain amount of transference from one category to another ; thus, we have seen that the tambara antQf (p. 34) live in big trees ; at Makuta a heap of stones under a cotton tree was known as masar ma ambaki (the stones of the old people), and sacrifices were offered there. This is allied to the cult of ancestors by the name ambaki, and we may suspect genetic relations. Possibly as the site of the town has been changed, a new boromasar was founded, so that two existed, one old, the other new, until the nature of the old one was forgotten.
The ritual of ancestor-worship differs slightly in various places, but the variations are unimportant. A small hut is to be seen near the outskirts of most villages, in which are collected a number of stones and occasionally other objects ; these stones represent the dead people of the village, and one is added at each death (of an " old man " ). In some cases men and women are represented in the boromasar, in others the women have their own place ; commonly, however, it is said that a woman has no town, only a country ; for where she marries, there is her home.
In sacrificing to these ancestors, which is clone about hoeing time, it is usual in some places to announce on the eve of the sacrifice, " We will give you rice in the morning ; " the cooking is done in the open space about 7.0 a.m., and the head man takes a handful from each pot or basin and puts on the stones. This is the only regular sacrifice, but a diviner may order one at another time.
42
Elsewhere a sheep is sacrificed by a moriman; all gather and lay their hands on it ; the sheep is cooked for all together and not shared out, but eaten from one common pot with rice and palm oil ; rice, palm oil, and the liver are offered on the stones. Both men and women take part in the meal.
Fur the worship of parents the ritual is equally simple ; stones represent the dead, and an old man is called to bgrnpa with fowl and rice. <: I want you to give my father food from that stone ; he gets food from that stone ; so that we may live well."
It is also possible to call old people together, who touch the bread and pray for long life for the sacrifice!" ; some of the bread is given to the children ; the portion offered is put in the middle of the yard, not on the grave, which is usually on the outskirts of the town, and frecpuently marked with a stone.
When a fowl as well as rice is to be offered, an old man goes 10 the grave and is told that the son wishes to sacrifice, and that if the fowl eats, it is a sign that the ancestor will accept it. The fowl's throat is cut, and the wife cooks rice and fowl ; a cup has been placed on the grave and this is filled with rice ; a portion of fowl is also given ; the old man eats with the sou ; he may not receive any payment : it is masam ; at most he may get a head of tobacco. He talks to the dead ancestor and the latter then asks blessings for the saerificer.
In Mohammedan areas the sacrifice is on a Friday ; and sons and daughters take it in turns to provide and cook, but it is always the eldest son who offers. It is obligatory on the children to attend. The usual date for the sacrifice is September or October ; in March a sacrifice may be offered to a brother or sister.
A mother hands on her stone to her eldest daughter, who takes it to her husband's house ; her brother is informed and gives a fowl to bginpa. Other daughters visit the eldest daughter at the time of sacrifice ; and at the death of the eldest the second daughter takes her place. The second
i'l.ATE VII.
:'f
<»• m\ *oi
SACRIFICE IX BROKEN CALABASH FOE " BAD DEAD." See pages 43, 56.
SACRIFICE AT ENTRANCE TO FARM. Sec page
43
daughter may, however, get a stone of her own ; in that case fowls and rice must be offered to both stones, and a state- ment made to the ancestor. Alternatively the second daughter may get the krifi of her father' s mother, for all married women have one of some sort. There is some reason to suppose that the senior in the family takes charge of the important krifi, that is to say, that if a woman has sisters and daughters, her sisters take precedence in the matter.
In Mohammedan areas they sacrifice to the mother on the Monday following the sacrifice to the father. Both sacrifices must be offered or the dead people will " take " the defaulters.
A man who is a stranger in a town cannot offer tu his parents who died far away, for the dead people of the town would take all his offering ; hence he goes outside ; the dead will just take their bread and go ; after this he need not fear that they will humbug him.
If, however, they have annoyed him, he takes a broken calabash, a stone, and some dirty rice with pepper in it, as a fitting offering; he tells his relatives that they are bad, and therefore get bad things : " you don't want good for me, and I don't want good for you."
It is, however, not only dead relatives, but dead men in general, that may trouble the living ; if a man finds himself annoyed in this way, he takes a stone and lays his hands on it before giving it to the dead man. Outside some villages it is possible to see a broken calabash (Plate VII) or pot lying on a stone as an offering to the dead to prevent them from following people home. Or a traveller may take some leaves and put a stone on the top in the path, that bad "ghosts " may not come after him, and make his journey unsuccessful.
If a man sneezes during a meal, he says the dead people are begging, and takes food in his right hand ; this he throws on the ground with his hand behind him, and says : '' Xambaki, kolini ananu " (old people, here is yours).
Mohammedan teaching has naturally had great influence on beliefs with regard to a future life. Whether for this
44
reason or some other, no trace of any belief as to reincarna- tion is to be found, though this is a normal feature of negro eschatology, either in the form of the reappearance of a dead person who is recognisable in one of his descendants or connexions, or in some vaguer form.
At the present day it is commonly stated that at death a bad man goes to Yehenama (Yehanum) ; and among bad men are included greedy men, robbers, liars, slanderers, the envious, those who do not want to help anyone, those who always " think bad about God," obstinate debtors and those who refuse to lend money. They will remain in Yehenama for an uncertain length of time, but eventually receive forgiveness ; others think they may stay there for ever ; at any rate they will not die again.
Heaven is a " clean " place where there is neither work nor sleep nor sun nor darkness ; whatever a man wants, he finds it at hand.
A less sophisticated conception was that Eokrifi (the place of the dead) was in the air but not with God ; when a man died God put " a little darkness " between living and dead.
A belief in apparitions is found, but holds but an unimpor- tant place in native ideas, as does also the belief in dreams (see p. 86). On several occasions stories were told of people who were seen some years after death ; in one case a woman said she was weeding in a farm and saw the figure of a woman known to her who had died two years before ; the apparition raised its head and vanished as soon as it saw the woman looking.
In another case a dead man was said to have been seen washing in the river close to where his body had been laid by the bearers during a brief halt. Another informant pro- fessed to have seen a dead man in his grave trappings.
One informant told me of a case in which a dead man is said to have communicated knowledge of the position of some cutlasses to his brother. The dead man had hidden all his cutlasses and his axe behind a large stone in the field and
45
told no one; he was killed in the war and the night after his death had been announced, when they were lamenting his death, his brother saw him in a dream and was shown where the cutlasses were hidden.
It is firmly believed that some people die and reappear at a place some distance away, where they live a normal life, but vanish if any of their original friends approach them. Their eyes are said to be turned back. This living again is called falah.
46
VL_WITCHCRAFT.
Witchcraft appears to occupy an important place in native beliefs; the witch is said to have power to take rice or transfer it from one farm to another ; hence all sorts of rites are performed to exclude them from the farms ; these ceremonies are known as e,kap in Sanda, akanta (see p. 60) in S. Timne. The witch is also believed to eat human beings, who go on living and breathing till the heart is reached ; then they die. This killing is said to be done with the eyes only.
Side by side with this belief is found the more ordinary creed which attributes to the witch power of transformation, into a bat or crocodile ; if the animal perishes, the witch meets the same fate.
A witch is said to be born, not made, and to derive power from the mother, because the mother eats a person and the unborn child absorbs some of the cannibal feast. A witch has akonto inside him ; this is like the stomach of a small animal, round in shape, with many holes in it.
"Medicines" and ordeals are used to catch suspected witches ; in the former case the guilty person falls sick and confesses ; in this case water may be poured on the " medicine " to free the witch from its influence. Some people say, however, that confession will not save a witch.
If a person is bewitched but does not die, he " swears " and the witch dies ; in this case a ceremony must be performed and if it is not completed, a stone with thread round it, and a piece of cloth, must be put in a tree, and the name of the witch repeated : " You cannot move again to injure me." This ceremony is apparently performed after the death of witches, to prevent them from continuing their activities after death. Another method is to rub leaves on people that the dead witch may not follow them and cause
47
them to fall sick; the same medicine is sprinkled on the farms.
Some witches offer to krifi, that the medicine may not catch them, but now people "swear krifi on the medicine," i.e., tell the medicine to catch the krifi, for it is stronger than the krifi, then the krifi takes his medicine and throws it on the witch, who will die even in spite of confession. Just as in Europe in the seventeenth century, it appears to be exceedingly common for witches to confess to killing people, spoiling farms and other crimes. For obvious reasons, however, unless such a confession is made under circumstances that permit of cross-examination — and this would be altogether exceptional — -it is impossible to discover how far the witch is self -deceived.
When an " oath medicine " was to be used, kola, salt, etc., in fact all things that they eat, were put in a cooking pot' near the " medicine " ; a fowl was also brought and beaten till it died, all present repeating, " If I am a witch, let me die." After this the witch would fall sick if he ate fowl. The killing of the fowl was not regarded as a satka; but all had to partake of it, hence the ceremony is from one point of view rather an ordeal than a trial by " medicine." When the witch confessed, the "medicine" was brought and the "oath" removed. The house of the person who had been bewitched was put in charge of the repentant witch, who was supposed to keep other witches at bay.
Another ceremony was to load a gun and put it down with the " medicine." After all had " sworn " on the medicine, i.e. cursed themselves if they were guilty, the head man of the house fired the gun at the medicine and thus the witch would be detected quickly.
Another method of detecting a witch was to drop a decoction of ambare bark in a fowl's eyes, saying: " If he is a witch, let him become blind." This method is obviously closely related to the one mentioned above, but in the present case the fowl seems to be taken as the representative of the witch. If that is also the case where the fowl is beaten
48
to death, the subsequent ritual eating must be an intrusive element, due to the resemblance of the rite to a piacular sacrifice.
For the ordeal some decoction is commonly drunk ; this may be of akon bark, beaten and shaken till it froths. A platform is made, and the accused, with palm leaves tied round the waist, mounts it ; rice, known as abonp (= gold) is half cooked and must be swallowed without chewing ; then the accuser recites the crimes attributed to the person undergoing the ordeal, saying : " If it is not so, let us find out ; when you drink, vomit, if you are not a member." The accused person drinks six calabashes of the decoction and swells up, if he is guilty.
Another account said the accuser was known as ukapepe, and that he drank as well as the supposed witch, each taking it in turn, till all was finished.
An innocent person was taken to the water-side and washed. It was laid down that for a man who came from the west a platform had to be made on the east road, and for a man who came from the east, on the west road ; an accused usually demanded to be put to the proof.
Another ordeal involved the use of a bare bark which was scraped and put in a leaf funnel. Accused and accusers were shut up in the house and all concerned had to practise continence.
In the morning the accuser spoke out behind the house, and the decoction was trickled into the eye of the witch, causing him to become blind ; it was also dropped on the tips of the fingers, and the joints. After being shut up in the house the witch cried out and confessed ; an antidote was dropped in the eye and the sight restored.
Even if twenty people were under trial, one and the same funnel had to be used for all.
An innocent man received one head of money, £4, as compensation, together with " expenses." The guilty person had to pay compensation for any person he had killed, either by money payment or transfer of property.
49
It is said that long ago witches were burnt, or tied up and thrown into the water. A witch is buried naked, and the body may be given to the owner of the medicine that killed him or her. Other people dig the grave and go away. If a cloth were used, the witch might return and trouble the family. It is always said that ordinary people do not return though witches do.
A witch is tied on a stick for burial and carried like an animal. Some people divine with a pestle on which hair and nails are tied ; others use the dead body itself. When the bearers have hoisted it on their shoulders, they say : " As you were living, what you said, is it true ?" That is to say, they ask if the confession made in the man's life-time was true. If the dead man was not a witch, the body swings from side to side ; if he was a witch, the bearers go and knock against some person ; but this does not mean that the person in question was in any way implicated.
