Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/389

 completes the simple wedding rites, unions are, 18 a rule, much respected. Cuses of infidelity are extremely rare, and when they do occur, the offence is always punished by the banishment of the delinquent. After a confinement the wife lives apart from her husband till the child begins to speak. Then on the day of reunion the mother brings her offspring to the crossing of two paths, symbolising the different ways of life, and after rubbing it over with oil resigns it to the father, and the family life is resumed.

At the death of a Makonde all the grain he possessed is immediately converted into beer for the benefit of the community, and the mourning or feasting lasts until all the liquor is consumed. Enriched by the sale of the gum copal and

caoutchouc, large quantities of which are produced in their territory, the Makuas have become very proud and overbearing, and show much mistrust at the visits of strangers. Some English missionaries settled in the Masasi country, on the western border of the Makonde territory, have hitherto failed to establish uninterrupted relations with these natives. In the year 1877, when Chauncy Maples penetrated into one of their villages, the inhabitants, who had never before seen a European, took him for a ghost, but consented to supply him with food.

The Masasi country belongs to a powerful branch of the Mukua nation, which farther south occupies such an extensive domain in the Mozambique region. The Yaos of the Nyassa highlands are also numerously represented in this part of the Rovuma basin. Here are also met some Wamueras (Wa-Muera), a feeble remnant