Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/435

 Bavili Notes. 379

has two guardians and voices that speak for it, Nguli Bivanga, a woman, and Ngulu Bzvite, a man. They are not a married couple, and sexual relations are not per- mitted between them. The ceremony of putting the voices^ into them is the same as that connected with Mpiimbii ; but each personage has a hut apart, in which he or she has to live two months.

NZACI is also a basket ; and the same ceremonies are gone through in putting the voices into its guardians. Both take the name of Suami until the ceremony is over, when the woman takes a small fetish, Nkiitu (a small bag) which she wears between her arm and body near the arm-pit, and becomes Xicimbo, while the man takes the name of Xitembo.

The above two Bakici are said to have been brought by Bunzi, the west wind.^

III. Ngofo and Lembe are said to have been brought by the south-west wind Ngonzolo.

Ngofo. In the analogous ceremonies connected with this basket, which is round and open like a coaling basket, the maiden only is placed in the hut. After this, which in this case is a marriage ceremony, both man and woman wear a certain kind of iron bracelet called ngofo. The maiden when first she enters the hut is called Kayi's^ wife, or Nkaci Kayi\ afterwards she is known as Nkaci Ngofo.

Lembe, the other fetish under the rule of the south- west wind, is a bracelet connected with a marriage-rite.

^ [From the synonymous use of the words "voice" and "spirit" in this connection, we take it that they represent the native word Nkulu.l

•^ Qwango, Ngoyo, Mbondo de Mboyo, Mpembe are Zinkici Bankondi (see illustration in The Quiver, xxxii. 619, seq.).

Makwani and Ximpungu are names of other figures of this class. Bisongi (like forks) are also known here (see illustration in The Quiver).

Lusawnzi and Nkutu are numbered i and 2 on p. 258, Pioneering on the Congo. Ndibu, ib., p. 257.

2 Kayi is the name of the man.