Sometimes more elaborate methods are employed ; sticks are cut and made like a bier, and toe and finger nails and hair are tied on them wrapped in a mat, doubtless to represent the body, with a white cloth on the top ; the bearers dress in white and carry e,tap in their hands; one has a sword. They say, " Let her go out," and shake the leaves they are carrying. Ashes are put in a circle round them with a fire- stick in the middle ; if the leader, when the bearers begin to march, steps clean out of the circle with his first foot, the dead woman is acquitted; " she died of good" ; otherwise she is pronounced a witch.
Then they halt and say, " Go and compliment the old people " ; when they reach Rokambana, they halt, and also leave the bier against the blacksmith's forge, for if the woman were a witch, she could not go there. Then the old men asked : " Was it your oil that went in your eyes ? " (i.e., did your wickedness kill you ?) If she was a witch, the bier will run with the people and strike against some one of those who asked the question. If she was not a witch, the bearers' heads will move and one of them will say she was
E
50
uot a witch. A second time they ask, "' Is it God alone that took you?" The bier will take the bearers witli it and strike the questioner, who will pronounce the woman a witch. Then the " big people " tell her to show who is to take care of her children, and she designates someone by means of the bier.
A stone is often seen in the fork of a tree close to a village ; this is said in some places to be a satka for witches, probably to prevent them from entering the village. Near a circumcision bush such a stone is a satka for the boys.
This stone is sometimes wrapped with thread and then in a piece of cloth. It is put up by a person who has been bewitched without being killed and has then killed the witch with " medicine." A ceremony, of which I got no details, has to be performed if a man is thus killed ; if the ceremony is not performed, the stone is put in the fork of the tree with the words : " You cannot move again to injure me."
Possibly the ceremony referred to was to try the witch naked, as the protection conferred by the rite just described would not be required if the witch were then buried.
Susu. — Witches (kweremexi) are born, not initiated; they put inside a man's house " medicine " in a pot, consisting of rice, ground nut, sesame and fundi, which is buried inside the door and causes him to get bad crops.
A witch can live in a crocodile or leopard and seize people ; four or five go into one animal and if the animal is shot, they die too.
Morimen make medicines (karafili) against witches and put them in horns. A " prayer board " may be washed, and if the water is mixed with the rice, a witch who eats of it will swell up and die.
An ordeal for testing witches was for them to drink a decoction of meli. A guilty person might be burnt; an innocent man received the property of his accuser and all members of his family as slaves.
A rope was tied to the foot of a dead witch and the body
51
was dragged to the field to be eaten by birds. If the corpse was buried, no sticks were put over it and the ground was beaten hard.
Limba. — Witches (bawgti) " kill " men when they sleep ; when they wake, they say they are " killed." A witch takes off witchcraft like a gown.
A witch is buried in banana leaves and thorns above and below so that he cannot come again as momQpila (ghost), which wears a white gown and stands in the door without being seen. All people wake at once and tremble and feel cold, any rice that is being cooked stops boiling, all fires go out. A hole is found in the grave of a mQinQpila out of which it comes ; a diviner watches for it and shoots it ; he alone can see it but other people see blood.
To see if a person is a witch bare is put in his eye, which bursts if he is guilty. A witch would not be sold by his own family, but only compelled to work.
"Witches are born or can buy their powers ; they turn into animals at night.
Karn^ti (Limba, Qingti) is brazed and scattered over a farm, as if it wTere seed, to keep witches away. Iron slag (nagara) is all efficacious.
e 2
Dl
VII— SATKA, WANK A, etc.
SATKA (OFFERING.)
Under the name of satka are known a variety of rites, some involving the actual killing of an animal, others the letting it go as a scapegoat or keeping it in the yard as a sacrosanct animal ; in others vegetable oblations are made ; others again consist in the blessing and gift of clothes, or in a similar ritual followed by the wearing of them by the sacrificer, who is also the officiant. In other cases the offering is simply exposed, or brought in contact with some object with " virtue " in it ; and in yet others, protective against witches, there is no offering at all, the charm being put down in the farm in precisely the same way as in ordinary magical rites, save that the name of God — Kurumasaba — is called on. Finally there are ceremonies known as satka which, if we had no information about them beyond a simple description, would be regarded as rites of sympathetic or mimetic magic.
The sympathetic rites are comparatively few and hardly typical ; thus we find bread rubbed on a cutlass before farming operations, so that children may not wound themselves ; a gown which a man has worn is put upon an anthill after a satka to secure good health for him.
The mimetic rites, on the other hand, are a large and important body of ceremonies, which have, we may suppose, been drawn into the satka complex under Mohammedan influence, which naturally desired to control as far as possible heathen ritual, while on the other hand Mohammedan rites were doubtless regarded as very efficacious even by those who professed heathenism ; finally the half-converted heathen
53
would naturally make such heathen rites as he retained conform to the Mohammedan form.
Chief among mimetic rites may be mentioned the custom of hanging up a fan which swings in the breeze and is believed to be efficacious in blowing away evil influences. Water is brought and burning grass from each house is quenched, in order that fire may not break out. Iron is buried under the threshold in order that what is said by the household may be weighty. Hooked sticks are fastened one in another in order that unity may prevail. Under this head, too, may possibly be classed the various obstacles (Plate YII) which are put at the entrance to a farm or under the threshold of a house to keep away witches, bad krifi, and evil-disposed persons and influences ; or the similar rites intended to keep people from leaving a town or a house. Outside a towm is often seen a faggot of a hundred haulms of elephant grass tied in a bundle with red cloth ; this is sacrificed that danger may not come ; but the explanation is not clear.
In the farm " small things," such as rice husks and other rubbish, are put in a fish trap and hung high up, that the rice may stand high. A pot may be broken as a sacrifice for the house, that bad people may be " broken " in like manner. A blacksmith may make a straight knife for a sacrificer, that work and all other things may be " straight." A broom may be hung over the door that the house may be " clean " and no bad sickness come in it.
In all these cases perhaps there is at least a semblance of a sacrifice or offering; but in the satka against snakes a piece of bush rope is dragged along the ground and beaten by children or cut to pieces by a man ; the oral rite accompanies it, but there is no touching of hands.
In a typical satka the victim or object lies upon the ground and all participants put their hands upon it, or, if they cannot get near, stretch their hands towards it, praying audibly for the blessing for which the " sacrifice " is offered. The sacrificer himself may of course be the sole participant.
54
The term "sacrifice" as a translation for satka (Arabic (djjus) ^s an obvious misnomer. It is of the essence of a sacrifice that something should be consumed, and this element is far from being present in all satka — in fact, some of the rites consist, not in offering or consuming the object, but in retaining it and using it — e.g., a cap, in the ordinary way.
One singular rite deserves special mention, as it differs widely from the ordinary satka, and we seem to be coming near a visible representation of the recipient of the satka, though, singularly enough, nothing is offered, and a living man, though not the sacrificer himself, is represented.
A short pole is hung on a tree by a cord and beaten every morning with ekati ; it represents the son of the sacrificer when he has gone to Freetown or elsewhere to work. The father addresses it, saying : " If my son does not sit on a stick in the place where he is, let him not return ; if he sits on a stick, let him return." As people everywhere sit down, this is equivalent to a prayer for his return. The object of the beating with ekati was not known.
Here only the oral rite remained, and the ceremony could not even be called an offering. In the ordinary satka also the oral rite is probably far more important than the manual rite, and the following may be taken as an example of the form used ; it is employed at the crowning of a chief : " I have come this morning to sacrifice, as I have been crowned ; may God send me good strangers ; may I be able to make my people fear, so that there may be no crime in the country ; my people must get good crops and their children live long ; if any witch wants to ' spoil' my crown, may he die soon, so that I may not see a man who disobeys me, and that all my old ancestors may stand behind me ; that I may rule well and have no trouble. 1 hope I may not be dis- graced in any place. That is all."
In the oral rite we have, in fact, the sole element of unity in the heterogeneous satka rites. They cannot then be adequately classified either from the point of view of the
55
form of the manual rite nor of the ohject to be attained, save in the most general way. It may, however, be observed that, though these objects may be positive, such as causing a person in the house to be of weight in the councils of the community, the aim is far more often the averting of evil, such as a violent death, injury to the crops, damage by fire, and so on. It is clear that many sacrifices, such as those for long life, prosperity, and health, though apparently positive, are in reality negative, and are intended to effect their object by averting the evil influences which hinder the good fortune or threaten the life of the sacrificer.
A certain number of sacrifices appear to depend for their efficacy on secondary oral rites over and above those of the satka proper. If a child, for example, is sick, rice may be sacrificed for it, and given to a passing stranger or some old person. The meaning of the gift is not, as might be sur- mised, that the sickness of the child is to be transferred to the stranger or old person ; on the contrary, the cure, in some cases, is said to depend on the prayers offered by the recipient of the rice or other object sacrificed.
On the other hand, when a rich man wishes to " sacrifice " a print gown, he must wear it for several days and then per- form the rite after laying it on an anthill. Here the gown is first of all brought into intimate association with the sacrificer, and the validity of the sacrifice is enhanced by the choice of an anthill as the scene of the rite, for the krifi are believed to have their abode in anthills ; at any rate, the anthill being a frequent object in magical rites, it seems clear that some virtue is believed to go out of it into the garment, and thus indirectly benefit the man who has worn the garment.
We find an entirely different class of ideas in the renuncia- tion satka, in which a person gives up his most cherished possession in order to obtain a wish. The idea is hardly reconcilable with that of the efficacy of the oral rite, and it may well be that the oral rite by which it is accompanied is a later accretion, due to Mohammedan influence.
56
As a general rule the gift idea of sacrifice is seldom found : offeriugs to ancestors are, of course, an exception ; and there is a kind of sham gift — a stone or bad rice — that is offered to a dead person who troubles a man (Plate VII). In some places, probably under Mohammedan influence, an offering of bread is made to Kurmnasaba on the spot where the calabash stood in which the bread was made ; and Kurmn- asaba and the "good krifi" are the recipients of a bread offering put in the bush near the farm.
The manual rite (see p. 53) appears to be exceedingly simple ; in none of the sacrifices at which I was present was there any trace of any preparation of either tbe victim, the sacrificer, or the participators. Corresponding to this sim- plicity and confirming the observation is the fact that the victim is not masem — sacrosanct; the bones are simply thrown away. An animal may be specially reserved to be kept about the house, but this does not seem to imply any special sanctity ; the idea is more akin to sympathetic magic, for in the case of a fowl satka for the long life of a new- born child the fowl is kept about the house until it gets old ; then another one is selected, and the substitution made by placing the young fowl on the top of the child's head. In the same way, if a sheep satka is made for the house, it is killed (not sacrificed) when it is old and replaced l»y another.
There may, of course, be a subsidiary idea that, the sacri- fice having been made to Kurumasaba, the continued pres- ence of the animal acts as a continual reminder of the prayer that has been made, and the same holds good in the case of garments that are worn after the satka. But of this I saw no evidence, and no informant made any suggestion bearing on the point.
There is an apparent exception to the rule that the victim is not sacrosanct, for when a goat is sacrificed at the founda- tion of a new town, the flesh is eaten, but the skin, head, and feet are buried in the middle of the town, " that the town may he steady." Here again, however, the possibility cannot
57
be rejected that the root idea is now one of sympathetic magic.
In the case of a victim, when the animal's throat has been cut, water is sometimes used to wash the blood from the throat ; but as the blood is commonly allowed to run on the ground, without any attempt at collecting it, and no special place is allotted for this outpouring of blood, the washing of the throat does not seem to bear any special significance.
In the case of offerings to ancestors and to krifi, there is some trace of the communal meal, though it is often limited to the rice bread ; occasionally a portion of the animal, such as the liver, is devoted entirely to the recipient of the satka.
It is only very rarely that this offering is made to Kuruma- saba also., and in no case is an offering made to him alone. Possibly we may see in this evidence that the position of Kuru, or, at any rate, the appeal to him in the oral rite, is the result of Mohammedan influence.
