Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/279

Rh ever he can get away from observation, and should he be fortunate enough to find his wife alone, he crawls in and talks to her in low tones, while she, seeing him enter in that manner, knows it is her husband, and immediately begins grinding grain, from which she must not cease while he is in the hut. During this month she is instructed in all household work by her mother-in-law, and carries water from the well for household use, but while going to and from the well she must neither speak nor turn her head, no matter who may accost her. All this time remarks are freely made in her presence as to her attractions, or lack of such, and very outspoken those remarks often are. When the month of probation is ended she is taken to her own hut and freed from all restrictions. Some little time after she has married and settled down she will take her pitcher early one morning to the well, break it, and leave the broken pieces where they wall be seen. Then, instead of returning home, she will run away to her parents. Some of the women in her husband's village will inform him that his wife's pitcher lies broken at the well, and that she is nowhere to be found. He will feign great grief and tell all his friends. Meanwhile his wife's mother will make her a new pitcher, and when it is ready the woman will return to her husband.

Another item which may be of some interest is the fact that Basuto women possess property of their own. When a woman marries a hut is given to her, of which she is undisputed mistress. It may be only a very bare little apartment, but it is her own; no one can even enter it without her consent. Sometimes she is also given a number of goats or sheep; more frequently the pigs and fowls are her property, and women have even been known to possess one or two cows.

I hope no one will be shocked if I now describe the death practices. They are not nice, but they are a part of the nation. When it is seen that death is near, the sick person