Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/458

 400 Bavili Notes.

great havoc with the fishing nets, as it is a great struggler. The saying Kubela Nkanu, to lose right in a palaver, is connected with it. Its scales are found in the Xibila.

SusiL, the fowl. White fowls are used as offerings by those going to a Xibila to ask a favour. A fowl is generally found tied by a string to a peg in the ground in front of a sick man whom the Nganga is trying to cure. It is a sign of good faith, and is supposed to die if the Nganga in the presence of his fetish does not act fairly. It is killed, and its blood used in certain medicines {Ximenga). They call it Mafiika (messenger) among the animals, and there is a saying Miiana Susu Kulemba Kiiciata Kzdala Nzala. (The young of the fowl goes to sleep hungry if its mother does not scratch for food for it.) Its feathers are found in the Bibila.

Ngwali or Ngumbi or Xilazulolo = t\\Q partridge. The story goes that a Mr. Partridge fell in love with a Mrs. Fowl, and went home with her, but passed a very wretched night in the coop owing to his fear of Mr. Fowl, and to the fact that the owner of the village gave loud orders at midnight to his people to kill a fowl in the morning before letting the fowls out, as he expected some friends the next day. The partridge got away. It is the bird that is killed by sons for their mothers when their husbands have neglected them for strange women. The head and feet of this bird are found in the Bibila.

Makiuihila, the cockle-shells, that, together with the oyster-shells, the people of Mamboma cast at the people of Buali who have carried the coffin of Ntawtela (the dead king) as far as the nwnbu tree.^ A mound of these shells is found in the Bibila.

king and the election of his successor. The inhabitants of the capital must carry the corpse as far as a certain tree, where the burying-party take charge of it, and forcibly drive away their predecessors.
 * It is the duty of Mamboma to carry out the burial rites of a defunct