It has been shown on another page that wanka and mas am are not clearly distinguished. One informant also regarded the satka as not only protective in the sense of warding off evil, but actually punitive. A sacrifice may be offered for the cattle if leopards hairy them. A cow is killed, and all eat of the fiesh ; a bad man who tries to injure them will be " caught " by the satka, and his belly will swell. He must then apply to the mo, rim an who buried the first charms in the compound where the sacrifice was made. He brings " books," water, and kola, and divines with the kola; if both halves are " open," water is thrown on the ground, a charm (sebe) is hung on the neck of the sufferer, and one is given him to drink by writing words on a " prayer board," washing them off and giving him the liquid as a draught.
In a certain number of cases the satka resembles, at any rate outwardly, a rite of transference of evil. If sickness is frequent, all pray on a stone, and it is put in the fork of a tree ; if a man is summoned by his chief, a fowl is put on his head ; all pray on it, and it is released. If the coining of
58
war is feared, a spotted fowl is " sacrificed " and released far from the town.
Susu. — The same fundamental idea of sacrifice (se.raxe) is found in this tribe, but certain special features call for notice.
The sacrifice against witches, etc., is a banana stem planted outside the town ; this was found in the Timne area as a satka against falling from a palm-tree. All men of the town take part and pray that the witches may die; finally, arrows are fired from toy bows and strips of cloth tied to the stem. The rite is not an annual one, but is practised only in certain years.
The colour of the victim is of more importance than in the Timne area, where a black fowl figures only in a sacrifice for rain. A black fowl is sacrificed on the first day of work in the farm, that workers may neither fall sick nor wound themselves. A white fowl is kept in a compound against bad yinna, and every Friday all the people in the house touch the fowl and pray for peace. When it thunders, a red cock is killed in the middle of the yard, and small children eat it with rice ; white cotton is ': sacrificed " and put round the house. A white fowl is sacrificed at seed-time.
The sacrifice against fire is to plant an old pestle in the ground outside the town ; from each house a head pad of grass is brought and strung on it.
Uice bread is sacrificed in the house every Thursday evening to the father and mother, and small children eat it after an hour.
Koranko. — The conception of saroko seems to be vaguer in this tribe. An empty basin may be covered and small children told that there is rice inside. When the lid is raised, they cry with disappointment ; then you will not suffer from disease and your enemies, contrary to their expectations, will find you well. The idea is obviously mimetic ; but, in a rite to secure that a climbing rope will not break, the opposite idea prevails ; a rope may be knotted and cut in two on the road and then the rope actually in use
59
is safe. The imitation is there, in a way, but it seems equally valid to explain the rite as one of substitution.
In neither of these cases does there appear to be any oral or manual rite. In another case, where a form of words is used, the formula suggests a spell rather than a prayer. A man who has palaver with the chief puts a stone in the fork of a tree and says : " If you move of yourself, let my palaver be big ; if you cannot move unless people move you, let it be looked upon as a foolish case."
Some of the farming rites, though not reckoned to the sarake, resemble them in form. Grass stems are cut in the farm, and sand procured from water near ; then prayer is offered that as there is much sand in the water and all cannot be removed, so let there be so much rice that all cannot be reaped.
A creeper called ratohk is cut and beaten : then a stick Ls split and a piece of the creeper, three inches long, put in the split ; two of these sticks are put facing each other at the entrance to the farm, so that, as a thing put in its proper place cannot move, so the rice cannot go away from the farm When the rice is reaped, three small bunches are cut and put, one on the sand, one on each of the sticks.
Loko. — The same vague conception of satka (caga) as among the Koranko is occasionally found. Water may be boiled and covered with a fan ; when the children come, you offer the rice and there is none, they cry ; this saves you from shame.
Generally speaking, however, mimetic rites, or rites which may involve the idea of transference or of a scape-animal, seem to be prominent. A live fish may be returned to the water to protect a man against evil; a gun may be fired with prayer, to keep away enemies, or a toad transfixed with a knife for the same purpose. An egg may be dashed on the ground with prayer, that the backbiters may be scattered.
When rice is offered to the ngofo (krifi) they eat it, although the rice appears to remain where it was put.
Limba. — The conception of sacrifice (sarak a) seems to be
60
Less vague in some respects, but one informant stated that they " prayed to the sheep," sacrificed by order of a diviner, and then cut its throat. One rite shows the close relation- ship between divination and sacrifice, which finds a parallel in the similar relation between omen and in a so in among the Timne : white and red kola are offered with prayer, and then split and thrown, that bad things may not come. From the accounts of divination given on other pages it is clear that the diviner is regarded, not so much as foretelling already predetermined events, as himself deciding what the future will be. If the first throw is bad, a second may be tried and even a third ; or the conditions may be changed. Among the Limba the compelling power of the diviner's act is recognised by their inclusion of it among sacrifices.
Generally speaking the blessing, and mimetic rites, seem to be the most important features in sacrifice among the Limba.
PROTECTIVE PJTES. WANKA.
There are numerous practices and charms for the protection of property against thieves and witches ; charms against the former are called wanka, the latter kanta; the term kanta is used because the charms are believed to " close " the farm against evil influences and thus preserve the rice and other crops from harm. The original meaning of wanka was not ascertained.
There is no very obvious line of demarcation between these protective magical practices and the satka (" sacrifice "), such as fans or suspended pieces of calabash whose object is to blow away the " bad breeze," i.e., evil influences, or the a l»eni pa, distinguished from the satka by the fact that the name of God — Kurumasaba — is not mentioned in connection with the latter.
As a lypical wanka may be taken the apot or medicine ball ; this consists of a small roof over a piece of calabash in which lies a ball of mud — hence the name — in which are
Plate VIII.
61
stuck small pieces of stick with raw cotton wrapped round the ends " to make it look dreadful to the thieves."
The wanka is put up by anyone who knows how to make it ; some men may be able to give details of a dozen different kinds, others may not know one. When the wanka apQt is put down, the operator chews kola and spits all round the calabash — a common feature in other forms of wanka — and says : " We put this kola nut down to keep our kola ; if anyone steals, let his arm or leg swell." If anyone steals and a swelling results, the thief must call in a diviner (omen), who will tell him he has been caught by wanka and direct him to go to the man who put it up ; he is, of course, not necessarily the owner of the kola tree. From this man the thief obtains medicine leaves to put on his swelled limb ; these leaves are, in many cases, the same as those used in the composition of the wanka.
When the kola is ripe, the maker of the wanka is summoned and told to take off the charm. In putting it down he has used his right hand, now he uses his left hand and removes the calabash and mud ball, saying : " I came and put you up ; now I come and take you off." Then the owner can harvest his kola.
Other accounts say that the mud must be boiled, probably in order that the affected limb may be hot and painful ; or that in boring the holes for the cotton the operator says : " Cause sores, therefore I bore holes." In taking off the wanka, leaves must be used with the left hand ; and my informant thought that only the owner could take the wanka off, but that if he died he would hand down to his son the knowledge of what leaves to use. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he cannot summon another person to put down the wanka.
One informant stated that even if the owner put down the wanka, he must perform the wanki ceremony to remove it, or he himself would be " caught."
Under the head of totemism is mentioned the fact (p. 136) that some quas i-totemistic tabus are termed wanka; this
62
suggests that the leaves, etc., used in making; the wanka may, in some cases at least, have been tabued and were subsequently taken for use in protective magic ; according to one definition a wanka differs from a kanta, in that it is put down by people who know how to cure diseases (i.e., those caused by the wanka); on this theory the leech employed by those who infringed a tabu conceived the idea of using the forbidden plant as a charm. It is at least very suggestive that for the cure of disease caused by a wanka the same kind of leaves must be taken as are used to make the wanka.
As an example may be taken the wanka known as amintai; mintais said to mean fearless, but it is not clear why this name should be used. At Matoteka, amintai is said to " catch " the leg bone and to be caused by cutting the leaves of the wanka (i.e., tabu) tree in clearing the bush; the leaves of the tree are used as a remedy.
According to another informant the amintai wanka is made of e, sit a leaves tied in a bundle and hung on the tree ; kola must be chewed, as for the wanka apot, and the spell pronounced. A thief gets a sore on his leg which is called amintai. Etol leaves were named by another village, and the same leaves mixed with ambaka formed the remedy. I was told in one place that anyone who cures rheumatism can cure amintai ; but my informant made more than one strange statement and was perhaps not wholly reliable ; he said, for example, that some krifi (see p. 31) suffer from katuk, which seems to be epilepsy, and that anyone who follows them along a road will get epilepsy, which lie included among wanka.
At Maka, amintai was said to be a woman's wanka; the leaves were to be wrapped in a broken mat and placed on a small platform. The suffering thief was to be cured by a vapour bath of a decoction of the same leaves.
There are, however, other wanka which cannot be explained, as can amintai, by the utilisation of former tabu plants; kalapot (fire stick), for example, seems to be a
63
kind of mimetic magic. The operator must hang it up by a rope and put a roof over it, repeating the usual charm, and declaring that his eye' is to pain him, getting red like fire. As a remedy they take e,lap leaves and rub them in the hands after warming them ; then they are put in a leaf funnel and the juice is dropped in the affected eye.
Another informant said that kokant should be cut and half burned for this wanka, while a third thought it was formed of a splinter which caused the head of the thief to turn.
Another kind of wanka punishes the thief by the object used becoming, as it were, tabu to him. Aiibata is a small mat and when it " catches " a thief, he cannot lie on a mat, but only sit. To cure him, the owner applies the mat to the painful spot and says : "Wanka, leave him alone, I know who stole."
The eyebe wanka is in some places a simple tabu wanka (see p. 136). Elsewhere it resembles an ordinary wanka, but the penalty falls on a woman of the family of the thief, or on her child, which suffers from diarrhoea. Another informant said that it was a mat and an anthill put under an orange tree to protect it ; if a woman sucked an orange, her children suffer from diarrhoea, unless they are cured by being seated on the wanka; this cannot be done till the child is old enough to have its head shaved. Only women who have not borne children are liable to be caught ; once caught they can go on eating oranges without further ill consequences.
According to one informant, ankokoa is a simple tabu wanka and affects a man in the ribs, if he cuts the leaves of this tree so that they die on the ground ; a cure is effected by a man with red beads. Another account says that this wanka is a broken mat, and that as a remedy must be used a broken mat reddened with camwood and put on the patient's ribs.
The horn of an animal called ambok, which is also a totem, is another tabu wanka; when the animal is killed
64
one of the clan that forbids this animal gets the horns and uses them to cure sufferers by rubbing them.
But the idea of tabu is not necessarily present, for the name wank a is also applied to kase,re, dry rice, which at times causes intestinal troubles when too much is eaten ; the remedy is to get e,toma leaves, and drink the decoction as a laxative. This wank a is so classed simply because pain results from the use of it. A similar wanka is a mat, because a man gets pains in his ribs if he lies long on it ; children put small mats in a cleft stick and stroke the patient.
