Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/548

 450 SOUTH AND EAST AFRICA. enjoying no personal rights of any sort. They are not even allowed to eat with him. or to be pre-^^nt at his meals When ill they must keep carefully secluded, and after death the remains of the wife are never deposited in the sacred place reserved for her husband. The adulteress is often put to death, even by her own kinsfolk, while amongst the Sihanukas the widow is subjected to real tortures. (^Ioth<Ml in her most sumptuous roba and decked in all her finery, the wretched woman awaits in the mortuary house the return of the solemn funeral procession. After the ceremony, friends and relatives fall upon her, tearing off her jewels, rending her garments, imbinding her hair, hurling at her some broken vessel and damaged or soiled clothes, and the like, all the time heaping curses on her as the cause of the calamity. She is forbidden to utter a word ; all are free to buffet or beat her at pleasure, and this period of " mourning " lasts ^r months, occasionally even for a whole year. It ends with a formal divorce pronounced by the relatives of the dead, in order to sever all ties with the remains of her departed husband. The brotherhood of blood, known by diverse names amongst the several tribes, is a custom still commonly observed all over the island, and most European travellers have by this means acquired several " brothers," who have aided them in the work of exploration. The two friends inflict a slight wound on each other nnl mix the blood flowing from the cut. But amongst the Ant' Anossi, the IMMctico is to prepare a drink with the blood of an ox mingled with some "holy water," in which are thrown divers articles, such as a leaden bullet and a gold bracelet. Trials by ordeal also still survive in the unreduced parts of the country, at>d till neently these "judgments of God" were nowhere more terrible in their elFect than amongst the Ilovas. The yearly victims of the procedure were reckoned by the thousand. The most usual trial is that of boiling water, into which the accused are compelled to plunge their hand. Sometimes a bar of red-hot iron is placed on the victim's tongue ; or else he is made to drink the poison prepared from the fruit of the tanghin (Taiit/Ziinia retirnt'fera), or perhaps he is compelled to swim across some crocodile-infested stream. In this case the wizard strikes the water thrice, and then addresses the terrible saurians in solemn language : " It is for you, O crocodiles, to decide whether this man be guilty or innocent ! " The /t7ii( drnza, that is, the common law or custom, as it is called by the Saka- lavas, is everywhere scrupulously observed in the provinces not yet subjected to the Hova government. 1 his law is vry severe, especially where it rests on no moral sanction beyond the mere fear of the unknown. The Sakalava code includes as many things said to be fadi, or forbidden, as there are tabooed according to Polynesian usage. All Sakalavas are forbidden to sleep with the head turned in the direction of the south, to lie on the wrong side of a mat, to sweep the house on the north side, to peel a banana wi;h the teeth, to eat eels or a cock, to leave a mirror in the hands of a child, to spit in the tire, and to do a thousand other things which to those not swayed by the fear of wizards or evil spirits must seem perfec'ly indifferent acts. Each tribe, eich clan, each family has its special "fad," which must be 1