Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/520

484 I was further informed that when a goat is killed three things are kept: the gall-bladder, the sinews of the back for sewing purposes, and the tail for the chief.

I was shown the place where the chief or head of the kraal is buried, and where consequently Laduma's father and predecessor was laid. It is just inside the entrance to the cattle-kraal, not exactly under the threshold, but a yard or two inside and on the right of the entrance. The women and all who die of pulmonary diseases are buried outside at the back of the hut in which they died. Other members of the kraal are buried at the back and sides of cattle-kraal, but outside it. Sick persons are not removed from the hut before death, but allowed to die in it. I could not ascertain that any opening was made at the back of the hut to take out the body.

The next day, in going from Maritzburg to Johannesburg, we travelled part of the way with Mr. H. D. Hemsworth, Native Sub-commissioner, Zoutpansberg District, in the Transvaal. He told us that his district chiefly comprised the Shangaans, or Knobneuzen, who belong to the Thonga people. One of their principal clans is that of the Baperi, or Duiker clan. After going through the puberty ceremonies the men of this clan wear duiker-skin aprons.

Among the Shangaans, when twins are born, one of them is put to death. Dead bodies are taken out of the hut by a hole at the back, and buried outside at the back, and the hut is then deserted. Sometimes on a death the whole kraal is removed.

Marriage within the clan is favoured. A chief's "great" wife should be his cousin, his father's brother's daughter, and therefore of the blood royal. When a chief wishes to bespeak such a girl for his great wife, he sends a white ox to her parents. Mr. Hemsworth had, a short time ago, to decide a case in which two men claimed the succession to the chieftainship. One of them was the eldest son of the first wife of the chief deceased, and the other the eldest son of another wife, who, he claimed, was the "great" wife. The case turned on