Another application of the term wanka is to the small broom called akuso, put up at the entrance to a farm. When a man's foot hurts him, the broom is warmed at the fire and he puts his foot on it and then throws it away outside the town. Here apparently there is no question of the broom having caused the disease and the remedy is of the nature of transference of disease.
|
Name. |
Description. |
" Causes." |
Cure. |
|
asar ... |
(1) a stone with sticks |
jaw and |
|
|
in front and behind. |
arm pains. |
||
|
(2) stone wrapped in |
|||
|
mat. |
|||
|
(3) stone in split stick |
leaves. |
||
|
akal ... |
leaves in a " hamper" |
waist pains. |
|
|
apQpe |
broken calabash hung |
stomach- |
gpur pur decoction. |
|
on tree. |
ache. |
||
|
tame |
snail shell on kola |
jaw pains |
§ d u m a leaves ground |
|
tree. |
and rubbed on ; de- |
||
|
1 |
coction of old leaves |
||
|
to wash mouth. |
|||
|
koparanta ... |
palm mid - rib and |
pain in |
|
|
outer bark with |
ribs. |
||
|
splinter passed |
|||
|
through. |
|||
|
antakia |
crossed sticks. |
||
|
rabumperona |
cow bone hung on tree. |
||
|
kagbet |
kind of palm with "thorns," medicine on it. |
65
|
Name. |
Description. |
" Causes." |
Cure. |
|
ka ynn |
fish-trap |
elephanti- asis. |
|
|
kabara |
palm nuts |
eve pains |
decoction of palm |
|
(1) in broken calabash |
. |
nut and leaves. |
|
|
(2) in cleft stick. |
|||
|
anbelih |
(1) ankonta bark ... (2) seed. |
jaw pain. |
|
|
ankonta |
a n k 0 n t a seed in split |
teeth |
bark decoction to |
|
stick. |
bleed. |
wash mouth. |
|
|
akentekeira |
"stick for sitting down " antolo leaf tied on. |
||
|
ankompia ... |
seed of ankompia |
succession |
|
|
hung on tree |
of boils. |
||
|
kafgnt |
cowries hung on tree |
eye pains. |
|
|
anbentebede |
seed of a n k o n k o r o, t |
broken |
|
|
near tree. |
arm. |
||
|
ragbenle |
looped palm leaves ... |
s on face. |
|
|
asamtatak ... |
is in pot... |
cough |
decoction to drink. |
|
at is ... |
knife under tree |
pain in |
split wood and put |
|
ribs. |
on ribs. |
||
|
akara |
" things" in mat |
1 '1 1(1 V |
leaves for vapour |
|
swells. |
bath. |
||
|
tarak |
palm mid-iib cross- |
pain in |
nil) wanka on side. |
|
tied with hi ire. |
libs. |
||
|
ralil |
pot, red base with |
red marks |
leaves burned to |
|
white spots. |
ashes rubbed on. |
||
|
abopr |
leaf of boforoko in |
pain in |
chew akam and rub |
|
split stick. |
rilis. |
on. |
|
|
... |
fori leaf tied on ground. |
eye pain |
vapour bath. |
|
kasam kaloko |
palm leaves knotted |
pain in |
|
|
three times. |
ribs. |
||
|
kumban |
"like tree." |
death of children. |
(see p. 188). |
|
atoboli |
ekqnton leaves tied with thread on three sticks. |
( [ysentery |
juice of leaves. |
|
asetene |
palm mid-rib cleft, with thorns from bush yams and mid- rib passed through. |
||
|
? |
(a) native ladder"] (b) tortoise shell | (c) kalolum ('/) chewed kola j (>') stone |
66
|
Name. |
Description. |
"( lauses." |
Cure. |
|
kawonko |
plaited palm leaf |
inability |
dip plaited palm leaf |
|
to drink |
in decoction of cer- |
||
|
water. |
tain leaves and rub on throat. |
||
|
masapia |
young palm leaves |
griping |
amfikan bark from |
|
knotted. |
pains |
east and west sides |
|
|
(thief's |
of tree whose top |
||
|
child). |
was broken off be- fore leaves came out. Wooden basin of decoction on rubbish heap, bambu across it ; dip child in it. |
||
|
antibi-tibi ... |
(1) unbroken calabash |
(1) many |
(1) decoction of mala- |
|
bored, and cotton |
sores. |
nsumatakr leaves |
|
|
inserted in holes ; |
(2) chancre |
as wash ; and young |
|
|
set up in farm. |
leaves of akant |
||
|
(2) bush rope. |
mashed and applied. (2) decoction as wash; a pi 1 leaves and bark boiled; sores washed with water and " cream " applied. |
||
|
antint |
"ogusi " seed |
sores on scrotum. |
|
|
katunto |
loss of nose. |
||
|
tasak |
small leaves tied like |
pain in |
|
|
comb, and split kola |
ribs. |
||
|
amQpia |
katap and kalolum |
jaw pain |
vapour bath. |
With the exception of antibitibi all the foregoing appear to be tabu wank a. The action seems to be regarded as automatic, for one informant said that if a wanka found a stolen object near a man's house, it might " catch " him by mistake ; or a wanka may catch a weak man who passes near it, even if he is not a thief ; or it may catch a man who puts his foot upon a stolen object.
It is difficult to say how far there is an animistic implica- tion in this.
In this connection it is worthy of note that a " sacrifice" is offered to a wanka when it is put down ; and that one way
67
of curing pains caused by it is to spit chewed kola both on the wank a and on the part affected.
Exceptionally the term wanka is used of the tabu put by the chief upon the palm nuts and other fruits until they are ripe. There does not appear to be any ceremony or material evidence of the wanka; but this application of the word is clearly not very remote from the primary one, in which so much depends upon the spoken word. A breach of this wanka may lie punished by a fine of £4. The measure is of obvious utility as a guarantee against theft.
Koranko. Wanka (laroh). — The automatic conception of the protective rite is seen in the belief that if a spider's web passes through the laroh and touches a man, he will be "caught," even if he is not a thief.
Yalunka. — The name for wanka is sugure.
Loko. Wanka (ha). — A number of protective rites are known, all of which seem to have Tinme names, and are, therefore, derived on one side or the other.
AKANTA (ABEMPA).
The difference between kanta and wanka was explained by one informant to lie in the fact that the kanta was put down by diviners, the wanka by people who knew how to cure diseases. Generally speaking, the kanta appears to be " medicine " put at the entrance of a farm to keep away krifi and witches.
The kanta are also known as bempa, which are frequently, in some forms at least, undistinguishable from satka, but are recognisable by the fact that the name of God — Kurumasaba — is not pronounced in making the bempa.
In many cases a " gate " is put up at the entrance ; this may be a mat with an ant-heap inside hung from two sticks. Water is thrown on the medicine when the witch confesses and its effect ceases.
Another form is a bottle sunk in the ground at the entrance to a farm.
F 2
68
'When they want to hoe, a fowl and rice are offered to a pot in the farm, which a diviner puts np for good crops with thread and leaves (or hark) inside and a roof over it ; in offer- ing the fowl they say they wish that they may get good crops and that no one may he hurt; a handful of hoiled rice is put near the pot and the rest of the rice eaten with the fowl.
The same ritual is used when krifi are declared hy the diviner to he near.
Near the entrance to the farm a log with a small stick hooked into it, or two hooked sticks, are put down for good crops ; they are explained as "being good to keep away witches. Another method is to get medicine and "swear" and get angry in the farm.
Another Item pa is a rod with seven small sticks tied on the top ; ashes are strewn before it and a bottle planted ; the small sticks have a ball of thread or cotton tied on the top of each.
Bush rope (akap) is sometimes tied in a bundle and buried at the entrance of the farm ; or a pestle with two head pods strung on it is fastened across the path with two sticks.
Alter hoeing the farm a fan may be hung from a stick ; the farmer puts it on the stone in the middle of the farm (p. 174) and puts his hands on it, saying, " I come and sacrifice that I may have plenty of rice." The stick on which it is hung is put near the stone and the fan keeps away bad things and trouble.
69
VIII.— RITUAL PROHIBITIONS.
Under the head of mas am — forbidden — are grouped a large number of beliefs and practices which have, for our ideas, no very clear bond of union. They are, however, very definitely distinguished from the simply "bad" in some cases, and must consequently be regarded as ritual in their nature with an underlying magico-religious idea. It is, how- ever, somewhat singular that no idea of mas am is said to attach either to a corpse, provided it is that of an ordinary person, not a member of a secret society, or to a victim after sacrifice ; the fundamental idea must therefore be widely different from those which are familiar to us in Semitic and other ancient religious systems.
Another anomalous feature is that though a piacular sacri- fice is sometimes enjoined when a breach of masam takes place, in other cases no purification is regarded as possible ; in yet other cases no evil consequences of any sort are feared, and hence no piacalv.ui is needed ; and in others again the guilty party purges himself by a fine paid to the chief.
But more remarkable than either of these anomalies is the fact that under mas am are included acts which seem to be forbidden as contrary to ordinary prudence. Thus, it is mas am to treat parents-in-law disrespectfully, for they would take away the wife. Again, two brothers of the whole blood should not embark in one canoe ; for if it upset, both would be drowned ; a man should not take with him in one canoe both his wife and his mother ; for if he saved his mother, his wife's parents would object, and if he saved his wife, his mother would curse him, thus introducing, it is true, a con- tingent magico-religious element. In another case theft was said to be mas am, because if a man stole, the wife's family
70
would take away Loth her and her children ; here the magico- religious element was less remote, for it was stated that they would be taken away to escape the effects of the curse that would " catch " the thief ; even here, however, the magico- religious sanction was not regarded as acting directly.
Another masani which seems to be clearly referable to utilitarian grounds is the prohibition of killing a gravid animal — cow or goat — but it seems improbable that the utili- tarian element was here the reason for the prohibition ; con- siderations of profit alone, with no possible religious factor — for respect for the life of lower animals is not found in West Africa, either as an indigenous or an imported feature — could well have suggested the practice, but not its religio- magical basis ; perhaps we may see in it, however, an element intro- duced, possibly with the cow, by Arabic, or at any rate Mohammedan, influence.
In none of the examples cited above has there been any- thing specially sacred about the persons or animals affected by the breach of the mas am. The case is different in certain prohibitions concerning actions affecting the chief, who is mas am before crowning, and observes all his life long a number of prohibitions not enjoined on the layman. Among the rules laid down to regulate the behaviour of the ordinary individual to the chief are that he must not shake hands holding in his hand a knife, or a fowl, or a rope tied round the neck of a cow. In this last case the grounds of the prohibition are the more uncertain ; for it is also forbidden to lead a cow through a village without informing the head man, on some obscure ground connected with ancestor worship ; at any rate, if a cow is so led, two heads of tobacco must be given to the head man, who informs the ancestors that tins has been done and that they can allow the cow to pass ; for it is held that if this is not done, the cow will stop dead on the other side of the town and refuse to go on.
It is not uncommon among primitive peoples to find certain actions on the part of animals forbidden, and piacular sacri- fices enjoined to remove the ill effects ; the only typical case
71
of this sort recorded among the Timne was that relating to the crowing of a fowl at night ; in such a case some people kill the fowl and eat it, others give it away.
It is, however, somewhat remarkable to find omens included under the head of mas 9m ; but one informant stated that if a " spider " (probably a beetle is meant) " beat its dram in a man's ear," it is masam, and a relative will die; no piacular sacrifice or other measure will avert the result. Here it seems as though the " drumming " is not regarded as simply ominous, but as itself bringing about the result.
This relation of cause and effect is clearly seen in the pro- hibition which forbids a pregnant woman to go where the entrails of a big animal have been emptied, under pain of producing a changeling, or a child that is only half human, or of having some vague trouble during parturition.
Another class of masam. is clearly animistic in its origin. Certain patches of bush are forbidden and a man who enters them is believed to vanish ; this is clearly because they were especially connected with the worship of krifi in pre-Moham- medan days ; the penalty is less alarming in the case of a bush where no one may carry a fire-stick, on pain of having it taken away and carried round a big cotton-tree, after which it disappears.
It is forbidden to take an iron pot, or a brass kettle, to certain streams, because of the krifi, not, however, because of harm that will come to the human being.
The active resentment of the krifi is also feared in some places : for if a farm be made where they live, no rice will grow or, alternatively, the farmer will die.
On the other hand, young boys cannot go near the burial place of the " old people " or they will get fever, to avert which the oldest man in the village must sacrifice rice, palm oil and a fowl, and the father explains that he did not send the boy. Even a man may not go inside the boromasar hut except for ritual purposes ; if he falls sick, he must sprinkle palm wine and ask to get well.
Not only the ancestors collectively, but the individual dead,
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irrespective of kinship, may be feared ; it is forbidden, when anyone dies in Mabum, for anyone in the whole town to have sexual connection ; this is clearly regarded as disrespectful to the dead, for if they err from ignorance, no harm will result ; among the possible penalties are, that both culprits will die, or the child will be born with eyes all white, or that the woman's belly will swell.
