Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/346

 clear the land much in the same way as the backwoodsmen in America. Felling the trees with the axe, they make a great bonfire of the heaped-up branches, and when the ashes have been blown about by the wind they sow the corn between the still standing charred stumps. When tracts covered with tall grasses have to be reclaimed they remove the top soil, burning it together with the herbage in order to enrich the ground. Mapira, or sorgho, is their chief crop, but they are also, acquainted with nearly all the other alimentary plants of Central Africa, as well

as with tobacco, hemp, and two species of cotton, the kaja and manga, that is to say, the native and foreign.

Except in time of mourning, all the Maganya women wear the pelele, as they call the,jaja that is to say, the disc or ring inserted as an ornament in the upper lip. The material is either of wood for the poor or of tin and ivory for the upper classes, while in size this frightful incumbrance ranges from two or three to as many as five inches in circumference. The action of laughter causes the lip to rise, concealing both eyes, but revealing the nose through the opening, as well as the whole row of teeth all filed to a point. But it is even worse in the case of widows, whom fashion compels to remove the lip-ring, when the lip falls, and the i great round hole, called hupelele, shows the teeth and jaw quite plainly, especially when they speak. "How any people in all the world," exclaims Mrs. Pringle,