Cutting down a tree near a grove is regarded as masam, though grass and seedlings may be cut.
The remaining mas am, which form the great mass, relate in the main to (a) parents and relatives ; (b) rice and other crops ; (c) bundu, and circumcision initiants ; (d) secret societies ; (e) certain diseases. They refer largely to sexual intercourse, especially in the first three cases. The result of a breach of the prohibition is in some cases supposed to be nil, but this is probably due to a general decadence of primi- tive belief and custom, under Mohammedan influence, in the last fifty years. Where a sanction exists, it is comparatively rare for a remedy to be known against the misfortune caused by the misconduct.
The penalty is visited in some cases directly on the offender, by way of disease or death ; in other cases the punishment, while still a personal one, is indirect and falls on some person other than the offender ; in a large number of cases the crops (or other property) of the offender, or, properly speaking, the crops with which the offender is brought in contact, are believed to fail as a result of misconduct.
Taking first the comparatively small class of cases in which actions are prohibited because of the curses that might follow them, we find that this is only a ground for m as am in the case of the nearest relatives ; the father must be obeyed or he will curse you ; so must the mother, for if she says : " I hope you will be left in the world like the wind " (i.e. wander- ing from place to place and owning nothing), there is noway of saving the object of the curse. Under the same head may probably be reckoned the prohibition of treating parents-in-law disrespectfully, which has already been mentioned. It seems
probable that it is to avoid a wife's curses that a man may not take her property to give to one of her mates, nor have con- nection with two wives on the same night. A similar rule forbids a man to bring a woman " friend " (komani) to his house for sexual relations without his wife's leave ; his wife might be notified by her husband and summon the woman, without the knowledge of the husband of the latter, and yet not sacrifice her own self-respect ; the " friend " would remain half the night and go home without her husband's knowledge.
Under this head, too, may perhaps be classed the rules requiring a woman to respect her hushand and, e.g., answer when he calls, kneel when she comes at his summons, bring him water when he demands it, offer food, etc., with the right hand, not cook rice and then go out, and so on.
Conversely a husband may not go on beating his wife until he wounds her.
All these latter cases, however, are somewhat obscure, though they belong to the general body of negro custom and are found over a wide area.
The obvious reason that such actions would cause ill-feeling can hardly account for their being regarded as ritually forbidden, apart from the risk of cursing.
It is equally forbidden to curse one's parents, one's sister, or one's step -father; but there is nothing to prevent a man from expressing himself freely with regard to his paternal or maternal uncles.
Under this head, too, we may perhaps class the rule that forbids a man's sister's son from climbing his kola tree ; the result of this is supposed to be that the pods fall of them- selves ; the mother has to take a strip of cloth and beg her brother, who offers a prayer and puts the strip down probably near the tree. It is quite uncertain why the climbing of the tree should be supposed to have this effect ; but it is clear that the action of the mother is intended to prevent some ulterior ill effects to the son.
Among general sexual prohibitions are the common ones
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forbidding connection in the bush or during the day (forbidden by the Eagbenle society). A woman must wash after having connection or she will swell. Two brothers may not have connection with the same woman ; probably for the same reason that, if two men have had connection with the same woman, one may not see the other one sick, because he will fall sick himself, or die, if he sees the corpse. A widow is probably forbidden for animistic reasons (see pp. 75, 128). A man may not have connection with a pregnant woman who is not his wife ; nor with his wife if she is advanced in pregnancy. After child-birth, relations are not resumed for two or three years, or the child will die.
Incest is of course strictly forbidden, stress being laid mainly on relations with mother, sister, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, father's wife, or younger brother's wife (in some places this is olas — wicked — but not masom). The penalty, however, for these oifences does not seem to be heavy; a man who offends with his mother-in-law risks having his wife taken away ; one who commits incest with mother or sister is regarded as a witcli ; he is fined £4 and a cow for sacrifice ; and if he is a " small boy," he may also be beaten. When we compare this penalty with that for having relations with a wife's sister, viz., £2, though the action is merely olas, the difference does not seem great. In the case of incest with a sister the offence is usually dealt with by the Eagbenle society (where it exists) ; if this is not done the offenders become sterile or their children die (see p. 147).
In connection with these rules are found customs of avoidance of a kind. A man may not see his mother, sister, or mother-in-law naked ; he may not sit or lie on a bed with his sister by the same father, though it is permitted in the case of a sister of the full blood ; the place where his mother lies down is sometimes mas em for him; elsewhere he may sit on her bed, though not on those of other wives of his father ; if he does so, his plans will miscarry ; to escape this he must give something to the woman in question, that she may ask a blessing for him.
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The children of brother and sister by the full blood may not lie down on one mat together.
The interpretation of rules of avoidance is usually very difficult and these are no exception ; generally speaking, it is clear, they apply to close relatives but not to those who, like own mother and sister, have grown up in one house with a man. It seems quite probable that avoidance is enjoined so as to make incest a more remote possibility : but, as incest with mother and sister are clearly recognised as possible, it is not obvious why the rules with regard to them are not equally stringent for the adult male, in view of the presumably greater opportunities and smaller risk of detection.
The fact that avoidance between cross cousins is specially enjoined suggests that, in some cases at least, avoidance is obligatory in cases where relations were formerly permitted.
It is clear from what has been said above that adultery .is not in itself masom ; a woman must, however, confess before a child is born, or it will die ; before the rice is harvested, or the crop will be small ; and before her husband goes a journey, or he will be disgraced.
A widow is to some extent in the same position as a wife ; she may not have connection with a man till she has washed at the water-side, which is itself masom; a fine is payable by her paramour to the brothers of the dead man and a sacrifice must be performed, or the widow will die. It is not quite clear how far we should interpret this on an animistic basis ; the payment of a fine suggests that the widow is in the same position as the wife of a living man and that adultery is an offence against his property ; we find, however, that no man may enter the widow's house unless his own wife (or one of them) is dead, nor any woman whose first husband is not dead. Similarly, a man who has committed adultery with a woman may not eat bread or meat sacrificed to her husband when he dies. If he does so, nothing can save him from dying in consequence of his partaking of the food. Here we seem to be in the presence of a different set of ideas, -connected with an apparent belief in the contagiousness of
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the death of a spouse ; these cannot, however, be applied to explain the belief that the erring widow will die. Hence it it seems probable that two different strata of belief are in question.
( i ills in the Bundn bush are inasom to men; they have a fence of etanke (elephant grass) round their house, and the enclosure is also niasom ; a man who enters it is rubbed with white clay and fined £4 ; another account says that a man's belly will swell (from medicines used by the women) and the edif>a (Bundu woman) rubs him with mafoi (mashed leaves) to cure him.
Conversely, no woman is to enter a circumcision bush, or she will lose her nose ; nor may a woman see newly circum- cised boys. The woman who cooks for the boys must not have connection either the night before or during the time she is cooking, or the wounds will 1 >c long in healing.
A menstruous woman may not have connection with her husband nor cook for her husband ; nor may she plant any- thing ; she is masom even to male children; another account says that her husband may sleep on the same mat with her, but would not venture to put Ins hand on her, though it is not mas am.
During childbirth, and for a period of from three to six days after it, a woman is masani to men in some places, though her child is not ; even her husband may not see her after the child is born. Elsewhere any man may see her after she has re-entered the house (birth takes place outside). No woman even may be present at a birth till she has borne a child.
If sexual relations are forbidden on ritual grounds between certain persons on account of their condition in life, they are also forbidden on account of the relations of man with other portions of the organic world, more especially the vegetable kingdom. Continence is enjoined on people concerned with the sowing and reaping of rice, or the planting and harvesting of other crops ; and occasionally on those who have to do with inanimate nature, such as makers of fish-traps and workers in iron.
When the farm is 1 >eing cleared of hush, or hoed, a farmer must practise continence the night before ; generally speaking, no one who has ever had sexual relations may go naked to a farm, and the prohibition applies especially to women ; if it is infringed, the sacrifice to keep away the birds and beasts is "spoiled," i.e., rendered nugatory, and the animals will spoil the rice.
If a man cohabits with his wife on the eve of cassava planting it will be bitter ; the same rule applies in the case of potatoes, yams, and crops generally ; both sexes must observe the rules ; if a woman plants ground nuts or koko yams, and disobeys, all the husks or tubers will be empty ; and all the kola pods will be empty if a man climbs a kola tree under similar circumstances. When they are digging the crop, the prohibition only applies to the first six days. The same law holds good of palm oil and palm wine making.
Continence is almost universally enjoined before rice planting, though in one case I was told that abstinence was not recpiired, it was a no ma atu — "God's patience." The rice is mas am before it is threshed, until a sacrifice is offered, and another sacrifice is needed when it is brought from the farm to the town ; in neither case may a man touch it if he has not practised continence the night before.
In like manner the maker of a fish-trap and a blacksmith must be continent before working.
Of general food tabus, apart from ^m'-totemistic ones, which are dealt with separately (see p. 136), there are very few. In former days eggs were forbidden. Vultures are regarded as dead ancestors, who turned into them in order to come back to the world ; meat is cut and thrown to them and a sacrifice is not " good " unless vultures come down, for God has not granted the request ; hence it is clear that vultures are in as am, not as unclean, but as specially favoured birds.
Generally speaking, secret societies keep their doings from prying eyes, and it is generally recognised that Pgro, Kofo and other societies are mas em to the uninitiated ; even the
corpses of members may not be seen by strangers ; and the society house is equally sacred, though in one place I was admitted to a meeting, which was quite uneventful.
The Maneke (Kabenle) society, which corresponds in part to Poro, is specially protected by masam. No woman is to eat when they are in the town, nor may anyone have connection with a woman ; no woman may see the society ; if she does, ceremonies are necessary or she will lose her nose.
No one may roast palm kernels when the Asur " oath medicine " comes to a town (see p. 80).
Just as no one may expose himself to the risk of being cursed, so no one may risk being caught by " medicine."
Witchcraft does not appear to be in itself masom, but no one should " remove another person's rice to his farm by witchcraft with his eyes at night, if there is a boundary." The witch, who is of course male or female, is caught by the " medicine " and dies, confessing as he does so.
No woman or boy is to see a man suffering from a " bad " disease, such as leprosy ; the Maneke society take him and bury him in the bush. As diseases of this kind are often regarded as punishments for wrong-doing, and the sufferer is himself masom, the prohibition is readily comprehensible.
In curious contrast with the victim (see p. 56) we find that all wanka (see p.. 60) are masam. So are newly circum- cised boys, girls in the Bundubush, the boromasar, widows, menstruous women, and paramount chiefs in the kanta.
Loko — Ritual prohibitions (kake) are of a somewhat different type from those of the Timne, and are less easily referable to fundamental principles. A mat tied at both ends may not be carried through the town unless a leaf is put on it ; no one may run through the town or carry a light through a farm at night ; no one may pound anything in a mortar at night nor carry a pestle into a house. Cooked rice may not be carried to the threshing-floor ; a woman may not bring a wet fishing-net into the town. A stranger must not put his foot where they sacrifice, nor sit on a big stone
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near the town, nor go round a big tree, nor pass an anthill without putting a leaf on it. One stream may only be forded by a man who removes his trousers ; a man may not enter another unless he removes his cap.
Here, too, according to my informant, a new-born child is k a k e.
Limba. — Kowanki. — Generally speaking, protective rites closely resemble those of the Timne. even to the implements and names ; the homoeopathic cure is also recognised.
Kasi. — As among the Yalunka, ritual prohibitions are known as kasi, which suggests (probably erroneously) that they are, or were, associated in the native mind with fines. It is significant that adjacent tribes of different stocks should have adopted this name ; it points to the fact that ritual prohibitions, like satka, are a complex embracing many different elements.
When incest has been committed, bush medicines are obtained, and the offenders are washed " to make kasi come out of their heads."
The terminology here, as in the case of sacrifice, suggests that an alien idea has been adopted, but not fully under- stood or assimilated.
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IX.— DIVINATION, ORDEALS, etc.
Methods of divination are comparatively numerous, more especially for the discovery of thieves and witches. In the simplest form the thief is cursed : " I have lost and not seen the thief. I give him to you ; hold him." Then the thief and all his family fall sick.
The method commonly demands the use of a so-called " oath medicine," seha or seah, usually made by diviners or mori- men. They are said to have received upwards of £25 for such a service formerly ; " medicines " are now obtainable in two qualities, at £4 and £1 10s. In the Bombali chief dom is a medicine called ansur (spear), which belongs to a single family, and is inherited in the male line. A woman of the IvQnte family is said to have caught the medicine in her fishing-net ; a small hut was made for it, and the woman dreamed that it was ansur and how it was to be used. It catches witches and big thieves, and the victim " turns red."
Anyone who is carrying the spear " turns red," if rain falls on him, and develops sores, finally losing his fingers and toes. By " turning red " appears to be meant leprosy.
Palm kernels are not to be roasted in a town when ansur comes.
Sometimes an accused person swears before a medicine that he is innocent ; fire sticks are struck on the ground, and the accused person curses himself and his children if be is guilty.
When a man wishes to make use of asasa, he gives red kola to the owner, who brings it to the required spot, and puts it before the door with some powder; tben the man who has need of the medicine takes a piece of stick and says what crime has been committed, at the same time telling the
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sasa to kill the culprit. After firing the powder the medi- cine is taken back to its owner.
When a man falls sick, diviners say sasa has caught him, and the thief confesses. The owner of the medicine is told, and he splits a kola-nut, and divines by throwing it, to see if it is his medicine that has caught the thief. Then the owner gets mafoi (leaves soaked in water), puts them close to the medicine, and strikes the ground with a stone, saying : " If it is sasa that caught the thief, let the man be well after washing and drinking mafoi." Then he strikes the sasa with the stone and throws the stone away. Mafqi is also sprinkled all over the house of the owner. A debtor can be dealt with in the same way as a thief.
Another method of removing the curse is to stand before the medicine, turning to the east, and declare that the " medicine " must not harm the culprit again, as he has con- fessed. Water is thrown on the " medicine " to make it " cold."
When a man refuses to pay a debt, the creditor may "swear," and the debtor will pay if he gets alarmed. The medicine represents the chief who should have enforced pay- ment of the debt. The chief must be warned before a debt is collected in this way.
Another method of dealing with a culprit is to go to a blacksmith's forge and tap together a hammer, pincers, and am bo ro no (used by a blacksmith for straightening iron). This, probably accompanied by a curse, causes the man to blow like bellows. When the culprit confesses, the objects are collected again and water thrown on them, the oath being at the same time revoked.
Another method of divination is by ordeal. The suspected person and the diviner swallow a fish-hook, which sticks in the throat of the guilty person till he confesses. A hoe is heated red-hot and licked first by a child, then by the suspected thief ; the tongue of the guilty person swells till it is as big as his arm. The diviner is said to make the child immune by medicine. Water is put in a basin, and two
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palm ribs laid across it ; the water is dropped into the eye of the suspect, and it pains him so much, if he is guilty, that he cannot open it (see p. 48) ; if he confesses, water is taken from the other side of the basin and dropped into his eye to cure it. In a variant of this all suspected persons have to provide fowls, and the diviner drops water from a funnel into the fowls' eyes till the eye of the guilty person's fowl bursts.
Eice may be cooked, to be eaten hot and nearly dry ; the guilty person is burnt.
In some cases the diviner himself undergoes the ordeal. I had occasion to observe the methods of two diviners who made use of hot iron, and came to the conclusion that with a certain amount of dexterity it should be easy to avoid burns, especially as the temperature of the iron was low : it was far from being red-hot. Not only so, but I challenged the diviners to a trial, and undertook to test their methods on my own hands, but in each case they declined the contest.
In the first instance, leaves (known as mafoi mo ban a — big niafQi) were mashed in water, and the decoction sprinkled on the fire ; the same mixture is sprinkled on a farm to keep out witches.
Leaves were then squeezed in water. The diviner next took a stone, saying : " I don't come to look for all the country, but for one man," hitting the pan of water at the same time. This was in order to exclude any offender who had committed a similar misdeed elsewhere, and was not the man the diviner was looking for. The chisel was dipped in the decoction before being applied to the diviner's hands. Then the diviner put palm oil on his hand, and passed a small iron chisel over his fingers and the palm up to the end of his thumb, repeating the words: "I am called. I don't want to burn. If what I am called for is true, let this hot iron not slide on my hand ; if it is true, let it slide."
The second diviner put a tablespoonful of palm oil into a pot heated on the fire, and lighted the vapour ; a thick iron ring was then dropped in, and the diviner, after dipping his hands in the leaf decoction described above, removed the
ring from a flickering flame some thirty seconds after it had been dropped into the pot. The ring was then dropped into the decoction, but no hissing sound was produced. The diviner's hands were quite wet when he took them out of the flame, and it was practically impossible that he should have been burnt.
The diviner, however, informed me that " for a guilty person " the ring would be left longer in the pot, and no doubt a judicious attitude in this respect is preserved. He added that he frequently burnt himself in his youth before he knew how to manipulate the iron.
The diviner does not necessarily undergo the hot iron ordeal himself. A murderer might be thus tested ; he had to hold the ring in his hand for five minutes.
A somewhat similar method is divination with ring and banana leaf ; the latter cracks as soon as the hot ring is put on it by the guilty person.
When the diviner uses knives, he is said to tie charms on the handles in some cases. The suspected person holds in his hand a piece of stick as big as a match, and says : "If I am a thief, let the diviner be burnt ; if not, let him not be burnt "; and then puts the stick aside.
Another method of divination described to me seems to depend on some kind of automatism, but my informant could not tell me how the guilty person was indicated. Oysters, stones, small snails, etc., are put in a basin near a krifi, and everyone can hear a slight hissing sound.
Motor automatisms are utilised to discover thieves. Any- one— not necessarily a diviner — takes a fly whisk in his hand, and it beats the thief till he confesses. Two young boys put a pestle on their shoulders ; the diviner ties charms on the pestle, which " carries " the bearers to the house of the thief, and throws them down if they resist.
Conversely, it is believed that a man who steals from certain people is unable to move from the place in which he is, where he committed the theft, until his relatives come and beg on his behalf.
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A form of crystal-gazing is also practised ; verses of the Koran are written on a prayer-board, and washed off into a basin ; a boy with a white cloth over his head scries (gazes) and says : " I see the king of heaven and the king of hell." " What do they tell you ?" "They show me a man." " His name ?" Then the boy describes him, and names the town he lives in, and so on.
The loser sends to the town in question, and accuses the thief. If the charge is denied, the chief visits the town, and another boy scries in the presence of the thief.
A diviner utilises stones to discover the town from which a thief comes. The people of the selected town attend, and he names the house in which the thief lives, and finally the individual man. He may also take stones in his hand and rub them, afterwards putting them down in rows by ones or twos. As he looks at them, he expounds what they say.
He may also put down a keg of gunpowder with charms about it, and the hide of a bush-buck near, with sand in it ; the sand appears to be marked irregularly with the finger- tips, and the marks subsequently interpreted. The diviner is said to be able to make the hide "walk" without touch- ing it.
All these methods, however, demand the use of " medi- cine " or the presence of a diviner, and are out of reach of a poor man. To take proceedings in forma pauperis against a culprit, recourse must be had to the grave medicine. In its simplest form a figurine is made on the ground, and a katop tree planted, with the words : " If this person gets children, I give you the children ; if he goes on a palm-tree, he must fall and break his neck."
In a more elaborate case three graves were made, one for the thief, one for the males of the family, and one for the females. A fowl-basket was also put down, so that the thief might everywhere be disgraced and flogged and treated harshly, and that when he made a farm, birds might come and take his rice (Plate IX).
Plate IX.
ATETTOT. Sec page 36.
SENA. See page 84.
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According to another account, fowl fleas are needed in addition to the basket, which is covered with a cloth.
In some cases at least, " medicine " is put inside the grave with the words : " The person who did this to me, and I do not know him, I give him to you, I give you his family " ; then the medicine is taken out and the earth filled in. Katap leaf is gathered and put on the top, and pieces of ant- heap wrapped in kalolum grass are put at the head of the grave. When the thief has been caught, the " medicine " is collected and the grave dug up ; water is then poured on the medicine inside the grave with the words : " Let it not happen again." Then both medicine and ant-hill are removed.
A more elaborate sena, or seah, was made as follows: In the centre was a grave with a mat and a bier on it ; at one end was some banana fibre ; at the other a small tree (dead) with thread or cotton wrapped round the ends of the branches and the points at which they joined the main stem. At the foot of the tree was an ant-hill with cloth wrapped round it, and a snail-shell. One informant said that a climbing rope, and a hooked stick, with two head pads strung on it, were also put down ; but these were not there. The climbing rope was certainly put down, however, together with a palm midrib butt ; the snail-shell contained a stone, to represent the krifi; by this means the krifi was "joined" to the man who stole from the palm-tree.
The curse spoken was as follows : " Stealer of palm wine, I do not know him, catch him, kill him." Medicine was apparently used in the ceremony in addition to the objects mentioned above.
Not far from this sena was another, put up by some people who had been entrusted with a child for education, and (possibly) pledged him in respect of a debt. When the parents demanded the child, the people with whom he had been living were obliged to pay, as he had been sold by the persons into whose hands he had come. After paying head money the guardians " swore " against the people in whose hands the child was.
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This sen a was at a fork in the road hut on the opposite side to the second path, and on it was a pineapple plant with the vertebra of a cow lying on it.
Divination is also employed to ascertain if a sacrifice is acceptable (see p. 42). A krifi is warned twenty-four hours before a bempa (see p. 67) is made, so that he may not be absent. When the time has arrived, kola is split and thrown ; if the flat sides are up, the answer is favourable ; if not, the krifi is " begged," and another trial is made on the same lines. If a second failure results, a third trial is made, and the result is favourable if the kola is odd; this is interpreted to mean that the krifi does not wish for the whole of the kola, but shares it with the people ; accordingly only half is left on the spot.
In the morning the bempa is brought, and kola is thrown again in the same way ; but if the third trial results in odd kola, the bempa is "not good," and the diviner will order a goat to be sacrificed.
Limba {Divination). — To detect a thing a sebe (charm) is put upon a pole carried by two men, and it leads them straight to the thief.
A diviner also puts stones in front of him to represent wali and dead people, and shakes small stones in his hands, which he afterwards puts in a square, and divines from them.
To divine if a witch has gone to a farm, a few pieces of ankap are cut and tied ; blood is dropped on them, and they are buried ; if a witch has gone, what has been buried comes out of the ground, and is found on the surface. This is the ordinary procedure in making a farm.
DEEAMS AND OMENS.
Dreams occupy an important place in the theory of animism as one of the sources of the theory of souls and spirits. It is frequently stated that the dreams of people of low culture are far more vivid than those of more advanced races.
This may be true of some areas, but so far as the attitude of my informants can be accepted as a guide, it is not true
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that the dreams of the negro are specially vivid, nor that he attaches more importance to them than the uneducated classes in Europe ; on the contrary, dreams are seldom cited as matters of importance, and not mentioned with any great frequency in march en. In a certain number of cases the diviner is appealed to for an explanation, and, if necessary, a means of averting the coming evil ; but more than once the words " only a dream" have been used by my informants ; and the inference is clear that they are not confused with the waking life nor regarded as necessarily throwing light on an invisible world. A dream of teeth falling out is explained, it is true, by saying that bnsh krifi have come to play with you ; and if a crowd comes and beats you in your dream, it is faiige, a magical means of the Kofo Society (see p. 149) with which they profess to kill people. It is also held that dead people come to a man in a dream to warn or encourage him.
Dreams are more commonly regarded as omens without any very clear idea of how they come to have significance. A dream of death means over-eating; if you dream of weeping you will laugh ; if a leopard seizes you in the bush, your child will be a boy; a crocodile will mean a girl. To dream of a house burning means that " medicine " has caught someone.
Black in a dream is bad ; a white man in a dream is a krifi ; but to dream of white, clean rice means the death of a relative, and to dream of white shirting means that some- one in your wife's town will die.
The procedure after a dream, good or bad, is often the same as that adopted in waking life under circumstances resembling those of the dream. To ward off evil, egg-shells may be put on a stick and the satka (?) rite performed, after which they are put on the roof of the house ; the dreamer should also pray for good dreams.
On the other hand, if you dream of strangers bringing luck, you should cook rice in the morning and give it away that luck may come, doubtless as a result of the prayers of the recipients of the rice.
Falling and flying dreams, so common with us, are also known, but do not seem to have any special significance. For some reason they are known as fan dreams (more ma kate,me).
To dream of a snake means that a man's krifi wants to come and play with him ; all people have their own krifi, according to one informant, and some get rich if they see them, provided they do not tell anyone.
If a small child says it has seen a krifi, the parents will try to provide a sheep ; if a man gives a sheep to the krifi, he must let it go and the krifi will kill it; if he eats of it himself, he will die.
A certain number of dream omens correspond with those familiar in English folk-lore ; a " spider " drumming in the ear is an omen (kador), and means the death of a relative ; to dream of a tooth falling out means the same, more especially of an old woman past child-bearing. A curious feature is the great definiteness of some of the predictions ', a dream of deafness, not a common feature in dreams, means the death of the father's sister ; of blindness, still more uncommon, the death of the father's brother.
A dream of fowls held hanging down in the night means that a wife's relative, will die ; of being near a large sheet of water, that one of the family will die ; of being in water up to the neck, that a " big man " will die.
Some dreams have special reference to twins, though twin births are by no means common ; to dream of a person with white beads passing in the night means the death of a twin ; to dream of planting the banana (epnlot) means that a twin or triplet will die, for when twins are born, beads are put on their necks, and these bananas are planted for their special use , if a man or woman eat these bananas, the woman will bear twins.
It might be imagined from the number of presages of death among ominous dreams and omens generally, that death was ever present in the negro's mind, and that lie was full of the gloomiest forebodings. In point of fact, the
89
mournful nature of the predictions is not peculiar to the negro system of omens ; it is probably not very different from what is ordinarily found in European folk-lore.
As a general principle of interpretation of events, one of my informants laid down that if you see what is " very hard to see " — i.e., an unusual sight — you are going to die ; and this general principle is also common to many omen- regarding peoples.
Some applications are so obvious as to be found univer- sally ; a man who stumbles and falls must return from a quest for money, for he will be unsuccessful. Other mishaps of frequent occurrence, on the other hand, are not heeded by many people ; an informant who said that knocking one's foot and cutting it on a big stone meant the death of a relative aroused some dissent among those who were listening.
In the main, omens seem to be drawn from the animal kingdom: in the case of vegetables only monstrosities have any significance, such as a pumpkin (a kali) growing with the fruit upwards instead of hanging down, a calabash seed producing both calabash and pumpkin.
If anyone sees the alisa (two-headed snake, said to be the king of the driver ants) in the day, he or a relative will die.
Seeing anrof (litis nasicornis) in a tree or in the day, or akande (a tree snake) on the ground, is also an omen of death.
A bush buck or wild pig in the town is an omen of death : " baboons" (probably chimpanzee) in the dry season mean the death of an old man.
A porcupine or chevrotain seen in the day is a death omen.
If you see the young of a green pigeon, a relative will die in a day or a week or a year ; the young of birds are seldom seen.
If a plantain eater (okuru) stands on the bare ground, a relative will die ; it always perches on a tree.
Birds known as atompete and kaporam near a town mean death.
90
Domestic fowls naturally give omens ; a hen crowing like a cock in the morning means the death of a woman ; some people kill the hen. If a hen crows several times, the owner offers it anything it will eat and gives it away after praying ; then only one person will die.
If a fowl hatches two chicks from one egg, one of the family will die ; if a fowl dies on its eggs, the head of the house will die.
If the akbot fish cries when it is taken out of the water, a relative will die. A crab (kara) seen on land is also ominous ; if a man eats it, he will faint several times, but not die.
As with us, the ordinary cries of domestic animals are recognised as significant ; a bull that walks bellowing round the cattle kraal is an omen of death ; so is a yelping dog that " crows like a cock."
Plate X.
^,v# / /m at .
91
X.— MARRIAGE.
Compared with those of the Nigerian tribes, the marriage customs of Sierra Leone appear to be extremely simple. Only one form of marriage — by purchase — is known ; and though the wife may leave her husband, when she has borne many children, on payment of one kola, her position corresponds in reality to that of the bond wife (amoia) of the Edo-speaking peoples ; for her children belong to her husband's clan and remain his property, if she leaves him, though one informant was of opinion that a wife divorced by her husband could take her children with her.
I found no trace of any anomalous form of marriage such as those described among the Asaba Ibo, where lack of heirs may bring about a temporary matrilineal rule of inheritance, or even inheritance by a man wholly unrelated in blood to the person whose property is in question.
Such variations as we find in Sierra Leone marriage customs appear to be confined to those features naturally dependent on the age at which the girl is first demanded in marriage or the relation of her father to the suitor.
Cross-cousin marriages and other special forms seem to be unknown to the Timne ; and in one case I was assured that most first cousins (father's brother's or sister's daughter or mother's sister's daughter) were not eligible wives, though a mother's brother's daughter might be chosen ; the reason for this difference in the treatment of cousins I did not ascertain. It is clearly not due to the rule of clan exogamy, now falling into desuetude ; for both the mother's brother's daughter and the father's sister's daughter would be eligible under this rule ; and the mother's sister's daughter would be ineligible only if she married a man of the same clan as the mother herself.
92
This information was given me by a Mohammedan , another informant, also a Mohammedan, confirmed it at a town distant several days' march, and added that the mother's elan was not forbidden ; the rule cannot therefore depend upon anv idea, whether newly introduced or surviving into patrilineal conditions, that the mother's totem is a bar to marriage.
Marriage between the grandchildren of two sisters, on the other hand, is not forbidden.
Widows being a form of property, it is not surprising to find that marriage with the father's brother's wife is possible; it is less easy to explain why a man should wed his mother's brother's wife or his mother's father's wife (not, of course, his own grandmother); instances of both occurred in the genealogies collected.
In the case of a widow (see also p. 127), when the period of mourning is over, each woman cooks separately and brings her food with the words, " I finish cooking to-day " ; she gives one kola to her late husband's family and, bidding them good-bye, returns to her parents. At night if they want the woman back, each brother of the deceased sends a message ; a sister takes the kola back, together with some shillings' worth of tobacco, and asks for the woman ; she sleeps one night in her parents' house and then returns.
It by no means follows that this custom is a reminiscence of a time when a woman left her husband's family when he died ; on the contrary, it is becoming easier now for a woman to get her freedom, unless appearances are deceptive. If the departure of the widow were the real explanation, the simple recognition of the rights of the husband's family implied by the payment of the kola would not be easy to explain ; for if they were originally not recognised, and subsequently their claims were acquiesced in, it is improbable that the payment would have been so small as one kola. Either the right would have remained unrecognised, or a larger payment would have been made. It is far more probable that this payment of one kola is symbolic, indicating that relations
93
with the husband's family are broken off; it is, in fact, merely another form of the cooking rite and the verbal declaration. It should not be forgotten that in some places one kola is sent to the chief to announce a death in his town or chiefdom.
As to the object of the rite, bearing in mind that the purpose of most of" the ritual of mourning is to safeguard the widow from the ghost of the dead husband or from his malevolent intentions, it seems that this separation of the widow from the husband's family may be merely another means of deceiving the ghost of the dead man and ensuring that she will not be troubled in her new marriage.
With a view of appeasing the dead man, sacrifices are also offered to him by the second husband.
In some places it appears to be not unusual for a widow to leave her husband's family ; and a payment of £1 is made in such cases.
When a woman has left her husband, or been driven out by him and goes to a new husband, he usually pays bride- price to the former, otherwise circumstances determine whether the parents repay the first husband or not.
He seems to have no claim when he has turned his wife out of the house ; but his wife must leave behind what she earned in the husband's house ; one informant thought a wife could take such property with her. When the wife has taken the initiative, the husband seems to have a right to the money, but is sometimes too proud to stand upon his rights, and will sometimes abandon them if the woman has been a hard worker.
As to the right to the woman's property, there seems to be a good deal of uncertainty ; some informants held that a runaway could take what her parents gave her and her husband's presents ; others that she can claim what she earned (probably by trading) in her husband's house ; others that her husband's ill-treatment gives her a right to her property if she has been a hard worker, provided always that she has no children ; others again that she will get nothing if she has no
94
child, but may get something as an act of grace if she has a child, provided she has not given her husband reason to send her away.
One informant thought that a wife expelled by her husband could claim her children. But nothing supported the view that this is a general rule.
A husband might "swear" before " medicine " if he did not wish his wife to go ; then all her children would die.
It is easy to see the underlying idea in most of these cases ; even the contradictory rulings as to the child-bearing woman can readily be reconciled when we consider that the property left behind is what is recognised as hers by her husband, and what is given to her if she has borne a child is given as a recognition of the service she has done her husband in this respect, not because the article given was in any sense hers.
It seems clear that the question has arisen comparatively recently and that there is no generally accepted rule. This confirms what has been said as to the position of the widow.
Apart from marriage of widows or of a woman who has left her husband, a by no means infrequent occurrence, a man gets a wife either by making application for her when she is a small child, or by approaching her when she is near the age of marriage. The father may give her to one of his friends, as a special favour, or the suitor may make use of a go-between, who may be a sister, head wife, mother, father, elder brother, or good friend ; the go-between usually deals with the parents of the child direct, but may be conducted to them in the first instance by another member of the girl's family. The go-between is frequently the intermediary in payment of bride-price.
As an example of the marriage customs of the Timne may be taken an account given me at Eobunki near Mayosn.
When a girl is five or six years old the suitor takes kola to her mother and the mother tells the father ; he also gives cloth to the girl to make her well disposed to him. At an early period the girl may go to stay with her suitor, who sends back rice, a fowl, and four heads of tobacco for the mother.
95
The suitor interviews the girl's father and gives him four shillings, after which the girl is promised. When the child has grown up, the suitor's sister takes £1 10s. " to make the child friendly " ; she interviews the mother's sister, who takes her to see the parents ; the father receives the money and gives some to the mother.
When the parents send to the suitor to say that the girl is going to Bundu, the messenger takes one kola ; the suitor tells his sister and provides four fowls, four mats, four shillings' worth of tobacco, a " hamper " of rice and cloth. This is handed over to the girl's mother's sister for the people who look after the girl. He also provides for the girl a goatr ten shillings' worth of beads, a dozen waist-beads, gold earrings, cloth, a head kerchief, rice, and palm oil.
When the suitor is informed that the girl is out of Bundu, he sends his sister with two shillings to say that the girl should pay him a visit ; her mother's sister brings herr accompanied by the suitor's sister ; the suitor informs his parents of her coming.
In the night the girl goes to the suitor's room for an hour, but cohabitation should not take place ; then she returns to her mother's sister. When they go home, five shillings is sent for the father, and four shillings' worth of cloth for the mother.
After the girl is out of Bundu a whole year elapses before matters come to a head. Then the bride-price — £4 and eight pieces of cloth — is paid; country cloth was formerly the currency ; and even now it is said that if a man pays cash only, his wife will not sit long in his house. The suitor's sister takes this in the night because " in the morning, it is not good to talk about marriage ; in the night every thought goes to one place." In the morning she asks for the girl.
The parents provide four mats, a sheep, four fowls, two " hampers " of rice, a box of cloth, basins, fans, and a cup. The mother's sister and father's brother act as conductors to the girl and receive four bottles of gin and two shillings' worth of tobacco. In the evening they announce that they
96
have brought the woman, and say they have said good-bye to the old people ; the dowry is then enumerated, and the conductors say they have brought the girl for the sake of the suitor's " big people." If she misbehaves, he must report to them ; if you warn her and she does not obey, her mother will tell her that she is trying to shame her.
Then the girl is handed over to the suitor's sister, who conducts her to his room. If she is found to be a virgin, proved by the exhibition of the cloth, a dance is held, the conductors receive presents and a sheep is killed in the morning. Eventually " virgin money," from 6s. to 21s., is paid to the mother.
When the conductors return they take cloth for the mother and ten shillings for the father.
During the period before marriage the suitor hires labour and assists the girl's father in farm work ; the cost is, however, not heavy, as four shillings will secure the services of twenty men or more.
If the girl refuses her husband when she grows up, the suitor reckons all the payments and the parents refund the money.
If the girl dies before marriage, it is usual for another girl in the same house to be assigned to the suitor ; this involves a certain amount of additional expenditure, mainly, it seems, to satisfy the girl's claims.
If the wife visits her parents after marriage, her husband sends one shilling's worth of tobacco to recall her ; she brings back a fowl, rice, and palm oil.
If the husband dies and leaves no brother, the wife returns to her parents with her children, unless he left property ; in that case she remains in his house and takes care of the property.
If the husband turns the wife out, she may take her ornaments but nothing else, but the husband cannot claim repayment of the bride-price (see also p. 93).
If another husband approaches the woman, she refers him to her parents ; he sends ten shillings and three shillings'
Plate XL
97
worth of tobacco and asks if she has no husband. If the money is not sent back he prepares to pay the price, which is less than that paid originally. The woman comes to the husband without conductors and he sends his sister with twenty shillings as bride-price.
The parents send six shillings' worth of rice, two mats, two bottles of palm oil and some fowls. They say she must behave herself or she will be driven out again ; if so they will refuse bride-price in future, and that would be shameful for her.
If no price is paid and the woman simply lives with him, he may keep her children, but if he does not treat the mother well, they will leave him and become " children of the street," i.e., follow their mother. If a daughter married, her price would not go to the father unless the mother chose. The children are really the property of their mother's father ; but he may refuse to accept a granddaughter's bride-price, as she may cause trouble like her mother.
The sons live with the maternal grandfather and work for him, and he gets wives for them ; they could inherit property from him, both because they work for him and in right of their mother.
If a wife leaves her husband, the price is repaid unless she has children. If she goes straight to another husband, the latter is liable to a fine of £4 for adultery.
The customs with regard to virginity differ from place to place ; a cassava leaf may be put on the rice of a seduced girl and she remains with her husband instead of being sent home for four days and brought back by conductors. The seducer will be called on to pay " virgin money," and if the parents dislike the man a fine of a cow in addition. If the suitor is himself responsible, there is no palaver unless the girl has not reached puberty, in which case he pays a fine of £4.
Elsewhere the husband may claim £4 from the seducer and pay " virgin money " from this to the father, who shares it with his wife.
H
98
The girl must name her seducer; it is mas am for her to deny it ; a virgin, it is said, conceives soon, and childbirth is easy.
There does not seem to be any recognised bride-price ; the amount paid depends on the position of the bride's family in part, in part on the suitor's pocket ; the amounts named to me have varied from £2 to £20 : in each case a varying sum, £5 or more, would be required for " expenses."
It must not, however, be supposed that the wealth of a family is necessarily increased by an increase in the price ; the informant who named £20 as the price added that the father and mother would send with the bride a cow, pots, cloth, mugs, basins, spoons, brooms, mortars and pestles, and a small girl as servant; this would naturally mean a considerable deduction from the £20. In one case where the husband paid £10, which he obtained from the earnings of another wife for whom he had paid £2, a dowry of £40 was said (by a member of the wife's family) to have been sent with her. The marriage turned out unfortunately, as in three days poison, administered by the other wife, carried off the bride. The actual cause of the crime was not so much jealousy, as a quarrel with the husband over the supply of water. The criminal had been flogged for abusing the husband's mother.
Some people send fish with their daughter also, to be placed in the stream, so that she can claim to fish there by right.
A share of the bride-price is often given to the mother.
When any of his wife's relatives die, a son-in-law is required to make certain payments, and ask for the return of his wife, who goes back to her father's house. At the death of a sister or brother he may take a present of £1, two mats, and two pieces of cloth ; for the mother £2, a goat, and a hamper of rice ; for the father the same, together with ten shillings to console his mother-in-law. If the mother- in-law marries again, he will continue to work for her new husband, though he may perhaps not be of the same family.
99
These duties of the son-in-law are incumbent on him even though he has not yet taken his wife home.
If a girl refuses to go to her husband, a diviner is employed in some places to discover if another man has " coaxed " her.
In some cases the whole price is not repaid, in case another girl can be found in the same family ; but this is not the case if another man has been persuading her ; where it is simple disinclination, only the bride-price is repaid; otherwise all " expenses " and presents.
Some girls resist their conductors and are tied with ropes to be taken to their husbands; they are called afam abasibala, persons who hate marriage.
Some men refuse to ask for the return of bride-price when the girl refuses to come to them : they say they " leave it to God."
It seems to be recognised that the money of a wife who remains with her husband is her own, and that if she hands it to him it is a loan, unless she is willing to make it a gift. In one case a woman, Kina, who brought up a young sister by her own father, received the bride-price of the woman's only daughter; as Kina bought a wife for the son, the money was probably exhausted, but I was told that her son received the balance and that at his death it passed to his father's family, as his children died young.
If a husband demands money and does not repay, a woman will complain to her brother and the brother will expostulate with the husband.
If the wife dies, however, the rights of the husband may be recognised, especially if he has treated her well ; he may take half her property, if she is childless, the other half going to her parents.
A wife can take her husband's money to purchase food ; but she must inform his family before or after. A husband should leave food for his wife.
Various causes are recognised as a justification of divorce : idleness, theft, slandering the husband, or doing witchcraft
H 2
100
in the house. But these are regarded as among the ordinary mishaps of married life and a husband cannot claim the refund of the bride-price : any tines, however, that he is compelled to pay unjustly are repayable by the parents. If the woman goes to another husband, the children are his.
In sunic places the wife can take her children with her, if her husband divorces her. Where a wife leaves her husband voluntarily, the children of a second husband are the property of the first husband unless bride-price has been repaid, or she has gone to Freetown.
Adultery with a wife's sister may result in the wife being- taken away: but she may be restored after payment of a fine of £5 or £6.
Impotence is a good ground for divorce on the part of the wife ; but the price must be repaid. Before the divorce is allowed, however, a trial must be made, for it may be a case of witchcraft ; hence a man's ill-success with his own wife is followed by another trial with a woman who has no husband.
Sickness is a recognised cause of impotence, and some men appear to be either impotent or inverts ; in one case that was mentioned a man of thirty ran away the day before he was to receive a wife from the chief.
Adultery in the case of a wife was formerly punished by shaving her head and beating her, and for frequent offences a wife might be handed to the chief to be sold. The co-respondent is now fined £4, or more or less according to the fancy of the husband ; a " good " man may be satisfied with a pot worth four shillings.
Susu. — The bride-price appears to be less important than in other areas. Sometimes a girl is given to a suitor in return for work only. The work continues as long as the wife lives. In Somaia, I was assured, the suitor's payment is only a gift ; but this was hardly borne out by the state- ment as to the payment for widows.
When a price is paid, the father may get one-fifth ; other shares go to the mother, father's father and mother, brothers, etc., mother's mother, and so on.
101
Cross-cousin marriage is the rule.
If a wife runs to another man, the chief may compel him to repay the price to the original husband ; but the children still belong to the first husband and she is buried by her father ; if the man to whom she ran buried her, he might be heavily fined. A widow goes to the husband's brother : he pays 24s. to her family. Some widows, if not all, may return to their own families and marry whom they please. The properly of a childless widow goes to her own family. An old widow may live with an adult son ; but she is given as a wife to an old man, that they may pray on her when she dies ; for they cannot pray on a husbandless woman. A woman divorced by her husband also takes a "husband" who will pray for her.
Loko. — The suitor gives a ring to the mother, one head of tobacco to the father, as a preliminary, and goes in person, alone. He shares Bundu expenses with the parents and when the girl comes out she goes to her husband at once ; a go-between receives her from her mother.
The bride-price amounts to £5 or £10 in all : but payments seem to be continued even after marriage, if she bears children, until the husband dies, provided the children survive : if the widow goes to the husband's brother, he continue- to pay.
A man may not eat out of one basin with his father-in-law, nor sleep in one house with his parents-in-law; the latter prohibition applies also to a woman.
Virgin money is paid, as among the Tinme. The penalty for seduction is £5, the same as for adultery.
A woman who leaves her husband can take what she has earned, as well as ornaments given by her husband.
Limba. — The marriage customs do not differ in any essential particular from those of the Timne ; but sometimes the husl »and is not formally introduced to the girl's family, or not until she is of age to many.
Virgin money is payable and the seducer is liable for the payments to the girl's family instead of the husband.
102
In case of adultery the husband receives from ten to thirty canes of salt, and the co-respondent hands him a fowl, which he may not eat ; in fact the husband's family, and not the husband himself, should receive the compensation.
When a wife runs away, the husband can claim from the parents only if she goes to another husband from her father's house ; otherwise the matter goes before the chief : nothing could be claimed in respect of a woman who had borne a child.
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103
XI.— KINSHIP.
At present three kinds of kinship systems are generally recognised :
(a) the family system, which is the normal one among
European peoples ;
(b) the descriptive system, in use among the Semites,
in which relationships are exactly described, as when an uncle, for example, is termed father's brother, or mother's brother, so that no ambiguity is possible ; and
(c) the clan system, formerly known as the classificatory
system, in which, in its most typical form, found in Australia and other places, the whole of a tribe stands in (tribal) relationship to each member of the tribe, and the same term is applied to all men of a given tribal status ; so that, for example, a man's own father is not necessarily distinguished from the other men who might legally marry his mother.
A more logical nomenclature would recognise two main divisions, family and clan systems. Under the former are included :
(a) the descriptive system, in which all relatives receive
names that show their precise degree of kinship to a given person ;
(b) the system, in which, in the main, the terms denote
simple relationship, and indicate it with more or less accuracy, but are intermingled with classifica- tory terms, including under one head those related through males and females, both as regards (i) the
104
parentage of the given person {i.e., father or mother),
and (ii) the parentage of the related person {i.e.,
whether related through father or mother) ; all
terms, however, indicate that the persons denoted
stand in the same degree of nearness or remoteness
to the given person ; thus " cousin " is always a
person of the same generation, if the word is used
accurately ; " cousin once removed " indicates the
relationship of persons in different generations of a
degree of relationship one step more remote than
uncle (or aunt) and nephew.
Finally we have (c) a classificatory form in which
(i) reciprocal terms are used between people of
different as well as of the same generation, and
(ii) the same term (non-reciprocal) may denote
persons whose status with reference to the given
person is not the same, e.g., wife's mother and wife's
sister.
Properly speaking the " clan " system is based on the
division of the community into two exogamous sections, and
the nomenclature, modified by matrimonial customs and
other social factors, is based on this fact.
How far we can trace any of the features of the family systems to the same cause is open to question ; there is no prima facie ground for maintaining a genetic relation between (i) a system based originally on the separation of generations and the distinction between father's brother's wife and mother's brother's wife, to take only one example, and (ii) a system in which generations are frequently classed together and the same name is applied to the wives of the father's and mother's brothers. The latter circumstance is clearly due to the fact that both were or are eligible spouses for the given person, if a male is in question, and this is a condition that cannot possibly prevail in